John Karr - Detonation Event

“Devans killed his own!” said another. “Director Hodge was right!”

“They were gone already!”

The two sides went back and forth.

“You did right, Cap!”

“Dev-ans! Dev-ans!”

He slowed, glanced in their faces. These were all space travelers, space workers. They knew the risks and rewards. He estimated half were on his side, half not.

A universe of yin and yang.

He slowed at the base of the stairs. Arms by the thousands reached his way, from all directions, many doing symbolic fist bumps.

“Dev-ans! Dev-ans!” was winning out over the others.

Had he done right?

Fres left his seat and met him in the aisle, limping slightly on the prosthetic leg. “Ry!”

He had to shout to be heard.

Devans shook his head, guided his friend back to his seat. “Take him, Renee! Dock it, Fres. We’ll talk later.”

“Always there, Ry!”

“Always! We’ll get together later. Away from all this.”

“We will have order now in the SCONA house! Order…!” Hodge cried, dismay and anger coming through the loudspeakers.

Most of the audience still chanted Devans’ name.

Devans walked toward the exit, a bit dazed at it all despite his preparations. Behind him, Hodge called on Nuro to stand on the dais. The audience quieted.

“Copilot Lassiter Nuro, the SCONA board of directors wishes to express its gratitude in your gallant efforts to save Planetary Shuttle Nine. It is personnel like yourself that make this company as strong as it is.”

Devans’ shoulders tensed as Hodge’s symbolic blade twisted gleefully in his back.

“Director Hodge, you made a mistake with Captain Devans,” Nuro said, his voice deep and resounding throughout the auditorium.

The crowd cheered, and Hodge had to quiet them once more.

Nuro spoke. “Ry Devans didn’t fail. I failed.”

Devans halted, looked over his shoulder, then turned around. From here he could see the back of his friend upon the raised dais and a frontal view of his upper body on one of the giant screens. Instead of looking resigned, Nuro’s eyes glinted with defiance. Devans had seen it many times when they were about to fly into enemy territory during the wars.

An expectant hush filled the great hall.

“You tried to save your ship, Copilot Nuro,” Hodge told him in a reassuring voice. “It is regrettable Captain Devans did not.”

“No, I failed,” Nuro repeated. A sudden movement and a slender plasma gun appeared in his raised hand. “Failed to stop SCONA, but the EFF rises!”

Gasps and cries of dismay were cut down by the sharp reports of a plasma gun. Hodge’s chest exploded in a mist of red. Screams and shouts were punctuated by more shots. Three other directors fell. Security Director Shakuri had to dive to the floor to avoid his own death. The high-backed chair had a smoking hole where his chest had been. Guards returned fire in Nuro’s direction.

Devans, stunned, now ran for the dais as the audience climbed over seats to get away and flee for the exits. On the big screen, Nuro shot one of the nearest guards and closed on the other with an onslaught of strikes. He emptied the guard’s gun and fired again into the directors’ area. Plasma exploded into bodies and desks and vacated chairs.

“Close in, close in!” Shakuri shouted, his voice booming through the loudspeakers. The jumbo screens showed him leaping from desk to desk to the ground, crossing the no-man’s land and up the audience rows toward the raised dais, where Nuro was locked in hand-to-hand combat with another guard.

The large man’s arms enveloped the guard’s head. A sudden wrench in opposite directions and the man sank to the floor.

More screams and cries of dismay.

Devans shoved and dodged his way toward the platform stairs. A guard flew over the rail, plummeted twenty feet, and struck the now-empty seats below.

As Nuro pumped more shots toward the fleeing directors, another man cleared the top stairs of the platform ahead of Devans, only it wasn’t a guard. He wore the light green jumpsuit of Flight Operations. The same garb as Nuro, the surviving crew of PS-9 , and Devans himself. Balding head, slight limp.

Bradley Fresnopolis.

On the screens Devans watched in horror, even as the stairs grew in size before him. Fres closed with Nuro, kept him from the raising the guard’s plasma gun. They struggled within a maelstrom of quick offensive and defensive moves. Nuro shoved and slammed his weight into the smaller man. Fres clung, twisted and leveraged his way into a striking position. Suddenly Fres’s elbow blurred in the spotlight and descended into Nuro’s temple. Nuro wavered, but a muffled screech sounded, and Fres slumped to the floor beneath a red mist.

A scream rent the air. Devans cringed as he recognized Renee’s primal cry.

Devans took the stairs three at a time, gained the dais floor, and nearly had his head seared open by a gob of superheated plasma in a barrage meant for Nuro, who had ducked behind the half-wall that absorbed the shots to minor effect. Other shots passed the murderer’s head. Nuro sold a couple head fakes, bobbing up and down before taking a knee and firing down into the audience area, forcing guards to dive for cover.

This gave Devans just enough time.

At a full run now, he launched and drove his shoulder squarely into his ex-friend’s back. Had there been more room, Nuro would have been sent flying from the platform. Instead he slammed into the half-wall, flush against his torso. The impact elicited a grunt of pain and surprise, but not enough to prevent a blind shot that would have removed Devans’ head had he not pulled back in time.

Devans pinned Nuro’s arm with his own. Two brutal knees dislodged the gun and sent it clattering over the dais floor. Devans lunged for it. Just as his fingertips found the plastic composite grip, Nuro slid from behind and kicked it away. Both men went down, both gained their feet. But Devans, smaller and slightly quicker, found a solid attack stance first. He launched an uppercut that found Nuro’s rising chin and snapped the larger man’s head back with a satisfying groan.

Anyone of normal size would have been knocked out. Instead an answering hook was already on its way. Devans slipped low, and the large fist passed overhead. Devans grabbed a leg. Nuro tried to pull out, but Devans hugged the appendage tightly to his chest, heaved upward and kicked out Nuro’s support leg. On the way down, Nuro hooked his hand to the back of Devans’ neck.

They landed hard, both pressing for advantage. It was a stalemate.

“You know the ancient saying… you’re on the wrong side of history, Ry!” Nuro snarled. “This world is going EFF, even if we have to force our way!”

“Damn terrorist!” Devans returned. “You killed Fres and let the EFF own you!”

They strained for position, twisting, striking, pushing and pulling, seeking avenues of vulnerability. Nuro emerged on his knees on top of Devans, but the wiry ex-captain clamped his legs around the bigger man’s torso, then shoved and twisted and tried to deflect and grasp Nuro’s blows as they rained down. An elbow slammed down repeatedly, and Devans’ head, still not fully healed, exploded with renewed pain and a rising tide of darkness.

Nuro’s other arm was exposed. Devans wrapped it with his own, locking and clenching with everything he had.

Nuro grunted in pain, but responded with another elbow using his free arm.

“Can’t always go for the arm bar, old man!” Nuro said, gasping as Devans’ grip loosened. Nuro glanced upward, then threw himself to the side, reaching.

Devans scrambled to his knees, clinging to consciousness. The plasma gun appeared in Nuro’s hand. Shots from beyond the dais whined overhead. Some hit with a wet, bubbling sound, puckering out superheated sections of floor and rail around them. Shakuri’s voice over the loudspeakers called for Nuro to surrender, but instead the ex-copilot of PS-9 reached overhead and blindly fired two quick shots.