Jaswinder gave the order, then cut the outgoing aud and vid as tears started coursing down her cheeks. “I can’t do this any more,” she said in a small voice.
But, when the next call came in, she wiped away the tears, took her place and answered it.
* * *
Spitzbergen
Kiera laughed as Pierre dragged a duffel filled with bottles of booze out to the truck. “I didn’t realize that I had fallen in love with an alcoholic.”
“Mais non, cheri.” He grinned at her. “You have fallen in love with a very practical man – one who looks to the future. We shall live like a king and queen on the bounty that trading these bottles will bring us. And, with every one we trade, the rest will gain in value due to increasing scarcity!”
Kiera danced up to him, and gave him a kiss. “Will His Majesty please place his arse on the driver’s seat so that we can live in this future.”
“For you, I do this.”
Pierre groaned every time the truck bounced. “If my treasures break, you will find me disconsolate,” he said.
At the shuttle, Jacques greeted them with a great smile.
“I have repaired our lady,” he reported.
“Will the repair hold?” Pierre asked.
The smile diminished. “I hope so.”
Together, they loaded the rest of the purloined goods, and then she helped gather up and load the abandoned luggage. Finally, they took the cat carrier in, and locked the protesting Mouser in his proper position.
“Come, let us leave behind this place,” Pierre said, helping Kiera into the shuttle. He looked back from the hatch. “Though certainly not a five-star establishment, I will always remember Spitzbergen most fondly.”
Kiera joined pilot and engineer in the cockpit. Pierre began going through the checklist. The engines caught. He smiled. Then he turned to her.
“It is time to choose – but to choose with knowledge.”
She didn’t understand, and said so.
“War occurred in orbit, cheri. Stations blew up, munitions exploded. We will find much debris encircling the earth.” He pointed up, as a small meteor glowed across the sky to the south. “Likely a piece of debris,” he said.
“So, what is this choice?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“If we launch—”
“If?”
“Please, cheri, let me finish. If we launch and attempt to reach the rendezvous point, or a Family ship, or Haida Gwaii, we have a fair chance of running into such a piece of debris, and dying in the attempt.”
She swallowed.
“If we remain here, we can likely live for a year – maybe more – before we die of radiation poisoning. The first six months will likely be good months.”
She nodded.
“So, we choose. Do we take those six good months, and live well, or do we take a chance for a future of many good years, knowing that instead of many good years, we may only have several minutes?” He paused. “Take your time. We make this choice only once.”
Kiera looked into his unsmiling face.
“Pierre, this past week with you has me wanting much, much more. Six months seems a gift from the gods. But if we are to die within the year, let’s die now before sickness overcomes us. Let us die striving for life.”
“That is my brave partner who speaks. I will take the shuttle up. Jacques? You may stay if you like. I did not claim all the wine and whiskey.”
Jacques laughed. “Why do you ask me this question? I did not work long and hard these last days in order to remain here.”
“Bien. Let us go.”
* * *
Venture
Johannes felt his stomach lurch every time the lifeboat’s shields flared. But they had almost made it. One more hour at the very most, and the boat would slip into FTL-1s shadow. From there, they would arrive at the station in only minutes. He couldn’t credit what his eyes saw. Never would he have believed that Wen Carson could last so long.
He swallowed. They still had to come out.
“Johannes, call from Haida Gwaii.”
“Don’t distract us. Tell them we’ll call back later.”
“It’s Jaswinder. She claims priority.”
Damn!
“Yes, Jazz, what is it?” He used the headphones so as not to disturb the concentration of those who helped Lifeboat-3.
His face drained of blood.
“What is it, Johannes,” Bettina asked.
“A patrol ship has dropped. Quite close in, but on the other side of the planet – that’s why we can’t see it. It’s headed this way at speed. Haida Gwaii gives us six hours, no more, possibly less.”
Bettina blanched. She looked at the navigation tank. “They can’t get there and get out in time.”
“No. They can’t.”
He took over the comm.
“Owen, Wen, time’s up. You have to return. Immediately. A patrol ship just dropped and is coming this way. If we continue the mission, it will get here and likely destroy us before you can get out. If we leave you, you have no chance of getting out at all. Return, I repeat, return immediately.”
CHAPTER 38
FTL-1
Tuesday 07 September
Jill Paxton turned away from the comm board. Another attempt at communicating with the outside world had just failed. Fourteen other pairs of eyes had watched her, fourteen pairs of ears had listened to her sending out a call for aid. No one had responded. Likely, no one would ever respond.
Kelly Perrault slowly stood. Jill turned to face her. Kelly had always had a bit of a bad attitude.
“It’s no use, Jill.” She shook her head, her body, her face showing surrender. “We’ve taken a vote, and—”
Sharon jumped to her feet. “This isn’t a democracy. You don’t get a vote,” she snarled, taking Jill aback. “You want to see who gets a vote?”
With everyone including Jill, herself, staring at Sharon, the USNA major pulled her sidearm from its holster.
“Everyone who has one of these gets a vote. And that’s me. You want to die; I’ll be the one who kills you. And I won’t make it easy. First, I’ll shoot you in the kneecaps so you can’t walk. You won’t die – but you’ll wish to. You won’t be able to reach the airlock controls, let alone use it. And after that, I’ll make life truly miserable for you. Then, when I’m good and ready, when I’m feeling merciful, then I’ll kill you.”
Sharon looked around, glaring at each survivor in turn. “Now, who wants to be first? Stand up while you still can.”
Kelly dropped to her seat. That left only her, Jill, standing. Sharon turned to her. Surely not!
“I don’t think you’re part of that little charade, Jill. Do what you want; you will anyway. Besides, I have to sleep sometime, and when I do, you get the pistol.”
She turned back to the seated group. “Angry with me?”
Everyone avoided her eyes.
“That’s good. You should be. You can use anger. Swear vengeance. Do anything to stay alive in order to put me in my place. Anger? Be angry with those bastards that put us in here. For what? For what did they destroy our world? So that one could say, ‘I’m stronger than you’? You want to prove them wrong? Live. You give up and die; you prove them right. Our people will come for us. Believe me. I know they will come.”
She took a deep breath, and Jill watched the effect it had on the others.
“They may not come in time, but they will come. And if we give up now, we’ll ensure that they will have risked their lives in vain. Do you want that? It isn’t going to be easy to get here. You all know that. Some might die trying. And if they do die trying, how will their families feel when they find out their brothers, daughters, sons died for a people who gave up, who didn’t wait, who didn’t trust them to come?
“Is that who you are? Are you people who would have others die uselessly because you’d already given up?”
Kelly shot back, “And if we die anyway, a long, slow, lingering death? What differe
nce will it make?”
“It will make no difference to us, Kelly,” Jill said. “But it will make a difference to those who risk to find us. They’ll know that we had faith in them, that we didn’t give up, that we wanted to make their risk mean something.”
“Exactly,” Sharon said. “Now, seeing as you want to be told what to do, here’s what we’ll do for the next little while.”
She waited, a terrible smile on her lips.
“Okay, kiddies, open your readers. Now, compose a note to those who will come. Tell them how you decided to make their risk a vain one. Tell your families, your employers, and your friends that you didn’t trust them to come for you. Tell them that you’re sorry, but you decided to take the easy way out.
“Then, and only then, you can hand in your readers like good little children and wait for whatever I decide. Start!”
No one moved. Jill wondered how Sharon would react to that, whether she would grind their faces in their shame.
“No one wants to write that letter? Fine. Then write another one. Same addressees. Tell your family, friends, whomever, how you lived, loved, and how you intend to die. With hope, with courage. Tell them what it meant to you to be their friend, their lover, their son or daughter. Tell them how you know that they would have moved heaven and earth to get here in time. Tell them how you would have loved to have told them in person, that a mere note in a reader is just a shadow of how you truly feel. And tell them that you wish for them all the happiness that you’ve ever experienced, the joys, the wins – and even some of the losses. Tell them that you’re proud to be their friend, their lover, their son or daughter.”
Silence filled the Catastrophe Core.
To Jill’s surprise, Mary Osborne actually opened her reader. “I think I can do that,” she said.
Kelly glared at her, then at a second person who followed Mary’s lead. She turned back to Sharon. “And what about you? Not going to write anything?”
Sharon smiled. “There’s only one to whom I might write those things. But I know he’s on his way, and I’m going to wait to say them to him in person.”
Jill watched as another person opened his reader. Sharon placed her weapon back in its holster. She walked over to Sharon and said lowly, “Nice speech.”
“Yeah, I kinda liked it, myself. But, who am I kidding? Tomorrow they’ll probably return to apathy. And, truth told, if they want to walk out the airlock, I’ll let them. When it comes right down to it, we have to make our own choices. Gordie, he didn’t know what he was doing – he got himself lost. I’ll likely never forgive myself for falling asleep and not protecting him. These people, they know. If they make that choice, I won’t lose any sleep over it.”
“What about me?” Jill asked.
“You? You’ll be with me to the bitter – or sweet – end. Couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”
Jill took her hand and squeezed it.
“Okay, partner, you’re down twenty-five grand. Let’s see if we can’t make that forty. I want to retire when we get out of here.”
“In your dreams. Deal.”
* * *
Shuttle from Spitzbergen
Tuesday 07 September
The engines roared, and thrust the shuttle ever upwards. Pierre had closed the shields over the front screens. They wouldn’t be able to see anything in time to avoid it, and the extra armour might protect them.
He reached over and took Kiera’s hand. She gave him the smile that had his stomach doing back-flips.
“We go north,” he told her. “Likely less debris above the pole.” He glanced at his screens; the detector showed more than he would have felt comfortable with under different circumstances. These weren’t different circumstances; no choice now.
With Kiera, perhaps with only moments to live, he felt happy. And to think he owed it all to Sidney Tremblay. Well, he had paid off that debt.
Still, he could feel sorry for Tremblay. The man had given up something he would never know anything about. Kiera would have loved him, even if she had never fallen in love with him. She would have stayed by his side, a comfort in the days and nights. But he had squandered all of that by treating her as an object instead of as a person.
Tremblay had obtained her by the greatest of luck, and then he had kicked sand in luck’s face. He might have riches, become some lord on a backward planet, but he would never know a woman’s love, for he had none to give in return.
He brought Kiera’s hand to his mouth, and kissed it. He, Pierre, would never kick sand in luck’s face. He knew what he had—
And luck kicked sand in his face. The shuttle jolted as something hit it. It began a spin that he could barely correct. The detector screen went black – they had lost the antenna. And that meant the nose had suffered a catastrophic hit. To try to re-enter the atmosphere would see them burning into a cinder.
“I’m sorry, Kiera,” he said as the engines cut. “We tried.” He used the manoeuvring thrusters to attempt to kick the shuttle into an orbit – maybe buy them more time. They, too, died.
“We tried,” echoed Kiera. He turned to see her eyes. They held no regret, no blame, only love.
“We have yet one chance,” he said, not believing it. And he sent out his Mayday call.
“Pierre, is that you?”
“Johannes? Where are you?”
“In orbit. You?”
“I wish it were that. We are over the pole. We will begin to fall soon, and we cannot survive re-entry.”
“Don’t worry, we’re sending you a tow-truck.”
Pierre laughed. “Send it quickly. Tell the driver that there’s a bottle of whiskey in it for him if he reaches us in time. If he does not, I’ll drink it myself.”
The ‘tow-truck’ would need to arrive soon. Pierre touched the compartment where the shuttle’s pistols lay. Before it became unbearably hot, he would end it for all three of them – and the cat. But he did not say this out loud.
“You see, cheri. Your Pierre takes you on only the most exciting of vacations.”
“You might have packed a spare tire.” She took his hand, and he could see she had faith.
He laughed. Behind them, Jacques stayed silent. He knew their chances, but he would say nothing. And they could do nothing. All depended on the pilot Johannes sent. A light blinked red, and Pierre sighed. They had just lost communications.
* * *
FTL-1
The Catastrophe Core trembled slightly, bringing Sharon out of her doze. She looked up to see the light over the airlock blink red. Someone had give up and used it; taking the chance Sharon had given them by dozing. She glanced around the room, to see which one had gone – not that it mattered. Then she looked again, counting.
Fourteen. And she made fifteen.
“Fifteen!” she cried out, startling everyone.
Jill, who had also dozed, woke with a start. “Fifteen what?”
“There are fifteen of us here.”
“Yes. With Gordie gone, we’re fifteen.” Jill looked concerned, as if she suspected that Sharon had finally lost it.
“Then who opened the outer airlock door?” She pointed at the red light gleaming above the airlock to space.
Every head turned to look. The light turned green, and through the port, she could see movement. For one horrible moment, she thought the frozen body of Gordie might be coming back. Then the light for the inner door burned red. No one moved.
Sharon gasped as Owen pushed the door open.
“Everyone out,” he said, his eyes going from person to person. When he found her, his face lit up. He worked the override, allowing both inner and outer airlock doors to open at the same time.
“Move, move!” he shouted. “We can’t stay here long.”
One more frozen second, then everyone began streaming for the door.
“Strap in quickly, it’s nasty out there,” he warned.
Sharon let all the others go ahead of her. She stopped, and looked at Owen, hardly daring to
believe that they had escaped their tomb.
“You came for me.” Belief kicked in.
“I said I would.”
A loud voice called through the airlock. “Kiss your girl on this side. I’m kicking off in ten seconds, with or without you.”
Owen grabbed her arm, and shoved her through the airlock. He pulled closed the inner door, then the outer one. Finally, the lifeboat’s hatch closed.
“Get up here!” ordered the voice.
Owen drove her ahead of him, and seated her in one of the flight deck’s rear seats. He took the other.
“Jill Paxton,” roared the pilot.
Jill appeared.
“Sit down. I understand you’re a pilot. We can use one.”
The second Jill snapped the restraints closed, the lifeboat kicked off the station.
Jill looked at the detector screen. “My God! You came through that?”
“It gets worse. And we don’t have the time we had on our way in.”
“How long have you been in the system?”
“What? We never left.”
“We called and called. No one answered.”
“That’s because no one heard. We called you, too. Now, quiet. We have to concentrate.”
“Johannes, Wen. We have them.” He turned to Jill. “How many?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” he repeated for Johannes. “And we’re coming out – back into the shadow. Appreciate your help here.”
“Stay where you are for fifteen seconds, Wen. Bunch of nasty stuff coming up on you. Then hit it.”
“Roger that. We’re going to go with the flow. That should get us out faster.”
Order followed order. Owen had no time for anything but his detector screen. The lifeboat jolted up, down, left and right. An hour passed, then another. Sharon studied the NavTank, and began to make sense of things.
The pilot, Wen, looked tired, but he moved the boat like a dancer. They got a small break, and that’s when Jill pointed at something. “What’s that?”
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 43