by Mark Gardner
“What the hell? What the hell, man?” Siebert said.
“We need to get to Jimmy,” Jessica said without looking up. “Get him to confess, somehow.”
Viktor chanced a glance around the corner, ducking back as shots rang out. “They’re still at distance. We have some time.” He moved to the galley door and punched in his access code. It flashed red.
Of course. They’d locked them out of the ship controls, now.
“That thing,” Viktor said, pointing at the chemical welder strapped to Siebert’s shoulder. “It can double as a cutting torch. Right?”
It took Siebert a moment to realize what he was talking about. “Yeah. It’s got a cut setting. Burns through steel like…” He trailed off as he read Viktor’s mind. He waited until Jessica finished tying his leg and then floated to the galley hatch. The welder flashed like a tiny supernova as he focused the tip. Sparks flew from the door and molten metal ran down the side like grease.
Viktor looked around the corner again when another low-velocity round zipped by. The tiny corner of the wall felt like safety, and every instinct told him not to leave it.
The ship-wide comms crackled to life, echoing from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“This is Captain Hayes. All members of the mining team are hereby declared enemy combatants. They have attempted to take control of the ship. Resist them at all opportunities.” A pause, then, “Sharapov. It’s not too late to surrender peacefully. You can end this.”
The only way I can end this is by getting to Jimmy. He shared a look with Jessica. She was thinking the same thing.
“How much longer?”
“I dunno. A minute?” Siebert yelled. “I don’t have my goggles so I can’t really see what I’m doing.”
A new sound floated down the hallway toward them. Viktor realized what it was in time to react. Instead of swinging with his wrench, which would have probably killed them, he grabbed a handle in the ceiling and swung his legs out into the hall, temporarily exposing himself. His timing was perfect. He kicked into the air just as Telly appeared, floating head-first down the corridor. Viktor’s boots caught him in the ribs and sent him spinning. The pistol in Telly’s hands flashed three times, slugs shooting randomly and bouncing off the walls with high-pitched pings. One sounded like it barely missed Viktor’s head. Telly hit the wall, careening off out of control, flailing around for something to grab.
Since his hands still gripped the handle, the momentum of the swing carried Viktor in an arc toward the ceiling. He bounced off and returned to the safety of the galley corridor just as new shots cut through the air. Whoever shot from the bridge didn’t care that they might hit Telly. Somewhere deep down, hidden beneath the layer of shock protecting his consciousness, that disturbed Viktor more than anything else they’d seen.
“Stop shooting!” he called out in vain.
“Almost there,” Jessica said.
Viktor strained his ears, waiting for someone else to charge from the Bridge, or for Telly to appear from the other direction. They must have been hesitant to get within reach of them because neither made an attempt.
“I’m through!”
Viktor turned to Siebert just as the torch light disappeared. A splotch of green afterimage stuck to Viktor’s vision when he blinked. A centimeter-wide groove was carved into the hatch, shaped like a rounded square. Jessica grabbed the wall for leverage and kicked at the metal. Three kicks and it gave way.
The inside of the galley never looked so good.
One of the Matsue crew members who’d gotten stuck aboard the ship was strapped into a chair, his half-eaten protein bar floating in the air in front of his face. He held his hands up in the age-old sign for I’m not a threat.
“Get somewhere safe,” Viktor said. “Hide!”
The man hesitated, then fumbled with his chair straps.
They approached the opposite hatch out of the galley, which was, of course, also closed. “Cut it open, too,” Viktor said.
“Not sure if I have enough juice for a full cut.”
“Then make the hole smaller,” Viktor said. “We can squeeze through if need be.”
Before Siebert could start, the hidden hatch locks disengaged and the door slid horizontally into the wall. The confused face of Erika Ängström stared at them without seeing, eyes milky white.
“Hello?” she said to the air above Viktor’s shoulder.
Jessica moved forward first, voice soft and motherly. “Hey. It’s me. What are you doing out of medical?”
While the hatch was open, Viktor and Siebert pulled themselves through.
“I heard the noises, and then the captain on the 1MC,” Erika said. “I know the ship enough to get around by feel. What’s…what’s going on?”
“We’ll explain later. Come on.”
Jessica nodded to Viktor, who led them down the corridor. Being with Erika would only increase the captain’s ridiculous paranoia, but it couldn’t be helped. And maybe it was better she was with them now instead of alone somewhere where Hayes could do something drastic.
The trip down the hall to the cargo bay seemed endless. Viktor remained tense, waiting for gunfire to sound behind them and slugs to tear through their skin and flesh. Somehow, none did.
Viktor and Siebert arranged themselves on either side of the cargo bay door, weapons held at the ready. He looked a command at Jessica, who gently took Erika’s hand.
“Here. We need your code to open the door. Yeah, there we go. Right there.” Distantly, it occurred to Viktor how shortsighted it was of Hayes, or whoever it was, to remove Viktor’s own ship-wide controls but leave Erika’s in place. It emphasized the sloppy paranoia currently gripping the crew.
The door opened. He pulled back his wrench, hoping he wouldn’t need to use it.
The cargo bay stood empty.
It was trivial to search the bay. There were only a few crates large enough to hide a person. It took less than a minute. Nobody was there. Jimmy and Rebecca, the true saboteurs, were gone, and with them any chance of proving Viktor’s own innocence.
A gunshot, the whizzing sound of a slug searching through the open door. The four of them moved to the side walls for protection.
“Well, okay then,” Viktor said out loud, letting his wrench-arm go slack at his side. Three more slugs flew into the cargo bay. “This is not good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Days Until Home: 18
When a fourth slug did not come through, Viktor chanced a look down the hall. He could make out the figure of Telly attempting to reload, and he threw all caution to the wind. Bracing his feet against the edges of the hatch, he used his good arm to heave the wrench. It moved with a velocity he did not expect and slammed into his attacker with tremendous effect.
Pausing only momentarily to marvel at what he had done, he pushed off toward the unconscious man and snatched the gun out of the air. Time, we just need time, he kept thinking to himself, as he struggled to bring Telly back toward the cargo bay.
“Leave him out there, Vicky, he’ll only be trouble,” said a wincing Siebert from the open hatch.
“We need him as a hostage, to make Hayes back off,” Viktor said.
“Viktor, don’t be crazy, he was just trying to kill us,” Jessica said, now looking out past Siebert.
“Okay, you might be right,” Viktor said reluctantly, then stopped for a minute to catch his breath.
“I’m getting a call,” Jessica said suddenly, “it’s from Vega on the bridge. What do you think I should do?”
“Hold on,” Viktor said and pulled himself back inside. He secured the lock before turning to face them, the loaded gun now by his side. “Go ahead and answer it. I wonder what sorts of threats they have for us now.”
“Go ahead, Marisol,” Jessica said, and the other three leaned in close to listen.
“Things have gotten out of hand and the captain is livid. Is there any way I can convince you all to turn yourselves in?” Marisol whispered.
“We did n
ot do this thing!” Viktor yelled into the comm.
“Even if you didn’t, Viktor,” Marisol said, “we will need to continue the discussion before, but without you men trying to kill one another. The captain isn’t aware I’m making this call. He’s convinced you all had something to do with the explosion, but I don’t want anybody innocent to get hurt. Who’ve you got there, Jess, can you at least tell me that?”
“Why should we trust you, Marisol? You did nothing to stop that lunatic from trying to murder all of us. Siebert is wounded, do you know that? We were unarmed, and you all decided to execute us on the spot!”
“That wasn’t me, Jessica, it was Telly and Adelaide. Gauge, Femke and I want justice, but we want it done right. We can talk to the captain, make him see things the way we do, but we can’t do it if he feels that you are out there hiding and possibly organizing a mutiny of some sort.”
Jessica studied the face of Siebert and Viktor, they both seemed tired and willing to comply. “What should I say to her? She says she wants to help.”
“Marisol has always been there for us, she’s always stood up to Hayes's slag,” Siebert said. “Even if they think we did it, she would not let them get away with murder. She’s the only one on the bridge that I trust, but I’m not sure they will hear anything that she says.”
Viktor spoke up, “there’s four of us here, Marisol. Can you get them to talk, to see some reason? Can you get them to stop trying to murder us?”
The comms went silent, and there was some muffled noise in the background. They barely heard Marisol screaming something at someone. The wait for her return was long and exhausting so Viktor decided to use the time to discuss other matters.
“They won’t hear us properly if Jimmy is still on the loose. He is new to the Kerwood so his knowledge of the different spaces won’t be that good, I hope. They managed to get out of here, but where do you think he went?”
“That snake would find the most obvious place to hide with that Matsue woman,” Siebert said. “What’s the most comfortable place that you can think of that’s uninhabited?”
“The sickbay was very comfortable,” Erika said. They hadn’t heard her voice in a while. “The artificial gravity, soft beds and ration stores. He could lock himself inside there until we make it home. Meanwhile, Pooh and company would have murdered enough innocent people to make him feel better. He could escape, lie that Vicky attacked him as part of the setup, and be rewarded for bravery at the end of all this.”
“All that time in the sickbay must have given this one a whole lot of imagination,” Siebert joked, and he touched her arm reassuringly. “It’s not far from the truth though, and very likely that Jimmy and Rebecca are in the sickbay.”
Marisol Vega returned and exhaled a sigh. She covered the mic to yell at someone then was back again, inquiring if they were there. When they answered affirmatively, she explained the situation. “Captain Hayes has agreed to stand down if you are willing to go through a proper trial in front of the entire crew. In exchange for your lives, you are to collect all of the miners and summon them to cargo bay where he and the chief engineer can listen to your stories.”
The four fugitives exchanged worried glances before discussing whether Hayes lied or not. Viktor stayed silent for the most part, but probed his memory for any time in the past when Winchester Hayes had lied to him. “I don’t think we have much choice,” he said silently to his comrades. “Captain Hayes can be cruel, but he’s a man of honor. If he says that we will have a trial he probably means it.”
“So, we have to rely on that lunatic to determine our fates?” Jessica spat with disgust.
“What’s the alternative, Jessica?” Viktor asked as he watched her. She threw up a hand and shook her head to say that she had no clue, so Viktor nodded at her to open up the comms to Marisol.
“We will do as the captain says,” Viktor said loudly for her to hear. “Tell him we will collect our comrades and bring them here, but he must find Jimmy as soon as possible. Jimmy is injured and most likely will be hiding out inside sickbay. We will stand trial for him, Marisol, but he must find this foolish man.”
“She says they will,” Jessica said to Viktor. “She gave me her word that they will find Jimmy and give us a proper trial.”
Days Until Home: 17
As Winchester Hayes pulled himself along the bulkhead to gain access to the cargo bay, he wondered why it was so eerily quiet. He opened the hatch, slid his way through, and tumbled back into a bulkhead when the body of William Tell Bianconi collided with him. He grabbed the corpse out of instinct, his arm finding something to hold on to as he waved the gun around in eight directions.
“Telly,” he whispered, and pulled him in close, checking his vitals as best he could. Not a corpse after all, but unconscious, so Winchester took him by the arm and worked his way through the passage toward the sickbay.
His heart was a line of elephants at a parade as he made to put in his code, then realized that the lock had been sealed from inside. The Russian was right, they are in here, he thought, and gave the latch a violent pull.
Touching his comm to reach the bridge, Winchester reached out to Gauge. “Hate to do this to you, Gauge, but I’m going to need backup down here. Grab who you can and meet me at sickbay.”
“Skip, is everything alright?” Gauge said.
“One of those slags must’ve brained Telly, and they took his burner and a box of slugs. If Sharapov is right and they holed themselves up in the sickbay, it may be impossible to pull them out. But Telly is hurt and it doesn’t look good. We need to gain entry into the sickbay, Gauge—”
“We’ll be right there, Skip.”
Winchester got off the comm and touched his forehead as if the movement would calm him down. He went for the airlock but was stopped short by an annoying buzz inside his ear. Suddenly he was on with Adelaide, who spoke so fast he could barely keep up. She told him to keep the airlock sealed, that she had an idea that would force the sickbay’s inhabitants out.
“The sickbay’s AC unit and general power is controlled by an individual power source. It’s unique, Skip, unlike any place else on the rest of the ship,” she said. “The ICU beds, cryo pods and IV Sensors are battery powered, so if power goes out, the patients won’t be affected. I’m tapped in right now so we can do any number of things to make the new tenants uncomfortable.”
Did he hear her giggle? He took a break to ponder that as he tried to decipher what it was that she was talking about. “How exactly are you tapped in, Bähr?” Winchester asked.
When the Kerwood had gone to hell, he and Gauge could barely make contact with the sickbay, let alone check its inhabitants to know if they were okay. But Adelaide Bähr…“From your computer of course, I bet you’re scared. Heh. Your computer can tap into anything on this ship. Please tell me you knew that, Skip?”
“Mhm, go on, this man is in critical condition,” Winchester said, wondering why he was only learning this now.
“I’m looking at Telly’s suit readout, and he’s not critical, Skip. You can probably tether him near the sickbay until we have control of the situation. Listen, when I do something to the sickbay, they may rush out of there in a hurry. If you’re stuck holding Telly up, it may not end so well for you.”
“Alright, so what’s our options?” Winchester growled impatiently.
“We can freeze them out by dropping the temperature inside, or go the other way and heat things up. There’s always the old kill the power and leave them in the dark, or I can trigger an alarm that will be so annoying they will be forced to leave.” He heard her whisper something off the comm to someone, and then she argued in barely audible whispers. She came back on after the spat and gave him one last option. “I can also flood the place by triggering two—”
“Bähr! While I appreciate your enthusiasm and your ingenuity at mischief, there are sick and wounded inside that room. Murdering them in order to flush out a few miners, isn’t the kind of idea that I’m looking for
. Freeze them out, make it unbearable, and seal the airlock opposite of my location. That’s what I want you to do. Did Gauge leave the bridge yet?”
“Yeah, he and ChEng are on the way to you. Funky tried to join them, but, wait, yeah, uhm, scratch that. She just flipped me off and followed them down. Sooo, you mentioned freezing didn’t you? Well I’m dropping the temperature now.”
Winchester hooked a foot inside a groove in the bulkhead and pulled Telly toward him, where he took off one of his straps and secured him there. Bianconi was a husky man, so it took some effort to find a place to loop the strap. Eventually, he had him secured to the bulkhead, his hunched form and hanging arms giving him the appearance of a stone gargoyle, perched and ready to attack.
Winchester hung near him waiting to see if the sickbay’s hatch would open, and it didn’t take long for that to happen. A shivering Jimmy pulled himself out of the airlock, then reached back inside to help his accomplice escape.
“Kinda cold in there, huh?” Winchester said as he leveled his gun at them, but Jimmy reacted quickly and tried to pull the airlock shut. Hayes almost laughed at the shortsightedness of this plan. The short space that led from the secure sickbay to the passageway he was in was not meant to hold one person for long, let alone two.
There was room enough for them to float face to face in there while they waited, but now that they had left the sickbay proper, Adelaide would have sealed it’s door and put the temperature back to normal. They would be imprisoned within the narrow space between the hatches. A part of him wanted to seal the door on this side and leave them there to die.
He maneuvered himself forward and pulled the hatch open, then with the reflexes of a man half his age, fired off a round that put a hole in Jimmy’s hand. The bullet went out of his hand and wedged itself inside of the woman’s shoulder. She screamed bloody murder, but Winchester wasn’t hearing it. Angry and annoyed by the two troublemakers, he slipped inside and grabbed Jimmy by his hair, turned him around using brute strength, and then slipped him into a painful arm lock.