by Phil Maxey
Taylor dropped her gun down. “Guns, and equipment.”
Seth quickly looked around, and walked over to a large open crate. “It’s going to take two of us, but we can put them all in this.”
All their comms came to life with Burnett’s voice. “They seem to be thinning out, if they keep going the way they are, I would say another five minutes and it will be clear.”
Seth looked at the captain. “So, what now? We can go deeper into the base, find others, or maybe we end up dead. And now we have her.” Seth looked at the young girl who was petting her dog.
A multitude of options ran through Taylor’s mind. We need readings from the ‘hidden’. We have the girl, the material from the room, and weapons, it’s a win, take it. But what about other survivors? She had an idea.
“IM 026 and IM 021, how much of the tunnels can you traverse in say thirty minutes? With your sensors set to maximum range?”
“Approximately nine and a half thousand meters of tunnel each, or two percent of the remaining tunnels we have not scouted yet,” said IM 026 immediately.
“Is it worth it?” said Seth. “We should get back to the Tantalus.”
“We can wait another thirty minutes,” said the captain, who turned to the IMs. “Okay look for survivors, if you find any, it’s your job to keep them alive and bring them back here. Explore as much as you can, and don’t bring any attention back to us here.”
“Understood,” said IM 026. They both left swiftly.
“What we going to do for thirty minutes?” said Weber impatiently.
“I for one am going to get to know some of this hardware better,” said Casey examining the piles of weapons lying on the shelves.
“I’m going to join Burnett,” said Weber.
Seth looked around the dank secret room. “You going to be okay in here?” he said to Taylor.
“As long as Juno doesn’t take a sudden dislike to me, I should be fine,” Taylor said, smiling at Dawn. Seth left, following Weber outside.
“Do you mind telling me how you ended up here? How it all started?”
Dawn looked down. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“I understand but it would really help me, if you could tell me some things.”
Dawn nodded. “Okay.”
“When did you know something was wrong?”
“There was an alarm. I was sleeping in my room, when my father said I need to get dressed. After I did, we went here to where he works. He told me to hide in this room, with Juno. He also gave me lots of food, and a radio, but I couldn’t get the radio to work—” she started crying, slow quiet sobs. Taylor wanted to take her helmet off and her gloves to put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, but it was too much of a risk “—then my father left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About a day ago I think, I’m not sure.”
Before Earth? Taylor thought.
“You have been very—” Taylor’s internal comms came alive with static making her grimace. The girl looked at Taylor with a confused look.
“Is there someone there? Come in. Over,” said Taylor.
“Warden—over—Tantalus—” More static played out in Taylor’s helmet.
“What about the warden? Who is this? Over.” She selected source from her wrist screen, and “Tantalus transmission” appeared on her HUD.
“Evan—Babel’s taken—ship—Return—Tantalus.” The transmission ended.
She stood up. “Everyone get back here, we need these guns packed as quickly as possible.”
CHAPTER 24
Luke tried focusing, but between lack of sleep and his swollen eyes only a fuzzy image of the room around him was possible. The stabbing pains each time he tried to move probably meant one of his ribs was broken, but he was alive, there was that.
The IM had pounded on him for over an hour, without saying a thing. Luke guessed he didn’t need to, he knew what he wanted Luke to say, and if Luke didn’t confess the code there was no point in talking. That was the one thing he liked about IMs, you knew were you stood with them. The warden left shortly after it began but Babel stayed. Luke was thankful he did because it gave his anger something to focus on as the solid carbonium fists slammed into him. He lost consciousness a few times, at least that’s what he thought although it might have been more. Eventually even Babel left, perhaps he got bored, or perhaps he thought Luke was going to die, either way ten or so minutes later IM 001 stopped the beating and brought him to this new location, leaving him unconscious on the cold floor.
Get up. If you don’t, they will kill everyone, you must stop them. Get up!
Luke’s left eye hurt less than his right, so that was the one he put the most effort into opening. An even starker wall than the ones in the cell he was in earlier came into view, and this room was a lot dirtier. Brown marks and smears stained the floor and walls. The more he looked around, the more he wasn’t sure it was even a cell at all, it looked like it was being used as some kind of refuge dump.
He brought his hands into his sides and pushed down on the damp floor, pushing himself up. As he did his head swam and the room around started to shift independently of his vision. Steadying his head with his one good hand, he let the vertigo pass, then looked in more detail at where he was.
Whatever this room was, it didn’t have a transparent outside wall like the previous cells. The walls were covered in rivets, and the door looked a lot more solid than even the cell doors had. He was starting to doubt he was even in one of the cellblocks anymore.
The sound of distant noises, which he couldn’t quite identify moved through the rancid air. Someone coming? He wasn’t sure, but felt he needed to at least put up a fight this time, just in case it was a human and not a machine. He decided not to look at his chest and what he knew were black and blue bruises there, instead he crawled across the filth until he reached a wall, then turned so his back was up against it. He used that as a support to push himself up onto his feet. The whole procedure was agonizing for him to keep going with, but after a few seconds he was standing trying not to fall back down.
A small opening in his room’s door slid open.
“Luke, you there? Are you alive?” said Evgeni, whispering the words.
Luke responded but he wasn’t sure if it was words or just a groan that he produced from his bloody lips.
“Good, good. I was sure they had killed you. Babel, that—” Evgeni swore to himself in Russian “—he’s trying to take control of the ship with help from the warden, we need to stop them. How injured are you? Can you walk?”
“I know. Yes, I think.” This time his effort at communicating worked.
“Okay, wait.” Evgeni said something to somebody else.
“Hey, Luke, it’s Evan, just give me a few moments and I’ll have you out.”
There were some tapping noises, then the door opened. Yegor pushed it open and moved quickly, grabbing hold of Luke to lift him up.
“No, no—” said Luke, putting his hand up in front of him “—broken.” He pointed to his ribs. Yegor nodded, then placed his arm out in front, allowing Luke to hold onto it and use it to balance himself as he and Yegor walked slowly outside.
“Hmm, we will need to go faster than this. Yegor find something we can carry him on.”
Luke looked around. “Where are we?”
“Solitary confinement. This is where the really bad ones are,” said Evan holding what looked like a small screen with broken circuitry hanging from the back.
Luke noticed most of the doors were open.
“Babel let most of those down here, out. He thinks he can use them. He’s even stupider than I thought!” said Evgeni, as Yegor reappeared from a room, with what looked like a piece of metal grating, with rivet holes in it.
“We have to get a message—” Luke winced “—to the captain.”
“Evan has already done so, she is returning as I speak,” said Evgeni.
“What about the IMs? If they control them, i
t won’t matter what she tries to do.”
“Somehow some of Babel’s people must have found a way to override the joint control between the warden and captain of the IMs, so he did control them all. But not anymore. Luckily for us, you’re looking at the best hacker on this ship and I managed to gain control of thirty IMs including the three that are currently with the captain,” said Evan.
“Yes, also he has far greater numbers of men and women. Many are joining his side. They want the inmates to control the ship. They will kill us all with their stupidity!” Evgeni looked at Luke. “We were hoping you would know how to stop this?”
It was a reasonable question, but Luke was having trouble standing let alone coming up with a plan to stop Babel and his followers.
“What about the armory, does Babel have access to that?”
“No, no, there is no armory on this ship,” said Evgeni.
“What about the ship’s main systems, navigation, life support?”
“Those are too deep, only the captain and her two officers have access to those,” said Evan.
“Do you know where they are? Has Babel got them?”
Evan didn’t know how to respond.
“Look here,” said Evgeni, pushing open the door to the next cell.
Luke staggered closer and looked through the doorway. Jones was on the floor, his face covered in blood and his eyes open wide. A wave of sadness flooded over Luke. “He seemed a good man, I doubt he gave them anything.” He turned, propping himself up against the doorframe. “What about Lieutenant Honer, did they get her too?”
“If he did, I don’t think we would still be breathing air in this part of the ship,” said Evgeni.
“We need somewhere we will be safe, and I need water,” said Luke.
“We have somewhere,” said Evgeni looking at Yegor. “Get him onto this thing.”
“What is the ETA on the captain coming back? Does Babel control the docking bays?”
“About thirty minutes, and no, not yet, my people are in control of them.”
“He’s going to be looking for Honer, and will try to get to the captain. That’s also his weakness.” Yegor helped him onto the floor grating. He groaned in pain. “We can lay a trap for him at the Docking bay, at the very least we will take out whatever he sends after Taylor.”
“This is good, yes, we need to plan quickly,” said Evgeni, as he and Evan lifted one side, while Yegor took the other side of the grating.
Soon they were moving along a grimy corridor then into an elevator.
“The oilers have joined Babel, but not the Karma’s. Aruna has secured one of the storage holds and Evan has disabled the sensors there, so they cannot see us. Some of my people and hers are waiting for us there,” said Evgeni. Luke noticed he was sweating.
The elevator door opened, and a group of IMs were standing in two rows motionless. Around them were about four hundred men and women, standing next to huge rectangular storage containers, with “Water” and “Food” etched onto the sides. Each one a story high. Standing away from the elevator was Aruna Anthony, leader of the Karma syndicate. Evgeni waved for some of his people to come and help lift Luke out of the elevator.
Carrying him carefully, they placed the makeshift stretcher on one of the nearby smaller boxes. Luke went to sit up. Evan and Evgeni stood close by.
“No, do not try to sit up. I will get Omar,” said Aruna.
“Anyone got any water?” Luke said as she walked away. A man who looked younger than even Evan handed him a bottle. “Thanks.” The young man smiled and joined the others who were anxiously standing around.
Luke gulped the water down, but even that proved painful.
“Maybe go slow with that,” said a thickset man in his forties with short dark curly hair, as he appeared from the crowd. “I am Omar Chibuzo, I’m a doctor, well used to be until they took that away from me, but I’m here to help. I would ask where does it hurt, but I presume that would be everywhere, so tell me what hurts the most?”
“Ribs and stomach,” replied Luke trying to lift his vest.
“Let me take care of that, just lay still,” said Omar pulling Luke’s white blood stained vest carefully up.
Luke watched the doctor closely as he did so, when Omar’s expression grew more serious, Luke knew he was badly hurt. “Give it me straight doctor.”
“You certainly have broken ribs, maybe a few, but I’m more concerned about the bruising on your stomach, it could indicate internal bleeding and if it does—”
“Then it needs to be dealt with.”
“Yes, but obviously, I do not have the tools here to help you,” said Omar, looking at those standing around the table.
Evgeni looked unsure what to say. “We cannot get to the medical quarters, it is in an area that is control by Babel’s people.”
“It’s okay Evgeni. Doc, for now just strap me up, and some pain killers would be good, we’ll deal with whatever else is wrong once we have control of the ship.”
Omar nodded and moved quickly away.
Evan walked forward, presenting Luke with the touch screen. “I’ll need your passcode so I can control the ship’s systems that you had access to.” Luke quickly typed the twelve-digit alphanumeric code.
Evgeni smirked pointing to his head. “He is smart kid, like a younger Weber!” He laughed, while some of his men nearby laughed too.
Evan looked a little awkward. “Thanks.”
“Can you disable the IMs with my passcode? Seventy is a lot of metal.”
“No, the captain never gave you that level of access,” said Evan while furiously tapping away on his screen.
“What about the AI? Can’t we use that to trap Babel’s IMs and people?”
“I tried, but without the captain’s authorization, we won’t be able to get it to do anything. It’s the same for Babel, neither of us can access the ship’s core systems yet, although I’m sure he’s trying, I sure as shit have.”
Omar reappeared with a small plastic bottle, opened it, and emptied out two small yellow pills to Luke. "This is the last we have, they should keep the pain from you for some hours."
Luke nodded with a half-smile, then gulped the pills down with some water. The weight of tiredness suddenly swept over him, making him shake his head slightly. He looked at those standing around him. "We need to get ready."
CHAPTER 25
Elisa sat in the dark service tunnel, with a packet of peanuts and some crater juice. Both of which she just had time to snatch along with a wrist screen, from her quarters when she overheard some of the inmates talking about how Babel was helping Murlock take over the ship. It was cramped but when she needed some time to sober up this was her go to spot to avoid being found by the ship’s internal sensors. Sitting there against the carbonium pipes she had no idea if Babel had taken over the ship, but she knew if she had any chance of surviving she needed to do something to stop him.
The glow from the screen on her arm, lit her face but not much around her. She didn’t have the level of access the captain had, but she still could access some of the more vital systems, such as comms and internal sensors.
Tapping on the screen, she searched for her colleague Frederick Jones. A gloomy brown and red image appeared of a room with a body. She wanted to retch, but resisted. She then realized the screen had the word “deceased” next to Jones’s name. Her thoughts went out to his wife and daughter, who he always went back to the first moment his leave started. They are dead anyway.
She shocked herself with her own morbid thoughts. But it wasn’t a lie. His family were dead and so was everyone else's from what she had seen.
Tapping again she soon was watching two people she hated, the two that had caused all this. They were arguing on the bridge.
Babel stood in front of Davin waving his arms. Two IMs stood apart from them.
“You lost him?” shouted Babel standing close to the warden’s face.
“He was secure, and the IMs were needed elsewhere. We
don’t control all of them and if the captain returns—”
“I know—” Babel clenched the back of the captain’s chair “—but we needed him to get the passcode, now they have him!”
“I have reviewed the footage from IM 001 he was completely unconscious when the machine was done with him. I don’t think they will be getting anything out of him either.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No, but there are some areas of the ship that I can’t access, he might be in one of them.”
“Let’s just presume he’s not as badly damaged as you promised he would be, what systems can he access on the ship?” Babel looked around himself. “Could he be watching us now?”
“Tantalus, never needed an XO, Taylor made that position up. Other than navigation and docking bay control, I don’t know what access she gave him.”
Babel sat heavily in the captain’s seat frustrated. “What about the other one, the girl?”
“We can’t find her.” Murlock didn’t want to finish his sentence. He was sure that if the man sitting in the captain’s chair had access to the IMs he would already be dead. The machines were the only thing keeping him alive. “I had hoped Jones would give us what we needed, but—” he looked down before continuing “—he didn’t.”
Babel turned to the old man looking agitated sitting in the navigation control seat. “Are you absolutely sure, there’s nothing you can do?” he said to Oscar.
“I’ve tried! The damn ship won’t budge until the captain or XO tells it to, or they are both dead!”
“I’m sure they have Carter well protected, and they will try to protect the captain when she returns. We need access to the docking bay, to get to her shuttle as it lands.”
Murlock nodded, muttering to himself, then looked at Babel. “I have a plan in regard to the captain, but we can’t talk here, come with me.” He and Babel left the bridge.
Elisa looked away from the small screen. She felt her cheeks, wiping away the tears which were already drying.
