If the fleet had been bang on course they wouldn’t have had time to prepare. Now they knew exactly when they would reach the Wanderer. Vorn studied the displays for another five minutes before impatience set in. The Wanderer still hadn’t moved. It was time to close the trap.
“Bring us out of jump space,” he snapped out. “We have a new heading. I want us back in jump space the moment the engines have cycled.”
“Aye, Sir!”
The Starslayer dropped back into real space, rapidly followed by the rest of the fleet. Vorn’s orders were immediately relayed to all ships.
“Captain.” Vorn’s voice was much softer this time. He gestured for the Captain to come close.
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Is everything prepared?”
“Yes, Sir. Armed and operational.”
“Excellent. When we catch the Wanderer you are free to fire immediately. Aim for the jump drives first, then start crippling the ship. Don’t destroy her. I want enough left to study, but do whatever else is needed to prevent her running again.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Vorn nodded, then turned his thoughts back to the Wanderer. It was almost too good to be true. The ship he sought was once more sitting still, a tempting target which should stand no chance against his mighty fleet.
Just like last time, and the times before. Until he stood on the Wanderer’s bridge Vorn wouldn’t believe the fight was won. And if that meant standing in a full spacesuit because the bridge had been cracked wide open, then so be it.
* * *
The waiting was hard on Sal. While the fleet remained in jump space she had no idea what was happening aboard the Dark Shadow. Had her gift to the captain taken fully, or had he been recognised as one of the Gifted? Would the return to normal space be closely followed by her execution?
Or was all going well? Had the captain managed to convert more of his crew? Had he spread the Gift freely, as was intended? Maybe the truth was somewhere in between. Had the captain managed to spread the Gift at all? If not, what should she do?
She was tempted to begin passing on the Gift to those on the Shogan, but she resisted. The ship was too big, and she didn’t want to risk being discovered. Though maybe there was one who would be worth the risk, the guard who was monitoring her even now. The one who would raise the alarm as soon as she exited her cell.
Faking a yawn she stretched, then sat up on the bed. She stretched again but resisted the urge to blink her eyes. She didn’t want to overdo it. Then she glanced up at the camera she knew he was looking through at that moment and turned on a dazzling smile.
* * *
Mak studied the prisoner as she stretched. She didn’t seem concerned by her situation. That would change. He’d seen the provisional interrogation schedule. Someone wanted everything the prisoner knew, and they wanted it quickly.
Mak wouldn’t be directly involved but he would probably end up witnessing the interrogation. It wasn’t a pleasant task but he knew it was necessary. Someone less experienced might have had doubts about interrogating the prisoner but he knew the most corrupt often hid behind a shell of innocence.
The prisoner turned and stared straight into the camera Mak was watching through. She smiled and he felt his heart leap in his chest. All thoughts of interrogation vanished from his mind. All he could focus on was the prisoner’s face. Her smile. Her eyes. Warmth washed over him, making his body relax. Nothing else mattered. He lost all sense of time passing.
Everything suddenly changed. Instead of warmth he now felt a suffocating heat. Something was scraping at his brain from the inside. Something that was pushing into his mind, pushing him aside. Panic set in but he couldn’t move, couldn’t yell. The presence was forcing its way deeper and deeper into his mind and there was nothing he could do. He started screaming, but only in his head.
* * *
Sal’s smile was one of triumph now. The guard was quickly succumbing to the Gift. It had been worth the risk. Now she would be escorted to the shuttle, which should prevent any awkward questions.
The Shogan dropped out of jump space. Despite her integration with the ship’s systems it caught Sal by surprise. It happened far too quickly for her to respond.
She searched for the Dark Shadow and found it close by. What state was it in? It wasn’t broadcasting a general alarm, which she took to be a good sign. Had the Gift spread sufficiently?
Yes! Like all the ships in the fleet, the Dark Shadow was broadcasting an update on its status. Buried within the message were unmistakable codes telling her the ship was under control of the Gifted. Not everyone had received the Gift yet, but enough of the officers and crew to have control of the ship.
Movement caught her eye. The guard! She’d been too distracted worrying about the Dark Shadow and had forgotten the far closer threat. Dropping out of jump space had caused the systems to flicker. Not much, but apparently enough for the guard to break the connection. He’d collapsed to the floor but now he was starting to move again. Towards the console. Towards the alarm.
* * *
Mak lay curled up on the floor, struggling to think. His head felt as if someone was hammering red hot spikes into it. He didn’t care. It was far better than the horror of being pushed out of his own mind.
After a few seconds he started to move, groaning as he did. He wasn’t thinking about what had happened. All he was focused on was the alert button. If he could strike that then a large force of troopers would flood the area. They could tackle the prisoner with the hypnotic eyes.
The button was only three metres away but it felt like three miles. Gritting his teeth he pushed forward, determined to make it. Two metres… one metre… half a metre. There! He stretched up then slammed his hand down on the alarm.
Nothing! Alarms should be ringing, troopers should be issuing updates as they neared the area. All hell should be breaking loose. Instead, nothing was happening. He hit the button again, and again, and again. Still nothing. Fear started to coil in his stomach. This couldn’t be a coincidence. The prisoner must be behind it. He didn’t know how, but she must be.
With a groan Mak pulled himself back into his chair, then reached for the controls. There was more than one way to send out a warning.
* * *
Sal cursed as she worked to isolate the guard’s console from the rest of the ship. Another minute and he would have been one of the Gifted. Even thirty seconds would have been enough to render him helpless for an hour or so. Now he knew her secret. She couldn’t let him warn the others.
Should she make her move now? No! It was too soon. She couldn’t risk alerting the rest of the fleet. She had to wait until they entered jump space. She would see to it that the Shogan couldn’t follow, while the Dark Shadow’s captain would stop his ship from jumping.
* * *
Mak was getting desperate. Everything he tried was blocked. He’d tried calling the bridge, then the captain directly, and finally people at random. Every attempt failed. So did every effort to send a plain message. He was locked out of every other system he tried to access.
“Damn!” he shouted, smashing his hand down on the console.
Fine. If he couldn’t send a message from where he was, he’d send one from somewhere else. He stood, walked towards the door, then paused to slide his pistol clear of its holster. The screens still showed the prisoner in her cell, but he didn’t trust them. Something had thoroughly infected his console. How could he rely on anything it told him?
Reaching the door he punched in the access code. The pad beeped and glowed red for a second. He tried again, more carefully this time, with the same result.
“Oh shit. This can’t be happening.”
He took hold of himself and started to examine the door and surrounding wall. There wasn’t anything as obvious as a manual release, of course, not on such a secure door, but maybe he could find a way to override the panel. Failing that he was getting desperate enough to try shooting the keypad.
Chapt
er 53
Not long now, Sal knew. The fleet would be entering jump space in under a minute. The guard was still trying to find a way out of his room but hadn’t succeeded yet.
The seconds ticked down until, finally, the fleet leapt towards jump space. Almost all of it, anyway. The Shogan and the Dark Shadow remained. Sal smiled at the confusion on the Shogan’s bridge. It’s jump engines had switched into maintenance mode at the moment they should have fired up. It would take at least twenty minutes to cycle them.
The captain was livid. He was already threatening to personally execute whoever had made such a critical mistake. His officers were desperately trying to track down how it had happened, while also discussing the contingency plan for these situations. Once their jump engines were back online they would need to follow the fleet, tracking the unique scars it had left on the fabric of space.
It took them a surprisingly long time to realise that the Dark Shadow had also failed to jump. By the time they did, Sal was already out of her cell and the Dark Shadow was drawing close.
Her plan was dangerous, there was no doubt about that. She had to take the risk, though. The knowledge in her head was invaluable to spreading the Gift. She tried not to look furtive as she walked down the corridor, but it was difficult. She too obviously didn’t belong on this ship.
She didn’t have to go far to reach her first target. Just a short way down the corridor she reached the emergency locker. She pulled out a pressure suit and helmet, slipping the suit on but holding the helmet. She felt better already. The pressure suit should make anyone she met less suspicious.
It was just in time. Almost as soon as she started moving two men came into view going the other way. Both had the lean, strong look of security. Sal felt herself jump slightly as they came into view. She hoped it hadn’t been noticeable.
She silently cursed the limitations of her implants. Those from the Wanderer had allowed her to think tens of times faster than she normally could. With their help she could have kept watch over her immediate area, watched the guard and still plotted how best to escape. Instead she was back to thinking at normal speed, with all the disadvantages that brought.
She walked purposefully down the corridor, forcing herself to focus straight ahead and not to watch how the two men reacted. Her gift gave her an advantage. She had far more control over her body than before, but would it be enough? If there had been just one opponent then she could have fallen back on passing on the Gift. It could only be transferred to a single person at a time, though.
The two men slowed as she approached. Sal tensed inside.
“Expecting trouble?” one asked her, gesturing at the suit.
She stopped, putting on a resigned expression.
“Don’t ask me. I’m just obeying orders. Sergeant’s probably got some unpleasant job in mind for me. He had an evil gleam when he told me to get suited up.”
Both men laughed.
“Better not keep him waiting,” said the one who had spoken before.
They stepped back, gesturing her through. She nodded her thanks and hurried down the corridor, hearing them chuckling behind as they speculated over what job she was being lined up for.
She hurried away, an action that was in keeping with the story she’d spun, fighting the urge to check on the two men. She reached a side corridor and took the turning, disappearing from their sight. She paused for a moment, reaching out through her implant to check on her surroundings. The two men were continuing on their way. No one else was in the nearby corridors. She could make it close to the shuttle bay without meeting anyone.
Not into it, though. A three man repair crew was working on one shuttle and team of five guards were positioned to watch over all approaches. There was no chance of her making it to the shuttle, let alone getting aboard and launching. She needed to deal with the guards and engineers first. The question was, how?
* * *
Mak kicked the wall in frustration. It didn’t achieve anything other than to hurt his foot, but he welcomed the pain. He’d tried everything short of shooting the keypad without any luck. He couldn’t get access to any of the panels around the door, so he couldn’t try to short-circuit the mechanism. He didn’t have the tools to try to crack the code, either. Brute force had simply left him with a sore hand. The only options left were shooting the keypad, which was never going to work, or happening to punch in a valid code, one that the prisoner hadn’t wiped.
He went to kick the wall again, but stopped with his foot drawn back. Something was tickling at his memory, but he couldn’t quite remember what. Something about a code… a code that would open any door.
But what… oh… of course! It came flooding back to him. A very drunken conversation with one of the engineers several years before. He couldn’t even remember the engineer’s name, but she’d told him there was a back door built into the ship’s locks. A way of overriding any lock at any time. A code known only to the captain and first officer. And, apparently, to a small group of engineers.
They’d both been extremely drunk at the time and he’d been certain she was making up a story to impress him. Still, he’d played along. He’d asked if that meant she could sneak into any room on the ship. His next question would be whether she planned on sneaking into his room one night. He was pretty sure they were both too drunk for sex, but it was worth a try.
Her reply spoiled that idea. No, she told him. She couldn’t use it to sneak into anywhere. There was a catch. If the code was used it would set off alarms throughout the ship. Anyone using it would be discovered immediately. If it was the captain or the first officer using the code the alarms wouldn’t matter, but if it was anyone else they’d be dragged in front of the captain and probably shoved out an airlock with no suit soon after.
That had convinced Mak it was just a story. He asked her how she knew the code worked if it could never be tested. She had screwed her face up in concentration, then admitted she didn’t. Before he could ask any more questions she had taken another swig of her beer. One swig too many as it turned out. She spent the next couple of minutes noisily vomiting over the arm of the sofa they lounged on. All thoughts of sex vanished from Mak’s mind at that point.
Strangely, the story hadn’t. Nor had the code. For the next few weeks he’d had to fight the temptation to enter it, to try it out. He’d resisted. What would be the point? If it didn’t work, as it almost certainly wouldn’t, then what was the point in having proven it? And if it did… well, he was quite attached to being alive.
Now, with no other option, the code sprang back into his mind. If it didn’t work then he’d be no worse off. If it did… well, he would probably be blamed for letting the prisoner escape anyway. And for whatever she’d done to the systems. At best that would mean lengthy time in jail. If the code worked he’d have a chance to stop the prisoner, or raise the alarm so she could be stopped. That might count in his favour.
He took a deep breath, then started to punch in the code. It was longer than normal access codes, more than twice as long, but the pattern of numbers involved made it easy to remember. He punched in the last number then jumped as a blaring alarm rang out in the room. At the same time the door slid open.
He stood stunned for a moment, amazed the code had actually worked. He wondered if the engineer was still on the Shogan. If so, would she realise the code had been used? That she had been right? Then he remembered why he’d used the code and ran down the corridor towards the shuttle bay. It might not be where the prisoner was heading, but it was the one place she could go to get off the ship. If she was heading anywhere else Mak could raise the alarm and she would be hunted down.
The alarm was blaring in the first corridor he entered, but it soon faded away as he charged onwards. Another sign that the ship’s systems had been compromised. It dashed his hopes of the alarm alerting the captain and security forces. He skidded to a halt by a wall mounted console and tried to raise the bridge. He couldn’t get through, just like when he’d u
sed his console before.
Cursing, he broke into a sprint again. Stopping the prisoner was going to be down to him and anyone he managed to enlist on the way. But could catch her in time? He really didn’t know.
* * *
Sal was almost at the shuttle bay. If she went any further she’d be seen by the guards, so she ducked into a side room. She used her implants to link to the ship’s systems, and through them sent commands to the Dark Shadow.
Moments later the Shogan shook as the Dark Shadow opened fire. Using her implant, Sal shut down the Shogan’s shields. The powerful weaponry the Banshee sported started to punch deep holes into the Shogan’s hull. Hundreds died immediately, from the weapons strikes or from suddenly being exposed to the vacuum of space. Sal didn’t care. All that mattered was getting off the ship.
The Dark Shadow was aiming carefully. None of the impacts were anywhere near the docking bay. But there was no way for the engineering team or the guards to know that. When the hull breach siren started to wail the engineers dropped everything and rushed for the nearest corridor. Caught without pressure suits, they weren’t waiting for the air to disappear.
The guards stayed put, though they looked worried. The armour they wore was rated for vacuum so they slapped on their helmets and readied their weapons. It would take much more than a pressure alarm to shift the guards. Sal activated another, even more serious, alarm.
This one was a warning that structural integrity in the area was failing. In short, it meant the area was about to get crushed or ripped away from the main ship. If it was the latter, then anyone in combat armour could survive… for a while. Floating in a pile of wreckage waiting for a rescue that would probably never come.
Wanderer's Odyssey - Books 1 to 3: The Epic Space Opera Series Begins Page 89
