by Dan Thompson
“No, it’s not that. It’s the drive station down in engineering I’m worried about. Sooner or later someone is going to notice that the tachyon capture rates from the sails don’t match the kind of turbulence we’re throwing at the navigator.”
“I suppose I could try to scale back on the intensity.”
“No, Carlos. If you scale it back to the point that it won’t show up in engineering, then it’ll be too little to slow them down. No, what we need to do instead is take out that console in engineering.”
“That’s crazy, sir. We’ll never get down to engineering.”
“I know, but we don’t have to. The data lines from engineering run between the decks, and Dieter’s cabin is right above that console.”
Carlos chuckled. “Cut it at the source … that’s good. Then they can’t simply pull it up on some other console.”
“Exactly. Do you think Dieter is up to the task?”
Carlos chuckled. “Captain, I think he’s ready to chew through the bulkhead to get at these guys.”
Alex carried the tray of leftovers forward to the kid’s office where Nick was already waiting.
“I don’t see why we get stuck doing this. We should make the other guys do this tomorrow.”
Nick shrugged. “Well, if we have better weather tomorrow, I’m sure we can make that happen.”
Alex scowled. “Yeah, well fuck Stefan. The weather isn’t all that bad. He didn’t need to take over for me. All I needed was a couple of pointers.”
“Whatever. Let’s get this done already. I want to hit the rack.”
Alex set one of the plates by the door. “Think he’ll try anything this time?”
“I doubt it, but be ready.”
Alex nodded and positioned himself behind the desk in the outer office. At Nick’s signal, he poked at the door with the little rod, but when it opened, the kid was not there. He peered through the doorway and thought he saw a lump in the bed.
“Push it through,” Nick urged, so he complied. As he was about to trigger the door closed again, he thought he saw the lump move, but that was all.
The navigator was next, and this time he was visible, sitting at his desk on the far side of the cabin. He glared at them, but he did not speak. The musician was equally compliant, and the other two were as quiet as they had been the day before. The environmental guy was even down on his knees this time, facing away.
With only one plate left, Alex left the tray back in the galley. “Let’s go check on our little mouse,” he said.
“I’m telling you, man. She’s the one who worries me more than any of the rest.”
Alex laughed. “You and Stefan both, scared of everything from the wind to little girls.”
Nick shrugged. “Well, we’re old, or at least older. Give it time, and you’ll get that way too.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
They reached the door, and Alex positioned the food while Nick took aim with his Jansky from a kneeling position next to him. The door opened, and the food from the previous night was still there by the door, untouched.
“What the hell?”
“Push the new stuff in.” Nick insisted.
“Seriously? She’s in the same position she was last night. For all we know she’s dead.”
“She’s not dead. I can see her breathing.”
Alex shook his head. “This is bullshit. I’m gonna check her out.”
But before he could move forward, Nick reached out and took hold of his leg. “Don’t.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Push the new stuff in, and close the door. Consider it an order.”
Alex sighed and shook him off, but he did not cross the threshold. He pushed the new plate across with his boot and closed the door.
“Good boy.”
Alex turned to see Nick stand and holster his pistol. “Look, old man, you’re not in command here, and I don’t have to take any orders from you.” Nick started to open his mouth, but Alex stalked down the hall to the cabin he had been sharing with Perry. “And tonight it’s your turn to clean the fucking galley.”
He went into his cabin and slammed the heel of his hand against the bulkhead. To hell with them and all their paranoia. He was going to pay that girl a visit tonight. If she was dead, then he could rub that in Nick’s pompous face. But if she was alive, then he was going to have a little fun.
Chapter 25
“A real fight is no time to be a gentleman. I say kick them when they’re down. It may be the only chance you get.” – Malcolm Fletcher
MICHAEL LOOKED OVER his sketch again. It was rough, but it was the best he could manage from memory. It had been three years since he had done the repairs on those conduits, swapping out a faulty routing box, but it seemed right. It had left more of an impression than usual because he had swapped out the wrong box the first time.
Carlos’s face appeared between the pipes again. “He’s got the carpet peeled back and is cracking open the maintenance hatch.”
Michael pushed his paper through the gap. “There should be two routing boxes and six cables. The one on the left is just a pass-through, so it won’t have any kind of router connection. It’s for some sensors back in the cargo bay going forward to the environmental console. The router on the right carries the data for the reactor, splitting it off to the bridge. We do not want to mess with that one. Is that clear?”
“Why? What happens if we disconnect it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t really know, but I remember the last time I worked on these, it was in port, and Dad shut the reactor down cold.”
“So it’s this one in the middle?”
“Yeah, that takes the drive data, splits off a copy to the bridge, and routes both it and the reactor data down to the console in engineering.”
“And you’re sure it’s the lines in the middle?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m pretty sure, but it will be the only router with four connections. Of that I’m certain.”
“Okay, I’ll go ask what he sees.”
Carlos disappeared, leaving Michael to stew for a few minutes. His appetite had returned with the arrival of his dinner, but now, two hours later, he was hungry again. Not that he ever planned on being hijacked again, but when this was over, he was going to start keeping a stash of rations in his cabin.
“Skipper, we’ve got a problem.” Carlos was back at the sink. “Dieter says there are three routing boxes, and two of them have four connections.”
“What? No, don’t count the ports. Only count the actual connected lines.”
“I asked him that. All three of them had six ports. One had three connecting lines, and two had four connecting lines. What’s that third box for anyway?”
“Shit, it’s uh …” He could not remember just now. Getting his head slammed against the wall did not help matters. Was it the cargo environmental? “Hey, did he find the pass-through line? Maybe that had a box and I forgot.”
“I’ll go ask.”
Michael leaned back against the wall, wedged between the toilet and the sink. To hell with stocking up snack food. If he ever got through this, he was going to make sure he knew the Sophie as well as Malcolm had. He knew that he was remembering him through a boy’s eyes, but Malcolm seemed to have known every last panel and weld of this ship, just as he had the Hammerhead before. He would have remembered.
But there was no point in wishing for him now. He had died almost two years ago, right on this ship. Michael remembered it clearly, maneuvering Malcolm through vacuum as he bled from the wound in his leg. One of the old crew had opened the dorsal air lock for them, while Michael pushed his father across the top of the ship, and he cycled it as soon as the two of them had gotten in.
It had already been too late. Malcolm’s left femoral artery had been severed. He was dead before they even got out of the airlock. Isaac or one of the other crew had done the cleanup. Michael himself had avoided that particular airlock ever since.
“Yeah, skipper, the pass-through line is there too.”
Then it hit him. “Shit, it’s the airlocks.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s got to be. You can open the dorsal and ventral airlocks from the bridge.”
“Okay … the bridge and two airlocks,” Carlos replied, thinking it over. “That’s three connections. What about the fourth data line?”
“I don’t know, landing gear maybe, but it’s not going to be another critical system.”
“So, which box is which?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll pull both.”
“Now?”
Michael sighed. “Certainly soon. It would be nice if we could arrange another distraction. How’s the weather doing?”
Carlos chuckled. “We’ve changed course three times in the last hour, and we’re still at half-sail. I could throw another vortex at them, but it seems a little soon for that. Maybe a shifting wave front?”
“All right, but let it build up like a real one. We can afford to wait another hour or two.”
“All right, I’ll tell Dieter to stand by. In the meantime, sir, let’s get started on your lock.” Carlos passed a screwdriver through the pipes. “There’s no actual screw. You just have to pop the cover off.”
Michael went back over to the door panel and pried the cover loose. It hung down by a strand of colored wires. “Got it.”
“Ok, confirm the following wires: green, orange with black stripe, yellow, black, red, and silver.”
Michael scanned over them. “Yeah, they’re all here.”
He might not have known the Sophie as well as Malcolm had, but he was learning in a hurry.
Winner finished chewing the last of a protein bar and took a sip of water from her gym bottle. The smell of the food by the door had mostly settled. She had kept herself fed for two days now without it. At this rate she could keep it up for two more.
She double-checked the placement of her legs against the side of her bed and lowered her head to the floor. She had cut a hole in the carpeting, and with her ear pressed against the bare metal of the deck, she could hear footsteps anywhere on this side of the ship. So it was no surprise to her when the steps paused outside her door.
She curled her right arm in and held the knife close to her chest.
The door opened.
This time there was no food, and the young one had come alone. She saw his shadow through the slits of her almost-closed eyes.
He stepped through but left the door open behind him. “Hey there, little girl. Don’t you like my cooking?”
She made no sound and did her best to keep her breath shallow despite her racing heart.
He picked up one of the plates and came closer. “Of course, it’s not my cooking. It’s actually yours. I particularly liked your lasagna. Even reheated it was good. There’s still a bit left. Maybe afterwards, I could bring you some.”
He was close. She could even make out the toes of one boot through her eyelashes. One step closer, she willed at him. One damned step.
“It doesn’t have to be all that bad. I’m sure you and me could get along real well,” he said. She heard the scrape of metal on plastic. “Here, why don’t you try a bite of this first?” The other foot came into view, well within arm’s reach.
She struck without opening her eyes, but she hit her target all the same. The blade sliced easily through the soft leather along the back of the boot and through the Achilles tendon beneath it.
He yelped as he sprawled to the ground, but she was on him before he could make much noise at all. With one hand over his mouth, she ran the blade across his neck, cutting deep. The arterial blood sprayed out over the floor, and she barely saw the look of realization in his eyes before he went limp.
But she had gone limp before. It was a useful trick, so she stayed on top of him, pinning his arms to the floor with her knees, until the spurts of blood had slowed to a trickle and finally stopped. She wiped the blood from her hands and the blade against his uniform. The blade was going to need a proper cleaning later, but she hoped it would see more blood soon.
The door was still open, and anyone passing would see him immediately. She hoisted him by his arms and dragged him back into the corner where she had lain for two days and set him out in some approximation of her earlier pose. Pulling the blankets from the bed, she draped them over him, making sure to cover his face. There was still blood on the carpet, but it would soak into the mottled darkness soon enough.
The last thing she did was collect his pistol, flung absently into the closet as he had fallen. The safety had still been on. She shook her head and flipped it live, but then she saw the thumb reader. She pointed it at pillow on the bed and pulled the trigger. Nothing. She considered hacking off the hijacker’s thumb, but in the close quarters of a ship, she was much more comfortable with her fists and knives.
She slid the remaining plate across the floor into the bathroom and stepped into the hall. No one was there. She closed the door behind her and made her way forward. Getting to the captain would be a priority, but there was bound to be an easy target on the bridge. It probably would not be Dieter, but at this point, she would be glad to take out any of them.
The cross-corridor was clear, and the hatch to the bridge was open. Fools.
She stepped through the hatch, holding her knife ready.
“Bringing more coffee?”
She froze. That was Richard’s voice.
He turned to look back at her, and his eyes went wide.
Fuck. It all came down on her so suddenly. It had never been Dieter in the first place. It had been this stuffy prick all along.
Richard rolled out of the seat into a crouch, his own pistol rising up to bear on her.
She was four meters away, much too far to close the distance. She flipped her knife quickly in her hand as she drew it back, and then threw it in a sidelong spin, hoping for the best.
The force of Richard’s shot hit her so hard in the gut that it lifted her off her feet as she was thrown back, but before she slammed into the frame of the hatchway, she had the satisfaction of hearing Richard’s sharp cry of pain. Conscious thought fled her mind, but at least she knew she had hurt him.
“All right, now connect the green lead to the yellow wire,” Carlos said.
Michael clipped the probe onto the exposed metal from within the yellow-coated wire. The little electronic lockpicker still read “Unknown.” “Still nothing,” he said.
“Damn.” Carlos flipped through pages of handwritten notes. “Try moving the red lead to the black wire.”
He nodded and detached the red lead from the green wire, and then he felt something. It was subtle, but he knew that feeling well. “We’ve stopped.”
Carlos turned away from the hole in the wall for a second. “Shit, you’re right,” he said.
“Have we already reached their destination?”
“I don’t see how,” Carlos replied. “We’re in open space, two light-years from the closest star, and the charts say it doesn’t even have any terrestrial planets.”
“Was it the fake weather?”
“Not likely. It’s been ramping up, but nothing he hasn’t pushed through already.”
Michael wracked his brain, trying to think of what they could be stopping for, but came up with nothing. “I don’t know what it is either, but something has them busy. Tell Dieter to pull the boxes now.”
“Aye, sir. That I will.”
Stefan winced as Nick ran the stitcher across the wound on his shoulder. “Fucking bitch!”
Nick paused. “I can still give you the local.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want anything numb right now. I’m having a hard time staying awake even with the pain.” He was sitting on the hard bed in the Sophie’s tiny medical bay, down at the end of the starboard corridor. He was sitting up rather than relaxing because he was afraid to lie down when he was this tired.
Perry came in through the hatch. “I found him
.”
“And?”
“He’s in her cabin with his throat slashed open.”
“Dead?” Stefan asked.
“They don’t get much deader. There’s so much of his blood in the carpet that I left footprints in the hall.”
“Damn,” Nick said. “I didn’t think he was really going to be that dumb.”
Stefan turned on him. “You knew about this?”
“He kept wanting to check her out, to see if she really hurt or only faking it, but I wouldn’t let him.” He shook his head. “Looking back on it, I should have had you change the lock code on her door.”
“Too late for that,” he replied. “So Perry, what about the girl?”
“Still out, but she seems okay.”
Stefan closed his eyes and grunted. “That’s nice of you to check, but what I want to know is whether or not she’s secure.”
Perry nodded. “I’ve got her pretty well hog-tied for now.”
Nick shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust that for long.”
“You’re right,” Stefan said. “She’s surprised us once already, and that’s one time too many.”
“So, kill her?” Perry asked.
Stefan shook his head. “She’s still worth something to us. Let’s lock her up, but somewhere we can keep an eye on her.”
“The galley?” Perry suggested.
Nick shook his head. “I think we should use that cargo locker down on the engineering deck. I was checking it out yesterday. It’s solid, hard-mounted to the deck, and the metal mesh isn’t merely twisted. It’s welded. We tie her up in there, she’s not going anywhere.”
“I like it,” Stefan replied. “Perry, you keep an eye on her, and Nick, when you’re done here, get her in there and strip her down. I don’t want her popping up with a hidden knife.”
Nick advanced the stitcher another few millimeters. “Believe me, I’m taking no chances with her.”
Stefan gritted his teeth and glanced at the gash on his shoulder. “We may be splitting her three ways now, but to be honest, I’ve got half a mind to beat some of Alex’s share out of her.”
