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I jerked my arms free of Alyssa’s grip and stalked off into the corridor. I still wanted to hit something. I was so mad that my back ached from muscles tensing up and my hands shook. I heard muted conversations back in the control room, but I wasn’t interested in what they were saying. It had all been a waste. I could have, should have, stayed with the Go-yen. At least we would all have been alive, and maybe I could have changed their minds so that we were ready for the next time the engines needed to burn. All a waste.
There was a light touch on my arm. I twisted away, turning to face whoever it was who had crept up behind me, spitting out ‘What?’ It was Alyssa, and she flinched back from me. I felt a little ashamed.
‘Can you come back in? There’s something I think you should hear.’
I didn’t move at first. Alyssa lowered her hand, still raised to touch my arm, then turned and walked back towards the control room. I followed three steps behind, stopping at the door and leaning on the edge of the opening with arms tightly folded across my chest and even my ankles crossed.
‘What?’
Danielle stood up and walked over to me, not stopping until she was well inside my comfort space. She was shorter than me, and had to stretch to look me in the eye. I glared back at her just as hard.
‘First,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever speak to me like that again, you hear?’
I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t blink. I wasn’t going to do anything else, but I was not going to back down. She broke the eye contact first and took a step back. I couldn’t look at the others.
‘Second,’ she said, going back to the chair in front of the console. ‘There might be a way to do this, but the time is going to be really tight.’
‘What do we need to do,’ I asked, moving further into the room.
‘It’s not that difficult, if what I think is wrong is what really is wrong. As far as I can make out the comms distribution node that feeds commands to the primary TCR is not making a connection to the drive units, so they can’t indicate that their energy hoppers are open and have capacity to take the feed from ... ’ She paused, probably because I looked as glazed over as Pitr and Alyssa. ‘The box that lets everything talk to everything else isn’t working right. I can’t talk to the box to manage it, and I can’t re-route the data for it. We have two chances. Try to make the box work, or change the way the systems communicate to bypass around it.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked. Danielle spluttered.
‘All? If you knew how -’
‘I mean are we sure that this is the only problem?’ I interrupted. ‘If we fix this, are we going to find another problem underneath?’
‘Oh. Fair point. Short answer – I don’t know.’
I let that pass for now. ‘So where is this node-thing?’
Danielle looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s the problem. It’s out near the TCRs.’
I looked blank.
‘Total conversion reactors?’ she offered, as if that would explain everything.
‘Which is where?’ I asked.
Danielle turned back to the controls and a few seconds later a map took the place of one of the red countdowns. I stood closer, squinting up at the screen as I figured out what the map was showing, then I groaned.
‘You have got to be kidding.’
‘What?’ asked Pitr, staring up at the screen. I had forgotten he probably couldn’t make out the detail.
‘The only way to this thing is back the way we came.’
Pitr covered his face with his hands, running them up and down with his forefinger going each side of his nose. ‘What do we have to do to get a break here?’ he asked, but I don’t think he was expecting an answer. I knew how he felt, though
‘We can’t,’ I said to Danielle.
‘You have to.’
‘Seriously, we can’t. Do you have any idea what is beyond that big door?’
‘But it’s just corpses. They’ve been dead for years.’
‘Really. Then who chased after us. There is still somebody out there and they aren’t friendly.’
Danielle’s face took on a stubborn expression. ‘Well that’s what needs doing, and that’s where it has to be done.’
I wanted to argue with her. I couldn’t understand how she could see how much was at risk, yet didn’t seem to care. I glared at her, not knowing what to do myself, but blaming her. ‘Maybe not,’ Pitr said, and I realised that only seconds had passed since Danielle had last spoken. I would have sworn it was minutes. ‘What about the drones?’
‘The what?’ said Danielle.
I flicked my eyebrows up when Pitr spoke. It was worth a try. I drew the probe out from under my shirt.
‘This,’ I said.
Danielle’s eyes opened wide. ‘Wow. A central core extension drone. May I?’
I lifted the thing off my neck and passed it over. Danielle twirled the drone around in her fingers, then a frown started to build between her eyes. ‘But this isn’t a real one. At least, it’s different to the ones I’ve seen. So you talk to Noah on this thing?’
My eyebrows shot up again. ‘No. Should I.’
‘Well that’s what they’re for, stupid. These are really rare, and Senior Officers use them for staying in contact with Noah, or whichever machine they are linked to, when they can’t use normal comms. But like I say, this one looks different.’
She rolled it around in her hands again, then suddenly stopped and glared up at me again. ‘Hey, these are only supposed to use neural interfaces. How come you - ? Can you really talk to it?’ I nodded, and Danielle’s face too on a sour expression. ‘Then I guess you outrank me. Sir.’
I didn’t understand her point, nor why she seemed mad at me. I was feeling mad myself. Again. I was starting to think that maybe some extravagant trick had been played on us and I wasn’t pleased. I pushed my mind into the probe.
‘Can you let me talk to Noah?’
‘No.’
Strangely, that made me feel a little better.
‘But aren’t you supposed to be able to?’
‘No.’
There was a pause as if the drone was waiting to see if that was enough and I would go away. When I didn’t give in, it offered more.
‘This unit is modified. There are no communications facilities with Noah intra-station at this time due to damage. This unit has had communications functionality replaced with additional storage capacity to allow it to replicate certain functions previously only actionable by Noah.’
That made a small amount of sense, and answered a few questions. I decided to pose another.
‘So you know what’s going on here.’
‘Constant audio monitoring to improve situational awareness is a feature of this unit.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Stand by. Initiating datalink to local services.’
Activity flickered across the consoles. Danielle jumped and reached for her controls.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ I said. ‘The drone is having a look.’
Fifteen second later, the consoles quietened down and the drone reported.
‘The existing analysis is the most probable. The comms distribution node C-112 should either be rebooted or rerouted.’
‘And the best route to get to it?’
‘Displayed.’
‘There are enemies here.’ I marked the position on the map. ‘And they maybe in other places, too. Does that change anything.’
The drone took a couple of seconds to answer.
‘No.’
‘And there is no other route? Not even with the debonder?’
‘No.’
I couldn’t speak for a few seconds after my conversation with the drone. Everybody was looking expectantly at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to say what I had to. Eventually, I had to put them out of our collective misery.
‘The drone says no other option, no other route.’