by Robert Boren
Our tin can arrived at the transport station by Vermillion’s office. We were almost at his door when Butch said we could go ahead, so I dictated a text with my PA, and Vermillion replied right away, telling us to come in.
“Hi, sir, sorry to have to bother you.”
Vermillion stood up, getting ready to pace. “What’s on your mind?”
“Butch now believes there are no Overlord plants on this ship,” I said.
“Then how are the transmissions being made?”
“The transmitter was left here, protected by surveillance Nanos. The generator for the Nanos is between decks, in the barracks section next to an un-used fighter bay.”
I asked Vermillion, and he agreed. JJ and I activated the speakers on our PAs.
“You’re welcome,” Vermillion said. “Let’s get on with this. I was in a rather urgent meeting.”
Vermillion nodded.
“Dammit,” Vermillion said. “They might know every place this ship has been.”
Vermillion’s eyes got wide. “No.”
I nodded. “We aren’t sure that’s the case, Mr. Chairman, but we’d better look into it. Now.”
“Tac,” he said.
JJ and I glanced at each other.
“Why haven’t they already hit Amberis?” JJ asked.
“We aren’t cloaked now?” Vermillion asked.
“Too hard on the fuel,” I said. “No need until we come out of the natural worm hole.”
“Wait, why wouldn’t they have hit already?” I asked.
Vermillion paced his office, thinking. “Which sites are in danger?”
“You have my permission.”
Vermillion looked at me. “How quickly could we get out of this jump and go there?”
I thought about it for a moment. “We could get out of this immediately, but it’s going to be hard on the fuel. Inoa is quite a hike.”
Vermillion smiled, sitting at his desk. “Get Cyrus up here.”
{ 22 }
Hallway Fight
J J and I sat in Vermillion’s office. Cyrus came in.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“We’ve got a special mission for the Tristar,” Vermillion said. He took a few minutes to tell Cyrus what JJ and I had told him.
“Inoa, huh?” Cyrus asked. “That’s quite a ways. How many mines do we need to place there?”
“Oh, you’ve got your AIs on speaker?” Cyrus asked.
“Yeah, made for a quicker conversation,” I said.
“Make it twenty thousand,” Vermillion said. “We’ve got the line up and running for those. We’ll have plenty for all of our installations. Those will fit in the Tristar’s cargo bay, I hope.”
“When would you like us to leave?” Cyrus asked.
“As soon as possible,” Vermillion said. “How quickly can you get the cargo loaded and take off?”
“I’ll set four hours as a goal,” Cyrus said. “Might take five, but for sure we’ll be out of here this afternoon. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” Vermillion said. He looked at me. “Any problem coming out of this wormhole for a few minutes?”
“Nope,” I said. “Since we know we can’t be tracked, we could take a more direct route to Boroclize and skip the long impulse cruise.”
“Use the Samson Drive?” Vermillion asked. “Are we confident enough that the Overlords can’t see us? Is there any doubt?”
Vermillion got up to pace again. “How quickly could we be at Boroclize using our normal jump functionality?”
“Butch?” I asked.
Vermillion sighed, sitting back down behind his desk. “Okay, let’s do it, but let’s run cloaked, even in the jump.”
I nodded. “No problem, sir.”
“I’d better get going,” Cyrus said.
“Yes, go do what you need to do,” Vermillion said. “Thanks.”
“Wait!” JJ said. “Are we sure that the Tristar and Zephyrus don’t have a transmitter?”
“They could have transmitters without having the Nanos to guard them, though, couldn’t they?” Cyrus asked.
“Thanks,” Cyrus said. “I’ll be off. Talk to you soon.”
He left Vermillion’s office.
“Thanks, JJ,” Vermillion said.
She smiled. “You’re welcome. We should go take care of the enemy Nanos and take out that transmitter. I’d like to look it over. We might learn something.”
“You two go ahead,” Vermillion said. “Thank you. Yet another situation where you’ve exceeded my expectations.”
JJ and I left Vermillion’s office, heading for the transport station.
“We’re going straight to the corridor where you found the Nanos yesterday?” JJ asked as we got into a tin can.
“Mind?” I asked.
“Should we have backup available, just in case?”
“These two are starting to make me nervous,” JJ said.
“This is cut and dried,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
We got off at the station closest to the location and started the long walk.
“How
are we killing them?” JJ asked.
“Any chance they might have attack Nanos in the generator that we haven’t seen deployed?” I asked.
“Can you guys tell the difference between a surveillance Nano and an attack Nano?” JJ asked.
I chuckled. JJ shot me a nervous glance. “I’m not sure about this.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said. We were almost to the spot where Nolan and I were the day before.
“C’mon,” I said to JJ. We entered the room, stripped down to our Nano suits, and put on the helmets, which locked in place.
“Still not completely used to these helmets when they fit themselves,” JJ said. “I get a little feeling of panic.”
“Me too, but it doesn’t last long. Ready?”
“I was born ready,” she quipped.
“Wonder if we can adjust that out?” JJ asked.
“What?”
“The sarcasm setting.”
We slipped out into the hallway and continued on. My heart sped up.
JJ and I dictated Variant three, our heads up displays showing the flood of Nanos hitting the Central Authority Nanos, wiping the entire group out in a split second.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Crap, I’m showing more incoming,” JJ said.
We both did that, the stronger Nanos taking off.
I dictated Variant 4, watching the flow in my display. They rushed through the cloud of attack Nanos, destroying them, reproducing at an alarming rate, then disappearing into the ceiling.
There was a loud but muffled pop.
“Crap,” I said. We were hit with a blinding flash, my heads up display showing the energy level of the plasma shot and status of the suit.
I dictated that, JJ doing the same. We heard several thuds as the enemy plants fell to the floor.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” JJ said. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes until they wake up, right?”
“Yes, let’s speed over there. Butch, lead the way.”
We rushed over at the lowest speed level, making it through the nearly one hundred meters in a flash, looking down at the unconscious humans, two male and one female.
“Those are engineering uniforms,” JJ said.
“Butch, get a security detail down here pronto.”
“We’ll have some explaining to do about this,” JJ said. “Wonder what else we got wrong?”
“The patrol?” JJ asked.
“Freeze,” a gruff voice said from behind us.
I dictated top speed and strength enhancement, and I was behind the attacker in a split-second, my hand grabbing the spiker from his and squeezing it into a twisted hunk of metal. I dropped it to the floor and grabbed his arm, the man screaming with pain as his bone crushed in my grasp.
“Trey, stop,” JJ yelled. Then she deployed Variant 2 Nanos, which shot off towards the remaining assailants, some of whom were trying to flee. They all hit the floor.
“I wasn’t going to kill him,” I said.
“Who are you?” asked the man I was holding.
“No, who are you?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the man asked, a look of defiance rising in his eyes.
The security detail rushed towards us.
“Identify yourself,” shouted the leader, his spiker drawn.
The security officer holstered his weapon immediately. “Sorry, Captain.”
“Sorry for what?” I asked, removing my helmet. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. Good job. There are 19 total, including this one. The others are all stunned, but they’ll wake up in about 10 minutes. Take them to the brig, highest security level, and have them interrogated. I want to know who they are, who they’re working for, and most importantly, are there more of them on this ship.”
“Yes sir,” he said, turning to his men. We watched as they went about their work. Nolan rushed up with the Zephyrus bridge crew, all suited up.
“You okay, Captain?” he asked.
“We’re fine, Nolan, but thanks for showing up. We have some prisoners to talk to.”
“Prisoners?” Andrea asked.
Nolan’s brow furrowed. “This was not expected.”
“Who are these guys, Captain?” asked Izzy. Tim came up beside her.
“Yeah, what gives?”
“They were here to protect the transmitter,” I said. “We assumed it was just placed with no support other than the surveillance Nanos. That was a bad assumption.”
JJ shook her head, taking her helmet off. “Don’t start, you two.”
“We need to brief Vermillion on this,” I said. “Before Cyrus takes off, if possible.”
“Where’s Cyrus going?” Nolan asked.
JJ and I put our street clothes back on and hurried to the transport station. We were at Vermillion’s office within minutes.
“How did we get this so wrong?” Vermillion asked as we entered his office.
“Sorry, sir. The probability was too low. I’ve put new orders in place that should prevent it from happening again.”
“New orders?”
“I instructed Butch to tell me about all possible scenarios, even if they are low probability.”
Vermillion nodded. “Okay. Should this change anything for us? How about the Tristar mission?”
“Cyrus’s AI will block any ou
tgoing transmissions, so we should be fine. We’ll interrogate the prisoners to see what they know. We might have to use chemical inducement. The one who I talked to was extremely defiant.”
“We need to make sure no New Jersey crew members have been transferred to the Tristar,” JJ said. “If any have been, they stay home.”
Vermillion got up and started pacing, his brow furrowed. “Yes, JJ, that’s essential. We had a full crew on the Tristar, unlike the Zephyrus. There’s no reason for any New Jersey crew members to be on that vessel.”
“Consider it done,” I said.
“What about our plans to use a normal jump to get to Boroclize?” Vermillion asked.
“I think we should go ahead with that,” I said. “I know this was a surprise, but in reality, these folks have not been a significant danger to us since Butch started blocking their transmissions. The most important thing now is to find out if there are more Overlord plants who we haven’t engaged yet.”
“Are we sure they are Overlord plants?” JJ asked.
“It may appear that they’re Central Authority plants,” Vermillion said, “but that means nothing, since the Overlords were in control of the Central Authority at the time they were placed.”
“True,” I said.
“What about the transmitter?”
“Butch found it. I sent Nolan to grab it. We’ll need to have it looked at. Maybe we can learn more from the hardware.”
“Good,” Vermillion said. “Okay, I think we dodged the bullet here. How many plants total?”
“Nineteen,” I said.
“That’s a lot. Good thing we have the Nano suit capability. We’d better get a handle on this pronto, though. Our crew might be riddled with these folks. Make it a priority.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Good, now you two need to leave. I’ve got something important to work on, and it’s urgent. Send me text messages with anything you learn about these plants.”
“Understood,” I said. JJ and I left his office.
“He took that better than I expected,” JJ said as we walked down the corridor.
“I think he’s pretty upset, but he’s good at hiding it, except for the pacing.”
“What about his bodyguard? He might be a target, if there are more plants in the population. We need to move on that.”
