Neutronium Alchemist - Conflict

chamber. That was all; fifteen bloody metres! And the possessed were ahead of him. Erick snatched at a grab hoop to halt his forwards flight. He didn’t have any weapons. He didn’t have any backup. He didn’t even have Madeleine and Desmond to call on, not anymore.

More screams and pleas were trickling down the corridor from the axial chamber as the possessed chased down their victims. It wouldn’t be long before one of them checked this corridor.

I have to get past. Have to!

He called up the schematic again, studying the area around the axial chamber. Twenty seconds later, and he was at the airlock hatch.

It was a big airlock, used to service the spaceport spindle. The prep room which led to it had dozens of lockers, all the equipment and support systems required to maintain space hardware, even five deactivated free- flying mechanoids.

Erick put his decryption program into primary mode and set it to work cracking the first locker’s code. He stripped off his ship-suit as the lockers popped open one after the other. Physiological monitor programs confirmed everything he saw as the fabric parted. Pale fluid tinged with blood was leaking out of his medical nanonic packages where the edges were peeling from his flesh; a number of red LEDs on the ancillary modules were flashing to indicate system malfunctions. His new arm was only moving because of the reinforced impulses controlling the muscles.

But he still functioned. That was all that mattered.

It was the fifth locker which contained ten SII spacesuits. As soon as his body was sealed against the vacuum he hurried into the airlock, carrying a manoeuvring pack. He didn’t bother with the normal cycle, instead he tripped the emergency vent. Air rushed out. The outer hatch irised apart as he secured himself into the manoeuvring pack. Then the punchy gas jets fired, sending him wobbling past the hatch rim and out into space.

Andrй hated the idea of Shane Brandes even being inside the Villeneuve’s Revenge . And as for the man actually helping repair and reassemble the starship’s systems . . . merde. But as with most events in Andrй’s life these days, he didn’t have a lot of choice. Since the showdown with Erick, Madeleine had retreated into her cabin and refused to respond to any entreaties. Desmond, at least, performed the tasks requested of him, though not with any obvious enthusiasm. And, insultingly, he would only work alone.

That just left Shane Brandes to help Andrй with the jobs that needed more than one pair of hands. The Dechal ’s ex-fusion engineer was anxious to please. He swore he had no allegiance to his previous captain, and harboured no grudges or ill will towards the crew of the Villeneuve’s Revenge . He was also prepared to work for little more than beer money, and he was a grade two technician. One could not afford to overlook gift horses.

Andrй was re-installing the main power duct in the wall of the lower deck lounge, which required Shane to feed the cable to him when instructed. Someone glided silently through the ceiling hatch, blocking the beam from the bank of temporary lights Andrй had rigged up. Andrй couldn’t see what he was doing. “Desmond! Why must . . .” He gasped in shock. “You!”

“Hello again, Captain,” Kingsley Pryor said.

“What are you doing here? How did you get out of prison?”

“They set me free.”

“Who?”

“The possessed.”

“Non,” Andrй whispered.

“Unfortunately so. Ethenthia has fallen.”

The anti-torque tool Andrй was holding seemed such a pitiful weapon. “Are you one of them now? You will never have my ship. I will overload the fusion generators.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Pryor datavised. “As you can see, I haven’t been possessed.”

“How? They take everybody, women, children.”

“I am one of Capone’s liaison officers. Even here, that carries enormous weight.”

“And they let you go?”

“Yes.”

A heavy dread settled in Andrй’s brain. “Where are they? Are they coming?” He datavised the flight computer to review the internal sensors (those remaining—curse it). As yet no systems were glitching.

“No,” Pryor said. “They won’t come into the Villeneuve’s Revenge . Not unless I tell them to.”

“Why are you doing this?” As if I didn’t know.

“Because I want you to fly me away from here.”

“And they’ll let us all go, just like that?”

“As I said, Capone has a lot of influence.”

“What makes you think I will take you? You blackmailed me before. It will be simple to throw you out of the airlock once we are free of Ethenthia.”

Pryor smiled a dead man’s smile. “You’ve always done exactly as I wanted, Duchamp. You were always supposed to break away from Kursk.”

“Liar.”

“I have been given other, more important objectives than ensuring a third-rate ship with its fifth-rate crew stay loyal to the Organization. You have never had any free will since you arrived in the New California system. You still don’t. After all, you don’t really think there was only one bomb planted on board, do you?”

Erick watched the Villeneuve’s Revenge lift from its cradle. The starship’s thermo-dump panels extended, ion thrusters took over from the verniers. It rose unhurriedly from the spaceport. When he switched his collar sensors to high resolution he could see the black hexagon on the fuselage where plate 8-92-K was missing.

He didn’t understand it, Duchamp was making no attempt to flee. It was almost as if he was obeying traffic control, departing calmly along an assigned vector. Had the crew been possessed? Small loss to the Confederation.

His collar sensors refocused on the docking bay he was approaching, a dark circular recess in the spaceport’s gridiron exterior. It was a maintenance bay, twice as wide as an ordinary bay. The clipper-class starship, Tigara , which sat on the docking cradle seemed unusually small in such surroundings.

Erick fired his manoeuvring pack jets to take him down towards the Tigara. There were no lights on in the bay; all the gantries and multi-segment arms were folded back against the walls. Utility umbilicals were jacked in, and an airlock tube had mated with the starship’s fuselage; but apart from that there was no sign of any activity.

The silicon hull showed signs of long-term vacuum exposure—faded lettering, micrometeorite impact scuffs, surface layer ablation stains—all indicating hull plates long overdue for replacement. He drifted over the blurred hexagons until he was above the EVA airlock, and datavised the hatch control processor to cycle and open. If anyone was on board, they would know about him now. But there were no datavised questions, no active sensor sweeps.

The hatch slid open, and Erick glided inside.

Clipper-class starships were designed to provide a speedy service between star systems, carrying small high-value cargoes. Consequently, as much of their internal volume as possible was given over to cargo space. There was only one life-support capsule, which accommodated an optimum crew of three. That was the principal reason Erick had chosen the Tigara. In theory, he would be able to fly it solo.

Most of the starship systems were powered down. He kept his SII suit on as he moved through the two darkened lower decks to the bridge. As soon as he was secured in the captain’s acceleration couch he accessed the flight computer and ordered a full status review.

It could have been a lot better. Tigara was in the maintenance bay for a complete