“No hablo Ingles,” implored Diego, stalling.
The soldier paused, if he’d been briefed on the numbers in the cells they were toast. Tala had hoped they would enter the cell to carry out the execution, but clearly weary of the infection onboard, Smith’s party were antsy. They weren’t going to make their dirty work any more personal or humane. They’d shoot where they stood, the time for stalling was at an end.
“Too bad,” replied the talking soldier, his voice a harsh wash of static.
Tala sprang across the cell, grasping the thin barrel of the gun and deflecting it as the weapon discharged. Tor barely flinched as the bullet nicked the deck in front of him, leaving a little dark scar that pointed to a dent in the hardened veneer where the slug came to rest. Tala felt the vibration shock benumb her hand to the wrist, but had little time to think about it. Still grasping the barrel, she pushed hard and yanked back.
The gun was almost pulled from the stunned soldiers hands as he was forced against the bars of the cell. Tala’s free hand, sensation intact, closed around the throat, trying to choke off the windpipe through the oversized and loose PVC fabric.
Her face was pressed against the view plate of the soldier, a thin Perspex visor all that separated them. He was older, perhaps a retired combat veteran who’d chosen private military contracts over a desk job. Institutionalized perhaps, or greedy. Bushy, salt and pepper eyebrows provided a canopy over widening and shocked eyes.
Desperately, Tala tried to pinch off the struggling soldiers trachea. In his efforts to pull away from her grasp, the soldier had pinned his compatriot against the opposite cell with his oxygen cylinder. Tala needed to get the gun before the second soldier could mobilize. Again, she tried to pull the weapon from his weakened grip. She could feel her purchase on his throat loosening.
If she let go of either, they would all be dead.
Then Katja and Diego were beside her. Lithely, Katja disappeared behind her, twisting the air feed hose closed through the fabric of the hazmat suit while Diego tried to peel away the soldiers hands.
Another shot rang out as the second soldier tried to fire at Katja. Compromised by their position, the bullet ricocheted harmlessly against one of the cell bars. Still, Tala knew Katja was now in danger and that wouldn’t do. Initially inert with fear, Katja and Diego had seen the gambit begin to fail and intervened. It didn’t matter, Tala was not in the habit of putting people she cared about in danger.
With Katja slowly occluding the soldiers air supply mechanically and Diego holding the 9mm, Tala stepped back and wound up a wild cross. As she brought her fist back to her chin, she could see the realization dawn upon the oxygen deprived soldier. Tala transferred her weight forward into her lead foot as her hips and torso rotated. Her fist whistled between the bars of the cell, impacting the Perspex shield with such force it cracked. The shield was rammed into the soldiers breathing mask, in turn smashing his nose. Blood and sweat smeared the fractured face shield. The soldier dropped to the deck and Diego fell away with the gun.
The second soldier was freed. Katja yelped and pulled away as the mercenary stumbled over the dazed form of her companion – loosing two wild shots, aware she was now in a hostile situation.
Tala snatched away the 9mm from Diego who’d simply stared at the weapon, mouth agape. Dropping to her knee, Tala popped three controlled shots through the bars before the soldier regained her footing. Two clipped the bars and ricocheted away, the third pierced the hood of the hazmat suit. The soldier dropped to her knees, eyes sightless, then her body folded up on itself. She wouldn’t move again.
Quickly appraising the bodies strewn within arms reach, neither soldier appeared to have the cell key on their person. It was probably for the best, had Dr. Smith sought out the appropriate key she would have realized the other was absent. Still, it would have made escape quieter. Seven rounds had already been fired, further rounds would be required to breach the cell lock. Soon the teams lollygagging would be noted, especially after so many extraneous shots.
No matter, there was no choice. Tala ushered Diego behind her, and laid a semi automatic burst into the cell lock at point blank range. The first burst did little but peel back the metal surrounding the keyhole and shower Tala with ballistic slivers of shrapnel and debris.
Quickly she brushed away the tiny burning hunks of metal and swore. The second burst sufficiently deranged the internal locking mechanism to free the door; pins and tumbler propelled across the narrow cellblock passageway. Tala forced the door open, the motionless forms of the soldiers formed a plastic and flesh wedge.
Then she froze, Tala was improvising and encountering unaccounted hurdles with every step. They couldn’t all leave the way Hernandez had, the hydraulic antechamber was sealed and the Captain was in no position to navigate the vents. Neither was Katja.
“Shit, now what?”
Jamal peered through the bars of his cell. “If this place is anything like the jails in Russia, those guards will have an electromagnetic release for the doors. Hell, they must have. There’s no keypad on this side.”
The first soldier was still breathing, grating breaths could be heard through his Hazmat suit and BA set. Tala placed a flat palm over his throat and began patting him down. If he awoke there would be no time for mercy.
“Katja, check the other one. It’ll be some kind of key fob. Diego, get the Captain up. We need to move now.”
Katja nervously stepped over the male soldier and blanched at the sight of the dead female, the body unnaturally bent, anchored to the deck by her heavy oxygen cylinder. Tala could see the second soldier had been young, dark skinned. Israeli perhaps, pretty in a conventional sort of way, maybe ex-IDF just out of mandatory service. The bullet had entered through her temple, she looked at peace, eyes closed.
Better than what the crew of Murmansk-13 had received, better than the crew of the DSMV Riyadh too. Still it was another life extinguished by her hand. Ilya had been irrefutably evil, Tala would never feel remorse for her actions against him, but she could have incapacitated the soldier non-lethally. She would still have been armed though, Katja would still have been in danger. They were the enemy, they would have killed you knowing the secrecy surrounding the station granted them immunity.
Tala snapped from her reverie as she found a hard, teardrop shaped fob clipped at the waist of the man. “I think I found it.”
Knowing the outer PVC fabric of the hazmat suit would be near impossible to puncture through conventional means, and knowing that the duo would soon be checked upon, Tala stood up and discharged a single round through the lose fabric. Katja loosed a surprised yelp.
She’d fired to avoid the soldier inside, although Tala cared little if he was hit by the ricochet. She reminded herself, they’d been the enemy.
As it happened, the shot or shrapnel had nicked the flesh eliciting a thin ribbon of blood. Molten gunpowder residue singed little fissures around the bullet hole where Tala tore away the suit.
The fob was an unremarkable lump of grey plastic. Tala ripped it from the soldiers belt loop and whirled around. Jamal was gazing at the scene with inscrutable eyes.
“You better be going,” Jamal said, his voice recovering its warm, bass command.
“You could come with us,” Katja spoke hopefully from behind Tala. She was holding the female soldiers 9mm, the weapon looked big and alien in her delicate hands.
Jamal shook his head, slowly. “You’re wasting time. I’d only slow you down. And…” he gestured to Oleg. “Somebody has to be here.”
Oleg displayed little sign of life, slumped against the far bulkhead of the cell. He appeared beyond death and skeletonised. But death would allow him no rest. Tala couldn’t understand why Jamal allowed the infantryman to suffer, his demise was inevitable yet Jamal sought to preserve the last minutes of life. She wasn’t sure if it was an act of self indulgence or some deep seated theological belief. Perhaps it was guilt. Either way Jamal seemed hell bent on punishing himself for Oleg’s fate.