Distant Worlds Volume 2 Read online

  “You have eyes on it?”

  “Nothing on the thermal scope yet,” Seok said.

  “Allen, where are we on those lights?”

  “Almost there.”

  “35 yards.”

  Nsedu grabbed Kabir’s arm. “Get your helmet on and get back to the Peggy Sue.”

  “I’m not leaving you here!”

  She shoved her husband into the airlock. “Don’t argue with me! Anybody other than us steps into that airlock, you blow the docking clamps.”

  Nsedu closed the airlock door before her husband could protest further.

  “20 yards,” Seok said. “Thermal scope still negative.”

  “Allen?”

  “Another second…”

  “10 yards!”

  “Got it!”

  The overhead lights flickered and kicked on, flooding the corridor with soft, white light.

  A woman stood before them dressed in a gray and blue uniform. Her expression was as bland as her clothing and pale skin, betraying neither thought nor emotion. The woman’s only noteworthy feature was the mangled stump where her left hand should have been. Frayed bits of synthetic flesh and tied off lengths of wiring surrounded the broken tip of a plas-steel bone protruding from the end of her forearm.

  “Android,” Seok said, whispering. “That’s why it didn’t show on the thermal scope.”

  The synthetic cocked its head to the left and regarded each of them in turn.

  “You were not authorized to board the Cambyses,” it said. “Please identify yourselves.”

  Nsedu took a small step forward. “My name is Nsedu Lawal-Bhasin, captain of the deep space salvage trawler Peggy Sue, registration number 8935724. We found this ship adrift and docked to assess its salvage potential.”

  The android nodded. “Your concern for this ship’s operational status is appreciated, Captain. And now that you have satisfied your curiosity that the Cambyses is not a derelict, you can proceed on your way.”

  “Wait, our scans found no signs of life aboard. Is this ship unmanned?”

  “I am not at liberty to divulge information regarding the Cambyses to non-authorized personnel.”

  Nsedu didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s your designation and primary program task?”

  “Designation: Tasha. Primary tasks include crew custodial maintenance, laboratory assistance, and personal care assistance.”

  Allen shifted behind Nsedu. “What’s your make and model?”

  “I am a Hestia class synthetic humanoid manufactured by the Dyakoshi-Kohln Corporation.”

  Nsedu glanced at Allen. “That mean anything to you?”

  “Standard multi-purpose crew support synthetic. Nothing remarkable.”

  “Combat capabilities?” Seok asked.

  “No. Non-lethal self-defense protocols only. The violence prohibitors are hardwired into the neural architecture. You’d have to crack its skull open and physically rewire it before it could knowingly hurt a human being.”

  Seok kept his electroshock rifle raised. “Well, I’m not taking any chances.”

  Nsedu pointed to the android’s damaged arm. “What happened to your hand?”

  “An accident.”

  Every answer the android provided raised additional questions. Nsedu didn’t see much point in playing the game any longer. She opened her communicator channel to the Peggy Sue.

  “Kabir, are you back aboard the ship?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What’s going on over there?”

  “We’ve encountered a ship synthetic. We’re going to—”

  “A synthetic? Is there a human crew? By law, a synthetic is insufficient to maintain—”

  “I know the salvage laws, Kabir! Just keep your team on standby until we find out what’s going on here.” She switched to a secure bridge channel. “Renee, do you copy?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “I want to you uncouple from the Cambyses. Pull back five hundred meters and stay on station. Understood?”

  “Kabir won’t like—”

  “I don’t give a damn what he says. You get my ship clear and wait for further instructions.”

  “You’re the captain, Captain.”

  Nsedu approached the android. “We’d like to speak with the commanding officer of this ship.”

  “I am afraid that is not possible, Captain Lawal-Bhasin.”

  “Fine. Take us to the bridge, then.”

  “You are not authorized to access the Cambyses’s control center.”

  Nsedu grunted. “We’ll see about that. Allen, can you call up a schematic on that terminal?”

  “Already done.”

  “Get us to the bridge.”

  “Looks like the power to the lifts is disconnected. We’ll have to cut through the mess hall and the starboard crew quarters.”

  “Good. Let’s get moving.”

  The android stepped into Nsedu’s path before she could take a step. “Captain, please. Your assistance is not needed here. It would be better if you recalled your ship and continued on your way.”

  “Tasha, I intend to find out what’s going on aboard this vessel. Now if you’re not going to provide assistance, I suggest you get out of our way or I’ll have Seok here test out his aim.”

  The android blinked. When her eyes opened, something about her demeanor changed, something that brought a lightness to her movements and expressions.

  “Come with me, Captain,” she said. “The starboard crew section is not safe. I will reconnect power to the lift.”

  They followed Tasha down the corridor to the lift doors. She paused before the doors and keyed a series of commands into the nearby terminal, her fingers moving too quickly to follow. A moment later, the lift hummed to life and its doors slid open.

  “Follow me, please,” she said, stepping into the lift. Nsedu and the others filed in after her. The doors closed and the lift moved upward. When it stopped, Tasha led them into a corridor identical to the one many decks below. They passed several secured doors before reaching a long section of wall constructed of transparent plexi-steel. Markings along the panels labeled the section behind it as a laboratory. The lights on the other side were out, and the corridor lights could pass through the plexi-steel’s filters to illuminate the interior.

  “What kind of research are you doing here, Tasha?” Nsedu asked.

  The android didn’t pause or break stride. “Once again, Captain, I cannot divulge any such information.”

  “Right…”

  Nsedu’s comm channel to the Peggy Sue crackled to life.

  “Captain, do you copy?”

  “I read you, Sasha. You have something for me?”

  “I’ve finished the course regression analysis on the Cambyses. Based on its current position and speed, it looks like it dropped out of hyperspace in this sector seven years ago.”

  “What about the point of origin?”

  “That’s a bit harder to calculate at this point. I could narrow the search field if I had a few days to run calculations.”

  “Give me your best guess, Sasha.”

  “Praxis sector, somewhere in the vicinity of Jormungander’s Coil.”

  A bad stretch of space.

  Tasha glanced back at Nsedu. “Something wrong, Captain?”

  “No, nothing,” she said, hoping the android didn’t catch her concerned expression moments earlier. “Just coordinating with my crew.”

  “Everything okay there?” Sasha asked.

  “Fine. Tell Renee to stay on station. I don’t want to get stuck here while she’s taking a piss.”

  “Copy that.”

  Tasha paused outside a set of heavy doors and tapped a series of codes into the terminal beside it. The doors opened to reveal a common room filled with tables, chairs, and a bar area.

  “Captain,” Allen said, glancing at his handheld scanner, “this isn’t the bridge.”

  “Tasha, what—”

  She moved faster than Nsedu or her crew could
react, spinning around to snatch Seok’s rifle from his hands and fling it into the room. As Seok stumbled forward, the android landed a firm kick to the small of his back to send him tumbling through the doors. Nsedu reached for her holstered pistol, but Tasha slapped her hand away from it with her stump of an arm, then reached across her body to grab Allen and slam him against Nsedu. The two fell to the floor inside the room. Before anyone could recover, the android reached over to the control panel and closed the doors behind them.

  “Shit,” Nsedu said, scrambling to her feet. “Get that door open, Allen!”

  He rushed over to the panel, but slammed his fist against the wall after punching in a few keystrokes. “She’s disconnected the power on the other end of the circuit. I can’t access the controls from here.”

  “Open this fucking door, Tasha!”

  A voice came through over the ship’s intercom. “I am sorry, Captain, but I simply cannot allow you to access the bridge or any compromised areas aboard this vessel.”

  Nsedu activated her communicator. “Renee! Sahsa! Come in! Kabir! Anybody read me?”

  She heard nothing but dead air on the other end.

  “I have activated the hull’s signal dampening field, Captain. You will not be able to reach your ship from aboard the Cambyses.”

  “They’ll come for us when they realize they’ve lost contact,” Nsedu said.

  “I have already seen to that eventuality.”

  A series of muffled explosions cascaded throughout the ship.

  “The airlocks,” Allen said. “She’s blown out all the airlocks.”

  “There’s enough equipment on the Peggy Sue to strip this bucket down to the last bolt,” Nsedu said. “Sooner or later, they’ll cut their way inside and find us. There will be too many of them for you to stop on your own, Tasha. You might as well open the door now and stand down before anyone gets hurt.”

  “No one is going to get hurt, Captain. And no one else will be boarding this ship.”

  Somewhere deep in the ship’s core, a low rumbling sent vibrations through the floor and walls.

  “What’s that?” Seak asked.

  “The hyperdrive generators,” Allen said. “She’s powering them up to make a jump.”

  Nsedu didn’t need an engineer’s expertise to tell her that the Peggy Sue couldn’t hope to keep up with a ship as big as the Cambyses. With its larger hyperdrive generators, the Cambyses could fling itself orders of magnitude farther than the little trawler could manage.

  “How long until they come online?” she asked.

  Allen shrugged. “From a cold ignition? An hour, maybe longer if they’re an older model or haven’t been juiced up for a few years.”

  “Search this compartment. There must be another way out.”

  “You will only waste your energy, Captain,” Tasha said. “If you persist, I will be forced to lower the oxygen levels in the room until you are rendered unconscious.”

  Allen nudged Nsedu and then pointed to the space suit helmet still hitched to her belt. The suits were still fully charged, which would give them at least four hours of air.

  They also had a closed communication channel.

  She nodded and signaled for the others to don their helmets.

  “Now what?” Seok asked.

  “I’m thinking,” Nsedu said. “Allen, do you have any charges with you? Or your cutting torch?”

  “I left my gear on the Peggy Sue. Besides, it’d take more than an hour to cut through that door.”

  “What about the ventilation system?” she asked. “Can we crawl through to another section?”

  Seok pointed to the covered vents on the walls near the ceiling. “Nothing bigger than a cat could fit through there. No telling whether or not they connect to another section anyway.”

  Allen walked over to the food and drink dispensers on the far side of the room. “These things are getting power from somewhere. I might be able to cobble a bypass together and reroute power to the door panel.”

  “Do it.”

  They helped Allen tear the plastic casing away from the dispensers and detach the various internal components to expose the power supply. Then they got to work ripping apart every piece of machinery in the room scavenging for lengths of cable to string from the dispensers to the door panel.

  Tasha chimed in over the ship’s speakers when they had the makeshift cable halfway to the door. “Captain, I am concerned that your present course of action represents a significant threat to your safety.”

  Nsedu switched on her suit’s external speaker channel. “Then by all means, we’ll be happy to stop if you’d be a dear and open the fucking door.”

  “You know I cannot do that, Captain.”

  “Then forgive me if I’m not moved by your concern.”

  She switched back over to the closed comm circuit.

  “Plastic bitch.”

  When they had enough cable to reach the door, Allen uncovered the control panel and disconnected the power supply. He tied the frayed end of the cable into the exposed circuitry.

  “Okay, that should do it. Seok, go switch the dispenser on. And both of you stay clear of the cable.”

  When Seok hit the power, tiny blue sparks flickered along the improvised cable. They watched the control panel readout, which flickered several times before blinking to life.

  “I think we’ve got it!” Allen said.

  He reached out to key in a command, but when he touched the panel, a bolt of white light shot from the hotwired circuit to the wires running along his spacesuit’s sleeve. The improvised cable tore free from the panel with a loud crack, sending a shower of sparks and arcing tendrils of energy in every direction.

  Allen screamed as the energy coursed through his suit and sent him reeling to the floor.

  “Cut the power, damn it!” Nsedu said.

  Seok switched the dispenser off and ran over to join Nsedu at Allen’s side. The engineer was still convulsing on the floor when they reached him.

  Tasha’s voice sounded over the ship’s speakers. “His vital signs are unstable. I am en route to provide emergency medical care. The suit’s life support systems are compromised. Remove the suit before he suffocates.”

  They didn’t question her, stripping off Allen’s helmet and unfastening his suit as quickly as possible. His twitching stopped, but his breathing remained shallow.

  “Allen?” Nsedu said, slapping his cheek gently. “Don’t you die on me, damn you!”

  He opened his eyes and gasped, as if he’d just emerged from underwater.

  “His vital signs are returning to normal,” the android said. “Further medical assistance is not required.”

  “Wh…what happened?” Allen asked.

  “Circuit must have overloaded,” Nsedu said, helping him over to one of the room’s chairs while Seok fetched him some water from an undamaged dispenser. “You’re lucky you didn’t get fried.”

  He took a drink and chuckled. “Feels like I did.”

  Nsedu glanced at her helmet’s time display. Their hotwiring scheme had cost them twenty six minutes. She exchanged a knowing glance with Seok.

  “Time’s running out,” he said.

  She nodded and eased herself into a chair next to Allen. “I know.”

  “What’s our move now?”

  Nsedu thought for a moment, replaying the last few minutes in her mind. Something the android said stood out to her. She glanced over at Seok’s electroshock rifle.

  “Seok, how intense is a stun charge from that rifle?”

  “Enough to put a guy Allen’s size on the ground and keep him there for about thirty seconds or so.”

  “What if you hit him again? After he’s down?”

  “Well, you’d have to be careful about it. Hit somebody too many times and they’re likely to go into arrest.”

  “Sounds like something that would require immediate medical assistance, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” he said. “What are you getting at?”


  Nsedu took her helmet off and began to unbuckle her suit. “Get the rifle.”

  She stepped clear of her suit and moved into the center of the room. Seok retrieved his rifle.

  “What are you doing?” Allen asked.

  “Taking advantage of our friend’s better nature. Tasha? Can you hear me?”

  The android’s voice filled the room. “I can hear you, Captain.”

  “I’m touched by your concern for my crewman. I take it that your programming requires you to render assistance to any human in distress, correct?”

  “That is correct, Captain. But I fail to see how my programming is relevant to your present condition.”

  “Yeah, well, how about you just hold that thought for a minute?” She turned to Seok and spread her arms wide. “I want you to stun me.”

  “What?”

  “Stun me. And keep on shooting until that plastic bitch is concerned enough to come help me.”

  “Captain,” Tasha said, “please reconsider this course of action.”

  “Do it, Seok. And when she opens that door, you fucking fry her.”

  “But what about—”

  “It’s the only way we’re getting out of this room. Now do as I say!”

  Seok pumped the rifle to charge a shot.

  “This is irrational, Captain,” Tasha said. “Seok, you must not listen to her. She is clearly unbalanced.”

  “Do it now!”

  Seok raised the rifle and fired.

  The stun blast hit Nsedu square in the chest, causing every muscle in her body to contract. She fell to the floor like a statue being toppled over, her limbs locked in place by her malfunctioning nervous system. Her entire body contorted and cramped up, radiating intense pain through every single nerve ending.

  “Again…” she said through clenched teeth.

  Seok pumped the rifle and discharged another shot.

  The pain was muted this time, like rivet punching through a several layers of padding before hammering into a bulkhead. Maybe her pain centers were already lit up, or maybe she was already going into shock. She heard Allen shout something in the distance, heard Tasha’s monotone voice echoing off the walls.

  “A…again…”

  She lost consciousness after the third blast.