by Randy Noble
Chapter 21
Regina took the lead through the door onto passenger level one. They were near the front of the ship, where she wanted to be. Edging into the tunnel-like hallway, she looked left and right, and then waved the others to come through.
As much as she didn’t think it wise, Regina took the lead up the hallway, which ended at a thick, metal door marked Pyramid Staff Only. Most staff doors had a simple lock or dead bolt, but this one had keypad entry as well as fingerprint identification for fast access.
“We’re screwed,” Blair said. “That’s a digital keypad with a seven number combination, which, unless you’re Pyramid flight staff, we’re not going to crack.”
Regina put her thumb on the fingerprint reader, and a solid green light lit up on the keypad. She turned the handle and the door opened.
“Who the hell are you?” Blair said.
They all came into another hallway, the door closing behind them, and Regina felt more secure when it did. She walked up the hallway, looking at two doors, one to flight crew quarters and another to the captain’s room.
The area was devoid of any sort of aesthetic appeal. Thick metal walls, metal pipes and rubber conduits along the ceiling, and a polished concrete floor. The only artistic flair was framed photos of the Pyramid flight control hanging along the hallway wall.
The hallway arced left just after these rooms, and when they came around the corner, they ran into another closed door, twice as wide as the last one and very solid looking. Thick metal with a silvery shine to it and Control Room emblazoned into the door. No keypad, only a metal wheel the size of a steering wheel and a metal lever.
Recessed into the wall perpendicular to the door sat an intercom. Not wanting to charge in and get shot, even if the door would open, which Regina doubted, she clicked on the intercom button and said, “Hello. There are three of us outside the door, if anyone is inside, all of us passengers. We just want to know what’s going on, if you have any idea.” Regina could see a camera just above the intercom so if anyone was inside, they would know she wasn’t lying.
Without a word from the other side of the intercom, a metal clunk reverberated in the room as the lever released on the other side of the door. As the door swung open, it occurred to Regina that whoever waited on the other side was probably going to want to know how she got through the security door, especially being that she just told them they were all passengers.
The first person she saw, as she led the way in, was Roy, the person she suspected drugged her the night before and stole her gun. He smiled at her, in a mocking way, or that’s how it seemed to her. The other man looked scared, but not of them. He looked to be in his thirties, very slim, and had a heavily receding hairline. Similar in appearance to Roy, but taller and thinner, Roy with a full head of black hair, oily and messy. Busy all night trying to date rape, no doubt.
They all piled into the room as the nervous man skirted around them to close the door. There was another door opposite of the one they came through.
The control room was bigger than she thought it would be. There were several consoles with keyboards and paper-thin glass monitors, each with their own black, high backed chair. In the front of the room, a large, clear window to the blackness and stars outside. Just behind the view, there were two seats, each with a flight console, including a yoke, throttle, and monitor. None of the lights on any of the consoles were lit up. They were lifeless.
Roy gawked at Regina. It almost looked to her like he thought she didn’t know who he was. Maybe he thought the drugs he dumped in her drink had memory side effects. She didn’t glare back, for the moment.
The nervous man turned to her. “My name is Dave Monroe, and I am the navigational officer on this ship.” Pointing to Roy, Dave said, “This is Roy, another passenger like yourselves.”
Still staring at Regina, Roy said, “How did you get through the security door?”
“We could ask you the same thing, Roy,” Regina said. Now he knows she knows, she figured.
Dave answered for him. “I happened to be coming through, after everything went to hell and let him in.”
“Lucky you,” Regina said, looking at Roy.
“You still didn’t answer my question.” He wasn’t going to let it go.
Blair sniffed. “She won’t tell us who she is.”
Regina turned her gaze towards Blair now, full of daggers.
Blair visibly gulped, but continued. “She’s not an employee on this ship, but her thumb print was accepted anyway.”
Everyone turned to look at Regina.
Regina pulled her weapon out, keeping it pointed down, but as a clear message to not approach her. “Look, all, I don’t know any of you, and I don’t trust any of you. I will not explain myself to any one of you, because it’s not relevant to anything happening on this ship. You want someone to suspect, you should probably point the finger over at Roy.”
“Fuck you, bitch!” Roy said.
“So eloquently put, Roy. This man, last night in a bar, drugged me and stole something from me. And now, here he is, still alive and well, and in the control room of the ship. Who do you work for, Roy?”
Roy could barely contain himself, but he did. It looked like he wanted to throw himself at Regina, which she would love if he tried.
“We don’t have time for this,” Rachel said. “We need to get control of this ship. Where is everyone, Dave?”
Regina, enraged, turned toward Dave so she could calm down. Otherwise, she would do something stupid. Without the proof she needed, shooting Roy in the head like she wanted to would be murder. And that would not do. She knew who he worked for, or was pretty damn sure, and, if that was the case, he didn’t have long to live. Unlike the opinion of those who found her kind barbaric, excessive, and unjust, she didn’t share their they-had-a-hard-life-so-please-coddle-them mentality that solved nothing. Ever. Not in her experience. A piece of shit that offers nothing but misery and suffering to society does not deserve life. She had lived that credo her whole life and nothing would change that, ever.
Dave looked around at everyone. “I don’t know. I was off duty when . . . when everything happened. I came up to the control room, and there was nobody here, and nothing was operable. I can’t regain control of the ship.”
Rachel walked closer to Dave. “Do you know where we are? There must be some indication of our path. You’re the navigation officer, for Christ’s sake.”
“L-look, I’ve done everything I can. Nothing is working. How the hell am I supposed to figure anything out with no navigation panel or read outs of any sort? The whole system has crashed, or was sabotaged. All I know is we’re moving, and we’re off the grid.”
“What?” Rachel said. “We’re off the markers? That can’t be.”
“It be,” Dave said. “Look, I’ve been on this ship since its inception, and I know acceleration when I feel it. Someone cranked this thing full throttle and broke the marker barrier, killing our engines. The markers slowed us down, but didn’t pull us back. We’re moving at a pretty good rate. Where to? I have no idea.”
“Blair, you need to help Dave and see if you can restore power to these consoles,” Rachel said.
Without a word to Rachel, Blair walked over to Dave. “Show me the control circuit panels.”
Dave led the way to a column behind the pilot’s chairs, with several glass-like panels stuck into the column like a library of books.
Roy never took his hating eyes off of Regina.
“Is it true?” Rachel asked Regina, while nodding towards Roy. “Did this man drug you?”
“Yes,” Regina said.
“She’s a liar,” Roy said. “Why would I drug anybody?”
Regina sighed with frustration. “Maybe because you’re a fucking pervert. Maybe --“
“I will not be talked --“
“Maybe!” Regina yelled. “Because you’re part of a cowardly group of men who have been murdering innocents on Halcyon Four.”
&nb
sp; “What? I’ve never been on that planet before.”
“Halcyon?” Rachel said. “Isn’t that where that mining dispute was?”
Regina looked over at Rachel. “That’s right. I’m guessing this is one of the pissants that lost his job because they got greedy, and under universal employment law, section 10, subsection C, a company is allowed to replace any employee they see as a direct threat to the company’s future, due to an unresolved labor dispute longer than three months. When the strike was not resolved due to negotiations, the company fired everyone and hired non-planetary citizens who were glad to get paid the old contract wages. The previous employees were all given the option to work for their old wages, but declined.”
Roy said nothing, but his face gave him away, gritted teeth, eyes seething.
“You knew what would happen after three months, Roy. What the hell were you holding out for? The company gave some very generous contract offers, but you just had to have more. Did you not think they would go through with their legal rights?”
Roy exploded. “They had no fucking right! I don’t give a fuck what the law says. No fucking right to do what they did!”
“Oh, but they did. So much so, that an attempt at an appeal resulted in a very swift ‘go fuck yourself!’”
“It’s our planet. Ours! Not those cocksuckers, those fucking scabs!”
Rachel watched in silence. Dave and Blair looked over, but then continued working on the panels.
“You can’t plead ignorance of the law, Roy. Yet you tried, and then you and your buddies committed multiple murders.”
“What? What murders? What are you talking about?”
Regina remained calm. Very pleased at how easy it was to break Roy. No one stole her weapon. No one.
“So far, the tally is at something like 963 murdered, yet outlanders keep on coming, Roy, and they’ll never stop. Not with the chance to feed their families. What you’re doing is not only wrong in every way that it can be, it’s accomplished nothing.”
Roy charged Regina.
Rachel stepped back.
Regina brought her weapon up and pointed it at Roy’s head.
Roy grumbled irritably, and then backed off and leaned against a console, pushing a chair out of his way with a kick of his right foot. The chair crashed into the edge of another console, but did no damage.
Regina smiled, and Roy mouthed the words, “I’m going to kill you.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Rachel said. She yelled over at Blair and Dave. “Blair, what’s the scoop?”
Blair walked over, nervously looking at Regina who was still pointing her weapon at Roy, then over at Roy, and then quickly back to Rachel. “The main boards are fried. Someone sent one hell of a charge through them. Even the redundant systems are gone. They should have spares kicking around, but Dave doesn’t have any idea where they might be.”
“Suggestions,” Rachel said, not to anyone in particular.
“I think you know what we need to do, Rachel.” Blair said it in a whisper, but Regina heard it anyway.
“No. That’s not an option,” Rachel whispered back. Again, Regina heard it.
Regina had had enough. “That’s it you two. Enough of the bullshit. You know something and you’d better come out with it.”
“Or what,” Rachel said, “you’ll shoot us?”
“Yes.”
“God,” Rachel said, “you’re psychotic.”
Roy cleared his throat loudly and they all looked his way. “I know what she is,” Roy said. “Psychotic is a start.”
“You shut up!” Regina said. “Just the fact that you know proves my point about you.”
Rachel furrowed her brows at Regina and then turned back toward Roy. “What, Roy? What is she?”
Roy’s mouth started to move and Regina straightened her arm, aiming directly at his head. He shut up. Whether he was about to say she was a SOAD or not didn’t matter to her. Well, it did, but not as much as a lying piece of shit saying whatever he wanted. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Stop!” Blair said. “I’ll tell you, Regina. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters.”
Regina relaxed somewhat, bringing the gun down by her side, still pointing it in Roy’s general direction.
Dave had come over by this point, listening intently. Even Roy had taken his death stare away from Regina and was watching Blair.
As much as Regina wanted Roy to be guilty of what was going on, she suspected otherwise now, especially because Roy was not smart enough. Not on his own. But then again, he never worked on his own. The mine killing group always attacked in numbers, but this smelled of something different. Could it just be a coincidence that Roy, probably with help, came on board because they wanted to take Regina out? She thought so. She wondered how a group of thugs got the better of her SOAD brethren, knew who they all were, and where to find them. Now that Regina knew who was responsible for the SOAD killings, she also knew that somebody, likely government, leaked information. There would be lots of time to figure that out later, if she ever got out of this mess.
“You’re fucking us, Blair,” Rachel said. “Just so you know. I’ll never forget it.”
“We’re fucked anyway.”
The intercom crackled loudly. Everybody jerked at the sharp sound.
A voice sputtered over the intercom. “This is Space Patrol and Rescue Squad, commander George Pratt speaking, with a crew of seven others. Are you in need of assistance?”
They all looked over to the intercom’s monitor on the wall between the two doors and saw a miracle. Eight SPARS members dressed in their traditional camouflage outfits and heavily armed. An audible sigh rang through the room as several of them, including Roy, were relieved something was going right for once.
Dave unlocked and swung the door open.
Chapter 22
The SPARS members all piled into the room, John and Paula staying behind until Dave spoke up. Dave looked over at George. “Um, you should probably all get in here. It’s not safe . . . out there.”
George looked at Dave, sizing him up Regina thought, and then nodded at John and Paula to come inside.
Regina backed against the far wall from Roy and watched them all come inside, everyone gaping at each other expectantly.
“Who’s in command here?” George said.
Dave, Rachel, and Blair looked over at Regina. She said nothing.
Dave walked over and closed the door. It clinked shut and then he cranked the wheel and pulled a lever to lock it. “I guess I would be.” He nervously glanced at Regina and Roy. “At least, as far as this control room goes.”
Regina sized up the SPARS. They looked very competent. The two that lagged behind before, continued to do so, one at each door. The commander looked to have had years of experience, his large nose slightly askew, but not as bad as Blair’s. His eyes looked kind, but his voice was very gruff. He did not speak quickly, probably thinking about everything before he spoke. She wanted to know how the hell they got up to the control room without any problems, but she would wait until things got sorted first.
“My name is George, and I am the commander of this crew. Beside me is Mary, second in command.”
That surprised Regina. She assumed rank would go with age, and that the older gentleman, or at least older than Mary, who was looking Rachel and herself up and down, would be the next in command. When George introduced Michael, she was even more surprised, because he seemed very young to be third in command, but looks are definitely deceiving.
After introductions, George looked back at Dave. “What’s the situation? We have just restored power and compression to the shuttle bay. Some shuttles trail this ship, but no one onboard any of them. We saw nobody on the way up here, nothing but piles of clothing. We thought it was a ghost ship, until we found all of you.”
Dave shook his head, looking like he didn’t know what to say. “C-can I ask how you got through security?”
“What security?” George sa
id. “There was a security door just before we came in here, but it was open.”
“No. No, that can’t be,” Rachel said. “I was the last one through it, and we all heard it close shut.” Rachel looked over to Blair and Regina, and both nodded in agreement.
“It was not left open,” Mary said. “Someone broke it open, and they must have been damn strong, because it was a pretty solid, metal door. It looked like someone kicked it in, because the only damage was to the door bolt and the door jam. And the keypad was smashed.”
Dave walked over and looked at the intercom monitor. Regina looked over, but nothing was out of the ordinary that she could see. Paula and John looked at Dave and then at the screen.
“Jesus!” Blair said. “We haven’t been in here that long. They must have come in just behind us, but we never saw anything. And where the hell did they go?”
George walked forward, looking at the consoles, and then turned back around to face the group, looking from Roy, to Dave, then over at Blair, Regina, and Rachel. “You need to tell us what has happened here.”
“None of us really know what is going on,” Regina said. “Except these two.” Regina nodded at Rachel and Blair. “They seem to know something.” Regina explained about the events at the bar the night before, with Roy, about the strange, orange light, and about the tennis ball-sized brown blob. She also told about running into Blair and Rachel, and the events in the casino with the mother and child. Roy called her a liar when it came to his part in her story, but kept his cool.
George took it all in and did not speak right away. He looked around the room, and even at his own crew. “Regina, is it?”
She nodded.
“Can you prove to me that this man --“
George pointed at Roy.
“-- did what you say he did?”
“No, she can’t,” Roy said.
“Sir,” George said, “you’ll get your say in a moment.”
Roy turned away from George’s hard gaze.
Regina stared at Roy. “Yes, I can, without question.” Roy glared back. Very loudly and never losing eye contact with Roy, she said, “Primary Active! Goo! Fire one!”