Deception

by M. R. Forbes

  Sho smiled in response to the story. “You always said you had a great dad.”

  “The best.” Caleb froze. “But I never would have expected him to show up here, especially considering how long he’s been dead.”

  “Show up here? What do you mean?”

  “I saw him, Yen. I saw my father. I heard him call my name. It was so real. For a second, I was sure it was real. I had no concept of reality not lining up with him standing there in front of me, even though I knew it was impossible.”

  “Do you think maybe it had something to do with stasis? Do you think you’re having some kind of side-effect?”

  “It’s no side-effect I’ve heard of. They warned us about grogginess, difficulty getting aroused, painful urination, and fluid on the lungs. They didn’t say anything about hallucinations.”

  “Well, that hallucination almost got you killed, Sarge.”

  “I know. Something is going on here.” Caleb glanced back at Riley. She had her eyes fixed on the command station’s display. “I feel like she isn’t giving us the whole story.”

  “What makes you say that? You know I don’t like Doctor Valentine, but she hasn’t exactly painted herself in the best light.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s just a gut feeling.”

  “I think you should tell her what you’re experiencing. Maybe she knows something about it. She is a doctor, after all.”

  Caleb nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re all in this together, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll share with the whole group once Riley is done gathering intel. Thanks for putting it out there.”

  “Anytime, Sarge.”

  Caleb looked back at Riley again. He didn’t know what he was more worried about: that she would know what was wrong with him, or that she wouldn’t.

  Chapter 13

  “Alpha, I’ve got it,” Riley said, finally looking up from the command station’s terminal.

  It had been nearly thirty minutes – too long for Caleb’s liking – since Riley had started her investigation into their location. He wanted to stay on the move, especially up near the bridge. They might have killed the Reaper in the area, but that didn’t mean another wouldn’t come along.

  Caleb and Sho both approached the terminal. “Do you know where we are?” Caleb’s eyes fell on the lines of white text running down the display.

  “Here,” she said, pointing to a series of numbers. “These are the original coordinates to Earth-6. I know because I was there when Harry updated them to redirect us to Proxima.” She typed something into the console, and the screen changed, revealing a log not that much different from that of the stasis pod’s. “This is a log of events recorded by the computer. Look here.” She scrolled down the list a little bit and then pointed. “There. The computer was hard reset about fifteen years into our journey.” She typed into the console again, changing screens. “These are the logs of the firing events on the main and vectoring thrusters. If you line them up, you can see the Deliverance reached a point where it began a slow change in course and started to accelerate again. And here, you can see where she finally started the deceleration process, about thirty years ago.”

  “How long have we been out here?”

  “The ship has been in a stationary position for the last nine years, save for the occasional firing of the thrusters. I don’t have full telemetry, and I probably wouldn’t be able to read it all if I did, but my guess is this location keeps it clear from passing celestial bodies and in an orbit that maintains its position relative to Essex.”

  “Essex?”

  “Earth-6. E-6. Essex.” She smiled. “Unless you want to call it Earth-6 for the rest of our time here.”

  “Essex is fine. Why didn’t we land?”

  “Like I said before, I have access keys to the mainframe to override Harry’s programming. I can start the landing sequence any time, but I don’t recommend it right now.”

  “Right. We either touch down without any living trife on board, or we don’t touch down at all. What about power?”

  Riley ran her hand across the control surface, tapped on it a few times, and brought up a schematic of the main reactors feeding into the interchange. There was a bar on the left side of the diagram with only a sliver of red at the bottom.

  “We’re down to six percent, Alpha.” She looked over at him, her expression hard. “We’re going to need every last drop of it to get the ship to the surface. Essex’s gravity is slightly less than Earth at nine point six, and that’ll help a little, but not enough.”

  Caleb considered for a moment. “Do we have access to any of the systems controlling power output? Would we be able to turn off non-vital systems?”

  “Like what?”

  Caleb thought about it. “We have five Reapers left on board, plus David Nash. Is that right?”

  “I don’t know about David.”

  “Okay, let’s go with five reapers. How long do you think it’ll take to hunt them down? A day? Maybe two?”

  “Let’s be conservative and say a week,” Riley said. “It’s a big ship.”

  Caleb nodded. “Fine. A week. Let’s assume we find them and kill them all, and that they don’t kill us. What can we turn off in Metro that they can live without for a week? What about the atmospheric generators?”

  “Sarge, you want to shut down Metro?” Sho asked. “Those people might have no idea what’s going on if you do. What if they panic and try to unseal the doors?”

  “I don’t want to shut it down, but we might need the energy.”

  “There’s the alien power source,” Riley said. “We just need to go down to Research to get it.”

  “Essex is right there,” Caleb said, pointing at the primary display. “If we can do this without relying on alien tech we don’t understand, then we should.”

  “Do you think it’s better to traumatize the people in Metro?”

  “It might be, but okay. Let’s not go that far just yet. Can we access system control?”

  Riley navigated to a screen with a line of text on the left side, a scale showing power draw in the center, and a toggle on the right. Every toggle was currently in the active position.

  “Here it is,” she said.

  Caleb leaned over to see the list better, putting his face next to Riley’s. He could still smell the cryogel on her skin. He didn’t like it. He probably smelled just as bad. He started reading the list. Other than the bridge, the engines, the gravity generators, and Metro’s subsystems like the atmospheric generators and filters, there weren’t many things pulling a lot of power.

  “We could turn off the gravity,” Sho suggested. “That would really freak them out.”

  “That would freak me out,” Caleb said.

  “You never did zero-g as a Raider?”

  “I never liked it much.”

  “We can’t touch the inertial dampening,” Riley said. “We’ll kill everyone on the landing.”

  “What about air filtration?” Caleb asked. “There are only five of us out here. We can probably survive on the current air for a few weeks at least.”

  “Good idea.” She leaned over and toggled off the external air scrubbers. “Same goes for water filtration too, I assume?”

  “Yeah. Turn that off too.”

  “This should buy us a day or two at least,” Riley said, tapping a few more of the toggles. “What about switching over to emergency lighting only? On a ship this big, all those lights add up.”

  “We need to be able to see,” Sho said.

  “It’ll cut two-thirds of the lights in the main corridors. Secondary passages will use the sensors to activate the lights.”

  “That could be interesting,” Caleb said.

  “What do you mean, Sarge?” Sho asked.

  “He means the sensors controlling the lights could give us early warning of Reapers nearby. Of course, it can also do the same for them.”

  Caleb shook his head. “I don’t
think they need it. I bet they can smell us from further away than the lights would flash. Turn off the lights.”

  Riley tapped on the toggle. Almost immediately, half the lights in the bridge went off. “Done.”

  It only took a moment before the main door slid open and Flores peeked in. “Tell me you did that?”

  “Confirmed,” Caleb said. “We’re shutting down non-critical systems. Stay alert out there.”

  “Roger that.” She went back out into the corridor.

  “If the Reapers have any intelligence left, they’ll know someone’s on the bridge after this,” Riley said. “We have to hurry.”

  “Okay, we gained a few days. We’ll have to split the difference on the time we need to hunt down the Reapers.”

  “Assuming they don’t hunt us down first,” Sho said.

  “If we die, the ship is going to run out of power and everyone in Metro will die too,” Riley said. “We either kill the Reapers or it’s game over for everybody.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Can you get us over to the camera feeds before we go?” Caleb asked. “I want to – ”

  The main door to the bridge slid open a second time. Flores and Washington both ducked in, the door closing behind them.

  “It’s getting loud out there,” Flores said. “Something’s coming. Maybe two somethings.”

  “Damn they got here fast,” Riley said. “We need to go.”

  Riley turned off the command station display and locked the terminal before jumping out of the seat. Then the Guardians readied their rifles and turned back to the door.

  “Wash, open it,” Caleb said.

  Washington hit the door control and it slid open again. Immediately, he could hear the sound of claws on metal coming at them from both flanks.

  “We have to go through one of them,” Caleb said. “Cut left, stay in a tight echelon formation and keep you fire lines clear. We hit it with everything we’ve got and we keep running. We can’t fight two at once.”

  Then they ran.

  Chapter 14

  The port side corridor led around toward the hull. It skirted the outer edge of the ship and connected to branching corridors that cut back toward the central lifts and the outer Metro seals. The Guardians raced along the passageway, headlong in the direction of scraping and clamoring ahead.

  Caleb’s experience with the baseball and his father was momentarily forgotten as he led the charge toward what he assumed would be another Reaper. He could hear one of the creatures behind them too, closing on the position faster than they could escape it.

  The first one came around the corner in front of them, careening into the wall, using it to help redirect itself without losing too much speed. It was similar to the others, a powerful black mass rumbling at them, mouth opening to scream in challenge.

  “Open fire!” Caleb ordered. He raised his MK-12 and squeezed the trigger, sending a dozen quick rounds into the monster. The Guardians behind him did the same, the din of gunfire nearly deafening in the tight confines.

  Caleb didn’t slow from his run, racing directly toward the Reaper as the bullets ate into its flesh. It screamed again, also refusing to slow down. The creature and the Guardians had no option but to slam into one another. The only question would be which side survived.

  Caleb let out a loud, guttural shout as the Reaper neared, snapping his rifle to his SOS and spreading his arms. Bullets continued to pepper it from behind, ripping into its flesh while it covered its face with a large claw.

  They came together in a crash of bodies. Caleb lowered himself as it tried to swipe at him, ducking and grabbing it with his artificial limb and pulling as hard as he could. He felt the weight of the Reaper try to resist him as he shoved it to the side and into the wall. He fell to the floor on top of it as the bullets immediately ceased. His face landed right on top of its face, and he barely had time to draw back when the large teeth snapped down in front of him.

  “Keep going!” Caleb shouted. “Don’t slow down.”

  He managed to find purchase shoved against the wall, and he drew back his replacement fist and slammed it into the Reaper’s face. Teeth snapped and broke beneath the blow, the jaw cracking and the neck forced to the side. The creature fell limp for a moment, and Caleb used the opportunity to jump off it and sprint away, following the other Guardians down the passage.

  “Cal. Cal, wait.”

  His father’s voice reached him from behind, weak and tired. Caleb looked back. His father was on the ground, reaching out for him. His lip was bloody, his clothes torn and dirty. A Reaper was approaching from further back, ready to rip his old man to pieces.

  “No!” Caleb shouted, stopping and spinning around to shoot at the trife. His father was on his hands and knees, struggling to get up. Where had he come from? How had he gotten here? It didn’t make any sense, but he had to help him.

  He started back toward his father, firing into the oncoming trife. His dad was almost back up, eyes grateful that his son was coming back to help him.

  Those eyes changed a moment later. His father shook on his feet, the impact force of multiple bullets rocking him back and away. Caleb froze a second time, heart racing and breaking at the sight. He spun around again to find the attacker, raising his rifle toward a one-eyed woman in combat armor.

  “Sarge, snap out of it!” she shouted. “Let’s go!”

  Snap out of what? She had just killed his father. Caleb glanced back at him, out of the corner of his eye. His dad was on the ground again, on his hands and knees and starting to get back up. He had been shot a dozen times. How was he still alive?

  A hand fell on his shoulder. “Caleb, we need to go. It isn’t real, do you hear me? Whatever you think you’re seeing, it isn’t real.”

  “Not real?”

  “We don’t have time. Come on!”

  She pulled him forward. He didn’t resist, joining her as they ran away from the Reaper and away from his father. It wasn’t real. He kept telling himself that, but he didn’t quite believe it. He was abandoning his father, leaving him behind the same way he had left him behind when the trife came. The same way he had left him and his mother to die without their son to help them.

  They reached the end of the corridor. Caleb looked back again, tears in his eyes. His father was gone, replaced by another of the monsters. They were gaining on him and the other Marine. Sho. How had he forgotten Sho?

  They went hard around the corner. He lost his balance, hitting the wall. The extra strength provided by the SOS helped them power through the turn and accelerate.

  None of the Guardians were up ahead. A new panic hit him. Where had they gone? Had his father been real, and this wasn’t real?

  “Sarge, here,” Sho said, pulling to a stop on the right side of the corridor. The first of the Reapers came around the corner, screaming when it saw them.

  Caleb didn’t know why they were stopping. He was too confused to argue. He slowed again, following Sho’s lead.

  A hidden door slid open beside them. Flores was just inside. She leaned out past the edge, gripping her plasma rifle. She unleashed a stream of gas at the Reapers, giving them cause to hesitate while Sho dragged Caleb into the hidden passage. Once they were both inside, Flores retreated from the door and hit the control to close it.

  “Keep moving, Sarge,” Sho said.

  The space was small and narrow, a tight fit behind the smooth walls of the outer corridor. Thick cables and pipes ran along the back wall, barely visible in the dim lighting of the access passage. Caleb could see Washington up ahead, stooped over and crammed into the space, trying to fit through the tight confines to escape the Reapers.

  One of them slammed into the hatch a moment later, bashing itself against the metal and screaming, claws scraping against where it had seen its quarry escape in a desperate effort to reach it. The other one joined it a few seconds after that, the two monsters battering the wall.

  The Guardians moved slowly through the narrow space. Almos
t too slowly. The Reapers managed to get the hatch to slide open, and one of them tried to squeeze itself in, pressing itself halfway into the small area. It reached out with sharp claws, hissing as they swung closed on nothing but air.

  “Washington, hurry it up,” Sho said.

  Washington looked back and made a face. He barely fit into the passage and was going as fast as he could.

  They kept moving along the maintenance corridor. The Reaper extricated itself from the doorway, joining the other one in following along the wall. It bashed itself against the wall, trying to find some way to reach the people on the other side. Caleb wasn’t sure this method of escape had been the best idea. What good would it do them if the Reapers met them wherever this particular passage ended?

  They traveled for probably another hundred meters, taking nearly thirty minutes to cover the short distance. Then they came to a sudden stop and instead of exiting outward through the hatch in the wall, Washington shifted and hit a control panel on the inner bulkhead. A door opened there, and he shoved himself through it. The rest of the Guardians followed behind, spilling out into the back of what appeared to be a storage compartment.

  The sounds of the chasing Reapers died out the moment the door slid closed behind them.

  “This storage area doesn’t connect directly with the same corridor the Reapers were in,” Riley explained, keeping her voice low. “We should be safe as long as we stay quiet.”

  “How did you know about this route?” Flores asked.