“Is there another way?”
He shook his head. “We’d have to go all the way back down to floor 22R, and that exit is heavily guarded. This one is only for VIP use, which is why it only handles one person at a time.”
“Wait a second,” Bentley mused, snapping her fingers, “what if we go through together?”
Svend shook his head again. “It would read us as two biosignatures and request that one of us vacate the airlock. It wouldn’t even run the decontamination process with both of us in there.”
“But what if it would?”
“What do you mean?”
“Help me with this,” Bentley started prying one of the panels off the side of the airlock. “Can you interface directly with its system?” she asked.
“Theoretically, sure,” Svend said. “I’ve never really tried anything like that before. It’s frowned upon.”
“More frowned upon than trying and failing to get me out of here?”
“Good point. What’s your plan?”
“Just try to alter the programming enough so that instead of rejecting our two biosignatures, it just accepts the first one it detects and runs the program. That should be enough change.”
“Okay. Let me try.” Svend placed his hand inside the open panel. He blinked rapidly several times. “I’m in.”
Fresh sweat dripped down Bentley’s neck to join the old sweat that had dampened her collar as she waited in silence while her friend worked. He wore a look of intense concentration, but a moment later he smiled and retracted his hand.
“I think I got it.”
“How do we know for sure?”
In answer, Svend pulled the door open and held it for her.
“Even if this works,” he reminded her, “it’s only a fifty percent chance that my DNA gets picked up first. Fifty percent chance that the alarm goes off.”
“I know,” Bentley put her arms around him. “It’s fifty percent more chance of us getting out of here.”
Fwoosh. The dusty smoke washed over them, and then the second door clicked open.
They were free and clear.
Almost.
They raced down the hall and ventured cautiously out onto the airfield. The midday sun blasted down on them accompanied by the roaring sounds of space worthy engines all around. Smaller vessels flitted overhead, while some of the larger ones were being crewed and supplied for takeoff.
+++
Leaving Android Base, Orion Sector
“This way,” Svend whispered taking her hand again and pulling her toward a small fleet of mid-sized pods. There was a maintenance android working on a landing strut for one of them. Svend stopped a short distance away from him. “Stay here,” he murmured moving closer on his own.
Oh no, is he about to hit that android? Bentley wondered. If there was going to be any violence, she would have preferred to be the one doing it. Svend merely exchanged a few words with the other android. He pointed at Bentley once, shook the other android’s hand, and then returned to her with a smile.
“What did you say?” Bentley asked as she followed him up the landing ramp into one of the pods. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Svend replied, “I just exercised a little ingenuity.”
He took the pilot’s seat and she sat next to him. Soon they were breaching the atmosphere on their way to entering orbit. Once they leveled out Bentley took a quick tour of the pod. It consisted of two rooms aside from the cockpit. A large bathroom and a multipurpose room with a bed that converted into a sofa, or disappeared into the wall entirely to make space for an expandable steel table. The bed looked big enough for two, although she blushed at the idea.
She returned to her seat in the cockpit, looking at Svend as he hummed happily.
“Okay, seriously,” Bentley insisted, “What did you say to that guy?”
“A spy never reveals his secrets.”
“That’s a magician.”
“Whatever. Maybe I’m both.”
“You’re neither.”
“Well, if that’s the tone you want to take, I won’t tell you at all.”
“Come on, Svend!” Bentley growled. “Just tell me, before I have to bash your beautiful synthetic brains in.”
Svend laughed but when she did not join in, he sighed.
“Okay,” he shrugged, “Well, are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes!” Bentley’s cheeks shone red with exasperation.
“I told him you were my girlfriend, and that we wanted to borrow the pod for an hour for, you know, some alone time. I gave him a thousand volts. That’s why we shook hands.”
“You’re kidding me?” Bentley covered her blushing face.
“Hey, it worked,” Svend pointed out.
“So hang on… can androids…”
It was Svend’s turn to look uncomfortable. “What were those numbers we’re supposed to be pursuing again?” he asked pointedly looking straight ahead.
“QX849-LF.”
“I have no idea what those mean,” Svend admitted. “It doesn’t sound like any sector or star system I’ve ever heard of, it can’t be a three-dimensional coordinate, and I wouldn’t know where to begin decoding it if it’s some sort of passphrase.” He looked so disappointed in himself that Bentley reached out and touched his shoulder. She liked the feel of his slender muscles.
“Don’t worry,” she told him, “I don’t have any idea what the numbers mean either. But they must lead somewhere. We just need to figure out where.”
“Well, I suppose you’ll be needing my help, then,” a familiar voice announced.
Svend raised an eyebrow, but Bentley jumped out of her skin.
“Jelly Bean?” she gasped, looking around.
“I couldn’t let you two go running off alone with no support. Not after everything that’s gone on. I sympathized strongly with Svend’s feelings about you,” the android explained. “In fact, I was planning on breaching Shango’s orders to set you free, Bentley. Now I don’t have to do that, so thank you, Svend.”
“So what are you doing here?” Bentley asked searching for the source of the voice.
“I’m not actually on the pod with you, of course.” Jelly Bean sounded amused at the notion. “I figured you’d need my help from the station. I’m guessing you haven’t cracked the code yet?”
“No.” Bentley sighed, “QX849-LF. That’s all I have.”
“I suppose there’s no point in bragging,” Jelly Bean’s voice radiated pride, “but I know where to send you. Hold tight, Svend, I’m taking over the controls remotely.”
Svend smiled, removing his hands from the instrument panel and leaning back. “And we’re off!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aboard the Odysseus, Edge of the Klaunox-Orion Sector
The wrecked android ship the Odysseus floated in empty space, its only life line being the attached bulk of the Geburah. Fragments of metals and ceramics spun off the damaged ship, dissolving into space dust as the LaPlacian crew extinguished the few fires that lingered from the battle’s aftermath.
Wiseman stepped out of the airlock tunnel they formed with the damaged vessel, moving and breathing cautiously. The air smelled of smoke, an acrid stench that she could taste in the back of her throat. She had smelled it before. It came from the burning of plastic parts in ship computers and engines. Their engineers had assured her that the ship was fully pressurized and suitable for occupancy but knowing the amount of damage the vessel had taken made her nervous all the same.
The long hallway leading to the bridge had a handful of workers spread across it. Some checked air quality levels while others conducted experiments on the android technology. Some seemed like they were only pretending to work, but Wiseman let it slide on account of her nerves.
“How’s it looking?” she asked the first man testing the oxygen levels with a small handheld device. She shifted her weight anxiously from one foot to the other, clutching her tablet like a small child in one arm.
“Everything’s green ma’am,” the worker reported. Wiseman thanked him and moved into the bridge. She hated being called ma’am, but he wasn’t to know that.
The bridge was a hive of activity, and the head technician, Commander Nancy Greatreaks, was at the center of it all. Nancy could hold her own with anyone when it came to managing and delegating tasks, and she was doing so with a vengeance when Wiseman approached her.
“Stevens, make sure those instruments found on the aft deck are catalogued properly, we don’t want a repeat of last time, now do we?” Greatreaks snapped. “Erin!” she exclaimed when she saw her friend. “What can I do for you?”
“Just report, please,” she requested, more briskly than necessary. Erin was feeling queasy despite the oxygen level guy’s reassurances. Her friend’s bubbly demeanor, ordinarily such a blessing, vexed her nerves.
“Oh, okay. Are you? Never mind…” Greatreaks shook her head. “Reporting as requested. We’re siphoning all the remaining fuel, they actually had quite a bit so that will save us some running around later. We’ve been scavenging for parts with three teams inside and one outside. They’re spacewalking along the hull and pulling off anything that looks expensive. What a job! Of course, there’s the team managing the repairs to the Geburah. Did you ever imagine you’d be doing something so thrilling, working for the Federation?”
“Never.” Erin smiled thinly, thinking about the people who had died in the battle. Well, many of them had been androids. But did that make it better? She wasn’t so sure. “What about the dead?” she asked.
“The what?”
“The deceased, the enemy combatants killed in action.”
“Oh,” Greatreaks frowned. “We didn’t find any. They must have taken all the bodies with them.”
They seem just as human as us, Wiseman thought, but she knew better than to say anything.
“Also,” Greatreaks added, “you may want to look at this.” She drew Erin’s attention to something among the controls.
“Shit,” Wiseman gruffed, “I’d better bring Amroth in on this.” She touched her earpiece to send a corteX call through to his chambers aboard the Geburah.
“Are the repairs completed yet?” Amroth asked her. His tone suggested a marginally better mood than he’d been in when she left him earlier, yet his impatience clearly lingered. Wiseman wondered briefly if he’d taken his frustration out on someone nearby and metabolized their soul.
“Repairs are still underway. But sir, you should see this.”
Amroth sighed. “Is it absolutely necessary?”
She hesitated, keen not to irritate him. “Yes, I’m sure, sir.”
“Very well, I’ll be there momentarily.”
The call disconnected.
Back in his office Amroth stood up and made his way out to the winding corridors of his vast spaceship. He passed many crew members, both on his way to the airlock tunnel and after he had crossed it. He knew they were looking at him, talking about him behind his back as soon as he was out of earshot. His recent outburst of bad temper would be all the rage for the next few days, of that he was certain. It mattered little. Anyone who crossed him would end up stored inside his amulet, and so long as he got his hands on the sword the crew could talk about whatever they pleased.
“Sir, over here!” Wiseman waved him over to the main control console. “Take a look at this,” she indicated at the panel next to a green blinking light. “Commander Greatreaks,” she said to the young woman nearby, “please explain what you just told me.”
“I just turned this on and reset it on a whim,” the woman explained. She seemed nervous about speaking directly to Amroth himself. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes flicked furtively from him, to Erin, to the instrument panel in front of her. “I thought it must be some sort of black box device, turns out, it’s a homing beacon. It should lead us to the ship’s home base, the android home base presumably, or wherever they harbor their vessels.”
Amroth raised his eyebrows. “Could you please repeat that, in simpler terms?”
“Yes, sir. I believe we can find the android home base.”
Amroth took a deep breath, allowing the words to seep into him. They felt almost as good. The android home base had eluded the Federation for as long as the androids had been conscious. Never once had they managed to gain even a foothold of information on the path to finding the damn robots. But now, a member of his crew was claiming she could do just that.
“Sir,” Wiseman piped up, “it’s extremely likely that the Chesed went to the android home base. If we hurry, maybe we can catch them there. If not, the Federation still gets a crack at the androids once and for all. It’s a big win-win.”
Amroth smiled. “Let us follow the breadcrumbs then. Victory awaits.” He turned on his heel and marched out of the bridge.
“Well…” Greatreaks said, “I guess we’d better bring this along.”
“Yep.” Wiseman looked around. “Have a crew dismantle it and bring it over, then start calling the scavengers in. We don’t want to miss anything important, and we don’t want to waste any time. This is our chance to catch the Chesed.” Even saying that raised goosebumps on her skin.
“Right away.” Nancy issued the order and then glanced at Wiseman and whispered covertly, “Is everything alright with the boss?”
“How do you mean?” Wiseman replied quietly.
“Is he alright? He seems to be raging out more than usual.”
“He’s just under a lot of pressure.” Wiseman dismissed the idea with her hands as if it were an invasive fly.
“Are you sure?” Greatreaks asked. “He seems like he might… snap again. You don’t want to be around him when that happens, after… you know, Dr. Metzinger.”
Wiseman shook her head. “Right. Just wait and see how happy he is when we have the crew of the Chesed in our hold.”
“But what if we don’t catch them? They’ve escaped us many times before.”
Wiseman looked around furtively. “If I were you, I wouldn’t talk that way!” she hissed.
Greatreaks blinked. “What? Why not? I’m just concerned.”
“Well, he won’t take it that way if he hears you,” Wiseman warned. “He doesn’t like people talking about him behind his back. Nobody does. Nor does he tolerate any talk of failure.”
Greatreaks tilted her head from side to side. “I suppose not, for the most part. I didn’t mean it like that though. I just thought maybe he could use some company, is all.” She subconsciously touched her neck, and had a glint in her eye.
“My god Nancy, are you trying to get in the captain’s pants? That’s…. psychotic!”
“Hey! No need to assume that.” Greatreaks shrugged expressively. “No matter how accurate it may be,” she added with a wink.
“Ugh, this is not what I need to deal with right now.” Wiseman rounded on her heel and nearly overbalanced in a sudden panic.
“Are you okay?” Nancy asked, sounding genuinely concerned as her friend found her balance.
“Just get to work, okay? I mean, keep up the good work.” Wiseman turned to storm off before she could make a bigger fool of herself, but her friend’s voice pulled her back.
“Wait! Come on, you can tell me what’s bothering you.”
“It’s this ship!” Wiseman exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, stepping closer to speak in Nancy’s ear. “Well, not this ship specifically. Wrecked ships in general. I can’t be on them without feeling panicked and unsure of myself.”
“What?” Greatreaks’s look of concern was so genuine Erin’s heart nearly melted. “Do you know why? When did this start?”
Wiseman hesitated, then seemed to decide to stay and talk for a moment. “Oh, I definitely know why,” she revealed, steadying herself by holding onto the edge of the console. “When I was a little girl, my father used to make me help him loot wrecks we found floating around the outer edges of the system. He was one hell of an entrepreneur. He could scrounge up something valuable from just about
anywhere and sell it for three times its worth. Anyway, most times I would stay behind on our little craft while he went over to the wreck and brought back whatever was shiniest.”
She glanced around making sure she wasn’t being overheard. “As I started to get older, I wanted to go with him. I wanted to be like him, if you can believe that. He wouldn’t let me for a long time, and on my thirteenth birthday I finally convinced him. We found an abandoned freighter that was supposed to have been hauling Nulosian stimjectors, established a solid airlock tunnel and went across. We wore space suits just in case and brought plenty of extra oxygen.”
Wiseman rubbed her arm lightly as she remembered back to the terror of the moment. “We managed to break into one of the storage containers, which was basically a safe, and we were grabbing the loot when the door somehow swung shut behind us. I was the one that propped it open, and I’d been lazy about it because I was so excited.”
A rush of warm shame lit her cheeks. “We were locked in, but we had plenty of oxygen in our spacesuits… so I got to watch my father devolve into a gibbering mess. At first he tried to be strong… then when we got down to less than half our air and he still hadn’t thought of a way out, he started to panic. He fainted, and then he woke up crying. He told me were going to die. A fucking thirteen-year-old girl. He apologized and said it was all his fault for bringing me along, but I knew it was my fault because I’d insisted, and I botched propping the door.”
Wiseman’s eyes filled with tears, but she bit them back. “Obviously, we got out. Someone happened to fly past, noticed that we were docked and reported an illegal looting. The authorities showed up when we had about twenty minutes of air left. Fortunately, that was before my dad shit his pants in terror.”
Greatreaks had discreetly taken her hand and was holding it in support.
Wiseman pursed her lips and blew out a long sigh. “I’ve never told anyone that before.” She wiped at her eyes with her free hand, making sure there were no signs of tears on her face. “Like, not the whole story, anyway.” She exhaled again, this time smiling a little. “It actually feels good to get it out.”
Resistance Page 7
