by Tripp Ellis
He ordered another pizza from the synthesizer. He inhaled the first few bites. But as he pulled the stringy cheese away from his lips he realized it wasn’t cheese—he saw long, milky white worms.
Mitch spit the half chewed bite out of his mouth. The pizza looked moldy and rotten, covered with slime and these insidious worms that were notorious aboard space going vessels.
His stomach roiled. He felt like he was going to hurl—the sour acidic feeling lurched up in the back of his throat. He coughed and spit and pulled out a long stringy worm that had wriggled its way down his throat. He tossed the nasty thing on the ground and it twisted and squirmed.
The color drained from Mitch’s face.
When he glanced back at the pizza, it was perfectly normal.
He stared at it, slack-jawed.
It was like the ship was fucking with him. Whatever was happening, Mitch had lost his appetite.
He pulled himself together and stared at the pizza for a moment just to make sure it had all been a hallucination.
Mitch grabbed his weapon from atop the table, and started back for the corridor. He noticed the crates of trilontium at the far bulkhead. He wondered how he had missed seeing those when he first walked into the room. Was he hallucinating again?
He stepped to the bulkhead and opened a crate. Inside was the luminescent treasure. At this point, it was hard to believe what he was actually seeing.
Real or not, he was going to roll them to the airlock and expel them from the ship. He grabbed the cart and pulled it into the corridor. It was going to take two trips.
Mitch rolled the carts of trilontium to the port side airlock. He almost herniated a disc trying to get the heavy crates off the cart.
Then he pushed the cart back down to the mess hall and loaded up the second round of crates. He was sweating up a storm and huffing and puffing by the time he dropped them off at the airlock. But he wasn’t going to be able to get them off the ship just yet. He needed to grab his helmet that he dropped when he saw Jaxon stab Declan.
He trotted down the corridor and picked up the helmet that was still resting on the deck where he had dropped it. It was by the ladder to the next level.
Jaxon emerged from around a corner. He had a demonic look in his eyes, and a large serrated blade in his hand.
Mitch ran back down the passageway.
Jaxon chased after him.
Mitch heaved for breath, and his quads burned. He ran as hard as he could. Faster than he’d ever run before, or so it seemed. He dared not look back. Jaxon was gaining ground.
The airlock seemed like such a long way away. Running in the bulky suit was less than ideal. Mitch kept waiting for a shot to ring out. He thought at any minute he’d feel the sting of a bullet puncture his back. Jaxon must have run out of ammunition during the last fire fight. Or maybe he just liked the sport of chasing Mitch down?
41
ZOEY
Zoey grabbed her rifle and darted out of the med bay. She twisted through the corridors toward the reactor room with her weapon in the firing position. She swept through the ship and rounded a corner by the reactor compartment. Violet’s motionless body was on the deck.
Zoey cautiously stepped toward her. She knelt down beside Violet and checked her pulse—she didn’t have one.
There was a puncture wound in Violet’s back. Blood oozed from the wound, but not as much as Zoey would have expected. Something was different about the blood as well. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It almost seemed synthetic.
Zoey rolled Violet over, and put her ear to her chest. Violet had no respiration or heartbeat.
A moment later, Violet’s eyelids opened and she gasped for breath. Then she sat up.
Zoey lurched back, her eyes wide with shock. Was she hallucinating again?
No. She wasn’t hallucinating at all.
“Holy shit, you’re a fucking robot?” Zoey said.
“I prefer the term bio-synthetic humanoid,” Violet said.
“But synthetics were outlawed?”
“If by outlawed, you mean slaughtered and driven from the colonies, then yes.” Violet had a slightly snarky tone.
Zoey stared at her in disbelief. “But you have feelings? Or, are those just simulated responses?”
Violet glared at her. “I think and feel just as you would.”
“Sorry. I’m fascinated. I’ve never met a synthetic before. I mean, a bio-synthetic humanoid.”
“You probably have, and you just didn’t know it.”
Zoey was astonished. “How many of your kind are there in the colonies?”
“Obviously more than you realize.”
Violet tried to stand.
Zoey helped her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve had some minor damage. I had to shut down and reroute some essential processes. But I’m functional. Similar to your immune system, my nanotechnology will repair my components.” Her face turned grave. “Where’s Mitch?”
“He went to the mess hall.” Zoey grew concerned. She activated her comm link. “Mitch, do you copy?”
“Little busy at the moment.” He was huffing and puffing as he barreled down the corridor—Jaxon wasn’t far behind. Mitch sprinted as fast as he could. When he reached the airlock, he mashed the button as he entered—the hatch slid shut behind him just as Jaxon arrived.
The big hulk put a hard shoulder into the hatch, but it didn’t budge.
Mitch grinned and flipped Jaxon off through the viewport.
Jaxon snarled back at him.
Mitch twisted on his helmet and sealed it. Then he opened the outer airlock door. The atmosphere in the airlock rushed out of the hatch. There was no way to open the inner airlock hatch with the outer hatch open. It was a safety protocol and there was no way to circumvent it—and that’s just what Mitch was counting on.
Mitch accessed the control panel on the bulkhead and turned off the artificial gravity within the airlock. The crates lifted off the deck, and so did he.
Jaxon was pounding on the hatch and frothing at the mouth. His face was red, and the veins were bulging in his forehead and neck. It looked like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.
Mitch attached the retractable safety cable to his suit. The suit had replenished 30 minutes worth of oxygen while recharging during the downtime. More than enough time to get the job done. He hoped that once he got the crates of trilontium off the ship that Jaxon’s psychosis would cease. It was likely wishful thinking.
Jaxon glared at him through the viewport. He held up a magnetic grenade so that Mitch could see it. Then he affixed it to the hatch and set the timer. He grinned through the viewport and ran down the hall.
Mitch pushed the crates out into space. One by one, they tumbled into the nebula, disappearing into the green fog. He couldn’t believe he was pushing 3 trillion credits worth of treasure overboard. All because of a supposed curse.
The timer ticked down—10 seconds.
Mitch pushed the last crate out, then turned back to the inner airlock hatch.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Mitch pushed off the hatch and launched out into space. A second later, the hatch exploded. The blast rocketed him farther into space. Twisted metal and debris showered out. Searing hot shards of metal sprayed in all directions. Just one small piece of shrapnel would be enough to puncture his suit and vent out his remaining oxygen.
Mitch tumbled into the nebula until the safety cable reached its maximum length. It jerked him to a stop. At least he wasn’t going to be lost in space forever. He could pull his way back to the ship. But the tumbling mass of debris was heading straight for him.
A huge chunk of the hatch barreled through space and slammed right into him. The impact knocked Mitch unconscious. He was dangling in space like a dead fish on a hook.
Air was rushing out of the Revenant.
Jaxon clung onto a ridge on the bulkhead. The sucking wind lifted his feet off th
e ground. He was hanging on for dear life, parallel to the deck.
The vacuum of space was sucking all the oxygen out of the Revenant. Hurricane force winds whistled through the corridors.
Klaxons sounded throughout the ship, warning of a hull breach.
Zoey and Violet had reached the corridor that led to the airlock when the blast hit. They were instantly knocked off their feet and pulled down the hallway.
Zoey latched onto a ladder. Violet tumbled by, and Zoey reached out a hand and grabbed her. Violet’s inertia almost dislocated Zoey’s shoulder.
Jaxon's grip was slipping. He lost his grasp and tumbled toward the airlock. He managed to latch onto a twisted chunk of metal at the demolished inner airlock frame, saving himself at the last minute.
Loose debris was flying through the air. Something as simple as a clipboard or a pen could be a lethal projectile.
Zoey tried her best to hold onto the ladder with one hand, clasping Violet’s wrist with the other. But she wasn’t going to be able to hang on forever.
42
WALKER
Walker batted the barrel aside, and kicked the alien in the nuts. He hoped he had a pair.
The Decluvian winced and doubled over. It seemed he had balls after all.
Walker grabbed him and forced him into the jet of steam venting from the pipe. The steam burned the Decluvian’s delicate skin, melting his face off. He flopped to the deck, screaming in agony. What was left of his skin was blistered and peeling. His eyes were liquified, his lips burned away, his features eroded.
Walker put a bullet into him to end his suffering.
“You alright, boy?” Walker asked as he knelt down to Bailey.
He barked.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
They raced through the machinery, past coolant pumps, storage tanks, turbine generators. They reached the hatch at the aft end of the compartment.
Walker peered through the viewport in the hatch. It was the ship’s power distribution center, which routed energy to the various systems. It was mostly an automated system and had one guy at a command console in the center of the compartment.
Walker opened the hatch and rushed into the compartment. He blasted the Decluvian at the console, then he secured the hatch behind him.
A few moments later, he felt the thunderous rumble of the blast in the reactor room. The entire ship thundered and shook. The force knocked Walker to the deck.
Then the entire ship went dark and silent. The rumbling of the engines stopped. The hum of the life support system dissipated. The constant drone of background noise that could be heard aboard any starship vanished.
It was pitch black in the compartment. Walker couldn’t see his hands in front of his face.
Bailey whimpered. He didn’t really like the absolute darkness.
But a moment later, the auxiliary power kicked in. Emergency lighting illuminated the compartment.
Alarms blared, and klaxons sounded.
Walker peered through the viewport into the previous compartment. It was a disaster. Smoke and twisted wreckage littered the room. It was highly radioactive.
Walker backed away from the hatch and weaved through the power distribution center. He pushed into the outer corridor. The forward hallways had been sealed automatically to contain the radiation.
Walker headed aft and climbed a ladder to the next deck. As he reached the landing, he was greeted by plasma rifles and two angry warriors. They stripped his weapon and slammed him against a bulkhead.
Bailey growled and barked.
“Shut him up, or I’m going to put a bullet in the little mutt’s head.”
“Easy, boy,” Walker said.
“I’d kill you right here, but the Emperor wants to handle that personally.”
Two plasma bolts rifled down the corridor. Before Walker realized what happened, he was covered in green Decluvian blood. Their heads exploded, and their bodies crumpled to the deck.
Walker’s eyes snapped down the hallway to see Malik, Saaja, and Lu. They scurried toward him.
“You didn’t think we were going to leave you all by yourself, did you?” Malik said. “Just didn’t seem right.”
Walker grinned. “That’s the second time you’ve saved my ass.”
“I’ve got a plan,” Malik said with a devious glint in his eyes.
Lu stripped the gear from one of the warriors and suited up in the Decluvian battle armor. He marched Walker, Malik, and Saaja toward the flight deck at gunpoint without so much as a second glance.
All of the escape shuttles had been jettisoned. They were going to have to blast their way out through the front door.
The team took cover behind some maintenance equipment at the edge of the flight deck.
“This is your plan?” Walker asked, eyeing the decrepit Saarkturian gunship they had flown in on. “We’ll never escape in that thing. We don’t even know if the quantum drive will work.”
“No, not that.” Malik pointed to the armored troop transport. “That.”
“Do you know how to fly that thing?” Walker asked.
“No.”
“But I do,” Lu said.
“It doesn’t look incredibly fast,” Walker said.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Lu said. “It’s heavily armored. Plus it has a slide-drive.”
The bulky troop transport was 50 yards away. It was a long run, without any cover. Walker pulled a grenade from his tactical vest.
“What’s that for?” Malik asked.
“Diversion.”
Across the deck, a flight crew was loading ordinance onto a gunship.
Walker heaved the grenade. It pinged across the deck and rolled to the crew loading the ordinance. They dove for cover, but nothing was going to save them. The thermal grenade detonated. The flash was blinding. It caused a secondary explosion among the ordinance, blossoming in an amber glow. The deafening blasts sent shards of metal and shrapnel streaking through the air. Part of the deck and the near bulkhead were demolished. The entire ship rumbled. Smoke and haze filled the flight deck.
“Go! Go! Go!” Walker yelled.
The team took off running toward the troop transport. Walker could hear the screams of wounded Decluvians. His nostrils filled with the acrid smell of the burning debris and seared Decluvian flesh.
Bullets whizzed through the air as a few Decluvian warriors fired from across the deck.
Walker and the others dodged the bullets and ran up the ramp of the transport. Lu closed the ramp behind them. The hydraulics whirred and the hatch locked shut.
The Decluvian’s kept pelting the ship with small arms fire. But it was no match for the heavy armor plating of the transport. The ship resembled a stout bulldog—thick and beefy and mean. It was like a flying tank.
Lu sprinted to the cockpit and slid into the pilot’s seat. He flipped switches and pressed buttons, powering up the system. The controls flickered to life. Indicator lights flashed. The system went through a series of preflight checks.
Lu flicked a switch and took control of the transport’s forward cannons. The turrets swiveled to life and took aim at the warriors across the deck. Lu squeezed the trigger and the plasma cannons erupted. It pulverized the Decluvians on the flight deck. Anyone left alive scampered to safety.
A light on the control display was flashing red. It wasn’t a good sign.
Lu’s face tensed. “They pulled one of the oscillating units for maintenance.”
“So?” Walker said.
“Electron acceleration is achieved by inducing a magnetic field—“
“In English.”
Lu looked confused. “I thought I was speaking in English.”
“The short version.”
“I can’t engage the thrusters without the oscillator.”
43
ZOEY
Wind whipped and swirled through the corridors. Debris tumbled through the air.
Max was sucked around the corner, careening toward t
he open airlock. He managed to grasp his paws onto the indentions in the deck. It was lined with molded, anti-slip rubber matting that was made up of thousands of small circular cutaways. Just large enough for a finger, or a paw.
Max dug his claws into the hard rubber.
Violet’s eyes went wide.
Zoey summoned all of her strength and pulled Violet up to the ladder. Zoey was about to lose her grip, but Violet managed to grasp onto the ladder in the knick of time.
Max was hanging on, despite the gale force winds. He was up the hall, maybe 15 feet away from Zoey. She climbed toward him, pulling herself across the ladder. Then she reach to the deck and latched her fingers into the circular depressions. They weren’t very deep—a half inch, at best. In this kind of wind, it wasn’t the most secure thing to hold onto.
Zoey let go of the ladder and brought her other hand to the deck. She pulled her way toward Max. She made it a couple feet, then lost her grip. The wind forced her back. She managed to dig her fingers into the depression and latch onto the deck. She was definitely going to need a manicure when this was all over.
A fragment of sheetmetal ripped free from the bulkhead. The sharp shard of metal hurled through the air like a javelin. It was heading right for Zoey.
She thrust her head aside, and the sharp fragment raced passed her, narrowly missing Violet.
It careened down the hallway and slammed into Jaxon's skull. Blood splattered. Jaxon tumbled out of the airlock into space. He toppled end over end, leaving a trail of blood droplets floating in space. Crimson orbs that quickly expanded and vaporized without atmospheric pressure.
Jaxon's body ballooned to twice its size. The lack of pressure isn’t enough to make a person actually pop. But let’s just say the expansion isn’t a pleasant sensation.
His eyes and mucous membranes almost instantly froze over. Nitrogen and other gases began to bubble in his veins. Within 10 seconds, he blacked out from hypoxia. It was probably for the best, because the decompression caused his lungs to rupture. It was all downhill from there.
Jaxon's body floated passed Mitch and disappeared into the hazy nebula.
