“Go, Pilot.”
“Captain?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
“Mr Carson.” He turned back. “By deliberately distorting our hyperspace field, we can accelerate in hyperspace. That’s what Jaswinder Damn-and-Blast-Her Saroya gave to us.”
Carson’s eyes went wide. “Distorting the hyperspace field? Deliberately? But that ... my God! No one would dream of doing something so stupid. No wonder no one else stumbled on that.” He shook his head again. “Thank you, Captain.”
“No, thank you, Wen.”
Wen left. Owen hoped that gaining his revenge would close that chapter in his life. As for himself, he had duty left.
“Captain?”
“Yes, Owen.”
“I have to return to Haida Gwaii. I have a promise to keep.”
* * *
Haida Gwaii
Monday 31 August
Jaswinder felt shock as she looked at the bodies on the floor. She almost lost it as more soldiers rushed in, but they turned out to be Sergeant Jensen and another of his men. The other man finished off the colonel with a shot to the chest.
She looked at Christine Burnett, not believing what she had seen. But it was Jensen who spoke to her.
“Ms Yrden, I’m leaving two men outside. I want to get back. We need to finish this.”
Finish it? She indicated the dead man on the floor. “Won’t this finish it?”
“No, it won’t. They’ll fight to the end – leader dead or not.”
More killing? She didn’t know what to think, what to say. Johannes did.
“And this is a product of your sleep-learning?”
Burnett confirmed it. “The colonel perverted it. I created it to do what I told Ken. I’d never even fired a gun before coming up to Topside One. This is only the second time. And now I’ve killed three men.”
Jensen took over. “We gave the good doctor a small dose of it, to show what Westorn had done. When she shook it off – as we had – she promised to help us get away.”
“Frank, here,” Burnett said, “can change a field node in zero-g without problem. He had one one-hour session to embed that.”
Jaswinder looked at Johannes. They could really use something like that!
“That’s what I developed for the Army. I never even dreamed that Westorn could use it like he did.”
Johannes had caught something that Jaswinder had apparently missed. She saw it in his sudden interest. What?
“You can operate in zero-g?” Johannes asked.
“We all can,” Jensen said, indicating his two men.
Johannes smiled. “And the colonel’s men?”
“I don’t think so. We only started zero-g training when we got up to the station. Westorn’s fanatics didn’t get that training. They’re dirtside soldiers – like we were.”
Johannes’ smiled widened. “From here, we can control gravity throughout the ship.”
Suddenly Jaswinder understood, and Jensen did, too, for he began to smile, as well.
“I’ll go and get my people ready. The Germans – at least the shuttle crews – will have had zero-g experience, too.”
Lorrie, on comm, gave a start.
“Bettina calling.” She put it on speaker.
“Johannes, Jaswinder. We have destroyed the patrol ship. No casualties or damage to Venture or the Germans. We are picking them up, and will return to Haida Gwaii in a slightly more sedate, more seemly manner.”
Her legs no longer able to support her, Jaswinder sat down and covered her face with her hands.
“I’m sure there’s a good story there, Bettina,” Johannes answered. “I’d like to hear it some time. The fanatics here have lost their leader, but the fight goes on. However, I think we’re winning. Come on home.”
And that seemed an end to it.
Johannes came over to hold her. “It’s going to be alright, Jazz. But you’d better get strapped in. We’re killing gravity to the whole station.”
Jaswinder allowed him to fasten her seat restraints.
“Then it will be over?”
“No. I still haven’t heard from Pierre Fontaine. He told us his client held the key to the Doomsday Vault, the seed vault on Spitzbergen. Jill Paxton’s last message said that she’d sent shuttles down. None have come back up – at least not that we are aware of. And no signals, either. One of them is Paul.”
She closed her eyes. Paul. Twenty years before, she had helped him master his math so he could become a pilot. Had she killed him with her kindness? More lost friends. Who were the madmen who started this? She hoped that they had all killed each other.
“Anything else?”
“There might be survivors amid the debris in orbit around Earth. We have to check for that. I’m going to get Venture to take a look.”
“Why can’t we go?”
“What if another patrol ship drops? Haida Gwaii needs to be somewhere we can make an immediate jump. In the mean time, we’ll head for the rendezvous point and continue work on the hull, make it more solid, better able to take a jump.”
Johannes strapped himself in, and looked around. “Everyone ready? Good.” He toggled the comm on. “Hank, tell Sergeant Jensen we’re killing the gravity in five minutes from now.”
“Wasn’t Kobe Maru due in yesterday?” Jaswinder asked.
Apparently Johannes had forgotten. “Yes, yes. I promised room on her to Richardson for his farmers. No, she hasn’t come in, and she should have dropped. No waypoints within one day of Earth for her to get the news and chose to stay away. One more problem.”
Jaswinder looked at him. “Do you think we’ll ever have time to rest?”
CHAPTER 33
FTL-1
Monday 01 September
Major Sharon Temple couldn’t remember the last chance she’d had to simply relax. Well, yes, she could. It had been yesterday. Now, someone had to remain on watch at all times. After only fifty hours, Gordie Wilkes had decided that he had something in his quarters that he just had to get.
Never mind that the other side of the airlock held vacuum and that they had no EVA suits. Emergency protective suits, yes, but those were only good for a short transfer, and not an extended walk. Nor could they stand up to torn shards of metal – which one could plainly see through the inspection port on the airlock door.
Of course, that didn’t matter, as Gordie hadn’t deigned to put one on before the five tries he had made on the airlock. It had taken four of them to stop him each time, and now only Jill Paxton and herself cared enough to do so. The last time, only her gun had made enough of an impression on him to turn him around. Her gun and the look in her eyes that told him she would use it.
The others figured if Gordie wanted to join his family, let him. He was, after all, only an otherhire – and not even one hired directly by one of the Families, but a general duty worker on the station, paid from the coffers of the Trading League itself.
She noticed that Jill had awakened. The Paxton woman looked over at her, checked out Gordie, who slept – thank God – and came to sit next to Sharon. None of the others felt it worth their while to get to know a USNA soldier – one of those who had caused so much destruction both on Earth and in orbit.
“Gordie lives in Chicago,” Jill said. “I found that out while you slept. He had an extended family there.”
Sharon winced. A nuclear strike had obliterated Chicago. Still, that didn’t mean you just gave up. She had a sister – probably dead – last known residence in Los Angeles. Also nuked.
Around the Catastrophe Core, a few people read, some slept, and most just stared vacantly off into the distance. The thousand-yard stare. Apathy reigned. One or two wandered aimlessly around, moving simply to be moving.
“I wish we had something for them to do,” Jill said. “But there’s not even make-work. You’d think that whoever thought of this would have thought of that, too.”
Kelly Perrault, strolling by, overheard. �
��It’s not that, Jill.”
“Then what is it, Kelly?”
She creased her mouth in what at one time someone might have considered a smile. “No one is going to come for us. We’re all just waiting to die.”
“They’ll come,” Jill said.
The conviction that Sharon heard in Jill’s voice seemed forced.
Kelly shook her head sadly. “Jill, even if they did, do you think they could cut their way through all that wreckage? We might as well just operate the airlock door override.”
She walked away.
“Well, that cheered me up immeasurably,” Jill muttered. “How about you?”
“She has a point,” Sharon replied.
Jill’s head snapped around. “Not you, too?”
“No, Jill. Think about it for a minute. If you wanted to build a final refuge, a last stand against whatever might come, would you put the one and only exit in a place where you would have to cut through an entire station to get at it, were you to attempt the rescue of those who took shelter there?”
Jill canted her head. “No. No, I wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “But they placed the Core in the heart of the station so that any missile, asteroid, debris – or whatever – would have to go through bulkhead after bulkhead before it reached it. A defence in depth.”
“True. Each bulkhead will absorb some of the energy, leaving the missile – or whatever – with less penetrative power. But that’s of no use to those inside unless they can get out easily when rescue comes.” Sharon stopped a moment to think. She said, slowly. “I’d do what your people have done, but I’d have one side more heavily armoured against strikes of any kind, and that’s where I’d have a second exit – an exit near to open space so that the rescuers could get to it relatively easily.”
“Okay. I can see that. What I don’t see is this second exit. And if there were a second exit, it would have to present problems for anyone trying to get to it from the outside – in case they were the bad guys those inside had hidden from in the first place.”
Sharon felt like kicking herself. “What’s the first thing you do in a situation like this?”
“Look after the wounded? Check supplies?”
“No, I mean after the immediate emergency has past. We have an acronym for it in the Forces. RTFM.”
Jill laughed. “Read The Frigging Manual. We have it, too.”
“And each reader in here, and every wall unit as well, has a copy of The Frigging Manual. At least, that’s what Johannes Yrden told me. You know what I think we should do?”
They both grabbed a reader.
* * *
Spitzbergen: The Vault
Wednesday 01 September
The sun still shone in the sky. Clouds of debris and smoke had not yet covered the northern part of the world. Spitzbergen. This far north it still didn’t get dark, though the sun went down for almost five hours. A week or so earlier and they would have stood in twenty-four hour sunlight. A week or so earlier, they didn’t have this problem, a problem that seemed to darken the day, a problem that would cost three lives, for three would have to stay behind.
Paul Yrden stood on the airfield feeling every one of his thirty-nine years – and then possibly another twenty on top of that.
Around him stood the scientists and keepers of the Doomsday Vault. The four shuttles held much of that now. But one wouldn’t take off with the others – the glitchy one that he had flown down despite the warnings that it shouldn’t enter the atmosphere.
He laughed to himself. They had had no options. Not if they were to successfully complete Operation Seed King. Now it looked like the success would remain only partial – and a painful memory for the rest of his life. Three people must stay behind.
“You were right, Pierre,” Paul said. “That Tremblay fellow is the scum of the Earth. I don’t care that without him we wouldn’t have the seed. We should leave him here. The Families don’t need a man like him.”
“Mon ami, I made a deal.” Pierre shrugged.
“But someone who would just abandon his woman, and leave without a backward glance – not even say goodbye?”
Pierre looked at the Institute’s vehicle, where that woman, one Kiera West, sat. A pretty woman, and one who should take Tremblay’s place were there any justice in the universe.
Paul followed his gaze. Ms West had recognized that her importance to the Families ranked lowest of all those present. She had no skills, and she had taken herself out of contention for the seats. Everyone else had boarded except for the shuttle crews.
“Pierre, for the love of the Families, you can’t stay behind.”
“I have made this decision, Monsieur Yrden. And Jacques has made this decision, too. But if you wish to – how you say it? – pull rank, then tell me, who will you, personally, pull off the shuttles? To whom will you say the words, ‘I regret, Monsieur ou Madame, but you must die. I, Paul Yrden decree this’? Who?”
And Paul had no answer for him.
Pierre smiled. “You see, mon ami, my choice is best for all. I volunteer.”
Paul forced a smile to his lips to match that of Pierre’s. “We have a saying in the Yrden Family: there are three types of fool. The fool, the damned fool, and the volunteer.”
Pierre laughed. “I think every Family has the same saying.”
Paul made one last effort.
“What shall I tell Simon? What shall I tell your Family?”
Pierre regarded him a long moment. “Tell them this. I remain with the woman I love.”
Paul turned to look at the car, and the woman waiting there. The woman Pierre loved. And could anything convince him, Paul, to abandon his love behind? Pierre had used the ultimate weapon.
“You win, Pierre. Godspeed.”
Pierre looked around at the ground, at the sky, and then back. “I think that no god exists, mon ami. No god could allow this. Now go. Go. If Jacques’s skill prevails, and we have the luck, then I will join you. If not, then know that I am happy – truly happy – perhaps for the first time in my life. Go.”
* * *
The thrust pushed crew and frightened passengers back in their seats. The pale blue of the sky changed to the blackness of space, lit by pinpricks of light. They went up straight above the pole, hoping that less debris from the battles might block their path, waiting to destroy them.
With a sigh of relief, Paul cleared the atmosphere and then the altitude where most of the stations had resided. His detector showed that the other two shuttles had likewise made it, safe and sure.
The madness that had enveloped mankind lay beneath him. Blown stations, a dying world, and an old friend soon to also die would remain in his memory for as long as he lived. Speaking of which, it appeared that that might yet encompass years. With joy, he spotted the icon in his navigation tank. Haida Gwaii.
“Haida Gwaii, FTL-1 Shuttle Five.”
“Paul?” the glad voice of Jaswinder came to him. “Where are you?”
“Leaving Earth with Shuttles Three and Six. En route to you. Operation Seed King mostly a success. We have thirty passengers.” He clenched his jaw. “We left three behind. One shuttle broke down. Pierre, Jacques and one passenger remained behind, hoping to fix it.”
Silence.
Then, “Roger that, Shuttle Five. Come home, Paul. Come home.”
* * *
Venture
Thursday 02 Sept
Brian Richardson reclined in the hospital bed in Venture’s sickbay, digesting the news that had made its way in to him despite the doctor’s wishes that he relax and rest after his operation to relieve the pressure on his brain.
Motion attracted his attention.
“Captain Yrden,” he said, as Bettina came up to his bed. “I presume our deal still holds.”
“Yes, Mr Richardson,” she replied. “We will get you to Liberty. We will pass the word to all TPC ships that we meet – that any Family ships meet – and to all colony stations that you have set up Amalgamated Shipping�
�s HQ on Liberty Station. Any Amalgamated Employees we rescue, we will send to you, as well.”
“Good. The Clements are yours.”
“You realize that you’ll have no goods from Earth to ship.”
“We’ll make out. And Liberty processes fuel in greater quantities than anywhere else outside of Earth. I expect we’ll have Family ships as customers, too.”
The Yrden captain nodded. He smiled to himself. And he’d make them pay through the nose for it.
“Something you might want to think about, Mr Richardson.”
“Yes?”
The woman looked down on him with her cold eyes. She, like most Yrdens, still hated him. That was okay; he still hated them, too.
“Any patrol ships that survive this war will also search out fuel. And I doubt that they’ll pay for it. Without Earth governments to back them, they’ll likely become true pirates – in every respect.”
“Yes, well worth considering.” He shifted himself slightly, hating the weakness that kept him in bed. “Anything else, Captain?”
“Yes,” she said, surprising him. “Are you up for visitors?”
Someone wanted to see him? On an Yrden ship? “Sure. Send them in.”
He closed his eyes against the pain that the drugs only dulled. Footsteps sounded.
“Mr Richardson?”
He opened his eyes to see the young farmers.
“Mr Clement. Ms Clement. I understand you’ve accepted employment with the Yrdens.”
Lawrence smiled, holding his wife’s hand. “Yes, sir. We’re to work in their ag dome on Haida Gwaii.”
“Congratulations. I know you wanted to work on a space station.” He gave that a moment’s thought. “Now, if you ever get tired of working for the Yrdens, come and see me on Liberty Station. We’ll find a place for you.” And any secrets they had picked up. “And you’ll have a planet below you that you can visit to get some atmosphere above your heads – sun and rain, and all that good stuff.”
Sandra smiled at him. “Thank you, sir. We really appreciate that.” Her smile faded. “And thank you for saving our lives. We owe you everything.”
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 38