That was interesting, but not the time to probe, not right after being given what the Krall considered an honor.
Turning to Dillon, Mirikami instructed him. “Go to every place the passengers are being held, and also speak to any crew you find. Tell them fully of our honor bound commitment, and emphasize the severe penalties if that trust is not upheld. The Board members in particular need to be included.”
Parkoda, listening, asked, “Who are Board members? What are they?”
Mirikami gave a partial answer. “They are spokesmen for some of the people we were bringing to live and work on the space station you destroyed. They were going to stay there to study the world below that station when this ship went home.”
“We looked at that world. It is dead and worthless. The captives from the station told me the same thing. I did not believe them. Why study that place? It is deadly to breathe, and hit by large stones and pieces of ice every day.”
“Many of the people I brought here are trained to learn new things,” Mirikami answered, “and one new thing on Newborn, the name we gave that world, was the first start of life there. They wanted to see how that worked.”
“The Krall have those that learn of the world’s we own or want to take,” admitted Parkoda, “how to build new weapons, better ships, learn the breeding mysteries. They help us grow stronger. The K’Tal of the Krall do not always fight as our best of warriors, but have value for what they know, and bring us strength. We took machines from other animals that we defeated. Some machines we did not know could exist, but our K’Tal learned to use them. Perhaps some of you humans are like K’Tal.”
Suddenly, giving Dillon a glaring look, “Your clan leader gave you an order, yet you stand there.”
Dillon, thinking fast replied, “Yes Sir, but you are superior to us all, and had not told me to go. Then you asked a question that I may have needed to answer because I am a human K’Tal.”
“Leave us; your clan leader can answer me.”
Relieved to get away, despite his desire to learn more about their new enemy, Dillon headed for the center deck area, to explain the conditions attached to their marginally increased freedom. He was also desperate to see how many more of his friends and coworkers may have died. His mind was filled with the last glimpse of Maggi, as that cloud enveloped her on deck seven.
Mirikami stepped to the wall com and announced the behavior code they were to abide by, and that Dillon Martin was coming to speak to the various groups, demonstrating by his actions the limited freedom they would have by his very movement about the ship.
Next, Mirikami exercised his freshly granted freedom, although the chill that came made him feel the hair on his still tingling left arm rise. This call was only to the crew he had sent to the cargo bay.
That they were all males was no coincidence, since they had been pulled from the ranks of Stewards, and those were never females. He had also wanted physically stronger people for the lifting, and virtually all of the low ranking service personnel were naturally men anyway. They were already in the hold, donning their soft textured vacuum suits, the worry on their sweating faces apparent on the small video screen.
When the Captain buzzed them, he called the senior Steward to the com. “Walter, I have to ask you and the other Stewards to perform a very unpleasant cleanup task. It isn’t in vacuum, as you may have expected, but you will be grateful for the suits. Please bring an extra suit for me, please, since I will do this with you. Also, bring four of the electric pallet cargo movers, and come up and meet me on deck 8. We will be going to the outside ring corridor A, close to cabin 840.”
“Aye Sir, the hold’s cargo lifts don’t go to deck 8, so we will have to use the central shaft.”
“I know, I’ll make both center lifts available for you, and I think two movers should fit in each. The warriors watching you are expecting this, so don’t be afraid, but also don’t stare at them, or pick up anything that looks like a weapon, just in case.”
“Captain,” Walter asked, “isn’t 8 one of the decks where a lot of people were hurt?”
“That it is Walter, except there are no wounded, only dead. It isn’t going to be pleasant, but removing those bodies are what you ten men are going to do. In addition, you’ll repeat that work on deck 7, same outer corridor, opposite side, and in a few other locations. Don’t speak to anyone as you exit from the lifts. The passengers don’t need to know what we have to do. That could prove fatal to them if they reacted too strongly.
“I’ll personally meet you there, and start the people gathered on deck 8 moving down to deck 7, for when you return loaded to the lifts. You’ll go directly back to the hold and lay the bodies by the larger cargo door. If you can find tarps of some sort, or opaque plastic covers, those will help cover them. Oh, and locate something absorbent to line the pallet movers, to catch drips. Also, bring some large basins or tubs. There are body parts.” He saw Walters shudder, and shared the sentiment.
“Aye Sir. We’ll be on our way as soon as we find what we need. How about cleaning bots?”
“Good idea Walter. There’s a lot of blood.” I’ll see you at the lift doors.
Parkoda was looking at him impassively. “I think you can do this on your own. I will return to the Bridge. The screen there shows this passage, and the other, and it smells better. Our warriors will watch.” With that comment, he left Mirikami in the death filled stinking corridor.
Alone, Mirikami stared with sick guilt at what lay before him for a long few minutes. Then suddenly, his mind and duty were clear again.
“Jake.”
“Yes Sir.” The prompt reply was gratifying through his transducer Link.
“Jake, limit your crew communications to transducers only, unless a crew member uses a com station. Even then, do not talk over any speaker system unless First Officer Renaldo, Ms. Willfem, or I order that to be done. Do not respond to any passenger communications at all, and never to any Krall, or intruder, as you called them. I believe our safety may depend on the Krall not knowing of your existence. Understood?”
“Yes Sir. Are my standing emergency broadcasts messages to be suspended if any of those situations arise?”
“Yes Jake. One of the crew should be made aware of the emergency and release you to broadcast. Do not send any radio distress signal for any reason, or permit any radio signal to be sent whatsoever. Please inform all of the crew of what I have just instructed you, and repeat to them that this is to protect your existence, as a resource that we do not want the Krall to be aware of.”
“Yes Sir.”
That done, Mirikami switched off, turned about and took a less fouled route to the central lounge area of the deck. He passed one woman’s corpse on his first turning. She had lost her lower right leg to an explosive round. Her body was slumped against the bulkhead. A Krall had nearly decapitated her to finish her. A gore-covered left hand was resting on her chest near her throat, her right hand pressed against her shattered right calf. It had been a fruitless effort to stem the flows ending her life. He recognized her, even with the contortion of death and fear frozen on her bloodied face. Her name escaped him now, but she was one of the Board members he had met with, in what seemed an age ago.
He walked past her, turned another corner, and just ahead, he could see people standing in groups, or sitting on the floor, but huddled together, in what he knew they believed furnished some sort of security. He knew they were wrong.
11. Clean Up
Dillon was still on deck 8 speaking to the group, explaining the situation, and obviously running into some resistance by a few women that didn’t want a typically over reacting male telling them what to do. Mirikami’s arrival promptly drew questions and demands directed towards him. He waved them down, and made pointed glances towards two Krall warriors, standing on opposite sides of the open area. They quieted down.
“Doctor Martin was present as the Krall instructions were given to us, and he knows all that I know about them. We must do som
e work for them, and you are all now well aware of the penalty of failure to obey them. More people will die. Some crew members are due to arrive by the lifts to move some...” he groped for a word, “equipment, using some cargo pallet movers.”
“You need to get out of their way, and if you will all file down the multiple stairways, Doctor Martin can brief more people at one time, down on deck 7. No questions right now, please. Go quickly!”
Grumbling, and shuffling, they started down the four stairwells at the corners of the lounge area, and the larger one that wound around the two central elevator columns. Two lift chimes sounded almost simultaneously, the doors sliding open to reveal the suited ten Stewards, some standing on the pallet movers because of the limited room. They slowly rolled them out into the shifting crowd.
Mirikami now permitted passengers to use the lifts to ride down to deck seven. He told them to stay there until the work on this deck was finished, that it would be dangerous to return. Dillon was guiding and cajoling them all to keep moving.
Mirikami motioned for the ten men to join him on the side of the lounge where he had recently arrived. Their faceplates were unsealed, so he spoke to them quietly, realizing as he did that he had forgotten another minor detail that could prove fatal. There were so many tightropes to walk!
“Gentlemen, I must order you to switch off the suit radios immediately. Tell me if any of you have transmitted, even if just to one another after attaching your helmets?” He sincerely hoped not.
The scattered assurances were a tremendous relief. He explained the Krall’s warning, and penalty for using radio. It turned out that Jake had mentioned not using a radio, when they were pulling on their suits, though at the time they didn’t understand the consequences if they talked to each other by suit radio anyway. Using them inside the ship would probably block any external signal leakage, but probably wasn’t good enough to risk lives.
Mirikami told them that they would want to close the helmets to avoid the smell, but would have to speak loud through the suit faceplates to hear and be heard. If later they were exposed to vacuum, they’d have to rely on hand signals, or helmet to helmet contact to communicate.
Accepting the stretchable suit Walters offered him, Mirikami allowed two men to help him pull the arms and legs on, as he explained where they were going and what had to be done. Then, leaving his faceplate open, and shutting off his own radio, he led the procession along the corridors until the isolated woman’s body came into view.
“Gentlemen, this is but a sample of what lies around the corner ahead. If you can stand the smell leave your helmet open. Otherwise close up and shout to be heard.”
“I want Rigson and Jakkobski,” he pointed to them, “to look around the other corridors and elsewhere on this deck, and inside cabins to find any other bodies. If you ask Jake for help in the search, use transducers only, and never around watchers.” He paused.
“Jake?”
“Yes Sir,” was the instant response.
“Respond only to crew when they are apparently unobserved by intruders, and warn them if you think they are watched, and if you can do so without revealing yourself. Understood Jake?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Rigson, Jakkobski, report back to this main group when you finish, where ever we are. The rest of us will be loading the pallets, as high as we dare, to move the dead as quickly as we can.”
After the “Aye Aye’s” they split up to complete the tasks. It took almost thirty minutes to load all the dead and parts in that charnel house of a corridor. Rigson found one more body in a cabin, where a woman had apparently tried to hide in a closet. Her skull had been smashed in.
Jakkobski reported two other dead, lying on chairs that had remolded themselves into acceleration couches in a small snack area. One elderly man was properly strapped in, and may have died from acceleration stresses. A younger man near him with his throat cut appeared to have fallen back on his acceleration couch. Jakkobski recalled that the younger man was the assistant to the older professor, and perhaps had refused to leave him when the Krall came.
The bins were soon full of limbs and worse, bodies were stacked, and concealing tarps were spread. Two cleaning bots were activated to clean the mess in the corridor, but it was evident that more were needed if they were to finish soon enough.
Except for the blood and excrement streaks, which they had been unable to scoop up, the worst was out of view, although the smell had not abated greatly. That was the moment Noreen and her repair team came into view around the curve of the outer corridor ring. They were looking for the compartment where the door had blown into the corridor. A Krall patch on the hull opening in that compartment needed to be reinforced.
They pulled up abruptly, seeing all the blood, and finally understanding why that vile odor had been increasing as they approached this area. Noreen had forgotten, or perhaps repressed, the memory of which deck and corridor had been on the grisly view screen.
Mirikami, popping open his faceplate, called out, “Commander Renaldo, we are about to remove the bodies to the main cargo hold, just as Parkoda directed. We have two bots working on the cleaning, and more are coming, but that may take some time. The air handlers here are on high filtration, but the odor is daunting. As you can see, we all donned soft suits to tolerate this. If you have other areas to repair, you can return to this later.”
He was aware that the smell was less powerful now, but he suspected the four new arrivals couldn’t appreciate the improvement.
Noreen answered, “Captain, deck 7 is next, and I believe it was also one of the places…, like this.” She gestured down the corridor and at the four covered pallet movers.” He saw her swallow, and even at a distance of thirty feet or so, detected the effort she was making to hold down the same reflex that had overtaken Dillon earlier, as well as several of his Stewards.
“Commander, There is a dispensary one radial companionway behind you. You can obtain light masks, and menthol or similar scented cream to detract from the odor. The bots and air filtering will have this area more passable in another fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you Sir, We’ll do that.” Gratefully they turned back to find the mentioned dispensary.
Repositioning the bots to first work on Noreen’s return path and the spattered wall opposite the blown compartment door, Mirikami led the men back to the lifts. He first confirmed that no passengers had wandered back to this deck. The loaded movers had to go singly, one per lift with just two men each. They activated the non-stop function to go all the way down to the cargo bay. After returning, the second two movers went down. Then the remaining crewmembers used a single lift, after Mirikami had ordered the other messy lift held at the cargo bay. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let some passenger see that.
Leaving four men to unload the movers, they obtained several more cleaning bots, and headed back for deck 8. This was no simple job, and Mirikami feared they were running out of time. A complete clean up, to ease the shock on the passengers, was probably going to have to wait.
Noreen and her people were busy at the patch job when they returned with the extra bots. Mirikami congratulated them on the ingenuity of using table tops as hull patches, and told them he was about to move down to deck 7 to remove those bodies. He recommended they work on even lower decks next. There were apparently just three remaining holes to patch.
Mirikami used a wall com set to call down to deck 7, and asked the woman that answered to please have Doctor Martin come to the phone.
Dillon must have been close. The “Yes Captain?” came back in a few seconds. He could actually hear an echo of his voice up the stairs.
“Dillon, this has been a horrible mess, and we need to work on that deck next. The lifts are too gory to let anyone even see them for now, and the floors up here will have to be cleaned before we allow anyone to return. We need to get the rest of the dead into the hold as soon as possible, or Parkoda may step in and push things. I don’t want our people to see what wa
s done to the victims. It might cause a panic, and certainly will stir feelings that we need calmed right now. Can you head everyone down to deck 6 and 5, as quickly as possible? Tell them it’s an emergency, which it will certainly become if the Krall think we are stalling. It will be crowded, but there are no piles of dead in outer corridors, so they can spread out, even sit in the various cabins.”
“I’ll do my best Sir. I can try to get them to use the outer four stairwells, so that you might be able to use one or both lifts to get out to where you, uh…, have to work.” Obviously, other ears were close by.
“Right,” agreed Mirikami, “as soon as the area by the lifts are opened up, we can take the movers straight across to the first hall quickly and limit what they can see. Perhaps cover the movers with clean tarps. I’ll think of something, just get them moving.”
“Yes Sir and Dillon hung up.
“Jake?”
“Yes Sir?”
“Unlock all passenger cabins, and disable the locks. We need the room for people to spread out on decks 6 and 7, and even other decks. I don’t want people locking themselves in, and we will have to take inventory eventually of what we have for common use. Understand?”
“Captain, are they allowed to close doors?” Jake asked.
“Yes Jake. Closed doors provide privacy, but the Krall don’t have to blast them open if not locked, as I note they did on some evacuated cabins.”
Mirikami turned back to his men. “Ah, yes. I was asking about hiding what we are moving, in case someone takes a peek.”
One of the Stewards, Gioni Ribaldi, offered a suggestion. “Sir, we have linens and table cloths in storage closets on each passenger deck, and there are some just around the corner. The table cloths are Smart Fabric and proof against spills and stains.”
Koban Page 11