NightPiercer

by Merry Ravenell

  He gnashed his teeth together, but backed out of the Captain’s office. Tsu hadn’t ordered him to do anything, and if he lingered, he’d get a set of direct orders, and then he’d do something he wouldn’t regret except Lachesis would never forgive him for it.

  He needed to find her. It’d been two days. He was running out of time.

  Rainer stared at the tablets. He’d left her tablets exactly where she’d set them on the table, convinced she’d come back.

  She’d left her gizmo so the tablets could finish their calculation.

  She’d never have left it behind. She had to have known she was staying on ship. Where had they hidden her? Laundry? Cricket cages? He’d already checked those places.

  If he’d been Crèche and wanted to hide someone from other sections, he’d have hidden her in one of the Biomes. Biome access was strictly controlled. Nobody got in or out that Crèche didn’t know about, just like no one got to the core Engineering decks—and especially not the Core—without Rainer knowing.

  She was probably in wolf form and in a Biome. No power draw, could stay there for weeks or months, she could hide from Crew and Crèche workers, and since she was Crèche, she knew how to behave in a Biome. While he could get access if he wanted to declare some kind of maintenance emergency, he’d only get to do that once, and there were multiple Biomes.

  He bent down and tapped the center tablet. The results of the first set of Telemetry equations had finished. She’d created another three for him to trigger.

  “You knew you weren’t coming back, Lachesis,” he said.

  She’d left behind a chip. Her ping had been clear: send it back to her family.

  He flicked the chip around in his fingers, then picked up one of his own tablets.

  The chip was full of scenarios, pictures, and documents. He ignored them all and chose the two most recent.

  Except the letters were encrypted. She hadn’t wanted anyone to casually look at them.

  Being she was on NightPiercer, she’d been forced to use one of the ship’s on-device encryption protocols, with a local on-chip key. And because she was not an officer, and in fact had no seniority at all, she’d been forced to use a protocol that had a backdoor. She would not have known that. Nobody got told that the low-level encryption protocols existed to prevent low-level snooping. Nothing kept executive staff out of anything they wanted to see.

  Odds were the password was obvious, and anyone who knew her well probably could have guessed it within a few tries. Maybe she’d even negotiated a password with her family prior to leaving. He tried a few obvious ones, like password and 12345, a few of the variations on her name, and even his own name, just to say he’d tried.

  “Going to have to pull rank on you,” he told the tablet as he typed in his command override.

  The first letter, addressed to Clotho, was short. Told Clotho she loved her, that she’d try to write in the future if possible, other mundane chatter about NightPiercer. No mention at all of Rainer. Appropriate if Clotho had been seven or eight, but Clotho was nearly an adult.

  It was the letter to her parents that went into detail.

  Mom & Dad:

  I don’t know what they will tell you about what happened after I left, but it won’t be the truth.

  Rainer didn’t want a wife and didn’t want pups. NightPiercer’s Crèche forced all of this on him. I’m his third wife. This Crèche is insane.

  On the way over, there was a shuttle accident. I thought he’d tried to kill me rather than have another wife. There was a public brawl between him and I.

  Later, I was arrested because they thought I was trying to take over the core and plunge the ship into Jupiter. Turns out the ship’s navigation sandbox got mothballed years ago to save resources, and the computer thought my simulations were flight inputs.

  Crèche here has something called ‘Supervision’ where they make new couples have sex while Crèche observes. If you can’t do it, or Crèche decides you’re not into it, they divorce you. Ours didn’t go well.

  Crèche told me the truth about why Ark sold me: I was declared feral as a kid. Clotho’s my replacement. I was allowed to live as long as I was productive and didn’t cause problems, but I’m so feral they decided I couldn’t even be a surrogate. When NightPiercer wanted me, Ark traded me for potato cuttings. The official lie is I was traded for a hive of bees.

  We failed at Supervision, and I’ve been declared a cull. I will be euthanized. I am a minimal loss, but I am not a rogue.

  Never tell Rainer. If he finds out what they’ve done, and how his Captain lied to him, I’m afraid what he’ll do. He’s an asshole and I hate him, but his life really does matter, and he has every reason to hate Crèche for what they’ve done. My life never mattered, but if I protect his life—and this ship—it’ll be worth something even if only Gaia Herself knows.

  Tsu had lied to him? Lachesis was a cull? That’s what that rat-bastard cricket-fucking deviant from Crèche had told her? Put on a good show or die?

  She may already be dead.

  No, she wasn’t. He knew she wasn’t dead.

  All euth orders had to come from Captain Tsu only, with the recommendation of no less than two command officers. That was a short list: Keenan, Bennett, Forrest, himself. Keenan had authorized it. Bennett wasn’t so cold-blooded he’d want Lachesis’ blood on his hands. Forrest hadn’t either. Tsu had veto power, but he couldn’t (and wouldn’t) order an euth on his own.

  Usually it was Keenan and Rainer signing the euth orders. Medical resources were extremely limited and rationed. Crippling injuries and serious illness happened. Keeping someone who was terminally ill or mortally wounded alive to die a natural death was a luxury they couldn’t afford. What constituted terminal illness or mortal wounds was a value proposition.

  No expense or effort had been spared to save his life. But a shattered pelvis resulting in an infection on a junior member of Crew assigned to clean cricket cages? A very different outcome.

  Every euth order he co-signed destroyed part of him.

  But euthanizing a perfectly healthy, fertile, productive she-wolf just because Crèche thought her teeth were a bit too sharp?

  She was still alive because she was healthy. They’d be keeping her alive to harvest her eggs, nerve fibers, organs, and skin. Living donors with usable parts were exceedingly rare. Nothing would get wasted.

  “They’ll probably even take her hair to make a wig,” he snarled to himself, storming out of his quarters towards Engineering.

  He rounded up his most trusted crew and gathered them into a circle next to the remains of the crashed shuttle.

  “She’s going to be euthanized,” Rainer said. “Fuck me or die, apparently.”

  “What?” Juan asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Don’t ask me how I found out, but that’s the truth. She’s still alive somewhere on this ship, I’m sure of it, and we have to find her before Tsu finds another officer to sign the order, because Gaia knows it won’t be me.” Rainer snarled. “I suspect Keenan is hiding her in a Biome. She’s going to be warehoused while they prepare to harvest her body parts.”

  Jess and Simone looked nauseated, and Xav was ashen pale.

  Rainer forced himself to not pace. “We are going to go over every single access log. System power draw. Door open and shut patterns that don’t match typical patterns.”

  “Putting her in a Biome is a bit extreme. There’s a lot of Crew that goes in and out of the Biomes on a daily basis,” Jess said. “Hard to keep that quiet this long.”

  “Then she’s somewhere on the decks,” Juan said.

  “If she’s got an euth order—” Xav ventured, then stopped.

  “If Commander Rainer wants her found, we’re finding her,” Juan said coldly. “If you can’t handle it, get lost and forget you heard anything.”

  “I’m just saying that this is…” Xav’s voice trailed off.

  “We know what this is,” Simone said.

  �
��Dangerous?” Xav whispered.

  “So the safe zone is over there.” Jess pointed at the other side of the bay.

  “It is dangerous,” Rainer told Xav. “You got a look behind the door. If you want to walk away, do it now.”

  Juan folded his arms. “I’m with you, boss. No questions asked. Let’s go find her.”

  “What are you going to do when we find her?” Jess asked.

  “Don’t ask, because you want to be able to tell Command you didn’t know. I am officially ordering all of you to assist me. Put in your logs you complied under protest.”

  “Appreciated, but no,” Juan said.

  “Everyone make their own choice,” Rainer said sternly. “No judgement if you want to cover your asses when I’m court-martialed for this. I’ll die with her before I let them euth her.”

  Juan squared up and saluted him. “We’re on it, Commander. Let’s find your wife.”

  Betrayal

  Rainer retreated to his quarters to work. He didn’t want to get his trusted crew wrapped up in this more than necessary. He left his comm in as well just so Tech could see he wasn’t talking to anyone and was indeed in his quarters.

  He watched numbers scroll as a small script sorted through the innumerable door access logs looking for deviations from standard door usage. Everything on NightPiercer was monitored for maintenance schedules and energy demands. Nothing so far to indicate Lachesis had been stashed somewhere dusty and little-used.

  But there were thousands of doors on NightPiercer, and more than a billion circuits, thousands of miles of wire and fiber. Thousands of places Lachesis could be stashed… and if it’d been him doing the hiding, he’d have her put in a Biome, and this search was pointless.

  *ding*

  He paused the script and opened the door to his quarters. Juan stood on the other side.

  He pulled off his comm. Juan did the same.

  “You’ve found her,” Rainer said.

  “We think so,” Juan said. “There’s an iso-pod in Main Medical that’s been powered on for the past four days.”

  An iso-pod. There were four on the ship, and only three were functional. He’d spent a great deal of time in one. They were completely separate from any other space on the ship: separate life support, special biofilters, convertible to surgical suites if necessary. Very rarely used, and when they were used, Engineering was alerted to it so the pod could be monitored closely. The pods were finicky and sophisticated, and if someone important enough to be in a pod was in a pod, Medical wanted to make sure the pod worked perfectly for every heartbeat.

  Juan nodded. “Only one reason a pod would be powered on and you wouldn’t know about it.”

  Putting her in a Biome would have made more sense, except perhaps Crèche hadn’t wanted to risk Lachesis bringing Ark pathogens into the Biomes. The mail service between ships kept pathogen exchange equal, but the mail crew didn’t go as far as the Biomes. Lachesis hadn’t been on NightPiercer long enough to incubate and shed everything.

  Ironic. Lachesis was a cull, and they had her in an iso-pod.

  His blood cooled, his focus and senses sharpened. “Leave.”

  “Sir.” Juan put his comm back behind his ear and went down the hallway.

  Rainer closed the door and restarted the script. He tossed his comm on the couch. Time to go to Main Medical. One of his least favorite places on the ship. Aside from Bennett’s office.

  Main Medical absorbed a solid part of Deck 45. He pressed his palm into the scanner to open the doors.

  DENIED.

  His biometrics could open every damn door on the ship, and anyone’s biometrics could open Medical.

  Rainer slammed his palm into the scanner.

  DENIED.

  Confirmed: they had his wife. And he was going to punch his claw through the access panel to get on the other side.

  “Commander!” Bernard trotted up to him.

  “What are you doing here?” Rainer demanded.

  “Oh, just hanging out,” Bernard said with a sly grin. “Locked door? Strange, wouldn’t you say? Must be a glitch. Let me help with that.”

  His bioscan opened it.

  “Nice seeing you, Commander.” Bernard ambled down the corridor.

  Rainer ducked into Medical. He’d be reasonable at first. And if they did not give him what he wanted, he would rip this place apart. Gribbons could finally use those silver-packed bullets he’d been wanting to try for so long.

  If they were going to kill Lachesis, they would do it over his dead body.

  He headed towards the iso-units.

  “Commander!” A nurse shouted after him, scurrying from the bedside of a patient. “Commander, you can’t—”

  Rainer ignored her. “Go back to your patient.”

  “Commander, you can’t go back there.”

  “On who’s authority?” Rainer demanded, pausing to stare down at her.

  “Commander Keenan’s,” she said softly.

  “Then I guess you should report me for insubordination.” Rainer cricked his neck, stepped around the nurse, and continued on towards the iso-pod, snarling under his breath.

  She was close. She was here.

  The iso-ward was behind sealed doors—which his palm did open—and entered into a silent, still ward of four clear paneled boxes and absolute silence. Three of the units were dark. One was painfully bright. A shining red braid hung off the edge of the bed, while Doctor Forrest and a nurse stood at the bedside. Forrest was drawing something up into a vial.

  DENIED: SENIOR MEDICAL STAFF ONLY.

  He slammed his fists into the panel. It shuddered under the impact. Doctor Forrest whipped around, eyes widening in shock and fear. Rainer shouted, “Let me in there!”

  Forrest couldn’t hear him. That was the thing about iso-pods: isolation.

  Rainer smashed the panels again as the doors to the ward burst open, and nurses tried to corral him.

  “Stay out of this!” he shouted at them.

  “Commander,” one especially brave doctor told him, “you’re not—”

  “Lachesis is my responsibility! She is on this ship because of me, and I have failed her, and the only way she is dying is over my dead body!” Rainer shouted. Forrest turned back around to finish drawing up whatever it was he was drawing up.

  Rainer summoned the rage inside of him, bent it into his blood, his body twisted and stretched into his war-form, shredding clothing so it fell away in rags and threads at his claws.

  The staff hoping to corral him screamed and fled. “Security! Call Security!”

  He punched his claws through the panel. Shocks snapped his nervous system, things seared and burned, he didn’t care. He grabbed for a set of wires, pulled, and the panel slid open. The unique air supply slammed into his snout, smelling only of a dying Lachesis. His mind clouded in a red haze and his attention focused on her: she was sedated. Alive. But sedated, and dying.

  Rainer stomped into the room.

  “Rainer.” Forrest set the syringe down on a metal tray, backing around and away from the war-form wolf staring down at him. He kept himself between Rainer and the nurse.

  “Whhhaaaat?” Spittle dripped off his fangs, each one the length of a knuckle, if not longer, and sharp, dangerous. Forrest’s fear stoked the fury inside him.

  “Shift into human form so we can talk about this.” Forrest gestured with him to be calm.

  “Nnnooo.” He picked up the vial from the tray, clutching it carefully between two deadly claws. His brain could make no sense of the words printed on the label. His snout could not comprehend the scent from it. He debated crushing it, but what was left of his human mind said no.

  “It’s only a sedative,” Forrest said, holding out his hands, voice controlled like he spoke to rampaging war-forms every day.

  Rainer clicked in his throat. “Whhhy?”

  He pulled his lips back over his fangs and growled. Now Forrest smelled of real fear, real, delicious fear, and the little human’s heart
beat thundered in Rainer’s ears.

  Lachesis would not want him to kill the human, or do any great damage to anything. She would not like that. She was willing to die to protect him from the truth. She’d be furious if he threw it away.

  He stepped between Lachesis and Forrest. The doctor and nurse backed up, and around towards the door. Rainer buried his fury, and pulled into himself, his body smoothing into human form. The grip of fury and feral blindness eased from his brain. “Why is she sedated? How long has she been like this? Are you trying to kill her slowly?!”

  She didn’t have a single IV hooked up, no gravity restraints. Her lips were cracked and dry, her skin grayish and sunken. Her scent wasting sickness. “How long have you had her like this!”

  “We decided it would be more humane that she be sedated while Crèche determined her next move,” Forrest said quickly. “She’s not even intubated. She’s just in a deep twilight.”

  “Just in deep twilight! You’re killing her!” Rainer shouted. “You can’t get an euth order so Keenan’s just going to have immobilization kill her?!”

  Forrest started to utter a denial, then stopped talking entirely.

  Rainer fought the need to shift and destroy. “She’s on this ship because of me. She is my responsibility. She is one of mine. I failed, but Crèche wants Lachesis to pay the price. Tell Keenan Crèche will return Lachesis to me or they’ll only harm her over my dead body. Tell Gribbons to bring the silver. He’ll need it.”

  Rainer melted down into his wolf form and jumped onto the bed to curl protectively at Lachesis’ feet. He barred his teeth at Forrest and snarled, low and venomous. He didn’t dare move Lachesis in her current condition. Tsu would be along quickly.

  “Rainer has taken over the iso-ward,” Forrest reported to Tsu. “He said something about Lachesis being a cull they bought with potato cuttings? It was hard to tell between him ripping holes in things and a war-form snarling at me.”

  “War-form?” Tsu asked, lifting his gaze to Forrest and focusing on the Head Doctor more completely. “Did he attack you?”