Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  “Get DeBayaud,” Luka ordered, but Adams was already on his way. “Helvítis,” he swore, and headed toward the nav pod. He put his hand on her shoulder as he passed, as if he needed the brief contact. She let herself find her own comfort in his touch.

  In the nav pod, she narrowed her focus to the sight and scents of Ta’foulou unconscious and slumped in the pilot chair. Blood trickled down his tattooed neck from his skulljack. It was stark, wet red against the pale grey of a tattooed eagle’s wing.

  Haberville held up a bloody wire. “Mal virus payload. If he blacked out in time, he might still have a few brain cells left.”

  Mairwen allowed herself a moment to be grateful that tracker brains didn’t work with implants. Modern skulljacks were designed to stop all input when the host was unconscious, but malicious viruses had been known to override safety features.

  “What can we do for him?” asked Luka. Adams brought their medical kit in and set it next to the main console.

  “Damned little,” said Haberville, “unless you’ve got a healer or a telepath hidden in that kit. Give him an auto-hydroline for dehydration, I guess. He’ll have to sleep it off on his own for now.”

  Adams pulled out a fluids bag and pressure line and slapped its adhesive patch on the back of Ta’foulou’s hand, where the unit would find a suitable vein and insert itself. DeBayaud shouldered Ta’foulou’s bony frame easily and headed out of the nav pod and toward the pilot staterooms.

  Meanwhile, Haberville tossed the bloody wire into the recycler, and pulled hers out of her skulljack and tossed it, too. Mairwen approved of her caution.

  Haberville called up a holographic interface and began manipulating it with rapid-fire gestures. “So far, everything else in the navcomp looks okay. We should check the other comps, in case there’s something we missed.”

  “On it,” said Adams and headed out of the nav pod.

  Mairwen decided to do her own investigation, as well. She’d start with the engine comp, then access the shipcomp from there as well. Not that she had reason to distrust Adams, but she didn’t know his skill level.

  By tacit agreement, they all ended up in the nav pod again forty-six minutes later, and the news wasn’t good.

  Haberville reported first. “Ta’foulou was, to use an old-fashioned word, a pervert. He liked to covertly watch or listen to people having sex. I caught him spying early on and warned him about it, and I thought that was enough. It’s probably been a dull trip for his tastes. After this afternoon’s meeting, the log says he accessed the emergency monitoring system to listen to my room and DeBayaud’s. Maybe he was hoping we’d be making a hot-connect instead of sleeping in our separate rooms.” She shrugged. “That system was where the payload was, and it launched as soon as the idiot accessed it. I don’t know if someone targeted him specifically, or maybe they thought all pilots do that sort of thing.” She frowned at them all. “We don’t, in case you’re wondering.”

  Haberville sounded more irritated that Ta’foulou made pilots look bad than she was worried about his health. Unfortunately, that was just the start of their troubles.

  “Morganthur and I found two more virus payloads,” said Adams. “The obvious one is in the navcomp, targeting the pilot during transit exit. It’s like the one that got Ta’foulou. We can’t flush the navcomp while we’re in transit, but as long as Haberville isn’t jacked in, she should be fine.” Adams gave her a brief nod. “The other one’s really subtle, in the shipcomp. If we hadn’t isolated it, in about eighty minutes, the habisphere would change the air and pressure mix to give us all nitrogen narcosis. The logs look clean, but the recovery array says none of the viruses were there before we docked at Horvax.”

  Mairwen had also checked Adams’s work and snuck further queries into the navcomp modules when Haberville wasn’t using them. Neither Haberville nor Adams had given her reason to think they were behind the attacks, but the only person on the ship she fully trusted was Luka.

  She thought Luka was feeling the need to pace, but there wasn’t enough room. She didn’t think the others recognized the signs that his intuition was firing.

  “Someone,” he said, “wants us to have a lot of chances to die, and in ways that would look like an accident.”

  Haberville looked shocked, and Adams and DeBayaud looked grim.

  Luka didn’t look happy, either, as he ran his fingers through his hair. “We need to get to Insche before the timed virus would have started making us dopey and delusional. It’s too easy to have sabotaged the ship’s hull on Horvax.” He looked at Haberville. “What’s our ETA for realspace?”

  She brought up a holo countdown clock and pinned it to the permanent display. “Two hours, three minutes.”

  “Is there any way we can get there in eighty or ninety minutes?”

  “Impossible,” said Haberville.

  Mairwen knew that wasn’t true, but pointing it out would reveal knowledge that a night-guard-turned-security-assistant shouldn’t have. On the other hand, keeping her secrets was likely to leave them adrift in uncharted realspace. She cleared her throat. “We could decouple the light-drive safeties and overload flux to the light drive, which will bounce the ship rather than let it skim. If we start now, it would cut transit time by forty objective minutes or more.”

  Haberville’s jaw dropped. “Holy Mother of…” She stared at Mairwen a long moment. “That’s suicide!”

  Luka looked at Mairwen, and she met his questioning gaze with tacit assurance. He nodded, then turned to Haberville.

  “It’s a good bet the virus is timed to go off with something else. We can’t check the hull for an exterior problem while in transit, right?”

  “No,” she said. “We’d have to be in realspace. We could drop at the next packet beacon and check.” She brought up another countdown clock. “The next beacon is only ten minutes away if we angle and do an emergency drop.”

  “Which puts us where?” asked Luka.

  Haberville shrugged. “The middle of nowhere.” She glowered at Luka and Mairwen both. “But we’d be alive in the middle of nowhere.”

  Luka shook his head. “Not if the hull is breached. Is Morganthur’s solution invariably fatal?”

  Mairwen wondered uneasily if Luka was thinking of making her the pilot. He clearly trusted she had skills, but she’d have to talk to him privately about her limitations. For now, he was focused on Haberville, his expression hard.

  “No, it’s doable,” she grudgingly conceded. “But you’re depending on the engine being well maintained, and the navcomp to keep up with the new data and manage the overload, and hoping like hell the bounces don’t hit an anomaly. And it goes through flux like an exploration spacer goes through lube at a joy palace.”

  “As opposed to hoping the people who breached the comps, and targeted our pilots, don’t know how to sabotage a ship’s hull?” Luka was as unyielding as Mairwen had ever seen him.

  Haberville stared at Luka, her eyes narrowing.

  Mairwen spoke up, anticipating Haberville’s next likely objection. “We’d still have enough flux to get back to Horvax.”

  Haberville looked to Adams and DeBayaud for support, both of who raised their hands in the universal “don’t look at me” gesture.

  “Do it,” said Luka. His air of command was unwavering.

  After a long moment, Haberville caved. “Shit,” she said. “Shit!” She glared back and forth at Mairwen and Luka. “Fine, but I’m not covering up a goddamn thing if we live through this. Morganthur’s solution is a jack trick.”

  She released the webbing on her chair and launched herself toward the door, then stopped and turned.

  “I looked up that planet she said she’s from. Its colonies failed twenty years ago, so there are conveniently no records. If she was just some mouth-breather night-shift guard before this, then I’m the fucking First Flight Queen of Albion Prime!”

  Haberville stalked out, headed toward the engine pod. Mairwen silently followed her to help, and to ensur
e Haberville complied with Luka’s order.

  Luka’s appetite was nonexistent, but he forced himself to eat every last bite of the excellent omelet Adams made. It would go to waste, otherwise, and no telling when they’d get the chance to eat well again. Thankfully, Haberville was eating hers in the nav pod, where her continued hostility toward Mairwen was out of view. Luka wanted to defend Mairwen, but the real reason for her astonishing skills was a lot less believable than a suspected stint on a jack crew. DeBayaud and Adams didn’t seem to be fazed by Mairwen’s knowledge, though if other evidence appeared, he knew they’d remember Haberville’s accusations.

  Adams and Mairwen agreed that the two virus signatures that targeted the pilots were very different from the one hidden in the shipcomp. Luka was playing with the theory that the virus attack on the pilots was meant to divert attention from the more subtle ship sabotage, but he wasn’t comfortable with it. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, because the end result was the same. The ship and everyone on it were in trouble, and he was responsible.

  With less than fifteen minutes before the rushed exit into Insche realspace, Luka ordered everyone to armor up, put on the exosuits, and gather up any weapons they had. He asked Mairwen to move the xeno sampling kit from his stateroom to the kitchen area, while DeBayaud and Adams brought the medical kit and camping gear up from the lower hold.

  Luka was sure he was forgetting a thousand things they could be doing to prepare for unknown trouble, but his jumble of emotions swamped his rational thoughts. He should have trusted his own intuition and Mairwen’s suspicions more and never let them leave Horvax Station. Now, everyone was in danger because of him, and if he’d guessed right about the exterior hull sabotage, they’d be lucky to live long enough to get rescued. He wanted to apologize to them all, but he knew he couldn’t until they were safe again. He wasn’t inclined toward command, but he knew enough not to wear self-doubts and regrets on his sleeve.

  Regardless of what anyone might think, Luka led Mairwen into the exercise room and wrapped her in a long embrace, even though he couldn’t feel the warmth of her through the suits. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held her tight, needing the pressure of her arms holding him. They only disengaged when Haberville announced the two-minute warning for exiting transit.

  The drop to realspace was textbook smooth. For all that Haberville was a pain in the ass, she was a damned good pilot. As planned, she immediately sent a repeating distress packet to the local comm relay, and an automated exobot to examine the hull. She used the system drive to arc over the rocky asteroid belt and approach the solar system’s third planet, Insche 255C. She also began passive scanning for tech signatures, in case there was something to find. She sent Mairwen into the engine pod to return the flux field to normal and re-engage the safeties. DeBayaud and Adams were in the kitchen area organizing the gear they’d brought up from the hold.

  According to the ship’s clock, they should have just started feeling the effects of the nitrogen narcosis, had they not isolated the shipcomp virus. Luka, having secured the xeno kit, headed to the nav pod to ask Haberville if the hull scan found anything, when he felt the ship shudder.

  He took another step and the ship shuddered again. Gravity fluctuated, then stabilized. Luka yelled for DeBayaud and Adams while launching into a run. His forward momentum slammed him into the door jamb. He tumbled inside the nav pod and landed on his knees next to the med kit, behind the co-pilot chair. Haberville was snarling curses at the nav interface as she worked it, fingers flying.

  A sharp, horrendous sound of metal groaning assaulted his ears, and lighting and gravity failed as the floor shuddered and tilted under him. The pressure in the pod suddenly popped his ears, and he realized the pod was self-sealing to maintain atmosphere. He fumbled with the neck controls on his exosuit to get the containment working. His hands were now sealed, too, at the cost of some dexterity. Worry and fear for Mairwen flooded him, even though he knew the engine pod was also self-sealing, and she wasn’t inclined toward panic. He hoped Adams and DeBayaud made it in with her, because he didn’t want to imagine what was going on with the rest of the ship, where poor Ta’foulou was.

  Emergency lighting came on. With great clumsiness, he secured the med kit to a hold-down, then maneuvered himself into the co-pilot chair and strapped in. He could see Haberville’s lips moving, but he couldn’t hear anything. He finally remembered to switch on the exosuit’s heads-up display. The audio came through loud and clear, but no projected images. He didn’t know if his suit had that, or if it just wasn’t working.

  “...at a time. Adams, sit rep and injury status.” Haberville had the calm, no-nonsense tone of the Space Div pilot she’d been before contracting with La Plata.

  “The exercise room and pilot staterooms are gone. I can see black space. Zero atmosphere, zero gravity. I’m in the kitchen, and I have some lights.” Adams’ voice sounded breathy, but not panicked. “I’m concussed but functional.”

  “Adams, find a hold-fast and tie in. How’s your exosuit?”

  “I’m already anchored. Display says nine hours of air at average exertion rate, sixteen hours of heat, twenty hours of fluids.”

  Luka pictured the layout of the ship in his head. “Adams, if the autodoc survived, it should have at least five hours breathing mix, and maybe self-contained heat packs.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” said Haberville. “DeBayaud?”

  There was no answer.

  After a long pause, Adams said, “Last I saw, he was headed toward the staterooms to get Ta’foulou. That part of the ship is gone.” There was a forlorn quality to his voice.

  “Understood,” said Haberville. “Morganthur, report.”

  Luka hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he heard Mairwen’s slightly raspy voice. “Engine pod sealed, engines undamaged. Full atmosphere, full heat, full charge capacity, zero gravity. I am functional.” He would have felt better if he could see for himself what she meant by “functional,” considering her loose definition of the word “fine.” She didn’t seem to worry about herself as much as he did.

  “Haberville,” he said, “can we can get Adams into one of the sealed pods?”

  “Not without losing all atmosphere,” she said. “We’re going to have to try to land this clusterbucket and pray to the Baby Jesus it will hold together.”

  Mairwen unsealed her exosuit to save its breathing mix for later, then strapped herself to the bench facing the display. The engine pod was mostly dark, even to her extended visual range. She’d been lucky to escape with only bruises, though some of them were likely to be lingering. According to the engine comp, the pod had thirty days of breathing mix and longer than that for heat. Haberville had said she expected to have them down on the planet within the next five hours.

  Trackers were trained in zero-G, but Mairwen had never had any assignments that required her to function in it. The lack of gravity was playing havoc with her stomach, making her nauseated, as if she’d ingested caffeine. She was glad her high metabolism meant she didn’t have much left in her stomach to throw up if it came to that.

  There was little else to do besides wait and think. She selfishly wished Luka were in the engine pod with her, where she could see he was safe, but knew it was better that he was in the nav pod where he could direct Haberville as needed.

  The sabotage, she decided, had been effective but generic. She was uncertain as to whether their ship, specifically, had been expected to approach the Insche 255 system, or if they’d simply been caught by a signature-based security protocol protecting approaches to the system.

  If Insche 255C was indeed a hybrid planet, there would definitely be an in-system perimeter, but it would have to be well camouflaged to hide it from casual observers. If she were designing it, she’d have passive telltales that automatically reported any visitors via packet, the way the Berjalan’s distress call had gone out. All surveyed systems in the Concordance, habitable or not, had a comm rel
ay, which couldn’t be destroyed without bringing a military crew to investigate and replace it. But comm relays could be subverted...

  Mairwen brought up the specs for the engine and the spare parts inventory for the engine pod, then asked Haberville if she could provide directions for building an exploration-style comm relay.

  “Why?” Haberville sounded impatient.

  “To improve the chances our distress message will get to its intended destination,” Mairwen said.

  “The system’s comm relay is working fine. There’s no need.” The tone was snappish.

  Mairwen considered how to explain it, but Luka jumped in first. “If I were hiding a hybrid planet, I’d find a way to read or delay any outgoing packets that didn’t come from my people.”

  “You mean like jack crews do?” Accusation colored Haberville’s tone.

  Mairwen sighed. She’d never been part of a jack crew, but the CPS had been happy to incorporate their techniques into the official paracommando pathfinder curriculum. It wasn’t ideal that Haberville now thought she was hiding a criminal past, but it might save some explanations later.

  Luka’s voice had a sharp command edge. “Can you help Morganthur or not?” Mairwen guessed he was feeling protective of her, since she often felt that way about him. It was unexpectedly comforting.

  Haberville’s “Yes, sir” had more than a hint of disrespect in it, but the instructions appeared on the engine pod console.

  Mairwen spent the next two and a half hours fashioning the rudimentary comm relay. It would have gone a lot faster if she’d been in full gravity, and she wouldn’t have lost so many bolts and fasteners that would undoubtedly get in her way later. The trickiest part was launching it away from their damaged ship, the planet, its single moon, and anything else it could run into. Fortunately, Haberville was cooperative and they got it deployed and the repeating distress call transmitted.