Graham Paul - The Final Battle

Kallewi said nothing for a moment. “Don’t be,” she said finally. “I won’t say his death has been easy to bear. It hasn’t, but Janos was his own man, and he made his own decisions. And he died doing his duty the best way he could, and I won’t stand here and tell you or anyone else that he was wrong about that. But I would like to know more of what happened. It would help me and his father.”

“Of course.”

“Tonight at 20:00 if that’s okay.”

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” Michael said with a crooked smile.

“Not sure about that.”

Michael stared at the woman. What on earth does she mean by that? he asked himself.

Kallewi took a deep breath before continuing. “Now, back to business,” she said. “There’ll be a full briefing for you at 09:00 tomorrow morning on the execution protocol-” Michael flinched; he couldn’t help himself. “-and your parents will be arriving at 12:00. You can see them for as long and as often as you wish, though their last visit will have to finish no later than 02:00 on the day.”

Six hours , Michael thought. I will be utterly alone for the last six hours of my life .

“That’s all for now,” Kallewi went on. “Any questions?”

“None worth asking.”

“Okay. I will see you later.”

“Sir.”

“Sit,” Kallewi said, waving Michael into a seat across a small metal table from her. “Can I call you Michael?” she went on once his escort had left.

“Of course, sir,” Michael replied. He was both embarrassed and surprised by the question. In his experience, colonels, even prison service colonels, weren’t on first-name terms with junior officers.

“Bear with me a second,” Kallewi said. She placed a small silver cube on the table.

Michael stared at the cube to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He wasn’t. He was looking at a near-field jammer; there would be no digital record of anything said or done in this room. Michael did not know much about prison service regulations, but he would have bet what little was left of his life that the device had no business inside Farrisport. “Colonel, forgive me,” he said, “but what’s going on? I’m pretty sure this thing-” He pointed at the cube. “-is not allowed in here.”

“You’d be right.”

“So what’s happening? Please, I need to know. I can’t … I can’t …” Michael had to stop to recover his self-control. “This might surprise you,” he went on, “but I’ve had it. I just want this to be over.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, so let me get to the point.”

“Fire away.”

Friday, December 12, 2403, UD

Farrisport Island Prison

“It’s time.”

Michael got to his feet. “I’m ready,” he said. It was a complete and utter lie. Only the last dregs of courage and self-control allowed him to keep a body torn by fear under control.

Two guards stepped forward. Hands locked onto his arms. They escorted him down a succession of short corridors. Kallewi and a posse of observers fell in behind, his lawyer too. Erica Malvern’s eyes were brimful of tears. Michael was led into a room. Its walls were seamless sheets of blindingly white plasteel, its only furniture a single chair bolted to the floor, its back, arms, and legs fitted with broad plasfiber restraints.

Michael’s heart hammered at the walls of his chest. He was eased forward, turned, and pushed gently down into the chair. The guards worked fast to secure the restraints. The awful, unstoppable inevitability of the process threatened to break him apart. With all that remained of his self-control, he made himself stay still.

“Prisoner is secure, sir,” one of the guards said, moving back.

Colonel Kallewi stepped forward to stand right in front of Michael, a single sheet of paper in her left hand. She leaned forward. “Hang in there, spacer,” she whispered.

Michael said nothing. He was too terrified to speak, even now unable to believe what was about to happen to him.

Kallewi cleared her throat before speaking. “Michael Wallace Helfort. Your final appeal for clemency having been denied by the president of the Federated Worlds in presidential order J-557, a physical copy of which document I have witnessed in person and further confirmed by direct comm with the president herself …”

Michael turned his mind inward. His neuronics cycled through his favorite holopix of Anna, pictures of the best times in his life, pictures rich in hope and happiness. But all of a sudden, it was too much, too painful, and Michael could not take any more. He shut his neuronics down. He opened his eyes and waited for Colonel Kallewi to finish.

“… and now, by the authority vested in me as the superintendent of Farrisport Island Prison, sentence of death will be carried out.” Kallewi stepped back. “Proceed,” she said.

A guard-she looked very young and very nervous-wheeled a small trolley to where Michael sat. On it rested a plasfiber cylinder from which two corrugated hoses led to a face mask. With well-rehearsed efficiency, the guard placed the face mask over Michael’s face, tightening the straps behind his head to form an airtight seal.

“Face mask is secure, sir,” the woman said.

“Confirm system is nominal.”

The guard’s fingers flickered across a small touchpad set below a status screen. “System is nominal.”

“Close the vent. Set the system to recirculate.”

“Vent closed. System set to recirculate. Carbon dioxide scrubber is active, sir.”

“Sentence will now be carried out,” Kallewi said.

This is it , Michael thought, knowing with each inhalation that he was one step closer to death as his body burned the oxygen in the system until too little remained to sustain life. It was strange. He felt disconnected from what was going on. As if it were already over. As if he were …

Quietly and with no fuss, the end came, and Michael slipped away into unconsciousness, falling down into the darkness, down to where death awaited.

Why could he not feel anything? Why was did the darkness feel so thick? Why was the silence so absolute?

Was this what it was like to be dead? He was dead, so it had to be.

None of it made any sense, so he lay unmoving until a soft voice reached down to where he drifted. It called him back up from the infinite blackness that cradled his being, urging him to come back to the light. He did not want to go, but the voice was insistent; it nagged at him until he had to leave the warmth and security of the darkness. He drifted up toward a faint point of light. It strengthened as he rose; its brilliance grew and grew until it pushed the darkness aside, and then a blinding whiteness enveloped him, a whiteness so bright that he had to screw his eyes shut against the glare. His head filled with sudden stabbing agony, his heart thrashed at his chest, nausea roiled his stomach.

“Can you hear me?” a voice asked.

He wanted to answer, but his mouth was too dry, his throat too constricted to let the words come. With an effort, he drove air from his lungs and past his lips. “Yes,” he croaked.

“Good,” the voice said. “You had us worried. That damn drug is dangerous. We’re transfusing more nanobots to mop up the last of the toxins in your system. I’m afraid you’ll feel like shit until they’re gone, but it won’t be long, so hang in there.”

“Head hurts,” he mumbled. The pain was terrifying in its intensity; it radiated out from behind his forehead in swirling waves of red-hot agony, each more powerful than the last.

“How bad?”

“Bad, real bad.”

“Bloody cataleptic drugs,” the voice said. “Hold on … okay, I’ve upped your painkillers.”