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I didn’t wait for him to say it twice. The slapping sound of my bare feet pounding the floor bounced off the walls as I raced to my room, through the pool room and the secret passage connecting to it. I grabbed my portable computer, barely bigger than a datapad, and a data stick containing most of my tracer programs and hacking subroutines, then shoved my feet into my boots. My bedroom door opened, startling me. Ravik stood in the doorway, looking more somber than ever.
“Come on,” he growled, his voice laced with impatience.
Without waiting for my acknowledgement, he turned around and left. I closed the magnetic clasp of my boots then chased after him. Red lights blinked in the hallways while the crew raced to different sections of the ship to deal with the various malfunctions. I had to skip-run to keep up with Ravik’s long strides.
He marched onto the bridge, the captain jumping to his feet upon our entrance.
“Magnar, we—”
Baldur’s voice cut off, his eyes widening upon noticing my presence in Ravik’s wake. He frowned, his gaze flicking to the computer in my hand before turning back to his ruler.
“Report,” Ravik said, almost angrily.
Baldur snapped out of his distraction, although still clearly confused.
“Forgive me, Magnar. We believe our systems have been targeted by some kind of virus, but we can’t pinpoint it. It’s moving too fast.”
He displayed a map of the ship on the giant screen above the navigation board. Multiple sections of the vessel blinked red, many turning yellow or orange as the captain spoke. I immediately recognized the pattern.
“At this rate,” Baldur said, “we’ll be completely dead in space within an hour. Our propulsion systems have already begun showing some distress. We need to abandon ship before the emergency launch pads also get shut down.”
“That’s exactly what they want you to do,” I countered.
The captain and the four other officers on deck all frowned at me, shocked that I would intervene in what they clearly considered an inappropriate intrusion. One of them, with light-brown hair and striking light-green eyes opened his mouth, probably to put me back in my place, but appeared to change his mind after casting a wary glance towards Ravik.
“What makes you say that?” Ravik asked.
“This virus—and I believe it is indeed a virus—has been running for hours,” I said, approaching the screen. “If they wanted to kill you, they would have already blown up the ship. This hack is insidious, progressing in a calculated manner.” I pointed on the map at the different systems that had already been shut down. “All secondary systems, nothing vital but enough to start setting a panic and the narrative that the ship is dying. If I wanted to trap you aboard the ship, I’d disable your escape route. They’ve taken out the shuttle bay so the fighters can’t go out, but they haven’t touched the escape pods.”
Baldur blinked, his frown deepening. “But there’s nothing of value on this ship aside from the Magnar himself. Even if the whole plot was to take the ship, the damage this virus is causing will not be worth the repair cost. This makes no sense.”
“It does if they want to capture us without a battle,” Ravik said. “Escape pods are weaponless. Whoever sabotaged the ship must know the landing coordinates pre-programmed in the pods. They’ll be lying in wait to scoop us up while we sit there helpless.”
My lips parted in shock. I had not thought of that possibility. I eyed Ravik with even greater respect.
“What are you doing to counter this?” he asked his captain.
Baldur ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Our best minds are trying to track down the virus and isolate it, but so far, without success. We can’t even trust our ship’s self-diagnostics. Tagar has taken a few men to the shuttle bay to attempt to regain control so that we could possibly take off in the shuttles.”
“Captain, I need to connect to your ship’s mainframe,” I said, staring at Ravik for approval before my eyes flicked back to Baldur.
He recoiled, as if I’d grown a second head. “What?”
“Proceed,” Ravik said.
Baldur stared at Ravik in disbelief.
“Do not make me repeat myself,” Ravik growled, looking on the verge of snapping his captain’s neck.
Baldur stiffened, then blanched. Turning around, he tapped on the control panel of the navigational board. A hidden panel slid open revealing various connection slots. Refusing to let my temper flare at this nonsensical drama, I hooked in my computer and activated the holographic screen.
“Aren’t you going to get infected as well?” Baldur asked in a dubious tone, which barely hid his resentment and disdain.
“Nope,” I said absentmindedly.
I could feel the Braxians closing around me to look over my shoulder at my screen. It didn’t bother me as they couldn’t read the Guldan text it displayed. A quick diagnostic confirmed my suspicion. I knew this Guldan pattern well. For a second, I wondered if they’d done this to capture me, but that seemed pretty excessive. Appropriating my inherited wealth and selling me to collectors didn’t justify starting an interplanetary war. Plus, they hadn’t known I’d travel onboard the ship, as it had been too much of a last-minute thing.
“I can stop the virus,” I said, plugging my data key into the ship’s mainframe and tapping some instructions to release the antivirus. “And I can restore most of the systems affected, but some will require manual repair.”
