Deviation by A.J. Maguire Read Free Book Online Page B

stay the course."
    "This is my ship, you arrogant bastard."
    "Only in part."
    "Then I want my part topside!" Keats shouted around him now, "Myron! You have to stop the ship!"
    Hedric glowered at Keats, blocking the man from entering the cockpit with both arms outstretched. "You keep going, Myron," he called over his shoulder.
    "You're out of your mind!" Keats focused on him again, his face mottled in anger. "The Lothogy wasn't made for this. We'll be crushed!"
    "She'll hold." Hedric said through his teeth.
    A hundred and forty-three million pounds of polyethylene-cobalt hull groaned under pressure as though in response to him. The cockpit was silent for a moment. Hedric turned his attention to the ceiling and glared at it, willing it to stay in one piece. He heard Myron mutter something from behind him but he ignored it, bringing his anger back to his mutinous engineer. Keats had been distracted by the sounds of the ship as well, but he seemed to know when Hedric had looked at him. They stood there, unmoving, measuring each other as the ship made its steady descent.
    The Lothogy made another growl of disapproval and Keats broke. "Myron! I'm telling you! She won't stand it!"
    He'd had enough. Hedric swung hard, his fist connecting with Keats's chin. The man staggered backward, barely catching himself on the metal handrail. Myron needed full concentration to pilot the ship so Hedric followed Keats, bent on subduing the man before the rest of the crew was infected with insubordination. His boots slammed hard onto the meshed walkway connecting the cockpit to the main cargo bay, inches from where Keats was struggling to straighten himself.
    "Twelve years," Hedric snarled down at him. "Twelve years I've owned this ship, and she has never once failed me."
    Keats got to his feet just in time for the ship to lurch leftward. Hedric caught himself with one arm, straightening to square against Keats again. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had a doubt. It was small but it was there, echoing in Keats's voice. The ship could travel through space. It could negotiate meteor storms with an agility that belied its size. Only once before had they taken her into the ocean and that was barely under the surface.
    "Captain," the word was a bite, not a formality. "In the twelve years I've been on this ship I have never seen you so hell-bent to kill us all. You're damned reckless, I know, I've watched you take on the impossible. But you always kept the crew and the ship foremost in your mind."
    There was a loud clank just above them and they both looked up. It was small at first, a mere pinprick in size. As they watched, a tear-shaped globule elongated and fell between them, spattering against the grated floor. Water exploded from the inner hull with stinging force, slamming them both to the ground. Hedric smacked into the metal walkway so hard that he felt the checkered grating imprint through his uniform.
    Hedric found his feet first, water hammering down on him as he muscled his way to the now broken slat in the ceiling. Covering the hole with both hands, he shoved all his weight against it and grit his teeth. Water rolled down his arm, soaking through his suit so that his peachy skin was visible under the sheer white. Keats appeared at his left with Jellison, who carried a curved sheet of metal several times larger than the hole. It was a joint effort to seal the thing, hampered by the jerk and sway of the Lothogy as Myron continued their course.
    "Uh, Captain?" Myron called.
    Seeing that Jellison and Keats could finish the repair without him, Hedric went back to the cockpit, leaning over the ledge to see what was wrong. The MEDS screen showed that their course had dove straight inside some abysmal hole, which was getting smaller. Thus far Myron was handling the tighter space with ease, but he could see that would change soon. The more alarming issue, however, were the commands flashing in bright yellow just to the left of the screen.
    Launch