“So how long do you think we’ll have once I start cutting over the circuits?” Kella asked as she crawled through the muck, trying to ignore it. The crawlspace below the Life Tube was worse because the humidity from the tube attracted all sorts of mold and mildew. Kella had found a breather on Gavin’s recommendation before heading down into the space, but it helped little. It was apparent that the space had never been cleaned, and had never been intended to be.
“I would imagine five minutes. Maybe less,” Gavin said over her earpiece. “I have a feeling they don’t know about me, or else you never would have made it in. It might take them a bit to identify the threat, but they could be prepared for it. You’ll need to be quick in either case.”
“Wonderful,” she said as she pushed aside a small partition separating the crawlspace from the access shaft to the AI housing. From there was only a few yards to an access hatch, and then the AI housing just beyond.
“Major, this is Martian,” Carter called over the channel from his Lancer as he glided into position off of the Praetorian’s starboard wing. The giant plane was soaring along the yellow clouds of Tal Rho’an, gaining altitude slowly. Hughes had wanted to make sure that there were no threats blocking his path to orbit, for even with all of the Praetorian’s might, an attack during orbital ascent could prove to be disastrous.
“Go ahead,” Hughes said as he pulled up the holo.
“Your airspace is clear to the Gladius, sir. No bogies detected; we’re good for orbital ascent.”
“Understood, thanks for the escort,” Hughes said, closing the channel. Hughes sat forward in the captain’s chair and rested his chin on his thumb. Things were running smoothly. Too smoothly, by far. He’d expected some sort of resistance. Who were these fools that had simply left their prize sitting unguarded? “I’m starting to get that uneasy feeling,” he said to the men, voicing his concern. “Run a scan of internal security for me. This feels too easy, and that’s not a good sign.”
“Roger that,” the two acknowledged, and went about their assigned task.
Kella was standing at the very bottom of the massive aircraft, looking upwards at the base of the Life Tube, and marveled at the amazing technological wizardry that powered it. She had thought the crawlspaces ran along the outer hull, the bottom-most spaces accessible from inside the craft, but she realized now that wasn’t the case. The spaces ran into a semi-circular room that bordered the Patterson Reactor core shielding. She didn’t remember seeing the area on the blueprints.
“Where the hell did this place come from?” she asked as she swung herself down onto a grated walkway that ran along the AI housing from the access shaft.
“Hmm?” Gavin mumbled, as if she’d interrupted his thoughts.
“This place wasn’t on the blueprints,” Kella said, motioning to the AI housing, even though Gavin couldn’t see the movement.
“Of course it was,” Gavin said. “It was just labeled something dumb, like secondary cooling duct, or tertiary core manifold, or something techy like that. It was purposely mislabeled, as this is pretty much the heart of the Praetorian, and we didn’t want it advertised. Below your feet lies nearly three feet of reflective shielding and armor plating which also makes this the strongest place on the ship. Should we ever crash, it was intended for this area to survive, so here is where you’d want to be in a crash, even though the safety manuals would tell you to remain in your cabin.”
“Got it,” Kella said, waiting for Gavin to finish the lesson. “What do I do?”
“Oh, right,” Gavin said sheepishly. “Start at the aft terminal, should be labeled zero-five,” he said, his tone turning serious.
“Ok, found it,” Kella said as she followed the walkway around to the console with ‘05’ stenciled on it. She had been worried she would have to crawl around the circuit mountings, but, even though cramped, the AI Housing room was big enough so that she could run between the stations.
“Ok, now what you need to do is flip the right-most lever from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. Be careful when you do, because-“ he started to say, but Kella had already flipped the lever. Gavin was cut off by a sudden buzz of electricity and a massive thump as a large hydraulic piston fired the physical connector into place. Amber lights began flashing around the room.
“Oops,” she said as she watched the lights brighten the room. “What next, Gavin?”
There was no response.
“Gavin?” Kella called again, tapping her earpiece. “Gavin, talk to me!”
Alarms began blaring in the Praetorian’s bridge, catching the three men unawares. “What the hell?” Hughes said, standing up. The trooper at the communications station was working through a dozen holoscreens that had just opened up, searching for the cause. “What’s going on?” Hughes asked, walking over to the man.
“Looks like we have a security breach,” the man responded.
“So what’s wrong? Handle it,” Hughes said.
“It’s strange sir,” the man said, still flipping between holos apparently questioning the data he was reading. “It’s coming from down in the cooling duct just forward of the Core,” the man said. “I’ve run three security sweeps, and found nothing. The schematics don’t show any access down there. It must be a glitch.”
“You think?” Hughes asked rhetorically, slapping the back of the man’s helmet. “Get your ass down there and take care of it. You go with him,” Hughes commanded the man at the helm station who lurched up from his seat. Both men saluted and disappeared from the bridge. Hughes sat down at the helm’s vacated seat and checked the ship’s progress. They were only just now beginning their orbital ascent, having just completed their roll. The little voice in his head was back, and it was saying bad things again.
“Gavin, dammit, you answer me,” Kella shouted into the vox patch.
“Sorry, sorry, little Sellsword,” Gavin said finally. “The feedback was worse than I anticipated.”
“Feedback?”
“Yeah, imagine being blindfolded for a really long time, and then taking it off to stare at the sun. Overwhelming really doesn’t cut it,” he said.
“Gavin, there are nine more switches to pull, are you…?” she said, not willing to finish the question.
“I’ll be fine, I think. First is always the hardest they say, right?” Kella didn’t respond, and Gavin grunted. “Ok, you need to pull the switches in positional order, next being ten at the fore. Then move around clockwise.”
“Say what?” Kella asked, confused.
“Ok, follow this order,” he said. “Next is ten, then one, three, seven, nine, skip over five, you just did it, eight, six four, and finally two. Got it?”
Kella ran around the large AI housing to the opposite side and found the console labeled ‘10’. “I think I got it,” she said.
“Ok, start. Don’t worry about me. Just start pulling levers in the order I told you and then get into the crawlspace and don’t come out until I say. Hurry now, Kella, they’re coming,” Gavin said urgently.
“Alright,” she said, and pulled the lever for ‘10’. She heard Gavin suddenly breathe in, as if he was in pain, and then go silent. Trying to ignore her doubts, Kella ran to her left and pulled the level for ‘01’. Gavin cried out, definitely in pain.
“Gavin,” she started, but he cut her off.
“Keep…going…” he said in ragged gasps.
“Gavin…” she whispered as she ran over to the next lever and pulled it to ‘Closed’. Gavin said nothing. Kella dutifully continued knowing that each lever was as torture to the man in the tube above, and ran to each station, odds first, and then evens. Gavin remained silent.
Finally, she reached ‘02’ and pulled the final lever. The amber lights stopped flashing to be replaced by standard blue lighting. She heard the last piston fire into place, and a sudden change in atmosphere as electrical current began buzzing between the circuits to the Life Tube. Kella realized that this was how the room must’ve been before the Military deactivated Gavin.
Kella heard a door open from the level above her, from the opposite side of the Life Tube, and she knew her time was up. She quickly scrambled for the access hatch to the crawlspace, it wasn’t far away. She tried to stay quiet, but the grated walkway made that all but impossible. She heard a strange whooshing sound, and felt her hair rustle. She jumped as a loud ping erupted from behind her as something careened off of the metal bulkhead. Somebody had just shot something at her, and missed by a mere inch. Kella ran flat out for the hatch.
She could see it, still open, and it was only a few steps away, but something caught her around the middle, as if she’d run into something heavy. It forced the air from her lungs, and she felt herself fall forward. She recovered quickly, and tried to again run for the hatch, but something latched around her middle with almost inhuman strength and she couldn’t help herself from falling forward into the grating. Again, the wind was knocked from her as she landed awkwardly.
She looked desperately for what was entangling her, but saw something that she didn’t understand. Wrapped around her middle with almost crushing pressure was what looked like a ghost; a partial outline of a human torso that seemed to fade in and out. Using her fear to feed her strength, she struck out with the palm of her hand in a vicious strike, and felt it hit something solid. She heard a grunt, and the pressure around her middle eased up. She kicked and bucked and the pressure disappeared entirely.
She didn’t let the opportunity go to waste and she immediately was on her feet dashing for the hatch. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain erupt from her leg and she stumbled. Something was wrong, she was starting to feel numb, and she was having difficulty getting her legs to move. She fell to her knees painfully. What had happened? She couldn’t quite seem to make her thoughts properly coalesce. Her whole body seemed as if it were made of heavy clay. She fell forward onto the grating, her shoulder taking the brunt of the collapse.
Finally, unable to do more, her vision beginning to go dark and panic flooding her beleaguered mind, she managed to roll onto her back to stare at the ceiling. From nowhere, two men appeared from the mists in strange armor, standing above her. One was holding a stunner.
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