Surviving The Theseus (18 page)

“I’m very aware of that, Mr. Deckstill. Thank
you. If you, or anyone else, have a better idea, I’d love to hear
it.”

Nobody said anything.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s go, slow and quiet.”
She looked at Brett, wanting a sullen look or obnoxious reply, but
he kept serene. She smiled at him and the confused look that
morphed onto his face made her smile more. Never let them get
comfortable, or they’ll walk all over you.

John, George, Rachel, Cindy, Regina, and
Michael walked slowly up a flight of stairs. All of them, except
Rachel, were heavily armed. The four SPARS had their standard
rifle, all carrying it at the ready, the barrel pointed down and
away from anyone. Regina had her black SOAD weapon of destruction
in her right hand, pointed down as she climbed the stairs. Rachel
had no weapons, her only protection that of the others.

John stopped at the next level
up,
Passenger Level 4
written
in black letters on a clear, glass door.

John looked back at George. George looked at
the control device strapped to his wrist, as did the other SPARS.
Regina could not tell if they saw anything, but assumed not;
otherwise they would have said something. She was pretty damn sure
the creatures, or whatever the hell they were, would not show on
camera.

George signaled to the others behind him that
he and John were going to check out the floor. John pulled the
glass door open, George walked through aiming his weapon left, then
right. John followed, his weapon aimed left. And then they were
gone.

Michael moved to the front and Cindy to the
rear. Nobody spoke, following George’s orders from before they
left. Not to speak unless absolutely necessary.

Regina got that. The less she had to speak to
anyone, the better. She still wasn’t sure about Rachel, but she was
leaning towards believing her. Just a gut feeling, but her story
seemed absolutely sincere and, as Rachel told it, Regina could not
detect any sign of deception. Regina wanted to blame her for this,
but she couldn’t. If Rachel had not been hired to do the job, some
other pilot would have been. And, she didn’t know what she was
getting into. Regina wondered if it would have mattered. Rachel
seemed obsessed with money.

And the glasses? Did they record everything
the soldier wearing them saw, and would they be able to access it?
Blair had cracked the code, but would they need to again, or was it
ready to go?

It looked to Regina that everyone was lost in
thought, except for Michael. He seemed ready to go at the slightest
sign of anything.

Five minutes later, she heard gunshots, and
Michael didn’t hesitate. He broke the silence, now that it seemed
not to matter.

“Cindy, watch our backs,” Michael said.
“We’re moving. Now.” Michael swung the glass door open, pointing
his weapon as he walked through, quickly looking right and then
left again, where the shots were still coming from. He did not turn
back.

Regina looked forward, watching for any
movement out of her peripheral. Nothing. Nothing that she could
detect.

The gunfire ceased. Not a noise was heard
from George or John. They never tried to contact them by radio. No
time, probably. She hoped they were okay.

The seemingly endless hallway of doors, and
the tunnel-like hallway with its dimmed lighting, offered no
soothing effect. She actually missed the surrounding display of
wildlife, forest, and sky that used to permeate the walls and
ceiling, before everything went to hell. Regina was glad for the
carpeted flooring, offering at least a chance of moving quietly.
There were more doors on this floor than the lower ones, probably
because the rooms were only meant for 1 or 2 people so there were a
lot more of them. This is where the nightmare began for her not too
many hours ago. As they passed her room, she looked at the door and
her room number, 4772, the door closed as she left it.

Five minutes later, they saw where the shots
had gone off. Bullet holes lined a wall at a t-intersection,
scattered everywhere, including into the ceiling. White shrapnel
from the wall and ceiling spotted the floor.

When they turned to the right, they saw
something none of them would have ever expected.

She thought she was better than him, and he
knew it. Of course, Brett could not deny her experience, but it
didn’t mean she was better at everything than him. No way. Anyone
would have been a better partner than her.

Brett and Mary were pulling circuit boards
from the cockpit of one of the Pyramid shuttles. When Brett pulled
his, he couldn’t believe it. She was right. Again. Great. It will
make her even more annoying. “This board looks okay, Sir.”

“Mine too. We’ll bring them both. It will not
be completely compatible with our ship, but it may be good enough
to get up and running.”

It was hard, when she thought she was so
great, to ask her questions. But she did like when he did, unless
he asked something that annoyed her. She was impossible to gauge.
But he would never give in. He almost exploded at her a couple of
times, but he knew it was never going to be an argument he would
win. He would bottle it up. Keep it to himself, at least, that was,
until he could talk with Travis. Travis always listened to him and
liked making fun of Mary. Travis always seemed to get away with
things, but Brett could get away with nothing. Some day he would be
just like Travis.

“Why do you think they didn’t wreck the
shuttle boards?”

Mary stared at him, with that stupid stare,
that you’re-an-idiot stare. “I already told you, Brett. The
shuttles are useless without matchstick markers, unless they
emergency eject and even then all they can do is follow the mother
ship. Otherwise, no ship, including all ships but military, can
activate their engines without marker vicinity.”

He bit his tongue. “I get that, sir, but how
would they know that?”

“Maybe we’re not dealing with anything more
than humans with some technology we’ve never seen before, Mr.
Sandgrass.”

“Maybe.” He turned and rolled his eyes.

“Contact the others. We’re going back to our
ship.”

George and John’s guns lay on the floor, and
beside that, what Regina assumed were their bodies, covered in the
same brown, gelatinous goo that almost got her earlier.

Both John and George were completely covered,
as if in a pod. Spread out, it looked more golden than brown. It
fit snugly over both of them, and she could see it moving up and
down.

“I think they’re still breathing,” Michael
said. He looked up and then down the hallway.

Rachel bent down and reached out to touch
them.

Michael pulled her arm back. “I don’t think
that’s a good idea. In fact, we should all back up.”

Rachel stood back up and backed off as
Michael asked. Regina and Cindy did the same, Regina not liking the
idea of what it was doing to them. Ingesting something maybe.
Feeding off them, like a parasite, or maybe crushing them. Too many
horrible possibilities existed.

Michael looked at all of them, then down at
the gelatinous bodies. “We need to continue on.”

Regina was shocked. “We can’t. We can’t just
leave them here to . . . to die.”

“It’s not open for discussion.” Michael
nodded at Rachel who looked back and forth at Michael and Regina.
She nodded back and started walking.

Everyone but Regina continued walking past
the bodies, following Rachel, Cindy beside her, gun at the ready.
Regina understood Michael’s decision, but she didn’t like it. She
barely knew these men, yet tears fought their way out of her
eyes.

She tilted her head back, rolling her eyes,
debating whether or not to kill George and John, if they were even
still alive to be killed. She wiped her eyes with her right arm,
and brought her head back down.

Michael was right in front of her, the others
right behind Michael. He grabbed her hand, and she didn’t know what
to do. It was an alien thing to her, more alien than what lay on
the floor in front of her. She pulled her hand away.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “I
know what you’re thinking, and you’ll regret it if you do. We don’t
know anything about any of this, and if you kill them because you
think you’ll end their suffering, it’ll eat at you for the rest of
your life.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t, it will eat at me
for the rest of my life.”

Michael nodded at Cindy. “Impact sensor.”

Cindy reached into a side pocket and brought
out a disc-like object, the size of a quarter, placed it on the
wall beside her, and pressed a button on the middle of it. Three
metal prongs split out of the disc and attached to the wall. She
then did something with the personal data device on her wrist.

“What is that?” Regina said.

“It’s something,” Michael said, “we should
have used previously, but George wouldn’t allow it due to beta
testing issues with reliability. Lots of false positives.”

“Say again?”

“It’s something we just got, something we
were asked to test. Impact sensors. They pick up any sort of
vibration, unfortunately. They can pick up vibration from anything
so we can never totally rely on readings we get back on our
devices. But I gave the go ahead, because if we get a big enough
reading, it may indicate something is nearby. It seems like it
might be the only way to tell where these creatures are.”

“You mean we could have used these before,
and George nixed it?” Rachel said.

“Yeah,” Cindy said, “he does that . . . did
stuff like that. He was very by the book, and if he couldn’t trust
it, he didn’t use it.”

“Let’s go,” Michael said. He stayed in the
back, and Cindy and Rachel took the lead. Regina looked back at the
golden brown blobs that used to be George and John, and then turned
away, the tears back again and there was nothing she could do about
it.

As they walked, Regina watched over Cindy’s
shoulder at her wrist screen. Like a stone in water, ripples came
off of a circular icon which she assumed represented the impact
sensor, activated by the impact of all of them walking. The words
“Silent Mode” flashed on the bottom of the screen.

“Well, that should do it,” Travis said to
Mary as he placed a panel back in place, below the flight control
in the cockpit of their ship. A charred board sat on the floor
beside him.

She stared at Travis for a couple of
seconds, and he knew she was sizing him up, but he didn’t care. It
just didn’t bother him.
Size
away
, Travis thought.

“Good,” Mary said.

I am good
,
Travis thought to himself and smiled. Mary saw the smile and
returned a frown before she turned to Paula and Brett.

“You two, get the systems online and we’ll do
a diagnostic. Report to me either way, as soon as you know.”

“Yes sir,” they said in unison.

Travis kept smiling. He looked Mary up and
down, liking what he saw, regardless of the personality that went
with it. No time for an impossibility, beyond a fun challenge, he
got up and walked into the passenger area.

Like Michael’s group, they also felt the
advantage to using impact sensors. They placed an impact sensor out
in the bay, near their ship.

Travis’s wrist device beeped. He lifted his
wrist and saw thick lines pulsing off of the circular object
representing the sensor just outside. They were all a little jumpy
after Michael contacted them about George and John. An uneasy
feeling came over him immediately, but he didn’t panic. “Comm set.
Michael, where are you at?”

Michael’s voice immediately came back.
“Passenger Level 4. Is everything okay?”

“I’m not sure yet. The sensor is going crazy,
but there’s nothing on the video. We’ll get back to you. Comm
off.”

Mary was right behind him. Even though his
back was to her, he knew she was there. “Something is coming,” he
said and then turned to face her.

“There’s no way for it to get in,” she said.
“The ship is sealed.”

The beeping got louder, and the pulses on the
screen bigger and faster.

Paula and Brett stood just inside the
cockpit, by the door, listening.

“What about the landing gear?” Paula
asked.

Mary rolled her eyes. “No. No way. Too small
of an opening, and, besides, the small access area to get to the
gear is sealed.”

Faster. Louder. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

They all looked at her, and she looked
uneasy. “Just to be safe, Travis, take guard in the engine room.
Paula and Brett, go back to getting things up and running, but keep
watch on the floor panel in the cockpit. I’ll keep watch here on
the exit.”

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Suddenly, after incessantly getting louder
and faster, the beeping stopped. Silence. They all knew the speed
of the sound and the volume meant whatever was out there was
getting closer, so either it completely stopped moving, or
vanished.

They all looked at their wrist devices.
Travis saw nothing.

“What the fuck?” Travis said.

“Go,” Mary said. “Now.”

When Travis bolted into the engine room, his
gun was up, and his eyes darted everywhere. The room was smaller
than the Pyramid shuttle engine room, with only one large cylinder
on the wall instead of the Pyramid shuttle’s three. Some computer
panels with thin, clear monitors stood in each corner. The enclosed
cylinder stuck out from the wall. Three large pipes led up into it
from underneath, the pipes originating in three separate tanks that
sat on the floor to the left of the cylinder.