Katherine Bogle, former acting XO of Star Warden, stepped out of the ship that had rescued her from certain death and into a sea of admirers.
Grenik Star gently pried away admiring fingers and steered Bogle through the crowd.
16
M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis
Shots rang as Rivkah pulled herself through the opening at the top of the elevator. Darts zipped by her—geared to stun, or perhaps kill. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Screw them all.
She kicked the hatch closed. It broke and it flipped back as darts stuck into the hatch, splitting the air with electrical impulses. One slipped through and sunk into her shoulder, sizzling. Her arm and neck spasmed and convulsed. She pulled the dart out and tossed it, then she fell against the wall as her arm took on a pain of its own. She grabbed her new wound, and grunted, teeth clenched. She figured there would be more wounds before day’s end.
Thick red liquid iron soaked her finger—her blood. Odd. A dart shouldn’t spill this much blood, nor burn this much. Smoke drifted from her shoulder as charred skin wafted to her nostrils. She held in vomit as the memories of her past surfaced, her once gnarled skin flashing in her mind, the fire surrounding her, her downed starfighter burned to a crisp.
Another failure.
She shook her head and came back to the present. “Get a grip, Rivkah.”
Another dart shot up the elevator shaft and then another. Across from her was a technician ladder. Her dad had once said she was the unluckiest girl in the world. Well, her daddy wasn’t here anymore and if he was, she would have loved seeing his face when she showed him this ladder. Neither did she have to pull herself up cables nor acrobatically climb up magnetic guide rails. The ladder was her ticket to a faster getaway.
She hurried around the hatch, avoiding a guard doing his best to lift himself into the shaft, his fingers around the lip, struggling to pull himself up.
Dumb-ass move, numbnutz. She landed a hard heel on the guy’s fingers. A yelp bounced around the shaft as the man crashed to the elevator floor.
Rivkah grabbed a hold of the ladder rungs. They were cold, dusty, and a zap of static electricity zinged her as she swiftly climbed. Her shoulder ached like a dog biting her muscle without let up.
Push through the pain.
Clanks reverberated off the walls. The sounds of another guard attempting to climb through the hatch. She didn’t look down. She didn’t have time. No hesitations. A brief pause meant death.
She reached the next floor’s elevator doors and rested one leg on the limit switch and the other on the ladder—a split-eagle. She performed a balance act that would make a tightrope artist gasp in awe. Rivkah stuck her fingers between the cracks and pried the doors open an inch and strained. Her shoulder screamed. The doors opened more and more.
Metal against metal echoed in the shaft. She didn’t need to look down to know what that meant—a rifle had been placed on top of the elevator, the guard almost through the hatch.
She opened Deck 4’s elevator doors wide and pushed herself through. She rolled away from the opening and to her feet. A politician in business clothes, badge hanging from his coat pocket, black tie, gray suit, white shirt, stopped in his tracks, his expression tight in worry. “Are you okay, ma’am?”
Rivkah ignored him and glanced down the hall toward the launch bay then bolted in an all out run. She flicked a look over her shoulder. A guard’s head came just above the bottom of the elevator’s door frame. She needed to speed up, but her energy was drained and instead she slowed. A woman in a skirt, notepad in hand, butted against the wall and out of Rivkah’s way.
But Rivkah’s legs weakened and her feet became heavier. Her eyes wanted to shut. She forced them to stay open. What was in that dart? Poison? A sleeping agent? She skid to a halt and sucked in a thick breath as a handful of guards curled around the corner. Upon sighting her, they went to one knee in front of the launch bay doors.
“Everyone, down. Out of the corridor,” yelled a soldier. A few politicians hit the floor.
A flash from their rifles, and Rivkah dove to the floor as well. Rubber bullets missed overhead. Another shot, and she rolled. She gasped when a sharp sting struck her side.
She eyed a corridor and jumped to her feet, adrenaline taking her legs into another full on run. Another political type, graying hair, thick white beard, and brown eyes strutted down the hall. Deep in thought, he paused when Rivkah came barreling at him. His eyes widened and he put his hands up. He took a step back but not before she lurched at him and snagged the badge from his coat.
“Hey,” he objected.
Rivkah ignored him and rounded a corner. Into a hospital wing, she about stopped when she saw the back of a nurse behind a window. The nurse had black hair pulled back in a pony tail and wore a blue lab coat. She worked diligently on a tablet, and either didn’t hear the commotion outside or had bad hearing, because the woman gave no indication of fright or curiosity.
Rivkah slipped by without being noticed and swiped the badge down the panel at the first door she came to. A utility closet of all places. Mops, buckets, shelves with cleaning products, towels, napkins, bandages, and the list went on and on. The misty smell of mildew could be added to the tally.
The door closed. She twisted in a roundhouse kick, and sent her boot heel through the inside panel on the wall. It sparked and crackled, then fell to the floor. Smoke rose. Hopefully that slowed any access inside the closet.
Above were rafters, and she climbed the metal shelving that held the cleaning supplies, and pulled herself up to a ceiling beam. She slid across the beam to a back corner and into the shadows. Her breaths fast, her hand came to her side. She winced. Wet? She lifted her hand to her face. More blood. She leaned toward the wall and checked her side. A rubber bullet punctured her skin. The rear rim of the bullet stuck out.
Her mom came to mind. A nurse—long dead by strangulation in their backyard when Rivkah was nine, her father the most likely suspect—would most likely have Rivkah bite down on something as she yanked the bullet out.
She had nothing to bite down on but her own teeth. She lassoed her finger and thumb around the bullet’s rim, and dug in. She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d keep her agony as silent as possible. The pain overbearing, she slid the rubber bullet out and set it in her lap. She wanted to grunt, cry, scream, or punch something.
Her body shook and her eyes rolled back. She rested her head against the wall. She did her best to stay conscious, but the blackness took over and her eyes shut. For a moment, she thought she saw her mom’s smiling face, but that too went dark.
17
M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis
“May I help you?” A nurse, blue coat, and a name tag. Her black hair in a pony tail, she held a computer tablet in her hand, and glossed over it before Jaxx attempted to sneak by.
“No ma’am. I have a friend here.” Jaxx motioned toward a hallway in the starship’s medical wing. An hour ago, he watched two orderlies help Shaughnessy walk to a hospital room, and Shaughnessy hadn’t left since.
And Fox, they rolled him on a gurney in a rush to the operating wing. The guy lost a lot of blood. Probably didn’t make it. One less jerk in the world, or on the ship. However one wanted to look at it, but one less negative presence in Jaxx’s life was a win in his book.
No telling where Slade went, perhaps conscious now and doing his best to find Jaxx. Or he was with President Martelle to convince the man that Jaxx wasn’t a vital asset for the Callisto mission anymore.
“Who?” The nurse tapped on the tablet.
“Jon Shaughnessy. I know where he is. I’ll just head to his room.” Jaxx took a step down the hallway.
“Hold on, sir.” She scrolled through her screen. “Yes, right here. He’s doing fine. What’s your name so I can log you?”
“My name?”
She pointed to his ID badge. “I can just scan you.”
Jaxx pulled away. “It doesn’t work.�
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“Sure it does.” She reached for it.
Jaxx turned and paced down the hall.
“Sir, I need your information. You can’t do—”
Jaxx put his hand up. “I’m a top official. I have above level security clearance.” He had no idea what he was talking about or if this silly ploy would work.
The nurse grabbed the back of his shirt. “I have to keep my patients safe. I have to check your—”
In one twist, he slapped her hand away and continued forward. She let out a short scream, one in shock rather than fear, then grabbed at him as he reached Shaughnessy’s room.
Up and alert, Shaughnessy blinked at Jaxx several times, face blank as if trying to put the pieces together at the situation in front of him. He sat on a hospital table, the room empty of doctors or nurses. A monitor with a bouncing line and streaming data behind him on a cart, wires connected from it to a band around Shaughnessy’s bicep.
“Jaxx?”
“Sir, you can’t come in here.” The nurse’s arms wrapped around Jaxx’s waist, and if she were strong enough, he was sure she’d pick him up and body slam him.
“It’s okay, Betty. He’s a friend of mine.” Shaughnessy winced, no doubt remembering Jaxx had knocked him out not too long ago.
The nurse backed off. “Is this some kind of joke? Did Dr. Murray set me up?” Her eyebrows drew low.
“No joke. It’s just that Jaxx, well, can be kind of an asshole sometimes.” Shaughnessy’s expression remained tight, his eyes a bit narrowed at Jaxx.
Jaxx walked into the room. “I’m sorry, Miss, but I don’t like giving information.”
“I’d say.” She huffed and disappeared around the corner, her footsteps loud on the corridor floor.
Jaxx put his hands up. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me in Slade’s quarters.”
“Yeah, what did come over you?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“Does Slade know you’re here? Did he see you?” Shaughnessy looked around Jaxx.
“No. Do you know where he is?”
“I wouldn’t go searching for him if I were you. After the medtechs woke me, I saw Slade exit the room. He mumbled your name and his tone wasn’t pleasant. Don’t know if he noticed me in his room or not. I’m crossing my fingers he didn’t.”
He did, but Jaxx didn’t have time to explain what occurred after he sent Shaughnessy into dreamland.
“We need to turn this ship around.”
Shaughnessy shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“We have to try.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I know how to fly a ship. If I can slip into the bridge, I can steer this thing away from Callisto and back toward Earth.” He knew it wasn’t that easy, but he had these odd powers that may keep him safe and others away from him while he flew the craft home.
It was a simple, basic plan, but right now his options were more than limited.
“Are you crazy? They won’t give you access to the bridge. And if by chance you broke in, you don’t have the codes to access the flight console. I guarantee it. Plus the people in the bridge, the captain, the crew, I’m thinking they won’t stand back and watch you take over.”
“But you have the codes.”
“The hell I do.”
“You memorized the codes to Slade’s and Martelle’s suites, but not their access codes to anything else?”
“No, man. I already overstepped my bounds with their suite passcodes.”
Jaxx pinched his lips together. “It’s on Slade’s Lectern. I guarantee it.”
“Don’t go back in there.”
“I have to.”
Shaughnessy curled his arms around his chest as if in a self hug of protection.
“Please?” asked Jaxx.
“No. You’re going to get yourself thrown in the brig and I don’t want to see that.”
“A lot of people will die if I don’t do something.”
Shaughnessy rubbed his forehead a little too hard. “Dammit, Jaxx.”
Footsteps came down the hall, hard, fast, heavy. Jaxx tilted his head. That didn’t sound good. He poked his head around the doorway. A male doctor, white coat, stethoscope around his neck, and the nurse, marched in his direction, the corridor lights bouncing off the top of the doctor’s bald head in quick succession as they passed one ceiling lamp after another.
Jaxx faced Shaughnessy. “Slade’s suite passcode, please.” The footsteps came louder. He flared his nostrils, an energy balling up in his gut. “Shaughnessy.”
Shaughnessy relaxed and his arms flopped to his side. “2468WDWA.”
“2468, who do we appreciate?” A sports reference.
“Yes.”
Jaxx took a few steps toward his friend and snatched the ID badge off Shaughnessy’s shirt. Shaughnessy reached forward. “What are you doing?”
Jaxx threw a quick wave and rushed out of the room. The doctor and nurse stopped, the doctor’s hands in the air. “Sir, every member of the ship’s passengers, whether you’re the president or the executive officer or whomever, must be logged into the hospital, visitor or not.”
“Here.” Jaxx tossed Shaughnessy’s badge at the man.
The doctor fumbled with it as Jaxx ran toward the hospital wing’s exit.
Shaughnessy’s voice boomed down the hall. “By the way, I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking, Jaxx.” Jaxx couldn’t only hear his sarcasm, he could feel it as he left the hospital.
Jaxx slowed in the busy starship corridor, eyes to the floor, head down. He picked up his pace. He’d take the long way to Slade’s office. If soldiers or medtechs were still in the guy’s room, Jaxx would have to wait it out in hiding. But once he had his chance, he’d use the code, break in, and get the bridge’s access codes off Slade’s Lectern.
Because it was time to turn this ship around.
18
M-Quadrant, Solar System - Starship Atlantis
Only several hours after the debacle in Slade’s quarters, the colonel’s suite was shut, door closed. The guards and the medtechs gone.
With no one in the corridor, Jaxx placed his ear against the Slade’s door. No sound. He crossed his fingers and toes, and everything else he could imagine. He pressed Slade’s passcode into the panel. The door whooshed open and he walked inside. The door shut behind him.
The lights automatically clicked on, and he froze. He listened again. No breathing. No footsteps. Just him. A kitchen to one side, cabinets, sink, stove, and a refrigerator. The bed with a nice wooden frame sat across the room from the Lectern. On the other side of the room, a bathroom.
The Lectern beckoned him forward. He recalled how Shaughnessy activated the large device the last time they were here and swiped his finger across the edge of the Lectern. It blared to life. A holographic image materialized in front of him, mirroring an operating system back home minus the holographic display. He touched a file icon labeled Starship Atlantis, his finger pressing through the icon. The file spun and opened to another screen with a dozen more files, all labeled.
“Where are the bridge’s access codes?” He scratched his temple and leaned on one leg. He scanned the myriad of titles in front of him. But one in particular caught his eye. He knew it wasn’t flight control codes or access to the bridge. But he had to see it. He pushed his finger through a file titled Callisto Agendum.
Inside, documents, blueprints, correspondences, and other digital papers were laid out before him. He opened the New United States document, and read.
His face went slack. “No, no. That can’t be.” He read more, and made a fist, his mind going to all those people left behind. To all those citizens that paid taxes, that believed the United States government cared for them. Or, at least, thought the government had an ounce of decency. But, as he read, he realized they didn’t. Not in the slightest. Them leaving on a jet ride to Callisto should have been his first clue.
These politicians, scientists, engineers, and doc
tors weren’t coming back for the people of the United States. Not like they said, or ever. They left the people to their own accord, governmentless. Sayonara. So long.
According to the document, the politicians came along for the ride because they were skilled in enacting a legitimate government. But did they all know they weren’t coming back for the rest of the United States population? Probably. Jaxx rolled his eyes. But Slade and President Martelle also brought along the best geniuses the government could find, and that’s what they’d need, those brains and their children to seed the moon. All with the idea that the most brilliant minds would create a more robust civilization of humans. They’d thrive on a moon, a moon Jaxx still had no idea if it could be inhabited or not.
But Slade wouldn’t take a risk like this if he didn’t know humans could survive on Callisto, so Jaxx assumed it was habitable. The pyramids could be more than a hint, but it wasn’t evidence enough that it had enough oxygen for humanity. Perhaps if ancient Atlanteans indeed established a civilization on Callisto, maybe they used a breathing apparatus, converting whatever chemical components making up the atmosphere into breathable, sustainable air.
He swiped the document to the side. Another one shined like a diamond; Coming Deluge. He jabbed an index finger through it, and it pulled up. Again, he read. A lot of head shaking later, he wrinkled his brow. “Bullshit. None of this is proven. You look to the past to the see cycles.”
Slade and his scientists were convinced that Earth was headed toward another worldwide flood, and into the next ice age, and in Slade’s lifetime. The document indicated that with global warming, the melting glaciers, and the rising waters, life as Slade knew it wouldn’t exist for much longer. The coasts where most people lived would be covered. Billions dead. Economic collapse. Governments toppled.
Maybe. With greenhouse gasses, more than plausible. But one couldn’t ignore past cycles, because they were possible and still in play. A deluge may not be in store, not for a few thousand years, which would meet the past average interglacial durations that lasted around fifteen thousand years. The current interglacial age had around two thousand years left before the next ice age.
Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller Page 35