Mothership (14 page)

“Oooooh,”
Natty sighs from over by the window as she takes in the light display. “It looks just like
Christmas
!”

Captain Bob and I ignore her and lean in close to the console to find out exactly how boned we really are.

We are pretty supremely boned.

The bad news is that the escape pods were in fact launched from the bridge, which leaves us no exit from the ship whatsoever. It also means, of course, that someone on board this ship must have launched them, and—barring the unlikely event that our little friend the pod launcher stuck his head inside an oven or something—that person is still on board, and still probably doesn’t like us very much.

The
really
bad news is that, despite the vacuum shields activating, we are still leaking oxygen. Breathable air levels are down to about 58 percent. All those explosions must have burned up a considerable amount of oxygen even before we started leaking atmo. At this rate we’ll be drowning in our own air in less than forty-eight hours.

And the really,
REALLY
bad news? The explosions also shoved the
Echidna
into a deteriorating orbit, which means that sooner or later the ship is going to get caught in Earth’s gravitational pull and crash onto the surface of the planet. Since these cruisers were built in orbital docks, they were never designed to land. Any navigational instruments will be useless once we start our descent.

The ship is going down, and we’re going down with it.

“How quickly do you think your people can get a rescue ship here?” I ask the captain. “I mean, you do have people, right? A backup plan?”

In answer the captain turns to bellow at Cole. And is it just me, or do I detect a hint of panic in his voice? “Archer! What’s the read on the comm panel?”

Even from here I can tell that the only thing Cole’s managed to bring up on the communications panel is static. Cole is frowning at the view screen, spinning dials seemingly at random. “It should be working fine,” he calls back our way, “but I can’t get or send any kind of signal.”

“Another encryption?” Captain Bob asks. “Or maybe the transmitter’s offline.”

“No, sir. There’s some sort of digital noise interfering with the frequency modulator. It’s scrambling all communications. Data, audio, video, everything.”

“There must be a jamming device somewhere on the ship,” Captain Bob mutters. “It seems we have a saboteur.” He massages his temple for just a moment before turning to me. “Miss Nara, perhaps you could search for foreign energy signatures? I will help Archer find the right frequency modulation.” And he makes his way to Cole across the bridge, leaving me standing alone in front of the main console.

As I’m bringing up the full layout of the ship, my ears start to tune back in to the conversations around me.

“All I’m saying,” Danielle says, continuing her conversation from the hallway, “is that we can’t take it on faith that the faculty were aliens. We would have noticed if they were aliens.
There would have been, like,
signs
, you know? Like, antennae or green skin or something.”

“My Coley
said
our teachers were aliens,” Britta shoots back, darting her eyes in the direction of Cole and Captain Bob at the communications panel. “Are you saying my boyfriend lied?”

“I’m not saying he
lied
,” Danielle says, sidestepping. “Maybe he was just confused.”

Other Cheerleader shakes her head. “They were definitely aliens. Last week, when they put me under for the Gatling, I swear I could see Dr. Marsden’s tentacles.”

“Cole wasn’t confused,” Britta tells Danielle. “My Coley doesn’t get confused. Anyway, why the hell else would they try to drown everyone? Huh?”

“I don’t know,” Danielle replies. “It just seems awfully coincidental that these guys showed up right when everything started to go amuck.”

Up until this point Natty has been running her fingers over the cracks in the wall with her patented dreamy gaze. But at this she looks up.

“It’s because Cole and the captain are aliens too,” she says matter-of-factly.

Britta is immediately right in Natty’s face, teeth bared like some sort of cheerleader vampire. “Bitch, if you
ever
talk like that about my boyfriend again, I will—”

But Other Cheerleader, of all people, stops the impending girl fight by putting a hand on Britta’s shoulder. Although she’s clearly on Britta’s side. “Gnat,” she spits, with all the contempt a cheerleader can muster. Which is to say, a
lot
. “Go eat some paste, won’t you?”

At that, Natty just blinks. “I left it all in the art room,” she replies.

I had thought, up until now, that Cole and Captain Bob were blissfully unaware of this idiotic conversation, but apparently they’ve been listening too.

“Girls,” Captain Bob addresses them calmly, “I understand that there is a lot of confusion right now, and I’ll be happy to address all of it as soon as I can be assured we’re completely safe. At the moment—”

That’s when Cole, bouncing at the comm panel like a puppy anxious to get outside and pee, declares, “We’re a special black ops military outfit. Gamma Force. Like, commandos and stuff. We’re on the lookout to protect against alien infestation, reanimated enemy combatants, things like that.” Which seems to impress the dimmer girls, but not me. Because it is the exact premise of one of Ducky’s more gruesome video games, Ugolino: Brain Eater for Hire.

I smell a rat.

Captain Bob pinches the bridge of his nose, in a perfect impression of Mrs. Kwan back in English class, and offers Cole a look that could shrivel peaches. “Why don’t we work on communicating with
command
at the moment, hmm?” Cole swivels around and buries his face in the comm panel.

“Ladies,” Captain Bob continues, addressing the girls once more, “all you need to know at the moment is that your teachers were the bad guys, and we are the good guys.” He puts up a hand to halt further inquiries. “We will discuss any other questions you may have
later
.”

I resume my search of the layout of the ship, and at first
I’m so busy looking for the interference with our communication that I don’t see it right away. But when I do notice it, it strikes me as particularly odd, even given our current situation.

Several of the ship’s blast doors, which are meant to contain damaged portions of the ship, have been activated on the
interior
of the ship—sealing off portions of the
Echidna
that were far, far away from the explosion. Which means they must have been triggered manually.

Now, why the heck would someone do
that
?

As I squint at the screen, I also notice other anomalies—gaps in the ship’s gravity, temperature, oxygen, and pressurization. Certain sections of the ship are virtually impassable, while the rest seems fine.

Cole comes strolling my way and peeks over my shoulder. “What did you find?” he asks. I guess he can tell there’s something worth examining, from the way I’m squinting. But I’m not giving anything up just yet.

“I thought you were helping with the comm panel,” I say.

“Yeah. Uh . . .” Cole rubs his neck. “The captain might have suggested that I would be more help if I went somewhere and scratched my ass.”

“I see,” I reply, then resume my squinting. I have more important things to deal with at the moment than Cole and the captain’s Gilligan-Skipper relationship.

Staring at the schematic is starting to feel like looking at one of those stupid old hidden picture puzzle thingies, the kind that just look like blobs and squiggles, until suddenly they morph into a picture of an elephant or something. “The
blocked portions are mainly hallways,” I mutter. “And some storage, and living quarters. Nothing important.”

I’m not actually talking to Cole, but he must think I am, because he replies, “Maybe that’s where the guy’s holed up.”

I let out an exasperated huff, trying to think of what could be in those interior sections that’s so important. “No,” I say. “There’s no way to tap into any vital systems there. He’d be like a sitting duck, no better off than we are . . .” And that’s when I see the stupid elephant. It’s so obvious, I can’t help feeling like a chromer for not noticing it right away.

“The captain’s quarters,” I whisper.

“Huh?” Cole replies.

I run my finger across the layout, tracing a line through the blockaded sections. The saboteur is clearly trying to prevent us from reaching the far aft section of the ship.

“The captain’s quarters,” I say again. “Back in the day this school used to be a pleasure cruiser, and this section here”—I point to the far lower aft section of the ship, which has been so meticulously blocked off to us—“was where the captain had his living quarters and offices.” None of our faculty actually used these rooms, as far as I know, but there
is
one thing that might make them enticing to a bastard trying to destroy a shipful of pregnant girls. “There was also,” I tell Cole, finally looking up from the layout, straight into his blue-green-blue eyes, “a captain’s yacht.”

Cole blinks at me, then shouts at Captain Bob, over by the comm panel. “Sir!” he shouts. “I think Elvie found something!” Some of the girls turn to look at us, clearly not knowing exactly what’s going on, but looking momentarily hopeful about any sort
of change in our situation. Britta narrows her eyes at me as though just the fact that I’m standing next to her boyfriend makes her want to ninja attack me. Although Cole, as ever, seems oblivious. He scuttles over to relieve the captain in his role as useless-dial spinner. But not before patting me on the back and whispering, “Good job, Elvs.” Like I am some sort of canine.

I roll my eyes.

“Miss Nara?” Captain Bob says as he joins me behind the main console.

Again I point out the blocked section of the ship and explain. “The captain’s quarters had a small personal shuttle,” I tell him. “It might not be there anymore,” I continue, “because when the
Echidna
was refitted, it’s entirely possible that they took it out. Assuming it is there, though, it’s not connected to the main computer systems, so it couldn’t have been launched from here. You’d have to do it manually.” I poke around on the power grid display, looking at the systems in the aft section. Sure enough, the aft launch doors, the decompression controls, and everything else you would need to prep in order to launch a ship from back there have been powered up.

“Can you override the controls on those blast doors?” he asks me. I give it a try, but the console just buzzes.

“He’s got the controls locked. We can see everything but I can’t change it. Which makes me think,” I say, looking up at last, “that this guy is planning on shuttling out of here, and he’s trying to keep us away from his ride.”

Captain Bob thinks on that. “Or,” he says, “he’s laying out bread crumbs, making it seem like he’s trying to block off our only means of escape.”

“You mean a trap?” I ask. Bob nods.

Man, this shit just got ominous.

It’s at this moment that Cole, still spinning away at the comm panel, begins to shout. “Sir!” he cries. “I think I got something!”

Captain Bob rushes over, with me right behind him. The majority of the girls press in behind us, hoping for the promise of a miraculous rescue.

On the view screen there is mostly static. I can almost make out the figure of a person, if I squint hard enough. But mostly it’s horizontal lines, dancing across the screen in some kind of technological mambo. The sound is on the fritz too—mostly static, with faint garbled speech straining to push its way through the noise.

But at least it’s
something
.

“Home One,” Captain Bob barks to the flickering image on the screen. “Home One, this is Natal Group Leader.” As the picture and sound get just the tiniest bit clearer, Bob’s sense of urgency seems to grow. “One, this is Natal Group Leader, do you copy?”

All Captain Bob gets in reply is a distorted voice.
“Kkkkatal . . . stttstssst . . . please repeat . . . Natal Group . . . kzzzzzzz.”
And then, finally: “Natal Group. This is Home One. Report.”

The girls behind me begin to cheer. Bob eases back in his chair just the slightest, as though he might actually be relaxing a smidge. I allow myself the tiniest twinge of hope as well. Contact with someone down on Earth. The possibility of a rescue. Maybe things are starting to take a turn for the better.

“This is Natal reporting,” Captain Bob continues to the still-fuzzy picture before us. “Byron, is that you?”

“This is Byron,” comes the response. “You’re . . .
kzzztttt
. . . breaking . . .” The mysterious Byron begins to evaporate into the sea of static again. Bob adjusts the frequency, trying to get the image back again. And then all at once the image becomes crystal clear.

“Good to see your face, Captain,” comes the static-y voice.

And now everyone’s cheering. Cole is grinning ear to ear. Even Bob exhales and relaxes a bit in his seat.