| Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 |
Beka vs the Port Authority - Chapter Six
"So what do you guys think?" asked Beka. She, Trance, and Harper were sitting at the Maru's common room table where they had been discussing how they were going to break into traffic control's administrative offices. Trance had been assigned the task of stealing Kelso's pass card. She would go to Donner's casino where she would strike up an acquaintance with Kelso and use her pick pocketing skills to steal the card. Harper had objected vehemently against Trance going alone to the casino but his objections had been overruled by Beka. He was still objecting when Trance asked him what time it was. A startled look came over his face as he realized his wrist was bare. Trance held the watch up in front of his face a wicked smile on her lips. Overruled and outmaneuvered Harper sullenly admitted that Trance was the best person for the job.
Beka would meet Trance at the casino where Trance would give her the card. Beka would then go the port authority building and use the pass card to break into traffic control's administrative offices. That left the cypher lock on the office's door. The lock needed to be bypassed in such a way as to not leave evidence that it had been bypassed.
"It would have helped if you had gotten the type of lock, Boss," complained Harper. " It's going to be a lot harder figuring out a way to jigger the lock without making it obvious that it was tampered with."
Beka spread her hands and shrugged in a 'sorry about that' gesture. "I guess I could have asked the guard to get out of the way so I could examine the lock. But that might have been a bit suspicious," she said sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"It's a Nolan lock," said Trance.
Both Harper and Beka turned to stare at her drawing an embarrassed look from her.
"And how did you learn that?" asked Beka more sharply than she had intended.
"Well I guessed Harper might want to know what type of lock it was," explained Trance looking somewhat uneasy under Beka's scrutiny. "So I looked real hard to see what type of lock it was and I did."
Did what?" asked Beka. "Look real hard?"
No, I saw the picture on the lock, it's a Nolan lock
"Is recognizing the logos on locks something else you learned on Bathsheba?" asked Beka. She deliberately lightened the tone of her voice, recognizing Trance's mangling of Common as a sign the girl was getting nervous.
"It's something I learned here on the Maru," said Trance relaxing a bit as she heard Beka's tone of voice. "Remember when I broke the lock on the arms locker and Harper made me help him fix it? The logo on the arms locker lock is the same as was the lock on the door."
"Thanks, babe, you're a wonder," said Harper. He put his arms around her and gave her a hug. "That's going to be a big help. Let me see what I can dig up about the locks. Maybe I can find something that will help us out." Then to both women he added. "Why don't you guys take a nap or something while the genius Harper solves our problem."
Beka didn't get to take a nap. She had just taken a shower and was thinking about turning in when a cargo handling team from the port arrived to load the Sakaemasu's cargo onto the Maru. Three hours later, most of which was spent under the mid day sun, the cargo was stowed to her satisfaction. She was also beginning to suspect that Harper may have known something about the arrival time of the cargo handling team as he was inside the air conditioned ship working on the lock problem while she was outside in the heat supervising the cargo transfer. Her suspicions were confirmed when as soon as the last of the cargo was loaded and the doors to the cargo pod were sealed Harper announced that he had solved the problem and everyone should meet him in the common room. She arrived in the common room and took a seat at the room's table just as Trance and Harper entered. Harper was grinning like a Cheshire cat and carrying a battered leather tool bag, the kind with a buckle down flap and a wide shoulder strap.
"Taking up carrying a purse are we?" asked Beka taking a bit of her ire out on her engineer.
"No, Boss, you are." He reached into the tool bag and removed a piece of electronic equipment. "I thought it might make carrying this a little less conspicuous. The Harper has found the solution."
"Which is?"
Harper and Trance set down on the opposite side of the table, Trance practically sitting in Harper's lap. Harper put the bag and the electronic device on the table and began to speak.
"I learned that Nolan locks have a battery powered failsafe mode they go into when they loose external power or the power becomes unstable. When they're in the fail safe mode only security personnel and supervisor pass cards will work, and they stay in the failsafe mode until they're manually reset. That gave me an idea. Right now the Maru's connected up to the spaceport's power grid and drawing ship's power from the spaceport generators instead of using it's own systems to generate power. I'm going to turn on the Maru's generators while still connected to the power grid. I'll leave them on for 37 seconds then turn them off again. That will be enough to cause the spaceport's generators to glitch and send every Nolan lock in the port into failsafe mode."
"And you know the combination when the locks go into failsafe mode?" asked Beka. as visions of circuit breakers exploding all throughout the space port flashed through her mind.
"This is where my true genius comes into play, the failsafe combinations
are set locally by the technicians who install the locks, but I learned something
that isn't generally known about the locks. When a lock is in the failsafe
mode an EMP pulse will set the lock into the factory preset mode. Which is
where this baby come in." He patted the device on the table. "This
is a portable EMP generator. I use it for component testing and troubleshooting.
Fire this baby up near that lock and it will go into the factory reset mode.
And I DO have that combination."
"Harper, said Beka, "as much as I hate to admit it sometimes you're
brilliant. By blowing all the locks and not just one it will look like an accident,
and even if someone does get suspicious they wont know which lock was the one
that was targeted." Visions of exploding circuit breakers were replaced
by visions of swearing security guards resetting each lock as they came it.
Harper's grin faded a bit. "Probably but I don't think thats going to be our main concern. We'll be leaving early tomorrow morning, right?"
"Oh eight hundred," said Beka. "Why."
Harper's grin disappeared completely. "Because I figure by about 0900 the crew at the port's power plant will have figured out who caused the power fluctuation and by 0930 we'll be besieged by the port's legal office demanding that we pay for damages."
"Great," grumbled Beka. "More bill collectors trying
to hunt us down." She got up from the table and picked up the tool
bag and EMP generator. "Come one Trance let's get some rest. It's going
to be a busy night."
| Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 |