Within- Confinement

Within Confinement By Colin J. Hamilton

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Acknowledgements Well, as this is my first book to go this far into publishing, I’d like to thank virtually everyone I have ever met! I believe that writing a book, in many ways, is using all of your experiences and combining them to make great narrative. Believing this, I should respectfully thank everyone who has affected my life and led me to this point, even the people who have annoyed and frustrated me, because they have taught me resilience and confidence! Though on a more serious note, there are key people who have supported me and helped with the development of this story. My family most of all, the most supportive and caring individuals I will ever know get thanks for an endless array of things, for letting me go at my own pace, and for showing me the way. Friends I thank, my entire sixth year English class for they were the first to even know about this book when it was merely mist in my mind, and the many little ideas they gave me. Iain Pryde and Vijaya, the two friends of mine both willing and trusted enough with the early drafts to test-read and criticise it until it worked perfectly! Oh, and I thank the Internet… without it, a lot of this wouldn’t have been possible!

Colin J. Hamilton

Within: Confinement © Colin J. Hamilton 2006 “Within” cover typeface © Font.a.licious Fonts 2001

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‘Within: Confinement’ By Colin J. Hamilton Part 1 Chapter 1: The Rigor Mortis Chapter 2: Block C, Sector 19, Cell 11 Chapter 3: First Day Chapter 4: Cellular Lifestyle Chapter 5: Grav-Ball Chapter 6: Point of Impact Chapter 7: Consequences Chapter 8: Breaking Up Chapter 9: The Administrator Chapter 10: Charon’s Gate Part 2 Chapter 1: Survival of the Fittest Chapter 2: Collaboration Chapter 3: Encounters Chapter 4: Closer Chapter 5: A Break from Fear Chapter 6: True Colours Chapter 7: Sub-Zero Chapter 8: Flooded Part 3 Chapter 1: In the Dark Chapter 2: Avalanche Chapter 3: Control Chapter 4: All the Laughter Chapter 5: Allegiance Chapter 6: On the River Styx Chapter 7: Hades Chapter 8: Quiet waters run deep Chapter 9: Run, hide, fight Chapter 10: A Promise Chapter 11: Light’s Reprisal

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Prologue ‘Solar Orbit Gridtrack 8’ (Between Venus and Earth orbital paths) 02:17am (Terran Standard Time) The time was right, it was now or never. The sources she had on the galactic network stated that her target was out at this time of night, and mere minutes scheduled the window in which she could reach it and get back on one space bike’s fuel load. The beauty and tranquillity of the starfield was lost as she gunned the space bike’s gravity thrusters; her eyes were focused intently on a distant speck of light, barely a pinprick. Ironic it was that things can appear so small yet grow in size so rapidly in the forces of space flight. In fact, a tiny squeeze of the throttle would pelt her for miles, well into her quarry’s sensor range. Not that it would matter, space bikes often flew at the late hours, even if they were postal services or late-night journalists. She didn’t fit those categories tonight, not by a long shot. Effortlessly she strangled the throttle and the weird lurch of gravity in vacuum pulled at her stomach, as the stars began to float ever so slightly by her. She had all non essential systems off, head light, runner lights, back lights and radar. Even the music system was off; the smaller the power signature the less likely it was for the sensors to detect her presence. Her own conscience was disabled. It wasn’t even her bike; it was her father’s bike. Dark metallic blue paint and a stylised console and control screen that would be illuminated green had the power been on full power. Her streamlined black and blue bike suit had been a birthday present a few years ago; she’d hardly worn it until now and was almost afraid it wouldn’t fit! Her helmet enclosed her head, only her deep blue eyes looked out. If she could see herself, she would see an assassin; pitch dark in the starlight, gleaming with a polished grace like a knife. As she had expected, the journey was short. Provided everything goes to plan, she could be home without anyone noticing she had ever gone! The target loomed larger in the plasti-glass of her front wing. The feeling of thousands of butterflies trapped in her stomach made her ease the throttle prematurely, and she punished herself with a curse. How could she do it feeling nervous!

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But her stomach had every right to fill with terrified insects. Her target, an Interplanetary Financial Safe Craft – or IFSC – was a vehicle of monolithic proportions compared to her space bike. It was shaped like a train, multiple carriages linked together nose to tail by airlocks and intersections, the front was like a curved plough, and the pilot deck was situated on the top of the first carriage, presenting itself as a small uplifted wedge shape. It was this deck she aimed her bike. Pulling up, by manipulating the control console and activating the y-z axis thrusters, she shivered as she felt the gravimetric distortion from the train’s hull as she came close. Now well within sensor radius, she cut the main engines and moved with secondary stabilizers only. After that, her free hand absently left the handle bar to touch the stub nosed disrupter holstered at her hip. The pilot deck of the IFSC appeared when she cleared the side of the train, and now she approached over the top surface, towards the docking bay situated at the neck of the deck. One squirt of the front thrusters ended her acceleration and several more bursts of side stabilizers let her drift into the clutches of the bay’s magnetic field. Quickly and confidently she dismounted the bike. Her boots thudded hollowly on the deck plating as she approached the airlock door. Knowing time was of the essence, she keyed in the access code she had received from a rebel over the galactic net, as well as swiping an illegal security card through the slot. Fortunately the rebel hadn’t given her a fake card; the door opened with methodical series of whispers and clunks. Sighing, she stepped into the decompression chamber. Now she needed a new card and a new number. Again, they both worked and she cautiously eyed a security camera fitted into the top corner of the room. Again, the doors opened and revealed the plain coloured interior of the IFSC. “… I’m serious, what kind of a social life can you get piloting one of these things?” The primary pilot ignored his comrade, focusing his attention on what seemed to be an access of the minor airlock. There had been no bike or corvette registration or identification, and those doors did sometimes fuss up. “All bloody night, flying from A to B, and then B to A. I tell you we could have an automatic pilot fly these things… this must be a form of torture… but I can’t remember what I did to deserve it.” 5

Sighing, the other suggested, “You could relay the data feedback of the minor airlock security camera for me.” The secondary pilot blinked slowly through his cerebral visor and began to key into the console that was under his left hand. He muttered flatly, almost to himself, “Me and my girlfriend haven’t been at it for months now.” “I didn’t need to know that,” the first replied huskily, glancing out of the plastic-glass window, to the stars. “Wow,” the other exclaimed suddenly, a little thrilled and a little scared. “I don’t believe it,” the main door was heard opening behind them, “we have an—” The first pilot flinched round as a stub nosed pistol was drawn to the back of his colleague’s head. He didn’t dare move any more. “Intruder…” the second pilot finished. “Put the ship on auto-pilot, now.” She said coldly. All of her previous insecurity was gone, ever since the camera at the bottom of the deck lift she knew there was no turning back. It was make or break time, and she would not break. “Certainly… miss…” the primary pilot said uneasily, glancing through his plastic visor to his statuesque fellow. A computer voice confirming the order followed when he depressed a single button. “Now, take me down to the vaults, the closer the better.” She saw the lead pilot shift uneasily, his eyes unfocused and unsure where to stay. “Um, you need clearance to get to them… we don’t have it… the Sol Government doesn’t trust—” “I have the cards.” She responded hollowly, reaching with one hand to pull four colour coded cards from the back pocket of her bodysuit. “Oh…” he seemed at a loss then. “Both of you lead the way, slowly.” She had watched enough holo-vids to know all of her lines like the back of her hand. She turned the secondary pilot’s chair with one hand so he’d get up quicker, keeping the disrupter trained on the first pilot. At her command, they both walked steady into the deck lift and she followed them in quickly. Immediately she saw one of them with his back to the main lift key pad, “Get away from there!” she threatened with the pistol again. He scurried aside and stood next to his companion nervously. She eyed the console and it seemed like he had done nothing. Turning back to them, she asked, “Which floor?”

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They both looked at each other, and she tapped her foot on the plating impatiently. “Which floor!?” she barked, her control snapping as her conscience told her for a second everything was very, very wrong. “Third-d floor is the first vault access level…” the overly nervous second pilot muttered. The stub-nose of the pistol selected the floor key. It was several minutes for the lift to travel down the neck of the control deck, and both crew men seemed terrified to her eyes. What they didn’t know was that their captor was also terrified. She now looked at the two men, one of which was staring straight at her, at her eyes, and she knew that she should order him to look away but the words never came. Everything felt incredibly heavy and immoral. She knew that the pilot was seeing discomfort in her eyes; wide unease in deep pools of blue. He took that moment to ask, “Why are you doing this?” The disrupter wavered for a moment; her eyes flickered over to him. The question was so prominent in her mind, and she knew the answer; she told herself the answer every minute she lay in bed, every minute of climbing into her bodysuit, every minute of sneaking from the house. Yet she didn’t know anymore. “Because I have to,” she replied. It seemed to have effect; the lead pilot must have seen the sorrow in her eyes, the sorrow in her voice. But at the same time, she saw something else in his eyes; it verged on silent regret almost… as if he knew something she didn’t. In that unbearable moment, the deck lift jolted to a halt. The crewmen gripped tightly to the walls and she found herself knocked to the side in alarm. It brought her back into concentration. “What’s happened!?” It was when she raised the disrupter again that another voice answered her. It was piped through the interior speakers, “This is the Martian police force, lower your weapon as we open the doors!” Everything froze, even her heart. It had all gone horribly wrong, somehow. She didn’t have the speed to think of how it happened, or even grab one of the crew as hostage, all she could do was stare at them both, two complete strangers, two people who will always see her as a criminal. She felt suddenly ill, the butterflies were gone, and she wanted them back, because now there was a tiny void where she stomach should have been. She felt like crying.

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The door opened, and a visor and armour clad squad raised their pistols at her in one fluid, accurate motion. In the flare of torch lights and with the muted commands of the police, she raised her hands, bowed her head in shame, while the disrupter fell from her weak hand, and clattered on the floor.

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Part 1 Chapter 1: The Rigor Mortis It was May 2699, the date had great significance to those few enthusiastic people; it was the beginning of the 28th century, of new and wonderful times full of hope, prosperity and peace. For the ninety percent of others, the coming century would be just as cruel, empty and hopeless as the last. The human race was on its last breath; it had covered the entire solar system from Mercury to the distant Pluto, and there was very little in the way of usable resources on any of the nine lumps of rock. The planet Earth had become a scarred, choked metropolis, overwhelmed with hulking cityscapes that enveloped every inch of soil and every blade of grass, special ‘green regions’ give shelter to protected trees and wildlife, but these are small and virtually unseen. Aside from this grey and uninviting region, half of the sphere was incinerated beyond recovery into a sulphurous waste. This was due to a terrible war which humanity strove to forget – and perhaps in their new solar prosperity, they have forgotten through ignorance – which reminded all who look upon Earth about the blackest of human sin. So the human race colonised the other planets and desperately strove to unlock the secrets that would help the Earth and they themselves to survive for future generations, to repair the damage they had done. But there were no secrets. There was only the fuel to power ships for longer, quicker, cleaner and new methods travel to new worlds, some became more secret than others. It seemed that the bridges burnt would never be rebuilt. Yet the price of nearly loosing mother Earth was not enough to make the human race learn from their mistakes; people still fought each other over the dark stretches of space, planet against planet, race against race and religion against religion. Entire moons had been given over to the Government’s military so that their ships could regularly patrol the vast system. Earth became a small, pitiful arena, discarded like forgotten history for the battlefield that was the solar system itself. Yet people lived and prospered, like always, people live normal lives and have normal families, dealing with life’s everyday troubles, barely aware of wars. And like always, some people simply throw their lives away.

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These were the criminals, the no-brainers and backward delinquents who thought they could pull off an almighty exploit to become stinking rich, heinously powerful or simply ‘free’ from any government constraint. These criminals are taken to the Mars moon of Deimos to face trial and judgement by the supreme solar court. The old rules still apply to trials and sentences, little changed in such areas even after six-hundred years, often execution or life imprisonment if found guilty, and freedom if not. But in recent times things have changed; judges have been calling the guilty subjects to a sentence of ‘Government Processing’ which at the time to criminals seemed a fair margin better than ‘lethal injection’. Yet no one really knew what ‘GP’ was, but one thing was for sure; you didn’t come back. Of course this did not bother the democratic and social sides of the public, the people were glad to see criminals disappear off the face of the solar system, and barely even raised the question to the government: ‘What is GP?’ Of course, there were the curious journalists and crackpot theorists who claimed the government is ‘experimenting’ on convicted criminals to create a new weapon of war, or sending them off into the outer reaches of space to find new worlds, or even attempting research with alien technology or DNA. Few believe such nonsense and the government barely bats an eye with the ideas, all anyone knows for sure is that the convicts are crammed into a prison transport ship, taken from public view, and fade from memory. One ship working for ‘Government Processing’ was the Rigor Mortis, the stiffness after death, and it was a suitable name; the ship was near death itself. The Rigor Mortis was a battered old thing that had many encounters with rogue asteroids and far too many major repairs to be even space worthy, yet the government insisted that the ship was perfectly able to carry convicted prisoners. The craft was once a Mercurian mining ship that was shaped like a curled crustacean of a rusty orange tint, bristling with antenna spikes, radar and satellite communications, with a single docking bay and Mercurian combustion engines. Due to its new duties, the ship had been refitted with a huge and unwieldy transport section, attached to its rear end, it now looked like an over packed mule on the verge of collapse. Yet the Rigor Mortis was able to continue its work for over fifty years. It could now carry over six-thousand five-hundred individuals onboard, which is divided almost eighty percent prisoners and twenty percent active crewmembers, which is an overhaul – and close to illegal – for such an old ship.

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The Rigor Mortis now waited grimly in the orbit of Deimos for the final transfer of prisoner cargo from a space port via transit frigate. The Rigor Mortis belched great twin plumes of gas from its under-slung engines’ exhausts, even as it waited unmoving, the gas formed a sickly grey cloud below the transport ship, making the vessel look like a decrepit angel sitting on a murky rain cloud. The frigate was a tenth of the size and shot like a bullet from the jaws of the orbital spaceport’s cargo bay, it then drifted towards the aft of the Rigor Mortis. As the ship approached, the bridge crew of the frigate could see words scrawled messily on the back of the Rigor Mortis to read: ‘The ship in front is Hell’. Somebody who had been liberated from the ancient prison ship, or perhaps a retired guard officer, must have been influenced enough to spacewalk out and tattoo the message for all to see. Unsettling humour it was to most that saw it as the prison ships always carried some of the worst criminals of the solar system. It felt like months since Alyson Valentine has seen the stars, even longer since seeing a sunset or planet-rise, and even now, deep inside the belly of the small frigate she could not see the warning message airbrushed on the hull of her new home. None of them would. The frigate held at least two-hundred prisoners inside, all strapped into brace chairs with chains on their wrists and ankles. She felt horribly out of place surrounded by huge grim-faced convicts; she was not tall, most of the men towered over her and she had a fair face, unscarred, and she wasn’t a devilish prostitute with enormous assets to match either. She was a slim, short, size thirty-four, innocent girl. But she knew why she was there, and she had gone to the Deimos courthouse for it, put on trial for it, and sentenced to ‘Government Processing’ for it – whatever that was. She paid that little attention, she was already lost and she knew she did what she did for those she loved, unfortunately her ignorance and insecurity had been her failure, and it was not long for the police to catch her. Her deep blue eyes looked about the faces and features of those around her as she had done a thousand times already since departing the spaceport. Yet her eyes always fell on one particular person in the rows of nameless bodies, he was quite thin, half starved, and had unkempt brown hair. But what brought her back to him all the time was that he forever stared into a book open on his lap. No prisoner should be given anything in transit, security was tight on these flights and anything was considered ‘a potential weapon’, so much so that the fact was almost literally drilled into everyone. Alyson blinked thoughtfully but frankly couldn’t imagine 11

the scrawny man being at all threatening with the book, but she still wondered why he was allowed an object to keep his interest and no one else. In a moment he looked up from the book and spotted her looking at him, immediately she glanced away, feigning ignorance. He stared for a moment more at her from the distance of half dozen prisoners before looking back into the leather bound book. Alyson even glanced again at him without knowing it when he had stopped staring at her and shifted in her tight bonds restlessly, causing the huge prisoner next to her to grunt in irritation. She looked to the armed guards on the deck, there must have been fifty of them in total; the security was like a machine, logical and precise, rare is it for a guard to be off duty, unequipped or late. Alyson wondered if they were even human. She ignored the urge to run her fingers through her short black hair to calm an itch; her hands were bound to the armrests anyway, it felt like she hadn’t had a shower or bath for weeks. Yet she was still clothed in her old clothes from back home, the security on Deimos had not put her in prison garments or even checked for weapons – as far as she could remember, she thought uneasily. But that couldn’t be said of others on the deck; some were bound in straightjackets, others in basic cloth tunics, she considered herself lucky. The guards shifted simultaneously on their feet as the ship rocked to a standstill, and they readied their electro-rods. No guns here and there would be none on whatever ship they transferred to, the rods were linked to a power cell that was strapped around the guard’s forearm; there were no chances for a prisoner to claim a guard’s weapon. “Are we there yet?” an insolent voice hollered over the deck from the back, Alyson didn’t smile, nobody did. “Shut your trap, Gus,” a gruff guard shouted back yet again from the back of the deck, “or I’ll give you a taste of this!” There was a high charged electric burst that made Alyson jump in her seat and her spine tingle with tiny fingertips. The man next to her smirked, while the book-reader looked like a pale white mouse. The electro-rods were not only strapped to the guards’ wrists, but they were always fully charged; the power cells were researched on Ganymede and they were designed never to run out or loose effectiveness. The discharge was designed to drop even the most well built prisoner with one jab. Alyson had said nothing since her detention on Deimos.

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The frigate had successfully docked with the transport section of the Rigor Mortis via a vertical under-slung port. The command deck of the frigate would now be looking straight at the six theta-combustion engines of the prison ship, but the shear distance taken with the transport section kept them well out of harm’s way. The exterior of the docking port shaft was tinted brown and black; scorched with the heat of the Rigor Mortis’ engines when on full blast, but access by the frigate was secure as the engines remained dormant. The guards jumped to action, several of them per row of prisoners, the bonds on the chairs had been released by electro-lock and now it was a case of filing the prisoners into the access lift. It would be a long process, Alyson would have to wait for some time until a guard got to her, she could see the book-reader now clutching the book with a death-like grip; he looked terrified. At some point of the transfer, a guard cried out from behind her and a horrific shriek of electricity burst through the deck and shattered Alyson’s eardrums. She cringed as the bursts continued fiercely, stabbing repeatedly and filling the air with static, before stopping and there was a guttural groan in response. She was even more horrified that the prisoner was still alive and breathing! The process continued again without interruption and soon a guard came to Alyson’s row, they started from the edges and worked there way to the middle. She saw the bookworm being pulled from the chair, he was still clutching the volume in chained hands and he was hauled away to the back of the deck. She had felt a certain connection with that man, perhaps because he wasn’t – visibly – crazed or a giant muscleman, and now that he was gone she felt even more alone. Peering to her left and right, anxiously eyeing the approaching guards who seemed to be easily moving prisoners away, Alyson felt her stomach knotting and her throat drying up. In a flash a guard was beside her, she looked at the armoured torso and heard the deceptively gentle hum of the electro-rod nearby. He had a grey Kevlar suit on with thick green plating strapped upon that, and a sleek helmet with a back shield and radio. His neck was protected with a ridged collar while not a single tool was on his belt. “Get up,” he said gruffly and Alyson stood quickly before him. The prisoner beside her also stood, they were the last two to go. “This way,” he gestured.

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But the giant prisoner swung a punch with both chained hands at the guard on his side; the guard fell, more from the surprise than the concussion. But on the return swing the prisoner’s elbow smacked into Alyson’s face and she collapsed towards the floor. The other guard who was still standing flicked the electro-rod up and stabbed it deep into the prisoner’s ribs while his other arm smartly caught Alyson from her fall. The giant took a moment to slump down, but the guard pressed heavily with the stick and the sound was deafening. Once the guard eased off he straightened Alyson to her feet and ordered, “To the back,” She caught her words of praise before they left her lips and gritted her teeth instead. She put her wrist to her nose and smeared blood across her jaw, she did not cry; she had spent all her tears months ago. So she shuffled to the back of the deck, passing lines of guards, towards a wide cylinder of mottled steel. She was gestured round the back of this structure to find a lift inside, and she was nudged into it alone with only one guard. The doors ground shut and the circular chamber jerked into upward motion. No glass, no stars. Alyson looked for a moment at the guard next to her, he did not return the look; he only stared ahead of them like a granite and concrete statue. The doors opened with practiced ease and the guard led her into a sort of registry area, though it was all mottled and dented steel, broken lights that were fitted into the ceiling, electric lock doors in front and to each side. Another guard stood waiting behind a desk at ease; he had looked somewhat surprised at their entry. “Another one, Jefferson?” he asked hunching over an unseen computer console, “I think were pushing it,” he added, “but we’ll squeeze her in somewhere.” The blunt side of an electro-rod pushed Alyson off towards the door opposite the lift, every prod made Alyson jump; afraid it was going to be the passage of thousands of volts into her spine. The next room was like the last, bland and beaten, an internal hum of electrical power droned from the walls and ceiling, unlike onboard the frigate, this was a deep mournful tone. There were a couple of guards flanking a computer terminal of elaborate proportions; it was monstrous and metal plated, a steel desk waited at ninety degrees from it, with a single swivel chair before it. The chair was bolted to the ground, as was the desk and the chair behind that. There were numerous monitors and keyboards on the desk, all pointing away from the isolated chair; most worrying of all was a huge crane like structure that branched from the 14

massive console. It was all wires, pistons and gears, with what looked like a helmet hinged on its arm, several colour-coded wires fed into it. Alyson would have frozen on the spot had the guard behind her not moved her to the solitary chair and sat her down. Another guard appeared and moved toward the desk, he sighed, “I thought I was off duty now… but there’s always one more.” As the chair turned, Alyson turned to face the blinking eyes of the computer bank, and the huge headset was pulled down towards her head. She watched in concern as it descended, before the guard behind her strapped it down to her head tightly. She blinked in fright as nothing happened, she shivered and looked over to the desk; numerous sounds of confirmation rang out from the monitors. The guard seated was blinking slowly in boredom and sleep, he muttered flatly, “She’s just overwhelmingly panicked…” what he said next was quickly executed, “she’s fine, no signs of psychotic tendencies, you can send her through to blocks A to M.” There was a short pause, “The Administrator has recommendations for her.” The headset was hauled off her and she was lifted out of the chair, the seated guard yawned and skulked off towards another door muttering something to himself. Alyson was overwhelmed as it was, not aware of anything that was said, but she tried to calm her beating heart down and focus on what was next to come. The guard lead her through a pair of electric double doors labelled ‘A to M Gate’, which she could only suppose was a good thing: ‘no psychotic tendencies’. But she then found herself in a totally different room; it was hugely long as she could see the exit on the far side, it was dark on either side of a long central walkway that was lit from above. Ghosts of computers and armed guards floated and blinked in the shadows to the left and right, while the walkway was a route through several bizarre gateways and checkpoints. There was a computer console of considerable size connected to each gate, manned by two or three security personnel. “We’ve reset the system Jefferson, send her through.” This disembodied voice also sounded dull and bored, the guard who had accompanied her from the frigate lift removed the chains from her ankles and feet and nudged her forward. She was relieved to have the chains removed and to let her arms fall at her sides, but the guard immediately forced her up a few steps to the lit walkway. The guard behind her returned with an unusual device, a sort of pad on a steel stick. He searched her with one hand and ran the padded 15

stick over her at the same time. She could only assume the search was for weapons, but the stick must have been used for searching for explosive devices. Clearly they knew that she had not been searched until now. After a few moments he stopped and stepped down from the walkway. “Walk through the first gate please,” another disembodied voice ordered promptly. Alyson felt a multitude of unseen eyes staring at her from the darkness, as well as the sinister blue glow of electro-rods. She walked through the first gate, which was a thick oval-shaped gate lined with silver circular discs. Bracing herself, she passed through and nothing happened; she paused on the walkway as the same voice reported, “No chemical or toxic agents detected,” there was a long pause, “no biological diseases to be noted,” yet another pause, “no narcotics or drugs in her system.” She sighed in small relief, but a different voice barked from ahead of her, “Move through the next gate.” Alyson walked forward boldly towards the next gate which was a simple rectangle of steel, far from the menacing complexity of the previous and gave her no real anxiety. But suddenly a great wailing noise echoed through the long chamber. Alyson covered her ears and stepped quickly out of the gate to cease the racket. She looked around, eyes wide in alarm, but said nothing. “Metal has been detected,” the voice said as if it was a usual occurrence, she gritted her teeth at that man’s absent tone. “Strip please,” he added. She blinked and looked down at the point where she thought the voice was coming from, her heart thumped in her chest so much it would burst out of her ribcage with the pressure, and she found herself detesting the whole façade. She had been through weeks of depressing, hellish confinement on Deimos, practically rubbing shoulders with the other inmates, and all she wanted now was to be alone. She spoke for the first time in months, something she dreaded doing for all that time, fear of punishment, fear of consequence, but did it with the fitful spite that tore her up inside, “Where’s the pole?” The joke didn’t go down well, and she knew it wasn’t smart, but Alyson was on an emotional verge, a cliff face. A guard sprung out of the shadows, and jabbed the electro-rod into the small of her back. She fell to the walkway; it had been inactive yet again. The guard hauled her back onto her feet and snapped, 16

“Say anything like that again and I’ll make sure I use this properly!” he hissed with gritty amusement. “That’s enough, lieutenant Nowak,” a distant voice said somewhat calmly. The guard stepped down from the walkway and into the shadows, while Alyson reluctantly removed her clothes down to her underwear. She swallowed and regretted thinking it was ‘lucky’ to have had her old clothes in the first place. She stood nervously as the gruff voice repeated, “All of it,” Alyson’s eyes widened in disgust and she slowly did as instructed. Standing naked on the lit walkway, she felt abused and that all eyes were on her. “Walk through the next gate please,” the voice said unwaveringly. Alyson tried to walk casually, she wouldn’t have a fool made of her, but her body was shivering overwhelmingly. The next gate was another simple metal rectangle like the last. Once again the shrill siren wailed and she jumped and screamed shortly, a sigh echoed from the dark and she grit her teeth again. The voice continued laboriously, “Guard, search her,” Alyson saw a guard step to her level and she barked down at the hidden voice, partly anger, but mostly in terror. “I have fillings in my teeth! That’s what it is!” “Shut—” “Hold guardsman,” the voice ordered, the guard halted. “What metal is it?” Alyson shivered at his unseen, but focused attention, “Zinc?” she said shortly. “Remove Zinc from the metal detector,” the voice ordered. “Done sir,” another reported from the other side efficiently. The first voice said calmly, “Please, step through the gate again.” So she turned and walked steadily through the previous gate again, no sound was made. Alyson visibly sighed and nearly collapsed in released horror, she almost found herself crying, but did not. “Please move on,” the next disembodied accent said from the dark, it was a woman’s voice. Alyson sighed in relief with her small victory as the guard stepped down from the walkway, and she continued on. At the next point she was given a prison ship tunic and did not have to be told to put it on. Yet she had trouble pulling on the thin green pastel-coloured trousers, they were very tight around the waist; clearly because they could not have any pull-strings, elastic strips or zips – 17

‘potential weapons’. The sleeveless top was quite loose while the trousers were loose except for the waist line, and Alyson did not feel anymore clothed than she did moments ago, but she would get used to it. She had to. The next station was off the walkway, another lone bolted chair opposite a seated security officer and beside yet another giant computer mainframe. The officer had a monitor and a keyboard next to him, while the vacant chair had a pod like armrest that was connected to the mainframe, and appeared to be currently open. Alyson feared what this next torture scenario would be before she was seated in the chair and her arms were locked, her left forearm was locked within the wired up pod, concealing the skin within. The officer typed a few commands into his console and said to her, “This may sting a bit,” but from what she had just been through and experienced, she didn’t care much if it did. The pain that bit into her left forearm was sharp and exaggerated, she felt her skin being burned or cut and she shifted as best she could in the chair. The officer did not look in her direction throughout the procedure, only typed more into the computer. As Alyson squirmed in quiet, prolonged pain, words began to write themselves onto the officer’s screen beyond her view: Name: Valentine, Alyson Sex: Female Age: 28 DOB: 29.10.2671 Eye colour: Blue Hair colour: Black Height: 5′ 5″ Weight: 15kg Prison No: 151183 Criminal Record: The high-jacking of an IFSC at gunpoint Cerebral status: Clear The pain then ceased, the pod clicked open and additional bonds released from her arms, the officer looked to her expressionlessly, “You may go through to the cell blocks now.” Alyson was cradling her left arm as a single guard ordered her up and towards the long chamber’s exit. A laser had scored her forearm while it

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was within the pod, and now depressing and oppressive black lines of a barcode now stared back at her, permanent and everlasting. Slowly she was led, hurt and barefooted towards the electric exit doors, the guard at her back still wielding a charged electro-rod. She did not think of where she was going to next; she found herself not caring.

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Chapter 2: Block C, Sector 19, Cell 11 An insolent cheer rippled from the inmates of sector 19 as they all felt the Rigor Mortis’ engines power up, a determined shivering groan that rumbled through the very bones of the prisoners before settling down into a ceaseless drone. A short lived chanting song with lyrics along the lines of ‘We’re on our way’ echoed out from the particularly loudmouthed inmates of the sector. The sudden ruckus only woke Viggo York from a disturbing dream that he forever had about a familiar woman. He groaned, somewhat glad to be free of the reoccurring nightmare but also sickened as his spine remembered the hard compact bunk that it lay on. All of his bones felt twisted. His eyes blinked up at the empty upper bunk of the cell, the cells are usually only for one but sometimes there is need for doubling up. His ears rang with the lessening engine noise, and greeted the ever present hum of electrical lighting that were fitted into the ceiling panels, that noise was like water torture, but it was just low enough on the frequency to allow someone to sleep. Either that, or Viggo had simply adapted to it. That wasn’t the only noise however; a hissing and fluctuating whirr resonated from the purple plasma gate that barred his freedom from his small cell. The plasma gate irritated the senses during the day and illuminated the cell at night-hours, while more importantly, any object to pass through the energy barrier was vaporised entirely. Viggo arched his back while remaining lying down, he tried to block out the cheering of the other inmates, but he had adjusted to them long ago; he had been on the Rigor Mortis for about three and a half months now and they were merely something else to put up with. But as it was with prison, you always have something to keep you marginally sane: the thought of getting out. But Viggo felt there was no getting out of this, that they were just left in here to die, to waste away or to throw themselves at the plasma gates in a last ditch attempt of escape. But he had no desire to kill himself, none at all. Viggo was a mountain of a man, he was at least six foot tall and had easily enough strength to hold his own in a fight, and he had plenty of those in his lifetime to have proven himself capable. Having no access to scissors – for obvious reasons – his dark hair was long enough to curtain over his ears, longer on the right side. But it wasn’t his physique that

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bothered him however, and his eyes forever looked to the source of his torment. It was the barcode on his left forearm, the prison ship’s unique signature that stated him as part of its property; the lines were deep and black, and never changed. He often wondered how one would remove the permanent marks, and came to the conclusion someone would have to put a knife to their flesh and take a sizable chunk out. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at the thought, as he usually did. Viggo lay his head down again and considered where they were going, the guards never tell the prisoners anything about the destination, but happily watched as the inmates squabbled with differing ideas. Most of these ideas were bred straight from the conspiracy theorists back on Earth. Earth, the one place worse than this, thought Viggo sourly. He often wished to see the stars and the planets again, the Rigor Mortis had no windows except for the command decks and crewman decks, the prisoners had no sense of where they were or even what direction they were going. It was almost a year since Viggo saw a sunrise or anything like that. With gradual self-persuasion Viggo sat up on the bed to flex his aching back and muscles, and he immediately regretted it; “Hey the big Vicious is awake!” a loud raucous voice hollered from beyond the cell gate, from the cell opposite his own. “We’ve left Deimos! Hell has left the building!” Viggo shook his head in dismay, it was Adrian, Adrian Hunter, his supposed rival in this prison sector, though Viggo couldn’t remember signing anything. “What do you think Vig? Do you think we’ll get any new inmates today?” Viggo glanced over to Adrian who also sat on the end of his lower bunk. “They’d probably arrived already, so I doubt it,” Viggo replied shortly. Adrian shrugged and replied offbeat, “Uhh, probably, probably,” he looked up as two legs swung down from the top bunk, he grinned widely, “Ah my girl’s all awake from the excitement! Good sleep eh, Jacks!?” The woman that looked down at him was Sophia Jennifer Jackson, and shared the cell with Adrian, not that either of them complained. Adrian was a cocky loud fast-talker who got into more trouble than he could manage, he wasn’t as tall or as strong as Viggo, but his morals and unstable mindscape often made him violent beyond comparison. His blond hair was quite short, having been a crew-cut when he has arrived, and his eyes were dark but a fiery spark seemed to snap over them randomly. Sophia was not unlike Adrian, except she was an erratic, 21

extravagant prostitute. Her body had been so altered and changed making her physical age far younger than she really was. Her prison shirt barely contained her oversized breasts, while every strand of her long blond hair was artificial and never faded from a brilliant shine. The general ruckus continued and Viggo slumped back down onto his bunk, as there was nothing better to do, when the sector sergeant entered on the second and uppermost floor via a heavy steel bulkhead. “Quite down you bunch of girls! I suppose you know that we’ve now left Deimos?” he hollered. “Yes sergeant Dark Cloud!” Adrian mocked with the sergeant’s nickname with a laugh. “Enough of that already Adrian,” Raymond MacLeod muttered, “You want a good thrashing with an electro-rod again?” “Oh, yes please!” The sergeant shook his head. Sergeant MacLeod was heavily built and with dark skin, his uniform was identical with every other security officer on board the Rigor Mortis, and he was only one of three-hundred and ninety other sector sergeants onboard. But this was his sector, and though Adrian was a loud-mouth baboon and often got the others going, the sector was mostly passive; Raymond was partly relieved to have such a ‘quiet’ sector. “As you may have guessed we have some extra meat for this particular cold storage and I expect you to treat them as well as you treat yourselves,” Raymond’s voice sunk at the end of that sentence, knowing what the reality of that could well entail. Viggo had practically fallen asleep again, without a care in the world. “We have one free cell, cell twelve,” Raymond began to a guard that had accompanied him into the hall. “Put the first one into that cell, I have orders for the second,” he lowered his voice further. The guard then muttered questioningly, “Surely we’d put both in number twelve, sir? It’s standard practice.” Raymond looked at him steadily and replied, “I have orders from the Administrator herself.” The guard nodded, and turned away to walk back through the bulkhead doors. Moments later the inmates on sector 19’s second floor saw their new arrival, a scrawny half-starved man with unkempt brown hair, he was clutching a leather bound book in both hands. Down on the far end of the lower level Adrian tried to see this new prisoner, bring his face daringly close to the plasma gate.

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“Careful Adrian,” sergeant Raymond began with a chuckle, “you might loose something.” The new inmate was taken to the lift platform that was directly in front of the main entrance bulkhead, and was swiftly brought down to the lower level with a guard in tow. The bookworm was nudged forcibly down the centre of the level, five glowing plasma gates on either side, and ten dull and uninviting cells. He was brought to the only gate that shielded an empty cell; cell number 12, to the left of Viggo. The plasma gate went down with a common fizzle and a droning groan, before the guard pushed the prisoner into the cell, the shunt was enough to send the thin man sprawling to the floor. Throughout all of this Adrian was commentating, discussing loudly which cell this ‘stickman’ would be put into. It was a short game, Viggo knew that even a man like Adrian was wasting his breath; one new prisoner, one empty cell, it was quite obvious. Adrian then slumped back on his bunk, the excitement apparently over, “Well, all that for one… no, a half of a man, at least he’s not on my side—” The guard had returned to the second floor entrance as another prisoner was brought in. In an instant, Adrian’s face went so close to the plasma gate again that the hairs on his jaw were vaporised. “Hold your tongues ladies and gentlemen! It’s not one but two! Controversial! Hey Ray, can’t you count? There ain’t no free cells left!” “Yes I can count damnit Adrian!” Raymond spat, not liking how Adrian always tested his patience, as the guard led this next prisoner to the lift. Alyson Valentine looked around in suppressed interest, the ‘sector’ she had been brought to had twenty cells, all locked with glowing plasma screens, just like on Deimos. She saw many leering and unsettling faces in the cells, most of them on their own but some cells had two to a single room. One of the men was calling as if the whole situation was a sport. “Controversial decision by the Dark Cloud sergeant; how is this groundbreaking event going to shape out! Clearly this attractive young woman is on the bottom floor, clearly she’s going to go in with someone else, most of our records suggest she’s going with stickman there as he has just arrived, but we’ll have to wait and see!” Sergeant Raymond barked from the top level, making Alyson jump, “Christ man, shut up!”

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“She’s past cells fifteen and fourteen,” Adrian continued, his voice escalating as if to climax with an explosion, even Sophia’s eyes gleamed in interest. “She’s even past thirteen with One-shot Drew! She definitely going on the opposite side, so is she going with the stickman!?—” Alyson looked into cell twelve and saw the thin man the loudmouth was talking about, the slender book reader who she had seen on the frigate, he was cowering in the far corner of the cell, clutching the same book he had when Alyson last saw him. Bitterly the guard did not stop her at his cell, how much she had wished to talk with him and tell him to relax… “Sweet mother of—” “Adrian!” MacLeod was nearly spitting blood at the insolent man, yet his eyes switched quickly and tightly on the new prisoner. Alyson was stopped outside cell eleven, were one inmate was clearly lying down on the bottom bunk, feet towards the plasma screen; she could not distinguish his face from the shadows. The guard let the gate open and nudged her into the white lit cell, before closing it again. She stood motionless, only her head looked around the seemingly lifeless cell. Adrian eventually closed his mouth and looked to Sophia standing next to him; she was also staring at Alyson with muted shock. Adrian shrugged and muttered to his cell mate, “What’s with the world these days; so much controversy!” he glanced at cell eleven again, “There’ll be some fireworks tonight…” Alyson didn’t know what to do with herself, she could only stand and stare at a few small things, the cell was certainly minimal. The plasma screen was the most interesting thing; it was produced by hundreds of ports that lined the cell’s front doorway, which effectively was one of the walls. These ports produced powerful radiant lasers that criss-crossed the door’s expanse, creating a solid laser barrier which was impassable without instant death. Unfortunately, Alyson knew all this from her detention on Deimos, and the gate proved little interest. The rest of the cell was all steel and bunks that looked like they were made of concrete or hard rubber, bolted to the walls with firm poles. Again potential weapons were removed from the cells; there were no springs in the beds, and bed sheets of any kind were nonexistent. The only other two things were an electric wireless shaver – using technology similar to the electro-rods in energy supply – and a single remorseful toilet.

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She sighed, and only had a few seconds to glance at her inmate when an all too familiar voice hollered from beyond the cell, “So what’s your name, pretty-face?” Alyson’s lips just managed to form the ‘A’ when a shallow voice muttered from her lying inmate, “Don’t say anything if you don’t want to, he’ll probably make a joke of it.” Alyson glanced at him, he had his eyes shut and wore a weary smile on his face, and she frowned angrily at him as Adrian hollered again, “You gotta have a name! And don’t listen to that lump of muscle there!” Alyson turned sharply to Adrian and through the haze of two plasma screens she replied in a dignified tone, “Alyson Valentine.” Adrian was somewhat taken aback at her boldness, but still answered cheekily, “A pretty name, I’ve not had a Valentine’s card for a long while… don’t care to give me one?” The lying inmate had opened his eyes at the sound of a female voice, he had not even bothered looking at her until then, and he had examined her while Adrian had made his comeback. “I told you he would,” Viggo muttered up to her dryly. Alyson replied quickly to Adrian, ignoring her cellmate, “At least I’d have to jump through two plasma gates to give you one!” Viggo raised his eyebrows in slight surprise at her sudden rigor, his eyes alone flicked towards the man responsible to see a reaction. Adrian looked at Sophia in similar astonishment, and stuttered, “Aha… Well she’s certainly your kinda girl then Vicious!” Alyson sighed in relief and leaned against the wall opposite her lying inmate, she felt his eyes staring at her from the shadow of that bunk, and she tried to avoid staring back at them. “Don’t worry about Adrian, he’s always like that,” the voice said sombrely. Alyson smirked sourly, “You know him well do you?” “At least for longer than you have, unfortunately,” Alyson shrugged, she didn’t care what this man had to say, all she thought was unfortunate was for her to share a cell with anyone at all, except for one. “Is there any way to talk to the cell next to this one?” she asked him absently. Viggo opened his eyes again and looked at her, “What, you don’t like my company?” Alyson gave him a quizzical raised eyebrow, “Do you have anything interesting to say?” 25

Viggo grinned, “Is this a game of questions only?” “If it is do you want to win it?” Alyson replied slyly. “Do you think I’m that kind of guy?” “Isn’t that why you started this?” “Is that a ‘yes’?” Alyson leaned back and looked down at him in a superior manner, he was playing with her, she asked in a renewed tone, “What’s your name?” Viggo then sat up on the bunk and brought his face into the light, “My name’s Viggo York, yours is Valentine?” She nodded, “Alyson,” Viggo nodded too, “A nice name,” “With a ‘y’,” she added. “Even better,” he said with a slight smile. A silence descended on the cell, though it was broken continuously with other cell mates talking, the trooping footsteps of patrolling guards, the endless drone of electrical lights and engine noise. It was a silence between both of them. Alyson leaned heavily on one leg, and Viggo shifted to one side on the bunk, “Sit down if you’d like.” She gratefully sat down next to him, and sighed deeply without a word. Viggo stared at her, analysing her profile, a curved and pointed nose, a small chin and small lips, but her eyes were wide and awake, blue and radiant. “Are you not tired?” he asked. “Terribly,” she replied shortly, eyes suddenly downcast and grey. “Ship changing like that can do that to most people; a lot of pressure changing and different gravity levels, weird shit like that.” She inclined her head to one side to look at him, “You swear a lot?” He mirrored her incline, “Why, do you not?” She shook her head, looking away, “I’ve just been away from people speaking for so long, I almost forgot that I could speak myself.” Viggo smirked, “Adrian must have given you a right headache,” “He certainly did!” Alyson laughed, looking towards cell one, directly opposite their cell. A voice then crackled onto a loudspeaker somewhere, it was a female voice, clear and crisp, full of potential but also a sleek, underlying deception, “Lights out in two hours, all new prisoners are to remember sector rules: violence will not be tolerated, be kind to your cellmate. Message ends.”

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Viggo looked to Alyson as she said softly, “I’ve already heard that today,” “Don’t worry, you’ll hear it tomorrow morning, afternoon and evening again,” he muttered dully. Alyson yawned unexpectedly and said, “Things don’t really happen around here do they?” Viggo nodded, “No, you’ve just had the most interesting part, wish I could do that again.” Alyson looked at him slightly bemused, “What, you really want to be tortured and stripped naked again?” “Beats being in here,” Alyson smiled weakly, “Thank you for giving such confidence…” she yawned again, “I’m so tired…” Viggo stood up from the bunk saying, “You sleep here, and I’ll go above,” Alyson slowly lay down on her side on the bottom bunk, immediately closing her eyes, but said slowly, “Thank you Viggo, you aren’t as bad as I first thought.” He nodded sombrely to her before climbing up onto the upper bunk and lying flat on his back on the near rock hard mattress. Viggo lay for hours in silence, wondering about his new inmate and her apparent good nature. He didn’t think about that for long, instead he thought about why she was put in his cell, an unlikely choice at first, Adrian had voiced that for everyone to hear; she should have been put in with the other newbie, Viggo had been in prison long enough to know that it was prison rules. His eyebrow rose, perhaps she was here to ‘test’ him, perhaps she isn’t even a prisoner, but a sort of undercover guard sent by the administrator to check on his mental status. He shook his head and banished the theories from his mind; those sorts of thoughts could drive you mad if you kept at them. She seemed natural enough, and he would make sure no harm came to her while she was in his cell.

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Chapter 3: First day With great speed the Rigor Mortis had cleared the asteroid belt, and not without great fortune; the ship had not been critically damaged. Most interplanetary craft have automatic proximity defence lasers – APDLs – scattered over key points on the outer hull, these lasers track effectively nearby objects and disintegrate them. Of course, usually the lasers are deactivated, or else all ships wishing to dock with the Rigor Mortis would have been destroyed in similar fashion, so they are only activated when ships are entering the asteroid belt. Luna was primary in the research of such technology, and APDLs were the first developed, heralding the way for solar system exploration by space craft. But there was now an expanse of star sprinkled darkness between the Rigor Mortis and the gargantuan orb of Jupiter, yet even from this distance it looked the size of mother Earth close up. Many commanders still gasp in awe when Jupiter is on their monitors, while a great deal of concentration is required; Jupiter is massive, and with it an enormous gravitational field that drags ships and debris helplessly into the storm. All pilots and commanders are well aware of the safe distance, and have done ever since exploration began. If that was a long distance now, then the journey to Pluto’s orbit of the sun would seem a lifetime, however, the old but effective thetacombustion engines the prison ship had were quite capable of bringing her and her cargo to the solar edge in just under six Terran months. It was mid-day on the prison ship and all of the prisoners in sector 19 had gone to the mess hall for their morning meals, except Alyson Valentine. She had been asleep for the entire morning and was still asleep at just passed noon, giving her a maximum total of twelve hours sleep. Viggo had not woken her in the morning, he noticed that she was dreaming and had let her sleep for however long she needed although now, at their lunch hour, he had to wake her. He sat on the edge of the bunk and stirred her with a hand on her shoulder. In her semi-conscious state he saw her smile, a warm and happy smile; he smiled too, but knew that she won’t appreciate remembering where she really was. “Alyson, Alyson wake up…”

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She stirred now, slowly the sounds of droning engines and hissing plasma screens invaded her last dream of the night, she twisted her body uncomfortably; recognising the stiff bunk. “Oh… oh god, you shouldn’t have woken me,” she muttered dozily. Viggo nodded and replied, “You think I don’t know what mornings here are like? But I had to wake you; it’s already noon.” Alyson was rubbing her eyes unhurriedly, but then blinked in surprise, “What, how’s it noon already?” Viggo grinned impishly, “You’ve slept through the morning, and I didn’t wake you as I thought you needed all the sleep you could get.” She quickly sat up on the bunk and nearly knocked her head on the top bunk, “You shouldn’t have let me sleep for so long!” A voice was heard from beyond the cell, “So sleeping beauty’s awake now!” it was Adrian, “quite an unusual prince,” he scoffed. Alyson looked drearily back at Viggo, “You should have killed me in my sleep,” she said with irony. But Viggo didn’t take it as a joke and replied coldly, “Don’t say things like that.” He then stood up and stepped away from the bed. Alyson was too tired to register his tone of voice or harsh answer, she only cringed as she stretched her back and arms painfully, shaking the syndromes of the bunk from her body. “So,” she began slowly, blinking even slower, “what’s for lunch?” All of the twenty-six prisoners from sector 19 were escorted by a handful of security guards down the corridors towards the mess hall, which was only a short walk from the sector. There were no detour routes that any prisoner could take, most doors that they passed were electrically locked, and the key cards were either on every security guard or only with the sector sergeant. It seemed like nothing of the ship was picturesque to Alyson, though she had not expected it to be anything else, the surfaces were all mottled gunmetal, the floor was cool to her bare feet, and the inset lights were an illuminating brightness above her head. When they were all brought to the mess hall, a somewhat large room of metal walls and floor with an assembly of stainless steel tables and chairs, the security guards stood and kept watch on as each prisoner sat down. Alyson noted that the chairs and tables were unsurprisingly bolted to the floor, and that there wasn’t a kitchen in sight. Peering around the strangely amiable inmates she spotted the book-reader, sitting isolated away from the others, reading his book. Alyson stared at him for some time. 29

Viggo, seeing her sharp eyed gaze looked over his shoulder asking, “What is it?” Alyson replied, “That man, I want to talk to him,” Viggo gave her a questioning look, “Why?” “I don’t know…” A metal tray was practically dropped down on the table in front of her before she could finish speaking, nearly spilling its contents all over her. One was ‘placed’ in front of Viggo as well, a few moments later plastic cups full of water were also served. Alyson looked at the soup that was before her and asked dubiously, “What is this?” Viggo peered down to examine it closely, then looked at her, “One way to find out,” he lifted a spoon with a serrated edge and took some of the creamy soup. “My god,” a voice shouted from somewhere in the hall, “it’s poisoned!” there was a thump as someone fell from their chair. Viggo paid no attention and drank the soup; Alyson looked at him, frowning in concern. He explained, “It’s just Adrian… he does that every time…” Alyson looked over to the joker who stumbled back into his chair, an acknowledging look cast on her face. She turned back to her cellmate, “So what is it?” He looked up at her, pulling the spoon from his lips curiously, “I don’t know, could be chicken, but it could be a form of fungi pulled off a passing asteroid… try it yourself,” he took another spoonful. Alyson stared at him amused, “The way you are going, I’m guessing its fine; I have dealt with Deimos food before this.” Viggo pointed the spoon at her, “You were at Deimos?” Alyson shivered as the warm soup passed down her throat, she nodded. “Yes, were you?” Viggo replied, “Yes, but I guess I was there before you, well before.” He drank some of the water from the cup, and gritted his teeth in disgust; “Now that is foul.” “So did you live near Deimos?” he asked moments later, “No,” Alyson replied with a shake of her head, “I was on one of the Venus Orbitals, what about you?” “Phobos, I was pretty much right next to the detention world of the solar system,” Viggo replied hoarsely. Alyson fiddled with her serrated spoon thoughtfully, “I wish I was back on that Venus station…” 30

Viggo looked at her with a disapproving face, he himself imagining his home planet, and not appreciating it much. “How did you wind up on Deimos?” Alyson looked at him with hollow eyes; the bright blue was a sullen grey, like shallow rock pools on a cloudy day. Viggo felt somewhat uneasy with the ghostly gaze. She looked down, and replied with a sigh, “I don’t think this lunch break is long enough to explain it.” She then continued to eat, while Viggo watched her closely, as if trying to burrow into her mind. He shook himself out of the trance and got back to the soup in front of him. Alyson had nearly finished her mysterious soup by the time she spoke again, she found herself uncontrollably hungry; probably because of only having one meal the whole previous day. She glanced up at Viggo, who sat in subdued silence, “So what did you do on Phobos?” He met her eyes again, which had regained some of their colour, he answered, “Believe it or not, I was part of the police force,” “Really,” she began, with honest surprise, “I was a Lieutenant, had my own space bike, badge and all.” Viggo smiled, he saw the next question forming on Alyson’s lips: how did you get here? and he stopped her promptly by asking, “What about you?” She smiled and looked to her now empty tray, “I was going to be a Venerian scientist, like my mother was… but I failed to get my PhD in physics, quite the drag.” Her short cut hair was insufficient to hide her face, but she bowed her head instead. Viggo watched her again, wondering more than ever what had brought her here. “Well I can tell you are more intelligent than me!” Viggo replied heartily, Alyson smiled and looked up at him, “Thank you, Viggo,” he shrugged off the compliment. “Right you lot, back to your cells!” the guard lieutenant shouted over the seated inmates. Viggo pulled himself to his feet, “Already,” Alyson asked in surprise, looking around as she stood up, “you don’t get much time out of the cells do you.” ”No,” he replied shortly as guards approached and began to file them out of the mess hall. Alyson noticed that the inmate with the book was led out first, and she would have no time to speak with him. Still, she wasn’t going anywhere and neither was he, she would talk to him sooner or later. So all twenty-six prisoners were led back the same route they had came, and were put back into their separate cells without incident. Alyson was surprised at this, no one even attempted to escape at any point; she 31

could remember multiple inmates on Deimos trying and failing to escape, perhaps these prisoners were more subdued than she had thought. Once they were back into their cells, Viggo seemed strangely quiet to Alyson, as if he was expecting something. He climbed up to the top bunk and sat, while Alyson did likewise with the bottom bunk. An uneasy air of waiting grew on them. It seemed almost entirely logical for Adrian to shout something to them at that point, “Are you ready for a right thrashing Vicious!? Thirteen against thirteen it looks like!” Alyson looked up at Viggo, whose face was flat and expressionless. “What is he talking about now?” Her inmate sighed regrettably, “Because it’s your first day, and your quiet friend’s first day, it seems we have to play a game of Grav-Ball; the prison’s traditional game.” “I’ve heard of it,” Alyson began, slightly uneasily, “but how do they let prisoners play it? It’s a violent sport, and you need armour and helmets and a special ball.” Viggo shook his head slowly, “It’s not a real game of Grav-Ball; it’s an easier, less violent one. But still, I hope you’re fit.” She almost laughed with black mirth and added, “Not exactly,” she looked over to Adrian, “But why did he say it to you specifically?” “He and I are team leaders, the teams are the opposing cells in this sector; ten cells versus ten cells.” “So I’m on your team,” Alyson mused, “that’s a relief.” Viggo chuckled, “Not exactly, Adrian has some of the worst ones on his side, not to mention himself and Sophia.” Alyson laughed, “What, a prostitute is good at a sport like Grav-Ball?” “You’d be surprised,” he said calmly, dousing her mirth. “There’s no real ‘championship’ either, it goes on until the ship reaches its destination, and then the team with most points… wins.” Moments passed in mild silence, even though Adrian was shouting his words of encouragement to his own unenthused team, until the sector lieutenant appeared and shouted over them. “All right, get down to the Grav-Ball arena.” As Grav-Ball’s name suggests, the sport involves gravity and a ball, the arenas are totally enclosed and the gravity is conditioned to be less than the standard gravity of Earth, in fact playing Grav-Ball is close to walking on the Moon. The effect of reduced gravity allows the players 32

to jump up to the ceiling of the arena, and then drop slowly and safely back to the floor, or they can jump forward in great bounds. More advanced players have been known to make acrobatic leaps and twists while in midair, sometimes even running on the walls. In traditional Interplanetary Grav-Ball the ball would be a special powered ball which can change its weight and projection randomly, allowing it to act like a feather or a rock, or swing about wildly through the air. This is far too dangerous without special armour padding and helmets to protect the players from serious injury. However the prison ships’ version of GravBall is toned down; the ball is a simple basketball or American Football, and thus the players do not need special armour, which incorporates plastic, metal, wire and plating which could be used as lethal weapons. Plus the Prison Company does not care for their inmates’ health and safety a great deal. The objective of the game as Alyson found out from the instructor is the same as in traditional Grav-Ball, each team must score the highest amount of points before the time limit is over, teams gain points by throwing or kicking the ball through the opposing team’s goal. The goals are two suspended rings, held in mid air by small anti-gravity generators. The two teams are designated colours, red and blue, Adrian’s team was red, while Viggo’s team was blue. Alyson felt strange when the doors were locked and the gravity was changed within the arena; her weight seemed to be nonexistent and footsteps were fleeting skips over the metal floor. Looking around she saw no guards, or a ball for that matter. Everyone was ‘standing’ on the floor, team facing team, guarding their own goals, and that was one thing Alyson didn’t like the sound of; inmates ‘guarding’ the goal. How exactly did they guard it? If you came close would they punch and break your jaw? How and where was the line drawn? The book reader was also there, but he had his back to the wall, near the door they had entered from and his hands were tight to the metal. Alyson floated over to him, she almost felt angelic with her fleeting footsteps and gaining speed. She reached him and asked softly, “What’s your name?” He looked at her in alarm, but also seemed to recognise her, “Who are you?” She smiled slightly, trying to gain his confidence, “My name’s Alyson Valentine, what’s yours?” “You were on the frigate, the one that brought us here?” he asked slightly. “That’s right,” 33

He sighed in brief relief, and Alyson took that as a good omen. “My name is Daniel, err, Daniel Major,” “Good to meet you Daniel,” Alyson replied with another honest smile. Before she could say more a horn blast sounded and echoed around the arena while a commotion began between the other inmates. Alyson turned to them and was drawn to look up to the ceiling, a porthole opened in the roof and a spherical ball dropped slowly through it, and descended as light as a feather. Adrian was seen springing off the floor into a jump that sent him towards the ball; he floated up like a wingless bird before spiking the ball hard with one fist sending it hurtling down to the floor and bouncing hard back into the air at twice the speed. Adrian then caught the ball when it returned to him, “Vicious get your team organised!” he shouted down as he drifted weightlessly. Viggo turned to Alyson and Daniel and called, “Come on, we gotta do this,” Alyson was about to turn and walk towards Viggo, when Daniel gripped her arm and hissed, “I don’t want to.” Alyson looked at him, but didn’t remove his hand, “What? We have to,” “I’ve seen what happens to people who play this game…” he had genuine fear cast on his face. Alyson swallowed. She turned away from him and he removed his hand from her arm, and skittered over to Viggo who stood waiting with the rest of the criminal team. “He’s not playing,” Alyson told him, “What? He has to—” “Well he’s not,” she told him again firmly, “I see no reason why he shouldn’t—” Adrian hollered, “What’s goin’ on down there!?” Alyson turned to him, craning her neck up to address him, “Daniel is not playing the game!” Adrian looked puzzled, “Daniel? Who’s Daniel?” “That,” Alyson pointed to the cowering figure at the wall, “is Daniel! Now let’s get on with this!” “Hmm…” Adrian mused as he floated over them, “I don’t see why…” he then let the ball float in midair beside him and readied a fist. He then shouted, “Daniel! Catch!” Adrian thumped the ball hard with his fist and the orb shot down towards the wall stricken figure. Daniel had heard Adrian, and saw the ball rapidly approach, but he did nothing but close his eyes. 34

“No!” Alyson shouted out and jumped towards Daniel. She felt her body float freely through the air; her push had given her the momentum to intercept the hurrying ball. She focused on the ball and feared of missing it completely; there was little she could do now to slow down or go faster. But as it became clearer and more certain, she was unsure of what to do next. Viggo raced forward as the ball struck into Alyson’s chest while she was in mid-flight, and the ball’s force hit her backward and she thudded into the metal wall, just to the side of cowering Daniel. Viggo dashed across the floor with Grav-Ball skill developed over months of gaming and came to Alyson’s side. She was still breathing, but she lay on the floor with the ball in her hands. “Alyson, are you all right!?” he asked anxiously. She nodded quickly, her breath rapid, “Yes, it just knocked the wind out of me, is Daniel all right.” “Of course he is,” Viggo nearly snapped, seeing her move as foolhardy, especially to help a total stranger, he only realised however than he was also a stranger to her. “This is pathetic,” the heard Adrian saying from above, as he pirouetted in the air, “Come on Vicious get going!” Viggo took the ball from his team-mate’s hands and gestured for her to stay were she was, he then stood up and drift-jogged over to his remaining team. “We’re down two players, but we’re gonna win anyway, all right?” he snarled, his irritation with Adrian evolving into anger. He looked to ‘One-shot’ Drew, she was one of his best players, she had short albino white hair that was longer to one side, ice blue eyes and thin lips. He nodded, “Let’s play ball!” At the order, his whole team jumped into the air, two of them jumping forward across the floor to reach the opposing team’s territory. Viggo nimbly shunted one of Adrian’s players aside as he flew up to the ceiling; all eyes were on the ball and Viggo pushed off the ceiling with one hand to go down again, but lobbed the ball high and to the left. The ball was caught easily by Drew who was close to the wall. Viggo’s dummy shot caught out some of Adrian’s players, and they had to rebound off the floor or opposing wall to go towards Drew, but some were not so easily fooled. Drew held the ball under her right arm, and literally ran across the left wall at a slanted angle; Adrian was fast approaching her from the front, and dived up to catch her legs. But the albino pounced forward,

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leaving the wall and aiming for the red goal ring. Adrian thumped into the wall, grazing his chin on the metal. But one of the red players was ready and defended the ring; he had climbed the back wall and sprung off towards the ring. The player reached the ring first and grabbed it with one hand and swung around, his feet impacted into Drew’s side as she floated helplessly towards the ring. The ball flew out of her hands and into Sophia’s grasp. Sophia was adrift in midair, and could not push off from any surface; however Viggo and two other blue players were fast approaching having launched from the blue back wall. The blond woman, with her hair a great golden mist around her head threw the ball hard towards the ground; it bounced off the deck and darted up to the blue wall. It then continued to bounce off that wall and had enough momentum to float up and clear through the back of the blue ring. “One to the reds!” Adrian cackled from the other end of the arena. Alyson sat watching next to Daniel, and shook her head; Viggo had said that the blond prostitute was good at Grav-Ball, but she still couldn’t believe it. Viggo reclaimed the ball and stood within the blue ring, bare feet on the metal rim, Adrian called out to him, “Watch it Viggo! Don’t want an own goal!” other reds began to laugh as they descended to the floor or approached a wall, ready to pounce. Viggo spotted all of his players in position, but that wasn’t his plan. With surprising grace he pushed off the floating ring and sailed across the arena, ball under arm. All of the reds jumped up to intercept him as he headed directly for the red ring, Viggo noted Drew was running across the left wall again towards the red ring area, but she would be caught out by a defender. Midway towards the red goal, nearly the whole team of reds were on top of him, Viggo released the ball in front of him before nailing it hard with a fierce punch. The Grav-Ball blasted out of reach of the red players as they all piled into Viggo, and it shot clear and true through their ring. A cheer went up from the blue team as the reds slowly released Viggo from their grasp. Alyson smiled from the floor down below. The score was now even, and the reds regained possession of the ball, it was Sophia who held the ball, floating beside the red goal. She commenced the game again almost immediately, lunging towards the left wall again she began to run across it, Adrian was close behind her, and then they ran beside each other. The blue team had gone to wall or floor and launched themselves towards the two runners, Drew in fact raced vertically up the 36

wall to cut off Sophia unaware. However the red team player was ready and she threw the ball over to Adrian just as Drew collected her legs and toppled her against the wall. Adrian paced himself as he approached the blue goal, blue players were hurling themselves at him, often missing completely and crashing into the wall or bouncing off the ceiling. Viggo was waiting for him behind the blue ring, and then pushed off the wall to fly towards Adrian. The red player was about to throw the ball clear through the ring when Viggo flew into him, catching Adrian round the waist with one arm. Adrian was pushed off the wall and Viggo sent them both into a spin of limbs and cursing faces. Viggo hit hard at the ball under Adrian’s arm but could not punch it out, while the red team collaborated to ready for their leader to throw the ball. As the reds approached, as did the blues, each player found themselves fighting with another player, twisting bodies and swinging fists and kicking feet, while the leaders tangled in their own fight for the ever demanded Grav-Ball. Suddenly Adrian’s grip slipped, and Viggo managed to punch the ball away before releasing the red leader. As the ball drifted clear of him, Adrian reached the left wall and pushed off after the free running ball. No one was near the ball, everyone was in their own fight; the Grav-Ball sailed downwards towards the floor. But not everyone was in their own fight, and Viggo had not given chase because of this, he only grinned. Adrian then hollered in realisation, “No! Someone get back to the ring, you idiots!” Adrian could do nothing, he was free falling with nothing to change his path, and blue players were tangling up his reds in separate fights. The ball bounced on the floor once, before being caught by Alyson, who stood on the floor. She turned to the crimson goal. Adrian was gaining on her, but in all that time Alyson was somewhat afraid of jumping into the air roughly towards the red ring and letting gravity take charge of her body. But she did, and she sailed through the air like a bird without wings. She looked behind her as she ascended to see Adrian land on the ground and quickly jump after her. He was fitter and his legs were longer and stronger, making his ascension even quicker than hers, he was fast approaching, and the game time was running out. But with little more than blind hope Alyson threw the ball ahead of her awkwardly, her first time in playing Grav-Ball she had no expertise in aiming. But Adrian grabbed her round the waist to drag her down, and she lost sight of the ball. Another cheer echoed out and Alyson knew then that ball had passed through the red goal ring, and with Adrian’s pull on her, she was 37

able to descend to the floor safely. A horn rang out moments later, there had been no chance of Adrian’s team scoring another goal to tie the game, and he cursed his disapproval as the gravity was steadily returned to normal. “I thought she wasn’t playing! I thought I was told you had two players out; how’d she get to just join in!?” Viggo looked at him as he was the one Adrian was addressing, but Alyson replied slyly, “I never said I wasn’t playing, I said Daniel wasn’t, and after all, who caught the ball you threw at him?” Adrian glared at her, then at Viggo, but did nothing and said nothing. He and his team stalked, skulked and strolled out of the arena once the doors had opened. Viggo approached Alyson and said softly, “Impressive for your first day of Grav-Ball,” Alyson rolled her eyes, “I really didn’t know what I was doing,” “Are you going to the showers now?” he asked, She looked somewhat scared at the notion, “No, no, I’m not that bad, I barely played to even break a sweat!” Viggo nodded, “Well, you had an easy game today, in fact everyone was a little easy today; expect the next time to be worse.” She nodded reluctantly and then saw Daniel standing at the wall still. “You go on ahead Viggo,” Daniel watched Alyson as she approached and the others had left. She turned him to the door and said sweetly, “See, not really that difficult is it?” He laughed with her but he was still shaky, “Thank you… for before. I hope you aren’t hurt?” “No I’m not,” she replied, “maybe a little bruised in the morning but, nothing life-threatening.” “I’m sorry,” Daniel apologized, “Hey, you have nothing to apologise for;” Alyson said quickly, “all I want is to talk to you in the mess hall later today all right.” He nodded, and replied stuttering, “Okay.” Alyson led him out of the arena, to be greeted by the ever present armed guards. Later that day Alyson was finally able to talk with Daniel in the mess hall over their dinner meal, which Adrian had found a dead cockroach in his food, it turned out to be another joke, but Viggo had 38

claimed that does happen more than she would like to imagine. But Alyson was able to learn that Daniel was also from a Venus orbital station like her and that they both may not have lived far from each other. Unfortunately he was not the type to be dealing with PhDs in Physics; he was more into the Arts and writing. With this in mind Alyson asked him how he had been landed in prison, he explained very briefly something to do with narcotics and a museum raid, in which he played some roll in dreaming up and planning. For all of his scrawny looks, Daniel was quite intelligent and knew a great deal about prison ship management and the hierarchy of command. But that was all she could talk about to him before the guards led them back to their cells for the night hours. Once there Alyson felt suddenly tired and fell asleep almost immediately, but she was not as dozy as the previous night, and found herself waking again. She had been woken by an unusual thumping noise from beyond her cell, repeating and accompanied by quiet groans and sighs. Alyson peered dozily through the purple plasma just above her head. “You’re awake,” Viggo muttered quietly from above her, he had heard her shifting on the bunk. Alyson whispered up to him, “What is that?” Viggo smirked, “What do you think it is; Adrian and Sophia of course.” She narrowed her eyes a bit and could see into Adrian’s cell, and she registered two naked bodies locked together on the bottom bunk. She groaned, “Great… I’ll never get to sleep now,” Viggo shrugged, “You get used to it,” he muttered lowly. “I very much doubt that,” Alyson replied huskily, moving to lie on her back, and trying to block out the ecstatic sighs from across the way. “They don’t do that every night do they?” “You guessed right,” Viggo answered shortly, Alyson sighed in disgust. “I don’t know, it’s just like having live porn,” he added with a smirk. She replied with black mirth, “You shouldn’t have said that.” Moments passed them by and indeed Alyson couldn’t get to sleep with the erotic sounds emanating from the opposite cell. Viggo noticed that she wasn’t sleeping, and took the opportunity in asking, “Saying you’re not getting to sleep, how about telling me about why you’re here in the first place…” “You mean, what crime did I commit?” “Something like that,” “I hi-jacked an IFSC, to cut a long story short,” Alyson replied grimly.

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Viggo turned on his side with interest, looking away from Adrian’s cell, “You mean an Interplanetary Financial Safety Craft don’t you?” she nodded, “How did you manage that, and why?” Sighing again, Alyson lay on her back and remembered, and to the continuous sexual moans and groans she told what happened: “If you really want the long story, I don’t really know where to start. I suppose it began when I failed my PhD in Physics, and my family were no closer to solving the Venus research – they were trying to find a way to make Venus habitable again – and make unimaginable profits and breakthroughs by doing so. But they could not find a way, and it seemed to me that I was not helping, as far as I could see, I wasn’t even going to be a scientist and follow in their footsteps, to try and get the solution the family had dreamt of if my parents never did it. “There was no way my family was going to continue the research with the funding they had, and then they would have been replaced by a new group of researchers from Earth. I was so angry that the Government wouldn’t fund us that I was going to make sure my family get the funding they needed. I would save the family business, the youngest and the failed PhD girl would sort it out. “I took the family space bike and the space suit one night, and I flew out in search for an IFSC. At the night hours there are more than enough of them flying around the system. I tracked one and flew up beside it before boarding, I had taken my father’s particle gun before I left the house, and I held the command crew with it. “After that I told them to disengage the engines and take me to the hold. Those IFSCs only have two crewmen, and I knew I could easily take the right amount of credits back on my space bike and back home. The crewmen could not see my face and I wore gloves to avoid fingerprints anywhere, everything was set.” Viggo spoke from above her, “But something went wrong?” “One of the crew, I don’t know exactly how, must have nudged the silent alarm beacon; I hadn’t even got hold of the money when the police ships arrived. I suppose my ignorance and insecurity stopped me from actually taking one of the crewmen hostage…” her voice drifted. Viggo asked, “So what did you do?” Alyson smiled weakly, and she felt her eyes watering slightly, she cleared her throat. “I handed myself in… and I was taken to court on Mars…” Viggo remained silent for a long time, as did Alyson, only Adrian and Sophia’s groans were quickening and would cease only in a matter of time. Viggo and Alyson both waited impatiently, the sounds were almost 40

unbearable even to them, and they somewhat sighed in relief when it was over, and the rapid jerking had ceased. However in a few moments a guard walked into the hallway and stopped outside Adrian’s cell and Alyson watched as the guard spoke hardly. “You two rabbits have finally stopped! I’m not gonna be a doctor when you have that baby.” Sophia’s voice hollered back at him loudly, “I’m not having a baby you prick! I’ve taken Thanatos pills!” “Whatever!” the guard muttered before walking away. “I’ve heard of Thanatos pills,” Alyson mused in the all too welcome silence, Viggo added, “Thanatos, as in Greek myth for ‘Death’, one pill makes you infertile for life. I think they developed it on Earth, years ago.” “I thought about taking one,” Alyson admitted softly, “I suppose every girl does when they are young…” “But you didn’t?” “Of course not…” she replied, “it was far too much of a risk. But I suppose Sophia doesn’t regret it at all.” Viggo sighed, “Now you know why her nickname is ‘Jacks’,” Alyson laughed softly, “But you better try and sleep,” he added, “they’ll be back at it soon.”

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Chapter 4: Cellular Lifestyle The Rigor Mortis commanders had stuck within the safety distance as was practiced, and the prison ship glided round the side of Jupiter, still some time is taken to clear the gas giant, well over a day. Currently the crewmen of the Rigor Mortis stationed to the ship’s left would see only the giant swirling reds, whites and oranges of the planet, not one glimpse of space. However the prisoners would have no notion of passing the hugely picturesque planet, they have no idea of the outside world unless the Administrator tells them so, and had it not been for the noise that the engines made, they wouldn’t even know they were moving at all. It was still a long journey towards Saturn’s orbit, then Uranus, then Neptune and finally Pluto, still only just under three months. Viggo woke rather suddenly in the morning and blinked feverishly as a very familiar nightmare ended, and the fierce bright cell lights burned into his skull. He heard a creaking, rocking sound from somewhere nearby, and it certainly wasn’t Sophia and Adrian getting it on again. He peered over the edge of his bunk drowsily to see Alyson on her back on the floor, doing sit-ups with her feet tucked under her bunk to steady her. “Wow, you’re awake at last,” she said in mid-breath. “Yeah… bad dreams,” he rubbed the back of his neck roughly, “What are you doing?” She looked at him as she pulled her upper body up and down, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m exercising,” she breathed deeply. “Why?” he asked, rotating his shoulders gently. Alyson stopped, her muscles giving out momentarily and she lay gasping. “I figured I needed to get fitter to do better at Grav-Ball…” Viggo stared at her, “It’s not that important.” She shook her head and sat up, “Can you think of a better way to waste the time?” Viggo shrugged and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, “What time is it anyway?” He was answered by a female voice over the tannoy system; it was the icy cold Administrator’s voice, “Current Terran time is eleven-hundred hours.” He blinked in surprise, “I missed breakfast?” “You sure did,” Alyson said beginning her sit-ups again, somewhat more staggered now than before. 42

Viggo dropped to the floor and peered out of the plasma screen, the guards were on their usual patrol, but Sergeant MacLeod was no where to be seen, he had been away for some time. Viggo spotted Adrian and Sophia opposite him, kissing extravagantly on the bottom bunk. Viggo called, “Good sleep then Adrian!?” Adrian broke away from Sophia’s lips to reply, “Yeah, best I’ve had in a long time,” “Yes, a long time as in…well… since the previous night.” Adrian laughed while embraced with his inmate, “How was your night?” “The same, restless,” Viggo replied honestly, implying Adrian’s responsibility in the matter. Adrian chuckled and said while kissing, “You should try what I do, quite fulfilling.” Viggo’s face darkened and glanced at Alyson who was now doing pushups relentlessly, he turned back to Adrian and snapped, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” “Yes mom,” Adrian laughed. “What was that about?” Alyson asked, her thin arms buckling. “Nothing, it’s nothing,” Viggo replied shortly, sitting on the lower bunk, watching her. Alyson gave up and collapsed to the metal floor, “I’m finished, damn my weak arms,” Viggo looked at her up and down, eyeing her closely as she lay there, “I mean how am I supposed to throw a Grav-Ball with these arms?” she twisted onto her side to look at him. She caught his staring eyes for a moment, “What is it?” Viggo shook himself and looked directly at her eyes, “Nothing, I was just thinking.” “What?” He looked around, but found himself looking back at her bright blue eyes, “I think I’ll join you,” he answered awkwardly but boldly. Alyson looked at him slightly puzzled as he lay down beside her and stuck his feet under the lower bunk; he began to do sit-ups quickly. Alyson watched his concentrating face of granite before lying down on her back next to him. They both exercised for a while in silence, Viggo keeping to himself seemingly, while Alyson thought hard about the look he had given her. The woman then stopped and asked, “Viggo?” “Hmm-hmm,” he muttered as he flexed his upper body upwards easily. 43

“Did you have any family on Phobos, like I had on Venus?” He continued working as he answered, “No, not like you. I had a girlfriend, though that…” he paused, though continued his sit-ups, “that didn’t work out,” he finished without expression. Alyson stared at him, somewhat uneasily, and then asked, “No family at all?” “I was an only child, my mother and father died in a shuttle accident.” Alyson swallowed painfully, “That’s terrible, I’m sorry.” “It was a while ago,” Viggo said huskily, “I don’t remember that much about it.” He stopped, and lay flat on the floor thinking, “I did have a dog though,” he added with a slight smile to her. Alyson returned the smile, “I had a cat, named Callisto,” “That’s original… in this day and age,” Viggo laughed, “Well what can I say; I’m not good with names…” Viggo smiled slightly offbeat between sit-ups, and said “My dog was called Sirius, after Orion’s hunting dog.” Alyson made a few more sit-ups, she seemed better at those than armbreaking push-ups. “You seem to know your stuff about mythology? Or am I wrong?” “It’s pretty slim,” he answered. Alyson then asked, her voice now broken with gasps, “Was Sirius a police dog?” Viggo nodded, “Well done, he was a police dog… a very good one at that—” He was stopped as Alyson collapsed flat on her back exhausted, “That’s enough of that!” “Don’t overwork yourself,” Viggo said as he continued to exercise. “But…” she began breathlessly, “look at you! You’re still going strong…” “I have just got up, I’ve been here for months and I have ten years of police enforcing behind me.” Alyson groaned and dragged herself over onto her front, “I could do some more push-ups…” Viggo stopped and placed a heavy hand on her back, she giggled as his light hand actually pressed her into the floor. “Give it a rest,” he said with mirth. “No…” she moaned in a rather childlike tone, “I want to be good at GravBall,”

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But Viggo was staring at his hand on her back; he could feel the warmth from her skin through her thin tunic top, and the sweat that had saturated it lightly. “All right,” she sighed in his silence, and shifted. This made Viggo quickly remove his hand from her back and subconsciously put them behind his back as he sat. Alyson struggled to her feet to sit on the bunk, she cringed slightly with her tense muscles, and she quickly became bored. “Well I suppose that’s the morning gone-by…” she sighed, “Just the rest of the day to go…” Viggo glanced at her as she looked at her barcode burned into her left forearm; she was running her fingers over it and tracing the lines, a thoughtful expression on her face. He continued to do sit-ups swiftly to keep an eye on her. “It says ‘Property of the Prison Company,” he said as if he knew the question on her mind. Alyson rubbed at it slowly and said, “Isn’t it kind of depressing? That everything relevant about you is stored in these tiny lines?” Viggo raised an eyebrow, “I doubt it has everything on it, it’ll hardly note everything about a person…” “Yeah, probably just their crime, their mental state, and a danger rating for the guards to read,” she replied dully. Her cellmate said nothing in answer. She sighed and looked to the plasma screen that barred her from freedom, though that freedom was beyond not only the gate, but at least five-hundred active guards with electro-rods, several thousand electrically locked doors, several million security cameras and laser tripwires. Then there was the timeless expanse of space all the way back to Venus. She then said out of the blue, “Daniel told me that there are gaps in the plasma screen,” Viggo smirked, “If there are, I doubt even a fly could get through it.” “He said that the gaps were big enough for a hair to get through,” Alyson mused in wonder. “A lot of use then,” Viggo replied, ceasing his exercise and slowly sitting up. Alyson looked at him with interest, “Give me one of your hairs,” He laughed, “Come on Alyson!” “Aren’t you interested?” she asked. Viggo groaned and reached for one of his hairs with finger and thumb, “Why my hair anyway?” 45

Alyson reached forward to get the long black strand, “Because your hair is longer of course,” she moved over to the gate and sidled up to the edge of the doorway. “Daniel said the holes were widest near the frame…” Viggo shook his head behind her, though agreed with her statement, “Makes sense,” She narrowed her eyes at the frame; there was a gap between two laser ports on the doorway, but another laser from the opposite side stopped right between the two, halving the gap. Slowly she began to pass the hair through one of the two gaps, slowly becoming aware of her deep breathing. “Hey, what are you doing V?” Adrian called from beyond the cell. That made Alyson’s hand shift, and the hair passed through the lasers, they cut it effortlessly in half, “An escape attempt Adrian!” she added scornfully. Viggo laughed, “The Great Escape of the Human Hair!” Alyson laughed with him and slumped down against the wall beside the plasma screen, she glanced over at him. “You know Viggo; prison life isn’t as bad as I first thought…” He didn’t look convinced and replied, “You haven’t been there three days Alyson, don’t go getting overconfident.” Alyson shrugged, “Well, I could certainly have a worse cellmate, much worse.” Viggo said nothing, eyes downcast. Alyson sat silent, as did Viggo, and time clicked endlessly and noiselessly by. They then heard a voice from another cell, a rarely heard voice, and it took Alyson and Viggo several moments to recognise who it was. “Excuse me… guard? Can I ask something?” It was the voice of a timid, mouse-haired man who was forever clinging to a book. A guard was prompt to reply gruffly, “What is it Mr Major?” Adrian interrupted loudly, “Ha, Mr Major, that’s a good one!” Sophia’s childlike giggle accompanied his hoarse laugh. Daniel tried to ignore them and asked the guard, “I was wondering if I’d be able to get a pencil… or a pen?” “What!” Adrian cackled, “Look everyone, its Mr Moron!” “I was just hoping I could write something, I have precious little to do in here,” Daniel pleaded. “Ever heard of ‘probable weapons’ when you were brought on board Mr Major!?” Adrian laughed again. 46

As the guard seemed to say nothing, Alyson could see Daniel’s pleading face in her mind’s eye, she then shouted out of the cell supportively. “Oh give him a pencil for Christ sake! What’s he going to do with it!?” Adrian looked to her, “Ever heard of the phrase ‘it’s always the quiet ones’?” She looked back at him darkly, “Ever heard of the phrase beginning, ‘to have a long tongue’?” Adrian’s eyes darkened and he went silent, and as if in echo, Sophia did the same. Alyson listened to the silence around the guard and Daniel, and it seemed like nothing was going to be resolved. But then the guard spoke, “Wait a moment,” and was heard to be walking off, and the main lift was heard taking him to the second floor of the sector. Viggo looked at Alyson closely as she sighed, “Be careful of Adrian,” he warned, “he may seem loud-mouthed and stupid with only one thing on his mind, but he can be dangerous. He’s been around in here longer than even I have.” “I just wish people would leave Daniel alone,” Alyson muttered in a sort of glum daze. Viggo smiled wryly, “Well, it’s not gonna happen; everyone gets their share, and with good reason too. Don’t forget we are all here because of things we’ve done, and Daniel’s obviously done something.” She looked over to him quite coldly, “And what is it exactly that you did Viggo?” He didn’t look at her, he knew that she was going to ask that and at the minute he started talking he had wished he hadn’t. She got no response again, and she did not pursue it, she only looked out of the cell, her jaw grimly jutting out as she waited for the guard’s return. Adrian was all ready to voice his disapproval when the guard returned with a basic graphite pencil, he deactivated the cell plasma screen and handed Daniel the writing tool. Alyson smiled as Daniel thanked the guard, and she felt more at ease afterwards. But the guard still had his warnings to Daniel, such as sever physical torture should he attempt to use the pencil to attack a guard, fellow prisoner or even Daniel himself. Adrian hollered as the guard left, “Hey could I have a pack of twenty cigarettes, a lighter, and a flame-thrower please!” Unsurprisingly, the guard ignored him.

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Sighing, Alyson stood and moved to sit on the lower bunk, not that that was any better from sitting on the solid metal floor. Viggo then moved to sit next to her as another thoughtful look cast over her face, “What is all of this protectiveness over Daniel?” She looked at him without spite or sadness, but a look of hollow compassion. “I don’t know. I saw him on my transfer frigate from Deimos. I suppose he was the first person I kind of related to then, and for the previous endless weeks of detention it was relieving. Someone who was like me in a way,” Viggo shook his head slightly, “I doubt you know him well enough to know if he’s like you or not. People have secrets,” Alyson nodded solemnly and her face seemed to clear somewhat. “I suppose you’re right; I don’t really know you either, do I? It just feels like I do because we’re in the same cell…” Viggo didn’t move, and looked into space as he replied quietly, “I guess so.” Alyson stretched her arms to her knees and cursed softly, “Oh bring on the night time! I can only think about sleeping, not a whole other day!” Viggo smiled absently, and remembered that before Alyson had arrived, he did spend most of his time asleep, even though he did not like it much… Fortunately for Alyson the day did somewhat fly by. But there was still so little to do, but she did waste time trying to successfully pass one of her short hairs through the gate, determination had made her unaware of boredom, while Viggo had spent most of his time watching her vain attempts with vague amusement. At lunchtime a general alert was sounded over the tannoy, and the inmates had to be secured and held in the mess hall for longer than their designated period. No one explained what the alert was for, and Viggo told Alyson that this was usually the case. Alyson was glad when she found herself tired at the end of the day, and she was quick to fall asleep after more exercise in the small cell. But Viggo was restless as he usually was in the night hours, which was why he slept so often during the day hours. All he could do for hours was watch Adrian and Sophia through the purple haze of plasma screens invent an A to Z sexual position encyclopaedia, some of the results were mildly amusing.

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Eventually Viggo felt himself drift off into slumber, and darkness overwhelmed him. However in the drifts of dream and timeless void of sleep, Viggo fell into an all too familiar dream, one twisting nightmare of voices and images that made no sense until it ended. He knew that he was always revisiting the same nightmare, but every time it started he felt as though it was the first time it had ever happened. There was the voice of the Mars court judge, disembodied at first, booming from darkness: “Officer Viggo York of the second police battalion of Mars, you have been brought here today to stand trial for the rape of Ms Monica Campbell. How do you plead?” His own voice said clearly, “Not guilty your honour.” “Mr Stewart, your defence,” “My client, Lieutenant police officer Viggo York, as the court well knows by now has had ten full years of respected and positive service and there have been no incidents for this nature in that time. I have a full and truthful reason for Viggo York’s actions upon Ms Campbell, and that reason is a medical one. There has been tragedy in my client’s life, he lost both his parents in a freak shuttle accident when he was young, and he became deeply traumatised. “This was the cause for Viggo’s uneasy acceptance into the police force, as these documents entail, taken clear from the police records. This was his one and only time of anxiety, and he nearly failed entry to the police academy.” “I would also note that during his arrest at 0900 hours on the nineteenth of August of this year, my client did not attempt to resist arrest, and that he gave himself up willingly. This information is also from police records taken that dark day. Understand, your honour, that my client has never harmed anyone without good reason, and that the act upon Ms Campbell was due to a medical condition known as Multiple Personality Disorder. A symptom of this is the lack of memory of the event that had taken place, and the only evidence that I have been allowed to prove this is that my client has told police repeatedly that he cannot remember what happened that night. Had Officer York been allowed a medical check instead of being thrown in prison, this fact would have been brought to light. “There is no defined cure for this disorder; however there are psychological therapies that can restore his original personality. I ask the court not to throw away such a brilliant officer such as this when all that

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is wrong is a simple medical disorder that can be reversed. The defence rests.” The judge nodded solemnly as Mr Stewart sat back down beside Viggo, and the nightmare shifted about, strange incoherent flashes and images, a woman screamed. “Mrs Duncanson, state your claim on behalf of Ms Monica Campbell,” the judge said after the strange otherworldly images had ceased, he did not seem to have seen or sensed them. “Certainly your honour,” a dark haired woman stood up from the side of deeply saddened blond woman. Mrs Duncanson began, her voice was cold and uninviting, “Firstly I ask the court to register the trauma that this woman has had first-hand experience of; a brutal and unwarranted attack of a sexual nature by someone dearly close to her. I personally cannot imagine a worse situation. “As we all know, there have been hundreds of cases similar to this where the attacker is claimed to be ill with some ‘disorder’ or some psychological unrest, but how many of them actually recover from such ordeals? If one is indeed prone to disorders with symptoms of such random violence then surely they can fall back into it after having been cured? These medical examinations cost money, and these therapies take time, and in the past both of these things have been wasted; the patient has regained their ‘disorder’ in less than two months. I have a file here stating a mere two hundred cases in the past decade, all registered within the boundaries of the Solar Medical Foundation, and all have not ended with positive results. “My client, Ms Campbell, is deeply traumatised as I have said, but I will not go into the details of what has happened to her in her presence. She has no amnesia to be spared the memories, and her life may never be the same again. I ask the court whether they wish to risk another woman’s life and conscious by putting this man on an expensive and time consuming therapy that may not even work. The question is do you want Viggo York to be in this courthouse again in another two months?” Her voice faded, and the world shifted violently around Viggo’s mind, yet the courthouse’s members remained in silent consideration of the trial’s end. Yet Viggo could not remember even then what had happened on August nineteenth, but the flashing images that burnt the courtroom walls could only be his broken memories resurfacing. The judge returned and gave his verdict; Viggo could not see his face,

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“It is the decision of this court, due to past events of this nature and the evidence given today, that Officer Viggo York is found guilty, and is sentenced to Government Processing upon Deimos. This trial is now adjourned.” With that, and a woman’s scream accompanied by sudden sharp pain to his back, Viggo woke with a shout. He looked around the cold dark cell, the eerie purple glow from the plasma gates and the marching footsteps of patrolling guards; he lay back down with a sigh of grief.

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Chapter 5: Grav-Ball Weeks flew by onboard the Rigor Mortis, and the prison ship had sailed clear of Jupiter and was now in Saturn’s orbital path, however the ringed gas giant was nowhere to be seen, probably millions of miles away orbiting the sun. Jupiter however was still large behind them, as if the giant planet’s gaze was a pursuer, chasing down the ship to drag it back into the gas storms. But the bridge crew knew, and the commander knew, that they were well clear of Jupiter’s threat, and that the next planet they would encounter up close would be Neptune before coming to the Pluto orbit, and the end of their journey. But for the prisoners of blocks A to M, life goes on, and in much the same way as always. Many of them were deeply bored and verging on the insane, even Alyson felt herself getting ‘a bit loopy’ in her disinteresting surroundings; becoming deeply interested in what it would be like to jump clear through the plasma screen. She wondered if you jumped feet first, what it would be like to feel your body incinerate and vanish into thin air. Viggo had always been quick to put her off the subject, half expecting her to try and authenticate her theories. But otherwise the inmates of sector nineteen were amiable and not yet suicidal, but Alyson had noticed that the odd Grav-Ball games that they played got harder and harder, finding herself physically tested more and more each time. But she had not brought herself to go to the showers afterwards, the mere thought of it made her sick, and she put up with her sweat for now. But one inmate who had avoided Grav-Ball altogether was Daniel, he had not taken part in any of the intense sport, and in doing so he had got the attention of the sector sergeant, Raymond MacLeod. The sergeant was not pleased at Daniel’s surprising stubbornness when it came to Grav-Ball, and in the end accepted the prisoner’s terms – much to Adrian’s disgust – though the sergeant did warn that Daniel would be ‘as unfit as a bug’ should it come to a fight in the mess hall. So Daniel had remained in his cell, graveyard quiet in the ruckus of the other inmates, all he did was write in battered old paper books, or scribble unseen images with a blunt pencil. The patrol guards drew the line of hospitality when he had asked for a sharpener or a knife for his blunt pencils, but they did give him a basic pen to write with, which could be renewed and replaced by another.

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No one knew what he wrote or what he drew, and it was often the hot topic between cellmates when he was not in their midst. Adrian was convinced he was writing down guard patrol periods and analysing the structure of the plasma gates, while he drew concept maps of the local ship corridors, mentally noted as he is taken from the cell to the mess hall. Alyson kept her thoughts to herself in these discussions, not knowing what Daniel was doing, but knew that it was his own business, and not hers or anyone else’s. Now after weeks of solitude, Daniel’s cell was the most remarkable; books stood in rows against the walls or stacked as high as one’s knee, and scraps of paper were tossed around or piled up on floor and bunk. It was not unheard of for Daniel to throw a ball of paper or book clear through the plasma gate in surprising frustration or disgust. Every time parchment vanished before even leaving the cell Adrian would quip something like ‘There goes Shakespeare’s finest works’, ‘a Da Vinci original’ or even ‘Picasso’s truly lost it’. Which ever it was, he never pronounced any name correctly. As they had grown accustomed to it, both Viggo and Alyson were exercising within their cell for most of the days and weeks, and slowly Alyson was gaining more appreciation for her once feeble arms. Viggo however, while trying not to dishearten her, lifted her clear off the floor by nearly a metre, he told her she wasn’t much heavier than the last time he had lifted her. She replied in amusement that it was because she was a woman, and was naturally lighter even with added muscle. Viggo was still his quiet self, and Alyson was forever wondering what was bothering him so much, but she could never bring herself to ask. She would someday find out, she thought. Another question that edged on her lips she decided voiced, “Where are we going do you think? No one has told us a thing.” Viggo replied as he sat up again, “They aren’t meant to tell us anything, we’re just carted about the place.” “I bet Adrian has a few ideas of his own,” Alyson mused glancing through the plasma gates. Viggo smirked, “As long as he doesn’t have a tongue down his throat.” “Like that doesn’t happen very often!” Alyson giggled softly. Viggo shrugged absently, “I don’t know, we’re probably going to be taken to an outer station or planet to be put to work on some secret project.”

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“I doubt it would be that ‘secret’ if it were true,” Alyson muttered, “thousands of prisoners, any one of them could escape and bring the truth to light? I don’t think they’d risk it.” Viggo sighed, “Well what then? You don’t believe the Terran theorists who say convicts are being hauled off to be infected or enslaved by an alien race do you? That a secret ‘Government’ is making some kind of alliance with aliens to make an all-powerful hybrid army to enslave the galaxy? Please…” Alyson shook her head with a smile, “No, no I don’t. But I have no real idea what’s on the outer reaches of the Solar system, just rock and ice.” “We’ll find out someday won’t we,” Viggo muttered lying flat on the floor to get his breath back, then continued, “As long as we survive the trip.” The loud voice of the sector sergeant barked out over the cells as if on cue, “All right, it’s your next call of Grav-Ball now, get yourselves awake and active!” Viggo groaned and got to his feet as Alyson murmured, “What were you saying?” “Forget I mentioned it,” he sighed, gripping her hand tightly and pulled her to her feet. “Well I hope all of your training has made you better,” he added. Alyson looked uneasy, “Well, if it doesn’t, then it was really just something to pass the time. And besides, I haven’t been that bad in the last few games have I?” The plasma gate went down and a guard stood before them, Viggo laughed slightly, “Of course not.” “Keep it real blues!” Viggo found himself shouting midway in the game, he wiped his hand across his lips and found blood pumping from his lower lip; he had been smacked hard in the jaw by Adrian in the last goal. But there wasn’t really any half-time in this version of Grav-Ball, no time to rest and recover oneself, and even if you were seriously hurt, you usually had to make your own way back to the floor. The reds currently had possession of the ball and Adrian had it in his hands at the red goal. Alyson was on the floor waiting anxiously, she eyed each red player dubiously; she had not been scarred or hurt yet, but that was only one more reason for something to befall her sooner rather than later. Her feet were as steady as they could be in the low gravity room, and she was desperate to get going, before her sanity overwhelmed her and told her to get as far off the arena as possible! 54

Adrian then pushed off the ring and travelled downwards to the floor, ball tightly in hand. Three other red players bounded off their back wall to fly across the field close to the ceiling, yet they were slower than Adrian in pace, the red leader was already on the floor and had begun to drift-sprint across it. The blues that were already on the floor, including Alyson, began to race towards Adrian, while others at the walls, such as Viggo, bounced off and down towards him. But unlike his fellows, Viggo remained in midair, watching the scene unfold; he had another two players with him, watching as the three reds approached through the air. Adrian was not alone, he had five or six players backing him up, and soon there would be four or five blues on the ground as well. As Daniel was not playing, the blues were always down one player, which was another excuse for Alyson to improve her fitness. Adrian was now bouncing the Grav-ball as if he was playing basketball as he approached the charging blue army. He side-jumped one blue player and dribbled the ball around another before knocking one clean out of the way. That one player was Alyson; she spiralled round and away from the swarming red attack, before landing quite softly on her front, sliding some way. She coughed and gripped her abdomen painfully; Adrian had struck her there with his arm when she attempted to free the ball from his grasp. Struggling to her feet, Alyson was off again, drift-jogging after the crowd. A brawl had begun; fists and feet flew as the players fought furiously on the floor. Adrian had evaded the attackers and came into the blue zone; he glanced over his shoulder to see his three flyers approaching the blue zone also. He paced himself then and readied the ball, no one was threatening and Viggo’s defenders were remaining at the ring. But before he could throw the ball, Alyson sprung a surprise dive at him, she had pounced off the floor and caught his midsection in her outstretched arms and knocked him off his feet. The ball was released and it floated on invisible currents away from both of them, Adrian tried to wrench Alyson from him, gripping her short black hair in one hand, her shoulder in another. She cried coarsely and let go of him. Adrian twisted after the ball but Alyson swung her leg to hook under his knees, he lost momentum and balance and found himself spiralling head over heels helplessly. Alyson lost all senses for a moment; she didn’t know where the ground or what was up and what was down, but she saw Viggo land just beyond the ball and began to approach it. In the fit off fighting that surrounded them, Adrian was steadied to his feet again by none other than

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Sophia, and at the same time ‘One-Shot’ Drew steadied Alyson from her dizzying spin. Viggo picked up the ball just as Adrian jumped into the air, and the blue leader was ready to jump away to evade attack. However Sophia was close to Viggo and reached out for him with deadly looking nails on her fingertips, looking as though she had bitten them to those sharp ragged points. In seconds Viggo grappled with Sophia, he barged her to one side with his shoulder and attempted an escape, but as Alyson and Drew came close Sophia gripped hard on the back collar of Viggo’s shirt and tore it in half as he tried to escape. Viggo then lost balance, Drew instinctively sprung forward to claim the ball and Sophia pounced away towards the left wall to pursue her, but Alyson had paused for a moment to look at Viggo’s exposed back. From the folds of now ragged and torn cloth she could see roughly eight deep cuts or punctures in his flesh, each one old and sealed, but in two groups of four and in near perfect lines. Alyson looked towards the wave of red players chasing for Drew as Viggo slowly got his feet on the floor. “Go on Alyson! Help Drew!” Alyson was about to jump off the floor immediately when she saw Drew bounce the ball neatly through the red goal. She stopped short, “I don’t think she needs any help now Viggo,” He looked up and sighed absently; “Oh…” he was out of breath. He looked to her, and she saw the visible beads of sweat on his face, they had all been at Grav-Ball for a long time. “Are you okay? I saw Adrian give you a fair whack back there.” “I’m fine, though a bit… dizzy,” she too was sweating, but tried to ignore it, even though her tunic was nearly sticking to her flesh, as it was with Viggo. “I don’t know how much more I can take though,” “Well the scores are even now… four all, but I don’t know—” A horn sounded, signalling the end of the match, “if we have much time left,” Viggo finished bluntly. “What happens when there’s a tie?” asked Alyson. “Go for penalties, and as we scored last they get first go.” Quickly the blue team retreated to the blue zone and the reds moved to the red zone, only Adrian ascended into the air in front of the red goal. He had the Grav-Ball in hand. Alyson leaned on the wall lightly and touched her stomach tenderly, she would have a bruise there tomorrow and clearly her sit-up efforts hadn’t worked too well. She distracted herself by watching the red team leader 56

closely. Viggo explained as he stood beside her, “He has to hit the ball down towards the centre of the pitch, have it bounce up and for it to clear through our ring. If he does, they win.” She gave him an inquisitive look, “That seems too easy,” “It is,” Viggo muttered regretfully, “he’s gonna do it in one,” So Adrian held the ball high, his sepia eyes on the blue goal ring far across the ‘pitch’. He suddenly threw it down towards the midpoint of the floor with a loud shout from the effort. As Viggo had said, and it bounced with a loud echoing thump and flew up again with added height and speed due to the low gravity. Alyson craned her neck back to watch the ball drift overhead, through the glare of the roof fitted lights; she saw the ball gracefully sail through the ring. She sighed, “You were right, but not much of a victory to celebrate for them is it really.” “No,” Viggo nodded, “in normal Grav-Ball each team has a go, and until one fails to get it, the other wins. But that could take forever, and I don’t think the prison guards can be bothered to wait that long.” The red team leader descended as the gravity was slowly restored to the arena, and the teams began to approach the exit, Alyson had always felt a little queasy when the gravity changed. Both teams looked out of breath, some players where on the verge of collapse, others not so; unfortunately Alyson was one of the former, her muscles ached and her skin burned. Slowly the guards filed them through the door and Alyson and Viggo were some of the last to leave. She groaned, practically peeling the tunic top from her skin, “I guess I’m going to the showers then…” Viggo smirked, “Looks like it… everyone else is.” Both of them were led down another corridor, one which Alyson had not been taken down before, although they all look the same the directions were different. Alyson knew the drill of most prison ships and detention centres, and didn’t find it surprising that men and women were being separated up ahead into different doorways, it was far too dangerous, with rapists in their midst, to allow men to shower with women. Alyson saw guards keeping a close eye on the proceedings. “Bet Adrian and Sophia miss each other on these occasions,” Alyson mused quietly. “Probably,” Viggo muttered as they came close to the doors, “but be careful of her,” he told Alyson cautiously. “Who?” 57

“Sophia,” Viggo replied, “she can be a bit, ‘extreme’ in the showers… apparently.” Alyson raised a questionable eyebrow before being separated from him, and was nudged into the other room. It was like a slippery tiled hell for Alyson. She was in a changing room now, the steam was coiling lightly out from an opening to the right, the sound of water gushing and women’s voices were emanating from there. She immediately regretted being there, more inmates walked slowly in from behind her, some of them cautious like her, others quite willing and fluid. Most of them had undressed and had walked into the misty void before Alyson was even close to pulling her top over her head. Too much did it feel like her entrance to the Rigor Mortis, too much did it feel like beyond the walls were male guards watching her. She shivered, the rooms were not warm as she had hoped, but she was ultimately unsurprised; prison ships rarely had hot water, she then put her clothes on a bench. Uneasy to part with them, she apprehensively walked into the steam. It was a large room, longer and wider than it was tall; all tiled with drainage grates and channels running underfoot, the showers were built into the ceiling and sprayed a fierce jet of rather tepid water onto the floor vertically. Alyson spotted the pale, naked figures in the mist, twisting and rinsing themselves in jets of water and did her best to ignore them. She walked cautiously to the left, desperate to find a shower, clean up and leave. One of the pale figures looked to her, albino white hair long and slick to one side of her face, it was Drew. Alyson always considered her a supporter and one of the good guys, but then, that was only in the GravBall arena. “It’s Alyson everyone,” Drew announced, “first time for everything.” “Hello Drew,” Alyson managed, still moving towards the left, hoping to find a wall and a shower. She found what she was looking for as water suddenly dashed down on her shoulders like fire, she winced; it was cold. She ran her hair through the water after she got used to the fierce temperature, and looked around slowly while doing so. She was just starting to relax somewhat when a sinister voice spoke from behind her, “Glad to meet you at last Alyson.” She couldn’t turn before two clammy arms laced round her waist, sharp pointed nails that appeared to have been bitten that way, caressed her stomach like metal barbs. It was Sophia, Alyson didn’t move a muscle.

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“We’ve been so separated, two plasma screens apart… never a time to be intimate.” The hands moved up to cup each of Alyson’s breasts. Sophia laughed, and shouted to the others in sudden amusement, “Not much competition here anyway!” Alyson grit her teeth and swung her elbow hard into Sophia’s stomach, the blond woman cried out and slipped on the tiles, before thudding onto the hard wet floor. “Bitch!” Sophia snarled from the floor, beginning to collect herself again. “Don’t touch me,” Alyson hissed quietly at her, feeling mistreated yet superior. But Sophia snaked back to her feet and was smiling at her, “Good to see you have prison life in your blood, it took a while for Jenny to get to grips with me…” she across the room, “or should I say, it was too easy for her to get to grips with me!” she laughed again, Alyson detested the sound and tried to ignore it. “What’s that face for Viggo?” Adrian asked through the battering of cold water on his face, “So long and uneasy?” Viggo glanced at him rather absently, “I’m just concerned about what your girlfriend is doing to Alyson right now.” Adrian gave him a wicked grin, and looked over the others in the room, “Jacks told me what she and Jenny did a few months ago! Apparently it happened three shower sessions in a row!” Viggo shook his head, unimpressed. Adrian had fallen quiet, but as it usually happened, it didn’t stay like that for long. “I wish I was in that shower room, so many naked chicks around me, heaven!” Viggo smirked, “Imagine if Sophia found out how you felt!” he said sarcastically. Adrian laughed, “Well that’s the point,” Viggo glanced at him, “we don’t care! She’ll sleep with everyone on this ship, every six-thousand sixhundred and fifty of them, and I wouldn’t care! A good laugh really,” Viggo said smugly, “Especially if it was one of the psychotically deranged serial-killers down on Z block.” Adrian looked darkly at him and shrugged it off, “Well, in this situation all the time, I’m sure glad that you only have a thing for women… jeez. What is little V gonna get Vicious?” Viggo’s muscles tightened with every word spoken and his teeth churned together tightly.

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Oblivious, Adrian persisted, “I did say it was controversial, you know, her going in a cell with you!” Adrian looked around the room for the others’ support. “Am I right though—?” he turned back to Viggo. A boulder-like fist of hardened knuckles and bones of steel impacted heavily into his cheek and sent him flailing to the floor. Alyson was growing seriously disinterested in the women’s showers, she had gotten used to being there, which she was pleased about, as she realised not all eyes were on her. But now Sophia was bragging to the others about her and Adrian, in their night-time activities. “Once we did it three times in one night! Adrian was completely away with it by the end; we even managed The Wheelbarrow too! We even tried the Standing Sixty-nine but Adrian nearly did his back in…” Alyson smartly interrupted, “Drew! Why do they call you ‘One-Shot’?” The Albino looked at her with icy blue eyes as Sophia said loudly, “You haven’t heard this story! Wow,” Drew replied to her question with growing intensity, “I was involved in a bank raid with four of my old friends on Ganymede, we had the money in our hands, millions of credits slung over our shoulders, we had a hover van all ready outside to make a break for the launch ship we had ready. But a police squad broke from their cars and opened fire at us,” Drew then mimed having a sack of credits over one shoulder and a pistol in the other. “I saw one of our number go down, and I aimed my pistol for the cops, and bam! One goes down with a bullet in the head, bam, another goes, and another, and another and the final one before I was hit in the leg…” Sophia laughed, “Each cop with one shot!” Drew muttered, her excitement suddenly over, she dropped the invisible sack and gun and said, “The best day of my life… except being shot in the leg and taken to jail. I’d love to keep my reputation going, but I doubt I’ll ever see a pistol again…” Moments passed and Alyson was nearly ready to leave the cold wet room when a sharp point stabbed her shoulder. “Hey!” she protested. Sophia removed her sharp nail and a drop of blood ebbed slowly from Alyson’s shoulder. “I’m surprised you’re with Viggo in that cell you know…” Alyson looked at her curiously, “Why?” “Well… just his past and all, y’know.” “No, I don’t know.” 60

Sophia looked at her slightly wide-eyed; either thinking she herself had said too much, or, and more likely, she was honestly surprised with Alyson’s answer. “Did you see them? Today I mean?” “See what?” Alyson groaned at the prostitute’s vagueness, “The scars on his back, you must have seen them, when I ripped his shirt?” Alyson looked at her closely, having forgotten the scars she had indeed seen, she was now afraid and uncertain of what the story behind them might be, and whether or not she wanted to even know. She hesitated, “Why, what are they?” Sophia smiled slightly and replied over the hiss of water spray, “They were made by fingernails, let’s say… fingernails of his old girlfriend.” With that the showers stopped and were reduced to tearful drips that patted the tiles and skin alike, what steam there was immediately disappeared, everything was wet and cold. Alyson stared at Sophia for a moment speechless. The blond prostitute then walked past her gracefully, followed by the other women, she muttered to Alyson, “Better get changed girl, before the guards open the doors.” When the women had returned to sector nineteen, overseen by Sergeant MacLeod, they found that the men had already returned and had settled into their cells again. Alyson, Sophia and Drew were taken down the main lift to the lower floor, they were the only women on the lower level, and they walked the few yards to each of their cells. The guard’s sealed Drew into her cell, and Sophia was taken across to the other side of the sector, while Alyson paused outside Daniel’s cell to see in; there was so much paper scattered about, the guards must have a supply down in the Rigor Mortis’ storage bays which are never used. In this day and age people usually write in electronic touch pads, books were almost considered extinct, and Daniel appeared to be trying to revive the species. Daniel himself was writing away in a book, seated on his bunk, head down. Harshly the guard hauled Alyson away from that cell and opened the gate of its neighbour. Alyson was then pushed into her cell, number eleven, and Viggo looked up from his bunk as she cursed to the guard; “I can walk into my own cell!” Viggo’s eyebrows rose at her harshness and asked, “Did it go okay?” Alyson turned and stared at him, suddenly forgetting anything he had said when their eyes met; she remembered what Sophia had told her about Viggo’s scars. Was the woman speaking true, or was it all lies to cause 61

trouble? Alyson had held Viggo in high-esteem in the past months, and felt that he was trustworthy, but could that all be deception? Could Viggo actually be dangerous to her and he was merely masking it for later? She tried to forget it, surely not… “Alyson?” his voice asked. She shivered and blinked, “Sorry, what?” Viggo smiled slightly, “I guess you left your brain in the showers…?” “Oh… oh, it was fine,” she answered as her memory recalled what he had asked. “Sophia was a bit… disturbing, but nothing I couldn’t survive.” Viggo nodded slightly, “That’s good.” Alyson then saw the reddened bruise on his jaw as his head inclined to one side, she looked alarmed, more than one possibility flooding her imagination. “What happened to you?” He chuckled softly and immediately touched the bruise tenderly, “It was, as usual, Adrian... being irritating.” “Very irritating by the looks of things,” she said. He nodded slowly, “did you win?” Viggo shrugged, “He’ll do it again sooner or later, I never really ‘win’.” Alyson slumped onto the bottom bunk and remained there silent for a long time. Both her and Viggo were quiet, both considering things that were on their minds, unaware that one was indeed thinking of the other, and thus the air grew tense and unsettling. Viggo groaned and lay on his back, Alyson remained seated, absently biting her nails. Later that day, when the night-hours had settled and the plasma gates lit the inmates’ four-walled world in a mauve moonlight and irritated them with a liquid hissing noise, Alyson was still awake on the bottom bunk, hands clasped on her stomach. She had unsettling thoughts and visions whenever she closed her eyes and even though she told herself she was being stupidly childish, having been scared by another girl, she still couldn’t help it. Sophia and Adrian had had one round of each other almost half an hour ago, but unfortunately seemed to be getting ready for another escapade. She closed her eyes lightly, and her lips parted; she knew Viggo was awake above her, and her words slowly ebbed out of her, “Viggo…” “Hmm-hmm,” he acknowledged shortly. “Do you… do you believe in trust?” she asked softly. Viggo’s voice sounded a little perturbed, yet understanding, “Yes, yes I do.” 62

Alyson continued with a sombre tone, “Even in this place, surrounded by people we don’t know? How can you tell someone’s real intentions?” She heard Viggo shift on the top bunk and he asked her, “Why are you asking me this?” Pausing, Alyson blinked unsteadily and said nothing. “Did Sophia say something to you today Alyson?” But the woman was stuck for words, she didn’t want to continue speaking but couldn’t even bring the conversation to a stop herself, she remained grimly quiet. “Did she say something about me, Alyson?” Again, she remained silent, but her determination failed and she gave a short choking cough; a lump had formed in her throat by her own fear. Viggo, in hearing this, shifted more and then slid off the edge of his bunk and onto the floor. Alyson did not move as he crouched down to be at eye level with her, he spoke quietly, so not to alert the guards. “Alyson, I trust you, and above all else you can trust me. When you first came in here I told myself I would not let any harm come to you, I promised myself that and I stick with it. Yes, there are a lot of cruel and untrustworthy people who cheat and lie for their own ends on this ship, hell; there must have been some in your Deimos detention block? And I’ll wager that Adrian and Sophia are partners in this sort of thing. “But like I said, you can trust me Alyson. Have I said or done anything to make you think otherwise?” Alyson looked at him from the purple dark of her bunk and whispered, “No…” He nodded solemnly, “And I remain with my promise.” Before clambering back up onto his bunk, Viggo laid his big hand over Alyson’s small clasped hands and squeezed them gently. She lay suddenly guilt-ridden and deeply uncertain, now with herself. Blinking sharply she turned onto one side, to face the dull metal wall.

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Chapter 6: Point of Impact In the vast infinite and swirling void of space, direction can be a nonexistent concept; however the flight crew of all major transport ships – including prison ships – navigate by a co-ordinate map that covers the entire solar system, from the centre of the sun to the very borders of known space, just beyond Pluto’s orbit. As the case is with this map, there are hundreds of thousands of co-ordinates, all mapped out in a circular fashion and a number of tracks are checked to be the orbital path of single planets. Ships should be aware of this while passing through the ‘planetary tracks’ as they also show the position of the planet itself and gravitational strength and distance. Now, the Rigor Mortis prison vessel would be heading due east on this solar map and was now between the orbital paths of Uranus and Neptune, closer though to the former. Neptune was tracked by space buoys within its orbit; these markers give off a radio signal which the passing ship detects with radio antenna, thus giving the flight crew the position of the planet upon the sector map. At their current speed, the Rigor Mortis would encounter the cold water-based world up close. But far from the ship’s sensors and totally void of any of these buoys an object had entered the solar system undetected, one of thousands that enter and often pass unnoticed, a comet. It was a great ball of ice and rock, thrown from the very dark of unknown space beyond the solar system, spearing on a direct course with a huge tail of ice and particles that made it phantom-like in appearance. The ghostly comet was unstable however, and large chunks were cracking free and floating off in other directions, smaller pieces flew away, powered by the momentum of the mother comet. One of these smaller pieces, though it was not small, probably the size of a mountain on Earth, burst from the larger comet and was sent hurtling away, helplessly powered forward by the weak gravitational field of distant Neptune and its own explosive momentum. The fate of the larger comet was set, as with its smaller children in its wake, the gravitational force would drag them feebly into the maelstrom that was Jupiter where the gas giant’s storms would destroy them. However the future of the mountainous piece was uncertain, hurled in a different direction altogether, a great fountain of icy debris stretched out in its wake.

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The weeks and months passed the crew and compliment of the Rigor Mortis silently and still the prisoners knew nothing about where the ship was heading, for the inmates, they may as well have been orbiting Mars continuously, or heading straight for the centre of the sun itself. The past few weeks, Alyson had been slightly uneasy around Viggo, ever since the showers where Sophia had told her about the story behind his scars, and the talk he had had with her that night. But she didn’t know why, and tried her best to be at equal terms with him and not to shun him out, but every time she did she felt awkward and unsettled. Today was no different, having been escorted to the mess hall for their noon meal from a silent cell eleven; Alyson had not spoken to Viggo directly, instead finding the opportunity to speak with Daniel. She sat down with the book reader at one of the two seated tables in the mess hall, he seemed to have settled more into the prison ship over the months of captivity, as she knew he would, and was more than willing to talk to her one-to-one. She asked him what he was drawing and writing in his cell, the question was sharp on her tongue and was first to come out. He replied shortly that it was his family and friends that he drew from memory, and places he had been in the past, planet bases he had visited. Having discussed the issue of trust with Viggo that night, Alyson knew that she could trust this man that she spoke to now; he seemed an honest and fair man. However she still couldn’t believe he was put away for a ‘narcotics related bank raid arrest’. Now they sat in silence, waiting for their platters of diabolical food to be set before them by a disgruntled guard; the food only seemed to get worse as the trip went on. Daniel looked to her after glancing around the others from their sector, he asked her calmly, “Do you believe in life beyond our solar system, Alyson?” She blinked, it was one of the first topic related questions that he had asked her personally, and quite an odd one at that. But she wouldn’t question his question; he was only making conversation after all. “I think that there has to be, somewhere, be the life a sort of worm, or a vastly intelligent insect that flies a saucer-shaped spaceship,” she smiled because he was smiling at her. “What do you think?” He shrugged rather absently, “Well, I think like you, but I believe that life would be limited, nothing more intelligent than the human race…” Just then the food was put down in front of them, Alyson looked glumly down at it as did Daniel and the guard had already quickly marched away from their table. “Hmm,” Daniel mused quietly. 65

Alyson picked up a serrated spoon and fork and plunged them both into the thick substance that was given to them in tin trays. Her face contorted as she muttered to him, “Speaking of insects…” he looked down at her ‘food’ as she began to lever out a large form from the tray’s contents. His eyebrows rose in slight amusement; dribbling in the thick soup-like substance was a dead and solid cockroach, its plated hide and folded legs glistened as the fluid drained off it. Alyson choked, “I think I’ve left my appetite in my cell…” Daniel laughed. She plopped the armoured insect corpse back into the tray and looked at him with a scornful expression. “You know, you might have one too; it could be a soup-surprise dish!” He ate some of the thick soup and shrugged, “Not bad otherwise, you should try some!” he grinned wickedly. “So you consider yourself the greatest intelligence in the galaxy, then?” Alyson asked him after a moment. He paused while eating to stare at her as if insulted, “What?” “You were saying, about life beyond our solar system?” Daniel shrugged, “Well, not me personally, of course, but the human race.” “Why not?” she continued. “We’d know about it by now if there were aliens more intelligent than us out here,” Daniel remarked. “What, they would have invaded Earth or made contact by now?” she remarked, amused at his professionalism. He shrugged again, as he seemed to do often, “Something like that.” Moments later, Alyson still had not touched her cockroach infested food and Daniel was close to finishing his, she found herself asking; “So you’ve gotten used to this ship now?” Daniel nodded softly, “Yes, I have been for longer than you might think, once I knew what was expected of me, and what the others were like, it was okay.” “You know Adrian has some strong opinions of you,” Alyson told him in a whisper. Daniel glanced over to the distant figures of Adrian and Sophia, falling over each other. “Yes I do… but I don’t care.” Alyson remarked with a grin, “He thinks that when you are drawing, you’re making plans to escape!” He smirked to himself and didn’t look at her directly, “Not exactly.” 66

One of the guards appeared suddenly and shouted for them to get going back to their cells. Yet another short period of freedom over, Alyson thought to herself. They were all then escorted down to sector nineteen two abreast, and Alyson walked with Daniel, Viggo close behind. Daniel muttered to her as they walked through solid steel corridors and passed electronically locked doors, “How could I escape from here anyway?” She smiled thoughtfully, “You know, all the guards have electronic key cards.” “They also have electro-rods, don’t forget,” Viggo reminded them from behind with a grin. Alyson’s smile was lost at hearing his voice, and her silent unease seemed to affect the two men; the three of them walked in subdued silence back to the sector. Once again the two dozen inmates were escorted back into their cells, and the plasma screens were erected swiftly after each one; multiple prisoners had gotten anxious this far into the journey and had cracked, making daredevil escape attempts. But Alyson and Viggo, Adrian and Sophia, and even Daniel, had no intention of trying to escape, although Viggo had second thoughts about what Daniel’s real motives were. Alyson knew this well by now. She stared at him as they were put back in their cell as he jumped back up onto his bunk nimbly. “You don’t trust him do you?” she asked spitefully, and he looked baffled, “you agree with Adrian.” Viggo replied innocently, “Who?” “Daniel, I know that you don’t trust him… but why?” Alyson asked, leaning on the opposite wall to talk with him face to face, her face hard. Viggo sighed, seeing she was deeply upset and feeling the need to settle the score between them both, “I don’t know why,” he found himself saying, “I just can’t believe he can be given so many luxuries! No one, since I’ve been here, has been allowed pens!” he almost shouted, reducing it to a hiss. Alyson leaned on one hip, a recognising expression on her face; “So you’re jealous of him?” Viggo shrugged and replied flatly, looking straight at her, “Aren’t you?” Alyson felt hot under the collar now; she did find herself envious of all the things Daniel seems to be getting so easily, how much she wished she could write or even draw. To write something and then read it over, that would kill so much of this prison time! But it was not to be,

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Daniel had something she did not, and she was stuck with someone who she found herself uneasy with yet strangely able to trust at the same time. She shrugged her thoughts away, and her flush, “I think he deserves it,” she replied shortly. Viggo stared disbelievingly, and she added fiercely, “Of course yes – yes I am envious of him! I sure wish I had a pen and pencil and paper…” she sighed and moved to sit heavily on the lower bunk. Viggo smiled wryly, not a wicked smile, but a smile of understanding. He knew Alyson well now, and it took a long time to do so, months it must have been; for she was a complex woman, full of ups and downs. Perhaps an hour passed after that, Alyson and Viggo lay in silence, conceivably both thinking what they would write and draw given the luxuries Daniel had acquired, yet never voicing their desires to each other. Viggo had noticed that Adrian and Sophia had sunk to the pitiful level of faking orgasms with each other, and he spoke to Alyson thoughtfully. “Alyson, what do you miss most about your home on Venus?” Alyson blinked slowly, she could almost sleep, and all bitterness and spite had worn off in the quiet. She replied, “The swimming pool.” Viggo laughed softly, “You like swimming?” Alyson now sat up to lean on her elbows, “Why yes! It was the best pool we had on the station; it was big and deep and there was a huge glass dome above it so when you swim in backstroke you’re looking up at the stars and Venus itself. And at night if you stay long enough, you see the sunrise over Venus from there, the most incredible thing.” Viggo shivered, “Never liked swimming.” She smiled slightly, “Neither did my dad! But you should; it will save your life someday.” Viggo sniggered, “It’s not quite that important anymore; being only a few seas you can actually crash in anymore, and that they are all on Earth.” Alyson nodded solemnly, “And who’d want to be there.” Again, silence fell and Alyson was overwhelmed with images and thoughts of swimming in that luxurious pool. Her father had bought it when the family research into Venus got underway, that was the time she wished to go back to; when they had money for actual luxury, and solarwide fame. She could remember vividly swimming backstroke one day, the water flowing around her swaying arms, and her legs splashing ever so gently just to keep her floating along, and she looked up to see a comet, a shooting star, dart across the star-filled solar system. She had made a wish on that star: for everything to stay as they were, for her life 68

to flourish and her family to excel. The next day, her parents were informed of their critical financial issues that would ultimately crush their dreams. Alyson sighed, she found herself back in the Rigor Mortis cell, floating in the cold void of space alone, more or less. Her wishes had failed her then, and she didn’t try now lest the unimaginable happen, and her dreaming had ended with the thought. Her thoughts trailed onto Viggo, who lay perhaps a metre above her. It was quite a short time of thought; so little was known to her about his past for her to ponder. Then she remembered the inevitable, a thought that had dogged her for weeks but she was too scared to ask fully. If her thoughts were a train travelling from one thing to the next, that thought of Viggo was a huge mountain range ahead of her; unavoidable, no way past. She had to get it over with; “Viggo?” “Yes,” She swallowed, half hoping he’d have fallen asleep like he sometimes did and she’d have an excuse to avoid the talk. “What are the scars on your back? How did you get them?” she asked, even though Sophia had told her before. Viggo’s reply sounded sincere, “I don’t remember.” Along with honesty there was a flicker of sadness and even remorse in his tone, Alyson murmured, “You really don’t remember?” “No,” he replied dully. “I suppose you know about them by Sophia or Adrian?” Alyson answered, “Yes,” circling the lie. She then asked softer still, “Can I see them?” Viggo shifted to sit on the upper bunk and said, “If you want to; I can barely see them myself.” He jumped down from the bunk and waited for her to slide onto her feet behind him. They said nothing after that; Alyson suddenly felt tense and afraid, she noticed that there was no escape from the cell and she was desperately alone with Viggo. She didn’t even know why she asked to see his scars in the first place. Rather slowly he lifted up his shirt and folded it over his broad shoulders, revealing his jutting shoulder blades, muscle and smooth skin. But this smooth pale skin was punctured in eight places by old and sealed scars, partly tears but mostly deep crescent cuts were all that remained. There were four on either side of his back.

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Alyson looked all over his exposed skin closely before focusing briefly on each scar, as she did she saw his muscles flinch. Viggo said quietly to her, unable to see her, “What do you think?” Alyson stammered; there was nothing to ‘think’. She found herself foolishly blushing again and was glad he was turned away from her. Carefully she turned her hands and spread her fingers so that her own bitten nails lined up with the scars, and indeed, the scars looked as though they were made by nails, gripped as if the victim was in front or underneath Viggo. Alyson shook herself, “Looks painful,” she muttered. Viggo turned slightly as she backed away, and he slowly pulled his shirt back down saying, “As I said, I can’t remember.” He turned to face her but said nothing more, only stared with great brown eyes, a searching and curious expression on his face. Alyson felt stupid, she knew that her previous blush was still hot on her cheeks and her eyes didn’t want to focus on anything. But how could she blush!? She had found out that this man had indeed done… something to his old girlfriend… something that landed him in prison! Yet she felt so sure that he was an honest man and a good man, that he really couldn’t remember what had happened, but everywhere she looked she couldn’t find the answer to her feelings. She managed to look up at him finally, blue eyes crystal clear, but her defiance could only utter softly, “Viggo—” At that precise moment all stood still, Viggo was about to speak but was stopped by her wavering voice, a guard was walking past their cell on patrol, Adrian and Sophia were fooling around with each other, and Daniel was busy writing feverishly away in his lonely cell. That moment was a heartbeat, quiet and still. A shuttering smash hurled everything into disarray. The cells, the sector and the entire ship tossed to one side with colossal concussions that pitched its contents left right and centre, clear off the ground. Even those in Grav-Ball were hurled across the arena, impacting with a crunch into the solid metal walls that surrounded them. One prisoner in sector nineteen was standing at the time, but the sheer volume of the tossing and turning threw him off his feet and clear through the plasma gate head first. The field totally disintegrated his body, the scream of alarm silenced almost immediately while guards were hurled to the floor and into walls, heavy with their plated Kevlar 70

uniforms, managed to survive, but that could not be said about some of the cell mates. The force threw Adrian and Sophia like dummies onto the lower bunk and they both crashed into the back wall in a pile of limbs and curses. The guard that had been passing Alyson and Viggo was knocked off his feet and was put through their own plasma screen, all that remained were his lower legs, which clattered bloodlessly out of the way down the sector aisle. But within Alyson and Viggo’s cell the impact was beyond sudden. Both of them were locked staring at each other in awkward silence, but the blast had sent both of them back into the metal wall opposite the bunks. The force was so fierce and the distance so small that Viggo was lucky to have not been paralysed; his recently examined back was dashed against the wall with horrendous force and he cried out in pain as it did. But Alyson had her impact broken by his body, for she stood in front of him before the blast, and she was hurled into Viggo then both of them struck the wall. The chaos was then over. The irritating white lights of the cells flickered in protest, groans of fallen inmates and guards whispered throughout the silence, and it was an eerie silence indeed. As the survivors realised, the silence was because the Rigor Mortis’ engines were dead, they had shut down. Sector Sergeant MacLeod was on duty at the time and had been exceedingly lucky to be wearing his helmet; he had been thrown to the floor and sent across head first into a wall. Bitterly he rose with another guard and snapped, “What the hell was that!? Where’s that bloody administrator’s voice with a report!” The other guard groaned, testing his shoulder that had impacted with the wall, and replied groggily, “Hopefully the bitch is dead.” Adrian and Sophia opened their eyes as they lay together on the lower bunk, Adrian’s back was against the wall, while Sophia had her back against him. He groaned somewhat but he did not feel broken bones, only bruised. Adrian’s body had cushioned Sophia from the wall and she giggled softly; she was now pushing her backside into his groin saying, “You’re turned on even by this!” Adrian laughed, holding her round the waist, “Sure I am!” He peered up and through the plasma gate to see Viggo and Alyson’s cell, where no one was standing. “Yo, big Vicious! You okay over there!”

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Before that, Viggo had quickly snapped out of a short blackout caused by the blow to the back of his head with the metal wall; he felt giddy and uneasy; the world twisted and blurred in front of him while a blinding pain vibrated through his skull. But he forgot instantly about himself when he found Alyson lying over him, all too still. He spoke to her softly, “Alyson, Alyson are you okay?” There was nothing. Viggo hissed a curse through his teeth and took a risk in moving her. He was sure his body had saved hers, but her head had hit the wall over his shoulder, and that is how she lay presently. Carefully he lifted her head with one hand and turned her body with the other so that he could see her face. What was good was that her eyes were half open, flickering like broken blue lamps, but her lips were apart and a great bloody gash padded her forehead; blood running around one eye. Viggo looked around for a moment, completely unable to do anything, he was under her and she was badly concussed, he couldn’t risk moving her further to lie her down. But then she tried to say something through the parting of her lips, Viggo heard only part of it. “Alyson? Don’t worry, and don’t speak…” he held her lightly, one hand holding her head. She spoke again, clearer this time, “Viggo… what…?” He hushed her again. “Yo, big Vicious! You okay over there!” a voice called from beyond the cell, it was Adrian again. Viggo grit his teeth in despair, one finger close to her pulse at her neck. No compassion could ever flutter over Adrian’s damned heart; he had no friends to speak of, but Viggo shouted at him anyway; “No! Get a guard or a medic or something!” Alyson shivered at his raised voice, and Viggo did his best to calm her. “Sergeant MacLeod!” he hollered, knowing the sergeant was in the sector, “Sergeant MacLeod get a damn medic down to my cell! Alyson’s hurt!” he coughed, the air was only just returning to his own lungs and his throat felt like it was full of sand. A hard voice replied, “All right Viggo!” He then looked back down at Alyson who was looking at him with vague eyes, rimmed with pain and trauma, yet a tear did not break her face, only crimson blood had devastated it. Her lips parted again as if to speak, but he put his fingers to her mouth. But she persisted this time, and her hand loosely rose to remove his so she could speak, 72

“I… I regret…” she hissed softly, Viggo leaned his head closer to her lips to hear better, “I regret… not putting more… trust in you… Viggo… I…” He calmed her again while saying, “It’s all right, you’re going to be fine…” he couldn’t hide his doubt from her, yet he hoped his determination was great enough to surpass it. A voice hollered from beyond the cell, “The medics are here Viggo!” There was the common sound of the main lift going down, and another voice, “Keep her still!” Viggo glanced up almost glassy eyed to see Adrian and Sophia looking out from their cell. Perhaps he was wrong; he almost thought he saw woe on their faces, though he doubted it very much. Then the medics appeared. Viggo saw them, three of them, not armed and not suited in armour, but dressed in what was considered in these surroundings as ‘casual’ clothes. Two of them carried a hover table between them, the third was allowed access to the cell by an alert armed guard, whom Viggo despised being present there at all; as if he would try and escape in this situation! Alyson had seen the medics and whispered to Viggo, “I’m scared…” “No need to be,” he said quietly. The medics swarmed in, the lead medic checked her pulse and shouted to the others behind him, “We need her at the medical centre quickly! But be careful,” he began as they moved around him to reach her, “she is concussed to the head, there could be brain trauma.” Viggo had held her for so long that his arms were stiff and the heat of her body felt as though it burned him. But he was almost reluctant to release her at first, only letting go after realising the armed guard was moving in response; Viggo may have appeared to be holding Alyson hostage to them… which almost brought him to tears at the thought. The three medics took Alyson’s limp body away from Viggo’s grasp and lay her gently on the table beyond the plasma gate, and once there, the gate was brought back up swiftly. Viggo remained still as if he continued to hold Alyson for a few moments, like a statue or a broken stone alter. He heard the medics charge away, up the lift and through the double bulkhead doors and off to who-knows where, he did not. Suddenly he felt completely broken, a great flushing wave crashed on him like a ton of rocks; he collapsed to the floor, his mountainous body racked with despair. He had never felt this way before, but knew 73

that it was because she was gone, for whom-knows how long… he did not.

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Chapter 7: Consequences The Longboat class Rigor Mortis had now passed the blue glassy sapphire orb of Neptune, and was on its way to Pluto’s orbit, its final destination. However it was sluggishly slow as it moved, it was an old ship, overloaded with stress and structural repairs that it was on the verge of splitting in half, but now, added to all of that, it had been struck by a fragment of ice and rock. The freed comet fragment was the cause of the incident a few days before and it was unlikely the ship would ever heal from the impact; on the side of the flimsy transport section there was now a huge hulking mass of rock, buried deep into the hull. An estimated amount of prisoners and crewmen were killed in the incident, but no figures were given, though the rock had hit lower down than the actual prison blocks it was fairly sure that only a handful of security guards and engineers had actually died. The ship had been hit while in full engine motion forward to evade Neptune’s gravity, and the comet’s fierce momentum had smacked the vessel hard and off direction. As the craft was forcibly shunted to point starboard, huge structural stresses and damage occurred right down the middle of the ship, between the old mining ship and it’s welded on transport section. Maintenance crews did their best on the damaged sections; however they knew that without proper repair at a space dock or on planetside another hit like that would cause the whole ship to split in half. There was no doubting that it could happen again; the ship did not have its automatic defence cannons armed as it was not passing through the asteroid belt – as standard space faring policies state – and the comet, of course, did not have sensor buoys to alert the Rigor Mortis of its presence. However the estimations of chance provided the crew with light relief; it was indeed rare for a ship to collide with a comet or asteroid in such a way and it was unheard of for a second hit to be possible. The crew had recovered from the impact, and most of the thousands of crew and prisoners had to go through simple medical checks to be sure of stable health; however some had much longer procedures, those who came close to death. Viggo York lay on his bunk in his cell, alone. It had been three days since the accident and everyone in the level had recovered from it, it seemed like Adrian and Sophia never knew it had happened except for 75

when they jokingly grieved for ‘Machete Mike’ who had been killed through his own plasma gate. But Viggo could not recover from the accident; he was in an empty cell, and there was no word about Alyson and her condition, none at all. He had hoped that some compassion could pass the ice-cold voice of the Administrator over the tannoy, but of course it would not be. Even Sector Sergeant MacLeod knew nothing about her, not even if she was dead or alive or in comatose. This was why he could not recover himself, that and his head sometimes spun and he felt dizzy and disorientated after the ordeal, and it never seemed to fade. Yet Viggo was not willing to tell anyone about his distress; he was afraid that it may land him in the psychotic prison blocks for no justified or apparent reason. Luck had that effect on him through most of his lifetime. So he did what he always had done before Alyson had arrived, sleep and dream torrid dreams, before waking for the odd Grav-Ball tournament or the trips to the mess hall. He started to rarely talk to anyone at any point, there seemed to be nothing to say, he sometimes ‘talked’ to Adrian and considered talking to Daniel, but even those unpleasant few did not bring him out of his subdued shell. The more he thought about anything at all, the more he realised that Alyson was not there, and he would always go back to thinking of her, recalling conversation and trying to make new ones, new banter that always ended the moment she was to reply. His imagination was not bold enough to get any further. She was one of the first persons he had met in prison that had made an effort to know him, yet he did not entirely let her know him, and not because he didn’t want her to know, but because he was afraid to. Over a year ago he had hurt a woman he had loved most dearly for no reason at all, and yet he could remember nothing of what had happened, yet everyone who knew told him what he had done. Could he tell Alyson all of that? Would she still accept him as a friend if he told her he was able to hurt her for no reason at all, and then have no memory of it? Yet he told himself forever that it would not happen, he told himself every waking moment and every minute of every day, no matter how Adrian and others taunted him with names and words, it would not come to pass. She was too innocent, she was not even meant to be in this hellhole by his reckoning. Viggo had long since abandoned his theories that she was some sort of spy sent by the Administrator, however he knew – he knew – that the Administrator was behind her even being in his cell in the first place. They were trying to tempt him, to get a firm answer to 76

the question: Guilty or Not Guilty? But they would not win, they would not win. On that day, three days after the accident, two security guards appeared at Viggo’s cell gate and deactivated it. He peered up from his bunk as one of them ordered, “You are to be taken to the medical centre for a routine check-up, Viggo York.” He slowly got to his feet and was immediately cuffed at the wrists before being led out and towards the lift. As this was happening Adrian hollered from his cell, “Big Vig is going under the knife!” he then looked to Sophia who lay on the bunk and added with a smirk, “Wish I could do your physical.” As Viggo left earshot with a hopeless sigh, Sophia replied to Adrian, “You can if you like.” So Viggo was escorted out of sector nineteen at electro-rod point and was taken down a route of corridors he had never been down before. It involved one of the guards swiping his electronic keycard through three double electro-lock doors and being taken through four junctions and round six corners. Viggo mapped out the route in his mind as best he could, though he did not know why, it was the only thing he could do and it may come in handy some distant day. He was brought to a lonely pair of double doors on a long stretch of a wide corridor where there were quite a number of white coated figures walking to and fro. Viggo had never seen so many people who were not prisoners or guards walking around in their usual business for months. One of the guards flanking him ordered gruffly, “In this room you only do what we or the medical officer tells you to. You look at nothing, touch nothing and say nothing unless instructed to, if not, we’ll give you the appropriate treatment.” Viggo said nothing in reply, not even a smart quip; he was out of those long ago, and he wanted this all over as quickly as possible. The medical centre doors opened silently, and inside it was chillingly quiet, not an engine noise or electric hum to be heard. The passing through those double doors seemed like entering a dream state, and that nothing beyond was real, as if he had fainted as the doors opened yet continued to walk on a subconscious level. Everything inside was sterile and clean, a potent essence in the air was thick to his nostrils, and the floor was smooth tiling beneath his feet. Everyone inside was clean and robed in white, some carrying computer pads and pens, others at 77

desks with computer consoles, others pushing trays or stainless steel hover-tables through the room. A spectacled man seated at a desk was first to speak to them, he had a wryly smile on his face as he addressed the guards, and a reluctant frown towards Viggo. “Ah, another one for a check-up, well you two know the routine by now,” the spectacled man gestured further into the medical centre absently. Viggo was escorted straight through the room and towards a door labelled General Diagnostic and Brain Trauma Scan. Viggo doubted very much he was in for the BTS, but wondered if perhaps the Administrator had a change of heart and allowed for his condition to be clarified with a less violent method. Words from his court case dreams returned to him ‘multiple-personality disorder’. But the Administrator was the ‘Queen of the Underworld’, and her heart was of solid stone. The next room was smaller than the centre, full of treatment machinery and diagnostic tools that were all invented just after the third Great War, the war that had laid waste to half of Mother Earth, an impression that would never heal, physically and mentally. This equipment was by far old however, yet the basic systems would never change; it was perfect and did what it was supposed to do effectively. The doctor was a silent man, conditioned perhaps by all of the more unwieldy patients he would have dealt with, and with only a few small gestures he ordered the guards to do with Viggo as was appropriate. Viggo was strapped down to a chair and a pod-like scanner was locked over his left forearm, this read the sinister black lines of the identity barcode, the information of which appeared on the doctor’s computer, and as always, out of sight from Viggo: Name: York, Viggo Sex: Male Age: 31 DOB: 10.06.2668 Eye colour: Brown Hair colour: Black Height: 6′ Weight: 30kg Prison No: 110684 Criminal Record: The assault of Ms Monica Campbell Cerebral status: Questionable

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“Mr Viggo York,” the doctor mused quietly, pronouncing the Mr without validity. “Well we better get working on you.” He then rose from his desk and disappeared from Viggo’s view. All that he could see from that stationary bonded chair was a door leading into the Brain Trauma Scan operation booth, and a glass window viewing into the chamber. Viggo’s own treatment was basic and required little from him, mostly scans of his skeleton and basic brain functions, and so he could examine this chamber beyond without concern of what was being done to him. There was a large machine, like a great tube put on its side with an extended table that would slide into it like a metallic tongue. Doctors flitted around the machinery, often disappearing from view probably into the observation booth which the door led to. It looked to Viggo like they were setting the machinery up and checking on its functionality. He did not wait long to be proved right. A handful of doctors, three or four now walked around that chamber and its tubular machine, and one slight figure was escorted in as well. Viggo blinked in surprise, it was a woman with short black hair wearing a backless surgical gown, and looked suspiciously like his old inmate, Alyson. As the woman was helped onto the metal tongue of the machine he discovered that it was indeed his cellmate, alive and well enough to walk herself. He found himself sighing in relief. One of his escorting guards saw this and peered through the window as well; he smirked and said to Viggo, “Yeah… backless gowns… If only they were frontless too.” Viggo looked darkly up at the guard who failed to notice, and the doctor was heard muttering shortly in disapproval. As waiting machines took Viggo’s own diagnostic, Alyson was slowly pulled into that machine and left inside for some time. Viggo watched anxiously from his poor viewpoint; most of the chamber could not be seen from his chair, but moments later the tongue retracted with Alyson still lying flat on it, and she rose to a sitting position. “All right, that’s you, Mr Viggo York,” the doctor said somewhat pleasantly. The two guards turned and began to unlock him from the chair, Viggo still watched as a doctor spoke to Alyson beyond the glass. “Up you get!” one of the guards ordered, gripping his electro-rod tightly. Viggo rose, but still watched the other room. The guards started to haul him off towards the door, passing the window, but Viggo ordered them sharply, “Wait!” 79

They stopped prematurely at his raised voice and Viggo peered through the glass to see Alyson walking from the machine, towards his window. He waited anxiously in the arms of the two guards and then saw her walking past him, eyes blue and bright, clearly the news she had received was good. But she did not notice him, and guards escorted her out of the Brain Trauma Scan room, and out of sight. “Right,” one of the guards shouted, “enough peeping at girls! Get moving!” He shunted Viggo hard out of the door, the guard using Viggo’s body to open the door and shoved him through the medical centre and out into the bland metal corridor, some doctors eyeing them nervously. The guard who had been last to shout at him was the oldest, while the other had been the pervert. The gruff one grabbed Viggo’s left arm and twisted it so that he could look at the barcode through his helmet’s eyepiece. The eyepiece was a barcode scanner, and it displayed the information to the guard, he grunted, “So… a rapist eh? No wonder we were looking up pretty girls eh?” “He totally was lieutenant!” the other said coldly. Viggo smirked and glanced at him venomously, “Like you didn’t?” The gruff guard then spiked Viggo hard in the back with the charged end of the electro-rod; thousands of volts burst from their battery and through dozens of amplifier coils before discharging out the three prongs at the rod’s tip. The charge laced through flesh and bone and muscle, causing Viggo’s body to convulse and his teeth snap shut tightly. He then slackened in the arms of the guards when the rod was removed, and the guard spat, “Do not talk to a uniformed security guard in such a way again, criminal, you’re nothing but a rat that deserves to be drowned!” “Yeah!” the other guard supported rather futilely. Viggo shook himself of the electro-rod symptoms; it was not the first time he had been stunned, and that was the purpose, they could have knocked him unconscious or temporarily paralysed him. They could even have killed him, but that would have been the end of their working lives, and they would find themselves locked in the cells. He took it lightly; in such an environment were you were always going to be punished whatever you did or did not do, you might as well take brief enjoyment in insulting the guards. He knew that the quieter guard didn’t take his comment well as he had gone rather quiet as they hauled him back to sector nineteen.

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When he was returned to his cell number eleven it was just in time for the Administrator’s cold hearted voice to sound over the tannoy, “All prisoners are reminded that violence will not be tolerated, and to be kind to your cellmate. All prisoners in block C are to proceed to the appropriate mess halls immediately.” Sometimes Viggo could have sworn the Administrator was watching him. Adrian then called from across the sector, “Not much time to recover eh Vicious?” Unsurprisingly, Viggo didn’t respond. “Did they cut you up into lots of little pieces before sticking you back together?” he continued to ask as guards appeared to lower the plasma gates. Viggo was reluctant to go, after his encounter with the electro-rod, but there was little argument when a guard arrives at your cell. Once again, the guards led the prisoners down the corridors, this time, through the route that Viggo knew off by heart. Twenty paces forward, turn to the left, forty-two paces forward, passing the Grav-Ball arena passage, a further ten paces, pass the men and women’s shower rooms to the right, another turn to the left and thirty-six paces to the mess hall doors. He was always amazed also how often he saw crushed cockroaches on the metal floor, pulverised by huge heavy boots of guards, or trampled by many bare-footed prisoners walking single file. Viggo sat down at his usual table, usual table before Alyson had arrived on the Rigor Mortis, a four chaired table and as expected Adrian and Sophia both sat opposite him, seemingly physically inseparable. The image gave the phrase: ‘joined at the hip’ a whole different meaning, “Hey big Vicious, I’ll have to get used to you sittin’ with us again!” Adrian remarked loudly as he sat down, “So long it’s been you sittin’ with Alyson both you alone.” Viggo raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look at him, “Don’t expect it to last.” Both Adrian and Sophia looked up as Daniel approached their table, Viggo didn’t even glance at him once. “Mr Major, are you joining our table?” Adrian asked in an exaggerated polite accent. The mousy haired bookworm looked at him and replied, “I thought I might,” and gave the unresponsive Viggo a short glance. As Daniel sat down next to Viggo, Adrian noticed that Viggo was shivering and twitching absently. He said rather sombrely as Sophia wrapped her arms round his neck, “Seems like Viggo’s had a run in with an electro-rod…” 81

The big man looked up at him and replied, “Glad you noticed,” though he didn’t mean it. Daniel watched him for a moment as he shivered, “It must have been recent; it would have worn off otherwise.” Viggo looked at him briefly, “I know that, what are you a technician?” “Not exactly, I just know about electro-rods,” Daniel replied with a shrug. There evening meal was served to them all, another unknown and suspicious soup in hot metal trays with serrated spoons. Viggo remarked flatly, “There’s a surprise.” Adrian peered at it and Sophia began to fish around with her spoon, “What is it?” the man asked. Daniel had already taken a spoonful and answered, “Its cheese and onion soup, this stuff comes in the truck-loads, usually frozen solid in packs and microwaved. There isn’t a kitchen on board, and it’s easy to get soups like this, why else do we get it all the time?” “Really,” Viggo said without much conviction. Adrian glanced at Daniel as if he were mad, “That was the most trash you’ve ever said this whole time.” Halfway through their uneventful meal Adrian asked Daniel, “So, what exactly were you before you were arrested for a… ‘narcotics related bank-raid’ anyway?” Daniel glanced at him and replied shortly, “Oh… nothing much, just a Space bike salesperson.” Adrian scoffed in disgust, “Yeah right, that’s a pretty lame excuse Daniel, really what were you?” The man stared at Adrian for some time with solid blue eyes, so hard that they could only have been protecting something else underneath, and replied, “I’m not joking.” “Then why do you draw and write so much trash in your cell then? No salesman I ever knew was that involved in those kinda things,” Adrian continued. The man replied sharply, “It’s a pastime, all right?” Adrian glanced at Viggo as Daniel returned to eating his soup, and found Viggo staring back at him with foreboding brown eyes, whether Adrian understood Viggo’s voiceless opinion of Daniel or not, he didn’t make any sign in reply. Viggo didn’t expect the brainless man to understand, however he did suspect that both he and Adrian had, for the first time ever, an equal attitude on something: things were not right about Daniel.

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But before he had time to even think of more to do with Daniel and his rather mysterious past, Sophia announced to the three of them, “I worked for a salesman once.” Daniel glanced at her slightly uneasy, as if not expecting the topic of conversation to continue, “Oh, why, what was your work before?” Adrian laughed at his stupidity, “God man you don’t know!” Sophia was smiling at Daniel wickedly, twisting some of her artificial platinum blond hair in her fingers. With her so close, Daniel realised that Sophia was mostly artificial, in these cold unnatural surroundings she stood out like a goddess; her hair was always bright yellow, her skin was healthy and toned, her eyebrows and eyelashes were perfected, all of this not mentioning her rather wide hips, longs legs and oversized chest. “I could give you just one, one guess!” Adrian continued, “And don’t you dare say stewardess!” Sophia looked at Adrian suddenly, “I did have more than one job!” Viggo was now ignoring the conversation all together, settling instead with the thick cheese and onion soup. Sophia continued while counting her fingers, “Let’s see… when I was seventeen I was a call girl, when I was nineteen I was a stripper, when I was twenty I had my own website, and twenty-three upwards I was a prostitute,” she sounded victorious over the all male group around her. Daniel blinked; his eyes rather unavoidably fell to her chest under her thin shirt, “A stripper when you were nineteen?” he asked. Sophia shrugged, “Unofficially I started when I was sixteen.” Viggo coughed and glanced at her with a quizzical eyebrow, she only smiled back at him foxily. “And you’ve had a lot of practice,” Adrian replied longingly to her, she laughed gallingly as Adrian glanced at Daniel thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think Daniel’s had that sort of thing…” Before anyone could stop her, Sophia was up and standing on the table, there was a crash of metal trays, a clatter of spoons and the splitting of blue cheese and onion soup. Viggo backed away from the table while everyone else seemed to begin cheering Sophia on, Daniel was the unfortunate victim of the ruckus, and sat bolt upright. Of course, it wasn’t long for one of the guards lining the walls to notice this event unfolding and he sprung into action. Sophia had only just begun to pull her shirt over her head, revealing her full breasts to everyone around, before an agile guard suddenly lunged with an electro-rod into her arching back. 83

Viggo was somewhat relieved as Sophia toppled from the table with a yelp and the sparking discharge of electricity before crashing to the metal floor. Adrian was laughing, but also aided the woman back into her chair; Sophia scowled at the guard when he yelled over the hall as some of the inmates booed, “All right get back to your cells! Right now!” Viggo was one of the first to get to his feet while Daniel was one of the last, and they were escorted away through the mess hall doors with their evening hour over. As Daniel walked through the bland corridors a feminine voice breathed down the back of his neck, “Maybe I’ll ask to change cells…” He shivered uncontrollably and she laughed with Adrian behind him. Viggo walked ahead of all three of them, almost wishing the guard who had jabbed him earlier had killed him; after seeing Alyson alive and well the day only seemed to get worse and worse. The sooner she came back the better, Viggo mused thoughtfully as they returned to their dormant cells. Now the night hours had befallen the inmates of sector nineteen and the main white lights in the sector and in the cells were switched off, only for the dominance of the hissing plasma to take charge. They cast weird purple ghosts over the walls and floors as the energy barriers rippled like water running between two panes of glass. The guards’ footsteps trod noisily up and down the steel gantries and inmates were restless in their sleep, especially with Adrian and Sophia giggling across the way. With all of these things, coupled with the drone of internal electricity and the distant roar of the engines, Viggo could not sleep. The rock hard bunk was always impossible to sleep on, and he had saved his back by lying on his front, while facing away from the plasma screen to prevent the purple light from irritating him even though his eyelids. He couldn’t help thinking about Alyson, seeing her there in that ward at the medical centre, so glad and so alive. He wouldn’t know what he would have done had she died that day, perhaps he would have killed himself… thrown himself into the plasma gate. He shifted on the concrete-like bunk. He couldn’t sleep also because of the events of the day; the prongs of the electro-rod still twitched on his spine, the guard must have really jammed it into him that time. Then there was the guard thinking grossly that Viggo was taking advantage of Alyson through that pane of glass, not to mention Sophia in the mess hall. Even now, he could hear both her and 84

Adrian giggling and chuckling to each other. He felt hot too, shifting continuously, and the pain in his head had returned to haunt him from the accident a few days before. Viggo tossed his thin shirt off, the fabric making his skin itch and crawl. Sighing hopelessly, he closed his eyes for a long time, and hoped for sleep. It was no good, now there was a rocking and a heavy sound of breathing, strangely sounding as though it came from his cell. The lights were on; he blinked fiercely as the burning bright white lights shone down on him as he lay on the top bunk. He must have slept, Viggo looked around from his bunk, but there was no sound from beyond the cell, no inmates shouting or laughing, Sophia and Adrian weren’t even there. What time was it? Was it already their breakfast hour, or later? Why had no guard woken him like they usually do? And what was that noise!? The heavy breathing continued and the rocking of the lower bunk, so Viggo groaned and peered rather drowsily over the side of his bunk. “You’re awake at last!” a woman’s voice called from below. Viggo blinked in surprise and alarm, “Alyson, what… what are you doing here?” he rubbed his eyes and lay back down for a moment, “surely you should still be at the medical centre—” He stopped as he looked back over the bunk to see her with clearer eyes, “What are you doing?” he asked startled. Alyson lay on her back on the metal floor, feet tucked under the lower bunk, naked from head to toe. She replied all too happily, “Exercising, what does it look like?” Viggo put his hand to his head, the pain from the previous night was somehow worse; it was a sharp, drilling pain. “But… why are you…?” he stopped talking and looked at her again. She sighed in exhaustion from doing sit-ups and looked up at him, arms flat on the floor, “You look terrible, bad night?” Viggo shivered, rubbing the side of his head again, “No… bad day,” he felt the headache begin to leave, things felt better... Alyson then rolled over and lay on her front, “Right… give these arms what they need most!” she began to do pushups, still naked. Viggo relaxed slowly as he watched her from above, watching her bare rump and smooth arching back, very like as he saw her in the medical centre. Then she stopped by collapsing to the floor cursing, “Oh… I’m too hot and bothered now…” 85

Viggo saw her slide onto her knees, and then to her feet. She smiled at him briefly as she turned to lie down on the lower bunk. Viggo smiled to himself, a wicked impious grin, not like him at all. “Viggo? Could you come down to me…?” Alyson’s voice whispered softly from below, full of allure. Willingly, Viggo slide off the bunk and turned to face her, and squatted down to be at eye level with her. She lay prone on the hard bunk, back arching and breasts flattening, she looked at him with a smile, and he smiled back. Rather absently she reached with a hand to touch his bare chest saying, “You never told me what you did to wind up in here, Viggo.” Her touch made him shiver with exhilaration, her voice turned to an exotic whisper, “If not tell me, why not show me?” Horrified Viggo sprung awake and cried aloud as he found the cell dark and empty in the purple light of night time, he gripped his head as the headache returned in blistering revenge and he found himself alone, face down on the top bunk. But both his hands had been gripping the end of the bunk tightly and had just released as he woke, he was weak and drenched in sweat. He turned onto his back and heard the horrid sounds of his nightmare, playing from the cell across the way. In complete hatred of himself, he lay on the concrete bunk and clenched his fists in anger; that which he had searched for and had feared for so long… he finally knew, and utterly despised himself for it.

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Chapter 8: Breaking Up In the depth of space, the outer hull of the Rigor Mortis was ice cold, the void of space merciless in its emptiness, yet as it continued further and further towards the outer reaches of the Solar system, it would seem that the ship itself grew colder still. Pluto and Kuiper Belt Objects exist only in this realm of ice and rock, lifeless and still, black and foreboding, like hell frozen over. And like a lost ship floating on the river Styx, the Rigor Mortis passed with graveyard quiet. The sun was far behind them now, a small fiery orb that held all of the goodness and light of existence, and the Rigor Mortis was fleeing it like a bat from daylight. Yet inside the ship, for those without windows to view this sinister and uninviting void, all was warm and completely ignorant of the chilling reality that surrounded them. Weeks passed in this stricken ship without incident, rumour spread from guard to guard, and then unsuspecting guard to mindful prisoner, that an entire sector-worth of prisoners had killed themselves by passing through the plasma screens. Apparently a suicide pact between them had been made over the past months, discussing and debating over meals and Grav-Ball tournaments, the fear and doubt and loneliness getting to their very souls. But there wasn’t much more distance to travel now, though the crew would not see Pluto immediately, the planet’s orbit was fast approaching with an estimated time of arrival being four days presently. The ship was still in one piece, and it would not have to stop for any repairs, although engineers fear the worse for the future, as the ship’s midsection was still on the verge of splitting, and the repair teams could not remove the comet fragment from the hull, making docking virtually impossible, and planet landings haphazard. Every day, for all of these few uneventful weeks, Viggo had remained separate from anyone in the entire sector, not speaking with anyone and barely attempting to play Grav-Ball, their team was beaten continuously, as was Adrian for his annoyance. It seemed like every night, Viggo was helpless and tried to keep himself awake, but no matter what he did, he always slept, only to wake in another nightmare. Every nightmare he had was now the same one. Every time he tried to stop himself, every time he tried to wake, but it was no good; it was like someone else took control… another side of him. Every morning after one of those nights he would snap at Adrian as the man always asked Viggo sarcastically how his night was, and how 87

well he was able to sleep with Sophia. One day Viggo was far too close to actually killing Adrian that he even scared himself, and he had received a good taste of electro-rod for it. One day in the mess hall Daniel Major moved to sit with Adrian and Sophia, after he had turned down Sophia’s moves on him, he directed their attention to Viggo, who sat alone far from the other inmates. “He isn’t usually that bad is he?” Daniel asked both of them. Adrian shook his head, Sophia looked to him as he replied huskily, “Nope, he’s in a particularly foul mood these days, I’m sure you’d agree.” Adrian picked at the large scab on his lower lip, which Viggo had burst only a few days ago. “He’s not sleeping,” Sophia replied simply, always clinging to Adrian as if he wore her. Adrian looked at her, her face practically nose to nose with him, “How do you know?” Sophia smiled knowingly, “You’d see him too if you weren’t unconscious all the time…” “Well I’m sorry, like that’s all my fault!” Adrian shouted humorously before kissing her. Daniel replied, “He’s dreaming about her,” neither of them stopped to listen to him, “he’s missing her.” Adrian scoffed, “Yeah, he hasn’t done his thing yet, y’know.” Daniel stared at Viggo for a moment longer, the big man not noticing anyone let alone him, before loosing all interest and turned back to Adrian and Sophia. When they returned to their sector, Sergeant Raymond MacLeod was there; they found this surprising as he had been away for some weeks taking charge of another sector in which the inmates had killed their previous sergeant. Now he was back in calmer waters and was glad his sector was so still, but as his wife had always told him: still waters run deep, and he never forgot it. One thing in particular that was bothering him was Viggo, down in cell eleven, the prisoner never used to stalk about or snarl at other inmates quite as much as he did now. But night was creeping on and the day hours were dying. Sergeant MacLeod came to the side of his lieutenant, Carlos Jefferson, and asked him. “Has cell eleven been okay lately?” Jefferson looked at the sergeant from under the rim of his hard helmet, one eye gleaming through the plasti-glass eye piece that read prisoners’ 88

barcodes, “No sir, he’s caused trouble multiple times, especially with cell one across the way, and he hasn’t been sleeping well either.” MacLeod sighed and glanced down at the plasma gate of cell eleven, they were both standing on the opposite side but on the upper level. “I worry about that man,” he added softly, his dark face grim. Jefferson replied, misunderstanding, “Aye sir, it’s always the quiet ones.” MacLeod shook his head, and then glanced at cell twelve next to Viggo, “Is he going okay?” Jefferson followed the sergeant’s gaze, “Who, off—” he stopped short as MacLeod’s glare caught his tongue, “inmate Daniel Major?” “Yes,” “Seems to be sir… writing away as usual, but seems calmer than he used to be,” the lieutenant replied quietly. The sergeant then sighed. Jefferson looked at him, questioningly, “Sir?” MacLeod shook his head again and glanced towards the two information monitors set in the corners of the sector; those monitors gave written information from the Administrator to the cellmates. He replied, “I’m just expecting the news I don’t want to hear…” “I see, sir.” Jefferson remained standing as MacLeod marched slowly away towards the main bulkhead and the two monitors, as he did he passed the empty cell that ‘Machete’ Mike had once occupied. When he came to the monitors to stand at the lip of the sector’s lift, the radio inside his helmet crackled and a sinister woman’s voice was heard whispering into his ear. Jefferson looked at him from the distance. MacLeod replied, he alone heard the ice-cold administrator’s voice, “Yes madam, I understand my duties,” he too glanced at Jefferson with solid brown eyes. “No I… I must disagree with that madam…” his voice faltered, as if the disembodied voice had squeezed his throat shut. “Of course I do, madam, but…” he turned from Jefferson’s staring eyes and looked to the floor, “I just think it is a risk, and that’s not what I want in my sector.” He grit his teeth as the venomous voice slithered into his ear, “No madam, I do not. Yes… yes I will madam.” There was a click and his radio cut off. Bitterly Sergeant MacLeod turned and walked back towards Jefferson, face flat and expressionless. Jefferson nodded sombrely and looked away from his Sergeant as he stood beside him, “Was that the bad news, sir?”

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MacLeod nodded slowly, his eyes falling on cell eleven, “Yes it was, right on time…” Moments later, Sergeant MacLeod stood waiting at the double bulkhead door, and as the Administrator had told him, the doors opened precisely at 22:30pm Earth time. Flanked by two escorting guards stood the recovered Alyson Valentine, her bright blue eyes somewhat dull from tiredness and she would soon be asleep when returned to her cell. MacLeod welcomed her as pleasantly as he could, “Ms Valentine,” he gestured to the main lift, and the flanking escorts took her there. The Sergeant remained where he was and watched the proceedings with focused eyes, a look of concern and frustration carved into his face. The young woman was escorted to the gate of cell eleven, and she was let in before the gate was brought back up behind her. Jefferson was at his side again and said quietly, “The Administrator’s orders always stand, sir.” “I know, lieutenant, I know,” again, Jefferson had read MacLeod’s mind, and erased the treacherous thoughts that lurked there. He only hoped things would not go the way he feared they would. Viggo blinked awake at the sound of the plasma gate falling. He had not been properly asleep, he hadn’t had the time to get that far, and it felt as though the air was tenser than usual. He looked down over himself as he lay on the bottom bunk as the plasma gate was closed again, a figure stood in the cell with him, slim and of average height, black hair that was once messy and short, now was long enough to hide her ears. It could only be one person. “Hello Viggo… I see you’re asleep again?” He replied a little too prematurely, “Is this a dream?” Alyson lifted an eyebrow, which was enough to tire her out, “What?” “Never mind,” Viggo added hastily, rising from the bunk and standing tall over her, “I guess you want your bunk back?” She smiled and already began to approach it saying sleepily, “Been keeping it warm have you?” Viggo blinked in slight confusion at what she had said, still unsure if he was dreaming or not. But Alyson lay down on the bottom bunk uncomfortably on the hard mattress, and still with all of her prison tunic on. He shook himself and begun to climb up onto the top bunk as she spoke to him,

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“I’m too tired to talk… so I think I’ll just go to sleep now.” Viggo replied awkwardly, “Okay…” By the time the night hours had started and the main lights turned off, Alyson was fast asleep on the bottom bunk. But Viggo lay in grim silence, eyes wide but blinking feverishly. She was definitely back in his cell now, he had not dreamt it; sometimes he heard her feet shuffling on the bunk, or her voice whispering softly with inaudible words. So he tried to stay awake, but more importantly, in control. Instead of sleeping his imagination ran riot and he thought of how ironic it was for her to return an hour before lights out, and ever grew his certainty that the Administrator was behind it all, that they were testing him. But now, after all of his nightmare visions that had plagued him, Viggo knew the nature of the beast within him, he knew now what he was capable of, what everyone else knew him best – or rather worst – for. Nervously he wrestled with himself, tossing and turning with the unease of his own unconscious. Before long, he had lapsed into sleep, his eyelids weighted down with lead and his breathing slowly easing, and with even less effort he was carried off to another place. He was standing on the slippery tiles at the edge of a huge swimming pool, deep and cerulean, around the pool was black tiling all the way to beige walls obscured by pot-plants and jungle trees. Above him was a huge glass and metal framed dome, out of which he could see the smoky orange orb of Venus, brightest of planets, and in orbit of that planet was the grim deformed rubble that was, supposedly, the Rigor Mortis. Looking back to the pool’s shimmering waters he could see Alyson swimming towards him in backstroke. Like all of the previous hundred nightmares, she was naked, and when she reached the edge of the pool she turned to look up at him, hair slick around her face, water glistening on her pale skin like diamonds. “Come down to me,” she said with a wicked smile. With that, Viggo slid safely off the edge of his bunk and turned to face Alyson who lay on the bottom bunk asleep. Alyson then stirred and slid onto her side and blinked in drowsy surprise as Viggo stood before her, “Viggo? What are you doing?” Suddenly, as if the sparkling water of the non-existent pool had splashed over his face, Viggo shook himself and found himself standing before a curious and sleepy Alyson. He had no recollection of descending from his bunk, but remembered his nightmare’s beginning. He shook his head, “Nothing, I was just checking you were okay.” Alyson blinked, a little puzzled. 91

“Go back to sleep Alyson,” he said to her before climbing back up onto his bunk. Viggo bit his lip grimly and drew blood before noticing his hands were shaking uncontrollably and his breathing was quick and unstable. He found himself thinking, so very close. All that night, every single minute of every single hour Viggo was awake and thinking. Lying on his back, left hand at his side, right fist to his lips in thought, he could have been a stone carving upon the top of a tomb he was so still. For that entire time, seven to eight hours he thought and thought about what had happened moments since he had fallen asleep. Would he have actually hurt Alyson had she not been awake to stop him? Would he actually… He could not even think the word that described his horrifying actions. But was his problem a form of sleepwalking, or was it an unusual mixture of dream and his psychosis? He came to the conclusion that he would not be able to stop himself from… hurting Alyson should she be completely asleep next time. He knew that he was nearly twice as heavy as her, nearly three times stronger, and she would have no chance of resisting should he attack her. At night the light was dim and the guards would take too long to respond to the crisis, in fact, the guards would probably think he and Alyson were merely following Adrian and Sophia’s lead for entertainment. Sergeant MacLeod would not help even if he could; Viggo was sure the Sergeant was chained to the Administrator’s boot and was as inhuman as the rest of them. Viggo decided that it was up to him to resolve it, him alone. If he did do what he did not wish to do upon Alyson, that would be her life ruined and she may not survive the endless journey onboard the Rigor Mortis. He had promised to protect her from harm when she came on board, and perhaps there is only one way to save her, one way to stop himself for good… he would take his own life. It was still in the middle of the night, and Viggo told himself to rack his brains for other alternatives and better solutions, but if none had arisen by the time the lights turn on… he would not hesitate. The hours ticked by noiselessly and motionlessly, voicelessly and effortlessly, throughout the Rigor Mortis lights were out and souls were tired and restless. It was the Administrator herself who timed the night hours, the breakfast, lunch and evening meal hours, and it was her voice that called over the tannoy when the lights awaken. 92

As he usually did in the morning, Sergeant MacLeod was on sector charge before the lights activate. He yawned in the near pitch dark, only lit by the twenty glowing plasma gates, the green text upon the monitors, and the electronic keypads at the side of the bulkhead and the main lift. He looked at his watch and saw the hour coming round steadily, only a few more ticks. In a flurry of flickers, the lights in the sector lit up like a sort of radiant Mexican-wave, the purple glow of the plasma gates now seemed feeble and barely registering as MacLeod’s eyes adjusted to the fierce light. “Daylight hours commenced at 0700 hours,” the bitter voice of the Administrator droned over the tannoy. “All prisoners are reminded of prison rules: violence will not be tolerated, be kind to your cellmate.” All this time the Sergeant was listening to the cells, listening for signs of life. It was usual for no one to wake at least for another hour; it was normally Daniel Major who woke first out of the lot of them. But this time was different; there was a shunting sound of someone getting off a bunk and the patter of bare feet on metal plating. It was from the bottom floor, near the back of the sector, if not, the back. MacLeod walked slowly towards the lift; he didn’t like surprises or suspicious goings-on. A guard at the bottom floor was approaching cell eleven to also check out the noises. Suddenly the guard hollered aloud as soon as he reached the cell, waking most of the inmates, and slammed his fist on the plasma gate keypad. In that very instant, he saw Viggo jumping clear into the guard, straight through where the plasma screen once stood. MacLeod immediately descended on the lift and hurried forward as the guard jabbed Viggo hard in the spine with his electro-rod. “Stop Jefferson!” he shouted at him as he ran. The security guard put one heavy boot on Viggo’s back and reported to the Sergeant, “He tried to kill himself in the plasma screen sir!” As MacLeod came up to him and the stricken Viggo, Alyson was awake and had got up from her bunk, horror spread over her face. “My god, Viggo!” She started forward but MacLeod raised a gloved hand to her, “Stay there Alyson, please.” “Why, what are you doing with him!?” MacLeod looked to Jefferson slowly and said carefully, “Lift your boot lieutenant; he’s no threat to us.” Viggo lay cringing from the heavy weight and began to get up, “Are you Viggo?”

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Viggo only gave Alyson a half glance before replying to the Sergeant, “No, but you shouldn’t have stopped me; you’ve only made things worse.” Alyson cried, “What worse!? Viggo what is happening, please tell me.” MacLeod began slowly, ignoring her, “What do you want Viggo?” “I want Alyson to be safe, I always have, and that is all I want.” “By killing yourself,” Lieutenant Jefferson said loudly. Viggo darted a glare at him, then addressed MacLeod fiery, “Does he know nothing!? I know everyone else, including you, know about it!” Alyson moaned to them all, “Know about what! Protect me from what!?” Then a gritty voice sounded from cell one, Adrian and Sophia had woken from the ruckus, and Adrian had been listening intently, “He was going to rape you Alyson! It’s like a malfunction in his damn brain, why else is he in jail in the first place!” Suddenly all was very quiet and still, as if his voice had been a catalyst of tension, a storm that had cleared all sound altogether. Viggo gazed down at the floor, MacLeod looked guilty at him, while Alyson stepped back, her bottom lip wavering uneasily. Adrian continued thoughtfully to Sophia, “I think everyone needed that, don’t you?” Viggo spoke up after him bitterly, “There is no choice in the matter, I wanted to go without Alyson seeing me go, but now she must. Sergeant,” MacLeod looked up at his grim face, “I ask you to order your guard to kill me, by whatever means.” MacLeod stared at him for a moment, analysing that this was for real; Viggo’s face was edged with weariness and a lack of sleep, but ultimately more passive than ever, and seemed even more content. “Viggo,” he began, “we are not an execution ship, we hold wanted criminals for transfer.” The mountainous man hissed, “Yes, you do hold wanted criminals, with their records attached and all! I just wonder why an innocent woman such as Alyson has been placed in a small cell with me for eternity!?” MacLeod sighed sourly, “That is a matter with the Administrator.” “Yes, it always is,” Viggo muttered flatly, half expecting the response. He paused, and with him everyone paused. “Then at least put me in another cell, Mike’s old cell,” he pointed at cell nine that was vacant since the impact with the comet. “You must allow that!” But MacLeod shook his head in answer.

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“But you’re the sector Sergeant! What else can you do!? What else do you do!?” MacLeod sighed, “I control and order the guards Viggo, she deals with all things prisoner and cell related.” Viggo laughed cynically and gestured to Adrian and Sophia, “And did she put them together so they could buff off on each other all night!?” “Hey!” Adrian protested shortly. MacLeod looked back at Viggo sombrely, no answer and no change; Viggo stared back at him, trying to break the officer’s spirit. From within the cell, shuffling on bare feet, Alyson came closer to the group of men, her voice small and searching; “Viggo?” He glanced at her again, this time for a little longer, but still said nothing. Though he said nothing, he stared into her bright blue eyes and saw a sort of understanding within them, not fear or dread as he had expected when the truth was finally revealed. Perhaps he had been playing her all wrong from day one; she wasn’t the innocent young girl he swore to protect at all, she was able and fit, especially now after months of prison life. He visibly remembered when she had first arrived and snapped at Adrian when the man had made a joke at her name, it was only the second thing Viggo had heard her say, and it was strong and independent. But how could she survive with a man such as he? Viggo persisted to himself as he looked at her, how could he win with her; to win against the high and mighty Queen of the Damned, with Alyson at his side as proof? He did not know. “Sergeant,” Viggo said, slowly looking to the dour dark face, “can I trust you?” The way he had said the word ‘trust’ made MacLeod understand what Viggo was thinking; this was all about the Administrator, Viggo knew that MacLeod would die for the Administrator should she order so, and this was a test of that loyalty. “Of course, Viggo,” MacLeod replied surely. Viggo then asked sternly, “Can you put a guard, right outside my cell for the night hours? And make sure he did not fall asleep and was ready to act quickly if need be?” MacLeod nodded solidly, “Yes I can. I will take charge of the duty personally.” Viggo looked at him with new found appreciation for a moment; had he judged the Sergeant wrong as well? But his face fell again as he turned back towards cell eleven, and Alyson. 95

MacLeod looked to Jefferson and ordered, “Put the screen back up, it’s okay.” Jefferson did as ordered and then marched away. MacLeod watched both Alyson and Viggo for a moment; the woman seated on her bunk, the man standing not looking directly at her. The Sergeant then left them. Adrian groaned, “Damn, so they aren’t gonna kill him,” Sophia too, looked disgruntled. So throughout the whole of that day, Viggo and Alyson lived in near total silence and barely even talked to anyone else in the process. In their cell they merely lay on their separate bunks thinking, at one point Adrian and Sophia did their best to attract their attention, even though their attempts were vain even for both of them; pretending to collapse in agony, stripping naked, howling and cursing, calling names and making jokes. None of it had a hope in hell of working. In the mess hall, all three times that day, Viggo and Alyson sat on opposite sides of a two chaired table, sometimes looking at each other, sometimes keeping their heads down until the guards came to lead them back to their cells. Bitterly Alyson was left thinking about the truth, and everything that had been hinted to her beforehand. All of these hints now led to startling images in her mind’s eye, like the fingernail scars on Viggo’s back, she thought of him raping his own girlfriend, so fiercely that she dragged her own nails into his flesh in attempt to have him stop. Another time was last night, when she found him standing in the cell looking at her, as if in a dream state. At their evening meal hour in the mess hall, Viggo noticed these fears particularly cast on Alyson’s face. With the day aging, and the night arriving like a fateful cloud on the horizon he spoke to her softly, “Don’t worry Alyson… be strong, I know I am.” She looked up at him, dark thoughts dissipating with the sound of his voice, but concern still etched on her fair face. “I worry more for you than for me; I know that Sergeant MacLeod will be watching, but if something does happen, what will that mean for you? What will the Administrator do then?” Viggo paused to examine her face; she was indeed afraid for him not for her own safety and he could not understand it; surely she feared for herself? Surely Alyson was afraid of what he might do to her? Viggo replied quietly to the question, “Whatever she’s been waiting to do all this time.”

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Later on that meal session, just before the guards arrived to take them back to their cells, Alyson told him reassuringly, “I know that you would never hurt me,” and Viggo only nodded solemnly. “Lights out at 2300 hours, all prisoners are reminded of ship rules: violence will not be tolerated, be kind to your cellmate.” Sergeant MacLeod shook his head grimly, the message was pre-recorded and repeated yet it seemed like the Queen of the Underworld had a smirk behind that voice, a cruel smile pending an unavoidable doom to those under her boot. He had begun to deeply detest that voice and the woman he had met only once before, and that was a rare occurrence indeed. He had never felt so helpless; how the disembodied voice dominated his actions and his very soul with sour orders he did not wish to carry out, yet to not carry them out would be disgraceful and quite probably imprisonment for the rest of the ship’s journey. Yet he wasn’t completely lost, he told himself, he would help Viggo and Alyson as best he could now. It was the most he could do. Now the lights were off and the Sergeant stood to one side of the glowing plasma gate of cell eleven, his hands behind his back, twitching restlessly over the keypad that would lower the gate, and the electro-rod charged and ready on his left arm. His ears were as sharp as they could ever be, but he had always been surrounded in din and loud voices and he thought himself almost deaf sometimes. But if any noise of distress rose from that cell, he would act accordingly, for Viggo and for Alyson… but ultimately he knew, for her. In the haze of purple plasma glow the sergeant had to endure another rather unfortunate experience, he was directly across from cell one where Adrian and Sophia were at their usual midnight activities. The Sergeant was a family man at heart, though he had no children and never showed that side of him to the other officers or prisoners, he still loved his wife, and to see to people so lustful and sexual it made his stomach twist. Others would watch drooling as the two naked bodies rolled and hugged in perspiration, accompanied with overlapping groans and sighs of ecstasy, but MacLeod was not one of them. He only let them off with one escapade, but when half an hour later they were about to go again, the Sergeant marched up to the plasma gate and hollered quietly, “You two will sleep like normal people or I’ll make sure you can never be intimate again!”

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With that both of them ceased and returned to the lower bunk together, taking the threat very seriously, quietly entertaining each other so as to not enrage the Sergeant further. So the night wore on silently, and all of the inmates were now asleep, even lieutenant Jefferson had some trouble staying awake as he patrolled the upper level of the sector. Whenever he came opposite cell eleven and the Sergeant he would watch carefully before he had to move on. He had no real thoughts on Viggo York, only that he was a prisoner in need of taming; it was Alyson he was concerned and interested about. She was so innocent and corruptible, and Jefferson had been the one to escort her through her initiation to the Rigor Mortis. He thought she was smart when he first saw her, and then thought her cute when walking naked along the walkway. He sighed with the sweet memories and continued patrolling. Sergeant MacLeod was getting sleepy now; his mind was beginning to tell him that nothing was going to happen, and that he’d have to do this guard duty every single night until they reach their destination. He blinked in effort to stay awake, he was leaning on the section of wall that separated cell twelve and cell eleven, before he had almost fallen through the plasma screen behind him in drowsiness. Now that would have been guarding! he laughed to himself. But as it was all painfully quiet and uneventful for so long, it was only a matter of time for everything to go haywire. Almost when MacLeod’s thoughts were drifting to sleep, there was a sudden sound of rending material, fabric being torn apart. Seconds later before MacLeod could respond at all, a great scream came from the cell he was guarding; it was Alyson! “Viggo! Please don’t… stop!!” she cried aloud. As she did, the plasma field went down in an instant and Sergeant MacLeod stepped into sight of them. The initial scream woke all of the inmates within sector nineteen, all of them jolted and flipped awake by the shrill sound. Adrian and Sophia buckled into consciousness, nearly knocking elbows into faces and heads together as they shared a bunk, they blinked feverishly and stood up to watch. There was a sudden dry burst of an electro-rod which made Daniel blink absently inside his cell, the sounds of Viggo’s attack and Alyson’s terror booming through the cell wall. He barely flinched, only lay calmly on the lower bunk, waiting.

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MacLeod grabbed Viggo by the shoulder with an iron grip and wrenched him away from Alyson before dashing him to the floor, only to follow on with a brutal volley of electricity. Alyson cried and was pulling the remains of her torn trousers back up, before cowering in a heap at the head of the bunk, watching the scene before her. Viggo’s body was being racked with horrifying voltage; MacLeod was gritting his teeth as he made sure the prisoner was down and out, yet in the fray of the moment Viggo’s hand seemed to reach towards Alyson slowly, perhaps in vain to touch her again or maybe in a sign of regret. No one noticed but Alyson. Then he was unconscious, and MacLeod checked that he was still breathing. Quickly the Sergeant approached Alyson who seemed to cower further from his shadow, “Alyson, are you okay?” She only whimpered in reply, staring wide-eyed at Viggo’s body, her thoughts too shattered and distorted for her to even comprehend what had happened. MacLeod turned as Jefferson raced from the lowered lift, concern and a trace of anger flitting over his shadowed face, “Is he out!?” “He’s out all right, but did it take some force to get him like that…” MacLeod replied grimly, glancing at Alyson briefly. Jefferson followed his gaze, and seeing her he said, “Should I check her?” “No, he did not do anything so much as hurt her… just take him away, I’ll get Alyson new clothes.” “Aye, sir,” Jefferson replied, looking to the body, “where is it he’s being taken?” The Sergeant sighed regrettably, replying as he met with Alyson’s tear drained eyes, “Take him to blocks N to Z, ask the Sergeant there which cell is free. He’s a psychotic prisoner now.” Without further word, Jefferson quickly retrieved another guard to help him drag Viggo away from the scene, not bothering to hide his nakedness; the padded cells of blocks N to Z had no lights. MacLeod looked back to Alyson who had calmed somewhat, now her gasping had become nervous breaths. He whispered shortly, “I’m sorry.”

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Chapter 9: The Administrator There were less than two days until the Rigor Mortis arrived at its destination at Pluto’s orbit and the flight crews were starting to relax, most of their chores completed with major disasters averted, it was plain sailing now and sooner they reached the destination, the sooner they could go home again. But no one thought, or wished, to tell the prisoners that there were only two days left of their excruciatingly long journey, it was deliberately secret from them; none of the guards could discuss it if they even knew themselves, and the Administrator was never going to tell them anything. In this darkness of ignorance, almost four more sectors’ worth of prisoners had killed themselves, probably remembering the rumours of the previous suicide pact made by an entire sector of inmates. Many guards and sector sergeants found themselves out of a job early, and went to their barracks to waste away the rest of the trip with drinks and talltales. Although she knew nothing of the deadline the Rigor Mortis was about to reach, the daylight hours for Alyson Valentine were rapidly vanishing before her very eyes, ever since the night Viggo was dragged from her cell. She could not recover overnight, she barely slept and found herself skipping the next day’s evening mess hall as her slumber pounced on her early; her sleep patterns had become erratic and she could scarcely concentrate on anything. Alyson did not want to talk to anyone, though unsurprisingly Adrian was always at hand with Sophia and Daniel to talk to her. Daniel seemed nice enough to her since the incident with Viggo, though more often and not he would seem too harsh on her old inmate, and she sometimes felt Daniel had changed somehow over the past few weeks. He was certainly more positive and more relaxed than he used to be, which Alyson was of course pleased about, but there was something else troubling her about him. Perhaps it was because of Viggo having not trusted the bookworm, with his hugely luxurious cell with pencils, pens and books and paper, all given simply because he asked for them. What did make Daniel so special to get all of these treats? Alyson asked herself often. But she found herself unwilling to think of any answers to her own questions, and only thought of Viggo and where he was now.

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Sergeant MacLeod had also given her more attention since the previous night, he checked on her regularly even though she forever told him she was fine and that he was wasting his time. As the hours flew by effortlessly it seemed entirely logical for the Sergeant to appear at the plasma gate to deactivate it, and then to step into her cell. She noticed once again that his electro-rod was at his side, it was harmless and deactivated like every other time he had dealings with her. “Alyson Valentine, you have an appointment.” The young woman was lying on the bottom bunk; she had endeavoured to put her fear behind her, and so she lay on the very bunk which Viggo had attacked her. “Oh, for the doctor to check on me I suppose?” she asked, she knew it for a fact; even though Viggo had not corrupted her in anyway, she could still feel the bruises. But MacLeod shook his head, “No, not with the doctor,” she blinked, “you have an appointment with the Administrator; she wishes to speak with you in person.” Alyson was stunned silent, how could a prisoner even be let near the Administrator, let alone talk with her, “A-are you sure that’s allowed?” MacLeod smirked, “The Administrator makes these rules Alyson; it’s her job.” Alyson nodded slowly; trying to understand why the ‘Queen’ would want to speak with her… perhaps she was going to find out more about Viggo… about the truth. “You must go now, I will escort you,” MacLeod said before asking her to stand; he did not order, in fact, he never ordered Alyson once to do a thing, only asked. He ordered everyone else, his guards and his prisoners alike, but not her. As he took her from the cell the other inmates looked with quizzical and interested expressions, each one of them with half a brain would have known it was something to do with the sights and sounds of the previous night. Daniel watched closely but said nothing, while Adrian barely watched and said everything. So Alyson was escorted through entirely new passages and corridors by one officer, not two as standard custom stated, and indeed a sector sergeant who should always be at his post for as long as possible. These weren’t the only things that Alyson noticed were wrong; she was not cuffed or chained or bonded, she could have attacked the sergeant and made a mad run for freedom. But of course, that was an irrational consideration, and she was reminded that every time the electronic double doors sealed behind them. So Alyson went about remembering the route, 101

she was unsure her memory would do her justice, and as the trip continued she was increasingly pessimistic. The route turned and twisted forever, far, far further than any previous route she had taken, she even felt her shins and calves ache with walking barefooted for so long. There were increasing numbers of people as they went on, the appearance of armed guards became less and less, and the sights and sounds of technicians, engineers and off duty men and women became more noticeable. Alyson grew further into uncertainty as they passed through two individual elevators, both going down; how far was the Administrator? she wondered. After turning several corners and walking long corridors there was a huge influx of technicians and engineers and repair-teams, hurrying back and forth with various trolleys brimming with heavy, deadly looking tools – certainly they were ‘potential weapons’ Alyson mused. A group of men hauled a great machine made of air tanks and cables past them and MacLeod had to hold her close to the wall to let them through. At that, Alyson had to ask; “What is going on, Sergeant?” MacLeod replied, glancing down in the direction the team, and most of the engineers, had hurried, “Down there is the structural breach, caused by the comet that hit us a few days ago, it is in need of repair.” Alyson gasped, “A comet hit us?” Her mind worked fast, and two and two were put together, “That’s what caused the accident…” MacLeod nodded solemnly. Now Alyson saw a change in the corridors themselves, and was surprised it took her so long to notice. Instead of the harsh, bleak and bland metalwork of the prison blocks and sectors, this area of the ship was somewhat grander, the walls were coloured a creamy yellow, it had reminded her of the soup they sometimes had in the mess hall – though that thought made her feel worse – while two lines ran horizontal one third from the floor, one red and one pale blue. Every now and then, the prison company’s logo interrupted the two lines; the logo was a hexagon of the same pale blue, with a red triangle fitted inside it. The general translation of the logo was that the hexagon symbolised the complex but great effort of the prison company, their task being to contain the savage and dangerous criminal, symbolised by the red triangle. So she was led quietly through the corridors, the lights fitted into the ceiling gleamed bright white, radiating everything and everyone with barely a shadow. There were no corners in darkness, no place to hide; however Alyson had seen multiple security cameras small in rather unlit 102

upper corners of passages. Surely those who watched the monitors wondered why a sector sergeant was escorting an unchained prisoner, alone, through these corridors. They turned another corner and they saw a dead end ahead of them. Two guards stood outside flanking a single door of grey and red, one of them also stood near a cabinet bolted to the wall, while the other stood next to the door’s access keypad. Both guards were fully armoured and held electro-rods steady at their sides; now it felt like Alyson had never left the prison blocks. MacLeod led her before these two solid guards and spoke to the one who stood beside the keypad, to his left. “This is the prisoner from block C, sector nineteen, cell eleven who the Administrator wishes to speak with privately.” The guard to the right then grabbed Alyson’s left arm, and twisted it to bring her identity barcode into the view of his eyepiece. As she squirmed uncomfortably, the relevant data was recorded and the guard nodded to his fellow; the left hand guard then spoke to MacLeod almost mechanically. “Sector Sergeant Raymond MacLeod, you should not be accompanying prisoners to the Administrator’s office; you should be at your post in sector nineteen.” Alyson glanced uneasily at the dark skinned Sergeant, whose lip curled before he answered, “I understand that officer, I only wanted to see to this personally.” The officer only replied steadily, a tone of steel, “That is irrelevant. I order you to return to your sector immediately, we shall escort Ms Valentine back once spoken to by the Administrator.” Alyson knew that this guard was no higher ranking than a sector Sergeant, yet his tone was dominant and cruel, and MacLeod backed away and replied respectfully, “I do as the Administrator and her officers see fit.” He then turned to walk back down the single corridor, but only after giving Alyson a quick glance with his dark eyes, perhaps to reassure her, perhaps not. The Sergeant then left Alyson with two guards she did not know, they seemed alien to her yet the only difference between them and men like MacLeod were that they had the prison company’s sinisterly simple logo on their uniforms. Perhaps they were trained officers, while the likes of MacLeod and the others were merely hired men and women to bulk out the numbers. It certainly would not have surprised her. “All right lady,” the right hand guard spoke dangerously, “that Sergeant was pretty nice to you and all, but around here you can’t just be 103

free like everyone else.” He then unlocked the steel cabinet on the wall with a round key before bringing out two pairs of cuffs. The guard then slapped them over her wrists and around her ankles before locking the cabinet again. The metal was icy cold and bit into her pale skin like razors as the other guard began to manipulate the door’s keypad. “Do not speak unless spoken to, touch nothing and do not attempt to escape,” the guard said as he keyed in multiple numbers, “we are both right outside, and I assure you, the Administrator herself is well armed.” Within moments the door slid open, upwards and into the wall effortlessly without a sound. “In you get,” one guard said, nudging her into the room beyond. The first thing Alyson felt when the guards pushed her through and the door closed quickly behind her was a sudden change under her feet. A soft, mouldable layer cushioned her hard feet from the usual painful steel, and it seemed to fit snugly between her toes and a luxurious feeling spread through her legs in an instant. She looked down at her joyous feet to find the answer. A carpet! A great thick carpet covered the entire surface of the floor, dark red in colour, and Alyson was swiftly in love with it. How long had it been since she felt such material under her bare feet? Alyson peered slowly up, pushing her toes deeply into the fine carpet as she did. The room around her was equally luxurious, the walls were panelled in dark brown wood, while on them were paintings, works of art from the past two centuries. Tabletops upon glass cabinets lined the walls in most places, on these surfaces sat sculptures and statues all perfectly positioned and without one speck of dust. The lights were spotted around the room giving a feel of heavenly sophistication to everything they touched. There was a desk directly ahead of her, gleaming with a thousand layers of radiant polish, made of equal dark wood as the walls; it seemed a work of art in itself. The desk was topped with rather old desktop items, antiquities with very particular meanings, perhaps; an ink pen and pot, an old fashioned lamp and a leather file of papers. There was no computer screen or keyboard present, unless they folded out from the polished wooden surface. Behind the desk was a wall decorated in certificates and old trophies, long past their use on a uniform breast or in an officer’s file, and others too grand to be put in such places, only fitting individually upon a wall. On a tabletop against that wall was an old model ship, the kind of ship that would have sailed the oceans and seas of Earth using wind power alone. 104

But the dominating present within this grand room ultimately drew Alyson’s attention, and was given little time to admire anything else. At the central desk sat a woman, dark skinned and uniformed in black with red and pale blue lines lining her arms and legs, and indeed had a few medals attached to her breast. Broad shouldered and firmly built, both sharp elbows upon the perfect polished wood, long fingers with trimmed nails, woven together to support a knife like chin of a lean face. Her nose was long and pointed, while her eyes were deep and instantly inquisitive, alert and knowledgeable below a pair of thin, plucked eyebrows and a black waterfall of hair was pulled back and tied behind her elven like ears. Alyson already felt very small. The Administrator then spoke, her voice much alike the tone through the prison tannoy; ominous, deep, deceptive yet strangely honourable at the same time. Alyson felt she could trust that voice somehow, but managed to reel away from it. It was as subtle as a snake. “Welcome to my office, Ms Valentine.” Alyson tried to peer around the ‘office’ more, but the void-like depths of the woman’s eyes still captured her attention. “Please, sit down,” she said rather reassuring, yet treacherously. Alyson nimbly moved and sat down in a finely carven wooden chair that was cushioned, and the entire length of her back and her rump immediately wanted to fold into the fine chair; it was like lying on dozens of silk cushions compared to her concrete bunk. The Administrator’s thin lips twitched a smile as she noticed Alyson’s near-subconscious lusting for comfort, “I see you like it here.” Alyson blinked and sat somewhat straighter, seeming to have slumped in the chair in unintentional ecstasy. The Administrator’s smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she spoke quietly, “I guess you are wondering why you are here?” Alyson nodded slightly, lips too solid to say anything. The dark woman looked at her blankly, “Do you have any idea? Surely you do, having been involved.” Alyson then spoke up, somewhat shakily, she felt like a shy teenager talking to her head Physics tutor all over again, “About Viggo?” “Yes,” the Administrator replied before leaning back in her cushioned, tall backed armchair, the smile returning rather crookedly. “This is about Mr Viggo York and his condition now, and before, and why he did what he did to you one night.”

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Alyson’s mind was cast back suddenly, all of the current splendour had blinded her from truths she had been seeking answers too, but now she remembered. She replied more strongly this time, “Yes.” The Administrator then told her, her tone changed also in response, “I am in charge of all matters that revolve around prisoners, blocks and sector guards and sergeants, the cells and their uses. As you can imagine that is a fair amount to handle for one person, however I am perfectly capable to deal with such matters. The question that is probably dogging you currently is why you were put in a cell with a man such as Mr York.” She paused as Alyson nodded, and then tapped the leather file that was lying perfectly flat and parallel with everything on the desktop with long fingers. “This file contains everything about Mr York – and yourself I might add – some of which you may already know, some you may not. “In early years of his life, Mr York was a flunk, he did not do well on any educational level, and his parents were not pleased with his lack of progress. He did however have links to the police force upon Earth, it was not a particularly grand position he was going for, but with little training or education required he signed up regardless. What ultimately led from there was for Mr York to become a highly rated and decorated police officer, and never had a bad mark against his name. “However, before that point, his mother and father were both killed in a fatal shuttle crash, the cause of the crash was never resolved, and the closest theory was sabotage by terrorists or criminals. The young Mr York seemed not flustered by this though, and his career continued to become greater and greater. “Later in life, he moved to a police post on Phobos, the Martian moon colonised one century ago, along side him was his girlfriend Ms Monica Campbell. For a long time did they live together in peace, and it seemed that Mr York had nothing wrong in his duties for this entire time, they were together for nearly three years without incident. “What happened next was to change his life forever, destroy his future and his career. One night, after a day of simple police patrolling that involved nothing hazardous, Mr York returned to his apartment to find his girlfriend alone, and at that point, he raped her savagely, for no clear reason at all.” The Administrator looked at Alyson with a subtle gleam in her dark eyes, as if telling a ghost story to a child, “He disappeared for the whole night, his girlfriend had survived the attack but immediately called on his own compatriots, the Martian police force. They arrived swiftly 106

with a medical team who checked on her condition. Then Mr York returned to the apartment, fresh and seemingly innocent as if nothing had happened, only to be knocked down by his comrades, chained up and sent to police headquarters. “But the most interesting and important piece of this story, is his court case, which was some time after the assault. Mr York and Ms Campbell had their claims voiced by two fine lawyers, and frankly, Mr York’s defence should have won.” Alyson looked puzzled, her mind trying to keep up with the relevant information. “Mr York was classified to have a common brain disorder known as ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’, which causes the patient to act as if possessed by another person’s being, and would have no knowledge once episodes of the disorder were over. Clearly Mr York could have been found not guilty at this point, and sent away for treatment.” Alyson then asked cautiously, “So why didn’t he?” “In the past there have been many court cases that have been resolved with this disorder, wanted criminals had been let off death row because of there being a ‘treatment’ for their madness. However, nearly ninety percent of these treatments do not work, and a couple of years later the criminal would return and wreck more havoc. “With this in mind, Mr York’s case was turned down and he was found guilty of raping his own three year long girlfriend, for no reason at all.” The Administrator’s voice now had a tone of irony as well as darkness to it, and Alyson nearly found herself scowling at her for it. Instead the Administrator continued speaking, “He was sentenced to ‘Government Processing’ and put into Deimos Detention. Now this is where you fit into it all, Ms Valentine,” the Administrator’s eyes flashed devilishly at her, making the young woman squirm in the comfortable chair. “I chose you randomly from hundreds of ‘suitable’ women to be put into a cell with Mr York. By ‘suitable’ I mean women with records of slim criminal activity, no psychosis or violence. It is no good putting a beast in with another beast. “You were a test, Ms Valentine; a test to see if Mr Viggo York was insane or able to control what he should have known was inside him or not,” the Administrator saw Alyson’s blue eyes glistening in pain, and replied without any conviction. “I am sorry for you Ms Valentine, to be put in that situation. But if Viggo York had managed to stop himself from—”

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“What?” Alyson interrupted spitefully, “What would have been done for him? Would you have released him?” “No,” the dark woman replied sullenly, “of course not. But he would still be with you, not in the hellhole he is now.” Alyson blinked, bringing a chained hand to her eye lightly saying, “Now I know why they call you the Queen of the Underworld.” “Or of the Damned,” she added with a thin lipped smile, not registering Alyson’s grief, “I know them, and funny to think that none of those who made the names had ever met me in the flesh.” Alyson replied bitterly, “I have now, and I can tell them it’s true.” The Administrator shrugged her broad shoulders lightly and replied, “If that makes you feel better, so be it. But understand Ms Valentine, your incident with Viggo was necessary to prove him innocent or guilty, I am almost certain he knew that too.” Alyson’s stare fell away from the brooding dark eyes to the desk; scanning along its surface she spotted a small statue at the corner of the desk. It was a cat, made from creamy marble laced with strands of blue; the feline creature was sitting tall with a royal and proud air around it. Alyson wondered for a moment if the Administrator liked cats as she did herself, or if she was only keen on the sleek intelligence that surrounded the creature. “Where is Viggo now?” she asked sadly and softly. The Administrator had followed the woman’s eyes to her cat, and had known that Alyson was a lover of cats from reading her files; one pet cat named Callisto. She responded sharply, “He is down in the lower prison blocks, block R, I believe.” Alyson then asked, “Can I see him?” The dark, uniformed woman almost laughed, “If you really want to I can arrange it. I didn’t think a woman would want to meet her rapist again, while surrounded by other psychotic felons.” “I want to see him now,” Alyson continued promptly. “I see…” Alyson persisted, “I see no difference in going now and going later, no need to take me all the way from my cell again.” The Administrator nodded slowly to her; she did not care if this prisoner wished to go or not, it was impossible for her to free him and all she could do was to have a tearful conversation. The Administrator did not see wrong in that certainly, “Of course, you may, I will have my two guards outside escort you to his cell.”

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Alyson did not bother thanking the dark woman who sat as proud and sinisterly as her pale cat on the polished wood; she only stood up and began to walk back to the door, treading softly on the thick carpet. “Did you know,” the Administrator called, “that it was Christmas yesterday?” she almost sneered venomously. Alyson looked back at her, face blank and sorrowful, but she spoke huskily, “Is all of this to put me down?” she gestured around the room, “showing me how you live in exaggerated luxury while I must return to my cold solid cell? Is it meant to ruin my spirit even more?” The Administrator showed no sign of being affected by the words, and only replied, “This is only my office, Ms Valentine. You should feel privileged to be standing in it.” She then reached under her desk with one hand and must have activated a sort of communications device as she began to speak to the guards outside. “Guards, please escort Ms Valentine to block R, sector two, cell five for a meeting with the inmate. She is not allowed into the cell for obvious reasons; take her back to block C, sector nineteen when she is done.” She had never taken her eyes off Alyson. She then sat back and said to Alyson, “I hope I’ve answered your questions today, I doubt we will see each other again, Ms Valentine.” As the guards entered the room, Alyson said quietly, “I have one question;” the Administrator inclined her head, “where are we going, the ship?” The dark woman replied coldly, “I’m afraid that is nothing to do with me, only the ship captain, government officials and flight crews know that, and you will never meet them.” She looked to the guards who now flanked Alyson, “Take her away.” With that, it was the end of Alyson’s encounter with the Administrator face to face, and the young woman was hauled out of the lavish room without further comment. Her bare feet met with the cold steel of the corridor again and it chilled her very bones like knives. “Come on then lady, you’ve got an appointment with a psycho,” one guard grunted sourly. Both of them then pulled Alyson forcibly through the corridors, gripping her under the arms as they did. Clearly Sergeant MacLeod had been easy with her after all. So the two guards who had flanked the Administrator’s own doorway now escorted her through yet more corridors she did not know. She only just managed to map out the route to the office in her mind, but now everything was jumbled; from the Administrator’s riddle-like interview and the rugged pulling and shoving of the two guards. However 109

she did detect that she was going back the direction she had come as they went up one elevator, but then down another, which confused the issue further. Alyson was aware of the situation darkening; the corridors lost their splendour and clean lines and logos, and the lights became fewer and less effective. It was only a small difference at first, but Alyson could only guess the path that lay ahead of her. The guards were small comfort; they would talk between themselves about matters, all too aware that Alyson would be listening. They spoke of rumours and tales about the blocks N to Z, and the psychotics that are imprisoned there. “Apparently the guards have twin electro-rods down here,” “I heard the prisoners ain’t even given clothes, ‘cos some poor blighter suffocated himself by swallowin’ his own shirt!” “Once I heard of a guy who started eating himself, and by the time the guards noticed it he didn’t have a right arm no more.” Alyson tried not to listen to the tales of death and carnage that quite possibly occurred for real down in the depths of hell, but she only thought of how Viggo was among them, and she pitied him so greatly that all her thoughts were lost to him. Down yet another elevator, the passages through the bowels of the ship had changed dramatically. The walls were now bland steel, unkempt and unclean, unimaginably worse than the block which Alyson lived above, the lights were basic tube lights running down the centre of the dark ceiling, infrequent doors to the left and right had no signs or labels, only electronic keypads and locks. The corridor ended at a sort of registration area, clearly marked as an entry to blocks Q, R and S which lay through both a metal-detector post and an electronically locked gateway just ahead of them. Alyson was immediately fearful of the metal-detector, memories of her initiation to the ship returning to her. A grim faced man wearing a dark uniform sat at a desk to their right and both escorting guards turned Alyson to face him. “This is Alyson Valentine, having been given permission by the Administrator to speak with cell five of sector two in block R,” said the guard in a monotonous voice. The man at the desk rose and brought Alyson’s arm under the gaze of his barcode reader eyepiece and grunted, “That is Viggo York’s cell?” It was more of a statement; he knew it was Viggo’s cell, but the enquiring look he gave the guard was intent. “That’s right,” the guard replied. 110

“And this is his recent victim?” the desk man had an increasing tone of surprise. “Orders of the Administrator,” the guard reminded absently. Alyson spoke up to the seated man boldly, making her feelings heard, “And by my will.” The guards that flanked her laughed hoarsely at that. Seated at his desk, the officer shrugged and gestured for the metaldetector, “All right, next floor up.” So the two guards shunted Alyson through the security gate and it made no sound, thankfully she thought to herself, and they took her into an elevator directly ahead that was constructed of steel grills and framework. Before entering, Alyson heard raised voices through closed doors and down long passages, muffled, muted, maddened. The elevator creaked and grinded its way up to the second level, quite probably the next sector, sector R that was above sector Q in which the voices had issued. But the sounds did not stop there, sector R seemed equally busy to her ears. The elevator shook to a halt with a death rattle of chains and the guards led her out as the doors swung open with a practiced clang. The corridor was very narrow now and lit only from above by small circular lights, directions and numbers were painted roughly on the steel walls while Alyson’s bare feet begged for the soft carpet again; now treading on ridged, icy, grilled metal. There were twenty passages breaking off from this corridor that now led from left and right, each passage was a sector that contained twenty cells each, Alyson was taken down the left and passed a number of these gloomy passages. They were like catacombs, tombs or crypts with solid steel doors that lined the walls on each side, guards walked with duel electro-rods that glowed blue. The stalking men looked like graveyard keepers or demonic slave-drivers; their faces masked in the shadows of their helmets as they trudged back and forth through the cold lengths of cells. Alyson swallowed as the prisoners stirred madly in their confinements, and feared for Viggo’s own sanity in such a place. The guards brought her to the passage marked ‘two’ and escorted her further down it in single file, the walkway only allowed enough for that, one guard in front, one behind. As the metal grills bit into the hard soles of her feet, she glimpsed wide eyes and barred teeth through small windows in each door, voices accompanied them, either brittle and broken or loud and raw, making Adrian seem tame. Most voices jeered her; men beckoned to her mindlessly, and she tried to ignore them as best she could. 111

She had to walk the whole length of the hellish passage before she was stopped at a dull, solid metal door with a small barred window set at head level. There was nothing else to see; only darkness greeted her from within the cell, and there was only a glowing keypad to one side of the doorframe. She jumped out of her skin as the guard thumped his gloved fist on the metal door with a resonating boom and hollered inside, “Viggo York! You have a visitor to see you.” The two guards remained at her side, standing at ease but electro-rods still charged, Alyson stepped once more closer to the door, hoping for light to show her inside, but there was no such light. “Viggo,” she called, “its Alyson… are you there?” There was then a shuffling noise from inside, the sounds of someone getting up from resting upon padded material. There were no footsteps before a voice sounded clear from the dark, “Alyson? What are you doing here?” He sounded unchanged, much to her relief; she was afraid that the voice to reply would have been cruel, mad, babbling in delirium. “I asked if I could see you, and they let me.” “They did?” Viggo sounded bemused. “I saw the Administrator, Viggo,” she added shortly. “Oh? What did she tell you?” Alyson shrugged a little, her eyes trying to see more, yet knew that Viggo would be able to see her all too clearly from the darkness. “She told me about you, about your past, your crime and your trial… and why she put me with you.” Viggo snorted, “I suppose there were no surprises there…” “But I had to know for sure,” Alyson said sadly, looking away from the dark portal, “though she is the Queen of the Damned, I can believe that she speaks true about these things.” “I guess.” A moment passed with nothing said, and then the guards twitched as if about to drag her away, but Alyson continued hastily, “I don’t have much time here; I shouldn’t even be here, but I just wanted to tell you that I forgive you… and I’m sorry for where you are now.” Viggo mused, “Well, padded rooms aren’t as bad as you’d think; you can throw yourself around and you don’t get hurt,” he said ironically. “Viggo,” Alyson scowled, “I’m serious!” there was a broken paused. Her tone may have been fierce, but Alyson’s eyes gleamed like wet glass, his

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good humour was too much for her heart to take; it only proclaimed his innocence. “I know,” he answered softly from the dark. “I did not mean to hurt you, Alyson,” he said then, “I just cannot control it, it’s like a dream, a nightmare which I have no control. Then I wake up and remember nothing! But I do know, before it happened I had dreams that I could remember; I understand the beast now, though I still can’t deny or defy it.” Alyson blinked and looked down at the grilled floor and her bare feet; she sniffed and said quietly, “I wish I could see you.” Viggo laughed softly, “No you don’t… they don’t give you clothes or shavers or anything in here…” Alyson said sincerely and forlornly, “I am sorry, Viggo.” She could tell that he had nodded, though she could not see him. Then the guards took one of her arms each, the touch was cold and for a moment she found herself resisting their claws. One voice said bluntly, “Time’s up lady, better get you back to your cell! Leave this guy to rot in peace.” Remorsefully Alyson was dragged away and back down the festering, loud passage of men and women she considered true murders and rapists. One day, Alyson told herself, she would get Viggo out of that place. Though a small voice in her head told her the truth that it was an impossible and naive promise, but she would continue to hold true to it; it was all she had.

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Chapter 10: Charon’s Gate All that night and evening Alyson was mostly quiet, though at some points she would spread the word that the Administrator was just as bad as any of the names or stories given to her, and that the voice on the tannoy was definitely her. But this made things worse for Alyson in some ways; every time she heard that voice she could see the gleaming brown eyes, the sneering lips and knife-like chin. Alyson strove to remove the dark woman out of her mind, and she was replaced by Viggo locked away in that crypt within a long passage of ghosts and murderers. At one point Adrian asked about the lower blocks, Alyson only told him to be glad he was where he was, that everyone should be. But she wondered after that, would she feel the same way if any of the others in her sector were put there instead of Viggo? Probably not, and that made her feel even more alone. She slept terribly that night and knew that at some point the next day she would collapse in exhaustion. She was forever trying to imagine what Viggo was like before the incident that landed him in court, she thought of him as young and free, wake and alert, brave and handsome; he must have been brave to be such a good police officer as everyone said he was. If only she knew him then, they would have got on so well together. But it always came back to that fateful incident and the pity for him. One thing she was grateful for now was the freedom of Adrian and Sophia’s late night activities, it seemed that someone had threatened them into silence. It was unfortunate she could not sleep anyway, for she would have slept and dreamt well. What none of the prisoners on the Rigor Mortis knew about was what they were fast approaching in the depths of space. It was in sight now for the naked eye to see it, and it had registered on the flight crews’ sensors long before now and they were already set on a collision course with it. It was one of the Government’s most prized possessions, and one of the best kept secrets; no one knew about the project, not on Earth or any of the other eight planets, only few crackpot theorists knew of it but no member of public ever took them seriously. ‘Enyo’ was the title of the project, yet others called it ‘Bellona’; even members of the project were uncertain of its true identity. The object that the Rigor Mortis drifted towards was a huge metallic ring of enormous size, perhaps equal to the size of Pluto, painted with yellow and black warning stripes, chipped and scarred in places, it 114

was dull, colourless chrome underneath and not a single letter printed upon it. The ring was unmanned and completely automatic; its purpose was not visible to the unknowing spectator until an object or ship moved within the innocent reach of the woeful circle. When the lights came back up at the start of their last day, Alyson found herself still awake on the bottom bunk and she easily got up and begun her exercise alone, even though everyone else in the sector was still asleep. She found herself thinking about Viggo too much in the night, and the thoughts kept her awake; it wasn’t the same even now, without him beside her, and she often stopped sooner and didn’t do as much as her body could have achieved. As she was up and active Sergeant MacLeod appeared promptly at her plasma gate and watched for a few short seconds. “Ms Valentine,” she stopped, she was doing push-ups and had not seen him, and turned to look at him. “You’re awake for the earliest time for you, a personal best.” “I couldn’t sleep at all,” she replied shortly through breaths, “I don’t know why.” MacLeod nodded somewhat irrelevantly, “I think I do,” but then said no more on the subject. “You’d met the Administrator once before didn’t you, sergeant?” “Yes,” he replied narrowly, lips firm. “What did you think of her?” MacLeod laughed, an unsettling sound, and then said, “At first, I thought she was quite attractive actually, until she blew my head off for disobedience.” Alyson looked at him in astonishment, his dark face was set, “Disobedience, for what?” “You have no right to ask about that,” he replied stonily, his back straightening, “besides, the others will wake soon.” With that he was gone, promptly marching off down the sector, probably to the main lift. Alyson sighed, was her grief for Viggo so obvious? She was always hopeless at lying, and diabolical for hiding her feelings. People she knew had always said she was ‘an open book’, but she preferred the concept of a close book with a transparent cover. “Good, you are all awake!” Sergeant Raymond MacLeod hollered over the sector later in the morning, and indeed, everyone was awake.

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“Sure we are sarge,” Adrian replied heartily from the lower level, “I thought the lights were on earlier this morning,” he rubbed his eyes in sudden drowsiness. Sophia still moaned in a semi-conscious state on her – or indeed their – bunk. Alyson stood leaning on the wall opposite the bunks and close to the plasma gate so that she could see the sergeant on the top level, standing on the raised lift. “I have an important announcement to make to you all about our current location and journey through space!” “Wow, the first official news from outside,” another inmate muttered. “As the Administrator found out herself yesterday evening, and told us Sergeants to tell you bunch, we are at the end of our long journey!” a broken cheer interrupted him, Alyson smiled somewhat, pleased but uneasy. The Sergeant continued, “We have a lot to prepare for as there is one more part to our journey which is critical;” he paused as if to ready himself to say what had to be said, “we are to pass through a wormhole.” Unsurprisingly, laughter broke out over the sector, most of the inmates completely off their heads; with such a long time in confinement it only took one thing to set them off. But two prisoners were not laughing; Alyson was staring at the Sergeant with worried eyes, though the news was certainly new to her, but she did not like it and knew that MacLeod spoke true. Daniel was not laughing either, in fact he was quietly filtering through his papers as if MacLeod was not even making the speech at all. “Now shut up the lot of you! This is important!” MacLeod yelled over them fiercely, not taking their mood easily. Adrian laughed, “Come on MacLeod! You gotta do better than that! There aren’t any wormholes; that’s all sci-fi crap!” But the Sergeant replied directly to him, though loud enough for all to hear, “Well, don’t blame me if you get… a surprise later today. We are to pass through and travel nearly forty-two light-years in an instant to reach our destination.” Alyson’s lips parted in reformed worry and awe; could this really be happening? She knew that forty-two light-years was well out of the solar system, and as the prison company would be unlikely to send a ship like this into a void of intersystem space, it must have meant they were currently on the edge of the Sol system, and about to jump into the neighbouring system! How did the Government develop such technology without anyone noticing? Alyson mused to herself. The other inmates were still laughing and giggling, not taking a bit of it seriously, and Sergeant MacLeod marched out of the sector sternly; his pride dented, yet 116

he told himself sombrely: they know and that’s all that matters, they can laugh all they like. Now for the whole morning Alyson was worrying about this news, lying on her bunk trying to think of how it could be possible; her PhD in Physics should have given her answers, but ultimately she was just confused even further. She found herself fearing for her safety, and the ship’s structural integrity, when passing through a wormhole. Only at their lunch hour could she finally speak her worries with Daniel. “Do you believe in fate, Daniel?” she asked firstly, fiddling with her serrated spoon. Daniel replied rather absently as he sat opposite her, “No.” Alyson blinked in surprise at his short answer, “Why not?” He sighed, “Because I believe I have a choice in life, I choose where I go and what I do.” “Did you choose to go through this wormhole? To be on this ship in the first place?” she asked with increasing volume and sharpness. He nodded shortly, “Yes, yes I suppose I did,” his voice seemed oddly at ease as he answered her question. “Don’t you?” Alyson paused for a moment to consider everything that had happened, everything that led her to this point, and that was always the way she thought of life; one thing leading to the next, so she replied, “No, I do believe in fate. I didn’t have any control of my life when it led me into this place, and I think I am being fatefully taken through this wormhole. I certainly didn’t ask for it!” Daniel nodded thoughtfully and then replied, not looking at her, “Some people would think you were making excuses about your life.” She looked startled, and couldn’t help leaning back slightly, his reply quite vicious even if he meant it or not. She changed the subject swiftly, begging not to argue with him, “What do you think of the wormhole then?” “It’s all pretty sci-fi isn’t it?” he had a tone of excitement. Alyson raised an eyebrow at him, long ago he would have been scared stiff at the concept, “What?” He glanced at her expression and added hastily, “Though a little risky, I guess.” Alyson watched him eating his soup for a moment more and told him coldly, “I don’t think this ship can take whatever punishment waits inside a wormhole, I really don’t.” Daniel shrugged, “How would you know?” 117

She blinked, “I did a PhD in Physics Daniel, I know some things about this.” He shook his head and replied, “Well I’m sure we won’t die or anything, the Government would have tested it first before sending any ship through.” Alyson did not like his ease in taking the news and replied, “You’ve been with Adrian and Sophia too long, why are you taking this so easy?” “Why not?” he replied quickly and Alyson shut her mouth. “It seems like you’ve got in a twist about it, relax, it’ll be over in an instant, as the Sergeant said.” She sighed, returning to her usual soup while saying, “It’s afterwards I’m worried about.” So there was little of the day left, and for the whole of that time the inmates of sector C were to remain in their cells, left with their thoughts and often unwanted company. But Alyson had no company, good or bad, and she felt desperate to speak her mind with Viggo about the wormhole they were approaching. Did he even know that this was about to happen, she somehow doubted that the guards of those tomb-like prisons would bother telling the prisoners anything at all, this made Alyson even more anxious to speak with him. It was impossible though, there was no way the Administrator would allow her to see Viggo again, let alone minutes before entering a wormhole! But she found herself not thinking about the wormhole and the bizarre secrecy that surrounds it - obviously by the Government – but instead she found herself thinking of Viggo and how he must have felt when she was away at the medical centre after the comet impact. He must have been so alone then, and perhaps that caused his delirium to manifest when she returned? Or perhaps the blow to his head caused it, when the comet hit the ship… though surely then the medical check-up (which he must have had) would have detected his trauma? Then again, if it did, perhaps the Administrator had given orders to ignore any signs of brain trauma with Viggo? She shivered and her hand absently fell to her inner thigh, touching bruised skin under the thin tunic she wore, a tunic Sergeant MacLeod had given her the morning after Viggo’s assault. The bruises would take a long time to heal and she spent time looking at them, such as now. Alyson checked Adrian and Sophia, ironically they were both asleep, and there was only the ruckus of other cellmates who were out of sight. Satisfied no one was watching Alyson, while seated on the lower 118

bunk, lifted her right leg high and let the thin trouser leg fall down to expose her whole leg. Leaning back she held her leg with one hand and peered at the discoloured flesh of the bruises on the back side of her thigh. Much exercise allowed her to hold her leg so high for so long, and she padded her fingers lightly on the bruises. As she did this she wondered how at ease she was after that horrid night, it may have been because she knew that it was ‘an accident’ completely out of Viggo’s control. She found herself pitying him for having such a curse, yet perhaps he had learned something from that night, unlike with his girlfriend before, Viggo now knew what was inside him, and maybe he could control it. If only there was a way to fix him… permanently. Alyson looked up towards the cell gate quickly; a figure stood outside her cell looking at her while she examined her injuries, it was Jefferson. When she saw him he quickly stepped out of sight, feigning patrolling, yet she knew from the look he gave her he was far from concerned about her health. Quickly Alyson put her foot back to the floor and pulled the trouser leg back down, before lying sombrely on the lower bunk, wondering what would become of them all. It seemed only moments before the sector Sergeant’s voice spoke over them all again, the sturdy dark man had a tone of finality to it, and even the inmates seemed to settle down to listen to him. “Even if you took my last speech seriously or not, we have now reached the wormhole gate,” – there was an inevitable snigger – “and we will pass through it in a matter of minutes. I ask you all to brace yourselves as best you can; it could be quite a ride.” Adrian was first to speak up hoarsely, “What exactly happens when you pass through a wormhole? Do you get turned inside out or something?” Sophia giggled at his side. MacLeod groaned and replied, “I really don’t know, Adrian. But I think I’d prefer seeing your face inside out… it may be an improvement.” Alyson answered Adrian’s question, she didn’t particularly want to, but something told her that this ‘ride’ would be a disaster and if she wanted to talk to anyone ever again, she’d better do it now. “Wormholes are said to compress time for whatever passes through, so if anything you might feel time stopping and everything freezing. Or we might just pop out the other side immediately, according to current theory.” Adrian was impressed, “Well, check out our space Physics expert!” “I did come close to a Physics PhD remember, Adrian,” she sneered, never taking Adrian seriously.

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“All right, enough bitching,” MacLeod shouted at them all, “whatever happens, I’m not going to wish any of you good luck; because too few of you deserve it.” With that he was gone, and it was uncertain if he had left the sector altogether to be strapped safely into a harness seat, or remained with them. All of a sudden Alyson felt very enclosed like she was inside a tin can on the verge of a very steep hill, which probably wasn’t a bad assumption. Adrian looked to Sophia in their cell and sounded disappointed, “Damn, if we knew time was going to freeze, we could have planned for an endless orgasm!” Sophia inclined her head with a smile, “The Sergeant did tell us to ‘brace’ ourselves…” “You’re right!” Adrian replied gleefully. Alyson sat on her bunk silently, as the moment approached she felt herself tensing up; her hands shivered and the hairs on her arms tingled and her back itched. The more she thought about it the more it grew; her head swam and her stomach knotted uncomfortably. She hated the feeling. In a bid to get her mind off it, she glanced over at cell one and immediately looked away again. She couldn’t grasp what Sophia and Adrian’s brains were made of; both of them were stripping and had soon embraced on the floor of their cell in one of the hundred positions they had achieved throughout the journey. Alyson almost wished that the wormhole annihilated the ship entirely, end her torturous existence, or a least killed both of them! The Rigor Mortis now approached the huge automated ring that drifted aimlessly in space, like an unadorned piece of jewellery, discarded by the god Pluto in his icy dead realm. There appeared to be only space through that ring, but forward sensors now indicated a fierce impulse of energy filling that star-filled hoop. The prison ship would have no trouble fitting through the gigantic object, and it slowly inched its way forward, metre by metre, metre by metre. Like someone treading carefully to the lip of a cliff, or a rollercoaster creeping to the top of a dip. The front of the ship came into the loop, and seemed almost to be absorbed into an invisible wall that was held within the ring. Slowly, the entire ship was disappearing from existence, folding into nothingness. In a heartbeat she couldn’t remember, Alyson swore she saw a strange wave pass through the sector, everyone and everything struck by 120

that wave was turned solid, unmoving. But she could say nothing as the phenomenon had already engulfed her too, and she knew nothing of how it felt or what was happening to her. In that instant she was looking out of her cell, the rippling plasma of her cell’s gate had frozen and she would have seen the individual lasers criss-crossing the expanse. Across the way, equally unaware of the freezing of time, Adrian and Sophia sat clasped together on the floor of their cell, Sophia with her lips parted in endless lust. All of the guards stood like stone statues, guarding the crypts of the dead, and likewise with all of the passengers upon the Rigor Mortis. The ship’s name could not have been more profound. In that non-existent freeze, the ship was catapulted at least fortytwo light-years ahead, clear out of the Sol system and right across the void before it would reappear from a second gate, a gate that waited in geostationary orbit of a glossy rich planet. And like waking from a dream and from deep sleep, everyone on board the Rigor Mortis returned to the hellish reality that they truly inhabit, only something was severely wrong; the walls were shivering and the lights were flickering. As Adrian cried out in exhilaration, though he like everyone else did not experience anything out of the ordinary, Alyson looked around from her cell, fear scratched over her face. Their world was tilting slowly; she could feel the floor shift under her feet and heard books falling within Daniel’s cell next to hers. Guards began to hurry around in increasing frequency, uncertainty and confusing written over their eyes, like ants trapped in a bottle that was beginning to tumble down a hillside. Alyson sat down and gripped the lower bunk to steady herself, there was a groaning noise that was slowly intensifying; the engines were at full volume and the ship was most definitely in trouble. Though she had never been in a ship accident or crash before, her imagination was enough to work out what was happening. The lights clunked out for a brief moment and someone screamed, while others in fact laughed, but Alyson knew it was no laughing matter, no laughing matter at all. She saw the Sergeant run past her cell. “MacLeod! Sergeant!” she stood up and nearly slipped into the deadly plasma gate, “What’s happening!?” The dark man half turned at the sound of her voice and ran back to her only to say, “We’re going down! The ship is going down!” Alyson’s throat felt choked and she could say nothing more as the Sergeant raced away again, uneasy on his feet as the floor tilted left and right, tossing him this way and that. It was as she had feared! Alyson gripped to the top bunk and knew that this was because of the pressures and forces put against the ship as it 121

passed through the wormhole, but if the ship was so weak, why send it through in the first place? “Somebody let us out!” a voice cried from a cell, “Don’t leave us here to die, sarge!” Alyson agreed; the plasma gates were too dangerous to leave prisoners inside, being tossed around randomly like this. But then there was a colossal shift in the sector, the floor tilted up on one side and sent Alyson off her feet and crashed to the floor flat on her face. She had been lucky not to bite her own tongue in half, but her teeth had taken a sizable chunk of flesh from the inside of her cheek, blood filled her mouth, while blood was running from her nose and over the floor. She staggered to her feet as the ship seemed to bow forward, sending her to towards the bunks and knocking her head against the upper bed. She tried to lie down or at least sit, but while the ship tossed and having to spit blood that filled her mouth, she could not. She felt dizzy, the plasma gate swirled before her and the people beyond were tossed over the floor like figurines in a dollhouse earthquake. The ship pitched to one side again, as if it were trying to steady against a savage tide and Alyson gripped for dear life, not to be dashed against the back wall of her cell. But as she did, she looked to the cell opposite hers; Sophia and Adrian were flailing and twisting all around the floor of their cell, the ship buckling and nearly tossing them towards their glowing gate. It was only a matter of time, thought Alyson, and indeed it was; Sophia lost her grip and slid. Adrian lunged out to grab her and taught her wrist, but Sophia had fallen too far and both her legs up to the mid-thigh were vaporised in the plasma field. Horrified, Alyson looked away from the charred black flesh and bone, but could not block out the ear piercing scream that followed and continued forever. Adrian’s voice was full of terror as he gripped her tightly between the bunks and their back wall, stopping them from sliding any further. The ship levelled but the chaos did not cease, lights burst apart from their housings, sparks fountained from the sockets as freed cabling swung around like manically dying snakes. The walls felt as if they exploded, the air cracked with pressure, and a fierce voice cried out from the dim purple light, “Hold on every—” A tremendous crash silenced that brave voice that Alyson could put no face to, and that was last she heard; the final smash sent her flying into the back wall of her cell side on. Her shoulder crunched into the metal

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and her head dashed against it heavily, the lights above her erupted into a shower of sparks and glass when she fell into an endless, silent darkness.

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Part 2 Chapter 1: Survival of the Fittest There was a sound, a near inaudible sound with no clear distinction or note to give it form, and yet it wavered, rose and fell, filling the void that was in her head. Slowly the darkness took shape, colours interlocked and twisted into focus as if she had been spinning so quickly everything had become dark and noiseless. When the dizziness ceased Alyson found herself in her bedroom, back on Venus station ‘Cythera’ orbiting many, many miles from the harsh unwelcoming atmosphere of the sulphurous planet. It was afternoon according to her few clocks and watches that sat or lay about her room, it was neither a big room nor depressingly small, but just big enough for her to be in perfect comfort. A glassnite window viewed the strange orb of Venus, the space station was below the planet now, lit a beautiful yellowy orange from the unseen sun. Alyson stood up from her soft tangible bed, her fingers running lovingly off that silky material as she did. She knew what she wanted to do now, the planet was perfect when the station was below it and she could not resist going down to the pool. Too long had it been for her to swim in that cool glassy water! She opened one of her many drawers packed with clothes and pulled out her swimsuit. Oddly, the suit was not blue as she always thought it was, instead it was a kind of pastel green colour, though she had not seen it before, Alyson was sure that colour was familiar to her somehow. Quickly she left her room and into the well lit yellowy orange coloured corridor, and skipped happily down to the main hall. White tiles covered the floor of the hall, unlike her carpeted room and corridor, with decorative glass panels placed randomly, each panel protected a marble like layer that looked like the colours and texture of Venus itself. But she paid no attention to those, or to the other doors, the staircases or the tables or the man who walked through the hall, she ran towards the corridor that led to the huge swimming pool. “Where are you going Ms Valentine?” a gentle voice called after her. Alyson stopped and turned with a smile, she had seen her father in the hall, but had tried to speed past him without him noticing, it was a game she had played. “I’m going to the pool, daddy.”

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Richard Valentine nodded with a warm smile and replied, “All right, but don’t be too long, your skin will go wrinkly, remember.” Alyson grinned and immediately hurried off down the darker corridor without further word. She raced into the luxurious bathroom first, again not registering the huge bath and a hundred towels, the three separate glass shower units and the collection of fine soaps and essences. She removed her silk trousers, shoes and her shirt and her underwear before slipping into the strangely pastel green swimsuit. It hugged her body finely and she immediately felt as sleek and as fit as a fish. Racing from the bathroom on her bare feet she reached the huge swimming pool chamber at the end of the corridor, the black tiles were dry for now and she ran safely to the chrome ladder that was fixed to the edge of the pool. All around the pool were pot-plants and beige walls, and above it was the complex metal and glassnite dome. Slowly she stepped into the water, toes tingling and feet soft on the metal rungs, her skin chilling and her bones whispering with it. She sighed in luxury as she descended until the water was level with her collarbones; shivering lovingly she looked up to the great fiery orb of Venus, looking down at her with an ironically parental eye. When she looked back to the pool, the water was red, blood red. She blinked in alarm and the water returned to its crystal clear and azure blue. She turned to the pool’s wall to push off into a backstroke. She did so and she felt herself floating across the surface like a leaf, and looked up to that bright orb above her, but now it seemed much further from her; it was small and brilliant, like the sun. She swayed her arms and legs to remain afloat, and watched. But she could feel herself sinking, she moved a little more to retain balance like she always did, but she continued to sink. Alyson felt the water fill her ears and all sound was lost, the water crept noiselessly up her cheeks and would soon fill over her eyes and mouth. She tried to start swimming proper, but she only found that made the water flush over her face like a tidal wave, pouring into her mouth and she choked painfully. Water shot up her nose and back through into her mouth, Alyson spluttered and gasped in alarm. She tried again and again to move, even trying to stand on the floor of the pool; however the pool was now bottomless! Endless! Desperately she flailed around but water continued to choke her, pulling her down with unseen hands, she could not swim, she was drowning, choking…

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…Light flickered over her eyelids, and a broken fizz disrupted her ears and a foul, overwhelming copper-like taste flooded her mouth and throat. Suddenly Alyson woke fiercely and coughed the bloody contents of her mouth all over the grim metal floor; racked with pain she vomited blood that had found its way down her throat, into her stomach and lungs. After much wrenching and gasping for air Alyson cried out in pain; in her fit of sickness she had supported herself with both arms, one of which was broken or dislocated at the shoulder. She collapsed onto her left side, and tenderly touched her limp right arm which immediately screamed its protests at her. Whimpering she lay still for some minutes, still grasping for air and spitting only a little blood, when her eyes found their focus and she looked around her broken and beaten cell. She had forgotten where she was, what had happened and how she’d got there, running her hand to the back of her head she felt sticky blood matting her black hair. Looking around from her lowly view point she could see little, her head was close to hitting the toilet that was behind her, but she saw the upper bunk had partly collapsed onto the bottom; steel poles had been wrenched from their sockets from a massive concussion. The plasma gate was down, somehow she could remember a glowing barrier that once stood there, and now it was gone… she then realised she was free. Free from the tormenting loneliness, free from torturously long nights, free from regulated meals and showers, free from iron-hard bunks, and free from repetitive fellow inmates. But what of those people who had been around her, Alyson wondered as her memory returned gradually, no one had appeared at the sound of her painful scream and gut-wrenching sickness. Was anyone in the place at all? Was the sector… empty? She began to lever herself up with her good left hand, she was naturally right handed and remembered ironically how it was always her dominant hand or arm that got hurt; from splinters in her fingers when she was a girl, to this now. As she lifted her head from the floor the expanse of the sector reached out beyond the cell as if beckoning to her. Wincing, she finally managed to climb to her feet and stood shakily in her tattered and bloody pastel green tunic. She looked hazily around and sighed slightly; there was no one in sight, so she shuffled forward towards the brink of her cell’s boundary and stood still for some time. The sector was a mess; less than half of the main lights were functioning and several cables hung from holes in the ceiling, sparking fiercely at intermittent times, while all but one of the plasma gates were 126

offline and that gate was up on the second level. The main lift appeared to be jammed on transit and was now stuck mid-way up the shaft, while it appeared a large section of ceiling had caved in on another cell; a great metal slab with stretching cables and framework that looked as if they were attempting to lift the slab back into place… and off the body that it pinned to the floor. Alyson did not recognise him from the distance, and hoped she would not care about his passing. The metal plated floor of the sector was covered in shards of plasti-glass from the exploded lights above, while it was often stained with blood and scattered with broken equipment; armour plates, helmets of guards, an electro-rod snapped in two. Alyson walked over the plastiglass carefully while noticing the deathly quiet; there was no engine sound, there was little electricity but the flickering lights, and there wasn’t a voice or breath she could hear but her own. She walked now like a lost soul, free, alive, but alone. Alyson’s eyes fell on the cell number ‘one’ opposite her; two of the most irritating people had lived in that cell, she remembered, but as her eyes focused to the dark of that cell, and her memory returned, she gasped in fear. In those shadows lay a body, naked and flat on her back, the legless corpse of Sophia lay, her thighs charred stumps. Alyson edged a little closer to see shocked eyes and bloody lips open, and at one side of her head her artificial blond hair was stained in dried blood. Alyson then remembered how she had ‘hoped’ something would happen to her and Adrian and felt damned having done so, no one should die in such a hideous way, and no one should pray for such to befall someone else. She dragged her eyes away from the corpse of the dead prostitute, realising then that she had never seen a dead body for real before, and could only prepare herself for more; it was all she seemed to have been freed for, to examine the dead around her. She almost felt like a traitor, by far lucky, to have not died with them all, even though she hated every one of them. But there was no sign of Adrian’s body, she realised, and so others must have escaped, perhaps thinking her dead at the time also. She began her slow approach to the main lift, sombre and sadly picking her way through the plasti-glass, though it was impossible to stop all of the shards from jabbing the hard soles of her feet. She peered to her right and stopped immediately, there was Daniel’s cell, and he was not in it, only his books and papers were scattered everywhere, all over the floor and over the bunks, as if a paper bomb had exploded within. Cautiously she stepped towards the cell, and entered quietly, her feet scuffing and shuffling through leafs of paper and scattered books. 127

Alyson sighed as she stood in the centre of the mess and looked down at her feet sorrowfully; she was crumpling many a folded piece of paper and crunched up ball of parchment. She moved to sit down on the lower bunk where Daniel must have slept, pushing the paper aside as she did, and from there Alyson leafed through several of the books and examined many of the loose papers. It seemed that the majority of the books were diaries, usually a page devoted to one day, she had expected the days not to be full or long, but Daniel certainly had a lot on his mind it seemed. Firstly she found an entry relating to her in one of the books, written in pencil that slowly got more and more illegible before becoming sharp and fluent again. It seemed that he only had good thoughts and opinions about her, which made her smile, but he also seemed to find Sophia and Adrian amusing, and Sophia rather ‘too much’ for him to deal with. However he seemed to have distrusted Viggo, in one section he described what he thought was ‘wrong’ with Viggo, and how he feared for Alyson’s safety in his cell. She quickly closed the diaries, finding her curiosity dangerous and disrespectful, even to the dead – if he was indeed dead, thrown through his plasma gate perhaps. But Alyson found herself drawn to more of the pieces of paper, some had pictures of far away planets and people she did not recognise, all drawn finely and neatly; it was all he did when he was alone. She found one beautifully rendered picture of herself, head and shoulders from a profile view, Alyson nearly laughed as he had even picked up on the mole on her jaw. She held on to that picture and later folded it and tucked it into the tight waistline of her tunic trousers, with no pockets to speak of she hoped it would stay there. There also seemed to be a lot of reference to the ship as ‘The Rigor Mortis’, whether that was its true designation or not, it chilled Alyson at first for no inmate would know what the ship’s name was. It got worse as smaller books whispered about the prisoners’ destination and their departure times and even (as Adrian had once joked) guard patrol schemes and times for their sector. Daniel had indeed mapped out a large section of the ship from what he had been exposed to in their short trips from A to B to C, but he seemed to have been able to map out a large parts of things labelled: ‘the command decks’, ‘cargo bay’, ‘engineering decks’, ‘shuttle bay’ and ‘medical core’. How did he know all of this, Alyson asked herself, he had most certainly not gone that far through the ship. She took those and added them to her waist. Disturbed she began to rise to her feet, looking over the paper mess one more time and started for the doorway hastily. But as she did, 128

one more thing caught her eye; a piece of paper face down on the floor. It was no different from any other piece of paper except it was deeply scored with pencil marks from the other side, as if much time and effort had been put to it. Absently Alyson picked it up and looked at its picture. Her eyes ran over it in wonder and a strange fear that she could not understand or place, and something inside her told her to keep the picture as it would have dangerous recurrences later. She added it to her collection quietly. Now with a fat bundle of old parchment strapped to her hip she walked steadily back into the main hall of the sector, and looked towards the bust lift. As she approached it she peered into each cell in passing and noticed no sign of ‘One Shot’ Drew, perhaps the albino escaped too? But all of the other cells on the bottom level were empty, except for Sophia’s ghastly corpse and the dead man under the fallen ceiling. Alyson reached the lift and knew it would be possible to climb up it, even with a useless arm; the lift had fortunately jammed and was now about level with her chest. So painfully she climbed up onto the lift using her left arm and quickly swinging her legs up onto it, she was quickly glad of her routine of exercise! The next ‘step’ of getting onto the second level was as easy as the first, and Alyson tackled it with growing strength. The second floor was not different from the first, everything was dull and lifeless, no one stirred, not that she expected them too. Looking to the single functioning plasma gate, and inside that cell were two severed bare feet with burnt stumps, she sighed again. What she had feared from the start of ascending the lift was the pair of huge bulkhead doors; inches thick and electronically locked, it would be impossible to get out. But it seemed that someone had definitely escaped through there; the huge steel doors were ajar just wide enough for someone to slip through. The power was offline to the door and the keypad was dull and unresponsive, so someone must have forced the doors open manually. Alyson was deeply thankful for that person to have done it for her! So she stepped nimbly through the huge jaws of the bulkhead and out into the corridors, not as satisfying as she had first imagined; it was very dark, lit only by red emergency lights that lapped round and round upon the ceiling, and there was a body on the floor, face down. It was a prison guard, someone had taken his helmet and armour padding and more importantly, his electro-rod; the sooner Alyson got hold of one of those the better. Stepping quietly past the body, fearing it would jump alive and claw after her ankles like a zombie, she came to the first junction. She was unsure if she should go the route she had not gone 129

before and perhaps find a guard armoury of some kind, or if she should go the way that she knew best. Certainly her first objective was to arm herself; she did not think anyone she could meet as being at all ‘friendly’, and she did not want to be completely defenceless when the time came. Most of the electronic doors were shut and dull, barring her progress, but some had been hauled open by someone extremely strong, or by many individuals. Alyson was afraid to tread the paths of other perhaps manic prisoners or loyal guards, but she had little choice, and decided to walk the route she had not taken before in hope of finding supplies. All of the corridors were sinister and full of foreboding; shadows pranced around her as the red warning lamps licked the metallic surfaces of walls and ceilings and floors. Like back in the sector many lights had burst from their housings and cabling hung twitching with sparks, Alyson ducked quickly aside of these traps while keeping her footsteps calm and quiet; she did not want to be found by anyone, she would rather do the finding herself. The floor was treacherous and being so quiet in the dark was not an easy task, more electro-rods lay broken, and several disturbing bodies lay slumped and still, some were prisoners, others were guards having been stripped of armour and weapons. Just as she began to think everyone had died somehow and that she was very much alone, a sound made her flinch around to look behind her. Staring desperately she saw nothing but the flicking lights and bodies, but that sound was made by someone, it had to be; everything else was too still and too dead. Alyson had frozen and did not move in fear of attracting whatever it was towards her, but this came to nothing; a dark figure emerged from one side of the corridor, almost as if it had warped from the very wall itself. Alyson saw it was a prisoner; a tattered tunic clinging to his body loosely and his head panning around his surroundings. She knew that she was completely out in the open and sooner or later he would see her. Then he did. The pasting red lights revealed only the shadows of a face looking at her, before the figure started to approach her quickly, like a sort of nightmare creature which could run far faster than normal. Nearly tripping on her own feet Alyson turned and fled from the shadowy form that was in pursuit, only hoping to loose him round the many dark corners. But the prisoner’s footsteps were fast on her heels, he said and shouted nothing after her, but his breathing was rasping and coarse like that of a dying lizard, yet he was not at all dying, he was still running hard 130

after her. Alyson had to hurdle several still cadavers that littered her way forward and it seemed her pursuer did the same, plasti-glass shards bit into her feet, drawing blood as she thundered down the corridors and round corners like an Olympic sprinter. Her appreciation for her past exercise seemed only to grow and grow. But then the inevitable happened; her luck ran out with her breath, she passed round a bend and through a doorway to find a dead end. She was in one of the many locker rooms, and her pursuer came to block her only exit. Alyson turned to face him, knowing a fight would be unavoidable she became determined to get by him and out the door at least. The light was very poor in the room, she could barely see anything with red lights only in the corridors beyond the door, and she could hear the sombre dripping of unused showers nearby. The prisoner charged at her in a heartbeat before she could jump aside from his mad attack. Alyson was caught by a flailing arm and was spun around and down to the hard ceramic floor, while the prisoner twisted around to approach her once again. Squirming over the floor on her back, Alyson headed towards the now open doorway, but screamed as the prisoner jumped at her and made a grab for her shirt. In fierce effort her left hand balled into a fist and powered its way into his face, he yelled and fell back onto the floor before her. He was quick to scrabble to his feet and Alyson cursed as her right arm was no good to help her to her feet, and she lay ready for his second attempt, planning to kick him with both feet then flee to the door. But the door was lit with a radiant blue light in that very instant, and it filled the locker room like the light upon a mythical wizard’s staff. Indeed, the blue glow was gleaming from the charged tip of an electro-rod strapped to a man’s forearm. The guard marched into the room and headed for Alyson’s assailant like a machine, the prisoner began to retreat but found nowhere to run. She looked away as the guard pounded the bright azure light into the helpless attacker vigorously and the night was burst open with alarming bright sparks and electrical storms that coursed over the prisoner’s now quaking form. The shadowed guard did not cease until the prisoner was still and silent on the tiles, only then did he jab the three pronged rod into the side of the attacker’s head, a flurry of light dazzled Alyson, scaring her half to death. She questioned whether to flee this guard also, thinking perhaps he was a man deluded or maddened by the dark and the chaos that caused so many bodies throughout the corridors. But she could not move, not only was she terrified at the cruel execution of the prisoner but she was also 131

reminded of her bust arm. The guard then turned to her, electro-rod still glowing and raised. “T-thank you, officer…” she said, trying to be bold. The electro-rod was swiftly lowered to the guard’s side and he strode towards her, silently, had it not been for his huge thudding boots. He came before her and towered over her like a dark monolith, and he asked, “Alyson Valentine?” She blinked and tried to see the face from the shadows better, but could not, “Who are you?” He raised the glowing weapon to reveal his lean face, and Alyson sighed somewhat. “Lieutenant Jefferson… am I glad it’s you…” she replied in stunted relief. He lowered the rod again and questioned, “Are you hurt?” “Yes, my arm… I think it’s broken…” she inclined her head to her right. Jefferson nodded and extended a hand to her, “We better get that fixed…” his tone was rather dark, rather unnerving. Alyson took his hand and he lifted her to her feet easily, she shivered at the droning hum of the charged electro-rod neared her; she had not heard that sound for quite some time. “Come on, Alyson,” he said and began to lead her through the doorway. She held back for a moment and asked slowly, “What about him?” Jefferson looked at the body of the prisoner he had just killed, “Just leave him.” “Leave him?” she asked in surprise. “Yes, he is dead, Alyson,” Jefferson replied before tugging again on her good arm. Alyson looked at him, “So you just… killed him? You may be a guard but you can’t just kill someone.” Jefferson sighed, “What would you rather, me killing him or him doing the same to you?” She had gone quiet and the lieutenant led her quickly from the room and back into the red lit corridors using his glowing electro-rod as a torch light; it seemed that Jefferson manipulated the controls and made it glow brighter and chase the shadows away. She would have been grateful had the light not exposed the corpses and cadavers that littered the corridors. Alyson looked around as he led her down the corridors that she was sure she had just ran down, “Where are we going?” Jefferson replied coolly, “Get you somewhere safe.” 132

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Alyson said wearily, unease was creeping over her about Jefferson. “Unlike some guards… I like you Alyson,” he spoke slowly; “I guess you don’t remember that it was me who led you through your initiation to the ship?” “I guess not…” Jefferson added shortly, “I thought you were pretty good—” “Is this before or after I was naked?” Alyson interrupted, not appreciating his increasingly strange behaviour; it was far from what she needed right now. He laughed roughly and finished his sentence, “You were pretty good looking when you were walking on that walkway.” He then stopped and turned to her, they now stood in the middle of a red lit corridor, a couple of motionless bodies nearby. Alyson said smoothly and disbelievingly, “Is this the ‘safe’ place?” Jefferson smiled at her sinisterly and made her heart feel cold, “I couldn’t believe you were put in with Viggo, it was a barbaric thing for the Administrator to do.” Alyson raised an ironic eyebrow at him, but it went amiss in the shadows, “I’m glad you think so.” “I hated what Viggo did to you… I couldn’t believe it when he did,” Jefferson took a step towards her, and she stepped back from him. She replied gradually, “I have seen you, watching me…” He took another step, and Alyson found her back to the wall and realised then that she was defenceless and very unprotected. He added softly, “I know, those bruises, they look… terrible…” Swiftly he gripped her good left arm and spun her around to face the wall, and brought her arm round her back. There was no pain, but she was held there against the wall. She laughed hoarsely, fighting away fear, “So this is what you do Jefferson, take advantage of defenceless women?” He smiled and replied, “No, no… I just like you,” his free hand fell to her backside, and felt its way down. “What were we just saying about Viggo, Jefferson?” Alyson said agitatedly, shifting on the spot, “You do anything to me… you’re no different from him.” He replied slickly, “But I’m not like that…” his fingers passed between her thighs, Alyson sighed uneasily as he did.

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He grinned wildly before looking to the parchment that was strapped to her hip by the tight waistband of her trousers. “What is this Alyson, have we been stealing?” Her eyes refocused again, and began to try and ignore the notorious ecstasy he gave her, and gave only a feigned moan. “I guess they’re from Daniel Major’s cell, you shouldn’t take things from him, Alyson.” She sighed exaggeratedly, though that almost made it worse, and a plan came to her mind, “What do you know about Daniel?” Jefferson chuckled at her hopelessly lustful tone, “I know that his crime’s a fake… a smoke screen of sorts.” Alyson blinked in surprise, and nearly forgot her fake panting, “What do you… mean?” “I mean he was put onboard on purpose,” Jefferson replied, now so involved that he had no idea what he was saying and to who, “that the Government put him here.” That made Alyson shiver and she sighed unwillingly. So there was something about Daniel, he wasn’t to be trusted at all, and many of the images and maps she had collected began to make some sense now, no matter how small, unsettling sense. She had to find him, but how? She jumped in surprise as Jefferson broke her chain of thought with further sexual recreation. “Do you know… if he’s dead… or not?” Alyson asked softly. The guard replied, “I don’t know, but I’d reckon he’s alive somewhere. I bet everything that’s happened with this ship is a giant Government run project.” Alyson agreed with him without a word, and if Jefferson knew all of this, it was probably a safe bet most of the guards knew as well. As he stimulated her further, Alyson knew that she had to get away from him; even if she let Jefferson go all the way with her now, there was slim guarantee he would actually let her go. He’d probably keep her for as long as possible. She then remembered how Sophia used to fake orgasms with Adrian, and though she felt sinful and dirty in even thinking of it, doing so would probably stop Jefferson for now. She did, and hoped she hadn’t overdone it. “See… I’m not like Viggo at all,” he said smugly over her shoulder while removing his hand. Alyson rested her head against the wall and immediately saw a shape moving down the corridor; it was another prisoner approaching them. She smiled wickedly, knowing that Jefferson would soon get what he 134

deserved; she had begun to hate how men continued to take advantage of her! What, did she have it written all over her? Again, Alyson pretended to sigh in ecstasy, watching Jefferson’s impending doom approach. He added thoughtfully, rubbing his hands gleefully, “I can remember when they had guard duty in the prisoner’s showers, but they stopped it after a guard did something… unlawful.” Alyson still watched the figure approach in the dark, cooing to herself as she did… it was only a few seconds longer… “I promise we’ll do this again sometime, Alyson—” he looked round and saw the intruder racing towards him. “What the hell!?” he cried and raised his electro-rod defensively. Alyson slipped back from the wall and behind Jefferson just before the attacker – who was also armed with an electro-rod – ploughed into him. They then crashed to the floor flailing limbs and charged electro-rods back and forth, the prisoner seemed nimbler without the armour of the guard. Alyson had seen the electro-rod the intruder wielded when he had approached, and knew that Jefferson would be in for a hard fight. She remarked smartly, “Thanks for the info, Jeff.” With that she darted off down the corridor, feeling immensely victorious, and left the two men to fight electro-rod and fist upon the floor.

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Chapter 2: Collaboration The Rigor Mortis had become deathly quiet in the majority of the prison blocks, but could one look over the entire ship and all of its decks; they would see that there were pockets of activity, violent activity. All of the major electronics were down, which meant that the engines and all communication networks were down or destroyed and were unlikely to be repaired soon. There was an unknown source of flooding down on the very bottom decks of the transport section, there were no water reservoirs that could have ruptured there and the cause could not be defined, some only knew that the water was steadily rising throughout that section. Fires had begun in the engine decks and no one seemed to be at hand to put them out, yet the fuel igniting was not an issue, as there seemed to be no more combustible fuel left in the supply regions. It seemed that the prison ship was dead, but none of the inhabitants seemed to know exactly where it had dug its grave. But down in the bowels of the prison blocks, many kilometres from the rising water, and deep in the twilight graveyards of blocks N to Z, all was far quieter than it should have been. The grill floor and solid metal walls were near pitch dark; many of the faint lights were broken or flickered like voiceless whispers, not a single guard walked the regions, and many of the thick metal cell doors were burst open, their contents nowhere to be seen. In the bleak nightmarish realm of sector R the faint sound of raving screaming could be heard far away, echoing ghostly down the passages like a foul wind. But another sound that could be heard at the end of one of the long cold passages, in the empty sector two, was a thrashing and crashing sound of metal being pounded by an extreme force. Down at the end of the passage, the sound was emanating from cell number five, the door of which was buckled from the inside, dented outwards but refused to shift off its hinges and electro-locks that remained firmly in place. Inside the cell, in a near impossible darkness that choked the mind and consumed the spirit, prisoner Viggo York fought for his release by slamming his body hard into the door constantly. He used his shoulders and his fists and his feet, his knees and his back and his head, and though his body was bruised and battered beyond telling, he would not stop. Any passer by would have thought him gone mad; naked and deranged like a caged animal left to starve. He gritted his teeth as he drove himself into 136

that slab of metal, the sound was deafening and his body cried out with every slam; his skin blotched but unseen in the dark. Viggo leaned on the back wall of his padded cell for a cursing breath and a verbal count of how many times it had been now of slamming that accursed door. He told himself that it was impossible, that the door was still sealed by a firm electric-lock that was linked to a giant magnetic bar that ran around the doorframe, and after that there was a bolt lock almost as big as his wrist. But he continued; no one was going to arrive to free him, and if he was to die, he would die trying to get out, even if it meant he broke every bone in his body doing it. It was close now to a hundred times, he came to the door like a lurching giant, spittle flicking from his lips and dirty blood on his hands, his head swam and his bones begged him to stop. He shuffled to the door now and slammed his fists into it, the sound rebounded and filling his small cell as if he was trapped with two deranged Grav-balls. Bitterly his fists became mere palms slapping the steel, and he slowly stopped and found his legs unable to support his weight any longer. He collapsed. Viggo lay there crumpled for some time, face against the dented and bulging door, his body finding the discomfort irrelevant, only seeking calm and silence. He groaned pitifully, his voice had gone with his cursing and screaming hours ago, and he fell to his side and to the padded floor. His mind was so dizzy and disorientated that he could think of nothing at all, only the fact that he would be trapped in his cell forever and no one would even try to come to his rescue. He was about to sleep when a sound alerted him from outside; he never thought of anyone whilst in that cell, but his senses were heightened with the darkness and he paused long and listened hard. The sounds were footsteps upon the grilled walkway outside, but strange footsteps; there was a faint metallic clicking sound that accompanied each step, and each step was soft and padded but seemed broad and heavy, far heavier than any prisoner but barefooted so it was not a guard. Viggo tried to understand the clicking sound; it was like the toes of the individual were tipped with steel or made of solid bone. Another thing was that there was no breathing at all and an infrequent swishing sound like a cable swinging through the air quickly. He started in alarm as a fierce clang was heard, like a fist or a club dashing against one of the cell doors heavily, consequently dashing the door against its frame noisily. Slowly Viggo rose to his feet, sliding his back up the wall as he did, and readied to peer through the small window of his cell door. From the dark he should be able to see everything. As he started to look out the 137

footsteps ceased and the swishing sound appeared to be right beyond the door, Viggo held his breath, and he looked down in surprise as something speared clear through his door with a rending, ear-splitting sound. It was huge and long, like a great spike or blade made of an extremely dense and sharp material, and protruded from the door by at least half a metre. Viggo was horrified at its ease of punching through the inches of solid steel that he had attempted to get through for hours, and shocked stiff at how close it had been to spearing his gut. The blade was near unseen in the dark but it seemed to have raggedness to it, as if it were made of bone or steel that was chipped and worn. Colour was not identifiable in the dark. Suddenly the spear retracted from the door as quickly as it had come and Viggo heard the footsteps continue down the corridor solemnly, the swishing accompanied them as they grew fainter and fainter. Clearing his throat Viggo looked to the great shaft of light that now gleamed from the gasping hole in his door. It was as wide as his forearm and quite squared in shape, but more importantly the hole was close to the edge of the doorframe; the keypad might be in his reach. He listened further for any sound before reaching his arm out of the newly made hole and began to grasp for the keypad. Blood was drawn from his tight tricep and bicep muscles as the torn edges of the hole dug into his flesh, but he persisted further for the keypad, knowing from working in the police force that hopefully the breach in the door would have caused the keypad to have a lock override button to activate. The usual circumstances would be for a prisoner to have broken the door in someway and the guards could simply press one button to open the gate to deal with him immediately than have to press in the standard sequence of numbers. Barely his fingertips could touch the edge of the keypad, but pressing more of his body into the frayed metal and drawing more blood he could reach what could only have been the override key. The satisfying heavy clunk greeted him then as the magnetic locks, electric-bars and bolt locks were all released and the door slackened. Viggo was free. Gratefully Viggo pushed the door from its frame and it swung out easily, and thanked the mysterious thing that had burst the door open for him – though he knew that a one-to-one with it would not be such a good idea. As the flickering lights, though so dim, dazzled his eyes Viggo emerged onto the grill walkway naked, and looked quickly from left to right. He felt like a Neanderthal man emerging from his cave after an endless winter night; his dark hair was long and shaggy, forever longer on 138

one side and he continued to push it from his eyes, his jaw and neck were itchy with unkempt hair, and his body was bloody and aching. But no one was around and with his eyes focused to the dim lights Viggo remembered the route out of the sector and headed left from his battered cell door. The grilled floor prickled his feet, which had grown accustomed to the padded floor of his cell as he jogged unevenly to the main elevator. To his dismay the elevator was not functioning; the power had been cut or blown and it was stationary at the bottom floor, though somewhat fortunately he was on the second of three levels. He had no choice but to descend via one of the gear chains that would have pulled the elevator up the shaft. After that he had to drop into the elevator itself via a small and frayed hole in the mesh, which fitting through had similar effect to climbing over barbed wire. Exiting the elevator at last Viggo found the registration area for blocks Q, R and S deathly quiet and empty. The registration desk officer was gone and his computer and data banks were smashed beyond recognition into a pile of scrap and rubble, a naked body of a prisoner lay flat on her face, legs wide and old blood pooled at her mouth. The lighting was not as bad here, it was flood lit in several bright white lights, but the corridor straight ahead was shadowed in red emergency lighting. As he began to walk forward a great commotion rose from the corridor to his left, and he looked sharply in that direction; a man was running franticly towards Viggo shouting, “It’s coming! The thing that killed all of them! It’s gonna kill all of us! Run for your life!” The man was past Viggo and off down the corridor ahead of him before he could speak a word, not that anything could even pass his lips sufficient enough to stop the man. He had been dressed in tattered and dirty technician overalls, but he could have been a prisoner who had clothed himself, but that did not change his desperate message of warning. Not a moment later a figure emerged from the dark of the elevator behind Viggo, large and dark, reaching out with great hands. Viggo was suddenly grasped unaware around the neck by the attacker and he cursed as the fingers seemed to turn into a vice-like crush. Quickly Viggo gripped one of the attacker’s dark arms with both hands and fiercely threw him clear over his shoulder and sent him slamming onto the floor in front of him. With the deathly grip released Viggo found his attacker to be an equally naked prisoner from the psychotic blocks but had only a single gleaming brown eye; the other was missing, the flesh folded and 139

pinned down. The attacker rose swiftly but Viggo ploughed into him, dragging him to the floor again and there they fought, tooth and nail and fist and feet, twisting and yelling and sprawling. Viggo managed to get the upper hand; getting his attacker from behind and his arm around the prisoner’s neck before savagely twisting the man’s head with his other hand. The attacker’s body went limp in his arms and Viggo pushed him off immediately, disgusted. The prisoner’s body lay unmoving, face up on the floor, his head turned at an unnatural angle. Viggo observed his kill for a moment, “I win in every area I see,” he muttered flatly. Peering up from the corpse the words of the fleeing technician came to his mind, that something was killing everyone. The man could have been mad and there was little denying that was probably the case, but the strange unknown that had freed Viggo from his cell in the first place made him not doubt the man’s warnings. Quickly Viggo raced from the empty registration area and out into the flickering red lit corridors. Alyson Valentine looked at the picture Daniel had drawn showing her face in profile; it was so delicately done, as if many hours had been put through to make every curve perfect and every tone and shade exact. It was only in monochrome graphite with a little ballpoint pen to add darkness, but he had got a great shine to her would-be blue eyes and had captured the messiness of her once short black hair, every strand rendered. She held that piece of crumpled parchment close to her face as she sat huddled under one of the desks within the medical centre; it provided good cover as she faced the wall but could hear anyone should they walk into the room, unaware of her presence. She had found the medical centre easily, remembering it from her last trip due to her head trauma from the comet collision. She did not know enough about medical procedures to fix her shoulder, but she found a stash of painkillers in a glass cabinet which would help. Having given up on finding an armoury or a functioning electro-rod she now took time to think and recover from the past few encounters with sinful guards and lunatic prisoners. She shifted her back uncomfortably as it cramped in the small space, and this made the whole desk jolt out of position, cursing she stopped and sat still. Her trousers’ waist band was bulging with things from the wad of paper, a bag of painkillers to a capped syringe full of morphine. She didn’t quite know why she took that last item, but as things were bound to get worse, she felt it was necessary. 140

Her memory had returned since her encounter with Jefferson and she was again concerned with Viggo’s condition down in that graveyard prison. Alyson kicked herself for not thinking about him sooner; she had realised that since waking in her cell she had not thought of him once until now. But something told her not to worry and that he had escaped, after all, didn’t Viggo say he had a padded room? In the accident he would have been protected more than she was surely? She sighed and tucked her picture back at her hip before heavy footsteps were heard behind her. She had not expected anyone at all, though the medical centre had been ransacked by someone or many people before she arrived; supplies had been tipped over the floor, computers smashed and cabinets broken into. She had been lucky to get the supplies she needed. But these footsteps now crunched on glass that had scattered over the floor, and the hum of an electro-rod accompanied them, there was little breathing. Alyson shifted her weight to lean on one side and readied to look over the top of the desk at the intruder, as she did she noticed it was a much louder humming sound, as if it were several electro-rods at once. The footsteps moved further into the medical centre, straight past Alyson’s hiding place, and seemed to begin looking for something upon the tops of the cluttered desktops and roaming chairs. Alyson took her time to lever herself up before peering over the edge of the metal desk, it was a guard without a helmet, wielding indeed three electro-rods tied together by thick silver tape. The man’s body was heavily built and stout, dark skin and short prickly black hair over his scalp. She stood up from her spot slowly, “Sergeant MacLeod?” she called softly. He jumped round, both hands clasped the tri-rod, his face grim and determined and fierce, but then his features slackened in slight relief. He sighed while lowering the weapon, “Alyson… what the hell are you doing here? I thought you were dead…” She smiled slightly; she found the reputation as a dead girl ironically amusing, “I think most people thought that.” “You certainly looked it…” he paused. Alyson approached him slowly, eyeing him cautiously, “Did you not check?” MacLeod grimaced and looked away from her bright, very much alive, azure eyes, “There was no time, Alyson…” “What happened?”

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He looked at her again and leaned on one of the tables next to him, strain creeping over his dark eyes. “It was chaos; when I woke the plasma screens were down, all except one, and the prisoners were fighting the guards while trying to escape through the locked bulkhead. I couldn’t stop them, all the prisoners were forcing the doors open and then escaped, there was a fight just outside and I went to help… there just wasn’t time to check for survivors…” Alyson nodded to him and replied, “A lot of them didn’t make it, Sergeant.” He shook his head, “Don’t call me that; rank has no meaning anymore, call me Raymond.” She lifted a feathery black eyebrow, “How about ‘Ray’?” “Whatever,” he muttered, somewhat grudgingly. “So what are you doing here?” he asked, looking around the upside down medical centre. She sighed, “Well… I got some pills, but I was wanting to fix my arm…” she glanced ever so quickly at her limp right arm, “I’m, a little worried about it now…” The sergeant saw the disability and quickly moved to her side to look at it closer, concern on his face. “How did this happen?” “When… whatever happened… I was, I think, thrown into my cell wall…” she realised then that she knew so little, and felt rather useless. She winced as Raymond touched her tender shoulder. He sighed, “I was hoping it was only dislocated, but I think it’s broken.” She groaned and gripped the back of her neck with her good hand, “It’s been like that for a while, I don’t need it taken off or anything do I?” He actually laughed at that and smiled broadly, “These aren’t the dark ages Alyson! I’m sure there are some supplies in here that’ll fix it.” Alyson remained standing were she was and watched MacLeod march off through the medical centre, left and right, rummaging through shelves in adjacent rooms and scouring desks. As he did she asked, “Do you know what’s happened then, to the ship?” Raymond replied from another room, “Not exactly; when it happened all of the networks and communications were shut down and we couldn’t receive word on what had happened. But as far as we could tell from before that point, we’ve crash landed on some planet somewhere.” He emerged from a doorway carrying a plastic box of unknown contents, “This is what I was looking for.” Alyson remarked quietly as he approached, “We crashed? I thought that was what had happened…” 142

The Sergeant told her to sit up on a desk and he put the box next to her. “Now I did some medical training when I wanted to go into the military… I just hope I can remember it all,” he stated coolly. He pulled out two long pieces of some kind of padded material, thick and white and semireflective on one side, he also brought out of the box a typical sling and two wide silver bracelets. “You wanted to go into the military?” Alyson asked as she watched him lay out the equipment. He replied grimly, dark chiselled face shadowed, “I did, and I did the training for it, but I was asked to do a year or two of prison patrol beforehand by the MPC – the Martian Prison Company –” he stopped his story to tell her briefly; “You’ll need your arm in this sling for a short while I’m afraid.” She shrugged; of course only one shoulder worked, and replied, “As long as I don’t need to fight with both hands…” He continued his story as he injected her upper right arm with anaesthetic, “They told me it was only two years maximum, but then I was just put on for more and more months; six months became a year, one year became two… all of these extra periods were onboard this ship,” he dropped the syringe and reached for the sling while gradually moving Alyson’s forearm towards a ninety-degree angle. “I guess I’m never going to the military now…” He then managed to get the sling over her right arm and round her neck after much painful movement on Alyson’s part. He then took the two padded pieces of material and brought one to her upper arm, “This is something else the anaesthetic was for Alyson,” he began, “I’m going to have to wrap this tight around your arm and shoulder to bring things into place, the silver bracelets will aid in this later, and this material can heal the damage over a period of time.” Alyson at first looked afraid, the mention of bringing ‘things into place’ and ‘tight’ made her uneasy. All of her head trauma before were simple scans and tests, nothing quite this physical, but in hearing the material itself would heal her quickly, her heart calmed somewhat. The sergeant wrapped the first piece of material thickly around her bicep muscles and pulled it tightly. The material seemed to be self sticking and it remained tight around her arm, Alyson only winced as the bandage closed around her aching flesh. The second piece Raymond brought over the joint of her shoulder and under her armpit, again he pulled it tightly and that hurt far more than the first piece; that joint being the section that

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was free and perhaps fractured. Next the silver bracelets were fitted; each bracelet was fitted tightly over the top of each bandage. MacLeod took a step back and looked at his work, Alyson too observed her patched up limb that hung under her breasts. “Not bad for a first time,” he remarked smugly. Alyson’s eyes widened in shock, but amusement snuck into her words, “This was your first time! Why didn’t you tell me?” He grinned, “What, and make the whole thing worse for you?” She smiled and ran her good hand over the bandages and the sling slowly, “So, how long do you reckon?” MacLeod replied quickly, “I’d say, about two days.” “Two days!” she said in surprise, “That little?” He blinked now in bemusement, “Where do you come from, no-man’s land? These things can repair complete separation of a limb, Alyson. With a fairly long time I might add,” She now looked at the cling and bandages with added appreciation. MacLeod sighed and had pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her as she sat on the desk. “So how is the rest of you?” he asked slowly. Alyson sighed and replied flatly, “My mind’s a bit out-at-sea, but otherwise I’m okay,” she smiled slightly. “Though I did have a run in with some prisoners and a guard…” Raymond nodded, “I know what you mean. Was the guard anyone I know?” Alyson laughed shortly and said softly, “What do you know about Lieutenant Jefferson; does he have a record?” MacLeod looked at her, “You met Jefferson?” Alyson nodded slowly, “I only asked because, well, he…” she thought about it for a moment, trying to form her words as delicately as possible, “I guess he… took advantage of me.” The Sergeant sat up in his chair, he almost stood up in his anger, “He what!?” Alyson shook her hand at him, as if trying to extinguish the flames of his temper, “It wasn’t anything… that bad. In fact I really took advantage of him.” “How exactly did you do that?” he asked, now worried. She laughed at his anxiety; the sergeant almost seemed like a secondfather, “He told me some things about Daniel, that’s how.” MacLeod’s face darkened after that and his body tensed somewhat, he slumped back into his chair slightly. 144

Alyson saw the change in him and asked, “Do you know anything about him?” The Sergeant met her gaze difficultly and seemed unsure whether to speak. “Not really,” he said unwillingly, “only rumours.” Alyson saw there was a war within MacLeod’s mind, between heart and logic. She said tentatively, “Jefferson said he was ‘here on purpose’, that the Government put him here?” MacLeod snorted, but said nothing in return. But his eyes fell on the bundle of paper at her hip and he asked, “Are those from his cell, Alyson?” She looked down at them, “Yes… I took them…” He shook his head, “I think you should have left them, you shouldn’t be meddling in his affairs…” his voice drifted off. “What affairs, Ray?” He looked at her again when she said his name, and he stood up quickly, his jaw jutting out in grim determination. “Don’t get me wrong Alyson; I agree with you, Daniel is not to be trusted, and if I could find him now I’d have some words to say to him. But I doubt we will now.” He now looked at her with deep hazel eyes, so similar in fact to a dark woman’s eyes who Alyson had met in an office a long time ago, an office with a red carpet floor. Alyson then slipped off the desk and onto her feet in front of the Sergeant, “Thank you, Sergeant, for this.” “The least I could do,” he replied with a narrow smile; still thinking about darker matters. She looked around the medical centre with a sigh, “What are you to do now?” “I was going to try and get to the command deck, find out what’s happening. If there are any survivors who would know anything about that, I’d think they’d be up there.” “That’s a long way,” she told him, “a dangerous way.” He nodded grimly, “But somebody has to try. I don’t want you coming with me, I think it would be best for you to try and get off the ship, or get to the supply decks,” he suggested. Alyson swayed on her feet, she always did that when talking with her father, especially when she was going to tell him something he might not like to hear. “I was going to look for Viggo, actually.” He took a long breath and looked at her hollowly, “There’s no point,

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Alyson, even if he survived the crash, he’s down there; he’d never survive.” She corrected him, “If I know Viggo York, and I think I do, he’ll have survived.” Groaning, MacLeod let her off and looked to the exit of the medical centre, but he then collected a small pocket-sized box of painkillers from a shelf and came back to her side. “I guess this is where we part ways then,” he said lowly, “I guess it is better that people move separately and quietly now.” Alyson nodded solemnly, “Yes, but I think we’ll see each other again.” He smiled faintly, “I will try.” They both walked towards the door and he stopped short saying, “Oh, and take this.” MacLeod then began to wrestle with his triple electro-rod, pulling the tape off and slipping one of the devices from the pack. Alyson gratefully took the rod as he fixed the remaining two back together, “Thank you, you’ve done more than enough, Ray.” He then said, “Do you know how to wear and use one?” She looked unsure, and he continued, “You can strap it round your arm like that,” she did so, two simple buckles that tied round her forearm. “The battery is self-charging and self-recharging, it can be set at different levels of output via the control dials on the rod itself, while the dial at the bottom adjusts brightness so you can use it as a light if need be.” Alyson nodded throughout the instructions and wielded the rod uneasily in her left hand, again, had it been her right hand she would have excelled. “I’ll get used to it,” she replied with a smile. “Oh, and you might want this if you are going to the command deck,” she pulled out the wad of paper and leafed through it quickly. Finding the right piece, she handed it to Raymond, “It’s a map of the command decks, Daniel drew it.” “That’ll definitely help, thank you,” he said with a grin; he’d never been to the command decks before in his life. “And one other thing,” the Sergeant added as they came to the doorway, “Don’t get hurt again, stay out of trouble, all right?” Alyson smirked quietly and told him, “All I can promise is I’ll try not to get killed.” “That’ll do I suppose,” he remarked gruffly. Alyson began to leave his side, walking down the red lit corridor saying, “The same goes for you, Raymond!” He smiled after her, and he stood for a moment watching her go, and he feared that it would be the last he saw of her. Grimly he turned and 146

walked the other direction, into the crimson monotone darkness, ramming the box of painkillers into a side pocket as he did.

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Chapter 3: Encounters Being armed with an electro-rod at last still did not give her the satisfaction she had expected, even though after months of being completely unarmed, she would have thought she’d have felt better. Swiping away her interfering albino white hair from her eyes, ‘One Shot’ Drew scavenged through one of the low, knee-high cupboards within a ‘kitchen’. It was barely what she would consider a kitchen as it had no oven, no sink, no knives or cutting boards, all it did have was a microwave and barracks of forks and serrated spoons. Drew wondered why they did ban all knives, even from the kitchens, because she knew for a fact that you could kill a man with a metal fork, she had done in her previous detention on Mars; straight into his throat with it before giving it a savage twist. Drew couldn’t remember what he had done to deserve it. Now she was deeply annoyed; the kitchen was full of one and only food stuff; frozen packs of microwavable soups! This was the turn of the 28th century and all they had was microwaves and soup packs! She had hoped that escaping the cells would be escaping the foul food as well, but there was no such luck. Grimly she stood up from the cupboard of metal trays and stalked over to the massive walk-in freezer. Through the thick door she had left open the floor was near solid ice and the walls were crystallised with huge lumps of frost, as well as the hundreds of multi-packs of soup that hung on steel rails bolted to the ceiling. The supplies were to last years of interplanetary travel while also feeding thousands upon thousands of prisoners every day, and in spite of all that Drew still found it horrific at the sheer amounts of soup! Drew pulled her scavenged pack from her back and ripped open its main section, she unclipped one of the huge stabs of solidified soup packs and folded them all up to fit into her backpack. Slinging it back onto her shoulders she left the arctic surrounds and slammed the huge door shut behind her with a suppressed clump, she did not care if she attracted other people’s attention; armed with a weapon and fitted with the armour plates from a dead guard, she was a prisoner to be reckoned with. The female guard’s armour was neat and simple as the prison company needed to mass produce them for the hundreds of employees on board just one ship. A basic thick plate covered her chest and strapped round her back with another plate, a long thinner plate covered her whole abdomen and fitted round between her legs then fixed to a strap that looped and attached to the belt at her waist. She had also had the fortune 148

of finding a guard of her exact size, and the liberty of stripping that woman’s corpse and dressing fully and discarding the useless prisoner tunic. In fact the survivors from sector C had all done similar and together they and Drew had survived through the corridors and rooms of the dead ship, until it arrived. Somewhat gratefully Drew headed for the exit with her frozen spoils; she had even scoured the medical centre and had got her hands on several boxes of painkillers and anaesthetics, so she felt suitably unstoppable. All she wished she had now was a good laser-dot sighted pistol or two; the electro-rod just couldn’t replace good old fashioned pistols at her hips. Just as she came to the doorway that would lead her back to the mess hall a sound was heard from ahead of her. Drew quickly stepped back and sunk close against the wall, using an outset to conceal herself from anyone appearing through the doorway, one of her piercing blue eyes gleamed round that corner silently, electro-rod offline and silent. As she watched, a figure stepped ever so quietly into the kitchen, feet edging around loose trays and plastic cups that scattered the floor. Drew immediately recognised the figure; a woman of medium height, shoulder length black hair and bright blue eyes full of life and youth. Drew smiled wickedly as Alyson walked clear past her without noticing. She leaned her back on the wall and activated her electro-rod noisily, making Alyson jump in fright, “Zap, you’re dead Alyson Valentine,” she smirked. The young woman cursed with a jump and snapped, “Don’t sneak up on me Drew! I might have killed you!” Drew laughed hoarsely, “Yeah, but I think most others in my position would have killed you.” Alyson looked sourly at her, “I have been watching my back, and, good to see you too.” The albino nodded once and deactivated her electro-rod. “You’re armed, that’s good,” she observed Alyson’s weapon. “But you have armour, where did you get it?” Alyson asked a little too enviously. “Isn’t it obvious? I got it off a guard of course.” Alyson cringed; the very thought was disgusting to her. Drew saw her expression clearly, looking away as she replied, “It’s every person for themselves dear, and you better get used to that.” 149

“Were you getting food from here?” Alyson changed the subject and looked at their surroundings, Drew laughed and gestured around the chaotic kitchen, “Don’t expect much, all they have is frozen soup…” Alyson groaned and headed for the freezer, “I expected as much…” “I thought you were dead, we all did,” Drew remarked flatly as if it hardly bothered her, looking at her bitten nails, “you certainly looked dead.” She came to the opened freezer door and peered in to see Alyson poking around the curtains of soup packs, “Pick ones that are good cold; you aren’t likely to get microwaves everywhere.” Alyson took her time to examine the packs; there was no rush, and most of them had been frozen for so long the actual details of their contents were covered in frost. She said to Drew absently, “I must have looked quite the wreck…” The albino laughed crisply, like the frost of the freezer itself. Sighing, Alyson cracked off several packs and shook herself; she only wore the flimsy thin prisoner tunic and her skin had become icy cold and bitterly sensitive, her bare feet were even sticking to the floor. Quickly she retreated from the icy chamber and Drew closed the large door behind her. “So you and other prisoners escaped?” Alyson asked. Drew nodded, leaning sombrely on a worktop, picking at a sharpened fingernail, “Yes, five of us in the end made it through the bulkhead and teamed up: Adrian, Crystal, Enzo, Alex and myself.” Alyson shook the heat back into her limbs, “Adrian? I wondered if he was alive or not; I saw Sophia…” Drew shrugged, “Yeah, we all did, a little too obviously,” she looked at Alyson dangerously, “When it all stopped, the chaos I mean, Adrian was determined to get Sophia away with us. We were not willing; we had to stop the guards from containing us by fighting hand-to-hand and breaking electro-rods with bare hands, yet he tried to get her breathing, he tried for ever, all the few life-giving methods he knew. Nothing worked. I had to personally drag him from her and out the bulkhead with the others…” Alyson sat up on the worktable opposite Drew and asked her pointedly, “Did you see Daniel?” The albino shrugged, “When I came too he was already gone somehow… the bulkhead was still closed… or maybe he was killed in his plasma gate before it went down.” Alyson doubted it somehow yet showed no sign of her thoughts nor said anything to Drew, she was sure Daniel was alive, however he escaped. To

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stop an uncomfortable silence descending on them both, Alyson persisted, “So what happened to the rest of them, Adrian and the others?” Drew straightened at that and told her quickly, “Let’s get some food up on the burn, I might tell you when I have the energy.” With that they both went through the easy task of heating one of Drew’s soup packs in the microwave and slopping the thick contents into metal trays, armed with these they both moved into the void-like mess hall that was drenched in gloom and stillness. Sitting at one of the larger tables, Drew faced Alyson and begun to tell of what had happened to her fellows. “It was the strangest thing Alyson,” the albino said thoughtfully while taking in thick creamy soup distastefully, “I will never forget it, what happened to them. “We all weren’t sure what to do when we had escaped the guards, whether to go ahead and find further escape or to stay put in the area we knew best, and Adrian wasn’t in a good mood since loosing Sophia…” “We’re goddamned lost, Drew!” She grimaced at his loud voice and turned to look at him; it had been her turn to lead them the way she thought was right, after ‘Axed’ Alex got them even more astray. They had hauled open several offline electronic doors to get this far and yet there was no sign of a mess hall or a supply room, they couldn’t even find their old mess hall in the dark! “Shut up Adrian!” she snarled, “We’re trying to get out of this hellhole, do you have any bright ideas of what we could do now?” “We could go back and start again…” he muttered. Drew cocked a feathery white eyebrow, “Do you know how to get back?” He went quiet and the others around him shuffled noiselessly with him. Alex spoke up in his foundering tone, trying to reform some of his past leadership, “Perhaps we just keep goin’, and then surely we’ll find a way out…” Drew shook her head at his simple-mindedness, “Yes, a good idea, because I was intending to unpack and sit right here for the rest of my life!” Again, they fell quite at her sarcastic wrath. She thought long and hard in that red lit corridor, at the front of her hopeless band of thugs and semi-wanted criminals – she couldn’t see how any of them were once ‘dangerous’ – and slowly a plan formed in her mind.

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“Perhaps…” she paced forward, and they followed her, “perhaps we could set up an ambush.” “What?” Adrian scoffed, “and ambush who?” Drew didn’t bother glaring at him this time, in fact she didn’t even look at his useless expression, she only replied sleekly, “Ambush other prisoners, even guards, take their weapons and clothes, any food they might have, drugs?” “Oh yes please!” Adrian laughed. Drew repressed her anger and continued, “All we need is a supply room, a depot, and there we can wait. We’ll have all the supplies we need to last, and others will come to us while they search for food as well… But they don’t get any, because we kill them.” Crystal announced from the back of the group, “Sounds like a plan.” Alex added, “Somethin’ to do anyway,” But Adrian responded pessimistically, “Yeah, but how’d we find this ‘supply room’ anyway?” Drew smiled smoothly and looked over them all. “I guess I agree with Alex after all; we keep going forward till we do.” Armed with three electro-rods between all five of them they searched the deck that they were on – not daring to go up or down elevators quite yet – they walked for perhaps miles, well beyond their old sector and anyone who might have recognised them. As tempers began to boil out of control they actually found a simple electronic door labelled ‘Supply’. The door was sealed shut, so no one had thought up their plan before them and no one had been able to ransack the place of useful materials and with combined strength of the five of them, they managed to haul the door open and hurry into the darkness. Using electro-rods as torches they found the room quite large and adequately stocked with supplies. Drew ordered them to touch the materials as little as possible to make sure the trap was unseen and undetectable, and that they should take up hidden positions around the door and within the room itself. It seemed that an emergency lighting system was functioning within that little room and a small white light in the centre of the ceiling could be activated if need be, while the crimson warning lamps flooded through the invitingly open doorway. That was where they stayed for most of that day, barely saying a word as it could have jeopardised their scheme, and that scheme seemed to have worked; one prisoner had wandered into their trap and was taken easily, while one guard was helplessly beaten to a pulp. They did not take the guard’s uniform and armour immediately, being so addicted to their 152

trapping of many victims that they knew they would soon have five uniforms for each of them. Drew looked up at Alyson from across the table and remarked, “It seemed as if we’d pull it off, even Adrian seemed to perk up a bit, rather to my displeasure. We had two guards and three prisoners and had barely touched the supplies, and we could have gone on like that though the ship’s entire compliment! “But something happened,” Drew added shortly, “or rather, we attracted something we did not expect…” Alyson watched her carefully, something inside made her feel as if she knew what the woman was slowly hinting at, yet Drew had given nothing away. “We waited in our usual spot,” she continued, “grinning from ear-to-ear as new footsteps could be heard down the corridor, approaching our den. But the footsteps were not normal, they were like, inhuman… clawed or something. There was a weird noise too, like a swinging noise that went with them. “As you’d expect our humour died, but we waited in anticipation; knowing we’d find out soon enough what it was when we killed it.” Drew smirked with black mirth, “Then it walked in, and none of us actually jumped it at first, too alarmed and shocked perhaps. It was not human, Alyson, not at all. I watched it for only a few moments, it wasn’t like us except that it walked on two legs and had two arms and a head, but it had a tail which made the swishing noise and that was tipped with a blunt club. Its head seemed to be bald and from its arms there seemed to be knives… huge knives.” Drew’s blue eyes gleamed at Alyson in memory and she continued, “You probably think I was seeing things, and that’s what I thought at first, like I was light-headed with little food, but everything was going to become clear. Adrian, dear old Adrian, turned on the lights to attack it… and with the lights on we saw it. It was like a sci-fi monstrosity Alyson! It was huge, extremely fit-looking, arms like a boxer and a body like an athlete, its feet were clawed and its face… its face was flat; no nose, no mouth, no ears… just two red eyes, oval and solid and evil. “It seemed to be ready for us even before the lights turned on; it swung up one arm and speared Alex through the stomach with one of its blades, I saw the knife go right out his back! The thing then swung Alex off its arm and then danced around us like a ninja! It swung those knives like 153

machetes and thrust them like swords, and they seemed to cut through anything! I was about to fight it when Crystal lost her head, the blade of the beast cleared through her neck like butter! It stabbed Enzo in the stomach at the same time! “It was me and Adrian, and I knew he wouldn’t last and that I couldn’t possibility fight it off… so… I ran.” Drew flicked her sapphire eyes at Alyson quickly, “I ran as fast as I could, round as many bends as possible and never looking back, I took so many turns I couldn’t tell if I had simply gone round in a circle. In the end I bashed the grating from an air vent and hid in there until I felt it was safe to emerge…” Alyson stared blankly at Drew, and the albino woman sat back in her chair with a sigh, feeling as if she had just gone through the whole experience again. She eyed her audience closely, looking for reaction. “You don’t believe me do you?” she smirked, “I don’t really blame you…” Alyson shook her head slowly, not looking directly at Drew, “No, I think I do.” Slowly she pulled out the wad of paper that was forever strapped in her trousers; a deep indentation now creased the papers. “What is that?” Drew asked, “I saw them earlier…” Alyson unfolded them on the table and replied as she flicked through them, “I took them from Daniel’s cell, before I left the sector…” she revealed a rather worn piece of parchment, as if the surface had been heavily scored and worked on by pencil and pen. “I found this among his papers…” Alyson showed the right side of the paper, and Drew immediately took the paper from her hands. “I haven’t shown it to anyone.” Drew’s eyes flitted over the picture desperately; it was finely rendered monochrome, beautifully crafted and proportioned and scaled, a masterpiece like a Da Vinci anatomy study. “This was what attacked us, it killed all of them, Adrian and the others,” Drew whispered still staring. “My god,” she ran a long finger over the thick paper, her nail scratching the surface sharply, “he’s detailed everything better than I could, everything! But how, he must have drawn it before the ship crashed, and it wasn’t onboard before that… He’s even noted on things about it… this is too weird…” Alyson nodded silently, her heart heavy and her pulse racing; she knew the picture had some reference when she first picked it up, its fine detail and texture, its sinister beauty. But now she also knew that Daniel was not to be trusted, and that he had some connection with this thing that 154

Drew had escaped. Alyson prayed she would never encounter Daniel again, in fear of what might happen, what he might do and how she could even look at him… yet she seemed oddly desperate to talk with him at the same time, maybe to sort it all out with him personally. Drew lay the picture down crisply, her breathing had quickened with her heartbeat, and she looked to Alyson coldly. “Alyson,” she began, “we have to—” Both of them looked to the main door of the mess hall as a noise alerted them. It had been a clattering sound, like something falling and perhaps rolling across the floor, Alyson watched the doorway carefully while Drew slowly got to her feet and switched on the electro-rod instinctively, never looking away from the door. Alyson, at hearing the electro-rod hum, looked at her with fearful eyes but could not bring herself to speak. A man of Alyson’s height appeared in the doorway. He appeared well built and strong, but he was garbed in the sickly green pastel coloured tunic of a prisoner, and his hair was a shaggy mop. He stepped quietly as if about to sneak into the mess hall, head peering round the doorframe cautiously, Alyson wondered if he too had run in with the creature Daniel had drawn and Drew had seen. In no moment at all he had spotted them and gave an inhuman, animal snarl. At that Alyson activated her own weapon and readied herself, and rightfully so, the intruder attacked in the same relentless charge as the previous prisoner she had encountered. It seemed then to Alyson that all of the survivors of the crash were maddened and insane, either from head trauma or from the fighting and chaos that everyone had suffered in the aftermath. Drew raced around the table to meet their enemy, though he was unarmed he still charged like a berserker. He was, however, focused on Alyson from the moment he saw them and he paid no attention to the albino dressed in a guard’s uniform and armour plates. Drew swung the electro-rod at him rather clumsily; though she had experienced much she still preferred pistols to these ‘cattle-pods’. She hit him hard in the stomach with the steel pole, and the volume of force passed through from her muscles flipped him off his feet and he came crashing onto his back. As Drew recovered from her fierce attack he was already sprawling to his bare feet, and he made a mad leap at her like a pouncing beast. Alyson saw her bowled over onto the floor and the attacker grappling on top of her, shouting and grunting inaudible curses. Alyson desperately wanted to help, but with one arm out of action and the possibility of her electro-rod passing current through the attacker and then into Drew, killing them both stopped her from doing so. Drew scrabbled 155

with the prisoner violently and managed to twist his right forearm savagely, the limb gave an appalling snap as bones fractured and his elbow joint broke. In his moment of sheer agony Drew managed to shove him off her and dragged herself away, shouting at Alyson, “Kill him! Kill him!” Alyson’s left thumb rotated one of the dials on the body of the electrorod, she did not know how far she had put it, but Drew noticed the tip glowed brightly and the three prongs cackled with hungry, eager intent. Without hesitation Alyson lunged with the rod down into the already recovering attacker’s side. She looked away but continued to push the rod’s end into him even as sparks and fierce electrical discharges racked his body and laced around the nozzle of the rod itself like curling lightning. She held it there for some moments. Drew climbed to her feet and could smell burning flesh as the man’s screams died out, and smoke began to whisper out around the inserted tip of the electro-rod. She cried to Alyson over the discharge, “Stop, Alyson! He’s dead!” But throughout her attack it was like Alyson couldn’t hear anything around her, not even the hissing of burning flesh or the fierce popping of electricity, only her mind gathered like a storm cloud. Everything that had happened to her which was terrible and cruel now left her in the killing of their attacker, from her induction to the ship where she had been naked before men’s eyes, to the endless days and nights of detention, and the night Viggo had attacked her, the Administrator’s cruel voice and Jefferson taking advantage of her, to her family’s fortune failing… All of these feelings and hatreds left her in the onslaught. She removed the electro-rod finally when Drew gripped her arm fiercely; her victim’s eyeballs had begun to melt. “He’s dead, Alyson, he’s dead,” Drew repeated to her after that, and she held her breath from the stink that now stifled them. “We’d better go…” The albino snatched up the drawing from the table and escorted Alyson from the hall and into the red lit corridors beyond, all that time Alyson was dazed and voiceless. “Alyson?” She blinked and looked to Drew slowly, “Are you okay?” The young woman nodded slowly but said nothing in reply. Drew glanced back at the smoking corpse they had left behind, and then gave her back Daniel’s drawing. Alyson took it wordlessly. Sighing, Drew told her huskily, “We better get going.” She had said that deliberately and it seemed to have woken Alyson from her daydream; she asked shortly, “Where?” 156

“We have to get off the ship Alyson, and as far away as possible preferably. If it’s crashed on some planet, we might escape these madmen…” Alyson did not think of the hundreds of problems that Drew’s plan entailed, like whether the atmosphere was at all breathable, if the planet was inhabited, by more of those creatures perhaps. She only replied meekly, “I want to find Viggo,” Drew looked sternly at her quiet and immature voice, “You can’t, it’s too far and he’s probably dead anyway. It’s just you and me now.” Alyson looked at her expressionlessly, “I’ll meet you somewhere, once I find him.” The albino cursed under her breath, looking away from Alyson’s relentless blue eyes that were full of pain and grief, yet underneath them there were solid cores of determination and courage. “Do you know what you’re getting into?” she asked her, “That place is swarming with prisoners even worse than him down there,” she nodded towards the mess hall door, “and not only that, but Daniel’s creature could be anywhere and you wouldn’t stand a chance against it… believe me.” “I know,” Alyson replied, her voice coming back into reality and her eyes refocusing with crystal clarity, “but I must find him, even if he’s dead. I promised myself that I would get him out of there.” Drew eyed her bust right arm in its sling uneasily and Alyson’s flimsily prisoner’s tunic, and knew the woman was going to die if she tried. “At least look for a guard barracks, one that isn’t occupied, and get some armour and proper clothes, or even get some off a body like I did.” Alyson shivered at the thought. Drew shook her head, “Well, it’s your choice not mine. Where should I meet you, the Administrator’s office?” The woman blinked in surprise, “You know how to get there?” The albino shrugged, “Can’t be too difficult, and you know how to get there, don’t you?” “Yes, I think so…” Alyson replied cautiously. Drew looked down the corridor behind her and said to Alyson, “I’ll be keeping an eye out for escape routes to the outside, I don’t know the ship but we could be close to the outer hull. Could you do the same?” Alyson nodded, “Then I’ll see you in the Administrator’s office…” Drew looked at her, still doubtful. “Are you sure about this Alyson?” Again, Alyson replied shortly, “Yes, I am.” Slowly Drew began to walk down the corridor away from Alyson, leaving the young woman standing on her own, and felt ashamed for 157

doing so, but she had always lived and fought alone, and Drew felt that to survive in this place was to be alone. She did not say goodbye, she simply disappeared from view. Alyson watched her go and her thumb slowly reduced the power on the electro-rod. Once again someone she knew left her alone in the blood coloured corridors, but it did not affect her judgement; her mind was clearer than it could ever be. A voice inside told her that she had to be strong and to be strong she had to be willing to kill, and now that she had, even though racked with shame and terror, Alyson felt released, fearless. Her heart still beat heavily in her chest but her hand gripped even tighter to the electro-rod handle, and she turned down the corridor silently, resolutely.

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Chapter 4: Closer Alyson had walked for miles. The ship was an endless, massive labyrinth encrusted with death and drenched in darkness and gloom; it was the most soul devouring and mentally crippling journey she could have imagined. But she remained determined to seek out the man whose company she had kept for half a year within a boring cell surrounded by idiots. He was the only thing at the front of her mind, him and the creature that stalked the corridors, a creature inhuman and mysterious and hunted the survivors of the crash as if to make sure not one of them survived to tell the tale. Alyson feared meeting that thing in the dark corridors alone, and she would only feel safer when she found Viggo, and perhaps both of them together could escape both it and the ship. Her legs became more and more solid as she walked on cautiously; her muscles grinding to a halt and her bones felt like led piping wrapped in coils of steel cables. The hard metal floor began to jar her feet, her heels felt like granite that was cracking and the soles of her feet were like tearing leather. Exhausted, Alyson stopped and leaned heavily on one of the hard walls grimly, her head thudding solidly back, eyes blinking slowly. Pulling her newly found pack from her shoulders, Alyson retrieved one of the many soup packs that had defrosted within, it was now dangerously fluid and the flimsy plastic bag seemed easily breakable. At first she had all of the packs crammed at her other hip, their icy coldness had bitten her flesh and now their liquidity made her fearful they might break and spill their contents all over her. She had pulled the backpack from a corpse on the floor – but she remained true to her word and did not take the body’s clothes – fortune smiled as the pack had more soup packs inside alongside two electric torches powered by Ganymede power cells similar to electro-rods. Pleased with her discoveries Alyson had hung on to the backpack’s contents, and now she retrieved a shard of plasti-glass from her bag and used this skilfully to cut a hole in the soup pack. Rather grimly she drank the cold creamy soup from the hole, squeezing the pack as she did, and eventually devoured all the contents. She felt the usual queasiness she had previously learned to expect after her cold meal, and eyed an air vent grill at ground level. Remembering what Drew had told her Alyson removed the grill and checked it was empty, before sliding inside and refitting the grill into place above her head. 159

It was only big enough for her to lay flat and just enough elbow room to move her arm around more or less freely. Red light from the corridor filtered over her head as she shifted uncomfortably in the cramped space, but for now, that cramped vent was the safest place to be; she would not dare sleep openly on a bed in a cell only to be throttled in her sleep. She laid her electro rod close by and switched it to ‘glow’ so it radiated a soft blue light in which to see by. She pulled out the picture she had found in Daniel’s cell, the picture of the creature that had killed Drew’s comrades – if they could be called comrades. It was a side view of the creature, one arm bent upwards and the hand balled into a huge fist, great long blades protruded from the top of its forearms, while its tail curled menacingly behind it. Alyson found it disturbing how much the picture showed in detail; Daniel somehow knew that the creature’s prominent blades grew from the bones of the forearms. She was no biologist, in fact she hated biology, but Alyson knew that was an incredible evolution. But there was no information on where the thing had come from, or if it was somehow natural, or another government project that had been kept under wraps like the wormhole gate. That brought her mind round to the time she had discussed Daniel with Jefferson in their previous ‘encounter’; he had said that Daniel had been put on the ship on purpose, and that his crime was a fake. The guard had also said that he personally thought the ship was being sent away somewhere in some ‘government project’, it certainly seemed clear now to Alyson he was not far wrong, and the government was definitely in the background. But how, was Daniel a spy sent to check on the proceedings and then had to release this creature into their midst? Alyson still had trouble accepting Daniel as the villain; he seemed too innocent and quiet, and he was her friend, surely she wouldn’t have befriended a fiend? And the creature… was the creature already on board before the wormhole or had it broken onboard from the planet that they had crashed on? Of course all of this was purely hypothetical, and Alyson knew that, they did not know for sure they had crashed on a planet, unknown or not, it could be a hoax, ever since the wormhole, if there was a wormhole at all. She shook her head and folded the picture back up, and hoped Viggo would have some bright ideas, maybe he had found out something else in his travels… She sighed and looked up and through the grill of her air vent, and she could see the black blotted form of a body on the other side of the corridor, continuously licked by crimson lights. Trying to get herself 160

more comfortable, Alyson struggled to forget her worries and questions and tried to sleep; she had not slept for sometime and knew nothing of how many days had passed her by. When she slept Alyson had been overwhelmed with disturbing dreams, dreams about Viggo, the creature, Daniel and Drew, she had been chased by hundreds of the creatures down the dark corridors of the ship, her feet too slow and the world was set to devour her and never let her escape. She imagined the sole survivor, the only one to escape the prison ship, to be Daniel, and he was welcomed by uniformed men of the government outside on an alien world. Waking quickly Alyson flipped herself in alarm and in the process clashed her bad arm against the side of the cramped air vent she forgot she was residing in. Cursing and clutching her arm with her good left hand she realised the pain was not as great as it once was, it seemed the anxiety in her arm was only around the shoulder joint and even that was subtle. As she quietened, Alyson looked out of the grill above her head, just as a large glossy cockroach scuttled along the side of the vent, inches from her. She noticed that the body that had been beyond her vent was gone! Alyson feared she was going mad or had dreamt it; perhaps she had fallen asleep when she had seen it, but no, it had been there and now it was gone. She flinched again in horror as the cockroach came into view and her back crashed into the side of the vent noisily; the sound vibrated and shook all the way down and around the ship’s venting systems. Alyson quickly bashed the grill of the vent open and into the corridor, letting the armoured insect scuttle out and out of sight. Sighing, Alyson regretted her own insecurity and fear over a bug; she had just killed a psychopathic madman in cold blood! And she couldn’t deny that her blood had been cold. Repositioning herself, Alyson relaxed again and wondered now where the body had gone. Was there someone actually going around cleaning them up? She highly doubted it; no one would be that conscious of them or be willing enough to do it. It did not matter, she told herself, and slowly she began to wriggle her way back out of the air vent, knocking knees and elbows uncomfortably as she did. She checked she had everything with her when she stood in the corridor again, and then replaced the grill over the vent. Now she was back on the trail of Viggo, hopefully, and she peered left and right wondering which way to begin again. In moments she had retrieved one of the electrical torches from her backpack and flicked it on, and out of 161

curiosity, brought the wide beam of light down on where the body once lay. Unsurprisingly there was a pool of sticky red blood, thick and old and Alyson turned the light away from it, before bringing it back again as something caught her eye. She spotted the blood trailing away from the pool, smearing over the floor and discolouring steel with crimson gore, it was not like the body had dragged itself away on broken limbs, it was more like someone (or something) had dragged it away. Her father had always said ‘curiosity killed the cat’, but Alyson was helplessly drawn by her own curiosity to follow the blood trail; if it did not fade and die out, she might find out who did it and why. Placing her bare feet carefully, not to alert anyone nearby and not to put her feet into the tacky red smears, she walked alongside the trail, torch flitting between blood and the corridor before her. The blood passed round a few corners, at one point it crossed the floor to the other side of the passage and round another corner. Later she passed another great pool of blood again with no body, but disturbingly that pool begun another trail that then went alongside the original, Alyson found herself following the course of two bodies, not just one. The trail of the bodies had stopped for a moment in a wider pool of blood in the centre of the floor, and the first sign of footsteps could be seen. They were large and wider than a man’s footprint and seemed only to have three or four toes, though Alyson could not tell for sure. She continued after the trail as it resumed and turned a few more corners before it passed through a doorway which she knew was the end of the journey. The blood trail had entered a Grav-ball arena doorway, and Alyson now paced ever quieter towards the doorframe, heart pounding and mouth dry, she slid up to the edge and peered quickly and slightly into the chamber. Nothing, she could see nothing. The lights were very dim; the only real light was the crimson glow from the corridor, so Alyson stepped into the doorway and brought the beam of the torch to bear with the centre of the room. She turned away and stepped back into the corridor, away from the door and breathing closely, she blinked feverishly as her mind worked overtime at what it had witnessed. Again, bringing her courage back to steady her legs and heart, Alyson looked back into the Grav-ball arena. In the centre of the room were bodies, close to hundreds of corpses, all piled up randomly on top of each other, limbs poking out twisted and bloody, faces like gargoyles and ghouls, lifeless and blank. The stench of the cadavers had nearly knocked her flat, almost crushing her throat in a deathly grip as her stomach churned vilely in revulsion. 162

She flickered the torch around the huge room and spotted the two large goal rings lying on the floor, their anti-gravity motors and generators offline, yet nothing else was amiss, only the huge pile of bodies in the centre. Sickened Alyson turned to leave, but her torch light sought out another black form on the black floor, it was a body nearer to her, face up and half naked. She almost failed to observe odd marks on his blooded and horrified face and chest, and she found herself peering closer to the body, the smell filling her head as she had no free hand in which to cover her nose. But it seemed to her that his face and chest were pockmarked, small circular bruises nearly an inch wide spotted his pale skin like a cancer, and they were red and blemished while the skin around them seemed livid and transparent. What had caused these marks, Alyson wondered as she stepped away at last from the cadaver, they were no disease she could think of – though with this thought she covered her nose and mouth as best she could with her torch arm – and they were not medical scars or electro-rod wounds either. Quickly she left the ghastly arena and back into the somewhat relieving surroundings of the corridor, even though her bare feet felt the tacky blood beneath them. She felt as though she’d be scarred for life with that image she had seen, but wisely recalled her true mission: to find Viggo and get them off the ship. With that brought back to the forefront of her mind, she walked quickly away from the deathly chamber. Knowing her plan now brought Alyson back to one of her chief concerns of getting to Viggo. She knew that the best option was to get to his sector and to his cell firstly and either find him there or meet him on the way, but she could remember from her previous trip that she had to go down one elevator. In all likeliness with the electronic doors offline, the elevators were probably down too, and with her bust right arm, what hope did she have if the elevator was stuck down at the bottom levels? She would have to climb down chain or wire or ladder with only one arm! It wasn’t long before she would have to put these theories into practice however, round a few more bends, which she had worked out via wall maps for being the right direction, she came to her first elevator shaft. The doors had fortunately been hauled open for her already, much like many of the corridor doors she had passed through already, but the elevator itself was indeed a problem. It wasn’t stuck on the lower levels, instead it was high up the shaft by several metres from her floor, and as

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she expected there were several chains and wires connecting it with the dizzyingly far first floor. Pulling her eyes from the huge drop that was trying to suck her over the edge, Alyson looked at the chains dubiously and couldn’t possibly see herself in her condition getting down on those things. Sighing, Alyson realised Drew might well have been right in that there was no way Alyson would make it all the way there with only one arm. But she wouldn’t stop here; she decided finally, she would try all of the elevators! Find one that was working! With that she turned to go, but as she did one of the chains hanging within the shaft rattled and quivered with its suspended fellows. Alyson paused in mid-turn and looked back at the group of chains and wires, one of them shook and looked more strained than the others, but they too swayed unevenly. She held her breath and approached the edge again; unsure and afraid of what was going to be climbing up from the lower levels. What if it was the creature? Looking down she could just make out a figure hoisting itself up on one of the chains, she could tell very little of who or what they were in the dark. She stepped back from the chasm and hid at one side of the opening quietly, she had not shone a light down to identify the person as it would have given her away. Effortlessly her left thumb tweaked the discharge dial of the electro-rod two notches up; she wouldn’t kill this one unless she had to, they might be able to tell her something. She smiled wickedly to herself, the thought sparking an inner demon; now she was thinking of interrogating people for information! The chains continued to rattle and as she listened closely she could hear faint grunting of a man grow louder and clearer as he came close to her doorway. Hopefully he will decide to stop at her invitingly open doorway so she could jump him. She heard him cursing, and knew that he was right at her level and the chains chimed together like tinkling bells as he swung himself towards the lip of the doorway. At any moment he would land on the floor… He did, he had swung himself fiercely on the chain and then let go to crash onto the floor before Alyson. He was completely naked, badly bruised and had a mass of unkempt black hair all around his face and neck, Alyson only noted these things as she plunged with the electro-rod into the small of his back. He gave an anxious cry and tried to bat the rod away with one hand as he squirmed on his front, but as she stabbed him, Alyson noticed something terrible. On her victim’s back, roughly lining

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his ribcage were eight small old scars, brutal looking stab wounds that could only have been made by one thing… fingernails. “Oh my god, Viggo!” she cried and immediately released the electro-rod from his back and detached it from her wrist. “Alyson…?” he coughed from the floor, and started to look over his shoulder. She knelt down to him as he turned, a little uneasy with his nakedness, “Are you all right, I didn’t know it was you…” He grunted a small laugh as the pain slowly subsided, “No, but I’m glad you’ve… got a fighting spirit…” It was dark in the corridor, the crimson warning lamps were all that gave any light, but despite this he was reluctant to show himself to her at all, keeping his back to her. “I’d rather you didn’t see me like this…” he murmured. Alyson looked pained and yet relieved, “Oh, of course,” she stuttered, standing back up. “Couldn’t you get any clothes, even… get some off someone’s body?” she tried to hold the timidity out of her voice. Viggo slowly stood up saying gruffly, “You are kidding right?” and Alyson flinched, “I couldn’t even find that sort of thing down there anyway! Every prisoner is naked down here, and most guards and crewmen who were dead had been stripped by other prisoners who all got out before me… didn’t have much choice really.” Alyson noticed he kept his back turned, and she found herself blushing and quickly turned to retrieve her electro-rod from the floor. “We better get you some then… I-I was heading for a barracks after I found you, we need some guard uniforms and armour…” Viggo seemed to nod and did not move as he asked amused, “Where did all this organisation come from Alyson?” She smiled but did not reply, but looked to him again rather grimly, “We better go, I’ll lead.” She quickly walked past him, eyes never deviating from her course and he smiled after her, “Whatever suits you best, I suppose,” he then followed her as she walked quickly down the blood red corridor. “You’ve certainly made it up,” Viggo said after a while of them walking in silence. “What?” she asked over her shoulder, though she didn’t turn her head at all. “You’ve got an electro-rod and a backpack already,” he explained.

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“It’s not exactly ‘already’; I’ve been walking around for quite a while.” Alyson felt the conversation drop then and she let it; it was an odd feeling she had now, having found Viggo rather abruptly and easily she now wondered what was to be done, and how she was going to cope with this reformed companionship, especially with him. It was quite a history both of them had clocked up now, Alyson thought, and to find him naked like that had not helped her confidence or demeanour, and she knew he could probably see right through her when she was like this. She guessed she had gotten used to being alone and surviving, and saw herself like Drew in a way, prowling around without anyone getting in the way or to worry about. Alyson ultimately feared that Viggo would somehow… slow her down. But that was the stupidest thing she could have thought of! How could he slow her down, he was stronger and fitter, he could protect her, help her open doors and access new areas. She paused her thinking for a moment, now everything was so jumbled she didn’t know what she was telling herself anymore. There was the other matter of Daniel and the creature Drew had encountered; did Viggo know anything about those things? Had he encountered it, would he believe her when she told him about it? Her worry was cut short when she spotted directions printed on the dark wall on her right, the words were revealed clearly by the beam of her torch. They spoke of one direction to the elevator, which they had come, one direction to sector H, and another direction to sector M – Guard Barracks. Relieved, Alyson said to Viggo, “At last, a barracks!” Viggo added with a snigger, “Let’s hope it’s not occupied!” She smiled slightly as she led him on again, not entirely sure why she took his comment badly, Viggo probably only meant it light-heartedly. Their pace had quickened down the corridors, they hopped over discarded bodies, battered equipment and passed beaten machinery and dark, shadow filled rooms, and forever Alyson sought out the printed directions on the walls. In a few minutes jogging they came to the large doors of the barracks and the first good sign was that the door was shut, but that alone was a double-edged sword; there was the matter of opening it. Viggo watched Alyson approach the huge doors slowly, he remarked looking at them, “They are reinforced steel bulkheads, electronically locked and airtight, we used to have them with our police space bike garages.”

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Alyson sighed and ran her hand over the cold steel, “And the power’s out… we can’t possibly force these open just the two of us.” She looked up at the huge doors; they were nearly twice the height of her! “I guess we’re stuck…” Viggo eyed her torch for a moment and then stepped forward to the door quickly; Alyson stepped away from him, still agitated about him. Viggo began swiftly as he crouched at the electronic door control pad, “If these are the same as the one’s we have back in the force… they should have an override switch somewhere…” Alyson replied flatly, “But the power will be out for that too.” “Not really,” he wrenched a steel panel from the doorframe to reveal a large pull down lever and several dull plugs and ports and dead lights. He then looked to her torch again, “Does that have a Ganymede battery cell in it?” he asked. Alyson looked at the bright, active torch in her hand, “Yes, I think so…” “I can feed the power from the cell into the override system for just long enough to open the doors,” he extended a hand for the lamp. Alyson gave him it, “It might discharge and kill the battery…” he added to her regrettably, “the torch won’t work after that.” “It’s okay,” Alyson replied brightly, “I have two.” He blinked and looked at her with a grin, “Even better.” So Viggo removed the battery cell from the torch’s body, it was a chunky silver rectangle with codes and numbers bevelled into its surface, it had two coloured wires that connected it to the torch’s circuits, one brown and one green. He then fitted these wires into two of the plugs in the override panel and as soon as he did, the dull lights inside the panel flicked on and he slammed the heavy lever down in response. Alyson jumped back in alarm as Viggo swore before the silver battery burst in a shower of sparks, he fell back from the panel with his left hand clutching his right hand tightly. “Damn!” he spat. But as he did the huge bulkhead doors began to open before them, siding into the walls on either side with a heavy groan, inside the barracks it was dark and the red warning lights only exposed a few metres beyond. Alyson crouched down to Viggo as he cringed, “What happened?” He replied grimly, “I got my hand jammed in the lever… it happens sometimes…” “Let me see it,” Alyson said coolly, she had had her share of blood already and this would be nothing worse.

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Viggo seemed reluctant to let go, but he did so. His hand was bloody and shaking in the red light, a great gash scored across the top of it where the lever nearly crushed it. He could barely move his fingers without extreme pain. “Damnit!” Alyson turned to her backpack saying, “Hold on, put pressure on it…” Viggo cursed, “Are you a doctor or something?” Alyson smirked flatly, “No, I hated biology actually.” She came back with two small pills, and handed them to her, “Take these, they’re painkillers.” Viggo took them but said grimly, “You can’t just pump drugs into me!” “I know that!” she grabbed her remaining torch and dived into the dark barracks with it. Viggo held his hand deathly tight while she was gone. He never liked blood or being injured, though he never admitted it to anyone, though some people were more perceptive than he would like. He heard Alyson rattling around inside the barracks and could see her torch flapping around madly like a huge blind firefly. He was glad he had found her – or she had found him – and that they were together again, but he didn’t like how she shunned him at first because of his current condition. He understood it of course, it all came from the night he nearly raped her, but he wanted that to be in the past, it was the past; possibly months in the past! He had spent that time in a tiny cell, without light or clothes or company, thinking about himself, his condition – mental and physical – and how Alyson must have felt. All he wanted now from all that time was to be at peace with her, to be closer to her… but it was probably a fantasy, brought on by slight delirium of being isolated for so long. But it never left his mind. Quickly she came back, apparently victorious, carrying a strip of medical gauze. “Ah, restoring gauze, that’ll do it,” he said, releasing his hand so she could strap it tightly around and over the wound. “You know this stuff?” she asked as she fixed him up. He nodded, “Yes, the police force had some, but down in the ‘psychotic cells’ they have to use it quite a lot on particularly ‘unhinged’ prisoners, if you know what I mean.” Alyson nodded as she stood back up, “I can imagine,” she glanced into the darkness of the barracks, “I hope there are some emergency lights in there, it’s too dark!” Viggo rose to his feet slowly, avoiding using his crippled hand for any sort of balance, “Yes, there should just be a switch somewhere; guards 168

would normally use this place as a safe hold… I suppose in this kind of situation, hence the huge door.” He took Alyson’s torch and walked into the dark and found what he sought quickly, with a heavy clacking noise there was a flicker of light and soon the whole room was filled with a suitable light from small lamps lining the top of the walls. Alyson looked around the room with a smile; it was perfectly intact, no one had ransacked it or sabotaged anything, they were getting first class service. Her eyes fell to Viggo again as he paced away and around the room. “And now for some clothes, and a shower!” she announced. The barracks were not unlike the prisoner’s Grav-ball changing rooms, there was a sort of registration area first full of benches and shelves, then a changing area with lockers lining the walls, and off that was a large showering area. There was only one shower room and the changing room could be divided up by plastic curtains upon rails bolted to the ceiling, clearly the rules were not as strict as with the prisoners, and women showered with men. Alyson was relieved again when she tried to peel off her bandages from her arm and shoulder, she could feel the muscles working underneath and decided to risk it, after all, Sergeant MacLeod had said two days and it must have been two days since then! She smiled broadly as her arm moved again freely and she discarded her sling effortlessly, “My arm’s fixed!” she said happily, caressing her reformed flesh lovingly. Alyson was now desperate to get her sickly green pastel coloured tunic off, it was blooded and stained and torn, and she hadn’t had a shower for days, and it seemed like that tunic had been as much of a prison for her body as the cell had been for her soul. So she rushed into the changing room and curtained herself off from Viggo before piling all of her belongings onto a bench. “The water should be working,” Viggo called through the curtain, “it operates on a different system, but the electricity to heat the water will take away from the emergency lighting. So don’t expect it to be too hot…” Alyson grew rather cautious of removing her tunic as his voice talked to her; it was only a thin flexible barrier between the two of them. But she put her fear side for the moment, just long enough for her to take it off and walk calmly into the showers. 169

The water was cold, but it was just hot enough to bring steam curling around her and make her skin tingle. The first thing she saw was soap dispensers; how disturbing it was that the prison company had such problems with prisoners being violent to each other with liquid soap that they had to remove it! She took full advantage of this green soap; filling her hand with it she completely covered herself and lathered it into her skin, washing blood and dirt and grime from her flesh as she did. She sighed as she let it all rinse off her and it poured into the drains. It felt like heaven. Just as she was about to pull herself away from the luxurious water, another shower was heard turning on somewhere. She turned her head quickly and saw Viggo in the room, he was far enough away from her, but he was still in the room, still naked, with her. “Viggo what are you doing!?” she snapped, not turning to him. “Just what you’re doing,” he said quietly, not appreciating her wrath, even though he had expected it. Her cheeks blazed and her body quivered visibly as her throat tightened and her heart pounded like when she had nearly died in her cell. She spluttered, “W-well, I’m going now…” she tried to sound calm, she tried to not make a fool of herself and even tried to blame Viggo for her insecurity – it probably was his fault anyway – but she was blinded by her own feelings. She stalked out of the shower room and back into the changing room. Viggo stood silent and still, and then shook his head both at her and at himself; she wasn’t ready, and he knew he was being far too premature. Alyson cursed to herself as Viggo showered and she dried herself with a large towel. She didn’t even bother to think of anything at all, she just turned to the locker behind her and readied for the next luxury. Clothes! She had already found the locker of the female officer who was close enough to her size, and not to mention taste – some of the female guards had unsettlingly extravagant tastes in underwear. To her surprise Alyson felt very uncomfortable in the clothes, even though they weren’t tight. She had almost forgotten how to put some things on! But when she had settled into everything and her guard’s uniform was perfected, she felt secure, proper and descent. The uniform itself was thick and warm, though not too heavy on her light frame, and Alyson felt suddenly insulated and realised quite how cold the ship’s interior really was. She pulled her drying hair back behind her ears and finally looked down at herself with new found respect, and it was all thanks to Janet P. Anderson, second lieutenant of sector H. 170

Viggo had already left the showers, dried and had gotten dressed when Alyson was fumbling with the armour plates of the guard’s uniform; it was the one part of her outfit she knew nothing about. “Are you okay, Alyson?” he asked through the curtain, his voice rather quiet. She gave the general direction of the voice a dark glare, “Yes.” He was heard closing his locker door and she heard him sighing grievously, she watched the curtain closely, the vague silhouette cast upon it. He began slowly, “I’m sorry Alyson, about that…” She shifted uncomfortably on her feet and fiddled with her armour even more. “I just… wanted things to be left in the past,” he continued, as if each word was a wound, “I thought when I met you, you’d changed, and I thought after all this time that I’d changed…” She too sighed and stopped fiddling. “I guess maybe some things can’t be forgotten,” he said grimly, and with that he fell silent. Alyson fought with herself, heart against mind, feelings against logic. Everything she thought of saying sounded stupid or useless or both, eventually all she said was: “I’m having trouble with my armour…” There was an ever so faint chuckle from beyond the curtain, a sort of noise that Alyson used to hear a long time ago when they both shared a cell without worry. It was a small gesture, very small, but it was something. The curtain was drawn aside and Viggo stood before her, clad in his guard’s uniform and had the strong armour plates strapped on, Alyson saw him unmistakably to be a guard and not a prisoner. His long hair was tied back from his face and he had shaved most, if not all of the hair from his neck and jaw. “How do I look?” he asked her with slight amusement, Alyson smiled at his tone and replied, “Good…” she paused, “you look… solid.” Viggo laughed and replied, “Aren’t I always?” Alyson looked down at her own armour that she held in her hands lightly, she suddenly felt young and terribly innocent; she had to be told how to dress. “What do I… do with this?” Viggo gave an amused sighed and picked up a V shaped piece of plating that had two normal belts looping from its sides and one belt that hung from the curved lip that made the point of the shape. He crouched down 171

with this in hand and said, “This goes first, it protects your abdomen and pelvis, you’ve got the chest plate in your hands…” He then laid the long plate on her belly and the length and width of it fitted her form perfectly, while the curved lip fitted snugly between her legs. “Hold it there,” he told her, and Alyson pressed the armour to her uniform tightly as Viggo moved behind her and begun to buckle the straps that would hold it in place. “Don’t hold it hard against you; I don’t want you crushing the air out of you!” Viggo said in a light tone, and she did so. Alyson flinched slightly as Viggo strapped the belt that dangled between her legs to the simple belt at the small of her back. She looked over her shoulder at him, “Is that it?” He stood back up and took the chest plate from her, “It’s all pretty easy.” Again she held it to her front while Viggo strapped it on over her back, after that, Alyson flexed and twisted to make sure the armour fitted neatly, Viggo watched and approved, “Perfect fit,” he announced, “Now we’re definitely able to deal with anything!” She smiled calmly at his optimism and her eyes retreated from his, she didn’t know why, but she couldn’t find herself warmed by his confidence. Viggo looked down at her, he was only a few inches taller than her, he questioned softly, “What is it Alyson?” She looked at him suddenly, as if his question had sparked life back into her even though her gaze was shadowed. “You’re probably starved, Viggo, we should eat something and I will tell you what I’ve found out.” Puzzled and ever so slightly concerned at Alyson’s behaviour, Viggo followed her out of the changing room and into the main entry chamber. The huge main bulkhead doors stretched open wide to one side of them as they sat on two of the steel benches that lined the walls, they did not close the bulkheads; afraid that they would lock and they’d be trapped inside, but the sinister blood red warning lights flicked from the blunt jaws of the doorway. The entrance back to hell, Alyson had thought. Viggo’s nose immediately wrinkled in distaste when Alyson pulled out two rather gelatinous-looking bags full of cold soup, “You’ve got to be kidding; surely the guards get better stuff!” Alyson shook her head as she revealed the sharp spike of plasti-glass she used to punch holes in the bags, “Nope, they get the same slop as we do, um,” she looked at the labels, “Chicken, or… lentil?”

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Viggo spoke immediately, as if to cut off any choice she might make, “Chicken.” She scowled at him with humour, “Damn you.” He grinned after seeing her good-natured side returning somewhat, and took the make-shift knife from her. After slitting a hole in the bag and carefully moving it in his hands so not to spill anything, he asked her, “So what do you have to tell me?” Alyson wasn’t looking at him when he asked, and her head remained down as she concentrated on her own bag. She sighed long and slowly before looking at him as if in a daze. “Well I suppose you should know that most of our people from the sector are dead, most killed in the crash,” she began. “Crash,” Viggo asked her with interest, “That what’s happened?” She looked at him, somewhat surprised, “You didn’t guess that? Well, anyway, we have crashed, and I woke up with my arm broken and choked with blood… the impact threw me into the wall…” Viggo nodded sombrely, a moment taking in her grief, but his added tone was light-hearted, “That’s why padded rooms are so good.” Alyson continued without a smile, though her eyes sparkled, “I met Lieutenant Jefferson first and he,” her eyes flashed at Viggo for a second that he had not noticed, “he told me about people who escaped and that Daniel was one of them.” As she put empathise on the name, Viggo snorted in disapproval. “But he seemed to have some opinions about Daniel, some which rather frightened me, and still do…” She looked at Viggo more tightly this time and he only looked back wordlessly, “Jefferson said that Daniel was a fake; that he had been put in here on purpose by the government.” Viggo clicked his tongue quietly and seemed to lean back, eyes still focused on her. “But that was his opinion,” Alyson reminded him swiftly, “and so I left him, and I later found MacLeod—” “You left him?” Viggo asked in bewilderment, eyes narrowing, “Didn’t he help you; you had a broken arm!” Alyson blinked suddenly as he had managed to sneak around her idle storytelling, she blushed uneasily and said nothing. Viggo eyed her suspiciously and awaited a reply that never came quick, he relented, “All right, keep your secrets; I don’t care, didn’t like Jefferson anyway.” Alyson breathed unevenly and continued hastily,

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“I found the Sergeant in the medical centre, and that’s where I got the painkillers and he fixed up my arm. He told me that he was going to try and get to the command deck and try to find someone in charge that was alive and had any idea of the whole situation. But I told him I… I wanted to,” the words failed her again. “You wanted to find me first,” Viggo grinned knowingly, “and he probably told you to forget it, that I was dead, but you went against him anyway?” Alyson felt her cheeks heating and felt uncomfortable in all of her layers of clothing which suddenly became tight and itchy. “Yes, I wanted to find you…” Viggo added in a supportive tone, “And you did,” she smiled naturally at him after that, and a silence fell on them. “Then what happened?” Alyson took a mouthful off resentful fluid that couldn’t be described as ‘soup’, and continued, “It gets a bit… unsettling now. I met Drew after that,” “One Shot’s alive,” Viggo remarked, pleased, “That’s good. I hope Adrian isn’t though,” he added cursedly. Her lip curled unhappily, “Drew told me she had escaped with four others, and they had made it far before they were killed, killed by something…” As Alyson rose from her seat and went for her backpack, Viggo’s questioning mind reached back to a moment he had experienced himself… ‘Something’ was the only word to describe what had ultimately helped him bust out of his cell, could it be the same thing? He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Alyson returned to him with her pack and brought out a bundle of papers which seemed well worn and creased. Viggo watched her as she flicked through them with one hand; the other grasping her bag of soup tightly. She then pulled one free and slid it to the bottom of the stack, before handing them to him, “I took these from Daniel’s cell; they are some of the things he’s been working on…” Viggo was looking at very technical maps of corridors and rooms, all labelled things that related to the ship. Alyson narrated for him, “Those are parts of the ship, I have no idea how he knows all of that, but I gave MacLeod a map of the command decks…” Viggo then came to a picture, a beautiful rendering of Alyson in profile, “Well,” he remarked rather coldly, “you have an admirer.”

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Alyson only stared at the next page he’d not seen yet, only one corner of her mouth twitched with an expressionless smile at his comment. Viggo turned to the last page, and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Alyson told him, “That, I found out to be something Drew encountered; it killed everyone she was with and she ran from it,” she took a breath. “We think it’s prowling around the ship, killing anyone it finds, and Daniel has something to do with it.” Viggo was nodding now as he looked at the rendering, his eyes focused and clear. “I’ve seen this thing,” Alyson’s face turned cold and white. “I’ve nearly had an encounter with it actually; it made a hole in my cell door, and I don’t think it was meant to release me.” Alyson asked uneasily, “Did you see it?” Viggo pointed with a free finger, “I saw its claw, this… knife thing from its wrist, and I heard its tail and feet. Sure glad it didn’t know I was in there.” Alyson looked even paler and she suggested fearfully, “Maybe it did, maybe it let you go so it could…” “So it could hunt me down and kill me?” he finished shortly, disbelievingly, “I don’t think this thing has the sort of ‘sport’ you’re suggesting…” “Did you ask?” Alyson questioned grimly, and he didn’t reply. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know,” she sighed, taking more soup, “I can’t believe Daniel knew about this thing before and never said anything.” Viggo shrugged and handed the picture back, “I think we should take Jefferson seriously from now on, and we should hope we don’t meet either of them at all.” Alyson looked around the room with intent eyes, she looked around for long enough that Viggo too began to follow her gaze questioningly. “MacLeod had a great idea when I met him,” Alyson began, “he strapped three electro-rods together with tape so it would give triple the damage.” Viggo raised an eyebrow in thought, and then smirked, “That’s a nifty idea! And we’re in a guard barracks; there must be electro-rods somewhere!” Alyson drank the rest of her soup bag in a long, quite regrettable, swallow before standing up. She looked over the shelves and long cabinets that covered the walls, “I think we can arm ourselves pretty well now,” she said gleefully.

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Viggo smiled and finished his soup and dropped the crumpled bag on the floor, pleased again at her recovering self-esteem as she looked and scavenged around the room for weapons. He remembered their first few weeks together in a cell, how at first he had thought of her as an innocent in need of protecting, but clearly she did not, clearly she could handle herself in the dark. Unfortunately his memory served him ill also as he remembered her earlier discomfort at his premature actions when they had showered. He told himself things would turn for the better, that all things past would be forgotten, only he had to stop being so quick and hasty all the time and just let it evolve into whatever it would become. He was unaware of his strangely thoughtful expression that masked his face, and when Alyson finally found a stash of electro-rods and turned to him in excitement, his features flicked into a smile and bright eyes. All things would be forgotten.

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Chapter 5: A Break from Fear There was the soft clink of crystal glass knocking lightly together as Drew wove her thin fingers through ranks of beautiful glassware stored within a fantastic glass-fronted cabinet. Her fingers nimbly grasped a thin glass wine goblet from the cupboard and she slowly brought it out into the well lit surroundings of the Administrator’s office. As she revolved the perfect object in her fingers to admire the craftsmanship, heavy booted footfalls resonated over the red carpeted floor. Drew didn’t look over her shoulder as she spoke, “Amos, anything back there?” There was a grunt and the footsteps stopped for a moment and a deep voice responded, “Not much, but I bet you she had a lot more before she left!” Drew shrugged and replied flatly, “I didn’t expect her to leave a parting gift for us anyway.” She stood up with the glass in hand and looked to Amos who stood behind the Administrator’s carven and polished wood desk. That desk was formidably large and made of solid Earth mahogany, yet Amos towered over it like an ancient mountain of stone. He was so tall that he had to often duck under doorframes and sometimes avoid ceiling lamps, and his body was so built up and muscular that his guard uniform seemed barely able to contain him. His face was chiselled and heavily boned yet his eyes were sharp and intelligent emeralds. His hair was a lighter shade of brown and like most male prisoners, without scissors or razors, had it tied back behind his ears into a pony tail. Drew was pleased she had found him, he too was alone and though she preferred being alone herself Amos’ sheer size gave way for her to access new areas of the ship which had been sealed behind electronically locked doors. Without him, she would not have got to the Administrator’s office to wait for Alyson… if Alyson arrived at all. She gave him a grin and flicked her head to remove her chalk white hair from her face, and raised the empty glass to him, “But we do have booze though!” He laughed, the sound like a waterfall of gravel and rocks, and grinned back at her. “Should we get started on it?” Drew shook her head, lowering the glass to place it on the cabinet top, “No, we should wait for Alyson.”

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He grumbled softly to himself, placing two huge hands on the top of the Administrator’s chair, even that could have crushed the wood. “But we have all this wine!” Drew shrugged, pulling up a chair – the curved chair Alyson had once sat in – and replied, “I just can’t believe she left it at all,” she shrugged, sapphire eyes glinting, “sure she’s wiped her computer files but still…” Amos looked at her and corrected, “But it was quite the effort pullin’ the doors open though!” Drew smirked quietly, “Yes, I thought your arms were going to explode.” He laughed again, “I’d be surprised anything could break these arms!” he flexed his biceps dangerously, stretching material to the limit. Drew found herself wickedly attracted to his massed muscularity, even though she herself was nearly a fourth of his weight! She never liked fighting purely with brawn, which Amos certainly preferred, she always settled with pistols and shoot-outs, where the quickest trigger-finger and reaction time were keys to victory. But with this came her lust for his physique again, even though many would see him being repulsive and unnatural, which in some respects, he was. Amos was one of the few successful patients of Herakles treatment, a medical procedure named after the great mythical hero Hercules. The Herakles treatment was developed on Amelthea, one of the moons orbiting Jupiter, and was trial tested for years with some horrific effects. The treatment used various chemicals and materials harvested from Jupiter’s atmosphere and Mercury’s mines, and therefore it was an expensive project, the research was about to go bankrupt when one patient showed signs of successful treatment. The later result of Herakles treatment was vastly improved stamina and hugely dense muscle formations that made the patient extremely athletic and strong enough, in most cases, to lift a car! Amos was one of the better patients, which was why he had signed up for the treatment when scientists worked out that having bigger bones and stronger skeletal structure benefited the procedure’s success. Drew also knew that he was probably as close as she’d find to combat the creature who had slaughtered her fellow inmates a few days ago, should it come to that. The hulking man pulled the Administrator’s own chair from the desk and sat himself cautiously into its delicate form. The chair cringed and buckled in agony and Drew looked at him, eyes full of mirth, “You better watch that chair! I doubt a chair of reinforced steel could support you, let alone wood!” 178

He grunted again, “Ah I think it’ll take it!” He swivelled in the chair a few times and it creaked sinisterly beneath him, but he took no noticed; “So when are your little friends arriving?” He always seemed to call others ‘little’, it wasn’t out of disrespect, only that Amos seemed to have got used to it over the years. Drew smiled, “Honestly I don’t know, the sooner the better. If there are two of them, the other one isn’t as ‘little’ as you think,” she tried to hide the pessimism in her voice. Amos grinned wildly, “What!? Competition I hear?” Drew laughed at his feral tone, under all that flesh and – mostly – muscle was a great sense of humour. As far as she could remember, Viggo was pretty tall, six foot or there about, yet Amos was taller than six foot, edging on seven; he had told her openly on several occasions. So they waited with the office, seated in their separate chairs and silence fell over them like a blanket. Amos, in his nature, didn’t like silences much and especially when the quiet becomes an uneasy and awkward weight. He swivelled on his chair again and looked to Drew, he could see that she was deep in thought and her mind was elsewhere; her face lean and still, sapphire eyes barely blinking and body frozen, but he could see her thoughts churning around behind those eyes. He didn’t like to break her out of the spell of thought, but the silence bore into him like a screwdriver now. “Drew?” “Hmm,” she blinked solidly now but still didn’t look over at him. “Where exactly did your… littler friend go in the first place?” Drew blinked again and eventually turned to him saying, “She went down to rescue a friend of hers… who was down in the psycho-cells.” The chair buckled violently as Amos flinched in surprise layered with uncertainty, he began slowly, “Are you sure your friend is, right-in-thehead? I mean, to even have a friend down there is… well, unheard of, and to want to rescue them is nearly suicide!” Drew was nodding throughout his analyse of the situation, and replied, “She thinks he was never meant to go down there…they shared a cell in the upper levels before…” Amos snorted grimly, “He must have done something bad enough to get put down there!” Drew nodded once and a humourless smile flickered over her face, she knew why Viggo had been sent down there; she had heard and seen nearly everything, and knew his record like most people. But what also chilled her was that Alyson was fighting to get him back which, unless Viggo has miraculously recovered, could spell doom for her again; what 179

if Viggo went crazy on her a second time, without anyone there to stop him? Now though Drew did not know whether to tell Amos about Viggo’s crime and recent actions, whether or not it would surface anyway in later conversation Drew did not know. If she told him would it damaged Amos’ view of Viggo when he – if he – arrives. Some small good side of her told her not to; that it was Viggo and Alyson’s business and it was up to them whether to keep it a secret or not. Drew only sighed thoughtfully. Just then, as if her thoughts had been a cue for something to happen, both of them heard sounds outside the door of the office, a sound like voices and a few pacing footfalls. Drew and Amos had kept the door closed to deter any other looters or prisoners, only Alyson knew to meet her at the office. Both of them stood and walked softly over the carpet to flank the door, collecting their two electro-rods as they went. Drew glanced at Amos and Amos looked to Drew, both solid and ready, as the voices wavered beyond the door uneasy; clearly they had discovered the door was locked from the inside. “Drew, are you in there?” a muffled voice called through the steel barrier. Smiling, Drew released the locks and Amos stood at ease when the door opened vertically into the top of the doorframe. He saw two figures standing in the doorway, one was a short but attractive woman with shoulder length black hair and dazzling blue eyes, while the other was a tall broad man – not as tall or as broad as him, Amos told himself gleefully – with a pony tail of dark hair and deep hazel eyes. Both of them were dressed in guard’s uniforms and armour plating, backpacks and strange looking electro-rods. “You made it, Alyson,” Drew said, pleased as the woman stepped onto the carpet. Drew looked up to Viggo and greeted, “Glad you are back, Vicious.” Viggo gave a dark but humoured look at the use of the nickname Adrian had given him. “Good to see you’re still around, Drew.” Both of them entered and Alyson acknowledged that everything was more-or-less the same as it had been the first time she was in that office, with the exception of some moved glasses and bottles of wine. Drew introduced Amos to them, “Viggo and Alyson, this is Amos, also known as ‘Ammo’, Amos this is Alyson and Viggo.” Amos nodded to them, a little uncomfortable at the rather formal intro. He joked, “Ammo is from my unfortunate middle names…”

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Alyson smiled and noticed his massive girth with some alarm, and knew that it was unnatural and that it was due to the ‘Herakles’ treatment, though she never thought she’d see someone for real who could handle the treatment. So they all moved to the centre of the room and around the Administrator’s carven desk after Drew had sealed the door shut with an override locking system. She then moved to sit in the chair at the desk while Amos fetched two other chairs from the sides of the room. Alyson and Viggo sat down beside each other, putting their modified quad-rods down on the floor, while Amos sat rather dislocated at the front of the main desk. Drew smiled again, sitting back, “So she found you Viggo, I was afraid she was being immature to try.” Viggo glanced at Alyson briefly, “I would have thought the same, but she did, and we’re both alive.” Alyson added brightly, “With more than a few run-ins with lunatics!” Drew laughed shortly and replied, “Amos and I had the same trouble, and it seems this place is crawling with them.” Alyson continued with a questioning tone, “But the Administrator’s office is empty…” Drew nodded, swivelling in the chair which now creaked continuously even though Amos was no longer occupied it. “We both had our doubts getting to it, but the place was deserted when we arrived, no guards, no officials, no one.” Amos grinned and said blissfully, “Lucky for us! The Administrator’s left all her spoils for us to take!” Viggo glanced around, though he knew that this mountain of a man was obviously stating the royal variety in wines, most of which had been assembled on the tops of their cabinets. Drew said thoughtfully, “I wonder where she had gone? Somewhere so important that she had to leave in a hurry and it was no prisoner siege; everything is in perfect order.” Amos added smartly, “Except that her computers are wiped and her weapons and files are gone.” Alyson sunk in her chair a little, “That’s unfortunate; it would have been nice to see what sort of information or reports she had.” Amos looked over each of them as they looked steadily into space and grew quiet; again it was up to him to shake them up. “What do you people say to a glass of wine or two?”

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Drew blinked out of her thoughts and looked at him with a grin, “You mean ‘several, if not a hundred’, don’t you Amos?” He rose from his seat and sighed sheepishly, “Well, I don’t know about that…” Viggo eyed the bottles again and shifted in his seat, “I’d rather not drink too much…” he said quietly. Since he had ‘committed’ his crime for the first time and knew that it was a mental disorder, he had remained away from alcohol as much as possible; if he often acted violently when out of control, he’d rather not willingly loose control. Amos collected four glasses as he asked, “Why not? It won’t kill you, and besides, we deserve it having got this far!” Viggo shook his head slightly and hid the truth of his request; “I think one of us should be semi-active in case someone comes through that door…” Drew waved a dismissive hand, “It’s locked from the inside Viggo.” Alyson had been watching Viggo as he made his claims and saw the true meaning behind his voice and eyes. She turned to the other two and said, “I can’t say I drink much either…” Amos snorted in disapproval as he brought the glasses over to the desk in his huge hands, “Where have you two been the last century! This stuff has pretty old dates on them; classy stuff, not to be wasted!” Alyson said quietly, as if to herself, “I’d rather not be wasted myself,” “That won’t happen!” Amos reassured her, and he easily twisted the cork out of the bottle top with one huge hand. Drew took her glass amiably and sipped the rich, sweet fluid as Amos gave both Viggo and Alyson a glass also before doing his own. The wine was deep red and had a fine fragrance that Viggo had to admire; he could not deny that he was a wine drinker, while Alyson was a little taken aback by its sweetness. “This is good stuff, Amos,” said Drew pleasantly, and the big man nodded while sitting down. “I suppose this is cheers to the Administrator then?” Viggo questioned rather coolly. Drew grinned, “To the Administrator’s kindness of leaving us this fine wine!” “And to us for still being alive,” Alyson added softly, raising her glass slightly to them; she had not forgotten the terrors that lurked beyond the locked door. “Has Drew told you, Amos?” she then asked, eyes focusing on the huge man. The corner of his mouth twitched in a half-smile, “About what?” 182

Drew eyed Alyson closely as she continued, “About this… creature that she ran into?” Amos nodded immediately, “Ah yes, she has, the ‘scavenger’…” Alyson glanced at Drew for a second; since when did the beast have a name? she wondered. “Though I haven’t seen it myself,” Amos added quietly, a jokingly disbelieving tone in his gravel-like voice. Alyson immediately fished out the papers from her backpack and found the picture almost instantly – it had become quite worn over the days of handling, and now she recognised it simply by touch. She reached over to hand it to Amos, “I think now is the time for everyone to know what we could be dealing with…” Amos stared at the picture for a moment, and then said with a smirk in Drew’s direction, “Now that could be competition; looks like he’s pumped up on twice as much Herakles than I am!” Amos handed Alyson back the paper and the woman continued in a troubled tone, “And Daniel’s to blame…” Drew corrected swiftly, shifting in her chair, “Not necessarily, Alyson.” Viggo supported Alyson strongly, “He did have that picture in his cell though, for sure.” Drew leaned back, “I didn’t say he wasn’t involved, I said he may not be to blame for it. Besides, he could be dead and someone planted that picture in his cell to blind us from other possibilities.” Viggo said sombrely, “And that would be worse,” and took another sip of wine. Drew concurred somewhat while Amos told them all after finishing his first glass of wine, “Well, we have no plans on actually meeting this thing, so we don’t need to argue about it! Have some more wine,” he refilled everyone’s glasses. It wasn’t that he wanted them all drunk; he only wanted them to relax a little more than this. After they had spent more time idly drinking the Administrator’s own collection of wine, they had exchanged what they had all experienced in the past couple of days, even though none of them knew if it had been that long or not. It turned out that Drew had found Amos in the middle of a guard and prisoner skirmish near one of the many sector’s entrances, in which Amos was the only survivor with few injuries. He teamed up with Drew after she intervened and may well have saved his life at risk of her own, Drew didn’t know why she did that, and still didn’t even now.

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Amos gestured to Alyson with his refilled wine glass, it was now full of white wine, and he asked, “So how did a girl like you get put in this place?” She smiled tipsily and replied sombrely, “Kind of a sad story… I tried to hi-jack an IFSC… to help my family’s plummeting finances. Of course, I didn’t get very far…” Amos looked surprised, but replied supportively, “Pretty ambitious of you though!” She smirked sadly, but her good mood returned when she asked, “And what did you do, Amos, break a few heads?” He chuckled, revolving his glass so the liquid dangerously neared the lip, “I knew you’d say that, and no; I didn’t use my strength at all in my crime. I was caught trading illegal weapons, hence again my little nickname.” “Hmm, Ammo,” Alyson reminded herself quietly with a smile. “But you did kill someone didn’t you, Amos…” Drew said smoothly from the desk, He looked flustered at her, grinning uncomfortably, “Well, he was in my way! What else did you think I’d do when it seemed only one police officer was breaking in!” Amos then looked to Viggo who seemed all too idle drinking his wine; the big man knew that he had consumed a lot less than the others. “I’m wondering what you did, Viggo, to wind up here?” Drew and Alyson’s wine-induced mirth was cut down like a sapling before a harvester, and they stared solidly at Viggo immediately. He shifted in his chair uneasily and Amos almost thought he wasn’t going to say anything for some moments, but Viggo carried the lie well; he never glanced at Alyson or Drew once, “Murder… a bit of a grim time of my life.” Amos quirked an unnecessary eyebrow and replied meekly, “I hope he deserved it.” Viggo looked away from Amos’ penetrating gaze and said nothing more. Though their mood had been recurrently dark, all of them finally perked up when they talked about more amusing things that had happened in their months onboard the prison ship, naturally starting at the beginning: “I thought they were kidding when they told me to take my clothes off!” Alyson complained humorously to them, she started to laugh as she remembered something else, but was too carried away to continue.

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Viggo picked up the ball and continued, “I didn’t actually have that problem, and they’d pretty much taken everything from me when I was in Deimos detention.” Alyson, almost recovering from her hysteria, began again, “I… I asked them… where the pole was!” Amos laughed out loud at that while Drew smirked fiendishly, “Good girl! I actually got away with it, like Viggo… but if I did have to… I think I would have made it as hot as possible.” Amos grunted in approval and remarked, “You should have seen them when I was up! Most of them were men and I tell you, they didn’t seem too keen!” Alyson laughed again as Viggo told him, “There are women in there too though…” “Oh yeah,” Amos began sleazily, “and I heard a few comments from the background!” Drew then commented rather flatly, “I think the whole thing is for those men to get off on, bet they even stick metal on our clothes at some point! Or sprinkle metal filings in our hair beforehand!” Alyson nodded and replied, “Absolutely, not doubt at all!” Amos took Alyson’s glass in one hand and refilled it, finishing off the current bottle; there was now a selection of empty bottles behind him. Alyson stared at the man’s huge hand that seemed ready to shatter the thin glass, “Careful! You’re going to crush that thing!” Amos looked down in confusion, “What… oh, don’t worry, I’m used to it.” “I’m not though, I’ve never seen someone with Herakles treatment for real before,” Alyson continued with interest, “Not many people can.” “I’m one of the chosen few,” Amos replied proudly as he sat back down, chair creaking again dubiously under him. Viggo shrugged, “I would never do it, even if I could; I’d be sure things would go wrong.” “Ha, so did I!” Amos laughed. “Thought my brains were going to shrink with the pressure or my body would explode!” Drew added quickly in, “Are you sure your brains haven’t shrunk?” “Hey,” Amos complained, “I’m more intelligent than people think!” Alyson was giggling to herself; she spoke up slowly “I remember having a crush on guys like you when I was younger…” Amos looked playfully hurt, “What, you don’t anymore?”

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She blushed sheepishly and looked away as Drew continued foxily, “I still do though.” Amos looked at her with a grin, “Why thank you!” Viggo raised his hands palms forward saying, “Hey, hey, you’re acting far too like Sophia and Adrian now!” Drew looked alarmed at the concept, but her shock turned to blissful amusement. Amos looked puzzled, “Who’s Sophia and Adrian?” Drew groaned, recollecting the two most annoying people in their sector, “Oh, only the two most hot-blooded Aries you could ever imagine.” Amos said protectively, “Well I ain’t no Aries, that’s for sure! I’m a Taurus anyway.” Alyson smirked as she drank her wine, “The bull, seems quite fitting actually.” Amos laughed but was reduced to coughing as too much wine filled his throat. “I’m not sure which I am…” Viggo said thoughtfully, tilting his wine glass slowly. Amos, having recovered from his coughing episode, asked, “Well, what’s your birth date?” “Tenth of the sixth,” Viggo replied somewhat shyly. Amos answered almost immediately, “You’re a Gemini then, which means you’re creative and communicative.” Alyson chuckled and looked in Viggo’s direction, “Don’t know about communicative!” “Some say it means you’ve got a sort of split personality, but that’s just ‘cause Gemini are The Twins y’see.” Amos didn’t notice that what he had said made the rest of them grow quiet, even Alyson’s unhinged giggles had ceased as the glaring truth slammed into her from the past like a hammer blow. Drew knew that Amos didn’t know, and that Viggo still didn’t want anyone else to know about it, “I’m a Virgo, apparently I’m patient with an eye for detail…” she said quickly. Amos grinned wildly at her, “Well, we go together well then! Virgo and Taurus!” “Libra,” Alyson said brightly and happily, having felt left out, “that’s what I am.” “Interesting,” Amos said smoothly, “I think Libra and Gemini get on well together too.” 186

Alyson glanced and met Viggo’s eyes for a moment, not with fear or doubt but with pleased and relieved expressions – much to Drew’s surprise. “Well that’s good,” Viggo said, still looking into Alyson’s eyes, “I’d hate to have any bad relationships with anyone here.” Drew spoke up to Amos as the big man’s grasping hand was approaching another bottle within a cabinet, “Actually Amos I think we’ve had enough…” “Oh,” he said rather downbeat at the prospect, “I thought we’d get through it all, actually.” Alyson stretched her arms out at her sides; nearly hitting Viggo, and said softly, “I feel very tired now… it must be night hours… I should—” she then slumped in her chair. Viggo said boldly then, “I still plan to guard the door while people sleep.” Amos laughed and Drew remarked coolly, “I’ll give you maybe an hour before you fall asleep Viggo! You have no chance staying up all night!” “I’ll try,” he replied, forcing his wayward tone to be as level as possible. Alyson then slipped off her chair and found herself lying on the soft carpet of the floor awkwardly, “Good night… I’m just going to sleep here if no one minds…” Drew looked over the front of her desk, “Although you are practically under the desk!” As Viggo sat as solidly as he could, eyes blinking quickly, both Drew and Amos had found their way to sleep and the huge mountainous man was snoring. Perhaps that was Amos’ unconscious way of helping him stay awake, Viggo thought in amusement. But he could feel sleep edging over his mind slowly, like sinking into quicksand he lost all motivation in his body and eyelids. Viggo looked to Alyson who lay on her side on the floor, sound asleep, dressed in layers of clothing and armour… she was safe. His last thoughts before he slept were dark ones, ones that had dogged him since Amos – in his ignorance – reminded him of his ‘condition’. Viggo feared he would sleep an alcohol induced slumber, and wake only to attack Alyson again in one of his terrible fits of madness. But she was protected far more than she was before, she was fitter and much more aware than the last time, perhaps these things would dissuade the beast within him, and perhaps it would all pass. Viggo sighed and listened to their idle slumber for a few more seconds, before he too fell asleep.

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Chapter 6: True Colours The fight had been brutally long and drawn out, bloody and bestial, yet one-sided. Prison Captain Thomas Erskine finally deactivated his twin electro-rod with a small gesture of his thumb and sighed; he looked over the chaos that now spattered and covered the mess hall – slight irony flickered in his grim mind about the ‘mess’ hall and its current predicament. He watched as his fellow guards picked their way through the bodies of nearly twenty-five prisoners, checking for life and extinguishing it if they found it with a stab of electro-rod. His squad only numbered six men, but they were all trained and fit personnel, able in using electro-rods and dressed in traditional prison guard armour, the prisoners had been a mismatch gang of lowly individuals. Pitiful, Thomas mused as the last few bodies were checked, and he pressed a gloved hand to his jaw lightly; one prisoner had got lucky and punched him hard, even though Thomas had jammed the twin-rod as hard as he could into the man’s stomach. He was sure he had heard and felt the tip of the rod punch into that prisoner’s body. It wasn’t as if he felt pity for these people however, and he had met this ragged but fierce mob with equal intensity; somehow he always readied himself for every prisoner onboard to escape their cells and for the guards to hunt them down. He didn’t even find it unsettling to kill them, as the ship’s main power was down there’d be little chance of locking them all up again, so it was either them or the prisoners who had to die. “All clear sir,” Clare Gellar, his first lieutenant and trusted friend, reported with military efficiency. Thomas nodded idly as she too deactivated her twin-rod, both of them had started off within the darkness that was the lower levels, the ‘psychopath’ levels and knew how to deal with rowdy prisoners. But some of the guards he had collected under his leadership were not so trained, some had been the simple-minded ‘volunteer’ guards of the tame upper levels who hadn’t even been in the military beforehand but were hoping a prison guard duty would lead them in the vague direction. He didn’t appreciate their lack of discipline one bit. “Damn, man,” one lieutenant cursed, looking around the room, “I never thought I’d see anything like it!”

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Captain Erskine fixed second lieutenant Jefferson with a solid stare. He had no idea how Jefferson had got the rank of lieutenant in his previous sector, but it just proved that volunteer guards were feeble. “Well you better get used to it,” first lieutenant Gellar replied sourly, “Twenty down, five-thousand to go.” Erskine stood silent like a monolith as another of his ‘trained’ officers continued, “Yeah, more notches for my rod!” he then looked to his captain, “Sir, where are we heading now?” Erskine looked to him coolly and observed all the other guards were watching him too, awaiting orders, they may be untrained, but he was in command. He replied simply, “We head towards the engineering decks, as planned. I want to get the power back online, no sissy down there has done it, so we’ll have to do it ourselves.” Jefferson suggested quickly, “Perhaps the engines are destroyed?” he paused as the captain stared hard at him. “Sir…” Jefferson added hastily. But lieutenant Gellar replied for her captain with a hard, military-trained tone. “The engines cannot be destroyed; they are theta-combustion engines, had they exploded on impact there would be a lot more damage to the ship which we would know about.” “What, like half the ship going up in smoke?” Jefferson said disbelievingly. “Yes,” replied Erskine venomously. “All right,” he began anew, “we head out from here, we have several more elevators to descend but that won’t be a problem. If we encounter anymore prisies we deal with them like this,” he looked to the door, “let’s get going.” So the six guards left the bodies scattered around the mess hall, bloody beaten and still, and did not move a single one. Lieutenant Gellar came up to Erskine’s side and they walked together at the head of the pack. “These volunteers are getting on my nerves captain,” she complained huskily, pulling a strand of short black hair from her eyes. “Sooner or later we’ll trip up on them.” Erskine answered coldly, brown eyes deep, “We haven’t got much choice, unless you want to go back to the psycho-levels and find more ‘proper’ guards… Besides, if we find any more volunteer guards, I won’t hesitate to hire them.” “The more the merrier, I understand captain,” she replied shortly. Moments later Erskine continued, “It will be a simple matter dealing with the power, once we have corrected the fault in the supply

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lines and get the engines and power online, we could be the new command crew of this ship.” Lieutenant Gellar grinned, a rare expression that thinned her lips and put a starry sparkle in her dark eyes, “I’m sure we will sir.” Gellar was a lot like Erskine in many ways, which was why they had stuck together for so long, often it was Erskine who reordered guard registers and patrol times simply to put them together. Gellar was lean and extremely fit and many overlooked this due to her rather short stature, Erskine seemed to tower over her yet their strength was fairly evenly matched. He was originally based on Titan before the Prison Company dragged him into guard duty (the military was rather over-forced and many were taken out), and it was a similar case with Gellar, she was based on Mars and was removed also. Thomas Erskine had twenty years of military training and combat behind him, he was just in his forties and Gellar was only six years behind him. Both of them worked extremely well together, but in this situation they feared the abilities of the others they had to lead. “How did we wind up in this mess anyway?” Erskine asked bitterly. Gellar sighed and remarked softly, “They told us we’d only work for couple of months, that’s how.” Erskine grunted unpleasantly, his uneven moustache quivering slightly, “Some day I’ll teach all of them a lesson for lying to me!” “I’d like to be there when you do, captain,” Gellar replied with a thin, sinister smile. Both of them knew deep inside that they weren’t just played by the Prison Company; it takes more than just that to take military officers out of the army to work such… basic duties. With the efficiently of a machine the squad marched through the crimson lit corridors and down two elevators. Both Erskine and Gellar wheeled down the elevator wires sleekly while the less ‘able’ guards moved at a more leisurely pace, much to Erskine disapproval; he wanted to be at the engines before anyone else and these volunteers were slowing him down. Later that day the squad came to an uninhabited mess hall and took the liberty of a short break. At Erskine’s instructions they had looted an entire guards’ barracks of supplies and materials, one guard had been given the duty of carrying the soup packs, another with an arrangement of trays and cups and a supply of water – all of these clanked around him like a broken one-man-band – while all of them had been given at least one electric torch and electro-rod if they didn’t already have one.

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Erskine and Gellar sat separated from the others, the mess hall was dark and they lit it only with the azure glimmer of electro-rods and thick white beams of torchlight. Having rigged one of the kitchen’s microwaves with a spare battery they heated the soups and ‘enjoyed’ the meal. Erskine shrugged off the taste of the artificial soup; he had dealt with worse in the past, while Gellar actually liked most of the soups on offer. Captain Erskine found himself absently examining the twin-rod he had owned since applying for guard duty onboard the prison ship, his eyes focusing on each functional part thoughtfully. Gellar watched him as he began to speak, “I wish I could have a gun instead of this… cattle-prod.” She gave a quiet amused sound as she ate and only nodded in return. Erskine continued, “I remember the standard Hamilton 0.44 we all carried in the army, saved my life too many times.” Gellar nodded again and added absently, “One of the best disrupter pistols.” “You’re thinking about Ionian flechette guns aren’t you?” Erskine said after a moment, acknowledging her tone; he knew she always favoured the deadly cannons that fired sleek sharp ‘shurikens’ at their enemies. Each spinning disc could rip clean through flesh and bone and even body armour like paper. “You know me too well, captain,” she remarked coolly, “However I doubt we’ll see those days again.” Erskine nodded as memories returned to him, one in particular always stuck with him. “Like The Rebellion of the Enceladusians,” “Exactly like that,” Gellar agreed, slowly finishing off her soup. The Enceladusians were the population of the small ice moon in orbit of Saturn and a neighbour of Erskine’s own Titan. The small moon had been rebellious for many years, the people believing that the Government was ignorant of the plight they had from living in such brittle conditions; the moon was not only covered in ice and barren rock, but the surface rapidly changed in formation, shifting with frequent earthquakes and tremors. Many said that those people should leave their home to live in one of the newly built Cronus stations in orbit of Saturn, but they did not listen; that had been their home, and the solar planets were so socially fractured that they could not bear becoming ‘refugees’ to ‘some other world’ and living with ‘aliens’. In the age of Solar System dominance, every patch of earth be it ice or volcanic, was precious and if you controlled a moon then that was 192

your very own planet to govern. This was the great plague that now festered with the human race’s solar control, and even though there was a Sol Government, each planet and moon had pledges to make their own government, to be independent. The moon of Enceladus was one such government who took the rebellion to a higher level. Armed with a few transport ships and disrupter-based weapons they made raids on the neighbouring moons of Titan and Iapetus, the Iapetus moon being a research base and had no military defences. However Titan was one of the most robust military forts, and the taskforces were quick to respond to the terrorists and a move was made to put down the rogue Enceladusian government. It had been a success, and a new Saturn based governor took control of the moon, and even the Sol Government gave Enceladus more funding to stop immediate attacks on the new governing personnel. Money was also put into the research for stabilising Enceladus’ rupturing crust, though many would still argue the price was not high enough. Erskine shrugged off the memories of the raids on Enceladus; he was one of the veterans who had commanded a single taskforce, while Gellar had been an officer under his control. That had been one week that they had been allowed flechette guns, and Erskine never forgot how those spinning shurikens had cut down the enemy troops into confetti. They hadn’t stood a chance; un-armoured, ill disciplined and with poor secondrate weapons – Erskine wondered why they didn’t surrender more easily. He finished his soup along with the musings of his glory days and looked to Gellar steadily, “Guess it’s time to move on,” he said. She watched him rise to his feet from the bolted down chair everyone else looked to him immediately. He addressed them firmly, “It’s time to get moving again you lot, we still have a long way to go!” One voice droned quietly, “Can’t we have a rest Cap?” Erskine replied without hesitation, “Next time we stop, we’ll get some shut-eye, but I want more yards covered now.” So the squad got to its feet and collected all of its supplies and equipment; they double checked not to leave anything behind which could be used by others who would in turn be their enemies. To leave an electro-rod or charged battery could spell success to the vermin prisoners. Of course, Erskine mused, they had already encountered several medical centres and guard barracks that had been opened and ransacked of 193

materials, as well as the bodies of guards who had been stripped of Kevlar and armour. He briefed his men frequently about ‘Roaches’; prisoners garbed in armour and wielded electro-rods with surprising efficiency. On very few occasions his men had encountered these rare survivors, and it was one of the worse times to be in; not only were ‘Roaches’ harder to fight off and kill, but the prisoners were usually crazed and random. Erskine knew the phrase that the best swordsman fears the worst swordsman; because you had no idea what they were going to do next. The squad now walked steadily down the corridors, but many of them questioned their senses now; either they were all drunk or the floor was tilting to one side ever so slightly. Erskine maintained his steady and relentless footsteps, never tripping or falling off balance; he would show his ragged ‘volunteer guards’ what it was to be a solider. Gellar walked likewise beside him, and she suggested, “There must be a section of bulkheads that has collapsed somewhere sir, down and to the right of us.” “Agreed,” the Captain replied, looking to the side, “but it could be several levels down, and each level could be worse than the last.” “Are we not going to investigate?” Gellar asked. Erskine shrugged dismissively, and replied flatly, “We may encounter the problem anyway, there’s no need to divert from our course.” As they walked further there was an increase of tilt on the floor and surroundings, soon even Erskine was slanting and kept balance with one hand on the wall to his right. As he might have expected sooner or later, a passage broke from the right and the floor descended into a steep dark slope, the metal floor gave no grip and one would slip easily while trying to cross. “Hold!” he shouted over his shoulder, and they all stopped and slumped to the wall. Gellar reached his side uneasily and peered down the slanted passage to their right. “It will be difficult passing this without falling,” Erskine said slowly. Gellar raised a torch and sent the beam down into the darkness, at the far end something sparkled, like ice or glass shards catching the light. A body was also down there, crumpled and dressed in a technician’s overalls. Erskine’s eyes narrowed at the far wall of the dead end and muttered, “Is that metal at the end of this passage?”

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Gellar acknowledged his dubious tone and replied, “It is not flat like metal sir.” “Jefferson!” Erskine hollered, “Get yourself up here!” There were a few shuffling bumps and quiet curses as the second lieutenant came up through the squad to be behind Erskine and Gellar, he asked quickly, “Yes sir?” Erskine glanced in his general direction and told him, “I want you to go down this passage and tell me what’s at the bottom of it.” “All right,” Jefferson replied soundly as Gellar let him past to see down, “sir,” he corrected himself quickly. The captain looked to Gellar who was now behind him, “Get our longest rope, and we can lower him down.” Efficiently one of the guards brought out rope and handed it to Gellar, who in turn handed it to Erskine. The captain turned to Jefferson and explained hardly, “I will lower you down, check your footing and don’t let go of the rope. Once we know what it is down there, I will pull you back up. Understood?” “Yes, sir,” Jefferson replied shortly, taking one end of the thick rope. So slowly Jefferson was lowered down the sloping corridor, he had his electro-rod attached to his arm as normal and a torch clipped to the side of his helmet, and these lights flickered about the surroundings hectically. Yet the lights showed huge structural breaches; there were large breaks and cracks running through the walls, ceiling and floor. The lights were all broken and cabling hung everywhere like dead jungle branches. Having kept the rope taut and firm, Jefferson reached the bottom of the passage with relative ease, and the squad at the top could hear his boots crunching plasti-glass, metal and curiously enough, stone. Jefferson’s light flickered around like a confused and lost soul. “Lieutenant, what can you see!?” Erskine shouted down to him. There was a moment of silence and Jefferson reported back uneasily, “The man down here is dead; his head hit this… this wall…” Erskine persisted, “Is that wall metal!?” “No, no!” Jefferson corrected from the dark, “No, it’s… its rock, like solid granite rock. Where’d it come from?” Erskine looked to Gellar while holding the rope in one hand, she suggested, “It could be a part of the comet that hit the ship a few weeks ago?”

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Erskine then considered, “Or it could be rock from the planet we have crashed on. It would make sense as we are currently near the outside hull of the ship.” Gellar corrected, “But it would have to cut through metres of outer hull plating and deck sections to get this far?” Erskine replied rigidly, “Didn’t we wake up with splitting headaches?” Gellar smiled thinly just as Jefferson called up, “You aren’t planning to leave me down here are you!?” Erskine found a grin spreading across his chiselled face and he replied, “I was just considering it!” “This changes nothing,” Erskine continued after he had hauled Jefferson back up the passage, “we must continue on to the engineering decks… and as you said Lieutenant Gellar, they must still be operational.” So the squad passed over the sloped passage by one of them daringly jumping the gap and being thrown one end of the rope. The squad then passed over the gap using the tight rope to bridge the gap. It was a worrying feat, but none of the guards showed their anxiety in front of their captain. So they continued on down the corridors which slowly began to correct the tilt that had been before and soon the squad were walking on a flat, even floor. They descended yet another elevator shaft with ease, though the elevator cabin itself was above them and seemed uneasy on its chains; it flinched and creaked with sinister instability. But all of the guards made it safely down, some of the supply-laden troops were less keen than others. Now at the lowest level the elevator could take them, Captain Erskine’s squad found themselves in rather sinister surroundings; most of the lights were dull and lifeless while the passages themselves were wide and cold and quiet. But Erskine and Gellar felt no fear from the atmosphere or the temperature; they had dealt with the extreme sub-zero temperatures of Enceladus – to name just one – and this did not deter them and as an effect, it did not affect their followers. But it seemed all of this was a cue for something ugly to happen; his squad had safely navigated a large chunk of the ship without incident and though his confidence was high enough to contain his squad’s morale, he could not help but think the air was growing tense and sharp. The walls felt tight and constricting, while the lights flickered and stuttered insanely as they walked. As one would have expected from this inner fear, when a hell-risen yell smashed the silence from around a 196

distant corner, his whole unit leapt in alarm. “My god!” the voice had cried from the unseen passage. But before Erskine could command his squad to ‘hold’ they saw a shape flying through the air from the passage and slamming with a bonecrushing crash into the metal wall. “Shit!” one guard hissed in horror as he saw the shape was a man, every bone in his body was now pulverised from the impact and blood had burst every-which-way. “Hold squad!” Erskine barked finally as he heard feet stamp uneasily and electro-rods burst alive. The squad stood with baited breath as an eerie silence fell down on them like a tidal wave. The newly set body in front of them failed to move from its crumpled position against the wall while Erskine’s eyes narrowed towards the entrance it had been flung from. He had heard rumours of something in the corridors of the ship; something had massacred whole groups of prisoners and guards with one encounter and piling the bodies in dark chambers and rooms. Yet he had seen nothing, and how could the rumours be proven true if everyone who had encountered the thing was dead? He was not sure. “He’s dead…” one guard whispered behind him. Erskine hissed them quiet and looked back at the door. Gellar beside him was breathing steadily, tightening her grip on her twin-rod. But just as Erskine was about to signal for her to advanced, footsteps were heard from that direction, accompanied by a swishing swinging sound. “Hold men,” he said, as quiet as midnight wind, “we can take him…” “Sir,” Gellar whispered back to him, uncertainty in her voice as the footsteps approached. Then a stretching, solid black shadow loomed over the floor and cast the body in dark, and Erskine hissed again, “Still!” He noticed that his order wasn’t so much to ambush the attacker, but simply to see it. His squad were in relative darkness and they would see it before it saw them, and if it was the creature the rumours had been about, Erskine wanted to see for himself! The others watched in dreadful anticipation as the shadow widened slightly, yet the figure would still be lithe and tall. In only a few heartbeats more, a figure emerged from the corridor. It was still looking at the corpse it had flung into the wall, though the profile of a face was strangely unseen as if the creature had no profile to begin with. It was inhuman indeed as the stories had told; it had a tapered tail that swished 197

around having grown from the small of its back, and was tipped with a crude looking stump or club. But its arms were strange, long with a pair of viciously sharp knives that were attached to its forearms. The creature appeared unclothed, but there was very little Erskine could distinguish in the dark. One guard inhaled uncomfortably, but Erskine raised a hand silently as the creature seemed to crouch down before the body of the man and reached out with one hand. Erskine narrowed his eyes and dared not shine a torch to see better, but it seemed that the creature had long fingers and had placed them on the face of the dead man effortlessly. There seemed to be a whispering, almost grunting sound from the creature as the air grew strangely tense. All of the guards felt it and Erskine twitched involuntarily at it, he could have sworn the creature was glowing when in contact with the body— “What the fuck is it doing!” one guard snapped, the tension bearing down on his sanity. Erskine looked sharply round at the man’s raised voice but it was too little too late; the creature’s head jerked up and the squad gasped as two ruby eyes glared at them from the shadow-covered face. “Christ!” one guard gasped. “Squad, hold!” Erskine commanded them as they nearly flinched into a run, either to charge at the creature, or to flee as far away as possible. But it did not matter; the creature leapt to its feet and was suddenly gone into the dark of the corridor beyond as if it had never existed. There was a moment of cold dread that slowly sank into the squad, even Gellar found herself on edge but shook herself free of the tension. Erskine let an inaudible sigh escape his lips. “S-stupid bas-stard,” one guard said, his voice broken yet desperately humorous, “he ran!” Erskine then said promptly, “Squad quiet down, it may come back; we must stay focused if it does!” There was an uneasy shuffle of feet as the other officers realised that their route now led into the shadows where the monster had fled. But Erskine walked forward towards the broken corpse of the man it had killed, and Gellar slowly paced after him. Squatting down Erskine lifted the man’s bloody face so he could see better, and as Gellar looked over his shoulder he remarked, “They are some kind of puncture marks… four of them.”

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Gellar leaned down to see closer, there were indeed four red blotch marks upon the man’s face, and clearly they had been made by the creature’s fingers. “What did it do to him?” she asked quietly. Erskine rose to his full height and let the man’s head loll to one side, “I don’t know, and I doubt anyone does,” he glanced at his squad who looked like scared children hiding in the dark, as if their electro-rods were mere candles. He began to wonder if he had lost them, whether the encounter had totally removed their sanity. “Damnit,” he cursed, “so the rumours were true, I was beginning to doubt…” “But this does not change anything!” he demanded to his squad, who all stiffened at his raised voice, “we are still going to the engineering decks and we are still going to bring power back to the ship! Only after we have done that can we deal with this, once we have full power and lights to support us!” “But what if that thing is waiting for us down there?” asked a guard hesitantly. Erskine ground his teeth grimly and his tone could have sent his words burning through the deck plates at their feet, “Then we deal with it.” They fell very quiet and Erskine turned his full attention to his lieutenant, “Clare, I trust you to watch my back.” “Of course, sir,” she replied shortly. She did not hesitate; it was not the first time Erskine asked that of her, and it would not be the last, and she also knew he would do the same for her. “Let’s keep going!” Erskine snapped over his shoulder, and then led them all on past the corpse and into the darkness. After ploughing his men on through the darkness, upon the same route that the savage looking creature had fled them, Erskine began to feel his body and mind grow weary with continuous travel. He wanted to be in touching distance with the next elevator shaft – literally – before he would let his squad rest, but there was not enough in him, and God only knew how his men were coping behind him. So he found a disused medical centre on route, small and unoccupied it would serve them well enough; there was no intention for food, only the need for rest and to catch one’s breath. Erskine checked the medical centre himself, the main chamber of desks and worktops was scattered and upside-down, while there was an office sectioned off by a wall of solid plasti-glass windows and an electro-lock door. He sent officers looking for supplies such as painkillers, but they came back with

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nothing. Clearly supplies onboard the ship would only become scarcer and scarcer. Gellar once again sat with him in the main chamber of the medical centre, their troops scattered around them here and there, Jefferson at the door on watch; Erskine was determined to put some real grit in the young volunteer. Gellar sighed and removed her helmet to place it on the worktop; her short hair only just reached her eyes as she looked to her captain. “What do you think it was?” Erskine didn’t look at her, but removed his helmet also, revealing a scalp of needle-short blond hair that could not hide a long dead scar across his head. He replied slowly, “If you can believe rumours, I know a few ideas… Some say it’s a failed Government experiment mixing human and… alien genes together, but it went mad and they put it on a prison ship, blasted away on to a destination it would never return from.” Gellar looked thoughtful and added, “So the Government set the ship up to crash? To hide any evidence it existed?” Erskine forced a smirk to break his thin lips, “Well… that is if you think all that is true.” “Don’t you?” Gellar asked lightly. He grunted and shrugged before leaning back, “I don’t know what to think, all I know is that it’s killing a lot of people and we have to eliminate it before it gets to us.” Gellar fell quiet as his tone had grown determined with every word, and she risked asking further, “But how?” Erskine shrugged absently, “It seemed to run from us back there, perhaps it doesn’t like the look of large numbers? Maybe if we stay together and surround it, six against one is good odds in my book.” Gellar persisted coldly, “But didn’t the rumours state it kills masses of people in one go?” “All I know is that it ran from us and that has to be a good sign,” her captain replied stonily. They both fell quiet, each of them thinking about how they could kill the creature, remembering how that man’s body had been flung so hard into that wall that he was killed outright on impact. The prospect of fighting it with electro-rods rather than guns was far from grim. How good few flechette guns would be right now. Rip the thing to pieces before it ever got close enough! Erskine smirked as his imagination rioted.

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“Psst! Captain, someone’s coming!” Erskine flinched awake at Jefferson’s thin but sharp voice, not that he was asleep to start with of course, and Gellar was in a similar condition. “I think it’s two of them sir!” Jefferson continued as he came away from the door to join them. “One sounds like a guard, the other is a woman.” Erskine quirked an unimpressed eyebrow, “How do you know it’s a woman? We all have the same damn boots!” he hissed. Jefferson shook his head quickly, “No sir, these are heels; it’s a woman!” Erskine glanced at Gellar who looked equally baffled, both of them bewildered as to who walked the corridors of a prison ship in heeled shoes? Erskine whispered over his men who had all stood up in readiness, “All right, everyone stay were they are, don’t move; they don’t know we’re in here.” The squad only had to wait a few for moments before any sign of the approaching individuals reached the doorway, yet those moments were tense as the booted footsteps of the ‘guard’ seemed to overwhelm the rather uneasy clicking heels of the ‘woman’. Already hundreds of possible scenarios were being calculated in Erskine’s mind, and only one of them would be correct with the outcome. The woman came into sight first, and the lights of the squad immediately identified her in a blaze of electric blue and torchlight white. Erskine’s lip twitched in surprise, then curled grimly; the woman had a pistol drawn to the side of her head, and the pistol was held by a gloved hand, the hand attached to a uniformed arm, and then a fully clothed and armoured guard was in sight. Erskine had immediately recognised the woman as the Administrator, there was no doubt; she had the dark skin, knife-like chin, the black and red uniform, and the nobility that was now frayed around the edges with distress. The man however, Erskine did not recognise. “Get that light out of my eyes!” she cursed bitterly. Erskine gestured to his squad to lower their torches, and he called out firmly. “What is the meaning of this? Holding the Administrator hostage is an act of treason against the Prison Company authorities!” The guard’s face was well hidden in the shadows of his helm after the lights were put down, and his voice replied simply, “I wanted your attention, Captain Erskine.” Erskine gritted his teeth, the enemy knew him and he did not know the enemy! “Show yourself, guard!” The man seemed to give a half shrug and did so, but never removed the pistol nozzle from the woman’s head. The face that was 201

revealed was unremarkable to Erskine, a boy’s face in comparison with his own; not a scar or sign of wear and tear, brown mousy hair. Erskine almost smirked in amusement, but stopped himself as the fact still remained this boy had a projectile weapon… somehow. “I don’t recognise your face, how do you know my name?” Erskine demanded. The man dropped his helmet and held the Administrator’s arm, “Because I knew you would be here, and I have been waiting for you.” “Who are you, boy!?” the captain snapped, a couple of his guards flinched at his tone. Jefferson stood at the back of the group, and narrowed his eyes as the man failed to answer, he was sure he recognised the man, but how could it be? “I demand to know your name officer!” Erskine persisted as if to a brick wall. But the hostage-taker only replied darkly, “You have no authority to demand from me, Captain Erskine!” “And what does that mean?” Erskine asked, suddenly uneasy with the boy pulling rank with him, he had to put all his will power to disguise his worry. But Jefferson stepped forward from the crowd behind him and spoke, “I know you! Ah damn you’re Daniel!” he glanced for a second at Erskine and the captain looked back at him with wide eyes, “This guy was a prisoner in my sector!” “A prisoner!” Erskine shouted in disbelief, immediately recognising a roach when he saw one. “Then I demand that you—!” But Daniel interrupted with a sly smile, “I think Jefferson knows me as a little more than a prisoner, don’t you, Jumpin’ Jeff?” Erskine looked at his second lieutenant as he continued slowly, “Well, they are only rumours… I doubt they are true…” The captain was growing tired of all these ‘rumours’ and snapped his attention back to the man so-called Daniel. “You said I cannot give you orders, why not?” “Because I rank superior to you,” Daniel replied levelly. Erskine laughed hoarsely, yet uneasily, “A boy is higher rank than me!? What station do you hold exactly, Daniel?” There was a pause, and everyone awaited the response while a wide smile curved over Daniel’s face like a shark grin. “I am a Major, involved with the secret government project Enyo.”

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Jefferson laughed and drew a deep breath, “Damn, so it’s true as well! I knew there was something screwed up about you Daniel! Ha, so your full name is Major Daniel Major! That sucks!” “Quiet lieutenant,” Erskine snapped as his eyes remained on Daniel cautiously, “why exactly should I believe you? Surely a man in your position wouldn’t blurt out about a ‘secret government project’ to a squad of untrustworthy guards?” Daniel replied, “I am holding your dear Administrator hostage, and I’m sure she will confirm what I say is true.” Erskine grinned mirthlessly, still not looking away from Daniel, “That isn’t enough for me; you could easy have ordered her to do as you say or you would kill her.” Daniel shrugged again and glanced at the Administrator who still stood rigid next to him, “Yes, yes I suppose I could,” he paused for a moment, a moment were his eyes went drilling into his hostage’s skull. He looked back to Erskine and continued, “Which brings me to why I’ve brought you all here; I want you to see something. Although, I think you’ve already seen it, haven’t you?” Erskine cocked an eyebrow and said nothing, he felt the air go very cold and his heart quickened ever so slightly. “Well,” Daniel began, “to do this I would ask for all of you to enter that office over there,” he gestured to the office sectioned off from the larger medical centre by a wall of plasti-glass panels. “You’ll be quite safe in there,” he added sinisterly. Erskine’s squad did not move because their captain did not move. “Where did you find that pistol?” he asked grimly, not taking Daniel’s authority well. “All in good time, captain,” he replied. “Do I have to order you and your men through?” Erskine glowered at him while Gellar at his side did likewise. But the captain obeyed and led his whole squad of six into the small office. Erskine stood at the front, closest to the glass and watched Daniel and the Administrator in the medical centre. “Well, I’m afraid you stay here, Administrator,” Daniel told her as he sealed the main door out of the medical centre. “I’d like you to know that I do not fear for my own safety, I just like the boxed seats rather than the stage,” he added as he left her side and headed towards the office door. “What are you doing!?” the woman hissed after him.

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Daniel looked back at her, “Note that the main door can only be opened from the outside…” Erskine watched coldly as something dawned on the Administrator’s lean face, and she hurried after Daniel as he entered the office, her heeled shoes clacking hopelessly with her. “You can’t leave me in here! I’m the Administrator of this ship!” Daniel suddenly lashed out with his pistol and the metal butt caught her on the cheek and put her on the floor in a shocked instant. He then stormed into the office and locked the glass door behind him. The woman climbed to her feet and passed her fingers over a bloody gash across her cheek bone, she looked to Daniel and the officers around him with fiery brown eyes, eyes like dying ashes that were still full of searing heat. “You can’t do this Daniel Major! I am the Administrator!” Daniel replied through the glass, “I’m afraid you have nothing to administer anymore, you’re out of work.” She cursed and her hands found a metal framed chair. Everyone in the office braced themselves as she lifted the object and with a cry hurled it into the door. Daniel didn’t flinch as the metal chair bounced off the plasti-glass with a dull thud, before clattering noisily around the woman’s feet without effect. She continued to throw anything and everything that was not bolted to the floor at the office, her breathing hard and her screams raw. She was like a caged animal, a beast whose life was ebbing away and the only way she could stop it was to get out. The Administrator lost all her elegance and polished grace as she hurried throughout the medical centre, seeking a way out in adjacent rooms and stores, but they were all small and she could not even hide in them. Her last attempt was with the main door, pressing numbers into the pad which all came up with nothing. Erskine looked to Daniel throughout this and demanded, “What are you doing to her?” Daniel pulled his eyes from the horrified woman, as if he was transfixed by her terror. “Nothing, what am I doing to her?” Erskine’s mouth narrowed in a snarl but no words came. Daniel said flatly, “I am doing this for you and your squad Captain Erskine; I want you to understand that. I am taking control of your little band and I want you to see what is going on onboard this ship.” He looked at the captain again with hollow eyes, “Surely you want the answers to all the questions?”

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The Captain could not reply, his lips had almost sealed shut and he looked to the helpless Administrator as her authoritive power flushed out of her. Then the clicking bleep of the electro-lock sounded and everyone froze. The Administrator cried and fell away from the door in horror. Daniel glanced at Erskine and said simply, “Thank you for letting me use one of your squad’s energy batteries to lock the door… by the way.” Erskine glared at him and then back to the main door. All of his guards saw the door open with its usual sweeping hiss, but the Administrator screamed and twisted away from the dark of the corridor outside. Daniel grinned to himself while every guard gasped in awe and horror as a figure entered the chamber. Erskine’s eyes hurt with visual pain as the creature they had encountered in the corridor walked into the semi-light of the medical centre. It was still very dark, but more could be seen now due to some beams of light glaring from torches the guard’s had left on the tabletops. The beast skin was a dark indigo colour, while cobalt knives were protruding from its forearms menacingly, two oval red eyes were all there was on its smooth, featureless face. It’s body clearly defined massive physical strength; its arms rippled with great bunches of muscle, and its legs, though it walked stealthily, were as thick and as strong as pillars of steel. Erskine knew without doubt that the creature was monumentally powerful and fast and if it came down to a fight, the creature would easily win over him. “Amazing, isn’t it,” Daniel whispered, yet Erskine and his fellows did not register his words; the Administrator screamed again as the creature stalked towards her on two legs, it’s tail swinging lightly behind it. The squad lost sight of the Administrator as she fell to the floor behind a table, but the creature pounced forward athletically and her scream could have scattered the plasti-glass office more efficiently than any thrown chair. Erskine barred his teeth in pain at the noise and looked down, but it was not over; the creature rose swiftly to its feet and flung the Administrator ahead of it. She had been speared by the long knife on one of its arms, and she still screamed as she slammed into the back worktables of the medical centre. Erskine found himself looking away from the carnage, closing his eyes and was relieved that the next attack ended her tormented cried of pain. But the visions of her blood upon the creature’s blade, and the crimson fluid that now splattered the back worktop in long streaking arcs were burned into his mind for ever. 205

“Watch, captain,” Daniel urged, “this is important!” Erskine raised his eyes slowly to see the creature slam the woman’s now inhuman and motionless body upon a worktop, blood now waterfalling over the edges, her dark skin near white and her body massacred. One guard was heard turning and wrenching sickly. But Erskine watched as the creature lifted a hand towards the dead Administrator’s face and remembered how the same was done in the corridor before. Its fingers were long and ponderous then seemed to stick to her flesh by flat circular fingertips. “This,” Daniel narrated, “is how it feeds; it removes electrical and heat energy from her body to sustain itself. It needs a lot of bodies to keep going… but of course,” he smirked, “not too much.” Suddenly he opened the door and all of the guards gasped in horror, “Oh shit!” one hissed, stepping to the back of the office. Erskine shouted at Daniel, “What the hell are you doing!?” But the man only replied, “You needn’t worry,” and stepped into the medical centre while leaving the door wide open. “It will not attack you… any of you.” Jefferson laughed worriedly, “How the hell can we trust you! Everything else about you has been bogus!” But the creature did not move to assail them or Daniel, it only stood tall beside the horrific mess that was once the Administrator’s body and watched Daniel approach. Erskine looked on with a keen eye, almost wishing the beast would spear the man as well and he and his men can make a run for it, but nothing like that happened. Instead, Daniel raised his hand, palm forward, to the creature as though he were greeting it and the creature stared back at him as if transfixed. After a few moments, Daniel whispered, “Leave.” Slowly the creature stalked out of the medical centre and disappeared into the darkness that was the corridor. Erskine felt every guard behind him sigh in relief, but Gellar nudged him in the ribs and hissed, “We take him now! Kill him and make our escape!” But Erskine was too aware of the man’s pistol, and he knew what kind of pistol it was and he was surprised Gellar did not recognise it also. It was a pistol used by spies, and was enough proof in itself that Daniel was indeed a Government agent of some kind; no one could get a pistol like that easily. It was a Sackhiem 66 Dart gun and was probably loaded with

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burst-darts, with that pistol and those rounds Daniel could kill half Erskine’s squad with one shot. Erskine ignored Gellar’s suggestion. Daniel spoke to them slowly, “As you saw, I have control over the beast, but I cannot tell you how; that is government information only. However I advise you accept my proposal of giving me command of your unit, Captain Erskine; the creature will not harm anyone who is under my leadership. If you wish to survive the night, surely I do not need to tell you what to do?” Gellar glared at her Captain, still trying to force her plan into his brain, but he only replied, “I understand, and I give you command of my squad,” “Thank you—” “On one condition,” Erskine interrupted smoothly, savouring the end of his command and proving his dislike of this man, “that none of my men and women lose their lives needlessly.” Daniel chuckled and replied, “Don’t worry about them Captain, I need you just as much as you need me.” Erskine felt his lieutenant’s fierce glare beside him and his eyes locked with Gellar’s, all he did was shake his head slightly, and her lips turned firm and thin before she nodded. Captain Erskine looked back to Daniel and asked, “So where are we to go, Major?” Daniel smiled and looked over his new squad and his eyes glinted brightly. He replied simply, “I have some friends to look for, Captain.” With that, Daniel led all six of them out of the smashed and blooded medical centre and out into the crimson dark that was the main passages throughout the Rigor Mortis. Each guard looked uneasily at the ripped and eviscerated corpse of the Administrator that lay on the steel tabletop face up, that bloody visage shocked and agonized, four small red blotch marks distorting her once smooth skin. None of the guards after that ever wished to leave Daniel’s side.

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Chapter 7: Sub-Zero Viggo York sprung awake from an immersive and all too familiar nightmare to find the Grav-ball arena clear and the sleeping form of Alyson safe and unmoved. He sighed and shifted on his feet, surprised that he had actually fallen asleep standing up while he was on guard duty; both of them had decided that they would take turns in guarding each other. He was grateful for it as it stopped any possibility of him attacking Alyson in his sleep; as she slept, he was awake, and as he slept Alyson was awake to defend herself or ‘knock him out’. He didn’t like the sound of that but there would be no discussing it. Drew had actually come up with the idea just before she and Amos left them after their night at the Administrator’s office, the albino seemed cautious of letting them both go on alone, and rightfully so, Drew was the only one left who knew about him and Alyson’s ‘situation’. Both Drew and Amos had left because they had all agreed splitting up was the best way to get around the ship and to remain as unseen and as quiet as possible. Going in twos also had the advantage compared with going every-man-for-himself. But Viggo still felt anxious around Alyson alone, but the dark and wide-open space of the Grav-ball arena was somewhat liberating to rest in; it was so vast and clear in contrast with their cramped small cell in sector 19. He began to walk from the wall and into that vastness, trying to keep his booted footfalls to a minimum and eyeing the open doorway regularly. After pacing around for a few minutes quietly, Alyson stirred on the floor; clearly his footsteps had gotten into her dreams. “Viggo?” she called. He turned and smiled, “I’m still here.” She smiled slightly, “On guard duty I see…” she slowly sat up, but the metal floor had cramped every bone and knotted every muscle in her body and she groaned painfully. “God… spacious these arenas may be… comfortable they are not!” Viggo nodded, “We’ll get another guard barracks next time.” Alyson rubbed her eyes, though there was little need to as she had been asleep for only a couple of hours. But for a long time she had dreamt well in those two hours, it had been a long time since she had that luxury. “Did you sleep well?” he asked. Alyson replied with a small laugh, “You read my thoughts! Yes, I did.” “Good,” Viggo replied a little too stonily. 208

She climbed to her feet while asking, “Are we still heading the same way as we planned?” Viggo nodded, watching her grope around in the dark for her backpack, quad-rod and torch. “Yes, I still think it’s the best option… probably the only option we have.” Alyson agreed without word, they had told Drew and Amos they were going to get out of the ship via the docking ports that small frigates used to transfer the prisoners onboard. Given that they were currently in the prison blocks, the docking ports couldn’t be far away and perhaps others had already got there and opened it for them. Of course, there were problems with the plan, that section of the ship could be in ruins and the passages blocked off with debris, or the ports themselves locked airtight, or the crash landing may have crushed the section completely. But it was a hope, and a direction in which to go in. Alyson found it ironic that they would have to go back to the beginning of their prison ship life to reach the end of it; to get to the docking ports they would need to pass through the old ‘initiation’ chambers and ‘registration’ rooms. “So are we good to go?” Alyson asked promptly when she knew for sure her feet where on the ground. Viggo looked both amused and concerned, “You really want to get down there fast aren’t you? You’ve only just got up!” Alyson looked at him and said, “Don’t you want to get off this tin can as quickly as is humanly possible?” “Well, yeah…” Viggo admitted, “But there’s no need to rush yourself.” “I’m fine,” Alyson finished putting her backpack over her shoulders roughly, remembering then that most of its weight consisted of soup packets! She would cry if they all burst within her bag; not only would all of their food be gone but what a mess it would make! “Right,” she began in a determined tone, “let’s get going.” Their progress was slow through the dark passages of the ship; all they really knew was that they would have to go down the levels by a certain degree, and that was simple logic as the docking ports themselves would be on the outer hull of the ship. Viggo was keeping his uncertainty and doubt to himself, he saw how desperate Alyson seemed to be with this whole idea of escaping, even if it were to escape onto a planet infested with savage aliens. All he hoped for was that she didn’t peg all her hopes down on this one plan, there will be other ways, but they may take longer to reach. 209

After descending a rather unwieldy elevator shaft, Alyson’s voiced thoughts broke Viggo’s quiet musings: “Do you believe in fate Viggo?” she asked rather quietly. He looked over to her as they walked side-by-side, “Why do you ask?” She shrugged, “I don’t know… I just remember asking Daniel the same thing once and I wondered what you thought.” Viggo continued, “What did he say?” “He didn’t believe in fate; he thought life is what you make it.” Nodding, Viggo easily imagined Daniel with that perception, and he answered her question slowly. “Well… I’m not sure actually. I’d like to think there is a form of fate that you can change, if you know what I mean. A sort of path you lead and you can change it or choose not to and let it go its own way.” Alyson smiled ever so lightly and said, “A sort of go-between, then…” ”Yeah,” he shrugged. “But sometimes I think I have no power over things…” his voice drifted and Alyson looked to the floor in front of her. “I guess that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it,” he added lowly. “What do you think?” he then asked her, returning to a brighter tone. “I do believe in fate,” she replied as they turned a shadowy corner cautiously, “I don’t think I could have stopped anything that happened to me and my family… it all seemed too instant, too forcible. I certainly never chose to be here.” Viggo agreed wordlessly but then suggested lightly, “Surely… in a way… you could have stopped this from happening?” She glanced at him and the tentative tone he used, “How?” He cleared his throat quietly and continued, it felt like treading through a minefield, “Well, you could have not hi-jacked the IFSC? You’d never have gone to Deimos…” Alyson blinked at him rather sourly and her lips twisted, “I did that out of love for my family, Viggo. I was trying to help.” “I know…” he said supportively, vocally backing away from an ugly argument. But she groaned and continued, “Daniel did say that believing in fate meant you were making excuses for your life…” Viggo snorted, “It doesn’t work like that! Besides, what does he know about how you think about things?” She looked at him again with thoughtful eyes, but said nothing more about it.

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Both of them climbed down yet another elevator shaft and followed the basic directions that pointed the way to the docking ports, after a while of walking both of them began to feel the floor tilting under their feet, not dangerously, only gradually. “Viggo, is the floor tilting?” Alyson spoke her thoughts. He laughed curiously, “Yeah, I think it is.” It now felt like walking down a very slight downward slope, their boots would hold firm but it was only the weirdness that baffled them, not danger. “I think there’s a barracks up ahead,” Viggo announced, glancing at some of the words printed on the wall as they walked. “Good,” she replied steadily, “I could use a break from this downhill walking!” Viggo took the lead and approached the large gateway of the guard barracks cautiously; they were open, and a faint light was glowing from within. They hadn’t had an encounter with guards at all – except for Alyson’s run-in with Jefferson – and they didn’t want to meet a squad of them now. Viggo peered quickly round and then reported, “There’s one guy in there… I don’t think there’s anyone else,” he whispered to her. She nodded once before both of them idly stepped round the bend and into the barracks, quad-rods charged. “Identity yourself, guard,” Viggo said gruffly, his old police-enforcer persona resurfacing immediately as if it had never left him. The man who was indeed dressed in guard uniform and armour, jumped in fright and turned to face them. He had no helmet and his face was clear to see in Alyson’s torchlight. “Daniel!?” she announced in surprise and joy. The man looked surprised and seemed to relax suddenly, “Alyson, Viggo! Thank god it’s you two; I thought I’d been found out.” Viggo replied somewhat darkly, “In a way, you have.” Daniel passed him an odd expression as Alyson approached came forward with a smile, “I thought you were dead,” “And I thought you were dead too…” he answered, “I… I saw you in your cell…” his voice wavered. She shook her head and said assuredly, “Well we’re all alive, for now. All we have to do is escape! Viggo and I were heading for the docking ports; hopefully we can get out that way.” Daniel nodded and looked to Viggo as the big man walked steadily across the barracks, the barracks were the same lay out as the previous one Viggo and Alyson had taken shelter in; main chamber,

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changing rooms and showers, but off from the main room was a large room full of bunks and sleeping quarters. Daniel noticed Viggo’s searching eyes, “I’m afraid someone’s already been and gone, most of the good stuff is taken…” Alyson then told him lightly, “We have lots of supplies anyway; we’ll manage.” Viggo then said coolly to Daniel, “You’ve got some of the lighting working, good work.” Daniel shrugged slightly, “I kind of hotwired the circuit with the only torch battery I had, lucky I didn’t blow the system.” “Well… it’ll do,” Viggo responded flatly, “do the showers work?” Daniel shook his head, “Not unless you like cold showers.” Alyson watched Viggo for an uneasy moment; her old cellmate dumping his pack and sitting down on one of the wall mounted benches. She spoke freshly to Daniel again, “I haven’t seen you for ages, we have a lot to talk about,” Viggo grunted quietly, “we’ll get some food going and you can tell us what happened to you.” As Alyson talked to Daniel about her and Viggo’s journey after the crash, Viggo had remained quiet to one side, he was working away with different things from his backpack in a bid to create a ‘water bag’. They had not had a supply of water since forever, and the soup only gave marginal comfort from dehydration. Viggo had two empty soup packs and cleaned them out using the showers, then filled them with the same water. He came back to the benches and pulled two wires from the unused, battery-less torch he and Alyson had used to open the previous guard barrack’s door, and used them to tie the water-bags shut. Pleased, he put them to one side safely and turned to listen to the other two talking. “So MacLeod’s still alive,” Daniel mused thoughtfully, “I thought he would be.” “We think… I haven’t seen him since,” Alyson replied. She glanced at Viggo who had finished what he was doing, “So… how did you escape the sector in the first place?” Daniel had finished his soup pack; he had seemed rather disgruntled eating the stuff, as if he’d had better. He spoke rather quickly. “Well… I was one of the last to wake up, actually, the chaos of the guard’s fighting the prisoners who had escaped had woken me up. My cell was a mess, but I couldn’t do anything about my works because the prisoners were already busting through the bulkhead doors, all of the prisoners worked together to open them. Even some of the guard’s had 212

mutinied to help them! I got out and saw Adrian with Sophia… god, what a state they were… Others like Drew were trying to pull Adrian away but he insisted on saving her… but I knew she was dead. That’s when I saw you, Alyson… and I thought you were dead too… “Everyone else ran out of the sector, most of the guards had been knocked down or had run also, there were sounds of fighting in the corridor but I ran with them anyway. I could barely see anything out there, but I got away in the confusion… and I’ve been alone ever since… until now of course.” Alyson said meekly, “I must have looked a mess… no one tried to check on me, not even MacLeod.” Daniel nodded, “You did, and I’m still surprised to see you alive.” Viggo stared at him as he spoke, and then glanced away as he locked eyes with him. “So how did you get out of the lower levels, Viggo? It must have been a great escape,” Daniel asked sombrely. The big man inclined his head, and Alyson knew what Viggo was going to say and bring into the conversation, she felt pained. “Well, I can’t say I got myself out, but something certainly helped me escape.” Daniel glanced at Alyson to see her discomfort towards what Viggo was saying, he asked evasively, “Oh, and afterwards you bumped into Alyson, quite the luck.” Alyson dragged her eyes from Viggo whose face darkened like a storm, she continued hastily, “Yes, but actually I was looking for him… you could say we literally bumped into each other.” Daniel smiled faintly and added, “You’ve both certainly made good use of your time… I’m afraid I’ve made it simply by hiding and running…” Daniel yawned absently, “I wish I knew what time it was… I’m quite tired…” Alyson smiled awkwardly as Viggo sat back against the wall and folded his arms tightly in front of his chest. “We must be working on different time-zones or something… it feels like me and Viggo have only just got up!” Daniel chuckled and stood up, “I’m certainly glad I found this place, better beds than in the cells!” He started for the guard sleeping quarter saying, “Wake me whenever you want to go.” “Okay,” Alyson called after him loosely. Viggo watched him go and Alyson watched Viggo’s expression change from the masked good natured to the ugliness that lurked beneath. He shook his head and she complained quietly, 213

“What is wrong, Viggo?” He continued to shake his head as he rose to his full height, “I’m going to exercise; it feels like my bones are made entirely of that soup!” he laughed mirthlessly. Alyson followed him with her sharp gaze as he removed the armour plates and then lay down on the floor to do sit-ups, his back towards her. Slowly she stood up and did likewise, laying down beside him and followed suit. “You still don’t trust him,” Viggo smirked again, without humour, “You’re right, I don’t trust him.” “Well I trust him,” Alyson persisted flatly, “and I see no reason not to, he’s a simple, innocent man caught up in the same place we are.” Viggo glanced at her, aware that after all of her exercise within their cell she was matching his pace of work. Good though she was he knew that she was wrong this time; he replied coldly, “No one is innocent in here Alyson, no one.” She shrugged and replied quickly, “That’s easy for you to say.” He ground his teeth firmly and increased his rhythm, “You saw how he avoided talking about that thing that’s been killing people onboard! I lead him into discussing it and he backed off. Surely he’d be wondering what the ‘something’ was that broke me out?” Alyson, to the expectation of Viggo, increased her rhythm to match him while answering, “Maybe he simply doesn’t need to know, all this surprise of meeting us here, the chaos he saw in the sector, and his obvious tiredness, points to the fact that maybe he doesn’t want to be told about those kinds of things.” Viggo glanced at her, slightly confused, “What?” “What I’m saying is maybe he didn’t want to talk about more bloody tales.” He sighed hopelessly and turned onto his front and began doing push ups, Alyson did the same. “So, you’re saying he’s innocent? That he knows nothing about the creature?” Alyson replied simply, “Yes.” “Then what about the picture you found in his cell, or the maps? What about all the information he had written down about guard patrols, our destination, all of that!” Viggo persisted, knowing full well she had her own doubts once about Daniel. She cursed, “I don’t know everything, but I just can’t see Daniel being some kind of spy or government plotter! He’s not like that!”

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Viggo sighed and stopped working, but Alyson continued relentlessly, breathing heavily. He said quietly as he stood up, with a tone of disinterest, “Don’t kill yourself.” Alyson heard him leave and head into the barracks sleeping quarters with heavy footfalls, and she tried to continue her exercise. Why didn’t Viggo trust Daniel like she could, why was it such a problem for him, yes the pictures were strange but… but… She crashed onto the floor breathlessly. Yes, she told herself at last, Daniel would have to be talked to about the pictures and the maps, but Viggo could have been a little nicer about it. Sadly she climbed to her feet; her right arm was weaker than her left and clearly the great regen-gauze MacLeod had used on her bust shoulder still had some side-effects. She decided to try and sleep, she didn’t care if Viggo was asleep at the same time and one of his psychosis attacks could overwhelm him, she was too hot and bothered to care. She would have had a shower too, but the mere thought of icy cold water made her shiver and wake up. She slipped off her boots and padded quietly into the barracks quarters, hoping to go unnoticed. It was another one of those dreams she fell into, a good dream, a dream that made her forget all over her real troubles and dangers. She was safe, back on the Venus Cythera station in her home. Her white cat Callisto had been in a playful mood, and her dream had started with him waking her up by jumping onto her while in bed. Alyson felt herself laughing as the cat paraded around on the bed sheets, kneading with sharp claws that came temptingly close to finding her skin. But the cat relaxed and lay down on her stomach, curled up neatly as she scrubbed her fingers under his jaw, hearing his loving purrs vibrate through her ears. She always thought that Callisto had some kind of connection with her, like they shared emotions sometimes. It was certain that he could make her at ease whenever she was tense; stroking him definitely beat biting her nails! She knew that the cat wouldn’t move off her now; he was enjoying her peaceful company and warmth, and she didn’t want to move either. She would happily lie there forever, unmoving with the only sound being Callisto’s purrs. When she woke up, she instantly felt cheated; sleep and dreams were the best things for Alyson and they were over so quickly. Whenever she woke up she felt that way, and certainly as the world she returned to

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was a hellish reality which she had to face, a world which she didn’t feel she ever belonged. She wanted to cry. She sat up and found Viggo and Daniel absent from the barracks quarters, either she had slept longer than she had thought, or they didn’t really go to sleep at all. She heard voices from the main room and stood up to exit the dark of the sleep quarter. “Ah, Alyson you’re awake,” Viggo said in an all too determined tone, “I was about to discuss the issue we missed before with Daniel.” Alyson immediately wished she was somewhere else, “Oh…” She could see Viggo had already got her pack beside him and Daniel was sitting not far from him on the same wall mounted bench; Daniel seemed to be at ease, for now. Alyson found herself standing; she couldn’t relax now, not with everything about to blow up the way she knew it would. Daniel watched cautiously as the big man reached into the bag and pulled out a wad of folded pieces of paper. He didn’t blink. “Now, Alyson found these in a particular place onboard this ship, Daniel, I wonder if you can guess where that place was?” Viggo asked sombrely. As Daniel paused for a moment, Alyson knew that Viggo had his ‘police interrogation’ tone in his voice; clearly he did some of that in his old job and the two years in prison since hadn’t made him slack at it. She felt uncomfortable with his professionalism. “Well I guess they could be from my cell, at least that’s the first place I think of when I see that sort of paper lying around,” Daniel replied, honesty in his tone. Viggo nodded in approval but not in agreement. “Yes, yes they are from your cell.” He then unfolded a few of the bigger ones to reveal their content, all of them were technical maps, drawn with surprising detail, outlining locations such as ‘medical core’ and ‘shuttle bay’. “Now I know for a fact that you never went to any of these places in your prison life on this vessel, and you could not even have drawn these by memory, correct?” “Yes,” Daniel replied, looking at the maps closely, brow furrowing slightly. Viggo continued serenely, “So… how did you draw them?” He shrugged and looked at Viggo straight in the eyes, “I didn’t.” Viggo looked long and hard at Daniel’s dark blue eyes, seeing the very muscles of the irises, the position of the pupils and the stillness of the man’s face, so centred, so focused, so uncompromising. They didn’t flinch. Viggo’s jaw was set tightly, and he blinked. Alyson stared at them 216

both alternately, fearing what Viggo might do and worrying for the safety of his victim. Daniel looked puzzled as the silence sunk in and asked, “Was there something else?” Viggo reached for the pile of papers again and started anew, seemingly unflustered, “Actually, there’s one last thing… something more important than even those.” Daniel looked on as Viggo turned over a well used piece of parchment, and then his finger stabbed the rendering it showed, his deep eyes sharp and burning into his victim’s head like hot nails. Daniel only cocked an eyebrow. “This has been tearing through the decks murdering anyone it comes across, and you drew it.” But the mousy haired man replied fairly, “I’ve heard of it, same stories you have… but I never drew a picture of it, how could I, I’ve never seen it!” he glanced at Alyson who stood with worry scratched into her face. “Damnit Daniel! It was in your cell! What more proof does anyone need that you are somehow connected to this thing!?” Viggo cursed bitterly, casting the picture aside in his wrath. Daniel’s gaze only followed the picture as it swung and fluttered to the mottled steel floor, and then reached to pick it up again while saying. “Someone might have planted it?” Viggo snorted, “Like who, exactly?” “I don’t know…” Daniel brought the picture back up and pointed a finger loosely at it, “Look, this isn’t even my style of drawing… I see you have another picture I did draw, compare the two!” he was pointing to the last picture Viggo had not shown, the one of Alyson in profile. She flinched involuntarily at its mention. “Come on Daniel!” Viggo shook his head and picked up the picture, “this isn’t art school okay, how can I know you can’t draw in two styles if you wanted to?” “I suppose you can’t… unless you believe I’m telling the truth.” Daniel said quietly. Viggo stared at him for a moment more and that was final; the only thing Viggo saw was a liar and a double-crosser sitting beside him. Like the Administrator’s plotting against Viggo in using Alyson to expose his guilt, he now knew something was behind Daniel. He hadn’t been a highly decorated police officer for nothing; he didn’t know what the something was exactly, but it was clear as day now.

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“Daniel, I can never trust you.” With that he stood and again dropped the picture in his hand to the floor, and started to walk. “Come on, Viggo!” Alyson persisted after him pleadingly, “He’s told you!” Viggo glanced round at her darkly, “He’s told me nothing but lies Alyson! We should just leave him here to starve for all I care…” Alyson stared at him in horror; Viggo’s face was full of so much spite! But why, Alyson believed Daniel’s story, it all made sense so why did Viggo question it so much!? “Well I believe him whether you do or not!” Alyson snapped. Viggo’s look was cold but he said nothing, he departed out into the outside passages noiselessly. Daniel sat motionless for a few moments, but not a bead of sweat or trace of fear edged his face, he had no expression at all. He glanced at Alyson’s ruined face and started, “Alyson… he’s just—” “Don’t say anything,” she interrupted bitterly, before she too exited, but into the barracks sleeping quarters instead. A hollow silence now filled the empty spaces around Daniel. Between Viggo’s unseen rage and Alyson’s silent misery he did not move, only the corner of his mouth quirked a small, fiendish smile. So he waited for some time. Waiting until he felt it was necessary for him to take charge of the situation. Waiting until the time was right when both of them would be in a state of determination and recollection. Viggo still had not returned from the corridor and Alyson had not emerged from the other room, but Daniel knew they were still there, with hard eyes and stiff lips. Now was the time to act. Daniel rose to his feet quietly and firstly moved to find Alyson in the barrack’s sleeping quarters. When he entered he found her lying face up on a bunk, quad-rod lit and casting a peaceful azure light around her. He walked carefully, and spoke equally so, “Alyson, we shouldn’t linger here too long… I heard that a group of guards were searching the decks and one of their barracks would attract they attention. We should go…” he trailed his voice subtly and saw Alyson shift slightly. “All right Daniel… does Viggo know?” “I’ll go tell him now,” he replied lightly, kindly, before leaving the room. He then walked straight through the main room and towards the large bulkhead doors filled with the gloom of crimson warning lights. 218

Daniel peered round corners and saw no sign of Viggo, he smirked; perhaps the big man had lost his head and his way in the darkness, aside from that amusing thought Daniel would still look for him to a limited extent. After claiming his electro-rod he stepped out and into the dark, Daniel chose to go down the right-hand passage. He didn’t have to walk far, and it didn’t surprise him when a large arm reached from the shadows to his right and gripped him round the neck. “I thought you’d come looking for me, Daniel,” Viggo hissed in his ear, “Why exactly? I suppose you’ve consolidated Alyson, but I doubt you’d think the same words of comfort would work with me.” Daniel replied tightly, “I haven’t actually; I simply told her that we should get moving… guards check their barracks… often.” Viggo chuckled venomously. “I suppose you’re going to lead us into a trap, Daniel, saying you know so much about this ship?” Daniel tried to shrug as he answered, “I don’t care if you don’t trust me Viggo, but I think if you killed me now, Alyson wouldn’t stick with you… besides, do you really have the evidence to do it?” Viggo replied sharply, “I don’t need ‘evidence’; we’re not on Mars anymore.” He released Daniel quickly, pushing him away also, “But I will say this: one false move or anything suspicious, and I will kill you.” Daniel said rather flatly back to him, “Well, there’s nothing for me to fear then is there.” With that he turned and headed back to the barracks promptly, Viggo stalked casually after him, quad-rod lowered at his side. When Daniel returned he found Alyson packing things into her backpack, the pictures and the maps among them. “Ready, Alyson?” he asked, announcing his presence. She looked up just as Viggo strolled into the room behind him, noticing both of them were armed she replied quietly, “Yes.” “Where were you heading?” Daniel asked Viggo who paced round to collect his backpack. “The docking ports, eventually.” Daniel then suggested, seeing their used soup packs, “I think a stop off at a mess hall wouldn’t hurt either.” Viggo glanced quickly at him as Alyson remained quiet; the big man replied levelly, “I suppose it wouldn’t. But let’s at least go down one level before we have to stop again.” “All right,” Daniel agreed, “I think there’s an elevator shaft not far from here.” 219

Viggo grunted and Alyson slung her pack over her shoulders and said emotionlessly, “Let’s go then.” So they walked down the corridors wordlessly. The three of them had checked nothing was left behind in the barracks before they left, and they had two quad-rods, an electro-rod and one torch between them for light; the journey ran as smoothly as it could have in the circumstances. Viggo had opted to lead the way while Daniel and Alyson stepped along in his wake quietly, sometimes exchanging questioning and cautious glances at each other. They encountered no one down the mottled steel corridors, they were down on one of the lowest decks of the Rigor Mortis’ transport section but none of the maps they had detailed that region. The only signs they had were printed words stating engineering decks, docking ports and different prison blocks between N and Z. They had nothing to fear from the psychopathic blocks above them, that danger was at least three decks above, but the regular piles of smashed machinery and crumpled bodies that littered their path kept them on edge throughout their journey. But at last they came to an elevator, its doors were shut but together they managed to haul them open to reveal the dark shaft beyond. Viggo peered down and checked his quad-rod was strapped tightly to his forearm. There were sparks midway down the shaft, it seemed that one of the elevator cords had severed and power was still energising the remaining tip, making it twitch and spit sparks within the shaft. “All right, let’s do this,” Viggo said stonily. They were the first words he had said since leaving the barracks; Alyson had nearly forgotten what his voice sounded like. But as he stepped towards the edge of the precipice and the gloom beyond, Daniel grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “You can’t! Look, that wire down there will be electrifying the other cables; we can’t possibly climb them…” “How do you know?” Viggo cursed, freeing himself from Daniel’s grip by shaking his arm loose. “I’ll go first.” Daniel persisted stronger as he reached out for the cables, “As soon as you touch that, you’ll be dead! Thousands of re-routed volts are going through that!” Viggo did not listen; he wasn’t stupid, he simply saw no danger. The twitching cable wasn’t in contact with the other cables effectively enough to kill anyone who touched them!

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“Please Viggo,” Alyson said quietly, “We’ll find another lift, there will be another one.” Viggo retracted his hand from the cable, but his fingers slowly clenched into a fist instead as his hand fell to his side. He knew that Daniel was making it up for whatever reason, but in hearing Alyson’s voice he had to change his mind; he would side with Daniel for now, just to stay near her. He looked to both of them darkly, “All right, lead the way… Daniel.” Without question Daniel began to walk down the corridor again with Viggo and Alyson walking close behind. Viggo glanced at Alyson for a second, narrowly missing a similar glance Alyson had given him, before both of them looked on ahead solemnly. Again they came to another shaft after walking down a near labyrinthine network of passages in which Viggo more than once wanted to order them to turn back from. As before they had to wrench the doors open and they all looked down the uninviting metallic well cautiously. “Does this suit your specifications, Daniel?” Viggo asked grimly, stepping towards the edge and forcibly grabbing one of the elevator cables before anyone could stop him. “Mind the elevator car; I think it’s above us…” Daniel told him, glancing uneasily up as Viggo’s weight pulled the cables tight. The big man said nothing as he began to lower himself down the cable, quad-rod glowing from his wrist like a miner’s lamp in the dark. Daniel looked to Alyson and told her, “You go next.” Unquestioningly she followed Viggo down the cable wire, and Daniel waited a few moments. Daniel stared down at them as they descended, eyes alert and keen, looking left and right as if to check no one had followed him, he swung off the level and descended the shaft. Viggo and Alyson reached the next level down safely and waited for Daniel. The cable twitched uneasily as he made his way down and carefully swung himself towards the open doors. Alyson jumped as they heard a great crunch of metal within the shaft, Daniel looked up apprehensively and she asked, “What is it?” Daniel swung heavily forward and jumped onto the floor were they stood but ordered, “Step back!” There was a shuddering squeal of metal upon metal and then a distorted ping of several cables snapping and whirling through the air. The whole doorframe started to shake as great howl of metal began to drown out every other sound around them. 221

“Get down!” Daniel cried. Alyson screamed as the huge metal car of the elevator shrieked past the doorway downwards, followed by whipping tendrils of broken cables that slashed at them, only managing however to scratch the deck plates at the edge. The sound fell for a few moments more before a deep resonating boom shivered all the way up the shaft and the floor quivered as if the ship was reeling in pain. Viggo looked towards the lift doorway suspiciously as Daniel commented slickly, “Hope you don’t need to go up again.” Neither Viggo nor Alyson said anything and he started walking again down their new corridor, “There should be a mess hall nearby, and hopefully no one else has scavenged this far down in the ship yet.” Viggo helped Alyson to her feet and they locked eyes for a brief but intense second, their eyes dragged away again when they started walking after Daniel silently. The mousy haired man seemed to pause outside every door they came across as if in thought or recollection, and only stopped when he came to the open double doors of a mess hall. The room had several working lights, many tables and chairs and a typical prison ship ‘kitchen’ hidden away. “This is it,” Daniel said proudly, entering the room at ease. Viggo raised an eyebrow at him; bizarre as it was to just waltz into a room with working lights without first checking for threats. But still he and Alyson followed, like sheep it seemed. “There has to be food in the kitchen somewhere…” “Though the lights are working,” Viggo concluded, “Not a good sign.” “Well we are here,” Alyson spoke up, “Let’s make the best of it.” She started to walk towards the kitchen steadily; “Though it will be soup again…” she added meekly. Daniel grinned after her as Viggo noticed the tables and chairs were not bolted to the floor like they were normally. “This isn’t a prisoner mess hall, is it?” he found himself asking Daniel. “I guess not, probably for engineers and techs,” Daniel replied. Viggo looked up as Alyson’s voice sounded joyful, “Hey there’s loads of stuff; more than just soup!” Daniel smirked, “Definitely not a prison hall.” Viggo turned to him and again, and found himself saying respectfully, “I guess you were right about this place.”

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“I’d like to think so,” Daniel said smoothly as Viggo started to walk away from him. As Viggo stepped away a figure revealed itself in the doorway behind Daniel, it paced forward with effortless quiet, not a breath or a word, yet Daniel’s smile split his face widely. The indigo-coloured creature sidled into the room and stood to one side of the door, just behind Daniel. Viggo had not heard or noticed, but he spoke in an appreciative tone, “I suppose you’re wanting a—” his voice stopped dead as his eyes looked and fell on Daniel, and more importantly, the lean creature that only a picture had described to him until now. It was an incredible and horrifying thing to see in the semi-light of the mess hall, and Viggo felt his throat dry up and his eyes hurt instantly. It was massively tall, probably taller than Amos was, and its arms were thick and overlaid with muscle and its chest and front body were armoured in some naturally formed horizontal plates. Viggo immediately recognised the twin blades, one on each forearm, glinting devilishly; one of them was the knife that had punched clear through his old cell door. “Daniel you shi—!” “This is my cue to go,” Daniel interrupted smartly, “deal with them both.” Viggo looked to the creature, then to Daniel, and then to the creature again; the beast seemed readying to jump. “Alyson!” he hollered, “Hide!!” Daniel made a run for it through the door as the beast leapt high into the air towards Viggo, tail swishing dangerously around. Viggo dived forward and was under a table just as the creature smashed down on where he had stood. Quickly scrambling to his feet, Viggo launched out of the door and raced after Daniel and away from the terror. The creature did not give chase, but it stiffened and turned towards the kitchen doorway, as if sensing something. With narrowed red eyes it stalked through the mess hall, its head searching left, right and centre with immaculate precision before entering the kitchen itself. There were things scattered all over the floor, things that the beast did not recognise and had no need for and its foot crunched one flat, juices spitting forth. Its eyes saw nothing in the small confine of the kitchen, but a source of interest appeared to be resonating from a large open metal door. Alyson sat on the icy floor of the walk-in freezer and could feel her very bones chilling and her skin frosting over. She was in the only place she could think to hide in, between a stack of metal shelves full of 223

frozen food and ice covered metal crates. She hugged her knees close to her chest and had her quad-rod tucked away to hide its light, what good that did her, she did not know, she didn’t even know why Viggo had told her to ‘hide’ but something deep inside her told her it was for good reason. Sounds, the first sounds for some time came to her freezing ears, footsteps, they were in the kitchen and they crushed several of the peppers she had spilt on the floor in her hurry. She dreaded to think what it was, there was only one possibility but prayed it was only Daniel or Viggo… The steps came to the door of the freezer and seemed to pause. The door was to Alyson’s left, only the metal shelves were between her and whatever it was, she looked up to that point, shivering as she felt icicles form on her eyelashes. There was a crunch of ice, and she saw that it was what she feared most entering the freezer to find her. The huge towering blue skinned monster that the drawing depicted stalked into the freezer and stopped for a moment. All there was in the freezer were three metal shelf units, many, many metal crates, curtains of frozen soup packs and hanging chunks of meat, and one half-frozen Alyson. The creature immediately snapped its head to look dead straight at her, red eyes wide and sure with menacing intent. So red! So horrible was the unblinking stare! She didn’t cry, though she thought about it but knew that her tears would probably freeze her eyes to her eyelids, so she only blinked and closed them tightly. Crunch, again, the footsteps and Alyson stiffened in horror, eyes still shut and ice crystallising on her eyebrows and clothes, waiting for the killing blow. She opened her eyes slightly; it had stepped aside and was looking elsewhere! She would have smiled had her muscles worked properly, but her mind started to work out a reason; it was still looking for her in the freezer, so it had not seen her, but how? It stared right at her? Then something else happened which forced her eyes open. The beast’s skin seemed to change, all over its back and scalp and even the stub on the end of its tail. Crystals! Alyson blinked in surprise as whole blue crystals seemed to form over the creature’s back and head, cracking and shaping and layering over each other, parts of the beast’s skin were even becoming facetted like blue jewels! She could have laughed but when the creature swung around to exit the freezer, its tail flicked out and smashed the metal shelves just above her head. The stub on its tip was now like a battle mace, covered in hard spikes of crystal which tore food packets apart and heavily dented

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the shelves themselves. Boxes and packets clattered over her head, her arms painfully flinched out of their frozen confines as they did. But it wasn’t over; she felt her joints all frozen as she rose to her feet, desperate to get out of the cold, but when she stood up the huge metal freezer door slammed shut with a merciless thud. She gasped in terror and hurried over the ice to slap her hands against the icy door, she looked for a handle or a keypad, but there was nothing, just a wall of ice. “Viggo!” she cried. Daniel looked over his shoulder to see Viggo bearing down on him, they had run several passages now but the big man was too fast for him to evade. Viggo clawed at Daniel’s collar and dragged him off his feet mid run, and Daniel crashed to the deck with a painful thump. “What the hell was that then Daniel!?” Viggo snarled viciously, not wanting an answer at all, only wanting to beat the man senseless. “I think that is all the bloody evidence I need!” Daniel watched as Viggo revealed his quad-rod and he said quickly, “I think you’re missing the point, Vicious…!” “No, I think I have the point exactly,” Viggo corrected evilly. “When I put this quad-rod into your chest, you’ll literally be fried alive, your heart will boil and your lungs will evaporate. A slow, painful death is what you are due.” Daniel laughed cruelly and persisted, “What about Alyson you dumb bastard! Don’t tell me you’re little argument has made you hate her so much that you’ve forgotten!” Viggo stopped and his face went a shade whiter, he then looked down at Daniel with sharp, unsure eyes. “Yeah, I know,” Daniel acknowledged flatly, “it’s a tough one; get the bad guy… or save the—” Viggo launched off from Daniel in a flash and was gone from sight. Daniel laughed and sat up, shouting after him, “Hey! I wasn’t finished!” Viggo quickly darted around the corners of the passages he had chased Daniel down, fearing only for a moment he was lost, that Daniel had led him away from her. How stupid it was to go after Daniel and leave Alyson alone with that thing! How could he!? Viggo damned himself; he had promised to take care of her, and all this Daniel crap had blinded him from it! Viggo launched round the last corner and into the mess hall before stopping dead, again.

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The creature reared its head up and looked at him with threatening ruby eyes, but there was no sign of Alyson anywhere. Viggo could hear something now, a voice… Alyson’s voice, coming from… Viggo looked at the creature with new found hatred, he wanted to say something wicked and offensive, but no real threat seemed able to stand or have any weight against that thing. His lips only wavered for a moment. He took the initiative, though it was probably a crazy idea, and ran to one side of the hall, towards the kitchen door. But the creature pounced up and onto the table nearest him and swung with a deadly knife, Viggo noticed then the beast had a huge crystal growth on its back and head but had no time to think about it. He ducked and swung under the table as the beast leapt down to the floor behind him and speared one blade straight through the tabletop. Viggo nimbly kicked the desk up into the air and as he hoped, it took the creature off balance with its blade jammed in it. But the creature swung with its second blade and completely severed the table in half. Viggo knew that was hard stainless steel, it was all his effort to just kick it into the air! He ran backward and collected a chair in his arms and ran back at the charging beast, chair legs forward in a deadly duel. The beast was caught in the seat’s legs but its blades swung around and nearly speared Viggo’s side like a spittle. Smartly Viggo stepped back to kick the chair hard and set the beast to the floor. As the creature collected itself, Viggo brought his quad-rod up and charged it onto the full power ‘kill’ setting, on all four electro-rods, enough power to kill a fully grown bull. The creature savagely tore the intervening chair apart like paper and raced towards Viggo once more. He readied the quad-rod but the creature suddenly strafed to the side and landed on another table, Viggo saw everything unfold as the beast spun and sent its crystal-barbed tail swinging through the air. He jumped back to hit the floor but the tail snagged his quad-rod’s barrels and hooked him up with it. The swing cast Viggo effortlessly through the air by the quad-rod strapped to his arm and smashed into the metal wall of the mess hall before tangling himself up in a chair when he fell to the floor. The air was sledge-hammered out of his lungs and Viggo’s whole body felt as though it had cracked like a brittle twig, he collapsed to the ground. The beast stood up upon the table and watched Viggo’s unmoving form on the floor, it was about to jump down to him when it stiffened and raised its faceless head. Slowly the beast climbed down from the table and stalked slowly away from Viggo, and out of the deathly silent mess hall.

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Viggo blinked and noticed the creature was gone. Springing to his feet, he was immediately caught off balance with the chair leg caught in his quad-rod; he stumbled and dashed his head against a table edge. Cursing, he clawed to his feet, taking a direct course for the kitchen door, “Alyson! Alyson can you hear me! Damnit,” He unlinked his quad-rod and cast it aside to run through the small kitchen to reach the freezer door. A main turn wheel locked the door, and he quickly spun it round and round and round until it gave a clack and he was able to slide it open outwards. He crouched down as Alyson slumped down when the door moved out of place, and he dragged her out quickly into the middle of the kitchen floor. “Oh shit…. Alyson…Alyson!” he looked at her near frozen skin and closed eyes, and saw there was little life left in her. “Come on Alyson, please… I didn’t think… I…” he looked around helplessly. He had no idea how to help her now, but pulled her further from the freezer’s chilling breath and removed his armour plates. Viggo then held her tightly to him, hoping his body would give some heat, but it was like holding a figure of snow, and he could feel her coldness even though his clothes. But he didn’t give up, he looked around and saw the kitchen around him… the kitchen… what could there be in a kitchen… something warm… But there was nothing in this kitchen! Nothing any normal kitchen would have, only a goddamn microwave and a barracks of useless soups! Soups…. Viggo looked up at the freezer again and blinked feverishly, surely it wouldn’t work, but it was all he had. “Goddamnit Alyson you and I might just have new appreciation!” he cursed jumping to his feet after laying her down. He sprung into the freezer and immediately snapped several curtains of soup packets off the rails and hauled them back into the small kitchen. “Christ this is so stupid!” He snapped to himself, breaking packets into groups of four or five before stuffing as many as possible into the large microwave and bashing the ‘high’ button. In a few horridly slow moments the packets were cooked and hot with the liquid still contained. Viggo shook the absurdity from his mind as he laid the packets over Alyson’s body. He quickly corrected himself and removed her armour plates, cringing as they audibly cracked off her body, before going about cooking more, and more, and more.

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Perhaps half an hour later Viggo had spent nearly all of the packets in the freezer and had completely covered Alyson up to her chin in the packets, and now he sat motionless on the floor, staring for so long at her face that his eyeballs dried. One thing that was good was that the frost had gone from her face and he felt her hands and they were warm. He feared putting her into shock by doing all of that, he knew that huge changes in temperature could just as easily kill someone, but he had decided to open her uniform just a bit and stuffed another soup pack in to be against her skin. He stared transfixed for a long time, and checked her pulse which was forever on the verge of non-existence. How many times would he have to save her, he wondered; memories of when the comet had struck the ship and she was nearly put in comatose flooded back in his mind. Did the promise he made all those months ago make him destined to save her over and over again? If it did, and she came back now, he now swore not to let his guard down again. He shook his head and looked to his feet regrettably. “Viggo…?” He blinked, and then felt his heart stop for nearly a second; Alyson was looking at him from the slits of her eyes. “Goddamn you’re alive Alyson! It worked, it actually worked!” Alyson shifted in her soup pack bed as he collapsed over her in a sort of hug. She began hesitantly, her voice weak, eyes narrow, “What… what worked, Viggo, what’s happened?” He sat up again and regained his posture and said solidly, “You were trapped in the freezer Alyson, for a long time, and I thought you’d died but I—” She shifted again and blinked down at herself, “What… are these…” her mouth seemed frozen again while Viggo cringed with an unwanted laugh. “These are… they…” Alyson picked up one of the packets from her chest, but as she raised her arm many more cascaded over the floor. “They’re soup packets!” she cried in horrified realisation, “You covered me in soup packets to save my life!?” Viggo bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, he knew it was not a laughing matter, she could have died today, but the irony of it all only made him smile more. He replied firmly, “I had to, what else could I have done?” Alyson cocked an eyebrow at him, her face was still white as bone but some colour was returning, “You find this funny… don’t you?” strength was returning to her voice too. 228

He shook his head stiffly and watched as she started to sit up. She stopped and looked disgusted at him, one hand reached into the front of her uniform. “Oh god Viggo… what have you done to me?” she pulled out a fortunately intact packet from her front and gave Viggo a very dark look. A smirk edged his lips, “I swear that’s… that’s the only one.” He then stood up and left the kitchen to let his mirth overtake him in fits of laughter.

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Chapter 8: Flooded After Alyson had recovered from her trauma and she had worked life back into her muscles, things were far from a laughing matter when they both exited the kitchen and back into the mess hall. She looked around the confusion and clutter; one table sheared in half, a chair in pieces, three tables dented and a large distortion in the metal of the wall above an upturned chair and a discarded quad-rod. Viggo looked to her gravely and asked in a low tone, “You saw it?” She nodded quickly, “Yes… it came into the freezer but… it didn’t see me.” Viggo’s frown deepened in confusion; the freezer being such a small space, but Alyson continued as she stepped further into the hall, “and you fought it?” Viggo shook his head, “I’d like to think of it as a fight, but it would have killed me, certainly a lot sooner had the furniture been bolted down.” Alyson nodded again and said, “You’re lucky…” “I’m lucky!” Viggo gasped in alarm, “The thing knocked me out cold, sure, but you could have died Alyson!” “I know…” she said quietly, her downcast eyes then rose to look at the main door. “I guess Daniel made a run for it?” Viggo’s eyes turned icy and he took a few steps forward before pointing at the door, “I chased him Alyson, and he has something to do with that thing; no doubt at all about that!” Alyson closed her eyes, her mind retreating from his raising voice and he quietened immediately. Viggo then walked back to her through the melee of tables and chairs and told her softly but surely, “Look, let’s just go. We get all the food we can carry, run as fast as we can in the opposite direction from Daniel, get to the docking bays and off this godforsaken ship.” Alyson opened her eyes at his smoother tone and a smile flickered over her face, “I still can’t believe you buried me in soup packets…” “I know…” he added with a small supportive grin. “Come on, if you’re up to it, let’s get packing.” “I’m definitely up for it!” she replied boldly before they both marched into the kitchen, taking their backpacks off their shoulders as they did. Once again, Alyson and Viggo set out through the shadowinfested corridors of the Rigor Mortis, and once again they did not meet a 230

soul; the ship was desolate and hushed. There weren’t even many bodies in this section of the ship, and as far as Viggo was concerned, there must have been people down on these lower decks as they were maintenance and engineering decks. Alyson had looked to the ground for blood trails like the ones she had seen before, trails that had all led to a huge pile of corpses, but there were none; the corridors were remarkably clean except for the rare cadaver. Alyson didn’t like this turn of events, but she also didn’t know why; Viggo had told her that people may have escaped the ship through the docking ports already and were outside on the planet. Or, perhaps all of the people are hemmed up somewhere in hiding or having been rounded up by officers. Alyson realised that her fear was of the unexpected, of something else being on board the ship with them, or some new threat that they had not witnessed yet. Whatever it was that troubled her, it made her even more determined and desperate to escape out of the docking ports than before. As they both walked in quiet resolve Alyson mused in her mind what may become of them when they escape the ship and what the planet would be like outside. Would it be green, or would it be dark and uninviting? Alyson had always thought of it to be at least habitable as the ship was taken through a wormhole to get to it, and surely the intention for the prison ship was colonisation at a basic level as the old theorists predicted back home. But why should that be the case, she corrected herself inquisitively; maybe the planet is a foul hostile dumping ground for convicts and criminals? Maybe resurfacing and surviving was never part of the Government’s plans… Alyson wasn’t bothered with which one it was; instead she only wanted to get home, with the end so close at hand, it was all she could think about. “Viggo, you told me once you had a Space bike?” she asked out of the blue. He looked to her as they walked, “Yes, a police bike, why?” Alyson smiled, “I was wondering if you were any good at riding it?” He lifted his eyebrows and said in a suspicious manner, “I suppose you’re great at riding as you hi-jacked an IFSC with one!” he smirked. She shrugged impishly, finding the positive comfort in her crime strange and ironic as it used to be the bane of her existence. “I was just thinking about when we get out of here, and how we might get around the planet…”

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Viggo mused with her, “I guess the ‘shuttle bay’ that Daniel had mapped out would have some bikes…” “Yes, but how would we get in there from the outside, once we get out through the docking ports I mean?” “There must be airlocks and docking gates on the hull we could use,” he replied quickly. He then grinned, “Thinking about racing me?” Alyson grinned and answered, “I’m not a Solar Formula-G racer, Viggo!” Viggo shrugged with another smirk. Solar Formula-G was the modern racing sport of the age; there were many tracks on most of the planets in the Sol system, some on planet-side, some in orbit, and others on moons. It was a dangerous sport, with several leagues including Space bike championships and shuttle-car championships. In fact the Thebe orbital-track was one of the technical achievements of the century; it was a massive curving and looping metal track that almost surrounded the Jupiter moon in a geostationary orbit. The cars and bikes alike fly around on the circuit using gravitic-stabilizers, magnetic rails and plasma thrusters trying to win first place. For all of the safety procedures however, people were still killed in the tournaments, there was nearly a ban of further orbital-tracks when one driver’s magnetic-rails and stabilizers cataclysmically failed and he was sent helplessly into the maelstrom of Jupiter. After that point, tugships were positioned around the track with ready tractor-technology to stop any driver from falling the same way. “We’ll see,” Viggo replied after a moment, “but I’m sure I have the more training.” Alyson laughed, “I don’t doubt that!” They passed very little in the way of interesting rooms or relevant chambers; the system of the engineering decks of a Longboat class combustion ship was a simple one. The only factories and processing plants onboard were all combined into the engines; all waste and used supplies are dumped into the engines to become fuel that powers the ship along, and all food, clothing and equipment are stashed onboard before the ship leaves its last orbital dock. The only rooms in this section of the ship were technician and engineer’s dorms and barracks, which were little different from the guards’ own. One thing they both noticed was that their world was slowly tilting again, and they had started to walk down a slight slope. Why exactly this was the case, they were not certain, but it was possible the ship had cracked structurally on impact and had bent, but the strong interior

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bulkheads and deck beams had retained most of its original structure, whether or not it would stay that way neither Viggo nor Alyson knew. “How do you suppose we’ll get off the planet?” Viggo shook his head and looked grimly ahead at Alyson question, “I don’t know… and I have thought about it too… As for getting home, that’s another matter.” “I don’t suppose we ever will,” Alyson added disconsolately. Viggo looked at her sharply, “We will, we’ll find a way. Hell, if this world is habitable, I might just stay here!” he smiled. She nodded and smiled too, but it was a narrow smile; the thought of never seeing her family and Callisto again saddened her, but equally did the thought of her even being alive brought her spirits back up with retribution. They passed around another three slight ‘left-right’ turns in the corridor, in the first there was nothing, in the second there was a corpse of a technician but no blood stained his body, but around the third there was darkness awaiting them. Viggo stopped and pointed forward, “Looks like the lights are out down there, you better get the torch out,” Alyson quickly unclipped the torch from her pack and flicked it on while Viggo intensified the glow of his quad-rod. The four electro-rods together created a fierce brightness when all tuned up, and the darkness was quickly expelled. Yet shadows still danced manically around them, discarded machinery sent coiling creatures of monolith proportions over the walls, while corpses blinked and gasped from the floor. “Did I ever tell you I didn’t like the dark?” Alyson said nervously, watching the shadows distort around her. Viggo smirked slightly, “Did I ever tell you, I don’t like it much either?” They continued on together side by side, not letting one move out of sight of the other and checking each others backs, darkly corners and tributary passages to the left and right invited ambush. The dark was not only visibly unnerving, but back where the red warning lamps licked the corridors there had been a droning whirr from those very lights, but now in the darkness, only their footsteps thudded noisily on the deck plates, echoing ghostly up and down in the silence. Their lights served them well, and their progress was relatively unhindered in the dark, except for a moment were fear and anxiety had taken a stranglehold on Alyson; she had sworn she had seen a man down one of the passages and they had gone to check. As forethought, Viggo left behind one bright electro-rod where they were before they set off in further dark, and when they were close to loosing slight of it, they headed 233

back. Alyson remained convinced her mind had fled back to the safe lights of previous passages. Anxiety struck at them again after a long while walking in silence. At first Viggo had ignored it, but when the hollow plopping sound echoed again he and Alyson stopped dead in their tracks to listen. “Did you hear that?” he asked with little breath. “Yes,” she whispered in response. They strained their ears as nothing happened again, but then the same plopping noise echoed up the corridor from ahead of them. It was like a stone or water droplets hitting the surface of an underground lake; it was such a small sound yet it bounced and echoed heavily with a metallic force around them. “Water,” Alyson asked, “down here?” Viggo began to walk forward again saying, “I didn’t think the ship had water reservoirs onboard, I always knew they simply recycled waste.” Alyson’s lip curled at the mention of ‘waste’, “You shouldn’t have told me that…” “Well we always knew that the water in the mess hall tasted foul,” Viggo replied with a shadow masked smile, “in fact, the shower water I took into these water-bags tastes better than that stuff!” Alyson eyes gleamed in joy as their lights revealed text printed on the wall to the right, “Look! It says that prisoner initiation and the docking ports are directly ahead!” Viggo smiled widely, “That sounds right, so compared to how we originally left the initiation sections, we’ll be coming in on the right side of it.” “Come on, let’s go!” Alyson cried in bliss, moving on quickly. Viggo chased after her and called, all too aware of the slow increase of dripping water from somewhere in the darkness, “Wait! There might be— ” Alyson was heard gasping and Viggo saw her stop ahead of him. As he came up to her side his quad-rod and her torch revealed his prediction. The passage was still sloping and in fact they had not realised in their excitement that the floor was dipping downward more steeply now, but not only that, Alyson now stood on the very brink of a lake of clear water filling the passage as it sloped down. “It’s flooded…” Viggo whispered grimly, “I don’t know how… but it might well be throughout all of the lower decks…”

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Alyson remained quiet at his side, the tip of her boots surrounded in the glassy waters. No one left alive onboard knew why the ship was slowly flooding from the lower decks upward, but it had begun since the ship had crash landed, and neither Viggo nor Alyson had known that it was slowly filling the ship. Too slowly to be of any major problem, but it had been enough to completely submerge the docking sections of the ship. Viggo could see clearly the rest of the passage ahead of them, and the surface of the water was visible for several metres before the passage was completely filled, perhaps had the corridor not been so tilted, they could have made it to the docks with available air, but not now. He felt cheated, they had travelled all this way only to stop without choice, and even then their journey still continued ahead of them; stretched out and clear, but impassable. Viggo shook his head and gave Alyson a quick glance as he turned to look into the darkness behind him. “Well, I suppose there’s no option but to go back… Perhaps there’s another route that’s not flooded, maybe bulkheads and electronic doors which sealed around this corridor contain the water. Or perhaps it’s all in vain, maybe we should head up rather than down…” As he was talking, and regretting every word he had to say, Alyson was pulling her backpack off and ripped out an empty soup pack and one plastic tie they had got from the kitchen. Quickly she had turned on the torch and put it into the bag before clipping the bag shut with the tie, sealing the air in, making it watertight. “Alyson what are you doing?” Viggo asked suddenly, seeing her completing the torch. She replied shortly, “I’m going in.” “What!?” He reached and grabbed her arm, “You aren’t going in there Alyson! It could be miles to the docking ports and the water is cold, and you’ll never make it without air!” “I’ll be fine,” she replied stonily, ignoring his concern, removing her uniform’s armour plates and started on her boots. “And what am I suppose to do if you make it?” he asked darkly, “Or how will I know if you’ve made it at all?” Alyson didn’t look at him as she made her reply, in fact her eyes were forever forward, staring at the water. “I’ll come back and tell you that I’ve made it, and then you’ll have to come with me.” Viggo barred his teeth before replying toughly, “I can’t swim, remember!”

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“Then you’ll just have to learn!” Alyson replied sourly to him, blue eyes flashing dangerously at him, “I will make it Viggo, and so will you!” He looked coldly at her as he stepped back. Alyson had removed her boots and socks and now turned to the water to work on her uniform clasps and zips. Viggo looked horrified, “Now what are you doing?” Alyson replied flatly, “I can’t swim in a Kevlar uniform Viggo!” Again he lapsed into silence as she undressed to her underwear before picking up the torch from the ground. The glance she gave him finally was emotionless, and perhaps the most inhuman expression he had ever seen with her. He spoke in response with a grave tone, “I’m not loosing you again, Alyson, not a third time.” Her face didn’t betray or give anything; there wasn’t anything left in her to show. “You’re not going to.” He watched with crawling anxiety and dread as she walked forward into the expansive surface of water, fearing that she was thinking on an irrational and foolish level brought on by doubt and her own personal fears of failure. But he wasn’t a psychologist, that was only his opinion, and his opinion hadn’t been enough to stop her. Watching her walking into that water, the glassy dark surface creeping slowly up her legs as the torch shone from its plastic shielding like a lonely beacon. She looked so frail and delicate, despite the muscle she had gained and toned in the past months, and the slightness and whiteness of her underwear only made it worse; even now he could see her shivering as the water crept over her hips and up her torso. “Good luck,” he said quietly, knowing now that nothing he could say could make her stay. At first it was just like entering her swimming pool back on Cythera station, but the water was so cold, perhaps made more so by the surrounding steel bulkheads and long, unadorned walls. Her skin chilled and her bones wined cautiously as the water embraced her bare legs with icicle hands. She gritted her teeth momentarily as the water slipped over her hips, immediately saturating her pants in a way her old swimsuit would have prevented. But she persisted forward, telling herself the chill will pass, and the water soon swirled around her body up to her neck. Now she knew it was time to swim; her feet felt light on the decking below and the ceiling was close to the top of her head – a claw of claustrophobia gripped her heart in a flash when she saw that. Without hesitation and renewed vigour 236

she brought her head down into the chilly water and opened her eyes to view the submerged tunnel ahead. The beam of light from her enclosed torch lit the gloomy darkness as she swam forward down the corridor. Her physical effort now overran the chill in her skin and bones as she began to move in a steady rhythm. Dead cabling and light pieces of machinery drifted like metallic reeds and seaweed and she avoided entanglement in their idle, probing fingertips. As she had expected, there were bodies adrift in the gloom, but many of them were sunken and floating freely on the floor, their bodily air filled with water, weighing them down like ballast blocks. Alyson swam on, forever watching the walls for any notices and printed words directing her to her goal. Fortunately it was not far to go, unlike Viggo had feared, and she passed a doorway that opened into the initiation passageway, the very chamber she had been scanned multiple times and told to strip before the eyes of many male prison guards. She did not shiver at the thought; she had gotten over that a long time ago. Problems arose when she found the electronic door ahead shut. She swam up to it quickly; vital bubbles of air escaping her lips, and found the doors were ajar slightly. She wrenched them open quickly, arms flinching from the strain and swam on, more bubbles dissipated into the gloom. Alyson fought on, realising now how much distance she had indeed covered and how she had received no air during her journey, only to find another door shut, this time it was jammed. She struggled with the doors for a moment, afraid now of her air, and then swam down to the floor to collect a heavy tool from a metal trolley. With all the force she could muster she slammed the metal into one of the small glass windows in the door. It cracked. Again she struck it and the second blow burst the window and the glass shattered into the room beyond slowly. Terrified, Alyson realised the room beyond was flooded to the ceiling also, but it was the very room that the docking lift shaft was located! She could see the very gateway she had been escorted through by Jefferson all that time ago! She swam to the small window of the door, and poked her head through. She started to pull her shoulders through diagonally but when she had such managed it, a knife of remaining glass slit her upper chest, just below the collar bone. She cried and released all of the air from her mouth as she dragged herself back into the corridor as the water turned crimson with her own blood. Desperately she turned and started swimming back down the corridor, fortunately she had not inhaled water into her lungs in her shock, but she felt horribly breathless and weak. 237

Swimming fiercely now, images of a nightmare she once had while in her suppressed sleep after the crash landing, a nightmare where she had drowned in blood, became all too apparent as red smoke filtered over her shoulders and through her hair. Her hand never flinched off the torch handle in its slippery bag, and she retained the glowing beam of hopeful light ahead of her. But she couldn’t remember how far she had to go. Viggo sat, head against the wall of the corridor, staring at the pile of Alyson’s possessions she had left behind. His left hand was flitting through the water at his side and his eyes found no focus. He’d felt like this two times before, yet this time he didn’t have a body to be sorrowful over, and that made it worse. How could she do this to him? Surely she could understand the stresses he had been through with the two previous times she had nearly died? How could she risk her life in such a foolish and selfish way? He glanced at the water, lit by his and her quad-rod; there was a flickering light within. He looked back to the floor again sullenly. Suddenly he sprung up and looked to the water. The light was Alyson’s torch! It was flickering around under the water desperately. Without any indecision Viggo ploughed into the water, weighed with his armour and his Kevlar uniform, he felt suddenly uneasy as his clothes became sodden and slick. But Alyson was getting closer now, and he hurried further, splashing and crashing before bringing his head under the water to see. In only a few moments he extended his hand to grab her arm and pull her forward. The torch freed from her hand and floated on the surface. Viggo hauled her up out of the water, she was choking and coughing and shivering when she was free of the water’s icy grasp, but Viggo turned white as he saw blood cascading over her breast and turning her pure white underwear a sickly pink. “Alyson, you’re bleeding! I’ll get some gauze!” He sat her down on her discarded uniform and tore open his pack, forever hearing her whispering and inaudible words. He found the strip of gauze and ripped a section off and came back to her. “V-Viggo?” she murmured. “Hold on, Alyson,” he said as calmly as he could; he feared for her life yet a part of him despised her carelessness. He dried her chest of water and blood with the sleeve of his uniform and sealed the wide bloody tear

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in her flesh with the gauze that stuck to her skin securely. Hopefully, Viggo thought, it wouldn’t take too long for the gauze to do its magic. “V-Viggo?” she asked again, bringing her arms over her chest. “Here,” he said, dragging her uniform top up and over her shoulders, trying to rub warmth into her as he did. “Does it hurt?” he asked. She shook her head; “N-no… it doesn’t… actually…” her eyes flitted around as if she was thinking too many thoughts at once. She was in shock, and the pain of her wound was nonexistent with the numbness of her body. Viggo quietly brought out the shard of plasti-glass they used to open soup packs and managed to cut part of the sleeve off his own uniform. He cut it open and used the material to dry her legs. “V-Viggo… I didn’t… I didn’t get there… it was blocked…” He didn’t respond at all, only focused on drying her. She stared uneasily at him as his silence fell on her accusingly; she sniffed and looked around absently, gripping her self tighter. “I’m…” she stopped for a moment, bowing her head, “I’m… I’m sorry Viggo… I should have seen…” He looked up and saw the terrible sorrow that now racked her face; he stiffened in unwanted surprise and guilt. He murmured, “Its okay Alyson… you’re okay…” She blinked away tears that were breaking through the moisture already over her face, “But I didn’t see you, Viggo! I didn’t see if you were ‘okay’…! And you weren’t!” she wept, “I trusted Daniel over you… and he only wants to kill us both…” She dropped her head shamefully and Viggo released the piece of material and looked to her regrettably. Earlier he had cursed her for not noticing his own strain, but now – if not before – she realised what she was unwittingly doing. Viggo’s spite turned suddenly to pity; he now didn’t see it necessary for her to blame herself, and now he saw her as the fragile girl he had sworn to protect all those months ago. Sitting there immobile, Viggo saw her crying, knees tight to her chest, barely clothed and head down. He felt almost powerless to do anything; certainly no words could help her now. Slowly Viggo shifted forward and onto his knees, bringing himself up close with her. She still had her head down, and Viggo reached with one hand to lift her chin up slowly, Alyson looked at him with big glassy blue eyes, their overriding despair mixed with an edge of confusion as he moved his face closer. She felt his lips press to hers, and she embraced them in return. 239

The kiss only lasted a few heart beating moments, and after those moments Viggo released her, suddenly seeing his error and slid back from her. Alyson sat motionless, her eyes clearer but half closed, still caught in the instant of his embrace. He spoke quietly, averting his eyes, “I’m sorry Alyson… I didn’t mean to do that…” She opened her eyes fully and replied sincerely, “Don’t worry Viggo… But thank you; it was what I needed…” Viggo remained quiet, and sat back as his head fell forward. Alyson watched him for a moment before a shiver reminded herself of her cold, and she pulled the edges of the uniform around her tightly. They both sat in silence, for a long time.

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Part 3 Chapter 1: In the Dark The darkness dissipated with the gradual blinking of her eyes, and through the sparse curtain of white hair she saw the artificial glow of emergency lamps from the next room. The light slowly brought her eyes around the guards’ barracks sleeping quarters, all bathed in thick shadow, and she smiled while shifting on the small but comfortable bunk; the itchy material twice as good as her old cell bed, but made her bare skin crawl from head to toe. Something shifted behind her, and she grinned impiously again. Drew was surprised at how the gloom and the loneliness had affected her; here she lay naked on a bunk with a mountain of a man asleep beside her on a bunk he alone barely fitted on. She had put it all down to loneliness and the strain of being always on the verge of being killed or lost in the dark of the ship, but disbelief always overtook her when she thought of the two of them willingly exposed themselves for any passer-by to take advantage. Of course, she and Amos had stashed their twin-rods under the bunk beforehand. Both of them had been tired the day before – at least to them it was a new day currently – and they sought a place to rest. They saw notices indicating a guards’ barracks ahead, and it was on their route to the command deck, so they approached with practiced caution. Within the barracks the lights were already on and the supplies were being looted by a small pack of weary uniformed prisoners. Not willing to share their spoils the group attacked, though hesitant of approaching the monstrous Amos at first. It was a good fight, they outnumbered her and Amos three to one, but the big man could have killed all of them. Drew used her developing skills with the twin-rod excellently and quickly the looters had been finished, even though both of them had taken blows of their own. That was the previous night, and after that Drew had found herself sleeping with Amos, their passion fuelled by adrenaline and expelled anxiety of the past few days of relentless trekking through the ship’s decks. She had always found herself dangerously attracted to Amos’ huge physique, and there was nothing romantic or graceful about their activities. Now she lay on her side, back against the sleeping Herakles, and she caressed her skin with nimble fingertips. It wasn’t like she was a

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Sophia, and she saw it highly unlikely she and Amos would do it again, it was just a good night out of so many bad or broken ones. Shifting, Drew sat up and stretched her arms with the common creaks of her weary bones, knuckles cracking as she flexed her fingers and then stood up to leave Amos on the bunk. She padded through the mess and trail of clothes left over from last night and went straight through the main chamber, ignoring the six strangled and electrocuted bodies littered there, and then into the showers. Amos stirred awake when he felt the bunk shifting slightly, and he blinked to his right to see Drew’s erect back facing him, her hands pulling and clipping the brace of her bra. He grinned and lightly observed his nakedness before quipping, “Quite the night, eh…” Drew looked over her shoulder, white hair half concealing her bright blue eye, and spotted the scar on Amos’ lower lip where she had bitten him. “The killing or the sex?” she asked, Amos shrugged as he shifted his weight on the bunk, “Well… I suppose the sex was good too.” Drew shook her head with a smirk and stood up, “You take nothing seriously do you, Amos?” He levered himself up on his elbows and observed her thong-clasped rump as she began pulling her uniform trousers up. “I take you seriously,” he said with another grin, and then added, acknowledging a withered look she gave him, “most of the time anyway.” “Stop eyeing me up and get dressed will you,” she said sharply, “we have a place to get to.” Drew was already fully dressed and packing items into her backpack when Amos emerged from the barracks fully clothed. He rubbed the back of his head and squinted in the light, “My clothes were all over the place, did you have to throw them around so much?” Drew looked shortly at him and continued packing, “If you remember correctly, it was you who did all that.” “Oh…” he glanced back at the now respectable barracks. Amos looked back to her again and asked, “So we’re sticking with the plan then?” She nodded firmly, “Yep, we head straight forward from here and hopefully today we can get off the prison blocks altogether!” Amos glanced around, “I hope you’re right about this, we might just run into an army of rallying guard-types outside the prison blocks.” 242

Drew struggled and slung her pack onto her shoulder saying, “Why else did we split up with Alyson and Viggo? The two of us will find it easier to go unnoticed compared to four of us rambling around.” “You’re right there,” Amos replied with a smirk, snatching up his pack from a nearby bench. Drew absently took a pill from her trouser pocket and swallowed it with a swig of water from a water-bag. She was pleased with her waterbag invention, using an empty soup packet, but she was also glad she had taken some of those pills from the medical centre they past by a few days ago. She didn’t want any repercussions from her and Amos’ last night. “Right, let’s go,” she said, turning for the wide open jaws of the barracks and the crimson corridors beyond. Amos paused and looked at the bodies that surrounded him, “Uh, shouldn’t we do something with them, Drew?” She paused and looked back at him with slight confusion, “Why? All the rest of the ship is littered with corpses, and we’ve looted them, so what difference does it make?” Amos shrugged again before following her out of the barracks, heavy booted footfalls magnified with his own massive weight. Their plan was simple; to follow all of the ‘Command Deck’ signs until they reached their destination. In this dark and uninviting labyrinth Drew was glad no psycho had run around the ship, painting out invaluable directions as a joke. Without the command deck map which Alyson had given to Sergeant MacLeod – wherever he was – the multiple printed signs were a godsend for Drew. It was surprising for both of them as they encountered no one down the darkly red lit corridors; they had expected more people as they headed away from the back of the ship and towards the non-prison sections of the vessel. It made Drew feel a little uneasy, but she did not show it. If she had known it, their travelling was much more communicative than that of Viggo and Alyson, even though it was mostly Amos who talked and Drew who responded. But when a quiet had fallen them, she asked, “Did you have any family Amos; I don’t think you’ve told me of any?” He looked at her slightly astonished, “I must have done! Never mind, maybe not. I have an older brother and a younger sister; though I should say I did have an older brother… my mother and father and sister are still around though.” “What happened to your brother?” 243

Amos clicked his teeth with his tongue and said slowly, “Well… my parents always said he was the ‘black-sheep’ of the family, and they weren’t wrong. He was arrested for drug smuggling out of Europa, a deal which also got me arrested when I was young… I can’t remember how old I was… but I was young enough to be let off. My brother though, hmm, he was bunged on one of these prison ships and blasted off into space… We never saw him again.” Drew paused for a moment, analysing his deep tone of regret, before continuing, “And now you are following him.” Amos laughed flatly, “Aye and it didn’t do my parents any good. But I always thought that they had little Jade to go and be successful; she was the smart one.” “Your sister?” “Yeah, she was definitely smarter than me and my brother put together,” Amos laughed. “What was your brother’s name?” Drew questioned. “Zach, Zach Karl O’Donnell. My sister was Jade Michelle O’Donnell, I think she was going to go on and do something intelligent like journalism or something.” He shrugged, eyes downcast, “Kinda wish I could see if she’s made it.” Drew nudged off his regret with a slight shrug; she wasn’t one for being sympathetic with or for anyone; “I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, my parents were all screwed up anyway.” “How?” Amos now asked. Drew smirked in recollection, “Well my mum was a wreck to start with, she spent all her money on illegal drugs from Io and openly said she didn’t care what I did with my life just as long as I didn’t take drugs… you get the picture.” Amos quirked an eyebrow before asking, “And your dad… a Satanist or something?” “Close,” answered Drew quickly, “he was a hitman, a sharp-shooter mercenary type. He sometimes got wound up with the odd planet-side gun battle or gang-war, but he always had time for me… unlike my mother. He taught me how to shoot various pistols and later rifles and disrupters; I guess that’s how I ended up getting such a reputation for gun fighting.” “One-Shot Drew,” Amos mused with a smirk, “I suppose both our family backgrounds are pretty obvious really.” 244

She shrugged absently, “Probably, but I didn’t expect you to have a brother and an intelligent sister.” Amos looked hurt, “I’ll take that as a compliment…” Drew smiled slightly, “You never know, maybe she’ll be the one to pop the lid on what’s happening to all of the prison ships, like exposing whatever Government Processing is.” Amos laughed, even though her tone was quite sincere, and replied, “That would be highly ironic saying how my family has always worked!” As they travelled they found themselves passing through one of the many prison block sewage factories. They were currently in block C, not far from sector ten, and these factories were required to digest waste produced from the prison sectors and guard barracks, before pumping it all down through a vast network of pipelines and into the combustion engines’ furnaces. Everything unused was thrown into those furnaces; nothing was wasted, fluid was sent through processing and filters to be turned into water for all manners of uses on board. Unfortunately it seemed that with the main power core offline, the factories were not mixing and churning the waste as they would normally; Amos and Drew had peered into one of the several mixing vats from a high steel catwalk to see the remains of the waste solid and unmoving. Amos retrieved a screwdriver and threw it into the solid sludge. Sickeningly, the tool plopped as it burst a thick film of solid waste that had congealed over the still fluid bile beneath, a wind of fetid stench greeted them in response. They moved quickly on. Drew had the idea that going through the waste factories would be safer than passing through the habitation or sector decks as they would not encounter anyone on the way. She had been right; there wasn’t a soul down the catwalks or tributary areas. There was perhaps a mile squared of sewage factory to cover, and it took longer as some parts of the catwalks had broken loose of their hinges and bolts; clearly the crash landing brought about more chaos than Drew had considered. After climbing through and over these obstructions and finally breaking away from the foul atmosphere and surroundings of the factories, they both found themselves back in the red lit corridors; signs indicated the command decks straight ahead. “The floor’s tilting to the side,” Amos observed quietly as they walked. Drew nodded, the floor was indeed tilted to one side, but she said nothing; a small amount of uncertainly crept into her as some of the emergency lights were offline. 245

With her growing uncertainty they both became very quiet; Amos’ observation being the only thing said for several minutes as they walked down a long shadow infested, tilted corridor. It was when the lights stopped altogether up ahead that Amos spoke again, “This doesn’t look good, Drew…” The light of their electro-rods seemed to stop and reveal something large filling the corridor, Drew’s eyes narrowed in grim realisation. “It’s blocked,” she hissed. They stopped short before a huge mound of cabling and steel plating, it seemed that the ceiling had collapsed into the passageway and now stopped all procedure. Amos stepped up to it and begun to pull at a cluster of tight cables; they seemed pinned in place, stretched from ceiling to floor, but even then Amos’ strength was able to rip them aside. Drew stepped forward with her rod’s light and peered at the debris as Amos struggled with something further in. He grunted and looked over it all, “Its solid, something else is in here I think.” Drew reached inside the rubble with one hand saying, “I think so…” Amos watched her as she pulled her arm out again; her fingers were soiled with dust or dirt. “I think there’s stone, or rock back there.” “Stone?” Amos questioned in surprise, “What stone is there on a space craft?” Drew shook her head before he finished, “I think this stuff is from the planet Amos, perhaps the ship kicked up debris on its crash and some of its punched through the hull.” She dusted her hands and they both looked at the blockade levelly. Sighing, Drew shrugged and turned towards the corridor again, “I guess we look for another route, but something tells me more corridors are going to be like this.” “Perhaps we should look for Alyson and Viggo again?” Amos suggested, “tell them the news and we can all work together to get out.” Drew glanced at him thoughtfully with one blue eye, considering whether or not joining together as a large, noisy group of four was such a good idea. She nodded slowly, “I think we will, eventually, but first lets try and find another route; we might get lucky.” On their route back towards the closest elevator shaft down, Amos and Drew both heard steady footfalls from ahead of them. In the knowledge that they might encounter others in the darkness of the ship, 246

they had both remained moderately quiet to hear threats before the threat heard them, and it had paid off. They were at a junction of four corridors now, and the sounds were rising from the right and Drew and Amos immediately slid to one side, close to the wall. It sounded like an army, a great drumbeat of many booted footsteps walking in crisp unison. There were slight voices too, drowned out by the throbbing footfalls, many of them rough and determined, others however seemed lacking and uncertain, breaking the effect of the mighty machine approaching them. Amos whispered lightly, “It’s a guard squad.” Drew nodded; both she and Amos were aware by several mad prisoners they had met, that several prison guards had united and strove to survive as ‘hunting’ units. She had expected to find one sooner or later, but she had hoped it wouldn’t be now. “Hide,” she commanded, “they are coming this way.” Quickly, they snuck back into the shadows and into an open doorway filled with blackness. Drew lowered the glow of her electro-rod, as did Amos, and in the dark they strained to listen to the guard’s conversations. “Sir, are you sure this is a good idea,” second lieutenant Jefferson asked cautiously, “I never trusted Daniel when he was in one of my cells, now I trust him even less.” Prison Captain Thomas Erskine ground his teeth and glanced down at his first lieutenant Clare Gellar who walked beside him. They had been trekking for sometime now by orders of the major, and Daniel had then left them saying he had ‘business’ to attend to. Erskine’s men had become nearly unbearable to control since then, as Daniel had promised that ‘the demon’ would not kill anyone under his command, and since Daniel was no longer with them, how were they to be assured that it was still the case? “Just keep quiet Jefferson, the major and his pet may well be following us, a test to see if we are loyal or not; so keep it pinned!” Gellar looked up at him, her eyes shadowed under the rim of her guard helmet, “I must confess sir, I don’t trust him either; we know nothing about him.” Erskine stopped and his grim and chiselled face turned flat, “Squad, halt.” At his command, the squad stopped moving at the hub of four separate corridors. He sighed, “Understand this, squad, I do not trust the major either; how the man has a Sackhiem 66 assassin’s pistol onboard a gun-

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secure prison ship, I do not know. What I do know is that he had control over that thing, and that unsettles me more than the dart gun!” There was a quiet murmur through the crowd and Gellar stood rigid. “Now we have to follow his orders if we are to survive at all, or else that beast will be on us in a second. I doubt the major would care if we died; there are plenty more guard units wandering around in this tin can that he could ‘acquire’. “We are doing this to survive, remember that.” The short speech did little to improve the mood; the guards behind Erskine remained tentative and uneasy. In all of the consuming darkness surrounding them and alliance with a mad major controlling a demon didn’t seem trustworthy to any of them, and it was only a matter of time before Daniel would betray them. Lieutenant Gellar edged herself closer to her sergeant as they started walking again and whispered up to him, “You’re not going to get them all though this… you know that.” Erskine glanced at her with a cold expression, and his tone was merciless, “I know, but I would have all of them killed if it meant both of us escaping to safety.” “Does that also include evading the major and his pet?” she persisted closely. Erskine grinned darkly, “I have no intention of staying with that man any longer than is necessary.” The whole squad of agitated and silently plotting guards marched past a dark and uninviting storage room doorway, completely obvious to the couple who hid cautiously inside. Drew’s sleek, thin face and long fold of white hair peered round the doorframe to check the area was clear. Stepping out, Amos close behind her, Drew sighed, “What was that all about?” Amos watched down the way the squad had passed them and answered, “Sounds like they’ve had a run in with the scavenger…” “And more importantly, Daniel,” Drew added spitefully. “This is bad Amos; if Daniel has got one squad of armed guards under his finger and on the prowl, he’ll be using them to hunt Viggo and Alyson… and us.” “Just as well they aren’t doing a very thorough job; they walked straight past us!” Amos half joked. Drew shook her head, not so much at his misplaced humour but at the turn of events that had just unfolded. “We have more than enough reason 248

to find Alyson and Viggo now, as quickly as possible,” Drew said after a moment, “but we can’t rush only to miss them; this place is big, and we can’t afford to run round in circles.” Drew didn’t like her plan, and the way Amos grunted in answer didn’t improve her dwindling optimism much. But she had some shreds of faith in her, faith in their chances of meeting up with the others quickly, even though the flipside of that particular coin was if they didn’t find them quickly enough, then they wouldn’t find them at all… Drew would then know that fate had damned them to failure. Amos shrugged as if knocking off the mental blows Drew was throwing out and said smartly, “I could’ve taken all of those guards on; they would have been like a handful of sticks for me!” Drew smirked lightly and led him off in the opposite direction. You’ll have your chance, she thought absently as they walked, somehow she knew things were going to start happening real fast, and real soon.

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Chapter 2: Avalanche The hollow, lifeless eyes of the Administrator stared out in distorted shock; her head lulled back over the edge of the table, so much so it looked as though her neck was broken, while her void-like brown eyes were partially hidden by the pale skin of her upper eyelids. Alyson’s hand swept roughly over her face to close that unsettling glare of disbelieving pain, but discovered that the woman had been dead for days and the skin of her eyelids had stiffened with her eyeballs dried like sandpaper. Alyson slid to her full height and turned to Viggo who walked calmly through the wreckage that was the medical centre. They were up several decks from the flooded docking ports, and had travelled a couple of days forward through the ship, and were now within the engineer habitation decks. Having failed to exit the ship, they had both decided to seek out Drew and Amos and with them attempt to break through the engine levels and into the forward section of the Rigor Mortis. It sounded good, but when Viggo and Alyson had travelled along the bottom decks to the engine regions, corridors and passages were smashed and blocked by debris and rock, rock which seemed to have been punched through from below the ship. With this, both of them headed up into the habitation decks for food and rest, hoping the next day would bring them good fortune. No such luck. Viggo looked over to Alyson as she spoke; also realising his boots were sticking to a great dry mat of blood on the steel panelled floor, “The scavenger did this…” Alyson said coldly, looking at the horrific tear that opened the woman’s body as it lay upon the table. Alyson had seen enough dead bodies already, and so had Viggo, for her to accept this sort of merciless bloodshed. “So Daniel was involved too.” Viggo paced through the medical centre, casting an eye towards an empty office area sectioned off by a wall and door of plasti-glass. “There were a lot more than Daniel alone, Alyson,” She looked up at him, and then to the office, “How do you know?” Viggo stopped next to her and waved a hand over the bloody floor, “Besides our own footprints, there are more than just the monster and Daniel… it’s more like a squad.” He walked to the door of the office and gestured inside, Alyson peered through the window and he added,

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“And I doubt if Daniel’s the master of this thing that he would throw-up while watching the show.” Alyson cringed and looked back to Viggo, “How did you know to look for these things?” Viggo smirked lightly, “Comes with being a cop, natural habit.” Alyson sighed and looked back to the Administrator, “You know… I almost pity her; no one should die like that.” Viggo glanced around the room a bit, noting all of the misplaced furniture, the dents in the plasti-glass office windows and the erratic splatters and sprays of dried blood all over the room, clearly the bitch that had tormented Viggo for years hadn’t died easily. “Hmm,” he replied flatly. “Well there isn’t much more we can do here,” Alyson began breathing out anew, “I still don’t know how we’ll find Drew and Amos though.” Viggo nodded, “We may find them again,” he then added more strongly, “but I think our first objective is to get off the ship alive.” “Yes,” she said quietly, hiding the despair by gripping her quad-rod tighter, “Come on; let’s get out of here.” So they both exited the empty and battered medical bay and back into the crimson lit realm of the passages. Alyson had felt herself gain some strength since discovering the docking ports flooded and unreachable; she had broken down in misery then, but Viggo had brought her back and she had felt renewed with a sense of grim determination she had only felt after killing her first madman. But she suddenly felt despair creeping upon her again as she stepped from the medical bay; seeing the Administrator – the most powerful figures in her prison life – slaughtered in such a way by Daniel’s diabolical creature, made her feel so small and insignificant, and more importantly, vulnerable. Why should Daniel or his scavenger even flinch before killing her if they could so easily murder someone of such standing as the Administrator? She shuddered and flicked her eyes over to Viggo as they walked side-by-side, and remembered his kiss he had given her when despair had closed around her. It wasn’t as romantic as it was reassuring, but that was what had given it its power. Alyson had only kissed one man before, and even then she now thought of herself as a girl then, and it didn’t really mean much, not in comparison with Viggo’s embrace. She told herself never to tell Viggo of such things, and he hadn’t even asked her anything of the sort, which was both good and bad; she was pleased that she didn’t need to tell him everything, but a part of her desperately wanted to 251

express every little detail. It was uncomfortable, but she would try and live with it, perhaps until they got off this hellish ship. Viggo glanced over to Alyson as they walked in silence down the corridors. He had heard several strange noises from the darkness of branching passages but he paid more attention to Alyson’s rather prolonged silences that seemed to crush both of them. Alyson heard these noises too, but almost always they never came to anything to worry about; both of them had gotten used to the fact that a ruinous prison ship, dashed upon some planet, was going to creak and twist with the instability of a grounded boat. He didn’t know what was wrong for Alyson, it seemed that only a few hours ago that she was visibly improving and it was only since they found the Administrator that she had become strangely silent. He decided to suggest something, “Perhaps we should find somewhere to rest,” it was more of a command than a suggestion, Viggo realised too late. Alyson looked up at him with surprise in her eyes, as if she’d forgotten he was with her and more importantly, seemed to be afraid of the fact. “Oh…” her eyes flickered around, “That’s a good idea Viggo,” she added quickly with stuttered strength. Viggo knew that they had both avoided sleeping for sometime, and it must have been over twelve hours of walking; they had covered nearly half the length of the Rigor Mortis without stop, and they had punched a sizable hole in their supplies of soup packs. What they both needed was sleep, and as they were in the engineers’ habitation decks, there would be plenty of quarters around for the taking. After a few corners, they found an empty and dimly lit engineer quarters. There was little difference from the guards’ quarters; a barrack of bunk beds, a small mess area and two shower areas. Almost immediately Alyson sought out the bunks, barely casting a glance over the rest of the facilities. Dumping her pack and quad-rod next to her chosen bunk she sat down and sighed in stunted relief. Viggo paced into the doorway and watched her intently, “Are you okay?” “Yes,” Alyson sighed. “You’re right, I just need sleep, I’ll be better in the morning.” Viggo seemed uncertain whether to leave her alone, but told himself that she would be fine and that she could take care of herself; she always used to. “I’m going to take a shower, this uniform feels two sizes too small…” he smiled lightly as Alyson nodded. 252

“Okay,” she called sleepily as he disappeared from sight. Sitting in silence, Alyson opened her pack and reached inside. In her hand came one of the technical maps that Daniel had drawn, it was of ‘the medical core’ somewhere inside the Rigor Mortis. She didn’t even know there was a medical core onboard, but it must be of particular use and size if it was worthy of its own mapping. Lying down on the bunk with a sigh, Alyson looked at the map with quite unfocused attention, trying to analyse the many precise lines and routes marked out, decks after decks of corridors, lacing together with elevators and maintenance vents. Eventually she felt sleep overwhelm her, just after she managed to tuck the map into the leg pocket of her uniform. So Alyson lay flat on the lower bunk in the forest of empty beds that filled the dark barrack room. She blinked as she stared directly up, hearing the spray from Viggo’s shower somewhere in the distance, and thought about everything that had happened to both of them in recent days. She blinked, her hand sliding into the front of her uniform, feeling the coarse regen-gauze that was stuck over the deep cut across her chest when she had tried to reach the docking ports. She blinked as she remembered seeing the scavenger in the walk-in freezer, recalling how crystals had formed over its back and head as if reacting from the cold, remembering how cold she felt when death had approached her. She blinked, and blinked, and blinked again before realising she was never going to sleep like this. The water had stopped, there was only a resonating and alluring dripping sound coming to her ears. Looking around she saw that the barracks was small and lit with one light, one light over the one and only bed which she lay upon. She couldn’t see Viggo in that tiny room, so she got up and wandered casually through and into the mess area, but that room was empty too, no sign of anyone. In time measured only as a heartbeat, she saw the mess hall decorated in dashes of blood, smeared all around with tables dented and twisted, her own body strewn over a table. She turned away from the empty mess hall absently and headed for the shower areas, the dripping was still echoing oddly throughout the corridor connecting the mess with the two rooms. She glanced over her shoulder at a strange alien growl, and the thought of seeing a huge blueskinned figure hulking just in the corner of her eye, but there was nothing there. They were all figments of her crazed imagination, brought on by tiredness and loneliness, and a good warm shower would align her 253

confused mind. Reaching the showers quicker than she would have expected, time seemed to quicken and warp as she pulled off her boots and unbuckled her armour plates. Effortlessly she dropped her uniform’s trousers and stepped out of them nimbly. She began to unzip her top, when two large hands fell to her hips and pulled down her underwear exotically. At first she felt enthralled, the hands passed right down her legs to the floor, even unhooking her pants from her feet. Only when she looked over her shoulder did she gasp in alarm, Viggo’s distorted face leered at her for only a second, disfigured in unnatural delight and perverse lust. Alyson only woke when a force jolted her from behind. Viggo had stirred awake when he had heard Alyson’s uncomfortable shuffling and quiet murmuring from her bunk, and looked across the room too her. He could see her shifting often and had managed to knock the thin bed sheet off in the process. He got up and walked quietly over to her. Just as he was halfway there she screamed and flipped awake upon her bunk, nearly hitting her head on the top bunk in the fierceness of the movement. “Alyson, are you—!?” But her head snapped over to him, seeing him rush forward she fell off the other side of the bunk in blind terror, “No! Stay away from me!” But Viggo was aware and alert, and easily reached her before the deluded woman could even get to her feet. He caught her flailing arms and held them tightly and called, “Alyson, it’s me, Viggo! It was only a dream, you’re all right now!” She looked at him, suddenly subdued in recognising his face and voice, she sighed grimly and looked devastated with tiredness. Viggo eased his grip and then released her arms slowly, then sat back from her as she collected herself from the floor to sit opposite him. “Oh Viggo… it was a terrible thing…” she looked around them, realising only then that they sat beside her bunk on the floor, “I can’t believe I ran from you…” Viggo didn’t look at her as he spoke, “It must have been pretty terrible…” She stared right at him now and when he looked back at her she said sincerely. “I do remember your promise, Viggo.” “What?” he asked, a little too quickly. “You’re promise that you would never let anything happen to me, and I can only believe you with that.” Viggo nodded understandingly, “But I

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can’t see how things are to be good between us… I thought maybe there would be, when you kissed me…” “Alyson, that was—” “The right thing to do,” she interrupted, “It showed you did care for me and you do; I would be dead now had it not been for you.” Viggo inclined his head slightly, “I haven’t forgotten.” “But, I still know that there won’t be anything between us, it wouldn’t be safe, and it wouldn’t be good, and I wouldn’t feel sure… even though I want it.” Viggo looked up at her with her last words and shook his head gravely. “Alyson, I know all of that, but I’d like to think that there can be ‘something’, someday, even if we have to go even further into hell to get it.” “We have to be strong, and be together to get there, and let nothing slow us down or end us completely.” She smiled at him and nodded, and put a hand lightly on his and said, “We’ll make it, together.” Viggo stood up with a sigh of relief, and then swiftly froze, looking over towards the doorway. Alyson looked up at him and saw disbelief and shock scarred over his features. “Viggo, what is it?” she asked, twisting round to see. He spoke through narrowly parted lips, as if he feared even the small movement would be fatal. “Alyson, get your quad-rod…” Alyson’s eyes widened in terror, it was as if her nightmare was being resurrected; in the doorway of the barrack room stood the tall, lean figure of the scavenger. The beast’s twin blades gleamed evilly in the lights of the room, and the expressionless face glared with fiery red eyes towards them. Alyson jumped to her feet, snatching for the quad-rod at the same time, simultaneously the scavenger leapt for her, it’s dense and highly powerful muscles propelled it forward from a standing stance with frightening ease. Viggo swiped the quad-rod from Alyson’s hands and barked, “Get my one and run! Run!” She twisted away and round the bunk as the scavenger came at Viggo like a puma, arms apart in false welcome. Viggo’s charged quad-rod swung up into the creature’s ribbed front and a shrieking electrical charge ignited over the scavenger’s body like a white firestorm. The weight of the creature nearly crushed Viggo into the floor, and the blades almost speared into his sides as he slid purposefully forward onto his back and under the creature as it passed over him. 255

Alyson turned and saw Viggo clamber to his feet, but the creature seemed to rise to its feet with a swift, athletic pivot on one foot. “Alyson, run!” “Watch behind you!” she cried immediately, and saw Viggo swiftly swing the quad-rod round and clobbered the creature in the face with the four metal rods, kicking it back marginally before bolting away in a sprint towards Alyson. “Come on!” he barked, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her through the mess hall and into the corridors, the beast already close behind. Alyson charged her quad-rod to max and glanced back; already the scavenger was pounding forward with immense speed, red eyes seemingly glowing in the crimson flickering of the emergency lights, huge muscles flexing and tightening as if about to burst with animal strength. She barely had breath to spare, but she cried, “It’s catching us!” Viggo pulled them round a corner sharply, Alyson nearly slipping on some slick substance on the floor. The scavenger however, leapt forward and kicked itself off the wall to swing round the corner and pursue them at a heightened pace. Viggo gritted his teeth and had them round two more corners, but heard the creature’s pounding footsteps only increase in tempo, it was like a machine, already Viggo felt his shins ache and his knees buckle. “It’s right on top of us!” Alyson screamed. Viggo had a crazy idea at the sound of her voice, it was unlikely to achieve anything but the situation was so instantaneous and he could not consider alternatives. “Hold on!” With a swift jerk Viggo dragged Alyson to the floor, bringing himself down with her, just as the scavenger made its jumping attack at them from behind. There was a shriek of tortured metal as the creature reached out with blade-mounted hands to touch the walls and stop its rapid descent, but when it was over them, Viggo had jabbed upwards with his quad-rod and sent the creature head over heels. Again there was no time for appreciation, and Viggo hauled an uneasy Alyson to her feet before hurrying her down another corridor, ignoring his heavily bruised arm and legs. The creature flipped effortlessly back onto its feet. Alyson felt her chest heave in exhaustion and knew that her heart was going to burst or her lungs were going to implode; already she could hear the creature’s feet pounding after them relentlessly, even though it was more distant now, she knew it would catch up fast. “What— what can we do!?” 256

Viggo body ached, and recognised that he hadn’t been exercising as much as he used to, and vowed to do as much as possible in the future… if he had a future to vow for. He replied painfully, “We stay strong, remember!” They turned another corner and flew past a trolley of mechanical parts and machinery tools. Viggo caught its handle with one hand and cast the trolley into the middle of the corridor in effort to slow the thing down, but when he looked back moments later, the scavenger simply leapt over it like an Olympian hurdle. Just as they both thought it would end, a beam of bright light flickered somewhere up ahead, seemingly breaking from the wall to the left. “Light— Viggo, light up ahead!” Alyson breathed in relief. It was an elevator door, and the light was a torch light beam, and Viggo saw a figure emerge into the corridor. The figure had white hair. “Drew!” he yelled in desperation. The albino flashed the torch down to them and alarm immediately burst from her, “Shit! Amos get back up that cable!” Viggo wasn’t sure if that was what she had ordered because in seconds he and Alyson were at the door and jumped into the elevator car with Drew. “Quick shut the doors!” Drew shouted to Viggo. Both of them slid the doors closed with difficulty while Alyson stepped to the back of the small car. Drew glanced over to her and shouted, “Get up through the hatch and up the cables Alyson, you too Viggo!” They did so quickly without question, just as a huge blade from the creature burst through the elevator doors like paper, narrowly missing Drew who jumped aside. As the vicious blade began to carve downward through the door like a knife through butter, Drew stood and watched the gap breach the doors and the creature’s second blade tore away in a different direction. She waited. “Come on, Drew!” Amos’ gravel-like voice hollered from somewhere distant. Quickly she scrambled up the emergency hatch and up onto the elevator roof. She saw Amos at the doorway of the deck above, and both Alyson and Viggo climbing the elevator cables towards him. Drew slammed the hatch shut and locked it with a heavy metal catch before turning to the cable linkage of car with a fully charged electro-rod.

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Viggo looked down at her and realised immediately what she was doing, “You’ll kill us all Drew! The cable will be flung up!” “No it won’t,” she cried back with an evil grin, the heat of the electro-rod beginning to melt the metal links that held the cable to the car itself, while the hatch beside her began to buckle and one blade pierced through it mightily. “Do it Drew!” Amos cursed aloud. Drew melted within an inch of the entire linkage before gripping the cable tightly. She lifted herself off the car roof and then slammed her boot into the melted metal, and each of the links burst with the impact. Alyson had just reached the deck where Amos waited for her when the strike loosed the car. A shrill shriek boomed up the elevator shaft and she looked down in horror as the elevator box plummeted away from Drew who hung on the very tail of the severed cable. As Viggo cursed in relief, Drew looked down to see her victory assured; the car disappeared into darkness, and a great clashing thunder shivered up the shaft like a silent howl of defeat. Drew smirked and spat down the shaft, “Try and follow us now, bastard.” Amos finally helped Drew out from the darkness of the elevator shaft and she found both Alyson and Viggo collapsed on the floor in exhaustion, sweat dripping from their faces like waterfalls, not that she was any better, though victory was sweeter than she had ever felt, she still knew that the stunt was very, very close. “Phew,” Amos remarked in relief, looking at the two collapsed figures, “not bad for a trial run.” Viggo looked up at him, and then to Drew’s smirking, ironic grin, “You hadn’t planned that?” Drew raised her arms at him, “How could we have? We didn’t even expect to find you let alone old blue-face as well!” She gave a wicked grin to Amos, “Damn good kill though! I’d do it again!” Alyson groaned helplessly and shook her head, “Are you sure… its dead? I’ve seen horror vids before you know…” Drew quirked an eyebrow, “Okay, sure these elevators aren’t tall generally, and we are on the middle floor, but ten decks? Surrounded in a steel box? That’s gotta at least cut the thing to ribbons!” She turned to Amos as he said smartly, “I thought it would be you to waste it.” 258

“Did you now?” Drew smirked, “Bet you wish I’d left something so you’d have a go at him yourself?” Amos grinned, “Sure I would!” Viggo glanced up as the two of them embraced in an exaggerated kiss; he shook his head and replied sourly, “Get a room, guys.” Amos grinned, “I think we should!” Viggo looked over at Alyson; the young woman sat half destroyed but still breathing, her long black hair, shaggy and hiding her face, was so different from the short messy cut that it had been when she first came onboard. She looked over to him, pulling the hair over her ear as she did, so one deep blue eye stared at him, absolutely drained of life. “We better get to a mess hall or barracks or something,” Amos began anew. “Err, where are your packs?” he asked them. Viggo looked up in muted alarm, as did Alyson. They both left them behind in the barracks down on whatever deck, section, and quarters it was! There would be no way of retrieving them now. Viggo and Alyson exchanged fearful glances. “We’ve lost them…” Viggo groaned, sinking to a lower low. Drew replied quickly, “Don’t sweat it, we have tonnes of supplies, we may find more too.” Alyson lowered her head again in dismay, while Viggo struggled to accept anything that had happened since the moment he had woken up. They reached a nearby engineers’ barracks quickly; they were still in the engineers’ habitation decks, although be it a couple of levels further up from the barracks Viggo and Alyson had their close encounter with the scavenger. They all retreated to the mess section of the barracks, it was exactly the same layout as the previous one, and Alyson immediately slumped down at a table, while Amos and Drew dealt with their supplies of food and water. Viggo left the other two when he saw Alyson slowly untie the heavy quad-rod from her arm and place it on the table to one side gently; all of her actions seemed slow and bleak. He came up from behind her and took a chair to sit opposite her. Alyson blinked and looked up at him while forcing a smile; he smiled a quirky grin in return, “Don’t worry too much about our packs, Alyson, we’re alive aren’t we?” She was nodding almost immediately when he started talking, but her reply was quiet, “I have some things that weren’t in the bag…”

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Viggo watched as she began to fumble her fingers through all of the pockets on her uniform and soon a small assemblage of items was over the tabletop. Alyson began to list them, her voice barely there, “This is all I have: our box of painkillers, half of it used up, a syringe of morphine and one of the maps Daniel had drawn…” Viggo reached for the map in interest and said hopefully, “At least we have one of them.” “It’s of the medical core… I don’t even really know why it was in my pocket and not my pack,” Alyson replied sadly, rubbing the back of her neck. “But more importantly, I don’t have the picture of the scavenger, our only evidence of its existence,” Viggo looked perturbed as she continued, “I had hoped that someday, somehow we’d make it back home and show that picture as evidence that the thing existed and get some answers for all this horror… but now we have nothing…” Viggo shook his head strongly and put a hand on Alyson’s hand saying, “You don’t know any of that for certain, we might never get home, and why would the Government or anyone believe a drawing any artistic person could draw?” Alyson smiled fondly at him and replied, “Thank you for being so optimistic…” “I try,” Viggo added with a rare smile. They looked at each other for a long moment, the sounds of Drew and Amos in the background seemed muted and distant. Alyson felt herself being dragged towards Viggo’s dark eyes with the heat from his hand, but in a flash she recalled her nightmarish dream not long ago. She pulled her hand away from his and put it protectively under the table. As Viggo looked pained for a moment, Drew spoke over to them, “Afraid it’s gonna be cold soup again.” Viggo shrugged and Alyson smiled to herself. “Doesn’t bother us,” he replied over to her. He then looked back to the items on the table thoughtfully; Alyson was surprised and confused as to how much time he took to look at so few objects. “The syringe?” he then asked. Alyson blinked and then began to collect them all together, putting the syringe away first. “I don’t know why I took that, it was early on; I didn’t know what sort of things might… happen…” In moments that Viggo had no time to speak, Drew and Amos arrived with the traditional metal trays filled with the unsightly thick soup of undesirable contents. “Just like old times,” Drew began with a smirk.

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Viggo eyed her cautiously, knowing that she was still brimming with confidence after the killing of the scavenger. He spoke quietly, “Are you sure it’s dead?” Drew shook her head dismissively, not appreciating him reading her thoughts and to think she was being overconfident! “It has to be dead! I bet Daniel’s down there right now mourning over the thing!” Amos laughed with her, “I think we should go down, that would be a sight!” Alyson spoke up quietly, trying to pry the conversation away from the topic of Daniel, “So what happened to you two? I thought you were trying to get to the command centre?” Drew took in more soup with a serrated spoon and replied, “We ran into some trouble; all of the passages we tried were blocked, it seems like the crash has stopped us from getting out.” “But Sergeant MacLeod was heading that way,” Alyson suddenly heard herself saying, “with my map.” “Well, I’m not sure how he’s doing… we certainly didn’t find him,” Drew answered absently. “What about you two? The docking ports a nogo?” Alyson shook her head sadly, “We tried… but they are flooded and most of the doors are sealed.” “Flooded?” Amos asked, “Wonder how that happened?” Drew shrugged, “Probably burst a water tank or something,” “Or we’ve landed in a lake,” Viggo mused quietly. “So where do we go from here?” Amos asked, “Both ways are blocked.” They sat for a moment in wonder, the question was inevitable but no one wanted to consider it, and everyone regretted Amos for asking it. It seemed now that the front and back doors were locked, and they were hemmed in without escape, be it without the threat of the scavenger. “What about the hull?” Amos asked, “With all this damage from the landing, surely there’s a simple way out by a hole or something?” Viggo shook his head, “If Alyson’s maps are correct in their descriptions, this ship is a Longboat class prison ship, these things are made for crash landings and it’ll be lucky if a hole has been made anywhere close.” “Then we keep looking for a way to the command deck?” Drew enquired, “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover there.” “That could take days,” Amos argued. “What about the engineering decks?” Alyson asked thoughtfully, “I remember in Daniel’s maps there were supply lines and pipes leading 261

from the engines to the supply depots at the front of the ship. Maybe we could get out that way?” Drew said grimly, “Those levels are probably a blazing inferno, and the supply lines may well be out from the crash…” “But the engineering levels are close by,” Viggo countered, glancing at Alyson reassuringly, “it wouldn’t take long to check them out at least.” Drew passed a look to Amos for a moment, but the huge man only shrugged. The albino eventually nodded, “I suppose it’ll be worth a shot, we’ll start after we get some sleep.” After they had all finished their trays of cold, thick soup, they began to disperse through the engineers barracks as sleep began to close around them. From all of the excitement and fear of the scavenger’s assault, Viggo was not surprised to see Alyson shambling off towards the bunks once more, all to familiar it seemed to a moment only hours ago. He caught up with her and took her arm to gently stop her, “Don’t you take showers anymore?” he asked, concerned. “No,” she replied slowly, “I’m too tired for that, and a shower would only wake me up… I need sleep.” She blinked gradually as she turned her head to look at him directly. Viggo could see the earlier tension evaporate off her face and a heavy shroud of exhaustion clouded her eyes and stiffened her very movement. “All right,” he reconsidered, smiling lightly, “We’ll let you sleep for as long as is necessary.” Alyson nodded and murmured something like ‘thank you’ before sloping off into the dark barracks once again. Viggo turned back round as Drew announced to him and Amos, “The main door doesn’t lock, so I think we should have a watch-rota going.” Viggo nodded, “All right, but don’t include Alyson in it, she’s too tired.” Drew half-shrugged and replied, “Fine by me, but you can have first watch.” Viggo sighed and moved to reclaim his quad-rod from the mess table as Drew and Amos left him alone to sit near the door, the red light beyond reaching out for him with gradual, sweeping hands.

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Chapter 3: Control They had been running all this way by fear, not by orders, Captain Thomas Erskine knew as he stormed heavily down the dark corridors of the lower decks with his full squad behind him and his lieutenant keeping pace by his side. He had been carrying out the routine search-and-destroy patrols around the power core and the engineering inhabitation decks when Daniel had arrived, threatening them all with execution and waving his deadly burst-pistol at them precariously. Even now, running as fast as one could in the hard guard armour plates and boots, Erskine did not know exactly what had gotten to the Major’s nerves to such a degree. He could see Daniel faintly up ahead of him in the frantic beam of the torch carried by lieutenant Gellar, and every now and then Daniel would turn to harass them onward. Gellar’s hard voice breathed heavily at him, “What is wrong with him?” “Yeah, what’s up with… the Major anyway?” Jefferson sounded near death behind them, certainly not military material, mused Erskine. “I think he’s lost it; the darkness has driven him mad!” The captain shook his head lightly as he ran, “I think we should believe this to be genuine alarm, troops, and as we are to follow his orders, I’m not going to back off when he is in this frame of mind.” Gellar added in a quiet voice, so the others could not hear, “I’m glad you’re still considering dropping him, I trust him even less now.” The squad snaked around several more corners; Captain Erskine was oblivious to the fact that some of his men were falling behind while gasping for breath, luckily for them. Eventually Erskine heard the Major’s voice hollering again from round another corner, and he quickly marched on determined to discover what had caused so much alarm. The squad slowed to a halt narrowly behind Erskine when he spotted the scene unfolded before him down the next passageway. They had reached one of the elevator sectors, half-a-dozen identical doors lined the wall to their left while there would be several unseen corridors branching to the right. But the focus of their attention in the crimson darkness was the pale beam of light blazing from Daniel’s discarded torch, the thick white lance exposed the Major crouched at one of the elevator doors, visibly pulling and pushing at a huge protruding piece of metal. “Erskine! Help me get it out!”

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The Captain glanced questioningly at Gellar for a moment before he ran forward towards the struggling man, Gellar too followed in his wake. Shock greeted them both with open arms when they reached Daniel’s side and looked into the elevator. The elevator had clearly crashed, dropped from some height and now it sat smashed to a pulp, the main doors buckled and bulging out into the corridor. But inside the elevator, seen by looking through the crack between the two doors, was a bloody and unmoving figure, huge and barely visible in the extremely poor light. Erskine spoke the obvious without thinking, “Major, I think anyone caught in a falling elevator would be dead.” He and Gellar jumped in surprise as there was a crash inside the car, the shadowy figure’s arm had thumped the destroyed floor in a spasm of rage. As this happened, Daniel grunted, “It is not dead! But it will be soon if you do not help me get it out!” Gellar glared at Erskine in a silent, though very much audible, warning, but her Captain shook his head and moved to assist Daniel in moving the doors. She watched as both men dragged the doors painfully apart, just enough for a man to fit through and into the elevator. Daniel quickly snatched up the torch and stabbed it through the doors; Erskine did the same while Gellar poked her head round to see. “My god,” Gellar gasped. With the light shining inside, each of them could see the elevator seemingly pooled with tar; thick black treacle-like liquid covered the floor, the light bounced off it brilliantly. However, sitting crumpled in this pool of black fluid was the huge hulking monster which Daniel had forever governed and commanded. Erskine stared at the beast in confusion; what he had thought was near invincible was now cut and broken, scarred and crippled – not that the slightest bit of compassion even edged into his conscience. The unnamed creature had a great bloody rip through its face, a tear that cleared through its left eye and a great empty socket of unsightly black liquid remained. One of its arms had been removed of its deadly blade; the huge knife was close by, nearly drowned in the pooling blood of its host. There were other rips and eruptions on its skin, some worse than others, but Erskine only found himself wishing it had died completely, and wondered who – and he knew someone had been responsible for this – had managed to cripple the beast? “Captain, get it out of there,” Daniel ordered, the torch uneasy in his wavering hand. “What?” Erskine asked, taken off guard. 264

“I said: get it out of there!” Daniel shouted grimly. There was then the whine of static electricity as Erskine activated his twin-rod. Daniel shook his head and added in a subtler tone, “It won’t harm you, Captain, but it may be agitated to violence with the rod activated.” Erskine ground his teeth in silent protest before deactivating the weapon and removing it from his arm, Gellar took it from him reluctantly. Slowly the squad captain stepped into the dark of the elevator cabin, and both Gellar and Daniel’s torches fluttered desperately through the door after him. Erskine peered through the rank darkness, cursing with the foul stench of the blood and the thickness of the fluid around his boots, while stepping aside to let the torch light show him everything in front of him. The creature was there, but it was now looking up at him with a menacingly blank expression; one eye severed and removed by the grizzly precision of a metal plate from the ceiling or wall, and the smooth blue face freckled and splattered with its own blood. Erskine looked back at the twin lights of the torches behind him only to see a third, or at least what he thought was a light. It seemed to fluctuate and waver in the shape of some kind of icon or glyph. Erskine’s eyes narrowed to see it better, but Daniel’s voice rose towards him, “It will accept your assistance now, captain.” His tone then reminded Erskine of his old military drill sergeant years ago. Erskine turned back from the weird light when it extinguished itself and saw the creature shift on the floor, as if ready to move. He reached down and took hold of its right arm firmly. What was unusual was that the creature’s muscles were so dense that Erskine thought he had grabbed hold of stone. When the creature took his hand with its own, Erskine could feel the strange sucker-like tips of its fingers gently probe at the flesh of his wrist, whether this was some kind of natural instinct or a sort of communication, the captain did not pay any attention. He hauled the huge monster to its feet with double the effort he thought it would have taken and felt his spine cringe in protest. The creature looked drunk upon its feet and it actually took hold of Erskine’s frame for support, to which Erskine’s bones were to make further protest. Daniel’s commanding voice called through, “Now bring it out, it is in need of our aid.” Erskine led the creature towards the doors, and then with the combined efforts of Daniel and Gellar it was hauled out into the corridor. The squad standing ready outside actually backed off in alarm. Erskine climbed through the broken doors again as Daniel propped the creature against the opposite wall. The captain saw the 265

unsettled look his lieutenant was giving him and knew what she was thinking; they could kill the creature now more than ever, it was so weak that it could barely stand let alone fight and someone had dropped it down that elevator in a blatant but effective attempt to kill it off. If they helped it recover, those valiant people would be at further risk. Erskine didn’t know who it was, but favoured those people more than most of the men in his squad! Daniel stood for long moments in front of the creature and seemed to flourish his hand in front of its remaining eye while talking quietly to it; it didn’t seem to respond at all. “Ha,” Jefferson quietly sniggered from the back of the squad, “doesn’t look too scary now, eh?” Other guards muttered their snide agreements. Daniel stood erect and in one swift motion pulled out the burst-pistol and aimed for Jefferson precisely. “You, come here, now.” The other guards fell quiet suddenly like a classroom full of disobedient children as Jefferson walked forward slowly. Daniel’s eyes were cold and unrelenting. Erskine watched as the creature seemed to rise to its full height. “Daniel… Major, what are you doing?” Daniel sighed and kept the pistol trained on Jefferson, “I’m afraid I am in need of one of your officers; my creature needs to feed.” Jefferson stopped dead and was about to make good his protests when the pistol went off. Erskine knew the Sackhiem 66 Dart gun with grim memory, but everything happened too quickly for the academy training diagrams he had once memorised to be at full effect. Jefferson fell to the floor flat; a huge bloody crater erupted in his chest. Daniel’s pistol was smoking green vapours from the tubules at its sides. Erskine knew that the green vapour was spent plasma from the cells behind the burst-dart ammunition, cells detonated by a small laser; the tiny but fierce plasma explosion sending the burst dart through the barrel. Upon exit, the dart split into sharp quarters by a cross-shape set in the pistol’s nozzle. Each dart had ripped clear through Jefferson’s armour and torn his body apart like paper. All of that was blinding Erskine from what he should have been doing, in mere seconds that were far too late, he grabbed his twin-rod from Gellar’s ready hand, and saw himself plunge it into Daniel’s stomach, but already the Sackhiem was staring point-blank at his face. Daniel stared at him unblinkingly, and in that moment, Erskine saw the icy determination in Daniel’s eyes that he could have only seen in a 266

trained killer. As the creature hurried to Jefferson’s motionless corpse, Daniel announced coolly to everyone around him: “I have no desire to sacrifice any more of you, just as I have no desire to paste your captain’s head all over the wall,” his eyes assessed Gellar and the remaining shocked squad. “So I order you to stand down with your little cattleprods, and move on.” The Sackhiem lowered from Erskine’s face with the gentle wheeze of plasma smoke, and the captain cursed, “You told me none of my men would be killed, Daniel.” Daniel looked to the creature fondly, like an owner with a household pet, as it latched onto Jefferson’s hellish visage with all four fingertips, and already the dead man was paling and seemingly stretching thin. Daniel replied flatly, “I did not intend to do it either; similarly I did not plan for my friend to be dropped down an elevator shaft. Who would do such a thing…?” Erskine snapped, “I don’t care who did it, someone with guts I reckon, but what I want to know is how I am supposed to believe you won’t just feed us all to that thing?” “Perhaps we should find other means of feeding it,” Daniel suggested darkly, looking at Erskine levelly, “Perhaps there are other more, expendable supplies on this ship?” The captain and his lieutenant knew what he had meant and agreed silently. They looked down to see the creature rise from the now skinny, bony form of Jefferson; clearly the beast had drained the guard of virtually everything. Erskine could even see some of the minor cuts on the creature’s body had stopped bleeding, and at that moment he knew he was damned. Captain Erskine did not question the agreement he and the Major had settled on, it did not require any of his men to be killed unless lost in battle, and those they had to kill now would have been dealt with sooner or later anyway. But that was Captain Erskine talking, the man called Thomas Erskine knew deep down that this was all wrong, that this creature was unnatural and lives should not be taken to continue its cruel and merciless existence. No matter now unlawful those lives may be. The Rigor Mortis was very much dead now, corridors were full of corpses run down, electrocuted, torn apart, beaten or ripped up. But there were a few hapless souls who had banded together, either to simply kill others or to survive and escape the ship completely. They would be either squads of guards, like Erskine’s own, or hordes of prisoners armed with 267

whatever they could find in the dark. Their mission was simple: to find a large group of these survivors, five at least, and to kill all of them before allowing the creature to feed off their bodies. They had searched a good part of the ship before a possibility showed itself. As expected of all large prisoner groups, they were ransacking one of the mess halls of everything they could find. There were at least ten of them, but five of them were wearing guard armour and uniforms, over three quarters had standard rods and a handful had nothing more than metal piping, cables and chains. Erskine and Gellar had analysed the situation and they both came to the same conclusion: “This is going to be a white-wash,” Gellar mused quietly, not favouring such easy and pointless odds. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” she added. Erskine nodded but remained cautious. He knew his squad was not military trained, with many of them volunteer men hoping someday to be military capable, and some of these prisies were roaches, prisoners who had raided guards’ bodies for armour and weapons, making them particularly difficult to kill. Still, the roaches were the minority; most of the others were a poor, pathetic lot, all easily removable. He nodded again, trying to delay the inevitable slaughter, and peered through the door again. They hadn’t even put someone to check the door! Erskine mused in disgust. “All right,” he began turning away, “its easy, men; myself and lieutenant Gellar will lead the way, peeling off to either side of the room, I want all of you to spread out and move forward as one; none of these prisies are allowed to leave this room alive. Is that clear?” “Spread and forward as one, okay sir,” one whispered from the back. “All right,” Erskine remained sure not to warn them of roaches, to do that could give them doubt and doubt could lead to fear and panic. Those were the last things he wanted to see in his own squad before a fight. Without further word, and a determined breath, Erskine marched clear into the mess hall beyond. Though he and his squad moved with violent intent their footsteps were somewhat hushed and the ransacking looters barely noticed in time. Erskine launched the first attack, cruelly dispatching one looter in the back with a fully charged twin-rod. The man buckled as his back arched painfully and an electric storm whirled through his body like a tornado roasting his spine instantly. Visible tendrils of power could be seen coiling around the electro-rods twin barrels as the scream alerted the rest of the prisoner’s band.

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But the guard squad had already covered most of the hall, and they met the prisies rebellion with fierce stabs and swings of fully charged electro-rods. As expected, most of the prisies retreated back to claim weapons and left the fighting to the roaches. Erskine and Gellar immediately saw that these roaches were not layabouts and seemed to get stuck in far better than their prisie counterparts. Erskine marched around to the back of the mess hall, elbowing an overconfident prisoner clear over a table as he moved, and stabbed a lethal blow of electro-rod deep into his target’s groin. Gellar gripped the barrel of her twin-rod and used its length to strangle a prisoner at the neck, the force crushing his windpipe and tendons like sticks. As she did this, a roach raced up behind her to catch her unaware, but Erskine knew Gellar was never unaware; and the heel of her boot leapt out and snapped the intruder’s knee with deadly precision. As his squad got to grips – literally – with fighting against roaches, Erskine looked up as the air suddenly filled with a sharp tingle of electric-charge. He might have ignored it for the multiple electro-rods around him and the fierce discharges caused by their use, but one large roach appeared wielding a huge sword-like weapon. It was not as elegant or as sleek as an actual sword that Erskine had seen in museums, it was huge and thick; energy powered by a backpack and it resonated the great static sub-sound that had attracted his attention. Captain Thomas Erskine knew a heavy industry power cleaver when he saw one; they were normally used by emergency services to cut open corvettes like tin cans. Seeing as the cleaver posed a major threat to his men and their moral, Erskine went at the roach alone. The huge armoured prisoner lurched forward; wielding the cleaver in two hands like a chainsaw to meet the guard captain head on. The cleaver arced up, an iridescent glow trailing off the blade as it did, Erskine sidestepped quickly, and the huge blade seared right through a table with terrific ease. The roach hauled it up again with a roar, smacking the table halves aside with the blunt top of the weapon and swung horizontally at Erskine. The captain jumped back but felt the heat that radiated from the huge blade as he did. Lunging with his twin-rod while the roach was on the return swing, Erskine failed to impact the roach’s skin as the rod glanced off his armour, and the captain immediately collapsed to the ground like a doll as the power blade returned viciously at him. While on the ground Erskine stabbed the twin-rod deep into the unprotected shin of the roach, the power of his arm cracked the six electrical prongs into the man’s shin bone with cringing pain and noise. Lightning shot up the roach’s leg and 269

he cried out in pain, in the moment of agony Erskine clawed at the power cables connected to the side of the cleaver and yanked out one of the plugs. To Erskine’s relief the weapon powered down, without the energy circuit to the backpack the cleaver became useless, just as the huge roach toppled to the side, overwhelmed by the pain of his injury. In a heartbeat Gellar was there, and jabbed the roach’s head with her twin-rod savagely, ending his life in a fit of electrical surges. Erskine gladly took Gellar’s hand, once again assured that she was still alive and she was indeed watching his back, not that he ever needed any assurance of that. He looked to her immediately and saw the excited sparkle in her eyes that he had not seen for all the days patrolling the empty corridors; she always liked to fight, certainly with long-range weapons in their military days, but it seemed now that she was starting to enjoy fighting hand-to-hand. “Tough one,” she said, as her voice calmed. Erskine glanced at the corpse of the big roach, still clutching his power cleaver as his body twitched absently, “Yeah, impressive idea for a weapon too.” Glancing up he saw that his whole unit was still alive too, and he felt somewhat relieved; this fight was unjustified as it was only to feed that hell-monster of Daniel’s so it can kill again, and Erskine would be damned if any more of his men died for that cause. “Where did he get the cleaver from, anyway?” Gellar asked thoughtfully. Erskine shrugged, “Probably down in the engine bays, he may have travelled from further than that though…” “Well done, captain,” Daniel announced, appearing from the gloom of the main doorway, the huge blue creature towering behind him. Erskine deactivated his twin-rod, his squad followed suit, before he addressed the major, “I hope this is the last time I risk my men like this?” Daniel smiled thinly, “Of course, in using your electro-rods you’ve probably served up these prisoners even better for my friend’s consumption.” In a slight gesture, Daniel instructed the creature to enter the room and it hurried over to the nearest corpse. Again, Erskine had noticed a faint glimmer of light from Daniel’s hand, similar to the strange glyph he had seen in the darkness of the crashed elevator. As his brow furrowed in cautious interest, Erskine approached Daniel, authority in his voice, “Major, might I ask how you control this… thing.”

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Daniel looked hard at him and corrected, “It is not a ‘thing’ captain, it is a work of biological genius, an artful masterpiece.” Erskine instinctively raised an eyebrow at him and continued with equal hardness, “How do you control it? I know that you do.” Daniel shrugged and led Erskine from his squad and the strange sucking sound of the creature’s feeder tips. The major turned to Erskine when they were suitably away from the others, even though Lieutenant Gellar watched from the background cautiously. “I am surprised you don’t know how I control it yourself, the instrument of control is quite trivial…” “How,” Erskine growled. Daniel raised his right hand, palm forward, but only seemed to reveal the distinct lack of lines and age which decorated Erskine’s own hands. Then, without warning or sign from Daniel himself, light glowed from the palm like a strange warping beacon. The captain looked questioningly at the glyph, it was clearly the same as the one he had seen in the elevator; it was between yellow and orange in colour, and rotated like a free-moving disc. It was constructed of individual curved triangular shapes; it looked alien in design. Daniel lowered his hand and looked at Erskine expectantly. “A holo-glyph,” the guard captain replied to the major’s look, “I have heard of them.” Daniel laughed aloud, attracting the attention of the other guards in the room, “Heard of, heard of? Would you like me to show you your hologlyph?” Before Erskine could question it or stop him, Daniel passed his hand palm forward before his face. Erskine had the distinct sensation of heat on his left cheek, and a glow dominated the vision from his left eye. “What the hell—” Erskine began, flinching in alarm. Gellar leapt quickly to his side, spotting the glowing mark upon her captain’s face as an act of aggression. “What have you done!?” she cursed. Daniel raised his hands in peaceful defence, “What!? Surely you knew about these things, they are given to all soldiers of the military, as a form of bar-coding, registering.” Erskine looked to Gellar for a moment, the circular design glowing as if it had been burned into his left cheek, yet Erskine felt very little. “You aren’t controlling him?” Gellar began darkly. “Ha!” he laughed, “I can’t control something like Erskine, nothing with distinctively high intelligence anyway… although,” – he paused 271

thoughtfully – “perhaps that means I could control him after all…” he smirked. Erskine passed a gloved hand over his face, fingers probing through the light carefully. Snapping, he ordered Daniel, “Stop this, now.” The glyph faded away and Gellar sighed in repressed relief. “I knew nothing of holo-glyphs…” she muttered, her tone portraying some of her underlying feelings of betrayal, and Erskine felt it too; what else had the military done to them without their knowledge? “Sirs, it’s… I don’t know what its doing!” Erskine, Gellar and especially Daniel all turned at the raised voice of the guard and they saw the creature pulsating over the body of one of the prisoners. It had nearly absorbed all of the bodies in the room, but now it seemed to have stopped, and its form seemed to glow a radiant blue light, its muscles stretched and its one remaining blade seemed to discharge electrical bursts. “Excellent!” Daniel gasped, Erskine detected some honest surprise and deep joy in the major’s voice, and he continued, “This is excellent news captain!” Anything ‘excellent’ was deeply unsettling, Erskine mused. The monster stood and seemed to have grown in size, if that was even possible, and indeed, sparking electrical discharges had wreathed its single remaining blade. Daniel’s grin broadened, “It has overfed on energy, and it is discharging; now it is more powerful than I ever thought possible!” Gellar gave a piercing look at her captain as Daniel walked towards his creature, Erskine knew what her look was telling him; that they were in trouble, everyone was in trouble, and their chance to stop it all had disappeared utterly.

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Chapter 4: All the Laughter With an irritated groan and a reluctant shift of his spine, Viggo stirred awake from the heavy, folded darkness of sleep. It felt like waking into existence, he couldn’t remember falling asleep in the first place, or how long he had been sleeping for, or even where he was now. He groaned again; how much he hated not remembering things, let alone anything, especially when it was due to him falling sleep unexpectedly. Forever he had lived under the rule of always being aware, to make sure he knew clearly what was going on and for everything to be organised so he could understand it all. He hated it when something of his went missing for no reason, before his prison life, it drove him mad to think he had misplaced something, or someone had moved something of his. Now he couldn’t even remember his own situation! Things only got stranger as he shifted; he was lying on a bunk, a surprisingly tangible and remarkably soft bunk compared to the old prison ones he had to endure previous nights. As his eyes blurred sluggishly around his hand fell on his bare stomach. Surprised again, Viggo rubbed his eyes and looked at himself, a moment of horror edged through his mind like glass shards, but found he was dressed from the waist down in his Kevlar uniform and boots. Sighing, Viggo glanced to his left as his elbow nudged something next to him, and his moment of relaxation exploded once again into panic. Next to him lay Alyson, back away from him dressed only in her underwear with her uniform trousers barely over her hips. His eyes flitted about anxiously, cautiously realising that she didn’t look hurt but in fact rather peaceful. Whether or not this improved Viggo’s analyse of the situation he wasn’t sure himself! There was a groan from somewhere else, Viggo flinched round to look to his right not realising that his movement stirred Alyson beside him. He peered over to another bunk to see Amos, massive and naked, suddenly slump clear off the bed and collapse onto the floor with a loud thump. He didn’t move after that. With Amos on the floor, Viggo then saw Drew on the same bunk, similarly dressed as Alyson was, but more provocative were her garments. There was another groan, much closer to him and Viggo’s muscles flinched as he glanced round to see Alyson lying next to him. He paused questioningly; he already knew she was there. 273

“Oh, Christ…” he muttered drowsily, finding his memory more broken than a pane of glass in a hailstorm. Alyson then twisted slowly and blinked groggily at him, “Oh… you’re awake…” Viggo glanced down at her through narrow, sleep congested eyes. Her long black hair was unkempt and all over the place, while her expression was no better than his probably was. “No…” he said flatly in reply. Uncomfortable, he shifted and got to his feet only to find his legs were concrete and his joints were jelly, he almost toppled. Alyson unfolded herself on the whole bunk, completely unaware of anything, she pushed her face back into the badly flattened pillow. Viggo turned slightly to look at her cautiously, “Do you remember anything, Alyson?” There was a muffled response which could only have been ‘no’. He paced back to the bunk and sat down again, grinding his knuckles into his eyes as he did, desperate for some control. He glanced at her again, but she still had her face buried in the pillow. “We didn’t… do anything, did we?” Alyson slowly dragged her face from the pillow and cleared her face of hair to look at him with a frown. Her reply was more puzzled than he would have liked, “Umm…” she looked up at the top bunk for a moment and added sluggishly, “I don’t think so… now that you ask.” Viggo shook his head in dismay, “Thanks, you’re a great help.” Alyson dumped her head back into the cushion without further word. Viggo looked around the barracks they were currently in, clearly it was a guard or engineer barracks, but they were both too similar to tell which, and the room through the doorway was in disarray. It was the mess hall; clearly not all barracks were the same after all, but there were clothes, armour, electro-rods, soup packets, backpacks, and plastic wrappers, remains of food all over the floor and tables and chairs. Viggo paused and tried to see the ‘food’ a little clearer. It wasn’t soup as he would have expected to see, it was a whole variety of stuff that he hadn’t seen in years. With effort he got to his feet again and shambled through into the mess. His booted foot clunked into a glass bottle and sent it skittering across the metal floor before it thumped into the wall. Viggo already summarized that he was drunk, or at least, had been drunk, and that everything had been wiped clean out of his head because of it, all that he had to do now was remember it.

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Coming to a nearby table Viggo looked down at the scraps of food that lay there. Food, actual food, he picked up one and straightened the wrapping to see letters, words, all inside out and upside down. He squinted and shook his head to look clearer at the label. The food proclaimed itself as… ch… choco… chocolate? Viggo looked up; an expression of weird puzzlement was dashed away with sudden recollection, “Chocolate…” he muttered quietly to himself, as if recalling how to pronounce the word and remember were he had heard it from last. He clicked his fingers, life returning to his eyes as he remembered… “Chocolate!” Viggo looked round towards the kitchen, Drew and Amos even turned at the sudden announcement Alyson had shouted. “Look! Look they have chocolate here!” she continued, rushing from the kitchen area with several large sealed packets of food. Drew’s eyes suddenly gleamed like pinball machines, “You are kidding!” Viggo watched, too stunned to react himself, as Amos and Drew piled towards Alyson who handed them both a packet each. He watched as Amos tore the packet open and savagely took a sizable chunk of the dark matter with his teeth, Drew did the same. After much chewing and biting, intermitted by inaudible sighs of ecstasy Viggo sprung forward and took a packet from Alyson eagerly. Amos had already devoured the whole packet; small smears of dark brown crisscrossed his lips, “Oh, sweet mother of dark goodness,” he sighed, licking his lips for more of the favour, only managing to smear more diluted chocolate over his jaw. “Is there more?” he asked greedily. Alyson added quickly, half a section disappearing into her mouth, “Tonnes! Knock yourself out! But keep some for later!” she added quickly as the huge man bolted through to the kitchen. Drew sighed and sat down on a nearby chair, dropping her backpack as she did, “I’d forgotten how good this stuff was…” Viggo looked at the packet label, “And this is only ‘Cooking chocolate’.” Drew rolled her eyes lavishly, directed at the chocolate in her hands. Alyson replied hungrily, “That’s the best kind!” In seconds they had forgotten everything that was important to their progress through the belly of the ship. They had been moving on from the killing of the scavenger and the losing of Viggo and Alyson’s packs, to find the route the main engineering decks on the lower levels. 275

Having gone down two or more elevators and visiting two previous barracks and mess halls, they had seen and heard nothing of the scavenger for two days now. Drew had revelled in the killing of the beast for most of that time, while Viggo and Alyson slowly got over the knowledge of losing their backpacks and most of their belongings with them, especially after they found new packs and filled them with supplies. Viggo tried his best to stay focused on the tasks at hand, but even he had fallen prey to the wonderful surprise of finding actual food onboard the ship. It had been over a year since Viggo had tasted chocolate, and all that time his stomach and taste buds had been polluted and tempered by continuous meals of sullen soup three times every day. It was like heaven had finally sent them a bit of luck and grace, just at the right time as he and Alyson had felt particularly uncomfortable. “They have more than just chocolate in there,” Amos began as he barged into the mess hall with armfuls of chocolate packets, everyone beamed at the prospect, “they have vegetables, fruits, bread, sugar, meat, proper meat, and all sorts!” “Must be a huge freezer,” Drew grinned, “like a goldmine!” She launched off and followed Amos quickly into the kitchen and left Alyson and Viggo alone in the mess hall, with a huge pile of chocolate. Viggo was shaking his head while removing his quad-rod from his arm, a smile breaking across his face. Alyson spotted it and smiled too, it had been a while since she had seen him smile like that… too long. “What is it, Viggo?” He continued shaking his head, “It’s just…” he looked up at her rather thoughtfully, “I was just remembering how we used to live, back in cell eleven, it feels like a lifetime ago.” Alyson nodded, her smile remained, but the amusement behind it had changed to fondness. “Yes, the endless drawn out silences,” “And the regulated mealtimes,” “The games of Grav-Ball,” “Not to mention Adrian’s continuous babbling,” Viggo smirked. “When sleeping was the best way to kill the time,” recalled Alyson thoughtfully. Viggo continued with the tone of a dreamer, “The live porn…” Alyson looked unimpressed, “You have got to be kidding; you don’t really miss those two do you?” He shrugged with a cheeky grin, “It had its perks.” “As well as you trying to exercise for Grav-Ball,” he added in the same tone. 276

“Hey!” Alyson complained, before raising her arm to him, “See this?” she squeezed her bicep slightly; “this is a huge improvement from the first day I was onboard!” Viggo replied hastily, “I know, I know! I was kidding. I saw how well you’d climbed that elevator cable last time.” Alyson blushed, some of her young innocence resurfacing again, much like the way she had been, before Daniel, the crash, the killing, the monster. Amos and Drew reappeared from the kitchen all at once, Drew called to them, “Look what we’ve found!” she was holding two bottles of cheap wine, one in each hand, her blue eyes gleaming and her curtain of albino white hair swinging about excitedly. Amos was dragging a frosty crate in behind her saying, “And there’s more beer in here than I’ve ever seen!” The huge mountain of a man stopped and turned to them all, and clapped his hands together. “Right, the Administrator’s office, somewhat of a blow out,” he pointed at Viggo, “you aren’t going to be sober this time!” Viggo lifted an eyebrow at the Herakles man and replied, “Just as long as we lock the door.” “Done,” Amos said quickly, turning back to the crate. He safely dragged it through the mess hall and put it to one side, Alyson was surprised by the fact that even with Amos’ strength the big crate was too heavy for him to lift. He turned to them and looked impatiently at them, “Well come on, let’s get on with it, can’t just stand around with all this food and drink!” “So… my brother was convinced he’d get higher up in this tree than me!” Amos began. They were all sitting around a table in the mess hall, over an hour since they had began each of them had consumed five whole packets of chocolate, a startling variety of vegetables and fruit and several bottles of various sorts of alcohol. Viggo could feel his mind wandering twisted tangents while Alyson and Drew sat giggly listening to Amos’s stories. “So, this tree, it was old, but it had loads of branches all over the place and me and my brother knew we weren’t supposed to climb it, but we did anyway. Midway up, he was way ahead of me and just as I look up at him to say something,” Amos craned his neck upward, “The branch he was pulling himself up on snapped!” The others cringed in tipsy amusement. 277

“All I saw was this blur of him falling and then he hit my own branch and broke that one too! Stupid brute! We both crashed through the branches and landed hard on our backsides just as a warden was coming round! Let’s just say he wasn’t too happy!” Drew, laughing as she took another mouthful of wine straight from the bottle, began, “I was caught by the police once… back on Earth, those Earth cops are so damn picky!” “Tell me about it!” Amos laughed. Drew continued, “My dad had taught me how to use a basic scopemounted sniper rifle when I was twelve, and I snuck out with it when he was on ‘business’. I’d loaded it with paintballs so it was safe. “I climbed up onto one of the roofs on my street and took aim at a cop car; I hit his rear license plate, his side mirrors and his roof by the time he’s stopped. But before I could get away another cop car flew up and caught me! Why can’t the cars stay on the road!” she laughed. Viggo grinned quietly as they all laughed and sipped his own wine a little, he was never a real beer drinker, it never really agreed with him. But even so the wine was slowly making an effect, “Speaking as an ex-police officer,” he began honestly, they laughed, “I must admit there are some pretty stupid criminals out there.” Drew put her bottle to one side and remarked, “If Adrian’s anything to go by certainly! Apparently he couldn’t even rob a Deimos bank properly!” Viggo shook his head, “There was this one guy, on Mars, driving a corvette on the highway. It was a pretty serious job; he had a hostage in the car with him and had evaded most of our blockades. I knew he’d be going for a jump point or a carrier port somewhere and I’d have to stop him before that. “Surprisingly, moments later, his corvette stopped dead! It turned out he had no fuel left!” They all laughed heartily again. “But then he got out,” Viggo continued, “hostage in hand with a disrupter. I tried to reason with him but he fired at me immediately, dead on.” Everyone around him paused, their joy overran by sudden surprise and worry. Viggo looked at them all for a moment, before adding sleekly, “I got him into custody after that; he was firing blanks.” Renewed laugher burst out of them, even Viggo found tears edging his eyes as he laughed.

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“The man called himself a true hostage taker, with a disrupter full of blanks and a car with no gas!” he continued. They continued to drink and eat chocolate – they had mostly abandoned the vegetables and fruit, putting most of it back into the oversized fridge – while none of them noticed the increasing amount of rubbish that built up around them. Alyson revolved her wine bottle slowly in one hand, watching the deep dark liquid sway around inside the glass. She looked up to them all as they talked about strange and stupid things that had happened to them. She didn’t have any stories to tell them, and realised her life had been quite the sheltered type, not that it was a bad thing, but now she felt a little misplaced. She nibbled on chocolate idly and said, “Wish we had a game to play or something, games are always funny when you’re drunk…” “Make one up, that’s even better!” Drew announced to her happily. Amos gained one of his sly, cheeky grins as he said promptly, “I know a good game, and it’s called ‘Who’s the Sexiest’!” Questioning eyebrows rose and voices all began to laugh and complain at him. “That’s a game—!?” Alyson laughed. Drew added over her, “Bet I can guess who the judge will be anyway!” Amos raised his hands in a gesture of a respectable diplomat, or at least it would have been had there not been a bottle of beer in his hand and the drunken demeanour. “All right, all right, you’ve had your arguments! We’ll be fair okay, won’t we Viggo?” he looked to the other man with gleaming eyes. Viggo looked honestly puzzled, the alcohol having gone to his head hours ago. “What?” Alyson cocked an eyebrow at Amos, and asked tipsily, “And what exactly will this… ‘game’ consist of?” Amos shrugged innocently and replied just as naively, “Well, you and Drew strip and me and Viggo be judges on your performances.” “What,” Alyson laughed ludicrously, “you must be drunk!” Drew then said easily and coolly, “I’m up for that, but not naked, underwear’s okay.” Alyson shook her head, eyes widening, “Drew, are you mad!?” Drew fluttered her icy blue eyes at her, “What, afraid I’ll win the vote?” Moments later, Viggo and Amos sat back, forced expressions of solemn interest and control as the two women pranced and strutted around 279

for a few brief minutes. After that Alyson stopped and stood in front of Viggo sheepishly, fiddling with her fingertips, eyes downcast. Drew stood proudly in front of Amos, looking deeply into his eyes. “So!” Alyson snapped at last, giggling to herself. Viggo and Amos exchanged glances to each other, and Amos replied levelly, “Well… I have to side with Drew, I mean, that thong is too intoxicating.” Drew stuck her tongue out at Alyson quickly. Alyson looked to Viggo and the big man leaned back, it seemed that Amos could barely contain his drunken amusement. “Well…” Viggo began, willingly looking over both of the women’s figures, though having difficulty taking anything in. “I have to go with Alyson…” Both of the women looked at each other blankly while the men bit their lips in huge anticipation. Alyson looked to Amos in confusion, “What happens with a tie then?” her voice as innocent as a child’s. Both Viggo and Amos burst out laughing, the great gravel laugh of Amos nearly knocking them flat while Viggo’s worked like a background bass. Amos clapped at his own victory. Alyson and Drew looked at each other, realising the men had fooled them, nodding simultaneously; they looked back at the two men. “All right then, we have a new game,” Alyson began slyly; both men looked at her, tears rolling down their cheeks while curiosity filled their eyes. Drew continued, “It’s happens to be called ‘Who’s the Handsomest’?” Amos and Viggo looked at each other, grins fading out, and then they shrugged and climbed out of their chairs. Viggo looked around the mess hall, returning to the reality that was the chaotic mess hall. He spotted his uniform Kevlar top and shirt on the floor where he had stripped for the women’s delight and revenge. He could remember feeling somewhat small compared to Amos’ massive size. Shaking his head Viggo tried to dismiss the memories, wishing the alcohol had wiped them completely or perhaps, the events had never happened in the first place. What on Earth did it mean for Alyson when she wakes up? As if answering his thoughts, Alyson walked groggily through from the shadowy sleeping quarters and went over to claim her uniform top that she happened to spot on the floor. “Oh… Viggo, you’re awake…” she mumbled.

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He smirked lightly as he turned to her, “You know you’ve already said that…” She paused while reaching down, “Oh… I did? When?” He shook his head again, “It doesn’t matter.” Alyson slipped into her uniform, at first putting both arms through sleeves that were inside out before she realised the whole thing was the wrong way round. With a groan she corrected her sleepy error and stepped to one of the nearby tables, “I don’t want to know what Drew and Amos got up to last night…” she mumbled, fingering a chocolate packet that lay open and empty on the table. Viggo blinked and looked at her for a moment, “Alyson that was all of us, last night.” She looked at him as if in a daze, deep blue eyes still fogged with slumber and a hangover, not that Viggo could blame her; he was just surprised at how well he had recovered. He took a bite of chocolate, and then finished off the remains of a red pepper that lay on the table, its skin was wrinkled and old, but he didn’t notice to care. He then asked, “So what do you remember?” Alyson slumped down into a chair, her head lolled to one side, “I remember finding the chocolate…” He gave her a withering look, “Surely you remember something after that?” She paused for a long time, trying to recall more of what had happened after the night. Viggo was afraid he would have to debrief her on the events. She then said aloud suddenly, “I do remember kissing you.” Viggo stopped munching the pepper and froze. Alyson had a puzzled expression fixed to her features as she stared into space. She continued, “In fact, I kissed everyone… you, Amos, Drew… What I don’t know is why we weren’t wearing terribly much while doing it…” Viggo had to grin to himself, and said rather smartly, “I’m not sure either…” She shook her head and spotted an empty bottle of wine, she spoke again, “Just make sure I never get drunk again, Viggo… please.” He was about to reply when Drew stalked out from the sleeping quarters, one hand rubbing her eyes and head roughly. “What time is it?” Viggo shrugged and turned to her, “Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to—” when he saw her he knew she was very hung-over. She had tried to dress, 281

clearly as her uniform top was on but nothing else and only zipped up halfway. Alyson watched her with a shocked expression, seeing the rather exotic garments that the half-on uniform top gave only tempting glances to. Viggo grinned again; Alyson had quite obviously remembered some more of what had happened. The young woman said nothing. Drew sat herself down in a chair next to Alyson and, with elbows on the table, cupped her head in her hands. “It’ll take me a long time to recover from this…” Drew groaned. Viggo raised an eyebrow and asked her similarly, “So how much do you remember?” When she looked at him, he could have sworn he saw the remains of alcohol filter like smoke over her eyes, discolouring and deadening them. “Honestly…? I can remember… about… nothing.” Viggo nodded sharply in reply and gave Alyson a worried expression when Drew had returned to hiding her face in her hands. Things had started to settle down in their minds until Viggo and Alyson spotted Amos walking as if in a daze, from the sleeping quarters straight towards the showers, without a stitch of clothing on. “All right,” he muttered, crushing huge knuckles into his eye sockets before he disappeared from view and into the showers. Alyson and Viggo looked mystified at each other just as Drew’s head sunk onto the table, completely unaware, completely asleep. It took four hours, ten soup packs, four packets of chocolate three water bags, and all of their clothes to restore all of them to a full state of alertness. Viggo emerged from the barracks quarters and threw Amos the electric shaver as he made his way to Alyson and Drew who sat at one of the mess hall tables. Amos disappeared as Viggo began anew, “So we are still heading towards the engineering decks?” Drew nodded, “That’s the plan, we should easily find the access ports to the supply lines down there, and hopefully make our way to the supply depot at the front of the ship through them.” Viggo nodded and drank some water from an empty wine bottle; he cringed as the water was still spiked with the remains of the alcohol. “We better put all of these supplies together; I think we have more than enough now!” Alyson responded thoughtfully, “Hard to believe it was all just lying here, just for the taking.”

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Drew shrugged, “A little good luck never bothered me, and it’s about time!” Amos returned in a moment and threw back the shaver which Viggo caught with one hand. As the huge Herakles man moved to sit down with them Drew continued, “It should be clear sailing from here on without that scavenger.” Alyson looked cautiously at her, it was the first time for a while that the creature had been mentioned. “As long as it is dead,” she said quietly. Amos laughed lightly, though his gravel voice didn’t give much room for quietness, “I think if it were alive, it would have knocked on our door at least once while we were away with it last night.” Drew looked foxily at him from the corner of her eye, “I think we could have taken him even then.” Viggo ran the bottom edge of the wine bottle over the top of the table while saying, “Yeah, I’m sure we would have got the jump on it when it stood perplexed by the multiple assets you have under that uniform, Drew.” “You’re starting to treat me like Sophia, Viggo!” Drew snapped smoothly, not taking him a bit too seriously.

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Chapter 5: Allegiance Perhaps an hour on they were all packed and ready to move. Each of their packs now fitted to bursting point with bottles of water – and booze – chocolate, vegetables, fruit, bread and cooked meat. They knew that they weren’t coming back and that there would be no other sanctuary quite as good as the one they were leaving, they all made sure what they had would get them all off the ship, hopefully. But there was armfuls of hope, most of it slung on their backs, the huge supplies boosted their confidence and self-esteem by impossible amounts, and they felt sure that they were going to succeed. Armed to the teeth with electro-rods, quad-rods and packed beyond telling with food, they all turned to the locked main doorway, the lock that had protected them for at least twenty-four hours without fail. “All right, big Vicious, open the door.” Viggo walked calmly over to the door panel where the Ganymede battery pack hung, he had used it to hot-wire the circuitry and got the door locked from the inside. Now he simply unclipped the connectors and crammed the battery into his backpack as the doors glided open in a heartbeat. The crimson shadows that infested the corridors greeted them with eerie quiet, and they all remembered what they were hiding from. Ultimately it wasn’t the scavenger that threatened them so much as it was the impenetrable silence, the stalking darkness and the voiceless coercion that awaited them. Drew walked towards the doorway levelly, electro-rod charged, saying, “All right let’s do this.” They all began to follow her out after she checked around the corners and walked into the red licked darkness. Alyson couldn’t believe how oppressive the world beyond the barracks really was; she noticed that the people around her grew quieter and tenser. They became super alert and stealthy in the black redness of the passageways; it was like they had never left. So this is how they moved about for some time, eyeing information printed on the walls, directions to elevators and important landmarks to mentally note. The shadows jumped out at them from the lights of their electro-rod tips while the bright blue glow clashed angrily with the emergency red of the ceiling lights, making purple hazes and shadows warp around them. The sharp, painfully white glare from Drew’s torch led the way; it was a powerful beam of light which cut the darkness away as effectively as a machete through jungle. 284

They passed through numerous corridors and descended a couple of elevators before encountering any chambers of actual significance, Drew was leading with her torchlight, Viggo behind her, Alyson behind him and Amos keeping guard of the doorways and corners they had left behind, wary of ambush. The first unusual encounter was perhaps the strangest. Clearly the structure of the corridor had failed, a section of bulkhead one level down had collapsed for some unknown reason, and on their deck the floor had sunken by a metre in depth and covering ten metres distance. What were most unsettling were the hundreds of scuttling and shifting forms that filled the hole. Drew sent the torch beam down and the light beamed brightly off the glistening shells of many live cockroaches, all of them scuttling and very much trapped. Looking to the walls, Drew found most of the roaches had, and still were, falling into the sunken crevice via a broken ventilation duct. After some hesitation mostly on Alyson’s part, they crossed the sea of insects. Though Alyson was grateful for her guard boots and not being barefooted like she used to be, she was still terrified to cross the path, so terrified in fact that Amos agreed to carry her across. He lifted her into his arms like a child and took her safely over to the opposite side. Next they entered a region of pitch darkness, all of the emergency lights had gone offline and they relied entirely on Drew’s torch and their electro-rod tips. It was dark enough for the tension to be built up, and when shapes began to manifest on the floor, most of them jumped in alarm. Bringing their lights to bear, they saw bodies, many more bodies than they had seen before in the corridors. The forms were as black as the darkness that consumed them, and they were all made of featureless charcoal. Clearly there had been a fire, but more than just a simple fire, by the charred and melted state of the metal walls and the nightmarish positions of the corpses, it could only have been a plasma fire, or even a fusion fire. The victims would have died instantly. Grim though it was, it was their first sign that they were approaching the engineering decks. Many of the levels still below them were packed with dangerous materials and fluids channelled through pipes, all perfectly able to blast through the floors and ignite everything and everyone there with severe structural damage. They were glad that the technological volcano had now become dormant. Those accidents only happen once. When the lights slowly returned and the corridor became once again bathed in blood red colour, they found a functional Grav-Ball arena. 285

They knew it was functioning as the doors were open and the lights were on, and when Amos stepped in he could feel himself slowly wanting to float upwards. Clearly the ship was more rattled than they had first thought; down one corridor, darkness and death, down another corridor, light and function. “Sure you don’t want a quick game?” Amos asked them all, “I’ll take you all on!” Alyson smiled at him fondly, “Maybe some other time.” After that they had begun to talk amongst themselves about what it would be like beyond the ship’s walls, what sort of planet they will have landed on, and whether or not it was infested with the scavenger’s cousins. Amos hoped it would be; he still admitted his frustration at not having a good go at fighting it when it was alive. Alyson had hoped it would be a jungle, or a forest paradise that she had never seen; ever since the beginning of the 27th century there had never been many trees on any worlds, most of them confined to nature domes. Alyson prayed it would be like one of those domes, but uncontained, feral and free. Viggo remained sceptical about where the ship had crashed, and still believed that the ship crashed on purpose, and so the planet would be nothing more than a dustbowl, probably teeming with scavenger-like monstrosities. They took a short break within the corridor, eating some of their supplies of chocolate and bread and water, realising then that it was the 28th century. When they had left Mars it had been just before Christmas of the year 2699, and it had been well long enough for them to be into the next century. A century of discovery, the news people had said. Drew’s light beamed ahead of them as they walked, and her one graceful blue eye gleamed in interest as the sure sign of elevator doors revealed itself. She turned to the others, “This is our last go on the elevators, guys.” Alyson sighed in relief, “Thank god, I was sure I would fall down one of these things…” As they approached, they heard a noise; it was a quiet droning sound that slowly changed into a rumble coming from all around them. They stopped dead and charged their electro-rods immediately in reflex, unsure of what the noise was, and any noise they did not recognise became a threat. Drew realised what it was, and whispered to them, “One of the elevators is working!”

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Viggo glanced at Alyson, both sharing the same uneasy thought as to how one of the elevators was just ‘working’. Moments passed them with quiet breath until the clang of the elevator sounded its movement over. In a second the door up ahead of them opened and several beams of light pierced out into the corridor like searchlights, and like searchlights, they all emerged and swung to bear on the four of them like startled rabbits before headlights. Their eyes narrowed in irritation as the light glared from multiple angles, overpowering them, they tried to see who they had encountered. But it didn’t take long for them to get an answer, and none of them liked it. “It’s them, sir!” a voice called from behind the lights, a flicker of a man’s profile was backlit for a second. Another harsher voice ordered, “Get them! I want them alive!” Amos was quick to respond to the sudden rush of booted feet and flaring electro-rod glows racing towards them. He grabbed Viggo and Alyson tightly and shouted to Drew, “Come on, Drew! I have an idea!” Captain Thomas Erskine led the chase in a bolting run, Lieutenant Clare Gellar right beside him and keeping pace. Neither of them wanted to loose these roaches that the Major had so specifically mentioned to be caught, and they’d do it themselves if the rest of the squad couldn’t keep up. The thought forever came to Erskine: perhaps the Major would release him, Gellar and his squad if they managed to catch these roaches. The blue glows of the roaches’ electro-rods fluttered desperately away from him and his unit, and he wondered how far they would run for, or where they were going. He doubted they had any tactical reason of fleeing; they were probably just scared to death by the size of Erskine’s squad and the drama of them simple emerging from the elevator like that. Of course, Erskine handed that down to fate, it was extremely fortunate for him to simply stumble on the prisoners like that, but, he felt he needed some good luck around now. Gellar’s sharp eyesight led him forward after they rounded a corner, “They went into that room to the right, sir!” He grinned and replied coolly, “Good, stuck in a dead-end for the taking.” Erskine’s blood was burning from the pursuit, and now he was going to finish the job properly, quickly and efficiently. He led his squad straight through the lit doorway without hesitation.

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Amos and Viggo heard the massive clamour of the guard squad rumbling down the corridor like a freight train and in any second they would all burst through into the active Grav-Ball arena. They both stood on either side of the door, Alyson and Drew rooting one of them each to the floor, when suddenly two figures darted through the doorway. Viggo and Amos sprung the trap by sticking a leg out in the doorway and the first two guards were immediately taken off their feet in the low gravity, and spiralled away through the air. As the rest of the squad piled in, the four ambushers jumped away from the doorway and into the empty spaces of the arena. When all of the guards had skittered into the arena uneasily, most of them untrained or unaware of how to move in the strange atmosphere, Viggo hollered, “Let’s play ball!” The guards saw their captain and lieutenant collect themselves and threw caution to the wind. All of them jumped into the air and towards the prisoners they were ordered to capture, gripping their electro-rods tightly. The captain and lieutenant, clearly versed in low gravity, moved with some skill as they recovered. Viggo pounced off the wall and levelled his quad-rod dangerously towards an oncoming guard. The tips banged off the guard’s armour plating without damage but still set the man to one side and out of control. Amos had remained on the ground and bulldozed through three guards at once, his huge size frightening the guards into submission beforehand, while he used fist and rod to clobber them aside. Drew skipped to one wall, spotting the captain and lieutenant over to one side, and immediately mounted onto the wall to sprint towards them. She found her boots awkward to run along the wall in and she lost momentum for a moment. The lieutenant, a woman with short dark hair under her helmet, jumped towards her and readied to catch Drew in her arms. But from below, Alyson sprung and clipped the lieutenant with her quad rod, knocking her into the wall. Drew sailed upward and away while removing her boots, “Good job, Alyson!” she called down. “Thought you needed some help,” the woman replied as she turned to face the lieutenant again. In seconds Viggo found two guards, while running across the floor, were chasing him. He felt insecure in his boots, feeling the lack of grip that the rubber soles gave and the hard edges slipped far too often in the low gravity. But ignoring this he made his way to the back of the arena, still the guards pursued him all the way to the back wall, but once there, Viggo jumped and ran part way up the wall and pushed off it with 288

his feet. The guards didn’t have time to respond and crashed into the wall with heavy thuds, while Viggo glided back towards the other end of the arena, and the other fights that continued. Amos was still having a go at the three guards he had fought earlier when the twin-rod jabbed him from behind. A fierce amount of electricity blasted through his veins and temporarily paralysed him completely; his teeth snapped shut and his eyes squeezed tightly as a voice rang out, “Use your electro-rods you idiots!” Another rod sparked and jabbed into Amos’ ribs, but he had had enough. With a roar of defiance and with hundreds of volts charging through his body, Amos swung around with a fist the size of boulder, and smashed into the ordering man’s face. The twin-rod was removed from his side immediately as the man was sent into an overhead spin across the arena. Grimly, Amos was still being poked in his ribs by a guard with a single electro-rod. He turned back and clasped the rod’s barrel in one huge hand, and twisted it sharply. The guard, his arm strapped to the electro-rod, winced in pain and was sent off his feet into the air. Cursing, Amos was finally free of the shocking effects of the rods and shivered absently in recovery. Alyson yelped in pain as the single electro-rod found its way into her unprotected side, and she lost all control of her limbs as the stunning electricity coursed through her body. Being not grounded to the floor, the power had nowhere to go other than circulate through her body. The guard did not remove the rod until Viggo sailed in from behind and snatched him around the waist. Alyson eyes flickered after Viggo as he dashed the guard’s head against the arena wall, even with his helmet on, the force of the strike knocked the guard unconscious. Viggo drifted back to Alyson, concern on his face as her body absently flinched and jolted on its own. “Are you okay, Alyson?” She smiled brokenly at him, the electricity making her muscles flinch involuntarily. “Yes, I am this time.” He smiled gladly. “Well that’s one down, how many more?” she asked, glancing down at the small melee below them. Viggo spotted Amos clunking two guard’s heads together, before throwing them both away towards a wall, while Drew headed towards the lieutenant again. He said smoothly, “I think we’re winning this game.”

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Drew spotted the woman again, and noticed that the woman had spotted her too. The albino was sure that the captain would have some reserve for his female lieutenant, and a plan formed in her mind. Using the wall, Drew came quickly down to the lieutenant while the captain ran with two other guards from the other side of the arena to assist her. Still, they wouldn’t be quick enough. The lieutenant jumped up to meet her, and electro-rods narrowly missed both of them before hands reached out to rend and grip. Drew collided with her in midair and fought a scrappy catfight. Before she had descended, Drew had loosened her electro-rod straps around her wrist, and now grasped the rod nearer the discharging tip. Drew forced them both into a tail spin, confusing the lieutenant for just long enough for Drew to spike the electro-rod deep into the woman’s side. The volley of shocks contorted her body and in the brief seconds Drew turned her round and held her close, the electro-rod tip millimetres from her throat. “I demand this to stop!” Drew hollered while wrapping herself tightly around the lieutenant’s body like a spider to a trapped fly. “I have your lieutenant hostage, and three of your men are out of action!” Alyson and Viggo slowly descended to the floor, Amos clobbered one more flailing guard before turning around. All eyes turned to the captain of the guards, who now walked with two officers flanking him, the two Viggo had driven into the back wall. “All right, albino,” the captain began with a peaceable tone, he deactivated his electro-rod in a sign of surrender, “you’ve won this hard game of Grav-Ball, and we willingly surrender. Please, release my lieutenant.” Though he had the voice of an honest looser afraid of the death of his lieutenant, Viggo knew that this man was military; there was a sharp edge to his words. Drew released the woman slowly as they naturally descended, but did not deactivate her own electro-rod. The albino stared at the guard captain closely. The man nodded firmly saying, “You fight a good and proper game of Grav-Ball, what prison block do you come from?” Drew cocked a feathery eyebrow at him, “Not the psycho-cells, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He chuckled, “No, I didn’t think that; no psycho fights as well as you and your friends do here.” Slowly they reached the floor, and everyone slowly converged into two groups, guards and armed prisoners. Erskine extended a gloved hand to Drew, 290

“I am Captain Thomas Erskine of the prison blocks R to V,” he introduced. Drew did not receive his hand at all, only stared at him coldly. It was Viggo, who stepped forward, “Yes, I know who you are,” he began, Alyson looking slightly surprised as he did. Erskine lowered his hand and his eyes narrowed at Viggo, his mind seeking something that was far back in lost memory. He spoke with growing recognisation, “Yes, and I know you; you were transferred to one of my sectors ages back. Something about an attempted rape…” Amos’ eyebrows rose and Alyson flicked a nervous glance at the huge man beside her, knowing full well he was ignorant of the truth, no one had told him about Viggo’s attack on her. Viggo realised it too, but continued firmly, “I am Viggo York; these are my companions, Drew MacFarlane, Alyson Valentine and Amos O’Donnell.” Erskine acknowledged their faces with their names; his eyes fell on the huge Herakles man. “Sorry about that…” Amos said flatly, indicating Erskine’s own jaw line where a huge red, angry bruise and a slit of blood had started to formed. Erskine shrugged and answered levelly, “I’ve had worse.” There was an uncomfortable moment of pause between the two groups, and it was Drew’s harsh voice alone that broke it. “So… why exactly did you want us alive? I thought you guys just killed everyone you came across these days?” Erskine could tell from experience that this albino woman was still hot blooded from the fight, surprising as he saw her physique more suited for gunfights than hand-to-hand. He nodded in agreement, “Yes, we usually do kill off everyone we meet. But I am sure you are aware that things are not as they seem around here of late?” Drew began again smoothly, “What do you mean?” Captain Erskine looked to his lieutenant who stood beside him. Caution was behind her sepia eyes, and seething anger was etched over her face since loosing a rod fight against roaches. He understood her mood, but he was afraid he would have to unsettle her further. Looking back to Drew and the others, Erskine gestured to the main doors, “Let’s find somewhere more, secluded.” With that, and no further word of agreement from Drew’s part, the guards began to move as Erskine led them out of the Grav-Ball arena. 291

Viggo looked to Drew; he could just see her angular jaw jutting grimly after the guards. “Do we trust them?” “Military types,” Amos muttered quietly, “never can trust them.” Alyson suggested hopefully, “But they could have attacked us again when we were off guard? Surely they mean it.” Drew replied sleekly, not recognising that they had appointed her as the leader. “I say we go with them, but I don’t want any ‘guards’ down or off, Alyson. I don’t trust prison officers, let alone military trained prison officers. I don’t think he or his lieutenant are particularly stable, so perhaps they’ll tell us more than they may want to.” Amos shrugged absently, “All right, I’ll fight them again if needs be.” With that they moved quickly on to follow after the guard squad. Meanwhile Erskine and Gellar were discussing closely what was happening as they led their unit away. “What in the name of God are you doing, captain.” Gellar hissed, serpent like. He did not flinch at her predatory tone and only replied, “What I think is right, lieutenant.” She looked back to where they were walking, “Teaming up with roaches? Roaches we were sent to capture, for him!” “I know what our mission is, Clare, but the way I see it now is we have already ‘captured’ them, as you put it.” She gave him a sharp look at the pointed use of her name, and then said in a softer tone, “So you do plan to hand them over?” Erskine sighed and knew that Gellar was blinded by anger once again, he didn’t disrespect her or mock her for it; she was the best he’d ever known, but it was how to correct her without making her feel cornered. Cornering Lieutenant Clare Gellar was not a good idea. “No, not quite,” he heard her intake of breath and he continued, “Don’t you see; these people are the ones who dropped that creature down the elevator shaft!” Gellar cocked an eyebrow towards him, “How do you know?” “Only the fact that they beat us in a six-to-four fight makes me sure, Lieutenant.” Erskine noticed that she had quietened, recalling the fight, the logic behind his words mixed in harmony with her anger. The captain continued to press his point, “If they did try – and nearly succeeded – to kill the creature, then they are not afraid of it. Think about it, we could join them,” he caught the dark glare in her eyes and corrected himself, “They will join us, perhaps.”

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“And give the Major the chance to let that thing loose on us, or to just pop us in the back with that Sackhiem 66!?” hissed Gellar again, unrelenting. “We would be risking a lot, and risking all of it on trusting these roaches can fight with us against it.” Erskine shrugged as they came up to a doorway to an abandoned mess hall, and he said with a grin, “Well, I would at least like to see how much they know about the Major and his pet.” So the ‘roaches’ joined the guard squad in the mess hall with an uneasy quiet shrouding over them instantly. Viggo and the others noticed that many of the guards were on edge, but not nervous in the sense of military men ready for a battle, but more like men put in a position which they knew not of how to react. The ex-policeman knew then that most of them were volunteer men and women, much like sergeant MacLeod had been, and perhaps the captain and his lieutenant were the only military personnel in the unit. If this was true, Viggo would feel twice as good about the situation. But trained or not, these guards seemed to be learning some military traits; in silence they were cleaning their electro-rods with torn cloth and checking equipment that filled their backpacks. But it was the quiet that made them less army material, at least to Alyson’s point of view; she thought that the military were full of confident young men, capable of dealing with any threat, putting their lives at risk. If any threat came in the way of these men, she doubted they would risk anything above a limb. So Alyson, Viggo, Drew and Amos all sat on one side of a table while Captain Erskine and Lieutenant Gellar sat opposite them. The chairs here were not bolted to the floor, and therefore they could crowd around the same table easily. Erskine removed his twin-rod from his forearm and stood it up against another chair; he started to speak once he had turned back to them. “Firstly, before we can go any further, I would like to know what you know.” Viggo spoke up boldly before Drew had a chance, seeing this as a sort of interrogation, “We know that the ship has crash landed on some planet, and that a creature is rampaging through the corridors, killing everyone in its path.” “Have you seen this ‘creature’?” Erskine asked inquisitively,

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“Yes,” Alyson replied sharply, making the Captain’s head turn towards her, vastly experienced brown eyes focused, “we have fought it on several occasions, and have fled from it.” Drew added sleekly, eyeing Erskine intently, “You may have seen something of us dropping it down an elevator shaft?” Whether he did or not, Drew wished to lay down the law for these arrogant guards. The expression on his face clearly said that he had. Erskine looked to his Lieutenant again with a knowing expression. “Yes we did,” “And?” Drew persisted. “And what?” Gellar cursed back at her. Drew leaned forward to the woman she had taken hostage in the GravBall arena. “I dropped it down that shaft; I would like to know if it is dead?” Amos cleared his throat obviously and corrected Drew, “Ahem, we dropped it down the shaft.” Erskine looked at each of them in turn, he knew that the question had been on their minds for a long time, and as far as allegiances were concerned, this was a make or break moment. Sighing, he wove his fingers together on the tabletop and began, “I am afraid I do know about what happened to this creature, and I apologise that it still lives.” An inaudible but deeply visible sigh coursed through the four faces before him, but Gellar at his side shot him an evil look; delivering a silent acknowledgement of his decision. “I praise you, all of you, for your valour in nearly defeating the beast. I saw it at the bottom and it was nearly killed utterly, barely able to stand, missing a claw and an eye.” Erskine saw that Drew’s eyes were solid with tearless, grim sorrow, “But… we were under orders by another.” Alyson and Viggo exchanged another of their wordless looks just before Amos clicked his huge fingers – probably louder than he had intended – and replied, “Daniel! It’s gotta be!” Alyson’s deep blue eyes widened in alarm at the revelation, turning to Erskine to see some sign of correction or confusion, but there was none. “Yes,” the guard Captain replied darkly, “His name is Daniel; he is a Major within the Sol Government… apparently.” Viggo arched an eyebrow thoughtfully, to him, Erskine could now be one of the good guys if he was against Daniel; anyone against the bookwormturn-Major was a friend of Viggo’s. He asked slowly, “You don’t believe him?” 294

Erskine looked over to Viggo and shrugged, “I can only say he has betrayed his word several times, such as the time he promised none of my men to die needlessly, yet he shot and killed Jefferson for his pet monster to feed upon.” Several exclamations came at Erskine at once: Drew questioned, “Shot?” Alyson asked, “Jefferson?” And Amos wondered, “Feed upon?” The Captain sighed and nodded, “Yes, yes and yes. But I see we have a lot to catch up with, perhaps we should settle the matter of trust?” Alyson looked to Viggo again. Suddenly she was reminded of when she and Viggo had discussed ‘trust’ between each other and with those around them. She wondered what Viggo was thinking about this military man, his squad of guards and his connections with Daniel, was this going too far with trust? Already she and Viggo had joined with Drew and Amos, but even then, both of them knew Drew and Drew knew Amos. They had failed with near fatal consequences with Daniel, and Alyson found herself again questioning her own judgement. She trusted Captain Erskine from what he said now, but did she really know him to make the right call? Erskine watched their faces, and though they were all expressionless he knew that they were thinking long and hard, their eyes showed it all, shifting and flexing uneasily. He asked them, “Do we have an allegiance?” He extended his hand. Drew was directly opposite him and looked at his hand coldly. Whatever was going on behind that mask of a face, even Erskine could not tell; it was completely expressionless and pale like the hair that shrouded it, hanging absolutely still. With the instant reflex of a trained and naturally gifted sharpshooter, Drew took Erskine’s hand with a firm, and definite clasp.

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Chapter 6: On the River Styx Now that conditions had settled between the guards and the prisoners, they began to plan ahead and into the enigma that was journeying into the engineering decks. Sergeant Erskine had retained his objective to finding the power core or the main engines and restoring power to the ship, while Drew and the others remained focused primarily on reaching the supply lines that would take them to the front section of the ship, hopefully. It seemed to everyone that both groups were headed the same direction and so they could support each other in the defence against Daniel and his creature. They only hoped that Daniel had not already found out about Erskine’s betrayal and brought about a new guard unit to hunt them. But none of them knew the engineering decks, certainly not the lowest decks of a modified ‘Longboat’ class prison ship. Captain Erskine told them it could be a labyrinth of complex corridors due to the changes made to the ship’s interior; to add the prison transport section to the old Mercurian tug ship, the entire engineering section and the engines themselves had to be removed and fitted further back and under the ship’s transport hull. The captain had said he would have been surprised if the engines were still there at all after the crash. However there was more than just navigational problems in entering the engineering decks, there were issues that they knew nothing about down in the dark depths of the ship. Upon the crash landing fires were started all over the ship, mostly concentrated on the engine levels, and these spread rapidly throughout the decks. These superheated plasma fires melted steel bulkheads and weakened structural frames and supports catastrophically. As a result, corridors collapsed, passageways became blocked and impassable leaving two-hundred odd engineers trapped in the dark without easy escape. Some engineers on the outskirts managed to cut their way out, but many were unable to escape, closed off from everything with only themselves for company, no light, not enough supplies of food and water to survive the months of solitude. Madness overtook them. Captain Erskine looked around the entire mess hall, the sleeping quarters and the showers, searching every conceivable place that a person could be residing within. Himself, Gellar, his squad, Drew and Amos were all in the hall having woken up from a fitful sleep of recovering 296

nerves and aligning thoughts, but when he had woken he found no sign of Viggo or Alyson. No one he asked knew where they had gone, and they continued with their dutiful packing and organising regardless. Lieutenant Gellar had been issued the last watch, and it was she he now approached slowly. Her chocolate-colour eyes looked up at him expressionlessly, only to change with an acknowledging cocked eyebrow, “Can’t find Viggo and friend, sir?” He looked around some more and replied, “No, and it is hard to believe that a Mars police officer would abandon his unit without telling me of it first. Did you see them leave?” She smiled thinly, “Ex-Mars police officer, remember,” he didn’t respond as she continued, “I didn’t see them, but Officer Blake was on watch before me, maybe he saw them, sir.” The Captain grunted knowingly, “Of course, and knowing Officer Blake, the whole squad might have left for a breather without him knowing it!” Viggo and Alyson were only a few doors down the corridor, within the Grav-Ball arena which they had fought Erskine and his squad the previous day. They had deactivated the gravity converters and restored it to normal Terran gravity, this in itself took longer than they had expected; trying to find the Grav-Ball control room was a long journey through ventilation ducts and abandoned passages. Halfway there they had almost given up completely. But now they had exercised with the freedom of the open spaces, two or three hours, and no one but themselves for company. Although they had actually said very little, both of them thinking what was really going on with Erskine, what was truth and what was false. They could not accept that the scavenger was still alive, from losing their packs when they had been pursued, to the struggle of dropping it down the elevator shaft in a blind panic. They had begun wearing their full guards’ uniforms from head to toe, but as time wore on and rhythm and adrenaline had pushed them into full drive, they gradually found themselves too hot to work properly. While he was exercising, Viggo saw a new side of Alyson he had not expected to see. They had been running the perimeter of the arena for over an hour, and before that they had been doing warm-ups and basics, and midway through the running Alyson had dug out an old shirt from her backpack. It was old and torn in places and much too long for her body. But as he continued on working, Alyson had liberated herself of her

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heavy guard uniform and made the shirt into a makeshift leotard using small twisted wire to clasp the bottom hem between her thighs. Viggo had stopped for a moment in surprise when he noticed this and realised Alyson was fitter than he had originally thought; as he knew already, her arms were strong enough now to wield a quad-rod with ease, but now he saw her legs, her stomach and hips all strengthened and firm. Viggo almost mistook her for someone else. Clearly she was more mentally able than simply physically, she moved with surprising ease, without hesitation or fear of being seen or laughed at or attacked. Viggo felt pleased in a sudden rush; she had evolved into someone who could take care of herself, and with the endless prison life Grav-Ball games, exercise being the only pastime for a year, and running for her life from a merciless killing machine. Viggo was really expecting nothing less of her in the end. She continued on her work, running around the arena in a jogging pace, and Viggo found himself distracted again. He was doing his usual long bout of sit-ups in the centre of the arena while Alyson ran rings around him, there was a fair distance between them, but he had to stop and watch her. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for what he saw in Alyson now, and he had no idea what had brought it about into his head. There was a word or two he could describe her with now, yet he never thought it would be put with Alyson; Alyson, the young innocent girl with a sweet smile and a honest and faithful mind was now… beautiful, even sexy. Viggo shook his head and continued. Some minutes later Alyson came bounding over to him in the centre of the arena and sighed in appreciation. “I’m so glad I was with you in that cell, Viggo.” He blinked and looked up at her rather cautiously, “Why? Wasn’t I put in the psychotic cells for assaulting you once?” Alyson pulled some sweaty hair from her face; her black hair these days was draped over her shoulder blades. She sighed again, “No, if you weren’t in my cell, I never would have exercised! I wouldn’t be the person I am now…” Viggo shrugged, “Well, I don’t know; you’d still have had to play GravBall all the time.” She looked down at him, unimpressed, “I’d hate to think how many hours a day we actually exercised beyond Grav-Ball, Viggo.” He groaned and sat up for the final time and crossed his legs. He noticed something else about Alyson now, another fact that displayed her 298

newfound security. In all the heat of this long exercising period Alyson was not the only one to undress partly, Viggo had stripped the top of his uniform and undershirt. He thought back and realised it was the second time she had seen him so unclothed since she found him after the crash landing, and then she had acted hesitantly. Now, there was none of the old Alyson, she did not back away or turn her head. “I feel so good now,” Alyson said as she sat down next to him, the cold metal floor barely biting her warm skin. Viggo passed a glance at her, and replied sleekly, “I noticed.” She looked back at him with narrow eyes, “What do you mean?” Viggo looked away from her deep blue eyes, those eyes that could never change and still retained the innocent young woman, eyes that could drown him. He shrugged, “You seem to be coping better with… everything.” She sighed sadly and looked out over the arena, “Well, not much else I can do is there?” Viggo looked back at her, hearing slight ‘regression’ in her tone, “Not that I’m complaining; you look great!” The innocent smile alone thanked him. Alyson got to her feet quickly and said with new energy, “Get up Viggo!” He glanced at her, and in seeing her excited face, slowly climbed to his feet. “What?” Alyson grinned, “Remember in our cell you always jokingly lifted me off the floor?” Viggo nodded idly, “Yeah, just to tell you that you needed more muscle,” he smiled slightly; still unsure of what she was intending. Wordlessly, Alyson stepped up close to him. He was startled at her closeness and when her hands gripped his sides tightly. But then she heaved upwards and Viggo felt his feet lift off the floor by an inch or two. After a testing second or two, she dropped him and groaned happily. Viggo had just become even more surprised. “See,” she laughed, shaking her arms at her sides, “I think I’m good enough to say the lesson is over!” Viggo immediately leaned forward and grabbed her round the waist, and lifted her effortlessly off the floor. They both laughed as her feet were over half a metre off the ground. “All right, all right,” Alyson gasped, “you’ve proven your point!” Viggo put her safely back on the floor and locked eyes with her. For a few breathtaking moments he saw infinity in those eyes, deep blue oceans filled with stars of excitement and love. He had only felt such an angelic 299

presence once before, and that was long ago, when he was a different man. “Hey! There you two are!” Alyson’s eyes ripped painfully free from Viggo and he stepped away from her quickly to see a guard standing in the arena doorway. Viggo’s heart could have burst from his chest and shot the man on the spot. “The Captain’s been looking for you! Get back in the mess hall!” Then the guard was gone, disappeared back into the dark of the corridor. Alyson looked to Viggo who seemed on edge, “Viggo?” “Yes, what?” he blurted too quickly as he turned to face her. She looked puzzled at him and then moved to collect her clothes and backpack from the floor, “We better get back to the mess hall.” Viggo felt painfully sore for a moment as she walked away in her shirt-leotard, but he slowly pulled himself back together so that he too could retrieve his things. Both of them left the eerily silent arena and headed for the guard infested mess hall. When they entered all eyes turned to them. Viggo walked in first, uniform and undershirt flung over one shoulder, and some of the guards looked warily up at him. Captain Erskine stood up immediately and spoke hard, “Where have you been, Viggo York?” Viggo stopped for a moment and replied shortly, “Exercising.” He looked at some of the guards, “I think everyone needs some right now.” “Where is Alyson, Viggo? Is she with you?” “Yes, she’s just coming.” Erskine brow furrowed, “I don’t disapprove of you two ‘exercising’ but telling the guard on watch before you go would be appreciated!” Viggo shrugged and walked through the mess hall and the guard’s seated around the tables. Amos and Drew were there also, the albino watching Viggo closely while Amos said heartily, “He’s fitter than I thought!” Only a few seconds later Alyson walked into the room with graceful, yet tired ease. All of the guard’s turned and the men didn’t look away. Drew’s eyebrows shot up as Alyson walked through the mess hall wearing a torn man’s shirt pinned into a leotard-like form over her underwear. Amos dropped the spoon he was holding into the soup tin with an un-gratifying plop. Alyson spoke to Erskine honestly, “I guess Viggo’s already explained everything, captain?”

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Erskine nodded slowly, eyes focused on her, “Yes, I only want you to know that you should tell the guard on watch when you leave base…” Alyson leaned on one leg, some guards shifted in their seats uncomfortably. “I noticed your guard on watch at the time was asleep, sir,” she said flatly, folding her arms. Erskine shrugged and replied smoothly, “That’s Officer Blake for you my dear,” With his name underlined, Officer Blake turned his head rather sheepishly from Alyson. The woman stalked through the seated guards and headed off to the showers to rid herself of her sweat. She passed Amos and Drew on the way and the albino gave her a knowing wink. Amos was still staring and quickly turned to Drew as if disinterested. “Nice hips… I mean tits… I mean…” he bit his lip and Drew looked at him hollowly. “Taken off guard were we, Amos?” She asked with underlying mirth. He waved his hands off in the direction Alyson had departed, but words were still failing him. All he got out successfully was a feeble: ‘she’s pretty’. Alyson was in the changing rooms and had removed her makeshift leotard when one of the guards entered the room behind her quietly. “That’s an impressive use of a man’s shirt, Alyson.” She spun round in surprise having not heard his entry, “Who are you?” He shrugged; he was about Alyson’s height and perhaps her age, a badly shaven jaw and a mass of scruffy hair under a helmet he might never have taken off for weeks. Alyson only recognised him as a creep. “My name’s Melniker, Dennis Melniker.” Alyson shrugged and turned away from him absently, “Well you better get back to the hall, your mother might be wondering where you are.” Cold clammy hands touched over her hips, they started to run around between her thighs. He started to talk, but Alyson hissed aloud and kicked backward and up at him with her heel in the raw defiance she had uncovered only once, and that was to kill a psychotic prisoner. That rage unlocked itself uncontrolled, and lashed out at the guard. The young man yelped in terrible pain and staggered away and to the floor, hands cupped over his groin in agony. Alyson glared at him and spat on the tiled floor near him. She had had enough of this, all this time she had thought she had got

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away from men like Jefferson and Adrian, but it seemed not so. Would she have to crucify this one to make her point? She stepped towards Officer Melniker and was about to kick him hard when a figure stepped into the room from the mess hall. Alyson thought it would be Viggo at first, but it was actually Captain Erskine, a puzzled expression laced with anger on his face. “What’s happening in here, Officer Melniker!?” The guard was gasping on the floor as Alyson planted her foot back on the tiles, “She… she kicked me in the…” he groaned. Erskine looked at Alyson darkly but she swept the hair from her face and replied firmly, “He took advantage of me, Captain, or certainly tried to.” Thomas Erskine was a good judge of both men and liars, and Alyson wasn’t either. He glanced down at Melniker and he knew exactly what the little runt was like deep down, and it would be typical for him to try something like this. Erskine smiled at Alyson and replied, “I believe you, Alyson. Dennis the Menace here is a trouble-maker. Not military material by far now are you Dennis!” Alyson smiled wickedly at the Captain and asked slyly, “Can I give him what he deserves, sir?” Erskine shook his head slowly but said instead, “I have a better idea for this situation…” The guards in the mess hall wondered what was happening in the changing rooms for sometime; all of them eager to go and look but lieutenant Gellar ordered them to stay where they were. Moments later, after minutes of what seemed to be Officer Melniker’s shouts of protest, the officer himself was shoved by Captain Erskine out into the mess hall completely naked except for his own clothes binding his arms and legs and gagging his mouth. Immediately all of the guards present choked with laughter at his misfortune as he squirmed about on the floor helplessly. Captain Erskine entered the mess hall and planted a booted foot heavily into Melniker’s back, nearly crushing him into the floor as he announced, “May this be a message to all of you; any abuse of any kind on oneanother is a crime of the highest penalty! This man was caught sniffing a woman way out of his league, and I hope you will all learn from his mistake!” He turned his boot on the man’s back, twisting skin with its sharp leather grips. After that, nobody helped Officer Melniker, and Alyson later re-emerged from the changing rooms after her shower, fully clothed, to witness his disgrace with a wicked smile. 302

The start of their journey was easy for a time; after leaving the mess hall the company of guards and prisoners had compiled all of their belongings and collected together as many supplies as they could carry. There was much debate about leaving the mess hall; many knew that they were abandoning their last shelter. Those people were considered paranoid for most of the hike through the corridors, all of the red lights were on to lead the way and there were no bodies, no monsters and no roaches. It seemed to the Captain at least that things would go smoothly en route to the engine decks. However, they quickly felt the floor tilt to one side yet again; it almost became totally diagonal, rising high to the right. Panelling was burst from the walls, ceilings and floor, cabling became dead corpses hanging over their heads, not one spark emitted from any of them. No sooner, some of the emergency lights were offline, failing to emit their gore red light. The squad turned on flashlights to aid in finding direction just as they fell upon a blockade. “Hold, squad!” Erskine ordered from the front, everyone stopped. “The way is blocked.” Lieutenant Gellar marched swiftly up to the massive structural failing ahead of them, and realised she was looking at one of the bulkheads for the deck. A huge dull chrome beam had collapsed through the ceiling and had brought a mass of cabling, ventilation shaft, and panelling down to fill the corridor. “It’s the bulkhead, sir,” she announced over her shoulder, “we can’t budge it in case the whole upper deck crashes on top of us.” The squad waited quietly as Viggo, Alyson, Amos and Drew came to the front to see the blockage. Amos pressed his massive hands to the bulkhead beam and pushed at it ‘lightly’. It didn’t budge. “Careful you ogre,” Gellar snapped, “You’ll kill us all!” Amos gave her a dark look and stepped back. Viggo crouched down and looked round the blockage below the bulkhead beam. Erskine watched carefully, “Do you see anything, Mr York?” Viggo seemed to reach into the blockage and pushed something aside with an evil scratching sound, people cringed. He stood up again and said, “We can crawl through this; looks like someone’s made enough room to get through already.” Gellar poked her head down to see the gap and Drew suggested, “Could it be Daniel and his pet?” 303

Erskine looked over to her, his face grim in the twilight of torch lights, “Even if it is, that’s no reason for us to stop going through.” So slowly, each man and woman crawled through the gap on hands and knees. Each person having to remove their backpack as there was not enough room, and there was a genuine fear of losing Amos as the unnaturally huge man almost didn’t fit through. They passed through three similarly blockaded corridors as well as down one elevator shaft in pitch darkness. It seemed that the further they went on, the blacker and gloomier it became; fewer lights were working up on the ceilings, sometimes there was only one light flickering round and round, casting its red gaze down on them in the dark, flickering long shadows around them. Everything was distorted too; the walls, floors and ceilings, all of the panelling was misshapen and weak. It was clear that a fire had broken out, a plasma fire most likely. It was undeniable now that they had entered the dark labyrinth of the engineering decks.

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Chapter 7: Hades Everything was pitch dark. Everyone forgot colour existed as they were immersed in a monotone world of electro-rod blue haze, while a few fierce torchlight beams sliced great tears through the dark. The torches were the only truly effective weapon they had, each spot the beam touched, on wall or floor, was revealed in detail. The rest of the world was a blue fuzzy blur, the air felt brittle, full of unsettling static from the highly charged rods. Alyson could barely see anything in the gloom, or at least, everything looked the same; greys and blues, the walls were faintly reflective steel and dull dark cables strung about overhead. These corridors were wider than the other passages a few decks up; she guessed that this was the case because of the large pieces of machinery and trolleys that nearly filled the corridor in places, all smashed and out of use. But there were darkened shapes on the floor that she only spotted a couple of times as she walked, and one of the guards up ahead had recognised them as bodies. He had said they had no evidence of wounds, but perhaps they were trampled to death. So the large group continued on down the murky corridors, passing two more slight blockades and turning several corners. They did not bother checking the hundreds of rooms they passed by; there was no need to, and the absolute dark that filled the doorways made most of them have second thoughts. It was quiet and cold too; no one seemed willing or able to talk as if the gloom had dried up their throats, as their breath could be glimpsed in the beams of torchlight. It was only a matter of time before Captain Erskine’s voice called out from the front line, “Hold, squad; it’s another blockade.” Everyone stopped and they brought their lights to bear on the mass of rubble ahead of them. Once again, Viggo, Lieutenant Gellar and Amos looked over the block, trying to find a way through. Gellar looked to Erskine, her face barely seen in the hazy blue glow, “This one is solid, sir…” Amos was heard grunting and glimpsed pushing hard into the metal that blocked his way. Gellar continued, “It looks like the upper bulkhead has completely failed here and, quite probably, all the other corridors on this deck. “So we go down again?” Alyson asked. Erskine grunted, “We’re on the bottom level.” 305

“Up?” Viggo suggested, Gellar shook her head, “If this bulkhead has failed like this, there’s a giant hole in the floor on that deck.” Then there was a crushing sound coming from Amos. It had sounded like he had stood on chalk or charcoal of some kind and as the lights fell to his feet, they weren’t far off in the assumption. Amos stepped away, repulsed, “Yeach, what is that?” Viggo peered down and answered in a confused tone, “A corpse with three heads…” “What!?” Erskine gasped in disbelief, stepping forward. More lights focused on the corpse in alarm, but Gellar sighed irritably, “Its three bodies together you fool… It looks like they were fried in a plasma fire.” The three bodies were tightly packed into the corner of the blockage and the right-hand wall, and the damage done to them had reduced them to black charcoal figurines melted together, giving the impression of a three headed man. Viggo looked uncomfortable with the find and muttered, “It’s Cerberus…” Alyson was the only other person who heard him while Erskine crouched down to see closer, “They have something,” he gestured to a metallic box next to one of them, it was scorched black, as was the cables that extended from it, making it almost invisible in the gloom. The guard Captain gripped it tightly and pulled. Everyone around him stepped back as more of the object was revealed by destroying half of the charcoal figures. A great blade demolished the figures and more cabling and a backpack cut and dragged through the remains. Erskine hefted up the power cleaver in his hands and checked its power pack. “It needs a new battery cell, someone hand me their torch battery,” There was a pausing moment as one of the torch beams fluttered off and a quiet tune of clicking sounds resonated as a guard removed the battery from the torch. “Here you are, sir,” a guard handed forward a dull grey battery, Erskine took it immediately and slotted it into an open hatch on the cleaver’s power pack. Another moment passed until Erskine activated the cleaver and in the darkness everyone could see a very slight gleam running along the edges of the blade. The Captain sighed and announced, “One battery isn’t enough… I need maybe two more.” 306

“But that will be all of our torch lights used!” one guard protested, “They are our best lights!” “Can we not put them back in the torches after using the cleaver?” Viggo asked subtly. Erskine shook his head, “No, they’ll probably melt inside this old cleaver or be used up entirely by its transfer rate. You aren’t meant to use these cells in cleavers…” He turned to his squad, “All right, two people give me the batteries from their electro-rods.” There was an ugly silence as not one guard even flinched, none of them wanting to stand out, and all of them trying to form a huge, invisible and innocent mass. Even Drew, Amos and Alyson looked uneasy. Erskine groaned, “Well don’t all come at once…” He then stepped forward and gripped two guards’ electro-rods, “You two, seeing as no one else will.” The guards reluctantly handed their torches over and their Captain quickly clapped the batteries into the power pack, soon the cleaver began to glow as brightly as an electro-rod tip only white not blue. Erskine turned to Amos, cleaver and pack in hand, “All right, you are the strongest here so it would be best if you did the honours.” Amos took both of them from the Captain, removing his own backpack so he could wear the power pack in its stead. They all watched as the huge Herakles man carried the heavy cleaver like a baby, before putting its blade edge to the metal. At first it was a terrible din to have to listen to, echoing and bouncing through the corridor like thousands of shrieking nails on a blackboard, while sparks showered constantly around Amos, dancing through the charcoal remains around his feet. But after a time, the noise lessened, and Amos cleanly carved through the blockage like a lumberjack to a felled tree. Everyone else waited patiently or guarded the corridor behind them. Viggo and Alyson stood beside each other as Amos cut the huge bulkhead beam that blocked their way forward, both of them finding themselves quite tired and leaning supportively on the wall. Erskine and Gellar seemed all too eager to get through the blockade, pacing around watching Amos intently; even Drew seemed almost as bad. The guards in general were waiting further back, still as statues. “It’s cold down here,” Alyson began after she had shivered. Viggo nodded, he had noticed the drop in temperature a while back, “Yes, the power’s been offline a long time down here, and we are probably near

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the cooling tanks too. I think Longboat ships like this have the cooling tanks right at the lowest level of the ship.” “Why?” Alyson asked, “In case of a crash landing,” Viggo replied honestly. They both exchanged ironic glances. “Nearly through, Captain!” Amos shouted over the din of his cleaver, Viggo watched with interest, Amos was nearly through the main body of the bulkhead crossbeam that blocked most of the corridor. Of course, the big man would have to cut another slice through it to open up a gap big enough for them all to squeeze through. “Let’s hope the ship doesn’t come crashing down on us,” Alyson remarked. Seconds later there was a rending crash and everyone braced themselves against the walls as the corridor shook violently. Amos stepped away after the bulkhead crossbeam split in half with a diagonal split down the middle, the upper half of the beam crashed to the floor with a clang while ripping a huge section of the right-hand wall down with it. There was a shivering groan from somewhere above them as other massive internal structures buckled with the loss of the beam. Gellar struck Amos hard on the arm with a gloved fist, “What the fuck are you doing!? Bring the whole place down on us why don’t you!” Erskine raised a hand to Gellar to calm her temper, “He’s given us room to go through in half the time I thought it would’ve taken, don’t worry.” Gellar glared at her Captain before stepping away, her anger simmering off. Amos looked to the power cleaver’s backpack to see smoke whispering out in long vapour trails, he looked to Erskine, “I think those batteries are toast, Captain.” The officer shrugged and gestured to the floor absently, “Leave it, we shouldn’t need it again.” “You hope,” Viggo corrected swiftly just as Erskine climbed over the fallen crossbeam nimbly, the rest of them following after him carefully. They were plunged back into the darkness again after that, and nothing seemed any different on the other side of the blockage, Alyson had been hoping they would come across some area of importance or at least interest, but it was only more of the long, wide corridors. Now there were only two beams of torchlight breaking up the blue mist of the electro-rods, and both of them swung slowly from left to right idly. 308

Viggo’s nose wrinkled as he smelt something in the air, it had been growing since they got through the blockade and it was strong enough now for others to notice. “You smell that?” he asked Alyson, She smiled in small relief, “I’m glad you do too… I thought I was going mad…” Amos spoke up from behind them, “It’s the smell of death if there ever was one.” Alyson agreed; it was the sort of reek that had been present through most of the prison sector corridors on much higher decks. She had forgotten the smell with all the travelling in somewhat ‘cleaner’ areas. “Smells like the ‘psycho’ blocks all over again,” Viggo mused as they turned a corner. “Hold, squad!” Erskine announced from the front, and again everyone stopped moving and readied their weapons. “We’ve found a factory area…” “Factory area,” a voice questioned from the back of the group, “this ship has factory areas?” Gellar sucked in her breath, restraining herself, “Where do you suppose extra weapons are made and fixed, and where machinery is made?” “Do we go through?” Viggo asked Captain Erskine. Erskine took a torch from one guard and pointed it down into the chamber beyond; the lance of light could not possibly cover the vast area within. He nodded gradually, “Yes.” The chamber must have been huge had the interior lights been working to show them so; they walked down a small flight of grated stairs that led to a wide open expanse of bolted steel panelling. To the right there were five huge hatches, over twice the height of Amos in their diameter, each hatch had a large workstation positioned in front of it with an assembly line running across the width of the room before disappearing through a chute in the opposite wall. These five assembly conveyers were crossable by five identical steel bridges, and there was another flight of stairs leading up to the only exit on the other side of the chamber. Looking up, there was great orb-like pylons mounted upside down on the ceiling, they were dull and lifeless, like dead eyes looking down at them. As Erskine observed one of the pylons had loosed from the ceiling and was now smashed over one of the workstations below, his squad had reached the bottom of the stairs and walked over the bolted floor. Clearly the factory had received some damage from the crash also, he thought. 309

“Sir,” a shout came from one of his officers, “I’ve found a body.” He sighed, “Well… isn’t that the anticlimax; there are hundreds of bodies!” As Erskine approached the officer, Drew was also there and she continued, “This one’s different sir,” He peered over their shoulders and saw the body. The smell that had accompanied them through the previous corridors was even stronger now, and Erskine realised with the light of his torch how bad the body was. The clothes had been torn apart into ragged strips, and most of the flesh had been removed in all of the parts of the body where the flesh was the thickest. In some places it was gone right down to the bones. Drew looked over the corpse and said, “This isn’t the work of our scavenger friend.” “Rats?” one guard asked hesitantly. “No evidence of rats… and none in here or the corridors,” Viggo corrected. He peered closer, “What’s more…” One guard heard something from within the factory, a clunk of something heavy; he brought his torch light to bear on where he thought the sound had come from. Alyson heard it too and walked to the man’s side, “What is it?” “I… don’t know…” he replied in a whisper. Viggo continued his analysis, the rest of them oblivious, “… I think this has been done with teeth, human teeth.” He pointed out a portion of chewed flesh and there was a distinct crescent-shaped bite in it, there were also impressions of nails elsewhere. “Sir!!” Erskine jumped in fright for perhaps the third time in his whole career to see the guard with Alyson, pointing off into the factory area with a torch. “Something’s moving over there, sir!” The squad had their electro-rods on maximum glow setting but still the darkness over the first production line could not be penetrated, and they moved forward with Erskine as he mounted up the first bridge, torch in hand. Viggo climbed up with him and they both looked over the area with the advantage of height. Bodies, too many bodies, perhaps a hundred in total but it was too difficult to distinguish one from another. Tumbled and lifeless, limbs twisted and curled this way and that; bloody wounds and scratches adorned all of them. The stench was thick and choking. Viggo cursed, “Let’s get out of here.” Then one of the bodies sat up and looked at them. Everyone caught their breath. Erskine’s torch light beamed into the person’s eyes 310

but the light seemed to be reflected back at them by rather inhuman eyes, like cat eyes in the dark. The face that was revealed was a nightmare, human yet lividly pale, almost transparent with cuts and bleeding gashes, gore smeared over its burst lips and broken teeth. “Captain,” Viggo muttered, in seconds, more supposed corpses had risen to look over at them. Suddenly everything started moving, the bodies that had risen zombie-like bolted in different directions across the factory floor, too fast for Erskine and other lights to follow, and there were more than they had thought; many footfalls paced around in the dark extremely quickly. Then a scream rang out from one of Erskine’s men. In the blue glow of many electro-rods one guard was seen wrestling with a man in an engineer’s boiler suit. But this was hardly a man as he overpowered the guard with fierce fire burned hands and savage biting teeth. The engineer was seen literally biting into the guard’s face, the only part not clothed and behind armour, and tore a chunk of flesh from his cheek. The young man screamed and suddenly a swarm of crazed engineers and technicians attacked everyone else in the squad. Four clambered up the bridge to face Viggo and Erskine, both of whom charged their twin-rod and quad-rod defensively. Perhaps ten of the attackers jumped over the assembly line and crashed forward in a melee against the guard squad. Alyson hardly saw them coming, the guard with the flashlight was down and the man on top of him was tearing his face apart with hellish savagery. Two more maniacs hurtled forward and started to fight the first over the body of the still screaming guard, and only then did one appear before Alyson. She screamed and swung with her quad-rod forward, the four fully charged rods exploded into the cannibal’s stomach and a whirlwind of electricity engulfed him. In an instant he was down and still, but even quicker another blood soaked technician lunged at her, knocking her off centre. The crazed man swung with a claw-like hand at her face and nails scored through her cheek as effectively as steel trowels. Screaming, she kicked the man hard in the knee with a crack before dashing the quad-rod over his skull on a return swing. Viggo swiped up at the first oncoming madman upon the bridge and caught him under the chin with the quad-rod. The electricity coursed through the man’s skull and liquefied his eyeballs in doing so; he collapsed on the bridge dead. But another attacked Erskine just beside him, and another climbed up the side of the bridge. Viggo struck the climber’s fingers with the quad-rod barrels and sent him falling to the 311

production line below. One engineer punched him in the face and sent him sprawling over the bridge surface. “Get up, York!” Erskine hollered at him as he barged his fist into the face of his attacker, giving him time to catch Viggo’s charging assailant under the chin with the length of his twin-rod’s barrels. The punched monster rose back to its feet, its jaw outset from its skull, blood pumping from torn veins. Viggo climbed to his feet and fought on shouting, “We have to get out of here! The main exit is up ahead!” He had to shout to be heard over the fierce discharges of electricity and inhuman howls of the crazed attackers. Erskine battled on with him as more cannibalistic men and women ran at them over the bridge, and then managed to yell, “Everyone! Get over to the other side of the factory; we are getting out!” With that, he and Viggo ploughed forward with Gellar and Drew in tow. Amos ordered all of the guards up the bridge first and spotted Alyson further back, “Alyson, come on!” Hearing this, Viggo looked back to see the Herakles man charging back for Alyson who was fighting off two of the manic men. Amos pulverised one of the engineers’ faces with a fist of granite before grabbing her arm and pulling her off towards the bridge. She got herself running with him and they launched over the bridge, down again, back up the next, and down again. With three more to go and the others not far ahead, both of them saw a wave of cannibalistic figures running at them from left and right, closing fast. Leaping up the next bridge, Amos turned to fend off the pursuers. His huge booted foot broke one’s head from its shoulders, and his electrorod cracked over the skull of another. His fist delivered the third attacker to the floor, but more were coming up the sides of the bridge. “Amos, we have to stick with the others!” Alyson warned, remaining with him on the third bridge. Amos kicked a fifth and final cannibal before hurrying away with her down the bridge. They got up and over the fourth and caught up with the others on the last bridge. From a distance, the group of guards looked like fireflies in the dark; their electro-rods’ blue glow radiating only the area around them. But from where they stood, perhaps twenty inhumanly bright eyes glared at them. “A bridge too far,” Erskine muttered to his lieutenant.

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“We can take them!” Gellar hissed. He noticed that her firm, lower lip had been burst and blood caked her chin, but she sucked in a breath of determination. Viggo got hold of Alyson and held on to her arm tightly. She looked over to him with a small smile as Erskine commanded, “We head for the exit! Give these beasts a run for their money!” The guard Captain and everyone else behind charged down the stairs of the bridge. Erskine jumped the railing to kick one cannibal to the floor while Viggo stabbed two in quick succession with his quad-rod. Alyson heard behind her one guard being pulled down, his feet taken from under him and at least five of their attackers moved away to surround his body. Due to his sacrifice, they all had more room to move and less creatures giving chase. They reached the flight of stairs and bounded up them three at a time. Viggo tripped on one but was swiftly snatched by Amos behind him and hauled up even faster than he could have on his own. Erskine glanced over the horrific factory area again as his squad raced through the dark corridor beyond and saw no more pursuers. It seemed that they had started fighting with each other, over the two bodies of his fallen men and even against each other. He turned away in disgust and hurried after his squad.

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Chapter 8: Quiet waters run deep It did not end for them there; in the darkness of the corridors beyond bodies were found ripped and torn apart by human hands and teeth. In the neon glow of the electro-rods they could see raw bones, only veins and strings of flesh entangled them in places, black rooms they passed stank of rot and decomposition and dry blood. Every now and then the team had spotted teeth, loosened from its host’s mouth by repeated tearing through human skin or knocked out in bloody brawls. Alyson hated it all, and the distant footsteps and human howls did not make it any better. How could people be driven to such states of madness? Of all of the men onboard the ship, engineers and technicians were the last that she thought would start cannibalising each other. She shook her head and gingerly touched the three deep gashes through her cheek, the great tears made by the savage nails of a madman. She could tell they bled, even though she could not see them, thick moisture upset the skin of her jaw and blood would run down her neck if it hadn’t dripped off onto her uniform. It was burning with pain, but if she dared touch it she would be repelled by agony unmatched. The team moved quickly and as quietly as possible. Erskine, Gellar and Drew led the way; Viggo remained close to Alyson and the remaining two guards while Amos checked their backs cautiously. Every corner became a trap; visions of bloody cannibals darting round the corners to eat them alive jarred their minds repeatedly, warning them of the probable doom that was only an arm’s length away. In the quiet of their breathing and the cold, subterranean noises of the engineering decks, Alyson’s voice finally whispered, “Captain Erskine, what happened to those people?” Erskine walked carefully in front of her, and replied without a turn of his head, “I can only guess they were trapped down here ever since the crash, and with little food or supplies, I guess all they could do was eat each other.” “And that does particular things to someone’s brain, I guess.” “Undoubtedly,” Erskine agreed grimly. “But they must have survived longer due to the warmth down here; do you feel it, the rise in temperature?” There was a pause as everyone else paid closer attention to the air around them. Some nodded.

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“I guess the engines are working, and that some power is still functioning down here,” the captain added. A guard piped up from the back, “Well yeah, because back up there we still had the emergency lights working, even some of the main lights worked. But not down here though.” Erskine shrugged, “We saw that there was a fire back there; I think there was a rupture in the plasma drives which overloaded the systems down here. This warmth is very faint as it’s what little the engines can produce.” Alyson smiled faintly behind the captain, reassured by his confident tone and that someone knew exactly what was going on down here. But there was still a region of doubt in her mind about Captain Erskine; after all, he was a guard captain who had had dealings with Daniel and the creature. It would take more than saving them from blood-hungry engineers to convince her that Erskine was a friend. If she had learned anything over the past year or so, it was trust, and there was only one man she trusted utterly. Looking over to Viggo she could see him calmer than he had been with Daniel, even in the darkness that tried to swallow him, however her friend was idly watching both Erskine and Gellar, as well as checking on the other guards they now walked with. It was strange to think that Viggo had once been under the charge of Erskine when he was down in the psychotic levels, did they know things about each other that Alyson did not? Did Erskine receive any further orders from the late Administrator before she died to do with Viggo’s imprisonment? Alyson shook her head as a tingling shiver ran up her spine with tiny, icy footsteps. She was making things up; she felt it was nearing the end of their journey, that the black and unforgiving nightmare would subside and she would, they would, be free. As she thought of freedom and hope the team’s electro-rods discovered another blockade filling the corridor ahead of them. It seemed far harder and thicker than the previous one, and without any handy power cleaver nearby, they found themselves stuck. Gellar, Amos and Viggo tried to pick a hole through the debris but it was useless; everything was too tangled and meshed together to free any of it. “No good, sir,” Gellar reported expressionlessly. “And we don’t have our cleaver anymore,” Amos reminded, Viggo shrugged as he looked over the scrap, “Even if we did, without a power source it would be useless.”

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Gellar stood firmly before Erskine and suggested up to him, “Suggest we turn round and find another way, captain.” There was a groan from one of the guards; his only other comrade quietened him. Erskine itched his moustache lightly and looked to Gellar’s hard brown eyes; clearly she still did not like travelling with roaches, and clearly the loss of two guards back at the factory did not help her mood. He sighed, “All right, we have to find another way through to the engines, or find another cleaver or two to get through this. But I suggest we get some rest first, somewhere out of the way and easily defendable should those cannibals attack again.” After an hour of searching a dozen black rooms they found a fuse box room that suited their requirements; no bodies, no cannibals and completely vacant. They did not try and restore the fuse box into operation or try and recover the interior lights as either could attract the attention of the flesh-eaters to their location. So as the group unpacked a little and ate, the light from the electro-rods and the remaining flashlight were reduced to a minimum, and shadows shrouded around them like veils. Erskine came to Drew, Amos, Alyson and Viggo as the four of them sat together on the floor. The room was unadorned in anything, small with the hulking fuse box filling most of the floor space, while the door was nearby and wide open. He crouched down to be at eyelevel with them all and addressed them all quietly, “I see that we are at a point of recollection and consideration, and there are other things that should be explained to you about Daniel and his creature. “In the time that I ‘served’ under his command, I discovered that he was more dangerous than he looks. I told you all that he shot second lieutenant Jefferson to feed his creature, yes?” They all nodded. “Well as I discovered earlier on, the Major is armed with a Sackhiem 66 burst pistol loaded with full clips of burst rounds, assassin issue.” There was expressions of confusion and shock through the four faces before him; confusion from Alyson and Amos, while shock from both Drew and Viggo. “A Sackhiem 66,” Drew exclaimed, “my father had one of those.” “Are you sure it was assassin issue?” Viggo questioned,

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“My face was close enough to it at one point for me to see the craftsmanship in its design, yes.” Erskine replied levelly, remembering how he had been close to loosing his head to the weapon. Amos spoke up quietly, though his gravel-like voice still grated like an avalanche, “So, which should I be more afraid of: this Sackhiem 66 gun or the scavenger?” “What can it do?” Alyson asked, forcing out the worry from her tone. Erskine gestured around at their group in the small room, “If Daniel was expert enough he could kill everyone in this room with two shots.” Alyson swallowed. “Definitely the gun,” Amos answered his own question. Drew cocked an eyebrow at the captain, “But is he an expert with it? When I held a Sackhiem 66 it was heavy, even though the assassin issues are riddled with holes to make them lighter. How can little stickman Daniel wield one without breaking his arm from the recoil? Its plasma based cells isn’t it?” “Yes,” Erskine replied, appreciating and noting the albino’s knowledge in weaponry, “but he can wield one easily, and has fired one without hesitation into another man, point blank.” “So maybe the creep can’t fire long distance,” Viggo hissed mirthlessly. Erskine’s eyes looked to him narrowly, “Maybe.” The guard captain grew quiet after a moment and the others thought he had fallen asleep; his head was bowed and his face obscured by darkness. When he raised his head again, his voice was bold but worried, “The rest of the news comes about the scavenger, as you call it. Before we ran into each other and after it had been nearly killed, Daniel sent me and my men off to kill a band of prisoners to feed the creature. I did as I was ordered, and the creature fed off all of them. However, when it was done, it seemed to grow in strength, it seemed to grow in power. Daniel told me then that the creature was ‘surging’ and that it had doubled its previous strength.” “Beautiful…” Viggo whispered darkly to himself. Drew looked to Amos coolly, “Looks like you might have your chance to fight it after all, Ammo.” Alyson’s eyes narrowed painfully at the captain, “How could you let this happen? Surely you should have killed the creature before it was restored?” Erskine was aware of Gellar not far behind him, undoubtedly listening over their discussion without clear presence. He knew her well enough. 317

The captain ground his teeth and replied to Alyson sharply and mechanically, “I was doing my duty for a senior officer. I would do the same if ordered to, even though I knew that it was the wrong thing to do in the long run. For now, we just have to deal with it.” Viggo stared at him with a thin smile, “Quite a problem you’ve got there captain,” Erskine looked at him with narrow eyes, “never knowing what’s right and what’s wrong.” “I seem to recall you having been in the Martian police force, Viggo York, surely you understand my duties? Or has life in the cell made you feral?” Viggo inclined his head slightly, his deep brown eyes black in the twilight, probing into Erskine like sheathed daggers, “Life in the cell has made me stronger, Captain Erskine.” Viggo could not help but glance over to Alyson, to see her looking back at him with a smile. Erskine saw the exchange even in the dark and leaned back from them slightly with a knowing expression flickering over his face. This group of roaches was strong, he knew now, but it was strong as a group; it had bonded and reinforced itself over time. Erskine knew what sort of bond that was, and knew its strengths and more importantly its weaknesses. If he lost Gellar in these dark corridors, torn apart like the Administrator or eaten alive like his other two men, he would not bare the loneliness and the lack of his career-long companion. The group before him were no different, but they were connected by love and friendship, not by drive or sophistication like himself and Gellar. With that came a great threat and great strength; on the one hand, if one – or two – died somewhere, the others would rebel and grow even more powerful in vengeance, but on the other hand, they would crumble and all of them would die. He wondered which path they would take in the end. “We do have the advantage in that the creature lacks its left eye and one of its arm blades,” Erskine continued anew, though shadowed with doubt, “any possible flaw with the creature must be exploited.” “At least the elevator did something,” Drew scowled. Viggo leaned heavily against the cold metal wall and asked, “Is there anything else, Captain?” Erskine shook his head, his eyes darkening; he could sense a degree of unease with them all, which he was not surprised by, them being so close to the end of their struggle they would not tolerate betrayal now. He wanted to be supportive of them, to pity them as things around them only got worse, but a bold restricted voice from the past told him no. In the end, it had said, it is a survival of the fittest. “No, that is all I have to tell 318

you.” With that the captain rose to his full height, and walked back to Gellar who sat a few metres behind him. Alyson broke off a large rectangle of chocolate from one of her packets and bit into it hungrily. The bitter sweet taste of the chocolate was starting to loose its appeal slightly, having been eating it a lot the past few days, Alyson was glad she was fitter than she used to be or else the chocolate would have only made her fat. “Do you trust them, Viggo?” she asked, indicating both Erskine and Gellar with a nod of her head. He looked over to her for a moment, then scrutinised both of the guards, “It’s hard to tell; they are military at heart, not like MacLeod was. Military officers can be deceptive and cautious.” Alyson was nodding as he made his decision; it was exactly as she saw it herself, but she only hoped her niggling doubt was misplaced. She watched the two guards as they talked quietly to each other at the opposite wall while eating the chocolate quietly. “I wonder how Gellar’s hair is so short…” Viggo looked questioningly at her, even Drew and Amos looked rather puzzled, “or why Erskine’s moustache is not out of control…” “And we wonder this because?” Amos asked in bewilderment. Alyson scratched the back of her neck and replied, “Because if I had a way of doing it, I’d have short hair again too.” “I like you with long hair,” Viggo countered with a challenging smile. “Surely you’d rather have short hair again?” she asked looking to him, and eyebrow arched up dangerously. He shrugged and looked to the guards again, “Well, why don’t you ask them?” She rolled her eyes at him, and then looked to Erskine and Gellar in determination, only to look back at Viggo unsurely, “You like it long?” Amos grinned while Drew looked slyly over at Viggo as he replied, “That’s what I said isn’t it?” Alyson settled herself back down on the floor, the remains of the chocolate held in both hands close to her mouth, stating her resolution silently. Viggo looked to Drew and saw the albino give him a knowing wink; he only sighed in return and leaned his head back on the wall. Erskine sat back down heavily beside his lieutenant and looked back over to the other four opposite him with a stony stare. She muttered absently, “How did they take the news, then?” 319

“Very well, actually,” Gellar grunted and added, “Do you trust them?” Her captain looked over to her with a silent expression, “Do you?” “No.” Erskine stretched his arms in front of him and let his shoulders and elbows crack obviously, even his fingers clicked in unison when he flexed them together. Sighing, he sat back and said at length, “I think we may have some competition once we have the engines back and running, I think that they will be strong as a group and equally so if they were reduced. They have an undeniable friendship.” Gellar snorted again while checking her twin-rod’s energy pack. “I only hope they cooperate even after the Major and his pet are dealt with, or perhaps we’ll have to deal with them ourselves.” “Perhaps we should deal with them before then,” Gellar suggested coldly, “if you are so afraid of being overruled by them, sir.” Erskine shook his head, barely looking at her as he replied, “No, they are too useful now; we’ve lost a lot of men now, and these roaches double our numbers and our chances.” Gellar looked at him from under the rim of her helmet, “Then we let them fight it out first, see if they are good enough to do it themselves.” “I got the impression that they might fight for themselves anyway, lieutenant.” He felt her thoughtful gaze on him and he looked over to her to reply, “The big Herakles man and the albino seem to have a feud over killing the beast.” “A bit of competition never hurt anyone,” Gellar smiled thinly, savouring the violent thoughts that swam through her conscience. Erskine levered out an apple from his pack, Gellar’s eyes focused on the fruit intently; they had all stored away fruit and vegetables from the last mess hall storage they were at, but they were uneasily whether or not they were using their supplies too quickly. Erskine didn’t seem to be bothered when he took a sizable chunk out of the apple. “I doubt the Major is aware of our siding with the roaches,” he began after swallowing the apple chunk, “so I think it is safe to say that the creature will go after them first anyway.” “That’s putting a lot on faith, sir.” “I think fate is on our side, lieutenant,” he replied sleekly, “We’ll get off this ship alive, there is little doubt of that.” They shared crooked smiles before looking away, back to the others who sat not far from them in the cramped fuse box room, only a few metres away. 320

Viggo woke with a surprised sigh of anxiety as he found himself suddenly free from the nightmare. He began to shift on the metal floor but a weight held him in place, he looked to see Alyson asleep beside him with her head rested on his shoulder and an arm across his waist. He did not move after that; she seemed even more peaceful than ever tonight and he’d hate to disturb her in the middle of good dreams. Looking round he saw everyone else was asleep and the fuse box chamber was drenched in gloom except for the single minimal blue glow of an electro-rod in the centre of the floor. He remembered the dream that had woken him, and again despised himself for his weaknesses. It seemed like he was damned with this curse forever, the mindless impulse to hurt and ruin, never to lead a ‘normal’ life. Although if he was cured of it, he found it unlikely that a normal life would be possible now; trapped within a black ship, crashed on some world with no clue as to where they were or how to escape, and even if they did, would it be any better outside? He shifted and Alyson stirred in her sleep. The sounds of slumber swirled and reverberated around him, proving that he would not get to sleep again tonight. Most of the noise came from Amos, in which Viggo was hardly surprised to discover. Looking around again he spotted a face looking at him from the doorway, a wraith-like face shrouded in white hair. “Can’t sleep, Vicious?” It was Drew, it was her turn for watch and her hand was forever tight over the barrel of her electro-rod. Viggo managed to sidle out from Alyson’s reach and stood up; the woman gave a sigh and an absent smile as he walked away towards Drew. “Can you not call me that,” he muttered quietly. Drew shrugged and peered out of the doorway, “All right then.” Viggo slumped down opposite her on the other side of the doorway and looked at her. Drew was statuesque; still and quiet, long legs crossed and her weapon across her thighs, head peering intently towards any threat that may arrive through the darkness. Her crystal-like, cobalt eyes were wide awake. “Aren’t you tired?” he asked, unable to stop a yawn spreading through his system. Drew replied expressionlessly, “I was, but with Amos doing that all night, I found myself wide awake.” “I thought as much,” Viggo smiled, looking to the huge snoring hulk that lay next to Alyson. 321

“Did you have another dream or something?” she asked absently. Viggo eyed her closely; it wasn’t usual for Drew to ask about that sort of thing, “Why do you ask?” She locked her single eye’s icy stare on him and replied, “I worry about the people who are with you.” He leaned back a little, “You mean Alyson.” Drew locked on the woman for a second, and then remained focused on him. “You put her in danger every night while you’re around…” “And what do you think I should do then?” asked Viggo, his voice hardening, “Disappear and never come back? Kill myself one night? Sorry Drew but my plans are a little more long term than that! Besides, I’ve already tried out one of those options…” She paused to listen, yet no one had woken from his raised voice. “You know that ‘long term’ ideals will never work between you two anyway, no matter how well behaved – or how unwell behaved – you have been around her recently.” Viggo’s eyes narrowed and he replied, “Drew, I don’t need a psychology report from you, of all people; a trigger-happy girl brought up by a drugcrazed mother and a stand-alone hitman!” Drew replied venomously, “I only care about Alyson, all right Viggo?” There was a long pause and Viggo realised then that his hands had formed fists at his sides; he couldn’t even remember doing it. As they eased, he relaxed and his jaw unclenched when he saw his error; Drew stared out of the door with an even blanker expression than she had done before. “I’m sorry, Drew,” he said quietly, “but I care about her too, too much. Being stuck in a cell for months on your own before finally getting to talk to someone, someone being a girl you get to know like the back of your hand while you watch her nearly die three times can do something to a guy. Not to mention the fact that she was put with me just to prove that I’m guilty and psychotic, even though all I want is to protect her as best I can.” Drew watched him out of the corner of her eye as he spoke. All of it was plain for her to see ever since Alyson was put in with Viggo, but it was made different with him talking about it in such a way. She formed her next words carefully, “Do you love her?” Viggo looked at Drew cautiously, expecting to see deception and modesty over her face, but there was nothing but genuine consideration. He sighed and replied, “Yes; how could I not.”

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As a silence descended on them both, but with the sounds of slumber continued to ring in their ears, Viggo rose to his feet saying, “I better get to sleep; tomorrow will be a long day.” Drew didn’t watch him go back to Alyson’s side, she only whispered, “Good luck.” The albino sat in silence within the dark fuse box room, a sigh parted her lips for a moment as she wondered what the next day would bring them: salvation, or destruction. She knew that Viggo remained awake, even though he did not move, and she wondered if Viggo would change, if fate would grant him his wish of a ‘long term’ relationship with Alyson. Drew knew it was unlikely, but she had the whole rest of the night to think about it, to gossip to herself, in fear and wonder.

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Chapter 9: Run, hide, fight If anyone knew the actual time of day, the team would have thought captain Erskine had woken them up early; most of them had to be prodded awake by those unfortunately few who could not sleep at all. The early start was continued with a quick pace out of the fuse box room and through the corridors towards the main engineering decks. There was a distinct feeling of caution as they moved on in the moody blue darkness, each man and woman sensing what could only have been foreboding, but also determination in the fact that their journey was hopefully going to end soon. Clarity of the situation came when they found yet another blockade down the third or fourth corridor they had tried; the cannibalistic engineering crews and technicians must have been trapped down on these decks with no escape. Without large supplies and trapped with their fellow companions madness had indeed taken them over and soon the only way they could survive for longer was to eat their own flesh. But that was not going to happen to Erskine and his squad. They had come too far to become trapped and he had already decided that if this deck was all dead-ends he would order them all back the way they had come and try elsewhere. Fortunately though they had Amos; they had not found any other working power cleavers and had to rely on muscle power to break through the obstacle. After a few metres down the new stretch of corridors, they found the emergency lights operational again. It was as if they had entered, journeyed through and escaped hell, and the crimson glow of existence returned to their eyes. Their spirits had risen after that point. Captain Erskine had stated that if the lights were working this far from the engines, then there had to be some functions still active for them to use. Deep down, Erskine realised that his goal of his effective command of the ship would be soon assured. Also since breaking from the blockade no one had seen any mutilated corpses in corridors or evidence of the Major and his ‘pet’. There was even an increase in temperature which everyone noticed rather suddenly in both pleasure and fear; the heat could have been resonating from a malfunctioning plasma core right beneath their feet. Erskine quietened their eagerness and glee with words of caution however; there was still the threat of the scavenger and Daniel, even though there had been no evidence at all of their passing. A monotonous hum slowly filled their ears quietly. 324

Viggo groaned, “God, reminds me of the lights in the cells…” Alyson shrugged at his side, “I don’t know, it’s good to hear something’s working.” Erskine chuckled ahead of them, he and Gellar retained their leadership of the group, “Exactly right, Alyson.” Amos grunted from the back of the squad, “These corridors are driving me mad though, when are we going to find some interesting places?” Erskine replied seriously, “After we get off the transport section of the ship and into the actual habitation decks, but that’ll be several days more I would estimate.” “No complaining then, Amos,” Drew said rather grimly, she too had hoped they would be out of the darkness sooner rather than later. The guard Captain heard her tone and added, “This place is a maze, especially in the engineering decks, we’ve already had about two days down here.” Alyson groaned with the faintest smile, “We know that much…” “Captain,” Gellar had a cautious tone which stopped everyone behind her deadpan still. She raised a gloved hand and pointed ahead, “there’s a body up ahead.” A few days ago the discovery wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest unless it had been hundreds of corpses, but there had been so little signs of death recently that one cadaver became a dark omen. The team approached the black blotch of a corpse which was twisted impossibly round at the waist; its lower half was face down while the upper half was the opposite. The dark skin of the man’s face was distorted into an ugly visage. Erskine brought the glowing tips of his twin-rod to the corpse and asked his lieutenant, “What is wrong with his face?” Gellar crouched down and took the dead man’s jaw in one hand, when she moved his head from left to right his neck cracked with deathly stiffness. One side of his face was distorted in such a way that his skin was rippled, like frozen waves. “He has had a close encounter with a plasma fire, sir, but more importantly…” As she moved his head gradually, Erskine identified the four telltale markings he did not want to see. Alyson was looking also and she breathed uncomfortably, “The scavenger…” Drew barred her teeth defiantly as Viggo remarked coldly, “Well we’ve got our evidence that it’s alive…” “Unless it’s someone’s idea of a practical joke,” Amos muttered. Drew whispered predatorily, “We’ll just have to kill it again then.” 325

Viggo disliked her tone as he looked at the body of the man; the beast had surprising strength this time in being able to twist a man’s body in such a way. He feared that Drew was being overconfident to the extremes of foolishness, and what he was troubled by most was that her revenge could have dire consequences. Erskine broke him from his dark, brooding thoughts by ordering, “We continue on, there’s no time to waste. Not anymore.” The humming drone got louder as they continued further, and the heat was building gradually with every step that they took. It surprised Alyson when she found herself feeling claustrophobic in her uniform and armour; the heat making her clothes itch and her skin hot. It wouldn’t be long before she started to sweat. “This heat can’t be normal, Captain,” Viggo remarked as if sensing Alyson’s tension. Erskine replied calmly, “There could still be fire break outs down here, maybe not plasma fires but fires nonetheless.” Alyson glanced at Viggo with an ironic look, “The one thing we haven’t dealt with yet…” He said nothing in response. After passing one closed and inactive elevator they finally reached a large chamber which seemed to open up to them rather suddenly. There had once been large bulkhead doors, several inches thick of steel, sealing the room off from the corridor, but they were now open and exposed the team to a fierce blasting heat. Erskine and Gellar narrowed their eyes as they looked into the room beyond and were completely shocked at the sight. The chamber was the energy converter station, a point between the power core and the main engines that changes heat energy from the engine furnaces below them to the electrical energy for the core several decks above. Only then did Erskine and the others realise that the lack of power wasn’t so much because of lack of fuel, but because of the damage done to the chamber they now stood beyond. Had the chamber been complete, there would have been a huge cluster of metre thick pipes in the centre of the room; each pipe was made of thick Alcidite, which was a material of extreme heat resistant qualities which has an abundant source on Mercury. These pipes went from floor to ceiling completely vertically while workstations and computer consoles covered the walls and a gantry and catwalk lined the left hand side, the door to the following corridors lay on the opposite side. Now however, it was clear where the tremendous heat was coming from. There had been a massive structural failure right along the bottom deck where it connects to the under slung engines, the same failure that 326

caused the plasma fires before had now destroyed the energy converters by ninety-percent. More than half of the Alcidite pipes had been broken, and their huge remains blocked the route to the other side, while huge whirling maelstroms of fire whistled out of the open ends of the pipes with ghostly hot visages. With at least six columns of inferno fire dominating the centre of the room, the team had then noticed the floor had split and a large crack ripped across the width of the chamber. Erskine held his squad back; he knew what was below them and what that crevice dropped into. As the previous corridors were scorched with plasma fire, which was caused by the plasma chargers and drives under their feet, this was undoubtedly the furnaces that they now walked over. Furnaces each about eight decks deep and the same wide, twentyfour metres roughly, fuming with heat not unlike the belly of a volcano. If someone fell into that pit, they would burn up well before reaching the molten slag that filled it. Through hazed eyes Erskine spotted the old gantry and steel stairs to the left, they were still bolted to the wall and were intact, and even though they traversed the pit safely, they did come frightfully close to the columns of fire filling the broken Alcidite pipes. “All right,” he shouted over the torrents of fire, “we go over the bridge!” “As simple as that, eh!?” Amos called back loudly. Erskine and Gellar turned and walked into the chamber, keeping close to the walls and as far away from the rather dormant looking crack in the floor. There was only a yellowish red glow that showed sign of the extreme threat. Alyson looked to Viggo, fear over her face as hot sweat formed on her skin. “I don’t like this Viggo…!” He smiled and took her free hand in his, “I don’t like swimming, but I can take heat well enough!” With that he led her around the corner of the huge doorframe and they sidled along the wall, eyes fixed on the great glowing gorge not ten metres away. Alyson shut her eyes tightly as the heat threatened to sear her eyeballs. She could feel the hot breath from the gorge wafting up at her and lifting her long hair from her shoulders; while Viggo’s big hand was clammy and slick in her grasp. They edged to the gantry stairs and saw Erskine and Gellar stepping cautiously on the catwalk above, the metal squeaking apprehensively under their boots. The red glare from the pipes was unbearable and only got worse as they ascended each metal step.

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Alyson was sure that she felt her boots sticking to the grilled metal and did not dare touch the handrails in case her glove would melt and fuse to the metal instantly. Viggo was good to her in the ascension; he did not force her too quickly but did not let her stop for a moment, always pulling gently on her arm, helping her up. The catwalk itself buckled as they traversed it, both of them had hoped to run across and be away from the heat quickly, but the heat had softened the metal, and the team’s weight threatened to take it down. Erskine and Gellar reached the other side at last and hurried into the moderate coolness of the corridor beyond to wait for the others. Once everyone was safely down and into the red lit corridors a little further, they all felt their skin burning and dry. They had nothing to treat it with, and tried not to itch or scratch and make it worse. Alyson hated the way her face felt, every time her mouth moved or her skin flexed it was stiff and dry like sandpaper. She looked to Viggo for consolidation only to see faintly his skin no better from hers. Now the heat dissipated behind them somewhat, even though it lingered around them and on their skin, the air had cooled relaxingly. Some of them had fits of coughing brought on by the fumes of the fire and the furnace below, they had breathed as little as possible while traversing the fires but still their throats burned they almost spent their water bags and bottles in quenching the pain. The corridors they now walked seemed fairly natural and plain, the only unsettlement caused by the floor occasionally tilting, or machinery having smashed to one side of various passages. “I guess you weren’t expecting all of that fire back there, Captain?” Viggo questioned. Erskine sighed, “I certainly didn’t want it.” “Why, what does it mean?” Alyson asked quietly, coughing. “That was the energy converter; the furnaces below us are the second process in the combustion engines, the heat from those furnaces are channelled up and converted into electrical power for the power core above us. The damage back there explains exactly why we don’t have much power in basic systems anymore; there were only about five pipes still intact.” Alyson nodded, some of his information resurfacing from years of her failed Physics PhD, but as for their situation, that was still a mystery to her. “What can we do then to fix it?” Gellar coughed unexpectedly before Erskine gave his uneasy response, “I don’t know… with the converter at half power, this could really be the 328

most power we are likely to get throughout the ship. I was hoping the problem would be something less serious.” Amos shook his head, “Surely there is another way to get power to the core? Surely it isn’t all heat energy?” “But that is what makes a Longboat craft like this so effective; it uses any basic waste material as fuel for the engines and it uses the massive amounts of heat the engines produce to create inexhaustible electrical power for the ship’s systems. I can’t think of another power source that would be connected to the core.” Erskine stopped as he choked painfully. Gellar handed him the bottle of water she carried and he drank a little. Cursing, Erskine handed the bottle back and told everyone, “No more drinking of water; we can’t run out now as there are no more mess halls for a long time yet.” As the red emergency lighting grew stronger and more regular, and everyone became at ease with the situation, Alyson looked over to Viggo with a questioning expression. “What do you think happened to Sergeant MacLeod?” Viggo could only shrug; he had not seen their sector Sergeant for months, the last time he had talked to him was the night before he attacked Alyson. After that, Viggo had been put down in the psychotic blocks and never saw him again. “I don’t know,” he told her, “you’d know better than I.” Alyson sighed quietly, hoping he was alive; she liked Raymond MacLeod, for a sector Sergeant he treated her like an equal, as if he had thought she didn’t deserve to be put onboard the prison ship in the first place. He had always made sure she was all right, especially after Viggo was taken away. Alyson was quite guilty at how she had forgotten about MacLeod so quickly; all of the tension with Daniel, the scavenger, and Erskine’s squad had blinded her from old friends. “I know he went looking for the Command deck; I gave him Daniel’s map to get there,” Alyson said brightly. Drew muttered from the back, “Hope he had more luck than we did, that’s all I can say.” Amos grunted in agreement. “You never know, maybe he’s there right now,” Alyson said with a rare smile, “maybe he’s coming back for us now…” Then Captain Erskine interrupted from the front, clearly having been eavesdropping on their conversation, “I wouldn’t get too hopeful for your

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Sergeant, Alyson, who knows what else is lurking onboard in the higher decks…” Alyson looked rather gloomily ahead of her, but her mind remained focused on perhaps seeing MacLeod again, somewhere, somehow. “Look sir, we are on the right track!” Gellar announced to her captain, pointing a gloved finger towards printed words on the red lit wall. The warmth had returned to the corridors and the emergency lights were fully operational, but Erskine walked up to the words and peered at them closely, “Yes, we are very close now to engine control centre.” “Will we be able to get the power back up?” asked Drew carefully, Erskine looked to his small band behind him and nodded stiffly, “I’m counting on it, once at the control room we can regulate the amount of fuel goes in and try to fix the energy converter problem. Or at least work around that problem.” “We’re nearly free!” guard Dennis Melniker said in relief. “Someone just had to say that didn’t they…” Viggo had a tone of grim determination; Alyson noticed he was looking back down the corridor they had just come from. Dennis and everyone else turned to follow Viggo’s gaze, even though Erskine and Gellar could already tell what had made its appearance. In the red shadows of the corridor, standing bold and erect in the centre of the passageway, was the beast. The way it stood mocked Erskine and Gellar, it stood out in the open motionless; had either of them been on a military serviced ship, they would have opened fire with a barrage of pistol bolts and disrupter fire. But they would have no way to hold it back now when it charged, and that was an absolute certainty. “I’ll hold it back,” Amos said boldly, “you guys run, I’ve always wanted a good fight with it!” Drew grabbed his arm fiercely and dug her nails into him in the process, her eyes flaring as she snarled, “No you’re not! Captain, we have to run!” Erskine knew that running would only start its own pursuit of them, and it would outrun them. He cursed and began, “All right, Alyson and Viggo give officers Melniker and Feist your Quad-rods. Officers Melniker and Feist, I order you two to hold it back for as long as you can.” Everyone was very quiet as Viggo and Alyson removed their Quad-rods and gave them to the two remaining guards. Melniker was clearly horrified but said nothing as everyone around him was stony faced and silent. Erskine looked to the others and then away down the corridor, 330

“All right, the rest of us… retreat!” The captain, his lieutenant, Viggo, Alyson, Drew and Amos all bolted down the corridor simultaneously and as Erskine had expected, the scavenger leapt forward as soon as they moved. Melniker and Feist exchanged glances as the muscle-built monster bounded towards them. Amos looked over his shoulder slightly as he heard the two guards’ screams cut short with only the smallest burst of electric current. He cursed and said bitterly, “You should have let me fight it off!” “Shut up Amos!” Drew hissed through clenched teeth as she ran full pelt; it seemed as though Erskine and Gellar were pulling away from them. “Which way!?” came a call from ahead in the semi-darkness, it was Alyson. Drew and Amos came up and found the other four standing at a split in the corridor, it angled off to the right and left, the point in between was a small service station where a standard power cleaver and fire extinguisher were hung behind glass. “No directions!” Erskine spat, looking over the walls quickly. It was darker than it had been, and each of them was unaware that panic may have blinded them. “We split up!” “What,” Alyson protested, “the last time anyone split up we were nearly killed off!” “It is a direct order! Me and Gellar go left, the rest of you go right!” Viggo looked to Drew and saw a suspicious gleam in her blue eye, a look that gave him a chill worse than the shiver when they had spotted the scavenger. “All right,” he agreed, “we can’t stand around arguing about it! Good luck.” Erskine had only nodded and led Gellar off in a quick sprint down the left hand corridor just as the hulking shape of the scavenger came striding down the corridor and into view. Alyson’s eyes widened in alarm when she saw it; its single remaining arm blade was glowing and discharging not unlike an active electro-rod, only its colours were like fire. The air tingled as it approached relentlessly. “Come on!” Viggo ordered them, grabbing Alyson and Drew by the wrists and hauling them down the right hand corridor. Amos reached forward, smashed the glass, and grabbed the large fire extinguisher in one hand, his massive size making the thing look tiny. “Come on, Amos!” Viggo’s voice commanded and the Herakles man bounded off after them, but only after giving the pursuing scavenger an evil, intent look.

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“I can’t run like this again Viggo!” Alyson cringed at his side, remembering the terrible night when the scavenger had attacked her and Viggo in an engineer barracks, on that occasion, Drew and Amos were at hand to save them, but this time they were also running away. “We have to!” Viggo told her sharply, holding her arm tightly, “We have to reach the control room!” “If it is even this way!” Alyson protested, feeling her arm go limp and her shins burn like hot iron pipes. They rounded a corner with the beast giving chase; the scavenger bounded off the wall and gained even more momentum with it. Amos could hear it all; he was the fittest of all of them. He could hear Drew’s breath clipping and raw, her pace slowly staggering and failing with every further lunge, he could hear Alyson’s pleads to Viggo, asking him to stop and saying she wouldn’t make it, only to get his harsh, but rightful reply snap back at her through gritted teeth. From the scavenger he could hear nothing, no pulse no breath and no voice, only a rapid, accelerating torrent of footfalls. He gripped the fire extinguisher tighter, and then slowed. Drew glanced round suddenly when Amos’ footfalls ceased, and saw the scavenger charging head on toward him. She stopped and started back, “Amos, come on!” Viggo and Alyson turned just in time to see Amos’ first attack on the beast. The creature swung its curved arm mounted knife towards his chest, but the huge Herakles man swung the butt of the fire extinguisher up into its jaw. There was a sudden crack and the blow flipped the scavenger off its feet with an upper cut motion and it crashed to the deck. Drew breathed in terrified relief, “Come on now, Amos! Leave it!” But the creature was already rising to its feet. “No, go on without me! I’ll hold it off!” Amos then drove his steel toed boot into the creature’s skull, knocking it to one side. Viggo hollered at Drew, “Come on! He can handle it, we must go Drew!” Alyson looked worried at Viggo as he shouted, she was sure he didn’t know if he was right. But Drew started towards Amos again; Viggo leapt forward and snared her wrist with a vice like grip. “Come on!” he ordered and dragged her defiantly away down the corridor.

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Amos grinned as they ran off down the corridor, Drew’s electrorod flailing madly around in the red dark. Turning back to the beast, Amos discovered it was almost back onto its feet and swiftly clobbered it across the side of the neck with the fire extinguisher with a clunk. It lashed out with a blade-less arm and missed his legs. “Good luck with that,” Amos jested, bringing his huge boot crashing into its ribcage with a fierce thump. “It seems like I’m bigger than you after all!” Gripping the extinguisher by the cord, the Herakles man then dashed it mace-like into the scavenger’s head, barely letting it rise to its feet. “How’d anyone let themselves be beaten by you is beyond me!” Suddenly, the stump-ended tail flicked out from the scavenger’s motionless form and took Amos’ legs from under him. With a curse he went down and the beast sprung back to its feet. Swiftly, Amos lunged up with his electro-rod and tried to jab the discharging tip into its front, however, the padding or plating that covered the creature’s front deflected the weapon as effectively as armour plates. The blue skinned hand locked tightly around the rod’s barrel and twisted it round. Amos flinched when it burst and cried when the battery pack strapped to his arm ignited and sparked. Amos kicked up and hit his boot between its legs, the genderless creature reeled back only a little before jumping back, swinging with a deadly blade for Amos’ head. He quickly lifted himself from the floor and the blade swung under his head before the scavenger closed its arm tightly behind him in a deadly embrace. Amos felt the blunt edge of the beast’s blade close to his face when the sucker-like fingers probed his cheek anxiously. Amos gripped the creature’s waist and suddenly rolled backwards, sending the scavenger over his head and to the floor. Quickly Amos regained his fire extinguisher, but winced at the pain as he failed to remove the electro-rod from his arm; the battery pack had overcharged and fused to his uniform and his flesh beneath. The scavenger was back up and sprung at Amos immediately. Amos caught the beast’s bladed arm and hit the extinguisher home into its stomach just before it again past over him. Out of breath, Amos turned and readied himself, but the inhuman fighter was already up and swung with its glinting blade. Amos hardly saw the blade pass within his defensive reach in the dark, but reeled when a huge bloody gash was torn open in his side. The creature’s discharging blade cut like a power cleaver and had sliced deep into the man’s side, deep into his stomach cavity.

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Fatally wounded, Amos roared and smote the extinguisher with a crack over the beast’s head once again while his other hand leapt out and snatched the creature’s throat with enough pressure to crush a man’s head. But the creature was only thrown back and against the wall, its bloody eye socket stared at Amos with deathly intent, the arm blade was still buried deep inside. Amos could not use the extinguisher in the angle he was now in, so he forced all of his physical strength into his fingers and hand, pressing everything he had into the beast’s neck, spine, and windpipe – if it had one – while fighting off a deep slurring of his vision. Amos put so much strength into the effort that his teeth ground against each other and he hissed in raw determination. But the hot pain that was ripping through his midsection continued to weaken him as blood drained in a grisly waterfall from his immense wound. The scavenger brought its other hand up to his face; Amos gripped its wrist tightly with his free hand but seemed unable to pull the seeking fingertips away. As the four fingers closed to his face, Amos could feel the blade of the creature twisting agonisingly around in his body. Those fingers latched on, sucking and boring into him at the same time and as his grip failed, and his vision faded out, Amos only hoped he had given his friends enough time.

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Chapter 10: A Promise Viggo looked over to Drew as she stopped her fierce bout of swearing and cursing at everyone and everything around her, only to lean on the wall with a miserable, collapsed expression on her face. He felt somewhat responsible; they hadn’t heard anything from the darkness behind them to tell of Amos’ fate, whether he had survived and killed the scavenger, or whether the beast was going after them having finished with the Herakles man. He shouldn’t have felt that way, Viggo knew, Amos had willingly gone against the creature to buy them time to get to the engine control room. They had, but now they waited to see if Amos would return. Viggo looked over to Alyson who stood at the door of the dimly lit control room, the woman stared back at him sadly, both exchanging dark thoughts that Amos had not survived and would not come back. Neither of them could bring themselves to tell Drew that it was probably the truth. Both of them thought about the times they had nearly lost each other, Viggo especially, and knew how he would react if someone came up to him when he found Alyson frozen in the freezer telling him to ‘leave her, she’s dead’. He’d probably kill that person, at the time at least. His eyes fell from Alyson’s when his thoughts wavered. “Drew?” It was Alyson’s voice to speak, not his. The albino cleared her throat and shifted on her feet to look at her through a veil of white hair. “We have to get going… if the scavenger is still after us, we have to go now.” Alyson had a lump in her throat as well, but knew that she was doing the right thing, and that Drew would listen to her more than to Viggo. Indeed, Drew straightened her back and flicked her head to remove some of the hair from her face. She only nodded in response. Viggo turned and followed Alyson into the control room, Drew followed absently behind them. He knew that they had to go on with the mission, whatever the mission really was for Erskine, and get it done. “We need to be ready in case the scavenger comes back…” Alyson said. Viggo nodded but corrected, “We need to get the power back online first though.” “How do we do that then?” Alyson asked, walking throughout the room. The control room was not overly large; two doors stood shut on both walls to their left and right and looked as if they were online and 335

could be opened. The rest of the room was a menagerie of blinking lights, monitors, chairs and workstation while a droning hum of electricity fluctuated throughout. Drew walked rather absently to the door on the left and peered through the plasti-glass window set in it. Viggo could tell from the albino’s body language that she wouldn’t recover from Amos’ death for a long time. Viggo walked over to Alyson’s side as she stood before a console and a monitor, Terran text was writing itself over the blank face of the computer. “Anything?” he asked. Alyson stared at the information, trying to understand it all; for the most part it was all hectic emergency warnings and hull breach reports, but she found what she was looking for sooner than she had expected. “We need more supplies into the engines… it seems like the supplies lines are down.” A breath caught in Viggo’s throat, he began slowly; “That was going to be our way off the ship, Alyson.” She blinked rather sadly and looked at him, accepting the truth, “I know.” Viggo suddenly felt as though they didn’t have a chance, the thought struck home like a missile even though he tried to remain positive. They had reached the end, and they still didn’t know what to do. Drew muttered, “There are supply grinders through these doors, seems like they are still working.” Alyson blinked thoughtfully and her mind raced. Viggo grunted in response to Drew’s comment, “With no supplies to go in them, they might as well be stopped; a waste of power now. If only that scavenger would come up here, then I’d drop him in the grinder!” Alyson sharply raised her finger skywards and her eyes suddenly sparkled with life, “I’ve got it! I know how to do it!” Viggo looked questioningly at her, “You know how to get the power up again?” Alyson beamed up at him, even Drew turned and looked at them thoughtfully, the glimmer of hope prevailing within her too. Mounting the stairs and onto the decking, the scavenger came at last to the open door of the control room. It had felt weaker after the fight with the large human, but had recovered itself considerably by sucking the very essence from his body. It knew that the rest of the humans had split up in the corridors, and some may well arrive from behind, but it focused its attention on those humans that had done it harm, that had given it pain. It was irritated by the lack of its left eye and right blade, the 336

blade especially; it had gotten used to fighting with one eye, particularly with the advanced human. Curiously the control room was empty, it stalked in without hesitation, but had to look around carefully as the stupid humans were not milling around as it had expected at first. The machines in the room gave off large amounts of heat radiation; the scavenger could see it clearly. As it moved around the room surveying chairs, tables, doors and cables, it saw that one of the consoles was warm with human sweat, it peered down at the buttons for a moment, and then to the screen. The scavenger saw nothing on that monitor; no heat was given off by its smooth expressionless surface. Turning again it found one of the secondary doors was wide open, a control pad at its frame was sparking and fizzing angrily after someone had overridden the system. Silently, the creature moved towards the door. Beyond the door there was another door, a large sheet of transparent material in which it could see a figure standing beyond, motionless and alone; its prey. The door moved aside before its claw could smash it apart, and the scavenger was greeted with a terrible droning noise of large machinery. Its feet touched the metal of a walkway as its eye remained focused on the prey ahead of it. One of the women, it recognised, understandably the woman had been left behind by the others, being weaker and less physically strong than its male counterpart. It knew there were two more, a man and another woman, but they could not be seen in this chamber. As the prey said something to it, something irrelevant that it did not need to understand, the scavenger saw a large pit to one side of the walkway, a great metal pit which was protected by a short railing and tall plasti-glass screen. Above the pit were two thick steel railings that ran the overall width of the chamber. They were of no concern. Again, the prey made feeble attempts to speak; it knew it was about to die, the woman was trying what other prey had tried; she was attempting to reason with it. The scavenger felt the hot urge for killing, its remaining eye focused on vital parts of the prey’s body; heart, lungs, stomach and jugular. It felt its feeder tips moisten and widen in anticipation of tearing the prey apart, draining the ever nourishing energy from her body. It would be sweet, much more satisfying than all of the others. Its master would be pleased. As it walked forward the prey retreated slowly, the woman had started in front of the pit, and now walked away. The scavenger pursued slowly, building up its taste for her life. It came to the pit’s side, where 337

the walkway was narrowest, and did not bother to look down into the pit; to do so would invite the prey a chance to flee, so its eye remained locked on her. It readied to pounce. There was a sudden clunk from somewhere, followed by an unusual scraping sound that increased in volume; the creature’s senses detected it momentarily sooner than it happened, but it could not tell were it was and remained focused on the prey. The sound grew too loud. The prey looked to one side suddenly, unexpectedly. The beast swung its head round to the left, sensing approaching danger from its blind side. Something huge and grey, void of heat, crashed into its upper half, massive pain blasted through its skull and neck. It felt plasti-glass smash over its back as the heavy object knocked it backward. Alyson gasped in alarm seconds before. The scavenger was going to jump at her! “Now, do it now!” she screamed. She braced herself in terror as she felt the plan would fail just as the huge supply cart came trundling down on its twin railings attached to the ceiling. The huge container, weighting between five to ten tonnes of steel gained speed as it moved towards the grinder pit and most importantly, the scavenger. Alyson remained as still as possible; to run would make the beast dodge the trap. It seemed to hear the approaching cart and looked to its left. In a heart beat, Alyson thought it would roll aside, but instead it looked genuinely confused. There was a terrible crunch and Alyson looked away as the huge steel crate pulverised the scavenger’s upper half and carried the creature through the plasti-glass shield and over the edge of the grinder pit. The huge container continued on and rumbled off down a service hatch. The working grinder, huge spinning blades moving at thousands of rotations per second, caught on the beast’s body for a moment. A sickly shredding sound filled Alyson’s ears and the beast could not even scream when it was literally chewed up into a fine paste. Alyson sighed in relief and collapsed to the grilled floor in exhaustion as all of her bones gave up under her. There was now a deep rumbling under the deck as the scavenger’s body was processed through the engines. She forgot about everything else around her, she forgot about where she was, forgot about what had happened, and even forgot who had died, only giving thought to the fact that it was finished and how she had

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waited for this moment through months of torment. She cried, Alyson cried tears of joy. “Alyson!” She sniffed and sat up quickly in hearing Viggo’s voice. She looked over to a service hatch in the opposite wall from her and the grinder and smiled; Viggo and Drew emerged from the darkness and begun to descend the ladder to the bottom floor. Rising to her feet, Alyson looked down at them from the walkway as they ascended the grated metal stairs, a relaxing, wide smile on her face. “We’ve done it!” she laughed, “We’ve finally done it!” Drew smiled to, although her eyes remained remembering Amos. Viggo got up to Alyson and smiled with her, overjoyed himself and glad that things would finally begin to mend. He saw the old Alyson again in her blue eyes, maybe even a new Alyson that he had never met before; a carefree, ecstatic young woman. Viggo liked that Alyson even more than the one who had been put in his cell a year ago. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked, smile still broad. He grinned, “What can I say?” Drew watched as he embraced her in a big bear hug, and Alyson accepted it immediately, wrapping her thin arms around his waist, holding him close. The albino remembered what Viggo had told her, and how much he had wanted to be close to Alyson and how much he loved her. Or more importantly, Drew remembered what she had told Viggo in response, and now regretted saying those things; they were in love and not even death would get in between them. Viggo and Alyson released each other and looked around as a new tone of mechanical drone filled the air. With the scavenger put through into the engines, the huge boost of the energy locked within its body caused a tremendous power fluctuation throughout the ship. They were unaware of it, but back at the energy converter chamber, the heat resistant Alcidite pipes were glowing red hot, and the broken pipes were frothing with magma like fire balls. The heat converted to electricity sparked throughout the massive power core several decks above, and the gargantuan transformer coils nearly exploded as amplifiers and dampeners worked overtime to control the sudden huge amounts of power. The Rigor Mortis, the stiffness after death, flashed alive with light and colour; all intact corridors and rooms blazed in white light, revealing the carnage that had commenced in the previous months of dark. “It worked,” Viggo said, looking down at Alyson, their faces close, “the plan worked.” 339

Alyson smiled a little and said, “Hard to believe that our saviour was our destroyer.” Viggo moved instinctively forward to kiss her. “All very beautiful,” Daniel’s harsh voice grated over them, making them jump and reach for weapons that they didn’t have. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.” Daniel smirked, his fingers tight around the grip of the Sackhiem 66, its barrel pointing at all of them as they stood beside the grinder pit. Viggo’s expression darkened and his heart sank back into the darkness. Alyson thought she would cry again. Daniel stared at them unmoving, his pistol barely wavering as he held it at arm’s length. “I see you finally killed my associate, and used its body to empower the ship so you can escape… how shallow and selfish of you all.” His expression was full of malice. “But it doesn’t matter, no one will be left alive on this ship as long as I live and I have this pistol; I will finish the job I came there to do. “Hard to believe it would be you three left at the end, with me holding you at death’s door.” Alyson spoke up brokenly, “And now you’re going to kill us?” “Yes.” Daniel replied sinisterly, the pistol flinching. Viggo stepped in front of Alyson protectively, his face grim. “I won’t let you do that, Daniel.” The young man shrugged in his Kevlar armour slightly and replied modestly, “Well, the burst dart will probably clear through you and hit her anyway.” He sniggered. Drew raised her head defiantly and stalked forward. She stopped ahead of Viggo and Alyson but to one side, electro-rod in hand, blue eyes solid and unyielding. Her voice was deathly cold and made Viggo’s skin crawl; it was the voice of one doomed. “You’ll have to come through me first; I have no fear of guns.” Alyson stepped to one side to see beyond Viggo, her eyes glassy. Daniel stared at Drew in quiet contemplation, as if considering her words carefully. But all he said was; “Good.” The intact wheeze of plasma discharge accompanied the pang of the pistol firing. Viggo shielded Alyson in the seconds that he saw the burst dart fracture as it left the nozzle of the weapon, the four identical shards sprayed towards Drew. Everything happened in horrifying seconds.

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Two dart shards missed Drew, but a second cleaved through her collar bone and shoulder like a machete and another ripped through the side of her neck like a saw. Alyson howled in terror as blood flashed red for a second all over the walkway; spraying Viggo’s uniform as Drew crumpled to the ground. Viggo and Alyson started to reach for her body, the last few gurgling breathes that ended the albino’s life tore their hearts worse than any burst dart. But Daniel shouted at them, “Get away from her!” Viggo paused to look at him; the green smoke of plasma whispered from the vents on the Sackhiem as it pointed directly at him. He stood back up, straight and cold. His bottom lip wavering as Alyson crouched behind him, crying over Drew’s body. Daniel’s eyes were solid and void, Viggo saw similarity in those eyes to the expression of the scavenger itself, or worse. Viggo began to question whether they had truly killed the monster, or if it was standing before him now. “Who wants to insult my intelligence next then,” Daniel hissed. Alyson looked up at him with red rimmed eyes, hardly believing any of it was happening, while a few soul-consuming moments past. Viggo remained stationary in front of Daniel, like a monolith of stone blocking the way. “Well big Vicious?” Daniel asked darkly, “Is this how you thought it would end? You seem to have all the answers as far as I can recall.” Viggo’s expression moved to that of disgust, remembering the time he had interrogated Daniel about the pictures and papers in his cell, remembering Daniel’s smooth lying and his own firm questions. Daniel was right, Viggo had known all the answers almost from the very beginning, but even that knowledge couldn’t have prepared him for this. Viggo knew he was going to die, but he remembered his promise to Alyson, and he would hold his word to the bitter end. The Sackhiem took time to recharge after each shot, and Daniel was weak, there was a chance should Alyson take it. Viggo challenged slyly, “As a matter of fact, I did think this would be how it would end, Daniel.” The pistol lowered ever so slightly before it spoke again. Alyson screamed as Viggo twisted around and collapsed beside her. A second round from the pistol leapt out but missed and impacted into the rim of the grinder pit with a shrill clang. Alyson jumped over to Viggo desperately, crying continuously now in despair. Daniel came up to her as she felt for a pulse. The pistol was pointing at her, and she could still feel Viggo’s life blood beating, but he was out cold. 341

“Is he alive?” Daniel’s voice was hard along with the hissing laughter of the pistol. Alyson sniffed as she knew her time had come; a cold feeling of total hatred filled her head, echoed in her ears and burned in her chest. A sickly sensation of rage coiled up inside of her like a tightening spring. She hated it. She wanted it to end. “No, you’ve killed him,” she lied bitterly. Daniel shrugged absently, “Pity.” Alyson left Viggo’s corpse and stood between the frozen forms of her two friends, and then faced Daniel closely, the pistol nozzle knocked up against her chest plating. She ground her teeth tightly when she saw the total lack of anything in Daniel’s eyes, her own thoughts at how he had been a friend, how she had protected him and supported him, how she had bonded with him even before she knew who he was. It was all too much to take, and if Viggo had been dead she wouldn’t have cared if she was killed. But now it was up to her, she was the only one left. “Any last words, Alyson?” the hated voice asked. She peered up at him slowly, as if curious suddenly. “Yes, I have actually,” she said, her voice bitter like winter. “Why?” Daniel quirked an eyebrow, “That’s a loose question Alyson, there’s no need to buy time; no one is coming to rescue you now.” “Why are you doing this, why were you such a kind person before? Do you work for the Government? Are you a spy of some kind? If so, then why do you need everyone to die?” He never lowered the pistol from her heart, his eyes never left hers. “Those are loaded questions, Alyson. “No, I am not a spy; in fact the term should be ‘agent’ and I do work for the Government, within a project known as Bellona. I was acting a fool before so no one suspected me, and perhaps they would warm to me and later help me in my objective. My objective was to test the combat efficiently of the creature, a creature that you called ‘the scavenger’ but which my peers and I call a ‘Beta-spec’. Of course, I couldn’t let anyone escape alive with knowledge of its existence, so everyone must die on this ship, by its hand or my own.” Alyson looked dumbly into space, though her eyes were forever trained on Daniel’s soulless expression; it was far worse than even the Sackhiem pistol in his hands. Everything was laid down for her to see. “Where did the… Beta-spec come from?” Daniel laughed, but choked it short with a grin. “I wouldn’t even let that information go to your grave, Alyson.” 342

She saw the Sackhiem hiss with venting plasma, and a soft click was heard inside the firing chamber; her time was up, Daniel was going to kill her. But like the spring in her heart, her left hand tightened into a fist and it suddenly lashed out at Daniel’s unprotected face. The pain seared through her knuckles and bones mightily but her blow had knocked the traitorous man aside, and he grunted in pain. Her rage was partly released with the pain, but the fight had only just begun; Daniel swung back with the pistol butt and hit hard into her right shoulder. The sharp metal dug through clothing and skin alike and a second blow to her face sent her spiralling to the walkway beyond Drew’s body. Daniel walked disconsolately towards her as she sprawled on the ground, blood filling between her teeth. “Is that all you’ve got Alyson? After all that training, all that exercise with Vicious? Clearly it’s not all its cracked up to be…” He reached down and grabbed her by her long black hair before pulling her up slightly, “I think you’ll do well to join the beast, as payback from me!” Daniel was about to lift her up to her feet and cast her over the edge of the working grinder pit, when a sharp force knocked hard into his head from behind. Daniel cursed at the surprise attack and spun around, dropping Alyson’s limp form, to face his attacker. A dark skinned, sly face greeted him, “Long time, Daniel.” In alarm, Daniel forgot what to do and a large black hand gripped his pistol forearm and dashed it on the railings with a snap. The pistol sprung from his grasp and clattered on the ground floor below. In seconds a boulder like fist crunched into his jaw, sending him stumbling into the remaining plasti-glass shield of the grinder. Groggily Alyson stirred and coughed as blood trickled down her throat vilely. She peered up to see Daniel fighting with someone else, it wasn’t Viggo as he was still on the ground, but her slurred vision stopped her from seeing this new person’s face. Slowly she rose into a crawl and headed for the stairs that led to the ground floor as they fought on the catwalk. Gradually she got to her feet and skittered uneasily down the steps and spotted the Sackhiem 66 on the floor. Grimly she snatched it up and hurried back up to the catwalk. The new attacker was winning against Daniel easily, but Alyson was still raging and her heart was beating too fast for her to tell, she felt groggy and sick. Everything was a blur around her, colours were faded and focus was lost in her anger, everything but Daniel. Lifting the 343

surprisingly heavy pistol in both hands, she aimed for to two men fighting. In the breath of the moment, Alyson called, “Daniel!” The man turned and saw her, the newcomer was reeling to one side, and she pulled the trigger. She felt the heavy clunk of the trigger as it caught the mechanisms inside the pistol, the casing of the weapon heated around her hands immediately with plasma smoke. Then her muscles tightened and her shoulders were shocked with the fierce recoil. All four dart shards impaled Daniel, clearing his armour and breaking through his ribcage. A curtain of blood belched from his body as the darts shredded his insides, freeing all their gory content. There was a startled, surprised expression on his red freckled face before he fell heavily onto the catwalk, his arm cracking violently on the railing as he fell. Alyson stood frozen, staring at the corpse she had made dead with the cold lump of metal in her hand. The moment of her shooting Daniel replayed again and again in her mind’s eye with his terrified and slightly confused expression amplified into exaggerated proportions. It was as if he hadn’t expected her to be the one to kill him, perhaps he had thought he had convinced her of his innocence so much so that she would be too hesitant to do it if the moment came. The moment did come, and she had killed him even when he was not a threat to her life, when he was loosing a battle already out of his control. She felt a strange guilt she did not expect which poisoned the immense victory; on one hand she had killed a man who she could still remember as a friend, but on the other hand, she had freed herself of one person’s lies and deceptions once and for all. Her eyes took too long to respond to anything, and they only focused back to the reality around her when big hands clasped over her shoulders gently, and a voice called her name. Rising from a dream, or a nightmare, Alyson realised who was holding her. “Sergeant MacLeod!” She jumped awake and threw her arms around his neck, tears immediately springing into her eyes. There was a slight chuckle from the dark skinned man as he replied, “Good to see you alive too, Alyson.” She released him with a joyful bounce; nearly a year it had been since she had seen her kind sector sergeant alive. “How did you find us?” she asked, reeling from her excitement. “Pure luck, I’m afraid,” MacLeod replied with a slight smile. His face darkened, “But enough about me for now; Viggo is shot.” 344

Alyson’s face went white with shock before she barged past him, dropping the Sackhiem, and collapsed to her knees beside Viggo. MacLeod had brought him up into a sitting position against the wall of the grinder pit. “Viggo, Viggo can you hear me!?” Alyson called, bringing a hand to the side of his clammy face. A slight, crooked smile edged over his pasty-white features, his voice wet with blood, “Of course I can, Alyson.” She looked to his side where Sackhiem darts had hit; the material of his uniform was torn in two places and was soaked black with blood, while one section of his abdominal armour was split and broken with a hole. Immediately she was afraid, and realised how Viggo himself must have felt seeing her in not dissimilar situations, she couldn’t remove the fear from her face as she spoke, “It doesn’t look too bad… we can get it fixed.” Her voice was rippling with frailty. Viggo’s ashen face didn’t look impressed. “I can tell how bad it is, Alyson.” It sounded like he was having trouble breathing, but even Alyson had difficulty with that, “A bit of re-gen gauze will do it…” her voice still quaking with unease. MacLeod put a light hand on her shoulder; he had already assessed the damage earlier, and spoke quietly to her, every word made her lower lip quiver and her eyes blink rapidly. “He’s been hit by three darts Alyson, and two are still inside him. I can’t tell where they are exactly, but his difficulty breathing could be a sign of a punctured lung, and the shot to his abdomen may well be a hit to his stomach.” His jaw tightened painfully in seeing Viggo’s pasty, yet tranquil expression over her shoulder, “Re-gen gauze would not heal the internal organs.” Alyson gave a painful gasp when MacLeod squeezed her shoulder tenderly. She looked at Viggo remorsefully, eyes big and blue, “Viggo, you can’t leave me now. How can you when I’ve nearly died three times in a row!” the smile was the faintest of ghosts, “You brought me back every time, even when I might not have deserved it, because you made a promise to me; you promised you’d protect me, and make sure nothing bad ever happened to me… and you have. “You can’t leave now, because… because I have a promise to make to you; I promise that you will live through this, so we can escape together like we used to say.” 345

Alyson sat back from Viggo quickly and dragged her pack from her shoulders so she could rattle through its contents. MacLeod turned to her, hearing the noise, and asked, “Alyson, what are you doing?” She sniffed as she searched her belongings, “We’re going to get him out of here, and we are going to save him.” The sergeant bit his lip, “But Alyson, it could be miles before any medical centre, and even then it wouldn’t have the equipment to save him from these wounds.” Viggo watched from glazed eyes as Alyson revealed a capped syringe from her pack. She glanced at Viggo hesitantly, “Never knew why I took this…” she said quietly, remembering how she had taken it without real reason. MacLeod leaned down to take it, “What is that? Is that morphine!?” Alyson moved it away from his grasping hand, “Yes, it is morphine.” She turned back to Viggo who watched her with a slight smile, “Viggo, this will reduce the pain all right, so we can move you.” She removed the cap and reached for his arm. “Move him where?” MacLeod argued, pain or no pain, Viggo was still bleeding to death. Alyson commanded as she injected Viggo, “Inside my left trouser pocket is a map, get it now.” MacLeod unbuttoned the long pocket at her thigh and pulled out a folded piece of parchment from it. He recognised it was similar to the map she had given him that had shown the route to the command deck, “What is this for?” “It’s a map to the ‘medical core’; it’s the only one I have left.” “This is Daniel’s?” “Yes,” Alyson replied, removing the syringe and casting it away, “help me lift him, Ray.” Each of them took one of Viggo’s arms and pulled him to his feet, he stood loosely between them without any bearing at all, but his head looked up and to Alyson slowly as if he was in a dream. “How far is it to the core, Ray?” Alyson asked, looking to the door ahead of them which led to the engine control room. MacLeod held the map open in a free hand and squinted at it, “I don’t like this Alyson,” he revolved the paper to see another folded side, “it’s up thirteen decks… two elevators and a long way of walking.” Alyson sighed as she held Viggo’s weight on her shoulder, “Thirteen, lucky for some… Let’s get going, with the power online the lights and 346

elevators will be working, as well as the core itself of course.” They hurried as quickly as possible from the bloody sub-engine room and into the control room, leaving the discarded and bloody remains of both Daniel and Drew on the steel catwalk, still and dead. The cold and lifeless Sackhiem 66 remained with them, ignored; its plasma cells hissed a quiet breath before turning dormant, inert.

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Chapter 11: Light’s Reprisal With a crash Sergeant MacLeod ploughed through the medical core swing doors with a hover-table to which Viggo was laid upon. Alyson sprinted after him heavily; her footsteps staggered and weak from the furious race they had just completed through the many corridors inside the ship, up the slow elevators and through hundreds of electrolocked doors. It had seemed that with the power back online, the doors instantly locked shut and for one horrifying moment, MacLeod and Alyson thought they would never make it. But when the Sergeant’s own security card worked through the swipe, they continued at breakneck speeds. But for all of their continuing effort, Viggo was now completely unconscious, and had been for just under an hour, just before they found the working hover-table. Alyson’s mind was fraying now as they carted her friend’s unconscious body through the well lit medical core; he had been out too long, they would never revive him now. Compared to the smaller medical centres Alyson knew, the medical core was massive. It was complete with stairs and elevators, implying that it covered more than one deck, dozens of registry desks, waiting rooms, diagnostic chambers, pharmacies, quarantine cells, even a lounge. On the high speed journey to the core, Alyson had to adjust to the glaring lights that now operated with the energy of the scavenger put through the engines, and how the lights revealed the chaos and death upon the ship in gory Technicolor madness. Bodies had been cast everywhere and blood sometimes matted entire walls and floors of corridors, torn remains of clothing and wrecked machinery littered the way to the medical core, bodies were sometimes piled up into defensive walls in places, the reek of decay choking both of them as they carried Viggo through. The core itself was not different, and that too weakened Alyson’s spirits. As they raced to a large elevator which MacLeod had stated was the right one to take, they had spotted carnage around the main chamber of the core. The clean white and blue walls and floor were streaked with red; bodies were cast aside over tables and chairs, bludgeoned to death with crude weapons of maddened prisoners or deluded guards. Alyson was glad though that they had not encountered any more insane occupants on the ship, woken by the glaring lights.

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As the elevator rose and Alyson stood opposite MacLeod with Viggo lying between them, she said, “The supplies will have been looted, Ray.” The Sergeant shrugged, she seemed unimpressed until he replied; “We won’t need any supplies, just so long as the machinery still works.” “Just machines can fix all this?” Alyson asked, bewildered, gesturing at the blood that had filled Viggo’s table sickly. MacLeod looked quietly concerned, “You really haven’t been to a good hospital have you, Alyson?” The door opened and they pushed Viggo out into another long white corridor, only a couple of bodies ruined the purity of the place with dried blood sprayed over one wall. MacLeod dragged the table sharply round and through a doorway to the right, Alyson was nearly caught in the doorway as she pushed along at the back. Inside the large, equally white room was a machine that MacLeod had spoken of. Its shape was crafted around a padded table, covered in a cylinder of plated steel and tubing. The cylinder was off the ground by about half a metre, held in place at its midpoint by a thick octagonal computer bank that encompassed it and formed the bulk of the device. Two workstations were on either side of this computer bank, while a great column of circuitry and steel plating reached up from its top to touch the ceiling. MacLeod stopped the hover-table and began to remove Viggo’s armour plates and uniform top. There was a sickly wet sound as the material was peeled from his body, and Alyson cringed and looked away. The Sergeant briefly observed the three identical wounds in Viggo’s midsection; one had cleared his body all together, ripping a gash through his left side, the other two were bloody holes, blood and fluid seeping from them vilely. Feeling her stomach knotting up, Alyson backed away. MacLeod quickly brought the hover-table up to the mouth of the cylindrical machine and immediately began to feed it inside; the edges of the table sliding neatly into two groves within the cylinder. The sergeant pushed the table further in, practically walking into the machine himself, before there was a sharp metallic clack at the other end. Swiftly, he walked round the machine to one of the workstations nearest Alyson, and began to key in commands to the console. Alyson floated over to his side and whispered, “You know how to use this?” MacLeod swallowed hesitantly, “I’ve seen it working, but my military medical training didn’t go this far into operations.” She glared at him, “So that is a ‘no’?” 349

“Yes.” Alyson peeled away and walked quickly to the end of the machine, finding Viggo’s head exposed from the metal monster that encased him. His face was passive, almost pleased, but white and pasty with death. When she put her fingers to his face, she discovered he was clammy and cold. “Ray, he’s cold!” she shouted urgently. The sergeant continued to work, “That doesn’t make me go any faster, Alyson!” She looked around; some of the lights on the machine were blinking on, displaying that it was working, but it wasn’t enough to calm her worry. It got worse. “I have to shock him, Alyson, stand back!” She jumped away suddenly as a terrible pulse of electricity filled the cylinder next to her, she nearly screamed as it sounded too similar to an electro-rod on full charge. There was another burst that brought tears to her eyes; Viggo’s face was unchanged, but his body buckled with stress. It happened again, and again. “What’s happening, MacLeod!?” “I have to shock his heart to keep it beating, Alyson, so he can survive the operation to come!” he called back sharply. The stunning electric pulses ceased, and before Alyson could reach Viggo’s face again to comfort him, the cylinder of the machine extended, folded and then swallowed him completely. “Ray!?” MacLeod sighed, keying in a few more commands before turning to her. With her confused and terrified face before him, he replied, “It’s operating on him now; it’ll find his wounds, restore them and seal them up.” “By itself?” Alyson asked, still frightened, and MacLeod nodded, “How long will it take?” He shrugged and looked to the large column that fixed the machine to the ceiling; it was blinking and glowing in places, “Between half an hour to an hour.” Alyson collapsed, fortunately into a chair at a workstation behind her, and sighed remorsefully. She blinked up at MacLeod weakly, “Will he be okay?” The sergeant moved to sit opposite her, eyeing her all the time. “I can’t say, Alyson, he’s been out for a long time and must have bled litres of blood in that time…” 350

She sniffed and leaned back without response. MacLeod stared at the working machine for a long time, trying to see the operation under its covering; to see its finely mechanised surgical tools, ultra-violet lamps, radiation vents and suction tubes working on Viggo’s broken body. It must have had gas or an injection to keep Viggo unconscious as it worked; certainly MacLeod knew that so far he had done nothing wrong and that the machine took it all under its control. Even though he knew this to be true, there was still some doubt in his mind about putting a person’s life entirely in the care of a machine. Alyson was crying. MacLeod looked over to her quickly and saw the despair in her face; the silence had eaten its way into her, and she had thought too much about everything that had led to this point. MacLeod immediately felt responsible and pity for her at the same time, “Don’t do that, Alyson,” he whispered. He stood up and walked softly over to her, “He’ll be all right, and he’s strong enough to get through this.” He helped her to her feet gently and gave her a comforting embrace. Alyson held to him tightly with her head on his right shoulder, one glassy blue eye watching the machine next to them. MacLeod slowly released her and looked to her weak and slackened features; it looked as though she had not slept for days, and in a way, she hadn’t. “You need some rest,” he said. “No…” Alyson protested, sniffing the last of her tears back, rubbing the corner of her eye with her fingertips. “I want to see him when he wakes.” MacLeod knew that wouldn’t be for sometime, perhaps closer to a day, but he did not argue. Wisely Alyson sat back down, and MacLeod decided to talk to her until she fell naturally to sleep. He began idly, “So, what happened to you since the last time we met?” Alyson laughed and her eyes sparkled at him suddenly, her voice wavering with recollected amusement, “Do we really have time?” MacLeod shrugged and sat back down in front of her, “Well, you can summarise, can’t you? From the moment we left each other at the medical centre? I see you took my advice, to not get yourself killed.” Alyson shared his smile, though rather loosely, and continued, “Well… yes and no.” So she told him everything that had happened since she had departed him months ago, though it was more of a summery of events as Alyson herself couldn’t remember everything that had happened. Sometimes it was all down to the Sergeant’s questions to jog her memory 351

and remind her how things happened; he immediately wanted to know about Drew, having found her dead beside Viggo having been shot by Daniel, and so Alyson explained about the Administrator, her death by the scavenger, Amos and his valiant defence, to the two guards captain Erskine and lieutenant Gellar. MacLeod wanted to know more about the two guards that seemed to help Alyson and Viggo, and seemed disturbed to hear that they were part of the military. He was shocked at the adventures through the cannibal infested factories, and the attacks made by the scavenger, even in hearing that Drew dropped it down an elevator shaft. Concern drew over his face when she told him the numerous times she had nearly died. “Sounds like you went through all the interesting parts of the ship!” MacLeod announced near the end of Alyson’s story, “I certainly didn’t meet any cannibals!” Alyson glanced at the machine, sleep edging over her eyes, the computers still blinked in operation. “So what did you manage to do, MacLeod?” He smiled, “Well, first and foremost, I found a path to the command decks that wasn’t blocked by debris.” Alyson blinked in surprise, sitting up saying, “You got through? Was there anyone there, what’s happening!?” “Wait a minute!” MacLeod calmed her with both hands rising to her, “I did go all the way, but it’s quite a walk to the command centre, but once there I was able to boot some of the systems back up and I traced where you and Viggo were. I wanted to get you two with me before we escaped.” Alyson raised a questioning eyebrow, “How exactly did you ‘trace’ us?” The sergeant reached forward and took her left arm before rolling the uniform’s sleeve up to her elbow; he showed her the vertical black lines of her barcode. She gasped in realisation, she had forgotten all about her barcode. “That works as a tracer as well as identification,” MacLeod explained. “But I also discovered your two military friends had similar markings on them… they registered different on the scanner.” There was a pause of thought as Alyson rubbed at the barcode, a curious expression on her face. Had the barcode never been burned onto her from the beginning, MacLeod might never have found them, and they may all have been killed by Daniel. She smiled with the irony. The machine contracted, and the cylinder slide away with a confirming bleep to reveal Viggo’s peaceful face. Alyson jumped up and raced to him in a heartbeat, all tiredness evaporating instantly, MacLeod remained seated for a while before rising. 352

“Viggo,” Alyson called quietly to him as he lay quiet on the table, “can you hear me?” MacLeod went to the machine’s console again to check Viggo’s status. Alyson caressed Viggo’s face and jaw with both hands and smiled; although he was not awake, his skin was warmer than it had been, though only just. She moved to lean over him and lightly kissed him on the lips. She breathed uneasily as she brought her head away; Viggo did not stir from his sleep. Alyson put a hand on his collar firmly, swallowing painfully she asked MacLeod, “How is he?” The sergeant breathed in relief, “He’s survived the operation, but is in a deep sleep; he might not wake for hours.” Alyson took her chair from the nearby desk and sat next to Viggo, fingers running through his hair. MacLeod watched her for a moment; her eyes never left Viggo when he told her, “I’m going to check the rest of the core, hopefully get some much needed supplies for our next trip.” He turned away for the door after she gave him an absent nod of her head. Alyson sighed when she heard the main doors flap shut, realising she and Viggo were alone again, alive and alone. She took her fingers from his long black hair and rested her hand on his shoulder, and looked longingly at his passive expression. “If you can hear me, Viggo, I told you I would bring you back,” she said softly. “You’ve done so much for me all this time, and I promise I will make it all back to you someday; I still owe you two lives,” she smiled sweetly. “I thought all of this would change my feelings of life, so much has happened to me that I thought I would have different opinions by the end, but I haven’t; I still believe in fate. I remember how Daniel once said that believing in fate was just making excuses for your life, but I know he’s wrong. How was it that all I had left of my old pack was the things I needed most to save you now? The one map I had, led us here, and the syringe helped you survive. I know I didn’t plan to save your life when I took that morphine. “I guess what I am feeling is that not everything is planned or doomed to fail, and not everything is made to put us down. Daniel did that all himself, he tricked us from the start until the end, and I still regret trusting him over you. I could never trust anyone else over you, Viggo. We’ve shared too much and experienced too much together to ignore it anymore,” she paused, and then slowly lowered her head so that she rested next to his. “I never said that I loved you, but I do.” 353

With that, she closed her eyes and fell into restful, peaceful, sleep. He woke to find Alyson lying next to him. His sleep had been, for once, calm and tranquil; he had not been visited by his usual menagerie of nightmares and images of violence and wrongdoing. His smile never left his face as he woke, and only broadened when he found himself alive with Alyson very much asleep beside him. She had her head on the table which he lay upon and a hand over his bare chest. He slowly titled his head so not to disturb her and tried to see his surroundings. He saw himself inside a narrow cylindrical tunnel of panelling and lights, clearly the insides of a bigger machine that he could not see. He could see that it was a massive medical room he was in, much larger than the other medical centres he had been inside when he was a prisoner. But no one else was around. He looked to Alyson; did she save him, as she promised before he blacked-out? Did she get him here with… with someone else who Viggo could not remember, and save him from his wounds? He felt his side within the machine and touched smooth, reformed skin. Although there was scar tissue remaining, slight distortions in his skin and muscles, probably caused by the false siliconbased material that the machine had patched him up with. He grinned wider, remembering how the scavenger was killed, and could only assume something was done to Daniel, something fatal; he had seen him fallen. They had survived; he and Alyson had made it to the end together. Reminiscing, Viggo thought about when they were trapped in their cell, seemingly forever; dealing with horrid soups while wearing only one layer of clothes, surrounded by idiots. He remembered the horror of the psychotic levels, then Drew and Amos, then Erskine and Gellar. He sighed. Alyson stirred uncomfortably beside him, his eyes flicked over to her as she groaned with rising consciousness. He smiled again, remembering when she had risen from her drunken state a few weeks ago. Her eyes looked at him for a half second, “Oh, Viggo you’re awake…” she seemed absent minded. “Yeah, unless this is a dream,” Alyson blinked and looked at him with wide eyes, “Viggo, you’re awake!” He looked up in surprise as she twisted around to hug him as he lay on the table; he put a hand on her back in a receiving gesture.

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She held to him a lot longer than he expected, and when she pulled away from him, she kissed him. “I was afraid you’d never wake up!” she announced brightly. He shifted on his padded table slightly, realising he had been there for a long time. “Well, you know, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a good night’s sleep.” “Same here,” Alyson sighed, sitting back down. “But we are safe now, no more running or hiding, all the more pleasant nights.” Sergeant MacLeod walked into the room saying, “Don’t forget, we have a lot of ground to cover still.” Viggo shifted again to look over at the other side of the table, but did not see the sergeant. Suddenly, the table dragged him into the machine and he found himself coming out of the other end; the table floating off the floor. “Woah,” Viggo sat up on the bed, “I think I’ll get off this ride now.” MacLeod and Alyson came to his side as he hopped off the free-floating table. He took the sergeant’s hand firmly in greeting. “Glad to see you on your feet, Viggo.” “Good to see you too, Sergeant.” Alyson smiled at them both, “Actually, we call him Ray.” Viggo raised a questioning eyebrow at the Sergeant, “Ray?” MacLeod shook his head, “It’s not important.” He then reached into a pocket and after some fishing around brought out three objects to Viggo. “I thought you’d want these.” Viggo received the three burst-dart shards into his palm and looked at them intently. They were large, six centimetres long and one in radius. They tapered to a point, and he placed them all together by their flat sides to make three-quarters of the original dart that had been fired at him. “These big things were in me?” he questioned. “Each one, unless you want to hear the gory details,” Viggo looked at the Sergeant, asking him to go on. “Well, that one didn’t quite clear your back; it got stuck in your ribcage. That one is scratched from breaking through the armour of your uniform, and that one was buried in your stomach cavity.” As Viggo marvelled the three shards, Alyson reached forward and touched one of Viggo’s wounds, “You’ve got new scars I see.” Viggo looked down at his stomach to see clear circular patches, only two of the wounds were full circles, the other was a crescent scar that lined his

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side. He closed his hand around the burst-dart shards saying, “I’ll keep these, like the scars, they’ll be a reminder about how close I got.” Alyson smiled again at him sweetly, “I still owe you two.” He shook his head, “I think this one counts as three, besides, those times you nearly died weren’t half as bad as this!” Alyson’s jaw dropped in shock, but the look quickly twisted into a smile. MacLeod broke in, “We have to talk a while about what we are going to do next.” “Surely we’re fine now; you’ve got through to the command centre haven’t you?” Alyson asked. “Yes, but on the way there, we’ll have to think about how to get off this cursed ship. Besides, there is something at the command centre you might want to see.” After Viggo was cleaned up and ready to go and each of them had had their fill of remaining chocolates and supplies from their battered packs, they left the medical core. On the way there they needed more supplies, and raided a storage room that had been locked when the power was offline, and there they refilled their packs. MacLeod had said his backpack was full of medical supplies he had scavenged from back at the core, and he found it highly unlikely they would need any more. Viggo had been astounded by the ship being lit and awake with power, power that had been forged by the death of the scavenger beast itself. It was like waking from a massive nightmare, one far, far bigger than any he had experienced, and now he saw the brilliance and goodness of the world beyond the horror. There were still bodies and carnage revealed in the light, but Alyson and Viggo had distracted themselves from it by telling MacLeod how they had set up a trap for the scavenger, using Alyson herself as bait. After activating the grinder pit, they had opened the locks to the furnace of engine one, but locked the furnaces off from the plasma dischargers. With that set up, they rammed the scavenger with a free rolling waste container and sent it into the grinder. The body’s remains were fed into the furnaces alone, not blasting through the ruptured plasma drives, and the energy was piped into the power core above. MacLeod was delighted with their excellent teamwork, and only wished Drew had not perished. They came to the massive hull breach between the prison transport section, and the main body of the Mercurian tug ship. MacLeod had been lucky to have gone this way; all of the other corridors would have been buried in rubble or torn apart by gigantic structural failures. What he had 356

found was a large power relay chamber which had been also split by the failure, but due to the large power conduits and data banks within the chamber, a bridge had been made in the chaos to cross the structural failure that had nearly cut the ship in two. With that they managed to cross into the main body of the ship. Alyson and Viggo felt their excitement grow as the corridors became fairer and cleaner. It wasn’t unlike the corridors that branched around the Administrator’s office, the duel red and blue lines raced over the walls on either side, broken intermittently by the Prison Company logo. The floor was no longer bleak gunmetal silver, but now precise, firm plated steel lined with blue. The ceiling was fitted with bright circular lights that would have hidden nothing within the passage had all of them been working. As they moved further and further to the front of the ship, they found bodies, but unlike their prison counterparts, these bodies did not seem bloodied or butchered. It was as if they had been trampled to death or knocked aside. There were not many, and it did not bring Alyson to ask MacLeod what had happened; after what she had seen, she took these as trivial facts of life onboard a crashed prison ship. “We’re close now,” MacLeod announced as he walked beside them; the corridors were wide enough for them to walk together abreast. They had seen signs indicating the command centre frequently, and nodded in response. “It seemed like the centre had been badly hit in the crash,” the Sergeant continued, “I think that the whole top section was ripped off somehow. It might have been the frontal communications spike and radio towers.” They at last came to a door, after a couple of sleek, operating elevators; it was double doors with the Prison logo shared decoratively over each of them. MacLeod looked to them both hesitantly and asked, “Are you ready for this?” The tension the Sergeant had built up since leaving the medical core left them speechless, and they only waited for him to approach the doors steadily. They opened for him, and they followed cautiously after him. Immediately they narrowed their eyes, and adjusted to see it better. They didn’t know at first what they were looking at, but slowly it dawned on both of their faces. The command centre was barren, not a soul on it and the hundreds of computers were inactive, the thick shutters were locked shut and any view of the outside world was blanked out. But on the floor before them was a huge dazzling glare; a great column of brilliance that stretched down from the ceiling above. They could see the 357

dust floating through it, and how it made MacLeod’s armour shine and his shadow deepen as he walked through it. Alyson smiled in total disbelief and walked into the blazing light, Viggo following behind her. MacLeod grinned from the edge and said, “Just as well it is the right time of day.” Alyson felt tears in her eyes; for too long she had not felt the radiance of sunlight on her face. She looked up into the light and could see the blue of the sky above, through dozens of ripped deck plating and cables between her and the heavens, she could see clouds drifting lazily by. “It’s beautiful.” Viggo saw the sky too, and realised that it meant the planet they had crashed on had an atmosphere similar to Earth, meaning they would be able to walk on its surface, survive on its air once they had escaped the ship. The Sergeant couldn’t have had anything better to show him; it was almost poetic to him: light’s reprisal and nightmare’s end. He looked to Alyson as she looked up at the sky, craning her neck back. He saw how pale she was in the natural light, almost like a ghost, and he would be no different; over two years without sunlight. He sighed, she looked incredible in daylight. Alyson grinned and immediately looked down to lock with his eyes, “Just the way I’d hoped it would be.” Viggo returned her smile with a raised eyebrow, “Surely it’s more than that?” She laughed and embraced him tightly, Kevlar crunching together as they did. In the beams of sunlight they kissed more openly than they had before. Smirking, MacLeod muttered knowingly, “Get a room, guys.” Alyson responded quietly, “I think we’ve both had enough of confinement…” Lost in their passion, Sergeant MacLeod idly stepped aside. He shook his head in disbelief, hardly able to comprehend everything that had happened, unable to believe that they three had made it after so much death. Clearly, he thought to himself, anything was possible.

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