Ignoring her entreaties, he kept moving until he reached a bend in the hull wall. Right where the two security personnel were waiting.
Given his modest stature they expected to take him down easily. What they didn’t expect was someone whose strength was magnified by an injection of t-pumpers, combined with a fanatic’s devotion to his task.
As they reached for him, intending to take him alive, he swung his screaming hostage violently around so that she slammed into the nearest man. Both went down in a heap. As the second security team member tried to back off and bring her weapon to bear, the saboteur leaped. Both legs struck her in the middle of her suit, collapsing it into her solar plexus and sending her to the ground, unconscious. As her companion rose and fought to disentangle himself from the frantic, flailing Prestowicz, the saboteur spun and launched a spinning back kick against his opponent’s head.
The blow was sufficiently powerful to send the security person slamming into the hull wall. His head pounded into one side of his helmet before ricocheting back into the other, the combined concussion causing him to collapse to the deck.
Without missing a beat the seemingly unprepossessing intruder reached down to grab Prestowicz by one wrist. Yanking her to her feet, he once again slung her around him front of him.
Throughout it all, a grim-faced Daniels noted, the man had somehow hung onto his weapon. Either he was much better trained than he appeared, or he was crammed full of performance-enhancing drugs. Or both. Not that it mattered.
Nowhere to go now, she told herself. Why didn’t he give up?
“Come on, man,” Hallet urged him. “It’s over. Give yourself a break.”
Yelling something indecipherable, their quarry shoved the softly sobbing technician toward his tormentors and made a break to his left. If it had been up to him, Hallet probably would have fired, but Daniels had alluded specifically to the intruder’s associates. Kill him, and they’d lose a potentially valuable source of information. So he held his fire and waited for instructions.
By the time they realized what the man was doing, it was too late.
It took the intruder only a moment to sprint into an open personnel airlock and seal himself inside. As he did he dropped his gun. Rushing after him, Daniels yelled at the transparent port, then realized the man within couldn’t hear her. Peering into the lock she could see that his expression of uncertainty and panic had been replaced by one reflective of a sudden inner calm. He looked almost content.
Moving to her right, she hit the intercom. Like every other control in the cargo bay, it continued to blink a steady soft yellow. It would continue to do so until she and her companions moved clear of the electromagnetic suppression field and she could once again communicate with Tennessee. So she was reduced to pounding on the port and hoping the man inside could read her lips.
“Come out!” she shouted. “Give yourself up!”
Ankor retrieved the man’s weapon and studied it a moment before passing it to Hallet. The sergeant showed it to Daniels. When she took it from his gloved hand, part of the stock crumpled under pressure from her fingers. Her gaze rose to meet the sergeant’s.
“Stiff paper,” she said. “It’s an origami gun.”
“Just hard enough to scare his hostage.” He nodded somberly. “No wonder it wasn’t detected when he brought it aboard.” He swore softly. “The explosives he plastered all over the main bay door are real, but this weapon is all bluff. For all we know, he didn’t even fold it until he was safely through security and on board.”
Handing it back to the sergeant, she returned her gaze to the port. Inside the lock, the man was calmly studying the instrument panel. By necessity the controls were shielded from the electronic suppression field that had swept the cargo bay. Surmising his intent, her eyes widened as she resumed hammering on the transparency.
“Don’t do it!”
Turning, he noticed her looking in at him, and smiled. One hand rose toward the control panel. She shouted “No, no!” over and over. He could not hear her. Mother could have secured the lock controls—if they could have communicated with Mother.
Then the time had passed as the man unlatched and lifted a security plate. Without hesitation he punched, in sequence, the three buttons his action had exposed. With her open palms resting on the port, Daniels felt the slightest of vibrations as the emergency bolts holding the exterior lock door blew. The door panel and attached mechanism flew out into space.
It was followed closely by the failed saboteur.
He was still smiling on his way out.
She turned away from the port. Looking in, Ledward let out a curse, then murmured to his team. But she didn’t hear. While they conversed among themselves she reminded herself that the Covenant’s hull integrity hadn’t been violated, and its valuable stores had not been compromised. Meanwhile, the threat posed by the would-be saboteur had been neutralized, and his hostage was safe.
Then why, she wondered, did she feel as if she had failed?
IV
“Weyland-Yutani owes you a debt of gratitude.”
Jacob and Daniels stood in the main personnel lock facing Mithun. A short distance away, his corporate colleague Kajsa was conversing with one of the chief technicians in charge of preparing the ship for its eventual departure.
Having exchanged secure communications with company headquarters in Tokyo and London, a much-relieved Mithun had been able to inform everyone who had been involved in resolving the “incident” that suitable promotions and bonuses had been authorized. Since none of the principals would ever return to Earth, the promotions were largely for show. The financial bonuses, on the other hand, could be utilized by relatives, friends, charities—whomever the members of the crew and security team wished to designate as recipients.
Jacob didn’t care about rank or money. A new world lay out there, waiting for the arrival of the Covenant and its compliment of sleeping colonists. He would be in charge of the colony on Origae-6. Far more than numbers in a bank account, he would have preferred to receive still more in the way of supplies. This despite his wife’s assurance that the colony would start off as well-equipped as contemporary technology could provide. As far as he was concerned, the Covenant could never have enough in the way of provisions.
One thing continued to nag at him.
Answers. They lacked answers. According to a quick search performed by Mother, the failed saboteur had made no attempt to hide his identity. Eric Sasaki, single, age 33, Yutani employee for twelve years. Service technician second class. Two minor work demerits, otherwise a clean record. Properly utilized his accumulated vacation time. Eighty percent positive credit for sick leave not taken. Nothing distinguished about his term of employment. All told, a better-than-average work record if nothing exceptional.
Why then would an apparently steady, trustworthy, run-of-the-mill employee suddenly turn against the only company for which he had ever worked, to the point of trying to violently stop its most ambitious project? One that promised benefits, not just for Weyland-Yutani, but for all of humankind?
They were missing something. Neither he nor his wife, however, had the time to spend parsing possible motives. As Kajsa declared, the sabotage attempt could have been a one-off by a single individual, disgruntled or holding a grudge for unknown reasons. And since Sasaki had committed suicide, they wouldn’t have the opportunity to ask him.
None of which kept Hallet from doubling down on shipboard security. It was encouraging that the terrorist hadn’t been able to bring a functioning weapon on board, and had been forced to resort to subterfuge instead. That he had been able to access terraforming explosives was considerably less reassuring. Thus, the sergeant had ordered permanent electronic monitors installed wherever they stored any cargo that could be similarly employed in a hostile manner.