The Agathon: Reign of Arturo (30 page)

“If you will be patient, I will show you,” said Jack.

The Agathon

“We’re clear,” said Boyett from the flight controls.

Barrington looked out at the star field being displayed on the main view screen and let out a breath. They had broken through the ice and made their way back up to the ionosphere of the planet. The shuttle bay had been purged of all water and Doctor Brubaker was taking a half drowned Chavel to the medical bay.

There was a moment of silence on the bridge as Barrington gathered his thoughts. He was engaging repair crews and analysing a flood of data on the ship’s systems. He had lost another man. Not just any man. The man who had built this ship. Who had built Jycorp and been the ruler of what was the human race, before its destruction. He suddenly felt very alone. The world was slipping away from his fingers and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Boyett turned to face him suddenly, as if sensing the pressure and loss that the captain suddenly felt himself under.

“Nicely done, Captain,” she said.

Barrington looked at her, through the fog of the responsibility suddenly thrown on his shoulders. He smiled at her attempt to console him.

“Nicely done, Captain,” Kevin Ferrate emulated from behind him.

Barrington turned to face the young man. He suppressed a wave of emotion that was stirring in his chest. He took their support and cleared his throat nodding to both crewmen. He turned in his seat and took a deep breath.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get to work,” he said, “I want a full damage report.”

He turned to his chair console and tapped in some commands opening a ship wide channel.

“Doctor Chase Meridian to the bridge,” he said.

The data that Jerome Young had sent back needed translating and he needed to talk to Meridian.

“On my way, Captain,” came Meridian’s voice.

He had barely a minute to compose himself when there was a chime from the console.

“Engine room to bridge, we have a situation down here,” Tosh’s voice sounded panicked. Barrington could hear the sounds of frantic screaming in the background.

“Tosh?” Barrington said picking up on his tone.

“Captain, Katrina Padrosa is standing on the FTL drive firing a weapon. I have one dead and it looks like she has just attached an explosive device to the main core of The Betty!”

“What?” Barrington shouted as a new surge of adrenalin rushed through his veins.

“You better get down here, we need help!” Tosh said cutting the communication channel.

Barrington looked around the bridge at the shocked faces. Boyett was already out of her chair. He only had a fraction of a second to think.

The explosion.

They had never found the saboteur on board the ship. Barrington had thought that it must have been Tyrell. Katrina Padrosa had been a relatively quiet member of Tosh’s engineering staff. He had only spoken to her once. His head started to spin. He ran to the rear of the bridge and stopped Boyett in her tracks.

“You have the bridge!” he said to her forcefully.

She was about to object when he stopped her from speaking.

“That’s an order!” he looked at Ferrate. “Kevin, you’re with me.”

Kevin Ferrate snapped into motion following the captain into the lift. As the doors slid shut he looked at Boyett, whose face was manic.

The Agathon

Engine Room

The door to the engine room slid open and Barrington stepped inside followed closely by Kevin Ferrate, who was now armed with a pulse gun. Barrington stopped and took a moment to take in what he was seeing. Tosh was sitting calmly in his wheelchair directly in front of the FTL drive as Katrina Padrosa towered over him perched neatly on a long metal beam. She had a weapon pointed squarely at his head. There were several of the engineering crew scattered in a semi-circle around Tosh. Padrosa was screaming at them. She was a plain looking woman with long brown hair that hung loosely around her shoulders. Barrington stood at the entrance to try and get a handle on the situation before slowly approaching. He flicked his hand towards Ferrate motioning him to give him his weapon. Ferrate slowly handed the captain the pulse gun and moved off to one side, approaching from the right.

“You!” shouted Padrosa pointing her weapon at Barrington.

He stopped dead in his tracks and looked into the woman’s crazed eyes.

“Defying God! Who are you to take us from our maker! You had no right!” yelled Padrosa.

Barrington looked at Tosh, who had looked around to see who she had been talking to.

“Easy, Katrina,” Barrington said raising his hands.

He thought for a moment and flicked his eyes sharply to the left activating his eye implant. He fought a wave of nausea as the heads up display flickered to life. He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to throw up. An array of biographical data spread across his field of vision. Looking up at Katrina, he saw a blue outline surround her body as he focused in on her. A stream of bio data listed life signs on the left-hand side of the virtual screen he was looking at. He looked at her heart rate. It was high. Really high. Her adrenaline was spiked. It looked like she had a foreign substance in her body. The nausea subsided as he continued to monitor her. Her muscles were tense.
Something had clearly snapped in the young woman. The full effects of losing a family and a planet must have been too much for some. There simply had not been time to psychologically screen those that had boarded the ship before they departed. This was something else though. He saw a willingness to die in her eyes. He looked down at her feet and saw a long clear tube full of liquid by her feet.

“Listen to me, Katrina, we can help you, you are not alone,” he said taking a small step towards the centre of the engine room.

He caught Tosh’s eye for a moment. They were widening and he seemed to shake his head slightly. Barrington took the signal and stopped moving.

“He wants us all. We must obey his wishes and end this cowardice. He will welcome us, Captain, do not be afraid,” Padrosa said, with the weapon now raised at Barrington’s head.

“We can be saved, Katrina, it’s not too late. I can help you,” Barrington said, stretching out his arms to make himself look less threatening.

There was a moment of silence between the two. He saw no sign that he, or anyone else was going to get through to the young broken woman. He knew it was time to act before anyone else got killed. He was about to raise his weapon and take a shot at her when she smiled. An empty and desperate smile. His display showed a massive spike in her heartrate.

Now what?
he thought to himself.

“See you soon, Captain,” she said raising the pulse gun to her temple.

“No!” shouted Barrington.

She pulled the trigger and a bolt of light burst through the side of her head. The force of it knocked her off the ledge and her smouldering body collapsed into a heap on the engine room floor. There was a palpable shock in the engine room. Barrington ran towards the body and knelt by her side. The smell of the burning wound filled the air.

“John, she put an explosive on the core!” Tosh said from behind him.

Barrington looked up at Tosh and then to the engine core. The spinning balls of blue plasma swirled calmly inside it. He stood quickly and ran around to see what Padrosa had placed on The Betty. The long clear tube was actually two separate compartments leading into an empty one.

“Looks like a liquid polymer, if those two mix, then there’s nothing we can do,” Tosh said.

“Can you disarm it?” Barrington shouted climbing up onto the side of the engine core.

The motion created another wave of nausea that hit him full force and this time he couldn’t stop it. He leaned to the side and vomited all over the floor. He clung to the side of the core, wiping his mouth and flicked his eyes to the left, successfully shutting down the program. Tosh looked up at him questioningly and he replied “Side effects of my new bionic eye.” Tosh nodded and they turned their attention back to The Betty. He looked at the device. It was an extremely well put together piece of work. There was a LCD timer on one side ticking slowly down from twelve minutes.

“No chance, John. I am amazed she didn’t set the thing off as she was walking into the engine room,” Tosh said sounding panicked.

Barrington looked back at the bomb and tried to think straight.

“We have to get it off the ship,” he said, “give me a laser welder!”

One of the engineering staff rushed up behind him with the small hand held device and handed it to Barrington.

“Are you nuts? That’ll set it off!” Tosh said to him from below.

“You got a better idea?” Barrington said, activating the laser welder and making an incision into the metal underneath the bomb.

Kevin Ferrate had just climbed up to assist him.

“Easy, sir, there is a power distribution node three inches to the left,” Ferrate said.

Barrington steadied his hand and moved the laser welder around the edges of the bomb. There was a light popping sound as the section of metal came loose. A collective intake of breath let him know the device was loose. He slowly manoeuvred his fingers under the bomb,
freeing it from the surface of the metal. It was surprisingly light. He took it in both hands and gently stepped down from the engine core. There was a deathly silence in the engine room as all eyes fell on the device.

“Now what? We are running out of time, John” Tosh whispered looking at Barrington.

Barrington looked at the rear door of the engine room and back at Tosh. He had no choice. He was about to start for the door when he suddenly felt another pair of hands clasp his.

“I’ll take care of it,” Kevin Ferrate said snatching the device out of the captain’s hands.

Barrington had no time to react, as the young crewman began running towards the back of the engine room to the door.

“Kevin!” Barrington shouted at the young man who had broken into a sprint.

Barrington looked briefly back at a visibly shocked Tosh. He looked back towards Ferrate who was now at the door and moving through it.

“Goddam it!” he shouted as he broke into a sprint following Ferrate and the bomb out of the engine room. A stunned Tosh was left to sit beside a pool of vomit and the smouldering body of Katrina Padrosa.

The Agathon Shuttle Bay

The doorway to the shuttle bay was still open when Barrington arrived. He ran inside to see Kevin Ferrate already seated in Shuttle Pod 3. The main hatch was still open and he stepped inside.

“Hold it,” he said to Ferrate who was already running up the engine start up sequence.

Ferrate turned in his seat.

“Captain, get out of here, we don’t have time,” he shouted.

“Get out of the seat, Kevin, I’ll do it,” Barrington said moving towards the young crewman.

Ferrate stood up and blocked Barrington’s way and put his hands forcefully on his shoulders.

“Captain, listen to me. This is the way it has to be. I can’t captain this ship. These people need you, way more than they need me. I am an expendable asset and you fucking know it!” he said “please, sir, let me do this!”

Barrington looked at the conviction of the young man. He knew he was right of course. He knew that his training demanded that he order a crewman to his death, if it meant saving the ship. It did not give him a choice. He looked at the bomb which Ferrate had left resting on the chair next to the main flight console. It was slowly ticking down. Four minutes thirty and counting. The fluids in the two long tubes were beginning to mix into each other. One blue, one red. It made a purple mixture in the centre of the device.

“Goodbye, Captain,” Ferrate said seeing Barrington’s silent agreement with the situation.

The captain fought his instinct to hit the man and take the controls, but instead simply extended his hand.

“Thank you,” Barrington said, suddenly feeling an emptiness swarm through his chest.

He shook the crewman’s hand and stepped out of the shuttle craft. There was no choice. Ferrate smiled sadly and returned to the flight chair. Barrington stepped outside the shuttle and sealed the outer hatch. He looked around at the crew manning the shuttle bay.

“Clear the shuttle bay, prepare for launch!” he shouted at them.

He walked over to a computer console and tapped the comms channel.

“Barrington to bridge, Charly get the ship as far away from Shuttle Pod 3 as you can, it’s about to depart,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Boyett’s voice sounded confused, but she followed his order.

Barrington looked back at the shuttle pod which was now hovering in front of the main hangar doors. He moved out of the shuttle bay and listened as it depressurised. He caught Ferrate’s eyes through the glass and saluted him. Ferrate winked back with a smile. The
shuttle bay doors opened and the little craft left the ship. He tapped the comm channel again and opened a ship wide communication.

“All hands, this is the captain, prepare for impact,” he said.

He suddenly became angry. He should have found the saboteur. He should have been more diligent. Why couldn’t Carrie have sensed this? Then he thought of her. He wondered if she really was still alive. He felt alone. It did not matter if Ferrate could not captain the ship. His crew was slowly dying. One by one. He looked out at the empty shuttle bay. Then a thought crept into his mind. A crazy thought. It forced its way through his grief.

“Jesus!” he said loudly to himself.

He tapped the comm channel again.

“Charly, patch me through to Shuttle Pod 3, fast!” he shouted at the computer.

“Yes, sir, you are through, go ahead,” she said quickly.

“Kevin?” he shouted.

“Yes, sir, I can read you,” Ferrate said.

Barrington placed both of his hands on the console.

“Listen to me, there is an atmo suit in the rear of the shuttle pod, look behind you in the crew storage locker!” he said.

“Okay?” said Ferrate confused.

Less than one minute.

“Set the shuttle pod to full thrusters and get into it. NOW!” he shouted.

“Sir, I …” Ferrate began to speak.

“Do it, that’s an order. On my mark, blow the emergency hatch release,” Barrington said.