Totaled

Totaled: Part 6

Dolridge gasped, his head clearing all at once. He was halfway down the hall to her, his lucid mind telling himself that it wasn't Sarah, that he wasn't reliving her death. Another few paces and he saw Casper roll to the side, just in time to avoid another round.

So she hadn't been hit; she had dropped to the ground under fire. He caught his breath and told himself to calm down. She saw him and her eyes widened. She nodded back inside Gray's cabin.

"Captain's dead," she mouthed. "It's a drone."

Broadcasting as a lifeform? That was a new trick. But he supposed if they had been programmed to act as lures, maybe they had replicated Gray's sig before frying him. Or maybe the AI had come up with that tactic all by itself. The hairs on Dolridge's arms stood up, and he suppressed a thrill of horror. Maybe the drones were hunting them, adapting to their environment, trying to trap the survivors.

Trying to trap Caspar.

He saw Sarah's face in his mind, her arms outstretched, beckoning, and silently, inwardly, said, not yet. Then he pulled his pistol out, squatted, aimed toward the door, and rolled across the opening, covering himself with fire.

Of course the drone fired too. It clipped him in the arm and he dropped his pistol, biting his tongue and groaning as his flesh sizzled. But he made it to the other side of the doorway alive.

"You alright, Caspar?" he asked.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at his arm. "You sure you're the one who should be asking that right now?"

He glanced at it and chuckled. "That's nothing." His arm didn't look good. But in sleeveless undershirts, they could both see the many other scars on his arms and shoulders. Souvenirs of the old days, when he was a Blade agent.

He caught her staring, and she met his eyes. "You know, they can get rid of those scars if you want."

He sniffed. "Nah. I don't want them to make me pretty. I want the reminders."

"Of?"

"That I'm alive. C'mon."

At the end of the corridor, a panel concealed a maintenance hatch. Together they pulled off the panel and turned the dog lever. The hatch hissed open.

"Wait." Dolridge stopped Casper with an arm. He leaned forward and took a whiff of the air from the maintenance shaft. It was clean. When he looked back at Casper, he saw a look of amusement on her face.

"Sir, am I going to have to report you for conduct unbefitting an XO of the Kuiper Fleet?"

His arm was stretched across her chest, covered in a tight undershirt. He fought a blush and pulled his arm back.

"Oh, shut up, gunner. You know what I was doing."

The ship harbored a small force of escape pods, most of them in the lower decks. From what Caspar's scans had reported, it looked like these had all been destroyed. But there was a lone escape pod just a level up, held there for quick access from the bridge.

They headed up, pulling themselves carefully, rung by rung. Orange running lights gave the shaft an eerie glow. A level up they reached another hatch, and turned the wheel.

This deck still had atmo, but it was deathly quiet. "Caspar, you seeing any lifeforms?"

"No," she said grimly, looking up from her device. "Not another on the whole ship."

They reached the console outside the docking bay that housed the pod. Dolridge swiped at the controls, and they lit up, announcing that the pod had already been jettisoned.

"What?!" he growled from between clenched teeth. Casper plugged her device into the console and pulled up the logs.

"Marx took it," she groaned.

Had he been in collusion with whoever had sent the drones to begin with? A man inside—and chief security officer, no less—might explain why there hadn't been klaxons sounding and lights flashing. It had been a silent takeover. Silent, and apparently complete.

Dolridge shook his head. "She's lost. Totaled."

And there was no other way off.

Why had he ever agreed to babysit this stinking piece of metal in the first place? He didn't belong here, scooping up antique fighters and—

"Casper," he whispered. "You still want to live?"

"Still?" she chuckled mirthlessly. "Is there any other way?"

He nodded. "Might be. But we'll need a good deal of luck. And I don't know if you'd noticed, but that seems to be in short supply today. Follow me."

He turned, heading back to the maintenance shaft.

To be continued...