by E. R. Torre
B’taav laid the ball back on the bed and walked to the closet. Inside were two suitcases. B’taav opened the smaller one, but before he could examine its contents he heard a muffled sound coming from the hallway.
B’taav hurriedly rose and ran back into the hallway. B’taav opened the door to the room next to Francis Lane’s. It was Stephen Gray’s room, but there was no sign of him within. The room next door was Saro Triste’s. B’taav found no one inside that room, either.
B’taav fought off a growing unease. Each of his silent footsteps roared in his ears.
After he passed Saro Triste’s room he stopped. The regular humming of the Xendos’ engines, a sound he had grown accustomed to, grew muted.
The ship was slowing down.
Had the engines malfunctioned? No. Even if that was the case, it didn’t explain where everyone was.
Could Daniels’ fighter craft have found and surrounded the Xendos? B’taav shook his head. He didn't see any Epsillon craft outside Francis Lane's window, and unless something radically changed, capture was impossible.
B’taav walked to the last door in the corridor, the one leading into Maddox’s room. As he did with the others, he pressed his ear against it and listened. B’taav heard soft, muffled sounds coming from within and detected the acrid smell of vomit.
B’taav accessed the control panel in the wall with his computer pad. Maddox’s door slid open.
The Titus bartender lay on his bed. His eyes were shut and his face had an unhealthy yellow pallor. Ned Frasier sat before Maddox. His face was ghost white and lifeless, even whiter than the usually immaculate clothing he wore. Vomit dripped from the edge of his mouth. On the floor before him was a puddle of the stuff. In his hands was an empty glass of some clear liquid.
Even from a few feet away, B’taav knew the man was dead. Poisoned.
A sharp sound came from the Independent’s left. Melchor stepped out of the bathroom. His hands were wet.
“B’taav?” the Merc said. A vicious smile appeared on his face, revealing crooked teeth framed by thin lips. “Fancy meeting you here.” The smile broadened. “This is going to be fun.”
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
The smile on Melchor’s face disappeared. He reached for the fusion gun in his belt.
B’taav didn’t wait for him to draw. He ran into the room, jumping past Frasier’s body and crashed headlong into Melchor. The Merc had over thirty kilograms of muscle over B’taav, and should have swatted the charging Independent aside. But when Melchor saw the Independent move, he took a step back and slipped on Frasier’s vomit. The gun in Melchor’s hand came up too high, and a single fusion blast hit the ceiling, burning a large hole into it.
B’taav slammed into Melchor and plowed the Merc into the bathroom. He fell hard on the bathroom floor and lost the grip on his fusion gun. It clanged against the metal sink and fell away.
Melchor ignored the lost weapon and reached for the Independent’s head while B’taav delivered a series of blows to the man’s stomach. B’taav pounded him as hard as he could, but the Merc’s light armor absorbed the brunt of the blows.
“If that’s the best you can do…” Melchor taunted.
The Merc’s left hand grasped the back of B’taav’s head while his right hand savagely pummeled B’taav in the face.
“…then this is going to be real fun.”
B’taav was groggy from the brutal punches. For a second he feared he would black out. But his instinct for self-preservation was strong and B’taav surprised Melchor by springing back and rolling away. Melchor’s hands, for the moment, grasped at air.
Melchor let out a roar. He had no intention of losing his prey. The Merc pulled himself into a crouch. The anger in his face abruptly turned to euphoria.
To his delight, the dumb bastard Independent was right there, just a couple of feet away. He could have run. He might even have escaped.
For a little while at least, Melchor thought.
Instead, B’taav chose to stay where he was. A sadistic smile formed on Melchor’s face. He chose to stay right where—
The smile abruptly vanished when the Merc realized B’taav held his fusion gun.
It was the last thing he ever saw.
“Wake up,” the weak yet urgent voice said. It called B’taav out from under a blanket of darkness and into the light.
The Independent’s eyes fluttered open. He was in Maddox’s room. Lying beside him was Melchor’s corpse. Smoke emanated from the Merc’s neck. His entire head was vaporized.
For a moment, B’taav felt like he might again pass out. The pain along his jaw and face was intense. It took him a while to replay the events of the past few minutes. When he did, he looked down, at his hands. He still held Melchor’s fusion gun. The Independent tucked it away.
“You came to Titus looking for Accelerant,” the voice that took him out of the darkness said. “You found it. These Mercs can’t live without it.”
“Melchor was..?”
“You’re lucky you got him before he got you.”
The voice was Maddox’s. He remained in his bed. With great difficultly he propped himself up.
“Yeah. Lucky,” B’taav acknowledged. “For the second time. Won’t be so lucky a third. What happened?”
“The Merc killed Frasier,” Maddox said. “The two came down from the cockpit. They…they were here to see how I was doing. I was half asleep. They talked for a bit and I…I couldn’t get it all. Melchor goes to the bathroom and brings out two cups of water. He gave Frasier one and wanted me to drink the other. I set mine aside. I wasn’t all that thirsty.”
B’taav noted the full glass of water on the table beside Maddox. He picked it up, stepped over Melchor’s corpse, and drained the liquid into the sink.
“Frasier drinks up. For a while, he keeps talking,” Maddox continued. “Only much slower…then he…then he seized up. Melchor –that bastard– laughs. Frasier knew he was poisoned. He tried to spit out what he could. It was too late. Melchor stepped closer to me. He was about to force the water down my throat. That was when…that was when Frasier threw up on him.”
Maddox clenched his teeth as a deep shiver passed through his body.
“Melchor…he kicked Frasier. Then he sees his pants are stained. He says…he tells me he’ll be right back. He goes to the bathroom to clean up. While he’s doing that, he tells me they’ll be plenty of time to take care of me, then you.”
“I heard the intercom buzz in my room. Was that you?”
“Yeah,” Maddox said. “I did it while the Merc was in the bathroom.”
Maddox winced. The effort of talking to the Independent was sapping him of what little strength he had.
“I never liked you, B’taav, not from the first time we met,” he said. “The others bought your stories but I never did. Your presence was too convenient. Especially when Daniels showed up and we…we couldn’t get any other pilots or mechanics. It wasn't so long ago I worked in military intelligence. One of the things they taught me was the best way to infiltrate an enemy camp is to make your services crucial to whatever their mission is. You make them take you in. That’s what you did…isn’t it?”
B’taav’s sunken eyes sparkled.
“I talked to every pilot I could, under the pretext of looking for someone willing to smuggle me out of Titus,” B’taav said. “I made sure they were aware of just how dangerous going up against Daniels was. I made sure they were so scared they wouldn’t take me or anyone out. I figured the pool of pilots was shallow enough that you’d eventually need me.”
“Clever.”
“Not really,” B’taav said. “No offense, but if you saw through this …”
“The others might have, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I don’t know what your game is and frankly don’t care. But if you’re right, we’re the odd men out on this operation and we’re obviously no longer needed.”
“What’s changed?”
“You do
n’t know?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you take a look out my window.”
With effort B’taav rose to his feet. The room spun around him and he shook his head to lessen the pain and vertigo. He stepped past Maddox’s bed and leaned against the window’s frame. Like Francis Lane’s room, Maddox’s had a large window looking out into space. His window, however, was on the port side of the Xendos.
B’taav gazed at the darkness. At first, all he saw were the asteroids. Small and large, thin and fat, dark and light. But, out in the distance, he noted an angular, lean shape. It was long, enormous, in spite of the obvious distance from them.
“By the Gods,” B’taav muttered.
The Argus lay between the chunks of asteroid like some rotting, half-buried corpse. Her hull was charred and filthy black. Parts of her plating were warped from heat and wear. Others were ripped or twisted like used candy wrappers.
Yet there she was, damaged but in one piece.
For several long, breathless seconds B’taav gazed at her and held back the shivers rising along the back of his spine. There was the lost super juggernaut. There was the fate of two empires.
There was death itself.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
B’taav stepped back, away from the window.
A stream of thoughts shifted into overdrive. One in particular hit him hard. The Independent thought of the Merrick Industries pleasure craft DeCarlo and the horrifying fate of its passengers. He wasn't there when she was found, but Merrick gave him the holographic walkthrough when they first met. In all its gory detail, it showed the Independent what happened to the passengers locked inside that vessel. Their deaths were like the blackest of nightmares.
With a shudder, B’taav realized those who remained alive on board the Argus immediately after the Erebus explosion suffered that same fate.
“You were right,” B’taav whispered. “She's still in one piece.”
“We can't leave her like that.”
B'taav motioned to Frasier and the Merc.
“What happened?”
“It’s so easy to swear you will destroy the ultimate weapon, but when it is before you, in the palm of your very own hands...Power corrupts, Independent. Especially when this power can make you the ruler of the known universe.”
“Were all of them working against you?”
“I don't know,” Maddox admitted. “When the group arrived at Titus, their manners were...different. Rasp, Frasier, and I worried something might be wrong. Ultimately, we thought they were simply excited knowing our mission was coming to its end. We weren't overly cautious, and that was a mistake.”
Maddox gritted his teeth as a fresh wave of pain passed through his body.
“I don’t know why you worked your way into our group,” Maddox continued. “I don’t know what it was you were hoping to gain. But right now you’re in the same position as I am, so don’t start thinking you can make some kind of deal with them. They have as much use for you as they have for me.”
“So we join up? Tell me, Maddox, if they hadn’t betrayed you and we found the Argus, would you have had me killed?”
“Yes.” The admission came without emotion. “I swore on my life I would keep people from knowing about the Argus. I wasn’t about to let a stranger, an infiltrator, be the exception to that rule.”
“And now you’re the person who saved, rather than took, my life.”
“I would gladly have taken Melchor's poison if it meant the secret of the Argus was sealed in my grave as well,” Maddox said. “But I will not let them take that knowledge back. You can’t go to them, so you work with me. If we’re smart, we might get out of this.”
“Alive?”
“That might be asking too much. Whatever happens from this moment on, we must destroy the Argus.”
Despite the defiance in his voice, Maddox’s eyes held a mix of fear, hopelessness, and desperation. Would the Independent help him, or was his whole life's purpose at its end? The fear in his eyes was present in the tone of his voice.
“There has to be some part of you that knows the Charybdis bomb cannot find its way into the hands of these people.”
B’taav nodded.
“I know,” he said. “What’s your plan?”
Maddox let out a relieved sigh but composed himself quickly.
“Exactly the same as before. We get the Geist memory cube from Nathaniel’s ball, get it to the Geist machine on the Argus, and use its information to set off the ship’s self-destruct mechanism. Afterwards, we sit back and watch the fireworks.”
“I found Nathaniel’s ball in Francis Lane’s room. The cube wasn't there.”
“Shit,” Maddox muttered. “They have it with them.”
“Where are they?”
“Probably in the cockpit, gazing at their treasure.”
“What about Nathaniel? Why was he brought here?”
“You got me. Francis Lane knew there was a good chance this would be a one way trip, and still she brought him. The funny thing is, I didn’t even know she had a kid.”
“Is it possible…is it possible Nathaniel isn’t her son?”
“Even if that's the case, does it really matter?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“The kid killed Rasp and Kaspar and most likely killed Janet Donaldson.”
“You think Francis Lane brought him aboard as an… assassin?” Maddox said. “You think he was programmed to kill us? I’ve heard of some degenerate things done in the cause of King and Country, but this one ranks among the worst...”
“What about the Mercs? Aren’t they employed by Francis Lane?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s more to this,” B’taav said. “Nathaniel killed one of the Mercs. One of her people. If the child is a programmed killer, why would he do that?”
“Maybe there's no logic to his actions after all.”
“On the contrary,” B’taav said. “His actions have been very logical.”
“What do you mean?”
“All this time, he’s been trying to stop us, all of us, from getting to the Argus,” B’taav said. “Nathaniel’s first victim was probably Janet Donaldson. She was working on downloading the information from Kelly Lang’s probe and using it to pinpoint the location of the Argus. Killing her slowed you down, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Maddox admitted. “We had to do the final calculations on our own. It cost us valuable time.”
“And allowed Daniels to solidify his presence at Titus.”
“I suppose…”
“Then we had that coolant leak on the Pilgrimage. It was deep in the engine room, in a a tight spot that took me great effort to reach. Not as much effort for a kid.”
“He was there,” Maddox said.
“Yeah. I didn't see him, and I passed out while fixing the air purification system. Good thing I managed to fix it before the fumes got to me. When I woke up, the boy was standing over me. If I hadn't awoken...”
Maddox suppressed a shudder.
“The next time Nathaniel acts up, it’s in the cockpit of the Pilgrimage, when we’ve got Daniels’ fighter craft are all around us,” B'taav continued. “The boy is under constant supervision, except he somehow escapes Francis Lane and ultimately sets off our sensors and gives away our position to Daniels’ boys.”
“It wasn't an accident.”
“Francis Lane and I talk about how we can't use the sensors, that doing so would give our position away, and some light goes off in the boy's head. He does exactly the last thing we needed.”
“We set up an even tighter security on the boy after that,” Maddox said.
“So he behaves for a few days and everything is fine. Then, when we get to the Phaecian asteroid base, he takes advantage of another opportunity and, as he did with Janet Donaldson, he takes out Rasp.”
“But Rasp wasn’t a key member of this mission.”
“But he was another body in the
way, and the only one of us with extensive medical experience. If someone gets injured, like you, we can’t treat them properly.”
Maddox's face grew pale.
“Our only alternatives are to turn back or do what little we can and risk our team member's death. Either way, we’re hobbled.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“And all the while the boy’s creating tension and suspicion and distracting us from our goal.”
“Regardless of what happens, he succeeds.”
“A little later, the boy acts up once again. He gets his best chance to end the search for the Argus once and for all. While being walked around the ship and escorted by Kaspar, Nathaniel gets close to the Xendos’ cockpit. The boy makes his move: He grabs Kaspar’s gun and takes the Merc out. I’m thinking his next step was to take out everyone inside the cockpit.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Who knows. Maybe he was distracted. Maybe he lost his nerve. Maybe he realized it would be impossible to kill us all before we got to him. Whatever the reason, he decided one less crewmember, for the time being, was enough. He ran.”
“That brings us back to one of our original questions: Why would Francis Lane bring this kid along?”
B’taav didn't reply, for he had no answer. He again looked out the window. The Xendos was running parallel to the Argus and closing in. The ancient Phaecian ship was dwarfed by the enormous super-structure.
“B’taav?”
“Yes?”
“I lied.”
“About what?”
“I do want to know why you infiltrated our group.”
B’taav offered the bartender a smile.
“In good time,” he said. “For now, let’s focus on keeping ourselves alive.”
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Oscar Theodor couldn’t believe his eyes.