The capsule lid slid back, and Jake blinked groggily in the light. "We there?"
"Don't know," commented Mara. "The captain's just gone to the bridge to find out. In the meantime, he suggested we all get showered and changed - it'll help revive us a bit. By the way, have you seen Tom?" She waved the question aside. "Stupid question. You only just woke up. Never mind."
"This can't be right..."
Hector looked at the readings, ordered the computer to rescan, and then read the unchanged screen.
According to the computer, they were approximately fifty light-years from the nearest charted star, and over seventy from FLK-797. The time was also wrong - apparently, they had woken up almost a week behind schedule.
The final problem was that the hypersleep capsules were malfunctioning, and all seventy-five were recharging, instead of the fifty that had been used. The computer, after scanning the malfunctioning pods, said that the extras had not been used.
All this was probably due to a glitch in the programming. The EX-3500 model computers were notoriously twitchy, but they were cheap. And unfortunately, 'cheap' was the Charon's middle name.
Unfortunately, it was a serious glitch. The other important feature of the Charon, the power core, hadn't been designed for such extended journeys. It probably wouldn't last out to reach the nearest habitable planet on the stellar charts. Without power, the Charon would simply skip out of E-space, lose life support... everything. Fifty people would die in the middle of nowhere.
"So, how's our new home look?" asked Jake as he walked onto the bridge, followed by a few other would-be colonists.
Hector slowly turned around and explained the situation.
There was silence on the bridge.
A sudden squawk from the intercom ended the moment. Almost looking like his normal self, Hector flipped a switch. "Bridge here."
"Captain, this is Anigel Gearing. You said to check the cargo bay. We just found something bad."
"What do you mean?"
"We just found Tom Karlap. Or at least we think that's who it is."
There was an edge of panic in the voice that prevented further questions. "On our way."
The cargo bay doors opened, and Hector, Mara, Hukken and Jake walked into the cargo bay.
And stopped.
The reason for Anigel's uncertainty was revealed. The body was about the right size, and wore hypersleep clothing. But the lack of either a head or a stomach made identification difficult. Blood was splattered all over the floor.
Mara screamed, a wild, furious scream of a mother that has lost their offspring. The other newcomers simply turned white with shock and horror.
"We just found him like that," said Anigel, looking on the edge of sanity. "He must have got out of the capsules before anyone else, because no-one had seen him since before we entered hypersleep."
"That's not all," said Artemis, who didn't look much better. "We were inspecting the cargo after we found him... I mean, we had to do something, we couldn't just keep -"
"Artemis. Breathe. Slow down."
The girl took several deep breaths. "One of the crates has been opened. We looked inside, but it was empty. Then we looked around and found an input terminal on the outside apart from the opening controls. We tried to access it, but it was password locked."
Hector nodded. "Show me."
The Gearing twins led him to the largest container in the bay - it looked like it could hold a decent-sized tank. The the main doors were open, revealing an empty space. As he looked carefully, he noticed that the walls of the container were massively thick. Why? he mused.
"This is the other panel," said Anigel, who was calming down now that they were out of sight of the body.
The panel in question was a squat, business-like affair that had been built into the container so tightly that it was amiracle that it had been spotted at all. Hector pressed a button experimentally, and the screen flashed a gentle password request.
"I've seen one of those before," said Hukken. He sounded shaken, and his attitude indicated that the panel had worried him more than the dead body. "It's a military design. Pre-infection Earth. Designed to transport large, powerful organisms over long distances." He shut his eyes in faint horror. "This is a stasis chamber."
That explained the thick walls - they contained the stasis equipment. Hector, for his part, was stillunsure what the problem was. "So someone made a mistake with the cargo manifests and gave us an empty crate."
"Oh, for crying out loud, man! That boy didn't kill himself. Something was in this crate, and it escaped!" Hukken was practically screaming. "And it also means that we're not alone. Tom Karlap couldn't have opened this crate - he probably wouldn't have even noticed the panel."
Jake, who had joined them, had a sudden image. "And the stasis controls wouldn't let you open the crate without deactivating the stasis."
"Exactly! We have both something capable of ripping a boy open with ease... and someone who would want to release it."
Hector moved over to wall-mounted computer interface and punched in a command. He looked up and said "According to this, Tom Karlap exited hypersleep six hours ago. Why would this... traitor... need him?" He considered, and then answered his own question. "Because all these crates are fingerprint controlled. This man wouldn't have the right fingerprint, so he needed Tom..."
"Who died subsequent to releasing the beast," finished Hukken. "But why are we talking about a 'beast'? We all know what this is. There's only one creature that could cause this sort of damage to a boy. We've got a goddamned Alien on board."
In the rafters of the cargo bay, the crew was being watched. While the watcher pondered his next move.
He hadn't anticipated the crew working it out so quickly. But then, he hadn't anticipated Hukken being on board either.
They would have worked it out sooner or later. Maybe it was better this way. There was no time to play games, if any were to survive the navigation error.
The watcher swore quietly. Obviously the computer hadn't liked the new set of instructions given to it after the E-space countdown had begun, and tried to do both sets of instructions at once. The result was that the Charon was nowhere near either destination.
There were several ways that this mess could end. And the watcher didn't like any of them.