* * *
The use of the device Angela called a governor had taken us by surprise. With all of the bridge systems essentially shut down we had no way of knowing where we were headed and no way of calling for help. We were completely at the mercy of this young woman the pirates had sent to pilot us back to their base.
The trip would take us more than five days at the speed Ian had reduced us to, and I was determined to make use of every minute. My main concern was finding a way to pinpoint our position once we arrived at their stronghold. If we could calculate its coordinates I would be able to send a strike force against them and hopefully put an end to the pirate threat in one stroke. But with our sensors off-line and the navsys slaved to her override device we would have to come up with something creative. Which is where Barney came in.
As soon as I left the bridge I met with him in his shop to discuss the problem. Barney had been following what was happening on the bridge through the security camera network until Angela activated the governor and the transmission was cut off. For the first time since I had known him his self assured attitude seemed to waver. Without being able to directly examine the device she was using to control the ship he wasn’t sure he could get around it. I assigned Ian and Mark to work with him and left the three of them alone as they pooled their abilities to try and find a way to regain control of the ship.
For myself, I spent the next several hours of our journey stalking through the ship’s passageways as I thought about possible scenarios for when we arrived at our unknown destination. The problem was that we knew nothing about where we were going. If I had known that they had the means to take control of the ship away from us so completely, I would have thought long and hard before agreeing to this rendezvous. But we were locked on this path now and there was no turning back. And with no intelligence on our destination I would be making up our plans as we went along.
After several hours of fruitless walking I decided to check in on our trio of resident geniuses. When I entered Barney’s shop I found them huddled around the compartment’s comm-net panel. Mark was typing away feverously on the keyboard as Ian and Barney looked over his shoulders. After a few minutes however he threw up his hands and let out an exasperated breath.
“It’s impossible,” he said, pushing himself back from the console.
“And yet we’re completely locked out of every bridge system,” Barney said.
“But that’s not possible,” Mark continued to insist. “There’s no way they should be able to cut us off from every bridge system so completely. They’d need to be able to block every single one of the interlink pathways between each of the systems. I’ve been working with this ship’s systems for years and I don’t know all of the interlinks.”
“I gather you haven’t made any headway,” I said as I walked in on their meeting.
“Unfortunately not,” Barney said. “It’s as if the bridge doesn’t exist. We’re completely cut off from every system on the command deck. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“How are the rest of the ship’s systems holding up?” I asked Ian.
The big man shrugged. “Everything’s running normally. We just have no control over anything.”
I wandered around the compartment as they went back to talking among themselves, eventually making my way to the outer wall. Tapping the port control, I retracted the viewport cover and spent several moments watching the elongated needles of light swimming slowly past the ship which was how the stars appeared at hyperlight velocities. As I stared at the scene through the port my mind went back to the first moments after I had regained consciousness on that prison transport four years ago. I remembered how much I had wanted to have a viewport to look through at the time. I was sure that if I just could have seen the stars I’d have been able to figure out where I was.
“Sir?” Barney said.
I realized that I’d spoken aloud.
“It’s nothing important,” I said. “I was just thinking it’s too bad that we can’t simply take a look outside when we get there and reckon our position from the star patterns. But we’re going to be far too deep into the core for any of the constellations to be familiar.” From the corner of my eye I saw Barney suddenly sit bolt upright. I turned and watched him as he sat staring at the bulkhead for a few seconds and a smile slowly grew on his features.
“Of course. I’m such an idiot.” He turned to look at me. “And it will work! Sir, you’re a genius.”
Now it was my turn to stare blankly at him for a moment.
“While I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said, “would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”
“We’ve been so focused on getting control of the ship back that we lost sight of our real objective,” Barney explained. “We don’t need to have control of the ship to figure our position. All we need to do is take star sightings when we get there. Once we identify enough stars we can figure out where we are by triangulating their positions relative to ours.”
“That’s the problem,” Mark said. “We can’t take star sightings when she’s got us locked out of the ship’s sensors.”
Barney was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “But we don’t need the ship’s sensors. We can launch a portable sensor suite to take the readings.”
For several moments the room was silent as the three of them exchanged looks. I could almost hear their minds shift into high gear.
“I see two problems,” Ian said. “First, they’re going to be watching us very closely when we get there, so it’s going to be extremely difficult to get anything off the ship without them seeing it. Second, even if we can manage to launch some kind of sensor suite, as soon as it starts scanning they’re going to pick it up.”
Barney’s grin grew even wider. “Not if all it’s doing is taking passive scans. … Light! All it needs to do is analyze the light coming from the stars. Every star gives off a unique spectrum. It’s as individual as a person’s DNA. Passive spectroanalysis of the surrounding stars is bound to turn up a number of them that can be identified with the navsys database. We simply download a copy of the navigational database into the suite and have it scan for stars that match ones we have on file.”
“But how do we download a copy of the navsys database when we can’t access any of the bridge systems?” Mark asked.
“The isolated files core,” Ian said. He turned to Mark who was looking a little lost. “Every Fleet ship has an isolated set of operating system programs. In case something happens to corrupt one of the control systems we can simply purge the affected system and reinstall a copy of the original program from the protected core.” He looked back at Barney. “And I think I know what we can use as a platform for a portable sensor suite. We’re going to need something that’s relatively small, able to propel itself, with its own stealth projector and the ability to carry a sensor package—”
“A torpedo!” Mark said. “We can reconfigure one to use optical sensors only. But torpedoes don’t have the storage capacity to carry a copy of the navsys files, so we—”
“Remove the warhead and install a quantum processor package,” Barney said.
“This just might work,” Mark said as an edge of excitement crept into his voice. “That still leaves us with the problem of getting it off the ship. They’ll pick up the change in our energy emissions as soon as we power up any of the launchers.”
“That’s the easy part,” Ian said. “If it comes down to it we can just open a port hole and shove the thing out. As long as the stealth projector is working they’ll never see it leave the ship. What we need to do …”
They were so engrossed in their planning that they didn’t pay any attention to me as I headed toward the exit. Now that they seemed to be making progress toward solving their problem, I needed someone to help me with mine. I was just reaching for the hatch control when the door was opened from the other side. Morgana w
as standing in the doorway.
“I really wish you’d tell me how you do that,” I said.
“We need to talk.”
I stepped into the passageway with her.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked as the door closed behind me and we started walking.
“It’s our guest.”
“Has she done something else to the ship?”
“No. Little Suzie Homemaker hasn’t done anything but sit there and let her device do all the work.”
“You don’t like her very much, do you,” I said.
“Gee, how could you tell?”
“It’s the little things like the way you keep pointing guns at her. Why does she bother you so much?”
Morgana made a sour face. “There’s something wrong about her. I don’t know why but she just grates on my nerves whenever I’m in the same room with her.”
“Kind of like the way our Mr. Smith grates on my nerves.”
She shot me a thoughtful look for a moment. “There’s something else, too. Have you noticed the way the rest of the crew, the male crew, seem to be tripping over their own feet around her?”
I had noticed. I also remembered the way she had affected me. “She is very attractive,” I said, hoping that I wasn’t opening a new can of worms.
“Is she?” Morgana asked.
“Of course she can’t hold a candle to you—”
“That’s not what I’m getting at. What I mean is … is she really that much more attractive than other women, or is it something else?”
“Okay, now you’re losing me,” I said.
“Well, some women have a way of carrying themselves that makes them seem more attractive than they are. I knew an ensign once who could have any man follow her around like a love sick puppy just by playing with her hair a certain way.”
Now it was my turn to frown. “Are you’re saying she’s just acting pretty?”
“No, it’s more than that. I can’t put my finger on it but something about her just doesn’t add up.”
She seemed harmless to me, but I had learned to trust Morgana’s instincts. “At least her movements are restricted so she can’t cause any trouble,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” Morgana said. She sounded anything but convinced.
“Okay, we’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t start a riot. But you didn’t come looking for me just to tell me that our guest is turning heads.”
“No, I didn’t.” Morgana stopped walking and placed her hands on her hips. “She says that she’s getting a migraine and wants to go to the infirmary.”
The infirmary was one of the few off limits areas of the ship. Along with the engine room, avionics bay and torpedo room, the infirmary was one of the only spaces that had not been disguised to appear like part of a beat up old scow because we needed those systems fully functional at all times. Once she saw the inside of the infirmary she would know that the Prometheus was more than what it appeared to be.
“Well, she can’t,” I said flatly. “We’ll send her to the cabin we prepped for her and I’ll have Doc look in on her there.”
Morgana relaxed at my words. I accompanied her to the bridge because I wanted to see Angela’s condition for myself. It did seem a little coincidental that shortly after arriving on board she was asking to be let into one of the few spaces that were out of bounds.
When we arrived I found her bent over the helm console resting her head on her forearms. She slowly cracked open one eye to look up at us as we approached. As we stepped up beside the helm she gingerly pushed herself up into a sitting position
“Your security officer wouldn’t let me leave the bridge without your permission, Captain,” Angela said softly.
“That is her job,” I said as I looked at her. Even at a quick glance I could see that her complexion was pale and waxy and she had sweat beading her forehead. “I’m going to have our doctor take a look at you. I’m afraid our infirmary is out of commission at the moment, but we have a spare cabin you can use. Doc will come and examine you there.”
“Thank you,” she said as she pushed herself slowly to her feet. “I get these headaches from time to time. It’s nothing serious but I’d appreciate something to dull the pain. After that I’ll just need to sleep in a dark room for a few hours and I’ll be fine.”
“My security officer will show you to your cabin,” I said.
“Thank you, Captain,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
She started to leave the bridge, then turned back to the helm as if she just remembered something. Reaching to the upper corner of the console she pulled the governor free. The other bridge consoles remained dark while the helm continued to be the only functioning system. She looked up at me and smiled self consciously.
“I’m supposed to keep this with me,” she explained as she slipped the device into her pocket. “It’s keyed to my biorhythm. If I get more than a few meters away from it, it will shut down and bring the ship to a dead stop.” Why did her explanation sound more like a warning?
Turning away again she allowed Morgana to direct her off the bridge.
Once they were gone I moved to the helm and stood beside Bobby who had reclaimed his seat and was experimenting with the controls.
“Anything?” I asked.
“I’m still locked out,” Bobby said, shaking his head. “The system won’t take any input from the console. I can’t even see what our heading or velocity is. When she took that governor thing with her, half of the readouts that had been working shut down. We’re flying completely blind now. The only thing I can read is the ETA timer. According to it we’ve got a little over a hundred and twenty-three hours flight time to go.”
I reached around Bobby and tried a few of the controls myself with the same results.
“Go down to Barney’s shop and get Ian,” I said. “While our guest is off the bridge let’s see if we can figure out just what she did to us.” It still didn’t seem possible for someone to gain such total control of our ship using a device no larger than a palmpad. Ian knew the systems on this ship better than anyone alive. If anyone could find a way to reverse whatever she had done it would be him.
As Bobby left the bridge I looked over at Chris who was still sitting in the command chair.
“Keep an eye on things,” I told him. “I’m going to talk to Doc.”
Chris gave me a wry smile and poked at the station’s darkened command board. “I’ll do what I can.”
I left the bridge and headed to the infirmary. The door was locked when I arrived and I quickly typed in the access code. As long as our guest was aboard all sensitive areas would be secured to keep her from stumbling across anything we didn’t want her to see.
“Doc?” I called as I stepped into the main ward and the hatch slid closed behind me.
“I’ll be out in a moment, Captain,” Doc’s voice called from his office.
While I waited I slowly paced across the empty compartment. Three vacant bio beds projected from the bulkhead to my right directly across from the inactive monitoring station on my left. Immediately past the patient monitoring console was the surgery niche with its operating table and overhead surgical suite. And tucked into the opposite corner just past the last bio bed was the neural assayer. All in all it was a compact space but one stocked with all of the equipment necessary to conduct virtually any procedure that could be performed in a full hospital. I wandered over to the operating niche and ran my hand absently across the padded table. It was right here, not too many days ago, that I had undergone my transformation from Jason Raynor, reigning monarch of the most powerful star kingdom in the galaxy, to the smuggler captain, Cordass Pell. So far that was the most extensive use the surgical bay had been put to on this trip. I’d like to keep it that way.
“Jason,” Doc’s voice called from behind me. “What can I do for you?”
I turned and found Doc Jacobs standin
g in the doorway to his office.
“Our guest claims she has a migraine,” I said.
“And you think she’s faking it for some reason,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I shrugged. “You tell me. From the way she looks she seems to be pretty sick, but Morgana’s got her back up about her.”
Doc reached for his portable med-kit on the edge of the monitoring console. “Then I guess I should go have a look at her.”
I accompanied him up to A deck. On the way I spoke to him about the effect Angela seemed to be having on the crew. Doc didn’t think it was anything more than infatuation with a pretty new face but said he would keep an eye out for anything unusual. I left him at her cabin door and returned to the bridge. When I got there I found Ian on his back underneath the helm console as he tried to trace the problem.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked.
“I’ve run a full diagnostic on every one of these circuits. There’s nothing wrong with any of them,” Ian answered, sounding exasperated. “Whatever that device of hers did is beyond me.” He turned off his scanner, snapped the access panel back into place and sat up.
“So it looks like our young passenger is going to stay in control of our ship until she decides to release us,” I said. I reached up and massaged the bridge of my nose as a wave of fatigue washed over me. My lack of sleep over the past few days was beginning to catch up with me.
“If you don’t need me anymore I’ll be getting back down to the shop,” Ian said as he stood up. “We’ve pulled one of the torpedoes to start on the modifications we talked about. We’re hoping to have it ready in a few hours.”
“That’s something,” I said. “Keep me advised on your progress.”
After Ian left the bridge I glanced around the incapacitated control center of my ship. Although all of the bridge systems were inactive I still had each post manned. Access panels were open on each console and portable scanners were being used to run diagnostics on every circuit. In spite of all our efforts however the consoles continued to remain dark. After completing a frustrating circuit around the bridge I returned to the command chair and instructed Chris to let me know if they had success regaining control of any of the ship’s functions. Then I left for my cabin to get some much needed rest.
At the moment there was nothing more for me to do. In spite of the fact that we’d uncovered a significant amount of intelligence on the pirates and their operations, until we could find a way to track the movements of their ships we weren’t any closer to actually being able to stop them. I just hoped that our plan to learn the coordinates of their secret base worked. If we could get that information back to Admiral Magus, he could send the Fleet in to mop up. I hoped that once their center of operations was gone the individual pirate ships would become less of a problem.
By the time I reached my cabin I was so tired that I didn’t even bother to turn on the lights. I made my way directly to my bunk, pulled off my boots and stretched out on top of the covers. I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.