Furnace (24 page)

Her eyes wandered to the floor thoughtfully and she sighed. “I know.”

The elevator doors sprang open and I saw the carnage on the bridge for the first time.

DEPARTURE

I may never know exactly how close the ship came to being overtaken, but I deduced from the piles of corpses—human and alien—surrounding the elevator that it had been a very near thing, indeed. It surprised me that most of the corpses weren’t human
or
demon. They were alien races, many of which I’d glimpsed around the lava lakes and in the corpse fields. Evidently, some had broken free and were just as desperate to get the hell off of Furnace as we were. Maybe the crew would have been open to them hitching a ride if we’d found a way to communicate within our accelerated timeline, but I don’t blame either party for the gory mess on the bridge. It was the planet’s fault. In their desperation to leave, the aliens had stormed the ship. The fleet soldiers had misunderstood their intentions and opened fire on them, which led to the aliens themselves attacking. A battle to the death ensued between two miserable peoples with a common enemy.

Nobody’s fault. We all just wanted to survive.

“Chalmers!” someone shouted as I surveyed the carnage.

A figure rose from the pilot’s chair with one abrupt wave.

Teemo
, I realized.
No shit.

He didn’t look any worse for wear, and the sight of him in his normal seat was a welcome surprise.

I looked around and made a quick inventory of the remaining officers. All fleet personnel who held any level of command had be on the bridge then, I thought, or else they were already dead.

The thought made Gibbons’ absence all the more troubling.

“Where’s the captain?” I asked, limping toward my station behind the pilot’s chair.

Gallagher and Rosie Iglesias exchanged a quick, weighted glance.

“The captain’s not himself,” Gallagher answered.

I collapsed into the navigator’s chair and groaned. “Is he dead?” I asked.

“No,” she said flatly.

I wanted to ask more but knew it wasn’t the right time. Whether the skeleton crew thought they needed a navigator or not, I was supposed to be there with them.

“Start her up, Rosie,” Teemo called from the pilot’s chair while he made the adjustments only helmsmen and captains truly understand.

“Are sensors back online?” I asked, beginning my own pre-flight checks to make sure we wouldn’t blast directly into a passing meteor or worse. It didn’t do much good. I was still more or less blind, unless the scanners were right and there was truly nothing above the planet but space itself. I still had trouble believing it.

“Somewhat,” Rosie answered as she powered the FTL drive.

I’ve never been happier to hear an engine-roar in my life. Maybe we weren’t going to make it home, I thought, but we just might get off of Furnace. That was enough for me. I’d have rather taken my chances in deep space with nothing in sight—probably dying within weeks—than spend another moment on that godforsaken planet. At least out in space no one would be hunting us.

But you’ll still be within the clown king’s influence
, I realized with horror.
He can still pull you back. You won’t get away fast enough.

I hadn’t given the demon’s sphere of influence much thought until then, but it was true. If he could pull us out of our own galaxy, what could stop him from pulling us out of his own planet’s orbit?

“Shit!” I hissed, slamming my fist against the control panel.

“What is it?” Teemo asked.

“Nothing,” I said. After a moment, I resumed my pre-flight checks. No matter what happened, I decided, we had to at least try. Maybe the clown king had transported me back to the ship because he’d decided to let us go. I didn’t trust his motive if that was the case, but it was too late to ask questions.

“Engines are a go,” Rosie said from the engineering station.

“Pilot is a go,” Teemo confirmed.

“Doesn’t look like we’ll run into anything,” I said.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” Gallagher piped in. She’d assumed command while I was on the surface, which wasn’t all that surprising considering the captain was tucked away somewhere. Probably the brig. She was the only one left on the ship with any real diplomatic authority once the captain was removed from command. The other officers on board were either dead, occupied, or stuck on the surface. In the chain of military command, I technically should have been in charge, and then Lao Gang if something happened to me, and Rosie if something happened to both of us, but I didn’t want command. Not then. I was too goddamned tired to be the one making decisions.

“Ten seconds,” Rosie announced from the engineer’s station. “Get ready, Teems.”

“Understood,” he replied.

Once the engines were fully on line, timing the pilot controls for the initial thrust to propel the ship off the surface was a delicate art. Teemo is one of the best at it, though, and Rosie has her own sterling reputation which I can finally vouch for. The two of them executed a seamless transfer as soon as the engine prep hit zero and the first thrust dug us out of the crater.

“We’re in the air,” Teemo confirmed.

I quickly locked in coordinates just beyond the planet’s orbital field. I didn’t want to push us too much farther than that until I knew exactly what the ship was capable of handling. No one had briefed me on the precise condition of the
Hummel
yet and I didn’t want to plot a jump that would fry another set of systems and maybe send us hurtling back toward the surface. Once we were out in the black sea again, we could re-evaluate our position and see if there was any way to catch a signal relaying our coordinates or at the very least, point us in the general direction of the nearest civilization. The prospects still weren’t good, but we had to tackle one problem at a time.

“Lao,” Gallagher called to the Master Gunner, who nodded silently and left the bridge.

“What’s he doing?” I asked as we separated from the planet.

She crossed the bridge and put her hand on my shoulder, leaning over to get a look at the navigation screens. “He’s going to blow up the city,” she said.

I finished making course corrections, which were pretty standard for the time being. Certainly not the on-point calculations the Master Navigator who’d trained me would have liked, but even punching in the commands made my whole body cry out in agony. Somewhere on the surface, a demon was getting his meal.

Maybe we’re out of range
, I thought.

But not from the clown king. I didn’t think I’d
ever
get far enough away from his reach. It was all a matter of whether or not he decided to exert himself to that degree.

“Steadily gaining altitude,” Teems announced. His voice rose in pitch the longer we stayed in the air. He couldn’t mask his excitement. I don’t think anyone really wanted him to.

“Switch to main screen,” Gallagher commanded, seating herself in the captain’s chair. I don’t think it was a calculated move so much as one of convenience (it was the only empty seat remaining on the main bridge area) but I imagine it wouldn’t have sat well with most of the crew if they’d seen it. However, most of the crew was dead by then, anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter.

“Yes, sir,” Rosie answered.

The display screen switched from a direct view of the crater to a live feed from the aft bow. A perfect view of the city of Tscharia, in other words. Even seeing it through the screen made me shudder.

“Master Gunner, are you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Lao confirmed over the crackling comm line. Evidently, it wasn’t completely fixed yet.

“Fire when ready,” Gallagher told him.

“Yes, sir.”

I didn’t see the point in leveling the city for any reason but spite, which I guess is understandable enough except that you never want to waste your ship’s heavy explosives when you don’t absolutely need to. Unlike small arms, med supplies, and foodstuffs, charges for pulse blasts that meet fleet specifications are extremely hard to come by outside Earth’s solar system. I kept my mouth shut, though, because I wanted to see the city blown to dust just like the rest of them. Probably even more so.
I
was the one who’d been down there, after all. The one who’d witnessed the atrocities perpetrated in the ancient city. I was sure they’d seen their fair share of fucked-up shit onboard the
Rockne Hummel
(I wouldn’t realize just
how
fucked up until I met with Gallagher, Rosie, Teemo, and Lao on the way back) but it still pales in comparison to what I experienced on the surface.

“Jesus Christ,” Teemo gasped. “Look at that.”

He pointed toward the view screen as if the rest of us weren’t already looking.

I heard Gallagher swallow hard behind me. “Any time now, Master Gunner.”

The view was spectacular, in a disturbing way. Beyond the crater on the side opposite the city of Tscharia, there was a graveyard of ships that stretched for miles. Skeletons, most of them. Ravaged by the harsh surface winds. Some had retained their general shape despite centuries spent in the elements. None of them looked functional.

“How many do you think they’ve trapped here?” Rosie whispered.

No one answered. No one needed to. The answer was right in front of us in the endless graveyard. I still didn’t think the view was an accurate representation of Furnace’s victims, though. I knew there were a lot more somewhere, perhaps buried beneath the capital city like the clown king’s vessel.

That could have been us
, I thought.
We were next in line.

I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully, watching the landscape fill the view screen.

So why is he letting
us
go when none of the others escaped?

I didn’t know for certain that no other ship had gotten away, though, so I saw no point in worrying about it.

Even more disturbing than the graveyards was the sight of the lands beyond Tscharia. The corpse fields. The lava lakes. The wastelands, and then the nightmares beyond it. Empty castles with scores of bodies on slow-roasting pits that unraveled each victim’s intestines as they spun. A writhing mob of the damned slogging their way along a valley of snakes. Innumerable aliens stoking massive, industrial fires far in the distance.

I shuddered.

“My God,” Rosie whispered.

Somehow, it was worse seeing it all from above. More imposing. In fact, looking down on all the carnage in a miniature scale which was still too big to ignore, I couldn’t believe I’d made it through everything and lived to tell about it. There were many who hadn’t. Millions. Billions. Gallagher put her hand on my shoulder again, as if to apologize for all that I’d been through even though I hadn’t elaborated on my experiences yet.

I tore my eyes away from the view screen and focused on the navigation controls. I didn’t need to watch any more. I’d
lived
it. And who knew what other senseless horrors occurred elsewhere on the planet? Maybe Tscharia wasn’t even the only city on Furnace with a clown king and an army of exiled nightmares. Maybe Tscharia was the
smallest
city on Furnace with the most lenient, civilized demons. There was no way to tell with our sensors just coming back online. It wasn’t important, and we weren’t about to stretch the systems for a planet-wide scan when it risked frying them all over again. That may have grounded us if we weren’t careful, and certainly would make breaking orbit and getting home a hell of a lot more difficult than it already was.

“Lao, what’s the hold up?” Gallagher asked over the comm line. She walked up to the view screen as though she’d somehow gain insight just by examining the landscape.

“Locking on target now, Representative. I want to make sure we hit the heart of the city. I don’t want anything left, and I don’t want to shoot twice.”

Folding her arms across her chest, Gallagher turned and walked back to the captain’s chair. “Fair enough,” she said. “But hurry up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Teemo said softly. “He’s
looking
at us.”

My eyes leapt back to the view screen. I couldn’t help myself. I knew deep down who he was talking about and what I would see, but I still couldn’t prevent it.

It was the clown king, staring straight through the monitor like he knew exactly where the camera was. He probably did.

“Zoom in,” Gallagher said, walking directly back to the view screen. “It’s saying something.”

Rosie isolated the horned demon and focused in on his position. Seeing him up close again drained the color from my face. I knew he was speaking directly to me.

Wherever you go
, he mouthed.
I will find you.

In my head, I heard the voices chanting, “Here…here…here…”

Tscharia.

I blinked and he was gone.

“We’ll break through the stratosphere in just a few moments, sir,” Teemo reported.

“Lao?”

“Firing in five, four, three, two, one.”

We watched silently as the pulse beam sprang out from the ship, disappeared in the heart of the city momentarily, and then was replaced by a rapidly-expanding wreath of fire and debris.