Hyvilma by Gideon Marcus

Author:Gideon Marcus [Marcus, Gideon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-951320-25-6
Publisher: Journey Press
Published: 2023-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“It’s eerie,” Marta whispered as we climbed the ladder toward Deck Five. “It’s almost like being on a ghost ship, what with no one in the halls.”

“Except for that one guy,” I said distractedly. I was worried about leaving Sirena behind. That had cut our group down to just five. Sirena was a particularly bad one to lose. She was as fierce as anything; unarmed, she took down a guy wielding a beamer back on Purité. On the other hand, that had been out in the open, with three dimensions to maneuver in. And even then, his bolt had taken out her chair’s antigrav, penetrating her shield. The memory of Sirena, sprawled and helpless on the floor of the chaff chamber, came back to me, and I gave a violent shudder.

In any event, it would have been a tight fit for her in the narrow accessway we were ascending through. That was a kind of providence, I guess.

Aylin waited for us at the top of the cylindrical shaft. There was enough room for her and Marta to stand on the little ledge on either side of the open door to the Deck Five passage. I waited on the ladder.

“You said auxiliary control is on this deck,” I breathed. “It can’t be too far away, so we should have a plan before we leave this cover. Tell us what we should expect. What exactly is this place we’re taking?”

The spacer leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms and considering her words. “Alright. Here’s how the control areas work. The bridge is what you’d expect. All the comms, engineering, armament controls go through there. It’s pretty big because the Faucon sometimes leads a task force. So there could be up to a dozen people in there. Sensor CIC is the next biggest nerve center. You could technically run the ship from there. I expect that’s fully crewed, too.”

She tapped a finger against her sleeve. “Auxcon, on the other hand, is a failsafe. If the main ops centers get slagged from combat damage or whatever, the bridge functions are duplicated in there. It’s almost like an appendix. We’re trained to use it, but if we ever need it, things have to be pretty dire. It’s cramped and kind of a kluge. It’s kept dark during normal operations. There may not be anyone in there right now.”

Marta dug into her belt pouch and pulled out… a compact of all things. Was she going to touch up her make-up before a fight? Then she popped it open and used the mirror to peer around the edge of the door, and I felt rather stupid.

“How far up the hall did you say the auxcon is?” she whispered.

“Just 15 meters or so.”

She grimaced. “Well, they didn’t leave it dark, then.”

Aylin sagged slightly. “How many?”

Marta peered into her mirror, angling it slightly. “There are two people standing in front of a red door on the left… no, sorry… right side, about that far away.”

“That’s auxcon, alright. Are they armed?”

“Can’t tell.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.