Chapter 19
NINETEEN
JETT
TWO HOURS REMAINING UNTIL DETONATION
The voice echoed, setting crystalline chandeliers over the stairwell ringing. The tinkling mixed with shattered glass crunching and the bass line thump of the universe. The cacophony set Jett on edge.
“Shibuya,” he called, knowing that someone would answer. After a moment, he pinged Eddie to get the man’s attention.
“Stone here.” There was a hitch to his voice, a crack in the veneer of command.
“Could you tell me what the fuck is going on with this ship?”
A pause. Jett regretted the tone he used, but the ever-present Song, growing in pitch and tempo, frustrated him.
“Wort says that something damaged the engines. Report back to the ship.”
Jett scowled, glad that Eddie couldn’t see him.
He looked at his team, those above standing at the rails, those below gathered in a loose gaggle.
He had their safety to worry about, their lives in his blood-stained hands.
He didn’t want a repeat of his last rescue mission, the one where he lost everyone.
It was hard to make that decision for everyone.
So, as Jett had done in his former life, he left it up to the team as a whole.
“Anyone have a problem continuing the mission?”
Helmets shook and a chorus of ‘no’ joined the crash and twinkle and thump that pounded around them.
“Negative, Shibuya. We’re continuing as planned to the Bridge.”
“Two hours is plenty of time to climb some stairs and grab the black box.” Kepler added.
Jett knew the man from a distance, from Jack occasionally mentioning him in passing. But his unconditional support and morale boosting made him worth further acquaintance.
“Shibuya,” Jett called out, wondering why Eddie hadn’t answered. “We are climbing the stairs in the Atrium.”
Jett picked his way around the frozen bodies. The first time he brushed against one, the shatters in the Song dazed him. He was careful to avoid them after. It took longer than expected to climb three levels, but safety was key when there was a ticking bomb waiting in the bowels of the ship.
At the summit, his squad was whole once more.
“I said, report back to the ship, Lieutenant.”
Jett smiled, almost proud of Eddie for finding the guts to oppose him. “Negative, once again. We need the black box if we’re going to figure out what happened on your ship, Stone.”
The Song stopped, pitched so low that Jett could only feel it as a vibration in his limbs.
“This is not my ship,” Eddie responded, tight and impossibly sad.
“Sorry, Ed. We need to continue on. We’re almost to the Bridge.”
“As you say, Lieutenant. Just get back here before the timer is up.”
The line went dead and Jett ground his teeth. Grief beat beside his heart. He shouldn’t have antagonized Eddie. None of this was his fault.
Jett’s squad stood in loose formation, waiting for him to give the command to continue. “Move out,” he told them. And tried to chase the sadness in Eddie’s voice out of his head.
Through the double doors stretched a series of hallways, more elegant than the one they’d entered, but not quite as extravagant as the hall leading to the Atrium.
Or the Atrium itself. His team fell into place without a word and they continued, first down one hall, turning, and down another.
The Song grew sharply in his ears, the death knells of stars sang anguish to him, the dirge of darkness enveloped him, and Jett was lulled into a state of half-hypnosis.
“Boss.” Kepler’s voice broke through the stars and darkness, and Jett slammed back into reality, dazed and unfocused. His voice held a hollow quality, common with soldiers who’ve seen too much death, or have been spooked by something worse.
“Hold back,” Jett ordered the others.
Kepler stood halfway down a hall, facing a gap.
“What’s the problem, Kepler?”
The man held out an arm to his side and motioned Jett forward, but kept his attention on whatever was there. “You gotta see it for yourself, sir.”
Jett approached slowly. With each step, the thump within him grew darker, heavier. It echoed his footfalls until Jett pulled up beside Kepler and saw what had spooked the man.
Spending twenty years in Emergency Response meant that Jett had seen his share of death, injury, and disaster. But what happened here went beyond the realm of violence that even Jett had seen; it was heretical to life itself.
Misshapen piles of red meat, white bone, and pink muscle covered the floor, walls, and ceiling. Dark stains stretched across the short hall and stopped at the threshold to the Bridge.
“Shibuya, we have found some of the crew.” Jett’s voice was oddly calm, his heart rate normal, as he spoke. Static and shattering answered him.
“Fuck,” Jett muttered as he took in more details.
There were too many pieces and parts separated from their wholes to get any kind of accurate count out of the carnage.
Arms, skinned and broken, pointed down the corridor toward the Bridge; headless torsos lay propped against the wall, as if in peaceful repose; from the ceiling hung heads, their eyes punched through with cords, their mouths hanging open, devoid of teeth and tongue.
Somehow, though, the legs were the worst. Held to the wall by forces unknown, they wove a complex, geometric pattern where shattered thighs met ragged feet in rows of three across the wall.
With a quick “thank you” to the failing life support systems keeping decay at bay, Jett stepped forward. Somewhere nearby the wailing of stars echoed, danced across bones and flesh. It was closer now than before. Closer than it had been since the Shibuya stopped outside the Golden Lion’s hull.
“Move forward and hold this position.”
Jett watched his team move up, first one and then the next, to take up positions to either side of him. He back to the doors ahead of him. Now that the shock had worn off, Jett found himself getting used to the horrible sight.
Turning with rifle held loose in his hands, Jett picked his way over and around the arrangement of limbs. It felt almost sacrilegious to disturb them more than they already had been.
“Hash, move up and open this door for me.”
Jett slid to the opposite side, rifle now clenched in his hands.
Hash looked up at him, her hands buried in a panel, and nodded.
“Now.”
The door slid open and inside was only darkness.
The Song was blessedly quiet as he entered, but so was Eddie. Jett hadn’t heard anything since their tense exchange in the Atrium. He hoped Eddie was just busy with someone else.
Jett panned right and cleared that side, finding only discarded legs and arms—leftovers thrown here after whomever had constructed the tableau outside. As he returned to center, his light flashed over a dark figure behind a set of tabs.
“Oh, gods.” Eddie’s voice echoed in Jett’s helmet, causing him to jump.
“Don’t look, Ed. I’m approaching.”
Before Jett was another tableau like the one outside, just smaller in scale. Headless bodies sat in a circle, hands holding heads in ruined laps. The legs were contorted; broken shards of pale bone peeking through shredded uniforms soaked black.
And in the center stood a flayed man.
Facing toward the exit, they stood as if in motion with one foot forward, their right arm stretched out, palm open upwards. Red and black, crusted and frozen, covered all parts of his displayed skin. His eyes were gone, teeth and tongue stripped from his open mouth.
“It’s Adonis Mox,” Eddie whispered, as if worried that the corpse would hear his voice.
“Who?”
Jett’s light roamed over the ruin. Embroidery on the uniform chest read MOX in bloodstained gold. The cuffs and collar were similarly decorated. Silver and scarlet glinted in the hand.
“He’s the son of one of the board members.” Eddie gulped. “He was given the test flight when I said I would remain on the Neo-Tokyo on its return to Charon. He’s the one who sent out the distress signal.”
Jett reached forward and found a talisman hanging from a black cord looped into the gore of Mox’s hand. Two equilateral triangles, their points overlapping to create a diamond, with three concentric circles inside the outer boundaries.
The Song returned as he stared, pulsing in his veins, tickling along his back. The cord snapped as Jett pulled on it. The thrum within the ship intensified for one beat, then dwindled back to nothing and Jett tucked the symbol into the pocket of his suit.
“Ed?” he asked, as he turned toward the doors to leave.
“Jett.” Eddie’s voice cracked. “That should have been me.”