by Mark Anson
‘I doubt if they could do it.’ Conway could visualise the captain leaning across to look at his repeater displays, calculating distances in his head. ‘Worth asking, though.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Have you got Lieutenant Coombes up there?’
‘No sir, we’re just trying to locate him now.’
‘Very well, keep me informed.’ The channel clicked off abruptly.
Conway sat back in the deeply padded command seat, a puzzled expression on his face. Something in Donaldson’s behaviour made him uneasy. The captain would normally have been up here in moments at something like this, but had left it to him, Conway. And what was so important that the spaceplane absolutely had to land here tomorrow? They could ferry the passengers and cargo over from one of the other carriers as soon as the weather cleared. But the captain hadn’t offered any explanation.
Conway’s frown deepened. He got up and went back to the chart table, and stared at the approaching storm. Ragged fingers of dark cloud spread over the edge of the screen, like clutching hands reaching out towards them.
In his day cabin, Donaldson’s finger still rested on the intercom button. So. His nemesis, Lieutenant Colonel Simmons, would have to make a marginal landing. If it had been any other incoming flight, he would have scrubbed it. But to postpone the landing now would just look like he was clinging on to command, and that would just make matters worse for him.
If Simmons is going to relieve me of command, he’s got to get on board first. Let’s see how he likes landing on a carrier in the middle of a fucking storm.
In the middle of these thoughts, he was interrupted by a furious pounding on the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Donaldson strode over to the door to the corridor and wrenched it open angrily. Clare stood there, panting for breath.
‘Foster! What the hell do you think—’
‘I’m sorry sir; I have to talk to you immediately. One of your senior officers is supplying drugs on board and they’re after me; you’ve got to help me.’
The captain looked at her in astonishment for a moment.
‘You’d better come in.’ He looked up and down the corridor before closing the door behind her. ‘Sit down. Do you want a coffee?’ He moved to the machine in the corner of the room.
‘No thank you sir. Sir, I really need to tell you—’
‘Sit down, Foster, and that’s an order. Take a breath. I’ve locked the door; whatever it is you’re running from, you’re safe here.’
Clare took a long breath, and exhaled. It did feel better. She moved to sit down in the chair in front of the captain’s desk. He was right; she was safe now.
‘Now, would you like a drink?’
She nodded. ‘Yes please, sir.’
‘How do you take it?’ Donaldson busied himself at the machine.
‘Black, no sugar sir.’
He came back, a mug in his hand, and offered it to her. She needed both hands to hold it, they were shaking so much.
‘Now, what’s this about?’ He went back to sit behind his desk.
‘Well sir, a few days ago, just after I came on board, I … well, I became friendly with Lieutenant Coombes, and we, uh …’ she realised how this must be sounding. Her voice faltered, and she hung her head.
‘Look, Lieutenant, you’ve come banging on my door saying some pretty serious things. You’re going to have to tell me what this is all about.’ Donaldson’s voice was firm, but kind. Clare swallowed. This was so much harder than she could have imagined.
‘Yes sir. Uh – I fell into a, uh – relationship with the Lieutenant, and we spent the night together. In the morning, I was aware that he had somehow given me something, some drug, and …’ as she related her story, her voice steadied, and she told him everything, including dangling Coombes from the rail at the back of the ship. Donaldson’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. When she came to the accident in the Frigate, his eyes glanced to a screen on his desk, and he stopped her.
‘I’ve just seen the preliminary report on the uncommanded engine jettison. I’m very relieved that you got back safely, but this appears to have been an equipment failure that could have happened to anybody. You’re not seriously suggesting that this was – deliberate?’
That was just what she was suggesting, and the captain stared as she told him about the conversation with Coombes just now, and then how she had overheard Shaffer, and how she had escaped.
She finished, and took a gulp of her coffee. Her eyes looked at his over the rim of the mug, and they were wide and frightened.
Donaldson sat back in his chair. An odd expression had come over his face; he looked shocked, but somehow thoughtful.
‘Right. Well, that’s – incredible, I don’t know what to say. You’ve done the right thing by coming to me immediately. I don’t want this to go any further, but we’ve been aware of a drugs problem on board for some time, but we didn’t know who was behind it. This sheds a whole new light on things.’ He tapped his fingers on his desk. ‘Look, I can see how you might think that your aircraft was sabotaged, but really, Foster, it’s stretching credibility that they somehow arranged this to order. It’s more likely that you really did have an unrelated accident, and they’re just making out that they did it. Have you considered that?’
Clare shook her head.
‘Well, anyway, rest assured that you’re safe. Look, I need to get two of my senior officers down here, while we figure out the best way of dealing with this. It’s likely that we’ll confine Shaffer and Coombes to quarters while we investigate. Are you okay with telling your story again?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Okay. Just let me send them a message; I don’t want to use the intercom.’ He extracted his comlink from a pocket and tapped away for a few moments, then sat back, shaking his head. ‘You know, this is making sense. I’ve been blind to the possibility that it’s been one of my command team. They would have known all the attempts we’ve been making to find out who’s involved, been able to cover their tracks. How are you feeling?’
‘Better, sir.’
‘Good, good.’ A message came in on his comlink, and he responded. ‘They’re on their way. Do you want another coffee?’
She had finished the first one, and she nodded. He got up and took her mug back to the coffee machine in the corner.
‘You know, you’re a fine officer, Foster. Having to deal with something like this, in your first week on board a new ship. Hanging Coombes out the back though, that wasn’t a wise move. It could have gone very wrong. You should have reported him instead.’ He came back over and handed her mug back.
‘Sorry sir. I just felt very angry about the way he’d used me. I didn’t want it to happen to anybody else.’ She took a sip.
‘No. No, I can understand that. But he could easily claim that you’d been intimidating him, that all this is just something you’ve made up to get revenge on him for some reason, you understand? It’s a pity that you slept with him, that complicates things.’
‘Yes sir.’ She was beginning to feel foolish.
‘We need some solid evidence as well – we’ll need to search their quarters and personal belongings. If we found supplies of drugs in their possession, that would make a lot of difference. Who else knows about this?’
‘Just me, sir.’ The words came out automatically; she didn’t want Gray involved. With the release in tension from having told her story, she was feeling suddenly very tired; her limbs had gone very heavy.
‘Good, good.’ He nodded, and seemed to be watching her closely.
Clare looked down at her mug, and it was tilting in her fingers, but she couldn’t stop it; it was as if her fingers were going numb. She frowned in puzzlement.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Ah, here they are.’ Donaldson went back to his desk and keyed the switch to unlock the door. ‘Come in.’
Behind her, the door opened. She started to get up, to turn round to see who was ther
e, but she felt suddenly dizzy. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She somehow turned round in the chair, saw who it was, and her coffee mug dropped from her fingers and spilled on the floor as she tried to get up, tried to escape.
It was Shaffer and Coombes.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Shaffer said, and Coombes stepped forward and pressed her back into the chair. Shaffer pulled the cap off a pen injector with his teeth, and jammed it into her upper shoulder. She grunted as the needle went in, but she had no strength left to struggle, and she knew with a ghastly certainty that the coffee had had something in it.
‘I’m sorry Foster,’ Donaldson said, coming round to face her. ‘You were a promising officer. I’d much rather you hadn’t got involved.’ His face looked tired and angry. He looked at Shaffer. ‘How long?’
‘A few seconds.’
Clare tried to speak, but nothing came out. A sensation of cold was spreading from her arm, across her chest. Her head was suddenly heavy, and they held her as she collapsed in the chair.
Shaffer pinched an earlobe, but there was no reaction. ‘She’s out.’
‘Bitch,’ Coombes said.
The captain turned on him, and in a surge of anger, hit him across the face, so hard that the younger man staggered to his knees. ‘You stupid little prick! This is all your fault. Shut up and do what you’re told, or so help me, I’ll feed you into the intakes myself!’ He glared at Coombes in disgust. ‘Now get out of here – you’re wanted in the control room.’
Coombes hesitated, glanced at Shaffer, who tilted his head towards the door. Coombes looked as if he was going to say something, then changed his mind and slunk out with a resentful glance. Donaldson kicked the door shut behind him, and turned on Shaffer. ‘What are you going to do with her?’
‘She’s got to disappear. We can’t let her talk. Did she speak to anyone else?’
‘She said not.’
‘Do you believe her?’
‘It’s possible. From what she said, she came straight here from the farm. She wouldn’t have had time to talk to anyone else.’
‘I agree,’ Shaffer said coldly. ‘So we dump her. There’ll be an investigation, but they won’t find anything. They’ll just decide that she went over the back somehow. Maybe she lost her nerve after the accident, couldn’t get back in the cockpit, couldn’t take the humiliation. It’s a pity we wiped out that altered flight recorder; it would have been another reason for her to jump off the back.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no? She’s got to be shut up.’
‘I mean, no. I don’t care what you do, but you are not murdering an officer on my ship. That stunt you pulled with the engine this morning …’ Donaldson shook his head. ‘You don’t know when to stop.’
‘Well if you have a better idea, let’s hear it.’ Shaffer stood there, his eyes fixed on the captain.
‘I said, find another way.’
‘Well let’s see – we could let her wake up, then ask her nicely if she’d promise not to tell anyone?’
Donaldson’s anger, which had subsided, flared up again, and he went white about the lips. ‘Listen, you idiot, you can’t just rub people out just because they’ve found out what you’re doing!’
Shaffer glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Well, I seem to recall you didn’t suffer from the same attack of conscience when it was you who wanted someone shut up. You seem to have forgotten our little agreement. After you came to me for help over your little problem, remember?’
‘I didn’t come to you for help!’ Donaldson yelled, his face purpling. ‘You knew about Keller, and you came to me. God knows how you got to hear about it, but you did. And I wish I’d never listened to you that night; I should have taken the consequences, like a man!’ He kicked the fallen mug across the room, spraying more coffee over the carpet.
The room fell quiet for a moment, and he seemed to master himself. He took a deep breath, and then said, more quietly: ‘In any case, I’m not going to be in a position to help anyone, not from tomorrow morning.’ He stared at the widening stain on the floor.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m being relieved tomorrow morning. Nobody else knows that yet,’ he added, pointing a warning finger. ‘When I’m gone, you’re on your own.’
Shaffer looked worried, for the first time since entering the room ‘Who’s relieving you?’
‘Simmons, from the Denver. He’s coming in at dawn.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘He’s a lieutenant colonel. I’ve met him once or twice. He’s going to go over all the data records – including the ones you falsified.’
‘But they completed the investigation months ago!’ Shaffer’s voice was rising.
‘Well, it seems someone from the FSAA wasn’t happy with the data you gave them, and they’ve been crawling all over it! What’s up, are you worried they’ll find out what you did?’ Donaldson snarled.
Shaffer began to pace the room. ‘We can work this out. I just need some more time. Do we know what they found in the data records?’
‘You’re not doing anything. I’m sick of the whole thing, and I’m sick of covering up for you. I’m going to face up to the consequences of what I did, and I suggest you get ready to do the same!’
‘If I go down, I’ll take you with me.’
‘Well, that’s where things have changed,’ Donaldson said quietly. He came closer to Shaffer, dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. ‘They’ve been talking to one of Keller’s friends. The bitch hadn’t kept my – indiscretion to herself. They haven’t told me who, except that they’re back on Earth now.’
‘Vasquez or Schiaparelli,’ Shaffer said flatly, ‘it has to be.’
‘It doesn’t matter now. I’ll deny it of course, and without any hard facts they’ll have trouble proving it, but I’ll never get a command again. They’ve found out – I’m finished.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘So you’ve got no hold over me any more. And when they find out what you did, they won’t believe your word on anything. You’re going to jail. And they will find out what you did, you bastard. I never wanted Keller killed, you knew that.’
Shaffer’s face darkened. ‘You were the one who wanted her shut up, shut up permanently you said, those were your words. I did exactly as you asked, and you said you’d cover for me.’ Shaffer’s hands contracted into fists, the veins standing out on his forearms.
‘That was before they discovered the slapdash job you did on the data. You told me they wouldn’t find anything! Well they have! You thought you could fool the FSAA – a twelve year old could have done better! And now you come to me with – with this.’ Donaldson gestured at Clare’s inert body in the chair. ‘It fills me with disgust that I end up having to conceal the activities of your – sordid little operation here. I should turn you in with me, and save them the trouble of finding out!’
Shaffer stared at Donaldson. He didn’t move, just stood there, his eyes blazing. Then without any warning, he stepped forward and rammed his fist into Donaldson’s stomach. As the captain crumpled, Shaffer hit him again, and then let loose with a flurry of left- and right-handed blows, his teeth bared in fury. The older man collapsed to the floor, where he lay, his face contorted, unable to draw breath.
Shaffer stared down at the captain, breathing hard, his fists hanging like heavy blunt instruments at his side. He got himself under control again with an effort, and shook his head to clear it. ‘Right then, we understand each other. We’re on our own. I’ll look after myself, and you – you can enjoy the ride back to Earth. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to reflect on things. Just don’t get in my way.’ He strode over to Clare’s unconscious form.
‘Where – you – taking her?’ Donaldson wheezed out from the carpet, his voice barely a croak.
‘Somewhere where she won’t be coming back from.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Clare took an agonised breath, and awoke. Her sides hurt like someone had been k
icking her. She felt sick, and thirsty – incredibly thirsty.
She coughed. There was a rotten, damp smell around her, a smell of wet paper, decaying food, oil and hydraulic fluid. Where was she? She moved slightly, and she realised that she had been bound. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her knees and ankles were bound together. She struggled, and there was an ominous rustling.
Where was she? Her vision cleared a little, and she saw that she was in some kind of metal waste container with smooth sides that rose above her. The light wasn’t good; it must have been coming from some small bulkhead light over the side of the container. The sides of the container were filthy with brown stains, and she lay on top of a pile of garbage – worn out overalls, paper, cans, oil-stained wipes, plastic bottles, food scraps, paper plates, dirty napkins. It stank. She began to realise where she was.
The garbage bay. She’d never been here, but this was where the daily garbage of a large carrier was tipped, through the four chutes above her, and ended up here, in this container. A crawling sense of danger started to work its way up her spine. The garbage wasn’t stored on board, it was dumped overboard every day, through doors that opened beneath her.
She tried shouting for help, but the piled garbage around her swallowed up her voice, and there was a continuous noise coming from some compressor next door. She hadn’t a hope of being heard.
There was a slithering noise – she jumped, and a fresh load of garbage fell into the container. Some of it fell on top of her. From the looks of it, it was from the sick bay; discarded syringes, swabs, something with blood on it. She shuddered.
Could she get out somehow? She wriggled, but she only succeeded in digging herself in deeper. She began to panic. How often was the garbage emptied? Could she somehow hang onto the sides, hold her breath while the doors opened and the garbage fell away? She glanced up the sides, to the top of the container above her, but her hands were tied. How much time had she left?