If they’ve done something to endanger Tera…
Passing through the hab, he reached the airlock in a matter of minutes. The indicator light above the hatch was out, and he noticed that an adjacent bulkhead appeared slightly warped, possibly as a result of the ship’s jarring collisions with ring matter. Had the impact somehow activated the airlock, killing the prisoners? That seemed unlikely, but part of him almost hoped that was the case. Shaun and Zoe would have died quickly, getting it over with.
An appalling possibility occurred to him. Could the prisoners have chosen to take their own lives, rather than prolong their final hours? Or had they accidentally killed themselves in some desperate, panicky attempt to escape? That didn’t sound like Shaun, but then again, Shaun wasn’t exactly himself anymore. Who knew what he was capable of now?
An empty blue jumpsuit was draped over the hatchway window like a curtain, blocking his view of the airlock’s interior. Frantic for answers, he pounded on the hatch with the wrench.
“Hello? Is anybody in there?”
He had sealed and repressurized the airlock from command before heading there. He tried to open the hatch, but it refused to budge. The locking mechanism would not disengage. He banged on the hatch again.
“Are you still there? What have you done?”
A delicate hand drew back the curtain. Zoe’s face, upside-down, smirked at him through the porthole. She appeared to be wearing a skintight elastic cooling suit.
“Hey there!” she shouted at him through the hatch. “What’s up, Doc?”
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned that she was still alive.
At least she’s still locked up, he thought. “I want answers! What happened here?”
“What’s that again?” She cupped a hand over her ear in a transparent attempt to feign that she couldn’t quite hear him. “Would you mind speaking louder?”
“What happened?” he hollered. “Is Shaun still with you?”
“Jeez, Doc! There’s no need to shout.”
For God’s sake! He didn’t have time to play games like this. Fuming, he activated the comm instead. “I know you opened the airlock to the outside!” he ranted. “What were you thinking?”
“Would you believe it was getting a bit stuffy in here?” She tugged at the collar of the cooling suit. “Not to mention chilly. You wouldn’t believe how damp and clammy this place gets after a while. Not exactly the luxury suite, you know.”
Her flippancy infuriated him. “Stop it! Can’t you be serious for once in your life?” He tried to peer past her, but her inverted face filled the porthole, obstructing his view. “Where is Shaun? Let me talk to him!”
“Oh, it’s ‘Shaun’ again, is it?” Her fingers formed air quotes. “I thought you and Fontana had decided that he was possessed by space ghosts or something. You forget about that part?”
“Shaun, the probe, amnesia… whatever!” He threw up his hands, unable to believe that she was actually wasting their last few hours like this. “Is he in there? Did he survive?”
“What do you care?” she shot back. “We’re all supposed to die anyway, right, when we take our one-way plunge into Hurricane Saturn? What does it matter if ‘Shaun’ and I decided to air out this crummy cell first?” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Between you and me, it was starting to smell like a gym locker.”
“Cut the comedy routine!” he demanded, as though dressing down a class clown back at the university. “How did you even get the hatch open? That should have been impossible!”
“You ever get tired of saying that, Doc?” she replied. “You’d think you would have figured out by now that anything is possible in this crazy universe. Just ask that weirdo hexagon down there.”
“Just answer the question!”
“Say, how is my BFF Fontana doing? She still sleeping it off? Granted, there’s a woman who really needed to unwind a bit, but slipping her a roofie seems a bit extreme.”
She’s stalling, he realized. But why? What is she hiding?
A worrisome possibility came together in his mind. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. There had been two spacesuits stored in the airlock, after all.
“Where is Shaun? Let me see him… if he’s still there.”
She shook her head upside-down. “The astronaut formerly known as Colonel Shaun Christopher is not available right now, but if you like, I can take a message.”
I was right, he realized. She’s ducking my questions.
His dire suspicions crystallized into certainty. Shaun wasn’t in the brig with her. He had exited the airlock in the other suit. He was spacewalking, and there was only one place he could be going.
The command module.
“Blast you, Shaun,” he murmured. “Why couldn’t you just let me finish this?”
There was no time to lose. Like a swimmer reversing direction at the end of a lane, he somersaulted in the air and set off back the way he’d come.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Zoe hollered. “Come back!”
He ignored her. She didn’t matter now. He needed to get back to command — before Shaun ruined everything!
Kirk was anxious to get out of his spacesuit. Stuck in the docking ring, he waited impatiently for the airlock to finish repressurizing so he could enter the command module. He remained on the lookout for O’Herlihy, whose whereabouts remained unknown. Kirk suspected that the desperate scientist would not surrender without a fight.
What I wouldn’t give for a phaser right now.
To his dismay, he spotted O’Herlihy in the vestibule on the other side of the module. Their eyes met across the charred remains of the mid-deck. O’Herlihy lunged from the vestibule, racing to seal the airlock before Kirk could emerge. Kirk’s ears popped as he felt the air pressure rise within the compartment. A gauge reported that the pressure was almost normal.
Just another second…
The indicator turned green, and the hatch slid open. Kirk burst from the airlock to confront the other man. He unscrewed his helmet and tossed it aside.
“That’s enough, Doctor. It’s over.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Shaun… or whoever you are.” O’Herlihy brandished a large metal wrench. “I won’t let you!”
They circled each other warily, propelling themselves by handrails and gentle shoves. Kirk assessed his chances. He could handle himself in a fight, as everyone from Khan to Klingons had found out in his own time, but zero gravity complicated matters. It was going to be tricky to throw punches and kicks in this environment, and his zero-g combat training was years in the past and in a much younger body. He needed to think this one out instead of just wading in with his fists.
“Please, Shaun!” the doctor begged. “I don’t want to fight you. Just let me save my daughter!”
“I’m sorry, Marcus. You know I can’t let you do that.”