“Um, why?” Ilyra asked, looking at Evelyn in confusion.
Evelyn didn’t respond as quickly as Beatrice, which was just as well.
“She thinks it could be a trap. I agree with her, for that matter. Weak signals like this are often bait,” Beatrice began explaining as the doors to the gym slid closed behind Evelyn, and she broke into a jog.
“Well, that isn’t suspicious at all,” Evelyn said dryly, suited up in her armor and eyeing the viewscreen skeptically.
The ship on the screen wasn’t much larger than the Daggerhound, at least in overall volume. It was longer and sleeker, with several weapon mounts she could see, but all of its viewports were dark, which was suspicious. Yet at the same time, the fact it hadn’t attacked them reduced the odds of it being one type of problem, in Evelyn’s opinion. It only reduced them, since the green nebula around it did give the sensors conniption fits, and there were other places ships could hide nearby.
“What do you mean? There could be people aboard who’re in trouble, right?” Moon asked, looking at the ship nervously.
“There could,” Evelyn agreed, looking at the Nebula Runner suspiciously. “However, that’s the least likely explanation, in my opinion.”
“I guessed that it could be pirates… what are you thinking?” Beatrice asked, looking at the screen in concern.
“Let me see, in order of likelihood; pirates, something horrible has infested the ship and is waiting for nice, tasty people to come aboard and feed them, ghost pirates, undead that are a variation of the second option, the ship is filled with the dead and it just drifted here, and that there are people aboard in need of rescue,” Evelyn said, ticking the options off on her fingers, then paused as most of the women in the room stared at her. “Were any of those unclear?”
“No… I’m more curious how you came up with all of them. Are you serious about those being in the order of likelihood?” Tianna asked, the elf’s eyes huge.
“She is!” Fya confirmed, grinning. “We’ve heard all sorts of stories from people in Rakal about what they’ve run into. They don’t like seeing abandoned ships, ‘cause far too often it’s a good way to get your face eaten. It’s one thing if you can see people trying to repair it, but something like this? Nah, it’s probably a death trap.”
“Which is why I’m going over alone,” Evelyn confirmed, smiling slightly. “Fya, Control, keep overwatch. Don’t shoot me but defend the ship if anything hostile occurs.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Control agreed calmly. “Preparing overwatch.”
“Alright! But if you get yourself killed again, I’m keeping you in dresses for a month before resurrecting you!” Fya said cheerfully, and Evelyn rolled her eyes.
“Thank you for the additional motivation, Fya,” Evelyn told her, waving as she headed for the door.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Vaneryth asked before she could leave.
“Sure. Just stay put and don’t do anything that could convince some space-monster to eat us,” Evelyn told her, grinning.
For some reason, she doubted that they took the joke the way she’d intended it. Maybe Evelyn was wrong, but the lack of laughter or smiles except from Fya… well, they’d get used to it, if they stayed aboard her ship.
Chapter 18
“What’d you mean about the dresses, and her getting killed again?” Moon asked after a few seconds.
“Hm? I thought she gave you an explanation of how she stopped being the empress of Peldra,” Fya replied, glancing at her curiously.
“She said she abdicated.” Moon said, frowning.
“Uh, she was overthrown.” Peldri said, frowning. “I heard a bunch about it, because my friends loved how my name was so similar to the country’s.”
“Officially, sure, but Moon is closer to right than you,” Fya replied, grinning back at Peldri. “Oh, I’m not going to tell you the whole story, she wants that kept quiet, but suffice to say that she walked into the tower with princess Vania, handed her the pistol herself, then sat down in the chair and asked her to shoot her. If that’s not an abdication, I’m not sure what is!”
“I… she what?” Star demanded, exchanging an appalled look with Moon, which was about how Moon felt. “Why would she do that?”
“When she took over, she created a massive, country-wide spell she called the Imperial Aegis. I don’t remember the particulars but think of it as a shield that could stop just about anything short of an orbital bombardment,” Fya replied, giving a dismissive wave of her hand. “Not that she needed it, mind you! Anyway, she’d set it so it’d go to whoever shot her, and she figured that would give Vania the ability to actually retake her country, or something along those lines. I don’t remember, since I wasn’t exactly there. She’d sent me away, since she was afraid I’d interfere or something. Silly of her… as if being halfway across the empire would keep me from interfering.”
Fya gave a derisive sniff at that, scowling as her eyes and hair turned black. “I knew they’d decide to hunt her down if I resurrected her immediately, and if I just left her alone, they’d bind her soul or some such thing. So I did it first. I grabbed her soul and stuffed it in my lamp, where we could interact mostly normally. Then I hitched a ride on the first ship off the rock. She was mostly upset that I loved seeing her in dresses, and that was all the clothing I gave her. After a year, I figured it’d been long enough, so I resurrected her.”
Moon stared at the woman, opening her mouth, then shutting it. It was the mention of the lamp that finally caused everything to click into place for her, though. Fya was a djinn. She’d been making dinner for a bubbly djinn for several days and hadn’t even realized it.
“Why were you helping her? I thought that djinns weren’t bound to someone after they died,” Moon asked hesitantly.
Fya just giggled, smiling broadly.
“Do I look bound to a lamp to you?” she asked, her hair and eyes shifting toward yellow. “Nope, I’m not bound by anything, I’m free! I was expecting another six hundred years bound to that lamp, granting wishes, and what happened when Evelyn found me? She took one look and didn’t even wish for anything for herself! She wished for my freedom, handed me the lamp, and walked out. I adore my Evvy, and she’s earned my loyalty. She’s going to have a long life and will always be My Lady.”
Moon opened her mouth, but then she realized she didn’t know what to say. She looked around the room, and noticed that a lot of the others looked even more stunned than she felt. Maybe because they knew more about Evelyn than she did.
“Fascinating,” Zelirana murmured, tapping her lips slowly. “I knew you were a djinn, but I didn’t realize just how powerful you are.”
“Mm, I’m a bit more powerful than you… or maybe a little more than a bit, but I’m not that powerful. And I don’t hold a candle to Milady,” Fya said, and as she spoke, she nodded toward the screen, where Evelyn had just appeared, pushing off into the space between the ships, and looking like nothing more than a black and red dot. “She could kill me, easy as that.”
Fya snapped her fingers, and Moon considered, then asked. “Is… she in danger?”
“’course she is. I’d be more worried about anything she runs into, though,” Fya replied, grinning broadly.
Moon wondered what that meant. She hadn’t seen Evelyn in combat, after all.
Vaneryth’s eyebrows furrowed, though, and Beatrice muttered. “Just lovely.”
The astral hadn’t changed much since the last time Evelyn had been in it, as she inhaled slowly, tasting the air. It tasted sweet, she decided. Sweet and cold, as the primary danger to those exposed to the astral was the temperature. Certainly, the stars that existed here could provide heat, but for the most part the dimension had an icy chill that slowly leeched the life from those who found themselves without power.
It was an odd mystical property of the astral that allowed anyone to breathe and have the appropriate pressure in its atmosphere without issue, no matter the species, which was why
a few people chose to live here. She thought they were foolish, considering how many predators there were. Even some of the supposed stars were hungry, malevolent creatures, and with how the nebula shifted on the astral winds, the landscape could shift dramatically from one month to the next, revealing new dangers… and new opportunities.
The Nebula Runner had obviously encountered the former, and Evelyn frowned as she approached, picking out a few details she hadn’t noticed before. There were signs of someone having opened access panels on the engines, which meant that maybe there was some validity to the distress call. She mentally shrugged, though, and used her implants to fire the control jets in her armor so she was more precisely aimed for the nearest airlock.
It took longer than she liked to reach the ship, of course. She’d deliberately had the Daggerhound take position at the farthest reasonable spacewalk distance, which meant it took her a good half-hour to reach the Nebula Runner. Another few bursts from her thrusters and Evelyn came in for a surprisingly gentle landing. Once she was sure she was secure, she glanced at the airlock indicators.
“Is it trying to eat you yet?” Fya asked eagerly, and Evelyn resisted the urge to sigh.
“No, it’s an airlock. A civilian airlock,” Evelyn replied, quickly reading over the instructions next to the control panel, instructions in two dozen different languages and with pictures showing how to get inside if you were locked outside. “Now shut up, Fya. I’m busy.”
“Alright, but don’t complain to me when something is trying to eat you, milady. You’re sure the ship isn’t a giant mimic?” Fya said, and Evelyn raised her gaze to the sky, counting for a few seconds in order to ensure she was patient enough.
“Fya. The last time a mimic large enough to mimic a starship was found was twenty-three years ago, near the Spine of Xinteth. This isn’t nearly sticky enough for a mimic, so leave it be,” Evelyn said, inhaled slowly, then let her breath out before adding. “Besides, if it is, I’ll just kill it.”
“Spoilsport,” Fya muttered.
Evelyn didn’t reply, instead following the instructions. The airlock paused, and she could hear the ship systems working for a few seconds, then the outer doors opened. She let herself drift through them, approaching the inner console. She reached out with her implants to activate the ship systems, then frowned.
“Odd. The ship computer is offline, yet the airlock claims it’s operating off shipboard power,” Evelyn said, considering the controls, then shrugged. “I suppose something could’ve wrecked the computer, but these sort of ships usually have secondary systems, and local ones as well.”
“Affirmative. All common civilian ship manufacturers ensure that the computer system can easily fragment into at least four segments if cut off from the primary core, with redundant power links. These are intended to assist crew and passengers in evacuations and damage control situations,” Control replied precisely. “It being entirely non-functional indicates massive failures.”
“Could it be an EMP or something like that?” Fya suggested. Evelyn noticed that both of them were a bit fuzzy now.
“No, that would’ve destroyed the airlock systems as well, forcing me to cycle it manually,” Evelyn murmured, frowning for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Ah, well. Let’s see what we find inside, shall we?”
She activated the inner airlock, then lowered her hand so that it was right next to her energy sword.
The doors opened to reveal a typical passenger ship corridor, the lights flickering slightly, but not enough to impact visibility, and Evelyn glanced around, then stepped inside, looking up as well. Too many people forgot to do that, and she wasn’t going to have some monster drop on her head. No monster was there, and Evelyn paused, listening carefully.
The faint thrum of a power core could be felt through the deck, along with the whoosh of air cyclers and a buzz from the lights, but that was it. No footsteps, no vibrations… but at the same time she didn’t catch the smell of decay. That wouldn’t necessarily be there if people were dead, since the life support system was obviously functioning, but it was concerning. There was another scent that was odd, a faint hint of… spices? Evelyn wasn’t quite sure how to describe it, but it was odd.
“I don’t see or hear anyone. No signs of combat where I am, and the lights and life support are functioning,” Evelyn said at last.
“Acknowledged. Be aware, your signal strength is rapidly falling as you progress into the ship. We may not be able to contact you if you progress much farther,” Control replied, her voice much fuzzier this time around.
“Don’t get murdered!” Fya added, and Evelyn let out a soft sigh. At least the rest of the women didn’t have access to the comm system, or she’d be really annoyed.
After a moment of thought, Evelyn shrugged, and turned toward the prow of the ship. She was certain she’d find a sign pointing her at the bridge soon enough, and if there was going to be anywhere that had information on what had happened to the Nebula Runner, that was it.
The real question was a simple one. Would whatever had happened require her to blow something up?
Chapter 19
Finding the bridge was easy enough, and the moment she stepped inside, Evelyn raised an eyebrow, looking back at the door. Here the odd scent wasn’t as strong, which concerned her, but more interesting were the handful of scorch marks on the door where someone had fired energy weapons. So was how the bridge computer core had been removed, but she barely gave that a glance before crouching down to examine the doors closely.
The scorch marks weren’t that old, Evelyn decided, examining them critically. She took pictures with her implants and tried to upload them to the Daggerhound for analysis, but almost instantly her implants came back with an error due to the connection to the ship having been lost.
With that not being possible, Evelyn debated, then decided that the blasts were likely less than a couple of weeks old. They were too stark for them to be much older. The more interesting factor was how they were all around the edges of the door, the lower part and sides especially. Evelyn opened the door and crouched down, then smiled coldly.
“What have we here?” Evelyn murmured, looking down at the edge of the door.
Just inside the trough it slid through she saw black residue on the sides and bottom, causing Evelyn to look closer, running a finger over it, then raising it to take a sniff. The spice-like smell was stronger now, and coupled with the oily, viscous residue that wasn’t unlike drying oil, Evelyn put the pieces together.
“Darkborn ooze. Has to be. Those poor bastards,” Evelyn said, shaking her head slowly. “Nebula Runner, is it… they must’ve ducked through a nebula for the sights and caught a chunk by accident. And once it was aboard… no one had the weapons to kill it.”
She’d heard about the oozes from a few of the pirates while she was on Rakal. They hated them, since the creatures were not only intelligent, they also consumed biological material to grow larger. The pirates had talked about how one of the creatures had taken over a pirate ship and used it to spread to half a dozen other vessels before the fleet had realized what was happening. They’d been forced to destroy the ships to make sure all of it was destroyed.
The logical approach would be to leave the ship and destroy it, but Evelyn wasn’t about to do that. No, she had another thought, based on those conversations. While intelligent, the oozes couldn’t necessarily repair their ships, so they’d kept a few engineers alive. They’d threatened them into collaborating, at least until the ships had been disabled and they knew they wouldn’t be allowed to escape. If the engines were disabled, most likely the crew had done that deliberately. And if that was the case, there might, just might, be a few people that the creature was keeping alive in the hopes of repairing the ship. If they were brave enough to destroy their own engines, Evelyn wasn’t about to kill them along with the ooze.
“It’d be an entirely different story if this ship was mobile. Good thing I had mine stay where it is,” Evelyn said, smiling mi
rthlessly as she straightened. First, she needed to do something else, though.
Finding Nebula Runner’s black box wasn’t hard, as it was part of the bridge. Fortunately, the ooze hadn’t removed it, or even tampered with it, since Evelyn had to undo the seals around the heavily armored device, and she nodded in satisfaction, securing it to her belt. That would be useful to prove her story if she chose to explain what had happened, and she probably would. She didn’t want anyone else’s parents to vanish without a trace.
“Alright. Time to find an ooze to kill,” Evelyn said, a smile playing across her lips. She was somewhat looking forward to blowing up some terrible monster. Sure, she’d been able to maul a whole crew of mercenaries, but sometimes there was something satisfying about annihilating something that thoroughly deserved it.
She set her implants to automatically ping the Daggerhound, and anyone aboard the Nebula Runner for that matter, every twenty seconds. If she had the chance to warn the others she would, but they should be fine. As long as she made certain to aim toward the stern or bow of the ship, they wouldn’t be in danger.
The most logical place for the ooze to be was the engine room, and Evelyn was sure she knew where that would be. It was rare that engineering wasn’t at least partly in the rear of a ship, particularly in a passenger ship like this one. Which meant she was going to go through the crew spaces, which she didn’t have the keys for. She could hack them, like she had the bridge, but Evelyn had a better solution.
Most people would have been unnerved to be moving through an empty ship with no idea what they were going to encounter next, Evelyn admitted to herself. They weren’t her. She was humming softly, a bright, jaunty tune she remembered from when she was growing up. She moved down the halls, her energy sword in one hand, until she got to the first door that likely led toward engineering. As she’d expected, it was locked… so she kicked it. Hard.
Chosen of Chaos (Eve of Destruction Book 1) Page 12
