Amish Vampires in Space (39 page)

“Flipping attacked me, Seal! In one of the food storage rooms!”

“Why were you with him in one of the food storage rooms?”

Greels looked to the sky. “I went to check noises,” he said. “The room was open.” A sigh. “Does it matter, really?”

Seal tipped his head. The loading supervisor seemed to be having a run of issues with fellow crewmembers. It happened occasionally on long trips. Someone going strange. People got bored and the brain chemistry got muddled. Something.

Still looking at Greels, Seal reached for the lower portion of his desk. Searched for the connection to the ship’s doctor. He wanted Darly to hear this. Hadn’t she recently confined Greels to quarters? His desk began to flash as it tried to locate her.

“So what happened?” Seal asked. “Did he throw supplies at you?”

“No,
I
threw them at
him
. He’s…” Greels looked away. Shook his head. “I don’t know what he is. Insane! And there was a girl.” His eyes widened. “She’s hurt. I left her! We gotta help.”

“A girl? You mean one of the Amish?”

Greels scowled. “A woman, sir, sorry. One of the up-front employees, I think. Couldn’t really see.”

Seal felt a twinge of anxiety. Human tragedy was always complicated. Lots of ledgers to push around. But to have the loading supervisor involved? The schedule could be affected. Seal shook his head. Whatever this was, it needed to be straightened out.

Darly’s image became active on the lower portion of his desk. He quickly stroked the edge, which would covertly signal her to remain quiet on her end. To just listen. He rested his chin in one hand. Looked intently at Greels. “So did you fight with the young lady, as well?” he said.

Greels cursed. “No, I didn’t fight with the young lady. Why would I do that?”

He waved a hand apologetically. “I know it has been rough for you, Greels—” The desk indicated Seal had another call request. This time from one of the service coms near the red slide. There was no personal identification attached to the call, just the number of the calling com. It was the sort of interruption he would typically ignore. A misdial. Or a malfunctioning com. He would suspect children at play, if those weren’t all confined to one bay on the ship.

Seal frowned, watched the indicator flash. “We need to get security involved, then?” he said to Greels.

“Big time. Someone with ropes. Tarcs. Something.”

“Ropes?”

“Or a big net.”

Seal sniffed, finally pressing the incoming call indicator. Another image opened up on his desk, bumping Darly’s to the left side. He squinted, because at first he didn’t recognize who it was.

“Seal?” Greels said.

Seal held up a finger. “One moment.” He stroked his chin, frowned, and covertly muted Greels. He brought the new call to the middle of the desk. Enlarged it. Studied the image. He smiled and snapped his fingers. Unmuted the new call. “Mr. Miller! I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re missing your hat.”

Jebediah touched his head, frowned, nodded. “Yes. I seem to be lost on your ship, Captain Drake.”

Seal barely hid his consternation. “Has no one instructed you yet?” A head shake. “It gets harder and harder to find competency. I
am
sorry.” Seal noticed that there were other Amish with Jebediah. Traces of black hats and bonnets both behind and beside him. A surprise. “Who’s with you?”

Jeb glanced both directions. “We’re having some trouble in Bay 17. Some of the community have…changed.” He frowned. “I have a portion of our group with me. But I’m not sure where to go. We can’t all fit in the room that was given to Sarah and I.”

Changed? “How many?” Seal said. “How many are with you?”

“Maybe thirty.”

“And the rest?”

“Dangerously changed, Captain Drake.”

Seal glanced at the wall picture of himself with the admiral. All smiles and handshakes.

Dangerous? Hundreds of Amish? Loose on the
Raven
? He sat up in his seat. Moved it closer to the desk. Straightened again. “Okay, I’m going to send someone to find you.” He started to look for Singer’s contact info, before remembering he kept it in his important heap on the left side of the desk’s void. He wouldn’t send her personally, of course. Not if there was danger. But it would be nice to see her face again, even if she was a bit of a religious oddity. Their last lunch had ended awkwardly.

He touched her connection icon. Let it begin to search. He started to rearrange his desk in order of the time the calls had arrived. Greels top left, Darly top right, Jebediah bottom left. Singer bottom right…still searching.

They had to get together on these issues. Bring order. He already felt the weight of the ledgers he’d have to fill if there were casualties. The process of reporting the violence would get involved. He took a deep breath. Let it out again.

He thought to check with the boys up front. See how the actual progress was. Getting the ship to Obelisk was most important. He was hesitant to add another face to his desk array, though.

Soon. After he got rid of one of these four.

Darly was still in quiet mode, he realized. As was Greels. He fixed that with another stroke of both of their image edges. The desk rippled two directions. “Greels. Mr. Miller. I have our doctor on the call with us. I thought she would be a good addition.” He squinted at Jebediah. “Is there anyone with you who is hurt, Jebediah?”

Jebediah nodded. “A few.” He looked quickly behind him. “But nothing life-threatening. To be honest, I’m a little concerned about our being pursued. I managed to get everyone here…wherever we are. But, Captain—”

“You’re talking to the Amish now, Seal?” Greels said. “How are you talking to the Amish? Why?”

Seal raised a hand, hesitated, shook his head, and put a call out for security. The desk was getting fuller. Singer’s image activated then. There was a slight wave to her hair. He smiled at her. Held up a finger. “There’s a lot going on right now, Singer. Would like your opinion.”

She nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

The security rectangle asserted itself, moving right atop all the other images on the screen. Front and center. And large. The image was of a slight, brown-shaded young woman. Reasonably attractive but not what he pictured when he thought “security.” Regulations had changed a lot since he’d first started with the Guild.

“Sir?” the woman said.

Seal frowned. Read her the coordinates of Jeremiah’s group. Asked her to send someone there to escort them.

“And where should we take them?” she asked.

For this he looked at Singer. “We need a place to temporarily put some Amish…um…” He glanced at Jebediah, who appeared to be standing too close to the com now. His face was very large. “Refugees, I guess we’ll call them.”

Singer nodded. “I can find a place, Seal. Perhaps one of the cafeterias.”

“Excuse me,” Darly’s image said. “Why am I here again? I’m sorry, Captain, but I have duties—”

“You’re here because…” He scanned the images. “There are injuries. Jebediah’s group. And Greels.”

Greels scowled. “I’m sore and a little spooked,” he said. “But I’m not injured.”

It was quickly becoming complicated. Too complicated. “But you need security, right?”

“Well, someone does. The girl.”

Seal put his hands up. “Okay, let’s start over.” He pointed at the image of the Security woman. “We need two teams. One to escort Jebediah’s group to medical. The other to go get Greels. Get his story. Go with him wherever.” He pointed at Darly. “You need to be ready for visitors. In the meantime—” He pointed at Singer. “Singer will find a place for them to stay for now.” He stopped himself. Got a sudden burst of clarity. “Wait, Jebediah?”

Jebediah nodded. “Yes, Captain?”

“What is going on in my bay?”

Another Amisher man, an older man, pushed in front of Jebediah. “Demons! Your ship is the storehouse of evil.”

Seal sat back, eyes wide. “Excuse me?”

Jebediah’s face came in from an angle. “There is something wrong there. We were attacked.”

Attacked? He glanced at Greels’s image. “Seems to be a string of attacks. Lots of conflict.” He frowned at Jeb. “But I thought you avoided such things.”

“And don’t forget the blood,” Greels said. “Foley was after blood. Drinking it.”

Seal took another breath. Held it. Let it out slowly. He looked at Jebediah. “Is that what you saw? Blood?”

Jebediah nodded.

“‘The life is in the blood’!” the older man said, now somewhere off-screen. Seal thought he saw the top of his hat.

Seal cocked his head. Looked at Darly. “A disease of some sort?”

She shrugged. “I checked
everyone
when they come onboard, sir. Even the Amish. All clean. Of course…I haven’t had any follow-ups. They’ve been resistant to that.”

“I see. But if not a disease, could it be something psychological? A reaction to their new situation?”

Darly sighed. “Anything is possible, sir. I would need to examine someone…one of these ‘changed’ people to know for sure.”

Seal nodded. “And we should have lots of them in Bay 17 right now, correct?”

“I wouldn’t go in there again,” Jebediah said. “It is dangerous. Best to stay away.”

“Evil!” the off-screen man said.

Seal sniffed. “With all due respect, Mr. Miller, the
Raven
is a Guild ship under my command. We won’t be surrendering one of our bays to anyone, no matter how sick or
changed
they are. It is a terrible precedent, business-wise.” He paused. “We’ll send in a security team.”

The security woman’s eyes widened. “We only have a small group, sir.”

“I’m aware of that, but you are armed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right, so get someone in there after you escort Jebediah’s group.”

“Or,” Greels said, “they can just come with me.”

“With you?”

Greels frowned. “Yes. Foley. I left him locked up. With the girl. The one who still needs help, remember?”

Seal raised a hand. “Aha. So it is all settled then.” He scanned all the faces. “Everyone knows their assignments, right?”

All heads nodded, excepting Jebediah, who still looked a bit confused.

But how else would he be? He was Amish.

Seal smiled. “Okay, I’m going to connect those of you that need connected so you can keep talking.” He swiped first Jeremiah’s and then Greels’s face onto that of the security woman’s. There was a spinning whirlpool as the images coalesced, then the mixture disappeared altogether. He grabbed the image of Singer’s face and placed it onto Darly’s with a final instruction for them to coordinate. More swirling before the desk void became placid again.

Success.

Seal sat for a moment with his hand around his chin. There was something else he was going to do…

He snapped his fingers. “Ah yes, the bubble.” He found the indicator of the pilot’s area and activated it. Waited as the desk ring flashed.

Ten seconds passed.

No response.

He frowned. How strange.

In the end, they didn’t use a net, but they
probably should have.

It was as if Foley had been waiting for them. Like he’d somehow sensed their presence, despite them staying as quiet as possible. Greels stood a long ways back from the door, but he warned the two security men to be alert. Said they didn’t know what they were dealing with here. That the young intern was stronger than he looked. Faster. And had teeth.

To their credit, the others seemed to listen. They stood in front of the door, dressed in blue with “security” displayed proudly across their backs, restraining tarcs in ready position. But when the door opened, it was a young female that stood there. Brunette, in standard Guild shirt and pants. And she barely looked molested at all. She even acted startled, bringing a hand to her chest. As if a loud noise had somehow frightened her.

“Wow, that was fast,” she said.

The guards looked at each other, and then at Greels.

“What was fast, ma’am?” one guard asked.

She waved a hand at Greels. “Well, he said he was going to get some help, but I never thought he’d bring security.” She looked behind her, where the storage room was still visibly in shambles. “We made a bit of a mess in there.” She blushed. “Mr. Greels is such a passionate man…”

Greels scowled. “What? What splicer had a run at your code, missy? I don’t even know you!”

The guards looked at him again. Lowered their guns. “So you were with the loading supervisor in here…” the taller of the two guards said. “Doing what?” The second guard frowned and touched his hip, felt for his com unit.

Greels just shook his head. “She was on the floor. Hurt. Way out.” He leaned forward and peered into the storage room. “Don’t pay attention to her. To what she’s saying—”

The taller one put a hand out. Directed the girl. “Come on out, miss. What was your name?”

“Candle,” she said. “I work in accounting.”

The guard nodded. “We should take you somewhere. Talk this through.”

“No, no, no,” Greels said. He took a few steps toward the door. “I know what I saw. They aren’t doing this to me again.”

“Doing what?”

In that instant, Foley flew through the door. His eyes flashed all directions, he smiled, and went racing to their right, back toward the slideway. The girl, Candle, leapt on the taller guard, wrapped arms and legs around him, and bit into his upper shoulder.