Totaled

Totaled: Part 5

A hand grabbed Dolridge by the shoulder—Caspar—and pushed him back through the doorway. She rolled through after him.

"Put it back," she croaked, pointing at the broken console. No use. Her voice was an impotent hiss.

Instead, she grabbed the circuit board from him and lurched up to the console. He watched in bewilderment as she jammed it back into its slot. The doors closed again, but not before the blaster outside cut through the porthole. All the gas on the bridge rushed out, and the gas in the corridor was sucked along behind it. Fresh air followed from the vents, and when the door finally sealed, Dolridge and Caspar had air to breathe.

They sat, their backs to the door, gasping in lungfulls of clean oxygen. Dolridge struggled to his feet, balancing against the wall. Stars swam in his eyes.

"Marx," he groaned into his com. "Come in. Marx? You there?"

A crackle of static, then nothing. Dolridge sighed heavily.

Caspar was fiddling with her comp device. "Hull breaches all over the ship, Sir. Looks like engineering has been spaced... lower decks are shot... and—" She paused, looking like she might vomit, and cursed.

"Well?" he asked.

"The bunkhouses, Sir. They're gone." She held up the device and he scanned the screen. Sure enough, the crew quarters had been breached and destroyed. A lifeforce scan revealed no survivors in the lower decks. Neither was anyone alive on the bridge, which was now open to the void.

She took the device back. "I'll have the comp run a systems-wide diagnostic. Could this be a security malfunction, Sir? Ship thinking she's cleaning house?"

Dolridge shook his head, jaw clenched. "I know exactly what this is. If you're the praying sort, Caspar, set your spiritual affairs in order. Neither of us are leaving this ship alive."

"Sir?"

It had been over a decade since he'd given up spying and joined a starship's crew. But he still remembered his last mission, what he'd seen. A prototype squadron of space marine drones, developed on Old Earth and up for bid to anyone in the inner worlds. Send them out into space and they could home in on any target for reconnaissance or an attack, with no loss of life. The real treat was their AI, a massive upgrade to previous combat drones, which had substantial trouble operating in the realities of the void.

"Drones," he grunted. "From Old Earth. Or whoever owns them now. Maybe Earth forces. Or the Sons. Hard to say. Doesn't matter."

"How do you know, Sir?"

"It's their MO. Latching onto a ship's hull and cutting through with prolonged blasting rounds. Once they're in, all the atmo jettisons out into space." Eventually the ship would be left an empty husk of space junk. An eternal graveyard.

Caspar's device beeped. "Sir, a lifeform in the Captain's cabin! Gray must be alive!"

Dolridge grunted and pushed off from the wall. His vision swam and he fall back against it. Caspar rose to her feet, eyes still glued to her device screen.

"I'm going to go check on him. You alright here, Sir?"

"Of all the lousy times you've seen me propped up against a wall, barely able to walk in a straight line, this is the time you're just going to leave me here?"

She frowned and made to help him stand up straight, but he waved her off.

"No, no. Go. I'm kidding. Anyway, it doesn't matter, gunner. We're all three of us going to die today."

"I'm not ready to believe that, Sir." Her voice had grown quiet again.

"It doesn't matter what you believe. Sometimes death just sneaks up and takes what it wants."

She stepped back from him. "With all due respect, Sir, I don't really care what you think right now. Look, if you have intel, and you want to help me, then let's help each other and survive. But if your plan to is wait here until those things cut through that door and pull us out to die in the void, then you might as well just go open the door for them. Me? I'm going to breathe until I can't anymore."

She turned and sped toward Gray's chamber. Dolridge watched, grimacing. Had he ever had such a drive to survive? Maybe she was right about him. Maybe, after she was safely inside with the door shut, he should just go back onto the breached bridge and be done with it. How long would it take to die in the void, anyway? He pursed his lips and started going down the checklist of what would kill him if he got shot out into open space.

But then death would win, a voice seemed to say.

He'll win in the end anyway, he thought back.

He'll claim your body. Not your spirit.

Death claimed my spirit long ago, he thought, coldly.

So claim it back.

Talking to himself? He really was advancing quickly into his dotage.

Anyway, what harm would it do if he chose to just die? What great scar would he leave behind? None. No one would mourn him. No one would remember him as he lived now. Everyone he had cared for had already grieved his loss, first when he had retired from spying for the Kuiper Blade, second when he had retired into his booze after Sarah's death.

And Sarah. She wouldn't judge him too harshly, would she? On the other side? Surely she would understand. She must have seen his suffering. Must have missed him all this time. Maybe she would even laugh with him about it all, be glad that he had finally given up and taken the easy way out. They could be together. They could be a family again.

Down the hall, Caspar had reached the Captain's quarters. She swiped at the console and the doors slid open. Dolridge turned away, his eyes on the door to the bridge.

He heard blaster fire.

Followed by the dull thud of a body.