by Rob Boffard
Slowly, Prakesh walks over. Every step feels awkward, every motion forced.
The guard watches him approach. He bangs the drum with the butt of his rifle, and it wobbles slightly on its perch. “Starting to stink. Worse than before. Is that supposed to happen?”
And that’s when Prakesh smells it. The makeshift lid has kept most of it inside, but some has escaped, and it scours the inside of his nostrils.
“Let me see,” he says, stepping behind the table. His heart is pounding.
“I gotta say, though,” says the guard, “this is by far the most interesting shift I’ve had in a long time.” He claps Prakesh on the back. “Can’t wait to eat those first tomatoes. I had one once, when I was a kid.”
Prakesh forces a smile, bending over the barrel, trying to hold his breath.
“So?” says the guard. He looks more eager than ever, almost excited, like a child getting a toy. Prakesh actually feels a little bad for what he’s about to do.
“It’s ready,” he says.
Then he puts a hand on the side of the drum and shoves it off the table.
The barrel crashes to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere: pale green slurry, with slimy lumps floating in it. A second later, the full force of the smell hits Prakesh.
It’s as if boiling acid has been forced into his lungs. He bends double, trying to raise a hand to his nose, not quite getting there before his stomach reacts. He vomits, the liquid forcing its way out of his lungs, spraying across the floor.
The guard is vomiting, too. He was right next to the barrel, and got a full dose of the fumes.
Sulphur, ammonium sulfate, calcium hydroxide. Water. Heat.
Clunky, but effective.
Prakesh has enough presence of mind to pull himself behind a nearby crate. He gets there half a second before the shooting starts. Bullets explode off the metal floor around him. One hits the gas canister, which flies off across the floor, whirling like a child’s toy.
The smell is spreading. The hangar is big, but the stench is powerful enough to penetrate every corner of it. Prakesh can hear the other guards coughing, hear them starting to heave. That sets him off again. He retches, spilling more slime onto the floor by his head. The smell is so strong that he feels like it’s a living creature clamped onto his face, forcing itself down his throat.
There’s nothing more he can do. He curls into a ball, his hands over his mouth and nose, and waits for it to be over.
It takes him a few moments to realise that the shooting has stopped. His ears are ringing, but the hangar is silent. No–not silent. He can hear voices now, muffled, shouting orders to one another. And soft thuds, like boots being driven into flesh.
He gets to his knees, dry-heaving. The smell has ebbed, just a little, but it’s still enough to set off a coughing fit. When he looks up, wiping gunk from his lips, Jojo is standing over him, holding the bottom of his shirt to his face. The shirt is wet, soaked with urine, blocking out the smell. Prakesh sees that every other worker did the same thing, clamping wet fabric over their noses and mouths. It gave them just enough time to take down the incapacitated guards.
And all of them are dead. Prakesh can see that. Or, if they’re not dead, they will be soon. His eyes fall on the one who helped him. The man’s eyes are staring at nothing, blood leaking out of a massive head wound. Prakesh feels an odd sense of loss, a feeling he doesn’t quite understand.
“Nnnn—” Jojo gulps twice, the wet fabric across his mouth muffling the sound. He helps Prakesh to his feet. “Not bad.”
Prakesh finds it hard to keep his balance, especially when the other workers start slapping him on the back and pulling him into massive bear hugs. Someone passes him a soaked strip of cloth–it’s revolting, having to hold it up to his mouth, but it’s a million times better than the smell.
For a long moment, nobody moves. The workers are looking around them, unsure, cradling the guns.
Jojo breaks the silence. “S-s-see that?” he says, pointing upwards. Prakesh follows his finger, landing on a clunky security camera bolted onto the wall. “W-we gotta mmmm-move f-fast.”
Prakesh groans, irritated that he didn’t see it before. Their revolt will be noticed–assuming the camera works, there’ll be reinforcements arriving at any moment.
“Y-you two–generator room,” Jojo says, pointing at the other workers. His words are muffled by the fabric. “Heard the g-g-guards t-talking about it earlier. It w-w-won’t be too heavily g-g-guarded. D-D-Devi, t-take a few p-p-people w-with you and g-go and secure the b-b-b-boats.”
The workers split off from the group, charging away across the hangar.
“What’s in the generator room?” Prakesh says.
“Th-th-th-the other workers. W-w-we’re n-n-not gonna l-leave them here.”
Prakesh’s head snaps up. Other workers. Carver. If he’s still alive, that’s where he’d be. But the moment the thought occurs, so does the memory of those fists and feet raining down on him. Prakesh desperately wants to believe he’s still alive, but he knows the odds aren’t good.
“What about the rest of us?” says a man behind Prakesh. “I say we take the bridge.”
“We’ll never get near it,” someone else says. “Not unless our man’s got another batch of those chemicals somewhere.”
“N-n-no,” says Jojo. “We c-c-c-c-can’t go to the b-b-bridge. It’s t-t-too heavily guarded.”
“So then what do we do?” It comes from an older woman. She’s holding one of the rifles like a newborn baby.
Jojo gulps twice. “W-we blow it up.”
There’s a stunned silence. “What, the bridge? Or the ship?” says the woman.
“The shhhhh-ship. We hit the f-f-f-fuel hangar, lllll-light it up. T-torch the p-p-place.”
“Jojo, that’s crazy,” the woman says.
Jojo talks over her. “We g-g-get in, t-take some f-f-fuel for ourselves, then burn the r-r-rest.”
Prakesh finally finds his voice. “What about the other workers? The ones you just sent off? Shouldn’t we warn them?”
“They know how to get to the b-boats,” Jojo says, barely glancing at him, excitement chasing away most of his stammer. “W-w-we won’t leave without ’em. D-don’t w-worry.”
“What do we do about weapons?” Prakesh says.
But Jojo and the rest of the workers are already heading for the hangar doors. A couple of them loose shots into the ceiling, ignoring Jojo’s stuttered shouts to save ammo. Prakesh has no choice but to follow them.
63
Riley
There’s no way Koji just said what I think he said. I keep the gun pointed at him. The only sound is my breathing, harsh and hot.
“I knew your father,” he says. “I was with John Hale on the Akua Maru. I—”
“Shut up.”
I get to my feet slowly, keeping a very, very tight grip on the gun.
“Look,” Koji says, spreading his hands slowly. “My name is Koji Yamamoto. I was born on Outer Earth, in Tzevya. I was a junior officer on John Hale’s crew. We crash-landed in eastern Russia eight years ago.”
This isn’t possible. The Akua Maru was thought destroyed, lost forever. It wasn’t. My father was still on Earth, and with Janice Okwembu’s help, he managed to repair the ship, intending to use it to destroy a station he thought had abandoned him. We thought the rest of the ship’s crew were dead.
“You’re lying,” I say. But is he? How could he know any of this? How else would he know the names John Hale and Akua Maru? Could Okwembu have told him? But why would she?
“How do you know who I am?” I say.
Koji lowers his eyes. “You look just like him.”
I lift the gun a little higher, and he starts speaking more quickly. “I knew he had a daughter, but I never thought… you have his eyes. You are his daughter, right? Riley?”
“The Akua landed in eastern Russia,” I say. “That’s a long, long way from here.”
He nods. “Kamchatka. Some of us s
urvived the crash. We decided to head east, see if we could find anything. We crossed the Bering Strait, ended up here.”
“Why tell me this now? Why not say anything before?”
A pained expression crosses his face. “I was scared. All right? They would have killed me if I tried to help you.” He points to Iluk’s body.
“So you wait until I’m the one with the gun,” I say. “Convenient.”
“I’m telling the truth, I swear.” He’s trembling now, overcome with emotion. “I don’t know what happened to your father–he wanted to stay with the ship, but if you—”
“Shut up,” I say for the second time. I have to calm my racing mind. I have to think.
Right now, it doesn’t matter who Koji is, or where he came from. What matters is that he might be the only person here who could help me. There’s no chance of taking Okwembu down yet–not with one gun, not when she’s on the ship’s bridge. But she’s not the only reason I’m here.
“Uncuff me,” I say.
He gives a helpless shrug. “Ray had the key. I’m sorry.”
I bite back the frustration. Nothing I can do–I’ll just have to live with it. “I’m looking for two people,” I say. “Their names are Aaron Carver and Prakesh Kumar.” I have to assume that they’re alive–I almost physically recoil from the alternative.
Koji shakes his head, and I feel my stomach drop a couple of inches. “We’ve had some new people,” he says. “I don’t know their names.”
“Tell me about these arrivals. What happens to them?”
“They get put to work. All across the ship.”
“Where?”
Sweat is trickling down his face. “All over. Depends on what needs doing. But the closest is probably the generator room. We’ve been having some power problems, so—”
“Take me there,” I say. “Right now.”
I make him go first, keeping my gun up, ignoring the burn in my cuffed hands. We’re almost at the corridor entrance when he says, “Wait. You need to give me the gun.”
“Are you serious?”
“You don’t understand,” he says, licking his lips. “What do you think is going to happen if someone sees you marching me at gunpoint?”
“They’ll do nothing. Because if they do, I’ll shoot you.” The words sound hollow, even to me.
“You think they care?” Koji shakes his head. “If we’re going to find your friends, then you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Why should I?” I say.
“Because—” He stops, looks away. “Because I owe your father. I owe him everything.”
I don’t move.
“Please,” he says.
My finger tightens on the trigger.
Then slowly, very slowly, I pass him the gun. I’m already visualising the angles, anticipating what he’ll do. The moment he brings the gun around, I can swing my hands into the side of the barrel, knock it away, then shoulder-charge him, which should—
But he holds the gun as if it’s an unexploded bomb, keeping it pointed at the floor. He tries a smile, but it’s gone before it can fully form.
We resume our walk down the corridor. Every so often, Koji will tell me to turn left or right, directing me deeper into the ship. He’s visibly trembling, trying to look everywhere at once. It’s hard to imagine someone like him surviving in this place.
“How did you end up here, anyway?” I say.
“Me and two of the crew–Dominguez and Rogers,” Koji says. “We left the crash site. Rogers, she… she didn’t make it.”
He goes silent for a moment. Then he says, “There was this radio message. Talking about food and shelter.”
“I’ve heard it.”
“It was a lie. Obviously. I got put to work like everyone else.”
“But you’re not a worker any more.”
“No. I figured out what the Engine—”
At that moment, a shape blocks out the light from the passage above us. Koji swears quietly, not looking up. I keep my gaze on the corridor ahead.
Footsteps descend the stairs behind us. “Hey,” a voice calls out.
Neither of us responds–I’m waiting for Koji to say something, but he stays silent.
“Hey,” says the voice again, louder this time, and now it’s accompanied by heavy footsteps, clumping down the corridor behind us.
Koji looks round. “Just bringing her to the work detail at the generators,” he says, nodding at me.
I keep my eyes on the floor. The man is wearing thick work boots, much too big for him, as if he took them from somebody else.
“Where’s Ray?” says the man, his voice gruff.
Koji shrugs. “Probably with Iluk somewhere.”
“Go find them. Something’s happened in the farm, we need every available…”
He trails off. I flick my eyes upwards, and that’s when I recognise him. Sandy hair, red face. He was on the bridge when I was brought in, and I can see recognition sparking to life in his eyes, see the yell forming on his lips.
64
Prakesh
The cleaner air outside the hangar is like a splash of cold water. Prakesh takes a huge breath, letting the strip of urine-soaked cloth fall to the floor.
The workers push through a door ahead of him, exploding out of the corridor into a larger space. It’s an old weapons bay–there are empty racks everywhere, running floor to ceiling, some of them still carrying ancient ordnance, their labels cracked and faded. Computers line the wall, the screens black and dead.
By the time Prakesh gets there, the gunfire has started.
There are at least two guards, firing from behind one of the racks. Prakesh hits the ground, going down hard. He has no weapon, nothing to protect him. All he can do is stay down. The gunshots are deafening.
One of the workers takes a bullet, his arm almost torn from his shoulder. He collapses onto the floor, twitching, and Prakesh sees that it’s the man who wanted to take the bridge. He pushes himself away, rolling across the floor.
The shooting stops. There’s a split second where Prakesh thinks they’ve lost, that one of the guards is about to come round the corner and put a bullet through him. But then he hears Jojo’s voice. “L-l-let’s go!”
The rest of the workers roar in agreement, and he feels feet pounding on the metal surface. He tries to get up, but as he does so his hand slips in the blood pooled on the floor, and he crashes back down, knocking his chin on the metal plating.
Jojo pulls him up. He’s surprisingly strong. He and Prakesh stumble to the exit, and that’s when one of the racks gives way.
Its supports are riddled with bullet holes. It gives off a metallic screech as it comes down, collapsing in on itself, kicking up clouds of dust as it goes, spewing its cargo across the floor. Prakesh pulls Jojo back just in time.
The sounds of the crash die away, replaced by Prakesh’s ragged breathing. Their way to the passage beyond is blocked. A woman, the one who told Jojo that it was crazy to hit the fuel hangar, is staring at them through a gap in the debris, her eyes wide. Her lank hair hangs down her forehead in streaks of wet grey.
Prakesh moves to climb the wreckage, but Jojo grabs his shoulder. “There’s an-n-n-nother way r-round,” he says
He doesn’t give him a chance to respond–just plunges back the way they came, ducking into the passage. Prakesh takes one last look at the woman, and then follows.
Prakesh struggles to keep up with Jojo. He moves at a brisk pace, the rifle swinging back and forth. There’s an alarm blaring somewhere, distant but urgent, and he swears he can hear more gunfire, as if the ship has finally woken up to the threat inside it. At each junction and stairway, Jojo pauses for a split second before picking a path and heading down it. Within minutes, Prakesh is lost–he knows they’re heading deeper into the ship, but he has no clue where they are.
Eventually, he catches up to Jojo at the top of a set of narrow stairs, where he pauses a little longer than normal. “Hang on a second,” he says, g
asping out the words.
“Gotta k-k-keep g-going,” Jojo says, starting down the stairs.
A few minutes later, they reach a T-junction in the corridor, marked by a rotating yellow light that casts strange shadows across the walls. Jojo stops, peering around the side of the junction, as if he senses something up ahead.
Prakesh stumbles to a halt, hands on his knees, blood pounding in his ears.
“Jojo,” he says.
“J-j-just g-gimme me a s-s-second.” He starts down the passage, then abruptly turns, heading back in the other direction.
Prakesh raises his head, and Jojo glances back at him. “I haven’t b-b-been d-down here b-before. B-b-but I th-think this is—”
“Wait,” says Prakesh. “How do we get out after we torch the fuel?”
“I t-t-told you. W-we g-get to the b-b-boats.”
“What if there aren’t enough? What if we get ambushed again?”
“W-w-won’t happen.” Jojo’s eyes are alive. “I b-b-been planning th-this for a l-long t-time. I’m g-gonna g-g-g-get out, and th-then I’m g-g-going back to D- to D—” His voice cuts off, and he swallows hard: “… Denali. Up n-n-n-north.”
“We can’t—”
“No.” Jojo’s tone of voice is almost pleading, as if he’s trying to make Prakesh understand. “I have to g-g-get out. M-m-my uncle c-c-can’t s-s-survive if I’m n-n-not there. He’s g-g-g-got a b-b-bad leg. I g-g-gotta find him.”
Prakesh puts a hand on the wall, breathing hard, forcing oxygen into his lungs. This is all happening too fast, he thinks. He assumed Jojo had a coherent plan, latched onto it, desperate to get out of this place. It’s a mistake that might get him killed. There’ll be no ordered exit, no regimented attack on their captors. Jojo doesn’t even know where he’s going. The whole thing has already gone to shit, and there’ll be more deaths by the time it’s done. He can’t let that happen. He won’t.
Jojo tilts his head. “Th-that was p-p-pretty clever b-b-back there,” he says, glancing down at the rifle. “W-w-w-with the sssss-st-st-stinker.”
“Thanks.” Prakesh doesn’t know what else to say.
