Jeopardy Chapter 14

“Where is everybody?” Captain Jackson wondered aloud. The corridor was empty, and the lights were low. “This doesn’t look right at all. Armory.” He made a sharp turn; Barone and Stone followed closely on his heels. The door was sealed when they arrived.

“Stand back,” Barone instructed, and with her side arm she aimed at the controls and fired a yellow-white beam at them. A small fire erupted followed by the pop of the door seal. She pulled the door open for the other two.

The lockers’ doors hung open and the bare metal of the rear wall greeted their eyes instead of laser rifles and hand pistols. Barone took her pistol and promptly placed it on a power pad to charge; Jackson did the same.

“Zoe, get to your office and check the monitors. Find out where everyone is. I have a bad feeling the Zlōgers are behind this,” Jackson said, waving at the empty weapons lockers. “And watch yourself!” he called after her.

“Bridge or engineering, sir?”

“I’ll go to engineering. If I see a Zlōger on my bridge I might lose it. You secure sick bay.”

Jackson retrieved his weapon off the shelf and attached it to his belt before he left. Engineering was one deck up. The elevator didn’t respond, so he double timed up the steps instead. He felt the subtle vibrations of Maria Mitchell’s engines idling and heard the high-pitched hiss of her thrusters at station keeping. His hand reached out for the latch and found another sealed door. Rather than blast it, he jogged up to Deck 3 and crawled to the emergency hatch via the catwalk. Ah, success!

Geeze, the room was empty…except for Quixote on the floor. He leapt over the safety railing and slid down a flight of steps to the main deck.

“Quixote!” Jackson tapped the reptile about the shoulders but xe didn’t budge. Rather than feel for a pulse he pried open an eyelid and checked the black spot in the tangerine orb. It contracted after a moment, slowly, but contracted nevertheless. He was alive. Damn! Jackson instinctively looked at his surroundings, confirming he was alone.

He pulled off his jacket and covered the reptile’s upper torso. Cool to his touch, he knew enough that too cool would put the cold-blooded commander into an early hibernation, or at least slow his recovery.

“Sorry, Old Bean, but I think you should just rest here until the battle is won.” Jackson stood and concentrated. Where would Rianya and Zalara be? The com unit on his wrist vibrated. 

“Jackson.”

“Byrd, here. We tethered the Osprey but the space doors are stuck fast.”

“Come aboard and secure the shuttle bay. I don’t want anyone going in there without an EV suit. Byrd, go to the galley and check on the crew. Painter, go to the machine shop but be double careful. The Zlōgers were really interested in the shop and engineering. They’re not here, and Quixote’s out cold.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“We’ll meet at the quartermaster’s office in 20 minutes if possible.”

Jackson resigned himself that the dry spell of boredom was over. In a way, it felt good to feel the bullet of adrenaline in his veins, his need to be solving a crisis, shaking cobwebs out of his brain.

With no answers in Engineering, he headed for the bridge. Zlōgers were behind this. All he could see in his mind was a blue blob choking under his own hands. Green-gold eyes bulged out and the tentacles flailed in an attempt to fight the captain’s grip, but in a final lunge the alien gasps and goes limp.

Jackson took the elevator up and got off one deck below the bridge. He crept up the flight of steps as fast as he dared, skipping the third step to avoid the reliable squeak of metal, which always alerted him to a backdoor arrival when he was on the bridge.

With no visibility through the emergency door, he pressed the side of his head against the bulkhead, straining his auditory senses for any sound at all. Maria Mitchell’s bulkheads were as sound proof as space proof.

He placed his hand on the lever to manually open the hatch, gradually, pushing it a centimeter at a time until the magnetic seal lost power and it suddenly broke free. He looked through the crack with one eye, his cheek pressed against that cold bulkhead. A Zlōger lounged in his chair, its blue legs wrapped around the frame to keep it from slithering out onto the floor.

Jackson’s hands clenched. He saw only the one intruder. His fist pounded on his thigh once before it opened to grip the laser pistol on his belt. He raised the weapon to eye level, aiming through the gap at the Zlōger’s head, or body, or whatever was the large bulbous part where all the legs attached. The tip of his weapon touched the bulkhead with a faint tink; one green-gold chameleon eye swiveled, focusing on Jackson.

He pulled the trigger. A plasma beam shot out and touched the alien’s body, leaving a black burn mark before the disabled alien slid out of the chair. He pushed the hatch in and stepped onto his bridge. His bridge, his chair, were his again.

“Captain!” Lee shouted. He jumped up from his station and all but danced up the steps. When he reached the unconscious Zlōger on the floor, he grabbed one tentacle with both hands and jerked the creature away from Jackson’s chair, rolling it down into the nadir.

“What in hell is going on?”

“They’re all over the ship! They have some kind of sleep gas. Works on everyone but them.”

“And you and me?”

“I think they restricted it to sick bay, galley, and ship’s quarters. I can’t be sure. My dash would light up each time they sealed doors. I saw you, Captain, I saw the Osprey trying to get on board but they heard that new noise the doors make—”

“I understand, Lieutenant.” Jackson huffed a deep breath.

“How did you get on board, sir? You being here means the gas isn’t in all the areas of the ship.”

“I’ll tell you one day when we’re not under attack. What do they want?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Are they looking for gold?”

“I’m not sure, sir. I think they are after our EBMs. I’ve been held here to stay in orbit. They’re pretty nasty about it.”

“I’m going down to sick bay. You stay in orbit. And get those bay doors open so we can haul in the Osprey.”

“Aye, Captain, right away.”

Jackson thought better of using the ship’s intercom. He pinched the com unit on his wrist.

“Byrd and Painter, this is Jackson.”

“We’re on our way to quartermaster’s, sir.”

“Go back to the shuttle bay. Mr. Lee is going to open it up and I want you to secure the Osprey.”

“Aye, sir, we’re on our way.”

“Stone, this is Jackson.”

“Stone here.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Power’s down in most of the ship. I have visual confirmation on almost everyone.”

“Who’s missing?” He waited. “Stone?”

“Harchett, Honey, and … Zalara.”

þ

Jackson found Barone outside of sick bay, locked out from the inside. He handed her an air filter mask in case they encountered the gas. That door had a window and from the corridor they saw five of the crew asleep on the floor and one Zlōger meandering among the shelves, drugs, instruments, and beds. Rianya and Ferris slumped against each other, Adams and Henderson in a second pile, and Mills a meter to the left of them.

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do here. It’s just one alien and the crew’s safe, more or less.”

“I need to find my girls,” Jackson uttered.

“Go, sir, I’ll stand by here.”

“I don’t know where to go. There’s ten acres of decking on this ship.”

“She’s probably hiding, sir. Does she have a locator implant? As soon as the power levels are up I can find her with the internal sensors.” Jackson heard his security officer talking but didn’t quite understand what she’d said to him. He looked at her somewhat plain but freckled face, and soft brown eyes that belied her fierce strength and wicked aim with a laser.

“Stay here,” he said blankly. “I’m going to the machine rooms. Keep your com open and your ear sharp.”

Jackson headed down to Deck 4 again, the operations deck: engineering, manufacturing, hydroponics, supply storage, cargo holds, the gymnasium, housekeeping, maintenance, and technology center. Creeping down the unlit corridor, the hair on the back of his neck stood at attention and quivered in the cool air.

He heard ambiguous clanking, banging, and rattling ahead, coming from the EBM workshop. His hands quavered just a millimeter, he held his breath, and reached for his weapon. Shrill Zlōger voices whistled to each other but he didn’t hear any human voices in the mix. Another kablang made him jump before a pewter cog rolled out the door and spiraled to a stop in front of him. Holding his firearm snug against his chest, he glanced into the room and jerked back into the shadow before he could be spotted.

Four giant, blue squids crawled over the walls and floors around the manufacturing units. His skin flushed hot like a thousand tiny bees stinging him all over in waves, and he could literally hear his teeth grind against each other. They squealed and whined at each other, clacked around on the floor, then one slimed up to Mr. Chin sitting at the console.

“It won’t work without the ship. I keep telling you, they need the power of our FTL engines to work. They’re integrated.”

“You will come with us and integrate into our ship,” the deep blue Zlōger said into the box, which sounded wholly robotic.

“I’m not leaving this ship.”

The blue Zlōger’s eyes both aimed forward, focused on Chin, and one strong leg whipped up and around Chin’s neck like a boa constrictor. Jackson kicked the door fully open. In half a second he aimed and shot the Zlōger once. The black mark hit the nexus of his legs and then the coiled leg slid away from Chin’s neck.

“Captain!”

Jackson aimed quickly and shot the remaining three Zlōgers, each with a satisfying buzz, and a slump to the floor.