The first thing she sensed was the lack of light. She was convinced her eyes were open, but the complete blackness confused her. She knew she was there for an important reason and time was short. Exactly what that reason was eluded her. It was there, she could feel it, almost touch it, but somewhere, somehow, a small connection was missing.
‘I am Cleo,’ she blurted in frustration, remembering her name.
The lights flickered on, taking her by surprise, until she realised they were voice activated and she was alone. A store room had illuminated around her. Shelves stocked with engineering equipment from floor to ceiling surrounded the corner she was sitting in. Looking down she discovered she was wearing some sort of uniform; one she didn’t recognise. It was a little grubby, with what looked like old oil stains that wouldn’t quite wash out. A badge on each shoulder displayed a wrench of some kind, which brought back to her she was supposed to be masquerading as an engineer. Clapping her hands and stamping her feet, she checked the quality of the holo-emitters on this vessel. No glitches were apparent in her three-dimensional materialisation, which pleased her.
She stood, rummaged along the shelves, picked up a tool box that wasn’t too heavy and made for the door at the far end. It was locked, so she thought her way around the mechanism until it clicked. Suddenly realising she didn’t have any idea of what she was meant to do, or where she was supposed to go, she hesitated.
I downloaded myself onto this ship for a specific reason, she thought to herself. I just wish I could remember what it was.
The door opened suddenly, pushing her back into the room. A young engineer almost jumped out of his skin when he saw her, although what he saw was an older senior male Klatt engineer.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘Didn’t know anyone was in here.’
The use of the title “sir” indicates I’m senior to him, she thought. He seems quite nervous.
‘Then pay a bit more attention in future,’ she snapped back and strode purposefully past the cowering junior engineer. Attempting to look as though she knew where she was going, she turned right down a dimly lit corridor that opened out further down into a much larger and more brightly lit area.
She glanced left and right as she passed through, recognising some of the machinery as power supplies to the massive antigrav motors hulking at the far end of the room, which she was rapidly approaching. Thankfully, they weren’t in operation, as the noise would’ve been ear-splitting and she didn’t have any ear defenders. She smiled at the thought, realising she could just adjust her hearing parameters to compensate if the situation arose.
The doorway at the far end of the cavernous room slid to one side as she approached. Passing quickly through, she stopped in her tracks as she found herself on a narrow bridge above a huge drop. Looking down, she could also see the void below curved around the inside of the hull. She could see two massive blue-coloured beam emitters pointing outwards towards closed octagonal sliding doors. She looked up to find another two of the same curving away above.
There must be eight of these if they encircle the ship, she thought.
After crossing the five-hundred-metre bridge as fast as she could walk, another door swished open at the far end of the chamber and she was glad to be away from the frightening drop. Thankfully, the corridor she now found herself in could have been in any ship, being four metres wide and three high, with white walls and lighting panels glowing in the ceiling. She felt a little more secure.
An airlock on the right-hand side caught her attention, and peeking through the small porthole revealed what she thought was a hangar on the other side. Thinking the inner door open, she checked through the outer door before opening that one too. She had been right – row upon row of small unrecognisable fighters filled the vast hangar stretching away hundreds of metres to a shimmering atmosphere shield at the far end.
Shrugging and turning to leave, she stopped abruptly. A small black shuttle sitting in one of the service bays at the back of the hangar to her left caught her eye.
That’s a GDA shuttle, she thought. What’s that doing here?
She approached to find both the airlock doors open, two GDA-issue laser pistols set to heavy stun lying on the cockpit floor, together with two helmets and two 28 identification wristbands that had been cut off. Scanning them, she found the first belonged to the 28’s Captain Nicodemus Pickyrd and the second was registered to— She sat down heavily on the navigator’s seat, reading the second name over and over. Captain Edward Virr.
Is he the reason I’m here? she thought. A rescue mission?
Realising that made the most sense, she found she had to completely reboot the ship’s systems to prep for a quick departure, then programmed a random embedded jump into clear space and picked up one of the laser weapons and hid it in her tool box.
This time the shuttle’s airlock was closed and code locked so no one could alter anything before departure. Picking up her tool box, she made her way back to the airlock and once through, turned right and scanned ahead for Ed’s DOVI.
She was cross with herself for not trying that before, as she found him straight away nearer the front of the ship in a detention wing.
‘Ship has everything except a fucking taxi rank,’ she said, beginning the long walk towards the bow. ‘I’m coming, Ed. Just hang on.’