Darragh slid Askit from his back as they entered the shadow of the building. It was gutted by fire, and stank of smoke along with everything else, but the doors were still sturdy. It took the humans slightly more than a single moment to smash them down, leaving the trio a way into the blackened interior.
Askit pulled out his data tab, illuminating the space in its cold glow after Keffa closed the doors behind them. The smell in here was even thicker than outside, but the dust had settled. As unpleasant as the odour might be, the air was otherwise clean. “Time to get to work before they start targeting things around the building.”
“How long do you think you need?” Keffa asked, pulling the rest of the stuff out from Askit’s bag in case he needed them.
“Longer than if this was my usual data tab,” he admitted. “The good news is that they haven’t completely hidden their network. The bad news is just about everything else.”
They decided to leave him to it instead of asking more pointless questions, which is what he’d been hoping for from the outset. No data links were actively showing on the standard interface, which was not surprising, but the underlying network traffic told a different story. The Dominion’s network architecture was a security nightmare, and appeared to be intentionally so, but the Hierarchy depended on these flaws to carry out their own activities. The same weaknesses did not exist in their own systems, but that did not mean they were perfect. If anything it had made them complacent. Right now he had no way to force a connection with the enemy ship itself, but if the data tab looked like a missile…
Askit accepted the connection request and leaned over his data tab with a predatory smile. He’d once described this technique to Adrian, who’d then related it to being something called ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’, which was evidently some sort of allegory about appearing friendly while being a serious threat. “Well… now they’ll see a *Corti* in missile’s clothing.”
He was glad he’d spoken softly, because *that* line had definitely sounded better in his head. The handful of commands required to access the ship’s core systems was much more impressive, and a short time later he had a fully deployable systems package for a Hierarchy starship. Stealing was a lot easier than trying to rebuild one from scratch.
“Good news,” he told the others, “our enemy is about to have a very nasty accident with their remaining ordinance.”
His words were punctuated by an enormous explosion that rumbled through the ground and shook ash from the ceiling. He would have laughed, but he doubted his aching lungs could handle it. “How careless of them.”
“What the hell, man? I thought that was supposed to be our ride out of here!” Darragh returned, peering out through the doors at the final wave of destruction. “Now what are we going to do?”
“I believe there’s a human expression,” Askit replied. “No plan survives contact with the enemy. As soon as I got connected I realised I wouldn’t be able to get control without drawing too much attention. This was the next best option.”
“That still leaves us stranded,” Keffa noted, “so it was a bad option.”
“We’re alive, and now we have the chance to visit another starport,” Askit explained, indicating towards the door as moved in that direction. “This time we’ll have a ride. Take a look outside.”
Darragh did as he’d suggested, then turned back quickly to stare at Askit. “No. No way. We are not riding that thing.”
There was no confidence in the human’s tone, and Askit didn’t bother to answer or argue. Ignoring Darragh’s protests, he just climbed aboard the missile gently floating there and casually dangled his legs. “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. Adrian and I did it a while back.”
“That is not a reason to recommend an activity,” Darragh said, but ended up finding a seat on it in spite of his reservations. “You know I’ll be blaming you if this explodes halfway there.”
Keffa was no less reluctant. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to try riding one of these things. I must be crazy.”
In Askit’s opinion they were all a little crazy, otherwise they wouldn’t keep finding themselves in these situations. The Corti authorities had declared him insane before locking him away, just because he saw risks and opportunities that everyone else ignored. At the time he had doubted their sanity, then his own, and eventually he’d suspected some grand conspiracy. Ultimately it didn’t matter to him anymore, sometimes you just had to sit on the high-yield warhead because that was the only helpful place to be.
“You’re going to want to hold on tight,” Askit advised them. “Believe it or not, they’re not exactly made for this sort of thing.”
The missile sped off with steady acceleration as they all held on with white knuckles, striking east towards the next closest starport as they entered the thoroughfare. The wreckage of the Hierarchy vessel twisted and groaned as it settled, but it was no louder than the wind, and the city returned to its heavy silence. The three of them were well and truly out of range by the time the second ship returned from the clouds to survey the scene. Unfortunately for them, their answers had already vanished over the horizon.
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End of Chapter