by Allen Stroud
“I don’t know, but I’m running some calculations.”
“We’ll get moving. The depressurised corridor will slow us down, though. Can you get control of the ship from where you are?”
“I’m afraid not, Captain. Even with my rootkit access, the ship is hardwired to only receive control requests for the engines from the bridge or the engine room.”
“Then we need to get in there.”
“Yes, I think so.”
I close the comms channel and turn to the others. They’ve raided the room for everything they can find that might be useful. Sellis is carrying a sidearm he must have scrounged from one of the dead clones. I open my mouth to say something about it, but then think better of it.
“Okay, people, let’s go.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Sellis
I see the look Captain Shann gives me when she notices the gun I’ve found. I wait for the comment and the order, but it doesn’t come. Maybe she’s starting to trust me.
Or maybe she has no choice.
We’re out of the bridge and making our way through the passageways to the engine room. Le Garre is leading and I’m right behind her. There’s something reassuring about the major’s calm efficiency. I know she’s tired and pushing her limits, just like the rest of us, but she seems to be handling it, and that exuded confidence makes me suck up my doubts and push on beside her.
We reach the sealed hatch and Le Garre turns to me. “Do you think we’ve got enough thermite left?” she asks.
“Not sure,” I reply. I press my face to the glass and try to get a look inside. The panel is corroded, and I can see damage to the inside of the corridor beyond. There’s something in there too. “You mentioned egg-shaped objects?” I say. “What do they look like?”
“Like holes,” Arkov explains. “They’re completely black, so the eye can’t determine their shape. They look like holes in the world.”
“There are crates. I can see two of them,” I say. The glass is vibrating against my forehead. I pull away and squint, trying to get a clearer picture. “The room’s damaged. Could be I’m looking at your eggs, or a rip in the hull.” I turn around. “Captain Shann, we can’t take a chance on this.”
Shann nods. “You’re right, we can’t, particularly if there’s another Rocher waiting for us to make a move.”
“The passcodes we have should override the seal, unless the door’s been tampered with,” Le Garre says. She looks around, appraising the mechanism. “I can’t see any sign of that.”
“Would be impossible anyway,” I reply. “If our friend is in the engine room, he’d have had to have depressurised the room from the inside and sealed himself in. He couldn’t have gotten out here unless he’s still loose on the ship, and that would mean abandoning the engine room to us.”
“All the same, eyes outward,” Shann says, turning around and following her own advice. “Sellis, what do you need to do?”
“Much the same as I usually do when I’m repairing a leak, Captain.” I touch the comms bead on my neck. “Sellis to Johansson. Ensign, do you have any data on the type of leak we’re dealing with?”
The comms makes a strange wailing noise, like the worst kind of electro synth, before Johansson replies. Her voice is distant and far away. “The computer recorded the atmosphere evacuation rate and did some projections. Looks like a small leak, probably no more than four inches in diameter.”
“We can fix that with foam,” I say. “But we’re screwed if the damage is more extensive.”
“Yeah,” Johansson agrees. “Another problem will be if someone on the other side takes an interest in your work.”
“One of us should go in with you,” Le Garre says.
I shake my head. “No, Major. If you did, you’d be in the way. Let me do my job. We’ve got one EVA suit, and we have to prep for decompression of this room. That means you all retreat into the next section and wait until I’m through and let the computer repressurise this passageway. Once I’ve fixed the leak, I’ll open the emergency oxygen tank and then give you the all clear signal. You can follow me after that.”
Le Garre is staring at me, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she glances at the captain. Shann doesn’t say anything either. She looks broken. I doubt she has much care left. She wants that living Rocher clone and she’s trying to save herself for that. I get it – that slow-burning anger. I can feel it too, but for different reasons. I want a piece of that fucker.
“Okay, we follow your plan, Specialist,” Le Garre says.
“Thank you, Major,” I reply.
It takes the three of them a couple of minutes to evacuate the corridor. Before they go, Arkov helps me into the patched EVA suit we’ve been lugging around. “You sure you want to do this?” he asks.
I chuckle at him. “You see anyone else volunteering? If you do, let me know; I’ll step back.”
Arkov smiles in spite of himself. I can see he’s still in pain, holding it together because he has to. “You be careful,” he warns.
“I’ll try,” I say. Our eyes meet and there’s an awkward moment, just like before. “We’ll get through this,” I add, trying to sound confident.
“Yeah.” Arkov doesn’t sound convinced either. He hands me the EVA suit helmet. “We’ll be on comms. Check in once you’re ready.”
“Will do,” I acknowledge. Once the helmet goes on, my worldview narrows. I’m back in the EVA suit, like before. Arkov taps on the top with his knuckles and gives me a thumbs-up. I smile and do the same back.
Then he’s gone, making his way to the hatch to join the others.
I turn around and head toward the sealed door. The control panel is tricky to manage with the bulky gloves, but on the second try, I get the prepared ID typed in and select the emergency override sequence. I can hear the locks withdraw – a muffled noise through the helmet. A moment later, I brace myself and activate the magnetic contacts on my boots as the door slides back.
An air-filled corridor being opened up to a vacuum is always a violent experience. The wind pushes me forward, driving me toward the opening. Something crashes into my hand. I see what it is as it tumbles past, the lid from a storage container torn off the wall.
The wind eases and I stomp forward. At that moment, I notice a problem. The remaining oxygen in the suit tank is decreasing rapidly. I must have sprung a leak.
That means I need to work fast.
I’m through the door into the damaged section. Data from Johansson’s terminal is displayed on my helmet screen. The release of air has enabled her to isolate the leak in the room, and I make my way toward it.
Two oval-shaped containers are in my way. One of them is open, and I get my first proper look at one of the anomalies inside. These are the egg-shaped things Johansson was taking about. Immediately, I’m distracted. It’s like looking into a bottomless pit inside a box. Your mind knows what you’re looking at can’t have the depth it seems to have, but there isn’t a reference point for you to use to comprehend it any other way.
I tear my eyes away and glance briefly at the rest of the container. There are extensive signs of corrosion in the metal all along the inner membrane. It’s as if the object is damaging the container it’s been placed in.
“Sellis, this is Johansson. How’s it going?”
The words bring me back to why I’m here and what I’m supposed to be doing. “Fine, Ensign, I’m on it.” I look around the room and reorientate myself. The leak is to my left and near the floor by the entrance into the engine room. Makes sense if it was sabotage. Whoever did this probably made a hole by discharging a sidearm at point-blank range or squirting thermite onto the wall and then escaping through the door. Quick and easy to do.
The foam sprayer is on my belt. I crouch down in the corner and take aim, carefully building the foam layers around in a circle and letting them soli
dify before I try and seal the breach completely. The hole is about three times the size of the one I fixed on the Khidr. It’s tricky; a lot of the foam collapses and disappears into space. Ideally, I’d be waiting for the room to vent completely before I start this, but I don’t have time.
As I work, I’m trying to keep my breathing even and my heart rate down. The room’s emergency oxygen tank is about a metre away. I can plug into it if I need to, but I’d rather get this done as quickly as I can.
I’ve eight per cent of my suit O2 left when the last bit of foam hardens across the centre of the hole. Quickly I plaster another layer over the top, then step away and activate the emergency repressurisation sequence.
I bring up a comms channel. “Leak is sealed, almost ready for you folks to join me.” Then I turn toward the engine room door.
Rocher is staring at me through the DuraGlas plate.
He’s fucking smiling at me.
Instinctively I’m moving. The foam sprayer is discarded. I pull out the gas-powered pistol I looted from one of the clones on the bridge. I tap in the override sequence and the door begins to open. Again, there’s a powerful rush of air as the atmospheric pressure tries to equalise. Along with it comes the last Rocher, his face contorted in surprise. I make a grab for his throat and miss as he tumbles past. I turn. He’s not wearing a helmet, just a dark emergency suit. I raise the gun and he raises his hands.
A shot rings out.
I didn’t pull the trigger. Did the gun go off accidentally? Rocher hasn’t moved. I look down. There’s blood spreading out in a bubble from my chest.
I’ve been shot.
I blink and try to pull the trigger on my own weapon, but I can’t feel my hands. Rocher is moving toward me. He takes the gun away and grabs hold of the front of my suit. That smile is there again, a wide and hungry leer. He pulls me across the room and pushes me against the door at the far end, where Shann, Le Garre and Arkov will be coming through. I look at the spiraling trail of bright red blood, expanding into the thin air. It’s a beautiful cloud, all of my very own. I made that.
There’s another gunshot. Then nothing.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Johansson
“You miscalculated, Ensign.”
The voice is familiar, but not the one I was expecting. I look up and find myself staring at a corpse.
Rocher is standing in the doorway, aiming a gun at me. The wide leering grin of his that I remember from his meeting with Captain Shann is plastered across his face. “We’ve not actually met, Ensign, but I sense you think you already know me.”
“You should be dead.”
“Thankfully for me and unfortunately for you, I’m not.”
I stare at him, and then my mind makes the connection. “You’re a clone.”
“Yes, I am.”
A clone, out here? For a moment, I’m distracted by the ramifications of the revelation, but then I’m back in the current situation, my mind focused on what’s in front of me – an enemy combatant, ready to kill me.
“Why didn’t you just shoot me?” I ask.
“Perhaps I’m giving you an opportunity to prove yourself?” Rocher replies.
I remember what Sellis and Chiu said about being given passcodes. I memorised both codes when was I was in the torpedo. I could say a code, give him a reason to believe I’m one of the mutineers.… Maybe the reason he’s hesitating is because he doesn’t know who those traitors are.
No, I don’t think I can bluff that out. One wrong move and I’d be dead. “I’m not going to betray my friends, if that’s what you mean.”
“Despite the fact that you’re on the wrong side of humanity?” Rocher asks.
“Ironic, coming from you.”
“Is it?” Rocher smiles. “You and I aren’t so different. Just creatures trapped on different sides of a eugenics argument. If science were given free rein to shape humanity’s physiology, you would be an abomination and I would be unremarkable. Instead, the legacy of rutting in the dirt makes you acceptable and leaves me on the outside. Don’t we both have a right to live?”
“You say that while you’re threatening me with a gun?” I spit out a laugh. “Why not just get it over with and get rid of me?”
“Right now, you have information I need,” Rocher replies. “How many of your crew boarded this ship?”
I stare at him and don’t reply.
Rocher closes the distance between us. He grabs my wrist and lowers the gun, pressing it against my stomach. “Just because I need information, doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you,” he hisses in my ear. “You’re going to die either way. Time to make a choice about how.”
The wall is behind me. I brace myself against it and lash out. My booted foot connects with his crotch and the elbow of my free arm slams into the side of his face. Rocher grunts but doesn’t release his grip on my arm. There’s a loud roaring noise, and I’m pushed flat against the wall and Rocher is thrown across the room. A cloud of blood lies between us, and I realise it’s coming from me, around the abdomen.
I’ve been shot.
Travers appears behind Rocher. I hear the crackling of electricity and the clone’s eyes glass over. There’s that burned smell you get after the discharge of a Taser.
I’m blinking my eyes, struggling to focus. Travers is moving past the twitching Rocher toward me. His hand brushes my shoulder, and suddenly, my body remembers itself. I feel pain, a stabbing, all-consuming agony that makes it hard to breathe.
“Hey, careful now. Stay with me.”
I clutch at his suit, my fingers getting a handful of the collar. He’s shaking me gently, trying to stop me going into shock or unconsciousness. I don’t want that either, but the idea of no pain…
“Rocher, he’s a clone.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“We have to warn the captain. There might be more…”
“We found some kind of cryogenic chamber next to the medical room. There are eight beds. All of them empty.”
Eight? I force my mind to do the calculations. The captain found five dead on the bridge. There’s a sixth person here and there was a Rocher on the Khidr. Did he come from this ship, or was he stowed away on the Hercules all along? “The engine room,” I say. The words are difficult to get out. “There has to be at least one of them down there. The captain…”
“Okay, I get it, but you need me first and so does Chiu.”
I swallow, trying to get some moisture into my dry mouth. Travers glances down, staring with alarm at the growing bubble of blood between us. “Tell me what to do,” he pleads.
I blink rapidly, trying to process the problem and breathe at the same time. Stomach wounds are the worst. My chest feels like there are knives in it every time I inhale. Rocher knew what he was doing.
“Which side?” I ask.
“What?”
“Which side is the wound? I can’t be sure; it hurts…”
“Oh, left side. Your left side.”
I nod. That’s a small crumb of comfort. There’s less chance of organ damage on the left side of the abdomen. Another crumb is that I’m still conscious. “To start with, painkillers, then stimulants, gauze and bandages.” I’m thinking about injured people by the roadside in Sweden when we’d pull up in the ambulance. All those broken bodies, trying to make sense of their pain. “Get me a line into the oxygen tank. That’ll help keep me conscious.”
Travers’s face is difficult to focus on. Someone else is in the room too. For a moment, I think Rocher’s woken up and making another attempt to end us, but then I recognise Sam Chase. He’s manhandling the unconscious clone into some improvised restraints. “Chuck him in the airlock,” I suggest.
Sam shakes his head. “Can’t risk him being loose, even if we can see him. He knows the ship better than we do.”
The last couple of words are
difficult for me to process. I’m drifting again. Must be the blood loss. Internal bleeding is a real risk right now. “You need to listen to me, before I pass out.”
“Okay,” Travers says. He has an oxygen mask in his hand and wraps the band around my head. I inhale deeply, and my head starts to clear. “We brought all the supplies we could find. Talk me through what we need to do.”
I glance around. There are three big bags Chase and Travers brought from the medical room. “You need to gum up the gunshot wound for now and find some stims. Whatever happens, keep me conscious.” I point at Chiu. “Get that done; then we work on her.”
Both Sam and Travers set to work. I find myself looking down at the hole in my side. The lack of gravity makes the situation weird. Minor wounds will bleed, but the surface tension of blood has nothing to counteract it, so it ‘blobs’ out from your body, until some other force interacts with what’s going on and detaches it as thick red bubbles. Severe wounds release fluid at a higher pressure, so we see spiraling threads, beads of blood, often exiting the body in a rhythm that matches the heartbeat of the injured person. The heart is acting as a pump and pumping blood out of the body to…
“Johansson! Stay with me!”
Sam’s voice. I’m blinking rapidly, trying to clear my vision, but it’s no use; everything’s dark and blurry. “I need to give you instructions,” I say, surprised to hear my voice so calm and even. “Firstly, you’ll need to cut away the suit from around the wound. Then get the padding and a bandage. You’ll need to wrap me as tight as you can. If I pass out, administer Adrenalin and wake me up.”
“There’s still a slug in there,” Sam says.
“Can’t be helped. The only way we’ll get it out is with all the machines in the medical room. We’ll need multiple scans to determine the extent of the damage – CT, X-ray, ultrasound, the full works. After that, we operate and remove shrapnel.”
They work fast, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. I try to distract myself by talking, filling them in on everything that’s happened, going through all the information from Captain Shann. “They’re outside the engine room, trying to repressurise the corridor. They found five more dead Rochers on the bridge. The whole computer system up there is wrecked.”