Horizons of Deceit, Book 1 Page 24
11.
FOLKARD MOVED, SILENT as a shadow, through Imperator’s darkened corridors, his thoughts not too distant from Nathaniel’s. Judging by the existence of gravity on Imperator, it appeared the Russians had also been mining gravitar. In every way that mattered, Imperator truly was Sovereign’s sister ship.
What little he had imbibed in the petty officers’ cabin was still having an effect. He was woozy and his step was light; he had to fight to keep his balance and vision steady. He shook his head, trying to ward off the fog that clouded his judgement. Thoughts of the mission, of duty to the Crown and fidelity to his friends and countrymen, spurred him onwards.
His first idea was sabotage. If he could somehow make his way to the engine room undetected he may have been able to disrupt the engines, perhaps scuttle the warship in the aether and, at least for the moment, lessen the threat Imperator posed to the world. But what then? He could not guarantee Her Majesty’s Navy were aware of Imperator’s position, let alone its dreadful capabilities. Not only that, he was certain any damage he might do would only be temporary. This ship may not have been elegant, but its construction was sturdy and methodical—and with that came a veritable army of engineers who’d have it back up and running in next to no time.
Could he perhaps set a fire? Or rig up some sort of explosive? Whatever he needed to do, he needed to do it quick. A sudden, panicked coldness gripped his belly as he took in the vastness of Imperator’s many decks and passageways. He estimated it to be perhaps a third bigger than Sovereign, or was that guess just the vodka needling at his vulnerabilities, making him second-guess himself and ask what, realistically, a single man could do against such might?
He shook his head again, clearing these morbid thoughts. It was true that there was not much only one man armed with a single pistol and five bullets could achieve against such odds, even if that man was Captain Jacob Folkard. But the might of Sovereign and a battalion of fully armed British ships was another matter, and not a force to be resisted even by this grotesque behemoth. He had to let Sovereign know where he was and, if need be, tell them to blast this black beast out of the sky with him inside it.
He had to get to the comm room.
12.
HE WAS DEFINITELY on the right track when he found the marine was still breathing but out cold. Arnaud had clearly got the jump on him, and Nathaniel noticed with dismay that the unconscious man’s pistol was also missing—the next crewmember to encounter Arnaud might not be so lucky. If only he could corner him, restrain him, give it time for these destructive chemicals to leach away so the old Arnaud could return. Only time was the last thing he had. Finding the injured sailor had only served to confirm his worst suspicions—that an armed and unbalanced Arnaud was heading straight towards the engine rooms.
It must be some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion, he reasoned. Nathaniel’s body was charging down corridors but his mind was calmly using the time to make connections, to think ahead and plan. Potsdam and Garrecreux had appeared highly susceptible and weak-willed, and creating some sort of ingrained mental link between withdrawal symptoms and a specific set of instructions would not, he presumed, be all that difficult to do. But how strong would the impulse be? He had to assume that the real Arnaud’s will was stronger, and that only by coaxing his friend’s mind back to full consciousness could the conditioning be shaken off…and that was only if he could find Arnaud before he’d been shot dead.
He was nearly at the engine room when another pistol shot cracked and reverberated through Sovereign’s corridors. It was very close ahead.
Nathaniel just caught Arnaud’s heels disappearing around the corner. In seconds he would be in the engine room. To his left Nathaniel saw a sailor ducked into an ante-room off the main gangway, cocking his pistol and readying himself to lean out from cover and fire.
“Don’t shoot!” Nathaniel yelled as he raced past. “He mustn’t be harmed!” Stunned, the sailor watched Nathaniel blaze by before taking to his own heels in pursuit.
Mere moments after Arnaud had rounded the same corner, Nathaniel followed. But the beast was in control of Arnaud, and that beast was wily and cunning—he sprang out from his hiding place as soon as he had seen Nathaniel. For a split second Nathaniel could see his ravaged eyes, bloodshot and wide, and the crusts of spittle that had dried around the corners of his mouth. With a strength Nathaniel was unaware Arnaud possessed the unbalanced doctor whirled him around and barred his forearm across Nathaniel’s throat. Nathaniel attempted to struggle but ceased as soon as he felt the gun barrel pressed against his temple, still warm from Arnaud’s last crazed shot. He was breathing like a crazed, wounded animal and when the sailor from the ante-room skidded to a halt before them Arnaud closed his arm tighter around Nathaniel’s throat.
“Go!” He growled, gesturing with the pistol barrel. “Leave.”
“Can’t do that, sir,” said the sailor calmly. He began to reach for his holster.
Without pause or compunction Arnaud levelled the pistol and shot the man twice in the stomach, the blasts almost deafening Nathaniel. He was still recovering when Arnaud began to drag him towards the engine room’s imposing door, the barrel of the gun pressed to his head once more.
“You,” he hissed into Nathaniel’s ear, “you try and escape and I swear by God I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
“Arnaud, this isn’t you! It’s that perfidious drug, it’s got a hold of you, man! You’ve got to fight it!”
“No!” Shouted Arnaud. “No Nathaniel, no! You’re not going to talk me out of this, they told me all about you, all of you, how you’d use your guile against me!”
Arnaud kicked open the engine room doors and slammed it shut with his back. Such was the noise of the engine room the bang was barely noticed. Nathaniel’s previous tweaks were really putting Sovereign through her paces, and he noted with alarm the high and fevered whine of straining heat and energy emanating from every pipe and furiously pumping piston. Had he tried to be too clever again, putting his own pompous scientific largesse before the safety of himself and others? At this juncture, the slightest disruption to the systems could be catastrophic…
As Arnaud shoved Nathaniel roughly into the room a couple of the engineers had taken note and began backing away. Arnaud whipped the pistol out to point at the nearest one.
“You,” he spat, “lock the door!” His arms in the air, the engineer complied. Arnaud locked his arm tighter around Nathaniel’s throat again, and put his mouth towards Nathaniel’s ear. “You will tell me,” he whispered, as the professor began to suffocate, “how to destroy this ship!”
“Arnaud,” Nathaniel gasped, “think of what you’re doing. All the lives you’ll destroy…” A sudden bang on the door. Reinforcements had arrived. Arnaud released his grip slightly, alarmed, and pointed the pistol in a frenzy around the room. “It’s over, Arnaud. Come back, come back to me. We’ll make you well again…”
Gentle as they were, the words seemed to strike Arnaud like blows. As the battering at the door was reaching its climax Arnaud roared, a desperate and angry sound that came from some primal and untempered source. He flung Nathaniel aside, raised his pistol, and emptied the chamber into the first bank of instruments he saw.
13.
ON THE BRIDGE, the lights dimmed and flickered for a moment. There was an ungodly screech of metal from the stern and Sovereign began to list, losing precious speed as she did so.
“Lieutenant Sykes!” yelled Bedford. “Get onto the engine room, find out what the hell’s going on. Tally, Mister Boon,” he whipped around to face the two men, “get down there, see if you can help.”
Sub-lieutenant Barry looked up worriedly from a pressure gauge. “We’re losing all power in the engines, Commander. Sovereign... She’s dead in the water, sir!”
As the stricken ship continued to list, outside the menacing hulk of Imperator sailed effortlessly away over Luna’s horizon, the unearthly green of its engines blazing.
14.
Ironically, his pace had quickened tenfold now the corridors were full and lively with activity. Folkard could hop from group to group or stride purposefully along, waving and smiling at his purported crewmates. He reached the door to the comm room in no time, and just as he was approaching a midshipman with a somewhat noble bearing breezed out of it. Folkard stopped dead right in front of him, and the midshipman looked him up and down.
“It’s a great day to be a Russian, eh, sailor?” he said.
Folkard nodded eagerly. “Indeed, sir. I never thought I’d see the day…”
“Quite, quite. Do you, ah… Do you have any business in the comm room?”
Folkard stuttered for a second. Through the open door he could see the room was deserted, the power in the lights above the heliograph turned down low.
“Well sir,” he began, stalling for time by scratching the back of his head. “I was just thinking, I’ve a brother back in Kimra, he’s been sick with influenza and this news…”
The midshipman smirked wryly. “Ah, of course. Want to send a message, eh? Cheer up the folks back home. Well, I can’t see the harm. Go in, but don’t touch anything. I’ll send someone by presently to see to your needs.” He stepped to one side to allow Folkard into the comm room.
“Thank you sir, that’s very kind of you, sir.”
“And don’t touch anything.”
“I won’t, sir.”
Folkard squeezed by and the midshipman softly closed the door behind him. The comm room was unnaturally dark, and here and there he could see shadowed backs murmuring into pipes from the dark hoods of cubicles. Ahead of him, the heliograph was unmanned. He strode across and, without bothering to sit, began to take in the controls. The setup was markedly different from the one on Sovereign, but if could just employ a little Russian logic to it… He reached out and flicked a switch experimentally.
The first thing he thought of, in those meagre final moments, was that it all must have been happening to somebody else. That the shot had come from outside, that some drunken officer from Kazakhstan had got overexcited and let off some steam with a bang and a whoop. But no; the shot had come closer than that, much closer, and after a lifetime of realisation the warm, wet patch that had been spreading around his left kidney gave way to a sharper, excruciating pain. He pitched forward onto the controls.
“Ah ah ah,” came a voice from behind him. “Weren’t you listening? He told you not to touch anything.” It was a voice he knew, the inflections, the timbre, all the same but the accent was different. Gasping against the pain he managed to turn himself over to face the man who had shot him in the back.
“I hope you enjoyed your little tour, Folkard. I arranged it specially. Olkhovsky and Utterklo were happy to help. I wanted to show you the very best of Russian hospitality. Hard work and vodka, Jacob. That’s what’ll make you a man.”
It couldn’t be… Before him stood a relic of a man he once knew, the same face, the same voice, but all out of proportion like he was being controlled by a bad puppeteer. His face had hardened and his eyes were wide and maniacally focussed. Folkard noticed that his right arm was bandaged in a stump at the elbow.
“Grant,” hissed Folkard, clutching at his side. “It was you. All along, it was you…”
“Well, yes and no. An exercise in control, if you will,” continued Grant, padding across to Folkard with an insouciant air. “You see, Cyrus Grant isn’t here anymore…” Folkard, overcoming the weakness that had begun to course through him, reached down for the pistol at his side. If he could just get one shot off… Grant casually took aim and shot Folkard in the thigh, and the captain crumpled to the floor.
“We have met several times, Captain. You thought your man had killed me, but my will is beyond the reach of the mortal now.” He strode over and slowly grabbed both sides of Folkard’s head in his hands, and angled it up so Folkard could look him in the eyes. “The perfect disguise to destroy you and your weak little band of crusaders, righting your perceived wrongs and daring to presume you could meddle with my destiny. I am Vladimir Tereshkov, killer of Jacob Folkard, the greatest mind Russia has ever produced, reborn and redefining the horizons of humanity!”
Folkard looked into his eyes, his strength failing. “Grant,” he whispered. “Are you there, Grant?”
In the last moments before his vision blurred, Tereshkov’s face seemed to shift and sag. The eyes were still wide, but this time were filled with horror and sadness. It was Cyrus Grant’s soft Midwestern accent that whimpered “Captain!” with unrelenting confusion, and then Folkard felt Tereshkov take control again and throw his head to the floor. He was suddenly and painfully aware that he was not breathing.
He felt the pressure in his temples ebb, replaced with a soothing coolness and an inky blot that swam on the edges of his vision. He tried to close his eyes but could not, and suddenly there came a blinding whiteness in his mind. Images, information, sounds and senses overcame him, crowding out every other thought and memory, every notion of who Jacob Folkard was, is, or ever would be…
The Heart called out to him once more. It is time. Your journey’s end.
The blank void blazed for a moment and started to resolve itself, images he remembered, picked out in pastel shades and bathed in light. That sunny meadow, the apple tree with his little girl skipping around it, in the distance and slightly out of focus, but he knew his daughter would be everything he dreamed of. A picnic of fine cheeses, wine and baked bread, ham and slices of summer pudding. It was spring, you could smell it in the air, and she sat on the blanket and patted where she wanted him to sit, right beside her.
“Charlotte,” breathed Folkard. He began to smile.
15.
Message begins.
Large Russian vessel designated Imperator has breached asteroid field stop attempted blockade resulted in critical damage to HMAS Tartarus stop source of damage believed new Russian weapon stop request immediate assistance stop
Message ends.
TO BE CONTINUED…