Ridiculous as it sounded, Nate had mostly started with Marty because he’d always been the steadiest hand in their squad when shit got hairy. Add in the facts that he’d actually fired a gun in his life, and that he was the only person in the room whose hands were currently free, thanks to the deceased troglodan’s chain-snapping rage, and they had their most qualified man for the job—which probably said a few things about how boned they were if and when the troglodans noticed something was up.
“Dude, but seriously,” Kyle whispered beside Marty as Nate leaned in closer to inspect his friend’s restraints. “What the shit is going on?”
“Not now,” Marty said with a sharp look at Kyle. To Nate, glancing nervously at the cannon, he added, “Will that work?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer, Nate decided, looking from the cannon to Marty’s collar chain. Especially seeing as he still didn’t understand what the cannon was even firing. But shrugging didn’t seem like the most comforting reply he could give before trying to blast off his friend’s restraints.
Any ideas here, Ex?
“Hurry!” someone hissed nearby.
Nate blew out a breath and raised the cannon, looking to Marty for confirmation.
“Shoot the ring, probably,” Marty said, setting the pistol on the deck beside him, voice tight. “Not the chain, right?”
Nate felt the blood drain from his face as he nodded. “Was thinking the same thing,” he lied, shifting the cannon ever-so-slightly.
No good blasting the chain apart if the resultant yank on the collar ended up breaking Marty’s neck, or crushing his windpipe.
Jesus.
“Okay then,” Marty said, returning Nate’s nod with all the chipper levity of a desperado telling the hangman he was ready.
Nate laid his thumb on the firing stud, trying to focus on the wall rung, and not his friend’s terrified face, or his brain’s dichotomous screams that this was a horrible idea, and that he needed to hurry the hell up and get on with it anyway. His thumb tensed. There had to be a better way. He started to depress the stud, the faintest hum purring from the cannon.
Then a sound like a few hundred swords being drawn filled the room, and Marty’s collar chain fell from the wall rung and slapped down to the deck. Dizzy with relief, Nate raised the cannon and carefully eased off the firing stud, looking around for some explanation. Kyle’s chains had come loose from the wall too, he saw. Same with everyone else down the line.
Haste would be prudent, the Excalibur pointed out, as if this had been the plan all along. Judging by the smug satisfaction wafting from his erratic companion, maybe it had been.
You’re gonna give me whiplash with all this flip-flopping, Nate thought, looking around at the spike in excited chatter through the brig, but thank you.
The entire brig appeared to have been liberated. Or freed from the retracted chain rungs on the walls and the chain posts, at least. Most were rising to their feet around the room, juggling an awkward ensemble of shackles and collars, jangling chains, and burning questions of what the hell they were supposed to do next.
And for some reason, a lot of them were looking at Nate like he was supposed to have the answer.
“Get that thing turned over and search it properly,” he said, pointing to the dead troglodan. That was something, at least. Better yet, no one argued. A few big guys were already moving toward the troglodan, looking around for more volunteers to help.
“How are we getting out of here?” someone asked.
Hell if he knew.
He barely even remembered how they’d gotten here to start with. There was no knowing how deep they were within the ship. Maybe they were bordering the outer hull, and the pulse cannon could blast them a nice exit hole to freedom—or maybe straight to the crushing vacuum of outer space, or to a barracks of angry troglodans. Blasting out of the ship would hardly matter anyway, unless the ship was already grounded, which he didn’t think it was.
What they really needed was to find some kind of escape pods, or…
“The grav lift,” someone called from the back of the brig, near the dead troglodan—the girl from the bar, he realized with a flicker of surprise. The serendipitous jogger who’d seen him at Todd’s that morning. She gave him a supportive little nod, like carry on, you, and stooped back down to look at the troglodan.
Curious. But he didn’t have time to fret about it, or to argue her point. He was utterly devoid of better ideas, and the rest of the room seemed to be right there with him.
At least grav lift sounded better than abduction beam.
“The grav lift,” he agreed, trying to sound confident about it.
“That thing goes down?” another girl asked.
Of course it goes down, the Excalibur sighed in his head.
“Yeah,” Nate said, struggling to speak normally as the Excalibur ranted on about what good would a gravitonic generator be to anyone without a bidirectional something something, and… “Yeah, it should. I’d say that’s our best shot.”
He turned away to look for Gwen, hoping to avoid more questions, and was surprised to find her hovering nearby, looking uncertain. He closed the gap between them, all too aware that people were still watching.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
Her eyes widened. “Me? Nate, what the hell was…” She frowned around at the spectators, taking a moment to gather herself before turning concerned eyes back on him. “Are you okay? Because I’m pretty sure you just broke physics.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. Then, seeing the look on her face, and thinking of how much blood he’d just thrown up: “Okay, I’m probably not fine. But I will be until we get out of here. Then maybe I can… explain. Once we’re safe.”
She searched his face. Glanced at their surroundings, remembering where they were. “Okay,” she agreed, nodding disconcertedly. “Okay, what can I do?”
Nate glanced over at the soft ruckus and thud where several students had just managed to roll the dead troglodan onto its back. The rest of the brig crowd shuffled about, nervously whispering among themselves, or nervously watching him. “Find out if anyone thinks they can retrace their steps back to that grav lift, I guess.”
She nodded and moved off. Nate turned back to Kyle and Marty, thinking to tell them to go check the troglodan and go watch the door, respectively. But Marty wasn’t there.
No sooner had he realized that than the brig door burst open with a stream of booming alien words.
Nate whirled through the sudden jungle of loud curses and scrambling students, hefting the heavy pulse cannon with him. He spotted Marty just ahead—right as a clap of thunder boomed, and Marty thumped to the deck.
“NO!”
Nate raised his cannon, taking aim. It was only as he fired his first pulse that he realized the troglodan was still drawing its sidearm.
The pulse hit. The troglodan struck the wall with a wet-sounding gasp, dark chest plate caved in. That didn’t stop it from raising its own weapon.
Another clap of thunder from just ahead, and the troglodan jerked, black blood blossoming from the hand it had clamped to its collapsed chest. Nate hit it with another pulse, and it dropped to the deck, weapon clattering out of reach. It struggled weakly, bubbling out a wet growl.
Nate turned to where Marty had fallen, expecting the worst, only to find his friend braced on the deck in an awkward shooting position, weapon still trained on the dying troglodan. It was only then that Nate’s brain caught up and registered that Marty hadn’t been shot at all, but rather mule-kicked by his own massive pistol’s recoil.
Nate could’ve laughed for the relief. Then the troglodan rumbled a burbling groan, and dire reality snapped back into focus.
“Hold up,” he said quickly, stepping past Marty before his friend’s wired trigger finger could decide otherwise.
He shuffled closer, keeping the cannon trained on the dying troglodan that might be their best hope at finding a way out. Quickly, carefully, he poked his
head out into the dim hallway.
Empty. Thank merciful Sith.
Empty and freaking foreboding.
He closed the door and turned back to the troglodan. “How do we get out of here? Do you understand? How do we leave this ship?”
The troglodan stirred, grumbling a few strings of incoherent troglodan speech. Nate moved around to where it could see him, careful to stay outside its considerable reach. Its beady eyes focused on him as he came around, and it spoke again, in a strained, raspy voice.
“You are… the one… we seek.”
It was several seconds of gaping before Nate remembered there was a room full of jumpy college kids hearing this right behind him. “I’m not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He glanced over his shoulder. Saw several confused faces staring back. “I just need you to tell me how to get out of here.”
“You are… a runt among… blightspots,” groaned the troglodan, a dark trickle of blood oozing from its mouth. “Go and… make a coupling… of fist… and ass… runt knight.”
With that, the troglodan thunked limply to the deck, dead.
Nate kept staring at their lost lifeline, hoping for some miracle.
It didn’t feel any better this time, knowing he’d been the one to thumb the trigger. Two dead troglodans, a short spout of English just to tell him to go fist himself, and still they were up the creek without a paddle. He looked back to Marty, who was still sitting on the deck, pale-faced, weapon raised.
“Guess we’re on our own, then.”
For some reason, Marty only looked more shocked at that.
Nate scooped the second troglodan’s pistol from the deck and held it up, facing the room. “We need someone who knows how to shoot.”
And someone who knows where the hell they’re going, he didn’t add. He had a sinking feeling no one actually knew the way, and he doubted it’d do much good to point that out right now. Hopefully, the Excalibur would be feeling charitable now that his mighty Knight had slain two troglodans.
“Come on, people,” Nate added to the intently silent brig, feeling every bit as uncomfortable as they all looked about his sudden leadership, and at least twice as unqualified. “Anyone?” His eyes landed on Todd, and he held the pistol out, but Todd only gave a feeble shake of his head, holding Emily close.
Nate spotted Jogger Girl next, toward the back of the crowd, and was about to arch a questioning eyebrow her way when a guy with dark hair and a red plaid shirt stepped to the front of the crowd, eyeing Nate warily.
“I’m a hunter,” was all he said.
Nate handed him the pistol.
“Watch the kick,” Marty warned, still eyeing Nate with an odd expression.
“And watch our backs, if you can,” Nate added, looking from the crowd to the door, and wondering how they were possibly going to navigate the ship with such a large group and so few weapons.
One step at a time, he supposed. Or not at all.
“Let’s get ready to move,” Nate called to the group, with entirely more authority than he felt.
Gwen and Kyle emerged from the crowd, headed his way, Zach and Kelsey not far behind them. Marty joined them in forming a tight huddle by the door.
“Dude,” Kyle said, as soon he was close enough to speak quietly. “Did you, uh...”
“Did you understand that thing?” Marty finished for him.
Nate took in their wary expressions, gathering that his answer was liable to freak them right the hell out. But why? The troglodan had spoken English, hadn’t it? Unless…
“Do you know where we’re going?” Gwen asked, clearly trying to keep them on topic. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re flying blind otherwise.”
Nate dropped his eyes and shook his head guiltily.
“Okay…” Gwen said, thinking.
“You always turn left?” Kyle asked quietly.
Nate traded a surprised look with Zach and Marty, all of them recognizing the old nugget of dungeon-exploring wisdom they’d developed through years of gaming experience.
When in doubt at a forking path in a strange new dungeon, as long as you consistently started with the leftmost option and worked your way across—and so on and so forth for every additional downstream fork—you’d eventually see everything there was to see. If there was an exit, you’d find it.
It just might take a while.
Which, in a ship full of troglodans, felt uncomfortably like a recipe for a prompt and violent death. But Nate didn’t have any better ideas.
“You always turn left?” Marty asked, clutching his pistol close to his body.
“You always turn left,” Nate agreed, turning for the door.
Then the ship shook with a distant explosion, and a god-awful alarm split the air.
26
Cease and Desist
“But is it for us?”
Screech!
“Of course it’s for us.”
“Who else would it be for?”
“—swear I heard gunfire a minute ago.”
Screech!
“I don’t think it’s for us.”
“Of course it’s for us.”
Nate took a deep breath and shot an aggravated quiet the hell down look over his shoulder. To his continued surprise, they did. Quickly. It wasn’t hard to identify the few who’d been not-so-quietly talking by the downcast eyes and the aggressive blushes.
Screech!
Whether or not the god-awful alarm was for them or not, Nate still didn’t know, but they’d yet to see a single troglodan, and he figured it couldn’t hurt for everyone to keep their mouths shut and their shit together. Admittedly, that might’ve been a lot to ask of nearly two-hundred terrified college students, blindly parading through a freaking alien spaceship where horrific deaths could well be waiting behind each and every grimy corner.
But at least the corridors were as dim and creepy as a freaking haunted mine shaft.
That the alarm was still going might’ve actually been a small blessing. The volume had mercifully dropped from deafening to merely aggressively annoying after the initial burst, and now Nate figured it might at least help cover up the considerable jingle jangle, swinging chain racket of their less-than-half-cocked escape.
The downside was that it also made it pretty damn hard to keep an ear out for any incoming troglodans. But so far, that hadn’t been a problem.
The hallways were empty. Too empty. It was freaking him the hell out. Not that he was going to complain about not dying.
Yes. Do go on ‘not complaining.’
And there was the Excalibur, back for another pass.
Do you know why this place is a ghost town?
The majority of this ship’s crew appears to be groundside, likely scouring for you or the Beacon.
That made sense, he supposed. Even if it would have been nice to know sooner. The Excalibur rippled at that thought, as if daring him to complain. He just shifted his cannon into a more ready position as they approached the tight four-way intersection ahead.
Why such large creatures had opted to build ships with such relatively narrow corridors, Nate couldn’t have begun to guess. Maybe they had some bizarre fixation with the economical usage of ship space. Maybe this wasn’t even their ship. Maybe they were space pirates. Hell if he knew.
All Nate knew was that you always turned lef—
Go straight.
He paused, waiting for more, but Ex had already said its piece. Nate only hesitated a second. Pissed as his companion clearly was right now, Nate didn’t need to look any further than the fact that Ex had already spoken up once to save his life, back when the first troglodan had been bearing down on him. Ex hadn’t completely given up. Not yet.
So, Nate stepped forward—
And jerked straight back at the flicker of motion to the left. He felt Marty tense beside him. Felt Gwen’s hand on his back, and the palpable terror that spread through the group behind them like wildfire.
Slowly, Nate leaned forward agai
n, peering out with just the minimum required sliver of his face.
He hadn’t imagined it. Twenty yards or so down the left corridor, a group of troglodans were thundering through another intersection, moving parallel to the direction the Excalibur was now pointing Nate. Four of them stomped by, all with armor and cannons of their own. Nate gave it another good twenty seconds to make sure there weren’t any stragglers coming.
You’re sure it’s straight?
No reply.
Not for the first time, Nate considered that the Excalibur was testing him in some way. Some sick, totally barbarian way that couldn’t have come at a worse time. But he knew exactly where sniveling about it would get him right now.
He went straight through the intersection.
“What happened to always go left?” Kyle immediately whispered behind them.
Nate waved the question away and kept moving, trusting they’d just chalk it up to whatever other strange ideas were currently forming in their heads about him.
There is something else. Something I feel you have earned the right to know.
This was going to be rich. What’s that?
There is another Excalibur Knight aboard this vessel.
“What?!”
Nate barely realized he’d jerked to a stop until Gwen bumped into him.
“What?” she echoed, craning to peek over his shoulder.
“You see something?” Marty whispered.
The whispers spread, multiplying their way back through the corridor until they culminated with a whimpered, “Oh god, we’re gonna die!” from somewhere back near the intersection.
“Quiet,” Nate hissed over his shoulder.
It is also worthy of note that this Knight appears to have a strong desire to find us.
What you do you mean, ‘appears to?’ Is he on our side?
She. And that is not my assessment.
No? And what is your assessment?
I believe she is quite displeased with everyone aboard this ship. Though, to be fair, I am interpreting through over a thousand years of language drift. I will update you on my assessment once she does or does not attempt to slay you.
The Eighth Excalibur Page 25