Thursday 18 July 2013

Excerpt #7

I've reached 30,000 words. And another main character is dead. Yet again I'm not going to tell you who's died but how about I show you Charlie's response? Yeah, the Captain's getting a little angry at the toll her crew is taking. Okay, I'll admit, there may be a spoiler to the people that have died. But here ya go:

    Charlie stared. Her gun was still raised part way but her gaze was fixed on the image before her. Two of her crew had died. Two of her crew had been mercilessly murdered. Dead. In the same hour. She turned and moved back towards the airlock. Silent as she went. Her voice couldn’t be trusted. The anger that was rising couldn’t be trusted to be contained within. Eliot was still on guard at the door and she simply nodded to McCallister’s body. She dragged one of Torres’ arms over her shoulder and dragged him through the ship.
    “Captain?”
    She remained silent. She simply waited for him to pass so that she could put Torres down and lock the door. She pulled the engineer through the room and past the next door before she again, put him down and locked the door behind her. Then she was following Eliot to medical.
    When they arrived Zach was composing himself still, finally being able to enter the room and help pull Kelly off of one bed and into a body bag to put in the cold room for the trip back. For caskets. Zach and Eliot worked on repeating the process for McCallister, Sokoloff shaking her head with a frown as she watched. “Fucking shit bags,” she muttered before wincing as Nelson prodded at her chest.
    Eliot took Torres off of Charlie and tried to look her over, gauge her response or her thought process. She took one more look around the room and turned, made her way up to the bridge, unlocked it, stepped inside, locked it again and simply leaned back against it. For several seconds she allowed the pain of losing two of her members to overcome her, eyes watering in the corners for several seconds. Then she threw her gun across the room and watched it clatter across the metal. Fucking Collins.
    The man’s smirk from before came back and she felt the anger within her grow. Somehow, either the man had gotten loose of his bindings or someone had come aboard and helped him escape. Either way, the way that Rhodes had been- She closed her eyes as the image of the woman’s body came back to mind.
    She bit the inside of her lip, piercing the skin until she could taste copper. Someone had to pay. Be it Command, Collins, the rest of the people on the station. Someone was going to pay.
    The controls attracted her attention and she moved over to them and brought up the cameras that were still active on Sokoloff’s and Hunter’s vests. She watched the video as somebody burst through. A man and a woman, both with pistols. They swept the room with professional ease and shot Rhodes then Sokoloff. They moved across the room and shot off the cuffs keeping Collins down. The scientist took an offered pistol, turned and shot Kelly in the head. From Hunter’s camera he watched as Rhodes lifted her gun and fired off against the opposite wall. “Go,” Collins said to one of them and the man moved off through the ship. The woman was still stood there, her back to Kelly and Murphy.
    “Now, now,” Collins taunted the Doctor. “Your Captain is a bitch but you? You’re a bigger bitch.” There was a crude smile to his words as he slinked across the room towards Rhodes. He knocked the gun away with ease and picked up a scalpel from one of the trays. He jerked forward and Hunter’s camera showed the man sniff heavily as he dragged his nose up her cheek. “Oh yes,” he said with a smile.
    There was heavy grunting from the other side of the room and Hunter’s camera moved to show Murphy swinging her legs up and over her bed, kicking the woman off balance. Murphy fell with a shriek, grabbed the woman and managed to wrap an arm around her neck. The camera switched back to Rhodes to show Collins stood behind her, scalpel to her throat. Murphy. Wrapping her good leg around the woman’s waist. Then the neck was snapped and Murphy struggled for the fallen pistol, crawled to sit up against the wall and aim the weapon at Collins. The camera was back on the Doctor but her throat had already been slashed and she was sputtering for several seconds before she stopped.
    Charlie slammed her fist on the console and ignored the burning that started in her shoulder again. The pain killers had worn off.
    But she welcomed the pain. The image of Rhodes was still stuck to the inside of her lids. If it wasn’t Rhodes it was McCallister.
    She kicked at Sokoloff’s seat with a growl and turned on the PA system that spoke to those outside of the ship. “Collins you son of a bitch you listen to me now. You’re dead. You are a walking dead man. Everyone else on that station? Dead. You’ve hurt and killed my crew and now, now the rules are out of the window. If you approach this ship you will be fired upon. If you step aboard this ship again. You are dead.” Then she turned it off and slumped back in her seat.
    It wasn’t enough. She wanted to be out there, finding the man and letting him know what death was like.
    “Captain?” Zach asked from behind her. She turned in the seat and stood to move past him. He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “Captain. What are we doing?”

    She glanced out of the window and stared at the station for several seconds before she pulled her arm free with a gentle tug. “Killing the sons of bitches that killed our crew.”

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