by A. K. DuBoff
“I’m tunneling through the firewall now,” she replied. “This network security is a joke.”
“You’re also very good.”
“Yes, I am,” she replied with an audible smile. “Aaaand I’m in. Loading up the map.” She paused. “Okay, looks like there’s an administrative office two decks up, which has some blacked out areas on the map around it. I’m guessing that’s a vault.”
“A vault sounds like a good place to start,” Jack said.
“Oh, but there’s also that,” Alyssa chimed in.
“Why, yes there is!” Triss’ tone brightened.
“What do you see?” Jack asked.
“They have a trinium reactor,” Alyssa replied. “With six nodes, no less. I don’t know what they’re manufacturing that requires that kind of power, but that amount of power brings matter conversion to a whole new level.”
“You’re thinking about combining this with the MEC to create some new coffee-brewing monstrosity, aren’t you?” Jack asked.
“You know I’m always trying to advance the coffee arts.”
“I admire that about you. But, we need to get a move on. Get out here,” Jack urged.
A minute later, Alyssa, Triss, Finn, and Latrina jogged down the gangway.
“Okay, so I’ll go after the trinium reactor thingy with Latrina and Alyssa will go after the IDs with Finn,” Jack instructed.
“Jack, do you know how to decommission a trinium reactor?” Alyssa asked.
“No.”
“Do you even know what one looks like?”
“No… But—”
“I’m going after the reactor with Latrina. Triss will stay here to keep an eye on the ship and monitor the computer network,” Alyssa stated. “You go with Finn to break into the safe.”
Jack frowned. “But Latrina and I were supposed to—”
“You can get time together later,” Alyssa cut in. “Come on. We have no idea how long Morey will be able to keep the guards distracted with his weird massage.”
“We will have other times, Jack,” Latrina said. She smiled at him and batted her green eyes. “All the time, forever.”
“Right, yeah.” He backed away. “See you afterward.”
Jack motioned Finn into the facility. They headed to the left while Alyssa and Latrina went to the right on the path to the reactor.
“What was that all about?” Finn asked when they were away from their female companions.
“Uh, I think Latrina got the impression we’re an official item now.”
“What makes her think that?”
“I dunno. I just told her we were working together.”
Finn took a deep breath. “Well, knowing you, your phrasing wasn’t the best.”
“All I said was that I needed her.”
“Dude, no,”
Jack glanced at him while they jogged down the corridor. “What?”
“That’s kind of android code for you want to spend your life with her.”
“No. That’s not—”
“Whatever you meant, that’s how she took it. Did she send you a heart emoticon right after?” Finn asked.
“Yeah…”
“Heh.” Finn chuckled. “She wants to have your sewage tank babies.”
Jack’s stomach dropped. “Stars!”
His friend patted him on the back. “Oh, this’ll be fun to watch!”
They reached the end of the corridor, which terminated in a locked door with a biometric scanner.
“That’s rather sophisticated for a bunch of space pirates,” Finn said, examining it.
“Hey, Triss,” Jack said into the comm, “can you give us a hand with this door?”
“Yeah, just a sec.” The light on the lock turned green.
“Thanks,” Jack told her.
Finn reached for the door handle.
“Hold up,” Jack stopped him. He cycled his vision to the electromagnetic field setting to look for any hidden traps. No anomalous wires stood out in the walls that might be connected to a pressure sensor. “Okay, it’s clear.”
The two men proceeded through the doorway into a stairwell.
“There’s no getting out of this Latrina situation, is there?” Jack asked Finn.
“Yeah, no. You’re in deep shit with this one.”
Jack glared at him.
“Sorry, it was too easy.”
“Based on the facility map, the office area should be up two decks and near where these stairs will dump you out,” Triss said over the comm.
Jack paused mid-step. “You know, we didn’t plan this at all. We have perfectly good stealth suits in storage, and instead we’re waltzing in here with only a couple of laser pistols against who knows how many guards.”
Finn frowned. “Huh, I forgot about those. That would have been a way better plan.”
“Oh, right. I always forget about those, too,” Triss said.
Jack shrugged. “Well, we’re committed now.”
“Yeah, no time for you to come back to get them,” Triss agreed. “Head up the stairs. At the next landing, exit the stairwell and head left. I don’t see any guards on the internal sensors.”
“Okay, on our way,” Jack jogged up the steps after Finn.
At the specified landing, Finn swung open the door and looked through. “Looks clear,” he reported into the comm.
“Finn, you there?” Triss asked.
“Yeah, he’s right in front of me,” Jack replied.
Triss took a sharp breath. “Uh oh.”
“What?”
“It must be some kind of dark zone. I have access to everything in the system, but if they don’t have any sensors or other input systems set up, then I can’t see what’s going on. There also appears to be a comm block,” Triss said.
Jack pulled Finn back into the stairwell. “The comms don’t work in there.”
Finn frowned. “Then how are we supposed to know if anyone is coming?”
“I can tell you if anyone new is about to enter the zone, but we won’t know who’s already inside, if anyone, until you encounter them,” she responded. “The good news is that the blackout works both ways; they won’t know you’re in there, either, when you’re walking around and not touching anything.”
Jack thought for a moment. “But how will you tell us that if our comms don’t work inside?”
“Oh, right. That’s a problem.”
“So…”
“Well, looks like you’re on your own,” Triss told him.
Jack sighed. “Great. Really wish I’d remembered those stealth suits earlier.”
“Are Alyssa and Latrina facing the same challenge?” Finn asked.
“Not yet,” she said, “but we’re going to have a whole other set of troubles as soon as Morey is finishes with his massage. Hurry up!”
“Okay, talk to you on the other side,” Jack acknowledged.
“You go first,” Finn said, motioning him toward the door.
Jack’s heart leaped with pride. “Really?! You want me to lead the way?”
Finn smiled. “Well, coming in here was your idea, so I figure if we’re going to get shot at, it makes sense for you to be the human shield.”
“Oh, thanks.”
Finn patted him on the back, which turned into a shove after two pats. “Go forth, intrepid leader.”
Jack cautiously stepped through the doorway. The space beyond appeared to be a cross between a lounge room and a reception area, with two couches, an assortment of comfortable-looking chairs, and a workstation behind a partition wall. Archways to corridors were centered on both the right and left walls. No one was in sight.
He jogged across the room as lightly as possible to the corridor on the left, which extended for eight meters before terminating in three doors—one straight ahead and the others on either side.
“Which door?” Jack asked Finn.
“Center?”
“That does seem like it would be the most important.” Jack scanned over it with hi
s eye in its various modes. On the electromagnetic view, the door shined with current running to multiple hidden sensor points, likely connected to an alarm. “We have a problem. It’s wired.”
Finn smiled. “Well, safe-cracking isn’t my only skill. I’m not Triss, but I’m not useless.” He pulled out a device from his carrying bag and then placed a suction cup on the door, which was affixed with an electrode.
Jack stayed quiet so his comrade could work.
After a minute, Finn let out a long breath. “Okay, I think I’ve disabled the alarms. I won’t know for sure until we open the door.”
“All right.” Jack turned the handle.
The door opened easily, revealing an office space with three desks. On the back wall, the door to a walk-in vault was framed by two photographs; each showed a smiling businessman with an arm around two people dressed in similar attire to the workers they had transported on the Little Princess II.
“Man, they are really into the chef fetish thing,” Jack said.
Finn didn’t respond, already having become absorbed in an examination of the safe door. He jogged across the room to get a closer look.
“Okay, good.” Finn nodded. “This is one of the older models. Shouldn’t take long to crack at all.”
Finn hooked up a piece of equipment the size of his hand to the front panel of the safe and began making inputs. One-by-one, the indicator lights on the front of the safe turned to green. When the last one changed, a set of interior bolts retracted with a satisfying click-clang.
“I really hope you’re right about what we’ll find in here…” Finn said.
“Only one way to find out.” Jack swung open the thirty-centimeter-thick door.
The vault was half the size of the office, with a combination of racks and filing cabinets. Half of the drawers were marked with the blue rabbit emblem and the others a red worm.
“Really? A worm?” Jack commented.
“Pretty sure that’s a snake,” Finn said.
“Oh, that makes a lot more sense.”
“It’s going to take forever to find the IDs for our group in here.” Finn looked around the room. “I don’t know where to start.”
Jack assessed the filing cabinets. “Probably that one with the blue rabbits on the front labeled ‘Worker IDs’.”
“Fine, if you want to be all logical about it…”
Suspecting Finn would keep complaining no matter how he responded, Jack elected to begin rifling through the cabinet without further comment.
The contents were exactly what the label implied, but the four drawers each contained at least thirty ID chips arranged in horizontal holders. Considering the Little Princess II only had a dozen workers on board, that meant there were additional people out there. His plan had been to get the IDs only for those under their care—thinking that those would be the only IDs being held—but faced with over one hundred sets of credentials, he didn’t know their workers versus any others.
“I guess we should have gotten their names.”
Finn wiped his hands down his face. “You didn’t think through any of this, did you?”
“No.” Jack’s cheeks flushed. “I was just excited to be in charge.”
“Ugh. I guess we’ll have to take all of them.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Jack dropped the folded duffle bag on the floor. He began dumping the ID chips into it.
“I’m going to see if there’s anything that looks valuable,” Finn said and began digging through the other cabinets and drawers while Jack worked. “Ooo!” he exclaimed twenty seconds later.
“Find something?” Jack asked.
“How do gold bars strike you?”
Jack turned around. Finn was hefting a gold bar with both hands, and the cabinet behind him held another seven.
“Stars!” Jack’s jaw dropped.
“I think we can finally get that new spaceship we’ve been wanting.”
“How are we going to carry all of that out of here?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” Finn loaded the bars into his own bag. “There are also credit chips—at least a hundred thousand.”
“I think there’s room for those in my bag.”
Finn gestured to an adjacent cabinet. “Load up.”
Jack finished with the IDs and then dragged his duffle to the base of the other cabinet. The physical currency chips were bundled into rolls, and he counted one hundred twenty thousand credits in total as he loaded them into a separate compartment in the duffle. It was more than he’d ever held in his hands, and likely more than he ever would again.
“What about the rest of the drawers?” he asked.
“I dunno. Looked like a bunch of papers to me.”
Jack browsed through the cabinets, racks, and drawers as quickly as he could. Sure enough it appeared to only be print-outs of transaction records. A single book stood out to him, but it appeared to be written in a code with phrases like ‘one cup chopped onion’ and ‘reduce to simmer for twenty minutes’. He ignored it and completed his search.
“I don’t see anything else,” Finn reported from the other side of the safe.
“Me either.”
Jack eyed Finn’s fabric bag filled with gold bars. “Are you going to be able to carry that out of here?”
“I’ll drag it,” he replied. “This duffle was from SpaceMall—super durable fabric.”
“If you say so.”
Jack hefted his own bag on his shoulder while Finn followed behind dragging his. Based on Finn’s grunts, Jack suspected the other man was wishing he’d ordered the rolling model.
“Let me just close things up here so they don’t see the door open,” Finn said. He relocked the vault.
Jack nodded. “All things considered, this was surprisingly easy. Let’s get out of here.” He opened the office door.
A voice sounded from down the short corridor. Jack froze in the doorway.
A guard wearing white armor was walking past the corridor entrance through the common room eight meters away. After a moment, he backed up and stared at Jack. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
CHAPTER 8: Eye on the Prize
— — —
Jack slammed the office door. “Uh… we’re not alone anymore.”
“Yeah, I noticed that!” Finn exclaimed.
“I guess we’ll need to make a run for it.”
“How? We’re at the end of a long, narrow hallway with a guard waiting for us on the other end, presumably with a gun. And he’s probably not alone.”
“We have guns, too,” Jack pointed out.
“Well, Mr. Confident Leader, why don’t you go check it out?”
“Fine. You want a human shield? I’ll be the human shield.” Jack un-holstered his laser pistol.
In reality, Jack felt far less confident than he was letting on. However, he’d insisted they go on the crazy mission, so it was his responsibility to see it through. They’d invested the better part of a day in the venture—far too much to cut their losses and walk away.
He paused. “You know, I wonder if they’d let us go if we leave everything behind and agree to never come back.”
Finn cocked his head. “Are you being serious?”
Jack shrugged. “I mean, it was a nice sentiment to get the IDs back and help the workers, but we don’t really owe them anything, especially not our lives.”
“Oh, now you come to that realization?!”
“Well, I didn’t have someone pointing a gun at me before.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.” Finn sighed. “Look, I don’t care much about the workers either way, but I do care about this bag of gold.” He dragged the heavy duffle another two centimeters across the floor.
“Even though we didn’t know about it when we came in here?”
“All the more reason to be super excited! It’s bonus loot! You never turn down a bonus, Jack.”
“But the whole thing about imminent death…”
Finn waved his ha
nd dismissively. “We’ll shoot our way out. The workers will get their IDs, we get gold. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
“Except for the guards,” Jack said.
“Which guards?”
“The ones we’ll shoot to get out of here.”
“Oh, right.” Finn paused. “Yeah, they’re going to have a terrible day.”
Jack took a deep breath. “Okay, so we’re going to do this thing?”
“Yes, but you’re going to be doing it first. You know, the human shield bit, like we discussed.”
“I like this plan less the more I think about it.”
“Rightfully so.”
Jack tightened his grip on the weapon. “Okay, here it goes!”
He flung open the door again, squeezing off three shots down the corridor.
“Ow, hey!” the guard shouted from the lounge room beyond.
Jack switched his vision to a composite view, and he was able to spot the guard hiding just around the corner from the corridor in the lounge room on the right. He fired another shot aimed for the wall blocking the man’s head.
“Drop your weapon and back away!” Jack ordered.
“You’re cornered! Backup will be here any moment,” the man replied.
Jack tiptoed through the open doorway and down the hall, firing another shot every meter to keep the man from sneaking a peek.
When he was almost to the lounge room, Jack fired at the couch to the guard’s right as a distraction, then lunged from hiding and shot at the guard as soon as he came into view.
“Agghh…” the man cried half-heartedly and fell to the ground. Once on the deck, he rearranged his arms a few times until it appeared he found a comfortable position.
Suspicious, Jack bent down. “Hey, are you just playing dead?”
The man didn’t move or reply.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to report you. I’m just curious.”
One of the man’s eyes cracked open. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he whispered.
“You’re not dead!” Jack replied in a low voice. “I started wondering if that’s why all you guards seemed so easy to shoot.”
“Yeah, it’s a union thing. If we’re clearly outgunned, we’re supposed to drop and hope no one headshots us.”
“Man, and here I thought I was a great shot.”
“Don’t feel bad,” the guard told him. “For what it’s worth, you came closer to shooting me than most people have.”
