Supernal

Chapter 29

1:30 pm Sunday, 8th July 2029

Secure Briefing Room on the OCF

Jayal traced a finger across the plan of the blimp on the briefing room table.

"From the pod compartment, you turn left to the flight deck or right to the medical bay. That's where Velan should be, waiting for the children. You follow this tunnel. But you must stop Velan from getting to the photon communicator on the flight deck to send a warning to Caranal."

"You call your corridors tunnels?"

"They are not like the corridors you have here. Remember there is no artificial gravity and it was designed for the Atikas to move easily. The tunnels are about this square."

Jayal spread her arms to indicate the size of the tunnels.

"They have lights, and you can easily reach all the sides to propel yourself," she reassured them.

Summers, Rob and Toby pored over the diagram.

"That looks like another entrance to the medical bay. Can Velan get to the flight deck that way?" Summers asked.

"Yes, there is an alternative tunnel he could take if you don't catch him in the medical bay."

"What are all these large spaces on each side of the tunnels on your vessel? They seem to have no purpose." Toby remarked.

"They are dormitories. The vessel was originally used for transporting large numbers of people from Earth to Vitu."

"But that was thousands of years ago," Toby pointed out.

"Yes, it was. Our vessel is five thousand years old," Jayal casually informed them.

"Jesus! It's a slave ship," Rob growled, shocked at his own conclusion.

#

Summers told Jayal to wait until three-thirty before she came to the airlock. She was to keep up the pretence of talking to Mutu until the last moment. Charlie would stay behind with the kids.

When Toby and Summers got to the airlock Rob had already bypassed the safety switches. A couple of opened panels next to the sliding doors flapped slowly up and down in the air currents like lazy wings.

"It only took ten minutes once I'd traced the wires," Rob said, as he opened another panel marked EMERGENCY ONLY set in the wall.

"This is the switch for the emergency vent valve," he informed them. "As soon as the outer-door warning light goes off, one of us has to flick the switch."

"I'll do it," Summers volunteered and Toby breathed a sigh of relief.

While they waited Rob produced three large screwdrivers and three short lengths of thick cord.

"Choose your weapons," he said. "Just in case something goes wrong and we need them. These are the best I could find."

Toby slid one of the screwdrivers and a piece of cord into the thigh pocket of his flight suit.

"What's the rope for?" he asked.

"Ever heard of a garrotte?" Summers replied grimly.

#

Nimir was punctual. On the dot of three, the docking alert sounded and a few seconds later the outer door light flashed on. Toby shivered with nervous tension as they waited for the airlock to fill with air. The light went off, indicating that Nimir was inside waiting for the inner door to open. Summers flicked the switch. A loud whoosh took Toby by surprise and then there was silence.

"The valve is right under this floor," Rob explained as he began rewiring the switches. "The air gets sucked out in a microsecond. He won't have felt a thing."

Summers flicked the switch to 'RESET' and closed the panel.

#

Summers pulled the limp body into the OCF. Toby was relieved to see that Nimir looked perfectly normal except for a slightly surprised expression on his face and some bleeding from his ears and nose. He had harboured a secret fear that Nimir's body would explode horrifically due to trapped air.

They floated the corpse into the accommodation module and then carried it to the workshop where Mutu was being held. Summers had decided it was as good a place as any and they could check on Mutu at the same time. If necessary, they would administer another dose of Midazolam to keep him quiet.

It wasn't necessary, however, because when Rob unlocked the tool locker, Mutu was dead.

#

Toby blamed himself. He must have given Mutu an overdose of the sedative. He cursed himself for not being more careful. Jayal had dosed him twice with the nasal spray and he had no way of knowing how much she had given him. The injection on top of that must have been fatal.

"Just remember he was going help Velan kill those kids," Summers pointed out, "and if we'd kept him alive he'd have been a huge problem. What could we have done with him?"

"He was the enemy, and now he's a casualty of war," Rob added. "You've done us a big favour there, pal."

"Let me break it to Jayal," he pleaded.

Jayal was waiting at the airlock when they returned and told her that Nimir had been taken care of. She didn't ask for any details and Toby didn't mention Mutu.

#

The interior of the pod was not dissimilar to the Cargo Dragon Toby had travelled in to get to the OCF. It was roughly conical in shape and when they entered through the circular docking tunnel he saw there was a seat on either side, with a row of four seats behind. The biggest difference was the lack of instrumentation and the large panoramic windows.

He looked out, startled at his first sight of Earth from space. It was magnificent, an enormous bright blue and green jewel against the blackness of space. For a moment, he forgot the seriousness of the task ahead.

"Why aren't there windows like this on the OCF?" he asked Summers.

"Structural reasons," Summers answered. "The OCF is pressurized. If a window blew out we'd be up the creek. We only have those small portholes in the main assembly bay so the engineers can check on the modules tethered alongside."

"These aren't transparencies," Jayal added. "They are images replicated on viewscreens from sensors outside."

Jayal pressed a couple of buttons and said some words the others didn't catch. The pod immediately came to life and undocked itself. It reversed smoothly away from the OCF and began its slow journey to the blimp.

For the second time, Toby was awestruck. He hadn't imagined that the OCF was so huge. He gazed at the colossal structure resembling a cartwheel slowly turning on a central axle, except the axle was the size of a skyscraper.

"Impressive isn't it?" Summers said when he noticed Toby staring at his baby. "Did you know our big wheel has the same diameter as the Colosseum in Rome? Now can you put your tongue away and concentrate on the job we've got to do?"