by S. A. Lusher
“My name is, uh, I'm Mark,” he replied awkwardly, not quite looking at her.
Jennifer glanced down. She was naked. With a huff of irritation, she stood up, swaying slightly. The man, he must be a technician, Mark, reached out to help steady her, then hesitated and pulled back at the last second. She took a step forward and then she reached for him, placing her hands firmly on his shoulders and using him to steady herself. Her legs felt weak and her vision was still a bit blurry. She stepped out on a cold metal floor.
“What happened?” she asked, slowly looking around, trying to marshal her thoughts. It was difficult, everything was fuzzy and mute.
“I-I don't know,” he replied as she let go of him, testing her legs. They seemed stable enough now. “I woke up about an hour ago.”
“Woke up...” A field of tanks, stasis tanks, she realized, surrounded them. “What...what were we doing in these tanks?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Mark replied.
Jennifer sighed. This was no good, and there was no obvious immediate danger. Even if Mark turned hostile, which seemed pretty unlikely, she felt confident she could take him, even in her current state. She rubbed at her eyes. She needed a shower. She recognized this room. It was one of the cargo bays, and all the bays had locker rooms and shower areas attached to them for whatever reason. They would be useful, provided they still worked. Mark followed her without question as she walked into the locker room.
She spent a moment looking around for something to wear and, after breaking into a few of the lockers with the override code she'd memorized from her security training, turned up a black jumpsuit that security normally wore, which was good, considering she was security. Jennifer took her plundered gear into the shower room.
Mark hesitated and lingered in the locker room.
“You coming?” she asked.
“I, uh, already had a shower,” he replied.
“No, I need you to fill me in on what you know so far,” she said. “Two birds, one stone and all that,” she added.
He followed her into the shower area. Jennifer sat her clothes down on the table, selected a nearby stall and began showering. While she did, Mark lingered out in the main area, giving whatever details he could. He didn't seem to know much. He'd woken up because his pod had failed, apparently. Which meant that whoever put them there intended for them to be there and to stay there. He'd also spent most of that hour checking the other pods. Hers was the only one he'd found that wasn't empty. But he hadn't checked them all.
By the time she was done showering, Jennifer hadn't gleaned much new data. She still didn't know who else was alive, what had happened or how much time had passed. She had a few theories, but assumptions usually didn't bear out well. For that, she would need to find a general access terminal, which shouldn't be too far away from their current location. She left the shower, grabbed a towel and dried off, then dressed. Her movements became more quick, more efficient, as her brain and her body came back online, shaking off the effects of stasis. As she finished getting dressed, she took another look at Mark.
She'd seen him around a few times but she'd never talked with him. There were supposed to be just over a thousand people onboard. He still seemed scared and nervous. It would make him more pliable, at least, but she'd really rather have a brave partner than a pliable one. But, beggars couldn't be choosers. Obviously, something terrible had happened, and, being security on this ship, Jennifer felt obligated to find out what.
“The first order of business is to check those pods and see if we can find something to defend ourselves with,” Jennifer said as she headed out into the locker room.
Mark trailed after her. “Defend ourselves?” he asked uncertainly.
“Yes. Obviously someone put us in those pods, presumably for bad reasons. There's a good chance we'll have to defend ourselves against whoever put us in those pods. Right now, I want you to go out there and finish checking all the stasis pods. I want to see if there's anyone else in there, if it's just the two of us. I'll be searching for weapons, gear, anything useful.”
“Uh...yeah, okay,” Mark replied.
She stared after him for a moment, then set to work searching the locker room. It took close to half an hour, but she broke into every single locker and found...nothing. Most of them were empty and none of them had anything that might be used to defend yourself. At least not very effectively. She took the time to search the bathroom and the shower room, in case anyone had hidden something useful and also because she had to take a quick piss.
When that was done, she joined Mark in the main area and did a quick survey of what was left to work with. She found three doors, two of which led out into the ship, which she ignored for the moment, and focused her attention on the final door. It led to a decently sized maintenance area. Jennifer smiled at that. It might not be an armory but those maintenance guys tended to work with some heavy tools. While she searched, Jennifer turned this mystery over in her head. She'd come aboard the ship she was on now, the Cimmerian, about two months ago, when it first launched. They'd hired her pretty much sight unseen for security.
Her record had spoken for itself. She'd started small, just on basic patrol, but after just a month they finally gave her some more responsibility over a portion of the cargo deck. Though, she'd later found out, that was more because someone higher up had failed, (he'd been a drunk and it had spilled over into his job), and they'd needed someone in a hurry to take over. But it had turned out well. Before this, she thought she'd been on her way to overseeing the whole deck, not just a portion of it. Obviously, that wasn't happening now.
Although, depending on how bad the situation was, she could have control over the whole damned ship if terrorists or pirates or slavers had taken over. It wasn't exactly what she had planned on doing when she next woke up but that didn't mean she couldn't. She'd dealt with a lot of ugly crap in her thirty five years.
Jennifer finished her search of the maintenance bay, managing to come up with a handful of tools. A screwdriver that looked pretty sturdy and would be decent for stabbing, a hammer with a nasty claw and a pretty solid wrench that would break someone's jaw without too much trouble, she imagined. She pocketed the screwdriver and went back into the main room to join Mark and see what kind of progress he'd made.
“We're alone,” he said as she approached him.
“You checked all of them?” she asked.
He nodded, looking more than a little forlorn and lost. “Yeah. They're all empty except for one, and the guy inside is dead. Systems failure and the emergency protocol didn't kick in.”
“Huh, sucks for him,” Jennifer muttered. “We need to get out of this room, find a terminal, get some information.” She held up the hammer and the wrench. “Which one would you feel more comfortable with?” she asked, knowing she could use them both equally well.
Mark stared at her, then at the tools in her hands, several emotions playing across his face. Finally, he sighed and pointed. “The hammer.”
“Here,” she said, passing it to him. “Stealth will be our main defense for right now, so I want you as quiet as possible. Only speak if you absolutely have to. Understand?”
Mark opened his mouth to respond, then seemed to think better of it and nodded instead.
“Good. Follow me.”
She led him to the first of the two exits in the large room, stepped to one side of the door and had him step to the other. She had no idea what was on the other side of this exit. Jennifer hit the open button.
Nothing happened.
She hit it again. “Shit,” she whispered. “What's wrong with it?”
Mark took a moment to study the door, then he studied the pad. After a moment he frowned and shook his head. “I don't know, whatever it is, it must be physically damaging the door. The pad is fine, it's the door itself.”
With a sigh, Jennifer led him to the second door. This one, at least, had a window in it, but it was largely fogged over by the cold temperatu
re of the bay. They got into position and tried again. This time, there was a sharp chirp that made Mark jump slightly.
“Now what?” Jennifer asked.
Mark studied the control panel once more. He sighed. “It's locked,” he said. “Hold on, let me see what I can do...I need a kit. You found these over there?” he asked, pointing. She nodded. “I'll be right back.”
“Hurry up,” she said.
He nodded and hurried off, navigating the field of stasis tubes. Jennifer watched him go, then returned her attention to the door and the window. She began wiping at it with her sleeve, trying to get a clearer imagine of what was out there...
Something dark flashed by the window.
Her heart leaped into her throat as she stepped quickly out of view of the door. Okay, someone was out there. From the speed at which they'd passed by, it was obvious they'd been running. Running from what? Maybe the door wasn't the best idea...
“Got it,” Mark said.
“Get over here,” Jennifer hissed.
He quickly joined here. “What is it?” he asked.
“I saw someone out there, I don't think they saw me...” She looked around, scanning the ceiling and the top of the walls. “Shit,” she muttered, not seeing what she was looking for. “Come on, follow me, hurry.”
Mark followed her out of the bay and back into the locker room. There, she found what she was looking for. A ventilation grate in the ceiling, directly over one of the benches. She stood atop the bench and reached for the grate controls.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked in a hushed voice, looking around.
“Isn't it obvious? We're going to use the vents. The corridors are too dangerous for now. Ugh, give me a boost,” she said.
He clipped his toolkit to his belt and laced his fingers together, offering her a boost up. She managed to get the grate open and grab the lip of it, hauling herself up and inside. She took a quick look around, then, carefully maneuvering, got turned back around and hung her arms out of the opening, looking back down at Mark.
“Come on,” she whispered.
He stepped up onto the bench, grabbed her hands and, after some work, she managed to get him up into the vent. It was a good thing he was skinny and she liked to work out a lot. There was just enough room to crawl around comfortably in.
“Where to?” he asked, his voice loud in the confined space.
“Just follow me, and remember, keep quiet,” Jennifer replied.
They set off.
NECROPOLIS 4 – TERMINAL is the tenth novel in
THE SHADOW WARS.
Out now. Purchase HERE.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean A. Lusher was born in the Midwest. Raised on a diet of Goosebumps and YA Horror, he eventually graduated to mature fiction and began cutting his teeth on the likes of Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series and Bob Mayer's Area 51 novels.
Lusher has been writing seriously for over a decade now, though he only began to get any good at it over the past few years. (And there's still some debate over that...)
Currently, he lives in Columbia, MO with his wife and two cats.
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COUNTDOWN. WARM MEMORIES. LAID TO REST. Copyright © by S. A. Lusher. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
