“Oh, we all know that. Why? You know that?”
“No one’s told me anything, except they’re bringing back scientists from Danann.”
“That’s very not good.”
“What’s the scuttlebutt down forward?”
“They ran a scan on the big cargo shuttle just came in. Something they found down below. Major was muttering that he’d never seen anything like it. Strange backscatter, almost like the thing amplified radiation or light.”
Amplified light? The Morning Star? How had Colonel Truesdale known? Or had he just been talking figuratively, suspecting what might be found? Did it matter? I had to get the AG signaler assembled and in operation. I just hoped I hadn’t waited too long. But… only three months into a yearlong deployment? “Anyone know what it is?”
“Who knows? They don’t tell us. That’s for certain.”
Alveres shook his head, then started for a table with another mech.
I joined them.
“Bond doesn’t know any more than we do.”
“We’re checking torps again,” I said. “I can’t figure if the chief wants to keep us busy, or the major’s been told something’s up.”
“Got to be something coming,” volunteered Hastens. He was a screen tuner. “All the officers are tight. Don’t show it outside, but you can tell. They wouldn’t get tight just for a frigate or some corvettes.”
I nodded and ate. The evening meal was another attempt at turkey—closer to the taste of a real fowl than the reformulated chicken, but still not all that good. I’d had worse, but not often, and not for weeks on end. The potatoes were fine, and the sugarcake pudding took away the aftertastes.
After that, I went to the rec hall on the twenty-fourth deck and lost twenty credits on bones. I was trying to pass the time. With what I had to do, I knew I couldn’t rest. Everything I needed was in the armory.
I arrived an hour early for my watch—just like the chief had ordered.
“You’re always on time, Bond.” Those were Ciorio’s first words. He was sitting behind the duty console. “Thought I’d wait for you to get started on the sliders. Didn’t want you to have nothing to do but watch the console and stand by.”
“You’re even lazier than I am.”
“You? Lazy?” He laughed. “I’ll bet you were studying for the tech first exams.”
“Not a chance. Lost twenty creds at bones.”
“First time all deployment, I’d bet.”
“Third or fourth.” I lied. It was the second time.
“I’ve already run checks on all the torp transport tubes,” Ciorio said. “Chief came by and signed off on that. All we have left is the maintenance checks on the sliders.”
“I’ll do the up-front maintenance on sliders one and two, then. You can do number three. Later, I might run them down the passageways a bit just to make sure.”
“Chief wouldn’t like that. He always wants the armory sealed during off-stans.”
“Then I won’t.” That was a lie. I’d have to use a slider. The signaler assembly would be too big to carry far without a slider.
Ciorio didn’t leave for almost an hour, but we did finish everything the chief had ordered.
Once he was gone, I retreated to the aft bay. First thing I did was run the feed into the monitoring scanners. One run showed the aft bay empty—the way it should have been—and the other showed me around the duty area. That part of the mission had gone as planned. I’d just recorded that one night when I hadn’t been doing much. Anyone watching the feeds wouldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
After that, I had to hurry. It took less than ten minutes to gather all the components from their various hiding places. Some were in plain sight, such as in the stocks of replacement components. Others were harder. It took some effort to pry the false bottom off the toolkit assigned to me.
Forty minutes passed, and I had everything together— except for the powerpak from a torp. But the chief always came by halfway through the watch. So I stowed everything and put the almost complete signaler under my workbench, behind the toolkit. It barely fit. It was bigger than I’d thought it would be, almost a meter square.
Then I hurried back to the watch console at the front of the armory, and dropped my phony monitor feed off-line.
Sure enough, less than ten minutes later, Chief Stuval appeared, opening the hatch that was sealed during off-hours. Only he and the officers had the codes.
“How’s it going, Bond?” He looked at me intently.
“Ciorio left about a stan back. We finished everything you asked. I can show you the sliders, and the checkoffs.” I rose from behind the console.
“That’s all right. If you say it’s done, it’s done.”
“Have you heard any more, chief? About what’s going on?”
“Not a thing.” He looked around, then walked into the main bay of the armory, directly behind the console.
“Alveres—he’s one of the shield mechs—he said that they brought up something strange from Danann. They even scanned it, and it had funny radiation.”
“Don’t believe all you hear.”
“I usually don’t, but he’s a screen mech. That’s not something he’d make up.”
“No one’s told me. Has the major been by?”
“No, chief. The only ones here have been you and Ciorio.”
He frowned. “That’s right. She said that she was meeting with the ops officer about now.” He gave me a smile. “When she relieves you, tell Ansaio that she should run a last check on the transport tubes around zero three-thirty.”
“I can do that.”
The chief surveyed the front bay, then nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
After he left, the hatch sealed behind him, I saw that he had left a stylus on the corner of the console. I slipped it into a drawer. It looked like I wouldn’t have to worry about the major, not if I hurried, anyway.
Getting a torp from the last cradle in the array single-handed was a bitch. I managed, and in another fifteen minutes I had the power section open. Ten more minutes and the powerpak was on my bench. I forced myself to re-seal the power section of the torp and slide it back into position. Then I sealed the array.
With the powerpak on the bench I had one last task. The power lead connectors were different sizes, but that wasn’t a problem because they attached to a transformer to step up the power. It would burn out the signaler sooner, but that kind of boost was necessary. That’s what I’d learned along the way. I dipped the connectors in the conducting solution, then replaced it as well.
Only then did I pull out the signaler assembly. It had more mass than I’d recalled. Without the small slider, I couldn’t have handled it. I checked all the circuits one last time, then I lifted the powerpak to slide it into place.
Click, click…
Boots on the deck. Who’d opened the hatch without the alarm sounding? I didn’t have a weapon anywhere close. I hadn’t planned on that complication, not on a sealed warship. Any sort of energy weapon would have registered on the ship’s system, and any other sort would have been useless.
“Bond?” The voice was Chief Stuval’s.
“I was checking something back here in the bay.” I turned, moving forward from the bay. If I got away from the bench, he might not look back there. It was about the best I could hope for.
Thrum!
Stunner! I tried—
Hot blackness… Everywhere.
“Give him another shot…”
Thrumm…
65
Chang
Lieutenant Chang, to the ready room!