by D K Evans
“Yeah… sure,” he murmured as if in a daze.
“Good,” Ellery said, turning to go, “We’re leaving ASAP. Get your guys together and meet us in the main hangar, there’s more details to go through.”
Cheng silently watched them leave before Ajax disturbed his train of thought.
“See?” she beamed, “Every cloud has a silver lining.”
“Yeah, except this is one very big, very dark cloud.”
“Ah, where’s your sense of optimism?” she grinned and pushed her chair out.
“Optimism gets people killed,” he massaged his temples, “Caution is what gets them home alive.”
“Well you can be as cautious as you want, but we don’t really have a choice here, do we?”
“I guess not.”
“Anyway, I’m going to rally the troops and get our birds in the air, you coming?”
“In a minute. First I need another drink.”
-
The shuttle exited hyperspace next to the rebel station with Cheng’s twenty or so fighters trailing behind them. As agreed, the outlaws broke off and headed for the makeshift carrier to dock. Ford watched through one of the windows as the carrier moved out of dry dock to meet them with a steady stream of rebel craft heading up to meet it. The ship had been parked in place for so long that it was almost surreal watching the thing move under its own power; like seeing your sofa grow legs and off run down the street. The view was suddenly blocked by the looming mass of the rebel station as the shuttle swooped down into the hangar.
Ford returned to his bunk to find that his stuff had already been packed for the journey ahead and sent on ahead of him. A few lines of doodled graffiti on the side of his locker were the only signs that he’d ever lived there. At a loss for something to do, he ran by the command center to find out where his new quarters on the carrier would be.
He arrived to find the place in its usual chaotic state, with personnel excitedly chattering into their headsets and jabbing at their computer readouts. Only one technician seemed to have nothing to do, instead just drinking a cup of coffee with his feet up.
“Everything all right?” Ford asked, partly wondering if there was any way that he could land this guy’s job.
“Oh it’s the early-warning perimeter scanners,” the younger man frowned, “They’re not giving any readings whatsoever this time. I keep telling them: you can’t just patch these computer systems together with duct tape and superglue and then expect them to keep working.”
“It serious?” Ford asked, seeing an opportunity to help out.
“Well, we’re effectively blind to incoming ships plus we’re getting a whole mess of electronic interference. Probably just a software glitch. We’ve got people on it. Although…” the guy leaned forward and squinted at his terminal, where an incomprehensible list of diagnostic info was scrolling down the screen, “It’s probably nothing, but I figure there might be some kind of hardware fault on one of the sub-levels. The readings are all weird. I’d check it myself, but I’m not allowed to leave my post – Ellery and Aeton would go nuts if they found out.”
“I know the feeling,” Ford muttered, “Tell you what, I’ll check it out.”
“You sure?” the guy raised an eyebrow as he took another sip of coffee.
“Yeah, got nothing better to do anyway. In the meantime, if you could try and find out where I’m supposed to report to on the carrier, it’d be much appreciated.”
“No problem, you got a name and staff number?”
“Ford, 11283.”
“Ford? Wait, are you the guy who set off a fire extinguisher in the elevator the other day?”
-
“Eight down, four to go,” he said as he slammed the maintenance cover shut.
Ford eased himself down the maintenance tunnel ladder to the next electrical box. As he made his way down the shaft, he checked his radio. There was virtually no signal. Something weird was going on all right. Shining his flashlight down onto it, he could immediately see that something was wrong. The cover was open and a bunch of cables were sticking out, leeching power from the grid. No doubt that was part of the problem with the sensor array. Ford followed them with his torch, tracing their winding path down the cavernous shaft until they disappeared through an open access hatch. He climbed down and squeezed through the opening to find himself in familiar surroundings. He was back on level 4-G. With his torch, he followed the cables across the atrium. It was then that he realized that something wasn’t right. The blast doors to the main corridor were open again, and the lights at the far end were only just flickering out. Someone was down here with him.
“Hello?” he called out.
No reply came back. Just the same background rumbling of the station amidst the silence. Remembering his last experience on that floor, Ford fished around in toolkit next to the elevator and armed himself with a suitably hefty wrench before steeling himself and stepping into the corridor. As the lighting blinked on around him, he made sure to check each of the side rooms and kept glancing behind lest some unseen attacker run up behind him. The cables kept going around the bend of the corridor, stretching out into the darkness ahead. He passed by the room housing the crate where he had found Sub and could still hear the mechanical clicking and whirring of the pod’s life support systems. Something materialized out of the darkness ahead. Some kind of box was placed against the wall with its lid open and a faint glow emanating from a tiny screen on top. The cables were plugged into its sides with heavy-duty threaded sockets. Whatever it was, it was some serious hardware. For some reason, the overhead lighting in the area wasn’t working.
Ford walked up to it by torchlight and could see a bank of stubby antennas sticking out from beside the screen. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. This was some kind of signal jammer. The screen on his radio blinked and displayed its ‘no signal’ warning. This was giving him the creeps.
“Be cool,” a voice whispered over his shoulder.
Ford whirled around, raising the wrench above his head to strike.
“Ah! What the hell?” Aeton cried as the flashlight beam lit up his face.
“Sorry,” Ford mumbled, turning off the beam and plunging them back into darkness, “You startled me.”
“What are you doing down here anyway?”
“Had reports of suspicious activity,” Aeton answered brushing dust from his uniform, “Thought I’d better check it out. You?”
“Sensors are down, I said I’d take a look around,” he gestured to the jamming gear, “I guess I found the reason.”
“Yeah no kidding. Get it turned off and we’ll take a proper look around. The culprit’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
Ford grudgingly nodded, crouched down next to the jammer and started unscrewing one of the power cables. As he did so, something at the back of his mind started to nag at him.
“Hey Aeton?”
“Yeah?” the operations officer replied from over his shoulder.
“I was just thinking… when I was last here, the doors closed behind me.”
“Okay.”
“So how could they be open now?”
“Beats me. Perhaps a security team came through?”
“Yeah but they’d need a keycard. And last I checked, the only people who had them were you, Ellery and Hubbard.”
“What’s your point?”
“Well did you make a note of which of our guys actually printed the cards? Cause they could have taken the opportunity to print more.”
“No, I didn’t think to make a note,” Aeton sniffed.
“Not like you. You’re always the one going on about doing things according to the rules,” Ford laughed, “It’s just weird, because if there ARE only three cards, and Ellery still has Hubbard’s…”
Aeton moved in his peripheral vision and a distinctive metallic click rang out down the corridor. Ford hurled himself to the side as the gunshot lit up the darkness.
CHAPTER S
IX
Ford slithered backwards as Aeton fired again. The flash from the pistol’s muzzle lit up the corridor, robbing them both of their night vision. He jumped to his feet and ducked as another bullet ricocheted off the wall next to him. In a fit of desperation, he grabbed his flashlight and waved the beam full-power in Aeton’s direction. The operations officer cried out in anger as he was dazzled and fired again towards the light.
Ford seized his chance and set off at a dead sprint back down the corridor, flinching as Aeton fired blindly into the darkness. He rounded a bend and covered his eyes as the lights came back on. Ahead of him, the corridor was straight as an arrow – he could already hear Aeton’s footsteps running behind him – there was no way that Ford could reach the next bend before taking a bullet in the back. He had to hide. Thinking quickly, he ran from doorway to doorway, setting off the automatic lighting in each room so as to throw Aeton off his trail. As the footsteps grew closer, he ducked ran into another bare office. The one with the sleeper pod. Fighting to calm his ragged breathing, Ford ducked behind the crate and made himself as small as possible. He checked his radio. The damn thing still had no signal.
The footsteps outside stopped and then slowly started advancing again, pausing every few seconds. He was checking the rooms. Ford balled his fists by his sides and crouched onto his tiptoes; he would only get one chance to make a grab for the gun and he would have to be fast. Aeton’s footsteps were getting closer now. He was just seconds away.
Ford cursed himself for being so stupid. He should have suspected Aeton of being up to no good the second he had seen him down here. But why the hell was he skulking around with a military-grade signal jammer? And why would he be willing to kill over it? He steadied himself against the crate as the footsteps got louder. The room was so silent that he could hear Aeton’s breathing, nervous but still filled with anger. There were only moments to go. The muzzle of the weapon poked around the side of the crate. Ford pounced.
He grabbed the pistol with his right hand and crashed his left fist into the side of Aeton’s head. The gun fired and Ford wrenched it to the side, flinging it into the air and sending the pistol sliding across the floor and out into the corridor. He lunged after it. Aeton twisted and grabbed him by the back of the collar, punching him in the back and driving him to his knees before lashing out with a vicious kick to the face. Ford kept scrambling across the floor towards the gun, but Aeton beat him to it snatching it up and backing away, a triumphant look on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ford shouted as raised his hands, “Aeton, if this is some scam you’re running to steal funds or smuggle weapons off the station or something, I don’t care, ok? You do whatever you want! I’m cool with it!”
“You think this is about money?” Aeton spat on the floor, “That’s the problem with half of you Rebels, all you give a damn about is cash. Just pirates in another uniform. And the rest of you are too damn stupid to care.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m fighting for something more worthwhile, something that’s actually worth giving a shit about!”
“The Federation?” Ford’s eyes widened, “You’re telling me that you’ve switched sides all of a sudden. After all these years?”
“Oh there’s been no switching for me, Ford,” Aeton grinned as he used his free hand to smooth back his hair, “Just a few long years of acting. And now it’s all coming to an end…”
Ford covered his face as Aeton raised the weapon.
Something flew across the doorway and hit Aeton in his side, punching him off his feet. Ford looked up as Sub emerged from the shadows of an adjacent room, hefting another office chair above his head and hurling it at his attacker. Aeton dodged the projectile and raised the weapon, crying out as with impossible speed, Sub closed the distance between them and grabbed his arm. With a twist of his hips, he launched Aeton through the air and sent him sprawling onto the ground again. The gun fired randomly as it cartwheeled across the floor. All three men ducked down as a ceiling tile exploded in a shower of plastic. Ford looked up to see Aeton was already up and running, heading for the exit. Sub just watched him go.
“What are you waiting for? Get after him!”
“There’s not many places he can go,” Sub shrugged, “Besides I’ve got one last thing to attend to down here. And it just got a lot more urgent.”
Ford grimaced and pulled himself to his feet. Sub walked past him and went straight to the sleeper pod and started rooting around inside.
“Looking for something?” Ford asked.
“No, just trying to cover our tracks. The pod isn’t much by itself, but all evidence can help build a bigger picture.”
“You getting nervous all of a sudden?”
“I’m exercising due caution. The Federation can’t get their hands on this.”
“Not likely. This station’s hidden in the back of beyond. Nobody’s looking for us here.”
Sub fixed him with an impatient look, “I’d go and turn that jammer off now, if I were you.”
Ford slowly nodded and ran back down the corridor, picking up Aeton’s pistol on the way. He didn’t want to run into any more unwelcome surprises. A knot was slowly building in his stomach.
The cables were still firmly screwed in place, so Ford quickly got to work. If Aeton was trying to smuggle information off the station to sell to the enemy, he’d still have to get himself aboard a ship. He’d have the jammer offline long before then. Their former operations officer wouldn’t be going anywhere. Ford was already looking forward to the interrogation. Down the corridor, he could hear sub speaking into one of the intercoms, no doubt reporting that a good-for-nothing turncoat was on the loose. As if in confirmation, Ford heard the distant warble of a security announcement being read out. At last, he managed to wrench both cables free from the jammer, watching as the light faded from its controls.
“Control, this is Ford,” he said into his radio, “That interference should be clear now. I’ll explain when I get back up there, but there’s some crazy shit going down.”
“Copy that, Ford,” the control room replied, “We’re going to send some people to secure the hangar, so Aeton won’t be leaving in a hurry. In the meantime, we’ll reboot the system and get the sensors up and running again. See you soon.”
He signed off and walked back to Sub, who had just finished resealing the lid of the crate. Ford was about to ask what he was doing when a loud thump resounded around the room and the metal box bulged outwards, a thin trail of smoke billowing out.
“As I said, no evidence,” Sub started walking back towards the elevator.
“How can you be so sure that you need to start cleaning up?”
“You heard what your friend said. He found a ‘worthwhile’ cause.”
“He’s not my friend,” Ford snapped, “We worked together, that’s all I know about the guy. And the only ‘worthwhile cause’ he ever found was sticking to the rules like a fly on shit.”
“All the more reason to worry.”
“How do you figure?”
“He wouldn’t have left anything to chance.”
At that moment, Ford’s radio screeched back to life.
“All stations, this is control! We have multiple Federation assault ships inbound! Standby to repel boarders! This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill!”
-
As they stepped out of the elevator, a series of rumbling bangs shook the station. The Federation had started their bombardment. Armed personnel were running back and forth, taking up defensive positions and spreading their squads out through the decks. Warning sirens were still blaring in the background.
“If we don’t act fast, we could easily lose Aeton in all this chaos!” Sub called above the din.
“Fuck that!” Ford shook his head, “We need to get out of here. If we don’t make it to the main hangar, we’ll get left behind!”
With that, he took off down the hallway, trying
to put as much distance between themselves and the command center as possible. If close-quarters fighting was going to happen, he would bet anything that the Federation would start their assault there. They passed by rooms of technicians frantically preparing server banks for destruction, trying to deny the enemy as much information as possible before the station was overrun. A massive vibration pitched the deck from side to side, forcing the pair to grab onto the wall for support.
“Boarding pods,” Ford cursed, “They’re coming in straight through the damn walls!”
Another explosion rocked echoed through the corridors and one of the bulkhead doors behind them automatically sealed shut, a brief gust of air confirming that one of the compartments beyond had just been torn open to space.
“Let’s go,” Ford hissed and lengthened his stride.
They pounded down a flight of steps into one of the maintenance levels. The walls and floors were tangled messes of pipes and wiring, but it offered one of the most direct paths to the hangar. Up ahead, a group of security troopers were setting up barricades.
“If you guys are heading for the hangar, I hear that last shuttle is prepping to leave,” the squad leader said through his helmet’s microphone, “Better hustle whilst you can.”
“You not coming?” Ford asked.
“Not a chance,” came the determined reply, “We’ve gotta buy time for the guys in the operations room to wipe as much data as they can. The rebellion will fight on.”
“You can count on it,” Ford nodded as they passed by.
The other troopers were too busy with their tasks to even give them a second glance as they kept running on down the tunnel.
Another resounding crash momentarily slammed the air from Ford’s lungs. The impact was close by. They had to hurry. He led Sub around a corner and stopped dead, holding his hand in the air to let the other man know to keep still. There was a bright light up ahead at the far end of their corridor. The strobing, spark-filled glow of an acetylene torch cutting through steel. A clatter rang out as a smoking shard of metal dropped away from the wall. Out of the smoke came a dozen figures clad in suits of blue combat armor. Federation marines. Ford glanced behind him and spotted an open hatchway into an adjoining tunnel and jerked his head, indicating for Sub to slowly move over to it.
