Extinction (38 page)

Emily looked for Davies, who was getting
some lunch from his pack. “Davies, how about you join us?”

Davies’ stomach began to sour and he put
down his lunch. “If it’s all the same with you, ma’am, I’d like to help secure
the perimeter and then take a look inside the ship.”

“Sure, but if you get bored we’d
appreciate any input you might have.” Emily couldn’t put her finger on it but
something had been off with Davies lately. Well, she’d have a talk with him
later.

Inside the ship, Bloom was looking for a
link-up that he could connect to on the bridge. “If I can access their main
computer, we may be able to fly this thing with VR.”

Jockey was eyeing the instrumentation
and trying to decipher the layout. “This is going to be tougher than I thought.
Because they have four arms, the controls are set at very wide and different
placements than I’m used to. Each control panel is divided into four key
elements so they can be used simultaneously.

“Having only two hands, our instruments
are laid out horizontally in front of us for our hands to roam back and forth
on.”

“Hello. That’s why I suggested VR.”
Bloom was shaking his head at the pilot. “I can interface our VR visors with
the ship’s controls. You’ll see a standard flight layout in front of you and
work the controls as you would normally. The VR computer will then send your
input to the ship’s computer as a translation of what you want. It will only be
delayed by micro-seconds.”

Jockey frowned. “Sometimes a
micro-second is enough to get you killed. Besides, I can’t get a feel for the
ship if I can’t touch her directly.”

“Think of it as phone sex then. I’ve
seen your vid bills—I know it won’t be too hard of a stretch for you.” Bloom couldn’t
help but to laugh at his own joke. A cold stare from the pilot brought him back,
though. “All right, try to fly her manually if you want but I’m still going to
hook up the VR in case we need it.”

“We won’t. I just need a little time to
get the feel for her.” Jockey sat at the helm, going over the keys repeatedly, running
through mock scenarios in his head, and reliving battles he had been through
before so he could learn the control placement.

After a couple of hours, Jockey decided
to go through a pre-flight check. Bloom had already switched on the main power
grid and had tested every relay, circuit, light, and all the other gizmos the
ship had on board.

“All right, Bloom, I’m ready to go
through pre-flight.” Jockey then tapped his comlink. “All hands, stand clear of
the ship. We’re going through pre-flight in sixty seconds. Either get on board
or get in the control booth at the end of the hanger bay. We don’t want any
accidents now.”

Everyone cleared the hanger bay and
filed into the control booth to watch the pre-flight. Those who were watching
keyed their comlinks so that they would be able to listen in to the
conversation going on inside the ship.

“All right, pilot,” Bloom said from the
operations seat, “I have your VR display set up to point to the controls if you
need the help. Just say ‘find’ and then the control you’re looking for and the
visor will highlight that control in your field of view. Give it a try.”

Jockey looked straight forward and spoke
to no one in particular, “Find weapons.” In the lower right of his visor, he
saw a green arrow pointing downwards. As he shifted his field of view, the
arrow shifted with him until he was looking at the weapons control panel, which
was now highlighted. When he reached for the panel, his VR visor knew that he
had found the control so the highlight marking disappeared.

“It might take an extra second to do
something but if you forget where the control is, this should help in a pinch.”
Bloom was running through his own set of pre-flight diagnostics.

“Good job, buddy. I hope that we don’t
need it, though. Smooth sailing is definitely preferred on this flight.

“All right, let’s get started. Begin
pre-flight. Maneuvering thrusters, check. Inertia dampers, check.”

“Whoa”, Bloom said from his console. “Check
out the settings for the inertia dampers. Those alien bodies must be able to
take a lot. I’ll reset them to human standards. Now we don’t have to worry
about being stains on the seats once we hit warp.”

A few minutes later, pre-flight was
complete and Jockey began to test the lift thrusters. She shook a little but
then lifted cleanly off the deck. At ten meters, she performed a three-sixty in
the huge landing bay before she set back down.

Bloom and Jockey looked at each other,
smiled and then tapped in the commands for the next test. After they had finished,
they headed for the gangplank, where the rest of the team was waiting for them.

“So what do you think, pilot?” Emily
asked.

Through a toothy smile he said, “Great!
I don’t think that we’ll have any problems.”

“So we can load up and get the hell out
of here, right?” Scan spoke from his seat on a cargo crate nearby. He was
rewrapping his stump. The wrist was almost done regenerating and the palm would
come next.

Bloom stepped forward. “No, sorry but
not yet. We just set her to go through an atmosphere diagnostic.” Almost on cue,
the gangplank closed itself tightly into the ship. “She’s going to seal herself
up tight and run through a series of different atmospheric pressures to make
sure that she can survive in space. It’ll take at least one full day just to be
safe. And barring any problems with her hull integrity, we should be ready to
lift off. Oh, except one thing...”

All eyes were locked on Bloom now but it
was Jockey who spoke up. “Bloom and I both figured that we would find a hanger
bay control on the conn station in the ship. And well, we didn’t. We think that
maybe they didn’t want anyone outside the structure to have access, even one of
their own ships.”

“Yeah,” Bloom continued. “You know, just
in case someone hijacked one of their ships they wouldn’t be able to get in or
out with it.”

“Well, the control has got to be in the
hanger bay, right?” Wilks piped in.

“Yes and no”, Bloom began. “There is a
control in here but as a safety measure, after a long period of system
shutdown, the controls are locked out and the mainframe in the sub-levels has
to be accessed. They were very paranoid people.”

“That’s just fuckin’ great!” Wilks was
not happy. “This place is already two kilometers below the ground and now we
find out that it has sub-levels! How much more sub can you get?!”

“All right, Wilks, calm down.” Emily
stepped in. “Now I’m assuming that because you’re not more cheerful about this,
Bloom, that it’s not as easy as just going down there and flipping a switch.”

“No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am, you’re
right.” Bloom worked his control pad and gave everyone an image in their visor.
“Although I’ve gotten into most of their systems, I still can’t breach their
command controls. Everything that we’ve gotten so far has been considered
non-essential so it wasn’t too hard to decrypt. But the command controls, I
haven’t been able to crack them in the several days that we’ve been down here.
My program has been going non-stop and it hasn’t even come close. My best guess
is that I will never crack it.” A sound of failure entered his voice.

“So what are we looking at then?” Davies
was studying the map that was given to his visor.

“This is a map of the route that we need
to take to get to the core of this place. They have a security protocol that
when this place shuts down, every top-level program and function gets sent to
the mainframe and can only be accessed from there. As far as I can tell, we
will still be able to access the controls for the hangar because they weren’t
considered top-level before the shutdown occurred. Problem is, it’s
booby-trapped. The route is heavily guarded with automatic systems and there is
no way I can disarm them.”

“What about using the weapon systems on
the ship to blow our way out?” Emily looked towards their escape craft.

“Sorry, el-tee.” It was Jockey’s turn. “You
know how big the last explosion was. It would take almost the same amount of force
as to blow this lid. None of us would survive. If worst comes to worst, we can
autopilot her to do it while we hide somewhere deep inside this place.” He
gestured towards the complex. “Set her for self-destruct and after it’s all
over, we could just climb out.”

Davies was eating a protein bar but
managed to speak up. “We don’t know if there is anything left on the surface.
Those bastards could have killed everyone and destroyed all of our ships
topside. If we get out of here, we could be walking into a bee’s nest of shit.”

“I agree.” Emily took on her new
authority stance as she spoke. Daria had noticed Emily developing her power
mode over the last few days. “And even if our forces are still alive on the
surface, we can’t throw away this ship. If we go to war against these aliens,
this technology might be the only thing that saves us.”

She turned towards Wilks. “Your ankle
takes you off this one. Doc, you’ll lead a team with Bloom, Davies, Hood, and
Snake.” In her mind, she wanted to tell them that Bloom was mission essential
and that he was to be protected at all costs. But she also didn’t want the rest
thinking that she thought they were cannon fodder. They’re all professionals
and they know what Bloom means to us so I’m sure they’ll do their job, she
consoled herself.

The scout team was preparing their gear
when Davies’ comlink came on. “Hey Davies, meet me in the hangar bay control
room.” Emily’s voice faded from his head.

When he got there, he could tell by the
look on Emily’s face that she was going to have a heart-to-heart with him. “Have
a seat, big guy. I, ah, wanted to know how you were doing. I mean, you haven’t
been yourself.”

“Look, el-tee, I just…it’s personal, all
right? I can work it out for myself; it’s just going to take a little time.” He
looked at his friend square in the eyes. “Look Emily, I just can’t right now,
OK?”

Emily suddenly knew what it was all
about. She thought about pulling Davies from the scouting party but she figured
that might do more harm than good. “All right, friend. When you’re ready, let
me know. I’m always here for you.” As an afterthought, she said, “Would it be out
of line for your CO to give you a hug?”

Davies flinched backward and then looked
around the corner. No one was near the control booth. “Yes, ma’am. But it would
be fine for my friend to give me one.”

The two stood and hugged. For the first
time in his career, Davies was glad that his CO wasn’t a man.

The Detrill Warship
Emilian

The captain sat in his chair with his XO
behind him at the weapons console. “Tell me, friend, what do you think of our
mission?”

“I think that it is about time someone
took care of those monsters. I have no like or dislike of the Nortes. They have
done nothing to harm us in more than a thousand years. But their ghosts may
come back to haunt us all.” The XO finished his system diagnostic and took a
seat next to his captain and friend of thirty years. “You have been with my
family during the sacred days of W’ishtung, so you have heard the story of my
ancestor’s village on our home world. My story is not all that different from
those of any other Detrill, but now I have a chance to repay them for what they
did to us and our home world.”

Captain Netid looked at the information
display that resided in the armrest of his command chair. “Our intel indicates
that almost the entire enemy fleet massed in a staging location and then left
simultaneously to an unknown destination. The last of that convoy should reach
their destination in a couple of weeks.” Netid keyed in a few commands and a
new figure was presented to him on the screen. “We should reach our target in
one week. Are we ready?”

“Yes, sir”, Commander Aucted said as he
surveyed his impressive crew. Although the captain’s question was barely a
whisper to his XO, the bridge crew heard him and stiffened their postures
automatically as if to answer the question for themselves so the first officer
wouldn’t have to.

The security doors to the bridge opened
and the tactical officer along with the chief engineer stepped out of the lift.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Tredil began, “I have brought our latest tactical intel for
review.”

The captain nodded and the four men went
into the briefing room together. “The captain looked over his shoulder almost
as an afterthought. “Ensign,” he barked.

A young man barely old enough to have
his civilian air car license looked at the imposing figure that now stood at
the rear of the bridge. “Yes, sir,” he managed to squeak out.

“You have the bridge.” And with that,
the captain turned to follow the rest of his senior staff into the conference
room.

All eyes on the bridge turned to the
junior officer. After the soundproof doors sealed behind the more experienced
officers, the bridge erupted in roar of whoops, hollers, and cheers for the
young ensign. This particular shift had been staffed by the captain himself and
consisted of entirely new officers who had graduated the Naval Academy just
prior to being assigned to the
Emilian
before she left on her current
mission.

The captain had always taken the newest
officers and put them together as bridge staff early on so they could gain more
experience and direct tutelage from him. Those who were lucky enough to be
assigned in this group had to work the extra shift in addition to their normal
duties. But for the last ten years, anyone who had been picked for this extra
duty had always risen through the ranks faster than anyone else from their
class.

The ensign took a brief moment to bask
in his elation and then wiped the smile from his face. On cue and without a
word from their new deck officer, the rest of the bridge crew ceased their
impromptu celebration. They returned to their duties with a new sense of
purpose: to make their fellow officer shine as brightly as he could.