It was obvious from the start: with only two people, trying to search a ship of approximately eighty-four cubic kilometres was a completely impossible task.
Lake and Herez had decided to begin with the bridge; firstly, because they had been there before so they knew the way and, secondly, because they might be able to see where the ship was on the big holo map.
The information holos that Lake had watched in his room on that first night had told him that the Katadromiko 37 had a crew complement of over forty-seven thousand. He wondered, as he walked, if all of them – except one – had perished.
Corridor after corridor leading to the bridge had been scattered with the dead and it seemed ridiculous that a race of humans this advanced could succumb so absolutely to a virus in such a short time frame.
Unsurprisingly, the bridge doors were closed, the security guards lying dead at their posts. Lake noticed that their wrist control panels were still active and they both, very carefully, helped themselves to one each.
‘Don’t press anything with it pointing in my direction,’ said Lake. ‘You remember how they had these things pointed at us when we arrived.’
‘I’m quite happy for you to press something first,’ said Herez, looking nervously at his newly acquired wristlet full of winking icons. ‘How do we know that one of these flashing thingies isn’t the self-destruct button?’
‘We need Dric’is to decipher them.’
‘Hang on, what are those?’ said Herez, pointing at the two guards.
‘Those what?’
‘The lanyards around their necks. They have a single icon in the middle.’ Before Lake could stop him, Herez picked one off the guard’s chest and pressed the icon.
‘No – don’t—’
The bridge doors opened.
‘—press that,’ said Lake, glaring at his employee.
‘Don’t give me that look. It worked, didn’t it?’
‘It could’ve been a panic button that seals the whole deck or activates ray guns or poison darts or fucking anything,’ said Lake, continuing to scowl at Herez. ‘Don’t press anything else; is that clear?’
‘Yes, boss,’ said Herez, hanging his new lanyard around his neck and entering the bridge.
The room was almost deserted. It must have been the night shift as only a few of the couches were occupied by dead bodies. The large holo map was on and the little ship icon was flashing, from where it sat right in the middle of a small system; but it appeared to be stationary. A single star was a way off on the starboard side and two planets were quite close to port.
‘Well, at least we’re not heading for a black hole at warp factor 9,’ said Lake. ‘I’m quite happy with stationary.’
‘Just as well,’ said Herez, looking around the room. ‘The control systems for this monster are way over my head.’
Lake sat down on one the recliner couches.
Immediately he was surrounded by holo icons, some flashing, some not, and a rainbow of different colours. Text started appearing in the air, right in front of his face. Lake just sat and watched, wondering how the hell all this worked and what the ship was trying to tell him.
‘I wish we could talk to the computer,’ said Lake.
‘You can,’ said Dric’is, strolling onto the bridge, a haunted look on her face.
Herez, who had his back to the main entrance, jumped out of his skin.
‘Damn,’ he said, swivelling round and instinctively ducking. When he recognised it was Dric’is and realised that she was talking through a translator, he relaxed a little. ‘How can you be out here?’
‘And so quickly,’ said Lake, suspiciously.
‘Your blood samples contained the anti-virus; that’s why you’re not affected. My computer was able to quickly recognise, isolate and synthesise more of the same for myself. I therefore ask the question: why were you immune? Was that part of your plan?’
‘Our plan?’ said Lake. ‘We had no plan. It was you that dragged our ship aboard.’
‘You fired a primitive weapon that you knew would have no effect on us, but it ensured you got our attention and we were compelled to arrest you and bring you on board. That’s how you got the virus onto the ship and now, the first place you go to, after wiping out the crew, is the bridge so you can commandeer the vessel. How do you think that looks from my point of view?’
‘It’s all complete rubbish,’ said Herez. ‘Earlier you said the virus had nothing to do with us. Why are you now suddenly accusing us of deliberately causing this?’ He stepped around the couch between them and closed in on Dric’is. He suddenly realised she was wearing one of the armlet weapons and was bringing it up towards him. He made a last second lunge.
‘No!’ shouted Lake.
The lightning bolt struck Herez in the upper chest, flinging him back over the couch he’d stepped around. He landed heavily in a tangle of arms and legs and remained still, a small puff of smoke rising from his clothing where the lightning bolt had impacted.
‘Shit,’ shouted Lake, staring at the crumpled form. ‘Is he still alive?’
‘Unfortunately, he probably is,’ said Dric’is, glaring at Lake. ‘Take that weapon off slowly and drop it on the floor.’
Lake did as he was told and remained sitting on the couch with his hands in full view.
‘We’re really not responsible for any of this,’ he said. ‘I realise it doesn’t look particularly auspicious, but—’
‘Shut up, Lake. You left the medical station, armed yourselves and came straight for the bridge. What were the arm weapons for, eh? To dispose of anyone alive on the bridge? As far as I’m concerned, you’ve murdered all my friends and colleagues, all forty-seven thousand of them, people from hundreds of systems and planets. You will be the most wanted human being in the galaxy when this news gets out and I’m going to be the one who brings you in.’ She glared at him and indicated to Herez. ‘Now pick him up.’
Lake slowly got up off the couch and stepped over to where Herez’s unconscious form was slumped.
‘I don’t know if I can lift him in this heavy gravity,’ he said.
‘Just do it,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll stun you too and drag you both down to security in a freight cart.’
Lake got down on one knee, grabbed Herez’s arm and heaved his torso up onto his shoulders, shuffled him around a little until he was reasonably balanced and slowly stood up, pushing against the couch for leverage.
‘Into the corridor and down to the tube,’ she said, indicating the way with her arm weapon.
Lake staggered out of the bridge and down the corridor.
The extra gravity was bad enough with his own weight, but carrying ninety kilos of additional dead weight made it exhausting.
The tube carriage Dric’is had used was still waiting, so they filed in.
He set Herez down on one of the seats while she stood at the far end of the car, watching him closely.
Neither said a word during the journey.
On arrival at the stop nearest the security office, Lake picked up Herez once more, although it was easier this time getting him up off a seat instead of the floor.
Dric’is indicated for Lake to go first and, as he squeezed the two of them through the door, he watched their reflection in the glass opposite. Stopping to reposition Herez on his shoulders, he waited until he saw she was directly behind him. Then he threw himself and Herez backward through the door and across the carriage, crushing Dric’is against the far wall.
Her arm weapon discharged on impact and the lightning bolt hit the door frame.
Dropping Herez, Lake turned and, remembering his boyhood karate lessons, he parried the arm that contained the weapon and initiated a textbook solar plexus palm strike.
She exhaled loudly but, before she could recover, an old-fashioned uppercut snapped her head back and she was unconscious before she hit the floor.
Lake quickly removed her arm weapon and hurried down the corridor with her over his shoulder. He deposited her in Herez’s room and dashed over to the security office’s computer terminal. He kicked the dead guard away from the seat and, sitting at the terminal, he remembered the routine to change the language to English and proceeded to find the correct menu for the door locks, setting them to permanently secure.
When he returned to the tube, Herez was sitting up, staring at him.
‘How the hell did I get here?’ he said, rubbing his chest where the bolt had hit him.
‘I carried your fat arse here,’ said Lake. ‘Now get up. We’ve got to get off this ship, fast, before reinforcements arrive.’
‘Where’s Dric’is?’ said Herez, struggling to regain his balance.
‘Having a little lie down. Now hurry up and sort your shit out.’
Returning to the security office, Lake sat at the computer terminal and brought up the ship schematic.
He requested the shuttle bays first, of which there were fourteen. He then asked for shuttle bays below his present position as he knew they had come up several floors when they first arrived. That reduced the number to eight. Then he cut that to bays in the rear half of the ship on the starboard side. The list was now three. He found a marker pen in one of the drawers and proceeded to write the numbers of the nearest tube stops on the back of his hand.
‘You’ll never escape,’ said Dric’is, glaring at Lake and Herez through the beam lock. ‘They’ll hunt you down across a thousand galaxies if need be.’
‘Ah, the treacherous, trigger-happy bitch awakes,’ said Herez.
‘And I thought you two were engaged,’ said Lake, with a smirk. ‘After all, she did give you that nice red medallion in the middle of your chest.’
‘It would’ve been a bloody great hole if I’d known any better,’ howled Dric’is.
‘Do you want me to tidy up, boss?’ said Herez, indicating to Dric’is, who was testing the beam lock with a chair leg.
‘No, we’ve not committed any crime here. It’ll only give them a real reason to pursue us.’ Lake turned his attention to Dric’is. ‘When your friends arrive and the truth of what really happened here comes out, I want a full apology and compensation for the trauma you’ve caused to myself and especially my colleague here.’
‘Never going to happen, you murdering bastards,’ she shouted as Lake and Herez strolled out into the corridor.
They made their way down to the tube, where the scorch mark was still on the door frame. Lake entered the first destination into the control panel and off they went. It didn’t seem familiar when they arrived, but they had a quick look in the hangar anyway. It contained twenty single-seater fighter spaceplanes. They were black and sleek and armed to the teeth.
‘Just think what we could get for just one of these back home, boss,’ said Herez, running his fingers down the fuselage of the nearest one.
‘I think I would go for that one,’ said Lake, pointing at a large shuttle, sitting back in the corner. It had once been white, but had greyed at the edges with age and had the tell-tale scorch marks of planetary insertion. It could obviously carry a reasonable cargo and seemed to be armed as there were sinister-looking pods and attachments hanging off it. ‘Anyway, it’s not our hangar. Let’s check out the next one.’
They knew they had the right one as soon as they emerged from the tube; the corridor leading down to the hangar was familiar, although the sight that beheld them as they entered the large space was most definitely not what they were expecting. Their space plane was in pieces.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Lake as he surveyed the parts of his ship lying around the floor and under the main body. ‘What the fuck have they done?’
‘Probably looking for the missile system that wasn’t there,’ said Herez. He climbed the steps and poked his head into the cabin. It was trashed. ‘Don’t even think of looking in here,’ he said, quickly jumping back down.
Lake looked around the hangar.
The small shuttles were still there against the far wall and he walked across to inspect them. The nearest one was open and had its steps extended. He jumped up and stuck his head inside, soon finding what he was looking for: inside the airlock and set into the wall was the now familiar computer keypad. He went through the convert language routine and hunted around in the menu for the flight prep instructions and soon found the flight checklist.
Herez had followed Lake up into the shuttle and began to check what else would be helpful to make it flight-ready.
‘Come on,’ said Lake as he went out the airlock and jumped down from the ship.
‘Where are we going now? I thought we had to get off this ship?’
‘If you’re going to steal a spaceship,’ said Lake, heading back out the door towards the tube, ‘steal the most powerful one.’ He headed out the door towards the tube. Herez caught him up and they both got back on the tube car.
Lake led them back to the previous hangar and walked over to the far side where the big freighter was.
‘This is the one,’ he said with a grin. ‘Shall we play?’
The loading ramps were extended so they could walk straight in. They found the control cabin up a set of stairs and past four crew cabins.
Lake again changed the language on the computer terminal and brought up the flight prep lists. Soon, he had the ship powered up and started closing the cargo doors. When he got to the last door, he looked out the front screen at the hangar below and thought for a moment.
‘Come,’ he said, beckoning to Herez.
Each of the twenty fighter ships was sitting on its own motorized trolley.
Lake started pressing icons on the control pad of the nearest one until it lit up. Two minutes later he, with the help of Herez, motored one of the tiny fighters up into the freighter’s cargo bay, shut it down and smiled to himself.
‘As for compensation, I’ll take this with me,’ he said, patting Herez on the back. ‘Come on, let’s fly this bitch,’ he said before running up the stairs to the control cabin and over to one of the two pilot’s couches.
Herez sat in the one on the right as Lake planted himself down in the left and started reading the pre-flight checklist. He was able to identify most of the floating icons around him as the checklist lit them in sequence. When it came to donning the flight helmet and engaging brain-thought interfacing with the flight computer, he stopped and looked around the cabin for something that resembled a helmet.
‘Can you see a helmet anywhere?’
‘No, but there’s one of these in the seat pocket to your left,’ said Herez, holding up what looked like a wool beanie hat in the design of an old cycling helmet. Lake pulled his out and gave it a strange look.
‘This can’t be what they mean, surely?’ said Lake and slipped the cloth helmet on. Nothing happened for a second or two until he blinked and, for a millisecond, saw the outside of the ship.
‘That’s weird,’ he said and blinked again, getting the same strange result. Then it dawned on him what he was supposed to be doing. He shut his eyes.
‘Wow, well I’ll be damned,’ he said and started moving his head around, grinning.
‘Do I need to put mine on?’ asked Herez.
‘No, I think it would confuse the system. We’ll try it when we’ve got a bit more space.’
All of a sudden, the ship jerked to starboard and clunked back down on the deck.
‘Oops,’ said Lake. ‘It’s a little twitchy.’
He concentrated on the ship again and imagined it rising up in the hangar. As soon as the ship jumped up off the deck Herez grabbed the sides of his couch. Lake turned the freighter towards the bay door and imagined it open; a split second later it shimmered and became space and stars.
‘Oh, wow,’ said Herez. ‘Are you doing all this with just thought?’
Lake held up a hand to silence him; he was concentrating hard so as to not bump the doors on the way out.
When the freighter was clear of the hangar, he imagined the struts were up, and a reassuring whining from below confirmed the landing struts were retracting. He took the ship out to two hundred kilometres and asked the computer if the ship had any stealth settings. Two icons appeared in his thought vision: one labelled electronic and the other visual. He imagined both being touched and immediately the white lighting in the cabin turned a subdued blue.
‘Okay,’ said Lake. ‘Shall we go somewhere a little more familiar?’
‘Can we adjust the gravity first?’ asked Herez.
Lake closed his eyes again and thought about gravity controls. He found several and soon found the right icon and reduced the gravity weight percentage from one hundred percent down to seventy-five.
They both noticed the difference immediately and Herez emitted a sigh of relief.
Lake thought the jump co-ordinates into the computer and the freighter vanished from the Dyo system.