by Jay Allan
Brondi snorted derisively. “Yes, a few squadrons of novas worth of resistance. The rest of the crew never leave their precious ship. The Valiant will have a token defense of fighters with no support crew, and I have two full wings of my own fighters to deal with them in case they want to be heroes.”
Dr. Kurlin arched an eyebrow. “What about the fleet’s other capital vessels?”
“They’re scattered throughout Dark Space and still cut off from the comm network. Once they find out about the change in command, they’ll either surrender to my newly-captured Valiant, or they’ll be destroyed by it.”
Dr. Kurlin nodded slowly. “And my wife?”
Brondi turned to look at the old man. “She’ll be released to you as promised, and you can go back to engineering more bountiful crops for the agri corps if you like. Not that you’ll need to with all the sols I’m going to give you.”
Dr. Kurlin’s pale blue eyes held a world full of pain. “You didn’t have to take her hostage, you know. I would have done as you asked just for the sols.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve found that a reward is far less motivating than a threat, and I couldn’t risk you developing a conscience, now could I?”
Dr. Kurlin shook his head, and his gaze slipped away to stare out the forward viewport. “A conscience is a luxury that few can afford these days.”
Brondi shook his head and grinned gapingly. “I couldn’t agree more! Don’t be sad, you old grub!” Brondi slapped the doctor vigorously on the back. “I’ll let you visit your wife tonight, how’s that? Better yet, she can visit you. Call it a probationary release, pending the success of your virus, of course.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Dr. Kurlin said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Brondi replied. “In fact, let’s have her brought up here now.” The crime boss turned to his comm officer and said, “Lieutenant Marik, have the doctor’s woman brought up to the bridge to see him.”
The comm officer nodded and began speaking into his headset. Brondi turned back to the doctor with a smile. “There, you see? No evil deed goes unrewarded.”
The doctor gave an unconvincing laugh, while his gaze and his thoughts remained lost within the nebula.
-o0o-
“Come on, Mrs. Vastra, you have a date with your husband tonight,” the guard said, pushing her roughly down the corridor from her cell. “Hurry it up.”
“To what do I owe this unusual courtesy?”
“Big Brainy must be pleased with the doc’s progress.”
Darla Vastra said nothing to that. She wasn’t sure what Brondi had her husband working on, but she knew it couldn’t be good. Her husband was a biochemist specialized in genetic engineering. His job was to help engineer more productive crops for the agri corps division of the Hydroponics Guild in order to feed the growing population of Dark Space. What Brondi could possibly want with those skills, was beyond her. Maybe he wanted to engineer a more potent stim.
Darla turned to look over her shoulder at the guard behind her. “I suppose you’ll be taking me back to my cell again after this?”
The guard shrugged. “I just follow orders.”
“Yes, I would expect that’s what you do.”
“Move along,” the guard said as he shoved her forward again.
Darla was marched past a handful of empty cells on her way to the waiting lift tube at the end of the corridor. She found herself studying the empty depths of those cells as she walked by, searching for a fellow inmate, but all the cells were empty—all of them except for the last cell on the right. Inside that one was a beautiful young woman. She was sitting up on her bunk, her face hooded with long, dark hair, and her features shadowed by the cell’s poor lighting. Darla felt a pang of sorrow for her. She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old, and she reminded Darla keenly of her own daughter who she hadn’t seen for more than a year now. Darla was just looking away when the woman sitting on that bunk stood and walked up to the cell doors. It was then that her features came into the light.
Darla gasped.
She abruptly stopped walking, causing the guard walking behind her to nearly bowl her over. He tried to shove her forward again, but she wouldn’t be moved. She felt like someone had stabbed her straight through the heart. She willed it not to be true.
“Alara?” Darla asked in a tremulous voice. “Is that you?”
The guard stopped trying to shove Darla forward and instead stood back to watch the developing scene with a thoughtful frown, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two women.
The young woman’s expression became puzzled. “No, my name is Angel,” she said, smiling sweetly. “What’s yours?”
Darla gaped at the young woman. The voice was Alara’s. The face was hers, too. But she didn’t appear to recognize her own mother, and she seemed to think her name was Angel. “What has Brondi done to you?” Darla asked in horror.
CHAPTER 13
Dr. Kurlin watched as his wife was brought onto the bridge deck. Her hands were shackled and one of Brondi’s henchmen was at her back. Her posture was defiant—her chin thrust out, her back straight, and her blue eyes glittered darkly. Kurlin knew that posture. His wife was furious. The man leading her onto the bridge passed charge of her over to the guards standing by the entrance, while he walked up to Brondi with a grave frown.
Something was wrong.
Kurlin locked eyes with his wife, and she held his gaze silently, but he had the distinct impression she was trying to tell him something. Kurlin turned to see the bodyguard who had brought her onto the bridge walk up to Brondi and whisper something in his ear, to which Brondi whirled around furiously. “Then why did you bring her here? You imbecile! Take her back.”
The doctor turned to eye Brondi suspiciously. “What’s the matter?”
Brondi shook his head. “Nothing.”
That was when Kurlin heard his wife shout out behind him, “They have Alara!”
Kurlin turned to see his wife straining to break free from the pair of guards at the door. A moment later, he felt his own arms seized, and he turned to see a guard on either side of him.
“What is the meaning of this?” Kurlin demanded.
Brondi shook his head sadly. “I wasn’t aware that she was your daughter, I swear.”
“Then let her go!” Kurlin roared.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“I did everything you asked!”
The crime lord inclined his head. “Yes, that you did. Thank you, by the way.” Turning his attention to the guards holding Kurlin, he said, “Take them to the detention level and lock them up.”
-o0o-
Ethan stood naked and shivering in the stasis room, his eyes drawn to the nearest stasis tube. The room was vast and airy, filled with dozens of the blue transpiranium tubes. Ethan frowned uncertainly at the tube which was being prepped for him and turned to the doctor who stood filling a syringe at a nearby desk. “You’re sure this is necessary, Doc?”
The doctor looked up from his work and tapped the air out of his syringe. “If you want to get better fast, yes.”
Ethan felt the tickle in his throat abruptly shift to his nose, and he let loose a violent sneeze that left his eyes watering and his nose running. “Why don’t you just give me a pill,” he asked in a nasal voice.
The doctor began chuckling. “Listen to you!” He walked over to Ethan and gestured for him to sit down on the stool beside the stasis tube. “Don’t worry, you won’t even be aware of the time passing,” the doctor said as he disinfected Ethan’s arm and searched for a vein to inject the stasis preparation.
“Exactly how long will I be out for?” Ethan winced as the needle went in.
“No more than twelve hours. Possibly less.” The doctor finished injecting him, and withdrew the needle with a small, satisfied smile. “There! You’ll start feeling sleepy soon.”
Ethan was already sleepy; his eyes were slowly drifting shut as he sat there waiting. The do
ctor moved to key some inputs into the waiting stasis tube, and the blue transpiranium lid opened for him. Ethan peered inside. It looked like a coffin.
“Your stasis tube is ready,” the doctor said. “You may climb inside whenever you feel ready.”
Ethan rose slowly from the stool where he was seated. “What if you forget to wake me up?” He asked as the doctor helped him into the tube.
“There are fail-safes, but we never put the patient inside without specifying a duration for the treatment. Even were the worst to occur, and everyone aboard somehow forgot about you, the tube itself would wake you up.” Ethan nodded as he settled into the tube, and the doctor appeared hovering over him with a smile. “But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll be here checking up on you every hour, and if not me, then one of the nurses. Someone will be here when you wake up.”
Ethan allowed his eyelids to drift shut, and he stifled a weak cough with his hand. He felt drugged. “Okay,” he said dreamily. “Hurry it up, Doc. I need to…” An overwhelming sleepiness overcame Ethan then, and he trailed off abruptly, his lips still moving, but no sound coming out. He heard the stasis tube shut with a distant click and a soft hiss of pressurizing air. The tube grew warm and he felt his mind drifting as though he were floating away on a cloud. Soon, he was asleep and dreaming of nova fighters chasing one another in heated dogfights across the rolling green surface of Forliss, blasting one another to shrapnel and raining fire down on the agri-domes below. Ethan wanted to object, to ask why they were fighting each other, but then he found himself flying one of those fighters and his own hand was tightening on the trigger to fire a torrent of red lasers at another nova as it danced around under his crosshairs. He scored a hit and watched as the enemy’s shields flared blue and then died, allowing a portion of the energy to bleed through. The port engine glow of Ethan’s target suddenly winked out, sending the fighter slowly listing toward the ground. Ethan followed his target, tracking it perfectly in its downward spiral.
His comm crackled then with a familiar voice. “You shot me, Ethan!” It was Alara. Her voice was filled with pain. “Goodbye…” She said as her fighter plummeted to the ground.
Ethan’s eyes flew wide, and he followed her down, saying. “Alara, punch out! I didn’t know it was you!”
But the only reply which came back to him over the comm was a hiss of static. He watched her fighter hit the ground and explode in a huge, expanding fireball which shook his fighter with a concussive wave. Ethan screamed, “Alara!”
And then he woke up.
The stasis tube hissed with escaping air as the cover slowly rose. “Treatment complete,” a computerized voice said. Ethan sat up with a shiver in the colder air of the stasis room. Gone was the tickle in the back of his throat, and he took a deep breath to find that he wasn’t stuffed up anymore. The stasis tube had done its job. How long had he been in stasis? No sooner had he thought it, than the current date and time flashed up in his mind’s eye, fed to him by the holo card reader implant behind his ear. Only twelve hours had passed. Ethan shook out his arms which were tingling vaguely with pins and needles, and he took a moment to look around.
The med center was dark, and despite the doctor’s assurances, no one was there to greet him. Ethan frowned and swung his legs over the side of the stasis tube, wondering what had happened while he’d been asleep.
That was when he noticed the body lying face down on the floor, clothed in a bulky white hazmat suit and surrounded by shattered vials of who-knew-what. Ethan abruptly stood from the stasis tube and turned in a dizzy circle. All of the other stasis tubes were full, their blue transpiranium covers dimly lit from within to reveal the faces of their occupants. Deeper into the shadowy room, Ethan could vaguely see the white glove and sleeve of another hazmat suit, peeking out from behind a trolley of medical equipment.
Ethan shook his head, disbelieving what he was seeing. This was a dream. It couldn’t be real. “Hello?” Ethan called out, and waited for a reply, but no one came bursting into the stasis room, and the body on the floor didn’t even stir.
GHOST SHIP
CHAPTER 14
Brondi stood at the forward viewport on the bridge of his corvette, watching as the Valiant grew large and menacing before them. Beside him stood Doctor Kurlin, shackled hand and foot with stun cords.
“It’s the moment of truth, Doctor. If those batteries open fire on us, your virus didn’t kill the crew, and I kill you.” Brondi finished that last part with a threatening look cast the doctor’s way, but Kurlin gave no sign that he had heard. He stood with his shoulders hunched and eyes downcast, studying the deck at his feet.
Brondi felt a small surge of pity for the man. “I’ll tell you what, Kurlin. If all of this goes according to plan, I’ll re-invoke our former arrangement. You and your wife can go free, and I’ll pay you the sols I promised.”
Kurlin turned to look at the crime boss with wary hope etched on his bony face. “What about my daughter?”
Brondi held up a chubby hand to stop the Doctor there. “Don’t get greedy, Kurlin. She wasn’t a part of our arrangement. And I swear I didn’t know she was your daughter. If you want her back, I can release her to you and disable her programming for a fee.”
The doctor set his jaw. “How much?”
“How much do I owe you?” Brondi countered.
“One million sols.”
“Okay, then let’s say one point one million sols.”
The doctor’s eyes bulged. “I don’t have that much, and you know it!”
Brondi eyed him speculatively. “Are you saying your daughter isn’t worth the extra 100,000 sols?”
Kurlin gritted his teeth. “I’m saying I don’t have the money.”
Brondi shrugged. “That’s all right. You can owe me. I’m sure I can find some or other job for you to pay off the debt.”
Kurlin turned back to the viewport and sighed, his shoulders hunching once more. “Very well.”
Out the viewport they could see the bright, multi-colored engine glows of Brondi’s mixed type fighter squadrons, twelve and a half of them in all. Flying around them were a few supporting craft, including Ethan’s precious Atton which was serving in this operation as a recovery vessel for pilots—should they encounter any resistance that is. And flying in front of them and slightly off to the port side was a large gallant-class troop transport carrying a substitute crew for the Valiant. Brondi hadn’t been able to put together more than five thousand men, which was a skeleton crew at best for the city-sized carrier, but it would be sufficient for the time being.
He was placing a lot of faith in the fact that the virus he’d set loose aboard the Valiant wouldn’t pose a threat to them, but all of his crew had been inoculated with Kurlin’s vaccine, and just in case, they’d be going aboard in hazmat suits.
Behind Brondi, his comm officer called out, “Reaper Squadron is in range of the Valiant’s batteries!”
“Good,” Brondi replied, and watched intently for the Valiant’s long-range beam cannons to open fire on the squadron, but the carrier lay dark and unresponsive in the distance. Also a good sign was the fact that the Valiant hadn’t tried to hail them as they approached, and as yet there were no novas flying out to greet them. To all appearances, the Valiant had become a ghost ship.
Brondi’s mouth dropped open in a grin. “Alert the troops, Lieutenant Marik. We’re going aboard.”
-o0o-
At first, Ethan had a hard time understanding what had happened, but between the doctors and nurses collapsed on the floor in their hazmat suits, and the fact that he couldn’t leave the med center because the ship was under quarantine, Ethan began to realize that there had been some type of epidemic aboard the ship. A quick query at the control panel beside the entrance to the med center confirmed it. “Emergency quarantine in effect. Only properly authorized medical personnel may enter and leave the med center.”
Ethan frowned. How was he supposed to open the doors if all of the properly author
ized medical personnel were dead? The waiting room floor was littered with motionless med workers in their pristine white hazmat suits.
It seemed like a mighty big coincidence that the mission Brondi had given him had been fulfilled without him having to do anything. Making matters even more suspicious, 12 hours ago, Ethan had been the only one who was sick. Now he was fine, and everyone else had died of a mysterious pathogen.
Ethan’s frown deepened. He wasn’t a big believer in coincidence. His gut told him that this was no accident. Ethan’s mind flashed back to the fiery red cocktail that Brondi had prepared for him, and he felt abruptly sick.
If it was true, and he had unwittingly brought the deadly pathogen aboard the ship, then why had he, of all people, survived? Moreover, if he had been the carrier of the plague and Brondi had engineered that, then it seemed like a waste of effort for the crime boss to have used Lieutenant Adan Reese as a cover identity. Why not just capture one of the nova pilots, infect him, and release him? Ethan supposed that doing things that way, Brondi would have had no guarantees that the pilot would head straight back to the Valiant, or that he would be able to take the carrier by surprise. A nova pilot being captured and then released was sure to draw a lot of suspicion from the fleet. This way Brondi had more control over the spread of the plague, and he had been guaranteed of results.
To Ethan the more disturbing part of all this was that if it were even half true, Brondi had never had any intention of honoring their deal, and Alara’s life was already forfeit.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits. “All right, Brondi, round one goes to you, but in the second round all bets are off. I’m going to find you and kill you with my bare hands.”