He caressed her face with the back of his fingers as she let him go. He nodded and ran for the main lift. Stephanie was right behind him accompanied by two of her guards. “I'm going with you, there's something happening in the security office.”
They ran into the large lift and it closed behind them. Stephanie stood beside Captain Valance as he pulled an emergency kit open and retrieved an emergency vacsuit. She knew it was the worst possible time, there would be other opportunities, and despite everything going on there was only one question on her mind, one thing she wanted out of the way; “So is that really Ayan?”
He stopped with the vacsuit half on over the ruined West Keeper armour for a moment, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “She looks a bit different, but that's her,” he answered. “She seems a little bolder, but second chances can do that.”
“Are you two?” she asked quietly, more mouthing the question than even whispering aloud.
He sealed up the front of the flimsy looking one size fits all vacsuit and started to work on the sealing face piece. “Too early to say,” he whispered back so the two guards who shared the lift with them could at least pretend to have not heard.
“Okay,” Stephanie whispered back.
“What's going on in security?” he asked irritably.
She cleared her throat and put thoughts of him and Ayan out of her mind as best as she could, embarrassed that she could allow her professionalism fail her so utterly in the middle of a crisis. “Someone's shut down the security comm relay. My people are already working around it, but obviously whoever did it was trying to buy time for something.”
“All right, get control of the security office, I'll check in once I know what's happened on the bridge and start directing rescue and repair operations,” he said in a stiff, impersonal tone.
Stephanie's eyes focused forward on the doors to the lift, replying; “yes sir,” as she straightened up. As they arrived she tried to suppress the embarrassment at asking the wrong question, she could have asked; 'how are you?' or 'what happened down there?' or even 'is there anything I can do to help,' but she was distracted by her childish hopes and expectations even while her entire security team, hundreds of people were at risk.
The express car stopped, the doors opened and they stepped out into the abandoned forward command deck causeway. It was eerie seeing the large corridor completely empty, even during night watch in hyperspace there was someone about, it was a busy ship and those few command levels were the nerve centre. The large double doors leading into the bridge were sealed shut, the control panels to either side of them blinked red, indicating that the doors couldn't be opened due to pressure differentials or other problems. Just beyond that was the security office, and that panel blinked a bright blue, indicating a lockout.
“Do you need any help?” she asked quietly. “We can have an armoured suit down here in fifteen minutes. You'd be properly protected.”
He finished sealing the faceplate and ensuring that the vacsuit was secure as he started into a dead run for the main bridge hatchway control panel. “We don't have that kind of time.”
“Let me go after her, sir,” offered one of the security guards that had accompanied them. “My vacsuit is armoured and I'm fresh on shift.”
“No, the intensity of the radiation inside is too high, even with your vacsuit.”
“But sir, if it's too high for me then-” the guard gently countered.
Jake stopped him mid sentence, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Alice is alive in there, but barely. I'm going in after her because I can regenerate, and I won't sacrifice anyone else. Now get out of this section so it can depressurize.”
Stephanie directed the pair of soldiers to head for the security office with a hand signal and they both obeyed without hesitation. She just stared at him through the flimsy faceplate of the emergency vacsuit for a moment. “What do we do if you don't-”
“Trust Ayan, Jason, Laura, Minh and give Oz the command chip. They're all better at keeping a ship than I ever was alone. Now get out of here, she doesn't have much time.”
She nodded and started to turn when he caught her shoulder. Stephanie was almost afraid to look back, she didn't know why, but she did anyway.
“Take care of each other,” he said firmly before beginning the emergency decompression sequence.
In just a few quick steps she was beyond the nearest emergency bulkhead and its thick, black surface rose up behind her and when it clanged into place she punched the order into the control panel in the hallway to force it to become transparent. She stared mesmerized as the vacuum suit inflated slightly, reacting to the increasing pressure outside of it and after all the air had been evacuated from the small sealed off section of hallway, the large bridge hatch doors were drawn out of the oval frame, bathing Jake in blue and yellow light. There was focused radiation coming in through the lensed walls of the wormhole, and probably even more being generated by the compression of space all around the ship. It was a miracle that Alice was alive at all, it would be a greater miracle still if her and Jake could make it out.
“Do you want us to breach the security office without you Ma'am?” asked one of the soldiers behind her.
She snapped out of her spellbound state, hesitantly drawing her stare away from those open bridge hatchways and stepping into a march towards the main security office doorways. Her personal code was short, she punched it into the door control panel reflexively and stepped aside, rifle at the ready as it slid open. Her command and control unit automatically did a scan of the room beyond and revealed one body, good atmospheric compression and several active computer terminals. “I'm reading all clear.” she announced.
“I can verify,” replied the soldier beside her. “Whoever was in there is dead or gone.”
“All right, lets head inside. Look out for personnel mines and improvised traps,” she ordered, leading the way.
One of her men lay awkwardly half inside a side office door. From the awkward angle his neck was turned and the burn mark at the base of his skull Stephanie could tell that there was no reviving him. “Continue your sweep, be careful and watch your scanner results,” she said to herself as much as the pair of security officers with her as she slowly made her way to the central terminal at the rear of the long main security office.
“Do you recognize him ma'am?” asked one of her troopers.
“No, look him up.”
“Lyndon Edsel. Qualified on rifles, basic maintenance and infantry manoeuvres. He was assigned to nights.”
“Well, someone got behind him,” the officer who had earlier volunteered to take the Captain's place commented.
“Low velocity explosive round. At least it was over quick,” said the other, shaking his head. “I'm verifying all clear on my scanner.”
Stephanie sighed and released the lockdown on the security communications system. “All right, check the other offices, be careful. Whoever did this is someone we trust.”
“Do you think it was our suspect?” asked one of the guards.
“It could have been, but he hasn't shot anyone yet.”
The other officer knelt down beside the fallen soldier and gently closed his eyelids. “He was strangled before they shot him in the back of the head. Whoever did this didn't want to make any chance at him being revived,” he reported quietly. “This was an assassin.”
Stephanie stepped in front of the main communications terminal and released the lock on the security bands. Her communicator came to life with questions from security personnel and soldiers across the ship and instead of addressing any one of them in particular she interrupted all of them. “Security office is secure. Communications systems are secure.” She checked the squad status reports as they populated on her command unit and selected one that showed that they were backing up the security team in medical. “All right, squad seventeen; I need you to proceed to the security office and lock it down. Everyone else be on alert. We have at least one more murder and our suspect is someone we know and trust. He was most likely on the command deck before the bridge breached.”
She checked the logs and found that someone had accessed the computer system from the central terminal. When she looked for records indicating what he or she had done while they had access she found them completely empty. “It'll take me a while to find out if they altered or deleted anything. He was in here though.”
“So our guy was after information?”
