He leaves Mara to her task, heads upstairs with Luca.
‘Another attack?’his friend asks, voice low.‘Who do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know.It feels…’
‘Off?Bad?Weird?Scary?Sexy?Fun?Terrifying?’
‘Luca.’
‘I mean, pick a feeling, Motorkade.Your instincts are second to none.’Not true, but Kade lets that slide.‘We trust you to know how bad it is.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Kade, you always know—’
‘Head to the rally point, Captain.Suit up and await orders.’
Luca falls quickly in line.‘Heard.’
Iron Star protocol dictates that any strange activity requires First Captain to return to the control room and monitor the situation from there.
A pre-jam diagnostic is strange, so upstairs he goes.
Kade doesn’t wear an earpiece for tunnel attacks, likes to stay focused, but he pulls it out now and pops it in.‘Switch to dark-band,’ he orders before emerging on the ground floor of the Tower.‘I’ll assign teams from the Watch.’
An affirmative chorus of, ‘Heard,’ rings out and Kade switches to the dark-band channel before triggeringPocket Modefor all Tower Crew.
The Tower has six floors above ground, not including the basement, and four of those floors house permanent crew.Built into each of those four levels are secure panic rooms stocked with emergency supplies, water reserves, oxygen filtration and hardline phones routed independently of the Tower’s main systems.These are thePockets.
Pockets are not intended for Enforcers, Captains or High Command.
They exist to protect the Tower Crew during an attack.
Mechanics.Medics.Commissary.Analysts.Laundry.Cleaning.Logistics.
In the event of a serious attack, Pocket Mode is activated.
The Enforcers hold the line, and the Crew take refuge in the panic rooms.
On his way to the Watch, Kade ducks into the mess hall to make sure all Tower Crew on that floor went intoPocket Mode,pleased to find the area empty, but it’s quieter than it should be.
Curious, Kade raises a hand in front of an airflow shaft.
Nothing.
Through radio, he says, ‘QG be advised that climate control has dropped.’
Gage answers quickly.‘Vents are non-traversable.’
‘Just letting you know.’
‘Heard.’
Much as he wants to stay and meet this strange, potentiallynewthreat head on, Kade takes the old service stairwell up to the fifth floor.He requests blanket status checks through dark-band, and gets a reassuring round of,‘Eight bells,’from everyone.
Eight bells means all is well.
The fifth floor of the Tower houses Iron Star’s Control Room, theWatch.Directly above it, occupying the entire top floor, are the boss’s private rooms.The only way to get there is through the Watch itself and two separate sets of reinforced security doors.
