“What?” Robin said. She was groggy.
“Come on, Robin.” Creek sat her up. Robin had been sleeping in her sweats; they would have to do. Creek switched on the light and opened the wardrobe to get out their shoes and also pants for himself. “Wake up, Robin. Wake up. We have to get moving.”
“What’s going on?” she said, still not entirely awake.
“Nidu marines are on board,” Creek said, slipping on his pants. “They’re coming for you. Once they have you, they’re probably going to destroy the ship. We have to get moving and hide from them. Come on, Robin. No time to talk. We have to move.” Pants on, Creek slipped his shoes over bare feet and then helped Robin with hers. She stood up.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she said.
“They want you alive,” Creek said. “No matter what, you’re going to be fine for now. It’s the rest of us who have to worry. Are you ready?” Robin nodded. Creek went to their cabin door and opened it a crack.
The hallway was clear in both directions. Creek glanced at the deck plan attached to the door. They were on one of the smaller, lower decks. There were stairwells at each end of the deck. An elevator lay recessed from the hallway near the center of the deck. Their own cabin lay near the fore of the deck, close to one of the stairwells.
“I’m going to call the elevator,” Creek said to Robin. “Stay here until I call you. Then run like hell.”
“We’re taking the elevator?” Robin said, slightly incredulous.
“They’ll be taking the stairs,” Creek said. “There’s probably a lot of them and they’re probably carrying a lot of stuff. They won’t fit in elevators. Here I go.” He slipped out the door, padded quickly to the elevator, and pressed the “up” button. Shuttlebays were two decks below; it was the logical place for the Nidu to enter the ship. Up was better.
Cruise liner elevators are designed for comfort, not speed, and to move large numbers of passengers bloated by cruise buffets. It took its sweet time dropping down from the Galaxy Deck.
After nearly a minute, the elevator doors opened. Creek yelled at Robin to run as he heard the clunk of the stairwell door handle being depressed. Robin heard it too and did not need further encouragement to run like hell. Creek let go of the elevator door just before Robin reached it and yanked her in to keep her from resetting the doors. He jammed the button for the Promenade Deck, the highest passenger-accessible deck on the ship. The elevator started moving.
“Do you think they saw us get in the elevator?” Robin asked.
From below them they could hear pounding.
“Yeah,” said Creek.
“What are we going to do now?” Robin said.
“I’m thinking,” Creek said. The Neverland had five full decks of passenger cabins plus four full and partial decks primarily for shops and entertainment; crew and cargo decks and shuttlebays were below passenger decks. The entertainment decks were filled with places to hide, but it was early morning ship time; doors would be closed and locked. Passenger decks offered places to hide if they could convince someone to let them into their cabin. But once in they were likely to be trapped; a room-to-room search would take time but eventually they would be found. No matter where they went on the ship it was just a matter of time before they were tracked and caught.
“We need to get off the ship,” Creek said.
“Harry,” Robin said, and pointed to the elevator’s button panel. “Look.”
In decks above and below them, elevator buttons were flashing on.
“Shit, they’re moving fast,” Creek said. They were about to pass two deck, the second deck of cabins; Creek jabbed at the button for the deck.
“Stand away from the door, Robin,” Creek said, pushed her gently against the wall next to the elevator, and popped out the “hold” button for the elevator. Then he took off his shirt and wadded it tightly.
“What are you doing?” Robin asked.
“Quiet,” Creek said, stepped slightly to the side, crouched, and threw his shirt through the crack in the door as soon as it slid open.
The two Nidu marines on the other side of the elevator door had their weapons raised and were prepared to handle any human that might be in the elevator, but weren’t prepared for a flappy blue object arcing toward them at head height. The nearest Nidu let out a hiss and fired at the shirt in a panic, stitching bullets in an upward pattern into the back wall and ceiling of the elevator and into the deck ceiling. The kickback of uncontrolled fire pushed the marine back into his teammate, who snarled at the first marine in the Nidu language and attempted to push him away.
Creek followed quickly behind the thrown shirt and from a crouched position launched himself at the first marine, knocking the already unbalanced Nidu to the floor. The second marine tried to raise his weapon; Creek stepped inside the length of the rifle, grabbed it with his left hand near the end of the barrel to deflect its path, and crooked his right arm to connect his elbow with the Nidu’s extraordinarily sensitive snout. The Nidu marine grunted in pain and staggered back; Creek grabbed him by his unifrom with his left hand and reeled him back in to take another shot with the elbow. The Nidu marine dropped his weapon; Creek pushed the marine away and hefted the rifle.
Nidu rifles are networked and keyed to the individual Nidu to which they are assigned; only that Nidu can fire the weapon and only then with the permission of his superior officer. Creek had no hope of shooting either Nidu marine with it.
He didn’t try. He swung the rifle around and stuffed the stock into the face of the first Nidu marine, who was trying to rise and level his own rifle at Creek. The marine went down a second time. Creek turned and swung the rifle like a bat at the other marine; it connected with the marine’s helmet with a muffled, hollow gong, further disorienting the Nidu. Then Creek returned his attention to the first marine. He alternated between the two for the next minute until he was reasonably sure both were dead.
The door to the cabin Creek was standing in front of opened and a man in his underwear poked out his head.
“You really want to stay in your cabin,” Creek said to him. The man took another look at the half-naked Creek standing over the bodies of two dead Nidu, a blood-stained rifle in his hand, and was inclined to agree. He shut the door with a quick little slam. Creek dropped the rifle and began searching the bodies for objects he could use. He called to Robin.
“Oh my God,” Robin said, looking at the Nidu marines.
“Take this,” Creek said, and handed Robin one of the marines’ nearly foot-long combat knife. He took the other as well as two marble-sized objects he recognized as Nidu flash grenades.
“Are you expecting me to use this?” Robin asked.
“Hopefully not,” Creek said. “But if it comes to that, I hope you’ll think about it. They need to take you alive. That’s going to make them want to not hurt you. That’s to your advantage.” He stood up and retrieved his shirt, which now had multiple holes in it, and put it on. “Come on,” he said. “They’ll have figured out the elevator’s stopped by now. We need to move.”
“Where are we going to go?” Robin asked.
“Down,” Creek said, and started walking toward the nearest stairwell. They would be watching the elevators now, which made the stairs a better bet. “Down to the shuttlebay. We need to get off the ship.”
“That’s nuts, Harry,” Robin said, following behind. “These guys came from the shuttlebay. We’ll walk right into them.”
“We’ve got them spread out on several decks,” Creek said. “They’re looking for us to hide. They’re not expecting us to go to the shuttlebay. There’s probably their pilot and one or maybe two of the marines there.” When he said it in a rush like that, Creek almost believed it himself.
“Harry—” Robin said, then stopped. The stairwell door was opening.
“Get down,” Creek said. “Look the other way.” Robin sank to the floor. Creek fingered one of the grenades, feeling for the slight ridge that indicated where he needed
to press to trigger the timer. Creek recalled that at Pajmhi, Nidu grenades had about a three-second timer. He pressed hard on the grenade, felt a click, counted a long one one thousand, and then flung it as the stairway door was kicked open from the other side, looking away as soon as he tossed it.
The grenade detonated waist-high about eighteen inches in front of the first Nidu, who dropped his weapon and grabbed his eyes and screamed in pain. The second Nidu directly behind the first received nearly the same amount of searing light; he staggered backward and dropped a hand to the stair railing to steady himself, and in the process activated the explosive grenade he had nestled in his palm. Behind these two a second pair of Nidu marines was ascending the stairwell, just now arriving at the landing. Creek, who had planned to rush the blinded Nidu, saw the grenade as the second Nidu raised his hand. He was too close to the door to retreat; he hit the door instead and pushed it closed as hard as he could.
He almost had it closed when the grenade detonated, blowing the door back open and slamming Creek back against the perpendicular wall. Creek’s head connected solidly with the wall; he spent about six seconds vacillating between the choices of vomiting and passing out before choosing neither and standing up. He touched the back of his head and winced, but his fingers didn’t come away with blood on them. Small blessings.
“You okay?” he asked Robin.
“What just happened?” Robin asked.
“Grenade,” Creek said. “Someone else’s. Come on. Other stairwell. This one’s messy and loud, and that’s going to bring company.” Robin got up and started running to the other side of the deck; Creek paced somewhat unsteadily behind.
Robin and Creek got down two decks on the stairwell when they heard heavy steps coming up from one of the lower decks—two sets. Creek grabbed Robin and as quietly as possible opened the door to the nearest deck. Creek had Robin step away from the door; he crouched and put an ear up to it. On the other side he could hear the footsteps get louder as they approached, a quick snippet of Nidu speech, and then footsteps receding up the staircase.
“Hiroki?” Creek heard behind him. He turned to find Ned Leff, in a bathrobe.
“Jesus, Ned,” Creek said. “Get back to your room.”
“What the hell is going on?” Leff said. “People are hearing gunfire and explosions, and about three minutes ago two Nidu stomped down the hall with guns. I saw them through the peephole.”
“Nidu marines have boarded the ship. They’re looking for someone,” Creek said.
“Who?” Leff said.
“Me,” Robin said.
Leff gazed at her for a moment. “Why?” he said, finally.
“Ned,” Creek said, not unkindly. “Get back to your room. It’s not safe.”
“What are you going to do?” Leff asked.
“Get off the ship,” Creek said. “If we stay, they’ll find us. And the communications are jammed. If I can get to the surface, I might be able to use my comm and get word out what’s going on.”
“There’s a communication center on the Plain of Pajmhi,” Leff said. “Right where we’re going to have our ceremony. We were going to use it to send back a live feed. That’s got a direct connection to the UNE network. You could use that. And I know the shuttles are already programmed to fly there since I gave the information to the shuttle coordinator myself. You wouldn’t even need a pilot. You could just cycle the launch and arrival program.”
“That sounds good,” Creek said. “Thanks, Ned. Now get back to your room.”
“Hold on,” Leff said. “Don’t leave yet.” He paced quickly to a door a third of the way down the deck and re-emerged almost immediately carrying an object in his hand. “Here,” he said, handing it to Creek.
“A handgun,” Creek said, setting down the Nidu knife and taking the gun.
“An M1911 Colt .45,” Leff said. “Or a replica, anyway. Standard issue handgun for U.S. officers for most of the twentieth century. I wear it with my dress uniform. Call it an affectation. But the point is, it works. And I just loaded it: seven bullets in the magazine, one in the chamber. Semi-automatic, just point and shoot. I think you need it more than I do.”
“Thank you, Ned,” Creek said. “Now, please. Get back to your room.” Leff smiled and hurried to his cabin.
“Ready?” Creek said to Robin.
“No,” Robin said.
“Great,” Creek said. “Here we go.” He opened the door, checked for company, then held the door to let Robin hustle through.
Robin had just slipped through the stairwell door of the shuttlebay and Creek was sneaking through the door when Creek’s comm signal fired up; its mellow ping carried surprisingly far in the near-empty bay. Creek bit his cheek and fumbled to answer the communicator, dropping the Colt .45 as he did so. It was this clatter that the pilot of the Nidu shuttle, standing bored outside his craft, heard and headed toward, rifle hefted for action.
“Oh, shit,” Robin whispered. The two of them were caught in the open; shuttlebays were kept bare as possible to avoid damage to shuttlecraft if the bay doors ever buckled and explosive decompression followed.
The Nidu pilot spotted them and headed toward them, bellowing in Nidu as he did so and jerking his rifle as if to say, Put your hands up. Creek reached into his pants pocket and found the second flash grenade; he activated it and then raised his hands, launching the grenade directly above his head like a miniature shot put, and yelling at Robin to close her eyes as he did the same. Creek could feel the hair on his head crisp as the grenade flared into brilliant light; he knew that every exposed surface on his body had just experienced a very bad sunburn. The Nidu pilot gurgled and grabbed his eyes; Creek opened his, lunged for the Colt .45, and prayed that Leff actually had put a bullet in the chamber.
He had.
“Christ,” Creek said to whomever was on the other end of the communicator. “You just about got us killed.”
“Creek,” Captain Lehane said, not bothering with an apology. “Ned Leff just told me you’re planning to take a shuttle to the surface.”
“Yeah,” Creek said.
“Don’t,” Lehane said. “That Nidu gunship will track you and blast you before you get ten klicks out.”
“We can’t stay on the ship,” Creek said.
“No you can’t,” Lehane agreed. “But I want you to use a lifepod instead.”
“Why?” Creek said.
“We have dozens on the ship,” Lehane said. “If I launch them all when you launch, the Nidu will have to track them. You’ll have a better chance of making it to the surface.”
“That leaves you with no lifepods for anyone else,” Creek said.
“It’s a risk,” Lehane said. “But a calculated one. Each lifepod has its own beacon that connects to the nearest CC network. If we launch the lifepods, some of them will get past the jamming radius and start signaling. Then it becomes harder for the Nidu to pretend we didn’t arrive.”
“It’s a gamble, Captain,” Creek said.
“It’s better odds than what we have now,” Lehane said.
“Where do we go?” Creek said.
“I want you to use the lifepods on the Promenade Deck,” Lehane said.
“Give me a fucking break!” Creek said. Robin, who could hear only Creek’s side of the conversation, looked over in shock. “That’s ten decks up. We nearly got killed three times getting down here. By now they’re watching the stairs and elevators both.”
“If you use the lifepods on the Promenade Deck, I’ll be able to give the Nidu an extra surprise,” Lehane said.
“Your surprise won’t do us any good if we’re dead,” Creek said.
“There’s a service elevator in the shuttlebay, along the aft wall,” Lehane said. “I’ve unlocked it for you. It can take you up to Promenade Deck into the crew corridors. I can’t guarantee they won’t be waiting for you, but it seems less likely that they would. I’ve just turned on the emergency lighting on the Promenade Deck. Follow the nearest lit path to a life
pod. Once you’re in a pod I’ll program it to land at the Pajmhi communication center. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” Creek said.
“Good luck, Creek,” Lehane said. Creek closed the communicator, then opened it again and turned the notification signal to “vibrate.” No need for another unpleasant surprise.
Creek pointed to the elevator in question. “Our next stop,” he said to Robin.
“I thought we were going to take a shuttle,” Robin said. “Now we’re going back up?”
“The captain thinks we’ll be safer using a lifepod. He’s going to launch them all and make it hard for them to find us,” Creek said.
“We’re already here,” Robin said. “Why don’t we take the Nidu shuttle?”
“Do you read Nidu?” Creek said. “Because I don’t. Come on, Robin. We’re almost done. We can do this one last thing.”
“They’re in the elevator,” First Mate Aidan Picks told Lehane.
“Good,” Lehane said, and turned his attention back to the small bank of monitors in front of him, in which he could see what remained of the Nidu marines pacing through the various decks of the ship. There had been 20 of them, not including their shuttle pilot, when they arrived. Through the monitor banks, Lehane and his bridge crew—all the principals on station because they had come out of n-space—had watched as Creek dispatched six of them; Lehane had heard him shoot the pilot over the communicator. Lehane felt very bad about exposing Creek like that, but it couldn’t have been avoided. He needed Creek to get to the lifepods so he could take care of the other marines.
Lehane knew about Creek and Robin Baker since shortly after Ned Leff had approached him about finding a dress uniform for Creek. Leff was clearly excited about having a “survivor of the 6th” take part in the ceremony; Lehane was skeptical. There weren’t enough survivors of the 6th for one of them to randomly pop up under the radar, and certainly not a clearly non-Asian man with a last name of Toshima.
Lehane met with “Toshima” shortly thereafter and tossed the name of a fictional colonel at him to see if he would bite; he didn’t. After Toshima left him, Lehane had his security chief Matt Jensen pull up a data feed from the UNE network to find out what he could about the 6th. No Hiroki Toshima. But there was a picture of a Private First Class H. Harris Creek, thinner and younger but unmistakably the same man Lehane had just seen. An actual survivor of the 6th, yes. And a recipient of the Distingushed Service Cross. Just not under the name he was using now.