The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1)

by Donald Swan

  “No. It’s a holiday. You’d love it. You would fit right in,” Nick replied between huffs.

  He blew out his cheeks and released a long breath. “Can’t believe I’m still alive after all the stuff I’ve been through in this short time with you two. Is this how you normally roll?”

  “Yes,” Karg and Arya answered in unison.

  Nick frowned, then grinned. “S’alright. I reckon I’ll get used to it. I can keep up with you. Don’t you worry about me. No sir. Nick Bannon is one tough dude.”

  “We’ll see about that when we engage the Tac Squads again,” Arya commented. “Now come on. Up on your feet. We have some units to unfreeze.”

  Nick scrunched his eyes in confusion. “Units? Is that what you call people?”

  Arya shrugged. “It’s easier than peeling off a list of alien nations to reference each one.”

  Nick nodded. “I reckon so.”

  “Now come on. I’m tired, and I want to get moving on this,” she commanded.

  Nick sat and watched her cat-like walk as she swayed down the corridor. He was startled when Karg grabbed him by the back of his pants and yanked him off the floor in one clean swoop, setting him back down onto his feet with little effort.

  “Uh, thanks for the lift, Buddy,” Nick said. He gazed at Karg. “Remind me again never to piss you off. That kind of strength is just downright scary.”

  Karg grinned at him with his chunky teeth and ambled after Arya. “You’ve already pissed me off several times, Bannon,” he called back over his shoulder.

  Nick stood staring after him, his jaw slack. “Right. Um. Yeah. Right. I did?”

  Not knowing what else to say, Nick followed Karg down the corridor. “Time to unfreeze some units.”

  “What is that horrible smell?” Arya demanded from the doorway.

  Nick looked up from his notes. “What smell?”

  “You can’t smell that? It’s horrendous. Honestly, is there anything your species does well? You can’t see well at all, your muscular structure is ridiculously weak, and you can’t smell. How your people ever survived so long is beyond me. You must have large litters of young.”

  “Children. We have children and—”

  “Here,” Arya interrupted. “Come out here where the smell is stronger.” She motioned for him to come into the corridor.

  Annoyed with yet another interruption, Nick tossed his notebook onto the table as he eased out of his chair and followed her into the hall. One step into the hall and Nick recoiled, quickly burying his face in his raised arm to block the foul stench assaulting his nostrils. “Oh my God, what is that stink? That’s awful!” Nick turned to head back into the room.

  “Oh no, we’re not done here. Follow me.” Arya moved down the corridor, apparently taking it for granted that he would do as she asked.

  “No thanks. I’m fine right here,” Nick replied into his sleeve.

  Arya paused and threw a glance over her shoulder, one fine brow arching upward when she saw that he hadn’t moved. “Move your arsk. We have to find the cause of this smell. And quickly.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Nick fought the gag wiggling its way up his throat.

  “Come on!” she insisted. “It’s coming from this way.”

  Nick reluctantly followed her as she tracked the horrible smell down the hall.

  “Arya?” the Captain’s voice broke in. “Is there a problem with the waste disposal system? We’re getting an…odd…smell up here.”

  “Not sure, Sir. I’m tracking down the cause of it now. Whatever it is, it’s spreading through the ship’s atmospheric ducts.”

  “Keep me posted. And hurry up, it’s getting worse.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  As Arya neared Karg’s quarters, a loud trumpeting sound echoed through the hall.

  “What the hell…was that?” Nick looked around cautiously. “It sounded like a tuba.”

  Arya glanced briefly at Nick and then peered at the bulkhead, listening. “What kind of creature is a tuba? It sounded kind of like a Halozian Wonk Shrell to me.”

  “Is that…moaning?” Nick turned in a circle, attempting to determine where the sound originated.

  Arya’s superior ears twisted independently, quickly narrowing in on the source. “Yes, it’s definitely moaning, and it’s coming from Karg’s quarters!”

  They both moved forward with cautious, stealthy steps, and eventually paused just outside the door to Karg’s quarters. Another deep bellowing sound vibrated through the bulkhead, followed by a moan. Nick was curious but afraid to know what was on the other side of the door. He’d had enough drama already. He didn’t need more.

  Arya drew her weapon. “Karg? You okay in there?”

  Karg’s voice held obvious distress. “No.”

  Arya locked eyes with Nick. He gave her a silent nod of agreement then drew his weapon. She flicked her hand over the door sensor. Nick readied himself as the door panel slid open. His eyes immediately began to burn and water from the horrid smelling air that whooshed out of the room and enveloped him in a stink so powerful that his stomach lurched.

  “Oh, God!” Choking, he fought the urge to reel backward and instead peered into the darkened room. “Yep, this is definitely where the smell is coming from. No doubt about that. Can’t miss it.”

  Arya called for the lights. When they came on, neither of them could miss the massive heap that lay in the middle of the room.

  Karg emitted a moan so deep that Nick felt it reverberate through his body. The big hulk clutched his stomach in obvious pain.

  Arya leaned over the moaning bulk curled up on the floor. “Karg? What’s going on?”

  Karg made a sound like a whimper, all four of his big hands wrapped tightly over his belly.

  “Karg! Talk to me!” Arya demanded. “What’s going on?” Frustrated by Karg’s silence, she reached down and tried to haul him up by the arm. “Come on! I can’t think in all this stink. We need to get you out of this room before we all lose consciousness.”

  Karg resisted her attempts to get him upright. Arya let go of him and resorted to yelling. “Get up! I can’t carry you. You’re going to have to get up!”

  Suddenly, the tuba sound blasted through the room, long and loud. Nick reeled backwards. “Holy moly! It’s him! That sound is coming from Karg!” Nick said, gasping for air.

  Karg groaned. “It’s that freking aspak root or maybe the scriggle eggs we picked up on that grubby little farming planet. Ohhh…my insides.”

  “I thought Rakozians had iron stomachs,” Arya reminded him.

  “Yeah, me too, but that sket isn’t fit for a Tarnac to eat.” Karg’s intestines gurgled and then let out a sound like a large, angry beast. His eyes flew open wide. “Oh, sket. Get out of the way!” Karg leapt to his feet and raced out of the door and down the hall.

  Arya started after him. “Karg, what are you doing?”

  Nick grabbed her arm to stop her from running after him. “Don’t! I wouldn’t follow him if I were you,” Nick said, peeking out of the doorway.

  Down the corridor, two crewmembers ran out of the elimination room toward Nick. As they passed, they shouted “Don’t go down there! It’s horrible. Not even the methane breathers could handle that!”

  Nick pulled Arya into another room across the hall and shut the door. He glanced at her over his sleeve. “Man, I thought that case of food poisoning I had a couple years ago was bad. What are we going to do? We’re going to have to evacuate the ship if this continues.” Nick pinched the end of his nose with his fingers in an attempt to get some relief from the smell.

  Arya stared at Nick’s watery eyes. “I have an idea.” She motioned for him to follow her. The two left the room and made their way to a locker room near the hangar bay. “Here.” Arya tossed him a helmet and then slipped on a spacesuit.

  Nick hurried to follow Arya’s lead and get into another available spacesuit. He couldn’t put the thing on fast enough. To be rid of the horrid smell would
be such a relief. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could survive the stink.

  He clicked his helmet into place and sighed in relief. “Ah, finally, I can breathe.” He gave Arya a thumbs up.

  The two returned to the elimination room but hesitated before entering. Neither of them really wanted to go in there, but they had to do something. As they cautiously stepped forward, Nick hoped like hell he would be spared the site of Karg on the toilet. They made their way along the row of stalls, checking for signs of Karg. The sound of Karg heaving echoed off the walls of the room. Just hearing it was almost enough to cause Nick to lose his lunch, even inside the suit, isolated from the horrendous smell by the suit’s self-contained air supply.

  They tracked the sounds to a single stall in the corner and waited a few minutes for Karg to finish emptying his stomach.

  Arya knocked on the door. “Karg, you need to come with us to the lab,” she said through the door.

  Karg’s voice, obviously weak from his ordeal, nonetheless penetrated through the door. “No, I don’t want any tests. Just leave me here to die.”

  Arya yelled so Karg could hear her through the helmet. “It’s not for tests. Trust me you need to come to the lab with us.”

  There was a long pause. Arya looked at Nick and raised her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. Nick shrugged. He didn’t know what to do either. He sure as hell couldn’t convince Karg to do anything.

  “Alright,” Karg finally said. “Give me a minute.”

  A few minutes later Karg emerged from the stall, his face worn from his gastrointestinal encounter. A low bellow echoed in the room once more. “Sorry. I can’t help it,” he said, obviously exhausted.

  Arya looked at Karg standing there all hunched over and tired. “Get to the isolation room in the lab,” Arya directed urgently. “Go. Now.”

  A nervous look came over Karg’s face. “Why. I don’t have anything contagious do I?”

  Nick looked at Arya. “He doesn’t, does he?” Nick hadn’t given much thought to the possibility of catching some kind of alien space bug. He sure as hell didn’t want whatever Karg had. Anything that could cause this kind of agony in something the size of Karg might kill a human.

  “No, I don’t think so, but the isolation lab has its own separate atmosphere and disposal system. Its air doesn’t mix with the ship’s atmosphere and it incinerates any waste material.”

  “Oh, good thinking,” Nick remarked.

  Karg began walking slowly out of the elimination room. Nick tried not to look at the big guy’s stained backside.

  “Did you see that mess back there?” he asked of Arya. “Who’s going to clean that up? And don’t you dare look at me! Not even in a spacesuit!” he quipped, gagging at the mere thought of it.

  Arya glanced back at him as they walked. “Relax, we’ll get the Meths to supervise the maintenance bots for that.”

  Arya tapped her badge. “Captain?”

  “Arya? Please tell me you isolated the problem. Even Sirok is looking woozy up here.”

  “Yes, I’ll fill you in later. Right now I need you to shut down the atmosphere to Elimination Two, on Deck Six, and turn the scrubbers up to full capacity. Hopefully, that will get things under control.”

  “Will do. I also need to talk to you about another matter. Come to my ready-room after you get finished down there.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  As ordered, Arya appeared in the ready-room. “Sorry for the delay, Captain. I had to get cleaned up. Couldn’t seem to get rid of that smell.”

  “I heard. How is he?” Argos asked.

  “Not bad, but we’ll keep him in Iso overnight to be sure. Apparently, there actually are some things that even a Rakozian can’t eat. I think it’s safe to say we debunked that myth.”

  “One Rakozian myth was enough, thank you. We may not survive another.” Argos motioned for Arya to have a seat. “I called you here about Arnon.”

  “Sir?” Arya was puzzled over why the Captain would want to talk about Arnon.

  “Have you had any luck locating any of his family?” Argos walked around behind her. “I would like to send my condolences.”

  Arya was confused by the Captain’s questions. Sending any communication to the family now would be nearly impossible from this deep inside of Demented Space. They were virtually cut off from the rest of the Resistance. Not only that, but Arnon was a spy and could have gotten them all killed. “But, Sir. He was a spy. He killed the Admiral.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do it willingly. He was a prisoner in his own body. The poor kid went through a lot at such a young age, and regardless of what happened, I would still like to let his family know personally.”

  Arya lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Sir. We haven’t found any records. It’s possible his entire family was killed when he was taken prisoner.”

  Argos came to a halt in front of her. “You may be right.” He paused for a moment. Arya waited for him to continue. It wasn’t like Argos to seem so hesitant, or to pause for too long.

  “There is one other thing I need you to do.” Argos held out a data chip. “The instructions are all on here.”

  Arya took the rectangular metallic chip from his hand. She hesitated as she looked at it. It was rare for Argos to hand her instructions on a data chip without giving her some sort of explanation. It had to be something he didn’t want to voice. And that made her nervous. “May I ask, Sir?”

  “We need more information about the Dragoran spy plot. I need you to do a detailed scan of Arnon’s body, and I also want you to run scans of the crew. We need to finish what the Admiral requested that we do. We have to be sure there are no other spies on board. The anomalous readings you need to scan for are detailed on that chip. And…I want you to keep it to yourself for now. You can tell the crew you’re checking for Verusian flu. All of my instructions are there.”

  “When do you want me to start, Captain?”

  “Immediately. I don’t want to take any chances.” Argos turned to gaze out of the ready-room window, as he often did when deep in thought.

  “Of course, Sir. I’ll get right on it.”

  In the lab, Karg stared out of the isolation room. “Tell me again what you call the one that looks like a beast.” He twisted his head and peered at the homemade game board that was spread out on the table in front of Nick.

  Nick put his finger on top of a hand carved Chess piece that sat along the back row of the checkered board. “It’s called a Knight.”

  Karg reared back and snorted. “That’s a ridiculous name. You have black ones and I have white ones, yet they are both called night. Of course, if you only called certain black ones night, then what would you call all the other black ones? I guess you could call the white beasts day and the black ones night. At least that would make more sense.”

  “Karg, forget what they’re named, okay,” Nick replied impatiently. “Just make a move.”

  “Okay, move my day piece up three and right one.”

  Nick sighed. “You really are impossible, you know that?” Nick picked up Karg’s remaining Knight and held it over the spot Karg wanted him to move it to. “Here?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes, there. And that’s check me, I believe.” Karg grinned through the glass barrier.

  Nick looked up at Karg. “Checkmate. It’s called checkmate, and there is no way….” Nick frowned as he examined the homemade board. “I’ll be damned. It is checkmate.” He glanced back at Karg. “You know, you wouldn’t have beaten me so easily if I hadn’t been so focused on teaching you how to play.”

  Karg sat back. “You’re right, this game is fun,” he said, still grinning. He looked at Nick for a long moment, an odd, almost emotional gleam in his eye. Nick was surprised by his next words. “Thank you for staying down here in the lab with me and keeping me occupied. If you hadn’t, I’d be going space crazy from being locked up in here. I don’t like feeling caged,” Karg confided.

  “No probl
em, buddy. I know how boring isolation can be. I’ve had to go into isolation many times before going on missions.”

  “What on Rakozi for? Were you ill?”

  “No, I wasn’t ill. They kept us in isolation to make sure we didn’t have a virus, or that we didn’t get one before going on the mission. I always wished I had someone to play Chess with during my long hours in there.”

  The door to the lab zipped open and Arya stepped into the room. “Hey guys. How’s Stinky doing?”

  Karg’s expression hardened. “That’s not funny,” he snapped.

  “Good news. The maintenance bots have finally cleaned up the mess. Good thing too. Any longer and it would have corroded through the deck!”

  “That’s not funny either,” Karg grumbled.

  Arya looked at the game board in front of Nick. “You two playing Chest? Doesn’t look too challenging.”

  Nick cracked a smile. Arya’s mistake was cute. “It’s called Chess. And don’t ask me what the pieces are called either!”

  Arya’s mouth went into the little side-quirk she got whenever she was bemused. “Relax, grumpy, I’m just here to check on Karg.”

  “Stinky’s doin’ fine.” Nick continued in an unconvincing fake accent. “Keptain! Sensors show some sort of gaseous anomaly ahead.” He lowered the tone of his voice. “Yes, I do have a nose, ensign. Evasive maneuvers.”

  Arya giggled so abruptly that she accidently spit on the glass wall between them and Karg. “Sorry, Karg,” she said as she wiped the dots off the clear barrier. “But it is funny.”

  “Yeah, he’s a barrel of laughs.” Karg folded his top two arms over his chest, pulled his knees together, and laid the closed fists of his bottom two arms on his thighs, as if shutting the two out. He almost looked like a huge pouting child, which made the scene even more comical.

  Nick tilted his head toward the glass wall. “Lucky for us there is a waste disposal unit in there. Of course, I thought the stink may still breach that glass containment wall.”

  Karg grumbled something unintelligible.

  Arya rolled her eyes at Nick. “That’s not glass. It’s much tougher than glass. It’s a transparent tri-tanium alloy created by injecting a helium isotope into the crystalline matrix.” Arya flipped a switch on a nearby console, and the transparent barrier turned opaque. “It’s only clear when you apply a current through it. Like this.” Arya flipped the switch back on and Karg appeared through the transparent barrier again.