Quiet, controlled, damnably inhuman. “I am sorry, Captain. I cannot comply with your request as it will result in destruction of company property intended for the colony project.”
While a near apoplectic Jacob continued to try to reason with the ship’s AI, Daniels leaned close to Faris and whispered. “We haven’t got time to argue semantics with a computer. Can you bypass Mother’s control?”
Faris thought hard. “Not through the mains. Someone would have to go on board the lander and manually disable all connections to the Covenant. Then they’d have to program the lander manually for the proposed intercept. The programming won’t be as precise as if Mother did it, but someone who knew what they were doing could… hey!”
Having abandoned his seat, Tennessee was already heading for the exit. As he looked back, he grinned and blew his wife a kiss. “I’m on it, darlin!”
Shifting his attention to Jacob, he didn’t send a similar gesture of affection the captain’s way. “Meanwhile, tell the queen circuit bitch to keep out of my way!”
“Wait, Tennessee!” Jacob gestured toward the big man, but the pilot had already vanished through the exit. “Damn fool!” he muttered.
“If anybody can pull this off, it’s Tennessee,” his wife insisted. Her voice fell. “Only problem is, if he’s on board the lander and Mother suddenly decides to comply with your order and send it out—”
“Tell her not to,” Daniels instructed her husband sharply. “Tell her to ignore everything except ongoing maintenance of normal ship functions. Tell her to… no, cancel that. Don’t talk to her at all. Ignore her.”
With nothing more to say, they waited. To the great relief of everyone on the bridge, Mother didn’t volunteer any information or suggestions of her own and, sooner than expected, Tennessee’s voice sounded over the speakers.
“I’m in place,” he said. “Shutting down intership linkages. Lander is ready for launch—Mother was right about that.”
Faris leaned in the direction of an omnipickup. “Ten, if you cut all the linkages we won’t be able to hear you. Ten?”
No response.
There was nothing they could do but wait. Wait and monitor the accelerating cargo shuttle. Wait and hope that Mother didn’t abruptly decide that the danger the unscheduled craft presented outweighed any commands to protect company property and somehow sent the now disengaged lander on an intercept course. With Tennessee on board.
Time seemed to move with agonizing slowness, and it had nothing to do with Einsteinian concepts. Murmurs arose as they discussed the situation. Lopé considered alerting the rest of the security team, but saw no point in alarming them unnecessarily. There wasn’t a damn thing they could do to help, and someone might panic. In a panic, people inevitably ended up hurting themselves.
Moving to his right, Jacob eyed one of the numerous readouts that were hovering above the command console. It showed a tiny schematic representing the oncoming cargo shuttle. He could have chosen to find a port and looked outside, but there was no point in that. Once the oncoming shuttlecraft was near enough to see with the naked eye, they would not even have time left to scream.
At regular intervals Faris tried making contact with her husband. The result was always the same—no response. After a while she looked back and over at Daniels.
“Tennessee’s been known to do some stupid things. You don’t… you don’t think he’d be stupid enough to take the lander out on manual control… do you?”
“No.” In her mind, however, Daniels couldn’t escape the image of Tennessee howling with defiance as he personally piloted the lander straight into the rogue cargo shuttle. “No, Tennessee wouldn’t do that. Besides,” she added encouragingly, “you know him. If that was his intention, he wouldn’t hold back from telling us what he was going to do. He’d shout it out.”
“Yeah. Yes, that’s right.” Faris sounded relieved. “The idiot would wear his idiocy like a badge. He’s going to program it. Just program it.”
Daniels smiled and nodded. “I’m sure of it.”
But to herself she thought, I wish he’d find a way to call in.
“He’d better know what he’s doing,” Jacob muttered. “We’ve got one shot at this working. If the programming is off, the engine sequence, anything, and the lander misses the intercept, then we’re screwed.”
When the time came, Faris made the announcement as professionally as she could.
“Lander’s away.”
All eyes turned to the main heads-up projection floating above and to her right. The graphics were straightforward enough. There was the oncoming cargo craft, far off but drawing ever nearer the larger image that represented the Covenant. Moving away from the colony ship and toward the shuttle was an equally small image that could only be the lander.
Still no communication from Tennessee.
Where the hell are you, you big ugly chunk of piloting skill? Daniels thought angrily to herself, followed by a thought that left her feeling guilty. Where the hell are we going to get another pilot on short notice?
“It’s away.” The voice came over the comm, and it was all they could do not to hug one another.
A short time later a familiar large figure came through the door. He was panting hard and sweating profusely, but his face was suffused with excitement. Exhibiting enormous self-control, Faris remained at her station. Daniels doubted she could have done the same thing.
“Done!” He scarcely acknowledged Jacob’s congratulatory slap on the back as he strode past the captain to resume his seat at the command console. “Took some fancy reprogramming, but it should work.”
“If it doesn’t,” Jacob told him quietly, “I’ll find you in the afterlife and beat the crap out of you myself.”
Tennessee shook his head as he worked at his controls. “No such luck, Cap. We’d end up in different places.” He glanced over at his wife. “How’s it lookin’, darlin’?”
Having gratefully accepted that she wasn’t going to settle on Origae-6 as a widow, Faris was intent on the instrumentation before her.
“Close,” she murmured. “It’s going to be very close.”
“Even if the lander just nicks them, it could be enough to throw them off course.” Jacob studied the readouts intently. It would all be over soon—one way or the other. “One advantage to the speed they’re moving. They’re acting like a bullet now—there’s no way they can shift course.”
With nothing more that could be done, they watched in silence. If the Lander failed to intersect the cargo craft’s trajectory, they’d only have seconds in which to react to whatever part of the Covenant it struck. If it hit near the bridge, they wouldn’t even have that. Edging closer to her husband, Daniels slipped an arm around his waist and squeezed tightly. Belying the seriousness of the moment, Jacob offered an affectionate smile in return.
Out in space and entirely too close to the Covenant, there was an intense flash of light. It faded very quickly. Both the oncoming cargo shuttle and the outgoing lander were traveling at speeds sufficient to ensure that each was largely vaporized by their head-on collision. The resultant debris field was sufficiently small and scattered to pose no threat to the orbiting colony ship.
Suddenly they felt the slight shudder of an impact, vibrating up through the ship. Tennessee’s hands danced over the controls as he investigated. One chunk of metal that did escape vaporization proved large enough and fast enough to violate hull integrity in the vicinity of supply hold number eight. Emergency doors in the immediate area slammed shut to seal it off from the rest of the ship. Upon inquiry, Mother avowed that the breach wasn’t significant, and could be repaired in a couple of days.