Chapter 18
Tarun opened the maintenance hatch, ‘I know you’ve got this figured out, but how do we patch Guthrik’s communicator into the ship’s transmitter without being spotted?’
‘We don’t. What we do is re-route their sensor array to send a message, can you do that, Loren?’
‘Of course – simple as biolinking the sleds,’ She tapped away on a small panel set into the maintenance hatch. ‘Hi, Squiggles. Fancy playing a game? Hey look at that, she’s got a level five security clearance.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘No idea, but it comes with administrative privileges so I should be able to... yes.’ Mervyn felt the familiar presence of a biolink.
‘They’ll overhear us,’ Mervyn hissed.
‘No they won’t, I’ve created our own network -- encrypted of course.’
‘You can do that?’
‘Squiggles can. They’ll never find it.’ She tapped away some more, ‘Ok, so now Squiggles is showing us in a different location and heading someplace else.’ She busied herself re-routing bio-circuits to patch the communicator into the ship’s sensor array.
While they waited, Tarun scooped away the bloody slime covering Aurora’s leg with his hands. He tore strips of insulation material from his spacesuit and used it to bind up the wound. Then he reapplied the splint and inflated it.
Loren tested her system, ‘I’ve bounced a beacon signal back from the relay station so it must be receiving us. What do we say.’
‘Here I’ll do it,’ Mervyn tapped an address then a message into the communicator while Loren memorised a schematic of the ship. ‘Message for Guthrik: mission failed... Pre-emptive action only option... Inserted and attempting your miracle... Watch for our signal. Then earn your place.’ He turned to Aurora, ‘You stay here and send this message every...’
Aurora’s head lolled. Tarun caught her and shook her awake, ‘I’ll do it, Merv. Someone needs to stay with Aurora to keep her awake -- if she drops off she might not wake again.’
Aurora struggled to keep her eyes open, ‘What happens if Guthrik doesn’t come?’
Mervyn shrugged, ‘We still stop the Naga, and that’s worth doing for its own sake.’ At least their deaths would not be in vain. With that thought in his mind Mervyn turned back to Loren, ‘What’s our route?’
Loren pointed to the gaping central well, ‘Straight to the bottom of that, then along this passage,’ she pointed to a schematic of the ship, ‘and out this grill. It’s a long, long climb, Merv, and we’ll have a gale against us all the way.’
Mervyn stuck his head over the parapet and felt a gale blast his face ‘No problem. Follow me.’ He unzipped his jumpsuit to the waist, climbed onto the parapet wall, and leaped. Spread-eagled, he fell into the roaring torrent of the central well.
For a moment he thought he would fall to the bottom, but then the gale tugged at his loose jumpsuit and took hold. A rush of exhilaration caught him by surprise: he was flying. The air column from below buoyed him up -- just like the airstream rider on Revlon. He swallowed hard and looked down. At the foot of the well, so far away he cloud barely make it out, turbine blade rotated forcing the air up the shaft. His whole body followed his head, just like swimming underwater, and he plunged downwards. He swept his arms back to his sides and accelerated; floors shot past, service hatches, lights, air ducts; the ladder just a smudge. Every few minutes he spread his arms and legs to slow his descent and wait for Loren to catch up.
At last, he could see the blur of turbine blades below. Almost there. Was it his imagination or was it slowing down? He spread his arms and legs to brake his headlong fall. Nothing happened. He fell faster.
With a sick gut-wrenching feeling he realised the turbine was stopping -- without the air column for support he would fall like a stone.
‘Grab the ladder!’ he yelled in panic and snatched at the rungs set into the wall. The speed of his fall snatched the first from his grasp. He grabbed frantically at a second rung and held on long enough to smash into the wall. He fell again. A third rung caught him under the chin. He saw stars. But the impact slowed his descent enough to hook an arm over a fourth rung. He jerked to a halt. Dazed, he hung for a moment, then hooked his free arm over another rung, and scrambled to find a foothold. He was safe.
An orange blur shot past: Loren, terror etched into her face. ‘Mervyn, help! Squiggles!’ Her arms and legs wind-milled as she accelerated towards the chopping turbine blades. Mervyn watched helplessly wondering what she meant. Squiggles?
Then he caught on, ‘Tarun, log in to Squiggles and speed up the turbine in the central well.’
‘Just a sec, Merv, Aurora’s fainted again.’
‘Now Tarun. Now! It’s the only way to save Loren.’
‘I’m on it...central well? It must be here somewhere...’
The turbine continued to slow and Loren continued to fall. Her eyes made contact and she mouthed his name. He tried to swallow, but a great lump stuck in his throat.
‘...got it, Merv... Oh no, that’s the lift’
Loren screamed.
‘Now, Tarun, now!’
‘It’s gone.’
A thud echoed from the bottom of the well. Mervyn’s heart froze and he buried his head in his arms not wanting to look down. The image of a young child, playing in a sandpit, masses of curly red hair falling over her face, sprang into his mind: his earliest memory of Loren. The two of them playing hide-and-seek round the streets of Starlight, learning to play Swot; Loren breaking up a fight among their friends, Loren standing up for the little guy; how proud she was to win the Tivolli prize, trying on their Academy uniforms for the first time. Always the piles of red hair dominating everything -- Loren, ever loyal. Gone.
Mervyn took a deep breath, there was a job to do, even if he did have to complete it alone now -- other lives depended on him. Eventually he plucked up the courage to look -- he still had to climb to the bottom of the well. Other than a red smudge on the wall there was no sign of Loren. Had she fallen right through the slashing blades? Was her shattered body lying somewhere on the other side of the turbine?
Something splattered on his arm: blood.
‘Looking for me, Merv?’ He turned to see Loren’s pale bloodied face, framed by red curls, looking down at him. Blood poured from her crooked nose -- she must have broken it. She was floating on the air stream again, though this time he noted she held tightly to the ladder with a white knuckled hand. ‘I taut I was deab for tertain dere,’ she wiped the blood away with the back of her hand. ‘I was so close to the turbine it threw me into the wall when the vortex started up again,’ she tried to grin through bloodied lips, but her chima glowed a sickly green. The fall had scared her more than she would admit.
Mervyn laughed, though whether from joy, fear or dumb stupidity he could not tell.. He would have hugged her except she was bobbing around in the torrent of air above him and was clinging to a ladder. What a pair.
‘Didn’t see the engine room while you were loafing about down there, did you?’ He asked with forced casualness.
‘Two floors below. Do you mind if we take the steps the rest of the way?’