The library next, Reyes stopped and shone her torch into the space.
“What is it?” Julius said.
“When I was in the library, the shelves changed around.” She highlighted the runners in the ceiling of the room beyond. “I just wanted to make sense of how they did it.” She shuddered. “It’s even more freaky to think about them scurrying beneath me while I was up there on my own.” It wouldn’t do to think on it too much, so she set off again.
They passed the dry food store, and just before they got to the briefing room, Julius slapped a hand on Reyes’ shoulder that made her jump. She’d chosen to remain behind her, and Chan had now taken up the rear. As long as Hicks didn’t try to put in a shift back there, they’d be covered. He didn’t have it in him to watch their backs in his current state. She then looked up to where Julius shone her torch on the ceiling above them.
“I’ve seen these devices before,” Julius said, addressing the WO more than any of them. “They’re quite common, actually.”
He scowled at her and he shrugged aggressively. “Well, what are they?”
“Miniature EMPs.”
The blank look on his face suggested he was losing his patience.
“This is what screwed with the radios and all of our timers. Another one of their tricks to disorientate and divide us.”
A moment to listen for the sounds of approaching steps, Reyes then looked at her dad and saw him staring back at her. His eyes widened as if to tell her to get moving. She set off again for the third section.
They reached the end of the tunnel and the start of section three without incident. Like they’d seen for every other doorway they’d come to, the doors only existed on the floor above them. It left their way through to the third section completely clear.
Once they’d passed beneath the locked door, Julius said, “Hang on.”
The glow of the tablet shone on her face as she stared down at it. “I think we can reach satellites from here.” Several images flashed across the tablet as it downloaded new information from having gotten back online. When the images cleared, Julius showed the others the screen. It had a schematic of The Faradis on it. “For some reason, we still can’t contact the Crimson Destroyer. It looks like our comms are blocked. But at least we know where the escape pods are. As long as we get to them in time, we’re home free.”
The WO leaned forward to get a better look at the screen.
Julius pointed at the image while explaining, “The pods are in the second section. Right at the very end. We should be able to pass beneath the sports hall and get to them without any problem now; if this side is anything to go by, that is. But there’s something else I need to show you.” This time Julius pointed at the end of the third section. The end of the corridor they were currently on.
“What’s that?” the warrant officer said.
“The power source for the ship. If we go down there, we can manually overload it and turn The Faradis and all its crew to dust. The Crimson Destroyer doesn’t have the firepower to take this ship down on its own.”
“Damn hippies,” the WO said.
Reyes saw both sides of it, but she leaned more to her dad’s way of thinking. Too many lives had been lost in the galaxy, so firepower had been reduced on every vessel within the galactic union. They could still defend themselves, but they couldn’t blow up something as large as The Faradis anymore. Only smugglers and pirates carried weapons of that magnitude now. It meant that when they truly needed to take something out, they couldn’t. The decision had been taken away from them.
“And how long do we have left?” he said.
Julius switched screens to show a timer. “Fifteen minutes.”
“That should be enough, right?”
“It’s not a quick job, but I reckon I can rewire it in five, which should give us plenty of time to get to the pods after.”
It seemed like madness to Reyes. “Let’s just get to the escape pods. If we do that, we live to fight another day.”
“You think we’ll ever find this ship again?” the WO said. “We let it go now and it’ll be trawling the galaxy so it can bait humans to slaughter for years to come. Above all else, we’re protectors; we can’t leave this ship to continue its reign of terror.”
As much as Reyes hated the idea, she couldn’t argue with him. Before she could speak again, he said, “But only Julius and I are going.”
“What?” Both Reyes and Chan said it in unison. Hicks hadn’t said much for quite some time. He’d been checked out since they’d seen the severed heads in the dining hall.
“There’s no point in all of us going down there. You, Chan, and Hicks get over to the escape pods, and we’ll stay in contact. Get the pods ready for us; we’ll be there in time.”
A quickened pulse forced rapid breaths from Reyes as she looked at her dad. “You promise?”
An involuntary twitch ran through his right cheek just below his eye. “Just be ready for us, yeah? Julius, will the radios work okay?”
Julius nodded. “As long as we’re in these back two sections, then yes, they’ll stay in range of one another and the EMPs won’t reach us here.” She pressed the talk button on the side of her helmet to demonstrate. “Can you all hear me?”
When Reyes looked back at her dad, her tears had turned him into a blur. “You come back to me, you hear?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but got cut off by the sound of laughter. It echoed through the tunnel and came at them from where they’d just been. As one, they raised their weapons and stared into the darkness.
Chapter 40
Despite the main tunnel being wider than the one they’d first entered beneath the dining hall, it still only gave them the space to move two abreast. As Reyes walked into the darkness—Chan next to her and the others behind—she gulped, her throat both dry and tight. Her eyes stung from where she strained to see, the torch on the end of her blaster working better than it had above, but still not well enough to give her a clear line of sight. If only her view of the thing laughing was as crystal clear as its barrelling cackle. It sounded human, but the tempo of its erratic giggle beat to a rhythm she’d not heard another human make before—then again, she’d never met a cannibal before.
They closed down on the tittering sound until it swirled around them in the confined space, manic and unhinged.
When Chan fired her blaster, Reyes jumped aside, slamming into the wall on her left. She watched the green shot fly away from them before it hit something with an emerald explosion. The strobe gave them a momentary sight of what they faced: human, just like they’d already suspected.
Reyes listened to the body hit the ground and then silence. A moment later, the thing laughed again.
Now they’d taken the man down, Reyes pushed off from the wall and jogged towards him. Her gun raised, she stared down the barrel at the crumpled silhouette. Despite her bold approach, Chan was bolder, charging ahead of her at full tilt. Instead of keeping her focus on the laughing human, Reyes shifted her focus so she covered the small Marine’s back instead.
Chan reached the man first and pointed her weapon and torch down at him. She then stamped on the blaster in his hand and dragged it behind her with the sole of her boot. The slide of metal over metal rushed across the floor as it came spinning towards Reyes.
Sweat glistened on the man’s face as he looked up at his aggressor. Although Chan had clearly hit him and he held his stomach, his eyes were lit and his grin stretched wide with glee. As if to put the others at ease, Chan momentarily raised her torch to show the empty space behind him. If there were others, they were currently holding back.
After she’d moved a few steps closer, Reyes stopped again, and the WO walked into the back of her. What she’d assumed to be sweat on the fallen maniac’s face, she now saw was blood. She also noticed he held onto something. At first it had been hard to make it out in the dark, but now she saw it all too clearly: a human leg.
The tittering cannibal waited for
all of them to catch up before he threw a name badge down on the floor in front of them. As covered in blood as the man, the patch had CROUCH written on it. In between giggles, the man paused and fixed on Reyes. “I was watching you talk to him, you know?”
To reply to him would fuel his fire and stoke his ego. Instead, Reyes simply stared down at him, clenching and unclenching her jaw. The desire to kick him in the face twitched through the muscles in her right leg.
“Don’t you remember?” the man said. “It was when you were up in the hallway on your own. When he had his guts in his hands. Then he vanished.” The man’s eyes widened and he raised his right fist before blowing on it and showing her his empty palm. “Poof! I heard you, Reyes.”
The use of her name made Reyes step forwards a pace, but her dad grabbed her shoulder to stop her going any farther.
The cannibal continued to watch her, mocking her by trying an approximation of her voice. “Where did he go? I don’t understand.” The man covered his mouth as if trying to hold back his laughter. His maniacal titter unsettled his delivery. “I was already chewing into him by then. I was tasting his juicy flesh while you were all above, discussing what to do next. Oh, it was hard not to laugh. The only way I could stop myself was by eating more and more of him.”
Reyes didn’t try to fight off her dad’s restraint. She’d found her head again, so she remained where she stood. The cannibal wanted a reaction, but she wouldn’t give it to him. Five blasters trained on him, he’d die when they decided, not because he’d goaded her into a reaction.
“You used thermal imaging to check the ship, right?” the man said.
Julius spoke before Reyes could. “We already know how you hid from us.”
It took the man’s attention to her. His eyes were swimming with either insanity or blood loss, Reyes couldn’t tell. He laughed again. “It works every time.”
“Why?” asked Hicks this time, the worst of all of them to be talking to the man. Already rattled, he didn’t need to be wound any tighter.
The cannibal took another bite from Crouch’s leg, blood seeping from it and coating his maw. When he pulled it down, he chewed the meat and shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got to eat. I bet you thought the ship was haunted, didn’t you? Most people do. Or they think it’s sentient.” He laughed. “Having our prey freaked out helps. A haunted ship that jumps into hyperspace whenever it wants to. Most of the place sealed off from the rest. Doors opening and closing seemingly at random. Or even worse: by design. You’ve gotten quite far. Farther than most. Although you won’t last much longer.”
The man seemed so unable to control his excitement, he shook. But instead of delivering the punch line, his expression changed into something Reyes hadn’t yet seen nestled in the personification of horror before her. He was crying. Tears streamed from his eyes. Polar opposites, pleasure and pain in one expression. She’d heard that it sends a human insane to eat their own. But before she could dwell on it, she heard something else.
The swell of footsteps sounded out in the distance. They came towards them from behind the man—from the direction of the dining hall and control room. The others must have heard it too because all of them except Chan—who kept the man in front of them pinned down by aiming her blaster at him—raised their weapons.
The man laughed again. “I told you. Not long left.”
“How many of you are there?” Hicks said, his voice rising as if mimicking the lunatic on the floor.
The cannibal laughed again. “That freezer you saw isn’t the only one on this ship.”
The swell of a stampede drew closer, the tight metal tunnel amplifying the mob’s approach.
A shrill sound, the cannibal laughed with piercing alacrity. “I’m the canary. The already dead rabbit in a bear trap. The worm on the hook.”
When Reyes looked behind her at her dad, he nodded, turned from the man and the stampede, and ran back in the direction they’d come from. Why stay and fight when they didn’t have long left? They needed to reach the escape pods so they could get off the ship. Whatever happened, they couldn’t miss the Crimson Destroyer.
Chan looked back at them and gave chase after putting a blast through the cannibal’s forehead. But Reyes saw Hicks remain rooted to the spot.
The first blast from the pack behind burst from the darkness. Blue laser fire, Reyes saw it hit Hicks’ left shoulder and spin him as a puff of blood rose from the impact.
Reyes stopped, making eye contact with Hicks before looking past him at the crowd. Hard to tell how many of them there were, the tight pack of the hallway only showed her the front-runners. There were enough to make the swell of their steps sound like a tsunami coming at them. Although she stopped, the WO, Chan, and Julius were still running away. They obviously hadn’t seen Hicks.
Another blue blast crashed into the back of Hicks’ leg, blowing his patella out and dropping him down onto his opposite knee. Even in the dark, Reyes saw the bloody mess it had made before she looked into his pained face, his mouth wide in a silent scream.
For the briefest moment, they stared at one another before Hicks motioned her away with a frantic wave of his hand. “Just go. You’ll die trying to save me. We’ll both die.”
The urge to run coursed through her, but Reyes couldn’t move. How could she leave him? The mob had drawn close enough for the vibration of their stampede to shake the floor beneath her feet.
“Go!” Hicks said. “Even if I could get away, I don’t want to. I’m done. I’ll hold them back.”
A lump in her throat and her face buckling out of shape, Reyes tried to speak but simply mouthed sorry while shaking her head.
Just before Reyes turned away from Hicks, she saw a calmness in his stare. Peace. He showed her the grenade in his hand and managed the slightest of smiles before softening his tone. “Now go!”
Reyes turned and ran on the heels of the others, the tattoo of rapid blaster fire echoing behind her. It sounded like Hicks had started to shoot back.
Out of breath from the short sprint, Reyes caught up to the others at the point where the entrance to the sports hall met the entrance to the second section of the ship. “Hicks is down. He has a grenade and is holding them back for as long as he can.”
After dipping a stern nod, the warrant officer said, “There was no saving him?”
“They blew his kneecap out. Besides, he didn’t want to be saved.”
He winced before saying, “You and Chan need to get the hell out of here.”
“What?”
“Julius and I still need to stop this ship. We have to blow it up.”
Tears itched Reyes’ eyes. “How long is left before the Crimson Destroyer arrives?”
Julius showed her the tablet. The timer had just over ten minutes left. She then passed the device to Chan. “When we get off this ship, this will allow you to communicate with the Crimson Destroyer.”
While looking between the tablet and her dad, Reyes said, “But Julius said it will take five minutes to overload the power source. At least.”
The way her dad pressed his hand on Reyes’ shoulder showed her she had no choice. “Just get to the escape pod and wait for us, okay? We’re going to set this ship so it’s ready to blow. We’ll catch up to you after.”
“Promise?”
When Chan pulled on Reyes’ arm to try to drag her into the sports hall, Reyes shook her off and raised a clenched fist as she stared at the smaller Marine. For the first time since they’d met one another, Chan backed down. Unable to stop her tears, Reyes looked back at her dad. “Do you promise you’ll make it back to us?”
“We’ll get back to you. Now go!”
Julius then said, “The radios will work when you cross through into the second section on the other side. We’ll stay in contact.”
A loud explosion shook the floor beneath Reyes’ feet, and a bright glow shone in the corridor where they’d just come from. A second later, a wave of heat crashed into them. Then they heard more foots
teps. “Shit!” Reyes said. “He didn’t get them all.”
Chan tugged on Reyes for a second time. After a lingering look at her dad, Reyes nodded. “See you at the escape pod,” she said before following Chan into the room beneath the sports hall.
Chapter 41
Reyes could never catch Chan in training, so as they ran now, she could only look at her blurred view of the Marine’s back. Her grief tightened her lungs, and her throat burned with the lump nestled in it. They had to get to the escape pod and prime it. She had to trust her dad and Julius could blow the ship up on their own. Whatever happened, they’d wait for them.
When Chan reached the door exiting the sports hall, she stopped and waited. Instead of stopping too, Reyes ran straight past her and continued into the second section. She passed into it as easily as they’d gone into the third. No doors. No uneven floor.
“Hey!” Chan called and ran after her.
But Reyes didn’t answer, continuing at a jog down the corridor towards a darkness her torch struggled to penetrate.
Chan caught up to Reyes and pulled on her arm. It both halted and spun her around. She clenched her jaw and balled her fists. “I swear, if you touch me again, I’m going to knock every tooth out of your fucking mouth.” Tears continued to burn her eyes, and her bottom lip twisted out of shape, but she wouldn’t look away. If Chan tried it again, she’d knock her fucking head off.
The usual spark of conflict both rose and died in Chan’s green stare. She looked from one of Reyes’ eyes to the other and sighed, her frame slumping as she dropped her attention to the floor. “I’m sorry. Lead the way.”
So geared up for the fight, Chan’s response threw Reyes off, her tears gushing harder than ever.
“Your dad will make it,” Chan said.
Another hot wave, Reyes lost the ability to speak and nodded instead.
“Come on,” Chan said and set off up the dark corridor. They moved at a slower pace. They had the time. If only the same could be said for her dad and Julius.
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 146
