Green eyes found the paper and she searched for Vanguard. ACCESS
DENIED glared back at her in big red letters. She typed her clearance level
and the word CLASSIFIED screamed at her. Now she was confused and
curious. “The fuck is going on.”
She searched the rest of her words and slumped back when ACCESS
DENIED fixed itself to her screen with every tap. Hunter’s words were
coming back to her; “Bullshit with a capital B.” Bullshit indeed.
Typing Aries had the same response and she kicked at one of the legs on
her desk in frustration. Somebody was watching what she was searching and they
were stopping her from finding anything. With anger growing in her stomach,
which was twisting itself around her spine, she dialled up command as another
shower of rocks tinkered across the hull. It took a few minutes for the
connection to be made and Matthias didn’t look too happy himself. “What is the
progress of the Valhalla Captain?”
She checked her watch, “We are twenty minutes into the belt with another
forty to go. Admiral, why am I not being given access to the search directive?”
The man didn’t miss a beat. “You must not have the correct clearance
level.”
“The search directive is public knowledge and I had access to basic
information on a ship called Aries. Five minutes later I was denied
access. Why am I being blocked of information?”
“Perhaps,” the man begun, again, not missing a beat, “the asteroid belt
is creating interference. May I suggest that calling Command on such trivial
ideas is a waste of valuable time and resources.”
“All due respect sir,” she began, keeping her voice level. Many a times
she’d had Commanding Officer’s retain information from her and her crew only
for it to bite them in the ass. This was not going to be one of those times. “My
crew and I are throwing ourselves into god knows what. We don’t know what to
expect out there but we deserve any information we can get on Aries and Vanguard.
We are trying to prepare ourselves, allow us to do so-”
“Captain O’Donnell, it is ridiculous to suggest that somebody is
purposely restricting your access to information. Command has laws to uphold
and retaining public knowledge is not one of them. If you are going to accuse
any member of my staff of performing such a law then might I suggest you run it
through the correct channels.”
“Sir-”
Matthias cut her off. Charlie swore. She hated politics. Hated higher
ups pulling rank, blowing around crude answers. And she hated everything about
this situation. Matthias knew something, or was hiding something. No doubt he’d
already informed Command of her ‘accusations’. She sighed and fell back into
her chair, letting a hand fall into her face to cover it. Going into this
situation blind was not what she wanted. Going into any situation blind
is something she never wanted.
Command would most likely accuse her of creating a scene, of pointing
fingers and trying to drag Matthias’ name through the mud. Her crew were known
for not following the rules at the most ‘convenient’ of times. Not her words
but Command’s. What that meant was that her crew apparently followed the rules
when they could be bothered.
Her eyes lit up on the intercom speakers. Well, if they were going to
accuse her crew of not following the rules then why not put some truth to the
lie. She got up and slammed on the speak button, “Torres! My office!”
It was Eliot’s voice she heard come back at her, “He’s on his way.”
Torres was running. She chuckled at the idea that she could instil such authority
and demand to gain such a response. Charlie retook her seat, pulled the screen
down flat and turned it to face the chair on the other side of her desk. The
search directive was still up and Aries was still flashing Access
Denied.
The Irish appeared seconds later, falling into the room and his
breathing laboured. “I didn’t do it.”
Charlie just leaned back in her seat and nodded to the screen on her
desk. “Get me in.”
She watched as the man approached the desk, took a seat and pulled the
screen closer towards him. Torres tapped his fingers across the protected
glass, brows furrowing. A few moments later he shook his head and looked up at
her. “You want me to break in? As in hack?”
“Can you?”
“It’s against UNC laws.”
She leaned forward, folded her arms on the desk and said matter of fact,
“Screw the laws. Get me in.”
There was a moment where Torres simply stared at her with her eyes fixed
on his. His mouth fell open and he wavered, finding his words. “They’ll find
out, and I’ll be court marshalled and… and my career will be ruined.”
Charlie held a hand up. “Torres.
Torres!” the man halted any other words and waited. “Use my access. And I’ve
green lighted you to do this. This is on me. If anybody tries to bring anything
down on you, I’ll take the heat. I will not allow anybody to alter your career.”
There was a moment as Torres looked over her expression, seeking the
truthfulness of it all. “You can’t promise that kind of shit! Oh sweet Jesus I’m
fucked.”
“Torres! Fucking do this! We are not flying into this mission blind. Now
get me access.”
Almost as if he’d had a personality change the man bent himself over the
screen and held his hands up. “Alright, alright, you only had to ask. Don’t
bite my head off. Now,” he tapped at the screen a few times, “Command uses a
series of firewalls, the best.”
“Can you hack it?”
Torres lifted his head with a smirk, “You think people hired me for my
social etiquette?”
Charlie rolled her eyes, folded her arms across her chest and let herself
fall back into her seat. She checked the clock. They were twenty five minutes
into the belt. Another thirty five and she could breathe a little better. The minutes
ticked by in silence, save for the mutterings of Torres, and Charlie busied
herself with looking over the words she’d written down and trying to figure out
why Command had shut her out and why they were withholding information.
Quite a lengthy excerpt but this is from chapter 5 and about 7000 words in. When I get to 10,000 I'll give you another excerpt. And look /\ a character you haven't really seen or heard from before. I'll try to include excerpts for all of the characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment