Blood and Fire (10 page)

“The issue isn't contamination any more,” said Williger. “I think we have to assume the whole ship is contaminated. The real issue is whether or not we can rescue anybody. And until we know the nature of the contamination and how to protect against it—if it is indeed dangerous, which so far we haven't seen—then it's premature to worry about rescue. Our first priority here has to be speed—finding out what we're dealing with.”

“In other words,” said Korie, “you're voting for throwing out half the procedure book?”

“Yes,” said Williger without hesitation. “I am. We tried caution. It didn't work. Now let's go for expedience. I vote for cutting the hatch.”

“Captain?” Korie asked.

“As I said, Mr. Korie, it has to be your decision.”

“I understand that. I just want to hear what everyone else thinks. Brik?”

Brik's answer was curt. “Cut it.”

Korie allowed himself a smile. “Couldn't you have said that in fewer words?”

“Cut,” said Brik.

Korie wasn't sure if Brik had understood that he was joking or if his reply was dead serious. Never mind. He had a consensus. He turned to Easton. “Open it up.”

It didn't take long to cut the hatch open.

The team stepped back out of the way and Easton used his rifle to slice away the entire hatch frame. The cutting beam dazzled and flared. Their helmet filters blocked the brightest spikes of light and their starsuits reflected the heat, but occasional small flaming drops of polycarbonite impurities went spattering away in all directions and nobody wanted to risk a burn-hole from standing too close.

The twinkling wavicles danced away from the cutting beam, but there were more of them here suddenly, drawn by the heat and energy of the process and simultaneously repelled by the intensity of it.

Finally, the hatch and the frame around it fell away with a dull clatter on the deck; it sizzled where it fell and wisps of smoke rose up from the hole in the bulkhead as well as from the ragged and blackened edges of the fallen piece. Smoldering embers sputtered and crackled on all the cut edges.

“We're through,” Korie noted dryly. Of course, they would have already seen that on the Bridge of the
Star Wolf
; they were monitoring everything—but the log required that the onsite personnel acknowledge every step of procedure. It was a requirement—in case a postmortem became necessary.

Bach unclipped a fire-extinguisher hose from the wall. She pointed the nozzle at the smoldering hatch and released a plume of cold steam. The twinkling wavicles in the path of the industrial mist flickered out abruptly.

Despite his suit insulation, Korie felt abruptly cold. Bach played the spray all over the hole in the bulkhead several times and then stepped in closer and sprayed the fallen hatch as well. Satisfied, she switched off the stream and stepped back to the bulkhead to secure the hose. As the air cleared, the sparkling wavicles came dancing back brightly.

Korie nodded to Shibano, directing him through the hole first. He held his rifle before him, tracking from side to side in quick covering movements—very professional. Easton followed, and a moment later signaled back, “It looks clear in here, sir.”

“I'm coming through,” said Korie, and followed. Bach, Berryman and
Hodel came after him. The mission team proceeded aftward with cold military precision, each one stepping into the footsteps of the one ahead, each one covering every access panel, every hatch, every ladder, every step of the way.

“Any data yet on the wavicles?” Korie asked.

“HARLIE's still processing,” Williger said bluntly, cutting off all further discussion. “When we have something, we'll tell you.”

She knows
, Korie thought. Something was gnawing at the base of his memory, a half-forgotten story about ... something or other. Something red. Something deadly. But, these twinkling lights—they were more like something out of a fairy tale than anything else.

Korie didn't answer.

From here, it was only a few short steps to the access ladder to the Fire Control Bay. Shibano followed Korie and Hodel up through the bay, forward a few steps and up again onto the Operations Deck, the command center of the
Norway
. The view from his helmet camera filled the forward display on the Bridge of the
Star Wolf
, where Parsons, Brik, Tor and Williger watched with grim expressions.

Korie climbed up to the starship's Ops Deck and immediately turned to look up and behind. The Command Deck was unoccupied. Vacant. Empty. That was possibly the most disturbing thing they could find.

He turned around slowly, surveying the rest of the
Norway
's Bridge. Like the
Star Wolf
Bridge, it was a narrow chamber, arranged around a lowered center—the Ops Deck. To the rear was the Command Deck, raised up like a mezzanine, directly over the half-submerged Fire Control Bay. The empty captain's chair sat in the middle of the Command Deck, flanked by two other seats. There were raised workstations along each bulkhead and forward was a wall-sized display. Almost identical—but the fittings were different, and so was the interior color scheme. Captains were allowed some leeway in how they outfitted their ships. Most chose to use their planetary colors. The
Norway
had muted stripes of red and blue, highlighted with occasional bands of white.

Shibano edged past Korie, moving toward the Helm station at the forward-most part of the Ops Deck, stopping suddenly in surprise and dismay. “Sir—!”

Korie stepped forward, so did Hodel—and coming up behind them, Easton, Berryman and Bach. Their various helmet cameras sent back a multiplicity of images—all were horrific.

Sprawled half out of his seat, half on the floor, as if he'd fallen while trying to get up, was the desiccated body of a man.

The uniform was ripped and torn. The body was disfigured—mummified. Blackened with dried blood. Frozen in a position of horror—or agony. His skin was stretched and sunken—mostly pale, almost white, but discolored everywhere with darker patches of bluish purple and black. The eyes bulged. The hands clenched. This had not been an easy death.

“Look,” said Hodel, waving his rifle.

Everywhere, there were tiny lines in the body—they looked at first like wrinkles, but they weren't; they were slits in the skin, as if it had been stretched to the point of shredding. The body looked like something horribly alien—and at the same time, frighteningly human.

Shibano backed away quickly, bumping into Berryman who was stepping in to see. From behind, Berryman put his hands on Shibano's shoulders and moved the Weapons Control Officer firmly sideways.

Berryman's demeanor was strong and professional, as if he'd seen things a thousand times worse than this. He hadn't, but his curiosity about the circumstances of the man's death outweighed his personal feelings of revulsion. He was already unclipping a poly-scanner from his toolbelt. He pointed it at the body—and hesitated.

He looked to Korie, holding up the scanner. “Is this all right?”

Korie looked from the scanner to the body. “I don't think he'll complain. Go ahead.”

“Wait,” said Berryman. “Let me get pictures first.
Star Wolf
, are you copying?”

“Affirmative,” came Williger's voice—oddly strangled.

“Poor bastard,” Hodel murmured.

“Now we know who sent the distress signal,” Bach said.

“If it was him,” Korie remarked, “then where are all the others? And if it wasn't him, then why didn't the others respond to our signal?”

“Ready to scan,” Berryman said.

Korie motioned everyone back. He wasn't sure why. It just felt like the right thing to do. Even Berryman moved back and recalibrated his scanner. He pointed it at the body of the dead crewman and touched the green button.

For a moment ... nothing happened. Then—

—the corpse began to jerk. Writhe. Shake. It shuddered and twitched and wrenched itself momentarily upright, snapping its arms and legs as if suddenly possessed—

All of them stepped back again, involuntarily, as if the dead man had come back to life and was about to leap for them. Gasps of surprise came from Hodel and Easton.

Then the body came apart. Fragmenting, breaking into dusty pieces. But not yet falling. Twinkles of light came exploding out of the broken joints, the tattered skin, the myriad breaks in the flesh—all the sparkles came pouring out in all directions, like a miniature nova—

And then the corpse did collapse—what was left of it crumbled to the deck, shattering into more sparkling dust.

“My God,” said Bach. “What is it? What happened here?”

“The wavicles ...?”

“We don't know,” Korie said. “Let's not speculate. What we've seen is demonstration enough.” He turned to Berryman. “What kind of readings did you get?”

Berryman shrugged. “Mostly noise. Mostly garbage.” He pointed to the readout panel on his suit arm. “That thing was mummified. This shows no blood, no liquid of any kind—as if it were all drained out.”

“Vampires.
Space
vampires ...” said Hodel ominously.

“Don't be stupid,” Berryman snapped at him. “Nobody believes in that crap—”

“Stay on purpose,” interrupted Korie. He turned to the helmsman. “Mikhail, there are times when you are very funny. This isn't one of them.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Turning, Korie noticed that Shibano was still focused on the crumbling remains of the dead man—horrified. Shibano's culture had some very strong feelings about death. Despite his ferocity at the weapons board, Wasabe had obviously never seen death up close. Now, he was paralyzed. Korie turned him gently away. “Wasabe? Shibano! Go. Download the log—now.”

Shibano nodded, dumbly. “Aye, sir.” He stepped over to the communications console—and stopped. “Mr. Korie?”

Korie turned—and saw for the first time that the console was disabled, destroyed; it was almost cut in half. The panels were scorched and charred.

“Over here, too,” called Hodel. The helm console was similarly disabled. Slashed by fire.

“All the work stations are out,” said Bach. “Stinger beams.”

Korie stepped from one console to the next, confirming what he already knew. He stepped up onto starboard deck. All the workstations here were cut to ribbons. Dead and useless. On the opposite side of the Bridge, he could see the same degree of damage.

The
Norway
had been
deliberately
disabled.

“Mr. Korie?” Captain Parsons' voice rang in his ear. “Have all the workstations been destroyed? Confirm please.”

“That
is
correct,” Korie said. “The Bridge of the
Norway
has been ...” Korie searched for the right phrase, “... dismantled by the aggressive
application of stinger beams. This ship isn't going anywhere. Someone wanted her to die—” He looked over to see Bach picking up a weapon. She held it high for him to see. She inclined her head toward the corpse, what was left of it. Korie acknowledged her with a nod of his own. “—probably the poor bastard we found at the Astrogation console.”

Korie lowered his voice. “My guess is that he wanted this ship unable to break orbit, so she'd be destroyed when she passed through the flames of the red star. Probably he didn't want to risk any other ship being infected. That means, somebody
else
sent the distress signal. Either after he did this—or before. One motivated the other. There must have been considerable panic aboard this starship.”

Parsons didn't answer immediately. When she did, her voice was curiously devoid of feeling. “Get the log of that ship, Korie. Now.”