by John Walker
“I can’t exactly read their minds,” Quilla replied. The men started down the hall. “But they do appear to be in the mood for violence. I… recommend we withdraw.” He backed away. The men picked up the pace. “Quickly!”
“Shit!” Vesper spun, running back the way they came.
“You got me into something ridiculous!” Quilla shouted. “Why exactly did you bother me again?”
“Hey, I didn’t know she’d actually find a platoon of assholes looking for action!”
Weapons discharged, chirping behind them. People screamed, taking cover in the various shops.
“And now we’re in a firefight,” Quilla said. “Marvelous. Absolutely perfect. Is this how you people make friends? Roam around and get them shot?”
Vesper drew her sidearm, taking a shot behind her. Some of the noncombatants continued to run around, making her pause. Unfortunately, those pursuing them didn’t care. They kept shooting, throwing blasts their way. She veered away from Quilla, getting close to the wall before dodging back the other way.
They neared the entrance to the lounge area. “Stairs on the left!” Vesper shouted. “Go that way!”
Quilla drew his weapon to rapid fire behind him without even looking. His attacks brought out some screams, shouts from their pursuers. Vesper risked a quick glance before taking the corner. Some of them took cover. Others rushed headlong, as if they didn’t care what might happen to them.
Why are they so confident? Vesper made the stairs, taking them two at a time. She reached the first landing, pausing to take cover while aiming where they’d come. “Kyle, Lysa, do you copy?”
“I’ve got you,” Kyle said, “what’s up?”
“Um… so I went for the hunt. Found her.”
“But there’s a problem,” Kyle replied.
“Only a big one.” Footsteps came closer, every clatter echoing from the slaps. They don’t even bother to run properly. “She got some friends before I could catch up to her. But… I made one.”
“How many did she get?” Kyle asked.
“Uh… a bunch.”
“And you brought one.” Kyle sighed. “Lovely.”
“I’m at forty-six percent,” Lysa added. “So we need more time. Can you negotiate with them? Convince them they can have the damn room soon enough?”
Two men burst around the corner. Vesper took one of them out. The other fired back, aiming too low. Sparks covered the steps. Quilla seemed to be gone. She had no idea where he went to. I thought I told him which way to go! Then again, he had no allegiance to uphold, no reason to follow her order.
“No,” Kyle said, “I hear the gunfire. There’s no negotiation going on out there.”
Vesper ducked her head back then popped back out, catching her final opponent in the chest. He went down just as three more came hurrying through. One took cover where they were, the other crossed the way into the lounge. If they made the stairs on the opposite side, they’d have a straight shot to her back.
“I might need some backup, Kyle,” Vesper said. She laid down suppressive fire by sweeping her weapon left and right, tearing at the edges while making a dash up the stairs an unpleasant idea.
Gunfire erupted in the lounge. At least two people started hollering as if they’d been caught on fire. Others went down as well. Shots came from the hallway as another battle broke out between different sides.
“Human thing,” Quilla shouted, “it would be nice if you’d get down here to help!”
He stayed! Vesper hustled down, leaning against the wall at the bottom. She leaned her weapon around to get a look at the action. The large crew had taken cover at various points throughout the hallway. Many of them stood in doorways. If they charged, they’d easily take the point but it seemed the bravest of them already tried it.
The rest maintained some self-preservation.
“Stay put, Kyle,” Vesper grunted, firing without physically looking. “We’re holding them down for the moment. If something changes, I’ll let you know. We might have to hold the room the old-fashioned way. Niva? What’s going on where you’re at? Because this is some seriously hostile nonsense!”
No response came back.
“Niva?” Vesper convinced four different opponents to duck by blasting their cover. That relieved Quilla from the constant firing. “Niva, do you copy?” She tried again but still, received no response. “Kyle, try to raise Niva. Whatever it takes. She might be in trouble. And check in with Tiller. They aren’t jumping into this conversation either.”
“I’m on it,” Kyle replied.
We’ve got this for now, Vesper thought. But it certainly won’t last. Sooner or later, the rabble-rouser will stir them up again. Maybe if we take out a few more, the rest will scatter. Gotta make this not worth their lives. She drew her weapon back, using the pistol to blind fire a few times. Of course, if they take out my rifle, it’s over.
I just had to go hunting. Vesper sighed. My fault for missing the lady. Well… at least I’m still alive. Right now.
***
Niva slipped away from the medical center to the junction leading down to the next floor of the station. She needed access to the station computer systems. The Custodians worked from the control room, meaning no unauthorized access. They’d certainly take exception to what she wanted to see.
A full inventory of every ship still aboard. And all cargo just for good measure. Depending on where the Flotilla ended up, they might need supplies to keep themselves alive for several days. Food, tools, and medical kits would be enough. Getting those to a functional warp-capable ship promised to be a real trick.
One she didn’t look forward to if any crews survived the battle in the lounge. How many ships can there still be? Niva recalled a number of them causing trouble for the Brekka and Triton. The Manager had to offer up a fortune for help buying them some breathing room. Maybe a few knew better than to tangle with a Prytin battleship.
Which she counted on. If they all left, then everyone would be stuck when the Flotilla arrived at its destination. Niva wondered how long it would take for other ships to find out where they were. Particularly, the authorities. Griel had proof of their existence. Intelligence would demand all the information he had to offer.
And they’d send out every available resource to track it down. Which still might take weeks. Time they didn’t have. Not with the element hanging around there. Particularly considering how many engagements after only a few hours. Attrition might be on their side, but she doubted their chances.
The odds are not in our favor. Not remotely. All the criminals there had incentive to put them down. They represented the law, and they weren’t about to hide the fact. Not after they were put through the Manager’s ridiculous game. We might ditch the armor and pretend to be pirates. Maybe.
Those with access to the Flotilla represented a relatively small community. The kind that knew each other. Even if they weren’t particularly friendly, they competed for jobs, collaborated from time to time, and unified against the law. That last one in particular worried her since it meant banding together to kill her people.
Right now, they’re trying to get something for their trouble, Niva thought. When they’ve finished that part of their work, they’ll have nothing else to do but mess with us. That’s when the real fun and games will start. She took the stairs swiftly, pausing at the landing to aim down to the floor below.
No one seemed to be around. Scans were spotty but functional. They gave her a brief warning of some contacts around the area, moving in the levels above. She figured the rank-and-file criminal would give the technical areas a wide berth. They didn’t want to risk messing anything up.
Everyone had to know the Flotilla had no safety standards. It didn’t blow up through sheer force of will from the Custodians. They genuinely performed miracles to keep it in operation. She had to admit, she was more than impressed. What could these people have done under legal circumstances?
Niva thought about it a lot while workin
g on Alon. Something must have happened to put the Custodian in such a position; to push him to a life of crime. Did he stand on the shoulders of giants to make the Flotilla function or was it all him? Either way, he should have been employing that brilliance for the Prytin people.
Instead, he’s putting lives at risk with this thing, destroying planets along the way. The Manager didn’t put him up to it either. Maybe at one time they partnered up, but that had long since passed. Calling their relationship antagonistic may even be kind considering the gun in the medical wing.
Machinery whirred all around her as she stepped into the next hallway. The walls rattled from the sounds. On a regular station, most of the equipment would have managed life support, automated diagnostic equipment, and long-range scanning. Niva had no idea how the Custodians may have altered the equipment.
As long as they left direct access to the primary computer, it won’t matter. Some things were difficult to abolish completely, even if they worried about security risks.
The first door leading into the noisy area sat nearly a hundred yards from the stairs. Much to her surprise, it opened as she stepped close. Okay, that’s not safe. It was one thing to not be security conscious. Without a proper guard schedule, leaving such a room open for anyone to wander into made zero sense.
Which means I should be cautious. Niva stepped inside. Her HUD immediately went crazy, flickering until it finally winked out completely. Safety process there so I’m not blinded by the flashing. She found herself standing between two computer banks each stretching from floor to ceiling.
Passing further into the room, lights clicked on overhead. Servers and mainframes formed a circle with rows branching off to the edge of the station itself. That made her feel somewhat better about the state of the place. They left the computers alone, allowing them to do their jobs.
Too bad they don’t regulate the radiation, Niva thought. If they added a scrubbing program to the life support, this place may not be a death sentence for anyone without the resources to treat themselves. She checked the computer on her wrist. Her connection to the network had dropped.
The comm went with it. Damn. I need to hurry. Getting cut off at a time like this will set the others off in a major way. She took the first row on her left. Lights blinked all around her, indicator lights offering easy status updates. Unfortunately, many of them were red. Probably long overdue maintenance of the internal parts.
How important are those devices? Niva didn’t want to think about it too much. As long as this idiotic thing gets wherever it’s going, it won’t matter. We’ll be out of here shortly after. She paused to check a couple maintenance panels, looking in for a port to make a hard connection.
The first five were dark, meaning the inputs had been disabled. Niva checked the entire row then took a hard right, going up the next lane. She found the same problem. Every computer had their IO ports disabled. Trying them proved the same. Her computer came back with an error message of no connection.
Niva reached the center again, running a scan for a wireless connection. They were all locked down with some kind of strange encryption she hadn’t seen before. That surprised her. Intelligence trained them on a wide variety of security procedures. Since then, she’d cracked Kahl and Rhulin codes plenty of times.
To find one she’d never seen startled her. How is this even remotely possible? Where’d they even come up with it? Most security measures in the modern day came about by modifying older methods. An expert might alter the code to increase the number of characters in a password or harden the code from penetration by hackers.
They might even differ based on their culture of origin. Humanity’s hadn’t been difficult to crack. They had received the Prytin protocols shortly after they’d started the refit of the Triton. Kahl computer technology proved to be solid. Their specialists were admittedly brilliant. Intel had devoted five weeks to studying how they did it.
This didn’t resemble any of them. It was totally home brewed, designed from the ground up. Otherwise, her computer would’ve recognized it, offered her some ideas on how to break it. Or at least provide her with a starting point to begin a decryption. Instead, it came back incompatible.
Maybe they’re masking something. But this doesn’t get me into the network proper. It grants me access to look for a connection. Niva cursed, trying the first computer on each aisle. When none of them worked, she looked for the row with the fewest red lights. Already, she’d been in there for much longer than she intended.
I need to move out. Niva had no idea where else to go. Maybe Engineering? The worst place for radiation. She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes to think. If all the ports are broken, there has to be another way to get in. Maybe I can manually power them up. Bring them online to download the manifest.
Or she could go back to the admin room. Who would stop me if I insisted on using the computer? None of the Custodians, surely. Of course, their leader came in waving a pistol in the medical wing. That had been an unbelievable moment. Who came in with threats with wounded people about?
Dishonorable morons, Niva thought. The kinds who don’t care who they hurt. Or are too immature to understand their place in the world.
Who would have shut the ports down? And did they do so for every single terminal individually? She thought it might’ve been a network situation. Send a signal to all of them cutting the line to the ports. Which in turn prevented anyone from really bothering the computers in any meaningful way.
Which explains the lack of security. And the fact they didn’t care about what I’d seen. Niva had to admit it made sense. Unless someone decided to trash the place. A few well-placed blaster shots would’ve killed those systems in seconds. Possibly bringing the entire station to its knees.
If not killing everyone on board in a few minutes.
Niva gave up, hurrying back toward the door she came in through. When she approached, it didn’t open. The panel beside was dark, dead as the various ports on all those consoles throughout the room. That didn’t stop her from trying. She tapped the screen several times, whacking it at the end.
Was this a malfunction? Niva thought. Or has someone deliberately locked me in this place? The second question felt like paranoia. Who knew she went in there? And if they did, why would they care about her presence? It would have to be the Custodian’s people. She doubted anyone else’s technical prowess.
The comm remained dead. Her HUD continued to flicker when she tried to engage it. She went to the next door. Same thing as the first. That led her to checking the maintenance panels. The first one she found sat on the floor at the center of the entire room.
It had been sealed; welded shut, she guessed. Another one on the far side of the room, opposite of where she’d come in, had also been secured a while ago. Which should tell me no one’s doing this now. But why would the doors lock behind a person? How did any of them get out with all the interference?
That’s why this feels like I’ve been lured into a trap. Niva found herself in front of one of the doors, running her hands along the edge. A manual release became her only hope. That or forcing them to come down here to fix something. She took her time, drawing several deep breaths to remain calm.
Relax. This is temporary. You’ll get out of this soon enough. The computer screen on her wrist flashed with a warning. Niva frowned, turning to look at the red text. It indicated that radiation levels were rising. That’s deliberate. There’s no way it isn’t. The introduction of the hazard started a timer.
If I damage a console, I have to be careful about which one. Niva scanned the nearest. She hoped for some indication of its purpose. Anything to guide her on whether or not it might be safe to tap into the thing. The only information to come back involved the network connection to another terminal elsewhere in the room.
How exactly will that help? Niva leaned against the wall, furrowing her brow. Come on, woman! Think! Can that help? The direct connection felt like it should’ve been a clue. Unfort
unately, their method of using computers didn’t make sense to her. Their strange codes, the unorthodox method of connectivity, all of it baffled her.
Blasting one of these while we’re at warp is going to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Part of her felt like she should simply wait to die. Sacrifice herself for the others aboard. My people won’t know what happened to me. They’ll search and cause themselves trouble. Especially if they come down here.
“No,” Niva muttered, “one of you Custodians is coming down here for me.” She drew her pistol, aiming it at the nearest console. “I only wish I had a clue what I was about to shoot… the severity of it. Will this be a key system? An annoyance?” If someone didn’t show up fast, she’d have to try another.
This is a dangerous game. Niva swallowed hard… pulled the trigger. Sparks flew everywhere. All the lights on the console went out. An alarm blared overhead. That should attract some attention. Providing it wasn’t further warning of her radiation problem, she figured someone would be along soon.
The computer showed she had less than ten minutes before the radiation would overwhelm her suit. Come on, people. Move it!
***
The Custodian joined his people in the auxiliary tech center. The secure location had the best defenses in the station with turrets lining the hallway along with laser-activated motion sensors. Any group foolish enough to come for them would meet a terribly messy fate.
They’d never been forced to employ those tactics before. Unfortunately, their armed forces appeared to be scattered if not dead. The thought of replenishing them made the Custodian sick to his stomach. Vetting reasonable muscle hadn’t been a good experience and the Manager clearly chose poorly.
Or they wouldn’t all be dead right now.
“Send a report to my private console,” the Custodian ordered before heading into his office. He took a seat, squinting at the screen as data came up.
