He saw that she kept looking over her shoulder as if she heard something following them. She was not afraid of the humans, he knew. Their exo-suits made it quite clear that the humans were well above them with no idea about the hatch or the shaft. Only Jace had been able to make the hatch work in any case.
“The rip in the Osiris’ hull, why has no one mentioned that it looks to have been caused by some internal act?” Khoth asked.
“That’s above my paygrade,” Thammah said.
Khoth’s forehead. “About your what?”
“It means that it isn’t something that I was assigned to look into,” Thammah told him. “I’d assumed that other Alliance members than me had their reasons for not including that in the previous reports. And I’m not much of a report person myself so…”
Khoth could very well believe that while Thammah would have any ship in pristine condition, she would likely never write even a line on a report.
“But this is crucial to knowing how and why the Osiris crash landed here,” Khoth said with a deep frown.
Perhaps the Osiris had been boarded. Or perhaps there had been spies who had tried to sabotage the spaceship. Perhaps there had even been a mutiny of some sort.
I have never seen such a large brig in a Precursor ship, but the Osiris is larger than most in many respects. Still, perhaps its purpose was to transport dangerous criminals.
“She says she doesn’t know. Some of her systems were damaged,” Jace replied faintly.
The sound of his voice--so weak and raspy compared to before--had Khoth practically throwing himself up the last few feet to the door of Gehenna’s prison.
“Jace, we are here. Are you speaking with Gehenna? How do we get inside?” Khoth asked.
Jace blindly reached for the door again without speaking. He seemed too exhausted to speak. Khoth had to guide his hand to it again. For a moment, Jace’s fingers curled around his. The young man held onto his as there was a momentary electric zap and the cold calcanth door suddenly rumbled to life. It sank back and then slid to the side.
Both he and Thammah leaned forward to see what was inside.
There was no light. No signs of life. Only the lights from their suits illuminated the square ten-by-ten foot space. There was a bunk that jutted out from the right side of the wall. He saw another receptacle for waste. An AI needed neither so this prison had not been intended for Gehenna when the Osiris was built.
But that was an afterthought as Khoth was transfixed by what was in the center of the room. At first, he didn’t know what he was seeing. It looked to be a jumble of black coils about twin inches in diameter tipped with metal claws and spikes. The coils were curled around one another like snakes. But they all merged--or perhaps emerged was the correct term--from one place. A bulbous glass-like sphere. The sphere appeared to be translucent, but right now had a dark center. It reminded him of a squid, an aquatic cephalopod found in some of Earth’s waters except made of metal and glass. All told, he imagined it would stand ten feet tall if the tips of the coils touched the ground and were completely unfurled.
“Is that… is that Gehenna?” Thammah asked, the confusion evident in her voice. There was a trace of alarm too. “This doesn’t look like… I mean… the tips of the coils are weapons.”
Jace’s arm slipped from his grasp. At first, Khoth thought it was intentional, that Jace was reaching for the “squid”, but then he realized that Jace wasn’t breathing.
“Jace! JACE!” Khoth cried. “He’s not breathing! He has no heartbeat!”
“What do we do? Put him in the arms of that thing?” Thammah gestured towards the “squid”.
But that seemed an insane suggestion. The “squid” was not operational. He set Jace’s body on the floor. Jace’s head lolled to the side. Those eyes were closed. He brought up his suit’s medical systems and adjusted it for human physiology. His fingers flew over the controls. Finally set, he placed his hands one over the other over Jace’s heart.
“Clear!” He yelled so that Thammah knew not to touch Jace in that moment.
An electrical shock went from his suit into Jace’s body. Jace “jumped” up with the jolt. But his suit told him that the shock had been unsuccessful.
“CLEAR!”
Thammah stepped back. Her foot touched one of the coils. It shifted and slid into Jace’s palm. It happened just as he was applying the electric shock. He couldn’t stop in time. The shock ran through Jace and into the “squid”.
The “squid’s” head suddenly lit up like the sun rising on Haseon. The colors of molten red, orange and yellow bloomed so bright that he had to squint. The coils began to move. The “squid’s” head rose up from the ground.
“Whoa! It’s alive! Khoth, it’s alive!” Thammah cried out.
The coils slithered around Jace’s form, completely obscuring him from site. Khoth had left his weapons, his rahir and draagves, back in the Exarch. But he still had the suit and his skills. He kicked out at the “squid’s” head. He didn’t even brush it with the soul of his boot.
The “squid’s” coils lifted Jace up off of the floor and then it rammed its bulbous head into Khoth’s middle. There was another electric zap and he was thrown out of the cell and landed flat on his back on the hallway. Except the hallway was sloped and he started sliding down it like a chute.
Thammah let out a yell before leaping onto the “squid’s” back, wrapping her arms around its head and coils. There was another zap and the scent of ozone filled the air. Thammah was launched against the cell’s wall. There was a solid thump as she impacted the calcanth. But the exo-suit generated a shield which stopped the back of her head from smacking against the metal wall. But still Thammah slid down, stunned for a moment.
