The Ghost Ship (MOSAR Book 3)

by C. R. Turner

  Max takes the difficult terrain in his stride, and after a short while, we make it back to Hawkins.

  He gets up. “Hey, mate.”

  “Hey,” I reply.

  Hawkins packs his gear away and throws his rifle over his shoulder. I hand him Jade’s reins, and he climbs up.

  “We’ll, that was a bust,” Hawkins says.

  I give him a lopsided smile, disappointed that the Butcher has given us the slip again.

  Bradley’s voice comes over the Core-link. “Bradley, Hawkins, contact?”

  “Hawkins. Go ahead, sir.”

  “Can you guys re-tag the Butcher’s four-wheel drive, swing past the tertiary target and re-tag it as well, before heading back to the Timberwolf?” Bradley asks.

  “Pos, sir.”

  When Hawkins and I make it back to the Timberwolf, night has fallen and everyone is sitting around finishing off their dinner. Taylor already has the Butcher’s starship up on the holograph.

  After unsaddling Max and Jade, we give them something to eat and drink, then join the group.

  “Alright. Everybody listen up,” Bradley calls. “Try to get some sleep. Emerson, Marcus and Miller, you guys take shifts through the night to keep an eye on the tertiary target. If it moves, you have a standing order to detonate the charges. Hopefully, you have an uneventful night, and we can head back out in the morning to try to capture the primary target. If there’s still no sign of him, SS Kelly will stay behind for a long-term reconnaissance while the rest of us head home. Understood?”

  Everyone replies with a tired, “Pos, sir.”

  Sam and I sit shoulder to shoulder at her console while I eat my dinner. Emerson and Hawkins chat a short distance away, while everyone else gets into their swags. Sam reaches over and steals a potato from my plate, giving me a cheeky grin. As the bridge falls to a sleepy silence, Sam rests her head on my shoulder.

  I glance down at the top of her head. “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “Ay?”

  “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “I won’t,” she whispers.

  After a while, Hawkins goes to bed leaving just me, Sam and Emerson on the flight deck. I watch the red crosshairs of the secondary and tertiary targets on the holograph. The crosshairs for the Butcher are still greyed out and flashing over his last-known position. Max wanders over and stares at me.

  “Do you think he’s trying to tell you something?” Sam asks, her voice slow and soft.

  I grin. “I better take him to do his business.”

  I get up and find Jade asleep near the team’s swags, down on the observation level. I won’t bother her now. Sam gets up, looking really sleepy, and grabs her Ashra.

  “I’ll come with,” she says.

  I pick up my Ashra and sling it over my back. “Emerson, we’ll be back in five.”

  He gives us the thumbs up as he sits with his feet on one of the consoles.

  When the shaft doors open, we’re buffeted by howling winds. The lift lights shine out for a few feet before fading into blackness. Max runs off to do his thing. We’ve got no hope of seeing his jet-black fur against the black rocky terrain at night. I head out in the direction Max went and pull my arms in tight with the cold. Then I stop, straining to listen. Was that footsteps crunching on gravel? It’s hard to hear over the howling wind. Reaching for my Ashra, I squint into the night, then look back toward the lift. Where’s Sam?

  This is a bad idea. An off smell, like foul body odour, carries on the wind in the dark. Quickening my pace, I head back. I glimpse a hefty silhouette. Timber cracks, extreme pain explodes across the back of my skull. Falling.

  Chapter 9

  I wake to a splitting headache and the worrying warmth of blood running down the back of my head and neck. My skull feels like it’s been fractured, my arms numb. I crack open my eyelids. The first thing I see is black rocky ground. Bile rises, burning the back of my throat. I swallow hard, struggle to lift my head and feel the back of it but can’t reach – wrought-iron shackles my wrists and ankles against a rocky wall. I’m chained, trapped like a rat in a lab. My head spins. What just happened? Where’s Sam? Where am I?

  Orange flames from two torches flicker in the cold draft. I straighten my trembling legs, put some weight on them, releasing the load on my wrists. The pain in my shoulders is unbearable as my arms go loose. I pull on the shackles hard, whipping the chains tight till the pain of the iron garrotting my wrists is too much. There’s a table in front of me made from the same dark timber on most of the buildings we’ve seen. My Core-link and Ashra are gone. No sign of my MOSAR scarf or my knife. Behind the glare of the flames, dozens of iron tools hang from the rock walls: knives, saws, secateurs and pliers. This is no ordinary cave. This is the Butcher of Blackrock’s personal dungeon.

  My heart stops, then hammers back to life when something dark, obscured by the black walls, stirs. A figure wearing a hooded trench coat stands and steps forward into the light. The coat is made from an assortment of leathers, all stitched together like a scrapbook of death. He must be seven feet tall. His dark fists, covered in scars, are the only part of him I can see. I stare into the hood. Nothing. It’s like staring into the black emptiness of space.

  He walks to the wall of tools and raises a hand toward a knife. I squirm, reef on my chains again, but they pull tight, telling me they’re not coming loose. I scream. “Help!” Lungs empty, I collapse with fatigue, my arms taut, bearing my weight again.

  The sputter of the torches and the damp draft are my only reply.

  The Butcher approaches – knife in hand. The blade is old and rusty but has a silvery edge – razor-sharp no doubt.

  “What do you want?” I scream.

  He stands just two feet in front of me. The stench is unbearable – a mix of rotten blood and body odour. With the flames behind him, his face is still obscured in darkness. Is this the end of me? Is this how I go out? I dare not scream out again for fear of being silenced in the most horrific way possible.

  He replies in a deep, reverberating voice, speaking through a cerebral speech synthesiser, “Talnar stalit pra lorish.”

  I’ve only heard a synthesiser once before. Why can’t he talk without one?

  “What?” I gasp. “I don’t understand you.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “No one sent us?”

  “Was it Warain?”

  “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I gasp for air, feeling faint. “No one sent us.”

  He drizzles a thick blue liquid onto his blade. “You will tell me.”

  His movement is so sudden, all I feel is a punch to my thigh. It’s not until I see his fist clenched around the handle of his knife, the blade buried, that I realise what he’s done.

  “What are you doing here? Who sent you?”

  Shock sweeps in, setting my leg on fire, and my head throbbing so hard, I think I’m going to pass out. Half conscious, I feel the rusty knife ripped from my leg. I close my eyes, fading. This must be it. My last breath.

  Max has his deerskin coat on as I ride him bareback. I pull on his reins and peer through the thick snowfall. As I unfurl the collar of my jacket to protect my neck from the freezing wind, I glance at my father’s knife, sheathed in its thigh holster. I nudge Max to walk on. Large snowflakes settle on his jet-black fur and tickle the hairs on his ears, which twitch back and forth. We both look to the horizon.

  The terrain is hilly with what looks like the foot of a massive mountain up ahead, the overcast sky concealing the trail’s ending. Thick snowdrifts bow pine-tree branches – their dark bark, the only break from the whiteout. This is like Arcadia but not quite. I don’t know why, but there’s something amiss. There’s an eerie aura over the land as though it’s made from the abstract of my mind and not the physical world in which I live, but it feels so real. This has to be real.

  Something’s hard against my cheekbone. I blink my eyes open. The edge of the table is pressing into my face. My shackles have been remove
d and the pain in my leg has gone numb. I fixate on a puddle on the ground as a slow drip creates lethargic ripples across its shiny surface. The flaming orange torchlight dances across the puddle’s surface, and I stare, mesmerised. Wait. That isn’t water. It’s blood. My blood.

  I roll over onto my side. There’s an iron gate hinged from the wall across the cavern’s entrance, trapping me. The Butcher’s nowhere to be seen. I run my hands down my leg before looking down, finding a spent vial of X72 by my side. The X72 will kill any infection and help stop the bleeding. That’s why I feel so sick. My heart thumps in my ears as though it’s pumping mud. I only have a twenty per cent chance of surviving the X72 – this is likely it for me. I push a finger through the tear in my pants, feeling for the edge of the wound. It’s covered in rust and dirt from the knife, and the blood congealed around the wound has a blue tinge. The X72 is doing its job. That sick bastard. He must have given it to me so he can torture me longer. I drop my head on the table, close my eyes, and exhale. Exhausted.

  But there’s no time to rest. I push myself up with what little energy I have and tentatively swing my legs over the edge of the table. Sliding off, I land on my feet. My leg is numb – I’ve read about the painkilling qualities of X72, but never experienced it. I hobble over to the gate. My head is so fuzzy this feels like a dream. Outside the gate, the natural cave runs off in both directions, disappearing into darkness. Also hanging out there on the walls, all the knives and cutting tools are just out of reach. Feeling faint, I turn, lean back against the gate and close my eyes, try to slow my breathing. I probably won’t even survive the X72, let alone the Butcher. This has to be the darkest day of my life. Sam’s beautiful face flashes before my eyes. I hope it’s just me the Butcher captured.

  I hobble over to the table and rest my fists against it. I’m so tired all I want to do is sleep. The shackles still hang from the rocky walls, and I wonder if I could pry a spike out of the rock by hand. It’s no use. How many have come before me and wondered the same thing?

  Footsteps. I whip around. My head keeps spinning, and I reach out for something to grab hold of before falling to my knees. The vision of the Butcher unlocking the gate blurs in my head. Hands grab my shirt, lifting me off the ground and throwing me on the table. Gasping for breath like a fish about to be gutted, the sedative in the X72 has left me with nothing to fight back with. He must have given more though. What was in that blue liquid? As the Butcher steps away, I roll over on my stomach and rest my head. I just need a minute. The clanking of steel sets alarm bells off in my head. I try to get up but can’t – something’s pinning me to the table.

  I lean forward and run my hand down Max’s neck. He folds his ears back and looks over his shoulder. My gaze follows the mostly obscured trail up the mountain before us. I nudge Max and he walks on, his giant paws crunching the snow beneath him.

  Halfway up the mountain, I stop Max and look back to where we’ve just come from, but all I see are paw prints. Peering through the heavy snowfall, I take a deep breath, feel the frozen air chill my lungs and watch my breath mist as I exhale. I’m so accustomed to the cold climate of Arcadia, this feels like home, as if I belong here. Max and I continue, now so high in altitude, we’re engulfed in cloud.

  I feel a sharp pain in my left hand. The pain’s emanating from a point between the trapezium and metacarpal bones. It’s not cold enough for frostbite, nor does it feel like it. I rub my hand and pick up Max’s reins.

  Travelling through our strange surroundings, I realise there are no birds or any other signs of life – it’s just Max and me. As we gain altitude, the clouds thin and blue sky emerges between the cloud breaks. Max stops. I follow his gaze to a silhouette up ahead. The person’s arms are by their sides, and they’re wearing handmade clothes commonly associated with the far south on Terra Primus – Bessomi, maybe. Who could it be?

  When I dismount I land knee-deep in snow.

  I pat my loyal companion. “Stay here, Max.”

  Swinging my knees through the snow, I approach. The figure gestures for me to follow before turning and heading up the mountain. I stop dead in my tracks and look past the figure in the direction they’re heading, then continue to follow, puffing as I trudge through the deep snow. Suddenly I’m exhausted and am having trouble keeping my eyes open. It’s as though I’ve spent my whole life awake and am finally lying down to sleep.

  I jolt awake, still in the darkness of the cavern, lying in the dirt. I look myself over. The small finger on my left hand has been cut off at the palm. Hand bandaged. I close my eyes. This can’t be happening. Sitting up, I drag my legs, now both with knife wounds, and prop my back up against the rocky walls. I’m afraid if I fall asleep now, I mightn’t wake from my slumber. I don’t even know how long I’ve been down here. Why isn’t anyone coming for me? Where’s SF Raptor?

  The time for escape has passed. I’m not even sure I can walk now. I rest my head back against the wall and close my eyes. So thirsty, I can barely swallow. I exhale and start drifting off before jolting myself awake, heart racing. I’m so tired. All I want to do is sleep.

  Focus.

  The main cave is definitely natural, but the cavern I’m in looks like it’s been cut by hand, a thousand chisel marks covering the walls and roof. I wonder how long he’s been doing this for. Do I have any hope of rescue? Maybe SF Raptor has finally met its match. For all I know, he’s got the rest of the team squared away in cages too, or worse.

  I sit for what feels like hours in the cold and wait for whatever’s coming my way. Maybe the Butcher’s dead and the next face I’ll see will be Hawkins and his giant rifle. Footsteps sound in the dark. I’m close to tears as the threat of the Butcher returning shakes me to my core. I’ve never been so afraid for my life. Keys clank and the gate swings open. A black ominous silhouette enters.

  The words escape my lips. I can’t stop myself. “No more … please.”

  The Butcher lifts his hood, exposing his face for the first time. His pale veiny face is expressionless, unsympathetic. He looks old, completely void of human traits. His gold jaw – cast with intricate scroll patterning – glints in the fiery light of the torches. He bends over, grabs me by my shirt and drags me to the table. The pain in my legs is so extreme, when I try to put some weight on them, I’m nearly sick. I collapse on the table and lie there with my forearm over my eyes, gasping for air.

  “Why … why are you doing this?” My words are so fragile they barely exist.

  The Butcher hovers over me like death.

  “Your limbs spread far,” he replies in a deep robotic tone, through two speakers built into his jaw. “Your soul will wander restless for eternity.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Crap. He’s probably only just getting started, and I’ve already had enough. Why must I endure this? The Butcher looks down at me, and I deadpan. I bury my emotions so deep they’ll never be found. I steady my breathing and we lock eyes. I can feel the sedative effects of the X72 wearing off, but I’m still too weak to fight back – I can barely lift my hand. I roll my head to one side, toward the exit. Why isn’t anyone coming for me? The Butcher pulls hard on the next finger and readies the secateurs. I try to pull back, but I’m no match against the Butcher’s hulking frame, incapacitated or not. I close my eyes, and a tear streaks down my temple. I need to preserve as much energy as I can. The X72 is definitely wearing off now, and I hope when it does, I may be able to fight back. I listen to the water dripping, smell the mouldy air wafting past in the draft, feel the cold on the back of my neck and forehead. I make a fist with my free hand, a good sign my motor skills are returning.

  “Who sent you?” asks the Butcher again.

  “Go ahead, cut another finger off. You’ll never destroy my soul. Look at you … it’s your soul that’s wandering restless for eternity.”

  The Butcher stares at me, hesitates for a moment, and then the most grotesque sound lashes my ears. Pain, like fire, flashes up my arm and hits my br
ain with such violence I choke.

  The mysterious figure is waiting further up the mountain. The higher I climb, the more the cloud cover clears, and it’s not long till I can see for hundreds of miles across the tops of the clouds. The mountain peaks jut through the soft ocean of white and extend skyward. As I approach the person, there’s something strangely familiar about him. It can’t be. I run to him.

  I can’t believe my eyes. My father stands before me. He hasn’t aged a day. He smiles and I step in. The last time I saw him I was just twelve; now that I’m fully grown, we’re the same height. He wraps his arms around me. I hold him tight as my tears stream.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “What did I always tell you?”

  “To find your own meaning in things,” I say. “I’ve missed you.”

  I stare at my father’s face, trying to burn the image into my mind so I’ll never forget it.

  “Am I dead?”

  “No … but when it is your time, know that your mother and I will be waiting.”

  Thinking about being together again, my thoughts lead back to the Butcher.

  “How do I beat such an evil person?”

  My father shakes his head. “I see you still believe people can be evil.”

  I nod.

  “People aren’t evil; they do evil things. We simply label a person evil to make punishing them easier.”

  “So, I shouldn’t fight back?”

  “Of course you should,” my father says. “But just remember … when you go after him, he’s a product of genetics and experiences, and driven by impulses, just as you are. He should pay for what he’s done, not who he is.”

  The thought of the striker scout killing my father explodes in my mind, and I cringe. I want to tell him we found justice but can’t find the words.