Chapter 92

Chapter Ninety-Two

In less than an hour, the galley had climbed two degrees. There were things in the cooler that Connor knew wouldn’t last the four hours he’d projected. His imagination-charged senses were already picking up the early hints of rot.

Then he caught Selen’s glare or saw Elise biting a nail and came back to the reason he was in the galley in the first place.

Overhead, a gurgling sound spilled from the vent: the recycler complaining.

He cleared his throat. “So, without the right expertise, those pipes and filters can’t be salvaged.”

Selen leaned back in her seat.

About fifteen minutes ago, she’d called him to the galley and pointed to the chair across the table from hers, then had promptly ignored Elise, who’d followed Connor into the compartment.

Now, lips losing color from being pressed too tightly together, Connor’s boss looked ready to explode. “How could this even happen?”

Connor nodded toward Elise, who was leaning against the cooler.

She pushed off, shuffled over, and unhooked the carryall pouch strapped to her hip, then pulled a clear plastic cube out of it. Purple ichor stained the walls and pooled on the floor, where the multi-legged thing lay unmoving.

Selen took the cube without flinching or showing even a hint of revulsion. “You’re trying to tell me this ruptured the pipes?”

Elise bit her lip. “Indirectly.”

Connor indicated the cube with a nod. “A bunch of those things got into the lines somehow and clogged everything up. I think it might be whatever material they produce those strands with. My sword cut through them, but they’re tough.”

Selen turned the cube upside down, staring at the corpse. “The strands on the mercenary ship?”

“In its cargo hold.”

“So, you brought these aboard with the cargo?”

“I guess. Everything was sealed up. Maybe they clung to the crates where we couldn’t see them.”

“And now they’re on my ship.”

“We’re flushing all the pipes and drains, but there was no warning before the rupture. They just got in somehow and were torn apart. I can’t figure it.”

Elise’s face pinched tight, and she backed away.

He’d said something that troubled her. They would need to chat later.

Selen set the cube on the table and brushed her hands against her pants legs. “We’ll need more spares?”

Connor winced. “I can pull new pipes and filters off one of those old ships in an hour or less.”

“And replace them?”

“Another hour, maybe two.”

“How much food will we lose?”

“Well, I’ve already isolated the water reservoir, but to be safe, we’ll need to purge about ten percent of that. We don’t want to risk something microbial slipping through the recycling process. Food-wise, I’m guessing about twenty percent spoilage.”

“With our dry stores, that’s survivable.”

“But uncomfortable.”

“What matters most is the timetable. We have to get back out to that pit and finish this mission sooner now.” Selen got up from her chair. “I’ll check with Lem to see how long before the wounded can go.”

Connor’s stomach twisted. “We can’t go back. Not so soon.”

She sighed. “It’s the job, Connor. Mosiah needs to put those artifacts back where they belong. You need to accept that.”

He sank in on himself. There was no arguing with her.

As the clomp of her boots receded, Elise came to the table and grabbed the cube. She pushed it back into the pouch, then sealed that. “She’s made her mind up.”

“She has.”

The archaeologist clasped her hands in front of her. “Those files you asked me to recover?”

His head came up. “Yes?”

“I’m making progress. Good progress. I think full recovery might be possible.”

“That’s great.” Except, what good would it do if they stormed off on another suicidal attempt at the pit? “Any chance you could pull of a miracle to salvage food?”

“I think we can speed up the repair times. I did more than computer work on those long-haul jobs. And I did engineering for the expedition—Dr. Chong’s expedition.”

Connor shrugged. “Honestly, it might not be an issue.”

“Oh?”

“We’ve lost three people. If we try this again, we’ll likely lose more.” A weight settled on his chest. “Maybe everyone.”

“But you’ve got ammunition. You found explosives.”

“We need more than that. Mostly, we don’t have enough people.”

She took the seat Selen had been in and pulled closer to the table. “What do you know about these ruins?”

“Going into them is death.”

“What?”

“Nothing. A nightmare I had.”

“Well, I’ve seen images. I think from a drone.”

“Of the pit?”

“From before it sank that bad. At some point, someone got a probe of some sort down there and managed some high-resolution footage. Those buildings, that huge well—they’re millennia old.”

Connor sat up. “Someone sent a probe down there?”

“Our benefactor sent us imagery. It was old. I think it was military.”

What was it Gregor had said? “From the First Expansion War?”

“That sounds about right. Dr. Chong said some of the metadata from the imagery put it at close to fifty years ago.”

“So, a military operation recorded this place before it sank into the ground.”

“It’s probably a sinkhole. That’s my guess.”

Someone had known about this place decades ago. Then Mosiah and his comrades had come along to make a run at the pit, and they’d come away with artifacts. Sometime after that, other people had come to try to get something from the ships Mosiah’s people had abandoned.

That group had been mercenaries, and their ship had crashed.

But there had been survivors of that wreck.

Had Mosiah sent them? For what?

“Connor?”

He blinked. “Sorry. I was trying to connect some dots.”

“I understand. Look, about the food? I know where we could get some more. Dry goods and such, but there’s plenty of it. Plus some filters that might replace what was fouled. And…explosives.”

“Explosives?”

She nodded. “To get down into that well. You’ll need them to clear some of the collapse.”

That made sense. “Where?”

“Our main camp. About three kilometers out from the ruins, almost the opposite side of where you were coming in. We abandoned it when it was overrun, but it had a lot of gear. It should still be there.”

It sounded ideal—perfect.

And it also sounded like another thing that Selen would never approve of.