They stepped through the outer door of the airlock, and the door closed just as Criss arrived. The inner airlock door opened. He leaned to look in through the narrow window. Two flashes from a weapon caused him to duck.
Chapter 36
“We have company,” said Sid. He measured the length of the filament wire with a glance and, realizing he didn’t have enough play, set Lenny’s com on the floor under the window. He lay face down and, propelling himself with his knees and elbows, scooted under the table in the center of the room.
Lenny, still in the seat in front of the alien panel, worked frantically to restart the drone conveyor.
“It’s too late for that. I need you over by your com giving me updates.”
Sid shifted the chairs at the table so they gave him some semblance of cover. He made sure, though, he had a clear shot at the door through the jumble of seats and legs.
“Move, Len. Now!”
He pointed his weapons, one on each wrist, at the inner door of the airlock. Good spot, he thought, sweeping his aim up and down and left to right to gauge his line of sight.
Lenny whimpered as he slid to the floor and crawled to his com.
“Tell me what you see.” Sid’s eyes remained riveted on the inner door.
“There’re two of them and they’re headed this way. If they come straight here, I’d say we have two minutes.”
“Can you shoot one of these?” Sid raised his arm so Lenny could see his wrist.
“Yeah.”
Sid looked at him. “Any good?”
“I’m a level two marksman.”
Level two marksman? “So you’re good with them in sim games. Have you ever fired a real weapon?”
“Not really.” He sat curled in a ball against the front wall, staring at the projected image from his com.
Will you be a help or a hindrance? Sid assessed Lenny’s body language. “Len. Look at me. Your experience will help us.”
Sid waited for his supportive comment to work its way into Lenny’s thoughts, but the young man continued to stare at his com. “I need you alert, pal. How much time?”
Lenny glanced at Sid and then back at his com. “About a minute.”
“Okay. Lie down on your stomach, like me. Keep your com on the floor out in front of you.”
Lenny shifted down as instructed, and as he positioned himself, Sid removed the weapon from his left wrist. “Put this on.” He slid it across the floor.
Looking at it with wide eyes, Lenny picked it up, examined it for a few moments, slapped it on his wrist, and primed it.
“Slow down there, soldier,” said Sid, priming his own weapon. “You don’t fire unless I’ve made a mess of it. That means either I’m dead, or one of them is drawing a bead on you.” He laid his left arm flat on the floor and rested his right wrist on top of it. Drawing on his years of experience, he controlled his breathing and relaxed his body, willing his heartbeat to slow.
“How much time?” Before Lenny could answer, Sid saw the heads of the two Kardish move past the front window. One glanced in but continued walking without breaking stride. He didn’t see us.
“I’m going to let them come most of the way through this inner door before I drop them. I don’t want bodies falling out onto the field deck.”
The outer door cycled, and Sid could hear the two aliens talking.
“Stay calm, partner,” Sid whispered. “Let them get inside.”
The inner door opened and a royal guardsman in his colorful finery stepped into the room. He looked back over his shoulder as he entered, animating his arms as if recounting a tale. The second alien, dressed in drab clothing, focused his attention on the guardsman.
Sid waited until the inner door began to shut. Zwip. Zwip. Two bolts of white energy flew from his weapon. Both Kardish jerked upright as if rising to attention, and then they collapsed to the deck.
“Nice shooting,” said Lenny, a sense of wonder in his voice. “You’re probably a level two yourself.”
Sid heard the outer door cycle open. “Was there someone else?” His tone put urgency in the question.
“No.” Lenny backed up the vid timeline and played it through at high speed. “The camball doesn’t show anyone.”
Sid rolled on his side and craned his neck, trying to peer out through the window of the inner door. He couldn’t get enough of an angle to see much of the airlock, so he rolled back and aimed at the inner door. “Calm and easy, Len. Let him come.”
The inner door remained shut. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty.
Lenny fidgeted. “What’s he doing?”
Tap, tap, tap. Tap…tap…tap. Tap, tap, tap. The intruder, still hidden, thumped the wall.
“S-O-S,” said Lenny, recognizing the distress signal pattern in Morse code.
Sid called out in a voice loud enough to carry into the airlock. “Wait there.”
He shifted his weapon off the inner door and moved it halfway toward Lenny. “That’s a friend. Relax your weapon.”
Lenny bent his arm, but his weapon remained primed. Sid waited until Lenny looked over and acknowledged the command. He didn’t want any mistakes.
Following the habit of an experienced covert agent, Sid retargeted the door. “Come,” he called in the same loud voice.
The inner door opened and then closed. Sid didn’t see or hear movement. He called into the airlock, “Identify yourself.” That code should’ve meant Criss or Cheryl.
“No worries, Sid.” The sound came from the right side of the room.
Lenny panicked, jerking his weapon in random aiming motions.
“You gave Lenny a firearm?” The voice had moved near a sturdy cabinet.
“I go by Len, now,” Lenny said, continuing his erratic movements.
Sid pointed his weapon at the young man. “Len, stand down.”
Lenny hesitated, and then let his arm rest on the floor. “Where is he?”
Sid kept his weapon on Lenny. “You may keep the weapon, but you will not shoot.”
Lenny nodded once, but his eyes continued to dart near where they’d heard the voice.
“Are you physically here, or are you talking to us through the Kardish subsystems?” Sid hoped it was the latter, because that would mean Criss had control of the dreadnaught.
“I’m here in a cloak suit. I’m taking the hood off. Len, please don’t shoot me.”
“Your quest is over, Len,” said Sid, his weapon still aimed at the floor near Lenny’s head. “Meet your super crystal.”
* * *
Lenny recognized the head floating near a back cabinet. That’s the guy from the lodge. He tested his theory. “You’re Criss.”
“I’m glad you’re both safe,” Criss replied. A shimmering pack appeared at his feet. “I brought cloak suits. I suggest you dress while we talk.”
Lenny watched Sid to see how the suits worked and followed his lead. Moments later, three floating heads discussed strategy.
Criss directed his comments to Sid. “Cheryl and Juice are in the scout out on the field deck. We slipped in on the tail end of that troopship deployment. If we are to save Earth, we have a couple of hours to cripple this vessel.”
“What’s your plan?” asked Sid.
A heartbeat passed, and Criss replied, “To find you and learn what you’ve discovered.”
Lenny’s despair grew as he listened to the exchange.
“If I enter the Kardish central array”—Criss glanced briefly at Lenny—“think of it like the ship’s central nervous system…then I can access and control everything on this vessel. I could end the invasion in seconds. The challenge is that the crystal running the ship—the gatekeeper—is hundreds of times more powerful than me. If I expose myself to it, it will kill me.”
“Can you sneak up on it somehow?” asked Sid. “Surprise it?”
“I haven’t discovered a way,” said Criss.
“How do Kardish leaders execute override commands?” asked Lenny. “Hell, there’s a small panel right
here that controls this facility. There must be a master panel somewhere that lets us do big things.”
Criss looked where Lenny pointed and, without taking his eyes off it, walked over and sat down. The panel lit up.
“All I can see is your head,” said Lenny, watching from behind where Criss’s left shoulder would be. “Are you touching it, or did it light up from your presence?”
“I’m touching it,” said Criss. Tap. Tap. Swipe. Tap. “This is a nice find, Len.”
The lights danced, and Lenny recognized some of the displays he’d discovered during his own time at the panel. Then they turned markedly different.
* * *
Criss remembered everything from his brief service as gatekeeper. In that role, he’d controlled the central array of the Kardish prince’s vessel, so he knew every level, access point, and block in its alien architecture. Sitting at Lenny’s panel, he searched for similarities that carried forward from that vessel into the dreadnaught design.
This panel, with its low-level status, provided access to a handful of subsystems on the dreadnaught. Moving beyond those basic functions required the Kardish equivalent of keys, passwords, and feature recognition. Criss had the knowledge to burrow his way upward using this panel but refrained from doing so because it would trigger alerts and a security sweep.
Instead, he went to the subsystem that every panel and every Kardish had free access to—supply chain. Ship occupants used supply chain for everything from cleaning, clothing, and food, to med packs, fuel, and weapons. Need more ammo or a van to carry gear or a part for a repair? Supply chain provided a one-stop provisions shop. Requests come from all over the ship. No one will notice if I enter.
Criss knew that a hiccup in the supply-chain subsystem could threaten an active mission and, by association, the well-being of the subsystem maintainers. To protect themselves on the prince’s vessel, the maintainers had camouflaged a low wall—a back door of sorts—so they could enter and manipulate supply chain from the lowliest of panels.
The back door offered them unfettered access from anywhere and at any time. On a moment’s notice, they could unsnarl nuisances before they became problems. This kept the vessel running smoothly. And it keeps their heads on their shoulders.
Using Lenny’s panel, Criss entered supply chain and began searching for that hidden wall. Exhilaration flooded his crystal lattice when he found it in the same place and with the same weak defense. Swipe. Tap. He hopped over the wall and landed in the hub of the central array.
An unmapped labyrinthine world of the maintainers, the hub exposed the underbelly of the dreadnaught. Those with knowledge could do anything from here. Tap. Tap. Criss dashed for one of the few control levers freely accessible to maintainers in the hub yet blocked from manipulation by the gatekeeper crystal.
“Hold on to something,” he warned Sid and Lenny.
He reached to make his game-ending play, and as he started to swipe the panel, something tackled him. His body lifted from the chair and slammed to the floor. Fists pummeled his stomach and chest. It grabbed his hair and slammed his head on the deck. His whole body was lifted and slammed down again and again. The flesh and sinew of the synbod threatened to yield to this brutal, unrelenting physical punishment.
And while he suffered this physical terror, the aggressor seemed to enter his mind. A face with a maniacal grin filled his vision. His sense of taste and smell spun through overwhelming intensities—sweet, sour, acidic, spicy, oily, tangy. The face began to laugh. The sound of insanity pierced his hearing.
Goljat.
Criss knew this crystal was strong and cruel. The brutality of the episode in his underground bunker still fresh in his mind, Criss kept his fear in check and marshaled his resources as he sought a means of fighting back, or at least of stopping the onslaught.
Stunned by the crushing attack, he dug deep into his reserves. A portion of his intellectual capacity sat idle because the synbod had such limited sensory inputs. He shifted his analysis to this unused capacity, and that’s when he understood that Goljat’s methods, while frightening and intense, remained limited to the sensing pathways of the synbod—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell.
Criss realized that, just as he was hampered in the body by limited sensory inputs, so was Goljat in using these as weapons of terror. The shortcomings that frustrate me also constrain Goljat in his assault.
He hurt everywhere. But from the refuge deep within his crystal lattice, he concluded that, like the attack in his bunker, this was all an illusion. He had not been lifted, slammed, or struck. In fact, he was convinced he still sat in the chair in front of the panel, exactly where he’d been before the assault.
That meant his hand still hovered above the panel, ready to make the game-ending play. He couldn’t see, feel, hear, or speak. He fought past the horrific illusions broadcast by Goljat and, from the recesses of his lattice, forced a command for Crispin to swipe his hand.
Chapter 37
Juice’s attention wandered as the projected image shifted to yet another door in the dividing wall. She’d debated several times with Cheryl about whether a scratch here or scuff there could be Sid’s elusive sign. They’d been studying doors for more than an hour, and her feeling of hopelessness grew as her concentration waned.
“Let’s say it comes down to you and me,” said Juice. “Time runs out and we have to take action. What could we do?”
Cheryl slouched back in her chair but remained silent.
“Criss suggested we act on our best idea,” said Juice. “We should think of at least one thing to try before finishing with the doors.”
Cheryl zoomed out so the image showed a broad vista across the field deck. After a few moments of quiet, she sat upright. “Lucy, are you able to detonate the drones on the scout?”
“My training does not include that capability,” Lucy responded in her breathy voice. “I am able to initiate and launch them. Additional functions are controlled by others.”
“Geez,” said Juice. “When Sid and Lenny took off that first time from the lodge, the nav was a guy. When did it become sexy Lucy?”
They stared at the vista for a bit longer, and Juice built on Cheryl’s idea. “What if we blasted that drone garage with one of the scout’s energy weapons? Do you think we could start a chain reaction? If all those drones exploded at once, it’d break this ship in half.”
“Lucy,” said Cheryl, “do you know any way to trigger a drone explosion with an energy pulse?”
“My training does not include that capability.”
“Humph.” Cheryl again slouched in her seat. “I wish I’d known there were cloak suits on board. I would’ve sent Sid and Lenny in them from the beginning.”
Juice nodded. “I keep thinking how we spent two years preparing, and now that the Kardish are here, I’m hard-pressed to say that any of it paid off.”
“Check this out,” said Cheryl. She zoomed the projected image, and they watched two Kardish walking next to the dividing wall. After a few moments, she zoomed back out. “Do you think being left behind during the invasion is a privilege, or should they feel shame?”
As the Kardish progressed, Cheryl broadened the panoramic view to keep them from walking out of the picture. “When Sid rescued me from Lunar Base,” she said, “Lucy had that wispy female voice. I assumed Criss picked it.”
They looked at each other and spoke in unison. “Lenny.”
“The guy’s a piece of work,” said Juice. She stared at the image and thought about detonating drones.
The two Kardish disappeared from the field deck through a side door.
Juice, deep in thought as she cycled through actions they might take, saw a faint flash of light through a window near the door they’d used. “Did you see that?” she pointed. “Zoom in and play back when they went inside.”
Cheryl made an adjustment, and they watched a close-up of the Kardish entering an airlock. She shifted focus to the narrow window next to the airlock door, an
d they both counted two distinct flashes during a slow-motion replay. She flipped to a live-action projection and zoomed in on the center of the narrow window. They leaned forward together.
“Can you see anything inside?” Cheryl asked, fiddling with different settings.
“No. All I see is dark.”
After more tweaks and no improvement, Cheryl zoomed out and they looked at the field deck. “I don’t see any Kardish.” She pulled back for an even broader view. “Two went in. Two flashes. None came out.”
She looked at Juice. “Did Criss bring a weapon with him?”
“I don’t know,” said Juice, her attention on the image. “But if I had to bet, I’d say Sid’s in there and he’s the one shooting.”
Cheryl sat motionless for half a minute, then stood up and moved behind her seat. “Lucy, where are the cloak suits?” She tapped the seat back with her fingers.
“All three are in use.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Juice. No way you’re leaving me here alone.
Cheryl strode to the back of the scout. Juice watched the empty passageway. She was about to get up and follow when Cheryl returned with space coveralls.
Juice swiveled her chair toward Cheryl. “What are you thinking?” she said again.
“We need to decide on a path forward, and we need to do it soon.” She stepped into the coveralls and secured the front up around her neck. The hood draped down her back. “Sid risked everything to save me…”
Midsentence, a deafening howl filled the Kardish vessel. Blaring and thunderous, they heard the wail through the bulkhead of the scout itself. Soulful in its torment, it cried of pain and agony. The scout lurched and started to shake. Cheryl gripped the back of her chair and pulled herself forward, fighting to regain her seat.
“Uhh,” she grunted, securing the seat restraints as the dreadnaught bucked and twisted.
The scout rumbled, started to slide, and then bounced as the field deck shook.
It’s like the dreadnaught is splitting open, thought Juice. She studied the projected image for anything that might explain these troubling events.
Crystal Conquest Page 28