Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

“How’s everyone doing?” he called over the communications net, more to hear a human voice than any need for a progress report.

“Eddie and I are en route to the ship’s hospital,” Julia replied. The transmission was garbled by interference from the ship’s steel construction.

“I’m about to enter the engineering spaces. If you don’t hear from me in thirty minutes, get Eddie to come find me.”

“Copy that.”

“Murph?”

“With just backup power, the computer’s slower than my first PC on dial-up,” Mark said. “It’s going to take me a while to retrieve what we need.”

“Keep on it. Oregon, do you read?”

“Affirmative,” a voice replied. Static made it difficult to tell who it was, but Cabrillo assumed it was Max Hanley. Juan had never thought to upgrade the suit’s radios from the ones that came standard from the manufacturer. A rare oversight he was paying for now.

“Anything on the scopes?”

“We’re all alone, Juan.”

“If anyone shows up, tell me right away.”

“You got it.”

The door in front of Juan was labeled CREW ONLY and was secured with an electronic lock. With the power out, the lock had automatically disengaged, so he pushed it inward and started down a corridor. Unlike the passenger spaces, decorated with wood paneling and elaborate lighting, this passage was painted a plain white with vinyl tiles on the floor and boxy fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling. Bundles of color-coded piping conduits ran along the walls. He passed small offices for stewards and pursers as well as a large dining hall for the crew. There were a half dozen more victims here, either slumped over tables or lying on the floor. As with all the others Juan had seen, he noted that they had coughed blood in copious amounts. Their final moments must have been excruciating.

He passed by one of the ship’s gleaming kitchens, which now resembled a slaughterhouse, and an industrial-sized laundry room with twenty washing machines that looked as big as cement mixers. He was aware that certain ethnic groups dominated the service sectors of the cruise industry and wasn’t surprised to see the laundry gang was Chinese. It might seem a racist stereotype, but, in this case, it was true.

He kept on, looking for and finally spotting a heavy door marked ENGINEERING/NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE. Beyond the door was a small vestibule and a second soundproof hatch. He ducked through, and descended three flights of stairs, before emerging in an auxiliary room off the main engine room. His light revealed a pair of generators sitting side by side and banks of computer controls. A massive sliding door aft led to the engine room. Dominating the cavernous space were two huge engines, each the size of a commercial truck. He laid a hand on one engine block. It was stone cold. The Golden Dawn must have been without power for at least twelve hours for it to have cooled to the ambient air temperature. Overhead, the engines’ exhaust pipes merged into a plenum and funnel that would rise all the way to the main smokestack.

Unlike the hundreds of other engine rooms Juan had been in, he didn’t feel the palpable power, the sense of strength and endurance that these engines were capable of. Here, he felt nothing but the chill of a crypt. He knew if Max was with him, his engineer’s pride would require him to refire the diesels, just to give them life again.

He tried his radio, calling to Hux, then Mark, and finally the Oregon, but interference returned nothing but static. Juan quickened his pace, training his light over the equipment for any sign of something out of th

e ordinary. He passed through another watertight door and found himself at the ship’s sewage treatment plant. He moved on. Beyond was another set of idle generators and the Dawn’s desalinators. Using a technique called reverse osmosis, the water treatment system drew in seawater and extracted almost one hundred percent of the salt, rendering it safe enough to drink. This one machine provided water to the galleys, the laundry, and every bathroom aboard the vessel. Of the two places he could think to introduce a deadly virus and make certain it affected everyone aboard, this was number one. He would search for the second—the vessel’s air-conditioning units—later.

Cabrillo spent ten minutes examining the desalinator, borrowing a tool kit from a nearby workbench to unbolt inspection ports and peer inside. He saw no evidence of tampering or recent maintenance. The bolts were all stiff, and the grease felt gritty, even through his protective gloves. There was nothing at all to indicate that a foreign object, like a bunch of vials of toxin, had been injected into the plant.

The explosion came without warning. It rumbled someplace aft of the engine room and sounded deeper within the ship. And even as the sound faded, another blast rocked the Golden Dawn. Cabrillo stood, immediately trying to raise his team on the radio net, when a third explosive charge detonated.

One second, Juan was standing over the desalinator and, the next, he was halfway across the room, his back a flaming sheet of pain from being slammed into a bulkhead. He fell to the deck as another rumbling detonation hit the ship. The blast was well forward of his position, and, yet, he could feel the overpressure wave sluice through the engine room and press him to the floor. He staggered to his feet to retrieve his flashlight, which had been flung ten yards away. As soon as his fingers curled around the light, some sixth sense made him turn. There was motion behind him. Even without electricity, the ship’s gravity-powered watertight doors functioned flawlessly. The thick metal plates began to slide down from the ceiling to cover the open hatchways.

A new sound struck the Chairman, and he whirled in time to see a wall of white water erupt from under the deck through grates that gave access to bilge spaces below the engine room.

A fourth explosion rocked the Golden Dawn and made the entire ship rattle.

As he ran for the descending watertight door, Juan knew that whoever had poisoned the passengers and crew had placed scuttling charges to hide the evidence of their crime. There was something significant in that, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it.

The water welling up from below was already to his ankles when he ducked under the first door, with four feet to spare. Hampered by the protective suit, he ran as best he could across the next room, passing the sewage plant without a glance, his feet splashing through the rising water. His breathing wheezed in his ears and taxed the suit’s filters.

The next door was already a mere two feet from slamming into the deck. Juan put on a burst of speed and dove flat, sliding through the water so it foamed over his faceplate. His helmet hit the bottom lip of the door. He twisted under it, pressing himself flat as he moved, wriggling to get by without ripping the suit. He could feel the weight of the door pressing down and he lurched as hard as he could, pulling his chest and upper legs through. He tried to roll away, but the solid gate continued to drop. In a desperate gamble, he cocked one leg and wedged his foot between the door and the sill.

The door weighed at least a ton, so Cabrillo’s artificial foot delayed its descent for only a second but it bought him enough time to yank his other leg clear.

The pulverized limb remained jammed under the door and allowed a curtain of water to surge into the main engine room unchecked. It also held Juan helplessly pinned, because, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t free the prosthesis.

Cabrillo was trapped in the engine room of a doomed ship, and, no matter how he fiddled with his radio dials, he got nothing but static.

CHAPTER 8