Protector Ch 40

Everyone was jammed into the cockpit like sardines in a can. Zandra's addition was somewhat unnerving to them – it meant that they had to squish together even further so that they'd be able to fit into the small area. Cover though, was grateful that she was finally there.

"You're out," he stated, not realizing that Zandra knew the fact already, and it was obvious that she was out.

"Kesia told me to see you?"

"Look," he told her, gesturing towards one of the paneled screens on the dash. It was a radar. It showed one blue square, a few miles off, and three smaller red squares dashing about in its general direction. Zandra guessed that red wasn't good.

"What are those?" she asked.

"Sentinels," he answered, looking cautiously out of the window. "They're scanning the Attrition right now."

Everyone was silent in the cockpit, and Kesia suddenly appeared, jostling Trim and Kemp out of position. Trim gave her a nasty look, but she wasn't paying attention.

"Sentinels?"

"Remember the EMP?" Cover asked her. He hadn't expected her to remember what Sentinels were, but only because it was extremely rare to even see one in the tunnels. That was changing quickly though.

Zandra nodded vaguely. She did remember an EMP, but only because of Trim. Hadn't he mentioned it to her, while they sat around the ship one day? Probably so, she wasn't sure.

"Sentinels are the machines used to destroy our ships," Alias offered. That makes sense, Zandra thought, nodding her head.

"Shit," Cover suddenly voiced, "They're gonna use it – " and everyone jerked forward while he began to frantically steer the ship to the ground. Luckily the rest of the crew was so packed together that they didn't move much as the ship rocketed downwards. Alarms began to go off on the panels.

"Not yet…" he said, still moving the ship downwards. Zandra could see the sentinels getting closer to the ship on the screen. How could they not know if there was anyone there yet? Zandra was in silent confusion.

"Can we evade it?" came Kesia's voice, shoving herself to the front of the crowd. She plunked herself down into a seat next to Cover, and attempted to help him maneuver the large behemoth of a ship.

"We're too close," was his reply, his shoulders hunched in physical concentration. Another alarm went off in the ship, startling everyone but Kesia.

"It's done," she told him. Cover quietly swore.

"Hold on everyone, we're gonna lose power soon – Kesia! Emergency power down!"

Tension was high as he continued to lower the ship. Can't we do this faster? Kesia was frantically typing on the small keyboard in front of her, and the lights began to go out. Zandra looked out at the pipeways surrounding them and noticed something coming towards them. It wasn't really something, exactly, but a wave. Zandra could see the energy pulsing towards them, making the air around them look hot and made the walls look as if they were dancing. Kesia and Cover were frantic, pressing all kinds of buttons on the dash, turning dials and levers…

Suddenly everything went dead. The ship plopped onto the ground with a clunk, and everything was dark. Cover sighed loudly, then swore again.

"Did we make it?" asked Kesia, her eyes full of concern. Cover sighed again, then nodded.

"Damn it," he started, "They should have warned us."

Purgatory was silent. Zandra had never heard Cover swear before, and it was a frightening sight. He looked shaken, and he looked angry.

"Kesia, go check the navigation. Trim, engines. Alias, make sure vitals are up," he paused, considering something. "Shade, you go with her."

Shade nodded in compliance, but Zandra knew that he would rather have done something else. No doubt he was getting tired of helping Alias and not getting credit for it.

"I can do it," Alias answered firmly. She stared at Cover, as if in a contest of power. He gave in.

"Ok," he sighed, "Shade, check out EMP and Zandra, make sure we can still broadcast." Kemp would be left with nothing to do, as she was new to the ship and hadn't learned anything useful yet.

He paused, then decided he was finished. In a matter of seconds everyone had dispersed to do their various jobs – Zandra went to the main deck to check the monitors for signs of life. She recalled some of the rudimentary start-ups for the machinery, but not much else. People had to learn ship maintenance in real life, so that information couldn't be corrupted by the machines. It was alive enough; it responded to her jabs and commands with a prompt error message. After a few minutes of poking around, Shade came up to her.

"Look alright?" he asked her quietly, watching the screens intently. He pretended to be interested in the startup process, but he wasn't.

Zandra nodded.

"Mind if I take a look?" he asked, moving closer to get a look at the machinery. Zandra moved accordingly.

He began to root through the wiring of the computers in front of them, apparently looking for something. He knew that Zandra wouldn't have known to look for the kill switch because she hadn't been trained for it, and decided to be the good guy and do it for her. Zandra watched from behind, trying to learn from his movements.

"See this?" he called, showing her a green wire, "This leads to the kill switch." Zandra nodded. "This has to be off, or else we can't go in." She nodded again, and he pulled himself out of the machine. He dusted off his hands, as if to say 'all done', and sighed.

"Looks good," he said, nodding a few times.

"Allright then," Zandra answered. "I guess we should tell Cover."

"Yeah."

They walked back to the cockpit, Zandra not noticing when Shade had let her go in first, the gentleman that he was. Trim and Kesia were already in the cockpit with him, silent as they waited for information from Zandra and Shade.

"Broadcasting's fine," Shade said from behind her. Zandra closed her mouth and let him continue. "And so is the EMP power."

Cover nodded seriously, as did Kesia. Trim was not paying attention. Zandra heard Alias creaking towards them in her wheelchair and made room. Again, it was a tight fit.

"Vitals are fine," she started, "Though our heating coils are a little fried."

Cover's face fell. "It's going to get cold," he told them. Each crewmember subsequently sighed, either mentally or physically. None of them relished the idea of 'cold' on the ship – it was already freezing enough. Zandra didn't even know that there was a heating system on the ship, and had already missed it.

"Cuddle up, everyone!" Kemp called out from behind them. Zandra groaned. Back to the grind. She sighed and walked out of the room, leaving Cover and Kesia to discuss their next plan of evasion, while the rest of the crew listened. She was hungry.

Trim sauntered into the mess room as she began to dig into her slop. It was definitely hard to get used to again, after two weeks' worth of solid Zion food. But it filled her stomach; it did the job.

"That was close back there," he said, joining her at the table. Zandra nodded while chewing. There wasn't much to her food. It was like chewing oatmeal.

"Worried you wouldn't get out before we had to turn off the ship," he confessed, looking up at the ceiling. A drop of slop fell from the pump and landed on the floor with a splash that almost startled Zandra. It was very quiet, and she felt that she had to fill the unexpected silence.

"Well, I was running pretty quickly," she answered, shoving another spoonful of slop into her mouth. Trim nodded a few times, his eyebrows raised. Pretty quickly didn't even start to describe it. What Zandra didn't know was that a few days ago, Cover had gotten the rest of the crew together and had a meeting. Everyone learned of Zandra's one-ness. Now everyone knew her talents, her responsibilities – everyone except for her. She swallowed her mouthful.

Shade then walked in, with a faint smile on his otherwise empty face.

"Pretty close back then," he said, sitting next to Trim. He had an odd look on his face, and looked at Zandra, waiting for a response.

"That's what Trim said," she responded, pointing her spork at the now quiet Trim. He shrugged at Shade.

"So what did the Oracle say this time?" he asked, trying to sound truly curious. She took a while to respond.

"Not much," she replied with a sullen glance towards the ground. Shade realized too late that it was not a good question to ask, and felt a little embarrassed.

"She tends to speak in riddles," Trim offered. "Maybe she was just trying to confuse you."

Again, Trim's efforts at helping were dashed again. But at least it elicited a response from her.

"She said one thing," she answered, holding up her index finger. One thing.

"She mentioned a 'Merovingian'," she said, staring off into oblivion. It was Merovingian, right? Zandra vaguely remembered an old history class that had mentioned something of the sort… Kings of France?

"She said to not listen to what he says." She dismissed the thought, waving a careless hand in the air. "It was a little suspicious."

Trim and Shade were watching Zandra, enthralled.

Soon afterwards, she decided to go to bed. It had been a long day, and she let lingering thoughts mill around in her jumbled brain while she tried to get some rest. She needed to figure things out.