On the High Frontier

5. Nothing Special (part 9/10)

"Something's happening." Kimiko had forgotten Fee was out there. "The air dock is cycling open. I'm moving to get a better look." James relays Fee's forward view to her and she watches the doors of the dock open. Inside is dark, but then what looks like a sausage with a flattened disk pushed in one end is visible.

"Damn. I think we can assume they've compromised the control room. Cygne, that's swan, why? They're elegant, refined, belong to the Monarch."

"Pardon?" Weird even for him. "You mean the smoothly gliding white water birds?"

"No visible effort, damn, it couldn't be." The image grows and pans around as James examines the ship. "Fee can you see any drive elements?"

"There are vectoring and manoeuvring clusters, but no main propulsion, what the void?"

"That's what I was afraid of. I bet that's a crude Space-time Lattice Impulse Propagation drive."

"Pardon?"

"SLIP drive is what Ryo-Ohki uses, blame Mike Cary for the name. If DandeFyre recorded the local distortion during your incident, they might have reverse engineered something. Without the full Cary-Newell theories they'll be doing some extreme physics and creating propulsion from side-effects." He pauses. "The clamps haven't released, they should be moving by now, they're sitting ducks. This is the endgame, watch your backs."

A loud bang on the floor above her head causes Kimiko to jump, as an intrusion check is triggered in the vault above. Steven is looking over the safety rail at a screwdriver lying on the floor, presumably where he dropped it. She retags the alert as rodent detection on the sonics which calms the security.

It's an odd coincidence that they are on a gantry above the floor where she's hiding. The team's comms traffic spikes, and Steven stops looking at the floor and brings his evil looking rifle to bear. This is not good: Sonic rodent detectors, the sudden bang of the screwdriver, that was no accident. They'd needed a sound pulse to find her exact location; she needs to move. Triggering the fire suppressant to cover the noise, she scrambles away as the rifle opens up with gyrojet armour piercing rounds at the floor where she had been.

"James, I think I need another date for the prom?" As she watches, the gang is retagged friendly to the IFF systems, and the local security system goes into full alert to find her. Kimiko triggers the special package she's been prepping, and the unleashed mesh rips through the security. That'll keep things off her back for a bit.

She notices the white and blue traces have spread out, presumably to search for her. But red is heading away, making for that security nexus. If they wanted something there it would explain their annoyance at her alternate route. The beserker mesh is corrupting and subverting everything it touches on the local scape. It's ignoring her for the moment, but being a trusting soul she seals her links to the vault extent, monitoring only. If she's right it still has some tricks up its sleeve.

Davina has now reached the security station. She watches her access the hardline terminal, with the authcard from the first target point, and call up the system. It's not incoming, it's outgoing. On the screen she see the legend Project: Cygne - Operational Authorisation. That's why they haven't moved yet, and why this raid was so important. Davina enters a code and the system goes green. Davina doesn't return to her compatriots but continues back towards the service hatch. This was what they really wanted.

"Docking clamps opening, the ship's being released." Fee confirms her suspicion, this entire vault raid was to release that ship, and to set her up of course. If Kimiko could put her hands round Kervin's throat right now. That reminds her, what are they up to? Her monitors show a bit of push back from the VE against the hack. They probably have a trace. "Fee, you might want to keep an eye open. Some annoyed purps may come looking for trouble."