“Aye, Captain.”
Vega breathed a sigh of relief. They’d still crash, but they’d managed to slow their rate down enough to make it survivable at least.
Silence reigned in the huge cockpit for the next several moments, and Vega was grateful that no further master alarms sounded.
Fifteen hundred feet.
“Why is she so damned chipper?” Vega asked, but no one answered her.
One thousand feet.
“Comm, give me an all-call.”
“You’re hot, Captain.”
“Good afternoon, Perseus passengers. This is your captain speaking. Prepare for landing on Earth shortly. It may be a bit rough, so please get down low and brace yourself. Stay away from objects that may fall or shift. Interior hallways will be your best bet. If you can’t get to one of those in the next minute or two, please just sit down with your head between your knees. Protect yourself with your arms as best you can. Godspeed, everyone.”
Five hundred feet.
The next few minutes were a blur as the automated voice announced each interval.
Four hundred.
Three hundred.
Two hundred.
One hundred.
Seventy-five.
Fifty.
Twenty-five.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Five.
It was the last call before they crashed into the ground. The chutes must’ve softened their blow, but Vega sure couldn’t tell. She hoped everyone had been able to evacuate from the bottom levels. It felt like the ship had crumpled like a tin can. Her chair had collapsed on impact, and she’d hit her chin on her knee and knocked her head on something.
She found it hard to catch her breath, as if the impact had knocked the wind out of her.
“Captain?” someone called, sounding far away, almost as if Vega were hearing it through a tunnel.
There was screaming. Quiet at first, but it was having trouble penetrating the fog around her.
“Captain!” More insistent this time.
Her cockpit was in shambles. Sparks flew from the mangled control panels around her.
“Captain, please!”
The screaming grew louder and more…animalistic. What was happening?
A fog surrounded her. It acted like it was moving, almost like it was…alive.
She looked over at the person calling to her. It was the comm operator. There was fear in his dark green eyes. He had his hand on her shoulder, as if to ask her for something.
But she couldn’t form words. She couldn’t make herself get up or respond at all. All she could do was turn her head and watch the chaos around her.
She heard metal creaking and wanted to get up. The sound was so loud that she knew it was bad. She needed to get up. Get out of there. The ship would collapse on itself before long. Or at least their level would.
Is the comm system still working? The ship needs to be evacuated. She heard her own voice echoing in her head, but she couldn’t form words.
What the hell is wrong with me? She couldn’t decide if she’d been injured that badly in the crash, or if she was just in shock. She knew she needed to act, but couldn’t.
Then, something odd happened to the man in front of her. It started at the edges of his body, and then continued down his head, shoulders, and torso. The fog surrounded him. His flesh started to disappear. His eyes went wide, and he let out an unearthly scream, so loud she wanted to clap her hands over her ears. But she couldn’t move. All she could do was look at him as the fog made it around to the front of his body, revealing the muscle tissue below his flesh, and then his skeleton. Soon, there was nothing left but his hand on her shoulder.
Only then did she let out the most bone-rattling scream.
Jo came crashing into Vega’s room. “Vega. Wake up, sweetie! You’re dreaming.” She snapped on the light in an attempt to wake her friend.
But it didn’t. The screaming kept on.
“Vega!” Jo cried, hesitant to go to her bed when her friend was thrashing around and screaming like she was.
Jo never did like seeing anyone suffer, so she went to Vega’s side and took her hand, even flailing around as it was. Clasping it in both hands, Jo cooed, “Shh. Vega. Wake up. You’re dreaming.”
Vega sat up so quickly that she head-butted Jo. “Ah, shit, Vega. That hurt,” Jo said as she rubbed her forehead.
Vega was confused. Was it a dream? Were they still on the ship? It felt so real…
She felt Jo’s hand on hers and looked down at it. It seemed real. But so had the man’s hand on her shoulder. She’d felt the weight of it as she watched him get eaten alive by Ashby’s bots.
“Jo?” she whispered, testing her voice. Her face was wet. Why was her face wet?
“My God, Vega. What was that about? You’re crying over it.”
Her free hand went absently to her face. “Are you real?” she asked Jo.
“I certainly hope I’m not part of someone’s alternate reality,” Jo said, and Vega heard a trace of indignity in her voice.
“What time is it?”
“Two thirty. Not my favorite way to wake up, I have to say. Don’t make a habit of it.”
The threatening undertones in her friend’s voice let Vega know Jo meant business. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Jo. I’m sorry.”
“Ready to talk about it?”
“No,” Vega said, her voice firm and decisive.
“Well, keeping it bottled up is clearly working brilliantly for you.” Jo sat back on the bed, dropping Vega’s hand rather unceremoniously.
The two sat in silence for several heartbeats. Since Vega’s heart was still pounding, she didn’t think it was all that long.
“You going back to bed?” she asked Jo, hoping her desperation didn’t show too much.
“I don’t have to. Not sure I’d be able to go back to sleep after that scream fest anyway. What’ve you got in mind?”
“Want to watch a movie or something?”
“Sure. Whatcha in the mood for?”
“Something light. Maybe a rom-com.”
“You got it. I’ll get the popcorn started, and you go pick out a movie.” She trotted away, as if she was excited about their middle-of-the-night movie.
Vega just needed a distraction. Needed something to erase the image of a man being eaten alive within arm’s reach of her.
They settled into the couch, and Vega selected a relatively new flick with the latest handsome man and gorgeous woman. New movies were rare and only came out maybe once a year. The equipment they used to film was ancient and delicate, making new movies a luxury. Despite the fact that the one Vega picked was about five years old, it was still new to them. It was light, funny, and had no gore. Exactly what she needed. They turned down the lights and watched the movie start on the thin, two-sided piece of glass they called their television. It hung from the ceiling at just the right distance from the couch, but a second seating area on the other side of the room allowed for more viewing options if they had company over to their small apartment. Despite the available arrangements, they sat on the same couch. Vega had her legs stretched out on the black metal coffee table in front of her and a bowl of popcorn in her lap, and Jo lay with her head on a pillow that she’d jammed up against Vega’s side, her popcorn bowl on the floor within arm’s reach.
Less than halfway into the movie, Jo was asleep, so Vega leaned down and snagged her popcorn. It was gone by the time the movie was over, and Vega’s nerves still weren’t settled. The dream had been too real; there was too much potential for it to come true. They would be landing on Earth. And if they waited too long, the systems would fail on descent and kill them all before the bots could get to them.
Vega selected another fluffy movie from their digital library. By the time it was over, Jo’s alarm was going off in her bedroom.
She nudged her friend. “Jo. Your alarm.”
Jo groaned. “Five more minutes.”
“You do wh
at you need,” Vega said, chuckling as she got up, jostling Jo a little more in the process. Jo grumbled in protest.
Vega had an hour before she had to be at the brainstorming meeting. She was sure she could be ready in about ten minutes. She never was big on makeup or fancy hair dos, and Jo insisted that was why Vega had never caught the attention of a guy. But Vega didn’t care. She’d rather sleep than get up half an hour earlier to make herself acceptable to some guy.
Makeup was such a luxury item anyway, and she wasn’t willing to trade some of her own creature comforts, like plush bedding and softer clothing, for makeup. Jo, on the other hand, had the stiffest, oldest shirts around but her face always looked amazing. Give and take, Vega supposed.
But that day, Vega took her time in the shower, letting the hot water hit her body, pounding each worst-case scenario out of her head, or so she hoped. She’d never actually heard a master alarm except in the simulator during training. It hadn’t ever happened in a real situation. But the dream…
She shuddered and mashed the button for the shampoo. But she wasn’t standing in the right spot and the gooey liquid went all over her shoulder instead.
“Get your head in the game, Vega,” she said to herself as she tried to rescue what she could off her shoulder. Passengers only got one squirt of shampoo and conditioner per day. Water was also heavily regulated to a ten-minute shower per day per household member. Despite having a fairly sophisticated system that pulled water out of the clouds that surrounded them, there were a lot of people on board, and water was a necessity. Showers were not.
Although they could manufacture things like shampoo, soap, towels, and most everything else they needed, they weren’t a wasteful society either. They were under no illusions that they had unlimited anything. Everything they had was carefully grown, made, and monitored. If something broke, they fixed it rather than get rid of it and start over, or used it for parts to make something new. Nothing was ever wasted. Not even shampoo that fell in the wrong place.
Vega wished they could simply recycle the parts on the ship to repair it. Make something new. Come up with a different system. Something that would solve their deadly problem. Maybe they’d come up with something at the meeting today. They had to. Their other choice was death.
Jo knocked on the door, interrupting Vega’s train of thought. “Hey, I’m about ready to go.”
“Come on in.”
Jo was dressed in her duty jumpsuit, wearing a frown to match. “Want to trade with me?” she asked.
“You have no idea how badly I want to trade.”
“I assume your meeting will cover whatever you found out yesterday. And presumably whatever was bothering you last night?”
Vega cursed under her breath. “You always were annoyingly perceptive.”
“Ready to talk about it? Are you going to lose your job or anything?”
Vega looked at her friend’s reflection in the mirror, watching as concern filled her bright blue eyes. “Oh gosh, no. It’s nothing like that.”
“Well, I can’t imagine what could be more stressful than that, so calm down, for heaven’s sake,” Jo said as she fussed with her ponytail, making sure each blonde hair was in the right spot.
“I’ll try.”
“All right. Well, good luck. You have about twenty minutes.” Jo leaned over and kissed Vega lightly on the cheek. “See you later?”
“Yeah. I’ll be working this evening, but I should be back around seven.”
“Perfect. See you then.”
“Have a good day at duty,” Vega called after her friend.
“Oh, shut up!” she called back, and Vega laughed.
Within ten minutes, Vega was dressed, hair done, and was tying her black necktie before she walked out the door.
She was early to the meeting, but she wasn’t the first one there either. Several other pilots milled anxiously outside the major’s office, waiting to hear what their fate, and the fate of the ship, was.
“Maybe another ship can rescue us,” someone suggested.
“It’s possible,” someone else answered.
Vega paced around. She wasn’t prepared to listen to speculation. She wanted firm answers. Maybe she should’ve stayed in their apartment a few more minutes.
Working hard to tune everyone out, she scrutinized the hall outside Major Burridge’s office. He had many awards and medals displayed out there, as well as the portraits of previous majors hanging in a line leading up to his door.
Vega walked all the way to the end of the hall, where a tremendous floor-to-ceiling portrait of General Quelch hung. He’d been the father of the airships, and had saved tens of thousands of lives from Ashby’s bots. If the lives that existed now because of him were counted, it was millions of people who owed their existence to him. He was their savior. Vega often wondered what it would’ve been like to work for him during such a scary time. Then she wondered how her own leader would measure up.
Down the hall, she heard the major’s door open. “You can come in now,” he said.
They all filed in, Vega being last since she was so far down the hall. She nodded to the major, who’d moved to his station at the head of the table, as she followed everyone into the conference room they’d occupied the day before. The room was just as full, and no more at ease. Vega could feel the buzz of tension in the room, and it made her jittery. She shifted in her seat, trying to shake the feeling, but it didn’t help.
“Thank you all for coming. Today, we’re joined via phone by the other airships, along with the president of the United States and several other world leaders,” the major said.
Vega couldn’t stifle the gasp that escaped her. The major’s eyes met hers, and it felt like a million-ton weight had just been laid on her shoulders. This was bigger than she thought. But how much bigger? There were a lot of people on board the Perseus. Maybe the world was simply banding together to try to save them. Vega could hope.
“We’ve come together to try to come up with a solution to our current problem,” the major explained, although Vega didn’t think it was necessary.
“Let’s open the floor to suggestions,” he said. With that, silence hung in the room like a doomed man in a noose.
One of the pilots on Perseus cleared his throat. He was an older gentleman, close to retirement. Vega didn’t work with him. He took a lot of short day shifts, as was his right after over thirty-five years of service to the ship.
“Since there are others on the call, couldn’t one of you come to our aid? Maybe take on our passengers? Provide an umbilical so we can shut down and work on the ship while still airborne?” His voice was deep with age and use, and it sounded authoritative. Vega latched onto the hope his statement had tossed into the room.
She looked over at the head of the maintenance team, who was frowning deeply with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Unfortunately, we find ourselves in the same boat, or worse. While your systems that are failing are minor, we’ve had some major failures here already. Our oxygen system is barely functional, and don’t even get me started on the water filtration system,” a man with a heavy French accent said through the speaker in the middle of the big oval table.
“What?” Vega breathed. How could that be? Something helped her find her voice—maybe it was her sudden anger over the situation. “How is it that we’re just now finding out about this if others are worse off than us? Shouldn’t we have been trying to help them?” she demanded.
“We have been trying to help, Captain Fowell. Now, we’re out of ideas, which is why we’ve called on you all,” Major Burridge responded patiently.
“Excuse me, Major. This is the president.” His cadence was drawn out, as if he’d never finish the sentence he’d started. Vega had heard him speak before, and she and Jo had made fun of him then too. She couldn’t believe he actually talked like that in real life. She stifled a snicker at his mannerism and tried to stay focused.
“Of course, Mr. President,” the maj
or said.
“What we need right now is information. For all you and I know, the bots are gone, and have been gone for centuries. We’ve been comfortable up here. We’ve had no reason to venture down to Earth. But now, we need to. Frankly, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a solution to this problem. But until we have all the facts, we can’t begin to find it.
“We were not allowed to survive over three hundred years after Ashby’s death just to be killed by his damned bots. We will prevail.”
The speech stirred the group. A few uttered ‘yeah,’ clapped, or threw their fists in the air. Vega wondered what was happening on the other ships after the speech. Were the foreign leaders moved, or were they rolling their eyes at his all-inspiration-but-no-actionable-items speech?
“I agree, Mr. President. We need to know what the situation is on the ground before we decide to take the ships down. Here is my proposal. One pilot from every ship will take one of the jets down to five thousand feet. From there, they will scope the surface. It will be their responsibility to determine if there are any signs of life on our respective mainlands.”
Vega’s mind tried to keep up with the proposition. She’d flown the jets a few times. In fact, she’d logged almost a hundred hours in them, going back and forth between the airships, transferring passengers or cargo. They were small jets, and old, but sturdy and used sparingly. They were from the time before, and the fact that the maintenance team had kept them running all this time was nothing short of a miracle. Using the limited resources they had on board, they’d even been able to make some improvements and duplicate the technology, so they had newer models made from parts of the older planes. Still, they were treated with kid gloves and were never taken below thirty thousand feet. There was no need. Each airship was equipped with long landing strips on the very top, just for that reason. Jets took off and landed right on the airships, having never seen the ground.
Vega surveyed the room, asking herself who would be chosen to go. She didn’t think for a minute it would be her, although she would’ve liked to be the one to represent the Perseus. Despite her fear, she wanted to see the surface for herself. She’d seen plenty of videos and movies speculating about what Earth looked like now, but to have definitive proof…
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 37
