Wanderer 3: Tainted Universe (45 page)

Chapter Fifty-Two

Vorn checked the display again.  Nothing had changed.  The fleet was a few degrees off the direct course to the
Wanderer
but that could easily be fixed by a quick diversion into real space.  Besides, being off course had turned out to be a blessing.  They’d let him confirm that the
Wanderer
was once again stopped in real space.

If the fleet had been bang on course they wouldn’t have had time to prepare.  Now they knew exactly when they would reach the
Wanderer
.

Vorn studied the displays for another five minutes before impatience set in.  The
Wanderer
still hadn’t moved.  It was time to close the trap.

“
Bring us out of jump space,” he snapped out.  “We have a new heading.  I want us back in jump space the moment the engines have cycled.”

“
Aye sir!”

The
Starslayer
dropped back into real space, rapidly followed by the rest of the fleet.  Vorn’s orders were immediately relayed to all ships.

“
Captain.”  Vorn’s voice was much softer this time.  He gestured for the Captain to come close.

“
Yes Admiral?”

“
Is everything prepared?”

“
Yes sir.  Armed and operational.”

“
Excellent.  When we catch the
Wanderer
you are free to fire immediately.  Aim for the jump drives first, then start crippling the ship.  Don’t destroy her.  I want enough left to study.  But do whatever else is needed to prevent her running again.”

“
Yes sir.”

Vorn nodded then turned his thoughts back to the
Wanderer
.  It was almost too good to be true.  The ship he sought was once more sitting still.  A tempting target which should stand no chance against his mighty fleet.

Just like last time.  And the times before.  Until he stood on the
Wanderer
’s bridge Vorn wouldn’t believe the fight was won.  And if that meant standing in a full spacesuit because the bridge had been cracked wide open then so be it.

*****

The waiting was hard on Sal.  While the fleet remained in jump space she had no idea what was happening aboard the
Dark Shadow
.  Had her gift to the captain taken fully?  Or had he been recognised as one of the gifted?  Would the return to normal space be closely followed by her execution?

Or was all going well?  Had the captain managed to convert more of his crew?  Had he spread the Gift freely, as was intended?  Maybe the truth was somewhere in between.  Had the captain managed to spread the Gift at all?  If not what should she do?

She was tempted to begin passing on the Gift to those on the
Shogan
, but she resisted.  The ship was too big, and she didn’t want to risk being discovered.  Though maybe there was one who would be worth the risk.  The one who was monitoring her even now.  The one who would raise the alarm as soon as she exited her cell.

Faking a yawn she stretched, then sat up on the bed.  She stretched again but resisted the urge to blink her eyes.  She didn’t want to overdo it.  Then she glanced up at the camera she knew he was looking through at that moment and turned on a dazzling smile.

*****

Mak studied the prisoner as she stretched.  She didn’t seem concerned by her situation.  That would change.  He’d seen the provisional interrogation schedule.  Someone wanted everything the prisoner knew, and they wanted it quickly.

Mak wouldn’t be directly involved but he would probably end up witnessing the interrogation.  It wasn’t a pleasant task but he knew it was necessary.  Someone less experienced might have had doubts about interrogating the prisoner but he knew that the most corrupt often hid behind a shell of innocence.

The prisoner turned and stared straight into the camera that Mak was watching through.  She smiled and Mak felt his heart leap in his chest.  All thoughts of interrogation vanished from his mind.  All he could focus on was the prisoner’s face.  Her smile.  Her eyes.  Warmth washed over Mak, making his body relax.  Nothing else mattered.  He lost all sense of time passing.

Everything suddenly changed.  Instead of warmth he now felt a suffocating heat.  Something was scraping at his brain from the inside.  Something that was pushing into his mind.  Pushing Mak aside.  Panic set in but he couldn’t move, couldn’t yell.  The presence was forcing its way deeper and deeper into his mind and there was nothing he could do.  He started screaming, but only in his head.

*****

Sal’s smile was one of triumph now.  The guard was quickly succumbing to the Gift.  It had been worth the risk.  Now she would be escorted to the shuttle, which should prevent any awkward questions.

The
Shogan
dropped out of jump space.  Despite her integration with the ship’s systems it caught Sal by surprise.  It happened far too quickly for her to respond.

She searched for the
Dark Shadow
and found it close by.  What state was it in?  It wasn’t broadcasting a general alarm, which she took to be a good sign. Had the Gift spread sufficiently?

Yes!  Like all the ships in the fleet, the
Dark Shadow
was broadcasting an update on its status.  Buried within the message were unmistakable codes telling her the ship was under control of the gifted.  Not everyone had received the Gift yet, but enough of the officers and crew to have control of the ship.

Movement caught her eye.  The guard!  She’d been too distracted worrying about the
Dark Shadow
and had forgotten the far closer threat.  Dropping out of jump space had caused the systems to flicker.  Not much, but apparently enough for the guard to break the connection.  He’d collapsed to the floor but now he was starting to move again.  Towards the console.  Towards the alarm.

*****

Mak lay curled up on the floor, struggling to think.  His head felt as if someone was hammering red-hot spikes into it.  He didn’t care.  It was far better than the horror of being pushed out of his own mind.

After a few seconds he started to move, groaning as he did.  He wasn’t thinking about what had happened.  All he was focused on was the alert button.  If he could strike that then a large force of troopers would flood the area.  They could tackle the prisoner with the hypnotic eyes.

The button was only three feet away but it felt like three miles.  Gritting his teeth he pushed forward, determined to make it.  Two feet… one foot… half a foot.  There!  He stretched up then slammed his hand down on the alarm.

Nothing.  Alarms should be ringing.  Troopers should be issuing updates as they neared the area.  All hell should be breaking loose.  Instead nothing was happening.

He hit the button again.  And again.  And again.  Still nothing.  Fear started to coil in his stomach.  This couldn’t be a coincidence.  The prisoner must be behind it.  He didn’t know how, but she must be.

With a groan Mak pulled himself back into his chair, then reached for the controls.  There was more than one way to send out a warning.

*****

Sal cursed as she worked to isolate the guard’s console from the rest of the ship.  Another minute and he would have been one of the gifted.  Even thirty seconds would have been enough to render him helpless for an hour or so.  Now he knew her secret.  She couldn’t let him warn the others.

Should she make her move now?  No.  It was too soon.  She couldn’t risk alerting the rest of the fleet.  She had to wait until they entered jump space.  She would see to it that the
Shogan
couldn’t follow, while the
Dark Shadow
’s captain would stop his ship from jumping.

*****

Mak was getting desperate.  Everything he tried was blocked.  He’d tried calling the bridge, then the captain directly and finally people at random.  Every attempt failed.  So did every attempt to send a plain message.  He was locked out of every other system he tried to access.

“
Damn!” he shouted, smashing his hand down on the console.

Fine.  If he couldn’t send a message from where he was, he’d send one from somewhere else.  He stood, walked towards the door then paused to slide his pistol clear of its holster.  The screens still showed the prisoner in her cell, but he didn’t trust them.  Something had thoroughly infected his console.  How could he rely on anything it told him?

Reaching the door he punched in the access code.  The pad beeped and glowed red for a second.  He tried again, more carefully this time, with the same result.

“
Oh shit.  This can’t be happening.”

He took hold of himself and started to examine the door and surrounding wall.  There wasn’t anything as obvious as a manual release of course, not on such a secure door, but maybe he could find a way to override the panel.  Failing that he was getting desperate enough to try shooting the keypad.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Not long now, Sal knew.  The fleet would be entering jump space in under a minute.  The guard was still trying to find a way out of his room but hadn’t succeeded yet.

The seconds ticked down until, finally, the fleet leapt towards jump space.  Almost all of it anyway.  The
Shogan
and the
Dark Shadow
remained.  Sal smiled at the confusion on the
Shogan
’s bridge.  The
Shogan
’s jump engines had switched into maintenance mode at the moment they should have fired up.  It would take twenty minutes at least to cycle them.

The captain was livid.  He was already threatening to personally execute whoever had made such a critical mistake.  His officers were desperately trying to track down how it had happened, while also discussing the contingency plan for these situations.  Once their jump engines were back online they would need to follow the fleet, tracking the unique scars it had left on the fabric of space.

It took them a surprisingly long time to realise that the
Dark Shadow
had also failed to jump.  By the time they did Sal was already out of her cell and the
Dark Shadow
was drawing close.

Her plan was dangerous.  There was no doubt about that.  She had to take the risk though.  The knowledge in her head was invaluable to spreading the Gift.  She tried not to look furtive as she walked down the corridor, but it was difficult.  She too obviously didn’t belong on this ship.

She didn’t have to go far to reach her first target.  Just a short way down the corridor she reached the emergency locker.  She pulled out a pressure suit and helmet, slipping the suit on but holding the helmet.  She felt better already.  The pressure suit should make anyone she met less suspicious.

It was just in time too.  Almost as soon as she started moving two men came into view going the other way.  Both had the lean, strong look of security.  Sal felt herself jump slightly as they came into view.  She hoped it hadn’t been noticeable.

She silently cursed the limitations of her implants.  Those from the
Wanderer
had allowed her to think tens of times faster than she normally could.  With their help she could have kept watch over her immediate area, watched the guard and still plotted how best to escape.  Instead she was back to thinking at normal speed, with all the disadvantages that brought.

She walked purposefully down the corridor, forcing herself to focus straight ahead and not to watch how the two men reacted.  Her gift gave her an advantage.  She had far more control over her body than before.  Would it be enough?  If there had been just one opponent then she could have fallen back on passing on the Gift.  It could only be transferred to a single person at a time though.

The two men slowed as she approached.  Sal tensed inside.

“
Expecting trouble?” one asked her, gesturing at the suit.

She stopped, putting on a resigned expression.

“Don’t ask me.  I’m just obeying orders.  Sergeant’s probably got some unpleasant job in mind for me.  He had an evil gleam when he told me to get suited up.”

Both men laughed.

“Better not keep him waiting then,” said the one who had spoken before.

They stepped back, gesturing her through.  She nodded her thanks and hurried down the corridor, hearing them chuckling behind as they speculated over what job she was being lined up for.

She hurried away, an action that was in keeping with the story she’d spun, fighting the urge to check on the two men.  She reached a side corridor and took the turning, disappearing from their sight.  She paused for a moment, reaching out through her implant to check on her surroundings.  The two men were continuing on their way.  No one else was in the nearby corridors.  She could make it near to the shuttle bay without meeting anyone.

Not into it though.  A three man repair crew was working on one shuttle and team of five guards were positioned to watch over all approaches.  There was no chance of her making it to the shuttle, let alone getting aboard and launching.  She needed to deal with the guards and engineers first.  The question was, how?

*****

Mak kicked the wall in frustration.  It didn’t achieve anything other than to hurt his foot, but he welcomed the pain.  He’d tried everything short of shooting the keypad without any luck.  He couldn’t get access to any of the panels around the door, so he couldn’t try to short-circuit the mechanism.  He didn’t have the tools to try to crack the code either.  Brute force had simply left him with a sore hand.  The only options left were shooting the keypad, which was never going to work, or happening to punch in a valid code — and one that the prisoner hadn’t wiped.

He went to kick the wall again, but stopped with his foot drawn back.  Something was tickling at his memory, but he couldn’t quite remember what.  Something about a code.  A code that would open any door.

But what… oh… of course!  It came flooding back to him.  A very drunken conversation with one of the engineers several years before.  He couldn’t even remember the engineer’s name, but she’d told him there was a back door built into the ship’s locks.  A way of overriding any lock at any time.  A code known only to the captain and first officer.  And, apparently, to a small group of engineers.

They’d both been extremely drunk at the time and he’d been certain she was making up a story to impress him.  Still, he’d played along.  He’d asked if that meant she could sneak into any room on the ship.  His next question would be whether she planned on sneaking into
his
room one night.  He was pretty sure they were both too drunk for sex, but it was worth a try.

Her reply spoiled that idea.  No she told him.  She couldn’t use it to sneak into anywhere.  There was a catch.  If the code was used it would set off alarms throughout the ship.  Anyone using it would be discovered immediately.  If it was the captain or the first officer using the code then the alarms wouldn’t matter.  If it was anyone else they’d be dragged in front of the captain and probably shoved out an airlock with no suit soon after.

That had convinced Mak that it was just a story.  He asked her how she knew the code worked if it could never be tested.  She had screwed her face up in concentration, then admitted that she didn’t.  Before he could ask any more questions she had taken another swig of her beer.  One swig too many as it turned out.  She spent the next couple of minutes noisily vomiting over the arm of the sofa they lounged on.  All thoughts of sex had vanished from Mak’s mind at that point.

Strangely the story hadn’t.  Nor had the code.  For the next few weeks he’d had to fight the temptation to enter the code, to try it out.  He’d resisted.  What would be the point?  If it didn’t work, as it almost certainly wouldn’t, then what was the point in having proven it?  And if it did… well, he was quite attached to being alive.

Now, with no other option, the code sprang back into his mind.  If it didn’t work then he’d be no worse off.  If it did… well, he would probably be blamed for letting the prisoner escape anyway.  And for whatever she had done to the systems.  At best that would mean lengthy time in jail.  If the code worked he’d have a chance to stop the prisoner, or raise the alarm so she could be stopped.  That might count in his favour.

He took a deep breath then started to punch in the code.  It was longer than normal access codes, more than twice as long, but the pattern of numbers involved made it easy to remember.  He punched in the last number then jumped as a blaring alarm rang out in the room.  At the same time the door slid open.

He stood stunned for a moment, amazed that the code had actually worked.  He wondered if the engineer was still on the
Shogan
.  If so would she realise that the code had been used?  That she had been right?  Then he remembered why he’d used the code and ran down the corridor towards the shuttle bay.  It might not be where the prisoner was heading, but it was the one place she could go to get off the ship.  If she was heading anywhere else then Mak could raise the alarm and she would be hunted down.

The alarm was blaring in the first corridor he entered, but it soon faded away as he charged onwards.  Another sign that the ship’s systems had been compromised.  It dashed his hopes of the alarm alerting the captain and security forces.  He skidded to a halt by a wall mounted console and tried to raise the bridge.  He couldn’t get through.  Just like when he’d used his console before.

Cursing he broke into a sprint again.  Stopping the prisoner was going to be down to him and anyone he managed to enlist on the way.  But could catch her in time?  He really didn’t know.

*****

Sal was almost at the shuttle bay.  If she went any further she’d be seen by the guards so she ducked into a side room.  She used her implants to link to the ship’s systems, and through them sent commands to the
Dark Shadow
. 

Moments later the
Shogan
shook as the
Dark Shadow
opened fire.  Using her implant Sal shut down the
Shogan
’s shields.  The powerful weaponry that the banshee sported started to punch deep holes into the
Shogan
’s hull.  Hundreds died immediately, from the weapons strikes or from suddenly being exposed to the vacuum of space.  Sal didn’t care.  All that mattered was getting off the ship.

The
Dark Shadow
was aiming carefully.  None of the impacts were anywhere near the docking bay.  But there was no way for the engineering team or the guards to know that.  When the hull breach siren started to wail the engineers dropped everything and rushed for the nearest corridor.  Caught without pressure suits they weren’t waiting for the air to disappear.

The guards stayed put, though they looked worried.  The armour they wore was rated for vacuum so they slapped on their helmets and readied their weapons.  It would take much more than a pressure alarm to shift the guards.  Sal activated another, even more serious, alarm.

This one was a warning that structural integrity in the area was failing.  In short, it meant the area was about to get crushed or ripped away from the main ship.  If it was the latter then anyone in combat armour could survive… for a while.  Floating in a pile of wreckage waiting for a rescue that would probably never come.

The guards hesitated for a moment, then sprinted for the corridor.  In moments they were past Sal’s hiding place and out of sight.  She quickly slipped out of the room and ran for the shuttle bay.  She already had the shuttle warming up and its rear ramp opening.  As soon as she was aboard it would launch.  She would instruct the
Dark Shadow
to stop firing, and she had already ensured the
Shogan
’s weapons were unusable.  Nothing would stop her from reaching the
Dark Shadow
and completing her escape.

“
Freeze!”

She stumbled to a halt, as much in shock as to obey the order.  Turning she was amazed to see the guard she’d left locked up standing not more than fifteen paces away.  He had a pistol aimed at her, and his stance and steadiness suggested he knew exactly what to do with it.

“Freeze!” he repeated.  “I don’t know what you are but I swear if you so much as twitch a muscle I’ll shoot.”

*****

Mak watched the prisoner warily.  She seemed to be caught out, to be obeying his order to freeze, but he didn’t trust her.  He wasn’t sure what was going on, who was attacking the
Shogan
, but he was sure she was involved somehow.

He’d arrived just in time.  Using a side passage he’d entered the shuttle bay a couple of seconds after the prisoner and almost behind her.  Now he had her in his sights.  What could he do next?  She was blocking his access to the rest of the ship so he’d have to work through her.

“I know you’ve been blocking my attempts to contact the captain.  Now I want you to reverse that.  Contact the captain and tell him where we are.  And I want his response on the speakers in here.  Don’t try anything.  I’m a hairs breadth from just shooting you anyway and being done with it.”

She stared back at him, not responding.  He growled in frustration.  Maybe he should just shoot her.  The captain wouldn’t be happy, but Mak was starting to think whatever was going on was bigger than the
Shogan
.  Bigger than what the captain liked or didn’t like.  He decided to give her one more chance.  Then he really would shoot.

“
Last chance.  Open the channel now or…”

He didn’t get any further.  Everything went red then white.  He was deafened by a thunderous crash.  He squeezed the trigger, firing off several rounds, but they all missed.  The prisoner was nowhere near where she’d started, and nor was he.  A massive explosion had flung them both towards the rear wall.

Clouds of dust and debris blinded Mak.  He instinctively curled up in a ball, bracing for the impact that was sure to come.  It didn’t.  The explosion had completely destroyed the shuttle bay doors, leaving the whole area open to space.  Before he could hit the wall the escaping air slowed him to a halt.  Then it started to drag him towards the breach.  In seconds all that surrounded him was the bitter chill of space.