Escape (63 page)

In the next instant he felt teeth tearing into his arms, back, and shoulders. He screamed and screamed until his throat hurt
—

And then he woke up, sweating, and his throat really did hurt. He was parched. Stumbling out of bed as though he were drunk, Kieran went to the onsuite cleansing station, turned on the tap, cupped his hands and took mouthful after mouthful of water until his whole face was wet and dripping.

He padded back into the bedroom and spoke into the silence: “Lights!” With the nightmare still fresh in his mind, he didn't want to go back to sleep. He'd just be back in his old room, being devoured by his father and brother
—
or rather, by what they'd become.

Kieran took a seat in an arm chair which sat against the wall opposite the bed and facing a small holoprojector. He sat there, dazed and sleepy, wondering about his nightmare. His father hadn't lived long enough to become one of those monsters, but what about his brother? What about Reddick?

Whatever differences they'd had over the years, they were still brothers, and that still meant something. Would Reddick be infected by now? And if so, would he also be beyond saving? If the EMP worked without any ill effects, shouldn't he try to save his brother before running to the farthest corner of the galaxy to hide?

The answers weren't very clear. One the one hand, a long-engrained sense of family told him he had to at least try to help his brother. But a more selfish instinct to save himself urged him not to bother, to run as far and as fast as he could for someplace safe. What could he hope to gain by seeing his brother again? Shooting Reddick with the EMP could very well kill him.

Kieran shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. He couldn't be objective about it. And considering Jilly's recent relationship with her brother, she probably couldn't either. He'd have to ask Ferrel for an unbiased answer.

Truthfully, though, there was another reason he wanted to visit Reddick. He had to ask his brother if he'd known anything about their father's double life. About the so-called “Origins” project. Maybe the Constantics had made it all up. He wanted to believe that. Kieran didn't like to think of his father as having lied to him all those years, as having wittingly or unwittinly unleashed this virus on the galaxy. How much could one believe from a bunch of codice-toting technophobes, anyway?

Then again
 
.
 
.
 
.
they'd been right, hadn't they?

Kieran's thoughts were interrupted by a distant banging. His head jerked toward the sound, and he waited in frozen silence for the noise to return.

Nothing.

Maybe he'd imagined it.

BANG!

Kieran bolted to his feet, found his plasma rifle sitting atop his pile of body armor to one side of the door, and then he stepped up to the door controls and keyed in the security code. The door swished open, and he stepped out into the hall. Jilly was already there, her pistol in hand. He met her eyes briefly, then turned to look behind him.

BANG!

The sound seemed to slap him in the face, and Kieran flinched. He nodded his head in the direction he was facing, then sent a thought to Jilly:
It's coming from the front of the ship.

They heard Ferrel's door open with another
swish
.

“What's going on?” he asked.

“Shhh!
Think
it,” Jilly replied.

What's going on?
Ferrel asked again, this time silently.

BANG!

Kieran turned to look over his shoulder.
That answer your question?

Come on,
Jilly thought.
We'd better check it out.

They began padding down the corridor, all of them barefoot, the cold duranium deck plates sending shivers down their spines. The lights in the corridor came on automatically as they went. The winding corridors left them constantly guessing what could be hiding around the next corner.

BANG!

The sound was growing louder.

Kieran's knuckles whitened around his rifle as they came to another bend in the corridor. They approached the corner with weapons at the ready, hearts pounding, palms sweating
—

BANG!

Kieran started down the passage, his rifle at the ready.
I think something's trying to get in.

Chapter 42

T
hey crept up to the corner.

BANG!

Kieran held a finger to his lips, and leaned his head around. A second later his head ducked back.

What is it?
Jilly thought, but she already knew the answer.

There's nothing there. The sound seems to be coming from further up ahead
.
 
.
 
.
 
.

Jilly nodded, and they tiptoed around the corner. Up ahead was the open door to the gunwell where Ferrel had fought with Gallian.

Jilly noticed it and sent Kieran an urgent thought:
You don't think that
—

No. If it's Gallian, why all the banging? The door is open. He wouldn't be trapped in there.

Well, be ready, just in case.

BANG!

They came to the open door, and Kieran kept his eyes and aim fixed on it as he walked past. But there was nothing alive in the narrow corridor. Gallian's half-molten remains lay undisturbed and now no longer smoking at the end of the passage.

Kieran shook his head.

BANG!
Kieran felt the deck plates vibrate ominously from the impact.

The noise was definitely coming from further up ahead. He started jogging down the corridor, and heard the others pick up their pace, too. They passed an overhead sign which pointed straight ahead to the cockpit, left to the portside hangar bay.

BANG!
The noise was very close now.

They ran past the forward airlock, and straight into the cockpit. It was a large, open space with two levels. On their level was the captain's chair and a tac-ops command table. The level below had half a dozen stations arrayed around the semicircular edge of the bridge, each with it's own large, curving transpiranium viewport. The view was fully 180° and Kieran could already see what was making all the noise.

BANG!

Now the sound was right behind them, but they could see the source of it by looking out the viewports. The rooftop was seething with pinpricks of glowing red light. Kieran already knew what he was looking at, but the lights which had automatically snapped on in the cockpit were making it hard to see.

“Lights off,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, but still loud enough for the ship's computer to hear. The lights snapped off, and the scene beyond the cockpit came into horrifying focus.

“Oh, Dues, Kieran
 
.
 
.
 
.
they're everywhere!” Jilly was whispering, too, though he doubted her voice was capable of more.

They watched, their jaws hanging open, their eyes wide, as a group of a dozen or more gray-skinned monsters ran up the boarding ramp to the foreward airlock, carrying between them a crumbling castcrete column for a battering ram.

BANG!

The noise was deafening. The resultant vibrations through the hull set their teeth on edge. Kieran shook his head in wonder. “They're going to break through if they keep that up.”

Jilly sent him a quick look. “We have to get out of here!”

Kieran was frowning. “Yeah
 
.
 
.
 
.
” His gaze flicked to the captain's chair, and Jilly didn't need to read his mind to know what he was thinking.

“We can't fire the EMP in space!” Ferrel put in, having also read Kieran's intent.

Jilly and Kieran turned to look at him.

BANG!

“Well, we can't stay here!” Jilly said, then gestured to the scene beyond the viewports. “It's not like the rooftop is available for more test firing anyway.”

Ferrel pursed his lips. “The hull is heavily reinforced. I doubt they can break through. We just have to wait them out. Eventually they'll get tired and give up, then we can finish our tests in the morning.”

“What if you're wrong?” Jilly asked. “What if they do break through? We lose our ship, and they kill us.”

BANG!

“Actually,” Kieran interrupted. “Ferrel's right. We
can
wait them out.”

Jilly rounded on him with a look that plainly accused him of insanity. “What?”

Kieran walked to the set of stairs which led from command level of the cruiser's bridge down to the crew deck. He scanned the empty stations for a moment, then started off to the left. When he offered no further explanation, Jilly followed him. She found him hunched over one of the control stations, punching a sequence of commands into the console.

“Are you on glit? Kieran, we can't stay here. Even if they don't get in with that battering ram, they'll find another way. They'll be back.”

He shook his head, and straightened from the console. It was buzzing and glowing with life now that Kieran had finished with it, and an array of colorful holographic displays were floating above the console, one of which showed what looked like a 3d representation of the ship, shaded green, with a few small patches of yellow around the fore and aft. Kieran nodded through the viewport to the surging masses on the boarding ramp. They were running at the door again.

“Watch.”

Bang.
The noise was much softer now, and it didn't vibrate through the deck plates.

Jilly shook her head. “I don't understand. What did you do?”

Kieran turned to her with a grin. “I turned on the shields.”

Ferrel walked up to them with a matching grin. “Smart thinking.”

“We can go back to bed now,” Kieran said with a weary sigh. “They'll never get through the shields.”

Jilly frowned, but reluctantly nodded. Kieran slung his rifle across his back, and wrapped his arm around Jilly's shoulders, gently guiding her back the way they'd come. He half expected her shoulders to stiffen, or for her to pull away, but instead she looked up at him with a wan smile, and they walked back along the lower bridge deck together.

Ferrel watched them go, both of them in no particular hurry now that they'd enabled the shields. His gaze wandered from them to the hordes of gray-skinned creatures outside. He shook his head and glanced behind him to the shield control console. A thought struck him then, and he walked back to the console. When he was done, he paused a moment, his eyes blazing out upon the myriad masses on the rooftop. He watched them backing up for another run at the forward airlock.

Then, suddenly, they stopped and set their column down. They jumped off the boarding ramp, and joined the others waiting clustered around the ship. Ferrel watched all of that with a slowly spreading smile, then hurried after Kieran and Jilly. He caught up to them a minute later, and Kieran turned to ask: “Where were you?”

Ferrel shrugged. “I wanted to make sure the shields were still intact at all the airlocks.”

“And?”

Ferrel grinned. “The only way they're getting in, is if we open the door and
let
them in.”

Kieran nodded, seeming satisfied with that, and his head turned to face forward again.

* * *

When they reached the crew quarters again, Kieran and Jilly stopped outside her quarters while Ferrel walked on to his. Ferrel sent them a quick nod before passing through the door into his quarters. After a brief moment of hesitation, Jilly turned to Kieran. He let his arm fall from her shoulders. She was chewing her lower lip, and her brow was deeply furrowed.

“What is it?” Kieran asked.

“Would you stay the night with me?”

Kieran answered with a frown, and Jilly quickly added, “I don't mean
—
”

He waved his hand dismissively. “I know. I can read your mind, remember?”

She smiled wanly at him. “I guess the virus isn't all bad after all.”

“Shhh. Listen
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Kieran whispered.

Jilly obliged, her heart pounding, a cold sweat already prickling her skin. But she found herself listening to the quiet hum of air cyclers and the ship's reactor.

She shook her head. “I don't hear anything.”

Kieran nodded. “Exactly. They've stopped. They must have realized that we turned on the shields.”

Jilly tried to smile at that, but her attempt abruptly crumbled and her eyes winced shut. “Kieran
 
.
 
.
 
.
I can't. I know it's a girlish thing to say, but I just can't be alone tonight. Not while I know they're still out there. I'll spend the whole night listening for their footsteps.”