The Colony of Lies by Colin Brake

Author:Colin Brake [Brake, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563486060
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2003-09-22T22:00:00+00:00

The main bulk of the ECSV Hannibal was a series of gleaming corridors and bright lights but Zoe knew that there would be a dark side. Even a state-of-the-art spaceship like this had an „under stairs‟ area, where heat, grease, oil and darkness were more the order of the day - places like the engineering deck, the engine rooms, the food preparation and storage areas and the hangars for the shuttlecraft and other vehicles. Zoe made her way through these areas and didn‟t come across a single living person. That‟s not to say she found no signs of activity; she found droids of all sizes busy everywhere she went. Little maintenance droids changing lightbulbs and making other small repairs, larger messenger droids carrying supplies and refreshments to different parts of the ship and larger heavy-duty robots moving bulky packages and machinery, much of which looked to be weaponry.

She found herself in a hangar, where alongside a pair of the large shuttlecrafts similar to the one she had travelled up from the surface in, there were also a dozen or so smaller fighter spacecraft. Zoe climbed into one for a closer look. The controls were unfamiliar to her but obvious: directional joystick, onboard computer, pilot‟s chair with built-in ejection system. To Zoe‟s delight there was also a flight uniform and, more importantly, a helmet. She checked it eagerly and saw that as well as a micro- screen that flipped down in front of the eyes to give a heads- up display, the helmet also offered computer access. Perhaps this would provide the back door that she was looking for.

Moments later Zoe was sinking into the mock leather of the pilot‟s seat, slightly dwarfed by it - it was clearly designed for someone far bigger than she was. She slipped the helmet on to her head and was delighted to see that it did indeed give direct access to the little assault ship‟s onboard computer, which was linked, in turn, to the main computer of the mother ship itself. Zoe had found her way in.

Allowing herself a quick self-congratulatory smile, she began ordering up some mission files. She wanted to know everything about the current mission.

Administrator Greene watched silently and patiently as Cartor began to receive reports from his security teams. The locate-and-apprehend order had gone out half an hour ago but with a further order to operate at a very low visibility level. Now, although a few two-man search crews were methodically working through the more remote areas of the ship, the bulk of the search was being conducted with the computer and the many surveillance and security cameras dotted around. A graphic on his screen showed an outline of the ship, a large area of which was glowing green, meaning that it had been searched and eliminated as a possible location of the missing girl. The rest of the ship was marked red, still being searched. Slowly but surely the red area was diminishing by the second. Soon there would be nowhere left to hide.

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