The Impressionist

Chapter 5

Jen opened her eyes, her head jerking up as if she had just caught herself drifting off to sleep. She was crammed into a little coffin sized bunk. Feeling suddenly claustrophobic and very vulnerable, Jen squirmed out of the cubby hole as quickly as possible, only to find herself in a small shipboard bunk room. She was nervously fidgeting as she looked around. Where was she? The ever-present hum and slightly lighter gravity told her they were already in space, bound for God knows where.

There were four bunk beds built into the wall. She had been in the lowest one. No one else was in the room with her and the room seemed sterile, as if no one else was sleeping here on a regular basis. An open doorway led to a small sanitary unit. Thank goodness for small favors, she thought as she walked into the closet sized room.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the tiny mirror. For a moment, she was shocked as her very own brilliant violet blue eyes stared back at her from equally unfamiliar naked face. Another odd thing struck her, she remembered exactly how she had gotten to this point. When she was in charge of a switch, the first thing that she did was to apply the memory suppressant. It was a small device that delivered a series of electronic pulses, erasing the mark’s memories for their last few minutes of consciousness. Only Control had access to those devices. Therefore, she reasoned, Control was either not involved, or they did not care if she recalled her a*******n.

So who… and why? She would like to believe that Control would have rescued her, but she knew better. And Control would not bother to nab her since her intent was to return to headquarters eventually anyway. But who else could possibly know who she was, especially since she had been barefaced? Perhaps she had given herself away by connecting herself to Lissa and someone had followed her? She had been watching her back though, so that seemed unlikely. The fact that she was conscious and alone was also unusual. She scrutinized her surroundings again, searching for any clue that she could find in the cramped room. Standing in the center of the space, she turned a full circle looking for anything that might seem out of place.

“There it is,” she whispered. A cream-colored patch was crumpled on the bunk that she had vacated just minutes ago. It looked wrong somehow. She crouched down to get a better look at the drugged pad. It was a clumsy bandage with some sort of sticky tape at the edges. Lucky me, she thought. It must have fallen off. That would not have happened if it had been bonded to her neck with plasti-skin. Lucky me, she thought, no wonder it fell off. Now it was clear that Control was not involved in her capture. But that only brought more questions than it answered.

  “I think I need to get out of here,” Jen said under her breath. It calmed her to hear a voice, even if it was her own. “Okay,” she told herself out loud, “there is no need to sit around here waiting for someone to come and discover that I am up and about.” Hadn’t she just been telling herself this morning how much she liked the unexpected? That thought made her feel like a fraud. She was feeling… what was this feeling? Frightened! She was scared and her own, very real, emotions were getting in the way of clear and rational thought. She had to be the one making the decisions, instead of just reacting to everything. The thought of this unknown adversary made her inexplicably tired.

Usually, Jen found fun in the challenges that were a part of her normal work experience. When you were the one holding all of the cards, knowing all of the players a lot better than they knew you, then the unexpected was like a game. All of the parts were there, she just got to move around the pieces until it worked for her. At those times, all she needed to do was stay in character and go along for the ride, one step ahead of everybody else. Knowing nothing, she realized, was terrifying.

“Stop it!” she told herself. “Think! What are my advantages in this situation?” Taking a deep breath, Jen calmed herself as her training began to take over once again. She had a few things in her favor that her captors were unaware of. First of all, she was awake. The thought was sobering, because if the bandage hadn’t fallen off, that wouldn’t be the case. But she would be thankful for her good fortune and use it to her benefit. Secondly, the probably thought that she would be a prisoner in here if she did wake up. The doors were triggered by voice recognition on these ships. Jen couldn’t possibly know the voices of those who had access to this room but, she did know exactly how to access the hidden panel to override the voice controls, enabling her to enter a “backdoor code” for repair and rescue crews. Most crew members would not be aware that these panels existed, and only high-ranking crew and the manufacturers had the codes… and Control, of course.

Jen hoped to avoid any crew contact. She was trained in combat, and with a weapon she was a c***k shot. But her real talent was working the systems on ships like this. She was a pretty good pilot too, so she hoped to steal a small shuttle.

Jen listened carefully near where the door should be, trying to detect if anyone was in the corridor beyond this room. Logically, she knew that the walls were too insulated to hear anything. She couldn’t stop herself from trying. The absolute silence gave her the confidence to try and, anyway, it would be better to have a run in out there than one in here.

The walls were smooth, with no visible door. She felt along the base of the wall to the right of where the door should be. A slight humming under her hand told her that she had found the panel. Smiling cautiously, she probed for the soft spot that had a button underneath it, a single click and she was in. Looking at the keypad, she could tell that this ship was a Shurok design. That was good news for Jen.

The Shurok’s were a top shuttle and ship building family. Jen had worked in one of their design facilities with Roarke, a fellow impressionist, on a fact-finding mission about a year ago. Her mark had worked exclusively in engineering. Jen had loved every minute that she had spent as Monica Shurok, an apprentice engineering designer. She was the niece of Calvin Shurok, who ran their family’s entire ship design and construction operation. Jen had learned a great deal in a short amount of time as Governor Shurok’s pet protégé. She should have no trouble operating almost any system on this ship. Okay, she thought, that is another point for me.

Jen punched in the override code. The door slide open and, still on her knees, she poked her head into the hallway to suss out her situation. It was clear and quiet. She was on her feet and out the door in a flash, half running as the door silently slid shut behind her. There should be a schematic on the ship at each major intersection of the corridors. Once she got her bearings, she would decide what comes next. She found the deck plan just thirty paces down the hall from the room that she had been held in. She almost whistled in appreciation for what she saw there, a custom designed cruiser. It took a heck of a lot of credits to get your hands on a ship like this one. It was also a great break for her. Custom designed ships often had special hardware that needed to be securely stored. That meant extensive interior hallways, usually to be accessed only be the Shurok tech’s during maintenance.

Jen was startled as she heard voices approaching her. She ducked into a small alcove across from the deck plan. If they came this far, she would be seen.

“I don’t understand,” Jen heard a male voice saying. “You couldn’t have brought her on board. I told you that I would bring her on board and I did! An hour before we left, she was sleeping like a baby in a VIP stateroom.”

“I sent you a message saying that I found her,” said a familiar females voice. “You answered with a group message telling everyone to meet back on board. I thought that was you responding to me.”

Jen placed the voice as Edin from the bar.

“What made you think it was her?” the deep voice said as they stopped outside her former prison door. “Our contacts clearly said the was being held in the Governor’s mansion.”

“She matched the description to a tee,” said Edin. “I saw ‘er in the port bar, where the report said she had been seen a few times. She was picking up on Andrew at the time. Can you imagine? Honestly, Connor, it all seemed to fit and I figured that you had missed her. Really! I could’a sworn that it was her.”

“Look, I don’t know who you grabbed, but it wasn’t Brianna,” Connor said. “This is a problem. Come on, it’s time to find out who the mystery guest is. Then we’ll figure out what to do with her.”

Jen held her breath as they got quiet for a moment. She must have accidently resembled this Brianna person in her latest guise. Apparently, putting on the wig and make-up hadn’t been the best idea after all. She heard the man give a voice code to open the door. Jen repeated the code to herself and stored it away in her mind for later use. She heard them walk through the door and, waiting a brief moment, she took off running as quickly and quietly as she could on her toes. The sounds of muffled exclamations followed her down the corridor as they realized that she was not where they had expected her to be.

There should be an access to the interior levels of the ship just ahead. She had to slow down to look for the subtle markings on the wall. Jen had notice that Edin had been wearing a first mate’s insignia in the bar. She should have the necessary security clearance to access the interior hallways. Using Edin’s voice, she gave the command to open the door. It opened easily as Edin’s voice pattern was recognized by the ship’s computer. The voices grew louder behind her and footsteps pounded down the corridor. Jen dashed through the door, which closed automatically behind her. D*nm! They must have seen her. Immediately, she dropped to the floor to find the hidden panel. Locating it quickly, she punched in a Shurok security override code. Now no one, not even the Captain of the ship, would be able to open that door without the same code. However, there were many doors to the interior, and on many levels. She had better get going.