Chapter 29

She wasn't sure how long she was out before her contingent of guards came to collect her. Returning to her cell, she paced back and forth, running what she remembered of the doctor's interrogation over and over in her mind. Why? Why were they so sure she had the picobots? She combed through every memory, however faint from her time with her parents before their deaths, but nowhere was a containment tube as described by the doctor. She was familiar with the ones used by medical; they ended up in the recycled waste often enough.

At least her headache and nosebleed were gone she thought gratefully as she absently fiddled with the marble around her neck. The crack in it was so fine, she could only feel it when she scraped her fingernail against it. Again, she stopped herself. She didn't want to damage the only thing she had from her parents even more. Sighing, she dropped it and sat down on the bench. Raising her hand to brush her hair out of her face, she stopped to examine the line of grime along the nail that she had used. Light grey and barely visible, it faded away as she watched it.

"Sabak," she whispered, going pale.

Her hands shook as she pulled the cord from around her neck roughly and tossed it on the bench before scooting as far away from it as she could.

Her mind raced as the pieces of the puzzle suddenly snapped together. She didn't want to believe it, but she had learned to go with her instincts, and everything suddenly made sense. Why the MCRN couldn't find the research. Why Lilly-Ann had given her the marble, telling her it was from her mother. The ravaged electrical system on the Roci. Why the microbes didn't respond to anything they tried except radiation.

The bauble was not a marble; it was the containment vessel for the picobots.

The MCRN had been right; they have been with her all this time and she never realized it, only they had been looking for a containment tube, not a small unremarkable gray marble. What her parents had intended to do with it was not clear, nor was what Lilly-Ann had planned, but clearly, she hadn't intended to leave it in the hands of a four-year-old. She had told Nik to hide and had tried to lead whoever was chasing them away. Only, she was caught. While she may have told them that Nik had the bots, she didn't tell them about the marble. She just let them assume the bots were in a tube. When she had been murdered, and Nik disappeared into the depths of the station with the other orphans, the bots had disappeared. Lost. Until she popped back up when she filed for an ID. And the MCRN had come looking for their property.

She had carried it around with her for almost twenty years, safely contained inside the marble. At least until she had cracked it in the airlock. Then the Roci had been infected. And probably the Ando too. Lucky for them it would take hours, maybe days for them to start noticing small glitches. Too bad it couldn't be sped along.

Or could it.

Nik smiled and scooted back over to the marble. Picking it up, she whispered to it, "I hope you guys are still hungry, because I have a feast for you."

She hesitated before putting it back on but reasoned that she had been carrying it this whole time and they hadn't done anything to her. She just hoped there were enough of them left in the orb to do some damage. Fast. Instead of pulling it over her head to hang around her neck, she wrapped the cord around her right wrist, letting it dangle enough to grab.

Going to the door, she yelled through it at the posted guard until he opened the door to find out what she wanted. She told him to let the doctor know that she had remembered something. Then she waited. Between her cell and the interrogation room was a major communications relay panel. That would be the best place for her to release the bots. All she had to do was get them to take her to the room.

When the door opened a few minutes later, she was ushered out quickly. Instead of turning to the left to go to the interrogation room, they turned right, and her heart dropped. She would have to find a different place to unleash the ravenous horde. Then, she realized where they were going: the bridge. There were so many choices up there, it was just a matter of opportunity. She could barely control her grin.

Captain Catedral turned to greet her with a frown, "I was told you have some new information?"

"Yes," Nik replied and told her about Lilly-Ann checking her out of the med bay and everything that transpired afterwards, leaving out the marble.

Catedral waved her hand dismissingly, "I already know all this. Tell me something useful."

That stopped Nik cold.

"You already know? How?"

"It doesn't matter. Take her back," she told the guards.

"You killed them, didn't you?"

"Of course not, silly child," Catedral told her scornfully.

"No, not you. The MCRN. Mars killed my parents and Lilly-Ann. You're all a bunch of murderers!" she yelled and lunged at the captain.

The captain shoved her roughly aside, and she stumbled on the grating and caught herself on the edge of the weapons console.

"Get this child off my bridge," Catedral snapped at the guards.

As they grabbed her and forcibly removed her from the bridge, Nik hid her smile and palmed the fragment of the marble still hanging from the cord.

Back in her cell, Nik checked the remains of the marble. Just a sliver remained, with just a faint grey tint that was rapidly fading. Soon the glass was perfectly clear. The sharp sliver of glass could prove useful during her escape, so she left it on the cord and let it remain around her wrist. Then she lay down on the bench and took a nap. She slept better than she had since she stepped foot on the Ando.

Two meals later, the door to her cell slid open to admit the captain and doctor.

"What have you done? Where is it?" Catedral demanded, her pale face flushed red.

Nik smiled. The game was over, no need to hide anymore.

"Probably everywhere by now."

"You released them on my ship. How?"

Nik held up her wrist where the remnant of the marble hung, "you were looking for the wrong thing. They were with me this whole time on my necklace. Thing is, I would have never known if it hadn't been for you guys. You wanted them so badly, now you have them. Nakangepensa."

The doctor stepped forward and slapped her hard, causing her to cling to him to keep from falling to the floor.

"You little bitch! If we die, so do you."

Nik wiped the blood from her split lip on her sleeve, "were you going to let me live anyway?"

He gave a short laugh, "you were going to have an unfortunate accident while trying to escape."

"Shut up, Tinsley," Catedral told him harshly. "Guards!"

The two guards stepped into the room. Turning away from Nik, the captain told them, "this prisoner has sabotaged the Ando. Shove her out an airlock."

Before she could leave Nik to her fate, the overhead light went out and the red emergency light illuminated. Alarm claxons sounded.

"General quarters. General quarters. All hands report to your battle stations."

Catedral pulled out her handheld, "LT, what's going on?"

"Weapons are down, Captain, and the electrical system is failing from amidship to all forward compartments."

"On my way," she snapped. "Tinsley get to medical. You two, don't let her out of this room under any circumstances."

After they left and Nik was alone in the dim red light, she pulled the doctor's handheld out of her pocket.

"Dédawang da ting mi ando showxa ere," she grinned and opened a channel to the Roci.

"Nik! To séfesowng ke?" Naomi's worried voice was broken by static but understandable.

"Mi gut," Nik assured her. "Naomi, they're not microbes, they're picobots!"

"That explains a lot, but it doesn't matter now, we got rid of them."

Nik breathed a sigh of relief, "good. How're the repairs going?"

"Not complete, but a lot will have to wait till we dock. All the important systems are working, though, and

we're following the Ando now. What's going on? They're not answering our hails."

"They're having the same problem that the Roci had, only worse."

"How is that possible?" The transmission was breaking up. Only part of her words came through, but it was enough for Nik to understand.

"I don't have time to explain right now. I just need you guys to come get me if you can."

"How are you going to get off the Ando?"

"I'm still working on it, give me time. I just need you close when I do. Wait for my signal, kay?"

"Stay safe, sésata."

"You too."

After that, there was nothing left to do but waiting and plan.

Her next meal still had not arrived when the red lights began to flicker. Getting up and going to the door of her cell, Nik touched the control panel to open the door. It slid open a few inches then stopped, with a red ERROR flashing on the panel. Her little friends had done their job.

When one of her guards didn't appear, she called out, "hey! Anyone there?"

She waited for an answer, not really expecting any, before pushing the door open enough to squeeze through. The corridor was empty and eerily silent. The normal noises of a spaceship were absent except for an irregular ping from the ventilation duct overhead. The emergency lighting flickered in and out sporadically making the shadows shift in an unsettling fashion.

Staying as close to the wall as possible to stay in those shadows, Nik crept down the corridor towards the aft of the ship where she knew the cargo and shuttle bays were located. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, she looked for an access panel to the crawl space under the floor. Twice she froze, her heart racing in panic, when she heard voices, but nobody stepped into the corridor with her.

Spying a panel, she quickly pried it loose and peered into the cavity below. Her spirits fell when she saw that most of the wires were bare, the bots having thoroughly stripped them of their protective layer of insulation. With a sigh, she quietly replaced the panel. There was no way she was going to be able to use the crawl space without getting herself electrocuted.

Again, she heard voices approaching and this time, they didn't stop. Looking around in desperation, she saw that she was near the medical bay and dashed to the door. Pushing it open enough to slip through, she looked about for somewhere to hide in the gloom.

"What the hell?" Tinsley's voice rang out from the corner and he stepped into the red glow of an emergency light. "What are you doing out of your cell?"

Looking for something to use as a weapon, she responded to buy herself some time, "this ship is dying."

"Because of you," he snarled. "My sister died trying to destroy those bots and you just turned them loose without a thought."

Sister? Suddenly another piece of the puzzle snapped into place. "Lilly-Ann was your sister?"

"Yes, she was working with your parents to keep the technology out of human hands."

"Why?"

On the other side of the treatment chair nearest her was a tray with a few instruments laying haphazardly on it, including a laser scalpel. Trying not to be obvious, she backed away from the doctor and closer to it.

"Think, girl! Use that mind you inherited from your parents. Look around you at what they have done in less that a day." He waved his hands, "think about what these things would do to a space station in the belt. Or a city under a dome on Mars or Luna."

"But they were designed to speed up teraforming, not this."

He shook his head and laughed bitterly, "since when has mankind used anything strictly for what it was intended? How long do you think it would have taken the MCRN to figure out they could be used as a weapon? How long do you think it would be before the UN or Belters got their hands on the technology?"

A chill ran up her spine at the implications. Just the tiny few stored in her marble all these years had brought the two ships to their knees in a matter of hours. What would a large quantity do to a space station like Tycho with thousands living on it?

Her horror must have shown on her face because Tinsley nodded, "now you understand."

"Is there anyway to destroy them besides radiation?"

He shrugged, "not that I know of. Your parents and Lilly-Ann were trying to find a way, but I don't know how far they got before...," his voice trailed off.

Nik was going to respond, but was cut off by crackle of static from the comm panel. Holden's image dances erratically on the screen.

"Captain, you... to irradiate... ship... crew off..."

Tinsley stepped over to the panel and turned it off. "He's been pleading with Asha for the last hour to get her crew off the ship and irradiate it with a nuke blast to kill the little bastards."

"Why hasn't she done so?"

"She thinks it's a trick. That he will come in and take over her ship once we evacuate."

"That's bullshit," Nik snorted. "Holden isn't that sort of person."

"You and I know that, but she's hardcore MCRN. She thinks he's just another belt sympathizer and possibly a terrorist. There's no way she's going to evacuate her ship with him anywhere near."

"Then we have to get off this ship before it's too late."

He shook his head, "it's already too late. The moment you released those bots we were doomed. If we leave this ship now, there's the possibility that we are carrying a few on us and we'll infect any ship, station, or planet we step foot on." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "no, better for us to die on this ship than that."

Nik froze in horror. "Vesta," she whispered.

The doctor wasn't paying attention to her anymore, he had collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands. Nik skirted the end of the med-chair and grabbed the laser scalpel, sliding it into a pocket.

"Doc," she moved away from the tray and towards him. "Doc!"

"What?" he looked up at her with bleary eyes.

"This isn't the only place I've exposed to the bots."

He sat up straighter, "what?"

Quickly she told him about cracking the marble on the Roci and then going to Vesta.

"We've got to warn them," she ended.

"How? Our comms and engines are down."

"What about the shuttle? It's systems are separate from the Ando. Maybe it can still fly?"

The door was shoved open behind her, startling both of them.

"What is this? What are you doing out of your cell?" Captain Asha demanded as she entered the room.

"Captain," Tinsley stood and stepped up to stand beside Nik, "we've got to get word to Vesta station. It's been infected with the bots. We've got to warn them before it's too late."

Asha's lip curled in a sneer, "I don't give a damn about Vesta station. It's full of belter trash like her." She raised her weapon and pointed it at Nik. "You killed us, you bitch."

Before she fired, Tinsley pushed Nik to the side and leaped at her, causing her shot to go wide.

"Go!" he yelled at Nik as he grappled with his captain.

"Traitor! I'll see you executed for this," Asha grunted and tried to raise her weapon to fire another shot.

Nik started towards the door, then paused, unable to leave the doctor to his own defenses against his captain. Remembering in the laser scalpel in her pocket, she palmed it and circled around the two, looking for an opening. Though Tinsley was taller and heavier than her, Asha was in better shape and obviously trained for hand to hand combat. She had already pushed him deeper into the room and against a med-chair.

When Asha swept his legs, he fell back over the chair with her weight on his upper body and released his grip on the weapon as he struggled not to flip over. As she raised the weapon with a triumphant grin, Nik saw her chance. Silently, she darted forward and stabbed the scalpel into Asha's exposed neck. Surprised, the captain spun towards her and fired the weapon wildly as she fell. The shot shattered an overhead light fixture and shards of hot polymer rained down on Nik. The smell of burnt electrical components and hair filled the room.

Slapping at some of the smoldering pieces that landing on her clothed, Nik looked at Tinsley, "let's get to that shuttle before someone comes looking for her."

Tinsley just nodded, stepped over the body of his captain, and followed her out the door.

The short trip to the shuttle bay was tense as they encountered several crew members. But either they were too concerned about their duties to pay any attention to the pair, or the presence of the ship's doctor reassured them that nothing was amiss. When they reached the doors to the bay, Nik sagged against the wall in relief while Tinsley pushed open the door with a grunt.

Slipping through behind him, Nik almost ran into his back in the dimly lit space. As with the rest of the Ando, here all the lights were out and the emergency lights flickered off and on randomly.

"What's wrong? Why did you stop?" she asked, stepping around him, only to come to a stop herself.

"Well, hell."

The shuttle bay was empty.