Chapter Eighteen:

***

Stryker turned away from her and did something to the controls on the hatch. She placed her hand on top of the gun hanging off her new belt. It was the only thing that held the billowing lab coat close to her skin.

Keep behind me, babe, he said. Norah took a step back. I’ll keep back thirty feet behind you. She turned to look at the empty passageway behind her and shivered. Maybe just ten feet.

She was so tired and so strung out that she felt like she couldn’t trust anything anymore, not even her own eyes. The lights of the ship brightened overhead before they streaked with red. Norah knew it was the internal scanning systems.

Her ears twitched as the lasers turned on afterward with a zip.

Her empty hand reached forward and gripped the back of Stryker’s too-small suit. A moment later the lasers ran over their bodies and decontamination went wide for the whole ship.

“Is this necessary?” Of course, it is. “Never mind, don’t answer that.”

“Can’t be too careful.”

Norah kept thinking back to everything that had happened to her and the crew over the past six months, especially everything that had happened to her over the last week and a half.

She tried to pinpoint the one moment in time where everything went wrong. Not just when the sirens blared, but the calm before the storm. Figuratively and literally. She took a deep breath of the cold, clean air of the ship.

She wanted the pure air to last. If she never breathed in water again, it would be too soon.

Stryker reached back and pulled her under his arm; she didn’t let go of him. They waited in silence as the quarantine procedures finished. Norah buried her head against him, and when the last of the lasers ran over them without incident she realized how frightened she was that her health was in jeopardy. Her very human existence.

He squeezed her shoulder and let her go. It was their way.

The wall opened up next to them, a closet full of space-suits, breathers, and tools. Norah took a mask and placed it over her mouth. She wasn’t going to take any more chances. The door to the hatch opened up and they made their way through the passageway that connected their ships.

When the EonMed’s ship closed behind her, she felt a bit safer.

And she didn’t know why.

The door to Stryker’s ship opened up to another quarantine receptacle. They went through the decontamination process again. She rubbed the goosebumps from her arms. When it ended, she grabbed the pistol again; her fingers slid across the cool metal but it didn’t make her feel better. Norah had never thought that her life would come to this.

Disasters, murders, and outbreaks all happened on the Network, places that were far away from her. It had always seemed natural to watch the tragedies with indifference. She leaned back into the Cyborg for comfort while he stood frozen before a panel to the side.

Norah breathed in the warmth that Stryker always had around him. It soothed her. That was until the sound of metal breaking and bending thundered behind the door.

Stryker spoke into an auditory feed that blipped on from the console.

“Matt, what the fuck have you done?” A visual feed opened up as Stryker typed in the code. A blueprint of his ship flickered.

The noise on the other side had stopped.

“Stryker...what’s on your ship?”

He glanced at her before returning to his work, his eyes filled with code, while his hand remained connected. “Acquisitions.”

“What acquisitions?” Fuck this. Norah backed up a step until her back hit the closed hatch.

He didn’t answer her but yelled into the comm. “Matt, I know you’re on the bridge. Get off your ass and answer me.” A minute went by. “Power on the mainframe and swipe the goddamned screen where it’s flashing a message notification.” Stryker’s voice boomed from under his mask. “Goddamned idiot,” he muttered.

“Your co-pilot?” she asked.

“My alcoholic.”

Okay.

An unknown voice filled the space. Matt, she assumed. “Hey, man, you save the girl?”

“I’m only going to ask this once, so you better listen up. What the fuck did you do to my ship?” Stryker asked in a deadened voice. Norah chose to stay quiet.

The audio feed crackled. “I don’t know what you mean, I’ve done nothing to your ship. Our Wieraptor, on the other hand, has been trying to get into the bridge since you left,” Matt said, unfazed.

“Fuck,” Stryker said under his breath.

The roar of metal hitting metal picked up again beyond the closed door. “Another monster?” Norah asked, staring at the vibrations over the barrier and wondered what type of creature could overpower the reinforced structure.

“A bitch-of-a-one.” He spoke back into the comm. “When?”

“Eh…several standard hours after you took off. Tried to reach you but couldn’t find this manual you said would be here. I’m alright by the way. Really hate the rations you got stockpiled in here.” A monstrous screech was picked up in the background.

“The manual is right under the fucking console! What the hell, Matt, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“Not if the Wieraptor gets to me first, which is seeming pretty likely.” Norah could hear the shrug in Matt’s response.

Stryker moved away from the panel and checked the guns he had strapped to his frame. She didn’t like the sound of the beast outside and, in comparison to what they had to defend themselves, she didn’t like their odds.

“What’re we going to do now?” she asked but had half a mind to go back into the EonMed ship and battle the enemy she knew. The shriekers couldn’t break down walls.

“I’m going to recapture it. You’re going to hide.”

Yes! Sounds good to me. I love hiding now. I can be very quiet. “I’m not leaving you,” she said instead. “Everything gets worse when we separate and I know how to shoot.” Norah stood her ground.

“Babe, it’s not about your ability to help. It’s about my ability to take this thing down. These guns won’t pierce its hide, you’d have to shoot it in the mouth or the eye for it to do damage.”

She could have sworn she felt the floor shake underneath her.

He turned to her, “Can you fly?”

“Yes. Not well, but I can at least enable autopilot.”

“I’m going to get you to the bridge. I want you to follow the coordinates to Ghost.”

“What about the other ship?” I can’t leave it.

“Leave it.” Her eyes narrowed but he turned from her and spoke into the console again before she could respond. “Matt, we’re coming. When you hear three knocks, release the security breaks and let us in.”

There was a moment before his response. “Not if you’re going to kill me.”

“What the fucking hell do I pay you for, you piece of shit? You’re going to open that goddamned door before I have to override my systems and break it down myself because if I have to do that, I’m placing you in a pod and jettisoning you into space to starve to death. And, Matt, you won’t have your flasks with you. You’ll have to die alone, going through withdrawal in a place not big enough for you to sit,” Stryker raged.

Norah gaped and held her breath. If I don’t breathe maybe he’ll forget I’m here.

“Who’s going to run your labs then, Cyborg?”

She bit down on her lip, adrenaline coursing through every vein in her body and waited for Stryker to...strike out. He slammed his hand into the wall, punching a hole through the metal.

“Oh my god, calm down. He’s baiting you.” Norah reached for him and took his arm. She felt the shift of metal under her palms. “Please.” She still couldn’t suck in air as she waited for him to react. When he did, he turned toward her and placed his brow against her forehead.

“Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”