Black Star

Chapter Thirty

The captain and drop crew arrived at the professor's cabin to find the security personnel outside.

"There's organic life detected inside Ma'm, the door is set to security level 1," he said, knocking with the side of his fist. "No answer, Ma'm."

"No answer." She tipped her head sarcastically. "Get it open."

"Just a moment, Ma'm." The security guard nervously tapped codes into a pad on his arm and then offered it to her. She placed a finger on the small pad and the door slid open. The captain pushed him out of the way and barged inside before the others. The cabin was silent and still except for the low unconscious hum of the Lazarus. The cabin felt cramped with so many bodies inside, the two security guards as well as Maxtor, Seiren and Sinus had followed her in. Conspicuously the bed radiation shutter had been lowered on the side and end that weren't outer walls. The holo display was on and displayed the empty hallway they had just left. The holographic image projected across the mystified faces of the drop crew as they looked around the room.

Voodoo stood by the bed with her arms folded. "Professor, open the shutters and come out please," she shouted.

There was no response, she glanced around at the others. "Professor we will use force, there's nowhere else to go."

Still, there was silence. Voodoo turned to the security guard and shouted at the same volume, "Get some equipment and get this open."

Her words clearly intended as a threat to the bed's occupant.

"Ma'm," said the guard, clicking his fingers at a colleague. The younger man nodded at the captain to step back and crouched down near the control panel. He popped open a small hinged door and peered inside quizzically. Taking some tools from one of his arm pockets he set to work, guided by a light fixed on his headgear. He pushed some buttons on his arm pad copying codes from the inside the door. A page of text then appeared in front of the guard's eyes and he bit his lower lip as he absorbed its contents. The guard was becoming self-conscious as the rest of the room waited and watched. There was some relief when Victor's voice came over the comm.

"Ma'm?" he said.

"Yes," the captain responded.

"Are you on a common channel?"

"Yes, that's fine what is it?"

"It's the shuttle Ma'm, we have a problem."

"Which is?" as she spoke, she pushed Maxtor and the others towards the door to give security more room to work.

"The shuttle has been scuttled and it's going down, probably deliberately."

"So, what exactly does that mean?"

"It will go into cat7 safe mode and make an emergency landing on Earth. It's programmed to make a swift safe route to the nearest point of alignment. I'm afraid we've lost it for now."

"Can you track it?"

"At the moment yes, if the damage includes communication then we may lose them on their descent. I have our systems currently making predictions for the various landing scenarios just in case."

"Keep me posted and inform authorities on the ground to be aware."

"Ma'm."

Voodoo looked down at the security guard fiddling with the bed panel and then at his colleague. "Don't just stand there man, search this cabin and find those stones."

He immediately went to work rummaging around the bedside draws and bathroom.

The professor could hear everything from his hiding place but knew from the cold feeling on his thigh that the stones were safely in his possession. After a couple of minutes, there was little progress and the captain was becoming irritated.