“And you took their suits?” Hernandez wasn’t quite sure why he sounded incredulous or surprised.
The big man shrugged. “They don’t need them anymore, we do.”
Jovan Peralta rested supine, his lips had begun to pull back with decay. He’d been shot in the forehead, but there was only a fine dribble of old viscous blood from the wound. There was also a savage gash in his throat that appeared older. The injuries didn’t correlate unless he’d died twice, the poor bastard having returned as one of those abominations.
Hernandez wondered if they were still alive, any of them. He was thought of as volatile and unpredictable, had read so much in his last end of voyage appraisal. But now he couldn’t summon the volatility he needed; the rage to fight back. His crew was all but gone, Peralta’s half lidded, slack faced gaze was the embodiment of that loss. He didn’t want to see Tala like this. Or any of them. He could feel himself draining away, becoming the empty vessel that returned home, friendless and lost.
“Who’s the other guy?” Hernandez asked, not really caring.
The third figure lay prostrate in a pool of blood close to Peralta. He wore an escape EVA set. The body was still fresh, the blood had thickened but hadn’t dried. He’d been stabbed in the back of the neck, probably unawares and had struggled to the last. The wound was small and matched the blood caked shank Hernandez had been threatened with earlier.
The bald man stared at the corpse with eyes as dead as the bodies at his feet. “There were only two EVA suits.”
Hernandez hadn’t really had time to question the origins of his captors, and he doubted they would answer any of his queries. They weren’t infected and weren’t members of Dr. Smith’s organization, which meant they were outliers like Jamal, Oleg and Katja. Survivors who’d eked out an existence within the corrupted confides of Murmansk-13, working together.
In his brief time with Jamal he’d seen the best brought out by the station. Now Hernandez realized that like the disease, the decay of the station was contagious. That, or he was hostage to some extremely ruthless pendejos. Neither option afflicted his nihilistic apathy. They’d killed a fellow survivor and Hernandez was a stranger, albeit one they seemed to need.
“Put on the suit,” the bald man pointed at the escape unit with the shank.
Hernandez eyed the suit like a bad prom dress. “It’s covered in blood.” He knelt beside the body, difficult to balance with his hands behind his back and studied the stab wound in the man’s neck. The flesh had keyholed as he’d struggled or convulsed. “Did you puncture the suit, ain’t no fucking use to anyone if you shanked it up.”
The big man leered at Hernandez with disdain, he brought the improvised weapon to bare and wagged it in the air at arm’s length. “I stab once,” he pointed to the back of his neck, “through the spine.”
No denial then. No remorse, either. They’d seen the man’s death as necessary and they were going outside. A sickening realization struck Hernandez. “You want me to take you to my ship, don’t you?”
The big man’s lips curled back in a gruesome, lupine approximation of a smile.
Something had happened to Hernandez, she sensed it deep inside. A visceral knowing of loss forced her starved stomach to clench. So much time had passed since he’d left, now she knew he wouldn’t return. Hernandez was dead or injured, because Tala knew he would never abandon them.
There would be no time to grieve. As she watched Jamal mentally prepare to kill his friend, kill a man who’d risked his life to save theirs, Tala knew all of their time was running out.
And she had no plan. Hernandez had been it. If she chose to mourn anything it would be the hand fate had dealt her. To place Katja on the same trajectory as herself, only to steal away all that potential.
The logical next step would be acceptance. Only the mere thought of accepting this fate left Tala bitter. They’d fought so damn hard, circumvented death so many times. Yet each episode of survival had decanted them into the next, eventually diluting them into the cells. Fish in a barrel. Cornered.
Katja obviously saw the anguish in her expression, herself serene in the final throes; she sidled up to Tala and took her hand. The girls fingers were pale against Tala’s skin. And so very cold. “You don’t think Hernandez is coming back?”
Tala shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed, the single tear that extruded itself through her eyelids was one of frustration, not of sadness for her friend and that made her angrier still.
“You did everything you could,” Katja whispered. Behind her Diego trembled, resigned and fearful. He also sensed that time was ebbing away. By comparison, the Captains expression was little modified, he looked more tired, more dehydrated – but he was already gone.
“It wasn’t enough,” replied Tala. The words wracked with catharsis.
Beyond the cells, the antechamber and the processing desk, Tala heard activity. They all did. Eyes darted to the Perspex hydraulic doors, Diego stood up and took an anxious half-step back.
The stuttering sound of the security entrance door mechanism whined dully into the cellblock.
“Oh, God,” said Diego, breathlessly.
Tala felt Katja’s grip tighten in her hand, could see her jaw quiver. Katja had been safe in the gelid darkness of the morgue, cocooned from the corruption of the station in a senseless void. Of them all, fate had been most cruel to her. If they just left her alone…
But they hadn’t.
The second hydraulic door peeled back, out of sight. No time.
“They’re in hazmat suits,” said Jamal, he leant grimacing from his post beside Oleg. “Two of them.”
A thought occurred to Tala, a plan of sorts, nebulous and extempore in the extreme. There were limitations when wearing hazmat suits, she’d drilled in bio units when working on a vessel carrying volatile organics. It probably wouldn’t work, but the alternative was unpalatable.
“I need you to stand over there,” Tala said addressing Katja, words tumbling from her mouth. She turned to Diego. “You too and fucking drag the Captain if you need to. I need you to draw their eye.”
Tala let Katja’s hand go. Katja looked at Tala bemused, then at Diego. She shrugged, uninformed and in lieu of a superior option they both acquiesced. Before the soldiers could scope her position, Tala backed into the corner of the cell, pressing herself into the bars. There was no cover, if either turned when entering the cellblock the plan would fail.
Tala looked at Jamal, Jamal knew not to look at her. He kept his eyes forward, they were in the antechamber now. “Still two?”
Jamal gave an almost imperceptible nod.
With surprisingly little coaxing, the Captain had joined Katja and Diego just off centre in the cell as the inner door began pulling back. For the briefest second, as the hydraulic mechanism quietened, the cells were silent save for the fluorescing buzz overhead. Tala held her breath.
The two soldiers entered the cellblock, each carrying a submachine gun. As Tala hoped, the hazmat suits limited the field of peripheral vision and the wearers were further hampered by their lose fitting nature. Neither appeared to see her as they wheeled around to face the cell, their hoods orientating half-a-beat slow. Had the corridor been wider they may have taken a step back to fully survey the situation in front of them, but they were not afforded the opportunity.
“Prisoners, step toward the bars.” Over amplified, synthetic American crackled through one of the suit mics.
Tala prayed neither Diego or Katja looked toward her seeking direction. They didn’t. They just held their ground.
The soldier repeated the order, this time raising the gun to counterpoint his authority. It was a Colt 9mm.