Termination Shock

by Gillian Andrews

Zenzie wasn’t convinced. But I didn’t care. There wasn’t a lot we could do on a battleship with a crew roster of a thousand or so.

  “We need to find the missile bay,” I told her.

  Denaraz shuffled down the center aisle a few feet and then looked back. “Starboard side, top deck. It’s a bit of a trek. We must be on the lowest deck, and well back towards the engines.”

  I stared at him. He shrugged. “What do you think Military groups do except study their opposites?”

  Good enough for me. I motioned Zenzie to crawl after him and I brought up the rear. “Move it, Izan. We need to do something before these idiots decide to deploy that thing!”

  Progress was slower than I would have liked. Although we did now know where we were heading, we had to be very quiet. I was certain Ellison would have placed security groups inside the crawl spaces, and there would be engineers scrambling around in here, too. We had to take care not to bump into anybody.

  We slid along as quietly but as quickly as we dared. My mind was racing. The missile bay would be heaving with crew members in an active operation. Perhaps that could be our salvation. In the middle of a battle people would be less likely to notice unfamiliar faces. They would be tired, dirty, unable to even think clearly.

  I made up my mind. We needed Engineering uniforms, and some dirt. We needed a way to hide the foreignness of the two Tyzarans, camouflage of some sort. We needed to hide in plain view.

  Tyzarans are taller and thinner than humans. But the main differences are in their skin and their bone structure. It was nigh on impossible to confuse one with the other. The triangular shape to their heads and faces, the slightly paler tinge to their countenances, the crests, the enormous foreheads. And, of course, the huge wrinkles of their skin. In Zenzie’s case, they were the first thing you noticed about her.

  No, Zenzie would have to stay back. She was far too slight and short to be taken for a crew member. This would have to be done by Denaraz and me. She could protect our backs. After all, that was what she was always telling me her job was. Time for her to do it. She still had the gun she had taken from the guard. She needed to place herself in a strategic part of the crawl tubing. Somewhere there was a hatch or a grille that would enable her to see us as we worked. Somewhere she could monitor our progress.

  That meant two disguises. In my case, there was no problem. A little dirt rubbed across my face would make me practically indistinguishable from the rest of the crew.

  Denaraz was more difficult. I pondered as we shimmied along the shiny tubing on our hands and knees. Then I realized that it was easy. Many of the engineers would be in IEVA suits, in case of hull breaches. And I knew from experience just how difficult it can be to identify someone in an IEVA suit. A thin coating of dirt and grime across the bottom of the visor would take care of that.

  Suddenly, the whole thing felt possible. My spirits rose. As far as I could see, the most risky part of the business would be sneaking into the bay without the IEVA suits and then putting them on. We would be exposed until we were safely anonymous.

  I tapped Zenzie on the feet until she did the same to Denaraz and he stopped. We squatted in an uncomfortable huddle as I explained the idea. They nodded, though Zenzara took a little convincing to stay out of the way. Finally, even she could see that she would stand out like a sore thumb. She was only half the size of any of the Chibuzo crew members.

  Denaraz thought for a few minutes. “There should be a side alcove with the IEVA suits in it. I suggest that you go first, as you might easily pass for a crew member. Once you are settled, you can position yourself in front of me should anyone come.”

  It seemed like a sensible plan to me. I agreed immediately. I just wished Zenzie had a weapon that might be more decisive. “Keep your eyes out for an M596 or am M487XRS. I would rather Zenzara had something of a larger bore. She won’t have to carry it very far.”

  Zenzie’s eyes widened. Then she looked pleased. I suppose she had been convincing herself that I was sidelining her. Now she took on a solid, purposeful sort of demeanor. She looked a lot older than her eight years.

  We continued to scramble through the tubing. It must have taken us over two hours to get to the missile bay. All that time the sounds of battle continued around us. I found myself feeling sorry for the Avaraks. If we were getting a battering on the Terran flagship, I could only imagine what was happening to the Avarak fleets. They would be dying out there in waves. I knew that they had a large military presence, but this was pure suicide. Yet there was something admirable about the way they didn’t bend in front of this lethal attack. In the way that they defended their planet to the end. I came to the conclusion that it was possible to dislike and yet secretly admire a species at the same time. It was confusing to me. I suppose we all feel pity for the underdog. And this was a battle that the Terrans’ greed had originated. I had no stomach for it. I felt that the Omnistate had betrayed its population. Why would they think they could claim the entire Local Shell for themselves? That was an expanse of space that must be nine million cubic light years in volume. Nine million! Cubic light years! Unconscionable. It was quite ridiculous. How could they even hope to administer to that vast expanse of space? What grandiose pretensions had fed such mania? In the five hundred years since our common ancestral paths had diverged, what had changed? Where did they get the arrogance to claim that they are the most intelligent species in the Major Shells, something that is patently untrue? I found it all very depressing.

  We finally reached the IEVA alcove in the main missile bay. We stared for some moments out of the service hatch. Then I gave a sigh. No point procrastinating any longer. I slid out of the tubing and stretched upwards to my full height.

  There was nobody in the alcove, which still boasted around ten full IEVA suits and – to my amazement – a panel with several M596s in a neat row. And that wasn’t the best news. It must have been unlocked when the siren announcing our escape sounded, for the armored glass door to the casing was yawing wide open. I could hardly believe our luck. There were five M596s left in the case. Empty housings showed that a further ten had been removed. I grinned at the grille and quickly passed one of the five down to Zenzara. She seemed inordinately pleased to be able to play with such a large and lethal weapon. I shuddered to think what she could do with it. I passed over an ample supply of ammunition anyway.

  It only took me a few minutes to secure myself into an IEVA suit. These suits, whose initials stand for Intra-Extra Vehicular Activity, are designed to be worn during operations deemed unsafe. They protect life for a limited time if you are exposed to outer space or radiation. You can’t survive for long – normally the oxygen supply is limited to around fifteen minutes – but they are designed to bridge the gap between onboard apparel and full EVA, to give you enough time to find more permanent protection. You can’t work properly inside a ship if you are dressed in full EVA. It is impossible. So, under battle stations, most of the crew would automatically have donned IEVA suits.

  I clambered into mine and zipped it right up above my chin. Once I had snapped the slim helmet in place I dirtied the suit up with some of the grease that was ubiquitous in an engine room or a missile bay. I left the air source vent at ‘atmosphere’ to save the suit’s own supply of oxygen. It also meant Denaraz and I would be able to speak to each other. IEVA suits have no comlinks, which means that communication with your team when the source vent is on ‘self-feed’ is like trying to hear underwater. Then I slung one of the remaining M596s over my shoulder before checking there was still nobody around.

  Denaraz popped out as soon as I gave him the signal. We fed him into one of the larger suits as quickly as we good and I clamped the helmet on him.

  I was smudging his helmet with grease when I became aware of a shadow behind me.

  “What’s going on here?” It was an officer, his face tigh
t and suspicious.

  I saluted and went rigid, Denaraz following my actions precisely.

  “Sa!” I intoned.

  “Get on with your jobs! No hiding out of harm’s way! Not on my ship!”

  “Sa! Yes, Sa!” We saluted and marched ourselves smartly out of his line of vision.

  Denaraz managed a faint grin. “I always wanted to be a spy,” he confessed.

  “I thought you already were one.” Then, at his outraged expression, I held up one hand. “Did Zenzie get away?”

  His helmet nodded. “She did. She said she would try to make it up there ….” he pointed to the ceiling of the large hold, “… though it may take her some time. She said to wait for her to get into place. I think she thinks we will get ourselves killed without her.”

  As if we couldn’t look after ourselves!

  We tried to make our walk nonchalant as we moseyed along the passageways between the huge launching ramps. There were crew everywhere. The noise was deafening. I wished the IEVA suits had been equipped with mufflers. They were designed to transmit sound easily through the helmet- which in fact had the effect of amplifying it all. I had no idea what the decibel level was, but whatever it was, it was too much for me. Much more of this and I would turn into a screaming wreck.

  Then I saw one of the workers take off his helmet to screw large earplugs firmly into his ears. I grabbed the back of Denaraz’s suit and pulled him to a stop. Once I pointed out the earplugs his countenance lightened. His lips moved. He may have been giving thanks. Tyzarans have even more acute hearing than we do. Not up to Geiga standards, of course, but still better than a Spacelander. Or a Terran, naturally.

  We scoured the areas we were walking past. Bench after bench of engineering tools and paraphernalia. Finally we spotted two open tins with some earplugs remaining in them. I palmed both tins and as soon as we could dip into a small storeroom we opened our helmets and fitted them hastily into our ears.

  The relief was immediate. The level was still uncomfortable but I didn’t feel the need to grab at my head and submerge it in cement.

  We passed torpedo after torpedo, missile after missile. The scale of this bay was astonishing. The Terrans must have been preparing for war for a very long time.

  At first there was no sign of any special missiles, but, as we penetrated to the back of the hold, we saw something that drew our attention. Right at the back of the hold, carefully cradled above the other missiles, was a huge shining tube. It must have measured at least twelve meters in length.

  Denaraz spotted it first. He grabbed my arm and indicated the huge bulk with his helmet.

  We made our way down the hold until we were standing right underneath the thing. Sure enough, I could see the identifying numbers and letters emblazoned across the housing. RAMP/01/8995 was stamped across the shell.

  Izan’s eyes were wide. Not only was the thing the size of a shuttle, it was hanging freely from hawsers, and swaying around with the battering that Chibuzo was taking.

  I stared up at it. Even reaching the thing looked like an impossible task. My spirits slumped. What had I been thinking of?

  Denaraz turned me firmly towards him. He indicated himself, and pointed upward towards what was clearly a missile station situated at the top of a crane to the rear of the missile casing itself. Then he made signs with his hand. He pointed to himself and then upwards. Then there were signs of firing something. Then he pointed to me and made signs of something blowing up.

  Plan B it was then. We certainly stood no chance of physically touching this thing without them noticing. He was right; our only chance was to deploy it.

  Carefully.

  Like that would be easy.

  And he was right on the other thing, too. He would need a diversion if he was to get away with launching this. I took a moment to examine the missile. The only tube it could possible fit in was some 100 meters away, right on the other side of the missile bay. They could hardly miss the enormous casing being winched over their heads. The thing was the size of a large whale, after all.

  Diversion, then. I nodded and started to move away. I remembered seeing some cleaning solvent stashed under one of the benches. The one thing the military always could be relied upon. Keep it all clean.

  Their mistake. When we were younger my sister and I had almost blown up Faraday when we decided to help my father clean some grease spillage on one of the lower decks. Sibby had had her eyebrows singed right off in the resulting explosion. My mother nearly had apoplexy.

  The reaction of my mother and the subsequent punishment she inflicted on us was indelibly engraved in my memory. Lucky, because one of the other things that had stayed along with the humiliation and pain was the exact mixture we had used. I was pretty sure I had seen just those ingredients as we had walked through the engineering stations. Not all together, of course. No machine shop would store possibly explosive combinations close by each other. Close enough though.

  I grabbed the solvent and one of the many heavy duty trolleys that were lying around. It was a moment to pile three large containers of the solvent. I covered them with a loose cloth. No point drawing attention to my load.

  I rolled them down the aisle as speedily as I could without running anybody down. No one took any notice of me, much to my relief.

  Ten minutes later I had everything I needed. Now I had only to pick the ideal place to carry out my small flagration. At least, I hoped it would be small. My intention was not to blow the whole ship up. I merely wanted twenty or thirty minutes of chaos. I bustled along a side aisle. I wanted to be as far away as possible from the RAMP missile.

  I found what I was looking for almost straight away. With all the confusion of action stations, they had not been applying their usual hygiene standards. There was a large drum of grease sitting – almost calling out to me – in the corridor to one side.

  I loaded it, with some difficulty, onto a second heavy duty trolley. Then, when I had all of my ingredients, I simply pulled them to one of the alcoves on the starboard side of the bay, tipped everything I had collected into the drum, pushed the trolley as close to the pulley mechanism that fed the torpedoes into a firing position, covered the drum, and walked away as slowly as I could make myself.

  I had no idea how long it would take. My memory was somewhat blurred on that aspect of our youthful escapade. I seemed to remember waiting for an inordinately long time, but thought that my younger self might not have had a real idea of time’s passage.

  I reached the RAMP location and gave Denaraz a thumbs-up. He was hunched close to a nearby ground-level console, plugged into its computer. I saw that he had been working on our exact position. Good. We needed to put this thing in the middle of nowhere, not turn it loose on some unsuspecting population.

  As I got back, he must have finished his calculations, for he closed down the console and pulled himself up the tube ladder to the crane platform in one fluid movement.

  I found I was holding my fingers crossed inside the tough gloves I was wearing. Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t doing much to help by just standing around watching Denaraz work. I should probably start thinking about protecting him. Subconsciously my brain had been on hold, waiting for the explosion. Not the right time to sit back and wait. Denaraz was depending on me.

  I looked upwards. The control station for the RAMP was perched on top of a ten-feet-high platform. This could be pivoted on a large swivel to take up the appropriate position during launch. The tube ladder ran down from the platform to the deck.

  I scrambled up the ladder. There was a small solid balustrade around the control station itself. The balustrade was made of heavy plating. It would be difficult for marksmen to sight us from an inferior position, and we would be shielded to some extent by the metal casing.

  I gave Izan
a nod as I reached the control chair. He ignored me. His fingers were flying over the controls. I noticed that the missile lights had come up and there was a vibration through the control panel.

  It wouldn’t be long now. I unslung the M596 and took up my own station behind Denaraz. To get to him they would have to go through me. I gritted my teeth. I just hoped Zenzie had managed to find a safe place from which to watch this. Something told me we would find it hard to get out of the Chibuzo after this. But it would be worth it. If we could get rid of even one of these monstrous missiles, we were on the road to success. I checked the gun for readiness and leant over the side of the crane. I was ready.

  The explosion, when it came, was disappointing. The noise level in the machine shop was so loud that I heard no sound. All I saw was a small flash, almost out of the corner of my eye. It seemed nothing. At first.

  Then there was a ripping sort of detonation, as the oil took. The drum had been blown over on its side and the burning oil was seeping along the passageway, flames now raging above it.

  There were screams of warning from those near it. A stampede of men flowed out from the flames. Others attempted to battle their way inwards against the tide of panic to combat the heat, grabbing the chemical extinguishers that were situated on the bulkhead walls.

  Denaraz grinned at me in what seemed a demoniacal way for a split second and then stabbed his finger on a button. The whole crane swiveled. For a moment I nearly fell out of the nest we were in. I lost sight of the fire now spreading out from the drum.

  As the crane moved out of the way, the RAMP missile began its journey across the ceiling space of the missile bay. It swung grandly and majestically into action.

  To my surprise, the control crane followed it. The whole crane was mounted on a track which suddenly surfaced out of the walkway. We trundled along behind the missile as it inched its way across the bay.