A Space Odyssey - Chapter 22

With deep regret, Bran forced his arms to release the delectable, if well armored, half-Seldarian woman from his embrace. Her arms snaked out from around him as well, and he knew she felt the same thing he did. He could see it in her troubled green eyes and in the set of her mouth. The bright smile of joyful relief had faded into the thin, tight lips of concern. Their supposed refuge might prove to be another trap.

However, there was nothing he could do about that now. Giving the others a few more moments of much needed relaxation, he joined Jaheira in staring at the sealed hatch leading onto A Deck. It could be a gateway to knowledge or more screaming fiends. He’d pinned his crew’s fortunes on the former and he prayed silently he’d be right. One of these days he’d guess wrong, he just hoped it wasn’t today.

Judging that he’d given the others enough time, he said, “Alright folks. I hate to rain on the parade, but it’s time we get a move on. This is a nice lift tube, but frankly I’m feeling a bit cramped. If I recall, these old Daedalous class cruisers had some very spacious bridges. Let’s go find out.”

“I kinda like this lift tube, bro. We could hang some curtains, maybe put in a wet bar and it’d be quite homey,” replied Imoen.

“Put in a bar and you’d make your home anywhere,” Valygar observed quietly.

“Hey, are you calling me an alcoholic?” she demanded, spinning back towards him.

“You said it, not I,” replied Valygar.

“For the record, I’ll have you know I’m not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings,” she stated impishly.

“Ah. Thank you for illuminating that critical difference,” Valygar replied dryly.

“You two are enough to drive me to drink,” admonished Bran. “Now, unless either of you have some whiskey stashed in your suits, let’s get back to the task at hand.”

“Oh fine. I suppose you want me to pop the hatch?” Imoen griped.

“That would be the general idea sis.”

She flashed him a bright smile and said, “One popped hatch coming up.”

As she pushed her way over to the door controls, Bran exchanged a look with his bronze haired X.O. She shrugged her armored shoulders and Bran replied with a half smile and a shrug of his own. They both silently agreed again on just how much of a handful his sister was. Thankfully the little imp possessed talents and skills beyond driving them both batty. One such skill was an almost preternatural skill with computer systems and security, a fact demonstrated by her smugly announcing less than a minute later, “Ready to go whenever you and the Jah are done making eyes at each other.”

“I can’t see ever being done, sis, but since duty calls…” he replied, winking at Jaheira.

Jaheira harrumphed but the slight smile she sneaked him told him that the compliment struck home. Turning from him to glare at Imoen, she grumped, “Enough of this foolishness, Imoen. I take it you’ve managed to slice the door locks?”

“No, o grumpy one. I managed to rig this panel to make iced cappuccino.”

“Impressive. But I think the door locks will do.”

“Minsc could use a cappuccino! All this smiting of evil is thirsty work!”

“Er.. sorry Minsc,” Imoen replied contritely to the smiling gunner. “That was me being sarcastic again.”

“So no cappuccino?” Minsc’s big smile faded.

Bran rested a hand on Minsc’s armored shoulder. “Sorry big fella. Imoen was making a joke.”

Minsc nodded grimly and then turned to Boo. Bran wasn’t sure, but from the droop of the hamster-looking creature’s whiskers, it almost looked like Boo was even more disappointed than Minsc. Perhaps that explained where all of Nalia’s coffee kept on going. But that was a mystery for a different time.

To clear his head of visions of caffeine-obsessed hamsters, Bran checked the charge on his Bladesinger. The battle on C Deck had drained its power pack to near critical levels. Pulling his spare power pack from an armored pocket, he threw the catches to clear the old one. As the new pack clicked into the receiver, he looked up and saw Valygar and Fentan doing the same thing.

Bladesinger now fully charged, he addressed the others, “Alright people, standard two by two cover formation. Im, you’ve got point. V, you’re with me. Jaheira, you and Minsc have drag and Doc, you and Fentan got the middle. Everybody ready?”

A chorus of affirmatives answered his query. Looking at his sister, he said, “Alright Im, lead us off.”

“As you command, o tinplated one,” sassed Imoen as she swung her Krobler up and moved a hand to the door controls. Fingers hovering over the open button, she announced, “Welcome to A Deck, folks. Our local time is 2205 and the temperature is a balmy 280 K.”

Flashing a wide grin to the others, she punched the button and the lift doors opened with a soft hiss. Light flooded through the open hatchway and Imoen threw herself through. She swept the hallway quickly and efficiently, motioning for the others to join her. As Imoen began to move forward, Bran and Valygar followed, swallowing as they transitioned from zero gravity to ship normal.

Bran swept aft as Valygar swept forward, eyes hunting for any sign of a zombie welcoming committee. Convinced that there was no immediate threat, Bran gave himself a moment to study Broadway itself. The condition of the corridor further supported his theory that the command deck had been cut off to provide a last bastion of defense.

Unlike the other corridors, most of the light bars still glowed, casting a warm glow instead of the pervasive gloom that pervaded the other corridors. The corridor walls were smooth and unblemished, showing no signs of the pocking and scarring of small weapons fire that littered the decks below. The overall good condition of the corridor could almost convince one that there was nothing amiss other than some sloppy maintenance crewers. That is, if one could forget about the ravening hordes of zombies just decks below.

Turning forward to follow Imoen as the others emerged from the lift hatch, he remarked, “Looks like A Deck’s clear.”

“Unless the zombies on this deck prefer their traps to be nice and well maintained,” Valygar replied.

“Always looking on the bright side of things, aren’t we V-man?”

“My sunny disposition and trusting nature are why I’m still alive, sir.”

“Riiight,” interjected Imoen. “And here I thought it was your absolute lack of personality that kept you alive. They musta figured that letting you live was more punishment than shooting you.”

“It helps to keep someone around so annoying they’ll shoot at them first,” replied Valygar.

“So that’s why you’ve been hanging around Bran all these years. I knew there had to be some reason for that.”

Ignoring Valygar’s snort of laughter, Bran replied, “Nice one sis. Great redirect. You were bound to at least get one decent shot in this month.”

“One?” Imoen fired back as Valygar broke into a low-grade chuckle. “Gorion musta dropped you on your head a lot more than I thought because you can’t even count properly.”

“Maybe I’m just using your drink math,” Bran replied with a grin.

“Drink math?” Imoen replied quizzically.

“Indeed. I can walk into a bar, find a half a dozen groaning patrons, your pants on the ceiling and a thousand credit damage bill, but you still only had ‘one drink’.”

“Hey, it was a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. In the souvenir cup.”

“Whatever, kiddo,” chuckled Bran. “Whatever.”

“Well, good taste prohibits me from reminding you of the time on Nea Aphrotheta involving you and the regional governor’s ‘birthday surprise’” quipped Imoen in response.

“Hey, that was all a complete misunderstanding. I just went left when I should have gone right…” he cut himself off as he saw Imoen’s fist fly up in the universal warning sign. Crouching down and sidling towards the dubious cover of one of the pressure door mounts, he raised his Bladesinger and scanned the end of the corridor.

Not seeing what had drawn Imoen up short, he asked, his voice all business, “What do you have?”

“Short range EM activity up ahead. Looks like low power scanning.”

“Any idea what it is?”

“My passive gear isn’t getting a positive ID from this range,” Imoen replied as she sighted in with her scope, “Looks like some very old combat bots.”

“Bots?” Bran exclaimed. “How the hell are bots still functioning after a half millennia? Their batteries should have drained down a long time ago.”

“Not sure from this distance, but there are definitely bots up ahead and something is scanning the end of this corridor.”

“Do you think you can slice them? Power em down?”

“They haven’t built a computer I can’t slice yet,” she said confidently as she shouldered her Krobler and sidled over to the starboard side of the corridor. Deftly, she popped open a panel and went to work on a data fiber cluster. Jacking her wristcomp into the junction box, her hands flew as she started to work her magic.

As the seconds ticked by, Bran heard Jaheira interject, “Remember when this ship was in service. Independent AI controlled mechanoids were much more popular in defensive applications. They could be completely autonomous from the ship’s systems. Especially considering the security situation.”

“Still, there would have to be some sort of FF or acknowledge code,” Imoen replied, her voice tight with the strain of concentration. “You wouldn’t just roll bots out here without some way of telling them not to shoot. That’d be just plain dumb.”

“Unless, they’re the last gatekeepers,” Valygar replied darkly.

“Considering they blew B Deck, V-man may have a good point here,” Bran added. “How we doing sis?”

Imoen still worked, but the edge in her tone didn’t bolster his spirits. “Not good bro. I’m having a devil of a time slicing the security subroutines. It’s like some dimbutt just completely randomized everything.”

“That would follow if someone was just slamming the door shut and never meant for it open again,” Jaheira added.

“Either that or someone’s skills are slipping,” added Valygar.

“Look, Mr. Grumpy, I’ve got more skills in my left pinky toe than you’ve got in that whole rasta looking head of yours,” fired back Imoen. “So why don’t you go play with those silly Katanas of yours and try to remember which end the bright shiny lights come out of.”

“Temper temper,” Valygar chided softly.

“Sometimes I swear I’m running a kindergarten class instead of a ship’s company,” Bran said exasperatedly. Off to his left, he could hear a chuckle from Jaheira indicating her opinion on the matter. “So, Miss Imoen, do you think you can crack the system or are we just going to have to ring the bell?”

“Well, Mr. Varnas,” Imoen replied in the most obscenely cute voice she could manage, “I think the big bad ‘puter system is just being poopy.”

“So, no go on the bots?”

“Give me enough time, I might be able to crack it. But it’ll take me a few hours. So, unless you wanna sit around and play with your Magic Stick, I’d say no.”

“Magic Stick?” Bran asked, eyebrow arching. “That’s a new one. And you know, a simple yes or no answer would have sufficed.”

“Maybe big bro, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. How else could I have worked ‘Magic Stick’ into a sentence?” Imoen asked sweetly.

“Knowing you, you’d a managed.” Addressing the rest of the crew, he continued, “Since Im seems to be short on technical miracles today, we take the bots the hard way. Minsc, you and Larry shred the port side. Im, you get the starboard one. Everybody else, let’s grab some cover.”

“Woohoo! Let’s kick some tinplated circuit ass!” chortled Larry as the crew took up their positions, the Minsc standing tall while Imoen dropped prone and the others sheltering behind the bulkhead dividers.

“Just take out the bots, nothing else,” Bran admonished, directing his comment mostly at his sometimes over-exuberant gunner. “Fire at will.”

Both crewmates fired simultaneously, the whine of Lilarcor’s compensators drowning out the much quieter electromagnets of Imoen’s Kroebler. Both shots were dead on target but their effects were far different. The coherent energy from the disruptor slammed into the combat droid’s chassis about midway, tearing through the armor and detonating the aged power packs in a lovely pyrotechnic display. Imoen’s nickel iron slug made a far less demonstrative display as it bit through the armor and shattered the bot’s main computer. Computer destroyed, the bot slumped deckwards.

“Target destroyed,” boomed Minsc.

“Ditto. One dead bot,” added Imoen.

“Acknowledged. Good work people. Next stop, that security hatch. And Im, sharp eye. If they dropped bots I wouldn’t be surprised if they left some nasty little surprises for our toes.”

“Come on bro, look who you’re talking to.”

“Hey, just being careful. Dying here would be embarrassing.”

“Far be it from me to embarrass you,” she sassed back before hopping to her feet and leading off. She moved carefully down the corridor, the others falling in line behind her. She kept a careful eye on the two dormant seeming combat bots, but they did not move. The short trek down the corridor was completely uneventful and finally the crew found themselves inside the bot’s security perimeter and in front of the massive security door leading to the Helios’s command center.

“Alright Im, you’re up again. Think you can pop this door for us? Because blasting through a solid meter of durasteel is not going to be fun.”

Imoen shrugged, “I don’t know, I think it would be, right Minsc?”

A terrifyingly wide grin split the gunner’s face, “Little Imoen is right. Such a task would be a heroic challenge for Minsc and Boo. But we are confident that we can design a bomb mighty enough to blow up the door.”

“And turn us into meat paste,” quipped Valygar.

“I am always careful with my mighty bombs, right Boo?”

The hamster looked from side to side before eventually squeaking in agreement.

“See?” Minsc replied, sounding utterly vindicated.

Deciding that now was not the best time to remind his gunner of some his less successful or, more importantly, too successful demo jobs, Bran turned to his sister. “Maybe, maybe not. But we may need those demo charges later. So, think you can crack the door security?”

She flicked her eyes towards the door panel. “The security systems are all garbled, so I’ll have to it the hard way. It’ll take me a few minutes.”

“Figure it for traps?” Bran asked.

“If they went to the trouble of frelling the whole security matrix, yeah.” She turned to look at Bran and flashed him a wicked grin. “I mean, I would.”

“Good point. Get to it, but be careful.”

“Yeah yeah,” Imoen replied, blowing him off. Shouldering her Krobler, she pulled open one of her suit’s hip pockets. Nimble fingers plucked the necessary tools from their pouch and set to work checking the security panel. She scoped the panel edges and fasteners, looking for any sign of sensors or trip wires worked into the panel.

“Fasteners clear,” she said clinically, pulling out her multitool. The adaptive head slid into the notches in the fastener heads. Thumbing the speed selector, she slowly eased them out of the panel, using her left hand to hold the panel in place. One by one the fasteners dropped to the deck.

“Checking panel now,” Imoen intoned as the final one dropped out. She pulled out her filament camera and eased the panel just a millimeter away from the rest of the bulkhead and eased it into the crack.

While Imoen ran the camera into the compartment, Jaheira said, “Bran, come here a moment.”

Leaving his position watching his sister work her magic, he took two steps to Jaheira’s side. She stood behind the more intact droid, staring at its back. Looking from the droid to her face, he asked, “What is it Jah?”

“The symbol on the back,” she said, pointing at a red-rimmed circle with three stars in a triangle over an open book. “It doesn’t look like any Fleet symbol I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“And it lacks the name and number to make it the ship’s ensign. Strange. I don’t…”

“Well hello hello,” Imoen cut in. “I was right, there is a trap.”

“What do you have?” Bran asked, forgetting the strange sigil.

“Tricky little thing. Trip wires run right into the displays and the charge is actually slotted into one of the control wafer slots. Looks just like regular fiber and no slack at all. You pop the panel off, the wires go taut and boom, no more circuits. Only way in is to blast your way in. Crafty devil who ran this one.”

“Can you disarm?”

“Is chocolate part of a balanced diet?” Imoen replied.

“A..actually, no it isn’t Imoen,” the doctor replied. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you…”

“Look, that was meant more of a metaphor or something,” Imoen interjected hurriedly. “And yes I can. But I’m going to need some spare hands. V, you think you can stand still for a few moments?”

“I think that can be managed,” Valygar replied, slipping forward and taking hold of the loose panel.

“All right, now hold it steady while I see about disarming the beaut,” Imoen said, replacing her multitool with an extensible microvibroblade. Slowly, she tried to work the cutter into the seam. After a few seconds work, she managed to get the thin device through the narrow space. Positioning the blade just above the fibers being used as trip wires, she said quietly, “Blade in position. Cutting wires now.”

A nearly undetectable whine tugged at the ear as she powered it up. Moving her hand glacially, she brought the blade downwards. “One wire down,” she intoned. “Two gone. Three.” She paused for a second, taking a deep breath. Making her final stroke, she cheered, “And final! You can ditch the panel, V.”

At her command, Valygar tossed the wall panel aside with a clatter, revealing the inner working of the door controls. A smiling Imoen reached in and pulled what looked like two aging crystal control wafers and brandished them.

“Molded explosives. Crafty stuff,” she reported before carefully placing them atop the discarded panel. Then, she pulled out a length of wide fiber cable and jacked it into her wristcomp and then into an open dataport in one the empty circuits slots. The adaptive interface lined up the contacts and her wristcomp began to sync with the machine code of the door circuits themselves.

Fingers flying over her wristcomp, she reported, “Provided they didn’t wreck the hydraulics, this should just take a moment. Just a few little changes here, here, and here!” On the third here, four loud, ominous clicks sounded. Then a tremendous hiss filled the corridor. Finally a low rumble sounded as the heavy security doors began to roll back after being sealed for hundreds of years.

Weapons came up smoothly as the crew dropped into defensive positions as the massive doors retracted. Eyes, electronic and organic, swept the well-lit corridor beyond, hunting for any sign of danger. Finding none, Bran said, “Alright Im, lead us off. We’re almost there, but let’s stay alert.”

“Gotcha,” she said, bounding forward with Krobler ready.

The others followed closely as Imoen penetrated deeper into the command center. She swept past the unmanned security posts, their transsteel barriers darkened and dusty. Beyond them, the doors leading off to auxiliary systems, offices, planning rooms and records all remained closed and unthreatening. Finally, she reached the point in the corridor where it split in two to wrap around the exterior of the bridge.

Looking from one branch to another, Bran said, “Alright, we’ll hit both hatches at the same time, in case there is some last defense in the bridge proper. Jaheira, you’ll take port side with Imoen and Minsc. I’ll take starboard with V, Fentan and the Doc.” Pausing for a second, he finished, “Alright. Let’s move.”

The crew split into two columns, one lead by Valygar, the other by Imoen. They snaked down the corridors quickly and pulled up at the sealed bridge hatchways. With a nod from Bran, Valygar scanned the door control. “Controls powered. Locks disengaged,” he reported.

Over the comms, he heard Imoen report, “Same here. Powered up but unlocked.”

“We go on my mark,” Bran replied, lifting his Bladesinger to his shoulder. “Mark!”

Valygar smacked the control panel and the aged hatch slid open rapidly, faster than either Valygar or Bran had expected. Doorway open, Valygar charged in, Katana’s ready, sweeping forward and starboard on the cruiser’s bridge. Bran followed hot on his heels, eyes scanning the starboard rear of the bridge. He came up empty, seeing just the dormant rear stations.

“Clear!” Imoen shouted, followed quickly by Jaheira and Valygar. Bran, seeing that the empty chairs and dead stations posed no threat, answered with a “Clear!” of his own.

Lowering his rifle, he took a moment to examine the bridge, not as a soldier but a naval officer. The Daedelous class cruisers’ bridges followed the same general design plan of all human designed ships. The bridge was generally oval shaped, wider in width than in length and flattened forward to incorporate the main viewer system. Three control stations, Communications, Damage Control and Security on the starboard side and Fire Control, Defense Control and Flight Control on port side, fit between the hatches to the main corridor and the hatches to the captain’s office and the conference room. A bank of four more lined the aft of the bridge.

The critical positions rested in the center of the bridge, raised slightly on a shallow dais. Navigation and ops were on its forward edge. Three chairs sat in the middle. To starboard was the X.O.’s station, where he could control and manage all the ship’s functions. To port lay the tactical station, where the ship’s tactical officer marshaled the cruiser’s weapon batteries and defenses. And in the center, the captain’s chair, placed there not just at the center of the controls but also at the heart of ship.

As he stepped closer to that chair, he noticed something. A pistol, simply lying on the deck by the captain’s chair. “I might have something,” Bran said, bringing his Bladesinger up quickly and training it on the back of the chair.

“What is it?” asked Jaheira.

“Looks like a pistol. The bridge might not be abandoned after all,” he said quietly, sidestepping so he could get a better view of what was in the captain’s chair. He caught sight of white fabric. There was something or someone still on the bridge. Motioning for Jaheira to swing wide to port, he rushed around the X.O.’s console and brought his Bladesinger to bear on the captain’s chair.

And lowered it.

A figure sat slumped in the once plush leather chair dressed in full dress whites. A row of medals ran across the right breast and four gold stripes circled the wrists. A few golden strands of hair rested on the shoulder epaulets, once gold, now brown.

Bran’s face softened as he looked at the lifeless face of the Helios’s captain. She posed no threat to them. A self-inflicted pulse blast to the head had assured that.

“We’re clear,” he said softly.