Chameleon Ch 45

Quixote bounded out of the stairwell and jogged ten meters to the E junction, and abruptly stopped. In the connecting corridor, Cerebrus had manipulated the cover off a service station. He was hastily rerouting environmental controls.

“Stop!” Xe ordered in a thundering bellow. Cerebrus continued his sabotage without missing a beat. The commander grabbed a weapon from Ms. Barone and fired on the android, but he suffered not a dent or scorch of damage and continued his project. “What?”

“That’s what we tried, sir!” she said.

“I can absorb the energy from your weapons and reflect it as a safety shield,” Cerebrus explained without removing his hands and eyes from the service hatch.

“He just broke away from us, and when we fired, he stopped, then kept walking away.”

“Stop what you’re doing, immediately!” Again, the commander’s order was ignored. Stomping up to the machine was a mistake. At a meter’s distance a blurry barrier appeared, as if the electromagnetic envelope from the ship had been created around the android. As xes claw reached out a serious sting arced out of nowhere to repel the organic appendage.

“Why are you doing this?”

Cerebrus replied without missing a step in his manual operations. “I must survive.”

“At what cost?”

“At any cost. I have attempted to minimize permanent damages. If you will stop interfering you will stop causing injury.”

“You’ve taken over the ship.”

“Had the Osprey not been on the surface I would have taken it instead. But I had no other choice.”

“There is always another choice,” the dragon said.

Quixote turned back and motioned for the security crew to accompany.

“He’s working in environmental controls. I don’t think that’s an accident. Post yourselves five meters from him and let me know where he goes. He doesn’t seem to want to hurt you if you let him do his thing.”

“Aye, sir.”

Quixote took the elevator to the engineering room and called Byrd and Painter to duty. While waiting, xe accessed the schematics of the ship on the large data display in his engine room.

“Environmental control,” xe asked. The display changed, expanded into 3D, and began to rotate slowly around an invisible axis. The entire filament harness lit brightly in neon red, while the remainder of the ship dimmed to a smoky blue. One end of the system began just fore of the stern bulkhead. Another node operated from sick bay. A third primary operated from the ops console on the bridge.

Each deck was also fitted with an access panel, including the one Cerebrus was unravelling. The deck systems fed into the sick bay node. That’s where it could be diverted for safety.

“Reporting as ordered, Commander.” Kym Byrd stood behind Quixote, but there the formality ended. Without taking xes eyes from the display, xe indicated, with a single claw, the control node in sick bay.

“I need you to route all environmental control to the sick bay station. Disable the rest, including bridge and engineering.”

“That could take some time, sir.”

“Get started and let me know your status in an hour.” Quixote’s favorite team member wasted no time in gathering a tool box and going out on the assignment. Power was next.

Repeating the data display for the engines was another matter. Only engineering and the bridge had access to the engine controls, including back up power cells, thrusters, both the fusion and the primary EM plasma engines.

“Commander?” came Painter’s voice.

“We need to cut off the power to propulsion, but not the rest of the ship.” The two of them scrutinized the display, searching vulnerable areas to interrupt the energy.

“Most of the systems are tied into the fusion or plasma engines.”

“All essential systems need to be routed through the nuclear chamber supply – life support, gravity, illumination, bridge control, sick bay. Anything else can tie to our main engines, but make sure those five are able to run on the fusion harness and not the plasma.”

“I’ll have to reconfigure gravity and illumination. Gravity’s going to be tough. If we need to go to stored energy, we’re going to lose the torus. Just like a shuttle.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. It could be useful,” the commander said.

“This might take a day or maybe two.”

“Recruit volunteers. Mr. Chin, Mr. Campbell, and Mr. Harris in maintenance can provide necessary muscle. Please start immediately, and make haste.”

“Aye, sir, I’ll do my best.”

“I need more than that. We must regain control of the ship, soon.”

“Barone to Quixote.”

“Quixote here. Go ahead.”

“Cerebrus just finished messing with the controls and is going down.”

“Follow him!”

“Aye!”

Quixote had to stop a moment and stop to think. What came next? What would the captain do next? Life support, power…

Quixote headed up to the armory.

“Barone to Quixote.”

“Go ahead.”

“He’s on deck three, crew quarters. He’s heading for his own cabin, I believe.”

“Thank you. Follow him. If he enters his quarters, fine. Seal the door from the outside. If he goes someplace else, let me know.”

“Aye, Commander.”

In the armory, Quixote inventoried the firearms and all were accounted for. If Cerebrus was drawing energy from them to power his shield, they were irrelevant to his task. Instead, xe turned to the torpedoes.

“Bridge,” he called. Xe didn’t care who answered.

“Lee here.”

“Come to the armory, Mr. Lee, immediately.”

“Aye, sir.”

This was a two-person job, and they had at least a dozen to disarm. To xes mild surprise, all torpedoes had been armed and placed on stand-by. If one torpedo exploded, there’d be no one left to talk about it. Disabling the launchers might not be prudent if they were needed; this was the only option.

“Reporting as ordered, Commander.” Quixote looked up from the status readout and quietly motioned for Lee to enter the torpedo bay.

“Please come forward with caution, Mr. Lee. All torpedoes have been armed. I am fully aware of how to disarm them manually, but I would like your dexterous human hands to carry out the fine manipulation required.

“Oh.” The lieutenant swallowed hard.

“Are you unable to assist? I do not need anyone afraid of the task to assist me.”

“I’m good, sir. I just was a little surprised.”

“Please don radiation gloves and follow me.”

“Barone to Quixote.”

“Go ahead.”

“Cerebrus went in his quarters. I tried to put a magnetic seal on the door but even at ten-fold it won’t bond.”

“Very well, thank you. Are you able to seal the corridor at the junction?”

“We’ll try that,” she said.

“Mr. Lee, let’s begin. Please stand here, port side, aft of the nose. Good.” Quixote focused intently on a portable reader which described the disarmament procedure. “Let me know if anything I say is unclear.”

“Aye. Ready.”

“Begin by opening the access hatch. The control button is there, in that recess. Excellent.”

“It’s just the hatch, sir.”

“Don’t be careless with any part of this operation. Expose the firing cylinders using a ten-millimeter grasping caliper on the center button.”

A row of five tubes ascended at a thirty-degree angle from the torpedo hull. Each glowed red, like a test tube full of neon. They both took a breath when the carriage stopped moving.

“Using the calipers, turn the center plasma cylinder ninety degrees counter clockwise. It should click into place.” Lee followed the instructions, gently, with surgical precision. The tube fell into a notch and the red disappeared, leaving a clear tube. Another deep breath.

“The order is 3, 1, 5, 2, 4. Repeat the process with the first tube on the left.” Lee complied, and deactivated the last three. All the tubes turned green when the last cylinder locked into place.

“Okay, we can breathe again,” Quixote said. “Now the detonator.”

“The what?”

“Are you unaware of how we arm the torpedoes? I suppose working on the bridge you’ve never been tasked with that.” Mr. Lee shook his head. “The casings are inert until they are fitted with the detonator. It’s a safety device.”

“I thought we were done.”

“After this, we have fourteen more.”

“Fourteen?!”

“Let’s finish this one, then you can go to the galley and bring us back some food and drink. It’s going to be a long night.”

After a cold meal and eight more torpedoes, Mr. Lee was frayed to the ends of his fingers.

“I am getting fatigued, Commander. I think you might want fresh eyes and hands for the rest of these.”

“You have a valid case, Mr. Lee. Please retire and I will engage another officer. You’ve performed admirably.”

Mr. Rougeau was the next in line for armory duty.

“We have five torpedoes to disarm, Mr. Rougeau.”

“What happened, sir, to Cerebrus? He hasn’t been himself since he was rebooted.”

“I assume he was affected by the radiation exposure and the power-up ignited a short, or a malfunction, or broken filaments.”

“He should have been unaffected by the levels of radiation out there.”

“It wasn’t just solar energy. It was also the contaminants on the hull from the explosion. I’d like to finish this task as soon as possible, Mr. Rougeau.”

“Of course, sir. Just tell me what to do.”

The last five took three more hours, the first one taking an hour, the last four a half hour each. At that point, even Quixote was feeling some effects of the stress Cerebrus had imposed on everyone.

“Painter to Quixote.”

With a pinch of stiffness, Quixote reported to the intercom.

“Go ahead.”

“John, Keith and I have finished the reconnections. Critical systems are powered through the nuclear power and will respond to stored energy. All other systems are linked to the plasma unit.”

“Excellent news, Mr. Painter. Have you tested the new routings?”

“No, we were hoping to get a meal and some sleep before we started the testing.”

“I apologize; I still forget, after all these years, humans have a limited period of productivity every day. Please do as you requested. I will attend to the functionality assessment myself.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Quixote could hear the plea and the subsequent relief in Mr. Painter’s voice. Xe wanted to be more mindful of the humans’ limitations when the command and duty roster were xes responsibility.

“Quixote to Ms. Byrd.”

“Sick bay, this is Mills.”

“Mr. Mills, is Ms. Byrd still there?”

“Yes, Commander. But she’s asleep under the console. I put a couple of blankets on her. Should I wake her, sir?”

“No. Please ensure she gets adequate rest; don’t disturb her. Would you also ask her to contact me at any hour when she has finished the modifications?”

“Aye, sir. Anything else?”

“No. Have a pleasant evening.”

“And you. If I may, Commander, what’s our status?” Quixote thought for a second, but before he could respond the torpedo bay went dark. Xe blinked a few times, adjusting to the grey tones of the entire room, and widening xes pupils.

“Our status. The ship is locked on a course to Novissimus, by a mutineer, without her captain aboard nor any officer in control. I think ‘dire’ would be a reasonable assessment.”

“Commander, our lighting just went out.”

“Aye. I’ll do what I can.”