SUB-ZERO, page 18
Both Montez and Shields swallowed hard.
He shut the door, keeping a hand on it for a moment longer.
I’m sorry, Damon…
Parting there, House and Trip headed toward the engine room. They’d just lost a valuable ally in Damon Becker but at least gained access to his personal domain. Obviously, having him alive and well would’ve been preferable, but his death wasn’t a complete loss. His resilience and eventual sacrifice may have saved them all.
Whoever’s left, anyway.
“Come on,” House said, ushering Trip along. The younger man was still somewhat slathered in Becker’s blood, but had, more or less, cleaned himself up. Still, it must’ve been hard on the greener, more inexperienced man to have that much of another person’s blood on him.
The closer they got to the engine room, via the ship’s starboard side corridor, the more House’s mind turned to Buddy. Hopefully, they’d find him along the way.
And in better shape than Becker.
I’ll find you, you old coot, House promised, smiling at a wave of memories. I’ll find you…
25
Getting moving again wasn’t easy for Buddy Malone—but at least he wasn’t alone anymore. While dodging monsters, he stumbled across a pair of sailors hiding for the exact same reason.
If only I found someone who’d be useful in a fight, he thought, glancing behind him.
The person over his right shoulder was a data analyst from the bridge, a lady named Shannon Kyle. She was one of the few, besides Buddy, to make it out of there with their lives. Buddy wasn’t sure of anyone else. The two that mattered most were Sam and Dominik Lucas. The pair, along with Buddy and House, could safely operate the Endeavor with little, to no, help.
The man stumbling next to Shannon was hardly a man at all. He was a shell of himself, at least, that’s what Buddy took away from their initial conversation. Joshua Peck had yet to stop shaking since Buddy found him holed up inside the handicap stall of the fourth-floor restroom. Apparently, the lab rat had been there since the first sign of trouble. In fact, he still had dried snot caked on his upper lip from his ugly crying.
He was doing that when Buddy found him.
Peck had also wet his pants.
The man was more than a mess and was currently out of it to the point that Shannon was forced to drag him alongside her while they both followed Buddy. They were heading for the engine room with the idea of shutting it down. Buddy had a few tricks up his sleeves. If they could get the boat to be completely dead in the water, then McMurdo would know something was wrong. As of now, they were still steadily making their way back to port.
Buddy checked his watch and groaned. They still had quite a while before the storm was supposed to let up enough for them to start their official arrival sequence. As of now, they were just moving into position, still safely inside of their buffer zone.
Buddy had no idea what would happen if Donovan ordered the Endeavor through the barrier. He doubted McMurdo would open fire on them. It’s not like they had the firepower to do so either way. It was a research station after all, not a battle station.
But they could call in for help from a nearby carrier group.
Then, boom…
The reason you followed base command’s orders were for A) safety, and B) because, if you didn’t, you’d be in big, big trouble. Donovan had no such fear anymore. He’d led a brutally successful mutiny and had done it with a pack of horrible beasts—beasts that used to be Buddy’s shipmates.
They were only fifty feet from the seldom-used engine room door. They’d taken the port-side hallway, thankful to find it mostly empty. Even Buddy hardly accessed his domain this way. Having reached the age he was at, he found creature comforts, like elevators, useful. Usually, he’d forego such things, calling them a “lazy way to live.” Now, in his seventies, he’d gladly use one, if only to keep his energy up for something else later.
On the Endeavor, for instance, he used the elevator rather than the stairs so he wouldn’t look winded in front of his peers. Then, he’d use that saved energy to rip into anyone who gave him a sideways glance.
People didn’t like Buddy much.
Buddy stumbled forward. His knees and back were killing him from having to use the stairs so much recently. Placing a shaky hand against the left wall, he signaled for Shannon and Peck to stop. Without argument, the pair fell in line next to him and took a breather, staying silent, and still.
Besides the natural creaks here and there, all was well around them minus the blood smear on the floor directly in front of them. The streak ended around the next corner, heading toward the center of the boat. Whoever the slick belonged to, they’d been brutally murdered and dragged away. The victim’s foot was still visible. For all their sanities, he hoped the rest of the person was still attached.
Buddy said a quick prayer for the poor bastard’s soul and then shoved away from the wall. He turned to his two partners and told them what was going to happen next.
“Okay,” he started, glancing over his shoulder when he heard a sound behind him. But it was nothing, and he continued his briefing. “Stay close and follow me.”
“How do you know there won’t be any of them inside?” Shannon asked.
Buddy shook his head. “I don’t, but this boat is fully automated. You only need a skeleton crew down here if somethin’ goes haywire.” He lifted his left wrist, showing her the display. “My doohickey here says all is well. Plus,” he added, pulling a four-inch, metallic object out of his back pocket, “I have this.”
He quickly slid a small piece of metal up the item’s side, getting a sheenk and a yelp in response. The latter was Shannon putting a hand to her mouth in fright when the blade of Buddy’s tactical OTF (Out the Front) knife sprang to life. OTF stood for the action of the switchblade.
“You’d use that on someone?” she asked, calming.
Buddy looked away from her. “If I have to, yes.”
The lowest level of the research vessel was the most utilitarian of them all. Everything was in shades of grey, and the hallway floor was nothing more than a metal catwalk. The ship cost an ungodly amount of money to build, so naturally, the designers cut costs wherever they could. Buddy couldn’t care less too.
Could’ve been dirt floors for all he cared.
Bypassing the dead body on their left, Buddy continued toward the rear of the ship but stopped when the engine room door unlocked and swung open. One of Buddy’s men greeted them with a sneer and a pulse of his crackling, electric blue eyes. When the engineer spoke, it gave him the chills.
“Hello, Buddy.”
“Seth,” he simply replied, more confirming the man’s identity than anything else.
“Yes, it is me, or should I say, I am him.” The engineer, Ned Frohm, smiled and held out his hands, inspecting them.
The only positive thing that Buddy took away from the eerie interaction was that Frohm was alone. Knife still in hand, he stepped forward and stood tall, pushing aside the discomfort of his aching lower half.
“Can you do it, Chief Malone? Can you really kill one of your own?”
Buddy frowned at the use of his official title, knowing Donovan was using it to put his and Frohm’s relationship at the forefront of the conflict. Buddy was the man’s direct superior, and someone the sailor was supposed to trust. Frohm was a good kid, barely into his twenties.
Buddy snarled. “You did all the killin’ yourself, Seth. You’re the monster here, not me.” He sighed. “If anythin’, I’ll be givin’ Ned’s soul some much-needed peace.”
Donovan laughed through Frohm, which enraged Buddy further.
“You sick bastard!” he shouted, tearing up. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth!”
“Come now, you really think there are souls at play here—that there’s an afterlife for Ned to go to?” Frohm’s arms opened wide, and he looked up at the ceiling. “Look what I’ve done—my abilities!” He smiled, relishing in himself. “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I am—”
“You,” Buddy interrupted, getting Donovan’s attention back on the moment and off of himself, “no matter how much you think you are…you’re nothin’ more than a delusional abomination from deep inside the Devil’s ass crack. You ain’t no god, Seth. You’re a monster—a parasite—a disease! Nothin’ more.” Buddy took another step forward. “You’re nothin’.”
“Well then, Chief Malone,” Donovan cooed, “prove it. Prove that I am not what I say I am and snuff me out.” He grinned. “Do it.”
“Chief?” Shannon whispered. “Why is he so eager for you to kill him?”
“Because, Ms. Kyle,” Buddy replied, “he wants to break me, make me put this here blade in my own man’s belly.”
“What are you going to do?”
Buddy turned his focus squarely on the Frohm puppet. “I’m gonna put my boy to rest.”
* * *
Frohm met Buddy halfway. Donovan tried a half a dozen times to secure the old man, but the elder engineer proved scrappy and elusive. While using one of Buddy’s own men to guard the engine room felt like the right thing to do, Donovan was starting to second guess the notion. No one in Coalesce was worth a damn, they had no combat training. He was on a research vessel, after all.
His reasoning for placing Frohm where he did was sound enough. He had wanted Malone to arrive first. Then, he’d break his will—weaken him mentally—before joining with him physically.
The lack of fighting ability with just about everyone on board was frustrating Donovan to no end. The one superpower he gave those of Coalesce was the inability to feel pain and the gift of regeneration. But during a fight, his people were as meek as ever. Numbers were his strength, but not quite yet.
He needed to balance the odds of what would happen first. If they landed at McMurdo with only fifty or sixty people joined to him, he calculated that they’d be defeated. And if he sent all of his force to apprehend Captain House and lost even more of his men, well, then…
Not good, he thought, unsure of what to do next.
Buddy hacked and stabbed at Frohm, catching the sailor across the wrist. It was the fourth such injury the younger man had sustained while fighting with his boss. But Buddy was rapidly tiring. His face was already covered in sweat, and he was breathing hard.
“Finish this,” Donovan said, uncaring how it ended. Frohm gave him little information that he didn’t already have. While never one to throw any member of Coalesce to the wolves, Donovan knew this fight was a taxing one—for him too.
His head pounded from the effort. Being able to see everything his people saw was hard work—painful even—but his evolution into a better being was worth it. He knew he’d transmute again with time. That was the biggest reason he stayed put in the wheelhouse. He needed to see what happened next.
Forhm overpowered Buddy, taking the blade to the stomach as he tackled him to the floor. Now atop him, all Donovan had to do was order his minion to lean forward and begin the joining process.
But he never got to give the go-ahead.
Frohm was tackled by one of Buddy’s people, taken off his feet by the woman, Data Analyst Shannon Kyle. Chief Lucas had worked closely with her. She was a whiz with computers, specifically the onboard systems she helped develop from Day 1, a few years back. Lucas knew she had begged to be on the Endeavor to see her creation in action. So, here she was.
“Her,” Donovan said. “I want her instead.”
Frohm grabbed Shannon’s shirt sleeves and rolled on top of her, focusing on the person with the more pertinent information. Buddy’s joining was vital, yes, but there was nothing his mind possessed that Donovan truly needed. What Donovan really wanted from Buddy was his body. He wished to own it so he could antagonize House—to break him emotionally like he had attempted to do to Buddy with Frohm. House and Malone were close, Donovan knew that, and he wanted to use their relationship as a weapon.
Smiling, Donovan forced the entity that had quickly grown inside Frohm’s stomach from the man’s throat. He urged it to slither forward and reveal itself. When it appeared, it got the expected reaction out of the woman. Shannon shrieked in terror and thrashed beneath his grasp.
Twelve inches of it wriggled into the space between him and Shannon. Just three more inches and it would be close enough to strike. Like all the other joinings, Donovan shook with anticipation.
“No!”
Frohm and the parasite were driven back, not by Buddy, but by someone else. The person who tackled Frohm wasn’t the boat’s chief engineer.
It was the third person in Malone’s party: Joshua Peck.
“Leave her alone!” he cried, feebly beating Frohm with a flurry of weak, uninspiring punches.
“Aw…” Donovan snickered, happily taking each of the closed fists to Frohm’s face. The sailor was dead, and wouldn’t be bruising, swelling, or bleeding from the assault. “You like her, don’t you?”
In between blows, Donovan observed Buddy dragging Shannon away from the action, and if he couldn’t have the analyst for himself, then he’d make her suffer until he could. As Peck’s vigor waned, Frohm’s right hand shot up and latched onto the slighter man’s throat, momentarily pausing the attack. In that time, Frohm sat up and drove the creature straight into Peck’s mouth with enough force to detonate the back of his skull.
A stew of gore burst forth as if they were ejected by a shotgun blast. The miasma splattered the hallway with the type of carnage few people ever witnessed. Buddy and Shannon both cried out in fear and disgust, scampering further and further away.
Shannon was terrified, verbally expressing her feelings.
Buddy did nothing but stare, locked in fright.
Donovan may have lost this round, but the battle waged on. He failed to join with Buddy, but the look of horror on his prey’s face had most definitely driven a stake into the old man’s heart. He took solace in knowing that he had severely weakened the man’s spirit.
26
Gregg Shields wasn’t brave, in fact, he openly joked that he was one of the biggest cowards anyone would ever meet. In reality, he was just being honest with himself, unlike those who talked themselves up into being something they weren’t.
Nope, not Gregg Shields.
Though, he wasn’t a “warrior,” Shields would definitely classify himself as a survivor. At just over five feet in height, he was easily the smallest man on the Endeavor, barely taller than only one other person. Even then, he was only an inch taller than the petite Latina he now walked with.
Kimberly Montez.
They currently clutched each other’s hands and quietly made their way back to the server room. When everything happened, the first person Shields went to check on was Montez. They’d bonded and laughed as one over the last couple of months, but it never went any further than being close friends. Both were contracted by DARPA, put in offices on opposite sides of the country. As of now, they’d keep it platonic and not promise anything neither could follow through with.
It was taking forever to get to the server room. They were forced to backtrack several times, wanting to skip anything that Shields perceived to be an obstacle. Like he stated several times, “I’m a fleer, not a fighter.”
Like most of the levels within the belly of the Endeavor, this one also had three major hallways running the length of the entire ship—until you got to the launch bay and engine room. The rear of the floor was one enormous space filled with machines Shields couldn’t imagine trying to operate.
A clunk reverberated through the empty corridor before them, grinding the two to a halt. They ducked into the next bisecting hallway, pausing and listening for anything. After thirty seconds of silence, Shields moved off but stopped again. His hand was still intertwined with Montez’s, but she, for some reason, wasn’t following him. They should’ve been moving as one.
“Kim, we—”
His voice got caught in his throat. There, further down the hall was a set of glowing eyes. Until then, they had yet to be spotted, only seeing shadows moving about in the dim, red emergency lights. So, instead of continuing forward, they both retreated and ran back the way they’d come, weaving in and out of open offices, laboratories, and other intersecting corridors.
Barley being able to breathe, Shields slowed them down, once more, this time, staying inside an office filled with nothing but filing cabinets. But it was quiet, and they were alone. Locking the port-side door, the pair of frightened geneticists huddled together in the corner. Montez sobbed into Shields’ shirt, using his body to muffle her cries.
“Shh, shh, shh…” Shields soothed, stroking her short, black hair. It was cut into a bob, which was terrific for him. He loved women with shorter hair. Plus, she was an expert in the same field as him.
She’s perfect, he thought, rolling his eyes at the absurdness of where his mind had gone. Stop it, Gregg! We need to live before we get into each other’s pants.
“I…I’m okay,” she said softly, raising her face high enough to give him a soft kiss on the cheek. When her lips made contact, she gagged and laughed.
“What?” he asked, embarrassed that the girl he cared for cringed when kissing him.
“No, it’s not you—well—I guess it sort of is.” She grinned in the low light. “You’re filthy, Gregg. It tastes like I just kissed a sweaty trashcan.”
He smiled. “And you’d know how that tastes, because…?”
She playfully slapped his shoulder, earning a fake groan of agony from him. For just a moment, Montez thought she’d actually harmed him. But he couldn’t hide his grin. They stood and stayed quiet, lost in the other’s eyes. Their transfixion didn’t last, though. A thud at the office’s entrance got them moving again.
Exiting via the starboard-side door, Shields carefully closed it and they headed left. Still in the far-right hallway, it was a straight shot to the server room and Gianna House and XO Ferguson.
Not much further now, Shields thought, controlling the upswell of emotion. They were so close to being safe. He didn’t believe in luck, but if he did, this would be the moment it would come crashing down if he got too ahead of himself.
