Chapter 21: Reunion
Bower could hear the shrieks of the hunters in the next room. He located the bar sticking out of the door to Nadia's room and was tugging at it with all his strength but not matter how hard he tried, he could not get the door to budge. He was worried about Leland and Mahn but he was more worried about getting Nadia out.
He yelled to her through the door, "Are you pulling on your side?"
"Yes."
"It's no good. You're going to have to try and find another way out. Are there any vents or anything like that?"
"No. It's just a charging station for the forklifts. None of the forklifts will start. I already tried."
"Damn."
"Just get to the bridge! I can find my way out," She wanted him to save himself. He could tell by the tone in her voice.
"I'm not leaving you."
"Just go! If you get control of the bridge you can unlock any door you want. You can let me out that way!"
"I'm not leaving you, dammit!"
He heard another shriek. It came from the fore of the ship.
"There are going to be more and more of them coming. Please go. I'm safe in here."
Bower squinted through the steam and saw a large hunter sprinting towards him. He shot it with the anti riot gun, sending it tumbling down, arms and legs flailing. He recharge it as another hunter cleared the downed one and lunged at him. He shot the closer one at nearly pointblank range. He saw a large wound open on its chest where the blast hit and hunter pitched back away from him, collapsing to the floor motionless.
I guess at close range the anti riot gun CAN do some damage.
"Run! Get out of here, Bower!" Nadia was screaming at him.
He reloaded but also drew his axes as the first hunter got to its feet and closed the gap between them. The hunter shrieked at him so Bower roared back, "Come on, mother fucker!"
On a whim, Bower hurled the ax at the hunter as it charged him. The ax turned end over end a few times and buried itself perfectly between the hunter's eyes.
It dropped dead at his feet along with its slain companion.
Bower was incredulous. Not in a million years could he duplicate that perfect execution. "Did you see that shit?" he asked Nadia proudly.
"What? Are you okay?" Her voice was muffled from behind the door.
"Yeah. Sorry. Never mind."
Damn.
Bower went down the dark hallway that the two hunters had just come from. There had to be a way for him to get Nadia's door opened. Down the long passage there was an open doorway and inside was a utility room for the reactor maintenance crew. He opened several tool lockers before he found a tool belt hanging in one of them.
The comm unit on the wall blasted at him, "Corporal Bower! What are you doing with those tools?" It was the false Payton.
"I'm going to open Nadia's door with them. Why don't you just keep playing with yourself and let me get this done?"
"Is that anyway to talk to your commanding officer?" his voice was dripping with sarcasm.
"You're not my CO, you're a piece of shit."
The other man just laughed. "I am your God!"
Bower grabbed the tool belt and started to head back to Nadia, "We're coming to get you, whoever the hell you think you are. You'd better hide while you still can."
"God does not have anything to fear from you Corporal Bower. I control your life."
"We'll see if you're still so confident when we're face to face, you fucking murderer."
"I think you already know what I'm capable of."
"You're the piece of shit that doomed us all. You were too weak and too scared to deal with adversity like a man so you lost control like a coward and murdered the Captain."
"I think you're missing the most important points of this mutiny. I pulled it off alone. Unlike you, I didn't need any help from my friends."
Bower stopped in front of the comm unit. He could hear the annoyance in the other man's voice. Maybe if he kept pressing the right buttons, he could make this clown lose his temper. The idea of annoying Gallo gave him a sense of a certain satisfaction. "Yeah the Captain was a little old man and our Commander was a petite woman." He forced a laugh, "Such a huge trial for you to be able to kill them all by yourself, asshole."
Gallo's voice was cold, "You're still missing the point."
"Yeah? What's your point then?"
"I control your lives."
"Bullshit."
The door to the utility room slid closed and the green open light switched to the red locked light.
Uh oh.
"Your life is in my hands, do you understand that?"
"Go fuck yourself."
"I will kill you, Corporal. You had better start showing me the proper respect or I will kill you."
Bower could hear the frustration in Gallo's voice. He decided to keep pushing, "What? Are you going to trap us and have us fight over some food? I'm really scared, dickhead."
"You son of a bitch! You'd better be scared! You'd better be really fucking scared!" As Gallo screamed at him uncontrollably, Bower decided to try and manually unlock the door.
Bower opened the control plate next to the door and took out a hand held computer unit from the tool belt. He started to run a bypass program by snapping the small gauge alligator clips onto the door leads. He got the computer program started and was typing some commands when he heard the opposite door slide open behind him.
Bower turned and saw a small security robot in the doorway. Its frame resembled a three pronged metallic and smooth cactus with two of the prongs serving as arms, the center prong as the main body, mounted on top of a small triangular frame atop three knobby balloon tires. There were lights, sensors and a few weapons mounted all over the main body.
Oh shit.
In a medium level robotic voice the robot announced, "Target detected. Scan identified, Corporal Rick Bower."
Bower looked around the small utility room. There was only the small area between the tool lockers to take cover.
The robot said, "Awaiting orders."
Bower dropped the hand held computer so it dangled from the door by the leads, ran and jumped on top of one of the work tables turning it over like a barricade and dragged it back towards the lockers, staying as low as he could.
He heard Gallo say, "Eliminate target."
The robot said, "Order confirmed. Eliminating target."
All hell broke loose.
The robot opened fire with a small automatic weapon that was mounted on top of it. The weapon was armed with caseless 10mm light armor piercing rounds that were making Swiss cheese out of Bower's makeshift barricade. The workbench was reinforced wood so after the shredding metal sparks and shrill ricochets penetrated the metal, he was being pelted by a shower of small splinters of wood.
How did I wake up when the reactor needed to be reset with only minutes to spare?
Bower wasn't sure why the thought struck him at the moment, but it plagued him nonetheless. The odds of him waking up after extended cryogenic sleep at the perfect time to reset the reactor were astronomical. Had the ship awaken him, knowing that he was an engineer? Indeed, Bower knew there were safeguards within the Elysium's main computer. Perhaps, the ship was trying to save itself and the crew when Bower had been awakened.
He heard Gallo's voice, "Hold fire."
Robotic voice: "Order confirmed. Holding Fire."
"Hey Bower? You still alive? Are you scared yet?" Gallo laughed.
"Nope, not yet." Bower called out to him. He forced a yawn, "I think I'm about ready for a nap."
"You son of a bitch!" Gallo's voice cracked at the end as he yelled. "Eliminate target!"
"Order confirmed. Eliminating target."
More sparks and more splinters rained down on him as Bower flatten himself as close to the floor as possible. Rounds were ricocheting around him and the small room was filling with acrid smoke from the gunfire. Crawling back to the wall, he saw that there was a gap about a foot wide between the wall and the tool locker. If he could slide the tool locker out a few more inches, he could essential hide behind it. Since he was flat on his stomach, he had very little leverage and the tool lockers were really heavy. His chances of moving the locker even an inch were slim.
"Eliminate target!" Gallo yelled, "Kill that smart-mouthed son of a bitch!"
Leland had just finished running a bypass on the bridge door behind the hollering man. The bridge door slid open unnoticed by Gallo due to his loud screaming at the monitor.
Leland then closed the outside panel and hastily tact welded it shut with a portable welder. The door to the bridge was unlocked and would remain that way. In order to lock it again, Gallo had to break the panel open and rewire the door.
"You son of a bitch! Eliminate target!" Gallo hollered.
Leland leaned against the wall and caught his breath. He'd run a long way.
"Eliminate target!" Gallo bellowed, "Kill that smart-mouthed son of a bitch!"
Leland stepped into the bridge and approached the main control center.
Gallo whirled from the monitor and saw him. "You!"
"Yeah it's me." Leland dropped the welder.
"I should have killed you when I had the chance!"
"Well, as I recall you tried. But you got your ass kicked."
Gallo pounded on the desk with his fists. "Such impudence!"
Leland laughed wholeheartedly, "Impudence? Who says that? I think you're a few cans short of a six pack and you need to die."
"You will see my power, Infidel! You will realize that your lives are in my hands! You pieces of garbage will worship me!"
Leland started towards Gallo and drew the large sword he was carrying, "You're gonna need a better weapon than just your fists if you're going to keep spewing your bullshit at me."
Gallo laughed maniacally.
Bower pulled as hard as he could and the tool locker slid forward about four inches. Maybe it was the mutagen fueling his body again, but he was amazed that he had the strength to move such a heavy object. He also noticed that the locker was top heavy as he crawled behind it.
The robot stopped firing. Was it out of ammunition?
Bower then heard the unmistakable sound of a canister hitting the floor and rolling, tumbling, sliding towards him hissing. Tear gas? Bower took a deep breath and held it. He stood up with his back to the wall. Using the wall as leverage, he pushed as hard as he could on upper portion of the eight foot tall wall locker. It landed on the ruined, overturned table barricade unevenly so that the back of the locker was angled up enough to still provide cover.
White plumes of thick smoke quickly spread. Bower only had seconds to act.
He jumped up on the locker, ran up the makeshift ramp as quickly as his legs would allow, whipping out one of his axes and hurling it as hard as he could at the robot as soon as it came into view. The ax sailed wide, missing it's target by about a foot.
"Target detected. Eliminating target."
Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion: Still rushing towards the robot, he was too far away to engage it. He reached for the second ax on his back, his footfalls drumming on the metal locker like a heartbeat.
Slow motion: The small canister launcher rotated away on the robot and was replaced by the assault weapon again. Bower heard the bolt of the automatic weapon charge, locking the ammunition in place ready to fire.
Getting faster: Bower leaped off the locker to the side of the room away from the robot. Midair, he took aim and threw the ax at the robot with all the strength he could muster.
A little faster: The robot's wheels spun, pivoting the frame to face its enemy. The assault weapon moved towards him, took aim and opened fire. Crack, crack, crack!
Faster: A round zinged past his face and another sliced through his earlobe. Bower's feet made contact with the floor and he charged passed the robot.
Even Faster: The ax tumbled through the air at the robot. It's tires peeled out, trying to avoid the incoming weapon.
Almost normal speed: Bower rolled towards the open doorway from where the robot had appeared, onto his feet and dove through the door into the other room.
Normal speed: The ax struck the main body of the robot sending a shower of sparks and fluids spurted from the ruined machinery. The fluids burst into flames and the robot stopped moving. Bower closed the door and started breathing again, panting and coughing.
Earlier, Leland had climbed up as fast as he could back up to the vent that they had crawled through to get to the reactor room. Retracing their steps, he had then ran all way to the bridge. He knew that if he could catch Gallo alone and kill him, then he could take control of the ship himself. With Mahn lost in the engineering department and Nadia trapped in the recharge area, Leland could use the main computer to help both of them.
First, he needed to kill Gallo.
Gallo laughed maniacally. "You think that your puny sword is going to have any effect on me? This is your last warning. Grovel before me and I'll let you live."
Leland kept approaching. If Gallo thought talking was going to intimidate him, he was gravely mistaken. As he prepared to attack, Leland was confused that the laughing man didn't seem a bit concerned. Even if he was a complete psychotic, Leland figured the other man would be at least a little nervous.
Gallo continued to laugh hysterically, tears streaming down his cheeks. What the hell was so funny?
Leland didn't want to kill someone who was too insane to defend themselves but, he knew it had to be done. When he got within ten feet of Gallo, the laughing man pulled a vicious looking handgun from behind his back and aimed it at him.
Leland froze. "Well fuck me."