“She said she knew a shortcut,” Zebah says, moving forward, her blaster aimed and ready. “Two floors up and across. We’ll take the long way and fight our way through. Give her time to meet us there.”
“Something tells me there’s not going to be a lot to fight,” Bethiah calls out, glancing behind us again before following after Zebah. “They’re either regrouping or abandoning ship.”
“What would you do, if it was you?” I ask Bethiah. She’s the most chaotic bounty hunter I’ve ever met, but she’s also excellent at stealing things. “Where would your troops be?”
She pauses and then glances back at me. “It’s all about credits for these people, so I’d be offloading clones as fast as I can and trying to shut us down from afar.”
Something drops from the wall up ahead and rolls across the hall. A globe with a nozzle stops in front of us, and then a mist begins to slowly fill the room.
“Like that?” I muse, touching the breather on my nose.
“Yup, exactly like that,” Bethiah says. She walks a little faster. “Helen or no Helen, we need to pick up speed if we plan on actually taking them hostage, or else we’re going to get to the bridge and find it empty.”
I nod grimly and follow after them. “Lead the way.”
CHAPTER 95
MATHIRAS
We cut through the ship at breakneck speed. Each floor shows the same thing, though. Signs of a struggle but no one left behind to hold the ship. As we move through one lab, I notice that row after row of pods have been put into stasis, their reproduction programs halted. The next room is devoid of pods, and I’m pretty sure they were there before.
The sight makes Bethiah angry. She growls, stalking past another empty row. “They’re launching them. Cutting their losses.”
“Can’t believe all these big bad cloners are scared of a couple of females,” Zebah calls out, delighted. She glances back at me. “Sorry, and you, Matty.”
I shake my head, touching one of the large machines. The screens are dead, the chips pulled from their housing. “They’re not scared of either of us. The Scarlet Gaze will be here tomorrow and they’re hiding their tracks before they get boarded so they can do this all over again. We have to stop them here and now.”
Bethiah takes off running. I follow after her, my head swimming and my lungs heaving. More gas traps litter the halls, but with the breather on, they don’t affect me. We make it to the next elevator, and it’s disabled. It takes some time for us to open the shaft and crawl our way up to the next level, but when we make it, I can see the bridge doors in the distance.
They’re sealed shut. One of them is flashing with a disabled alert, and there’s a sparking sound somewhere in the distance, as if equipment is malfunctioning. Other than that, I can’t hear anything at all. I move to the control panel by the door, but it’s been shot out, nothing but a scorched bit of circuitry left behind. “Everything is offline.”
“Stand back,” Bethiah declares, lifting her blaster to the door panel directly in front of me.
I barely have time to stumble backward before she shoots it.
Nothing happens.
“What the kef?” I call out. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She shrugs. “It was worth a try, right?”
I’m suddenly missing my brother Kaspar. With a shake of my head, I move toward the frozen doors and press my ear to the metal. The sparking noise is definitely coming from inside, but I don’t know what’s causing it. “I can’t tell if someone’s in there.”
“Oh, they’re in there all right,” Zebah says with confidence. “Even if they’re abandoning the ship, someone’s going to have to stay behind to wipe the information systems.”
I put my hands on the seal that splits the door down the middle and try to pry them apart. “Come on. Don’t just stand there,” I tell the females. “Help me.”
“Yeah, Zebah,” Bethiah says from behind me. “Help him. I’ll guard you both.”
Zebah shoots Bethiah a dirty look but moves to the other door, pulling on the opposite side. We tug it open a handspan, and smoke pours out of the room, billowing out into the hall.
“I can’t see anything,” Bethiah calls.
“Wow, so helpful,” Zebah snarks back, and I shove the doors open wider and step inside as the smoke clears.
The scent of scorched metal is everywhere, and as the smoke dissipates, it looks as if another explosion happened here. The ships controls are all destroyed, sparks flying through the air. Several crew members are collapsed on the floor, most szzt or moden. I surge toward the captain’s chair and as I do, one last figure comes into view.
Helen, calmly standing near the navigation chair, garroting the last of the ooli scientists as he flails in her grasp.