Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

13

MARS CITY—LEAVING ADMIN

THE GENERAL CAME OUT OF THE CONFERENCEroom first, nodding to Moraetes. Their orders, she knew, were to accompany the party to Reception and on to the main embarkation area.

God, then maybe she could ditch Rodriguez and his nonstop chatter for a bit. If Mars was a place for her to advance, she was pretty sure that it was not by assignments like this, with an idiot like him.

She fell behind the four men making their way to the shuttle that would bring them back to the orbiting carrier and their ride home.

The men moved slowly, so Maria kept her steps small.And what are we doing here ? she wondered.Guarding them? An escort. Seemed kind of odd, when they could just walk from Admin over to the shuttle. What could happen?

She saw one of the men turn and look at her. He had the face and build of someone who had done some military time, and clearly had risen through the ranks.

He stared at Maria. Giving her the once-over. Most men would expect a woman, even a space marine, to turn away.

But this guy (she caught a bit of his name tag on his UAC uniform:Camp —) yeah, this guy didn’t know Maria’s history, her background. Why she was here and why maybe even Mars wasn’t far enough to get away. And her bold stare right back at him made him turn away.

Private James Walker had walked around one corner, then turned left, retracing his steps. He kept his eyes straight ahead, walking slowly and steadily. So that if anyone saw him, they wouldn’t thinkanything.

His right hand brushed his holstered pistol as he walked. Just the casual back and forth motion of an arm as you walked. Nothing odd about that. Nothing anyone might notice. Save for the fact that the holster was unbuckled. Nobody would see that.

And now Walker moved into Reception. He didn’t look at the two people at the desk, acting as if Mars City was some kind of tourist destination. Two armed guards stood to either side of the desk. Any one of them could ask what he was doing.Hey, where you going, Private? Have clearance for this area?

Because that was the interesting thing. You needed clearance to move from one area to another in Mars City. And there were dozens of clearance levels.

As soon as Walker entered the reception area, he was completely out of his clearance area. A few things would now happen very rapidly.

The sensors throughout Mars City would search for a chip embedded somewhere inside his body and recheck his clearance. The system would then begin the first stage of a security process—Private James Walker is not in an area where he has clearance.Then the system would check all outstanding orders entered by any outstanding superior on Mars—civilian or military—who may have ordered Walker to go somewhere, do something in a place he had no business in.

That would turn up negative.

At that point—and Walker was not too sure about this part—an alarm of some kind would be issued. Not an emergency lockdown, because casual orders were given all the time, updated via PDAs that fed into whatever computer net handled the commands.

So before a full alarm could be issued, a quick request would go out first to Walker, enquiring what he was doing. Who ordered him to come to this place?

Simultaneously, another request would go out to anyone who had supervisory contact with Walker. Had an order been given and not entered?

All this—happening now, so fast. No matter. Walker had waited in the cafeteria, watching. Any alarm would arrive too late.

He turned toward the embarkation area. Where the doors—of course—did not open. No security clearance, and every invisible scan looking at him noted that not only could he not pass through the doors, but he shouldn’t even be standing near them.

Walker turned to the right, toward a small alcove with a control board monitoring the environmental status of this section of Mars City. He walked up to it, touched his earpiece as if getting a message. He nodded.

No one could really see him here. But if they did, they’d see a marine nodding, listening, perhaps getting orders.

He heard steps. Voices. They were here. His hand went to his gun.

“Just as soon as we get back to Earth, my office will coordinate Swann’s and Campbell’s schedules with you, General,” Kelliher said to Hayden.

“Whenever they want to come—”

“It’ll be more formal than that. I want detailed reports from them. Pictures. Interviews. As if I’m here.”

Hayden nodded. “I understand.”

Kelliher imagined that Hayden couldn’t wait until Kelliher and his two men were gone. And then, pity the poor marines who got in his way. Asses would be chewed up and spit out.

“Dr. Betruger—what information should he—”

“Minimal. He’ll know that I have my counselor and security people here. And he knows of my interests. But he doesn’t need to know…just how much I am keeping tabs on him…and—”

They had walked past Reception, down the wide corridor leading to one of the embarkation portals, this one used by guests and VIPs primarily.

Something made Kelliher slow down. Instinct. Something that had guided him for many years.

Slow now, but he didn’t stop. Until they were at the doors, the scanner reading their clearance, recording thermal scans, making sure they were allowed to enter the massive hangar that led to the shuttle, and home.Home for now, Kelliher thought.

Something to the left caught his eye. A control board filled with colored lights, and someone standing there. A marine.

Instinct…

Kelliher looked at the twin doors swinging wide open. His personal PDA buzzed in his pocket. A low tone filled the room. An alarm. No screeching high-pitched noise. Alarms went off frequently up here. But this one—a low thumping noise like a heartbeat filled the room with a dull throbbing.

The doors opened. But the soldier was in motion. Kelliher saw quite clearly that the man had his gun out.

For a second Kelliher debated: dash through the open doors, or turn back. A few seconds of indecision. But enough for the soldier, his gun raised high, to be on him, the barrel tucked neatly under Kelliher’s chin. And then the voice, a small, hoarse voice, empty of anything.

“Keep moving, Mr. Kelliher. Keep moving to the shuttle.”

Maria immediately lowered her rifle, as did Rodriguez.

She also spotted that one of the other men—Campbell—had quickly gotten a gun out. But the marine—not anyone Maria had seen before—also saw their weapons.

“Put them down! Put them the hell down now or he gets it.”

Kelliher looked at them all. “Do as he says.Now. ”

Rodriguez was first to get his gun down. Then Campbell. The guy had his eyes on Maria, which told her a lot.

She slowly started to lower her weapon.

The first thing: she saw fear. This guy was completely scared. Whatever he was afraid of had to be worse than taking the man who owned Mars City hostage.

The second thing: she saw insanity there. Not surprising. You had to be more than crazy to do this. Scared and crazy—not a good combination. But one that—unknown to anyone in this little grouping—she had seen and dealt with before.

By now they had entered Hangar One. Smaller shuttles sat to the side, while a good-sized shuttle orbiter was only meters away. It would then taxi out of one of the large hangar portals and take off for Kelliher’s UAC transport ship, now orbiting Mars.

They kept walking.

The man whispered in Kelliher’s ear, “You’re going…to take me with you, you hear me? On the shuttle. And once there, I’m going back to Earth with you.”

Kelliher nodded, wondering: Had this nutcase thought throughany of this? Did he really think he could get away with it? And what would happen when he got back to Earth? Ask for a jet waiting, loaded with unmarked bills?

Or maybe he didn’t care about that. Insane people will do anything.

The shuttle was now only meters away. Guards and UAC people were all over, but no one would dare be stupid enough to make a move.

Campbell and Swann followed.

Kelliher saw that the two escorts—the two marines, now weaponless—kept following. That seemed to catch his captor’s attention, now only meters away from the shuttle gantry.

“You—you two. Stop right there! What the hell you doing?”

Maria kept her eyes on the man, his finger tight around the trigger. It wouldn’t take much for that nervous finger to send the UAC head honcho’s brains onto the floor.

But as she looked at the crazy man—the soldier who was quite clearly terrified—she knew that he didn’t want that. No, all he wanted was to get on the shuttle with Kelliher, to get off this planet, to escape. But if he felt he had a chance, a slim possibility of achieving his goal, he would hold that finger tight and hope to hell he didn’t have to pull it.

Kelliher muttered to the two men with him. “Don’t you move.” Then to his captor: “It’s all going to be fine, son, just fine—”

Good,she thought.Kelliher’s trying to reassure him. All will be okay. Everything will work out just the way he hoped it would. Just let him think that…

One step. Then another. Her movements tiny. But she saw Kelliher’s eyes go to her in horror.No… , those eyes screamed.Don’t do a thing.

And Maria guessed if it was her brains up for grabs, she might want things to freeze. But events like this only got worse. The guy could panic. Lots of people could get hurt.

Now, when it was unexpected, it was time to make a move.

Another step. Her gun not raised, but not thrown to the floor as Rodriguez’s was. She pulled her right hand back, then she turned a bit as if Kelliher’s look had actually had some impact, as if she was going to turn back those few steps and walk back to Rodriguez.

Her body twisted to the right, arm pulled back, palms open, rising up now until it was at shoulder height. And then she uncoiled her twisting body, let her open palm—now curling, balling—fly.

If she hit her mark, her hand would catch the soldier on the side of his head. His head would then snap back, and the gun would jerk away from under Kelliher’s chin. If she was wrong…

Her fist flew into the side of the soldier’s skull. He staggered back, not seeing it come at all. Then the gun moved—just as Maria had known it must.

His finger probably tightened even as the barrel began to slip.

There wasn’t time for a second punch from her, not before the barrel began its flight and the man’s finger fully tightened. The explosion of the sidearm suddenly filled the cave of the hangar. Now Maria launched her second blow while trying to see just how badly things had gone.

Kelliher was kneeling on the floor. The hostage-taker still had his gun. Not good at all.

The other marines who had been standing nearby started to scramble for their weapons, wasting precious seconds. She kept coming at the guy. A strong shot to his midsection and he lost the ability to breathe. She grabbed his hand, the one holding the gun, tightening on the wrist, which she twisted as if unscrewing a massive cap. The gun fell to the floor.

She released the wrist and then sent the same hand, now once again a traditional fist, into the soft side of the soldier’s cheek. A jarring hit that could knock him out, or at the very least send him to the floor in agony.

He went flying back. The other marines were all over him, almost comical in their overkill. Maria turned.

Kelliher was bleeding. She saw him look at his wound and then at her, as a medical team arrived.

General Hayden walked over to Maria. “You’d best report to your quarters, Private. I will call you when I am ready to speak with you.”

Maria nodded, then, remembering: “Yes, sir.”

She stepped back. The head of the UAC was bleeding on the hangar floor. Then it dawned on her: she had just played roulette with the life of one of the most powerful men on Earth.

After saluting, she started walking back to her quarters.