Starship Revenant (The Galactic Wars Book 3) (15 page)

W
alker fixed
the magnetic grenade to the reactor room’s entrance hatch. He pressed the button and the display illuminated. On the right side of the display screen there were two up and down buttons that let you adjust the timer duration. But without being able to read the Decluvian language, he had no idea how long he was setting the timer for. And he had no idea what units the Decluvian’s used to measure time. How long was a second? How many seconds were in a minute. Did the Decluvians even have minutes?

The UPDF still based time on a 24 hour clock. It was a holdover from the old days of Earth. On a star destroyer in deep space, the concept of day and night was an artificial one. And the length of a day varied from colony to colony, depending on the speed of the planet’s rotation. Some of the colonies had 48 hours of daylight, and 48 hours of night. Some went for months with only darkness. It was simpler to maintain a universal calendar across all Federation planets.

Walker pressed a button and watched the units of time increase on the display. Most modern civilizations used a decimal based numerical system. Walker watched the Decluvian characters scroll through the display. It seemed the they were using a base ten system as well. Walker added what he thought was roughly thirty seconds to the timer. It would be enough time for him to take cover around the corner.

He armed the device and ran down the corridor with Bailey. He kept count as they hid behind the bulkhead of an adjoining hallway.

Within 30 seconds the device detonated. The thunderous explosion rumbled through the corridor. Smoke filled the air.

Walker advanced down the passageway. The hatch was torn to shreds. Shrapnel had killed two reactor techs. Their bodies lay eviscerated in a pool of green goo and guts. Two other dazed reactor techs were staggering to their feet.

Walker filled them with plasma rounds. The Decluvains splattered against the bulkheads.

There were two reactor cores that powered the
Korvectus
. Walker cleared the compartment, making sure there were no more Decluvians hiding in nooks and crannies. He moved to the far side of the massive toroidal cores and affixed a grenade to each one. He set the timers to what he figured would be about 5 minutes.

While fusion reactors don’t have the same risks of melting down, the interior components of the toroidal cores become contaminated with deadly amounts of radiation. If all went as planned, Walker was going to have to get away from this section of the ship, and stay away for the next 100 years.

Walker placed the last device and emerged from behind one of the cores. Bailey snarled and growled. A full platoon of Decluvain warriors had flooded into the compartment.

But they didn’t dare fire a plasma weapon at a reactor core.

Walker ducked behind some piping coming off of the reactor. He grabbed another mag grenade and set it to one unit of time, and hovered his finger over the arming switch. “I know you slimy bastards can understand me. Clear out of this compartment, or I’ll detonate the reactors now.”

“What do you hope to accomplish?” the platoon leader said. “This is one ship. Thousands more are traveling to your colonies as we speak.”

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. Clear the compartment. Now.”

The platoon leader’s face tightened. Then he motioned for his troops to pull back. They drained out of the compartment into the corridor.

There were four minutes remaining on the timers. Walker had bought himself a little time, but not much. He scanned the compartment and caught sight of a small escape hatch on the far bulkhead behind the reactors. He dashed to the hatch and swung it open. It led to the primary heat exchangers.

Bailey jumped through, and Walker followed after him. He sealed the hatch behind them.

An explosion in the reactor room would be enough to take out the neighboring compartments. Walker needed to get farther away. He weaved through the heat exchangers, heading aft.

A Decluvain leapt from behind a pylon, tackling him to the deck. The two struggled over Walker’s weapon.

Bailey sunk his teeth into the orange Decluvian’s leg. He kicked the dog away, and Bailey charged back for more.

This guy was strong. He was about the same size as Walker, but Decluvian muscle fiber was much stronger, pound for pound, than human. He ripped the weapon from Walker’s grasp. Then he slammed the stock down, aiming for Walker’s skull.

The butt of the rifle smashed the deck as Walker rolled out of the way.

Bailey lunged for the orange bastard’s throat.

Walker sprang to his feet.

The Decluvian whipped the rifle around and took aim at Bailey. His finger squeezed the trigger.

Walker leapt for the barrel, pushing it aside as it fired.

The bullet ripped passed Bailey and ruptured a pipe. Steam rocketed out.

Walker struggled with the Decluvian over the rifle. He had to be careful. He knew Decluvian skin could become poisonous. For that reason, he didn’t want Bailey biting the alien anymore. “Bailey, stand down.”

Bailey took a few steps back, but kept growling. He bared his sharp teeth and snarled. His brow furrowed, and his eyes were filled with rage.

Walker tried to hold onto the weapon, but the Decluvian pulled the weapon around and slammed Walker into a piece of machinery.

The impact rattled Walker’s bones.

The Decluvian stripped the rifle away, and took aim.

There were less than 3 minutes on the explosive timers.

M
itch’s stomach rumbled
. It was loud enough to echo through the corridor. It would’ve given away his position in a critical situation.

If the ship were operational, he knew the best place to eat on board was the Chief Petty Officer’s mess. But it wasn’t like there was a Culinary Specialist grilling up filet mignon on this abandoned rust bucket. If he walked into the CPO’s mess and saw something like that, it would be a hallucination. He’d be fine with that as long as he felt full afterwords, he thought.

An operational
Avenger
class destroyer was pumping out roughly 6400 hot meals a day—most of that was from food synthesizers. But nothing beat a real, fresh meal. The
Avenger
class had onboard agro-stations that grew fruits and vegetables. The genetics lab grew perfectly marbled slabs of beef from bovine cells. But none of those processing systems had been functional in the last 25 years aboard the
Revenant
.

Mitch ducked into the general mess, located on the deck below the hangar bay. He cleared the compartment, and moved to one of the food synthesizers. Rows of them lined the serving area.

They were about the size of a vending machine, and had a diverse menu. They could reproduce just about anything. Proteins, carbs, macro and micro nutrients, and flavoring components were all stored in powdered form. They had a shelf life of up to 45 years. Once you made your selection, the ingredients were mixed and hydrated. The final food item was 3D printed and heated.

Mitch activated the device and thumbed through the menu options. His eyes went wide at the sight of cheese pizza. How could you screw that up? When pizza’s good, it’s great. When it’s bad, it still doesn’t suck.

He made his selection and within moments the machine rumbled to life. Nutrients were sent to the mixing chamber, then pushed through the actuator valve and out the spray nozzle. A few minutes later, he had a piping hot personal pizza, printed in four wedges.

It looked and smelled like real pizza. Gooey mozzarella. Tomato sauce with oregano, garlic, parsley, onion, and basil. He pulled it out of the synthesizer and took a seat at one of the mess tables.

He bit into it and burned the roof of his mouth. He was so hungry, he didn’t care. It tasted pretty damn good, and Mitch was a bit of a pizza snob. His favorite place in the whole galaxy was
Pete’s Pizza
on the corner of 57th and Kemal Street in Nova York. Now
that
was real pizza. Handmade dough and fresh ingredients. That kind of thing was hard to find. Most everything was synthetic these days.

Mitch scarfed the pizza down in a matter of moments. It settled the rumbling in his stomach. He thought about getting another pie, but he had kind of made up his mind when he was running along the exterior of the
Revenant
that he was going to get himself back into shape.

No. No more pizza
, he thought.

That lasted for a fleeting second. Then a more prescient thought took over. This might be his last meal. Might as well go for broke.

He ordered another pizza from the synthesizer. He inhaled the first few bites. But as he pulled the stringy cheese away from his lips he realized it wasn’t cheese—he saw long, milky white worms.

Mitch spit the half chewed bite out of his mouth. The pizza looked moldy and rotten, covered with slime and these insidious worms that were notorious aboard space going vessels.

His stomach roiled. He felt like he was going to hurl—the sour acidic feeling lurched up in the back of his throat. He coughed and spit and pulled out a long stringy worm that had wriggled its way down his throat. He tossed the nasty thing on the ground and it twisted and squirmed.

The color drained from Mitch’s face.

When he glanced back at the pizza, it was perfectly normal.

He stared at it, slack-jawed.

It was like the ship was fucking with him. Whatever was happening, Mitch had lost his appetite.

He pulled himself together and stared at the pizza for a moment just to make sure it had all been a hallucination.

Mitch grabbed his weapon from atop the table, and started back for the corridor. He noticed the crates of trilontium at the far bulkhead. He wondered how he had missed seeing those when he first walked into the room. Was he hallucinating again?

He stepped to the bulkhead and opened a crate. Inside was the luminescent treasure. At this point, it was hard to believe what he was actually seeing.

Real or not, he was going to roll them to the airlock and expel them from the ship. He grabbed the cart and pulled it into the corridor. It was going to take two trips.

Mitch rolled the carts of trilontium to the port side airlock. He almost herniated a disc trying to get the heavy crates off the cart.

Then he pushed the cart back down to the mess hall and loaded up the second round of crates. He was sweating up a storm and huffing and puffing by the time he dropped them off at the airlock. But he wasn’t going to be able to get them off the ship just yet. He needed to grab his helmet that he dropped when he saw Jaxon stab Declan.

He trotted down the corridor and picked up the helmet that was still resting on the deck where he had dropped it. It was by the ladder to the next level.

Jaxon emerged from around a corner. He had a demonic look in his eyes, and a large serrated blade in his hand.

Mitch ran back down the passageway.

Jaxon chased after him.

Mitch heaved for breath, and his quads burned. He ran as hard as he could. Faster than he’d ever run before, or so it seemed. He dared not look back. Jaxon was gaining ground.

The airlock seemed like such a long way away. Running in the bulky suit was less than ideal. Mitch kept waiting for a shot to ring out. He thought at any minute he’d feel the sting of a bullet puncture his back. Jaxon must have run out of ammunition during the last fire fight. Or maybe he just liked the sport of chasing Mitch down?

Z
oey grabbed
her rifle and darted out of the med bay. She twisted through the corridors toward the reactor room with her weapon in the firing position. She swept through the ship and rounded a corner by the reactor compartment. Violet’s motionless body was on the deck.

Zoey cautiously stepped toward her. She knelt down beside Violet and checked her pulse—she didn’t have one.

There was a puncture wound in Violet’s back. Blood oozed from the wound, but not as much as Zoey would have expected. Something was different about the blood as well. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It almost seemed synthetic.

Zoey rolled Violet over, and put her ear to her chest. Violet had no respiration or heartbeat.

A moment later, Violet’s eyelids opened and she gasped for breath. Then she sat up.

Zoey lurched back, her eyes wide with shock. Was she hallucinating again?

No. She wasn’t hallucinating at all.

“Holy shit, you’re a fucking robot?” Zoey said.

“I prefer the term bio-synthetic humanoid,” Violet said.

“But synthetics were outlawed?”

“If by outlawed, you mean slaughtered and driven from the colonies, then yes.” Violet had a slightly snarky tone.

Zoey stared at her in disbelief. “But you have feelings? Or, are those just simulated responses?”

Violet glared at her. “I think and feel just as you would.”

“Sorry. I’m fascinated. I’ve never met a synthetic before. I mean, a bio-synthetic humanoid.”

“You probably have, and you just didn’t know it.”

Zoey was astonished. “How many of your kind are there in the colonies?”

“Obviously more than you realize.”

Violet tried to stand.

Zoey helped her to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve had some minor damage. I had to shut down and reroute some essential processes. But I’m functional. Similar to your immune system, my nanotechnology will repair my components.” Her face turned grave. “Where’s Mitch?”

“He went to the mess hall.” Zoey grew concerned. She activated her comm link. “Mitch, do you copy?”

“Little busy at the moment.” He was huffing and puffing as he barreled down the corridor—Jaxon wasn’t far behind. Mitch sprinted as fast as he could. When he reached the airlock, he mashed the button as he entered—the hatch slid shut behind him just as Jaxon arrived.

The big hulk put a hard shoulder into the hatch, but it didn’t budge.

Mitch grinned and flipped Jaxon off through the viewport.

Jaxon snarled back at him.

Mitch twisted on his helmet and sealed it. Then he opened the outer airlock door. The atmosphere in the airlock rushed out of the hatch. There was no way to open the inner airlock hatch with the outer hatch open. It was a safety protocol and there was no way to circumvent it—and that’s just what Mitch was counting on.

Mitch accessed the control panel on the bulkhead and turned off the artificial gravity within the airlock. The crates lifted off the deck, and so did he.

Jaxon was pounding on the hatch and frothing at the mouth. His face was red, and the veins were bulging in his forehead and neck. It looked like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.

Mitch attached the retractable safety cable to his suit. The suit had replenished 30 minutes worth of oxygen while recharging during the downtime. More than enough time to get the job done. He hoped that once he got the crates of trilontium off the ship that Jaxon’s psychosis would cease. It was likely wishful thinking.

Jaxon glared at him through the viewport. He held up a magnetic grenade so that Mitch could see it. Then he affixed it to the hatch and set the timer. He grinned through the viewport and ran down the hall.

Mitch pushed the crates out into space. One by one, they tumbled into the nebula, disappearing into the green fog. He couldn’t believe he was pushing 3 trillion credits worth of treasure overboard. All because of a supposed curse.

The timer ticked down—10 seconds.

Mitch pushed the last crate out, then turned back to the inner airlock hatch.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Mitch pushed off the hatch and launched out into space. A second later, the hatch exploded. The blast rocketed him farther into space. Twisted metal and debris showered out. Searing hot shards of metal sprayed in all directions. Just one small piece of shrapnel would be enough to puncture his suit and vent out his remaining oxygen.

Mitch tumbled into the nebula until the safety cable reached its maximum length. It jerked him to a stop. At least he wasn’t going to be lost in space forever. He could pull his way back to the ship. But the tumbling mass of debris was heading straight for him.

A huge chunk of the hatch barreled through space and slammed right into him. The impact knocked Mitch unconscious. He was dangling in space like a dead fish on a hook.

Air was rushing out of the
Revenant
.

Jaxon clung onto a ridge on the bulkhead. The sucking wind lifted his feet off the ground. He was hanging on for dear life, parallel to the deck.

The vacuum of space was sucking all the oxygen out of the
Revenant
. Hurricane force winds whistled through the corridors.

Klaxons sounded throughout the ship, warning of a hull breach.

Zoey and Violet had reached the corridor that led to the airlock when the blast hit. They were instantly knocked off their feet and pulled down the hallway.

Zoey latched onto a ladder. Violet tumbled by, and Zoey reached out a hand and grabbed her. Violet’s inertia almost dislocated Zoey’s shoulder.

Jaxon's grip was slipping. He lost his grasp and tumbled toward the airlock. He managed to latch onto a twisted chunk of metal at the demolished inner airlock frame, saving himself at the last minute.

Loose debris was flying through the air. Something as simple as a clipboard or a pen could be a lethal projectile.

Zoey tried her best to hold onto the ladder with one hand, clasping Violet’s wrist with the other. But she wasn’t going to be able to hang on forever.