Avalon

CHAPTER 09

“HOW’S ANYBODY STILL ALIVE ON THAT THING AFTER ALL this time?” said Shady.

“Got to be some mistake in the scan,” said Flynn, his pointed face pinched with worry.

“No, it’s not,” said Lizzie. Her fingers moved over the control panel in front of her as she examined the results. “The ship still has twelve percent power. Looks like nav and comms are offline, but life support is at seven percent. The gravity drive is fully functioning and cabin pressure is normal.”

Jeth exhaled at this news. Normal cabin pressure meant that whenever that hole had been made, the Donerail had had enough power to lock down the bulkheads surrounding the affected area and maintain hull integrity. If any of the crew or passengers had been near that area when the hole was made they would’ve been blown out to space, but the people elsewhere would’ve been fine.

“With reads that consistent, the scan must be accurate,” Lizzie concluded.

Three people still alive. Jeth cleared his throat. “Hammer’s intel must’ve been wrong.”

“So, what do we do next?” said Milton.

Lizzie gaped at him. “What do you mean? We go over there and rescue them, of course.”

“It’s not that simple, Liz,” Jeth said, running his hands through his hair.

“How do you figure?” She waved at the front window. “They’ve got to be starving. And with life support that low the air will be more than a little toxic. Not to mention wicked cold.”

“But Hammer insisted we’re not to board,” said Shady. “Job stipulation.”

Lizzie scowled at him. “Hammer didn’t think there would be survivors. The rules have gone out the window. Besides, people’s lives are more important than some stupid paycheck.”

“It’s not just the paycheck,” Jeth said. It’s Avalon.

“Right,” Shady continued. “It’s our asses too, if we ignore what Hammer said.”

“The complication,” Milton said, “is the weapon that ship is supposed to have on it. Isn’t that right, Jeth?”

Jeth nodded and sat up straighter. “Lizzie, run a scan for radiation levels and any possible biohazards.” If the scan came back with the results he expected, then those three people over there were dead already. Time just hadn’t caught up with them yet.

Lizzie sniffed but did as he asked.

Only the scan came back negative. For everything.

Jeth read the results four times, his mind refusing to believe it.

“The scan might be faulty,” said Flynn. “This is the Belgrave.”

“It’s not faulty.” Lizzie stood up, turning a fiery gaze on Jeth. “We have to go over there and rescue them.”

Shady crossed his arms. “How many times do we have to say it, little girl? Hammer told us not to board.”

“Hammer doesn’t have to know,” said Lizzie.

Shady made a sound like a growl. “He will, though. He’s got his ways. Like the time he found out I took that tiara on the Feria job.”

Celeste snorted. “That’s only because you went around wearing the stupid thing afterward.”

Jeth was tempted to point out that hiding a stolen tiara was a lot less complicated than hiding three strangers, assuming they brought them on board Avalon.

Lizzie turned an expectant gaze on him. “Come on, Jeth.”

Jeth sighed. His sister—savior of strays and the stranded. He knew he should feel the same, but dread kept getting in the way. And it wasn’t just because of the risk of breaking the deal with Hammer or the possibility that the scan was wrong about the radiation and toxin levels.

No, he dreaded going over there because there had to have been a lot more than three people on the Donerail when it went missing. What had the survivors done with the dead bodies? Were they just lying about? He doubted the hole had taken care of most of them. Maybe those survivors had gotten desperate during all that time adrift and done something else with the bodies.

Shuddering, Jeth forced the thought away before he lost his breakfast.

“Well, Captain?” said Shady. “What do we do?”

Jeth took a deep breath, wishing he didn’t have to make the decision. He wanted to be selfish and cowardly and just leave those people where they were. It would be so easy to moor the Donerail to Avalon and tow it out. The Donerail’s passengers had survived this long. They might make it a little longer.

But no, he couldn’t do that. He refused to take the coward’s route. This was just the starving man all over again. Only this time, Jeth wouldn’t be too late to act.

“We check it out. Just me and Shady. Everybody else stays here.”

Both Celeste and Lizzie objected to the arrangement. Flynn looked relieved and Shady nervous.

Jeth shook his head at the girls. “There’s no point arguing. If there are people over there, they might be dangerous. And if there aren’t, well, two of us are more likely to get away with exploring the ship without leaving behind any evidence than four.”

Celeste folded her arms across her chest. “Since when are you two the graceful, careful ones around here?”

“We can be graceful,” Jeth said, glancing at Shady and trying not to picture how stupid he’d looked wearing that sparkling, diamond-encrusted tiara around like some kind of ugly fairy tale princess. “Besides, we’ve definitely got better aim.”

“Yeah, and we’re braver,” said Shady, even though he’d never looked more terrified.

Lizzie opened her mouth to protest, but Jeth cut her off with an upraised hand. “No time to argue. I’m pulling rank.” He turned to Shady and said, “Get your guns and meet me at the airlock.”

Shady exhaled, looking marginally better at the idea of guns. “You got it, Captain.”

Jeth turned back to the girls. “Celeste, go ahead and line us up for hauling. Lizzie, you go with her in case she needs help overriding the airlock. Shady and I will hook up the towlines first and then go in.”

Celeste and Lizzie nodded, and Jeth left the bridge. He entered his cabin, opened the hidden cabinet beneath his bunk, and pulled out his Triton 9. Its silver plating glistened in the soft light overhead. Everything he knew about shooting he’d learned from his father, but the Triton was the first gun he’d purchased for himself.

Jeth slid the Triton into a holster hung from the end of his bed, then grabbed two extra clips and shoved one in each front pocket. He slung the holster over his shoulder and headed down to the cargo bay.

Shady was already there, pulling on a space suit. Flynn was helping him, while Milton stood nearby, watching.

As Jeth started suiting up, Milton came over and helped him with the fastenings. “Be careful over there,” he said. “Keep your helmet on. If Avalon’s scans were wrong after all, the suit should protect you.”

“Okay,” Jeth said, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. He didn’t care for Milton’s use of the word “should.” He took a deep inhale, slid on the helmet, and double-checked the seal.

Then Jeth buckled his gun holster around his hips and stomped over to Shady, the space suit heavy and awkward. “Can you hear me?” he asked, testing the helmet’s proximity mike.

“Gotcha,” Shady replied, his voice echoing inside Jeth’s helmet.

Jeth nodded as he pressed one of the switches on the side of the helmet, opening the link to Avalon’s main comm line. “You getting us, Celeste?”

“Yep,” Celeste said from the bridge. “It looks like all three survivors are in the same place, rear and starboard. The cargo bay, according to this Marlin schematic. Assuming it’s accurate, the nearest hatch from the tow ports should be right behind the two crow guns up top. It’ll lead you to the passenger deck.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Jeth and Shady entered the airlock together while Milton sealed the door behind them. Jeth approached the hatch leading to the outside, deactivated the gravity drive, and slid the hatch open, his body now weightless in the zero-g. He grasped the safety rail outside the door and peered over the edge, allowing himself one thrilling, terrifying look at the nothingness of space surrounding them. Then he focused on the Donerail in the distance. The hole in its bow looked even more ominous from here.

Jeth glanced at Shady. “You ready?” Shady answered with a thumbs-up.

Here we go, Jeth thought. Following the rail, he pulled himself outside the ship to where one of the two towline mechanisms sat inside a compartment just beyond the door. He opened the compartment, grasped the small propulsion unit that made up the head of the towline, and yanked it out. Then he pointed the unit toward the Donerail and switched it on. The engine jerked him forward, pulling him over to the other ship in seconds.

Jeth grabbed onto the railing that ran along the front of the Donerail a couple of meters below the bridge window and switched the engine off. Then he moved left, following the rail as it led him to the Donerail’s starboard tow port. To his right, Shady was doing the same with the other towline.

As soon as Jeth attached the towline’s unit into the port, he heard Celeste’s voice. “Okay, Avalon’s establishing a connection to the Donerail’s network now. . . . All right, connection’s a go. Lizzie should be able to override the locks on the hatch. Just give us a minute.”

While Lizzie worked, Jeth and Shady met back in the middle and then climbed their way up and over the bridge to the crow guns and the hatch just beyond them. When Celeste gave them the go-ahead a few moments later, Jeth pulled the hatch open and slipped inside. Shady followed after him, sealing the door shut behind them. Gravity activated inside the hatch automatically.

Jeth stooped and pulled up on the handle of the door to the corridor below. The light on his helmet barely penetrated the inky blackness, and even through the space suit, he could tell how cold it was down there, almost as cold as it had been outside the ship.

Looks like a big black mouth.

Pushing the image away, Jeth dropped through the hatch, trying to land as softly as possible, without much success. Shady’s descent was even louder. Jeth winced and pulled the Triton from the holster around his hips. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the dimness of the emergency lighting that had come on the moment it detected movement.

In a second his pulse doubled, until his heart felt like a fist pounding against his breastbone. Something was wrong. Something terrible had happened here. Parts of the corridor were missing. Not blown away or damaged but missing, holes carved in the walls as neatly as the one in the ship’s front. Some of the holes were small, hardly big enough for Lizzie’s cat to fit through, while others were large enough for Jeth and Shady to pass through side by side.

The nearest of the bigger holes was a few meters down and to the right. It was cut at an angle through the corridor wall into a passenger cabin and also downward into what was probably the common room or maybe sick bay. Jeth stared at the exposed cross section into the ship’s innards, taking in the shorn ends of wires and ductwork. Everything had been sliced off so precisely that the edges looked smooth and sharp enough to cut skin. An odd, fuzzy sensation filled his head, as if the receiver in his brain were out of tune, unable to process the images his eyes were sending to it.

“What the hell happened here?” Shady asked.

Jeth jumped at the loud sound of his voice, amplified by the mike. He shot a glare at Shady. “Keep quiet. We don’t want anybody to know we’re here until we’re ready.”

“Oh. Right.”

Jeth shook his head, trying to get his heart rate back into the normal range. Orienting himself toward the rear of the ship, he moved on, steering clear of the hole in the floor. He wondered if the weapon Hammer was after had survived all this damage. Or maybe it had caused it.

A few of the cabin doors were still intact and closed, and as Jeth reached one of them, curiosity got the best of him, and he slid it open.

The door to the cabin might have been fine, but the inside of the room contained more of the same destruction. A hole had been cut through the bed. Only the bed wasn’t empty. Or at least it hadn’t been whenever that hole had been made.

Something harsh and slithery seemed to crawl up Jeth’s throat at the gruesome sight before him. The head, arms, and legs of a man still lay on what remained of the bed, but the torso was missing, cut away from the body with the same precision as the rest of the hole. No blood stained the mattress, as if whatever had done the cutting had cauterized the wounds as it sliced through.

Jeth turned away, choking back vomit and terror. Shady had started to follow him inside, but Jeth pushed him back. “Trust me, you don’t want to see.”

Shady looked ready to argue, but then he backed off. Through the glass of his helmet, Jeth could see his face had gone pale.

They moved on down the corridor. Jeth led the way, but Shady followed close behind him. Jeth kept to the left, which seemed to have sustained less damage. There were holes on that side too, but most of them looked like they’d been made by ordinary bullets. That was good. Bullets, Jeth could handle. He welcomed them. Anything was better than mutilated bodies. All he wanted at the moment was to get out of there alive and in one piece, an expression that had taken on a new and ghoulish meaning.

A loud click sounded inside Jeth’s helmet, followed by Celeste’s voice. “Heads up, guys. Somebody’s moving your way.”

They both froze. Ahead of them the corridor dead-ended into two sets of stairs, one on either side.

“I’ll cover the left, you right,” Jeth said, aiming the Triton.

A hand descended on his shoulder. Jeth cursed and spun toward Shady. “What?”

Shady’s fingers on Jeth’s shoulder clenched and unclenched as he pointed his gun toward something on the right side of the wall in front of them. “What could do that, Jeth? How’d something like that happen? It’s not . . . it’s—”

“Shut up.” Jeth shook off Shady’s hand, trying to make out whatever had reduced his friend to a stutter.

A bulge protruded out from the wall. It wasn’t the wall itself bulging outward, but something lodged into the wall, grafted into it like some kind of weird art sculpture.

No, not something. Someone. That fuzzy sensation came over Jeth’s brain once more as he realized that it was a human head. The person’s face was turned sideways, exposing one opened eye, shining in the light from their helmets.

Slowly, more of the person came into focus. Above the head, one hand pointed out from on high, as if the crewman had gotten trapped inside the wall while reaching for something. The protrusion of a foot and knee marked the lower half of his body. Even though the guy was clearly dead, Jeth half expected the hands or feet to start moving or the eye to start blinking. He didn’t think the man had been dead for very long. No signs of decay marked the exposed parts.

Shady grabbed his shoulder again. “Something’s coming!”

Panic squeezed Jeth’s heart for a moment, and then his brain reengaged. Whatever had happened here was horrible, but Jeth wasn’t about to end up the same way. He focused his gaze toward the stairs once more, the Triton held tight in his hand.

A tiny figure appeared, standing only a little taller than the stair railing.

Jeth’s mouth fell open as he saw it was a little girl, maybe five or six years old. Pale, almost colorless hair hung around her shoulders, framing her round-cheeked face. She wore a space suit, one four times too large for her, but no helmet. Someone had pinned up the excess material on the arms and legs of the suit for her. Dirt smears marred the suit in places, but the girl beneath looked to be healthy. She stared at them with large, dark eyes that seemed all pupil and too little white.

This can’t be happening, Jeth thought. He’d been expecting some kind of monster to rival his worst nightmares. Not this. Not her. He ought to feel relieved, yet his fear remained firmly in place.

The girl’s gaze shifted from Jeth to the gun in his hand. Terror spread across her face, her eyes widening, exposing the whites. Then she turned and bolted back down the stairs, moving remarkably fast considering the bulky suit.

“Wait,” Jeth called, taking off after her. He hurried down the stairs, catching a brief glimpse of her as she rounded a corner. She moved impossibly fast. It was like chasing a shadow. He followed her down the corridor, then turned right onto another flight of stairs. He had to move slower than he wanted to avoid more holes, the destruction continuing onward. But at least he didn’t come across any more mutilated bodies.

At last Jeth spotted brighter lights in the distance. The next moment he came to a stop on a walkway overlooking the cargo bay. Two more figures stood among the haphazard rows of crates and containers below, the little girl between them. Both of the figures wore armored space suits and helmets, the dark visors hiding their faces. The one on the left looked as big as a mountain compared to the smaller figure on the right. Both carried guns.

The moment they spotted Jeth and Shady, they raised their weapons.

“Stop right there,” the big one shouted, the words muffled by the helmet, but still discernible.

Jeth froze at once, but Shady took a step forward, aiming his gun. Whether he hadn’t heard the man or was just ignoring him, Jeth couldn’t tell. He reached for Shady, meaning to haul him back, but it was too late.

The two strangers below opened fire.