In Death's Shadow

by Robert C. James

  Marissa stared blankly at the glass placed in front of her. “What is it?”

  “When I get drunk, I sometimes drink this the next morning. It’s not as harsh on the body as detox tablets.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not drunk, Jason.”

  “No, but it might help with your gut.”

  She relented and took a sip, recoiling at the flavor of the orange-colored liquid. “You didn’t mention it tastes like a sweaty gym sock.”

  “Yeah, it’s not great.”

  “Isn’t this supposed to stop me from wanting to vomit?”

  “Time will tell, I suppose.” Jason sat opposite her. “I know I’ve asked this before, but are you really sure this was a good idea?”

  When Jason formulated his plan to rescue Kione from Doctor Whitlowe, the integral part of the strategy was the use of the trans-space actuator to escape any CDF pursuers. Once he’d asked Marissa to help him infiltrate Whitlowe’s facility, she’d requested to come to the Horizon Cluster with him.

  He’d initially said no, but like always, he’d allowed her to get her way. He wondered if it was selfishness on his part wanting her to be around him. He was beginning to regret not being more persuasive.

  “I mean, I hope it’ll be as easy as pinpointing my brother and Captain Marquez so we can pick them up,” he continued, “but things out in deep space don’t often go as planned.”

  “I don’t regret coming along.” She took another cautious mouthful of her drink, again doing her best to keep it down. “Though if you force me to have any more of these, I may just want you to turn this boat around so I can go back to Mars.”

  He smirked. “What did Marcus say when you said you’d be going?”

  “Hmm?” she asked. “Uh, well, do you remember when I said I had something to tell you before the hostage swap?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was to do with Marcus and me.” She finished the glass and put it down in front of her. “We broke it off.”

  Jason froze. He stared past Marissa. Say something, you idiot… “I’m sorry to hear—”

  Marissa dry retched. “Oh God.” She dashed out of the galley at the speed of light, no doubt back to the toilet.

  “Bridge to Jason.”

  Jason took a moment to compute what she’d told him and activated his commband. “Go ahead, Kevin.”

  “We’re about to restore the scanners.”

  “Good, I’ll be right there.”

  He walked from the galley again, feeling self-centered. Not only was Marissa there with him, but he was responsible for her breaking up with Marcus.

  *

  The monitor came to life, and Kevin ran his hands over the operations console, booting up the scanners.

  “Any luck?” Althaus stood from his haunches, pulling his head out of the junction beneath the station.

  Kevin nodded. “We’re online.”

  “What’ve we got?”

  Jason entered the bridge, and Kevin gestured to the scanners. “Looks like a five-planet system. Four gas giants in the outer part of the system and one smaller planet near the sun.”

  Jason eyed the monitor with caution. “Let’s have a closer look at that star.”

  Kevin brought up the image, and a list of data scrolled down in front of them. He glanced at Jason and frowned. “It’s only two-thirds the size of GP-34. It can’t be the star the Destiny Telescope picked up.”

  “Have the scanners do an extrapolation of the surrounding constellations and see if they can pinpoint our location.”

  Kevin nodded and plugged in the relevant commands. When the results came in, his heart sank. “We’ve undershot by ninety light-years.”

  “No wonder my beard isn’t a little longer.” Jason rubbed his face and sighed. “The question is, why did we come out of the vortex here?”

  “Didn’t Petit have issues calculating the exit vortex trajectory during the testing phase?” Althaus said.

  “He did, but he also told me he’d fixed the problem.”

  “He could’ve been wrong.”

  While Jason and Althaus continued their back and forth, Kevin thought he’d use the technology at hand to see if he could find an answer of his own.

  He noticed something not quite right. “Check this out,” he interrupted them.

  They both shut their traps and stared over his shoulder at the monitor.

  “Notice how the trans-space corridor from Earth was a linear line from entry, but curved toward this star system? I assume Petit didn’t put those in his calculations?”

  Jason leaned closer. “There’d be no reason to.”

  Kevin pointed to the monitor. “And we’re still moving at the same curved trajectory after exiting the vortex with no thruster power.”

  “It’s as if we’re being dragged.”

  Althaus’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying? Someone or something plucked us from trans-space and is now controlling the ship?”

  “Good question.” Jason sat at the helm and activated one of the operating starboard maneuvering thrusters. “Let’s see if we can change our momentum.”

  Kevin checked the scanners while Jason got the Argo moving. “It’s working.”

  The ship veered away. But then a shudder reverberated around them.

  “We’re being pulled back.” Jason switched the thrusters off and, sure enough, the same course from the vortex had resumed. He looked over at Althaus. “I think that answers your question. Kevin, can you figure out where the hell we’re going?”

  Kevin let the computer do the math, and he raised his eyebrows. “Straight for the planet nearest to the sun.”

  “How long?”

  “Eighteen hours.”

  Jason slammed his fist on the intercom. “Jason to Tai. I’m sorry, Doctor, but we need Aly.”

  Chapter 4

  June 11, 2214

  Jason stared over Kevin’s shoulder at the readings coming in from the planet the Argo was careening toward. “It doesn’t look too inviting down there.”

  “It is habitable,” Kevin said, doing his best to sound convincing. “The planet’s covered in deserts, scattered freshwater rivers, and minor vegetation. The temperature appears to be the equivalent of the Sahara Desert on Earth.”

  “Have you figured out how the hell we’re being lured toward this sandpit?”

  Kevin shook his head. “The scanners aren’t detecting anything out of the ordinary.”

  “What about on the planet’s surface?”

  “The sun’s creating a lot of disturbance due to high levels of solar activity. I’m surprised I’ve got as much information as I have.”

  Jason walked over to his seat and sat. “If you had the power to drag a ship across a vast distance of space, how would you do it?”

  Kevin swiveled around in his chair. “A large tractor field would make the most sense.”

  “Like the one the Seekers used?”

  “To pluck a vessel from FTL, it’d need to be significantly more powerful.”

  “I don’t enjoy the thought we might be dealing with someone or something more advanced than the Seekers.”

  “You and me both.” Kevin turned around and fell into the back of his seat, while Jason checked the chronometer on the command console. It was only twenty-one minutes before the Argo entered the planet’s orbit. What happened next was anyone’s guess.

  He pressed in the intercom. “Bridge to engine room.”

  *

  Aly reached out of the maintenance junction and clutched at the commband she placed near the toolbox. With a flex of her new appendage, she stretched for it but couldn’t pick it up. Damn this clumsy hand.

  Doctor Tai told her it’d take time to get used to the prosthetic, but Aly didn’t have much patience. And in the meantime, her hand felt like one of those mechanical claws in a child’s arcade game.

  With her pinky finger, she looped the commband around it and pulled it toward her. “What is it?” she snapped.

  “
Sorry to be pushy, Aly, but I need an update,” Jason said over the intercom.

  She slid out of the junction and made her way to the maintenance console. She checked on Althaus’s work, happy he’d cleared the plasma exhausts and was now ensuring a seal between the tritonium tanks and the connecting conduits.

  “We’ll beat the twenty-minute deadline,” she told him, “but it’ll be close. I need not remind you how dangerous it is to punch the FTL engines inside a planet’s gravitational field.”

  “I wish we had a choice. We’ve done it before—”

  “Let’s hope we have a chance to do it again.”

  “Let me know when we’re ready.”

  *

  With every minute that passed, the yellow orb of the planet the Argo was being lured toward got increasingly larger through the viewport. And it wasn’t getting any more inviting.

  It reminded Jason of the training he’d performed in North Africa as a cadet in the CDF. His instructors had dropped him and Christian Nash off in the middle of nowhere and told them to use all the resources available to them to repair an old transport pod. They had little provisions and no shelter apart from the boiling hot conditions of the spacecraft. He shuddered remembering those days.

  “One minute to orbit,” Kevin informed him from the helm.

  “Engine room to bridge. We’re ready back here, Jason,” Aly told him.

  Right in the nick of time.

  “Buckle up, everyone, and prepare for FTL.” He took his own advice and tightened his harness.

  “Turn us around one hundred and eighty degrees, Kevin.”

  Kevin fired their maneuvering thrusters, and the Argo rotated away from the planet.

  Jason trusted he’d done the adequate calculations. “Let’s do it.”

  His helmsman punched in the commands and pushed the lever forward to fire the Argo into FTL. The ship groaned and shook around them. The power from the engines pulsated beneath their feet.

  That doesn’t feel right.

  Jason unbuckled his harness and gripped the back of Kevin’s chair. “What the hell is going on?”

  Kevin checked over his console. “Whatever’s pulling us isn’t letting go.”

  Jason was afraid of that. “If something can yank us from FTL, why would they let us escape?” He pressed in the intercom. “Aly, have the engines got anything left?”

  “You’ve got everything I can muster. If we keep this up, we’ll burn them out.”

  Jason slammed his fist into the helm.

  “We’re entering the planetary atmosphere,” Kevin said. “You better strap in.”

  Jason sighed and made his way back to the captain’s chair. “Deactivate the FTL and spin us around. I don’t want the old girl landing on her ass.”

  Kevin followed his orders and brought the ship into a natural landing angle with the nose pointing toward the planet. The Argo pounded the atmosphere, while the glowing heatshield bathed the bridge in a bright orange hue.

  Then the lights flickered, and the consoles winked out. What the hell? Jason pressed the command console, getting no response. “Kevin?”

  “I’ve got nothing.” He toggled at the switches on the helm. “It’s completely dead.”

  Jason pounded the intercom to get onto Aly and immediately realized how pointless it was without power.

  Althaus barreled through the hatchway, short of breath. “Systems are out all over the ship!”

  Through the viewport the clouds appeared, and the Argo dipped as gravity took hold. Jesus, we’re dropping like a rock!

  Kevin swiveled in his chair, and Jason’s eyes met his. “Manual landing!” they both said in unison. Without another second to think about it, they both slipped off their harnesses and brushed past Althaus down the emergency ladder chute to C Deck.

  At the bow of the cargo bay, on both sides of the hull were the small manual landing compartments. Jason remembered them being great hiding spots when he was a kid.

  He pulled the hatch open on the starboard compartment while Kevin did the same on the port side. The interior was a space no bigger than a tiny maintenance junction. He crouched and wedged himself in the seat, grabbing the control levers in both hands.

  Inside an atmosphere, the Argo was little more than a flying brick, so the manual levers were designed specifically for planetary flight as a failsafe if the ship’s engines went down. They’d ensure the ship was more maneuverable using rudders, elevators, and ailerons to glide her down.

  He looked across to Kevin. “Ready?”

  Kevin nodded, and they both yanked at the controls. Jason peered through the grimy window beside him and took the lead. Small manual indicators on Kevin’s side would show Jason’s actions and allow them to be in sync with each other’s maneuvers.

  The Argo bounced between pockets of turbulence while continuing to drop, but the pair slowly but surely lifted the nose upward.

  Through the viewport, the ground came up fast, and Jason strapped himself in. “Hold on!” he yelled.

  His head banged violently into the compartment ceiling, and his arm smashed into the bulkhead. The Argo slammed hard into the terrain, sliding across the surface of the planet.

  All Jason saw before blacking out was a viewport full of sand.

  Chapter 5

  Oh man…

  Jason slowly opened his eyes, feeling as if someone had spun him around in an old-style washing machine. A hand touched his shoulder, and he craned his neck upward.

  Kevin stared down at him. “Are you okay?”

  Jason rubbed the bump on the top of his head and tried to stretch out the stiffness in his back. “Yeah.”

  Kevin pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get above and see how everyone else is.”

  They headed through the cargo bay and up the emergency ladder chute to the infirmary on A Deck. Kione was still lying on his bed while Doctor Tai was tending to Marissa on another.

  “Go find your daughter,” Jason told Kevin, who quickly hurried off.

  “How is everyone up here, Doctor Tai?”

  “Apart from some bumps, not too bad,” she said, wrapping a bandage over a gash on Marissa’s head.

  “How are you?” Jason asked the unfortunate journalist.

  She was even paler than earlier. “I seem to be in the wars since coming aboard.”

  He put a reassuring hand on hers and turned to Tai. “How about you, Doctor? I assume your wheelchair is just as obsolete as the ship?”

  “I’ll make do. If not, I’m sure someone can give me a push.”

  Jason smiled and got out of her hair, making his way to the engine room. If it didn’t resemble a junkyard before, it did now. Aly, Kevin, and Althaus were doing their best to clean up the mess. “Report.”

  Aly picked up a loose conduit connector and passed it to Jason, splashing grease all over his hands.

  “Thanks,” he said sarcastically.

  “There’s good news and bad news.” She gathered the last of her scattered tools and placed them on the maintenance console.

  “What’s the good news?” he asked, wiping the grease on his pants.

  “Well, it seems we haven’t taken any more damage to the vital systems.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “Considering how hard we landed on this rock, we took a real pounding structurally.”

  “How bad are we talking?”

  “Without the computers, I’ll have to inspect everything visually. It’ll take time.”

  Jason nodded and cleared the dust from the top of the maintenance console. “How do you explain the power loss? Best guess.”

  “Best guess?” She crossed her arms and leaned back. “I’d say we entered an electromagnetic field.”

  Jason narrowed his eyes. “Why electromagnetic?”

  “Because I’ve seen it before.” She glanced at her dad. “Do you remember when we salvaged that old freighter a few years ago?”

  “In the nebula near the Kappa Seven system.” He nodded. “It eman
ated a natural EM field. We drifted for a week beyond it before we were able to restore power.”

  “I have my doubts there’s anything natural about this one.” Jason rubbed his temples, sensing a headache coming on. “Okay, get started with what needs to be done to get the old girl flying again.”

  “We aren’t going anywhere in this electromagnetic field.”

  “I realize that.” Jason moved toward the hatchway.

  “What are you going to do?” Althaus asked.

  “Find out a way to turn the lights back on.”

  *

  A clanging sound emanated from the galley, and Marissa stopped at the hatchway, peeking inside.

  “Jason!”

  He rummaged through one of the cabinets like a racoon searching for scraps.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Putting supplies together.” He filled a pair of water bottles from the dispenser and placed them in a backpack.

  “You’re going out there?”

  He nodded. “Someone or something brought us to this planet. I need to find out how. If I don’t, we’ll be stuck here for a very long time.”

  “It must be fifty degrees Celsius out there.”

  “Hence the water.” He shook the bottle.

  “You can’t go out there alone.”

  Jason put a handful of ration packs in the front pouch of the bag. “Aly, Kevin, and Althaus have too much work to do. Kione’s still in bed, and Doctor Tai, well, I think it’d be a little unfair to ask her to tag along.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.” She entered the galley and reached for her own backpack from the cabinet.

  “I don’t think so.” He snatched the bag and put it back where she’d found it.

  “Why not?”

  “Doctor Tai—”

  “Has given me a clean bill of health.” She took a step toward him. “Let me come with you.”

  Jason stared at her and frowned, relenting. He pulled the bag back out and handed it to her. They filled them up with all the available provisions and grabbed a pair of rifles from the weapons locker on their way to the cargo bay.