by E. R. Torre
“By which time we’ll be long gone, eh?”
“By then, we’ll likely have even more powerful weapons and countermeasures. What will come in the future is, at least to me, irrelevant. My focus is on the work I need to do to get my Empire back to where it was.”
Stephen Gray slipped his helmet on and adjusted the seals. He tested the air re-circulator and did the same with Saro Triste’s suit. Afterwards, Stephen Gray pressed a series of buttons on the panel in Saro Triste’s environmental suit's chest plate before eyeing the Cardinal.
“Everything OK?” the Cardinal asked.
“Yeah,” Stephen Gray replied. He activated his communication system and said: “This is Stephen Gray. Do you copy, Francis?”
Gray’s headset filled with a burst of very loud static. He winced and lowered the volume.
“I hear you loud and clear,” she said.
“We're all dressed up and ready to go,” Stephen Gray said. “Balthazar hasn't arrived yet.”
“He's on his way to my room,” Francis Lane said. “He's found some medication. I don't think it'll make much of a difference, but it's worth a try.”
“Should we wait for him?” Saro Triste asked.
“Where's your sense of adventure, Cardinal?” Stephen Gray said. “Tell the big guy to join us when he's ready.”
Stephen Gray switched the lights on top of his helmet and gave Triste a thumbs up sign.
In seconds, they were off.
Balthazar watched as Inquisitor Cer continued her work with the large energy cell. She hadn’t spotted him, hidden as he was in the shadows at the opposite end of the large computer room. Balthazar was eager to take her out, but knew it was better to wait for her to get the Argus' central computer fully operational. It meant less work for him to do afterwards.
Now and again Balthazar stole a glance at B’taav’s body. A curious feeling of regret rose within him.
Too bad I wasn’t able to take out the Independent, he thought. Then again, I get to kill his killer.
It was something to look forward to after so many dull days of travel. The only question remaining was how he'd kill her. Francis Lane ordered him to not waste time, to shoot her with the fusion gun on sight. But that would be too quick, too impersonal, and there were so many other ways to get that particular job done.
He could announce his arrival, walk up to her, and for a little while actually help her out. The moment she turned her back on him, he could pull her oxygen line or stab her in the back. Then again, he could sneak up on her, and shatter her visor. Or...
Balthazar smiled. So many options.
Inquisitor Cer pressed a series of keys and more lights came on around the computer. The system was rebooting.
Balthazar marveled at the Inquisitor’s ingenuity. Too bad she’d never see the end result of all that work.
Balthazar spent a few more seconds considering the ways to get rid of her. Finally, he decided there was no reason for further delay. He reached for his fusion gun and aimed it at Inquisitor Cer’s back.
Francis Lane opened the closet door and leaned down to remove the paneling at its base. She flung the loose plastic aside and grabbed her hidden computer. She placed it on her room's only table and powered it up.
The Xendos' central computer link appeared first, but that was expected. Francis Lane read the ship's status report and was satisfied all was well. She made sure through this computer link that this ship's outer doors, the ones that lead into the decompression chamber, were sealed now that Saro Triste and Stephen Gray were out.
Francis Lane sat back and wondered how long it would take before she had the second, and most important, link up.
Her wait proved very short. When the signal came, it was sharp and very clear.
Francis Lane double checked the information streaming on the computer’s thin monitor. She could barely contain herself. The logo of the old, the only, Epsillon Empire appeared. Below it, the words: “Argus Main Computer System. Please Enter Access Code.”
Francis Lane clapped her hands and approached Nathaniel. The boy sat upright in his bed. A series of wires were taped to his forehead. They ran down the length of his body and connected to the heavy black box B’taav found in Francis Lane’s suitcase. Sitting in the indentation at the center of the box was the clear crystal Project Geist cube.
“Inquisitor Cer got the Argus central computer working,” Francis Lane told the boy. “It’s time to finish this.”
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE
Balthazar lowered his gun. He was ready to take the shot, but the Accelerant flowing through his veins made him want to jump out of his skin. Something dark and deep kept him from pulling the trigger. He didn’t want the excitement to end so soon. He wanted to see his victim's face. He wanted to see the bitch beg.
Balthazar reached to the controls on his space suit’s sleeve and adjusted the settings on his communicator. He linked up to the amplification beacon and shut it down. Whatever conversation he had from here on would be between Inquisitor Cer and himself and no one else.
Balthazar then picked up a worker’s rag lying among the other debris within the room and squeezed it into a ball. Tiny flakes of ice broke off it and floated away. Balthazar hurled the rag over the enormous crevasse and at Inquisitor Cer. It hit the computer monitor, startling the Inquisitor. She immediately turned.
“Balthazar?” she said. She saw the fusion gun in the Merc's hand. “What?”
“You’re no longer needed,” Balthazar said.
“Don’t be a fool!” Inquisitor Cer yelled. “You fire that gun and we’re both dead.”
Balthazar smiled. She was already begging. This was going to be much more fun than he thought. Yeah, this was—
Realization dawned on Balthazar.
“The oxygen!” he muttered.
“You fire that gun and the oxygen rich atmosphere around us erupts. We’ll all burn up.”
The Merc was stunned that he no longer had the upper hand over his victim. He eyed the crevasse separating them and cursed the fact that the impact from that object hadn't dissipated the atmosphere on this level. Balthazar again stared at Inquisitor Cer. Although they both knew he wouldn’t use it, the Merc kept his gun pointed at her.
“Looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way,” the Merc said. With his free hand he reached down and grabbed at a knife in its holster.
“Who ordered you to do this?” Inquisitor Cer asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“Did they tell you to use the fusion gun or was that your idea?”
“Lady, what the hell difference—”
Balthazar frowned. He recalled Francis Lane’s orders.
We can't waste time. Burn her. A single blast of your fusion gun.
The Merc took a step back. His mind was swimming.
“She...she wanted me dead, too?” the Merc muttered. “We’ll see about—”
Balthazar paused.
“Wait a minute!” he said. The Inquisitor carried a fusion gun as well. “If you can’t fire a fusion gun here, how did you kill B’taav—?”
The words barely escaped his mouth when the glass of his helmet turned dark and the knife and fusion gun were ripped from him. Balthazar swung his hands around wildly, trying to connect with his attacker. He managed to swipe some of the dark liquid off his helmet and saw lights and shadows dancing around him.
The air circulating into his environmental suit abruptly shut off.
“You fucking bastards!” the Merc yelled.
With all his remaining strength he ran forward. He didn't know which direction he was going, only that he had to get away. He slammed into something very hard and the world spun around. His feet no longer touched ground, and the light from the room, what little he could see through the smudged helmet, receded, as if he were falling.
But there was no gravity here. The Merc couldn't fall. Yet the light receded. An ice cold fear gripped Balthazar. He couldn't fall, but his lurch forward had
created momentum. He was hurling forward, down and down...
Into the crevasse.
The Merc twisted and turned. The light from above was almost gone. How far would he go before stopping? Would he ever stop?
The Merc pressed the control buttons on the forearm of his suit. A small shot of air hit him in his face. He couldn't get the full burst. He would slowly, slowly asphyxiate.
The horror of his situation sank in. The Merc yelled once before slipping into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
Saro Triste and Stephen Gray followed the stairs to the upper level of the Argus landing bay. They found a large door.
“We’re at the top,” Saro Triste said. He noted the door’s computer system was alive with flashing lights. “Inquisitor Cer got the main computer powered up. We’ve got juice on this door.”
“Good,” replied Francis Lane. “The code to this door is theta 1666 AR 12. Hurry up. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the boy talking.”
Saro Triste entered the codes into the door’s computer paneling and ancient gears in the walls slowly slid her open. What lay beyond was a long corridor that stretched for what seemed like many kilometers.
Stephen Gray and Saro Triste entered this corridor. They noted the many adjacent doorways, leading off to an innumerable amount of side corridors. Without a clear idea of where they were supposed to go, they could spend a lifetime exploring these passages. According to Francis Lane, this was the more direct route to the central computers.
“We're past the door,” Saro Triste said.
“You should be seeing quite a few doors and corridors.”
“It’s like a maze,” Stephen Gray said.
“It is a maze,” Francis Lane replied. “So from here on out you listen to my instructions very carefully. You do what I say and you don’t deviate. The last thing we need is for you guys to get lost.”
B’taav wiped the black liquid from the front of his suit while approaching the crevasse. Balthazar dived into the hole so quickly that there was no chance for the Independent to grab him. B'taav could not see the Merc below.
B’taav wiped off more of the engine oil he picked up in the last decompression chamber and smeared on his environmental suit's chest plate. He watched it bubble up and float away. In the dim lights within the room and upon casual inspection, it looked exactly like what Balthazar thought it was: blood. Had the Merc bothered to look closely, he would realize the material was still in liquid form. At the frigid temperatures present within the Argus, blood would have crystallized. The engine oil, on the other hand, was specifically designed to remain in liquid form at these extremes.
Had Balthazar known this, he would have realized he was entering a trap. Once he stepped past B’taav, the Independent slapped a handful of the engine oil against the Merc’s facemask and removed his weapons. Unarmed and blind, it was an easy task to shut down the Merc's oxygen supply. What the Independent hadn't counted on was Balthazar's subsequent actions.
Inquisitor Cer stepped around the crevasse and approached B’taav.
“What do you think?” Inquisitor Cer said. Because of the atmosphere in this section, she was able to talk directly to the Independent and without the use of the communicator.
“I don’t know,” B’taav replied. “I don’t see him at all.”
“We should go down there, get him.”
“He was about to kill you.”
“And for that he will pay. Tell me, B'taav, did you need to lure him that close to me? He could have fired before I turned.”
“I was going to jump him, but then he started working on his suit’s controls,” B’taav said. “I think he switched off the communication amplification beacon. Only reason he'd do that is because he wanted to talk to you without anyone on the Xendos hearing.”
“He wanted to see me squirm?”
“For as long as possible.”
“Is that a unique skill of yours? Reading the mind of a psychopath?”
“Takes one to know one?” B’taav said and smiled. “Mind reader or not, we’ve gotten away from the Xendos group. As a bonus, we've disabled the last of their muscle. And I don’t think they had any suspicions about you and me. The game isn’t over, but I’d say our work so far has been remarkably successful.”
“We should turn the beacon back on,” Inquisitor Cer said. “We wouldn’t want the others to think something is wrong.”
“All the more reason to get Balthazar,” B’taav said. “I'm sure he's the only one who has the proper—”
The Independent didn’t finish his thought. An orange light flickered on the central computer monitor. Both he and Inquisitor Cer hurriedly returned to it. Inquisitor Cer pressed a series of keys. Her mouth opened wide in disbelief.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s accessed the Argus' central computer. They're searching through the files.”
“How can that be? Aren't all computer systems on military vessels hardwired?”
“It would appear the Argus' computer system has a backdoor,” Inquisitor Cer said. “I can only imagine the complex access codes required to get through.”
Inquisitor Cer pressed some more buttons before shaking her head.
“They’re not using any of the active computers on this level.”
A frightening thought occurred to B’taav.
“Whoever did the link intends to download the Charybdis bomb schematics,” B’taav said. “Damn. My mind reading skills could use some sharpening. They were waiting for us to get power to the main computers so they could make their connection from the safety of the Xendos. You don't need the actual bomb when you have the plans.”
“It's a good bet whoever's doing this linkup got everyone they didn't need off the Xendos and into the Argus to search for the bomb. Once they have the schematics for the Charybdis device, they're gone.”
“Looks like you’re something of a mind reader as well,” B’taav said. “Anyone not on board the Xendos at the time of liftoff gets to sit around and experience this ship’s self-destruct mechanism first hand.”
“If they can fly the ship, maybe they’ve done so already. Maybe they're searching for the bomb's schematics while the Xendos is parked outside the Argus.”
“No. This ship’s hull is too dense. Look at what it did to the communicator signals. Attempting a computer link from outside the ship is probably impossible.”
“What do we do?”
“We need to disconnect the central computer's power cell. It's the only way to stop them.”
“Agreed. But wouldn't that tip them of? Wouldn't they suspect we know what they're doing?”
“They might think it was something else. A short circuit.”
“Would you believe that?”
“Not for a second.”
“In which case they’ll fly the Xendos out of the Argus and wait from a safe distance for our environmental suits to eventually fail. All they have to do is wait a couple of days. Afterwards, they fly back, reconnect the electrical systems, and finish their work.”
“So we leave things as they are and hope we finish our job before they finish theirs.”
“We need to get back on board the Xendos quickly and without their knowledge.”
B’taav eyed the crevasse.
“We won’t have time to go after Balthazar.”
“I don't like leaving loose ends.”
“Neither do I.”
“We could split up. One goes to the Xendos, the other after Balthazar.”
“We could, but the Xendos is our primary objective. For all we know, the Merc is already dead.”
Inquisitor Cer took a breath and nodded.
“Let's move.”
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN
Francis Lane adjusted the power level of the yellow disk, increasing the sharp stabs of pain shooting into young Nathaniel. The boy’s face was as pale as bone. He shook as a fresh charge of electricity shot through his tiny body. The wires connected to h
is forehead were gone. The heavy black box and crystal cube lay to his side.
“You’re only prolonging this,” Francis Lane said. “You can end it. All you have to do is talk.”
The child's frightened eyes focused on his tormentor. The boy opened his mouth a fraction of an inch. His swollen tongue rolled forward.
Francis Lane leaned in close, until her left ear was near the boy’s mouth.
“Come on,” she said. “Talk to me.”
Instead, the boy spit in her face.
Francis Lane drew back and wiped the saliva away before slapping him hard. Nathaniel fell over. His eyes, so dead all these days of travel, were very much alive. They stared up at Francis Lane and silently defied her.
“You bastard,” she said.
Francis Lane grabbed Nathaniel by his hair and pulled him back up to a sitting position. She reached for the yellow disk once more. Her finger floated just over it, ready to apply another jolt.
“Tell me the code,” she said. “Tell me the code or we’ll explore every single level of pain in this disc.”
“You... don’t...scare me,” the boy muttered. But the defiance in his eyes wavered. His guardian let out a cruel laugh.
“We’ll see about that,” she said.
Francis Lane pressed down on the disk and the boy once again shuddered.
Saro Triste was pale with fear.
Stephen Gray and he wandered the tight corridors of level 12 of the Argus for more than a half-hour and only now did he truly understand just how lost he was. The Phaecian Cardinal, for perhaps the hundredth time, checked his radio communicator settings. Green lights indicated the system was on and functioned. He desperately punched a series of buttons and tried to communicate with Francis Lane.
There was no reply.
“That bitch,” he muttered. “Why doesn't she answer?”