#greymetal | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

haphazardlyparked · 7 years

Text

combatants II

i interrupt the month of poetry (already) because i can’t stop thinking about this stupid science fiction stargate rip off and needed to write more of it.

---

“Sarko.”

K’s voice over the comms is clear as day, steady and commanding. Sarko would never have guessed she’s speaking from a cell aboard the wuzari mothership that looms before them, rotating on its own axis squarely blocking Elpis-P1 and its route back to the Pandora Gate. It is — as far as they can tell — a circular, contained greymetal thing made of interconnected parts; it’s hard to be sure, because it’s got cloaking technology that shifts constantly, parts of the ship winking into view and disappearing.

And somewhere in there, K’s trapped with at least two stab-wounds, one to her leg, non-fatal. One to her side, likelihood of mortality high. Micah couldn’t—wouldn’t—say how long she had.

Sarko feels like he can’t breathe.

The way she talks, though, she’s Commander K through and through. He never would’ve guessed she’s dying, but he’s had Eyes on her, and even if he hadn’t, the audio picked up by comms told a complete enough story. She’s dying –

“Sarko, goddamn you, are you there?”

Sarko fumbles with the controls, patches himself on. “Commander,” he rasps.

“W-Captain Sar’koza’il,” K says calmly, formally, no time wasted, the aspirated breaths in his full name hissing sharply against slightly damaged comms tech. “This is your Commander. Authorization code K-five-nine-sil’ma’nori-six-four. Activate Pyrrha Protocol.”

Sarko straightens sharply, breath shuddering through him as he forces himself to breathe slow, controlled; duty is like a brace snapping his spine into place. He embraces it for as long as it’ll keep him together.

“Commander,” he acknowledges, and he’s already turning away from the Eyes he still has on K’s stiff, stretched out form. He doesn’t watch the rise and fall of her chest just to reassure himself that she’s still breathing, because he’s got Pyrrha Protocol to trigger; he’s got their only way home – the Gate – to destroy.

“Sarko.” She’s still cool, still so controlled. “No holding back. Blow the Gate to hell; I want the Pyrrha to devastate this wuzari ship.”

The Pyrrha Protocol shutdown isn’t particularly difficult to activate, but adding a vicious boom to it will take a careful precision. Sarko freezes as he comes up to the first of the sequences he would need to reconfigure.

“I can do that,” he reports, warily.

“Good.” There’s something vicious in that furious satisfaction, something Sarko recognizes as sharp rage. Knows it’s because if she’s not furious, then she can only be resigned, and K will not die resigned. (It would never occur to her that she could be afraid; Sarko doesn’t remember the last time he wasn’t terrified.)

Avenge me, her dark tone doesn’t say, a silent order lashing at Sarko.

He could do his duty; he could be vengeful. Sarko could rig the biggest fucking explosion the wuzari will have ever seen; would have ever seen, if survivors were left to remember. They wouldn’t be. Sarko doing his duty would be as merciless as K’s tightly focused rage demands.

But Sarko is selfish.

“Pyrrha, boom, easy. I’ll do it after we’ve retrieved you.”

K hisses. “Absolutely not, Captain. That’s an order.”

“Sorry, Commander,” Sarko says. In his head, it’s like his determination is a cold fire licking through his thoughts, pulling them together, crystallizing a plan; is this what K feels like, when she’s got a combatant down and three wuzari still closing in on her?

Sarko turns back to the Pyrrha Protocol. Because he’s always been good at multitasking, he pulls up a second screen and starts directing new programs designed to pull data from the wuzari ship; he taps at a third screen to summon Lawson and her team.

“Captain, acknowledge that order,” K snaps.

“Negative, sir, command not received,” Sarko blithely lies. “Something’s interfering with the feed.”

“That’s not - that’s clearly not the case, you’re not even trying, Sarko - ”

“Standby while I debug the connection, Commander.”

#wow these are some messed up characters #science fiction fantasy #i'm determined that the fantasy label will be deserved at some point #combatants #writing #year of the orange

10 notes · View notes

haphazardlyparked · 7 years

Text

combatants III

part one part two

Thirty-three.

It’s the number of rules he’s breaking; the number of offenses he can be court-marshaled for back central, but he’s not back central now.

“All eyes on the mission, yeah?”

That’s — that’s what K said to him once, twice, or all the times that Sarko needed a gentle reminder to compartmentalize, to tuck everything dangerous away and focus on his orders. But K’s not here now.

So Sarko squares his shoulders, ignores both thoughts, and stares at the small group of combatants before him.

“Orders to activate Pyrrha Protocol have come.” He doesn’t prevaricate, because they all deserve better than that, and he doesn’t say who’s authorized the command, because that’s obvious. He does give everyone before him time to — not process, because they’ll all need more than five minutes to process the bleak reality of never, ever going home again — but to deal with it. Compartmentalize; tuck away the horror. Focus.

When the ripple of shock passes through in harsh breaths and clenched fists, leaving behind blank or hardened faces, Sarko promises, “We’re going to rig Pyrrha extra special for those bastard wuzari.” Behind him, Elsbeth is at the core console, reviewing the modifications Sarko has made to the Protocol. “It’ll be spectacular. It’ll take out their mothership.”

An expectant silence greets him, the four people before him standing at attention and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sarko is grateful.

“Obviously,” he continues, more easily now he knows they’re waiting to hear this, that they’re wanting to hear this, “this presents a minor problem.”

Their commander is aboard that mothership, and this is a problem.

“Sir,” Jones speaks up, the second-in-command of K’s elite squad.

“I won’t force anyone to go,” Sarko says. He’s grateful, again, that he doesn’t have to say what he wants outright.

“Sir,” Jones repeats, eyes forward. He doesn’t look at the others — Everett, Cal, Meris — but he speaks for them easily. “We’re all willing.”

“‘Sides,” Everett adds with a nasty smile, “It’s not like central’ll be able to take us to task for this.” Meris snorts at that.

If all goes to plan, this squad — none of them will ever see central again; if all goes to shit, they’ll probably be dead, and still they’ll all never see central again. (And Sarko—Sarko will command in Ops, or from the Core Console, like he always does, standing witness to death and life and death.)

“The Commander has not authorized this rescue mission.” Sarko feels compelled to make this clear. The combatant squad — Jones, Everett, Cal and Meris — stare at him flatly. Sarko can’t decide what’s creepier, the way four pairs of hard eyes shift to him in unison, or the fact that it reassures him. “Right. Be ready in five.”

•••

It’s long past five minutes when they finally shift out.

Sarko would blame Micah, who caught wind of Sarko’s mad plan and spent all five of those minutes, and five again, hissing at Sarko about selfishness and cruelty and sending four good people to their deaths when he should just follow his goddamn orders. Sarko doesn’t blame Micah, though, because he agrees with the chief of medical; he is selfish and cruel and probably sending K’s squad to their deaths when he should just do as K’s said.

But five minutes after Micah’s done with his red-faced bellowing, Sarko is a floor below Core Console, at the Ops console. He nods to the four combatants armed to the teeth and waiting in Station S.

Station S is a large, sleek circular chamber made of glass and and greymetal ribbing. All squads shift out from Station S, under Technical’s watchful eyes, and — all things well-willing — return back there. The trackable Station S residue remains on travelers for five hours, and becomes increasingly unreliable for pinpointing location after that.

K’s squad doesn’t even have the standard five hours, though. It’ll take another hour, tops, for Elsbeth to finish checking Sarko’s work on Pyrrha, and that’s it. Then they can blow up the Gate. If Sarko doesn’t hesitate to give the order, the explosion will be in two hours’ time.

If Sarko doesn’t hesitate.

“You know what I think?” Elsbeth’s voice says in all their ears suddenly, dry as dust though Sarko knows she’s probably anxious upstairs at the core console, Eyes on them as she pauses in her cross-checking. She knows they’re about to shift out. Half the bloody Gateship knows. "I think, if we get back central after all this shit, this’ll be the most epic court-marshaling in history. If they decide to court marshal us at all.”

Sarko smiles thinly. “Protocol is protocol,” he says blandly.

From the chamber, Jones grins and nods at Sarko; Everett and Meris throw twin sardonic salutes, and Cal strokes the flat of her primary-form w-knife in a way that frankly terrifies Sarko.

Elsbeth sighs, but somehow makes it sound fierce.

“Shift on a count of seven,” Sarko announces. He counts down the seven seconds, and then when K-squad fades out of view, he counts out three more. Then Sarko blinks intentionally to bring up Eyes on the squad; he sees sharp white walls and bright lights, and knows immediately they’ve made it aboard the wuzari mothership.

“All well-willing,” Jones mutters.

Sarko’s jaw clenches involuntarily, but he bites out an, “All well-willing,” and tries his best to sound encouraging, though really he’ll settle for anything but desperate. He thinks it comes out determined.

And then, twenty three minutes later, everything goes to shit.

#combatants #science fiction fantasy #science fiction #the fantasy is coming i promise... i think #year of the orange #writing

1 note · View note