Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2)

by J. S. Collyer

  “I’m telling you, it’s bust,” Webb said, peering through the window set in the hatch. “The gravity could be offline. Or it could be breached. We open this hatch, we could be sucked straight into drift.”

  “The filters are open,” Hugo said, pointing at an open grid at the base of the door.

  Webb blinked and bent down to put his hand in front of the grid. “Air flow. Weird.”

  “It’s fine,” Dana said, still prodding at the panel on the display. “The levels are all normal.”

  Webb clattered across the platform to peer at the readings. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  “Where does it attach?” Hugo asked.

  “One of the aft shuttle bays,” Dana said.

  “Get it open.”

  “Webb,” Dana said, stepping back and gesturing toward the control panel. “This is your chance to impress me.”

  Webb shook his head and set to work on the control panel. Dana bent over his shoulder to watch as Hugo tried not to shift on his feet. He peered out over the shipyard from under the brim of his cap, watching for any goggles or visors turned their way. Finally, the hatch shuddered and opened.

  Hugo all but ran through. The air in the tunnel was cold and he shivered, calling at the others to hurry over his shoulder.

  “Ok, you were right,” Webb said as he trotted to catch him up. “No breach.”

  “No, no breach,” Dana said as she overtook them. “And gravity’s on. So why was it locked?”

  “Be careful,” Hugo said as he increased his pace to match his sister’s. He shivered again. The air tasted thin as well as cold. He blinked in the strong light from the ceiling panels and tried to convince himself the growing prickle of nervousness was coming from the low quality air.

  The tunnel stretched on and on. They picked up their pace, their boots rattling on the metal flooring in otherwise utter silence. There were viewscreens every few feet and he could see the ships caught in their webs of wires and airlocks and crawling with workers jetting around in drift. The gleaming hull of the Perseverance soon started to dominate the view.

  Dana was ahead and stopped them once, waiting and listening at a bend in the tunnel, but no one came.

  “The tunnel might be empty but there may be workers in the ship,” Dana said as they kept going.

  “Just remember to act like a worker and we’ll be fine,” Webb said. “We’ll just pretend we took the wrong tunnel.”

  Finally, they turned around one last bend and saw a hatch into the ship up ahead.

  “Wait,” Hugo said as they got closer. “Careful.” He edged up to the hatch, hand automatically going to his knife and peered through the small viewscreen.

  “See anything?” Webb said.

  “It’s dark,” Hugo replied. “Wait… get down.” He ducked and the other two dropped with him. He held his hand out for stillness and silence, heart thudding in his chest.

  “What?” Webb mouthed, glancing at the hatch.

  “Someone’s coming…” Hugo said. They all looked around but there was nowhere to hide. Hands went to weapons and the seconds ticked by. Sweat broke out on Hugo’s forehead. Another minute passed. No one came through the hatch. Hugo slowly straightened and checked the viewscreen again.

  “Quick, Webb. Get this open before whoever it is comes back.”

  Webb got to work on the control panel whilst Dana and Hugo hovered.

  “Any idea where we should even start?” Webb muttered as he worked. “Hell, we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

  “The reason Ariel was hired is on this ship somewhere,” Hugo said. “We find that, we find him.”

  “Get ready,” Dana said and there was a hiss and a gust of even colder air and the hatch opened.

  They hurried through and it slid shut behind them, plunging them into dimness. The only light was what bled in through the hatch viewscreen. The air tasted crisp and Hugo took deep breaths to clear his head.

  “Wait,” he muttered as Webb pulled out a lenslight. “Someone’s just passed by here. Let’s get away from this hatch before we use any light. This way.”

  Hugo turned to the right, moving as quickly and quietly as he dared, one hand on the metal hull on one side to keep him orientated. His boots thudded on solid metal and he sensed more than saw an open space on their left.

  “Where are we?” Dana said.

  “Aft engineering,” Hugo replied.

  “You sure?”

  “I approved her specs,” Hugo muttered. “Keep quiet.”

  A dull light was bleeding from somewhere, now picking out the edges of the walkway and some of the hull above them. They rounded a bend and stopped to listen again. The quiet was unbroken apart from a low thrum of air vents somewhere in the dark around them.

  “I think we’re on our own,” Dana muttered.

  “Then why is the life support on?” Webb said.

  “Quiet,” Hugo said again, feeling his heart alone was making enough noise to give them away. “There’s light ahead.”

  They turned another corner and a square of illumination hung ahead. Getting closer, he made out a viewscreen in a door. He held his breath and approached, feeling Dana and Webb keeping close behind. He reached the window and peered through.

  “What’s through there?” Dana said.

  “Shuttle bay,” Hugo said. “There’s light.”

  “Workers?” Webb asked.

  “No. It’s empty.”

  “Come on then,” Dana said. “What are we waiting for?”

  Hugo took a breath. “We move in silence. Keep the lenslight off and be ready.”

  There was mumbled agreement and then Hugo hit the door control. It opened without so much as a whisper and they stepped through into more shadows and sharp air. The shuttles hulked like giant insects in dark. The ceiling was lost in the gloom but the weak light revealed offline control panels and workstations positioned at intervals around the bay. The light was coming from the last shuttle berthed to starboard.

  Hugo picked a path towards it, keeping away from the open space in the middle of the bay. A clatter broke the silence and Hugo froze. A muted mutter followed and then the sound of boots.

  He ducked down, Dana and Webb doing the same. They crushed themselves behind a workstation as the footsteps approached. The light from a lenslight bounced off the new metal around them and Hugo crouched lower, Webb’s elbow digging into his side. The footsteps passed by and Hugo breathed again. He craned his neck and caught a glimpse of a slight figure, white coat back lit with a lenslight, disappearing through the door they’d come through.

  They sat in silence for several heartbeats until Webb unwound himself and got to his knees to scan the bay. “Clear,” he whispered.

  Hugo scrambled up, peered around the stillness and the dark, took another breath and continued toward the light.

  They rounded the last shuttle in the row to see its main hatch was open and light was pouring out. The mounting ladder was down.

  “What the…?”

  “Stay here,” Hugo cut Webb off. He made a conscious effort to keep his breathing level as he approached the opening. He felt horribly exposed as he moved into the light, but there was no sound.

  He blinked. The shuttle’s storage bay was lit by uniform paneling in the bulkheads. He waited but could only hear the steady bleep of equipment. He climbed the ladder, stepped into the shuttle and frowned, a strong smell causing a chill to blossom in his belly. Memory tugged at him. The smell was sharp. Acidic. A workbench with displays and lab equipment that had not been in any shuttle specs was installed along the port bulkhead. A large refrigeration unit was standing against the hatch to the engine room. Displays over the workbench blinked numbers and indecipherable diagrams. A digital microscope was set up at one end, a stand of samples to its side and a clutter of hand-held panels, test tubes and a silver tray of scalpels, tweezers and syringes took up the rest of the workbench. The door to the small surgical bay in the stern was open. The gurney was em
pty and clean and white, but all the monitoring equipment was on and blinking.

  “Hugo,” came Webb’s whisper. “What’s going on?”

  Hugo shook himself. “All clear.”

  Webb and then Dana climbed up and joined him, staring round. Dana’s nose wrinkled. Webb had gone pale, his eyes fixed on the tray of surgical equipment.

  “This isn’t a shuttle…” Dana said.

  “Not any more,” Hugo said.

  “Someone’s put a lab in here? Why?”

  “Not for anything good,” Webb said, voice low.

  “I know that smell,” Dana muttered looking around.

  “Phozone,” Webb said

  Hugo jolted. “For preserving organic samples…” he said. His mission on Earth with the original Webb all those years ago came flooding back. “It can’t be…”

  “What?” Dana said. “It can’t be what?”

  “Relax,” Webb said, taking a step towards the workbench and peering at one of the displays. “Your brother’s just being paranoid. Plenty of labs use it.”

  “But why is there a lab in this shuttle? And what sort of lab is it?” Dana said, wondering up to the surgical bay and peering round the blinking monitors.

  “Got me,” Webb said narrowing his eyes at one of the diagrams on the display. “Biology was never Webb’s strongest subject.”

  Hugo suppressed a shudder. The clone’s whole stance had changed. He was standing stiffer and his face had taken on a hard edge.

  “Keep looking,” Dana said, pacing around and pulling open lockers of equipment.

  Webb’s gaze had once again fixed on the tray of scalpels. Hugo shook himself, unclenched his teeth and forced himself to look around. He crossed to the refrigeration unit and pulled it open.

  “Hugo?” Webb’s voice sounded from far away. “What is it?”

  Hugo didn’t reply. His knuckles burned from the tightness of his grip on the handle. He felt Webb come up behind him and look over his shoulder.

  “What the…?” Webb said. “Is that…are those…?”

  “What?” Dana hurried over then stopped. “Is that… is that a heart?”

  Hugo swallowed. His throat had gone very dry. “This one’s a liver,” he said, pointing at one of the other transparent cases containing a dark lump of glistening tissue. “And this is a lung.”

  “Organs?” Webb said. “Human organs? Are we really seeing this?”

  “They look real,” Dana said, leaning in.

  “They are real…” Hugo said.

  “This is it,” Dana said, voice quickening. “This is what the Ghosts are hiding.”

  “What is it?” Webb stammered, looking around the lab again. “Why the hell is there a fridge of lungs on this damn shuttle?”

  “Who are you?”

  They all span round. A slight, oriental man in a white lab coat stood in the hatchway, eyes and mouth widening as he took them in. Hugo stood rooted to the spot for a broken second, recognition teasing the edge of his awareness, but that second was all it took for the man to turn and scramble back down the ladder.

  “Get him,” Hugo shouted and Webb sprang after him, Dana at his heels. Hugo’s boots hit the deck just as Webb threw himself on the stranger and wrestled him to the ground. There was scuffling and curses then Dana was on them and helping Webb drag the man to his feet.

  “Release me,” he barked. “Help,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Help, intruders!”

  “Silence him,” Hugo shouted and Webb clamped a hand on his mouth. They dragged him back towards the shuttle and slammed him against the hull.

  Hugo pulled his knife. “You’ll be quiet, understand?”

  The sweating man’s eyes widened. He breathed heavily through Webb’s hand and nodded. “Who the hell are you?” Hugo growled.

  Webb took his hand away and the man took a couple of panicked breaths then his face twisted with anger. “Let me go now,” he demanded. “Or you will regret this.”

  “Holy shit,” Webb said, his own mouth dropping open. “It’s Yoshida.”

  “Who?” Hugo frowned, peering again at the man’s face.

  “Dr. Yoshida,” Webb croaked. “LIL’s cloning researcher.”

  Hugo stared. Heat surged through him and for a moment all he knew was the feel of it. When he could focus again, Yoshida’s eyes were flicking between them all then fixed on Webb.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “It’s you… it’s you isn’t it?”

  “No questions from you,” Dana said, shifting her grip on the researcher’s coat and pulling out her own knife. “Just answers.”

  “Dana, wait,” Hugo said. “Get him back in the shuttle. Before anyone sees.”

  Dana and Webb bundled Yoshida up the hatch ladder and onto the shuttle deck. Hugo followed and punched the control. The hatch hissed shut and he stood over the cowering researcher, breathing heavily through his nose to try and keep himself restrained.

  Yoshida got to his feet, hands working together and sweat gleaming on his forehead, but the whole time his eyes were glued to Webb. The clone had taken a step back, arms folded and a dangerous look on his face.

  “Dr. Yoshida Jun,” Hugo ground out, not recognising his own voice. “You are a registered fugitive.” The shaking man’s eyes finally turned to him. “You are wanted for war crimes.”

  “War crimes?” he said, straightening himself, though his voice shook. “I am a scientist.”

  “You’re a criminal.”

  The small man drew himself up. “I advanced genetic science to levels never before imagined. I achieved what no one before me had. I made him,” he pointed at Webb who stood there in stony silence, pale apart from two high spots of colour on his cheeks. Yoshida paused and took a step closer to Webb, drinking him in. Webb stiffened. “You…I can’t believe it’s you. Let me look at you…”

  “I wouldn’t get too close,” Webb muttered.

  “You were my triumph,” Yoshida breathed, not listening, eyes shining.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Webb muttered. He tapped his temple. “You screwed up in here, remember?”

  Yoshida reached out a hand but Webb tensed, raising his chin and the man let it drop and instead rubbed his palms on his lab coat. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. How do you function? Do you -”

  “Enough,” Hugo thundered. “Get away from him.”

  “None of this matters,” Dana spat. “His friends could turn up any second. You,” she said, pointing her knife at the researcher, “tell us what’s happening here.”

  Yoshida backed against the hatch, taking quick breaths and watching Dana’s knife.

  “Answer her,” Hugo said.

  The researcher’s shaking stopped and emotion loaded his face. “You dare come here and demand answers from me? You’re Kaleb Hugo. You took away everything I worked for. I’m now having to continue my work in this hell hole, begging funding from the worst kind of people and hiding my lab in a construction site.”

  “These Ghosts are funding you, aren’t they?” Hugo said.

  “I’m not telling you anything. You can’t touch me here, Serviceman. You have no power here.”

  “Your illegal cloning experiments are taking place on a Service flagship, Doctor.”

  “This is neutral space,” Yoshida said. “You can do nothing.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Hugo said, voice low.

  “You lie,” the researcher replied. “This is not your world, Commodore. You should leave. Now. Leave me in peace to continue my work.”

  “Your work being cloning organs for a Haven smuggling ring?” Webb said, quietly. Silence rippled about them a moment. Hugo saw Yoshida swallow.

  “You wouldn’t understand. You can’t understand.”

  Hugo felt his fingernails digging into his palms. “Who’s paying you, Yoshida? The Ghosts?”

  Yoshida’s jaw tightened. “They are not to be taken lightly. And they are here on this ship, with me along with my own personal guard. You should ac
t with more caution, Commodore.”

  Dana shifted, hand working the handle of her knife. Yoshida’s eyes flickered to Webb once more. There was an open, almost hungry look in his eyes. Webb shifted and glared.

  When Hugo looked back to the researcher he realised, too late, that his hand had slipped in his pocket and he was clicking something.

  The hatch opened and the researcher hurled himself out before Dana could grab him.

  “After him,” Hugo called. By the time Hugo was down the ladder, Yoshida had picked himself up from the floor and was running across the bay. He had a head start this time and was outstripping them, shouting into a wrist panel as he went.

  Dana and Webb were ahead but the fire of fury burned in Hugo’s gut and pushed him faster and he was soon at their heels. The researcher had ducked between the berthed shuttles and fled into the dark. Dana yelled and Webb overtook her, skidding around a workstation and pulling out a lenslight.

  Hugo caught up just in time to see the researcher’s coat disappear through another door. They pelted after him. They tore through the door into another cavernous space, pitch black apart from low light from a number of muted displays and the beam of Webb’s lenslight. It flashed off towering metal cylinders and stretches of dark control panels and a rigid web of anchor cables keeping the giant structures in place.

  “Engineering deck,” Hugo called. “How does he have the run of the place?”

  No one answered as their boots rattled on a walkway that spanned the dizzying space, casting about for any sign of Yoshida. They all scrambled to a halt, breathing hard and Webb flashed the lenslight around.

  “Where did the little weasel go?” Webb panted.

  “There,” Dana called and took off along another walkway. They ran after her and Webb’s light picked out a darkened exit. “He went down here,” she called. “Come on.”

  They picked up their pace and hurled themselves through the exit only to skid to a halt as three men with lenslights and grim expressions rounded the corner ahead. They were all badly scarred, one was missing an ear and they all had the same nothing-to-lose air about their movements. One shouted and pointed then they were running towards them, pulling weapons as they came.