Exodus: Sci-Fi Thriller (The Belt Book 5)

by Gerald M. Kilby

  The ship began to reduce acceleration, and Luca felt herself begin to float off the floor. She grabbed a handrail to stay oriented. From inside the bridge, she could see one of the crew unfasten his seat harness, pick up a weapon, and propel himself in her direction. She took a deep breath and tapped the control pad to reactivate the neural lace.

  Her mind instantly went into a whiteout, but within a nanosecond she could sense it fade; it was just the dissipating energy residue from the pulse bomb. As she began to gain clarity, she looked up to see the crew member wedged between the entrance doors, pointing the weapon at her.

  “Don’t even think about moving.”

  “Is she still alive?” Sebastian called out from somewhere inside the bridge.

  “Yeah, I think so,” he called back over his shoulder while still keeping a close eye on Luca.

  “Well then, for godsakes just shoot her.”

  But by now, Luca had regained access to the ship’s systems, specifically those that controlled the opening and closing mechanism of the doors to the bridge. She overrode the safety protocol and slammed them shut at full power. The guard yelped in pain and fired off a wild shot, hitting the corridor ceiling.

  Luca released the doors and the guard floated momentarily in the opening. She slammed them shut again, three more times in quick succession. The final time he was nothing more than a bloodied mess.

  Luca grabbed his free-floating weapon and took cover. In her mind’s eye she could see Sebastian cowering behind the holo-table as he waved his last remaining guard to find and kill Luca.

  She checked the weapon, then swung around and fired through the gap between the doors. The plasma blast hit the last guard directly in the face, flinging him backward with the force of the impact. He wouldn’t be moving again.

  Luca kept her weapon high and propelled herself past the bloodied guard in the doorway and onto the bridge. To her right, César was still jacked-in, controlling the ship—she would deal with him in a moment. “Show your face, Sebastian.”

  He poked his head above the edge of the holo-table and raised a free hand. “I’m unarmed,” he whimpered.

  Luca kept the weapon trained on him and jerked her head to one side of the holo-table. “Move over there where I can see you fully.”

  Sebastian hesitated for a beat before complying. “Let’s not do anything too hasty, Luca. Soon we’ll be in orbit. We’ve got time to discuss things, work out an arrangement.”

  The node-runner let out a groan, and Sebastian cast an anxious look in his direction.

  “He’s trying to take me on in the data-stream, Sebastian.” Luca’s voice was calm and measured. “A brave attempt, but a foolish one I think.”

  César groaned again. This time it sounded a little more agonized. Luca kept her eyes locked on Sebastian and watched as his faced morphed into one of horror, as the groans of the node-runner turned to screams—and then there was silence.

  “I think it’s just you and me now, Sebastian. Is there anything you’d like to talk about? You seemed quite chatty the last time we met.”

  Sebastian floated mute, his mouth open, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Very well. Then it’s goodbye.” Luca fired, hitting him straight in the face.

  He catapulted backward and slammed into one of the panoramic viewing monitors, where his clothing caught on the broken shards and he halted.

  Luca blasted him three more times, to be sure.

  26

  Containment

  A faint haze of smoke floated around the scorched skull of Sebastian VanHeilding as Luca contemplated his demise. He may be dead, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. There were still a cohort of the crew back down in the cargo hold who would be regaining consciousness soon, if they hadn’t already. The curare-tipped darts that Fly used only worked for an hour or so, depending on the body mass and physiology of the victim.

  Her second issue was that, with no node-runner at the helm, the ship had shut down its engines and was now out of control. And since it hadn’t reached escape velocity, it would start to fall back to the planet’s surface unless she could get the engines powered up again.

  Finally, one of the Martian military craft that had been scrambled from Jezero had now caught up with the ship, and judging from the cacophony that Luca could hear on the ship’s broadcast channel, they were not happy campers. They were assuming that, judging from the ship’s erratic launch behavior, it was out of control, and were threatening to blow it to smithereens. Presumably to lessen the destruction on the planet’s surface if it were to crash-land intact.

  Luca let go of her weapon and focused her attention on getting the engine powered up before the ship started free-falling. But Sebastian’s claim that the ship was hardened against an EMP strike had proven not entirely correct. Luca was finding gaps in the data-stream where several vital subsystems had been fried, or had yet to reboot.

  In the background, she could hear the military craft issue an urgent, final warning.

  Luca open a comms channel. “This is Luca Lee-McNabb. I’m in control of this ship. Hold your fire.”

  “Copy,” came the reply. “But your ship is now in free-fall and will be destroyed unless propulsive control is reestablished immediately.”

  “Hold your fire… I’m working on it.”

  “You have five seconds.”

  “Goddamnit, just…” But Luca gave up on communicating and refocused all her energies on disentangling the corrupted mess left behind by the EMP explosion.

  “Three…two…”

  The engines finally reengaged, and Luca collapsed on the floor as the ship powered out of its free-fall.

  “Standing down. Please bring you ship in to land at these coordinates.” He proceeded to issue a string of digits.

  “Copy,” said Luca as she pulled herself up off the floor and powered up the holo-table. A 3D schematic of the proposed landing site blossomed out from its surface. It was a location east of Jezero deep in the Isidis Basin—a flat, unpopulated expanse. They were taking no chances.

  Fly had also managed to reorient itself; it flew over to her and perched on the edge of the table. “My apologies, Luca, I do not wish to add to your anxieties, but I estimate the effect of my darts will be wearing off on the crew in the cargo hold imminently.”

  “No worries, Fly. We’ll just keep them contained down there and let the military guys deal with that issue.”

  The ship dropped slowly onto the Martian surface, whipping up a great cloud of sand and dust. Luca powered down the engines, made the ship safe, and waited. The camera feed from the cargo hold showed several of the crew trying to break out and gain access to the main deck.

  Luca opened the comms channel to the Martian military craft again. “Be advised that there are a half-dozen very pissed-off crew locked up in the cargo hold, all armed with light plasma weapons set to max.”

  “Copy that,” came the reply.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll let you guys deal with them. Think you can handle it?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good. I’ll be waiting for you up on the bridge.” She closed the channel and waited.

  She watched them enter the cargo hold on the monitors. The crew surrendered without a fight—a wise choice considering the firepower that was bearing down on them. A few moments later, a small team stepped onto the bridge. Four of them swept the area while one came forward.

  “So you must be Luca?” The name patch on his suit read, Capt. Carmichael.

  Luca nodded. “That’s me.”

  “Any injuries?”

  Luca shook her head. “Just a few bruises, I think.”

  “Okay, we’ll have a team of medics up here in a moment to check you over. In the meantime, I’d appreciate you not moving from this spot until we do a full sweep of the ship.”

  “That’s fine by me.” Luca gave him a thumbs-up.

  “All clear, Captain,” one of the team shouted over.

  Carmi
chael tapped his comms unit and spoke into it. “Good to go. You can send them up now.”

  Three medics arrived. One started giving her a cursory look over while the others focused their attentions on the node-runners, who were technically still alive.

  “Any head trauma?” the medic asked as she angled a pen light onto Luca’s pupils.

  Luca wondered if being subjected to an EMP detonation while wearing a neural lace constituted head trauma. “No, I’m fine, really.”

  The medic took a moment to satisfy herself, then packed up her bag. “We can give you a full checkup once we get you to the hospital.”

  “Can you do me a favor?” Luca asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Can you check with the hospital and find out how my mother is doing, and also Dr. Rayman?”

  The medic nodded, then proceeded to talk into her comms unit, nodding every now and again at the voice on the other end. “Okay, thanks.” She closed the channel and looked up at Luca. “Your mother is okay. She’ll probably need some reconstructive surgery to her shoulder, but she’ll be back in action in a few weeks. They say she has…eh, unusual genetics. Apparently she heals at an accelerated pace.”

  “And Dr. Rayman?”

  “Fine, some residual scarring, nothing more.”

  Luca slumped down in one of the operator chairs and breathed a sigh of relief. But she couldn’t relax for long.

  “Time to go,” said the medic as she watched the node-runners being wheeled out of the bridge.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The medic looked shocked. “But you have to. We’ve got to get you to a hospital to do a full checkup.”

  Before Luca could answer, the captain returned. “Come on.” He waved over to them. “What are you waiting for? Time to get out of here.” He must have seen the confused expression on the medic’s face, as he shouldered his weapon and strode over to them. “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here a while longer.”

  “What for? The ship has been cleared. The techs will move in and make it safe.”

  “Eh…they may not.” Luca stood up from the chair.

  “The orders are to get everybody off the ship. That includes you, so let’s go.”

  Luca stood up from the chair and squared off against the captain. “You tell your superiors that I’m not leaving this ship until I satisfy myself it’s safe—end of story. If they have a problem with that, then take it up with Aria.”

  The captain glared at her for a second before seeming to back down. “Great, and here’s me thinking this was the job done.” He sighed, then tapped his comms unit, walking off the bridge as he informed his superiors of Luca’s stubbornness.

  The bridge eventually emptied out of people and bodies. Luca waited, going over in her head how best to instigate her next move. Fly perched itself on the edge of the holo-table.

  She had deactivated the neural lace to give her brain a rest while she could. Soon she would need all her focus, if she were to pull off her plan. On the monitors she could see the medical shuttle leaving, bringing the injured to the hospital and the dead to the morgue. New shuttles also arrived, but these were not military. Without her lace activated she could only guess their nature, but she suspected it might be an official delegation, sent to make a more diplomatic entreaty to get her to vacate the ship. Presumably they did not want to drag her off by force, not least the fact that that might be a dangerous course of action, judging by the devastation she had just delivered to its previous occupants.

  Her suspicions were confirmed when Scott walked onto the bridge.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He rushed over and embraced her, squeezing her tight. “Luca, I thought I would never see you again.” He released her from his grip, held her at arm’s length by the shoulders, and gave her a long, happy look. “How the hell did you pull that off?”

  She tapped her temple. “I just used my brain…literally.”

  Scott laughed and hugged her again.

  “Did they send you to persuade me to go quietly?” Luca said once her father had finally released her.

  Scott smiled and gave a shrug. “Something like that.”

  “Sorry, but I have to disappoint.”

  “I know that, Luca. You were never one to argue with when you got something into your head. But I told them I would try. So, what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is to end this once and for all.”

  Scott glanced around the bridge. “But it’s over. Sebastian is no longer a threat.”

  “It’s not over, not by a long shot. And it won’t be over until Fredrick VanHeilding and his entire Corporation are destroyed.”

  Scott’s eyes widened. “But…”

  “I’m not saying it’s possible, I’m just saying that’s the only way it ends. That or my annihilation at the hands of the QIs—they’re not going to let me be taken.”

  “The QIs? But they would never do that. They want to protect you.”

  “They want to protect humanity, and my existence threatens that. And don’t tell me you didn’t realize this.”

  Scott was silent for a moment as he considered what Luca was saying. “I’ve always suspected as much, considering what the quantum hive mind’s primary directive is.”

  “So you know then that this only ends in one of two ways. It’s either me or the VanHeilding Corporation.”

  Scott shook his head in resignation. “You want the ship, don’t you?”

  Luca nodded.

  “Hell, Luca, this is crazy. Taking on Sebastian and a handful of crew is one thing, but going after the entire Corporation is heading straight into the teeth of an army.”

  “I know, but I’m sick of running and hiding. At least this way I get to make my own choices.”

  Scott stood and looked at her for a moment, then he nodded his head and smiled. “You know, your mother is going to be very pissed off with you.”

  Luca laughed. “Yeah, I suppose so. But I think she’ll understand. It’s the only way.”

  “So what now?”

  “I need to get all the military personnel off this ship and the area cleared.”

  “So you can take off?”

  “Exactly. And I could use your help.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but since there’s no hope of me stopping you, I may as well. So what do you need?”

  “I’m going to instigate a self-destruct.”

  “What?! Are you serious?”

  She raised a hand. “Calm down. It’s just a bluff. I will inform Captain Carmichael that the fusion reactor has gone critical, that the ship may lose plasma containment, and that it’s a self-destruct protocol which has just been activated. If his technicians check it out, they’ll find it to be true. My plan is to convince him that I can deactivate it, but the area needs to be cleared, just in case. You need to back me up, make him believe it’s not a bluff.”

  Scott raised his hands in a gesture of resignation. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  He moved a step closer. “So this is goodbye, then?”

  Luca reached in and embraced her dad. “Tell Mom I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.” She pulled away a little. “And tell the others thanks for everything they’ve done for me.”

  “Sure, will do.”

  They disentangled, and Scott took one last look at her before walking off the bridge.

  Luca wiped a tear from her face, then activated the neural lace. A second or two later, klaxons blared and strobe alerts flashed throughout the ship—a warning of imminent containment failure. Luca waited and watched as all personnel were evacuated from the ship. Her ruse was working; they were buying it. A moment later, shuttles were moving off to a safe distance.

  She turned to the small drone still perched on the holo-table. “Well, Fly, it looks like it’s time to go.”

  “Are we embarking on a new adventure?”

  “We are—one we may not c
ome back from.”

  The klaxons ceased, the engines powered up, and the ship took off from the planet’s surface heading for deep space.

  To be continued…

  I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. If you did, then please leave a review Just a simple “liked it” would be great, it helps a lot.

  Author’s Note

  To receive updates, including notifications on future books in the series, please join my Readers Group or connect with me at www.geraldmkilby.com. You will also get a link to download my techno-thriller REACTION and the follow-up novella EXTRACTION for FREE.

  Also by Gerald M. Kilby

  If you like fast-paced scifi thrillers then why not check out my COLONY MARS series.

  COLONY ONE MARS

  How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself?

  About the Author

  Gerald M. Kilby grew up on a diet of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, and Frank Herbert, which developed into a taste for Iain M. Banks and everything ever written by Neal Stephenson. Understandable then, that he should choose science fiction as his weapon of choice when entering the fray of storytelling.

  REACTION is his first novel and is very much in the old-school techno-thriller style and you can get it free here. His latest books, COLONY MARS and THE BELT, are both best sellers, topping Amazon charts for Hard Science Fiction and Space Exploration. Colony Mars has also been optioned by Hollywood for a potential new TV series.

  He lives in the city of Dublin, Ireland, in the same neighborhood as Bram Stoker and can be sometimes seen tapping away on a laptop in the local cafe with his dog Loki.