I curled up into a little ball and tried to ignore the swishes and thumps that had started to sound like failing heartbeats.
My body shook, my breaths came out shaky. I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed for it all to stop. This nightmare that never ended. This role I found myself in.
What if they all died? What if the guards who were armoured and carried freaking plasma rifles overpowered them with their steak knives. It was highly likely. I stared at the solid wall a few feet in front of me, where the invisible hatch was hiding, and waited and waited and waited for the tapping of the word ‘Fish’ in Morse code to tell me they were all right.
My body felt cold. My lips numb. I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. It was as if I was freezing to death in the snow. But I wasn’t. These tunnels weren’t as hot as the computer core room, but they weren’t freezing cold either.
I worked on stretching my fingers and toes, bringing them back to life.
And then someone tapped.
I was so busy counting my fingers and trying to ignore the swish and thump that I missed it.
Like a startled possum, I stared at the dead end of my tube and tried not to breathe.
The tapping came back a minute or so later. This time harder and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little desperate.
Fish. Fish. Fish.
I shuffled forward, then hesitated, and then sucked in a breath and waved my wrist comm at the hatch.
The gel wall retracted, and there was the captain, holding a wrist comm in his own hand. It clearly did not work on the gel walls.
“You didn’t leave,” he said.
“You asked me not to,” I replied.
“But…” he shook his head. “Never mind. We have wounded. We have to get out of here.”
“OK,” I said, not sure what else to add.
I peered out of the hole and saw all of the cells were empty; most of the containment fields were down. Lying on the ground, in various stages of distress, were my father’s security detail. Mercs, Captain Tremblay had said. And lying beside them were two of his officers. Their uniforms were burned to a crisp. I looked away before I registered what was on display through the holes in their chests.
I swallowed thickly. Tremblay shifted until he completely blocked my view.
“We managed to stop them calling for help,” he said. “But someone will check on them soon. We have to go. Now, Adi.”
“OK,” I said again.
He reached out and touched my shoulder briefly. “Can you lead us somewhere safe?” he asked.
I nodded my head. He watched me closely.
OK. Somewhere safe.
“I’ll have to stay by the hatch to keep it open,” I said, holding up my wrist comm.
I could see the idea forming in his mind. I shook my head.
“It’s mine,” I said. “I didn’t steal it.”
He nodded his head.
“López,” he called out. “Zenith first. Lead the way.”
“Yes, sir,” the female officer from the cell beside his said. She climbed in and slipped past me, muttering, “Hope none of the boys are claustrophobic.”
The guy with big muscles followed next, winking at me, and then the other one in the cell next to the hatch.
“Flux, you’re up,” Tremblay said. “Careful with Wilson.”
“Aye, sir.” Two men climbed in, helping an officer who looked a little worse for wear.
They all did really, but this one’s head was covered in dried blood. He was the one that had been out cold at the far end, I realised. The three of them passed me. I watched them all shuffle down the tunnel a fair way and then stop at a junction beside the one Tremblay had called López.
I looked back at the captain.
“Come on, Munro,” he said softly. “We’ll get you sorted.”
A woman was lifted into the tube next. She looked bad. Really bad. Blood covered her uniform. She was shaking. She made a pained sound as another officer slipped around her and started dragging her toward the others. One more officer climbed in behind them and lifted her feet to ease her way.
Tremblay looked worried.
He noticed me watching him.
“Our chief engineer,” he said and shook his head. He didn’t think she’d survive.
I crouched there, not sure what I was feeling, but knowing I hated it. I hated it.
Tremblay climbed in the hatch. That was it then. The two dead officers were being left behind.
He looked at the hatch and then looked at me. It was still open. I forced myself to turn away and start toward the others. When I looked back, the hatch was closed, and Tremblay was staring at it.
“Automatically coded,” he said.
I said nothing.
I worked my way forward, past all the officers who sported scrapes and cuts and bruises, and in the chief engineer’s case, life-threatening injuries. Where I was taking them might be safe, but it didn’t have medical equipment. I considered that for a moment. But where else was there?
The medical bay was on Deck B, one up from the computer core, and three up from here. Getting to the computer core was going take enough effort. I highly doubted the engineer would make it. If she did, then we’d consider raiding the medical bay afterwards.
For now, they needed a safe harbour, and I only knew of one on this ship.
“What’s that delicious smell?” the muscly one called Johnson said as I passed.
“Cut that out, Lieutenant,” the captain snapped at my back.
I realised then that he had followed me to the front of the line of officers. I looked over my shoulder at him. He offered a reassuring nod of his head.
“Sorry, sir,” Johnson said. “But I could have sworn I smelled steak.”
“Steak?” someone said. “You’re dreaming. Haven’t we already established you’re a baker, not a chef?”
“Um,” I said, moving my apron around. “It is steak. Here.”
I handed the apron to him. He peered inside.
“You are an angel sent down from heaven,” he announced, reaching in and drawing out a takeaway box. “Spuds,” he said, dipping his hand inside.
Someone took the apron from him and handed the steak meals out.
“If you’re quite done feeding my men,” the captain said, “can we move things along?”
He glanced back at the engineer.
“Sorry,” I muttered and kept on pushing past the rest of his men.
“At least the steak knives finally make sense,” López said as I approached the front of the line. She offered me a smile and wink.
“Ah,” the captain said as if he hadn’t put it all together until then. “You had to buy the meals to get the knives.”
“Yes,” I said, finally reaching the front of the line. I started heading back to my glowing green ladder.
They all followed, the captain directly behind me.
“How much did that cost?” he asked conversationally.
I thought perhaps he was trying to make me feel more at ease with them.
“About one-eighty,” I said.
Silence for a beat and then he murmured, “That’s a lot of money.”
I realised then, the question hadn’t been for my benefit. But for his. So he could figure out who I was.
The captain didn’t trust me. I felt sad about that. But I knew things were about to get a lot worse.
Eighteen
That’s Enough
Hugo
We followed behind the nimble little creature, who had made escaping the brig possible, around twists and turns, and more intersections than I could count. The going was slow. The ship was big. And we had wounded.
And then we reached the ladder.
“Fuck me,” Johnson said.
“Quiet,” I murmured, studying the green glow.
There was already a hell of a lot that worried me about this girl. The hatch opening wrist comm. The money to buy steak dinners just to get the steak knives they came with. The w
ay she travelled these emergency conduits as if they were her own personal jungle-gym. And now this. A green glowing gel-wall-coated ladder leading upwards.
I’d seen this glow before, of course. Aquila used to use it to calm people. To reassure them. He’d used it on me once, and I’d told him to knock it off. No one manning the tactical console on the bridge needed green to calm them. Tactical was always in control of their emotions. Always.
Even now, I was sure I showed little of my concern. But green glowing gel walls when the Aquila since he’d gone rogue would rather use red was a surprise.
I looked at the girl before me.
“We’re going up?” I asked. The habitats were down. She was taking us into officer territory.
She nodded her head and bit her lower lip.
“Lead on,” I said.
She started climbing. I shared a look with López.
“Johnson, Armstrong," I added, stepping onto the closest rung, “Help out Nova with Munro.”
“Yes, sir,” they both replied, letting Flux pass with the still slightly confused Wilson.
The ladder went on and on. I’d never really appreciated the size of this ship. I knew they were bigger than most in the fleets, because of the computer core required to run the AIs. But I’d never really appreciated the depth of the thing.
My arms ached. My feet felt like lead. I had a brief thought that I should have grabbed one of those steaks, and then it was over. The ladder went on, but the green glowing gel wall broke off on what I had worked out was C Deck.
C Deck. C Deck. C Deck, I thought to myself. Computer core. Science labs. And recycling.
This just got weirder and weirder.
Adi checked behind her to make sure we were all still there. Still here, I thought. Not letting you out of my sight, missy.
She bit her lip again and then started off. Following the glowing green wall.
I felt like Dorothy in the Land of Oz.
No, I was the tin man, I told myself. The little girl in front of me was Dorothy.
Where’s Toto? I thought and then chuckled quietly. Yeah, right.
I had no way to know which end of the deck we were on. I tried to picture where we’d been in the brig, where we’d gone on that deck to reach the glowing green ladder, and where we were now. But I lost myself somewhere around the first corner we’d taken.
Every now and then, Adi would stop and wait for the train to catch up. I thought perhaps she could navigate these tunnels a lot quicker without an entourage. Her diminutive figure meant she didn’t have to bend double. She could manage a walk, albeit crouched. She could practically run through these things, and here I was crawling behind her.
By the time we’d reached a dead end, I’d just about had enough. And Munro was unconscious. At least she’d stopped whimpering. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. But as Adi stopped and looked back at us, then finally settled her uncertain eyes on my face, I sucked it up.
I was their captain, and I would lead by example.
“This it, huh?” I said.
“Yep,” she whispered.
“Do we need to be quiet?”
She shook her head.
“Anything else we need to know?”
She just sat there. Staring at me.
“If it makes you happier,” I said. “I am the captain of the ship. Nowhere is off limits to me.”
That didn’t seem to make her happier at all.
I couldn’t make this woman out to save myself.
“OK,” I said. “We’re ready.”
It was clear that Adi was not.
She turned away and nodded to herself, some sort of internal debate raging. And then she lifted her wrist comm and swiped at the dead end.
A hatch opened. Heat rushed into the tube to greet us. Adi slipped through and landed on soft feet before me. I crawled forward and peered around.
For a moment, I couldn’t seem to move.
“What is it, sir?” López said. “I’m hoping the science labs. They’d have medkits there.”
Good idea, I thought and shook my head.
I climbed out and stared up at the enormous pillars before me, covering my mouth with a hand as I took it all in.
“Holy shit,” López offered, slipping out of the hatch behind me.
Adi was still standing close enough to keep it open, but I could tell she wanted to run.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re in the tin man’s head.”
“I thought it was a heart he was missing?” López offered.
“Well, he’s sure as hell not missing a brain, Commander,” I said.
Exclamations came from each subsequent officer who emerged from our tunnel. Even Wilson was shocked but managed not to shake his poor head.
Munro was the last to be brought out, and she looked bad. Her breathing was shallow, and there was a cast to her skin I didn’t care for.
“Why here?” I said, looking at Adi as she inched away from the hatch. The gel wall reformed behind her.
“It’s safe,” she said.
“From whom?” I asked. “This is…” I shook my head. “This is Aquila!” I said.
“He’s not here,” she offered. “Well.” She looked around at all the towering hard drives. “His brain is, but he isn’t. It’s not monitored. No one’s come in here since he went rogue. I think it’s sealed. The only way in and out, even using the wrist comm, is there.”
She pointed at the gel wall that we’d all come through.
“That makes no sense at all,” I said. “The crew have access to this section in case Aquila needs repairs.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said, taking a step back.
She was going to run. But to where?
This was one hell of a big area of the deck, but not that big. We’d find her. And why bring us here if she was so scared?
“Captain,” Johnson said.
I glanced back.
“We need the doc.”
I looked down at Munro. Her breathing stopped.
No. Damn it. No. We needed an engineer. We were in the AI’s goddamn brain. We were right here. We needed an engineer. We could stop this.
Armstrong started CPR. López jumped in to help him. I just stood there.
We were right here. In his head. We could stop this.
I watched as López breathed air into Munro’s mouth and Johnson cracked a rib.
The command officers of the AUS Aquila stood to attention at her side.
A waif of a woman who had so many secrets I didn’t know what questions to ask first watched us with wide eyes.
We had no doctor. He’d been confined elsewhere. We had no meds. No defib. Nothing.
Munro died in the most technologically advanced section of our ship, and we couldn’t do a thing about it.
“That’s enough,” I said twenty minutes later. “Stop.”
Johnson pulled back, sweating.
López collapsed onto her ass, wiping at tears.
No one said a thing.
And then a dog barked.
Nineteen
Walk With Me, Ms Price
Adi
“You’re Adriana Price,” the captain said with no small amount of accusation.
Someone powered up a Price plasma rifle. I’d known they’d had them. I’d seen them as they’d pushed past me in the tunnel. I hadn’t thought the AU crew would use them against me, though.
But then, I’d also known this moment was coming.
Ratbag squirmed in my arms. I’d picked him up as soon as he’d come running into the stunned group of people with me. He licked my face, sensing my disquiet.
The captain stared at me as if I was a puzzle he’d finally solved.
“You cut off your hair,” he said.
I said nothing. What could I say? I was the monster’s creation.
His eyes scanned my clothing. Far from top-tier. They settled on the dried tear tracks on my face. I looked nothing like the newsfeed phot
os.
“López, Johnson,” he said. “Secure the area.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the officers replied, their voices taut with tension.
The captain continued to stare at me as orders were given to his men and they fanned out. I started to fidget. I was acutely aware of the dead body of their engineer off to the side. Killed by my father’s security detail.
I had to stop calling them a detail, I thought inanely. They were a force of destruction, not a protection squad. I chewed on my bottom lip.
Tremblay ran a hand over his face, scratching his chin.
“You’ve been hiding in here since the coup?” he asked.
I nodded my head.
“You don’t say much,” he commented mildly.
I didn’t know what he wanted from me. He should have been mad. He should have been yelling at me. Arresting me, maybe.
He did none of those things. He just stared at me as his men disappeared in between Aquila’s electronic towers.
One guard had remained behind with the officer who’d suffered a head injury. Both were watching me and the captain closely. The one with all his faculties still intact, held his plasma rifle loosely in both hands. Powered up.
I flicked a glance at the gun and then a glance at Tremblay’s own pistol attached to his uniform trousers. The filleting knife was on the opposite thigh. I was defenceless.
Captain Tremblay let out a slow breath of air and said, “Why did you help us?”
“Because he has to be stopped,” I whispered.
“He’s your father,” the captain pointed out.
“He sold me to the mayor,” I said. The words sounded childish. I scowled at the need I felt to gain this man’s trust. The words that tumbled from my lips in desperation.
What would he care about my family problems?
“The mayor?” he said, still studying me.
I nodded my head.
Commander López returned then. She looked between the captain and myself, and then at the officer standing guard over the one with the head injury.
“Captain?” she said.
Tremblay didn’t take his eyes off me. “Yes, Commander?”
Zenith Point (The Sector Fleet, Book 4) Page 10