Murmansk-13

He let the hose fly, watched it skitter and snake up the bulkhead. Hernandez strained, fingers wiggling, willing the coupling toward his hands. It barely made seven meters of the distance. Nielsen and Pettersson forced to run from the tumbling brass coupling as the infected surged once again.

Now a corpselike figure had pushed its torso through the opening, jamming the door with its ribcage. The skin was frostbite black and pulled thin and papery over the skeleton and skull, curling back in places to reveal arid bone. Sightless, jellied eyes looked nowhere as its jaws gnashed together. A few remaining long hairs, suggesting it had once been a female, swished from the thin bed of skin at the scalp. Calmly, Nielsen retrieved his rifle, sighted a point in its forehead and pulled the trigger. Rotten brain matter and skull fragments blew out the back of the cranium with a dry crack, instantly the infected ceased to move, its body becoming a bridge for the countless others behind.

“Oh shit, we’re fucked now,” said Pettersson, quickly gathering the hose and trying himself. His throw was rushed and panicked, the rigid hose barely reaching five meters and far wide of Hernandez anyway.

Before more of the infected utilized the gap in the door, Nielsen stepped forward and dragged the unanimated corpse through to their side, Pettersson rushing by to seal the breach. Where moments before it had flailed wildly at them, now the body was stiff with rigor mortis. Sinuous flesh felt like sundried driftwood.

“We’re going to run out of time,” said Nielsen, it was a statement of fact. “Did you find out why she brought us here, the doctor? If I’m going to die down here, I want to know why.”

Hernandez heaved himself back into the vent and slumped down. His manner was resigned. “This girl who’s with Tala, she’s the CO’s daughter. She said that Dr. Smith represents some kind of private security firm. They brought the rights to this whole deal, Chief. For military applications. Falmendikov was a fucking patsy, the Riyadh just an anonymous ride.”

“They’re going to take this to Earth?” Nielsen half asked, half stated. How many days had it been since he’d spoken to Tor in his office, about Freya, about Emma? He didn’t think he was a fearful man, didn’t think he was frightened to die but even then he’d known. Whatever had tainted their exotic matter wouldn’t kill him, but this moment, this decision would.

And it had to mean something.

He looked at the desiccated corpse at his feet, finally at rest, she’d been someone’s daughter once and now she was used up and gone. They couldn’t take this to Earth, that would be sheer madness, an unfathomable biological escalation of the Corporate and Cold Wars. This was a disease, the only mechanism of control they’d achieved was being surrounded by light years of uninhabited space and hard vacuum.

He pictured Freya and Emma, pinned down in his cabin in the Troms backcountry, much as he and Pettersson were now. They were both resourceful and independent women, they would dwindle for a long time in bucolic isolation as civilization collapsed around them, but they wouldn’t survive, nobody would. Eventually the two people he cherished most in life would end up like the girl at his feet, twisted and corrupted.

Unforeseen tears stung his cheeks as he thought of his daughter and his partner. Freya had not only accepted Emma after her mother’s death, but welcomed her father’s new companion. She’d been right, he’d been alone too long. Too much of his life had been spent in mourning, Heidi wouldn’t have wanted that and Freya knew it. He and Emma had been kindred, lovers of nature like Heidi had been, she would understand, so would Freya, they both would understand what he had to do.

“Hernandez, get out of here. There’s nothing more you can do. Get to the others.” He picked his last rifle back up from beside the dead girl and looked at it sadly.

Above him, Hernandez looked down a mixture of anger and dejection in his face. “Chief,” he began.

The rifle was almost weightless in his hand, the stock brushed lightweight carbon fibre. It had been his pride and joy, now he measured it up like a javelin, switching on the safety. “You wanted this earlier, hey?”

Nielsen speared the rifle toward the motorman, almost catching him off guard. Hernandez juggling the rifle almost spilling himself and the weapon to the deck below. Hernandez appraised the gun with a look of awe. “Chief, what are you going to do?”

“Don’t worry about us, we’ll be OK,” he lied. “I have a plan, but you need to get to the others and get back to the Riyadh as fast as you can.”

“Chief, Pettersson… I’m sorry it went down like this.”

“You and me both, now get going,” Nielsen watched Hernandez hesitate, then nod his reluctant assent. As the sound of deforming aluminium popped out from where Hernandez had just stood, the chrysalis of the moment ended. Once more he was surrounded by the clamour of the infected and a new found clarity.