The Right of the Line

by Christopher Nuttall

  Eric smiled. Nah, this is too cool. “Negative, LT. I’m good. Haven’t seen anything remotely dangerous yet. There’s no power to the airlock, but I think I’ve found a manual override.”

  “Copy, proceed.”

  Eric engaged his maglocks and bent over the door as he pulled the electric driver from the SAR belt. Looks to be about fifteen millimeters. Eric fit what he hoped was an appropriate hex bit to the driver and inserted the end into the female override fitting. He slowly depressed the trigger and the resulting torque nearly pulled the driver out of his hands. Eric paused to brace himself before pulling the trigger again. The bit slipped intermittently, ever slightly too small. A puff of cold gas announced the door’s opening.

  “LT, hatch is coming along. Should have access in about fifteen seconds.”

  “Roger that. You might lose us on radio when you get inside, so don’t do anything stupid. Captain says those numbers you gave gives us an idea the size of the ship embedded in this ice ball. Nearest guess is three hundred meters. Those numbers, the first identifies the deck, larger numbers being toward the belly, the second, how far from the front of the ship you are while the third is how far from the centerline.”

  “Door’s open LT. Airlock had gas in it, so I’m going to see about sealing it behind me. Might still be atmosphere further in.”

  “Copy, what’s the airlock look like?”

  “About what you’d expect. Mostly bare. Hand-holds, another door on the inside. Wait, there’s a placard here. USS Gadsden. Ship’s sigil is a yellow background, some kind of coiled rope-like creature. Below that, ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’”

  “Heh. Sounds like a privateer or maybe military, maybe the Persians. I’m pretty sure Pershing hasn’t sent anything this far out though. We’d’ve heard about that. Proceed, Friedrich. We’re probably thirty minutes or so from being able to follow. Find the bridge if you can, should be amidships and towards the top. Captain’s quarters shouldn’t be far from that.”

  A visual search of the compartment before him revealed a matching override fitting identical to the one on the hull on the inside. “Sealing her up, LT. By the way, use a fifteen millimeter on the override bolt, it’ll slip like it’s the wrong size, but sixteen’s too big.”

  “Odd. Good luck.”

  Eric keyed his radio one last time as the outer hatch closed, “Friedrich, out.”

  Turning to the inner door, he realized, like its outer brother, this one was unpowered. The override fitting on this door was also much larger. No way I’ve got a bit that big.

  Eric frowned and was about to turn around when he spotted a recess next to the hatch’s frame labeled “Auxiliary Entry Tool, 1 pc, NSN 1820-00-C17-6436.” The recess held a canted metal bar a little over a half meter long with a perpendicular hexagonal head at one end. Eric pulled the bar out of the recess, inserted the head into the override fitting, and tested which direction it wanted to turn. The fitting budged clockwise, the direction he had the least amount of travel.

  “I always pick the wrong way first,” Eric muttered as he pulled the head out. He dropped end of the bar almost to his knees before inserting it again. He heaved upwards and could hear the gears in the frame grind before giving way. Of course they’re stiff, they haven’t seen maintenance in how long?

  Opening the inner door proved harder than he expected and doing so produced the huff of air he expected. Eric watched as the suit’s sensor readout as the pressure in the room climbed. His headset crackled and hissed as his helmets external audio feeds detected air pressure. Pressure at .2 bars. Ambient temperature, one degree Celsius. That’s odd, I think? Shouldn’t this place be frigid as hell? Negligible particulates. Carbon dioxide levels below the sensor’s tolerance. Oxygen, too. Almost all nitrogen. Humidity bone dry. Air pressure’s way too low.

  Cautiously, Eric stepped into the next compartment and surveyed the dark interior. The walls were lined with racks, each with a suit. Each suit bore the ship’s yellow sigil on the breast. “Heh. Two-part airlock. Yeah, Pascal might be right, could be a privateer. Maybe not though, these look like service suits, not combat,” Eric muttered to himself. He paused on his way to the hatch on the other side and stared at the thin glass display next to the door. Without power, the screen was black.

  Whoever they were, they spent a lot of money on this ship. Hatch looks like an old design, too. Old, but effective.

  Eric sighed. This one had another large override fitting. Eric noticed another entry bar in a similar recessed space on the other side of the hatch he’d opened.

  Better leave one for Pascal.

  Leaning through the opened hatch, he returned the first bar to its alcove and sealed it with the second bar from his side.

  Using the second tool Eric cranked at the mechanism for the hatch leading further into the ship. The hatch resisted. He shoved. The resistance against him disappeared suddenly as the door cracked and the air pressure equalized. Eric nearly toppled over the raised section of the hatch, but caught himself.

  Stupid. Of course this would be isolated from the rest of the ship. His air pressure gauge now read .98 bars. Still cold and dry. If there was oxygen, it’d be safe enough to take off my helmet.

  Silence reigned in the hallway beyond and a few meters down the hall his flashlight illuminated a protrusion that ringed the passageway. Eric glanced back at the hatch he’d just come through. Yeah, close this too. That rim looks like an emergency pressure door. No telling if it works without power or not. Not going to chance it. He cranked down the last hatch and then proceeded to pan his light about as he wandered off down with the bar slung over his shoulder.

  Pausing in the middle of an intersection with a side-passage, Eric noted it seemed every side passage had small plaque similar to the one over the airlock. 1-112-7-L

  Passageway.

  He glanced back the way he came.

  “If that was one-forty and this is one-twelve,” he said to himself, doing the math in his head.

  Yeah, almost two meters per number. Another hundred meters or so to go, though access up would probably be closer to the centerline.

  Several passageways later, Eric caught himself humming a song and realized the constant silence bothered him. He paused momentarily by a poster depicting a man in a white uniform with a finger to his lips.

  OPSEC? What the hell is OPSEC?

  He shrugged and continued on. Passing through a sealed hatch he had to open with the access tool, Eric found himself in a much larger compartment the plaque called a quarterdeck. The flooring here was white tile, not pale blue sealed plastic. Stanchions connected with thick blue rope lined the walls. Something drifted through his peripheral vision startling him out of his internal monologue. He’d automatically hefted the bar back to swing before realizing the drifting form was a corpse curled into a fetal position.

  Breathing heavy from the adrenaline surge, he reached out to the drifting form. His suit’s Geiger counter began a slow click as he grabbed the corpse’s oddly mottled green and brown uniform. What appeared to be an octagonal hat tumbled away off the corpse’s head to drift across the quarterdeck aimlessly.

  Not much above background radiation.

  Eric rotated the body so he could get a better look. The corpse wore a white armband with large black, block letters centered on it proclaiming, “SF.” Below that smaller lettering spelled out, “Security Forces.” Eric squinted and froze. Two embroidered sections lined the tops of the uniform’s slanted breast pockets. In dark stitching, one said, “US Marines”, the other “Friedrich.”

  He’d seen death before, but his name on a corpse? That bothered him. He’d also seen the bodies of engineering crew when reactor containment had failed, having been on a working party that transferred them to be jettisoned. This corpse appeared the same but far more dessicated.

  Shifting the corpse brought a black device that had been on a sling over the corpse’s shoulder rolling towards him.

  Looks like a projectile weapon, not ener
gy.

  Not wanting to disturb the corpse more than necessary, he examined the weapon and found a way to disconnect the weapon from the sling by pressing the button at the attachment points. Eric looked over the rifle.

  Safe, fire, burst. Arrow on this switch is pointing to safe. Not much different from our gear at all. Forward of those engravings he found another set. FN Manufacturing? Never heard of them. Either small enough we haven’t looted anything from them yet, or really, really old.

  He pressed a button on the side to no effect followed by the button below it. A piece of the weapon rattled and drifted loose. Eric caught it. Ah, there’s the cartridges. That must be the magazine release. Good enough for me.

  Noticing what appeared to be a pistol in a holster at the corpse’s hip, Eric reattached the larger weapon to the sling and carefully drew the smaller black weapon. Keeping his finger off the trigger, he examined the sleek metal weapon.

  No selector, much larger bullet. Looks like a button in the palm, probably a mechanical safety. Wonder if that’s a magazine release? Yep. Looks like thirteen cartridges. No clue what a M1911A3 is, but this feels serviceable.

  He pressed back the slide slowly to reveal the top of a cartridge in the chamber. Eric looked up at the corpse as he let the slide return home.

  “I know it’s just nerves, but I’m taking this if you don’t mind,” he whispered and paused.

  This is silly. Fuck that.

  Eric laid a hand on the corpse’s chest and whispered the same prayer uttered at every funeral he’d attended since the crew of the Fortune had adopted him, “Lord, receive this man into your waiting arms. He has been long from port and long from home. May he find rest and safe harbor wherever he has gone.”

  Prayer finished, Eric continued across the quarterdeck toward a large white hatch on the far side. He paused by a clearly ceremonial setting. The matting on the floor before him contained the ship’s emblem. To either side stood rows of what might be large-bore penetrators as big around as his thigh. Colored cloth floated from the poles between the slugs. Central to the display, a stand stood at the end of the mat on the floor with several poles with colored cloth secured to them. Eric recognized several of the lengths of fabric as the ensigns by the airlock. Four of them were off to the side while the central shrine displayed the one with red and white stripes as the centerpiece. He glanced at the other four in the shrine.

  POW-MIA, You are not forgotten. Must be some kind of memorial. US Navy. Not sure what that symbol is. Hmm. US Marine Corps. Nice red. USS Gadsden, ship’s symbol again.

  He glanced down below the hanging cloth and noticed a stand with a plaque that read, “USS Gadsden, SBBGN-X.”

  No clue what the BB-whatever means. Hey, is that wood? Wow, I haven’t seen wood like that since I was a kid.

  Eric gravitated to a display off to the side. The simple wooden stand, labeled “Chain of Command” held a number of picture frames, presumably ordered by seniority. Most of the top row was conspicuously empty.

  Eric looked over the names for the slots pondering if this might have meant something. President of the United States, Vice-President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, all important sounding, but also all empty. The first frame in seniority to have a photo, a stern-faced older male, was labeled Chief of Naval Operations.

  Admiral Mullin, huh? Yeah, not a privateer. Military warship. Eric skipped over to a photo of the commanding officer, Thomas Morneault. Looks like he’d give Captain Fox a run for being a hard-ass. Both of them could probably chew through a bulkhead. Sounds like a name from Orleans. Desi might know. The Gadsden’s executive officer looked significantly less angry. Well, Parsons is easier to pronounce, I guess I’d be happier too. Eric shrugged at the last photo, Command Master Chief, and moved on. What kind of name is Sweeting? That guy is just too happy.

  Eric opened the white hatch barring his way to the bridge, stepped through, and sealed it behind him. He ducked past several corpses in blue uniforms on the way up the ladder well, making sure he did not disturb the radiation scarred remains. He pulled himself up the ladderwell, shivering as he passed more bodies. He paused to adjust his suit’s temperature upward.

  Too many bodies around here, this place is a goddamn morgue.

  After the first flight of steep stairs, he noticed the flooring was no longer a pale blue, but a darker blue with white flecks in it.

  Heh, wonder what that means?

  He continued up a number of flights before a plaque had caught his attention.

  “05-75-1-C, Bridge,” Eric said to himself as he fit the entry tool into the door’s fitting. Eric paused, looking at the hatch on the opposite side. The plaque label, “CIC”, meant little to him, but the hatch was conspicuously armored and someone had painted “Combat Information Center” on it. “Heh. Well, she’s a warship for sure. I’ll check the bridge first.”

  Aside from the half dozen corpses, the bridge was spotless, cramped, still as a crypt, and completely dark. Enough space had been left open between each of the work stations to allow the operators to get to their station and little else. Like the previous corpses, these new ones did not appear to have struggled. Eric started to poke about when a realization struck him. Five of the bodies were strapped into chairs. One sat in a chair half slewed around like he had been talking to the corpse behind him, the only corpse not secured to a chair. The ones in the seats had simple polished black boots, black belts with tarnished white buckles, possibly silver at one point, and the lettering on their coveralls was white. The odd corpse out wore what probably had been expensive looking shoes, a light brown belt with a brass buckle, and gold lettering on the name tapes.

  Eric reached moved around the floating corpse, trying not to touch the stern-faced man. US Navy. No clue what that silver insignia on the collar means. It’s got wings, so maybe he’s the pilot? Captain maybe? Gotta be captain. Eric glanced down at the nametape as he checked the man’s pockets. Morneault. Yep, captain.

  “Sorry, Captain Morneault, just checking for keys. No disrespect intended.” Eric fished a necklace made from linked silver metallic balls from around the corpse’s neck. A set of keys and two stamped metal plates swung from the end of it. Eric read the stamped lettering on the tarnished plates. His brain refused to process the last line. Morneault, Matthew, 210-42-3521, AB+, Christian, January 30, 1965.

  “Nineteen sixty-five? They had to be using a different calendar.” Eric stuffed the chain in a belt-pouch and stepped off the bridge. If I were the captain, where would I have my quarters? He looked at the ladder up. Nah, if the main airlocks are on the main level, why would I want to walk farther? Still need to be near the bridge though. No other doors on this level, let’s try the next one down, shall we?

  He traced his path back down another deck and looked about at the doors near the ladderwell.

  Ah, here we are, CO’s stateroom.

  Eric tried the door and found it locked. The key he’d taken from the Captain fit smoothly into the physical override for the electronic lock and Eric let himself in. The far wall had been covered by a large version of the red and white striped ensign with gold fringe. A simple bed filled another wall and a desk with shelves filled the other. Eric looked over the obvious computer workstation, and then pored over the small items on the desk. Finding a photo of a woman and a few children, he slowly shook his head.

  I wonder if they knew what happened to their father.

  His eyes were then drawn to a large poster on the wall alongside the bookshelf. The writing was warped, like someone had tried to write without lifting their pen, but readable.

  “In Congress, July Fourth, Seventeen Seventy-Six,” Eric chuckled to himself about the date before reading further aloud. “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which t
he Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Hmm. Earth, huh? Interesting.”

  Eric jerked, half bringing his improvised club to bear when his headset crackled, spitting only noise.

  Pascal must’ve gotten in. I should go. He glanced at the next poster. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  Eric’s radio crackled again. He could almost make out something intelligible.

  Got to go.

  As he turned about, he grabbed the computer tablet off the desk. His radio crackled again as he stepped out into the hall.

  “…drich. Pasc… do… copy, over?”