Tramp Wars: The Enemy

by Larry Roberts

  “Damn it looks like running for the hatches is out of the question now.” Mark looked back up at the hatch in the overhead above their head. The hatch was impossible to get at but something about it was tickling his mind.

  “Mark, tear Dian’s blows into strips and then get it wet.” Mickey said. “The gas is water soluble. It breaks down in water. Fold strips of cloth into a dozen layers or more and soak them in water then squeeze out most of the water. Placing them over your nose and mouth will filter out most of the gas from your lungs for a while. A small percentage will still get through and will still kill you but it will take longer.”

  Mark told Dian and she stripped off her blouse again making the boys start hollering at the sight of her boobs.

  “Yes we have studied this very gas since it is used in the holds a lot.” Dian said as she started tearing wide long strips from her tee-shirt. “We have studied mask design and what is needed to counter act this poison and water will do nicely keeping it out if we can keep contaminated air from seeping around the layers.” Dian and Mark soon had wet masks over their faces. “Mark, tell Dian to start splashing water into her eyes every few seconds. Better yet dunk her head to keep washing the poison from her eyes. I am protecting your eyes and with the wet rags filtering your breath I may be able to keep you alive by filtering your blood and adding a form of atropine to counter act the nerve agents in the poison gas. At least long enough for the two boys to die allowing you to escape into the next tank. The open hatches between the two tanks to let water flow between them is letting the gas enter the other tank but at a much lower concentration. The next tank over should still be 98% free of the gas when you get there. A concentration your make shift mask can handle. I am sorry Mark but I can do nothing for Dian. She is probably going to die.”

  Mark looked back at the Ferrari. “Damn it Mickey, if I had not blown the damn doors off the car it would have been perfect to protect us from the gas.” Mark started walking along the row of compartments checking each one out looking for another car or something to put Dian in but came up with nothing. Even emptying out a corpse would only result in her suffocating when the oxygen ran out. “At least I am not seeing any more bodies. Just junk.”

  Dian was spending more and more time under the water floating along beside Mark.

  One of the boys suddenly started coughing before ripping off his mask screaming as he ran past the tank still spewing its cloud of poison. Reaching the hatch he tried to open it but the handle that had worked before would not budge. He started clawing and banging at the locking bar and hatch. Blood started coming out his mouth ears and eyes as he finally fell against the hatch and slid down to the grate wedged against the hatch. He continued to make gurgling noises for another minute before it stopped. Blood dripping down into the water below.

  His friend watched in shock as he started coughing himself. And then a minute later he started crying calling for his momma. Realizing he was dying as he slumped down across the railing of the catwalk as blood started dripping down from his mask into the water below.

  Mark looked from the dying kid he suddenly felt sorry for, then to the hatch fare above and suddenly remembered a damage control class. The instructor saying that every main compartment over such and such a size had to have an escape hatch in the overhead and deck. He could not remember what size a compartment it was but this tank had a damn hatch in the overhead so it must have a hatch in the deck as well. Probably directly below the one in the overhead.

  Running back along the row of compartments splashing water everywhere he found what he was looking for and realized the compartment directly below the hatch in the overhead was filled with junk.

  “Damn it Mickey!” Looking up at the hatch again to make sure he had the right little compartment he shook his head in despair as his gaze settled on the hatch to the next tank and realized that all the tanks had to have the escape hatches. Turning around he ran back to Dian grabbing her he headed for the hatch and the next tank.

  “Mark don’t run through the fog spray.” Mark stopped at Mickey’s insistence. “The concentration will make your cloth mask worthless. Dive under and swim like Dian did when Chet caught up to you. Stay under the water until you get through the hatch and you and Dian will be fine with the cloth masks until you get to the next tank beyond that one.”

  “Dian we have to swim under the fog and through the hatch. Can you swim that far?”

  “I already have but I don’t think you can.” She said seriously then dunking her head and coming back up, she squeezed the water out of her mask with it still covering her face and started taking deep breaths. “Dunk down and wring out your mask several times under the water without taking it off. You will never get it back together if you take it off. The plies will all bunch up making them worthless. Just wring it out by pushing it against your face and then as you stand back up, breathe out through your fingers as you squeeze out the water. Then you need to take several deep breaths before we go. Use your thumb to hold your mask against your palm from bunching up as you swim and keep your butt down in the water. Now clean out your mask the way I told you too.”

  Mark frowned but did as she told him though he had to fight down panic the first time he tried to breathe through the mask before he had wrong enough water out of it.

  Dian coached him in his breaths. “Now you are the one wearing goggles and can see where we are going so you are leading. If you feel like you are running out of breath and have to surface before we get there don’t. Just turn and kiss me and I will give you some of mine that should last you the last few feet. Now you just swim but don’t go as fast as you can or you will run out of oxygen in only a couple of minutes. Just relax and swim naturally and don’t worry about me, I will have no problem keeping up with you. I am on the swim team. Remember, don’t try swimming all out. You will last longer if you pace yourself at about three quarter’s effort. I will whack you on your side if I think you are going to slow and pull your foot if you are going too fast. Now take two more quick deep breaths and go when you are ready.”

  As Mark took two deep breaths, Dian turned and spotted the kids up on the catwalk. The one already dead and the one leaning on the rail still moving a little as his life drained away, breathing and crying as blood flowed down from his mask.

  “My Godstar! We have to do something Mark they are in trouble. They need my help.” She started walking toward that boy even though there was no way to get up to help him.

  Mark quickly grabbed her. Turning her around. “The one by the hatch is already dead and so is the other one and he even knows it. There is nothing you can do for him but get yourself killed. We have to get out of here now or we are both dead as well. Do you understand me? We leave now or we are dead.” Mark said through his fingers.

  She ducked down into the water and came back up squeezing the water back out of her mask and nodding yes as she took a deep breath and said. “Chet murdered those boys didn’t he?”

  Mark took another deep breath. “Yes he did. We have to go now Hun. Or he will murder us” Mark watched as Dian took several deep breaths with him until his head was starting to feel light and then he dove into the water splashing a good wave around him as he dropped to the bottom. Feeling his butt sticking out at first until he got the hang of it and started swimming following Mickey’s directions. Checking every few seconds to make sure Dian was still with him. Though she seemed to hardly move while he was having to work at it. Wishing now he had spent more time up in the ship’s Olympic sized pool learning to swim better.

  “Mark relax and extend your arms farther forward letting your body slow a little bit more before dragging hour hands back and keep your fingers spread to increase your hands ability to move more water. Slow down. Your body will only move so fast through the water and trying to force it faster is only wasting energy you do not have. Relax. You don’t have that far to go and plenty of oxygen in your blood. Just don’t waste it.”

  Mark suddenly realized tha
t Dian had been jerking on his foot every chance she got. Getting harder with each grab but he had hardly noticed. He followed Mickey’s instructions and Dian quit grabbing his foot. He suddenly realized that the reason Dian did not seem to be moving that much was because she knew what she was doing and he started copying Dian’s strokes. The difference in speed between him flailing along and copying Dian was not that great but his heart started to slow down and he relaxed even though he still had to put in more strokes than her while having to work harder than Dian but that was from his ineptness at doing the stroke. What he could not figure out was why she brought that damn satchel along though it did not seem to be slowing her down much if at all.

  The hatch was suddenly there and he slipped through it with Dian close behind him as he kept on going figuring the farther away from the hatch they got the better. Pride welling up in him the farther he swam.

  ---------------------------------------

  Mark continued on for another minute according to Mickey’s time keeping, while she reminded him to fix the mask in his hand and cover his face before surfacing. Having some trouble with the mask he was starting to get desperate after he stopped and having problems cover his mouth and nose with the wadded up mask. Dian slapping her mask over Mark mouth and nose then pushing him up out of the water as he wrung the water out of it enough for him to breathe through it again. Dian taking a good minute to straighten out Marks mask before she sat up out of the water beside him and started breathing hard.

  Mark was still gasping for air as Dian wrapped herself around him. “I knew you could do it though I had my doubts at the beginning. Especially when you kept ignoring me grabbing your foot. I thought I was going to have to tackle you but you finally settled down and toward the end you were starting to swim half way decently.” All Mark could do was nod as he gulped more air down wondering why Dian did not even seem the least bit winded as she sat beside him. All the pride he had had a few moments before for getting as fare past the hatch as he did even though she had to give him her mask before he started panicking, evaporating as she kept talking. Then she stood up and started dragging him floating across the tank toward the next hatch as his muscles seemed to be too tired to move let alone walk. It was obvious that she could have probably gone half way across the tank leaving him long behind if she had not had him slowing her down.

  Finally getting enough air with his strength returning he stood up and started looking around the tank and spotted the Catwalk Chet and his goons had been on ending half way across the tank in jagged ends with catwalk wreckage covering the deck below. “Shit Dian. If we had come on into this tank instead of stopping back there in that damn mausoleum, Chet and his buddies could not have followed us any farther. We could have gone on around to the platform ramp on the other side of the ship.”

  “And they would have been waiting there for us.” Shaking her head. “You did the best you could. You had no way of knowing what was in this next tank and I was getting tired of running.”

  Mark turned around looking over his shoulder wondering if they could slow down now so he could look for an escape hatch in this tank’s deck. But he did not need Mickey’s help to see the cloud of gas billowing through the open hatches spreading around the bulkhead. “Damn Mickey how much gas can a pair of tanks hold?”

  “Those are not tanks Mark. They are generators. They take the solid components and combine them to make the gas. One of those generators is normally used to fumigate pests brought into a cargo hold. Two of them is over kill and will saturating and raising the pressure on this entire deck in about an hour. If the hatch was left open up into the farm decks the poison will reach the ships fresh air system, it could kill everyone in the ship.”

  “Shit Mickey. Is the jammer still working?”

  “Not in here Mark but there is no repeater in this compartment either.”

  Mark and Dian continued to slog towards the other bulkhead hatch. He spotted the escape hatch above but knew they did not have the time to find and open a hatch that was under water for decades. They simply had to put more distance between them and the generators before stopping to try. Maybe they would be lucky and the next tank would have a working repeater and Mickey could call for help.

  Dian kept talking about the bodies and not believing Chet and even his father was so ready to murder them and did murder the two kids. And that he seemed to know all about the bodies in the small compartments but did not now about the satchel and the money. Then out of the blue she said. “Chet confessed to knocking your friend with you off the ramp but I was there. How did he do it Mark or was he lying again?”

  Mickey brought up a Master at Arms report she had down loaded earlier and flashed it to Mark to quickly read.

  “Ahh well the report says that a high powered shot gun was used to fire a military concussion round used for incapacitating troops wearing armor. Whoever used it had not reset the smart fuse to unarmored and the shells had killed him instantly before pushing him off the ramp. A reexamination of many of the sensor readings from previous autopsies has shown that most of them were in fact murders with the shell set to minimum resulting in the victims being thrown a much as 50 feet across the open ramps and over the edges. The ramps were examined and remote bypasses on the safety nets were found on the upper 3 cargo hold ramps.” Mark paused for a few seconds as his hand started to drop from holding his crude mask to his face as he breathed out.

  Dian slapped Mark’s hand and mask back up into place before he could take a breath of poisonous air. Tripped him dunking his head down under the water at the same time before he could breathe in the poison that covered his mask after he took it off. Using both her hands as she held her breath she helped him sit back up with the mask firmly planted over his mouth before dunking herself down below the water to come back up with her mask back on.

  Still sputtering. “What the hell is your problem now?” Mark yelled at her.

  She used one finger poking at his mask. “Don’t take your mask off out of the water.” She said between her fingers.

  Mark swallowed shaking his head as he looked away. “The report says that I am credited with saving Dicks life before he was murdered. What the hell does it matter that I saved his life since he was murdered. That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. A lot of good saving his life did.”

  Dian helped Mark up. “You saved his life so he died not blaming himself for your friend’s death allowing Godstar to do the rest.”

  Mark and Dian splashed on sending waves out around them through the two foot deep water. Dian ducking down every minute or so to wash her eyes and clean her mask. Telling Mark to clean his mask as well if he waited too long.

  They finally stepped through into the next tank and Mickey declared. “Mark you can take off your mask for a while. The air is 99.8 % clean and fit to breathe without a mask. It will take a good 15 minutes before the air is again toxic as the gas slowly moves from compartment to compartment. Mark I am sorry but I have just found a report stating that the water tanks were being drained and the tank deck was closed. I should have known and told you as soon as you headed for the Water tanks. But I seem to be having problems getting time to do everything I need to do. I am having to put things off as I concentrate priorities.”

  “Ok for being the smartest AI and top number one Crime inspector in the universe, you sure keep making mistakes and missing things and getting side tracked to damn easily.”

  “Yes I am sorry Mark. I do not understand why I keep making such mistakes.”

  “Whatever. Maybe you were the moron version of an Inspector.” Mark dropped his hand from his mouth tucking the mask into his shorts as he spotted the overhead hatch next to the outer hull in the same place it had been in the other two tanks and made a beeline to the spot directly below it. All he could see was a slime covered deck through the water not very well at that.

  Dian came splashing up. “Mark put your mask back on now.”

  “Relax. We are safe from the
gas for a while and I hope to be gone before we need them again. That is if I can find that stupid hatch.” Frustrated he said out loud for Dian to hear. “Damn it Mickey! Where is that damn hatch! What is your problem now?”

  “I am just a stupid AI remember. You have to ask if you want to use something like my penetrating radar. After all I am just a stupid dumb AI.”

  “I don’t believe this. I have to ask you?”

  Dian turned around from looking around the tank. “You have to ask me what Mark?”

  Mark looked up from the water he was studying. “Sorry I was talking to Mi… Ahh my glasses. They have a few improvements over my old glasses but I evidentially have to ask now to use them.” Shaking his head. “Turn on the ground penetrating radar.”

  “No. You didn’t ask nicely.”

  Rolling his eyes. “Well little miss AI. Can I please use the aaa ground penetrating radar? Please.”

  “Sarcasm will get you know were. No!”

  A loud thump was heard from direction of the bulkhead they had come through only a minute before. Followed by a loud whooshing sound that continued for several seconds.

  “Run Mark!” Mickey yelled in his ears. “One of the canisters blew up. The shock wave and rapid additional volumes of gas will flood this compartment I seconds. Put you mask back on.”

  Mark grabbed ahold of Dian and started running while he place his hand with the mask over his face again.

  What is wrong Mark? You said we had plenty of time. What was that sound?” Dian kept slowing him down as she turned to look at something happening through the many open hatches in the bulk head.

  “It was one of the poison generator canisters blowing up.” Mark said between breaths as he ran trying to drag Dian along faster.