Draft 2

Chapter 33

Month 3: The Dead Zone Continued

Helen stepped out of the Science Lab and into the bitter cold corridor, gripping the crowbar.

“Okay, Seven, which way did he go?”

Seven clung to the shoulder strap of her coat. “Based on Science Officer Kinskey’s projected trajectory, he is taking the most direct route. He is navigating the primary aft stairwell to reach the lower logic hub.”

“Then we have to beat him there.” Helen broke into a jog.

She already knew the stakes. If Claude reached the logic hub first, he would restart the ship and leave the crew to freeze. But if the monster found him before he got there, the physical data drive in his pocket would be pulverized into useless silicon dust, leaving the Persephone permanently locked in the void.

Helen tapped her earpiece, opening her comms channel. She had to warn John and tell him to watch his flank for a rogue scientist.

“John, do you copy?”

Static hissed through her earpiece. The ship’s internal network was degraded, scrambling the local frequencies.

She switched to the secondary emergency channel. “John. Magnus. Anyone. Do you read me?”

More static.

“Seven, boost my signal. Route your own power into my earpiece transmitter if you have to.”

“Madam, establishing that level of output will drain my remaining battery in less than twelve minutes. Furthermore, the feedback loop could cause minor electrical burns to your ear cartilage.”

“Just do it!”

“Signal boosted.”

“John! Are you there?”

The static broke, clearing just enough for the audio to punch through. She had a connection, but the noise on the other end was deafening.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

“Hey, ugly!” John’s distorted voice roared over the channel. “Down here!”

“John, listen to me,” Helen yelled over the noise. “Claude is heading your way! You have to stop banging on the walls!”

CLANG. CLANG.

“Keep hitting that pipe, Magnus!” John shouted, oblivious to her transmission. “Draw it past the junction away from the reactor block!”

Helen cursed and killed the feed. John couldn’t hear a word she said.

She reached the aft stairwell and took the steps two at a time, descending deep into the belly of the freighter. The temperature dropped further with every floor. By the time she reached the lower decks, patches of ice slicked the floor plates. Helen’s boot hit a sheet of frozen condensation on the landing. Her feet went out from under her. She slammed hard onto her hip, biting her lip to keep from crying out. The crowbar clattered loudly against the grating.

“Are you injured, Madam?”

“Just my pride.” Helen picked up the crowbar. “Let’s keep quiet.”

Helen crept down the final flight of stairs. She quietly pushed open the access door and stepped onto the catwalk overlooking the central Cargo Neck.

The Cargo Neck was a cavernous, industrial throat designed to move heavy terraforming equipment between the aft bays and the forward holds. It was wide with high ceilings. The emergency strobes cast light across the floor below.

Helen peered over the railing. Fifty yards down, near the aft entrance, John and Magnus stood. Magnus swung a wrench against a structural conduit. The noise echoed through the area like ringing a dinner bell for a hungry predator. John stood beside him with his sidearm drawn.

Helen gripped the railing. She needed to climb down there and stop them.

She moved toward the access ladder at the end of her gantry. She reached for the manual release lever to drop the ladder down to the deck, but the mechanism refused to budge. The moisture in the air had frozen solid inside the casing.

She wedged her crowbar into the release latch, preparing to pry it open.

“Madam, look to your right.”

Helen paused. She looked down toward the forward access doors of the Cargo Neck. A flash of white broke through the gloom. It was Claude.

The Science Officer slipped through the doorway, moving with an unsettling calm. He hugged the shadows along the starboard wall. He held a sidearm at his side, stepping over the frozen puddles to avoid making a sound. He was making a straight line toward the logic hub, ignoring the two men banging on pipes fifty yards away.

Helen tightened her grip on the crowbar. She had a choice to make. She could smash the ice on the release latch, force the ladder down, and sprint across the open floor to tackle Claude. But doing so would make a tremendous amount of noise, effectively turning herself into bait right as the monster arrived.

She didn’t get to choose; the trap was already springing as rhythmic impacts approached.

“The creature approaches, Madam.”

Helen waited for the monster to emerge from the darkness John was aiming at.

“John!” Helen screamed from the catwalk. “On your left!”

Her voice was entirely lost beneath the ringing of Magnus’s wrench.

The Behemoth emerged mere yards from where the Captain and the deckhand stood.

It was a walking nightmare. Its bullish head was built for battering through obstructions.

John spun around, stepping backward. The creature was right on top of him.

The creature lunged.

John froze. The ambush had caught him out of position. He raised his sidearm, but he didn’t have the angle, and didn’t have the time.

Magnus didn’t hesitate. “Captain, move!”

The mechanic charged forward and threw his body weight into John. The tackle shoved the Captain out of the kill zone. John skidded across the frosted deck, tumbling into a stack of empty supply crates.

Magnus took his place. The Behemoth’s right arm swept forward in a brutal, horizontal arc, catching the mechanic in the chest.

The force of the blow launched Magnus backward. He sailed through the air. He slammed into a support pillar with bone-breaking force. He crumpled to the deck, sliding into a heap of motionless limbs.

“Magnus!” Helen screamed, leaning over the gantry railing.

The Behemoth hissed as it turned its head, ignoring the broken man on the floor. It searched for the prey that had escaped, locking its eyes on John as he scrambled to his feet among the crates.

Helen watched John look at Magnus’s still body, before stepping out of the crates and raising his sidearm.

“That’s right, look at me!” John yelled.

He pulled the trigger three times. Crack. Crack. Crack.

The slugs sparked against the creature’s thick chest armor, fragmenting against the leathery hide.

“Come and get it, you ugly son of a bitch!”

The monster let out a deafening bellow, a sound that shook the dust from the ceiling pipes. It dropped to a low crouch and charged.

John turned and sprinted deeper into the Cargo Neck, drawing the beast directly below Helen’s position on the catwalk. He was executing the plan, pulling the monster away from the reactor block, but he was rapidly running out of open floor.

Helen looked across the lower deck. In the distance, Claude paused near the logic hub entrance. The scientist glanced back at the chaos, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, and offered a faint smile. He turned his back on the slaughter and reached for the logic hub door. He was slipping away.

John was cornered below. Magnus was bleeding out on the deck. Claude had the keys.

Helen looked at the crowbar in her hands. She looked down at the primary liquid nitrogen umbilical running along the wall, just ten feet beneath her gantry. The frost-covered pipe fed into the main thrusters, carrying cryogenic fuel to the engines.

“Seven, what is the pressure rating on the cryo-line?”

“It is currently pumping super-cooled liquid nitrogen at three thousand PSI, Madam. A breach would be catastrophic.”

She didn’t need to chase Claude down the hall. She just needed to stop the monster from eating her husband. She gripped the crowbar, measuring the distance to the pipe below. She needed to stop the beast. Either by blowing it out the exterior doors and into the vacuum of space, or freezing it right here.

The Ambush Below