Escape (75 page)

Jilly nodded slowly, as if in admiration. “Amazing. But surely it is impossible to conceal your biological differences? You no longer posess blood, at least not in liquid form.”

“Perhaps not, but we can perform the necessary mimicry should it be required of us.”

Jilly's eyebrows shot up. “You can produce the cellular equivalent of blood?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing,” Jilly repeated.

“Indeed.” Gallian turned away and nodded to one of the men on the crew deck. “Once you recieve coordinates from the Acasian fleet, please set course immediately. We wouldn't want to give the wrong impression, now would we?”

* * *

After they reached the coordinates specified by the Acasians, it was only a matter of minutes before they were hailed by the shuttle containing the automaton inspection team. Gallian sent them clearance codes to land aboard the cruiser, then turned to Jilly and Kieran.

“Unfortunately, you have not yet mastered your new selves to the point that you could easily pass the battery of tests we are about to endure, so for the duration of the inspection you will need to hide in a place where you are unlikely to be discovered.”

Jilly cocked one eyebrow. “And where is that?”

“In the reactor room.”

“What?” Kieran asked. “You can't hide us in there while the ship is running. The radiation will kill us in seconds.”

Gallian held up a finger. “
Would
have killed you in seconds. Now you are impervious to such frailties.”

Jilly frowned. “How do we know that?”

Gallian shrugged. “You don't. But the alternative is to be discovered and killed anyway. At least this way, if I am telling the truth, you will survive.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“Of course. What possible reason would I have to lie? You have already proven yourselves trustworthy. Now I am asking for
your
trust.”

Jilly hesistated for a long moment. The seconds ticked by, and she held Gallian's gaze intently until one of the crew interrupted: “The shuttle has entered our landing bay. We don't have much time.”

Gallian gave no reply, but instead whispered to Jilly: “What do you say?”

She nodded.

“Good.” Turning to the creature who had earlier tried to kill Kieran and Jilly
—
now a burly, middle-aged man with spiky brown hair and a vicious smile
—
Gallian said, “Take them to the reactor and lock them inside. Make sure you go by the corridor furthest from the landing bay in order to avoid any unpleasant encounters along the way.”

The burly man nodded, while Kieran's face clouded with alarm. “You're going to lock us inside?”

Gallian shrugged. “Yes. It would be better for you to stay in there until we have determined that there is no longer a risk of discovery, but don't worry, it is only that. We do not intend to leave you there.” When Kieran's expression didn't lighten, Gallian added, “Remember we could have confined you in any way we liked rather than bring you here to the bridge. It was an act of faith to include you in our plans. I suggest you repay it in kind by trusting us now.”

“Fine, but if you're trying to betray us
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

“Then we certainly chose a circuitous method to do so.” Gallian waved them away. “You better go, before this discussion is made moot by the arrival of the inspection team.”

* * *

The burly man set off at a jog and cast a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Kieran and Jilly were keeping up. They hesitated briefly before jogging after him. As Jilly ran, she found that her shoulder, which had been hanging useless at her side ever since she'd been thrown into the wall, was now functioning perfectly again.

“We don't have much time,” the man explained. “The automatons are already disembarking.”

They flew down the corridor from the bridge, through the tac center, and down the right hand corridor, past all the crew quarters. The hangar was on the opposite side with the mess hall and the medbay, so with luck they would avoid running into the inspection team.

As they reached the end of the corridor, the extra-wide access corridor to the cargo bay loomed ahead of them, while two narrow doors lay to either side. Each of those doors led to one of the two engine rooms. They stopped at the nearest door, and with a wave of the big man's hand, it swished open to reveal a narrow corridor, bathed in dim orange light.

Jilly and Kieran preceeded their escort into the corridor and heard the door swish shut behind them a second later. Jilly cast a quick backward glance, feeling uneasy to have the monster who'd nearly killed them hulking along behind them in human form.

The corridor branched ahead of them, with the right fork going off at a sharp angle, while the left branched only slightly and began a gradual descent.

“The reactor is dead ahead,” the man behind them said.

Kieran nodded and took the left fork. Before they'd gone very far, the corridor joined a mirror image of itself coming from the left side of the ship, making it almost twice its width. The deck began descending at a steeper angle, and after only a few more steps, they saw that it ended in a cylindrical wall and door. They reached the door and noted the warning signs emblazoned upon it.

DANGER RADIATION HAZARD.

DO NOT OPEN WHILE REACTOR IS HOT.

Beyond the door they could hear a deep thrumming sound and the hiss of reactor coolant. Kieran watched with a frown as the burly man stepped up to the door controls, and wondered how he expected to open the door. Reactor rooms had fail safes to prevent access while the reactors were on. And the corridor would have a self-sealing bulkhead to prevent radiation leaks in case the door were breached. So even if the man could somehow force the door open, he would only trigger the bulkhead and trap them all in the corridor. What could he possibly be planning?

Kieran watched as the man's eyes closed, and a moment later the hissing and thrumming sounds quit. The corridor plunged into absolute darkness, and Kieran heard the door handle turning. His eyes adjusted and he saw his and Jilly's burly escort swinging the heavy door out into the corridor. A blast of hot, dry air slammed into them, and the smell of vaporized reactor coolant burned in their nostrils.

“Quickly please,” the big man said, gesturing for them to enter the reactor room. “We don't want the Acasians to wonder why we've powered down.”

Jilly shook her head. “If you lock us in there we'll die from the heat.”

The big man shook his head. “Your bodies are no longer that fragile. Trust me. You can endure much greater extremes than these. And if I'm lying, the radiation will kill you long before the heat, so you needn't worry.”

Kieran grimaced and took a step inside the reactor room. The air was stifling, almost too hot to breath, but even though it was uncomfortable, he didn't have the sense that it was a danger to him. “I think we'd better trust him, Jilly.”

She shot a quick glance to the man standing by the door, clearly uncertain, but at last she sighed. “Come get us as soon as you can.”

The big man nodded as he closed the door behind her. “It shouldn't be long.”

The door closed with a resounding bang, and they heard the handle turn, locking them inside. The reactor room was as perfectly dark as the corridor, and only the light emitted from their eyes allowed them to see. For whatever reason, Gallian had not engaged power backups, so not even the dim red emergency lighting relieved the oppressive darkness.

And then a deep thrumming sound began, vibrating through the deck plates and rattling their teeth. A dark red light filled the space, and the sharp hiss of coolant joined the sudden chaos inside the reactor room. Kieran eyed the source of the light and noise, a broad cylinder stretching to the double-story ceiling overhead, met higher up by concentric rings of pipes that were joined to the cylinder with more pipes that radiated from the rings like spokes. The pipes were translucent and carrying a dark green fluid to the cylinder, while the cylinder itself pulsed with dark red rings of illumination, which were actually smaller pipes, carrying the coolant around the reactor. Once the coolant became superheated, it changed color from green to red and began to give off light.

And heat.

Kieran felt the temperature inside the room rising steadily, and he turned to Jilly with eyebrows raised. “Please tell me that you have a plan.”

“Actually, I was hoping you had one.”

Chapter 54

“O
f course I have a plan,” Kieran replied, looking all around the room. “Let's find a way out of here before they come back for us.”

“And go where, Kieran? We can't get past the blockade on our own, and we can't fly back to Union space in anything less than this cruiser. Unless you have a plan to kill every single one of those monsters, I think we'd better cooperate with them. At least for now.”

Kieran stopped looking around the room long enough to send Jilly an incredulous look. “Just like that? Give up, and let them feed upon and infect the last remnant of humanity?”

“What choice do we have?”

“Anything is better than that. Even if we have to sacrifice ourselves.”

Jilly frowned uncertainly and her gaze slipped away from his. “I don't think they stand a chance Kieran. It's just a matter of time before they become infected, too. And then what will our sacrifice have meant? An entire galaxy of those creatures is just waiting to come for them. Entire fleets are probably on their way as we speak. What's the point?”

Kieran shook his head. “The point is that we won't be responsible for the massacre.”

“But it will still happen.” Her eyes came back to his, wide and hopeless. “The outcome will be the same whether we help them or not.”

Kieran gritted his teeth. “Jilly I'm not going to take part in that. I'll blow their cover wide open before I let those creatures anywhere near Acasia.”

“You heard what Gallian said. Even if you tell them, he'll just alter their memories to make it as though it never happened.”

“So we broadcast it on an open channel. I doubt he'll be able to wipe the memories of that many people.”

Jilly's brow furrowed thoughtfully. “We'd need access to a comm station.”

Kieran nodded. “Leave that to me. First, we need to get out of here.” He walked to the door and began examining it carefully.

Jilly joined him and watched as he studied the hinges. “Do you think you can force it open?”

Kieran shook his head. “No. And even if I could, that would only trigger the emergency bulkheads in the corridor. Those bulkheads are built even thicker than reactor doors.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Well
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Abruptly, Kieran turned and started toward the reactor itself.

“What?”

Kieran gazed toward the ceiling, his eyes following the concentric rings of coolant flowing to and from the reactor. “I think I have an idea.” And with that, Kieran began walking around the room, his eyes seeming to be everywhere at once.

“What are you looking for?” Jilly asked, walking with him around the reactor. When he gave no reply, she punched him on the arm. “Kieran, answer me!”

He stopped walking and turned to her with narrowed eyes. “A ladder. I need to get up to those coolant pipes.” He pointed to the ceiling.

“Oh.”

Kieran continued walking. A second later he found what he was looking for, and started toward the outer walls of the reactor room.

“Why do you need to get up there?” Jilly asked as he placed his hands on the ladder.

“
Because
,” Kieran began in a tone of strained patience, “if I can shut off the coolant, the reactor will overheat, and the fail safes will shut it down. If the reactor is off, the door won't be locked, and we can force it open.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Kieran began climbing. Jilly watched as he reached the level of the coolant pipes, and then gasped as he climbed atop the outermost ring.

“Be careful!”

He walked along the pipes, making slow but steady progress as he focused on his balance. Now that the reactor had been running for a few minutes again, the coolant in the rings was turning from green to the dark, glowing red of the coolant circulating around the reactor itself. After walking halfway around the room on top of the coolant pipes, Kieran found what he was looking for: a thick pipe joining the outermost ring from the wall of the reactor room, presumably taking the coolant to a cooling chamber. Atop that pipe was a giant valve. Kieran bent down on his haunches and took hold of the lever in both hands. It had rusted from disuse, but his muscles were much stronger than they looked, and the lever turned easily.

“There. I think that got it. I'm coming down now.”