Michael slowly recovered from the jarring yank against the straps that held him. "C...cough..." He drew a deep breath and tried to talk again. "Is... Is everyone okay?"
There was a few moments of silence, then to his relief, the others answered one by one, all except for Daniel.
"Dan, you all right?"
Daniel answered. His voice raw with emotion, "I'm sorry guys... I...I... I almost got us all killed! I'm... I'm so sorry."
Everyone was quiet.
At last Stephanie spoke up. "It's fine. We are all alive and well. That's what matters."
Steven produced a green fluorescent light as he unstrapped. "We're not out of this yet. Thanks to the particle beam and missiles this makeshift cave will be warm for some time." He wiped his forehead. "A tad too warm. And I'm sure I can get some power to the rebreathers but if I had to bet I'd say this ship is shot."
"What about the smugglers or whoever that ship belongs to?" Daniel asked anxiously.
Catherine unstrapped and let herself float around the room towards Daniel. "From the ancient signals I read, everything seemed automated. I don't think anyone is coming to check on what happened to us."
Daniel unstrapped and caught her. She leaned against him, and he gently began to massage the giant welts the straps had left on her. "I'm sorry." He said quietly.
"Maybe, but someone may have been watching." Stephanie said worriedly.
Steven shook his head. "Doubtful from what I'd seen I'd say that ship has been there for hundreds of years without anyone ever knowing it."
Michael nodded. "So for now, our biggest problems are those gun emplacements, and water and food."
"Just water and food. Our ship is dead and destroyed according to their sensors, so those killer asteroids will most likely just power down becoming indistinguishable from the other asteroids like before." Steven said, as he pushed himself to the doorway and touched the door pad. Nothing happened.
Mike unstrapped and glided over. Together they pulled the door back.
"So now what?"
"I get the rebreather back on before we suffocate then we try to figure a way out of this mess." Steven said.
Michael and Steven walked through the doorway, plunging the cockpit into darkness.
Stephanie unstrapped and felt along the bottom of her counsel.
"I... I just don't get it!" Daniel said.
Catherine looked up at him in the dark, trying to see his face. "Don't get what?"
"Why were there so many of them and... and why were they outside of the cloud. You think they'd be surrounding what they're protecting, not forty five K GSU out from it!"
"They were in the cloud, in fact, they were everywhere!" Steph exclaimed, as she found what she was looking for and pulled it out.
"What do you mean they were everywhere?"
"Exactly what I said. The radar showed thousands of the things. They were literally everywhere in the cloud, out of the cloud, around that giant ship. Heck, there was even some floating around randomly in the asteroid field behind us. Don't know if you noticed or not, but your small drone was obliterated before you even had taken back control of the ship."
Stephanie flipped the switch on the object she had pulled out, and the room was lit dimly with a golden light, revealing the jaw-slacking, dumbfounded look on Daniel's face. "How... How could there have been that many?"
Steph shrugged. "Beats me."
Michael walked back in. "Well, we got good news and bad news. The dynovamator is still intact, but the propulsion engines are shot. As such, the wires are short circuiting and, thanks to the safety bypasses Steven did, someone is going to have to go outside and manually disconnect the propulsion engines before we can safely turn on the nova."
"I'll do it" Catherine volunteered.
"No I will." Daniel quickly stated.
Catherine glared at him. "I have essentially walked across the Galaxy. I have by far the most experiences."
Daniel sighed. "Ok, but I'm going with you; you might need my muscle."
"Muscle? What muscle?" Stephanie mocked.
"I have tons of muscle, thank you." Daniel retorted. "I work out."
"Ha. You haven't worked out ever since Cat moved here. You're nothing but flab now!"
Dan ignored her and pushed his way towards the door. Catherine followed him. Soon, they were in the air lock.
They put on the small space masks and activated them. A thin skin-tight shield covered each one of them. The space-suit like shield was an amazing piece of technology that would protect them from the elements and other rigors of space walking. Sadly, they had a very limited battery life, and if something hit them too hard, the shield would shatter or fail, leaving them exposed.
"You ready?" Catherine asked.
Daniel nodded, and she hit a switch.
A hatch closed behind them. The room decompressed, then the outside hatch slowly opened.
Daniel pulled himself out of the ship and glanced around. The walls of the cavern glowed red; small circular liquid lava balls floated all around the cavernous space.
Catherine floated up beside him and said, "careful, don't let one of those touch you." Her voice transmitted through the EVA suit's com system.
"I'd say not. It'd burn straight through me! Why haven't they cooled yet?
Catherine pointed at the tunnel.
Daniel looked down at it. What looked like the entrance had completely melted into one giant lava circle. Somewhat solidified, it completely sealed them in their man made cave. "Oh that's just peachy."
"The laser fire must have melted all the rocks around the entrance. Without gravity, it naturally formed that circle."
"And the open space rapidly chilled it. Great. Just great. Now how are we going to get out?"
"We will figure out something. But first we need to get the power back on." Catherine grabbed two pairs of magnetic gloves and threw one to Daniel.
He put them on and used them to pull himself along the ship, until he reached the back half. "Wow!"
Catherine pulled up beside him. "Wow. Looks like the lasers burned straight through the ship in at least eight places."
"Ah man, looks like Steven is right. This thing is shot."
"There, that is where the main conduit is cut and laying against the ship's outer casing."
Daniel nodded. He pulled himself down the hole in the ship made by the lasers, reaching the severed and melted conduit, he took off the magnetic gloves and began to pry the wires apart from each other.
Catherine threw a small kit to him and he used it to cap the conduit.
Daniel crawled back out of the hole. "Okay, it's good. Tell Steven to try."
"You tell him. I have to fix the mess you made out of his kit."
Daniel rolled his eyes and gave her a toothy grin. He reached up and touched the fiber wire breaded into his hair by his right ear, and mentally commanded, contact Steven.
"Ya?" Steven's voice sang from the wire.
"Got it, give it a go."
"Okay just a sec."
The ship hummed underneath them.
"That's good we have air and light now come back." Steven said happily.
***
A minute later, Daniel and Catherine reentered the cockpit, just in time to catch the end of a small argument.
"No I told you that won't work!" Steven exclaimed.
Stephanie sighed. "Fine then. What do we do?"
"I don't know." Steven admitted.
"You sure the escape pod is shot?"
"Yes. It has a hole straight through it. When we forced the door open, we almost got sucked out." Mike answered.
"So that's it then. We'll have to use space shields to try and get home."
"No, that would be suicide. Besides, the entrance of the cave is sealed." Catharine informed them.
Mike looked back at her. "It is?"
Catherine told them what they had seen.
Silence fell as all of their faces paled.
"Steven might be able to slave our space station to the drone controls of this ship, enabling us to bring it here and free us." Daniel offered.
Steven shook his head. "I'd have to have set things up on the station first for that to work."
"Oh."
"Wouldn't have worked anyway." Stephanie said. "Bringing the station into an asteroid field would be a nightmare and would surly reactivate those gun emplacements. With their numbers, they would destroy it as well."
"Is there anyone who might be willing to come help us?" Catherine asked.
"Maybe, but this ship is not equipped with a long range communication system for stealth reasons, so all we have are short range frequencies."
Michael touched his watch. "Looks like only you guys are in range."
Catherine touched her bracelet. "Yeah, we're not in range to piggy back the star way."
"What about your pin hole Steven, can't we use that?" Stephanie said.
"It's called a 'Gravatic fold frequency gateway', not a pin hole! And if I had thought of it before and added it to one of our communicators sure but I didn't so no."
"So we're completely trapped." Stephanie concluded darkly.
"No, we are not. We just have to take stock of our options. Everyone, spread out throughout the ship and make a list of everything we have. Then we will look them over and see what we can come up with." Michael commanded.
There was a few sighs as they started to disperse, but Daniel said, "Wait, let's pray first."
The others stopped.
"You're right. We should." Mike bowed his head and everyone else did as well. "Dan, you pray."
Daniel nodded. He took a deep shaky breath and bowed his head. "Father, first I'd like to say I'm sorry for getting us into this mess and not thinking things through, and thank you for keeping us safe even in our stupidity. Now I ask that you guide us out of this mess. In Jesus's name, Amen. "
***
An hour later, the list was being compiled and Michael brought it up on the main view screen.
"First, Dan, while you were in the smuggling hold you found, we found out that this ship does indeed have a water purifying system, and thankfully it's undamaged."
"So we have enough water! I found forty-three pounds of extremely expensive and highly illegal food stuff that I am not at all looking forward to eating, down there. I mean who in their right mind would want to eat space whale, but I guess it's edible." Daniel said excitedly.
"Good. So, added with our other food, we have a good week's worth of food. If we don't take secondsies at dinners like we usually do, maybe two weeks..." Michael calculated.
An unnerving silence filled the chamber at Michael's assessment. Daniel uneasy in the silence flipped through the list they were compiling and pointed to the other thing he had found in the smuggling hold. "I also found some sort of—"
"Hey an assassination drone!" Steven interrupted him.
Everyone drew back a bit.
"An assassin drone?! You sure that's what it is?" Daniel said urgently.
"It's coated in stealth fiber has three interchangeable weapon mounts and here it says it's powered by a miniature dynovamator. What else could it be?"
"Wow." Mike said, wide eyed.
"Its own miniature dynovamator? You can't be right something like that would cost an astronomical amount of money!" Daniel exclaimed.
"Yes, it would and," Catherine looked at the floor. "And it would also enable it to be set in a place month ahead of time."
Daniel's expression soured as he nodded. "And the stealth fibers would keep it hidden."
Michael decided to change the subject. "Steven, exactly what is left of the ship?"
"The living quarters and all the human resource facilities are miraculously intact. The main propulsion system is shot full of holes. All the aft maneuverability jets are toast so are the front ones the only ones left are the middle, port and starboard but the front of this ship has melted into a cavern and has more or less solidified making it unmovable so they are of no use. The forward most weapons are smashed and the two that are intact were fried when Mike melted the beam cannon into slag. The missile launchers were covered in lava but I managed to recover one of the Anti-Matter missiles and there is one shield generating panel still intact so we can put up a directional wall of protection."
Stephanie's face lit up. "So we could use the missile to open the cave and at the same time protect ourselves."
Steven shook his head
"No I thought the same thing but the missile has tons of safety features that make it impossible to explode without being launched. I dare not try to jerry rig it neither...cause well I like to keep my body intact."
Michael curled up the corner of his mouth into a smile. "Yeah, I can see how disabling safety mechanisms on an antimatter missile could be rather 'parting'."
A few of the others rolled their eyes at Michael's impromptu joke. He continued, "Anything else?"
Steven shook his head.
"Okay." Michael replied, and started to scroll through the list. After a few seconds he said, "Dan, you said the assassin drone you found had three weapon attachments. What are they?"
Daniel closed his eyes and looked up as he thought. "A higher powered long barreled laser, a miniature particle beam cannon, and some type of explosive launcher. Sadly though, I'm sure that none of them are strong enough to punch through the cave barrier"
Mike could see Steven's calculation process started up. "You think you can rig the launcher?"
"I don't know I have to see it to be sure. But as a whole most launchers have the same components so maybe."
"Good. Dan let's bring up your find."
"Okay."
***
Daniel and Michael went to the hidden compartment. Within a few minutes, they hauled a giant black case back into the cockpit.
Everyone gathered around as Daniel opened it.
The drone was a black ball, four feet in circumference, with one protruding arm that the weapons mounted on.
Steven read the small engravings at the top of it. "Wow it indeed does say it's powered by a star generator. Dang to make a dynovamator this small... Wow I wanna open it up and look at it."
Stephanie looked horrified as she exclaimed. "Don't you dare! If you messed up and released a miniature star in here, we'd all be dead."
Steven looked crestfallen as he said, "I guess you're right."
"I don't get what's the big deal anyway." Daniel said. "Dynovamators are in all space crafts. Well, except for self-powered ones of course."
"Don't get what's the big deal? Dan, there is a miniature start in each of them! And a star is a renewable ecosystem, just like an inhabitable planet. There are land masses and oceans in them, just completely different from how we know them. The liquid that forms the oceans on a star goes through the same cycle water does, but the only difference is that storms never stop happening on a star, and that's why they give off so much heat and energy. To make a miniature sun in the first place is a massive miracle in technology, much less keeping it contained. To do something like that on this small of a scale is mind boggling!"
"Okay, okay, I get it. It's awesome."
"Simpleton." Steven whispered underneath his breath.
Daniel started to respond, but a withering look from Michael cut him short. To make sure nothing else was said, Michael asked, "Is the launcher usable?"
Alongside the drone in the case weapon attachments sat nestled in perfectly carved out black foam. Steven picked up the one that was obviously a launcher.
"Hum it is of course too small but I think I can do it. It will be a onetime shot though and afterwards this launcher will be shot." Steven assessed.
"That fine. It will be one heck of an expensive shot, but it's worth it." Daniel said.
Steven nodded. He pulled out a kit and began to take the launcher apart.
"Wait." Catherine said. "If we blow open the entrance with an antimatter missile, the opening will be enormous and it'll cool in here rather rapidly. This ship does not have operating shields neither, so in a short time we'll be freezing."
"Oh yeah I didn't think of that." Steven admitted.
"I did." Michael said, as he highlighted two objects on the list. "Steven, do you think you can merge these whi—"
"Ah yes brilliant. But do you think we could pull that off?"
"It's a long shot. However if you and Catherine are right about the automation then..."
"It might just work."
***
A few hours later, Daniel pulled down the probe controls as Steven and Michael got back from putting the assassin ball outside the ship. "Ready?"
They nodded. Catherine said, "According to the radar, the fake asteroids have powered down, and I have the little bit of shield we have left up and angled, so we should be safe when you do it."
Michael glanced worriedly over at the radar. "Are you sure those asteroids won't wake up the instant we do this? I seriously doubt I can power down our ship fast enough for them not to notice us."
Steven looked at Catherine. She nodded. "Yes, we are sure. Those things are automated to protect the big ship, and we're too far out from it for it to notice an explosion."
"Okay then." Michael said, as he turned to Daniel. "Go for it."
"Okay, here it goes."
Daniel activated the black drone. Its front camera view appeared on the viewport. Daniel maneuvered it till it was in one of the cockpit's viewports, and gave it a good look over to make sure none of the modifications Steven had made to it messed anything up.
The drone now had two new appendages. From the looks of it, Steven had managed to keep them out of the way of the maneuvering jets. "Looks good. I'm going to blow the entrance."
"You only have one shot, so make it count and stay behind our ship's shield." Stephanie reminded him.
"I know."
Daniel brought the drone around so it was right above the aft of the pirate ship. He lined up for the shot, and launched the missile.
It flew down the tunnel and smashed into the pumice that now sealed entrance.
It exploded, eclipsing everything in a bright light, shaking them so violently it felt like their teeth were going to fall out.
When the shaking finally stopped, they could see that the tunnel was no more, replaced by an open space.
"Well that worked." Dan muttered.
"The gun placements are still dormant." Stephanie informed them, as she motioned Michael to put the radar up on screen.
He did, and said, "Thank you Father, and please let this work as well. "
Turning to Daniel he said, "Okay, just like last time. Don't crash or... Well just don't."
"I... I won't."
Daniel flipped a switch, discarding the now useless launcher. He then pushed the controls all the way forward, flying the drone out into the asteroid field, and aimed straight for the cloud.
He reached it, hesitated for a moment as he closed his eyes and said his own little prayer, then plunged in.
The assassination drone was surprisingly far more maneuverable then the spy probe. Half way through, Daniel realized the thing had its own logic drive as well.
Two larger asteroids collided, setting of a series of explosions that Dan easily maneuvered around. "Man, this thing is sweet."
"It may seem so, but just imagine if the driver of it was trying to kill you with it." Stephanie said.
"Oh yeah, I guess that wouldn't be so sweet."
A minute later, the drone entered the clearing around the giant invisible ship.
Dan brought it to a halt. "Well, now we find out if the stealth fibers still work even with Steven's modifications."
"They should."
"Yeah, but if they don't..."
"They will."
"Power down the ship so we don't get detected." Michael said, as he turned off the light and everything else, leaving only the radar and the view screen up.
The ship's gentle hum disappeared as the star in the dynovamator went dormant again.
A small light flashed, showing that they were now using a set of batteries that Steven had set up for their power.
"Okay, go ahead."
Daniel slowly nudged the drone forward until it bumped the ship.
The silhouette of the ship rippled outwards. Once again, hundreds if not thousands of dots appeared on the radar.
Everyone held their breath, waiting to see if the fake asteroids would open fire on their drone.
They didn't. Daniel breathed a sigh of relief and pushed a button.
One of the added arms on the drone unfolded and lightly touched the ship again.
A new screen lit up, showing an outline of the exterior of the ship.
Their eyes scanned over it, until Catherine pointed and said, "There! That looks like a hatch."
"Good eye." Daniel carefully brought the drone about. "Let's hope this thing is not rigged to blow when a hatch is forced open, like some games have them."
"Whoa let's make sure it doesn't." Steven said.
"How?" Daniel asked.
"By hacking it open of course. Here get out of the seat for a bit." Steven said.
"But you have never hacked a ship before!" Daniel protested.
"True but I've read up about it so move over." Steven pushed.
Daniel sighed, and relinquished the pilot seat to Steven.
Steven sat down, and carefully maneuvered both of the arms he had taken from the hacking probes. Slowly, he cut around the control panel to the hatch, until he was able to touch the electronics with one of the arms.
The screen that had been displaying the exterior of the ship blinked, and displayed thousands of lines of code that no one but Steven could possibly understand.
Three minutes crawled by, Steven started to sweat profusely, then he began to breathe hard.
"You okay?" Stephanie asked worriedly.
"The hacking drone is supposed to have programs to automatically do this type of stuff but this stupid ship is too stinking old for it to recognize and these arms are junk so I'm having to manually override it and... and well I'm not sure what I'm doing."
"Maybe we should just force it then." Daniel suggested.
"No! You were right. From the code I can read it is indeed rigged to blow. Whatever this ship is someone didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands."
"So hacking is the only way in. What if you mess up?" Daniel asked.
"Boom." Steven replied tersely.
Michael stood up, walked over, and put one hand on Steven shoulder. "Father, you have got us this far. I just ask that you would give Steven wisdom and guidance now."
Steven looked a little agitated, but he let himself relax and said, "Thank you." He turned back to work.
"Oh yes. I think I think. I got it." He said a few minutes later. "I rewrote the program's code to recognize this ship's ancient stuff. And and it's... working! Yes."
The hatch popped open. "Woot!" Steven jumped up and did a little jig. "I did it I did it I did it!"
"Good job!" Michael said, as he patted Steven on the back.
"I knew you could do it." Catherine said, with a smile.
Daniel reached out and rubbed his head. "Good job bro."
"That's our Steven, able to do anything he sets his mind to." Stephanie said as she stood up. She shivered. "And not a moment too soon. It's getting cold."
"We're not out of this yet. Dan you need to take the drone to the cockpit so I can take direct control of the ship then hopefully use it to come and get us." Steven said
Daniel nodded. He sat back down in the pilot seat, and flew the drone to the hatch, into the ship.
The hatch closed. The small chamber compressed, then opened another hatch.
"Ah good, the artificial gravity is not on. If it were, it'd be a serious pain. Now let's hope these anti-security bots work." Daniel pushed a button. A handful of pea-sized droids spewed forth, then dispersed. In seconds, they had all disappeared into the ship.
"Well, I guess that's a good sign?" Daniel said.
Steven nodded. "I don't know much about assassin drones protocols but with how much this thing must have cost I'm sure those robots will do their job."
"You don't think they will have a problem with how old this ship is, like the hacking did?" Michael asked.
"No," Steven said. "The hacking probes we cannibalized are trash their main proposes was for hacking the star way and illegally listening in on communications. Hacking old doors is not what it they were design for. On the other hand there are thousands of locations with ancient security system still in use. And something like this assassin drone has to be able to be used any were. As such I'm sure it is well versed in old stuff and will work as it supposed to."
"Let hope your right." Michael replied.
Daniel impatiently flew the drone in small strafing circles as they waited. "Just how long do we have to wai—"
He was cut off by a screen popping up that read, "Presence masking: successful."
"Ah, finally!" Daniel declared. "I can go in now, right?"
Steven shrugged. "I would think."
Daniel nudged the drone through the open hatch. A small camera on the far wall hissed as it swiveled towards the drone. Daniel knew it was just big enough to be seen, to let you know that you were being watched. He waited, expecting alarms to go off, but none did.
"Well, that's a relief." Daniel blandly stated and guided the assassin drone further into the ship.
He glided through the ship's corridors, until he came into a wide open area.
"Well would you look at that!" Daniel exclaimed.
Michael whistled.
Stephanie let out a puff of air. "Well, there's why there are so many of those gun emplacements."
"It's a factory." Catherine breathed.
"Yes, and it's making laser guns and installing them into fake asteroids. From the looks of it I'd say it's probably been doing it for hundreds of years." Michael said.
"Most likely." Steven agreed. "And this whole thing make a little more sense now but I wonder where it is getting the resources for all this and how it's getting them out there after they're made."
Daniel pushed the drone forward. "I'm sure we'll figure that out eventually, but first, let's get us out of here. It's getting rather chilly. Mike, can you turn on the heat please?"
Michael shook his head. "No, the radar is still showing thousands of guns. To turn on the heat I'd have to turn back on the dynovamator."
"Oh. Yeah I guess that wouldn't be a good idea." Daniel mumbled, and continued to fly the drone through the gigantic factory towards the front of the ship.
Steven threw out one hand and pointed. "Hey stop, look over there!"
"Wow, what in the world is that?" Daniel asked, as he brought the drone to a halt.
"I don't know fly over." Steven told him.
Daniel did as he said. Catherine said, "It looks like an ancient starway ring. There are still a few old ones in use."
As they looked at it, the thing came on, and connected to someplace outside of the ship. Two small drones pushed an asteroid so large, it barely fitted towards the star way and through the ring. The asteroid floated on into the factory, where it was grabbed by mechanical arms. Small lasers began to dissect it.
"Well, that's how it gets the resources. "Daniel stated, rather amused.
"What in the world did we just see!?" Steven half screamed.
"A starway inside of a ship." Stephanie said placidly.
Steven about blew his top. "That's not possible a starway uses graviton waves to fold and shrink spaces but it must have a clear view of the next ring and nothing can be in its way. This thing just went through a solid wall!"
Stephanie frowned, not understanding why he was so worked up. "Doesn't your pinhole do the same thing?"
"Yes because it sends only frequencies and frequencies can go through other objects," Steven explained. "But other solid objects cannot go through solid objects!"
"Oh," Stephanie answered, and waved at Daniel to continue on.
Daniel shrugged, and started to fly the drone forward once more.
"What are you doing?! STOP! What we just saw is impossible on so many levels of science... We have to figure this out! "
"Not now we don't. I'm starting to freeze. If we don't get out of here soon, we are all going to be icicles." Stephanie scolded.
"Fine." Steven mumbled, and produced a glowing screen in his hand as he started to mumble things to himself.
Daniel kept the drone going checking each corridor, until he atlas found the cockpit or command deck rather. The massive spherical room was completely empty, except for two seats floating in the air, extended on what looked like shock absorbent shafts.
Catherine pointed. "There! That seat with the dead guy in it. It looks like the captain's seat."
Daniel flew up to it, and quickly stood up out of the pilot seat, rubbing his freezing hands. "Steven, put down that hologram and get over here and do your thing before we freeze."
Steven frowned at him, but closed his hands, turning off whatever he had been looking at and took over.
Daniel shivered as he glanced around. He noticed that there were ice sickles forming along the cockpit walls. "Can we please turn on the heat!?"
"I dare not until Steven turns off those fake asteroids." Michael told him once again through shattering teeth.
"Steven hurry it up!" Daniel exclaimed.
However, Steven was still just looking down at the controls.
Daniel glared at his younger brother. "What are you doing? Get on with it!"
"Something seems to still be running," Steven muttered, then spat. "Don't push me. If I mess up we will die!"
Daniel fell into silence as Steven moved the drone around, looked at the controls, until at last he said, "Ah." and moved the drone's arm to hit a button.
"Recording stopped. Playback message before sending?" The ship's male mechanized voice played threw the drone's mics.
Steven glanced over at the others. Michael said, "Yes."
Steven used the drone's arm to tap yes.
On the forward screen of the ship, an image of the dead man appeared. The right side of his face was crushed and badly burned; the other side was completely covered in blood. He started to speak, an action that obviously took great effort. "Brothers, I have failed the..." The man swallowed hard. A drop of tear rolled down his left cheek, making a streak through the blood. "The Valdarins used a type of new weapon on us, but it malfunctioned and... "He swallowed again, losing his strength and composer. "They are all dead. All of them. Both civilizations... The men are... there's nothing left of the Core... We have failed... I... I—" the man slumped, and breathed his last. The recording continued, oblivious of his death.
Steven stopped the playback.
"Do you wish to send the message now?" The male voice asked.
Steven moved the arm and hit no.
They all sat silently in the cold.