The Madman's Clock

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13

We stepped back, away from the lift door. Streaks of plasma fire tore past, right to left, leaving streams of warped air as they passed. The low bark of the pulse rifles was constant, like someone banging on a set of drums. The fire came in bursts, most of them undisciplined. By the sound of it, security was either panicking, or they had grabbed other crewmen to help.

The shrieks of the Edra weapons were steady, exacting. Bursts of plasma fire were immediately followed by two or three shrieks. The Edra were waiting for our people to peek out from behind cover to fire, hoping to catch them out in the open. Every so often, I heard a human scream. We were losing.

Rounds stitched their way along the deck in front of the lift door, as the Edra spotted the light coming from the lift's interior. The inside of the lift took several hits, sending shattered bits of console into the air. At least they were using anti-personnel rounds, and not the tank rippers like the commandos chasing us were firing. A few of those up here, and the lift might come off its tracks. A plunge like that wouldn't leave much of me to scrape up.

I leaned against the left hand side of the lift, trying to get a view of the human firing lines. They were out of sight. The lift opened up into the crux of a T intersection, with fire coming across our line of sight. There was a clear passageway across from us, and though the lights were flickering, I didn't see anyone, Edra or human.

"They're pushing on the bridge," I said. "We need to clear the lift."

"The Edra sound further away than our people, but they're still wicked accurate." Kyle noted, listening to the sounds of the fight. "You should go first."

Whoever crossed the passageway first would be less likely to take a hit, since we would surprise the shooters. The second man out would take a lot of fire. That had to be Kyle, since I was carrying the ensign.

I told Ensign Bretin to be ready for a quick run, and to keep his head down. Kyle was about to call out 'friendlies' when something whipped past my head, bounced off the wall, and rolled across the deck of the lift. The metal sound echoed as it rolled, like a tin can rolling down the street. It was small and round, about the size of a baseball. s**t.

"Grenade!" I hollered.

Without hesitation, Kyle grabbed the two of us and drove us out through the narrow lift door. Rounds ripped past us in both directions. We ran headlong, every bit of strength poured into my legs. The deck around my feet erupted, and the bulkheads as well. An overhead pipe blew out from fire, and narrowly missed my head as it dropped.

We cleared the no man's land of fire, reaching the empty passageway. Kyle wrenched me to my right, purposely tripping me so I would go down. Bretin screamed as we fell, landing on Kyle with a thud. I rolled on top of Bretin to protect him. A moment later, the grenade exploded, the shock wave momentarily shutting off the mics my suit used to pick up sound outside of my helmet. A blast of fire and debris washed over us.

We lay very still for a moment, as we got our bearings. I rolled off the engineer, and checked him over. The blast had hit him hard, the shock wave blowing out his eardrums. He was bleeding out of both ears and his nose as well. Still, he seemed to be with us, staring into my eyes. I didn't bother asking if he was alright. I just nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

Kyle and I hauled him to his feet, and pulled back our helmets. The sounds of the battle were louder, and the air reeked of ozone from all of the white hot plasma tearing through the air. I preferred to keep my helmet on, but I knew that Edra rounds would tear right through it, and I didn't want the humans to mistaken us for the bad guys, even for a second.

"f**k," Kyle snarled. "We'll never make it to our lines this way," he said, pointing toward the horizontal rain of fire.

"Is there a way around?" I asked Bretin, before realizing he couldn't hear me. "Shit."

I reached for my wrist pad, pulled out the stylus, and started writing using the notepad function. I wrote ROUTE TO BRIDGE?

The bloodied and dying ensign nodded. He yelled, trying to hear himself talk. "Down this passageway. Turn right, and right again. It will bring us around."

I threw the ensign over my shoulder once more, and with Kyle in the lead, we hurried away from the fight. Careful to check corners, he led me down the empty passageway.

We both called out "friendlies coming in" every few seconds, doing our best to give security a heads-up. As we reached the second turn, Kyle motioned for us to stop. He reached his hand out around the corner, into view, calling out.

"Friendlies," he yelled. "Two marines carrying an injured man. Don't fuckin' fire."

We waited for a response. It came a moment later. I recognized the Senior Chief's voice.

"Step out with weapons lowered," the security man yelled. "Take it slow, marine."

Kyle swallowed hard. He hated putting his life in the hands of lesser soldiers. We both did. He stepped out into the open, his weapon low but still ready. He made sure to move slowly, with no sudden movements. After a moment, the security man waved us through. I adjusted Ensign Bretin on my shoulders and moved into view of the security officers.

They were at the far end of the passageway, at another T intersection, hunkered down behind what looked like whatever they could get their hands on. Navy ships always had portable barricades to help repel boarding parties, but I didn't see them. This was a pile of what looked like storage crates, a desk and some chairs, and other miscellaneous crap. Anything that would stop a bullet would do in a pinch. The pile was smoking from impacts, and the bulkheads around them were shot up. If the Edra changed to anti-armor rounds,. This would be over quickly. Thankfully, the Edra seemed concerned about causing damage this close to the bridge.

There were eight people behind the barricade. Six were security, and two others in blue jumpsuits. All of them looked pretty tired. Two of them covered our approach, while the others continued to trade fire with the Edra. Once the security officers realized we weren't Edra, everyone turned back to the fight, blazing away with their rifles. The security people were doing their best, but the Edra had them out-gunned.

"What happened to the Commander?" Senior Chief McGowan called out as he let off a burst of fire.

"This isn't her. Commander Hall is dead," I said as I set down the ensign, leaning him against the bulkhead. "She was killed when the port reactor blew."

He shook his head. "No way. The damage control boards are still all green. Besides, we would have felt that up here."

"The time fragmentation, remember?" I said, checking over the ensign. "The entire engineering section is ahead of you by about two hours."

"Right," he said, firing another burst.

"Captain Paetkau, is she on the bridge?" I asked, yelling over the rattle of gunfire.

McGowan ducked down behind the barricade, just in time to avoid a burst of fire. It tore into the bulkhead near me, sending bits of debris everywhere. Kyle stepped into view and added his rifle to the fight.

"Paetkau!" I yelled. "Where is she?"

"On the bridge," he replied. "She's overseeing the countdown."

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" Kyle snarled from beside me, letting loose with another burst of plasma.

The Chief shook his head. "Something is wrong with her. She ordered us to hold the Edra off until she can execute stage three of the experiment. She refuses to delay. I don't understand it."

"Does she have any clue what's happening here?" I asked.

"Yes, but she won't stop. She's," he stopped, swallowed hard, "it's like she's not really there. Nothing seems to matter but the experiment. She keeps saying the same thing, over and over."

"Great," I said. "She's all gone, then."

The Senior Chief, face red and covered in sweat, looked over at me. He had to look hard at the man I was treating before he recognized him.

"Ensign Bretin?" he asked. "What happened to this man?"

"Radiation poisoning, steam burns, blast injuries, bullet shrapnel," I rattled off the list, "and oh yeah, a f*****g grenade."

"Is he going to make it?" he asked, as he watched the ensign slip into and out of consciousness.

I shook my head. "No, he's not. Now get us to the bridge, or he dies for nothing."

McGowan nodded grimly. He understood. He'd been in the game long enough, by the looks of him, to understand that the mission came first. In his case, that was the ship. Going toe to toe with the Edra had obviously cleared any doubt about my men and I from his mind.

"Captain," the chief said, "I don't think she's going to listen to you, or Ensign Bretin."

I looked back to the ensign. His eyes were starting to dilate all the way. I hadn't even heard his death rattle, with all the gunfire. I swept my hand over his face, closing his eyes. The man had suffered for nothing.

I leaned backward, resting on my heels. "She doesn't have to."

"I thought we had, like, hours," Kyle called out as he ducked back in from another barrage of fire.

"I don't fuckin' know!" I yelled at nobody in particular. "Obviously, he was worse off than we thought. I'm not a fuckin' medic. Maybe moving through the time fragmentation without a suit sped things up."

The Senior Chief gave his head a shake. "What the hell is going on, here? I don't understand any of this!"

"Goddammit," I said as I took hold of my rifle, "I don't have the time to chat about it right now. I need to get to the bridge, or we're all going to end up like him."

The Senior Chief let out a long, deep breath. He nodded, and pointed away from the barricade.

"The command deck is that way," he said. "There is another barricade past the doors, so be careful." He checked his watch. "You have about eight minutes before the experiment starts. You had better hurry."

"Yeah," I replied, utterly exasperated. "Time isn't really on our side, today."

The chief turned to the other sailors at the barricade. "Covering fire!"

The eight of them all stepped out and opened fire. The noise was deafening, and the air temperature rose quickly, as all eight weapons opened up. As they fired, Kyle and I dashed past them, down the passageway. We kept our heads down as the Edra returned fire. I heard someone scream, but the chief just yelled for them to keep shooting.

I tripped over something just behind the barricade. It was the body of the weapons tech who had jokingly called me a wall. Her whole right side was torn up from Edra anti-personnel rounds. She was still holding her clipboard. She looked so surprised.

We hurried on, away from the fight. The passageway was barely lit. The few lights that were still working created spotlights of visibility, and those spots dotted the deck ahead of us, out of sight. After a few moments, just as we reached the doors for the stairwell to the command deck, we saw movement ahead of us.

"Friendlies coming in!" Kyle yelled as we ran. "Friendlies!"

"Grab him," came the yelled reply. It was Raj. "Grab him, grab him, he's coming your way!"

We stopped and raised our weapons, ready for whatever Raj was yelling about. Raj sprinted into view. He was panting, desperately out of breath, and had to lean up against the bulkhead. He looked and sounded like he had just run a marathon. David was a few seconds behind him, just as winded.

"Where is he?" David yelled, excited and angry. "Where the hell is he?"

"Who?" I called back.

"Ramirez!" David rushed past me, looking toward the barricade. "He passed you!"

I grabbed David's shoulder, turning him around. The combat tech's eyes were wide with rage, and he was actually baring his teeth. I had never seen him this upset.

"Talk to me!" I barked.

"He got away from us!" David hollered, still looking toward the barricade. "We were ambushed by a squad of Edra, and Ramirez booted it out of there. He came right down this passageway. We were right behind him. Didn't you see him?"

"No, man," Kyle replied. "Nobody but you two."

David shook my hand off his shoulder. "That's impossible! I'm telling you, Raj was right behind him!"

Raj was still trying to catch his breath. "Where the hell is he?"

"I don't know!" Kyle snarled. "Nobody passed us!"

"Keep it together, people," I yelled. I looked down the passage where my two men had come from. "Look for hatches or lockers. If he came this way, he's close and hiding."

"Nope! Too late!" Kyle yelled, pointing. "Incoming!"

We all turned and followed Kyle's gesture. I raised my rifle and fired. David and Raj opened up as well, along with Kyle. The hail of plasma fire sent the approaching Edra, at least five of them, diving for cover. They returned fire, peppering the deck and bulkheads with rounds.

I looked back down toward the barricade. "Senior Chief!" I screamed. "Pull back!"

"No time, Jack!" David yelled over his own fire as he pulled me through the doors.

I hit the stairs hard. Raj dragged me to my feet as he and Kyle hurried up the stairwell toward the command deck. David closed the doors, resetting the lock. It would lock out the chief and his men, but the Edra would have to force their way through the door. Hopefully, the chief and his men could push them back, or find a safe place to regroup. They were on their own, now.

We rushed up the stairs, the upper hatch sliding open. We came face to face with more security.

"Whoa, whoa!" Raj yelled. "We're friendlies."

The security guards lowered their weapons as we stepped onto the command deck, and closed the door behind us. The two security guards, along with five other crewmen, were all shaking with fear. The deck was still in one piece, but it looked deserted. Most of the compartment hatches were shut and locked. The bridge hatch was the same.

One of the guards looked to me. His face was pale, and he was obviously more frightened than he had ever been. "Where's the Chief?" he asked, his speech slurred from adrenaline and fear.

"He and the others are cut off," I grumbled, trying to focus on assessing the situation. "Where is your communications station?"

"On the bridge," he replied. "What do you mean they were cut off?"

I ignored the question. "Other than the bridge, where can I transmit from this deck?"

The security officer kept looking back and forth between the doors and me. He was panicking, shutting down. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He dropped his rifle.

"Hey!" I snarled. "Focus! Where can I send a message from? Point!"

He gestured toward the security station. I released him, and then thought better of it.

"Do I need an access code?" I asked firmly. "Do you have it?"

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a security card. That was a small mercy. In his state, I doubted he could have remembered a numeric code. I ripped the card out of his hand, and turned to Kyle.

"Kyle, hold the Edra off," I ordered. "Nobody gets through."

My guys all nodded. No need to reply with words. They all knew the drill. We were down to the wire. As I ran toward the security office, I glanced at one of the countdown timers on the bulkhead. I had just over five minutes.

Kyle turned to the guards. "Seal the door, now!" he barked.

The guard balked at the order. "The Chief is still coming," he said feebly.

Kyle grabbed him by the shoulder, leaning in so close that their noses touched. "Listen closely. He's gone. They're cut off. The Edra are here. They're here right now, and they're pissed! You work for me, now, and if you don't do exactly what I tell you, we're all going to die. Now seal this fuckin' door."

I entered the security station just as the guards replied with "yessir," blurted out so fast they were barely coherent.

I went around McGowan's desk and sat down. The interface was very different than a standard navy computer. I didn't recognize half the symbols. It took me a moment to find the communication icons. I slid the code card into the side of the display, and initiated the communications protocols. Thankfully, the array was still functioning.

The communications software was easy enough to operate, though even that was different than I was used to. It was like our standard software had been melded with something else. I froze, my mind putting everything into place.

Of course! The entire ship was wired with Edra technology. Of course everything was different. That also explained the behavior of the bridge crew. They weren't just using Edra interface tech, they were using some of their software, as well. Obviously it wasn't working. It was synchronizing them, somehow. I sighed in frustration. How could our people have been so stupid?

No wonder the Edra were so serious about stopping the experiments. It wasn't just that we were using their stolen technology. It was that we didn't understand it, couldn't adapt to it. Now we were paying for our ignorance.

I gave my head a shake, and focused on the task at hand. I turned on the audio input.

"Computer, open an emergency channel," I said. "Priority one, code red-five."

The computer confirmed the order, and the display asked for a destination.

"Port 25, emergency channel echo-two-alpha," I said clearly. "This is a mayday. Transmit in the clear, maximum power to the array."

I waited the few painful seconds for the Saturnus to direct its communications array in the proper direction, and open the channel. It seemed to take hours, but really it was only ten seconds or so. As it happened, I watched Kyle direct the defense of the deck. He only had our guys, two shaking guards, and five other crewmen. I tried not thinking about how long they could hold out.

When the system was ready, I started my message.

"Echo-two, Echo-two," I started. "This is Zulu-two-three, on the ball and requesting assistance. The Saturnus is compromised. Edra commandos are pushing on the command deck. Engineering has likely been taken, but for the moment the bridge is secure. Captain Paetkau has refused to acknowledge our mission orders, and won't cease experiment stage three. She is suffering from severe temporal psychosis. The entire crew is affected. I am going to the bridge, where I will shut down the experiment at all costs. Request immediate assistance. Zulu-two-three out."

I hit the transmit key, and once I was sure it was sending, left the office. I made sure to take the code card with me, just in case. I waved to Kyle as I headed to the bridge. He knew what I was going to do, but he had his own job.

The unguarded hatch leading to the bridge was locked, and I swore at it, kicking it. I looked back toward the guards, but Kyle was already running toward me.

"They have a signal for the door," he said.

He pounded on the hatch with the side of his fist. Two thumps, a pause, then three more. I heard the locks start to disengage. Kyle was already heading back to the sealed doors.

"Hey!" I called to him, "Will it hold?" I asked.

He shrugged. "It has to, right? We got it, Jack. Go and finish this."

"Here, take this," I called out. I tossed him my rifle. "Give it to one of the crew. You'll need the firepower."

Kyle nodded, and pulled out his pistol, tossing it to me. He nodded, his face grim, and rushed back to his post.

The hatch opened, and I brushed past the crewman guarding the door. I ordered him to close it immediately, but to listen for my men.

"Make sure you let them in!" I barked, pointing a finger at him. "Don't make me come back here."

Yes sir," the terrified crewmen said.

I hurried down the short passageway onto the bridge. It was a bizarre scene. Outside, everything was chaos, but in here, everything was calm. You'd think that nothing was wrong at all. The crew moved about their work, their faces as placid as before. Captain Paetkau and her yeoman still stood on their raised platform, overseeing the entire operation.

I moved to the edge of the platform. The yeoman was speaking in a quick, endless stream of figures and status reports. He sounded like a computer, talking without pause. The Captain stared straight ahead, watching as the main display showed the time core starting to power up.

"Initiate the temporal wormhole start up sequence," the Captain said evenly. "Boot up the artificial intelligence routines, and transfer control of the core once it is up."

Hands glided over a dozen different consoles, as the crew hurried to carry out her orders and activate the AI systems. Artificially intelligent computers were used to calculate wormhole projections. It was the only way to do it. Humans simply didn't have the capacity to calculate on that level. Normal computers couldn't do it, either. If she was starting up the AI, then I had almost run out of time.

"Captain," I said, "you need to shut down. The Edra are here, and the ship is almost completely compromised."

"No," she said calmly. "Everything is fine. This experiment will go ahead. I have my orders."

She didn't even look at me. I stepped up onto the platform.

"No, it's not fine. The Edra are pushing on the command deck. My men won't be able to hold them back for long. They will seize the bridge and kill everyone here, including both of us. You need to stop what you're doing, and initiate an emergency lock down."

The Captain seemed to ignore me. She pointed to the console in front of the yeoman.

"Begin shunting power directly into the temporal core," she ordered.

The yeoman complied without a word. He didn't even look down at the console, staring straight ahead. He was wired into the system. He didn't need to look. He was part of the ship.

"Captain, listen to me!" I cried. "The moment you initiate the experiment, there will be a massive explosion. Some kind of feedback through the main power lines." I was trying to remember how it had been explained to me. Was it Commander Hall who had explained it, or David? I couldn't remember. "You're going to cause the fusion reactors to overload. Within an hour, everyone in engineering will be dead."

Again, the Captain seemed oblivious to my warnings.

Just then, I heard yelling from the passageway leading to the command deck. The crewmen guarding the door came rushing in. David was behind him, and Raj and Kyle piled in afterward. Kyle was bleeding from a shoulder wound.

"They're through!" Raj yelled. "They blew the doors."

I pointed in the direction of the outer hatch. "Hold them back, guys!"

"You got it!" Kyle snarled.

They set themselves up at the hatch. A few seconds later, they started firing. Edra anti-personnel rounds started pitting the bulkhead behind them.

Sirens and red alert lights kicked in, washing the bridge in noise and red light. I saw that the crewman who had been guarding the hatch had triggered a security alert, in a futile act of desperation, even though there was nobody left to respond. Everyone stayed at their posts, as though they didn't hear the alert. It was surreal. There was a pitched firefight going on a few steps away, and yet this crew was still going through with their experiment.

"The artificial intelligence has booted up," the yeoman stated flatly. "It now has control of the sequence. We are ready."

"Put it on the main display," the Captain ordered.

The main display switched to a diagram of the ship in space. The ship, outlined, indicated power flow and what I assumed was the energy field being generated by the pylons at the front of the ship. Most of the indicators were red and blue, flashing. At first, I hoped that meant malfunction, but they started to shift to green as the power levels increased.

The deck started to vibrate slightly, as the full power of the Saturnus' twin fusion reactors began to flow into the central core, and then out to the pylons. I had no idea how that was possible. The time fragmentation, maybe? Was this bridge still connected to an engineering that was pre-accident, as David suggested? Then what had we seen mere minutes ago, in engineering?

"Wormhole initiation ready," the lithe, disembodied female computer voice intoned coldly. It was the loudest voice on the bridge, and it cut through the near-deafening cacophony like a torch through the fog. "Awaiting confirmation for final countdown."

The voice seemed to hover over top of the sirens, the voices both calm and panicked, and the deep hum of the experimental gear as it rattled the entire ship from the core chamber, deep in her hull. The computer's voice seemed to push aside the gunfire to my right, and the stark, increasingly desperate voices of my men. It swept aside the endless muttering of the Captain's yeoman as he rattled off a constant stream of facts, figures, and reports, in total disregard of the chaos about him. He didn't see it. None of them did.

"Captain Paetkau," I snarled through my clenched teeth, "don't you fuckin' do it!"

The Captain's eyes had a faraway look, their deep blue offset by the flashing red of the alert lights. She seemed to look right through me, directly toward the main status board on the far bulkhead. I watched the displays reflect in those distant pupils of hers, and mixed with the flashing red. She seemed possessed.

Suddenly the room grew quiet, as though someone had stuffed cotton wading into my ears. I watched as ghostly figured were thrown about the room in a massive, silent explosion. I watched flames engulf the room. I gasped, and closed my eyes. After a moment, the vision was gone, and the flashing red lights and sounds of gunfire were back.

I was starting to feel it, again. The temporal psychosis was starting to get to me. I was running out of time. We all were. I gritted my teeth and did my best to focus on the mad Captain Paetkau. I didn't have time to lose my grip. No time!

"Captain," I said again, stepping closer, "you need to shut this down, right goddamn now."

"Mister Mallory," she said evenly, "you are a Captain of Marines, but I am the master of this ship. I give the orders here, not you." Her voice was as distant as her eyes, calling out from the far off status board which held her in an iron grip. It was as though she were actually standing there, on the far side of the bridge.

"Captain," I hissed in frustration, as my mind tried desperately to focus over the sirens and gunfire, and the wispy after-images of scattering bodies thrown about in an explosion that hadn't happened. "Captain, you are not hearing me. You aren't hearing a damned thing, are you?"

I pointed toward the starboard hatch, where my men were blazing away, their weapons flashing with every plasma burst. The air warped from the heat of it all. Still, I could still see Raj's enraged face as he cut loose, his thoughts broadcast as clearly as could be, his expression almost as deadly as the pulse rifle in his hands. David and Kyle were giving just as much hell to the enemy, but Kyle was bleeding heavily from a shoulder wound. His face was already drained of color from the blood lose.

"The Edra are right down that passageway," I barked, stabbing the air with my finger. "We can't hold them off forever."

Captain Paetkau shook her head, her tight, black ponytail waving behind her. Her cap kept the overhead lights off her eyes, but I could see well enough how they held to that status board. "It doesn't matter," she said. "This experiment will run its course. I have my orders."

She pulled a small, red keycard from her left breast pocket, and before I could tear it from her fingers, she inserted it into the console in front of her.

"No!" I snarled again. "Listen to me! This experiment is a failure. Ship security is compromised. I have orders to shut you down! Stop, before you kill us all."

"Card accepted," the computer echoed over the din. "Awaiting verbal confirmation."

"Captain," I yelled in her ear, so close to her now that I could smell the scent of navy-issue soap on her skin. "Stop!"

"Authorization six-echo," Paetkau spoke into her headset without passion or hurry. "Confirmed for final countdown. Begin now, please."

"No! f**k!" I screamed into her ear, though she didn't seem to notice. She didn't hear me at all, anymore. Her focus was absolutely locked on seeing this damn thing through, as though nothing existed but this moment. Her psychosis was total, all-consuming.

"Ten seconds to initiation," the computer confirmed, starting its countdown.

The hum grew louder, and the deck began to vibrate. I felt it inside me, the rattle shaking my bones. My ears seemed filled with the deep, endless hum. I watched as a ghostly body struck the railing right beside me, and suddenly disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind. Between the hum and the visions, I wanted to puke.

"Captain!" I heard the voice calling out from my left, but I didn't clue in right away, as I tried to force my voice into Paetkau's consciousness. The voice grabbed at me again. "Captain Mallory!"

I turned to the voice. It was Kyle. "Sergeant Taggart, report!" Anywhere else, it would have been just 'Kyle.' Here though, my instincts barked out the formality without me even thinking about it.

Kyle was breathing heavily, the adrenaline overload and blood loss starting to have its way with him. He was crashing, but holding on through sheer willpower. His voice cut through the rattling gunfire and sounds of impacts like a hot knife through butter.

"We can't hold them back much longer!" he hollered.

"How many are out there?" I asked.

As I asked, the ship lurched to port, and I grabbed hold of the rail in time to stop myself from being thrown to the deck. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Captain Paetkau and her yeoman didn't lose their balance at all. I saw that the rest of the crew was the same. The Edra neural interface was linking them together with the ship. They really were part of the ship.

"Too f*****g many!" Kyle called back. "I'm seeing ten, but it feels like twenty. They're throwing a lot of s**t at us!"

"How long?" I asked, knowing the answer before hearing it.

"They're pushing hard," he yelled as his rifle spat plasma fire through the hatch. I heard a scream from somewhere downrange. "Not long. If you're gonna do something," he started but didn't finish, as he turned back to the fight.

"Nine seconds," the computer announced.

"Captain Paetkau, listen to me," I tried, desperate to reach her.

"No, Captain," she muttered distantly. "This experiment will run its course. I have my orders."

I growled, and shook my head. I might as well beg the bulkheads to bend. In desperation, I tore the Captain's keycard from the console, in the faint hope that it would shut down the countdown, or at least disrupt it. The console, a fireworks display of flashing status indicators and data streams, barely seemed to notice my actions, as though it was just as removed from reality as this ship's Captain.

"Everything is fine. This experiment will go ahead," the Captain said evenly, eyes still locked on the waterfall flow of readouts and displays. "I have my orders."

She turned to look at me, her eyes suddenly wide and fierce. I felt her reach out to me with them, as though through sheer will she could crush me. I swallowed hard, standing my ground, ready for whatever she had for me. At least I had her attention. Then her yeoman muttered something inaudible from her left, and she returned her attention to the status board. Once more, I was outside her notice, outside her universe. Whatever she was about to do, the ship, the experiment, all of it, drew her back in.

"Eight seconds," the computer blared.

I heard a scream of pain, and turned in time to see Raj collapse against the hatch. Blood spurted out through a wound in his right arm, along with the smoke from the burned flesh. Kyle and David were covered in the gory spray, but neither stopped shooting. In a moment, Raj was back on one knee, firing again.

They yelled as they fired. They were falling back on their deepest, most instinctual core training, and drawing on every mental weapon they had. There was nowhere for them to go, and they were digging deep.

"Seven seconds."

I contemplated stepping in to help, but another shudder from the ship brought me back to my mission. I turned back to Captain Paetkau. She stood straight and still, her hands behind her back as she watched the status board. It was green, seeming not to notice the problems which I knew were there. The board seemed as oblivious as the crew, as single minded as the Captain. The red alert light blanketing the bridge now shifted to green, matching the status boards. The machine below was ready.

"Six seconds."

"f**k!" I yelled in frustration.

The seconds seemed to stretch out painfully, and I felt like I was trying to run underwater. Everything took too long, and I had no time. No time. No time, goddammit! I looked around me. I had no idea how this ship worked. I had no idea how to shut it all down, and reaching engineering, where I might be able to interrupt the power flow, was impossible. I squeezed the railing in frustration.

"Five seconds."

"They're coming through!" Kyle hollered.

I turned to see the furious rain of enemy fire tear into the bulkhead just over Kyle's head. David growled at the singe of hot metal which caught the side of his neck, but didn't even stop to check the wound. All three men flipped their rifles to full-auto and started blazing away. They stepped into the passageway, out of cover, and moved out of sight.

"Four seconds."

"Wormhole origin is on the scope and active, Captain," one of the crew called out. "It's a clean opening."

Captain Paetkau nodded. 'Very well," she said calmly. "Start reaching out."

She was waiting for the next bit of information. It came quickly.

"Wormhole destination is opening," a voice called from another station. "We have a clear corridor, Captain. Sensors have found the beacon."

"Three seconds."

I took a deep breath, and drew my pistol. I pressed the weapon against the Captain's right temple. She barely seemed to notice. Her hands stayed behind her back, and she didn't even blink at the feeling of the cold metal barrel. She looked down at her board, its indecipherable flood of data telling her everything, yet hiding its secrets from me.

"Captain!" I was screaming like a lunatic. Maybe I was mad. Maybe we all were. "Shut it down! Shut it down now, or I'm gonna blow your f*****g head off!"

"Two seconds," that b***h of a computer announced, as though it secretly laughed at my impotence from behind its calm voice.

"Now!" I shouted over the ever-increasing rattle and hum.

"One second."

Just then, ever so slowly, she turned her head to me. Her blue eyes reflected the dancing lights of the board in front of her. They gave her an almost demonic glare, yet there was nothing behind those eyes except the unmovable determination to see the experiment run.

"I have my orders," she said as though we were standing on a quiet bridge. That had been long ago, or maybe just thirty minutes. "This experiment will run its course. Everything is fine."

I shook my head. She was as deaf to my warnings now as she had been when we first stepped onto the bridge of this damned ship.

"I have my orders," she said for what seemed like the thousandth time.

"So do I!" I yelled.

I started to squeeze the trigger.