Endless Night

by Andrea Dionne

  “Stop,” she said, spying a rectangular, silver panel nearly invisible in its steel wrappings at the second junction. “I've found an access panel. I'm going to switch the lights on,” she spoke into her headset. Flipping it open, Breanna keyed in the light control codes, then continued her search through the panel for a temperature control. Finding it, she keyed in a more acceptable temperature and returned the door to its original position, wondering at what point the computer had shut down minimal living conditions.

  Caleb watched Breanna as she returned. She looked as relieved as he felt to have the lights on. It made him feel a little better that he wasn't the only one that had been unnerved by the dark, almost brooding silence of the ship.

  A faint smile curled his lips. He'd begun to wonder if she was completely unflappable. “Feeling better?” he murmured into his headset.

  She glared at him, before she could bite his head off, however, the headsets buzzed and hissed in a burst of static.

  “Captain ... Captain Delaney,” Angus said urgently. “You'd better come here. There's something you've got to see."

  “Where are you?” Breanna said sharply.

  “We've found the communications room."

  For a moment, everyone froze, exchanging a look of apprehension, then they turned almost as one and began racing back down the corridor in the direction from which they'd come.

  * * * *

  As Angus stepped through the darkened doorway of the communications room, light suddenly flooded the area, banishing the darkness in the brilliance of glaring florescence. He blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden intrusion, listening to Captain Delaney's voice assuring them of its origin.

  Scanning the room when his eyes adjusted at last, Angus stopped short as he took in his surroundings. “What the hell...” he murmured in stunned surprise.

  “Man, I don't understand this,” Luis said, looking around the room in grim silence.

  Computer panels lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Not one was untouched, however. From one end of the room to the other, the panels were nothing now but twisted, melted masses. A few chairs stood out from the walls, melded together in a horrific, Picasso like mass of steel and plastic. Everything was totaled. There was no way any of the equipment could ever be salvaged. It looked as though a tremendously hot fire had swept through the large room, though there was no evidence of that—no scorch marks, soot, nothing.

  “What could have done this?” Angus wondered out loud as he backed up a space. “And where are the bodies? Why are there no bodies ... anywhere?"

  He spoke into his headset, summoning the other teams. The headset hissed in protest but the message finally went through. “What's with this damn thing, anyway? It was working fine before we left!” he muttered in irritation spawned by an escalating uneasiness.

  Angus scratched his chin as he walked over to where Luis and Clayborne were standing, near a mostly undamaged portion of the wall. “This sure as hell wasn't caused by mutiny or panic, like that fool company man, Benson, wanted us to think,” he muttered.

  * * * *

  Breanna walked slowly around the room, taking in the sight of the melted walls and consoles, feeling as stunned and uncomprehending as the others had. It defied explanation, fit no natural or even man-made phenomenon that she'd ever seen or heard of. There was something far more sinister to this mystery than the tale she'd been told. G-tech was hiding some thing and were obviously prepared to tell any number of lies to guard their backsides.

  “Mutiny my ass,” she muttered irritably, running her hand through the dark mass of curls that clung to her head and face.

  The damn company had claimed the settlers had turned mutinous, possibly because of a rival company's influence. The ship hadn't mysteriously disappeared, it had been commandeered. That theory had seemed shaky at its best. If there'd been a food shortage, loss of life—that sort of problems, the colonists might well have decided to take over the ship. That would've made sense, even if it wasn't completely reasonable.

  Regardless she had never believed that mutiny was responsible. She had only gone along with the tale for the chance of finding out more about the massive ship's disappearance, of which her father had so often spoken.

  He had always claimed there was more to it, that the company was hiding something from the public. And for his beliefs, society had ridiculed not only him but her, as well. Growing up with the snickers and taunts of the other children and the pitying expressions of the hypocritical “polite” society had made life hell, but she was determined not to let those old wounds rule her life.

  Dismissing the vague sense of vindication for past slights, Breanna turned to look at Caleb. He was crouched on the floor examining the base of the main console. Somehow, he didn't seem nearly as surprised by the condition of the room as the others had been and Breanna couldn't help but wonder if he was privy to information that had been denied her.

  After a moment, she dismissed it. She would have her own answers before she left, not more lies close enough to the truth to pass scrutiny, but the truth. Because she was willing to bet that even if Sylvaine had been told more than she had, it was only more lies.

  Lifting her head, she studied the two squad members she'd mentally deemed most useless. Lance Osborne looked like a throw back to Neanderthal man, and exhibited roughly the same mental capacity and temperament of an ape. Greg Zane was still standing pretty much where he'd stopped when he came in, gaping at the room as if too stupefied even to consider closing his mouth. She'd seen him playing intently with a quarter earlier, his sausage like fingers twirling it around and around as though it were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She hadn't thought any of her squad members were mental giants, but there had been nothing in the files to show they were morons either.

  It had taken a close association of about five seconds to figure that out.

  “Zane.. Osborne,” she snapped sharply, watching in satisfaction as they straightened from their slouched positions against the wall. “I want you two to go back to Io and send word out that we haven't found any bodies yet and that the communication equipment on board the Mayflower is completely destroyed. There won't be any salvaging any of this equipment. And double time it. Don't be screwing off somewhere. We've got about another mile of ship to cover,” Breanna finished, prodding them through the opening of the communications room with a jerk of her thumb.

  The two bunglers rushed past the other squad members, who were waiting in clumps outside the grotesque room, huddling together in an attempt to rid themselves of the chill in their bones.

  Caleb sent an amused glance in Breanna's direction as the two men disappeared. She seemed perfectly calm and composed amidst the eerie destruction. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised to find there was steel under that icy facade of hers, but in a way he was.

  She had chinks in her armor, though. He'd seen, if only for a moment, the same flicker of uneasiness in her eyes that had swept over everyone else. She might be calm and composed, but wasn't as unmoved as she would have them all believe.

  “So, what do you make of this, Captain Delaney?” Caleb asked, rising from his crouch and sauntering over to where Breanna stood examining the panels. Very deliberately, he breached her comfort zone, stopping scarcely a foot from her and looking down at her upturned face. She frowned, taking a hasty step back and he allowed a satisfied smile to curl his lips as he saw her eyes darken momentarily before the flash of irritation hid her interest.

  She wasn't as indifferent to him as she'd tried to make him believe either.

  Breanna looked away, allowing her gaze to pan around the room. “I don't know, Sylvaine,” she admitted. “It wouldn't be hard to produce this kind of destruction except for the little matter of there being no sign of a blast and nothing to indicate fire. I've never seen anything like it. It's almost like....some kind of acid melt. Not that I can figure how that could come about, but even that defies explanation because acid would've eate
n through the deck too."

  He turned from her and eyed the room speculatively, scratching the dark stubble on his chin as he pondered her answer. As she watched him study the room in quiet consideration, she wondered for the first time if she would ever be able to gain the respect of her fellow troops like this man had accomplished so easily. A twinge of envy darkened her eyes as she realized that she probably never would.

  “So you think they're hiding something?” It wasn't a question really, just a confirmation of what she had just said. Caleb was looking through the doorway, watching Luis and Clayborne talk in hushed tones.

  “I'd always suspected they were keeping some dark secret from the public. I suppose it's because my father filled my head with notions of a conspiracy concerning this ship ever since I was old enough to understand him, though I didn't always take him seriously. I felt I owed it to him to come,” she finished wistfully, following his gaze to the couple in the hall. No one had ever been that considerate and tender with her, she thought with a sigh. Not even her father.

  Caleb's attention zoomed in on her when he heard her wistful sigh. He flicked a glance from her to the couple billing and cooing in the hall, but he didn't think she had any interest in Luis. It was intriguing to discover that she was obviously not only not repelled by the thought of a mating dance, but envious of those who had it. Obviously, there was hope for her yet. “What ideas did your father have?"

  She shrugged. “It's not important now. They were just the ramblings of an old man who was foolish enough to believe his own tales,” she said in an unconvincingly indifferent tone.

  Caleb mulled over the newest chink in her armor, and suddenly realized that there was an entirely different person inside that hard as brass exterior than he'd guessed. “The ‘ramblings’ you speak so glibly of seem to have affected you more than you care to let on, Captain. I'd say there's a good chance it has more to do with this than you think,” he said gently.

  It was the wrong tact and brought the walls back up in place instantly, like a slamming door. She fixed him with an angry stare, the only expression of emotion that she ever really allowed to show, “You're over-stepping your bounds, Sylvaine."

  Caleb's lips tightened. “Maybe. At any rate, the company'll be cleaning this mess up so it doesn't really matter what we think at all,” he said, spitting out ‘company’ like it had left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Before Breanna could decipher his reaction, Greg Zane and Lance Osborne burst through the opening, wheezing and coughing as if they'd just run a race.

  “Captain ... Delaney,” Osborne gasped, white vapors billowing up from his mouth and nose. “You won't believe it ... I mean ... I didn't believe it. It..it's just not possible."

  “What? Slow down. You're not making any sense. What do you mean it's not possible? What's not possible?” Breanna demanded as she looked in angry confusion from one man to the other.

  Osborne gasped in several shuddering breaths. “I'm sorry, Captain. It's just that we didn't know what else to do but run over here as fast as we could. Our headsets weren't working for some reason and ... well ... you see ... we couldn't send the message,” he breathed, his furry arms bracing his waist as he bent over in an attempt to ease his aching sides.

  “What do you mean?” Breanna said, looking past Osborne's bent form as Luis, Angus, Clayborne, and Kingsley rushed up, worried expressions lining their faces as they crowded around the two nearly hysterical men.

  “What's going on, Captain?” Luis asked as he neared her.

  She ignored his question and the expressions of apprehension on the faces of the rest of the crew members.

  “I mean ... it's gone,” Osborne said, fidgeting with the bottom of his vest as he glanced around at everyone, his face a sickly pale shade of green.

  “What's gone?” Breanna almost shouted, dreading the answer, her mind refusing to accept what she knew he was telling her, that the IO had disappeared as mysteriously as the Mayflower once had. Or had the Mayflower once again vanished, taking them with it this time? She shuddered as a maelstrom of visions flooded her, the images of their stranded, dead bodies came unbidden into her mind.

  Shaking her head to banish the appalling thoughts, she pushed past the agitated squad members, deaf to their cries of outrage and demands for an explanation that appealed to them more than the one they had been given and raced toward the airlock where they had docked. After a second's hesitation, Caleb followed her and they left the remainder of the squad behind.

  Slowing when she neared the airlock she believed had been their docking point, Breanna squatted down to examine the floor. The markings in the dust were faint, but unmistakable. This was definitely where they'd entered the ship. Unfortunately, she could also see two sets of footprints leading in, which meant that Osborne and Zane hadn't gone to the wrong airlock, as she'd hoped, and more than half suspected.

  Her stomach tightened reflexively.

  Caleb, arriving shortly behind her glanced down at the floor, as well.

  Their gazes locked.

  After a moment, they turned and stepped into the air lock, crossing quickly to the door on the opposite side, which should have opened into their ship. Pressing her forehead against the cold glass at the top, Breanna looked out into the wide, black ocean of space. Her stomach seemed to drop weightlessly as it slowly registered in her mind that there'd been no mistake. The IO was gone.

  She was too stunned even to object when Caleb moved her aside, looking out the window himself. After a long moment of stunned disbelief, he stepped back and turned to study her. Either he read her abject terror in her face, or he felt the need for comfort himself. He stepped closer, caught her shoulders, and pulled her closely against him.

  Breanna stiffened, but she needed the warmth and comfort of another human being now more than she had ever needed it before. Fighting through the haze of shock and confusion that threatened to overwhelm her, she whispered, “We're not alone."

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  As they stood locked in a comforting embrace, Caleb's breath mingled with Breanna's, the warmth forming a vaporous cloud in the chill air around them, obscuring their view of the endless nothingness beyond the ship they were stranded on. There was no sign that the IO was drifting nearby, nothing to indicate that it had somehow only broken the coupling and detached itself ... and it was still nigh impossible to accept that it had completely vanished from sight in the little time since they'd left it.

  Finally, he tore his gaze from the vision of utter isolation of endless space and looked down at the lithe body pressed so closely to his own, feeling a stirring of warmth that penetrated his frozen disbelief and dread. Breanna seemed calm now, though her eyes had been cloudy with an edge of panic only moments before.

  It occurred to him abruptly that as irritating and challenging as he'd found the steely, ice cold facade she wore at all times, it was more than merely armor she hid behind. There was strength in her and it was the sort of strength he could, and did, admire.

  It was a disturbing discovery, actually, and not a particularly welcome one.

  He preferred to keep his relationships with women uncomplicated. He wasn't fond of hand jobs. He was willing to do whatever it took to please a woman in bed when he found one that was looking to get her itch scratched and willing to do the same for him, but he didn't want any more than that.

  It hadn't previously presented a dilemma for him.

  They were doable, or not doable. If they weren't, he didn't waste his time. If they were, he pursued the matter to a mutually enjoyable conclusion, moving on when his interest waned. He liked an occasional challenge as much as the next man, and if she was doable, but wanted to be coy about it, he was willing to put in a little extra effort.

  He'd been very happy to keep things that way. He wasn't looking for more. He just wanted a good fuck.

  Breanna, he thought as he looked down at her enticingly full, cupid's bow mouth, was doable. He'd had his doubts to
begin with. Mostly, he'd pursued her purely for the pleasure of annoying her, without any real expectation of ever reaching a point where he could move her from the ‘not doable’ column to the ‘doable'.

  Even when he'd finally managed to get a definite rise out of her that had convinced him that he'd prematurely put her on the ‘not doable’ side of the line, he'd considered after a fairly intensive campaign that he might have to adjust his chart to ‘interested but not doable'.

  It was disturbing that, without ever having managed to get past first base, he found himself interested in her—and liking her—on a whole new level. It was enough to make him consider ditching the project altogether.

  The thought had no more occurred to him, however, when a deep reluctance filled him. That mouth, which she kept pinched in deep thought, or irritation, more often than not, was made to be kissed, and he wanted to feel it beneath his own in the worse kind of way—the company be damned. He wanted to wipe the cool, aloof expression off her face, wanted to taste the sweetness of her mouth, nibble the smooth turn of her jaw, press her to his body and exchange fierce kisses with her until her resistance crumbled in wild, unabashed abandon.

  He'd had some doubts before. He'd almost been convinced that she was ice and steel through and through, but he'd caught a glimpse of softness, and just a fleeting glance of fire here and there and it was enough to convince him that he desperately wanted to unleash that side of her.

  It was a testament to just how badly he wanted it that he could even consider it at the moment—not that he could see that not thinking about it was going to help one iota.

  Unnerved by the speculative, heated gaze Caleb had bent upon her, and even more dismayed by the response it engendered in her, Breanna pushed away from him then. “Thank you,” she said a little stiltedly. “I appreciate your concern, but I'd prefer it if, in the future, you could control yourself and refrain from grabbing me, Sylvaine."