The breach in the ship certainly didn’t look to Rosalyn like it had been burnt through, but the shell creatures having boarded their ship—or something akin to it—was a possibility she could not deny.
And if that had happened, God help them all.
♦♦♦
The Novara was smaller than some other ships, but searching through every inch of it still seemed a great task to undertake.
The ship had been built with exploratory mining in mind, weighing the possibility of finding a lot of rare minerals against the possibility of finding none. In situations where it was known beforehand that a large mineral deposit was present, it only made sense to make the largest ship economically feasible to gather as much cargo in as few multi-million dollar trips as possible. The Novara wasn’t sent on those sorts of missions. On the chance that an asteroid or such turned out to be a dud for valuable rocks—like 730-X Zacuali was looking to be—it made more sense to have a smaller ship that wouldn’t burn through quite so much fuel getting from place to place.
Hence, the Novara was made to be a quality ship with a spacious-enough but economical main upper floor and a larger and lower first floor, where the engines and other storage were relegated, connected by a large catwalk network. With two sets of two crewmates searching the main floor, it wouldn’t take long before they found any intruders or confirmed it all empty. Maybe twenty minutes for a full search of the place if each of them was quick about it.
Mitchell and Terri had decided to go together, each clinging to an unlikely hope that perhaps Shauna had gotten up and wandered off to another section of the ship. The thought that she could be vanished or dead was so unimaginably grim that neither of them really even considered it. The question of what had happened to her just didn’t have an answer yet, allowing a sliver of hope that it would turn out okay.
The only problem was there weren’t many places for her to be.
Sam and Randy had gone to search the common room, dining area, kitchen, sleeping quarters, computer room, and the Bridge. Mitchell and Terri had searched through Mineral Storage B and were finishing up their search within the larger Mineral Storage room A, and soon they would head to the loading deck, which was the big room where their mining tools were kept (such as the primary rover, before it had been lost) and the long ramp could open down to the outside surface.
“Nothing’s in here,” said Terri with resignation. Her braided locks were in a respectable level of order considering she, like the rest of them, hadn’t showered or gotten ready for the day like usual yet. She felt too apathetic to get dressed today, anyway. She wore a slim, purple pair of pajama pants and a gray tank top, and she looked as tired as she felt.
She and Mitchell stood amidst rows of shelves of metal storage crate after metal storage crate, each packed with minerals they had gotten from prior mining ventures. The usual stuff, plus a few jackpot strikes here and there. When they got back home, less highly-trained employees would store and organize it all. This room was their pride, like a row of brightly-lit sports trophies won through diligent work over many months. They always grew familiar with their increasing haul over time, and it was near its full capacity now.
Mitchell checked behind a few more boxes and spaces before conceding that Terri was right. Unlike her, his brown hair looked like the fuzzy coat of an unwashed dog. He felt so strange today, like he was in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. The thought crossed him that maybe he should have applied to work at NASA or one of the other space organizations/companies instead, like his parents had suggested. He wore elastic shorts and an undershirt over his large body, and his face was cloaked with a five o’ clock shadow.
They exited the room and strode across the south halls, hearing the dim hum of electric lights and breathing the sterile air.
“What do you think we should do? About this whole situation?” Mitchell asked Terri.
She looked at him with a blank expression. “I think we have nothing to worry about.”
Mitchell returned her glance with a startled one as they turned a corner, passing through a hexagon-shaped arch.
She continued, “Once FAER gets back to us, we’re outta here. Even if we find Shauna, there’s no way they’ll ask us to stay. Especially now that there’s a big damn hole in the ship.”
She was more eager to get home than ever before. Once it became clear that exploring this minor planet wasn’t something they were equipped for, there was no point in staying. For her, at least, the money had dried up, and FAER would see that.
And if they didn’t, she would have something to say about it.
“They can’t expect me to be a doctor with the computer and half my medical supplies busted,” she griped.
Mitchell grunted, sorry he’d asked. Somehow from time to time he would forget that Terri was a complainer. He’d rather have Brady’s company.
Come to think of it, he thought, where is that cat?
He hadn’t seen Brady since sometime yesterday. That was unusual. The little creature was pretty independent, but he should have approached his owner at some point. This was worryingly long.
Oh no. Fears of Brady being in the medical bay at the time of the hull breach crossed his mind. The little guy getting blown out into the minor planet’s atmosphere and chewed to bits by the wind. He grimaced deeply at the thought.
It wasn’t more important than searching for Shauna of course, so he didn’t bring it up to Terri, but he decided to add Brady to his search as a mental note. He felt his sinking feeling of concern deepen. Everyone he cared about was in danger—his sister’s family back home on Earth, his little feline friend, and his crewmates. He wanted to punch something at the thought of all the misfortune.
The door to the loading deck opened before them and they walked through into the big room where shelves of weathered mining tools, various travel supplies, crates, medical kits, large drilling machines, and other items were kept. Toward the opposite end of the room was the loading ramp, currently kept shut as part of the floor. On the port side of the room was a closed-off section housing the seven spacesuits, and a set of controls where one could open up the ramp. A large, empty, slightly-raised platform would have held two mining rovers if they hadn’t lost one, and it was complete with two shelves of extra parts and tools to repair them with.
Mitchell shook his head again, thinking about the financial calamity of having lost one of the rovers. Nothing close to losing Shauna, of course, but it was also a concern. What words of chastisement would FAER have for them? Their response to Rosalyn’s message would surely be coming in sometime soon.
They started searching, splitting up but staying within sight of one another, not too difficult with the large, bright, white lights all across the ceiling. Mitchell went toward the metal shelves by the raised platform, glancing at the large-paned windows on the far wall where, beyond the cold, gray mountain range, a vast expanse of the planetoid’s dark, windy surface met a horizon of blue light and the darkness of outer space beyond.
Searching all around, he whistled softly and said, “Here, Brady! C’mere, Brady!”
“What are you doing?” Terri asked sharply, her voice echoing.
“Nothing,” he said. “Cat-calling.”
“…I hate you.”
Even without looking at her, he could feel her eyes rolling. He grinned for a moment.
Going through the shelves everywhere, he found absolutely nothing. No sign of anything out of the ordinary whatsoever.
Terri went through shelves on the opposite end and similarly found nothing. She walked casually over to the sectioned-off room and opened the door. Inside was a row of seven pods set into the wall containing the spacesuits, with one missing. On the other side, with an angular, glass window to the outer loading deck, there was a table with a control panel built into it and wheeled stools below it. The floor had a few disorganized boxes stacked up by a low vent, which normally was covered but had been opened somehow.
She glanc
ed down at it and screamed.
Mitchell came running, and by the time he got there, Terri was standing outside the door to the room with one hand on her heart.
“What happened?” he asked, coming to a hard stop next to her.
She closed her eyes, trying to breathe steadily. “I saw something run inside the vent.”
“What was it?”
She turned to him, eyes wide and piercing. “I don’t know! It moved in a flash.”
“Is it still in there?”
“I hope not!”
Shaking his head, he stepped inside the booth. She kept the door open while he shifted the boxes around. “It was probably just Brady. I’ve been looking for him.” He bent down to look inside the open vent.
“I’m really not sure that it was your cat, Mitchell.”
“But you can’t tell me what it was? Did it have four legs and a tail?” He reached his hand in the vent, feeling around on smooth metal.
“I guess. I saw it for half a second. The thing looked dark to me.”
“Well, it was probably just the lighting. Or maybe he got covered in soot or something.”
“Do you see it in there?”
“No. He’s gone.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Keep that thing where it belongs next time, will you, Mitch?”
“Okay, okay.”
♦♦♦
The stairwell to the first floor was poorly lit. Two of the bulbs were dying, and another was dead—and that was just in this room alone. Rosalyn never went down here because the lighting was generally poor or at best barely sufficient. Maybe engineers liked working in less light. What did she know? She had always left them to their domain. As she and Al reached the landing and started down the second flight of stairs, Rosalyn took out a flashlight to make up for the poor lighting, and to ease her fears. The ship wasn’t warm enough for her liking, and that was worse to deal with now having to search the ship in only her pajamas. She pulled at her messy hair, wishing she could tie it back.
She turned back to Al for a moment, and he got a good look at her in her tank top and pajama pants and said with a grin, “Is that what you sleep in? I figured you’d probably wear a big bear coat or something for PJs.”
She lowered her eyelids, surveying his six-inch lead on her height, and retorted playfully, “You’ll never know for sure what I sleep in, Al. Now if you wouldn’t mind showing me around down here,” she said, gesturing ahead of her.
“You got it.” He stepped ahead and dropped his grin, face perpetually stoic and stern, with reddish-brown, somewhat thin hair on his head. He kept that hardy, metal wrench gripped tightly in firm, strong hands. Rosalyn may have somewhat admired his bare, muscular chest if this situation wasn’t so urgent.
Al led the way, but really he had no clue what to expect with Shauna missing. His instincts told him that there was danger, but it wasn’t out in the open to be dealt with. Something down here was wrong—he could feel it—and they needed to find wherever it hid and fix it. That’s what he knew how to do. That was what he was good at.
That’s why Shauna’s disappearance disturbed him so much; without having a clear grasp on a problem, how in the world could it ever be fixed? Best case scenario, he figured, they discerned a specific problem quickly and could come up with a solution and work towards it. Worst case scenario, they found no specific problem to fix…and in such an event he didn’t at all know how he could be useful. He gripped the wrench tighter.
They reached the bottom of the staircase and approached a short hallway, this one a lower-lit place, more metallic than the upstairs hallways. It was short and led to a smaller room which Al, Sam, and Mitchell dubbed “the lounge.” This was the place where they’d kick back on breaks between jobs tending to the engine, boiler room, and anything else that was their job to fix. There weren’t often major issues, but it did require some level of maintenance just about every day.
They searched for a minute in here, looking in corners and in cupboards for anything out of the ordinary, but saw nothing other than some half-eaten bags of food and posters Rosalyn found distasteful.
They continued on through a simple, automatically-sliding door which Rosalyn discovered was primarily meant to block the wave of heat that swept over them as they walked into the next room, a very wide and somewhat dark one that extended almost throughout the entire ship. Their bare feet clanged against perforated metal here, and as Rosalyn looked to her right and her left she saw they had walked onto the middle of a long, long catwalk that extended down the length of the room and led to a number of intersecting catwalks.
It had been a while since she’d seen this huge room. Probably not since before they’d left Earth.
“That way leads to Mineral Storage room C and the boiler and computer mainframe rooms,” said Al, pointing to their left, “and that way leads to Mineral Storage A and D, the fuel containment, and the engine rooms.”
Rosalyn wiped her brow clean of sweat, glad she wasn’t wearing her coat for once. Maybe I should spend more time down here, she thought. “Uh, let’s check out the mineral storage rooms first. I think Terri and Mitchell are taking care of both floors of room A, so we’ll just focus on rooms C and D.”
They went left, the soft rattling of the catwalk with each step unnerving Rosalyn just a little bit. The ceiling was fairly high up, but the distance downward was greater, about thirty-five feet to the V-shaped floor of metal parts and pieces and cords all composed together in a functional fashion. Various valves leaked heat and steam, and sounds of humming engines and hissing air filled the room wherever they went. This was the bellowing underbelly of the Novara.
“Do you ever go down there?” Rosalyn asked out of curiosity, staring down at the mess of metal and cords. It didn’t look meant for walking on.
“Sometimes we’ll fix a cord or valve down there, but that’s pretty rare.”
A keen sense of her own ignorance occurred to Rosalyn. It seemed like Captain Beele had known just about everything that could be known about the ship; she’d even gone to this floor on a regular basis to check on things with the engineers. And here Rosalyn was, not even having been down here once since the voyage started. What was she going to do?
When she thought about that, she thought about having to report to FAER as the acting captain of the Novara. She wasn’t sure she wanted that job, but it was hers nonetheless. She wondered why she hadn’t heard back from them yet. They had to have seen the message by now. Perhaps they were discussing what to do in light of the magnitude of a message explaining an alien ruins and actual, alien creatures being discovered. With the new information they had about the lost rover, maybe they were trying to decide if it was worth it to ask the crew of the Novara to remain any longer. She truthfully wasn’t sure what they would say, and she had tried to be prepared to deal with either request.
But after this morning, that all changed. Once the crew’s sweep of the ship was complete, if they failed to locate Shauna, she had decided she would send another message to FAER (even if she hadn’t received a reply) explaining the updated situation and recommending an immediate return voyage in the interest of the safety of her crew.
The best option was finding Shauna somewhere on the ship, somehow having gotten lost—maybe having woken up and wandered off in some form of fugue state. Maybe she’d somehow been miraculously healed with only a side effect of sleepwalking. Perhaps that muck she’d nearly drowned in was an alien wonder-drug designed to heal anything.
Well, being the acting captain, it was good to be optimistic.
She and Al came to a fork in the catwalk, one direction going right towards a door to a large room and another continuing forward to where it connected into an enclosed hallway.
Al nodded to the catwalk on the right. “Here’s Mineral Storage C.”
That’s right. Rosalyn remembered days of loading tons of minerals into that area through a panel on the outside of the ship upon their last stop on the asteroid Lucius. That seem
ed so long ago now.
They headed forward to where the catwalk connected with a thick, sliding door labeled with “Mineral Storage C.” Inside, as the door slid shut behind them, the noise of the other room was drowned out, the excessive heat cut off, and they saw a large, well-organized room full of huge rows of shelves stacked with large metal crates. Down a short flight of stairs to the main level of this room, the gray floors were dusted with little sparkling bits of minerals, and a yellow forklift was stored along one of the walls. A familiar place that reminded them of their former successes, and yet it seemed like that mattered little now.
They made their way through the aisles, searching vigilantly, but finding nothing even after several prolonged minutes. Apparently no one else had found anything either, or they would have announced it to SNTNL. This wasn’t going as quickly as Rosalyn had hoped.
“SNTNL, you seeing anything?” she asked.
“Not so far, Captain Pulman. I will notify you when I or a crew member do.”
She sighed. “Thank you.”
They headed back the way they came and visited the next mineral storage room, which was accessed through the enclosed hallway at the end of the catwalk, down to their right. It was much the same as the last room, though perhaps slightly smaller. They’d nearly finished combing the place when SNTNL spoke up, its robotic voice echoing through the room.
“Captain Pulman—disturbance in the engine room!”
“Which one?” asked Al in a mostly steady manner.
“Engine Room B. It will be at the end of the catwalk on the opposite side, on your left. I recommend moving quickly.”
After a brief look at one another, the two raced back up and through the door to the catwalk, charging through sultry air across the main walkway. On the far opposite end they found not an enclosed hallway but a wall almost entirely obscured by a large, metal container with tubes on either side—the ship’s fuel supply, running into the colossal engines—and a split in the catwalk going in either direction. Rosalyn turned left without stopping and entered through the thick, orange-striped door to the starboard engine room.
Seclurm: Devolution Page 8