Embarkment 2577 (9 page)

She didn’t answer, of course. I was on
my own.

With no more reasons to linger, I
grabbed the little patch and applied it to my throat. “What does this thing do?”

My own voice made me jump. I sounded
like me in my head, but the voice my ears heard had an eerie insectoid quality.
“Anya, you’re the best.”

She couldn’t hear me. She might be gone
forever, and that thought brought tears to my eyes. “If you’ve destroyed her
program I’ll kill each and every one of you.”

I had no idea how to accomplish such a
feat, but I sure intended to try. My ideas of how people should behave to be
“good” came from countless books, movies, and TV-shows where everyone either
managed or died trying. I pulled the headpiece of my new costume into place,
picked the rifle up and headed into the unknown.

My heart beat like a sledgehammer, my
stomach churned, and I could barely refrain from shaking. I still muttered,
“Alex, you’re doing fine.”

During these first shaky steps, the tail
was the worst thing. I almost got it stuck in the door and had to take a few
running steps to clear it. “Bloody thing. I wonder how many minutes I can last
before being caught?”

Probably zero if I didn’t stop talking
to myself. Time to shut up.

There was a guard outside the lift. The
guest quarters were far up in the ship, just a deck below the high officers,
and it was a reasonable place to post someone. I still didn’t expect it.

The guard greeted me with a nod. “Troublesome
humanoids, but they’ll make good slaves in the mines.”

Slaves, huh? Free labour and a grand
starship, these guys were having a good day. “Troublesome indeed. Feisty. One
tried to chop my tail off.”

He made a sympathetic clicking noise. “I
bet that hurt. I can make it feel better though. Come up here when your shift
is over, if you want to.”

Seriously? I was dressed in a stupid
Logg costume and this creature didn’t just buy it; he was hitting on me? Poor
eyesight, indeed. Good thing the mask hid my facial expression. “I’ll think
about it.”

Luckily, the lift came and I hurried
inside, making sure to go far enough to bring the entire tail with me. I turned
my back to a corner so newcomers wouldn’t notice my extra arms and tail sagging.

No one else entered the lift, and I had
a few long minutes on the way down to work myself into hysteria. I wasn’t up to
heroics like this. What would happen if they caught me? Chances of being sent
to my friends in the brig were slim to none, I’d be lucky to be teleported off
the ship with everyone else. Maybe they’d just shoot me.

I led an extremely protected life on the
Bell with Adam buffering me against everything and everyone, friend or foe. Did
my friends face dangers like this all the time?

When the lift finally slowed and stopped
on level thirty three, I forced my feet to move forward, into an alien crowd.
Moving like a Logg wasn’t hard; in my current mood both slumping and dragging
my feet came quite naturally.

I met many guards holding more or less
human prisoners. A few of the captives still showed some fighting spirit, but
most were bruised and compliant. Some were unconscious, being pulled on the
floor or carelessly thrown over a furry shoulder.

No one paid attention to me. Good thing,
because I couldn’t see very well through the mask. The spacing of the eyes
didn’t fit mine at all, and I had to look through one eye at the time. Losing
depth perception made it difficult to walk.

The rooms on this level were huge, and
the corridor went on forever. Was I even going in the right direction? I was
pretty sure Anya said “right,” but nervous as I was, it might have been left. I
almost lost count of the doors several times, even though I only needed to find
the seventh.

My hands cramped around the weapon and I
forced myself to relax. All these aliens might not be watching me right now,
but that would change the moment I accidentally shot someone…

The seventh door looked exactly like all
the others, and I had no way to double-check if it was the right one. I hoped
for the best and approached. Nothing happened. Could it be locked? Maybe none
of the entrances worked without the computer, but the elevator had opened
willingly enough.

There must be a manual override, other
than shooting the dumb thing. I just had to find it. When I stepped up to the
console next to the door my eyes caught movement above me. A camera. Maybe
someone on the inside was watching? I performed my best Logg imitation and
gestured to open the door. To my relief, it opened.

The brig turned out to be a vast room
with cells all around it. I saw my friends over to the side, held in by a force
field. In the middle of the room was a console for the guard, and a single Logg
sat there with his hairy feet up. Should I shoot him?

“Finally. I’m so tired of these humans
and things, they stink. I thought they’d never send someone to relieve me.”

I nodded and gesticulated, doing my best
to look Loggy. “I’ve been hurt. My tail is hurt and the cursed human got two of
my arms, so I was sent to guard duty. They’re feisty.”

The alien got to his feet and headed for
the door. He didn’t care. “Have fun with them, they’re all yours.”

With the guard gone, all that remained
was figuring out how to close the door. I punched some buttons on random, and
was eventually rewarded with a whooshing sound as it shut.

The rifle was so heavy, and the
ridiculous suit warm and uncomfortable. I made it to the brig, against all
odds. Didn’t I deserve to sit down and relax now? I drew a deep breath and
pep-talked myself; it wasn’t time to quit until I let the others out.

I shuffled over to the closest cell and
squinted at the console next to it, pressing some keys with the suit’s claws,
hoping I would turn the force field off and not accidentally sound an alarm or
kill everyone. Nothing happened. “Bloody hell, why do you people have to make
everything so fucking complicated? What’s wrong with having one button labelled
‘open’ and one labelled ‘close’?”

There were about ten people in the
cells: Adam, the Captain with his hair all tousled and wearing a pyjamas, Ima
and Jia’Lyn wearing robes, a lieutenant whose name I couldn’t remember, and a
few I didn’t recognize at all. My outburst made everyone stare.

Ima flapped her tail. “If I didn’t know
better, I’d say it is a furry version of Alex.”

“Yes, furry. I’m a goddamn teddy bear,
and the fur is warm, so tell me how to open this stupid thing!”

Adam looked at me, blinking, as if
trying to get the pieces together just to find it didn’t quite compute. No help
to get there. The Captain regained his composure the quickest. “You need a
code. Try the security override. Press the green button, then 1, 5, 5, 2, 7,
and the green button again.”

The force fields turned off, and I
mumbled, “Thank God.” I couldn’t wait to hand the rescue operation over to
someone else’s hopefully able hands.

The first person passing by got the
rifle, and I sighed with relief as I pulled the headpiece off. Even breathing
was difficult in the suit, and the patch had to go. The alien version of my
voice freaked me out.

Blake hurried up to the door and locked
it from the keypad. Should I tell him the computer was off-line? Nah, he’d
discover it on his own. I ignored the commotion and looked for Adam. He could
provide comfort, and at least imagined safety from the chaos.

My android friend remained in the cell,
watching me with a frown. I’d be the first to acknowledge my being there,
attempting to rescue them in a silly masquerade suit was very backwards. When I
met his eyes, he took a few steps forward and hugged me tight.

“Are you okay?”

He seemed so big, strong, and certain. I
wanted to bury my face against his chest and tell him he must take care of me,
tell him I never wanted to make another decision in my life. Too needy. “No.
I’ve never been this afraid. How ‘bout you, are you okay?”

Adam released his grip on me, but kept
his hands on my shoulders for a moment. “I’m fine. I had to surrender the ship
not to get my entire bridge crew killed. I lost a couple of ensigns, but I’m
fine… I was worried for you. I’m surprised to see you.”

*****

Time is relative. It seemed like an hour
before Blake took control of the situation, but it was probably a matter of
seconds. He held his hands up, and everyone hushed. “Alex, what’s it like out
there?”

I frowned and struggled to give a
helpful answer. “I didn’t see much of anything on the upper decks, but there’s
a lot of movement down here. They’re moving people off the ship.”

“That makes sense. They probably want
the ship empty and ready for sale. Alright people, we need a plan.”

Jia’Lyn tried the consoles, and
reported, “The main computer is down, Captain.”

I forgot about that, distracted as I was
with feeling a little safe. His words created a big lump in my throat. “Anya
was in there. She helped me with all this.”

Adam murmured, “She’ll be fine,
sweetheart. We just need to take the ship back”

He’d never called me sweetheart before,
at least not that I could remember. Was it a slip, or because he knew I needed
comfort?

One of the younger officers said, with
enthusiasm, “We’ll take the ship back, and then all we need to do is get the
people back. Right?”

He wore a uniform, and must have been on
duty on the bridge, or in engineering. An advantage to being pulled out of bed
in the middle of the night…

“And how exactly are you going to
accomplish that? Run out there with one Logg suit and one rifle?” Calling Ima’s
voice irritated would be an understatement.

Someone said, “We need to get to the
bridge, and get the computer back online.”

The Captain looked at me and I raised an
eyebrow, very unimpressed. I’d hoped my part in all this was over.

Adam pushed me in front of him and
rubbed my shoulders. Having him so close made me feel better. He seemed so
neutral and ready, even at a time like this. His voice got everyone’s attention.
“If you’re up to climbing there’s a maintenance shaft behind that wall. It
should be possible to climb all the way to the top level and get in on the
bridge through the ceiling. I’ll try to go to Engineering and get the computer
back online.”

Blake grimaced. “That’s a very long
climb, but it is what we’ll have to do.”

He nodded to some of the younger
crewmembers, and they were soon busy trying to get through the wall. I
whispered, “Why isn’t there a door?”

“It’s the brig. We can’t make it too
easy for ourselves to escape.”

Scaling rickety service ladders for
thirty three floors dressed in underwear or this clumsy suit was out of the
question. Hopefully, they’d let me stay where I was. Exhaustion made the world
sway around me, and I turned around to wrap my furry arms around Adam’s waist,
burying my face against him. It might not be the proper thing to do, but this
wasn’t a normal situation, so screw proper.

Being sleepy gave me an idea. “Maybe you
can pump in some gas on all decks, or pump the air out, or something, and put
everyone to sleep.”

It surprised me he took it seriously. I
didn’t. All my ideas seemed childish, and I kept talking to stay awake.

“That’s a good idea. Once we get to
Engineering I should be able to pump enough air out to render everyone
unconscious”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?”

“I hate to drag you out there again,
but you have to escort me. I’ll be your prisoner, how’s that sound?”

It sounded horrible. I did not want to
be part of the plan. At least going with Adam would be better than staying all
alone, or facing more than thirty floors of ladders.

I groaned when I put the patch back on
my throat and pulled the headpiece back in place. The rifle was so heavy and my
legs so tired.

I headed back into the corridor with my
android prisoner. There were still Logg a plenty moving hostages, and no one
paid much attention to us. A couple cheered when they saw I had a high-ranking
officer, and one asked if Adam was responsible for my wounds. I didn’t want to
talk more than necessary, so I nodded and poked him in the back with my rifle,
hoping I wouldn’t accidentally shoot him.

Adam led the way through endless
corridors and I followed. Anya’s words, “act with confidence” echoed in my
mind, and I made a show of herding him to a grim fate. It was easier when we
reached the other side of the ship, there weren’t as many people there, and
when he finally stopped, we were lucky enough to be alone. He forced a door
open without much effort, and I hurried inside. How convenient it must be to be
that
strong.

We were in a closet filled with colourful
little robots. One was blue and had a camera for a head, and I pulled the
headpiece off to take a closer look. “I want one. I so, totally want one.”

“They clean and perform maintenance, but
they all powered down when the main computer went off line.”