'No, sir,' the AS insisted. 'I have been erased from the maintenance bay hangar section network. Firewalls are in place and holding against the subversion software.'
Marquis tore at the Velcro on his waist strap. He went through his main cabin into the bridge, moving fast in the one-eighth gravity. Colin Jeffries, the executive officer, was in the command chair, looking thoroughly shocked. Only three other bridge consoles were manned.
'What the hell happened?' Marquis Krojen made an effort to calm down. 'Give me a situation review.'
'A Xianti reported a hydraulics failure,' Colin Jeffries said. 'We docked it in the maintenance bay, and the next thing we know the whole surrounding network had been subverted.'
'What's our response?' Marquis sat in one of the unused console seats. The ship's AS activated the panes, showing a range of schematics and camera images.
'Standard response is to withdraw power and environmental support from the contaminated section,' the AS said. 'That has been done.'
'Can you get me a real-time visual image of the space-plane?'
'No.'
'Divert an engineering shuttle to the maintenance bay, now,' Marquis told Colin Jeffries. 'I want to see what's happening.'
'Aye, sir.'
'Durrell Spaceport security is online,' the AS reported. 'They are warning us about the spaceplane. They believe it has been taken over by a Thallspring resistance movement.'
Marquis Krojen refused to let the shocking information panic him into hasty action. The AS had brought up a physical threat procedure on one of the panes. If there was a valid bomb threat against the Koribu, the captain was to order all hands to abandon ship. Security determined that any resistance group that had gotten within striking range would have a bomb capable of destroying the entire starship.
But it hadn't gone off yet. And if they were going to nuke the Koribu, why were they busy trying to subvert it?
'Could our engineering shuttles just rip the Xianti out of there?' Marquis Krojen asked.
Colin Jeffries shook his head doubtfully. 'I don't think so. Those shuttles don't have much thrust, and the hold-down latches are designed with a lot more inertia than a loaded Xianti in mind. You'd have to get underneath it and cut through them.'
'Work on it. I need options.'
'Aye, sir.'
'Do we have any contact with any crewmen in the affected section?' Marquis asked the AS. He just couldn't bring himself to say 'contaminated.'
'No, sir,' the AS said. 'There are no internal communication links open.'
'Very well, I want someone physically looking through the viewport in the emergency pressure door. Give them an open link to the bridge.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Overflight coming up,' Colin Jeffries called.
The AS routed the engineering shuttle's sensor imagery to the panes on Marquis Krojen's console. He looked down on the big pearl-white delta shape, not quite knowing what to expect. It appeared ridiculously impassive. Then his mind ran through docking procedures.
'Did we activate the airlock tunnel?' he asked.
'No, sir,' the AS replied. 'It was connected after the subversion occurred.'
Marquis Krojen looked directly at Colin Jeffries. 'They're inside, then. Jesus! Does Durrell Spaceport security actually know what's in there?'
An excited voice burst out of a console speaker. 'Sir, I can see somebody moving into the axial corridor.'
'Who is this?' Marquis Krojen asked.
'Irwin Watson, sir, fusion engineer.'
'Okay, who can you see, Watson?'
'Sir, it's a Skin.'
A Skin? Marquis mouthed at Colin Jeffries. The executive officer shrugged.
'What's he doing?' Marquis asked. One of the console panes showed him Watson and several others clustered around the axial corridor's pressure door.
'Sir, he's killing people, shooting them!' Watson's voice had risen to near hysteria.
'What sort of weapon is he using?'
'I don't know. He's got some kind of pistol, but I didn't see it fire. Hey, there's another person through there with him. They're wearing some kind of spacesuit, I think. He's putting something on the door.'
'Get back, now,' Marquis ordered.
'I can't see what it is.'
The camera showed Watson pressing his face against the pressure door viewport.
'Get away from the door. That is an order.'
Watson moved back reluctantly, gripping the rungs along the axial corridor. A brilliant white light stabbed out from the pressure door. It vanished as dirty black smoke poured out; streamers churned along the corridor walls like a fast-moving oil slick. A disk of flaming composite suddenly tumbled out of the smoke, narrowly missing Watson.
'Secure that section,' Marquis Krojen ordered the AS. 'I want physical isolation.'
'Affirmative,' the AS replied. 'Closing emergency pressure doors along the axial corridor.'
'Captain.' Simon Roderick's face had appeared on one of the console panes. Just his face, against a neutral gray background.
