I did so and Chiraine and Narcissa helped Ana-Zhi to the ship.
“That was pretty slick,” Narcissa said.
“We got lucky,” I replied. “Change clothes with the workers and help get these crates back in.”
Even with the strength of the Sean bot and using a bunch of hover-sleds and repulsor dollies, it took us a good fifteen minutes to load everything back. I had a quiver in my stomach the whole time, expecting to see a squad of legionnaires come blasting their way into the hangar. But we managed to stow all the crates back in the hold, and so far there was no sign of hostile forces.
“What now?” Chiraine asked.
The Sean bot tossed me an Aura. “Give me twenty minutes and then blast your way out of here.”
“What are you talking about? We’re not going to leave you again.”
“You won’t be leaving me. I’ll be back.”
Narcissa shook her head. “No one’s blasting out of here. There’s a mooring arm on this thing.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I’ve got eyes, don’t I?”
“Shit.”
“You’ll have to deal with it,” the Sean bot said. “Remember, JJ. Twenty minutes.”
“JJ?” Narcissa asked.
I ignored her, and followed the Sean bot as he strode down the ramp. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“Demolition. Now get back in there and close it up.”
I sighed and headed back into the Vostok. “You heard the man,” I told Narcissa. “Let’s batten down the hatches and figure out how to get that arm released.”
“I can’t do that from in here,” Narcissa said.
Crap. “Okay, I’ll come with you. You’ll need an extra pair of eyes.”
I asked Chiraine to help Ana-Zhi get to the bridge.
“Run diagnostics,” I said. “And get ready to fire her up fast.”
Then I followed Narcissa out into the hangar near the Vostok’s landing gear.
“That’s what we’re dealing with, right?” It was a dumb question, because it was pretty obvious what the ten-meter-long mooring arm hooked on to our ship’s undercarriage was. The arm ran into a track recessed into the hangar deck and the track led out towards the airlock doors.
Narcissa crawled around the arm, inspecting it, and muttering to herself.
“Isn’t the ground crew supposed to release the arm once a ship is docked?” I asked.
“Depends,” Narcissa said. “A ship this big could cause a lot of damage if the hangar’s z-field generators fail. That’s probably why they’ve got her locked down.”
“How’s it controlled?”
“A couple of different ways,” she said. “There’s a flight tower, obviously, for the whole hangar. They’d have control over the landing and shunting systems. And there’s probably a terminal somewhere on the deck for the ground crew to use.”
I checked my Aura. “We’re running out of time.”
“Option three is to find the emergency release. That’s what I’m working on.”
“I’ll help. What are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure what they look like now, but in my day it was a manual lever. Possibly with a chain. Old school, you know?”
We were so intent on scouring the mooring arm assembly that we didn’t notice the cargo worker until he was right there.
“What’s the hold-up?” he asked. “I’m supposed to drive the shipment to area D in fifteen minutes and nothing’s even loaded.”
Narcissa looked at me, and kept her mouth shut. I got the hint.
“Weird radiation readings on one of the crates,” I said, off the top of my head. “We need to re-scan everything.”
“Uh huh. Then what are you doing down here?”
“There might be an energy leak from the mooring arm,” Narcissa said. “It could be messing with our equipment.”
“Well, what am I going to tell my guys?” the worker asked.
“It’s going to be a while. Couple of hours at least,” I said.
“Great.” He began to walk away, towards the cargo carrier.
“Hold up,” I called after him.
“What?”
“Where’s the access hatch?” I pointed at the recessed track on the deck. “We need to check under the ship.”
“More delays,” he groused, but then led me to a hatch that was fifteen meters away and behind a stack of equipment crates.
“Where’s your card?” he asked, pointing at the security panel set into the center of the hatch.
“I left it in the ship. Just use yours.”
He tilted his head in disbelief. “You know I can’t do that.”
I pressed my blaster into his side. “This says you can.”
“Hey, hold up, bro. No need to get hyper on me.” He flicked his card against the panel and I heard the maglocks release with a clang.
“Open it up,” I said.
Without a word, the worker did so, revealing a ladder leading down to a brightly lit, but narrow access tunnel.
I ordered the guy in, and after some complaining (which I cut short with the wave of my RB), he climbed down.
“I’m really not authorized to be down here,” he whined. “And neither are you, I’m guessing.”
“You’re right about that.”
“What?”
Then I cold-cocked him.
As I stepped over his unconscious body, I glanced at my Aura.
Only nine minutes left until we were supposed to get out of here. I needed to find that release lever.
I jogged through the access tunnel, hoping I was heading towards the Vostok. At several points, I had to squeeze past big tow units that took up most of the tunnel.
Soon I arrived beneath something very large that blocked out the light from the open track above me. It must be the ship. And sure enough there was a tow unit with a mooring arm extending up through the channel.
Come on. Where was that emergency release?
The arm was smooth and bare. Nothing there that might indicate any sort of external controls.
Then I caught a glimpse of a yellow and black striped safety decal on the tow unit itself. Recessed into the unit was a fist-sized pull bar above the stenciled words: EMERGENCY RELEASE.
Could it have been more obvious?
I yanked on the bar and was rewarded with a cascade of clangs and other mechanical sounds from within the mooring arm. Then a loud hum of servos sounded and the arm began
