Land of the Dead ittotss-3

by Thomas Harlan

  Back at the lock, Hadeishi felt his chances of escape eroding with every chrono tick. At a loss, he examined the control panel and its various components again. This time, something tickled in memory and he found himself staring at the hex-shaped bezel. A ship built for the Hesht, six fingers on each hand, six packs to a pride… He took out his pry bar and jammed the metal tip under the edge of the bezel, which was not made of the same heavy steel as the rest of the lock. Indeed, the plastic cap popped off, revealing a deep socket-also hex-shaped-running into the hatch.

  Emergency access! he gloated, fumbling through both tool belts for something that would fit the keyhole. A moment later he was spraying some unlok into the opening-it was a fair guess no one had manually opened the hatch since construction!-and then he wedged a number six socket wrench into the opening and then ran one handle of the bolt cutters through the socket itself. Then Hadeishi braced himself against the sidewall-thankful for once that he was working in z-g-and put everything he had into cranking his scratch-built key around.

  For a long, long minute the socket and cutter combination resisted, going nowhere. His arms started to burn and he felt a twinge in his chest. Then, with a creaky vibration felt through his boots, the wrench rotated a centimeter. Breathing harshly, Hadeishi stopped-sprayed more unlok into the hole-and then put his shoulder into it again.

  Now the mechanism creaked again, but faster, and then began to rotate smoothly. Letting out a long hiss of relief, Mitsuharu worked the balky key around until a dull thud reverberated through his arms and the control panel flashed a magenta icon. At the same time, a pair of handles popped free from the metal.

  Now, he thought, I will truly be on the clock. Before opening the door, he carefully stowed all of his tools and secured the lanyards and pouches on both belts. Even the severed hand was tacked down. Then he took hold of both handles and pulled. The hatch swung towards him a little ponderously, revealing a dull gray chamber with a perforated grating as the floor. On the opposite wall was a thick glassite panel and beyond that-the wink and gleam of distant stars.

  ***

  Thirty seconds, Hadeishi counted, watching the airlock cycle. A number of warning lights had come on as soon as he’d secured the inner lock and vented atmosphere. Thirty-five seconds.

  The exterior hatch opened and the dull, ruddy light of the kuub streamed in, throwing harsh shadows on the walls. Mitsuharu checked his wrist, watching the radiation indicator fluctuate and then settle into the orange zone. Thirty-eight seconds.

  He swung out of the lock, oriented himself, and then dialed up the magnification on his helmet to thirty-x and took a quick three-sixty of the horizon line. To his right a long profusion of radiating fins emerged from the shipskin, blocking most of his view. To the left the hull arced away into nothing but the abyss of stars. Behind him, however, he felt his heart leap to see the drive cowlings of the Wilful rising over the horizon.

  Forty-four seconds. Watching the radiation detector fluctuate wildly, Hadeishi wished he had a full EVA rig. His z-suit was airtight and temperature regulated, but it was not intended for lengthy stays outside of the shielding of a ship. Beggars cannot be choosers, he chided himself, and moved off towards the freighter as fast as his boots could adhere to the shipskin.

  A hundred meters on he halted, catching sight of a pair of recessed cargo or boat-bay doors ahead. He crouched down and crept to the edge of the opening. The doors were closed, but he could see a porthole-like window not far away, on a smaller access hatch. Carefully he glanced around, checking the horizon. Nothing caught his eye, so Hadeishi worked his way down to the smaller hatchway, trying to keep out of line-of-sight from the window. Just a meter away from the opening, he froze, feeling the hull under his hands and feet begin to tremble.

  One hundred and sixty seconds.

  The bay doors began to separate, spilling a frosty wisp of atmosphere out into the void, and letting a sharp white light gleam through. Beneath him, the metal doors continued to roll back into the hull, carrying Hadeishi with them. One hundred, sixty-eight seconds.

  He scrambled to the porthole and risked a look inside before the smaller hatch disappeared. Sure enough there was a boat-bay on the other side, holding a fair-sized shuttle. With the brief glimpse, he picked out a pair of Khaiden pilots visible through the beveled windows of the spacecraft. Then he took in the rest of the bay and froze, heart thudding in his throat, back pressed against the cold metal. The loading deck beside the shuttle was swarming with Khaid marines in combat armor; some of them were climbing onto EVA carts like the ones the Zosen used to ferry supplies and work crews around the hulls of larger starships.

  Musashi was trudging through mud, in the rain, his head bowed beneath a peasant’s bowl-like straw hat, a simple bokuto over his shoulder, when the gates of the castle swung wide. Perforce, he stopped, moving to the side of the road, and watched in interest as a great column of samurai rode out, their armor gleaming wetly and their spear points bare to the sky. Weary, he squatted as they thundered past, wrapped in silken cloaks, their faces hidden behind armored masks. At the last, the banner man rode out, and though his uma-jirushi hung heavy in the pelting rain, Musashi could not avoid seeing the Tokugawa mon. Thus knowing the evil lord remained within the castle, his heart was gladdened-for victory or death over the Mongol overlords was close at hand.

  Hadeishi glanced back at the shuttle, saw the bus-sized craft was not mounted on a launch rail like a strike-fighter, and raced to dig into his pouches. An instant later, he’d found the roll of stickytape he needed, then double-checked the grenades and the severed arm. Nerving himself, he moved to the edge of the still-moving bay door. Keeping out of sight of the Khaiden hunting party, he crouched down, tensing his legs.

  One chance, he thought, feeling giddy. Watch for it…

  The bay doors stopped with a clunk, and then the shuttle separated from the landing cradle. Ponderously, moving only under low-powered thrusters, the craft wallowed out of the boat-bay. Crouched just beyond the edge of the opening, Hadeishi waited for the right moment-then he saw the port-side passenger door slide past-and he sprang outward, hands and feet outstretched.

  He hit the side of the shuttle with a heavy thud, let his knees and elbows flex to absorb as much impact as possible, and then flattened himself against the hull. Seconds later, the Khaid shuttle had cleared the Qalak and the entire spaceframe shivered as its main engines went into pre-ignition.

  Two hundred seconds. A cool sensation tickled his left wrist as his med-band started to inject anti-radiation meds. Ignoring the sensation, Hadeishi scuttled forward to the passenger door and peered inside.

  Perfect, he thought, suppressing a laugh. A Khaid sailor in a blue-and-black z-suit was just inside, watching an environmental control panel as the shuttle started to pick up speed. After a moment of preparation, Mitsuharu began banging hard on the porthole with the severed forearm. Then, before waiting to see what happened, he secured the limb with two quick passes of stickytape so that the bloody glove was easily visible in the window, and scrambled up and over the roof of the shuttle.

  Crouching, he took his bearings and saw the shuttle was turning away at an angle from both the Qalak and the Wilful. It was hard to gauge distance with no backdrop, but he guessed the freighter was a good kilometer away. Two hundred, fifteen seconds.

  Hadeishi pulled out the little plasma cutter, oriented himself towards the Wilful -looked back towards the passenger door with a wry twist to his lips-and when he saw the top edge of the door cycle outward, he rotated the strength ring to full and thumbed the control.

  The plasma jet flickered out in a long, blue-white line and Hadeishi felt his boots tug-kicking away, he lost adhesion-and then saw the shuttle falling away below him. Long seconds passed… he imagined the hatch cycling open, the limb being retrieved, the Khaid sailor stepping back inside to examine the queer artifact. Then the portholes on the sides of the shuttle suddenly flared with a stabbing, orange-red light. The spacecraft shuddered,
spilling debris. Out of the corner of his eye, Mitsuharu saw a swarm of combat suits boiling out of the Qalak ’s boat-bay. EVA carts winged towards the shuttle, which was now leaking spheroids of gray-white smoke as the interior fittings burned.

  Two hundred, forty seconds.

  He switched off the plasma cutter and curled himself up into a ball. It was a long fall to the freighter and he hoped-devoutly prayed-that the Khaiden commander on the Qalak didn’t decide to turn on full active scanning for the immediate volume around his ship. Then I would fry like a sweet dumpling!

  At two hundred forty-five seconds a wave of metallic debris, intermixed with charred cushions, chunks of piping, internal framing, and bits of z-suit accelerated past him. Buffeted by the flotsam, he looked back and saw that the entire shuttle had vanished in a blast cloud. The Khaid marines-barely visible at this range-were in equal disarray. Score one for the army! Good thing, too, he thought. That combat armor will sport an IR mode for extravehicular combat. Gritting his teeth, he dialed down his suit temperature regulator. Can’t go to zero, but I can draw down my signature…

  ***

  Sixteen minutes later, his limbs numb with cold and his radiation monitor strobing red, Hadeishi collided with cargo hold B on the Wilful ’s port quarter. Shocked out of a hypothermia-induced daze, he bounced along the pitted, scarred surface of the freighter for five or six seconds until he managed to get his hands flat against the metal hull and his z-suit adhered. The jerky stop sent stabbing pains up each arm, but he managed to hold on. Ah, now that hurt.

  Now able to dial up his suit temperature, Mitsuharu scrabbled along on all fours, looking for the nearest airlock. If memory served, there was a cargo door between two of the drive fairings. The last six meters seemed a vast distance, but he managed to drag himself to the control panel and punch in his access code. Human-friendly lights flickered on inside the lock chamber and he fell in, feeling utterly drained. Hands shaking, Mitsuharu managed to get the outer lock closed and atmosphere cycling before he collapsed.

  Gravity kicked in as he lay on the floor, inner door rotating open. For a long moment Hadeishi couldn’t even lift his head, but when he could, the cargo hold access way was empty. No alarms had triggered, no sirens sounded. Khaid haven’t reprogrammed the ship yet.

  Dragging himself over the threshold, Hadeishi managed to prop himself against the nearest wall and close the hatch. His hands and feet were getting warmer, and he felt some strength returning. When he could get to his feet, Mitsuharu shuffled down to the cargo master’s office-really no more than a closet with controls to manage the gangways and cranes-and rummaged through the storage bins. This yielded up a Gogozen bar-a kind of high-fat candy he usually avoided, but now stuffed into his mouth without delay-and far better, three cans of Kuka-Kolo-a carbonated chocolatl beverage sweetened with the sap of the Nopal cactus. When all three were drained dry, Hadeishi began to feel human again. Ah, sugar. Very delicious. Now I need a weapon, or more than one.

  He missed the grenades, but they seemed to have done well by the Khaid shuttle.

  After searching the closet one more time, Hadeishi signed into the shipboard net and paged through the security camera views available to him. Restricted to below-decks, he found nothing in ten fruitless minutes. No Khaid down below… they must be up on the bridge.

  Picking up a long pry bar stowed behind the comp panels, Mitsuharu slipped out of the closet and made his way towards the shipcore with his helmet external audio turned up, listening for anything beyond the usual groaning and hissing of the old ship.

  ***

  The starboard cargo lift rattled to a halt on the accommodation deck-not an area Hadeishi had ever set foot in before-and he eased out, pry bar in both hands like a bat, and stepped lightly towards the shipcore. Almost immediately he encountered a rec room strewn with burned fabric and paper, fallen kaffe cups, and broken plates. His boots crunched on scattered shipgun flechettes, and the walls and cupboards were badly torn up. Two bodies lay sprawled on the floor-both wearing the jumpsuits favored by the Wilful ’s crew-and as he gingerly approached, they convulsed with a rippling wave of motion.

  “Shipbugs,” Mitsuharu muttered under his breath, skipping backward, face twisting in disgust.

  Both corpses collapsed into a tatter of cloth and white bone. The Khaid shipbugs, an insectile omnivore about the length of his thumb, swarmed across the floor, their silvery carapaces making a queer, shimmering mass. Hundreds of antennae turned in his direction, waved about tasting the air, and then the entire swarm turned away with a rustling tik-tik-tik, looking for more decomposing organics to consume.

  Why the Khaid-who were not one of the insectoid species known to the Mexica-employed the shipbug, Hadeishi did not know. One intel briefing he had seen suggested the Khaiden themselves had once been a subject race of the Kryg’nth or Megair and had adopted some of their past masters’ technologies and practices. Too, he understood they found the insects a delicacy. He found the bugs loathsome and stayed back, out of the room, until the swarm had departed for some other corpse-strewn pasture.

  Then he forced himself to search through the remains of the two men, and gathered up their identity cards, pocket multitools, and anything else of use he could find. The refrigerator in the rec area also yielded up more to eat and two bottles of Mayahuel brand beer, which he stowed in the leg pockets of his z-suit.

  Do they have a handler? he wondered, thinking of the shipbugs again. So far they are the only sign of life… Perhaps the Khaid close off the ship, let the bugs scour everything clean, and then come in to gather them up. All fat and juicy and… He spat violently in the sink, then wiped his mouth. I need to find a real command console with access to all of the security cameras.

  ***

  Hadeishi crouched at the junction between the shipcore and an access way to the main passenger airlock, morbidly amused to stand no more than a meter from where he’d been marched out in chains no more than an hour earlier. This time the roundabout was empty-all of the bodies had been dragged away and the Khaid marines were gone. Cautious, Mitsuharu held a small mirror mounted on a telescoping handle around the corner, looking for the expected guards. The airlock itself was open, but no one seemed to be in the gangway leading to the Qalak. There must be someone just out of sight on the other side…

  Wary of showing himself in the crossroads, Mitsuharu backtracked to the nearest door and slipped inside. The room was one of a set ringing the top of the shipcore and seemed to be sleeping quarters for four. On the far side was a sliding doorway leading into a shared bathroom. Hadeishi wasted no time in passing through, giving the fresher a quick once-over-no weapons or tools-and then easing open the doorway to the second bunkroom.

  Here he found the bodies from the roundabout and bridge. They were thrown in a heap-and the tik-tik-tik of the shipbugs was loud enough to hear through his helmet. Suppressing an urge to vomit, Mitsuharu kept to the edge of the room and made a quick exit out the far door.

  Breathing fast, Hadeishi forced himself to stop-now he was in a short corridor leading back to the roundabout-and he was suddenly afraid he’d walked out in full view of any Khaiden camera pointing down the gangway between the two ships. Luckily, the corridor was not in line with the airlock itself. Breathing a sigh of relief, he ducked across to the other side of the passage and was about to chance angling back to the crossroads to get to the bridge itself when he realized that the thick trail of blood and offal leading into the charnel room had a companion. Not much more than a scrape of blood here and there, but a clear sign that someone had come out of the slaughterhouse-crawled across the corridor on hands and knees-and through a door at the end of the passage.

  Well now, they missed someone on their sweep. He followed the trail down a short maintenance passage filled with racked air filtration membranes and into a space holding the plumbing risers for the bathrooms.

  The blood trail led into an opening beneath the gray water return. Taking a risk, Mitsuharu cracked open h
is z-suit helmet, set down the pry bar, and then knelt on the deck, peering under the pipes.

  The dim glow of his helmet lamp glittered back from a pair of pale gray eyes.

  An elderly, silver-haired woman was squeezed in among the plumbing, her jumpsuit caked with blood, her face gashed open. Now he could hear her labored breathing and see the muzzle of an automatic-a Webley Bulldog, from what he could see-pointed in his general direction.

  “ Sencho,” he said quietly, recognizing the rank tabs on her collar. “I’d better get you out of there.”

  ***

  An hour later, on the bridge, Captain De Molay was lying back on the pilot’s shockchair, her face bandaged and a mug of instant kaffe clutched in hands shining with antibiotic biogel. She looked only marginally better and her breathing was still hoarse. Hadeishi was sitting at the captain’s panel, carefully paging through the onboard cameras, a long machete-like knife close by his hand, and two different earbugs inserted. The Wilful ’s systems were more of a hodgepodge than he’d believed, but on-board power was up, the transit coil was spun down to a low idle, reactors were cooking, and every kind of weapon on the ship had been gathered up by the Khaid and hauled away.

  Well, he thought, almost everything. He patted the machete.

  “You’re our new engineer’s mate then,” De Molay wheezed, trying not to cough. “Azulcay said you were showing some promise.”

  “Kind of him,” Mitsuharu replied, glancing over at the main hatchway. The door was locked and barred, though he knew there was a shipbug swarm busily cleaning up the blood sprayed across the floor and walls outside. The thought still turned his stomach. “Are there any explosives on board? Grenades?”