“I can’t talk to Arkady with the computer down.” Ned was tapping his Pad, as if he thought that would bring communications back. Moira thought he looked older than he had when she first met him a few hours ago.
“They’ve got some control in Security, don’t they?” Andy asked. “Isn’t the fail-safe designed to let the Sunnies handle an evacuation if it’s necessary?”
Ned nodded, but it was Pete who answered.
“I think Security can handle doorways and escape pod ejections. Those also work on manual override, but that knowledge is limited to a few station personnel. Rather, they think it’s limited. Arkady has trained everybody on how to do it, so that might work in our favor somehow. Security also has the ability to boot the system again, if it’s a problem that can be fixed.”
“Where do they have this access?”
“Their main office off the inner rim,” Ned said.
“We can’t deal with that,” Sam said, his voice dull, as if he didn’t care anymore. Sarah sat next to him on the floor, her arm resting on his knee. He was watching Ned’s pointless poking. “We’ve still got sixteen bombs to get rid of. And the last few have all been armed when we find them.”
Ned stopped poking and lifted his head to look at Sam. “All we’ve got is the cached display. If they move any of the bombs, we won’t know where they are. If they arm anymore of them, we won’t know that, either.”
Sam shrugged. “We work with what we’ve got.”
Moira traced a finger through her own display of the station until she reached the inner rim. “Why don’t we port the Sunnies to Earth?”
The only answer she got was silence, so she glanced up. Everyone was staring at her, and her stomach fluttered in sudden nervousness. “Umm ... was that a stupid question?”
Ned’s lip twitched. “What’s stupid is we never thought of it.” He looked to Sam. “At the least, we can port out any Sunnies we come to as we approach the bombs. Can you do that?”
“There are problems with it,” Sam said, slowly, as if thinking about it. “I can program the destination ahead of time. But how do we get the guards to stand still in one place, so I can program in their location?”
“How much time do you need? It seems to take just a few seconds with the bombs.”
“Yes, but the bombs aren’t moving. And I have the coordinates partially entered based on the map location. I can do that for the guards too, of course. Assuming the guards are not moving around ... I’d need five to ten seconds.”
“Sneak up on ‘em,” Ned said. “We’ll have to port ourselves in a little farther away, but if we can reduce the number of Sunnies, the sooner Arkady can get this station under control.”
“It will add seconds to every bomb search we do,” Sam said. “I’ll have to reprogram for the bomb every time.”
“Can you port out the guards in the main office?” Pete asked. “You can use the coords for the whole office so that you get them all.”
“That would port out the equipment, too,” Andy said.
Ned held up a hand. “Let’s do this another way. Send the ladies to Arkady’s location. I think it’s time we called out all the troops. With computer control gone, they’re going to be hopping mad, anyway. Karen can tell Arkady that we need lots of distraction. They can keep the guards busy, isolate and strand them, if possible. We can send them off-station later. Here.” He motioned to Karen, while bringing up his bomb display.
“We’ll follow this path, going from lower to upper levels at each location.” They all watched his finger move through the display. Karen nodded as if committing it to memory. “Tell Arkady I want people at each location, causing a ruckus.”
He turned to Andy, indicating a corridor on the map. “Send the women here. Arkady’s location is over here,” a green light blinked a few doors down. I doubt there’re any guards in the area. Arkady would never stand for it. You should be able to just walk down there.” The last was to Karen as she loaded up with weapons, but Moira nodded too. Finally, something useful to do.
She saw Andy press the button, but still experienced a shock to find herself someplace else. They were in a corridor with several closed doors in both directions. Karen turned in a circle, then picked a direction. “This way.”
They followed her to the third door down, next to a window covered with a shade. Karen knocked and called out, “Arkady, it’s Karen. Ned sent us down.”
The voice Moira was used to hearing through Ned’s Pad answered. “Hang on. We have to do this manually.”
A whirring sound came from the wall for a few seconds, then the door slid open. The tall and skinny man who stood in the doorway gave Karen a big grin and pulled her into a hug, weapons and all.
“Karen, me love! You’re a sight for me tired eyes. That husband of yours still treating you right?”
“Still is, Arkady.”
“All right. You let me know the minute I have a chance, now.”
Karen released herself from his grip and introduced Moira and Sarah. There were several other people in the room, which Moira recognized as the communications center she’d seen on the screen before they came up here. They all waved in greeting, but didn’t interrupt. Karen explained what they wanted.
“Pfft,” was Arkady’s first response, but he elaborated. “I can’t keep ‘em down. People are plenty mad, let me tell you. Hang on and I’ll get the troops started.” He scooped a walkie-talkie from his belt, and began making calls. Moira could hear the relief in the voices of the people Arkady talked to. As she listened, she realized that they were scattered all over the station. It was called a lockdown because people were literally locked into their rooms when it went into effect, but as Pete had mentioned, they all knew how to override the locks. They were disciplined enough to wait for information before doing it, knowing that they needed to make the most of the ability.
The walkie-talkies were something else they weren’t supposed to have. “There’s one in every room of the station,” Arkady said when she asked him. “I couldn’t abide the idea that we couldn’t talk to each other. In a real emergency, communication is essential.”
The bomb display showed an active location on their level, about five corridors over, so he sent his own people there, letting Karen lead them. Karen insisted that Moira and Sarah stay with Arkady, who remained to coordinate the uprising. Moira fumed, but knew she’d just be a liability. Sarah seemed almost grateful to be left out.
“Whatever happens,” Arkady said as the room emptied, “it won’t take long. We’ve got five thousand pissed-off people, and they have only a couple hundred Sunnies.”
~~~
Andy had ported out three of the remaining bombs. Sam was still quiet, and made no effort to do any of the porting, although he did keep an eye on Andy’s work. The next bomb was nearby, so they were walking, with Phil and Ned taking the lead. Pete and Lisa followed, walking backwards so they could see anyone coming from behind.
The noise hit them first, and Ned pumped a fist in the air. “Arkady’s got the troops out.”
There was no doubt about location, so they hurried, but the action was over by the time they got there. Ten people milled about the anteroom, trussing up the three unconscious guards. They greeted Ned with exuberance. “They never knew what hit ‘em,” one said. “They had no idea we weren’t still locked away.”
Andy and Sam slipped through the crowd while Ned talked to the group’s leader. “Stash the guards in a defensible room and have a couple of your people keep an eye on them. We’ll come back for them after we get rid of the bombs. The rest of you, join up with the next group. Remember, word will get to the other Sunnies that you’re out. They won’t all be easily surprised.”
That was true, Andy realized, suddenly nervous. Some of these people could die. He sent the bomb out, and Sam nodded, satisfied. They returned to Ned.
“I don’t think we should port to anymore locations,” Sam said. “The people are helping with the guards, but we’ve lost the advantage of empty corridors.”
“I agree.” Ned rubbed the back of his neck as he peered at his bomb display. “Randy here says that Arkady sent groups to every bomb location, so there should already be a crowd at the next one. I say we just hoof it over there as fast as we can.”
He turned to look over his burgeoning team. “Form a circle. These are the guys you’re protecting. They stay in the middle. If we run into guards, cover them at all times.”
As the group closed around them, Andy saw two of them take up station near a closed door. That must be where they stashed the Sunnies. He wished they had time to send them off station. But it would have to wait.