“Guess it’s over,” he said quietly.
JENNA WAS GASPING heavily for breath. The slim, small mutie woman had never had much time for building her strength and stamina, and even the relatively light weight of the Uzi was slowing her. She threw it away as she ran, hearing it clatter to the floor behind her. She didn’t need a blaster, she was confident of other abilities to save herself.
Turning into a side corridor, she took shelter in a sleeping unit, throwing the curtain back and leaning heavily against a wall, trying desperately to catch her breath.
Krysty saw Jenna throw away the blaster and made herself ready as she, too, turned into the side corridor, slowing to a halt as she tried to determine which unit the woman had hidden herself in. Krysty gripped her blaster with both hands, knowing she would need to have a steady grip before this encounter was over.
She walked slowly down the corridor, glancing from side to side.
“Here,” she heard from behind her. Turning slowly, she saw Jenna standing by the entrance to one unit. She looked small and vulnerable until Krysty looked into those raven eyes. The whole world seemed to disappear.
Krysty raised her blaster and prepared to fire.
“You know you won’t,” Jenna said in those soft, sibilant tones.
Krysty felt the tendrils of darkness snake out and start to encircle her mind. The wave of nausea started in her gut, her ears blasted by the blow to her equilibrium. She fought to stay on her feet, to keep the darkness at bay.
Her hands trembled. She felt the urge to turn the weapon on herself. She gritted her teeth, grinding them to keep herself focused.
“You know you won’t,” Jenna repeated.
“IT’S ARMED, all right. And running.”
Ryan stood over the nuke, feeling as helpless as a child. He looked at J.B., who was scratching his head. The Armorer pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose.
“Dark night,” he cursed softly, shaking his head, “Arms I know, but it’s the comp on this that stops me. I just hope Doc and Millie can sort it out.”
The two doctors stood over the incongruously painted nuke, examining the panel.
“There must be a series of codes that program it, and so there must be a series that deprogram, right?” Mildred asked.
Doc nodded briskly. “I believe I saw something like this in one of the files I was privy to study. Usually, it is a combination of letters and numbers that relate to those on the actual cone itself. Probably to trigger an association in an emergency—much like this one, but not perhaps under the same bizarre circumstances.” He favored her with a ghoulish smile.
“Spare me the gallows humor, Doc. At least until this mother’s stopped ticking,” she said.
“Very well. Although to be pedantic, it cannot be said to actually tick. Now, if we can just scrape some of this paint from the cone,” he added, tapping a section of the nose cone with his swordstick.
J.B. stepped forward and began to scrape the top layer of paint away with his Tekna. “Is this safe?” he asked.
“Well, if we don’t try, it will go off anyway,” Doc replied cheerfully.
“That makes me feel so much better,” the Armorer told him.
“Fireblast! This is so slow,” Ryan muttered, watching the countdown continue on the LED.
“Patience, friend Ryan, patience,” Doc murmured distractedly as the numbers came to light. He punched in a corresponding series, but nothing happened.
“It’s still going,” J.B. said.
“Obviously,” Doc replied without the slightest sign of urgency. “There is a fail-safe backup I cannot enter, something only the programmer would know.”
“What?” Mildred exploded. “But you didn’t mention that before, you stupid old buzzard. How the hell are we supposed to know that?”
“Well, my dear Dr. Wyeth, I would deduce that the programmer was someone in the redoubt we arrived in…and it would be something personal. A name perhaps, six letters, and no more. They were all six-letter codes…”
Mildred’s mind raced. “Have you got any ideas?” she said, making it a general question.
“Frankly, no,” Doc said sadly, while Ryan and J.B. just looked blank. For them, it could be anything.