“It’s hard to be certain,” Roeder admitted. “I . . .”
“Take your best guess,” Paul ordered sharply. Another spark danced at the corner of his eye, just for a second. “How long do we have?”
Roeder glanced down at his notepad. “Assuming the drain doesn’t intensify,” he said slowly, “we have about ten days before we lose power completely. I’m currently trying to organize my staff to start distributing stored power over the remaining power cells, which may give us some more breathing room, but . . . I can’t guarantee that the power drain won’t switch to them as well.” He paused. “We may be trapped in a lobster pot,” he added. “Our struggles may only make our entrapment worse.”
Shit, Paul thought.
“If we can stockpile enough power to open a gateway, we might be able to escape,” Roeder said. “But if we try and fail, we’ll be dead sooner.”
“We’ll be dead anyway if we merely conserve power,” Slater said.
“True,” Paul agreed. “Start making preparations to open a gateway.”
Roeder nodded slowly. “Yes, Captain.”
Paul kept his face expressionless. Roeder didn’t believe escape was possible. That wasn’t a good sign. Paul had read Roeder’s record very carefully before approving his transfer to Supreme. The man was a skilled engineer with an extensive record of naval service. If he thought they were doomed, they were probably doomed.
“There’s another possibility,” Cavendish offered. “We can check the alien ships, see what happened to them.”
“Yes, My Lord,” Paul said. He smiled, ruefully. Robert Cavendish’s rank counted for nothing in the lobster pot. Whatever was out there, if there was something out there, wouldn’t give a damn about him. “Mr. Slater, put together a team to board the nearest alien vessel.”
“Yes, sir,” Slater said. “I’ll see who I can muster.” He leaned forward. “There is another matter,” he added. “Our unwanted guest.”
Paul frowned. “Is he secure?”
“Yes,” Slater said. He met Paul’s eyes. “I strongly advise his termination.”
“You mean kill him,” Paul said flatly.
“Yes, sir,” Slater said. “He’s a danger as long as he’s alive.”
“But he’s trapped,” Paul said. “Correct?”
“Yes,” Slater said. “For the moment.”
Paul looked back at him evenly. “For the moment, we have other problems,” he said. “Leave him in his cell.”
Slater looked irked. “Yes, sir.”
“We’ll concentrate on getting the hell out of here,” Paul said. “We have a plan, as limited as it is. Make sure the guests know it.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeanette said. She yawned, helplessly. “Food is going to be another hassle, sir.”
“Of course,” Paul said wearily. They all needed a rest. “The stasis pods have all failed, haven’t they?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeanette said. “I think we need to start distributing food as quickly as possible before it starts to spoil. Ration bars will last longer, of course.”
“People will start whining,” Slater put in.
Paul rubbed his forehead. Supreme carried thousands of tons of expensive foodstuffs, most of which would spoil rapidly outside a stasis pod. God alone knew what would happen if the life support started to fail in the holds. No, he did know what would happen. The food would go rotten and start poisoning people. And they were in danger of running out of fresh water too. Did they even have a single working purifier? They had a stockpile of purification tablets, but that would run out sooner rather than later. The ship would soon wind up looking like a refugee camp.
Fuck, he thought. How the hell are we going to cope with waste disposal?
He cleared his throat. “We are in an emergency situation,” he said. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, as if someone else were speaking through him. “Inform the guests that we cannot provide most of our regular facilities. They . . . they can help, if they have useful skills, or they can sit quietly and wait. The stewards can organize activities for them.” His voice hardened. “And if any of them cause trouble,” he added, “you are to subdue them as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll back you up on that,” Cavendish said. His lips twitched. “Although it might just mean both of us ending up in the shit.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” Paul said.
He looked down at his wristcom. Half the command functions were still offline, a reminder that his ship was in desperate straits. Normally, he was fairly sure that his crew could contain a riot before it got out of hand. Hatches could be sealed, entire decks isolated . . . now, there was no way to isolate a section without deploying manpower he didn’t have to seal the hatches. All automated systems were offline or unreliable.
“I will take full responsibility,” he said, looking up. He noticed that Jeanette looked relieved. “Once we return to realspace, we’ll proceed to the nearest harbor and make contact with Corporate.”
And if we don’t return to realspace, a nasty part of his mind reminded him, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
“Good luck to us all,” he said. “Dismissed.”
Paul’s body felt tired, inhumanly tired. He thought he heard, just for a second, someone whispering in the background. But the voice was too quiet for him to make out the words. He rubbed his ears, fighting down a surge of exhaustion. The drugs were catching up with him. He needed sleep . . . they all needed sleep. But there was no way he could sleep.
“You won’t have to take full responsibility,” Cavendish said quietly. “I meant it.”
Paul glanced up. He’d zoned out . . . he hadn’t even realized that Robert Cavendish had stayed in the compartment. He cursed himself. The drugs were taking their pound of flesh. It probably wouldn’t be long before he started seeing things . . . more things. The strange flashes of light had never left him alone.
“Thank you,” he managed. “I’m sorry, My Lord.”
“I should be apologizing to you,” Cavendish said. His voice was reflective. “I wonder . . . were we set up to die?”
Paul gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”
Cavendish laughed humorlessly. “The corporation is in deep shit,” he said. “We’re overextended, Captain. We’ve been overextended since the war. I practically pimped out my daughter just to put together a deal that might save us. And now . . . someone with enough influence could have arranged for our escorts to leave us, perhaps even tipped off the pirates to our planned course.”
“The course was random,” Paul said. He couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you suggesting that someone deliberately intended to get us all killed?”
“It makes sense,” Cavendish said. “Captain . . . I didn’t dare rock the boat. The risk of exposing our weakness . . . if our investors knew, they’d be bailing out before it was too late, and in doing so, they’d bring on the disaster. But now . . . I was meant to spend the entire trip putting together a plan to put our finances on more solid footing. That won’t happen now, will it?”
“We’ll get home,” Paul said with more confidence than he felt. “Is that why you were unwilling to protest our unwanted guest?”
“There would have been a diplomatic incident,” Cavendish said. “Our enemies would have seen us as an easy target without realizing just how weakened we actually are. I might . . . I might have been able to convince them to deny passage to a serial killer, but we might have lost the subsequent lawsuit. The government wouldn’t thank us for creating a major incident.”
“I suppose not,” Paul said. “If Supreme never returns home, My Lord, will the insurance company pay out?”
Robert Cavendish laughed, harshly. “It won’t be enough to get the corporation out of its hole,” he said. “If one of my rivals thinks that killing me and the rest of the guests will solve the problem, he’s mistaken. They could lose everything.”
Paul wasn’t sure how to process what he’d just heard. Cavendish Corporation was immense, l
arger than some stage-four planetary governments. Robert Cavendish controlled more money and power and influence than most of the dukes. And yet if the corporation was dangerously overextended, his power rested on a bluff. No wonder Corporate had been so reluctant to push matters. They didn’t dare force someone to push back.
But how could anyone have predicted the distortion?
Maybe they intended to let the pirates have us, he thought. He couldn’t imagine any way someone could have known what Supreme would encounter. Or maybe they paid the pirates through the nose to have them destroy the ship instead of taking prisoners for ransom.
“It isn’t a problem, for the moment,” he said finally. He felt a stab of sympathy for Robert’s daughter. He’d met Finley Mackintosh, and he hadn’t been impressed. “If we make it back to realspace, My Lord, we can worry about it then.”
“Right,” Cavendish said. He looked down at the table. “Do we have a hope in hell of escaping this . . . this lobster pot?”
“I think so,” Paul said. He wasn’t so sure, privately. But he knew he had to sound confident when talking to guests. Thankfully, most of them would assume that a man in uniform knew what he was doing. “We have options.”
“True,” Cavendish said. “And if we fail, we die?”
“I’m afraid so,” Paul said. “This is completely unprecedented.”
He considered it for a long moment. He’d heard of starships losing power in hyperspace before, but never anything like the graveyard. Anyone who saw the drifting ships and made it home would have one hell of a story to tell. Maybe someone had . . . they just didn’t have any records to prove it.
We should see if anyone’s heard such a story, he thought. Commanding officers were supposed to discourage spacers from sharing their tales, although that was a little like trying to hold back the tide. Everyone in space knew someone who knew someone who’d heard of the Lost Planet of Treasure or Missing Planet of Paradise. Perhaps there’s a clue in there somewhere.
He looked up as Lieutenant Boscobel stepped into the room, looking disgustingly fresh and awake. “Sir,” he said, “we have identified a single human starship among the alien ships.”
Paul tensed. Something gleamed at the corner of his eye. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” Boscobel said. “It’s definitely a human-designed ship.”
“Then we’ll investigate it first,” Paul said. He allowed himself a moment of relief. In theory, reading alien records could be simple; in practice, no one had actually tried. He had no idea if the feat was possible without computer support. “Put it on the top of the list.”
“Aye, sir.”
“I’ll go back to my family,” Cavendish said. “Good luck, Captain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Congratulations on your promotion,” Matt said.
“And my first command will be to have you flogged with a rusty chainsaw,” Carla said as they carried the heavy box down the darkened corridor. “Or perhaps I should give you all the shit jobs.”
“Yes, My Lady,” Matt said. “I cower before you, My Lady.”
“Perhaps some groveling, later,” Carla said. The lights flickered. They both reached for their flashlights before the lighting steadied itself. “It’s not how I wanted to get promoted.”
Matt nodded ruefully. Dominic Falcon had been thrown into a bulkhead hard enough to crack his skull. He might have been saved if he’d been rushed to Sickbay quickly enough, but the stewards had been unable to summon a medical team. Carla was, apparently, the senior survivor. Matt didn’t envy her, not really. Rumors were flying everywhere, suggesting that they were doomed. Supreme didn’t have a hope of escape.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said instead.
Carla shot him a piercing glance as they reached the hatch. Someone had jammed the portal open even though it was technically against regulations. Matt didn’t blame them. Opening the hatch without power was difficult, even for strong men. The lights flickered again as they stepped through and hurried down to the ballroom. The area resembled one of the refugee camps that had dotted the Commonwealth after the Theocracy destroyed Hebrides. The handful of emergency lights someone had rigged up didn’t make the space look any better.
None of these people are used to deprivation, he thought. His nose wrinkled. He could smell the makeshift toilets in the next room. The air filtering system was down too. They’ll be going mad in a hurry.
He peered around, trying to locate any other stewards or crew in the giant compartment. He found none. The guests were lying on the deck or mingling, talking in hushed voices. A handful of Brethren were standing at the far end of the room, speaking loudly about how Supreme had reached the home of their gods. Matt couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but the general gist was clear. Supreme shouldn’t be making any attempt to escape the trap. Instead, they should prepare to welcome their lords and masters.
A hand caught his arm. “My wife’s been hurt,” a middle-aged man said. Matt recognized him as one of the middle-ranking guests, one of Robert Cavendish’s cronies. “Can you get her to Sickbay?”
Matt glanced at Carla, then walked over to check on the wife. She was easily twenty or thirty years younger than her husband, her face marred with a nasty bruise. She’d apparently banged her head into the bulkhead when Supreme had run into trouble. She wasn’t the only one. Matt had been told not to send anyone to Sickbay unless their injuries were life-threatening.
“Not at the moment, sir,” he said after a quick inspection. He was no expert, but he knew enough about medical matters to be fairly sure that the young woman was in no immediate danger. “She’ll have to wait for attention.”
The man reached out and caught his arm. “She needs attention now,” he said. “That’s not good enough. I paid for this flight and—”
“Medical attention will be provided as soon as possible,” Matt said. He gritted his teeth, unsure if he should summon help. Too many guests were taking an undue interest in the discussion. “Right now, sir, our resources are stretched to the limits.”
“I’ll have your job for this,” the man snapped. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
He turned and walked back towards Carla, bracing himself for the blow to fall. If the man took a swing at him . . . the blow never fell. Matt still felt a shiver running down his exposed back. Someone, he forgot who, had said that civilization was one missed meal away from disintegration. The men and women in the ballroom, gathered together by the stewards, had probably never missed a meal in their lives.
Carla cupped her hands around her mouth and spoke loudly. “We have food here,” she said, tapping the box. “Please line up to collect your rations.”
Matt opened the box and started to hand out sandwiches. Normally the sandwiches cost about a day’s wages. The labels informed anyone who cared to look that they’d been made with the finest organic ingredients without a single vat-grown piece of meat in the batch. Now, with the stasis pods having failed, they were already pushing their sell-by date. The sooner they were eaten, the better.
“I want beer,” someone shouted. “Beer!”
“Water,” another person added. “I’m thirsty!”
Matt tapped the stunner at his belt as Carla spoke. “Water will be provided,” she said. “Please remain calm and—”
“I want a shower,” someone shouted. “I’m covered in blood.”
“Water is strictly rationed,” Carla informed him. “You’ll have to wait for it.”
If we can, Matt thought. Normally water was cheap. Now . . . he had the feeling that they were going to struggle to keep themselves hydrated. Soon they would be trying to purify the swimming pools. What happens when we start distilling our own piss?
He shuddered at the thought. He knew, on an intellectual level, that starships recycled almost everything, but he didn’t want to think about the implications. No one did.
A voice spoke in his ear, just for a sec
ond. He jumped and spun around, but no one was there. Carla gave him a look, then turned back to the older man who was arguing with her. He was demanding water, or booze, and he didn’t care about whoever had said he couldn’t have it. He was a very important man and . . .
“Sit down, sir,” Carla said finally. “There isn’t any water yet.”
The man glared at her for a long moment, then took his sandwich and stamped off. Matt breathed a sigh of relief. A nasty mood was in the air even though plenty of guests were now eating. It wouldn’t take much to start a riot. He would have preferred to lock the passengers in their cabins and feed them one by one, but the captain had other ideas.
And he didn’t bother to explain them to me, Matt thought. An orb of light danced past his eyes and vanished again. No doubt the captain thinks he has good reasons.
“This is the home of our gods,” a voice said. Matt looked up. Brother John was standing there, peering down at him. His monkish cowl gave him a sinister look. “We demand that you let us go to them.”
Matt took a breath. “The gods have not spoken to us,” he said carefully. He wasn’t sure what to say. “This place is a trap.”
“There are other ships out there,” Brother John informed him. “They too were summoned by the gods.”
Shit, Matt thought. How the hell did he know about the other ships?
Someone must have told them, his own thoughts answered. Most of the crew knew about the alien ships by now, even though the captain had specifically ordered them not to tell the passengers. Rumors have been flying everywhere.
“The gods will provide,” Brother John said. He took a step forward. “We must go to them in the spirit of submission.”
Carla tapped her wristcom, beating out an emergency signal. Matt gripped his stunner. There was no way Brother John could have missed the movement, but he kept coming forward anyway. Matt braced himself, unsure what to do. Brother John was an easy target, but five other Brethren were in the ballroom . . . and plenty of others, all on edge.
The Hyperspace Trap Page 22