Fatal Boarding (26 page)

“Not just shot one, fire-fight! The thing
was invisible for quite a bit of it. Frank was all over the place,
diving, rolling, shooting. It’s on video when you get a chance.
It’s gonna go viral if it’s ever leaked to Video-Tube.”

“Frank Parker was in a fire fight and is
still alive?”

“Yeah, didn’t even get a scratch. Can you
believe that? Frank has reinvented himself.”

“So, how many left?”

“Can’t say. Life Science isn’t going to be
scanning anything any time soon. Their stuff is screwed up pretty
bad. But the point is we have control of the ship. We’ve got
detectors set up all over the place, so much that whoever is left
can’t hardly go anywhere without us knowing. Everyone is safe for
the most part. Most of the crew is still back in the tail section,
under heavy guard. They are aching to get out. There’s a lot of
floating vomit back there because it’s all zero G, of course. But
many of the life pods are open so they have everything else they
need. The plan is to keep them there until we’re certain the ship
is secure. Don’t want any hostage or kamikaze situations popping
up.”

“How many did we loose?”

“That’s the hard part. No way to account for
people still hiding that we don’t know about. A rough estimate is
maybe thirty to forty. Many of those have been found still on
board, all prep’d for the trip to the alien ship. There’s no hope
for them. We still don’t even know what they were doing with
them.”

I tried to rise up again, against the pain,
and managed to push up onto one elbow. “I have to get up. There
might be a way to find out how many are left, and where they
are.”

“It’s a good guess they are on the lower
level. That’s the other bad news. We discovered they’ve been
transferring our air and water to their ship. Don’t know how only
know a big chunk of it is gone. But, since you and Perk convinced
them to leave, that has stopped.”

I managed to continue up to a sitting
position. The movement alarmed the doctor. He came briskly over
with the stern-doctor look on his face.

“Adrian, you’re on some pretty heavy pain
medication, you can’t be doing anything.”

“I just need to make a trip to the Captain’s
quarters. It won’t take long.”

“Have you looked at your chest?”

I looked down to find my chest had turned to
a deep hue of black and blue.”

“Your back is identical. You have
micro-fractures all over the chest area, front and back, and you
have a grade three concussion, which is no joke. If we hadn’t
gotten to you when we did, the swelling in your brain would have
killed you.”

“Still, I just need a quick trip to
Captain’s quarters, Doc. I’ll go slow and come right back.”

“How can that be so important? If your pulse
rate climbs too high, you’re likely to have an aneurysm.”

“I’ll be back within twenty minutes. I
promise. Security will be with me all the way.”

“Well, you are the acting Captain of this
ship. I won’t try to over-ride you, but remember, any exertion, and
you won’t be awake to do anything at all.”

I slid my feet down to the floor. It looked
so far away I thought it might not be reachable. Fortunately my
legs had become ten feet long so they touched down easily. I swayed
with the Doctor clamped onto my right arm, and took a moment
against the table to get orientated.

JR showed up with a flight suit and helped
my legs into it. He pulled it up behind me and steered my arms into
the sleeves. I continued to sway like a drunkard as I chased the
zipper handle around, and finally won the contest by zipping up.
Without asking, I felt JR working some zippered boots onto my feet,
and with that my ensemble was complete.

“Who’ve I got?”

JR answered, “Ringo and Patterson. The
others are on patrol. Oh, and me. I’m coming along on this
one.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

With RJ under one arm and one of the swat
guys under the other, I did my best to make the Doctor think I was
under my own power. It was a pathetic attempt, and by the look on
his face I could tell he was watching a train wreck.

By the time we reached the Captain’s
quarters, my legs had recovered enough that they felt like those
antique spring-shoes kids used to play with. I was walking on pogo
sticks, and my vision was like looking through a periscope. I asked
the three of them to wait outside. They looked at me like I was
insane.

When the doors slid open, I did a
Frankenstein swagger into the room and let them close. The nearest
rescue vehicle was the desk. I staggered over, leaning too far
forward, but made it.

There was no wait. Staring down at the desk
for composure, the room suddenly began to glow the golden light. My
fatigue disappeared. I straightened up to find the Emissary
standing in her open door. To my surprise, she came gently forward
until only about three feet away. She reached out a hand and
touched my right arm.

My body began to tingle as though it was
enveloped in a soft static charge. The electricity descended into
me and the feeling turned to one of euphoric, physical joy. I
straightened up further as my thoughts and vision began to clear. I
exercised my left shoulder. It worked well.

Looking up, I found her back in the doorway.
I was not certain she had ever actually been near me, but my
physical condition was vastly improved.

I looked at her in wonder.

She spoke within my mind. "Not too
much.”

“Perk?”

“He will be well.”

“All the others?”

“All is as it must be.”

I wondered to her about the intruders.

She replied, “One, down below.”

Along with the information, I understood
that in giving it to me, she had somehow sinned, at least from her
point of view. I wondered how that could be.

An answer came that was beyond my
understanding. She was not a part of the present. She was more of
the past and future. At some point, the ‘rogues’ as she had called
them, would evolve to become a spiritual race. She already knew
them then. To her, all were eternal souls. All would find their
way. She could see the perfection each would become. To intervene
in any of their paths, meant her name was entered on a page in the
book of their lives.

I did my best to understand. She gave me a
look of kindness.

“Visit once more.” Her door slid shut more
slowly than usual. The glow dimmed. Her energy field subsided.

I looked at my chest. It was still black. I
ran a couple steps in place. Everything worked well. My vision was
clear. I headed for the door.

Outside, they were astonished at my renewed
mobility. I begged off by saying I was just recovering faster than
expected. We headed back toward sickbay.

“RJ, how many entrances to the lowest
level?”

“We counted three.”

“Are the SWAT intercoms working?”

“Yes, but we have not been using them much,
since we do not know who’s listening to what.”

“Ringo, are you familiar with the emergency
bulkhead seals that are used to close off a corridor when there’s a
breach.”

“Part of standard training, Commander.”

“Here’s what I want. As quietly as possible,
seal off the entrances to the lower level, forward and aft. Leave
the mid-ship hatch alone. Once you have those sealed off, tack-weld
an emergency bulkhead seal in the corridor that leads to the
mid-ship entrance. Do it around a corner. In other words, if you
come out of the lower level, you will not see that you are blocked
by a new door around the next corner. We need to do this fast, in
case the intruder decides to sabotage the rest of our air and
water, if he hasn’t already.”

RJ looked over at me. “I don’t completely
get it, Adrian.”

“We’re going to slowly decompress the lower
level. Sooner or later, he will be forced to leave. He will then be
trapped between the decompressed lower level and the new emergency
bulkhead.”

“Why trap him? Why not just decompress the
whole thing and let him die?”

“Because that’s not what advanced races do,
RJ.”

I could feel the gambit of emotions running
through RJ. He was the spiritual one, the defender of the old ways,
the man who did crossword puzzles on paper rather than a
state-of-the-art ereader. The loss of friends, the threat of death,
the will to stay alive, had invoked executive privilege on those
tenants held so deeply in his heart. He looked over at me once
more.

“I understand.” After a moment, he asked,
“What will you do with him?”

“We’ll put him to sleep, take his suit, and
put him in suspended animation.”

We reached sickbay, and with a few more
instructions, Ringo and Patterson headed out to set the trap. The
Doctor immediately noticed I was under my own power and came
over.

“You seem much better?”

“I just needed to walk it off a little.”

“Let me take a look at your chest.”

I opened my coveralls and displayed the
bruising. He furrowed his brow and shined his little light in my
eyes. “That’s odd. I’ve never seen that much progress from that
kind of concussion, very odd.”

“Doctor, since I am up and around, RJ and I
need to visit life support. It’s one last thing and then I’ll knock
off for the next twenty-four hours, I swear.”

The Doctor still looked perplexed by my
sudden recovery. He squeezed his chin, stared, and shook his head.
“Okay, but any set backs and you get right back here.”

I gave him a thumb up and we headed back
out. When we were alone, RJ spoke. “I know the secret, Adrian. It
was easy.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a classified video system, only
available to the captain, for secretly monitoring the crew and you
used it to somehow locate the alien.”

“It’s that old saying RJ. I could tell you,
but then I’d have to kill you.”

“It’s our secret.”

When we reached Life Support, a security
team already stationed there had beam guards at both ends of the
corridor, and the entrance. They were so pumped up I felt fortunate
they hadn’t taken a shot at us.

One life support engineer had been brought
up from the tail section. He sat at the control console as we
waited for Ringo and Patterson to call in. Forty-five minutes later
the trap was set. The Life Support engineer began a slow drain of
the atmosphere on the lower deck. It seemed like an eternity, but
finally we saw the mid-ship hatch open and close, allowing us to
remotely lock it.

I had expected him to take longer. It could
have been hours, depending on how much breathable oxygen he carried
in his suit. It was likely he considered that resource precious,
having stolen most of ours. They had emptied the nearby tanks, and
would have gone on to the rest given the opportunity.

With the doctor in tow, we hurried down to
the trap, and took turns peering through the small observation
window. The section of sealed off corridor appeared empty, but we
knew he was there. He must have known we knew, but held onto his
betrayed disguise in desperation.

Using the bleed port valve on the temporary
bulkhead, we flooded the compartment with a cold fog until we could
see a faint alien outline through infrared goggles. Using them, the
doctor injected anesthesia at a level he thought might be safe, and
within minutes our prisoner was prone on the floor.

SWAT went in, pulled off his wrist control,
and secured him with tie-wraps. With a gas mask on his ugly little
face, and the doctor monitoring what life signs he could find, they
took him away.

Our ship was secure.

Chapter 27

The very first order of business was to turn
loose the crew back in the tail section. We called, but they
refused to answer. RJ and the security officer volunteered to make
the trip, if I promised to return to sickbay.

So, I did not see the exodus from the
weightless section of the tail, by more than one hundred angry,
crying, injured, sick, indignant, and grateful crew members, but I
was told it was a sight that could never be aptly described by any
poet, past or present. The security guys who coordinated the
disembarkment described the cursing, howling, laughing, crying,
belligerent, prayerful, cooperative, and enthusiastic group as
being a runaway steamroller of disenchanted humans.

As the disbursement throughout the ship
began, we sent out a global directive for damage assessment, and
the policing of all areas, as personnel became available.

Sickbay quickly became over-crowded. It
forced the Doctor to let me go. He needed every bed, and every bit
of space he could get his hands on. I thought of using Tolson’s
quarters, but the idea gave me the creeps. My own, humble quarters
once again became more inviting than one would think metal and
composite walls could ever be.

I made my way through the disorganized
hallways, now busy with people, and escaped to my small quarters. I
set my terminal to wake me under all the appropriate conditions,
and gently lowered myself face first into the bed. Falling into to
it would have been too painful.

The computer’s bleeping seemed to go off a
minute or two later. I looked up and squinted at the screen. Five
hours. It made me certain time travel was actually possible.

To my surprise and delight, Ann-Marie was at
her desk in security’s front office. She looked tired but
collected. She smiled as I entered.

“Adrian, it is more than good to see
you.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”

“I’ve had all I can stand. I never thought
I’d be this glad to be back at work.”

“I’m sure you know I‘m glad you’re
here.”

“They are calling in from all over. It’s too
much. I’ve made them all go back and put their updates in print, so
you can pick and choose from the reports.”