Collective Hindsight (Book 1) - Aaron Rosenberg [9]
Their commander nodded. “The ability to think like the enemy is a valuable one. You are correct that it is a possibility. We will proceed as planned.” He gestured to Pattie and the Bynars. “Blue, 110, 111, suit up and meet me in the transporter room. Stevens, Duffy, please take your stations.”
“Got it.” Kieran watched him walk out, then turned back to Fabian. “Do you really think it’s a bomb like that, with all those levels and safeguards and tricks?”
Fabian shrugged. “Honestly? No. But it’s better to be safe, and survive, than get careless and die.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“Fine.” His friend slapped him on the shoulder. “If we survive, you’re buying.”
Chapter
3
And, once again, having a shell gets me into trouble.
Pattie adjusted her suit, checked again to make sure the holoprojector was online, and then signaled Salek. He tapped a button, and vanished from sight as she was transported onto the alien ship.
Normally, the Nasat did not require a space suit—she could survive for prolonged periods in the vacuum of space. In fact, her first mission for the da Vinci involved repairing a communications relay by crawling across its outer surface. But there were other occasions when even her chitinous exterior needed protection—for example, the time they had to retrieve some equipment from the acidic atmosphere of Eridas IX—so Commander Salek had commissioned a specially modified suit to be fabricated for her.
Her first impression upon materializing was cleanliness. The corridor was spotless—gleaming walls of some sort, curving outward slightly so that the corridor was basically a tube with one side flattened for the floor, and a soft glow from the ceiling and walls providing light. No pictures, panels, or protrusions.
She checked her suit display. If it was right, the projector was working perfectly, and the corridor still looked empty. The suit had also shifted its temperature to match the area, which she noticed was near the upper threshold for human capacity.
“I’m in,” she reported. “Hallway of some sort, completely empty. Be warned, guys—it’s pretty warm in here. Not quite boiling point, but not too far off.” She glanced around. “No sign of trip wires, lasers, or pressure plates. Also, there’s no atmosphere in here.”
Duffy’s voice came through her communicator. “We’re not reading a hull breach.”
She checked her tricorder. “Neither am I. There’s no pressure, and it’s hot rather than cold. But there’s no air—like somebody dumped it or purged it. Might have to do with the energy spike the outpost registered.”
“We’re not getting anything funny here, either. The energy buildup’s continuing, but at the same slow rate. Your arrival doesn’t look like it’s had any effect. I guess Fabe’s bomb theory may be a bust.”
“And I’m happy to be wrong, too,” Stevens chimed in. “But it pays to be sure. And we won’t know until the Bynars get a crack at the computer system.”
“Already on it,” Pattie responded, moving slowly and carefully down the hall. She’d just rounded the first bend when she came across the corpse and cursed out a series of chirps.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay. Just surprised, is all. I’ve found one of the ship’s crew.” She bent down for a closer look. “Dead, definitely. Humanoid, carbon-based—and extra crispy.” She scanned the body with her tricorder. “No known match, but that’s not really a surprise.”
“Keep moving, Blue,” Salek said. “The primary goal is to reach the computer core.”
“Yes, sir.” Pattie stepped around the body and continued on her way. A few paces later, she found what she was looking for. “I’ve got an access port, sir. Beam the Bynars a meter to my left.”
An instant later, the Bynars materialized, their dataports clinging to the belts on the outside of their suits. The pair immediately opened the port and began speaking to the computer in that strange high-pitched singsong of theirs. Pattie settled back to watch—she knew that, at their speed, it wouldn’t take too long.
Nor did it. She’d only been sitting for a minute