Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  Opening his eyes he found himself in a shower room, lying on the floor. He was also naked this time. He paused, waiting to see what would happen next. Nothing. He was still there. Looking around he tried to glean a clue as to where he was. Nothing looked familiar. He moved his arms and legs, and apart from feeling bruised down one side, he was okay. He could move.

  Cautiously, he got up and stood under the warm water for a moment, letting it clean him while he oriented himself.

  Looks like this might be reality, he thought, flicking at the holopanel on the shower to try and switch the water off. After nearly scalding himself, he found the off command and the shower went dead.

  There was a towel on a rail that was just within reach. He grabbed it and started drying himself off. Then he noticed his clothes on the floor in the bedroom, and his lifesuit on the bed…left as he would have left it if he had just taken it off.

  Looks like this is where I really am, he thought. He dried off a little more to avoid getting cold, and then flicked open his holoscreen to read his timelog. He opened the last entry. He was with Ally, investigating on the Aegelweard. That sounded familiar. It was the ship that Trent had mentioned in a briefing recently. This must be that assignment. He wracked his brain trying to trace what had happened between then and now – but the memory was just beyond reach.

  He searched back through the last few entries, and gradually he managed to piece together the events of the last 52 hours, in reverse order, until he was 80% confident he knew what had happened prior to collapsing in the shower.

  But then there was the matter of the vision.

  He made some notes in the journal. As he recorded the vision, he was again horrified that he had seen Trent dead – and even more horrified by the overwhelming feelings of guilt. What did that mean? That he had killed Trent himself? That he was afraid he was putting Trent in danger? In the end he decided he just needed some sleep.

  He finished getting dried and dressed. As his fingers touched the cheek that had been in contact with the shower floor tiles, he flinched in pain. Great, he thought. I’ve literally fallen flat on my face. He hoped it wasn’t an omen. He padded back through to the shower room, looking for a mirror. Finding one on the left of the door, he peered into it. He had dark circles around his eyes, and his skin looked paler than usual. But apart from that, the left side of his face was slightly swollen. He prodded at it gently. It still hurt. It was probably just bruised. Nothing a good sleep and his existing nanobots wouldn’t fix. He wandered back into the bedroom, threw his bag, clothes, and suit onto the floor, and clambered into the firm, welcoming bed.

  Setting the alarm on his personal holo to wake him in 4 hours’ time, he settled in to get as comfortable as he could, without rolling onto his bruised side. When he woke up, he’d continue his investigations, but right now he desperately just needed to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Having some time to herself without Neffy in the room, Ally stepped away from the holo to think. She needed a way into the weapons system for this plan to work…but every which way she tried, she came up against encryption and didn’t have access to the algorithms she’d need to hack through it. Even having an extra processor that she could use as an extension to her normal human-like processor, she was unable to even make a dent.

  Okay, she thought, talking herself through it. Maybe there isn’t a way through the security. So how do we go around it?

  She went back to the holo to look at the systems she’d been quietly mapping. The main problem was, a lot of the security protocols were in a base language she’d never seen. She could get the gist of it, but it seemed to have evolved from an old programming language, separately from the rest of the galaxy. It wasn’t surprising, given how isolated the Drewdonians were out there. While the physical ships hadn’t been upgraded, it seemed that they still took their security seriously, and had developed their own protocols in order to perform maintenance and upgrades.

  What else could she do?

  She had control of the ventilation systems. But making the control room warmer was hardly going to get them firing on the prototype! (Although – the commanders would probably get more agitated in the heat, making it easier to provoke an attack.) She laughed at herself, thinking back to all the times she and Neffy had pulled pranks in order to manipulate circumstances. They’d even done it at the Academy one time in order to get out of a lecture so they could watch a game. It would have been perfect, but for Neffy bragging about it in the rec room the next day, and Trent finding out. Another reason the Academy were happy to let them go Independent, no doubt.

  She had to start thinking like Neffy.

  Okay, so there’s the human element, she remembered. That’s the straight-line path to breaking into the security system. If she could get access to the bridge, and then piggyback on someone who was legitimately logged in, then she could potentially have access to the weapons system. So she’d need to create a distraction. Yes! She could do that with an airlock. That would work.

  She would need to time this impeccably, though. It would have to be when they had accurate coordinates for where the device was on the surface, and they would need a line of sight to the device from the ship. The tech on this vessel couldn’t lock on to a target that was around the other side of the planet’s surface. Of that she was pretty certain. And she didn’t have the time, or the technical ability, to hack a signal from the tracker to guide the missile in. That would probably be the least reliable way of doing the job anyway, given that there was so much atmospheric disturbance. Plus she’d need to alter the missiles physically, too. Nope, that wasn’t a plan. She was going to have to pull the latest coordinates manually, and then direct the missiles by feeding those coordinates in.

  On a system no one could see her using.

  In amongst the ship’s crew.

  In a tiny window of opportunity that coincided with their orbit.

  On a system she had never used before.

  It just wasn’t going to work.

  This was exactly like one of Neffy plans, she giggled to herself in near-panic.

  Sure, it was the kind of thing she and Neffy might attempt, but Ally had never pulled anything like this off on her own. Hell, she was floored that she’d even thought of it herself.

  Again, she found herself tempted to let Neffy in on what was happening. It would certainly increase their chances of success, and of course if Neffy knew, then killing him would be taken off the table. At least then she wouldn’t face this awful temptation. And who knew, maybe Neffy could save her. Maybe he could stop her from being deactivated. It wasn’t the first time he’d come through for her, against all odds.

  Things had always panned out well in the past. But was she willing to stake her life on it this time?

  She was back in front of the holo, checking and double-checking the details of her plan. It certainly looked plausible. She just needed to calculate the best opportunity so she could time her distraction.

  Just then, her wrist vibrated. It was an e-DNA message. Origin unknown.

  Shit. It was him. She couldn’t believe it. He was going to deactivate her now. She needed more time.

  UNKNOWN: Klingerman needs terminating. See to it. You have 40 minutes. And if you don’t comply, I will find someone else who will. Then you’ll both be dead. You cannot save him no matter what you do.

  Fuck. What was she going to do? If she told Neffy, she died – but at least all this would go away. She’d already had a good 15 years more than she would have if Neffy hadn’t saved her consciousness. That was 15 years of borrowed time. She should be happy to go out, and allow Neffy to save the day.

  But she was so scared of dying. How could she face that? To just not exist anymore.

  And why had the immediate plan just changed? Ally felt hazy, but the thought drifted through her mind. Wasn’t his end goal to protect the tech by destroying it? And Neffy would just be collateral damage? What could have changed?

  And l
ike he’d said, he could always find someone else to murder Neffy after he’d murdered her. She couldn’t protect Neffy by just not doing anything.

  The door to the conference room slid open and Neffy walked back in, looking bright and refreshed. Ally responded to the message as quickly as she could.

  A MONTGOMERY: Acknowledged.

  She swiped away the e-DNA screen from her holo before Neffy could see anything incriminating. There was also no guarantee that he wouldn’t deactivate her even if she did get rid of Neffy. Her mind wandered over the increasingly complex problem she faced. She had tried to be strong for so long about this. And now she was terrified that she’d finally been pushed to the point where giving in was her only remaining option.

  “Good sleep?” asked Ally, glad that Neffy was looking more refreshed.

  “Yes, thanks. All good,” Neffy lied. He didn’t want to give Ally any more ammo by telling her about the blackout. “I’ve actually just got an update from FFS Troy. They’ll be with us in about 29 hours.”

  Neffy receives an update from the Federation, and seconds later Ally gets a kill order? Are their messages being intercepted? Either there was a mole or someone hacked into their systems.

  “How did you receive the message? What channel?” Ally asked, barely hiding her surprise.

  “E-DNA, of course. Holo won’t reach out here.” Neffy looked at her with a passing confusion, then got distracted by something on his screen.

  E-DNA was secure by virtue of the tech itself. When you’re communicating using sequences of 1s and 0s on entangled atoms, there is no such thing as interception because there is no signal that travels. Which means the mole would need to be tapped into either the sending or receiving of the messages. That meant he was on the FFS Troy, or was able to see Neffy’s holo when he read it. Ally wondered briefly about the cameras all around the ship. There were too many options to track it down.

  “I’d be careful about where you view your holo messages,” suggested Ally.

  “Hmm, why?” asked Neffy, once again engrossed in his screen.

  “I’m just not sure everything is completely secure,” she lied. The two messages in close succession could be just a coincidence…but Neffy didn’t believe in coincidences, and neither did she.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Looks like we’ve got about 15 minutes until we’re in line with the city on the surface,” announced Neffy. He knew this was the danger zone – the time when either party was most likely to act and react. It would still be another few orbits before the FFS Troy would be here, though. That meant being on high alert for the 6-minute period every 78 minutes, by his calculations.

  Ally, hoping that she would be able to use the element of surprise, saw her odds of success falling away as she realized that Neffy was fully aware of the impending risks. She’d completed the same calculation just minutes before, trying to give herself a useful distraction from the choice she had to make. Tell Neffy, or kill Neffy.

  She couldn’t possibly kill her friend. She had to tell him.

  Even if she died as a result, it was her only chance. She didn’t want to imagine what life would be like, knowing she had killed her friend. There was only one choice when it came right down to it.

  She looked at the time stamp on that last e-DNA message. Eleven minutes ago. She had less than 30 to find a solution to the problem. But first she needed to tell Neffy.

  “Neff…” she started. Not really knowing what words to use.

  “Yeah?” Neffy looked up, and looked her straight in the eye.

  He knew? No, he couldn’t. He was just coming out of his super-focused mode and readjusting to normal human contact. Everything was fine.

  “I’ve got something to tell you, and it’s not good,” she started, trying to get her thoughts in order. “I’ve been getting these messages from an unknown e-DNA address…”

  Her words were lost as the ship went into red alert. Fuck! she thought to herself. What now?

  The sirens were ten times louder than anything on the operations deck back on New Atlantia.

  Ally and Neffy were back on guard, sitting bolt upright, looking at each other to see if either had any clue. What could have happened already? They were still several minutes out from being in range for the Atlantians to engage.

  Neffy tried to connect on the holo with Haafiz. No answer.

  “We need to get up to the bridge and find out what’s going on,” he told Ally, who was already on her feet and halfway towards the door.

  “Can you find us a route?” he asked, closing down his holo and making sure he wasn’t leaving anything they might need in the room. Satisfied, he turned, following Ally out the door.

  “I can get us there.” Ally strode on, completely confused and frustrated by this sudden turn of events.

  +++

  Three corridors and a lift later, they arrived at the control room. Haafiz was barking orders and his crew members were scurrying around. Over to one side, one of the control panels had been taken apart, exposing tech that Neffy recognized only from his mother’s old flight textbooks.

  “Report,” requested Neffy, as he approached Haafiz.

  “It looks like one of our airlocks has malfunctioned. We’ve got the outer door closed, but the inner door is still open. If the outer door fails, we’ll lose a whole section of the ship in minutes.”

  Haafiz’s constant agitation had never been more appropriate than it was right now.

  “Let us help,” Neffy said. He stepped in, trying to figure out which console would give them fastest access to the mainframe. “Ally, let’s get you plugged into ground zero and see if we can override the door systems.”

  Haafiz looked at Ally with mistrust. His view of technology had been obvious since they stepped on board, and he was unlikely to allow an AI to plug into his ship.

  “She’s not AI,” Neffy explained quickly, “she’s a human consciousness that we uploaded to a synthbot. You must have heard about it through the Academy?” Neffy didn’t have time for bigotry, or long explanations, but this was probably the only way he was going to get Haafiz to allow them to take care of this.

  Haafiz scowled. “How do we know that you didn’t create this problem in the first place? You met with the New Atlantians before you came on board. You could have hatched a plan to take over our ship.”

  “You must be kidding. We work for the Federation. We have no allegiance to any colony. Our only agenda is peace.”

  Haafiz shook his head. “That’s what they always used to say at the Academy. I used to believe it, too. But you’ve got to admit, it would be the perfect cover!”

  Neffy turned away and found a panel that would probably give them the access they needed. He pulled off the front.

  “Plug in,” Neffy ordered Ally, and then, turning to Haafiz: “You either let us do our job, or you risk losing a section of your ship to the vacuum. You’re already this close to being put on Federation investigative leave. The only reason I haven’t taken that step yet is because we want to make sure everyone on this ship survives, and I’m going to need your help to get your prototype back.”

  Haafiz was too out of the loop to really comprehend what was going on, and things were moving quickly. The sirens were obviously disrupting his concentration, and the hub of activity from the crew wasn’t helping. Neffy couldn’t even tell what most of the crewmembers thought they were doing. The inefficiencies of these colonies always astounded him. But then, that was why they needed agents like him.

  In seconds Ally was plugged in and running diagnostics. Neffy glanced at her to get a report. Ally was puzzled. She didn’t have anything to do with this malfunction, yet an airlock problem was a major component of her plan. Was it just a freak coincidence, or something else?

  “Captain…” Ally called Neffy over. “It looks like the problem is local. The system thinks it’s already closed, so it’s not responding to the command. And yet, the sensors are telling us that the pressure is way down. I think
we just need to manually override it, and then deactivate this section until we can get the ship into maintenance to see what’s gone wrong.”

  “Okay. So, what do we need to do to override it?” asked Neffy. He was back in command-mode. He was still tired, as he hadn’t slept much, but four hours were far better than none. He felt like all this had already happened and he was experiencing deja vu. Of course, that was nothing new to him. If he had a credit for every time that happened, he’d never have to run a mission again.

  “Someone needs to go down and operate the panel,” Ally responded.

  Flight Sergeant Serpico was standing nearby, listening to the conversation. “We’ve cleared out all personnel, sir. We lost a few before we got the main outer door closed. There are no guarantees that it is even going to hold.”

  “It’s too dangerous to send someone down there,” concluded Haafiz quickly, pursing his lips.

  “I’ll go,” said Neffy, and without missing a beat he zipped up his suit. He turned to Serpico. “I should take a helmet, just in case.”

  “Of course,” he said, looking very concerned but knowing that this was their best course of action. He would never have suggested it, though. It was obviously a relief to him when Neffy offered. He disappeared for a few moments into the chaos of activity and noise, and returned with a space helmet.

  “It’s got about 10 minutes of oxygen, just in case you need it. If you want an air tank we can arrange one, but it will delay getting down there…”

  Neffy thought for a moment and decided it was best just to get there immediately. After all, from the look of the holo that Ally was studying, there was air pressure down there, which meant that the outer door was closed. This was really just a precaution. Once they got the inner door shut, a team could move in and make sure it was going to stay that way.