Dark Vengeance (16 page)

“The lizard’s man reference to the Gaglion was not our imagination. That old lady’s legends about it were not our imagination. Our prediction of something very bad happening in aft engineering was indeed realized.”

“Okay. Where do you think we are then?”

“If the Governess’ story applies, a Gaglion placed in aft engineering has materialized and as she described it, taken over one of the aft engineers. Therefore a second Gaglion has now materialized but the other engineer escaped before it could get him. That new Gaglion is now searching for a victim and it will not stop until it finds one. And, according to the Governess, the walls of aft engineering will not hold it forever. That is, if the Governess’ story actually is based on fact, as you say.”

“You think a Gaglion is going to eventually going to come through that aft engineering wall.”

“If the Governess’ story is real.”

“They should set up armed guards to cover the entrance to aft engineering.”

“Not precisely. The story suggested a special weapon is needed to slay a Gaglion. That implies conventional weapons may not do the job, which would also mean posted guards would make them nothing more than victims in waiting.”

“Must you be so difficult?”

“The next logical step would be to seal off the area outside aft engineering so that an emerging Gaglion would find itself again trapped in an uninhabited locked down area.”

“So you’re saying we should wake the Captain to tell him he needs to take yet another preposterous action that will upset the guests and crew.”

“That does seem to be our job as of late.”

We sat for a moment in silent reluctance, then stood in unison and headed briskly toward the door. I suddenly realized it was one of those few times when my pace was being quickened by fear. R.J. seemed similarly persuaded. Our expressions reflected unwavering deadpan even though we were being motored along by alarm. We exited my stateroom and both stopped abruptly to look back in the direction of aft engineering. Far in the distance the big red doors remained sealed, but the vision of them made us both want to run. In mutual understanding, we resumed a brisk walk in the direction of the flight deck.

Chapter 10

Once again, the lift seemed to take forever. We barged into the flight briefing room expecting the staff to stop and take notice only to find them so absorbed in something we were of no interest at all. We finally managed to pull engineer Arn reluctantly away but he kept shaking his head and looking back.

“Mr. Arn, we need to speak to the Captain immediately.”

Arn answered in a far away tone while continuing to stare over at his associates, “Lieutenant Nor has gone to wake the Captain. We expect the aft cameras to turn on any moment now.”

Our attention immediately went to the surveillance control console and its flickering overhead monitor. As we watched, Captain Mars entered the room looking disheveled.

R.J. intercepted him. “Captain, we need to talk to you right away.”

The Captain struggled to collect himself. “What? Has something else happened?”

Lieutenant Arn spotted Mars and called out. “Captain, the aft engineering cameras are about to come back online.”

Mars said to us, “Gentlemen, I think we all need to see this.” He turned slightly sideways to push between and headed for the main monitor which continued to show only snow with horizontal lines flipping through it.

R.J. was not to be denied. He stuck to Mars like glue. “Captain, we believe you need to isolate the area just outside the entrance to engineering right away.”

The Captain glanced away from the display for only a moment. “You mean deploy the C-section pressure barriers in the main concourse? Do you know what you are saying, Commander?”

The main display began to momentarily blink on with an image in between periods of more snow.

“It needs to be done right away, Captain, while there’s still time.”

Mars stopped taking his eyes away from the display. “Commander, you are talking about evicting several guests from their staterooms and causing unnecessary additional panic. Why would we consider doing such a thing?”

“Sir, we think there’s a chance something may breach the aft engineering entrance.”

“What something, Commander?”

At that moment a clear image suddenly appeared and steadied on the monitor. Instantly, silent dread fell over the room. Aft engineering looked nearly destroyed. Broken equipment was scattered around in the foreground. Maintenance chemicals were splattered everywhere. Various furnishings were tipped over and strewn around the place.

But that was not the worst of it. In the midst of the carnage, stood Engineer Yen. He was wearing the standard blue-swirl one-piece suit all engineering staff seemed to prefer, but there all familiarity ended. Something new occupied Yen’s body from the neck up, something that appeared to possess a life of its own. It was a translucent opaque tube with two tiny blue eyes and a crown of tentacles that moved around constantly with no obvious purpose. The tentacles ranged from two to three feet in length with little grated suction cup tips on the ends. The body of the thing appeared to be sucking and releasing repeatedly on Yen’s head with the same rhythm as a beating heart.

Surprisingly, Yen was still quite mobile. He marched deliberately around, bumping into things, swinging dead arms as he turned away from each obstacle. His new little blue eyes seemed to exude joy with each collision as well as a delight in being able to continue the pointless effort. As we watched in silent horror, a second creature floated quickly by, tentacles busy, apparently hurrying in a search for a body of its own.

The Captain staggered back two steps and turned to lean on a console. He gazed up at us in disbelief then looked around the room as though waiting for someone to explain it was all a mistake.

R.J. did not hesitate. “Captain, we need to seal off the area in front of engineering.”

Mars looked back again at us and a sudden flash of realization came over his face. He stood up straight and yelled to his lead engineer. “Mr. Arn, initiate immediate evacuation of section C. Then deploy section C’s pressure barriers and seal them.”

Arn continued to stare at the monitor with his mouth wide open. He finally forced himself to look away. “What? Yes, Sir! Right away, Sir!”

“And Mr. Arn…”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Lock out that video feed so that it cannot be accessed anywhere but here!”

“Yes, Captain!”

Arn stumbled in his haste to reach a communications console. He pulled on earphones and a microphone and started punching codes into the panel. He began talking furiously to staff at the other end.

Captain Mars came up alongside us and spoke in a grave tone. “You’d better tell me what you know.”

For the second time Mars led us back to the lounge for a desperate heart to heart. There we lectured him on the reign of the Gaglion and its very narrow-minded, malicious ambition. And this time, when we were through, something had changed. The Captain no longer gave any thought at all to things absurd or legendary. The journey of Star Seven had become a living legend in itself. The only real question that remained was how badly that legend would end.

“So we are faced with an adversary we do not know how to stop, is that correct, Commander Smith?” asked Mars.

“Unfortunately, Captain, right now that is true,” replied R.J.

“Does either of you have anything else to offer?”

As we stared at each other uneasily, the Captain’s wrist communicator bleeped. It was Fantasia. Her voice sounded fearful. “Captain, you need to come down, right away.”

The Captain shook his head. “And so it begins again. If any of this leaks out, we’ll be faced with real panic onboard. That may be more dangerous than any creature could be.”

We followed him down to the gallery and found Fantasia waiting at her counter. To our surprise there was no crowd of dissenting passengers, only a single staff member.

“They noticed it when they began trying to relocate guests from their staterooms. Let me show you,” said Fantasia and she came out from behind the counter and waved us to follow.

There was already a mass of confusion at various points along the main concourse. Baggage was being moved out of rooms. Aids to the ambassadors were complaining loudly to staff members. Along with that, engineers were beginning preparations to deploy the C section pressure doors. They seemed unfamiliar with the procedure and were making mistakes and arguing. Two very tall sections of red pressure doors were sticking out a few inches into the concourse. Fantasia ignored all of it and led us back to the sealed entrance to aft engineering. With the fresh images of what was happening beyond those doors in our minds, it was not a comfortable place to be. Fantasia stood looking up and pointing at the wall above the sealed doors.

At first there was nothing to see. But, after a few minutes it seemed like shadows were playing tricks on our eyes. As we looked upward, now and then ghostly traces of something would jut out of the wall and quickly disappear. It took several instances of it before I could make out a shape.

Tentacles. Partially manifested tentacles were pushing through the wall and being pulled back in. it was as though they were still only searching and had not realized the space beyond aft engineering had been located.

R.J. recognized what was happening first. He faced the Captain. “Captain Mars, leave everything as it is, get all guests and staff forward, and seal off this section immediately.”

The Captain’s expression became one of disbelief. He looked around and a short distance away found a specific staff member involved in the evacuation. He went to him, exchanged a few words after which the staff member looked back at us in alarm then began prompting his associates with greater urgency.

The Captain returned and addressed Fantasia. “If any of them won’t leave immediately have security physically take them forward. I’ll call the rest of security that we have available right now.”

Fantasia looked as though she had expected us to reassure her that everything was fine. Suddenly she was about to cry. The Captain placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. She stiffened and hurried off.

Twenty minutes later a stunned crowd of us stood and watched as the tall, ash red sliding barriers slowly motored across the breadth of the concourse and smacked together with a bone chilling thump that echoed around the ship. There was hissing and clicking as the seal was made. A staff member went to the large closed hatch built into the right-hand panel and placed tape warning stickers on the seams, an unnecessary precaution intended to prevent anyone from opening it. Somewhere behind us Ambassador Sulik wailed about legal representation and her likely future ownership of Star Seven. It was the only sound ringing out above what would otherwise have been a deathly silence.

R.J. and I had not lost our staterooms as some of the others had. There were plenty of available rooms to move everyone to, but the displacement added greatly to the consideration for panic. As I turned away to head back to my stateroom, I spotted the Golian Ambassador Ian Athos staring through the crowd at me. He said nothing but those large alien eyes seemed to suggest he and I had something more in common than just working out, though I was not certain exactly what he was thinking.

I started for my room but never made it. R.J. intercepted me. “We should go visit the Captain, I think.”

“He may be getting sick of us.”

“It’s fair to say we’ll be homeless soon enough.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Position archers, light fires for the burning oil, and set fire to the moat.”

“Oh, and raise the drawbridge?”

“We just did that.”

On the bridge the Captain was busily supervising the task of trying to reopen the flight deck, a futile attempt intended to get the ship back underway. When he saw us, he stopped and stared, searching for some sign of good news. He quickly understood there was none.

“Have they sealed off that section?” he asked.

“Yes, and the guests are being relocated forward,” replied R.J. “Captain, there are some defensive measures we should begin taking.”

“I’m listening.”

“Our limited understanding of the creature suggests there may be some type of weapon that is effective against it.”

“What weapon?”

“We don’t know. That’s the point. We can be certain the creature will eventually come through the new pressure barrier just as it will escape engineering. We can use that knowledge to set up some experiments to see what affects it and what does not. If we get lucky enough and find something it truly does not like, there’s a chance we may be able to fashion a weapon from that.”

“How exactly do you propose to proceed, Commander?”

“Among your engineering staff you must have people who are physicists, don’t you?”

“Yes, we have several astrophysicists as well as two individuals who are masters in theoretical physics.”

“We need those people to study the video of what is happening in aft engineering and the scan data of the creature’s container that was made earlier, then we’ll meet with them to discuss what the research has suggested. From there we can begin setting up the next section of concourse to test the creature after it breaks through again.”