Third Transmission (3 page)

He tried to kick the commando in the ribs, but his captor was already twisting aside. Six banged his head against the wall of the corridor as the commando drove the pickaxe into it, nailing him there by his coat. Then he reached behind Six's back and pulled two of the four throwing knives out of his belt.

Six struggled, but the commando slammed him back against the wall. If I yell, the alarm will be raised, he thought. But if I don't, I'm going to get my throat cut.

As if reading his mind, the commando clamped his gloved palm over Six's mouth. He twirled one of the knives in his free hand, then grasped it by the hilt and drove it towards Six's wrist.

Thunk!
The blade pierced Six's coat and thudded into the wall, but Six didn't feel it touch his skin. It must have gone through the edge of the cuff, missing his wrist by millimetres. The commando gripped the other knife, held down Six's other arm and did the same thing.

Now Six was pinned to the wall in three places; the pickaxe through his collar, and the knives through his
left and right sleeves. He wasn't hurt, but he couldn't move.

The commando grabbed Six's scuba mask and the oxygen bottle and hooked the straps into the clips on his belt. Then he said, ‘See you round,' and sprinted off down the corridor.

Six clamped his teeth around the handle of the pickaxe, and wrenched it out of the wall. It fell to the floor with a
thunk
. Why didn't he disarm me? he wondered. In fact, why not kill me? I'm clearly here for the same thing he is, and if he saw the knives on my belt he must have seen the gun and the cutting torch.

If the commando had been ChaoSonic, he would have disarmed Six, sounded the alarm, and held him for interrogation. If he had been one of the South Coast rebels, he would have broken Six's neck, or at least pinned him by his actual wrists rather than just his sleeves.

Six tugged his arms downwards until the knives sheared through the coat, and he landed on the floor. Whoever the commando was, he had wanted Six alive and unharmed – and that wasn't necessarily a good sign.

He might have been working for Vanish. He might have been Vanish himself.

Three weeks ago, Six's twin brother, Kyntak, had been kidnapped. Six had gone on a rescue mission, only to be captured himself. And there had been one more prisoner – a clone of Six with one arm and one eye, one who'd been grown specifically for organ transplants.

It turned out that the mastermind behind the abduction had discovered that Six had a genetic abnormality that protected him from ageing. He wanted to transplant his brain into Six's superhuman body, so he could live forever. Six and Kyntak had both escaped, but the Deck never found their captor. Only his body, with the brain scooped out.

His name was Vanish – and Six figured that he could be anyone by now. Tall, short, fat, thin. These days, Six examined the face of every stranger he passed on the street. Looking for a trace of Vanish's smug smile.

But why would he be here? To taunt Six? To check he was still physically healthy – ripe for transplantation?

Or to steal the SARS canisters, before Six could get to them or ChaoSonic could use them?

‘Damn it,' Six hissed, and he sprinted down the corridor.

Not a lot was known for sure about Vanish, but he had definitely been a weapons dealer from time to time. He bought and sold almost anything. His hands were the worst ones for the SARS to fall into – because after that, it could end up anywhere.

The door to the other room was just ahead. It seemed to be iron rather than steel – greasy and rough. There were guards on either side of it. They were lying on the ground, dead or unconscious.

Six spun the valve and kicked open the door, already knowing what he would find.

The room was painted white, and bore all the signs of being a laboratory. Hazard suits hung from hooks on the wall. A small chamber had been carved into the back, once separated from the room by a window. Chunks of the glass were now puddled all over the floor. Six could see three empty power ports in the chamber. He was betting that three stainless-steel viral-containment canisters had rested there.

The commando must have them. Soon they would be in Vanish's hands, if they weren't already.

ChaoSonic wouldn't be able to destroy the South Coast anymore, but if Vanish got away with them, the Deck would never be able to track them down. Not until they were detonated in a populated area, after he sold them back to ChaoSonic or to a third party.

Six couldn't let that happen. He hit a button on his phone.

‘Hey, hey,' Kyntak said.

‘I couldn't find the canisters,' Six said. ‘But I'm pretty sure they're still on the ship. So I need immediate evac.'

‘You going to sink it?' Kyntak said. Six could hear that he was grinning. ‘Awesome!'

‘Just make sure a chopper's here to pick me up in …' Six checked his watch. Twenty-nine minutes before the ship reached the South Coast, the crew realised the SARS was gone, and every soldier on the ship was hunting Six.

‘Ten minutes,' he finished. Long enough to set the SOL-bomb and sink the ship with Vanish and the SARS still on board.

‘Roger that. We're nice and close – we did a quick flyover a few minutes ago to see if the ship was carrying aircraft.'

‘And is it?'

‘None visible. Some of the crew took pot shots at us with assault rifles, but no damage was done. We flew out of radar range, but we're turning back now. See you soon.'

Six raced back down the corridor towards the engine room. Pipes and doors whizzed by on both sides. His shadow splattered over the walls as he ran.

What's Vanish's getaway plan? he wondered. He must know they'll be looking for him soon. Maybe I'm not the only one with a chopper coming to –

Four CNS troops rounded a corner up ahead, maybe 10 metres away. Six changed his mad dash into a brisk march, but one of them was already staring at him.

‘Freeze!'

Instinct took over. Six grabbed a steel hatch to his right by the valve, ripped it out of the wall. The rusty steel screeched as the hinges snapped. Six bashed it against a thick white pipe to his left, and ducked.

The pipe ruptured, and hot water burst out into the corridor. A few stinging flecks landed on the back of Six's neck, but most of it sprayed down the corridor at the soldiers. They covered their faces with their arms, howling. The spray of water became a flood down the side of the pipe as the pressure equalised, and Six charged towards the soldiers.

They recovered quickly – the water hadn't been hot enough to cause severe burns. They reached for their guns as Six sprinted towards them, still carrying the steel lid.

Six jumped, lifted the lid out in front of him, and landed on it, knees first. The lid skimmed across the sheen of hot water on the floor, like a puck across an air-hockey table. Six spun towards the soldiers, who didn't quite get their guns up in time.

He drove his arms out to the sides as he reached the soldiers. His elbows and fists slammed into the legs of the middle two troops, who tumbled into the air like astronauts.

Once Six had smashed through the line and they had a clear shot, the other two soldiers opened fire. Six grabbed the rear side of the lid and pulled, capsizing it so the bullets slammed into the underside. Six's side of the lid rippled like a puddle in an earthquake.

They'll pause, he thought. All soldiers pause to see if they hit their target.

Sure enough, the gunfire stopped for a moment. A moment was all Six needed. He rose to his feet, wrenched the lid up from the floor, and hurled it at the soldiers like a giant steel discus.

He didn't wait to see if it hit them. He just ran.

The engine room was only a few corridors away. Once the four soldiers recovered and raised the alarm, it was going to be much harder to get into. Six's feet slapped the floor,
bap bap bap
, as he sprinted through the gloomy labyrinth.

Then the door was up ahead – big and industrial. Only one guard; Six guessed that most of the crew was on deck. Lucky for him. Unlucky for the guard.

Six was spinning on the ball of his foot even as the guard's head turned to face him. His other heel whipped through the air towards the guard's cheekbone.

The guard raised his arm to try to block the blow. Mistake – if Six's spinning heel-kick had connected, the guard would have escaped with a short sleep, a large bruise and a headache. Instead, the impact broke his arm in both the radius and ulna bones, and he screamed.

Six whipped the hat off the guard's head, scrunched it into a ball and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he pulled the guard's coat over his face and knotted it under his neck so he couldn't see or spit out the hat.

The guard's undamaged arm was flailing wildly in the air, searching for Six with a closed fist. Six ripped the guard's belt out of the loops in his trousers, and used it to bind the guard's arm to his torso. The guard fell, smacking the back of his head against the floor. With one arm broken and the other tied, he couldn't remove the blindfold or climb to his feet. He looked like a turtle on its back.

Six reached down to knock the guard out, but then a klaxon started screaming behind him. He turned, and saw a flashing red light behind a steel-mesh cage.

The alarm had been sounded.

‘Sorry,' Six said to the guard. ‘Got to run.' Then he pulled down the lever next to the engine room door, and the barrier rolled aside.

Hot air spilled out over his face. Sweaty engineers stared at him as he stepped through the door. They let go of their levers, dropped their tools. Six drew the Parrot and pointed it at them. With his other hand, he pulled out the SOL-bomb.

‘This is a bomb,' he announced, pushing the
arm
button. The bomb started blinking. ‘In ten minutes this ship is going to sink. That should be just enough time to get to the lifeboats.'

He pushed another button and tossed the bomb casually to the ground. The screen read
proximity sensor activated.

‘That means you can't move it without setting it off,' Six said. ‘It can't be disarmed, delayed or shielded, so don't try.'

The engineers all stared at him.

‘Why are you still here?' he demanded.

These guys weren't soldiers. ChaoSonic had trained them for mechanical crises, not hijack situations. They fled, tumbling out of the engine room like cockroaches away from a light bulb.

As they ran, Six scoured the room for other entrances or exits. There appeared to be none. So he ran out after them and dragged the door closed behind him. He didn't think there was time to weld it shut, but he couldn't leave it unlocked. Despite what he'd said, there might be someone on board capable of disarming the bomb – or someone dumb enough to kill themselves trying. Six wound the valve closed and ripped it off the door. Then he bashed it against the floor, bending the screw beyond usefulness.

The CNS crew would need cutting torches of their own to get in – and they wouldn't have the time.

He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes until the chopper arrived, nine minutes until the SOL-bomb blew. Time to go.

He ran up the corridor towards the nearest ladder, and climbed it. Even over the roaring of the klaxon, he could hear the CNS soldiers shouting to one another. The pounding of booted feet. Six told himself that the panic was a good thing – no-one would be looking too closely at his face or his stolen BDUs.

The ladder rose through a central corridor which was flooded with people. Soldiers were running along its length, with technicians and chefs and who knew who else.

‘Battle stations!' someone was yelling.

‘Abandon ship!' Six roared. He didn't want anyone to die here – the sooner they got the message that the
Gomorrah
was going to sink, the better. ‘Abandon ship!'

As he reached the top of the ladder he shoved a hatch open and found himself in an aircraft hangar, with two Sweeper-1010 fighter jets, half a dozen speedboats, and a rack of high-pressure diving suits. There was no-one in here yet, but Six didn't know whether or not those speedboats were lifeboats. If they were, he'd have a lot of company very soon.

He sprinted to the hangar doors and pushed open the small personnel door beside them, revealing the panic he'd created.

People milled around like ants in a hive. Some were clambering behind the big rotating guns on the edges of the deck. Some were thumping buttons as extra lifeboats rose out of giant hatches in the floor. Some were still pulling their clothes on. Six pulled out his phone.

‘Kyntak, what's the ETA on the chopper?'

‘Nearly there, Six,' Kyntak said. ‘Three minutes.'

‘Be careful,' Six said. ‘They –'

Boom
. He ducked instinctively. It sounded like a distant explosion, like a shell from a tank gun hitting a building. But since there were no tanks or buildings nearby, Six couldn't explain it at first.

Boom!
There it was again. Louder, closer. The flurry of activity on the deck stuttered to a halt as the personnel on the
Gomorrah
noticed the sound and started looking for the source.

Heads turned to the sky in confusion as a third boom pounded from it.

Thunder, Six thought.

There was a thin crackling sound from below. Six looked at his feet, and saw a tiny yellowish blob of moisture on the deck. It bubbled and crackled and steamed, and then it was gone, leaving a small crater in the metal.

Another blob appeared to Six's left. Then another.

Crackle.
Hiss.

‘Rain!' someone shouted.

And then the commotion on the deck became full-blown panic.