by A. K. DuBoff
Bjorn’s response was rude and crude. It helped take my mind off the thought that we were flying between two ships in deep space using nothing more for maneuvering than a rig made from a couple of cheap, out-of-date fire extinguishers, which were going to run out...
Now.
We were still travelling toward the Tünjorgo, but one extinguisher had run out before the other, so we were spinning slowly. The distant stars wheeled above me. We were only three-quarters of the way between the ships, and we needed to hurry.
Theoretically, the danger was slim. Automated scanners would ignore something relatively low mass and slow moving like us, but all it would need would be for someone to get curious.
Too late to change the plan.
We needed to get rid of our exhausted propulsion rig.
Bjorn’s countdown came through my helmet. “Three, two, one, go!”
I kicked the rig with the empty fire extinguishers away, in the opposite direction we wanted to travel. Newton be thanked, it helped: equal and opposite reactions. It even slowed the spinning a bit, which was lucky because we crashed into the surface of the Tünjorgo, out of control.
Hey, it was our first EVA.
Newton got his revenge, because Bjorn bounced off the ship and started drifting, waving his arms and legs.
I anchored myself using a magnetic grapple and chased after him in comical slow motion.
Found a second anchor point.
Threw a line.
Too short...
Leaped. Grabbed the end. Reached...
He grabbed hold of my hand.
“Stop playing the fool and come back here,” I hissed at him.
“Very funny.”
His vital signs were all over the place. Made me smirk.
He reeled himself in and we had five minutes of more slow-motion racing across the surface of the Tünjorgo, looking for an access airlock, while the ship shifted beneath us like a restless monster.
“Docking in five seconds.” Shami’s voice came over the command channel. “Brace.”
Three... two... one...
There was a recessed area with a raised lip just in reach.
I felt the servos in our armor gauntlets ramp up just in time. A violent shudder ran through the ship and slapped us hard against the surface.
“Docked,” Shami said. “They’re checking systems. I’m guessing you have about five minutes before they come looking for us.”
“On it,” I said. “We found an airlock.”
The next step was to get inside. Almost all ships like this were built in the Inner Worlds and they usually built them with standard controls, but there was no certainty the airlock wouldn’t be sealed or made to a different specification.
Bjorn was swearing as he worked on the panel.
I felt thumps through the ship as the Tünjorgo was clamped in place. That was okay. While they were concentrating on that, they weren’t moving around.
Then the vibrations died away, and I started prepping explosives, running through what would be needed if we blew the airlock open.
It would be bad news because whereas an airlock showing it was opening and closing, with no alarms sounding, would probably be ignored by the crew for a while, blowing the outer doors would not.
Bjorn grunted: “Got it.”
I heaved a sigh of relief.
The lock cycled open, and the inner door was a simple push button once the lock had flooded with air.
“Inside,” I reported to Shami.
“I’ve frozen the docking bay’s blast doors,” she said. “They’re blaming a faulty installation. It’ll give you another couple of minutes until they get down and force them open.”
“Good thinking.”
Bjorn and I took ten seconds to check each other’s suits.
“All okay. Weapons free,” he said quietly.
I nodded, with the usual sick feeling in my mouth I got before action. “Clock zero. Go.”
We came out of the airlock. Bjorn turned right, I turned left.
From the outline of the Tünjorgo that Shami had provided to us from the Karakun’s databases, we had three objectives and only two of us.
I headed to the front of the ship. I had to take control of the bridge.
After a long, difficult discussion yesterday, we’d agreed Bjorn should take the prisoners’ section. We knew the Tünjorgo had some, and we didn’t want to face a situation where they were used as hostages.
That left engineering.
We had to hope I could isolate them from the bridge.
We’d run analyses. We estimated we had four minutes and fifteen seconds for both of us to achieve our tasks, at which time Shami could seize control of the Karakun and lock the whole ship down through the computer systems.
Then we had another twelve minutes before we had to return and prevent Satybal and his crew from bypassing the computer controls.
If any of that went wrong...
Four minutes remaining.
Passage end. Rung ladder. Up one level. Straight ahead.
A crewman turned in shock at the sight of an armored soldier sprinting along the passage.
No time. I had no police weapons like a stun gun. The guy was unarmed.
Then again, he was a slaver.
I backhanded him out of the way. That was serious hurt, delivered by military armor.
“One hostile down, not dead,” I grunted as I accelerated through the door he’d opened. Didn’t slow. Slammed into the wall. Turned left. Sprinted down that passage. Then right.
The first major obstacle. The ship had enough safety discipline that they’d closed emergency bulkheads while docking.
A simple lever and bolt. I tore it open.
Three minutes.
“They’ve switched to using auxiliary power to open the blast doors. I can’t stop them,” Shami said over the command channel. “You have two minutes.”
Shit. Two minutes!
More crew ahead of me. And some kind of a comm panel on the wall.
I hit the crew hard and punched my fist right through the comm panel. Sparks flew out.
“Two more down,” I said and kept going.
Another level change.
I didn’t bother with the rungs. I just jumped up. My arm was extended to kill my momentum. It went right through the ceiling and some of the cabling above it.
Alarms went off. Something I’d done. Or Bjorn.
“I’ve sealed off the docking bay and I’m venting it.” Shami’s voice. “Venting Karakun bridge and engineering.”
Shit! She wasn’t messing around.
“Prisoner area secured.” Bjorn’s voice. “Three hostiles down. Can’t get inside the cells.”
We had to hope I could open the cell doors from the bridge.
A security barrier started to slide out across the passage from one side. I dove through, sensed trouble, rolled, came up with the TAW already pointed.
Crew were hurriedly grabbing weapons from a storage area.
No time.
I fired as I ran, wide dispersal, and dropped a fragmentation grenade behind me as I darted into the last passage that led to the bridge.
The grenade exploded behind me. My armor soaked it up, but when the whole ship shook and lurched, I went spinning and sliding.
“Tünjorgo trying to disengage docking by force,” Shami said.
No time.
“Clamping circuits are being bypassed on the Tünjorgo’s side. You have fifteen seconds.”
I bounced to my feet. The door to the bridge ahead was sealed. I sprinted, hit it at full speed, dropping my shoulder.
My armor took most of the impact, but I still saw stars. The metal door buckled and bent, but it held.
No!
I stood back, dialed in armor piercing—only two of those rounds left—and fired the TAW.
They punched through the door and did who knows what damage beyond. The alarms doubled and lights started flashing.
I tossed
a dazzler into the bridge area and took a grip on the hole in the door.
The servos in my armor whined. This was not what they were designed for.
The dazzler went off. Intense light and loud noise.
“Ten seconds,” Shami said.
The door’s holding structure distorted.
There were shots from behind me. The armor let me know about it, but it would hold against typical shipboard weapons. I couldn’t spare the time to deal with them.
With a screech, the door began to peel open.
“Seven seconds.”
I kicked my way through onto the bridge.
There were three of them there, all stumbling about from the effect of the dazzler, their faces blank with shock.
I grabbed the nearest and shoved the TAW in his face.
With my suit’s speaker amplification up to maximum, I shouted: “Turn off all power to Docking and Engineering. NOW.”
“Four seconds.”
The man collapsed against a control panel, his eyes unfocused and his fingers clumsy.
Luckily, the command menu was in English. Once he called up the right menu, I reached past him and stabbed at the options on the screen.
Power. Emergency. Docking bay. Off.
“Two seconds.”
A message popped up on the screen: Power disconnect from docking bay. Are you sure?
Yes!
Docking bay power disconnected.
I repeated the sequence for Engineering.
Then I found the comms panel. Switched it to ship-wide broadcast.
What the nova should I say?
“This is Lieutenant Commander Skelling of the Calloway Navy Anti-Piracy Unit. The Tünjorgo and Karakun are now under my control. If there is any further resistance, I will vent these shit-heaps to space and throw your stinking bodies out of the airlock.”
—
A ring of expectant faces looked up at me.
A dozen men and women, the crews of a couple of small ships that had been captured, who’d been held prisoner in the Tünjorgo, knowing the fate that had awaited them—slavery.
Relief on their faces, mainly. Anger, too. And hope.
The pirates, living and dead, were now in the holding cells, and their former captives sat on the seats in the Tünjorgo’s mess area.
I was standing, still in my suit, but with the visor cracked so they could see my face.
I’d already told them they hadn’t been rescued by the ‘Calloway Navy’.
What the nova do I say now?
“There’s good news and bad,” I started. “You’re free and we will get you back to your systems, or any place we get to, that you nominate.”
Cheers. Smiles.
“We need some of them to run these damned ships, Lieutenant Commander,” Shami snarked in my ear through the command channel. “Have you actually thought through any of this?”
I ignored her and went on. “The bad news...”
It got quiet.
“These ships don’t have enough credit to go wandering all over the Frontier.”
“You’ll get bounties from handing over the pirates to any system that has signed the Anti-Piracy Accords,” one of the men at the back said.
“We will get bounties,” I replied. “All of us. But if we turn up with the Tünjorgo and Karakun in the Ensylas System, for example, the ships would be impounded and your share of the bounty might not get you home.”
And Bjorn, Shami, and I would be back where we started, with fistfuls of credit that wouldn’t buy what Calloway or Yorkham needed and probably wouldn’t even get us passage back home.
Absolute silence, even on the helmet radio. They were all waiting for me.
“But it’s okay,” I said. “I have a plan.”
THE END
— — —
About the Author
Mark’s early interest in philosophy and psychology was adequately exorcised by tending bars. And while trying to enroll in a class to read Science Fiction full time, he ended up taking an engineering degree which splendidly qualified him to move into marketing. That in turn spawned a late onset career in creative writing.
He writes Urban Fantasy (Bite Back series) and Science Fiction (Among the Stars series).
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THE MIXON DRIVE
by J.R. Handley
Location: Phoenix Orbital Station
It’s hideous. No wonder they kept it so secret, Paul thought.
The sight that waited for him in the hangar bay was nothing like the mission briefings suggested. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Cooley had been sold on the idea of riding a sleek shuttle for its historic test of the Mixon Drive. This was the engine that would deliver the promise of faster than light travel to humanity, and it was housed in a phallic metal tube. One that looked like the illegitimate offspring of a NASA shuttle and an airbus.
He used the joystick on his jet pack to maneuver, hating the way zero-g affected his stomach. After adjusting his angle, Paul drifted closer so he could get a better look. He was still underwhelmed. The ship was a bulbous patchwork of corrugated alloy composites, a shoestring production that barely looked flight-worthy. It had none of the beauty and grace that SpaceX built into its Mars Shot Program vehicle, the Super Heavy-Starship combination.
“You’re no beauty,” Paul said quietly as he rubbed the stubby wing of the shuttle—a ship that looked more likely to explode upon ignition than start.
“Excuse me, sir?” a young scientist asked, his voice blaring on the speakers inside Paul’s helmet as he gently drifted beside Paul.
Jumping inside his spacesuit, Paul accidentally toggled the joystick controlling his jetpack and had to course-correct before he could answer the new arrival. “Jesus, kid… don’t sneak up on a guy!”
“Roger, sir. I’m Doctor Horovitz, a liaison from Athena International. I’m here to help you perform the final pre-flight checklist,” the young scientist replied.
“I’ve got this,” Cooley said.
“I’m sure you do, sir. However, NASA doesn’t trust Marines with their expensive new toys.”
Grunting out an automatic hoorah, Paul toggled his joystick and followed the scientist into the shuttles rear access panel.
“Does this monstrosity have a name?” Paul asked.
“This is the Z-480,” answered Horovitz.
“That’s the shuttle’s designation, but what’s its name?” Paul asked.
“It doesn’t have one yet; it’s just the proof of concept for Doctor Mixon’s brilliant design work.”
“I’ve met Doc Mixon; he’s no Elon Musk—he’s an idiot.” Paul snapped. “We better double-check this bird. Guess I’ll take that help after all.”
The exterior of the bird checked out, though the scientist noted a few problematic joints on the heat shields. Years of experience told Paul that those weren’t what would kill him. Faulty weld joints were ugly, but it was the power plant that would blow up spectacularly. Satisfied that the exterior of the shuttle was within the acceptable margins, he drifted over to the interior access hatch.
Paul and Horovitz shrugged out of their jetpacks, clamping them to the shuttle’s exterior. Grabbing the stabilization bar near the hatch, Paul used his free hand to turn the handle that swung the door inward. Reaching back with his free hand, he gestured to the scientist.
“Lead the way,” Paul ordered Horovitz.
Upon entering the shuttle, they turned and sealed the entrance and waited for the shuttle to pressurize. When the cabin’s oxygen saturation returned to breathable levels, both men pulled off their helmets an
d clipped them to their utility belts.
“You’re not even old enough to shave! You’re just a baby,” Paul said in shock.
“That’s Doctor Horovitz to you, Colonel,”
“Take it easy, kid,” Paul replied, “I was just surprised. No offense intended. Let’s check the engines first. That’s where most mishaps start.”
Doctor Horovitz turned, heading to the rear of the shuttle and a sealed hatch. Twisting the wheel on the airtight door, he pushed it open.
Gesturing at Paul, Horovitz spoke quietly. “Only room for one, we’ll go in and independently confirm the other guy's findings. You can go first.”
“Sure thing, kid. Were the AI algorithms for the navigator and engineer positions uploaded today?” Paul asked.
“Negative,” he replied, “they get uploaded later this evening.”
Drifting into the engine compartment, Paul checked every one of the magnetic rods that made up the star engine power plant. The individual rods clamped to the wall of the engine compartment and linked to the fusion plant that spun around on a gimble. This modified Fusion Torch Drive was bigger than the ones he was used to seeing. The size of the engine made the chamber feel cramped and hampered the ability of the mechanics to move about the space.
Paul stared at the engine. He knew that the star engine design generated a barely visible blue flame out the back, as the engine vented the fusion reaction to create forward thrust. But that was the byproduct that produced the thrust. How the improved nuclear reactor worked, and the rest of the functionality of the engine was beyond him. The level of complexity was why the shuttles were designed with a three-man crew in mind.
Exiting the engine compartment, Paul nodded to Doctor Horovitz. “I’ll verify the Mixon Drive next, while you check the engine. We’ll meet back up in the cockpit after you double-check my work and compare notes.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Horovitz replied.
He didn’t bother answering the young scientist, instead trying to open the vacuum-sealed compartment door. It didn’t budge. Grunting, he tried again. It remained stubbornly closed. The hatch was stuck.
“Forgot to tell you,” Horovitz hollered at him, “you don’t have clearance to inspect the Mixon Drive. I’ll meet you in the cockpit once I’ve checked it myself.”