Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

It was a long metal rod on a handle. Originally it was intended only to detect currents, but Thor rigged up a powerful battery so that it could stun a person at the slightest touch.

Rex and Jens spent most of the day trying to gain access to as many systems as possible and establishing communication channels.

Tina could, of course, contact Rex through her comms device, but using that would be dumb, because that was the first place people would be looking once she started releasing recordings. So Thor rigged up one of the electronics diagnostic devices to receive messages from his account. He wouldn’t let Jens do this, because “I can pretend that I need it for my work, and I don’t have a future to protect.”

Jens and Rex would operate the account, though.

Tina liked having lots of options, so she insisted on getting other methods of contacting the apartment. Jens scanned her irises, recorded her fingerprints, gave her several passwords and showed her ways to get into the station’s systems, including how to send a message to him from several different entry points.

Rex sat next to him, lapping it all up. Tina had a feeling Jens must spend a lot of time waiting around. Since there was no longer a school at Aurora Station, he had nothing to do for most of the day.

She had thought Rex was lonely, but Jens must have been leading a very lonely existence indeed, trailing after his father.

Thor asked for assistance from his circle of friends and the scientific ethics society. Soon, people started arriving at the apartment. Arkady came back, as did Jetta and Yalinda, and with them were a number of other people who introduced themselves as scientists or teachers.

Arkady explained to Tina that these were people in the community who wanted to see action and that they would help spread the information Tina collected.

A woman who was a technician brought her a pair of station maintenance overalls. They carefully detached the tag and Jens printed a tag with her name and a bogus company logo. The woman explained to Tina how people would normally get access to restricted areas and which areas normally saw the most problems.

“It’s always recycling,” she said. “You can tell the health of a station by looking at the recycling plant.”

Based on that, Tina guessed the station’s health wasn’t great.

It was almost time to go. They had decided to use this time of day, because it was when activity was winding down and when it was important that technical problems were fixed before people went home and the skeleton crew of the night shift came in.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Before she left, she beckoned Rex to their room. After they both went in, she shut the door and faced him.

He had grown so much and not just by extending his harness. His face had lost the childish look. The stray hairs on his chin would soon need to be cut. Her baby son was a man.

“I know I’m asking a lot of you,” she said.

“No, you’re keeping me out of a lot of things. You could ask more.”

“You, Thor and Jens are my rescue team. If something goes wrong, you’ll need to try to get me out. That is a big responsibility. I want you to take that very seriously. It’s not nothing I’m asking you to do.”

He nodded, his young face serious.

“If something happens, I want you to help Jens and Thor, and listen carefully to what they say. They know the station better than you.”

He nodded again.

“If Finn comes back before I return, I want you to tell him where I am. He doesn’t need to know the exact details of the plan unless there is a reason for him to know. Show him what you’ve rigged up with Jens only if he needs to know.”

“Don’t you trust him?”

“I trust him. I don’t trust his family.”

His mouth formed into an O.

“There is, however, one thing I want you to do specifically that has nothing to do with Thor or Jens.”

Tina went to her bed and gave him the bag that contained all the possessions she had taken from the ship.

“I want you to look after this and, if necessary, use the contents.”

The bag was made of soft material. Rex probed it, until his hands met the long shape of the Fireseed still wrapped in her jacket.

His eyes widened. “I thought you said you weren’t going to bring it? You said you wouldn’t.”

“I did. I changed my mind, and Finn didn’t want it.” And she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone else that she had taken the weapon.

“Take it. I hate to ask you this, but you are the strongest of all of us, and the least vulnerable. If it’s necessary, protect our friends. Protect Finn and Rasa if they come back. Protect Thor and Jens and take them to the ship.”

“I thought it was dangerous to fire weapons inside a closed habitat.”

“It is. Keep that in mind.”

He nodded again, his face now very serious.

“Please come back safely, Mum.” His eyes glittered.

“Of course.”

She hugged him, feeling the warmth of his body in between the cold metal of his breastplate and arms. Then she playfully pulled one of the long hairs that sprouted from his chin.

“Ouch.”

“Of course I’ll come back. Who else will get you your first shaver?”

It was time to go. Tina strapped on her devices, her tool belt, picked up her toolbox and left the apartment. Rex stood at the door and watched her go.

There was so much that Tina wanted to say, that she cared about him, that she wanted him to be happy above all else, that she thought he was growing into a wonderful young man. But he would just raise his eyebrows and wonder why his mother had gone all sentimental.

So she waved to him and hoped she looked confident, because she certainly didn’t feel confident.

This was a crazy plan.

Tina walked quickly through the passages to the docks. For all that