“I would be lost if it weren’t for you, Teena. Choosing you for an executive assistant was the best choice.”
She felt her executive assistant relax even more. Their hands merely touched, a lifeline in the flickering darkness.
“Let’s give it six months and we can revisit your contract if Pilo doesn’t have you obligated for some other station.”
“I doubt they would—wait, are you offering me a partnership, Miss Reganta?” Teena’s professional voice had suddenly reappeared and it was as controlled as ever.
“Call me Betta, Teena. We’re alone in a dark room waiting to die. I think that puts us on a first name basis. And, no. I am considering you for a share in Betta’s Station based on your performance at the end of the six-month trial period. I can also offer you an executive managerial position.”
“Can I have that in writing?” Teena asked.
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I will draw up the contract myself once you can confirm yourself as a free agent.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Teena, but having her write her own contract felt wrong somehow.
Betta felt her stomach dip and, in desperation, they each wrapped arms around one another as the gravity became nonexistent. They began to float in the darkness, their bodies entangled with one another. She could feel the other woman’s pulse vibrating against her own where their cheek’s touched.
Betta’s calm shattered as she imagined this might be their last moments on her station.
The sound of the ventilators halted and the cold began to creep into the dark chamber. The two trembled against one another.
Before Jadis could change the subject yet again away from his waste output, the entire room trembled and several drops of water struck the back of his head. The room was cast in a shade of blue that blinked intermittently. It was a Drafer alarm, yet an alarm still.
T’enic pressed the buckle of her belt. “This is Lizard Inn, I’ve lost all communication with the lower half. I can’t reach Maintenance.”
Jadis furrowed his brow as he watched the holographic percentage change from 57 to 58, and then 59 at the corner of his vision. His download was suddenly proceeding. He was tempted to hack the federal database, but few came away from that without repercussions. Instead, he attempted to reach any security modules that might interface with him.
The room trembled again. There was a shutter that reverberated through the entire structure, and then silence.
Jadis Ter was on his feet and running toward the entrance. “I know what this is. Some idiot is firing on the station.”
T’enic gasped. “How is that possible? We are protected.”
Jadis didn’t wait to answer. He was through the entrance and into the dry, warm chaos that was The Disc. Employees in flight suits were running for lifts that weren’t working. There were a few that were trying to keep order by organizing into proper teams. There was no sign of clear leadership, which nagged at Jadis, but he moved forward, interfacing with his ship.
There was no firewall, no protection against any type of attack on the network. Even in the most basic setup, there was something to protect against intrusion. Jadis was easily able to access all the commands that were once encrypted on the old station. It was almost as if it had reverted back to its derelict state. He called a multitude of commands in an effort to get some information of what was happening outside the station.
An exterior scan revealed a heavy cruiser with no clear identification. It was more than a few parsecs away. The station would have never detected it on its own, rather the feds were updating the telemetry in real time. Several federal fighters were en route to intersect the battle cruiser, but there was a more immediate threat. More missiles headed toward Betta’s Station, at least a dozen. The station’s counter measures would not stop them all.
It figured. The one time he decided to suffer through a full stay outside of his ship, and actually taste honey, he would be caught in a massacre.
“Station!” he called, watching the people claw at the lift entrance, some casting others aside to pull at the crevice between the doors.
A kiosk appeared, but all the signs and words were in red. “This is station. I apologize. We are in a state of emergency. All interaction between customers and station is temporarily disabled.”
Jadis rolled his eyes. He placed a new subroutine that caused a reboot and allowed him to access root. Soon he had linked some of the environmental controls with his current interface. He could see the virus that ran rampant through the system. It was concentrated on the security and executive level access. Jadis had neither. Now that he was at root, he worked the very low-level code that was unprotected and without clearances. This was slow going as he had to learn the system.
Using his cybernetic ability to create several conscious interfaces of himself, he explored the stations database, easily interacting with each consciousness to share information and form a plan. In his head, the microseconds were like hours, yet he worked at a pace that he felt would impress the feds.
It was only a few minutes more before he had control of the fusion propulsion engines that operated at both axis as well as on the starboard and port of level 12.
He checked the ETA of the missiles headed for Betta Station. He had 7 minutes before the first wave hit. The propulsion system was old and it required a pre-check warm-up that took 15 minutes.
Jadis gritted his teeth. He hated to change that code. What if something was really wrong with this old station that the checks would reveal? Well… well, they would be dead by the time they found it, or at least leaking atmosphere.
There was another problem, one of his conscious minds revealed as he rewrote the code. There was a power check. The station needed at least 48 percent reserves for a full emergency burn that would take them out of the missile trajectory. For some reason, the reserves sat at 20 percent. 20 percent!
Jadis rubbed his eyebrows in frustration. How had he let himself even board this station without a full scan? He needed power. He needed to get it from somewhere. His eyes scanned schematic after schematic before he made the decision.
So, they wouldn’t have life support for about 5 to 10 minutes. “There should be enough oxygen in the station for at least a few hours.” He convinced himself this was true.
“But what happens after the burn? All the reserves will be spent. The fusion reactor will have to work double time to run the environmental controls?” Jadis hated arguing with one of his minds, but he was grateful that with knowledge and desire came morality.
There would have to be a choice between essential systems and non-essential. Gravity wasn’t essential, oxygen was, but the scrubbers were a luxury. The air would smell and taste bad for a few hours, but they’d have air.
Completing his code and overwriting the current implementation, Jadis activated his new hack with a two-minute impact ETA of the first missile. He found a handhold on The Lizard’s Inn near the doorway.
A part of him thought maybe he should have warned all those people running about. He definitely gave a thought to the ones attempting to organize their teams to actually do something. Of course, the time they spent in debate attempting to identify the problem, they’d all be corpses floating in space. His interjection would probably have only served to cause more confusion.
No, instead he watched in amusement as they scrambled about. Some called “station” in the hope they could find escape pods, or some way off the station. In truth, there were about 10 escape pods on The Disc.
Besides, who would believe him. It was hard enough just to get Betta’s trust. Teena was already suspicious, which he admired about her.
In the end, he justified it with the thought that he’d never have enough time to warn the entire Disc.