The chaos on the bridge was hard to track for most, but not for Reed. He
knew who his people were, which meant, by process of elimination, he could
find all of his targets, which they were choosing to call
tangentials. He was grateful to Aletha’s special weaponry, which
allowed him to fire nearly indiscriminately, knowing that anyone who died
would simply wake up in a new body, and anyone stunned would be unconscious
for a few hours. The advantage in this surprise attack was that they were
all meant to be friends here. No one was wearing special clothing or markers
to identify which side they were on. So the tangentials were actually
targeting each other, in addition to Reed and his people. They were clocking
everyone as a threat, because it could have been anyone. All
they saw were guns raised, and that was more than enough reason to shoot now
and ask questions later. In the past, that was only a joke, but the
tangentials actually would be able to do that here...assuming they won,
which they weren’t going to.
As Reed was taking control here, an AI voice was summarizing the progress in
other sectors of The Tangent. The plans in those other sectors were
developing more smoothly. The tangentials were caught by surprise, and
largely unarmed. Members of the security team were scattered about, and they
were firing back, but for the most part, Reed’s commandeerers were
winning. According to live reports, their biggest hurdle was engineering.
Almost all of Reed’s people had been disarmed. The one who called to warn
him about it was able to hold her own, but she was pinned down, and alone.
Reed ducked behind a console and tried to whisper, “get me more people to
engineering. All available units, help secure engineering.”
Annoyingly, someone hiding behind a nearby console heard him. It was the one
who recognized Reed despite his advanced age in this body. Reed recognized
him right back, though he couldn’t remember his name. “Security!” the guy
yelled into his own communicator. “Get to engineering! Don’t let them take
engineering!”
“Argh,” Reed complained, shooting the guy in the head, a bit disappointed in
himself for feeling satisfaction at that. Now he had to get to engineering
himself so he could assume direct responsibility for it. He assumed that the
bridge would be the hardest to hold, but that was looking fine for now.
“Seal the bulkheads!” he heard one of his people demand.
Reed got up to survey the scene. It was theirs. The bridge was theirs. Two
of the commandeerers were shooting at anyone trying to make it through the
entrance while one of them had a gun trained on the Head Architect’s head as
he was sitting in the captain’s chair, cowering.
“Seal them now!” Vasily repeated. “Do it!”
“I—I, I, I don’t have authorization,” the architect claimed.
Reed walked over there with authority and presence. “We know that you do.
There’s no way you built this thing without being able to control it. It
would have been impossible. Just close the doors, and grant me command
access.”
“You’ll have to kill me,” the architect spat.
“That can be arranged.” Reed lifted his own weapon, and pointed it at the
architect too. The autophaser switched to stun mode. “You’re undigitized.”
“Is there any other way to truly live?” the architect questioned.
Reed lowered his gun and sighed as he looked over at the other gun
threatening the architect’s life. “Vasily. Why is your weapon on manual?”
“Because this is serious,” Vasily replied.
“Take it off manual...right now.”
“He needs to know that we’re not playing around. The doors will close,
whether he wants them to or not.” Vasily looked back at his target. “Do you
want them to?”
“No,” the architect answered, growing bolder.
They heard a stirring on the floor. It was Ajax, who was not only a captain,
but the captain of the Tangent.
“Well, he can close them too, can’t he?” Vasily decided.
“Vasily,” Reed warned.
“You’re next if you don’t help us,” Vasily explained, looking down at Ajax,
who was starting to stand back up. Then he shot the architect point blank.
He was dead now; not backed-up, not set to heal from his wounds, but
completely, totally, and permanently dead.
“Vasily!” Reed cried. “What the hell did you just do!”
“What I had to!” Vasily volleyed.
Frustrated, but more afraid of losing control of the situation, Reed lifted
his gun again, this time at his own compatriot. He squeezed the trigger, but
nothing happened.
Vasily smirked. “Did Aletha not tell you that it also comes with an
anti-friendly fire function? We programmed everyone into the system.”
“That was reckless,” Reed argued. “You created an entire manifest of
dissidents. If that had leaked, they could have stopped this all before it
began.”
“Well, that didn’t happen, and they obviously know who we are now anyway.”
“But only some of us will be trapped on Bungula after the Tangent
launches.”
“Who?” Vasily questioned.
Reed pulled out his knife, and unfortunately jammed it into Vasily’s head.
“Why hast thou forsaken me?” Vasily’s dying brain asked as the blood was
running down his cheek.
“We’re rebelling against the cowardly government...not me,” Reed answered.
Vasily’s former substrate fell to the floor.
Captain Ajax stepped over the body. “You want the doors sealed, I’ll seal
them. Just don’t kill anyone. Enhanced people still feel pain, ya know.” He
tapped his code into the chair interface, and closed the doors. “That code
will do most of what you need until it expires, but you won’t have full,
permanent authorization, and I’m not going to help you get it.” He contorted
his jaw, and crunched down. The cyanide foamed in his mouth, and then he
fell down on top of Vasily’s previous body.
Already tired, Reed reached down and input the same code that Ajax had, so
his personal keylogger could capture it. After the doors reopened, Reed
began to step out. He flung the code to one of the door guards so they could
control the systems in his absence. “Hold your post, soldier.”
“Aye, captain.”
“And about Vasily...”
“We’re with you, sir,” the other guard insisted. “You did what you had to.
Now go take engineering so we can save our friends.”
“For Proxima Doma,” the first guard said.
“For Proxima Doma!” they chanted in unison. “For Proxima Doma! For Proxima
Doma!” Their voices trailed off as Reed was jogging away.
He could hear the firefight as he was coming up on the engineering section.
He saw movement in the corner of his eye, so he raised his gun once more,
but found it to be a couple of friendlies. It apparently didn’t matter
whether he had fired, though. Why did Aletha not tell him about that
feature? He held his finger to his lips, and gestured for them to step into
that hallway closet, and keep a lookout for tangentials. Reed, meanwhile,
went on to enter the fray. “Everyone stop firing!” he cried.
To his surprise, they did all stop.
“If I know statistics—and I know statistics—a great number of you don’t
agree with the government’s plan to abandon our neighbors on Proxima Doma!
You have two choices, whether you agree or not! You can lay down your arms,
and help us execute the rescue mission, or you can lay down your arms, and
stay behind! But you’re not winning this! We have the bridge, we have
elevator control, and we have everything else! We even have the main
cafeteria! This platform is not staying in orbit over Bungula!”
“We will not be party to a mutiny!” someone said. She stepped out from
behind a power relay block. “I know who you are, Executor Ellis!
Stolen valor is a serious offense, and I do not recognize your authority!
Hell, I don’t even see you as an executor anymore. The way I see it, you’re
just a criminal!”
“We’re sorry to hear that!” Shasta’s voice said behind Reed. He turned to
see her walking into the room very slowly and carefully. She was holding
some kind of scary glowing device. It was pulsing with energy, and hurting
Reed’s ears a little. He had to move away from it. Everyone else seemed to
be feeling the same thing. “Back up! Back up!” She ordered as some tried to
inch closer, likely hoping to shut whatever this thing was off. “This is
called a blueshift bomb! You walk towards it, it starts rupturing your
eardrums! You touch it, it goes off! Trust me, you don’t want it to go off!”
Reed wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing, but he couldn’t get
close enough to whisper, and they needed to maintain a united front.
Shasta didn’t walk too far into the room before stopping and setting it down
on the floor. “I’m obviously protected against its effects, but no one else
is! You should know that it’s highly sensitive to microwave radiation! You
don’t even have to fire in its direction to set it off, so unless you wanna
die, you’ll put your guns on the floor! It doesn’t care if you’re
consciousness is streaming, or if it isn’t! It’s not that smart! It is
simply reactive! I probably shouldn’t even be raising my voice! Everyone is
going to slowly walk around it, careful not to walk towards it, and
come out of the room with your hands up!”
The tangentials reluctantly complied, leaving their guns behind, and
agreeing to be cuffed and patted down in the corridor. The commandeerers
were allowed to keep their guns, of course, but they had to be holstered for
safety. The air was tense, and the process was slow, but things were moving
forward. They would clear out engineering, and then Shasta would deactivate
the bomb so they could place their own people at the workstations, and
finally get moving along.
“Screw this!” one of the tangentials suddenly said just before he could make
it over the threshold. “I’m streaming.” He took a few sideways leaps towards
the bomb before taking one final jump, and diving on top of it.
Someone thought quickly and slammed their hand against the emergency
bulkhead button. Shasta thought just as quickly when she pushed Reed through
those doors just in time for him to make it through before the doors shut,
allowing herself to be trapped inside. The bomb went off with a painful
screeching sound, and pounded dents into the inside of the bulkhead. It was
even more powerful than he had guessed. In a few seconds, it was over.
Shasta was right, you would not want to be in there when that happened. He
was angry that she was in there, and that the man who did it to her
was just as far away as she was now, tucked away safely in his little
respawn chamber.
“Felaine?” Reed asked, looking over at one of his people.
Felaine wasn’t the one who brought the bomb in here, but she was a
demolitions expert, so she definitely knew how a blueshift bomb worked. “All
of those substrates are dead. Most of the machinery has been destroyed or
disabled. The room was flooded with a ton of deadly radiation. We’re not
getting back in there anytime soon.”
“Options?”
“There’s an auxiliary engineering section on the port side,” one of the
tangential hostages said. “It’s not as robust, but it will get you moving.”
“Don’t help them!” one of the other tangentials urged.
“This is what helping gets you,” Reed countered. He took his knife back out,
and cut the engineer’s cuffs. He looked at the freeman. “Take my people to
it, and spool up the fusion torches to prepare to escape orbit. I want to
leave as soon as the VIPs are out of the atmosphere. We don’t have time for
them to get all the way on board.”
“These people?” one of his commandeerers asked.
“Take ‘em to hock,” Reed ordered. He went off to return to the bridge.
He didn’t get very far before someone called for him on comms. “Captain, there’s a problem with the elevator.”
“What problem is that?” he asked.
“News has traveled, one of the VIPs activated the emergency brakes. I
physically cannot restart it from here.”
“Can they go back down?” Reed asked.
“If they reengage the motor, I’ll be able to resume control. All they can
do is hold and wait, which I think they’re doing so someone can rescue
them.”
“We need those VIPs,” Reed reminded everyone. He took a moment to think as
he continued walking. “What is the pod’s current altitude, and can we blow
the bolts below it and still make it out of the atmosphere?”
“It’s 83 kilometers over the surface,” the elevator tech explained.
“Our Plan B set it at 121 so we could blow the 120 bolts. I’m not happy
about it, but it’s technically possible right now. I would be happier at
108 kay-em, so I suppose we’re on Plan D at this point.”
“Sir, I’m seeing a shuttle heading for the elevator,” one of his new bridge
crewmembers reported once he had returned. “They’ll reach it in under thirty
minutes.”
“Blow it,” Reed ordered. “We’ll blow the 80 bolts. We’ll have to figure out
how to drag them out from where they are. Just wait for my cue.” He massaged
his temples, noticing that his people were all watching. “We always knew
that it wasn’t gonna be easy, right? I didn’t know my best friend would
sacrifice herself to save me from a blueshift bomb, and get stuck off-site,
but we play the cards we’re dealt, and move on.”
“Sir,” the Tangent’s newest communications officer began. “I assume you
would like to speak with the VIPs? Ready on your orders.”
“I need you to block all signals from anyone but me.”
“Already done.”
“Open the channel.” Reed paused for a moment. “Passengers on the maiden lift
of the Tangent space elevator, my name is Captain Jean Tiberius Adama. We
have retaken control of most of the platform, but there are still some
systems in enemy hands. Please secure your persons in your seats, and strap
all the way in. Your vertical transportation specialist will assist you if
needed. You have thirty seconds. This is for your safety. Thank you.” He
motioned for her to cut the link.
There was an awkward silence while they waited for the tethers to pop. “Was
that a reference, sir?” a new crewmember asked.
“A few references,” he answered. “I needed them to feel safe, but not so
safe that they dismissed my orders, and I didn’t want to impersonate a real
officer.”
“Tethers are blown sir,” the elevator tech updated.
“Thank you, Sartore. Now that they’re free, start reeling them in. Who cares
about the pod brakes?” He took one beat. “Aux engineering, status of the
fusion drives.”
“Magnetic containment fields are at 72%.”
“All right, keep going,” Reed began. “I’ll need updates on the other
sections. Let’s start with—”
Alarms started to blare. “Sir!” the sensor officer screamed. “I’m detecting
a kinetic drone headed right for our starboard fusion torch!”
“How long?” Reed asked.
“Three seconds!”
Before anyone could do anything, there was a massive explosion, and the
whole platform lurched. Artificial gravity was disabled, sending everyone on
the bridge careening into the portside hull. “We have three more torches!”
Reed cried. “They’re gonna blow them too! Burn ‘em! Burn the other three!”
“I can’t get back to propulsion!”
“I got it!” Reed looked over to see Shasta—alive and well—floating towards
the propulsion station. She tapped on the console.
This would save their lives. The torches themselves would vaporize the
drones, or at the very least, alter their orbital pattern enough so that any
other drones would face navigational issues. In the immediate term, however,
they were worse off than they were before. Since the magnetic containment
field wasn’t fully operational, this was a dirty burn. That was actually
beneficial to them. Since the plasma was unfocused, the chances that it
would meet the drone went up. But with only three of the four torches
burning, the platform was out of balance, and out of control. Even though
the burn only lasted a fraction of a second, that was enough to throw them
off. They were now relentlessly spinning in a decaying orbit, well on their
way to crashing down on the surface of the planet.
