SUB-ZERO Page 5

  Reaching for the door handle, he dropped to one knee, when the last word stabbed his brain with a mental icepick. The pain was so intense that he almost lost consciousness for a second time.

  Extermination.

  * * *

  Gianna held onto the walls of the narrow hallway to keep herself upright. After hanging up with her father, she’d done what she said she was going to do and headed straight for Trip’s room below deck.

  Like her dad, she spent most of her time inside the bridge, whereas Trip, being a part of the ADS exploratory team, spent most of his days deep in the bowels of the Endeavor. Compared to all of those on board, they worked as far away from one another as was possible.

  Whenever they could, they stole away in either’s quarters. Their relationship was much further along than her father knew, too. And she was going to break the big news to him once they were safely docked at McMurdo.

  Gianna House was eight weeks pregnant.

  The only people that knew were herself, Trip, and the ship’s medical specialist, Dr. Lisa Bowen, who was sworn to secrecy, just as long as Gianna agreed to tell her dad by the time they made port. If not, Bowen would do it herself and hang Gianna out to dry.

  That can’t happen, she thought, biting her lower lip.

  If Bowen told her father, instead of Gianna doing it herself, it would break his heart. House didn’t deserve to have his heart ripped out of his chest again. She’d done enough of that when she was younger. Their relationship was currently in a great place—better than it had been since before her mom died, and the last thing Gianna wanted to do was drive a wedge in between the two of them. She refused to let her child—his first grandchild—be that wedge.

  She’d already embarrassed him once when she had been fired from her job with DARPA, a position she only held for two years. Now, his reputation was at stake for bringing her back into the fold. If she fouled up in any way, he’d pay the price this time, not her. There was nothing that could be worse than her father being reprimanded for a screw up of hers.

  Three levels beneath the top deck, she turned right and headed towards the front half of the ship. Trip’s room was the third door on the left. Hers was across the hall. Everyone, including Donovan and his science team, had rooms in this section. They were all created equal here. No one had a better living arrangement than the other. Usually, the “Captain’s Quarters” were a good bit larger than anyone else’s, but not here.

  It was all her father’s doing too. He believed that they were all the same—all crew members aboard the same research vessel with an identical endgame.

  “We just get there in different ways,” House had said once.

  Carefully, Gianna knocked on Trip’s door with two soft thumps. Five heartbeats later, he opened the door for her. She smiled at him—at the fact that he was wearing his prescription sunglasses indoors. He looked terrible, but better than he did before.

  Trip stepped aside, allowed Gianna to enter, then gently shut the door behind her.

  “They, uh,” he said, motioning to his headgear, “help with the headaches.”

  “Dampeners against the light,” she said, figuring as much.

  He smiled and kissed her hard. “I do what I must so I can see this beautiful face without flinching.”

  Gianna laughed and playfully raised a fist to punch him. He mockingly cowered back and held out his hands in front of him.

  “You wouldn’t harm the father of your first-born son, would you?”

  She sneered and stepped in close. “Of our daughter, no?”

  At first, Gianna was scared to divulge that she was pregnant, especially with them going ashore so soon. She was afraid that Trip would reject the thought of being her child’s father and abandon them like so many of her friends’ dads had over the years.

  Obviously, Gianna didn’t take rejection well. Her past proved as much.

  “Do you love me?” she asked, flatly laying it out on the table.

  No pressure, she thought. The worst thing that can happen is for him to say no and ruin my life.

  Trip’s eyes opened wide, but from her perspective, she could only see his eyebrows raise. He tapped his chin and grinned like an idiot before answering her.

  “Hmmm, let me think… A drop-dead gorgeous, sexy-as-hell nerd that willingly crawled into the sheets with me? Hmmm. Could I ever love a woman such as that?”

  Gianna dove on him, tackling him to the bed. For a few seconds, they playfully wrestled with one another, pinching and poking at the other’s ticklish spots. Next, their lips locked, and their hands went from harmless playtime to spirited investigation.

  Passion wasn’t an issue between Trip and her. Finding the courage to tell her dad how far that passion had gotten them was.

  They’d initially met in the launch bay. It was one of their first nights at sea. Gianna didn’t initially notice Trip that night but did recall that a young man with thick glasses was polite to her and well-spoken. Two weeks, and a handful of private calls later, they met for a drink in her cabin. She smuggled some good scotch on board.

  After three light pours, Trip was toast.

  After three light pours, Gianna was ready to go.

  Alcohol did wonders for her sex drive.

  Since then, they had spent more nights together than apart. Once they were finished for the night, they’d sneak back into their own rooms before anyone else had woken up.

  Until her father caught her one morning.

  She’d thrown open Trip’s door, only to find her dad about to knock on hers. Hearing the commotion behind him, he spun to see her in only a loose-fitting Dr. Dre “2001” t-shirt and her panties. Gianna had impulsively beaten down Trip’s door that night, uncaring that she was half-naked. Right then and there, for anyone that happened to be strolling down the hall, she had nothing to tell her father except the truth.

  She and Trip were an item.

  Surprisingly, he wasn’t furious. It made her more uncomfortable with the whole situation than it did Trip. House thought that someone of Trip’s ilk would be good for her. He was polite, honest, and well-educated.

  “How can you be nervous?” Trip asked the next morning. “You’re not the one banging his boss’ daughter!”

  As she and Trip ripped each other’s clothes off, Gianna tuned out the memory and focused on the present. It was much easier to do it without thinking about what her “daddy” would say if he found out.

  She smiled, biting Trip’s lower lip as they kissed.

  He already knows.

  6

  The storm seemed to have settled for the moment, but that didn’t make Donovan’s trek to his room any simpler. As the ship continued to sway side to side, the long, utilitarian corridors appeared as if they were a slithering snake. He thought about using the elevator to make it easier on himself but knew he’d have less of a chance of running into anyone if he took the stairs instead.

  Only an idiot would be using the stairs now…

  Sub-zero venom, he thought.

  It’s precisely the substance he sought here. Every specimen he’d examined so far, all thirteen of them, would prove useful once he got back on dry land. While impressive, the lab aboard the Endeavor was nowhere near as sophisticated as the one he required to properly process his research.

  He felt his stomach lurch with the next wave, bringing with it another round of bile. Stopping, he gripped onto the railing of the last staircase before his room and forced the goo back down. It was disgusting and did very little to calm his shaking nerves and weak stomach.

  This wasn’t just a toxic substance coursing its way through his system. There was something else at work here. He’d read enough science fiction novels, and watched enough movies, to understand that a farfetched, yet, factual change was taking place inside him. You didn’t have to be a believer in the stuff to agree with the assessment that he was in serious trouble.

  Stepping onto his room’s level, Donovan gasped for air and turned the corner. His cabin was up ahead, directly across the hall from House’s. Because of their importance to the Endeavor, they lived near one another as a safety precaution. If it was late, and their comms system was down, they’d be easy to summon.

  Or, House just wants to keep an eye on me. It’s what he alleged from the beginning.

  Donovan’s eyes felt like they were about to pop. The pressure building up behind them was excruciating. He needed to discover exactly what was going on, but more than anything, he needed to rest. If he passed out on the floor of a high-traffic hallway such as this, someone was bound to stumble over him. Then, House would quarantine him for sure.

  Successfully making it to his room, Donovan placed his hand on the handle and froze when a door near his creaked open. Nervous, he fumbled with the knob but was regrettably spotted.

  “Dr. Donovan?”

  He looked over his shoulder and found Gianna House staring at him. But that wasn’t her room. It was Triplett’s, the diver from earlier. Donovan had heard that the two were close but had never seen them interact with one another with more than their eyes.

  He turned and faced her.

  “You look terrible…” she said, looking worried.

  Eradication.

  There was the whispered voice again.

  Donovan grinned, something coming over him. “No worse than you.” His grin turned into a full-fledged smile. He cackled like a lunatic. “Tell me again, how did you get this job, Ms. House?”

  Gianna crossed her arms and stared daggers into him, looking very much like her father. Donovan had never said something so harsh and straightforward to the girl before. It felt good to speak his mind, what he wanted when he wanted. He’d just experienced a sensation that he hadn’t felt in some time.

  Deep d
own, Seth Donovan felt confident.

  The feeling only lasted momentarily as his ordinary thoughts about the beautiful woman came flooding back. Who didn’t love to gawk at her? He looked her up and down and, once more, grinned.

  Devastation.

  Donovan stepped toward Gianna but stopped when Triplett joined her at the door. His predatory thoughts and stance shrank back, and he fled into his room and locked the door. He had no idea what that was all about. Donovan had dreamt about Gianna many times, imagining her naked and on top of him in bed. This had been entirely different, though.

  He wanted to cause the young woman harm.

  Annihilation.

  “What the fuck?” he muttered, grabbing his head with both hands. “Shut up…”

  The queasiness suddenly returned, and Donovan couldn’t hold it down this time. He rushed to his quaint, private restroom, nearly ripping the lid off the toilet as he heaved into it. Instead of there being vomit and blue plasma, there was only the foreign substance.

  Extermination.

  The viscous liquid flowed freely, but it also choked him to the point that he saw spots. As a result, the pressure behind his eyes built to a crescendo. When he was finished, he stood and took a much-needed breath, free of the agony in his eye sockets.

  Next, Donavon stumbled to the toilet that was next to the sink and rinsed out his mouth. Satisfied that he had gotten most of the gunk out, he looked up into the mirror above the sink and froze. His dark-brown eyes had changed to the same electric blue of the plasma flowing through the octopus.

  Falling away from the sink, he collided with the wall behind him. There, only feet away from the mirror, he remained motionless and stared, hand to chest, hyperventilating. It wasn’t just the irises that had begun to change, it was the blood vessels within his eyes too. His bloodshot eyes weren’t filled with red veins, the white sclera, and his black pupils like he would’ve expected to see. The veins were blue. So far, his pupils and whites were unaffected.

  So far.

  The burns on his face and head seemed to be rapidly healing as well, an impossible feat. The blistered skin was already scabbing. He should’ve looked quite the opposite with the injuries being so fresh.

  Running back into his room, he ripped off his soiled clothing and stuffed them deep into his clothes hamper. Like the linens from the medical bay, Donovan would take care of them for good later. Before heading downstairs, he had stuffed the bedsheets and garbage bag into a hatch leading directly to the ship’s trash compactor.

  Now totally nude, Donovan stopped and stared down at his body. Oh, god. The veins nearest to the skin were becoming tinted with the same azure color. The spreading infection—that had to be it—it appeared to be moving quickly through his body via his pumping heart! The vessels surrounding his chest cavity were currently the darkest of them all.

  And with every thump of his human heart, the inhuman stuff coursing its way through his body pulsed too.

  Just like the specimen.

  He swiftly dressed and slid on a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes. Taking a couple of deep breaths, the queasiness in his stomach lessened. Even the swaying of the ship didn’t seem to bother him. Regardless if he felt better or not, he wanted answers, and he knew there was only one place to get them.

  Donovan needed to return to his lab.

  * * *

  House didn’t mean to aggressively throw open the door to the wheelhouse, but he did it anyway…with a little help of a monster swell. He and the rest of the ship tipped forward, and House let go of the door handle to brace himself against its frame. The outcome was a loud boom inside the normally quiet upper level of the bridge. All eyes stationed there turned on him as a result.

  He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that.” He stepped in and straightened his shirt. “Back to work...”

  The name “wheelhouse” was more of a tongue-in-cheek joke than anything else. The official name for the level was Command. The wheelhouse did, in fact, have a classic ship wheel. No one ever used it, though. Technology piloted the Endeavor, not man. House was nothing more than a bored supervisor on most days. Most weeks, actually. The events of tonight were the most exciting he’d seen since setting sail.

  On any typical day, XO Sam Ferguson would be overseeing the controls while House managed the matters of everything else on board his boat. To put it plainly, House tried desperately to not be cooped up in the bridge all day…every day. Unfortunately, he was needed here more than he wanted to be and since he was the man in charge, he didn’t openly complain.

  There were literally hundreds of men that would kill for a gig like his. His job was reasonably cushy, and he had more freedom than any other ship commander in the Navy—not that he was a member of the Navy. The thing that concerned him most was the future. What would happen when this mission was through? Would he still be the captain on the Endeavor with another assignment? Would there be another destination for him? He thought of this vessel as his—he was the skipper until he decided otherwise.

  Why else bring me in if only to let me go so soon?

  House sat in his designated chair and eyed his second-in-command. “Any updates, Sam?”

  The sailor turned toward him with a look of trepidation.

  “What?”

  “McMurdo, sir. They, uh, confirmed that they’re closing up shop for twenty-four hours to wait out the storm.”

  Just marvelous. Their ninety-day cruise had just been turned into a ninety-one-day venture.

  “We’ve been ordered to stay idle once we’ve reached a half-a-mile out, just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?” House asked, genuinely confused.

  “The storm is getting worse.”

  House stood. “Worse?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sam replied, “I suggested that we turn around and move farther out to sea, but—”

  “We’d be on our own if something happened,” House finished. “At a half-mile out, they could come to us if it was a life or death emergency.”

  “Correct, sir. That’s what McMurdo said too.”

  As House knew they would. Safety was the top priority in these parts. A lot could go wrong in as remote a place as the Southern Ocean. A lot. Like losing the Endeavor and all of its crew in the blink of an eye.

  “Do what they want, but keep us pointed directly at the storm. I don’t want us getting sideswiped and capsize.”

  Bill Johnston, one of the two pilots, turned around. “But, sir, we’re almost six-hundred-feet bow to stern. Can that really happen?”

  House faced the man. “Until it doesn’t, we go about it as if it can.”

  “Sir?” Johnston asked.

  “Anything can happen,” Sam replied, nodding his agreement. “Do as the captain says and stay on course accordingly.”

  Johnston turned. “Aye aye, sir.”

  House headed left, toward one of the two staircases that descended into the heart of the bridge. The wheelhouse was actually more of a loft above the second floor of the three-story-tall bridge. It gave House, Sam, and the pilots an eagle-eye view of the water through the thirty-foot-tall pane of impact glass at the front of the structure.

  Before he headed down, House gripped the railing in front of him and looked out over the rest of his command center as it rocked beneath him. Directly below his perch was Navigation, and thanks to their one-of-a-kind comms system, they weren’t required to be at the captain’s side twenty-four-seven like they had been in the past.

  Dominik Lucas was the boat’s chief navigational officer. He was supposedly the best in the southern hemisphere and was hired purely on Sam’s recommendation. They had been friends from their days at the Naval Academy.

  House descended the first banking staircase, feeling like he was an iconic movie star when he stepped off of it. The banking stairs hugged the outer glass wall of the open-air room and deposited him near the front of the men on the second floor. Like clockwork, everyone stopped and looked up at him like he was more than just their boss. He laughed at how something as simple as stairs could draw the attention of six sets of eyes.

  House didn’t pay the onlookers any attention, though. Instead, he just continued forward and took the next staircase to the bridge’s first floor, Engineering. It’s where his old friend, Buddy Malone, was stationed.