Rachaels still had his revolver aimed at the Captain. “The only reason I haven’t authorized my men to use deadly force at this point is because I’m hoping you can come to your senses and order your crew to stand down.” With one hand, Rachaels reached into his pocket, pulled out the Captain’s data pad, and tossed it to him. “I’ve unblocked you so you can make an announcement.”

Dale caught the data pad, and after a moment of hesitation stuffed it into his pocket, in defiance of Rachael’s orders. “That’s not going to happen as long as you’re trying to separate everyone. The thing only seems to attack when people are alone, and the purge cycles give it the perfect cover.”

Hillman, who had apparently been waiting outside the room, took this opportunity to step inside. “The creature cannot possibly be that intelligent,” he announced. “You’re imagining things.” He was still wearing his little cloth mask.

Rachael’s eyes darted toward his superior for a moment, possibly revealing some disagreement, but he did not express it out loud.

“You are in  so much trouble right now, Captain!” Hillman said. “If you don’t want to be tried for sedition and public endangerment, you should tell your people to comply immediately. Then, I  can begin to sort this out.”

Dale shook his head and shifted his rifle. “You are an idiot, Hillman.  Even your own men can see it.”

Hillman had never been spoken to this way before, or at least not for a long time. He blinked in disbelief a few times, then his lips and eyebrows began to wriggle with rage.

At the other end of the room, the gene sequencer chirped an error message. The sound hung awkwardly in the air and there was an unnatural calm.

Dale looked over at Burnstyle, who was staring back at him, then together they turned to look over at Lombard, lying sideways on his patient bed.

Lombard’s eyes were wide open, but he was staring at nothing. His head began to shake, or possibly vibrate. Then his mouth opened and a sound came out. It was low at first, then rapidly grew into a kind of gurgling scream. It was intensely loud, and everyone in the room instinctively flinched, both crewmen and Feds. Rachaels swung his revolver over in the direction of the howling man. Whatever kind of sound it was, it was not something that should have been able to come from a human mouth.

In an instant, Lombard leapt out of the hospital bed, and with a sweep of an arm, grabbed Lovecraft, who happened to be standing the closest to him. Still howling, Lombard wrapped his arms around Lovecraft and began to squeeze. His captive struggled to free himself, but could not even off-balance the other man. Lovecraft’s crowbar fell to the ground with a clang.

Everyone in the room with a weapon in their hand turned it toward the spectacle before them, but if any of them had any compulsion to start shooting, they refrained—the Feds because this was not the sort of thing they were expecting, and the crewmen out of fear of hitting Lovecraft.

Lombard’s entire body began to vibrate, and still he continued howling. If Lovecraft was screaming or swearing, it could not be heard. Then Lombard’s flesh began to boil and flow, and he was instantly covered in red liquids.

Dale took a step forward, driven by the compulsion to help Lovecraft, but then suddenly Lombard's howling doubled in intensity, if such a thing were possible, and his entire body seemed to ripple. Starting from his arms, skin and hair and viscera began flying off of him like a fountain. Dale was brought to a halt and stumbled backwards.

Parts of Lombard’s arm and leg began to burrow into Lovecraft’s flesh, straight through his clothes. Lombard’s other arm, however, transformed over a few moments into a long boney spike, with which it menaced the surrounding onlookers for a few moments, before it plunged it into Lovecraft’s torso.

With a final howl, the thing that had been Lombard seemed to tear itself away from the other man and collapsed as if in exhaustion. Lovecraft, his body mangled and torn, fell onto his back and lay still.

After seeming to catch its breath for a few moments, the Lombard-thing, no longer recognizable as the man it had been, heaved itself up and  began to lurch toward the exit.

Hillman and his men scrambled to get out of the thing’s way, but before it had taken more than a few steps, Onobwe’s flamethrower engulfed it in burning chemicals. It howled but collapsed almost immediately. The Feds scrambled even further backwards to escape the heat.

Rachaels had his revolver aimed at the thing but did not fire, despite the fact that Hillman had been almost incessantly screaming at him to do so.

In another moment the howling ceased, replaced only by the roaring of the flames. The creature lay still.

Lovecraft, however, now began to stir. He began to shake and gurgle like he was having some sort of seizure. Dale instinctively moved to help him, but Burnstyle held him back. Lovecraft’s flesh began to boil and twist in the exact same way Lombard’s had just a minute before. Then bits and pieces began to fly off him and red and clear liquids began to ooze out across the floor. By the end of the transformation process, he looked a lot like what Constantini had transformed into. White, rope-like fibers appeared and wove themselves into and out of his flesh. His skin was completely gone, replaced by roiling red flesh. Unlike Constantini, however, his head had also transformed into something unrecognizable.

Onobwe swung his flamethrower around at this new monstrosity, but Burnstyle jumped over to him, shouting, “Wait! Wait! Wait! Not yet!”

Burnstyle pushed the flamethrower’s nozzle away and turned to watch what would happen next. 

They watched in horror as the Lovecraft-thing began to reform into a human shape. The fleshy, bulbous mounds that had once been arms and legs and a head began to regain a more familiar appearance. Smooth, clear skin formed, though slick with red juices. Eyes and mouth reformed. The thing twisted and quivered until it seemed to have returned entirely to human shape. It looked exactly like Lovecraft. His shoes were missing, but his torn clothes still clung to him wetly. It lay still for a moment, then suddenly it took an enormous breath. Its feet seemed to stick to the floor and it rose like a marionette. It opened its eyes.

Rachael blew half the not-man’s head clean off with a single shot from his revolver. The thing stumbled back a few paces then fell.

Pushing Burnstyle out of his way, Onobwe stepped forward and engulfed this shape-shifting monstrosity in liquid chemical fire. Despite lacking most of its head, it flailed about and made a screaming sound. Eventually it lay still.

Everyone was in shock. Rachaels had to very consciously and carefully remove his finger from the trigger of his revolver and rest it on the guard.

A thousand thoughts were running through the minds of everyone present, but then Burnstyle made an observation that seemed to crystalize what they were all thinking:

“Any one of us could be one of those things,” he said.

Eventually getting a grip on himself, Dale spoke. “Rachaels… we should have everyone gather in the same place. The loading deck should be big enough.

Hillman interjected, in a high-pitched voice. “No! You have to order all your people to lay down their arms! That’s the only way we get control of this situation!”

Dale ignored him, still looking at Rachaels, waiting for a response.

Rachaels nodded, acknowledging that Captain Dale was right. “Agreed.”

It took a moment for Hillman to realize that Rachaels had opted to defy his authority and was now in agreement with Captain Dale. He seemed to be struck dumb when the realization came to him.

Dale took out his data pad and connected to the ship’s Intercom. Rachaels moved around to stand next to him. “Now hear this. This is the Captain.”

“And this is Rachaels,” the Fed added. Both their voices were projected out into the ship.

Dale continued. “Uh… we have some new information about what’s happening, and we need everyone to gather on the loading deck. There is to be no more fighting.”

“That’s correct,” Rachaels added. “No more fighting under any circumstances. We have an honest-to-goodness critter problem that’s much bigger than anything else going on right now. Make sure the crewmembers who’ve been confined to quarters are released and sent to the loading deck.”

After they signed off, Hillman, having adjusted to this new reality where his men were now working alongside the crew of the Pater Noster, began to nod and announced, “All right, we’re working together now,” as if it had been his idea all along. He turned and led the way out of the MQ. Rachaels shrugged and moved to follow him.

Burnstyle called out, “What should I do?”

Dale and Rachaels turned to him. After consulting for a few moments, they agreed that the Doctor should remain behind  and keep working on the tests with some crewmen and Feds as guards. Without being asked, two crewmen and two Feds volunteered.

“Don’t forget those guys!” Marala called out, referring to the two handcuffed Feds who had originally been guarding the MQ before all of them came in. They were released, still groggy from being electrocuted, and half-carried out of the room.

Burnstyle closed the door after the last of them exited.

Half-way to the loading deck, all their data pads began chirping to inform them that the local wireless network had gone down. A notification asking if they wanted to switch to peer-to-peer networking popped up, and most of them hit YES. Peer-to-peer would allow their data pads to function as relays and exchange information directly to each other without the need for a network router. It was inefficient and slow, and range was limited, but it was better than nothing.

“This is too many malfunctions to be a coincidence,” Dale said.

Rachaels did not respond, but the dark look in his eyes betrayed he was harbouring the same suspicion.

When they arrived at the loading deck, quite a few people, both crewmen and Feds, were already gathered there, and more continued to trickle in as the minutes passed. Dale and Rachaels began to explain to their respective groups what they had just witnessed in the MQ. It was difficult to make everyone understand, however, considering how unusual it was. The questions they got in response indicated that not everyone grasped what Dale and Rachaels were trying to tell them. What they did understand was that something utterly alien was occurring. Dale and Rachaels wanted them to believe not only that there was some sort of flesh-altering disease present, but that the infected could rapidly shape-shift from human shape to alien and back again. The fact that the Captain and the Feds appeared to be working together now was confirmation enough for many of them that something so horrendously fantastical was possible.

After a while, Dale climbed up to a gangway and looked down upon the people gathered below him. Studying them, he saw that many of them had begun to cast suspicious glances at each other. Crewmen were becoming suspicious of other crewmen, and Feds of other Feds. 

“All right! Now listen up!” Dale called. “Let me be clear: this is not a situation we are equipped to handle on our own, but before too long, we’ll be in broadcast range of a Sol relay station. We just have to hold out till then. We’ll make contact with someone, then they’ll send help. All right? What we have to do till then is sit tight. Got it? Good.”

That seemed to calm everyone down a bit.

Seeing some motion at one of the doors, Dale looked down and saw Dr. Marlowe stride onto the loading deck. Without a word, Dale charged down the stairs to the deck, ran over to the man, and tackled him to the floor.

Marlowe was quite large, so he did not exactly go flying, but he did fall quite hard. The two of them flailed around for a bit, until Dale managed to pin the professor’s arm behind his back. They were both still on the ground.

“What did you do, Marlowe?! Tell me! What did you do!? I know you know something! What is this thing! Did you create it!? How much are you getting for it!? Tell me!”

“Get off me, you mad man!” Marlowe protested, nearly succeeding in freeing himself. He must have had some experience with wrestling.

Marala came running up. “Captain! Leave him alone! He didn’t do anything! I know it!”

With very little effort, Marala bodily picked Dale off the floor and set him down on his feet. Dale was forced to release Marlowe as he was raised into the air. It took him a few moments to realize what had just happened, during which Marlowe also scrambled to his feet.

“Sorry, Captain!” Marala exclaimed, suddenly self-conscious of what she had just done.

Marlowe turned toward the Captain with his palms out. “What’s this? You’re back to blaming me for everything?”

“What’s your connection to Lexbridge, Doctor?” What have you been talking to them about?”

Marlowe squinted. “I haven’t been talking to Lexbridge.”

“Did you keep some of the samples from Constantini?”

“What? No!”

“How much are you getting for this creature?”

Marlowe straightened and stopped responding to the Captain’s rapid-fire interrogations. “You’re mad,” he announced. “You know, let me tell you something. You keep accusing me of some wrongdoing when you literally have Bratva sprites and PAC thugs in this place! Who knows what other sort of baddies there are around here! That’s  where you should be looking, Captain!”

Dale shook his head angrily.

Marala interposed again. “Captain! I really don’t think Marlowe would do anything like you’re suggesting.”

“Why?” Dale asked, calming himself.

The girl looked over at Marlowe. “I just trust him, I think!”

Still controlling himself, Dale hesitated, then turned to Marlow again. “Fine. But Marlowe, if I find that you had anything to do with this, there is no place in this universe or any other where I won’t find you.”

Marlowe shrugged and shook his head dismissively.

At that moment, the lights flickered, and everyone on the loading deck was plunged into darkness. A moment later, red emergency lighting flickered on, bathing everyone on the loading deck in an eerie red glow.

XLII.

Rachaels looked up at the emergency lighting, then back down at Captain Dale and Marlowe. He had been striding up to them as their conversation progressed. “You know anything about that?” he asked the Captain, indicating the emergency lights. “Something to do with your engine troubles?”

Dale shook his head. “No, this is new. I’d say someone’s almost definitely sabotaging the ship.” He pressed his thumb into his chin.

“Someone, or… the thing?” Rachaels asked.

Dale did not respond. It was impossible to know. He scowled at Marlowe for a moment, but then thought better of it. Taking out his data pad and striding away for some privacy, he tried to contact Alberts in the CIC. Whether the device would be able to connect would depend on whether their wireless signals could reach each other or if there were any devices between them that could receive and automatically retransmit their signals.

Albert’s face appeared on the Captain’s data pad, though delayed and marred by digital artifacts. The connection between their devices must have been very bad. Albert’s voice was also distorted electronically. The Foreman appeared to be awkwardly trying to hold his data pad and his flamethrower at the same time. “Hey, Captain. We still playing cowboys and indians with the Feds?”

“Not so much, Alberts, no.” Do you know why the power’s off down here? We’ve only got emergency lighting.”

Alberts did not know, however. He also did not know why the wireless network was down. He reported that the engines were still running though, so they were still moving towards Sol.

Dale did his best to explain to Alberts (and the rest of the CIC crew, who were listening in) the most recent developments.

After absorbing this new information, Alberts whistled. “So anyone could transform at any moment into some sort of monster?” He did not particularly sound like he believed it. “What triggers the transformation? Can they do it at will?”

“I don’t know,” Dale said. “I’m beginning to think the transformation may be some sort of survival instinct—maybe when they feel threatened. We’ll hold down the fort here. Don’t let anyone into the CIC, and keep broadcasting until you get a response. And tell everyone you can, not just the regular authorities.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. The news media, I guess. The Outer Shipping Guild. The Inner Shippers. The Belt Relief. The St. Joseph. Oh! And tell Feorn to get his Bratva friends to come too.”

“Are you serious? You want me to summon the PAC while I’m at it?”

Dale grunted. It was unlikely there were any PAC ships in the Sol system. “I don’t know. I just want as many opposing interests present as possible, to prevent us, the little people, from being crushed.”

“Makes sense, I guess. Good luck.”