Episode 417: Siege, Part Two
She looks closer at the feed. A couple of the terrorists are holding the hostages at gunpoint but the others are moving around the perimeter, putting little devices on the steel supports for the dome. They don’t look like any bomb she’s familiar with, looking more like a strange chemical … She starts thinking aloud.
Rina: Chemical. Metal. Acid. Take out the struts. Have it collapse under its own weight.
Nika: Rina!
Zip it, woman!
Rina: What? It’s right there, plain as day. Anybody with half an imagination could—
Nika: Or it could just as easily be gas that they’re going to loose down on the people below.
Rina: Okay. That’s even nastier. I give you props for that one.
Arden’s more concerned about the nastiness he can see outside the dome.
Arden: Is the atmosphere of this moon breathable?
Beglan: Um. Sometimes.
Arden: Is that a no or a yes?
Beglan: It’s … um, probably breathable, yeah, but it’s not recommended to go outside.
Arden: So it’s not something that you would enjoy.
Rina: Death by exposure. Nasty.
After all, much of the city is domed, not so much for survival as for comfort. And while a brief jaunt in the fresh air wouldn’t kill you, spending days would. Thanks to the tidal lock the weather patterns are unpredictable and have temperature variations spanning 100 degrees or more. You could be fine one second and flash frozen or flash fried the next.
Nika silently continues to monitor the feeds and after about an hour total, she turns around and looks at us.
Nika: It looks like they only have about a half a dozen guys up there.
Arden: It looks like they’re very well prepared though.
Nika: They look well prepared to take over a corporate lobby, sure.
Rina: Full of non-combatants.
Arden: You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?
Joshua: Oh yes she is.
Arden: (moans) Really?
Rina: Slow, Arden, slow. I was there three minutes ago.
Arden: I was, you know … (gives up) … Okay.
Joshua: I hate to say this, and I don’t want to say I never agree with Arden because I agree with him on a lot of things, but that’s a bad idea. It’s just a bad idea on so many levels.
Nika: Aaaannnnnd letting them gas or acid drop on all those civilians is a good idea?
Joshua: Do you think I really—? All right, fine. You’re the Captain. You do what you want to do—
Nika: Whoa-ohhhhhhh! Back up and regroup.
Nika’s drawl is out and anyone who knows her knows it means trouble for whoever it’s aimed at. Right now, it’s Joshua.
Joshua: Yes, ma’am. Backed up. Regrouped.
Nika: You know what the interesting part of that statement is? It would be normally you’re the person jumping in feet first into deciding—(squealing)—Omigod! We gotta save everybodeeeeee!
Joshua: Yeah. That is the interesting part about it.
Nika: Where did that guy go?
Joshua: I’m still there. But—
Nika: Oh, really?
Joshua: But what I’m really concerned about is screwing things up even more. This is a situation where I look at it and say, Man, there are so many ways that I could screw this up and potentially ruin what would have been a good outcome for a bad one.
Nika: Aaannnnndd, here’s my question.
Joshua: Yeah?
Nika: What good outcome do you see comin’?
Silence.
Nika: Knowing what we know about the Lex Talionis?
Arden: The only thing I know about the Lex Talionis is that they’re after her.
He points to Rina. She glares.
Rina: Thank you so much for letting the cat out of the bag.
Nika: Actually no, that’s not all we know about them. That’s not exactly all we know about them.
Arden: Okay?
Nika: As I recall, I do know that they’re an extremist group. We do in fact know that they don’t tend to make idle threats, which means when people don’t accede to their demands, which our wonderful little guide here has determined is highly probable, that we are going to be watching a building collapse around us.
Rina: On top of us.
Beglan: I don’t know much about this group but with a name like that I imagine that they are willing to use—well, I know they use lethal force because they showed the bodies. They’re not above murder.
Nika: Yeah. They’ve already killed three people. They’re not above murder and they’re certainly not above letting those bomb go off—whatever’s in them.
Rina: No. They’re not above murder or vigilante justice, either.
Arden: There may be somebody’s corporate security maybe doing some sort of plan to deal with it and if we try to help, we’ll get in the way.
Joshua: That’s what I’m worried about.
Arden: Or worse yet, be accused of helping them.
Joshua: I’m not so worried about that. What I’m worried about is so far my record lately has been that I’ve effed up a lot and gotten yelled at for it. Now I’m going into a situation and thinking that maybe I should analyze it before jumping right in feet first and I’m getting yelled at for it.
Nika: You can’t win.
Joshua: So I really don’t know what to do here except to say, You’re the Captain. You tell me what to do and I will do it.
Arden: (to Joshua) What you do here is you get used to be yelled at.
Arden should know. He’s come in for his own share of yelled-at.
Joshua: It’s too late for that. I’m already used to it.
Arden: See there? It doesn’t matter what you do.
Nika: You’re doing okay.
Joshua: That’s fine. If you want to assault the terrorists, then—
Nika: I don’t think assaulting the terrorists is a great idea, but I’m also not really inclined to let a building fall down on top of me.
Arden: You say it like it’s a bad thing.
Joshua: Didn’t he say there was a room we can hide ourselves in? Wasn’t that the point?
Nika: Yea-aaaahhhhhh, there is that possibility. And how long is it going to take them to dig us out?
Joshua: I don’t know.
Rina: Longer than we’ve got air.
Nika: (THAT!) Yeah. That would be the concern, there.
Joshua: And that’s fine.
Rina: Stupid way to die.
Arden: You think there’s a good way?
Nika: All right. Here’s the thing: I’d rather die doin’ somethin’ rather than sittin’ here suffocatin’.
Her drawl’s back. Careful, Arden.
Arden: I’d rather die doing something different.
Nika: My ears are open. Are you suggesting something different?
Rina: (snorts) Like fighting, for once?
Arden: No.
Nika: Well, okay then. STFU.
Ouch.
Bored with the infighting, Kiera wanders to the open door to see what’s on the other side. It’s the corridor we took to get here. Nothing new, but at least it’s out of the room. Kiera sticks her head back inside.
Kiera: Why are we not leaving?
Joshua: That’s a good question, to be honest.
Rina: Beglan. Can you pull up the schematics to this building?
Beglan: Yeah. I can do that. If they haven’t locked that information down.
Beglan taps on the keyboard for a moment and a 3D schematic comes up.
Nika: Show me where security would be loose in this building and where they would be if something were to happen?
Beglan: Most of the men that were killed were security.
Nika: Really.
Beglan: Yeah.
Nika: So is that the entirety of the security force we was up there with the dead bodies?
Beglan: For the corporate building, yes. There’s other security over in the industrial center.
Nika: And they’re locked out?
Beglan: There might be a handful more, but I’m sure there’s some coming now, now that this is being broadcast.
Nika: One would assume. Does the corporate security have what amounts to a SWAT team? Demolitions experts and such?
Beglan: (quietly) It seems to make sense to me. But I’m … I’m just an engineer.
Rina: Yes. And that’s how I started out.
Joshua: (to Beglan) I’ve guessed you’re actually more than that, but this is neither the time nor the place. (a beat) Hands up for people who are currently armed. Hands up for people who have firearms at the moment.
Rina’s hand goes up. Of course. She looks around at the others.
Rina: Oh bozhe moi! Please don’t tell me I’m the only one with a gun.
Joshua: If the terrorists can put their hands on guns and they’re all armed with firearms—
Submachine guns, actually.
Nika: We’ll just sic Rina with her Fists of Doom on them and take their guns to go.
Joshua: So once again, not that I’ve ever had a problem going against guns, I just want to make sure we know what our resources and our options are.
Beglan’s just watching this entire scene with a bemused expression on his face and his tone makes it clear what he thinks about all this.
Beglan: I’ve never seen this in a ship’s crew before.
Joshua: Yeah, we’re a little … what’s the word? Emo?
Rina: Crazy.
Beglan: Is this all from the Miranda Wave? Everybody’s a hero now?
Kiera: (eyeroll) Yeah. That’s exactly what it is. They’ve been gassed on Miranda and they’ve walked away with a hero complex.
Arden: That’s a valid theory. It could be that exposure to Miranda.
Joshua: (to Rina) Please don’t look at me like that.
Rina: Oh, yes. Right. Keep on goin’, Captain Abseil.
Beglan: But you’re probably right. They’ve probably got a SWAT team or something that can deal with it.
Nika: Can you get us in on the security channels so we can actually listen in on what’s going on?
Beglan: I’ve tried that. It’s all been jammed.
Knowing she’s got nothing to add to the debate, Rina leaves the rest of them to hash out their differences and examines the plans again. She’s looking for anything we can use as a covert way out. Ducting, crawlspaces, elevator shafts, plumbing stacks. Anything that might be overlooked as unimportant to security concerns yet still afford us mobility. She finds the elevator shafts and decides it’s the likeliest to accommodate everyone.
Rina: Beglan, have they locked down the elevators?
Beglan: The elevator system has been shut down.
Rina: Oh goody. That means the shafts are ours.
We’re unlikely to get creamed by a passing elevator car, is what she means.
Joshua: Sir, let me ask you another question. What is the likelihood that people on the outside of the corporate building from your team have contact with anybody who might still be alive on the inside? Little?
Arden: We could try to get in contact with somebody on the outside.
Joshua: That’s generally what I’m thinking.
Nika: Can you get past the jammers?
Arden: I don’t know. I’ll see what I can do.
Joshua: Do we have a door to the outside. Do we not have a door to the outside. Didn’t I hear somebody mention we had a door to the outside?
Kiera rolls her eyes. She’s only been leaning on it for the past ten minutes. Well, it’s the door that leads to the corridor that leads to other corridors that lead to the spaceport. But still.
Arden: And we aren’t going that way why?
Nika: All right. Let’s go.
Kiera stares at all of us like we’re a bunch of frakkin’ idiots.
Arden: (off her look) What?
Kiera: Okay. I think I asked that ten minutes ago.
Arden: But I didn’t know that led to the outside.
Kiera: That’s cuz you got cotton in your ears.
Arden: No, it’s because I’ve been arguing with my other crewmates.
Joshua: (to Beglan) We’re a fun bunch. Really, we are.
We all inspect the corridor. At the end of it is a door. As we approach it, we notice something out of place. An object is suction-cupped or magneted to it. It’s a cylinder with some sort of fluid in it, some sort of gel liquid in it. About a liter. Rina’s experience with stuff like it tells her it’s most likely burn gel. However, this stuff’s got bubble in it, unlike burn gel, suggesting that it’s mixed with something like carbon dioxide or some other dispersant. This suggests that it would propel the gel in all directions if opened. She’s heard stories of burn gel burns. Burn gel makes napalm look like hand lotion. Napalm would only stick to your skin as it burns. Burn gel would burn right through you. A mere splatter of the stuff on you would kill you. Painfully. Slowly.
Or it could be clear shampoo that’s had bubbles shook up into it.
Without taking the damned thing apart, there’s no real way to tell. Certainly not from a distance.
Joshua: For the uneducated among us, what’s the purpose of having it here?
Rina: If it sprays on you, you die.
Joshua: No, is it to keep us in? Or keep us out? Or is it part of a larger scheme?
Nika: If it explodes here, it eats through the floor and the door area?
Rina: Good question.
Rina eyeballs the quantity, does the math in her head. With it dispersed it could basically melt a 50-foot radius. Not enough to take down the building by itself but if it were only one of many installed throughout the building … That would be a different story.
Looking at the corridor and relying on what we remembered coming in here, we’re not exactly under the main part of the building, so this device may not be intended to implode the building itself—those would be directly under the building instead of off to the side where we are. However, it would certainly expose us to the outside, making it hard to move around and also risk injury or death by exposure.
We gauge the distance the device is from the hydrogen storage tanks. It’s about 150. A 100 feet short of taking the tanks out, but still … burn gel would be hot enough to start a fire. And fire would be sufficient to set the powder keg off. In the event the terrorists fail to implode the building, the resultant hydrogen explosion would do the trick.
Arden: Just out of curiosity, do you want to go up there and see if you can disarm it?
Rina: Hmmm ... (cuts a look at Arden) … Only if you go first.
Arden: I’ll go there with you.
Rina: Christ. I was joking.
Arden: Why?
Rina: (sighs) I’ll take a look at it. Stay here. You’re the only doctor we’ve got. Stay there.
Kiera hmphs! Thoroughly miffed. What is she? Chopped liver?
Arden: We’ve got Kiera.
Rina: What?
Arden: Another doctor.
Rina: Oh, right. We’ve got an extra. So that means you’re expendable? Please.
She leaves both doctors behind and get a good look at the bomb. It looks like a well-done professional job. It’s not welded to the door but attached with a combination of magnets and chemical adhesive. There doesn’t appear to have any obvious features like antennae or blinking lights or buttons. If she had the right chemical solvent that could eat through the chemical adhesive but not the container itself, she might be able to remove it and once removed, disarm it. But it would be risky. Very very risky.
So of course, Arden walks right up to it and puts his hand on it.
Oh GEEZ!
Nothing goes boom. When everyone starts breathing again Arden reports there aren’t any vibrations coming from it. Which might mean something important or nothing at all. Rina and Arden rejoin the others.
Joshua: So, by your judgment call, not removable.
Rina: Too risky.
Joshua: So the question is how competent we think these guys are? Because if they’re competent, there’s one of these at every major entrance that might lead to the outside. In that case, that changes our options some. We can either choose to wander around aimlessly and check every door to see if we can get out. Which we may have time to do. Like, I don’t know what their deadline is. We may certainly have time to do it.
Beglan: If it’s on this side of the door, I worry that it’s a message … to people on the other side of the door.
Arden: So when they try to break through the door it will go off?
Beglan: That if they send in one of these SWAT teams, the first thing that happens is the SWAT team gets annihilated.
Arden: Does anyone have one of our hand comms with us? Does anyone have one? Please?
No. We weren’t expecting to need one. Certainly not in this sort of situation. Arden’s not buying it and points to Rina.
Arden: So why did she bring a gun?
Rina: Well, I’ve stopped yarking about that over a year ago.
Arden: Yarking? Is that a verb?
Joshua: It is now.
Kiera: (to Beglan) Got a question for ya. If we can’t leave here (points), and we can’t leave there (points), you know this building. Where else can we try to get out of?
Beglan: There’s entrances at the main building level. If we can perhaps get into the elevators shaft we might be able to—
Kiera: Ventilation?
Beglan: Or there may be other … ahh, I don’t know if we can get through the ventilation system. I don’t—I’m not an architect and I’m not a janitor, but it’s possible. It’s possible that the ventilation system would let us through.
Arden goes to a nearby courtesy comm box, the sort people use in an emergency like a fire or other hazard and keys it live. Nothing but dead air meets his ear. Nice try.
Kiera: We could split up into two teams. One do the elevator and one do the air.
Arden: I don’t think splitting up is a good idea.
Joshua: Seriously, why not? I’m actually curious. I don’t favor one method more than the other. I’m guessing the problem is we don’t have communicators. (thinks) Oh, never mind. I just figured it out.
Beglan: (thinking aloud) Actually, I expect in the event of a hydrogen explosion, they would use fire suppression …
Rina: I suppose I can always take my lighter …
Suiting action to word, she completes her thought by turning the flame all the way up and stretching as far as she can on her tiptoes, holds it under a fire detector near the ceiling. She’s not tall enough to trigger it with her lighter so she pulls her 10 mm combo wrench and stretching up on tiptoe again, she gives the detector a good hard whack. In a second, a loud klaxon starts to blare and a calm voice says over the noise:
Voice: Warning. This area is about to be filled with oxygen suppressant gas. You have ten seconds to leave the area.
Joshua turns around to Rina.
Joshua: Whatever you’re doing, please stop it.
Arden: Oxygen suppressant?
Joshua: Please stop it.
Kiera: Hells bells.
Joshua: We need to go.
Beglan: (aghast) What did you do?!
We scramble back to the tank room and see that the door to it is shutting on its own. Oh crap! We pour on the speed and eel through it just before it booms shut. Everyone made it, nobody is trapped outside.
Whew.
Of course, Rina catches flak for her stunt.
Nika: You pulled the friggin’ halon system? Retard.
Kiera: What did you do, what did you do, whatdidyoudo?!
Rina: (grimly) Fire alarm. Let’s go.
Joshua: Go where?! Given that, that exit is now completely cut off—
He flings a wave at the door to the corridor.
Beglan: Well the poisonous gas will eventually be vented. Probably.
Joshua: Oh, I love that. “It’ll probably be vented at some point’. Just send in one of your crew members ahead.” Like the fair doctor that we were talking about sacrificing earlier.
Rina: (to Beglan) What’s their response?
Arden, Joshua, and Kiera together: Whose response?
Nika: Why would they have any response?
Rina: (calmly) There’s a fire going on right next to the hydrogen tanks. You think that won’t make them jump?
Kiera: According to the computer, they suppressed it.
Nika: Yeah. And now you’ve let them know we’re here though. That’s a good wonderful fun thing. Thanks.
Rina: Divide and conquer.
Kiera’s jaw drops. Has Rina lost her everlovin’ mind? Nika frowns at Rina.
Nika: “Shoot the hostage”?
Joshua: We’re shooting a hostage? Which one?
Nika: (points to Rina) Start with her.
Arden: I second that motion.
Rina: I’m wearing a vest.
Beglan looks a little wall-eyed at us all.
Beglan: I’m going to be stuck on a ship with you for four weeks?
Joshua: Don’t worry, we’re actually much nicer than this. (stares at Rina) When we’re not under penalty of pain of death.
Beglan: Maybe we should just … calm down a bit.
Joshua: Okay. Done.
We all breathe a minute. Then:
Joshua: Tell us what you know.
Beglan: About?
Joshua: Look. What I’m trying to figure out is we’re now blocked out of that particular entrance. (points to the corridor door) We have … elevator shafts? Is there anything else we have in order to try and get out of the building that you know of?
Beglan: Well there’s another exit that leads toward the building. As I said, at the ground level there should be walkways from there to other buildings. And higher up, I’m thinking. I keep to pretty much my own habitat but I think that’s how it works.
We examine the schematics again and sure enough there is a fifth floor walkway to other buildings. We just have to find a way to get to it.
Kiera: I may fall five floors and break a leg. Good. I can deal with that.
Arden: You could land on top of me.
Kiera: Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll drop you first and land on you.
Beglan: If you want to get out of that hallway, we can create a low pressure in here, open that door and whisk away some of that gas … This room’s probably big enough that that hallway won’t be that bad.
Joshua: It doesn’t matter. We couldn’t get out that door anyway.
Because there’s a bomb attached to it.
Joshua: So the fire alarm basically did for us what we would have had to do anyway.
Arden: What it took us twenty minutes to decide to do.
Rina was interested in seeing what would result by tripping that alarm and halon aside, we see in a few more minutes what happens. Watching the news feeds, it looks as if there’s a momentary communication and then the picture settles on stock footage of the moon again. We don’t know if that means they’re sending people down to investigate or if people are coming up or … ?
Joshua: (quietly) Okay. Captain? Ground level? Elevator shaft? Or stay here?
Nika: Down the other corridor. Out the other door.
Joshua: (louder) Ground level. Captain says ground level. Out the other door.
Arden gets past the lock on that handily enough and we leave the tank room for the second time. The corridor outside leads us to the elevator bank for the building. Muscling the doors open to one of the elevators, we look in the shaft and see it’s going to be a forty foot climb up to the ground floor. Lucky for us, there’s a ladder.
Kiera: Wow. What a wonderful way to kill a day.
Rina: The stuff’ll wash off. C’mon. Let’s go.
Joshua: (to Kiera) I’ve had worse days. I’ll bet you have too.
Kiera: (smiling daggers) Bite me.
Arden: That was uncalled for.
Rina: (eyeroll) Get a room.
We start climbing the ladder, one after the other. Rina’s first up on the ladder. Then Joshua, Kiera, Arden, Beglan, and Nika. We don’t get far when the shaft shudders and things start to vibrate and we hear something coming. Looking up, we see an elevator car coming straight down for us.
Crap.
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