He felt a world of tension leaving his body as the jets blasted away what was at least a week’s worth of sweat and grime. But just as he was starting to appreciate the jets for their muscle massaging capabilities, they shut off.
Darius spent a few seconds listening to the sound of his breath reverberating inside his mask, and wondering what he needed to do next. The air gleamed with drifting jewels of water, all moving in different directions and at different speeds. They collided with each other, coalescing into larger and larger pools, and sometimes exploding with showers of tiny, glinting droplets. It was mesmerizing.
Then the air intakes started up with a roar, and Darius had to hold the hand rails to keep from being sucked against them. He watched water streaming into the intake vents; drifting balls became tentacles that writhed around him like snakes. He shivered as they slithered by, brushing his bare skin.
Within just a few seconds, the water was gone. Hot air began blasting his backside while the intakes in front of him continued sucking stray droplets of water from his skin. He began to feel warm and dry at the back, and cold and wet at the front, so he used the handrails to turn around and dry his front.
He spent some extra time in front of the hot air vents to make up for the short shower, but before long they shut off too. Darius ran a hand through his short brown hair, now spiky and dry. He opened the shower door and stepped out with a sigh. A brief flicker of a thought entered his mind: he wondered if Cassandra knew how to use her shower.
Then he remembered that she wasn’t on board, and suddenly his heart was pounding and he couldn’t breathe. How could he possibly have forgotten that she wasn’t here with him? Was he that tired? Darius gritted his teeth and scowled. She’s not here yet. But no, that wasn’t accurate either. Once he rescued her from Hades, he wasn’t sure that he would come back to the Deliverance. Tanik was planning to fight a war. Kids have no business getting mixed up in war.
Darius used the handrails along the walls around the toilet to maneuver himself back down into his mag boots as he’d seen Dyara do. He bent down to strap them around his feet and then looked around for a towel to cover himself—
But there wasn’t one. He was fully naked, with no clothes and no towel. Darius grimaced as he waved the bathroom door open and strode out into the bedroom. Dyara was already zipped up inside her sleeping bag, but wide awake. She watched with a mischievous grin as he walked over to the lockers naked. He pretended not to notice.
“You’re in good shape,” she said.
“Thanks...” he trailed off, his cheeks warming once more as he hurried to put on a pair of underwear. He removed his boots and then put on socks and a fresh jumpsuit. He pushed his feet back down into his boots, but didn’t strap them on this time.
Walking over to his sleeping bag, Darius unzipped it, and grabbed a nearby handrail to pull himself up out of his mag boots. That done, he used the rail to maneuver himself into the sleeping bag. Once inside, he zipped it back up.
“Dim lights,” Dyara said, and the lights swiftly faded. But with the door to their quarters broken, light still flooded in from the corridor outside.
“Good night, Darius,” Dyara said.
“Good night, Dyara.”
“Call me Dya,” she said.
“Sure,” he replied through a giant yawn. The sleeping bag was toasty and warm, and zero-G was surprisingly comfortable—but disconcerting too. It was like sleeping on a mattress made of clouds.
Darius’s thoughts turned to Cassandra, and adrenaline surged through his veins, keeping him awake. He battled with himself, frustrated by his own inaction. How could he sleep when Cassandra was out there, stranded on a hostile alien world? She could be injured. Or trapped under rubble.
Darius winced and shook his head to clear away those thoughts.
“Can’t sleep?” Dyara whispered.
“No,” he replied, not wanting to go into details.
“Because of your daughter?”
Darius frowned, but said nothing to that.
“I’m sorry. I really am. I wish I could do something to make you feel better. Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” he snapped, and Dyara flinched. “She’s not dead.”
Puzzlement flashed across Dyara’s face. “Wasn’t she in Karkarus with the others?”
“Yes—I don’t know, maybe.”
“Darius...”
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’m in denial.” He shook his head. “It’s not that. I can’t explain it, and I know it doesn’t make sense, but I know she’s alive.”
“Well, maybe... maybe they found somewhere safe to hide. Somehow.” Dyara didn’t sound convinced.
“People win lotteries, right? And they can survive falling out of airplanes without a parachute, so why not this? She’s not dead.”
“I hope you’re right. But even if you are... what can you do about it?”
Darius froze, and spent a hesitant moment staring into Dyara’s eyes. He’d gone too far trying to convince her that Cassandra was alive.
She began nodding, having already figured it out. “That’s why you want to be a fighter pilot. So you can go back and look for her.”
“Yes,” Darius admitted. “But don’t tell anyone.”
Indecision warred briefly on Dyara’s face, but then she nodded. “I won’t.”
“Thanks.”
A brief silence stretched between them, and then Dyara said, “I am a pilot.”
He looked at her again. “Really?”
“I can help you. As soon as the Deliverance drops out of FTL, we can go back and look for her.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Sure,” Dyara said. “You need clo—” she broke off suddenly, and then went on, “You need to go back,” she decided.
Darius frowned. Clo... closure? So she didn’t believe him, after all. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he’d found his ride. “Thank you,” he said.
“You are welcome, Darius.”
He looked away, to the open door, and spent a few minutes focusing on his breathing in an effort to still his racing heart.
Somewhere along the way exhaustion turned his thoughts to mush, and the adrenaline ebbed from his veins, leaving him shaking and weak. His eyes drifted slowly shut as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Clang!
Clink, clink...
Clink, clang!
Darius’s eyes flew open, his heart suddenly pounding. He strained to hear through the background hum of the ship’s air cyclers and reactors....
Clink, clink, CLANG!
“Dyara...” he whispered.
“Mmmm?” she muttered sleepily.
“Did you hear that?”
Clink, clink, CLANG!
Dyara’s head jerked up and around, her brown eyes wide with alarm. “Yes,” she whispered back, “I heard it.”
Chapter 33
Clang!
Clink, clink...
Clink, clink...
“What is that?” Dyara whispered.
“I don’t know,” Darius replied in an equally low register. He hoped to God it wasn’t a Phantom. “You don’t have any weapons, do you?”
Dyara nodded and produced a pistol from her sleeping bag. He wondered how it had gotten in there. She’d come out of the shower naked, but maybe she’d slipped it into the sleeping bag while she was attaching the bag to the wall. Whatever the case, it was a welcome surprise now.
He nodded to her. “Let’s go take a look.”
Dyara nodded back and they both carefully unzipped from their sleeping bags and slipped into their mag boots. Darius took a step forward and winced at the ringing clang that his boot drew from the deck. He froze, and Dyara pointed to her boots. She crouched down and deactivated them with the buttons on the heels. They detached soundlessly and she grabbed a nearby handrail, waiting for him to do the same. He nodded and grabbed the handrail beside his own sleeping bag.
Clang, clink,
clink, clink...
Whatever was making those sounds, at least it didn’t seem to be getting any closer. The rhythmic, repetitive nature of the sounds reminded him of the wind knocking around the metal cattle gate on his grandparent’s ranch in Kansas. That comparison made him suspect the noises were being caused by an inanimate force, rather than, say, another Phantom stalking through the ship.
Dyara launched herself toward the open door of their room and Darius pushed off from his handrail too. They sailed out into the corridor, and Dyara quickly twisted one way and then the other, checking both ends.
The way was clear.
They collided with the opposite wall and bounced off. Dyara managed to grab a nearby handrail, but Darius missed and had to grab Dyara’s hips instead. She glanced back at him just as the clinking and clanging sounds started up again.
She whispered, “I think it’s coming from one of the rooms further down. Hold onto my feet, I’m going to take us over there.”
Darius nodded and shifted his grip to her feet. “Ready,” he whispered.
Dyara pulled them along from one handrail to the next, following the sounds.
Clink, clink, clink...
Darius’s heart rate increased with every inch they traveled, until it was like a drumbeat in his ears. Inanimate force or not, his sympathetic nervous system was screaming for him to go back. He found himself wishing someone else would wake up, and then wondering why they hadn’t.
Dyara stopped and shook her gun at the bent and shredded doors of the next room. “It’s coming from in there,” she whispered.
CLANG, CLANG!
“Let go of me,” Dyara said. “I might need my legs free for this.”
Darius released her legs, and watched as Dyara pulled herself toward the room and whatever was waiting for her inside....
He snapped out of his stupor and grabbed the nearest handhold for himself, pulling himself after her.
Dyara was floating there in the open doorway with her gun aimed into the room and her brow furrowed in confusion. Darius had just enough time to wonder about her expression before he crashed into her and sent them both tumbling into the room.
“Darius!” Dyara snapped.
But it was too late for recriminations. He blinked in shock at what he saw as they sailed through the room. The lights were flickering on and off—surging suddenly too-bright, and then utterly dark. The metal loops of sleeping bag anchor points were clinking against the walls, and two mag boots were spinning around the room in a circle, caught up in a whirlwind. Darius and Dyara got sucked into that same vortex and joined the boots spinning around the room.
“What the hell?” Darius said, twisting around and straining to reach for handholds as they whipped by him in a dizzy rush. He grabbed one with four fingers, only to have it ripped painfully out of his hand as his body continued on with its momentum. The spinning mag boots hit the walls now and again with loud clangs, and Darius had to tuck himself into a ball to avoid doing the same thing with his head.
“Look!” Dyara said, and pointed up.
Darius followed her gesture and saw Tanik Guhain staring wide-eyed at them. He’d anchored his sleeping bag to the ceiling. The room’s glow panels surged suddenly brighter making Tanik’s yellow-green eyes seem to shine with a light of their own. His lips were moving soundlessly, as if muttering to himself.
“Tanik!” Darius roared, just as the glow panels flicked off, plunging the room into darkness.
“Yesss?” the man slurred in a sleepy voice.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Darius asked.
Tanik gave no reply, and Darius whipped through another dizzy circle. Dyara managed to grab onto a handrail, and she held out a hand to him. Darius grabbed that hand with both of his, and she cried out with the sudden wrenching force he placed on her shoulder.
The pressure didn’t let up. Whatever was powering the vortex continued tugging at them.
“Grab onto something!” Dyara said through gritted teeth.
Darius found another handrail behind hers and looped one arm through it; he let go of Dyara, and she gasped with relief. Darius held on for dear life, wincing with each blinding surge of light, and ducking each time he saw one of Tanik’s mag boots stray too close to his head. He glanced back up at Tanik and said. “Tanik! Wake up!”
Somehow, he didn’t seem to be affected by the forces swirling inside the room, as if he was in the eye of the storm.
“Tanik!” Dyara screamed.
His gaze shifted slightly toward her, but his eyes were still staring and unfocused. He was in some kind of trance.
“The Revenants are coming,” he said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Darius demanded. He turned to Dyara, blinking rapidly. “What is he talking about?”
But she looked equally confused.
“Is he doing this somehow?” Darius asked, ducking as one of Tanik’s mag boots almost clipped him in the head.
Dyara shook her head. “What? How?”
“I don’t know!”
“Maybe the ventilation system is acting up?” Dyara suggested.
Darius considered that as he strained against the forces tugging on him. Whatever it was, it was strong enough that it was threatening to break his hold on the handrail. “No air current is this strong,” he decided.
“So the legends are true,” someone said in a purring voice. Darius turned to see Ra and Captain Riker silhouetted in the open doorway. Both of them were aiming pistols of their own into the room.
“Fek this,” Riker said and aimed down the scope on top of his weapon at Tanik. A red laser dot appeared on Tanik’s chest, and then a flash of intense blue light illuminated the room just as the surging glow panels snapped off. The stun bolt hit Tanik, and he woke up with a shout, his limbs writhing inside his sleeping bag.
A blinding flash of light tore through the room, and a ringing silence began....
Darius blinked his eyes open, and then blinked a few more times to clear a bleary film of sleep from them. He was back inside his sleeping bag. Dyara was still asleep in the sleeping bag beside his.
“What...” he shook his head and strained his ears against the steady humming and whooshing of the ship’s systems, listening for the clinking and clanging sounds he’d awoken to earlier.
But those sounds were gone now.
His mind flashed back to the spinning vortex inside Tanik’s room, but the memory was fuzzy and dreamlike now, lacking the vibrant details of a real memory. Of course it was just a dream.
Beside him Dyara stirred and stretched inside her sleeping bag. Her eyes cracked open and she yawned.
“Hey,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Hi,” she replied through a smile. “How did you sleep?”
“More or less...” he said. “What about you?”
“Me too,” Dyara replied. “Thanks for letting me share a room with you.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome.” His thoughts turned back to Cassandra and his heart jumped. Suddenly he was anxious to get on his way. Dyara had promised to help him get back to Hades, so technically he didn’t even need to wait for pilot’s training. “How long do you think we have before the ship drops out of FTL?” he asked, but then wondered how she could possibly answer that. She wasn’t wearing any kind of watch.
“Just less than three hours.”
“How do you know?”
Dyara turned to him. “I checked the time.”
Darius frowned. “I didn’t see you check anything.”
“What...?” She trailed off in confusion. “Oh, you don’t have an ESC,” she said, nodding as if that explained everything.
“A what?”
“An Extra-Sensory Chip. It’s a neural implant that allows us to directly interface with data networks and computer systems. It comes in handy when you’re in a cockpit pulling too many Gs to physically press any of the buttons.”
“You had someone cut open your skull and put a computer ch
ip in there?” Darius asked.
“No, it’s non-invasive. You get an injection of nanites and they travel to your brain to assemble the implant. If you’re still planning to be a pilot, you’ll have to get an ESC too.” She must have seen the concern written on his face, because she added, “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. You’ll like it. I couldn’t use my ESC on Hades because there weren’t any networks or computers to interface with. It’s like I was blind, but now I can see again.”
“Interesting,” Darius replied. “Speaking of Hades—are you still going to help me get back there?”
“Yes. We can go as soon as the Deliverance drops out of FTL.”
“What about Tanik?” Darius asked. “Won’t he try to stop us?”
“We’ll talk to him. He’ll understand.”
“You sure about that? Maybe we shouldn’t tell him anything until we’re back.”
Dyara appeared to consider that. “No,” she decided. “It will be easier if we have his help. We need to be sure the Deliverance will still be here when we get back, or we won’t have anywhere to run to.”
Darius was about to point out that they could run to the USO, but then he remembered Dyara was marked with the Seal of Death. If she took them back to the USO, she’d risk being captured and sent to another hunting ground.
Zzzzt. Dyara unzipped her sleeping bag and drifted out with a black pistol in one hand. She tucked it into a pocket in one leg of her jumpsuit.
He stared at it in shock. He remembered seeing her produce that weapon from her sleeping bag in his dream, and he was sure that he hadn’t seen her put it in before they’d fallen asleep.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, nodding to the pistol in her pocket.
Chapter 34
A puzzled look flashed across Dyara’s face. She patted her pocket. “This?” she asked, and withdrew the pistol once more. “I brought it with me from Hades.”
Broken Worlds: The Awakening (A Sci-Fi Mystery) Page 20