“And you are a better man for it.” She prepared to leave before turning serious. “We’re jumping into the mouth of the volcano. If any of this stuff gets fucked up, we’re going to get our own people killed. I don’t want that.”
“No one wants that. Let’s take a look. Joseph? Maybe there are some helmet designs from the 1700s that we could use.”
“Surely you jest. Get one of these tech-savvy folks. I’ve done my good deed for the day, and I’m off to re-watch a couple old films. I don’t think I have my accent exactly correct.”
“Christina?” Kai said softly as he followed her toward the door. She watched the others leave and her shoulders dropped.
“Fine. I’ll keep you company, and I have some ideas.”
Chapter Eleven
Band Rayal Seven, Okkoto
Terry and Char pulled a few of the smaller rocks from the fall. Terry started to move bigger rocks, trying to clear out the top of the fall to see what was beyond.
“Look out below!” he called from his perch as he grunted with the effort to move some of the bigger boulders. Char jumped out of the way to let one roll past her, then scrambled up the fall to join him.
“Not tired anymore?” she asked.
He looked at her through bloodshot eyes. “Exhausted, but if our way out is two rocks away? I’d kick myself for spending one extra minute in this nuthouse.”
“If we get through and then have to fight?” Char continued to move smaller stones to clear handholds on the next boulder, then together they shoved the monster out of the way. It shook the pile as it tumbled to the floor.
“We’ve only been up for maybe a couple days. We can manage a while longer.”
“In our younger days,” Char clarified. “Today, not so much. We need to conserve our energy.”
As if trying to prove her wrong, Terry leveraged a massive boulder by himself, pushing it aside. Once done, he proved her right. “Fuck, that hurt,” he grumbled. He laid on his stomach and shined his flashlight into the gaps. “More rocks.”
“Let’s call it a day. We can hit it again tomorrow.” Char helped TH to his feet. “We can stop by the dining area and get a snack and something to drink before getting some rest.”
“Chow and sleep! A Marine’s two favorite words.”
Char nodded knowingly. They walked lightly and listened carefully as they passed their turnoff to get to the rooms and continued to the next intersection, where they intended to take a right, go three doors down on the left, and dine in peace.
But the female Erthos leader had a different idea.
“There they are!” she declared and pointed with her arm completely outstretched.
“We have a laser pistol now,” Char whispered.
“These dipshits are so fragile that one punch kills them. I don’t want to shoot them. We need the pistol if we run across more bots.”
“Wait,” Char stated and walked forward with her hands up. Terry tried to stuff the laser pistol in his pockets, but they were already too jammed with other stuff. He settled for holding it in one hand while he kept the other on his Ka-bar. “We don’t want to be here any more than you want us here. Can you please help us to get out? We fell down an elevator shaft over there, and all I want is to get home to my kids!”
Char turned on the waterworks, weeping as she stopped and let her head hang, exposing Terry’s face behind her. He tried to look equally solemn and nodded for effect. He wasn’t sure they bought it, but it did confuse the three, the mean leader and two newcomers, who were standing in the corridor.
“We ask only for your help. Please?” Char walked forward with her arms out.
“Why do you have a wristband?” the mean leader demanded.
“So we can eat something to keep up our strength while we search for a way out.” Char hadn’t hesitated at all before delivering her reply. What monster would deny food to refugees?
They had apparently just met her.
She sneered mightily, recovering her wits and ordering the other two to action. “Seize them!”
In a flash of speed almost too quick for the eye to follow, Char delivered a finger-punch to the Erthos leader’s throat. She gasped and clutched at her neck, staggered, and dropped to her knees. Her face turned purple before she fell over.
The other two still hadn’t moved.
“Tell me the way out of here.” Char grabbed the Erthos by their shirts and pulled them to her. “I’m done fucking around.”
“I-I don’t know a way out,” one stammered.
“We work in hydroponics,” the other added as if that told the whole story.
“Then you should get back to work. Don’t worry about her. I suspect she’ll be back before you know it,” Terry offered and winked at the two before working his way past them to pick up the dead leader and carry her surfboard-style to the dining room.
Char followed, checking over her shoulder as the two continued to stand in the intersection. Terry activated the door and went in, dumping the body unceremoniously on the table.
“Two double burgers, one order of curly fries, and a massive chocolate shake.”
Char looked at him. “You’re going to eat that right before going to sleep?”
“Yes, I am, and I also want to see that it will make exactly what I am expecting. Testing a hypothesis.”
The device on the wall delivered exactly what Terry had envisioned. He took his tray, sat down at the table closest to the door, not far from the dead Erthos, and started stuffing his face.
“Why did you bring her along?”
“Another hypothesis. I suspect when the little cleaner bots pick something up, they report it, and a new one gets made. If they don’t recover her, then maybe they won’t make another one. Three times we’ve encountered her, and all three times she was a total bitch. I don’t want there to be a fourth.”
Another massive bite and slow chewing to savor his meal.
Char ordered a chicken Caesar salad and a large sweetened ice tea. When they arrived, she sniffed the salad. She shrugged her satisfaction and sat down on the far side of TH, keeping him between her and the body. She wasn’t squeamish, but he’d put the deader on the table.
She kept glancing at it.
“I can’t put it on the floor. Those sneaky little bastards will drag it away.” Terry pointed to the space that they’d crawled through earlier. Even as close as they were, they couldn’t see the door’s outline because of how well it blended into the wall. They hadn’t missed something obvious, but it reinforced Terry’s initial approach of treating the place like Wolfenstein.
He finished eating quickly but drew the chocolate shake slowly through the wide straw.
“We need these at the All Guns. I think they’d be a big hit.”
“You know they would, but how would you make one? We can’t quite get the usual ingredients.”
“We overcame all obstacles with the now-famous Moonstokle Pie, outer space’s legal version of the bacon and pineapple. We can overcome the chocolate shake hurdles.”
“Do you think they’re going to bother us again?” Char asked after her last bite.
“They let us eat in peace.” He shook his head. “I don’t think anyone is in charge. They’ve been down here too long with a computer generating a minimum standard product. These people are halfwits. They have zero drive because they’ve never learned to ask questions or how to think.”
“The one giving us the tour of hydroponics had a spark.”
“I think that is something that can never be completely tamped down, but it would take a lot of nurturing to show her what to do with that. Down here? They probably kill the inquisitive and make another. Which makes me wonder, where did they get the burger for these things?” Terry looked skeptically at his empty plate, smirking. “It was so good.”
“Lab-grown meat. It was a thing on Earth before the World’s Worst Day Ever. It’s not farfetched to believe that they mastered it here, making it to exacting specifications to get the desired flav
or and doing it instantly. Or you just ate the previous version of her.” Char pointed with her chin at the corpse.
“If it was her, she made a great burger.”
“Are you bringing her to the room?”
Terry smiled innocently but didn’t answer, choosing to take a drink from his shake instead. Char took her tray back to the food processing device and put it inside, something they had not done on their previous visit. A few moments later, it was gone.
“Time to go, lover,” Char told her husband.
Terry delivered his tray as Char had done but hung onto the shake. He vacuum-sucked the remainder and then ordered another one. When it arrived, he put the empty inside and walked away.
He handed Char the laser pistol. With the body clutched surfboard-style under one arm and the shake in the other, he was out of hands.
Char went first, checking the corridor for surprises before heading out. Terry followed. She walked quickly, hesitating at the corners to peek around them before continuing. The corridors were empty and quiet as they hurried to the room they had identified as Tonie’s.
Terry leaned toward the door so his wristband could activate it. When it slid open, they expected to see Tonie inside, but the room was empty, exactly as they had left it many hours before.
They weren’t sure how long it had been, and that in and of itself was disconcerting.
“It’s like being tortured, where they mess with your sleep and meals and time,” Terry suggested.
Char took the bed, and after stuffing the corpse in the shower, Terry took the recliner. Once seated and relaxed, with the wristband on, he found himself surrounded by holographic screens. He tapped a couple and found they were interactive.
“So they do have technology for the unwashed masses.”
“They must not use it, or it’s so dumbed-down that they don’t get anything from it.” Char tried to see from the bed, but her eyes drooped. Terry blinked the screens into focus but decided to stop fighting it.
He climbed from the recliner and jammed his Ka-bar into the track to keep the door from retracting into the wall should anyone try to enter, then checked the door. It refused to open.
“Looking good.” Terry smiled at his work and turned to Char for her approval, but she was already asleep. He sat down on the recliner and leaned back. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he didn’t think he’d been out for long when the pounding started. Someone wanted into their room.
Efluyez Homeworld, Alganor Sector
Christina looked at three different helmet designs, unhappy with all of them. Too weak, but great vision. Poor vision, but strong. Too bulky. “There has to be something else,” she moaned.
“No one was any help.” Kai leaned back from the design screen and shook his head. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “I need a break.”
“Did you ask Ted?”
“I said that I need a break, not more abuse.”
“Come on, my big, tough man. Let’s go see the scary werewolf.”
Kai tossed his head like a little kid not wanting to go to school, and Christina started to laugh. Her boyfriend was only seventy-five years old. She always hid her age, but she was over one-fifty. The ways of the nanocyte-enhanced were not the same. Age differences didn’t matter. Compatibility was more important because once committed, those with long lives were in it forever.
And forever is a very long time indeed.
When Kai stood, Christina embraced him, their faces nearly touching as their eyes met. “Why is this problem biting you?” she asked.
“I have to get it right, given all your talk of an ambush that you are gleefully going into. You are trusting me to fabricate something that looks showy but will protect you like the universe’s greatest chastity belt.”
“I think we’re past the chastity-belt stage,” she quipped.
He poked her in the stomach, and she bit his ear. His eyes sparkled as he pulled away. He reached for her again, but she stonewalled him with an outstretched hand.
“Ted first.”
“You have made getting belittled by Ted a delight.”
“Who’s saying he’s going to belittle you?”
Kai looked at her from under a furrowed brow. “He’s Uncle Ted. It’s what he does.”
“And he doesn’t mean anything by it. He dedicates a zillionth of his brainpower to social interactions, that’s all. Be nice, because he will remember forever if you aren’t. We should take him food. I guarantee he hasn’t eaten.”
“What does he like?”
“How long have you been with him?” Christina asked.
“Not as long as you!” Kai gestured toward the door. “We’ll figure it out.”
Neither had any idea what Ted liked to eat, so they called in the expert. Smedley, contact Felicity and ask her what Ted likes to eat, please.
I have insight into your request. Felicity has ordered me to report on his meal schedule. How long it’s been since he last ate dictates what meal I am to order for him. It has been only eight hours, so it would be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with what used to be known as a “Red Bull.”
We’d like to take those to him. Where are they, and where is he? Christina requested.
You can get his meal from Jenelope on the mess deck, and he is in the Combat Information Center.
Roger, Smedley. You’ve been a great help, Kai replied
“Did you ask Smedley for help with the helmets?” Christina wondered.
“He was no help at all.”
They hurried to the mess deck, where it was between formal meal times, although it was always open. Jenelope was the master chef, and Xianna, a warrior’s spouse, was helping as part of riding on the War Axe with her husband. She was a lithe, green female from Torregidor. They’d had to intervene to keep her from walking naked around the ship. Social norms on her home planet were far different from what the human leadership of the Bad Company could tolerate.
Before they could speak, Jenelope pointed at the counter with her carving knife.
“Is that a can?” Kai asked as he studied the silver and blue can with the red lettering.
“It’s how he likes it,” Jenelope replied without looking up. She didn’t expound because she didn’t need to. Her short statement told them everything they needed to know.
“You are the best!” Kai said as he walked around the counter to give the head chef a hug.
“I have a knife,” she taunted him, waving it menacingly.
“You shall cut me to find my undying love pouring out.”
“That’s one way to put it.” She dodged him gracefully before wrapping him in a bear hug of her own. Xianna ran over and embraced them both before planting a kiss on Kai’s cheek. He flushed as he sought Christina’s eyes.
She watched him intently.
“That’s enough, my most favorite people on the whole ship. Well, second most. Maybe even third, but it’s because I am me.”
“Go on, you derelict!” Jenelope waved her knife at him. “And back to work with you, too!” She pointed at Xianna, who laughed and waved, dancing her way back to where she was preparing fresh greens for dinner.
As they left, Christina studied him. He stopped in the corridor. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Should I be?”
“That’s a setup question.” He stood back and posed, turning left and then right. “Does this make me look fat?”
“Now you understand.”
“I don’t understand a thing,” Kai countered, confused to the point of not being able to reply further.
Christina started walking. “Helmets. To keep our heads from getting blown apart.”
“A sobering thought.” He looked at the floor as they walked. “I don’t want you to walk into an ambush. I like you too much for that.”
“Like?” Christina turned back to him.
“I don’t know what love is,” he admitted. “I know that I’d be lost without you. I may flirt too much, but my heart is
in one place. And I have to admit that the flirting has lost its allure, especially seeing you watching. I feel like I’ve betrayed you, but our relationship is based on fun. Or it used to be. Now, it’s more a part of my soul. I only wanted to have fun with you, but I won’t be able to tolerate losing you. Don’t die!”
Kai headed for the stairs to descend to the deck where the CIC was located.
“I have no intention of dying. That’s why I want a helmet to protect my head and a cloak to keep my body from getting ripped apart. For the record, I’ve gotten used to your company, too.”
He stopped mid-step and started to kneel. She grabbed him and held him upright.
“And if you ever propose to me, it better not be on this fucking ship!”
“You are a continuing challenge to my meager existence.”
“And I’m not even trying.” She smiled at him. “Yet. And we better have our clothes on, too.”
“So many conditions. Is there anything left? I’m fresh out of ideas.”
“You sound like Terry Henry Walton.” Christina held his stare.
Kai gave her his most winning smile. “He is the coolest and hardest man I know. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Why am I in love with the least romantic man in the universe?”
“But I am so loveable...”
She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and continued the short walk to CIC, where they expected to find Ted. Kai smiled at the slight skip to her step.
The CIC was darkened to improve screen clarity. They found Ted in the middle of a holosphere he had created from the center’s holoscreens. The sphere gave him more interactive screen space than the cylinder and a shorter response time for manipulation and orchestration.
“Ted,” Christina said. She cleared her throat and said his name louder.
Kai reached through the images, and Ted stabbed his fingers into the intruding arm.
“I’m in the middle of something. Go away!” Ted shouted.
“We need your help to design a new combat helmet that we can wear in the parade. We need the design in the next twenty minutes or we’re all going to die.” Christina tried to look innocent despite her exaggeration. Kai nodded vigorously.
Discovery Page 10
