Chapter 13
MC90 Cruisers like the Profundity traditionally sail with a crew count of 2000 plus. According to the report from Pyre, the cruiser only has 832 souls aboard it, including 371 indentures and 150 stormtroopers to manage them. The rest of the staff are ship technicians and operators, reporting up to Virta and the handful of lieutenants who oversee flight control, engineering, infrastructure, shields and weapons.
Virta runs a lean ship, but it doesn't have to do much. Profundity just houses workers, inventories any barrels the platform runs out of space for, and keeps itself out of the black hole.
Slake feels the cruiser's emptiness as she makes her way to a turbolift down an empty corridor. That lift will take her to the main operating level of the cruiser, where most of the crew live and work. But now, in an empty hallway, her footfalls bouncing off the bulkheads, she notices old posters on the wall for acid jazz bands and sign-up sheets for intramural sports in the rec center. Ops did a terrible job of cleaning out this Rebel detritus.
Hello. A voice calls out to her.
Slake's heart stops and looks behind her. Empty hallways.
"Who's there?" she says.
Hello. Now, from the direction she was initially heading. She whips back around.
The turbolift that she was walking toward is gone. In its place is more hallway, stretching on, dorm room after dorm room, seemingly for kilometers.
The voice has a lilting, comical tone on the verge of collapsing into laughter. It's sexless - somehow masculine and feminine at the same time.
"Hello?" Slake calls out. Nothing.
She resumes her walk, double time. She must have been on autopilot and taken a wrong turn. She knows she saw a turbolift down the corridor. Clearly this is not the same corridor. She keeps moving, heart thumping in her chest. She feels wholly off-kilter.
Slake comes to an intersection and finds another impossibly long hallway running perpendicular to the path she currently treads. She peers down both sides and can't see the end. No turbolift. The flickering ceiling lights seemingly run on forever.
Panic sets in. She consciously avoids thinking about the schematics of an MC90 Calamari Cruiser. 430 meters at its widest point. But now, she can see three times that far in any direction she looks.
Oh my. I hope you're not lost.
"Show yourself!" Slake draws her service pistol, hands shaking.
You seem troubled, Ssslake. No need to be frightened.
The lights go dark and Slake trembles in total blackness.
Well. Maybe that's not entirely true.
Slake pulls the torch from the utility pack on her belt. She flips the switch and it does nothing. She becomes very aware of the sound of her own breath. Frantic. She hates the dark. But if she doesn't calm down, she knows she'll make a mistake. She closes her eyes. Slows her breathing. Gathers herself.
Impressive. Your control…
When she opens her eyes, she can't believe what she sees.
A snow-covered alley. Back in Frostport on Corellia. A sense of repugnant familiarity, disgust, washes over her. She's spent her whole life running from this exact spot. Snowdrifts gather at the base of ramshackle, plascrete buildings. Garbage overflows from behind the cheap noodle shop. A fire burns in a trashcan, warming the hands and claws of a group of faceless vagrants.
She's obviously hallucinating. It must be the lack of sleep.
It isssn't. Hisses the voice in response to her thoughts.
Because she doesn't trust her eyes, Slake kicks a clump of fresh, wet snow. It flips up and plops onto the ground in front of her. Impossibly vivid.
The bums up ahead turn to face her, their countenances cast in shadow by the backlight of the fire. Slake sees only broad shoulders and unkempt hair. They take a single step toward her in perfect synchronicity, the stomp echoing off of the cold concrete.
Slake snaps her pistol up, aims for center mass on the middle one. "Not one more step."
"Amara?" A shadow asks. Its jaw doesn't move. "Is that little Amara Slake?"
The others chuckle lewdly. "Looks like somebody filled out."
"I liked her better when she had dose skinny legs. Looked like little bird."
"Howaboutit, little bird?" the center one coos. "Gonna givvus a peek? Show us how growed up you are?"
"Thass all we need."
A couple of them rub their crotches. The group takes another step. All in unison.
"Yeah, juss a little looksee. Real quick like."
"Givvus a look and we'll make sure you sleep warm tonight. We'll guarantee it."
Terror grips Slake. She tries to speak. "I will kill you." But her mouth makes no words. She just moans. Her teeth are gone, her tongue swells, she feels like she's choking on her own saliva.
The blaster pistol begins to melt in her hand.
The men charge.
Screaming, Slake closes her eyes and pulls the slippery, rapidly liquefying trigger. Twice, three times. On the fourth pull her finger mashes the trigger into the handle like clay.
And then, nothing.
She's back in the corridor, pistol in hand. Four scorch marks burn out on the turbolift door, just twenty paces ahead of her. If someone had been in that turbolift, they would be dead. She waits for the inevitable alarm, but none activate. She just discharged her pistol at an empty hallway.
She holsters her sidearm.
Slake approaches the turbolift and enters. A smoky, plasticky burn fills her sinuses. She presses the button, and the lift arrives in short order. The lift's AI speaks, "Damage has been identified on the exterior door. Shall I summon a maintenance crew?"
"No," Slake responds. She gets into the lift and says "Level Aurec." The lift takes her up.
Good decision. Says the voice, in a nervous titter. You wouldn't want anyone finding out that you've gone crazy.