Chapter 39
Vytln
Subspace was a place that, once within, you became totally untouchable. Not just to other ships, but even to communication. The signal that turned on the hijacking device and took over their ship was gone, but Alred was still unresponsive, so it was still working – wherever it was.
But that meant that they only needed to interfere with it and they would be able to get some control back without anyone being able to stop them. The search of the ship's internals had turned up nothing.
However, they didn't need to keep it up any longer.
Haven truly was a wonder. And her termites were incredible.
The nanobots that monitored and performed some maintenance on the outside of the ship typically did not function while they were in subspace.
They remained outside, having their own terminal that they connected to on the exterior of the ship.
They were fully separate from the interior nanobot fleet and couldn’t cross under normal circumstances.
Haven, however, had managed to use her termites to break into the terminal from the inside of the ship. She then took control of it and used that control to communicate to the nanobots on the outside.
It was incredibly imperfect. The data that was relayed back to her tablet was fragmented and broken. She described it as static. She also had to fight to keep the connection. The nanobots weren’t designed to operate while inside subspace and doing so messed with their systems.
But she found something. Amongst the background noise of subspace, noticed only because she and her termites were so attuned to the ship, she found something attached to their base that shouldn't be there.
And she was trying to interfere with it.
They gathered in the bridge to watch her do it. Haven was at one of the four seats, as two were always open. Sway and Grace, who worked here full time, were there as well. Vytln and Tanin stood behind Haven, watching as she tried and failed and tried again to somehow stop the device.
Goldie was there as well. Vytln wasn't at all surprised to see her, though she served no purpose here.
She looked distraught, as she had the entire day without Alred able to talk to her from overhead.
She was quiet, not being a bother, but she would wring her hands silently and kept glancing upward, as though hoping to see Alred appearing as Haven worked.
Haven, meanwhile, had a look of pinched concentration on her usually bright and happy face. She was serious, focused, and completely immobile.
Vytln never saw her like this. Even when she was concentrating, she was typically moving or bouncing or chatting.
She almost never did one thing at a time.
Even when he fucked her to the point of clearing her head, she was laughing or teasing or begging.
She might be thoughtless, but she was never this serious and still.
She was like a statue. She had her tablet, her termite communicator, she had one of the consoles open on the ship, and she was moving between the three of them, rapidly switching between Standard, her native tongue, her secondary Earth language, and the coding language she developed that was a combination of all of them.
The strange way she communicated with her bots was such an odd but elegant merging of so many languages, symbols, and numbers.
It was hypnotizing, beautiful, to watch her like this.
A side of her he had never seen. One that would probably never need to exist if the situation wasn’t as serious as it was.
He had no idea what she was doing, of course.
He didn't know how her termites worked, even if he could read the language she had made up for them.
She wasn't telling them what she was doing either.
She outright ignored any questions tossed her way.
They had eventually stopped trying to ask and just let her work while they waited.
The first sign of her success didn't come from her, but instead from the harsh, distorted, fragmented voice that tried to talk from overhead.
“Alred!” Goldie called out, tears already glittering in her eyes. Though they couldn't make out words, that was definitely Alred's distorted voice.
At the sound of it, Haven's brow got even deeper.
The harder she concentrated, the cleaner he became until, though it was still rough and distorted, they caught the unmistakable growl of
“-to kill them-”
The corner of Tanin's mouth turned up in a satisfied smirk as Goldie let out a sob of relief, covering her mouth with both hands as though to catch the sound.
“Welcome back,” Tanin said. “Hope you enjoyed your vacation. What can you do?”
“N-N-Not much-ch,” he said, voice glitching and strained. “It-t's trying to get control back-ack. What hap-hap-hap-” His question ended with crunchy static.
“We were hijacked. We're in subspace. We are being taken somewhere. We need a plan before we swing out so we aren't right in our enemy's hands or blown up.”
“One-one-one… Give me…”
More static, but the message was clear and they waited for him to return while Haven kept her fingers busy, still communicating with her termites. What little control she and Alred had wrestled away was not easily kept. It took longer than it normally would for Alred to return with an answer.
“We can't-can't stop the swing. Not mid-swing. Our momentum is already-read-ready built. We h-h-h-have to ride it out-t.”
“What can we do then?” Tanin asked.
“We can swing away when we arrive,” Sway suggested from the navigator’s chair. “But I would need a little time to get the math done for a new swing.”
“Time we won't have,” Vytln said. “Their first action will be to disable us to prevent exactly that.”
“Any idea how?” Tanin asked.
“Knowing my brother, the flashiest and simplest way.”
Tanin looked at Sway who already had an answer ready.
“A tether would be my first choice. If they lock our ship to theirs, it would throw off our subspace calculations and prevent us from swinging because it wouldn't take their ship into account.
It's the cheapest, easiest option. The second way would be to use a pulse to completely disable our ship.
It's certainly flashy and would leave us totally stranded, but it is not technology that's easily obtainable.
It's for military purposes for the Coalition Army only.
It's illegal for anyone else to have it. So, to get it, you need both connections and a lot of credz to burn.”
“My family is wealthy,” Vytln shook his head. “Not forbidden military tech wealthy. And even if we were, my brother would never be able to keep that kind of secret. He'd need to flaunt it to show off exactly how wealthy and connected he is.”
“Any other methods they could use?” Tanin asked.
Sway shook his head. “Maybe. But the possibility of them being able to utilize any other method is very low. Not unless they have access to vitulli technology. And only the rarest few do. If he can't get pulse tech, he certainly can't get vitulli tech.”
“Then we make our plans based on those options. Sway, you and Alred figure out a way to swing with a tether locking us to them. I'll get with the others to get a battle plan if we're left stranded and powerless. Vytln, help Haven to keep Alred with us as long as she can.”
“Aye, captain,” Vytln and Sway said at the same time.
Tanin turned to leave the bridge. Trove was in charge of weapons. He’d be the one who would help Tanin with battle plans. Sorbet and Tebros would, no doubt, also be involved. The others would all fall in line based on whatever they could do.
Sway, however, turned back to his console. Alred was speaking directly to him. Goldie, focused only on Alred, walked up to stand behind Grace. Needing to be near her male but not wanting to interfere with their job.
Vytln remained with Haven, watching as she worked. Her brow wasn’t as deep now, but her face was pinched with concentration.
“Do you need silence?” Vytln asked.
“No,” she said simply, still working.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving commands to the termites. The hijacking device is locking hard onto us. I can’t getting it off. But I don’t understanding why. The termites have eating through the mechanism that should be locking it on, so I don’t knowing why it’s not off yet.”
“It won’t fall off. Not in subspace.”
“What? Why not?” She frowned, her focus still tapping away on her tablet.
“I don’t know. That’s just how subspace works.”
“It’s because subspace is a compressive force,” Sway spoke from the nav seat, also focused on whatever Alred was showing him.
“Going into subspace isn’t easy, or natural.
And subspace is constantly trying to reject us within it.
Like it’s pushing us out. So, nothing on the ship can fall off.
It’s all being pressed together. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s essentially what’s going on. ”
“Oh. So, I can’t getting this off.”
“No. Not until we’re out of subspace. Alred says it’s okay. He’s got a foothold, so he can fight off the program a little. Not completely. But he’s got enough control to do what we need.”
“Which is what?” Vytln asked as Haven sat back, disgruntled like she had failed at something, though, by his estimation, she had succeeded magnificently.
“I need numbers,” Sway said, tapping on his console.
“Subspace navigation is all based on mathematics. I need to know the precise size of what I’m moving.
I need to know where I am in space. I need to know where I’m going.
Some of it is mathematical constants, but the rest I need measurements.
I can estimate the size of your brother’s ship based on what we know of it, so I can combine that with our ship and just move both of us in the swing.
At least to get us away from whatever kill box they’re setting.
But I can’t get the information on where we are or where we’re going until we get there.
That will be what takes the most time. I can get all the data I need for where we are once we get there but finding and obtaining the data for where we’re going could take a lot longer.
“Alred has an idea though. To at least make it faster. He knows a communication relay that he has direct access to but no one else does. He can connect to that the moment we swing out. That will cut a lot of time in and of itself. He says making the connection will give him an immediate return of coordinates for a swing. He might be able to get his numbers before I do, in fact. I estimate that, if we’re quick enough, we can get everything we need and swing out again in less than a quarter mark. ”
Vytln frowned. “That’s too much time. A well-trained crew can board us in a quarter mark.”
“True. So, we’ll need Tanin’s plan as well.”
“I-I will get-t the shelter room ready-eady,” Alred glitched from above.
“Shelter room?” Haven repeated, looking up at him.
Vytln touched her neck gently. “Did you find the shelter room in all your crawling through the ship?
She nodded. “I never getting in though. What is being in it?”
Vytln couldn’t help but share a victorious look with Sway.
They’d spent a lot of credz and time to make the shelter room.
Not just to make sure it was completely safe, but to make sure it was absolutely undetectable.
It was their final defense. If all else went wrong, if they had to hide one of them from their own pasts, when their weakest members needed a place to stay away from potential danger, they had their shelter room.
Alred couldn’t even see inside once it was sealed.
And if it was still impenetrable, that meant that even Haven, for all that she had wandered around freely and found all their other secrets, couldn’t find a way inside.
“You will stay in there,” Vytln said, leaving no room for argument.
She was incredibly capable, but he had yet to see anything like combat ability from her.
Which meant that he would not allow her to be near any potential fights.
“At least until we are able to swing out. The others will be there as well.”
“Alright,” she said. “All of us?”
“All of you,” he said. “Garnet is too pregnant to fight, and you three can’t. You will have Rok with you. He’ll look after you while you’re in there. The rest of us will deal with things.”
“Where is the entrance being?”
She hadn’t even managed to find that. He was even more proud of their work. “I’ll show you. Do you need to keep working on that?”
She nodded, looking back at the tablet with a frown. “Yes. The commands from the device are changing. I need to keep checking to make sure Alred isn’t losing ground.”
“I will be-be-be helping you wi-with that,” Alred chimed in from overhead. “Now that I have a foothold, and-and now that I’m prepar-pared, I can fight back. But it is- it is- is difficult. I won’t be able to hold this-is up forever.”
“Just a bit longer,” Haven said, smiling. “I can getting the device off quickly when we swinging out.”
“Good,” Vytln nodded once. “Sway, how much time do we have to get ready?”
“Maybe another day and a half,” Sway said, a grin forming. “We have time.”
Vytln couldn’t help but chuckle along with him. “Too much time, really. It’s not fair.”
The three females shared a look. One of confusion. Incredulity. He wasn’t sure if they were baffled by their confidence or their amusement, but it didn’t really matter.
They’d see soon enough. And it had been a while since they had a good challenge.