War Fleet: Resistance, стр. 36
Kota hazarded a glance out of the corner of her eye at Turgin’s targets, to see two Arstans crumple underneath their own weight on the adjacent module’s floor. The door to the right whizzed open, and Riley took down another three Arstans and then let out a high-pitched whoop.
Something was wrong — Kota had expected more of them — but there was no time for anxiety. No time to focus on anything but the mission. She raised her index finger and thumb, and made an okay sign to the crew behind her. Chang shot forward and headed toward the console on the left side of the front door.
“Hurry,” Chang shouted. “You have ten seconds, and then the system will override my hack. The hangar module will detach.”
That was enough for Olsen and Novak to sprint into the module, followed by the rest of the crew. Just behind them, the carrier module let off a grinding creak, and there came a sucking sound, just before the doors to it slid shut.
“Got it,” Chang said. “We need to move faster.”
Kota turned towards the screen on his panel. Chang worked with surprising speed, sliding windows around on the display, entering codes into the foreign keypad with jagged symbols etched across it, panting and tapping his toe loudly against the floor. Kota wanted to point out that he shouldn’t be making such a racket, but she knew better than to interrupt.
Soon enough, the doors slid open in front of Kota, affording them a view of another module. This one looked like a shield module, with a glowing blue tube of cooling fluid running along the top of the wall. The ends of the tube met at a point to the right, and then led down into a spherical generator that would power the shield outlets outside the ship.
Chang didn’t even wait for permission to run to the console this time, but started frantically swiping at the screen. There were only two hatches out of this module. As briefed, Turgin secured the left hatch and Riley the front one, while Kota moved into the center of the room to give extra support, should one of the two Marines need it.
Chang turned around to look at Olsen, who stood slightly behind Kota. Novak kept close to him with her pistol drawn and trained on the front door, as if acting as Olsen’s bodyguard.
“Sir,” the engineer said. “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” Olsen replied.
“I’ve managed to install a hack to keep the modules in place and give us a straight route to the CIC, but all the other ones are detaching. The ship is separating into its components.”
Olsen raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don’t know, sir. But it appears they’re entering formation to attack the CIC.”
“Damn it. Open the door.”
“Got it,” Chang said.
Immediately, the door slid open in front of Kota, and she charged first into the room, while Riley kept her covered from behind. She half expected to meet the entire Arstan crew in this module — a barracks, with twenty bunk beds stacked along the side walls.
Each bunk contained an Arstan soldier lying down, their eyes closed, their hands folded on their chests and white foam bubbling from their mouths.
“All clear,” she shouted back. “They’re all dead.”
“Dead?” Olsen asked as he stepped forward, with his XO trailing close by his side.
Kota nodded, the words forming on her shocked lips. “I think they all committed suicide.”
41
Olsen took a moment to examine one of the Arstans on a lower bunk. He felt around the glands for any sign of air moving, while Kota kept her rifle trained on its head, just in case the beast was playing dead.
But it was dead, all right. He put his little finger to the white foam and raised it to his nose. The stuff smelled faintly of bitter almonds. “Cyanide,” he said. He turned the Arstan around a little and noticed the two stars and one stripe on its shoulder. This one was a lieutenant.
“Novak, help me check the ranks of the other Arstans,” he said. “I want to know if anyone here is below officer rank. Kota, get on it too.”
“Aye, sir,” both women said in unison.
Olsen raised himself up on the top bunk to find that the Arstan above was a commander. Over on the next bunk, there was another lieutenant, and a junior lieutenant. The next one had an ensign on the bottom and a junior commander on the top.
“Sir,” Novak said, “everyone I found is at least an ensign.”
“Same here,” Kota said. “Not a single non-commissioned crew member.”
“The privilege of being in the higher ranks,” Olsen said. “They take poison so they don’t have to feel the pain of being blasted apart by a supernova, no matter how short that pain might be.”
“So the rest of the crew is on the other modules?” Novak asked.
“Exactly,” Olsen said. “And so they’ll probably attack the CIC if they see us move against them.”
At the end of the long module, Chang was working away at the console, trying to get the door to open. He’d stopped the three remaining modules detaching between here and the CIC, but he’d still not worked out how to unlock the doors.
“Chang, how’s it going? We need to get to the CIC as soon as possible so we can take control of the ship.”
“Almost there, sir,” Chang said. He took a deep breath. “They’ve abandoned the ship, haven’t they? Left us to its devices.”
“Exactly,” Olsen said. “Which means they must be pretty confident we can’t stop them now.”
“I understand, sir,” Chang said. “And I’ve got them. All of them.” He pumped the air with his fist as the door slid open ahead