by S. Walker
The suit tether!
Aldi threw his arms up in a 'wait, wait!' motion, then unclipped his tether and pointed at Friendly Suit. They immediately waved a frantic 'no', trying to indicate they didn't want to be responsible for unclipping him. But Aldi didn't care. "Come here!" He made frantic motions until Friendly Suit approached, then leaned forward to touch helmets.
"Can you hear me??" He shouted hard, forcing vibrations across the helmet material.
"Use your fucking radio, idiot!" High pitched voice, so quiet Aldi could barely hear. But hey, it could be worse.
"It's broken!" He screamed back, then waved the tether clip under their combined faceplates. "Tether with me and jump!"
"Absolutely no fucking way! You'll kill me too!" Suited arms tried to push him away. Friendly Suit might be in danger of becoming Aggressive Suit.
"No, no! Look! It increases our odds!" How the hell did he explain this? Best to go simple. "Both of us don't have to land! Only one! Then pull the other person in! Shit, even if we BOTH miss the tether might hook on the ship in between us!" Then the obvious occurred to him. "Fuck, we all should have tethered into a net to begin with, caught the ship between us like a web!" Missed chances there.
Friendly stopped trying to push him away. Then Aldi picked up a weak vibration: Were they using the radio?
Question answered: Gun Man shoved them apart, then looked thoughtfully between the two before unclipped his suit tether. He looked at Aldi, who nodded and clipped his to Friendly. Gun did the same, linking them together for the attempt. Three people: Three chances to land. They all crouched, faceplates turned upwards and hands on each other's shoulders. He more felt than heard the countdown, but at the end they all pushed off as one, kicking away from safety toward the stars.
All three drifted away immediately, fear and muscle tension giving slightly different angles. But that was fine-- the tether stretched and stretched, then strained tight at a hundred feet. Aldi stared straight ahead, listening to himself scream as the three of them slowly began to orbit each other.
The hauler grew in his scarred faceplate. Palm sized. Head sized. Then bigger than his entire suit, seeming to come faster and faster until it filled nearly the whole front of his vision.
Aldi missed.
He threw an arm out, fingers straining for handholds on a battered hull less than ten inches away. The motion made him spin axially, screaming in horror the entire time. "NOOOO!" So close! So close! But vacuum didn't care-- an inch or a mile had the same result. He'd be screaming into the void until the skinsuit ran out of oxygen. It was over. He'd tried, but The Worst was here.
The tether suddenly snapped taut, arcing him into the hull in a surprised smash. Aldi's chest hit first, turning a scream of mortal terror into a surprised burp of air. An instant later he was clutching anything, everything, boots and knees and hands adhering with the intense fear of an insignificant speck trying to grasp the meaning of life. But he knew the meaning of life, now: It was nine square feet of pitted hull plating, currently sustaining a man in an extremely saturated skinsuit.
His tether tugged again, rhythmically. It took a moment for Aldi to realize that meant motion. Someone was moving, and trying to take him with them. Raising his head, he looked frantically around until he spotted the familiar figure of Friendly Suit, cautiously crossing toward him one handhold at a time.
But there was no other suit. Gun Man was gone. Aldi twisted, looking at Friendly's belt for the tether attachment. Where was...?
Friendly held up a free hand, displaying a tether hook cupped in their palm. Five inches of frayed, cut line drifted off the other end, softly waving in zero gravity.
Aldi decided he might need to watch Friendly Suit very, very carefully.
He followed Friendly around the hull, finding the airlock near midship and carefully cycling through one at a time. Inside the ship was darker than being in space; all the lights turned off and equipment powered down for long term storage. But Aldi could see the room pressure sensor next to the hatch indicating normal atmosphere. He anchored a foot, then reached up and tore off the skinsuit helmet with a violent jerk, bouncing it off the deck and screaming.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" The relief was so intense he almost melted.
A second helmet spun through the darkness, freeing a high pitched voice with it. "HOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIIT!" Then a patchwork skinsuit hit the bulkhead next to him, followed by a small hand grabbing Aldi's collar and pulling him into a hungry kiss.
It turned out Friendly Suit was actually the most attractive person he'd ever seen in his life. Low standards be damned.
She came up for air first, impatiently flicking brown hair out of her eyes. "Don't take that the wrong fucking way. Just promised myself and you're the only goddamn person who made it. What's your name?"
Swinging wildly between raw deathly terror and heavenly arousal left Aldi in a stunlock situation. "Strawberries."
"Your parents hated you." She cuffed him once, hard, brown eyes flashing. He noticed there were colored flecks in both pupils, woodgrain brown. Irregularly beautiful. Fascinating.
Then Aldi rebooted, brain engaging. "No, you taste like- nevermind. Aldi Netrische." Was it okay to grab her back? He didn't like to assume. "Do you happen to have low expectations...?"
She laughed, slightly crazy and surprised at the same time. "You have no idea, Aldi. I'm Tinker-- don't you fucking say anything about that," he wasn't going to. It sounded lovely. "And let's get this damn ship moving. People to save."
Tinker (he kind of wanted to ask, now) kicked off him once, using their momentum as a launching point for the far hatch. She caught the rim deftly, turning forward momentum into a right-hand turn into darkness. Corridor lights snapped on a few seconds later, showing a scarred set of deck plates and the heavily grease-stained wall surfaces of a commercial cargo vessel perpetually in need of cleaning.
Putting a boot down, Aldi tried to ignore the sodden squish between his toes as he kicked off, chasing her path through the long ship to the tiny bridge. It should have been a quick catchup, but apparently he wasn't as good as he thought at speeding around corridors... or perhaps Tinker was just that much better. He only met up at the bridge, floating through the hatch while she was already buckling in.
"I'm taking primary guidance. You get literally everything else. Don't fuck it up." She was all business, snapping relays and booting consoles to life.
He loved it. "I won't. Done this before, I can handle all the systems." He looked down at the console, watching her plot a short angular course to the station. "Wait, where are we going? That's not the Executive docks."
Tinker froze suddenly, hands eerily still over control surfaces. "You a Corpo?"
Well that was a first. Aldi laughed. "My standards do have bottom, although I don't hold it against anyone else if they happen to be."
She nodded sharply. "Good to hear. I was reconsidering plans for my bunk time later." Which immediately hard crashed Aldi's brain again. Tinker kept going, oblivious. "And nooooo-- we're definitely not going to any fucking Executive Extraction Plan Zulu Batshit Whatever spot. First we're going here," she tapped a bright marker point a third of the way across the station. "To pick up my partners. Then we're going to the other haulers, you're all going to take one, and we're gonna fucking evac everyone that isn't Management off this station."
"That sounds-" fantastic, wonderful, strawberries, bunk time. "Like the best thing I've ever heard."
"Glad to hear it. Strap in, it's going to be a great day. The worst is behind us."
Aldi smiled. "The Worst... is Behind Us."
Chapter 33
Comeuppance Comes By
Janson crossed the ship, tracking down their lieutenant's map indicator to the forward lifeboat. When he found the LT he stopped, considered, then left again to return with caf.
It was a delicate situation.
Standing at the very edge of his reach, the big man leaned into the lifeboat and poked the sleeping wom
an in the shoulder with a thermos. This did not provoke a response. He tried an elbow next, slowly pushing it off the console until Jamet's whole arm flopped toward the floor. She mumbled something irritable, then lifted her arm back onto the input shelf and made a pillow out of it to tuck her nose under. Angry mutters evened out into gentle snores again.
He considered the scene: A sleeping young woman, half-in and half-out of the lifeboat bench, draped over the control console in a puddle of unwashed uniform and floppy hair. Every surface within reach of where she rested sported numerous packets of single-use caf dispensers, drifting like snow around discarded cups and balled up sanitizing wipes. Both of the lieutenant's boots were off, laces undone and tucked neatly beneath the emergency crash couches. A folded uniform jacket rested on top of a nearby cushion, next to a portable handheld console with the power turned off. Crouching, he looked beneath the seat and spotted her feet tucked underneath, toes pointed backwards in a catlike flex.
Janson set the thermos down and carefully leaned into the small space. His size made delicate motions hard, but with some slight nudging he managed to bring up the console display. The workspace came to life, projecting an image of a lifeboat navigation simulator onto the forward bulkhead with a very prominent "Catastrophic Collision" in giant red letters. He frowned thoughtfully, then swiped the notice away and watched as the system restarted the simulation from the beginning, placing imaginary navigation obstacles in the way of a pixelated lifeboat course.
The console started audibly counting down to simulated launch. Immediately Jamet began making small sounds of distress, hands slowly opening and closing on imaginary navigation controls. She twitched and muttered, eyebrows diving downwards and face closing up with worry. Hair slowly flopped one way, then the other in slow-motion denial as she fidgeted in place.
Janson tapped a control to pause the simulation.
The lieutenant slowly settled again, hands going still and breathing easing out into quiet, adorable snores.
He stepped carefully out of the lifeboat space and leaned against the edge of the hatch, one large hand stroking his beard like it was the one needing soothing. It was a thinking pose, well suited to his concerned black eyes and lined face, offset by an occasional twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Janson Parks happened to be good at many things in life, from engineering to maintenance and a host of small specialties along the way. Part of that was undeniably a result of guidance from the biochips grown into his brain: It was a fact that industrial accidents tended to leave permanent disabilities. His personal encounter with a malfunctioning ore lifter left him with a broken head and a lot of missing parts, requiring a huge investment in regrowth and assistance. Those chips did a lot for him, not the least of which was keeping the big man upright, mobile and communicating. But they couldn't do everything-- biochips were a tool, not a miracle. A lot of who he was still came down to fundamental nature.
And (perhaps unsurprisingly) Janson was at heart a fundamentally good man. He believed anyone could be better if they desired it and tried hard enough. If they happened to fall short along the way, well... that was another chance to try again. It took a lot to put a dent in his opinion. It made him a likeable kind of person, easy to talk to and believe the best of. But there was another side to his nature, easy to miss beneath the big laughs, bushy beard and kind opinions--
He was observant. In a slow, deliberate way that didn't miss much.
So he stood outside the hatch, eyes roaming the lifeboat and taking in an overload of caf usage, discarded shoes and folded jackets. It was a scene that spoke silently of hours wasted in the same spot, too busy to leave or clean up. That was a lot of time investment in a strange place. But then he noted the LT's handheld console, powered off and discarded. That brought to mind details about Jamet's revoked systems access and her sacrifice to swipe the Executive's ID they needed.
Put together with the navigation simulation running on the lifeboat's console (and the multiple failures implied) Janson thought he could see the bigger picture: A frustrated co-CEO unable to use her personal console, but with access to the boat she'd soon be navigating. Badly needed practice... but in an out of the way place, hidden from unkind opinions and sharp criticism.
Finally he glanced at the clock, noting how early it was in the morning. Mentally he subtracted the hours implied by caf overdoses, discarded clothing and enough repeated simulator failures to cause exhaustion. The answer he came to bother him a little; there couldn't be such a thing as negative sleep time. Either his estimate was wrong or he should be very, very worried about the lieutenant's health. Especially with that many recent injuries-- he could see bruising all the way up her side, peeking shyly around uniform edges.
Janson believed anyone could be a better person, but in his long experience with other people very few put in the hours the new lieutenant did. Likewise not a lot of folks did it so quietly; avoiding attention behind closed doors, literally until they collapsed trying. He could tell the last week was rough on her-- hell, she'd even eaten one of his biscuits-- but until now he hadn't been aware how much effort the battered woman was putting in. But now he had an idea, a quick glimpse at the foundation Jamet was trying to build. It was impressive even by his measure.
Worth being kind to.
Reaching inside he carefully plucked up the folded jacket, then spread the lining and draped it over her shoulders. Jamet tensed for a brief moment, then settled more firmly into the couch, fingers creeping up to hold the warm cloth a little closer.
Janson smiled, closed the lifeboat hatch and left her in peace to slowly drool across the console.
With the caf thermos nearby.
∆∆∆
Jamet dreamed of power and joy.
The lifeboat launched from mother Kipper on wings of retro fire, throwing fear and worries aside as talented hands stroked responsive controls into navigational masterpieces. Her boat spun through vacuum like a phoenix, twirling effortlessly to meet every challenge an enraged system could throw in their path. The console was alive and she knew it, both of them screaming delighted laughter as simulated gods tried to catch their burning tail. They dove and banked for no reason but the joy of it, deliberately diving close to each obstacle just to burn her initials into it before flitting away again. She was perfection in motion, hard as smoke to catch, a ballet full of awesome skill and legendary ability. A portrait of genius, a flash of the fantastic, both everywhere and nowhere at once.
She was Impossible.
She was on the Kipper, sliding from helming the lifeboat to guiding the full ship without a moment's reflection. The ship re-entered Pilster-3 again on a stutter-slash of light, slamming into the same debris storm from their first catastrophic arrival. But this time Jamet thrilled to see it, knew her skill was greater than the challenge and yelled herself hoarse as the Kipper came alive under her demanding touch. Singularities spun around the ship, teasing a liquid course of spirals and whorls through every near miss and almost-collision as she laughed, laughed, laughed. When the jealous attacker finally caught them dancing it dove at her with a thousand eyes and a million hissing cables but Jamet didn't care, it was nothing, she threw singularities like slapping hands that knocked the enemy into a frenzy. Then they were free, turning away to save millions of refugees while the entire crew roared their approval. They needed her! They loved her! They loved her like-
"I love you, J." Kent bumped noses with Jamet, inches away. Eyes like glittering stars in the darkness, breath like gasps between pleasures. "Be my partner." And she would; they could do this, it was their chance at being Uppers! She rolled over in bed and cupped him by the ears, guiding his lips like a starship into a kiss so powerful it broke the courtroom, shocking a cadre of sneering Executives gathered to watch her fall. The Judge looked away, unable to handle how strong she'd become, throwing aside their stupid sanctions and fiscal worries. Because Jamet was above them, above it all! She had a ship and a life and a crew of incredible frie
nds and now she could watch Kent scream as he fell from orbit, spitting promises and lies like malfunctioning retros burning, burning like betrayal like love paid for and stolen, like cold rain on her face-