The Void: The Deep Black, Book 6 by Victor James David

Author:Victor, James David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2020-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The mine administrator’s office was the most dismal room in the entire facility. Dim lighting, tattered inspirational posters pinned on the wall, knickknacks on the desk—the previous occupant hadn’t bothered to pack up before leaving. He couldn’t wait to leave.

Hep sat on the edge of the desk. Hauser, Byrne, Horus, and Akari stared at him, waiting for him to speak. “I have no idea,” was all he could say.

“What about you?” Horus looked to Hauser. She shrugged. “Well, that’s a lot of damn help. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Hep bristled at the attitude, a defensive anger flaring in him. “Why do you think I’d have any clue about what to do here? I’m the captain of a scrapper ship, not a scientist or an explorer or an admiral. A scrapper. I don’t know the first thing about any of this. I’m getting sick of people directing their problems at me.”

“Then you’re sitting in the wrong chair,” Byrne said. “Sir.”

“It’s not that kind of chair,” Hep said.

“It’s always that kind of chair,” Horus boomed. “Doesn’t matter what kind of ship it’s on. If you’re captain, it’s your responsibility. Personally, I think you’re in way over your head. Just saying.” He shrank beneath Byrne’s unrelenting stare. “Way in over our heads. We’re a team. In it together. Until the end.”

Byrne dismissed Horus with a huff. “What the idiot is trying to say is that this is a massive cluster, and there’s no way we’re getting through it unless there’s someone giving orders, keeping us moving in the same direction. Whether you like it or not, that someone is you. So, where are we going?”

Hep walked around the desk and sat in the tattered, ergonomic desk chair. It occurred to him how ridiculous it was to have a chair so concerned with your posture in a frozen hole in a rock made of poison. “The priority is the same: we need to get Sig to someone who can figure out what’s wrong with him. You still think this expert you know is the best bet?”

Hauser nodded. “I do.”

“Of course, he’s at Central,” Hep lamented.

“He’s a contractor for a private lab, though,” Hauser said. “The Navy commissioned his lab to run studies on new microbes being harvested in the Deep Black. He’s got no loyalty to the Navy or to Colonel Tirseer. His loyalty is to the science.” She quieted abruptly, like she was being cut off.

“What?” Hep prompted.

“I’m not sure Sig is stable enough to take to Central.”

Hep pressed his thumbs into his eyes until bursts of color danced across his vision. “Because of what just happened? I get that. What do you propose we do with him then?”

“I’m not saying we don’t bring him to see Dr. Sykes, he’s the only man I can think of who can help, but to take Sigurd to Central with all those people, it doesn’t sit right. He reacts when pressed, reverts to his human persona and is immediately agitated.

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