by John Walker
I have time before it hits but if those creatures get here before I take off, then I’ll be dead.
Two guards stood outside the door, their weapons pressed against their shoulders. Gil fired while moving, taking them both out with quick headshots. He heard someone outside shout but they were too busy worrying about the incoming monsters to notice their friends were dead.
He stepped outside and slid to a halt, eyes widening as he looked to the horizon. An absolute horde of mutated fiends crested the cliffs and began plunging toward them, screaming while waving makeshift weapons over their heads. Kalrawv soldiers fired into them, killing or wounding the first ranks but it didn’t slow down the charge.
The muscular beasts simply trampled their companions and continued on. At first, they were little more than a sea of olive green but as they closed, Gil made out their features. Bald, obscenely well-built and wearing loin cloths for modesty, their faces were contorted with rage and violence.
Kalrawv didn’t have the firepower on the planet’s surface to take care of such an attack. They would all be going for the shuttle soon and the people inside would’ve been forgotten. If I hadn’t decided to try to get out of here, I would’ve died in this place. Quinda would not have stayed nor come back for me.
The data might be important but self-preservation beat it out. At least, that’s what Gil thought. He suddenly recalled that the Kalrawv Group went after the Gnosis spaceship and sacrificed themselves, fought to the death. Maybe he was wrong about them and they wouldn’t flee in light of the danger they faced.
Regardless of the fact that they didn’t have any way of fending off such a force.
Gil ran for the shuttle and bumped into Quinda hard enough for both men to hit the ground. Each sat up at the same time and they exchanged a confused expression. The pain of impact stunned Gil for only a moment before he lifted his weapon. “You were going to leave me down here!”
“You had the peace of mind to get out!” Quinda began to rise but paused. “Where did you get that? Why are you pointing it at me? Put it down! We don’t have time for this!”
“I’m afraid not!” Gil went to pull the trigger. Quinda threw a kick, knocking the weapon free just as a blast discharged. Chunks of gravel bounced in the air as the two men grappled.
They rolled, Quinda awkwardly punched Gil in the face. The glancing blow wasn’t enough to slow him down.
Gil came out on top, grabbed Quinda by his ears and slammed his head into the stone. The struggle slowed. Quinda threw his legs up, attempting to buck Gil free. The motion didn’t work and Gil again pounded him into the ground.
Quinda’s eyes lulled in his head and he slumped. Gil scrambled for the pistol, picking it up and spinning in place, taking two shots. They caught Quinda in the chest, making his body convulse and fall still.
Other Kalrawv agents were battling the creatures, which were nearly to the shuttle. Gil hurried aboard and engaged the thrusters, slamming his hand against the panel to close the back door. The horizon darkened with the storm as it approached rapidly. He estimated less than three minutes before it would hit the temple.
Kicking on the afterburners, Gil was plunged into his seat. He aimed up and away from the storm, praying he’d attain orbit quickly. An alarm went off, a warning about the weather. He distracted himself by trying to plot a hyperspace course to the nearest coordinates he could think of.
The computer screen showed a blue planet, somewhere in the Sol system. Earth. That’s not how this went before! The shuttle shook violently. The sky turned gray then dark blue. He saw stars as the storm lessened. I did not go to Earth …The shuttle shimmered and without prompting or hitting a button, it plunged into hyperspace.
“No!” Gil shouted, looking for an override but it was too late. However long he had to be there, he would be in hyperspace. Providing he had enough resources on board to survive a prolonged trip, it may not be so bad. Where he was going, that might’ve been another story. Did they have any advanced facilities? Food? Water?
Yes, they are advanced. They have space travel. “I should not know this!” Gil pressed his palms against his forehead and when he looked up, it appeared that he was plunging into a brilliant, white light. That is not hyperspace! Fear tingled in his heart but there was no choice of what would happen next, no hope of turning around.
I suppose I will learn the secret of this puzzle after all, Gil thought, steadying himself. I’ve spent my whole life studying the unknown. Now, I finally get to meet it.
***
Christina met with Lieutenant Commander Nathaniel Webber, chief engineer of the Gnosis. Gaining access to his section proved to be a real pain since Gabriel left strict orders that no one was to be admitted. She had to pull him in to get through, but her investigation required information from the tech side of the house.
Dulain sent her a message stating that whoever they were looking for optimized the hyperspace coordinates to reduce the amount of time the ship would be under. She hoped Webber could give her some insight on exactly how they did it and specifically, where they performed the task.
“They could’ve done it from down here,” Webber explained. “But anyone with decent enough computer skills could’ve pulled it off from a tech lab. The calculations they used to make this happen are well beyond the capacity of our computers. Whatever they used is powerful, like some kind of super tablet.”
“Or just one with an application beyond our understanding,” Christina replied. “After all, they might have already built something able to do what we’re talking about. However, even with the numbers, they had to input them somewhere. How do we find out what part of the ship they accessed the navigation system?”
Webber sighed, turning to the console in his office. He tapped away for a moment, peering through logs. “Only Lieutenant Commander Zachary Caplan and Lieutenant Deacon Neville should’ve accessed that station since our departure from Earth. Anyone else we find in the logs would have been unauthorized.”
Christina doubted they used their own login. That meant they must’ve compromised one of the two men’s accounts. But how? The encryption on passwords was insane and most of the systems used biometrics as a two-factor authentication. One of the two pilots may have been the traitor … or at least collaborating.
Or one or the other has been killed. Christina sent an encrypted text message to Dulain, asking him to have Zachary and Deacon checked out. She let him know that one or the other may be hurt, dead or missing. With the marines running all over the ship, it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out.
“Just the two of them,” Webber said. He scowled at the screen, humming.
“What is it?” Christina asked. “Did you find something?”
“Well … Deacon accessed the system literally seven minutes before we went into hyperspace. He remained logged in until the ship made the plunge.” Webber shrugged. “That’s when the changes must’ve been made to the course. There’s no other point when it could’ve been done.”
“Where did he do it from?”
“Tech station six,” Webber tapped his screen. “Terminal five. That’s on deck four. I can show you if you want.”
“I do.” Christina established a connection to Gabriel. “Captain, I need you to have someone lockdown tech station six right away.”
“Why?” Gabriel asked.
“Because we’ve discovered something, and I want to recover some evidence. Anyone who’s in there needs to be detained. Also, we need camera footage of the area from the time frame just before we went into hyperspace. Providing it’s still there, we’ll have a solid view of our traitor … or one of them at least.”
“I’d begun to worry about a conspiracy as well,” Gabriel replied, “that we were dealing with more than one person.”
“It’s never easy,” Christina said. “Chief Webber and I are on our way to that tech lab now. Thanks for your help.” She gestured for the door. “Shall we place bets on whether or not our traitor was smart enough
to erase camera footage of themselves? I’m leaning toward yes … Especially considering everything else they’ve managed to do so far.”
“No bet,” Webber muttered. “May I just say you AIA folks are pretty close to what I imagined.”
“What do you mean?” Christina asked as they walked toward the elevator. She sent a message to Dulain asking him to have the camera feed checked.
“Just … I always thought you’d be a little brazen, kind of flippant.” Webber shrugged. “You fit the bill.”
“Wow, I’m flippant and brazen?” Christina chuckled. “Very flattering, Chief. I don’t know what to say.”
“I …” Webber’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t necessarily mean that the way it came out.”
Christina waved her hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been called far worse, and by people who know me well, so I’m good. But honestly, after working with Admiral Reach for so long, I’m surprised you didn’t think of me as uptight and exacting. That’s how I’ve felt over the past year. Until that ambassadorial detail at least.”
“I heard a little about that.” Webber tapped the button to summon the elevator. “What part did you play?”
“What did you hear?”
“That the admiral and Pahxin ambassador were kidnapped.”
“I was with them,” Christina said. “And managed to escape. Luckily, you guys came along and gave us a way off the planet. I hadn’t worked out exactly where we were going to go. There were ships but I didn’t have the training to initiate a hyperspace jump. I had to hope the ambassador knew how.”
“Good to have some cavalry then, huh?”
Christina boarded the elevator, nodding. “You have no idea. Prior to working with Reach, backup wasn’t even in our vocabulary. I’ve managed to get out of a few tough scrapes but even in recollection, I don’t know how I’m still alive. I shouldn’t be. Time and again I managed to luck out … come up with some trick or other … Life of an agent, I guess.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“More like lonely, frightening and depressing,” Christina replied, “if I’m to be honest.” The elevator stopped and as the doors opened, she saw two marines standing near a door halfway down the hall. “Is that where we’re going? They sure locked it down faster than I thought they would.”
Webber nodded. “It is … I’m surprised too. They must’ve been scouring this area already. Come on. I’ll show you the terminal in question.”
The guards nodded to them as they passed by, each wearing the same stern expression Gabriel adopted when she spoke to the man in his office. I wonder if they teach that in their basic training. Three technicians stood up when they entered, each speaking at the same time, protesting their detainment.
Christina held up her hands. “Hold on. Just stop. We’ve got a lot going on so complaining about security measures isn’t going to get you very far. Give us a moment, we’ll ask you a few questions and you’ll be able to go. Thank you for your patience.” She turned to Webber. “Shall we hurry?”
“It’s over here.” Webber led her to a terminal and gestured to it. “This is how they entered the new data into the navigation system.”
“Interesting.” Christina used her tablet to scan the terminal, looking for any sort of forensic evidence. She hoped for fingerprints, but it was completely clean. Trying it on a different terminal, she picked up dozens of touch points and each of them checked out as members of the Gnosis crew. “So they wiped this thing down.”
“They must’ve known we’d check, huh?”
Christina narrowed her eyes as she sat down, logging into the terminal. It came right up, and she searched for the local log files. They were all deleted. Of course, but I had to be thorough. “Okay, if the camera has footage of this person, I will eat my tablet.” She stood up and turned to the technicians.
One was a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. His brown hair was growing back in from recently being shaved and he kept his uniform immaculate. Of the three, he looked the most nervous and complained with less vigor. He was probably still on his first tour.
The second was a woman, possibly in her thirties but it was hard to tell with her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, drawing her brows higher than they normally would’ve been. She glared at Christina the whole time, definitely the loudest voice in the room and possibly the highest ranking. She appeared to be a lieutenant.
The final technician was a larger man, standing at least six-four with a neatly trim beard and a layered haircut. He also looked annoyed but nowhere near as annoyed as the woman. She noted his insignia put him as an ensign.
“Okay, how long have three been in this room?”
“Most of the day,” the lieutenant said. “We’re in charge of testing hyperspace anomalies to the inner workings of the ship. Your guards are keeping us from leaving shift and I don’t have to tell Chief Webber that downtime is important when you have another shift in six hours.”
“I’m sure we can make an exception or something.” Christina shook her head. “Really, you guys need to understand, we’re trying to lock down a security threat to the entire ship. Whether you get a nap won’t matter much if something happens. Now, do you remember anyone coming in here and using this terminal?”
“Before we entered hyperspace,” the big guy said. “I saw someone come in.”
“Yeah?” Christina approached him. “He used this computer?”
“He did … I … I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“That’s okay, what’s your name?”
“Ben, ma’am.”
“Okay, Ben. What did he look like? Can you give me a description?”
The lieutenant interjected, “Can’t you just check the cameras? Why are we needed?”
“There’s no way this person left the cameras intact considering what they were up to,” Christina replied. “Now, Ben … please … describe the individual for me?”
“Wow … I mean … he was shorter than me.”
“Who isn’t?” Christina smiled. “Go on.”
“Probably five-nine or ten at the most. Brown hair … severe features. I … I noticed he had some pretty intense cheek bones.”
“Interesting.” Christina made a note. “Go on. What else?”
“Um … I don’t know … Wait!” Ben snapped his fingers. “He was wearing one of those engineering uniforms, you know, the Pahxin ones?”
“Yeah? You saw those guys?”
“I was leaving the engineering section when a couple came in,” Ben replied. “Yeah, I recognized what they wore. The white one with gray?”
Christina nodded. “Exactly. How long did he stay?”
“Just until we went into hyperspace, then he left.”
Webber turned to the lieutenant. “And you didn’t think to question a Pahxin researcher coming in here and using our damn tech lab?”
“I’m sorry, Chief,” the lieutenant replied, “I was a little preoccupied with my job. I didn’t even notice the person that Ben’s talking about.”
“Wow …” Webber shook his head.
“Thanks … All of you.” Christina checked her messages and saw she had one from Dulain. Camera feed seems to have been erased but this fine technician up here has a backup. We’re getting to it now, but it will take a bit. Did you find anything?
Christina typed back, a description of the person. A loose one anyway but how many Pahxin can there be with prominent cheek bones, five-nine and darker hair?
A lot, I’m sure, Dulain replied. Keep me informed. I’m still working on this code to get through the message to find out exactly what they sent to our enemies.
Any luck? Christina typed.
Not yet. This guy was good at his job. Too bad the intelligence division didn’t find out about him sooner. They could’ve recruited him before the Tol’An got hold of his talents. Talk soon.
Christina turned to Webber. “I need to get to the research lab and put out a descripti
on for the marines to look for. I don’t want to take up any more of your time if you have other things to do. Thank you so much for your assistance, by the way. I really appreciate the cooperation. Investigations like these can be rough.”
“I understand.” Webber shook her hand and turned to the three technicians. “You are free to go now. Thanks for your help.”
“About time,” the lieutenant grumbled as she stormed out of the room.
Christina shook her head, chuckling after they left. “Unbelievable, huh? Totally locked into her routine to the point that anything else is just a distraction … an inconvenience.”
“Sometimes, you just want to do your job and go back to your room, I guess,” Webber replied. “I’ll talk to you later, Agent Dawson.”
Christina waved at him and prepared herself for the research lab. If she found her quarry there, things might go down hard. She checked her weapon and headed for the elevator. In the next twenty minutes, she might very well find their traitor … and a whole lot more than she bargained for besides.
***
Chapter 9
Vincent conferred with Harper on a way to scan the Pahxin. They were under the impression it should work by asking some qualifying questions. He tried it on Thayne and when he lied, there was a distinct change in the readings. That would be enough to work through the remaining people in the room.
He worked through the various technicians and all of them checked out. He felt both relieved and frustrated by the discovery. On the positive side, the traitor didn’t likely have access to Cassie or Gil. On the negative, he or she was still loose somewhere on the ship, looking for more ways to cause trouble.
The doctors brought Heat in shortly after. Harper approached and spoke with Holland at length before they moved the marine to another bed near the Orb. Vincent had some questions, but he simply moved closer to pick on their conversation. He decided to record it for his report, to send to the captain.
“Our theory,” Harper explained, “is that proximity to the Orb may help with interfacing with it. Naturally, if Gunnery Sergeant Heathrow was impacted somewhere else on the ship, that’s not necessarily the case. That said, if he truly is involved, this might help him come out of it. It’s hard to say for sure.”
