Unity

Chapter 32

"What is that?" he asked.

"That is what has invaded our ship," I answered. "I hope your pistol is in working order."

He pulled it out and handed it to me. The pistols issued to marines were as much a tool as they were a weapon. The specific feature I was interested in was an EMP charge. The field generated was only a few feet in diameter, but it should do the job. I put the pistol close and activated the charge. The nanites immediately were still. I waited, but nothing happened. A minute later, another hoard of nanites came charging in and took over where the others left off.

Whoever had done this had been thorough. We needed a miracle if we were going to survive this, and I could only think of one miracle worker. "Feel like going for a stroll sergeant?" I asked the marine. Without a word we exited the bridge and started jogging down the corridor. I didn't trust the transport tubes, so it was going to be a long run to Dr. Thompson's lab.

We arrived twenty minutes later tired and out of breath. We forced the doors open and entered the lab. The lab was lit by several portable lights, and I could see most of the equipment was powered as well. Hunched over one of the consuls was Dr. Thompson. "What's up doc?" I asked as we walked over.

"What have you done to my ship?" He asked in return.

"It looks like somebody has sabotaged it using nanites," I replied with a cocked eyebrow. I quickly explained everything that had occurred over the last half hour.

"Nanites, you say..." he went quiet for a moment. "We've jumped about a light day away from Narrisal, which means that the controlling unit must have been smuggled on board the Unity."

"What controlling unit?" I asked.

"The nanites cannot work autonomously," he replied. "They require constant input, and since we are no longer in the vicinity of any other ships, they must be getting inputs from something inside the ship."

I stopped to think for a moment. "That means the controlling unit had to have been brought onboard very recently. We've had fighters running exercises, and the shuttle that ferried us, but other than that, there has been no ship traffic to and from the Unity."

"Captain," interrupted the Marine who accompanied me. "There is one other way. My last shift was in the cargo bays. We just received a new shipment of supplies from Fraewei. The device could be in one of those containers."

I smiled at the marine. "Sergeant, you are a genius. Do you know where those containers are?"

"They should still be in the bay. There was some confusion about where they were headed to, so we decided to leave them there until somebody with more seniority made a decision," he replied.

"Before you go running out of here, you are going to need more than just that device to stop the damage that's been done," Dr. Thompson spoke up.

"What do we need?" I asked.

"Bring the device here, and I'll take care of the rest," Dr. Thompson replied.

We left the lab and ran the relatively short distance to the cargo bay. We almost ran into several people who were stumbling around in the dark. They tagged along until we passed a public space that was lit with the emergency lights. We reached the cargo bay and the sergeant I was with explained the situation to the guard on duty. We gathered as many personnel as we could and started tearing into the crates. I wished I had remembered to ask how big the device was. It wasn't long before one of the other groups started shouting. I ran over and saw a marine holding a sphere. It was about the size of his head, and judging by the strain on his face, must have been heavy. As I walked to the device, a warning alarm sounded, the bay was starting to depressurize.