The noise of the ship intensified, as did the vibrations. Moments later, Maya felt the ship lifting off. She gripped the hand rest on her chair.
Jayne glanced over at her. “It’s okay. It will be over in about an hour.”
Maya’s eyes widened. “An hour?”
Sean noticed the look of horror in her eyes. He looked over at her, his look telling her that she had been spoiled with Federation travel all this time.
He, on the other hand, settled in for the duration, closing his eyes and pretending to go to sleep.
* * *
After the longest and most traumatic lift off Maya had ever lived through, the seat belt signs were finally switched off and they were given clearance to walk around the floor they were on. They were still confined to just the upper floor until engineering confirmed that life support facilities were functional on all floors.
Jayne released her seat harness. “See,” she said, “that wasn’t too bad, was it?”
Maya looked at her in complete disbelief. “That was worse than I could have ever imagined,” she exclaimed.
Jayne pursed her lips. “Do you still feel ill?”
Maya nodded, barely keeping it together.
“Tell you what,” Jayne said, leaning in and lowering her voice, “once we get clearance to the fifth floor, I’ll take you down to the med bay and give you a shot. Have you feeling right as rain in no time. Though you may need to sleep it off, too,” she added.
Maya bobbed her head, still looking quite gray. “I’m okay with that.”
Jayne checked her holo. “Okay. We should get a drink before the briefing. They tend to start promptly. Like to get their money’s worth.”
Jayne headed out of the back door, and Maya followed, curious to explore her new environment.
She noticed that Brock and Auggie had hit it off during takeoff and were now chatting away. Jack was mixing with other people who were also allocated to the cleaning and laundry functions of their artificially built community.
Maya slipped out down the corridor just ahead of a group of Estarians in overalls. They all seemed to know each other, and were talking in tones that seemed to suggest they were less than pleased about being on another run.
Jayne turned to see Maya following her. She smiled. “So, what were you doing before you applied to Bravo?” she asked.
Maya shrugged. “Bumming about, mostly.” She paused, then qualified it. “Well according to my parents, who were sick of me ending up back home every time one of my contracts came to an end.”
Jayne frowned. “I’m surprised you have problems with getting contracts in computing.”
Maya sucked her lip to one side. “Oh, it’s not so much about getting the contract. It’s more like... keeping the contract.”
Jayne glanced at her curiously as she led the way into one of the rooms off the corridor, which opened out into a small kitchen.
“Yeah,” Maya continued. “Sleeping with the boss tends to end contracts fairly quickly.”
Jayne burst out laughing, and then remembered to be sympathetic to the young woman who she seemed to have taken under her wing. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, covering her mouth. “That must be... awful,” she said, her eyes dancing with humor.
Maya grinned. “Oh yes. It’s horrendous,” she said, laughing at herself.
Jayne opened one of the refrigerator units, and pulled out a couple of shakes, handing one to Maya. “Nutri-shakes. The reason we don’t land with malnutrition,” she explained. “Can’t just rely on the food they feed you in the mess hall.”
Maya looked at the bottle, searching for an ingredients list.
“It’s everything the body needs to survive, apparently,” Jayne said. “Though I’d add in a few vitamin injections now and again, and of course water.” She paused, breaking the seal on her own bottle. “And exercise.” She added. “Though if your boss turns out to be tasty, I’m assuming you’ll have that one covered!”
Maya’s mouth dropped open and she quickly clamped her hand over it, amused and shocked at Jayne’s playfulness. “Well,” Maya said. “Nice to know who your friends are,” she retorted, taking a sip of her nutri-drink.
The two women chuckled away, passing the time until they needed to reconvene in the briefing room they had just come from.
Gaitune-67, Molly’s Conference Room
Joel scratched his head. “Okay, so if my calculations are correct, there are these forty-something companies that haven’t been responding to our new measures.”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Pieter agreed glumly, taking a swig of an artificial power drink.
Paige glanced up from her array of screens. She was monitoring the undercover team, as it was her turn. But in the time when there was nothing to do they, had agreed it was plenty safe enough for her to be in front of the screens and working on other things — nail varnish related, or otherwise.
Joel swiped through a few of the screens he had selected. “It’s a lot,” he commented.
Pieter nodded. “Yeah. It’s super sucky. I mean, this one. Zyto Corp. Didn’t you pay them a visit early on when Molly first took it over?”
Joel closed his eyes repeating the company name in his head. “Yeah. I think so. Hang on, I’ll have a note.”
He pulled up another screen and ran a search.
“Yep, there it is,” he said, his eyes scanning back and forth reading what he had written. “Yeah, and at the time it looked like they were going to play ball. Hang on,” he said, flicking between two screens. “Looks like they’ve had a change of some of their key players.”
He pushed the screen over to Pieter to see. Pieter read through while Joel studied another copy.
Both were silent for a few minutes.
Pieter ruffled his hair and leaned his arm on the desk, resting his chin in his fist. “You know,” he said eventually, “I think I recognize some of these names.”
He pulled up another screen and started tapping away cross referencing. “Ah ha!” he said after a few moments.
Joel looked up. “What is it?”
Pieter leaned forward reading off his screens. “There are about five names which keep popping up, and they have an 80 percent occurrence in these forty-odd problem companies.”
Joel stood up to wander round to the screens and see. “What do we know about them?” he asked.
Pieter pulled up the bios of the first three on the list. He read for a moment. “These guys all made a lot of money under the old system. Looks like they’ve been using their influence to get back into these companies and restart their old ways.”
Joel rubbed at his stubble. “Yeah, looks like it. Okay, have Oz run the data. If we can verify this is what is happening then we have a starting point.”
Pieter nodded, and continued working on the screens.
Joel went back to his work station to carry out his own analysis.
Sark System, Aboard the Flutningsaðili, Floor 14
“So, what did you make of the briefing?” Maya asked, idly wandering next to Jack as she made her initial checks around the fourteenth floor.
Jack shrugged. “The general briefing was interesting. But why it took them three hours to explain the cleaning crew duties I’ll never know.”
Maya fiddled with her holo, trying to get connected to the ship’s Ethertrak. She frowned. “You were actually in there the whole three hours.”
Jack touched her holo at the check point on the wall of the corridor, and turned to look at Maya, her eyes conveying the drama. “The. Whole. Three. Hours.”
Maya had stopped walking. “To tell you to walk around your duty floors and check for things that need cleaning up?”
Jack bobbed her head. “Yeah, and to instruct us on general cleanups. The thing is, as soon as it’s a chemical or bio issue, or anything more technical, we have to clear the area and leave it to the highly trained experts on board.”
Maya grinned. “I see.�
�
Jack sighed, and the two women kept walking.
“You know,” Maya said getting her holo hooked up finally, “I think their security system wouldn’t be too hard to get past, and then we can see what is behind some of these doors.”
Jack looked around, making sure there was no one to over hear them. “You want to risk it? This soon?”
Maya shrugged. “We have to start poking about somewhere, right?”
Jack waved her hand, absolving herself of any responsibility. “You do your thing, honey,” she told Maya.
Maya stopped walking again and studied her holo intensely. Then she looked up. “Okay. Pick a door.”
Jack looked surprised at the immediacy of the request. “Seriously?”
Maya nodded.
Jack looked up and down the corridor, and then walked on a little further. “This one,” she said, pointing the next door on their right. It looked more like a sealed container than the others. Though there weren’t any warning signs telling them ‘bio-hazard’ or ‘radioactive,’ the key pad was heavy duty, and it was more like a portal into the next room, than it was just a swinging, or sliding door.
Maya looked at it, and then back down at her holo. She worked, poking at the screens, her tongue appearing out of the side of her mouth.
A moment later the door clicked open, much to Jack’s surprise. “That looked easy,” Jack remarked, looking back at Maya, and then back at the door again.
Maya shrugged one shoulder and hurried forward. “We should move. Dunno if these cameras are being monitored.”
Jack looked horrified. “There are cameras?” she asked, as Maya bundled her into the room.
Maya nodded. “Yeah. But I’ve set them to wipe the recording as soon as it records. Doesn’t get around that someone might happen to be viewing it real time though.”
Jack shook her head at how cavalier Maya was about her protocols.
A few moments later the little tech wizard had found the light switch and then turned to survey the room they had just stepped into.
Granted, it was more a chamber than a room. Jack stood in awe as she peered into the darkness. “How far back do you think it all goes?” she asked.
Maya was only half aware of her question. She had been drawn magnetically to the first person-sized vat nearest them, and was inspecting it, daring herself to touch the steely exterior. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice breathless.
She rounded the vat and found the misty, see-through front panel her eyes vaguely aware of the security pad on the right-hand side of the door handle.
The vat was empty.
She moved to the next one.
Also empty.
Jack glanced back at the door, listening. “We should go,” she said, but Maya had already scampered off out of sight investigating this strange wonderland they had just stepped into.
Jack tried again. “Maya!” she called in an urgent whisper.
Maya poked her head out from one of the vats two rows down from where Jack was standing. “It’s Marissa!” she said, the half-light catching on her grin making her look a little maniacal.
Jack corrected herself. “Marissa, can we go please?” she said, a little more firmly, like a grown up playing the game of asking the child nicely before said child received a walloping.
“Just a second,” Maya’s voice called from between the rows of steel cylinders.
Jack looked up and down the width of the chamber, trying to guesstimate how many rows there were. The darkness swallowed them up pretty quickly, but from what she could see there were at least a dozen rows, and the one in front of her was at least five deep. Her curiosity begged her to venture forward, to head into the vats and see how many there really were.
Just then she felt movement off to her right and saw Maya reemerge from the sea of steel. “Okay,” Maya declared, closing a holoscreen confidently. “Let’s move.”
Jack turned on her heels and in a heartbeat they were back out in the corridor, carefully allowing the door to close quietly behind them.
Jack started walking again in the same direction they had been heading before their rebellious little detour. “I think that’s quite enough excitement for one day,” she concluded. “Remind me never to let you do rounds with me again.” She glanced sideways at her mischievous companion.
Maya had closed her holo down and clasped her hands behind her back, walking nonchalantly half a stride ahead of Jack.
“Sure,” Maya agreed. “You’ll just miss out on all the fun.”
Chapter 9
Aboard the Flutningsaðili, Mess hall, Level 2
Sean sat eating on his own, his supplements untouched in a dish to his left.
“You really should take those,” a voice told him. Sean looked up to see Jayne looking down at him. She was still quite scatty in her appearance, her hair a little disheveled and tied in a short ponytail, just back off her neck. But the wisps framed her face gently, softening her look and almost countering her age.
Sean looked back at his food and took another forkful. After eating that, he answered her. “I don’t like them. They spoil the food.”
Jayne took it as permission to enter into a dialogue with him, and sat herself down at the table in front of him. “You’ve got months of this, though, and the food you’re eating doesn’t have…”
Sean raised his eyes to look at her. She stopped speaking.
He continued eating.
Jayne tried again. “You know... I get the feeling you don’t like me very much.”
Sean finished chewing a mouthful. He shuffled the gruel around his compartmentalized tray and spoke without looking at her. “What gives you that idea?” he asked.
Jayne clasped her hands in front of her face, her elbows on the table. “Oh nothing. Just the way you are. Moody. Unengaging.”
Sean looked up at her again. This time he allowed a smirk to appear on his face. “Unengaging?” he repeated. He held her gaze a moment.
Jayne looked awkward and then looked away.
Sean went back to his food. “I can see that,” he conceded. “So how would you have me be instead? Life and soul of the party?”
Jayne shook her head. “No. Of course not. You can be however you want to be. It’s just…”
Sean waited, deliberately not looking up. Deliberately not being too interested. He pierced a piece of synthesized protein and stuffed it into his mouth.
Jayne sighed. “I should leave you to it,” she said, putting her hands on the table to get up.
Sean waved with his fork. “Nah. Get yourself some food and come sit. You can tell me all about how you came to be the ship’s doctor on this floating hell. And I’ll tell you how I got landed with heading up administration for the lamest auditing company in town.”
Jayne flushed a little even under her blue skin. “Okay,” she said smiling, and scrambling to her feet. She headed off across the mess hall to the food counter and picked up a tray. Sean watched her leave, knowing full well he’d make her into an ally by the end of the day.
“Yo, Rexy-baby!” Maya came striding over and plonked herself down at the table next to him. She looked at his food, and leaned over grabbing a piece of baked ‘carboardhydrate,’ as she’d been known to call it back in the safehouse.
Sean looked a little taken aback, and his carboardhydrate was being munched before he had the chance to slap it out of her hand.
Jack arrived suddenly too, and sat in the seat opposite him, where Jayne was meant to be returning to. He looked bewildered. “Hey, someone’s—”
Jack ignored him and reached for something off his plate. Once bitten, he reacted faster this time, slapping her hand before she could pinch anything. “Go get your own food. It’s all there. Free of charge. Free for the taking.” He waved over towards the food counters behind him.
Maya spun round on the seat and glanced over before turning back. “I will in a minute. In the meantime, guess w
hat we found.”
Sean sighed. “Surprise me.”
Maya folded her arms on the table and leaned in. “You have to guess!”
Sean waved his fork “no.” “You have less than a minute before Jayne gets back here.”
Jack looked amused. And impressed. “Look at you, having dinner with Jayne already. You dark horse!” She winked.
Sean didn’t react. “Fifty-six.”
Maya frowned.
“Seconds,” Sean clarified for her.
Maya nodded quickly and then got to the point, lowering her voice, and keeping her head low in confidence. “Fourteenth floor. We hacked our way into one of the rooms. Turns out it’s a chamber full of cryostasis vats.”
Sean shook his head. “Well, why wouldn’t they have stasis vats on board?”
Maya raised her eye brows and turned her head a little. “There were a lot of them. All installed and functional. Empty. But usable.”
Sean’s brow creased up. “Yeah but this is a space-going ship, without any faster-than-light capabilities. They’ll be needed to keep the crew from dying of old age before they get to where they need to be.”
Maya shoulders slumped. “Fine. So it wasn’t a discovery,” she resigned, glumly.
Just then Jayne arrived and sat herself down next to Sean. “You’re looking better,” she said to Maya.
Maya nodded. “Yeah. I had a wander with Griselle and it seems to have walked off the most of it.”
Jayne smiled, picking up her fork. “Well, if it comes back, or you have problems sleeping over the next few nights, come by and see me.” She looked at the others. “Any of you. Really. I’d kill to have a patient on one of these trips!”
Maya was the first to get the joke, and then Jack. Sean either missed it or didn’t want to waste energy laughing.
“So,” he started, glancing in Jayne’s direction, “Twenty-five floors. All of those are cargo stores?” he asked.
Jayne had started eating. She emptied her mouth before responding, shaking her head. “No. I don’t think so. I think a bunch of them aren’t used. But the facilities need to be maintained on them for regulations or something.” She thought for a moment. “I think most of the warehousing happens on the lower floors, just because it makes unloading easier when we land.”
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