The man rolled it over several times in his hand looking for something that resembled a switch or control mechanism of any kind. When nothing happened, he shook his head.
“That’s a benign tool probably used for cartography or planetary surveys, I think,” he said. “It would take me ten minutes or so to rule out that it also isn’t used as a key.” He shoved several of the pieces still on the table toward the other captains.
“Go ahead, see if any of you can turn any of them on,” Ethan said, sweeping another wave of the gear toward the far end of the table. “Most of them are harmless to you, since I doubt you can make them do anything at all.”
“The problem is we don’t know if there’s even a key here,” Kaycee said, she was staring at where he’d pushed an Urah Un toward one of the captains with the collection of stuff. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t call it out to him.
“I know this isn’t all the Shan Takhu artifacts in Tortuga either,” he said, glancing at her and nodding to confirm he knew what he’d done. “If you want us to find a way in, we need to check every single artifact you have, and not just the pieces here.”
“Is he telling it square?” Captain-X asked as he watched the others pick various pieces of the technology up and examine them before tossing them back into the pile.
“There are a few things that might be Shan Takhu hardware in the wild here,” Jetaar admitted. “We’ve been collecting it for years.”
“We’ve got at least another twenty-four hours just to go through the things in here and there’s still more in the back room,” Kaycee said. She was watching the Urah Un working its way toward the edge of the pile in front of the captain nearest to her. Uncertainty showed across her face as he grabbed piece after piece and tossed it back when it did nothing.
She tapped the back of Ethan’s hand and made significant eye contact. Are you sure?
“The problem is that it’s not always safe to handle these things,” Ethan said. “Some of them carry a lot of residual charge and if you aren’t…”
The curious captain shrieked and went rigid before he flung himself back from the table and collapsed on the floor in a twitching spasm of agony.
“...careful, you could get hurt,” he finished, without reacting. He kept his eyes locked on Constantine.
“What the frak?” Captain X barked, jumping up and backing toward the door. His hand was on the butt of his gun and he looked ready to shoot something. Anything, in fact.
Kaycee’s eyes flitted back and forth between Jetaar and Ethan. She was rocking up on her toes like she wanted to jump to help the writhing captain, but she waited until he nodded.
“He touched something he shouldn’t have I guess.” Ethan shrugged as the doctor jumped to the man’s aid. “That’s also why it’s taking so long for us to get it done. It’s dangerous to be poking around in things you don’t understand.”
She pulled out a medical scanner and was running it over the captain as he twitched and groaned in pain. “He’ll live, but you need to get him to the medical center. Tell Dr. Pettyjohn that he’s got neurological damage in his left arm and he’ll need to have anti-seizure medication for at least twenty-four hours.” She pointed at the two nearest captains and gestured for them to pick him up and get him out of the room. They both jumped to comply.
Ethan bent and picked up the Urah Un from the floor where the captain had flung it. He rolled it around in his hand for several seconds to emphasize that he wasn’t afraid of it before he tossed it back on the pile. The rest of the captains pushed back from the table understanding the danger it represented.
Sitting down at the end of the table beside the artifacts, he put his feet up on the chair where the injured captain had been sitting. “Do you get what I’m saying to you? Two days isn’t enough time, and you sure as frak aren’t going to just send someone else in here to do the job. Not if you expect them to survive.”
Constantine stepped to the side to let the two men carry the injured one through the door but said nothing. After several seconds he looked at Jetaar and nodded once before he spun and left.
Once the door had closed, Jetaar stood up. “I know what you did Walker because that Urah Un he touched used to be mine.”
Kaycee reached out and picked it up with a raised eyebrow. “How did that get in there? It’s not even Shan Takhu Technology. It’s Institute hardware.” She smiled at him with her best affectation of innocence.
“Don’t play with me doctor,” he said. “That goes for both of you. I’ll let your little game stand because it worked to push Captain X back for the moment. I can’t afford to let him know you’re working him, or he’ll push us all out the airlock.”
“You too?” Ethan asked, pulling his feet down and leaning forward.
“I know you caught that he and I don’t see square, but don’t think I can’t tell you’re bluffing. We’ve danced this tune before, but this time you’re in my house.”
Chapter Forty-One
They’d cleared the shuttle hangar deck of everything that wasn’t essential to the experiment and hauled the largest power cables they could steal from anywhere in the ship in to feed the monstrosity they’d cobbled together. The command key signal generator was ugly, and more than a little terrifying to look at.
To power the hardware, they’d tied both dropship loaders together and coupled them to the Olympus Dawn’s main drive coils. When they fired it up, all three inertial fields would remain perfectly synchronized for a millionth of a nanosecond before they burned out. Simultaneously, the ship’s power grid would dump every erg that the antimatter reactors could produce into the waveguide assembly.
To pick up the field discharge and the power grid surge and direct it toward the business end of the device, an antenna-like structure ran the entire length of the hangar. The assembly extended from the inside of the observation deck, through the interior airlock door, and all the way to within three meters of the main hangar doors.
It was on the receiving end of all this power handling gear that Ammo and Marti had to stand. Staring down the barrel of the beast, she tried to keep reminding herself that the actual energy they were aiming through this region of space would transmit into the Tacra Un and not directly through their bodies.
If everything worked exactly according to plan, the pulse would trigger the Tacra Un to open a doorway right at the end of the waveguide antenna and they’d be able to step through and inside the Shan Takhu control center.
It was safe as long as the door opened before the waveguide slagged. If not, then it probably didn’t matter.
“Second thoughts?” Nuko asked as she brought in the EVA suit that Ammo would wear.
“Not really,” she lied, trying to sound casual even though her heart was pounding audibly in her ears.
“I’m sure that’s not true.” She winked, setting the gear down on the outer step of the nearest of their shuttles. Quinn came in carrying a tote bag with two extra power packs and as much food as he could squeeze in with them.
“Smells like bacon,” Ammo said, grinning at him.
“I told him to pack you a couple meals,” Nuko said. “When I was a kid, my grandpa told me stories of the first contact in Zone One. There was one point when the crew of the Jakob Waltz almost starved to death because they got locked inside.”
“Marti might swing easy with no food, but you’re a frail meat bag. You have to eat,” Quinn said. “I heard that it might take a few days to get the power turned on and I don’t want you gnawing off your own arm from hunger.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You could have stopped at ‘yah, I made you some bacon in case you want a snack.’”
“How close are we to ready down there?” Rene asked over the internal comm.
“I can suit up now, if you’re done with your checks,” she said.
“Much as I’m going to be,” he said, sighing heavily.
The doubt was so obvious in his voice that Nuko shook her head. “Are you su
re you want to do this?” she mouthed.
Ammo shrugged and then nodded. “Alright then let’s do it. As soon as Marti gets here, we’re good to go.”
“She’s on the way down.”
“Nuko and Quinn are here with me now, so I’ll have them help me suit up. Five minutes.” They both started picking up pieces of the EVA suit as she peeled down her coverall and shivered. She’d been sweating and hadn’t noticed until all that protected her was her thinskin.
“Has anyone told the boss we’re about to do this?” he asked.
“If by anybody you mean me, then no,” Nuko said. “Marti can you connect us through to Ethan?”
“Stand by, the Captain is indisposed at the moment,” she said, her voice coming from inside the observation deck. Her main body was squeezing through the inner airlock door. It was a tight fit for someone human-sized, so it was almost a miracle that she managed to get through without bumping the antenna waveguide and knocking it out of alignment.
Ammo stopped what she was doing and watched in fascination as it twisted and turned to slip through the narrow opening. Watching the massive mechanical form that carried Marti’s awareness rolling forward put an edge of reality into their plan and caused her to feel the full impact of the insanity of what they were about to do.
Quinn tapped her on the shoulder to bring her back into the moment, and then gently turned her around. He settled the life support pack on her back while Nuko twisted her gloves into place. She knew they were both trying to keep her focused on the job and not what came next.
“How’s it going up there?” Ethan said.
“We’re ready to try,” Ammo said.
“You need to understand, this will burn the coils out on the ship and both of the DSL,” Rene said. “Odds are it will also take out the power couplers and most of the internal power grid.”
“Do we have any other choices?” he asked
“Not that any of us up here have come up with,” he said.
“Yah and we’re running out of time down here,” Kaycee said. “We already had one run in with Captain Constantine. He seems pretty determined we’re trying to pull a Miracle Mike.”
“We are,” Ammo said.
“Yah well, that’s true, but we’ve got to either get on top of this, or he’s pretty determined to shove us under,” Ethan said.
“Once you give the word boss, it will take us about five minutes to bring up everything,” Rene said.
“During that time, the fact that we’re powering up the coils will be visible to any ship scanning us,” Marti pointed out.
“Especially that bruiser with the fancy paint job and the huge guns,” Nuko added.
“We’ve also got to consider that even if we get inside, there’s no guarantee that anything will be working,” Ammo said. “It might take us a while to swing the balance back in our favor.”
“We’ve gone over this already,” Ethan said. “I just don’t see any line out of the mess we’re in that doesn’t take us deeper first. If anybody has ideas, I’m still open to hear them.”
The silence hung for almost a minute before Ammo shook her head and sighed. “Then I guess I’ll finish suiting up for an EVA, just in case there’s no air.”
Marti rolled around the end of the waveguide assembly and took her position. “Once we are in, I should be able to communicate via Ultra Low Frequency to my Humanform automech. This should allow me to maintain contact. Hopefully.”
“Then let’s swallow hard and leap,” Rene said.
“Agreed,” Ammo said, reaching out for her helmet and taking a deep breath of ship’s air. It wasn’t particularly pleasant but if things didn’t go right, she wanted a smell of home to remember.
“Do it,” Ethan said.
“Copy that,” Nuko said, putting her hand on the side of Ammo’s helmet and closing her eyes for several seconds. She looked like she was praying. Finally, she opened her eyes and nodded. “I’ll be on the ConDeck keeping my eyes on the Shadowhawk. If it comes at us, I’ll see what I can do to keep them talking until we explode.”
“I don’t want to be exploding,” Quinn said, stepping forward and giving Ammo a bone-crushing hug. “But I think I like the idea of jumping through a wormhole even less.”
“I’ve already got that badge,” Nuko said as she spun and headed for the door. “It’s not that big a deal.” It was and Ammo knew it, but the less they said about it, the easier it was for all of them.
Rene cleared his throat. “Ammo, you and Marti get into position, and everybody else clear the hangar deck. Once you’re all out of the way I’ll throw the switch and we’ll turn this beast loose.”
“I’m moving into place now,” she said. Snagging the bag with the extra batteries and the food, she tied it to her tether anchor as she stepped into the ‘safe area’ at the end of the waveguide. It didn’t feel safe, and she grabbed on to one of Marti’s arms for the sense of security that came from having a hand to hold, even if it was mechanical and almost as large as her upper body.
“I’ve calculated the odds of our surviving the jump—”
“I don’t want to know,” she whispered.
“But they are better than the chances of—”
“Marti, just keep it to yourself,” she said. She drew in another deep breath and closed her faceplate.
“Hit it.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Captain X prowled the rum palaces not because he liked to drink, but because he enjoyed the pursuit of the girls who worked there. His chosen life kept him out in the black for stretches that ran far too long, and when he hit a safe harbor, he made it a point to make up for lost time.
Tortuga was legendary for its beautiful women and it was a well-deserved reputation. They were also known for their willingness to indulge a dangerous evening with a powerful captain. This evening was still early, but he’d already scored a fine conquest, and if the lithe-bodied lovely that followed him to his suite was half as satisfying as she was stunning, he figured he’d be done with her in short order and back out on the prowl before the evening was too old to score another acquisition.
He reclined naked on the bed and watched her undress, enjoying the anticipation as she stood before him peeling off the layers of her traditional serving garb. With each piece she cast to the floor, he drank in ever more of her flesh.
His commlink chirped, and he growled in frustration. The girl hesitated, and he waved her onward. She smiled and continued while he fished through his pile of clothes for the comm. “This better be to tell me somebody’s dead, otherwise that will be the case as soon as I find you,” he snarled. “You just landed in the middle of a moment.”
“Sorry, Captain,” his first officer said clearing his throat. “We’ve got a situation up here.”
“Fine Thorgood, tell me about it.”
“The Olympus Dawn is powering up.”
“Walker’s ship? Like they’re thinking about running?” He swung his feet off the bed and sat up. The girl stopped again and stood still. He shook his head and frowned. Damn! Bad timing.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Thorgood said. “Their reactor’s way above critical and their coils are live, but they don’t seem to be putting out a field. They’re just charging up.”
“Order them to stand down,” he said.
“Yes sir. Stand by.”
He stared at the girl while he waited for his first officer to come back on. She just got to the interesting bits, too. And they were most definitely interesting. From the way they pointed in his direction, they were screaming for attention.
“They’re saying they’ve got a problem with a runaway antimatter feed controller,” he reported. “Their engineer says they’re dumping the excess power to the coils to prevent a coupler meltdown. He claims they’ve got it under control, but from here looks like that might be optimistic.”
“Frak!” he hissed standing up and walking across the room to the console. He dragged his fingertips across the girl’s ex
posed skin as he passed her, and she shivered. “It sounds like recycler blowby to me. They’ve got no need to be running the reactor at all when they’re tied off.”
“Yes sir. Stinks that way. But they do look like they’re jacking up to a burnout. We’re detecting a lot of heat buildup in their coils but nothing that looks like an inertial field.”
“Are you still in position?”
“Holding station fifty klick straight above the stanchion.”
“Good. Power up the main guns in case we have to deal with them but give me a minute.” He tapped into the main Tortuga commgrid and located Jetaar.
“Walker’s up to something,” he said as the screen lit up.
The other captain tilted his head to the side to scan the overexposed beauty who still stood like a soft skinned mannequin behind Constantine. “I was just on the optic from the lab a few minutes ago. He looked like he was sleeping.” Jetaar cut in the image showing Walker sitting at the conference table leaned against his robot AA with his eyes closed. He did look like he was taking a nap.
“Regardless of what it looks like, the reactor on his ship just went hot and they’re dumping power to their coils.”
“They wouldn’t be running,” Jetaar said, leaning forward and tapping commands into his console off the edge of the screen. “I don’t think his crew would leave him behind.”
“We’ve got him nailed down if they try to shove off. Their engineer says they’ve got an antimatter injector hung and are dumping power to prevent a runaway.”
“That’ll take out the stanchion if it blows,” he hissed. “Along with everything tied off to it.”
“If they suicide, it’ll take out half our council,” he said, grabbing his pants and starting to pull them on while he talked. “I thought you said he didn’t have the eggs to be trouble?”
“He’s twisty, but this isn’t how he plays,” Jetaar said. “I don’t have time to figure it out now.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 105