Stranded (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 2)

by J. J. Green

  She followed Harrington and Lingiari as they went to retrieve four defense units from storage. At first she thought they wanted the units to help open the door. She didn’t think they would be necessary, but she didn’t have the confidence to tell Harrington that.

  Where they went next, however, made her realize why they needed the units. In an emptied-out cabin was a stack of long, plastic, body-shaped sacks. It was impossible not to understand what was inside. It was the dead bodies of the officers who had been infected by aliens. Somewhere in that pile were men and women she’d worked with, eaten with, joked with.

  “What’re you going to do with them?” Toirien asked as the defense units shouldered two bodies each.

  “We have to put them out through the hatch,” Harrington replied.

  “You’re going to just throw them off the ship?” Toirien blurted.

  The security officer’s expression was stony. “We don’t have a choice. As far as we know, the aliens that infested them are still inside. They could be alive, despite their hosts dying. Even if we had the facilities and energy for storing them, they could infect more crew members. We have to get rid of the bodies, and we don’t have any other way of disposing of them. No furnaces or disintegration units on the ship are big enough.”

  “So you’re going to dump them outside, without a ceremony, with no one saying a word over them?”

  Lingiari said, “She’s right, Harrington. Someone should say something.”

  “I can’t risk anyone getting close to them. It’s risky enough for us to do this. The crew can say something later if they want. I don’t want anyone hanging around that hatch.”

  It took the defense units three trips to carry all the bodies to the access hatch. When they’d brought the last one, Harrington asked the defense units to scan the exterior for life forms. They found nothing, so Toirien started work on the final stage of opening the hatch. She gave Harrington and Lingiari crowbars, and together they worked at the hatch, gradually loosening it until it swung to one side, hitting the wall with a resounding bang. After days of emergency lighting, the daylight that flooded in was painfully bright, and it was some time before, blinking in the bitterly cold air, Toirien could focus on the terrain outside.

  Harrington had commanded the defense units to be ready with their weapons, but nothing was waiting to attack or force its way aboard. The view of the barren scrubland looked depressingly similar to Toirien’s native Ireland. The only relief in the monotonous landscape was a building of dark gray, hexagonal blocks on the horizon.

  Lifting and dropping the bodies like sacks of rice, the defense units did their job. The distance from the hatch to the planet surface was so great, there was no sound of them hitting the ground. Toirien didn’t know which of the sacks contained the chief, second and third engineer, and she didn’t want to know.

  When all the bodies had been disposed of, a unit climbed down the side of the ship. After it had reached the bottom, the bright glow of its flamethrower could be seen as it gave the dead officers an informal cremation. No one spoke. Toirien replaced the hatch’s fixings after the unit returned, and the security officer and pilot left.

  That night, someone among the crew conducted a quickly put-together ceremony in the canteen to commemorate the lives of those who had died. Toirien didn’t remember too clearly who it was that spoke. By the time the ceremony had started, she was already drunk.

  Chapter Three

  Pausing on the ladder down to the maintenance tunnels of the Galathea’s engine, Toirien adjusted her equipment bag over her shoulder. She was going to test the functioning of each section of both engines. The ship’s computer was giving confusing readings, so she had to test the sections individually. The process would take her at least her entire shift.

  Not that the crew worked in shifts any more. Everyone had been allotted tasks, and they were expected to do them whenever they weren’t sleeping or eating. They had to assist with health care, repair, and distributing supplies. It had given them all something to do, but it didn’t prevent discussion on how long they would be there, what was going to happen to them, and if they could expect a rescue ship. No one was answering their questions, and the uncertainty bothered a lot of people. It worried Toirien. She knew of crew members who would take advantage of the general feeling of dissatisfaction and despair.

  Still, she didn’t know what she could do about any of it. She continued down the ladder, the rhythm of her hands and feet matching the pounding in her head from the previous night’s binge. Starting at the lowest level, she would work her way up, checking each section methodically for damage. She recalled the violent juddering of the crash. When she thought of what she might find down there, she was overcome with dread. She realized it was that dread and fear that had put her off going into the engines all that time. If they were trashed, and if no rescue was coming from Earth...she swallowed.

  Toirien looked up to see how far she’d come. Looking down made her dizzy. The engine access point was a small square high above, brighter than the surrounding lights. She must be nearly at the bottom. As she risked a peek downward, she drew in a breath. The engine floor was directly below, and it was severely warped. The Galathea might no longer be airtight, let alone contain working engines. With RaptorXs running, they might have limped to a planet capable of supporting human life, if one were close by. But from the look of the damage, it would be a miracle if anything was working. The engines would need extensive repair and replacement parts. Parts they didn’t have.

  After a long moment surveying the wrecked floor, Toirien climbed down the final meters of ladder. She stepped into a service tunnel and went to the end, where an instrument panel was embedded in the wall. She had many hours of testing ahead.

  ***

  A long while later, halfway through her engine check, Toirien took a rest. The testing wasn’t going well. Not every panel was giving results. The crash-landing had damaged them, and because they weren’t working, she had no way of telling if that section was functioning as it should, except for opening it up and taking a look. Only Toirien didn’t know what she was looking for. She hadn’t got that far in her training.

  She sat on the metal mesh floor and took her lunch out of her bag. She needed a drink, but she’d mustered the self-control to not pack any alcohol. She needed to keep her wits about her if she was going to complete a report for Harrington. It was going to be a short one: without help from Polestar or someone else, they were screwed. She only had to figure out the details of how and why and to what extent they were screwed.

  In Toirien’s lunch pack, along with her food and water, was something she probably shouldn’t have brought with her. She pulled out her personal interface, which contained all the vids, mails, images, and other digitized content dear to her. In the silence and solitude of the tunnel, and after her hours of disappointing work, she couldn’t help but open the device, knowing full well that it was a bad idea.

  Two faces looked up at her from the screensaver she’d had for years. The sight of the faces tore at the deeply scarred wound she bore inside. They were the faces of two little girls hugging, their curly ginger heads pressed tightly together. They were laughing excitedly. Toirien’s thumb swiped them away, only to reveal a more deadly weapon—a list of mails from the girls, which she’d received in the early years when they’d been learning to write, and their memories of her were fresh in their minds.

  Mammy, we dont like it here. we mis you. Wen are you comming back? We want to com home. Grace is sad. Pleez com and tak us with you.

  I luv you

  Joan

  Toirien was helpless under the spell of the simple messages. She read each mail, though she’d read them so many times they were etched on her mind. When she’d finished the mails, she watched the few vids she’d made of the girls when they were babies. In some of the vids the camera shook, as if she’d been under the influence of something as she made them. It had taken her a long time to admit it to herself,
but she probably had.

  She drank in each feature of her daughters’ faces. They both closely resembled her. Their ginger hair and brown eyes were the same, and they would probably develop her boxy figure. Some features differed—the looks they’d inherited from their fathers, whoever they might be. Toirien knew it was one of two men who had fathered Joan, but for Grace she had no idea. That period in her life was hazy to her now.

  Tears dropped onto the screen, distorting the small, moving images of Grace and Joan playing at a beach somewhere. She wanted to reach through the screen and touch them, grab them, pull them to her, and hold them close, smell their hair, and feel their soft skin.

  The device slipped from Toirien’s fingers and onto the gridwork floor. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes and smeared her tears over her face. It was her own fault. She’d done it to herself, and to them. She had no one else to blame. The authorities had been right to take Joan and Grace away. Naturally conceived and born to a drug-addicted mother, their future would have been grim if they’d stayed with her. The agency had promised she could have her children back if she cleaned herself up. If she could stay sober and pass all the tests, they could be a family again.

  But it had been so hard. Without her children near her, and suffering the shame of being an unfit mother, and the worse criticism she heaped on herself, she’d found everything harder to resist, not easier. She’d needed to escape then more than ever.

  Toirien wondered what Grace and Joan looked like now. Did they even remember her? She rose to her feet, grabbed her bag of equipment from the floor, and threw it against the wall. The tools and instruments spilled out, and the tunnel echoed with their clatter.

  Her job, this training, had been the first steady work she’d had in years. It was supposed to have been the start of a new future. A future where she would stay off the booze and drugs, where she would earn enough to rent a small home and prove that she was reliable and fit to be a parent. It was how she would finally get her kids back. But the ship had crashed, and it looked like even if she were as clean as a whistle and the perfect citizen, she would never see her daughters again. They would never know how hard she’d tried, or how sorry she was for what she’d done, or how much she loved them.

  Chapter Four

  Opening the doors to the dead officers’ cabins was easy. Karrev couldn’t understand why more of the crew weren’t doing the same and taking whatever was up for grabs. He’d discovered plenty: jewelry, rare perfumes, luxury foods, drink, and other goods from Earth, and expensive alien artifacts. He’d often wondered what it would be like to live on an officer’s pay, what they spent their bonuses on, and his curiosity had been more than satisfied with the many items he’d discreetly removed. It wasn’t as if the dead officers would be needing them after all, so he didn’t see how he was doing anyone any harm. He was just using his smarts. But he’d been stupid, too. He’d been slow to go for the top prize: Loba’s quarters.

  Karrev pushed open the door, revealing a room that was surprisingly lacking in expensive items, which made the man pause. Had someone got there before him? But the room didn’t look as though it had been ransacked.

  As master of the Galathea, Loba should have had an excess of products to indulge himself with during the long mission. Karrev had never been in a master’s cabin before, and he hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

  After a few puzzled moments, Karrev shrugged and turned to leave, but something drew him back. The look of the room was oddly familiar. It wasn’t austere so much as poor, as if Loba had sold off everything he’d had. As if he’d been short of money, which was crazy, unless...Karrev’s eyes widened.

  A thrill passed through the man, straightening his stooped posture and brightening his features. He scanned the place, taking in every object, every detail, every potential hiding place. If his guess was correct, he would have to search very, very thoroughly, but it would be worth it. A prize like that would be worth pulling the place to shreds.

  Karrev went to Loba’s bunk and lifted the mattress. He ran his fingers under the frame. Nothing. Of course not. That was a hiding place for amateurs. It was where the elderly hid their worthless paper money. Neither Loba nor anyone else who could afford his habit was an amateur.

  Most addicts needed only a few drops per day. A supply to last a year or longer could be hidden inside a small object.

  His pulse racing, Karrev took another look around the room. He would have to be methodical about his search. He would start in one place and work his way out, leaving nothing overlooked. He decided to begin in the deceased master’s closet. As he opened the door, his gaze alighted first on a large piece of paper on the floor. Karrev hadn’t seen paper for years. He wasn’t one to visit art galleries or museums, but he recognized it.

  Holding up the sheet, he saw the spread-out figure of a naked man. Lines intersected by points ran from the head and spine to the tips of the fingers and toes. A slow, triumphant smile advanced across Karrev’s face. If he’d wanted or needed proof of his suspicion, this drawing was it. He threw the paper down. It was worth a fair bit, but what he was looking for was worth a lot more.

  More than two hours later, Karrev sat on the floor in the center of the master’s cabin, his brow deeply creased. Around him, the room was in complete disarray. He’d pulled apart and discarded every one of Loba’s few possessions. The closet shelves, desk drawers and bunk were empty, and the floor was covered in detritus. Karrev had even dismantled the comm system. Its innards were spread out, smashed in a moment of frustration.

  It had to be there somewhere. He reminded himself that he needed to stay calm. He needed to focus on the task. Loba hadn’t been stupid. He wouldn’t have risked hiding it anywhere else aboard the ship. His cabin was the only place he could have guaranteed his privacy. Up until his untimely death, of course.

  Karrev rubbed his forehead. How would the master have gotten the substance aboard? He could have bribed the inspectors of course, but the price would have been extremely high, and addicts avoided paying for anything other than their addiction, hence the bare room.

  If Loba hadn’t paid a bribe, he would have hidden a bottle and needles in something made of a dense material that would fool the scanners.

  Karrev’s gaze travelled the room once more. Peeking out from under some crumpled bedclothes was the edge of a black box. He’d already inspected the box closely for an opening, but he’d found nothing, and he’d tossed it to the floor in favor of more promising objects. It was so plain, so simple...so easily overlooked.

  Reaching over, he pulled the box from under the sheets. Squinting in the low light, Karrev examined it again. This was definitely it. It had to be. There was nowhere left to search. But how did it open? Beginning at one edge, Karrev pressed the box’s surface, painstakingly working his way across it, leaving no part unexplored. He was over halfway through his experiment before he was finally rewarded. He applied pressure in an area that looked no different from the rest, and like fruit cleaving under a knife, the box opened.

  Karrev’s hand trembled. He had to grab the box with his other hand to prevent himself from dropping the precious find. Within the box’s center, alongside a set of hollow silver needles, was a bottle of vivid crimson liquid.

  Karrev had never set eyes on mythranil before. His upbringing had barely afforded him the cheapest of drugs. But he’d heard all about it. The name everyone used for it—myth—suited it well. The drug was legendary in its reputation. A single drop of myth, it was said, gave you a run so good you’d kill your own mother for another. And here he was with a whole bottle of it right there in his hand, worth enough for a deposit on a starship.

  The door to the cabin began to slide open. Karrev snapped the box shut and shoved it under the bed sheets. Micah, a fellow lab tech, looked in. He jumped a little when he saw Karrev. The man grinned sheepishly. “You had the same idea as me, then.”

  “Dunno what you mean,” replied Karrev, trying to
sound casual as he got to his feet.

  Micah stepped into the room and surveyed the results of Karrev’s search. “Come on, you’ve obviously torn this place apart. Find anything good?” He looked Karrev up and down, his gaze dwelling on the flat pockets of the man’s uniform. His left eyebrow lifted quizzically.

  Karrev gave a small chuckle. “Ah, you got me.” He slapped Micah on the back. “Why shouldn’t we help ourselves, though? If it wasn’t us doing it, it would be someone else, right? Who knows how long it’s going to take Polestar to rescue us? We’ve got to look after ourselves.”

  Micah also laughed. “That’s right. Nothing wrong with looking out for number one. It isn’t like the owners are coming back, is it?” His smile faded, and he looked Karrev in the eye. “So, what did you find?”

  Spreading his hands wide, Karrev replied, “Not a thing. Searched everywhere, as you can see. You’d think, with him being a master, there’d be plenty, but...nothing. I can’t figure it out. Maybe someone thought of it sooner.”

  Micah held Karrev’s gaze a few moments before frowning at the trashed cabin. “I might have a look myself.”

  “Go ahead,” said Karrev. “Let me know if you find anything. I’d be interested. But I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to check out Lee’s cabin. Her family were loaded, I heard.”

  “But she isn’t dead.”

  “Dead, in stasis, it’s all the same, isn’t it? And if they do bring her back, I don’t think she’s going to be asking about her genuine wool bedspread or whatever, is she?” He went to the door. “Good luck. Like I said, let me know what you find.”

  Micah hesitated. “No, wait, I’m coming with you. Looks like you did a thorough job on this place. You’re right. Lee’s cabin’s a better prospect.”