Star Cruise: Marooned (4 page)

“What then?”

He stepped to the keypad, flipping open the cover, and entered a series of numbers and symbols so rapidly she had no idea what the sequence might be.

“You’ve been here before?” Meg asked.

He shook his head. “Special Forces, Team Twelve. We each have a special access code enabling our entry into any door, ship, vault, or facility in the Sectors.”

The storm door jerked away from the threshold and then began to roll into the roof recess. The window shutters on all four sides of the building followed suit a moment later. Meg knew her mouth was hanging open. Biting her lip, she tried to make sense of this new information. “You’re on active military duty, but working as crew on a charter ship? Are you undercover or something?”

“Retired. Wasn’t sure my code would work, but we have a saying in the Teams—no one is ever completely released from service.” He grimaced. “Not until we die or the Mawreg have been erased from the Sectors. I should live so long.” He pushed the inner door open. “Let’s see what we have here. Stay behind me.”

The lights didn’t respond to voice command or their physical presence. “I guess the rangers powered down before departing. Shutters must be on auxiliary. I’ll have to check the situation out later,” he said, pausing on the threshold. “At least the windows let in enough ambient light for now.”

“How long do you think we’re going to be here?” Meg was disturbed by his mention of later.

“Depends on what the problem in orbit is.” He stopped, giving her a hard look. “Anything like this ever happen before?”

“No. Drewson is an idiot, but he’d never abandon us. And Captain Jonsle certainly won’t maroon us.”

“He may not have a choice. I don’t want to alarm you, but we could be in a bad situation here. I hope not, but just between the two of us, I’m not feeling too positive. Whatever spooked the TDJ captain into recalling his people had to be damn serious. I don’t want to alarm our passengers because panicked people are hard to handle. Drewson’s takeoff seems like the act of a panicked person.” He studied her face, the expression on his serious. “You’re not going to panic, are you?”

“Of course not.” She straightened her spine, irritated he would even ask.

He squeezed her shoulder. “Good. I didn’t think so. Stay here, let me check the rest of the place, and then we’ll bring Sharmali in.”

Moving so quietly she couldn’t hear his footsteps, Red left her. Meg sank onto the nearest chair, resting her head in her hands. If she and the people she was responsible for were in survival mode, even for a short time until someone sent help for them, she had to reprioritize her thoughts. By the time Red returned to the small lobby, she was on her feet, pacing, and making lists on her personal AI.

“Nothing left behind but the furniture as far as I can see,” Red reported brusquely. There’s a big conference room or maybe it’s a dining room, and a small kitchen, couple of offices.”

“Right. We’ll bring Sharmali in here, lay her on the couch. If you can’t get the power going, we can build a fire for tonight. The temperatures plummet after dark and the wind rises. There’s a fireplace in the conference room too, right?”

He nodded. “Plenty of wood stacked out back. We can do the rustic thing. Maybe the guests will enjoy the novelty of camping out tonight.”

“Hope so, as that’s their only choice. I think we leave the guests in blissful ignorance for now, until the Primary asks about missing the deadline for retrieval. It’ll dawn on them soon enough we’re marooned, if we truly are.” Meg checked his reaction. “Seem okay to you?”

His calm face betrayed nothing. “Yes, Ma’am. But eventually they’re going to get upset. Especially the Primary, Mr. Finchon. He has a short fuse.”

“He’s not in charge anymore, I am.” Meg dropped her AI into a handy pocket. “This is a survival situation and I’m the senior crew member.”

She half expected him to protest, but his eyebrows lifted in mock surprise and he agreed with enthusiasm. “Yes, you are. And I’m here to back you to the hilt.”

“Hey, what’s going on in there?” Bettis, the male passenger, peered into the lobby. “Can we bring Sharmali in or not?”

“Yes, we’ve got a nice couch to put her on, make her comfortable.” Red moved to join him, saying to Meg in a low voice as he passed, “You and I need to talk more, later.”

Red arranged Sharmali on the couch, Meg and Callina covering her with the large, soft beach towels. As she tucked the cloth over Sharmali’s shoulders, touching her clammy skin, Meg was alarmed by her condition. The woman was hypothermic and nearly unresponsive. The purple streaks had progressed beyond her knee into the fleshy thigh area on her injured leg when Meg checked.

“Whoa, the bite looks disgusting,” Bettis said over her shoulder. “And painful. Glad I didn’t go wading.”

“If you and Mrs. Bettis can sit with her, Red and I need to supervise activities on the beach,” Meg said, ignoring his unspoken question.

“Yell for me if there’s any change,” Red added

“I’m no expert on bite wounds.” Doubt radiated from the man.

“I just came along to be out of the sun,” Callina rubbed her bare shoulders. “I never had any first aid instructions or anything.”

“If she gets agitated, or feverish, or if the appearance of the injury changes,” Meg said, forcing herself to rein in her impatience. “Call us.”

“Right.” Bettis dragged a chair next to the couch for himself and another for his wife, as Meg and Red departed.
 

Not talking, the two of them crossed the landing pad and descended to the beach. To Meg’s relief, Mr. Finchon was seated, drinking a large glass of pure whiskey, judging from the translucent bronze color. As Meg approached, he stood, glaring at her, swirling the drink in the heavy crystal goblet. The other passengers gathered nearby, whispering to each other.

“I’m going to start packing up here,” Meg said.
 

“I’m pressing formal negligence charges against you both, as soon as we return to the ship,” their Primary guest said, voice quiet and deadly. “And suing the charter company. I’ll be transmitting the claims to Sector Hub immediately upon setting foot on the
Far Horizon
.”

“Fine, you do whatever you think you need to do,” she answered, happy to hear how steady her voice sounded, despite the sinking sensation in her gut. “In the meantime, Mr. Thomsill and I have duties to attend to. Does anyone want another drink or a snack before I close the robos?”
 

Trever, held up one hand. “Throw me another, but not that swill I endorse. I drink enough of that for the commercials.” He guffawed.

Meg fished a high end premixed drink from the robo’s storage container and tossed it to the athlete underhanded. He snatched it from the air, reflexes not much diminished from his glory days on an All Sectors professional ball team.

A few other people came forward and she and Red served them. Then the passengers drifted away for the most part. Meg turned her back to the lake and leaned toward Red.
 

“The Primary’s going to be major trouble in about an hour, when the deadline passes with no shuttle arriving,” her fellow crew member said before she could utter a word. “Nothing I can’t handle easily, as long as the others stay scared sheep.”

“I can help with crowd control.” She grabbed the bag she’d been guarding, setting it on her prep surface.

He fingered the edge of the cleaning supplies label. “Why do I have hope you’re
not
talking about brushes and mops?” he said, moving closer, his body shielding them from casual view.

Opening the bag in such a way as to conceal the contents, she showed him the blasters. “I grabbed these when I went to talk to Drewson.”

As he palmed one, Red gave her an awestruck look. “Ma’am, my respect for you has climbed to a whole new level.” Efficiently, he checked the charge.

His praise warmed her a bit and settled her nerves. “Taking the weapons was an impulse, but a good precaution, given how strangely the TDJ crew behaved. Don’t you want both of them?”

“Do you know how to shoot?”

She nodded. “I’ve had the basic course.”

“Then you keep the other. You’re in command here.” He slid his blaster into a deep side pocket of his utility pants. “I suggest we keep this advantage our secret until or unless we need to use them, okay?”

“Okay.” Following his example, she dropped the second into the pocket of her own pants, sealing the flap.

“Civilian pop guns,” he said, “But much, much better than bare fists.”

“Is Sharmali going to die?” Meg voiced her biggest fear.

Eyes steady on hers, he nodded once. “I used the only anti-venom inject in the kit already. You saw for yourself how ineffective the dose was. Even if we could get her to the ship in the next half hour, it might already be too late.” He touched her elbow lightly. “There’s nothing you can do about it. And stop beating yourself up over the sonic barrier in the lake. There was no way for you to know it was off. We all expected it to be on.”

Meg disagreed about her own negligence, but now wasn’t the time to argue. Squaring her shoulders, she breathed in, counting to ten. Exhaling, she nodded. “Okay, in an hour, when the deadline passes, plus a margin for error, I’m gathering the group and telling them we believe we’re temporarily marooned. Then I want to put them to work. We’ll gather all the supplies, including what TDJ left, and we’ll move everything to the ranger building. It’ll be sunset in a few hours, and I think we’d better spend the night there, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” He gestured at the lake. “I assume we can drink this water?”

“Some of the trace chemicals aren’t good for humans if we drank it for the rest of our lives, but yes, fine to consume over a short period of time.”

“Lock the feelgoods in the bar robo now,” he suggested. “I’ll go do the same in the TDJ pavilion. Less chance of me having to shoot someone if we don’t let the situation degrade to where one or more people are drunk or high.” Eyeing the passengers, most of whom were in a tight circle, talking animatedly, he said, “Well, more inebriated than a couple of the men—Trever for one—already are.”

“All right.” Shading her eyes with one hand, she observed her passengers, her responsibility. She noted with relief that the wandering Sam and Lindy had returned unharmed from their hike, and were the center of the excited circle as the others tried to talk over each other, telling the newcomers the unusual events they’d missed. “I hope at least a few of them are going to pull their own weight.”

“People want to eat, they work. Simple as that.” Red jogged in the direction of the TDJ site.

CHAPTER TWO

Sharmali died in the middle of the night, quietly, never drawing another breath after one deep inhalation. Meg, who was in the chair next to the couch, drowsing, didn’t realize at first her passenger had died. The venom had worked its way through Sharmali’s entire body, turning all her veins and arteries a startling black and she’d been breathing shallowly for most of the evening. Meg briefly considered doing CPR, and decided there was no use, given the way the poison had affected the poor woman.

Draping a beach towel over Sharmali’s face, Meg sat, head in her hands. There wasn’t any point in waking anyone else. Sharmali had no close friends among the passengers. Apparently, she and most of the other women had been hired by the Primary for entertainment thinly veiled as companionship during the cruise. The men were clients and business contacts of Mr. Finchon’s, with several of his high level employees along as backup, should any of the discussions delve into business. The Bettises, who’d helped with Sharmali earlier in the day, were the only married couple in the party.

A few passengers had remained aboard the
Far Horizon
, declining the beach party adventure.

Meg glanced to where Mrs. Bettis slept next to her husband. She was Finchon’s stepdaughter from his first marriage. Her mother was deceased, but apparently the generational billionaire had promised his late wife to raise her.
 

As Meg was contemplating what life must have been like for Callina, Red materialized out of the dark, coming inside the lodge from doing a patrol of the grounds. Glancing at the towel over the now deceased passenger’s face, he grimaced. He squatted next to Meg’s chair. “We’ll bury her in the morning,” he said, resting his hand on her arm for a moment. “You doing okay?”

She nodded. “You should get some rest,” she whispered.
 

“No worries, I’ll cat nap.” He rose, stretching from side to side.

She caught his sleeve. “Are you expecting trouble tonight?”

He hesitated. “Honestly? I don’t know what to expect. I do know the map in the ranger office shows sonic screens embedded to protect this whole place, which says to me there are land-based predators equivalent to the eel thing I killed earlier. And all of the defenses have been rendered inoperative, apparently during the withdrawal power-down when the rangers left.”

“Could be native fauna worse than the eels,” she said, trying to remember details from previous visits. The company played down the dangers, for fear of scaring away passengers. The rangers kept the tourist site safe, or used to. “But I don’t mean the flora and fauna, I’m talking about why we’ve been marooned here, why our ship hasn’t returned for us.”