Nathan fell atop the railing on the next lower walkway, the second floor. The topmost safety rail slammed into his side and he felt the crunch as his ribs cracked, something of which he had a passing familiarity given his earlier experience. He fell further, but this time on the proper side of the walkway, safe on the floor below his attacker.
Not that the thief had any further intention of going after him. Nathan heard frantic steps upstairs, unknown movement and unknown labors, and then the thief was out of the office and pounding down the walkway in the opposite direction Nathan had run, in the same direction Kristene had gone, toward freedom and the loss of all their secrets.
Nathan had already paid too much to keep those secrets safe only to let him get away now. He struggled to his feet and limped toward the mid catwalk stairway that the first and second levels alone shared. “Screw this. You wanna play with capacitors, I’ll show you some goddamn capacitors.”
He reached the production floor just as the thief reached the far stairwell, only three flights and a short jog away from the exit. Nathan looked around frantically among the jumbled pieces of the ship, nowhere near being put together, and some of them still in the midst of testing. One system test stood out in particular.
Beyond a number of high-voltage danger signs and two perimeters of caution tape, one of the intended weapons of the ship stood at full power and readiness. Part of a capacitor bleed test, the CMEDLA (Collimated Multiple Element Diode Laser Array) had all of its components installed, from the many farads worth of ultracapacitors, to the pulse stretching power inductors, and even the diodes and optics assemblies. Any component that could potentially bleed off a trickle of power from the fully charged ultracap bank was present, in order to see how long an effective charge could be maintained in the array, a very important tactical consideration. Everything was there except for the complicated operating system, but Nathan had no need for complexity with what he planned to do.
Passing by the lens trunk, Nathan shoved the rolling concrete safety target out of the way and then eyeballed the base of the stairs. He bumped the trunk with his hip for a gross aim adjustment and shrugged as the thief jumped down onto the last flight of steps. Nathan limped back to the trigger assembly that separated the power section from the beam-forming section and frowned at the delicate tangle of diodes and relays, all useless without their operating systems and the computer programs on the eventual bridge.
“I always said this was an unsafe design,” he mumbled. With that, Nathan picked up a long wrench and tossed it across the trigger assembly, shorting the ultracapacitor bank to the 100 megawatt elements of the diode laser stacks.
There was a purple flash and a crack of lightning, followed closely by a blast of heat and ozone-soaked air that knocked Nathan on his back again. He cried out as his cracked ribs ground against one another, paralyzing him with pain for several breaths.
Looking up from his back, his eyes saw only a green afterimage of the shorted capacitor bank and heard a continuous series of sizzle pops from the wrecked bulk of the laser array.
Soon, though, the pain in Nathan’s side faded just enough for him to notice the dull pain over all his exposed skin, especially along the front half of his body. He struggled to his feet, disregarding his fresh flash burns, and found that he could see, after a fashion. He began to limp forward, heading toward the hazy, far end of the building. He could make out very little detail, given the smoke and his temporary flash-blindness, but something was definitely different.
He approached and saw that his aim had been a little off – not bad considering the haphazard way he had fired the system. The laser beam, only partly collimated by the inactive lens trunk had not confined the beam to a tight, parallel stream or a devastating pinpoint, but rather more of an irregular oval. He knew that because that was the shape of the hole.
The hole through everything.
The bottom half of the last flight of stairs was gone, either melted, or blasted, or vaporized to nothing. Also gone was the base of the steel girder supporting the weight of the stairwell, the lower portion of the outer wall bounding the stairwell, and the right foot of the person who had been climbing down the stairwell.
The malformed beam had caught the thief just as he had been stepping onto the last run of stairs, destroying his foot and cauterizing the stump. Then the accompanying heat bloom of the beam in atmosphere had blasted him off the stairwell to crash into the opposite wall, where he now lay unconscious.
Nathan checked the burned and blasted man’s pulse, found it satisfactory to his layman’s touch, and then rooted around for the flash deck. He found it just as the tactical team from Windward security burst through the doors at both ends of the building. Standing above his victim, and holding the deck high in the air for the benefit of all the automatic weapons pointed at him, Nathan gave them a lopsided grin. “S’all right. I got it.”
Whereupon, he immediately passed out.
“Hey there, Tex. You just waking up from your little siesta?”
Nathan opened his eyes to half-slits, and even that hurt. Kristene looked down at him, a smile playing along her mouth, but a nervous cast to both her eyes. He closed his eyes and reopened them a moment later, disliking the way his eyelids felt papery and stiff, as if he had received a massive sunburn. He licked his parched lips and coughed, causing a flash of pain all over, but especially from his side where he had fallen.
He glanced around, taking in the hospital room in which he lay, and then looked back toward Kris. She still appeared concerned beneath the mask of her smile. “How long have I been out?”
“Not too long – just a few hours I’d guess. They’ve got fluids and a bitchin’ cocktail running into your arm. They said you’d wake up when you felt like it, but nothing was hurt too badly.”
Nathan moved a tentative hand toward his side, feeling his skin crinkle slightly. She saw the movement and gently pushed his hand back down by his side. “You broke three ribs, but nothing got punctured. Aside from that and a hell of an impromptu tanning session, you’re okay. You look a damn sight better than the other guy, believe me.”
She smiled for real this time, her nerves relieved. “Listen, just lay there and let me tell the nurse you’re awake. Okay?” Kris turned and left, with Nathan watching her as she walked away, his mind a tumult.
A minute later, Gordon walked in, with Lydia Russ following close behind. She was slowly becoming a more common feature around the offices, but whether that was for government oversight or because of the bond she obviously shared with Gordon, he did not know. Nathan nodded to her and turned to focus upon his boss.
Nathan thought the man looked worse than he himself felt. Lee’s skin was deathly white with a grayish-yellow pallor, and he looked panicked, worried beyond all hope of recovery. He looked like a man who had very nearly lost everything.
Upon seeing Nathan, the corner of his mouth turned up in a grin and he sighed audibly, relieved. Gordon reached up and fished around in his jacket pocket, producing a small bottle of pills. He popped a couple into his mouth, dry, and winced as he swallowed them down.
Gordon sat down beside Nathan’s bed, color already returning to his pained face. He placed a hand over Nathan’s and gave it a light squeeze that Nathan tried not to cry out from. “You had us worried, boy.”
Lydia nodded sagely from across the room. "That's right."
Nathan smiled as far as he could without involving the muscles in his cheeks. In a raspy, dry voice he said, “I just wanted a little R & R, Boss. I figured this was safer than asking you for time off.”