The savagery of Malk’s attacks left Reeves wanting to admonish the Bashan, but he couldn’t deny the little guy had saved their asses. Well, in Melissa’s case, her ass was about all he’d saved.
With so many different questions and conflicting notions rattling around in his head, all Reeves could do was splutter out, “Malk, what the hell?”
Those large purple eyes looked up at him, confused and concerned.
“Rescue.”
“Rescue?”
“Yes,” the Bashan said, prodding Reeves in the gut. “Rescue.”
Across the lab, Alicia had freed Tilda and Matt. The two women must’ve had some medical training that Reeves never received, because they worked together efficiently to properly sedate Melissa, and then treat Matt’s numerous wounds. Only then did Reeves notice the dark stain of a deep laceration in Ally’s right arm. At the mention of this, she told him to shut up and that she’d be fine.
What was her problem? Sure, Malk had actually saved them, but Reeves had tried. Didn’t that count for anything?
With the smoke clearing, he could plainly see evidence of three separate explosions. Reeves inspected one of the holes blasted through the walls, careful to avoid the scattered remains of Vendra.
“You used some pretty hefty stuff here, Malk.”
The Bashan nodded, a proud smile on his face.
“I’m not going to ask how you knew you wouldn’t blow any of us up,” Reeves said, eliciting nothing more than a shrug from his engine technician.
The two walked back to the makeshift triage camp and saw Melissa now awake and bright as a button. Reeves wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but he’d read it in an old book and thought he got the gist of it.
“You’re looking better,” Reeves said.
“I feel great,” she responded cheerily. “Except for losing my legs.”
The incongruity of the overwhelming happiness at the sad loss indicated just how doped up the woman was. It was probably best to play along.
“It could be worse. If you lost much more, you’d be shorter than Malk.”
Alicia glared at him, but Melissa laughed.
“My new robotic legs will be much sexier than my old engineer legs,” she shouted, giddy at the thought. “I should’ve done this years ago. Maybe then I’d have landed a man by now.”
While the JE laughed herself back to a quiet sleep, the rest of the room fell silent. Apparently truth drugs weren’t the only way to get people to express awkward, personal insecurities that should’ve stayed inside. With the injured now mostly taken care of, Reeves’s mind wandered around the lab.
Something was missing. His brain chugged along, trying to perceive whatever it was that his eyes were seeing, or not seeing. He probably had a concussion, but at least he wasn’t going to turn into a cyborg like Melissa. Sure, she seemed happy about it now, but the last Reeves had heard, the maintenance on those things was a pain in the ass, maybe literally in her case.
A hand grabbed his arm and spun him around. When he saw it was Ally, he tried not to wince at the piercing pain shooting through his arm under her white-knuckled grip.
“You left me,” she whispered harshly. Reeves could barely hear her over the exhaust fans, which still churned despite the lack of smoke. Of course, she then said the next part louder, right as the fans kicked off. “You’re such a coward. You saw us in here, and you just left us.”
Incredulous, Reeves broke free of her grasp and stepped back. So Ally had noticed him when he’d spied on Banion earlier. She’d done a good job acting like she hadn’t, but now she was acting like a crazy person. Tilda stared at them now, looking unsure whether or not to intervene. Malk sat on the remains of a table and swung his legs back and forth, smiling, probably entertained by Reeves’s discomfort.
“I came back! We needed a plan first, Ally—”
“You could’ve ended this before that little bastard almost killed us,” she said, now not caring that everyone could hear her.
Reeves didn’t know if Malk had understood who “the little bastard” was, but the Bashan leapt from his perch and started searching around in the piles of rubble scattered around the destroyed lab.
“Malk saved us—”
“Melissa lost her legs.”
“She’s still alive, right? Seems like that meets the criteria of ‘saved,’ Ally,” he snapped, talking a bit more heatedly than he knew he should.
“Don’t call me that,” Alicia said quietly.
What was this all about? Was it what it sounded like? He struggled to stay calm.
“You’re breaking up with me over this?”
Now she was staring at the floor, downcast eyes averting Reeves’s. All he wanted to do was scream at her, tell her that she was being insane, but that wouldn’t help. Maybe she was in shock? Maybe something had happened to her in here while Reeves and Melissa were distracted by Fabregas and Harrington?
Damn, Harrington…
Before she could answer his question, Malk tugged at Reeves’s arm, sending shockwaves up through his shoulder and neck. The pain switched his emotions off, dedicating full resources to wanting to smack the Bashan across the lab.
“Zhi.”
After the blinking white lights faded from his vision, Reeves looked at Malk. Seeing an opportunity to escape, Alicia returned to help Tilda.
“What about Zhi, Malk?” Reeves asked.
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
Sure enough, Reeves did a quick search and couldn’t find a trace of the evil technician. Somehow the murderous bastard had escaped. In the main doorway of the lab, Reeves had seen blood splatter that he’d assumed came from Arkady’s mashed brains, but on closer inspection, the red droplets formed a trail that led down the hallway.
Reeves had a pretty good idea where the guy was heading.
Chapter 7
Ally’s, no, Alicia’s words cut a shallow grave through Reeves’s insides. Nausea had never followed a conversation before. His gut hadn’t felt this upset since the last time Malk convinced him to try some Bashan cuisine.
Sure, he’d known that he liked her a lot, but had he ever loved her? He wasn’t certain. In retrospect, she definitely hadn’t loved him. Her behavior had always been a little cold now that he had a clear mind to think about it. Had she only slept with him because there was no better option on the ship?
The standards must’ve been even lower than he’d imagined. Speaking of low standards, Malk’s curt tone disrupted Reeves’s distracting inner monologue.
“Shuttle Bay.”
“Yes. Thanks, Malk, I can read signs, too,” Reeves replied, pointing at the door marked Shuttle Bay. Bashans were so damn observant with those comically humungous eyes of theirs.
With Alicia and Tilda, also armed now, keeping an eye on Melissa and Matt in the lab, Reeves and Malk had bowed out to pursue Reeves’s hunch that Zhi would make for the science shuttle in an impromptu escape attempt. He stared at the door before him. What was the worst that could happen when the shuttle bay door opened? Zhi could be lying prone, pointing a thermonuclear grenade launcher at him. Taking a hit in the crotch from one of those would be pretty bad.
In the slowly pulsing red emergency lights, Reeves made as if he was checking his gun again. Unbeknownst to Malk, hopefully, Reeves had no idea what he was doing. As far as he was aware, he just needed to point the weapon at Zhi and blast a hole through the psycho’s face. If it was any more complicated than that, they were both in trouble.
Right as Reeves opened the door, the emergency lights turned off and normal illumination reasserted command of lighting duties. Apparently Captain Sturm felt like disaster had been averted by Malk’s overly violent actions. Reeves still ducked and ran to the nearest cover, not trusting the danger to be over with Zhi on the loose.
Someone clattered into the back of Reeves as he peeked over the top of the shipping crate he hid behind. His gun dropped to the floor. Panicked, he shrugged off
his assailant and dived for the weapon. One look back at his attacker eased his fears. Heart still racing at a million miles a second, Reeves swore under his breath and indicated for Malk to find his own damn hiding spot. The engine tech furrowed his hairless eyebrows and scooted off gingerly to a different crate. Reeves shook his head at the ridiculous situation. If Zhi was watching them from somewhere in the hangar, he probably liked his chances of escape right now.
Displaying far more bravery, or stupidity, than Reeves thought he had in him, he poked his head over the crate and surveyed the shuttle bay. Taking up all of the landing space, the science shuttle brought in by Banion’s team stood stoically, defying all intruders who didn’t have the common pass-code that every Schumacher shuttle utilized. Another complaint for a different day.
Seeing no sign of Zhi, or any space monkeys, Reeves slid from cover and slowly approached the shuttle. He pointed his gun out in front and shakily swept the area with it. Protagonists in movies all did this, so it had to be at least halfway correct. After about ten paces, Reeves realized that he was completely out in the open, vulnerable to any attacks. Other than the intense thumping of his heart, no other sounds could be heard in the hangar. Past the point of no return, with the shuttle looming before him, Reeves kept his feet moving one in front of the other. If he stopped now, he’d collapse in a trembling, weeping mess. Not a good way to die, but definitely easier than walking through a scary shuttle bay, waiting for the blast that would end his life. Looking to his left, he saw that the lights around the airlock to the external dock were dimmed.
So the Zhusaana had skipped town as soon as the going got tough? And they were supposed to be the fight-to-the-death types, what with their weird reversed thumb claw thingy poking out of their hands. Reeves didn’t think it was racist to consider that particular vestigial appendage stupid. He was pretty sure they only used the damn thing in those ceremonial wrestling matches the Zhusaana loved so damn much.
Reeves reached the shuttle, his heart pounding up in his throat, but saw no sign of Zhi. The door to the shuttle opened easily enough. The sudden hissing of the door sliding open had Reeves’s heart skipping a few beats, but the cabin inside was empty. A glance back into the shuttle bay showed Malk following, looking fairly unconcerned by events. That changed when all the lights dimmed in the shuttle bay, only to be replaced by solid red emergency lights and a blaring siren. Malk’s eyes opened even wider than their normally freakish size. Of all the people onboard, the Bashan, the engine’s caretaker, knew the meaning of this emergency state more than anyone.
Zhi had engaged the scuttling sequence.
***
The main hallway of Engineering Deck 3 beckoned in solid crimson silence as Reeves and Malk exited the elevator. Finally the damn sirens had stopped. Yes, they got it; the ship was getting ready to explode. They didn’t need a constant reminder. After a few steps into the corridor, Reeves’s link vibrated frantically. He tapped it and Captain Sturm’s face appeared above his wrist, looking rather haggard.
“They tried to kill me, Reeves,” she exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly.
Reeves paused in the hallway, keeping an eye ahead for any sign of Zhi. He really didn’t have time to deal with a panicky captain right now.
“Who did?”
“The bloody pilot. He shot the comms officer and the navigator before I pulled my weapon and killed him.”
“Why didn’t he shoot you first?”
She glared at him. “Would you prefer that I was among the corpses up here?”
Sometimes.
“Forget it,” Reeves said. “We’ve got bigger problems. Zhi is trying to force the engine antimatter mixture into cataclysmic proportions.”
“I’m aware, Engineer,” she said. “Stop him.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He gave a very imperfect salute and then terminated the communication.
He looked at Malk, who was sweating profusely and whose eyes hadn’t returned to normal size yet. The guy was freaking out at the thought of his baby, the engines, dying at such a young age. His culture didn’t proffer much leniency to failed gena, their name for the technician left to care for the engines they sold to other races.
Reeves reached the door to the engineering lab first, paused for only a moment, and before his naïve confidence failed him, he quickly ducked inside. His gun came up at the sight of Zhi exiting the engine room straight ahead. Without giving Reeves’s slow reactions a chance to fire, Zhi fled back into the engine room and the door slid shut.
A few quick taps on his link produced nothing positive. Reeves groaned as each of his attempts to interface with the antimatter reactor controls resulted in failure upon failure. So Zhi had planned ahead enough to physically disconnect the remote access.
On the bright side, at least they knew where Zhi was. The hunt down in the shuttle bay had ruined Reeves’s nerves, leaving his muscles feeling both cramped and twitchy. Unfortunately not twitchy enough to pull the trigger when he’d seen Zhi a moment ago, but he reckoned he’d get another shot at it.
A simple plan formulated, calming him with its calculated logic. He would shoot the bastard in his traitorous face, and then he would manually cancel the self-destruct sequence.
Easy.
He moved to the engine room door, took three deep breaths, nodded to Malk for no reason other than it felt right, then opened the door. The floor in front of his feet exploded in burning white light. He leapt back into the engineering lab, falling on his backside. The melting spot on the floor disappeared from view as the door slid closed once more. A quick check showed all his limbs still attached, but his heart once again pulsed like a collapsing star.
“Plasma,” Malk stated.
Reeves nodded. “Yup, he tampered with my damn plasma saw. He turned my favorite tool against me.” He activated his link. “Now I’m pissed.”
He opened Melissa’s hacking tools and cycled through the software selection to the door controls. Within twenty seconds he had all the engine room’s access hatches securely locked and completely immune to any interference from Zhi, even if he had similar illegal tools at his disposal. Reeves smirked at the thought of the murderer banging on each door, furious at his confinement.
Did that make him a bad man? He’d just grinned at the thought of condemning a man to death. Well, the guy had already brutally killed at least one man, threatened to publicly rape Melissa, and now was trying to kill everyone onboard. It didn’t really seem so bad when put that way. With a clear conscience, Reeves led Malk out into the hall of ED3 and called Sturm back.
“Get down to the shuttle, Captain,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you have to stop the sequence,” she insisted, a frantic nature taking over her typically self-assured demeanor.
“We can’t. Zhi’s shut us out completely. I’ll see you at the shuttle, boss. Hurry.”
Reeves and Malk reached the elevators, but before selecting a floor, Reeves tried to contact Alicia’s link. Did the thought cross his mind to let the bitch blow up with the Scythe? Only until he remembered he wasn’t like Arkady, wasn’t like Zhi. Those two deserved what they got. Just because he’d fallen out of Alicia’s good graces, that didn’t condemn her to death, no matter how much her words had hurt him.
But as Reeves stared at the link, willing the connection to go through, Alicia Moore didn’t answer.
Chapter 8
Science Deck 2 was quiet. Way too quiet. Mostly confident that all the bad guys were now contained or dead, Reeves cruised down the hallway and entered the lab. He stopped in surprise.
It wasn’t the pool of drying blood that a battered ASD was trying to scrape off the floor. It wasn’t the eerie emergency lights bathing everything in a sinister shade of red. It wasn’t even the mutilated bodies of Arkady and Banion that shocked him.
Matt London was still there. Alicia and Tilda were not.
Reeves produced his gun uneasily. Everything else in the lab looked normal. Well, as normal as a
lab that had recently suffered multiple bomb detonations. No sounds other than the contented beeps of the ASD broke the odd silence. This lab usually bustled with experiments failing and scientists complaining that the engineers weren’t doing their job properly. Now it was just a morgue.
Stepping as quietly as possible, Reeves made a quick round of the lab and the hallway outside, looking for any indication of why Tilda would abandon her husband. He imagined something pretty bad had happened. What kind of threat would force a loving wife to ditch her incapacitated spouse?
Now crouched next to Matt, Reeves placed a hand on the man’s blood-encrusted throat. The faintest and slowest of heartbeats met his fingertips. And then there was nothing.
Suddenly frantic, Reeves jabbed his fingers harder against the man’s neck, searching for signs of life. Nothing.
There was no time to lose.
The med kit lay on the ground nearby. The defibrillator felt light in Reeves’s hands as he removed it from the box. He placed the two electrodes on Matt’s chest. The device whirred for a second and then beeped.
Nothing happened.
Reeves stared at the defibrillator, wondering if he’d hooked it up wrong. How many minutes did he have until Matt suffered brain damage from oxygen deprivation? How many minutes did he have until the whole ship blew up? He shook the little device violently, swearing at it repeatedly. At one point he even screamed in a primal rage, squeezing the life out of the small plastic box with all the strength his hands could muster.
Then he read the blinking display.
Execute?
That seemed like a fairly poor choice of words for a lifesaving device, but that didn’t stop Reeves from punching the YES section of the screen. The jolt only startled Reeves, but it flopped Matt’s limp body like a fish out of water. After another series of whirs and beeps, Reeves hit the execute button again, shocking his friend mercifully.
Engineer: A Sigma Sector Story Page 7