The Madman's Clock

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

The bottom of the stairwell leading from the command deck was still deserted. The doors slid open, revealing a quiet, empty deck 2. We stepped out, rifles ready, expecting fire from the Edra. It didn't come. The passageway flowed fore and aft, and the lights cut out far enough down each end that the passageway seemed to simply disappear into nothingness. I kept straining to see further down, as if the Edra would emerge from the blackness. After a few seconds, we knew we were clear.

"Alright," I started, closing my helmet over my face. "Here we go. Keep it tight and fast. Run like your lives depend on it, because they do. Grab and dash, no negotiations. Triggers are free, but don't go wild. Questions?"

There was nothing but silence over my comm gear. The looks in my men's eyes said it all. Ready to go. Ready to do the job, and knock down anyone in the way.

"Let's do it!" I barked, and off we ran.

Kyle and I dashed aft, down the passageway. Our boots clanged loudly on the deck as we ran, our weapons raised and ready. We were staggered; Kyle three paces behind me and along the right bulkhead. The bulkheads went by us as we ran, the few consoles streaming by at the edge of my vision. I came to a corner and turned left, stopping and scanning for signs of movement.

"Clear," I called out, just as Kyle caught up.

"Clear," he confirmed.

We raced on, down the passageway. As we turned another corner, we spotted a crewman wandering the passageway. He was carrying a repair kit, and was jogging toward us. He stopped dead in his tracks, dropping his kit at the sight of two armed men pointing rifles at him.

"Just a wog," Kyle said.

I opened my external speakers so the crewman could hear me. "Marines! Go back where you came from." He was frozen, so I barked at him. "Fuckin' move! Now! Go go go!"

The frightened engineer dashed around a corner, and as we hurried down the passage, I looked to see him still running away from us at full speed. I didn't even stop to see where he went, hurrying on to my own destination.

After a few minutes of turning, we came across a ladder leading downward. I pulled it open and Kyle dropped a flashbang down the hatch. The light-and-sound grenade exploded, and he jumped down to the deck below. I followed. The grenades were designed to go off without a smoke cloud, so its thrower could charge right in, where nobody in range would be left standing. Our helmets protected us, but a lone crewman nearby wasn't so lucky. He was unconscious, leaning against the bulkhead opposite us. He would live. We had more important things to worry about.

The rest of the run down to deck 6 was quiet, empty. The passageways seemed to be empty, though we did hear clicking and hissing a few times on deck 5. We were at a full run, and didn't stop to check it out. When we made it to another down-ladder without being hit, we assumed they hadn't heard us, despite the racket we were making. Maybe they did see us, but thought we were just crew.

We hurried aft, eventually finding the hatch leading to engineering. The door opened, and that same impenetrable fog still hung in the air before us. This was where the time fragment ended, and engineering at +1 hour began. We stacked up at the door, with Kyle's left hand on my right shoulder and his pistol pointing over my right.

"Ready," we both said, one after the other.

I took four steps forward, through the fog. It was enough to get us both clear of the barrier. The other side was clear, and the doors leading into engineering were right there, just as we had left them. Kyle holstered his pistol and unslung his rifle. We checked our radiation counters, and they were clear. I flipped back my helmet, and the sweat on my forehead started to evaporate, leaving a sudden cooling sensation on my skin.

I opened the door to the engineering compartments. Instantly, I was hit with a wall of thick smoke, which blew in on us. The sounds of sirens tore at my ears, and red alert lights pulsed everywhere. I kept moving forward, onto the catwalk above the reactors. There were two dead engineers lying on the deck a few feet away, both burned terribly.

"s**t, man," Kyle muttered, moving across the catwalk toward the ladder, trying to get a better look through the smoke.

I looked downward, and saw the bottom of the reactor room in utter shambles. Things were worse, much worse than our last time here. There were bodies everywhere, a dozen or more, in addition to the ones we had seen when we entered before. These new casualties lay where they fell, and even from up here I could see they were burned.

"Jack!" Kyle called out.

I followed his gesture to the reactors. The port reactor, which they had been fighting to save when we left, had since blown completely. A massive hole was torn out of the side of it, where it faced the other reactor. The other reactor was also torn open. It had blown, despite their efforts. Fusion reactors don't scatter radiation when they blow, not like the old nuclear fission reactors of the twentieth century. They blow far less often, but when they do, they release massive amounts of steam. Anyone caught in the initial steam burst would be vaporized. Anyone nearby was just as dead, as the burned bodies below showed. That the reactor breach had been blunted by the other reactor was the only reason not everyone in engineering was dead.

I could see scattered movement below, most of it slow, staggered and aimless. Kyle started to make his way down the ladder, and I followed. It was three decks to the bottom, and I tried not to think too hard on why there were two hazard suit gloves still holding onto one of the rungs, the metal bits melted into the rung itself.

As we approached the bottom deck, a figure came out of the smoke. He was barely recognizable, covered in blackened, charred skin. His eyes peeked out through the blackness, like an actor from behind black make-up. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. He was holding his left hand up against his stomach, and I could see that it was ruined. I only counted three fingers.

Ensign Bretin was barely upright, but he moved to meet us as we reached the deck. He dragged his left foot at an odd angle. As we reached him, I could see that what was left of his uniform was splashed in blood. I couldn't tell if it was his or not.

"What happened?" the wounded engineer yelled at us over the blare of sirens, mixed with the screams of the wounded and dying. "You said you were going to the bridge."

"We just came from there," I replied.

He shook his head. "In five minutes? No way," he said, coughing up blood. "The engineering lifts are out. You can't make it up the ladders and stairwells that fast."

"What do you mean, five minutes?" Kyle asked. "We've been gone for almost an hour!"

The ensign looked around him, then back to us. He pointed upward, toward the hatch we had entered through. "I watched you walk out that hatch not five minutes ago."

"We've been gone an hour, ensign," I insisted. "We saw a minor explosion just as we left, but that was an hour ago."

"That was just the initial blowout," he explained. "Commander Hall and another reactor engineer climbed up to the top to try and bleed off the steam before we had a full-out blow. I saw her reach the top, just as the reactor went up."

I nodded. "I saw the bodies."

He just shook his head, and wiped his brow. It left more blood than it wiped away. He went on.

"Everyone near the reactor was killed," he said. "I was in her office when it happened. She keeps the emergency venting code-cards on a shelf. The explosion blew out the reinforced dura-glass, and shredded the man next to me. Most of this is from him," he said, gesturing to the blood covering his right side. "It cut him in three."

"I'm sorry, ensign, but I need someone to come back with us. I was planning on that being Commander Hall, but now I'll need to speak to her second-in-command." I was trying to keep the ensign's attention, as he wavered from his wounds.

I looked about, hoping to find another ranking engineer, but the few crew still moving were all the same. They were black and red, staggering about or collapsed on the deck.

"That would be me," he replied. "Everyone else is dead, I think." He pointed to the stack of bodies we had seen before. "Most of the other officers were killed in the accident, and Lieutenant Sanderson was coming down the ladder when the port reactor blew. She was vaporized."

I looked at Kyle, who just shook his head. This mission had gone as wrong as anyone could have feared, and it was only getting worse. If we didn't find someone who understood the situation, all of it, and could explain it to the Captain Paetkau, this was all for nothing. I said as much to Ensign Bretin.

"The time fragmentation," the engineer said with a nod, more to himself than us.

"You know about that?" I asked.

"Of course," he replied. "Commander Hall was afraid this would happen. She told me all about it. She told me everything."

"We know about the core," I said. "We know where it came from. Commander Hall told us." I lied.

He sighed. "Of course you do," he said. "Someone was bound to tell you. All of the officers knew, along with the techs working in the core chamber, and the bridge crew. I don't care anymore. I just want to end this whole thing. If we can stop the experiment, things should reset themselves."

"Then you need to come with us," I insisted. "We'll patch you up, but we need to find you a hazard suit, and get moving. We're running out of time."

I turned to Kyle, and was telling him to find us an intact hazard suit, but the ensign stopped me.

"Don't bother," he said. "I was close enough to the core when it happened to take a fatal dose of radiation. I'm already way past treatment. Leave the suits for the others."

I just stood silently, unsure of what to say. This engineer had been working full tilt since we first saw him an hour ago. He was the walking dead, and still doing his job. I had always sneered at the navy, seeing them as weak. They were techies and wogs with cushy jobs far from the action. It never occurred to me that an engineer would keep going, knowing damn well he was going to die.

"You're a good man, ensign," I said with a nod.

"Tell that to my girlfriend," he said with a nod. "She hasn't sent me a letter since I shipped out. She," he stopped. "Never mind. Let's go."

I stopped him, looked him over. He was in sorry shape, and I wasn't sure how far his body could physically go before it simply gave out. His injuries were severe, and the radiation sickness would start sapping his strength very quickly. It probably already had. He wouldn't make it more than ten minutes at a run, and carrying him would be a problem if we ran into the Edra. He limped toward the ladder.

"Hang on," I said. "Take a seat."

He sat down on the deck, stretching his left leg out in front of him. He clenched his teeth, trying not to scream. Considering how badly mangled his leg and foot were, the pain must have been excruciating. His foot was twisted way out of position, and a lot of the skin was burned away. It looked like his knee was pretty much f****d, too.

"Kyle," I said, gesturing to a shattered piece of equipment nearby. "See if you can put together a split."

"Yeah, Jack," he said as he moved to his task.

"Ensign, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm not a medic, and even if I was, there wouldn't be much that I could do for you," I explained. "The thing is, we have a long way to go, and very little time."

I reached into my butt-pack, and pulled out a small auto-injector. I showed it to Ensign Bretin.

"This is a stimulant," I said. "It's not the same as the ones your medical people carry. This is designed for Special Forces. It will keep you moving, numb your pain receptors, but keep you clear headed."

He nodded. "I understand. Do it."

"No, you don't," I continued, keeping his focus on me as Kyle strapped his leg into the makeshift splint. "About five seconds after I hit you with this, you're going to feel really good. The trick is not to push it too far. You might not feel the pain, but if you do something stupid and break a leg, all the stims in the words aren't going to keep you upright. Do you understand?"

"Just go ahead and do it!" he cried in pain, as Kyle pulled the knots on the splint wrapping tight.

I popped the top off the auto-injector, and in one swift motion rammed it into the meat of his good right leg. He cried out, but Kyle held him still. A small, green light lit up on the top of the injector, and then started to flash. After a couple of seconds, it turned red. The stimulant was in his system. I tossed away the spent injector.

I watched him for signs of a reaction. His eyes were still wide from the initial pain of the jab, as the needle fired into his skin. It was painful. I knew from experience. After a few seconds he started to breathe easier, and took in a long, deep breath. It was working, and the pain of his injuries was seeping away. After a perhaps a minute, he met my eyes and nodded.

We hauled him to his feet, Kyle supporting him as we moved to the ladder.

I tapped my comm headset. "David, report," I said. Nothing. "David or Raj, sound off."

I was about to move on when the headset crackled to life. The usual crackling of the comm gear was there, but an odd warbling sound, like a police siren but lower and slower, pulsed in the background. I could hear a voice, David's it seemed, but it was echoing. Everything came through twice.

"Jack," the voice echoed. "David here. You're breaking up. Lots of echo."

"You too," I said slowly, clearly. "Status?"

"Bad," David replied. I tried to focus on his words, but the echo was making him very hard to understand. "We are at plus eight months, here."

"Say again!" I called into the mic. "Say again, David."

"Eight months!" he yelled back.

I told that to Ensign Bretin. He just nodded. "The fragmentation at the front of the ship is probably accelerating as the energy buildup in the pylons increases. Get your men out of there as soon as possible."

"David, do you have Aisin?" I asked. "Do you have the Security Chief?"

"Negative," came the reply. "It seems he went missing just after we left. The survivors haven't seen him since."

Kyle was listening in on his headset. He spat. "f**k! What now?"

"We have Crewman Ramirez," David replied. "The engineer who found us when we boarded. He's one of the few who can still talk."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"They're mostly catatonic, Jack." There was a pause. "It's really bad. Ramirez and a few of the others have to literally feed the rest of the survivors. Most of them have just curled up and died. Ramirez is the only one who seems able to walk. The others are just laying there. A few can crawl."

"Is he coherent?" Kyle asked. "He was pretty f****d in the head when we spoke to him."

"He's pretty bad, but," there was a pause. "Yeah, he can talk."

"Alright, suit him up and make your way back to the bridge," I ordered.

"Affirmative, Jack. David out." The headset beeped as the connection closed down.

"Let's get moving," I said, gesturing to the ladder.

Kyle went first, followed by Ensign Bretin. He was climbing with just one foot, but he was using his ruined left hand. I winced to watch him climb, glad that the stimulant was doing its job. Just before Kyle reached the next deck's catwalk, I heard shrieks all around me. I looked up.

"Ambush up!" I yelled.

Reflexively, Kyle grabbed his pistol from its holster and started firing toward the Edra up on the deck 6 catwalk. I could see three of them leaning over the catwalk railing, firing down on our position. The shrieks of their guns tore past us. One of the rounds struck the ladder just above Kyle's hand, cutting the metal in two like it was made of paper. They were using armor piercing rounds. One hit would tear us apart.

The ladder wavered, swinging slightly to one side as it supported our weight with only one rail. I dropped down to the deck and shouldered my rifle. I fired a two-round burst, and then another two. One of them struck the deck at their feet. They fired back, tearing into the deck as I dove out of the way.

Bretin hit the deck, and I heard something snap as he did. His splint was broken, and he was stunned from the impact. I dashed over and grabbed him, hauling him behind cover. Kyle dropped down as soon as Bretin was out of the way. He kept up a constant fire from behind a nearby supporting frame. The Edra rounds made small craters in it, even their intensely strong metal not enough to stop the bullets.

I looked over Bretin's ruined leg. He seemed clear-headed enough, and I hauled him to his feet. He was able to put some weight on the left leg, so at least it wasn't broken. He grimaced.

"Can you feel it?" I asked. I knew the stimulant probably wasn't going to stand up against the radiation poisoning for too long.

He nodded. "A little, but I'm alright."

"We need a way out," I said. "We can't go forward of the core. It's in another fragment."

He thought for a second. "If the secondary cargo lift isn't damaged, it will take us all the way to deck 2."

I shook my head. "All of the lifts are down. We've been using service ladders."

He waved me off. "No, this is different. It's not even on the ship blueprints. It was installed as a way to transport the time core module from a secure holding area below the command deck, to the core chamber. It's shielded, so it might have survived the accident."

I nodded. "Alright." I turned to Kyle. "Kyle, we're going!"

Kyle, his rifle now firing away instead of his pistol, nodded, and kept up the fire. The air was warped from the shooting, and he let loose a burst of six or seven rounds. Above us, I heard metal start to creak and whine, and then there was a massive crashing sound.

"Down!" Kyle yelled, and took cover.

I threw Bretin to the ground, and jumped on top of him. A moment later the deck shook, and a deafening crash of metal against metal rattled me. I felt debris strike my side, but nothing breached the suit. After a moment, I picked my head up. A twisted pile of metal lay between us and Kyle. Two Edra commandos lay underneath it. Both were crushed, dead. One of them was twitching slightly.

I picked Bretin up off the deck, and as Kyle raced to our position, we headed away from the wreck of metal. The hatches opened for us, and our radiation counters stayed silent. Still, we put on our helmets, just to be safe. I wasn't sure exactly where we were, but I knew we had to start moving upward, and not forward, otherwise we'd end up in that other time fragment.

Kyle watched our rear as we moved, with me dragging Bretin along, his arm over my shoulder. He was holding his own, but I could feel the strength draining out of him. There was a trickle of blood coming out of his nose. The radiation was starting to break down the soft tissue. Soon, there would be a lot more blood. Then his bones would become very brittle. It wouldn't be long before a bullet would be his best option. We had to reach the bridge before then.

"There," the engineering officer said, pointing to a small hatch. "It's there."

I propped Bretin up against the bulkhead while he worked. Kyle watched for the Edra, and it didn't take long for them to catch up with us. The shrieking rounds flew down the long passageway at us. There was no cover. Kyle went prone on the deck, rolled away from us toward the far bulkhead, and started firing. He was drawing fire. I could feel the air heating up, and very quickly it started to get that funny feeling from the plasma fire. My tongue felt fuzzy from the ozone, the same feeling you get when you're near a lightning strike.

"Hurry," I said to Bretin as I unslung my rifle.

The Ensign worked the control panel, entering a series of codes. As I started firing back, watching the Edra move closer and closer, the ensign reached into his pocket and pulled out a code card. It dropped from his hand onto the deck.

I reached for it, just as the deck in front of my hand exploded into shards from a round impact. My suit took the damage, and I felt a small piece of shrapnel clip my faceplate.

Bretin was obviously having trouble.

"Where?" I asked. "I'll do it."

Bretin pointed to one of the panels on the console. It had no less than ten card slots in it, all lettered. He pointed to the slot marked F, and I jammed in the card. He then typed in some more codes, and the door slid open.

"Stay here," I said, peeking inside.

The small lift was big enough for five people or so, and there was a pedestal with a mount in the center of the lift, likely to secure the core during transport. The lift seemed undamaged, and all of the controls seemed to be working. At least something on this ship still worked. I called out to Kyle.

"We're good to go!" I yelled.

I grabbed Bretin and yanked him into the lift, setting him against the wall. I leaned back out and started firing, giving Kyle the chance to get to us. As he started to stand, a round ripped by and blew out his shoulder light. He hit the deck, firing back. Lucky miss.

I laid down heavy cover fire, my rifle pushing back on me from the constant shooting. As I did, Kyle rolled across the deck to me, and crawled into the lift.

"Which one?" I heard him yell.

"Green," Bretin called back, trying to catch his breath.

I felt Kyle grab me, and he pulled me into the lift. He tapped the green panel and the door slid closed. For the first time in a while, there was near-silence. Everyone was breathing hard. It was the only sound in the lift. I checked over Kyle, but he seemed alright, other than the smoking bits of shoulder light hanging from his pack. I detached the remains and dropped them at his feet.

Bretin staggered forward, and worked the controls. The deck rumbled under us, and we started to move. The lift was rising.

"It takes five minutes to reach deck 2," he said, his voice wheezing. "It's slow, but that's because the time core is very sensitive. The ride has to be smooth."

As we rode upward, I tried to reach David and Raj. The comms gear just gave me static.

Bretin shook his head and gestured to my headset. "The lift is shielded. Don't bother." He pointed to the console to my left. "You can raise the top of the lift, though. There is a comms panel there."

"No, we have no way of knowing what's waiting for us at the top," I said. I looked Bretin over. "How are you holding up?"

Almost on cue, he coughed, and spat blood out on the floor. It was dark, and full of solid matter. He looked at the blood on the floor, and sighed. His breathing had a slight gurgle to it. I tried not to look too concerned, but I knew what was happening. The stimulant, which was doing its job and keeping him going, was also accelerating the radiation's movement through his blood stream. It was killing him faster, and knowing that the stim was the only way to get him to the bridge was hardly a consolation.

Nobody spoke. Kyle was busy checking over his rifle, more as a way to avoid looking at the dying engineer than anything else. Still, I could see that it bothered him. Kyle took a perverse pleasure in the adrenaline rush of a fight, but he was far from callous. I knew that before joining Recon, he had served on the line. Two tours of duty on the Alpha Centauri front was enough to make you value the lives around you in a way few other things could. Nobody survived without their buddies, and it always tore at Kyle when he lost someone. A lot of marines become uncaring after a combat tour, but not Kyle. I would never have let him on my squad, otherwise.

I patted him on the shoulder, and turned to the withering ensign.

"When we reach deck 2, we're going to make a full run toward the bridge," I explained. "I'm going to throw you over my shoulder, and we're going to break a few sprinting records. The best thing you can do to help is grab hold of my pack, and let the rest of your body go limp. It easier to carry you that way."

Bretin nodded as he spat out another few drops of blood.

"You're going to make it, ensign," I said reassuringly, if not convincingly. "We'll get you to the bridge."

What happened after that, I didn't want to think about. I'd deal with that when it was time.

"We're coming up on it," Kyle said, readying his rifle.

I pulled my rifle close to my chest and let the sling tighten up. I lifted up the ensign. He was heavy, but that was mostly because I was tired. He strained and grumbled as I took hold of his right hand with my left, slung it over my shoulders, bent over to grab his upper right leg, and leaning him over my shoulders, lifted him in a fireman's carry. I heard the gurgling in his breathing. It was quickly getting worse, even during the short ride up through the ship.

I nodded 'ready' to Kyle. We waited silently for the lift to stop moving, watching the console by the door as it showed us a diagram of the lift's rise and slow stop. The lift came to a gentle halt on deck 2, and the green panel lit up.

"Here we go," Kyle said, and tapped the green panel.

As soon as the door slid open, I knew we were in trouble. The gunfire was deafening, both plasma rounds with their low bark and crackle, and the shrieking bullets of the Edra weapons. There was some smoke in the passageway, and flashes from stun grenades. I heard an explosion from our right, though I couldn't see it. Then there was screaming, human voices in pain.

The Edra were pushing, trying to reach the command deck. We were right in the middle of it.