“Uh, any idea what’s going on?” Hot Dog asked, looking around at everyone who wasn’t engaged in what was apparently fast becoming all-out computer warfare.
“The Taj servers are programmed to immediately delete and overwrite any foreign code that’s introduced and not approved by Elijah,” Trevone explained. “Or Dr. Bale, in this case, since he’s taken over. To make matters worse, the firewalls are practically impossible to penetrate. If an unauthorized user shows up, they’re immediately kicked out.”
“Don’t you have some sort of override, Elijah?” Benny asked. “What was it back when you made Pinky take over our SRs and fly us back to the Taj?”
“Detroit?” Hot Dog asked.
Pinky grimaced at the word.
“It’s not working,” Elijah said. “If I were there and in my office, I could enter the override directly, but I can’t do anything from here.”
“No faith,” Ramona muttered. “Watch and learn, newb.”
Elijah just stared at her, his mouth gaping. Then he turned to the hologram. “Wha . . . ?” he managed to say before rubbing one eye. “I don’t even know what part of the system you’re in right now.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m a little lost here, too,” Trevone said.
“She found a back door into the maintenance controls,” Pinky said. “She just caused every working toilet in the Taj to flush and every faucet to turn on. The H2O tanks are emptying faster than they can be refilled.”
“That’s . . . a lot of wasted water,” Benny said quietly.
“It gets recycled,” Elijah whispered softly, instinctively, his gaze going back and forth between Ramona and the various databases, registries, and strings of code that fluttered across the air in front of them.
The AI narrowed her eyes, focusing on the hologram. “That’s triggered an emergency response from the central computers . . .”
“ . . . which grants temporary admin privileges to a handful of high-ranking employees but . . .” Elijah continued.
“Ramona,” Pinky asked flatly, “why do you know Max Étoile’s username and password?”
“Meh.” She shrugged. “He was a troll.”
A new screen popped up, covered in what looked to Benny like a wall of nonsensical numbers and file names.
“Can I do anything to help?” Elijah asked.
“Mute yourself,” Ramona said. “Also, soda.”
Elijah just blinked.
“I’m on it,” Drue said, sprinting for the hallway. “Soda’s running low, but I hid a bunch in my sleeping tube.” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything cool without me!”
And then he was gone.
Benny glanced at Hot Dog. “I didn’t know a HoloTek could do anything other than play games and videos and things like that.”
“Seriously. How is Pinky just made up of numbers? It’s crazy.” Hot Dog shook her head, dumbfounded.
“How is the entire world running on this stuff?” Benny asked. “I mean, I know we didn’t have much tech in the caravan—and numbers and me never really got along all that well—but at least solar power I understood. Heck, even fossil fuels made some kind of sense to me.”
Trevone squinted at the hologram. “Is that . . .”
“The server where backup data and communications are stored,” Elijah finished.
“And that’s helpful . . . ?” Benny asked.
Trevone smirked. “Every message that’s sent to or from a HoloTek at the Taj goes through that server and gets logged.”
“Meaning everything sent to or from Dr. Bale in the last few days!” Jasmine said.
“Not just that. If we’re lucky, a backup of his entire HoloTek drive will be there.”
Pinky’s eyes went wide. “The system knows you’re in. It’s going to kick you out.”
Ramona popped her tongue. “Hold on,” she said. And then one arm shot to the side, tapping on the HoloTek Elijah still held in his hands.
“What are you—”
“Mute,” the girl said again. Then she went back to her own datapad.
Pinky smirked. “She just tried to reboot the entire server from an unauthorized account using Ricardo’s HoloTek.”
“Well, obviously that didn’t work,” Hot Dog said.
“No.” Trevone grinned. “But it forced all of the system’s security to focus on booting out the foreign user. Buying her a few seconds.”
Elijah grunted, tapping on the blank screen of his HoloTek. “This is completely wiped. It’s dead.”
“That’s a really aggressive program,” Benny said.
“Thanks,” Trevone said. “It was my idea.”
In front of them, the strands of code suddenly froze. Then, the entire hologram blinked out of existence.
“What just happened?” Vala asked, taking two long strides forward. “What have you done to my ship? Griida?”
The other alien turned to his terminal and started swiping at the floating lights above it. There was a flash, and then once again the hologram displayed their trajectory, mapping a route to the asteroid belt.
Ramona let out a long breath, as if she’d been holding it the entire time. Then she shook her head. “Satellite’s wiped. Just a normal Star Runner now. Useless.” She clicked her tongue again. “Shame.”
“So . . . that’s it?” Benny asked, all excitement and hope beginning to fade. “We’re locked out now? And we don’t even have a satellite for communication? We could have used that to contact Earth or something.”
Ricardo stomped away from the others, his fingers gripping his short brown hair as he let loose a frustrated groan.
“Cool it, beast,” Ramona said, tapping on her HoloTek. “My downstreams are ultrafast.”
The central hologram changed once again. This time, it showed countless folder icons.
“You . . . downloaded the entire content of the backup server?” Trevone asked, his voice full of awe.
“Psh, of course not,” Ramona said. “Just most of it.”
“The files are certainly encrypted,” Elijah said. But before Ramona could say anything, he was already backtracking. “I know, I know. That likely means nothing to you.”
“I needed Ramona to outthink me in order to get into the server,” Pinky said, taking a step toward the hologram. “But these folder encryptions were done by people.” She raised a hand and narrowed her eyes, and in front of them, files began to pop up everywhere—blueprints, communiqués, maps. She smiled a little. “Humans have always been so bad at creating passwords. And some of them are so embarrassing.”
“That’s my girl,” Elijah said, flashing a wide grin.
“I am no one’s ‘girl,’ Elijah,” the AI said. “I’m the most sophisticated computer program ever developed.”
Drue ran back in, breathing heavily, a couple of cans in his arms and a stack of energy bars in one hand. “What’d I miss?”
Ramona walked over to him, grabbed a soda. “Just saved you guys again.” She popped the tab, slurping the initial fizz. “Nothing new.” She took a swig. “I think I need a nap. Systems overworked. Holo-assistant can take control. Wake me if you need anything.”
And then she headed off the bridge.
“There must be thousands of folders,” Jasmine said.
“And who knows how many files and subfolders inside them,” Trevone added.
“I’m going through everything as quickly as I can,” Pinky said, staring into space, at nothing in particular. “There’s so much. Blueprints. Memos. Messages. Logging keywords now. Sorting libraries.”
“Try searching ‘New Apollo’ maybe?” Benny suggested.
“That search resulted in twenty-two thousand four hundred and ninety-two hits. And climbing. We have backups of every HoloTek in the Taj, but the directories are corrupted. I can’t tell what file came from what datapad.”
Benny slouched a little. “Oh.”
“How many of them are designs or blueprints?” Jasmine asked.
“I’m still calculating.
My processing power is limited, but . . .” The AI sighed. “Trust me when I say it’s a lot.”
“I don’t guess any of them are named ‘superweapon’ or ‘alien killer’ or anything like that,” Hot dog said.
“Unfortunately not. The designs are designated only by numbers.”
Trevone shook his head. “That does us no good.”
Elijah pulled on the tip of his short reddish beard. “Focus on communications within the last three days.”
“Bale didn’t seem to be one for recorded messages of any kind,” Pinky said.
“But my dad was,” Drue said, hurrying over to her side. “He had a file and a report on everything.”
Pinky’s eyes seemed to glaze over a bit, and then suddenly her head jolted.
“What is it?” Elijah asked.
“Give me a moment. Verifying today’s date according to Taj time. Cross-referencing . . .” She stopped. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Benny and Ricardo asked at the same time.
The hologram in front of them shifted again, this time displaying a series of documents with official-looking seals on the header.
Pinky turned to them. “These are communications concerning the vessel that will carry Dr. Bale’s superweapon to the Alpha Maraudi home world. A ship they’re calling the Orion.”
“Tell us everything,” Ricardo said. “Where is it now?”
Pinky pursed her lips. “I don’t know.”
“There must be a project number or name for the ship,” Elijah said.
“All I can find is the code name,” Pinky said. “There’s no telling which of the numbered designs corresponds to it. I’m checking for more files mentioning it by name and—ah.” And then her face fell. “Here. A message to Earth from the Taj. Sent from Dr. Bale’s assistant on his behalf just a few hours ago. It’s an order to prep the Orion for launch.”
“So it exists,” Trevone said. “It’s not just a concept. They built it.”
“When is it taking off?” Benny asked.
Pinky’s face grew grim. “If all goes as scheduled, it will leave Earth’s atmosphere and retrieve the Dr. Bale’s superweapon from the dark side tomorrow.”
“Is there anything else from my dad?” Drue asked. “About the armistice? The temporary peace?”
“I’m sorry,” Pinky said, “but there have been no correspondences from your father since before the meeting on Io. That I can find, at least.”
A horrible quiet fell over the bridge as they took in this information.
“Does it say anything about where the weapon is hidden?” Benny asked.
“Not that I can find, but I’m still searching,” Pinky said. “There’s just . . . so much data.”
“If we don’t head back now, we’ll miss our chance to stop them from loading up the weapon,” Jasmine said. “We’ll have to chase them through space, toward the Alpha Maraudi home world.”
“We don’t know how fast this Orion ship can go,” Trevone said. “It could be able to outrun us. Even in Star Runners.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We’re going into this completely blind.”
From the other side of the room, Griida spoke a few words in the alien tongue.
“No, plot a new course for us,” Vala said. “We’re not going to the asteroid field after all.”
Benny stared at the hologram, the designs for the Orion flashing back to the forefront.
“The commander’s right,” he said balling his hands into fists. “If this ship is coming, we’re going to be there to stop it. We’re going back to the Moon.”
20.
“Once we spot the ship,” Benny said, “all we have to do is follow it to find the weapon, right?”
“Technically,” Jasmine said, not looking up from her HoloTek, to which Pinky had ported all the stolen files. “But we have no idea what form the weapon is in, or how they plan on getting it into the ship.” She frowned. “Or what the ship might even look like. Ramona downloaded hundreds of different conceptual designs. We have no idea which one is the Orion.”
“Most of these are Dr. Bale’s work for sure,” Trevone said, swiping through his HoloTek. “It’s difficult to make heads or tails of them.”
“The point is, for all we know this ship could have shielding like the Grand Dome—also Dr. Bale’s design,” Jasmine continued. “And you better believe he’s ready to counteract another Maraudi rock attack after what happened at the Taj.”
“Let’s just ram them with the mother ship,” Drue said. “That should do the trick.”
Hot Dog shrugged “That’s . . . actually not a terrible idea.”
They stood in a small circle on the bridge as Pinky continued to look for anything useful among the files Ramona had managed to download, Elijah helping her by skimming any documents or designs that merited a second look. Kira had come to the deck, and together with Ricardo, they were standing by Elijah, ready to aid him in any way. Meanwhile, Griida and Vala plotted the quickest route for them to get back to the Moon undetected—by both New Apollo forces and Tull’s ship, assuming the two sides hadn’t mostly destroyed each other back on Io.
The rest of them were left to look over the blueprints and other stolen files, searching for anything that might lead them to the weapon.
Benny felt some comfort in the fact that they were headed back home—or at least home-ish. Finally. But that would mean nothing if they couldn’t get there in time to stop this superweapon, and so far they’d come up with nothing.
“We have to assume that the Orion is heavily armed,” Jasmine said.
“True,” Trevone agreed. “And not just with soldiers and Space Runners equipped with plasma guns. It’s probably got its own weapons.”
“Some of these blueprints are so weird,” Hot Dog said as she turned her HoloTek to a new angle, raising both her eyebrows. “I think these are deep sleep cryochambers.” She looked up at the rest of them. “If I ever, for any reason, think it’s a good idea to freeze myself and wake up on the other side of the universe a million years from now, please tell me that I’m crazy.” She swiped to the next blueprint.
“I dunno,” Benny said. “Think of how far video games and flight sims will have advanced by them. Think of the hyperdrives.”
Hot Dog paused, taking this under consideration. “You know, you’re right. I take back everything I just said.”
Drue let out a yelp, like he’d just been stung by something. He held up his datapad to show it off. “This ship is basically a giant ball, and the entire back half is made up of nothing but hyperdrives. It’s some kind of light-speed space sphere!”
Trevone glanced at the schematics. “The aerodynamics leave much to be desired if you’re attempting to reach light speed.”
“That’s cooler than whatever this is,” Hot Dog said, frowning down at her HoloTek. “It’s basically just an empty titanium coffin with a massive hyperdrive on the back. Why is that even in here with all these crazy ships?”
Jasmine and Trevone both perked up.
“Did you say titanium?” Jasmine asked.
“Well, yeah,” Hot Dog said, holding out her HoloTek. “See for yourselves.”
They hurried to her side so quickly that Hot Dog actually looked frightened for a split second.
“Whoa. Here,” she said, shoving the datapad into Jasmine’s hands. “You can have it.”
Behind them, Elijah turned away from the hologram, his interest piqued by how excited the two of them seemed.
“Is titanium . . . a clue?” Benny asked.
Drue shrugged. “It’s super strong and used in a bunch of Space Runner designs because it’s really light.”
“Titanium was often used to shield electronics from radiation in space before Elijah developed environmental shielding,” Trevone said. “If the superweapon of Dr. Bale’s has delicate targeting systems and they intend to travel through uncharted galaxies . . .”
“Then this could be what it’s being housed in as an added precaution,” Jasmine said.
“Look at the specs on this hyperdrive. It’s way overpowered.”
“Right,” Trevone said. “Which means the Orion could launch this without getting close to the Alpha Maraudi planet. If it’s holding the actual weapon, this casing likely just breaks apart when it’s within range of Calam. Like how old rockets used to fall off of spaceships once they were used up.”
“I haven’t seen any other designs like this. Have you?”
Trevone shook his head.
Benny shrugged. “Okay. So, that’s something we know now. But how does it help?”
“Clever, clever,” Elijah said, beckoning Jasmine and Trevone over. He looked at the HoloTek for a few seconds. “Pinky, pull up this design. Cross-reference any numbers or names associated with this blueprint against the rest of the files.”
“Analyzing now,” Pinky said. “Forty-two diagrams found. Scanning unknown characteristics.”
As she spoke, the hologram flashed between designs, notes, and blueprints. Benny and the others gathered around. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but it seemed important.
The blueprint of the titanium box zoomed in on what looked like locking mechanisms.
“Here,” Pinky said. “These locks inside the box were designed to house something designated as EM-eleven thirty-eight.”
“Search that number,” Elijah said.
“I’m way ahead of you,” The AI replied. “Hmmm, I’ve found the folder, but it’s got an added layer of encryption and . . . Ah, there.”
The hologram erupted with blueprints for something shaped like a thick, angular spike with five wide copper bands around it: a missile of some sort.
There, floating in front of them, were the plans for Dr. Bale’s superweapon.
Elijah shook his head. “Austin, what have you done?”
After so much time wondering about this doomsday device, trying to use it to get the Alpha Maraudi and the New Apollo forces to work with them, Benny kind of couldn’t believe he was looking at schematics for it.
“The more we can learn about it,” Jasmine said, “the better equipped we are to stop it.”
“What does it do?” Vala’s voice came from behind them.
The commander walked slowly to the hologram, lifting her mask, eyes wide as they took in the object that could mean the destruction of so many of her people.
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