The Last Revenge: Book 7 of The Last War Series by Adams David & Webb Nick & Bostrom Peter

Author:Adams, David & Webb, Nick & Bostrom, Peter [Adams, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

BRIDGE

HMS Caernarvon

Z-Space

Admiral Mattis didn’t like this thing crawling around inside the ship any more than Yim or Spears or the others did.

“Are you sure,” asked Lynch over the radio, “that we can’t send you any help? We’re not that far out from your ship. We can turn around if you want. Come back, help you deal with it . . . ”

“Negative, if you make contact with us,” said Mattis for the fourth time, “there’s a risk that this thing might hitch a ride to your ship with anyone we send back. Hell, for all we know that’s what the damn thing wants.” He shook his head, even though Lynch couldn’t see. “Sorry, Captain. We’ll just have to sort this one out on our own. Continue with your mission to rendezvous with Albert Einstein and see what he wants too.” Too many things making problems in his space.

“I concur,” said Modi, obviously listening in. “The most logical course of action is to treat this incident not as an intruder, but as a pathogen; isolate it, prevent it from spreading, and minimize the damage if it does so. Best we continue.”

That made sense to Mattis, even if it frustrated him to think it. “Right.”

Modi continued. “Where is the creature now?”

Mattis ground his teeth. “At present, we lost it in the air vents. We currently have a rough idea of where it is—the lower decks—because those vents have filters and fans in them and it has to disable them to keep moving. It eats them, actually, growing stronger as it does so. The engineers are tracking it in that way since we can see when it shuts down a system, but by the time Marines arrive to a damage site, it’s long gone. Blair’s looking into it.”

“Sounds like you’ve lost the initiative over there,” said Lynch. And it was true. The idea of having all their air purification machinery taken away did not sit well with Mattis. Humans were not designed to live in space. The air processors were as important to them as food or water. More so, even.

“Blasted thing is growing and feeding, and there’s not a lot we can do about it, since this is what it was designed to do.”

“The fans, the fans . . . ” Modi clicked his tongue. “Why would it attack fans in the air vents and not, say, the vents themselves?”

Mattis didn’t have an answer to that. “Maybe they were just in their way.”

The faint sound of a finger tapping on something came through the speaker. Was Modi tapping on the microphone? “Or,” said Modi, “maybe there’s more to it. Have you checked the power consumption levels for those fans after they were eaten?”

Power consumption after being eaten?

“What in tarnation are you yammering about?” asked Lynch, before Mattis could. “A broken fan ain’t going to be using any power, you idiot!”

“Did you check?” asked Modi directly, pointedly ignoring his friend and CO.

“Gotta say,” Mattis said, unable to mask his confusion. “I didn’t. I just assumed they weren’t using any power.

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