“The doctor will keep them alive,” the robed man said. “In time, you will come to us.”
Never, Angela thought.
But she could already hear the voices growing louder. The chamber looked different somehow, as if it were shifting in ways her mind wasn’t designed to comprehend. Nancy looked . . . alien, her body changing in ways . . . Angela blinked and everything snapped back to normal. Her heart sank again as she realized what was happening. The aliens that had taken over Nancy were slowly reaching into their minds, twisting their perceptions. Right and wrong would no longer matter, merely servitude to invisible entities. She remembered what Matt had told her of the alien ship and trembled. Finley and his new friends would merely be the last to die.
She looked at Matt, his face bruised. There was a dull horror in his eyes that shocked her to the core. He knew, probably better than she did, just what would happen if the uprising succeeded. Supreme would be permanently trapped, crew and guests doomed to madness and death. There was nothing he could do about it either. She forced herself to think, to try to come up with a plan. But there were too many fanatics for her to fight, even if she could work up the nerve.
I’m useless, she thought. Completely useless.
Lowering her eyes, she began to cry.
Matt gritted his teeth in helpless rage as he saw Angela weep. He knew what Finley would do to her after the Brethren had taken control of the ship, if he bothered to wait that long. He’d heard the horror stories. A pirate might keep Angela alive for ransom, but Finley wasn’t a pirate. He was a madman.
He’d never been in a real-life hostage situation, but the scenario had been included in emergency drills. And yet much of the advice the stewards had been given was useless. Their captors presumably had no intention of demanding a ransom, let alone making political demands of the government. Their captors had no reason to keep them alive. Finley and the Brethren were dead if Supreme ever made it back to realspace, and they knew it. Their goal was to keep Supreme from leaving, not to take and keep hostages.
Remain calm, do as you’re told, watch them, and wait for an opportunity, he reminded himself. Their instructors had warned stewards against senseless heroics, although they had admitted that everyone had to make the judgment of when to try to fight—or not—for themselves. Do not give them a reason to lash out at you.
He raised his head, carefully. Finley was standing by the bulkhead, eyeing Angela with a terrifying intensity. Matt felt his blood boil. He ruthlessly forced it down. Three of the other Brethren were guarding the hatch while the remainder were searching Sickbay and removing every injector tab they found. Matt hoped they wouldn’t find any sedatives. The Brethren might decide it was easier to sedate their captives instead of risking an escape.
And the voices might crawl into our heads if they do sedate us. The voices were echoing through his skull, right on the edge of awareness. That would be the end.
He allowed his gaze to drift from face to face as the Brethren marched back out of the compartment. A handful of passengers, a couple of crew . . . Matt saw the fanatical expressions on their faces and shuddered. Was that what awaited him and the other captives if they couldn’t hold out?
His instructors had advised him to build a rapport with any captors, to try to show that he was worthy of respect, but he doubted the ploy would work. The fanatics didn’t seem concerned about him . . . he hoped that was true. Finley might want him dead, if Finley still had any free will, but the others had no reason to give a damn about him. They were just waiting . . .
“You must move fast,” Nancy—no, the thing speaking through Nancy—said. She looked like an angel, or a demon. Matt thought he saw light bending around her. “This ship is preparing to depart.”
“We will not allow them to take us from you,” Brother John said. “This ship will remain here.”
Matt gave him an angry stare. Brother John ignored him, ordering his men to join the attack on Gold Deck and the bridge. A dozen arguments ran through Matt’s mind, but he knew none would work. Brother John was a fanatic, a man who’d just seen all his beliefs confirmed. Logic and reason wouldn’t impress him, nor would appeals to their common humanity. He was planning to sell them out to interdimensional alien monstrosities.
He thinks he’s doing the right thing, Matt thought, as Brother John left. He thinks the aliens are gods. Perhaps I can use that.
But he was damned if he knew how.
Angela was terrified.
Finley could feel it. He could sense the terror oozing off her in waves. He’d watched female anticipation turn to fear more times than he could count, enjoying every moment when a woman realized that she was no longer in control of the situation. Still, most of his conquests had lacked power themselves. They’d never had Angela’s assurance that her name and family would protect her from harm.
And now that protection is gone, he thought, savoring the moment. The fear in her eyes drew him like a moth to a dancing flame. She’s helpless.
The voices grew louder, urging him on. Brother John had told him not to kill her, not to kill anyone, if it could be avoided, but he could have his fun.
She drew back, unable even to look at him. Finley licked his lips. She didn’t know it, but she was advertising her weakness for all to see. The voices danced and sang in his mind, confirming every one of his thoughts. Angela was finally ready for him. It would be glorious. And, afterwards, he’d make her watch as he cut her lover into bloody strips, bleeding him to death. The anticipation was overpowering. He saw no reason to delay any longer.
It was time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Paul gripped his pistol as more and more bad news flowed into the bridge.
“We’ve lost contact with all of the search parties,” Slater reported. The security chief sounded badly worried. “We’ve also lost contact with Sickbay and the hatches on Bronze Deck.”
“Shit.” Paul gritted his teeth as he thought. “If they have control of the hatches, they can presumably get up to Gold Deck and the bridge.”
“Yes, sir,” Slater said. “They can also get to the women and children.” He paused, listening to his wristcom. “Sir, some of the sedated men are also waking up.”
“Seal Silver Deck,” Paul ordered. He glanced at the timer. Forty minutes to go. “Have they made a move for Engineering?”
“No, sir,” Slater said. “We do have a report of them advancing on Life Support.”
Paul shook his head. Normally, it would be a significant threat. Someone in control of Life Support could kill everyone on the starship, or sedate them if they released the knockout gas. Now, with the computer network effectively offline, Life Support was on its last legs anyway. Turning it off would create a long-term problem, but Supreme would either have made it out or been destroyed by the time the crew ran out of air.
“Seal that compartment; then order the guards to reinforce Engineering,” he ordered. “It won’t be long before they go for the drives.”
“Aye, sir,” Slater said. He paused. “And Sickbay?”
Paul gritted his teeth. Dr. Mackey, Angela and Nancy Cavendish . . . and at least twenty patients, none of whom were in any state to be moved. He didn’t know what the Brethren would do to them, particularly Nancy, but Sickbay wasn’t a priority, not when the ship was struggling to break free of the lobster pot.
“Leave it for the moment, while you concentrate on vital sectors,” he ordered. He felt a flush of shame. Abandoning two young girls just didn’t feel right to him. “Try to get a patrol down into that section if you have time.”
“We can’t,” Slater said flatly. “We simply don’t have the manpower to hold Gold and Silver if we draw guards off to probe that section. Every time we open the hatches, we risk getting something shoved back through—”
Paul held up a hand. “Understood,” he said. It had been wishful thinking, and he knew it. “Keep the hatches sealed.”
“Yes, sir,” Slater said.
“Capta
in,” Rani said, “we have a direct link to Engineering now!”
Paul nodded. Rani’s console blinked with lights. His heart leaped, even though he knew the system was still on the verge of collapse. It was a sign, perhaps, that they’d make it out of the trap. He told himself, sharply, not to get too optimistic. He’d known what the Theocracy could and would do to his ship, but the flickers were a completely unknown factor. They might possess other tricks.
He pushed the thought aside. “And the power surge?”
“The drain seems to be picking up,” Rani said. She paused. “Captain . . . we may not be able to meet the threshold for opening a vortex. If my calculations are correct—”
“Then ready the nuke on Spider,” Paul ordered. The aliens did seem to go after the largest power surges first. If they were lucky, the drain would concentrate on the antimatter explosion. “I want to detonate it a moment before we flash-wake the drive.”
“Aye, Captain,” Rani said.
Paul forced himself to sit calmly. The die was cast now. Either they survived long enough to open a vortex and jump out or they died. Either way . . . he checked his pistol as a new set of reports came in. The bastards would get his bridge over his dead body.
Which would probably be fine with them, he thought wryly.
“All right, get the next set of linkages into place,” Roeder bellowed. “We’ve got half an hour to get them ready before we go.”
He sucked in his breath, feeling the world jerking around him. The stimulant he’d taken had probably been an overdose, particularly when his personal nanites were offline, but he needed to remain awake and aware. If he died afterwards . . . he dismissed the thought as he ordered his crew to work faster. They needed to double or triple the linkages before zero hour, or there was too great a chance that the entire system would melt down when they flash-woke the drive.
His hands shook, despite himself, as he forced the next power cell into place and then checked it carefully. It should be fine . . . Gladys’s technology and hull hadn’t shown any signs of visible decay, had it? The first hyperspace starships had been built with an impressive series of redundancies, but . . . they just hadn’t had the technology available to the Commonwealth. And there was a very good chance that there might be damage he couldn’t detect with his remaining sensors. A hairline crack in a power cell would cause an explosion.
We should be able to handle it, he thought. Three crewmen rushed past him, carrying a power linkage. He watched, nodding in approval, as they slotted it into place. We’ve rigged as many circuit breakers into the system as possible.
He took a step back, wishing he had time to take another stimulant. The voices were dulled, but he could still hear them. Two of his crewmen had gone mad and needed to be tied down while a third had stepped off a balcony and plummeted to his death. Roeder had no idea if it had been suicide or a tragic accident, but either way . . . he looked down at his shaking hands and cursed. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was starting to think it was going to burst.
The hell of it, he admitted as he checked a set of calculations, was that he would have enjoyed the project if the entire ship wasn’t depending on him to succeed. Tearing power cells out of a hundred-year-old starship and working them into his own ship’s power grid, then tearing out power nodes from his ship and repurposing them for something greater . . . fantastic. It was a piece of improvised engineering that would go down in the history books. And yet, he knew that everything depended on success.
If we succeed, he thought, it will be listed under the heading of “How Not to Do It.” And if we fail, no one will ever know what happened to us.
His wristcom bleeped. “Sir, they’re attacking the main hatch,” a voice said. It took Conrad a moment to place Lieutenant Avis Grosskopf. “We’re holding them off now.”
“Do what you can,” Conrad ordered. An engineer appeared in front of him, holding a clipboard. He took it automatically. “We’ll—”
He looked up. The bland face looking back at him was instantly recognizable.
And then the knife was thrust into his heart.
“What the fuck are these bastards smoking?” Lieutenant Robinson demanded. “They’re just coming at us!”
“I don’t give a toss,” Avis snapped. She put five rounds into another fanatic; two through his head, the rest into his legs. She’d seen too many of the bastards keep moving even after being shot through the head to feel confident that anything less than total dismemberment would keep them down. “Just kill the fuckers!”
She cursed under her breath as four more men ran at her. One of them was wearing a starship uniform, but she didn’t dare hesitate. If they’d had their stunners . . . she cursed again as she blew the man’s head to bloody ruin. They’d lost half their arsenal just because the computer processors were fucked. A pair of plasma cannons would have held the entire section with no risk whatsoever to the guards.
Sure, she told herself. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
“They’re trying to get to us over the bodies of the dead,” she said, tonguing her mouthpiece. Thank God that still worked. She would have hated to try to talk into a wristcom while she was still fighting. “We’re running out of ammo.”
“Understood,” Slater said. “Hold as long as you can.”
Avis nodded, feeling good for the first time in days. The voices, the flickers, the alien ships . . . she’d found it hard to keep herself going, even though she was an experienced military veteran. Nothing she’d seen in the Marine Corps had prepared her for aliens. Now . . . now she actually had a physical enemy to fight. The voices seemed to fade as her anger and determination grew stronger. She didn’t know if the fanatics were cowards or had merely been overwhelmed by the aliens, but she was sure they were traitors. Their surrender risked the entire ship.
Something skidded along the deck and landed far too close to the barricade. She ducked back an instant before it exploded. A makeshift grenade, part of her mind noted. Not powerful enough to damage the barricade but certainly tough enough to cause real problems for the defenders. She wished, again, that she had a suit of armor or even a set of grenades of her own. They just didn’t have time to rig them up.
“Two more,” Robinson snapped.
Avis kept her head down as the grenades exploded, then glanced up long enough to pick up a stream of fanatics coming at her. She raised her weapon and opened fire, cursing the ammo shortage savagely. In hindsight . . .
She shook her head. What sort of lunatic would expect an all-out war on the decks of a cruise liner?
“They’re punching through at Point Stalingrad,” her earpiece chirped. “Fall back!”
“Understood,” Avis said. The bastards would have to get through the next set of hatches before they did anything else. It would slow them down, a little. “I—”
“Emergency,” the dispatcher said. “Get to the main compartment now!”
Conrad felt the knife stab into him. The pain . . . the pain felt dulled. His head felt dulled too, his thoughts starting to slow. It took him a long chilling moment to realize that the stimulants were keeping him alive, just for the moment. And, perhaps, the knife remaining in the wound . . . Bryon was staring down at him, insanity dancing within his eyes. Conrad couldn’t muster the strength to do anything but stare back. His entire body felt weak, as if it no longer belonged to him. Flickers of light danced at the corners of his eyes as his legs started to buckle. He could no longer stand.
“You will all die here,” Bryon whispered. Conrad couldn’t tell if it was the aliens or the serial killer speaking for himself. No doubt the prospect of taking thousands of people to the grave was attractive to a man like him. “You will all die.”
Fuck you, Conrad thought. The asshole was wearing an engineering uniform. How had he found an engineering uniform? Somehow, it no longer seemed important. I . . .
He stumbled to his knees as Bryon removed the knife, turning to lash out at the closest crewman. Conrad
hit the hard deck as his crew started to shout, then charge the serial killer; Bryon sliced four of them before his head simply exploded. Conrad needed several seconds to comprehend that the serial killer had been shot. Blood drifted everywhere, mocking him. He was dying and . . .
Someone slapped a medical pack against his chest. Conrad could have told them not to bother . . . he would have told them, if he could have mustered the energy. Normally, a medical pack would ensure that he had a reasonable chance to survive. Now the power was failing, and the pack was unlikely to work.
Get the ship out, he thought. Or said. He wasn’t sure. Get moving, you . . .
Avis closed her eyes, just for a moment, as Chief Roeder died. She’d liked him, the couple of times they’d met. He’d deserved better. They’d all deserved better. Now . . .
She glanced at the engineering crew. “Get back to work,” she snapped. “We don’t have much time.”
Gritting her teeth, she ran back to the hatch, tonguing her mouthpiece on the way. “Sir, Chief Roeder is dead,” she reported. “Bryon killed him. He’s dead now too. No apparent damage to Main Engineering.”
“Understood,” Slater said. “Hold the section as long as possible.”
Avis exchanged looks with Robinson as the next set of reports came in through the command net. They had managed to fall back, but now . . . the enemy was breaking through the hatches. There was nowhere else to go. They had to hold, or die. And die, perhaps. Their deaths would buy time, but would it be enough?
“If we get out of this alive,” she muttered, “I’m going to go into something safer. Naked lion taming, perhaps.”
“Or bungee jumping without a rope,” Robinson agreed. “Or food tasting in King Putt’s Court.”
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