Generation (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 1)

by J. J. Green

  At least they hadn’t activated their weapons yet.

  Her only chance was to disable them quickly. At close range, she might manage it. She knew where they were most vulnerable. Jas lifted her laser guns and took aim, but her fingers wouldn’t press the triggers. She couldn’t fire on them, even though she knew they would eventually self-repair. She couldn’t bring herself to damage these part-organic machines. Whatever injuries she inflicted, the units would do whatever Haggardy commanded with no regard for their own safety.

  They came toward her. She held her weapons steady. She had to shoot. She had to put them out of action, but still her fingers froze. It wasn’t the expense that bothered her, nor the fact that they were two amazingly intricate, complex items of equipment. It was her long experience of working with them. She’d gotten to know every facet of their behavior, including all the little quirks and individualities they weren’t supposed to have.

  The idea of harming either of the units turned her stomach. She threw down the weapons.

  “Fine,” she exclaimed, turning back to Haggardy. “Put me in the brig. And when you see I was right, that he’s possessed,” she stabbed a finger at Loba, “come and get me to help you sort out this mess.”

  AX10 and AX7 took her by the arms and pulled her toward the door.

  “The rest of you: do not go down to the planet. Do you hear me? There’s something in those structures. Don’t set a foot down on the planet. And watch anyone who does.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sayen Lee was sleeping restlessly when stomach pangs brought her to full consciousness. She needed a physician. Though it was the quiet shift, she didn’t think Dr. Sparks would mind seeing her. He was always so obliging. In a short time, she was at his desk.

  “Navigator Lee, how pleasant to see you again. Please take a seat.” Sparks smiled widely and gestured to the chair opposite him.

  Just seeing the man made Sayen feel better. She loved the way he’d set up his consulting room like the physicians’ offices of the twenty-first century. There were none of the bulky scanners and equipment that now filled health clinics to the brim: machines to analyze the breath, upright full-body scanners, equipment to extract and test blood. He had these devices and more, but he hid them away in the back, out of sight. She’d even heard there was now a machine to perform gynaecological exams. She gave a slight shudder.

  Sparks put his elbows on his desk, steepled his fingers, and gazed into Sayen’s eyes. “And what can I do for you today?”

  This was what she liked most. Sparks made an effort to talk to his patients. She put a hand on her stomach. “I’ve been feeling queasy ever since breakfast yesterday, Doctor. I think I might be coming down with something. Or maybe it was something I ate.”

  “Hmmm, I see.” He turned to a screen and typed into a keyboard. “Any other symptoms? Changes to your bowel habits? Have you vomited at all?”

  “No, that’s it. But I did feel worse after that incident with Harrington on the flight deck. So maybe it’s something to do with my nerves?”

  “That was very unfortunate. Very sad.” Sparks shook his head. “If only she’d taken the medication I prescribed.” He stopped typing and leaned toward the navigator. “I probably shouldn’t say anything,” he said, lowering his voice, “but she’s a natural, you know. Means she’s a little unstable.” He tapped the side of his head.

  Sayen’s eyes grew wide. “Is that right? I didn’t know. That naturals have worse mental health, I mean.”

  “That’s only the start of it. They’re more vulnerable to most medical conditions, which is why it’s helpful for me to know who’s who among the crew, if you know what I mean. But the powers that be have tied my hands in that regard, I’m sorry to say.” He paused. “But that isn’t you’re problem, is it, Navigator?”

  Sayen gave a short laugh. “No, my parents paid for the works for me and my brother.” She frowned. “And yet, I seem to get sick all the time. Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Hmmm, well...” Sparks scanned his screen. “As I’ve said before, your profile indicates a strong immune response to viruses, so you can thank your modding for that. I suppose it’s possible that when you come into contact with a virus, your immune system’s reaction is excessive. Many symptoms of infection are in fact due to the chemicals the body produces as a response to pathogens. When someone with a weaker response fights off a virus, they might not notice, but your body’s mounting a full-out attack, and you’re feeling it.”

  “Uh-huh. That makes sense.”

  “But let’s be thorough about this, hm? Hop up on the couch, and I’ll examine you.”

  A pleasant warmth suffused Sayen. Dr. Sparks always took her concerns seriously. She climbed onto his examining table and pulled up her tunic, exposing her midriff. The doctor rubbed his hands together as he approached the table. “Wouldn’t want to shock you with my cold hands.” He placed his open palms on her bare skin and gently pushed, palpating her internal organs. Sayen’s tummy gurgled, and she giggled.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s a good sign, in fact,” said the doctor. “Indicates everything’s working normally.”

  “Thanks, Doctor. I already feel a little better.”

  “Good, good,” said Sparks. “You can get up now.” He returned to his desk. Typing on his keyboard as Sayen got down from the table, he added, “I can’t find anything abnormal. I think it’s just a case of a little anxiety, especially as you say the problem got worse after witnessing our chief security officer’s outburst today. I’m going to prescribe a medication that will calm your stomach.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Her comm button chirruped. “Excuse me.” She clicked on the Polestar symbol fixed to her chest and lifted it up to read the message. It was from Loba. Navigator Lee, report to the shuttle bay. Sayen froze.

  “Is something the matter?” asked Sparks.

  “I think...I think...Master Loba wants me to go down to the planet.” There was no other reason she could think of that would require her presence in the shuttle bay in the middle of the quiet shift. Harrington’s warnings echoed in her head. Her mind whirled.

  “That’ll be a nice trip for you. I often wish I had more of an opportunity for exploring new planets, but my duties nearly always confine me to the ship.”

  “I always stay aboard the ship. Always,” Sayen blurted.

  “Now’s your chance then. I envy you.” Sparks pressed a final key on his keyboard and turned to her, smiling. “I’ll have a drone drop your medication at your cabin. It’ll be there in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  Her consultation was over, but Sayen didn’t want to leave. “Dr. Sparks...Harrington, before she was taken to the brig, she said that the master had been infected by an alien, and she warned us not to go to the planet, and now...”

  The doctor smiled. “C.S.O. Harrington is suffering from a mental illness. You shouldn’t take any notice of what she said. I’m sure there’s nothing to fear.”

  “But it’s strange Loba would command that, right after Harrington said—”

  “Navigator Lee, I’m surprised. I never thought you would be the type to question the master’s orders. Perhaps you’ve been spending a little too much time around C.S.O Harrington.”

  Sparks’ smile was gone. He was watching her. She had no choice but to leave. All concerns about her minor stomach complaint were gone from her mind. She did not want to go planetside, whether Harrington was right or not. She had to think of a way to avoid the order.

  First, she headed in the direction of her cabin, but it occurred to her that Loba would send someone to look for her if she didn’t show up at the shuttle bay, and then she would have no choice but to obey the order. Her heart raced. She needed to stop panicking and think. Turning on her heel, she headed toward a different part of the ship. She would have to find somewhere to hide. Her comm chirruped. Another message. Navigator Lee, you are expected at the shuttle bay. Please report immediately.

  Her throat was
tight. Don’t set a foot down there, Harrington had said. Had Loba been taken over by an alien? Was he trying to get her infected too? It made sense. The navigator was essential to the ship’s operation. Programming starjumps incorrectly could be disastrous. If the aliens wanted the Galathea under their control, they needed her.

  She imagined another creature possessing her, and her skin crawled. She began to run. She had to find somewhere to get away from Loba...and Margret! Her odd behavior suddenly made sense. The geo-phys scientist had been taken over too, just as Harrington had said.

  Sayen tried to think of a good hiding place. Where would no one think to look? She jogged along the corridors, attracting glances from the few crew members she passed. Her comm chirruped again. She didn’t answer the call. Remembering the button held a tracker, she pulled it off and tossed it to the floor. That would delay them a bit.

  Her pulse was racing. Flashbacks from her childhood ran through her mind. Memories of playing hide-and-seek in her large family home. Driven indoors by midday temperatures, she and her brother had been forced to play quietly to avoid bothering their parents, who both worked from home.

  Three years older, her brother had always been better at hiding than her. She would spend hours wandering the house in frustrated searches. At the time, he’d been careful to never give away his secrets. It had taken years before he’d admitted he’d been hiding above doorways, perched with one foot on the open door and the other on the doorframe. He’d also hidden spread-eagled under covers to make the bed look empty.

  She was panting now. Once her comm button was found, they would know she was on the run. Then they would put out a ship wide—

  “Navigator Lee, report to the shuttle bay immediately, on pain of disciplinary action,” came the ship’s synthesized voice over the corridor intercom. “All crew members, please conduct a search for Navigator Lee and report her whereabouts to Master Loba directly.”

  Krat.

  She was in a residential section of the ship. The corridor was empty for now, but her luck wouldn’t hold for long. She had another childhood flashback. Her brother’s best strategy, his last confession when their hide-and-seek days were long over, was that he’d never stayed in one place. He would move into areas she’d already searched, and the first hiding place he’d used was her own room.

  Margret’s cabin! Margret had been possessed. She would be out searching for her. Her cabin would be the last place she’d look.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Disabling Margret’s door lock took a matter of moments. Polestar’s on-ship security systems were cheap and easily circumvented by someone who, as a child, had delighted in taking apart any computer that strayed under her fingers. The door slid open, and Sayen went inside. Silently, the door closed behind her. Looking around the familiar room, Sayen thought of Margret, and wondered what the alien had done to her. Was she conscious of being possessed, but unable to do anything about it? She suddenly felt chilled.

  It looked like Harrington wasn’t mentally ill. She’d been right all along. Sayen wished she’d done more to support the security chief, but the woman had acted so angry and wild. If she’d stayed calm and explained properly, Sayen would have listened. Now that she’d gotten herself locked up in the brig, who was going to save them?

  She sat on Margret’s bunk and popped her knuckles as she considered what to do. Darn but that woman was messy. The bunk was unmade. She stood up and paced the cabin. It was only a matter of time before she was found. She had to do something to stop the possessed Loba, but did she have to act alone? Sayen recalled that the copilot, Lingiari, had come onto the flight deck with Harrington. He must have known what was going on, too. She had to find him, but she couldn’t use the comm system. Her messages could be picked up and traced. What to do? She paced some more. She couldn’t figure out how to find Lingiari without getting caught. Maybe Loba was already forcing him to fly to the planet.

  There was a soft knock at the door. Her heart stopped. Had she been found, or was someone looking for Margret? But who would knock instead of using the door chime? She went to the viewer, and her stomach dropped when she saw who it was. The copilot. What the hell was he doing there? She thumbed the intercom. “Lingiari?” she whispered.

  “Lee, open up.”

  She did as he asked, and, glancing from side to side, the copilot slipped into the room.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” asked Sayen. “How did you find me?”

  Lingiari reached up to the wall vent and pulled off the cover. A winged creature climbed out and walked up his arm and onto his shoulder, where it sat like a pirate captain’s parrot. “This is my mate, Flux. I asked him to look for officers who had disobeyed Loba’s order and were hiding out. He flies around the aeration system for exercise. Knows the ship like the back of his wing.”

  “But...you can’t have an animal aboard ship,” spluttered Sayen. “Especially not an alien animal. It’s against regulations.”

  “Yeah, but it’s no big deal, right? And, believe me, if it weren’t for Flux here, the cockroach problem would be a lot worse. Isn’t that right, mate?”

  Flux waggled his ears in reply.

  Sayen was flummoxed and a little alarmed by the presence of the alien, but they didn’t have time to waste in further discussion about it. “What’s happening, Lingiari? Loba was ordering me to go to the shuttle bay. Is he going planetside, and how come you aren’t taking him?”

  “I was supposed to be taking him. Him and everyone who was ordered to the shuttle bay. We all got comm’d about the same time. It was me and the senior officers. Some of them went, but the rest had seen or heard about what Harrington’d said, and they wouldn’t go. They were standing around outside their cabins in the officers’ section, trying to figure out what to do. Where were you?”

  “I got the same comm, but I was on the other side of the ship seeing Dr. Sparks.”

  “Lucky for you. Loba called in the defense units, or whatever’s possessing him did. He must’ve figured it out after he saw Haggardy order them to take Harrington to the brig.”

  “He used defense units to round the officers up?”

  “Pretty much. Nothing they could do. No one was armed. Caught them by surprise. I only got away because I had a bit of a head start, thanks to Harrington. I was out of sight of the rest when I heard the units running up and the officers shouting.”

  “This is a disaster,” said Sayen. “Did anyone try to stop Loba?”

  “As far as I could tell, he left it all to the units. He wasn’t there, and anyway, it all happened too fast. You’ve seen them fellas. No one’s going to try tackling a defense unit. It would only have taken a few of them to do the job.”

  “Where are the rest, do you think?”

  “Waiting for Loba’s orders, probably.”

  Sayen sat on Margret’s bunk. She had a sudden, insane urge to tidy the cabin up and clean every inch of it. She put her head in her hands. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. If she’d wanted a dangerous job, she would have joined the military. “What now?”

  “Dunno, but I’m guessing the units got most of the senior officers to the shuttle bay, and since Loba doesn’t know where I am, he’s going to make Grantwise fly them planetside.”

  Resting her forehead on her fingertips, Sayen frowned. She looked up at the copilot. “What if we tell the rest of the crew what’s happened? We could get control of the Galathea while Loba’s planetside with the officers.”

  “It’ll be hard. The officers got taken fast, when most of the crew was asleep. I don’t know if anyone saw anything. We’d be asking them to commit mutiny just because of something we told them. Why should they believe us? No one’s going to bang on Loba’s door in the middle of the quiet shift to check he’s there.” The copilot sat next to Sayen. His pet was still sitting on his shoulder. Flux leaned across to Sayen’s head and began to delicately inspect her hair, pulling it apart with his wing hooks.

  The navigator twisted her
head away from the animal’s reach, grimacing. “Lingiari, tell your animal to leave me alone.”

  “Sorry,” said Flux, “I was just checking for parasites.”

  “It can talk? Ough, I hate these modded animals.” She scooted to the far end of the bunk. “And I don’t have parasites.”

  “I’m not modded, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about me like I’m not here.” Flux climbed down from Lingiari’s shoulder and slipped into a gap in his shirt, in an apparent sulk.

  “Never mind, mate,” the copilot murmured in the direction of his chest. “I know you mean well.”

  “Mutiny,” Sayen said, as if it were the first time she’d heard the word. What a pair of mutineers they made. She, small and bookish; he, a lanky second-best pilot. But they were all they had. Or were they? “Hey, we’re forgetting something. Loba’s trip in the shuttle will give us some time. Maybe enough time to spring Harrington from the brig.”

  Lingiari’s face brightened, but then he said, “How’re we gonna do that? Security’s tighter than a gnat’s arse over there.”

  “You’re forgetting some things. One, I’m an expert on the ship’s computer.”

  “And what’s the other thing?”

  “Not thing, things.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Carl couldn’t believe what he was about to do. It seemed impossible, but Lee had seemed convinced it would work, and it made sense, yet... He surveyed the defense units that remained on the ship, standing in a row in their storage room in the half-light. What if they ignored his command? Or worse, what if they attacked him? He was conscious of the soft warmth of Flux’s body against his chest. He’d tried to persuade the animal to return to his cabin for safety, but he’d refused. There was no reasoning with him when he was in a sulk.