Tam fell into step with her. “I owe you an apology.”
That surprised her. “Do you?”
“Yes. I’ve been treating you as if you haven’t grown into your role. In the beginning, you were . . .” He hesitated. “Less than prepared.”
“I was a mess,” she said wryly. “You and Einar kept me together.”
The spymaster shook his head. “You bore up, grace under pressure. From this point on, you have my word. I’ll behave as an advisor, not your handler.”
“You say that as if you have some experience with both,” she noted.
He ignored that remark, as he did most personal matters. “Moving on. There may be defensive measures here. If Grigor has a brain, there will be.”
“Guards?” If so, that could be a problem. If the men went missing, somebody would come to investigate and discover their handiwork soon enough to prevent the emergency she was trying to instigate.
“I don’t know, but I’ll scout before the rest of you get there.” So saying, Tam set off ahead. His footsteps were near silent against the metal floor, overwritten by the ambient noises of the ship. Dred had gotten used to the low hum, so she didn’t notice it except when she was listening hard. Like now.
She checked over one shoulder, seeing nothing amiss in the guttering lights or the pocked walls. A cascade of wires tumbled from a missing wall panel, and a number had been cut or stripped. Jael’s right. The ship can’t go on indefinitely like this. Which meant the Conglomerate had authorized a slow execution. Realizations like that made everything seem futile.
“How does it look?” she asked when Tam returned.
By her calculations, they were more than halfway to the target.
So far, so good.
The spymaster seemed elated. “No guards that I saw. No security immediately visible.”
Immediately, she wondered why. “Would he not have identified this as a viable target?”
“It’s possible he hasn’t,” Tam allowed. “Some men consider only the frontal assault. They lack the subtlety to envision the other ways the enemy can hurt them.”
Dred called to the others, “Let’s get this done quickly, in and out.”
As she approached the ladder, she said, “There’s a reason we need four people to make this work. Each of us must toggle the reset levers at the same time, then Tam will race to complete the programming.”
Which will include bad code for Grigor’s recyclers.
Dred climbed down as fast as the shaft allowed, then moved aside to make room for the others. She’d never been down to the recycling and sanitation chambers before. It was hotter down here, vents puffing steam into the room, so it felt damp on her skin. Much of the equipment was rusted, barely functional. Nobody had salvaged these rooms or stripped components; either they hadn’t thought of it, or it was much too difficult to reach with Priest’s fanatics butchering people in the corridors above.
But not anymore.
The computer that controlled the allotment of water was down here, protected by a number of fail-safes. Tam had a work-around for all of them, starting with the initial reset. She spotted the reset levers in each corner of the large room, impossible for less than four people to decide to work on the system. When it was a mining refinery, there had been that many people working down here easily, and a reset wouldn’t have been undertaken lightly.
“Get to your corners. I’ll count it down.” Dred jogged to the northeast side of the room. “Everyone in position? On one.” She checked and saw Tam, Einar, and Jael with hands on the power switches. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One!”
In sync, they clicked the levers down, and the computer powered down. This would result in a minor hiccup in the power above; hopefully, the others would think it was a docking supply ship and head to Shantytown, or they’d blame it on Perdition’s aging systems. Tam called out the count to thirty, then they powered the machine back on. As it ran through diagnostics, the spymaster sprinted for the console. He flipped the input pad out of the wall and went to work, fingers flying against the keys. Chains of code skimmed down the screen, errors flashing, then Tam swore, trying again.
“How we doing?” Einar asked.
Dred counted in her head, fifteen seconds left. Tam had no brain cells to spare for questions since he was racing the clock. If he didn’t get the commands accepted by the time the computer completed the restart, system defaults would kick in. Five seconds. The screen flashed red again, and the spymaster spat something so filthy that the big man looked impressed. Just when she thought they’d be locked out, the screen gleamed blue, and new words appeared: NEW PROGRAM ACCEPTED. She cheered along with everyone else, then loped over to congratulate Tam on his amazing work.
“I couldn’t cut off their water entirely,” Tam said. “So I programmed the system to apportion rations suitable for a much smaller population. And I turned off their filters, so when they use it—”
“It doesn’t get recycled. Comes back dirty.” That was clever and revolting, she thought.
“They’ll be sick as dogs before long,” Jael predicted.
Dred pushed out a relieved breath. “That’s the point. Grigor just has so many men . . . we have to weaken them before we take them on.”
“Hyena tactics,” he said.
She raised a brow. “You disapprove?”
“I support doing whatever’s necessary to win. But will it occur to them to check the system?”
Tam nodded. “Yes, they’ll come looking eventually. And Dred has a plan for dealing with them.”
She grinned at that. It was rare that she could honestly take credit for the ideas that created havoc for their enemies. But this was her brainchild, and she intended to make the most of it. “I think it will work.”
“Definitely,” Tam agreed. “Even if her plan fails, and they identify the problem, then reset the system, I doubt any of Grigor’s men have the skill to change my command parameters.”
“He tends to recruit brawn, not brain,” Einar agreed.
Dred asked the big man, “Then how did you end up in Queensland?”
“The Great Bear took one look at Einar and kept walking. I suspect he was afraid the big man wouldn’t be content to follow his orders.” Tam beckoned as he headed for the door.
She laughed. “He doesn’t follow any he doesn’t like. As long as you can work around that, it’s fine.”