The maintenance shaft was only a bit bigger than a crawlspace. They moved single file down the path on all fours, squeezing past various pipes and whirring instruments. It was a slow-going affair, the pain in Nguyen’s shoulder hindering her progress and slowing the group. There were several offshoots that led to different parts of the ship, but Dominski was in the lead and knew where he was headed.
At the end of their path, the crawlspace opened up to where there was enough space for a person to stand. “Engine room,” said Dominski in a hushed voice.
“Watch out for traps,” said Silhouette. “We don’t know what state Jordan’s mind is in right now. I don’t think he’s above us, though. I don’t see him yet.”
One by one they entered the main level of the Krajova. Jordan was nowhere in sight. It was quiet.
“Why is it so hot in here?” asked Nguyen.
“The heater is on full blast,” whispered Dominski. “What the hell?”
Then, a voice erupted over the ship’s comm speakers. “I know you’re here.” It was quick, almost too fast to understand.
“Jordan,” said Dominski. He tried to reopen his access to the comm system. It was working again. Jordan had turned it back on. “Where are you? We need to leave this planet immediately.”
“This is my ship,” said Jordan. Again, the words were quick— lacking his usual cadence and tone. “My ship. I’m safe. Safe here.” A clatter of metallic bangs and bumps were carried over the comm system. Jordan cursed at himself, then he panted like a dog, his rapid breaths increasing in volume until he screamed, “You won’t take the Krajova from me!” and closed the comm link.
“Albert,” muttered Dominski, shaking his head. “Not you too.” He took a deep breath and moved forward, pulling Nguyen along with him. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get to the flight deck. I can take command of the Krajova from there.”
Silhouette searched for Jordan with her Ocu as they traveled through the ship, but she couldn’t get a lock on his bio-signature. “I can’t find him. It’s like he’s disappeared. The antigen may have altered his biorhythm, shifting his vital patterns and radiation levels to where it’s completely unrecognizable from what I recorded the last time I saw him.”
“What are you trying to say?” asked Dominski.
“He’s not reading as himself, maybe not even human. I should have been able to locate him already. Either he isn’t on this ship or he’s somehow turned into something else. I just don’t see him anywhere.”
They traversed over to the ship’s cockpit without hindrance or a sign of Jordan. Dominski lowered Nguyen into the pilot’s seat and leaned over her as he unlocked the ship’s controls. The Krajova rumbled when he initiated the takeoff sequence, a small vibration coursing through the ship as if it shivered with excitement. He also turned off the heat.
“It’s going to take a few minutes for the power cells to reach their launch charge,” said Dominski. “Nguyen, I’m going to need you to pilot the ship.”
“But I don’t know how. And my arm—“
“You only need one arm to fly this thing, Kapral. The presets are all ready to go. Here, look.” He pointed at the panel of instruments. “This is all you have to press to lift off. The presets will take the Krajova to orbit, then all you’ve got to do is—“
“You’re not taking my ship,” said Jordan over the comm in a panic. His fast breaths were unnerving. “No. Off. Get out.”
The lights went out. All power had been shut off.
“Shit,” spat Dominski. “He must have disconnected the energy fuse back down in the service crawlspace.”
“I know what to look for,” said Silhouette. “You two stay together and prepare to get us out of here. I’ll fix the connection and find Jordan.”
“Don’t hurt him,” said Dominski. “I can’t stand to lose Jordan too. We can lock him up, find a way to help him when we get home.”
Silhouette didn’t respond. Her form faded into the darkness as she stepped down the stairs that led away from the flight deck.
* * *
Silhouette stalked her way to the underbelly of the ship, taking caution as she travelled back down into the small maintenance passages. She saw movements, heard noises, but it was difficult to tell whether it was the clunky ship or the deranged psychopath causing the ruckus. The Krajova’s bowels had warmed significantly in the few moments it had spent powering up its launch charge, making it so that locating Jordan with her infrared sight was still a crapshoot.
She pulled the Krajova’s schematics into her vision and followed the direct path toward the energy cell connections, wanting to get in and out of that crawlspace as quick as possible.
She found the fuse dangling from its socket, barely removed from its hold. Jordan could have destroyed the wires or damaged the jack, making it much more difficult to repair, but he had simply unplugged it. Why would he bother?
The ship hummed back to life once more as its power returned. Silhouette could hear the takeoff sequence start all over again from step one.
On her way back through the crawlspace, a voice hollered over the comm system, but there were no active speakers near her location. All she could hear was a mumble from up above. She hurried back to the main level of the ship and climbed up into the engine room.
“Stay right there,” shouted Jordan. “Right there. Don’t move Jeden. I’ll kill her. Don’t move!”
Silhouette ran into the hallways and searched for the others.
“Off my ship,” said Jordan. “Go. Down the ramp now. Go, go!”
“The boarding ramp,” said Silhouette as she took off toward the rear of the Krajova.
“Go down now,” said Jordan.
Silhouette reached the boarding ramp and hid herself from Jordan’s view. He had his back to her. She could see that his left arm was wrapped around Nguyen’s neck and he was holding a pistol to the recruit’s head. The man’s skin was covered in large lesions from which sprouted clusters of mushroom-like warts.
Silhouette gagged a little as she scanned Jordan with her Ocu. His readings were weird. The man’s body was much too cold for a person and his vitals had slowed considerably. He was twitching with violent muscle spasms, panting like an animal, and continued to speak like a jittery hyena.
“Back, back, back!” he yelled at Dominski. “Down. Good. Go more!” He wheezed and whined like a mad dog.
Dominski was backing away down the ramp, one slow step at a time. His rifle was on the ground near Jordan’s feet.
“Albert, please,” said Dominski. “Let her go. We can all head back home together.”
“No! You’ll jettison me! You’ll space me! Laugh at me!”
“Kapral,” whined Nguyen. “You’re hurting my shoulder.”
Silhouette crept toward Jordan. Dominski spotted her movements and tried to hold Jordan’s attention.
“Fifteen years,” said Dominski. He stopped backing away and dropped to his knees, holding his arms wide open as he spoke. “Albert, we’ve been flying the Krajova for fifteen years together. Remember? Whatever is going on in that head of yours, fight it. Come back to me, Albert.”
“Traitor captain!” yelled Jordan. “I heard your conversations. You and that fiend, th-that dark one, you killed the others. You took them to the caves. Poisoned them. Ate them. I heard the crunching. It wouldn’t stop. I heard all the crunching, the laughing. Crunch. Crunch. You wouldn’t stop. I shut off the comms and you still wouldn’t stop crunching. You didn’t stop!”
“Albert,” said Dominski. He looked at Silhouette. She was nearly on top of Jordan now. “We’re all on the same team. Put your gun down, please, for me, for the Krajova.”
“The Krajova is mine!” shouted Jordan. “I am the Jeden now!” He pointed the gun at Dominski and fired.
Silhouette leapt forward and stabbed Yost’s knife into the side of Jordan’s neck. She wrenched the blade downwards, pulling Jordan to the ground. He held on to Nguyen as he fell, the pistol escaping his grip when h
is hand smacked onto the metal floor of the Krajova. Silhouette dove for the gun. Jordan released Nguyen and lunged for the firearm as well. Silhouette kicked his hand aside as she rolled over to the pistol, then she grabbed the weapon and turned it on Jordan, putting him out of his misery with two shots directly to his forehead.
Jordan’s body dropped like a rag doll. Nguyen, exhausted and overwhelmed, was wincing in pain as she pushed herself away from the bleeding corpse at her side. Silhouette tossed the gun aside and lifted the recruit to her feet, then pushed her against a nearby wall to steady the girl. Nguyen was wobbling, hyperventilating— she was going into shock.
Silhouette slapped her across the cheek.
Nguyen pulled her gaze away from the bloodied mess that was her former comrade and focused on Silhouette’s empty mask of a face. The terror in her eyes melted into uncertainty, and then sharpened with concern. “The Jeden,” said Nguyen. She looked down the boarding ramp. “Where is he?”
Silhouette turned to look for herself. Dominski was no longer in sight. Her Ocu located him and she saw that the man had fallen off of the ramp, his body now sprawled out on the facility’s landing pad. Plant tentacles were slithering toward the ship, a few which were big enough to swallow a person whole.
But she also noticed that there was one green appendage which was larger than any she had seen since she was in the cavern depths. It had entwined the walkway between the landing pad and the colonization facility, crushing the structure as it constricted. The Krajova rattled as the landing pad supports were bent and torn from their holds.
“I’ll take care of Dominski,” said Silhouette. “Finish the job your Jeden gave to you. Get the Krajova airborne and off of this rotten planet.”
Nguyen nodded. Silhouette grabbed the recruit, turned her toward the innards of the ship, and pushed her inside. She could only hope that the girl would follow through.
Silhouette ran past Jordan’s body and down the boarding ramp. The haze of the pollen storm had taken over the facility. With her standard eyesight, Silhouette was only able to see several feet around herself— everything else was hidden within the tawny fog. A jungle of vines crawled through the thick buildup of pollen on the platform’s surface. Silhouette stepped around, and on, many of the smaller tendrils, ignoring them, more concerned with the larger threats that lurked nearby.
She found Dominski as he was grabbing at the ramp, attempting to pull himself to his feet. Silhouette put herself under his arm and helped lift the man with the strength of her good leg. Jordan’s plasma blast had burned into his gut. The armored vest hidden under his clothing had saved his life, but the damage was still significant.
“Dominski,” said Silhouette, still bearing a good portion of the man’s weight on her shoulder. “Let’s get inside before these things can grab us.”
“Nguyen?” His voice was strained. The plasma burn had clearly made it painful for him to speak.
“She’s back on the flight deck preparing for takeoff.”
“Good, and Jordan?”
Silhouette said nothing as she urged Dominski up the boarding ramp and kicked away the tendrils which were biting at their feet. They lowered their heads, pushed through the gusting winds and pelting clumps of pollen, and trudged their way back into the ship.
“No,” said Dominski as they hobbled to the top of the ramp. He pushed Silhouette away. “No. No. I said don’t hurt him.” Dominski dropped to a knee at Jordan’s lifeless body and wiped the blood off of his friend’s face.
“It was the only way to save Nguyen,” said Silhouette. “He went mad like the others.”
“No.” A long, angered groan leaked out of Dominski as he hunched over his fallen comrade. “Every single one of them.” He slowly pulled the knife out of Jordan’s neck. “You were there when every member of my crew died.”
“Dominski, Jordan shot you. Nguyen is still alive. You’ll live, too, if you get over to the infirmary.”
“Dr. Fukumura. Dr. Bourdain. Dr. Carter.” He wiped the blade clean of blood with his pant leg, then tucked it between his belt and lower back. “Kapral Yost. Kapoor...even fucking Kapoor— I had sworn to watch over her, to protect her. I made her father a promise as he bled out on his deathbed, but...you were there when she died, when they all died. You killed Albert. I asked you not to hurt him, but you stabbed a knife into his neck.”
Dominski crawled toward Jordan’s feet where his rifle had been set.
“Nguyen is probably dead, too, or she will be as soon as you don’t need her any longer.”
“Dominski.” Silhouette had stepped back into a shadowed corner of the entryway. “Leave the gun. Let me take you to Nguyen.”
“You said Thuun was turning us all mad, but you were the only one close enough to see the beast. That gaia you keep talking about. Maybe you’re the one who went mad.” He grabbed the rifle.
“Jeden Dominski, don’t.”
“You’ve doomed us all.” He stood of his own volition. “But you’re going down with us.”
Dominski turned and fired at Silhouette, but she had vanished.
He knew that she was fond of the shadows and so he launched a storm of plasma into the darkened portions of the room.
Silhouette had pressed herself against the archway of the corridor which led farther into the ship. She was positioned in a thin strip of shadow with her exposed leg tucked behind the rest of her body, the damaged shadowsuit doing all it could to conceal her presence.
Dominski sprayed plasma in every direction, unsure of where she was hiding. Multiple rounds landed near Silhouette, splashing their hot residue onto her suit. She ignored the burns, suppressed the pain. But the splatter was burning through her suit, weakening its concealment capabilities even further.
He halted the barrage and searched the shadows for her presence. Silhouette held her breath, remained still, but she knew he would find her. Patches of burnt skin were showing through the shadowsuit. It couldn’t be doing much to conceal her any longer.
Dominski’s eyes focused on her location. A smile crossed his lips, and then he fired his rifle.
Silhouette jumped to avoid the blast, then she dropped low and rolled away from the next barrage of hot plasma. The shots had forced her away from the corridor, so her only move was to close the distance between herself and Dominski.
She jumped over, ducked under, and sidestepped each of Dominski’s blasts, but she stumbled mid-handspring as the ship jolted and she was slammed into a wall. Dominski fell as well and rolled partway down the boarding ramp. The ship started to slide as the loading platform tipped to one side, the landing gear scraping along its surface as the structure buckled.
“It’s ready!” said Nguyen’s voice over the comm system. “I think.”
“Punch it!” yelled Silhouette.
“Nguyen!” moaned Dominski.
Silhouette clamped her fingers around a strut that extended from the wall near the ramp. She could see through the back end of the Krajova as it slid further down the collapsing platform, its angle shifting as the ship began to fall toward Thuun’s surface.
A pulse of energy erupted from the ship’s rear. Silhouette was hanging by her fingers now, and the Krajova’s back end was pointing directly at the ground below.
Dominski hollered as he clambered for something to hold on to, doing all he could not to slide down the ramp. Its retracting mechanisms had kicked in. It was folding shut, slowly lifting Dominski back toward the entry cabin. Another jarring pulse of energy shook the ship, stronger this time, and the Krajova rocketed forward and away from Thuun’s surface.
Jordan’s lifeless body tumbled through the cabin and collided with Dominski, causing the Jeden to lose his grip. The ship’s skyward acceleration continued to increase while the planet’s gravity maintained its ever-present pull, and they both slid down the boarding ramp before it had completely closed. The Krajova rocketed onward, and Silhouette watched as Dominski plunged into Thuun’s poisonous mists.
Moments
later, the boarding ramp had folded shut and locked into its sealed enclosure. Silhouette held tight until the Krajova reached orbit and the on-board gravity kicked in.
* * *
Silhouette stopped by the infirmary on her way to the Krajova’s flight deck, grabbing a few needed supplies.
“Oh hey,” said Nguyen as Silhouette stepped into the cockpit. The girl was holding her injured arm as if it was in a sling while she manipulated the flight instruments with her other hand. “Where’s the Jeden? The infirmary?”
“He didn’t make it.” There was no care or concern in Silhouette’s voice. She had written Dominski off the moment he had turned on her.
“Oh,” said Nguyen. She stared off into the vastness of space in front of her. The Krajova was still floating in Thuun’s orbit, Nguyen not having yet initiated the ship’s navigation parameters.
Silhouette reached over and applied a healing salve to Nguyen’s injured shoulder. The girl winced, but she maintained her gaze upon the stars, lost in thought. Neither of them spoke as Silhouette tended to the girl’s wound. She wrapped a sling for the recruit before tending to her own burns and abrasions.
The front of the ship had rotated in orbit to where they were now looking back down at planet Thuun. Much of the world was covered in brown clouds that swirled and spiraled across its surface.
“Let’s head home,” said Silhouette after some time. “I want to get away from this nasty place.”
“The Krajova is my home,” said Nguyen. “Jeden and the others were my family. I don’t want to go back to Fujisan. I hate my parents.”
“To Erde, then. You can keep the Krajova, start a new life. It belongs to you now.”
“But I barely know how to work it.”
“Then give me the controls. I’ll take us back.”
“No,” said Nguyen. “Jeden told me to do it.” She selected Erde’s coordinates and turned away from Thuun. The Krajova whined as its energy cells powered up for the journey ahead. “That’s about as much as I know. You’ll have to teach me the rest.”
Deceit of Humanity Page 9
