Red Star (The Triple Stars, Volume 2) by Simon Kewin

Author:Simon Kewin [Kewin, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SciFi, Science Fiction, Space Opera
Publisher: Simon Kewin
Published: 2020-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

6. Void Wraiths

Selene sat by Ondo's bed in the Dragon's medsuite – an inversion of the arrangement that had once been so familiar to both of them. She'd assumed he'd be asleep, drowsy from the sedation he'd been put under, but he was sitting up in bed, bent over the keyboard of one of the archaic computer interfaces he liked to work with. He'd been conscious for twenty-four hours, finally emerging groggily from his coma. The Dragon hung in normal space, its random escape flight complete, watching and waiting for any signs of pursuit. So far there were none, although Selene was keeping the metaspace projectors fully spun-up in case any Concordance ships materialised.

The clatter of Ondo's keyboard as he typed sounded strangely like heavy winter rain on the roof of her childhood home. He'd acknowledged her with a nod of his head as she'd entered, without looking up at her. It was a familiar pattern. She said nothing, letting him finishing his flow of thoughts, his fingers dancing across the mechanical keyboard as if his hands were two galloping spiders.

Eventually he stopped and looked up at her. “I've been watching the progress of the security sweep through the ship; it seems there's no evidence of Concordance bug infiltration.”

He was supposed to be resting. She let it slide. “It all looks clean so far. The Dragon locked itself down, closing off its core so nothing could get in. The contamination was superficial.”

“Eb told you that?” Selene had filled Ondo in on what they'd found hidden within the Dragon – words that Ondo had listened to with wide-eyed wonder.

“No, I thought it best to leave him to heal. Much as I assumed you were doing.”

Ondo looked about his room, as if in appreciation of the ship. “Even if the ship's core is safe, there's still the risk of a tracking bug hiding away somewhere. If it's there, it'll be subtle. We have to keep checking until we're 100% sure.”

“Obviously. Although, I was thinking that, say, 90% might be close enough?”

He was about to object when he saw that she was joking. They both understood the absolute need to keep the whereabouts of the Refuge a secret.

Selene said, “We do know that all the ship's datastores are uncontaminated. Everything's been scanned and checksummed, and no computational structures have been unexpectedly altered since the moment of the Concordance attack. As for the rest of the ship, we obviously can't strip systems down mid-flight. We need to find a safe haven for a week or two to depressurise.”

He nodded. “I have an idea of a place we can go. How is Surtr progressing with restoring the ship to full functionality?”

“It's doing what it can. I feel a bit like I've got this huge, lumbering puppy following me around. It's companionable, but it's always there, if you know what I mean.”

That seemed to amuse Ondo for some reason. “Yes, I know what you mean. Where is it now? It appears you managed to shake it off.

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