by CK Burch
The captain stopped, locked his rifle to his back, and leaned against one of the supply cabinets. He felt completely and totally worn. The last time he'd gotten sleep had been hours ago, and that hadn't been very much, and the person who'd insisted that he get that sleep might very well be dead. And the crew that he was supposed to be captaining was off amidship, wandering for direction, and here he was making deals with psychotics just to ensure the protection of the woman he loved. Markov sighed and shook his head. ″What the hell am I doing?″ he said to the room.
There was movement at his feet. Then: ″Gordon?″
He jumped back, looked down, started to go for the rifle, but there she was: Doctor Rene Fleur slowly peeked her head out from one of the floor cabinets, a plasma scalpel in her hand, her eyes shaky and frightened. As soon as she looked up she closed her eyes and silently began to cry.
″Rene,″ he whispered. Markov took his helmet off, leaned down and kissed her. God, she felt good. The relief of just seeing her alive made his knees weak, but there was no time to stand around. He helped her crawl out of the cramped space and she floated before him. ″How did you – ?″
″I heard the quarantine, came out to investigate. There was a scuffle down the hall afterwards, and I hid in here. Then – ″ Fleur caught sight of the blood. ″Gordon, oh my god what did you – ″
″It's not mine,″ he said. ″It's the nurse's. Kerrick – ″
″Oh my god.″ If the gravity had been on, she might have collapsed, but instead she wrapped her arms around Markov's neck and held close. ″Oh my god, and I was trapped in here with that woman. Oh god, Gordon, I don't know how long I was in here. Oh god!″
″Easy,″ he whispered. He kissed her temple. ″Easy. You're safe now.″
″And you made a deal with her!″
″Listen to me.″ He pulled Fleur away and looked deep into her eyes. Christ, he felt the pull towards her, but he needed to focus. ″I did it so that we could move more efficiently, so we could focus on getting the hell off the Icarus without having to worry about a psychopath on board trying to get at us. She wants to believe in her mind that she can captain the ship when we're gone, fine. She doesn't want to come with us, fine. That means that we just have to move quick and get the power back on and a shuttle running. Right?″
″Right.″ She didn't seem so sure. ″It sounds a little too easy.″
″Stuff like this always does.″ He frowned. ″God, you've been in here since before the EMP hit.″
″I had to. She was here.″ Fleur held up the plasma scalpel helplessly, its tiny green cutting beam a flickering constant. She turned it off. ″At least I had something to defend myself with. Once the gravity went out, I at least didn't have to worry about keeping myself curled up. I could float.″ She smiled weakly. ″I'm sorry, Gordon. I don't feel good. I feel helpless. I feel...I feel very weak right now.″
″Physically?″
″Mentally. Emotionally.″ She pulled away and floated before him. Her hair was down, curling outward like a Medusa. She was looking down and away, searching through her mind for answers to possibilities. ″The radiation effects. You mentioned them before, and now I – I think it's beginning to affect me. I think I'm feeling fear. Helplessness. Like I have no control, no way to help. I want to help, but I don't think I can. I feel like giving up.″ Now she looked up and laughed at herself. ″I feel like I'm giving myself a session. Is it a bad sign if the psychologist starts analyzing herself?″
He reached out and gently touched her cheek with his gloved hand. ″I think it's a good sign that you're still doing okay.″ What made him feel better was her analysis. If she was truly feeling helpless and out of control, then her feelings for him weren't exaggerated. Better still was her own clinical examination of herself: her mind was still working against the radiation, possibly winning. That was a good sign for the rest of them and that made him feel somewhat better. It was his own feelings, then, that were suspect, and he'd longed for her heart to be near his own a very long time now. So then, maybe something else was affecting him. Fear of loss? Of losing her? How long had it been since he'd realized that he'd loved her, and only just now had come to accept that? In the glow of the fieldlights of his helmet, which was floating in the zero g next to him, Rene Fleur looked like a marble statue, a goddess gleaming. Maybe his feelings were being exaggerated. Frankly, at the moment, he couldn't care less how heightened they were. What mattered was getting the core back online and getting the hell off the ship. That was all. ″Listen, we need to get you into a HES. You've used one before, right?″
″Only in training. It's been awhile.″
″Don't worry about that. You come with me, there's an alcove just back down the hall that Collins got up and running. There should be another shell in there that you can use.″ He replaced his helmet and touched his datapad. ″Commander Collins.″
″Sir.″ Her voice came back, crisp and clear.
″I have a survivor with me. Where are you and Straub?″
″Almost to engineering, Captain. What's your situation? Did you find anything useful?″
Markov turned back to the supply bay. He considered taking something with him, but he wasn't sure what they might need after all. Fleur had the plasma scalpel. That would have to be good enough for now. ″No. Ran into Kerrick, though. If you see her just give her a wide berth and do not shoot, repeat, do not open fire.″
″Sir?″
″Just leave her be unless she makes herself to be threatening, Commander. And she can be. If she presents herself as a threat, act accordingly, but we are on a strict timeframe here. So do what you need to do best, but stay out of her way. Our primary goal is getting the core up and our people out of here as quickly as possible. Clear?″
″Clear, sir. If that's what we need to do.″
″It is. Any sign of our alien friends?″
″None so far. If they've gotten out of the engine bay, there's no evidence in the lift shaft.″
″Right. Call me when you're closer to the core. Markov, out.″
″Aliens?″ Fleur asked.
″Long story. I'll tell you about it on our way to the shuttle bay.″ He took her gently by the arm. ″Right now let's get you into a suit and get moving. God knows how much time we actually have.″
***
CHAPTER XIV.
Udeh reached the top of the lift shaft and took a moment to catch his breath. He had to believe that he was in command, in control of himself. It's not like he'd been running hard or pushing himself beyond his limits – he'd experienced far worse attacks, utilized far more endurance – but he was sweating bullets and blood and it felt like his chest was about to cave in on itself at any moment. His jaw hurt from clenching. He'd nearly broken a tooth from grinding his molars together. He wanted desperately, desperately to take off this goddamn helmet and this goddamn suit and not feel encased in a tin can, but if he did he'd be fucked, that was the reality of it. He needed to be calm, needed to be cool, needed to keep telling himself that this wasn't a ″real″ attack but something that was exacerbated by an outside influence. He hadn't had an attack in years, had done multiple spacewalks in a HES since then, and hadn't fucking needed any medication for any of it. Okwudili Udeh was the captain of the goddamn Prometheus, had done far worse under much worse, and this should be a cakewalk.
But it wasn't.
All the way up the shaft he'd had to shake himself multiple times. His reality was distorted to a degree that he'd never experienced before: the whole shaft pulsed and contracted, expanded and breathed outward, a long air passage for a whale. That's how he thought of it, a whale. He was Jonah. The old Bible story came back to his mind, something he hadn't thought of in decades since he'd left the Church in a protest against his mother. Jonah, swallowed by the whale until he repented and God commanded the whale to spit him back out. Udeh chuckled to himself. That's what this whole thing was in his mind, wasn't it? Piloting the Captain's Boat into the shuttle bay had felt like bein
g swallowed. Now he felt like he was inside a giant beast, a being that wouldn't let him out. How fucked up was that? There was something to all this radiation business, something that Doctor Straub hadn't fully explained before, but there was no time for it now. There was only time enough to keep moving and to ignore what it looked like out there. To remember what it actually looked like. All of which was easier sounding than it really was.
Udeh kept his breathing as even and regular as possible. Trying to get his body to work fluidly was a chore. It felt like he was fighting to swim through molasses, his muscles sore and raw and weary after what felt like a hard, pushing exercise. He kept reminding himself of the medbed, being strapped down in it, and how that had felt. Nothing like that, not like that at all, he thought. Piece of cake. Nothing to it.
The lift door in front of him opened directly to the bridge. He took his fist and slammed down on it multiple times, trying to create as much noise as possible to get the crew to understand he was there. No response. He tried again, gently knocking against it with his knuckles. Still no response. He'd hoped for them to knock back, maybe shout out or something, try and cut through the heavy metal of the door, but no. This was bad. Udeh locked his boots against the wall and opened up the manual primer.
Straub and Collins had given him the sitrep before parting from medical. It was a helluva story, one that was sure to attract a lot of attention from the wrong people if anyone believed it. Udeh had spent too much time dealing with USDSE bureaucracy in the manners of xenoarchaeological finds, and while Captain Markov had followed regulations and orders regarding the capture of the artifact and keeping of it, the time for following those orders was well and long past. They had to destroy it. If Straub's analysis was right, there was a big fucking nasty on the other side of the void between here and there, wherever that was. Crawling octopus aliens. Star-eaters. Christ. Udeh wanted to get back to Prometheus and haul ass into sublight speed as far and as fast away from Icarus as possible. Because what they had to do was fire up the core and overload it. They needed to blow up the ship. Fuck the damages and losses incurred. Udeh knew more than a couple of religious nuts in the upper brass who might be more than a little bit interested in this artifact and its possible meanings. Then again, he also knew hard-edged atheist scientist heads who would love to crack this thing open just to see how it ticked. The artifact was a time bomb waiting to go off.
Udeh began working the manual pump. As soon as the bridge doors opened a crack, a belch of liquid flame curled outward from between them and slapped against the opposite side of the shaft. Udeh recoiled, went for his pulse rifle, but stopped himself as the bright flame dissipated and vanished, spent from a burst of oxygen. He steeled himself, heart racing and anxiety threatening, and he peered into the bridge and realized that it wasn't a continuous flame; it had been a backdraft. The whole of the bridge was blackened and charred from fire. Jesus, he thought, and went back to working the primer until the doors were open enough for him to slip inside.
The bodies of the bridge crew were still steaming as they hovered about the control systems. Most of the bridge was a deep shade of burnt ash, while some of the systems still retained a moderate amount of their original color. On the far side of the bridge, the communications console was completely obliterated: a deep welt in the wall confirmed that it had been the source of the fire. Must have exploded, maybe an electrical malfunction during the EMP wave, then the fire had simply bounced about, burning everything it touched in the zero gravity, burning away until it had burnt out all the oxygen. That burp through the doors must have been the last bit, gasping for air. Udeh shook his head. He knew most of these people from his time on the ship years ago, but he couldn't tell who was who. He couldn't tell male from female. It was terrifying. He felt like he was in the mouth of a giant dragon
(no, goddammit, don't think like that, don't think)
that had scooped up its dinner and kept its mouth shut while exhaling flame. Above him, the ceiling looked pointed and curved in places, like teeth, big dragons teeth, and the red of the ceiling began to resemble the red of a palate, and no, no no no no, he was not going to freak out. He was hallucinating. It was the radiation. That was it, that was all, it was the radiation. It was affecting his mind. Keep it together, Okwu. He breathed slowly, in and out, and the sound of his breathing inside the helmet only worsened the forming idea of a beast that had eaten, now breathing calmly in its sleep. He crouched on the floor, his feet still locked down, and he kept breathing until the waves passed.
If I keep doing this, I'm going to be useless to everyone soon. The scientists had been in the cargo bay and had died there, all of engineering was lost, maybe even MacConnel, and now the bridge crew was dead too. This was a ghost ship. The only people still left were the ones in their suits, and if he failed or faltered, it would be that much more weight that the rest would have to carry without him. He took a deep, forced breath and stood, and surveyed the damages to the bridge control.
He opened up his comm. ″Collins?″
″Here, sir.″
″I'm on the bridge. There was an explosion up here of some kind, everyone is dead. Right now I'm going over the remaining consoles to see what functions are left up here, but the bridge looks like it's a dead end.″
″Jesus.″ There was noise in the background. ″No, you step back, I'll go in first. Sorry sir, we're at engineering now. Straub is getting antsy.″
″I think we all are. Give him a little slack.″ Udeh thought of the sleeping dragon and shivered. ″I'm going to stay up here until the core comes on. Keep me posted.″ Collins clicked off the comm, and Udeh switched over to Markov's frequency. He thought of the irony, how earlier Markov had come to him and said that the Prometheus was nowhere in sensor range, gone for all intents and purposes. Now it was Udeh's turn to relay that the Icarus had been lost. He did not relish it. ″Markov? Udeh. I'm on the bridge...″
***
Straub didn't feel like he was getting antsy. He felt like he'd been so for a while now. Between Sarah's whispering and Collins's forced sterility, he was wondering if he was the only one emoting over the situation outside of Captain Udeh. Of course, that couldn't be true, everyone was emoting somehow, just showing it differently. Sometimes he wished he'd gone into psychology, fuck space, there were untold depths of the human mind that still needed mapping no matter how much Jung or Freud a person read up on. Above him, Sarah whispered again. Her voice was no longer following him; it was centrally located. Coming from a particular place on the ship. That was almost more frightening than the idea that she was following him like a phantom, a banshee. Christ, he was losing it. He had to keep it together. Focus and logic worked well for him when he concentrated on going over his dreams of fantasy, but right now all he could think of was the possible places Sarah's voice could be coming from.
″Straub,″ Collins said. ″You ready?″
″Yeah.″ He leaned into the manual primer and worked his burning shoulder muscles into opening the doors. Once they were open enough to walk into, he removed the handgun from his hip.
Collins went first, one slow magnetic step at a time, her rifle trained forward, following the illumination of her fieldlights. It was dark, somehow darker than the rest of the ship in there. Engineering was wide, more open than the rest of the decks on the ship, so the fieldlights merely acted as highlights. It was easier to light things up when they were more enclosed, but here, with platforms and catwalks above, and the spacious area for workbenches and holo stations, they were barely able to cut through the darkness surrounding.
What was worse was that there were no bodies.
″Where is everyone?″ Straub asked. Following Collins, he looked left and right, trying to find anything resembling a human being floating around, even a limb or two, but there was nothing yet. Markov had said Mac's last report had been of a bloodbath; where the fuck was it?
″I'm okay with no one being here,″ Collins said. ″The more bodies we find, the more d
epressing it's going to get. Let's get to the core and get this fucker started back up again. Then we work on getting off of this ship.″
They moved deeper into the darkness. It was still hot down here; Straub's external temperature read that it was twelve degrees warmer than the rest of the ship, counting down slowly. The heat hadn't escaped very quickly at all.
Up ahead, there was a sound. It was a thumping noise, like footsteps. Then a few more. Then silence.
They froze. Collins moved her lights around in the direction that the noise had come from, but saw nothing.
″You heard that, too?″ Straub asked.
″Uh huh.″ Collins was detached and focused, line of sight trained forward. ″Maybe we ought to be hoping for dead bodies after all.″
″What?″
″Remember what the captain said about in the cargo bay, how one of those things clamped on and started driving?″
Straub got the picture. ″Fuck,″ he whispered. Now in his peripheral vision he imagined shadows moving around and about, flitting and fluttering, bodies of men and women being controlled by crawlers over their faces. Like the one that had nearly gotten to him on the dead star. ″Oh, fuck.″ He felt himself getting sick. He needed to stop doing that.
″Don't think about it too much. If we see anything that looks like it's got more than two arms and two legs, we shoot it and we move on. If they're alive under there, they're not human anymore.″
They pressed forward. The core room was separated from the main engineering bay by a junction. Normally the junction between areas would scrub them free of static and other ambient energies built up on their bodies and then clean them again before exiting back into engineering. Straub worked the manual primer again, but this time Collins kept her gun trained behind them, watching. There were more sounds in the darkness, thump-thump noises, not like footsteps, but more like limbs slapping against metal, moving, then waiting, and moving some more. Straub was sweating enough for it to roll down his neck.