Two volunteers came forward. Haak stood well back and held his accelerator at the ready. Malena drew her own weapon and did the same.

  Sophie was unconscious at the very least. The lower half of her body was in view, bent backward. There was a rotten sounding snap as they tried to pull her the rest of the way down.

  “Her spine cracked,” someone said.

  “I didn’t pull that hard!” Carl insisted.

  “She’s gone,” Haak said. “Withdraw and regroup.”

  A soft moan from above brought all their eyes to the hatchway.

  “That’s her,” Carl said. “She’s still alive.”

  Suddenly, his eyes left Sophie’s dangling legs. He searched the group, and fixed on Malena. Their eyes met, and she knew in a shocking instant what he was thinking. There was dark murder in his eyes.

  He strode toward her, his hands uplifted like claws. Each of his gloved fingers were stained dark with Sophie’s blood.

  “It was Tanner, wasn’t it?” he roared. “He’s up there, planning to pick us off one at a time. He may have my woman, but I will have his!”

  Haak shouted something, but no one listened. For once, he’d lost control of his team.

  When Carl was a single step away, Malena recalled what Tanner had told her less than an hour ago. Had he known this moment would come?

  She went with her gut. She lifted her gun and fired.

  -25-

  The crack of her 9mm was amazingly loud in the enclosed metal chamber. They’d all been so quiet up until that moment, trying to listen and learn what stalked them up above—the contrast was shocking.

  Carl’s step faltered, but he didn’t slump down. Instead, he batted away Malena’s gun. She was a fit woman, but the Dutchman was much stronger. He grabbed her and lifted her off her feet like a child. He slammed her once against the wall. Her skull hit the metal with a clang that resounded in her mind. She saw a flash of light inside her head, but didn’t lose consciousness. Her gun clattered to the floor.

  For a long second or two, Malena wondered if she was about to die. Carl was clearly out of his mind with rage. He must have had a thing going with Sophie, a private relationship outside the professional.

  As he jerked Malena forward, feet still in the air, and slammed her into the wall again, she had time to wonder how he’d taken a bullet square in the chest and kept coming. Just before her head hit the second time, she thought she knew the answer: the Dutch team had smart clothing, the same as she did. Or at least this man did. Maybe it was only a flak jacket, but it had done the job. He’d been slowed, but not deterred. She should have aimed for the head.

  Slam!

  When her head hit and bounced the second time, she tasted an explosion of blood in her mouth. Instead of flashing light, she saw a black hole of darkness open in her mind. She was almost swallowed up by it—but she held onto consciousness.

  She clawed at her belt for her knife, she found it, but it was snapped into place. She tried to get it free, but her fingers were like rubber.

  A few seconds later, she was set down upon the ground again. Her knees wanted to buckle, but she stayed on her feet through an effort of will. When her eyes and mind could focus again, she saw Haak was holding his accelerator at Carl’s throat. “Your enemy is in the passageway, man!” Haak shouted. “Take it up with him.”

  Carl gave Malena one last venomous glance, then turned and went back to Sophie, whose legs still dangled from the hatchway with the others circled tensely below. He reached up and took the accelerator off Sophie’s belt.

  “Carl?” Haak asked. “What are you—?”

  He got no further before the chamber was bathed in blue fire. Carl aimed Sophie’s weapon up into ceiling and fired. He held the trigger down, letting it burn through the steel and into passageway above.

  “Tanner!” Malena called out. In that instant she realized she was in agreement with Carl, and the idea shocked her: Could Tanner really have done it? Could he be so callous as to ambush Sophie and dangle her dying body into their midst, like a fisherman baiting a hook? She hoped it wasn’t true.

  She could see light up in the passageway now. The accelerator had burned through and was glowing brightly, fountaining sparks like a welder’s torch. Molten steel dribbled down and orange sparks sprayed everywhere. The chamber filled with the hot smell of vaporized metal.

  Abruptly, the show ended. Carl was holding his arm, and the accelerator clattered on the floor. Haak had knocked it out of his hand. He scooped it up and handed it to another member of his team.

  “We don’t have time for this shit!” he screamed at them. “You’re not cowboys. Don’t act like them. I expect professionalism.”

  Haak proceeded to shout orders at them in Dutch. They responded as if stung, and began moving. Two stood at the bottom of the hatchway. Two more climbed up their bodies. They pulled out small objects from their packs and threw them up into the passageway above.

  It took a second for Malena to realize they’d thrown flash-grenades. She covered her eyes as the passageway above glared with white light. She thought she heard something up there. A heavy grunting sound, such as a surprised animal or man might make.

  The commandos used one another to climb like acrobats, quickly moving up into the open space above. Haak walked nervously under them. Their bodies twisted and they grunted as they levered themselves around, aiming guns with mounted flashlights into the gloom above.

  “Clear,” shouted the one of the left.

  The second scout, who was climbing right over Sophie’s body, didn’t speak right away. Instead, he fired his weapon. It was a short burst, but it made Malena jump. She put her back to the nearest wall, wiped the sweat and blood from her face, and found her gun again. She held it to her cheek.

  “What’s going on, Dekker?”

  “Clear sir—I thought I saw movement…but I think it’s clear now.”

  Sophie’s body slid free a moment later. She fell bonelessly, landing with an awful thud on the deck. Carl knelt beside her, placing two fingers on her neck.

  “She’s gone,” he said. He gave Malena another murderous look.

  Malena dropped her eyes. She wanted to deny the accusations. Tanner hadn’t seemed the type to murder people over X. He wasn’t like Haak—or worse than Haak. But she reminded herself she didn’t know him all that well. They’d only met a few days before. She was sure every woman who married a murderer was shocked when she learned the truth. She felt uncertain and sickened.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to sense what was out there. The chamber’s walls blocked her. She could sense the X they’d stolen from this chamber. They all had a ball or two of it in their packs. She could sense the two accelerators, too. But she couldn’t tell what was beyond these walls.

  “Get me up into the passageway,” she said. “Maybe I can find out what’s going on up there.”

  The two scouts threw down lines. They were hauled up quickly one by one into the passageway. Again, Malena was impressed by their practiced movements. Now that they were in undeniable danger, they were sharper than ever. She envied their training and expertise. Next to these people, she was an amateur.

  The passageway was empty. After Sophie’s death, the group was noticeably more serious. They didn’t smile or talk about their fortunes anymore. Some of them glared at Malena, and Haak caught on. He walked up to her when they were about to begin their next descent. He put out his hand.

  “Your weapon, please.”

  Malena looked at the hand unhappily. “I didn’t kill Sophie. I don’t think Tanner did either.”

  “Maybe not, but you did shoot Carl. Hand it over.”

  “Carl was kicking my ass!”

  He smirked unsympathetically. His fingers rubbed together under her nose. In his other hand he held the accelerator tensely. She couldn’t help thinking about that weapon. She knew it would burn right through her smart clothing in a millisecond, while her gun was only good for headshots.

  “I don’t want to be defenseless down here,” she said. “You haven’t seen these visitors yet.”

  Haak laughed. A few others behind him also chuckled. They were all busy with equipment, but they were listening closely.

  “I’ve seen plenty of aliens,” he said.

  Finally, she put the gun in his hand. He stowed it and moved to the shaft.

  “We’re going down another deck in the ship,” he told her. “You’ll lead the way again. If Tanner kills you—no loss. If he grabs you and escapes, well, I’d rather that than lose another agent.”

  “Tanner didn’t do this,” Malena insisted.

  “Your opinions are less interesting to me than you may think.”

  Annoyed and worried, she took the line, attached it to her belt and worked the belay device. The whole way down she wondered if they would simply cut her loose and let her drop. She went slowly, grabbing handholds here and there on the way down just in case they did.

  She looked up as she went over the edge. Carl was there, holding her line, paying it out. He had put himself in charge of managing her descent. This did nothing to make her feel better.

  Half way down, she heard loud noises above her—gunfire. The shaft overhead boomed and flashed. The reports echoed, and shouts rang out.

  Malena reached out and found a set of anvil-like footholds. She clung to these, feeling like a child on a ladder built for adults. The holds were too big and too far apart, but they were all she had.

  The line went slack a moment later. Had Carl finally gotten his way? Had he cut her line? Was there an argument about what to do with her?

  She didn’t know and she wasn’t given time to think about these things. As Tanner had said, hesitation could kill. She took the slack in her line and wound it around one of the anvils. They looked like cleats and they functioned well as tie-offs for rappelling wire.

  Something flew past her. She gasped as it brushed her back. That was a body! Someone had fallen—headfirst by the look of things. A moment later, the line snapped tight again.

  “Fall!” she shouted. It was an automatic reaction. Any climber knew enough to shout a warning when someone slipped. Normally, the climbing equipment would prevent someone from falling all the way to the bottom, but they might hit more unsuspecting climbers on the way down, creating a chain reaction.

  The group above was too busy in their own struggles to worry about a fall now, however. There were three more popping shots, a few shouts, then silence.

  Malena’s line was too tight now to proceed downward. She was effectively attached to the other climber, and the line had gone taut. She would have communicated with the team members, but right now, she was too rattled to trust them. She had no idea if this was a plot to kill her, or the team had been ambushed, or what.

  She looked at the tight line for several seconds, thinking hard. She realized she was hesitating. She had to do something. She reached out and secured the line. Whoever was dangling down below her wasn’t talking, but she didn’t want to drop them. She tied off the line and disconnected herself.

  Now she felt a new sensation, a new kind of fear. She was clinging to a surface which, while not sheer, was at a steep angle. It was dark, she was unarmed and she had no safety line.

  Feeling her muscles stiffen with fright, she decided to get moving. She felt her way downward, using the toe of her boot to find the next foothold, then moving her hands one at a time. Slowly, she worked her way down into darkness.

  When she reached the passageway, it was eerily quiet in the ship. The sounds of battle above her had ceased. No one called out her name. No one said anything she could make out.

  Malena felt a terrible sense of loneliness overcome her. As far as she knew, she was the last human alive on this nightmarish ship. If there were others, they might well want to kill her anyway. She had to struggle with her mind for a moment, organizing her thoughts before she got moving again.

  Using her flashlight with her hand cupped over it to dim the light, she walked down the passage. She froze when she saw an open hatchway in the eastern wall. Who had opened this door? It was big, and probably would have taken more than one man to get the latch to spin.

  There was a dim yellow glow coming from the open hatch. She switched off her own flashlight both to save the batteries and to keep from giving away her position to anyone who might be looking for her. If she met with anyone, she wanted it to be her choice now.

  She hoped to find Tanner, and hoped he was okay. She wanted to call out for him, but she had no idea who might hear her.

  Malena decided she was on her own for now. She crept forward and looked into the chamber with the wide open hatchway. Even before she looked, she knew what she would see. Cold emanated from the hatch. It stung her cheek as if she’d opened a freezer. White rime circled the hatch and wisps of frosty vapor wafted all around it.

  There were familiar shapes inside the chamber. Huge metal coffins were arranged in neat rows, with glass windows over the face of each. She’d seen these artifacts before on her previous foray into the ship.

  What was different this time was the state of the capsules. Several of them stood open—and empty.

  -26-

  “Why did you open it?” asked a voice in the darkness.

  Startled, Malena backed away from the hatch. She threw herself on the floor and crawled between the metal obstacles.

  Why had she been such a fool? The open hatch was a light source. By approaching it and standing there in the yellowy glow she’d made a perfect target of herself.

  “Malena?”

  She froze. “Tanner?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Malena got up slowly, looking for him. She saw him now, a shadow in the passageway. He was perhaps a hundred feet away. His hands were down at his sides, but he looked crouched, ready. She could tell he wasn’t in a trusting mood any more than she was.

  “Why’d you open it?” he asked again.

  “I didn’t. It was open when I got here.”

  “That’s bad.”

  Both had relaxed somewhat and Tanner approached her. They were speaking quietly, as neither wanted unseen ears to overhear them.

  “Where is the rest of Haak’s crew?” Tanner asked.

  “Did you hear that firefight one level up?”

  “I heard gunfire, but didn’t know exactly where it was coming from.”

  “I heard it to. I thought maybe it was you, ambushing them.”

  Tanner shook his head. They both stood in the glow of the open hatch. She knew it wasn’t a good place to be, but she couldn’t stop staring at the yawning, empty capsules. There had been visitors in there—but now they were gone. They had to be somewhere on the ship.

  She eyed Tanner, wondering about Sophie. She didn’t know quite how to bring up the topic. “We should get out of here,” she said.

  “Yeah. Which way though? The way out is up, but both Haak’s team and the visitors seem to be in that direction. If we go down deeper into the ship, we’ll be underground and won’t be able to get out.”

  She nodded. “What if we hide on this level until the fighting stops? It’s pretty quiet up there now.”

  “Sit tight and hope they’ll wipe each other out?” Tanner asked, smiling grimly. He shook his head. “One side will prove stronger—let’s hope it’s the Dutch team because the winning group will come down here after that.”

  “Why here?”

  “Because this is where the X is.”

  He beckoned and she followed him into the gloom. A dozen paces later, she grabbed her temples and applied pressure. She’d been stricken with a sudden headache. She knew that headache well.

  “It’s here,” she said. “But where?”

  “I hid it in a small side-chamber. I rolled it in there and shut the hatch.”

  He showed her a much smaller latch, playing a flashlight over it. The metal L-shaped latch gleamed dully.

  She looked at the hatch for a moment, then turned to stare at him.

  “What?” he said.

  “Did you kill Sophie?”

  Tanner looked startled. “No. She’s dead?”

  She quickly explained the circumstances. He nodded. “Clearly, it was the visitors. They aren’t too thrilled about us running around inside their ship.”

  “Why haven’t they attacked us before? I mean, except for the one that ambushed us at the exit. If they’ve been around all this time, they’re being pretty cautious.”

  “I think we awakened just one at first. Maybe he was the watchman or the captain, I don’t know. Maybe some computer woke him up to make decisions. Then we surprised him and you blew his hand off. He was outside the ship after that, and maybe it took a while for him to get into the ship again. Now though, there seem to be a lot of them waking up. I’m not sure how that happened.”

  They heard a cracking sound nearby. The clang of metal striking metal followed. Both of them ducked down and doused their lights.

  A moment later, a blue streak of fire lanced down the passageway over their heads. Tanner scuttled away from it, and she followed. Neither of them was armed; their only option was to run.

  Another bolt came at them from the opposite end of the passageway. They were already on their hands and knees, but now they were crawling. They came back to the big hatch with the open, glowing yellow interior.

  “We’re trapped,” Tanner hissed to her. “They’re at both ends of the tunnel.”

  “Why don’t they just charge in and kill us?”

  “They’re testing to see if we return fire. When we don’t, they’ll become braver, don’t worry.”

  Malena looked around herself with desperate eyes. She stared into the open hatchway. She looked at Tanner and he nodded.

  “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said.

  Both of them got up and scrambled into the open hatchway. The chamber inside was large and filled with rows of capsules, some of which yawned open. Behind them, three more bolts of fire lanced down the passageway in both directions. They sizzled and hissed where they struck the walls and the odd metal projections that thrust up from every surface.