by Mark Anson
Her situation was desperate. Suddenly, her self-control left her, and she yelled at the top of her voice for help, for someone to come and save her. She shouted herself hoarse, but the noise from next door carried on relentlessly, and nobody came.
The container didn’t seem that full. Maybe it had just been emptied. But then she didn’t know how long she had lain there before coming round. It could be emptied any minute, or in several hours; she just didn’t know.
Could she climb out? The sides didn’t look that tall. If she had the use of her hands, she could probably stand on the garbage and pull her herself out, or even make a pile of it and climb out. But she had to release her hands first.
There must be something sharp in the container, something she could use. A used scalpel blade? She looked over hopefully at the items that had just fallen in, but she needed her hands to look through it, and …
She snarled in anger and frustration. Whoever had done this to her didn’t mean for her to get out.
There was a noise, close by, a noise of screeching, scraping metal. No – the doors were opening! She scrabbled frantically to try to get away from the centre of the container, to get to the sides, as if the smooth metal could ever save her.
Then from somewhere close by came a voice. It hadn’t been the container doors opening, it was the door to the room being opened. She looked upwards in hope, and her heart leapt as she saw a face leaning over the edge of the container, looking down at her. Then she saw who it was, and as fast as hope had risen in her it fell away into a black despair as she realised she wasn’t going to escape.
‘Well, well, well,’ Shaffer said, looking at the half-buried form below him. ‘If it isn’t First Lieutenant Foster, on her way to a flying lesson in the atmosphere.’ He laughed at his own wit. ‘I must say, it’s somehow fitting that you’re going to go out with the garbage. I couldn’t have found a more appropriate way to get rid of you.'
She didn’t know what to say. Should she plead? Or show bravado, tell him that he wouldn’t get away with it? But he was there, the only person who could possibly help her. She swallowed. It was worth a try. She looked up levelly at him. ‘If you get me out of here, I swear I won’t tell anyone about your operation. I’ll do deliveries for you and Coombes, anything. Just get me out of here.’
He laughed again, a nasty laugh that told her that she had no hope of persuading him. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Foster. You’ve shown whose side you’re on, very clearly, and you know way too much now. No, I think you’ll be heading out of the bottom of this container very soon.’
‘How—’
‘How long have you got? About four hours. Time enough to reflect on things – maybe make some futile attempts at escape. But be careful what you’re doing. See these sensors below me?’ He pointed at one of several small, glassy discs set below the rim of the container. ‘Trip any of these, and the system will think garbage is piling up, and it’ll empty immediately. Like this!’ He swung his hand over the nearest detector, and Clare cringed. Nothing happened, and he laughed again.
‘Relax. It won’t happen with the compartment door unlocked. You know, it really is great to see you lying there, Foster. I disliked you the moment I set eyes on you. Top grades in everything, Hartigan’s star pupil – did you have to fuck him to get those grades, Foster, huh? Huh?’ His eyes were wide. ‘Tell me!’
‘No. He’s an honourable man, a good officer,’ she answered carefully.
‘Unlike me, huh? No, don’t bother to answer, I can see it in your eyes. Well, I don’t believe you, Foster. Nobody gets promotion that quickly unless they’ve been fucking somebody, and I think you and Hartigan did it. I bet you went down on him the moment you were assigned, I bet you promised him he’d get it every night, if you could only have those graaades …’
Clare didn’t react, she just kept her expression carefully neutral.
‘Nothing to say, huh? That proves it,’ he said, shaking her head. ‘You know the only pity about putting you in here is that I don’t get to see your face when the doors open, and you fall out into the atmosphere. It’s going to be a long fall, too. I sent that blackmailing bitch Keller down to the planet, too, but at least I got to see her fly into the ramp first. You want to know how I did it, Foster? I bet you do.’
‘Yes. I do,’ Clare said, nodding, anything to keep him talking. While he was talking, she stayed alive. ‘Tell me.’
Shaffer’s eyes shone with pride. ‘I reprogrammed the glideslope angle, so that I could drop it at the touch of a button, just at the right moment. I waited until she was nearly there, then – pow! Down goes the glideslope, and before she realises, she flies straight into the ramp. She went down like a swatted fly.’
Clare could visualise the moment – she knew the trust that the pilot put into the equipment, the people on the carrier. Then suddenly, the aircraft veering down, and the ramp coming up to smite you from the sky.
‘You bastard,’ she said.
Shaffer laughed. ‘You’re in no position to call me names, bitch,’ and he spat, slowly and accurately, into her face. Clare squirmed, and Shaffer watched with slow relish as it trickled into her eye. ‘It’s a shame that I’ve got to go soon, because I can think of several more things that I could … drop on you. But duty calls – I’ve got a spaceplane landing to supervise.
‘I triggered that engine jettison, too, Foster,’ he nodded sagely. ‘Oh yes. I waited until you were on the downwind leg, and then I fired it. Did you know that I could have blown off both engines? That would have been exciting, seeing you trying to save yourself. Maybe you’d have had enough altitude to make the turn onto finals, but then the carrier would have been above you, and you’d have carried on down. Down, and down, and down.’ He shook his head, as if regretting the opportunity, and straightened up to go. He turned suddenly, as if remembering something.
‘Oh, Foster, I’m going to tell you one more thing before I shut the door and leave you wondering when you’re going to die. That spaceplane – the one with Hartigan aboard – well, it isn’t going to make it. I’m not having investigators crawling all over this ship’s equipment, not until I’ve covered my tracks better. Your precious Captain Hartigan is going to have one hell of a bad day.’
‘No! You can’t do that!’ Clare screamed up at him, ‘don’t be stupid! If a spaceplane hits this carrier you’ll kill everyone on board!’
‘I’m not stupid, you bitch!’ Shaffer yelled back, his face reddening. ‘You think I haven’t thought of that? I’m just going to make it so that they can’t land here. And that’ll give me the time I need. Speaking of which –’ he glanced at his watch, ‘I need to run, that spaceplane’s coming in soon.’
They both felt it then; the note of the carrier’s engines, which could just be heard faintly from where they were, increased slightly, and they felt the carrier move beneath them.
‘Feel that?’ he said. ‘They’re moving onto an intercept course. They’ll be coming down from orbit now – not long to go before landing. Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Foster, it really has. I’ll turn the light off, just in case you are tempted to try a miraculous escape attempt. It’ll be dawn when the doors open, so you’ll have plenty of light while you’re falling. I hope you stay alive a long time, but I suppose you’ll suffocate in the atmosphere long before it gets interesting.
‘So long, bitch.’ He smiled amiably, and moved away. Clare heard him flick a switch, and the compartment was plunged into darkness. A dagger of light streamed across the ceiling from the open pressure door, then it screeched shut, and she heard the sound of heavy bolts ramming home.
Clare was suddenly alone in the darkness. She felt the terror rise up, like a snake tightening its coils around her body.
I’m not going to scream I’m not going to scream I’m not going to scream …
She bit her lip until the blood flowed, trying not to cry out in the dark.
PART IV
Retribution
CHAPTER TW
ENTY-TWO
Shaffer emerged from the stairwell in the middle of the accommodation area and walked purposefully along the Langley’s upper deck. He stepped through the pressure doors at the rear of the deck and out into the angled corridor that skirted the deck elevator and ran towards the hangar. It was always cold out here, but he didn’t even notice; he was intent on his task.
He had barely twenty minutes before the incoming spaceplane would be manoeuvring to line up its glide path with the Langley’s course, and he had to be in the tower before then to direct the landing. He didn’t meet anyone as he strode along, but even if he had, he wouldn’t have registered their presence, he was so focused on what he had to do.
If he had stopped to analyse his behaviour, or the set of decisions that had led him here, he might have paused in his actions. Instead, trapped in a spiral of his own conceit and delusions, it simply didn’t occur to him. Like a gambler making larger and larger bets to try to win his losses back, he was blind to the enormity of the actions that he had taken, and those that he was about to take. He saw the short-term future as a set of necessary actions that had to be performed, quickly and decisively. The consequences for others came a distant second to his own preservation; right now, all that mattered to him was buying time; time to sort everything out. Time to figure out how to deceive the FSAA, time to sort out the mess that the Foster bitch had created, time to figure out what to do with the captain.
Maybe he would have to take temporary command. It had happened before, although never on a carrier. He deserved to be in command; he had learned more about the hidden workings of this ship than any of the other officers could imagine. They wouldn’t try to stop him; they would recognise the wisdom, the leadership of his actions. And he would be in command.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.
He was now in the long corridor that ran along the upper port side of the main hangar. About half-way along, he slowed his pace, and, glancing around to make sure no one was watching, ducked into an access way on his right. So narrow that it was almost a slot, the access way led away from the hangars, out inside the left wing. Racks of electronics hummed and blinked on either side; here were the drivers and amplifiers for the powerful traffic and landing radars, turning electricity into raw radio energy that could reach out over a hundred kilometres into the sky.
He stopped in front of a small, red-painted door that announced:
EXTREME DANGER
HIGH POWER RF ENERGY
DO NOT ENTER WHILE IN OPERATION
He hesitated for a moment. The door was protected by a security lock, and he would have to do some more alteration of data records to conceal the fact that it had been opened.
He could do it. He tapped in the code, unlocked the handle and swung the door open; it was very heavy for its size. Red light spilled out into the access way, warning that the equipment was active. He knew he was taking a terrible risk; even with the best shielding, the circular compartment that he was now in was seething with microwave energy and X-rays. He could only stay in here for a few seconds before his body tissues started to suffer permanent damage.
He could almost feel the microwaves as he closed the door behind him; his skin crawled, as if invisible tendrils were creeping over his body. A deep, baleful humming filled the room, and he glanced in fear at the massive klystron tube that sat menacingly at its centre. High-power waveguides ran up from this into the ceiling, leading to the radar scanner directly above. Around the circular walls were smaller amplifiers and transmitters, their radiator fins opening out into the chamber and filling the air with a dry, electrical heat.
He knew where he’d gone wrong before, when he’d interfered with the glideslope beam angle. Too many systems keeping too many logs, and despite his best efforts to cover his tracks, they must have spotted the places where he had overlaid normal data over the real records. Whatever; it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
This time he would interfere with the system in a place nobody would suspect, still less dare to investigate, not until all other options had been ruled out, and by then he would have restored things.
He selected two of the power amplifiers feeding the glideslope system, and another that drove the localiser. He unscrewed the feeder cables and swapped all three of them round. It was ridiculously crude, but it would effectively stop the landing systems from working properly, and they would waste hours trying to find what the problem was, going through the diagnostic routines like idiots, when the problem was far simpler. He tightened the locking rings on the cables, and turned his back on the red-lit terror of the room.
He shut the heavy door behind him and leaned back against it, his eyes closed. His skin prickled with sweat in the cooler air. He had done it. Now he just had to execute on his plan, force the spaceplane to divert to another carrier, and then go back and deal with the data records.
He walked silently back to the main corridor and peered out. Nobody around. He stepped out and walked confidently back down the corridor, heading for the tower, thinking through his next steps.
All he needed was time.
High above the carrier, in the freezing wastes of air of Venus’s upper atmosphere, the spaceplane carrying Lieutenant Colonel Simmons plummeted through the sky. They had just completed re-entry, and Captain Hartigan, sitting in the commander’s seat on the left, watched the descent carefully, waiting for the moment when he could relight the engines.
Next to him, in the copilot’s seat, Simmons was busy with his thoughts. The cabin behind them was empty; there were no other passengers on the flight, although the freight hold was filled with supplies for the Langley.
Simmons was still irritated that he had been pulled off the Denver and told to take over down here, despite his protestations. The Denver’s reactor troubles were still not resolved to his satisfaction, and he was concerned about the remaining crew’s ability to deal with any emergency that came up while they were heading back to Earth. At least two of the other tug commanders could have done the job, he thought, and the only reason he could see for it was his rank; he was the most senior of the commanders over Venus right now.
There must be something serious going on if they wanted a lieutenant colonel there. He had been told very little about the reasons for Donaldson’s recall to Earth, but what he hadn’t been told, he could guess. Someone of Donaldson’s seniority and experience didn’t lose his command for nothing. It was most likely something about that accident earlier in the year, he thought. He wouldn’t be surprised if Donaldson was just being made to take the blame. Well, he would find out soon.
‘We’ll be landing in about fifteen minutes, sir,’ Hartigan’s voice broke in. Simmons nodded, and checked his seat straps again. Hartigan had warned him to expect a bumpy ride from the storm front that was sweeping across the sky ahead of them. He could see it ahead of them now on the horizon, a dark bank of brooding storm clouds against the featureless white of the cloud deck.
Simmons had been down to the carriers on several occasions, but with the last two years spent commanding the Denver, he wasn’t current on spaceplane landings, so Hartigan would be bringing them in today. Simmons was familiar with Hartigan’s experience and reputation, and felt confident and secure.
‘Airspeed Mach one and falling. Relight sequence.’
In their eyrie above the flight deck of the Langley, the control tower team watched the incoming blip of the spaceplane on the long-range radar.
The security door behind them clicked open. Shaffer emerged and took up the flight operations officer’s position by the rear window. He glanced at the situation board.
‘Are all the other aircraft back on board?’ he asked the tower controller.
‘Yes sir. Deck ops reports all secure and chained down. We’re heading out and away at full thrust as soon as we’ve taken this landing.’
‘Right.’ Shaffer felt a vague sense of unease move inside him. They had steered round storms b
efore; why were they moving away so fast afterwards?
The carrier moved beneath him, a sudden lurch, and he put his hand out to steady himself. He glanced at the weather radar.
Holy fuck. The wind vectors were all over the place. No wonder they weren’t hanging around any longer than they needed to. He stared at the swirling vortex of red for several seconds. The storm had grown in the last few hours, and it extended for nearly eight hundred kilometres, filling the sky ahead.
‘Sir, I’ve got the Curtiss on line, they’ve hit severe turbulence in a squall line and taken damage, they have to move north.’ The tower controller’s voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘That’s our last divert gone.’
‘What?’ Shaffer was suddenly alert.
‘We lost the Wright earlier – they had to move for the storm as well.’
‘So we’re taking a landing with no diverts available?’ Shaffer asked, his voice rising.
‘Yes sir, they’ve got to land here. We’re in the calmest weather.’ The carrier lurched again, sending coffee mugs flying.
‘They can’t land here – they’ve got to divert!’ Shaffer shouted. He ran to the situation display and punched up the positions of the two other carriers. The controller was right; the Curtiss was heading away north, and the Wright was far to the east of them. A wide green circle around the Langley’s position showed the diversion range of the spaceplane – it would run out of fuel before it reached either of the other carriers.
Shaffer started to sweat. It began under his armpits, in a trickle of fear that ran like acid down his sides. There were no diverts. He thought briefly of running for the door, getting back to the radar generators and repairing what he’d broken, but he knew he couldn’t get there in time. He couldn’t alert the tower to what was about to happen without implicating himself.
They were coming in.