Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  Ally butted in. “He’ll also need a diagnostic patch to plug in, one that I can read from up here.”

  Haafiz nodded to Serpico, who strode over to the nearest operator working a console. He said a few words to the man, and then reached into a nearby toolkit, pulling out what Neffy guessed must be a handheld diagnostics device. Returning to the huddled group, who could just as easily have been huddling against the rain as the sirens of the red alert, he handed the device to Neffy. Ally grabbed it instead and pressed some buttons, bringing up the e-DNA address.

  “It needs syncing,” she explained, handing it back to Neffy a few seconds later. “Okay, you’re all set,” said Ally, giving him permission to get going.

  “Thanks. Send a map to my holo, and if you can guide me down there via the quickest route, that would be much appreciated.”

  Ally tapped at her temple, activating her implanted comms system. This was tuned to Neffy by default, so they were ready to go. Neffy strode out across the bridge and out of the main door.

  Ally watched as he disappeared, completely at a loss as to how she was going to carry out her plan when the ship was still out of range. The device must have reached the bunker by now.

  “Okay, what am I looking for?” Neffy had put on the helmet before he entered Section 442, and was beginning to wish he’d asked for the oxygen tank. The helmet’s vents, even when they were open, made breathing a little more difficult…and he was probably using more oxygen now in his anxious, active state.

  Ally guided him. “You want to pull away the wall panel underneath the door control. It should detach fairly easily.”

  Neffy found the panel and pressed at the edges. It clicked, and one edge opened up a fraction of an inch. He pushed again, and it started to come away, all the way around. Peeling back the composite fiber, he managed to reveal a heap of old silicon electronics. If one of these devices had gone, they were out of luck. This kind of thing was made in factories where they printed DNA molecules to store data and programs, which would then integrate with the old printed silicon semiconductor devices. Their only play was to find a mechanical override, or a way of cutting the power to the door to force its circuitry to close.

  “I’m in,” reported Neffy to the open audio holo.

  “Okay, can you plug the device in anywhere? You’d be looking for anything that looks like a maintenance port. I think on these ships they used red and black stripes to indicate access points.”

  Neffy scanned the tangled array behind the panel. Several minutes went by. The pressure in here was certainly low…maybe that was why he was struggling to breathe through the helmet. Maybe he should remove his helmet. Okay, let me just find this diagnostics port and then I’ll take it off, he told himself.

  “Neffy?” Ally was concerned by the long silence.

  “I’m here,” Neffy replied. A moment later he spotted the port. “Got it!” he announced.

  Quickly he plugged in the device and stepped back, focusing on his breathing a little more. He glanced up at the panel readout, where the user would input their access codes. The message flicked from DOOR OPEN to DIAGNOSTICS, with a flashing dot after it. He watched, wondering what Ally would find.

  Hopefully a way to force this door shut, and quickly, thought Neffy.

  He was ready for sleep. The four hours had barely scratched the surface of the deficit and the blackout had probably exhausted him even more. Some time to himself to process everything that had been happening in the last few days would also be nice, even if that was only a daydream.

  “It looks like a burnt-out chip,” Ally reported over their audio feed, “but to replace it we would need a spare, and we’d need to be in full maintenance mode. In other words, docked.”

  A pause, and then she continued, “One second, let me see if I can bypass it and close the door.”

  There was a long silence on the line, and Neffy shifted his weight. He stared straight at the panel, willing Ally to find a work-around.

  Back in the control room, Ally stared at her holoscreen. Haafiz and Serpico stood over her silently, like parents watching a child play with a cutting-edge new toy they didn’t fully understand. They had a general sense of what was going on, but they had no idea how Ally was making things happen with their systems. Their level of technical knowledge was well below hers. Perhaps she could use their confusion and sense of inadequacy to resolve this situation.

  She muted the audio feed and turned to address them.

  “Let me ask you a question. If you could destroy that prototype right now, without any interference from us, would you make that call?”

  Haafiz looked confused. “I thought you were against it. You said it was dangerous and would start a war.”

  Ally shrugged. “I think that’s a bit dramatic. If we can intervene in time, and talk with the New Atlantians on your behalf – especially if you only destroyed that one target – I think we could get them to hold off.”

  Haafiz was going for it. Ally waited for his next objection, knowing that after this there was no turning back.

  He wanted to do it, she could see that in his face. Yet he remained uncertain. “What about the device, though? You said it could tear a black hole in the system?”

  “I’m afraid Captain Klingerman hasn’t been entirely honest with you,” Ally explained, “The device in its current state is unlikely to interact with the Zero Point Field as we originally thought it might. He was keeping that from you in order to maintain the ceasefire.”

  Serpico bared his teeth like a predatory animal, “This is an interesting revelation. What would your Captain think if he could hear you saying this? What about loyalty to your comrade?”

  Despite these words, he also wanted to go ahead with the attack. She could read it in his face. For a Drewdonian patriot, it was important to show that they weren’t to be trifled with – and they could always build another device from the designs, even if it would take some time. And yet neither man seemed willing to commit.

  Ally saw they were excited by the prospect, but they weren’t acting on it. She was running out of time to get them to act on it, and they were getting suspicious. “Just a thought,” she said as casually as she could manage. The sirens were still sounding. “Can we kill the high alert, please?” she suggested, “It really is quite unnecessary. We’ll have this wrapped up in a few moments.”

  “Neffy,” she hailed, opening the audio channel again, “I think it’s a busted circuit. We should probably look at activating the deadlock feature by disconnecting the power from it. That should swing it shut and lock it.”

  “Okay – standing by for instructions,” Neffy’s voice came back, a little quieter than normal. He was probably running out of oxygen down there.

  Ally glanced back at the holo plan of the doors system.

  She realized that all it would take would be to hit one button, just one button, and that would open the outer door again. It would look like a malfunction. Neffy would be swept out of the airlock in seconds, and out into space. She checked her watch – nine minutes until the deadline. Five minutes until the Aegelweard came into firing position.

  All this would be over in five minutes one way or the other.

  She could save herself right now. Or the blackmailer would kill her.

  She just had to open that outer door. One tap of the button. That’s all it would take.

  Her finger hovered over the screen.

  She had a few moments before Haafiz or Serpico would notice what she was doing.

  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.

  She believed it.

  “Ally, are you there? It’s getting tough to breathe down here. A little help?” Neffy came through on Ally’s earpiece.

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to override the malfunction. I’m just figuring out how to do that,” Ally responded.

  “Ally, the dialogue screen is saying DOOR OPEN, SYSTE
M 31. I’ve just tapped on that, and it says that SYSTEM 31 is holding it open.”

  Silence.

  “Ally, do you copy?”

  Neffy could hear Haafiz talking in the background. “That’s the main control system. It runs everything on the ship that involves air supply, ventilation, heating, or cooling. If that’s showing then it’s telling us that everything is functioning as normal. We should just be able to close that door. Here…” he moved around to look at Ally’s personal holopanel to show her how to hit the door-close function, relieved that it was a simple fix, yet puzzled at what could have caused the problem in the first place.

  Ally edged away from him. That would mean he would activate the door to close and she would lose her chance.

  She couldn’t delay anymore.

  Her fear had come true. She’d finally been pushed to the point where she had no choice. Giving in was her only option.

  She flicked her finger, and the diagram representing the door transformed from a blocked out box to an empty box showing an open door.

  +++

  Neffy stood looking at the panel, not quite understanding what Haafiz was saying. There must be another malfunction somewhere.

  “Ally…” he started. And then he noticed that the outer door was opening.

  “Fuck. ALLY! THE DOOR!” His breath was snatched from him as he was ripped from the spot where he stood. In seconds he was torn past the inner and outer doors of the airlock, bashing his arm, and then his head.

  All went quiet.

  Tumbling unconscious out of the airlock, Captain Nefertiti Klingerman shot out into the inky blackness of the vacuum.

  +++

  Ally couldn’t believe what she’d just done.

  Just a flick of a button, and she’d murdered her best friend. Neffy was gone. Done. Out the airlock.

  She could have screamed out loud with the intensity of her regret. Yet she was silent, shocked into paralysis. Her mind ran through the memories of all the times they had shared, the pain of knowing she would never see Neffy again.

  This was final.

  And she’d made it so.

  The room disappeared from her awareness. She couldn’t speak. Though she was preoccupied with processing her own feelings, Haafiz was looking expectantly at her, clearly wanting to get a look at the screen, and oblivious to what had just happened.

  Moments passed, then Ally remembered the conversation they’d been having and flicked the screen over to him, allowing him to close the inner door that they now knew to be functioning perfectly. He studied it and looked a little confused, realizing that the outer door was now open.

  “This isn’t right,” Haafiz said, “There must be a bug in the system. This is saying the outer door is open, which can’t be right if Captain Klingerman is standing there breathing air…” His voice trailed off, as he raised his eyes to look at Ally for an explanation.

  “Commander! Commander!” A sergeant ran over to the cluster of leaders. “We have a person overboard. It looks like someone has just been jettisoned from the faulty airlock.”

  What had just happened began to dawn on the Commander.

  Neffy had been sucked out of the airlock. Gone. Scrambling a rescue team would be futile at this point. He was likely already dead. Without a full spacesuit or oxygen supply…

  Haafiz glazed over, beyond panic, unable to focus on what he should be doing now.

  The life of a Federation Independent had just been lost. On his watch. In front of his very eyes. Due to a fault on his ship.

  His face dropped, and he looked down at the holoscreen trying to comprehend what had just happened. He tapped at the door icons, and found that both closed easily. No error messages. No alert. Just closed. It was as if nothing had been wrong with the door in the first place.

  “How could this happen?” he gasped, not really directing the question at anyone in particular.

  Flight Sergeant Serpico and Ally looked at each other.

  Ally needed a minute. “I…I…I need some air,” she mumbled, her voice breaking, unable to equate what she was feeling in her synthbody to something they would understand.

  The Commander and the Flight Sergeant nodded sympathetically, both clearly stunned.

  Ally walked briskly from the command center, and out into the corridor. It was much cooler there. She stood for a moment, her back to the door as it slid quietly shut behind her.

  What was she going to do? Why did she do that? She should have come clean. She should have let Neffy in on what was going on. He would have been able to help.

  Get it together, she told herself. What’s done is done. You can deal with that later. What are your main objectives now?

  I need to get them to fire on the prototype. Then I need to make sure that none of this can be traced back to me.

  She checked the time on her holo. The prototype’s position was coming into alignment with the Aegelweard.

  The Federation Ship, the Troy, would be here just over 28 hours after that. Okay, so the first step is to take care of the prototype. She needed to be back on the bridge. And she needed access to whoever was controlling the weapons system – or to convince Haafiz that he needed to fire. She needed to get back in there and take control almost right away.

  She wandered down the corridor to get some space and reset her thinking.

  The first thing the Federation would do is interview her about what happened. Haafiz was going to tell them that the door seemed to be functioning perfectly when he saw her holopanel. She was going be a suspect in Neffy’s death. Unless something more pressing was going on. If they were too preoccupied with stopping an all-out war with the Atlantians, then maybe she had a chance.

  Either way, life as she knew it was over. She’d just murdered her best friend because some psychopath on an e-DNA link had told her he could deactivate her.

  What if it was all a hoax?

  What if it was just someone pulling her strings, and he didn’t really have that power?

  Surely if someone had the kind of tech they’d need to wipe her databanks, then why not just rewrite her to make her do his bidding? Why threaten her? Why risk her telling someone? Ally had nothing but questions. Questions and deep pain and horrible fear.

  As she stood there trying to decide on a course of action, it all came clear to her. She couldn’t do it. There was no realistic chance she could get away with this, and no point in even trying. She had killed her friend and ended her own life in the same moment.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Neffy came to, gasping, trying to fill his lungs, confused about what was going on.

  He couldn’t remember where he was or how he got here. All he knew was that he was finding it difficult to breathe.

  He opened his eyes, and tried to move. He was in a lifesuit – and had a space helmet on. He attempted to draw breath again, fighting against air pressure that simply wasn't there. He tried again, feeling adrenaline course through his system, as his heart rate rocketed.

  No air. There was no air in the suit.

  His eyes were open, but everything was black…and then he saw flashes of light which must have been the ship as he tumbled and tumbled.

  He felt disoriented, like he didn’t know which way was up. He closed his eyes, waiting for the spinning to stop, then realized it wouldn’t if he was tumbling, because there was no resistance in space. With a flick of the nano-implants on his finger, he activated the stabilizers in his suit, and little jets of compressed nitrogen in the lining fired to slow his movement and bring him to a stop. He felt like he should be going in some particular direction…but where? He couldn’t seem to focus his mind enough to understand his situation.

  Waiting for his eyes to acclimate, he tried to figure out where he was. Everything was black. He tried to sit up, but remembered he must be suspended. That meant nothing to push against. As he twisted, he caught a glimpse of some light, off to the right, in one corner of his visor.
He thanked his lucky stars for the helmet. Without it, there was no way he would still be alive.

  He desperately needed to breathe.

  Calm, he said to himself. Stay calm. There must be some air, or else you’d be dead already. Just go gently, and you’ll be able to breathe whatever is left in the suit until you can figure out what’s going on. He managed to take a shallow breath, and the panic subsided a little. Then another.

  That’s it. Short breaths. You’ve got this.

  “Hello…?” he tried his suit’s comms system, “Ally?” That jarred his memory. He’d been with Ally.

  No response.

  Nothing.

  Not even static.

  Fuck, he thought.

  What a time to lose track of time. He cursed himself and his damn disability. For the most part he’d been able to keep it quiet, but it was times like this when he wished he didn’t try to pretend to be normal. It was putting lives in danger. God knew what he’d got himself into this time. He looked out at the ship. No. No recognition there. It was difficult to judge any distance, either. He wasn’t even sure what kind of ship it was.

  It was getting harder to even take the shallow breaths.

  He pulled up the holo on his sleeve, noticing his heart rate was speeding up. Shit panic attack. Just breathe. Just breathe. You’re not dead yet, and they’re probably sending someone out for you right now. Just stay focused and check your last time entry.

  Opening up his holo summary he found that he couldn’t read the time stamp. Or the text. He blinked his eyes and held his arm up to be able to look more closely. Maybe it was his brain being foggy from lack of oxygen? Maybe it was the panic? His system was certainly flooded with adrenaline, and breathing wasn’t getting any easier. He looked at his oxygen levels. One flashing bar. He might have only moments left.

  But Ally had been there.

  They must have been on a mission. And then he remembered the door panel. It was functioning. He felt a wave of sadness, mixed with betrayal. Why did he feel this way? What did his subconscious know that his conscious mind didn’t? Had Ally betrayed him? Surely not. She was his best friend…but they had been arguing. He remembered that. They had been in a conference room, investigating something and arguing about how to handle it.