by Allen Stroud
The only other time we feel an equivalent gravitational force is at times like this, during a burn.
Five g’s is about the same stress as one of those roller coasters people used to ride. People would go on them for fun, shouting and screaming as they flew around loops and bends.
Out here, our softer bodies don’t take the same stress so easily. Living without the constant presence of the gravity that shaped us causes them to change. We have to exercise to maintain our resilience, or otherwise we can’t endure the gravitational force when we need to maneuver. Our bodies shut down and we black out.
As the ship changes position, the chair rotates. A human being can withstand more horizontal force than vertical, so I’m pivoted to best cope. It doesn’t stop everything going grey and blurry. I’m grinding my teeth under the strain. I can barely breathe. I want to move my arms, hug myself into a ball, but I can’t. I know the reaction is instinctive and wouldn’t help, but it doesn’t stop—
“Burn complete,” the ship’s automated voice announces, and I feel the press on my body ease. The course correction and acceleration are done. We’re aiming for the last recorded position of the Hercules. There’ll be further adjustments, but those won’t require the same exertion, until we need to slow down.
There’s a red light flashing on my screen. I blink a few times, my vision clears, and I read the warning. The words make me cold inside. “We’ve got organic contamination in corridor six. Looks like something wasn’t locked down. Cameras are out.”
“It’ll take a few minutes for a team to check,” Duggins says. “We’ve still got systems offline on all decks.”
“Soon as you can, please.”
It takes time for everyone to recover from the aftermath of five gravities. Jacobson’s doing better than me; his recent time on Earth means he’s still got the resistance. Now he’s double-checking his math and recalibrating our position. “Course correction checks out, Captain. We’re exactly where we wanted to be.”
“Good.” I’m unstrapping myself from the chair. When that’s done, I push off toward the door. “Dug, get a team to meet me in corridor six.”
“Aye, aye.”
Chapter Two
Shann
There’s blood, shit, piss and brains floating around in corridor six.
In the corner by the door next to me, there’s a chair. The straps are torn or cut. About twenty metres away, a cloud of organic bits floats around a body, drifting near the far exit.
I’m as far away as I can get without being in another room. I’m wearing a respirator and protective clothing. Next to me is Doc Bogdanovic, who’s completed his visual assessment.
“Looks like he secured the lab and strapped in out here,” Bogdanovic says. “The acceleration made him fall. Would have been like tumbling off a roof, only five times as fast.”
“Poor guy. Was it quick?”
“Can’t tell at the moment. There’s an impact wound in his chest. I can’t see if something punctured his heart, but we should know once we’ve sealed everything up.”
“How many people do you need?”
“Two plus me.”
“Who do you want?”
Bogdanovic frowns behind his plastic mask. “Keiyho has some medical experience, Johansson too. They’d probably be best.”
“You’ll have them. Get to it.”
“Aye, aye.”
Accidents are difficult in space. Right from the beginning, you have to get used to the fact that you’re going to be breathing recycled air and drinking recycled water. However, organic contamination is on another level. If someone cuts themselves, the blood goes everywhere. You have to have a means of collecting it. Localised vacuums help, but this is on a whole different scale.
Specialist Drake from hydroponics weighed a hundred and forty pounds in Earth numbers. That’s a lot of liquid wrapped up in skin. The longer it drifts around the corridor, the more likely some of it will get into the filtration system, and that means we’ll be breathing him in.
Not something I want to think about.
I’m backing out of the door, but I tap the doctor on the shoulder. “How long before you’ll have a full picture?”
Bogdanovic shrugs. “About an hour. Then another hour or so for cleanup.”
I nod. “We’ve time. Until then, this passage is off-limits to anyone else. Bring your report to the briefing.”
“Will do.”
I’m out at the intersection and breathing more easily. The panel slides up, locking the doctor inside. When the other two arrive, they’ll seal the room airtight and work from tanks and respirators. Once the scrubbing’s done, we can use the corridor again.
“Shann to bridge?”
“Bridge receiving. What’s up, Captain?”
“Le Garre, I’m on my way to you. Get going on some projections on the Hercules. I’ll have to start writing up what happened to Drake.”
“Want me to pull the regs?”
“Yes, that’d be a plan.”
I think about the torn strap, floating away from the chair. Had it been cut, or did it give out? Either way, the magnetic locks should have been enough to keep him in his seat. The restraint system has a whole list of redundancies and backups, just like everything up here.
In all my years in space, I’ve never had an incident like this.
Jonathan Drake was serving on this ship before I signed on. He was from Scotland and served on board for five or six years, supervising the hydroponics bay. He was in his midthirties and one of the highest performers in our physical examinations. Certainly not a candidate for some kind of panic attack or blackout, but I guess you never know.
Drake was also a really nice guy – quiet, seriously into his plants and a regular member of the board-game club in the recreation lounge. He had an exemplary record. We weren’t close, but I can’t remember us ever disagreeing on anything.
What happened here?
I’m back on the bridge, returning to my seat. Le Garre’s turned around, watching me. “What’s the protocol, Major?” I ask.
She shrugs. “The regulations are circumstance dependent. I think some of the scientists who wrote them were in a dark place at the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…there are a lot of references to ‘organic mass’ and ‘reconstitution processing’.” Le Garre frowns. “However, ‘Captain’s Discretion’ is at the top of the page.”
There’s bile in my mouth. I swallow it back, but it leaves an aftertaste. “We’re not some lost expeditionary mission desperately trying to conserve resources, so there’s no need for that here. Once Bogdanovic is done, we bag up Drake and seal him in a container with the cargo. When we make port at Ceres, they can work out what needs to happen next.”
Le Garre nods. “Is the cause of death known?”
“He fell out of his chair and smashed into the ship wall while we were accelerating.” I’m floating over my seat, my hand resting on the chair back. I scoop up one of the loose straps. “His harness gave way.”
“Those straps don’t fall apart,” Duggins drawls. “Sabotage?”
“We don’t know. The corridor’s on lockdown. The doctor’s got two people helping him.” I look at Le Garre. “I’m pretty sure the regs require an executive officer to lead an inquiry.”
“They do,” she says. “That means you, me or Travers.”
Travers. My thoughts turn to the sleeping lieutenant who is due to take shift in about four hours. My executive officer is a reliable man. We’ve worked together ever since I got the commission. He’d been on the Khidr under the previous captain. “Travers hasn’t been part of any of this so far. Best it be you or me.”
“Then it’s me,” Le Garre replies.
“Done.”
* * *
The next hour is filled with mi
nor course corrections and a damage assessment.
Duggins and his team go over the ship, checking all the interior compartments. There are no further issues. The techs even check the strapping on the acceleration seats. None of them show any sign of ripping or giving out.
When he’s done, he returns to the bridge and I help him brief the others on where we are.
“We’ll have to contact the Fleet. We stick to what we know for now. Jonathan Drake died during a course correction. We’re investigating the circumstances. Not much more we can say.”
“What about family?” Jacobson asks. “Do we want to say something to them?”
“It’s unlikely they’ll be informed until we provide more information,” I explain. “Our notification of what’s happened should just be the facts for now. We can send condolences later.”
Jacobson frowns but doesn’t say anything else, so I press on. “Keiyho is still down in corridor six, and Le Garre’s going to be busy over the next few hours. I need you to play pilot and comms until the duty shift change. Can you do that?”
His frown fades but doesn’t completely disappear. “Sure, Captain, I can patch both systems through to my screen,” he replies. “So long as we don’t get into trouble, things should be fine.”
“Good. Keep trying to get hold of the Hercules. I want an update. Anything you can get on her full manifest and new position.” Giving the new ensign responsibility is a good tactic. It’ll keep his mind on the mission while we manage other matters. “If you need to make any significant adjustments, you alert me. Got it?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Get someone else in here if you need them too.”
“Aye, aye.”
I turn to Duggins and Le Garre. “Wake up Travers and meet me in the briefing room. We need to fill him in and work out our next steps. Spin up the gravity deck. We’ll talk there.”
Duggins grunts an acknowledgment, and Le Garre nods. I’m planning for the worst-case scenario here. Someone may have murdered Drake. That means there’s a killer loose on my ship.
We move out of the room.
* * *
Generated gravity isn’t the same as the real thing. You can feel the difference, the subtle shifting as the ship’s torus spins. I guess some people can ignore it.
I can’t.
Spending time on the gravity deck isn’t something I enjoy. I’m strapped into a set of lightweight cybernetic limbs that jack straight into the nerve endings on my spine. They have some anticipatory software to supplement my control of them, and I can walk just as easily as anyone else. Under a one-piece work suit, anyone who didn’t know would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between me and anyone else.
But I know, and I never forget.
There are seven individuals in the crew who use prosthetic limbs. Much as we share the experience, we’ve all got different takes. It’s an occasional discussion point, but not one that makes us some kind of community or group. We’re people, not factions. Space has that effect on most of us, improving our international perspective.
We keep the windows blacked out up here; the motion makes some feel sick when they look out. That means the meeting room is like being in a dingy office, cut off from the rest of the crew.
“You wanted to see me, Captain?”
Travers looks like he hasn’t slept well. He’s a bearded African American thirty-something from Boston with more years as a bridge officer out here than both me and Le Garre combined. He’s not due on shift for another four hours, but given the circumstances, I need to make sure he’s fully briefed.
“How much have you been told?”
“I spoke to Bogdanovic before coming here. His people are just finishing up.”
“So, you know about Drake and the Hercules?”
“I’ve got the basics, yes.”
“Okay.” I’m standing and leaning over a table. A quick touch of the surface and it fades into black, punctuated by stars. Circles appear, coloured to represent planets and other objects. The Khidr is a blue dot, travelling along a red line toward another blue dot.
The Hercules.
“This is the updated tracking position based on calculations from after the course correction. We’re just waiting on a new transponder ping from them and we’ll make adjustments.”
“I see.” Travers leans over the other side of the table. “Was there any additional information in the distress signal to give us an idea of what to expect?”
I glance at Le Garre. She gives me that smile again. “Not much; it was from the automated system, relaying position, distress and mentioned drive trouble.”
“That could mean a shutdown or lockout,” Duggins says. “If it’s the former, we can probably help with a quick repair. If it’s the latter, we may have to park the ship and evacuate the crew.”
“I take it you’re preparing for either scenario?” I ask Duggins.
He snorts. “Of course, but we’ll know more when we get the next transponder reading.”
Drive lockout isn’t a common malfunction. When a ship performs a burn, commands are sent to the engines from the bridge. The drives spin up, and hydrogen fuel is ignited to push the ship in the direction required. The requirements for course corrections are very carefully calculated, so each use of directional thrust is measured in the amount of fuel to be used and the necessary duration.
After activation, sometimes a drive won’t shut down; it remains open – locked out and burning until the fuel tank exhausts itself.
If that happened to the Hercules, she might be locked in some sort of spin or fast course that she can’t correct. Either will make docking with her very difficult.
Le Garre taps on the blue dot we’re heading for. “I wonder why the crew haven’t messaged? I wonder what’s happened to them?”
“Won’t know till we’re there,” Duggins replies with the obvious.
“How many personnel are you going to need?” I ask.
“Six if we’re lucky and it’s a shutdown,” he says. “Just a case of finding out what’s wrong with the engines and repairing them. If the situation’s more complicated, it could take all of us.”
“Who do you want to brief?”
“The selected rescue team first. Then we’ll do two briefing shifts, provided that’s okay with you?”
“It is.”
“Great.”
“We shouldn’t rule out other possibilities,” Le Garre says. “It’ll be a while until we’re there. The situation could have worsened by the time we arrive.”
“We plan with the data we’ve got,” I say. “Let’s save the speculation for item two on the agenda.”
“You mean Drake?”
“Yes.”
There’s an awkward silence between us all. I chew my lip and look at each of them, but no one wants to meet my eye. “The worst case needs to be planned for.”
“And that is?” Travers asks.
“That we have a murderer on board.”
The words defy generated gravity and hang in the air between us. Eventually, Le Garre clears her throat.
“You gave me responsibility for the investigation,” she says. “How do you want it done?”
“Start with the scene. Get everything you can from Bogdanovic and then report back to us here. If there’s any evidence to suggest this wasn’t an accident, we’ll move on to interviewing all crew members, one by one.”
“And we do this in the middle of a rescue operation?”
“We have to. If there’s a murderer, we can’t leave them running around the ship. The longer we delay, the more chance they have to hide their tracks or the more damage they might do.”
“Fair point.”
“At this stage, who can we trust?” Duggins asks.
I smile at him. “You know where I was; I know where you were
. Same with Le Garre, Keiyho and Jacobson.” I turn to Travers. “Where did you secure yourself?”
“In my room. I was sleeping when the call came in.”
“Anyone able to verify that?”
“No. Is that a problem, Captain?”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Le Garre says. “First step is to find out what happened.”
“Yes,” Travers says, his tone neutral and his gaze flicking over each of us. “I’m sure a few other people will find themselves in the same situation as me.”
“You’re not being accused of anything, Bill,” I say.
“I know,” he replies, giving me a thin-lipped smile.
“What about camera footage?” Duggins asks.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. Personal surveillance is classified on board a Fleet ship. Crew members are entitled to privacy in their rooms unless there is a good reason to breach that privacy. The ship has cameras and records continuously in all locations, but only the captain can authorise a viewing of footage from someone’s room.
“Stick with public access for now,” I tell Le Garre. “If we complete the interviews and you need to view anything else, I’ll make a judgement.”
“That might compromise your position as judge,” Travers says.
“If it does, you’ll have to step up,” I tell him.
Travers smiles, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s still pissed about the verification question. “I wasn’t volunteering.”
“Too bad.”
Duggins pulls something out of his pocket and drops it onto the table, making the stars, planets and course track vanish. It’s an acceleration-seat strap.
“When I heard the strap had failed, I pulled this from corridor five for a comparison to the broken one,” he says. “Replaced it with one from stores. Take a look.”