by Allen Stroud
“And we’ve no idea what’s happening internally,” I add. “She needs a saline drip, a transfusion and blood pressure monitoring.”
“Can you do that?”
“With the right equipment, yes.” I turn back to the computer. “The medical room is two floors below us. I can give you a list of what’s needed.”
“No one should go anywhere alone,” Chase says. “Wouldn’t it be quicker if you went with the lieutenant?”
“Maybe, but Shann and the others need me here. It needs to be you two.”
Travers fixes me with a look. “You will be technically alone,” he says.
I nod. “Yes, but Chiu won’t be, which is the more important priority.”
Travers gives me an odd look. “Should I be worried about the chain of command, Ensign?” he asks carefully.
“No, Lieutenant,” I reply.
Travers takes out his sidearm. “We’ve only six firearms between us all. You’ll need to keep this with you,” he says.
I hesitate for a moment. The right thing to do would be to refuse, but I can’t fight every order I’m given. “Thanks,” I say instead and slip it into a pocket.
“Okay then,” Travers says. He taps Sam on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this done.”
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant,” Sam says.
A moment later I’m left alone with Chiu.
I gaze at her, thinking back to the conversation I had with the captain about the fact that Chiu betrayed us. I feel ashamed of myself now. If I were to act on what I said back then, I’d be taking a knife to her throat or unwrapping those bandages.
I’m not doing either of those things.
Being stranded in that torpedo casing made me look at life differently. It was easy to input a few commands that incapacitated the Gallowglass crew. I didn’t have to watch them choke and collapse as their bodies were starved of oxygen. The consequences of my actions were remote and distant. This isn’t the same. I can’t execute someone in cold blood, even though I argued for exactly that kind of treatment.
I fought hard to live while I was out there alone. I got help and got rescued. Now Chiu needs help. When Travers and Chase come back, I need to help her, and I will help her as much as I can.
The terminal flashes, and I return my attention to it. There’s another depressurisation in a passageway near the engine room. Could be another collision, or could it be our enemy? The engine room would be the best place to defend if the bridge was lost. That’s standard Fleet protocol. A lot of the control systems can be overridden by depriving them of power.
“Johansson to Shann.”
“Go ahead, Ensign.”
“I’ve just detected a loss of atmosphere outside the engine room. Could be a problem. I can’t tell if it’s sabotage or a collision.”
“Understood. What’s your feeling?”
The question surprises me. My feeling? “I err…I think it might be deliberate.”
“Okay, we’ll follow up when we can.”
The conversation reminds me of some unfinished business. I reopen the command terminal and reset the oxygen parameters in the bridge compartment. When Shann, Le Garre and the others get in, they’ll need breathable air, and by now, the Gallowglass’s crew will have suffocated. I’m not proud of that, but they were trying to kill me and everyone I care about.
I listen to Shann issuing orders. She’s not dividing her group to investigate the engine room until they’ve secured the bridge. Probably the best plan, considering the limited personnel we have available. As I listen, I start to hear something in the background. Is it interference? No, I’ve heard that noise before. It’s like…music? Strange, atonal notation that doesn’t seem to repeat. There are slews, a rising and falling of pitch, some staccato, no polyphony.
I remember what I heard on the recordings from the Hercules. It was the same kind of sounds, only faint and indistinct. This noise is much louder, competing with the conversation between Shann and Le Garre.
What am I listening to?
I explore the Gallowglass’s list of programmes. To start with, I need something that will isolate and record the noise. After that, I’ll want to track down where it’s coming from.
There’s no mention of the noise between the others. Either they’re being professional and ignoring it, or they can’t hear it. I’m sure someone would have said something by now. If only I’m hearing this, that makes things even stranger.
I find a programme that looks similar to the one we used on the Khidr and start trying to isolate the sounds. Working with one hand is frustrating when you’re used to having two, but the tools are familiar, and once I have a stripped file, I start to triangulate the broadcast position.
What I discover doesn’t make sense. There are two locations, as if a conversation is going on. The stronger signal is coming from the Khidr; the second signal is coming from just outside the Gallowglass engine room.
Right where the decompression just occurred.
I pull up a tracking scan of our immediate area. The laser sweeper is still working and starts plotting the debris around us. On the second pass, I notice another anomaly. The wreckage is moving away from us, toward the remains of our old ship.
I remember hearing the others mention this. Whatever’s happened, the process is accelerating, but the Gallowglass seems relatively unaffected. The distance between the two ships is increasing.
Something is drawing all the broken parts away from us. The centre of that is in the same location as the signal.
The generator room of the Khidr.
I remember Duggins saying he was going to the generator room. That was the last we heard from him. I key up a long-range channel and adjust it to match our old ship’s frequency.
“Johansson to Duggins, can you hear me?”
There’s only static in response, but the volume of the noises seems to increase. The decibel level starts to peak into the red.
“Duggins, are you trying to communicate with me through the noise?” I separate out three distinct sounds. “If you are, repeat the low tone, three times.”
Suddenly, all the noises stop.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Shann
We’re outside the entrance to the bridge of the Gallowglass. It’s taken us fifteen minutes to get here, lugging the spare EVA suit and some assorted tools. We’ve encountered no resistance or evidence that anyone is alive or active on this ship.
Apart from us.
I’m shaking with exhaustion. The way things are moving around as the Gallowglass tumbles makes everything hard, but I’m past the point where I should have been sedated and ordered to sleep. Unfortunately, no one outranks me, so it would take another little mutiny to get me to stop right now.
I need to see my enemy and look them in the eye.
There’s a collection of equipment drifting around the corridor and some deep gouges in the door’s metal plate. Someone was here, trying to break in.
I nod to Sellis. He moves to the door and types in the passcode Johansson gave us. The door doesn’t budge. Either the attempt to cut through it has damaged the mechanism or someone has triggered the deadlock.
“Might be because of the pressure change?” Arkov suggests. “The detectors out here weren’t hacked, only the ones in there. If the sensors in this room have decided there’s a vacuum on the bridge, they’d automatically seal the door.”
“It should respond to the override pass, though,” Sellis says. “Our doors do.”
“Our enemy couldn’t get in, so they found a way to block us from getting in as well,” Le Garre says. She looks at me, and I see a glimpse of the challenging smile she used to give me before all this started.
“You think you can break in?” I ask.
“Of course,” she replies and moves forward with the chemical breaching equipment. The
thermite is kept in a paste. Le Garre draws a line of it around the frame of the door. Immediately, when exposed to oxygen, it starts to smoke and give off an odour as it burns. Le Garre is covering her nose and mouth. A moment later, an alarm sounds, and the ventilation system shuts down around us. There’s a light flashing over a panel on the wall that says, ‘Extinguisher’.
“It’ll be the doors next,” Arkov says. “We need to maintain an exit.” He turns around, presses the release catch on his right boot and takes it off. Then he wedges it in between the hatch and the opening we’ve just come through.
The smoke has subsided, but the stink remains. “I think it’s done,” Sellis announces. He’s probably used thermite in his work more than the rest of us, so I trust his judgement on that. He drifts toward the door feetfirst and lands a boot on the centre of the metal plate, pushing off against it. The metal shifts, revealing a small gap at the edge.
Le Garre draws her pistol and mimics Sellis’s maneuver, only with more force. There’s a sharp screech, and the door panel falls away to reveal darkness inside.
“We’ll need to restore the lighting,” I say and activate my comms, but the channel doesn’t connect. “Anyone getting signal problems?” I ask.
Arkov tries as well and frowns. “After Johansson resynced the system to this ship, the Gallowglass should pick us up.”
“But it isn’t.”
“No, indeed, Captain. I’m getting nothing. As if we’ve been completely disconnected.”
“You think it’s deliberate?” Le Garre asks. “Should we go back and see if they’re okay?”
I shake my head. “If we do, we lose any tactical advantage. Whatever has happened, we’ll need to secure the bridge. We take a risk every time we make a move from one location to the other. We can be trapped in a corridor and left to rot.”
“I’m not giving up like that,” Sellis says.
“Me either. Arkov, you go in first. Le Garre after him, then Sellis, then me,” I order. “Weapons out, be ready.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Arkov replies. He’s inching forward, looking nervous. We didn’t bring any torches or other portable illumination. It wasn’t something anyone considered in the rush. “Could be the system’s powered down owing to lack of movement?”
“Who knows? We’ll find out,” Le Garre says, nudging him forward.
Arkov draws his sidearm. He has a Taser in his left hand too. He drifts slowly toward the jagged gap, taking care to float straight through without touching the sides. When he’s about halfway, I realise I’m holding my breath, waiting for a shout or the sound of gunfire, or…
Nothing…
Arkov is inside. Le Garre follows, with Sellis straight after. Then it’s my turn.
I dive headfirst into darkness.
A hand grasps my left shoulder, sending another spasm of pain through the whole arm. I bite my lip and hold back the urge to cry out. The pitch black is all-consuming; I can’t make out the shades and shadows that might at least determine what’s directly in front of me.
No one speaks. The hand takes hold of mine and guides me to the wall. The touch of the metal surface is reassuring, but I’m wondering how we’re going to manage to explore this place. Without any illumination or comms guidance, finding a console, activating it and logging in will take time.
My hand brushes against something. It’s clothing – a person, but it doesn’t move away; it just drifts. I stare in the direction of my fingers and become aware of their flickering movement against the fabric of the pressure suit. There’s light coming in from somewhere.… I look around and see the change in the air. A glow, coming from outside the ship, filtered through thick DuraGlas. Sunlight through the viewing port, underneath the protective shutters. The sun moving around us fast; its rays stream through the gaps in the blind and banish the darkness to reveal our fate.
The four of us are huddled in the corner of the room by the door. There are five seats; four of them are occupied. My right hand is touching the body of the fifth crew member. His face turns into the light.… I recognise it.
It’s Rocher…
How the fuck can it be Rocher?
His eyes are bulging; his expression is twisted and strained, with his left hand clutching his throat and his right arm extended outward, desperately clutching for something. I look around and notice an emergency oxygen mask and cylinder attached to the wall. Looks like a separate supply. He nearly made it, but thankfully for us, he didn’t.
“The ship’s still drifting,” Le Garre says. “We need to get some lights on in here before the sun goes past the viewing port.”
Sellis and Arkov are already moving. Arkov heads for the empty seat and starts trying to access the console. Sellis takes a more pragmatic approach and investigates the storage panels. His efforts yield results – a selection of battery-powered torches, which he passes around.
“This console is as dead as the crew,” Arkov says. “Looks like they initiated some kind of localised electromagnetic pulse on the computers in here. They must have known we were coming to take the ship.”
I move to one of the other occupied chairs, and my suspicions are confirmed.
“They’re clones.”
“What?”
“The crew, look at them. They all look like Rocher. They are Rocher. All of them are the same.”
Le Garre is beside me. I hear her sharp intake of breath as she sees what I see. Human cloning was banned on Earth more than a century ago. The line between genetic editing and genetic engineering is clearly defined. For me, this situation just got personal. The Lopez Act, ratified by the United Nations in 2038, before it became the Earth Assembly, established the legal parameters for continued research.
“That fucking bastard,” Sellis growls. He’s standing over another Rocher clone sprawled in the communications chair.
“It explains a lot of things,” Le Garre says. “When I was flying our ship against them, the reaction times and coordination between manoeuvering, weapons, and defence was incredibly efficient. We weren’t just dealing with a computer; we were dealing with people who knew each other’s minds, inside out.”
I’m staring at another grotesquely stretched version of Rocher’s face. “They aren’t human,” I mutter aloud.
“If they were alive, they might dispute that, Captain,” Sellis says. “But as it happens, I agree.”
“This is a tangled and sordid little web,” Le Garre says. “Remember the frozen bees you found? There has to be a connection.”
“A connection, but not a direct one,” I reply. The mention of the bees reminds me of something else. “The Hercules was carrying colony building equipment. The Gallowglass intercepted and boarded her, but they didn’t come for all that tech; they came for something else.” I remember the empty egg-shaped canisters that I saw on the drone camera before the feed went down. “I saw empty boxes when we were exploring the freighter, just before the explosion. They looked like they’d been opened.”
“The black object we recovered from space was sort of egg-shaped,” Arkov says. “You couldn’t tell with your eyes, but I did some measurements with a tape.”
“You think the Hercules had some of them that the people here stole?” Sellis suggests.
I shrug. “Can’t be a complete coincidence. There has to be some connection. It might explain why they were keen to capture our ship and not completely destroy it.”
“To confirm that, we’ll need to find the objects,” Le Garre says.
“I’ve a hunch as to where they are.” I turn to Sellis. “Can you repair these consoles?” I ask.
Sellis looks thoughtful. “Possibly, but it might take time.”
“How much time?”
“A fair bit.”
“Until we have any kind of operational control from here, the bridge is useless,” I reason. “The last thing Johansson s
aid was that there was a pressure loss in the room outside Engineering. Whoever tried to break in here, might well be down there.”
“You want us all to go?” Le Garre asks.
“I think that’s the best plan,” I reply. “Strength in numbers, plus there’s nothing we can do here until we’ve secured the ship.”
Sellis sighs. “Well, at least this ship is more compact, so it’ll be a quicker journey than it would have been on the Khidr.”
“What about them?” Arkov asks, pointing to the floating Rocher clone.
“We leave them as they are,” I decide. “We’ll be back later. In the meantime, open all the lockers and search the bodies for anything that might be useful. We’ll move out in five minutes.”
My crew set to work while I take the opportunity to stop, rest and gather my thoughts. The whole situation is a mess, but I’m starting to see some connections.
We need the bridge controls working. Without them, piloting an unfamiliar ship is going to be very difficult. Whatever’s happened to Johansson is worrying, though. If we’re being picked off, then we’re—
“Johansson to Shann, can you hear me?”
“Yes! Finally! We lost comms. What happened?”
“The anomalies happened, Captain. There’s one or more on this ship and they’re talking to the one we left on ours.” Johansson’s voice is wavering. She’s excited and on edge. “I’ve tracked both signals. Whatever’s over here is located near the engine room.”
“We’re just about to go there. The bridge has been sabotaged. We found five dead up there. Some kind of eternal EMP was triggered by the crew in all the consoles before they died.”
“You may need to hurry,” Johansson says. “I’ve been tracking the debris. It’s being pulled back toward the Khidr. We need to get the Gallowglass’s engines online so we can move to a safe distance.”
“What is a safe distance?”