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He dashed to a cabinet and extracted a portable scanner. When he rejoined Ilid, he said, “If I’m asked, I can say this has been acting glitchy. I have…well, Ihada friend in Engineering. I can claim to be taking it to him to fix.”
“Good idea, but let’s move before your coworkers come back from their meeting.”
They set off as planned. Darir strolled to the next corridor while Ilid watched. When the orderly reached the corner, he nodded to Ilid and kept going.
Ilid followed, keeping his distance. He rounded the corner. Darir was close to the second turn he’d have to chance. No one else appeared in the passage, which was of little surprise to Ilid. Before the riders, they’d have run into fellow crewmembers occasionally, but there was less traffic since the ship had been invaded. It was the sole reason he thought he had any possibility of reaching Engineering without being caught.
He turned the next corner to see Darir waiting in front of the lift that would take him to the engineering level. At Ilid’s nod, Darir stepped in and disappeared. Ilid entered another car seconds later.
He experienced an instant of déjà vu as he remembered his last visit to Engineering…right before he’d sent the message to his father and been caught. When the lift’s door opened, he paused as he had then and stared into the corridor.
No movement. He poked his head out and gazed in Engineering’s direction. No one, including his guide, was in evidence.
He hurried to the open door of his goal. Darir was waiting just inside the entrance, a mixture of concern and relief working his features. “No one’s here.”
Ilid blinked. The orderly was right. The chamber was empty of life. The computers and machinery hummed to itself.
“Where is everyone?” he whispered. “Even during sleep shift, there are at least two techs on duty.”
“Maybe they all left the ship? Did you notice there wasn’t a sign of anyone else all the way here?”
“It makes no sense.” Or did it? “Umen and the rest of the medical staff left you alone. The crew, those infected by riders, must have gathered together to meet…or do something to the ship, maybe.” As they’d done something to the power generator. Whatever they were up to, it had to do with Ilid’s message getting through. He felt a surge of pride and shoved it aside. In the absence of other living beings, his nebulous plan took on definite edges. “We have to assume they’ll be back, possibly soon. We might be able to sabotage the ship and also escape if we’re given enough time.”
“Really?” Darir gaped, hope creeping in.
“Let’s grab those blasters.”
Ilid led him to the storage locker. Not only were there the bulky military-grade percussion blasters, but belts and holsters to strap onto their waists so their hands were free. Darir, wearing his orderly scrubs, looked ridiculous with the high-powered weaponry slung above his hip.
“Now what?”
“The phase device.”
Seconds later, Ilid removed the device’s casing, revealing a pair of power coils and a bank of color-coded chips. Darir stared.
“You know how this works?”
“Hell no. But I know how to make it not work. It’s the first thing they teach you; what you shouldn’t do.”
He started at the top of the chip bank, randomizing the reds, pulling two at a time free of their designated plugs and swapping their positions.
“They’re designed to operate okay if you accidentally switch the polarities on say, half a dozen. No more than that, but as long as most of this remains intact, the phase will fail slowly to start, thanks to internal battery-operated backups.”
“How slow?” Darir peered closely as Ilid shifted his efforts to the blue chips, as if his avid attention would unlock the phase generator’s secrets.
“If an engineering tech was at his post, he’d have five minutes to fix this before the ship began appearing to normal space. If no one works on the problem right away, an alert will show up at the bridge’s security podium in three minutes.”
“That isn’t so slow.”
“Better than an immediate alert.” Ilid’s fingers flew over the green chips, then the yellow. At last, he stopped.
He hoped he’d fouled up the works well to take the engineers at least half an hour to unsnarl the mess he’d made. Whether or not their location would be noted by other ships, stations, or planets was up to fate. He set his sights on his next goal.
“I’m going for the plasma generator. Taking it offline will get their attention before the phase failure alert shows up on the bridge. Then we’ll race for the shuttle bay and fly the hell out of here.”
“Do you think we’ll make it?”
It was then Ilid saw movement at the corners of his eyes. “Shit.”
