Voyage

by E M Gale

  I shook my head. “Please, Jon,” I whispered, “please stop this now! I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Then help me!”

  “No! I can’t!”

  “Then you will be just one more casualty,” he said coldly. He backhanded the pilot out of his seat. The pilot sprawled on the floor and didn’t get up.

  Price brought his other hand up to his gun and was tracking it towards the captain. I knocked his gun out of his hands as he pulled the trigger. The shot went wide and one of the bridge staff in front of me screamed from fear.

  “Silvered Cloud, straighten up,” went the comms. Anna jumped into the pilot’s seat.

  Price had been dumb enough to aim the gun at the captain rather than me, but clever enough to grab for my sword before I did. He pulled it out and swung wildly at my neck. I dodged, then put my hand up to the flat of the blade and pushed upwards as hard as I could. He pushed the sword down towards me instead of moving it out of the way to attack me again. The sword snapped and the tip flew off over his shoulder and embedded itself in one of the bridge consoles, which started to spark. The gunner, since it was his console, looked at us wide-eyed, but kept his position.

  “Silvered Cloud, this is Excelsis Space Traffic Control. Stay in lane and report your situation,” went the comms set.

  Price looked at the fragment of the sword in his hand. He dropped it, then shoved me back. I leapt forwards and grabbed for Price’s hands, but he moved out of my way, trying to get past. I knocked him back; he grabbed the metal chair from Anna’s now vacated console and pulled at it, ripping two of the legs off, both ragged points of twisted metal pointing towards me.

  ‘Is he going to stake me? He can’t be serious!’

  I paused, staring at him in disbelief. His face was full of anger and rage.

  ‘Is he even aware who he is fighting?’

  I didn’t move to stop him. I couldn’t.

  ‘How can he be attacking me?’

  “Silvered Cloud, you are drifting into landing lane eight alpha. Stay on course and report your situation.”

  He leapt forward, coming at me with the chair leg. I blocked, almost too slowly. He parried, then tried to get past me. I shoved him back. He jumped towards me, the metal chair leg in his hand aiming for my heart. I stared at his eyes in horror. They were angry, yet somehow blank; I could tell he saw me as nothing more than an obstacle, not his ‘Flow’. I twisted. He missed my heart and staked me in me in the side of my chest with such force that I fell back. Pain rushed through my body, but lost to the adrenaline. As the chair leg wasn’t wooden I wasn’t paralysed, but it was in deep.

  “This is the Silvered Cloud,” said Jane. “We are experiencing a technical emergency. Request you keep space lanes free.”

  Price ran past me as I scrambled up off the floor and chased after him. Price attacked the captain with the other chair leg. The captain dodged pretty quickly and Price missed, burying the chair leg in the captain’s arm. I paused in shock at the foot of the steps.

  “All space traffic grounded. What’s the difficulty?”

  The major shot Price in the chest three times. I could smell Price’s fresh blood. Price staggered back towards the top of the steps and looked around for another weapon.

  I reached up the stairs and grabbed Price around the neck and waist, pulling him away from the captain and choking him in a stranglehold, but as he didn’t need to breathe, it didn’t really help. He twisted around in my arms, all wiry strength and desperation.

  The ship lurched.

  Price went for my neck, viciously ripping the vein with his teeth. The smell of my blood perfumed the air. I loosened my hold on him slightly–from the shock, I thought–and tried to concentrate on healing my neck. He wrenched back, almost out of my grasp. I clung on to him though. He ripped into my throat again, partially crushing my windpipe, so I could barely breathe.

  “Silvered Cloud, you’re too low, pull up.”

  I dropped my weight and did a ‘suicide throw’. I tumbled down the steps and Price was thrown away from me and the captain, across the bridge towards the viewscreen. One of the terrified bridge staff dived out of the way as Price crashed into his console and bounced over the top to sprawl on the floor beyond. I followed through on my momentum, landed on my feet, having gained a few bruises, and stood up by the pilot’s console where Anna was wrestling with the controls.

  “Silvered Cloud, you’re drifting too low. You’re approaching a populated area. Pull up or we will be forced to shoot you down.”

  “Grately, get us away from the city!” shouted the captain.

  Price had jumped to his feet with vampiric speed and bared his teeth at me. He looked feral and terrifying. I was sure that he was about to run back towards me. I pulled out one of my throwing knives and was aiming at him when I noticed a garlicky stink behind me.

  Then all feeling and breath left the world. The knife fell from my hands as I tipped forward and crashed into the floor, coming to a rest at an angle because of the chair leg still embedded in my shoulder.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” shouted the major.

  “Shoot the other one!” yelled the captain.

  My eye were focused on where I had been looking. I could clearly see a member of the bridge staff’s ankles. I’d been staked. I couldn’t move.

  Shots were fired, by the captain, I think. Then a s  of marines entered and I know they shot Price because, even though he was blurred, I saw him fall behind the consoles. Brannigan stepped over me and walked that way.

  “Silvered Cloud, move back into space lanes or you will be shot down. This is your final warning.”

  ‘Fuck’s sake, someone, unstake me!’

  The marines stepped over me, then I could hear the awful sickening sound of metal on bone.

  ‘They’re cutting his head off! Oh, my God!’

  “Silvered Cloud, stay on your current course and report your situation.”

  There was not one, not two, but three thunks of the axe on flesh and floor. Then I heard the whoosh of the flamethrowers and even though I couldn’t smell as well in this state, I couldn’t ignore the burning pork smell.

  ‘Why has no one unstaked me? Am I next?’

  “Space Traffic Control, this is the Silvered Cloud. We now have the situation under control,” said Jane.

  I could hear the captain giving orders to the bridge crew and then I smelt the major near me and then all colour, life and pain flooded back into the world. My body tried to mist and heal, but I fought it and ran over to Price. The marines wavered seeing me. They were burning what could only be the remains of a body, but it looked utterly non-human by this point. I was choking on the fumes but I watched him burn. I felt I should. I was probably the only person in the universe who would mourn him.

  ‘But what can I do? What else could I have done? I couldn’t have saved him without weighing in on his side, and that would have involved killing the people on the ship. That would have destroyed me.’

  I was in the healing state, and was pretty sure that I wasn’t bleeding anymore, but I somehow knew it wasn’t enough. I didn’t dare mist in case one of the jumpy marines shot me when I reformed. I started healing my throat. I was able to breathe easier and speak again. Not that I did, as I had nothing to say.

  ‘Why the hell did he feel he had to go through with this?’

  I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists and looked at the floor. Better that than Price’s remains.

  At that point Cleckley ran into the room. He paused in the doorway, eyes wide, looking from me, to the bodies on the floor, to Price, to the captain. He headed to the bridge staff. I could smell the co-pilot’s blood–his heart was still beating–and the captain’s blood–he was hurt, but I reckoned he wasn’t going to die.

  I looked around the bridge. The bridge staff looked ashen and even more scared when I caught their eyes. Anna looked like she was in shock, but was somehow managing to pilot the ship upwards. Brannigan was being handcu
ffed and the marines who weren’t occupied with that or Price were watching me. I looked down at what was left of Price. Bron was still dousing the remains with the flamethrower. I did my best not to think about anything and looked at the floor, feeling numb.

  I put my arm up and tried to pull the metal chair leg out of my chest. I really had to pull it. It made a sickening screech of bone on metal as I pulled it out. I threw the metal leg away from me angrily. It clattered against the edge of one of the consoles.

  I couldn’t fight my body any more and involuntarily misted and hovered there healing. The bridge was quiet other than Anna reporting her course. The burning smell infused the odd convection currents I was drifting on. I reformed and the console operator I was closest to went grey and passed out, sliding silently out of his chair to the floor. As no one panicked, I surmised that he wasn’t doing an important job at that moment. My reappearance had put Anna off as the planet below tracked across the viewfinder again.

  “Grately, keep the bloody ship on course!” shouted the captain.

  Cleckley looked over at me. I could tell he was taking in my injuries.

  “Time to get you and Clarke to med bay, I think,” remarked Cleckley to the captain, who ignored him.

  “Clarke, Hemmingway, my ready room, now,” said the captain. I turned my back on the marines and tried not to imagine several stakes driving into my back as I looked up at the captain. I don’t know what he could read on my face, as he suddenly looked very nervous.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the major.

  Smith moved closer to me, and I eyed him nervously. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “You OK, Clarke?”

  My shoulders relaxed. “No.”

  “I don’t think now is the time for a meeting, sir,” said Cleckley. He was frowning. “Neither you or Clarke are in a fit state. We need to get you both down to med bay ASAP.”

  The captain glared at Cleckley. “Don’t argue with me.”

  Cleckley frowned. “OK then, Captain. You and Clarke are casualties. You are both hereby removed from duty for medical reasons. Gromley, and Wright, isn’t it?” Cleckley gestured at two of the marines. Wright nodded. “Can you two help me escort my patients down to med bay, please?”

  The major looked at me, looked over the captain, and then he shook his head.

  “Grom and Wright, help the doctor,” he said. “Petey, find the off-duty bridge commander. Deere, call in the off-duty pilots–”

  “The Silvered Cloud is safely away from approach space lanes, setting a course,” said Anna. I didn’t know what that meant, but I liked the use of the word ‘safely’. “Phew,” she added with relief. “Now following previous course coordinates.”

  “I am not going to med bay!” growled the captain. “Clarke, Hemmingway, my ready room now!” he said.

  “Jack, it can wait,” said the major. Someone took my arm. I stared at a big meaty green hand and followed the arm up to look at Grom’s blue eyes and comforting face.

  “Come on, Kotargralok.” He guided me and we started to walk out of the bridge.

  “Clarke!” yelled Anna. I presume that as she was no longer needed to get the ship up safely, she had the luxury of time to yell at me. “You were stabbed and you–”

  “She’ll be fine, Anna,” said Cleckley comfortingly. “You can talk to her later.”

  “Come on, sir,” said Wright to the captain. The captain grumbled about stuck-up doctors, but he followed us, I suspect as he wanted to talk to me.

  Petey returned with the weak bridge commander who, on coming through the door and taking in the bridge, myself, my injuries and the captain’s murderous expression, looked like he was about to pass out and be a medical casualty himself.

  I paused to look at Price’s remains under the viewscreen. They were still smoking and the marines seemed intent on burning until there was nothing left.

  I hoped that this wasn’t the end of him, that somehow he could reform, but really I knew he couldn’t. Vampires were natural, biological creatures with a few strange abilities, not supernatural ghosts, and thus I didn’t think that they could use those abilities without a body.

  I gritted my teeth against any resurgence of hope and let Grom walk me out of the bridge, ignoring the stares from the bridge staff.

  * * *

  The Garlic Trap Coda

  Grom led me to one of the recovery rooms and sat there, saying nothing. I folded into the chair next to the bed. After about five minutes, one of the medical orderlies entered. He was carrying a tray with a glass containing a shot of brandy, a plate of sugary biscuits and what smelt like a cup of hot tea with lots of sugar in it. Seeing me, the orderly stared wide-eyed.

  “Are you OK?” he said, putting the tray down on the table next to me. “He said you were in shock, this isn’t shock, we need to get you to the O.R.!”

  The orderly took my wrist and counted. “Shit, that’s low.” Then he looked at my throat and ran across the room to get something. He attached a mask to me, which was itself attached to a small portable canister of oxygen. Grom was getting worried by this point. The orderly ran out of the room. I took the mask off and took a sip of the tea. It was too sweet.

  “Uh, perhaps you should keep that on?” suggested Grom, pointing at the mask.

  After about a minute, Cleckley came in, holding his doctor’s bag.

  “Thank you, Gromley, you can go,” he said. Grom nodded.

  “Get well soon, Kotargralok,” Grom said as he left.

  Cleckley got me to sit on the bed and shut the curtains around us. He opened his bag and pulled out a bag of transfusion blood. He held it up for me to see. “Will this help?”

  ‘I need blood. I’ve lost too much. I’m not sure if drinking it will get the blood into my veins or not, but I want it.’

  I nodded. He gave me the bag. I looked at it.

  Cleckley waited for me to drink it. When I didn’t, he got out some sort of medical wipe and started very carefully cleaning around the injuries.

  “Oh, they’ve closed already,” he said.

  I nodded, then winced as he pressed against the wound at the side of my neck.

  “Sorry.” Cleckley started to clean the rest of the blood.

  “The others?”

  “The pilot’s dead. The co-pilot’s stable. Multiple fractures and mild concussion, but he’ll be fine. The captain’s being prepped for minor surgery. The rest should be fine.”

  Once he had satisfied himself that, although I wasn’t completely healed, there was nothing else that medical science could do for me, he looked at me in concern.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Numb.”

  He nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, in a tone of voice that made me think that he didn’t expect me to.

  I shook my head.

  “Do you want something for the pain?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you need anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  Cleckley got up. “OK then,” he said. He got out a surgery kit bag and pointed at it. “There’s more blood in there.” And he left me to rest.

  * * *

  I was alone for an unknown time. I drained the bags and misted. I healed rapidly, but I didn’t see any reason to reform and be part of the world again.

  The door banged open and the captain and the major entered, pursued by Cleckley and two orderlies.

  “Clarke?” asked the major.

  “What are you doing?” said Cleckley. “We need to operate right away.”

  “No, we don’t. Just patch me up,” said the captain through gritted teeth.

  Cleckley swore under his breath and slammed his doctor’s bag on the floor. The major sent the orderlies out and stood by the door to prevent them from coming back in.

  I reformed directly in front of the captain.

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” I said to the captain. “Once you had him staked, there was nothing he could do. You didn’t h
ave to kill him. What could he do at that point?”

  The captain shook his head and rolled his sleeve up so Cleckley could start tending to the injury.

  “Clarke, did you know Jonathan Price was on this ship before he magicked himself under the bridge door?”

  “What the hell? You think I’m going to answer your questions?”

  The captain moved quickly, knocking Cleckley away from his arm, as he pulled a stake launcher from a back holster and aimed it at me.

  I froze.

  The major’s hand hovered near his pistol, but he didn’t pull it. He looked from the captain to me. “Jack, put that away. You know I can’t let you shoot her.”

  The captain didn’t take his eyes off me. “Is this mutiny, Major?”

  Hemmingway was watching me, as if waiting to see what I would do, but as I had no ideas–“It’s not mutiny,” he finally said. “But put that away. You don’t need it.”

  The captain shook his head, but lowered the stake launcher. It was now pointing roughly at my stomach rather than my face, so I didn’t feel any less threatened. “Well, Clarke, please answer my questions,” he said.

  Unable to think of anything else, I did. I glared at him hatefully.

  “The last time I saw Price he was walking away from me on Excelsis.” The major and Cleckley looked surprised, the captain didn’t.

  “And you didn’t feel you ought to warn me about this?”

  ‘What the hell?’

  “If I had known that he was after you, believe me, he wouldn’t have gotten on this ship!” I yelled. “Goddammit, I would have found some way to stop him. Even if I’d had to stake him and ask the landlady to unstake him after I’d gone. Sure, he’d be mad at me, but I could handle that. At least then I wouldn’t have to run in to the bloody bridge and be faced with a choice like that! Hell, I’d have eternity to talk him round. Why the bloody hell did he choose revenge? Why lose his life over it? What was he thinking? And why didn’t he come and tell me first? What did he expect me to do? Just cleave to his side, just like that? And kill everyone on the ship? Just so he can destroy himself…” I gulped as the rest of that sentence tailed off into hot tears, my hand up to my face, looking down at the floor.