by Erin Hayes
It hits it again. And again. Unlike the door to the bridge and unlike the mutated arachni-lift, the table doesn’t make a dent.
Breathing heavily, I lock the door from this side.
“Orion,” I murmur as my adrenaline fades, leaving me feeling empty. The knowledge that Louis died—because of me—hits me, and I feel a tear slide down my cheek. “Tell everyone—under no circumstance—are they to enter that room.”
And, dazedly, I make my way to the quarantine showers. Where everything hits me all at once.
Chapter 13
I sit, crouched in the corner of the shower long after it goes cold. The Pícara, it seems, is kind enough to give me hot water, at least until we run out. I’m still wearing what remains of my spacesuit, although I left my glove and part of my arm back in the quarantine room with…
With Captain Louis…
My helmet’s somewhere in here with me. I took it off after I washed with the isopropanol bath. Now the water is just soaking me underneath my suit as it’s pouring down my neck and filling it up. I should have turned off the water a long time ago due to the water rations, but I can’t bring myself to do so.
I keep thinking about Louis and what became of him. How what’s left of him is still in that room.
PC, Daisy, nor Taka was in the showers when I arrived, which is fine by me. I wouldn’t know what to tell them or how to break it to them that our captain is…is…
A sob catches in my throat, and I hug my knees closer to my chest. Oh galaxies, why? Why did it do that to him? Was it some sort of virus? Or something different? What happened to the crew of the Nova?
Furthermore, should we still be worried about it spreading?
There’s a knock at the front of the stall before the door opens. “Clem, you in here?”
It’s PC. He doesn’t sound like his cheery, happy self. Instead, there’s restraint to his voice, like he’s been trying to keep himself from screaming or crying. Amazing how the two are similar.
I open my mouth to answer, but I don’t have the words. Instead, I just grimace and turn away.
“You’re getting your spacesuit wet,” he says finally.
I have visions of the last wet spacesuit I saw—Louis’s as his body drained out of the suit and onto the table. I pick at the broken wires and cables on my right arm. “I don’t care.”
“Yeah, you do,” he says. “You should also conserve water. Our filter’s getting pretty old, and we waste enough as it is.” He palms the shower, and it turns off. With the heat of the water, I start shivering.
I think it’s from being cold and not from terror.
“What happened, Clem?” he asks, stepping into the shower, his boots sloshing in the puddles. “I saw the video footage, but—”
“Then you saw all there is to see,” I murmur, still not meeting his eyes. “One second, he was talking to me, trying to get my cyborg arm under control, and the next, that happened.”
“What happened?” he asks a little more forcefully. “What happened to Captain Louis?”
I press my lips into a thin line and inhale deeply through my nostrils before leaning my head back with a tired sigh. “He was working on it, and it was nearly disconnected, and then, suddenly, it…it…” I take a breath, steadying myself, because I have to get the words out. “My finger slashed open his suit and stuck him.”
PC looks at me in disbelief. “Slashed open his spacesuit?”
I give a mirthless chuckle. “Yeah, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be tougher than that.” Then again, we’re using old-ass spacesuits anyway, so maybe we were signing our own death warrants. “But, that’s what happened.” I sigh. “And then you know the rest.”
His gaze turns hard, and he sticks his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “So what do we do?”
“What do we do? I don’t know. We’re a ship without a captain, and we’re next to a supermassive blackhole, and our quarantine room has a half-human, half-table in it with the rest of my arm.” I tap my head against the steel wall of the shower and shrug helplessly. “I don’t know, PC. This feels like rock bottom to me.”
PC doesn’t answer me, at least not right away. He comes forward and grabs my left arm in a vice-like grip.
“Ow, PC, you’re hurting me!”
“You’re not allowed to give up,” he growls at me. “With Captain Louis out of commission, you’re the acting captain. And as the acting captain, you have five other people’s lives plus an android’s existence in your hands. You’re not allowed to give up on them. On us.” He shakes me roughly. “You need to pull your shit together and figure this out. I was always jealous that you were first mate. Now prove to me why Louis trusted you that much. Get up.”
I meet his eyes, and the vehemence in his voice makes me stop and consider everything. There are people counting on me. Louise entrusted me with this responsibility, I have to follow through with it. Suddenly, the panic that I was feeling bleeds away, and I manage to take a breath for the first time in what feels like forever.
“Okay,” I whisper, nodding. “Okay.”
“I can let go of your arm now, and you won’t lose it?”
I nod. Gingerly, carefully, he lets go of me, and I sink back onto the floor. We stay like that for a few minutes, with him breathing heavily while I’m still contemplating my next move.
Finally, PC taps the side of the shower, his metal hand making clinking noises. “It was awful to see, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I admit. “I’m…going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
“Well, we need to make sure that you live long enough for that to have meaning. And that means not giving up.” He extends a hand out to me. “Are you ready?”
I reach out for his proffered hand, and he pulls me to my feet. I’m weak in my knees, even though they’re both metal. I brace myself against the wall and force myself to move. Away, out of the showers. And to face the rest of the crew.
I grit my teeth and keep walking, repeating a mantra to myself. My name is Clementine Jones, acting captain for the Pícara. And I’m not going to let my crew down.
PC takes my arm more gently this time, and we start to walk together, leaning on each other for support. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my ear.
“For what?”
“I pushed all of us to take the job. And…” His lip curls.
I shake my head. “We all agreed to it. We thought the money was good. That there was no reason why we shouldn’t have taken the money. We had to.”
“I just wish I could have said good-bye,” he says softly.
“I didn’t get to say good-bye, either. It all happened so fast, and…” I squeeze my eyes shut. “We need to figure out what that was.”
“How?”
I suppress a shudder at the very thought. “We call our employer. I’ll put 45 million Space Yen on the fact that he knew what would happen.”
“Hey now, you know I don’t like losing. Besides, you should probably change first,” PC says, a touch of amusement in his voice. “You don’t want everyone to see you waterlogged. They may get mad that you wasted that much water.”
And, despite everything, I smile.
The entire crew is on the bridge, even Oliver, who I feel like I should have helped a bit more to get over this. I make sure to walk out there with my head held high and my shoulders back. I need to put on a brave face for everyone. I need to let them know that we aren’t dead in space.
I catch Orion’s eyes as I head toward the captain’s console and take a seat in Louis’s old chair. I sweat; it still feels warm from him, even though my internal thermometer says that it’s no warmer than the rest of the room.
Orion looks…calm. Much calmer than the rest of the crew, which I draw strength from. He may be an android, but there’s something nice about having someone not freaked out like everyone else.
“Clem,” Daisy says softly, but I pointedly ignore her before I lose my nerve. PC shakes his head at her as
he takes his usual spot.
“Orion,” I command, my voice wavering slightly. “Set up a com link to Chairman Maas of Syn-Tech. We have some questions we need to discuss. Immediately.”
The android blinks for a moment, processing my request, before keying in the call to the Chairman. I hope he picks up. It will be very telling if he doesn’t—I know it will be because he knows exactly why I’m calling as opposed to being busy. If these patents in the /infinity folder are so important to him, he’d be sure to have his com always available in case we need help.
And I’m going to tear him a new one.
The call is accepted, and the Chairman’s face fills the screen. Where I once thought was perfectly coifed hair and flawless complexion, I now see the cracks and despise everything I see about him.
“Where is the captain?” he asks, his voice filling up the bridge in a more thunderous, commanding manner than I would have thought possible. He thinks he owns us, like he owns the Lifers for Syn-Tech. Except, in his eyes, we’re expendable. He thinks we’re expendable. Lower than low.
I purse my lips, trying to keep a lid on my fury. “He’s now part of a table inside a hermetically sealed room, along with the rest of my arm.” I lift up my stump for good measure. “I’m the acting captain of the ship. My name is Clementine Jones.”
“Oh dear,” Maas says, “I’m so sorry to hear that, Miss Jones. Will he be okay?” There’s no emotion in his voice.
“Whatever you had me download on that ship—the Nova,” I say, “there was some sort of weird virus, wasn’t there? Something that I downlooted and it infected Captain Louis, and it infected whoever that was on the Nova with us.”
Maas raises an eyebrow. “There was a creature on the Nova as well? We had thought they were destroyed when the Feds attacked the ship.”
That explains the holes and the state that the ship was in when we found it. And that explains why it had been left drifting towards a blackhole. Why waste a perfectly good nuclear weapon when it was already headed towards being destroyed? They must have thought Syn-Tech would have been crazy for trying to recover it.
I guess they didn’t count on Maas hiring space pirates.
“Why would the Feds have attacked that ship?” I ask, even though I can guess the answer. Maas even waits, letting me know that we’re both in each other’s orbit.
“The Nova was a research vessel,” he says. “And it was there on that ship that they developed some of Syn-Tech’s most, ah, inspiring intellectual properties.”
Inspiring my ass. I clench my hand.
“What was that property?”
Maas’s eyes narrow. “I believe you’re intelligent enough to guess.”
I have to swallow back my angry outburst. It’s almost too hard to do so, but I maintain my composure. I can see that PC is about to explode.
“It was in the ‘Infinity’ folder?” I ask in an attempt to keep the conversation moving.
A half smile curves the Chairman’s lips. “Correct. Contained within that is what’s known as the Infinity Virus.”
“And what’s the Infinity Virus?”
Maas clasps his hands and steeples his fingers as he considers my question. “A lot of that is on a need-to-know basis, Miss Jones.”
Of course. And I hate that he’s calling me “Miss Jones” instead of “Captain.” It’s just another way he’s trying to lord over me with his rank.
“I think,” I say through gritted teeth, “that you sent my crew across the galaxy on a fool’s errand—knowing that there was something dangerous on that ship—and you deemed us not worthy of making it out of there alive.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Maas says. He clicks his tongue in disappointment. “I’m so sorry to hear that you think so low of me. No, I hired the crew of the Pícara because you were able to easily evade the Nautilus’s security systems. Syn-Tech knew that you had the highest chance of survival. And the Infinity Virus is so important to my company.”
I rise to my feet. “At the expense of the crew?”
“You’re not asking the right questions, Miss Jones.” He pauses for emphasis. “What if I told you that there was a cure for this virus? That your beloved Captain Stevenson isn’t beyond our help? Granted, possibly not in the same state as he was previously, but he doesn’t have to be bound to a table for the rest of his life. We can retrieve his consciousness and find a host body.”
I narrow my eyes, not believing the words that I’m hearing. “How?”
Maas grins wickedly in return. “We have been working on an antivirus for Infinity. It is incomplete as of yet, which is why we needed the virus from the Nova. Without it, we would have never been able to have finished the cure.”
“Yeah, but with it, you need a cure,” PC mutters under his breath.
I don’t chide him for his outburst, not like Louis did. For however long it will be, I will be my own kind of captain for the Pícara.
“So what must we do?”
“My offer still stands, despite your insubordination,” Maas says. “300 million Space Yen for the return of the virus—in person. And we can cure your captain. And anyone else who may be infected.”
Shit. That means that we still have to make our way to Alpha, which is clear across the Milky Way. And that’s putting us right in Maas’s clutches. And then the last part of his statement catches my attention.
“What do you mean, anyone else who may be infected?”
He chuckles deeply, and the sound reverberates all the way to my bones. “The Infinity Virus is unlike anything the universe has ever seen before.” He sounds damn proud of it too, which sets my teeth on edge. “If you think that it’s safe wherever you have it now, you’re wrong. Once it figures out the makeup of the structures around it, it will find a way out. And whoever downlooted the initial file could possibly be infected. That wouldn’t be your captain, by chance?”
Ice fills my veins at the weight of his words. I was the one who downlooted the virus. I was the one who brought it on this ship. I look over at the remains of my cyborg arm.
“Ah,” Maas says, his voice satisfied, “apparently that was you. And there’s a high chance now that you’ve infected everyone on the bridge along with you and everything on your ship. The only way to live beyond this run is to bring the virus to me.”
I shiver.
In front of me, I see that PC mutes our coms. “He’s bluffing,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he believes himself. “He’s bluffing because he wants the virus. And we have to be the ones to bring it to him.”
“What if he’s right?” Venice asks. He looks like he’s just seen a space ghost. “I’m just a cook. I never wanted to be a part of this.” His gaze turns on to me, and his mouth gapes in horror. “You’re killing us.”
Even Oliver’s lip trembles, and I feel my stomach drop at the realization that the kid is frightened for his life now.
“No, she is not,” Orion cuts in. He clasps his hands behind his back, standing straighter. “I have run a scan of Clementine during this conversation, and she is showing no signs of any infection.”
“Yes, but Maas just said that this virus is nothing like anything we’ve ever seen,” Venice mutters.
Orion glares at him, and the old man shrinks back. “I assure you, there is nothing about her physiology that would suggest her system has been compromised. Other than her missing arm, she is in good health.”
Other than my arm that is stuck with what’s left of Louis.
“Your crew seems to be on mute even as you’re talking to each other,” Maas says. He gives a smug chuckle. “Discussing whether you want to take the chance? I assure you, I am correct. If you don’t come to Alpha, you might as well direct your ship into that blackhole, because you’re going to die anyways. And infect the rest of the galaxy while you’re at it.”
“He’s bluffing,” PC hisses.
I hesitate before I turn on the mic again. “Give us some time to think. And…mourn,” I say raggedl
y. “We have a lot to discuss.”
“And not a lot of time in which to do it,” Maas adds. “I give your ship seventy-three hours before you have an outbreak so bad, you can’t contain it. And by that point, it’ll be too late for my company to save you.”
I turn my head slightly towards Orion. “We can make it to Alpha in just under fifty-six hours,” he murmurs softly, looking down at the computer screen. On it is a route that he just mapped to Alpha.
Fifty-six hours. Cutting it too damn close. We can’t wait around.
“I’ll be in touch, Chairman,” I say through gritted teeth, reaching to end the call.
“It’s still 300 million Space Yen,” Maas says, “and your lives and that of the universe.”
I don’t answer as I end it, and the screen goes black before showing the sea of stars beyond us.
Daisy spins around in her chair and speaks for the first time. “Screw the money,” she says. Her teeth chatter and not from the cold. “I’m more concerned about staying alive at this point.”
Chapter 14
Orion and PC are the only ones who dare to sit next to me in the mess hall. Everyone else is huddled at the end of the table, giving us as wide a berth as possible. We silently eat the bland food that Venice prepared. No one even comments on the taste. In fact, we all barely have a few bites before plates are pushed away. The cook doesn’t even complain as he puts down his fork.
Earlier, Orion had done another medical scan of me, using the more sensitive equipment in the infirmary, and nothing came up. That didn’t do much to assure the crew that I wasn’t infected.
And I feel the same way. I don’t feel like I’m fine. Furthermore, I don’t feel safe, not with Louis the way he is and not with that room still sealed. I asked Orion to pull up the video feed for it again to see what’s happening in there, but there’s something obscuring the camera. Like something grew over it.
