They walked into a deserted lock corridor toward the shuttle. Chris approached eagerly and they stepped through into the s.p.a.ceplane.
The interior suffered from a dearth of light, slowing Chris"s first a.n.a.lysis. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the flight deck held about half the number of seats of his arrival flight. He saw drab plastic canvas seats. Was the interior dingy or just dark? Everything on his arrival flight had been new and shiny. He remembered the sparkle of the VG tags. Nothing sparkled in this place. A thin gray carpet covered the floors.
The individual seating stations sat on barren metal platforms that rotated to accommodate the acceleration of the shuttle. Each pa.s.senger had their own storage area, although this shuttle had only two storage compartments for each seat.
A figure suited in a bulky set of black gear entered the pa.s.senger module from the far side. The person threw his helmet aside revealing his face. The man had brown hair with gray on the sides. Drops of sweat streaked his fat cheeks. The man glanced at Chris and Cinmei but his gaze didn"t linger.
They walked closer to the man as he struggled with his gear. Chris saw the man wore the lowest ranking blue. His cheeks were flushed red, and he breathed heavily while yanking off his shoulder coverings.
"You can take your gear off now," the man said testily. He bent down to pull off his own shin pieces.
Cinmei pointed her taser at the back of the man"s neck and activated it. Chris heard a sharp crack. The man grunted and jerked forward as his muscles convulsed. His knees. .h.i.t the deck followed by his face, propping his body up in a ludicrous position. Cinmei kicked him over sideways causing him to flop limply across the floor onto his back.
She took off her helmet and looked at Chris.
"Leave rest on," she said. "Just in case. Maybe good protection."
Chris nodded. He understood her point. The thick suit might stop several types of nonlethal weapons, like their tasers.
"What about his link? If he wakes up and sends out a message ..."
"Link dead now," Cinmei said. She pointed at her taser.
Chris realized that the weapon must be more sophisticated than he had estimated. If it neutralized links, then that covered his first worry. Then he had another thought.
"But if we zap the pilot"s link, the shuttle might-"
Cinmei put up her armored hand. "Know. Have link to take over."
"But the pilot"s link must have a series of one-time codes used to communicate with ..." his voice trailed off as Cinmei shook her head.
"Know," she said again. "We have codes, too. Only need pa.s.sword to make navi ... navigation changes."
Chris sighed. He was only along for the ride. Apparently, Cinmei and her people were quite competent. He might as well shut up.
Cinmei shuffled quickly to the other door. It opened to reveal a short corridor that seemed to run the spine of the cargo shuttle. The white pa.s.sageway had an ugly beige floor. The bottom edge of the s.p.a.ce had square corners but the ceiling had smoothed out edges, making Chris think the pa.s.sage must lie immediately under the top surface of the shuttle. She headed toward the front of the vessel with Chris close behind her.
Cinmei paused at the end of the corridor. Chris accessed the shuttle map through his link. He could clearly see that they stood at the entrance to the vessel c.o.c.kpit.
"Your entrance is not authorized," a soft voice told him through his link as he centered it on the c.o.c.kpit.
Chris saw the control s.p.a.ce beyond the door was only four by six meters. He saw a picture of the interior showing a large acceleration couch and two banks of manual controls that he a.s.sumed were only for emergencies.
The door opened. A man in a jumpsuit uniform of blue and white lounged in the acceleration couch he"d seen on the diagram. The room had the banks of equipment shown by the link, augmented by a few potted plants. The man looked more slender than his comrade looked but had the same graying hair. He didn"t gaze at the newcomers, but simply stared into s.p.a.ce. Most likely, he focused on his PV.
"So, what"s up?" asked the man. Chris detected an accent in the voice. Maybe German or Austrian, he thought.
Cinmei pointed her taser at his chest and let him have it. The pilot yelped and went limp. After a split second, a rivulet of blood ran down the man"s chin. Chris winced. The pilot had bitten his own lip or tongue.
"Help carry," Cinmei entreated.
Chris nodded. He took the man"s upper arms and pulled him from the couch. Cinmei helped to pull the body into firefighters" carry position on Chris"s back. A single drop of blood splattered onto the floor, marring the dull beige floor with an oasis of crimson.
Cinmei led Chris down the hall and into a room of storage lockers. The ceiling was rounded and low overhead and lit by glow panels nestled between dark grilled vents. Four or five white chairs were around a table that folded out of the wall. Cinmei pulled a chair out into the center of the room, so Chris dropped the pilot into it.
Cinmei opened up a locker. Chris saw some duffel bags inside. Cinmei shuffled things around in the locker and produced some slender yellow rope.
"Tie up," she told Chris, tossing him some rope. Then she hurried out.
Chris had just managed to get the pilot seated when she returned dragging the other man. He helped her sit him down on another white plastic chair.
Chris tied them up, securing their hands behind the chairs. Then he tied their ankles to the legs of the chairs. He pulled the cords as tight as he dared. He remembered hearing something about serious consequences of tying someone up so tightly that their limbs did not get enough blood. When he was done, he wasn"t sure the bonds would hold forever, but he figured it would take at least a couple of hours to escape from them.
Cinmei opened a dispenser panel in the wall and filled a transparent plastic cup with water. The first man was already coming around. Cinmei threw the water across the pilot"s face. He sputtered and groaned.
"Let us go, you whack jobs," the first man said. Chris figured this guy had to be subservient to the pilot. He didn"t have a uniform and he hadn"t been in the c.o.c.kpit.
"I change course," Cinmei said. "We need authorization."
"No!" spat the first man.
The pilot shook his head, opening his eyes and staring glumly at his captors. "We won"t cooperate with you," he said. The accent was almost certainly German. "My link does not work. By this time, the vessel is locked down and help is on the way."
"Does the ship look locked down to you?" Chris asked. He walked over to a locker and asked it to open through his link. The door popped open. The simple gesture was not lost on the pilot.
"We need authorization," she repeated.
"Go f.u.c.k yourself, c.h.i.n.k!"
Cinmei set her mouth in a straight thin line. She produced a short knife from her gear. The blade glinted. It appeared razor sharp on one side and had a wicked looking serration on the other.
Chris stared at the knife and swallowed. He felt uncomfortable, even though he wasn"t the one being threatened.
"I"m not talking," said the pilot. The other man didn"t speak.
Cinmei calmly sliced through the pilot"s waistband and slid his pants down to his ankles. The man wore blue undersheers, simple clinging underwear that went halfway down his thigh.
"You do not want me continue," Cinmei said. The pilot didn"t respond.
Chris didn"t want her to continue either. He felt he needed to stay to lend weight to Cinmei"s presence. Psychologically, the man should feel more pressure among more enemies. Cinmei adjusted her taser then thrust it hard into the pilot"s groin. Chris heard a sharp snap.
The man screamed. Chris shifted on his feet uneasily but kept his face calm.
"You crazy b.i.t.c.h!" the other man yelled.
"Give us," Cinmei said. The pilot didn"t answer. His face had turned crimson. His jaw clenched.
Cinmei grabbed the man"s shorts and sliced them open with her knife.
"Oh, my G.o.d," whimpered the man next to the pilot.
"I never liked watching this part," Chris stated matter-of-factly. "Let me know once he"s told you." Chris fled from the room, barely keeping rein on his emotions.
Behind him, the pilot let loose with a strong, panicked scream. The wavering wail made Chris wince. His hands moved nervously over his body.
Oh, my G.o.d. Did she cut something off?
Chris froze, transfixed between a need to see what had happened and a need to run and hide. The pilot screamed again. It was a long, strained wail of despair. Chris shook his head and paced.
Thirty seconds later, Cinmei emerged from the room. There was blood on her knife. He knew it would, but somehow seeing the blood forced him to accept what had happened. A part of him decided he was glad she had done it. Now he could get home and put this behind him.
My hands are clean. She did everything.
Their gazes interlocked. He looked for any sign of horror or pleasure on her face. She gave Chris a faint smile.
"We have authorization," she said.
Chris nodded. He couldn"t utter a word of criticism.
She did what was necessary. I couldn"t have done it. Should I ask ... what exactly she did?
"I locked them out of computer," she told him. He nodded again.
Chris remembered his security training and realized the pilot was probably a VG man like himself.
"Wait," Chris said. "I know you"re good. But he didn"t say the pa.s.sword was argus five zero five, did he?"
Cinmei stared at him.
"How you know that?"
Chris shook his head. "I work for VG, remember? Argus five zero five is a security alert pa.s.sword. If you use that, the ship will lock down. He"s been trained to give you that pa.s.sword. It changes every month."
Cinmei stood still for a moment. Chris wondered if she would believe him.
"Wait here," she said. Even through the suit, Chris could detect the edge to her voice.
The screams started quickly. This time, he forced himself closer to the door. It wasn"t an airtight seal. He could hear the awful noise inside very clearly. He kneeled down and put his ear close to the door.
If she gets that pa.s.sword, I need to know it, too.
The screaming continued for more than a minute in intermittent, ragged bursts. Then the other man started to scream. But only once. Chris heard a sob.
"Give me," Chris heard Cinmei demand again.
"Zeus five. Capital eight nine nine," a man said.
She got it. She really got it. Capital eight? Oh. He must have said "capital A."
"Zeus?"
"Z, e, u, s. With a capital Z," the man clarified.
Chris quickly backed away from the door. A second or two later, Cinmei came back out.
This time the knife was covered in blood. The black glove of her suit had been splattered with gore. She threw the b.l.o.o.d.y knife onto the floor in front of her.
Cinmei pulled off her gloves and let them drop. She detached an arm piece from her gear. Her brown skin was covered in a sheen of perspiration. She dropped the other arm covering and started taking off the torso armor.
Chris copied her slowly. He was still looking at the knife when he caught a glimpse of her body and refocused on her. She had removed the gear from her top, revealing beige undersheers clinging to her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Am I scared or attracted? Both, I guess. How is that possible?
She glanced up and met his stare with a frown. Then she started to remove the gear leggings. Chris resumed his own stripping, but he couldn"t pull his eyes away from her. He shook his head. His time on Synchronicity had really changed him.
Cinmei finished removing her gear. She looked great for a longtime s.p.a.ce station inhabitant. He appreciated her slender figure and smooth brown skin. Her undersheers hadn"t been designed to be s.e.xy, but they were so scant and translucent that they showcased her body nicely. Chris wanted her again.
How can I care at a time like this? Oh, well. That impulse is never rational.
"This way," she said.
Chris dropped the last of his gear and gazed at the locker. It appeared secure. His link reported that Cinmei had locked it and placed a watch alarm on the mechanism.
Cinmei returned to the c.o.c.kpit. She didn"t get into the acceleration couch, but Chris could tell she worked on the controls because she stared blankly out the window.
He watched the guest display in his PV to keep track of the shuttle"s destination as she worked. He saw a pane with the shuttle"s position and a slender line extending through s.p.a.ce before it. He panned out and followed the line with his mind. The display altered and the Earth came into view at the end of the line. The current destination was central Europe.
After a minute, the logged destination in Europe disappeared from the target queue. The line shifted. The destination was listed in a side pane: Qian Nian Men, a near-Earth Chinese station.
Chris took a deep breath and considered his situation. The shuttle had departed. The onboard staff had been incapacitated, tortured, and locked up. He didn"t feel his life was still in direct danger. But he wasn"t heading home. The shuttle"s course ultimately brought him to a near-Earth station in control of the Chinese bloc.
When we get there, I"ll be put on subsistence. If I"m lucky enough to survive interrogation and whatever punishment the Chinese decide to inflict. In fact, if I don"t do anything, the next one to get tortured will be me.
He turned with his back toward her. He accessed the controls through his link.
"Authentication failed, Chris Adrastus."
Chris ignored the warning and used the emergency authorization option. He entered the pa.s.sword: Zeus5A99.
"Emergency authorization enabled, Chris Adrastus."
Chris changed the pa.s.sword quickly: GetMeHomeNow. He saw Cinmei"s authorization and flushed it from the system. Then he faced her again.
She looked up at him, a surprised look on her face.
Chris brought his weapon up and pointed it at Cinmei. She recoiled immediately, holding one arm up between them.
"What you do?" she asked.