by Glen Zipper
Liko swiveled away from the control panel to address Gentry. “I made it through Sentinel’s second failsafe. What do I do now?”
“Initialize the boot sequence. It’s ready to accept the Command Codes.”
“Initializing now.”
Julian produced a microdrive and handed it to Gentry. “They’re fully rendered and ready to be input.”
JD and I stayed focused on Anatoly. He still hadn’t noticed the MFG band lying beside him. If he didn’t catch on soon, we were going to have a problem.
“It’s too late,” I blurted out, trying to stall.
“Yep, definitely past the point of return,” JD joined in, wiping more blood from his nose.
Gentry looked at me, amused. “Too late, is it?”
“That’s right. You’ve already lost. It’s over.”
Unconcerned, he returned his attention to Sentinel.
“Wait,” Julian warned. “That look on her face. She’s up to something.”
Cooper pushed his pistol’s barrel against my cheek. “Speak.”
“He’s right. I am up to something. But there’s no way for me to stop it now.”
“Why hasn’t it happened yet?” JD asked me, a tinge of perverse satisfaction creeping into his voice. He was enjoying toying with them. “She did say ten minutes, right?”
“Yeah. Ten minutes. That’s what I heard too.”
JD darted his eyes at the MFG band, hoping to draw Anatoly’s attention to it. He still wasn’t catching on.
Julian looked me up and down. His eyes stopped at my wrist when he saw it. “MFG?” he muttered, perplexed.
Liko’s ears pricked up. “What did you just say?”
“An MFG band. She’s wearing one.”
“Any second now,” JD alerted me, this time legitimately.
Liko tilted his head back and his eyes traced the vast, twisted maze of power conduits feeding downward from the ceiling into Sentinel’s core.
There was no time left for subtlety. “Anatoly! Beside you!” I hollered.
First he looked the wrong way, to the left, then back to the right.
“No!” Liko shouted. “Evacuate the compartment now!”
The students barely even moved. They were all too confused. Undeterred by Liko’s warning, Gentry slipped Julian’s microdrive into Sentinel’s control panel.
Finally, Anatoly saw the MFG. He quickly put on the band and cringed in anticipation of what was coming next.
An instant later, from the bridge, Ohno released a concentrated surge of emergency power through Sentinel’s power conduit matrix, sending a massive electrostatic wave across the compartment. White arcs of electricity viciously stabbed at everyone in their path.
I braced myself, my eyes locked on my MFG.
Please work.
Please work!
A bolt of energy sliced toward me but was intercepted by my MFG’s protective bubble. JD’s and Anatoly’s MFGs shielded them as well. After a few short seconds, we were the only ones left conscious.
My MFG disengaged, releasing a wave of static electricity that made every hair on my body stand on end.
Anatoly ran in front of me to check on Julian.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “Ohno modulated the surge ceiling. They’re only in bad headache territory.”
Obviously not entirely trusting Ohno’s calibrations, he waited for a pulse anyway.
With a nod, he confirmed Julian was okay.
“Is it too late for me to complain that this was a very crazy, stupid, and dangerous idea?”
“Crazy, stupid, and dangerous was all we had left.”
JD hustled to Sentinel and entered his Command Code into its control panel. After what seemed like an eternity, Sentinel finally returned its confirmation.
“Marshall, John Douglas. Command Priority One.”
Sentinel had done just what we thought it would do. After Julian lost consciousness, it had automatically sought out the next person in the chain of command. Finding no one and presuming a malfunction, it then instructed the biosig system to reboot. The reboot refreshed our biosigs, which in turn restored the Command Priority Roster we had reprogrammed after relieving Gentry of command.
“All bridge authorizations reestablished,” JD reported into the compartment’s com. “Ohno, do you copy?”
“Go for Ohno. It worked?”
“It did.”
“And you’re all okay?”
“We are. Recalculate our navigational trajectory and restore propulsion immediately. We can’t lose that ship.”
“Aye.”
Anatoly crawled from body to body, checking everyone’s vitals.
“What’s their condition?” I asked.
“Pulses all strong and steady.”
“We’ve got to get back to the bridge,” JD urged us. “Let’s go, Toly.”
“I can’t. These people are going to require medical attention.”
JD hesitated.
“Don’t worry. No one is going to be in any condition to fight with me. I can promise you that,” Anatoly assured him. “Take their pistols, and I can handle myself from here.”
Acquiescing to Anatoly, we rushed to collect the weapons strewn all about the compartment. One pistol hung limply from Gentry’s loose grip. Julian lay unconscious beside him, an oddly peaceful look on his face.
“Guys, we’re T minus twelve minutes away from Quadrant Six Gamma,” Ohno’s voice echoed from the com. “I need you up here.”
“Copy that,” JD replied. “We’re on our way.”
“Alliance Emergency Directive Four,” I said as he approached me, his arms filled with pulse pistols. “‘In the event of war or any prolonged campaign of enemy engagement, all unidentified vessels shall be presumed hostile unless and until confirmed otherwise.’”
“We’re talking about an Alliance vessel here, though.”
“An unidentified one.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting we be prepared for anything.”
CHAPTER 40
JD
THE WHINE OF THE UPWARD-CLIMBING LIFT PERVADED the close confines as Viv gently blotted the blood still seeping from my nose. Across from us stood Bossa, wearing a skeptical expression.
“So what’s it going to be?” I asked him. “It’s either you or a Synth.”
“Like I already said, never trust a Synth to do a human’s job.”
“Thus your presence in this lift.”
He leaned in to inspect my damage. “Man, they really did a number on you.”
The lift jerked to a stop.
“I need an answer.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” he replied, clearly relishing his leverage.
We stepped onto the bridge.
“What did they do to you?” Ohno blurted out.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” I said, relieving her from the captain’s chair. “Stations, everyone.”
Bossa lingered by the lift.
“What do I have to do? Ask nicely?”
“How about you start by telling me what I’d be shooting at,” he tossed back.
“Nothing, hopefully.”
“And if hope disappoints you?”
I gestured to Bix. “Let’s see it.”
He activated the Holoview’s stellar-cartographic display, and the two blips—one pulsing blue and one pulsing yellow—hovered opposite each other in Quadrant Five Alpha. The Alliance vessel had already intercepted the Grays.
A superimposed timer counted down to visual contact.
00:01:45
Bossa shrugged his shoulders. “Looks like the good guys to me.”
“That certainly appears to be the case, but—”
“Alliance Emergency Directive Four,” he said, finishing my sentence.
“How do you know that?” Viv questioned him.
Bossa nonchalantly took his position at Weapons and cracked his knuckles. “Not really in a sharing mood.”
An alert sounded. An instant later the Grays’ blip disappeared.
“Please tell me that was a malfunction.”
Bix scanned his readings. “I can’t find their signature. It’s . . . gone.”
“Grids to maximum,” I ordered.
“Aye,” Ohno confirmed.
Another alert sounded. An incoming com.
“Alliance vessel comming us,” Bix reported.
“Ignore them until we have a visual.”
00:00:37
Then we saw it. A debris field of flaming wreckage, unmistakably the remains of the obliterated Genuvian ship.
“They fired on the Grays?” Bix exclaimed.
Ohno shook her head. “That’s impossible. There’s no way—”
“What else could it have been?” Viv retorted.
As unthinkable as it was, we had to assume the worst-case scenario.
“Weapons status?”
“Ready if you are,” Bossa answered.
The California’s bow pushed through the smoldering remnants of the Grays’ ship.
00:00:10
“There!” Bix pointed.
It was just a tiny speck in the distance.
“Magnify.”
The Holoview zoomed in to reveal an Alliance Patrol Scouter.
00:00:00
Sentinel confirmed the ship’s identity and displayed it on the Holoview.
The UAS Kyoto.
The Kyoto was Captain Marta Aviles’s ship.
“Open visual com.”
“Opening com.”
Soft, evenly dispersed ping tones signaled our invitation, but no one answered. The Kyoto had gone quiet.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re trying to scan us,” Bix called back. “Should I jam?”
“The way we jerry-rigged our plasma cannons—am I correct in thinking they won’t read active?”
“They shouldn’t.”
“Let them scan.”
After another thirty seconds of unanswered pings, a visual com finally came through. I expected to see Captain Aviles on the Holoview but instead was greeted by a middle-aged male officer I did not recognize.
“The California,” he said. Genuinely perplexed, his eyes surveyed our bridge. “How?”
“Excuse me?”
He took a step closer, his confusion bending toward suspicion. “How have you managed to stay hidden all this time?”
“Where is Captain Aviles, and why did you fire on—”
“Where is the Resistance base?” he demanded, rolling right over me.
“Resistance base?”
“Answer me!”
Viv and I exchanged befuddled glances.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
A bridge officer whispered something in the captain’s ear. A moment later the com went dark, the Holoview returning to a full image of the Kyoto. She stood still at twelve o’clock, menacingly staring back at us.
“They cut the com on their end,” Bix said.
“You wanna tell me who that is and what is going on?” Bossa groused.
I flinched as an alarm shrieked.
“Target lock!” Bix yelled.
“Viv, evasive now!”
“Aye!” Viv slammed down her throttle, and the California leapt forward from a dead stop.
The Kyoto pursued us from behind, firing two pulse missiles at our turbines. Their incendiary halos flooded the Holoview with warm orange light.
“Reroute all available power to aft grids!”
Ohno made the adjustment, bulwarking our aft defenses, just before the California absorbed an unexpectedly powerful wallop. She pounded her first on her console and swore in Portuguese.
“What happened?”
“Power-flow overload in the Primary Grid Generator.”
“Upshot?”
“We can take one more hit. Maybe two.”
Bix jerked his head back in disbelief, reacting to the readings on his console. “Their weapons yield is forty percent higher than it should be. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Bossa, get your finger on that trigger.”
“I’m ready,” he acknowledged, his eyes trained on the hard-charging Kyoto.
“Try to get them back on com.”
“They’re not receiving,” Bix replied.
Ohno swung around from her console. “She’s firing again!”
Seconds later, multiple waves of concussion rocked the California. The bridge’s lighting fluttered and dimmed.
“Grids at ten percent!” Ohno reported.
Viv looked at me. “You can’t wait any longer.”
“We shoot, they die.”
“And if we don’t?”
“She’s right, cookie,” Bossa squawked. “It’s us or them.”
Backed into a corner, I had no other choice. “Plasma cannons armed and at your ready, Bossa. Fire at will.”
Straightaway he unleashed a torrent of unmodulated plasma fire on the Kyoto, but somehow, inexplicably, she held together.
“Keep firing!”
The target lock shrieked again.
“She’s got us!” Ohno yelled.
Fixated on his console, Bix held up his hand. “There’s a small integrity gap in her grids. Just below secondary thrusters.”
Bossa stopped firing and searched his targeting screen for the vulnerability. “Keep us steady. Keep us steady for just two bloody seconds.”
Viv precisely stabilized her yoke. “This is as steady as she’s gonna get. If you’ve got a shot, take it!”
Bossa flicked his finger against the trigger, and a single plasma stream burst from our cannons. It landed right below the Kyoto’s secondary thrusters, threading the needle of her grids’ razor-thin fallibility. The surgical strike’s small blast expanded outward, setting off a cascade of massive explosions that quickly devoured the ship in a circle of fire.
“All stop,” I ordered.
Viv popped the California’s reverse thrusters, bringing us to a halt.
“What have we done?” Bix wailed as the flotsam of the Kyoto’s obliterated carcass ticked harmlessly against our hull.
Bossa angrily pushed away from Weapons. “Whatever it is you’re not telling me . . .”
My adrenaline still surged, sending my pulse pounding into my ears. I ignored him and turned my attention to Bix.
“You still with me, buddy?”
“Yes, I’m all right,” he replied, wiping the wetness from his eyes. “I’m okay.”
“Can you scan the supply buoys from here?”
“I think so.”
“Try.”
Of all the possible perils waiting for us in the darkness, starvation was the most immediate. We barely had any food left.
Bix’s shoulders dropped. “They’re empty,” he said. “The Grays must’ve raided them before they got hit.”
“What now?” Ohno asked, her body almost writhing with palpable anxiety.
“We work with what we know,” I asserted.
“That’s the problem. We don’t know anything.”
“Not true,” Viv corrected. “We know the Kyoto was looking for a base. We find that base, maybe we find ourselves another lifeline.”
Bossa dispiritedly raised his hand. “Question, folks. Presuming this base exists, and presuming it’s even a place where this ship would be welcome, what makes you think you’ll be able to find it when the Kyoto couldn’t?”
“We can find it because we have something they didn’t,” I answered.
It took a second before Bix realized I was looking at him.
“What? Me?”
CHAPTER 41
VIV
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN FACED WITH the impossible? You give Roger Bixby an extra twenty minutes to find a solution. That was the bon mot I had come up with shortly after befriending him. By the time we’d graduated from boot camp, I’d realized it wasn�
�t so much a joke as it was a statement of fact. Bix wasn’t just a genius—he was an absolute freak of nature.
“Almost there,” he said as the echoing feedback of his tracking algorithm grew louder and more frequent.
Extrapolating from Sentinel’s detailed logs of the Grays’ propulsion signature, Bix had isolated the unique subspace imprint of their dissipated ionic turbulence. That had allowed him to create an algorithm that enabled our sensors to retrace their footsteps—hopefully leading us back to wherever they had come from.
The way Bix had explained it made it sound like common sense. The reality, however, was quite the contrary. It was something that had never been done before.
What do you do when faced with the impossible? You give Roger Bixby an extra twenty minutes to find a solution.
This time it had taken him fifteen.
JD activated his com.
“Toly, report.”
“Put it to you this way—I wouldn’t lift the lockdown anytime soon,” he responded after a short delay.
With the biosig system back up and secured against infiltration, we had every member of Gentry’s insurrection boxed in on Beta Deck. As temporary a solution as it was, it at least had the benefit of buying us time to find a more permanent one.
The problem was I had no idea what a permanent solution might look like. We had always been aware of the dangerously escalating tensions on the lower decks but had totally underestimated its risks. Gentry wasn’t going away, nor were the students who had thrown their support behind him. And our severe solution for protecting Sentinel from them had almost certainly made a bad problem worse.
“Copy that. How about their conditions?”
“I’ve discharged most back to their quarters,” Anatoly responded. “I’ve still got two with me in Medical. They’ll be fine, but they’ve suffered minor electrical burns that still need treatment.”
Part of me hoped one of them was Julian. After everything he had done to deceive and manipulate me, the thought of him suffering was disquietingly pleasing.
“Understood. Keep me posted.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll be fine,” said JD, noticing the uneasy look on my face.