“I need someone to get to the engine room!” Berk hollered as both consoles lit up with warning beacons.
Leonick jumped off the floor and, keeping his arms wide for balance, fled the cockpit to head aft.
Macnelia handed her earpiece to Berk who fitted it on his own ear. Jyra tried to remain focused as she checked diagnostic reports.
“Engine control fuses blew,” she said. “We can’t maneuver.”
“Standard safety mechanism,” Craig said. “There should be spare fuses back there.”
Mastranada sailed through space, knocking debris from the battle aside as it headed for the TF freighter. They could see the port entrance to the main hangar that bisected the ship. It could hold four fuel transport tanks, each four times the size of Mastranada. With the introduction of tankers, TF didn’t rely on freighters as much as it once did to take its products to other planets. Jyra suspected TF agents must have sent it up to fight since it wasn’t as valuable as fully outfitted battleships.
“Does anyone else think our trajectory is taking us toward that hangar?” Shandra said.
“They’ll destroy us before that happens,” Macnelia said. “We need to change course.”
“Leonick, are you there?” Berk said.
“What’s all that?” Craig said, pointing.
Jyra noticed what he referred to: a cluster of debris floating alongside the freighter, slowly drifting apart as each individual object followed a seemingly random direction.
“Those look like the laser cannons from that battery that fired at us before we dropped the bomb,” Jyra said, identifying two of the larger objects spinning lazily as though suspended by cables. As she watched, they skated straight away from the ship.
“Are we heading toward the hangar?” Craig said, nearly repeating Shandra’s question.
“I don’t know,” Macnelia said. “The freighter’s moving across our path. We might collide with it.”
“Leonick!” Berk shouted. He clamped the earpiece to his head and gave a small sigh, indicating he’d established contact.
“We’ll get the damage sorted out soon,” Berk growled. He dug in his coat for his flask, but Macnelia slapped his arm.
“You need to stay alert,” she warned. The ship struck another stabilizer and it lodged against the cockpit glass. A white divot appeared where it dug into the transparent barrier between the cockpit and space.
“We can’t maneuver,” Berk said, jerking his flask free of the pocket and swallowing a mouthful. “There’s nothing to do about it.” He glared at the stabilizer, which shook against the cockpit glass.
Berk jumped in his seat and pulled the earpiece away from his scalp, reminding Jyra of when Macnelia had shouted in Shandra’s ear with a similar misunderstanding.
“What?” Berk yelled, try to match Leonick’s volume. Everyone leaned in to hear the answer.
“The blast warped the fuse station! We have no control until we pound the contacts back into alignment, repair several cable leads, and install replacement fuses.”
“You’re all satisfied?” Berk snarled and everyone leaned away from him. “Leonick could use some help.”
“I think Shandra’s right about where we’re headed,” Macnelia said.
The freighter seemed to be turning away from them, but they were definitely closing in on its hangar.
“What do you think?” Macnelia said, jerking the back of Berk’s seat. Berk furrowed his brow and clutched his temples with both hands.
“It’s a risk, but we’ll crash into the hull of the damn thing if we do nothing,” he said. “Leonick, bridge the contacts with whatever you’ve got. We need the strongest thrust we can get!”
“Hang on,” Leonick’s voice crackled through the earpiece. Craig heeded Berk’s suggestion and left to assist in the engine room.
“What’s going on?” Neeka’s voice said through Berk’s earpiece.
“We’ve been hit and we’re heading toward a TF freighter,” Berk said. “Not sure if we’re going to land in the hangar or crash into it. I need to talk to Leonick, now. We’re trying to restore engine control.”
“Those are bodies,” Jyra said, staring at the debris field near the freighter. Macnelia walked between the consoles and squinted ahead of them.
“You’re right,” she said.
At least fifty corpses floated amid the laser cannons and other wreckage from the freighter.
“Leonick, we’re running out of time here,” Berk said.
“The hangar’s lit, but the rest of the ship is dark,” Shandra said, gazing at the behemoth before them. “What happened?”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll be around to find out,” Jyra said.
“Standby,” Berk said. “They’ve got a bridge over the fuses set, but it’s probably going to fail after a few seconds of engine power. Aim for the hangar. Ready, Leonick?” he added into the earpiece.
“Go!” Berk ordered.
Mastranada lurched forward as the energy from the twin cores cycled into the engines. Jyra guided the ship to starboard and it shot toward the hangar. The stabilizer caught on the cockpit glass shuddered in place. As soon as Jyra felt the vibration of the engines, the sensation disappeared.
“Hopefully that’s all the push we need,” Macnelia said, resuming her position behind Berk’s chair.
Mastranada glided by a laser cannon that rotated in place like a top whirling in slow motion. Jyra averted her gaze as the nose of the ship hit one of the floating bodies. When she looked again, the hangar entrance yawned before them. Mastranada crossed the threshold of the larger ship and immediately sank—the gravity drive of the freighter was still operating. Berk didn’t have time to lower the landing legs and the impact when the ship hit the hangar deck tossed everyone in the cockpit upward.
Jyra gripped the arms of her chair, her eyes wide with fear, as they skidded toward the massive closed door on the other side of the hangar. Were it open, the momentum would likely carry Mastranada all the way through the freighter.
The view from the cockpit began to change. Mastranada started to spin slowly as its belly shrieked against the floor. It completed a full half-turn before jamming to a halt in the corner of the wall and door on the starboard side of the hangar.
Despite the unsettling arrival, Jyra glanced up and saw the foreign stabilizer on the cockpit glass fly free. She understood what the debris field had already proven; the atmospheric shield that should be cast over the open hangar door wasn’t functioning. Everything vulnerable to the vacuum of space had been sucked out of the freighter. She watched as the stabilizer soared in a direct path toward door they had just entered.
Then Mastranada shuddered and an eerie, grating groan climbed from the ship’s keel.
“We’re getting pulled back out,” Shandra said.
Jyra couldn’t see the stabilizer anymore, though she focused on the spot where it had passed beyond her sight.
Suddenly, on the far side of hangar, right near the doorframe, she saw an explosion of debris, but it was so small and the spectacle so brief it seemed to be just a puff of dust. A second or two later, the steel door slid into view, sealing the hangar from the punishing forces of space. As it closed, Mastranada slowed its progress and finally stopped when the door reached the opposite side of the jamb.
“What is going on?” Neeka said, stepping into the cockpit with Derek behind her, leaning on a crutch. They both looked extremely shaken.
The lights of the hangar filtering into the cockpit made both of them pause in the doorway.
“We just succeeded in landing on an enemy ship,” Berk said, turning in his chair to face them. “And I’ll be surprised if we find anyone besides us who’s alive on it.”
*
Macnelia suggested everyone head to the cargo bay. It worked better for meetings and Leonick and Craig wouldn’t have to travel all the way to the front of the ship from the engine room. Berk instructed them where to meet via the earpieces. Within minutes the resistance members assembled, surrounded by supplies and crates, some of which had scattered during the rough landing. Weapons used in the mission to rescue Derek were still piled in a corner near the cargo door.
Craig had fallen from a ladder after he bridged the contacts on the fuse panel under Leonick’s instruction. He smiled as he dabbed the small cut over his eye.
“Definitely worth it,” he told Jyra and she couldn’t agree more. If they hadn’t managed to land in the freighter, they would have either collided with it or their ship would have drifted onward, crippled in space with no control.
Macnelia looked around at the group with a grim smile, which disappeared altogether when she saw the fresh Mourning Mark on Jyra’s forehead. Derek sat on a crate and clutched Neeka’s hand. His clothes were in good condition and Jyra realized he must have had some stored in the cave that he’d been able to retrieve from the crates. Except for the wounds on his face, he looked much better in his pressed outfit compared to the shabby attire everyone else wore.
“We accomplished the two goals of our mission,” Macnelia said. “Although, we didn’t plan much beyond them. If we had, it seems those plans would’ve been upset anyway. What we know so far is we’ve crash-landed in a TF freighter hangar. We’ve got our ship’s scanner checking the enemy vessel for people, but as we were able to penetrate the open hangar so easily, it looks like it has been exposed to space for a long time.”
“What about airtight bulkheads?” Craig said. “TF could afford to upgrade its ships.”
“This freighter looks like it’s a bit on the older side,” Berk said dismissively. “In fact, I think that’s why they sent it into battle.”
“Isn’t that still going on?” Neeka said. “Why isn’t the freighter a target?”
“There’s nothing to say it isn’t,” Berk said. “But it’s not likely to be.”
“I didn’t think freighters came equipped with guns,” Neeka said.
“They don’t,” Derek mumbled.
“They mounted laser cannons on the hangar floor and used those,” Macnelia said. “It was probably a quick retrofit, too. When the Nilcyns attacked, TF had to act fast to repel the enemy.”
“Which is why they threw cannons into what is usually an unarmed ship,” Derek said. “An unexpected battleship.”
“The crew was small,” Jyra said, recalling the floating bodies. “If all of them were vented into space, I counted only fifty or so.”
“Cannons could fire through an atmospheric shield,” Derek said. “Which is what they must have been doing, but if there were bodies in space, the shield failed somehow.”
“The laser cannons were torn free and pulled out there, too,” Shandra said.
“We’ve got a few unanswered questions,” Macnelia said. “Some of which concern the damage to our own ship. Until we can get outside, we won’t be able to resolve most of them.”
“Will we be able to get outside?” Neeka asked. “Into the hangar?”
“After we entered the freighter, the door closed, sealing us in,” Berk said. “Although plenty of air systems would have been overwhelmed, some immediate data I gathered before coming down here is the freighter seems to be restoring safe environmental conditions for us. Even the gravity drive still works.”
“How did the door close?” Neeka asked.
“I’ve got a theory,” Jyra said. “We’ll know for sure once the freighter is ready to receive us.”
*
Jyra returned to her quarters and pulled off her topcoat. She extracted Dario’s dagger from the pocket and turned it over in her hands. Her eyes then fell on the locket, which she had moved to the chair. She set the two souvenirs side by side, the objects that tied her to her past. Jyra’s own memories seemed foreign to her somehow. They were now marred, half by a numb void and half by an aching sadness. Even as the thoughts entered her mind, she felt her knees weakening, the sense of loss dragging her toward despair. First her brother had been torn away and then her parents had been taken beyond her reach.
Jyra shook her head and tried to think about something else. She had hoped to talk more to Derek, but he seemed keen to leave after the meeting. Before adjourning, Berk had estimated it would take about an hour before it would be safe to open Mastranada’s door. The ship had served them well for the previous mission, but the absence of an airlock was now a noticeable drawback—there was no way to keep Mastranada’s atmosphere isolated from the freighter’s when they opened the door.
Jyra put her theory aside about the closing hangar door to tackle the likelihood of others surviving on the freighter. It was a far more complex problem that could distract her from the pain that lurked on the fringes of her mind, waiting to rush in to occupy any cerebral vacancy. She rummaged in her duffel and pulled out “Ships of the Kaosaam System,” searching for a ship similar to the class of the freighter. Once she located it about halfway through the book, she flipped to the cross-section illustration.
The first detail she noticed was the size of the main hangar compared to the rest of the ship. Though it didn’t look like it from the exterior, the hangar took up about half of the volume of the ship’s living areas. Jyra imagined the size of the breach and how much of the oxygen had been sucked free immediately. The massive loss of pressure and sudden demand for oxygen hadn’t overloaded the air systems. Even so, the enormous vent from the hangar door could have reduced air levels instantaneously to the point that humans couldn’t survive.
Jyra studied the cross-section further and remembered what Craig had mentioned about the bulkheads. Despite the age of the freighter, the illustration suggested it likely had two of them, one in front of the engine room and one behind the bridge. Between the bulkheads and the hangar were crew quarters, bathrooms, and, in the forward section, a galley.
It was possible that others were still alive, sealed safely behind the bulkheads. Jyra leaned in to examine the page more to see if the bridge and engine room had their own air systems, when she remembered something else. Except for the hangar, the rest of the ship had been dark. Jyra put her tongue between her teeth, thinking of returning to the cockpit. From there she would be able to see if TF agents entered the hangar, once they realized the breach had been sealed. As she left her quarters, she thought about the airtight bulkheads.
The vacuum of space would have spread through the freighter the moment the breach occurred. Despite that, the crew would still have time to seal themselves on the bridge or in the engine room before being flushed from the vessel. Presumably, some crew members would be in both locations. But fifty people seemed like a lot to operate just two laser cannons. By the time she reached the cockpit, Jyra believed everyone aboard had been vented into space. But if the freighter did have the airtight bulkheads, why hadn’t the doors closed to isolate parts of the ship from the consequences of the breach? And what caused the breach in the first place? Those were the two questions on Jyra’s mind as she took her seat at her console.
Berk was in his usual chair, flask in hand, watching the readouts on his monitor. He glanced at Jyra as she sat down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scorched flask.
“I know I asked you if you had any spare flasks, but I really don’t need this one,” he said.
“I don’t need it either,” Jyra said. Then, keen to keep the conversation away from her family’s demise, she added. “How’s it look out there?”
“The oxygen level is still rising,” Berk said. “But if there’s anything harmful in the air, we’ll only find out once we step out of our ship.”
“How long now?”
“I’d say another half hour,” Berk said. He tipped his head back and poured the remainder of his whiskey into his mouth. “What’s your theory about the door closing?” he asked.
“It’s pretty simple,” Jyra said. “The stabilizer we hit that stayed on the glass flew off after when we landed. I think it hit the button to activate the door on its way out. If the ship hadn’t spun like it did, the stabilizer would have stayed put.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Berk said, leaning back in his chair. “Lucky for us, too. No idea where we’d have ended up.”
“Macnelia still in the cargo bay?” Jyra said.
“Preparing for the exploration,” Berk said. “She started cleaning the guns when I left. A couple of them jammed because of all the dust. Has there always been that much dirt in the air?”
“It got worse every year,” Jyra said. “Macnelia said TF operations could have destroyed the planet if they continued much longer. I guess we’ll see if our efforts paid off.”
“I think they will,” Berk said. “Of course, it’s not over yet.”
“I thought the resistance didn’t have any plans,” Jyra said, recalling Macnelia’s words from the cargo bay.
“Well we need to make some,” Berk said. “Judging by the glance I got of the TF complex after we bombed it, I think we finished it off pretty well. Trouble is, there’re agents hanging around, not to mention a number of ships just like the one we’ve landed in that are going to be returning to base. And we’ve got to be ready to face them.”
“What about the Nilcyns?” Jyra said.
“We’ll have to deal with them, too,” Berk said. Jyra lowered her eyebrows and felt as though she were deflating where she sat. “What’s the matter?” Berk asked.
“I don’t know,” Jyra said. “Aside from rescuing Derek, I saw dropping the bomb as our primary objective. We’ve done that and I didn’t expect we’d be hanging around long after we achieved that goal.”
“If we’re going to make a lasting difference, we’ll need to be here for a while,” Berk said.
“What do you mean?” Jyra said, rolling her eyes. “Form a new government?”
“Not quite that long, but maybe.”
Jyra waited for Berk’s face to break into a smile behind his whiskers or for a barking laugh to rise from his belly, but nothing happened.
“You actually mean that,” Jyra said.
“It’s what I’d like to see us do,” Berk said. “You don’t just go blowing up the source of people’s livelihoods and move on, expecting them to pick up the pieces, especially when vermin of the previous establishment are still alive.”
*
The search party assembled behind the door, testing their earpieces. Shandra agreed to remain in the cockpit, monitoring the receiver. Leonick was eager to be part of the expedition. Jyra rested one of her hands on the gun strapped to her hip, certain she only imagined the smell of gunpowder emanating from the weapon. She didn’t want to think about killing the guards.
“Opening door,” Berk grunted.
Light spilled into the hallway along with a rush of air. Berk leapt onto the hangar deck and Leonick followed. They both held their guns low, aiming them across the enormous room. Craig, Jyra, and Macnelia jumped free of Mastranada.
“Closing door,” Shandra’s voice reported through the earpieces.
“Go ahead,” Macnelia said.
“The air smells strange,” Craig said.
“Ozone,” Berk said. “The breach stressed the air processors. That odor will likely be pumped throughout the ship.”
Jyra gazed upward. Massive steel beams stretched across the ceiling and met vertical counterparts that supported the walls. The beams were spaced every ten feet or so. A series of heavy shutters hung on the wall opposite Mastranada. Jyra knew from her reading that the shutters concealed storage compartments. Lights were mounted on the ceiling between the beams. Jyra set off for the vast cargo door on the other side of the hangar. From her perspective, the opening only looked about four inches tall. If she fired her gun at the door, she doubted the bullet would even reach it.
“Where are you going?” Macnelia said.
“I want to see what caused the door to close after we flew through it.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for any movement,” Berk said.
The search party fanned out to the edges of the hangar. Jyra marveled how the towering white walls dwarfed everyone, even Berk. The farther she walked, the more Mastranada looked like some kind of model or toy.
Not even halfway to the door, Jyra paused when she noticed a series of threaded rods poking out of the otherwise smooth floor. She approached them and realized what they were for.
“I think I found one of the laser cannon mounts,” she said. “The rods are bent toward the door, which is consistent with how the cannons would have been torn off their frames.”
“Any word on how the door closed?” Berk said.
“Almost there,” Jyra said. “It’s a long walk.”
She pressed on, looking over her shoulder at each exposed wall stud that could easily provide cover for two people standing side by side. She had already passed the door that led to the forward section of the freighter. If agents came through it, Jyra would be cut off from the others.
At last, she reached her destination. Even as she took her final steps toward the door control panel, she could see it had sustained heavy damage. The buttons were shattered and the cover plate looked as though a giant had swung a dull axe into it—a deep crease cut across it horizontally.
“At the door panel,” Jyra said. “Or what’s left of it. Something hit it hard.”
As she spoke, she noticed the smudges of gray paint on the panel and on the wall nearby.
“It was the stabilizer we picked up on our cockpit,” Jyra said. “It hit the button when it was sucked back into space.”
“Looks like you were right,” Berk said through the earpiece. “Do you think the panel can be repaired?”
“Maybe, but we should see if we can lock the door from another location before fiddling with the controls here.”
“Good plan,” Berk said.
“Can you help me with this?” Macnelia’s voice cut in. Across the hangar, Jyra heard the rattle of metal and realized Berk and Macnelia were opening one of the shutters.
“I don’t believe it,” Berk said.
“What is it?” Craig and Jyra said together.
“There’s a laser cannon in here,” Macnelia said. “We can rearm this ship.”
“Check the other compartments,” Jyra said, jogging across the hangar.
By the time she met with the others, they were all moving along the same wall, opening the compartments. They had discovered a total of three laser cannons. Of the final three compartments, two were empty and they found one more cannon.
“Perhaps we should expand our search,” Leonick said. “If we cannot get the atmospheric shield working again, these cannons will be no better at attacking ships than the guns at our sides.”
The euphoria of finding the heavy arms dissipated as the search party realized the workload required to effectively wield the cannons.
“We might need lights before we move on,” Jyra said. “The rest of the ship was dark.”
Returning to Mastranada and conducting a hurried search through the crates yielded only three flashlights.
“I thought we had headlamps,” Berk said.
“I haven’t seen those for a long time,” Macnelia said.
“There must be some kind of emergency lighting in the freighter’s corridors,” Craig said. “We can make do with what we’ve got.”
“Right,” Berk said. “We’re wasting time. Leonick and Craig, you two can check the stern. Macnelia, Jyra, and I will take the bow.”
Once they were back in the hangar, the two search parties headed for their respective doors.
Berk hit the button and the door sprang open, as though attached to a taut spring.
“You two saw that, right?” Berk said.
“Yeah,” Macnelia said.
A cry of surprise from Craig came through their earpieces.
“Sorry,” he said. “The door just…”
“It happened over here, too,” Jyra said.
It turned out Craig was correct about the lighting. An eerie red glow illuminated the passage beyond the door.
The stench of ozone increased in the corridor. Jyra turned on her flashlight. An odd assortment of objects—bits of metal, toiletries, clothes and shoes—littered the floor.
“Crew quarters are off this passage,” Jyra said. They explored the corridors to their left and right. Some mattresses had been pulled off the bed frames. The flashlights gleamed on the smooth dark walls.
“This is creepy,” Macnelia said. Jyra was glad she said it instead of her. A pair of boots sat at the foot of one bed, the laces wrapped around the frame.
“Not keen on privacy,” Jyra said. “All the room doors are open.”
They moved on. Berk kept his gun aimed into the crimson gloom. Jyra pointed her flashlight on the floor so they wouldn’t trip on the debris. They reached a ladder and had to climb through a hatch to the next level.
Macnelia placed her hand on one of the rungs, pulled it away, and held her palm in the beam of her flashlight.
“Blood,” she muttered.
“To be expected,” Berk said from the next level. Jyra stepped off the ladder next to him and saw what he held in one hand.
“The vacuum sends a jagged piece of steel like this shooting down a corridor, you better hope you’re not the way.”
Jyra shuddered at the thought and felt the wound on her arm throb. Macnelia joined the others.
“Check in,” Berk said.
“Still here,” Shandra said.
“Leonick?”
“We’re working our way toward the back,” Leonick replied. “Lots of wall panels have been partially pulled free.”
“Makes sense,” Berk said. “Let us know when you get to the engine room.”
Jyra did her best to ignore the sense of foreboding that lurked in the back of her mind. She felt similar to when she and Craig had been in the middle of the food mission on Drometica. The darkness and unfamiliar surroundings of the freighter reminded her of the stockroom and the old man.
Berk’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“That looks like a bulkhead doorway.”
Jyra leaned left to see around Berk and realized he was correct. The jamb was thicker than usual, which they could see because the door was open. The three of them inspected both sides of the bulkhead.
“Aren’t these doors supposed to close the second a breach is detected?” Macnelia said, following the glow of her light as she trained it along the base of the door, which sat suspended above them, waiting to drop into place.
“They’re supposed to,” Berk said. Jyra swallowed hard. Every door she had encountered on the freighter seemed to have some abnormality if not an obvious malfunction. Berk seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
“Let’s get to the bridge,” he said. “If we don’t have more clues about what happened by then, we should come back here to do more tinkering with this bulkhead, see if it’s hiding anything from us.”
“Craig you were right,” Berk said into the earpiece. “This ship’s got airtight bulkheads. Have you passed one yet?”
“Coming up to one,” Craig answered. He sounded somewhat out of breath.
“Is the door open?” Berk asked.
“Looks like it is.”
Jyra, Berk, and Macnelia climbed another ladder. The landing floor was as cluttered as the rest of them, but the debris crunched audibly beneath their boots.
“Glass,” Macnelia said. By the light in her hand, they could see the ink etched onto the larger fragments.
“Navigation panels,” Berk said. “We’re getting close. They must have been pulled all this way from the bridge. The smaller shards probably made it all the way to space.”
They climbed three more ladders until Berk gave a satisfied sigh.
“We’re here.”
He had to push a small cluster of chairs off the hatchway. The emergency lighting did little to make the bridge any more inviting. The same dark coat of paint from the dormitories reflected the red glow in large, blurry swaths on the walls and low ceiling. Dull standby lights winked on the various consoles that were arranged in a semicircle. Beyond them stood enormous clear panels that provided a panoramic view of the stars. The complete lack of activity that should have filled the room stole Jyra’s breath away. The unrelenting aroma of ozone made her head spin. She panned her flashlight over the bridge and Macnelia copied her. The lights glinted off the dark monitors. Berk stepped into the middle of the semicircle, passing the consoles. He noticed the corner of one nearest him was smeared with blood. At that moment, Loenick’s voice came through the earpiece.
“We have reached the engine room,” he said.
“Any sign of life?” Berk said. Macnelia and Jyra paused opposite the other, each standing next to a console closest to the vast windows. They listened to the conversation in silence.
“No, but every door all the way back to the engine room was open,” Leonick said. “It is rather unusual. You did not come across any torn wall panels, did you?”
“I didn’t,” Berk said.
“Some of them seemed to have the screws taken out of the them,” Leonick said.
“Well they could have been pulled out when the vacuum ripped the whole panel forward and then the screws would’ve been easily vented clear of the ship,” Berk suggested.
“You misunderstand me,” Leonick said. “The screw holes in the panels are clean. The screws were removed by hand. Any stress against the holes would have warped or cracked them and they are as smooth as ever.”
“The more we add to the mysteries, the more chance we have of solving at least one,” Berk sighed, pushing his hair back. He set his gun on one of the consoles and dug in his jacket for his flask.
“We have located the breakers as well,” Leonick said. “A lot of them are tripped.”
“Don’t throw them just yet,” Berk said, swallowing a mouthful of whiskey. “We don’t need to advertise this ship’s got living folks aboard. I think our first priority is to figure out the doors, what happened to them, and make sure they don’t have any surprises waiting for us.”
“Could the Nilcyns remotely sabotage them?” Craig asked.
“At this point anything seems possible,” Berk said. “But I hope the Nilcyns have nothing to do with this or we’re in more peril than we thought. I don’t like surprise peril.”
“So to troubleshoot the doors, we should check each one,” Leonick said.
“Indeed,” Berk said. “Start at your end and work back toward the hangar. We’ll meet there.”
“Affirmative,” Leonick said.
Berk glanced at the two women
“I guess we’ll go see what the bulkhead door can show us.”
They headed toward the ladder hatch. The two flashlights fell on the far rim and the sight made all three of them stop. A mixture of blood, flesh, and hair hung near the edge of the hatch.
“Haven’t been checking that area of the other hatches,” Berk said. “They’re probably all like that. Agents getting pulled through when the breach occurred.”
Jyra turned to avoid looking at the gruesome remains and her eyes fell on one of the console monitors. Without the reflection of the bright flashlight glaring off the screen, Jyra squinted to make sure she wasn’t imagining what she saw.
“There’s text on that monitor,” she said.
She walked toward it, quickening her pace out of fear and excitement. Berk and Macnelia followed, crowding behind Jyra who leaned in to read the dark purple writing.
Though I do this at the cost of my own life, I do it for the good of my planet and in hopes of defeating TF, to forever banish it from Tyrorken.
After undergoing crude modifications, this ship, Valiant Conductor II, became a machine of war. Even in standard service, its purpose disgusts me. It’s gratifying to use my skills and knowledge to undermine this ship and I’ve made a few modifications of my own. I am about to override the safeguards and terminate the atmospheric shield. I’ve rigged all the doors to remain open, so everyone on this ship will empty into the void. Personally, I can’t think of a better fate for TF agents. Next time, you ought to have stricter checks and standards for those you hire as shipboard mechanics.
–Jed Skytok
“Never heard of that guy and it seems like I never will,” Berk said. “What’s the matter?” he added to Jyra as she leaned back from the monitor, biting her lip.
“He ran the garage where I trained as a mechanic,” she said. “He was Craig’s boss.”