Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

It meant, “Brothers forever.” It meant, “I will always have your back.”

He grinned in spite of everything, and was surprised to feel burning tears in his eyes. “Zero time,” he said.

Phit-PHIT! Ph-ph-ph-ph-PHIT!

The subterranean vibration grew deeper, stronger. They could feel something approaching, like an army of horses stampeding straight for them.

PHITPHITPHITPHITPHIT

“We’re trapped!” screamed Hayden. “We can’t open the airlock without power!” And without power, they all knew, the heaters had stopped working, too. With every passing second, the temperature of the vessel was dropping, and with the seals still locked in place, the air was growing thin as well.

The end? Simon asked himself. Cowering under a metal console, suffocating as he started to freeze? Not yet, he prayed, thinking of the people who had trusted him, thinking of his father. Not yet…

And the gunfire stopped.

In an instant; all at once. It didn’t trail off, or sputter to a halt, or simply pause and begin again. It stopped.

The five-second silence that followed was absolutely deafening.

Then, suddenly, inexplicably, a bank of harsh lights in the Spector’s ceiling blinked on, died, then blinked again and stayed on. The first thing Simon’s eyes fell on was an astonished Hayden, gaping at the ceiling from his hiding place.

“Son of a bitch,” the inventor said into the cavernous silence. “Emergency back-ups. Completely forgot about those.”

Even the smartskin flickered back to life, but only in bits and pieces. Simon found himself peering through transparent foot-square patches randomly scattered across at the front and side of the ships, into a craggy darkness illuminated by the skittering beams of the approaching robotic Spiders and the blue-green luminosity of the foot soldiers’ weapons, still glowing even as they approached the Spector.

The rumbling grew louder. The vibration from below them shook the entire crippled vessel like a toy.

Then a giant cycle-like vehicle with a large single wheel roared down the passageway, behind the foot soldiers. They ignored it as they moved forward, weapons still raised, but the bullets had stopped flying.

The front lights of the large cycle were blinding; it made it hard to estimate distance or size. Andrew turned away momentarily from the brilliant light and saw Nastasia bent over almost doubled, sifting through her nutrition case again.

She looked up at Simon, and he saw she was holding her inhaler in one hand and what seemed to be a pre-packed powder in the other. “I just…because of my condition I can’t live without this.” As he watched she pushed the inhaler into the kit, forced the lid shut and snapped it tight, then put it aside.

They both turned and stood as the huge cycles accelerated toward them, skidding to a halt in unison almost a hundred yards away.

Several figures, dressed in heavy gear to protect themselves from the bitter cold, started running toward the Spector. They were holding rifles, coming at the crippled vehicle like a SWAT team with laser-guided instrumentation. It was hard for Max to see them; the light source from the rifles themselves was shooting straight toward the Spector.

Simon and Max had already moved to the door, prepared to protect the others if they had to. Max gestured with his pistol, waving toward the ready room and shouting at the rest of the crew. “Move toward the back.”

Simon stood with his back pressed firmly against one side of the door, opposite Max. He looked across the bridge to Andrew, who was sitting in the crooked, half-broken pilot’s seat.

“Shut her down,” he whispered.

Max watched the approaching figures with every ounce of his concentration, calculating, gambling. His gut told him these men were somehow not connected to the menacing robots. He knew all too well how trained mercenaries would move, and these men with the rifles clearly did not move that way at all. They weren’t professional soldiers; he would bet his life on that.

One man, face fully covered by a cloth and plastic mask, was ten steps ahead of the others. He was holding an unusual weapon, a rifle unlike any Max had ever seen, its stock pressed tightly against his chin. He was using the light on the weapon as a flashlight, trying to study the unusual surface of the Spector.

More men started approaching the vehicle, and Simon tried to count them. It looked as though there were eight or ten-it was hard to tell in the blinding, dancing lights.

“Lay down,” whispered Max, as the team watched the scene unfold on the half-blind wall panels.

Simon had reached the same conclusion. “Max, these guys don’t seem like they’re after us. They seem as scared as we are.” He couldn’t help but notice how the men were studying the Spector’s exterior in amazement. Not like soldiers at all. More like…

“Let’s open the door,” he said impulsively.

Samantha almost choked in fear as she tried to express herself. “I don’t want to die.”

“Don’t think that will be the case,” Max said. “Just relax and lay down.”

There was a sudden thud toward the front of the vehicle as one of the men smashed his rifle against the thick armor of the Spector. Inside, the team only heard a faint sound, but could clearly see the man trying to smash the exterior.

“He has to stop that,” Hayden said. “The surface is still carrying a charge, he could-”

Other white-clad gunmen attacked the hatch that Max had sealed only moments earlier. One had found a piece of torn metal he used to scrape and scratch at the smartskin; the other had an actual crowbar he was trying to insert in the tiny crack that outlined the hatchway.

“They’re going to kill themselves!” Hayden said, jumping up in spite of Max’s orders. “The skin is still charged, it’ll electrocute them if-”

“Andrew!” Simon screamed. “Open the fucking door to the outside hatch!”

Simultaneously, Max bellowed at the others-a deep voice, a commander’s voice: “All of you into the ready room! NOW!”

This time they moved, scrambling over each other for cover.

The instant they were safely out of sight, the hatch began to shift and open, very slowly. Max turned and raised his pistol with the laser guidance system and pointed it straight at the hatch door.

Simon stood flattened against the door, a two-foot piece of razor-sharp steel in his hand. It was the only weapon he had.

They weren’t going to take any chances.

And they sure as hell weren’t going to die today.

There was no time to think. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.

The door depressurized with a hiss, and the armed men outside moved back a pace, their rifles still high. The temperature isnside the Spector plunged as the arctic air invaded, rushing in with a crackling sound as everything that could freeze in an instant did exactly that. The only other sound was the ominous, rhythmic rush of heavy breathing through the masks that everyone wore, friend and foe alike.

“Identify yourself!” shouted the man in front of the foot soldiers as the beams of light from the laser-guided rifles penetrated the Spector. The illumination created an eerie glow on the ice, on the dying instrumentation, on the flat glassy surfaces of masks and goggles.

“We mean no harm,” Simon said loud enough to be heard but-he hoped-quiet enough to sound reasonable. He was still out of sight, his back pressed against the inside of the vehicle.

The man standing just outside the hatch responded, “Show yourselves!”

Simon knew this was his chance. Either he would be shot, or this would be the beginning of their journey. He looked at Max across the open hatch. His oldest friend nodded in silent agreement. Simon slowly turned and moved sideways into the open doorway, exposing himself to the enemy, first his hand, then the rest of his body with arms lifted and hands empty.