The Covert Academy (13 page)

Thanks Richard, hopefully that didn’t cost you too much
, thought Joshua. He activated his own suit’s adhesion and jumped up to the ship, sticking on the outer hull next to Sarah, as the ship zoomed off over the open ocean.

They had maybe fifteen minutes before the Nyctalopia entered a low orbit around the planet. But they would suffocate to death before then. Joshua looked down at the quickly receding ocean below. That was a mistake. He clung to the side of the ship, petrified. He’d never been more than twenty metres or so in the air, apart from the few trips he’d made on the Nyctalopia. But those trips had been inside the ship. Now he was looking out into the vast empty sky with nothing between him and a long drop to a watery grave.

Plans flitted through his mind and were discarded just as fast. The boarding ramp was shut tight and couldn’t be opened from the outside. He couldn’t crawl inside a jet intake and survive. He didn’t have anything with which to break the cockpit windshield. There were no air vents or ducts to crawl through. He was finished.

The air started to get thin as they gained altitude, and Joshua fought for oxygen. His vision became dim.

Sarah’s breath came in ragged gasps. They had to be at least four kilometres up by now. The ship’s speed kept increasing, the wind ripped at their bodies trying to peel them off and fling them far away. It would be over in a few seconds.

A rumble in the belly of the ship caught Joshua’s attention.
Was the ship getting ready for the final push out into the stratosphere?
he wondered, on the edge of consciousness.
No, it was too soon.

Suddenly a panel on the hull to Joshua’s right
popped up and slid away. Another pushed up into its place, and the original lowered into the new gap created. The new section of hull that existed next to Joshua was shiny and smooth, whereas the rest of the ship was still covered in a material similar to their jumpsuits.

Joshua gasped on thin air as he realised the ship was switching to the hull needed for a trip in low orbit. All around him now other sections were popping up
and sliding away to be replaced with the one underneath.

Without warning the panel he and Sarah were attached to pushed out away from the ship, leaving them hanging even further
out from the ship. The panel slid over, dragging them with it, as the inner hull plugged the gap it left behind. Their panel retracted, and Joshua found himself being pulled back to the ship, then suddenly he was inside, between the hulls.

He couldn’t see a thing, and the smell of engine grease
and recycled air filled his nose, making him gag. One of the inner panels shuffled around as it prepared to move itself to the outer hull, and Joshua saw a gap down into the cargo hold. He grabbed Sarah’s hand and rolled over her, not pausing to enjoy the sensation, and dropped down through the gap, pulling her with him.

She collapsed onto him in a pile, safely inside.

The fall knocked Sarah awake. She had landed on Joshua, who didn’t look like he wanted to move in a hurry. They were inside the Nyctalopia, at the top of the boarding ramp in the cargo hold, on the very same raft they had first come aboard.

‘Are you enjoying this?’ she asked.

He blushed and opened his mouth but no sound came out.

Sarah rolled off him before things got any more awkward. She felt groggy, but managed to take in the surroundings with a glance.

'How did we-?' A beam of light reflected off a wall into her eyes. ‘Ooh my head,' she winced. 'Never mind. We need backup, have you contacted Casey?’

Joshua stared. ‘I was planning to steal this ship myself, remember?’

‘That’s not important now,’ Sarah rebuffed him. She fired up her iPC and opened a channel to the Academy. She was rewarded with a high-pitched screech in her head.

‘Argh! Dammit!’ She quickly shut her iPC down and the noise subsided. ‘Ohh my head...’

‘You okay? Joshua asked. Sarah shook her head to clear it. He wasn’t sure if that was a yes or no.

‘So,
Ryan is a Confederate spy,’ Sarah said. ‘And he knows how to access our iPC network to overload it with junk noise,’ she tapped her head. ‘More importantly he’s got Dr. Prewett hostage. I shouldn’t need to tell you how valuable that man is.’

‘
Okay so what’s the plan?’ Joshua said.

Sarah stopped and thought for a minute. ‘Our first priority should be the doctor and Richard’s safety, but I want to know just what
Ryan is up to. He doesn’t know we’re on board, probably assumes we died outside during take off. We can use that to our advantage. Let’s snoop around, see if we can find some useful intel.’

Joshua nodded in agreement, but added, ‘Maybe
Ryan is taking Dr. Prewett so he can get access to the bio-ID for himself?’

‘It’s possible,’ Sarah conceded, ‘But we need more to go on.’ She pointed at a malfunctioning panel on the wall. ‘See if you can slip back between the hulls...’ Joshua groaned as Sarah continued, ‘...and work your way around to the cockpit, you should be able to hear anything they say from there.
Ryan won’t leave Richard alone in there for a second.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

Sarah was already halfway down the corridor as she said, ‘I’m going to find out where we’re headed.’

Sarah pulled her suit’s hood down over her face. Two beady eyes peeped out from under the cloth. She swiped her right middle finger, and the active camouflage engaged. If someone unfamiliar with the jumpsuits saw her now, it would seem as though there were two eyes bobbing up and down in mid air, peeking around every corner. Even her sword was neatly covered with a helpful strap of the camouflaged cloth.

She tip toed through the narrow corridors, swaying only slightly as the fog in her head cleared. She advanced slowly nonetheless, checking each room for any surprises
Ryan may have left. He may be a Confederate scumbag, but he had trained alongside her at the Academy for over a year. All the tricks they’d been taught to counter the Confederacy, Ryan knew them by heart. He wouldn’t take any chances there might be any stowaways. He had already proven his paranoia by scrambling any local iPCs. At least they’d be on equal footing; his iPC would be just as useless.

Sarah stuck her head around the last corner before the ladder up to the cockpit. The ship had checked out so far, no traps.
Ryan must have been in a hurry. It wasn’t like him.

She eyed the ladder warily, not trusting it. This was far too easy. Without her iPC, she had to rely on her normal vision to identify any pitfalls. She crept closer to the ladder. Sure enough, there was the first and only trap
Ryan had bothered to place, most likely to keep Richard and the doctor from leaving the cockpit where he could see them.

The
tiny device was stuck to the wall, just left of the ladder. It looked like a harmless black plastic protrusion. Sarah reached down to her waist where there was a small pocket fitted snugly on her hip. She produced a small marble-sized ball and threw it down at the base of the ladder. Clean white smoke billowed up around the device, revealing a laser beaming across the passageway.

One small step further and she’d have lost a limb. She had no more time to waste. Turning off her camouflage and switching to anti-grav, she leaped two metres straight up and grabbed onto the ladder above the laser. She scrambled up the rest of the way, switched back to active camouflage, and entered the cockpit.

The doctor, sitting at the navigation console, saw her straight away. He almost jumped out of his skin when two eyes floated over to him. Sarah squatted down behind his chair and waited patiently.

The doctor quickly realised it was someone in a camouflaged jumpsuit, and got himself under control before Ryan turned around from the copilot’s chair.

‘Calm down doc,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be fine. I need you alive, but you don’t need your kneecaps for your research, you get me?’

Dr. Prewett forced himself to look at Ryan, and nodded dumbly.

They were in the mesosphere now, around 60 kilometres up. Sarah could see the curvature of the earth falling away into space. She held on to the back of Dr. Prewett’s chair as Richard flipped a few switches from the
pilot’s seat. He was making it look more difficult than it really was in the hopes that Ryan would think he was still indispensable. The ship levelled off, and began to fall back down again for the first skip off the stratosphere.

Sarah felt a moment of zero gravity, and gripped the seat tighter. Everyon
e else was already strapped in their seats.

There was a thud in the wall. Then a soft, muffled curse. Sarah caught her breath. She could hear Joshua in the walls. Why didn’t anyone else? She floated up to the ceiling, trying to find where he was. Dr. Prewett started coughing loudly in a poor attempt to mask the noise.
Ryan was still as stone, his weapon held steady on Richard. Sarah tapped softly on the ceiling, and Joshua tapped back seconds later. She floated around, homing in on the taps.

Fortunately
Ryan hadn’t noticed for now. As soon as they had flown outside the Academy’s signal blackout zone he had opened a private comm channel from the Nyctalopia.

‘This is Fletcher A04, I’m on my way back now.... around 80 minutes... on a hypersonic jet, that’s how...
yes Mr. Meyrick, uh I mean, yes sir. I understand... no sir, it was otherwise a clean getaway... the pilot and the scientist who invented the bio-ID... is Brock really that necessary any more? I see, uh huh, yes sir...’

Sarah pondered his words. Fletcher A04? Was that the Confederate faction Casey had warned them of? Were they working together or was it a splinter group? She didn’t like it either way.

While Ryan was busy with the ship’s comm, Sarah heard a whisper from inside the walls. Joshua.

‘Get out of there,’ she whispered as low as possible, still unable to use her iPC comm
. Besides Joshua didn’t have one anyway. ‘You’ll be heard. Fall back to the cargo bay.’

Joshua’s voice filtered through
the wall. ‘No. I’ve got an idea.’ He lowered his voice further to a hoarse whisper. ‘On my signal, just undo Ryan’s seat belt.’

‘What? How will-’

Ryan turned around, as though he heard a noise.

Sarah had to float back down to her position behind the doctor’s chair before the ship levelled out and gravity returned. She sat there for the next hour, waiting for Joshua’s signal, and trying not to let her muscles cramp up. She’d been unable to confirm the plan with Joshua, since Ryan had Richard’s six-shooter out and was waving it around at shadows. He had become spooked after he’d spoken on the comm.

Sarah had caught the name “Mr. Meyrick”, and
Ryan seemed to be daunted by whoever it was on the other end. He had ended the call with repeated promises to “secure the package” and “secure Brock”. He seemed a bit shaken as he terminated the connection. Sarah had little sympathy. Ryan had had friends, fans and followers in the Academy. It was a home. He’d said so himself on occasion. But he had been playing them for fools the whole time. Sarah felt betrayed, she didn’t know who she could trust any more.

She looked at Richard. He’d pulled her out of so many dangerous
scrapes; she had trusted him with her life more times than she could remember. Surely he was still reliable.

What about the doctor? He had worked for the Confederacy for years,
shoulder-to-shoulder with the brightest minds that they had been able to coerce into creating their flying death machines. He must have known what he was doing. Why was he really helping the Academy now? And yet, whenever Ryan glanced over at him, the doc looked about ready to crap in his pants.

Sarah could now see terrain through the forward view-screen, as the ship skimmed low over the stratosphere. The Grand Canyon flitted past. She only needed one gue
ss as to where they were headed as the Nyctalopia soared back up into the sky for its final leap through the mesosphere.

Sarah finally heard a
tap tap tap
from the wall above her. It was time for Joshua’s plan: Undo Ryan’s seat-belt.

Then what?

Double-checking her active camo, she emerged from behind the doctor’s seat and crept towards Ryan.

The deck creaked under her
weight. Ryan spun around and stared straight at her position.

Sarah snapped her head down to point away from him and held her breath. Had he seen the pair of eyes floating towards him? She couldn’t tell without looking up.

Joshua tapped on the bulkhead again, and Sarah heard movement as Ryan finally noticed the tapping and shifted his gaze. She crept closer and dared a peek up at him. He was staring at the wall where Joshua was hiding. He kept the revolver trained on Richard, and the strange Stunner weapon pointed at the ceiling. This was her chance. Sarah felt her weight start to fade as the ship reached the apex of its ascent.

‘Now!’ Joshua yelled.

She grabbed the gun that was aimed at Richard with one hand and hit the button on Ryan’s seatbelt with the other. The belt snapped back, throwing him off balance. Then gravity dropped away from the room entirely and Ryan floated up to the ceiling, eyes wild. He landed right where Joshua was waiting on the other side of the hull.