Piece of Nicias: A Sci-Fi Novel

by Francis J Coyle

  Rivan motioned Mercer closer. He signalled for silence, overacting perhaps, but at least she knew he was serious.

  The grill was easy to defeat and he lifted it clear. Rivan reached into his jacket and withdrew his toolkit. He unrolled it carefully and withdrew a small gun. He placed the torch between his teeth. Leaning down through the grill he pointed the gun at the infrared heat sensor and pressed the trigger twice. The gun made a faint phut sound as two small gel bullets shot from the muzzle, both hitting the heat sensor precisely. It would take at least an hour for the gel to melt. That’s one down.

  He removed a climbing spike from the toolkit and pressed it firmly into the side of the duct. It punched through with a small scraping sound, the spike was that sharp. Rivan rolled up the toolkit and tied it to his harness under his jacket.

  He motioned Mercer to help him as he removed his jacket. One of the buckles of the harness he wore under the jacket clanked dully against the lip of the metal hole in the duct. Rivan froze for a moment before continuing to remove his jacket. He handed her the rope, as per their plan she would brace herself carefully here and slowly lower him through the hole.

  The computer screen was fixed into the tabletop itself so Rivan was careful to balance on the edge of the table. He glanced upwards and noted the strain on Mercer’s face as she gently lowered him. Rivan unrolled his toolkit carefully. The next item he removed was a small speaker, he placed it next to the sound sensor. Opening his Pulsaro computer he slowly rotated a small dial. White noise was output from the speaker, at first very quiet then raising in volume as Rivan rotated the dial higher. When it had reached the highest level, he removed the torch from his mouth and motioned for Mercer to join him. She tied the rope to the climbing spike then swung easily down to join him.

  “What’s that for?” Mercer shouted over the loud hiss.

  “The sensor is sensitive to changes in volume of sound.” Rivan said. “As long as the change in the sound is not too abrupt, the sensor will not trip.”

  “Very clever, how did you learn all this?” Mercer asked.

  “A good mentor.” Rivan said. He shone the torch at the table. “Can you do this?”

  “Let’s see.” Mercer said.

  She flipped open her Pulsaro computer and connected it directly to the desk computer. The surface of the desk gleamed slightly as it turned on. Mercer pointed at the faint dusty footprints on the surface of the desk.

  “I don’t need your torch now, can you clean up the dust?” Mercer asked.

  Rivan watched her for a few moments. She started chewing her bottom lip as she rapidly swiped through several menus. She stopped and looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “I’m doing it, honest.” Rivan said.

  He used his jacket to clean the desk and the dusty footprints from the carpet. Only after he was finished did he notice that there was a cleaning rag sitting next to a potted plant.

  “Typical.”

  “What?” Mercer was still rapidly paging through menus on the computer.

  “Nothing.” Rivan replied. “How are we doing?”

  “The actual invoice and receipt menus are password protected I’m afraid, I do not have the right encryption toolset to break through their encryption. It is too powerful for the tools I have.”

  “Can’t you just, you know, write a new encryption program to break through their password?”

  Mercer gave him a long look.

  “What I have done instead is accessed their inventory and marked the four compressors and the heat exchanger for disposal. The ship at our berth is marked as the disposal site. I just need to find their diary system, ahh here it is.”

  Mercer stopped paging and opened a diary. She could see a list of ships with the appropriate goods for each delivery.

  “This will just take a few moments.” Mercer said.

  She added a few entries to the diary and then closed it. She froze for a moment then reopened it. The other entries set for today she started to swap the ship names and berths around.

  “What are you doing?” Rivan asked.

  “I’ve marked our compressors and the heat exchanger as due for delivery in five minutes.” Mercer said. “As we speak the robotic trucks are being filled and will likely arrive at the ship before we do. I’m also swapping all the other deliveries around so there will be lots of confusion. When the manager arrives later today, he will not notice our change.”

  “Great now let’s get out of here.” Rivan said.

  “Just one more thing.” Mercer said. “Two minutes more, I promise.”

  She started to leaf through the entries on the diary looking back in time. She isolated one entry and enlarged it.

  “What is that?” Rivan asked.

  “The pirate ship that was on docking bay seventeen, the one that was going to shoot Simmons.” Mercer said. “I’m downloading all the details relating to the purchases they’ve made.”

  “Very quickly please.” Rivan said.

  He waited for her to turn off the computer before helping her up the rope to the vent. The speaker he took with him, keeping it at a high volume until he had the grill closed and had retrieved all his equipment. He motioned for Mercer to precede him as he slowly reduced the volume. When the volume dial hit zero, he put the speaker away and started to crawl after Mercer.

  He didn’t know how to explain to the restaurant staff the dust marks on his knees but, so far, the mission was a success.

  Chapter Thirty

  David Rawlins was already deep in engineering by the time James Rivan returned. As Seána Mercer had promised, the four compressors and the heating element had already been delivered. Rivan stood in the main engineering compartment staring into the duct at the retreating feet of Rawlins.

  “Are you waiting for an invitation or are you just too prettily dressed to get your hands dirty?” Rawlins called, his voice echoed slightly from the ducts.

  Rivan sighed, looked down at his already dirty clothes and crawled into the ducts.

  He was surprised to see that the first compressor had already been installed. Rawlins was busy with the connections.

  “Spanner.”

  Rivan handed over the adjustable spanner.

  “You’ve done very well young man” Rawlins said. “I bet Lea was glad to see your return.”

  “Has Lea returned? I didn’t see her when I arrived back. Is she all right? Did she make it safe? What happened to her?”

  “Slow down, too many questions.” Rawlins put his hands over his ears then grinned. “Yes, yes, yes and Stan has a beautiful shiner. She didn’t hold back on her punch, said that it had to look authentic.”

  “That’s my girl.” Rivan said. “I mean, I’m glad she’s back.”

  “She worried herself sick waiting for you.” Rawlins said. “Do you want to go see her, after you hook the next condenser onto the rails and swing it in that is.”

  *

  “Then he locked the board so we should be safe.” Stone said.

  “What do you mean by locking the board?” Hammond asked. “I know that the board is the list of provisions that you purchase, but what does locking do?”

  “To protect the ship and ensure that there are no last minute delays due to provisions not being paid for, the Port Authority places a lock against the board.” Stone said. “That means that any last minute requests for payments will be prioritised by the Port Authority and the commander in charge of the station will be notified. He has the final say of whether they are to be paid or not. Captain Oscar knows that we have paid for our provisions so, if the greedy chandlers try to pull a last minute trick for more money, it will be referred directly to him.”

  “So it protects you.”

  “It protects the local merchants as well, they know that the ship will be stopped and held for payment if a last minute payment fails to comes through.” Stone said. “They also know that if they try and mess with the system, it’s under the scrutiny of the head of station. It does work quite
well.”

  “So nothing can stop us now?” Hammond asked.

  “Yes, nothing can stop us now.” Stone said.

  *

  “Only an hour to go.” Paul Simmons said.

  He had gathered Rosie Ire and Mike Leyland to his cabin for an early morning strategy meeting. As usual Leyland was in his shirt sleeves, Ire however had sleep circles under her eyes.

  “I still think we should put this off.” Ire said. “Helping them to move the naval contracts through the appropriations committee could be called treason if the people of Soros hear about this.”

  “They could also call it good business sense.” Leyland said. “The ships will eventually get through the appropriations committee in one form or another. All we are doing is smoothing the way.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you call it.” Simmons said. “I call it a good deal and one that will in less than an hour see us free of this solar system.”

  “We could get the vote and then refuse to follow through with the appropriations committee.” Ire said. “That would give us the best possible outcome.”

  “You seem tired this morning Miss Ire, not your usual happy self.” Leyland said. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Ire accepted the coffee with a ‘thank you’.

  “I share the stateroom with Seána Mercer.” Ire said. “She must have been at a party last evening, she returned at about four o’clock in the morning covered in dust, her hair a mess and her shoes scratched. I found it difficult to return to sleep.”

  “We will proceed as planned.” Simmons said. “Once everything is completed, I will be giving Captain Stone orders to depart for home.”

  “I need to contact one last senator.” Leyland said and pushed himself to his feet.

  “The next hour is critical, think happy thoughts.” Simmons said.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Steve Rivan climbed up the ladder from the main engine room to the top compartment. He looked down at himself. His civilian clothes were a mess.

  “Perhaps you want to change before you visit Lea.” David Rawlins said.

  Rivan had earlier commed Lea to tell her that he had returned safe. The repairs to the ship were too important for him to leave at that time. He had instead continued to work until all the compressors and the heat exchanger were fitted into place.

  “I could probably do with a wash as well.” Rivan said.

  He quickly washed in the sleeping compartment. With only two beds occupied instead of the maximum of eight, Rawlins had taken the opportunity to install a small wash stall for them to use. The water was cold but clean, Rawlins wanted to run the water pipe past the heat exchanger but he had run out of time before he could finalise his plans.

  There was a small mirror above the wash basin. Rivan surprised himself. He was smiling, and it felt natural. He was happy.

  *

  “Fantastic, well done, I could not be happier.” Paul Simmons said.

  The senate results had returned positive, the planet Jewel officially relinquished all claim to the asteroid belt in the Soros solar system. Senator Sammy had opened the senate session with a long soliloquy about the perils of appeasing the planet Soros. He condemned it outright for it’s stance against the Jewel people who he portrayed as virtuous and honest. He finished with a thunderous demand of why they, the Jewel citizens, should be paying for the upkeep of these asteroids and paying for the protection of Soros against pirates. He then quickly left the senate floor shortly after his speech.

  Other speeches, shorter but equally florid, detailed the advantages of having shorter supply lines in the advent of war. Yet others spoke of the possibility of peace and saw this as a reconciliation gesture towards Soros.

  “Release the naval contract from the appropriations committee.” Simmons said.

  “Yes sir.” Leyland said.

  “Stop, you can’t do this.” Ire said.

  “We’ve been through this Miss Ire.” Simmons said. “It’s part of the deal.”

  “I won’t let you.” Ire said.

  She strode to the door and opened it. There was a guard standing outside the bridge, she asked him to send the Lieutenant to Stateroom Two urgently.

  “What is this?” Simmons asked.

  Lieutenant Hammond knocked on the open door and entered.

  “How may I assist you?” Hammond said.

  “Lieutenant, I am the agent you have been asked to expect.” Ire said. “You have been ordered to follow my orders and assist me in every way possible. I want you to place Mr Paul Simmons and Mr Mike Leyland under arrest pending charges.”

  Hammond stood for a moment confused.

  “I’m sorry Miss Ire.” Hammond said. “Mr Leyland contacted me very early this morning when he arrived onto the ship. He informed me that he was the agent I was expecting and that I was to follow his orders and no other.”

  Ire’s mouth dropped open for a second in shock.

  “Lieutenant Hammond.” Leyland said. “Miss Ire has been operating against the best interests of our planet. She is a double agent that we have been monitoring for quite some time. I want you to place her under arrest.”

  “You won’t get away with this.” Ire hissed.

  “There is a security detail waiting outside the ship with a Senator Sammy.” Leyland said. “He will take custody of the prisoner. Are you able to carry out this order?”

  “Yes sir, I am.” Hammond said. He grabbed Ire’s arm, twisted it slightly, and led her from the room.

  “I had to give Senator Sammy an extra inducement to help us.” Leyland said. “I offered him Miss Ire as an agent provocateur of the state. He was quite agreeable to this.”

  “Did you know that she was an agent when you offered her?” Simmons asked.

  “No.” Leyland said. “But I knew that she would do something to sabotage the talks, and I needed Sammy.”

  “I’m glad it worked out.” Simmons said. “Contact the bridge and get us under way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Seal the inner hatch.” Captain Stone said.

  Stone watched as the inner hatch slid noiselessly closed. The lights were red so he spun the wheel to lock the hatch.

  “Inner hatch secure.” Stone said and awaited confirmation.

  He stepped through the hatch into the bridge. He nodded at Lieutenant Hammond. Hammond had requested leave to watch the ship jumping into hyperspace. He seemed fascinated by this.

  “We are ready to depart Captain.” Seána Mercer said from her pilot seat.

  “Thank you.” Stone said. “Have all payments been made for provisions? Can you confirm with the Port Authority that our board is clean.”

  Mercer typed on her console. Something prompted her to key the comms. She spoke for a few moments then turned to Stone.

  “Our board is clean Captain.” Mercer said. “I spoke to a Captain Oscar who had attached a note to say that the chandlers had tried to claim that there were payments outstanding. Captain Oscar said he’ll deal with them personally.”

  Stone shared a smile with her.

  “Check the message queue.”

  “Nothing pending.”

  “Internal electrics on.”

  Stone waited for confirmation.

  “Cut external electrics.”

  He keyed his comms.

  “Engineering.”

  “Rawlins, are we ready to depart?”

  “Yes Captain.” Rawlins said. “The manoeuvring engines are online.”

  “Two minutes until we leave.”

  “Aye Captain.”

  Stone cut the comms.

  “Mercer, may I have the calculations for the inner system manoeuvres?” Stone asked.

  The pilot tapped quickly on her console and transferred the calculations across to Stone’s console. Stone glanced briefly at them.

  “Thank you Miss Mercer. Confirm with the station that we are leaving please.”

  Mercer got confirmation that the umbilical tubes had been se
aled. They had permission to exit the station.

  “Manoeuvring thrusters to standby.” Stone said.

  He waited for a moment feeling the humming vibration increase slightly.

  “Release the docking clamps.”

  Stone checked the light on his console was turned off.

  “We are no longer connected to the station.” Mercer said.