Morgan's Choice (2 page)

Only
Curlew
left. She would have swallowed if her mouth wasn’t so dry.
A trickle of sweat oozed past her hairline. Still the two fighters
shadowed the freighter.

A voice. A tremor surged through Morgan’s
body.

She couldn’t understand the words but the
cadence was almost recognizable. A business-like voice, issuing
calm instructions which probably translated as something like ‘this
is warship whatever. Identify yourself.’

“
This is Coalition freighter
Curlew
. We need
help.” For what it was worth, she transmitted
Curlew’s
identification sequence.

She counted her heartbeats; one, two,
three, four. She’d heard words, not unintelligible hisses or
clicks. Words, she was sure of it. The voice spoke again. It
sounded like an instruction. But what?
Think, Morgan, think. What would they
want?

The fighter to the left of
Curlew
took up position in front and
the one to the right dropped around behind, edging close. The voice
spoke again, a few more unintelligible words.

Best guess would be ‘come with me’. She
engaged the drive and matched speed and course with the leading
fighter.

Not ten klicks away, the warship’s huge bulk
took up the entire display on the view screen. The profile looked
narrow but that was only because of the vessel’s length. Two-thirds
of the way along its length and down to its stern a second level
jutted above the first.

The leading fighter slowed to a stop. Another
unintelligible command. She shut down the engines and hoped Jones
wouldn’t notice her hands shaking. Nope. He was too scared to
notice anything.

“What now?” he asked.

“Why ask me? How the fuck would I know? They
could be strange, flesh-eating beings with three heads who eat
humans for dinner. Maybe we’ll be on the menu.”

He scowled. “Why do you always try to make a
joke when it’s serious?”

“
It may not be a joke. If it’s not the
Coalition and it’s not the Festive Fairy…” A shudder ran
through
Curlew’s
hull.
“Hang on. They’re bringing us on board. That was their grav beam
catching on.”

Chapter
Two

Curlew
moved steadily toward the massive warship. Morgan
thought of a fisherman reeling in a catch, a fish gasping its life
away on the deck. Best not to think too much. The real answers drew
ever closer.

She glanced over at Jones, his face pale
inside the helmet, his eyes fixed on their destination. He rubbed
his gloved hands along the arm rests of his chair. Backwards and
forwards; backwards and forwards. She felt the same way.

Soon all she could see in the view port
was the warship’s matte black side wall. They were headed for an
open hatch, lit from within. An airlock, she supposed.
Curlew
slowed down, drifting between
stark grey walls. She deployed
Curlew’s
landing gear. The freighter would float, or if they had
artificial gravity, she’d drop. Near the far wall the grav beam
released. The landing pads clunked to the deck. The airlock’s
outside hatch slid shut at
Curlew’s
stern.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Jones sat
rigid, jaw loose, eyes flicking around him.

Mauve light engulfed the ship.

He jumped. “What the fuck is that?”

She pushed down the panic. There had to be
reasons.
Calm
down. Use your brain, Morgan. Panic achieves nothing.
“Probably some sort of
precaution against contamination.” Coalition warships did something
similar if they impounded pirate ships at home.

The light vanished.

Movement outside. A vehicle advanced across
the deck, small to her eyes but who knew? She angled the sensors to
track its progress. It stopped, extended a wide nozzle that changed
shape to match the external hatch door and attached with a soft
sucking sound. Her heart beat even faster, blood pounding in her
neck.

“
Selwood…” Jones’ voice was a whisper, a
plea.

“I don’t know.”

The hatch gave way. She’d already
deactivated the locks. Vacuum doors thudded into place,
reverberating in the silent ship. Why prolong it? If she made them
fight their way in, they wouldn’t be happy. Breathing deeply, she
deactivated the safety sensors and retracted the doors.

Air blasted past her, howling out as if the
ship had been holed in space. She gripped the arm rests.

Jones’
mouth opened, his lips stretched back. “Ah,
shit.”

“They’re releasing the atmosphere,” she said
between breaths, trying to bring her heart rate down. “They don’t
want it on their ship.”

The gale dropped to a breeze, then nothing.
The device released and trundled away. She checked the sensors for
ship’s internal environment. Vacuum.

Silence except for the too-fast hiss of her
own breathing and the pounding of her heart within the envelope of
a spacesuit. She stared at the visuals.

A hatch opened in the airlock. Figures
entered the space around the ship. Humanoid. Two arms, two legs,
one head. Oh, man. She couldn’t see features; they all wore
darkened, full-face helmets and they were dressed in black. If they
were human, she would have said they wore body armor, stiff and
bulky. But maybe that’s how they were. They were certainly very
big, well over two meters tall.

Four of them approached the forward
hatch.

This was it.

Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she
shared a quick glance with Jones. Scared. Sure, she was scared,
too. Terrified.
Let’s meet the locals, Morgan. And keep remembering,
without them your lifespan was weeks.

Two
aliens eased into the ship, weapons poised, suspicious,
while the other two covered. She watched them through the sensors,
prowling along the corridors, easing open hatches, conferring in
the common room where the remnants of that last interrupted meal
still stood on the table.

Soon enough a trooper appeared at the bridge
hatch. He had to duck his head to get through. At least she assumed
the trooper was male; there was no way to tell. He gestured, a
flick of the wrist with a short-barreled weapon held in one massive
hand.

“Time to go Jones,” Morgan murmured. She
stood, carefully placing her hands on top of her helmet.

The trooper squeezed into the compartment
away from the entrance to let them go before him. She walked along
to the forward hatch and down the ramp onto the warship’s deck.
Grey walls, low lighting levels, hard floors. A row of troopers
waited, weapons held in both hands.

A sharp shove in the back from their escort
impelled her toward an open doorway. She stumbled into a
low-roofed, windowless compartment with bench seats on either side,
Jones behind her. Both of them swayed as whatever they were in
began to move. Some sort of isolation vehicle. She checked the
suit’s sensor data. Yes, still in vacuum. But the gas levels were
rising. They were airing up in here. Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon
Dioxide. Pretty much the same as home.

“What will they do to us?” Jones said,
perching himself on a bench.

“
How the fuck should I know? Just keep
remembering, it’s got to be better than waiting to die in
Curlew
.”

“Does it?”

He had a point but she wasn’t going to
tell
him
that.

“Just… be polite, do as you’re told.”

Jones’
lip curled. “
You’re
telling
me
?

She looked away. Smartarse.

“Well, come on,” he said. “Surely you can
tell something about them, Supertech. You can get into their
computer systems, can’t you?”

She scowled. It was always the same. ‘You’re
a Supertech—wave your magic wand’. “They’re alien systems. They
won’t work the same as ours. I’ll work it out but it’ll take me a
while.”

The vehicle stopped. She lurched as it
reversed. Then the door slid open. One of the big troopers leaned
in and gestured. Get out. Just her. A sharp order enforced with the
muzzle of his weapon had Jones sagging back onto the bench.

She clambered down the step into an
enclosed room, white walls, all curved. Behind her, the door
snicked shut. She gazed around her. Featureless. Not even a sensor
in the walls. A door in the opposite wall swished aside to reveal
two people dressed in white protective clothing. Like the troopers
they were humanoid but not as tall and bulky. Helmets with
transparent face plates covered their heads. The faces looked
human, dark skin, straight noses, black hair, two ears, two
eyes—all very familiar except for something about the eyes. She
enhanced the image, processing out the reflection of the room
lights. Their eyes had no whites, different pupils; eyes like cats
or lizards.

One of them came in, took her arm and led her
into what looked like a laboratory, the walls lined with cabinets,
benches with troughs set in, trays full of equipment.

The hand on her arm had four fingers,
opposable thumb.
Just like us
. If
these guys were human, the owner of the hand would probably be
female. Her taller companion issued an instruction. Morgan met his
gaze and shrugged, hands raised, palms up.
I don’t know what you
want
. He stiffened, legs
apart. Angry? What had she done wrong? The other person bowed from
the waist and said something to him that seemed to mollify him. She
turned to Morgan, smiled and acted out removing her helmet. She
moved both open hands toward her face, breathing in,
smiling.

She’s saying it’s safe, I can breathe
here.

Morgan checked the sensor data from the
suit again. Atmospheric gas mix about the same as Coalition worlds.
Ambient temperature comfortable. Air she could breathe. They must
know that. Maybe they did an analysis on the air they sucked out
of
Curlew
? The
meter on the air pack registered about half full, so she could
exist in this suit for another three hours or so. But then, what
was the point?

She unclamped her helmet and lifted it, ready
to shove it down again if she had to. A breath, then another. A
little warmer, moister than she was used to but still with that
scrubbed spaceship tang. She held out the helmet. The man took it
from her and placed it on a trolley. The woman smiled encouragement
and mimed taking off her clothes. Morgan complied. Suit first, then
boots, shirt, trousers, underwear.

The woman brought out a trolley carrying a
tray of instruments. Needles, little bottles, instruments she’d
never seen.
Just another physical. I hope
. She stood quietly, heart beating a staccato, as
they took their samples of body tissue, hair, blood. A sting in the
back of her neck made her yelp. The woman made soothing noises
while Morgan fingered a flat, circular object attached to her skin.
She sensed a processor and checked. Alien technology. She didn’t
know how to read it. Some sort of controller? Something to collect
data?

The male wheeled the trolley away while
the female waved her hand, palm open, at a tall, narrow,
semi-circular cylinder. Morgan eyed the thing. Was she supposed to
get in there? Did this have something to do with the object on her
neck? The woman said something, moved around behind her and pushed
her between her shoulder blades. Caught off balance Morgan fell
inside, hands against the opposite wall. Panic screamed up from her
gut to her throat as the cylinder curved shut behind her. Bright
light surrounded her.
Think, Morgan, think. Panic is useless.
A body scan? Maybe. A moment
later, the light turned mauvish, like the light they’d used on the
ship. She closed her eyes against the glare but she could still see
red against her eyelids. She opened her eyes again when the door
opened. Trembling with relief, she stumbled out, willing herself to
breathe deeply while the sweat dried on her forehead.

The female tech, using both hands held out in
front of her, offered Morgan a yellow garment that turned out to be
a jump suit that fastened at the front. She pulled it on, fumbling
to work out how they did the fastenings. The tech helped. Just
bring the two sides together and it seals. Give this part a quick
jerk and the seam opens. Too short in the legs and arms, baggy
around her body. A pair of utilitarian slippers, nothing more than
a sole with a cloth strap over the top, completed the outfit.

Dressed, Morgan shuffled behind the woman
down a door-lined corridor. The tech stopped, pressed a panel to
open a door and stood aside for her to enter another featureless
room with no right-angles. More like a cell, really, four paces
wide, four paces long, the sparse furnishings comprised a bunk bed
attached to the wall, a small table and a built-in closet. She
sniffed at the contents of a cylindrical container on the table and
tasted with the tip of her tongue. Water. She hoped. She drank and
made herself as comfortable as she could on the bunk, legs crossed
at the ankle. Her fingers slid one more time to the device on the
back of her neck and wondered what it did. She’d almost forgotten
it was there,

Her treatment hadn’t been so bad so far,
although her heart still beat far too fast. They’d be checking the
samples the medical people had taken for all sorts of things,
especially unfamiliar viruses. Breathable air, comfortable
temperature, bearable gravity. It might have been a Coalition Fleet
ship. Only it wasn’t.