| Journey to Centauri is a web-based episodic tale that details the splintering of the U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission on its way to the new world. Read the previous episodes. |
Journey to Centauri : Episode 10 Prokhor Saratov paused in one of the ship's long cylindrical accessways and brushed his fingers along the seam of a ventilation duct. He wrinkled his brow, as if concerned about structural damage, and his eyes flickered up and down the accessway. Broad yellow stripes stretched along the wall in each direction; this accessway remained slated for heavy equipment and supply transport only. There were cameras, of course, but few people to monitor them. All hands were directed toward repairing the ship, including his own. But first he had a job to do. The silver ventilation duct opened and seemed to swallow him. A moment later, the accessway stood empty. Saratov breathed deeply, trying to remain calm in the narrow confines of the ventilation duct. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled, wrapping a length of lightweight polishing cloth around his hands to muffle their impact on the strong yet flexible surface beneath him. He had shut down all the infrared sensors along this path for one hour. He could feel pain pulsing up and down his spine already. He crawled on, through small tunnel after small tunnel, following pathways displayed on his tiny wearable computer. Left, left, right, down dark and narrow paths. His joints ached, and the air stuck in his throat. Darkness closed in on him, and then... There. Ahead, a small grate, crisscrossed by infrared beams he was not authorized to deactivate. Through the grate he could see a small room with red stripes swashed along the walls. Craning his arm he pulled a small thermal tool from his belt and edged up to the crisscross of beams. He turned on the tool, calibrated its temperature carefully to a point far below freezing, and directed it's icy bluish spray onto the glass nodes of the infrared detectors. One, two, three, quickly moving from one to the next. His hand trembled a bit but his eyes remained flinty, analytical, timing his movements with decimal point precision. At the last node he pushed through, his hands on the grate and pressing, ignoring its clatter on the floor as he emerged from a tiny opening some five feet off the floor. He fell and landed hard on a cold metal floor. To his left, a nondescript red metal door at the end of the narrow room he had entered. The words 'Weapons Bay' were stamped across the edge seal of the door. Beyond that door, the armory. And the other direction...an antechamber, perhaps filled with renegade crewmembers. He had no keycard to open the Weapons Bay, and if he had one he could not have used it without triggering a signal in the command bay anyway, but that didn't matter. Someone had rewired the door logs already; that was obvious. He punched a simple access code into the door and it unlatched with a clicking sound. No alarms, no footsteps, no summons from the Captain. The great red door swung open, and Saratov walked through. >> Continue on to Part 2! |
