“They’re breaking off.”
Audrey blinked. “They’re giving up on us?”
“There may be a reason for that. We received a comms back when this all started. After receiving it, I triggered the emergency thrust to try and get away from whatever’s ensnared us.”
Audrey shook her head. “You knew we’d been captured?”
“I didn’t know anything, but I had reason to believe that whatever’s out there, it might be trying to dock with us. It turns out I was right, but it was already too late.”
“What did the message say?”
A dialog popped up before her eyes, requesting to transfer the current conversation to her ARCs and neural link so that the rest of the crew wouldn’t overhear what was said. She accepted the request and Admiral Urikov vanished from the main display, appearing instead on her ARCs.
“Listen for yourself,” he replied. “Be advised, this transmission is restricted to only the highest levels of clearance.”
Audrey nodded and listened as a hum of comm interference started up inside her head, followed by a human voice.
“My name is Captain White. Some of you will remember me as the Captain of the Intrepid, a mission we sent to Wolf 1061 more than a century ago. What we discovered there was beyond our wildest dreams. We are not alone in the universe, and I have returned as an ambassador. Please do not be alarmed. The ones who travel with me are here to help us. We have been invited to join their Federation, and as a gesture of good faith, they have agreed to help the colonists aboard the Liberty reach their destination in a matter of days rather than the years it would have otherwise taken. Again, please do not be alarmed. We come in peace.”
Audrey opened and shut her mouth repeatedly, gulping in air like a guppy. Words failed her.
“I need to try to explain all of this to the other section commanders,” Urikov said. “I’m going to set condition yellow while we figure out what we’re going to do.”
“What we’re going to do?!” Audrey echoed. “We need to hit them with everything we’ve got before it’s too late!”
Admiral Urikov’s eyebrows floated up. “You don’t trust the Captain’s message?”
“It might not be him, but even if it is, the last communication anyone has from the Intrepid was a threat.”
“You know about the mission?”
“It’s public knowledge, Admiral.”
“Yes, but ancient history.”
“Not anymore,” Audrey said, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “We can’t trust this. We need to break free before they take us through that wormhole. For all we know they’re taking us to their homeworld where they’re going to enslave us all. If we focus all of our firepower on those... tubes that are holding us in place, then maybe we can sever them and get out of here.”
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, an invisible starship bigger than anything we’ve ever seen or built has us skewered in a dozen different places, and they’re dragging us into a wormhole that they probably created. Not to mention, as you pointed out, they’ve somehow found a way to suspend the laws of physics in ways that we can only dream about. No, Commander—” The admiral shook his head. “—we’re not going to poke that bear. We’ve pushed our luck as it is by sounding them out with our weapons. I think the only reason they didn’t fire back at us is that our guns are too weak to do any real damage to them.”
“Then we should evacuate. If those drones you launched could escape, it means we could evacuate the crew using the shuttles they came in on.”
“The drones didn’t escape.”
“I thought you said...”
“I said they fell away behind us at a rate of more than one hundred and eighty meters per second. Soon after that they exploded on an invisible wall a few klicks aft of our position. The previously open ends of the ship that surrounds us are now shut, and we suspect that’s the reason we’ve lost comms contact with the fleet.”
“What about sensors?”
“Their EM cloak is just as effective from the inside as the out. It’s passing visible light straight through, so we can still see what’s happening around us.”
“Then we should be able to receive radio waves, too.”
“Unfortunately that’s not the case.”
“Maybe they don’t want it to be the case, and they’ve purposely cut us off.”
Admiral Urikov inclined his head to her. “It’s certainly a possibility.”
Audrey blinked. “What are we going to do?”
“Right now we’re going to stay calm and keep this quiet. We do not need anyone else finding out about this.”
“Ma’am—I’m sorry to interrupt...” Lieutenant Fields began.
Audrey glanced over at his station. “What is it, Fields?”
“We’ve just entered the wormhole.”
Audrey grimaced. “Thank you, Lieutenant, please keep me posted.”
Admiral Urikov shook his head. We wanted to travel between the stars...”
“Not like this,” Audrey replied, using her neural link again.
“No, not like this.”
“If you want me to keep this quiet, we need a cover story,” Audrey added. “People are going to ask what the General Quarters was about. What do I tell them? We can’t say it was a drill when we have multiple hull breaches.”
“No... no, we can’t,” the admiral replied while stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Governor Chong and I will come up with something.”
Audrey nodded. “What if rumors about what actually happened start to surface?”
“Who would believe them? I barely believe it, and I witnessed the whole thing.
“Maybe we should just tell people the truth.”
“And have a full-scale riot when people realize that aliens have taken us hostage and they’re dragging us off to their homeworld for some sinister purpose?” The admiral shook his head.
Audrey gulped, and he went on, “Best to keep people in the dark for now. Wish me luck. I have another five conversations like this one to get through with the other section commanders before I can get back to figuring out what the hell is going on.”
“Good luck, sir,” Audrey replied as the admiral’s face faded from the screen.
Back was the view from their bow cameras. It showed them plummeting down the throat of a wormhole, the starfield warped around them in a vaguely spherical shape. Audrey stared at a dim knot of stars in the center of the holoscreen, wondering if they were shining out from the other side of the wormhole, and if so, where that other side was.
She shook her head slowly. What the hell is going on?
PART 2 - CONTAGION
“Disease often comes with a smiling face.”
—Dejan Stojanovic
CHAPTER 8
Alexander heard the overhead speakers crackle with, “Set condition yellow throughout the ship. Repeat, set condition yellow throughout the ship. All hands please remain seated with your restraints securely fastened.”
“What’s that mean?” Catalina whispered.
Alexander turned to her. Both Benjamin and the young girl sitting beside him were also waiting for his answer.
“It means the danger’s passing,” he said.
“What was it?” the little girl asked.
Alexander shook his head. “Hopefully they’ll tell us soon.”
They passed the next ten minutes without speaking, their hearts beating against the silence. Then came another announcement.
“This is Governor Chong. By now you all know that we came under attack. The danger has passed, but our engines and comms were damaged. Unfortunately, I am told that the repairs will take some time. The attack appears to have come from a rogue android fleet. Our hull was breached in Sections One, Six, and Eight with what we fear may have been biological weapons. The threat is contained, but as a precaution all sections have been quarantined from one another until further notice, and as suc
h, we will not be taking on any more shuttles, nor will any be allowed to leave this ship.”
Alexander heard a rumble of discontent come shivering through the doors to the auditorium.
As if the governor had anticipated the effect her words would have, she added, “Please remain calm. As I said, the danger has passed, and any pathogens contained. The quarantine is just a precaution. This is only a brief hiccup along the way to our destiny in the stars, and I’m sure it will all be resolved soon.
“With that said, I am setting condition green throughout the ship, and you may all now leave your emergency stations and go about your business. If you’re not sure what that business is, or if you have any further questions, please speak to your section prefects. Have a good rest of the day everyone. Governor Chong out.”
Alexander unbuckled from his emergency station and rose to his feet. The chair he’d been seated on folded automatically back against the wall. Catalina got up, too, followed by Benjamin and finally the girl beside him.
Catalina walked up to her. “What’s your name?”
“Jessica,” she replied.
“Do you need help finding your family?”
She shook her head, sending curly brown hair bobbing over her shoulders.
“Well, I think I’d feel better if we took you back to them.”
“Okay,” Jessica said, as Catalina took her hand and led her toward the doors of the auditorium.
Alexander studied Ben, and hesitated, thinking about the boy’s mother lying dead on the stairs. He might need to see her at some point, but not like that. “We’ll wait here for you,” he decided.
Catalina glanced his way and nodded her agreement. The doors swished open and they breezed through into a noisy, chaotic mess of people getting organized in the wake of the governor’s announcement.
As the door slid shut behind them, Ben spoke up. “I want my mom.”
Alexander saw tears glistening in Ben’s eyes. The shock was wearing off, reality setting in. He went down on his haunches and grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “I know, kid,” he said. “She’s... she’s in a better place,” he decided, without really believing it.
Ben sniffled and wiped his eyes on the sleeves of his jumpsuit. Looking up at Alexander with shining brown eyes, he said, “That means this place is a worser one.”
Good point. “Do you have any other family on board?”
Benjamin shook his head. “Uncle Tom, but he was assigned to Section Ten.”
“Okay. Well, Section Ten hasn’t arrived yet, and with the quarantine, it might be a little while before he gets here, so that means you’re with us for now. That okay with you?”
Benjamin nodded.
Alexander summoned a grim smile. “Don’t worry. You’re with the lion now, kid. Better start working on your roar. Let’s hear it.”
Benjamin just stared blankly back at him. Not in the mood for joking around. Fair enough. He gave Benjamin’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll take good care of you, kid.”
* * *
Remo was still inside his cockpit when he heard Governor Chong’s speech, so no one was around to hear him call bullshit. He’d been just about to start shouting that from the rooftops when a priority one memo came over his comms, text only.
**Top secret**
Do not discuss or share any first or second-hand information which might seem to contradict the governor’s announcement. Spreading rumors will lead to immediate court-martial.
End of message.
“Everybody loves a good cover-up....” Remo grumbled.
Feeling his weight pressing uncomfortably against his flight harness, he swung his legs down and planted his feet on the front wall of his G-tank to take the weight off while he unbuckled. The harness auto-retracted to the walls and he reached over his head for the bottom rung of the ladder leading back up the drop tube behind his Phantom IV’s ball-shaped cockpit.
Remo looked up to see that the hatch in the back of the cockpit already lay open in anticipation of his exit, revealing a long, brightly-lit tunnel disappearing endlessly above his head. In this case, endless meant the entire length of the ship’s radius from the rings to the core—a distance of some six hundred meters. Recessed rungs marked notches in the walls of the tube, while color-coded circles between some of those rungs marked hatches leading to the ship’s various decks. The nearest hatch was military red—the hangar—followed by white—the Command Deck.
Remo hauled himself up out of his G-tank and began to climb. His exposed skin itched with sticky residues from the ICE inside the tank, but a shower would have to wait. He had more urgent business to attend to.
As he reached the glowing white hatch leading to the command deck, he had to resist the urge to open it and go demand some answers from Commander Johnson.
Pointless. If his part in things was classified, then hers had to be, too, and whatever information she and the rest of CIC might be privy to, they wouldn’t be allowed to share it.
After climbing past eight color-coded hatches, Remo finally stopped at the second-to-last hatch in sight, marked by a sapphire-blue circle—Med/Sci. He hoped by now Deedee would be awake and ready to receive visitors. Climbing out through the hatch, he made his way to the reception area for patients.
As soon as he arrived, he asked about Deedee. The receptionist told him she had just come out of surgery and wasn’t awake yet, so he took a seat in the visitors’ lobby and waited. Half an hour passed before a nurse came and led him to Deedee’s room.
Remo found her lying in bed with both her arms elevated above the bed in bulky casts.
“Hey, you,” Remo said as he walked up beside her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“How do you think?” she asked.
The nurse left them with a tight smile, and the door slid shut behind her.
“Right, stupid question. You in any pain?”
“They’ve got me high on meds, so no, not yet, but my nose itches like hell. I’ve been trying to scratch it with my tongue. No luck as yet.”
Remo gave a crooked smile. “How’s your head?”
“Concussed, but no permanent damage.”
“That’s good,” Remo said, looking around the room.
“What did I miss?” Deedee asked.
“Didn’t you hear the Governor’s speech?”
“No, but a nurse filled me in—rogue rebel androids, bio-weapons, and a ship-wide quarantine. Crazy. You manage to bag a few bots for me?”
Remo shook his head. “We never got clearance to launch.” He looked around her room as if to take in his surroundings. There was a holoscreen at the foot of her bed, a visitor’s chair mag-bolted to the deck in one corner, and a bunch of medical equipment clustered around her bed, all beeping rhythmically in time to her vital signs. He also managed to glimpse the glassy black eye of a security camera watching them from the ceiling.
“Seems pretty cozy here,” he said. “Do they allow visitors to spend the night?”
Deedee fixed him with a dry look. “You can’t stop thinking about sex for one second, can you?”
He grinned. “Want to know what I’m thinking about right now?”
“Not particularly.”
Grinning lasciviously, he leaned in close and whispered beside her ear. “Act like I’m saying something dirty and listen up: the governor is full of shit. A giant invisible starship somehow encapsulated ours. Our weapons have had no effect on it, and they’ve breached our hull in multiple sections with some kind of boarding tubes. The quarantine is in place to keep whatever’s on board that ship from getting aboard ours. This is all classified, so best keep it that way or I’ll be facing a court-martial.”
“Fuck me...” Deedee gasped.
He leaned away and shook his head, grinning once more. “Wish I could, darling, but that’ll have to wait until you’re better.”
CHAPTER 9
Councilor Markov stormed into the CIC, dragging a pair of Marine corporals, one hanging off each of his in
humanly strong prosthetic arms. “What’s going on here, Commander?”
“You can’t be in here, sir!” one of the corporals said through gritted teeth.
“The hell I can’t! Commander! Call off your dogs before I have to put them down.”
Audrey turned to look. “It’s okay, Corporal. Clearance codes just came through. The councilor is cleared to be in here again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the Marines said as they let the Councilor go and marched back to their guard positions outside the doors.
“Well?” Markov demanded, stopping beside her chair.
Audrey got up and nodded to the main display where a funnel-shaped wireframe had been overlaid on the starfield ahead of them.
“What am I looking at?”
“The wormhole we’re traveling down.”
“The what?”
Audrey summarized recent events, but omitted the part about the transmission from Captain White. She used the tactical map to show Markov the cylindrical shape of the vanishing points they’d mapped around the Liberty, as well as the long, skinny boarding tube that had punctured their hull in Section Eight.
“So the Governor’s announcement was a lie,” the councilor said, his eyebrows beetling like a pair of black caterpillars.
“We have tens of thousands of civilians on board,” Audrey explained. “We have to avoid inciting a panic for as long as we can.”
The councilor nodded. “Okay, so now what? We’ve been captured by a mystery ship and they’re dragging us through a wormhole to parts unknown.”
Audrey nodded. “Our only saving grace so far is that they haven’t made any aggressive moves toward us.”
“Taking us hostage isn’t aggressive?”
Audrey was about to reply when something changed on the main holo display. The section of space ahead of them abruptly vanished, replaced by a blank black screen.
“Engineering, report! What happened to the main holo display?”
“It... it’s still working, ma’am.”
“Then where are the stars?”
“I might have an answer,” Fields said from sensors. “I’m detecting eight tube-shaped anomalies protruding from our hull. Each one corresponds to one of our hull breaches, and they appear to connect to equidistant points along the inside of another anomaly—one that’s cylindrically shaped.”
New Frontiers- The Complete Series Page 73
