NOVEL FROG Chapter Forty-Eight: Questionable Oversight
The mood is more than a little somber, as they exit the lift and head for the communications hub. Teresa surveys their surroundings, following closely behind Mau-Nis. The other three yautja are cloaked. The communications console has been trashed; computer monitors smashed and insect secretions spread over just about everything in sight. There is barely any light.
Dr. Boyd retrieves her tablet from its new storage place, and slides one hand into a pocket of her commandeered cargo pants. She checks to make certain that the flash drive and disk she confiscated from McAvoy,—While he sat tied up in the ship’s freezer—are still safe and intact. Finding an opportunity to use the devices, without raising suspicion, may be the only issue. Hiding the California's self-destruct protocols might be even harder.
“We need to find a functioning terminal,” Dr. Boyd whispers. “These are shot all to hell. There’s another terminal in the security office down the hall. Maybe it’s still up and running.”
Dr. Boyd glances in Glotis’ direction and inhales deeply.
“We’ll have to take a page from the queen’s book,” Teresa says. “P’taal and I will plant the explosives. You three will act as our offense. We’ll join you when we’re finished.”
Glotis’ previous anger returns and she strolls intimidatingly to where Dr. Boyd stands. Even with the mask, Teresa knows that the female yautja’s eyes are drilling into her.
“Why P’taal? Why must he stay behind…With you?” Glotis says in a deep growl.
Teresa grows impatient, her voice becoming elevated. But she remembers where they are and the strengths of their insectile enemies. She lowers her voice.
“We don’t have time for a debate. With Elder Glandis dead and Mau-Nis severely injured…N-Vorl is the defacto leader. We discussed this. It’s not about me. I don’t live in your society. But I find it hard to believe…Even with your honorable culture…That your people will simply accept the death of Elder Glandis and his second-in-command…While you and your lover ride off into the sunset. Without Mau-Nis’ account of what happened here…They may not even accept N-Vorl as a legitimate leader. You need him. And I need P’taal to help me set this explosive. It’s about getting the job done. Nothing more.”
N-Vorl steps close to Glotis and lightly touches the female yautja’s forearm. Glotis looks down at N-Vorl’s hand but doesn’t say a word. The yautja female’s chest heaves with the emotion bottled up there. She quickly turns away from Dr. Boyd, and the others, and stands with her back to them. Her combistick is gripped in a tightly clenched hand.
Teresa considers saying something reassuring, but heads for the security office instead. P’taal stands looking at his lover’s back for a moment. Then, he nods to Mau-Nis and N-Vorl, before following Dr. Boyd.
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Teresa shows P’taal the correct way to open a locked door—without too much noise—and the strong yautja imitates her actions. The door to the security office still flies open with a slight bang against the wall. Teresa hopes that there are no Judas specimens nearby. She races to the security table, on which two desktop terminals are situated.
“Nice,” Teresa whispers to herself. She retrieves the data disc, USB scalper, tablet computer, and necessary components from various places on her person. She points towards the far corner of the room. “Set up the device over there, okay? I’ll be there in a minute. I’m going to purge the California’s computers and do a complete system rewrite.”
P’taal tilts his head in customary yautja fashion.
“Is it common for an ooman scientist to perform such an operation?” P’taal questions.
Teresa shakes her head, a soft chuckle escaping her lips.
“Not really,” Teresa says. She moves to one of the terminals and begins setting up. “The company requires only limited training on Information Technology. For scientists anyway. That’s how we ended up with the villainous Theodore McAvoy and his band of merry Judases. Theo was the best of both worlds. The company bought an engineer and an InfoTech expert all rolled into one inexpensive package. But, you get what you pay for. At this point, it’s cost them the California, the Judas Resurrection Project, and possibly one major freaking financial headache. Thing is…Sometimes, we scientists are grossly underestimated. Sometimes, a girl just wants to have fun. Learned most of what I know from attending privately funded workshops in InfoTech and advanced programming. Truth be told, I suspected something wasn’t right about Theo. It was just a gut feeling. The morning of the breach, I started covertly running my own ship’s diagnostics. If Theo hadn’t already gone AWOL, I might have had him arrested when his girlfriend brought him to the lab. I never liked the asshole. And Richard…Well. He would have loved wiping that smug grin off Theo’s face.”
Dr. Boyd stops working and stares into empty space. Her brow furrows and a bemused expression alters her countenance. She leans on the table provocatively.
“Which brings to mind another wrinkle. I have no idea how he got back on the ship. Or why he left all those weapons in the lab for us to find. Don’t get me wrong…I’m eternally grateful for his oversight. Doesn’t mean it makes a whole lot of sense though. I skimmed through a couple of the system’s logs, when we were here last. I assumed he would have used an escape pod to land on the planet’s surface. And then, maybe he snuck back aboard once we crashed. There was no mention of a pod being deployed. The only suspicious activity I observed in the logs was a forced access in the transport hangar about four hours before the first warning alarm. The escape pods in the hangar were unused. So who entered the hangar? There’s nothing else in there. Well, except a weapons testing area for top brass when they’re aboard. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why didn’t he just take what he needed and skedaddle? Wait on the planet’s surface for his contact? Why come back aboard at all?”
Teresa shakes her head and grows silent. Her talking might be distracting to P’taal and she doesn’t want to bring any nearby Judases down on them. Delving deeper into the system, she spies a graphic which holds her attention.
“Well…Hello,” Teresa whispers softly. She reads the information on the screen, her eyes growing wide with disbelief. Memorizing what she sees displayed, Dr. Boyd returns to her previous job—wiping all traces of the Judas Resurrection Project, and the yautja's existence from the California’s system. She is grateful that the California has been unable to send information back to the company since before the crash. It makes things a lot easier. Any backups will be purged as well. Lastly, she will set the ship to self-destruct. The three explosives they’ve brought along may destroy the living Judases. But Dr. Boyd wants to be sure that nothing—not even a speck of Judas DNA—remains.
P’taal finishes his work before Teresa and comes to stand behind her at the terminal. Teresa sighs with relief. Had it been N-Vorl with her, she might not be able to think straight. She hasn’t had a blood serum injection in almost thirteen hours. The hard part has been done. The self-destruct sequence is already in place, the alarms silenced by a simple change in the line of code. One way or another, this ship is going down. Again.
“We’re done here,” Teresa says. “Tell the others to scout ahead. I intentionally neglected to mention it, but we lost the camera feeds to our pet Judases some time ago. I suspect Mommy Judas is really angry. She’s murdering everything in sight. We won’t see her coming. Inform N’Vorl, that you and I will plant the last bomb outside the transport hangar.”
P’taal conveys the message through his mask and the trio of other yautja head for the transport hangar. They are quite familiar with that route by now. P’taal strolls from the security office, but waits outside the door for Dr. Boyd. Teresa glances back once at the computer, and then follows P’taal, readjusting her weapons for maximum readiness.