‘The tractor magnet is the only control over the ship,’ Vachon said. ‘And its range isn’t great. Much more than fifty metres from the station, and you’ll be adrift.’
That wasn’t a problem for Samson. He was only going to have one try at this.
‘There might be a breathable atmosphere on board the ship when it’s powered up,’ Vachon said, ‘but there might not be. Keep your helmet on and suit pressurised to be on the safe side.’
Samson nodded as he continued to look at the tablet. He was glad he’d brought along the extra oxygen cylinder.
‘There’s something else I need to mention to you. It’s kind of a big danger, sir.’
‘What’s that?’ Samson said. ‘A big danger? Kind of? I’m about to get into a ship I can’t fly that’s packed with explosives with the intention of ramming it into an alien warship which has obliterated everything we’ve sent against it so far, by using a tractor magnet to fire me out like a slingshot. Is there something I should be really worried about?’
Vachon shrugged. ‘Comparatively speaking. We’ve not been able to get into the ship’s computer systems, but I can take a guess at what some of it does. There’s a pretty sophisticated comms system. Well, everything looks sophisticated when you don’t understand it, but it seems to have deep links into the rest of the systems. What I’m getting at is, there’s a possibility the alien warship will be able to take control of this ship once it’s powered up.’
‘All right,’ Samson said. ‘That could be a pretty big problem.’
Vachon nodded, with an expression that proclaimed his sense of vindication.
‘What can we do to stop that from happening?’ Samson said.
‘Without any worthwhile understanding of the systems, not a whole lot. There’s enough in this one little ship to keep Fleet Engineering busy for a decade.’
‘There won’t be by the time I’m done with it,’ Samson said.
Vachon winced.
‘I know, I’m not happy about it either. We’ll just have to hope for the best,’ Samson said. ‘I can’t think of any alternatives. Now, Sergeant Price, the detonators.’
Price walked him through the steps of setting the detonators on a five-second delay. He had set the controls up so Samson could reach them while standing in the open airlock. Every second would count.
‘Everything aboard that needs to be aboard?’ Samson said, when the demonstration was complete.
‘Aye, sir,’ Price said.
‘No point in delaying. Let’s get everything set up so we’re ready to go.’
Price saluted, and the sense of inevitable defeat hit Samson like a freezing cold wave. The plan might be crazy, but he wasn’t dead yet and stranger things had happened. He returned the gesture, then stepped into the alien scout ship.
He stood there for a moment, the enormity of what he was trying to do finally hitting him. No one could see him now. There was no one for whom to put on a show of bravado, and he felt afraid. Afraid and alone.
42
‘Release the tethers,’ Samson said. He checked the transponder on his suit once again, although he knew it was too late to do anything about it if it wasn’t working. The result was the same as the first and second times he had checked it—operating normally—but the thought of drifting alone through space to a cold and lonely death had lodged itself in his head, and he couldn’t shake it out. He wasn’t sure if the alternative of dying in the hellfire of the explosion was any more attractive, though.
He powered up Vachon’s jury-rigged datapad and let out a sigh of relief when he saw it light up with all the station’s tractor magnet controls. He tapped the movement icon, and felt the ship judder. All was well.
‘I have control,’ Samson said. ‘The parasite software seems to be working perfectly.’
‘Good luck, sir,’ Harper said. ‘We’ll be here to pick you up on the other side.’
‘Don’t take any chances,’ Samson said. ‘The whole key to this plan is you being able to fish me out of space when it’s all done with. Run silent and keep your distance. If it goes wrong, turn tail and run.’
‘Aye, sir,’ she said.
He manoeuvred the ship out of the hangar bay, to a position just short of fifty metres from the depot, then stopped. Samson’s datapad was still connected to the depot’s command network, so for the time being he had access to all of its sensor data. As soon as he launched himself away, he would lose all of that and would only know what he could see on the viewscreen. The alien warship was still headed for the planet, so it was time to see if it would be able to detect one of its ships. It seemed they cared enough to stop for their abandoned comrade, so hopefully the scout ship would be enough to make them curious.
He brought up the alien’s voice file on his datapad, and spared a thought for Smith. Unconventional, dangerous, and at times distasteful, but Samson couldn’t deny their brief association had been fruitful. He took a deep breath, and played the file over his suit’s loudspeaker. The panels all around the ship’s cockpit lit up, displaying a plethora of strange, unintelligible symbols. The door slid closed behind him, and he checked his suit’s atmospheric sensors.
The air was a little lower in oxygen than Earth normal, but for the moment it was breathable. That could change once the ship’s systems had the chance to recycle its atmosphere. He elected to keep his suit on and pressurised—one less thing to worry about with five seconds to play with—then flipped his datapad’s screen back to the depot’s sensors. The ship was still heading for Holmwood.
It was too soon to panic, but the lack of
