Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Forty Two

Nina and Malachi stepped off the elevator near the forward cargo bay and started walking. At the door was an armed guard. He stood with his hands behind his back, and a holstered pistol at his side. He eyed them as they approached, and watched them quickly walk by and turn corner.

"What was that?" said Malachi, his heart pounding.

"They increased security. This thing must be more valuable than I thought."

"Well, that's it then. We're not getting in with guards on the door. We should get back."

"You're funny." Nina tried some nearby doors. Once opened she pulled Malachi, who came reluctantly, inside.

"Get me a schematic of the cargo bay and this deck," she said. "I'll find us a door."

"The doors are guarded," said Malachi. As far as he was concerned, that was the final word on the matter.

As far as Nina was concerned, it was merely a delay.

"The forward cargo bay is two decks high. That door was to the upper part of the bay. If we can find a maintenance tube, we can climb down in that and get inside."

"Only if the bay extends beneath this room," said Mal.

"Right, so check the schematic." Nina locked the door and circled the room. This was a secondary storage room, a place where smaller items of cargo could be decanted and stored before distributing throughout the ship. There was nothing exciting in here, just racking, common medical supplies, kitchen equipment, and so on. Nothing important, and nothing with a high turnover. They were safe for now.

Nina found the room's primary maintenance port in the wall and removed the air tight panel. They were designed to be big enough to crawl into, and often, but not always, crossed decks. It meant maintenance and repair could be carried out completely internally, without having to move from room to room.

"Oh, bad news," said Malachi when he saw the schematics, and realised the maintenance panel in here led to the cargo bay below.

"Perfect!" said Nina. "Lets go."

"We shouldn't. This is against all the rules."

"Which rule?"

"Well they sealed off the cargo bay."

"Did they issue an order preventing access? I didn't hear one."

"Well, no..."

"And you're working on a tachyon emitter right now, aren't you?"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"You're literally breaking the rules of physics with that machine. I don't see you worrying about that."

"That's different."

"Uh huh. Tell me about it in the cargo bay."

They climbed down the small ladder past bundles of data cables and ship infrastruture. The light from the room above quickly faded as they descended, but Nina explored with her foot until she found the next panel.

She quickly descended the next few rungs and released the hatch. She lowered it slowly to the floor in the cargo bay, and laid it down without a sound. She climbed through the hole and Malachi followed.

They found themselves in a rear corner of the cargo bay, in an area where someone had stored hoses, pipes and cables in big hoops on hooks. At the other end they could see the space doors and two cargo shuttles. Between the shuttles was a platform surrounded by devices on tripods. The devices were spaced into three rings, each ring at a different height and distance from the object at which they pointed.