by Scott Baron
“So she wouldn’t know what was happening? No chance of her causing catastrophic damage to the ship before she loses consciousness?”
“Not a chance, sir. With nitrogen, that is. Helium, well, if we used that and she happened to be talking to herself in the Narrows, she’d hear the change in her voice. With nitrogen, it’s totally undetectable until it’s too late.”
Fuck.
Daisy picked up her pace.
“Captain,” Mal chimed in, “I believe Gustavo’s plan is a sound one. I can closely monitor the time each section is flooded with the gas to ensure Daisy is not without oxygen long enough to cause permanent damage.”
“What if she wakes up before we find her? We’ll have to send teams into each section as we go,” Captain Harkaway said, hesitant.
“We can simply time the process, push out the nitrogen to allow a short window of fresh air, then flood each area again,” Mal replied. “We then repeat the whole thing until we have been able to search each of the sections. It will be time-consuming, but it should work. Further, with each subsequent exposure to the nitrogen, Daisy should be more quick to succumb, as her body will be exhausted and somewhat oxygen-starved. This will result in the requirement of far less gas than prior sessions.”
“But she’ll notice if we start locking down random sections of crawlspace from here, and we know she has the skills to pretty easily override that from inside the Narrows,” Gustavo pointed out.
“A valid concern, but if we were to not try to pinpoint her exact location, instead locking down multiple connected sections at a time and hoping she is somewhere in the middle, the odds of her noticing would be greatly reduced.”
Captain Harkaway scratched his stubbly chin as he mulled over the option.
“I don’t like it, but I really don’t see a better option on the table. Mal, what do you need done?”
“There are manual valve overrides in the atmospherics that will need to be cycled in order for me to affect this plan.”
“I’ll do it, Captain. I have a basic idea what needs to be done already.”
“No, Gus, I need you in Command monitoring navs and comms. Daisy’s loose in the guts of this ship, and if she gets any wild ideas, I’ll need you here to help with damage control. Mal, can you send the instructions to Reggie’s tablet remotely?”
“I’m sorry, Captain, but I am still trying to work around Daisy’s rerouting of our internal wireless communications system.”
“Well, shit on a shingle. With those comms still out, I’ll have to go track down Reggie on foot. Fine, we’ll do it the old hardwired way. Upload the instructions onto this,” he said, plugging a tablet into an open port. “I’ll get it down to him and have him get to work on it. Do you know what Reggie’s last location was?”
“I believe he was attempting to access the upper level Starboard crawlspaces near Pod Two, Captain.”
“Sir, why don’t we just send Barry? We know where he’s at, and it would save a lot of time.”
“We need to protect the shuttle, Gus, and Barry’s the best qualified of all of us to do it. Mal, once I track down Reggie, how long before we can start the process?”
“It should take less than twenty minutes to implement. I also wish to inform you that I believe comms should be functional by the time you return.”
“Great, stand ready. As soon as I get back, we start immediately.”
That’s my cue, Daisy thought as she paused her crawling to pull components from nearby control panels. I just hope this works.
“Still no sign of her, Mal,” Barry said into the wall-mounted communications box, a holdover of ancient tech that had never been removed.
The comms crackled, despite being hard-wired, and Mal managed to reply through the fuzzy connection.
“Understood. Continue at your position. We have implemented the beginning of the plan and should have Reggie accessing the Narrows shortly. Stay near the communications box. We will advise you as things progress.”
The comms clicked off, leaving Barry standing atop the round hatch in the floor leading to the shuttle, a patient and formidable guardian of flesh-covered cybernetics. With his heightened reflexes, far-above-human processing speed, along with the fact that he never, ever, got tired, he was the logical choice to stand guard. And in the unlikely event someone did manage to get past him, it was still a good forty-foot climb straight down. Plenty of time to catch up with them for the nimble cyborg.
Three-quarters of the way down the ladder there was a large turn-around space, which allowed a descending climber to flip over and change their body orientation to that of the belly-mounted shuttle. That is, if the shuttle’s own artificial gravity had already been activated. Again, an easy point at which to capture his quarry should she somehow make it that far.
With no means of communication to Earth, Daisy was well aware this really was her last chance. If she couldn’t manage to get past Barry, she was screwed. There was no way she was going to risk doing it half-assed.
In the tight confines of the crawlspace, she worked feverishly as she moved, pulling components from whatever she needed, not worrying about Mal eventually figuring out where she was as scavenged systems began showing glitches. That wouldn’t be her concern, at least not for much longer. If she moved quickly enough, she’d be out of there long before they flooded the Narrows with nitrogen and the subsequent search team ever arrived.
Daisy’s fingers moved almost independently of her body, expertly assembling the jumble of salvaged components into an apple-sized gizmo of questionable functionality.
“How the hell do you know how to do this?” Sarah wondered as Daisy added another seemingly random component to the spike-covered, battery-powered orb in her hand.
“Beats me. All I know is, if I’m right, this should do the trick.”
As she snaked her way through the last set of turns and approached her destination, she clicked the final piece into place and pressed the red power button. The small device let out a faint, yet deadly-feeling hum as it rested in the palm of her hand.
Well, this will go one of three ways. Either this will work, it won’t and Barry tackles me, or we’ll all be reduced to a pile of ashes when the whole ship blows up. She took a deep breath. One way to find out.
Daisy quietly opened the access panel at the far end of the corridor from where Barry was standing guard. She had wisely loosened all the bolts well in advance of this plan becoming a necessity, though, at the time, she thought perhaps it was a bit paranoid of her. Now it was a bit of foresight she was grateful for, as Barry’s hearing would undoubtedly have picked up the faint sound of her power-ratchet if she used it in such close proximity.
“Barry, I want to talk.” Her voice sounded so small in the corridor. Sad. Defeated.
The cyborg turned to where the voice had originated. He clicked the wall-comm. “Daisy has been located. She is behind the Narrows service hatch aft of the shuttle access.”
“Why would you do this to me?” she asked, keying in the remote power-up sequence to the shuttle into her portable link on her forearm tablet, while temporarily cutting Barry off from the comms panel. She knew the quick patch to the localized comms hardware would be overridden in under a minute, but that was all the time she needed.
And it was all the time she had.
“Daisy, we mean you no harm,” he said, walking down the corridor toward the Narrows hatch. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. Please, come talk with the captain. He can explain it all. It’s funny, really, once you understand the truth of things. A comedy of errors, if you will.”
Keep talking, you titanium son of a bitch.
“A comedy of errors?” she said in a whisper as she keyed another command into her small forearm tablet, her finger hovering over the enter key. “How is Sarah’s death comedic, Barry? And don’t you care about your friends? I blew one of ’em right out the goddamn airlock.”
“Most unfortunate, what you did to Tamara, and quite un
necessary. I wish you had just listened to us.”
Silently, Daisy slid her body out of the hatch, her feet softly touching the artificial gravity of the corridor’s floor as she simultaneously pressed the flashing enter key on her tablet. At her touch, the remote speaker her voice had been coming from that she had previously mounted behind the access panel at the other end of the corridor started yelling a recorded verbal barrage.
“Why, Barry? You’re not even human, so why are you doing this? You’re a fucking traitorous machine, and you killed my friend, you piece of shit!” The sudden shift in volume temporarily blocked Barry’s hearing. Long enough for Daisy to execute the other remote command and get a running start before he noticed her.
The second command she’d entered was the one that opened both top and bottom airlock doors to the long ladder leading to the shuttle. Safety protocols should have prohibited it, but Daisy found herself becoming quite adept at overriding all manner of those. She only hoped she’d given the antiquated ship enough time to power up.
Too late to worry about that.
Barry realized something was amiss and turned. His cybernetic eyes actually looked quite startled to see Daisy sprinting right at him.
“Why are you running toward me, Daisy?” he asked, confused.
Scratch that. She wasn’t running at him, she was sprinting, and not toward him, but rather toward the hatch now sliding open in the floor. Realization dawned on him, and he instantly sprang into action, his legs pistoning rapidly as he raced to stop her.
Running at full-speed, Daisy depressed the red button on the spiked orb with her thumb, then threw it as hard as she could. She knew it was a one-in-seven chance she’d be remotely on target, and wondered how she knew not only that, but also the exact trajectory and force needed to have it arrive where she intended. Either way, she had only one chance. The second device she’d gathered parts for was still only half-completed.
Fortune was with her, and the orb flew true, striking Barry dead-center in the middle of his chest, but the little ball didn’t cause any injury. Barry noted that the metal barbs were embedded in the flesh covering his cybernetic body, but the impact had done no damage at all. He did not feel pain like a human would, and the ball simply hung from his skin, dangling like an evil, shining Christmas ornament.
He ignored it. The useless little spiky thing caused no damage, and—
His sensors detected an unusual energy signature suddenly spike as his processors quickly assessed the makeshift device.
“What is—” he said, pausing as he just began to realize what the device truly was.
If a cyborg could show fear, at that moment he would have. Instead, his eyes went wide with surprise just as the pulse building inside the orb discharged.
The blast was greater than Daisy had anticipated, blowing him clean off his feet with a massive electrical burst, knocking out several lights and readout panels in the corridor as well.
Daisy didn’t hesitate. Best case, he was dead, but more likely than not he was merely down and possibly damaged, but most likely rebooting, which might only take him seconds. In any case, she wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
She ran closer, the barbecue smell of cooked meat finding its way to her nose just as Barry sat up with a jerk. He was moving slowly, not all of his systems back on line, his eyes barely focusing as he got one last glimpse of Daisy right as she leapt through the air above him and plummeted feet-first into the lengthy shaft, not even attempting to grasp the ladder’s rungs.
It was four long stories down, and Daisy fell fast, only narrowly missing the walls. Her tablet took the brunt of her lone contact, glancing off the metal ladder as she plummeted, smashing the reinforced screen.
While it had taken most of the impact and had certainly saved her from a broken arm, the unit had shattered, embedding shards of glass into her flesh. She bit her lip and tried to ignore the pain. There were far bigger things to worry about.
Like falling to her death.
She looked down and saw her feet about to clear the entrance to the shuttle.
At speed.
I didn’t give it enough time to power up. I’m going to di—
The artificial gravity in the shuttle grabbed her as she rocketed through the hatch, arresting what had been a downward fall, reversing it and saving her life in the process. With up and down suddenly switched, her downward fall had become an upward trajectory.
Despite slowing dramatically, she nevertheless hit the ceiling hard enough to see stars, then fell back onto the deck, nearly sliding into the open access hatch. Daisy, though stunned, still had her wits about her enough to roll clear and frantically slap at the airlock mechanism.
Luck was with her again, and the outdated hatch sealed shut, the access passage decompressing and locking down tight before the smoldering cyborg managed to regain functionality.
Daisy lay still for a long moment, her head swimming.
“No time to rest, Daze. Get moving.”
“I know, I know,” she grumbled to her dead friend.
Not wasting another moment, Daisy forced herself to her feet and bolted for the cockpit. It was down to a race between her and Mal. If she didn’t initiate the launch protocol before her bypasses were overcome, Mal would know her plan, and lock down the ship from Command, and now that she was in the shuttle, there was no way she could access the Váli’s systems again. The game would be up, and she’d be trapped with nowhere to run.
She reached the cockpit and took a long look at the myriad buttons and display panels.
So much to figure out.
She shook the fog from her head and set to work. The impact had nearly knocked her senseless, but now, with the massive flood of adrenaline coursing through her system, she realized she knew exactly what to do.
Was this already inside my head, too? she wondered as she fired up the ship’s onboard systems, quickly working to block out Mal from all access. What else did the neuro-stim stick in there?
Code flashed in her mind, her fingers executing the commands even as she marveled at her own prowess. She knew she was good, but she never knew she was this good. The directional thrusters fired up, the docking clamps released, and the shuttle slowly drifted away from the ship. All hardline ties were broken.
Then, and only then, did Daisy allow herself to breathe easy.
I actually made it.
“Daisy, you have no idea what you’re jeopardizing,” Mal’s voice crackled over the shuttle’s open comms.
Of course. Different system. Not tied in to the Váli’s regular comms array.
“What we’ve been trying to tell you is tha—” Daisy switched off the communications system.
Much better, she thought as she sighed with relief at the blessed silence. She then slid into the padded seat nearest the shuttle’s navigation station and plotted a course for Earth.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Mal, go after her!” Captain Harkaway bellowed.
The massive ship did not change course.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but we seem to be unable to accurately adjust course to track the shuttle at this time.”
“Gus?”
“Yeah, something’s wrong with the nav system, but not from here.”
The grizzled captain’s shoulders slumped slightly as he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a defeated sigh. “What did she do this time, Mal?”
“Uncertain. However, the wireless comms system is back online. I will have the crew immediately begin manual checks of the suspected attack points. I do not detect any fatal overrides, but prudence would be the wisest course of action.”
“Agreed. Get on it. Gus, head down and help the others. We’ve got to track this down, whatever it is she did this time.”
“Will do, Captain,” Gustavo said, exiting Command.
The captain sat back in his chair, allowing himself a moment to take a deep breath and center himself. With a resolved sigh, he rose to his feet.
“You know what, wire details to my tablet and update me as more results come in. I’m going to join the crew.”
“But Captain, protocol requires one human to always be present in Command during a crisis.”
“I think we’re flying a bit outside of protocol at this point, don’t you? We need every hand we can working on this. Now, send me the damn details.”
The device on his forearm beeped.
“Thanks. Keep tracking her, and let me know if there’s anything crucial you need me for.”
The weary veteran lurched to his feet and trudged off to help fix his ship, a sense of impending doom hanging in the air around him.
Thousands of miles from the Váli, a distance that was still growing, Daisy had five minutes left in her fifteen-minute power nap. It was a small luxury she allowed herself after spending a solid half hour digging remnants of the shattered tablet from her forearm.
The shuttle, she had discovered, carried only a very old first aid kit, stocked with yellowing bandages and rolls of tape that had long ago lost their usefulness. Fortunately, the hermetically-sealed antiseptic swabs were still intact, so at least no infection would set in.
Really, she was amazed that her arm hadn’t broken from the blow, despite the tablet taking the majority of the impact. That she’d hit hard enough to break the supposedly unbreakable device spoke to just how much force had been generated.
She bit down on a tongue depressor as she dug in the wound until she felt certain no more debris was to be recovered. She then applied some antibiotic cream and tightly wrapped the limb. It was only at that point, once the sharp bits of glass and polymer frame were no longer embedded in her flesh, that she allowed herself a few moments of downtime.
She felt she’d earned it, given the hell she had just gone through. More importantly, however, was the knowledge that she had quietly afforded herself a bit of breathing room before disconnecting from the Váli.
