Fearless

by Allen Stroud

  “Of course, come in.”

  Shah enters. He’s as beat up as I am, but his dark hair and dark skin conceals it better. He’s much older than me, in his late forties, I guess. There’s a thick bandage around his head, and he winces when he moves. I offer him the chair and he takes it with a nod of thanks.

  “I guess you’ve told Le Garre what happened to you?” I ask.

  “Yes, I’ve gone through all the details with her. She wanted to talk to you first, but the doctor said no. He gave her something to help her sleep. Apparently, she can’t do that.”

  “I don’t think any of us will be getting much sleep.”

  “No, probably not.”

  I’m staring at Shah as he gathers himself, working out where he wants to start and what he wants to say. I don’t rush him. My own brain is struggling to cope with the basics at the moment.

  “Firstly, I wanted to thank you for coming for us. I mean, I know this hasn’t turned out how anyone wanted, but we called for help and you came; that means a great deal.”

  “We did what we’re supposed to do, Technician,” I say.

  Shah shrugs. “Okay, well, it still means a lot to me. I was a long time out there thinking I was going to die, suffocating in a metal tube. I very nearly gave up. Seeing your people… Well…I’ll never be able to say thank you enough.”

  “Were you on your own?” I ask gently.

  “At the end, yes,” Shah says. “They couldn’t find me after we set the distress call.”

  “That was you?”

  “Me and Peters. We were down in the manifest when they attacked the bridge. We ran away and hid, then came back and activated the beacon. They found us and shot him.”

  “They came aboard?”

  “They were always aboard. They attacked us from inside and out. When the captain wouldn’t surrender, they launched missiles.”

  “You think their plan was to capture your ship?”

  “At the start.” Shah chews his lip for a moment. “When we first picked them up on the scope, the captain called us into a whole crew briefing. He gave us a set of codes and made us memorise them. Said they’d be needed if we were rescued. Major Le Garre said I should talk to you about that?”

  Realisation dawns in my fog-filled mind. “Yes, you should,” I say.

  * * *

  “Welcome to the executive summary of Project Outreach. I am Doctor Aki Kuranawa from the University of Kyoto. If this is your first viewing of our proposed strategy, I recommend accessing the relevant data and reports provided alongside our presentation, so you can follow our methodology and see the evidence behind our conclusions.

  “A summary of our findings is as follows:

  Within ten years, Earth governments will no longer financially support manned spaceflights.

  Colonial settlements will require regular shipments of life-support resources for the next century. Mars might become self-sufficient before this, but it will still need essential resources.

  Solely commercial space operations will not be financially viable for at least twenty years.

  A solution for the above issues will need to be found; otherwise our settlements on Luna, Mars and Ceres are in danger of being abandoned.

  “Project Outreach looks to provide that solution by establishing an independent infrastructure base away from Earth. The project has already identified possible replacement sources of the essential components we currently ship from Earth. A selection of new technologies will be required to obtain these resources quickly, as the environments they exist in are not ones we can quickly make suitable for human habitation. Therefore, extensive autonomous technology must be constructed and shipped out to these sites to begin the necessary work.

  “Our detailed plan explains how this will be done. We hope you will agree with our findings.”

  The image disappears from the screen, and we’re all left staring in silence.

  We’re back in the strategy room on the gravity deck. The torus is damaged and no longer able to rotate, but we can access the compartments. This is as good a place as any to discuss our next move.

  The lack of gravity changes this place for me. I’m not shackled or restricted by having to wear prosthetics. We’re clustered around the table, but there’s no need to sit and obey some sort of meeting ritual anymore. I know the others would prefer things the way they were, but I like it like this. Although, I wish the circumstances that brought us here were different.

  The group has expanded. With me are Travers, Le Garre, Duggins, Keiyho and Technician Shah, who supplied the correct code to unlock the files.

  “The corporations are building a claim for independence from Earth,” Le Garre whispers.

  “Looks more like an insurance policy to me,” Travers says. “If the conclusions from the data are right, we’ll all need a backup plan when this goes down.”

  “Did you know what your ship was carrying?” Duggins asks Shah.

  Shah shakes his head. “I’ve been a freighter tech for eight years. We check cargo under security supervision according to the agreed protocols. We don’t open containers without permission.”

  Duggins sighs. “It occurs to me, Technician, we’ve only got your word for all this. You might very well be a saboteur from your own ship.”

  Shah stares at him, expressionlessly. After a moment, he says softly, “You think I’d intentionally seal myself in that corridor? Let myself be poisoned by the air, just on the off chance someone would rescue me?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Duggins says. “But I guess you’re right.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think we need to assess our current place in this,” I say. I take a breath and start going through it all, aloud. “We’ve responded to a distress call from the Hercules. The ship that attacked it is not on any manufacturing or construction manifest. We now know the freighter was transporting secret supplies for the building of an illegal colony. The Gallowglass acted to stop it.”

  “By killing innocent people,” Duggins says.

  “The point is that we’re caught in the middle,” I say. “There’s no right path. This is the start of some kind of secret war between two factions that we don’t understand or belong to. We’re trying to follow orders that don’t take any of this into account.”

  “Whatever we believe is right, we have an enemy ship following us that’s trying to ensure none of us survive,” Keiyho says.

  “You best update me on our situation,” I say.

  Keiyho shrugs. “We’re moving at fifteen thousand metres per second, the fastest we can manage and also decelerate in time when we get close to Phobos. The resonance drive is gone, so this is our best speed. With rationing of air, food and water, we can just about make it.”

  “How long until we get there?”

  “Approximately four weeks.”

  “The Gallowglass?”

  “She’s in pursuit. We damaged her drives, but I don’t know how much. We’ve got a lead. We may keep it; we may not. If they catch up to us, then we may have some tricks, but judging from the readout Johansson got of their ship, we won’t last long.”

  “What did we learn about them?”

  “The ship is based on the same design as ours,” Duggins says, “in that it’s a set of joined modular containers, all filled with specialist equipment and linked together with access corridors. She’s got at least one hundred and fifty per cent of our power. I estimate they’re using larger fission reactors, or they’ve got three to our two. There’s an additional rocket cluster and some experimental weaponry, as we’ve experienced. The reason they’re able to do all that and be about the same size as us is because they aren’t carrying all the rescue equipment and extra reserves we have aboard. That said, the only reason we’re still alive is because of those reserves.”

  “Tell me abo
ut the weapons.”

  “Guided missiles and some kind of signal interference net. That’s why some of our rockets detonated before they hit the ship’s hull,” Duggins explains. “Any sort of electronic detonation appears to be affected by it – a neat trick. When we have time, we’ll adapt our warheads so they don’t use systems like that.”

  “Okay.” I turn to Le Garre. “What about your investigation?”

  Le Garre sighs. “I questioned Arkov. His reason for leaving his post and panicking when Quartermaster Chase confronted him seems plausible, particularly after what you told me about your workstation on the bridge.”

  “Did you speak to Chase?”

  “I started to, but then everything around here went to shit. He’s my next interview, as soon as I leave here.”

  “Do you think Arkov is innocent?”

  “I don’t know,” Le Garre says. “What I do know is that while he was locked up, we had no further incident during the altercation with the Gallowglass.”

  “We’re short-handed,” Duggins says. “We can’t spare people to watch him.”

  “Then we don’t watch him,” I say. “We make sure he has everything he needs, but we keep him in his quarters under security override.”

  “Fine,” Le Garre says.

  I glance at Duggins. “What do we need to repair?”

  “Everything,” he replies with a humourless smile. “To begin with, we need to stop losing atmosphere. The leaks we have are microscopic cracks, the sort that a construction crew finds with a sweep before or during shakedown, but that’s not our situation. I need as many people as possible going over this ship to find them.”

  “After that?”

  “After that we look at trying to repair things that’ll keep us alive,” Duggins says. “We’ve no external communication and we’re currently flying blind. The only reason we know we’re pointed in the right direction is that your ensigns on the bridge are using all sorts of old-school tricks.”

  Travers chuckles. “Heaven forbid you praise Jacobson. He’ll be impossible to manage afterward.”

  “What can you repair in the way of weapons?” I ask.

  Duggins looks at Keiyho. “Two rocket launchers are functional,” he says. “We’ve discussed rotating and adapting a third to drop explosives behind us.”

  “You mean, like mines?”

  “Yes, it makes sense,” Keiyho says. “The Gallowglass is starting from the same position we were in, so their course will be almost identical to chase us down. According to Johansson’s damage assessment, they’ve lost some manoeuvering too, so that’ll help. We don’t need an increase of speed; we need deceleration. That may take as much fuel, but it doesn’t require as much aiming to get right. The more our explosives decelerate, the quicker they’ll encounter the enemy ship. If they detect them, they’ll have to slow down or adjust course. Either way, we’ll increase our lead.”

  “Four weeks is still a long time,” Travers says. “Too long, if you ask me.”

  Those words hang in the air. No one disagrees.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Johansson

  “You’re relieved.”

  I look up. Ensign Chiu is next to my station. She looks tired, but her voice is firm and insistent. “Travers says you’ve been here since the attack and you pulled extra time before. You need a break.”

  “You’re not qualified for the comms post,” I say.

  “Combat protocol means bridge crew rotates,” Chiu replies. “That’s the priority. I can handle the basics.”

  I lean back in my seat, getting a better look at my screen. It’s filled with windows, half-finished tasks I’ve started and got distracted from as new problems arose.

  What am I achieving? Looks like nothing.

  “Okay.” I start unstrapping myself from the chair. I’ve never really got on with Chiu, but then when you’re on a tour of duty with the same twenty-five people, you learn to be polite and professional about these things. I know she’s Korean, from the reclaimed territories. I can’t imagine what life could be like there. Perhaps one day we’ll swap stories.

  For now, though, no.

  I leave the bridge. The damage in the corridor outside is extensive. There are scorch marks on the walls and sealant foam in places. The Khidr has an automated control system, which activates in the event of a hull breach. There are sensors embedded throughout the ship that can trigger emergency measures. Redundant systems and backups upon backups are all part of the design of a spaceship. They always have been, all the way back to Vostok and Apollo.

  My head knows all that, but I’ve some kind of gut feeling of being vulnerable and powerless. There’s a big difference between a fabricated section of the ship designed and tested to hold pressure and a repaired section of the same. All the compartments will need to be checked and assessed again. In the meantime, we’re hoping it holds. These walls might crack and blow out at any moment.

  I guess that’s what happened to Tomlins or Thakur, or any one of the others. One minute they were in a lit atmospheric compartment, and the next they were out in the dark, drifting away with no air. They say one of the things you feel is the saliva on your tongue bubbling and that you black out pretty fast, but even so, that moment of knowing there’s nothing to breathe…

  No one deserves to die like that.

  Still, at least we got confirmation about the captain’s condition. Apparently, she’s already back to work.

  I’m making my way back to my room, but then I have a thought. While I’m exhausted, I know I won’t sleep. I feel guilty for taking a rest while everyone else gets on with the job. I know it’s irrational, but that’s part of how I am. Doctor Bogdanovic can prescribe sedatives during a combat protocol without a comment on my file. They might give me a chance of at least resting, or switching off.

  I turn around and start heading toward medical. As I get close, I hear Bogdanovic talking, but when I round the corner, he’s on his own, examining a set of vials he’s just pulled out from a shelf. He looks up.

  “Help you, Ensign?”

  “I, uh, yes. I’ve just been sent to rest. I’m not sure I can.”

  “So, you came here for a sedative?”

  “If possible, yes.”

  Bogdanovic nods. He looks at me, but when I meet his eye, his gaze flicks away to somewhere else. “Well, you’re not the first person I’ve seen about this since our little altercation. I can give you a shot, or a couple of pills. Depends how you’re feeling and how long until people will need you.”

  “Just the pills, thanks. Hopefully, I can get a couple of hours.”

  “Okay.” Bogdanovic turns to a screen on the wall and brings up my medical record. “Says here you have a ketamine allergy?”

  “I do.”

  “Best we keep you away from that then.”

  I glance around the room. Something’s not right. There’s no one here, so who was he talking to? Bogdanovic is exhausted just like the rest of us, but he’s being very careful in what he says to me. We’re not close, but he asked for me to help with the Drake analysis and cleanup, which means he rates me. We would be closer, I guess, but I try to avoid anyone who might find cause to mark my card. Still, it’d be strange not to say something now.

  “Something troubling you, Doctor?”

  He turns toward me, his expression stony, but then he forces a smile. “Just tired,” he says. “We’re all up against it.”

  “I’d offer to help, but…”

  “Yeah, you’re too busy already. I’ll manage. When people die, it all gets…real? We have to detach a little bit to handle it all.”

  “I get that.”

  “I know; that’s why I’m telling you. Other people…” The doctor hesitates then continues. “Other people expect you to show you care, like everyone’s a favourite puppy. They don’t realise you can
’t do that in this job. It breaks you if you do, makes you feel personally responsible. I’m sorry that sounds harsh—”

  I hold up a hand. “No, I understand, I’ve been there.” Bogdanovic knows my background. He doesn’t need me to elaborate.

  “Sure.” Bogdanovic hands me a container. There are four pills in it. “Take one and see how you do. You can take them all without a problem, but you might not wake up for a while.”

  “I’ll be careful, thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I make my way out and back toward my room. I think I hear sounds of talking again. I’ve half a mind to stop and listen, but that’s not me. If Bogdanovic is coping by talking to himself, then fine. I totally get his point. All medical professionals try to establish that professional distance. It’s an ongoing struggle to maintain it, particularly when you see some of the things your patients are going through. It has to be harder when you’re locked away with the same people for months, like we are on tour. Each face is someone you get used to seeing – a part of your routine and your daily life. When they go, that’s a change, a little destabilisation. We get used to it and move on, but in these moments, where everything is threatened, it’s hard to accept these things properly and process them. The missing people are like the damage to the walls. We’re structurally weaker without them. All we can do is plaster over the cracks and hope.

  I reach my room, open the door and move inside. This feels like a safe space, but really, there aren’t any safe spaces, not anymore.

  Chapter Twenty

  Shann

  Three hours later, I’m back on the bridge and the medication is wearing off.

  Gradually I’m learning more about what happened at the end of the battle. The missile I’d seen coming toward us struck the deck just below the bridge, destroying a water purification compartment. The impact tore my chair from its moorings and sent me crashing into the wall. Travers and Keiyho had to free me and get me to Bogdanovic.

  The bridge is a wreck compared to what I’m used to. Screens and consoles have been replaced with temporary equipment from store. There are cables trailing everywhere, like snakes floating in water. They’ll need to be bolted down, but for now they’re a necessary hazard while we get on with more urgent repairs.