Long Shot

by Christopher Williams

  Aaron shook his head. On the one hand, they had used their own judgment and he knew they wouldn’t make foolish decisions, but on the other hand, the less the crew saw of them the better. “You didn’t bring anything back, did you?” he asked finally.

  “Uh, no,” Russell said, struggling between looking abashed and laughing.

  “Well that’s okay,” Aaron said, picking up his duffel bag. Then in a sarcastic tone he added, “We don’t need the fresh galley food, we have plenty of these emergency rations to get us by.”

  The next day passed slowly and seemed to drag by. Being stuck in a little-used area of a prison ship while waiting to escape did not allow for much relaxation. Every creak and pop of the old ship made them all jump, but every time it turned out to just be the shifting of the bulkheads and not the crew.

  They didn’t hear again from Kyle, and Aaron was beginning to get worried. Time was quickly running out and they needed the computer measures taken care of. He was fairly sure that the computer tablet had not been discovered, as there hadn’t been the first alarm sounded, but he was beginning to worry that the programmer might not have enough time to complete the software they needed done.

  Resisting the urge to contact Kyle for as long as he could, Aaron was just trying to decide what type of message he should send the young man when the computer beeped.

  Susan, who had been lying down, sat bolt upright. “Message from Kyle?” she asked.

  “Looks that way,” Aaron replied and clicked to open Kyle’s communication. Once again it was short and to the point: Need to see you ASAP!

  An icy cold feeling settled down on Aaron. He didn’t know what the problem was and that made it all the worse. Every possible horrible scenario began running through his mind, each one worse than the last. He forced the worry away and stood up from the computer terminal. “Russell, I need you to pull up the unaltered security feeds of the prison level,” he said, and then turned to Susan and Jessica. “You two help me get the room squared away.”

  They left the locker room barely more than ten minutes later, despite their misgivings. Their first visit to Kyle’s cell had occurred during the mid-shift, a time which would correspond to nearly two in the morning. At such a time there had been a minimum of personnel awake and active. However, this visit would take place during the first shift, one of the busiest periods on the ship.

  They could tell that it was going to be much more difficult to gain access to Kyle after observing the security cameras for several moments. Instead of the lone guard that had been on duty the first night, there were two. Every thirty minutes, one of the guards got up and made the regular rounds, but that still left the second guard at the desk.

  For the briefest of moments, Aaron had considered replying to Kyle’s message and telling him it wasn’t safe to come right now, but then he reconsidered. In all honesty, it wasn’t exactly safe to continue to use the ship’s computer to send encrypted messages.

  Once again they wore their enlisted uniforms. Officer uniforms might get them out of a sticky situation, but they would also make them much more memorable. As it was, they were just another group of enlisted.

  They reached the elevators without incident and were whisked away. It seemed almost too soon that they reached their destination and once again the elevator stopped without the doors opening.

  They waited there for several minutes, all the while Susan reported that both security guards remained at the desk. Finally, she tapped Aaron on the shoulder. “One of them just left,” she whispered.

  Aaron nodded and checked the time, determined not to rush his plan. They needed to give the first guard a brief chance to get started on his rounds, that would only leave the second guard to deal with. “Which way did the guard go?” he asked Susan quietly. She pointed to the left and he turned his attention to Jessica. “Your turn,” he said quietly. She nodded, but he kept right on talking. “Make sure that you send the second guard off to the right.”

  Jessica nodded again and closed her eyes. Her job seemed simple but actually was rather complex. She had to project a disturbance, like a sound, something that would cause the guard at the desk to get up and go investigate, but the disturbance had better not cause the guard to raise the alarm.

  Russell held up the small computer tablet he carried so that they could all see the lone guard sitting at the small desk.

  The guard looked relaxed, leaning back with his feet up on the edge of the desk, and he appeared to be watching something on the computer monitor. After a moment, he bolted to his feet and looked off in the direction where Jessica’s distraction should be drawing him. He slid open one of the desk drawers and removed a shock stick. He then slowly headed off to the right.

  The seconds seemed to slowly tick by, but Aaron refused to rush the plan. Although he did continue to watch Susan, waiting for a sign that it was safe to move. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she nodded.

  “It’s clear,” she said simply.

  Aaron hastily punched the button and the elevator doors slid open. They didn’t waste any time and hurried past the guard’s desk and headed off to the left. Once again they turned right at the second corridor but this time Aaron was yanked to a stop barely ten feet along the passage. He turned to see that it was Susan that had grabbed him and he opened his mouth to speak, but her wide eyes made him stop. She pulled him back near the doorway of a prisoner’s cell, and Russell and Jessica quickly followed.

  Aaron, with his eyes wide, looked to Susan for some guidance as to what was wrong. She simply held a finger to her mouth. He nodded and slid his hand into his right front pocket. His hand found the butt of a small plasmic, which was a pistol that fired pulses of plasma. Taking a deep breath, he sincerely prayed that this didn’t turn into a firefight. Even if they won the fight, it was still rather early for the death of two guards to go unnoticed.

  This prison level was made up of corridors that ran long ways along the center of the ship and cross-corridors that ran perpendicular.

  A sound reached their ears then, it was the sound of footfalls. It wasn’t the hurried footsteps of a man rushing to an alarm, instead it was the slow and unbothered steps of a bored guard on patrol.

  It took a moment for Aaron to realize what it meant. The guard wasn’t in this corridor and he wasn’t using one of the cross-corridors, instead he was slowly walking along the next hallway over. He might have spotted them down one of the cross-corridors if not for Susan pulling them back into the shelter of the cell doors. After several moments, Susan tapped Aaron on the shoulder and motioned for him to lead the way.

  Taking a deep breath, he led the way on down the hall. Reaching Kyle’s cell, Aaron quickly entered the code and entered the small cell.

  Kyle was in the process of trying to quickly lie back in bed and at the same time hide the small computer tablet. He slumped visibly when he realized who it was that was entering his cell and then he sat back upright. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said rather breathlessly.

  “Payback’s a bitch. Isn’t it?” Aaron said.

  Somewhat taken aback, Kyle look confused. “Payback? Payback for what?”

  “For scaring me half to death with a short cryptic message that you need to see us ASAP,” Aaron answered.

  “Sorry, but it’s rather important.”

  “What’s the matter?” Russell asked. “Are you not going to get the programming complete in time?”

  “The code you wanted is done,” Kyle said, waving his hand dismissively.

  “So what is the problem?” Aaron demanded, starting to get a little annoyed. He hadn’t come here to play twenty questions. They were running out of time and they had to drop this ship back to normal space in roughly five hours.

  “So, when I started to insert the altered code into the ship’s systems, I found out that there are two ship networks. The first one is the one we’ve been communicating through and it’s throughout most of the ship.”

  Already fearing the
answer, Aaron asked, “And the second?”

  “It’s only on the bridge, medical, and the engine room,” Kyle answered. “It’s more secure and there isn’t a direct connection between the two.”

  Sighing deeply, Aaron began rubbing his eyes. “Makes sense I suppose. They have one network that the crew accesses and they don’t won’t computer viruses and such to affect the engines or bridge.” He paused for a moment and considered. “So, we simply have a problem getting your programs onto the more secure network?”

  Kyle nodded. “And we got to do it in less than five hours.

  Silence greeted these words and it lasted for several moments. Finally, Russell spoke. “So, we certainly don’t want to try and get on the bridge, engineering is nearly as difficult, so that leaves the sickbay.” He looked at Aaron. “What you think? Jessica and I can get in there and upload the virus.”

  “Uh,” Kyle said and immediately every face turned towards him. “There’s another problem.”

  “Another one?” Aaron said, his tone just a bit exasperated.

  “This one’s not so bad, well, at least I don’t think it is. I was unable to come up with a way to cause the ship’s engines to overload and explode. There just isn’t a way to do it via software. There are too many hardware safeguards.”

  Aaron’s stomach tightened up at this news. The ship had to be destroyed or there would simply be too much physical evidence left behind. The last thing he wanted was the Unionists knowing that a renegade Commonwealth military squad had broke some of its prisoners out.

  “Relax,” Kyle said. He could tell that his words had been completely unwelcome. “I think I have a way around this too, but it will require someone to go outside the ship.”

  Aaron shared a glance with Russell and then said, “Go on.”

  “Well, it’s pretty obvious what the Captain will do once he realizes the ship’s computer is no longer under his control,” he paused and looked expectantly around. He was disappointed in that four blank faces stared back at him. He took a deep breath and continued, “They’ll power the ship’s computers off and back on.”

  Aaron’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. He hadn’t ever heard of a ship rebooting its systems while in space, usually that was only done in dry dock. “Are you sure? I mean they have no idea what will happen.”

  Kyle nodded. “It’s better than the alternative. Think about it. The ship will already be dead in space and there are enough hardware safety precautions. I expect we’ll have at least two minutes but surely not more than five before they power down the ship’s computer.”

  That was an option that Aaron had most certainly not considered. Without the ship’s computer, very few things worked on a ship. Some room doors would open, but the compartment doors would not. The elevators would also be offline. He looked up to see Kyle smiling.

  “Relax,” Kyle said. “I’ve taken into account the computers going offline and planned our escape route. We’ll still be able to use the path you had planned, but we’ll have to climb down the elevator emergency access chute.”

  “And the bulkhead doors?” Russell asked.

  “I’ve programmed all the bulkhead doors along our path, to open and lock. We shouldn’t have any problem getting from here to the landing bay.” He paused and then added, “Unless we’re still trying to get out of here when the ship’s computers come back online.”

  “How long will that take?” Susan asked. They were all watching the programmer closely now, their lives depended on his answers.

  Kyle grimaced. “It’s hard to say exactly. This isn’t usually done in regular space. I expect at least twenty minutes.”

  “What about environmental?” Jessica asked. “Will we still have gravity?”

  “Yes,” Kyle answered quickly. “The environmental systems are self-contained. Nothing we do to the ship’s computer will affect them.”

  Aaron considered for a moment. It appeared that Kyle was competent and thorough, but something was bothering him. “Why aren’t the prisoner levels on the more secure network?”

  Kyle shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think it was in case there was a mass escape. They didn’t want the prisoners having access to the secure network.”

  “But why reboot the ship’s systems?” Jessica asked, looking confused. “Won’t they just come up in the same state?”

  Kyle shook his head. “The computer’s operating system is stored read only. All the changes that the computer viruses have made, are to the running kernel. When they reboot the system, it will revert to a known good condition,” he paused and grinned, “although that known good condition is quite old.” Puzzled looks greeted his words and he quickly continued, “Since the storage is read only, the ship’s operating system can only be upgraded in space dock, and that hasn’t been done in nearly ten years.”

  After a moment Aaron nodded. “Alright, let’s see if I have this straight.” He began ticking things off on his fingers. “First, we have to upload your computer virus to the secure network and that has to be done through the sickbay.” He paused and Kyle nodded. “Second, the ship will shutdown with all the doors along our path locked open.”

  “Yes, but you have to get the other prisoners out of these cells before they shut down the computers. Once the computers go down, you’ll either have to wait for them to come back up to open the cell doors or cut your way through,” Kyle said. After a moment he added, “I did program my cell door and nine others to automatically unlock and open when the virus hits.”

  “Nine others?” Aaron prompted.

  “Yes, well, you did say that you didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me, but I wanted to be absolutely sure that I got out of here. And there were a few of the other prisoners I liked while I was being held on Karbarsh.”

  Aaron nodded and held up his third finger. “Three, the ship blows up.”

  “Ah yes,” Kyle said slowly. “It’s doable—just not easily.”

  “You mentioned that someone will need to go outside the ship,” Russell said. “Why?”

  “Okay,” Kyle said and sat down on the edge of his bed. He held the tablet up so that the others could see a small diagram of the ship’s exterior. Four bright red lines stood out against the black and white drawing. Kyle pointed to each of the red lines in turn, “These are the main coolant conduits for the reactor. The conduits are not accessible from inside the ship, so someone will need to go outside and cut each of them.”

  “Cut them?” Russell repeated.

  “Well, I don’t care what you do to them,” Kyle said with a shrug. “Just make sure that the coolant leaks off into space.” After a brief pause he added, “And make sure that no one can detect whatever it is you do on the inside of the ship.” Russell looked confused, and Kyle added, “No bombs.”

  “So,” Aaron began slowly,” disabling these four conduits will cause the ship to explode?”

  “Yes,” Kyle answered but in a hesitant manner. “The conduits must be disabled after the ship’s systems have been shut off.” He paused and looked around. “This is very important. If the conduits are cut before the ship’s systems go offline then there will be an alert on the bridge and in engineering, and there is nothing I can do about that.”

  “Can’t your computer virus keep the system’s from registering the alert?” Jessica asked.

  “No,” Kyle answered quickly. “These safety measures are self contained, they do not interact with the computer directly, but they will go offline when the main computer is rebooted.”

  “Alright,” Aaron said after a moment, “what happens after these lines are cut?”

  “Well, the ship’s computer will boot up, and I expect that to take at least twenty minutes. While the computer’s booting, a person on the bridge, and a person in engineering will be monitoring the coolant levels. The hardware safety measures will not come online for another ten or fifteen minutes after the computer’s up, so they have to monitor the levels manually.”

 
“But won’t they see that the coolant’s all gone?” Aaron asked.

  “They would,” Kyle said with a grin and then held his tablet up, two wire connectors dangled from the edge, “but this will be feeding false data to them.” He spun the tablet back around so that the drawing of the ship was visible again and he punched a button. A small blue square appeared directly in the middle of the ship and just forward of the engines. “Our person on the outside must disconnect the manual leads from the conduits and connect this computer. It will feed them bogus information until the hardware safety systems are booted up. At that point, it will be too late.”

  Silence settled on them for several moments as they each digested Kyle’s plans. Aaron didn’t much like it but they were passed the point where they had any choice. He wanted off this ship and he wanted off quick.

  “So,” Russell began, looking at Aaron. “You want to go outside and handle the conduits?”

  Aaron shook his head. “You’re better suited for it. I’ll go with Jessica and Susan to sickbay to get the virus uploaded to the secure network.” He motioned to the bed where Kyle sat. “You stay here and go over exactly what you need to do.”

  Chapter 24

  Aaron, Jessica, and Susan left Kyle’s cell and made their way back towards the elevators.

  He was nervous as they neared the guard’s desk, but Aaron’s fears were unfounded. Only one guard remained at the desk and they only had to wait a few minutes for him to get up and start his rounds. They gave the guard a few moments to get out of earshot and then they snuck on the elevator and made their war back to the unused locker room.

  “Jessica, this is your area of expertise, so how do you think we should proceed?” Aaron asked as they walked through the door.

  Jessica squirmed a little as Aaron and Susan watched her. “Well,” she said after a moment, “let me take a look and see what’s going on there.”

  They gathered around the small computer terminal and Jessica began punching the keys. “Good,” she said after scanning the records. “It’s been a quiet trip so far. Several crewmen have been treated for colds and such,” she continued reading and then snorted.