Providence - Max Barry Page 0,37

leaping housings and ducking beneath bulkheads that he knew by heart, and took two ladders down to E Deck. The door to Eng-13 didn’t respond to tactile at all. He felt for the manual release, popped the side panel, and cranked it. Inside, the cores sat beneath thick green translucent housings, each with a board mounted at eye level, spaced a few feet apart. All were reading green. He found 996 and it was green, too. That was the problem. It had gone bad, but the ship hadn’t realized it.

“I’m at Intel station,” Jackson said. “Contact in two minutes. Life, Weapons, you should have boards when you get back.”

He brought up the board, but, to his dismay, it didn’t offer him any options he hadn’t had at station. He should have known: They were mid-engagement; it had locked down. He stared at the core itself. It was a thin silver brick, gleaming softly under the green housing, two feet away but sealed off from his reach. It looked fine but inside was corruption. He had to teach the ship that, somehow.

“Life, checking in,” said Beanfield.

“Weapons, checking in,” said Anders.

He unclipped his drill from his belt and clambered up the green housing. Once he was in position, he set the drill bit against the housing and squeezed the trigger. The plastic squealed. He forced the drill down, chewing through the material. His film flared with warnings.

“Intel!” said Jackson. “What’s going on?”

“I’m attempting to inflict physical damage on the core to make the ship take it offline.” He pushed the drill down until the head touched the housing. That was as far as it would go. He pressed his face to the plastic and peered through. The end of the drill bit hovered half an inch above the core. “Shit!”

“Problem?”

“I can’t reach it.” He pulled the drill free from the housing. He didn’t have a longer bit. But he did have an extensible screwdriver. He dialed the drill open, jammed in the head of the screwdriver, pulled it out to its full length, and fed it back through the hole he’d made.

“Contact,” Jackson said. “Hostiles are firing. Huks incoming. Impact in forty seconds.”

“Weapons are dark,” Anders said. “We are not firing. Repeat, not firing.”

Gilly pulled the trigger. The drill jumped in his hands. The tip of the screwdriver squealed across metal. He leaned over the drill, forcing it down with his body weight. The housing filled with white smoke and an acrid smell. His film began to bleed alarms.

“Seeing a lot of warnings, Intel.”

“That’s fine.” He paused to lean out and check the board. He saw core bank 996 blink red and then gray. “That’s it! Core is offline!”

“Armor is initializing,” Jackson said. “Weapons are initializing. Good job, Intel. Great job.”

“Gilly fixed it?” said Beanfield.

He scrambled down the board. He would know once Weapons and Armor managed to dial up beyond the point where they’d been resetting. “I think so. We won’t be able to tell for a minute.”

“Until Weapons and Armor are fully deployed, we’re vulnerable,” Jackson said.

He dropped the drill, slid off the housing, and took command of the board. “I can run Intel now.”

“Thank you. Huks still incoming. Impact in twenty seconds. Prepare to brace.”

“Pulse is up!” Anders said. “Charging!”

“Armor impact in thirty seconds.”

“Armor at thirty percent,” Gilly said. “It’s rising, but that’s low. Too low.”

“Understood. Armor may be insufficient to repel current incoming ordnance. Prepare to brace.”

Anders: “Laser battery one online. Laser battery two online. Pulsing!”

Jackson: “Hostiles down. Ten . . . twelve thousand. Debris is obscuring—”

Anders: “Lasers firing. All batteries. Holy shit.”

Jackson: “Debris cascade obscuring sensors. Unknown number of remaining hostiles.”

Beanfield: “We got them?”

Anders: “We got them! We got them!”

Jackson: “Ordnance still incoming. Armor contact in ten seconds.”

On his board, Gilly popped up the Armor display. Forty-two percent and rising. By his reckoning, that was enough to divert hundreds of simultaneous hits. That should be plenty; that was more than any