by K S Augustin
“Don’t thank us. You’re the one finding all those rich lodes. So, in order to protect you and ensure you’re working as optimally as possible, we’re sending along a specialised probe.”
“Probe?”
Lewaya laughed and the pale skin of her cheeks crinkled. “Don’t worry about it. The probe has been carefully programmed. It will destroy the comet, which is luckily on the exact opposite side of the planet, but will leave your orbital completely untouched, although you may pick up elevated radiation levels as you transit through the termination zone.”
Meyal’s hands clenched the armrests of her chair.
“It’s a nuclear probe?”
“I’ve been informed that that is the best way to destroy the debris.”
“And are you sure it won’t, hit me?”
“Absolutely.” Lewaya smiled broadly. “As I said, it’s been carefully primed, and all the action is going to happen on the other side of Falcin V anyway. I just wanted to warn you about the radiation, in case your sensors pick it up. Rest assured, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“And when,” Meyal husked to a halt, then cleared her throat and tried again. “And when will you be destroying the, comet?”
“Not long now,” Lewaya said brightly. “No more than eighteen standard hours. The probe was launched more than a day ago from one of our automated mobile sector platforms.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Do you have any other questions?”
Meyal shook her head. “N-no, no, I don’t think so.”
“Very good. I want to add, as a personal note, Meyal, that we’re very pleased with the work you’ve done so far. Your extra bonus is well deserved. Congratulations.”
Meyal didn’t think she could move a muscle, but she managed to dredge up the semblance of a smile. “Thank you.”
Lewaya Phoenix, once more, winked out of existence.
Meyal replayed the words, as horrible and unbelievable as they were, through her head.
Lewaya Phoenix had mentioned nuclear missiles masquerading as probes and the existence of automated weapons platforms beyond the system as casually as if ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant. Meyal had never heard of XeGeTech owning such technology before. She stared at the unresponsive panel, and a fear started growing in her belly. What if Waryd’s orbital had executed a protocol severing every outgoing communications link…as a prelude to getting destroyed? What if key systems on his station could be remotely controlled without him knowing? And what did Waryd mean by saying they “were onto” him? Was there something he knew, something he'd done, that somehow threatened XeGeTech? Putting all the pieces together, even knowing that she didn't have all the information, Meyal admitted to herself that it was all starting to sound like a deadly game.
And she could either sit there, and wait for a furious, but unsuspecting, Waryd to be killed...or she could do something.
Meyal thought of the conversations she and Waryd had held, the sessions of shared passion, her daydreams of touching him in the flesh. She couldn't let him die.
Brushing the wetness away from her face with the heel of her palm, she focused on the control panel beneath her fingers. “Think, Meyal, think!”
If Lewaya Phoenix was right, she had eighteen hours before Waryd and his orbital were destroyed. There was no question about what she had to do. She had to get Waryd to safety. Bonuses and company regulations were one thing, but she couldn’t sit by and let another person get murdered. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she let that happen.
But, the question of the millennia was: how was she going to save Waryd?
Meyal forced herself to remember the details of the planet.
“The diameter of Falcin V is thirty-seven thousand kilometres,” she recited in a shaky voice. “Our orbitals are three thousand, six hundred kilometres above the planet. That gives an amended diameter of,” she frantically punched in numbers, “forty four thousand two hundred kilometres, or a circumference of one hundred and thirty-nine thousand kilometres. Assuming that Waryd’s orbital is directly opposite mine, it’s almost seventy thousand kilometres away.”
She licked her lips, forcing herself to slow down. “How can I get him?” she muttered. “I can’t reprogram the orbital.”
She tried raising Waryd again. Failed.
“Emergency suits,” she finally said, with a snap of her fingers. She quickly pulled up the specs of the suits, scanning the details. “Oxygen capacity…medical…communication…extra toolkit…ah, here we are! Maximum velocity of suit, one hundred and fifty metres a second. That makes – oh no, that can’t be right! – one thousand three hundred hours to reach the other orbital!
“But he’ll be dead in eighteen hours!” she wailed, then steadied her breathing, grabbing the board with both hands. “There’s got to be another way.
“Start from the beginning, Meyal. You are on an orbital. Waryd is on another, directly opposite. The orbitals have been programmed to always keep Falcin V between them. I look out,” she matched action to word, walking out of the Analysis Room and over to the small observation deck, “and I see…Salyut Canyon.”
She grimaced. “Who am I kidding, I always see Salyut Canyon. It’s been Salyut bloody Canyon every day for the past half a year.” She stopped suddenly. “The same feature. Every day. Every night. Which wouldn’t be possible,” her voice rose, “unless we are both in geostationary orbits!”
Excited, she hurried back to the Analysis Room to check. “Yes, of course. If I input Falcin’s period, it means Waryd’s orbital will pass this very point in…eight hours and fourteen minutes.”
Meyal didn’t hesitate. Rushing through the corridor, she headed for the Docking Room.
“If I stay in orbit at the same point, correcting for my initial inertia, Waryd’s orbital will swing around to me. No need for me to go after him. Eight and a quarter hours there, eight and a quarter hours back. That makes sixteen and a half hours. Not much time.”
She stripped naked, then opened two transparent doors in the room, pulling a suit out of one and stepping into it, adjusting the plumbing connections as she did so.
“One suit for me, one for Waryd. A toolkit, just in case.” She looked around. “Do I need anything else?”
No, she was running out of time. The more she dallied, the shorter her margin of safety, and that was thin enough as it was. She shivered as she realised that, even as she fastened the helmet over her suit and evacuated the atmosphere from the Docking Room, a missile was already on its way to Waryd’s habitat.
Not letting herself think any more about what was happening, what she was doing – throwing away a year of bonuses to save the life of someone she wasn’t even supposed to know about – Meyal hit the access switch and watched as the thick panel receded from her then slid off to one side.
With the sound of her own breathing loud in her ears, Meyal took a stumbling step out of the hatch, remembering, just in time, to use the manoeuvring jets to stop her nascent somersault. The second suit didn’t help. It was like a tentacled obstacle, the limbs wrapping themselves around her legs and bumping into her, obscuring her vision. Eventually, with a short curse, she let out some length on the spare’s tether, clipped it to her own suit and pushed the bulky gear away, letting it hover and spin in peace, its appendages safely twirling metres away from her.
Initiating her heads up display, Meyal triangulated the positions of the orbitals. She boosted further out, using her jets to both counteract her inertia and move away from the orbital, and saw her metal home recede from her at a phenomenal rate. All she could do now was hold tight and wait for Waryd’s station to approach, plot an intercept course that wouldn’t smash her against the station’s hull, find a way to get in, find Waryd, stuff him in a suit, and repeat the entire process in reverse. All with less than two hours to spare.
“Piece of cake,” she muttered, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
Waiting.
She hated to wait.
“Why am I even doi
ng this?” she asked herself. “I’ve just thrown away the chance at a new life, as well as benefits for my family. Waryd Gosin had better be worth it.”
She had never been in actual space before. The emergency drills she had practised during orientation and pre-deployment were held in giant simulation tanks on Earth. With nothing better to do, Meyal slowly spun around, careful to make sure the tether to the spare suit didn’t wrap itself around her.
She was surrounded by a magnificent and beautiful vista. It was vast and terrifying, filled with a cold, sharp, unwavering brilliance. Stars were orbs of fine needles and the planet beneath her feet – huge and uncaring – swirled red, orange and yellow in an awe-inspiring patchwork of earth tones. The enormity of what she was doing suddenly hit her. She could die out here and nobody would know, her body an undiscoverable speck against an immensity of black velvet.
Things almost did come to an end two hours later. Meyal’s display picked up an unidentified object, fast approaching. Panic-stricken, she scrambled out of the way, heading for a point farther out from the planet, as something black and bristling with antennae rushed past in total silence.
Meyal heard her heart thudding in her suit as she watched the object melt quickly into the darkness. An alarm beeped, indicating increased respiratory indicators and suggesting an aerosol of epinephrine reuptake inhibitor.
“No,” she said, declining the offer of an adrenaline suppressor. “I think I need all the reflexes I can get.”
She had forgotten about the old satellites that ghosted around Falcin V. With a little less than six hours left before she needed to spring into action, chances were she would encounter more of them. With trembling fingers, Meyal set the suit sensors to scan at a longer range, and tried to settle quietly and think of pleasant things.
Chapter Three
The approach to Waryd’s habitat, when it finally flashed into view, was full of anxiety and excitement.
Knowing that she wasn’t up to the task, and mindful of the old machines that had sped past her, Meyal had taken advantage of her waiting time to command Waryd’s satellite-hopping protocols to connect her suit’s system to that of her orbital. There were a tense few minutes when she heard nothing but static, then the station chimed an acknowledgement and she was logged in.
Spinning slowly, thousands of kilometres away, she closed her eyes at that moment, thinking she was running more on luck than ability. After a few seconds of quiet, she took a breath and, punching in the relevant details, used the final hour of waiting to have the orbital calculate the most optimal approach vectors.
When her sensors beeped that the target was within range, Meyal switched propulsion controls to the computer, said a swift prayer and saw the orbital approach at terrifying speed, its hull gleaming a dull silver grey. Every instinct in her screamed to override the autopilot and slam on reverse thrusters. She was going to hit the station! Her helmet would impact the metal and crack open!
Meyal clenched her fists and watched, in dread, as she heard her suit’s power units continue its staccato rhythm of firings. Then, miraculously, the orbital seemed to slow. She put out a hand as the hull swam into reach. Five metres…four…three….
The magnetic pads on her gloves touched and held as the final jet finished the firing sequence, and Meyal hugged the metal, resting her helmet against the finely scored panels. She stayed in that position for several minutes, waiting until her breathing steadied and her heart slowed to its normal rhythm. When she thought she had herself under control, she leant back to get a better look of where she had landed. In a stroke of luck, the edge of an emergency hatch appeared on the curve of the hull, about ten metres away.
Securing the spare suit so it was only trailing a metre behind her, Meyal sidled her way over to the hatch. She asked her suit for details on the power situation within the orbital but was told that results were inconclusive.
“I wonder what that means,” she muttered.
Being an emergency exit, the hatch had its own independent power source. Meyal spotted the lever for the portal in a dip of metal and grabbed it firmly. She squatted over it, placing her feet and other hand squarely on the hull to provide some counterforce, then pulled it with a jerk. There was no sound, but Meyal felt vibrations as the hatch’s locks disengaged. Breathing a sigh of relief, she moved back to the exit and levered the door open with an elbow, entering the orbital and dragging the spare suit in with her. After a moment’s reflection, she unlatched the tether with relief and secured the spare to a nearby hook before looking around.
It was almost completely dark inside. Meyal floated over to the small rounded window set into the door of the evacuation room and peered through. Lights of blue and red blinked periodically, but the orbital didn’t even appear to be illuminated by emergency power. Meyal knew exactly what that meant – Waryd was running out of time, heat and oxygen.
Turning away, she closed the hatch and pushed down its locks before heading back to the station’s door and banging loudly on it. The countdown timer she had set in the bottom corner of her helmet display read, “09 Hours – 46 Minutes – 14 Seconds”. Ideally, she wanted to be safely back in her own orbital when the seconds finally ticked away to zero.
She banged again on the door, as hard as she could, and was wondering if there was any way she could handshake with the habitat’s communication system when a head appeared at the small clear panel. She saw Waryd’s shocked expression and lip-read his exclamation.
“Meyal!”
“Can-you-get-the-door-open?” she asked, exaggerating the movements of her mouth, and pairing them with gestures that mimed pulling on something.
Waryd stared at her blankly for a moment, then his lips thinned and he nodded.
“Jury-rig-door. Keep back!”
Even though she had moved away, the blast of atmosphere from the station still slammed her against the far wall as the door finally swung open. Waryd, looking deeply worried, rushed in, his feet barely touching the floor.
“Are you okay?”
She could hear him! They had an atmosphere. No gravity, judging by the way he bobbed about, but at least she could breathe without a suit on.
Meyal undid the clasps of her helmet and eased off the giant egg-shaped headpiece. She was about to say something, start explaining exactly what was headed his way, when he grabbed the neck of her suit, pulled himself down and kissed her full on the lips. Meyal’s eyes widened at the sudden assault, then she threw her helmet to one side and held his face, probing his mouth with her tongue and breathing in the sweaty, tangy aroma of him.
“Hey! Ow!” He pulled back suddenly. “You almost broke my face there, angel.”
Meyal looked down at her gloves and remembered the tiny servo motors positioned throughout her suit. In an effort to save him, she had almost killed him!
“I’m so sorry,” she apologised, the words coming out in a rush. “I wasn’t thinking.”
He laughed, and moved to awkwardly embrace her again. “It’s okay. You’re here. That’s the important thing.” Then he frowned. “Why are you here, exactly? Does it have something to do with the catastrophic failure of this orbital? And,” his frown deepened, “if so, how did you find out about it?”
“I didn’t come because your orbital failed,” she told him. “I came because you’re about to get blown into smithereens.”
He tugged her out of the evacuation room and, as they floated through the major habitat ring, she relayed the conversation she’d had with her sector supervisor.
“The way I figure it,” she finished, “my extra twenty-five per cent comes out of your contract money, with you conveniently not around to claim it.”
“Shit!” His gaze hopped from one place to another. Meyal followed it, noting features and amenities in the gloom that weren’t too different from what was on her own orbital.
“So what happens now?” he finally asked with a sigh.
“I brought a spare suit,” Meyal explained, “just in case y
ou didn’t have one. We leave this place, float a kilometre out of orbit, and wait eight hours until my orbital swings around again. Then we board it.”
Her words galvanised him into action. “We can’t leave. Not yet.”
Meyal watched, incredulous, as he began bouncing off walls, collecting data sticks, bits of hardware and – it appeared to her – anything he could lay his hands on.
“Waryd,” she said. Just watching him was starting to make her dizzy. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t leave now, Meyal,” he explained, in between hops. “I’ve got work to do.”
Did he just say what she thought he said? “Work?”
“Well,” he cast her a rueful grin, “things to salvage, at any rate.”
She stared at him. “Salvage? At a time like this?”
He held up a finger and grinned at her. “I’ll be right back.”
In the end, it took more than half-an-hour to drag Waryd back to the evacuation room. Meyal scanned the motley collection of clothes, equipment and portable data units he’d gathered and watched, bemused, as he shoved everything into a large, semi-rigid porta-pack.
“Is that,” she pointed to a medium-sized, roughly circular metallic object, covered with regularly-spaced studs, “a probe?”
“A spare,” Waryd said, nodding.
She was confused. Why would he need such a thing? Especially as she was sure the ExoSystems’ probes were incompatible with XeGeTech technology.
“Right.” He straightened, put his hands on his hips and looked around. “I think we’re ready to go.”
Shaking her head, Meyal reached for her helmet and put it on. She didn’t want to, but her gaze moved to the countdown timer.
08 Hours – 35 Minutes – 23 Seconds
“Waryd, we have got to get out of here.” As far as Meyal was concerned, a fifteen-minute safety margin wasn’t any kind of safety margin at all.
“Did I tell you how grateful I am that you came to rescue me?” he asked her. Then he snapped his helmet on. His next words, shunted through the communications systems between suits, sounded flat, but there was no mistaking the excitement in his voice. “Well, what are we waiting for?”