by C. G. Hatton
We both nodded.
“You’re out of there in thirty days regardless. We’ll either get you released or…” He paused and looked at Mendhel. “Worst case scenario, we send in an extraction team. Understand this, we do not leave operatives behind. Ever. The new details are on that board, together with a new training schedule.”
He said something else that I didn’t hear. Without even touching it, I could see that the board was connected to the main system. I wanted to know who they had here in Science. If it was Maisie, I wanted to see her again.
I was only vaguely aware of the Chief standing and leaving. I must have looked even worse than I felt. Mendhel leaned across, checked the numbers scrolling on my wristband and sent me up to Medical. They were unimpressed enough that they kept me in which suited me just fine. I didn’t want to be around anyone.
Someone brought another data board in for me, told me it was more intel on the tab and said there’d be more to follow. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t want to think. I faked being tired and ended up crashing out anyway except I had another nightmare, waking up screaming, in a cold sweat with a vague memory of someone saying everything was okay and popping a shot of something into my neck. I couldn’t remember what the nightmare had been about but it left my heart thumping and a hollow chill in the pit of my stomach.
They gave me food but I couldn’t eat because I felt too queasy. The medics fussed and told me my levels were down. Levels of what I didn’t care. When I’d first arrived, I’d overheard them talking about me, malnutrition and post-traumatic stress featuring high in their concerns. Now, they were adding a bad reaction to electrobe poisoning to the list.
I sat there in Medical with an IV line in my arm and my leg stretched out, and I read everything I could access, anything to stop me thinking about what might or might not be happening half way across the galaxy on a dirtball planet I’d hated, and how Maisie might be lying cold and still in a box right here on this ship.
I wish I hadn’t overheard what Mendhel and the Chief had been talking about. I swear I didn’t plan to do what I did, but I so desperately wanted to see her. I started looking through the data banks and pushing the system just enough to let me in a bit further and a bit further and before I knew it, I was hacking into stuff in Science that had unbelievable protections around it. It was like hacking the Imperial garrison on Kheris but a magnitude more challenging. But I could see ways round it or through it, NG had shown me how to, and it became a game of see how far I could get.
I kept half an eye on the door but I wasn’t due any meds and Mendhel had told me to study the briefing so it didn’t look odd that I was sitting there working.
I ended up going through personnel records. They were sealed but I couldn’t resist making a half-assed attempt to find Andreyev. No luck on that but I came across a report I felt bad just looking at. Mendhel’s wife. They had a daughter, Anya, my age. There was a picture of them. His wife, Arianne, was beautiful but their daughter was stunning, smiling like she was beaming right at me out of the picture, the warmth of the smile reaching up to bright blue eyes that crinkled in the corners with such intensity, I couldn’t look away. I think maybe I fell in love with her a bit right then.
I shut it down, heart pounding, losing the connection and staring at the blank screen for a second before I could start again.
I found what I was looking for that time, a list of entries into a morgue from the past few weeks, but it just made me feel worse. They used this complex ID system. No other details except what I could guess was gender and origin. Only one female from Kheris. My hands were shaking, my chest feeling like a fist was pushing against my lungs. I hit a brick wall. I knew where she was, there was just no more information in the system about what had happened to her. I needed to get in there.
The trick to breaking in anywhere is to find the gaps where no one is looking. And there are always gaps. As systems get more and more complicated, people get more and more reliant on automated processes. Habits form, people and even AIs fall into patterns. The obvious gets ignored, then forgotten about and then overlooked completely as time passes. Until someone finds the gap. I’ve always been very good at seeing what other people don’t. At finding those gaps.
No one used physical passes on board the Alsatia so I couldn’t pull the trick I’d always used in the garrison on Kheris. The Senson implants everyone had seemed to be how they kept tabs on where people were and who could go where. That and the wristbands. So I was tagged. But I could take that band off.
I waited until the medics had done their rounds and I was told to get some sleep, then I dressed and slipped out.
I went to the Maze. There was no one else in there. I logged it as a private session. They’d given us that privilege. And I made sure the settings were easy. No electrobes and gravity the same as Kheris.
I found the easiest route through to where I needed to be and I snuck along the dark narrow corridors and access ways.
As much as I’d spent hours in there, I still didn’t know every trick it could pull. A couple of times, I thought I’d sprung a trap as doors closed ahead of me and I had to backtrack away from dead ends. I finally found the door I wanted, climbed a set of steep stairs to get to it and stopped. There was something wrong. Every time I’d been in there, it had always been open. Now it was closed. I must have stood there staring at it for a full two minutes. It felt hinky and the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling so bad I backed away for a second. There wasn’t much light, just a dim glow from blue spots set into the walls and ceiling.
I took a step back and looked up and around. There was a pattern to the lights, a distinct line that ran across the floor, up each wall and across the ceiling, just in front of the door. I took another step back. There was a slight click. I froze, glancing round and spotting a small square panel on the wall, set low down at about hip height, the same colour as the wall, only a faint outline giving it away. I took a chance and pressed my hand on it. Strings of code appeared on the wall, weird characters and symbols I’d never seen before, a timer ticking down fast. I didn’t think. I followed the code, adjusting as it responded to my nudgings, messing up a few times, swearing as I reset it back to the start, and cracking it with only seconds to spare. The adrenaline rush was ridiculous, my hands shaking. I looked up. The glow of the lights turned green. The blast door up ahead opened. There was another click as I stepped forward. I ran through the door and didn’t look back.
Chapter 7
The space I ran in to was called the Void and it was breathtaking, literally. The drop in temperature hit my lungs as I sucked in a breath, looking down into a vast, dark emptiness that dropped out either side of the narrow beam the floor had become, nothing but intense black darkness beyond, as far as I could see. I had to put one foot in front of the other to move forward. It was no different to running along the beams on the wall of the garrison, or skipping from rooftop to rooftop in the middle of the night, except I’d never done that with a metal brace on my leg. I had a few wobbles but I made it to the middle. I leaned down and left my wristband on the beam. If they were monitoring it, it would look like I was sitting there. Thinking. Like I’d done a load of times in the last few days.
I stood and ran the remaining length of the beam. The blast doors ahead of me were open and I walked out into the Block.
That’s where it got tough.
The Block was a maze within the Maze. There were a hundred ways through and the whole place was patrolled by drones that could be programmed and controlled to behave in different ways, sometimes to simulate human activity, sometimes animals such as guard dogs, other times they just behaved like the inhuman AIs they were. At our level of training back then, they usually just activated a lockdown if they spotted you, although sometimes they were equipped with FTH, fast takedown rounds, with a stun charge that could knock you out cold. And there were times when they’d programme in surprises and we didn’t know what they’d do and we just had to run thr
ough and make damn sure they didn’t catch sight of us. That first week I was in there, I didn’t know how bad they could be. Ignorance is great sometimes.
Some of the drones were about the size of a baseball and simply emitted a signal that simulated a life sign; they were used to train us on tracking equipment. It was one of those I was looking for. I ran through, climbed up onto an overhead gantry and waited. It didn’t take long for one of the little bots to come pootling past below me. I dropped down, grabbed it and slammed it against the wall. It made a desperate whining sound, tried to spin round in my hand and let out a hiss as I hit it against the wall again. It went dark and stopped moving.
Peanut would have loved those damn robots. He’d probably have taken one as a pet and programmed it to follow him around. I hated them. I hit it against the wall again for good measure then pried open its cover plate with Charlie’s knife, deliberately damaging it as I did and nicking my finger in the process. The drone wasn’t complicated, but then it didn’t need to be, it only had a single purpose but I needed to be quick. If it didn’t reboot, a sweeper drone would appear to collect it and take it back for repair. I flicked its life signs emitter onto null, then snapped the damaged panel closed. After a few seconds, it started to reactivate, its blue light turning red to indicate a system fault. The damaged access panel would cause it to transmit that its mobility was impaired. It would be recalled to Science for repair, and that was exactly what I needed.
It started to flash, indicating that it was out of service. I’d seen this happen only once before and watched as a faulty drone had trundled up to a section of wall where a hatch, almost invisible, had slid open and the machine had disappeared into the depths of the Alsatia. It hadn’t taken too much digging around in the system to figure out where they were going.
I hefted the drone in my hand and moved along the wall until I spotted the section I was looking for. As I approached, a section of wall close to the floor silently slid open. Clutching the drone, I got down on my stomach and looked inside. It was barely wide enough for me. No adult aboard the Alsatia could have fitted in there. And it was pitch black. Drones don’t need light.
I squeezed into the hole and began to worm my way through. I’m not claustrophobic but being in a space that tight in total darkness does strange things to your mind and to your senses. Time meant nothing. I was back on Kheris, sneaking through the crawlspaces of the garrison after curfew, Latia safe in her home, Charlie out on patrol, Maisie waiting to see what I’d bring back, waiting for me with a laugh and a hug at the ready. All I needed to do was get in and get out. It was nothing but a game. Find food. Avoid trouble. Stay alive.
Except they hadn’t.
I stopped, resting on my elbows, and buried my head in my arms. I couldn’t get lost there. It had happened. It sucked. There was nothing I could do about it. But I wanted to see her.
I forced myself to move. I was getting close. I felt more than saw the sensors up ahead. Science was a closed system. Totally isolated from the rest of the Alsatia. And it was as secure physically as it was electronically. I inched forward. The scanners in the tunnel were expecting a humanoid life sign and they were getting one, albeit one that was moving very slowly. I hadn’t disabled the drone’s automatic recognition system so it was still broadcasting and that’s all the system saw. Nothing out of the ordinary. Something so obvious no one would have thought of it. A gap in the system.
I stopped and listened once I reached the end of the tube, then climbed out into a dark, quiet maintenance area. I tossed the drone into the pile waiting for repairs and stood at the door, listening. I knew the layout of Science by heart. I knew the staff rotas, scheduled maintenance plans, cleaning rosters, the status of every active project and the inventory of its lab equipment store. I knew where they were keeping her. And I knew how to get to her.
My heart was thumping as I pulled open the drawer. It had taken me over an hour to work my way through Science to the morgue without being seen. I’d had to wait for ten minutes in a ventilation shaft before I was sure the staff in there were done for the shift. I had five minutes before the next shift would appear.
There was no name on the drawer. Just the ID. No notes or tags. I pulled it out. She had a cover over her. I stared, my hands shaking.
I pulled back the cover.
Chapter 8
It wasn’t Maisie.
I almost folded. She’d been beautiful whoever she was. Except for a burn across her face, slicing her features in two. She had tattoos inked on both arms, another on her neck. She was Earth marine corps.
She wasn’t Maisie.
I stared at her. She must have been out there, in the desert, at the crashed ship. Probably one of the emergency teams that had rushed to help before they knew what it was. I’d never really known what had happened to everyone else out there that night. Except they’d all died. And I hadn’t.
It dawned on me slowly that I was standing in Science, in the centre of the most secure, off limits area of the Alsatia, staring at a woman I didn’t know, for no reason at all.
I pulled the cover back into place and slid back the drawer, my hands shaking even more than they had been. Even getting back the hope that Maisie could still be alive, I felt a galaxy apart from her.
I heard a sound behind me. I shouldn’t have been in there. I shouldn’t have been anywhere near Science. I needed to get out, get back to the Void, pick up Charlie’s wristband and crawl back to Medical.
And hope like hell no one had missed me.
I don’t know how I made it back to the maintenance area. I had a horrible feeling I was running out of time. I ended up in a crawlspace above the corridor, no way into the area above the maintenance shop itself and too many people busying about below to drop out and try the door. I waited there, every minute an agonising delay. There was no let up. It shouldn’t have been that busy. I knew all the shift patterns and everything was out of kilter. I waited longer than I should have before I backed away. I needed another way out. There was only one way I could think of. Apart from walking up to someone and handing myself in. Which was not an option. I needed to break out. Sometimes that’s harder than breaking in.
I found a way. And it almost killed me. Have you ever seen the hull of a deep spacer? And I don’t mean have you seen it from the cosy safety of an orbital. Outside, it’s different. It makes you think, to see the scale of it, to feel the enormity of the universe beyond, to feel the heat drain out of your body and watch the gauge drop as your air runs out.
The trembling was spreading through the muscles of my arms and legs, tremors that were getting worse as I tried to pull myself over a mass of pipework that was sucking the warmth from my hands with every briefest touch, even through the thermally insulated gloves of the suit I was wearing. The EVA suit I’d stolen from a maintenance bay, that was way too big, running out of juice and must have had a leak because there was no way I was breathing that much air that fast. I’d given up gawping at the stars and the vast, sprawling expanse of space by then. I’d miscalculated, badly miscalculated, and in about… I glanced sideways at the heads up display… two minutes, I was going to die unless I found another way back in or figured out a way to survive without oxygen.
A panel ahead of me shifted, plumes of gas venting out into the empty darkness. I lost the tenuous grip I had on anything solid and for a stomach-churning, heart-stopping fraction of a second, I free-floated and, I swear, it felt like the mass of the huge ship moved away from me and left me hanging there in nothing.
If it went into jump now, I was dead.
I grabbed for a handhold and swung round as my arm hooked around a beam, snagging the suit so it felt like it was going to tear right off, and bumped back up against the hull. It was unreal. I should have been smarter but, believe me, in that moment, everything I knew about inertia and momentum was a long way from that immediate reality.
One minute fifty. The beams from the helmet lights were fading. My knee was throbbing despit
e the pain meds the brace was injecting. The suit was beeping an insistent warning, lights flashing on the display. It had looked so easy on the blueprints. I hauled myself along the beam and worked out the distance to the vent I’d been planning on using, and it didn’t add up. Not with the levels of air and energy the suit had left. I needed another way in.
I felt tiny. Stupid. Overwhelmed. Hungry. And cold, did I say cold? The trembling was turning into shivering. I’d always hated the heat of Kheris, hated the stifling heat and the dust and the sweltering humidity of the thunderstorms. But right then, I’d have gratefully taken that desert dirtball over the sterile, never-ending, chill metal hull of that ship in deep space.
One minute thirty. I could see lights winking, way off, out of the corner of my eye through the visor and I didn’t know if they were real, drop ships docking or ship systems coming to life, or if my eyes were going. I was getting light-headed, hauling myself along, my right hand screaming each time I had to use it and my fingers numb. The hull of the ship was humming beneath me, even through the suit I could feel the vibrations, the entire mass seeming to pulse. The main drives were powering up. If they engaged, I’d be atomised. If the ship moved, I’d be left stranded.
One minute twenty. I needed to think, better than I was. I knew the entire ship. I’d memorised the plans for this entire section, deck by deck, the whole outside surface down to every beam and strut. But memorising from blueprints and schematics is never quite the same as the real thing.
There’d be a way in, I just had to find it.
Fast.