by E M Gale
‘Hmm, lots of computers, engine stuff, a rack of overalls and goggles. Where will the plans be? Will they be on the computer? Probably. But there might also be a paper copy, just in case the computers go down when a careless engineer twists the wrong wires together. And where will it be kept? Or should I go for the computer plans? And I’ll need the real ones, not the ones they would show inspectors.’
Behind me, Rob ran up the stairs two at a time before he burst onto the observation deck.
“Clarke! How are you?” he cried.
“Fine,” I said with a smile. “I finished hitting people over the head for the day, so I was wondering if you were free to give me that tour of engineering you offered?”
“No problem! Are you thinking of switching jobs then?”
I frowned.
“Ah, forget I said anything,” he added, seeing my face. “Come on.”
I got shown everything. As he gleefully explained how the engines worked, I asked about the computer systems. Apparently the engineers had access to all the computer systems all over the ship, including those that opened and shut doors. I just let Rob talk, figuring that sooner or later he’d spill everything interesting.
The other engineers didn’t pay me much heed. My guess is that they thought I was just a grunt being overawed by technology, so they didn’t seem to mind what Rob was telling me. I suspected that the captain might be less pleased with this, so I made sure I asked a few very dumb questions when I was in earshot of the other engineers, such as:
“So what happens if everything goes wrong? You have to fix it, right?”
“Well, of course. That’s my job,” said Rob, grinning at me.
“Ah, but isn’t that dangerous?”
‘I think he deserves me worrying about him a little since he keeps annoying me about my job.’
“Do you go crawling through air ducts and things like that?”
“Huh, it’s not like Star Trek, Clarke.”
I grinned. “Ah, so you can’t crawl through the air ducts, even if it looks cool?”
“Nah, it’s better designed than that. Everything is accessed by the corridors, there are no hidden passages. Come over here, I’ll show you.”
‘Ah ha ha ha ha! Thank you, Rob.’
He wandered over to a large computer screen on the wall, typed in his password, which I noted with a sigh was ‘L33tN1nj4’, and brought up the plans.
‘Great.’
I replayed what he had just done in my head, committing it to memory, to make sure that I could repeat it.
“Wow, the ship’s huge,” I said in a suitably awed voice. “I’d never be able to find my way around! I only know my way to and from the practice rooms and the bar.” By this point I’d already wandered all the corridors and found my way around.
I got a grin from a techie who had overheard me. “Given your job, love, that’s all you really need to know.”
I smiled. Then I noticed he was using a strange-looking tool.
‘Hmm, tools, they would be useful.’
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it. He smiled back.
“It’s a plasma wrench.”
“Wow, that sounds… weird. What’s it do?”
He was obviously delighted at having an appreciative woman to show off to. “It’s for reshaping the plasma conduits.”
‘What’s a plasma conduit? And what’s it used for? Ah, sod it, I don’t really need to know.’
I nodded, trying to look completely confused, and then smiled.
He laughed. “You think that’s amazing, then you should check out the tool cupboard.” He pointed at a nondescript cupboard in the corner of the room.
Rob frowned at the techie and cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m off shift now,” Rob said to me, “and I think that’s it for the tour.”
‘Hmm, there’s just one other thing I needed to know. Ah ha, I know how to get it.’
“Really? I’m surprised you didn’t skive off earlier, there’s no-one here to supervise you.”
“Well, the CTO’s usually around keeping an eye on us from up there.” He pointed at the observation deck where I had stood waiting.
‘So that’s the place to avoid then.’
“Mark works on the computers up there too, so he can never skive off early.”
The computer bank had a good view of the engine room.
“Anyway, why don’t you repay me for the tour?” said Rob. He raised his eyebrows and pulled a crooked smile.
I looked at him blankly. “And what?”
‘I don’t think a tour of the merc training rooms is a good idea. I doubt Rob would be interested and I’m sure that a more concrete idea of what my job involves would only make things worse.’
“And buy me a drink,” he said.
* * *
Ducking out early from the bar pleading tiredness, I crept back down to engineering with my notepad and a few pens and a pad of paper. It was the night shift, but there was still the odd guy wandering around. I looked in the observation deck; it was locked and dark. I snuck down to the main engineering room.
‘I did mean to have a look around and figure out when would be the best time to come back and play with the computers, but since there’s no-one now…’
The door wasn’t locked, but the lights were out. However, that wasn’t a problem for me. There were enough blinking lights for me to see by. I crouched and crept across the floor to the screen on the wall and waited. I heard the comforting thrumming of the engines, my own heart beating, but nothing else.
I logged in as Rob. The screen glowed, lighting up the whole room. I pressed the buttons he had done to bring up the schematics. Not that it was that hard, given that the menu was completely in English.
‘Now how to take them? I don’t want to have to copy the whole damn thing by hand.’
I had noticed earlier that the screen had a data socket like those I’d used in the library.
‘Hmm, I wonder…’
I plugged my electronic notebook in and, miracle of miracles, it flashed up as a device. I copied the plans onto it.
‘Phew.’
Now to see what else Rob had access to that might be handy.
Then I became aware of someone heading my way.
‘Shit.’
I looked around. Nowhere to hide. I turned off the monitor and grabbed the notebook, my heart in my mouth.
‘What do I do?’
The colour drained out of the world and I stood still, not breathing. An unfamiliar engineer came in and switched the lights on. He paused, then walked over towards me. There was a scraping noise of something being picked up, then he walked out of the room. Somehow, he had neglected to notice me.
It then occurred to me that I had no idea what the technician looked like. Somehow I hadn’t seen him.
‘I can’t see the room I’m in!’
I started to panic but I calmed myself. I could smell the engine oil and I could hear the thrumming of the engines, but it seemed like my ears were underwater and there was an unfamiliar sense of air moving around me.
I realised that I had heard the buzzing lights get turned on and off and smelt the technician move across the room and from that I knew what had happened. I had no idea what he had picked up. And I hadn’t noticed the loss of my sense of vision.
‘Weird. Is being synaesthetic part of being a vampire?’
‘The technician didn’t see me, although he should have. What is going on? Didn’t Cleckley say something about me vanishing when this happened before? Right before Gromley soaked me with very cold water… Am I invisible?’
I tried to hold my hand up in front of my face but I couldn’t: I seemed to have no hand, and no face.
‘Urgh.’
It was a very creepy realisation. Unsurprisingly, I panicked, and suddenly the world flooded back into colour and I could see again. My notepad clattered on the floor as I bent double, breathing hard with fear. I had hands, I lifted them to my face.
&nb
sp; ‘Calm down, Clarke, you’re OK.’
I concentrated on breathing slowly until I was telling myself the truth.
Then I picked up my notepad and left. I was up the stairs before I remembered about the computer. Swearing quietly, I ran back down to log Rob out and then get out of there.
‘I just hope no one looks at the logs. I’m playing with fire here. If I get caught with these plans I will probably be spaced as a would-be mutineer. But there is definitely something fishy going on on this ship and I have to know what.’
I strolled back to my quarters.
‘What do you know, there’s no s of mercs to arrest me. Nice.’
I had a good look through the designs. They were the kosher ones that I guessed the smugglers showed any police visitors. Hidden compartments weren’t shown on them, but wall thicknesses were marked on the diagram so to find the hidden compartments all I had to do was wander around and look for where the designs didn’t match. Easy, but it would take ages.
So for the first time since turning into a vampire I found myself missing sleep to do something very vampiric: namely, lurk about after everyone else had gone to sleep. I started with the docking bays. That would be a sensible place to have a hidden compartment. I even found one just outside and stood there knocking on the wall. It was hollow.
‘Now, how to find a door?’
I felt along the wall, but I couldn’t find one.
‘Damn. If only I could just wish myself on the other side of the wall.’
Suddenly, all the colour left the world. I’d gone invisible again. I could feel the wall; I was hugging close to it, I moved along it, very slowly, feeling its texture. I noticed some gaps, small air gaps, as I was floating on the air-currents.
‘A door?’
I reached into the gaps and before I knew it there was a really strange sensation, a little like being on a waterslide. I twisted and turned and… travelled. The next thing I knew, I was in the dark. I put my hand out. There was a wall to my right and not one to my left like before.
‘What just happened?’
I felt around in the darkness, and then, giving up, lit my lighter, looking up first and ready to put it out: I couldn’t see any sprinklers in this bit, which was good.
I was in a smallish, cramped storeroom, full of boxes.
‘Whatever I just did, it moved me through the wall. Is it true that vampires can turn into mist? Is that how I got in here?’
I regarded the room. It was small, cramped and filled with boxes. I sat on the floor and booted up the notepad. It gave out a weak light, but it was enough to light the room for me and, unlike my lighter, it didn’t burn my thumb. After about fifteen minutes rummaging through boxes I sat back, amazed. They were full of clothes, black and grey uniforms from what I could see, with the letters UESF written on them.
It stood for United Earth Space Force: the Solan Empire’s primary military body.
‘What does this mean? Either they’re smuggling UESF uniforms for some reason, probably a nefarious one, or they’re the UESF posing as smugglers. I prefer the second explanation. It might explain a few things, such as why everyone seems to be so damned obedient and why the mercs have such clean boots. What the hell is going on here?’
I tidied up the room and vanished my way out of there; I didn’t have a clue how I did it and I decided to leave figuring it out until later. There was no one around and I couldn’t smell or hear anyone nearby. Since the docking bay was symmetrical, I went to check the other wall. I found the door quicker than last time and managed to drift under it.
‘Hmm, more boxes. Ah ha! Paydirt!’
The room was full of spare weapons. Nice shiny, shiny swords, lots of them, a few throwing knives, metal crossbow bolts. All made out of the very shiny material.
‘Weapons; how handy.’
In addition to the shiny, shiny weapons, there were a few wooden weapons and crossbows. I eyed those warily.
‘Are those anti-vampire weapons or just general non-hull-piercing defence?’
There was also a full complement of normal weapons as well. There was nothing in the room that wasn’t in the weapons locker upstairs. The only difference was that this stuff was not locked up. Well, it was, but no one was counting it in and out. I loaded myself up with two shiny, shiny swords, four small knives of the same material and a small crossbow with a couple of packs of the shiny bolts. This stuff was a lot better than the stupid wooden training swords and the weapons all looked very new.
‘Are these people weapons runners?’
I concealed the weapons I’d selected about my person. The swords in their scabbards were tied to my legs with some rope I found around the boxes. The crossbow was shoved up the back of my tee-shirt, which I then tucked into the trousers. It looked odd, but I put my jacket on over the top. I bunged the knives and crossbow bolts into the pockets of my combat trousers.
I misted under the door again. It wasn’t any harder to do holding the weapons.
‘How the hell did the weapons get through? And thinking about it, how come my clothes did too?’
There was still no one around. I nonchalantly strolled up to my quarters, fighting the urge to whistle. I waited at the end of my corridor for an ambush: nothing.
‘Interesting. Does that mean I’ve gotten away with this then?’
I walked into my quarters.
‘Now… where to put these weapons?’
I looked around. There was nowhere easy to hide this stuff. It was at this point that I checked the time and discovered that I was nearly late for work. I shoved the weapons under the bed–not the world’s best hiding place–then I high-tailed it back down to the practice rooms. The mercenaries’ area of the ship was near the docking bay.
I was late. Again.
“Clarke, why is it so hard for you to turn up on time?” asked the major. I didn’t have an answer for that.
“Sorry,” I said. He glared at me–
‘Argh, forgot the ’sir’!’
–but I didn’t get pulled up on it.
“We’ll be making landfall shortly,” he said, obviously continuing with a briefing I’d missed the start of.
‘What? We’re not scheduled to land until tomorrow!’
“We will be going into hostile territory.” He flicked his eyes over to me. “We have a contract on these guys. They’ve done something sufficiently bad that someone out there’s paying us a lot to take them out.”
‘What? OK, that sounds like mercenaries, not proper military. Shit. I don’t want to do this. Shit, shit, shit! Is it too late to switch to engineering? I’m damn good with computers!’
I looked round at the others; none of them looked like they were saying ‘shit’ over and over to themselves.
‘Just me then. Shit.’
“OK, form up into s s.”
I stood still for a while, shocked, until the major stared at me and I went to join my s along with Grom, Petey, Cliff, and Stonewall. Stonewall pushed a fancy gun into my hands. It was the same model as the one I’d assembled and disassembled on my first day. I also got handed one of the shiny, shiny swords they kept in the weapons locker and a scabbard for it. For a moment I wished I’d kept the other weapons I’d nicked about my person.
“Fall out,” said the major.
‘Damn.’
I followed along with the rest and boarded our transport.
‘What the hell am I doing? I know nothing about this sort of stuff. Goddammit, I was even chucked out of cadets!’
I glanced back over my shoulder. Well, no-one was looking at me specifically, so perhaps the others couldn’t tell how freaked I was. I could smell them–they were giving off a cocktail of alertness, excitement and an ever-so-slight undertone of fear. I, however, was giving off waves of fear. So much so, I wondered if the normal humans would be able to smell it.
The transport took off from the ship. Looking back, I could see how it hung there in the blackness of space like a Christmas tree ornamen
t in the dark. And then I was thinking about home suddenly and about Christmases spent there.
‘Argh!’
I shook my head angrily. Now was not the time for reminiscing.
The view outside the window was amazing, but I was far too scared to pay it any attention. I concentrated on trying to keep calm. I didn’t want to freak out the others in my s with my panic. Still, it seemed stupid. I knew nothing and was in the smallest s with Cliff, who was the second newest to the group.
‘Well, that’s all my fault. They think they have a kick-arse strong vampire who’s been slinking around the galaxy for two hundred years picking up who knows what combat skills and instead they’ve got me. I should have told them the truth. What if someone dies today as a result of my lying?’
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked at it in surprise. It was a big, green, meaty hand about one and a half times as big a human’s. I looked up into a pair of blue eyes. “You’ll be fine,” said Grom.
‘Perhaps he can smell my fear. Oh, well, when in doubt, get behind the orc, they know what they’re doing.’
I nodded at him and put my shades on.
The transport landed and the door opened. We ran out, pointing our guns at grass. There was nothing in the vicinity, so we jogged along following Petey, who was leading. This was a beautiful planet, deep blue sky, orange grass.
‘I’m going to die in a beautiful place. And after only twenty-three years. It all seems so pointless.’
We entered a heavy forest. The trees blocked out all the light, so it was rather dim under here and full of noisy insects. I pushed my sunglasses up onto my head.
‘Hmm.’
We were being watched. I could only catch the watcher’s scent occasionally; there were a multitude of unfamiliar odours here.
“Over there,” I whispered, pointing with my gun where I could smell something odd. Human, perhaps, but I wasn’t sure. Petey looked surprised. Grom nodded. Petey gestured to us to walk slowly that way. This reminded me of the sims I’d done and, at the same time, showed me how unrealistic the sims were. As we headed that way, the wind shifted and I caught another scent off to our left.