“How we gonna do that?” The youthful Ledward’s trigger finger was twitching. All he wanted was one clean shot at the saboteur, but the monitors indicated their target had taken good cover. Whatever his ultimate rationale, while he might be crazy he wasn’t stupid. Daniels pulled her comm unit from her duty belt.
“Tennessee, you there?”
The reply from the bridge was immediate. “Right where I belong, darlin’,” the ship’s pilot said. “I hear there’s a, uh, situation in the main cargo bay.”
“Some wack job has planted explosives on the main door and taken a hostage. Monitors show him keeping under cover so security can’t get at him easily.” Then she pulled out her multiunit and checked a new readout. “Scans indicate that he’s got some kind of small nonstandard electronics installed in the glove of his right hand, and something else with a flex battery inside his right boot. We need to shut him down.”
“Tell me what to do.” From his position on the bridge, operating independently or in tandem with Mother, Tennessee or his wife and co-pilot Faris could control the entirety of the Covenant’s systems.
“Ship’s instrumentation is set up to remotely adjust or manipulate the programming on every piece of terraforming equipment, prior to their being unloaded on Origae-6,” Daniels said. “The same systems ought to work just as well right now. I want you to bathe the entire cargo bay in a full electromagnetic pulse. Smother the local spectrum with junk—range-specific pencil-beam broadcast. That should jam whatever frequency our unhappy visitor is using for whatever he’s installed in his glove and boot. An e-shutdown won’t deactivate the explosives, but if either the glove or the boot contains the detonator, he won’t be able to set them off.”
“This your call, darlin’?” Tennessee sounded more than a little dubious. “A full smother will scramble every unshielded instrument on every piece of equipment in the bay. Any of them that happens to be active will need to be completely reprogrammed.”
She smiled thinly. “It’s not like we won’t have plenty of time. Besides, when it comes to reprogramming, Mother can do the heavy lifting. In the meantime, I take full responsibility for this course of action.” She noted that Hallet was watching her closely.
“What happens if it doesn’t work?” the sergeant asked.
She shrugged once. “Then I’ll owe Weyland-Yutani a new cargo bay door—and Jacob and I will probably be searching for a new career arc.” She scanned the rest of the group. “Everybody suit up. Once we’re inside, cables down. If this doesn’t work and he blows the door, at least we won’t follow the gear out the back.” Once more she addressed the comm unit. “In five minutes, Tennessee.”
She turned back to the waiting security team. “Let’s move, and don’t forget those tie-down cables. I’m not gonna be in position to grab anybody if they go flying by. At five minutes two seconds, we go in… quietly.”
Hallet nodded. “The guy won’t even see us, but we’ll see him on our suit monitors.” She gave him a look, and he added, “We won’t do anything to endanger the hostage.”
“I’m counting on that,” she said. “I’m coming with you.” Pulling an EVA suit from a cabinet by the door, she climbed into it and let the stocky Private Cole help her with the helmet. “Suit comms will also be jammed, so we won’t be able to communicate with Mother. We’ll have to use the manual diaphragms to talk to each other. Once we make contact with the crazy, I’ll try reasoning with him.”
“We already did that,” Cole pointed out quietly through his thick beard. “As you know, it didn’t do a damn bit of good.”
“Maybe I can be more persuasive.” She checked the broadcast volume on the unit’s manual communications setup. “If nothing else, you can be positioning yourselves while I engage him.”
“If he doesn’t decide to kill the hostage first,” Ledward muttered.
“He kills her, he loses his shield.” Ankor was checking his rifle.
“Given his threat to blow the door while he’s standing right next to it, it doesn’t sound to me like he much cares if he lives or dies,” Daniels reminded the private. “All he wants is to fulfill his mission, which is to stop the Covenant from carrying out its own, and to vent whatever propaganda he’s cobbled together. Neither is going to happen.” She turned back to Hallet. “Time’s about up.”
He nodded. Hefting his own rifle, he positioned himself beside the door that opened into the cargo bay. As Daniels had surmised, the velocity of the F90’s ammo had been adjusted for safe use within the hull of the ship.
At five minutes plus two seconds, Ledward activated the door controls. Rifle raised, Cole led the way. Once inside he immediately moved to his left so that he wasn’t blocking the portal. Ankor followed him and slid to the right. Should it be needed, they could lay down covering fire. Hallet, Ledward, and, finally, Daniels advanced quickly into the cargo bay. One by one they attached their suits to the sliding emergency cables that would reel out behind them. In the event of the bay’s sudden, explosive decompression, the cables would keep them from being sucked out into space.
Mountains of sealed containers towered around them, containing supplies to help the colony establish itself. Farther down the cavernous storage area stood the panoply of machines that would enable the colonists to mine, process, irrigate, sow, and build. While the bulk of supplies and equipment had already been loaded onto the ship, further shipments were still due. As a result, not everything in the cargo bay had been secured for deep-space running. If the bay door blew, a lot of Weyland-Yutani’s expensive preparations were going to become a mass of useless orbital junk.
Daniels tried her suit comm. As she had hoped, it responded with a burst of static on all communications frequencies. Tennessee had done his job, but in the terrestrial atmosphere contained in the bay, her helmet diaphragm worked fine.
“Where?” was all she whispered to Hallet.
Word-wise, the sergeant proved still more economical. Cradling his F90 under his left arm he pointed with his right hand, then indicated to his team to move. Communicating with gestures, the small group spread out as they headed toward the back of the cargo area. They managed to cover quite a bit of distance before their presence was noted.
“That’s far enough! Stop right there!”
He wasn’t very big, Daniels observed. For a terrorist he was singularly unimpressive in appearance. No taller than herself, straight black hair balding in front, with typical Asian features and a slight build, he was dressed in a standard expedition prep tech uniform, and held a pistol. The middle-aged woman he held in front of him was half gray-haired and not from choice. She was stocky, wide-eyed, and plainly terrified.
The sight of Daniels flanked at intervals by four members of the Covenant security team holding very large guns did nothing to reassure her. Neither she nor the man standing behind her wore survival suits.
Hallet leaned slightly toward Daniels. “Hostage is identified as Cara Prestowicz, company contracted for pre-departure ship’s systems installation. She’s a tech, fourth class.”
Daniels nodded and took a couple of steps forward. As she did so, the saboteur pressed the muzzle of the pistol tight against the side of the woman’s head. Prestowicz let out a half-stifled cry and closed her eyes. Daniels could clearly see her lips moving in silent prayer.
“Take it easy, friend.” Her helmet diaphragm allowed her words to ring clearly above the soft mechanical humming that was the only other sound in the cargo area. Given the gravity of the situation, the bright non-electronic lighting that illuminated the bay and everything in it verged on the surreal.
“I’m not your friend!” The man licked his lips. His eyes kept darting in all directions, seeking other potential assailants. “I’m not going to let you stall me. Weyland-Yutani has to declare an end to the Origae-6 endeavor. If an announcement to that effect isn’t broadcast worldwide within the next half hour, I will activate a switch in my boot, and set off all the CT-12 I’ve placed at critical junctures around t
he main door to this hold.” He lowered his gaze.
“You all are cabled in and suited up,” he continued. “You will probably survive, although maybe not. Even if you do, it will take the company months to repair the door and replace the equipment that will be lost. Meanwhile, my colleagues will see to it that your security lapse will be revealed to the media, leading to a cancellation of the mission. So either way, the company loses and the mission is scrapped.” He nudged his hostage. She let out a second gasp and her lips moved faster.
“I am prepared to die for my cause,” he said. “This woman is not. The choice is yours.”
Daniels pursed her lips. “The choice has already been made.”
For the first time, he looked uncertain. “What are you talking about? The choice of how to proceed is mine, and mine alone!”
Hallet had heard about enough. “Not any more, manuke.”
Daniels took a deep breath. “All of the electronics in the cargo area have been smothered. You’ll notice that instead of our suit comms, my companions and I are using our suit diaphragms to talk.” She gestured toward his feet. “You can slap your foot all you want, even do an Irish jig, but your detonator won’t be able to make a connection.”
The saboteur’s face ran through a gamut of expressions from confident, to uncertain, to panic, before settling finally on uncertain.
“How do you know it isn’t a manual pressure trigger?”
She ventured a disarming smile. “Internal ship’s scanners showed electronics in your glove and boot. They wouldn’t be necessary if you were relying on simple pressure to set off the explosives. Also, a pressure trigger wouldn’t make sense. Too much chance of accidentally setting it off at the wrong time.” She paused, and her smile became grimmer. “But I wasn’t completely sure. I am now. If it was a pressure sensor, you wouldn’t even have mentioned it. You’d just be slapping your heel silly by now.”
Suddenly he bent to touch the heel of his right boot, tapping it with the tips of the fingers on his left hand. Daniels tensed. Around her, fingers tightened against triggers, but in lieu of Hallet’s order to do so, none of the team members fired. Though each of them was ready to take out the terrorist, the safety of the hostage remained paramount.
Expecting to die, the would-be saboteur looked startled when nothing happened. He slapped at his boot a second time, then a third, then grabbed it and furiously rubbed his right index finger against the heel. Nothing happened. The massive door behind him didn’t erupt in a mass of flame, didn’t blow outward, didn’t even sputter.
Daniels raised a hand toward him, palm upward.
“It’s over. Let Ms. Prestowicz go, put down the gun, and wait there.”
Hallet looked over at her. “He was scanned for body explosives when we found the detonator setup. There’s nothing on him. Or in him.” He turned his attention back to the now confounded terrorist. “We didn’t read any explosive chemicals in his pistol, either, so we think it must be a flechette weapon or something similarly pressure-driven.”
Cole grunted. “No bang, but just as deadly.” Rifle raised, he took a step toward the now rapidly panicking terrorist. “Flechettes won’t penetrate a survival suit, though.”
“Kono yarou! Keep back! Stay away!” Holding the hostage between himself and the security team, and with the slight curve of the hull against his back, the saboteur began working his way to his left toward the port side of the cargo bay. Hallet gestured silently to two of his team. Nodding their understanding they began to work their way around to the right, striving to get behind their target. Meanwhile, Daniels raised a hand and spoke to him again.
“Where are you going, bakayaro? You can’t get off the Covenant and you can’t hide inside her. Mother will find you no matter where you go. Let Ms. Prestowicz go, put down your weapon, and I promise I will personally see to it if something can be done for you.” She threw Hallet a warning look before turning back to the terrorist. “No harm will come to you. You haven’t actually done much of anything, yet. Taken a hostage and threatened her. Planted some inert explosives. You haven’t done any damage and you haven’t hurt anyone.” She offered what she hoped was a winning smile. “If you tell the authorities who your associates are who helped you set this up, you might get off with a very minimal sentence.”
Ignoring her entreaties, he kept moving until he reached a bend in the hull wall. Right where the two security personnel were waiting.
Given his modest stature they expected to take him down easily. What they didn’t expect was someone whose strength was magnified by an injection of t-pumpers, combined with a fanatic’s devotion to his task.
As they reached for him, intending to take him alive, he swung his screaming hostage violently around so that she slammed into the nearest man. Both went down in a heap. As the second security team member tried to back off and bring her weapon to bear, the saboteur leaped. Both legs struck her in the middle of her suit, collapsing it into her solar plexus and sending her to the ground, unconscious. As her companion rose and fought to disentangle himself from the frantic, flailing Prestowicz, the saboteur spun and launched a spinning back kick against his opponent’s head.
The blow was sufficiently powerful to send the security person slamming into the hull wall. His head pounded into one side of his helmet before ricocheting back into the other, the combined concussion causing him to collapse to the deck.
Without missing a beat the seemingly unprepossessing intruder reached down to grab Prestowicz by one wrist. Yanking her to her feet, he once again slung her around him front of him.
Throughout it all, a grim-faced Daniels noted, the man had somehow hung onto his weapon. Either he was much better trained than he appeared, or he was crammed full of performance-enhancing drugs. Or both. Not that it mattered.
Nowhere to go now, she told herself. Why didn’t he give up?
“Come on, man,” Hallet urged him. “It’s over. Give yourself a break.”
Yelling something indecipherable, their quarry shoved the softly sobbing technician toward his tormentors and made a break to his left. If it had been up to him, Hallet probably would have fired, but Daniels had alluded specifically to the intruder’s associates. Kill him, and they’d lose a potentially valuable source of information. So he held his fire and waited for instructions.
By the time they realized what the man was doing, it was too late.
It took the intruder only a moment to sprint into an open personnel airlock and seal himself inside. As he did he dropped his gun. Rushing after him, Daniels yelled at the transparent port, then realized the man within couldn’t hear her. Peering into the lock she could see that his expression of uncertainty and panic had been replaced by one reflective of a sudden inner calm. He looked almost content.
Moving to her right, she hit the intercom. Like every other control in the cargo bay, it continued to blink a steady soft yellow. It would continue to do so until she and her companions moved clear of the electromagnetic suppression field and she could once again communicate with Tennessee. So she was reduced to pounding on the port and hoping the man inside could read her lips.
“Come out!” she shouted. “Give yourself up!”
Ankor retrieved the man’s weapon and studied it a moment before passing it to Hallet. The sergeant showed it to Daniels. When she took it from his gloved hand, part of the stock crumpled under pressure from her fingers. Her gaze rose to meet the sergeant’s.
“Stiff paper,” she said. “It’s an origami gun.”
“Just hard enough to scare his hostage.” He nodded somberly. “No wonder it wasn’t detected when he brought it aboard.” He swore softly. “The explosives he plastered all over the main bay door are real, but this weapon is all bluff. For all we know, he didn’t even fold it until he was safely through security and on board.”
Handing it back to the sergeant, she returned her gaze to the port. Inside the lock, the man was calmly studying the instrument panel. By necessity the controls were shield
ed from the electronic suppression field that had swept the cargo bay. Surmising his intent, her eyes widened as she resumed hammering on the transparency.
“Don’t do it!”
Turning, he noticed her looking in at him, and smiled. One hand rose toward the control panel. She shouted “No, no!” over and over. He could not hear her. Mother could have secured the lock controls—if they could have communicated with Mother.
Then the time had passed as the man unlatched and lifted a security plate. Without hesitation he punched, in sequence, the three buttons his action had exposed. With her open palms resting on the port, Daniels felt the slightest of vibrations as the emergency bolts holding the exterior lock door blew. The door panel and attached mechanism flew out into space.
It was followed closely by the failed saboteur.
He was still smiling on his way out.
She turned away from the port. Looking in, Ledward let out a curse, then murmured to his team. But she didn’t hear. While they conversed among themselves she reminded herself that the Covenant’s hull integrity hadn’t been violated, and its valuable stores had not been compromised. Meanwhile, the threat posed by the would-be saboteur had been neutralized, and his hostage was safe.
Then why, she wondered, did she feel as if she had failed?
IV
“Weyland-Yutani owes you a debt of gratitude.”
Jacob and Daniels stood in the main personnel lock facing Mithun. A short distance away, his corporate colleague Kajsa was conversing with one of the chief technicians in charge of preparing the ship for its eventual departure.
Having exchanged secure communications with company headquarters in Tokyo and London, a much-relieved Mithun had been able to inform everyone who had been involved in resolving the “incident” that suitable promotions and bonuses had been authorized. Since none of the principals would ever return to Earth, the promotions were largely for show. The financial bonuses, on the other hand, could be utilized by relatives, friends, charities—whomever the members of the crew and security team wished to designate as recipients.
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