Jupiter's Halo Book One: The Lies

Chapter Eighteen "The First Steps"

Itona watched the progress of her marines with unseeing eyes. Their bodies moved with practised skill, undertaking her orders in the silence of the airless loading bay.

Temporary lighting had been set up, the small mobile lamps heaved from the Peregrines and placed carefully to shine their powerful beams across the bay’s entry points in crossing patterns.

Where their light fell the bare metal of the deck and walls shone with brilliance. Everywhere else was darkness, the concentrated angles of the lamps making the shadows deeper, blacker.

A rumbling vibration came up through her boots, tracing its way up her calves. She turned to see Timonny had found success with the internal bay doors, their immense sides closing in horizontally behind the blast shutters, closing off the hole they had cut to make their entry.

The last marines of Aitkin’s squads, now under the command of Sergeant Johs, had made their way into the station just moments beforehand. They came in one at a time at first, each on a different trajectory. Some came high and fast, their calculations of velocity outside in the void suddenly inappropriate for the enclosed space they entered.

Others did better, angling themselves expertly to drop through the great dark opening almost at walking pace and touching down on the deck with elegant and seamless grace.

Johs had come in like that. It was surprising if you didn’t know him, to see the big, joking Sergeant perform a textbook re-entry after emergency ejection into space.

He came drifting in, guiding others who followed him, over the comm-link, his direction and speed so precise it was as if he simply stepped onto the deck with no more impact than if he were strolling in from another room.

His stride didn’t even falter as he touched down and maintained a steady walking pace to saunter almost nonchalantly up to where Itona stood.

He’d stopped a metre short of where she waited and delivered a crisp salute, his handheld unmoving in front of his helm until she returned the gesture.

>“Sergeant Johs reporting, Captain.”“Good to see you safe aboard, Sergeant.” She returned. >“How many of your marines are still left to join us?”

Johs’ helmet tilted slightly to one side as if beneath he was listening to some internal voice she couldn’t hear.

>“Only five still out there, sir. They’re coming in now, but I think Cavella is struggling.”“See them in safe and then form up on me. We breach in two minutes.”

She’d watched him turn and walk back to the bay’s wide opening, his arms moving unconsciously as he offered his last few wayward marines advice on their angle and velocity.

As she watched he made frantic waving motions and then dived to his left. A body resolved out of the darkness, moving at speed with the telltale plumes of gas that told her the marine had their thrusters firing on full. Cavella, she suspected.

The man hurtled into the bay, black armour flashing for a moment as he shot through the beams of a standing light at an upward angle. She could hear Johs through the comm-link, still desperately shouting orders, but his attempts were fruitless.

Cavella careened past at frightening speed and crumpled against the internal wall, all motion arrested in an impact hard enough to crush bones and break armour apart. The lack of sound as she saw his body flatten against the metal was disconcerting and Itona wondered briefly if the effect would have been more or less sickening had she heard the dull thud and c***k of the collision. Without it the scene was eerie, even to one as used to operating in a vacuum as she was. Lacking the pull of gravity, Cavella’s body simply hung limp against the wall. Lifeless and unmoving.

Johs was on his feet and moving, heading across the expanse of the bay in great loping strides. Itona could see from his bouncing movement how deftly he managed the clamps of his boots; releasing and activating them at just the right moments to give him maximum lift and bring him back down with perfect control.

He reached the foot of the wall ahead of the corpsmen, who converged from three sides and looked up once before he bounced on his toes and rose smoothly up the polished surface.

>“Just a few minutes in charge and already his first casualty."“If you’re going to pass judgement, Lieutenant, I would suggest you consider who is able to hear your words first.”“Sergeant,” she’d sent through a direct link, filling the message with sympathy. >“You still have marines in the void.”

Johs didn’t respond, his covered face still fixed on the sight of Timonny. She could feel the anger radiating from him. It was mirrored by her own. To judge the death of a fellow marine like Timonny had was low. Using it to snipe at another was even worse. A big part of her wanted to let Johs loose. To see how he chose to meter out his anger and how Timonny fared. She could feel the emotions rising inside her; anger and grief set against a quelling influence that came from elsewhere. An influence she knew she should listen to.

It reminded her that wasn’t how she should deal with the situation. That wasn’t how a good captain handled these things. When the mission was done she would see that the Lieutenant’s behaviour was handled. The right way. For now, she had to bring Johs back on point or else he’d be useless to her.

>“Sergeant.”She’d sent again, this time with authority loaded into the single word.

Johs’ head had angled down, slowly moving his vision from Timonny to her.

>“Your marines.” She repeated. >“Leave Cavella to the corpsmen, there’s nothing else you can do for him.”“Being in command doesn’t mean you can’t lose anyone,”she’d sent more softly. >“It means you have to brush off those losses and concentrate on the marines you have still living.”

Itona had reached out to him, pressing her hand against his wide chest and knowing the armour’s haptic feedback would deliver her touch to his skin.

>“Save the grief and the questions for later. There’ll be plenty of time for them, believe me. Right now your marines need you and so do I.”

Johs had given a nod and she’d known he would do what she needed him to. She’d thought about telling him what she felt, using it to give him hope and assuage the grief she’d known he was struggling to suppress. Not at the loss of Cavella, that would come later.

>“He might have managed it.”Johs had sent to her, the words seeming faint through the link as if he were whispering. >“I saw him go, but he had it in his hand. He could have made it.”

She hadn’t needed to ask what he meant. Who he was speaking of.

Aitkin.

Johs would have been close to him on the Peregrine, next to him as the ship broke apart and they were sucked into the void. He was speaking of Aitkin’s helmet, his words an embodiment of the hope he clung to in the face of the evidence.

She’d wanted to bolster that hope, to cradle it and protect it, but she knew telling him anything would lead to questions she didn’t know how to answer.

>“Bring in the last of your marines, Sergeant.”

Johs had nodded again, saluted her and walked away, back towards the bay’s wide entrance.

Inside her helmet, Itona had let out a deep sigh. She couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t tell any of them. Not yet.

The feeling was strange, disconnected in a way she hadn’t felt before and she didn’t know what that meant. It was there, he was there, faint, so faint as to be almost nothing. But it wasn’t nothing and that was something she could hold on to.

When she’d tried to examine it she was left with a coldness, as if she was tapping into what he was experiencing. Could that mean only his passenger was alive still? Was she feeling it and not Aitkin? Maybe even now he was still accelerating into the depths of space, his body little more than a block of colourful ice trapped inside an unfinished suit of armour. His helmet drifting beside him, forever flying with him as a reminder of just how close he’d come to staying alive.

Itona had shaken her head to throw out the image. It was not real, just her fear and imagination working together against her. She’d cleared her mind as best she could and sent a signal to the Pride for additional support. No doubt the Admiral would want to know why she needed the extra drop-ships and technically she should have made the communication in full, but at that moment she didn’t know exactly why. She didn’t know what had happened and that worried her.

Itona had clamped down on the rising anxiety and returned her concentration to the preparations for breaching the station. She'd felt a rumbling vibration through her boots and turned to see Timonny had found success with the bay doors.

As they began their slow, inexorable journey toward each other she’d seen the last of Johs’ marines glide in through the closing gap. A moment later his confirmation came to her through the open comm-link.

They were ready.

Itona called the order to form up and followed her marines as they filed towards the doors. She took her place within their ranks; standing behind the first line as they knelt and trained their weapons on the entry to GS-114. The vibration in the floor ceased and Timonny’s voice reached into her mind.

>“The bay doors are sealed, Captain. Re-pressurization should be automatic.”

Itona waited to see if his assertion was correct. It took a few seconds before she felt the gushing atmosphere being pumped into the bay through her armour’s sensors.

Now they were ready.

>“Full pressurization in thirty seconds marines.”She sent out on a wide channel. >“Forty seconds to breach.”>“Twenty seconds to breach.”Timonny counted down.

She searched for the feeling again. It was still there, still faint like an echo heard from a great distance. Like a shadow in pale light; incorporeal, but still discernible if she concentrated hard enough.

>“Ten seconds to breach.”

If she dwelled on it she would be distracted; a poor leader and a danger to herself, her marines and the mission. She tried to push the sense of him aside but found she was fighting herself. He shouldn’t be this important. He was just someone casual to her. Just something fun to break up the monotony of life aboard the Pride.

>“Five seconds.”Timonny sent.

Itona felt her muscles tensing.

>“Four.”

Aitkin wasn’t someone important. A voice inside her head asked if she was so sure, then why had she frozen in panic? It was her own voice, clear and precise.

Itona caught herself as she was about to reply, realising she would speak through the comm-link if she did.

>“Three.”

Now wasn’t the time. Suddenly her mind was flooded with questions that she didn’t even know how to ask. She could feel herself falling into them, her senses drowning in their torrent.

>“Two.” Timonny’s count came to her through a mist as if even her comm-link was being overwhelmed.

She bit down, pulling her focus into a hard ball to block out the sudden disarray that threatened to swamp her.

Itona fought against thrashing her limbs. She wanted to move, was desperate to do so. She couldn’t stay rooted to the spot a single moment longer. Every part of her vibrated with the need for action.

“One. Breach! Breach! Breach!” She yelled the words out loud and through the comm-link simultaneously.

The doors to GS-114 blew in from the tactical charges placed against them and the marines of First Company ran half crouched into the open corridor beyond. Itona followed the leaders in, relief at the end of her statue-like imprisonment flooding her, the voice in her head silenced.

She stepped through the beam of light that pierced the now open doorway and into the darkness of the station beyond, trying to clear the thoughts that jostled in her mind.

She could feel him. Somewhere, deep down she could feel him. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew he was there. She knew he mattered. She knew it, suddenly and with a steely certainty, she knew it.

Somewhere out in the cold, lethal darkness Aitkin Cassini was alive.