Qayin sucked in a lung full of air and with it the sheer power of the drug coursing through his body. His limbs twitched into life and he felt his heart accelerate in his chest, thumping like a war drum as savage anger flared in his heart, a thirst for revenge brighter than any other thought in his mind.
Qayin’s head turned slowly as he surveyed the hold around him with refreshed vision and clarity of thought, and it was then that he saw the plasma whip that Kordaz had left hanging near one wall of the hold.
***
XII
Meyanna Sansin looked down into the frosty eyes of the face that stared out at her from the control panel. Several of the Marines around her backed away from the gruesome visage, clutching their plasma rifles tightly as though fighting the urge to blast the face into history.
Meyanna watched as the eyes blinked, staring straight up at the ceiling above Meyanna’s head but strangely blank, as though without focus. She stepped cautiously forward and put herself into its line of sight.
The eyes stared blankly back at her, devoid of any emotion that she could recognise.
‘What is it?’ Andaim asked. ‘Is it alive?’
Meyanna glanced across at Marine Mears. ‘Can you activate the communications panel from there?’
Mears tapped in a few commands. Almost at once the face on the console blurted out an unintelligible stream of noise, a blabbering like that of a child, warbling and indistinct.
Meyanna took a pace closer and through the noise she heard something that she recognised.
‘….circu….diagnos….power… enviro…data stream interru…’
‘It’s reciting a boot sequence,’ Idris said in disbelief.
‘It’s not reciting it,’ Meyanna corrected him. ‘It’s conducting it.’
As she watched, the last of the cold seeped from the face and the muscles and tendons began responding properly as the speech took on legible form.
‘… systems reconnecting, diagnostic local circuit only, no signal, environmental systems active, propulsion, no signal.’
General Bra’hiv stepped closer to the face and his voice was more than a little haunted as he spoke.
‘You’re telling me that this is the ship’s computer?’
Meyanna shrugged. ‘Maybe, I’m not sure, but what I can tell you is that this face once belonged to a human being, probably one of the crew. It’s now connected to the ship instead.’
Idris frowned. ‘Is he alive?’
Meyanna shook her head. ‘No, he’s long dead. His face is being used as a communications conduit, a means of verbalising the ship’s computer. I’d imagine his veins are filled with a conducting fluid that is preserving his flesh, as did the cold when the ship was deactivated.’
‘How the hell did he end up like that?’ Bra’hiv asked. ‘And why?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that, general.’
Meyanna looked around the bridge at the other stations. None of them had been likewise modified with a human cadaver, which was what one would expect had the Legion or similar attempted to take control of the vessel in its entirety.
‘Where is the rest of the crew?’ Andaim wondered out loud.
Meyanna leaned close to the man’s face and then she had an idea. ‘Access the last data log input,’ she said out loud.
Marine Mears moved to respond but the face spoke before he could.
‘Last data log entry, recorded orbital date fourteen oh seven on the eighth quadrant.’
Meyanna looked at Idris, who raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s eighty seven years ago,’ he said.
‘Display the log entry, main screen.’ Meyanna ordered the computer.
The main screen on the bridge flickered into life and upon it appeared the face of a man who had gone down in Etheran legend.
‘Captain Meke Greer,’ Idris identified him.
Greer had been a relatively young commander of just forty years old when he was selected to be captain of Endeavour. Youth had been considered essential to Endeavour’s crew, the better to last them as they established the ship as a home for what might become the rest of their lives. Less than ten per cent of the crew had been over fifty years of age.
Greer’s features were wracked with concern as he appeared on the screen, his hair in disarray and his uniform poorly adjusted. He looked weak and drawn, his eyes ringed with bruised patches as though he had not slept for a month. His voice, when he spoke, was soft and hard to decipher.
‘All stations, all stations, this is the Endeavour, one thousand souls aboard. We are adrift and in need of assistance. We are overcome by something.., something that we do not understand. All are afflicted, young and old.’ Greer’s expression changed to one of confusion. ‘We do not know what we are. We do not know who we are. None of us can remember anything, except that we are a great danger. We are a plague ship. I have instructed the crew to destroy the propulsion systems, to prevent us from being returned to Ethera. We cannot allow whatever is aboard to spread. It takes us from who we are. We cannot help ourselves. Please, if you receive this transmission, send help but do not board us. Stay away from Endeavour!’
The transmission cut off abruptly as Greer, apparently unaware of his own hand, shut off the recording.
Meyanna looked down at the face embedded into the control panel. ‘What happened here?’
The face, devoid of emotion or sight, replied. ‘No signal. Repeat, no signal.’
‘What does that mean?’ Bra’hiv asked.
‘It means that it has no input,’ Idris guessed. ‘It has no data to share.’
‘They said we should not be here,’ Bra’hiv snapped. ‘That this is a plague ship.’
‘They also said that had no understanding of what was happening to them,’ Meyanna replied. ‘I have a scanner here and it has detected no evidence of the Legion aboard ship so far. Likewise we know how to prevent infection using our microwave emitters, so we have nothing to fear at this time. Our priority is figuring out what happened to these people so that the same fate does not befall our own crew.’
Idris moved across to where Marine Mears was still standing beside the engineering panel.
‘Can you access the entire ship’s controls from this panel?’
Mears nodded as he scanned the instruments. ‘Endeavour is an older type of vessel with simpler wiring. In theory I should be able to access everything for’ard of the engine bays, where the main damage is.’
‘The captain said that he’d ordered the crew to scuttle the ship,’ Bra’hiv said. ‘It explains the extent of the damage to the engine bays–caused by lots of controlled explosions instead of one enormous one. They must have been real serious about whatever they found aboard.’
‘That’s what bothers me,’ Idris replied. ‘They had lifeboats and escape capsules: a means of evasion, no matter how bad the odds. Yet they chose to give up, to abandon any hope of discovery before they died. Why?’
‘To protect Ethera,’ C’rairn said. ‘Why else would they have scuttled themselves? Their current course is orientated directly away from the core systems.’
‘They could have done that and still escaped,’ Idris countered.
‘Not and found somewhere to hide,’ Bra’hiv said as he examined the ship’s data logs on another screen, that belonging to the navigator’s position. ‘We’re twelve light years from the nearest habitable system, and none of Endeavour’s escape vessels have mass–drives. If the crew had abandoned ship they’d have been doomed anyway.’
Idris nodded.
‘My point exactly,’ he agreed. ‘They must be still aboard somewhere. Can we gain access to camera feeds around the ship? Take a look around without compromising ourselves?’
Mears nodded and began skipping through files on the screen before him until he found the ones he wanted.
‘Ship’s security system,’ he said out loud as he accessed the relevant files. ‘Opening the feeds again and directing them here.’
The main screen flickered and
then a series of camera feeds appeared, broken up into sections so that multiple areas of Endeavour could be viewed at once. Idris saw instantly the landing bay with the Marines manning their posts, a number of deserted corridors leading to important areas of the ship such as the engine bays, mess hall, holds and the bridge itself.
Several of the screens switched every few seconds, automatically moving the feed through various areas of the ship to provide a sort of roving–eye. Idris saw the display shift from an image of the landing bay to one of the bridge, the captain and his accomplices looking at themselves for a moment before the feed moved on. Another image showed a storage facility filled with escape pods, then another of the for’ard crews’ quarters and…
‘Wait, go back.’
Meyanna’s voice was pitched a touch higher than usual as though she had recognised something of importance. Mears worked his controls and isolated the relevant camera feed, then blew it up to fill the main screen.
An image of rows of escape pods standing vertically in the centre of one of the main holds filled the screen, and Meyanna moved closer as she examined them.
‘Why are those escape pods not in their launch chutes?’
Idris frowned as he realised that he could not think of a suitable reason as to why the pods were standing vertically in what looked like Endeavour’s hold. He turned to Mears.
‘Where is this feed coming from?’
‘Hold compartment four, captain,’ Mears replied. ‘Aft section, Deck H, a couple of bulkheads for’ard of the damaged section of the hull.’
Andaim peered with interest at the pods. ‘They’re occupied,’ he said.
Idris could see the indistinct shape of bodies suspended in the pods, and he realised what he was looking at.
‘It’s the crew,’ the captain said finally. ‘Damn me, could there be any chance that they’re still alive? This explains the state of Endeavour: they must have re–routed all power to the escape pods in the hope that they’d keep them in stasis for long enough to be found.’
Mears scanned his instruments and shook his head.
‘I can’t tell captain,’ he said, ‘there’s not enough information coming from the pods. In fact, there’s no data at all. They must be connected to another power source entirely, re–routed somehow.’
It was Bra’hiv who answered.
‘The fusion core,’ he replied. ‘If they were trying to preserve their lives for as long as possible, they’d have connected themselves directly to the core. Powering only life support to the pods, they could have a lifespan of centuries, maybe even thousands of years.’
‘Get a team down there,’ Idris ordered Bra’hiv. ‘Full battle kit and at least four medics. If there’s even the hint of a chance that Greer and his crew have survived long enough to be revived, I want them off this ship.’
‘We don’t know what’s down there,’ Meyanna said as she gestured to the communications panel. ‘Looks at what happened to this crewman. None of this explains how he came to be a part of the station. Whatever Greer and his people were hoping to avoid is still unknown.’
‘We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Idris insisted. ‘If you were there, in one of those pods and locked away for decades, wouldn’t you want us to come and let you out?’
‘Not if that was the very act that would kill me!’ Meyanna pleaded. ‘They need studying Idris, not unleashing, at least until we know what’s happened here!’
Idris was about to answer but it was Bra’hiv who spoke first.
‘We’ve got another reason to get down there, fast!’ he snapped.
Idris looked at the general sharply and saw Bra’hiv point to the main screen, at the deck in between several of the more distant capsules. There, marring the perfect frost glistening on the ship’s decks, were footprints.
‘We’re not alone aboard this ship, captain,’ Bra’hiv said.
Idris moved closer to the screen, peering at the marks in the frost. ‘They’re boot prints,’ he said. ‘A survivor?’
‘This ship has been drifting for more than eighty years,’ Meyanna said. ‘Even ignoring the timescale, nobody could survive these conditions without extensive protection for that long. They’d die within days.’
‘That’s not all,’ Bra’hiv said as he gestured to the screen, which was now zoomed in on the boot prints and the nearest capsule. ‘Look at the occupant.’
It took Idris only a moment to realise what Bra’hiv had seen. The occupant of the capsule was human, and upon their face was a mask that he recognised instantly. Metal and featureless but for small slits that allowed the wearer a limited view of the world outside, and with two metallic probes that vanished into the wearer’s mouth and down into their throat, preventing them from speaking, conspiring, formulating evil.
‘The Word,’ Idris gasped. ‘That’s the same mask that…’
‘That Evelyn was wearing in the prison when we first met her,’ Meyanna finished the sentence for her husband.
***
XIII
‘Move out!’
The Marines tumbled out of the shuttle as its engines whined down in Endeavour’s landing bay, the troops from Bravo Company forming up into ranks as General Bra’hiv marched out to meet them.
The general glanced the reinforcements over, his practiced eye seeking any sign of unsecured atmospheric suits, sloppily arranged kit or evidence of reluctance or nervousness in the troops. He saw none. Formerly gang–bangers and convicts, many of them under the thrall of Qayin, they now served Bra’hiv without question. Most of them were just kids really, barely out of their teens, and despite their horrendous crimes and bragged–about slayings on Ethera’s rough streets, most of them merely needed to belong to something, to fight for something bigger than themselves. Although it was a continuous struggle, Bra’hiv had won most of them over, especially after Qayin’s bare–faced betrayal and abandonment of his own people on Chiron IV.
‘Listen up!’ Bra’hiv called, his voice carrying clearly across the landing bay and reaching every one of the forty men before him. ‘We have evidence of people aboard this ship, likely human, likely wanting to avoid us. We have no idea who they are or what they’re doing here, but we’re going to damned well find out and it’s Bravo Company who will be leading the way!’
Bra’hiv saw the pride in their faces behind the masks that protected them from the bitter cold enveloping Endeavour.
‘Two fire teams, ten men each. The rest of you on guard support for the secured areas of the ship. We move quickly and we move quietly, no fuss. Do not fire unless fired upon–we want whoever these people are taken alive, to learn from them about what happened to this ship, is that understood?!’
A chorus of Yessir echoed across the landing bay.
Bra’hiv turned away from Bravo Company as a Raython pilot jogged across the bay to join him, still wearing her flight helmet. The sleek fighter was parked nearby, the recently shut–down engines billowing a shimmering heat haze onto the cold air above the craft.
‘Where’s the fire?’ Evelyn asked. ‘I thought that we were to remain out there on patrol until further orders?’
‘Something’s come up,’ Bra’hiv replied. ‘You need to see this.’
‘See what?’ Evelyn asked, her normally composed demeanour slightly uncertain as Bra’hiv pulled out a holo–plate and activated it.
A glowing, three–dimensional image of the object in Endeavour’s holds flashed into existence, and Evelyn’s hand flew automatically to her face as she saw the shape of the mask covering the unknown victim inside an escape capsule.
‘That’s my mask,’ she gasped, knowing well that the original mask was in her locker back on Atlantia, a reminder of where she had come from.
‘Looks like they existed for a long time before we believed the Word created them,’ Bra’hiv explained. ‘These capsules may have been here in stasis for some eighty years.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Evelyn whispered, still touching her fa
ce as though trying to protect herself from even an image of the mask.
The masks had been used on only the most violent of convicts, those men and women considered a lethal threat to the general public on Ethera. According to Ethera’s Human Rights laws, the masks could not be fitted for more than twenty four hours at a time and only then during transportation of the convict from one facility to another, or at any time where prison staff might be victim to attacks from said prisoner. Evelyn herself was the only human being known to have endured years behind a mask without recourse to legal aid.
‘The first time these masks were commissioned by the Word was forty years ago, according to Ethera’s government of the time,’ Bra’hiv said. ‘These things just shouldn’t be here at all.’
Andaim joined them in the landing bay and looked at the holographic image closely.
‘Which begs the question: why are civilian passengers aboard Endeavour wearing masks inside escape capsules?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ Captain Sansin replied as he too joined them and looked at Evelyn. ‘You up for this?’
Evelyn mastered her revulsion at the sight of the mask as the general clicked the display off, and she nodded.
‘Good,’ Bra’hiv said. ‘We have evidence of somebody down there moving about. It could be old boot prints preserved in the frost but there’s only one way to be sure, so stay sharp at all times.’
‘We’ll support you from Atlantia,’ Captain Sansin said as he turned toward the shuttle. ‘Lael doesn’t have enough experience to keep the ship in order for much longer.’
‘I’m staying aboard Endeavour,’ Meyanna informed her husband.
Idris hesitated. ‘If you’re doing this because I was a bit short with you then you’re…’
‘I’m staying to get to the bottom of what happened here,’ Meyanna cut the captain off. ‘The Word’s presence, however minor, could be key in finding new ways to combat the Legion. This opportunity is too good to miss.’
Endeavour (Atlantia Series Book 4) Page 9
