All Zola could hear now was the sound of her own ragged breathing. The small, solid-oxygen flask attached to the back of the helmet was automatically activated as soon as the necks seals engaged and the smell of cold, bottled air filled the suit.
Zola couldn’t afford to wait now. She had to get out before the mutoid lost interest in Garran.
The exterior airlock was located in the flight cabin ceiling, accessed via metal rungs set in the bulkhead wall. Zola climbed up the ladder and pressed the activator on the airlock. It hummed open with an infuriating lack of haste. Zola was up and into the air chamber before it had fully opened, banging her helmet as she did so. She clambered into the airlock and hit the control that would shut the hatch behind her.
As it started to close the mutoid sprang up behind her, snarling and snapping like a wild thing. Zola cringed back against the rear wall of the airlock, kicking out with the boot of her spacesuit, full into the face of the maddened creature. It rocked back, leapt again, but this time Zola was properly ready and she met the leap with a powerful kick. The mutoid tumbled back out of the airlock and landed in a heap on the floor. Zola hit the airlock control and the hatch sealed. Immediately it began to depressurise. She listened to her own harsh breathing inside the helmet for thirty seconds as the oxygen was pumped out of the lock and the outer door unsealed.
Tears stinging her eyes, Zola pushed herself out of the exterior airlock and into space.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The shooting had stopped, but the air was full of cordite and blood. Drena knew the smell only too well. It had become the scent of her life. Cordite and blood, mixed with sweat and despair.
Zake lay on his back, staring blindly up at the ceiling of the pod. There were several other people lying on the floor, unmoving, with bloody holes in their chests. But none of them were Drena’s brother. None of them had been her responsibility. None of them were her fault.
She stared numbly at his corpse, unable to think of what to do next. She was dimly aware of the remaining prisoners standing against the walls of the pod, hands on their heads, brought to heel again by yet another massacre.
Someone groaned on the far side of the pod. Drena looked up to see one of the prisoners lying on the floor, badly injured. A mutoid guard stepped through the corpses and shot the man dead. The blaster report seemed to echo around the pod for a long time.
Drena knelt down by Zake and touched his face. The skin was still warm, but it felt loose. There was no life in it at all.
‘You’ve killed my brother,’ Drena told the mutoid.
‘Stand up or you will be next,’ ordered the mutoid, closing in. The black O of her blaster muzzle filled Drena’s vision. She turned back to Zake and gently closed the boy’s eyes.
‘Stand up,’ repeated the mutoid.
‘Do it,’ said Stygo gruffly. He was standing nearby, hands on his head. ‘Or she’ll shoot you too.’
Drena got up slowly and glared at him. ‘It’s your fault all this happened! If you hadn’t been fighting…!’
The mutoid raised her blaster and aimed it at Drena’s head.
‘Best do as she says, Drena,’ Gan advised. There was blood on his lip. ‘Now’s not the time for fighting.’
‘You think?’ Drena snapped. Then she turned angrily away from both Gan and Stygo and looked directly into the eyes of the mutoid. ‘Zake was a good person,’ she said. ‘He did nothing to deserve any of this. He spent his whole life being scared. Scared for me, scared for himself. And now you killed him! For nothing. Doesn’t it matter to you? Don’t you care?’
But the eyes of the mutoid were not living eyes. Whatever light shone in those dark circles was nothing more than a dim reflection of life.
‘I pity you,’ Drena said.
*
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ gasped Vila, clamping a hand over his mouth.
But there was no time to dwell on the pile of corpses in Pod Four. Vila felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as the airlock started to click and hum again as the mechanism was operated from the other side.
‘They know we’re in here!’ gasped Vila.
‘More likely they just want to dump the bodies,’ said Melson.
‘Switch the lights off! Quickly!’
Melson killed the lights just in time. The pod was plunged back into darkness just as the airlock hissed open. A shaft of light entered the pod, and Vila and Melson quickly positioned themselves on either side of the door. Vila pressed himself back into the wall, trying to merge into the shadows.
A mutoid entered the pod, dragging two corpses behind her. She heaved the bodies onto the pile and then went out again to fetch two more bodies. Another two trips completed the grisly job, and eight fresh corpses joined the rest of the dead. Zake’s body lay among them. Vila felt a hot flush of hatred for the Federation.
The mutoid turned to leave – and hesitated.
Vila squeezed his eyes shut in fear. Had he given himself away? Had the sight of Zake’s corpse caused him to make some kind of noise? An involuntary groan of despair, or anger? A whimper of fear? Vila tried to shrink away into nothingness. He prayed that the shadows would hide him.
But the mutoid paused for only a second before walking out of the pod and closing the door behind her. The airlock hissed shut and sealed pneumatically. Vila let out a painful breath of sheer relief.
‘That was close,’ whispered Melson in the darkness.
Vila said nothing. He simply waited for his heart to stop galloping. Part of the relief he felt was due to the fact that Gan was not among the dead.
*
‘They’re definitely moving,’ Cally reported. She double-checked the readouts on her display module and turned to Jenna. ‘The pursuit ships are closing in on the York – only very, very slowly.’
‘Stalking?’ wondered Jenna.
‘That’s what it looks like to me. Predator behaviour.’
Jenna frowned. ‘It’s a fair tactic. They could be drifting under minimal power, or even just reduced momentum.’
‘But why would they want to creep up on a Federation prison ship?’
‘Unless they’re not.’ Jenna clicked her fingers. ‘They know we’re here. Scanned or spotted, it doesn’t matter – they know we’re here.’
‘Zen – is that possible?’
‘THE LIBERATOR MAY BE VISIBLE TO LONG-RANGE PASSIVE DETECTORS AT THIS DISTANCE.’
‘They’re just using the prison ship as cover,’ Jenna said. ‘They’re hoping to get a quick kill shot in, or incapacitate us before we can escape.’
‘We should put the force walls up now.’
‘No, wait.’ Jenna ran up the deck steps to the pilot’s seat and slid into position. ‘We’ll back off.’
‘Retreat?’
‘Just pull back out of plasma bolt range – nothing more.’ Jenna grasped the flight control handles and the Liberator responded instantly and perfectly, as ever. The image of the York on the viewscreen began to shrink gently. ‘We’ll stay just on the edge of teleport and communicator range. It will give us plenty of time to see what those pursuit ships are planning and react. Until we hear from Blake or anyone else we’re in the dark.’
Travis paced the flight deck of his pursuit ship, hands clenching and unclenching. ‘Tell me that again,’ he said.
Kiera checked a series of data readouts on her control panel. ‘Civil Administration ship York, heavy transport trawler – modified Jurgens-Heckard booster with a low-pulse ionic engine stack located beneath the frame.’
Travis thought for a moment. ‘No docking ports?’
‘None.’
‘External airlocks?’
‘One emergency airlock located on the topside of the prime mover unit, and one at the rear and on each of the transport pods. The pod airlocks latch together to form the train of cargo units behind the prime mover.’
‘So it’s possible to get into the ship.’
‘Using the airlocks, yes. But we cannot dock.’
<
br /> ‘We don’t need to.’
Kiera looked up with a frown.
‘I need to get on board that ship,’ Travis said, pointing at the York. ‘Get the spacesuits out.’
‘Combat version?’
‘Definitely.’
*
‘I’ve had men electrocuted, flayed, crucified – sometimes all three,’ Kilus Kroe told Blake. ‘The old-fashioned ways can be very satisfying. But they all have one particular weakness – a reliance on the prisoner remaining conscious. The extreme levels of pain that can be achieved often overwhelm the victim’s nervous system, inducing shock or coma. The pain becomes less effective then. There is a delay until they regain consciousness, and then one of two things happens: either the victim becomes desensitised to the pain, or else so sensitive that the periods of unconsciousness become more frequent and last longer. In all cases the victim usually perishes before they have suffered to the true limits of human awareness.’
Blake looked Kroe in the eye. ‘You’re boring me. Get on with it before I lose consciousness myself.’
Kroe smiled. ‘In these modern days we have been able to administer some truly excellent levels of sustained pain that in previous times were impossible to achieve. The ability to keep victims conscious is crucial – and with the correct drugs and the right nervous stimulation that is quite possible. I once drilled into a man’s skull repeatedly for three days and he never passed out once.’ Kroe looked up, reminiscing. ‘Two hundred and sixteen separate holes. Some of them reached right down to the cerebral cortex from the top of the skull. I used an ultra-fine micro-diameter tungsten bit for those. I do enjoy trepanning.’
‘I’ve never understood people like you, Kroe. But I’ve always fought against them – and I always will.’
‘Well, you don’t have much longer to live so I wouldn’t worry about that. You see, I’ve taken men like you apart before. Many times. You’d be surprised at some of the men – and women – I’ve interrogated. Strong individuals, with brave hearts, great warriors, thinkers with fantastic minds and incredible reserves of mental strength. Spirit, too, if you believe in that sort of thing. Do you believe in spirit, Blake?’
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ Blake realised that his only chance here was to keep the madman talking for as long as he could; try to forestall the inevitable, buy himself time for… what? A rescue? Where were Gan and Vila? Dead, like Avon? What about Cally? And Jenna? Didn’t Jenna realise something was wrong? Badly wrong? No communication from him or any of the others, probably, since the stand-off with the crimos in Pod Two. What was she doing? Where was the Liberator now? Blake knew that he was taking too long to think. He took a deep breath. ‘I believe in a spirit of purpose, of vision…’
‘Just words, Blake,’ Kroe said. ‘You’re just trying to delay the inevitable.’
‘… and a spirit that cannot, and will not, be broken, ever, by people like you.’
Kroe paused, considering. ‘And you really believe that?’
‘Absolutely.’ Blake held his gaze. ‘You can hurt me, injure me, maim me if you wish. You can denigrate my name, take away everything that I care about, ruin my life. But you will never destroy me.’
‘We’ll see.’ Kroe pursed his lips, thinking for a moment. ‘I once had a surgical robot programmed to take a man apart while he was still conscious. We had blockers on certain parts of his nervous system so that the pain didn’t become too overwhelming, drugs to suppress shock and debilitate sleep. The robot practically did a full autopsy before the man was actually dead. He lay there and watched it – we’d removed his eyelids and pinned his eyes in position. The robot surgeon cut open his chest and he watched as it prised apart his own ribcage. The medical robots are very good, very advanced, and they can perform intricate surgical operations on vital organs without interfering with function. The man was able to look down and actually see his heart, sitting in his own chest cavity, beating away. How many men have ever been afforded that opportunity, Blake? This man – he was a good man, a clever man, but an enemy of the Federation – watched his own heart, pumping his own blood, beating away, happily keeping him alive while he endured the most terrible pain! After he had answered my questions to the extent and detail that I required, I ordered the surgeon robot to put him back together. They are able to do that, you see, the very sophisticated ones: they can repair and suture and bond and all that is left is a minor scar, which can be fixed with plastic surgery. Of course, I ripped his heart out before I gave the order. He watched that, too.’
Blake looked down at the floor. The sweat had dried on his skin and left him cold. He fought down the urge to shiver. ‘Why are you even telling me this?’
‘Because I want you to know what you’re up against, Blake. I want you to know that despite all this… detail… I haven’t got to the good bit yet. My favourite.’
Blake closed his eyes. ‘Which is?’
‘The biovores.’
*
Vila couldn’t bear to look at the mound of bodies any longer. There was a smell coming from them too, which was making him gag. ‘I’m definitely going to throw up.’
‘Stop panicking and put this on,’ Melson said.
Vila opened his eyes and saw Melson offering him a teleport bracelet. He snatched it off him and snapped it quickly around his wrist. He could hardly believe he had forgotten them in all the excitement.
Melson entered a complex code into the airlock keypad and the control panel flashed a solid red.
‘What’s that?’ Vila asked.
‘I’ve entered a lock override code. Useful bit of knowledge from the old days…’ Melson tapped the side of his head conspiratorially. ‘No-one can get through that door now.’
Vila was impressed. ‘There’s more to you than meets the eye, you know.’
‘Glad you think so. Now…’ He held up his arm to show Vila the teleport bracelet on his wrist. Vila was surprised to see a hint of anxiety in the man’s eyes for the very first time. ‘Do these really work?’
‘Like a dream!’ Vila was already pressing the communicator control on the bracelet to open a channel to the Liberator.
‘Wait!’ Melson clamped his hand around Vila’s wrist. ‘The mutoids may be monitoring transmission signals. They’ll know we’re here.’
‘Who cares? We can be gone in a second. That’s the beauty of teleportation! Now let me call the Liberator!’
‘Wouldn’t it be better for your friends to come here?’
‘There’s only Jenna. It wouldn’t be fair to bring her here. We should go to her.’
‘She could bring us weapons.’
‘Can’t be done. Someone else needs to stay on board the Liberator to operate the teleport! I wish it had been me this time.’
‘We need to think this through,’ Melson insisted.
‘This is no time for thinking, Melson,’ Vila said emphatically. ‘If anything we need to get to the Liberator as soon as possible and think what to do next there. Right?’
‘So it really works – this teleport thing?’
‘Of course it does. How else do you think I got here?’
‘Okay,’ Melson said. ‘Make the call.’
Vila raised the bracelet again. ‘Liberator! Come in Liberator! This is Vila. Are you reading me?’
*
In Pod Three, the remaining prisoners were all facing the bulkhead walls with their hands on their heads. In the centre of the pod the two mutoids stood guard. No-one spoke. Every one of the dozen men still standing considered themselves lucky to have survived the ruthless efficiency with which the mutoids had quelled the pod riot.
Drena leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the bulkhead. She felt utterly numb and drained of all feeling. A part of her thought that she should be doing something, that she should be fighting back – like Melson had suggested, like Zake had wanted to. Like Blake actually had.
By chance, the man called Gan had been positioned alongside Drena in one corner of the pod, right next
to Larn Stygo. They stood with their hands on their heads, staring at the blank wall in front of them, simmering with pent-up anger. The pair of them were still fighting, in a way.
‘You’re a dirty scrapper,’ Stygo muttered. One of his eyes was surrounded by a livid purple bruise.
‘I had you fair and square,’ whispered Gan, ‘and you know it.’
‘No way. Couple of seconds more and I’d have broken that armlock and killed you.’
A mutoid stepped up behind them and rested the barrel of her autoblaster against the back of Stygo’s head. ‘If you speak again I will kill you.’
‘If you shoot him at that range,’ said Gan calmly, ‘you’ll shoot right through the bulkhead wall into vacuum. Disastrous.’
The mutoid pointed the blaster at Gan instead. For a long, cold time Drena thought she was going to shoot through the head, just like she had with Zake. But then, perhaps his warning about puncturing the spaceship hull had the desired effect, because she did not pull the trigger.
‘There are other ways of killing,’ she said eventually, and then, with one swift and violent move, she struck Gan across the back of the head with the butt of her gun. Gan’s legs turned to jelly and he sank to his knees with a groan.
Drena winced, screwing up her eyes in frustration and despair. She should say something. She should tell them to stop, like Zake had. But she couldn’t.
‘No more talking,’ the mutoid ordered. Her wrist intercom bleeped and she checked the display.
‘Someone is transmitting a signal,’ noted her companion, checking her own wrist computer.
The mutoid turned on her heel, scanning the prisoners lined up against the walls. None of them were moving. Gan was still on his knees, forehead pressed against the metal.
‘No-one has communications equipment in here,’ the mutoid stated.
The other mutoid was using her wrist computer to scan. ‘It’s coming from Pod Four.’
Blake's 7: Criminal Intent Page 13
