“Good to know,” Danel said, watching Cori disappear through the doorway into the next chamber. The lights were off and he could see him scanning it with a handbeam. Seva squeezed up to the door and waited.
“We’re clear,” Cori announced.
Seva turned to gesture for Danel to jump up and join her. “Is this the PDN?” she asked.
“Negative,” the engineer said. “Straight through one more door. You should be in electronics repair bay.”
“Copy,” Cori said.
Danel bounced up to the door. Seva caught him and held him in place with one arm.
“You want I should put you on the floor?” she offered, spinning him upside down, without waiting for an answer. His boots clicked into contact with the deck and he blinked several times as his brain rewired his orientation. “That’s better, ja?”
There was enough gravity to make the blood drift toward his head and it made things hard to keep downside right. He took a step and both his feet broke loose. Seva snagged him before he fell more than a couple centimeters and pushed him back into contact with the floor. “Shuffle, don’t walk,” she said. “Swinging your feet is nogo. Scan?”
“Got it,” he said, sliding his foot forward to show he understood. Cori stood at the door on the opposite side of the room waiting for him to make his way across. Halfway he broke contact again and started falling.
Seva laughed and grabbed him. “I got bigger feet than you,” she said. “I stick better. Maybe I should tie us together?”
“That sounds more than a little terrifying,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
Cori leaned against the hatch and opened it a crack. Bright light flooded through the doorway.
“We’ve got lights,” he said, peering around the door. He opened it wider. “Somebody’s been working in here,” he added, jerking his thumb toward the ceiling.
“Recently?” Jeph asked.
“Can’t tell,” he said. “There are a lot of things flipped and restacked.” He stuck his head through the door. “There’s a hatch open through the ceiling. Would that be the main egress from the PDN to Main Engineering?”
“Da,” Rocky answered.
“Well it’s been propped open and there’s no dust on the ladder,” he said. “No dust anywhere in here in fact.”
“If the ship’s been sealed all this time, there might not be much,” the captain offered.
“Negative on that,” Danel said. “There’s crap all over everything in this room.”
Armstrong: Halo Orbit: Galileo Station:
Captain Jeffers floated on the ConDeck above the command riser watching her tactical display. One of the security shuttles moved out of position and pulled around in front of the Armstrong to line up on their alpha hangar bay. She was listening to the com chatter and not surprised when her communications officer hit her.
“Jeffers. Go,” she said, tapping into her comlink.
“We’ve got a security transport shuttle requesting docking instructions to transfer the chancellor back to Galileo,” he said.
“Have them stand by,” she said. “Let them know we’ve got to take care of a couple things on our end and we’ll let them know when we’re ready.”
“Yes sir,” the com officer said, cutting the link.
“Jeffers to Nakamiru,” she said, tapping back into her com.
“Go ahead, Captain.” The admiral sounded tired.
She looked up at the chrono across the ConDeck. He was probably with Chancellor Roja in her office. “They’ve decided it’s time to get the party started.”
Silence hung for what felt like an eternity. She could feel him holding his breath before he let it out. “Are the preparations completed?”
“Yes sir,” she said. “On your orders.”
“Then they leave us no choice,” he said. “I will notify the chancellor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hector: Surface of L-4 Prime:
Danel’s com chirped. It was Jeph requesting to open a private side channel. He tapped the link on his wrist panel.
“How do you feel about this?” Jeph asked. “Are you chasing ghosts or is someone alive down there?”
“I don’t know,” Danel said. “Obviously either Whitewind survived or someone else has been in here since the Hector went in. Either case it makes the situation a bit … unsettling.”
“Seven graves leans my thinking toward the idea that it’s someone else,” the captain said.
“Agreed,” he said. “Maybe there’s a base down here somewhere and they want to salvage the ship later. That might explain why someone’s been organizing things.”
“That’s possible,” Jeph said. “We need to get the sensor controls uplinked, but it’s your call. I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks.”
“One second,” Danel said. Seva hung in the hatch to the next chamber, tapping his helmet with the toe of her boot to get his attention. He flipped back to the main channel.
“Go ahead,” he said, “I was talking to the boss.”
“I’m in engineering,” Cori said. “You need to see this. Someone’s reprogrammed the AI. I’m trying to log in and it’s speaking in hieroglyphics or something,” he said.
Danel jumped toward the hatch. The trace of gravity deflected his trajectory several degrees downward. Seva was quick enough to haul him over the lip with only a minimum amount of crashing and swearing.
“Hieroglyphics?” Jeph asked, rejoining them on the main channel.
“Yah, the screen’s flashing these strange symbols and I’m hearing sounds through the ship’s internal speakers,” Cori said. “I can’t understand it, but it sure as hell sounds like it’s trying to talk to me.”
“Are you recording it?” Danel asked. He grabbed the ladder down to engineering and let gravity pull him through the hatch. Hitting the floor, he spun in time to see the symbol on the screen in front of Cori change from white to blue.
“What did you do?” he asked, bouncing over to join him at the main computer station. Like several of the other workstations they’d seen so far, someone had pulled this one loose from its mountings and it was sitting upright on the ceiling deck, with cables tethering it back to its original position.
“Nothing,” Cori said. “I touched the screen and it opened with these symbols and started talking gibberish.”
Danel touched the screen and the symbol changed. He heard a muffled voice through his helmet. It was distinct and different from the previous sounds.
“Yah, like that,” Cori said.
“It sounds like it’s repeating the same thing over and over,” Danel said. “Can you make out what it’s saying?”
“Doesn’t sound like any words I know,” Seva said. She stood at the bottom of the ladder holding her gun at the ready. She leaned back to get a view through the hatch like she was expecting someone to follow behind them.
“Did you see something?” he asked, turning back to face her.
“No,” she said. “It’s just too foobed in here for me to be fuzzy.”
Danel’s guts were telling him the same thing, so he understood. “Feels like we’re being watched,” he said.
“Nojo,” she said.
“Maybe it’s time to get out of there,” Jeph said.
Galileo Security Shuttle-027: Armstrong Security Cordon:
“Of course, they want us to hold our position,” Zha said. “I want to get back on deck. A real one with gravity under my feet. So obviously, they’re going to make this take as long as possible.”
“They just want us to wait,” the pilot said. “That’s a big ship. I’m sure it takes time to move a prisoner from a holding cell to the hangar deck. They don’t want us taking up space in the meantime.”
“Are we drifting?” Zha asked.
The navigator glanced at his instruments and shook his head. “No, we’re stationary.”
“It sure looks like we’re getting closer,” he said.
“Does anyone else see that?” one of the other s
huttles asked.
“Identify yourself. See what?”
“022,” the other shuttle pilot said. “Looks to me like the spin section is slowing down.”
“Say again. It’s slowing down?” Zha asked.
“161. I see it too. It is slowing down.”
His navigator leaned forward and pointed. “The hangar deck approach lights just went off.”
“022. The Armstrong is moving. I repeat they’re moving.”
“115. I’m port forward. Looks like they’re lighting up the steering thrusters out here. They’re setting up for maneuvering.”
“They can’t be,” his pilot said. “Approach control had them on a port-stop order.”
“161. Yeah, the spin section is almost stopped.”
“Frag! The engines are firing,” someone screamed. “MOVE! MOVE!”
“Get us some distance,” Zha said, watching the wall of the hangar deck directly in front of them. “They’re going to ram us.”
The pilot cinched his straps tight and hollered back through the open hatch into the passenger hold. “Grab something!”
“Everybody pull back,” Zha ordered. “All units disengage. Get clear.”
“Negative,” the dispatch controller said, somehow missing the panic in the voices of the pilots. “Do not pull back. Your orders are—”
“Our orders don’t include getting rhinoed,” Zha barked. “The Armstrong is running!”
“Stand by,” dispatch said.
“Stand by my ass,” Zha said. “We’re getting the frag out of the way.”
“Traffic alert. Take immediate evasive maneuvers,” an automated claxon bellowed, adding its voice to the cacophony of radio traffic coming over the speakers.
“I got that,” the pilot hissed, jerking the control yoke hard to the side and slapping his hand down to kick in the engines.
“We’ve got nowhere to run,” the navigator said. “That thing’s a kilometer wide in every direction.”
The pilot pivoted all the way through 180 degrees and jammed the throttle up to full power. The engines slammed toward 1.5 g, crushing them back against their acceleration couches.
“We’re clear,” one of the other shuttles said.
“It’s still closing!” the navigator hissed. “We’re not going to make it.
“016. Watch the engine wash, you’re about to get cooked!” another shuttle pilot said, almost screaming.
“I see it,” Someone else, probably 016, answered.
Zha grunted feeling the pilot nose their shuttle to the right and pile on a bit more thrust. They edged up toward 1.75 g.
“400 meters,” the navigator said. “Still closing.”
“We’re maxed,” the pilot said. “There’s no way this is happening.”
“They’re going to run us down,” the navigator said. “300 meters.”
“Collision eminent,” the claxon bellowed again.
“They’ve gotta be pulling three-g,” the navigator growled. “We can’t outrun it.”
“I’m trying to get us some lateral motion, but if I cut hard it’s got us,” the pilot said, adding a bit more angle to their heading.
“Not enough,” the navigator said, twisting his head to glance out the side window. “210 meters. 400 to clear.”
Armstrong ConDeck: leaving orbit:
“Helm to captain, we’re about to ram one of the shuttles. It won’t get wide enough,” the pilot said.
“Reduce thrust,” Jeffers said. She sat braced in her acceleration chair watching the tactical plot. Most of the cordon ships were scattering, but one problem child was still in their path. “Give them time to get out of the way.”
“Copy,” the helmsman said. She felt the engines throttle back to a more sedate 1.5 g.
“As soon as he’s out of our line, kick it back up,” she said.
I don’t know who you are, but today’s your lucky day.
Galileo Security Shuttle-027: Armstrong Security Cordon:
“Eighty meters,” the navigator said, almost screaming in terror.
“Brace for impact,” the pilot ordered. “We’re going in hard.
“Seventy meters. 180 to clear.”
Behind them, Zha could hear the yelling and confusion of the security units in the back compartment over the roar of the engines.
“Eighty meters,” the navigator said. “140 to clear.”
“What?” Zha yelled.
“Yah we’re getting away from it,” the pilot bellowed back at him.
“Did they quit running?”
“Negative,” the navigator said. “But they let off.”
“Why the frag’d they do that?”
“Who the hell knows,” Zha said, “but let’s get dafuq clear before they change their mind.”
“Roger that,” the pilot said.
The shuttle had slipped 100 meters past the edge of the hull when the Armstrong kicked its engines back up to the previous power level, leaving the cordon in shambles.
Trying to pull his own visceral terror back inside, before he spoke, Zha punched back into the open com. “Everybody report in. Any casualties?”
“Look at that bitch go,” someone said.
“Pursue and intercept,” dispatch said. “Galileo control gives you permission to run it to ground. You are not to let the Armstrong get away.”
Zha snorted. “Not happening control. It’s pulling three g.”
“Not possible,” dispatch said.
“Can’t be or not, it damned near ran us down in ten seconds.” As the pilot pulled the nose of the ship around, they got a good view back up the ass end of the elephant, just in time to see the Armstrong’s engines double in brightness. The exhaust plume exploded back a second later, sending them tumbling wildly backward like a leaf on the wind.
Fortunately, Lieutenant Commander Zha passed out before he realized what was happening.
Hector: Surface of L-4 Prime:
Danel had been tapping the screen repeatedly and watching the hieroglyphics. The pattern changed with each tap with no repetition he’d been able to detect. Other than figuring out that if he let an image sit for several seconds, the white changed to blue and the voice stopped, he had no clue how to get past the strange images to anything that resembled a control interface. “If we can’t access the AI, what other options do we have?” he asked.
“Alyx and Rocky are working on that,” Jeph said. “They’re saying they could rig a relay and splice into the circuit manually to get control of the sensors. It would hook Dutch direct, so there’s some concern with that.”
“Copy,” Danel said. “Should we make for the door?”
“Roger,” the captain said. “No point in overstaying your welcome, until we can do some real work down there.”
“I think we should bring some of this stuff back with us,” Cori said. He and Seva were exploring the other rooms on the engineering deck and he came back into Main Engineering carrying a large stack of thinpads. “They look like they’re encrypted and at least one of them is speaking in alien, but it might give us a head start on figuring out what’s whacked the computer.”
“Da. Good,” Danel said. “Kiro, have you got that GP radar locked down yet?”
“Affirm,” he said. “Dropped a seizmo too, but might be foobed.”
“Then we’re on our way out,” Danel said. “I’ll need a ride if you can meet me at the airlock.”
“I’ll quit trying to hammer out the bugs on this thing and be there before you,” Kiro said.
“What’s it doing?”
“Humming. It’s like a small vibration,” the pilot said. “Maybe a motor in a heater pump or something. It scans like it’s alright, but I can’t make it shut up.”
Danel pointed toward the hatch back the way they came. Cori bounced over and pulled himself up the ladder to the PDN. As his feet disappeared the lights blinked off.
“What the frag?” Cori said, audibly crashing into something. Seva had never shut her lights off
and Danel hit his switch a moment later. “That’s enough to mess up my sense of calm.” His voice sounded in control, but Danel knew he was hiding his reaction under a blanket of iron will.
“Status report. What happened?” Jeph asked.
“Lights cut out in the PDN,” Cori said. “Nothing major, just a bit unsettling.”
“Down here too,” Seva said.
“Recommend you evacuate ship immediately,” Rocky said, urgency evident in her tone. “PDN and engineering illumination grid can only be shut off manually from ConDeck. Lights are routed directly from primary reactor.”
“You’re saying we’re not alone in here?” Danel asked.
“Odds of that possibility are greatly increased,” she said. “Get out.”
“Copy that.” Seva grabbed Danel and threw him bodily back in the direction they’d come.
“Kiro we’re on our way,” he said as he sailed through the hatch like a missile.
Thank the universe she’s got good aim.
Executive Council Situation Room: Galileo Station: Lunar Lagrange One:
Derek Tomlinson’s thinpad chirped at the same time as the Prime Minister’s comlink. She glanced at him and stepped away, tapping her earpiece. She shook her head listening to whoever was speaking.
“Nakamiru is refusing to let the security units aboard,” she said out loud before he read the same message on his screen. She went on, repeating the audio she was hearing. “He’s saying he can prove other members of the council conspired to murder Chancellor Markhas.” She looked at the screen on the wall. It displayed an optic image of the Armstrong. “In the service of justice, he sees it in FleetCom’s best interest to do whatever is necessary to assure Chancellor Roja’s safety.”
He stopped listening to her paraphrasing, reading the full transcript of the admiral’s announcement himself. She pointed at the display. “They’re moving.”
He glanced up and watched for several seconds to confirm she was right. He slapped his comlink. “Traffic control, who gave the Armstrong permission to boost?”
“No one Chancellor,” a woman said. She sounded terrified.
“Stop them,” he barked, letting more of his frustration show in his voice than he intended.
“We can’t,” she said. “They’re accelerating at three-g. They’ve already broken through the security cordon and are not acknowledging hails.”
Shan Takhu Legacy Box Set - With an Extra Bonus Story Page 24