Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(104)
Dabeet climbed onto a shelf and slid between boxes to the back wall. What did he expect to find? Maybe he only did it because it was behind big cargo containers that he found the small packages that turned out to be contraband. This time he found no secret parcels. Instead he saw that every single box had wires coming out of the end nearest the wall, and all those wires were bundled together, running the length of the cargo bay, getting thicker and thicker as they neared the front.
What was this, a burglar alarm system?
Dabeet made his way toward the front. From the central corridor, if you looked between the boxes you couldn’t see the wires. They were the same color as the walls, and the shadows were too dense behind and between the boxes.
At the front, though, because he knew what to look for, he could see that the bundles of wires ran to a single box that looked just like the other boxes except it was not attached, electrically, to the ship in any way.
Whatever those wires did, they were not part of the ship. It was quite possible that they were not under the ship’s control at all. Possible that the captain or pilot or whoever had no idea that the cargo was wired together.
If I try to open one of these boxes, will it detonate a little explosive or poison dart or something to kill me?
Let’s find out.
No detonation. No dart. And also no opening a box, because there was a digital pad that needed either a passcode or a fingerprint, or both.
His fingerprint would be useless, but he could try a few passwords, the kind that lazy stupid people used—and also the kind that lazy smart arrogant people used because they thought that stupider people wouldn’t guess them. One of them worked. BIRTHPLACE. Too lazy and stupid to type in “London” or “Boise” or “Caracas.” Any city would be better than just typing in the prompt.
The lid was heavy and it couldn’t rise very far because of the shelf above it. If Dabeet were a grown man he might have tried to wrestle the box far enough out to open it completely, but that would probably pull the wires too far. So he’d just have to try to see.…
Where light came into the box, near the end facing the central corridor, he could see a bunch of regular rectangles, slightly rounded at the corners, completely filling the space. Each one had what looked like a tiny dart stuck into it with a wire coming out. The wires all headed toward the back end of the box—no doubt, these were the wires attached to the box in front.
Dabeet saw the letters V-A-C in a wedge of light and knew that these were all nice little packets of Vacoplaz, a very high explosive that worked with or without atmo. Dabeet had heard that space miners called it “wreck-roid,” or “ass-pop” for “asteroid popper,” because it could be used to blow the center of asteroids to dust. And each packet was equipped with a detonator connected to a central control, so they could all be made to explode at once.
With his view of the contents already memorized, Dabeet lowered the lid, whereupon it relocked automatically. He was thinking: These are not meant to be carried inside the station, to be used to blow up selected locations. You don’t wire them together anywhere but the place where they’re meant to be used.
If each box contains explosives all the way to the bottom, and all of them blow at once, not only will this ship be turned to small metal and plastic fragments, but also the resulting blast will breach the integrity of every structure in the station. All the wheels, all four battlerooms, the embarcation hub, everything.
Do the raiders understand what they’re carrying here? Do they know that this ship will never take them home?
If the purpose is to destroy the station, the ship, and all their contents, human and otherwise, why hasn’t it already taken place?
Because whoever set this up doesn’t want to just blast it all to bits. They want an alarm to be sent out by the teachers, calling on the IF to send ships to rescue them. Maybe they’re hoping to blow up the first wave of rescue ships along with the station. Of course they are.
And the explosives aren’t under the control of the raiders who came aboard the ship. That control box at the front is expecting to get the detonation signal from somewhere else.
Is there anybody on this ship? If I leave the cargo bay and go to the front and …
No, that’s the wrong thing to worry about. What if the person at the detonator controls is only waiting for the station to rotate enough to see that the docking is complete? I don’t have time to put on the suit, go back out the airlock, fly back to the station, get inside an airlock there, and then find somebody to help me figure out what to do. I got here fast, but not fast enough.
So Dabeet simply palmed the door leading from the cargo bay to the passenger cabin. It opened easily—no reason for security there unless they were being attacked by pirates—and Dabeet was relieved to see that all the rows of seats were empty. There were twelve pairs of seats on either side of a central corridor, wide and comfortable seats as befitted a corporate vessel. Forty-eight passengers.
Dabeet strode up the corridor to the door leading to the control room, the bridge, whatever they called it in their attempt to maintain outmoded nautical terminology. Again, the door palmed open. Again, there was nobody inside.
That had to be a strict order from whoever held the detonation button. If somebody stayed on board, they might decide to check the cargo. They might find—would easily find—what Dabeet had seen, and reach the same conclusions. The central control box was bound to be booby-trapped, but there were no traps on the bricks of Vacoplaz. Half a dozen men could open every box and pull every detonator in what, half an hour? Maybe fifteen minutes. Better to tell them to clear the ship completely because … because …