Then came the next stage. A signal chime in my right ear matched a flash on my visor, and I disconnected from the sled, switching to suit oxy. The barest practiced push would slowly separate me from the tubular frame, and my suit harness would take over. It's easy to shove too hard, which actually changes your trajectory considerably. You can miss the target by several hundred meters that way. A touch is all you need. "Below" me, the sled was braking with small shoves to a relative zero velocity. It wouldn't do for it to appear on sensors later, giving away the fact that we were present. These sleds would activate beacons and become an exercise for space rescue units; nothing was wasted. In a real war, of course, they'd be expended.
The suit thrusters kicked in, using compressed nitrogen to make bare corrections to the course. And no, it can't compensate for the shove that separates you from the sled. It handles your programmed trajectory only, not that of anything else around it. Sensors on a harness would be pricey, subject to detection, and incredibly inaccurate with so small an aperture.
We continued our apparent drift, even though it was a very precise orbit. For three more divs—2.8 hours each—nothing happened. The slight occultation I'd seen had been one tiny ship of the fleet in front of one irrelevant, distant star. We were within a div of our final time tick when I saw another, then another, then three more.
Suddenly, surreally, we were within the fleet. It was in a holding pattern near what would be a planetoid base, carved out by combat engineers to provide storage and rudimentary billeting space. They could build them on short notice and abandon them in seconds if the need arrived. They were referred to only as "rocks" because that's all they were. Not home, just a space equivalent of a windbreak or leanto. They'd be awfully glad for the use of that shortly, because the ships were about to go bye-bye. Sweat was pouring off me, and I adjusted my cooling slightly.
It was thrilling and bizarre. Here we were, surrounded by state of the art warships that could deliver enough ordnance to boil a planet, and we were too low mass and velocity to even register. We were drifting debris. Barring the astronomical odds of a repair crew or special courier, nothing would get near enough to affect us. Of course, if they had brought sensors up, they could refine us if they knew to look. Or they might get lucky and irradiate us with active search measures. The close in sensor systems are pretty potent. We were just as alone and endangered as we had been, yet I felt much safer, even amidst this "enemy."
Things got active after that, and I was grateful for it. I think everyone else was, too. The ships resolved themselves as black shapes against black space, the stars disappearing at the edges. A shifting, interrupted shape would be the fleet carrier, a huge framework designed as a stardrive to carry smaller craft. It stayed back from the battle, defended as well as could be by its systems, and a threat point. One team would be taking that out. That would leave much of the fleet casualtied as unrecoverable, forcing command to decide between abandoning crew or taking time to transfer them. Fleet carriers are not the best means of projecting power, but they're what we have, so we train accordingly.
Our target must be the shadow ahead. It was obviously a "cruiser," so unless there'd been a drastic shift, it was ours. Yes, we knew exactly where it was. Think of it as a sea fleet anchored offshore, awaiting orders. We were coming in from the sea with a good view, and would sink them in the shallows.
All at once, things started happening. The target filled half my view, then it was all I could see. Surface features began to resolve in starlight, and I picked out a good place to land. I waved my arms for attention, the tiny pinlights on my sleeves triggering indicators in the teams' visors. They watched as I lit a point with a milliwatt laser, just enough to be seen by someone looking hard. They and their comms grabbed the dot as a target, or they should have. I had no way to know.
Then I was close. I waited until I was sure I was going to slam into the hull then braked, the gas puffing in front of me. Inertia carried my legs forward as thrust slowed my torso—I'd left the leg section turned off for that reason. I was feet down, thrusted again with the lower jets and relaxed my knees. I felt my feet touch through the thin, insulated traction boots I wore, and collapsed, absorbing the momentum while grabbing a line from my waist.
I was down, and moved quickly to connect to a padeye, or any convenient point. I found said ring, set into the hull, and let the cable snap to it. I adjusted its retaining drum for minimal tension, just to keep the line out of my way, and looked around.
I counted four, panicked as to where number five was, and did a quick check. Me, Frank, Deni, Barto and Gary . . . no Eliot.
For just a moment, my head spun and I was lost. Then I clamped down on it. One of my troops was in trouble, and I had to help him now.
There was no point in a broadcast. The suit commo range is short. I would have to contact higher up and have the signal come down for him. It might blow the exercise, and that was still a consideration. Failing that test as well would hurt me. It may sound callous, but real world, I'd have to call him dead and move on. Here, I had to do the same for exercise purposes, while doing everything I could to find him for real. But there were no excuses. It would be a failure if we got discovered.
First, I touched helmets with Frank. "Anyone see him?" I shouted. We all touched helmets and inquired. No. He'd been last off, and had been slightly behind Deni. She'd last seen him some hours before. So he was in trajectory, and likely near us. Alive? Dead? We didn't know.
That settled, I opened a laser tightbeam to the nearest judge's ship, while Frank tried to locate a friendly ship for me. "Emergency—Three Zulu One," I said. "Casualty Casualty Casualty. Blazer Eliot Christensen missing in EVA. Believed to be on last trajectory Three Zulu One. Casualty casualty casualty."
"Emergency, acknowledged. SAR responding. Any further details?"
"Emergency—Three Zulu One. Christensen was sighted by team member after dismount from sleds."
"Emergency, acknowledged."
Frank clanked helmets and said, "Got a ship." Great. I could hook into their secure commo net through his maser antenna. I plugged and switched channels as I finished with Emergency.
"Emergency—Three Zulu One, acknowledged—break—Blue Force Command, Three Zulu One. Casualty Casualty Casualty. Report made to Emergency, holding, awaiting instructions."
A few moments later, just as I was about to repeat, I heard, "Blue Force Command, continue as best you can. SAR may ask for additional information. Good luck, and best wishes for recovery."
"Blue Force Command, Three Zulu One. Acknowledged." So that was that. I felt horribly sick and helpless, because I was. There was nothing I could do. Nor did I have any idea what had happened. Hypoxia? Blowout? Fell asleep, missed the alarm, missed the tick and was healthy but drifting? Suit harness failed and no thrust for corrections? Hit by a meteor (astronomically unlikely . . . but possible)? Fluke cardiac arrest? Alive? Dead?
So I quashed it all. There was nothing I could do. It was one of the things I'd trained for, but this was nothing like training. Except it was training, and might very well happen in the real world. The sweat from earlier was now a cold, greasy layer between me and the suit, even worse than the goop that had evaporated. I heaved a breath, held it and got my nerves under control. Continue with mission.
We were late, and we needed to move fast. I signaled with my hands, got waves of acknowledgement, and we started.
After that it was a frantic pace. We bounded aft in long, practiced strides, each taking a line for another. I led, waiting for the next troop—Gary—to arrive and fasten me to a new padeye, then leaping. I'd fasten, he'd jump, the next troop would repeat, and we flowed aft like a caterpillar, Frank as assistant at the rear.
There was the spot we wanted, and the caterpillar squeezed into a ball. We started laying out explosives to cut our entrance. This craft was an old lady, now used only for exercises. Despite that, she was lovingly maintained. After we blew the hole, the engineers would patch it and polish
it until it would take scientific tools to determine where it had been cut. We joke about how one day, there will be just one square meter of surface that hasn't been replaced. And of course, the ship will blow a leak on the opposite side from there, on the newest section. Thinking that reminded me that Eliot might be out of oxygen. I clamped down on that again.
In short order, we had four sides marked with charges in a tapering rectangle, slight boosters at the corners, and us in a line behind a heavy shield much like a Roman scutum that had been folded up for insertion. We were gripping at line or padeye as we could reach. Everyone checked gear, squeezed hands to acknowledge readiness, Gary squeezed mine and I hit the stud.
We could hear the explosion through our suits, both from the contact with the hull, and through the nimbus of air and debris that engulfed us. I raised the shield, skidded forward and swung in. The shield went first, to prevent me getting cut on the raw edges across from me, and Gary shoved an identical one in the near side. I ricocheted, tangled with Gary, tumbled and came around in the compartment. Five meters square, two meters and a bit deep, plain bulkheads in our enhanced vision, merely a system access bay. It was empty. Good. I counted everyone by eye, four, not five. I listened through my feet, feeling normal ship vibrations and what was probably an alarm klaxon, rhythmic and persistent.
We moved to the hatch, repeated the squeeze, and triggered the emergency override—a hatch won't normally open in a compartment open to space. It popped open in front of us, and a roar of air evacuated the companionway behind it, billowing dust through the valve and around us. We swung it open and swarmed through. Remember that we were still in emgee.
It was a lit T intersection, and had three safety hatches around the T, as well as the one we'd come through and two others. There was no one here. One of those was a half-sized crawlway that accessed a main fuel line, and that was a target. I pointed to confirm, we still being silent, and Barto Diaz slapped a charge, cut his way through and went to work shutting it down. The rest of us moved out, forcing the hatches as we went, carbines ready. Barto was very somber. It was bad for all of us, but Eliot was his buddy.
Two hatches along, as lights failed, indicating Diaz had succeeded, we were ambushed. A Security Reaction Force poked out of cubbies, or rather, their weapons did. I saw flashes and leapt left, shoving off with my right foot so I tumbled. It was an immediate reaction, intended to make me harder to hit. It worked. I wasn't hit. I tossed a grenade sim by hand and followed it with a burst from the carbine, just to appear to be doing something. They were in secure positions, but we were better trained. We swapped fire and dodged around stanchions, inlets, anything that might provide cover.
We "lost" Frank to fire, we killed the ambush and moved on. At least we knew Frank was only an exercise casualty. But that was two down. I was getting a rough lesson in mortality, and prayed that Eliot was alive and just lost.
Shortly, we had another fuel feed down, and the crew was getting panicky. They had to see us on sensor by now, and automatic systems were trying to kill us. Those were basically shotgun mines set into the sides of passages, that were supposed to blow as we neared them. We used up a lot of ammo spraying suspicious-looking boxes, which also did more collateral damage to various systems. We'd brought plenty of ammo on purpose.
Eventually, we wound up in life support and engineering and shut the ship the rest of the way down. It was an example of how we could capture a ship and keep it mostly intact. Alternately, we could hold it for ransom. Or we could just blow it the hell up. That would shorten our lives somewhat. But we'd succeeded. The fleet command knew we could do what we'd claimed: get aboard enemy ships unseen and wreak havoc. We knew we could infiltrate over large distances and stay alive until we reached our target. It was a profound, exhilarating experience.
Except that we'd lost someone, and that put a damper on the joy at once.
As soon as we got the kill, I opened up and said, "Crew, I need commo, emergency."
"Ah, here, Sergeant," someone said, assuming my rank as he pointed at a connection terminal. I nodded, swam over, plugged in and identified myself to the bridge. I told them what I needed.
"That would be the lost EVA troop?" the commo tech asked.
"Yes," I said. "He's one of mine."
"He's been found," I heard, and before my relief could get started the, "I'm very sorry," hit me.
I felt nauseous, feverish, panicky. Spots were swimming in front of my eyes, but I needed to know. "What happened?"
"See oh two poisoning. They think the filtration medium was contaminated."
There was nothing I could have done about that. Everything had been checked, and Eliot had done his own final mark off. And not having any control over it made it worse for me. "Understood, thanks," I said, snapped my cable out, and turned. "Please, get me into gravity now. I'm sick." I wanted some kind of pressure on me before I heaved.
"Sergeant?" "Ken?" "Boss?" I heard.
"He didn't make it," I said.
All five of us wound up in sickbay, sedated and under .5 G to help us relax. It wasn't just Eliot's death; we'd been in space for almost two days. It's sheer murder on the body. I insisted that we wanted a shuttle to transfer us back, or a docking, and would not be EVAing across between ships. It was over-reaction on my part. Even if the system failed, the few seconds between ships wasn't a risk. But I was badly shaken and phobic.
Rutledge wrote the letter to his parents. I don't think I could have handled it. But we all served as pallbearers at his funeral. His parents were inconsolable and weeping, and we all had damp eyes from the experience. It's an honorable duty to bury a comrade. But it's not an easy one. It wasn't a relief, though it did put some finality on it. Odd, now, to think about a single death affecting me so. But every life and death is important.
I took leave, and Deni came with me. My parents had moved to a smaller place up in the Cairngorm Hills, with a beautiful view down into Westport to the south. Deni and I stared out across it for quite some time.
My sister Jackie was away at school, and tearing up the instructors over dramatics and presentation. I grinned. Good to know our tradition as troublemakers was secure. Deni and I had the run of the property while my parents were at work, and practiced our knots and lashings with the help of an antique four-poster bed. That was Deni's idea. Certainly a diversion, and fun. I prefer being able to wrestle, though. Besides, she was a sadistic, torturous bitch once she had me tied. But the endorphin rush was amazing. For a while, I didn't think about my mortality. Which is what was bothering me. Eliot was a friend, but not a close one. The fear I had was of being next.
Dinner the first night was still more awkward. All we could say was that a teammate had died in an EVA accident. My father wanted details.
"What type of equipment failure? I thought everything was redundant."
"It is. But some things are still susceptible to failure," I said. It was a subject I wasn't allowed to discuss, and didn't want to discuss.
"But how long were you out? There's nothing that would be lethal fast."
"I can't say," I said shortly.
"What do you mean?" my mother asked. "Don't you remember?"
"I mean it's protected information."
"Are they covering something up?" she prodded. They could really be overprotective, over-inquisitive and obnoxious, even well past my puberty. And there was no good lie I could tell. I was glancing at Deni now and then, my eyes pleading for help. She clearly had no idea how to address it, either.
"No, it was a predictable but rare accident, and nothing can be done about it," I said.
"But how could people not notice? He obviously stopped moving," my father asked.
"Sometimes we're still for long periods of time. And I can't discuss it."
"And there's usually convulsions associated with hypoxia," he persisted.
"I said I can't talk about it!" I snapped.
There was silence for a moment, until he said, "Ken, it sounds like someone ab
ove him is avoiding blame for screwing up. You might want to mention it through channels." His voice was quiet, calm, reasonable and concerned.
I said nothing. I just flushed and burned and gripped my fork.
Deni said, very softly, "Ken was his team leader. I was the last one to see Eliot alive. It was thoroughly investigated, and determined to be unavoidable. Life's like that sometimes, especially for Blazers."
There was more silence, until my mother said, "We're very sorry. But I do wish you could talk about it."
"So do I," I lied. Yes, Mom, I spend days cruising through space in a polymer skin for the privilege of blowing people's heads off and whisking away their breathing air so they flop like fish. Fun for the whole family. Wait until I get a chance to dig out that nuke I buried.
I was losing what connection I did have with my family. We had no common interests and no real feeling, it seemed.
The other three days were rather strained. I was glad when we were able to leave. Deni and I spent the last night in a hotel. I was glad I'd been vague about my schedule.
Once we were logged in, Deni asked, "How are you holding up, Ken?" She had that look with her head and eyebrow cocked. It was just inquisitive, but it was always so sexy on her.
Except right then. "I'll survive," I said. "But I'm going to be shaky on EVA until I get some courage back."
She nodded. "So let's not talk about it for a while. After you've lost some of the stress of the last three days we'll see."
"Yeah. Thanks," I said, and meant it. But I was still really screwed up. I'm glad for it now, and I owe Eliot thanks for teaching me about death. I was to see lots more.
* * *
I got promoted again later that year. I'd had the hoped for rate increase to E-7, but had figured I'd be a senior sergeant for some time, especially in light of Eliot. But it had been ruled an accident. As far as anyone could tell, all equipment inspections had been done. It had been a fluke. It absolved me of any blame, and our successful exercise had been credited to me. It didn't make me feel better, though.
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