14.
The breakthrough came thanks to Sully being quite so unfit.
The breakthrough came thanks to Sully being quite so unfit.
Brook had
started her day, once again, by taking a tour past the gym. The ship was under
a third g thrust, so she was able to sneak up without the whir of her Trax
giving her away. Her anticipation was dashed a little by the fact that Fuller
wasn't there, it was just Sully. He was no Fuller in the desirable body side of
things, few were, but Brook could make do, especially after so long on board.
She reckoned the crew got 10% more attractive for every month they were away
from Earth. By that measure, Sully was just over twice as attractive as when
they left Earth orbit, putting him on the very edge of desirability. If she
squinted.
Sully was
drenched in sweat. Not in the manly glistening body kind of way, more the
drowned rat style.
"Hi
Sully" Brook said.
"Hi"
pant "Brook" deep breath "how are" another pant
"you?"
"Good
thanks. Not often I see you here?"
"S..sergeant"
wheeze, "said I" gulp, "looked" gasp, "tubby"
"Nasty
old cow" although casting a glance over Sully's body did indicate a bit of
a belly below the sweat drenched t-shirt.
"I know.
PHEW" Sully switched off the aRED with a look of delight. He was done.
"So you here” deep breath, “for a workout?"
"Nah,
not my thing. Doesn't look like it's yours either" Brook smiled. Sully
looked as if the gravity was any higher then he wouldn't be able to stay stood
up.
"Y..yeah,
I didn't join the marines, t...to get fit" Sully returned the smile, which
improved his slightly lopsided face a great deal in Brook's mind.
While Sully
was being sarcastic as to what being in the marines involved, he did have a
point. Historically one of the most physically demanding branches of the
traditional armed forces, marines had a fearsome
reputation. However, when they went into space, needs changed.
Commanding a pack of drones, fighting a physical and electronic battle needed a
different set of intellectual abilities.
Meanwhile,
the development of the tac-suit put less focus on the physical nature. The
tac-suits were fully motorised at the joints, which meant they could move on
their own, the marine inside effectively carried along for the ride. Indeed,
Sergeant Gumelar, who walked with a limp outside of the suit, was able to move
perfectly freely inside. Probably why she felt so comfortable on the
battlefield. That and her slightly sociopathic tendencies.
The tac-suits
also greatly enhanced the strength of the marine, so much so that the human
element of the physical capabilities of the tac-suit actually hardly mattered.
Of course if a growing belly was starting to look like it might prevent the
marine from getting inside the tac-suit in the first place, that was an
altogether different matter; it was time to hit the gym.
"So, is,
er, Fuller around?" enquired Brook, while Sully ineffectively attempted to
mop down some of the sweat with a small towel.
"Nah,
Gumelar's got him inventorying munitions down in the main bay"
"Why
does he bother obeying that cantankerous old which if she's booting him
out?"
"Call it
a misplaced sense of duty. Odd, I know" Sully gave up with the towel, but
he still looked unpleasantly sweaty
"Silly
boy. So, you want to go get some breakfast?"
"What am
I? The Boston Beefcake is stuck on duty so you settle for the runner up
prize?" Sully asked with a grin.
"Less
runner up, more the booby prize, but watching you work out has made me
hungry"
"Well
you're gonna have to eat alone I'm afraid. Not sure how she managed it, but the
Sergeant has reconfigured the culinary drone to throw protein balls at me if I
enter the canteen outside of set meal times"
Brook
couldn't help but laugh, although the Sergeant's hacking did bring back to mind
that annoyingly persistent spyder mystery, which she had been unable to solve
for over a week now. Her laugh had given way to a puzzled frown as Sully
attempted to get by her to exit the gym.
"Excuse
me" he said, squeezing past in the tight confines.
"Ewww.
Someone needs a shower!" Brook couldn't help but catch a whiff of Sully so
close to him.
"I've
been pumping iron woman, what did you expect?"
A thought
caught in Brook’s head.
"How
come I couldn't smell you before, when you were on the machine? We were pretty
close then, given how pokey the gym is" she asked out loud, but as an
engineer the answer was already forming in her mind.
"No
circulation in here" it was so obvious even Sully knew the answer.
"So
smells don't move around much. You're a star Sully!" she forgot herself
for a second and gave the confused looking marine a kiss on the cheek, before
pushing back past him and taking off down the corridor as fast has her short
legs would carry her.
"I just
have away with women" Sully mused "Must be the raw animal
magnetism" he flexed a scrawny bicep in the gym mirror before heading off
in search of a shower.
Brook was
breathing hard before long. She really should actually use the gym one of these
days. Yeah, right. She slowed to more
of a trot as she headed back to the room that the spyder had been used to get
in to.
Air in the
crew quarters on long serving intervention ships was a precious commodity. It
cost a lot of money to get into space, so ship AI was very frugal in its use.
Crew quarters were obviously airtight, and rather than pump vast quantities of
oxygen in and out with expensive and heavy pump systems, a cheaper solution was
found. Minute amounts were released constantly from a special form of
oxygenated plastic sheets in the ceiling (a close cousin to the oxygenated
gloop in the tac-suits and crash-vats), while the carbon-dioxide released by
those pesky humans was 'caught' via a similar type of sheeting in the floor and
walls (carbon dioxide being heavier than air). This meant there were
effectively no changes in pressure throughout the forecast, no drafts to move
smells around.
The entry
request had been pinged on her way over, the door open when she got there. She
hurried inside, down to the end wall. Last time she was here she had smelt
fresh polymer twice. Once at the new door and again at the end wall. She had
assumed that the smell had travelled across the room from the door, but that
was unlikely. She scanned the wall looking for confirmation of her growing
suspicion. And here is was.
A footprint.
The blemish
in the polymer that must have been made while it wasn't completely set. She
hastily pulled off one of her boots, hopping around unsteadily as she did so.
With balance regained she held the boot up against the impression in the wall.
Same size, same worn grip at the heel that she got on all her shoes from the
way she walked. The mark on the wall had been made when she pushed off in the
zero g to leave the room. The second polymer smell had come from the wall, not
the door.
Of course! She'd wondered why the spyder
had been used to rip off the door when whoever it was could more easily have
simply cleared the door access requests. But the spyder wasn't really for the
door, it was for the wall. Brook hastily called up the ship plans again. It
wasn't about what was in the room, rather what was behind it.
Oh fuck
The storage
room was at the edge of the crew part of the ship. Behind it was cold
vacuum.
Ideal
conditions for the central ship AI to be located.
Ok, this
could be serious. Someone on board was up to something the central AI. But
what? The who was a little easier. It had to be Gumelar or Si. Both had the
necessary hacking skills, both were seen near the scene of the crime and both
were evil enough to be up to something like this. Brook had been right never to
like either of them.
But she'd
need proof, which would be difficult. Brook didn't have the technical ability
to go up against them hacking, so she'd have to be smarter than that. Maybe get
into their cabins somehow, have a snoop around? Or maybe just go at them with
granddad's crow-bar? Decisions.
Decisions
interrupted by Fuller tearing round the corner at high velocity, nearly taking
out Brook coming out of the storeroom.
"Watch
it!" shouted Brook.
"Sorry"
the big marine called back, barely breaking stride as he started to head away
from her.
"Why the
rush? Another errand for Gumelar?" she yelled after him.
"Kinda,
we got a tender coming in. For real. My last shot at the big time"
"Anything
exciting?" Brook shouted, the hastily departing Fuller would soon disappear
round a corner in the corridor.
"Not
sure yet. Some kind of probe has crashed on Europa"
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