Draft 2

Chapter 30

Month 3: The Dead Zone Continued

The temperature on the bridge sat at ninety-eight degrees and climbing. Sweat soaked through Helen’s tank top and stung her eyes. The air was humid and suffocating.

John stared at the dead navigation screens, trying to bring the system back online. Janet kept a firm grip on Ingrid’s shoulder as the navigator slowly came down from her spore-induced panic. Magnus stood near the partially open blast doors, gripping the magnetic shock-rifle.

Helen pulled her tank top away from her skin, letting it fall back into place. “We’ve got to get out of this oven, and get down to the lower logic hub, and manually undo the Scuttle lock before we roast.”

John nodded. “Agreed. Let’s move.”

Magnus had gotten one boot through the door gap. Then stopped.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The heavy impacts echoed down the main transit corridor, growing louder with every passing second.

Magnus backed out of the gap. He raised the stock of the shock-rifle to his shoulder. “Something’s moving down the corridor toward us.”

Unit Seven unclasped his metallic legs from Helen’s shoulder strap and hovered into the center of the room. His blue optic pulsed as he faced the blast door’s gap.

“Madam, I have compiled a statistical analysis regarding the approaching entity. Specimen X-44 possesses a bone density and muscle mass uniquely suited for subterranean excavation. Based on our current spatial confinement and available weaponry, our odds of survival sit at exactly zero point one percent.”

Helen wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Seven, mute the statistics.”

“I am merely providing context for our impending demise. If it is any consolation, the ambient heat in this room will likely cause us to pass out from heatstroke before the digestion process concludes.”

“Shut that flying abacus up,” Magnus said, keeping his sights locked on the gap. “Or I’m using it for target practice.”

“Quiet.” John drew his sidearm and stepped up beside the mechanic. “Do you smell that?”

Helen smelled it. The scent of rotting fruit.

Magnus quickly backed out of the gap.

“Close it!” John rushed forward. “Magnus, help me push it shut.”

Magnus let his rifle hang on its strap and grabbed the edge of the blast door. Without the pneumatic hydraulics to assist them, the doors were dead weight. They threw their shoulders against the thick titanium, grunting with exertion. The doors scraped along their tracks, the gap narrowing to inches.

“Almost got it,” John groaned.

Then, a shadow eclipsed the emergency lighting in the corridor outside. Before they could close it completely, a forearm shoved its way into the six-inch gap.

John and Magnus shoved against the door with everything they had, trying to crush the limb. The creature didn’t even flinch. Its hide resembled charred leather.

The claw hooked around the edge of the door, and the Behemoth pulled.

“Back away!” John yelled. “Draw your weapons!”

John drew his sidearm, and Magnus hauled the shock-rifle back up to his shoulder.

“Hold your fire until it tries to squeeze through.” John leveled his pistol at the opening. “Don’t shoot blind.”

“I’m not,” Magnus said. “This rifle takes ten seconds to cycle a new charge. I’m waiting until I can see its teeth.”

Metal shrieked against metal as the creature strained to widen the gap.

“It’s going to get inside,” Ingrid said, pressing herself against the navigation console.

John had a clear shot. He aimed his mag-pistol at the arm wedged in the doorway, and pulled the trigger. Crack. Crack. Crack.

The attack only succeeded in enraging the predator. The specialized slugs—designed to shatter against hull plating rather than pierce it—impacted the Behemoth’s hide and harmlessly fragmented into a shower of white sparks.

“Step aside, Captain!” Magnus yelled. Metal groaned as the Behemoth pried the doors wide enough to force its way inside.

The weapon hummed, gathering a lethal charge of kinetic energy. Magnus pulled the trigger.

Womp.

The concentrated burst of kinetic force erupted from the barrel. The shockwave caught the creature square in the chest, knocking the beast backward into the corridor and breaking its grip on the doors.

But the Behemoth scrambled back to its feet, unfazed by the concussive blast. It lowered it head and rammed the blast doors.

The impact knocked Magnus backward onto the deck. The door jumped its track. The creature shoved its shoulders into the opening as amber gas vented from its pores.

“Shoot it again!” John yelled.

“The capacitor is still cycling!” Magnus yelled back.

Helen stepped back as the aggressive creature clawed at the doorframe. “Claude pumped the heat in here to put its metabolism into overdrive! We have to freeze it out!”

“Then turn off the heaters!” Ingrid pointed at the environmental console.

Helen rushed toward the engineering station. The screen still flashed a bright red: Override Rejected. “I can’t! Claude locked the digital controls. He routed the auxiliary reactor exhaust straight into our vents.”

The Behemoth forced its waist through the doors. One of its claws swiped blindly through the fog, shattering the glass of the secondary comms panel.

“Madam, the creature will fully breach the perimeter in approximately forty-five seconds.” Seven hovered near the ceiling to avoid the swinging claws.

Helen abandoned the terminal. If she couldn’t shut the heat off digitally, she had to vent it physically. She turned her attention to the exterior bulkhead on the starboard side of the room. Painted in bright yellow and covered by a reinforced plastic shield was the emergency thermal-dump valve. It was an aniquated piece of hardware designed to manually depressurize the bridge’s atmosphere into the ship’s outer radiator fins in the event of an internal fire.

She sprinted across the deck, gripped her hydrospanner in both hands, pulled it back like a baseball bat, and swung hard.

The steel head of the tool shattered the plastic shield. She dropped the spanner and grabbed the iron wheel of the valve. The metal was burning hot to the touch. She gripped the wheel with both hands, and threw her entire weight into twisting it counter-clockwise.

The wheel did not budge. Decades of rust and disuse held the threading firmly in place.

“Help me!” Helen screamed over her shoulder.

John abandoned the doorway and rushed to her side. He grabbed the opposite side of the wheel. “On three! One. Two. Three!”

They strained against the iron, throwing every ounce of their combined strength into the rotation. The wheel turned a harsh quarter-inch before spinning freely.

The bridge instantly depressurized its heat. The overhead vents shut off, cutting the supply of Claude’s artificial sauna. The floor grates snapped open, and the pressure sucked the steaming air out of the room. The thermal energy bled directly into the freezing void of the ship’s external radiator fins, while the emergency reserves flooded the cockpit with bitter cold oxygen from the lower decks.

The temperature plummeted. Ninety degrees. Seventy degrees. Fifty. Within seconds, the bridge hit thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

At the doorway, the Behemoth recoiled. The rush of cold air hit the creature hard. The spores venting from it hide abruptly stopped. The beast snapped its jaws and forced another step into the room.

“It’s not stopping!” Ingrid yelled.

Magnus leveled the shock-rifle again. He pulled the trigger. This burst caught it squarely under its jaw. The blast threw the creature backward into the corridor. This time, without the sweltering heat to fuel its recovery, the beast did not immediately charge back.

The monster looked at the doorway and let out a rattling hiss. Deciding the hostile climate and the armed prey were no longer worth the exertion, the Behemoth lumbered slowly down the transit corridor. The heavy thudding of its footfalls faded into the distance.

Magnus lowered the rifle and looked over at Helen. “Did we just win?”

“No.” John wrapped his arms his chest. “We just survived.”

Janet peeked out from behind the captain’s chair. She helped Ingrid to her feet. “Hypothermia is going to set in fast at these temperatures. We can’t stay in these clothes for long. Everyone needs thermal gear immediately.”

“My servos are locking up, Madam.” Seven dropped quickly from the ceiling into Helen’s hands. “This environment is entirely unacceptable for prolonged operation.”

“We’ll get you a sweater, Seven,” Helen said.

Ingrid looked at the destroyed blast doors. “We aren’t trapped in here anymore.”

“No, we aren’t.” John walked over to the primary navigation. The screens remained an unresponsive gray, and the Scuttle lock’s red warning light blinked steadily. “But we’re exactly where we were before that thing attacked. Drifting dead in the void, and Claude still has the mainframe locked.”

Helen picked up the dropped hydrospanner. “He has us locked out of the navigation. But think about it. The Scuttle lock is a hardwired failsafe. Ingrid engaging it didn’t just stop us from flying; it stopped his FTL autopilot.”

John turned to look at her. “He’s stranded out here just like us.”

“Exactly,” Helen said. “He can’t undo a physical Scuttle lock from his terminal in the Science Lab. If he wants to deliver that monster to Tartarus and get his money, he has to manually reset the breakers.”

“The lower logic hub,” Magnus said.

John looked at Helen. “He has to leave the lab.”

Helen met his gaze. “Which means his lab is going to be empty. We have to break in, steal his physical data drive with his biometric keys, and use them to take the ship back.”

John stared out the viewport into the Dead Zone. “If we don’t, Claude reboots the ship himself. He takes to Tartarus, and his buyers shoot whoever hasn’t already frozen to death.”

“Then we don’t wait.” Helen looked at the mangled doorway. “We go take our ship back.”

Magnus and John are waiting for the monster.