I usually post the excerpts on
ReadWave and
Wattpad, but ReadWave seems to be down at the moment and Wattpad requires an account so for now I'll post it here and add it there later.
Here you go, the beginning of
No Port to Land. The rest is available on
Amazon, for pre-order until December 15 and to buy after that. Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No Port to Land
1
Nia slipped out of the nest when the alarm started. Behind
her, Gart muttered something. It was too early for him. Lucky for her, Nia
could function with little sleep and was intrigued by the reason the alarm had
started. It
wasn’t an emergency alarm that would have all the ship’s passengers panic, but
a simple notice something had happened and those who wanted could go and find
out more. She was definitely interested.
She arranged the bandages on her arms before walking out
into the main corridor, leaving uncovered as little skin as possible, and
blinked under the strong lights. Several people were heading in the same
direction, among them Adette, so she joined them.
“What happened?” she asked with half a voice.
“They caught a shuttle,” Adette said and pulled the blonde
strands over her ear to hide the gray crusts, her other hand resting on her
rounded belly.
“Caught?”
“It was sending out an SOS signal while heading straight at
us.” Adette smiled widely. “They caught it before it hit us.”
Around them, people commented
about the news, but Nia dropped her shoulders. A
damaged shuttle was
no use. They would
never leave this
damned ship.
The second disappointment
came when she saw the alleged shuttle, more like a rescue module at this size. And the modules rarely
had a guidance system, even if they had suffered damages less serious
than this. It had been brought onto a platform near the
entrance, where mechanics
armed with blowtorches struggled
to open it. Considering the way they pulled on it, chances were it would never fly again. Given
the life expectancy of the passengers, it was better for them
to be dead.
The crowd gathered around staring,
exchanging the latest gossip
in whispered voices. Cherevic stood under the walkway
with his partner
in crime and threw dark glares from a
distance. More mouths to feed.
Farther afield, Sarezez’s head rose above the crowd, his tall silhouette surpassing most.
Nia hid behind Adette,
avoiding the man’s dumb smile. She didn’t feel
like dealing with him.
Papa
Ote’s ticking cane announced his arrival several seconds before he set foot on
the walkway. The cane’s blows itched like hell, and her childhood memories made
Nia’s ears instinctively prick despite having not received one in a long time.
The old man paused
at the edge of the
walkway and supervised all the
action from above. His lips tightly pressed
together showed he had no illusions
either, but his lively eyes missed nothing.
With a screech that pierced their
ears, the mechanics managed to open the shuttle’s
door. Three bodies
tumbled out, their faces cyanotic because of the lack of oxygen. Nia narrowed
her eyes, but she was too far away to see if they were still breathing.
“They’re alive!” one
of the rescuers shouted. “And armed.”
“There’s one more inside,” said another voice.
When they pulled out the
last one, a big, heavy man, he was still batting
an arm. They took their weapons and laid them on the floor where doctor
Hossek leaned over
them.
Four men and all in their prime. The initial irritation was
replaced by concern. What if they all survived? At
the last board meeting, they had announced
there was only enough food supplies left for two more people
above the existing head count, and as the ship deteriorated, the food supplies
decreased quicker than the population.
“Take them to the sickbay
and see if we can recover anything,” Papa Ote said.
“The big one is
mine.” Adette elbowed
her gently.
Nia shook her head.
Gart’s nest was better than any amusement the new arrivals could provide. She turned her
back on them and left the deck, tormented by dark
thoughts.
2
The hours she waited for the commotion caused by the shuttle’s
arrival to calm down passed terribly slowly. Nia busied herself in all corners where
she normally had no business being in under the pretext of collecting orders, to
test the waters. How did people feel about the event? How many would have
preferred to get rid of the intruders immediately? And who already had hopes to
leave with the shuttle? All these variables were risks that affected her plans.
Slowly but surely, she advanced towards the sickbay. When Doctor
Hossek left the room for a moment, Nia slipped inside and closed the door
behind her. One of the strangers was already standing, black hair falling down
his bowed forehead while he fastened his pants. At his right, the blond giant
whom Adette liked leaned against the wall still unused to the gravity on board the
ship. On the left, the third man was sitting on the bed and kept running his fingers
through his short brown beard. The fourth man was lying in bed at the end of
the room, hooked up to the machines and still unconscious.
“More tests?”
the bearded man said.
“No, I’m looking for
the doctor,” Nia lied.
“He went to lunch,”
the man in the middle said,
finishing dressing.
Nia hesitated in the doorway. Alone in a room with four
strangers where three could attack her at any time didn’t seem like a
good idea, even if they hadn’t had time to
recover fully and the knife she carried could have defended
her somewhat.
“Won’t you go as well?” she asked.
If she could convince them to leave the sickbay, the
patient would be left
alone and then ... A lot could happen
because of the old equipment.
“The doctor gave us
some vitamins and advised us to wait,” the
same interlocutor said. “But I
would like to take a look at our
shuttle. Is that possible?”
It wasn’t clear if he
was asking for permission, but neither had they been locked in sickbay. And if they didn’t mind the throng
of people dressed in rags and covered in
festering sores, who
was she to comment on their tastes?
“Sure.” She nodded. “It’s three levels below.”
“That far?” the bearded man said.
“We didn’t build the ship.” Nia shrugged.
“Will you show us the way?” the other man asked with an affable
smile.
Nia looked from one man to another, hiding her calculations under
a cautious expression.
“Are you the boss?” She focused her attention on the man who
appeared to be the group’s leader. She didn’t like that smile. Too open and
honest, the way it shouldn’t be.
“Captain Law.” He held out his hand.
“Better not.” Nia raised her arms to show her bandages.
“Ah ... yes ... better not risk it,” Law said and lowered
his hand, but didn’t take a step back. “Merrick is coming with me—” he nodded
toward the bearded man, “—but Eradiez stays here. Svenegald hasn’t woken up yet.”
Without the colossus, it was better. But did he leave him behind
to guard the other?
“Follow me.”
On the way to the door, she glanced discreetly at the
quarantine bay. The LEDs on the doorknob showed it was locked.
3
The cargo hold was devoid of people. The absence of any
guards transformed Nia’s fears into reality. Why guard a wreck? Their mechanics
were not the most skilled in the universe, but they had checked the shuttle and
their conclusions must have not been encouraging. Only Jet snooped around the
damaged hull, not daring to enter.
Seeing them, the boy lowered his head between his shoulders,
to hide his face. A gray crust covered half of it, decorated with dried blood
on the margins, where he hadn’t resisted the urge to scratch.
Nia followed the men’s reactions with interest as this was
their first contact with the symptoms of the plague that affected them all.
Merrick looked at him with undisguised curiosity.
“Thank you for guarding our shuttle,” Law said without
blinking.
Jet made an attempt to straighten his back, ready to take
all the credit for it, but then he shook his head. “I guarded nothing. They
broke it before I got here.”
The men exchanged a glance.
“Did they ruin everything?” Law asked.
“They broke it into pieces,” Jet said. “But it was already
broken, so they said.”
Nia took a step closer, ready to grab him by the shoulder.
The kid was talking too much.
“Let’s see if there’s anything left in one piece.” Law
signaled Merrick to enter.
“Where are you coming from?” Jet asked.
“From a ship...” Law looked around. “…smaller than this
one.”
Nia hardly refrained to give him an ironic look. Really? It would have been difficult to
find a bigger one. The Pacific was a
cruise ship, once equipped to carry thousands of passengers. Nia recalled the last
trip, when it still had a crew, and these strangers didn’t resemble its members
at all.
“What happened?” Jet asked. “Why did you leave it?”
“Technical failure,” Law said and climbed the steps leading
to the entrance. “Do you want to take a look inside?” he asked from the
doorway.
“May I?” Jet squeaked and slipped past him before he could
answer.
Law followed him with an amused smile. Nia remained outside,
all kinds of horror scenarios passing through her head. Prisoner in the cabin
along with two strangers and a child who could be used for blackmail? No way. She
had fought too hard to let her guard down just now.
She took a step closer, however, paying attention to the
conversation inside.
“How bad is it?” came Law’s muffled voice.
“They cleaned out everything they could take,” Merrick said.
The grumble that followed didn’t say much. What did they
expect? When you were forced to survive in a closed environment, you recycled
everything. It was surprising they hadn’t stripped away the floorboards as
well—they could certainly be used for something. But they didn’t seem utterly
resentful. Or maybe they had seen enough on the way from the sickbay to realize
what trouble they had entered.
“Can you fix it?”
Law asked.
“Partially. I can
replace the missing
parts with what we find
here,” Merrick said. “The worst part
is the last blast perforated the hull and affected the conversion system. That’s why we ran out of oxygen. That one I can’t fix with what we have
on board.”
“We’ll ask them if they can help. It’s a big
ship. There must be something appropriate around…”
They still hoped
to leave with the shuttle. Nia thoughtfully ran her
fingers on the burned surface of the hull. There
had been no technical failure;
someone had shot at them. And that someone could
still be after them. Therefore,
they were in a hurry to leave quickly. That suited her.
She just needed to secure a ticket with them,
and she knew how
to do it.
The problem was she
needed two tickets.
