by Allen Stroud
The hydroponics compartment was where the bomb was. The Khidr’s systems reacted immediately to the explosion, sealing off a large section of the ship. In the aftermath, we left things as they were. The portion of the ship I’m in now has no essential combat facilities, so there was no need to assess what we have left.
Now though, with the amount of structural damage we have from taking on the Gallowglass, it all needs checking out. It’ll be a lonely task and it’ll take a long time.
Just the kind of job I like.
The walls, ceiling and floor are blackened and marked. There are tears in the inner metal membrane; I’ve no doubt there are tears in the outside layers too. Both ships were equipped and firing automatic weapons at each other. Bullets can act like pins in a balloon when they pierce a pressurised section of a spaceship. Thankfully, modern hulls are designed with multiple layers that can flex and react to damage. There’s a process a bit like blood clotting, where some of the fabrics in the middle of the ship’s skin will turn sticky and gum up an abrasion or tear to prevent it spreading.
Of course, none of that works when you’re dealing with a laser, designed to cut straight through everything.
My atmospheric pressure detector starts to go off. There’s a leak in here and I’ll need to find it quickly; otherwise we’ll lose our oxygen reserve and suffocate. According to the repair diagnostic, there are at least six leaks the computer has detected all across the ship that we’ve yet to fix.
I turn around and seal the hatch, containing the compartment. Then I reach for the emergency ‘ox’ mask in the corner of the room and turn off the pressure regulator, which has been maintaining the room’s atmospheric balance. The pressure loss rate has been analysed by my portable metre. It’s pretty small, so I should be safe enough to work in here for a bit, and the gradual reduction will help me find the leak.
I grab the metre and switch programmes, activating the air disturbance pictograph. The device runs, and a scan and three-dimensional representation of the room appears. There’s a coloured swirl around me and the door, showing where I’ve come from. That’ll settle down and fade away. What I need to find are other areas of moving air, which might indicate where the atmosphere is escaping from the room…
There it is! Right in the corner, at the back of a storage unit. I open the panel, empty out the contents, bring up my foam gun and fill the space. Once I’m done, I shut the container and wait. After a few minutes, the pressure metre beeps. The leak is sealed.
Damn, I wish they were all this easy.
I reactivate the pressure regulator and replace the ‘ox’ mask in the safety box. I take a drink from the water feed attached to my work suit. Corridor seven is as far as we can go. Beyond it, all that remains is jagged debris. The whole biological facility that contributed to the Khidr’s recycling and reclamation system is gone. In terms of food and water, we’re running on whatever stores we’ve got, unless Duggins can work out another way to wash piss and process shit as fertiliser, but that’s a way down the priority list right now.
I look out through the hatch’s DuraGlas screen again, out into the remains of the other compartments. If I wanted to destroy the ship, I’d have put explosives in the oxygen feed. Every section of the Khidr is connected by the atmospheric piping. Pure oxygen is highly flammable and has to be constantly mixed with other gases to compensate for our respiration. There would be no coming back from that. Whoever blew up the laboratory knew exactly what they were doing to damage the ship, but not blow it to pieces.
I’m thinking about the intruder again. Was he on board when this happened? Had he stowed away when we were last in dock on Phobos? If that was the case, even if he could have avoided being picked up on the cameras, eventually the computer would have picked up his presence and registered a change in atmosphere comparable to an extra passenger. No, he had to have come over here recently. Maybe got on board while we were tethered to the freighter.
That means he can’t have killed Drake. Was that an accident? If it wasn’t, we’ve got two traitors on board.
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Shann
I wake up some time later, still partially sitting in the chair. My alarm is going off. That means I’m due on shift in thirty minutes. I feel awful. Doctor Bogdanovic said I might. The amount of different drugs I’ve had in my system has thrown my body out of whack.
The screen in front of me brightens as I move. The last thing I was looking at appears. It’s Technician Shah’s personnel file, listing all his qualifications and experience. Everything looks fine and checks out.
Why didn’t he tell me about the third person and the camera?
I’m nauseated and hungry at the same time. I need to eat; I know that. There are vacuum-packed plastic meals in a compartment across the room. I pull out two and open the nozzles. I make time to consume all of it.
I’m chewing through the last of my meal when the screen flashes up a comms request. It’s Le Garre. I open it. “Yes, Major?”
“Captain, can you stop by? I may have something to share.”
“That makes two of us. Are you in your room?”
“Yes, and there’s coffee.”
“Great, I’m on my way.”
I extricate myself from the chair and make my way out. The trip to Le Garre’s quarters is without incident. She opens the door, greeting me with a tense smile.
“Come in.”
“Thanks.”
Le Garre hands me a portable screen and one of the zero gravity cups. The coffee is warm through the membrane. I sip it carefully while looking at the screen. There’s a diagram with crew names dotted across it. They’re connected with lines and notations. “Keiyho’s little speech last night let me know he was thinking along the same lines as me. I’ve been correlating people’s locations and alibis for each incident. The conclusion is interesting.”
I frown at the screen, trying to make sense of it. “Who’s your chief suspect?” I ask.
“No one,” Le Garre replies.
“What?”
“No one,” Le Garre repeats. “Every surviving member of the crew has verified evidence of being somewhere for one or another of the incidents through camera footage or unprompted witness testimony from someone else.”
“Where does that leave us?” I ask.
“Facing the prospect that we’re not dealing with an individual. We’re dealing with a mutiny.”
The word makes me shiver. No captain ever wants to hear it. Out here, in the cold void, we’re far from any institutions or support at the best of times, and these aren’t the best of times.
“I found something too,” I say. I switch the screen to display the security camera feed and pause the footage on the last frame. “That’s Shah,” I say. “Did he mention disabling the security cameras to you?”
“No, he did not,” Le Garre says. She’s staring intently at the image. “Why would he want to conceal this?”
“We’ll need to ask him,” I say. “Otherwise, do we need to be watching our backs?”
“I think so,” Le Garre says. “Now we’re sure of Keiyho, I’d recommend we revisit the deployment of firearms to the senior officers. Particularly in light of what happened to you.”
“Makes sense,” I agree. “Can you handle that while I speak to Shah?”
“Yes,” Le Garre says. “I’ll be discreet. We’ll also need a contingency plan. I’ll run some ideas past him and Duggins.”
“Good.” I hand the empty coffee cup back to Le Garre.
* * *
Technician Shah has been given Tomlins’s compartment. Shah’s off shift, so he should be in. I press the door buzzer and hear a muffled grunt.
“Shah, its Captain Shann, can we talk?”
There are sounds of movement from inside. I’m worried for a moment; I’ve been attacked, and Le G
arre is talking about us needing personal weapons. Now here I am waiting to question a complete stranger about why he’s lied to me.
I touch my comms bead, switching it to record mode. The door opens, and I swallow my concerns. “Can I come in?” I ask.
Shah smiles. “Of course, Captain,” he says.
I enter and wait until the door is closed and Shah is back in the middle of the small room. “How can I help?” he asks.
“I need to clear something up.” I pull out Le Garre’s portable screen with the frozen image of him. “What can you tell me about what’s happening here?” I ask.
Shah’s face crumples into a beaten expression. He sighs. “That was a shameful moment,” he says. He looks at me. “Please, Captain, I would rather not talk about what happened.”
“I understand you’ve had a traumatic experience,” I say. “But if we’re to trust one another, I need the truth.”
Shah nods; his head drops. “I thought I’d been careful,” he says. His hand goes to a chest pocket on his work suit. “You’ll want to view this as well.” He holds out a data chip.
I take it and plug it into the screen. There’s one more video file, a better angle on the three figures moving the crates. I watch as the scene dissolves into a struggle. One man pins another to the floor. The third goes to the wall and disables a camera. “That was me,” Shah says. “I’m not proud of that, or what comes next.”
I watch as Shah in the video moves back to the other two. Light gleams off a knife. A hand raises and falls, raises and falls, again and again. The man on the floor writhes as he is stabbed multiple times.
“That was you,” I say.
“Yes,” Shah admits softly. “I did that, but I had a reason.”
“Explain.”
“I told you, they were already on board our ship,” Shah says. “Specialist Hutton was their inside man. He opened their container and tried to lock the rest of us out of the computer system. I… I had to do something.”
“You killed him.”
“Yes. Peters and I went with him to the airlock, and then we did what the captain asked us to do. I didn’t mention it because…I didn’t want anything to sully their names. Hutton deserves… He deserves to be forgotten.”
“You’ve taken a life,” I say. “That’s a hard thing to deal with.”
“I’ll cope,” Shah says. He smiles at me sadly. “This should be the least of your problems. I want to help.”
I nod. “Technician, you know the situation we’re in. I need to be able to trust you. Is there anything else you haven’t told me or Major Le Garre?”
Shah shakes his head. “I can’t think of anything, but if something becomes important, I’ll tell you straightaway; you have my word, Captain.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” I pull the data chip from the portable screen and hand it back to him. “I’ve taken a copy. I can’t promise we’ll cover up all the stuff about Hutton, but I’ll only use it if I have to.”
“I appreciate that, Captain, thank you.”
“Of course.”
A moment later I’m outside and deactivating the recording from my comms bead. I make my way to the bridge. Jacobson is there with Travers and Chiu. Travers nods to me as I enter and unstraps himself from the command chair. “Update is the airlock has been repaired and we’re about ready to attempt the EVA for communication repair, Captain,” he says.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” I reply. “Who are our volunteers?”
“Johansson and Chase are in suits and ready to go. Technician Arkov is at his station to assist.”
The mention of Arkov’s name makes me tense. I think back over our conversation. I believe what he said to me, but did he tell me the whole truth? Le Garre was right; no incidents occurred while he was confined, until the situation with Rocher, but she’s also right to point out everyone has alibis. I want to trust Arkov.
I’m strapping myself into my seat and logging in to the system. I glance at Ensign Chiu. “Anything else I need to be aware of?” I ask.
“Not from me, Captain,” she says.
“Gallowglass has increased speed,” Jacobson says. “She’ll be on us in one hundred and eight hours, Captain.”
“Okay, bring up communications with the EVA team,” I order. “Open a channel between them and us. Also, activate working external cameras.”
“Aye, aye,” Jacobson says. A collection of options appear on my screen as he initialises all the feeds. I select the ones I want, prioritising external views of the new transmitter site and the mission briefing Duggins has prepared. He’s picked a fresh position, abandoning any attempt to repair the old system. As I read through his instructions, this makes sense. The Khidr is a huge electronic network, beneath the outer hull. The new position is a redundant access point to that network, requiring minimal cutting to connect up to. It’s also sheltered by the torus section. Once the exterior equipment is planted and patched through, Duggins and his people can do all the wire fixing inside the ship. They can test as they go, which should eliminate any need for further EVAs to check faults.
At least, that’s the theory.
“Bridge to EVA, all set?”
“Receiving, bridge, this is Chase. We’re ready.”
“Proceed.”
“Thank you.”
Ensign Johansson is the best person for this job. Her expertise with our communication system is past proven to me. She has a rare talent. I worked a similar post to hers when I was on Earth Five, so I can appreciate and admire her gift and dedication, but she’s not experienced in EVA repair. Duggins or Keiyho would have chosen to send Sam with her. I trust him implicitly. I wonder how things were between him and Arkov before he went out. I’m sure Sam would have settled it up front, like he does with most things.
“We’re outside,” Sam says over comms. “Moving toward the site.”
“Copy, we have you on feed,” Jacobson replies.
For the most part, a space walk is the same whether the object you’re walking on is travelling at speed or not. I’ve always found that difficult to get my head around. When it’s you outside, you don’t have any sense of movement; there’s no frame of reference. The sensations you might get on a skydive, of the air rushing past or the ground coming to meet you, don’t exist in space because there is no air or ground. Or, you think about driving a car, on a road – there’s no visual frame guide. You can’t look out the window and see things moving in relation to your position. Yes, there are things in space, but most are so far away all the time the small change in where we are isn’t something our eyes and brains can usually detect.
Velocities are relative, so you’re travelling with your ship. Pushing off and floating forward is you travelling a bit faster, and so on.
The whole concept goes against your instincts. A space walk on a moving ship sounds like it’s more dangerous and there are greater risks if someone falls or slips, but actually the risk is almost the same as when the ship’s stationary.
“They’ve reached the new plant site, Captain,” Chiu says.
“Okay, proceed as ordered,” I reply. In this case, there’s a whole set of extra reasons we don’t want too many EVAs. Our airlock is patched together with a temporary foam sealant designed to seal pressure leaks, but an airlock is different. It’s subjected to changes in pressure during each time of use. One trip is a risk; two is worse.
Something else is on my mind. I shift the monitoring cameras to the left of my screen and bring up the other working exterior feeds. There are twenty working units out there. I’m sure Duggins has scrolled through them all, assessing the damage to the ship. I can see dark scars and ruptures where laser fire from the Gallowglass cut through our hull and twisted metal where her missiles caught us. The smooth manufactured surfaces I once glimpsed are a thing of the past. This is an unfamiliar lands
cape, one of injury and endurance. The Khidr is the most important member of our crew, and here I see just how much she is suffering for us as she grits her teeth and powers on.
I’m thinking about Rocher and our speculation of how he got aboard the ship. I access the exterior camera to the drone garage. The compartment is wrecked, but the monitoring camera is operational. I issue commands to it, getting a three-sixty pan across the section. There’s a cable trailing out of the entrance. Evidence to back up our suspicions.
“EVA team to Khidr, we’re almost done out here,” Sam says.
“Copy that, EVA,” I say in response. “How’s your oxygen level?”
“Got about an hour left each, Captain.”
“Good. I wondered if you could check something else for me.”
“I guess so.” Sam sounds hesitant but willing. “Makes sense to do it while we’re out here.”
“Can you take a walk over to section thirty-three? The drone garage exterior launch.”
“Sure, we’ll finish up and do that.”
“Thank you.”
I switch windows to Johansson’s head camera. She’s threading connections through freshly drilled holes in the hull plate. Sam’s hands appear. He’s got the seal dispenser. When she’s done, he draws a line of paste around each cable, sealing the new breaches.
“EVA to Duggins?” Sam calls. “Ready to test.”
“Testing now,” says Duggins over the comms. He must be in his room or somewhere else accessing a console. A moment later he confirms. “We have a working connection.”
“That’s excellent news,” I say. “Great job, everybody!”
“Thank you,” Duggins answers. “It’ll take some time to configure the system, but we have confirmed power to the new antenna.”
“We’re moving over to section thirty-three, bridge,” Sam says.
“Copy that,” Chiu replies.
I’m viewing both head cameras and the monitoring feed from the external device. Sam and Ensign Johansson come into view. He is leading and kneels down in front of the broken access hatch. “There’s a snapped cable here, not one of ours,” he says. “It’s secured inside. I’ll see if I can find where.”