STEALING THUNDER A SHORT STORY BY MICKY NEILSON Just another glorious day in the Corps. Despite the sweltering heat on Gamma Dorian, Isaac White stayed cool. No matter what, Isaac White always stayed cool. Not just because he wore a temperature-controlled hardskin. No, he stayed cool because in his line of work, if you didn't stay cool, you could kiss your sweet ass goodbye. Someday, maybe some chump would build a bomb capable of rattling Isaac's cage, but that day was damn sure not today. Those panbrained, fekk-head Kel-Morians hadn't even done a respectable job of hiding the detonator. Isaac could think of at least fifteen spots along the underside of the massive bridge that would have provided better concealment. But no, the idiots had placed the device just under the lip of a baseplate, practically in plain view. Descending the dry gulch's southern embankment had taken all of 30 seconds, and now Isaac found himself lying on his side, getting his first glance at the detonation system. The setup wasn't just simple: it was archaic. An electronic time-delay device set to ignite several charges placed at intervals beneath the girders. The KMs had held the bridge and the territory surrounding it until a few days ago. They could have blown the bridge as they retreated, but instead they had opted to make a play at taking out the bridge and some Confed forces with it. And they didn't think the Confederacy would check the bridge before crossing it? Stupid. Just plain stupid. This stupidity was exactly why the Confederacy was sure to win the Guild Wars. The wars may have been dragging on for three years now, but there'd never been a doubt in Isaac's mind that the home team would pull out the big "W" in the end. "What in the crap is takin' so long, niner?" One of the transpo boys had stepped out of his truck and was shouting. The other folks awaiting the all clear, sitting in vehicles in a queue that stretched a mile down the blacktop, were getting restless. Isaac waved a hand. Disarming the bomb would be a breeze. This was what Isaac did. What he was born to do. "Stealing thunder" was what the other ordnance disposal agents called it. And he was the best of the best. One snip, and then back to the barracks for some quality time with Kandis. Or Lexa. Or Dorinda... Isaac held out the wire cutters, positioned them on the proper wire, and cut. Seconds later he'd removed the device. Isaac stepped away from the support and gave the thumbs up to Sergeant Ruxby, who was standing in his combat hardskin at the top of the embankment opposite the queue. The loose dirt made ascending a slow process. Above Isaac the rumble of the trucks and other waiting vehicles grew louder. The bridge groaned as the first of the transports eased onto the span. Isaac was halfway up the embankment when a series of electronic notes sounded from within the device he held. What the fekk was that? Then, from somewhere on the bridge: BEEP... Isaac's brain scrambled to make sense of what was happening, identifying and eliminating possible causes until he landed on one that turned his blood cold: a digital relay. But that would mean the bomb was a decoy, a trap... ... and he had fallen for it. BEEP... The sound was coming from the middle of the bridge. The hardskin's servos boosted Isaac's movement as he raced up the embankment, waving his hands and yelling into the squad frequency, but he was moving too fast, and his boot slipped on the loose dirt. BEEP... Sergeant Ruxby's face registered understanding. He shouted orders, and the vehicles on the bridge came to a stop. As the dirt beneath Isaac gave way, he slid farther down the embankment, ending up on the bed of the gulch as the high-pitched signals grew slightly longer in duration and shorter in between. BEEP! BEEP! Isaac's instinct for self-preservation kicked in. He put distance between himself and the bridge, running along the floor of the wash, servos boosting his momentum. BEEEEEEEEEEP- He dove, pressing his body as tightly to the packed earth as he could, hoping the suit would take the worst of the explosion, hoping the concussion wouldn't rip his heart loose inside his chest. He waited, but nothing happened. Then the ground shuddered. A thundering boom blew out the suit's external audio sensors. A wall of dirt raced past as the shock wave rolled over him. Debris rained down. Isaac pushed himself onto his side. An arm encased in CMC armor struck the ground less than a foot away and bounced out of sight. Isaac rolled to his back, then sat up, staring at the decimation of the bridge, a horrific scene of smoke and twisted metal, of blood and body parts and screams. Shila felt soft against him. Isaac stirred and turned his bulk to one side and then the other. Shila mumbled and rolled over, taking the sheets with her. The air was cool against his chest. Isaac closed his eyes, but it was no use. He was awake. The battlecruiser Tahoe was returning from a deep-space escort and security mission that had gone smoothly. Isaac was eligible for some R and R; he had been able to spend some quality time with his woman... ... and still he felt like crap. As he sat up, his eyes drifted to the digital calendar readout on the far wall, counting down the time until the ship's arrival at the planet Haven. 04:56:23 Below the countdown he had set, Isaac glimpsed the date: 02.06.2504. Sixteen years since the catastrophe at Gamma Dorian. Sure, the Confederacy had basically won the wars, and sure, Isaac had found a place within the new order of the Dominion when the Confederacy had been wiped out by the former rebel leader Arcturus Mengsk. But Gamma Dorian lingered always in the back of his mind, an unwelcome guest that refused to get the hell out. Isaac hefted his 280-pound frame out of the bed and plodded to the bathroom mirror. His earnest, doleful brown eyes stared back at him as he stuffed a sonic toothbrush into his mouth. After Gamma Dorian, he had spoken to the families of the victims, accepted the forgiveness of some, weathered the scorn of others-or perhaps accepted the scorn and weathered the forgiveness, now that he thought about it-hoping it would help. He had stood trial for negligence, but with the aid of his company commander, Zeke Turner, he had been found not guilty... though he'd been busted back down to private. There was a part of Isaac, perhaps the most honest part, that wished the verdict had been guilty. Turner, however, had believed in him. He'd told Isaac that he could make a difference, maybe atone somehow. Slowly, bucking the system every step of the way, he had worked back up through the ranks.... He had parlayed his experience as a bomb technician (or "niner," as the grunts called it, jokingly asserting that all bomb technicians possessed only nine fingers) into a role as a Marine Corps marauder, a kind of one-man artillery battery. But the guilt was always there, just under the surface. Isaac had fought it until, just under a year ago, Commander Turner was murdered during a furlough on Bacchus Moon. It was then, for the first time, that a voice inside Isaac's head told him to stop fighting, to go and get resocialized. He knew that the Dominion could do things with your brain, mess with your memories: reprogram you, in a way. Out with the bad, in with the good. But there was still a small part of him, just enough, that wasn't ready to give up. He decided that resocialization would be like running away all over again. He wasn't ready to let the guilt win. Not yet. "Go back to sleep," Shila muttered. "Can't." With a long exhale, Shila turned, looked at Isaac, then looked at the calendar. "Gotta let it go, babe." She rolled to her other side. "You still got hatred in your heart. That tree won't bear no fruit." No one else could read him like she could. It was why he and Shila had been exclusive for nearly two years. She was right, of course. Even after all this time, he was still stuck in the Guild Wars, still battling the KMs. Maybe he and his guilt were good company after all. Isaac's thoughts were interrupted by a chirping melody on a nearby console, where a holographic adjutant head-robotic, with a human-like female face-blinked on. The soothing voice intoned, "First Sergeant White: incoming message from Master Sergeant Sousa." "Put him through." The adjutant's pale, kind of human, kind of machine head wavered and was replaced by Sousa's farm-boy features."Sarge! How's life treatin' ya?" Shitty, Isaac wanted to say, but he refrained. Sousa was always so damned chipper. Of course he was: he had been resocialized. Not that it was advertised, but some things were just obvious. "Livin' the dream, Master Sarge," Isaac replied, knowing the sarcasm would be lost on his younger superior. "Glad to hear it! I need you geared up for a mission briefing on the flight deck at 0700. Commander's orders." Isaac swore to himself. Looked like his leave was postponed. No doubt this was Commander Rindge's doing. Rindge was Turner's replacement. The new CO hated Isaac with a passion, which was okay, because Isaac didn't like the CO either. Rindge... even the man's name grated on Isaac's nerves. "What's the mission?" Isaac asked. "We got pirates to kill! Mining operation in this corner of space got attacked by a group called the Players' Club... and it looks like we're the only muscle in the neighborhood." Isaac nodded. "I'm always up for lendin' our boys a hand." The holographic image flickered. "Damn straight! 'Cept these miners ain't our boys." "No? Then who exactly we savin'?" Sousa's smile widened as his eyes lit up. "Kel-Morians!" Chanuk was a large asteroid, 616 kilometers in diameter. At some point in the distant past it had been captured by the gravitational pull of a gas giant known as Gantuan VI, and afterward Chanuk had settled into a fairly smooth, steady, and predictable orbit. It had been roughly five years since the Kel-Morians had discovered the rock (not-so-lovingly referred to as "Chunk" by the miners who worked it) and started extracting from its high-yield veins of minerals. Many of these veins were now depleted, but Chanuk had not given up its full bounty just yet. There was still a few years' worth of the "good stuff" to be mined. Deep excavations, shafts, slopes, and adits riddled the asteroid, resulting in a stony mass not unlike a giant worm-ridden apple. Inclines connected the active workings to the subsurface, where a spiderweb of passageways linked to central hubs-domed enclosures with regulated oxygen and gravitational acceleration. It was in one of the passages connecting two excavation tunnels in Deep Core 2 that Isaac now waited, poised in an entry that intersected with a larger adit just ahead. A digital readout on the heads-up display inside his visor revealed the Mission Elapsed Time thus far. 02:35:52 The whole show would be over soon enough. In front of Isaac, hypersonic spikes split the air, smashing into the solid rock at the adit's end and providing a heavy deterrent for any marines wishing to advance on the position where the pirates had barricaded themselves. A deterrent for regular marines, maybe, but not for Isaac. This was what the marauder armor had been built for. Still, dark thoughts passed through Isaac's mind, and not, unfortunately, for the first time: why not just bounce on the KMs? Let the pirates have 'em? Yeah, odds were that most of these chumps had never served in the Guild Wars all those years ago, but still... Isaac hated that he was here, actually helping them... risking his own damn life. Sousa's exuberant voice blurted over the squad freq, "Sergeant White, you ready to roust these boys?" Isaac did a final systems check. Good to go. Looked like it was the KMs' lucky day. "Ain't nothin' but a thing. Let's do this." Four marines rushed into the tunnel and laid down a withering suppressing fire. Isaac's suit auto-loaded two Punisher grenades as he rounded the corner. Ventilation was maintained in the asteroid core, but gravity was not, so Isaac relied on the micro-gravity accelerators in his boots while pressing forward, servos propelling the modified heavy armor. A few spikes ricocheted off his hardskin as Isaac pushed past the marines. A microsecond later he'd locked on target, and a Punisher rocketed from each arm to pass final judgment on the luckless bastards who had dared to piss off the Dominion Marine Corps. The ground and walls quaked. Smoke billowed down the passage. Isaac allowed himself a smile... somewhat prematurely, as it turned out. Out of the smoke stepped a red monstrosity, an armored beast roughly the same size as Isaac. The word SMOKIN' was written on one shoulder pad; JOE, on the other. The firebat's arms shot up to chest height, and a gravelly voice issued from the suit's external speakers. "Need a light?" Within another half second, Isaac's hardskin was baking in the scorching fury of the firebat's Perdition flamethrowers. Isaac's arms locked into a defensive position. His HUD flashed red. An instant more, and the heat would be enough to detonate the explosives stored in the marauder's forearm compartments. He needed a countermeasure. And fast. A massive boulder nearby provided the only possible cover, but more than that, a shield. Emergency warning systems neared critical as Isaac dislodged the boulder and rushed forward, the giant stone clamped between his massive arms and thrust out before him like a battering ram. Within six strides the boulder had parted the firebat's arms and smashed into his crimson chest piece. "Joe" stumbled backward through the wreckage of the barricade. Instantly, he seized the top and bottom of the massive stone and rotated his body, spinning Isaac around. Now Isaac was the one backpedaling, dimly aware that they were headed for a boarded-up vertical shaft. There was the sound of splintering wood as they crashed through the barrier, followed by a serene sense of weightlessness as they were swallowed by the yawning abyss. They continued to tussle, the boulder forced aside, as they tumbled through the near-zero gravity. The firebat managed to spew flame once again, and Isaac knew that at least one of the grenades in his left arm was set to blow. He had to launch it now. He pushed "Joe" away and fired the grenade. There was a flash of white, and then there was only darkness. Isaac awoke. His HUD readout informed him that his vitals were all within normal range, but a few of the suit's systems were compromised, and one or two were completely inactive. Sousa's voice squawked over the comm, "Hang tight, Sarge: we're workin' on gettin' the elevator functional." Surrounding Isaac was something that resembled a giant metal spider gone belly up. It was an elevator, or at least it had been until the explosion had blown Isaac into it. There were protracted groans of metal, then a lurch, more protest from the hoist and cable... and then finally some upward movement. Less than a minute later he was at the top of the shaft, staring at the visor of Sousa's CMC armor. "Great to have you back, Sarge!" Sousa helped Isaac maneuver back into the now-empty tunnel. Isaac eyed his HUD and realized he had been out for almost forty minutes. "Where is everyone?" "Cleared out a half hour ago. Commander Rindge had me stay and work on gettin' you extracted. Techs were monitoring your vitals from the Tahoe. Commander didn't seem too worried." "'Course he didn't," Isaac answered gruffly. They made their way to the next sublevel, past access ports to the massive laser drill silos, then through a maze of passages, and ultimately up to one of the many hubs. Sousa chattered busily the entire time, giving a detailed account of how the remaining pirates had been eliminated and how the KMs had suffered heavy losses, including the entirety of their medical personnel. Inside the hub, Isaac raised his faceplate. The two men had stepped into what was normally a cafeteria but now served as a triage center for wounded and dying miners. Isaac slowed down as he passed a table where a Kel-Morian lay; two other miners were busily trying to stuff his insides back into his mutilated torso. Isaac didn't want to look. Why should he care whether some Gutter-sucking KM lived or died? He stopped anyway. The man had a death grip on the sleeve of the miner nearest him. "You get a message... to my wife and kid on Moria. You tell 'em I love 'em... tell 'em I'm sorry...." Isaac turned to leave, stopped, took one more look, and pressed on. Similar scenes were being played out at various points all through the cavernous room. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and way too much of it coated the green tile floor. Isaac's eyes landed on a nearby wall monitor and a series of numbers. 01:09:30 He glanced at another monitor on the far wall and saw the last number change. 01:09:29 It was a countdown. And in Isaac's experience, that was almost never a good thing. "What's with the timer?" Isaac asked Sousa, who now had his own visor raised. "Started about fifteen minutes ago.... Bunch of the KMs have been holed up in the ops center, tryin' to figure it out. CO told us to stay out of it. We gotta be on the surface level for extraction in five minutes." Isaac stopped, eyeballing the countdown on the monitors. He wanted to know more. Although he couldn't say exactly why, he needed to know more. "You go. I'll catch up." "Roger that, Sarge!" Sousa strode purposefully through the exit while Isaac headed back the way they had come in. Near the cafeteria entrance, he turned to see the table where the Kel-Morian had pleaded for a message to be relayed to his family. The two assisting miners were now pulling a coat over the man's face. One arm hung limply off the side of the table. Isaac heard the man's words again. You tell 'em I love 'em... tell 'em I'm sorry. He grunted softly and kept walking. \The ops center was another hive of activity. None of the KMs seemed to notice Isaac when he stepped in, caught up as they were in their heated conversation. A swarthy, rosy-cheeked miner with long hair bellowed above the other voices. "Think about it! All them charges went unaccounted for a month ago, right?" A thin man in coveralls shot back, "Park said that was an oversight!" "Yeah, and where's Park now?" No one answered. "Park was in on it!" the rosy-cheeked man blurted. "Fekk! Figures... it's always the quiet ones." "Park, Shoberg, and fekkin' Gonsales! How long ago'd Gonsales seal up Deep Core 6? Two weeks ago? That's where the damn charges went! And now they're set to blow our asses from here to Moria!" There was silence for a moment. "Rosy-Cheeked Man" (as Isaac had started referring to him) ran a hand through his thick hair. "All our demo boys are dead. Even if we could get to Deep Core 6... this rock is fekked. I say we cut and run." The thin man turned to Isaac, eyes suddenly wide. He looked Isaac up and down. "You! You gotta help us clear out.... We need dropships! The damn Players' Club sabotaged all our cargo vessels... transports, everything." A moment later, and Isaac had been ushered into a slightly more private storeroom. He contacted Sousa on the squad frequency and demanded to talk to Rindge. Isaac could see a readout on the ops center wall, through the doorway. 01:04:16 Static cut in, and Rindge's high-pitched voice barked, "You alone, White?" "Yes, sir. Got us a situation.... KMs are crappin' themselves, sayin' the pirates had men on the inside... claimin' there's a whole lotta explosives at the core of this hunk o' junk, enough to split this mother and send every damn body on a one-way trip to kiss-your-ass-goodbye." "I've heard this sob story already, White." "Roger that. I'll prioritize the wounded first and-" "Look, you just tell 'em whatever you gotta tell 'em... but tell 'em to sit tight, and then you get your ass to the extraction site." "When will the rest of the dropships be-?" "What fekking dropships? Why do I need to spell this out to you, of all people? These are Kel-Morians, for fekk's sake! The only reason we stuck our noses in this shitstorm was to put a dent in the Players' Club because they've been a pain in the Dominion's ass for damn near four years. Mission accomplished. Now get to the fekking extraction site." Suddenly, and most certainly unexpectedly, a whole barrage of thoughts invaded Isaac's head: he thought about the fact that no amount of apologizing, soul-searching, quiet reflection, and seemingly interminable time since the incident at Gamma Dorian had eased his conscience. He thought about the Kel-Morian miner who had died with his guts hastily stuffed back into his body, his only concern being that of the family he was about to leave behind. He thought, though he hated to admit it, that maybe not all Kel-Morians were animals. The inside of his brain was a whirlwind, but the one thing that hit him like a meteor was this: he had sought forgiveness from the families of the victims, but he himself had never forgiven the KMs. It was always so much easier to just keep on hating them... to not even think of them as human. Maybe this was his chance to make a difference. To balance the scales, to atone, just as Zeke Turner had said. All he had to do was survive. And then save everyone else. 01:00:23 If anyone could find and disarm the explosives, it was Isaac. It was what he'd been born to do: steal thunder. "I'm not coming back," Isaac voiced into his mic. "Repeat that," Rindge demanded. He sounded legitimately confused. "I'm not coming back. If you leave, you're goin' without me." "Stop wasting my time and clear out. That's an order, Sergeant!" Isaac smiled slightly. And damned if it didn't feel genuine. "Afraid I'm gonna have to respectfully disobey that order, sir." "I don't get you, White. What are you, stupid? Suicidal?" "I'm a complicated man." There was a long pause. Isaac hoped that Commander Rindge would make the right choice, that he'd agree to take everyone, but the realist in him knew better. He thought about Shila and knew that she'd be okay, that she wouldn't be swayed by the crap Rindge was sure to fling her way... that she would understand. After all, no one understood him like his woman. "My official record's gonna state that you're a coward and a deserter. You'll die for nothing." "The record can show whatever you please," Isaac retorted. "The two of us will always know the truth. And by the way, I always thought you were a bitch." There was a click just then, and Sousa's cheerful voice interrupted. "Master Sergeant Sousa here, sir. I'm at the extraction site, awaiting the arrival of First Sergeant White." "Fekk White!" Rindge snapped back. There was a click as the CO disconnected. It had taken Isaac several precious minutes to A) impress upon the Kel-Morians that Commander Rindge and the Dominion had actually left them all to be blown up, B) convince them that he himself had been left behind, C) convince them further that, yes, he really intended to save all their asses, and finally, D) come up with something resembling a plan as to how he might be able to do that. The answer to the last problem, as it turned out, was the FAFNR. If there was one thing the Kel-Morians were known for, it was taking parts from seemingly incompatible objects and machines and cobbling together something functional, if not always completely reliable. The FAFNR was no exception. The acronym stood for Forward-Accelerating Fragmentation/Navigation Rover. Not many of these contraptions were still in use on Chunk, and in fact this specific beast had been undergoing repairs for a busted seal to the cab. The seat and various other non-essentials were hastily ripped out to allow for Isaac's bulky suit, which Isaac wore not for ventilation in the pressurized core, but for gravity assistance. The noise of the various motors would have been deafening if Isaac hadn't turned down the gain on his external pickups. The vehicle was being driven remotely as six laser drills disintegrated the solid rock before him and massive side intakes sucked up the debris and shot it out the rear. Normally the waste would have been relayed to a cumbersome bucket/conveyor system that would transport it back for disposal, but in this case there was no time, so the fragments were simply piled up behind the FAFNR as the vehicle bored deeper like some kind of great metal earthworm. Isaac had synchronized his HUD's chronometer with the countdown timer. He glanced at it now. 00:37:22 He had been drilling for 13 minutes. Deep Core 6, the deepest of the excavation levels, had been sealed up tighter than a Umojan airlock. Philbin Gonsales, the supervising engineer, had ordered all access points to be backfilled. In most cases this was standard practice, meant to reinforce the core's integrity. In this particular case, it was a method of safekeeping enough ordnance to level half of New Gettysburg. While waiting for the FAFNR to be prepped, Isaac had learned a bit more about Philbin and his cronies. There was a band of them, a tight-knit group of workers who had grown disgruntled with the meager pay and long hours of their jobs. Their grievances dated back several years, and their puppet master, the man behind what was now the Players' Club, was named Trevor Joe Jacobs. "Smokin' Joe" worked with the mining crew on its last assignment six years ago, a relatively cushy gig on a temperate planet called Boone. Jacobs had performed several jobs, including demolition and, for a time, extermination. Boone was crawling with large dog-sized insects called mine weevils. TJ had been known for wading into the deepest shafts alone, trying out all manner of poisons. When that had failed, Jacobs had resorted to donning a firebat suit and burning the critters to cinders. Unfortunately, at that point "Smokin' Joe" had already contracted cancer from his own toxic concoctions. TJ was fired, and according to the KMs' accounts, he'd had to fight like mad to get any kind of medical compensation from the mining guild, which argued that his condition was self-imposed. It wasn't long after these events that Jacobs partnered with a band of thugs and formed the Players' Club, a pirate group bent on plundering any and all targets of opportunity. Gonsales, Shoberg, and several others who had been friends with TJ all claimed to have severed ties with him once their outfit had moved to Chunk. Turned out that wasn't true. The other miners had pieced together the rest, just as Isaac did while they told him the story: Gonsales and Jacobs had planned the attack together, and the ordnance was one last "fekk you" from the Players' Club, and from "Smokin' Joe" specifically, to the guild. He had fought obstinately against his cancer for years, but rumor had it that his time was just about up, and he had known it. Once "Rosy-Cheeked Man" (whose name, Isaac learned, was Sammy) had gotten to this point in the story, it was finally time for Isaac to climb aboard the FAFNR. The KM engineers had plotted a course that would take Isaac through a backfilled crosscut. They estimated it would take 30 to 35 minutes to drill to the main haulageway of Deep Core 6, leaving Isaac 15 to 20 minutes to find and defuse the explosives. The trick, of course, was that no one knew exactly where Gonsales had stashed the ordnance. 00:26:16 So far, so good. There was a loud click, followed by all six lasers shutting off and the motors winding down, and then darkness. The FAFNR came to a complete stop. "Sammy, what's the defect?" Isaac waited. No answer. This was about the time any normal man would have been crapping plascrete and crying for his mommy. Stay cool, Isaac. Stay cool. Solid as a rock, baby. Sammy came on a few seconds later. "Uh... we got us a backup power failure. Whole system's shut down. We gotta reroute." More time passed. Isaac received a few more updates, frantic and desperate, but the situation wasn't improving on their end. The last transmission was cut off in the middle of a shouting match. Isaac concentrated on his breathing. Slow and steady. He glanced at the chrono. 00:23:56 No time to waste. Isaac needed to free his right hand. He unlocked the grenade launcher and auto-loader assembly, removed them, stashed them beside his leg, then punched the FAFNR's ignition button. The engines kicked on. "I'm movin' to manual." After a moment, Sammy's voice came on, sounding tired, shaky. "Well, uh, well, if you get off course we have no way of knowing and-" "No choice." Isaac ran through the brief tutorial he had been given. The controls of the FAFNR were not overly complex, but he still had to recall some information from Sammy-who had rattled off instructions so fast, it had made Isaac's head spin-before the lasers could be reactivated and the accelerator could be engaged. He completed the necessary actions, and the FAFNR crawled forward steadily. The tricky part would be holding his bearing. The spike treads that provided the forward acceleration could desync, operating out of unison and altering his trajectory. Normally the computer would correct for this, but with backup systems off-line... Isaac focused on the positive. He would make it out of this. His eyes flicked to the chrono every few seconds until he willed himself to stop looking at it. Seconds ticked by. Moments came and went and were lost forever. Sammy had opted to fill the silence by talking about life back home, about his six kids. Tell 'em I love 'em.... Isaac looked at the chrono. 00:12:13 Had it really been that long? He should have punched through already. Something was wrong. The treads must have desynced. How far off was he? Sammy apparently had the same thought. "You shoulda been there by now. We're fekked. We are seriously fekked...." Isaac kept his voice even. "Just take it nice and easy. This ain't over yet." Time's passage seemed to quicken. Dread turned into fear; fear threatened to explode into full-on panic. Hold on. 00:08:04 Please... please... There was a lurch, then a hiss followed by a WHOOSHING sound as the FAFNR finally broke through. "I'm here!" Isaac reported. He heard cheers on the other end of the line. Isaac cut off the lasers and practically ripped his way out of the rig. He was ready to go... but he was already faced with a dilemma. Which way? "Head to your right," Sammy advised. "You'll see refuge holes off to the side of the passage every so often.... He mighta hid the charges in there... but my guess is he'd stash 'em in one o' the rooms... places where the minerals have been cleaned out." Isaac raced as fast as his boots' micro-gravity accelerators would allow, telling himself he could still pull through this.... 00:07:49 Darkness receded before his suit's lamps as he plunged ahead, stopping briefly at each hollow he came to and shining light inside. Time continued to slip away. At last Isaac reached the "rooms." There were several open spaces on his left side. He glimpsed each one briefly, only vaguely aware that he was approaching the end of the passage. He resisted the urge to look at the chrono. Isaac reached the end. The final room. He shined his light inside, and... ... nothing. Just a large empty space. Isaac's heart fell through his stomach. He would have to go back the way he came.... 00:05:44 He'd never make it in time. Sammy broke in. "Talk to me.... We're mighty nervous on this end." "Just hang tight, Sammy." Isaac turned around, and as he did, he saw it: one room on his left... a space that he had passed by without realizing, not seeing it on the other side of the passage. He rushed to the final room, and there, inside, were row upon row of highly unstable deuterium charges. Atop each charge was a small black antenna with a blinking red light on top. What he didn't see was the transmitter. Where, exactly, was the countdown being initiated? As long as he disconnected the cords from the blasting caps, it wouldn't matter. Unfortunately, there were at least 30 of the damned things to blaze through. Nothin' to it but to do it. "I found the stash. I'm gonna do what I gotta do... but I need quiet." Isaac heard Sammy swallow hard. "You got it, boss." The line went dead. Isaac set to work, grateful that he had already removed the auto-loader to free his right hand. He didn't have time to remove the assembly from his left, so he had to perform the entire operation one-handed. Delicately, gingerly, he set about disconnecting detonation cords from blasting caps, knowing full well that it was all or nothing: even if he disconnected every single one except the last, the detonation of that one would be enough to blow the others, and that'd be it. The fat lady would be singing her ass off. He marked how long it took him to disarm one: ten seconds, roughly. It was going to be close, but he could make it. He would make it. It took nerves of steel and the steady hand of a surgeon, but Isaac worked his way through.... 00:02:41 Halfway there. Solid. Steady. One by one. No need to rush.... Three quarters of the way. The end was in sight. 00:01:18 Five charges left. No worries. More than a moment to spare. It had been a long while since Isaac had experienced time's passage this way, measuring his life in the space between microseconds. He thought of Shila. He thought of the KM who had died on the table. He thought of Sammy and his six kids. 00:00:38 The final charge was next. This was it. Isaac reached out... ... and felt an impact on his right side. It was like being struck by a maglev train at full speed. Isaac slammed against the wall. He reoriented himself, fighting in the zero-G to get his boots realigned with the ground, trying desperately to see what hit him.... There stood Trevor "Smokin' Joe" Jacobs in all his black-stained crimson glory. That same gravelly voice broke through the firebat's external speakers. "Let's burn!" TJ turned to set the explosives ablaze. Isaac bum-rushed Jacobs, dislodging him just as twin jets of flame shot outward. Both men ended up in a clench in the haulageway. 00:00:28 Isaac reached his right hand down to one of the large air hoses protruding from TJ's chest armor and closed his fist around it. He twisted and pulled, but to no avail. "Smokin' Joe" swung his right arm in a downward arc onto Isaac's headpiece, the power of the blow dropping the marauder to one knee and forcing Isaac's hand loose. Isaac rose to his feet and kicked at the air hose coupling, damaging it, but not enough. The two metal behemoths continued trading blows. TJ slipped backward as Isaac swung with all his might, throwing himself off balance. Jacobs turned toward the entryway. Isaac shot out his hand and clutched at one of Jacobs' rear-mounted fuel tanks. 00:00:15 Jacobs spun around and threw a knee that Isaac deflected. TJ raised his right arm. Flames engulfed the marauder armor. Isaac leaned down and in, allowing the flames to bake the suit's top and back and creating a barrier for his hand as he reached for the ventilation hose once again. The neosteel skin of Isaac's suit blistered. His HUD flared a furious red. It wasn't about to end like this. No way. Isaac had found his path to redemption at last, and he'd be damned if some podunk weevil exterminator was gonna take that from him. Systems reached critical. He wouldn't give up. Not now. Now it all came down to these final few seconds.... TEN. Isaac yanked the hose with all of his remaining strength. At last it came free. He kicked out. Jacobs sailed down the haulageway, pedaling with his legs to try to get his boots back on the ground, the escaping ventilation propelling him backward as the gouts of flame from his wrist died out. FIVE. Isaac rushed back into the room. No time to pull the det. cord. He grasped the charge... FOUR. ... and ran for the access. It would end here, one way or another. He gained the haulageway. Jacobs was nowhere in sight. Isaac threw the charge as hard as he could. THREE. It was a gamble, he knew. The final charge's explosion could still set off the other ordnance.... TWO. But it was his only play. All or nothing. His chance to steal thunder... ONE. Last. Time. Isaac ducked back into the room as-BOOOM!!-the world around him threatened to come apart. A massive wall of flame shot past, billowing, spreading outward.... If the charges were going to blow, this would be it.... Isaac had a brief, horrific vision of the passage around him disintegrating, of his lifeless form pinwheeling through the emptiness of space. The flames dissipated. Seconds later the rumbling stopped, and at last, mercifully, it was over. There was a burst of static followed by unrestrained whooping and hollering from the other end of the line. Sammy's voice nearly blew the speaker. "We're alive! HA HAAA!! We're alive! You did it, you magnificent son of a bitch! You did it! You saved us all!" Isaac backed up against the wall and took a seat. Yes, he'd done it. He had saved them. He had stayed cool. Just as he was born to do, just like the old Isaac. No more weight of the world bearing down on him, no more hatred in his heart. He had saved them. He leaned his head back inside his helmet, closing his eyes, waiting. It would take the KMs a while to dig his ass out, but that was okay.... He had time.