Adrift in Space

Peter's padlet chirped, he looked quickly and smiled.

Shocked gasps caused him to turn. Four Sylvans gaped in horror at the prone Guard, their heads rose to take in the greater carnage. They finally noticed Anna and their expressions turned to confusion as they saw the body armor. Designs like it were common to many of the VR games but this was clearly different.

"They would send the flattest chested female in the fleet, this way. Harriet, Sean" Anna spoke sharply as she fussed with the armor and motioned them to follow her down the hall to the conference room. They blinked and finally followed. Angie's face showed shock. Peter rifled the pockets of the male Guard before he quickly walked to the female Guard, stuffed three more magazines into his pockets before he dashed to the dead female Sylvan and picked up her pistol before he returned quickly to the intersection.

"It's me," he said.

"Come," Anna replied.

He walked through the crowd and into the conference room. He pulled his shattered padlet out of his pouch and dropped it on the table to surprised looks. He looked around and grabbed one.

"Hey," said a male at the far side, "that's mine."

"I'm borrowing it, someone shot mine with a couple of bullets. Besides, they've all been wiped. Just get a new one, you'll have to load it from your archives."

"A gun?" It was Harris. "An actual gun?"

"Yeah, sorry dude, even up here can't get away from the shit."

"Who are the reactor techs?" After a moment Diana and a male nodded.

"Let's go," he nodded outside before he looked at the remaining Sylvans, "you and you, promise me you'll get Harris to the evac balls? He's blind in here."

"We will, Paetor, trust us," both wagged their heads.

"Good, get going, time's wasting," he stepped outside, Anna had organized the crowd and had apparently calmed the quartet who'd seen the bodies. He stepped to Anna's side as the two males with Harris between them.

"Anna, get going, the ops computers told me they might not be able to contain things, Brittany and Iris are still fucking around. I'll take these two to the control rooms, probably have to shoot my way in."

"Go? I'm going with you. This is MY ship. I am not running away."

"Anna, you need to—-"

"Who made you the Queen?" Her voice was hard, but with a touch of humor. He growled but nodded.

"Besides, Hardy will only obey me," she said simply before she turned to the crowd, "get going all of you. Hurry. We'll see you all back here in a few hours. Or maybe tomorrow. We'll have to check things out."

"We're coming with you, we're trained in first aid," Angie said, her voice shaky but her expression was firm and Kim nodded vigorously, "and you'll probably need us."

"Uh, I don't think...," Peter started but Anna shushed him.

"Come," they moved to stand next to the two techs and Hardy followed them, "rest of you, go. If you see Victor Duskrider tell him he knows where to meet me. Unless he's a coward."

"GO!"

They finally moved.

"I'm point, I mean, I'm in front, yeah. Watch war movies, team. Anna, tell Hardy to bring up the rear, keep an eye out. Single file and stay tight."

She and the Guard's shaded eyes caught and he nodded. Peter shrugged and led them, Anna stepped to trail just behind and off his left side, the two changelings and then the techs followed in the directed single file.

"How many folks on the ship right now, Anna?" Peter led them at a fast walk.

"About two hundred fifty, not counting Duskrider's crew. One other pair of Guards but I could not contact them. They are dead or turned. They were not the pair you killed."

"Ok," Peter glanced at his padlet and turned the left quickly as he scanned every hallway, one of the pistols in his right hand, a second in his pocket and the phaser back in his waistband, "I only saw them bring one pair, assuming they're with Duskrider then somehow they got at least the dead pair here too, so we have to assume they have more."

Her growl echoed in the hallway.

"Oops," he stopped quickly and Anna's sound renewed as he turned them to the right, "this way."

"That's not the way to the—-," she grunted as the followers jostled.

"We're not using a regular entrance," he led down a short, dead-ended hallway. He slipped the pistol another pocket and typed quickly on the padlet. A moment later a panel in the end wall slid open.

"What?" Anna's question was echoed.

"C'mon, inside," Peter led them into a small chamber which held a dozen white parkas and insulated trousers on hooks. It was a tight fit to get everyone in. Peter tapped a panel at the opposite end and the panel closed behind them.

"This is the access to the supercomputers," Diana said, "we can't go in there."

Peter ignored her and typed on his padlet. The door at the front of the room unsealed and cold air seeped into the room.

"Yes, Diana, it is. We know at least one door is guarded, we have to assume the others are too. But. No one is allowed in here while the systems are at full operation. And trust me, they're fully engaged. And in very bad moods. Grab jackets, no time for more."

"Bad moods? They're computers," It was the male tech, Peter hadn't gotten his name. After a moment, Anna grabbed a jacket and the rest followed suit. She grabbed a second one and held it for him.

"That's what we've believed. They're more. Anyway, we're going fast. We don't have time to get dressed and they're not going idle. There is a door that goes directly into the control room. Anna, tell Hardy to follow me, techs, behind him. The workstations are to the right, through the door, I'm going right, Hardy watch my back. Everyone else, wait for me to give all clear. Anna, here."

"Paetor," Anna glared at him, "I'm following Hardy in. Give me your phaser. I know how to use one and will greatly enjoy zapping your bitch girlfriends into an alternate dimension."

He winced before he handed the phaser to Anna and accepted the jacket, shrugged it on.

"All right, stay to the far side of the passage, do NOT touch walls or anything if you want to keep your flesh. It'll be cold but survivable for as long as we're in there."

"There are security features to keep paeple out except using maintenance protocols," Diana said firmly.

"Lasers, more, yeah. But who do you think I've been talking to," he held his padlet up, "them. They opened the door. They will allow us passage this time. Once we go through, crouch as low as you can. They're aiming for 'center of mass,' your guts. They're not that good with the pistols. If it's a phaser, well, hopefully not on kill."

He stuffed his padlet into his pouch behind the borrowed one and pulled the door open to a rush of chilled air before anyone could grumble.

"You only live once," he led Hardy and Anna into the cold.

The bank of supercomputers were black blocks with stippled surfaces. Peter had been in here on a few maintenance runs, dressed in the protective gear. There were rows of LEDs. solid blue ones showed nominal operations, others blinked through shades of blue and green to indicate furious operations. Not only did they operate systems all over the ship they also supported things like the VR tanks which had dedicated computers to avoid lag but those depended on the central systems for much of the rendering and related processing. This hardware used exquisitely designed atomic-scale transistors made with an exotic semiconductor material that wouldn't be unfamiliar to Earth's scientists, but manipulated with exotic additions and ridiculously tiny. Padlets and wristlets used similar chips but much slower clock speeds. In this room they were joined with banks of quantum computers. Liquid nitrogen circulated through the systems as well as the quantum circuits. The surrounding room was kept at close to minus forty degrees to minimize heat stress.

The combination was obviously more than the sum of the parts.

Somehow.

It wasn't simply the cold, the quantum systems were sensitive to any changes in heat or even electric fields introduced by bodies. But that wasn't the worry right now.

They had five, ten or at most fifteen minutes with the parkas. The walk would take only two. Sylvans had better cold resistance than humans but he didn't know about Angie and Kim. And no flesh was made for minus forty.

He glanced back, walked quickly. He looked forward to long discussions with these computers. Whether they'd just kept it to themselves or this crisis had pushed them beyond some boundary might be his life's work.

He held his hand up as he arrived at the door. Unfortunately the heavy insulation meant they'd go in deaf and blind. He pulled the jacket off and held it against the emergency button that would allow them to open the door, it was designed for someone trapped to get out but not without leaving behind a bit of flesh. He stopped.

Female voices shouting in his earbud. One, no two. Brittany. Iris. A male shouting. Oh, fuck. He looked, it didn't seem the systems had hooked anyone but him into this. He looked at the black boxes. They'd forced their way around some block. Good. They were occupied.

He turned, mouthed 'three' then dipped his head, once, twice, and on the third dip he pushed the door open 180 degrees to slam it against the wall and pushed through, felt Hardy right behind him. He scanned the room as he turned and saw no one, he lowered himself to a single knee with a two-handed grip on the pistol.

He expected an immediate response but the three Sylvans he faced ten feet away were too occupied to even notice. Brittany's hands performed a combination of typing and pounding at her keyboard as she shouted at the other pair. To her left were Iris and a seated male whose name Peter couldn't remember but who he did know was another reactor engineering student, one who'd stayed on this ship. They alternated pointing at a couple of terminals and keyboards and yelling at Brittany. He didn't see any weapons on them.

Peter realized Anna was tight behind him, also crouched and with her face just above his right shoulder. She held the phaser in her right hand but it wasn't quite pointed at their targets.

"You fucked THOSE two? Vicki will stuff both of their faces into the toilet. Then she will simply shoo them out, no beat-downs necessary," Anna said into his ear, she must've liked that last phrase when he'd used it at some point as she'd had it translated into her language for it to come back at him, "if I don't kill them before that day."

Whether they'd seen them, heard her not quite whisper or felt the cold air that poured into the room he didn't know but all three went silent and turned to look. Their eyes widened and their mouths dropped open.

"Brittany," Peter said, "Iris, and whatever the fuck your name is, back away from the consoles. I don't want to shoot anyone."

"I do, though," Anna added, she stepped alongside Peter and rose as he rose, "please make it easy for me."

The trio used their feet and had just started to roll their chairs back when the main doors to Peter's left were both slammed open and rapid fire gunshots erupted in a space of seconds. Peter had once wondered why the doors for this control room were all the rare kind that swung instead of slid into the walls. Once he'd broken into the schematics he'd seen the wiring related components. Made sense.

Down," Peter slammed into Anna and knocked them backwards onto the ground behind Hardy as he turned. Somewhere beyond him back in the passageway he heard a scream and what sounded like shattering glass as he rolled onto his left side to face the doors.

"Watch them, Anna!" She growled, a couple of bullets hit the wall above them. He grunted when something slammed into his right thigh. He looked down, it hadn't been a square hit but the shattering bullet had gouged out a chunk.

Peter saw the usual male and female Guard pair, both had pistols. Their aim was fortunately poor, the pistols less forgiving than phasers. But he heard the hits on Hardy.

But Hardy had likewise had success based on the red stains on both opponents' white shirts. Peter used his elbows and exhaled, pulled his trigger. The female Guard's left cheek just below her ever present black shades exploded and her head jerked. He fired off a second shot and caught her in the throat. She dropped.

Both Hardy and his male opponent emptied their magazines before they simply dropped the pistols and pulled phasers as they charged. Peter managed a last shot that caught the Guard in the left hip, it didn't stop him but he stumbled and Peter heard another scream when he guessed the brute had fired his phaser but his aim missed Hardy and the prone pair before he and Hardy collided.

He saw a Sylvan in the doorway with a pistol in his hand. Peter raised his gun but the male simply turned and ran and his bullet struck the wall across the hallway. He forced himself to a seated position as blood ran from his thigh. It wasn't an arterial hit.

"Anna, give me your phaser, I'll help Hardy," he said.

"No, watch them, I'll do it," she pushed away from him. She stood up and walked quickly to the piled pair and said something he didn't quite hear. The pair rolled and she used the same trick he'd used, the phaser at the Guard's neck. The struggle ended and Anna quickly bent down at who he assumed was Hardy rolled onto his back and gurgled a couple of times before he coughed up a plume of blood and went still.

He glanced behind him, saw Angie and Kim unfurl themselves from the far corner where they'd hidden. They walked to the source of the cold air and both gasped, he saw a stream of vapor that flowed through the door.

"Anna," she looked at him as he grunted and forced himself to stand, "watch those three. Gotta check the systems."

She nodded and turned. He admired the two changelings who shivered but forced their way upstream. At the door he saw that each young woman had grabbed a prone body and slowly dragged the victims. He looked quickly, saw blood on only one. The other hit by the phaser? He looked for the source of the vapor, liquid nitrogen flowed from a black box that had taken a bullet and immediately vaporized. Bad, but the overload from a phaser on max would've been as big an issue. Amber and red LEDs had replaced the formerly blue ones. More worryingly he saw a large area that had gone dark. Bad. Very bad.

Neither tech moved, if they'd survived the shots the flow of super cold nitrogen had likely finished the job. He helped Angie hurriedly pull Diana's body. He didn't even know if they had procedures to deal with this level of damage in the computer room but there was nothing he could do now. He closed the door.

"They dead?" First Kim then Angie nodded before Kim's eyes went wide.

"Paetor! You're injured," Kim said, "Angie, where ish the kit?"

Angie opened a cabinet in the far corner and pulled out the bright green first aid kit the size of a small ice chest.

"It's a flesh wound, this way," a blood trail followed him as he rolled a chair and sat down next to Brittany and put his padlet on the shelf next to her terminal. He popped the magazine and tossed it away and inserted a fresh one from his pocket, primed it and thumbed the safety and slipped the pistol into his pouch in front of the blank padlet. Kim knelt and sliced his trousers off just above his wound, he stood slightly to let her pull the cloth off.

"Peter, love...," Brittany said and he heard Anna's immediate challenge as she settled just behind him.

"Shut up, blue eyes, I'll get to you in a minute. Need to check on my friends. Angie," he turned quickly and caught the changeling's eyes, tears ran freely but like Kim she focused, "use some medical tape, or bandage, whatever. Tie those doors closed, it'll at least slow someone. I don't have time to fuck with locks."

She nodded and walked quickly to the first aid bag next to Kim and grabbed an extra roll of tape. Peter gripped the table with his left hand as he grimaced as Kim pressed his wound and he typed with his other hand.

"Iris," Peter said but his eyes and fingers stayed on his padlet, he'd noticed Brittany's terminal appeared frozen, "who's in the reactor chamber? Your sabotage required pulling physical connections."

"Two practicals," her voice was firm as she glanced quickly at him before she glared at Anna, "but we can't contact them."

Anna spoke in a harsh but controlled voice as he typed and tried to contact the ops systems again.

"Where are the techs? We need the—-"

Screams erupted as the room rotated forty-five degrees forward. Peter's chair rushed forward but his grip allowed him to brace himself, his other hand held the padlet in place. Kim yelped as she tumbled under the table but Peter admired that she twisted and hit the wall with the sides of her legs and her hips. Anna pressed against his back and he felt her arm go around him and she exhaled hard as her midsection hit the back of the chair.

Thuds from Peter's right as dead bodies slammed against the wall.

To his left the male Sylvan's chair rolled rapidly and his ass lifted slightly off of the chair before his waistline hit the edge of the table. The chair tumbled after him and helped push his upper body forward and his forehead smashed into the terminal with that melon-cracking sound Peter was familiar with.

Iris fell into the back of Brittany's chair. The blue-eyed female managed to spin herself to put Iris behind her. The pale female's lower back hit the table edge with the whole of Brittany's weight against her. She screamed a second time. Braced against Iris, Brittany grunted but seemed uninjured.

The room tilted rapidly to the right and Brittany rolled into him. Anna spun herself around his other side to brace the two of them against the table, their combined grips kept them in place. Kim let out a yelp but seemed to hold herself in place. Iris dropped to her knees as the unconscious male and his chair's armrest slammed into her head on one side and in turn slammed the other temple against Brittany's armrest.

A male's scream outside the room preceded a loud thud against the double doors to Peter's left. The latches held the doors closed. The room mostly righted itself, their perceived 'rear' still a few degrees raised.

"HEY," Peter shouted, he slammed his elbow into Brittany's nose as she grabbed for the gun. She howled and pushed back and put both hands on her face as blood flowed freely.

"Goddammit, Brittany, it's FUCKING OVER. Help us or we're all going to die."

"Wae shtill have gravity," Anna said, switching to English, "are you okay, Kim?"

"Yeah, will have shome bruishes," a long strip of gauze stretched from the injured thigh under the table, it went slack as Anna moved and Kim crawled out and quickly finished bandaging Peter's thigh.

"Angie?"

Peter looked quickly over his shoulder, she stood against the double doors. She'd managed a couple of wraps of tape around the handles and appeared to have held onto them through the ship's fit. She gave a thumbs up and a weak smile.

"Come and check theshe idiotsh, Angie," Anna directed her, "I will shee who knocked on the door."

"Careful," Peter said, he moved the pistol from its pouch to his right side as Kim tied off the gauze and quickly wrapped tape around it. He went back to his padlet.

"New one on me," he announced to the room, "gravity generator fluctuations. Anna, can they do that?"

"No," she said before she put her finger to her mouth, stood alongside the door with her phaser, she glared at Brittany as the young female held her face and sobbed. She stood for a count of three then reached across and pulled the near door slightly open. There was a smear of blood from about chest height down and the top of a head flopped into a pool of blood.