Sudden zero-g. She activated the gravity in her boots—or tried to. Nothing happened.
Things hit her—people, pieces of equipment. She had set down the suit’s helmet and now it had to be among the things floating around in the darkness.
She could breathe, but her chest—her entire body, really—felt odd, as if it had been electrified. Her heart shivered—literally shivered—before returning to its usual rhythm.
Around her, she heard gasps and cries, and echoey bangs as people hit things. She reached up and grabbed onto something on the wall/ceiling/floor nearest her. The first thing she had to do was orient herself.
As she held on, she realized that the ship—the large long ship—was rolling over and over and over again, like an out-of-control children’s toy. She had been floating free, moving with her own momentum, the stuff around her was moving at a different pace, and the ship was moving too.
Only its movements were even less predictable because it had just activated the stardrive, and then the whatever hit them and pushed them in yet another direction. Because Elissa was effectively blind to the exterior of her ship, she had no idea if something big in the debris field was going to hit her or not.
Something big like the Room of Lost Souls itself.
Son of a bitch. That betraying bastard hadn’t missed. He had deliberately targeted Vilhauser, and the resulting explosion had caused this ripple.
The thought hit the forefront of her brain, a grasp for understanding and nothing more. And that was all she needed.
She couldn’t focus on what happened. She needed to focus on what was about to happen.
She had to save this ship and everyone on it.
“Grab something stable!” she yelled. “Grab something stable right now!”
She had to get her crew thinking, because she doubted there was enough time to do much else.
Right now, the ship had oxygen and the temperature was reasonable. The gravity was gone, and so far as she could tell, everything—all of the equipment—had been shut down.
The back-ups on her suit weren’t working, not that she had access to all of them. Some of them were in the stupid helmet, which of course, she couldn’t see.
There was ambient light, however, because the crew had had the portals open. Something was glowing from outside the ship, providing some light inside the bridge.
It had just taken time for her eyes to adjust.
She could see shapes, and little else. Unidentifiable material of all sizes floated around her.
People were easier to see—long bodies, limbs flailing, reaching for something to grab onto.
Thank God bridge crews had mandatory gravity training exercises. The crew knew how to handle this.
Although, when she ran the exercises, she hadn’t ever shut the lights and power off at the same time. And, dammit, neither had her instructors, which meant that no one else’s instructors had done so either.
She hoped to hell that emergency beacon she’d sent had reached the fighters and transports she’d sent for earlier. Even though she had asked them to remain out of range, they might have seen the explosion. With luck, someone would be here soon.
She let out a small breath, her throat sore even though she hadn’t been yelling. Everything about her body, not just her heart, felt off. Whatever had affected the systems had had an impact on her as well.
Which meant that it had done the same to her crew.
She hoped that whatever it was had a localized effect, because if it didn’t, it would move outward as a wave. Which meant it would hit everything in its path—the fighters, the transports, everything.
But not the squadron, right? It was too far away.
She was guessing. But the guessing gave her some comfort. Because if the whatever had moved out as a wave, it would dissipate, and its effects wouldn’t be as severe farther away from the actual explosion itself.
Besides, the distress beacon could be received all over the sector. Even away from her squadron.
She hoped.
Because her ship needed rescue quickly.
It needed rescue now.
4
ELISSA GOT HER SRP briefing after her vacation, and learned some wonderful facts. The reason General Command wanted an up-and-coming commander on this mission rather than a tired old crusty one (as Rustin would have put it) was because the GC considered the SRP dangerous.
Research postings weren’t generally dangerous—at least not in space. Most commanders simply maintained ships near a secret research lab, and spent their days running drills or training cadets or goofing off. The dangerous research postings weren’t space missions. They were ground missions on planets newly conquered by the Empire or just outside of Empire space.
In those places, diplomats handled the problems, and if things got too bad, a guard team went in with the scientists while ships orbited the research planet. Even those duties weren’t classified any more dangerous than a remote outpost somewhere. Fighting could flare up, but probably wouldn’t—that was how it was all judged.
Only on her mission, someone (or several someones) believed that the ships, the scientists, and anyone else in the vicinity would be in actual physical danger, probably because they were going to work at the Room of Lost Souls.
Elissa had never been to the Room of Lost Souls, even though her famous great-great-grandfather had died there under somewhat mysterious circumstances. He was supposed to show up at treaty-signing ceremonies for the Colonnade Wars, treaties he helped negotiate, and instead, he stopped off at the Room of Lost Souls first.
And no one ever saw him again.
The official biographies buried his connection to the Room of Lost Souls, but she knew it. Her entire wing of the family knew it. They all avoided the Room.
And now she’d been ordered there.
Sometimes she believed that someone in General Command actively hated her and wanted her out of the military forever.
And sometimes she thought that General Command had a nice sense of irony. The most famous Commander Trekov of all—Force Commander Ewing Trekov—disappeared at the Room of Lost Souls, so it would only be appropriate that the most recent Commander Trekov would be part of the team that decoded its mysteries.
Or maybe it was a combination of the two things. Or maybe just a luck of the draw.
She had no idea, and she wasn’t in a position to ask.
If Rustin had asked her on their vacation if a more dangerous SRP would have made her happier, she would have said yes.
But once she found out where she was going, she had an uneasy feeling. She couldn’t confess to it, of course. Theoretically, the military didn’t believe in superstitious nonsense, and almost everything about the Room was superstitious nonsense.
Most people believed that the Room didn’t even exist, that it was a ghost story designed to keep ships out of a certain sector of space. But the Room did exist. It looked like a space station, some place where a ship could stop, refuel, maybe get some supplies.
Only as ships approached, they realized it was abandoned.
Most ships went on, but a few docked anyway. Either they guessed this was the famous Room of Lost Souls or they wanted to explore an abandoned space site.
And more often than not, someone in the crew died.
Elissa didn’t know why until she’d signed all the non-disclosure agreements connected to this SRP. Her security clearance got bumped to the highest level, and she learned that there was something on the Room of Lost Souls, something the Empire needed to understand.
5
ELISSA’S OWN MOMENTUM had stopped. Now she was moving with the ship itself. She could feel it turn. It also groaned, and that sound worried her more than anything. Something was bending, shifting, twisting, and that wasn’t good.
She wondered if there had been a hull breach on any of the levels. If so, then the atmosphere would dissipate in the bridge a lot more quickly. The problem was, she didn’t have any way of examining the h
ull, not with everything shut down.
She held onto something jutting out of the wall/ceiling/floor. She couldn’t quite tell, but she knew that she was probably nowhere near the consoles, since this jutting thing was unprotected. She had felt the wall/ceiling/floor around it, and realized the jut was intentional. Which meant that she was clinging to something a human wasn’t meant to get near in the traditional work-day on the bridge.
“Everyone found something to hang onto?” she asked.
No one answered her. She still saw limbs flailing in that twilight, and then someone floated by.
She couldn’t be the only person still alive, could she? She was the only one in an environmental suit, but the helmet had floated past her twice, and the human head was a vulnerable thing. If the whatever that had hit after the explosion had killed people without environmental suits, then it should have killed her too.
She had to assume her crew—her well-trained crew—was in shock.
“Speak to me, people,” she said, her voice calmer than she felt. Her heart still seemed off. It was shivery, even though it was beating, and her stomach was—well, the only word she could use was itchy. Even her skin felt crawly, like she had walked into a super-charged room.
That thought made her shivers grow worse. Only the new shivers were real ones—shivers from an emotional reaction, not from something happening to her.
“I…I’m okay.” The female voice sounded uncertain, and Elissa couldn’t identify it.
It wasn’t like her crew to be shaken up, even by a disaster of this magnitude. She didn’t like it.
“Let’s try this,” Elissa said. “I want names, then condition.”
After that, she’d worry about location, assignments, and getting this ship working again. One thing at a time.
It would calm all of them—including her.
“Lieutenant Homer Ryder, ma’am.” Ryder’s voice sounded strong, but it echoed in the quiet. “I’m bruised and banged up, I might have a broken ankle, but I think I’m all right. I’ve had worse, ma’am.”
Elissa let out a small breath. She had expected injuries. She just hoped they wouldn’t be too severe.
“Lieutenant Nisha Lee.” Lee didn’t sound as strong. Her voice had a rasp to it. “I hit my head, ma’am, but I don’t think I have a concussion. I’m a little dizzy, but I expect that to pass. I also dislocated my shoulder, but I managed to fix it.”
Elissa winced. She knew how painful shoving a shoulder back in the socket could be. She had no idea how someone achieved that in zero-g, but apparently Lee had.
“Officer Phoebe Gatson.” There was the faint voice that had spoken a few moments ago, the voice that Elissa hadn’t been able to place. “I got a few cuts, but I stopped the bleeding. I don’t think anything major is wrong, but I tell you, my body feels like it’s been through some kind of super-charged environment.”
That feeling that Elissa had. Apparently Gatson shared it.
“Me too,” Lee said.
“Yeah,” Ryder added. “Whatever hit us had some kind of physical component.” Then he caught his breath as if he realized what he’d said. “I mean, it affected our bodies, not—”
“I know what you mean, Lieutenant,” Elissa said, “and I’m feeling the same way. And like you, I’m convinced it came from that thing that hit us.”
“I feel dizzy too, ma’am. Officer Alistair Binek,” he added that last as if he wasn’t sure she would recognize his voice. She did. “And I’m pretty sure I cracked a rib. Nothing serious. I can breathe just fine.”
“I think I broke a few ribs,” said a new female voice. “Provisional Lois Baxter, ma’am. I’m breathing all right, and I don’t think my lungs are damaged. I suspect I’ll feel this more when the gravity comes back.”
Baxter was the only Provi on the bridge crew, and one of Elissa’s best crew members, even though—or maybe because—she had worked her way up through the ranks.
“With luck, Provi,” Elissa said, “we’ll have the gravity on soon, and someone medical will be able to ease the pain.”
“It’s not a problem right now, ma’am,” Baxter said.
Her crew was doing its best to convince her that they were fine. But she heard something in the voices, something that told her they were not fine, any more than she was.
“Officer Malachi Locke, ma’am. I’m pretty sure my right arm is broken, maybe in more than one place. But I’m functional, especially while the gravity is off.” Locke sounded almost cheerful, so Elissa knew it was a front.
She was about to respond when one more voice spoke up, sounding shaky.
“Officer Sepp Trombino, ma’am. I had a bloody nose but I don’t think it’s broken. I’ve had a broken nose. I know what it feels like and this isn’t it. My body has that same uncomfortable feeling everyone else has described, but I’m good to go, ma’am.”
She smiled. Trombino was one of her more gung-ho officers, but he often complained his way through things. She didn’t mind right now. They all had reason to complain.
She went over the responses in her head. Seven responses. She should have had eight.
“What about Lieutenant Calthorpe?” Elissa made sure her voice remained steady as she asked about the only person who hadn’t checked in.
She waited, watching the shadowy things float past her. Unidentifiable, even by shape. She couldn’t tell, but it seemed like the flare from outside the ship was fading as well.
“Anyone? Is Calthorpe near you or did he hit his head? Is he unconscious?”
“Someone keeps bumping me,” Ryder said from across the bridge. His voice echoed just a bit.
Now that she had asked everyone to identify themselves, she could recognize voices, even when they sounded just a bit off. She was beginning to think that whatever happened had affected her hearing as well.
Or maybe it had had the same impact on her brain as it had had on her heart.
That made her shiver yet again.
“Someone?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ryder said, his voice even. She didn’t hear uncertainty in him or even distress. And she should have heard distress, since he believed he had broken his ankle in the ship’s initial violent reaction to the explosion. “First, some fabric brushed my face, and then a little while later, I felt skin.”
That turned her stomach, and it shouldn’t have. She was usually made of stronger stuff than that.
“Anyone think that it might’ve been you bumping into Lieutenant Ryder?” she asked. “Anyone?”
“We all banged around a lot, ma’am,” Binek said. “I know I hit a lot of stuff at first. Might’ve been people, ma’am.”
A chorus of voices added their agreement.
“Since that initial explosion, has anyone brushed up against a fellow crew member?” Elissa asked, realizing that everyone’s brains were working too slowly. She had never encountered this before. It put the entire ship at even more of a disadvantage.
No one answered her with an affirmative. No one answered that question at all.
She took a deep breath and let it out. Was it her imagination or was the air noticeably cooler than it had been a few minutes before?
“All right,” she said. “We’re going to have to assume that Calthorpe is unconscious. If he floats past anyone, please find a way to ground him.”
She was still shivering. Shock? She hoped not. She didn’t need it, not right now. She needed to be clear. They all needed to be clear.
“Now,” she said, “we need to get near the console. We need to turn lights and atmosphere back on. Then we need to assess the damage.”
Something banged far away, as if it came from outside and was echoing through the ship. She could feel a vibration through her hand.
It couldn’t be one of the fighters. She would have seen its lights through the portal, right? Besides, it was too soon for one to get here.
Or maybe her sense of time was off.
She made herself take a deep breath.
Plus, that device, that malfunctioning device that had caused her to separate from the Room in the first place, might not have come apart in the explosion. She had no idea what that device was, and she had no idea what it could do.
Everything was supposition at this point.
Everything.
Including their odds for survival.
6
THE EMPIRE CALLED the thing operating in the Room of Lost Souls stealth tech, but Elissa learned it was something more than that.
She finally understood on her first full day on the Discovery, as she went on a tour of the research labs with the head scientist, Keon Vilhauser. Vilhauser called himself a technician rather than a researcher; he said he liked knowing how something worked, not how to recreate it in the lab.
The labs filled the entire center of the Discovery. The ship was built with the scientific function in mind. Each section was walled off from the other sections in case something went wrong.
In fact, the Discovery could separate into three parts if necessary—the bridge and the front part of the ship could detach from the middle, and the engineering section, all the way in the back, could do the same. If an on-board experiment got out of control and the ship had warning, it could abandon the scientific middle and leave it alone in the darkness of space.
Elissa didn’t like the design. She preferred the older science ships that had the experimental labs in the back. The labs could be detached and left behind with the bulk of the ship intact.
The problem was that those ships were also easier to attack, and there was no better way to destroy a science vessel then to hit its lab with something lethal.
The Discovery was the command ship of this expedition. Elissa commanded a squadron of thirty vessels, most of which would simply stand guard outside the Room’s section of space. They would link their sensors, covering an established region of space. Such a technique was called an information shield, and it was highly effective. It made sure no other ships would enter the region while the Discovery was working at the Room of Lost Souls.
The Diving Bundle: Six Diving Universe Novellas Page 39