Chapter 19
R.J. and I ran most of the way to Life Sciences, slowing down only through areas we knew would be populated. On the way, I called in and requested a special assault team with a variety of armament to meet us there. The dispatcher sounded reluctant, but the tone of my voice ushered him along.
Life Sciences is a large rectangular laboratory divided by clear Plexiglas barriers, isolation booths, and analysis computers that foster rows of laser pen recorders and monitor stacks. It is a place that smells more antiseptic than a hospital, and appropriately most of the scientists and staff wear white lab smocks and hair nets.
I was forced to brief Brandon and had to shut her off several times to do it. I made sure her on-duty staff attended rather than letting her fill them in afterward.
My hastily assembled swat team met us a few minutes later. I had requested four specific team members for the occasion, and every one of them showed up combat ready. We sealed the lab under the guise of ‘classified operations in progress’. We grouped around the oval Bio-Scanning control station waiting for the next snapshot to be displayed. Nira swiveled in her seat within the oval tapping at the clusters of colored light controls, while Brandon stared over her shoulder dispensing instructions which were completely unnecessary and genuinely annoying.
The team stood around me wearing hands-free headsets and black jumpsuits loaded down with the requested assortment of weaponry. Because we had no idea what we were fighting we brought almost everything, including a CO2 wand, a chem-spray gun, and a small flame thrower I prayed would not be needed.
The shipboard options were depressing. To conceal the fact we had intruders on board meant leaving the crew unaware of the danger. But to release that information would certainly alert the invaders. I shuddered at the thought of what they might do then. More than anything we needed information about the enemy.
To my dismay, the number of onlookers around us was slowly growing. Those who did not understand what was transpiring continually searched our faces as the snapshot scans played out at fifteen-second intervals.
Nira had immersed herself completely in the task. Within minutes of the first scan, she had isolated three separate categories of life signs. Most were human, though twelve of those were faded. Five other signs were entirely unique, dense, compact signatures like nothing we had never seen. She worked the scanned data relentlessly.
"Here's a good spot, Adrian. It's deck two, compartment EEE. Two unique signatures and eight others who are attenuated. Compartment EEE, what is that?" She leaned over to her right and checked the floor plan on the next display. "Wow! That's definitely unusual. That's a cable drop area. No one should be in there." She turned in her seat and looked up at me. "All the other uniques are on the lower levels. They're constantly on the move. These two are busy at something in EEE. It's your best shot; I don't think they're aware of us at all. If they wanted to sabotage us at least one of them would be heading for the central cable transit to tap into the array controllers. They don't seem concerned at all."
We checked over our weapons and hurried along the fastest, most inconspicuous route to level 2. We raced through the dim, narrow corridors through several storage areas, and within minutes took positions outside compartment EEE. The oval hatch was closed. We hoped to catch them off guard, stun them if possible, and then take them down quickly to minimize the chance they might alert their friends.
With three fingers I counted down to zero and hit the open key by the door. Nothing. The lockout was expected. I opened the access panel and punched in the Ex/O wildcard code. The door slid aside.
The team members stationed farther back waved off; nothing to see from their position. I dared a quick look around the corner, saw an empty section of compartment and yanked myself back away.
"Nira, there's no one home!"
"They're there, Adrian. They've stopped moving, but they are there!"
I motioned to the team member on the opposite side of the door. "Perk, flash-bang them."
He unsnapped the grenade from his vest, popped the pin and tossed it inside. We pulled back and braced. The grenade had almost no delay. It made a hell of a thu-whump and lit up the corridor like a welder's torch. Concussion belched from the open door and rippled the straps on our suits.
I dared another look. Nothing.
Nira cut in on the intercom. "Adrian, one has moved into the hall with you! It's at the far end already, turning the corner!"
We all looked. There was nothing to see.
"The other one is still inside. It's not moving."
I pushed away from the wall and stepped into the compartment. Crouched and pivoting, with weapon raised, I found no intruder. To the right of the door, in the corner, a neat line of degraded glazed human bodies lying in the embryo position were tightly packed together. I turned and continued to search the room. Perk came up alongside.
"Nira, there are no uniques here!"
"It is there, Adrian. Directly in front of you, near the bulkhead."
"There are two of us in here who don't see a damned thing! It must be sensor ghosts,"
"No! Their other one is still moving away. It must be hurt. It circles sometimes and stops frequently. It's confused. Fifteen feet ahead of you. There's one there. It's still not moving."
We inched ahead until we were five feet from the bulkhead.
"It's right in front of you, Adrian!"
"Perk, freeze this area."
Perk let his weapon hang by the strap, and unhooked the CO2 wand from behind his back. He charged the tip and began spraying down the area with a white cloud of frozen gas.
For a few seconds there was nothing. Slowly, a small, frosty form sprawled on the floor came into view, humanoid, maybe four feet tall. It had on a body suit with ridges running beneath the surface. A thin hood and a visor pulled back from the head. On the left sleeve, the outline of a control set. The opposite hand clutched a small cone-shaped device that looked like a weapon.
Perk shut off the frost and we stood and stared. He looked at me with disbelief. "The god-damned things are invisible!"
I knelt and twisted at the control panel on the creature's sleeve. It came off in my hand. Instantly, the form changed. It solidified and became detailed; coal black bodysuit, short black boots, gloves which were part of the sleeves, hideously wrinkled face, pointed nose. Its lips did not close all the way to conceal the yellow spiked teeth in the mouth; cat's eyes frozen open in a soulless stare.
It looked dead, but we took no chances. With the rest of the team looking on, we fastened the hands and feet tightly with plastic wraps.
I was about to take two of the team and go after the wounded one when Nira began cursing over the intercom. "Hey guys, the readout's late! I'm not getting anything. Oh shit! Shit! Shit! The scanning array is down. We must have run it too long. It's overheated! It went into auto shut down."
I cursed under my breath. "How long until it's back up?"
"At least an hour, probably longer."
The assemblage of mutating humans on the opposite side of the room lay waiting. They were on their sides, wrapped in the same opaque layer that had enveloped Tolson. Several were in an advanced state of transformation, barely visible within the egg. Others were still in the early stage, the vision of terror locked on their faces still clearly visible.
As discreetly as possible, we borrowed a body bag from sickbay and asked the Doctor to meet us in Life Sciences. We packaged the tiny body and slung it over Perk's shoulder. Somehow we made it down the hall undetected, but when the elevator door opened I had to evict two startled crewman. They stood outside the elevator, staring at the body bag, trying to reassure themselves it was not what they thought. I nodded politely as the doors shut.
When we reached Life Sciences a small crowd was already there. Word had spread. We wound our way around the laboratory to an isolation booth that was open and prepared to receive us
. Perk slung the body down on the angled, dull-silver aluminum table and quickly withdrew, looking glad to be rid of it. I glanced around to find Brandon, Nira, and several others, their faces pressed close to the window, staring as though the nightmare had suddenly become too real.
Doctor Pacell pushed his way into the booth. He looked down at the unopened bag, and then at me. "Is it dead?"
"How do I tell? I think so."
He shook his head, went to the table and began unzipping the bag. I raised my weapon.
He stopped, looked back at me, and gave a sarcastic laugh. "Do you think if it was going to attack us it would be playing dead in a body bag?"
I returned a childish, pitiful look, and stood up straight, lowering the weapon only as much as seemed necessary to give the illusion of at-ease. The faces at the window peered earnestly over my shoulder. The Doctor again shook his head and went to work.
We cleared the lab of all nonessential personnel and sealed the entrance. Guards were posted with orders to shoot if the doors opened with no one there. We formed three separate tiger teams; one to examine the body, another to study the hand-held device, and a third to analyze the suit. I did not stay for the entire autopsy. When the little man had been dissected enough so he was clearly no longer a threat, I retreated to the emptiness of the adjoining Life Sciences meeting room. R.J. followed close behind.
The large data monitor on the wall had been left on. It was stepping through pictures and data updates on the alien. I stood by the oval gray meeting table and began undoing the combat accessories attached to my uniform. R.J. took a seat at the table in front of me and leaned back nervously.
"So, what are you going to do?"
"About what?"
"The situation."
"How the hell do I know? I didn't volunteer for this crap!"
"Granted, but you inherited it, nonetheless."
"Like hell! I was supposed to be acting second-in-command of a structured, disciplined organization, not captain of the Titanic. If you wait until the bomb's about to go off before you hand it off to someone, don't expect them to disarm it."
"But you're in charge!"
"Of what? No one's got control of anything here! We are way out of our league! We can't even get close to these bastards without forgetting who we are!"
"But you just killed one!"
"We got real lucky. They didn't know they'd been discovered. From here on out, they'll be ready. Who knows what the hell they'll do now."
"Well, what are you going to do Adrian, abandon the others and worry about yourself?"
"God, it's a tempting idea."
"Adrian, I don't believe you! I've never seen you like this! On occasion you do some pretty unorthodox things, but never have you turned your back on friends, especially friends in need! What's gotten into you?"
"Good sense?"
"It's never stopped you before. You could at least get the others together and see what they think. I don't get it. You've always been the weasel. You slip out of the damnedest things. It's like a God-given talent. Don't you have any ideas?"
"Just one. But I sure don't like where it will take us."
"Could it be any worse than where we are?"
I looked at him with reluctant sympathy and knew he was right. With R.J. continuing to act as my conscious I gave in to guilt, and using the distrust-worthy com system, offered the department heads and Bridge officers an emergency staff meeting in Life Sciences they would never forget.