Murmansk-13

Hernandez screamed as the big man shot Aidan. He felt the strong adhesive of the tape pull at the hairs of his moustache as his mouth tried to part, wrenched his arm clear of Mikhail. The cadet slumped to his knees and drowsily dabbed his torso where the rifle rounds struck. Bright oxygenated blood began leeching across the grey fabric of his jumpsuit and Aidan looked at Hernandez with sorrowful, terrified eyes.

Calmly, the big man wandered up to Aidan and picked up the rivet gun. “He was armed,” he said with a shrug.

Hernandez managed to shake himself free of Mikhail and rushed to the side of Aidan just as the cadet slumped to the deck. His chest ebbed with fast and shallow breaths, his already pale complexion blanched as blood began pooling from a wound in his chest and a second in his gut. The big man eyed the scene with apathy, keeping both the rifle and the rivet gun levelled inches from Hernandez’s head.

The motorman stared hard and imploringly at the big man, shaking his wrists still bound behind his back. Let me help him he screamed, the gaffer tape gag rendered the phrase muffled and hysterical noise. The big man rolled his eyes and gestured to Mikhail. The sharp faced patsy approached wearily.

“Take the tape and rags off. We’ll need him unbound anyway,” the big man spoke loud enough to draw Hernandez’s attention from Aidan and to the rifle that he was casually operating the bolt on, clearing the breech. The rifle had been the Chief Engineers, his pride and joy. Hernandez had allowed it to fall into the hands of the callous hijacker, let it be used against one of their own crewmen for the seizure of the Riyadh. Sickness and anger surged through him. He was complicit.

Furtively, Mikhail released the rags about his wrists and jumped back. Hernandez pulled the tape from his lips, unmoved as follicles and skin were pulled from his face. Aidan was barely conscious. Hernandez helped him on to his back and stared at the lurid bullet wounds, blood burbled through the fabric of his jumpsuit, the deck was warm and viscous with the teenagers lifeblood.

“Oh shit,” Hernandez voice cracked. “You’re going to be OK, just,” Hernandez looked frantically around for a first aid kit, anything to staunch the bleeding. “Just hang in there.”

Aidan’s breathing slowed, his eyes began to grow lustreless and his lids heavy. His mouth moved but his voice was so very faint. “Addy,” he finally said. “We never kissed, I wish we had,” something rattled within his chest cavity and he coughed. A gout of claret splashed across his lips, Hernandez watched as Aidan tasted his own blood. “I hope she will remember me.”

“You’re speaking as if you’re already dead, you’ve gotta stay with me cabron,” Hernandez looked down at Aidan and forced a half smile. “You saved my ass out on that array, it’s hardly fair if you don’t let me repay the favour, man.”

Aidan returned the smile, but it was edged with pain. “I feel sleepy, Hernandez.”

There was a loud metallic crash and the whining sound of failing metal hung at the peripheries of the moment. Hernandez felt the Riyadh lurch beneath him, was aware of stationary items clattering about the bridge. He stared at Aidan as his eyes closed.

“Yo, you can’t go to sleep man,” Hernandez shook him, then pressed his forehead against Aidan’s. “Wake the fuck up!”

His chest had ceased rising and falling. Aidan was still.

Hernandez felt alien tears prick at the corners of his eyes as he placed his ear beside the cadets mouth. He shook him one last time. “Kid…”

Hernandez rubbed his eyes and felt the blood become harder, more viscous where it had seeped through his longjohns. He let the fury well up inside him. Let the moment build in the silence. When he spoke, his voice was icy calm. “Why did you shoot him?”

“He had a weapon. It was pointed at me,” Hernandez could feel the big man’s eyes bore into the back of his skull. “Really it was his fault.”

“He was just a kid,” Hernandez said, jaw locking.

“Ain’t my problem and I don’t answer to you.” He jabbed the rifle barrel into the back of Hernandez head. “Get the fuck up, I want out of here.”

Without thinking, Hernandez spun round, grabbing the barrel of the rifle as the big man pulled the trigger. He felt the round whistling through the metallic cylinder, passing millimetres from his hand. The round clipped the deck and rested across the bridge; indenting the elevator doors. Rising to his feet, Hernandez yanked the gun from the man’s ursine grasp, spinning and smashing the stock into the onrushing Mikhail with a crack. Mikhail clattered to the floor beside the halved rifle with a satisfying symmetry to his own capture.