Fatal Boarding

  Chapter 21

 

 

  A bizarre exodus within Electra began. It was practically a confirmation word of mouth was a faster medium than electronics. In every corridor there were one or more crew members dragging along too many personal possessions in a mad rush toward the back of the habitat module. Within each operations area a struggle ensued to secure the area and protect the status of our systems. In a reverse of what the intruders had done to us, I had every system locked out with encrypted access codes that were, for all purposes, unbreakable.

  During the process, my watch unexpectedly began pulsing a horseshoe-shaped 'E’ and I knew immediately it was a summons to the Captain’s quarters. All of the data available had been transferred to the Captain’s terminal. It was possible this was a sign help would be proffered, and we needed all we could get.

  The Captain’s quarters were three decks above us. I used the excuse there was a Captain’s-eyes-only priority alert which needed attention. I left R.J. and three guardsmen worriedly standing watch in Security with the entrance monitored by a beam field. With two other swat members in tow, I cautiously headed to level seven.

  Outside the Captain’s door the maintenance panel verified no one had entered since the last visit. I handed over my weapon and asked the team to wait outside, making sure they understood shoot first, ask questions later. They were happy to oblige. With a last look around, I ducked inside and let the door close behind me.

  I felt the change immediately. Her special door was already open. The tall, robed form of the Emissary stood glowing just in front of it. My eyes had to adjust in a strange way to the special light, as the exhilarating sensation of her presence once again became overwhelming. It suddenly dawned on me why Grey had been so sparse in his description of her. It was difficult not to become lost in the vision. Immediately I knew she was aware of the evacuation, though she appeared unexpressive about it. I had to catch my breath and swallow to speak.

  “The intruders.”

  She replied in my mind, “Rogues.”

  And in that single word I knew that the invaders were pirates from far outside our section of the galaxy. Besides accosting us, they were breaking galactic rules I knew nothing about. Before I could focus on another question, she continued.

  “They are found.”

  I again understood her message. She now knew enough about them that she was somehow able to mentally search the ship and find and identify them. It made me wonder about their mind control capability, the biggest threat to us. Her response startled me.

  “No more.”

  From that I knew having found them, she was now somehow able to prevent them from using mind control. An involuntary pang of pleasure rose up within me, along with a strong desire to pay them a visit.

  Gracefully she stepped back, but her door did not shut. Though it was not easy, I looked into her dark eyes. For the first time, I saw concern. To my surprise, she was not concerned for herself. It was concern for me. And in that moment, I knew the task ahead would not be easy, and was not a guaranteed win.

  Her door closed and the golden light within the room faded. The embrace of euphoria dissipated into the desolate chamber of a missing Captain. I was left wanting more, but that wasn’t going to happen. I did not understand the limits of this being. I did not like feeling cut off. There should have been more. Why was she treating us this way? Why couldn’t there be understanding?

  We stalked our way back to Security and found ourselves walking the corridors of a deserted ship. It was something I had never experienced on a large ship out of orbit. It sent a further chill up my spine and made me walk a little more briskly. There were creaks and groans coming from the superstructure I had never before noticed. There were vibrations from the bulkheads, the hum of machine-life. I thought I sensed someone behind me, looked over my shoulder and found a deserted corridor disappearing into darkness. For a moment, I thought we had taken a wrong turn but then realized a storage compartment door left open had confused me. It was startling how quickly things were happening. I felt inadequate and stupid. I had set things out of control. No, things were out of control anyway. Get your wits about you, Tarn. You're jumping at your own shadow! Suddenly humbled, eh? That was how the Captain had put it. I cursed myself and had just begun to relax when a shrill cry echoed up the lonely corridor. We stopped in unison and jerked our weapons up. It had sounded like a woman.

  I cautiously led the way and peered around a corner to look. At the end of the corridor, the dull red bar light above the elevator illuminated. It had only been the whine of elevator brakes as the car came to a halt. We hurried toward the doors, but stopped and stepped back abruptly when they opened and no one was inside. Impulsively, I fired a spread of three plasma rounds into the car and watched them dissipate on the silver-gray walls. We waited and listened.

  Nothing. This was the elevator's home floor, Bridge officer’s privilege. The car had only been returning. We moved into it and tapped three, weapons still poised. By the time the doors opened for level three, I had once again regained some composure. My fear turned to anger. It was time to be planning retribution, not sticking my head in a mental ostrich hole. I lowered my firearm, stepped out of the elevator, took a deep, relaxing breath, and the lights went out.

  On Earth, when the power fails, there's almost always some light left. It may take some time for the eyes to adjust, but usually you can at least make-out shadows or shapes. Inside a ship that is far from the nearest star, that's not the case. When no artificial light source is available, you see nothing. The pupils are fully dilated, the photoreceptors in the retina ready to detect, but there is not a single subatomic bit of energy to be had. Your nose can be one inch from a solid, white wall, but you can't see it.

  I had wondered what their next move would be. They were probably just a bit dejected about their friend. And now they knew we knew. This was their answer. Don't hurt the harvest; instead, create a floating tower of babble where so much confusion exists that no organization can possibly be achieved. The thing that astonished me the most was the emergency lights weren't working, a completely independent system with its own batteries. Somehow they had overridden them.

  We switched on our weapon lights and proceeded cautiously along the corridor. Somewhere ahead blue light glowed from an open door, and low voices resonated off the walls. The blue glow cast eerie, changing patterns on the floor and walls. As we neared, we recognized it as light from computer screens still running. The voices sounded human. By the door, a beam detector was still set up and running. With the greatest of care, I forced myself to peer around the corner and into the room.

  They were in a group at the far end of the room, R.J, Pell, Nira, Doctor Pacell, and Perk. Perk's black assault suit was still loaded down with firepower. He was seated at a console, an automatic weapon resting in his lap, both hands holding it, one foot propped up on the desk. Two other swat team members leaned against the wall behind him. The Doctor was still in his white lab smock, the others in standard grays. They seemed safe but were watching the door as though the grim reaper was due at any moment.

  R. J. stood. "Adrian! Thank God!"

  I gave a final glance up and down the darkened corridor and the three of us stepped quickly inside. The alarm unit began chirping its warning until Perk tapped the remote.

  R.J stared at me as though I was a ghost. "We were starting to think the worst...."

  I tapped the door shut. "Just wandering around in the dark, shooting at empty space. No problems at all, really. What did I miss?"

  R.J. opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Perk. "The little bastards are playin' us, Adrian. They've set up house on level two. The lights are all on down there. Like we're bugs to them, and we'll follow the goddam light. They've got the access ways staked out. As soon as you set foot on that level, they nail you. Legrand, Patroni, and I went down there by a service duct. Only reason I got away is I was still on
the ladder. I saw the guys below led away like children. Not only that, the bastards got some doors locked open and others locked shut. No local control. They made a god damn maze out of the ship. The only way you can go leads you down to level two. Like rats in a damned laboratory maze. Shit, they're not even botherin' to round us up. They think we're so stupid we'll deliver ourselves for slaughter."

  "Why are all of you here? Some of you should've headed back to the tail."

  R.J. replied, "It was coincidence, Adrian. Nira came up to fill you in on the suit and weapon. Perk stopped the Doctor from going back to sickbay and brought him here under protest. Pell wanted to tell you about the net. It happened so fast, it was kind of like we got caught by low tide."

  "Any idea how many of the crew made it to the tail?"

  Before anyone could respond, Perk waved his hand in an irritated gesture to the right. "Adrian, you're in my line of fire." I looked behind and realized I was between him and the door. I winced and moved off to one side.

  R.J sat back down but remained stiffly postured. "There's no way to know how many made it until we get to the tail ourselves."

  Perk spoke, "Adrian, you know we can't use the escape pods. They’d pop off the tail boom and drift around until the bastards came by to pick us up like Easter eggs. Plus, there’s no place close enough to go anyway."

  Pell looked up at me with a haggard expression. His face was drawn, and his coveralls looked several days old. "You know the com's out. Well, they're using the net, too. That's part of the reason the computer stations are still operating. They're sending out messages telling everyone to disregard previous instructions and report to level two. They're saying level two has been secured and is now a safe area. I’m afraid to think how many have gone there."

  Perk stood up abruptly, held his weapon pointed at the floor with one hand and shook his fist with the other. "We've gotta go down there and torch the place, Adrian. Just saturate the corridors with fire, burn their asses. We won't need to see them. Fight fire with fire!"

  I raised an eyebrow and shook my head. "Perk, the torches wouldn’t last long enough. That’s a last ditch effort. As bad as it is, we’re not that bad off yet. Let’s see if we can become really annoying victims, instead of easy prey. Do we know for sure how many are aboard?"

  Nira answered, "There were four left on the last scan. We know how they work. We're not helpless."

  Doctor Pacell stood, leaned back against a console, and folded his arms. "I'm not sure I agree. From what I've seen they're far ahead of us technologically. And, if you'll forgive the metaphor, they have no hearts!"

  Nira stared up at him. "What?"

  "Just what I said. They have no hearts. They've got some kind of temperature-sensitive sludge for blood. It circulates convectively. They are the closest thing to the walking dead I have ever seen. I do not know how they live."

  "Are they vulnerable to cold, Doctor?" I asked.

  "How would I know? I had no live tissue to examine, and no history of this form of life to refer to. Personally, I am puzzled by the method they have chosen to abduct us. Why haven't they just gassed the ventilation system, or drugged the water supply? That's one of the reasons why I'm skeptical that we really know what we're up against."

  Perk snapped back, "Well, bullshit. I don't care how advanced they are. You give a hunter a laser-sighted rifle and a good tracking dog, and that's still no guarantee he's going to find the deer. I'll bet you I’d take at least one or two of them out before they got me!"

  Doctor Pacell snarled, "Who'll be around to collect?"

  R.J. interrupted. "Doctor, gas or drugs would be far too hit or miss for their purposes. People would be falling from ladders, and disrupting ship's control systems. A variety of undesirable impacts would result. They would be required to collect their unconscious prey. Their planning is quite admirable, really. Many victims are doing the work for them."

  I took a seat beside Nira. "What else did they learn in Life Sciences before the evacuation?"

  She nervously rubbed her forehead. She looked at me and smiled affectionately. "The suit's a light absorber. It seems to be able to dissolve and absorb anything that comes in contact with it. Nothing is reflected back. We don't understand how it becomes transparent. It's not impervious, but almost. It was just luck the Life Science scans picked them up."

  "It has no other properties at all we can detect?"

  "No signals we could find. They take up space, that's all we've got."

  "But we exposed one with the CO2 wand."

  "Probably only because the wearer was unconscious or dead, and unable to adjust the suit."

  "And the weapon?"

  "The weapon was even more interesting. It has a biological core. Please don't ask me to explain that. The power source is an unknown purple crystal that glows continuously. The weapon has a range of only about ten feet, and it’s just a stun. We have no idea what it radiates. It's not measurable. We don't know if it's effective against them or can penetrate their suit. We only know what it does to us. I don't have to tell you. You experienced it yourself.”

  The Doctor cut in, “You see what’s happening here, don’t you, Adrian? We’ve been subjected to two different types of mental assault. The two men in propulsion had some sort of mind control imposed upon them that made them fight. Many of the nightmare reports and other hallucination psychosis reports I’ve had were the same type of intrusion. On the other hand, this stun weapon just shuts down brain activity for a certain amount of time. You wake up, don’t remember a thing, but are essentially unharmed. That’s what happened to you on the catwalk. It’s a cone-shaped gun that neutralizes conscious brain activity.”

  Nira continued, “After we finally got the guts to fire it, one of the lab techs volunteered as a guinea pig. It turned him into a vegetable for seven minutes. That was from a point-five second burst. We think the longer the exposure, the longer the resultant effect. I don’t know if the thing will be much use to us, except for what we learned from it. When the lab was evacuated, I brought it with me. It's in my satchel."

  "So if we could stay twenty feet away from them, we'd be safe."

  "Safe from the stun, at least."

  "I have reason to believe there will be no further mind control attacks. And, I think I can see which way we should go from here.”

  RJ took notice. “No further mind control; how’s that?”

  “It’s too complicated to go into. I’ll fill you in later. I think we can assume the crew that made it to the tail will be safe for a while. Our four ugly little intruders are probably busily processing their victims and expecting more. What that means is; we have a small window of time.”

  Perk sounded doubtful, “To do what?”

  “Confuse them, disrupt them, make their life a living hell, and when the time is right, kill them.”

  Perk smiled, “Okay….”

  RJ rolled his eyes, “Oh brother…”

  Nira snarled at RJ, “What’s your problem?”

  RJ clasped his hands together. “You don’t know him like I do.”

  I turned to Pell. “There's one other thing that might help us. Pell, you can still transmit on the net, right?"

  "Sure, but it goes out and never gets a response."

  "If they’re sending out false messages to the crew, then they're monitoring it. Could you tap into the system in such a way as to make it look as though a group of poor desperate humans were hiding and trying to communicate from somewhere on the opposite side of the ship?"

  "You want them to go looking in the wrong place!"

  "Exactly.”

  "Hell, I can brew one up that will be interactive. If they answer, they'll think they're talking to someone who's really there!"

  “Beautiful. These false people have managed to mask their physical signatures from scans, and desperately want to come to level two, but they’re afraid. They want Security to meet them. It’s a fairly large group.”
/>
  “No problem.”

  “We set this up so there's only one way to get to these people, and before we transmit the fake communication we’ll booby-trap the passageway that leads there. It will be far away enough that the intruders who do not go to help collect the prey will not know what's happened to their comrades.”

  Nira gave a short laugh. “That’s nasty, Adrian!”

  I looked around at the swat members standing around me. “We’ll need two volunteers to do that. I have a different job for Perk and me.”

  RJ grumbled, “Here it comes….”

  “Perk, we carry a few of the big utility Hercules solid rocket motors aboard, right?”

  “Yeah, they’re kept in the zero G external aft compartments for easy deployment. They’re unguided and all, and they’re huge; as long as a tour bus. They’re only used to help move very large mass items. What the hell do you want with them?”

  “I want to move a large mass item. Okay, just one more thing. They want everyone to come to level two for the party, right? Wouldn’t it be nice if all of a sudden there was no way off of level two?”

  This time RJ laughed. “It’d be a big job. There’s a lot of access. But I’d just love to see that happen.”

  “I would suggest while the other two ops are in progress maybe the rest of you could sort that out. Even if you didn’t lock out everything, you could sure make it a bitch.”

  Nira smiled. “We could use the service access tunnels for most of it. We’d only have to cross over the main corridors.”

  Pell joined in. “The cable drops can be squeezed through. They run everywhere.”

  “You all need to be armed, but not all of you have weapons training. Try not to shoot each other, okay?”

  I had intended it as a joke, but they all looked at me insulted. No one laughed.