Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [45]
“Well, thanks for your efforts on our behalf,” Jackson said. He still didn’t entirely trust her, but neither did he have a choice. And the expansion of their prison, even by one compartment, was a tangible benefit.
“I will do what I can for you,” she said. “Your people have treated me and mine with honor.” Her red eyes flicked, just once, to Harris. “And, too, Chief saved my life in warfare.”
Harris shrugged and looked down sheepishly, a reaction not unnoticed by the other SEALS.
“Can we see this workout room?” asked Master Chief Ruiz.
Char-Kane nodded and turned toward the door.
“Wait, one more thing,” Jackson interrupted quietly. The consul turned back to him, her eyebrows raised in mute curiosity. “Are they listening to us in here? Watching us?”
She shrugged. “I cannot be certain, but I don’t believe these compartments are equipped for that kind of spying.”
“You said this is a Shamani ship, taken from you by the Eluoi?”
“That is the truth, yes.”
“Then…what are the chances you could get us some deck plans, a schematic, or something that will show us how this thing is put together?”
Her eyes widened in surprise, a disconcerting effect as it emphasized their crimson redness. “That would be—” She started to voice an objection but then halted and thought expressionlessly for a moment.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said in a soft whisper.
The new compartment more than doubled the size of the space available to the Earthlings. It was a large, square chamber with white metallic bulkheads. Most of the floor space was open, though there were two benches mounted against the walls and a large metal table squarely fixed against the bulkhead opposite the electronically controlled sliding entry door. There were bulkheads around the skirt of the table so that it stood as a solid white cube.
Still, the extra space was useful, and the men wasted no time resuming a regimen of calisthenics and martial arts. Without exercise equipment, wrestling quickly became popular as the men developed a healthy sheen of sweat pitting their muscles against one another. By the second day Falco had invented a game, sort of a cross between soccer and dodgeball, that utilized two of the plastic bowls from the mess hall, weighted and fused together around the rim. The activity provided some escape from the depressing truth that they were being carried far from the star system where humans had been living throughout eternity and that they had no indication of whether, or how, they would ever see home again.
After an especially vigorous workout, the SEALS returned to the barracks compartment, except for Chief Harris and Falco, who announced that they were going to do some checking out in the exercise space.
It was after about fifty hours in space that Char-Kane returned. After making some small talk—no easy task for the formal, ritual-loving Shamani—she pressed a rolled object the size of a large cigar case into Jackson’s hand and made her farewells. Together with Ensign Sanders and Master Chief Ruiz, the lieutenant took the mysterious gift into the exercise room, assigning Chief Harris to stay outside and watch the door.
He discovered that Char-Kane had given him a foil wrapper containing several very fine pages, each of which contained schematic drawings of the great starship in which they were being held.
They unrolled the pages, which were quite large, onto the table and began to study them. After a few minutes Jackson felt safe making a few assumptions.
“We’re here,” he said, indicating a small quadrant of compartments deep in the belly of the ship. “The transport shaft must run all the way to the bow, through these narrow booms that connect the large hull sections. Yep, that’s the shaft where they took me to the bridge”—he traced the shaft to the nose end of the ship—“up here. And here are the shuttle bays, not far from us in the stern.