“Aren’t we all,” Genness added, quietly.
“Status, Gen?”
“No change, Ejoq. I’ll let you know.”
“Sally, does a fueling dock have a valve or something in it?”
“Yeah, and manual controls for the onboard fuel transfer pump.”
“Manual? As in, physical on/off switches? That’s idiotic. Are you sure?”
“Who am I – Bayern? Yes, I’m sure.”
“Come on, I’m right here,” Bayern said in a hurt voice.
“You mean to say that there’s a way to access the fuel line?”
“Maybe. The guildies over there don’t let anything become automated that might take control away from their little monopolies. Least ways, I’ve seen manual valve controls on their ships before. Let’s take a look.”
So we did. Sure enough, we found a small access panel on the bump in the armor, which Sally stated for sure was a fueling dock. Would high temperatures right there do anything for us?
“No,” Sally replied, “there are safeguards against fires and explosions during refueling. You couldn’t ignite the fuel tank aboard, anyway. There’s no oxygen, for one thing.”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of simulating a fire so as to trigger a fire suppressant sequence in their systems. That’d lock ‘em up for a bit if they don’t have weapons running hot already. It could be a good distraction for getting inside. I mean, we’re in agreement here, right? These guys aren’t legit?”
“No they’re crooked, all right. I just don’t see how you think we can get inside fast enough to surprise them. We could cut through a hatch pretty quickly and gain access to an airlock, but we couldn’t use it to enter without depressurizing the ship – which’ll cause an emergency lockdown inside and…ah, okay, I get it now.”
“Get what?” Bayern and Genness asked together.
“You open a ship up to hard vacuum,” I explained, “and it closes off all emergency iris valves and pressure hatches inside, effectively cutting off the crew from us and each other. That can be overridden easily by the captain, though. Not so with fire-suppressant sequences – they have to be verified false, and zee’d out individually. Layer the two, and they’ll be wasting a lot of time just figuring out what’s going on. Meanwhile, you guys call them and tell them to stand down or else. If they’re surprised – which we’re counting on – they’ll lose even more time trying to confirm everything. While they do all this, we cut through to the next section – hopefully a central companionway, which will prevent overrides of the lockdown, since the comp won’t allow anybody to open a hatch onto vac without inputting a suit’s clearance code first.”
“They might be in suits already,” Genness observed, “or have them ready.”
“If we were trying to do this closer to PONTE’s interception time, I’d agree with you, since an experienced crew going into a potential battle might take those kinds of precautions…”
“Hey, that’s a good idea!” Bayern injected.
“But these guys won’t have them handy yet, I’m thinking. The suits will be in stowage somewhere, as isolated from the crew as the crew will be from the rest of the ship.”
“But what do we do then? They won’t be able to open any doors for us, even if they want to.”
“We can put temporary patches on all the holes we make, if it looks like we’re getting somewhere with them, but we won’t repressurize right away. Their internal sensors will register that they still have an air loss, and we can negotiate a surrender. If they think that a bunch of us have gotten inside, and that we’re willing to open them up to space, they’ll have to give it up.”
“And what happens when they learn it’s only the two of us?”
“We’ll have them disarmed and locked up by then, hopefully. It’s mostly bluff. Just act mean, Sally.”
“That won’t be hard,” Bayern muttered.
“Their internal sensors – cameras or whatever – will show that it’s just the two of us. It’s hard to bluff somebody who knows what cards you’re holding.”
“We tell them that the rest of our people are still outside – doesn’t make any sense, I know, but they’ll be upset, and maybe not thinking logically. They’ll be checking sensors and looking to confirm what we’re saying. It’s a timing thing: we work fast, act tough, and lie through our teeth; by the time they realize what’s going on, we’ll have them. Think it’ll work?”
“Not a prayer. Let’s get started.”
Sally brought her oxytorch out and got ready to go at the fuel intake. I scooted over to the side hatch – a standard looking airlock – and hefted my big plasma saw. We 1-2-3’d it, then started cutting. I really wasn’t sure what Sally had in mind for the fuel duct, and, to be honest, that part worried me; she acted with confidence, though, which was more than I could manage.
I cut through the locking mechanism for the external hatch, knowing sensors were probably tripping like crazy inside there. I imagined a crew of unwashed desperadoes scrambling now for vacsuits, weapons, sensors, etc., and I worked faster than ever.
“Pop on actives, Genness, if you have the power. Tell me what’s happening.”
“I’m on it…”
“And call them on standard channels and order a stand-down. We’re going in!”
Cutting through a polynium door mechanism doesn’t take long if you know where to put the hole. I was done in less than a minute, and had the lock itself exposed. A twist here and spin there with a Z-G ratchet, and the heavy airlock door popped open, easy as you please.
“Sally, I’m in! You ready?”
“Yeah, yeah…heat sensors will be registering a fireball at the intake valve – they’re closing up in there right now – feel those vibrations? An emergency lockdown’s in progress, hatches and valves shutting, everything. It’s working!”
Not surprisingly, I couldn’t feel anything. As I waited for her to scoot over, I asked Genness, “What’s the word? They panicky yet?”
“Um…hold on…”
“There’s no time, Gen! What are they saying?”
“I’m not sure…I’m getting something weird here…”
“Patch us in,” I told him, and, after a moment, there was a sudden, ponderously calm woman’s voice speaking in completely unimpressive tones.
“…emergency attack sequence challenge…negative…full sensors engaged…one contact registered…”
“They just hit actives, people!” said Genness. “We’re in the spotlight now!”
“…no further vessels detected within standard weapons ranges…conclusion: vessel previously detected 115.22 coreward subjective, 17.35% of ecliptic potential, has initiated attack…weapons coming online…target lock confirmed…”
“Sally! Stay clear! I’m blowing the pods!”
“Hold it – I’m exposed…!
“…final missile diagnostic 100%…firing in five standard seconds…”
“Okay, I’m clear!” She cruised down from dorsal, and grabbed at a handhold near me.
“Blow ‘em! Blow ‘em!” Bayern shouted, and for once I obeyed him.
There was a yellow flash on our side of the ship, and then nothing more. The one pod we could see from our point-of-view cartwheeled off into the blackness, and was invisible almost immediately. The calm, strangely resonant voice continued without pause, no hint of surprise evident whatsoever.
“…all weapons offline…running diagnostics…particle beam loss port and starboard confirmed…missile loss port and starboard confirmed…calculating tactical information…87.5% chance of successful undetected strike upon this vessel…”
“That’s a machine, Ejoq!” Sally said. “The AI is in charge!”
“…all systems on standby…external opticals confirm two personnel contacts at starboard airlock…loading anti-hijack programming…programming loaded and implemented…lockdown redundancy due to fire-suppressant protocols…standing by…”
I’ll admit, I was at a complete loss for a
minute.
“Where are all the people?!” I yelled. “This thing didn’t jump in on its own, did it?”
“Maybe they’ve let the AI take over while they’re getting ready?”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Sal – they’re pirates, aren’t they? Nobody who boards and takes ships and cargoes would let a machine call the shots. That couldn’t be its function, could it?”
“There’s no reaction mass on the probe,” Bayern reminded me, his relevance surprising.
“Yeah, and that small box on its back…not a bomb, but a bypass or circuit shunt or something. Let’s search this thing.”
Getting into the airlock took some doing, since we couldn’t fit the scoots in, even after they were folded, and, exasperatingly, we had no easy way to tether them – I mean, I couldn’t think of everything, right? In the end, we actually glued them to the bogey’s hull with vacgap filler from our tool pouches. We both had grip/scrape tools that could break the hold when it was time to go, so we just left them near the airlock, and proceeded inside.
We opened the main door in the same manner in which we had opened the outer airlock hatch, and a fast, almost explosive rush of crystallizing atmosphere buzzed out for a few seconds as soon as a hole had been made. Other than a few aftermarket lockout doohickeys, which were designed to curb break-ins when the ship was docked, there wasn’t anything unusual here to slow us down.
Under normal docking or spaceport circumstances, a klaxon and computer alert to the yokel badges would eat up all the time it would reasonably take to do the work – long, dirty cutting work without the right tools. We were in space, though, where plasma saws capable of sundering matter (along with, literally, igniting breathable atmo) are the right tools. In fact, this ship had easier doors to open than even our crummy Bechel did, and that wasn’t uncommon. My “plan” had counted on this – though it was now beginning to look like a lot of planning for nothing. We unslung our rifles anyway, and had them ready.
“Hatch open,” I announced as we swung the rounded rectangular door inward. “No internal lights…hmm…amplification isn’t worth much in here. Switching on suit floods – how much of this are you guys getting?”
“Looks good,” Genness replied, “Is this a central companionway? Are those hatches on the sides?”
“No we’re in a connecting companionway,” Sally answered. “Looks like it right-angles with the ship’s core. Got another door to go through on the far end. Artificial gravity is off…typical anti-hijack protocol. These narrow hatches on the sides look like equipment stowage…and…yeah, they’re locked. They’re not pressure-capable, though, and not big enough for somebody in a suit to hide in. Moving on.”
The internal door proved to be even easier to open, taking thirty seconds to crack. Another sparkling hiss of escaping atmosphere preceded the swing open, this time lasting a minute or so, after which we were greeted by more blackness. A few tiny unit lights of varying colors peeped and blinked here and there along the walls on various switches and controls, but nothing more. Floods revealed a wide central companionway that looked like it had been either designed for, or converted to, rec room use. Things were packed neatly away, game sticks and smackballs in convenient racks on one bulkhead, a dark, mute entertainment center mounted along the other. Cushioned seats that locked in place on floor tracks sat off to the sides, leaving the central way clear.
“Compulsive neat freaks?” I muttered.
“Yeah,” Sally agreed, “it’s awfully clean in here for a sudden emergency lockdown. But why would they send this thing into starjump empty? What good’s a pirate ship without any pirates?”
The vessel’s logo was on the wall, near what looked like a beverage dispenser. It was a word I didn’t recognize, in a stylish font.
“Gen, look this up in the ship registry database – it’s not in Ingliss. What is that…Latin?”
“Lowspeak,” Bayern injected. “It says, DAAF’QA. It means, Preparedness or State of Readiness.”
“You can speak another language?!” Sally was flabbergasted
“Some. You guys aren’t from around here. Deegman gets a lot of traffic from over the border. We have to deal with guildies all the time.”
I caught a glimpse of Sally’s expression through her helmet, and she seemed amazed and maybe (just a little) impressed.
“I’ve got a DAAF’QA listed here as…ship type just says it’s a Far Trader,” Genness said. “It looks like…ah…okay, it says it was built by the Most Honorable Spacial Mercantile Collective of the Beneficent Hyrondua State of Rhykertov Within Far Reach And…it goes on and on – just a shipyard in Churchspace….it was built for a transport company owned by a noble family…in service for ten years…ah, looks like it changed hands two more times. Pretty typical, over all. It’s currently owned by an investment consortium in the Corporate Territories.”
“When was that listing updated?” I asked. “Legit corporations don’t go in for piracy. This thing must be stolen.”
“No, it’s current – last update was 74 hours ago. Just before our little problems started.”
“Well, still…”
“Ejoq,” Sally said, “the mods on this ship would’ve taken weeks at a shipyard, or even longer if they did it on the sly. And they’re expensive, too. No pirate outfit could afford it. If that listing is up to date, then this thing – as is – belongs to that company.”
“Oh, man…then it’s Corporate trouble…that’s all we need! Let’s do a fast sweep through the ship, Sal, then check their Engineering for something we can use on DAME MINNIE. I don’t want be here now even more than I didn’t want to be here before.”
A quick look around revealed a ship perfectly packed up, as if awaiting it’s first crew. Not a soul to be found. We didn’t have time to try to crack the computer, which would’ve been futile anyway (military-grade decryption was usually required for that sort of thing – as opposed to outmoded, second-hand civilian-class gunboat decryption).
“Bring the boat over, Bayern. Park as close as you can.”
“That will be it for the engines, then,” he replied. “There won’t be enough power to fire up after that.”
“Doesn’t matter. We have nowhere else to go. I’m counting on a miracle on this end, so just get close.”
Engineering was significantly cleaner and more spacious than on DAME MINNIE, and Sally located their battery bank easily.
“Wow…oh, wow!” she exclaimed, after opening the bank casing. “Skartcher Nova Cerampacks! Fully charged, yet! See? They each have their own diag panel! Oh, man, this is sweet!”
“Are these standard on a ship like this?” I asked.
“These aren’t standard anywhere! These are the latest thing! I read about ‘em only a month ago. We could run DAME MINNIE all the way back to Deegman on only two of these – with normal gravity for the whole trip, and juice left over for a party!”
“They’re a lot bigger than our own power cells,” I pointed out. “Heavier too, I’ll bet.”
“Not in Z-G, they aren’t. Just gotta watch the mass when we’re moving them around. They can be programmed for just about any power and waveform output up to their max, so I wouldn’t even need to jury-rig a converter. We just have to get them over there, strap ‘em down somewhere, and we’re back in the saddle again.”
“They’re expensive, I take it?”
“Oh, mama, yes! They’re marketed to elite Corporate security, ritzy private yacht owners, intelligence organizations – you know, customers with deep pockets.”
“How are they going to fit out the side airlock?” Bayern asked.
“What are you talking…?!” Sally started to bite off his head, but then looked at the square, bulky things again with a critical eye. “Hmmm…yeah, all right. We’ll have to use the cargo doors.”
“Aren’t those on the bottom?” Genness now pursued.
“Yeah. So? What of it?”
“How do you get them down there? I didn’t see anything li
ke a floor hatch or big elevator in your video feed, just that little spiral staircase.”
“Well, they got the copulating things in here somehow!”
“They might have removed the whole airlock frame from the side of the ship during the big refit,” I commented. “That’s SOP in shipyards, isn’t it?”
This seemed to curb her enthusiasm a bit.
“You mean, we found the perfect power solution, but we can’t get them out? I’m not ready to give up yet, Ejoq.”
“Neither am I, Sally. We have to get these things. The question is how.”
“Okay, we’re outside now,” Bayern announced. “Ten meters off starboard and holding. And I had a thought: can’t you just cut a hole in the side of the ship and bring them out that way?”
Sally was getting stressed, so her tolerance level was low.
“With what, you ash hole?! You think we brought a whole shipyard of equipment with us out here? Cutting a few centimeters off an airlock isn’t like chopping a two-meter-wide hole through armored hull casing!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, because their bickering was a distraction. “We’re set up for it already.”
“What are you talking…? Ah, don’t tell me, Ejoq, they’ll be wrecked!”
“No, look, Sally – see? The starjump engines are in the way. They’ll act as cover…I think.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me. Where’s the ejecta point on this side?”
“Probably right there, along that bulkhead.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, that’s the main fuel conduit, right? And there’s the branch point for it…and that’s the primary fuel pump for the line. So that’s got to be the spot.”
“What are you two plotting?” Genness asked in his smooth tone. “Clue in your loyal crewmates, pray.”
“We’re gonna blow a hole through the bulkhead, right here in Engineering.”
“Fabulous!” Bayern shouted, and then, “Um, I mean, good idea people.”
“Oh…Ejoq,” Genness muttered, but that was it.
Motherload: Stardrifter Book 01 Page 5