Draft 2

CHAPTER 28

MONTH 3: THE DEAD ZONE CONTINUED

When the crew stepped onto the bridge, they did not find a welcoming committee.

John stood with his boots planted wide on the deck plates. His sidearm was raised and aimed directly at Helen. Behind him, Ingrid sat in the pilot’s chair. Her uniform jacket was discarded, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, and her eyes darted between the three intruders.

“Don’t take another step,” John said. “I will shoot you.”

Magnus stepped out from behind Helen, hauling the magnetic shock-rifle up to his shoulder. The weapon emitted a low hum as it powered up. He centered the sights squarely on John’s chest. “Stand down, Captain.”

“Shoot them, John!” Ingrid shrieked. “They’re trying to take the ship! They’re going to kill us and take the payout!”

Helen kept the sprayer pointed toward the floor. She needed to try de-escalation first. She had to bypass his infected amygdala and reach the logical captain buried beneath.

“John, listen to me.” Helen kept her tone slow and even. “No one wants the payout. We are not mutinying. You are suffering from a severe toxin exposure. Claude smuggled an alien predator on board in Cargo Bay Four. Its stasis pod failed. It breathes psychoactive gas that causes paranoia. You are breathing it right now.”

It was a perfectly rational explanation, but John wasn’t buying a single word of it.

“An alien predator?” John laughed.

“Captain,” Janet said, holding up her sprayer. “I drew my own blood. I saw the toxicology and the air is poisoned. Just let us spray you with this sedative. It blocks the receptors and brings you back.”

“Stay back!” Ingrid yelled. “It’s a neurotoxin! They want to paralyze us!”

Helen took a slow half-step forward. “John, it’s true.”

Magnus tried a different tactic. “Put the gun down, Captain. You don’t want to do this. I’ve got a riot-breaker aimed at your lungs. You pull the trigger and I put you through the viewport.”

Helen saw John’s thumb move as he disengaged the safety on his sidearm. “You brought a weapon onto my bridge, Cantarini. That makes you a hostile combatant.”

“Statistically,” Unit Seven vibrated from Helen’s shoulder, “the introduction of a firearm into a marital dispute increases the likelihood of a fatal divorce by ninety-eight percent. I strongly advise all parties to lower their weapons.”

“Shut that thing up!” John aimed the pistol straight at Helen’s face. “Drop the sprayers, and kick the rifle over here. Now!”

Helen looked at the black barrel of the pistol and stepped into the line of fire.

“Helen, back away!” John kept the sidearm raised.

“No. I’m your wife. If you truly believe I am here to hurt you, John, then you have to pull the trigger.” It was a big risk, but she could think of nothing else to do.

John stared at her as a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. The pistol lowered slightly. Helen immediately raised the sprayer, and squeezed the trigger, blasting the sedative directly into his face.

The sudden hiss of the spray sent Ingrid into a blind panic. She dove for the navigation console, her hand slamming down hard on a recessed red panel covered by a warning guard.

“Ingrid, no!” Helen shouted as she sprayed a coughing, confused John in the face a second time.

It was the Scuttle lock, a hardwired Omni-Corp failsafe designed for piracy scenarios.

The bridge plunged into emergency lighting as an alarm wailed. The main thrusters of the ship died and everything went still.

The Persephone lost all propulsion, drifting dead in the void. The navigation computer locked, and the screens turned an unresponsive gray.

Janet rushed past Helen. Before Ingrid could enter a secondary command to purge the oxygen scrubbers, the doctor grabbed the navigator by the collar, spun her around, and sprayed her twice in the face.

Ingrid swiped blindly at Janet, but the doctor wrestled her down to the deck, pinning her arms.

“Hold still.” Janet forced a tablet past Ingrid’s lips and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Swallow it.”

Magnus grabbed the sidearm from John’s hands, forcing him down to his hands and knees.

Helen knelt beside him. His breathing slowed as the cornered-animal look in his eyes faded. She took a tablet from the bottle in her pocket and held it up to John’s mouth. “You have to swallow this. Now!”

He looked at Helen, finally taking the pill from her hand and swallowing it. “I pointed a gun at you. I took the safety off.”

Helen wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace. “It wasn’t you. It was the spores.”

John buried his face in her neck, his arms wrapping around her with crushing force. “I thought you were trying to kill me. Every time I looked at you, my brain told me you were plotting with Magnus. It felt so real.”

“I heard the recording,” Helen said softly into his ear. “I sat on the couch in Engineering, and I listened to you and Ingrid talk about leaving me at Tartarus. I thought you were throwing me away.”

John pulled back, looking at her with total bewilderment. “What recording? Helen, I haven’t spoken to Ingrid about anything except the slip-drive stabilizers in weeks. I would never leave you. We’re buying that cobalt-blue salvage rig you want, remember?”

“Seven analyzed it and said it was an AI-generated deep fake. Probably from Claude.”

“That arrogant son of a bitch.” John wiped his face and looked over at Ingrid who was rubbing her head while Janet checked her pulse.

“Ingy, you with us?” John asked.

“My head hurts.” She looked around the bridge. “My god, did I hit the Scuttle?”

“You did,” Helen said, standing up with John.

“I’m so sorry. I thought . . . I don’t even know what I thought. It made perfect sense a minute ago.”

“We’ll analyze the psychology later.” John moved to the console. “Right now, we are drifting without thrust in the Dead Zone, and we have an alien predator loose on the ship.”

“Wait,” Ingrid said, looking up. “A what?”

“I’ll explain while we work.” John cracked his knuckles. “Ingy, get in your chair. We need to undo the Scuttle lock and get the main drives firing before we lose our trajectory completely.”

Ingrid scrambled into her seat, her fingers flying over the manual overrides. John stood beside her, typing rapidly into the master mainframe.

“Command override rejected,” Ingrid said. “The system is demanding a secondary biometric verification.”

“I’m giving it the verification.” John pressed his thumb against the glass reader. The panel pulsed red. “It’s locking me out. The master mainframe isn’t recognizing my command authority.”

“Captain Mitchell.” Seven floated up to the console. “I am detecting an active intrusion in the central processing core. Someone else is currently logged into the master mainframe with a Tier-One corporate override.”

“It’s Claude,” Helen said. “He’s watching us.”

“He’s not just watching,” John said, trying to trace the intrusion. “He’s actively locking the navigation systems. He’s taking the ship.”

Before John could initiate a counter-measure, the ship’s internal fans spun up. A blast of hot, humid air erupted from the bridge vents. Within seconds, a sheen of sweat broke out across her arms.

“What did he just do?” Magnus asked, wiping his forehead.

Helen moved to the engineering station. She pulled up the ship’s climate schematic. “He’s overriding the environmental controls by shutting off the heat on most of the ship, and venting the remaining thermal energy from the auxiliary reactor into this compartment.”

The temperature in the cockpit spiked. The digital thermometer on Ingrid’s console climbed rapidly: 85 degrees. 92 degrees. 98 degrees. The air became a suffocating sauna.

“Madam. Science Officer Kinskey is venting all remaining thermal energy directly into this compartment. We are now the only heat signature on the vessel.”

Helen looked back at the blast doors. They were broken and could not be closed easily. “Claude made us a beacon.”

Persephone drifting in the Dead Zone.