Chapter 59: Abandoned

When Lus woke, the world was a blurry haze through the pain raging inside his body. His skin felt like it was on fire, and his head must have been used as the ball in a game of hyperball for the way it ached.

Blinking away his delirium, Lus waved his hand over the holoscreen on his end table to turn on the lights.

But the lights didn't turn on. He remained in darkness, only the light of the few stars outside his window providing any means of seeing.

"Is the power out?" he asked aloud, sitting up.

A chirpy meow answered him as Avil raised his head, the single glowing eye at the center of his forehead staring up at Lus from where he lay curled up at the foot of the bed.

"Yeah. I guess you wouldn't know either," Lus replied with a smile.

He bent over to scratch Avil's head, and grimaced as jolts of pain shot out from the wounds on his hands. They had yet to heal at all despite being back from the wreckage for three days, the first hint that the infection he picked up on Aschir Alpha hadn't been cured. He'd seen Doctor Tremt-Fusi only the day before about it, and she'd discovered he was also running a low grade fever which seemed to have escalated during the night.

As Lusac pushed himself out of bed, the old wound he received from Yonnex-Quniwel back in the mine began to ache with shocking intensity. Rubbing it and stretching his shoulder, Lusac groaned as the hurt increased. It must be connected to the infection.

But shouldn't the antibiotics have started to take effect? Tremt-Fusi gave him the strongest ones she could find, the kind that made him drowsy enough to sleep for twelve hours at a time whenever he took a dose, but it appeared a single dose, even of the strongest kind, was not going to cure him immediately.

Once he was free of the tangle of sweaty sheets, Lus went to the wall controls and manually triggered the lights. To his dismay, they remained off, confirming his suspicions that something was wrong with the power.

Lusac pressed a few points on the comm unit to direct his call to Yrqw's personal communicator that he kept on him during his shift.

"Yrqw, what's going on with the lights? Why is the power out? Do you guys need help down there?" Lus asked.

He waited for a response, but none came.

"Yrqw?" he tried again.

Figuring that the Kremel must be busy fixing it, Lus rang Becky's unit, but she too didn't respond. Neither did the next three crew members he reached out to, including Zer-Dasht, Dasy-Jonil, and Wsr.

Something weird was going on.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Lus used his regained strength to cross back across the dark room to where his clothes from the day before lay strewn across the couch. If the lights were on, he might have bothered to find something clean, but he didn't have the energy to undertake that task in the dark.

Once he was dressed, Lus grabbed his emergency flashlight from his desk–another difficult task to do in the dark–and returned to the door.

"I'll see you in a bit, Avil. I wanna check what's going on," Lusac informed the cat who remained on the bed, mildly perturbed at the interruption of his sleep.

He turned the flashlight on and stepped into the hallway. Emergency lights bathed the corridor in pale, yellow light, but the hall was empty as far as he could see in either direction.

"Huh. I guess the power outage isn't too big of a deal," he said to himself. With the power out, all the digital clocks were off, leaving Lus to wonder what time it was. Perhaps he'd woken earlier than he expected and it was still the middle of the night. That would explain why nobody he called on the comm unit was answering–they were all sleeping.

"But I definitely feel like I slept a long time," Lus reminded himself. And even if that was the case, shouldn't the night shift be out and about? Lusac saw no signs of life anywhere around him. He was completely alone in the dim hallway, accompanied only by the subtle buzzing of the emergency lights.

His stomach growled. There was no way it'd only been a couple of hours. His body told him it was supposed to be daytime, and he was willing to trust his gut on this. If he went to Systems Control, he'd figure out what was going on pretty quick. Surely they would be happy for the extra help, as feverish as he might be.

Starting down the hallway, Lus felt a chill go down his spine despite the fever raging inside. Was the heating off as well? He glanced at the walls but saw no sign of damage. There was no way the Argo got into some kind of intense battle and then the crew abandoned ship without him, right? They wouldn't forget him.

Insides churning, Lusac continued through the hallway as his mind came up with a million different scenarios to explain the odd situation he now found himself in.

He stopped dead in his tracks as his [Sixth Sense] triggered.

There was something [Invisible] nearby, he was sure of it. His [Skill] didn't lie. But, what could it be? A stupid thought crossed his mind, but he immediately dismissed it. The Shaquine were back on Aschir Alpha, and there was no way any of them hitched a ride back since Lus's [Sixth Sense] would have triggered long before now. So it had to be something else.

Perhaps something from the planet with the ship wreck? But his [Sixth Sense] hadn't triggered there either. Whatever was onboard must have come from somewhere else, some place he hadn't been, or else he would have been alerted to its existence immediately.

But at least it gave him some idea of what was going on. There was some [Invisible] creature or person onboard messing with things. That was something he could fix at least, and if he got his hands on a weapon, he might even be able to eliminate the problematic entity entirely. It was incredible how useful that one [Skill] was proving to be.

Lus trudged onwards through the corridors of the Argo, and, since he didn't trust the elevator, he took the ladders down to the bottom deck where Systems Control was located, pausing often to catch his breath. It was shocking how draining this simple infection was.

When he made it to the last deck, he stepped into the hallway and found another member of the crew lurking in the corner. A Kremel he didn't know well was huddled against the walls, his orange eyes wide and wild as he glanced around.

"Get away from me!" he shouted when he caught sight of Lusac. "I won't let you hurt me."

"Easy there," Lus replied with his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "I won't hurt you. I promise. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"They're everywhere," he murmured, his eyes darting around wildly. "The shadows will kill you. Stay here, where it's safe."

The fear in the man's tone sent shivers across Lus's body. "Right. Here it's safe," he tried to assure him, sounding very unsure himself. It couldn't be Shaquine, regardless of how similar it was. That just wasn't possible. "I'm going to keep going. To find the others and bring them to safety."

The Kremel shook his head vigorously. "No. No others. Stay away from the others."

"Okay. You stay here, and I'll come check on you when I get the chance." Lusac took a cautious step away from the Kremel, his body tensed in case the Kremel chose to strike him suddenly, but he remained in his corner, watching Lus but never making any aggressive moves.

Lus left the terrified Kremel behind, and he made it only a few steps when something flashed in the corner of his eye and he heard footsteps behind him. Turning, he discovered the hallway empty, but inside his head was the unmistakable feeling of his [Sixth Sense] warning.

"It can't be," he breathed to himself despite the evidence before him. It was all too familiar. It had to be the Shaquine, but how in Suns' names were they on the ship? It didn't make sense.

"Maybe they hid somewhere, somewhere that my [Sixth Sense] couldn't detect them, and now they're free," he said as he tried to puzzle out how this could have happened. "But there can't be too many free. Surely I would have sensed a large number of them stowing away on the shuttle."

Lus stopped in the hallway, ignoring the chills across his skin which he now knew to be from the Shaquine. There was only one in the hallway with him so it wasn't too big of a concern. One per deck wasn't too bad. He could deal with that, he just had to figure out their weakness.

The Shaquine hadn't bothered him on his way out of the temple once he had the artifact. He didn't know why, but it must work as a repellent of some kind.

"I need the artifact piece again. That will at least keep me and those around me safe from their effects." He sighed as he glanced around the eerie yellow hallway. Something like that would be kept in the Captain's office or maybe even his quarters, both of which were located on the upper decks.

"I don't have the [Stamina] for this," he murmured, his sore shoulder and hands throbbing at the thought of more ladders. He grinned. "But I know where I can get some."

He'd taken care to make extra [Power Burgers] for a reason a couple of days ago, and if there was ever a time to use one, it was now. Besides, Leviathan might have some ideas of how to help him get rid of the Shaquine permanently, before they could spawn more and do irreparable damage to the ship and crew–assuming they hadn't already.

His exhausted body was still unhappy with the thought of climbing only half the amount of ladders to get back up to the deck with the kitchen, but the thought of eating something that might ease some of his suffering was enough motivation to get him there.

This time when he exited the ladders, he found not one crew member, but three all hunched together. Two Nemarians and a Kremel. All three looked at him when he stepped into the hallway, and his blood ran cold as he noted streaks of black blood along their clothes. His [Sixth Sense] warned him of several Shaquine in the area.

"Another," one Nemarian said, his voice shaky.

"A sacrifice," the Kremel added with distant eyes.

"No thanks." Lus put his hands up. "I know that you guys feel crazy, but it's not you. There's these creatures around making you feel that way. Snap out of it."

"Kill him," the last of the trio declared.

Lus darted forward, avoiding the tangle of arms reaching towards him and took off at the fastest pace possible through the corridor towards the kitchen. The others were following him, and it was only thanks to the adrenaline pumping through his body he was able to keep ahead.

He reached the kitchen, ducked inside, and slammed his hand on the emergency lockdown button which caused the door to slide close and remain that way despite the banging of fists from the other side.

"That was a close one," he muttered.

The kitchen was a mess, with dishes and pans and utensils strewn everywhere. He did a quick scan, but he saw no one else around so he crossed to the nitrobox and grabbed out one of the frozen servings of the [Power Burger] from a couple of days earlier.

He stuck it in the microwave heater to defrost, setting the time on a couple of minutes to make sure it heated all the way through. Hopefully reheated food still gave him the same stat boost.

As he waited, he went over to the interbox and tapped the screen.

"Yo, Leviathan. Are you there? I could use some help, and don't be a jerk about it. Saving the ship means saving you too, bud."

The screen remained dark.

"Great. I guess I'm on my own," Lus murmured to himself. "I still don't understand how the Shaquine got on the ship. Especially this many of them."

While he watched the [Power Burger] reheat in the microwave heater, he got his answer.