20


A tremor went through the tower. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the sensation since landing on Dreadmax, but it was the worst so far. I actually lost my balance for a second.
“What was that?” Hastings asked. “Did the destroyer fire on us?”
I hadn’t told the doctor about the UFS Thunder that brought me and the spec ops teams here. Elise didn’t notice the slip, but why would she?
“No one’s firing on us. This place is falling apart, in case you didn’t notice,” I said. “Keep moving.”
I wished Grady was here, no matter how we’d disagreed. Hustling down the stairs while watching for danger ahead and behind was wearing me out. Elise helped by being naturally observant and cautious, but she couldn’t fight, not like Grady could have.
“The people here talk about it,” Elise said. “The first time I ran from the RSG, a bunch of religious fanatics took care of me for a few days. They talked about the station failing like it was the coming of the apocalypse. Others argued about heading below decks when the atmosphere dies—something they call Climbdown Day. Everyone has their story about a lost ship that only needs to be found to take them all to safety.”
“Ridiculous,” Hastings said.
“Let’s hope not everyone in the Union wants us dead.” I cut the doctor off, not liking his tone. “I’m betting that Callus and his team are exceeding their mandate.”
“They’re trying to kill us, you know that,” Elise said.
“There was more to being a Reaper than infiltration and assassination,” I said. “I have connections.”
The wide industrial stairs curved downward and out of sight. Every so often, there were access doors of different sizes. I spotted a security station that had been stripped of weapons lockers and surveillance monitors. There didn’t seem to be an active power connection to the bunker-like booth.
“Keep moving,” I said.
“Do you actually think they’ll still help you? They didn’t stop you from going to death row,” Elise said.
“I didn’t survive as a Reaper by taking unnecessary chances, but there’s always a risk.”
“Why not take their ship?” Elise asked. “We can run the blockade easily. The Union wouldn’t fire on one of its own ships. And it has to be cutting-edge, with a slip drive and maybe even cloaking technology like in the action videos.”
“Trust me, if I thought I could take the ship, I would. Right now, we’re sticking to the plan, and that plan is to escape through one of the lower decks,” I said. “The idea is to get away from Callus and his trigger-happy commandos, not run into their ship and get killed. The pilot isn’t going to land and just let us on while Callus’ team is out hunting for us.”
“We don’t even know the capabilities of that ship,” Doctor Hastings said. He looked nervous, more nervous than usual. I wanted to attribute his flushed face and sweaty brow to exertion—which it probably was—but his true mannerisms showed more and more as his fatigue increased.
“You have a suggestion, Doc?” I asked, getting a bad vibe every time he spoke. I just couldn’t imagine him strolling through a barrage of gunfire to knock on the door to the tower facility. It didn’t set right. Callus was one of the deadliest human beings I’d ever met, and that was saying something. His team was the best of the best.
“I don’t know why it’s so complicated. Please stop for a minute. I need to catch my breath,” Hastings said, talking with his hands and never quite looking at me. “You were given a detailed mission briefing and a pickup location. If these rogue operators have some sort of vendetta against you, that’s not my problem. Why can’t you just take me to the pickup location? Once we’re rescued, I can report Callus to the proper authorities.”
“Well, that’s one plan.” I studied Elise for her reaction but couldn’t decide what she was thinking.
The doctor huffed pretentiously, seemingly put out at the delay. “My research is important. They wouldn’t have put so much time and effort into recovering me if I was just some abstract theorist.”
“True.” I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “They wouldn’t have sent two battleships and a fighter wing to recover you.”
“Two battleships? I thought they sent the UFS Thunder.”
I didn’t bother to acknowledge his correction. It was a test question anyway.
“Are you listening to me, Cain?” he continued. “Take me to the pickup site and I’m sure I can handle everything.”
“No problem,” I said, facing a large door at the end of the stairs.
“We should steal the spec op recon ship,” Elise said.
Doctor Hastings cut her off. “It’s not your decision, Elise. Let Cain do his job.”
“I’m not sure what level this opens to,” I said. “We’ve come down farther than I thought we would. There’s no place else to go unless we want to get on one of the lifts, and we would have to go back up to the main level for that. So ship or no ship, we have to get through this area in one piece. No more arguing. You do what I say when I say it.”
“Yes, of course,” Hastings said.
Elise glared at me with her arms crossed.
“Wait here.” I operated the manual crank to open one of the side doors next to the larger equipment entrance, then went inside and cleared the first few rooms. I didn’t know what to expect.
How far did we have to go to encounter the flesh-eating denizens below deck? I thought of them as cannibals, but the ones I'd surprised while escaping the RSG gave me doubts. One thing was certain, they were desperate and dangerous. Regardless of what they were.
For all I knew, the agricultural deck was a garden utopia of plenty and populated with magical fairies and unicorns.
I shared my speculation with X-37, but he didn't laugh. Surely the Reaper AI had the processing power to mimic humor, but he was being difficult.
Whatever.
I gathered up the doctor and his daughter, escorting them through a series of rooms to a hallway that seemed not to have been used for some time. The air was decent and there was only a little corrosion in this section of Dreadmax. It still amazed me how much of the place was vacant.
"How much longer until you return me to the Union?" Hastings asked. “I could use a shower and a meal.”
I wanted to ignore his questions, maybe throat punch him, maybe leave him to fend for himself, but that wasn't why I had come this far. It didn't seem like current events had affected his emotions like I thought was reasonable. Grady was dead. Countless inmates—or residents or whatever they were—of Dreadmax had been murdered or killed and faced certain annihilation.
Damn, I wanted a Starbrand. "I'm not convinced that's the best course of action."
"Not the best course of action? What are you talking about? You were sent here to do a job."
"Sure, but they left out the part about getting double-crossed by a spec ops team whose leader is certifiably fucking crazy." I didn't add that he also seemed invincible.
"I was never told about them. When I get back, finding out what went wrong will be the first thing I do," Hastings said.
I seriously doubted that.
"Can we just go?" Elise said, refusing to look at her father. It was another one of her moments where she seemed like a rebellious teenager.
A tremor, the biggest yet, shook the station. I counted to twenty-three before it stopped. "That was a long one. Let's talk about the timeline I was given. What happens in twenty-four hours from the start of my mission, the collapse of the station?”
The doctor looked worried and ashamed. "I think eighteen hours would've been more accurate, and it has already passed. Twenty-four is just a standard number for these types of things, or so I was told."
"When I found you, you were being beaten and interrogated by Red Skull Gangsters,” I reminded him, pointing back the way we had come. “How would you know anything about the rescue mission?"
"The contingency plan was discussed prior to my assignment on Dreadmax,” he said too quickly. “I'm not excessively brave or a fool. I refused to go until they promised me a viable extraction plan."
"For you and your daughter," I said, my tone flat but clearly calling him out.
This caught him off guard. "Well, of course."
The next tremor caught me off guard because they didn't normally come so close together. I kept my feet, but the doctor went down hard. Elise did a half cart-wheel round-off to keep from face-planting when the floor jumped.
"Is everyone okay?” I asked.
Hastings mumbled nonsense as he brushed himself off. Elise pushed her hair out of her eyes and nodded.
Smoke drifted into the hallway.
I checked the ceiling for a sprinkler system. There weren't any flames in this hallway, but the dense smoke should've set them off, covering the area with flame-retardant chemicals.
"We have to run for it. If the smoke gets too thick, drop to the floor and crawl. That will kill you long before the flames get here," I shouted, urging them to run with me.
"Always running. Gang members and rogue soldiers aren't bad enough. We have to have cannibals and uncontrolled fires to deal with? I mean, really?" Elise said.
"No time to complain. Come on, Doc, pick up the pace." I found the next set of stairs approximately a kilometer from where we descended. My guess was they led up to another maintenance tower like the one where Callus and his team had nearly cornered us.
We emerged far away from our last encounter with the man. Somehow, I didn't feel any better.