Dark Space: Origin by Jasper T. Scott Page A

mines?”
    “Not since the rail tunnels.”
    “Hmmm, keep an eye on your scopes.”
    They started down the middle corridor. All of the available access ways to the reactor were being swept, and teams had been posted at bulkheads along the way to create a multi-layer cordon which would hopefully be enough to catch their saboteur if he or she were still around, but there were no guarantees it would work—not when their enemy was cloaked.
    After travelling through the ship for another ten minutes, leaving three teams of two in their wake, their squad of eight was down to just two—Brondi and Sergeant Gorvin Gibbs. Now the reactor room lay dead ahead, and reports were filtering in from the other two point squads that they were almost there, too.
    “So far so good,” Gibbs said.
    “Don’t jinx us,” Brondi replied.
    They reached the doors of the reactor room and waited there for the point teams from Hunter and Loki squads to arrive. Now they were six. Gibbs motioned to the doors, and one of the Lokis stepped forward to open them. The heavy doors opened with an ominous boom as they retracted into the bulkheads.A large, shadowy chamber lay beyond, and here not even the emergency lights were working. They crept inside the reactor room in single file and hurried around the perimeter of the circular chamber. Brondi swept his floodlights up to the distant transpiranium dome above the dymium reactor core. Ordinarily both the core and the dome would be shielded, and the dome could be seen faintly glowing with the energy of those shields, but right now all Brondi could see was a maze of catwalks crisscrossing above the reactor core from the over fifty decks above theirs.
    Brondi turned from gazing at the ceiling just as the sergeant’s voice crackled over his comms. “The core seems intact, but the main power conduits have been ripped wide open. Area seems clear. Should we call in the greasers to fix the damage?”
    “Go ahead,” Brondi replied.
    An abrupt noise shattered the silence inside the reactor room. Brondi whirled toward the sound, and one of the other soldiers called out, “Hoi!”
    It had come from the core. “What was that?” Brondi demanded, already stomping toward the dormant reactor. Next came a soft whirring noise which rapidly grew in pitch and volume.
    Brondi recognized that as the reactor coming to life and he frowned. “Did someone turn it back on?”
    Before anyone could answer, the reactor room doors shut with a resounding boom. Everyone turned to look at them.
    “Hoi, what the frek?! Someone shut us in here!” Hunter One said.
    Radiation leaking from the core set off an alarm in Brondi’s zephyr almost immediately, and it rang out even above the rising whir of the reactor. Brondi gritted his teeth and ran for the doors. He tried to open them, only to hear a warning bleep, followed by a computerized voice which said, “Access Denied. Radiation leak detected.”
    Sergeant Gibbs appeared beside him. “What’s going on?” he asked, sounding out of breath.
     “We’re locked in!” Brondi roared. He whirled around to see the other four men who’d entered the reactor room with him standing behind him, all of them staring at him expectantly. “What are you all standing around for? Shut it down!”
    Gibbs turned and ran for the control console near the base of the reactor core. Brondi hurried after him. Once there, Gibbs tried to power up the console, but nothing happened.
    “What’s wrong?” Brondi asked.
    Gibbs shook his head. “It doesn’t have power.”
    “You’re telling me that the reactor is on , and we’re about to be baked alive by the energy pouring out of it, but there’s no power to the control console?”
    Gibbs shrugged and shook his head.
    “Get out of my way!” Brondi roared, giving Gibbs a shove and sending him sprawling to the deck with a noisy clatter of armor. Brondi ignored him as he tried to power up the console, but the result was the same. He glanced up at the