Not With A Whimper: Survivors

by D. A. Boulter

  “Another Mayday call, Captain.”

  “Timestamp?”

  “Current.”

  “Play it.”

  Everyone stared at the speaker.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Lifeboat-3, Amalgamated 684 in distress. We are holed. Position: One kilometre from Waypoint Platform Alpha-November Two. Oxygen supplies running low. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

  Comm Tech Anderson cut the speaker. “It just repeats. Do we answer it?”

  “Detectors show the emergency beacon now, just where the Mayday call placed it, practically on top of the platform.”

  “They’re running out of air,” Anton said. “We have to help them.”

  Ritter held up his hand, stopping the young pilot-trainee. “Captain’s decision, Anton. The call could be a ruse to lure us into a missile. Captain?”

  Bettina nodded. That echoed her own thoughts. “Call Jaswinder to the bridge.” She had claimed rank back at African Nations, now she’d learn what rank truly meant.

  Jaswinder appeared shortly after the call. She must have run all the way. Good.

  “Not a drill?” she asked as she came through the hatch.

  “Not a drill.”

  “Situation?”

  Bettina laid it out. Jaswinder didn’t hesitate.

  “We help them.”

  “Not so fast. This is my ship. My duty compels me to think first of ship and crew safety. Getting closer to something that may have a missile ready to fire at us doesn’t come under the category of safety.”

  “Contact them, at least. They must know we’re here.” Jaswinder had taken the seat next to the captain’s chair.

  Bettina nodded. “Contact them. Don’t give our name, just identify us as a Family Trading League ship.”

  “No reply, Captain. The Mayday call repeats three times, once every two minutes.”

  “Drat. Why weren’t they broadcasting when we dropped?”

  Ritter coughed, bringing attention his way. “Were I in this boat’s position, I’d fear a return of the pirates. I’d keep silent until a ship contacted the beacon. The platform records all messages, so the pirate wouldn’t contact it. This pilot probably requested the platform to send him a message upon receipt of a call from a ship.” He shrugged. “If the lifeboat is who he says he is. At least, that’s how I might play it.”

  “Then why doesn’t he answer our call?” Bettina already knew the answer to that one, but wanted Jaswinder to consider it. She did.

  “Either because it’s part of the lure, or because he can’t. He may be unconscious or dead. I have a solution.” Jaswinder said.

  Everyone looked at her. Bettina nodded, giving permission.

  “I take a workboat over, check him out, and drag him back, if he is who he says he is. If he isn’t, you’ll know it when he fires on me.”

  Bettina laughed, thoroughly amused, but impressed. That earned her a glare from Jaswinder.

  “Peace, cousin-by-marriage,” she grinned. “If you think I’m crazy enough to allow the brightest jewel in the Yrden Family crown to risk herself like that, you’d better relieve me of command.”

  The phrase ‘cousin-by-marriage’ drew the smile she’d hoped for. She’d first called Jaswinder that the day Johannes had married her, and she had only ever used it informally, as a token of pride and esteem.

  “How long until we can jump?”

  “Thirty-eight minutes,” Ritter answered.

  Bettina drew in a long breath, then let it out. Unlikely that a pirate would allow them this time to recharge their jump engines. It seemed a good risk. “We go with Jaswinder’s plan. Only, Jaswinder stays here. I’ll put out a call for volunteers.”

  “I volunteer,” Anton said. “I’ve had my workboat licence for three years. I can bring the lifeboat back.”

  She considered him, and weighed the chances. She’d hate to face Gunnar and Jane, should the cards fall badly, but then the otherhires would take note if she refused to risk a Family member and went with only them. “Done. But you’ll need at least one helper. You’ll pick that person from those who volunteer. Remember that one or both of you might not make it back.”

  Anton’s grin faded. This would make a good test. She’d grill him later on why he chose whom he chose.

  * * *

  Tension mounted as the workboat approached the platform.

  “Ten minutes until he gets there, fifteen until we’re ready to jump,” Ritter called out.

  “Bridge, Workboat One.” The lad had altered radio protocol so as to not identify the ship.

  “Go ahead, Workboat.”

  “We have a visual. Looks like a lifeboat, all right.”

  Some of the tension dissipated. They waited.

  “She’s suffered damage, no doubt about it. She’s a Class 3. Holed through the passenger cabin area and rear storage room. Crew area and flight deck look intact. Shielding is up, can’t see inside.”

  Bettina and Jaswinder exchanged winces. No chance that those passengers had survived. The possibility of a trap still existed, but lessened with every new minute that passed.

  “Ready to jump,” Ritter reported.

  Everyone on the bridge relaxed. With the field distortion capabilities Jaswinder’s programs gave them, they didn’t need a high insertion velocity in order to get to their destination in a reasonable amount of time. They could accelerate in hyperspace.

  “Bridge, Workboat One. We’ve latched on and have Lifeboat-3 under tow. ETA: twenty minutes.”

  “Roger that Workboat. We’re opening Cargo Hold 3 to space. Ship will go zero-g for docking. Treat her gently.”

  They heard Anton chuckle as he confirmed the order. As a novice, he’d once come in heavy and hard. It took him two years to live that down.

  After Bettina had warned the ship about going zero-g, she turned to her bridge crew. “Well done, everyone. As soon as we have them aboard and fastened down, we go back to hyperspace. We’re not hanging around this area. Thank you. Have the doctor standing by to enter Hold 3 as soon as we re-air it, in case we have casualties”

  “Captain?” Ritter looked tense.

  “Ken?”

  “I’ve been trying to think like a pirate – not the womanizing kind.” That earned him some laughter. His dalliances with the ladies in years past had caused its own share of problems. “What if the holing is just for show?”

  Smiles died.

  “What if we have an intact passenger cabin filled with armed pirates? We’re bringing them right on board our ship. We open the boat, and they’ll swarm all over us. A Class 3 lifeboat could hold fifty of them.”

  The bridge went silent. Bettina had never considered that. Once Anton had reported the holing, she’d just accepted the lifeboat’s Mayday call as genuine. She thought hard.

  “Here’s what we’ll do. Security will enter the hold, suited and on tethers. Any hint of pirates, and we’ll initiate an explosive decompression of the hold, followed by an ejection of the boat.”

  * * *

  The whole ship waited, breathless, as Cargo Hold 3’s camera caught Master-at-Arms, Shiro Tanaka, floating into range. He approached the lifeboat from above, then they heard a curse as he slipped down toward it.

  “They still have gravity engaged,” he reported. His feet came to rest on the upper hull. He made a leisurely inspection. “She’s holed, all right, Captain. I can’t see much inside. I suppose it’s possible that someone’s there in suits, but it doesn’t seem probable. I think you can relax. Let’s air the hold and give me some ship’s gravity.”

  “That’s going to be tricky, Shiro. We can give you, maybe .2G. Turn off their generators ASAP.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Air Cargo Hold 3, and give him .2G.”

  They waited, tense.

  “Aired, and pressure holding, Captain. .2G.”

  They all felt the return of weight. Shiro, who had jumped from the lifeboat, landed lightly a few seconds later. He approached the lifeboat’s hatch. His
back-up stood about 5 metres away, with a firearm from the security locker at the ready.

  “Opening the hatch now, Captain.”

  The hatch opened without problem, and Tanaka slipped inside. He kept up a steady stream of information.

  “Checking out the flight deck. We have one survivor. He’s breathing, but unconscious. Gravity generator now off.”

  “Good, Shiro, I’ll start increasing gravity gradually.”

  “Crew space empty. Opening passenger cabin.” Everyone tensed. “Empty. No pirates, no bodies. She probably got holed while still attached to Amalgamated 684. Rear storage also holed. No bodies. I’m removing my suit.” They heard the sounds of suit removal. “Okay, I can deal with anyone else still on board – if there is anyone else. Crew space empty, as I said. Toilet ... empty. Supplies cabin ... empty, but signs of usage. Telescope compartment ... empty.” The line went silent.

  “Tanaka? Tanaka?”

  When his voice came back on line, they all heard anger. “I have a young woman on the crew bed. She’s naked and drugged, but alive. And I think the pilot woke up. I hear someone singing in the piloting chamber. He sounds drunk.” Then they all heard the horribly mangled lines of a song, popular in the United States of North America. “Is drunk. Very. It stinks in here. I don’t think he even sees me. OK, Captain, all clear. I’m not shutting down anything else in case it erases something we’ll need in our investigation.”

  “Thank you, Shiro. Get the woman to sickbay, and the man to the brig. We’ll question him when he sobers up. Captain out.” She clenched her fists. “Restore gravity to 1G. Set course for Earth, and jump to hyperspace.”

  Bettina turned to Jaswinder to see her outrage reflected in the older woman’s eyes. Bastard.

  CHAPTER 4

  Venture

  Tuesday 18 May

  The ‘Bastard’ awoke with a pounding head. He groaned, not wanting to open his eyes. Then he froze. He should be dead by now. The inside of his left elbow stung. He nerved himself up to check out his surroundings.

  In the dim light, he saw that he lay on a bed. He looked down, and saw a false-skin on his arm. Someone had given him a shot. Where the hell was he – besides in the brig? He’d spent more than a few days in the odd brig after a binge, and recognized it at once for what it was. But what ship had rescued him ... them? What had happened to Angela?

  The outer door opened, and he squinted against the sudden increase in light. His head throbbed. An Asian-looking man appeared at his cell door, and contemplated him, face grim. Pirate? What had he let Angela in for? And she had begged him.

  “So, you’re awake.” No friendliness there at all.

  His tongue felt thick. “What ship?”

  The Asian regarded him for a full minute before answering. “Family Trading League trader.”

  Right. Pirate ship. If they wouldn’t give him a name, they had a reason. Carson didn’t like the possibilities. He covered his eyes with his palms. The light hurt.

  “We have some questions for you. What ship are you from?”

  Questions for him? He had questions for them, but didn’t think they’d answer any. He’d only give enough to find out about Angela. After that, they’d get no more.

  “You already know that, if you saw the lifeboat. Amalgamated 684.”

  “Your name?”

  They already had that, too, if they had the lifeboat. They would have found his licence inserted into the control board.

  “First Pilot Wen, er, Wendell Carson. But you already know that, too, don’t you?”

  “What happened to put you into the lifeboat at Earth-African Nations Waypoint 2?”

  They knew that as well, damn them. But they didn’t need to know that he knew. He’d scrubbed the boat’s memory of the radio calls, putting those files on the datastick with the telescope recordings, and hid that where they’d likely never find it. And he had impressed on Angela the absolute necessity of sticking to the story.

  “I don’t know. We were engaged in PMIs when the lifeboat got holed. When we recovered consciousness, we found ourselves adrift. I took the boat to the vicinity of the platform and we waited.”

  “We?” The Asian made a note on his pad.

  “Angela Fulton and me.” Would he bite? “You must have found her, too.”

  The man made another notation, and then raised his head. “Oh, we found her, all right. We found her naked ... and you drugged her.”

  What? Why that tone?

  “That’s the way she wanted it.”

  The man’s lip curled, and his eyes widened in what Carson could only describe as disgust. Why disgust?

  “Wanted it? You sicken me,” his jailer ground out before turning away and leaving.

  Just before the door closed he heard someone say, “Oh, boy, Jaswinder’s gonna be pissed.”

  Jaswinder? Jaswinder – damn and blast her – Saroya? Venture?

  “Hey! Hey!” he called out, but no one answered.

  * * *

  Jaswinder went cold as Shiro made his report.

  “He’s lying to us about what he knows,” Shiro concluded.

  “Wouldn’t you? He didn’t think he’d live; didn’t think anyone would ever find out,” she said. “And, in another 12 hours, give or take, he’d have been right.”

  The lifeboat’s recording of the oxygen levels hadn’t given them much time. She turned to the Captain.

  “Bettina, I want to know where we stand legally. I got attacked right here in this ship, and we had to let Richardson go because of that plague. This one doesn’t get away. I suffered nothing compared to Ms Fulton. She deserves justice.”

  “I’ll look into it. If it had occurred on our ship, or even a Family League ship, I’d know. But this occurred in deep space on a TPC ship – a lifeboat – where, technically, Carson held the rank of captain.”

  “Shiro, you couldn’t find anything on board the lifeboat that we can use?”

  “Nothing, Jaswinder. We do know that he erased some files, but he scrubbed them, and we will never recover enough to know what they held.” Tanaka chewed his lip for a moment. The comm chimed, and Bettina rose to answer it. Tanaka gave her a sideways look, then leaned in. Jaswinder copied his motion.

  “If it turns out that we can do nothing legally, leave it to me,” he said quietly.

  Jaswinder caught his gaze, then gave a nod. She well knew that she had just signed Carson’s death warrant.

  Bettina returned, and eyed them both. If she had heard, she said nothing about it. “Jane says the girl is starting to wake up. If we want to question her patient, give her 30 minutes. You want to see her first, or Carson?”

  “I want to see Carson,” Jaswinder replied. “I want to see what we’re dealing with.”

  They walked into the brig, and Carson came to his feet. “Is this the—” He stopped abruptly as he saw her.

  Jaswinder could see him beginning to tense, and his eyes went flat and cold.

  “Jaswinder damn-and-blast-her Saroya.”

  He recognized her.

  “Yrden, now,” she replied, voice equally flat. “I just wanted to see you for myself.”

  He glared at her. “Why didn’t you just let me die?”

  “If I’d known, I would have. Your victim is waking up, now. Once we’ve interviewed her, we’ll deal with you.” She almost shuddered at the wave of hate she felt coming off him. She turned, and left.

  “My what?” he called to the closing door.

  “That is one malignant, malevolent creature,” Jaswinder said as Shiro locked the door again. “I will definitely not allow him to do this to any other poor soul.”

  Shiro nodded. “Shall I stay behind?”

  Bettina looked from one to the other. “No, Shiro, I want you as witness. We’ll interview Ms Fulton.”

  When they arrived at sickbay, Jane Yrden took them aside.

  “She’s just about fully awake now, but she refuses to say anything. I don’t think she trusts me, but there’s something s
trange going on here. She pretty much recoiled when Jimmy took her a glass of water and, immediately after that, she just clammed up.”

  “She’s had a rough time,” Bettina said. “Shiro, stay back. She might not like to have a man too close to her right now. I’ll give her my best mothering treatment.”

  In the antiseptic-smelling sickbay, Bettina and Jaswinder approached the wary-looking Angela Fulton. Jaswinder decided to allow Bettina to make the initial contact. The way she felt about Carson could poison any attempt she, herself, made.

  “Hello, Ms Fulton, my name is Bettina. I run this ship. Can I call you Angela?”

  Angela looked down, then peered up through her lashes at them. “How, how’d you know my name?”

  Bettina bit her lip, then replied, “Mr. Carson told us.”

  Angela looked around, anger coming to her face. “Is he here?”

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe. We have him locked up in the brig.”

  “Good. He deserves it, the son-of-a-bitch. Do you know what he did to me?”

  The girl impressed Jaswinder. After all Carson had put her through, she sounded angry, indignant, but not devastated.

  Bettina gave her a kind smile. “We have a fair idea. We’d appreciate it, though, if you could tell us some of it.”

  Angela suddenly looked down again, refusing to catch anyone’s eye.

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe. Let’s start with something easier, perhaps. How did you come to be in a lifeboat, alone with Mr. Carson.”

  She took a long time in answering, swallowing, licking her lips, looking away at different places. “We had PMIs, Preventive Maintenance Inspection routines, to do. Something holed the boat. When we regained consciousness, we were adrift. Wen brought the lifeboat to the platform, and we waited for help.”