The Belt Loop _Book One

by Robert B. Jones

  “Commander Yorn. You seeing this?” Haad said. “Get your team ready. Launch at your discretion after notification.”

  The speakers squawked, “Aye. Launch at my discretion. Weapons, captain?”

  Haad looked up at the overhead. “Standard side arms, extended magazines. No projectile weapons, electrics only, Davi. Don’t want to pierce the hull should you need to start a firefight. Science reports life forms but can’t give a precise location. You’ll have to go deck by deck.”

  “Understood. I’ll pip the quartermaster when we’re away.”

  Haad acknowledged and sat back in his chair. He studied the images as the drones flew in elliptical orbits around the ancient ship. All he could do now was sit and wait.

  Shift change occurred at the top of the hour and two of his bridge crew were relieved. Blaine Diggs turned the weapons console over to Lieutenant (j.g.) Bryce Hoge and Maxine Hansen was replaced by Ensign Sid Corman. Hoge was a seasoned veteran with several years in the service while Corman was a newbie, this being his first deep-space posting.

  Max made her way off the bridge and down the tight passageways and executed several turns — some necessary, some not. Not that she was paranoid or anything, but she really didn’t want to be followed. She descended seven decks and exited from the ladder-well near the stacked cargo holds. She waved casually at the quartermasters and loadmasters she passed. She was a frequent visitor to the cargo decks and she always seemed to have a purpose in mind, always needed to check stores for some kind of communications equipment she said she needed. Nobody really paid attention to her and in fact the enlisted ratings welcomed her daily visits, focusing on her swaying hips as she passed.

  Two more turns, one backtrack, and six more descents put her right in central stores. The huge bay was full of foodstuffs and non-perishable pre-prepared items. Canisters of liquids and nutrients lined one wall of the hold in massive racks extending from deck to ceiling. Pipes and conduits snaked in every direction and the lighting was minimal. She walked faster now, and looked back over her shoulder at frequent intervals.

  Just when she turned between high stacks of unconstituted grain and cereal containers, something jumped out at her from behind.

  Chapter 3

  Davi Yorn looked over his men. The group of seven had assembled near the inner lock of the hangar bay and awaited instructions from the bridge. In the group were two security ratings, two medical technicians, one science trainee, and one archivist. Out of a crew of 218 souls on the Corpus Christi, these men and women had been the first to volunteer. Routine patrols in the Belt Loop were boring to say the least, tedium without apparent purpose, ground covered two cycles ago slated to be covered again. Excursions such as this one were not common and most of the crew had never donned an environmental suit before except in safety drills. Yorn made sure their equipment was fitted correctly and their gear was correct for the task at hand.

  “Mister Gilroy, I’m assigning you the task of securing the boat. You get to stay onboard the lifeboat and secure it from any and all intruders.”

  POFC — Petty Officer First Class — Hec Gilroy was a seasoned veteran of the Christi and was by far the most experienced member of the away team. He had served in the Colonial Navy for thirteen years and he brooked no distemper from his crewmates. Not to say he was a hard ass, but he was by the book, of the book, and for the book. That is, as long as that book wasn’t the official naval regs. He was somewhat of a card and he had a temper. His thick body was comfortable in his evo suit and the large head that protruded from the neck ring was as square as a cinder block and probably just as hard. He wore his hair regulation short and his large forehead protruded beyond a pair of steely gray eyes. “Aye, Commander. Shoot everybody that comes aboard.”

  Yorn laughed a thin laugh. Some of the newer ratings looked quizzically at each other and said nothing. For some reason, he noted to himself, the usual banter among the ranks was somehow absent.

  Gunnery Sergeant Mike Ryon spoke next. “Shit, commander, maybe you should belay that order, I mean, that hard-nose sonofabitch might just do that.”

  Yorn turned and said, “I hope he will, Mister Ryon, I hope he will. Look at the screen. We have never come across anything like this before. Looks like some kind of spacefaring worm. See those appendages on the hull? They remind me of legs. Like it was a centipede. Suppose the inside of that thing is crawling with thousands of little bugs like that? I would hope that Mister Gilroy would not let them onto our ride home.”

  Ryon just shook his head. He was part of the Colonial Marine contingent on the ship and had transferred from ground assignments on Elber Prime to the Corpus Christi the last time it made port. All in all, he was among thirty-seven marines that, along with the ship’s masters-at-arms, provided security for the vessel should the situation arise. Ryon stood almost as tall as Commander Yorn and he had no facial hair at all. Radiation overdoses over his years of service among the blue giants in the region. He also had a few scars on his bald head and those were courtesy of some lower-level life forms on Peoria-322.

  “Do you really think there’s something alive over there, Commander Yorn?” This question from Ensign Silvie Tan, one of the two medical techs. She was in her thirties, trim, wild-eyed-wonder excited and raring to go. Ensign Tan took her job seriously and was the first person called when things went wrong, from scraped knees to limb amputations. She ran her hand through her short brown mane and said, “I mean, we did get life-form readings on the scanners.”

  “Ask me, that whole goddamned ship is a life form. Look at it.” Lieutenant Perry Bone said this while pointing to the vid screen. “The thing is breathing, going in and out, sucking in vacuum, expelling what I don’t want to know,” he finished. Perry Bone had been with the Christi since launch and he was the ship’s official archivist, responsible for making digital and molecular recordings of even the most quotidian things encountered on her six-year mission. His data sets were routinely sent back to Fleet by way of courier boats every six months and the returning fast boat would usually have orders for the big ship and her crew.

  Communications with COMCNFLT — Commander, Colonial Naval Fleet — was not easy this far out in the void; the Colonial Navy had almost 150 ships out in this wedge of the galaxy, all on routine patrols, all looking for things in the void they would never expect to stumble across until they did. This was one of those things. The MAM Drive (Matter/Anti-Matter Drive) made traversing the vast distances possible for fleet movements and the courier boats made keeping in touch practical since no other form of faster-than-light messaging was possible.

  “Well, as soon as we get the word, lieutenant, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Yorn said.

  The other rankings, science officer Lieutenant Rennie Singh and medtech Lieutenant (j.g.) Jared Volta, stood by silently, looking at each other’s suit fittings. Singh was a veteran of the Belt Loop and he, too, was bald on top with a ridge of dark hair covering his brow. The junior grade medical corpsman Volta was a newbie, this cruise being his first time away from Elber Prime and this away mission being his first jaunt in an evo suit. He was in his mid-twenties, almost refugee thin and wore his blond locks shorn tight on the sides and spiked on top. He had what could only be described as peach fuzz around his mouth and chin and the beard-in-progress made him look younger that he was. Volta’s eyes said it all: the expression on his face was one of excitement and dread and his eyes darted back and forth along a line that bisected his fellow mates about chest level. Those eyes probably reflected his growing panic as he thought, What the fuck am I doing here?

  The speaker at the hangar bay squawked. “Are you all set down there, Commander Yorn?”

  “Search and Rescue party ready, sir,” Yorn replied with a nod.

  “Board your boat. Launch in fifteen mikes.”

  “Aye, captain, lifeboat away in fifteen minutes,” he said. He slapped the pad next to the hangar airlock and the hatch wheezed open. The seven-man crew stepped inside and Yorn cl
osed the hatch behind them. Next, each team member donned their helmets and voiced the air exchangers to life. After checking radio frequencies, adjusting equipment bags and checking side arms, Yorn’s crew was ready to go.

  He pushed his way forward through the group and looked back. He saw six thumbs in the air.

  There was no way for him to know at the time that one of his S&R team members would not be coming back alive.

  Chapter 4

  Ship’s surgeon Doctor Anson Isaacs paced to and fro in the medical bay. He was shouting out orders to his staff of fifteen: two additional doctors, seven medical technicians, two biologists that doubled as assistants in the science wing, and four surgical nurses. Not a lot of medical staff for a crew of 218 sailors and marines, but unless something catastrophic occurred, he thought it sufficient enough. The captain had given him his marching orders a few minutes ago and now he was in the process of making ready two dozen beds. The captain had told him that he might get a dozen visitors from the derelict ship, species unknown. Also he prepared extra bunks for any unforeseen calamities that often accompanied excursions into the void or unfamiliar destinations: sprains, strains, lacerations, frostbite, amputations, minor organ replacements and the like. Space on the whole was not a friendly place and mistakes were not only frequent but in some cases deadly. They had been out for just over three years of a six-year tour. So far he had lost seven sailors and one marine. In addition, fourteen of the crew were sporting artificial hands, legs, eyes, teeth and ears.

  Evo suit punctures were by far the biggest cause of shipboard distress. Glove tears, boots holed by micro-meteorites, cracked faceplates caused by misjudged distances and angles: all common problems. Rarely did he get patients in need of end-of-life care. These crewmen were mostly young and strong and the daily regimen of prophylactic gene therapy they ingested with each meal held a huge percentage of fatal illnesses at bay. But, of course, whenever over 200 souls were packaged up in a moving sardine can, the eventual fight would send him customers to sew up or replace severed appendages. Fights were not tolerated by Captain Haad and anything over twenty stitches would certainly land the combatants in the brig for a cycle or two.

  The adventure today would be totally different. Only twice before had they come across anything remotely like this. Once, after they had been underway for just eight months, the captain put a boat down on a rocky, misshaped satellite orbiting a gas giant in the Maddox system. The S&R team returned with a few injuries, nothing too severe, and a feral cat-like life form. Evidently it was at the top of the food chain on the little moon and it was all teeth and claws and eventually had to be euthanized and frozen. Three of his nurse ratings had to have great bloody gashes repaired and one had even contracted a severe infection as a result of his close encounter. But the phage went away after irradiation and all eventually recovered. The body of the animal was tagged and locked away in ship stores for eventual study at tour’s end.

  Doctor Isaacs had lockers full of varying life forms plucked from the desolation of the Belt Loop. Most were simple organisms, slug-like or insectile, and most were quite benign. But he also remembered his second near-fatal encounter with an alien presence, one that they had found on Giovani Seven. But those things turned out to be more mechanical than organic and after disabling the electrics, the two androids the S&R team dumped onto his sick bay cots fizzled out after wounding one medtech. Those machines were sent by courier boat to Elber for additional study. Out of his hands.

  Isaacs was surprised when suddenly all activity in the medical bay stopped.

  “Captain on deck!” one of his nurses shouted.

  “As you were,” Haad said as he walked briskly through the transparent plastisteel hatch. The medical staff returned to their duties and he walked into the center of the medical bay. “Doc, how’re you getting along down here? I’m not really expecting anything, but you never can tell.”

  Isaacs twirled him a one finger salute. “Oh, I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. I’ve got two dozen beds ready and waiting, ship’s surgery on standby, and medical stores on hand and available,” he said while moving his head from side to side. Anson Isaacs was a few centimeters taller than Captain Haad and he had a slumped-shouldered look to his lanky posture that lowered his eyes to the captain’s level. He wore the ubiquitous white smock over his standard tunic and the transparent pocket on his upper left sleeve contained a row of small instruments with machine-tooled handles supporting sharp probes on the business ends. The doctor wore his salt-and-pepper hair military neat and he had a very serene look on his slightly wrinkled face. His eyes were blue-gray and his upper lids drooped slightly like he hadn’t had enough shut-eye lately.

  “You know we got readings for about a dozen live ones on that ship. Until I can tell you what they are, you should be prepared for anything. I see you’ve got a couple of biologists up here. That’s good, doc.”

  Isaacs smiled. “You know my motto, Uri: Find them, Fix them, Forget them. I think we can cope.”

  Uri Haad clapped him on the shoulder. “Just in case, you might want to think about putting up a containment field around half of those bunks. If there are any survivors over there, they might be women. Need to keep the crew out, you know what I mean?” The two officers laughed a thin chuckle. “Carry on, Doctor Isaacs.”

  “Aye, Captain Haad. Keep the live feed coming, we’ll watch and wait,” he said.

  The captain looked around for a beat or two and made his way back to the hatchway. Once Haad was gone, Doctor Isaacs resumed his duties and rearranged one side of the medical bay so that twelve beds and their associated monitors and scanners were on the side that contained the field generators. Maybe this would not be so routine after all, he thought.

  After giving a few more orders to his staff, he retired to his little office shack and got the security garrison on the comm. He arranged to have a couple of lance corporals in battle armor ready to deploy to sick bay should the need arise.

  In his mind he hoped that move would not be necessary.

  Chapter 5

  “Holy shit, Har, you scared the living crap out of me,” Maxine Hansen whispered through clenched teeth.

  “Sorry, Mom,” the boy said.

  “You say that every time, Har. One of these days you’re going to give me a freakin’ heart attack. You’ll be down here alone after that and you won’t know what to do,” Max said, wiping a tear from her cheek. Har, short for Harold, was eleven years old going on twenty. He was already up to his mother’s chin and she reached out and toussled his mop of dark brown hair. Har had on loose-fitting survival clothes, dull gray boots with the latches unfastened, and a silly grin on his round boyish face.

  “Yeah, I know, but, see, I get really bored hiding out down here. I have to do something to liven up my life. Wouldn’t you agree?” he asked sheepishly.

  She pulled back from him and smiled. “If you call sending me to an early grave ‘livening’ up your life, then you’re missing some basic concepts there, Har.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and shuffled away a few steps into the oppressive gloom of the storage hold.

  “Did you finish your lessons?” Max asked.

  “No, ma’am,” he moaned and looked away. “I just couldn’t, not with all that excitement going on. You come back down here to get your blaster, get your guns?”

  “You’ve been reading that junk again, haven’t you?” She was referring to the tattered books the boy had managed to smuggle aboard before they left Elber Prime. He had found them on an old abandoned ferry boat from Earth. Space Opera. Space battles, many-tentacled space aliens, scantily-clad women in need of rescue adorned the curled up covers. Max didn’t approve. Instead, she wanted him to study astrogation, communications, and spatial mathematics.

  “Aww, Mom. . .”

  “Do you realize what kind of risk I took getting you on board this ship? I could face mucho brig time if they found you down here. You promised me you would keep quiet and out of the w
ay, and you would do your studying. Do you remember that?”

  Harold Hansen grimaced and looked at the deck. One of his feet made a sweeping arc across the metal flooring. He said nothing.

  Maxine had been faced with a terrible dilemma. Her husband had been killed in a mine explosion out in the Bayliss system and by the time she returned to Elber from her previous posting, the social workers were in the process of sending Har back to Earth. She only had one living relative, an aunt, and she just was not able to say goodbye to her son. With the help of two friends, they managed to get Har’s clothes and accessories loaded into one of the dryfood containers along with part of her personal items. Since she was an officer, she was allowed two duffels of personal gear. One duffel contained the rest of her toiletries, her uniforms, her other necessities, and the other duffel contained Harold.

  He was a stowaway.

  She knew the penalties would be severe if they were ever caught. Of course, he could deny being her son, her responsibility, should they ever find him, but a simple DNA scan would ultimately reveal the truth. So, for the last 1,102 days they had played a cat-and-mouse game with the ship’s crew, him hiding out in the storage areas, her trying to pretend she was always on the look-out for some piece of equipment or other. So far, Harold had not been detected. But if he continued to scare the shit out of her with his antics, and maybe knock over a pallet or two of stored items, the noise and commotion was sure to attract attention. And if he, indeed, gave her that heart attack he would surely be detected when they came down to retrieve her dead body.