“Yes, sir!”
“Then please go and notify her that we have a serious problem.”
“Right away, sir!” Ensign Youngstrom called and then turned and jogged to the main door of the bridge. It was a waste of time though as the door slid open before he was even half way to it.
The door didn’t open with its normal smooth motion, but instead it slid in a slow herky-jerky movement. It soon became apparent as to the cause of the weird motion. The door didn’t open on its own, but instead it was being pulled open by three men. As soon as the door was open, the three men fell back out of sight and the captain strode onto the bridge.
Captain Jane Rogers was in her mid-fifties and looked every bit the warship captain. She was in excellent shape and her graying, reddish-brown hair was pulled back in perfect regulation style. She had a piercing gaze and she brooked no nonsense on her ship. In truth, she had commanded several smaller warships during the war with the Commonwealth, but now that the war was over, she found herself in command of a prison ship. The appointment had been rather galling, but the secret to a successful military career was to bide your time. This appointment wouldn’t last forever and she was determined to see it through.
Her gaze swept the bridge and came to rest on Commander Griffith. She turned her steps towards him and quickly crossed the bridge. “What happened?” she demanded in way of greeting.
He shouldn’t be surprised to see the Captain already but Griffith couldn’t help himself. True, her quarters were located on the same level and only thirty or so yards away, but the woman must sleep in her uniform. He tried to stand even straighter and said, “Approximately two minutes ago the ship’s engines cut off and we reverted to normal space. The ship’s computer is still online, but we can’t access it. Interstellar and inter-ship communications are offline.” He paused briefly and then added in a quieter voice, “The only thing that I can think of is a computer virus, but I can’t imagine how it got on the secure net.” That much was true; there were strict guidelines about what could be placed on the secure net and anyone caught breaking those regulations suffered a quick and unpleasant punishment.
Captain Rogers was silent for a short moment and then nodded. “Where’s Lieutenant Palmer?”
Griffith wished he knew. Lieutenant Palmer was the resident expert on the ship’s computer. “Uh, I don’t know Captain. He’s not on-duty and without communications it’ll be nearly impossible to find him.”
The Captain nodded and turned to the group of computer techs, most of them were still hunched over their computer terminals. “Can any of you give me any more information about the computer?”
The lead tech, a man named Woolsey, straightened up and turned to face the Captain. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more, Captain. Whatever happened it locked us out good.”
“Uh, Captain,” said a young man. It was the same man that had notified Griffith that the computer was still online.
“Yes? You have something?” the Captain demanded.
“I think so. It seems that once the engines shut off, the communications gear began broadcasting a signal. It’s a local broadcast, not interstellar.”
The Captain’s eyes widened in a rare show of emotion. “What signal’s being sent?”
The young tech looked a little rattled by the Captain’s reaction but he answered quickly. “It’s a static signal. Appears to be nothing more than two long beeps and two short.”
The Captain’s forehead furrowed in confusion and then her face lit up in alarm. “You said it’s only being broadcast locally?”
The tech nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
Captain Rogers swallowed hard and turned her attention back to the lead tech. “Can the computer be rebooted from here?” The bridge was on the top of the ship and toward the front, the computer room was located on one of the middle levels and toward the rear of the ship. If they had to go there to reboot the computer, then it might very well take them an hour to reach it.
The tech’s eyes widened in surprise. “Rebooted?” he repeated hesitantly. “Captain, I’ve never heard of that being done before.”
There was a flicker of anger in the Captain’s face and she spoke in a quieter voice. “I asked you a question. Can the computer be rebooted from here?”
The tech swallowed hard, realizing he had made a mistake. “My apologies, Captain.” He paused and took a deep breath. “There is a way to reset the computer, but it will take the approval of yourself and another senior officer.” He motioned past the row of terminals. “It’ll have to be done at the Computer Systems Console.” He led the way past the staring computer techs to a small and rather unused looking console.
Captain Rogers followed the tech and waved for Commander Griffiths to join them.
The tech sat down at the console and began typing. Strangely, the computer seemed to respond to his input.
“Why is this system working?” Commander Griffith asked.
“It’s firmware based and doesn’t interact directly with the main computer,” the tech answered, without even looking up.
“Then how will it reboot the ship’s systems?” Griffith asked.
“This system monitors the power feeds, both primary and redundant, to the main ship’s systems. There are eight separate power conduits that are each capable of individually supply the ship’s computer with power. I’m going to use this system to turn off all eight conduits. The ship’s systems will come down hard. We’ll need to leave it off for at least a minute and then I will turn the power back on.”
“And the system will boot back up?” Griffith asked. He didn’t like the sound of this plan, but was hesitant to say so to the Captain.
“It should,” Captain Rogers answered, “and to an uncorrupted state.” She paused and looked at the Commander. “I don’t do this lightly,” she said quietly. “If a signal is being broadcast to local space than that must mean that someone is out there to hear it. I think this might be an attempt to break free some of our prisoners.”
Commander Griffith felt a chill run down his spine and he dearly hoped that the Captain was wrong. If any of the prisoners managed to get away then the entire command staff’s careers would be over. In fact, they would be lucky to avoid going to prison themselves.
The tech stood up from the chair, “Captain, I must warn you that it will probably take twenty or thirty minutes to come back up.”
The Captain nodded. “I know.” She looked at the terminal. “What do I need to do?”
Aaron punched in the code and the door to the prison cell began opening. It slid halfway open and stopped. Perplexed, he punched the code in again but nothing happened, then the meaning dawned on him. They’ve rebooted the ship’s computer! That meant this was to be the last prisoner they freed, with the computer down, the doors wouldn’t open.
Looking in through the half-open door, he spotted an older woman looking back at him. It was difficult to see much in the emergency lighting, but he thought she was sixty or so. She looked to be slim, but her skin seemed loose, like she hadn’t been eating much lately.
“What’s going on?” she asked. There wasn’t the first sign of fear in her voice.
Impressed by the woman’s coolness, Aaron leaned his head in through the open door. “We’re breaking out of here and you’re welcome to come along.”
She studied him for a moment. “Is this some kind of cruel Unionists’ trick?”
Aaron shook his head. “No trick. Stay in your cell if you want to, but if you’re coming with us then you’d better move your ass.”
The woman didn’t need to be told twice but practically jumped through the door and into the hall. She noticed the plasmic for the first time and she grew suspicious again. “Do I get a gun?”
Aaron chuckled despite himself. “No, but if you do what you’re told then you might just get off of this tub alive. Give us any problems and we’ll kill you ourselves.”
The woman swallowed hard but nodded.
Aaron
led her back to the main group of prisoners, but he stopped short at the sight of the large group of people waiting for them. He hadn’t realized how many prisoners they had set free. Running his eyes over the group, he guessed there must be nearly forty in total.
The woman stopped when he did and she looked at him quizzically. He jerked his head towards the other prisoners. “Go on, but remember what I said.”
Susan and Jessica moved over to join Aaron but just then a prisoner called out, “What now?”
Aaron chose to ignore the man’s shout and instead spoke quietly. “I’m going in front, and I want you two ladies to bring up the rear.” He leaned closer and spoke even quieter, “If anyone gets out of line, shoot them.”
They both nodded and Aaron left them and walked to the prisoners. He broke into a jog and as he reached the group of watching prisoners, he said, “Come on, we got to hurry. If you’re too slow, then you can just stay here.”
It took mere moments to reach the elevators, but of course they weren’t working with the computer still being down. A few feet to the right of the elevators was an emergency access panel. Normally, these access panels were electronically locked and required a special access code to enter, but with the ship’s systems down, the emergency access panels automatically disengaged. It was a safety precaution. In the event of an emergency, the crew might need access in order to evacuate the ship. Aaron had the panel disconnected and out of the way in a flash. He leaned in and looked downward. The same emergency lighting that lit up the corridors also lit up the elevator shafts. A ladder made of metal was attached along the side of the grey shaft. The ladder was actually in a recessed portion of the wall, so that moving elevators couldn’t collide with a person and stationary elevators couldn’t block the shaft.
Aaron looked back at the prisoners that were crowding around him. “Follow me and don’t get lost. We have to go down three levels.” With that, he climbed into the shaft and began descending the ladder.
The constant beeping had nearly put Russell into a hypnotic state when the sounds abruptly stopped. The change jerked him back to awareness and he looked around stupidly for a moment before he realized what had happened. The beeping had stopped and that mean the computer was down.
“Time to rupture some lines,” he said with a sense of glee. Sitting there had begun to feel like he was waiting to die, at least moving again made him feel like he was doing something.
He was still roughly ten yards from the conduit, and he knelt down facing the portion of the conduit that bulged out over the hull of the ship. Then, taking careful aim, he fired a shot from the plasmic carbine that he carried. The gun was similar to the plasmic pistols that the others were carrying, except the barrel was longer; its length approaching that of a rifle.
The shot ripped through the top of the coolant line and a white mist rushed out into space. The carbine had kicked when he pulled the trigger, but in space it was utterly silent.
“One down, three to go,” Russell said aloud. The sound of his own voice was soothing.
White coolant was still rushing into space as he rushed back toward the middle of the ship and the second coolant line.
It took nearly ten minutes for Aaron to get all the prisoners down the elevator shaft. Some of the prisoners were older and still others were out of shape, and these two factors were the primary reasons for their slow descent.
Aaron hadn’t considered the poor physical conditioning of the prisoners slowing them down, and at one point he was seriously beginning to consider leaving some of them behind. He might have actually done it, but for the fact that the slower prisoners were between him and Jessica and Susan. So, in the end, he just gritted his teeth and waited for everyone to clear the elevator shaft. After what seemed like forever, Jessica’s head popped through the opening, and she was followed closely by Susan.
“Okay,” he said in relief at the sight of his friends, “we’re going to have to go double time. If anyone falls behind, then let em.” Without another word he turned and jogged to the far end of the prisoners. “We’re behind schedule,” he called out in a loud carrying voice. “We need to make up time, hurry and follow me.”
They had emerged from the elevator shaft farther towards the rear of the ship than when he and Susan had reconnoitered the area, so they were in unfamiliar territory and they were running behind schedule. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to creep along and they had to rush, regardless of the danger. Luckily, this level was mainly used for storage, so the danger was kept to a minimum.
They jogged for several minutes, until, all of a sudden, a man stepped out of the shadows and waived his arms. Obviously he was a crewman. “Hey! Do you know what’s going on?” he shouted. Then he spotted the neon pink shirts and shorts that most of Aaron’s group were wearing. He certainly knew what they meant, because he tried to dodge back into the shadows of the doorway.
The man was too slow and Aaron’s first shot caught the man in the upper left back and spun him around. He slammed hard into the wall and slid down to rest against the wall. For a moment the man was still alive and he tried to draw his gun. He failed miserably, though, and dropped the gun on the ground in front of him. Then, he slowly slumped over and lay dead on the floor.
Aaron scanned the area for other crewmen but none were forthcoming. Slowly, he lowered the gun and moved forward to pick up the guard’s gun. One of the prisoners beat him to it though. The prisoner was a muscular white man with a bald head. Aaron dropped to one knee and pointed his pistol at the prisoner.
The prisoner froze bent over with the gun halfway off the ground. “I think it’s time that we had a gun as well,” he said.
Aaron didn’t give the man a chance to finish the thought. Instead, he pointed his plasmic and fired.
The only response the prisoner managed was a widening of the eyes and then he went sprawling. The gun flew from his hand and he landed hard on the ground, next to the guard.
The gun skittered across the deck and stopped in front of the mass of prisoners. No one moved to pick it up, but Aaron still pointed his gun lazily in that direction.
“Kick that over,” Aaron said casually. He still wasn’t pointing his gun in their direction, but it was close enough.
The big black man with the dreadlocks that he had noticed earlier, placed his foot on top of the gun. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to trust us.”
“Not if you’re dead,” Aaron replied, and he pointed his gun directly at the man.
The black man hesitated for another moment and then kicked the gun in Aaron’s direction.
Aaron scooped it up and placed it in one of his pants pockets. “I told you, do as you’re told and you just might live to see tomorrow.” He motioned with his gun towards the dead prisoner. “You can see what happens when you don’t obey orders.”
None of the prisoners responded, and Aaron turned and began jogging back down the hallway. After a brief pause, the mass of prisoners jogged slowly after him; Jessica and Susan remained a short distance behind the prisoners.
Russell’s breathing was labored as he lumbered across the hull of the ship. The first three coolant conduits had been taken out and that left only one more to go. Once he took care of the last one, he would need to cross over to their escape ship.
As if drawn by his thoughts, his eyes flicked up towards the ship he had noticed earlier. It was much closer now and, unless he was mistaken, the ship had stopped its approach. The ship was still quite a long ways away and that was troublesome. He wasn’t sure his air would last and, for the most part, he had quit thinking about it.
Something caught his eye and he paused, still looking up at the distant ship. It was still far away and difficult to make it out, but it looked like a shuttle was pulling away from the stationary ship and heading this way.
He tilted his head and tried to figure out why the escape ship was staying so far away. The prison ship was just floating, it was dead in space. It would make more sense to get in close and ge
t the prisoners off quickly. Then he remembered the last part of their plan, the very part he was trying to implement right now; the destruction of the ship. The last thing that Captain would want, would be to get in close to a ship that was about to explode. Not going to explode if I don’t get busy, Russell thought and turned his attention back to the hull.
He began moving forward again, but had to slow his pace as this portion of the ship was covered in obstacles. Several sensor arrays and a couple of depressions, where gun emplacements had been removed, were scattered across his path and he picked his way carefully forward.
Russell worked his way around an oversized communications dish and stopped in his tracks. With a clear view, he could make out the fourth and final coolant conduit ahead in the distance. It was still a good thirty yards away, but Russell didn’t hesitate. He dropped to one knee, aimed the carbine carefully and then gently squeezed the trigger.
For just a second, Russell was afraid that the vacuum of space had affected the range of the carbine, but after a brief moment, there was the telltale eruption of white coolant. It rather resembled a geyser shooting out into space.
He grinned as the relief flooded though him. Regardless of what happened now, he had done what was asked of him.
He looked down at the air gauge and an icy cold settled in his stomach. His air situation was even worse than he had thought, the needle was already nearing the red zone. Against his will, he sucked in a deep breath. He looked back upwards and judged the distance to the other ship. It was utterly hopeless. For the briefest of moments he felt like giving up, but he dismissed that thought quickly. He might die, but it wouldn’t be without a fight.
He looked down again and checked the time. His heart seemed to skip a beat and his mouth went dry. Kyle had guessed the ship’s computer would take twenty or so minutes to reboot, and it had been nearly that long. The computer programmer hadn’t been able to say for sure how long the reboot would take, it could be a bit longer, but then again, it could also be a bit shorter. He wasn’t sure which systems would come online first when the system finished coming up, and he didn’t want to wait around and see either. Plus, there was the little issue that the prison ship should be exploding soon.
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