Another tap and the central sphere took up the entire screen. “We’re calling it a station pretty much only because it sits at the center of the slow zone, and we’re making the entirely unfounded assumption that some sort of control station for the gates would be located there. The station has no visible breaks in its surface. Nothing that looks like an airlock, or an antenna, or a sensor array, or anything. Just that big silvery blue glowing ball.”
Holden turned off the monitor and both of the camera operators swiveled to put him at the center of their shots.
“But the most intriguing factor of the slow zone, and the one that gives it its name, is the absolute speed limit of six hundred meters per second. Any object above the quantum level traveling faster than that is locked down by what seems to be an inertial dampening field, and then dragged off to join the garbage circling the central station. At a guess, this is some sort of defensive system that protects the Ring Station and the gates themselves. Light and radar still work normally, but radiation made up of larger particles like alpha and beta radiation does not exist inside the slow zone. At least outside the ship, that is. Whatever controls the speeds here only seems concerned by the exterior of the objects, not the interior. We’ve done radiation and object speed tests inside the ship, and so far everything works as normal. But the last probe we fired was immediately grabbed by the field and is now making its way down to the garbage ring. The lack of alpha and beta radiation leads me to believe that there’s a thin cloud of loose electrons and helium nuclei orbiting that station as part of the garbage ring.”
“Can you tell us what your plan is now?” Monica said from off camera. Cohen pointed his mic at her, then back at Holden.
“Our plan now is to remain motionless, avoid attracting the Ring Station’s attention, and keep studying the slow zone using what instruments we have. We can’t leave until we repair the comm array and let everyone outside know that we aren’t psychotic murderers bent on claiming the Ring for ourselves.”
“Great!” Monica said, giving him the thumbs-up. Clip and Okju moved around the room getting shots to cut in later. They shot the instrument panels, the monitor behind Holden, even Naomi lounging in her ops station crash couch. She smiled sweetly and flipped them off.
“How’s everyone doing after the burn?” Holden asked, Clip’s blood-pinked eye still drawing his attention.
Cohen touched his side and grimaced. “Got a rib that I think just slid back into place this morning. I’ve never been on a ship doing maneuvers that violent before. It gave me a little more respect for the navy.”
Holden pushed off the bulkhead and drifted over to Naomi. In a low voice he said, “Speaking of the navy, how’s that comm array coming along? I’d really love to start protesting my innocence before someone figures out a way to lob a slow-moving torpedo in here after us.”
She blew out an exasperated breath at him and started tugging on her hair like she did when she was lost in a complex problem. “That little Trojan horse that keeps grabbing control? Every time I wipe and reboot, it finds its way back in. I’ve got comms totally isolated from the other systems, and it’s still getting in.”
“And the weapons?”
“They keep on powering up, but they never fire.”
“So there has to be some connection.”
“Yes,” Naomi said, and waited. Holden felt a self-conscious discomfort.
“That doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t know.”
“No.”
Holden pulled himself down into the crash couch next to hers and buckled in. He was trying to play it cool, but the truth was the longer they went without presenting a defense or at least a denial to the fleets outside, the more risk there was that someone would find a way to destroy the Roci, slow zone or not. The fact that Naomi couldn’t figure it out only added to the worry. If whoever was doing this was clever enough to outsmart Naomi with an engineering problem, they were in a lot of trouble.
“What’s the next plan?” he asked, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. Naomi heard it anyway.
“We’re taking a break from it,” she said. “I’ve got Alex doing ladar sweeps of all the other rings that make up the boundary of the slow zone. Just to see if one is different in some way. And I’ve got Amos fixing that light bulb in the head. There’s nothing else to do, and I wanted him out of my hair while I come up with another way to attack this comm problem.”
“What can I do to help?” Holden asked. He’d already gone through every other system on the ship three times looking for malicious and hidden programs. He hadn’t found any, and he couldn’t think of anything else that might be useful.
“You’re doing it,” Naomi said, subtly moving her head toward Monica without actually looking at her.
“I feel like I’ve got the shit job here.”
“Oh, please,” Naomi said with a grin. “You love the attention.”
The deck hatch slid open with a bang, and Amos came up the crew ladder. “Motherfucker!” he yelled as the hatch closed behind him.
“What?” Holden started, but Amos kept yelling.
“When I peeled that twitchy power circuit open in the head, I found this little bastard hiding in the LED housing, sucking off our juice.”
Amos threw something, and Holden barely managed to catch it before it hit him in the face. It looked like a small transmitter with power leads coming off one end. He held it up to Naomi, and her face darkened.
“That’s it,” she said, reaching out to take it from Holden.
“You’re f**king right that’s it,” Amos bellowed. “Someone hid that in the head, and it’s been loading the software hijacker onto our system every time we boot up.”
“Someone with access to the ship’s head,” Naomi said, looking at Holden, but he’d already gone past that and was unbuckling his restraints.
“Are you armed?” Holden asked Amos. The big mechanic pulled a large-caliber pistol out of his pocket and held it against his thigh. In the microgravity it would shove Amos around if he fired it, but surrounded by bulkheads that wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
“Hey,” Monica said, her face shifting from confusion to fear.
“One of you hijacked my comm array,” Holden said. “One of you is working for whoever is doing this to us. Whoever it is should really just tell me now.”