The Inner Ring (gxg)

Chapter 32

Pepper and Vanessa opened every door between the herd room and the hole through the ship. There was nothing exciting found, but they did get another haul of laser pointers and uniforms. They had been really hoping for a medical bay or the gravity generators, but so far, they hadn't any luck. They had made it back to the shaft before Miles, so they headed back the way they came till they found him. He was struggling along, trying to manhandle the string of frozen animal corpses, all while being too big himself. Once more he became a balloon to a giggling Pepper and Vanessa who towed him the rest of the way to the sleds. The three of them got their cargo secured before mounting the sleds and heading slowly back up to the bridge.

When they arrived, Anton and Brody were standing next to the camera panel examining the view of the ruined ship that had attacked the foxes. They were pointing at places in the view as the two sleds slid up onto the bridge. Pepper and Vanessa both snuck a glance at the computer panel and were unsurprised to see many holes in it. They each felt a surge of anger, but it was tempered by the thoughts of the memory sticks that they had hopefully transferred data to.

"Do you mind if I make them feel a little shitty?" Pepper asked Vanessa through the earpiece.

"Of course not, they deserve it," she replied bitterly.

Pepper parked the sled, then moved off towards the computer panel, looking at the destruction sadly. She pressed a few keys, but the panel remained dark, no doubt Anton and Brody had shot till that stopped happening. She slipped an empty memory stick from her pouch and slipped it into the hole in front of the panel, and again it remined dark. Assholes.

"What happened to the computer panel?" She asked everyone over comms after she slipped away the memory stick.

"Small meteor shower," chuckled Brody. "Couldn't do a thing to stop it."

"That's funny. Is that what you're going to tell the UNESCO folks about damaging their heritage site?" Pepper asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm sure they don't need to know that the ship was damaged," Anton temporized.

"Oh, of course father, we wouldn't want the world to know that you were trying to keep information that could benefit all of humanity out of greed," Vanessa scoffed. Had they not been suited up she was sure her father would be red faced with anger right now, and she didn't care in the slightest. He had been obvious from the outset about keeping all the information he could from anyone else.

"Hey Brody, did you guys see this port on the front of the panel? Did you try putting one of the memory sticks in it?" Pepper asked, feigning curiosity, and acting as though she'd just seen it.

"What port?" He asked, pushing off and gliding over to the panel. Pepper pointed at the panel that had been low on the front of the panel. "Shit, no, we were just trying to type."

"Well fuck, I hope that wasn't a way to transfer data!" Vanessa yelled. "Damnit!"

"Regardless, even if we could transfer data, we wouldn't have known how, nor would we have been able to understand the data anyway," Anton growled.

"And now we never will!" Vanessa accused. "This whole mission is getting fucking ridiculous." She had no problem with Pepper teasing the other two, but their blatant sabotage and not caring about it was grating. They really thought it was fine.

The silence on the bridge was palpable, until finally Anton broke it again. "Vanessa, tomorrow you help Emily in her lab, I don't want you doing any more exploring."

"I'll help too," Pepper offered.

"No, we need you driving a sled," Anton commanded.

"Fine, one more day, and then I'm done exploring too. Have Miles get Brody up to speed so you two can go ruin more of humanity's future!" Pepper was livid, she had no intention of going anywhere without Vanessa, especially when Anton and Brody were being so obvious about their intentions.