Nightingale

ELEVEN

Jenny tried to crawl away, rising to her feet and fleeing, but Leon was too fast for her. He reached her with lightning speed, blood still gushing from the slash in his neck, grabbing her shirt. She spun, executing a back kick, rising up towards Leon's face. It struck home and he howled in agony, letting go of Jenny. She ran down the corridor and turned. She had no weapons, nothing to defend herself with. She felt powerless to defend herself from whatever the hell was going on inside the ship.

'Prissy, what the fuck is going on?' She cried, turning another corner, heading towards the front of the ship.

'I've no idea. Everyone head towards the cockpit, we're sealing ourselves into a secure place!' Prissy leapt from her position in the observation room and ran down the hallway to the cockpit. Ymal was scanning over instrument after instrument, calling at the radio aimlessly for help from anyone nearby.

'Anyone there Ymal?'

'No gods damn it. We're still in The Blank Space so there's sod all we can do in terms of help. We've still got half an hour until radio contact with Outpost 73. The fuck is happening back there?'

'I don't know. Yuki's still alive somehow and...'

'Wait, hold your friggin Zestrilian horses. She's ALIVE?'

'Yeah, but gone rogue like Duma. He's had his throat slashed as well. They're like... Zombies almost... Leon is...' Ymal held up his hand to stop her from speaking, she was starting to crack her voice under stress and tears.

'Don't bother. From the sounds of it, Jenny and Holden are ok though.' Prissy nodded slowly, swallowing for breath but not her fear.

'Right, let's arm this place, get them in, seal it shut and ride for 73, they can sort it from there.' Prissy nodded again, showing her agreement. Things were out of hand, it was time for damage limitation. Hell was being unleashed on her ship, and Prissy didn't know how much more she could take.

Holden took a right, scampering with his gun extended. A shadow to his right. He fell flush against the wall, hiding. He saw a person move through a doorway ahead of him, going down another corridor. Leon. The dead Leon, the walking wounded, the hell on legs Leon. That was not his captain. He wanted to rush after him, turn him round, punch him in the face and rip his face off. He was angry. This mission was routine, as revolutionary as it was. There was nothing in the blank space, and cabin fever had apparently got to his crew. They had to be taken out. But he had heard Prissy's order. He knew it was a sensible one. It was just that...

He clasped his head. It was that sensation again, someone probing his head. He heard voices once more, Yuki's, now Leon's, now Yuki's again. It was the voices of those who had defected, those who were dead. He was hearing the voices of the dead. Unless...

Unless they weren't dead. Perhaps it was some kind of possession, some kind of ethereal spirit that was causing all of this controversy and mayhem aboard the ship. Perhaps it was telepathy. But no, telepathy didn't quite seem right. It was something else.

More searing pain flashed up again. It was excruciating agony. He looked up briefly to see a shadow at the end of the corridor. Leon was returning, his demonic, hellfire eyes somewhere else, looking into a distance not there. Leon's voice was in his head again, conversing to Duma in a language, or at least Holden guessed it was language, indecipherable to him. He wasn't the language guy. Duma was the languages guy, it came with the whole ancient civilisations thing. If they had put their minds to it once, just once before all this had taken place...

'Joint minds. Fuck; that's it,' he breathed to himself. Leon's head snapped towards him. The pain stopped and Holden's vision returned. He stood upright again, and Leon cocked his head to one side, as a dog might consider something before him. Holden stopped. The two locked gazes for a few seconds, Holden's body tingling with electricenergy. Then Leon screamed, a scream from the very bowels of hell itself. Holden turned and ran. Leon advanced, far faster than Holden. He was going to reach him, tear him apart, slit his throat...