Surviving The Theseus (9 page)

Regina moved towards them, quickly and
quietly. Rachel and Blair followed suit. Regina never took her eyes
off of them, in case they looked over. She wanted to yell out, but
had no idea what might be around.

The power in the casino went out, and all the
games and lights blinked to darkness; Regina was getting tired of
the all too familiar quiet.

The woman panicked, jumped up, and screamed,
“WHAT DO YOU WANT? JUST LEAVE US ALONE!” She started crying.

Regina hunkered down as she came up into the
casino, hiding behind a wall by the opening. “Shut up,” she
whispered, not loud enough for the woman to hear, but more wishful
thinking out loud.

Rachel and Blair came up behind Regina, their
eyes wide, probably knowing, as Regina did, that something was
going to happen.

Just as Regina peeked around the wall, she
saw the woman and her child get up and start running towards them.
Regina wasn’t sure if they saw her yet, but as they got closer, the
boy made eye contact, tears streaming down his face.

The boy pointed toward Regina. “Mommy! Mommy!
Look! Look!”

Regina pulled off her glasses and put them
inside her jacket.

The woman looked where her boy pointed and
her tear-filled eyes locked on Regina’s.

Regina waved them over to her.

The mother and child raced towards Regina,
only forty feet away, when, in a fraction of a second, the boy’s
and then the mother’s bodies went rigid and toppled forward.

Rachel tugged at Regina’s jacket when it
happened, and Regina waved her to stay back. The woman and child’s
bodies fell hard to the ground, and not another word escaped them.
It looked like something oozed out of their eyes, ears, and mouth,
but Regina couldn’t make it out.

“Jesus Christ,” Regina whispered. She turned
toward Blair and Rachel, a tear streaming out of her right eye.

Rachel mouthed “dead” and Regina nodded.
Dead, yes, but she didn’t know how. All she knew for sure was that
death occurred very quickly.

Regina squeezed the gun handle, her hands
sweating, and dared a peak around the corner. The bodies were gone.
Not even a few seconds passed since she looked and there was no
sign of the woman or child, just their clothes piled on the floor
like she had seen so many times.

Regina stood up, all of them still hidden by
the wall, and walked back across the hall, making sure to keep the
wall between her and the casino. Rachel and Blair followed, Blair
slightly bent over trying to hide himself as much as he could even
though the hallway offered no security.

Regina put her back against the opposite wall
from the casino and mouthed to the others, “As quick as you can.”
Regina ran for the stairwell door as quickly as she could, ripped
the door open and ran inside, Rachel and Blair on her heels. Regina
moved around Blair, and made sure the door didn’t slam shut. She
then looked at the other two and nodded down the stairs. They
didn’t hesitate or complain. Regina followed behind them, ten feet
back, walking sideways down the stairs.

The door never opened, but Regina kept her
eye on it anyway, just in case, her gun still in hand.

Nothing visible attacked the woman and child.
But, maybe they were shot with something from a distance. And what
came out of them, she had no idea, but something did. Their
innards? She didn’t see anything that resembled blood or guts, just
some nondescript glob.

She blinked her eyes down hard a couple of
times, trying to clear the remaining tears.

Regina wondered what could possibly be wiping
people out, and her mind came back to the Jaltorn Horror, but she
could draw no parallel and she didn’t see or hear any wolf-like
creatures. No time for fearful wanderings, she looked away from the
door and down at Rachel and Blair, knowing they knew something
about what was going on and her patience was wearing thin. But, now
was not the time. She would wait for a secure area, an area where
they couldn’t run, and where someone, or something, would not
interfere.

The descent continued, no talking, Regina
looking back every once in awhile. They were close now, so close.
Only four levels to go.

The small, diamond-shaped SPARS ship sat in
the void, facing the matchstick markers.

“We need more ships,” Mary said, as she,
George, Michael, and Cindy stared at the image in front of Michael,
scanning the sector they were in for Pyramid.

Cindy, leaning over from her seat, looked at
Michael for an answer she definitely didn’t have.

“We might get lucky with more ships,” Michael
said, “but we should have no problem picking up a distress beacon,
if they have it going, or at the very least their communication
beacon.”

It never occurred to Cindy that something
like this would, or could, ever happen, because the matchstick
markers have always been so reliable, including the devices in
ships that linked with them.

“Michael’s right,” George said. “They would
have to be very far away for us not to pick them up, unless there
is no signal to pick up at all.”

Cindy looked down at the floor, hoping for
inspiration by taking her eyes away from the others. No good. She
looked back up at her controls, and then caught a read out of the
ship’s engine power, which was on stand-by -- not quite shutdown,
but close, and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Then it hit
her.

“The engines,” Cindy said.

Everyone looked at her, saying nothing.

“The engines,” she said again. “I took it in
SPARS training. Every engine has a specific signature, which makes
it unique, even the exact same model of engine.”

“Jesus Christ,” George said, and then he
shook his head. “I must be getting too old. Thirty-eight years as a
SPARS officer, and I’ve never had to track a lost ship.” He nodded
at Cindy.

Mary stood with a stunned look on her face
and then managed a weak smile.

Michael beamed at her, and she could have
hugged him right then. “Outsmarted by a niner,” Michael said.
“Could be worse, you could have been a rank of ten. Great job,
Cindy. I don’t think we would have come up with that, or it would
have taken awhile.”

“Well,” Mary said, “she did just take
training very recently, and that must be new on the curriculum
because it was never mentioned in lectures or in any books covered
previously.”

George cleared his throat loudly. Mary shut
up.

Michael got on a communications link with
Pyramid Cruise Lines, and after several minutes, they received a
data packet of Pyramid One’s engine signature, which the company
recorded on the ship’s test runs.

“Just give me a second here,” Michael said,
as he quickly maneuvered through the menu system on his display.
“Got it. The signal is set and I’m scanning.”

Small sensors all over the ship’s outer hull
simultaneously scanned the 360 degrees of blackness around them.
The three dimensional screen in front of Michael was a frenzy of
stars appearing and disappearing very quickly.

After a few seconds, the stars stopped their
dance and the path revealed, showing them the engine trail of
Pyramid One as a thin line. “Locking it in,” Michael said as he
brought up a command line on another screen beside the star screen,
and started typing in commands. “I’ve locked our guidance system to
Pyramid One’s path, at accelerated rate. We should catch up to them
no problem. Should I engage?”

George pondered for a second as Mary left the
cockpit without a word. “Cindy, I want you to radio in our current
location at this marker, the direction we’re headed, and give them
the engine signature of Pyramid One. And call in for some back up.
Under the circumstances, they’ll send at least one more ship, but
ask for more. Tell them to contact Pyramid Cruise Lines and get a
calculation of the number of ships necessary to pull it to a stop.
If they give you any flack, call me in and I’ll talk with
them.”

“Yes, sir,” Cindy said.

“Once Cindy has sent communication, Michael,
pursue. Let me know when we are in range.” George left Cindy and
Michael to their duties.

For the next three hours, Cindy studied her
device, no more mind wanderings. She felt empowered by her
assistance to the team but didn’t want it to go to her head and
drop the ball on something more important. From time to time, she
would look up and see what Michael was doing. He also studied
intently, like herself.

Cindy’s eyes started to get heavy so she
forced a couple of yawns, brought a hand up to rub against her
stubbly head, and that’s when a beep went off, notifying Cindy and
Michael that they were near their target. Several more beeps went
off as they got closer. Michael looked over at Cindy, and without a
word, she got up and left the cockpit, coming back seconds later
with George and Mary in tow.

George came up and sat beside Michael. “There
are eight small ships, shuttles from Pyramid. All of them are
emitting an emergency frequency. The beacon range is short so
that’s why we didn’t pick it up when we were by the markers.”

The eight small ships all looked like golden
pyramids, the more complete, smaller version of their parent ship,
Pyramid One.

George got up, and motioned Cindy over. Cindy
sat down, George just behind her chair. “Cindy, scan those shuttles
and look for any sign of life.”

Cindy, still wearing her black gloves with
the beads all over them, brought up a scanning program on her
display, this time not a three-dimensional image. Now, the image
displayed as flat and two-dimensional, but one that she still
interacted with by touching buttons and menus on the display with
her gloved hands.

“Slow down, Mike,” George said, “and match
the shuttle speeds. And then try and hail Pyramid One.”

As Cindy ran her scans, she wondered why the
shuttles were not near Pyramid, and debated whether to ask or not.
Maybe it’s something she should know already. She didn’t want to
get yelled at for asking a stupid question, especially with Mary
around. But it seemed valid. “Umm, sir,” she started, directing her
question at no one in particular. “Why are the shuttles not within
range of Pyramid One?”

Michael kept his head down, seemingly
ignoring her, which he wouldn’t do, so he must have thought one of
the others would answer her. Unless, he knew it to be a stupid
question. She purged the doubt from her mind, knowing it would
hinder her progress if she kept beating herself up about the little
things.

Luckily, George answered her. “It’s standard
protocol for any vessel’s life boats to follow their parent ship at
a distance of one hundred kilometers. It used to be that they
followed much closer, but an exploding ship changed all that when
it took out all the shuttles with it.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cindy said, her
embarrassment apparent in her eyes. She saw George pick up on it,
or he seemed to by his facial expression.

“Cindy,” George said, “don’t ever hesitate to
ask us anything. That was a very good question to ask. If you don’t
know something, you don’t know something. Never hesitate.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Thank you, sir.”

Scan Complete
flashed on her display along with a beeping noise. She was
sure they all saw what she saw, but she vocalized it anyway.
“Nothing. No life signs in any of the shuttles.”

“That’s really odd,” Mary said.

“Why’s that, sir?” Cindy asked.

“Well, even if the shuttle occupants were
dead, the scan would still pick that up, but there is nothing in
any of them, as if the shuttles launched by themselves with nobody
onboard.”

George studied Cindy’s screen. She didn’t
touch anything, waiting for him to derive whatever he was looking
for.

“Okay, people,” George said. “Let’s get to
Pyramid One and see what’s what. We can call these shuttles back if
need be, but we’ll leave them as is until we know more. Get us
there yesterday, Mike. Cindy, pull up an image.”

Michael throttled up.

“
Control,” Cindy said, “give me the
holographic navigation console, range at one hundred and fifty
kilometers.” In a second, a holographic image of what awaited them
popped up in a grid, Pyramid One a small image in one of the
sections. Cindy reached through the image and pressed on Pyramid
One with her index finger. The image zoomed, almost filling the
display. The Pyramid cruise ship did indeed, as they saw previously
during the mission briefing, look like a pyramid cut in
half.

“Control,” Cindy said again. “Dual nav and
communication.” Cindy touched the tip of her gloved index finger to
the Pyramid ship. “Pyramid One, Pyramid One, this is Space Patrol
and Rescue Squad. Please acknowledge. We are here to assist. Please
acknowledge.” Nothing.

Michael closed the distance in less than a
minute. All of them looked up through the window. Pyramid One
filled their window, a massive ship designed for one purpose:
filling one vessel with as many people as possible to maximize
profit. Of that, Cindy had no doubt. A ship that size, dwarfing
their ship, would contain thousands of people. What the hell
happened? They were about to find out.

Michael pulled back on the throttle, slowing
them down as they pulled up to Pyramid One, matching its speed and
direction, which, according to the readout in front of Cindy said
they were going 48,597 kilometers per hour. Whoever launched it
away from the markers, probably took it to the limits, as a ship of
Pyramid’s size was not built for fast space travel. It was a
cruising ship, something that would normally take its time to get
anywhere. The longer the better, keeping people onboard and
spending spending spending.

“Give me a 360,” George said.

Cindy shrugged her shoulders, and Mary said,
“Just keep the communication channels open, Cindy.”