by Leslie Lee
offline."
"Yeah, took a little convincing to get it to come here. But you look like you need it." The man started to turn away. "Is there a security team down here?"
"Yeah. That way." He pointed down the smoke filled corridor. "Watch yourself. If these patches let loose, we're going to be leaving in a hurry. We're holding this place together with gum and harsh language."
Mak grinned through the mask. "I'll add my own."
The man slapped him on the shoulder and ran down the hall.
Leaks screeched as air escaped through some of the repairs. Smoke whistled out into space. It made it easy for the crews to find and patch but there were a lot of holes. Footing was treacherous. Too many deck plates had been pulled up and thrown against the walls. He could look down into the decks beneath through the torn cabling to see more crew running back and forth. Above him, the ceiling panels had been similarly cannibalized. At some places he could look up through at least three decks. The screaming leaks, the crew shouting, the bots pounding... He felt dizzy. Vertigo was a bad thing when walking across slivers of steel. He flattened himself against creaking bulkheads when the crew wrestled equipment past him and ducked when debris flew at him. At least the mask filtered out most of the noxious gases. The temperature fluctuated wildly between hot and cold. Plasma conduits would blaze roasting him. A few feet away, air rushed out whipping all the heat from his bones.
He finally reached the section holding whatever they hit. There were far fewer crewmen here. But security personnel stood at the entrance, heavily armed.
"Who's in charge?" he asked the first cop he saw.
"What are you, a tourist?" the man barked without turning to face him.
"Nope." Mak waited.
The man finally turned. "Blue Box Leader. Heard you had a rise and a fall."
"Easy come, easy go."
The man laughed. "What the fuck, at least you're one of us. Commander P'leh'run is over there." He pointed. "Watch yourself, this place is fucked up big time."
"Thanks." One of us. The sides were taking shape.
He walked through a small hatch leading into a cargo area. Whatever used to be in there had probably been blown into space.
Commander P'leh'run, was tall even for a D'ha'ren. About six foot seven. He turned his gold eyes on Mak's shaky progress across the torn up floor.
"You were right, Mak," P'leh'run said. "There's some goddamned thing there."
Mak was about to ask what it was when out of a beat up hatch, a security team emerged carrying equipment. With them, was a contingent of Soldiers.
"I see," he said.
"The Soldiers will take it from here." P'leh'run spat the words out like they were filth in his mouth. "We've been ordered to not disturb the fucking thing."
"What the hell is the thing?" Mak asked.
"Don't know. But this I can tell you. It doesn't belong on the X. It's putting something out which is playing havoc with our sensors. And with us. Can you feel it?"
"I thought it was because the gravity's bad in here."
"Feels like it but it's something more. And it's getting stronger." He produced a scanner. "Brahms showed us how to see the blobs. See, how they're floating in here? Every time they float in, the thing in there gets a little stronger."
"The blobs are passing right through the hull."
"Like we left the doors and windows wide open."
"The thing in there isn't a blob then."
P'leh'run cursed again. "No, it's solid. We should jettison this whole section. Then blow it the hell up."
"What are the Soldiers up to?"
P'leh'run strung a number of curses together. "It's their problem now." He turned to face Mak. "What the hell is going on?"
"Earth Central has taken command of the ship."
"What? The X is a Unity ship. They can't do that."
Mak shrugged.
"The D'ha'ren Directive will blow a goddamned gasket."
"Some think that it's got D'ha'ren support as well."
P'leh'run watched the last of his security team exit the hole. A contingent of Soldiers set up stations around it. There were D'ha'rens among them.
"Yeah. Whoever is behind this would have to have some kind of D'ha'ren support."
"Did the thing look like a ship?"
"It looks like a goddamned rock. It's about," he held his hands out about shoulder width apart. "You'd think you could just pick it up and kick it the hell out of here. But it's no rock, and I think it's bigger than it looks."
Mak waited.
"It's just a feeling," P'leh'run muttered. "But I felt that we were in it when we were twenty feet away." He clenched his fists again. "Come on. Our presence is no longer required."
"You think that little rock though caused all this damage?" Mak asked, as they walked away.
P'leh'run waved at a repair leader. "Hey, Nikki," A Hellborne. "Tell us your theory."
"Hardly a theory, gentleman," she said, putting her hands on her ample hips. "Just a guess. I think it was bigger when the X struck it. It got shaved sort of as it tore into the ship. Now, what the heck is happening around here?"
Mak repeated what he knew.
Nikki rolled her massive head. "Dammit. Since when does the cargo get to call the shots?"
"What about the Hellborne? Are there any splinter groups or dissidents?"
"What do I look like?" she snapped. "A goddamned politician? The Hellborne are of one mind. We're committed to the Unity."
Hellborne women weren't much different than the men, hairless, compact, and squat. Except that as Jerry put it, "they have boobs to die for and asses that just won't quit."
"I thought it was Earth," P'leh'run said.
"Earth, the Unity, what the hell." She threw her hands up. "Nobody asked me."
"I have to report to Security Central," P'leh'run said. "See that little crawl space way up there. You'd better not take it no matter how much you want to see that rock. There's nobody around to get your ass out of there. And it's dangerous. Very dangerous."
He turned on his heel and left.
"Here," Trudy said handing him some of her equipment. "I'm sure you won't be needing this."
The crawl space looked very small and it appeared to travel alongside the outer wall of the corridor. It was going to be cold and cramped. Dirty and dark. And as P'leh'run had noted, dangerous. He sighed donning some of the Hellborne's equipment and picked up a coil of cable.
This wasn't the dumbest thing he'd ever done. Now, launching his pod alone during training without permission, there was a truly brain dead act. That almost had him thrown out of flight school.
He waited until he thought no one was paying attention then clambered up into the crawl space. The pads on his elbows and knees, and the gloves protected him a little. Still, it was just about as cold as he'd ever been. The crawl space creaked with his movement and sometimes just all by itself. He could peek out of the cracks in the thin metal to the deck below where the Soldiers were guarding the entrance. He was pretty sure they wouldn't hear him but he kept as quiet as possible.
Dirt showered down on him as he crawled. He smiled to himself. This was more like his life on the streets, hiding from the cops. What would his flight instructors think? The crawl space was getting narrower. It had been crumpled from the top and he had to slide along on his belly. Gritting his teeth to prevent the cold from making them chatter, he pulled himself along. A section in front of him had been completely blown apart. It was the end of the line. He dragged himself forward and looked down.
There was only a little light and at first, he thought, he wasn't there yet. But as he continued to stare down, he finally saw it. Not big at all. Yet it had ripped a gigantic gash in the armor plated side of the X. A normal rock this size would have scratched the hull at best, assuming it could even penetrate the shields. The small sliver of light came from the edges of the makeshift hatch sealing the room. Every now and then the light would blink as one of the Soldiers paced around.
One thing was certain.
P'leh'run was right. The rock felt bigger than it looked. And it felt like it was growing.
His eyes said it was one size. But a feeling he couldn't explain told him his eyes were lying. It was bigger. And his headache was much worse. The hole he was looking through was about fifty feet above the rock. He looked up and saw the chunk of metal which had torn through the crawlspace and lodged into the hull above his head. He tied the cable he had brought with him to the torn metal. But he knew the cable was not long enough. This was going to be a problem. He could climb down and easily jump the rest of the way. But jumping back up again, that was something else. There was plenty of wreckage around but piling it up would be noisy. And it might be obvious even to a bunch of Soldiers somebody had been in there. Besides, getting any closer to this thing didn't sound like such a good idea.
He was about to pull the rope up then froze, his mouth falling open.
The rock moved.
It wasn't much, It might have been just the light flickering slightly. Or maybe the gravity fluctuated causing a slight shift. His gut knew though. The rock had vibrated then shifted just slightly.
He decided to hang