Bethany Anne smirked. “Your choice. Did she like the ship, at least?”
Ashur tipped his head back to give Bethany Anne access to the tender spot on his lower jaw. “Yes. Or at least, she didn’t complain more than twenty times while Soren was showing us around. She left with Yelena this morning. We’re both glad for some time with our humans.”
Bethany Anne gave him one last scratch behind the ears as she got to her feet. “Your human is glad to get some time with you, too.” She crossed the grass that covered the bridge floor and inspected the adapted layout with curiosity, her fingers trailing over the squeaky toys embedded in the console of the station Ashur had vacated. “I’m dying to see how all this works.” She turned to him. “Want to give me the rundown?”
“Sure,” Ashur chuffed. “I was hoping you’d have time before the Qu’Baka mission, but you left pretty quickly after the gala.”
He leapt onto the raised plinth set into the front of the console and nosed the blue ball in the center of the control panel to deactivate the accidental touch lock. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. Everything here is designed to be used by dogs.” He paused to point his nose at one station. “Except for the one that is built for bipeds. As you can see, the ship is not designed for anyone much taller than a large human.”
Bethany Anne took a seat in the human-shaped chair and glanced over her console. “This looks pretty standard. I see the navigation controls are set into the console. There aren’t any holoHUDs?”
Ashur shook his head. “Jean said there’s too much difference in the way our canine brains work to make them user-friendly for us. She came up with this instead.” He demonstrated by pawing one of the squeaky toys to activate the navigation system. “These are all replicas of our favorite toys. The only thing different is the scent. We have navigation and weapons control, and we have our neural connection to the ship’s EI to take care of the complicated stuff.” He looked at her. Perhaps thinking about his fight with the vampires back on Earth when he came running into a park with a strange woman slicing up what looked like zombies in Costa Rica. “I’m a lucky dog.”
Bethany Anne smiled in amusement at Ashur’s enthusiasm for her gift. “You’ve been a loyal companion. I wanted you and your family to have the means to travel without needing to depend on someone going your way.”
Ashur’s tail thumped on the padded plinth. “I was happy to keep hitching, but Bellatrix was impressed with the attention to detail, and if Bellatrix is happy, then so am I.”
Bethany Anne crossed one leg over the other, getting comfortable for the ride when a thought occurred to her. “There are human-friendly bathrooms on this ship, right?”
Ashur broke into chuffs, his amusement evident.
“Yes, Bethany Anne. There are bathrooms.”
Devon, The Hexagon, Eve’s Sublevel
William arrived after getting turned around in Eve’s maze twice before finding the main lab and getting directions from Tina.
It had warmed his heart to hear Tina was making progress with the project that’d had her tearing her hair out for the last couple of months. He just hoped that whatever project Michael had for him wasn’t going to be as impossible as deciphering the part of the human brain that needed to be active while the human in question was speaking to the Collectives.
Michael looked up from the counter where he was working and closed his holoscreen when William knocked softly on the doorframe. “Excellent timing. Come in.”
William took in the air of frustration, the scattered lenses and other components, and the slight red glow to Michael’s eyes. “I got here a moment too soon by my guess. Now I’m going to have work to do instead of just picking up the destroyed pieces.”
“Your timing was fortuitous.”
William eyed the components in front of Michael. “What are we attempting to do?”
Michael indicated the jumble of components with a sharp wave. “We’re turning this into a reader for the Kurtherian crystals Bethany Anne and I recovered from Qu’Baka. The problem is, I don’t know what I’m doing with this mess.”
TOM’s voice issued from the speaker. “I did offer to help.”
Michael’s eyes flared red. “I wouldn’t call letting you take control of my body so you can build the device ‘help.’”
William laughed. “You’re kidding. TOM, you ought to know Michael better than that by now.” He picked up one of the memory crystals and held it up to the light to examine it. “Bethany Anne mentioned something about Kurtherian tech. These are them?”
“Yes.” Michael cast a baleful glance at the organized chaos on the bench. “We acquired a large number of Kurtherian memory crystals on Qu’Baka that we have no easy way of reading. I need a device that will read the contents of each crystal and upload the information to a secure database for sorting. One that doesn’t take the equivalent power input of the Baba Yaga’s hard-light projection drive to run.”
William sat down opposite Michael and rubbed his chin as he examined the other crystal without touching it. “Bethany Anne mentioned something about crystals. You successfully read one with the Baba Yaga’s HLP?”
Michael pointed to the unlocked crystal he’d placed separate from the other. “That one contained more data than we could easily process.”
William nodded thoughtfully. “But you’re working through it, right?”
“Yes,” Michael replied. “We have so far identified the owner as a Kurtherian named Gödel, although I highly doubt that is their real name. In addition, we found extensive records of this Kurtherian’s holdings, including the locations of many more Ooken factories.”
His voice trailed off. He felt a sense of failure about their inability to immediately right the wrongs being done to the prisoners in those factories. “This is a house of cards, William. We cannot move on Gödel until we have the upper hand. I find myself in a similar situation to the time before I found Bethany Anne. The number of tasks we must complete before we can act is somewhat overwhelming at this moment.”
“Well, there’s always tomorrow, and the day after that.” William offered Michael a small smile. “This crystal conundrum might be a sonofabitch to crack, but we know it can be done. The question is, how.” He tapped a finger on his lips for a moment while he thought. “Hmm, seems to me like we could condense the HLP drive’s functions with the power source from…” He looked at the components, shaking his head as he mentally rejected the various batteries and such Michael had gathered. “What are you and BA packing these days? You have a JDS with you?”
“I do.” Michael reached behind him, removing a Jean Dukes Special from its holster on the small of his back. He deactivated the security measures before handing it to William. “Just be careful. Knowing Jean, she put something in the workings that bites just as hard as what she put in the grips.”
William snorted as he accepted the weapon. “Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, why don’t you?” He unloaded the cartridge, then stripped the pistol down and expertly eased out the power pack. “Give me a little while, and I’ll have something that should do the trick.”
Michael nodded and reopened his holoscreen. “Thank you. That should give me time to scour the security footage Tabitha sent. We know now that the saboteurs are hungry Bl’kheths in need of our help.”
William grinned as he got to work and started choosing from the piles of components on the workbench. “It’s me who should thank you. You saved me a whole lot of sitting around with my thumb in my ass. The new city is exciting and all, but the construction is out of my hands now and firmly with Marcus and the construction crew.”
He glanced at Michael’s assembly of tools, then twisted to look around the room. “You got a micro-soldering kit here?”
Michael indicated a door to the rear of the room. “If I didn’t already get it out, then you’ll find it in the tool closet.”
William got up and went into the storage room. He glanced at the tall racks holding various power tools and
the wall hung with plastic-wrapped toolkits marked for different tasks and let out a whistle.
“Eve didn’t skimp on getting this place fitted out,” he called as he scanned the neatly printed labels to find the tool he was looking for. He grabbed the soldering kit, plus a few extras, and returned to the workroom.
Michael offered a small smile as William emerged with his haul. “Yes, well. Eve isn’t one for half measures.”
William chuckled as he laid out the tools and began to sort through the various components he thought were best suited to build the reader. “You don’t have to tell me.”
They worked in companionable silence for a while, William exchanging a few words here and there with TOM as necessary.
Michael flicked through screen after screen, searching for any clue as to where the Bl’kheths were hidden. While he found plenty of evidence of their presence, he could see no sign that they had created a habitat anywhere within the Hexagon.
William’s deft fingers danced as he put together two test devices based on the design of the hard light projector and connected them wirelessly to a cordoned-off space in the lab’s computer network.
Michael paused the playback on his screen when William cleared his throat softly to get his attention. “We ready to get started?” he asked.
William put his screwdriver down. “We are.” He grabbed a small cube and lifted it up, eyebrow raised. “You want to do the honors?” He handed one of the devices to Michael and connected it to the power pack. “We keep the power separate so I can pull it if anything goes wrong. I can’t see Eve being very happy if we blow the lab up.”
Michael turned the small cube over in his hands, taking care not to pull the connector cable as he examined the reader. “How does this work?”
“Press there.” William pointed to a button. “Then put the crystal in the tray that pops out.”
Michael picked up the crystal that had already been accessed and loaded it into the reader. “Okay, now what?”
He almost dropped the device when it began to thrum in his hands. “What the…”
William chuckled, amused. “It’s fine. Give the mini-HLP a second to warm up.”
Michael’s eyes widened when the top of the reader opened and a beam of light erupted from it. He blinked to clear the spots from his vision as the familiar documents were birthed from the beam. “Good work.”
William didn’t respond. He was too caught up in reading the computer’s analysis of the windows that were still emerging from the reader.
“Michael to William,” Michael waved a hand in front of William’s face, catching his attention. “How do I switch it off?”
William smiled bashfully. “Sorry. It’s not every day you get to see what’s worth keeping to a Kurtherian.” He pointed to the side of the device. “That button there.”
Michael grinned as the light was spooled back into the reader. “I know. Which is why I want to try the next crystal. ADAM has everything from this crystal already. We have a few hundred more to read.”
William’s eyes widened. “For real? How did you even get your hands on them? Seems to me like something that valuable would be hidden where nobody could get to it.”
Michael shrugged. “It is a matter of perspective. An underground hideout would be the natural choice for someone without the ability to travel the Etheric, like the previous owner of these crystals. For Bethany Anne and me, it was simple to find, despite the room having no entry points.”
He loaded the next crystal into the reader. “We have this opportunity to get inside the head of our enemy, and I for one am not going to waste a second of it.”
The tray retracted, and the reader thrummed again as it started the data extraction process.
William heard the difference in the vibration frequency. “Drop it!” He yanked the connector cable out of the power pack as he yelled.
Michael cast the reader onto the table just before the device imploded in a cloud of smoke and flames.
William grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and doused the reader in CO2 before the entire table went up in flames. “Can’t say I was expecting that,” he choked out through his coughing, waving a hand in front of him. “There must have been a malfunction somewhere in the crystal.”
Michael waved the acrid smoke away. “What the hell was that?”
William gingerly poked through the melting plastic with the end of his screwdriver and retrieved the crystal. He furrowed his brow when he saw that the crystal was undamaged. “Huh. Maybe it’s the reader.”
“Then it’s a good thing you made a spare,” Michael soothed him, seeing William’s downcast expression. “There’s a chance it was just an error in the programming, right? So we don’t give up.”
William nodded as he considered the reasons for the reader’s failure. “It might not make a difference, and that’s engineering for you. Wait a minute while I set the other reader up so we can test whether it’s the programming, an error with what I built, or something else entirely.”
He connected the second reader to the power pack, then placed them on one of the fireproof mats in the testing area. “Either way, I don’t want a lab fire. Let me grab that crystal again.”
Michael walked over with the crystal. “Do you expect this reader to fail also?”
William shrugged. “Maybe. Could be that the other was only good for one use, and this will work just fine.” He loaded the crystal and stood back as the tray retracted. “Or it could be that this crystal is protected in a way the other crystal wasn’t.”
FOOOMSH!
Michael got in with the fire extinguisher when the second reader emitted a high-pitched whine and burst into flames. “I guess it’s not the reader,” he grumbled as he sprayed the testing area to douse the flames.
William retrieved the crystal from the melted mess on the mat. “I guess not. I’m going to venture that this crystal is encrypted in some way we haven’t come across before. It’s okay; just means we have to keep trying to hack it.”
Michael was distracted from further conjecture by Bethany Anne’s appearance on the wallscreen. He eyed his wife. “You have a knack for calling at the moments I’m having a setback.”
Her smile lit the room. “Maybe I’m developing psychic powers. How’s it going with the crystals?”
Michael sighed and indicated the catastrophe in the testing area with a hand. “Slowly, since the crystal we tested blew both of William’s readers up.”
“Curious.” Bethany Anne tilted her head. “Do you know why?”
“It just blew them up,” Michael answered.
“‘It just blew them up?’” Bethany Anne repeated. “Would you care to expand on that stunningly efficient analysis?”
Michael shot her a dark look. “I’m not technical. That was why I hired people.”
“What he is saying is,” TOM broke in, “the defenses of the crystals ended up melting our tech as a way to stop it from attacking them. We need a firewall a bit farther out from the computers doing the testing.”
“What he said,” Michael finished. “We’ll keep working on it. How are you enjoying your time with Ashur?”
Ashur’s head popped into view, his tongue hanging out as he panted.
“What’s Ashur saying?” William asked.
“I said,” Ashur repeated. “Give me a second to connect my translation software to the link. You like my ship?”
Bethany Anne grinned as the camera shifted away from her and slowly panned the bridge. “Crazy, right? You have to experience this.”
Michael smiled, momentarily cheered up by Bethany Anne’s amusement. “The main thing is that you’re enjoying yourself. Did you make it to the 3PO yet?”
“We’ve just gotten to QT2,” Bethany Anne replied. “Keep me informed of your progress. I’ll check in after I’m done here.”
She cut the link, and the screen returned to its blank state.
“I don’t know how you get away with that,” William marveled. H
e gathered the tools and took them back to the storage room, calling back as he went, “Baiting Bethany Anne is like fly-fishing for dragons. How do you keep your nerve?”
Michael shrugged. “Nothing to it. You cast out your bait and hope to hell nothing bites.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to get bitten for not solving this fast enough for Bethany Anne’s liking.” William returned from the storage room and headed for the door. “I’m going to have to go get some things from my workshop. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”
“Gabrielle is with Eric on High Tortuga at the moment,” Michael informed him. “They took the Revolution.”
William raised an eyebrow as a thought occurred to him. “You think she’ll let me borrow the Cambridge? I could bring a few more things to Devon with a ship that size.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you won’t be back any faster for being able to avoid the Gate system?” Michael asked with a wry smile.
“What can I say?” William lifted his hands. “It’s been nothing but a pain in the ass running between here and High Tortuga every other week. Besides that, my apartment here is just bare bones. I’m thinking some home comforts wouldn’t go amiss.”
Michael grinned. “I agree. A man needs his comforts.” He lifted a hand in farewell as William exited the lab. “See you the day after tomorrow, then.”
5
QT2, QBS Wolfstar, Bridge
Bethany Anne cut the link to Michael as the QBBS Helena grew larger on the viewscreen.
Ashur pawed his console when CEREBRO connected, and the minefield parted to admit the Wolfstar into the system.
Ashur nosed Bethany Anne’s hand as the ship bypassed the Helena and glided toward the outer defenses. “Why are we visiting the asteroid first?”
Bethany Anne smiled and patted Ashur’s head. “I want to see how the ruby project is progressing. We have approximately two hundred thousand Bakas to arm and Anne’s synthetic rubies are what power the new-model staffs, so I want to be sure the team working on producing them has everything running smoothly.”
The Valkyrie Returns (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 7) Page 5
