Cloaked

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Molly smiled, and Pieter glanced sideways at her noticing her expression. “But of course you knew that,” he added blushing and sinking into his chair a little more.

  Molly glanced back at him from the corner of her eye. “It’s ok,” she told him.

  Pieter sat forward and poked at his holo, changing the displays one by one. “Hmm,” he remarked, flicking through and zooming in on one of the graphs.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Pieter frowned. “Looks like the conductivity of their blood has altered.”

  Molly leaned in, her eyes now scanning his screens for more intel. “They’re all being poisoned?”

  Pieter shook his head. “Nope. No. They’re ok. They’re out drinking and it’s just kicking in.” He sat back again, relaxing.

  Molly turned in her chair to look at him directly. “And how do you know that?” she pressed, her eyes boring into the side of his head.

  Pieter swiped at a screen, activating the audio feed on one of them. Sean’s guffaw reverberated around the conference room, against a hubbub of background chatter.

  Molly and Pieter chuckled.

  “Ok,” Molly conceded. “They’re out drinking.”

  Pieter dropped the audio feed from the intercom.

  Molly turned to get up. “Ok. So if all is well, I’ll leave you to it. You and Paige have figured out a relief schedule, right?”

  Pieter nodded. “Yeah, She’ll be taking over for me in a few hours,” he confirmed.

  “Great,” Molly concluded. “Keep me posted.”

  With that she got up and headed back out of the conference room.

  Pieter swiped the audio channel back on, and listened to the chatter of his friends. The loneliness of the task, and their absence, somewhat abated by being able to hear them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On board the Flutningsaðili, Uptarlung Space Port

  “Looks like this is it… this time.” Maya gazed numbly over at Jayne as they were told for the third time to strap into their crew seats.

  Jayne cocked an ear listening to the sound of the engines for a moment. “Yep. I think so. They normally have a few tries at it before we actually get airborne. It’s a dance they do with air traffic control here. I think the pilot has a rather fraught relationship with the staff over there.”

  Brock’s ears pricked up. “Oh yeah?” he asked, injecting himself into the conversation in the hope of gleaning some insight into Crash’s bizarre sparring with them.

  “Yeah,” Jayne continued switching into gossip-mode. “I think one of the pilots used to be married to the director or something. We never had a problem at any of the other ports,” she confessed.

  Brock bobbed his head. “Well, at least that’s a logical explanation.”

  The three of them had chosen seats in close proximity to each other in the main personnel hold. There were about two dozen of them in total - that they could see. Plus there would be pilots and engineers no doubt making the lift off happen. Mind, it was a big ship. There could be other rooms where people were strapped in for take off.

  “Is this your first time in space?” Jayne called over to Maya.

  Maya nodded. “Yeah. I’m worried about space sickness.”

  Jayne made her professional ‘empathetic face’. “Ah. It might be uncomfortable for a little while until we’re out of the planet’s gravitational field and until they turn the antigrav on… but after that it should subside.”

  Maya frowned. “Why do they have to wait to turn the antigrav on? I thought when ships went up they had it on the whole time?”

  Jayne shook her head. “No, it messes with the escape too much. On the smaller ships it’s not a problem, but if you consider the size of this thing, and the weight we’re carrying…”

  Maya nodded, her eyes quite grave. “I see,” she said, now truly concerned about the space sickness.

  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 ok. 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 ok with that.”

  Jayne checked her holo. “Ok, 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 take off 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. 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. “Ok, 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% occurrence in these forty-odd problem companies.”

  Joel stood up to wander round to his 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. Ok, 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 ships 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 clean ups. 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. “Ok. 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 misted up 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.