It took Phillip several minutes to work his way back to the medical bay. He passed three groups of pirates moving through the corridors and had to wait for each one to pass, hiding in crew quarters, storage compartments, and once inside a maintenance closet barely deep enough to contain him. Each time, he held the pistol ready in case someone opened the wrong door, but the search teams remained focused on the vents and ceiling ducts. So far, he had been lucky.

By the time he reached Medical, Phillip was convinced that his plan had a chance. The pirates were alert, but fear had narrowed their attention. They had already lost more men than expected and were becoming more nervous without becoming more careful. G’Dahn had taught them to look upward, and Phillip intended to keep taking advantage of it. He entered the morgue and pulled open the locker containing Lieutenant Thomas. The putrid smell was as strong as it had been when he found Kales, and Phillip wondered how the doctor had endured it long enough to hide. He slid the slab out, shook Thomas by the shoulder, and called his name until the lieutenant’s eyes finally opened.

“What’s happening?” Thomas asked weakly.

“G’Dahn is trying to destroy the ship, and I need your help stopping him.”

Thomas stared at Phillip as though he had missed several necessary parts of the conversation. “What?”

“The Serpis plans to implode the engines.”

Concern sharpened Thomas’s expression. “Are the warheads compromised?”

“G’Dahn says the pirates used one already, but I think we can still retake the ship.”

Thomas tried to sit up and winced as the movement pulled against the dressings around his side and shoulder. “Standing orders are clear in a situation like this. We have to contain the warheads, even if that means destroying Artemis.”

“The standing orders specifically say that?”

“The weapons are too dangerous to remain outside Concordat control. One of them could devastate a planet if someone knew what they were doing—or merely lay waste to it if they didn’t.”

Phillip helped Thomas sit on the edge of the slab.

“If the ship were destroyed, Fleet Command would assume the warheads had been destroyed with it?” Phillip asked.

“If the transit drive imploded or one of the warheads detonated aboard the ship, yes. There wouldn’t be enough left to recover.”

Phillip considered the answer, then helped Thomas to his feet. The lieutenant could stand, but he remained unsteady and had to brace himself against the locker.

“Tell me something,” Phillip said as they left the morgue. “Would Cluster forces destroy a civilian station at Nirenda?”

“Nirenda?” Thomas shook his head. “Not likely. The station was neutral during the conflict. If anything, it helped the Cluster systems by allowing supplies to pass through.”

“There was a peace conference being held there.”

Thomas looked sharply at him. “Was?”

“The pirates destroyed the station with one of the warheads.”

Thomas stopped walking. Phillip could see the conclusion forming before the lieutenant said anything. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Phillip agreed. “I think our problems just doubled.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Serpis isn’t the only person aboard planning to destroy this ship.”

On the bridge, an indicator at the sensor station began flashing with the persistence of someone Varna already expected to find irritating.

“Captain Varna, we have an incoming communication from Fortuna,” the sensor operator reported.

Varna turned toward the command display with a faint smile and transferred the signal to his station. Static filled the screen before resolving into the broad, round face of a heavyset man whose irritation seemed to occupy as much space as the rest of him.

“Mr. Tweed,” Varna said. “I’m pleased to see you.”

“Varna, what happened at Nirenda?” Tweed demanded. “The Concordat has deployed a battle group to the system, and every source I have says the entire area has been sealed.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Tweed leaned closer to his camera. “I already know more than you think about your little operation, and I know this is connected.”

“Everything is under control,” Varna said, allowing some warning into his voice. “I would explain further, but this channel is not secure.”

“Bah. I bought the best scramblers available.”

“For an ordinary cargo or weapons transaction, perhaps. Not for this.”

Varna glanced at the navigation display. “We will reach you in fifteen minutes.”

He terminated the connection before Tweed could respond.

For several seconds, Varna drummed his fingers against the command console and wondered whether involving Tweed had been a mistake. The man possessed enough money and criminal access to support the operation, but no imagination beyond smuggling weapons and selling them to whichever faction paid most. Eventually, Tweed would be captured by the Concordat and executed after revealing everything he knew. Varna found that possibility more convenient than troubling. By then, he intended to be someone else, living under another name on a world of his own choosing.

A chorus of screams erupted through his headset.

Varna raised a hand to the earpiece as Morgan ordered the last speaker to repeat his transmission. A rough, breathless voice answered over the channel.

“Henderson is dead! Charlie too. The damned thing reached down through a maintenance hatch and tore their heads off.”

“Where are you?” Morgan demanded.

“Outside the main Engineering station. I think I hit it, though—”

The whine of a needle rifle cut across the transmission. A heavy impact followed, then a rapid series of thumps and scraping noises. The sequence ended with a wet crack.

The channel went silent.

Morgan looked toward Varna. “Can we depressurize that section?”

“Not in transition,” Varna said. “Opening Engineering to the white could destroy the drives. We might never return to normal space.”

“What do we do?” the sensor operator asked.

“We kill it.” Varna rose from the command chair and drew his mass driver. He motioned for the sensor operator to accompany him, then turned toward Morgan. “Keep us on schedule. Do not alter course unless Fortuna moves.”

“Yes, sir.”

Varna keyed his headset as he descended the bridge ladder. “Everyone not assigned to Engineering or the bridge, report to the galley. We are going to flush the Serpis out now.”

Acknowledgments came back from the surviving teams. Judging by the voices, Varna expected no more than five men to join him.

“Why not wait it out?” the sensor operator asked as he followed Varna into the corridor. “It can’t stay in the ducts forever.”

“I believe it intends to destroy the ship.”

The man looked toward the ceiling.

“I doubt you want to wait for it to succeed.”

A noise sounded farther down the passage. Varna stopped and leveled the mass driver toward it. The man beside him moved to the opposite wall and raised his needle rifle. Varna nodded, and they began advancing slowly, scanning the intersections and access panels ahead.

They approached a ventilation grille near the floor. Varna aimed at the opening while gesturing for the other man to watch the corridor beyond it. After another step, he motioned toward the grille. The sensor operator turned and fired a short burst through the slats.

Needles rang against the inside of the duct. Nothing answered.

They continued forward, stepping around bodies and searching for whatever had made the sound. A shadow shifted at the far end of the corridor. Varna pressed himself against the wall.

The sensor operator stepped backward, caught his foot beneath the arm of a dead crewman, and fell hard onto the deck. Panic took over. He began firing wildly toward the movement.

A burst of needles came back from the other end of the corridor. Several voices erupted over the tactical channel as another group shouted that they were under attack.

“Hold your fire!” Varna snapped. “Pollock, is that you?”

“Captain?”

Two of Varna’s men emerged cautiously from the far intersection, their rifles still raised. Varna lowered his weapon and exhaled through his teeth. The Serpis had turned the entire crew inward with fear. It scarcely needed to kill them if they were prepared to shoot one another.

“Get over here,” he ordered. “We’re moving to the galley. Are Travis and Duvane still together?”

“I believe so,” Pollock answered as the group formed around Varna.

“Good.”

Varna was not convinced that two men together were any safer from G’Dahn than one alone, but at least they might hesitate before firing at their own shadows. The group continued toward the galley and disappeared around the next corner.

One of the bodies they had stepped past raised its head.

Phillip waited until the last footstep and voice had faded before pushing himself upright. Beside him, Thomas did the same, his face tightening as he rolled away from the dead crewman whose blood had concealed the movement.

“That was close,” Thomas muttered.

“Let’s get you to the bridge.” Phillip drew his pistol and started down the corridor.

“What if they come back?” Thomas asked as he followed. “We can’t deal with whoever they left behind without someone raising an alarm.”

“I’ll think of something. I’ve gotten us this far.”

Thomas gave him a tired look. “Your luck has to run out eventually.”

“I’ll let you know when it does.”

They reached the entrance to the control room directly beneath the bridge. Phillip reached for the door panel, but Thomas caught his wrist.

“They may hear the door open.”

“Options?”

Phillip’s tone made the question sound like an order. Thomas looked around and noticed an access panel mounted beside the doorway. He crouched and tried to pry it open with his fingers.

Phillip searched the floor and found the rifle of a dead Marine. He picked it up, stepped past Thomas, and struck the panel with the butt. The casing buckled inward with a metallic crash that echoed along the passage.

Thomas looked up at him. “Excellent. Very quiet.”

He pulled the damaged cover away and examined the wiring beneath it.

“If we’re going to make noise, we might as well make enough to cover us.”

Thomas stripped several leads from the panel and twisted them into a new sequence. The moment he connected the last pair, alarms began sounding throughout the command level.

The door to the control room opened. A pirate emerged with his rifle raised.

Phillip reacted before the man could identify what was happening. He knocked the barrel aside with the captured rifle, stepped inside the weapon’s reach, and pressed his pistol close to the pirate’s torso.

He pulled the trigger.

The gun’s report punched through the alarms.

The sound startled Phillip even as it felt familiar. The pirate reeled backward, blood and fragments of damaged equipment spraying from the impact. His suit began sealing around the wound, but Phillip knew the mechanism would not matter.

He fired again and stepped over the falling body.

A ladder rose from the rear of the control room to an opening in the bridge above. Phillip raised the pistol and saw a figure silhouetted against the white of transition space beyond the forward windows.

The man twisted toward the ladder, reaching for a weapon at his side.

Phillip remembered Thomas’s warnings about the pistol. The projectile could penetrate internal partitions, perhaps even the hull. Morgan’s movement presented only angled fragments of a target, and a miss could strike anything behind him.

Missing was not an option.

Phillip centered the sights on Morgan’s torso and fired. He advanced one deliberate step and fired again. By the time he reached the ladder, he had placed three rounds into the man above.

Morgan collapsed onto the bridge deck.

Phillip climbed quickly, keeping the pistol trained on him until the body stopped moving. Thomas followed moments later, pausing when he saw the remains of the first pirate below. When he reached the bridge and saw what the rounds had done to Morgan and the nearby command station, he turned aside and nearly vomited back down the ladder.

Phillip looked at the body. Morgan’s suit had sealed around each wound and continued reporting its futile attempts to preserve him. Phillip waited for some emotional response to arrive.

Nothing did. The violence felt familiar. So did his detachment from it.

That troubled him more.

Phillip forced his attention outward and swept the bridge again, this time searching for more than immediate threats. Displays, command panels, and navigation systems surrounded him, but their purposes blurred together until he noticed an open equipment case near the weapons station.

“What is that?”

Thomas followed his gaze and crossed toward the case. His expression changed as soon as he examined the interface connections. “They used this to break into the ship’s security systems and access the warheads.”

He activated the display.

“One was launched. Four of the remaining weapons are in storage mode.”

“And the last?”

Thomas’s face tightened. “Prepared for self-destruct.”

Phillip looked around the bridge. “Can you secure this room?”

“The external panel has to be disabled. More thoroughly than it is now.”

Phillip nodded. He crouched beside Morgan, removed the headset from the dead man’s uniform, and handed it to Thomas.

A voice was already demanding a status report over the channel.

“These are self-contained?” Phillip asked.

Thomas nodded as he accepted it.

“Listen. Don’t speak.”

Phillip descended the ladder into the control room and removed the headset from the pirate he had killed there. He fitted it over one ear and heard Varna’s voice.

“Morgan, what is happening?”

Phillip left the control room and waited for the door to close behind him. He raised the pistol and fired twice into the external control panel. Sparks erupted from the damaged housing, and the door shifted as its locks settled permanently into place.

“Morgan is no longer on this channel,” Phillip said.

Silence followed. Phillip began walking in the direction Varna and his men had taken.

“Who is this?” Varna demanded.

“I honestly don’t know.” Phillip laughed quietly. “But you’re welcome to come find out.”

Another silence followed. When Varna answered, his voice had regained its confidence. “You must be the passenger Captain Getz wrote about. The man he believed was more than five hundred years old.”

“Sounds like you’ve caught up.”

“Perhaps more than you realize. If Getz was correct—and I believe he may have been—I could answer some of your questions. A great deal must have changed in five centuries.”

Phillip slowed as he moved down the corridor. Varna was attempting to occupy his attention, which meant men were already moving to intercept him. Phillip listened for footsteps beneath the voice and watched each intersection for reflected movement.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re in space. We had space back then.” He approached a corner. “Terrorists and thieves too.”

“I am not a terrorist,” Varna replied. “And I am more than a thief.”

A fragment of memory surfaced without explanation.

“I’ve seen this movie.” Phillip caught the faint movement of shadows across the wall ahead. “You die before the end.”

“That is rather presumptuous.”

Phillip turned. Three men stood behind him with their rifles raised.

Their leader was tall, broad-shouldered, and grinning. A mass driver rested steadily in his hand. Varna tapped his headset and inclined his head toward the one Phillip wore.

“Don’t you think?”

Next Chapter: XVI