by Kal Spriggs
She stopped at the airlock, then typed in her identity code. It opened a moment later, and she slipped inside. Mike followed her. The narrow airlock barely held them both. Mike put his helmet against hers, “You alright?” The contact allowed the vibration of his voice to reach her.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice sharp. “Let’s just get to work.”
The outer airlock opened, and they both froze. Mike had always found space a beautiful sight. Yet he never expected to find beauty in this place.
A vast blue gas giant hung above them, distant enough that it did not fill the entire sky, yet still close enough that Mike could watch vast storms sweep across its surface. A corona of gas hung in a halo around the planet, and the starlight caused it to fluoresce and glitter.
Closer lay a cloud of debris and ship wreckage. Mike could make out the hull of an ancient human colonization ship, massive beyond anything else ever built, as well as a cloud of smaller ships, and parts of smaller ships. They glittered and caught the multihued light from the gas giant, the halo, and the parent star. They looked like toys made out of jewels.
In human space, it might have become a tourist attraction.
Of course, the Chxor valued it only for the mineral wealth to be harvested off the wreckage. Mike wondered at the large cluster of ship debris. Had the Chxor towed every wreck in the system to this location? It made a certain level of sense, but only if they had other stations to do further salvage work. For that matter, he wondered how they had come to have so much wreckage in one system.
He followed Ariadne as she crawled up a loose scaffold towards what must be the work sled. It looked like nothing more than a steel frame with a seat, controls, and an engine. As they crawled closer, cautious in the lack of gravity, Mike saw a pair of magnetic grapnels on the front end. He hesitated to use ship’s terminology with the tiny contraption, unwilling to give it that kind of distinction.
Ariadne tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. He followed her gesture and peered in confusion at a hexagonal shape. For a moment it looked like a hatch cover, until he saw a flare of an engine. He could barely make out the shape of a work sled as it pushed a large chunk of wreckage into the work bay of the other station.
The scale had thrown him off for a moment, then. It should not have, he knew. He had decades of experience in space, he should have recognized what must be a twin to their prison station, yet he rarely piloted with true line of sight. The feeling left him to suddenly feel very, very, tiny.
He pushed that feeling aside. He knew something of the vast scale of the universe, enough to mentally come to terms with the fact that he could never make any real impact against it. Emotionally, however, he realized that such thoughts did not matter. He could make a difference in his own life, and in the lives of others. That in itself mattered.
And his survival, as little as it might affect the universe as a whole, meant a great deal to him. Therefore, he did not give a damn about the scale.
He studied the distant station for a moment. The hollow hexagon looked similar to the old human wheel stations, fabricated to use centripetal force to generate gravity. Yet the station did not spin, there would be no need, not with artificial gravity, Mike knew.
He imagined it must be easy enough to construct in a modular fashion. Perhaps that was why the Chxor chose that form. And certainly it made sense from a security standpoint. The Chxor could limit their prisoners to three of the sides, and retain the other two for engineering, life support, their own barracks, and whatever other space they needed. Security would easily manage two access points. He could make out a narrow spoke that ran through the center to a hub. That, he imagined, would be where they’d docked with the station. A last security feature to prohibit unauthorized access to any cargo flights.
He could not make out the shape of a shuttle attached to the other station, though he did see the flare of what he thought must be a cargo ship near their own station headed outbound or in a breaking maneuver.
He pointed at it, and thought he saw Ariadne nod. She pointed at the work sled, and Mike gave her a thumbs up signal. This was her shift. She had to get to work, if she wanted to make her quota.
Mike glanced at the chrono built into his suit and checked his air supply out of habit. The chrono said that the shift had started over an hour ago, which meant that he’d wasted a lot of Ariadne’s time, between the discussion at the barracks, her vision, and their time spent gawking.
Well, if it becomes an issue, I can always give her some of my rations, assuming I make quota, he thought. He glanced back at the engine flare. It must be a fusion drive, he thought. He wasn’t too surprised at that, those drives saw a lot of use in industrial settings like this, especially where time did not matter so much as reliability and cost. Other drives used more exotic fuels or burned more power. He doubted the Chxor cared whether a shipment of steel bars arrived in a day or a week. He traced its movement, and frowned. It hardly seemed to have moved, yet it had drawn noticeably larger. It must be a cargo flight on an approach vector.
Mike chewed on his lip in thought. He and the others seemed to have arrived in the scheduled flight. Trustee Krain had seemed to suggest that such flights occurred every few days or work cycles or whatever they called it.
Fontaine had said that they would move soon… and that they had a full shipment of precious metals, Mike thought. Does he plan to hijack that ship?
The thought bothered him, in more ways than one. He guessed they had only an hour at most before that ship would arrive. And with the timing, Fontaine’s new pilot Cathy would have had time to rest up and prepare, maybe even preplot some Shadow Space jump if Fontaine had a navcomputer. It also that meant Ariadne would probably still be outside the station, away from help. And Mike would bet that the rest of his team would be scattered and tired after their own shifts.
So how would Fontaine have it go down, he wondered. A distraction, for certain, he thought. Not a riot, because that would require some of his people, and while he might sacrifice them, he would prefer to retain them for use in the capture of a ship or shuttle to escape.
That leaves sabotage of some kind, or a bomb, or both, he thought. The last made the most sense, a bomb, placed somewhere to draw attention and cause damage. Then he and his men would make their move.
He would have any Chxor on his payroll inform him of the target ship’s estimated time of arrival. A backwards plan from the ETA would give him around thirty minutes from the time he triggered his little attack to work his way through the barracks and past any guards and then up the corridor to the hub. Mike would be willing to bet that the Chxor positioned the precious metals cargo before the ship docked. That would give Fontaine warning, even if he did not have some senior personnel corrupted amongst the Chxor such as the Warden that Simon mentioned.
Mike nodded; that plan made the most sense. A bomb somewhere in the foundry. The guards’ attention would focus there, and Fontaine could slip out the other way, circle the station, and get to the bird.
He looked away from the ship on approach to gaze at Ariadne. She had strapped herself into the work sled. Mike saw her do some system checks, and then freeze. She sat very still for a long moment, before he saw her unstrap from the seat and look underneath it.
Mike crawled over, and as he came alongside her, he saw what looked like a metal can strapped to the fuel tanks under the seat. Ariadne turned to him, and she put her helmet against his. “I did a basic system diagnostic, just to be safe, and I found an error code. Someone added a prompt to power up an auxiliary system once the engine kicked on.”
“And?” Mike asked.
“The wire leads down to that can,” Ariadne said.
Mike glared at the can. It seemed rather innocuous at first, until he thought about how effective a bomb might be near the Pit, especially since Fontaine did not care about the prisoners in the bay. Mike didn’t either, but he didn’t think he could kill them as a quick distraction. The fuel tanks looked to be par
titioned, which would mean fuel and oxygen ready to be mixed and burned. A bomb could mix and ignite the two. Mike didn’t know what the effects of vacuum might be, but neither did he have a desire to turn it on and find out.
“But that means…” He thought through the changes to the plan he had projected. It seemed clumsier, but maybe Fontaine did not care about elegance, just about function. “Shit, we have to get back into the station, Fontaine plans to kick off his escape attempt right now.” Yet he felt surprise that Fontaine’s explosive expert had left such a crucial part of the escape plan to random chance. Why would they rely on someone else to start it?
As he thought that, he saw a red light start to flash on the control panel for the sled. He glanced at it, and saw a message flash across the screen: Remote Start-up Engaged.
“Move!” Mike shouted, even as he realized that she wouldn’t hear him. Even so, he saw her start down the scaffold, headed towards the airlock. Mike suddenly cursed that he’d turned down Eric’s offer to accompany them. The mercenary might have known how to disable the damned thing. Mike sure as hell wouldn’t touch it.
They reached the airlock just as it opened and Anubus came out. He paused as he saw them scramble down the scaffolding towards him. Mike leapt past him and into the airlock. Ariadne followed a second later.
Anubus clearly realized something had gone wrong. He dove into the airlock as Mike punched the button to cycle it. The Wrethe’s feet barely cleared the door as it closed. The inner door opened a moment later, and Mike broke into a run. He stumbled over Crowe and Pixel who both had their arms buried in the paneling of some ship wreckage. Mike grabbed Crowe by the shoulder and pushed him forward. Even as he ran, he waved to get others attention throughout the bay. He saw some of the prisoners pause at their work and some of them started to move in the indicated direction. Most either ignored him or focused too much on their work and did not see him.
Mike looked over his shoulder just in time to see the flash.
The wall behind him shattered. Splinters of steel flashed across the open bay. Most struck piles of salvage and created further shrapnel. Mike saw three prisoners simply vanish, swallowed by the wave of destruction. One of the ones who had begun to run behind him took a shard through the chest. It speared him, and he stumbled forward. Blood sprayed out from the horrific wound, and Mike forced himself to look away as the man convulsed.
Pieces of metal pelted him, and he felt something heavy strike his environmental pack hard enough to knock him off his feet. Yet somehow, nothing penetrated his suit.
He glanced over at Ariadne, who stood frozen. Her hand had clamped on the arm of her suit, yet Mike still saw a spray of air hiss out between her fingers. He could see the look of terror in her eyes as she realized that she was about to die, and in one of the worst ways possible.
Pixel appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He pulled a paper carton off his belt and yanked a rubber pad out. Anubus moved up and pried Ariadne’s fingers away just long enough for Pixel to put the seal in place.
Mike felt a wave of relief, even as he made note of Pixel’s quick thinking. The engineer had impressed him. Before Pixel could do any more, they felt a shudder transmitted through the deck to their feet. The lights in the bay flickered and died. The artificial gravity began to fade moments later. Mike bit back a curse. He looked out the gaping hole that marked the former location of the work sled. The light from the gas giant cast strange shadows through the bay.
A moment later, Pixel lit up a work lamp. Mike pointed at the airlock that led to the barracks. If Mike understood Fontaine’s original plan, the man would already have a lead on them. Worse, he might have already gained weapons from the guards. Mike should have taken the gang leader’s brute force approach into consideration.
Especially after the work sled bomb. After all, what better distraction than multiple bombs?
* * *
Mike glanced around at the others. He saw Anubus turn his helmet to look at him. Mike pointed at the airlock. The Wrethe went still for a moment. Mike ground his teeth in frustration as he realized he would have to explain it to each of them. It seemed so obvious now.
Anubus seemed to get the idea, though. As the Wrethe ran for the barracks airlock, Mike turned to Eric. He tapped the former soldier on his shoulder. The man jumped in surprise and in the reduced gravity he soared almost two meters above the deck. He came down in an awkward, arm-splayed fall. Mike shook his head at the antics.
When Eric had enough control over himself to turn, Mike pointed at Anubus and the airlock. The other man seemed to understand and he began a series of cautious bounds after the Wrethe.
Mike reached for Pixel. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close so that he could touch helmets. He wished he had a set of radios. One thing to hopefully get from the guards. “Fontaine’s making his break now. I saw a ship coming in, it may be the one that Fontaine plans to hijack.”
“There’s one already at dock,” Pixel answered. “I talked with a pair of the foundry workers. They said they helped to load the precious metals shipment, but the Trustee said it exceeded the mass allowance, so the rest remained in the docking hub. That’s why I came back to find you.”
“Fontaine plans to take one of them,” Mike said. “We have to beat him there.” He glanced at Ariadne. The psychic leaned against the nose of a Marlin Three Eight Fighter. Mike knew she had to feel shaken by her brush with a gruesome death. “Give me a hand with her, will you?”
Pixel pulled back, and went to her right side. Mike took her left side, and they put her arms over their shoulders and headed for the airlock. Mike saw Eric cycle through it with Crowe. That surprised him, he had not seen the other man head over. The explosion must have confused him more than he thought.
They reached the airlock, and Mike caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, as the airlock cycled, and passed Ariadne over to Pixel.
A cluster of other prisoners had drawn close. One held up his hands, either in question or a show that he held no weapons. Mike glanced back as the airlock opened. What the hell, we can use more help, he thought. He gestured for the others to follow, and then crowded into the airlock with Pixel and Ariadne. Pixel cycled the airlock as soon as he got inside.
After what seemed like an eternity, the inner door opened and they stepped into the barracks. Mike’s hands went to his helmet, and he undogged the latches and pulled it off as he stepped forward.
Mike immediately tripped over a body as he stepped out. He sprawled out and barely caught himself from smacking face first into the floor. He glanced back at the body. He didn’t recognize the man, nor could he guess who had broken his neck.
He glanced back down the corridor as something gave a deep bellow. A moment later a body soared out of one of the barracks rooms to slam into the wall. Mike winced at the audible sound as bones snapped. The Chxor left a smear of greenish blood down the wall.
A second Chxor backpedaled out of the room, followed a moment later by a red colored blur of limbs. Rastar caught the other Chxor as the guard triggered a round from his riot gun into him. Mike saw the blast cut a deep furrow down the alien’s side.
Rastar caught the Chxor guard by the arms and swung him into the wall hard enough that Mike felt the impact through the deck plates.
The big Ghornath put two hands over the wound on his side. Mike stood and moved down the hall towards, him, “Are you going to be alright?”
Rastar gave him a thumbs up from one of his lower arms, even as his remaining arm reached for one of the riot guns. As he bent down, Mike saw the airlock cycle open, and another pair of guards step out. “Look out!” Mike shouted, even as he tried to duck away.
One of the Chxor raised his riot gun, but then an inky blot exploded out of the shadows behind him. Mike saw a spray of green blood as claws ripped into the Chxor. The second had time to chamber a round before a pair of suited figures tackled him.
Mike straightened from his crouch and started forward again. Rast
ar spun quicker than Mike expected for his bulk. The big alien snatched up a second riot gun from a downed guard. Mike saw the surviving Chxor guard throw one of his attackers away, and bring his riot gun around on the other.
“Clear!” Rastar shouted.
The remaining attacker looked up, saw him bear down on them, and leapt clear, even as Anubus ducked down.
Rastar fired both riot guns a heartbeat later. The two blasts cut the Chxor guard in half, and sprayed the interior of the airlock with body fluids and ruptured organs. Mike grimaced at the mess, though after what he had seen so far he felt no particular pity for the Chxor.
The airlock door started to close. “Get in the door!” Mike shouted.
He saw Anubus leap inside. Eric, the other attacker, grabbed at the fallen guard’s riot gun and barely made it inside the hatch before it closed.
Mike ran up to the airlock. He glanced at Rastar, “Nice shot. Are you alright?”
“Thanks.” Rastar held up the two pump action weapons. “They’re pretty crude, but I’ll hold onto them.” He glanced down at the wound across his side. Mike looked at it too; it didn’t look as bad now, though he saw a lot of red blood. “I’ll be fine, man, I’ve got a pretty good constitution.”
“Well, wherever Run went, we should have him look at you.” Mike frowned. “Did you say you’ll hold onto both weapons?” Mike asked. Granted it looked like the alien had hit with both, but still, it wasn’t like he could use both of them at the same time on a regular basis. Mike realized he’d focused on an inane issue to keep his mind off of the wait. He did not know if Anubus and Eric faced the rest of the station’s guards on the other side of the door, or if they found no resistance and decided to abandon them. The Wrethe is a pilot, Mike thought grimly, he might well have killed Eric, or just offered him a deal.
Rastar gave him a broad grin, “I could use four of them at once, if they weren’t pump action. On two different targets.”