Page 88 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

A second later, Zed’s thrusters fired again on a sustained burn. Carmen bit her tongue and tasted blood.

“Satellite drift slowing,” Sark reported.

Carmen counted her breaths. One. Two. Three. Four.

“Full stop,” Sark said. “Position stabilized.”

Letitia audibly sighed in relief. Carmen wanted to vomit.

“Zed,” she said, “status.”

“Impact sustained. Minor damage to thruster-pack housing. Structural integrity of primary chassis: 98.4%. Locomotive treads undamaged. Grip on target structure is stable.”

“Good. Proceed. Find the access port.”

The words came out clipped, professional. Inside, the stone of dread was still there, but now, it was overlaid with a fragile layer of hope. He’d made it. He was attached. The satellite wasn’t floating away. Now came the hard part.

“Scanning target surface,” Zed reported. “Sensor suite optimized for UPA alloy composition. Searching for primary access port.”

Silence descended again, thicker than before. Carmen stared at the viewscreen, searching for some sign her chief engineer could find what he needed while clinging to the side of the deadly device. Seconds ticked by, measured by the frantic thudding of Carmen’s pulse in her ears.

“Anomaly detected,” Zed’s voice cut through the tension. “Surface scan reveals no external access panels. No service hatches. No manual interface ports.”

Carmen’s fragile hope shattered.

“What? That’s impossible. Norvik? The schematics?”

Norvik swiveled his chair, his blue face impassive, but his yellow pupils were narrowed. “The Collective intelligence packetindicated a standard UPA perimeter satellite design. All such designs incorporate a primary access port for maintenance and reprogramming. It should be present.”

“Scan confirms absence,” Zed stated. “Surface is uniform. No recessed panels, no data jacks. Probability of concealed access port: 0.7%.”

“Mierda,” Carmen hissed.

The stone in her gut sank to her knees. No port. No way in. The entire suicidal spacewalk, the risk, the terror was all for nothing. They were stuck. Trapped. The weight of command, the crushing responsibility she always carried, pressed down on her like the gravity well of a black hole. She’d gambled everything on this. Sent Zed to his potential doom. For nothing.

“Options?” Her voice was barely a whisper, scraping raw.

Norvik’s gaze flickered across his console.

“Without a physical interface, remote intrusion remains impossible. The comms shield renders any transmission ineffective.” He paused, the silence heavy. “There are no tactical options remaining that align with mission parameters and acceptable risk thresholds.”

“Zed?” Carmen asked, a desperate plea disguised as a command. “Analysis. Is thereanyway in?”

A pause. Longer than usual. Finally, Zed spoke again.

“Affirmative. One potential solution exists. Direct neural integration via hardline connection.”

Carmen frowned.

“What does that mean? Patch in? How?”

“Not ‘patch in’,” Zed clarified. “Download. Transfer my core consciousness protocols directly into the satellite’s central processing unit.”

The words hung in the air, incomprehensible at first. Then their meaning slammed into Carmen.

“You mean upload your mind? Intothat?”

“Essentially. My consciousness is a complex algorithm. The satellite’s mainframe possesses sufficient processing capacity to host it temporarily. Once integrated, I can directly access its operating system, bypass all security protocols, and implement Norvik’s hack code from within.”