Firebrand

"I don't know anything about Bug value systems, but we don't think that way. It's perfectly normal to fear death. Any society that expects you to be so selfless is kind of fucked up in my opinion."

"That's not very diplomatic of you," she muttered.

"Well, it's true," he said with a shrug. "You said you were made to be more autonomous than other Bugs so that you could operate far from the hive, right? You have some human DNA in you. Maybe you're more like us than you think."

She held one of her hands up to her face, flexing her fleshy fingers as though considering that possibility.

"Listen, Ambassador," Harry continued. 'Fuck it, I'm not callin' you that, it's a mouthful. Listen, Holly. I'm a Marine, I deal with death all the time, it's an occupational hazard. Most of the time, it's completely out of my control. If I'm servin' on a carrier and it goes into battle, I don't know what's goin' on. I can't see what's happenin' outside, I don't know if a plasma round is going to burn through the hull and melt me like a popsicle, or if I'm going to be blasted into space and freeze...like another popsicle. Alright, popsicles aside, what I'm sayin' is that I'm helpless in those situations. But the people who are responsible for my safety know what they're doin', they were put there for a reason. I have to trust them to do their jobs so that I can do mine. Worryin' about it doesn't help anyone, doesn't change anythin', it's just wasted energy."

"Although your metaphor is a little clumsy," Holly began, "I believe that you're asking me to have faith in you, and not to worry about what might happen."

"Yeah, that's the gist of it. You worryin' about someone blasting you through the hull isn't productive, you can't do anythin' about it. Let me and BJ worry about that, that's why we're here."

"While I appreciate your advice," she said, crossing her arms again. "It's easier said than done."

"There's a lot of waitin' in the Navy," Harry continued, planting his boots on the glass coffee table and crossing his legs as he leaned back into the cushions. "Shit, these couches are comfy. So much nicer than the bunks in the barracks. Where was I? Oh yeah. When we're waitin' for a drop, we find ways to distract ourselves, take our minds off things."

"How do you do that?" she asked, the drooping antennae on her head perking up a little.

"Games, conversation, movies. Sometimes sex if the opportunity arises."

"Well we're not doing that," she muttered.

"No offense, but I prefer my women with their skeletons on the inside," Harry replied. "I'd suggest a card game, but that fucker over there will cheat," he added, gesturing to Blackjack. The reptile was laid out on the wood flooring again, and he opened one eye lazily, loosing a rumble in response. "Yeah, you do," Harry shot back. "Compulsively."

Holly finally smiled, apparently amused by their interactions.

"How did you two meet?" she asked, "you seem to be good friends."

"We met at integration training," Harry replied. "When recruits arrive on the station, they throw everyone into a co-ed barracks, two people per room. They scramble up all the species so that everyone has an alien roommate, and I got saddled with this guy."

"And that teaches you to cooperate?"

"That's the idea."

"But how did you overcome the communication problems?" Holly asked, her antennae twitching in a way that might indicate curiosity. "It was my understanding that the Krell cannot speak without the assistance of a translator?"

"They can't speak English, no, but there are other ways to communicate. Gestures, body language, context. You won't have a deep conversation about philosophy with a Krell, but you can get the gist of what he's tryin' to say."

"Can I...touch him?" Holly asked hesitantly.

"What, you want to pet him? Sure, he won't mind."

She slid off the couch and walked around the far side of the coffee table, moving over to where Blackjack was stretched out. He opened a yellow eye to watch her, but he didn't react. Holly was a foot shorter than the average person, and so the Krell probably looked even larger to her. He was about sixteen feet long, and his armored back rose high enough off the floor that it was at chest-height to her. She reached out with one of her four hands, hesitating for a moment before running her fingers across some of his bony scutes.

"He's so rough," she said, tracing the contours of his layered scales. She withdrew her hand abruptly, skipping back a few steps as Blackjack emitted a low, resonating rumble. He rolled over onto his back with a thud, making the glass in the coffee table vibrate.

"Don't be scared," Harry urged, leaning across the armrest to watch. "He wants you to rub his belly."

She glanced back over her shoulder at Harry for reassurance, and then edged a little closer, reaching out with one of her lower hands and brushing his beige underbelly with her fingers. Soon, all four of her hands were sliding across his stomach, her feathery antennae waving in the air.

"It's so smooth, and soft," she giggled as she explored the fine mosaic of scales. Unlike his thick, armored hide, BJ's belly was flush and chubby. His eyes were closed again, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

"I think he likes you," Harry chuckled. "You're makin' the Krell look bad, you know," he added as Blackjack's purple tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth. "She's gonna think you're a race of giant lapdogs."

"He is magnificent," she chuckled. "And thank you, Blackjack, for saving my life in the conference room. If it was not for your quick thinking, I would surely have died."

"I don't know about quick thinking," Harry added sarcastically, "but certainly quick moving. Dude is like a scaly torpedo when he actually has to get off his ass and do somethin' for a change."

Blackjack emitted another low-frequency call in response, and Holly turned to Harry again.

"What did he say?"

"He's happy that you're happy," Harry explained.

She took a step back, and BJ rolled onto his belly again, resuming his nap.

"You're all so different," she mused, watching the slow rise and fall of his massive torso. "You have so little in common, yet you all get along, you're able to live together."

"We have more in common than you might assume," Harry said, leaning back into the plush couch again.

"We just want a chance at being a part of this," Holly muttered, watching as the Krell slept. "That's all we ask for, the same consideration that was afforded to everyone else. Yet someone on this station is so opposed to the very possibility of allying with us that they would kill to prevent it."

"The Chief will find out who's behind it," Harry replied confidently, "you'll see. Nothin' gets past that guy."

"And...you will protect me until then?" she asked, turning to peer at him with those pink eyes.

"That's my job."

***

"If it's going to stop people from blowing holes in my damned station, then I'll give you all the help that I can," Miller said as he led the trio through the crowds of pedestrians on the torus. He was a surly man with unkempt, red hair that seemed to mirror his mood, a permanent scowl etched onto his face. He wore the usual yellow overalls of an engineer, stained with smears of black oil and what looked like green engine coolant in places.

"Have you been out onto the hull of the station before?" Moralez asked, the engineer leading them off the walkway and into an alley between two structures. The walls to either side of them were covered in exposed machinery and piping, just wide enough that Lorza could pass. The further they ventured from the bustling crowds, the more difficulty the light from the sunlamps had reaching them, and the dingier their surroundings became. At the end of the alley was one of the access doors that led into the station's service tunnels, Miller pausing to enter a code into a nearby keypad.

"Yeah, I've done maintenance on the hull a few times. Are you guys all certified for spacewalks? Don't expect me to hold your hand out there, I'll be too busy looking out for myself."

"That's encouraging," Boyd muttered.

"Being flung from the hull of a spinning space station isn't that big of a deal," Miller replied as he led them into the winding passageways. "As long as there's a ship nearby that can match your velocity in order to pick you up before your air runs out, and assuming that you don't crash into anything. Ever seen a bug hit your windshield on the freeway? Add a few hundred meters per second to the equation, and you'll get the idea."

"Delightful engineer you've found for us, Chief," Boyd added as he followed behind them. Lorza was taking up the rear, having to duck in places to avoid hitting her head on the jutting pipes.

"He knows his stuff," Moralez replied, "he came highly recommended."

"Damn right I know my stuff," Miller grumbled as they rounded another corner, "I know that fixing the damage to the hub is going to take a team of engineers working double shifts a week and change. I swear, sometimes I can't help but think that you people believe this whole facility runs on magic. Every time you poke a hole in the hull, someone has to go outside and patch it up. Someone has to reroute severed electrical cables and ruptured ventilation systems, someone has to refill the foam dispensers. And does anyone care? Nope, you don't pay it any mind."

"We didn't shoot a hole in the hull," Boyd explained, "we're trying to catch the person who did."

"It's all the same to me," the engineer replied grumpily, referencing his tablet computer as they came to a fork in the tunnel. "Take a left here, and we'll come out near enough to the section of the hull that you wanted to take a look at."

As they proceeded down the dark passageway, Miller stopped them suddenly, Moralez almost walking into him.

"What the hell is this?" he muttered, crouching to examine something. Moralez peered over his shoulder, seeing that he was inspecting a large, insulated pipe that was trailing along the deck. It was long enough to vanish from view in both directions, as thick around as a man's thigh, encased in some kind of yellow rubber. "This isn't supposed to be here..."

"What is it?" Boyd asked, Moralez stepping aside to let the curious agent pass him.

"This is a jumper cable," Miller explained, sliding his hands beneath the thick tube and lifting it off the floor with some difficulty. It looked heavy.

"Oh, it's just a jumper cable," Boyd said sarcastically. "We all know what those do."

"They're for bridging sections of the station that have lost power," Miller replied, apparently too preoccupied with this new conundrum to come up with a snide retort. "It's basically a really heavy-duty extension cable for power transmission. If one section experiences an outage, then we can run one of these from the nearest working outlet and deliver electricity directly, bypassing any damaged areas."

"So what's it doing here?" Moralez asked.

"If it goes where I think it goes, then I may have some idea," Miller muttered as he glanced along the length of the cable.

"Wasn't there a power surge shortly before the attack?" Lorza asked, Miller beginning to follow the cable. The engineer didn't answer her, his attention was focused like a laser beam. He led them through the labyrinth of dingy tunnels, and Moralez soon realized that the cable was going to the same place that they were. Before long, they arrived at another door with a numeric keypad, this one jammed open by the cable as it trailed through into the room beyond.

"Bastard's jammed,' Miller muttered as he hooked his fingers around the door and tried to pull it aside. He attempted to access the keypad in the frame next, cursing under his breath. "We're going to need a cutting team down here."

"Perhaps I might be of assistance?" Lorza asked, Miller glancing up at the Polar. He shrugged, then gestured to the door, as if to say be my guest. Lorza made her way up to the door, then cracked her knuckles, reaching her furry fingers into the gap. There was a worrying grinding sound as the machinery fought against her, the alien's biceps straining beneath her form-fitting jumpsuit. She changed her position, placing one hand on the door and the other on the frame, pulling them apart with a bestial grunt. The door finally gave, sliding into its recess in the wall, opening the way for them.

"Guess we don't need a cutting team," Miller muttered, stepping inside. Moralez followed after him, and they emerged into what must be an airlock. The room was large enough to accommodate maybe half a dozen people, and the walls to either side of them were lined with hanging space suits. They were little more than flimsy, yellow pressure suits with a hood-like helmet, not exactly military grade. These must be the suits that the engineering teams used when they went out onto the hull to perform maintenance. The cable ended here, coiled up in a massive loop, the metal connector clamp on the far end visible. There was still a good hundred feet of cable here, maybe more.

To the front of the room was a two-stage airlock. The engineers would step inside and seal the inner door, then the atmosphere would be vented before the outer door opened, ensuring that they didn't get blown out into space.

"Yep, here's the other end," Miller said as he gave the steel connector a tap with his boot. "I think it's safe to say that your shooter was leeching power from the station."

"Makes sense," Moralez added, "I was wondering what kind of portable power supply would provide enough juice to punch through the hub like that. He wasn't carrying any batteries at all, he hooked the weapon up to the station's grid directly."

"There was a surge just before he fired, which caused the system to switch over to the backup," Miller confirmed with a nod of his head. "That's why the power went out for a few seconds. He must have run the rest of this cable out onto the hull with him."

"Did he really draw enough power to cause an outage on the whole station?" Moralez asked.

"No, very unlikely. The system will have detected an unexpected surge and then switched to the backup as a precautionary measure. It was still enough to trip the system, though."

"But how did he get the cable outside?" Boyd wondered. "He would have had to jam all three of these doors open to get it through, right? Wouldn't that have depressurized the rest of the tunnels?"

Miller thought for a moment, running his fingers through his red hair as he stared at the cable.

"I need to check something..."

He made his way over to the inner pressure door and raised his tablet computer, opening a flap on one side and pulling out a ribbon cable. He connected it to a port on the console beside the airlock, the screen flashing with a diagnostic symbol. The engineer tapped at the screen for a minute or two and then shook his head in exasperation.

"I see what they did. So, in the case that one of these airlock doors malfunctions and won't close, a force field will activate to prevent decompression. It's just like the ones on the hangars but scaled down. All he had to do was jam the inner door open with the cable, and that would register as a malfunction that would trip the field. Now, when a malfunction happens, the system is supposed to send out an alert so that we can get a team down here ASAP to correct the problem. That never happened, because according to the logs, he severed this console's connection to the station's intranet. It's receiving packets, but it's not sending any."

"So he disables the alarm and jams the door, then he can just run the cable out through the field without risking decompression," Boyd said with an impressed nod. "Smart."

"He knew what he was doing, this wasn't a spur of the moment thing," Moralez added.

"Or they," Lorza said, "we have not yet determined how many people were involved."

"Alright, mystery solved," Miller said as he began to pull one of the yellow space suits down from its place on the wall. "Are we doing this, or not?"

"I think I'd feel safer taping a garbage bag over my head and holding my breath," Boyd complained as Miller passed him a suit, examining it disdainfully.

"This is what we got," Miller replied, tossing another to Moralez. "You should have brought a suit of Marine armor with you if you wanted something more high-tech. Not my fault you didn't plan ahead."

"I didn't know you'd be giving us glorified hazmat suits," the agent grumbled as he began to shed his long coat. Moralez was surprised to see that Boyd was wearing some kind of environment suit beneath it, grey-blue in color, covered in wires and tubing. There were pouches and pockets, electronics, who knew what else.

"Are you planning on going to a rave once we're done here?" Miller asked in a mocking tone that made Lorza cover her mouth to stifle a laugh.

"This is a UNNI environment suit," Boyd explained as he kicked off his boots. "It's a little above your pay grade, grease monkey."

"It's probably not a good idea to belittle the professions of the people who are responsible for your safety," Miller warned. "For all you know, I might have given you the boots with the screwy magnets."

"Wait, what?" Boyd muttered as he narrowed his eyes at the engineer.

"Don't I get a suit?" Lorza asked, watching the three men as they geared up.

"Sorry, we don't have a suit big enough for a Polar," Miller said with a shrug. "You'll have to wait here until we get back."

The gloves and helmets were integrated into the suits, the latter of which was little more than a yellow hood with a flexible, plastic faceplate. Miller ran a brief check for leaks, and ensured that the oxygen tanks on their backs were full, then gestured to a blocky device that was situated on the collar beneath his faceplate. He switched it on, and Moralez did the same, a hiss of static coming through after a moment of fumbling through the unwieldy glove.

"Check, check," the engineer said. "Everybody receiving?"

"Loud and not especially clear," Boyd replied. "I think my tablet has a better mic than this."

"Alright, follow me," Miller continued as he paused to tap at the console beside the inner door. It opened with a whoosh, Boyd turning to wave to Lorza, as she could no longer hear him. They stepped into the airlock, the inner door sealing behind them, the rushing air tugging at their suits as the atmosphere vented. After a moment, all that Moralez could hear was his own breathing from within his helmet, there was no longer any medium for sound to travel through. The outer door opened to a field of stars, bright points of light shining against the blackness, rotating slowly past as the station spun.

"Okay, stay close," Miller warned as his voice crackled over the radio. "Don't spread out too far, we want to stay within grabbing distance in case someone trips. You've both done this before, no doubt, but I'll remind you anyway. Keep one boot on the hull at all times, pretend like you're walking on thin ice, and try not to look up unless you enjoy vertigo and drowning in your own vomit. You need to try and convince your brain that the curvature of the hull is the horizon."

"I know, I know," Boyd grumbled.

"Hey Boyd," Miller added, "try to favor your left boot..."

Due to the position of the airlock relative to the torus, there was a curved ramp that would bring them level with the station's hull. The rotation of the torus meant that the hub was directly above them, and open space was below, the hangars and airlocks positioned on the top and bottom of the habitat. The transition was yet another feature of the station that played havoc with the human brain, seeming to defy the laws of physics.