The Last Flight of the Argus (42 page)

Inquisitor Cer considered her options and realized there were none. She needed to get the code for this door or her pursuit of B'taav was over. She clicked her communicator on and attempted to reach the
Xendos
for instructions.

All she got was static.

The
Argus’
walls were thick and the communication equipment within her suit, already limited to a single channel that her target could hear, was also not powerful enough to breach such obstacles. Nevertheless, she tried again. And again. After her fourth attempt, she leaned back, frustrated. She would have to return, at least far enough to get her signal—

“—
quisitor Cer... read me?”

The voice over her speaker was low and static-filled, but understandable. The message was repeated, even stronger than before.

“
Inquisitor Cer, do you read me?”

The voice was that of Stephen Gray.

“
Loud and clear,” Inquisitor Cer said.

“
Good. We sent out Balthazar when we heard your first transmission. He set up an amplification beacon. It will allow us to communicate across greater distances. Have you found B'taav?”

“
No,” Cer said. “I’m at an airlock, number 354. The code Francis Lane gave me doesn’t work. I need more access codes.”

On
board the
Xendos
, Stephen Gray manned the communications in the decompression antechamber. For the past few minutes he fiddled with the ship's computer, adding new code while eying both the view screen and Saro Triste. The Cardinal stood a few feet behind him. His attention was on the
Argus'
landing bay, visible through a window in the chamber. Whenever the Cardinal looked his way, as he did following Inquisitor Cer's last transmission, Stephen Gray paused in his work on the computer.

“
I read you, Inquisitor,” Stephen Gray said.

He motioned to Saro Triste and pointed to the computer monitor. On it was Balthazar, returning from the
Argus’
landing bay and entering the
Xendos’
airlock. He no longer carried the shoe box sized amplification beacon he was tasked to set up in the internal corridor Inquisitor Cer and B'taav first disappeared into.

“
Let me get you Ms. Lane,” Gray said.

Inquisitor
Cer waited a few seconds before Francis Lane spoke.

“
Inquisitor, whatever information I give will be overheard.”

“
There is no alternative.”

“
Please confirm: You are at airlock 354?”

“
Yes.”

There was another pause.

“
The code is Alpha 345 Theta 1.”

Inquisitor Cer was surprised by the speed with which Francis Lane found the code. She entered it into the airlock's computer panel and the massive door moved.

“
It’s opening,” Inquisitor Cer said. “How did you know?”

Within
her room in the
Xendos
, Francis Lane stood near Nathaniel. A thick layer of sweat covered the boy’s forehead and his face was flushed, as if burning alive. The boy’s eyes were closed tight and a small line of foamy drool ran down his chin.

“
Never mind,” Francis Lane said. “Finish your mission. Be safe.”

Francis Lane shut her communicator off. She pulled up the boy's right arm, revealing a small yellow disk attached just below his right shoulder. The disk was larger than most Epsillon coins, but only barely. A series of yellow lights flickered on its surface. Francis Lane pressed the center of the disk and the lights dimmed.

The boy let out a loud sob as the intense pain he suffered until that moment was gone.

Francis Lane peeled the deactivated disk from the boy's arm. Three small rings of seared flesh were the only evidence it had been there.

“
It would be so much easier if you told me what I needed to know when I asked. I hate having to resort to such primitive tactics.”

She dropped the yellow disk into her shirt pocket and chuckled.

“
You know how much I hate hurting people,” she added.

Tears fell from the boy's eyes, but his sobs abated. He gave Francis Lane an insolent stare.

“
If looks could kill,” she said.

Nathaniel opened his mouth and tried to speak, but no words came.

“
You’re quite the fighter. I’ll give you that.”

She walked to her closet and pulled out her large black suitcase. She disabled the security mechanism and opened it. When she looked inside and at the contents, her face filled with surprise.

“
What the hell?”

Francis Lane knew someone had searched the suitcase. She threw aside her clothing before reaching the heavy black box and wires. She gently pulled these items out and examined the box to make sure it was in one piece. Afterwards, she returned to the suitcase and removed her bag of toiletries. She found her blue pills were gone.

“
Damn.”

Francis Lane pushed the suitcase aside and returned to the closet. She removed her smaller case and set it aside. She could barely contain her fury.

“
Fuck,” she whispered. She fell to her knees and leaned down low inside the closet. She ran her hands along the corner wall until she felt a thin slit. She then pushed at the wall and a small piece of plastic paneling fell away, revealing a small compartment. She reached into the compartment and pulled out a black box. The anger in her face faded.

“
You didn’t find this one, did you,” she muttered. She opened the black box, revealing the casing for a computer. She allowed herself a relieved smile and gazed once again at Nathaniel. The boy’s face returned to its blank, lifeless expression. Unseeing eyes stared at the walls before him.

“
The pills were important, but there are alternatives,” Francis Lane said. “You thought you could slow me down, didn’t you? You’re a clever bastard. I wish I could see your face when—”

Francis Lane let out an angry chuckle. She shut the computer casing and returned to Nathaniel’s side. She pulled his shirt sleeve down, covering the singed flesh on his upper arm. She lifted him to his feet and pushed him out the door and into the corridor.

B’taav
passed a series of storage rooms. Within each were crates stacked up to the ceiling. The Independent could only guess at the buried treasures lying within each box, but even if they contained all the gold in the universe they were little help to him now.

For what seemed like hours he moved, passing one after another room. At times he slowed whenever he spotted an open crate, just enough to take a peek inside. Deep in the corner of one cargo box were what looked like SR 1 missiles. He hadn’t seen such ordinance since his early days of training in military OPS. In another container he found food packets and hygiene supplies. In another, what appeared to be pressed clothes.

Now and again B’taav looked back to see if his pursuer was near. Thanks to her communication with the
Xendos
, he knew the flickering lights he saw before were from Inquisitor Cer. And if the communications were to be believed, he also knew that Balthazar wasn't with her. In time, he would likely be on his way, too.

Two against one is so much worse when you're the one in that particular equation.

The Independent reached a staircase leading up into the darkness. He could only guess the length of the climb.

“
Away we go,” the Independent muttered.

It took a while to reach the top. Once there, B'taav found another decompression door. This one had a very large glass panel in its center. B'taav looked through the glass and spotted a second, heavier decompression door beyond the first. On the floor within the decompression room were several small supply crates. One of the crates had ruptured, and its contents, engine lubricants still in their individual containers, floated within the room.

B’taav went to work on the decompression door's computer, doing the by now regular routine of replacing its battery. He tried the two codes he knew before resorting to his computer pad's electronic lock pick. He was pleased to find the second code worked.

His good cheer abruptly vanished when the door slid open and a burst of gas knocked the Independent back into the railing of the stairs. The force was enough to almost take him over the edge. Several of the containers in that room sailed past him, one slamming with incredible force into his environmental suit’s face mask. For several terrifying seconds, B’taav thought a mark left behind indicated the face shield was cracked.

Thankfully, the burst of air was short lived and gone as quickly as it came. B’taav regained his footing and examined the mark on the suit’s face mask. It turned out to be a line of plastic resin that spilled out of the container. He rubbed it off as best he could.

The Independent stepped away from the railing and entered the small decompression chamber. The lingering atmosphere was gone, dissipated into the vacuum.

B’taav closed the outer door and sealed it. He approached the door on the opposite side of this room and removed the paneling from the security system. Once again he replaced a spent battery and, when the security control was activated, he accessed the computer system. This time he requested a reading on what atmosphere, if any, lay beyond the decompression door.

When the reading came, B’taav had to scan it twice to make sure what he was seeing was correct. The area beyond this door had an atmosphere consisting of sixty three percent oxygen, thirty five percent nitrogen, and negligible amounts of argon.

There was breathable air in the chamber beyond!

CHAPTER FIFTY

Francis
Lane gave Stephen Gray and Saro Triste all the details she could. Once done, the men's eyes were on Nathaniel.

“
B’taav took the boy’s medication?” Saro Triste asked. “Are there any other medicines on board we can use as substitutes?”

“
I did a quick search, but so too did B’taav before he left. He not only took anything Maddox could use, but also any medication I could use on Nathaniel. Without it, it won’t be long before the boy is outside my control.”

“
We can force information through…other means,” Stephen Gray said.

“
We certainly can try,” Francis Lane corrected him. “But it increases our risk of damaging him. Not his body, I could care less about that. We have to worry about damaging his mind.”

“
How long do we have before the current dose wears off?”

“
Hours.”

Saro Triste shook his head.

“
We were wrong when we said time was on our side. We have a very tight deadline after all.” The Cardinal sighed. “Summon Balthazar. We need to get into the
Argus
.”

B’taav
allowed the atmosphere from the outer room to fill the sealed decompression chamber. When a green light came on over the decompression door, indicating the atmosphere and pressure was the same inside as it was outside the chamber, B'taav opened the far door. Despite the all clear readings, he took great care in doing so.

The Independent then stepped into the darkness. Unlike the cargo and landing bays, he found considerable signs of rust and decay in this area. He stepped cautiously, aware that because of the oxygen rich atmosphere, any spark could set off a raging fire. B’taav wondered how such rich air came to exist on this doomed craft.

The fact that it would remain in place all these years, was less of a mystery. Despite the considerable wear on the outside of the
Argus
, the inner compartments were largely untouched. The seals on most doors B’taav ran into remained tight and it was reasonable to assume the thousands of others within the ship were in similar shape. If not, the atmosphere would have dissipated a long time ago.

B’taav continued marching through the rusted corridor. He soon reached a series of internal windows that looked in on a very large chamber. B’taav wiped the grime from the window and aimed his flashlight within. He spotted what at first appeared to be melting iron rods. It took B’taav a few seconds to realize they were the remains of plants.

A hydroponics level
, B’taav thought.

The Independent now understood why the air was so rich. The plants were used along with the ship’s purification systems to filter the atmosphere. Before the
Argus
finally lost all power and the plants froze, they, along with the ship's ventilation system, had no doubt continued their work.

The plants must have been quite a sight, when they were alive
.

B’taav continued his long trek. The Hydroponics area alone was easily twice as long as the
Dakota
. It was a wonder that a military craft devoted that much space to something non-tactical. Then again, a ship this size never existed before or, for that matter, since.