“I’m locked out of all systems,” Hammersmith said, tapping wildly on her datapad.

“Me, too,” one of her team added.

“Any idea where that explosion might have occurred?” Noah asked. “The bridge maybe?”

I shook my head, unable to give the captain a definitive answer. I only had guesses. But I did have one ace up my sleeve.

“I’ve got a channel open to Pavo,” I announced, handing Noah the datapad I’d been working on.

Noah blinked at me. “How the hell…?”

“This is Rat’s datapad,” I explained. “It’s still isolated from the Chariot’s computers. I removed the extra bits,” I added, waving at the now clear to the naked eye screen. “But it’s still good for something. My guess, that explosion was probably on Deck C. The computer core. He went after Vela.”

“Damn,” Noah said. He accepted the datapad and shook his head at me. “Good work, Chief,” he said softly, glancing down at the open communiqué with Pavo. “Now what?”

“We ask for his help,” I said, reaching into my locker and pulling out various tools that I thought we might need. I attached a hammer and a laser cutter to one side of my belt, and a mini-toolkit to the other. Then as a last thought, I added duct tape. Duct tape was excellent equipment to have in space.

Noah huffed out a laugh and then started tapping the datapad screen.

“Pavo confirms it was Deck C,” Noah announced. “The computer core as you said, Chief. He’s trying to locate Vela now.”

I smiled grimly. I hadn’t wanted to be right, but the guess worked. Vela being offline could only mean one thing. It was better than the bridge, but I thought they might be next.

“Has Blackwell been to the bridge recently?” I asked Hammersmith.

She glanced down at her datapad and then sighed. “I can’t be sure he hasn’t from memory,” she said. “And I can’t access his assignments. He might have been assigned to guard it at some stage; we’ve been on at least yellow alert for days, and I’ve been rotating shifts up there.”

“Not good,” Noah said. Everyone agreed silently.

“But for now, he’s down on Deck E,” I pointed out, checking all my fastenings and reaching over for my LSU helmet where it was secured against the gel wall. I had to force it loose, Vela not being able to help me. But it appeared unharmed. I donned it.

Noah floated before me with his hands on his hips, a scowl on his face.

“And we’re stuck on Deck B,” he said. “The central hub lifts and emergency tubes destroyed in that second blast. He’s effectively cut us off from everything, Chief.”

I tapped the laser cutter attached to my belt. “But he didn’t count on me,” I said, gleefully.

Noah snorted. “Bloody hell,” he said, reaching for his own helmet. “Lead on then, Chief. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Hammersmith and her two security guys suited up in their own quarters and then met us in the destroyed central hub. Blood splattered the dark gel wall in one spot. Scorch marks fanned out from the lift doors like charred fingers reaching. The emergency tubes off to the side were in bad shape, but not as bad as the lifts. Blackwell had concentrated his explosives there with the tubes as a hopeful byproduct. He’d got lucky.

Whoever’s blood that was hadn’t.

I clenched my fists, feeling the LSU’s gloves dig into the skin.

“Everyone ready?” I asked, still staring into the mangled remains of the tube.

“How the hell are we going to get past that?” Noah demanded.

“Brute strength and a hell of a lot of pissed-off-ness.”

“That’s not a word, Chief,” he murmured.

“It is now.”

I attacked the opening to the tube with vigour. Hammersmith’s guys dug in with me, careful to not rip their LSUs in the process. Hammersmith hung back with the captain talking softly, but I could still hear them in-between the wrench of metal and our grunting.

Frustration wanted to make me go faster. I forced myself to handle each piece of sharp metal with care. When I couldn’t get a good handhold without damaging my suit, I pulled out the laser cutter and worked to burn the offending piece of the Chariot to nothing. It was slow going, but ten minutes later, we were all inside the tube and heading down a deck.

“What can you tell me about this Midshipman?” the captain asked Hammersmith behind me.

“He’s a good worker,” she said and then scoffed. “He was a good worker. Never rubbed anyone up the wrong way. In fact, he was always the peacemaker.”

“Unlike Smith,” I offered, burning away another section of debris.

“Yes,” Hammersmith agreed. “Midshipman Smith was a hot head. A pay-for-passage with military experience. I signed him up a few days before we launched.”

“Was Blackwell a pay-for-passage?” Noah asked. It would explain why a psychopath hellbent on destroying the ship he was on had made it past the ESA psyche tests.

“No, he wasn’t,” Hammersmith said. “But he wasn’t ESA crew either. I signed him up when Smith suggested him. They seemed to have become fast friends outside of work hours, but I don’t know how or why. Smith was quartered on Deck H with the pay-for-passages. Blackwell was on Deck G in the 2nd and 3rd tier berths.”

“He was a paid passenger?” Noah enquired. “Why the hell did he want a job in security?”

Hammersmith looked devastated at having facilitated that.

“He said he was bored,” she explained, voice subdued. “Said he was used to pulling his own weight. His passage had been paid for by his father, he said. Someone he’d left behind. I gathered his father could only afford one berth and he gave it up to his son; to Midshipman Blackwell. Paul, that’s Blackwell’s Christian name, wanted to prove himself worthy of his father’s sacrifice. Those were his words, actually, if I remember rightly. He said, ‘I have to prove myself or my father’s sacrifice will be for nothing.’”

“How noble,” Noah said, dryly.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Hammersmith said. “If I’d known… But we were on yellow alert almost from the start, and I needed the extra men. He had martial training. Civilian martial training, but none the less, it was something I could work with.”

Noah sighed. “It’s OK, Lieutenant. There’s no point beating ourselves up about it now.”

Hammersmith said nothing, but I could practically hear her guilt from where I was slowly making progress toward Deck C.

“If he wasn’t in security,” I said, tugging on a particularly belligerent section of the tube, “before we took off, then he couldn’t have tampered with the engineering console that killed Daniels.”

Silence.

“Perhaps that was Smith,” Hammersmith finally said quietly.

“So, they were working together?” Noah asked.

“Or Blackwell singled him out even before we took off and somehow duped him into doing something to that console,” I suggested. “It was poorly done. Good enough to cause an explosion, but not quite as precise as the launch bay, docking hatch, or the central hub bombs. Not to mention the multitude of smaller malfunctions we’ve experienced, which I’m inclined to believe were not all due to Vela stowing away onboard.”

“I agree with that last sentiment, Chief,” Noah said. “But we cannot know for certain whether your first conclusion is correct or not. Not without confronting Blackwell and asking him, that is. Smith is dead as you all know. Whether by chance or incompetence, I can’t be sure. So, that just leaves Blackwell. And I intend to ask him what the fuck he’s up to as soon as I can.”

“Well,” I said, pulling the last obstacle out of the way and burning it to dust. “You might get that chance, Captain.”

I slipped out of the tube onto the Deck C central hub.

“We’re not quite at the brig yet, but we’re getting there,” I offered, as Noah and Hammersmith followed. The two security officers at their heels.

“Well done, Chief,” Noah said, slapping me on the shoulder. “Well done, indeed.”

I smiled at his over-the-top complimenting style.

And then the Chariot let out a groan and a shudder, and the dark gel floor at our feet rocked.

“What now?” Noah growled, tapping the datapad he’d brought with him. His hand stilled in the air above the screen for a long moment and then his eyes came up to my face. He looked bleak.

“The bridge?” I said, feeling desperate now.

But not as desperate as I did when Noah finally answered.

“Engineering, Chief,” he said softly. “He’s taken out the main boost thrust.”

I turned away from all the concerned and wary faces watching me and screamed every swearword I knew in my native tongue.