Chapter 20
TWENTY
EDDIE
“Caine checking in, sir.”
Eddie flipped away from Jett’s feed, the Song buzzing in his ears. It’d grown louder the longer they were docked with the Golden Lion; the cracks and shattering filling the silence between thought and report.
“Go ahead.”
On the feed was an empty hallway littered with what appeared to be baggage. Some were open, spilling their contents across reflective floors; others lay haphazardly in piles against the walls. Amongst that detritus, Eddie picked out clothing, personal objects, even tabs.
“Have you found any people? Any…bodies?”
“No, sir. Neither.”
It was a small and puzzling relief. What had happened on the Golden Lion?
“But…” Cosma’s voice pulled Eddie back to the footage, which now focused on a smear of blood staining the wood paneling. “We have found signs of violence.” She panned to the floor. “This is blood,” she said gesturing at a dark stain.
Eddie cleared his throat. “And the lifeboats?” Staying on task was what he needed to do. Questions of risk and motivation and why needed to wait until later.
“Four launched prior to our arrival. The remaining six glitched and had to be manually launched.”
Thump thump thump thump
The heartbeat within the Song pulsed in Eddie’s head, dotting his vision with bright spots. Something changed where Jett was, and Eddie wanted to switch over. But he had to stay on task.
“Is there any way to tell how many people were onboard?”
Cosma sighed into her mic. “Not with the systems glitches. Normally you’d scan everyone’s tabs to get onboard, but—” A hand entered the view and gestured. “But with all of this, we’ll only know how many escaped when we find the lifeboats.”
“Do you know where the four that launched were heading?”
“Not off the top of my head. They are programmed to go to the nearest station with Quasar representation.”
Eddie turned to the navigator. “What is the nearest station to our location?”
A moment passed as hands flew across the console. “Caelus, a research station around Saturn.”
“Send them a message informing them that they have guests en route.”
“The message failed to transmit, Sir.”
Eddie paused before replying. Something that had been bothering his subconscious finally solidified. “Have we received any replies to our communications?”
Heads shook negative and Eddie wondered why he only just realized this. And he wondered how the distress signal reached the Neo-Tokyo in the first place, if the weren’t able to get anything in or out now.
“Caine, continue as planned and then return to the Shibuya. Do not go out of your way to clear anywhere else.”
“Understood.”
The line cut and Eddie turned to the command crew.
“Have we had a communication blackout since we got here?” He watched the comms officers scramble.
“We, uh, we were focused on the crews within the ship, sir,” a young officer finally said. “We’ve sent out messages, but we haven’t received any replies.”
Eddie sighed and hoped that they wouldn’t need any assistance. “Have someone look into that.”
“Aye, Captain,” someone responded.
Flipping through the channels, Eddie landed on Foley, who hadn’t checked in yet. “Do you have anything for me, Jack?”
A gruff voice answered him, panting slightly into the mic. “We cleared the residential decks best we could. Found a few frozen bodies but no survivors.”
A large frosted glass facade filled the screen. Gilt-edged double doors gave away their location.
“Why are you in Athletics?” That had not been on the planned route for Jack’s team.
“We were nearby and decided to clear them on our way back to the Shibuya.”
Eddie watched the doors open and lights reflected off the glass-like tiles, sending shadows skittering across the entry. Three people split off and headed toward Jack’s left, disappearing into a room beyond.
The feed stuttered and the Song pulsed in Eddie’s head.
A clatter and shatter and the death of a thousand stars blinded him to everything for one white-hot moment.
Saccharine rot, chlorine, and salt filled his nose, dripped down his throat, coating it in a thickening sludge of gore that made his stomach retch.
Then it passed as if it had never happened.
“Are you still with me, Shibuya?”
Eddie wiped sweat from his brow and pushed it up into his growing mess of curled hair. The taste and scent lingered.
“Yes, we read you, Foley.”
“I’m havin’ some comms issues on my end. Your last message was garbled.” His camera feed pixelated then focused once more with crystal clarity.
“I,” Eddie coughed as gore dripped down his throat, mingled with the acid in his stomach. “I see static in your signal, but your voice is coming through clear.”
Darkness, Death
Swirling, consuming Hunger
The Voice returned in full force. Words ricocheted through Eddie’s skull while images flashed behind his eye lids.
Blood.
Gore.
Half-eaten corpses frozen in pure agony greeted him as he blinked, switching to rotted muscle and fat congealed beneath shattered bone in the next. It was hellish.
Child of the Void, awaken
Flesh of our flesh, star-studded
“Holy Astral Gods,” Foley broke through the grating, chanting Voice.
“W-what is it?” Eddie stammered out the words while his vision and hearing cleared, pushing the un-voice and its prophetic words from his head.
“We found some of the crew.”
They’d entered a massive room dominated by a swimming pool, its shallow water frozen around a mass of red and white and pink, cast in hellish hues by frost.
Around him, the command crew gasped and groaned, some hurrying from the room as the details sharpened within the feed.
Arms and legs lay shattered over torsos ripped apart, organs within the cavities a mess of blackened red coated with a layer of frost. Dismembered heads lay upside down, mouths open, tongues frozen to broken teeth.
Something else was in the room; a darkness impenetrable, a Void without stars.
The Song returned as that darkness pulsed with the cosmic harmony, beating slow and steady within Eddie’s head. The wail cried above him, above the darkness.
Feed, child of the Void
Feed feed feed feed feed
“Foley, get out of there!” Eddie’s heart raced as he watched the space consumed by darkness. The Song continued to pulse, louder, with static that skittered across the feed. Crew members gripped their heads, moaning and groaning as the Song rose in pitch, sped up in tempo.
“Don’t have to tell me twice, boss.”
Jack ran to the door, through the entry hall, and when his team was reformed, they sprinted down hallways, heading for the Shibuya. The Song softened, diminished, but the pulse remained deep within Eddie’s scattered mind.
Eddie switched to Jett’s feed, hoping for a reprieve. But instead he was met with something even worse: a skinned man with his eyes and tongue missing filled the screen.
“Oh gods,” he exclaimed, bile rising in his throat. He was almost alone on the command deck, but he still didn’t want to be sick.
“Don’t look, Ed,” came Jett’s reply.
“Too late.” Eddie wheezed around the acid in his mouth.
He couldn’t not look at the skinless face. It filled half the screens across the command deck. His mind couldn’t decipher the details this time, it was just a wet mess of clumps and pieces wrapped around a human skull. Whoever they were before, they were just meat now.
Jett’s feed widened as he stepped back. The man’s body was in better shape, though all exposed parts had been skinned as well. But he wore a stained and tattered grey suit, the silver at cuffs, collar, hem, and chest flickered where they weren’t coated in red.
Mox.
Eddie’s stomach lurched once more. If he’d eaten anything today, it would have just come up. A moment passed while several people returned to their consoles, screens flipping away from the ruin of Adonis Mox.
“I know him,” he finally said. Eddie hadn’t quite recovered from the back-to-back horrors.
“Who is he?”
“The son of a Quasar Director. He was given the test flight as a favor to his father.”
Eddie recalled the day he met Adonis Mox, how he was taken by the young man and the enthusiasm he exuded.
They’d gotten on well enough and Eddie was only too glad to give Mox the test flight of his ship.
He’d had unfinished business at that point, and a contract that wasn’t quite up, though allowances could have been made.
If Eddie were truthful, Jett had been the biggest question mark.
“Ed?”
He looked back at the screen. “Jett, that should have been me.”
A moment of complete silence lapsed before Jett responded.
“Don’t say shit like that.”
Eddie wasn’t dissuaded by his lovers response. “I didn’t take the test flight because I wanted to say goodbye to the Neo-Tokyo. If I hadn’t it would have been me on that platform.” It was logical. Uncomfortable, terrifying, but logical.
In his chest, beneath acidic fear, masked by the slow pulse of Song, Jett was a bundle of roiling emotion. Fear and disbelief dominated deeper emotions of depression and comfort.
“I need the location of the black box.” Jett’s calm masked his emotions.
Eddie flipped to the information Jett needed and scanned his badge to open the file. “The black box is located under the center console of the interior ring.”
Jett’s light flashed through the room as he moved slowly along blood-stained and cracked console tabs. “Found it.”
A large metal box with a working keypad filled the screen.
Eddie took a deep breath before continuing. “Press the top left button twice to enable code input.”
Bright amber light filled the screen as a physical keyboard extended from beneath the box.
"There is one chance to enter the code before it locks up for four hours. I will go slow, but it is 20 digits long.”
Jett’s hands flexed then settled on the keyboard. “Start.”
They went back and forth, Eddie calling out the digit and Jett responding before pressing the key. Time dragged around Eddie, slowing until he reached the end of the sequence.
“Now hit the top left button once.” And pray, he added to himself.
Silence took over the command deck as they all waited. Eddie counted each breath, each passing second as his heart rate rose.
BEEP!
The tension evaporated immediately. A bright red glow seeped from within the now-opened box, blocked by Jett’s gloved hand.
“The black box has disconnected from the ship,” Eddie read from his instructions. “There is a handle on the front to help you carry it back.”
But as the door opened Jett swore.
The black box was gone.
ONE HOUR REMAINING UNTIL DETONATION