Ghost of Mind Episode One (15 page)

‘
You mean freezing hell holes roaring with
wind and ready to suck you into the atmosphere?’ John asked with a
harsh laugh.

‘
Indeed.’

With that Chado walked around, snapped a
salute before he did, and continued down the corridor, leaving John
on his own.

‘
John, you are a lucky man to have a crew
like that,’ he mumbled to himself. For a second he turned to look
out at the incredible view through the windows again.

Sometimes death hits you, sometimes it
doesn't.

Today death had hit John Doe. It was time to
go and process it.

Chapter 23

Alice

She had been crawling along, her mind ringing
and blaring with the certainty that soon she would be near an
omidium source. Soon she would be able to collapse and succumb to
the darkness trying to grab at her, without the fear that she would
be discovered and with the sure knowledge the omidium would heal
her broken body.

Then the cold had set in. At first she hadn't
noticed it; her hands were already scratched and cut enough for the
pain rippling through them to override anything as banal as a
change in temperature.

Then she'd looked down to see the white ice
picking up over the service duct.

The cold hit her in a blast, along with a
fell draft that began to whip down the shaft.

She brought a hand up, protecting her eyes.
They filled with tears at the brunt of the wind.

‘
What the,’ she began. Then she stopped.
Because she realized what must have happened. With the weather
fields shut down, sections of Block Alpha this high up must have
succumb to the violent winds. As Alice pressed herself forward and
around a bend in the tunnel, her suspicion was
confirmed.

The service duct before her had suddenly come
to a jagged and dangerous end; chunks of the metal had been ripped
right out of the wall, and a ferocious wind was whistling through
it. It was so loud that Alice groaned as she clamped her hands over
her ears.

She stared past her arms at the hole in the
metal before her. The jagged edges of the metal were completely
covered in ice, and as she sat there and watched, it seemed to be
getting thicker by the second.

‘
Oh god,’ she managed through a cough. She
slammed her hand over her mouth as she did. When she pulled it
back, she saw the white and blue blood just before it
evaporated.

She coughed again, the movements pulling her
down until she clamped her hands over her knees, her head rocking
back and forth.

More blood flecked over her chest, hands, and
lips.

Alice was running out of time. The effort of
pushing herself to safety was taking its toll; she likely had
minutes.

But she was not safe yet.

Gaze hollow, she pushed herself forward until
the service duct underneath her began to groan. It gave her a view
of what was below. A room, possibly a hangar bay that had seen one
of its walls ripped clean off.

Ice covered the walls of the hangar bay, and
the floor had a steady wind shifting over it that puffed and
buffeted at the errant salt crystals that had made their way this
far up in the atmosphere.

It was a stilling sight.

But Alice was not stilled for long.

‘
Vessel carrying omidium power source
approximately 10 meters to your left and 50 meters down,’ the
computer suddenly sounded. She only just heard it over the sound of
the wind.

It was below her.

The end was in sight.

As Alice managed a smile, fresh blood pushed
its way from the deepening cracks in her lips.

She had minutes left.

She shifted forward.

And that would be when the section of service
tunnel she was in gave way. At first it rattled, then it groaned,
then it dropped out from underneath her. She didn't have the time
to scream.

As it dropped it yanked a bank of wires from
the wall and there was a hail of sparks and thick black smoke.

It served to cover her descent as she hurtled
down to the hangar bay floor below.

She struck the floor just as the metal
sheeting of the service tunnel did. As it rang out with an
ear-splitting bang, she screamed. The clang of the metal hid just
how loud and shaking her cry was.

She'd landed on her side.

Her hip was broken. Her ribs were smashed.
Her body that had once been lightly covered by blood was now soaked
in it. It was coming so thick and fast that it did not have time to
evaporate properly.

It covered the remains of her tunic and
pants, filtered out from under her unmarked and undamaged hood.

Because through it all, no matter what had
happened to Alice, her hood had been fine. Resolutely stuck in
place over her eyes, it had done its job.

‘
What the hell was that? Get a team over to
the service duct to ensure no more of it is going to fall. And for
the love of god, get the security field in place over that damaged
door; I won't to get out of this armor already.’ Someone shouted
form far behind Alice.

Blinking her eyes open, fighting through the
pain, Alice latched onto the voice. She used it to tug her out of
her last slip into unconsciousness.

Come on, you can do this, she begged
herself.

She pushed herself up. At first her hand
slipped and crunched underneath her weight. The bone was
broken.

She landed back on her face, her chin and jaw
jolting, more blood pouring from her mouth and lips.

She forced herself up again. This time she
managed it.

Then Alice turned.

There was a large vessel just behind her, she
could see it through the swirling smoke that was being pushed
against her. The smoke was issuing thick and fast from some kind of
conduit at her feet. Apparently the service tunnel had sliced
through it when it had fallen.

It was likely the only thing keeping her
hidden.

She stared through it at the vessel.

‘
Omidium,’ she parted her lips to say one
word.

Survival. Her last chance.

Alice closed her eyes. She logged onto the
ICN, told the computer to reply only through thoughts. Then she
requested, no she begged, to gain access to the vessel's security
scanners.

It took the last of her. As she sat there,
body broken underneath her as her blood soaked through her skin and
evaporated in the frozen wind, Alice did whatever she could to gain
access to the ship's systems.

If she had not been an Old One, she would
never have managed it. If the ship itself had not been momentarily
linked to the ICN, it would have been impossible. And just maybe,
if Alice had not been so desperate, she would never have dared. But
somehow she did it.

‘
Computer,’ she whispered so low that no
one could hear her, ‘overload conduit directly underneath my
position.’

‘
In doing so, 1000 liters of patrosium gas
will erupt into the hangar bay. Without environmental controls
operational, it will fill the space within seconds.’ the computer
replied right into her mind.

That was the point.

‘
Just do it,’ she said with her last
breath.

It did.

There was an explosion as a whole bank of
conduits under the floor suddenly bucked and exploded, sending a
cloud of that thick, opaque, black gas billowing out in every
direction.

It gave Alice the distraction she needed. It
also gave her the cover she required.

With the last of her energy she stole aboard
the vessel, entering through the open hangar bay door. It too
quickly filled with gas, and before it could be pumped away or the
door closed, Alice found another access panel. She pried it back
with her fingers, managed to hack into the system, and then Alice
crawled inside.

Blood covering her, head lolled between her
shoulders, she forced herself forward.

Omidium. The single word kept her going. It
pushed past the black that had built up at the edges of her vision.
It saw Alice hack through whatever panels she required then
finally, finally she reached it.

The core of the ship. The engineering
bay.

The pulsing, glowing red, orange, and blue
lights of an omidium-powered engine.

The core was an enormous glowing chamber lit
up with the most incredible light you could imagine. It pulsed and
hummed. Right at the center of the engineering bay, it was sunk
deep into the floor - the rest of the bay high above. It was
separated by a high, sturdy railing and the best force fields the
universe could muster.

Because the sheer power of the core would
kill anything it touched.

Anything but an Old One.

Clambering through the service ducts, faster
now, her hands numb, her body done for, Alice got as close to the
core as she could. Close enough that she could see the light of it
permeating through the service tunnel she was in.

Then she collapsed.

The lights went out.

Her body fell out from underneath her.

She slammed against the service tunnel.

Her body shut down.

Chapter 24

John Doe

He'd gotten back to the Pegasus just in time
to see the hangar bay she'd landed in erupt in a cloud of black
gas. Letting the Chief deal with it, he'd boarded and headed
straight for his quarters.

Then he'd let the computer pull the armor
from his body.

John Doe had jumped in the shower soon after.
Now he was lying flat on his bed, his ankles locked as he stared at
the bank of windows above him.

Today had not been one he would chose to ever
remember.

‘
You could have saved her if you'd tried
harder,’ he told himself out loud, his voice echoing through his
room.

There was no one to answer. Flopping a hand
over his head and resting it over his eyes, John blinked into
it.

He was not dealing with this well. Why was he
getting so involved? He hadn't know that woman. The most she'd ever
said to him was to snap at him to put her down, yet here he was,
ensconced in grief that seemed to be larger than him.

‘
Pull it together,’ he
whispered.

It wouldn't be that easy.

‘
You've got to get your head set on your
shoulders before you head into the Rim,’ he noted with a
sigh.

Which was true. Orion Minor had only ever
been a stopover. They were headed out to the Rim from here.

The bloody Rim.

Groaning slightly, John pushed his hand
further over his face, not caring that it sat hard against his eyes
and nose.

This mission was one of the most important
any Union Forces ship was currently engaged in. If the Pegasus
could bring back live Old Tech . . . hell, it would
change the course of history, right? If they could find some device
that hadn't shut down yet, they could use it to try and study the
power source of the ancient ones. Try to understand what strange
energy they had used. And if they could break that - the greatest
secret of the ages - they could stop the inevitable.

The inevitable was war.

Or worse, the complete dissolution of the
modern universe.

That was the nightmare that was pushing the
Union Forces top brass. A nightmare that sat at the back of
everyone's minds.

One day the universal transport system would
shut down. It would run out of energy. It would leave every galaxy
separate. Transport between them would be slow, almost unimaginably
slow. And the resources it would take to push a ship through the
vast expanses of nothing that separated galaxies would be too great
for anyone to try it.

It would destroy the Union.

But that's not all. One day the ICN's would
shut down. ICN's were everywhere from ships to worlds to clusters;
all computer networks were based on that technology. It was
sufficiently far removed that it could run connected to another
power source. But at the core of the technology was still Old Tech.
And at the core of that was still that mysterious energy.

It too would one day shut down. Then every
single computer network throughout the universe would go dark.

It would take the universe from modernity
back into the dark ages in the twinkle of an eye.

There were people, whole races even, that
believed the threat of relying too much on Old Tech just wasn't
worth it. They'd stripped the ICN's from their ships and worlds,
and they were sure never to use the transport net.

But it wasn't that easy. They still relied on
the protection of the Union Forces, they still sold their resources
and bolstered their economy through trade that relied on the
transport network.

You just couldn't get away from it no matter
how hard you tried; Old Tech was so deeply rooted in the modern
universe that it would take every ship and planet and life with it
if it ever dried up.

‘
And that, John,’ he spoke to himself in a
faked brave voice, ‘is why this mission is so important. If you
could find the key to their power source,’ he brought his hand off
his face in a flick, ‘you could save the universe.’

He brought his hands up behind his head
and closed his eyes with a wince. ‘So no pressure or
anything.’

John took a moment to let out a bitter laugh.
Then he rolled over.

It took a while, but soon sweet sleep claimed
the Commander.

Chapter 25

Alice

She shifted in and out of consciousness for a
day. Her eyes would flicker open, she would feel her broken bones,
know that blood still covered her form, then she would slip back
into nothingness.

But every time she fluttered her eyes open,
she felt stronger, and her attention lasted.