Surviving The Theseus (10 page)

Michael, like Cindy, wore black gloves,
steering with a holographic yoke and throttle. He throttled up
slightly and steered around Pyramid One.

No one said anything as they circled the
massive ship, keeping in tight. Cindy watched it through the
window, looking for any sign of trouble.

Along the top of the ship and sides, there
was nothing unusual. Lights shone out of some of the windows, so
power was not the issue. It was quite a beautiful ship, rounded
edges, and, except for the bottom few levels, there were windows
all over the ship and a rounded dome on top, which was hazy and did
not offer a view inside. The surface of it shone a bright, golden
color like the shuttles.

As Michael brought the ship along the other
side and near the bottom, Cindy could see that the main shuttle bay
doors were open, both the outer and inner doors. Very unusual. As
they went underneath, she noticed, as she was sure the others did,
that three emergency hatches were stuck open.

“All right, boys and girls,” George said,
Mary frowning when he did. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We need
to secure the shuttle bay, but we’re going to investigate first to
make sure it’s secure for us. Comm Set.”

Communication channels opened on all the
SPARS glasses. Cindy’s heart raced with excitement and nervousness
at what awaited them. Maybe it was nothing, some freak series of
software glitches, but her instincts felt otherwise. Something was
wrong, really wrong.

George cleared his throat, his voice still
raspy. “Here’s the situation people: We’ve found Pyramid. There are
eight of its shuttles trailing it at the standard one hundred
kilometer range with no signs of life, or anybody, in any one of
them.” George paused for a second. “Cindy, scan Pyramid, look for
signs of life.” He cleared his throat again. “The main bay doors
are open and there are some emergency escape hatches also open that
never resealed. The communication channels are static. We cannot
reach anyone.”

Cindy scanned Pyramid One. It would take
awhile with all that square footage.

“We are going to secure the hanger bay,”
George continued, “but first, we’ll investigate. Paula and John,
please prep and ready The Tourist, and Brett and Travis up front.
Once The Tourist is good to go, you’re driving John, Paula observe.
We’ll watch up front.”

Cindy’s scan beeped back at her, way too
quickly. Sure enough, the scan could not complete; it didn’t even
get anywhere, just some cryptic message. “Sir,” Cindy said looking
at George. “The scan came back with this S-L-F zero zero five error
message. Do you have any idea what that means?”

George shook his head.

“Well, look it up, Cindy,” Mary said. “Take
some initiative.” Sure, George tells her to ask anything, and
Captain Cunt makes her feel like shit. Cindy didn’t reply, but
neither did she jump up and do as Mary asked.

Travis came through the door just then, Brett
right behind. “No need to look it up,” Travis said. “I don’t know
what the zero zero five means, but I know the S-L-F means Scan Link
Failure. And that little bit of cryptic-ness is telling us that
Pyramid’s operational computer systems are down.”

George shook his head. “Who said that? It
couldn’t have been my partner. How did you -- no, on second
thought, I don’t want to know how you knew that.”

“It’s not as sordid as you might think.”
Travis smiled. Cindy smiled back at that infectious smile of
Travis’s. Sometimes he disgusted her, but other times he amazed
her. He was a hard guy to hate, even when he crossed the line,
stomped all over it, and then pissed on it to erase the line’s
existence.

“Well,” George said, “we had to go in anyway.
I guess we’ll find out the hard way.”

*****

John and Paula set up in the holding area, in
the two front seats. The control for The Tourist sat on John’s lap.
He held the control’s black flight stick, which he was sure Travis
would have something to say about. The flight stick was attached to
a panel with a keyboard and a large, thin glass screen, thirty-two
inches wide. Paula leaned over to watch.

Underneath the SPARS ship, a small panel slid
open and a small, black object, which looked like a bullet, flew
out of the opening towards Pyramid. Small enough to carry, but its
weight would bear you down. John tried lifting it once on a dare
and nearly dropped it on his foot. It was a space probe only. If it
ever got into a gravity situation, it would drop like a stone
because its power source would be insufficient to keep it
afloat.

On John’s screen, he could see what The
Tourist could see -- Pyramid One getting bigger and bigger on the
screen.

George’s voice spoke to John through the
speakers in his glasses. “Take it through the main doors and take a
quick peek and see if anything is out of the ordinary, other than
the shuttle bay power.”

“Yes, sir,” John said.

John hit the L on the keyboard and eight
bright lights that circled the front of The Tourist lit the way. As
John steered it into the main hanger bay door, nothing unusual
revealed itself. Moving further inside the hanger bay, The
Tourist’s light found nothing unusual, just a large, empty bay with
most of its shuttles in place, and no bodies floating around like
John thought there might be.

He pressed S on the keyboard next. When he
did, the screen lit up and cycled through various colors, revealing
different shapes and waves when it did. “Comm Set,” John said.
“Nothing in the scan, sir. No heat signatures or anything.”

“Restore power,” George said.

“On my way, sir,” John said. He was glad no
bodies were visible. But maybe there were corpses and they got
sucked out into space. Thoughts of torture and pain flew through
his mind, but he let it go no further. No proof of foul play. Maybe
just a series of unfortunate accidents. Regardless, they would know
soon enough.

John steered The Tourist to a door on the
other side of the bay, where he knew the shuttle bay control room
was located from his studies of the ship’s layout. “Paula, grab the
gloves.”

“What? Me?” she said.

John smiled and nodded. He did another quick
scan to see if anything could be seen on the other side of the
door, but there was nothing. It was odd. Very odd. Someone had
turned the shuttle bay power off, and then, what? Walked out the
door and got sucked into space? It didn’t make any sense.

Paula grabbed a pair of gloves, like the ones
Cindy and Michael used in the cockpit.

When The Tourist got to the door, John
pressed the letter A on the keyboard. Two panels opened up on
either side of The Tourist, and two metal skeleton arms unfolded
themselves from their resting place.

Now wearing the gloves, Paula stretched out
her fingers, and The Tourist’s metal fingers mimicked her motion.
With precision, John steered towards the door at just the right
level so all Paula had to do was reach slightly, grasp the door,
and turn. The metal hand responded and the door opened.

Regina took the lead through the door onto
passenger level one. They were near the front of the ship, where
she wanted to be. Edging into the tunnel-like hallway, she looked
left and right, and then waved the others to come through.

As much as she didn’t think it wise,
Regina took the lead up the hallway, which ended at a thick, metal
door marked
Pyramid Staff
Only
. Most staff doors had a simple lock or dead bolt,
but this one had keypad entry as well as fingerprint identification
for fast access.

“We’re screwed,” Blair said. “That’s a
digital keypad with a seven number combination, which, unless
you’re Pyramid flight staff, we’re not going to crack.”

Regina put her thumb on the fingerprint
reader, and a solid green light lit up on the keypad. She turned
the handle and the door opened.

“Who the hell are you?” Blair said.

They all came into another hallway, the door
closing behind them, and Regina felt more secure when it did. She
walked up the hallway, looking at two doors, one to flight crew
quarters and another to the captain’s room.

The area was devoid of any sort of aesthetic
appeal. Thick metal walls, metal pipes and rubber conduits along
the ceiling, and a polished concrete floor. The only artistic flair
was framed photos of the Pyramid flight control hanging along the
hallway wall.

The hallway arced left just after these
rooms, and when they came around the corner, they ran into another
closed door, twice as wide as the last one and very solid looking.
Thick metal with a silvery shine to it and
Control Room
emblazoned into the door. No keypad,
only a metal wheel the size of a steering wheel and a metal
lever.

Recessed into the wall perpendicular to the
door sat an intercom. Not wanting to charge in and get shot, even
if the door would open, which Regina doubted, she clicked on the
intercom button and said, “Hello. There are three of us outside the
door, if anyone is inside, all of us passengers. We just want to
know what’s going on, if you have any idea.” Regina could see a
camera just above the intercom so if anyone was inside, they would
know she wasn’t lying.

Without a word from the other side of the
intercom, a metal clunk reverberated in the room as the lever
released on the other side of the door. As the door swung open, it
occurred to Regina that whoever waited on the other side was
probably going to want to know how she got through the security
door, especially being that she just told them they were all
passengers.

The first person she saw, as she led the way
in, was Roy, the person she suspected drugged her the night before
and stole her gun. He smiled at her, in a mocking way, or that’s
how it seemed to her. The other man looked scared, but not of them.
He looked to be in his thirties, very slim, and had a heavily
receding hairline. Similar in appearance to Roy, but taller and
thinner, Roy with a full head of black hair, oily and messy. Busy
all night trying to date rape, no doubt.

They all piled into the room as the nervous
man skirted around them to close the door. There was another door
opposite of the one they came through.

The control room was bigger than she thought
it would be. There were several consoles with keyboards and
paper-thin glass monitors, each with their own black, high backed
chair. In the front of the room, a large, clear window to the
blackness and stars outside. Just behind the view, there were two
seats, each with a flight console, including a yoke, throttle, and
monitor. None of the lights on any of the consoles were lit up.
They were lifeless.

Roy gawked at Regina. It almost looked to her
like he thought she didn’t know who he was. Maybe he thought the
drugs he dumped in her drink had memory side effects. She didn’t
glare back, for the moment.

The nervous man turned to her. “My name is
Dave Monroe, and I am the navigational officer on this ship.”
Pointing to Roy, Dave said, “This is Roy, another passenger like
yourselves.”

Still staring at Regina, Roy said, “How did
you get through the security door?”

“We could ask you the same thing, Roy,”
Regina said. Now he knows she knows, she figured.

Dave answered for him. “I happened to be
coming through, after everything went to hell and let him in.”

“Lucky you,” Regina said, looking at Roy.

“You still didn’t answer my question.” He
wasn’t going to let it go.

Blair sniffed. “She won’t tell us who she
is.”

Regina turned her gaze towards Blair now,
full of daggers.

Blair visibly gulped, but continued. “She’s
not an employee on this ship, but her thumb print was accepted
anyway.”

Everyone turned to look at Regina.

Regina pulled her weapon out, keeping it
pointed down, but as a clear message to not approach her. “Look,
all, I don’t know any of you, and I don’t trust any of you. I will
not explain myself to any one of you, because it’s not relevant to
anything happening on this ship. You want someone to suspect, you
should probably point the finger over at Roy.”

“Fuck you, bitch!” Roy said.

“So eloquently put, Roy. This man, last night
in a bar, drugged me and stole something from me. And now, here he
is, still alive and well, and in the control room of the ship. Who
do you work for, Roy?”

Roy could barely contain himself, but he did.
It looked like he wanted to throw himself at Regina, which she
would love if he tried.

“We don’t have time for this,” Rachel said.
“We need to get control of this ship. Where is everyone, Dave?”

Regina, enraged, turned toward Dave so she
could calm down. Otherwise, she would do something stupid. Without
the proof she needed, shooting Roy in the head like she wanted to
would be murder. And that would not do. She knew who he worked for,
or was pretty damn sure, and, if that was the case, he didn’t have
long to live. Unlike the opinion of those who found her kind
barbaric, excessive, and unjust, she didn’t share their
they-had-a-hard-life-so-please-coddle-them mentality that solved
nothing. Ever. Not in her experience. A piece of shit that offers
nothing but misery and suffering to society does not deserve life.
She had lived that credo her whole life and nothing would change
that, ever.

Dave looked around at everyone. “I don’t
know. I was off duty when . . . when everything happened. I came up
to the control room, and there was nobody here, and nothing was
operable. I can’t regain control of the ship.”

Rachel walked closer to Dave. “Do you know
where we are? There must be some indication of our path. You’re the
navigation officer, for Christ’s sake.”