Broken Episode One (17 page)

“Once you are done insulting me, I think I need to
check your head again,” he mumbled as he brought the scanner close
to the side of her face.

She watched him tersely, her cheeks reddening in
something that looked suspiciously like a blush and not anger.
“There is nothing wrong with my head. I just think this is a dumb
plan. We can get Klutzo to shoot us a ramp out of here. I really
don’t … want to continue any further.” She rubbed her arms as she
stared past him into the darkened hallway.

“It’s a recording device, Mim, it can’t shoot us a
ramp,” he muttered as he continued to check the scanner.

“It’s a security drone.”

One of his eyebrows arched up as he brought the
scanner closer to her head, his thumb accidentally brushing against
her soft cheek. She blinked quickly, her eyelashes gently tickling
his hand.

In fact, it was a collection of pretty distracting
sensations, so distracting it took him a moment to realize what
she’d said. “Security drone? Oh man, you really must have hit your
head too hard.”

She rolled her eyes and took a terse breath. “It’s a
security drone as well as being a recording device. I’m the
daughter of Theodore Chester, I do have to take precautions about
my safety.”

He looked at her suspiciously as he finally shifted
back. The medical scanner wasn’t picking up any sign of injury. It
was too rudimentary to be able to tell whether she was crazy
though.

“Don’t look at me like that; it’s true. Klutzo, show
Josh what you can do.” A small smile spread across Mimi’s face.

For a split second, he felt anticipation. Because,
seriously, she was right; she was the daughter of Theodore Chester,
and it was not beyond the realm of possibility that he'd souped up
her recording orb.

When Klutzo did nothing but float there, Josh shook
his head. “Stop wasting my time, Mim, we need to find a way out of
here.”

“Klutzo.” She turned to the device, waving him
forward with a quick flick of her wrist. “Come on, it’s okay. Show
the Special Commander here what you can do.” She turned back to
Josh and lifted her chin triumphantly.

Klutzo still didn’t move.

Mimi darted her eyes to the left. “What’s the matter
with you?”

“Danger. Danger,” Klutzo said as he shifted back,
appearing to shiver in the air.

A laugh had been on Josh’s lips, but now he stifled
it. As much as he wanted to dismiss the recording orb, since it had
been wiped more times than a window, there was something about its
fear he couldn’t dismiss.

“Must retreat. Must retreat.”

“Klutzo, we want to get out of here. Just make us a
ramp,” she tried.

“Can’t make noise. It will hear.”

The hair
along the back of Josh’s neck stood on end. A
lightning bolt of nerves shot down his back.
“Sorry? What will hear us?” Though he was determined to ignore
Klutzo, it didn’t stop Josh from turning his head to the left and
right as he checked the hallway carefully.

“Klutzo?” Mimi asked in a small voice that barely
carried, yet nonetheless felt like it was a foghorn.

Josh took an automatic step closer to her. “Come
on,” he tried, knowing it was now more important than ever to
continue. If, by some extraordinary stroke of bad luck, Klutzo was
right, and they were not alone down here, staying in the same place
was suicide. “Come on, Mim,” he said again as he latched a hand on
her arm, quickly realizing she was all too good at ignoring
him.

Thankfully she didn’t resist, and Josh managed to
pull her several steps down the hallway. Every beat of their
footfall sounded like a drum, one that advertised their position
more effectively than a holographic arrow pointing in their
direction.

“What do you mean we’re not alone?” Mimi turned her
head to ask Klutzo.

“Be quiet,” Josh warned her in a whisper, “and keep
moving.”

“No, we just need to convince Klutzo to help us. He
can blast us a ramp,” she began.

Josh stopped, turned on his foot so suddenly his
boot squeaked against the floor, and collapsed his hands over both
her shoulders. It was a dramatic move, and had the desired effect;
her eyes shot open and her lips closed in surprise.

“Mim, trust me,” he said simply.

There were a lot of things he could tell her in that
moment. He could remind her he was the special commander and the
only one trained enough to take the lead. He could point out he had
extensive experience dealing with creepy abandoned spaceships. He
could emphasize he had already saved her numerous times before.

But the words trust me bubbled up, and when they
were out, they had a curious effect.

Her expression softened. Digging her teeth into her
lips, she nodded. “But he really is a security drone,” she
added.

“Of course he is,” Josh said dismissively as he let
go of her shoulders and grabbed up one of her hands instead.

Before he could pull her forward, something curious
happened. Klutzo darted backwards. With a move like a full-bodied
shudder, he turned around and shot off.

“Klutzo,” Mimi began to shout his name.

Josh slammed a hand over her mouth. Pressing his
fingers into her soft lips and feeling the warmth of her cheeks
under his palm, he whispered to "keep quiet," as he finally removed
his hand.

From fingertip to palm, his skin tingled. That
didn’t stop him from shaking his head and mouthing, “stay
quiet.”

“But
Klutzo
—”

“Is clearly malfunctioning,” Josh said in the
softest voice he could manage.

“But
—”

“Just trust me, Mim.”

Before Josh could lead her forward, Klutzo’s voice
echoed back through the hallway. “Must leave. Must leave. Attracted
to technology.”

It was the recording orb's last three words that
struck Josh like a bullet. Maybe he had misheard, or maybe Klutzo
really was malfunctioning, or just possibly, just maybe the device
was right.

Could there be something out there? Could it be
attracted to technology?

Josh may have learnt a lot as a scavenger about the
evils that can lurk in abandoned spacecraft. But he'd learnt a
thing or two as a special commander about the extraordinary dangers
that littered the Milky Way. From experimental weapons to Barbarian
traps, he could list 10 things off the top of his head that were
attracted to technology, and none of them were nice.

He didn’t have a gun, he had the daughter of the
richest man in the galaxy one step behind him, and he had no one to
rely on for backup.

He tried to swallow, but the move was so gruff it
stuck in his throat.

“Josh, what’s going on? What was Klutzo talking
about?” Mimi whispered.

“He’s malfunctioning. We just need to keep moving.
But keep quiet,” Josh added quickly. He needed to play a careful
game here; while he didn’t want to alert Mimi to just how dangerous
things were, he couldn’t allow her to act normally either.

As they continued along the darkened hallway, Josh
felt the med pack bang softly into his leg. He’d secured it against
his belt. Though it was light and designed to be of minimum
inconvenience, it felt like he was lugging around a stone. Not
because it was particularly heavy, but because of the scanner
inside.

If something out there really was attracted to
technology, then the medical device inside the med pack was surely
sophisticated enough to warrant its attention.

Josh should leave it behind or crush it under his
boot. But he wasn’t going to do that; 10 to 1 Mimi would hurt
herself again.

Not for the first time and not for the last, he
cursed this stupid situation. If he had never met Mimi, presumably
he wouldn’t be in this current predicament.

As for Mimi, however, he couldn’t say the same for
her. She appeared to be accident-prone, and he was certain that if
she hadn’t met him, she’d be dead by now. Or kidnapped. Or
worse.

When things calmed down, if they ever did, he would
have to solicit a genuine apology from her for all the times she’d
acted like a brat.

If they ever got out of here.

They continued to walk along in silence, but the
silence was incomplete. Sure, they’d stopped speaking, but every
breath, every step, every movement sounded like a trumpet. Even the
soft scattering of sand as their boots dislodged the grit trapped
in their treads sounded like an avalanche.

Josh expected the hallway to open out into rooms,
but as the minutes ticked by, he realized it was incredibly long.
Either he was wrong, and he was in some kind of building rather
than a downed ship, or this had to be one of the biggest spacecraft
he’d ever seen.

Something wasn’t right here. From the design to the
colors, even to the material, he’d never seen a ship like this.

Unbidden, from the back of his mind, a memory rose. The
Black Mass. The outlandish tale of
First Age technology the alien had told him before sending
him into the desert after Mimi.

It couldn’t be true, right? It was just a myth,
right?

Josh had
seen a few
First Age devices
in his time; the Coalition made it its business to acquire and
study all archaeological artifacts from that period. The problem
was, they didn’t all look the same. Multiple races engaged in space
travel during the First Age, so when you came across one of their
devices, you weren’t guaranteed it would have a particular
appearance. Indeed, the archaeological records were incomplete, and
there were influential theories that there was still undiscovered
races from that era.

So it
was a real but unpleasant possibility that the very ship they were
currently walking through could be from the
First Age. As wild as it sounded, it just might
be the Black Mass. Then again, it could be a Barbarian trap. Space
travel was like that; it always stuck a gun in your face every time
you thought you knew what you were doing.

They walked for a good half hour before the endless
corridor changed. Suddenly, with little warning, it opened out.
Josh was expecting a large room, maybe engineering or the crew
deck. What he got, was something else.

Something impossible.

“What the hell?” He asked in a voice that shook
uncontrollably.

Mimi took a step closer to him, banging into his
arm. She took a sharp breath that shuddered in surprise.

This … was impossible.

She had never seen anything like it. Okay, so Mimi
hadn’t travelled as much of the galaxy as she’d like, but growing
up as her father’s daughter, she had seen plenty of the Milky Way’s
wonders. From the floating islands of the Alpha moons, to the
triple suns of the Scorpion Cluster, she knew fully well that this
galaxy had its fair share of surprises.

What was before her was ....

Though they were presumably inside a spaceship and
most definitely under the desert, it looked as if she had suddenly
been transported into a forest. A massive room opened up before
her. In fact, she wasn’t even sure it was a room; she couldn’t see
the ceiling above nor the walls beyond. Instead it was as if the
hallway had abruptly ended and had somehow transported them to
another planet.

The
floor gave way to dirt and an array of dark, lustrous plants. There
were ferns and vines and shrubs. A grey-green and purple
– they were not too distinct from
the flora of Earth, though here and there some more
luminescent.

There was a strong breeze marching through the room,
and it rustled the leaves causing a low but constant whisper.

The breeze brought with it the unmistakable scent of
dirt, water, and plants.

Either she was staring at a very sophisticated
hologram, or somehow there was a veritable forest in the middle of
this ship underneath the baking sands of the planet above.

Though at first she looked to Josh to figure out
what was going on here, all too soon it became apparent he was just
as surprised as she was.

There were no stars, no sun, and no moon down here,
so the only light came from those softly luminescent purple leaves.
It was enough to create a kind of eerie glow, but certainly not
enough to discern the ceiling or walls, if in fact they were
there.

“What is this place?” She finally broke the silence,
keeping her voice low.

Josh jolted in surprise, turning to her quickly and
pressing a finger over his lips. The last time he tried to shut her
up, he’d slammed a hand over her mouth. It hadn’t hurt her, and yet
for some reason she could still feel the indent of his fingers
against her lips. She tried not to let the memory distract her as
she turned her attention back to whatever was before them. With a
tentative, careful move she reached a hand out to touch the closest
planet.

Immediately Josh grabbed her arm and pulled it back.
In many ways, it was ironic. She had warned him not to touch that
black spike, and he’d ignored her. Now he was the one on high
alert. She could feel the tension in his hand as he clasped her
wrist.

“We should go back,” he concluded. Still holding
onto her arm, he pulled her backwards.

She resisted. “Shouldn't we … explore? We haven’t
passed another way out. What if there’s one just beyond,” she
swallowed hard, “this forest?”

Josh didn’t miss a beat. “We’re getting out of here.
Come on.” He tried to pull her again.

She
resisted. “Josh, shouldn’t we
—”

“Leave? Yes, we should leave,” he concluded before
she could finish. Then, with more force than before, he pulled her
forward.

They almost reached the lip of the corridor
again.

Suddenly a noise filtered in from far down the
hallway. Low and thumping, it was footfall. She stiffened, but it
was nothing compared to Josh’s reaction; she could feel his whole
body tense, and she watched as his eyes widened in frightened
anticipation.