Chapter 16: Losses

They marched single file out of the storage tank, using the directions that Payton had laid out for them. Mahn was in the lead, followed by Nadia, then Bower and last Leland. It was very dark now, Bower noticed, and as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he marveled at how well he could see in this unlit corridor. Maybe the mutagen wasn't such a bad thing after all.

The ship was silent as they moved, hushed as though it was holding its breath, waiting for them to fix its drastic illness.

Before departure, Bower had watched as Leland carefully selected a makeshift weapon from his small arsenal. He then bade Bower to do the same. Leland had chosen a large heavy two handed blade made of steel alloy and Bower had selected a set of hatchet-like weapons that were long-handled and lightweight. There was a spike at each end of the axes so he could chop and stab.

Leland then sharpened all of their weapons with a laser sharpener that he had scavenged from the mess kitchen.

Bower also had the anti riot weapon for backup.

They were armed to the teeth.

Bower's spirits had been high, motivation was fueling him with energy when they had left. In the steamy shadowed warmth of the narrow hallway, apprehension closed in. He pushed himself on, knowing that there was no going back, no turning around, no putting this mission off until another day. It HAD to be done, period.

Up ahead, Mahn stopped and crouched low to the side of the hall. He drew his swords and was staring ahead into the fog, intently. He wasn't moving on. The clock was ticking.

Bower made his way quietly past Nadia and hunkered down besides Mahn. He whispered quietly, "What's wrong?"

"I think I just saw a hunter child." Mann said so low that Bower could barely hear him.

"A what?"

"Hunter child. You know, a young hunter."

There was a soft scratching noise up ahead of them in the steamy hallway. Bower swallowed nervously. Leland had said the young hunters could climb the walls and celings like spiders. He shuddered, "Are they dangerous?"

"Oh yeah."

"Shit."

Mahn said, "I think it knows we're here. We have to be very careful, my friend. They are really fast and-"

A high pitch screech, similar to a monkey's accompanied the small white flash that flew out of the mist and right on top of Mahn. Bower cried out in alarm and fell backward, drawing out his axes.

In that same split second, he could hear Leland crying out in surprise, and Nadia cussing in German behind him. The spindly creature that was attacking Mahn was about the size of an adolescent child. It was completely hairless, had very sharp teeth, jet black eyes, long arms and bleached white skin.

The small attacker held a sharp spike that it was thrusting downward towards Mahn but he managed to put up one of his swords to block the attack. His blocking sword caught the creatures forearms as it stabbed down at him. As the creature's blade still managed to penetrate Mahn's shoulder, his sword cut deeply into both of the hunter child's arms. It shrieked loudly. Bower came forward and buried both axes into its spine. The young hunter twitched and went limp.

Bower spun towards Nadia as she was pinning another one of the darting creatures against the wall with the spear. It was snapping at her with its sharp jagged teeth keeping both hands on the spear to keep her from crushing its windpipe. He hacked at it with one of the axes but it jerked away, avoiding his attack. He reared back to hack it again but Nadia had already stabbed it with her knife. She stabbed it repeatedly in the chest until it was dead. Bower watched Leland behind her. He finished off the one that had attacked him.

Leland's hand was bleeding from a bite and Mahn was cussing as he removed the spike from his shoulder but they had won. The hunter children had launched an organized ambush against them and they had won. "Good job everyone." Bower said.

Tat, tat, tat, tat, tat.

"The kids went and called mommy and daddy," Mahn told them.

"This way!" Leland called.

They ran down a side passage that lead to a security gate that could be locked from their side. It was a tight hall, the narrowest Bower had seen so far. Further inspection of the passage revealed a gate that opened into another one of the massive personnel chambers. This area of the ship was like a labyrinth, a maze so intricate and large that it would easily surpass anything that King Minos could have constructed.

They moved away from the barred security gate and into the main chamber out of the line of sight from the passage. Leland found another of the hunter's booby traps. He destroyed snare rig.

Looking around, they saw that this personnel chamber was smaller than the others. "I think we'll be safe here," Nadia told them.

"What makes you so sure?" Bower was curious.

"Well," she said patiently, "These pods are all empty."

"Nothing for them to eat here." Mahn chimed in. He had seated himself on the stairs and was cleaning the wound on his shoulder. Leland was also bandaging his bitten hand.

Bower studied the room. Even though it was a lot smaller than the others, this room still held a lot of cryopods. He thought back to what Leland had told them about the horrors that Gallo had put these people through.

After a few minutes passed, Mahn announced, "Okay I'm ready to go."

"Same here." Leland said.

Bower was still looking around at the room in amazement. Was it here? Was this one of the rooms that Gallo had locked off from the rest of the ship? Was this where he performed all of those despicable acts on the laboring crew?

"Hey, if we don't leave here soon, then there's really no point in going," Leland told them.

Bower remembered his wife and again felt the sinking feeling, the sense of loss. He pulled out the picture of the lovely blond, knowing why he was feeling those emotions. His memories were coming back in that familiar rush.

"What are you doing?" Nadia hissed at him.

"These were our friends. Our crew members," Bower said softly, "They're all dead. All of them, killed and eaten by these fucking monsters."

Nadia's tone changed, "I'm sorry. You think she was here?" She asked him gently. She looked at the picture in his hand.

"No, she- she's not here. She wasn't on this flight."

"How do you know for sure?" Nadia asked.

"Because she wouldn't come with me on this mission." Bower remembered the heartache and the disappointment he felt when they had the deepest conversation of their marriage. It was the decision about whether they were going to stay on Earth or go to Pandorum. She had looked him in the eye, let go of his hand and walked out of his life. "She wouldn't come with me on this flight. She left me."

"Your wife wouldn't come with you?" Leland asked.

Bower shook his head.

"That's fucked up, man."

"Deep space travel isn't for everyone, my friend," Mahn told him.

"She should have come with you," Nadia said softly.

"I'll bet our Nu would have," Mahn said slyly.

Nadia glared at him.

"Well, that's the kick in the ass," Bower replied to them distractedly, "I offered to turn down the mission and stay with her but she still left me anyway. I know now that she was going to leave regardless. The Elysium mission was just a convenient excuse. I loved her so much."

He was so glad he wasn't an emotional person. Shedding tears in front of his hardened colleagues was the last thing he wanted to do. Was Nadia blushing?

"There was nothing left for me," Bower continued. He was watching Nadia more closely, "I enlisted, graduated at the top of my class in Engineering, passed Astronautical training and got assigned to the Flight Crew Division for this ship. She's the main reason that I left."

Nadia leaned towards him, "Well, then she saved your life."

"All of that is very tragic, man," Leland told him softly, "I don't mean to be an asshole or anything but we really need to get moving."

"Just give me a minute, would you?"

"We don't really have a minute to spare, my friend." Mahn informed him.

Bower sighed.

"We have to save the ship." Nadia said.

"I'm just having second thoughts about all this," Bower admitted, "I meant what's the point? We're still going to be stranded out here. There's nothing to look forward to and there's nothing left to go back to."

Nadia stood in front of him. "You're wrong."

He met her gaze.

"We were meant to go on and we were meant to survive." She told him firmly. "And now its more important than ever since we're the last."

Bower let what she said sink in. He knew they had to keep going, that failure was not an option. His main problem was that memories were still flooding his senses and making it hard for him to concentrate.

"We're wasting time," Leland said.

Bower remembered Flight School with Lieutenant Payton and his wife Marianne. Numerous memories broke through the dam of linear thought and flooding his brain with various past images. They had become pretty good friends he, Payton and Marianne. He realized he was staring at the empty cryopod with the name M. Payton over it. "I remember," He told them.

"What?" Nadia asked.

He stepped passed Nadia, his eyes were locked on the cryopod. "I remember Payton and his wife Marianne."

Mahn was curious. "What are you saying?"

"I mean that I remember Payton and I remember his voice. In Flight School, I can't even count the number of times I talked to him over the radio, especially after I went into Ship Engineering. During his simulator training he had to call on me hundreds of times. I remember who Payton was and now I know what his voice sounds like."

Nadia stood beside him. "Hey, you're still not making sense."

"What I'm trying to tell you is, the Payton that we've been communicating with, is not the real Payton. He's an impostor."

Silence.

"So these directions are shit?" Leland growled.

Bower nodded, "Quite possibly."

"Well fuck me."