“We’re secure,” he said through a sigh; then he turned and pointed to the helmet he’d discarded. “I knew it was here because I was wearing that. And it wasn’t invisible until I turned on the lights.”
Both Delta and Devon stared at the helmet; then Devon walked over and picked it up. She turned it over in her hands, leaving her rifle to dangle by the shoulder strap.
“Is that...?” she trailed off.
“The same thing they put on Dr. Grouse,” Clayton confirmed. “I woke up with it on my head. It was connected to something in the Avari’s hands, some kind of portable storage device maybe.”
Delta’s brow furrowed above hard blue eyes. “So you think they... what—downloaded the contents of your brain?”
Clayton shook his head. “I don’t know.” His mind raced for answers. This wasn’t the first time he’d awoken in his quarters, paralyzed, and seen a shadow skulking around. How long had that Avari been on board? Since they’d left Trappist? Or had it come aboard from one of those unidentified blips that he and Commander Taylor had been tracking on approach?
“She didn’t kill them,” Devon said slowly, still staring at the helmet.
“Who?” Delta asked.
“Keera. She didn’t kill Ferris and Asher.”
“We don’t know that,” Delta said.
“No, we don’t,” Clayton added, “but now we do have another suspect.”
“An invisible one with an unknown agenda,” Delta said. “This is not good, sir.” He glanced back at the door. “We need to wake up the rest of the crew.”
Clayton was already on his way to retrieve the mag boots from his locker. He pulled them out and strapped them on, then added an ear-worn comms piece in case they got separated.
“Channel one, sir,” Delta said.
He set it with a thought, then straightened and nodded. “Move out, Delta.” With his Space Marine background, Delta was better trained to take the lead—not to mention he was wearing a full suit of body armor.
“Yes, sir,” Delta replied, turning to the door. He gripped his rifle with both hands across his chest, but hesitated in front of the door and glanced back over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised. “The code, sir?”
“One sec. I’ll unlock it,” Clayton replied. The bolt thunked aside as he did so. Delta waved the door open, and then they were on their way, fanning out from the room and checking both sides of the corridor.
“Left side clear,” Delta said.
“Right side clear,” Devon added.
Clayton checked both sides with his own sights, then shook his head. “We don’t know that. Infrared probably gets blocked by the cloak too. We need something else to find it.”
“We can lock down this deck,” Delta said while glancing around warily. His posture was rigid, tense.
“You’re assuming it’s still here,” Devon replied.
“Well, if it is, we should get out of the damn corridor. On me.” Delta led the way to Lori’s quarters and waved the door open. It slid aside, and they stormed in. She rose sleepily from her bunk while Clayton shut and locked the door behind them.
“Lights on,” Delta said.
“What...” Lori woke with a start and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“There’s an Avari on board,” Clayton said.
Lori’s eyes flew wide, then collapsed to slits. “I knew it wasn’t her!”
“Let’s try not to make any assumptions yet,” Clayton said.
But Lori flew out of bed and stumbled to her feet, standing with her fists clenched and shaking. “You made me put her in cryo!”
“And that was the right call at the time,” Clayton said.
“It probably still is,” Devon added, glancing between them. “At least she’s safe.”
Lori subsided and worry crawled into her eyes. “Did it k—is anyone else...” She trailed off, not wanting to say it.
Clayton shook his head. “Not yet.” He nodded to Delta, and added, “We need a way to track it.”
“We could use the surveillance system to look for elevators and bulkhead doors opening and closing for ghosts,” Devon said. “Then we just have to lock the ones around it and box it in.”
Clayton nodded. “Good idea. Start working that angle and let us know if the computer finds anything.”
“It’s probably using the maintenance tunnels,” Delta muttered.
“Or it’ll start using them now,” Clayton replied.
“Surveillance will see if cover panels are being removed or torn open,” Devon added.
Lori shook her head hard, blinking and squinting at them in the bright lights. “What are you talking about?” She looked to Devon. “Ghosts?”
“It’s invisible,” Clayton said. “Short of bumping into it, we’re not going to find it.”
“Invisible?” Lori echoed.
“Cloaked,” Clayton explained.
“What about laser sights?” Devon asked.
Clayton shook his head. “Won’t work.”
“We won’t see the dot reflect, but we should still see where it vanishes, right?” Devon insisted.
“An EM cloak doesn’t work that way,” Clayton replied.
“You’re talking like that’s a thing,” Devon objected. “It’s theoretical tech.”
“Well, in theory, electromagnetic radiation is passed seamlessly from one side of the cloak to the other. Ideally, it even does that with the wavelengths we can’t see, like infrared—and definitely the ones we can, like red laser sights.”
“Yeah, that’s bullshit,” Delta said. “Give me a high-powered laser and we’ll see how much radiation it can pass from one side to the other without burning a hole.” He patted his energy rifle. “In fact, this baby should probably do the trick.”
“You still have to know where it is to shoot it,” Clayton said.
“So what’s your idea?” Devon asked.
A slow smile spread on Clayton’s lips. “We have training guns in the armory.”
“Training guns?” Delta spluttered. “Paintballs aren’t going to...” He trailed off as the penny dropped. “Oh. I gotcha, Cap. Nice.”
Devon put on a sly smile. “Good thinking, sir.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet. We still have to get there.”
“I’m coming,” Lori said.
“No civilians,” Delta said. “You’re a liability.”
Lori’s eyes flashed. “I have weapons training.”
“But no combat experience.”
“Not all of you do, either!”
“He’s right,” Clayton said, and waved his hand to cut off the argument. “You should stay in here with the door locked.”
“For all you know, it’s already in here with us,” Lori added.
Delta grimaced and made a show of looking around. “Well, joke’s on us if it is, because we just told the little shit our plan.”
“It doesn’t understand English,” Devon said.
“We hope it doesn’t,” Delta replied.
“Let’s go,” Clayton said, turning back to the door.
“I’m not going to stay here!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Clayton replied.
“If you weren’t going to take me with you, then why did you come in here?”
“To regroup,” Clayton replied.
“At least now you know not to leave your room for a midnight snack,” Delta added.
“Keep the door locked, Lori—and change the door code,” Clayton said.
“What? Why?”
“Because it knew my code, so it probably knows yours, too.”
“How is that possible?”
“Probably pulled it from someone’s head,” Delta muttered.
Grabbing his rifle in a firm two-handed grip, Clayton opened Lori’s door and stepped out into the corridor. Seeing nothing, he whispered, “On me,” and set a brisk pace for the elevators. Lori’s door swished shut as they left, and the locking bolt thunked ba
ck into place.
Delta was right. The Avari had been fishing around in Dr. Grouse’s head, now Clayton’s, and probably Lieutenant Asher’s and Ferris’s, too.
If it had managed to find the security codes for doors, what else had the Avari found?
A trickle of icy dread slithered through Clayton as the answer came to him. Sick as he’d been at the time, Dr. Grouse was right: the Avari knew where Earth was.
Chapter 35
“Shouldn’t we warn the ambassador and Doctor Stevens?” Devon asked as they reached the elevators.
Clayton nodded. “Get them on the comms. Tell them to stay in their rooms with the doors locked. We don’t have time to stop and chat.”
“Yes, sir... sending message,” Devon replied.
The doors of the nearest elevator parted, and Clayton stepped inside. He hesitated as Delta and Devon came in, trying to remember if the training weapons were kept in the main armory or the auxiliary one.
“Deck fifty, sir,” Delta supplied, and he reached out with an armored glove to stab EA50 on the panel. The main armory. The button was highlighted with a red outline to indicate that it was also one of the decks with escape pods on it.
“The ambassador is calling me,” Devon said as the elevator started upward.
“Better answer it,” Clayton replied.
Devon made a face, then sucked in a breath and said, “Ambassador, as I said in my message, we have a situation with—oh, Dr. Reed already told you. Good. We’re handling it. Just stay in your room and keep the door...” Devon trailed off, her eyes rolling as Ambassador Morgan cut her off.
“No, you can’t help... yes, I realize you’re supposed to handle diplomacy, but this isn’t—” Another sudden pause. Clayton couldn’t help smiling. “We’ll let you know if we require your help. First we have to catch it. Lieutenant Devon out.” She blew out a breath. “Damn, that man is an ass.”
“Yes, he is.” Clayton turned from her to watch the lights of passing decks flashing through the transparent windows in the top of the elevator doors. The lights strobed slower and slower as they drew near to deck fifty. “Ready up,” Clayton said, and grabbed his rifle with both hands again.
The doors slid open, revealing a curving corridor with hatches to escape pods lining the outer wall.
“Taking point,” Delta said. He stepped out of the elevator with his rifle up and tracking.
Clayton and Devon walked out after him, squinting through their infrared scopes to check for heat signatures.
“Clear,” Delta said.
“As far as we can tell,” Clayton added.
“Training gear is in WP06,” Delta replied, gesturing with his rifle to indicate the right-hand side of the corridor. He led the way, and Clayton followed with Devon bringing up the rear.
The glowing green rings and numbers of hatches to escape pods flashed by to their left—starting from EP101—and the full-sized doors to the armory flashed by to their right.
Clayton kept expecting something invisible to jump out and attack them as they went. For all they knew, that Avari had ridden up in the elevator with them.
Clayton cut a quick glance back the way they’d come. Devon was walking backward, keeping their six covered. She turned to look where she was going and caught his eye as she did so.
“No sign of anything yet, sir.”
He nodded back. His pulse was racing, his hands sweating on the grip and handguard of his rifle.
“Found it,” Delta said as he stopped by the door marked WP06. He waved the door open and the lights came on automatically for them as they crowded in. Devon shut the door behind them, and Clayton waited until the locking bolt thunked into place. The storage room was a long aisle lined with lockers, and only wide enough for them to stand single file, a fact which made Clayton feel better about the possibility that the Avari might have followed them. Delta walked down to the end and opened one of the lockers. Clayton and Devon followed.
Delta left his energy rifle to dangle from the strap and reached into the locker he’d opened to pass out a rifle that looked almost exactly like their E-14’s. Clayton took the weapon and passed it down to Devon. The main difference was that these weapons were marked T-14 rather than E-14, and they were much lighter and easier to carry—with the exception of a bulky under barrel hopper full of paintballs where the E-14’s handguard was.
“Here you are, sir,” Delta said as he passed out a second rifle.
Clayton slung it across his shoulders, leaving the training weapon to dangle by his left hip, while the real one stayed within easy reach on his right.
Removing a third weapon for himself, Delta began passing out ammo belts with spare hoppers clipped to them.
Clayton passed the first one down to Devon and then strapped on a second for himself.
“Any hits on the surveillance system?” Clayton asked, glancing back at Devon.
She shook her head. “None yet, sir.”
“It could still be hanging around the bunkrooms on twenty-six,” Delta pointed out as he clipped on an ammo belt for himself and shut the locker.
“Or maybe it rode up in the elevator with us,” Clayton pointed out.
Delta grimaced. “Or that.”
Devon’s eyes flared wide. That thought obviously hadn’t occurred to her. “So what do we do to find it? We can’t just go around spraying the ship with paint until we hit something.”
Clayton took a moment to consider that. She was right of course. He’d been counting on the ship’s internal cameras to detect some kind of activity by now, but wherever the Avari had gone, it was being careful to avoid opening any doors or elevators within sight of those cameras.
“We could lay a trap for it,” Delta suggested.
“Except we don’t know what the Avari was after,” Devon said. “So we don’t have any bait.”
“It was after me,” Clayton said. “It was in my quarters, and it put that helmet on my head for a reason.”
“So...” Delta trailed off. “You want to go back to sleep and see if it returns?”
“Maybe, but it might have already extracted whatever information it was looking for,” Devon pointed out.
“Assuming that it was looking for information,” Delta said. “Maybe it implanted something.”
“That’s a happy thought,” Clayton replied. Turning back to Devon, he said, “I have a better idea than waiting around for it to come to us.”
Devon’s eyebrows shot up.
“We wake the rest of the crew. And the dogs.”
Devon’s brow furrowed. “Why the dogs?”
“So they can sniff it out,” Delta replied.
Clayton nodded to him. “Exactly...” He trailed off, remembering how Charlie had been barking at something that only he could see during those initial tests of the Visualizers. Maybe he’d smelled a cloaked Avari skulking in the comms lab.
“Sir?” Delta prompted.
“Let’s get down to cryo,” Clayton said. “Delta, lead the way.”
“Yes, sir.” He squeezed by Clayton in the narrow aisle, their rifles clattering together, then did the same to get past Devon. “Opening door,” he added, raising both his rifles, one in each hand.
The door opened into darkness.
Delta reacted as if he’d just touched a live wire, his whole body flinching. Both rifles snapped up a little higher, the barrels sweeping.
Their tac lights were still on and parting the shadows as they stepped out together, scanning both sides of the curving corridor for targets. No sign of anything.
“Let’s spray some paint,” Clayton said.
“You got it, sir,” Delta replied.
They splattered the bulkheads with bright red paint as they swept their training rifles around for a second time. But none of those projectiles hit anything besides the sheer gunmetal grays of the corridor.
Clayton gave up with a sigh. “At least we know it’s not in the immediate vicinity.”
“But we know it was here,”
Devon replied.
“You’re telling me the surveillance system didn’t spot anything?” Clayton demanded.
“Nothing,” Devon said. “It’s set to alert me anytime a door opens anywhere on the ship. So far the only alerts I’ve received are from the ones we’ve opened.”
“So it’s shadowing us,” Delta concluded.
“Check again,” Clayton said.
Delta popped off another shot. Another red splotch appeared, this time on the deck about a dozen feet away from him.
“Thought I saw something,” Delta explained.
“Devon?” Clayton prompted.
“Looks like there was something. Up on twenty-six.”
Clayton’s brow furrowed. They’d come from there less than fifteen minutes ago.
“What was it?”
“Dr. Reed’s door, sir. Three minutes ago. It opened, then shut.”
“And you missed that?”
“Looks like the system went offline. Some kind of malfunction. The report just came in now as I was checking.”
Clayton gritted his teeth. He’d told Lori to keep her door locked. “Get her on the comms.”
“Calling...” Devon shook her head. “Everything is out on that level... lights... cameras... I’ve got nothing. Surveillance is also down again.”
“The Avari,” Delta said. “It targeted her.”
* * *
Lori heard the knock on her door and pulled her knees up to her chest. She was sitting in the armchair by her window. She tried activating the holocomm, but the lights were out in the corridor, and she couldn’t see who it was.
“Hello?” she tried. Her voice would be relayed to whoever—or whatever—was out there.
“Lori! Open the door! It’s Captain Cross!”
She slowly rose from the chair, confusion swirling like smoke through her thoughts. He’d just been here.
“Captain? What happened to the lights?”
“That thing is out here! It’s hunting me! Open the door!”
Lori hesitated for just a second before triggering the door open with her ARCs. The locking bolt slid away and the door swished open. A wall of darkness lay on the other side—
And nothing else.
Lori’s brow furrowed. “Captain?”
No answer. A light breeze touched her face, the air stirring.
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