Cyborg Claude
Episode 16
In the previous episode, the goeks try one last time to get at the yacht, and succeed. Claude and Conrad have a shoot out in the air ducts of the ship and cause it go into emergency disengage. Claude barely makes it inside as the ship seals itself in preparation for the disconnect from the station.
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Conrad’s good humor ran out as the emergency disengagement initiated. Had the laser fire caused it, or was the yacht doing a breakaway with auxiliary power? Either way, he had another fifty feet to go and his hip ached badly. The man had used an archaic bullet gun on him until he ran out of bullets. He had a bullet in his leg just below the hip. Blood soaked his pants.
The gears wound up for pulling the extender duct back into the station. That meant the seal would come down any second. He would not die like this.
With a yell of determination, he launched himself up the tube, thanking every god he had ever heard of when he reached the portion with ladder rungs. He reached a flat area as he heard the seal lock in place behind him. He slumped in relief, trying to calm his racing heart.
Getting the uniform for the cleaning staff had proved easy. Sensors could have detected his passage through the ducts, but he hadn’t worried about that in this foolish attempt. Maybe the data link he had opened gave them some good information to warrant this escaped. He could only hope he injured the enemy worse. Something about the man felt far too familiar.
He required Angela to maintain radio silence, but use his com’s locater to find him. She had time to return to where she had left her clothes, but would anyone put an alert on her? After all, she had simply shown up as a belly dancer to give a little entertainment for about fifteen minutes.
He resumed crawling through the ducts back to the bathroom by an employee dressing room. No one had been in either place. Hopefully, it wasn’t close to a shift change when he got back.
Several minutes later, he dropped out of the air system into the bathroom, along with the bag he had left there in the duct. A cleaner could have snagged it. Another thing that proved his luck this far.
He pealed off the cleaner’s uniform and grimaced at the messy bullet wound. It oozed blood. Good. The bullet had lodged in his muscle without rupturing an important blood vessel. However, he had not thought to throw any medical supplies into the bag. He checked the smaller compartments on either end of the bag anyway and found a medi-scanner along with a small medkit. Time did not allow him to do more than slap some gauze on the wound and wrap a bandage around his leg to hold it in place after a quick wipe down with the clean pant leg of the uniform.
The black pants he slipped on fit loose enough that if the bandage leaked, it might not soak into his pants too fast. The only option left was the spaceliner where they had set up a temporary suite for while it was in port. It would probably turn into a permanent one for their ride back to Goeken.
He limped out of the bathroom and tossed the uniform down a laundry shoot of the dressing room. It took effort to look casual as he limped down the corridor to the exit. A glance at his watch told him the spaceliner would be in port for only an hour. Had this adventure taken longer than he expected?
He stepped into the concourse and made a lazy limp towards the spaceliner’s dock. Someone grabbed his arm, causing him to spin around defensively. His wounded leg spasmed, and he grabbed the person to remain on his feet.
A quiet, feminine voice said, “Easy there. I might be trailed, but at this point we should simply head for the spaceliner.” Angela shifted to link her arm with his and propelled him along. She leaned closer to whisper, “How bad is the leg?”
“Not good.”
He replayed his recent adventure in order to determine anything he may have missed. The alarms did not go off for the archaic gun, but did for the recognized laser fire. That had triggered the emergency disengage despite an archaic gun putting slamming bullets into the duct walls.
The mission had not been a complete waste. He had definitely hit the other man. He expected little data, but the yacht would be the only ship with a streaming data transmission to Goeken headquarters from here. That could have added to the sudden detachment of the yacht, but he doubted it.
He should count himself lucky if they got on the spaceliner and no one came to drag them back to the station.
“What are you guys doing back there?” The voice crackled over the emergency channel all communications had auto transferred to upon going to auxiliary systems. “I still have sight of the woman, though she changed. Shall I continue?”
“Yes.” After a pause, Min said, “Will someone get this crate reattached to the station and get the computer back online? Claude, you better answer.”
Salindra listened as she worked to isolate the transmitted data. She smiled at a greeting from the bridge information officer, who reached the data at the same time she did. She responded with a challenge that she could beat either of them to parsing the data while getting the computer ai back online. With the challenge accepted, she cracked her knuckles and paused with a glance at Hawkins.
“You have any clue what strength it takes to pull these vents down?” Hawkins rolled a screw between his fingers. “He loosened some of the framework.” He held up the screw as if she could see anything odd about it across the large table between them. “It’s cleanly stripped.”
“It’s obvious the guy works out. Why don’t you do something constructive?”
“I am. It’s just that what I do best has no need of me to tell them what to do at the moment. The bridge crew runs like a well-oiled machine. Better than even a Droeken Armada warship.” He tossed the screw on the table. “Of course, we know why we had a forced undocking. Laser firing up the air ducts into the station. Who knows if we lost Claude or if Conrad got away? No sign of either thus far.”
Salindra put her gaze back on the table where she had the data stream sent to Goeken pulled up over the schematic she had been examining. Her fingers flew over a keyboard on the screen next to it. Without the computer ai functioning, she could not order it to parse the data, but she knew the data tags their transmissions put around files.
“There is definitely a security hole with the air connection. You would think the higher sensitivity to detect impurities in the air and the sensing when something is blocking the flow would work with security better.” Hawkins crossed his arms.
Salindra did not look up from the screen built into the table. “Those sensors only alert a maintenance crew, unless something is detected as a threat. Then security is alerted while that sector of ducts is locked down. Even a large air flow change will not cause alert, unless it is determined a sweeper does not cause it. A human moving in the larger ducts won’t block enough for a full alert.” She nodded as the file sorting produced the first filename for the list.
“Something should be done about that.”
Salindra slid her chair over a couple of feet and tapped the table screen to bring up a new workspace. She dragged the keyboard over and with a slide of her finger connected it to the what she had just opened. Her fingers flew over the keys, sending commands to determine what had drained the power to the ai.
“Fine, don’t humor me in this conversation. I’ll be nice and go up to the bridge and urge those young fellows to beat you.”
“Gee, thanks, pops.” She laughed and retyped a command she messed up because of looking up at him. “Make sure communications changed our signature for our transmissions. The Goekens have that.”
“Sure.” He stopped at the door that opened sluggishly. “I already feel sorry for them.”
“Yeah, because I know the first file sent.” She chuckled quietly. “An email about the beauty of this space station when the moon is fully lit. I can see Conrad if he got away, having his hide nailed to the wall.”
Hawkins shook his head and disappeared out of the door. Over the com he stated, “Boys, the lady is beating you to determining what got sent on that link. She is an utter digit head that is doing all the conversions in her head. Get this ship on another signature now, please.”
“Already done, sir,” came the reply.
Min’s voice came over the com next. “How much longer until the computer ai is back up?”
The information officer replied, “No, ETA ma’am. I know it has been spiked.”
“Keep working on it.” Min barely paused. “Someone report on the duct search and why the sensors are not properly reporting.”
“Min, I’m testing to see if a medi-scanner can detect life through the duct wall,” said Stefen. “Several of us are already in the ducts searching. I see them, but it is spotty.”
Stefen proved his quick thinking once again. With this crew, they would have everything recovered within the hour. Well, everything that did not need a mechanical fix or replacement. So far, the mechanical fixes included one bunkroom door and an air duct vent. She glanced up at it, remembering how easily Claude had yanked it down. That show of strength made her shiver. Did he even think about it when he did it? The man could center on an objective as well as she could to the exclusion of worrying about the path made to it until afterwards.
She zoned out the com enough to concentrate on what she needed to do. Though she had trouble keeping the thoughts of Claude out of her head. Did he really have a relationship with Min, or was there something else there that caused Hawkins to believe that? He hadn’t appraised her the same way this morning as he had last night at the dinner. She slammed her hands down on the table in frustration.
“Just go talk to the guy if he is still alive and be done with it already.” She ran her fingers back through her long hair to get it out of her face. “I need a padded cell.” She laughed and shook her head.
“I found …” The sound of a laser and a yell came over the com. “Someone get that gun out of his hand before he puts a hole in someone.” The sounds of struggle and then a rather loud thud came over the link.
Salindra gave the com a quizzical look.
Min’s commanding tone broke in, “Is that the goek?”
“Not sure. We haven’t got close enough. Whichever one it is, he’s not aiming too well, but who has to in this tight place?”
“Get him out alive, no matter which one it is.”
“Trying, ma’am.”
The com fell quiet, and Salindra refocused on the screen again. A beep alerted her to a new message from the information officer, which stated they had confirmed nothing important had traveled the link. She slid back to her data parsing that had stopped. It showed thirty-two emails, with some of them being the fakes they kept in the system.
She typed back that some emails were real, so the goeks had some of the personnel’s emails along with those they sent messages to. The information office conceded that point. She decided they could call it a draw and received a smiley with a tongue sticking out as a response.
She slid back to where she had dived into the power and ai issue. “Now let’s see how Mister Goek spiked us. I know the power definitely went off right after the communications link was set up.”
She hummed to herself as she scanned through data. The answer suddenly appeared on the screen. Oh, it was so simple to the point of idiocy. She shook her head, hating how the simple things could cause the biggest problems. She reached for the com.
“It’s Claude, and he’s,” the sound of someone retching in the background, “pretty messed up. We will need immediate medical assistance on level two. We’ll be coming down through a vent to the game room.”
“On my way.” Stefen’s voice rang with overdramatic worry. Salindra thought it would crack into a squeak if he had to say anymore.
She grimaced, waited a moment, and then gave her instructions. “Anyone in the electrical room?”
“Yes, ma’am. Been checking everything manually.”
“Have you checked the control system box? The last log I can find for the power is that it thought it had a short there. A manual override came right before that. Do a manual reset after verifying the control box is not damaged.”
“Give me a second.” A brief pause. “That’s it. He spiked the thing to make it think it had a malfunction. It cleared with a reset. I should have main power back online… now.”
The lights flared on and the table lit up more to compensate.
“Thank you. Clear.” She squinted until her eyes adjusted.
She looked at the sequence of commands on the screen that had confused the system. Conrad had come prepared on this mission. He also had the luck of finding a computer open with access to the power system. She grimaced. They couldn’t even trust to keep a computer open on a highly secure ship. Maybe not an issue in space, but now they knew rats could get in via the ducts while in port.
Stefen’s voice blared on the com. “I need OR ready ASAP.”
“Yes, sir.”
Min replied, “I’ll be right there.” Her commanding voice held a timbre of fear.
Salindra gulped. Would Claude survive? She remembered hearing someone retch during the report that they had found him. She slumped back in her chair, chewing on her lip, staring at nothing at all.
“A note from the concourse. The goeks are both on the spaceliner now. We need to recheck the booking. The spaceliner is in final boarding process for a departure in less than an hour.”
Hawkins answered, “Good enough. We’ll be back in the dock in fifteen minutes.”
Salindra rubbed her face as she leaned back even further in the chair so she could stare at the ripped down grate. A history definitely existed between Claude and Min. Time to stop fantasizing about anything that might happen in the future with dark and mysterious.
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