Chapter Nine
Rookie
“The warp cores are located here, here, and here,” said
Commander Up, tapping the map on the greenish screen
that took up most of the Cazadora’s strategy room. He was
surrounded by a select group of Starship Rangers, suited up
for their first mission on the new ship. “Disabling them is
easy, but so is repairing them. The only way to ensure this
robot ship never makes it to its destination is to take the
cores with us. Lieutenant-Commander Tripp?”
“Lucky for us, the robots’ warp cores are relatively
small,” Up's second-in-command said, holding out his
hands to demonstrate about a foot in length. “But they do
have some radioactivity, so you’ll be taking these-” he
gestured to a collection of glass cylinders in the corner of
the room “- to carry them in. You’ll have to touch the cores
to remove them, but if you're exposed to them for more
than twenty minutes, you’ll be looking at radiation
poisoning.”
“So don’t do it,” said Up. “You’ve all been briefed on
the removal of robot warp cores?”
Nods all around.
“We’ll do this as efficiently as possible, in three teams.
Lieutenant-Commander Tripp’s got a diversion planned that
should have them good and distracted, but we figure we’ve
got seven, eight minutes tops before they realize we’re in.
And by the time they realize we’re in, we should be on our
way out. You got me?”