Prodigal (53 page)

“Bravo, Commander.”

He grabbed the O
₂
indicator again, angling it to get a look in the murky gloom. The needle sank well into the red. If he didn’t get a replacement bottle soon, the game would be over—and he didn’t have a lot of options.

Nathan began to climb down, one rung at a time.

“You’re a lot tougher than I thought,” he said, forcing down a swell of rage as he passed through B-Deck. For now, at least, it was better to keep her talking. “How the hell did you survive decompression?”

“As you may have guessed, I had a little help.”

Nathan stopped. He remembered what Kellean had told him—about how she had started to thaw the bodies in sickbay. With everyone else dead, there could be no other explanation.

“
They
kept you alive?”

“They have control over everything, Commander.”

“Tell them they need to learn how to fly,” he said, resuming his descent. “Your friends nearly stuffed the ship into the ground.”

“A minor difficulty with navigation. I can assure you, we’re now safely on course.”

“Thanks to
you,
” Nathan snapped. “That was some act back in the wardroom, by the way. They teach you that at Special Services?”

“I needed to buy some time.”

“Because you knew what would happen when we tried to unplug your friends.”

“They defended themselves, nothing more.”

“Like they did back on Mars?” Nathan scoffed. “Get over it, Kellean. They’re a sick bunch of motherfuckers—just like you.” He held off above C-Deck, scouting the area outside sickbay. The section had been largely abandoned when he left it, and it didn’t appear as if anything had changed—but he wasn’t taking any chances. “So what’s the deal, anyway? You must be getting paid a shitload by Special Services to pull a stunt like this.”

“I have other compensations,” Kellean explained. “The money CSS tossed into the bargain only made the operation sweeter. There’s nothing quite like your enemy paying for his own demise.”

Nathan jumped the rest of the way. He landed with a hard thump on the grated deck, swinging around both ways to check for threats.

“Sounds personal,” he said. “Is
that
why you’re hightailing it back to Earth? To score some kind of payback?”

“That’s only part of it. The rest you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“All in good time, Commander,” Kellean said. “Speaking of which, how’s your oxygen? The air in that envirosuit must be getting pretty thin by now.”

“How do you…?” Nathan began—but then remembered the cameras posted throughout the ship. One of them, mounted over sickbay, tracked his every move from the moment he arrived. Kellean must have followed his progress the entire time.

“Nice trick,” he said, heading toward the hatch. It remained open, a fluorescent glow spilling into the corridor. He sidled up to the edge, craning to get a peek inside. “So how deep are your guys buried in the core? I guess there’s not much point in trying to extricate them, is there?”

“Probably not,” Kellean told him. “To be honest, I had no idea what to expect when they regained consciousness after all that time. The abilities they displayed were extraordinary—like they were all joined together somehow.” After a long pause, she added, “It seems the Mons virus had some interesting side effects.”

“Including the ability to jack a crawler?” Nathan asked, doing his best to keep Kellean talking. He wasn’t sure if it would do any good, but at least it made him feel like he had a strategy. Slipping into sickbay, he shuffled along the bulkhead and tried to stay clear of the cameras. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Actually, your computer was quite receptive to their advances.”

“I knew something was hinky when I spotted that code.” Nathan reached up for the first camera he could find and yanked the cord from its base. It spit out a satisfying stream of sparks before going dark. “That’s more like it.”

“Clever, Commander,” Kellean informed him, “but not very useful. Even if I can’t see you, I know where you are—and where you’re going.”

“Maybe,” Nathan conceded, “but I have an advantage.”

“And what might that be?”

“I can move around. Your boys are still in quarantine.”

“Not for long, Commander. Not for long.”

Dread seeped into his helmet like a toxin. In the waning pressure of his envirosuit, all sight and sound seemed to take leave of him—until his eyes fell upon the entrance to the lab. There, around the corner, a throbbing pulse of light faded in and out of view, growing stronger with each manifestation.

“You’d better hurry.”

Nathan tore across sickbay, knocking over anything that stood in his path. Flinging himself into the lab, he ran straight for the quarantine sphere and plastered himself against the window. Inside, the cryogenic support systems were going haywire. Vital monitors danced in kinetic symmetry, all six of the tubes building to an intense energy discharge. Though the occupants remained still, Nathan imagined them pounding against the lids of their coffins—the restless dead, clawing their way out.

And all of a sudden, he couldn’t breathe.

Nathan clutched at his throat, his windpipe closing up. He backed away from the sphere, crashing into one of the lab tables as he desperately gulped for oxygen that wasn’t there. Somehow, he staggered over to one of the equipment lockers, ramming his fist into the handle and breaking the door wide open. Dozens of instruments and supplies scattered across the floor, forcing him to his knees as he pawed through them. His vision exploded with spots, fringes of gray encroaching with the passage of each second.

Nathan didn’t know how he found a fresh bottle, or how it ended up in his hands. He ripped the old one off, slapping the new one in its place—quaking hands fumbling with the rubber seal, again and again until it finally locked. He then twisted the regulator wide open, the cool flow of air filling up his suit as he collapsed on his back.

And there Nathan stayed—for minutes, for hours, he couldn’t tell.

He waited until his sanity returned, the lab reassembling in less sinister dimensions. Kellean’s voice took on the cast of a dreamlike memory—so vacant and distorted that Nathan couldn’t even be sure that he heard it, or simply imagined it. After the trauma of watching his shipmates die, anything was possible—including hallucinations. Sitting up, Nathan made himself believe it wasn’t real.

But another voice wouldn’t let him go that easily. It crackled in his ears with insistent clarity, demanding he obey.

“Turn around,” it said.

Nathan froze.

“See us, Commander.”

Rising to his feet, Nathan slowly turned in the direction of the sphere. The supernatural glow that emanated through the window had ceased, replaced by a steady electrical blue. At first, Nathan refused to accept it—but that black stare broke through all his defenses. To the man behind the glass, Nathan barely existed.

“Here we are,” the SEF officer said.

Nathan lurched away from sickbay, tripping over himself until momentum finally carried him into a dead run. At the same time vents began to flood
Almacantar
’s empty spaces with massive volumes of air, releasing an unholy roar throughout the ship. The structure groaned under the stress of the inflow, a deep bellow that became louder as air refilled the compartments, blowing loose debris into the corridors. A barrage of paper and other waste fragments pelted Nathan as he wrestled with the gale, constantly glancing back to see how far he had gone. Even with two entire sections between him and the quarantine, it wasn’t nearly enough. He had to get as far away as possible, before the ship repressurized and
they
could begin their hunt for him.

But where the hell can you go? As long as you’re on board, there’s no place you can hide.

Nathan stopped when he neared the engineering spaces, as far aft as he could go. The winds began to die down, their howl displaced by a cacophony of alarms—noises rushing in to fill the retreating vacuum. He leaned against the bulkhead, weighing his options but coming up with little. In less than twenty minutes,
Almacantar
was ready to make her jump—and if the SEF officers operated true to form, they would kill Nathan before that happened.

They’re probably cracking the quarantine right now. How long do you think it’ll take them to find you?

Nathan didn’t have a choice. He had to get off the ship.

But that’s suicide.

Unless…

The idea raced through his mind, leaving him confused and excited. It was the longest of all long shots—but at least it gave him a chance.

Nathan left engineering behind, going back to the nearest access ladder. He jumped into the hole, sliding down the handrails all the way to the hangar deck. There, the pressure light above the entry hatch registered green—a full atmosphere on the other side. Nathan cranked the lock, opening the door into a mist of frosty air. Throughout the cavernous hangar, everything was covered in a thin layer of ice—humidity settling in from the reclamation systems. Crystals sparkled in the overhead kliegs, across the deck and up into the flight ops booth, a peaceful scene that belied the cataclysm that had blown through here. As a reminder, more than a dozen prone forms littered the flight line, mercifully obscured beneath a frozen blanket. Nathan offered a quiet prayer for them, then sealed himself inside.

A few meters off, in the same lane Pitch had parked her,
Ghostrider
awaited.

Nathan hurriedly walked over to the landing craft, boots crunching in the fine powder under his feet. He pulled a hanging body from the open belly hatch, dragging the crewman away and laying him down with his shipmates. He then went back and brushed all the ice from the edges of the hatch, climbing into the small ship and closing it behind him. The lock set with a loud
thump
—a sound with the ring of finality.

Time to go.

Nathan hoisted himself into the cockpit, past the specialist station and into the pilot’s seat. There, he coaxed
Ghostrider
on internal power—flipping switches to start the magnetos, bringing the avionics online. Panels lit up all around him, inflight monitors displaying status. Life support kicked in at the same time, pressurizing the cabin.

Only then did Nathan peel his helmet off, taking his first breath of outside air. It tasted bitterly cold and made him cough—but anything was better than the envirosuit. He tossed the damned thing aside, zipping off the rest of his bulky outfit and strapping himself in.

Taking the control stick in his hands, he still had no idea how the hell he was going to pull this off.

One step at a time.

He opened the console for the ship’s computer, establishing a live link with the flight ops subsystem. Since it ran independently of the core, the crawler probably hadn’t infiltrated it yet—and to Nathan’s relief, it responded to his requests.

“Luck, be a lady,” he said, and initiated a launch sequence.

The hangar Klaxon sounded in a shrill wail. The bright kliegs dimmed, yellow warning lights flashing. Nathan revved up
Ghostrider
’s thrusters, easing the throttle forward and rolling her out of the slot. He swung the ship around and lined her up with the deck stripes, pointing her nose directly toward the launch bay door. The main engines built into a steady whine, still at idle but begging to cut loose.

On the main display, Nathan patched in a feed from
Almacantar
’s ops console. The shipping lanes were coming up fast—not more than five minutes out.

Please, God,
Nathan thought.
Don’t let me screw this up.

Configuring an emergency override, he took full remote command of flight ops. The panel flashed red, standing by.

Good-bye, Lauren.

He engaged the door.

A potent tremor reverberated through the deck, shaking
Almacantar
from stem to stern. Frost blew across
Ghostrider
’s spaceframe as if driven by an arctic wind, sucked into the widening maw that opened into space. Nathan released the docking clamps but kept the gear down, nudging thrusters from side to side to compensate for drift as the hangar’s gravitational field dampened to near zero. Just staying in one place required all of his concentration, even as several warnings lit up the inflight console. Nathan ignored them, keeping his eyes glued on the deck stripes—easing the ship forward on that straight trajectory, hoping like hell he didn’t hit anything on the way out.

He punched the throttle.