“Just great. I’ll assemble a team.”
Caine held Bannor’s considerable bicep a moment. “No. You keep Wu and Tygg back here with you. You’re the CO in my absence, and you keep everyone except my response team here in this module. You pulled the firearms from the security packs?”
“As we discussed on the second day.”
“Excellent. You’re to keep them hidden unless someone tries to leave. Then you use them to enforce the no-trespass rule that Buckley ignored.”
“And now you’re going to ignore it, too? Bad plan, boss.”
“Yes, a bad plan. Problem is that doing nothing could be worse. We don’t know what Buckley has done to set off his biomonitor. He could have damaged the ship, hurt a Slaasriithi. He’s our — he’s my—responsibility. I’ve got to get him back. I’ll take Miles, Trent, Keith, and…and the guy from Peking, the vet who’s an EMT?”
“That would be me,” announced Xue Heng, who came striding up the hall. “I will get a med kit, Captain.”
“Excellent. I’ll meet you at the hatch.”
“Keep your collarcom open, Caine,” Bannor called after him.
“We all will. No way to know what we’re going to run into. Also, get me an earcam. I want you to see what we’re seeing.”
“I’m on it.” Bannor peeled off into the hab mod’s combination dress-out compartment and ship’s locker.
Caine got two steps closer to the commons room when Gaspard’s voice emerged from his outsize quarters. “Captain Riordan, what has happened?” Caine told him. Gaspard nodded. “I will ready a team to follow yours just as soon as—”
“No. You will sit tight. This is a security matter and those are my orders. I’ve already spoken with Major Rulaine, who has instructions in case something happens to me. We discussed contingencies extensively on the trip out here. Now, I’ve got to go.”
Gaspard was still trying to say something, but Caine didn’t have time to listen. According to Ben’s distant, rolling updates, whatever was happening to Buckley was getting more severe. His heart rate was dangerously high and his bloodstream was awash with endorphins and a number of unknown substances.
By the time Riordan reached the commons room, Miles, Trent, and Keith were there. All had guns. Caine shook his head.
“But—” began Miles.
“No. We can’t. It’s not our ship. The Slaasriithi warned us against this. We can’t inflict any damage on them, or their ship, to save Buckley or even ourselves. Besides, guns are likely to exacerbate any misunderstandings that already exist among our hosts.” None of them looked happy as Xue arrived with a medkit and Bannor showed up with an earcam.
Caine snugged the loop of the tiny device over his ear and added, “Look, this is my screwup: it was on me to ensure that this didn’t happen. So although I asked you to report here, this is strictly a volunteer mission.”
Keith looked at the open hatch. “We’re wasting time.”
Trent smiled his big, easy smile. “After you, sir.”
Caine, feeling very much that he did not deserve the loyalty of such fine persons, led the way.
* * *
Halfway to the cargo mod, underneath the sounds of the team’s sprinting progress, Riordan heard other footfalls. He turned. Swift and stealthy, Dora Veriden was following them. Damn it, what’s she doing here? But no time to stop now: her choice, her fate.
As they rounded the second of the corridor’s slight bends, differences in speed began to stretch the group out. Trent — tall, athletic, in his twenties — was outpacing all of them. Miles and Xue, short legs pumping quickly, lost their early lead and started to drop behind, particularly Xue who, although a veteran, was not an active-duty SEAL like O’Garran. Keith had originally outpaced Caine slightly, but age and a heavy, if muscular, build were wearing him down. Meanwhile, Dora Veriden, despite a much later start, had almost caught up to Xue.
Trent looked back. Caine waved him on. The big Kiwi showed his real speed and started pulling far ahead.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” The voice from over Caine’s shoulder was guttural, strained: Dora Veriden.
Caine didn’t waste the breath on responding, saved it to try to keep pace with Trent.
Veriden uttered an annoyed grunt, and, with a surprising burst of speed, pulled ahead of Riordan and started closing on the Kiwi. Good God, is she enhanced? Does Gaspard know? Would he have brought along an illegal—?
Up ahead, Trent sprawled headlong just before the turn that led into the turning yard chamber. Veriden veered toward him — and went down an eyeblink later. They both tried to rise, but a mist seemed to be surging intermittently about them, battering them down. Damn it; what the hell—? “Are you seeing this, Ben? Any guesses?” Caine muttered into his collarcom.
No response. Not even a carrier tone. Probably jammed by the Slaasriithi ship’s on-board electronic countermeasures.
Caine veered toward the right-hand wall, the one that led into the turn, kept running while he tried to make out whatever had hit Trent and Dora. But as far as he could tell, they were unharmed, unmarked, except they were covered in what looked like cobwebs—
Webs—?
Caine glanced up. Where the walls met the ceiling, there was a dark seam, rimmed by the same substance which had extruded itself across the cargo mod. Could it also conceal something like spinnerets?
Caine hadn’t realized he’d slowed so much and was surprised when both O’Garran and Macmillan raced past him to help Trent and Dora. As they did, vapor-fine filaments jetted downward, so thick that they created the impression of fog.
Within half a second, the strands that had landed on Macmillan stiffened, and the increased resistance brought him down. However, O’Garran managed to dance out of the spray pattern — or had he? Given its density and dispersion, that seemed impossible, unless—
Had the filaments only hit O’Garran because he was close to Macmillan? No time to observe or think: those spinnerets are still spraying. If there’s a better chance to be had by rushing through while they’re busy with Macmillan—
Caine sprinted toward the corner, felt some of the filaments land on him, felt them change consistency; one moment they were as loose as a strand of hair, the next they were steel thread. But the few that hit him were just nuisances; they had evidently been aimed at Macmillan.
As Riordan and O’Garran rounded the corner, they also detected the first whiffs of an astringent, medicinal smell.
“Gas?” O’Garran panted, struggling to run. The fibers across the front of his duty suit had hardened into a mostly immobile cast.
“Probably,” gasped Caine. “The others — they alive?”
“Think so. Breathing.”
“Good.”
O’Garran started lagging as the scent of the gas rose behind them. “Go,” he said.
Riordan nodded. There was nothing else to do, although helping Joe Buckley — whose skills evidently included those possessed by accomplished felons — had now become a rather ironic objective.
As Caine rounded the final corner into the turning yard, he heard a thump well behind him; O’Garran had gone down. Pushing back against a surge of vomit, Riordan sprinted across the chamber’s circular expanse, came up short when he confronted the cargo mod’s still-open doors. The fibrous extrusions now resembled a mahogany lava flow that ran from the bay of the Slaasriithi vessel into the cargo mod as one seamless mass. And from beyond that resinous cavern mouth, Riordan heard a single, child-high shriek.
Riordan’s plunge through the doorway was reflexive, but not incautious. Uncertain of what he’d find, he went in low and straight toward cover. But there was no fight in progress, no torture, not even any Slaasriithi or intruders to be seen. Just Joe Buckley’s distant torso, squirming irregularly beyond one of the motion-activated lights, halfway along the length of the cargo mod.