The Ares Weapon Read online

  Chapter 26

  Navigating the dark corridors while weightless, while not terribly challenging, had taken them far too long.

  Bogdan, who reached engineering before him, accessed the emergency panel by the door.

  “Wait! Don’t open that door.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Schmaltz floated up next to him and gently pulled his hand away from the controls. “Because if there is a hull breach and you override the safety lock, we’ll be sucking vacuum.”

  “Sorry, Boss.”

  Schmaltz didn’t respond, too engrossed with the readout beside the door.

  “The indicator says the pressure is normal inside, but the temperature is slightly elevated.”

  He turned to his assistant. “Which means?” he cocked an eyebrow as he asked.

  “Is this really the time for another teaching moment? What if something critical is damaged or burning?”

  “Good question. Think fast, kid. Why aren’t we opening the door yet with higher temperatures inside?”

  Bogdan slapped his forehead with his palm. “Because something might be on fire.”

  “And if we open the door, we may be overcome with toxic gas or incinerated by a back draft.” He pointed his torch to the service locker. “Go put on emergency gear.”

  The two engineers needed a little time to don the bulky suits and breathing apparatus. They had trained and drilled for so many times that each of them could have done so in his sleep, but weightlessness made the exercise more challenging than practiced during drills.

  Once suited up, they floated before the doors and Bogdan accessed the panel.

  “Wait.”

  “Now what, Boss?”

  Schmaltz took held his bare palm to the door for several seconds. He noted Bogdan’s furrowed brow. “Another teaching moment, Kid. In an emergency, instruments can fail. I’m feeling how hot it is. An old trick my grand-dad taught me. He worked as a firefighter on Terra.”

  He put his glove back on and pushed to float away from the door. “It feels normal. I don’t think there is a fire in there. Open ‘er up.”

  The blackness swallowed their torchlight as they probed for a clue of what lay beyond the opened door.

  “Nothing burning and definitely no hull breach,” said Bogdan. “Why is it so hot in here?”

  Schmaltz pulled off the mask and hood. “The ventilation fans are down. See what condition the reactor is in.”

  After the younger man left, Schmaltz played his light over the control console, searching for any kind of damage or scorch marks to indicate a power surge. He noticed nothing on the casing.

  Bogdan’s voice chimed in his earpiece, “The reactor’s on and purring like a kitten. Why isn’t the ship getting any juice?”

  Schmaltz didn’t answer but got to work on the access panel. He shone the light around inside, stopping on something that didn’t belong. “Hello, what are you?”

  He pushed his upper body into the tight opening to obtain a better view of the foreign equipment. His heart skipped a beat. A device that he didn’t recognize was spliced into the main control bus. From what he could guess, it blocked anything flowing to the distribution cluster. Several feeds came out of the unit and led directly to the gravity, light and heat controls as well as those for environmental. A separate connection fed power to the medical facilities. All the lights on the device blinked red except for the green one above the output to medical.

  “Bogdan, check if the dedicated line we set up to the med bay is hot.” If it wasn’t, then nothing kept the isolation field around the virus active.

  “It’s flowing, Boss. No worries.”

  He released his held breath and tried to compose himself.

  Bogdan returned and said,“That’s weird. The reactor is on and power is running to medical, but nowhere else as far as I can tell. You see anything going on in there?”

  Schmaltz pulled his head out of the access and explained what he found.

  “Who would do something like that?”

  “Somebody who wanted to make sure we thought we’d been hit, but didn’t want to take any chances with the virus. Who last worked on this?”

  “Umm, I think it might have been Hodgson, but I can’t be sure. You think maybe he’s a spy?”

  Schmaltz thought about that prospect for a moment, remembering the warning he gave Mel before they’d left Luna. Somebody was playing with them, but figuring out who would be a challenge, given the sophisticated nature of the device. Hodgson was the most likely suspect at the moment.

  “Don’t say a word about this to anyone, Kid.”

  “Not the Captain?”

  “Especially not him. Give me some time to figure things out. There’s no sense upsetting people until we have proof of who did this.”

  “Umm, okay, if you say so.”

  “Our first priority is getting this thing off and putting everything back to normal.”

  Within twenty minutes, Schmaltz had detached the casing from the unwelcome object and gotten a better idea of how it worked. Ten minutes later, he had it removed.

  “The control panel should be live now. Reactivate all downed systems.”

  With gravity and lights back on, he pulled himself out of the access way and sat on the floor to look at the foreign device. An elegant design, obviously built to purpose by people who knew their way around a ship’s power grid, he had never seen anything like it before.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a footstep behind him and he realized Bogdan had returned. The kid probably waited for instructions. He lifted his head to speak, but a strong hand covered his mouth. A cool metal object touched his throat and panic rose up at the realization it was a knife.

  He slammed his weight backward in an attempt to knock the other man off his feet and avoid the blade, but his assailant kept his balance. Schmaltz fought to turn, desperate to learn the identity of his attacker, but a strong arm held his head immobile.

  The sharp edge pushed down and slid sideways, trailing a cold sting followed by excruciating pain. He tried to inhale but blood filled his lungs and he flailed in desperation. Bloody hands releasing their hold on him.

  Norbert Schmaltz slumped to the floor. His vision darkened and all he could hear was his slowing pulse in his ears and the desperate gurgling sounds from his open wound. His legs and hands grew numb and then the pain was gone and he drifted as if falling asleep. He wished he could kiss his wife Sarah one last time.

  Chapter 27

  Bogdan’s voice and the hammer of his running feet echoed off the corridor walls.

  “Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!” He halted in front of me panting heavily, hands covered in blood.

  “Oh, my God! What’s happened to you?”

  He blinked, confused by my question, then followed my gaze to his bloody hands. He held them up, seemingly bewildered and wiped at his cheek, leaving a crimson smear in its wake.

  He snapped back to the present. “I’m fine. The Boss has been stabbed. Please hurry!”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me back in the direction of engineering. I retrieved my hand from his and ran after him. We passed Hodgson who watched us go by with shock on his face at the sight of Bogdan. His footfall fell in behind us. I was grateful he didn’t waste our time with questions.

  Schmaltz lay on his side in a large pool of blood. My training kicked in and I rushed to him, feeling for a pulse and looking for the source of bleeding. My probing hand found the ugly gash across his throat and I knew without any further examination that he had bled out long before my arrival.

  I turned him to his back and gazed helplessly upon his pale face, his final agony etched across it. His sightless eyes stared accusingly at me, admonishing me for not coming sooner.

  My professional demeanour evaporated in an explosion of grief. I pulled his face into my chest and cradled him while I rocked back and forth. My tears fell to the floor and mixed with his congealing blood.

  Who could do this to you? He
made friends everywhere he went; never enemies. If ever a disagreement arose between crew mates Schmaltz always diffused the situation, coaxing both parties to reconcile over a friendly drink. He possessed the gentlest of souls and became the most faithful of friends. I would never have lasted as long as I had on Requiem without his kind, teasing manner. Any bad mood I had, he cajoled me out of, like the big brother I always wanted. He took care of me, and I loved him for it.

  His poor wife, Sarah! Despite all the temptations to stray on a long space journey, Schmaltz never once betrayed her trust in him. He never betrayed anyone.

  “Who did this to you?” I muttered into his ear.

  “I don’t know. I found him like this,” said Bogdan, sobbing.

  Hodgson released me from the task of probing the young engineer further. I buried my face back into Schmaltz’s chest and silently wept while I listened to their exchange.

  “How did you find him?”

  “I...I asked him something and when he didn’t answer I went to speak with him...”

  “How were you communicating?” Hodgson gave him no time between questions.

  “What?”

  “Were you on comms, or linked or talking like we are now?”

  “Um, um, on the comm, I think.”

  “And you got no indication of anything wrong?”

  “No, the connection just died. We’ve been getting interference lately...”

  “Where were you?”

  “Around the corner. I was checking the power readouts for medical.” Annoyance appeared in Bogdan’s answers.

  “What is that? About ten meters? And when you discovered him he was already dead?”

  “Uhh...yeah, I think.” I could hear Bogdan losing his composure, grief and anger rising in his voice.

  “You think?” Hodgson let his incredulity sink in before he continued, “You were ten meters away? He stopped answering and you took how long before you came looking for him?”

  “I...I...don’t remember,” answered a sobbing Bogdan. “All I know is I found him like that. So much blood everywhere. I rushed to him and tried to turn him. But there was so much blood. I ran to get the doctor. Oh God.” His words turned into a wail followed by loud and uncontrolled weeping.

  I put my hand gently on Hodgson’s boot. “Leave him for a while. He’s in no condition.”

  Hodgson nodded to me and left to investigate another part of engineering, leaving the two of us to our grief. The door opened and footsteps approached. Dunn’s voice echoed, “Jesus Christ! What’s happened here?”

  I looked up to see him staring gape-mouthed at the scene. Something was different about him, but I couldn’t place it and didn’t care to try. I focussed on his face and studied him. If anyone could commit murder on this ship it was, by his own admission, him. Dunn squatted to examine Schmaltz but I hugged him protectively closer to me. He took my warning and pulled back, redirecting his gaze to the rest of the grizzly scene.

  “I take it he found the body?” He indicated the almost catatonic Bogdan who stood far to the side of us. I nodded.

  Dunn turned at the sound of Hodgson’s return. “You’ve checked the entire facility?”

  “I didn’t find any other signs of a struggle. It looks like his attacker surprised him from behind with a knife,” said Hodgson.

  Dunn regarded Schmaltz once more. “Someone familiar with killing. A single, deep stroke. I don’t think we’ll discover any hesitation marks on his neck.”

  Angry that Dunn would think me so stupid as to not suspect him, I shouted at him, “That will be up to me to judge!”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Naturally, Doctor, I merely speculate.”

  “Go speculate somewhere else.”

  “As you wish.” He walked to the door but stopped when I called out to him.

  “Wait. Where have you been since I last saw you? You’re wearing a clean shirt.” I had finally recalled what was different about him.

  “I went to my quarters and changed. I ran into something and tore the other one. Is there a problem with that?”

  I glared at him, then turned to Hodgson, who, as far as I was concerned, now directed the investigation. He took my meaning and addressed Dunn. “If I might be able to examine that shirt, Sir?”

  Dunn looked from Hodgson to me, amusement on his face. “You want to eliminate me as a suspect, I suppose? Make sure no blood is on the shirt. Of course. Follow me.” He walked toward the door.

  Hodgson spoke softly to me. “I’ll contact Shigeko and have her bring a gurney down here and help you take him to medical.”

  “Are you coming, Mister Hodgson? You don’t want me to disturb the evidence, do you?”

  He gave me an apologetic look. “I have to go.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything. He followed Dunn out of engineering.

  That son-of-a-bitch was far too smug with himself. If he killed poor Schmaltz, he was smart enough not to leave incriminating evidence lying around. Hodgson was being conned but had no choice at the moment.

  And Bogdan, the kid was a basket case unless he was a very good actor. I would need to examine him for any defensive wounds Schmaltz may have inflicted on him.

  That left Hodgson. Though I found him in the hallway, I had yet to learn where he’d been during the disruption. I’d left him on the bridge when I rushed to medical. If he’s the one who murdered Schmaltz, he, like Dunn, acted very cool about it.

  My head spun. I needed some time to think things through. I hugged Schmaltz closer to me and kissed his forehead.

  Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll find whoever did this to you and make them pay.

  Chapter 28

  “Please, come in.” Erik Dunn made no effort to hide his self-satisfied smile as he invited Dylan Hodgson into his quarters.

  The two men stood just inside the doorway to the spacious room. Hodgson showed no emotion and waited for Dunn to address him further.

  “I’m gratified that you’re taking your role in all this so seriously. You are wise to maintain appearances.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Yes, Sir. No, Sir. You don’t really say much, do you? That’s one of the things I like about you. And yet...” Dunn let the criticism hang. When Hodgson didn’t rise to the bait, he continued.

  “I suppose, for completeness in this little drama, you should produce some kind of evidence, just to keep our little doct-whore off balance.” He grinned at his joke, but Hodgson’s face remained unreadable.

  “Oh, come on. That was funny.”

  “I wouldn’t know, Sir.”

  “You’re trying to tell me that you don’t possess a sense of humour?”

  “I don’t think you’re paying me to have one, Sir.”

  Dunn sighed and shook his head. He rummaged through his dirty laundry pile and produced a torn shirt. After examination, he decided he could part with it and tossed the garment to Hodgson.

  “You were more fun before she came on board. You aren’t getting sweet on her, are you?”

  “No, Sir, she’s just an assignment.”

  “Right.” Dunn sounded unconvinced. He studied his man, not sure he liked the changes in Hodgson’s demeanour over the past few weeks. She’d definitely affected him. He was surprised someone so insignificant produced such a profound and complicating influence on an otherwise useful associate.

  “You know, any man could fall for her feminine wiles. She is an attractive woman and a satisfying lover. Of course, I’m not telling you anything new, am I?”

  Hodgson swallowed hard but maintained his silence and stony face while his eyes followed Dunn about the room.

  “Oh, you HAVE fallen for her. Don’t be a fool. Yes, feel free to enjoy her while you can, but don’t get attached. It’s harder to put down a pet you’ve become fond of.”

  “Are you speaking from experience, Sir?”

  Dunn did not answer the uncharacteristic question. The fact Hodgson was attracted to the doctor like a stupid sc
hoolboy was obvious. For all his attributes as a soldier, Hodgson displayed a discomforting sentimentality.

  “You’re not going to have a problem doing what is required, are you?”

  Hodgson turned his head and his gaze bored into Dunn. “No, Sir.”

  Dunn watched him examine the torn shirt and doubt began to creep into his mind. He had vetted him carefully, as he did all his agents, but spies and traitors occasionally slipped in. When discovered, Dunn had no compunction about dealing with them. He had been more sure about Hodgson than most. Perhaps that should have been a flag. Still, he gave no reason to believe in his disloyalty—yet.

  Dunn resolved to keep a closer eye on the man, especially as the critical juncture of this mission approached. He would like to be able to retain one good agent through this, but was prepared to eliminate everyone if required.

  “You’d better get on with the rest of your ‘investigation’.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Hodgson turned on his heel and marched straight-backed out of the door, his military training on full display.

  Dunn sat on the edge of the unmade bed. All the consideration over Hodgson’s loyalty left a sour taste in his own mouth. Of all the sins that another might perpetrate on him, he considered betrayal to be the least forgivable. Perhaps, he mused, that was why his intended actions bothered him to the degree they did.

  Dunn’s plans to betray Regis Mundi did not develop in a sudden flash of inspiration. They started as a germ of a concept, years before when an opportunity arose on a mission. He’d quashed the thought as fast as it sprang into being, or believed so until the notion resurfaced again on another assignment. After four or five visits to the door of his imagination, he gave serious consideration to something he, up until that time, considered unthinkable.

  The concept grew in his mind like a noxious weed. He would root it out and it would re-grow, stronger and more widespread in his imaginings, seeming to feed off his resistance. He thought he would deal with the demon directly. He gave the notion of betrayal a thorough exploration and made a business case for it as an academic exercise. He hoped that by exposing the weed to the light of reason would prove its foolishness and he might finally rid himself of it. The effort failed miserably.