“She should be within range,” said Talia, frowning.
The elevator doors swished open and we took a left toward the link tunnel, dashing down the empty corridor. We passed access doors to the computers, sensors and comms equipment located on this lower deck. Now Module 2 had been removed, Module 1 ran directly into Module 3—the science and research center where I’d first viewed Earth through the telescope. The now dormant observatory lay just a hundred feet ahead, looking gloomy in contrasting the brightly lit link tunnel before it. As we drew closer, I could see that not everything in the link tunnel was bright and white. Nasty black scorch marks and ripped metal surfaces scarred the circumference near the observatory end. Volumetric light caught the remaining smoke, which still hung in the air. We continued running, only dialing back the pace on entering the tunnel. Behind, Torres gave out a slight cough as the smell of smoke caught her lungs. The air was pungent with fumes of burnt plastic, vaporized metal and worse. I put up my hand. The team stopped. It looked like a small explosion, with about fifteen feet of tunnel destroyed or damaged. Service lines and a couple of light crossbeams hung limply from the ceiling. But it wasn’t the damage to the ship that caused silent disbelief. It was the body of Laetitia lying motionless on the floor. Half of her face had been blown away as had the clothing, flesh and some of the endoskeleton along her upper right side. Worse, her skull casing had been compressed—flattened where it was once round, sealing her fate. Her right shoulder joint had been torn halfway through exposing cabling and the melted surfaces of endoskeleton. Cauterized blood bordered the charred edges of her once-living tissue.
“Damn,” I said, walking over to her.
Nobody was under any illusions. She was dead. I bent down to feel for warmth—force of habit when checking for a human pulse, I guessed. Some warmth remained, but she was completely still, unresponsive.
“Laetitia? Can you hear me?” I said in vain.
Sorrow washed over me. Despite her being an android, I’d grown to like and respect Laetitia. She’d proven her independence after Reichs’s demise and had made the single biggest contribution to Project Phoenix of all involved. Without her, we’d still be Earthbound, of that I had no doubt. Hell, without her, Valdus would still be lording it over his unfortunate subjects. We owed her a lot and now the marvel that was Laetitia had fallen.
“What happened here?” asked Talia, search my face for answers.
“This was no accident,” I said. “Look, over there—casing fragments.”
I got up and went close to the observatory entrance where a mangled piece of metal casing lay. I picked it up and took it over to the team.
“Anyone know what this is?” I said.
No one did. They’d not grown up in the kind of militaristic world I had.
“This is from a claymore mine casing—the Marines had some of them when we did an inventory of Module 2 before removal.”
“What did we do with the remaining mines?” said Talia.
“Everything hardcore military was shipped to Earth,” I said. “We only kept things police might use for law and order or for protection and hunting the native wildlife. There wasn’t much use for claymores. There wasn’t much use for a lot of what the Marines loaded out.”
“But who would want to take out Laetitia? And why?” asked Talia, uncomprehending.
“I don’t know, but—”
The shot rang out and Crewman Yates fell to the floor.
“Get down!” I shouted and we hit the deck.
A growing patch of claret covered the upper arm of his uniform, a trickle of blood dripping onto the deck. I crawled prone toward him as a series of shots peppered the tunnel walls.
“You’ll be okay,” I said to Yates who’d started hyperventilating. “Can you move?”
He nodded.
“Everyone retreat!” I said although they’d already followed their instincts and had started crawling to the safety of Module 1.
Crewwoman Torres screamed. “I’m hit! My foot!”
Talia had already taken cover beside the tunnel and lunged down and grabbed Torres, dragging her to safety. Incoming fire didn’t abate, a round pinging inches from my head only to deflect somewhere unseen. The three crewmen made it and I followed close behind, rolling to the side next to Talia and the injured Torres. She gritted her teeth, looking down at her foot. Two trails of blood marked her and Yates’s path to safety. I inhaled deeply, catching my breath while trying to think. Further volleys from at least three different positions pinned us down. Two of them sounded like assault rifles, one a handgun. If they advanced, we were finished. I poked my head around trying to gain any snippet of intel on numbers and locations, but a three round burst came too close for comfort and sent me back to cover.
“What do we do?” asked Talia. “They’ve got line of sight down the tunnel.”
The scared looking faces of the crewmen looked to me for answers, too, from across the tunnel entrance where they crouched. I’d been in gunfights before—not something I’d wish on anyone—but useful experience, nevertheless. These guys had hardly even fired a gun. Crewmen Zhu and Bhanot unzipped their medical packs and started cleaning and dressing Yates’s wound.
Then I remember the control panel on the other side in front of where the three crewmen hid. I darted across to them, forcing them to make space for me so I could get to the bulkhead. I crouched down and opened the control panel door. Now the ship had power, this’d be a lot easier than five years ago. I found the button for the blast door and pushed it. After the longest two seconds of my life, I heard the mechanism power up and start closing the door. The unseen enemy let forth ferocious bursts of gunfire, I hoped in frustration. None of the rounds penetrated, peppering the doors with a series of metallic thuds. The blast doors clamped shut and I wasn’t the only one who let out a long-held breath. A few more dull thuds transmitted through the metal, then abruptly stopped, our attackers realizing its futility.
“We need to warn the bridge then get back there and arm ourselves,” I said, getting up to help Yates.
He waved me away and got to his feet. “It’s okay, captain. I can walk.”
In the meantime, Talia had removed and dressed Crewwoman Torres’s now bootless foot.
“They can still get to us through the other link tunnels,” said Talia as we retreated toward the elevator.
“You’re right. Get on the intercom and instruct the bridge to lock down the module.”
Moments later, my intercom pinged with an emergency message.
“Captain Luker,” said the inexorable voice of Tiro. “I’m back.”
“What happened?”
“Elements from the Forever World tried to commandeer the Juno’s network. I am currently fighting them off, and have retained control of Module 1 and some systems in other parts of the ship.”
We reached the elevator with the two injured crewmembers and got in.
“What do you mean? What elements from the Forever World?”
“The Forever World now resides on the ship’s net—”
“I know that, but how is this possible?”
“Something or someone is trying to take over the ship, captain.”
“Yeah, we’d noticed. We have at least three hostiles—probably more—in the observatory in Module 3. Can you close off the other three sets of blast doors, Tiro? The link tunnel blast doors.”
“Yes. Initiated.”
The elevator reached Level 10 and we urgently took a right toward the bridge. Yates was walking by himself now, clutching his arm wound.
“All blast doors between Modules 1 and 3 are now closed,” reported Tiro.
“Okay, keep them that way—no authority to open except for Commander Zoska, Lieutenant Sirtis and me,” I said.
The hobbling form of Crewwoman Torres, propped up by Talia caught my eye.
“And Tiro, send Dr. Ritchie to the medical bay on Level 10, Sector C2. We have two casualties,” I said.
“Yes, captain.”
>
We continued up the corridor toward the bridge and command center.
“Dr. Ritchie is on his way with a medical team,” said Tiro.
I thanked him and a minute later, we passed the entrance to the nav room.
“It’s okay commander, I’ll help Torres to medical,” said Zhu taking Talia’s ward around the shoulder.
“Thanks, Zhu,” Talia said, as he, Torres and Yates made their way to the medical bay nearby.
Talia and I entered the nav room and continued left onto the bridge. The diminutive Lieutenant Sirtis got up as we entered. Many eyes looked to us, in search of answers. I was in search of them too.
“Captain, we’ve managed to get a video and audio feed from Module 3,” he reported gravely. “The light’s dim in there, but we’ve counted. How many hostiles now?”
He looked to the young crew woman observing the camera feeds on the large wall display.
“Twenty-one in total—all in Module 3 in or near the observatory, sir,” she said.
“What weapons are they carrying, Kalani?” said Sirtis.
“A mixture, sir,” she said, her eyes still flittering over the numerous camera feeds. “Looks like mostly assault rifles, some with handguns.”
“Can we identify any of them?” I said, striding over to stand next to Kalani and the wall display.
“No, sir—the light’s not good and some of them are wearing masks,” said Kalani.
I studied one of the feeds from the starboard link tunnel looking toward the observatory entrance. Only the Module 1 door was closed—its Module 3 counterpart remained open and in enemy hands. That meant access to everywhere aft of Module 3. Light spilled from the link tunnel into the observatory, making it slightly lighter there. Two masked men stood just inside the observatory, both side-on to the camera. The tall, stocky guy on the left leaned against the wall gesticulating to the other one—probably a subordinate. His rifle was slung over his shoulder on a strap.
“Excuse me,” I said to Kalani, as I got within arm’s length of the display.
Talia and Sirtis joined us. I zoomed into the taller figure’s weapon.
“That’s one from the Juno. He’s either taken it from an armory or taken it from Hawaii,” I said.
“Agreed,” said Talia.
The taller hostile stopped pointing and seemed to be listening to his buddy. I zoomed in on his hand and saw all the identification I needed—a chunky fraternity-style ring on his right ring finger. I’d seen it before on only one person—Kale Patton, Councilor for Justice and Security and chief opponent of the mission. The once vociferous leader of the Stayers had gone silent after Project Phoenix became a fait accompli. Now, I knew why.
“I know who that is,” I said, pointing at the display.
“Who?” said Talia.
“Kale Patton—I recognize the ring.”
Her eyes narrowed and scrutinized the enlarged image.
“Oh yeah, I recognize it, too, now you mention it.”
“So do I,” added Sirtis.
“But why would he do this?” she said.
“Yeah, what does he think he’ll achieve taking over the ship?” said Sirtis.
“Can’t say for sure, but he must’ve been planning this for a while,” I said. “Even to stow away here was an achievement. Now there’s no Laetitia and they’re better armed than us.”
“And all the while Tiro’s fighting whoever they have in the Forever World,” said Talia.
“So what’d we do, captain?” said Sirtis.
“See that?” I said, pointing to the display of the masked Patton.
“Sure,” said Sirtis. “It’s an intercom badge.”
“Let’s try to talk to him,” I said. “Tiro, see if you can identify the badge Patton’s wearing based on his location. Then try to connect us.”
“Attempting to identify—standby, captain.”
We waited, surveying the multiple screens from the observatory and surrounding corridors.
“Any hostiles located elsewhere?” I asked Kalani.
“Not so far, sir.”
“Connecting intercom node JA-90016. Standby,” said Tiro.
The pinging noise announced the connection to the bridge.
“Patton, we know it’s you—you can take off the mask,” I said aloud.
“Who?” he started to say something but thought better of it as we watched him look down at his intercom then move away from the tunnel entrance.
We continued to watch him from another feed. He stood just inside the observatory, near the tunnel scanning the cavernous room for spies.
“Now I’ve heard your voice too! Come on, give it up, Patton.”
“That you, Luker?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Captain Luker and you’re on my ship”
“How’d you know it was me?”
I wanted to keep him off balance.
“Seems you’ve got a traitor, Patton.”
“Bullshit!”
He leaned toward the guy standing with him and whispered something in his ear. The guy nodded and ran off toward a group of four gunmen in one of the glass-sided offices nearby.
“What do you want, Patton?”
“You should know what I want if I have a traitor.”
“I wanna hear it from you.”
He chuckled, then sighed.
“You know what we want, what we Stayers have always wanted—to stop wasting our resources and risking our people’s lives on this damned foolish endeavor,” he said angrily. “We had the perfect society until you and that bitch, Laetitia, came along. Then you... You had to screw it up for us, taking away a third of our people and keeping all this food and tech to yourselves. That’s just not our way, Luker. We could grow our settlements, secure our future with supplies from this ship. We could rebuild human civilization!”
“The people voted, Patton—you should respect that and put down your weapons,” I said. “Nothing good can come of this. Soon we’re gonna have control of the entire ship again and then what you gonna do?”
He laughed mockingly. “Luker, we’ve seen the ship’s manifest—the only guns you have are in the command center armory. I doubt you could fight your way out of a paper bag!”
I said nothing.
“We’re winning the battle for control of the ship too,” he boasted. “And I guess you haven’t seen our squad in the stasis module. Try anything and they’ll start taking out the crew’s family and friends. We know who they are. This is about the future of our civilization, Luker. I can’t let you take away our futures.”
“Are you insane? You’ll stand trial for murder under your own system!”
“Once we take over here, you’ll be tried as a traitor. The Stayers on Earth already support what we’re doing. You’re in the minority, Luker,” he said, triumphantly.
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but I supposed it was possible. The Juno mission had divided the population into thirds: Stayers, Leavers and those who abstained or didn’t vote. The Stayers had complained of vote rigging, then of bribery, then of us lacking mandate based on low turnout. Baas had helped push it through and after the first year, the controversy had died down. Until now.
A shrill alarm sounded and one of the displays nearby flashed red.
“Captain,” said Kalani, urgently. “Life support to Module 1 has shut down.”
“Well, try to restart it!”
“I’ve tried, sir, but I’m locked out!”
“Problem?” said Patton, sniggering.
“Tiro, bring life support back online and break the connection to Patton,” I said.
No reply came.
“Tiro?”
Patton was laughing his head off by the time Kalani cut the connection.
“Status, Kalani?”
She checked her displays frantically.
“Sir, we only have partial access to systems in Module 1 and nothing in the rest of the ship. Air is offline and venting to space. Pressure down to ninety-five per
cent already,” said the young crewwoman.
“They’re trying to suffocate us!” said Sirtis.
“We need to act and fast,” I said. “Lieutenant Sirtis, open up the armory.”
He nodded and went to the door leading to the small armory room.
“Commander,” I said to Talia. “Organize the crew to manually shut off all vents to the command center. We need to isolate the bridge, nav room and sensors rooms from the rest of Module 1.”
“Yes sir,” she said and started gathering up crewmembers to help her before disappearing into the nav room.
“Kalani, I need you to keep trying to bring life support back online. Also, try to open the blast doors to Module 3—Patton’s in there. Give him a taste of his own medicine.”
Sirtis came running back, a big grin on his face.
“You gotta see this, Captain.”
“I think I know what I’m gonna find, Lieutenant,” I said, following him to the armory closet.
“This stuff wasn’t on the manifest ... How?” he said confused.
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” I said, eyeing the assortment of Marine’s gear I’d surreptitiously loaded out: four sets of body armor, helmets, grenades, two assault rifles and two laser rifles, which Laetitia had managed to salvage. This was in addition to the handguns and ammo.
“This’ll help,” said Sirtis optimistically.
“Yeah, but we only have two operational spacesuits in the closest airlock. I checked. The other airlocks are too far away.”
“Spacesuits?”
“Once atmosphere’s been vented, only the command center will remain pressurized—and even that air will eventually become unbreathable.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
I stepped back onto the bridge.
“Listen up people,” I said. “While we’re working on securing life support, I need someone to come with me. We’re leaving the command center and going out the airlock. If we don’t go after Patton and life support stays offline we’re all gonna suffocate here. I need a volunteer with weapons training and spacewalk experience.”
A number of hands went up and several calls of, “Sir.” Talia emerged from the nav room.
“I’m second in command—take me, it’s my duty,” she said, insistently.
Home Planet: Arcadia (Part 3) Page 15
