CH3

“Ready?” My brother took a deep breath.

I nodded and Draco pushed the hatch. There was a CLICK sound and I could feel it moving. Viva la electric locks! Viva la technology! In the same second we both froze, both ready to jump into the hallway, waiting for… something. But there was nothing, no air movement, no void.

“What the…” I muttered. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Agreed. But apparently we’re free to go.” Draco was equally dumbfounded.

“Go? But where? If we’re on a spaceship we need to find others. And if it’s a set up its authors could come up with something more down to Earth. Literarily.” This time my voice came out calm, but these were serious questions.

Draco pushed the hatch stronger and we cautiously stepped out of the cell. I moved left, to look for the place where, as I could remember, the guard’s body has been lying. I could hear my brother following closely behind me. After five more steps my bare foot stepped on something soft. Here you are, my friend. Let’s see what you are hiding.

Have you ever tried to feel a horny girl at the VR club, where there is almost no light to speak of and you can only see her blurry silhouette? A nice image? But then, if you change this girl for, let’s say, a corpse of a middle aged man - it is not so nice anymore, is it? And if it is for you, than you should probably look for help. Or for a good shovel and a map of neighborhood cemeteries. One has to always live out his dreams.

“Found anything?”

“Yeah, wait a second” I tried to pull of the dead guy’s belt “Here, this should come in handy.”

I passed Draco a metallic tube I had found.

“Is that what I think it is?” I could almost hear his disgust. Nevertheless, he took the tube.

We were both quite familiar with it and we had seen them in action more than once. The thing is, even at the beginning of the XXII century, there are not so many ways to improve a baton. And that’s what it could become, after you pressed a button at the top of the tube. Implementation of an electrocuting function, well, that was something new. Guards had always been overeager to familiarize us with it. At least, until Chingis somehow got one of these and tried it out on one such eager beaver. Per rectum.

I have no idea how it had ended for the latter, but after that incident guards were given more traditional stun guns. And probably a better insurance. Anyway, back to the topic.

“Do we want his clothes?” Not that I was very willing to take them, but I was even less willing to explore potentially dangerous environment wearing only my baggy pants.

“He should have a vest, right?”

“I think so.”

“Then take it. And boots. Leave the rest.”

It was a real pain to take them off, but Draco was right – we may need them. Lucky us, the vest was a standard model, so you could adjust it easily; the boots were slightly too large for me, but hey, I was not time to be picky.

“Ok, so the real question is, what are we gonna do now?” Draco’s voice was calm, but I could feel his excitement; it seeped through the darkness when he gave me back the baton. Anticipation mixed with impatience and – who knows – maybe hunger. I have seen it - felt it - more than once before a mission.

“Two priorities.” there was no hesitation in my voice. Oh God, how I had missed it in the can. “First, we’ll find out if there are more of us here. Second, we need to know what went wrong with this tub.”

“And what if we find that some of the guards weren’t as cooperative as this one? That they‘re still kicking?”

Good question. On the one hand, we could use a captive. Informations are what we need most right now. But on the other hand… I pressed the button at the top of the tube and heard that the mechanism still works.

“Kill on sight.”

“What the hell is going on? This is the third body, already.” Draco punched the corpse. By now he had equipped his own dead robber set, but that was small consolation.

“Yes, I can count.” And I was no less irritated.

We were “exploring” this ship for over half an hour. It may seem long, but if you consider that we have been walking completely blind it is a miracle that we were able to sift through two cabins. Each had inside two bunks and a dead body. Maybe ISOB should fire the guy responsible for interior design on their ships. Do I have to fill a formal complain?

There was only one more cabin on this level and a lift; useless now, of course. And two more layers. How do I know it? Whole my knowledge about spaceships came from the holo programs in which the UG brags about how great engineers they have. Overtaking Stars, Our new life and so on. I genuinely admire their propaganda and I have been a faithful fan.

From these I know, for example, that all of ISOB crafts have similar layout. Imagine a 3D model of an empty grey shell from XX-XXI century assault rifle. That’s how a ship should look like from the outside. Inside there are three levels: the first and third destined as the crew living quarters or/and a hold and the middle one serving as the bridge. The propulsion, the reactor – these were completely inaccessible for the crewmen. If there is a minor malfunction – automatic buffers would suffice; if a major one – you could only hope for a nice funeral. Or at least that is the teory.

I doubted this boat would be different. After all, they were only transporting us and we were supposed to be in coma. No need to throw out two or three billions for a new ship if you can just adapt one of the old and tested. It was all about size and carrying capacity.

Huh, who would have thought that spending these couple of hours a week of “recreation time”, I had been given by our dear governor, on holos may have had some profit besides annoying Thomas, my personal watchdog.

Still, before we could go down – or up, depending on which level we are currently – we needed to check the last cabin here. So, after another five minutes we were both standing at its doors. Yes, doors. Just like the previous one, this room had only simple automatic sliding door you can find in every office on Earth. Well, not so automatic anymore. Draco gripped its edge, while I stood behind him.

“On three. One. Two…Three!” Draco pulled the door.

I jumped inside with my weapon ready and froze.

…Holy Daughter of Pope.

Tell me about miracles.

Lght. There was light inside.

But it was not coming from the ceiling – it was coming THROUGH the ceiling.