Normally this post would have been a podcast, but I had to skip a week owing to cloud syncing eating my work and files (I had to learn the hard way the necessity of keeping multiple redundancy files on hand.)
But I also have big news! My publishing house, Quanta Publishing, will be released their debut science fiction anthology, Stranded, in January of 2024. It features five different writers. It’s now available for pre-order.
Here is an excerpt from my contribution to the anthology. I hope you’ll pick up a pre-order for $.99 and share on the social media of your choice. Thanks for being a reader and if you aren’t already subscribed to the Hinterspace newsletter and podcast, you can get a free copy of my SF thriller, Escape of the Calalloon. It’s exclusive to my subscribers and isn’t available anywhere else on the internet. Enjoy!
“Yo! Listen up! Eyes on me!” Marko shouted.
Everyone who had cycled through enough to see him turned to look at him, whether they were in or out of their pods.
“We have a situation. I’m sure you’ve noticed… the vast majority of the cryopods stopped working.”
“Why is there blood on you?” The man stepped toward him, a scientist if he had to guess by his musculature. He spoke in short, clipped suspicious tones.
“When I came to, I had to fight off someone who was killing my men. From what I can tell, we were automatically woken up as the last remaining twenty-four souls alive on this ship and this… traitor, was going through and systematically slaughtering my men with a laserblade.”
Gasps sounded among all the survivors.
“How many survived?” A woman in a cryopod released the catch and stepped out. She was dry eyed though distraught. Her voice was smooth and practical. Not quite another day at the office, but she was clearly someone who didn’t lose her head in a dire situation. That made her worth noting as someone potentially reliable for crowd control in his book.
“Seven.”
She paled and held a hand to her throat. “There were more than a hundred of you.”
“One hundred twenty-five, ma’am.” The number would make him sick if he thought about it, which is why he wouldn’t allow it.
A low keening wail came from a man leaning up against the wall in his cryopod. Marko frowned. Things were hard enough without men falling to pieces.
“We’re going to do an investigation and find out what went wrong,” he said loudly. “Before we do that, we need a final headcount and I need to know that my men can move around this ship and neutralize any threats without having to worry about one of you getting in our way.
This is the harsh reality: we don’t know what we’re up against. We don’t know if there was a failure, or if this was an attack. We don’t know if the man who was systematically killing off my men by hand acted alone, or if he had help.
We don’t even know if any of the crew survived.”
“Are you telling me, there might not be anyone flying this ship?” The one Marko had dubbed Scientist 1 in his head, stepped forward, a note of panic in his voice.
“Look, the ship is largely automated, but I have no idea what is happening. I will find out. Right now, I need everyone to gather in the cafeteria.”
“The cargo hold is closer,” someone, a man, volunteered from the back.
Marko shook his head. “Too vulnerable. I don’t know who turned off the cryo systems and I don’t know if they are still on this ship. We’re going to the cafeteria. I’ll assign two of my men for your defense while we sweep the rest of the ship.
In the meantime, I need a list of any and all skills you have available. I need to start with finding out who among you has the highest corporate rank.”
They all looked at each other and then the practical woman with the no-nonsense tone of voice spoke up. “That would be me. I was the corporate liaison.”
“A liaison.” Sheeeeit. This was not good. “Name?”
“Elspeth Mary.”
“Mary?”
“It’s my last name.”
“Mary. I’m putting you in charge of making sure that the civilians follow orders. Don’t force my men in the position of having to worry about two fronts. The battle stays out there. The survivors stick together until we find out what we are up against. Now, how much were you privy to the corporation’s design for this ship?”
She shook her head. “Not very.”
Marko turned away from her. “Is there anyone here who has familiarity with orbital engineering or spaceships?”
They looked around at each other again and a short man of Asian descent stepped forward.
“Name?” Marko asked.
“Caulworth.”
“Caulworth. Occupation?”
“Engineer. Technically spaceship software, but I’ve worked almost every department on board.”
Marko frowned at him. “Aren’t you part of the shift crew?”
He shook his head. “I was. I quit to start working for the corporation once it was confirmed this was the ship they were using to send the colony.”
“Fair enough. You’re staying with me.”
Collins and Ikande ran up. They had managed to locate a few security vests, laserblades, short range plasma blasters, and ancient tech radios.
They dropped his gear at his feet and he threw the vest over his head, and the gun and blade belt around his middle before attaching the radio to the vest at his collar. He did a radio check.
“Hammer. Hammer. This is Crisis. Over.”
There was a screech of static and then his radio crackled to life. “Go for Hammer.”
“Radio silence unless requesting aid, rendezvous to Alpha site on the double. Over.”
“Confirmed. Over.”
“Crisis over and out.”
The civilians watched him anxiously, but he hoped his taking charge gave them some measure of reassurance.
“Everyone clear on what we’re doing?” he asked. He waited a bit. “If you don’t know, now is the time to ask. We are moving fast and we are not stopping for piss breaks. Keep up, stay in a tight formation, and don’t get lost.”
His eyes connected from person to person and he felt their intent to cooperate. Last they landed on Mary. She responded with a sharp nod.
“Ikande, I want a final headcount. You take up the tail, I’m on point. Collins, you’re halfway through. Keep your eyes open. I don’t know if that murdering traitor was acting alone or not.”
“Yes, sir!” They straightened.
Marko turned away and led them toward the closed doors of the cryochamber. The doors did not pull open and retract into the wall, triggered by his presence, like they normally would. He pulled out his PD and used it to scan for life forms on the other side of the door, but because each of the interior doors leading onto the corridor acted like a bulkhead, preventing radiation through, the PD registered nothing.
He went to the door control panel and checked it. There was good air on the other side, but the doors had been sealed because a contaminant had been detected in the cryochamber. Immediate vacuum was recommended. The screen prompted him to choose the option or go back to a previous screen.
He frowned. It didn’t seem like the program was behaving right. As far as he knew, exposing the ship to vacuum was a last resort owing to the danger it posed. There were a whole series of steps, a protocol that had to be followed before it came to vacuum.
“Caulworth. Can you disable this door?”
“I should be able to, sir.”
“You can cut the ‘sir,’ you’re not in the military.”
“What should I call you?” Caulworth asked nervously, wetting his lips.
“You can call me Reznick.”
“Oh, right.”