“Patrol ship,” Wen answered shortly. “Getting damned close. If we’re not out before he’s in range, Venture’s going to have to leave us.”
“You cut it close.”
“You’ve no idea. When she dropped, we got ordered out. We got that order forty minutes before we got to you.” He shifted the boat to the right. “Okay, we’re back in it.”
“Shields taking a beating,” Jill said.
“Can’t help that, not if we want to live.”
“Ventral, one second,” Owen said.
Sharon felt them pushed violently upwards.
“You’re running out of time, Carson.”
Sharon recognized the voice of Johannes Yrden. She felt her stomach muscles tighten. She would have to face him again. He would be far less than happy that Owen had risked his life for her. Judging from what she had seen and heard, without Owen, they wouldn’t have made the attempt. Without Owen, the pilot might have obeyed Captain Yrden’s recall. And she and Jill, and all the others would have died not knowing that anyone had even tried.
“We’re out of the worst,” Owen said. “Starboard, two seconds.”
And that flung them sideways.
“Ventral for all we’re worth.”
If Sharon had thought previous movements violent, she had to re-evaluate. Then she gave small thanks for her position. Back in the lifeboat’s passenger section, they wouldn’t know anything, wouldn’t be able to prepare for the sudden changes in course. She wondered if any of them would be able to keep their lunches.
“Maximum burn!” cried Owen, and it felt like the seatback came up to punch her.
How could anyone function like this? Then she heard Wen starting to laugh. Jill joined him, and finally, Owen began laughing, too.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We’re out.”
She almost collapsed with relief.
“Now we just have to get aboard Venture before she jumps.”
The last punch had sent them far ahead of Venture. Rather than brake, Wen kept burning.
“What’s he doing?”
“We’ll catch up to Venture next orbit. At that time, we’ll have Earth between us and the patrol ship. Venture will veer off to keep it that way, and we’ll join her. At least that’s the plan.”
“Lifeboat-3, this is Carnival. Please pass list of survivors.”
Jill triggered the comm. “Carnival, Lifeboat-3. Dad?”
“Jill!”
They could all hear the emotion in the man’s voice. A small period of silence followed, then Jill began reading off the names. Fourteen family or otherhires including herself. Then the last one.
“And Major Sharon Temple, USNA Space Force.”
Sharon wondered how Captain Yrden would react to that.
“Jill,” came her father’s voice. “We’re jumping. See you at the rendezvous.”
“Safe flight.”
“Captain Yrden, Pilot Carson.”
“Go.”
“Get your malcontents together. As soon as I dock and get rid of my passengers, get them on board. Carson out.”
Jill turned to Owen. “What’s that all about?”
“Some of our workers want to go back to Earth – to be with their families. Wen volunteered to take them. He would have already gone, except he took on this mission when my Dad wouldn’t let anyone from Venture attempt it.”
“Carson,” Jill said. “You can’t really intend on going back through that.”
“I’ll go down over the pole. Man named Pierre Fontaine came up that way a few hours ago. Not near as much garbage. We may make it.”
“Pierre just got back now? What about the others?”
Owen answered her. “One shuttle broke down – Pierre says it wasn’t supposed to go into the atmosphere, but they needed at least four, so it went.”
Jill nodded, recalling her conversation with Carter.
“The three operational ones came up a few days ago. Pierre, and two others who couldn’t fit on the operational three, stayed behind.”
Sharon hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. She only knew that Captain Yrden would likely want to send her back down with the others, the malcontents. He wouldn’t, of course, because Owen would then accompany her. But he would never cease to let her know she wasn’t wanted.
Perhaps they might set her down on Liberty. Then Owen could visit her whenever his ship came by.
“There she is.”
Venture’s icon appeared on the detectors.
“Let’s get you home, Owen,” Wen said. “You’ll have a story to tell your grandchildren. They won’t believe you, of course. Better keep a copy of the datastream.”
He turned, and grinned at Sharon. He extended his hand. “Wen Carson, Major Sharon. And I can see why Owen insisted on this mission. Have a good life. Name one of the kids after me.”
She took his hand in friendship. Babies? She hadn’t gotten anywhere near that in her thinking.
If they did have children, would Johannes resent them, disown them?
CHAPTER 38
Venture
Tuesday 07 September
Johannes met her just outside the starboard lounge. Angela smiled at him. He wasn’t such a bad Captain. Her first impression of him had scared her, but he seemed a good man, overall.
“How are our malcontents?”
She giggled. “Lost all but four of them. That rescue scared the bejesus out of them.”
“But there are still four?” He let his disappointment show.
“Don’t worry, Captain, I’m going to finish them off.”
Johannes grinned at her. “I’d like to see that.”
“Better you don’t, sir.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m headed down to the bay. I want to see my son before I leave the ship.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You’re leaving, Captain?”
“We’re going to fly by Haida Gwaii. I need to be with my wife.” He smiled at her. “I think you know her as Jaswinder Damn-and-Blast-Her Saroya.”
Angela swallowed. “Um, sir, that was Wen’s ... I only...”
“I like it,” Johannes said, and he winked at her. “It suits her. Good luck with the four.”
She watched him leave. She let her smile fade, then put on a sombre expression and walked into the Starboard Lounge.
“You are the ones going down to Earth?”
They nodded.
“Ah, so you’ll be the ones that I’m going to die with.”
A burly man narrowed his eyes. “Die with?”
“Oh, yes. My mother died in Spaceport. My father died on Topside One. I don’t want to go on without them. So, when I heard that you all planned to die, I thought I’d join you.”
“We don’t plan to die,” the man said. The others had become wary.
“Wen – that’s your pilot – he wants to die, too. He lost everyone he ever loved a while ago. Life’s not worth living for him.”
The burly man licked at his lips. “You mean he’ll deliberately crash the lifeboat?”
“Oh, no. Wen’s an honourable man. But he knows his chances of getting through aren’t great. Venture can’t help with her beam this time; we have pirates in-system and she has to run. Then, even if he’s lucky and gets us through intact, we’ll all die pretty soon from radiation, or the diseases they let loose.”
She tilted her head, and considered the options. “I wonder which would be worse. Some of that debris might damage the shuttle like it did Pierre’s – you all saw that, when they towed it in?”
A blonde woman nodded.
“Then we’d be trapped in orbit until our air, water, and food ran out. I wonder which will run out first. I’ve already been there – in that same lifeboat. Pirates attacked our ship, and only Wen and I survived. I told you that, already. We were running out of air. That was pretty scary. I took a sleep dose, so I could die in my sleep instead of gasping for breath and not being able to get enough oxygen. K
ind of like drowning.” She shrugged. “But Venture saved us.”
“So I began thinking. Why die in my sleep. Why not experience it fully – like we’re going to. On the other hand, if we’re not trapped in orbit, we might get holed by debris. Then we lose all air. And that terrible cold comes in. I wonder which will get us first, the cold or the lack of air? We won’t have safety suits, you know. If we get holed, no one is coming to rescue us. And, because the factories that make the suits are down on Earth, no one is going to waste any of the ones we have on a one-way trip.”
She smiled at the shocked looks on their faces. “But most interesting of all – and most likely ’cause you saw what a good pilot Wen is – might be incineration.”
“Incineration?” the blonde looked a little sick.
“Oh, yes. See, even if Wen gets us through without having the lifeboat holed, a bit of debris may still damage the lifeboat’s skin – and we won’t even know about it until too late. If the skin does get badly enough damaged, we may burn up on re-entry. It’ll just get hotter and hotter and hotter, until we burn alive. That might prove interesting. When do you stop screaming, stop thinking, and just accept it?”
She sighed. “And, if we make it through all that, there’s always radiation and plague. Have you heard about the Lunars? We saw the vids from Haida Gwaii’s comm. Some of those survivors were trying to get onto Haida Gwaii. Ms Yrden didn’t let them, of course, because some were spitting up green foam. Looked nasty.”
Angela looked at her chrono. “Time for us to go down to the lifeboat. Please follow me.”
Only three followed her out of the lounge. The blonde woman had made her decision for life. At the stairwell she lost the second. The third abandoned them at the bottom of the stairwell, and the fourth, the burly man, made it to the entrance to the landing bay where Lifeboat-3 awaited them.
He took a long look at the lifeboat before saying, “I’m not going on that deathtrap.”
“Ah, just me, then.”
“Don’t do this, kid,” the man said. “Don’t throw your life away.”
“I have to go, now,” she said, and stepped into the bay where she saw a stream of people leaving the lifeboat. The burly man turned around and left, going back the way they had come. She walked over to Captain Yrden.
“I lost them, sir. Maybe you should take the lot with you back to Haida Gwaii.”
He laughed. “Maybe I should.” He called over to their security man. “Shiro?”
“Sir?”
“The malcontents have changed their minds. Round them up. We’re going to take them back to Haida Gwaii.”
“Good. Be glad to have them off my ship.”
“Angela Fulton, you’re a wonder.” He leaned down, and kissed her cheek. “Now see if you can stop Pilot Carson.”
“Yes, sir.”
She watched Johannes as he greeted another man. This one had a pretty woman by his side. The woman carried a cat in her arms. She had never seen either of them before. So, Venture had a ship’s cat again. The crew would like that.
“Pierre. So good to see you. And you must be Kiera West. Welcome to Venture. We’ll get you set up on the crew deck. I’m going back to Haida Gwaii, but you should stay here. Venture will get to the rendezvous point long before Haida Gwaii. You’ll be able to transfer to one of your Family’s ships there.”
She didn’t stay long enough to hear Pierre’s reply. Instead she climbed into the shuttle. Four people remained. Owen and Wen, and two others whom she didn’t recognize. She assumed one was the Major she’d heard about. The one Owen had fallen for. The woman wore a uniform and a gun, so that seemed a good bet.
“Get off my shuttle, you two,” Wen told them. “If you could face what we just went through, you can face Captain Yrden. You, too, Jill. I have to leave immediately.”
The three went off.
“Angela? Are my passengers all aboard?”
“Yes, Wen, they are.” She sat down in the co-pilot’s seat and strapped herself in.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m your passenger, Wen. Your only passenger. The others all changed their minds.”
He looked horrified. “I can’t take you down there. You’ll die.”
She shrugged. “So will you. Wen, I’ve lost everything, just like you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “What about Rolf? He loves you.”
“What about Carly? She loves you.”
He shook his head even more vehemently. “She doesn’t understand.”
“Neither does Rolf.” She took a deep breath. “Look, Wen, we started this trip together when we first boarded Lifeboat-3 to do PMIs. It should have ended when the pirates destroyed 684. Then, when it didn’t, it should have ended at the beacon with us suffocating. But it didn’t. Now we have another chance. We’ll end it together, just the way we started it. You and me and this boat. Lil would understand. My parents would understand. Sometimes life just isn’t worth living.”
He closed the board down. “I’m not taking you out there to die.”
“Why not, Wen? What do I have that you don’t have? Nothing.”
They sat in silence for a minute. “We have to make a decision, Wen. Are we going to end the journey here, or shall we continue on for a time to see if it might get any better?”
Wen undid the buckle on his restraints. “When did you grow up so much?”
She undid her own restraints. “It started the day that pirates killed everyone I knew and loved, except one. And that one, when I wanted to die, refused to let me. He told me there was always hope. Was he wrong?”
“No. Now get off my ship.”
“And you?”
“I need some alone time.”
She could see the tears starting to run from his eyes, and turned to give him privacy.
“Captain Bettina says that if you decide to stay, that this lifeboat needs PMI 14.2 done.” She started to leave, but he called her back.
“Angela.”
“Yes.” She didn’t turn around.
“Would you really have gone with me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I change my mind, and decide to leave now? Then what?”
She turned around, and sat back down in the co-pilot’s seat. She put her hand on the restraints, but he stopped her.
“Get off of my ship. I have a PMI routine to do.”
“Yes, Captain.”
On the deck, she saw Captain Johannes talking with the woman, Jill. Further off, she saw Owen and his soldier waiting. The woman looked tense. Owen seemed to be trying to calm her. And, further away, in the next bay, she saw the malcontents filing into a shuttle. So, Shiro had rounded them all up in time, and Captain Johannes would take them back to Haida Gwaii with him.
She saw the burly man, and walked over to see him off.
“You’re still here?”
“I almost went. But I got to thinking about what you said. You were right; I shouldn’t throw my life away. Thank you. I just came over to thank you.”
He smiled at her. “You’re welcome. Find someone. Be happy.”
“I’ll try, sir. I’ll try.”
Only one more thing, and then she could go find Rolf. It had been a long day. Too long a day. At the door to the cargo hold, she found Carly.
“He’s all yours,” Angela said. “Give him maybe ten minutes, and then go help him. He has to do a PMI. Sometimes it goes faster if someone reads out the steps while the other one does them.”
Angela turned away before any tears came. But she heard the catch in the older woman’s voice. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’d better get back to my job before Captain Bettina kicks me off her ship as a slacker.”
* * *
Captain Johannes Yrden had finally finished talking to Jill Paxton. Now he would kick her off his ship. Sharon forced herself to not flinch as his eyes caught hers. No friendliness there at all. She stared stonily back.
Jill walked off, and the Cap
tain walked towards her and Owen. She braced herself.
“Major Temple.” He came to a halt a metre from her.
“Captain Yrden.” She stood straight, but not to attention.
“I don’t like you, Major Temple.”
“Dad!”
“Keep out of this, Son. This is between the Major and myself. After I’ve finished, you can have your say, and she can have her say.”
She put her hand on Owen’s arm to stop him from making this worse.
“I’m well aware of your feelings, sir,” she replied to Johannes.
“I don’t believe that you are right for my son – for various reasons.”
“I’m well aware of that, too.” She could feel Owen getting ready to explode.
“Jill says you threatened to blow the kneecaps off both members of the FTL and our employees. Is there any truth to that?” he asked, eyes burning holes in her.
“Yes, sir, I did make that threat.”
She thought she saw him almost smile.
“And no excuses for this rather startling, rather anti-social behaviour?”
“No, sir.” Excuses wouldn’t move this man in the least. And if Jill hadn’t told him, then she could see no point in making one. He wouldn’t believe her.
“I see.” He considered her for a long moment – too long a moment, as far as she was concerned. Then he gave a short nod.
Here it comes.
“There’s precedence in the Yrden Family for what I’m going to say, what I’m going to do. Twenty years ago, my brother, the Head of the Yrden line took a grave dislike to a woman who had attached herself to his relative. She wasn’t right for this relative, either. She used him, like I suspect you used Owen, which infuriated him. And you likewise infuriated me.”
Sharon wished he’d just make his judgment and be done.
“When a crisis of sorts occurred, he finally made up his mind to do something. Still distrusting this woman, he gave her some leeway – like I gave you some leeway.”
He paused. She said nothing. Nothing she could say would sway him.
“I’ve just been talking with Jill Paxton.”
“I saw that.”
“Did you know that the Paxtons and the Yrdens don’t get along? We’re the closest thing to bitter enemies that the Family Trading League has within its fold.”
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 44