Stasis (The Ascendants Book 2) Read online

  But he wouldn’t let that happen. The control room was safe. The bridge was safe. For now.

  He continued to pore through the horror displayed on the screens and with each glimpse he received, he lost a little bit more hope of finding living humans. Could this really be happening? Did the Ides actually still possess enough power to massacre an entire crew and take the ship? That hadn’t happened since the Grasshopper War ended, when the virus ran through the enemy ranks and decimated their fighting power.

  But they seem to have rejuvenated, he thought. They are doing just fine.

  Giving up on the monitors, he turned to the consoles that powered the holographic projectors, the creators of the solar system that displayed every radar signal the ship picked up and relayed by the desk workers on the floor below in order that they may be replicated in the vaulted chasm of the control room for the benefit of the Chief Navigator, who alone could keep track of it all.

  But now it all sat empty, and he had no guidance. He tried to use the technology to hone in on the distant ping of the escape pod, and could find no trace of it. Scrolling through the series of protocols and programs that the computer wielded in its endless battle to map the ever-changing stars, Caspar Faulk tried everything he could think of, plying the depths of space for the signal and coming up empty handed every time.

  Fuck, he thought. I lost her.

  The realization refused to sink in, or he refused to accept it, and as he continued to search through the coded lines of information for the tagless identity of the escape pod that caused so much trouble already, he missed the goings-on on the screen behind him, the security monitor.

  He ran more tests and searched deeper, thinking maybe she had escaped his range, and when he felt close to giving in, to curling himself into a hiding place and waiting for the Ides to starve themselves out or turn to faction-fighting and cannibalism, the soft pinging sound of a newly found signal reached his ears.

  There she is.

  But a noise from the security monitors stole his attention away, and he spun in his seat to see what the noise signified after setting an autopilot course for the location of the beacon. When his gaze fell on the screen, his jaw dropped in surprise, for he had long since given up the notion of finding anyone on the ship. But then he saw her.

  A group of people, and by the looks of their wild gesticulations, they were arguing.

  They had barricaded themselves in the lower level galley, in the kitchen, and armed themselves with booby traps of boiling water propped over doors, ovens set to ignite at the tripping of a wire. On the monitor, when he finally turned to notice their presence, he saw first the knives in the hands of those who had no guns. Then he saw the woman, from Communications. The woman who beckoned him into the bridge command post with a file that had started this crazy leap into the farthest reaches of the solar system. If not for her, he thought bleakly, we would be on Titan right now, enjoying furlough.

  Reaching for the address system, he toggled the communication button and found the sector of the ship they occupied, saying quietly through the microphone: “I have the bridge.”

  One the monitor, they ceased their arm flailing and their bickering, which he saw but could not hear, and turned to the address system. In the halls outside the cafeteria, the Ides jumped up from their lazy repose at the sound of a human voice, and Caspar Faulk watched a horde of them pounce on a speaker that hung from the ceiling and tear it to pieces before growing disinterested when it fell silent and no blood issued forth from its twisted metallic flesh.

  “I have the bridge, and I can get you here. But you must trust me.”

  He didn’t know if he could get them to the bridge. The secret passageways—the second ship, as he called them—did not extend into the lower levels, but he thought that maybe, if he performed perfectly, he would be able to divert the attention of the aliens long enough for them to run to the food storage sectors, through which they would be able access the same hallways that spirited him away to safety.

  They all—twelve of them—ceased speaking and faced the camera waiting for Caspar Faulk to come up with something, to say anything.

  He waited, thinking of a plan.

  The Vulcan plowed forward, finding the beacon that the escape pod emitted, controlled by nothing more than the autopilot settings that Caspar had hardwired to function as he desired.

  Chapter 9

  In the galley, Sasha argued with Sergei and the argument went on for so long that the others fell away and the bickering continued only between the two of them. “We have no choice, Sergei. We have to trust him.” She brandished her knife and tried to square her shoulders, tried to appear stronger than she felt, but the eyes of the group followed her with malice. They had plenty of food. The doors would hold. They were staying put.

  “You don’t know that man. I do. He is a coward and a suspected traitor. He likely summoned these Ides with his hidden communications links and if I make any movement to rejoin him, it will be for the sole purpose of ending his sorry life.”

  Sasha refused to back down. “We are beyond anyone’s help. You say the food will last? For how long? When will we start thinking about eating the fleshy parts of those who die?”

  The people gathered around her hung their heads, as if the question had already lingered heavily on their minds.

  “No one is dying, Sasha. I will make sure of it.” Sergei towered over her, and stared down through narrowed eyes at the mousy woman who thought she knew about fighting for one’s life. Turning, he addressed them all, “I have years of combat experience. Would you follow a mailroom employee to your deaths?”

  “Military experience? Where? When? The civil war?”

  Sergei reached out to strike her, his rage boiling over, but controlled himself, instead choosing to punch the stainless steel door of a refrigeration unit until it dented beneath the force of his blows. “I served. I killed. I watched others die. Don’t question me.”

  At that point, the speaker cut into the argument again, and the rough static of the transmission had them all held in suspense as they waited to see what the man in the control room would say.

  “I have established a distraction. If you can make it through the commissary to the larder, you should be access the deep freeze units. There is a passageway concealed in one of the freezers.”

  Sasha looked to the group with determination in her eyes, pleading with them to face death and achieve salvation. “We are doomed here. Out there, we have a chance.”

  She waited for Sergei’s retort, and when it never came, she cried for anyone who stood with her to stand, and to get their feet moving. Looking up at the camera, she nodded and hoped the man on the other end saw her gesture, hoped he could be trusted.

  “Wait.”

  They all spun around and looked at Sergei, who had not moved from where he stood and who stared off into the corner of the room as if something out of place caught his eye.

  “He is a traitor.”

  “You said that. We don’t have time for this, Sergei.”

  “If he knows about the passageway in the deep freezers, he must be a traitor. He doesn’t have the clearance. Only a handful of people on board do, so he is working with one of them or he is a snoop. Either way, I’d take my chances here before trusting him.” He spoke in a tone that was completely devoid of his former fury, a voice of dejection that only came from his mouth when he knew that nothing else remained except to admit defeat.

  “How do you know?” asked one the twelve.

  “I have the clearance, and I know everyone else who does. The passageways are included in MarsForm ships to seal off the bridge, the food, and the cargo hold in the event of a piracy event that cannot be controlled. The residential halls are completely blocked off.”

  His voice, mad with guilt and laden with the knowledge that the eleven crew members who shared the galley with him were all lower level people, and all would be sacrificed by the company in the event the siege plans built into th
e ship had to be used. They simply got lucky. That is all.

  The eleven, following Sasha’s lead, all stared at the officer with rapt expressions of disbelief and anger.

  “You would do that?” asked one, and the other answered for him. “Obviously, he already planned on it. Why else would he be in the cafeteria this far down when the fighting started?”

  “You don’t understand, any of you,” he defended himself, but the tide had already turned. He stammered that fail safes were in place to protect the crew, and that the residential units locked as well. “The man is a traitor, people. Remember that, when you choose to trust him. You attack me for being in the cafeteria, well, he is the only man still alive on the bridge. Do you think he fought with his comrades, or do you think he fled for the safety of the bridge with his stolen information and secret plans the second the shooting started?”

  His eyes jumped wildly from person to person, and one by one, they turned their back on him, calmly walking away until none remained. Their footfalls fell in the silence of the dining hall like an anvil crashing from the heavens, and Sergei was left alone with his thoughts.

  Chapter 10

  Caspar Faulk watched the group split up and recognized the man who stayed behind even through the grainy security footage.

  The Communications and Transmission woman, the one from the day before, led the others. On the screen, they appeared to be the ragged warriors of a lost cause fighting for holy martyrdom. They already bled, and their gashes seemed like black stains on their complexions through the lens of the camera.

  “I see you have made the right choice,” he said through the microphone. “When you cross the cafeteria dining floor, you will notice that the barricaded doors are dented in and contorted. A large army of Ides rests on the other side, and I will need your help to banish them. Look up at the camera on your left and nod three times if you are ready for my instructions.”

  When all eleven did exactly as he asked, he continued cautiously, “And be warned: though I mean to help, you will not all survive. Keep your wits about you.”

  They exchanged looks among themselves and left Caspar wondering what they said.

  “You see the doors on the other end of the wall you face?” And on the monitor, he watched the heads pivot.

  “Someone must open that door.”

  The people standing in the cafeteria threw their arms in the air and Caspar Faulk watched them bicker among themselves about who would be the sacrificial lamb, who would risk their lives first to save the group. They all gesticulated and through their flailing arms, Caspar imagined the personalities that would fit the actions. The angry and impotent leader, who pointed with gusto, as if his finger were a rapier. The meek one, who shrugged his shoulders and feared the finger falling in his direction. He saw the lawyer holding her arms out against the chests of two who nearly fell to blows. The only one that stuck out in his mind was the stolid leader, the mailroom lady, who made no gesticulations nor screamed in any faces, but only created a stir in the room by uttering an unheard declaration that he could imagine: “I’ll do it.”

  They all stopped bickering and looked her way. Casper, in the control room, watched the angry man who loved to point his finger shrug his soldiers. He imagined a halfhearted attempt at valor, a false plea for her to think sensibly, but she silenced him with a step in his direction, placing her right up against his face. Caspar didn’t know what the woman said to the guy, but he marked her in his mind as a person who would be useful, a person who would make the difference.

  “Let her,” he said through the speakers, and again the eleven heads pivoted in that direction. Stillness, in the cafeteria, and then the woman stepped forward, approaching the door with her head held high.

  Before he had the chance to see what would happen, if this would work or doom all eleven of them and probably the twelfth man, too, the communication receiver on the desk next to him lit up. He stared at it absently before picking it up, curious and terrified about who would be calling him, who would know where to reach him at this moment, at this desk.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Caspar.”

  His stomach turned and he fumbled for the words that refused to articulate themselves properly, the way he meant to.

  “I—I am working on it. I’ll have the parcel, I promise.”

  “You will have the parcel? And when will you have the parcel, Caspar? We have been waiting for some time now.”

  “Soon. I have a bit of a situation here—”

  “No. You will have a situation if you do not recover the parcel. Have you forgotten your promise to us?”

  “No, sir. No, I haven’t. I’ll have the parcel for you as soon as I fix the problems—”

  “Get the fucking parcel, Caspar, if you want to step foot on this planet again. Hear me?”

  But the line went dead and Caspar Faulk was left with the knowledge that the Council had found him, and he would be held accountable, finally.

  Chapter 11

  The hallways seemed to go on forever, and their emptiness bore down on her mind as she journeyed deeper into the center of the labyrinth as she pumped her legs, threw her arms in swift, jabbing punches at the air before her and felt her blood pressure begin to soar. And still, the echoes lingered out of eyeshot.

  “Come on, Kasey, we’re almost there,” came the voice that she had been following. Somewhere. Peering into the distance, she saw nothing but the discarded rubbish of a lost crew—overturned tables, bent up chairs, broken panels of glass that littered the floor and reflected the red lights shining in intervals from the ceiling, turning the myriad shards into an ocean of brimstone that stretched down every passage.

  She came to a corner, an intersection, and she stopped running. Panting and drawing breath in ragged, heaving gulps that had her doubled over and sweating from her forehead, she considered her options. To the left, nothing: more trash and discarded food trays, weapons and broken gadgetry. On her right side, the scene was similar. Everywhere she turned, the same sights greeted her and she began to think that maybe she had been running in circles, and the boy didn’t know where he was leading her at all. Her heartbeat thrummed with the pulse of her exertion, and it seemed to her to be coming from the lump in her throat that felt like an ice cube every time she inhaled.

  “I promise!”

  Where did that voice come from, she asked herself, ruffling her brow in a look of confused and weary exhaustion.

  “This way!” The boy appeared at the end of the hall to her right, standing in a shroud of red light and waving for her to keep pushing, to keep putting one foot in front of the other because they were almost there, and the secret they would discover at the end of their journey would make the stitch spread through her ribcage totally worth it. His energy, youthful and illimitable, drew her closer.

  “I can’t, Lew. Slow down,” she cried, beginning to jog after the boy who waited at the end of the hall.

  “No, Kasey, there’s no time. We have to run!”

  And he took off, leaving nothing behind for Kasey to follow except the echoing of his footfalls that came to her ears like the sighs of an autumn wind rustling in dead leaves. She followed him, damning his speed and his perfect knees, which slapped his feet against the metal floor with a speed that she could not fathom.

  “The maple tree is burning, Kasey. We have to save it.” But his voice seemed so far away and she did not know where to turn when she next came upon a fork in the endless halls of the Age of Discovery, which looked to her more like a tomb, or a bomb shelter with a weak roof that had suffered a direct hit. Where are the people? she asked herself. The bodies?

  From somewhere, maybe the address system that connected the Age, she heard a sound that reminded her of boiling water. She did not stop to think about what would be making such a noise until she lost the sound of footsteps completely and stopped running to call out into the dark hallways: “Llewellyn! Wait up. Llewellyn, I need you!”

  But no respon
se came and she ran her hands through her hair in exasperation. Her side felt like a shard of glass had been driven into it and she clutched at the pain as if she could rip it from beneath her ribs with the force of her hands. Breathe, she thought. Deep breaths. Sharp air hit her nostrils and she detected a faint smell of smoke beneath the stench of decay that wafted to her from everywhere, everything, leaving nothing for her mind to focus on except the fading echoes of Llewellyn’s footfalls and the destruction that lay in her path. She felt the urge to scream, to shout at the top of her lungs and let the air flow from her breath until she had none left, rending the air and the eerie silence of the freighter with the unfettered call of her desperation. Bubbling up in her throat, burning to leave. She tried to fight it but she knew her will power was failing and she fell to her knees in preparation for the great cathartic wail of—

  —his voice came to her as if he stood by her side with his hand on her shoulder, stifling her scream and making her jump with fright at the volume of the voice in her mind: “GET UP, KASEY! YOU WILL NOT DIE HERE!”

  And she looked everywhere for the boy who screamed in her mind but found nothing, only the empty stillness of the abandoned freighter, and in the silence, she realized that she would never leave, and that she would be on the Age of Discovery until her flesh rotted from her bones and left a bleached skeleton propped against a locked door for a future discoverer to stumble upon.

  “THEY ARE COMING, KASEY, FOR YOU!”

  The first thing that entered her mind was a vague question about how the boy’s voice could ring so loudly in her ears, but the drone of wings flapping in the air and the cackle of mad laughter jolted her from inaction and sent her running again through the halls of the Age. She turned to look over her shoulder as she pumped her legs and the swarm of insect-like aliens that greeted her made her redouble he efforts.