The Road to Hell

Chapter 28

"What the hell happened?" Tanner said.

Fitch pushed him aside. "Who cares? We need to get out of here. Now."

David hushed them both up with one hand and said, "I don't know how, but they must have found the bomb and shut it down."

"How could they have found out?"

"Who knows," Fisher said. "It could have been a random patrolman that thought it looked suspicious."

"Or they could have been tipped off," Rosana said, hitting the closest solid object she could with a frustrated fist. "That guy you sent off. He could have done it."

"If they know about the bomb, then they might know where we are. I suggest we leave before—

"We're not going anywhere, Fitch," David said.

A dangerous gleam entered Fitch's eye and he raised a finger in warning. "Look, mate—

Rosana stepped between them and put a hand on Fitch's shoulder. "No, Liam. He's right. We aren't going anywhere, not while the station is in lockdown. They activate an interdiction field to stop attackers from escaping."

"So we have to deactivate the interdiction field?" said Tanner. "How are we going to do that?"

"We're not," David said, surprising everyone. "We're going to do what we came here to do."

Fitch chuckled sarcastically. "And how do you suggest we do that? Pull a spare nuke out of a hat and try again?"

"We have a couple ship-to-ship nuclear missiles. It's possible we could fashion a bomb from one of them," Fisher said.

"We could, but it would take too long, and right now all of the senators are probably already in a secure bunker where a nuke wouldn't hurt them," Tanner said.

"That's it. Everybody shut up and listen!" Everyone stopped and looked at David. "The station has an otherspace core, right? So we'll use it. We're going to jump it right into the middle of the Sun."

Nobody said a word.

"Are you crazy?" Rosana asked. "We don't have the manpower for that!"

"We've got less than a dozen men," Fisher pointed out, "and to pull this off we'd need two teams. One to secure the otherspace core control room and the other to secure the central command centre at the top of the Senate Chambers tower. The ignition keys in each room have to be turned simultaneously for any jump to be made."

"If we all pushed hard enough we could probably take the otherspace control room, but the central command centre is a whole different story. They have a whole battalion of troops on board this station, Spectre. You can't possibly expect to pull this off."

David smirked. "I just might be crazy, but I'd rather die trying than be executed by Zeus for failure. Today you're going to learn why they call me Spectre."

The others didn't look very pleased, but Fitch unexpectedly stepped forward looking just as confident as David was. "Actually, this plan might not be as crazy as you think. I didn't know what to expect so I figured I'd play it safe and bring along a few special treats just in case."

"Does this have anything to do with those four crates you stuffed in here?" David asked.

Fitch tapped the side of his nose and winked. "You guessed it, mate."

He strode over and pressed his palm to the scanner of each of the crates, moving to the next as soon as the prior one popped open. "Merry Christmas, everyone."