Ghost of Mind Episode One (18 page)

‘
So what the hell did that?’

‘
Whatever it was, it managed to pull out a
section of cable behind this panel too,’ Parka ran some of her many
fingers over the bump in the panel. ‘Our best guess at the moment
is shutting own the core caused an overload in the conduits in that
section and caused the panel to pop right off.’

John didn't answer.

‘
After all, there is nothing - robotic or
alive - that could operate that close to an omidium engine. That's
one of the reasons we have such thick plating and so many security
fields. Not even our ICN can go that deep. Those conduits are
purely mechanical. Anything in that section has to be as simple as
hell otherwise the radiation will fry its circuits.’

‘
But that panel looks like it has been
punched,’ John leaned in and grabbed the corner of it, stopping
Parka from twirling it in place.

She looked up at his eyes sharply, her own
purple irises twinkling up at him. ‘I know.’

‘
But nothing could have done that, right?’
John's voice was still tight.

‘
Like I said, nothing can survive that
close to an omidium core. A biological would have been fired within
seconds, and a robot's neural processors would have been overloaded
faster.’

‘
So there was an overload that caused the
panel to burst off, damaging it like that,’ John
concluded.

‘
That's right, Commander, that's my best
and only guess,’ Parka said.

John tried to get over the sinking feeling
in his gut. ‘Scan—’ he began.

‘
Oh we are already doing that. We're
scanning the whole ship. Now the core has been shut down, scanners
will be able to penetrate every single service tunnel. They'll even
be able to scan the center of the core itself.’

‘
But we're not going to find anything?’
John hazarded.

Parka nodded her head. ‘I certainly hope
not,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘otherwise I'm going to have to
call the Union Force Military Academy and get them to update their
course on omidium engineering.’

John sucked in a breath and pushed it through
his clenched teeth.

‘
I'll deal with this, Commander, why don't
you take some leave? I heard you've got a final meeting with the
Admiral at 14:00 now. Well by my count that leaves three whole
hours to bum around the docking ring markets. You never know what
you might find.’ Parka nodded low at him, considered the buckled
piece of metal in her hand once more, then turned around and walked
away.

She left John feeling uncomfortable. Though
he knew the facts of omidium, he also knew what a punched panel
looked like; he'd done such damage himself, when dressed in his
armor, of course.

Mulling over it and hoping like hell that
Parka wouldn't find anything in those service tunnels, John walked
towards the gangway. Maybe Parka was right. Maybe he should take
the next few hours to unwind before his mission really began.

So John, putting his worries behind him,
walked past the bulk of his ship and towards the elevator ring at
the center of the docking platform.

As he caught sight of the white metallic
doors, it brought it all back. Images of that robot with its
fingers locked around that woman's neck streamed into his mind.

He blinked his eyes hard, even rubbed his
thumbs over them.

They would not go away.

After all, sometimes death affects you. And
John had the feeling this one would be hitting him hard for some
time.

Chapter 29

Alice

She'd made her way out. They had been some of
the most fraught moments of her life, but somehow she'd managed it.
She had hacked past every panel she could, no longer punching her
way into them and ripping the cables out, but gently prying them
back with her strong grip and manipulating the power relays until
she momentarily shut down the security fields.

It had been slow work, but she'd managed it,
and just in time.

They'd started to scan the ship. Her
incredible hearing had picked up the hum of it. And out of all
devices and systems, Alice had spent her life attuning herself to
scanner beams. She could hear one from 20 meters away.

She'd flung herself from the final service
duct just as the noise had grown.

Then it was out of the frying pan – as the
human saying went – and very much into the fire.

She had made it out of the service ducks, but
she was still on the ship.

Alice had jumped out of a panel along some
kind of corridor. At first she was alone, and had precious few
seconds to stare around her at the sleek corridor and the
sleeker-looking consoles dotted along it. Then she’d heard
footsteps.

Alice still had no idea what kind of a ship
she was on. It could have been a Union Force heavy cruiser or a
pimped-up pirate ship; without getting to a panel or forcing her
way past the ICN’s security and into the ship’s database, guesses
were all she had.

She also had footfall rapidly approaching her
direction.

Alice pushed herself forward, scurrying low
at first, one hand brushing across the ground as she pushed all her
attention to her hearing and sense of smell.

Several days shacked up next to an omidium
core had done wonders for her; her energy was back and brighter
than ever, meaning her senses were sharper than they’d been in
months.

She was a proper Old One. And right now she
intended to use her specialized physique to accomplish the
seemingly impossible; getting off this ship without anyone noticing
and raising the alarm.

The footfall still loud behind her, Alice
calculated she had several seconds until she came into view. She
could also hear that the corridor just beyond her had at least two
people in it.

Letting out a silent swearword, Alice
surveyed the walls around her with a quick snap of her head. She
saw an elevator panel just up ahead.

She ran to it. Her feet hardly touching the
ground as she flew forward.

She reached it just as the people behind her
rounded the corner that would lead them down Alice’s section.

Alice did not bother keying in the code that
would open the door; she didn’t have the time. Though the elevator
would no doubt take only several seconds to arrive, that was time
she didn’t have. So pushing herself against it, she rammed her
fingers into the tiny gap between the two tightly closed doors and
she ripped them open.

The doors protested, the mechanisms holding
tight, but they were no match for a highly-charged and incredibly
desperate Old One.

Alice flung herself through the doors the
second she had opened them. Right into the elevator chamber.

She had survived a three kilometer fall
through a salt blizzard, she could probably live through whatever
drop this elevator could supply.

She heard the doors slam closed behind her,
and they instantly cut the illumination as they did.

Which just left Alice to drop. She did not
allow herself to go far though. Angling till her body slammed
against the other side of the shaft, Alice brought her fingers out
and dug them into the metal.

She made her hands as strong as she could,
and they easily ate into the metal. Sparks flew out as she gripped
onto it, the plating bending and buckling around the force of her
grip.

Gritting her teeth and swearing, Alice looked
below her.

There was no visible end to the shaft; just
blackness. It would probably snake around the whole ship. In a way,
it would have been ideal to just drop all the way down, then find
some way out of the belly of the vessel.

It would have been ideal, that was, were it
not for the fact the ship was being scanned form the bottom up.
Even ensconced inside the elevator shaft she could hear the
persistent hum of the scanner beam. It would be sweeping the ship
from one end to the other, every crack, every nook, every room,
every possible place to hide.

So the only solution was to go up. Up and
out. She would have to find some exhaust vent or hangar bay
door,
anything
. She
had to get out.

So Alice, still holding onto the shaft wall,
looked up. Then she jumped. Seeing the thin lip of metal that led
to the next floor above, she leapt up to it. Somehow her fingers
latched on, found enough purchase for her to hold her body up. Then
she jumped again. If there was nothing to latch hold of, she rammed
her fingers into the metal wall, making a hand hold.

When she’d made it to the top of the shaft,
Alice angled her body toward the last door above her. The scanner
beam was quick and effective, and it was hot on her heals
below.

Whatever was behind this door, she would have
to open it and find out.

She was out of time and options.

So Alice pulled herself up, forced her
fingers through the minute gap between the doors, and yanked them
open.

Then she vaulted up and rolled through
them.

She landed in someone’s quarters.

The elevator doors slammed closed behind her,
the door giving an odd electronic chirp, probably unhappy that it
had been manhandled.

But at least Alice was out of that dark and
airless shaft.

Sucking in a breath of air, she did not
immediately push herself up from her knees. With one hand flat on
the floor, the other resting on her thigh, she darted her gaze
around the quarters before her.

They were large but not particularly fancy.
Functional, yes, usable, absolutely, but they lacked style and
charm.

She finally pushed herself up, curiosity
pushing her brow down as she walked slowly into them.

There was a large desk completely covered in
data pads and the various ripped-up guts of weapons and
devices.

Alice walked over to it, picked up the core
chamber of a plasma rifle and raised an eyebrow as she did.

Then she stepped down a level into the main
section. There was a large bed with a bank of huge windows right
behind it. They showed an incredible view of the sky above.

Next to the bed was a small table. The bed
was a mess, and the sheets were covered in muck. Suggesting whoever
slept in them obviously didn’t care if their clothes or face was
covered in dirt or ash or whatever they came across in their
day-to-day lives.

Alice, a curious smile tugging at her lips,
walked around the bed.

There was a chair off to the side, and it too
was covered in junk. This time it was holo crystals. They spread
right onto the floor. Alice had to step to the side to avoid
squashing one under her torn shoes.

She looked back at the bed. Then she noticed
the small table beside it. More to the point, she noticed what was
on top.

An orb.

Simple, black, sleek, it was sitting on a
stand.

It got her attention.

It called out to her.

She knew what it was in an instant.

She half ran over to it, not caring that the
muck she’d picked up in the elevator dislodged from her shoes and
marked the carpet; it was already dirty enough that another few
marks wouldn’t be noticed.

Alice grabbed the orb up as soon as it was in
reach. She brought it right up to her face, thumbing the sleek
metal gently as a smile cracked open her lips, a laugh bubbling up
from her belly a second later.

She hadn’t seen one of these in years.

She’d missed them.

And then Alice heard it. And she freaking
remembered.

Eyes growing wide, she heard the scanner beam
travelling through the level below her.

‘
Idiot,’ she chastised herself
bitterly.

Was she so far gone that the sight of
someone’s quarters was enough to distract her form the fact she was
trying to escape this ship?

Apparently.

Maybe almost dying on Orion Minor had gone to
her head. Maybe the precious feeling of relaxing in safety next to
an omidium core had made her lax.

The point was, it was time to leave.

And Alice really only had one option.

Pocketing the orb and trying to justify it by
the fact it would be far more use to her than it would be sitting
as a pretty little ornament at someone’s bedside table, Alice
walked over to the windows by the bed.

There was a moment where she just stood there
and stared at them. They showed an unbelievably blue sky reaching
up to meet the stars above. It was so peaceful. It was the kind of
view she would have loved to fall asleep under.

The sound of the scanner beam below began to
ring in her ears, and, her mouth suddenly dry, Alice knew she had
to act now.

So she did.

Smiling to herself, she closed her eyes, for
the briefest of moments, then she plunged a hand into her pocket
and gripped her fingers around the smooth orb, her hold so tight
that it felt as if she was trying to push right through it.

She was not, however, trying to destroy it;
it was her ticket out of here. She was, trying to re-energize it.
And contact was important; it sped up the process.

The little orb in her pocket was not a fancy
bedside table decoration piece.

It was Old Tech. But unlike the soldier robot
from Orion Minor, it would not try to suck the energy out of her
the second she brought it back to life.

She knew exactly what his device was, and she
trusted it completely.

As energy passed from her skin into the
device, she felt it rumble and hum. It began to vibrate, the heat
of it pushing through her pants and through her leg.

Then with a pop it shot right out of her
pocket.

It hovered before her face, then in a show
similar, but thankfully a great deal quieter and nicer, than the
soldier robot’s, the metal of its surface began to move. It shifted
up and down, chunks of metal dancing through it, catching the
sunlight streaming in from the windows behind.