Battleship Raider by Paul Tomlinson (book recommendations website .txt) 📗

grid and see if I can trick it into giving me a wireless connection. There we go. I’m not sure what sort of range we’ll have and it will only work in parts of the ship where the grid is undamaged.”

“But it’s better than having a plug up your butt,” I said. I disconnected the wire.

“Keep that with you in case we need it again,” Trixie said.

I coiled the wire and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. “See if you can get into the security database and look at how the input is structured. Then take my data and format it ready to create a new profile.”

“Ready,” Trixie said. “I’m inputting basic facial profiling, voice pattern, retinal scan, and gait. Do you want me to set it to auto-erase?”

“Always,” I said, “Wipe it after forty-eight hours – we should be long gone by then.”

“Who do you want to be?”

Kyle Rose’s security clearance would only permit him to create a profile for someone at a lower level than him, which made sense. “Make me an engineer with as much clearance as you can – I need access to utilities and life-support as a minimum. And make me the duty engineer for the current shift.”

“I like it,” Trixie said. “Do you want to be Mario or Luigi?”

“Just give it my name,” I said.

“I’m going to have to reprogram the security tag,” Trixie said. “That’ll give you access as your new identity, but it will mean you can’t use it to get back into the system as Kyle Rose.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “But try and keep this terminal logged on as Kyle if you can – just in case.”

Trixie wrote my new identity to the security tag and then set the terminal to playing a game of Hearts to make it look as if Kyle Rose was still hard at ‘work’.

“You’re all set,” she said. “The first blocked toilet that comes along will be yours to fix.”

“Now we need to put someone inside the vault,” I said. “Find out who was the last person authorised to enter. And retrieve the security video from the vault for that shift.”

“Searching,” Trixie said. “I don’t know who created this database, but I would have serious concerns about his reasoning abilities.”

“Or hers,” I said.

“What?”

“It might have been designed by a female person,” I said.

“Oh, no,” Trixie said. “Trust me, this file structure was thrown together by a man. And I would put money on the fact that he wore odd socks.”

I decided not to mention the fact that most of my socks were odd.

“I’ve found you the ideal young woman,” Trixie said.

“Remember how well it turned out the last time you said that?”

“Her name’s Zola Brandt and she’s probably been dead for forty years,” Trixie said. “Even you couldn’t screw up this relationship.”

“When we get away from here, remind me that it’s time for your annual check-up,” I said.

“I’m not letting anyone in rubber gloves anywhere near me,” Trixie said. “I have the video. The quality isn’t great.”

“Degraded due to age?”

“No, a squitty camera to begin with.”

“I need a loop of five or ten minutes – I want to use it to replace the live feed. Give it the current timestamp.”

“This is actually not a bad idea,” she said.

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“Do you want me to list some of your previous ‘great ideas’ for comparison?”

“Annual check-up, I’m warning you. And I may ask for a factory reset.”

“You need me if you want to get out of here alive.”

Trixie had a point.

“I need you to go back into the logs and delete the record of Zola Brandt leaving the vault – we need it to look like she’s still in there. Then start the video feed showing her in the vault.”

“Just tell me when to hit ‘play’.”

The next step was for me to go out and sabotage the cooling system that fed into the vault. To do that, I would have to go back out through the robot garage.

“Any chance of you being able to keep the security robots away from me?” I asked.

“Sorry. Control of them requires clearance above Kyle Rose’s level. I’ll monitor their positions and warn you if they get close.”

“What about the one outside the door?”

“Battery currently at less than one per cent but it is back on the charger.”

“I’ll take his head off on my way out,” I said.

Chapter Ten

The plan was simple. I was going to trick the ship so she opened up the vault door and invited me in. To make that happen, we were going to make it seem that someone – Zola Brandt – was trapped in the vault. Then I was going to arrange a fault so that poor Zola was at risk of dying in there, causing the ship to open an emergency hatch so she could get out. As that happened, the ship would send a call to the duty maintenance engineer to come and fix the problem in the vault. I would be playing the part of the engineer. Once I got into the vault, I would improvise. I didn’t expect to be in there very long. Grab the Navigator and get out, hopefully before the three remaining security robots were alerted to the theft. Like I said – simple.

“Any sign of those security robots?” I asked. I didn’t like not knowing where the robots were. I opened a maintenance hatch that would give me access to the refrigeration system that sent coolness into the vault.

“Negative,” Trixie said. “There are large sections of the interior monitoring grid down – dark places that I can’t see into.”

This wasn’t surprising given the damage caused by the crash. It was a miracle that this armoured middle section of the ship had survived as well as it had. It was possible the missing robots had been destroyed when the Celestia hit the ground, but I wasn’t going to bet my life on a possibility.

“Keep an eye out for them,” I said.

“About that factory reset...?”

“It’ll