The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel (11 page)

“I understand,” Lassea said. “Why you didn’t tell us, I mean. I’d have done the same thing if I were in your shoes. But I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. You have my loyalty.”

“Thanks, Lass,” Mach said. “That means a lot.”

One by one, the crew told Mach what they thought of him and that they were prepared to complete the mission, but if they completed it, and survived, they would reconsider their position on the
Intrepid
.
 

He could understand that, he’d let them down, but he needed them. The fate of the Salus Sphere and all who lived in it depended on them. Even if it meant that if they were successful and survived, he’d face losing his crew… and only friends.
 

“So,” Mach said, bringing his attention to Sanchez, “I’ve come clean; now it’s your turn. You need to tell us what’s wrong with you.”

“It’s really quite simple,” the hunter said, standing up from the table, his hand in Tulula’s. “I’m dying. I have maybe a few days left and there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Chapter Ten

Sanchez’s announcement sent a shockwave through Mach and the crew. His old friend had a few days to live and he’d kept it hidden. The secrecy cut deep, but not as much as the thought of losing him. The big hunter turned, with slumped shoulders, and walked away. The rest of the crew watched him leave the room in silence.
 

Mach sprang from his chair and chased after Sanchez along a brightly lit corridor leading to the habitation quarter. He slammed his hand against the solid white wall, in front of Sanchez, halting his progress. “You’re not going a step further until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Sanchez replied and swept Mach’s arm to the side. “I’ll help you complete the mission if you let me die in peace.”

“You don’t get out of it that easily. Nobody dies unless I say so.” Mach paused, realizing his words sounded ridiculous. Finding the right thing to say in a delicate situation had never been one of his better skills.
 

Sanchez trudged to his bunk and flopped down on the shiny blue mattress. He folded his arms behind his head and let out a deep breath. “I get where you’re coming from, but this is one battle we can’t win.”

“How do you know for sure? I can pull a favor from Morgan. Get you in front of the best CWDF medical team.”

“I picked up a symbiosite during a hunting trip on Feronia Gamma. The doc told me there’s nothing they can do.”

Mach frowned. He wasn’t aware of a disease in the Sphere that couldn’t be treated. An alien bacterium from dark space was a different matter. “What the hell’s a symbiosite?”

“A nasty little bugger. They live in Feronian swamps. Once they drill into you, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Seriously? Why can’t the med-bots kill it?”

Sanchez turned his head and looked Mach directly in the eye. “They grow around your organs and form a symbiotic relationship. Feed off the food you consume. I’ve been eating for two. Once they’re established, the host’s life depends on their survival.”

The thought of a large worm or whatever the creature was inside Sanchez made Mach shudder. “What does it feel like?”

“Nothing at first. That’s how they get you. One day I had a weird dream, seeing my own insides. It carried on for a few weeks and I had bad guts. Went to the doctor and he confirmed the damned thing had established itself.”

“Are you saying the symbiosite is dying, or you don’t want to live with it?”

Sanchez rolled on the bunk and faced the wall. “It’s a bit of both. I feel myself getting weaker and it’s invading my thoughts. I need rest before we reach Noven Alpha.”

“Okay, but we haven’t finished this conversation yet.”

“As far as I’m concerned we have.”

Mach took a deep breath, turned, and left the quarters. There had to be a way of saving Sanchez. It seemed impossible to believe that a known type of parasite, especially with the Sphere’s constantly improving medical treatments, could defeat him.

Lassea and Adira had returned to their positions on
Intrepid’s
flight deck. Babcock wasn’t around, so Mach descended in the transparent tube-shaped elevator to the engineering level. The door punched open and he headed for Babcock’s makeshift lab set up in a small office to the side of a stacked array of vestan servers.
 

Babcock sat in front of a holoscreen, reading the green data displayed across it. Next to him, a small black machine beamed white light on the section of recovered shell from the quarry, analyzing its composition. Squid Two, hovering over the scientist’s shoulder, spun and raised a silver tentacle.

“Interesting,” Babcock said.
 

“What is?” Mach asked and moved to his side.
 

“The shell is a completely new species.” Babcock pointed to a graph with a number of equations below it. “No records exist that match the structure, but there’s something else. Look at the dating information.”

Mach squinted at the screen, but reading scientific information wasn’t his domain. He shook his head. “Sorry, Babs, you need to explain it.”

“The hatched eggs are only a few days old. This species has a superfast reproduction rate.”

“A nest of poisonous bugs is the least of my worries at the moment—”

“Apologies for the interruption, but let me join up a few dots for clarity. If the creatures that speared the two people outside the transport door grew from the eggs, we’re talking about a colonizing force that can overwhelm a planet. It’s not a stretch to imagine that they came from the ship that caused the roof damage.”

Mach thought about the implications. They had a signal for
Voyager
, and destroying the super weapon remained priority number one. Taking on a new species was never part of the agenda. Avoiding them, completing the mission, and reporting Babcock’s findings to President Morgan seemed like the sensible option.
 

“It doesn’t change our plan. If they’ve infested parts of Noven Alpha, we might kill two birds with one stone.”

“I’ll run some extrapolations against the genetic code,” Babcock said. “Squid Two and I might be able to produce models and estimations about the species.”

“Thanks. I’d like you to look into something else for me too. Have you heard of a symbiosite?”

Babcock’s eyes widened. “Sanchez has one?”

“If it dies, he dies.”

“Good grief. I’ll start work on it in parallel. They’re horrible creatures, but I wouldn’t say it’s beyond the realm of possibility to find a solution.”

“The doctors don’t think so.”

Squid Two chirped. Babcock nodded. “Exploration is the engine that drives innovation. Yours is the galaxy, Carson, mine is science. Leave it with me.”

Mach smiled and gently slapped Babcock’s back. If anyone could find a cure, it was him.
 

***

Mach gazed at the screen above
Intrepid
’s controls. Noven Alpha loomed large. Deep blue oceans covered three-quarters of the surface. A single continent, shaped like a badly drawn figure eight, stretched across the middle. The report passed to him from OreCorp said a few million people used to live here, but the population diminished after mining work stopped and the CWDF designated the planet as outside the Salus Sphere.
 

The predators in the forest areas were also considered highly dangerous—aggressive four-legged reptiles that hunted in small packs. Mach thought this type of world would be the place to get Sanchez’s pulse racing, but as Lassea guided them toward the atmosphere, the big man slumped next to the cannon controls, showing none of his usual pre-hunt excitement.
 

Tulula, sitting next to Lassea, turned in her chair. “The signal’s coming from the western edge of the continent. Want me to prepare a drone?”

“Are you picking up any other traffic besides
Voyager
’s signal?” Mach asked. He glanced at the empty tracking screen. With no potential threats within one AU, the quickest way would be to descend and get a visual. Any aggression from the ground could be met with lasers or the ion cannon.
 

“Nothing,” Tulula replied. “Just the usual static.”

“Take her down and we’ll launch a drone,” Mach said. “Adira, be ready with the lasers.”

Lassea manipulated the holocontrols and the
Intrepid
’s engines whined.
 

They vibrated through the heavy atmosphere toward wispy high cirrus clouds. Mach kept his eye on the screen, watching the continent below grow in size. Sunlit thick green areas of vegetation surrounded the edges of the land. A brown rugged mountainous spine ran over two hundred klicks across its center.
 

The ship smoothed. Lassea engaged the retro-thrusters to slow their descent. Readings showed the planet to have a breathable atmosphere, which matched OreCorp’s report, although the thin levels of oxygen meant degradation in physical and mental awareness until properly acclimatized.

Mach raised his smart-screen. “Babs, how’s your extra task coming along?”

“I might have something, but it’s going to take time.”

“Something’s better than nothing.”

A red triangle flashed over a dark ravine, showing the position of
Voyager
’s signal. Tulula zoomed the underside camera. Smooth rock plateaus sloped away from either side of it to dense forest thirty meters below. She leaned across to the drone’s remote control pad and launched one from the rear end of the
Intrepid
.

The drone circled around the front of the ship and hovered over the top of the fifty-meter-wide ravine. Its feed focused on the murky gap below. Tulula activated its searchlight. A yellow beam speared into the darkness.
 

Large rock overhangs, protruding from either side of the sand-colored ravine walls, blocked the view to the bottom. Mach searched for signs of debris or scrapes. Crashing into a place like this was enough to cripple most corporate ships. He wondered if the crew made it to the surface and had the ability to activate a distress beacon, they might have also placed the weapon in the mine and blown the entrance.
 

“Can you take the drone down there?” Adira asked.
 

“Not if we want to risk losing it,” Tulula said. “They were designed for high-level observation. I’d be flying blind and the AI won’t work in such a confined space.”

Mach grunted out of his chair. “Sanchez, are you feeling okay?”

“Fine, all things considered. Do you want me to suit up?”

“No, you’re not up to it,” Mach said, hating the very words when it concerned his old friend. There was just something so tragic for a man like Ernesto Sanchez to lose his strength and vigor; it made him who he is… was.
 

“Like hell I’m not… Captain,” Sanchez retorted as he stood up and stared Mach down. “I can still whip your ass if I need to, illness or not. Now I’m here to do a job, not be coddled in cotton wool. I’m suiting up and going out there whether you like it or not—unless you think you can stop me?”

Mach couldn’t help but laugh—this was his old friend: rebellious to the end. For decades he had worked as a gunrunner and assorted rogue, working within and around the CW laws. He never let anything stop him from doing what he wanted to do if he believed it was the right thing, and Mach knew that he couldn’t really stop him now, even if he wanted to.
 

“Fine,” Mach said. “But no damned heroics or sacrifices, understood? You follow my command at all times.”

“Just try to keep up,” Sanchez said with a smirk. “I don’t have long and you’ll be useless without me.”

Tulula shared a concerned look with Mach. He just gave her a small nod as if communicating that he would indeed keep an eye on Sanchez and look out for him. “Adira, you’re coming too.” Mach glanced at the screen again, scanning the ravine and top of the surrounding forest. “Take us down to the plateau.”
 

***

Mach attached black thruster blocks to each of his forearms. As fun as rock climbing could be, he preferred a technology-assisted descent. Adira and Sanchez were already prepared and waiting by the airlock. They all wore helmets to maintain a good level of mental and physical agility.

Out of the window, the ground closed to within meters. The
Intrepid
’s
thrusters blasted small stones and dust along the plateau, sending a thin gray cloud over the thrashing canopy below, and it bumped against the rock.
 

“We’ll take the weapons from here,” Tulula said over the comm. “We’re not picking up any signs of movement.”

“Let me know if you see anything,” Mach said, still conscious that something had blasted a hole in the facility roof on Noven Beta and created a pit of human bodies. “Keep the channel open in case we need anything.”

“We’ve got your back,” Lassea said.
 

Mach tried to avoid sounding like he was teaching the crew to suck eggs. At times like this it was unavoidable. As captain he had to confirm individual roles for an operation to avoid any confusion.
 

Sanchez pressed the glass plate to open the airlock door. It thrust out and slid to the side with pneumatic hiss. The graphite ramp folded out and clanked against the stone below. He pulled a laser from his hip holster, raised it, and stepped outside.
 

Mach enjoyed watching Sanchez being assertive again. Now they had an immediate objective, it seemed to have a positive effect and focused the big man’s mind away from the symbiosite.

Adira glanced over her shoulder at Mach. He nodded, shouldered his Stinger and followed. The temperature display on his HUD increased to tropical levels and the humidity registered at ninety-four percent.
 

The left-hand edge of the crevice lay fifty meters to their right up a shallow slope. Mach crossed the open ground and swept his rifle across the skyline. He reached the edge and checked his smart-screen, confirming they had the right location.
 

None of the walls betrayed a sign of a ship crashing and the top of all of the eight overhangs he could see below, to a depth of at least one hundred meters, didn’t have a single scrap of debris on them.