The Last Flight of the Argus (45 page)

“
We'll flip a coin on that.”

“
Agreed. Afterwards, whatever expansion we engage in as rulers of our empires will be limited to the Erebus border. The fact is, Mr. Gray, we gave up on your culture years ago, and we have hundreds of more years to go before our internal fractures are...healed. We will not bother you. At least not until then.”

“
By which time we’ll be long gone, eh?”

“
By then, we’ll likely have even more powerful weapons and countermeasures. What will come in the future is, at least to me, irrelevant. My focus is on the work I need to do to get my Empire back to where it was.”

Stephen Gray slipped his helmet on and adjusted the seals. He tested the air re-circulator and did the same with Saro Triste’s suit. Afterwards, Stephen Gray pressed a series of buttons on the panel in Saro Triste’s environmental suit's chest plate before eyeing the Cardinal.

“
Everything OK?” the Cardinal asked.

“
Yeah,” Stephen Gray replied. He activated his communication system and said: “This is Stephen Gray. Do you copy, Francis?”

Gray’s headset filled with a burst of very loud static. He winced and lowered the volume.

“
I hear you loud and clear,” she said.

“
We're all dressed up and ready to go,” Stephen Gray said. “Balthazar hasn't arrived yet.”

“
He's on his way to my room,” Francis Lane said. “He's found some medication. I don't think it'll make much of a difference, but it's worth a try.”

“
Should we wait for him?” Saro Triste asked.

“
Where's your sense of adventure, Cardinal?” Stephen Gray said. “Tell the big guy to join us when he's ready.”

Stephen Gray switched the lights on top of his helmet and gave Triste a thumbs up sign.

In seconds, they were off.

Balthazar
watched as Inquisitor Cer continued her work with the large energy cell. She hadn’t spotted him, hidden as he was in the shadows at the opposite end of the large computer room. Balthazar was eager to take her out, but knew it was better to wait for her to get the
Argus'
central computer fully operational. It meant less work for him to do afterwards.

Now and again Balthazar stole a glance at B’taav’s body. A curious feeling of regret rose within him.

Too bad I wasn’t able to take out the Independent
, he thought.
Then again, I get to kill his killer.

It was something to look forward to after so many dull days of travel. The only question remaining was how he'd kill her. Francis Lane ordered him to not waste time, to shoot her with the fusion gun on sight. But that would be too quick, too impersonal, and there were so many other ways to get that particular job done.

He could announce his arrival, walk up to her, and for a little while actually help her out. The moment she turned her back on him, he could pull her oxygen line or stab her in the back. Then again, he could sneak up on her, and shatter her visor. Or...

Balthazar smiled.
So
many options.

Inquisitor Cer pressed a series of keys and more lights came on around the computer. The system was rebooting.

Balthazar marveled at the Inquisitor’s ingenuity. Too bad she’d never see the end result of all that work.

Balthazar spent a few more seconds considering the ways to get rid of her. Finally, he decided there was no reason for further delay. He reached for his fusion gun and aimed it at Inquisitor Cer’s back.

Francis
Lane opened the closet door and leaned down to remove the paneling at its base. She flung the loose plastic aside and grabbed her hidden computer. She placed it on her room's only table and powered it up.

The
Xendos'
central computer link appeared first, but that was expected. Francis Lane read the ship's status report and was satisfied all was well. She made sure through this computer link that this ship's outer doors, the ones that lead into the decompression chamber, were sealed now that Saro Triste and Stephen Gray were out.

Francis Lane sat back and wondered how long it would take before she had the second, and most important, link up.

Her wait proved very short. When the signal came, it was sharp and very clear.

Francis Lane double checked the information streaming on the computer’s thin monitor. She could barely contain herself. The logo of the old, the
only
, Epsillon Empire appeared. Below it, the words: “
Argus
Main Computer System. Please Enter Access Code.
”

Francis Lane clapped her hands and approached Nathaniel. The boy sat upright in his bed. A series of wires were taped to his forehead. They ran down the length of his body and connected to the heavy black box B’taav found in Francis Lane’s suitcase. Sitting in the indentation at the center of the box was the clear crystal Project Geist cube.

“
Inquisitor Cer got the
Argus
central computer working,” Francis Lane told the boy. “It’s time to finish this.”

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

Balthazar
lowered his gun. He was ready to take the shot, but the Accelerant flowing through his veins made him want to jump out of his skin. Something dark and deep kept him from pulling the trigger. He didn’t want the excitement to end so soon. He wanted to see his victim's face. He wanted to see the bitch
beg
.

Balthazar reached to the controls on his space suit’s sleeve and adjusted the settings on his communicator. He linked up to the amplification beacon and shut it down. Whatever conversation he had from here on would be between Inquisitor Cer and himself and no one else.

Balthazar then picked up a worker’s rag lying among the other debris within the room and squeezed it into a ball. Tiny flakes of ice broke off it and floated away. Balthazar hurled the rag over the enormous crevasse and at Inquisitor Cer. It hit the computer monitor, startling the Inquisitor. She immediately turned.

“
Balthazar?” she said. She saw the fusion gun in the Merc's hand. “What?”

“
You’re no longer needed,” Balthazar said.

“
Don’t be a fool!” Inquisitor Cer yelled. “You fire that gun and we’re
both
dead.”

Balthazar smiled. She was already begging. This was going to be much more fun than he thought. Yeah, this was—

Realization dawned on Balthazar.

“
The oxygen!” he muttered.

“
You fire that gun and the oxygen rich atmosphere around us erupts. We’ll
all
burn up.”

The Merc was stunned that he no longer had the upper hand over his victim. He eyed the crevasse separating them and cursed the fact that the impact from that object hadn't dissipated the atmosphere on this level. Balthazar again stared at Inquisitor Cer. Although they both knew he wouldn’t use it, the Merc kept his gun pointed at her.

“
Looks like I’ll have to do this the hard way,” the Merc said. With his free hand he reached down and grabbed at a knife in its holster.

“
Who ordered you to do this?” Inquisitor Cer asked.

“
What difference does it make?”

“
Did they tell you to use the fusion gun or was that your idea?”

“
Lady, what the hell difference—”

Balthazar frowned. He recalled Francis Lane’s orders.

We can't waste time. Burn her. A single blast of your fusion gun.

The Merc took a step back. His mind was swimming.

“
She...she wanted me dead, too?” the Merc muttered. “We’ll see about—”

Balthazar paused.

“
Wait a minute!” he said. The Inquisitor carried a fusion gun as well. “If you can’t fire a fusion gun here, how did you kill B’taav—?”

The words barely escaped his mouth when the glass of his helmet turned dark and the knife and fusion gun were ripped from him. Balthazar swung his hands around wildly, trying to connect with his attacker. He managed to swipe some of the dark liquid off his helmet and saw lights and shadows dancing around him.

The air circulating into his environmental suit abruptly shut off.

“
You fucking bastards!” the Merc yelled.

With all his remaining strength he ran forward. He didn't know which direction he was going, only that he had to get away. He slammed into something very hard and the world spun around. His feet no longer touched ground, and the light from the room, what little he could see through the smudged helmet, receded, as if he were falling.

But there was no gravity here. The Merc couldn't fall. Yet the light receded. An ice cold fear gripped Balthazar. He couldn't fall, but his lurch forward had created momentum. He was hurling forward, down and down...

Into the crevasse.

The Merc twisted and turned. The light from above was almost gone. How far would he go before stopping? Would he
ever
stop?

The Merc pressed the control buttons on the forearm of his suit. A small shot of air hit him in his face. He couldn't get the full burst. He would slowly, slowly asphyxiate.

The horror of his situation sank in. The Merc yelled once before slipping into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

Saro
Triste and Stephen Gray followed the stairs to the upper level of the
Argus
landing bay. They found a large door.

“
We’re at the top,” Saro Triste said. He noted the door’s computer system was alive with flashing lights. “Inquisitor Cer got the main computer powered up. We’ve got juice on this door.”

“
Good,” replied Francis Lane. “The code to this door is theta 1666 AR 12. Hurry up. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the boy talking.”

Saro Triste entered the codes into the door’s computer paneling and ancient gears in the walls slowly slid her open. What lay beyond was a long corridor that stretched for what seemed like many kilometers.

Stephen Gray and Saro Triste entered this corridor. They noted the many adjacent doorways, leading off to an innumerable amount of side corridors. Without a clear idea of where they were supposed to go, they could spend a lifetime exploring these passages. According to Francis Lane, this was the more direct route to the central computers.

“
We're past the door,” Saro Triste said.

“
You should be seeing quite a few doors and corridors.”

“
It’s like a maze,” Stephen Gray said.

“
It
is
a maze,” Francis Lane replied. “So from here on out you listen to my instructions very carefully. You do what I say and you don’t deviate. The last thing we need is for you guys to get lost.”

B’taav
wiped the black liquid from the front of his suit while approaching the crevasse. Balthazar dived into the hole so quickly that there was no chance for the Independent to grab him. B'taav could not see the Merc below.

B’taav wiped off more of the engine oil he picked up in the last decompression chamber and smeared on his environmental suit's chest plate. He watched it bubble up and float away. In the dim lights within the room and upon casual inspection, it looked exactly like what Balthazar thought it was: blood. Had the Merc bothered to look closely, he would realize the material was still in liquid form. At the frigid temperatures present within the
Argus
, blood would have crystallized. The engine oil, on the other hand, was specifically designed to remain in liquid form at these extremes.

Had Balthazar known this, he would have realized he was entering a trap. Once he stepped past B’taav, the Independent slapped a handful of the engine oil against the Merc’s facemask and removed his weapons. Unarmed and blind, it was an easy task to shut down the Merc's oxygen supply. What the Independent hadn't counted on was Balthazar's subsequent actions.

Inquisitor Cer stepped around the crevasse and approached B’taav.

“
What do you think?” Inquisitor Cer said. Because of the atmosphere in this section, she was able to talk directly to the Independent and without the use of the communicator.

“
I don’t know,” B’taav replied. “I don’t see him at all.”

“
We should go down there, get him.”

“
He was about to kill you.”

“
And for that he will pay. Tell me, B'taav, did you need to lure him
that
close to me? He could have fired before I turned.”

“
I was going to jump him, but then he started working on his suit’s controls,” B’taav said. “I think he switched off the communication amplification beacon. Only reason he'd do that is because he wanted to talk to you without anyone on the
Xendos
hearing.”