“She’s alive,” Narcissa said. “But her pulse is very weak.”
“Let’s get her down to the MedBed.”
Ana-Zhi was a sturdy woman, but I managed to get her over my shoulder. Both Narcissa and Chiraine helped me get her down to the hold. There we were able to use a cart as a makeshift gurney.
“What the hell happened to her?” Narcissa asked.
“Not sure. Maybe a relapse from her injuries.” But even as I said those words, doubt filled my mind.
Once we made it to the infirmary, we got Ana-Zhi situated in the MedBed and hooked up to the sensors and applicator cuff. The AI would need a few minutes to diagnose her.
“Check the video feeds,” I told Narcissa. “See if there’s anything for the level 3 hallway.”
“You think she had a seizure?” Chiraine asked.
“I don’t know what to think.”
Seven minutes later the MedBed concluded that Ana-Zhi had been exposed to a high-voltage electric shock. It had run an ECG test and was in the process of analyzing her blood sample.
“How did she get a shock in the hallway?” I didn’t remember seeing any open panels or anything.
“Maybe she was shocked somewhere else and was trying to get down to the infirmary when she passed out,” Chiraine said.
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way,” Narcissa said. “A shock that powerful is going to knock you out right where it hit you.”
“Ana-Zhi is stable now,” I said. “We should go back up on three and see if there’s a hazard in that hallway.”
“There’s something else we need to figure out,” Chiraine said. She had a very worried look on her face.
“What?”
“If Ana-Zhi was unconscious on the command deck, who the hell opened the doors for us?”
We returned to three and checked the corridor near the lift. There were no open panels, no loose wires, no sign of an electrical discharge, nothing that would knock a 75-kilogram adult unconscious.
I said, “We need to go through this ship from top to bottom.”
“You think we have an intruder?” Chiraine asked.
“Something’s going on.”
“I agree,” Narcissa said. “Let’s gear up. Sidearms at least. And we should stay together.”
We started on the lower level and combed through the crew cabins. Dread gnawed in the pit of my stomach as I opened the door to the cabin where my father slept. I half expected to find him ripped from his exosuit and dead on the ground, but thank Dynark he was okay.
After combing through the infirmary and lower hold, we moved to level 2 and inspected every inch of the cargo bay, main hold, and engineering. There in engineering we found the Rhya, unmoving on a console.
“Shit!” I exclaimed. “Don’t tell me the Inspector’s been attacked too!”
But as I approached the Rhya, it stirred and floated up, almost to greet me.
“Looks fine to me,” Narcissa said.
“Yeah. I just wish it would cooperate with using our comm module. What if it saw something?”
Chiraine took a step closer to the Inspector. “Our friend was attacked. Did you see anything, noble Rhya?”
No response. Which wasn’t a big surprise.
“Let’s keep going,” I said.
Up on level 3, I positioned Chiraine and Narcissa on either end while I searched life support, the common room, the galley, and the storeroom.
But I didn’t see anyone and neither did they.
“If someone’s hiding on this ship, they’ll have to be on four,” Narcissa said.
But they weren’t.
We turned the entire place upside down—from security, the brig, weapons locker, to the ready room, science station, and the bridge. We even checked some hidden cargo compartments Narcissa found between the third and fourth levels.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Nothing could have made its way past us.”
I didn’t have any answers either. “We’re just going to have to wait until Ana-Zhi is conscious. She’ll have to tell us who attacked her.”
“What if she can’t remember?” Narcissa asked. “An electrical shock powerful enough to knock you out might also be powerful enough to scramble your gray matter.”
“Hopefully not,” I said.
“Hey, what about the ship’s monitoring system?” Chiraine asked.
Narcissa turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“I totally blanked on that,” I said.
“I’m still not following,” Narcissa said.
“I don’t know what you guys did on the Valerius way back when, but nowadays most clients hiring a salvage company require some sort of on-board video and audio monitoring in case of a dispute.” I didn’t mention it to Narcissa, but that was the whole reason I had to join this mission and impersonate my father—even though the crew knew who I really was. The Shima wanted proof that the great Sean Beck was calling the shots.
If the MCP didn’t fully trust Qualt & Company, there was a good chance that the Vostok was running some monitoring system as well.
We made our way to the security station and, with Chiraine and Narcissa looking over my shoulder, I started scrolling through the datapad, looking for a monitoring module.
“Hold up!” Narcissa said. “Go back.”
“What?”
“That previous screen.”
I flicked back through the interface.
“No,” she said. “Can I drive?”
“Yeah, sure. What did you see?”
We changed seats and Narcissa took over the datapad. Her fingers danced over the screen.
“Here we go,” she said. “Check this out.”
“What is it?” Chiraine asked, leaning in.
“The comm log,” Narcissa said. “We’re broadcasting a distress signal.”
“No.” It couldn’t be.
“Yeah, looks like it’s been active for nearly four hours.”
All the color drained from Chiraine’s face. “That’s impossible,” she said.
“It’s not impossible,” Narcissa said matter-of-factly. “Someone activated this distress beacon while we were in the Coliseum. It was either Ana-Zhi or someone else who’s aboard this ship.”
My stomach clenched with anger. I turned and strode off towards the lift.
“Jannigan, where are you going?” Chiraine called.
“I’m going to wake Ana-Zhi up.”
“Wait up,” Chiraine said. “I’m coming with you.”
“Whatever. Narcissa, shut that beacon down, and start scanning for Mayir.”
The MedBed’s AI didn’t agree with my command to wake Ana-Zhi. Although she was in stable condition, the MedBed had administered a powerful sedative and was monitoring her cardiac function.
“You sure you want to do
