Chapter ten.
The five of them met in the dining quarters after each of them had charged a gun or in Martyn's case refreshed his case of grenades.
"What are we going to do? We won't be able to catch Gelmir Bullet if we can't go into the matrix, not to mention, we won't survive if we can't drink."
"We will drink." Kamador said bluntly.
"We will? But how?" Lorelai questioned him, and as he looked up, he saw for the first time, a streak of fear in her face. There was certain vulnerability about her since Sanitea's escape for it had been her who had murdered her just hours before.
"We will all drink until one of us gets the unlucky draw. There is no other way, and not all of us shall go into the matrix at one time. As captain of Titanoleon, no longer your friend, but your commander I am authorizing a new rule on this ship. No one is to go into the matrix without letting another know, and when a group go into the matrix, two shall remain behind; an operator and a guard."
"But Kamador, three people can hardly make any change inside the matrix, and what if we are killed? We should turn back." Martyn screeched at him.
"We are not turning back! Not now! We will finish her. We will shoot the person that she takes over next. Be it me or you, we shall kill them as a crew, for the good of the human race, she will die. Sanitea is not going to jeopardize every life on this ship." He shouted back in a fiery rage.
"Kamador is right. We need to get rid of Big Brother. He is the only reason that we are trapped here, as we were trapped in the first matrix before. As a race, we must prevail." Spoekboone preached, whose streaks had morphed into a cool blue.
"Well I don't think he is. We shouldn't be so barbaric. It isn't Sanitea. It's Smith. Lorelai didn't manage to kill him before, what makes you so sure that if he takes over another one of us, you will be able to kill him? It is a weak plan."
Kamador reached for his gun.
"If you have a better idea you fucking moron, I would like to hear it and if you don't like it why not get the fuck off my ship…or better yet, why not kill you right now?" He fired, fiercely.
"Stop! Just stop," Spoekboone screamed above the quarrel. "We are on the same side. Why are we going to kill each other?"
"Why don't you practice what you preach, Boone, you were the one saying we should kill Sanitea, who I believe is on our side." Olivio shot.
"Sanitea is dead!"
"No she isn't, it's Smith!"#
"Shut the fuck up!"
"Why don't you, you whore!"
Lorelai fired into the air and the bullet bounced off the ceiling and silence was heard.
She looked at them, with tears in her eyes and they all stopped arguing. None of this was any one's fault. There had been luck in the resurrection of Boone and now it seemed like that luck had floated away.
Boekbhav's death brought no solace, no good. She died in vain and her death couldn't be used to their advantage.
The shipmates' lives were falling apart. Lorelai ran to the tap in the corner. She stretched her arm to the shelf that housed the glassware and grasped a small plain drinking glass and poured herself a drink of colourless water.
"Cheers." And with the burning tears rolling down her cheeks she took the water in gulp after gulp, not caring.
They stood in astonishment and looked at each other and watched Lorelai drink, unaffected by the parasite of the ship. She had been lucky.
"You see, we are not going to pit ourselves against each other. We will do what Kamador says and if he is wrong, Martyn, you do what you want. Only it will take years to walk back to Veiled Dungeon. We have no choice. What do you suggest?"
Martyn stared blankly at her and he looked down and muttered his defeat and then looked back up towards Kamador and apologised.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright. Lorelai is right; we are not going to fall to Smith."
Then, as peace was restored amongst the crew, the lights dimmed and the emergency alarm rung through out the ship and the group ran to the control room where the main screen had betrayed fifty Sentinels swimming their way towards Titanoleon.
The mechanical squids manoeuvred their way through the sewers and a small clock in the corner stated the time the crew had left.
Time until impact: 01:07
"Shit! Weapons control, now!" Kamador screamed, "I will steer us away."
As Martyn, Olivio, Boone dashed down the hall towards the weapon's control, Lorelai stayed with Kamador as he voice-activated flight mode.
"What are you doing?" Kamador questioned her.
"You can't pilot this ship on your own. I am helping whether you like it or not." She sat down into the co-pilot seat. "Computer, activate co-pilot systems."
He smiled at her and the ship touched off the ground.
Boone, Martyn and Olivio reached the weapon's control just in time and shouted out their commands to the computers.
"Martyn you take grenade control, Olivio mini-guns! I'll handle EMP blasts." Boone shouted.
They sat down and put what looked like glasses on over their eyes and grasped hold of tiny joysticks and leered at the swarm of sentinels that squirmed their way towards them.
The ship jumped up and flew into the main avenue of the sewer and started to speed away and in turn the sentinels sped up to catch up with Titanoleon.
Kamador screamed down the intercom.
"Fire!"
Martyn pushed the red button and forced three grenades into the school of mechanical squids and watched at three of them dropped from the group in fiery blasts.
Olivio held down her green button and watched as a beam of bullets pierced the air and fired at the squid.
They still swam though towards the ship with frightening speed and for every one that the crew managed to destroy, another three would appear in place.
"We could really use that EMP blast now, Boone." Kamador screamed down the intercom.
"It's charging, if I fire it now, it won't kill enough of them."
Olivio activated rockets control and sent four of them into the crowd, destroying the front line of their army.
They fired their bullets, rockets and grenades but they weren't quick enough. A sentinel managed to creep its way onto the roof of the ship and laser it's way down into the corridor. Olivio deactivated the gun turrets you was using and reached for her charged EMP gun and shot down the corridor at the mechanical creature and an electrical shout of electromagnetic pulse disabled it and it fell dead to the floor. But then another six darted down the hole.
"Boone!" She screeched, terrified as they flew towards her in a second.
She fired the ammo at them and the first dropped.
"Got it!" She screamed and hit the button down hard and a spherical wave of blue electricity washed its way through the scene and caused Olivio to fall flat on her face and the sentinels, inside and out fell to the ground, twitching with malfunction.
Olivio got up after her fall and peered through the camera. They were all dead. But as she turned to report back to the control room, she lipped again, under the moist floor. She had forgotten during the assault that Smith/Sanitea was still at large and had slimed her way to the weapons control. Fear struck her and she turned around. Martyn and Boone were still sitting at their stations. Could one of them been infected? Both had glasses of water next to them, due to their resistance against Sanitea. One was infected.