Vytln remained with Haven, watching as she worked. Her brow wasn’t as deep now, but her face was pinched with concentration.
“Do you need silence?” Vytln asked.
“No,” she said simply, still working.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving commands to the termites. The hijacking device is locking hard onto us. I can’t getting it off. But I don’t understanding why. The termites have eating through the mechanism that should be locking it on, so I don’t knowing why it’s not off yet.”
“It won’t fall off. Not in subspace.”
“What? Why not?” She frowned, her focus still tapping away on her tablet.
“I don’t know. That’s just how subspace works.”
“It’s because subspace is a compressive force,” Sway spoke from the nav seat, also focused on whatever Alred was showing him. “Going into subspace isn’t easy, or natural. And subspace is constantly trying to reject us within it. Like it’spushingus out. So, nothing on the ship can fall off. It’s all being pressed together. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s essentially what’s going on.”
“Oh. So, I can’t getting this off.”
“No. Not until we’re out of subspace. Alred says it’s okay. He’s got a foothold, so he can fight off the program a little. Not completely. But he’s got enough control to do what we need.”
“Which is what?” Vytln asked as Haven sat back, disgruntled like she had failed at something, though, by his estimation, she had succeeded magnificently.
“I need numbers,” Sway said, tapping on his console. “Subspace navigation is all based on mathematics. I need to know the precise size of what I’m moving. I need to know where I am in space. I need to know where I’m going. Some of it is mathematical constants, but the rest I need measurements. I can estimate the size of your brother’s ship based on what we know of it, so I can combine that with our ship and just move both of us in the swing. At least to get us away from whatever kill box they’re setting. But I can’t get the information on where we are or where we’re going until we get there. That will be what takes the most time. I can get all the data I need for where we are once we get there but finding and obtaining the data for where we’re going could take a lot longer.
“Alred has an idea though. To at least make it faster. He knows a communication relay that he has direct access to but no one else does. He can connect to that the moment we swing out.That will cut a lot of time in and of itself. He says making the connection will give him an immediate return of coordinates for a swing. He might be able to get his numbers before I do, in fact. I estimate that, if we’re quick enough, we can get everything we need and swing out again in less than a quarter mark.”
Vytln frowned. “That’s too much time. A well-trained crew can board us in a quarter mark.”
“True. So, we’ll need Tanin’s plan as well.”
“I-I will get-t the shelter room ready-eady,” Alred glitched from above.
“Shelter room?” Haven repeated, looking up at him.
Vytln touched her neck gently. “Did you find the shelter room in all your crawling through the ship?
She nodded. “I never getting in though. What is being in it?”
Vytln couldn’t help but share a victorious look with Sway. They’d spent a lot of credz and time to make the shelter room. Not just to make sure it was completely safe, but to make sure it was absolutely undetectable. It was their final defense. If all else went wrong, if they had to hide one of them from their own pasts, when their weakest members needed a place to stay away from potential danger, they had their shelter room. Alred couldn’t even see inside once it was sealed. And if it was still impenetrable, that meant that even Haven, for all that she had wandered around freely and found all their other secrets, couldn’t find a way inside.
“You will stay in there,” Vytln said, leaving no room for argument. She was incredibly capable, but he had yet to see anything like combat ability from her. Which meant that hewould not allow her to be near any potential fights. “At least until we are able to swing out. The others will be there as well.”
“Alright,” she said. “All of us?”
“All of you,” he said. “Garnet is too pregnant to fight, and you three can’t. You will have Rok with you. He’ll look after you while you’re in there. The rest of us will deal with things.”
“Where is the entrance being?”
She hadn’t even managed to find that. He was even more proud of their work. “I’ll show you. Do you need to keep working on that?”
She nodded, looking back at the tablet with a frown. “Yes. The commands from the device are changing. I need to keep checking to make sure Alred isn’t losing ground.”
“I will be-be-be helping you wi-with that,” Alred chimed in from overhead. “Now that I have a foothold, and-and now that I’m prepar-pared, I can fight back. But it is- it is- is difficult. I won’t be able to hold this-is up forever.”
“Just a bit longer,” Haven said, smiling. “I can getting the device off quickly when we swinging out.”
“Good,” Vytln nodded once. “Sway, how much time do we have to get ready?”
