April 3: The Middle of Nowhere

by Mackey Chandler

  The flow of air that had sucked him back the wrong way ended almost as abruptly as it started so he was weightlessly floating again, held between his foot on the stand-off post and left arm with nothing tugging either way. He let go of the bag now that he had it on a tether and turned to look back down the narrow mast. The detail in the distance was hard to see, the more so because the raw glare of sunlight flooded in a opening that shouldn't be there. Loose flecks of debris such as paint chips and dust sucked loose from the corners and crevices by the air rushing out tumbled in the vacuum. The distance to the sunlight was about right for the Eddie's Rascal . The two in ship suits who he'd passed going the other way flashed back past him pulling hard hand over hand down the opposite rail. They hesitated about as much as a couple salmon swimming up a river home and didn't spare a glance at him or tarry in their headlong dash.

  He did hesitate for just a heartbeat what to do. He called on com and there was no answer. What would Click tell him his job was at the moment? That was clearly to deliver the freight he had in his possession. The ship was Click's responsibility to command and Edward's responsibility to guard and the bag was clearly his. So, reassured in his own mind of his duty he pushed off again for the station. The end of the mast would have sealed, but there was an airlock to the side of the emergency drop seal. Once he was safely in pressure somebody would know what had happened.

  He heard Edwards call on com, a short transmission and unclear. When he called himself again but there was no answer. It was frustrating.

  * * *

  Edwards was thinking about an upcoming poker tournament when he was jerked forward doubled over his safety harness. Without it he would have been thrown through the airlock opposite him, if not by the force of the motion then by the air. The privacy curtain was carried away by the gale that emptied the ship in a single burp. When he straightened back up he still had his weapon in hand not on its tether, which was a source of considerable pride.

  The downside tempering that was that the view out the lock was of the open port on the station boom receding and rolling out of sight. The station hatch was obviously disabled from closing. Around the opening were the large black shapes of troops in armored spacesuits, so this was no accident, it was an attack. As he watched one flexed his legs and jumped toward the receding Eddie's Rascal before the boom rolled out of sight and the open lock only showed stars spinning past. The jump would just augment his suit jets and Edwards was sure he's see the fellow much closer to the lock when he completed a full roll. That was going to take near a full minute, he guessed.

  "Click, who are they?" he called on com but there was no answer. A glance to the front of the cabin showed an arm dangling loose from the command chair. That told him enough. Dead or unconscious, it didn't matter, because this had to be dealt with now.

  Edwards expected the roll to continue on around until the station came into sight again, but instead was surprised when a big space ship rolled into view. It floated not two hundred meters away with the black maw of a cargo hold gapping open towards them. The opening had more black combat suits around it, some on lines, just as the station boom had. That's when he realized it wasn't just an attack, it was a capture mission. He started to lift the grenade launcher but the spin took the ship out of sight before he could get it to his shoulder.

  Okay, next time around he'd have an ugly surprise for them. He cracked the weapon open and slid one of the thermobaric rounds in the weapon. He braced himself and tugged the harness tight on his middle, taking a shooting stance waiting for the ship to come back into sight. He even had time to turn the dot on his holosight all the way bright so he could see it against the bright white ship. Several bumps felt through the ship announced he had boarders on the outside of the hull.

  Mid-turn a figure in black armor slid into view catching the edge of the lock with both feet as the edge rolled into him. He absorbed the motion nicely in a squat and pivoted in with his back jets, a short weapon clutched tight across his chest.

  There was no time to change rounds. Edwards fired at his belly point blank and blew him out of the lock. When he was a meter outside the secondary charge ignited and it blew all four limbs and the helmet off sprouting white fire. The jets of erupting gas and flying suit pieces tumbled the two soldiers closely following him away from their landing in the lock. Edwards snapped off a couple quick loads of flechettes at them. Not all of the suits were thickly armored and he might get lucky and puncture them somewhere.

  It was time for the ship to come into view again and he simply flipped the lever down to choose explosive rounds and shaped charges. If he tried to load his second thermobaric round he'd probably miss his second chance at the ship. One thing he knew for sure from the first view. The ship was marked with a big red star. It was Chinese.

  "Click?" he tried on com again. No answer.

  The ship rolled into view again. It was visibly closer and Edwards led it, aiming at the edge to allow for his roll. He pumped four rounds into it, trying for the flight deck, before it rolled out of sight. Two rounds he saw explode on contact and at least one shaped charge went home because he saw debris erupt from the far side.

  "Click, Click can you hear me?" he called. "They are capturing us. You need to set the charges!" There was no reply and Click's arm still hung loose. Then he saw the helmet floating loose and knew he was alone. The keys to setting off the destruct charges were forward in the two flight stations. They might as well be back on Home for all of his chances of getting to them. They'd never thought to put one back by the lock.

  When the opening came around toward the station side again there were three suited soldiers waiting for him. Not attempting to enter the lock again they were holding position waiting to fire on him. He fired for the center one and saw the flash as an explosive round caught him in the crotch and blew both legs off. The shrapnel had to have holed the others too. It didn't appear to have a major effect though, the muzzles of the other two soldiers lighting up with bright flares. They both got one short burst off before it rolled them away from the recoil.

  One cut across his chest, absorbed by his armor, but one round went through his left arm above the elbow, but lacked the shock of a bone hit. The second burst caught him in both knees and he screamed in pain and felt the hot flood of his own urine as his bladder emptied. There was a >FWOMP< of seals inflating above his knees, cutting off the loss of air and hopefully compressing the leg enough to stop the bleeding too. His ears and eyeballs both ached from the sudden pressure drop and rebound as his suit valve roared full open.

  The ship jerked under him and the stars outside the lock slowed and then stopped. They had thruster packs on the hull and weren't going to give him another shot at their ship.

  No way he'd ever make it to the controls to arm the charges. At least he could damage the compensators they carried. He aimed at the housings around the coaches and fired. The shrapnel from his own rounds exploding just three meters away peppered him, stinging and he heard multiple whistle tones of escaping air. It didn't matter anymore, he was a dead man anyway. He carefully aimed and caught another housing with a shaped charge. It gutted it end to end shredding the torus and housing. He'd just pumped the fifth round into the machinery and the escaped silvery quantum fluid was a mass of BB sized droplets filling the cabin when a Chinese soldier rolled over the lock edge and shot a burst almost point blank into his helmet.

  * * *

  "Local control M3, this is local control ISSII. We have an, uh, a situation here."

  "Non-standard I take it ISSII?"

  "Uh, very. Your Home registered vessel, the armed merchant Eddie's Rascal is in, uh, some distress."

  "This is the shift supervisor for M3. Would you please quit fumbling about and state clearly what the problem is? You are certainly in a much better position given your proximity to render aid. What's wrong and what do you want us to do?"

  "Report it to someone, I guess. The owner, or whatever, uh, authorities would care. The Chine
se had a ship lingering at dock. The Time of Tranquility. When your boys docked they shoved off and busted the Eddie's Rascal off the mast by blowing the grapple points. Our mast is blown and there is quite a bit of debris and, uh, dead bodies and suit parts from the fighting. They stuffed the Eddie's Rascal in their hold and left."

  "ISSII, do you have any of our personnel there, dead or alive?"

  "No, no, the Chinese took them away in Eddie's Rascal. They abandoned a crowd of suited soldiers, three dead Chinese in armored suits and enough loose parts for two or three more. Kind of hard to tell they have been blown to hell so thoroughly."

  "Yes, that sounds like our Mr. Edwards," he acknowledged calling the crew roster up. "Can you tell us if they seem to intend an Earth landing?"

  "No way! The Time was heavily damaged. On our camera feed you can see the flight cabin is depressurized because the ports are blown out. There are some pretty big holes in her. No way are they going to take that ship in atmosphere without it breaking up, but they did break orbit with us and move off. Main thing we wanted to say is we didn't have anything to do with it! Last time you and the Chinese mixed it up here the Happy Lewis burned the shit out of our yard tractor and cut all the antennas and radar off the station. We just don't want a mix up and get hit again."

  "I'll inform our militia Captain and the owners. With particular emphasis on your innocence," he said dryly. "Is there anything else ISSII?"

  "Yeah, correction on the personnel. Sorry, I'm kind of shook up. My number two reminds me the guy doing the freight transfer, Tom Waldecker, was on station when they got hijacked. We saw him on an internal boom camera and security is on their way down there now to assist him and arrest some of the Chinese loose in the area. Guess he's going to need repatriated unless he just takes a commercial shuttle home. Let his boss know he's here and okay, will you?"

  "Roger that, ISII, I'll do a conference call, would you hold for any questions please?"

  "M3 Local Control, conference call add, Jon Davis, Home Militia, Dave, Dave's Spacecraft Services, Eddie Persico, Lewis Couriers and Jeff Singh, Singh Technologies," he instructed his com. The screen split in panes that all filled rapidly. The first few, seeing empty panes, waited for them to fill. In twenty seconds Dave came on last and they had a full call board. M3 Local Control described the situation with economy to them.

  "ISSII, Since it is a Home registered vessel. I'm making an official request of information for Home Militia," Jon Davis told them. "I'd like a copy of your external camera feed of the event. I also need navigational data on where this Chinese ship is going. I have a warning going out right now to all militia members to avoid similar attacks at dock, a weapons free order on the Chinese ship and an alert that further data will be following. I plan on sending all of them the full visual feed and orbital data."

  "They always monitor our feed, but I'll officially bounce that request up to Earth Control and my supervisors," the worried looking fellow on ISSII replied.

  "You are either against piracy or you are aiding it," Jon explained patiently. "Neutrality as a docking host is unacceptable. If we don't have the data quickly we will consider you a party to the attack. I believe that was what you wanted to avoid?"

  "I don't have authority to release station recordings," the controller protested.

  "Ask them if you can scratch your butt while you're at it," Jon mocked him.

  "I have other interested parties watching my feed," Jeff announced. He'd brought in April and Happy Lewis. Dave was sharing the call with his shop unannounced.

  "Earth Control asks to be brought in the call," ISSII requested. A window opened.

  "ISSII you do not need authorization to release video of public spaces," Earth Control told him visibly irritated. "It is available real time on several stations and even web cast for the space nuts to view. Just because it is recordings instead of the live feed is irrelevant. I suggest you let the man see who killed his ship before he concludes you wish to cover it up."

  "Let's have a look at that feed then before any more discussion," Jon requested. "It can't hurt to see what we are talking about first hand."

  The camera view that came up was off the mid-boom, high quality, with the sun just outside the camera angle so the glare was tolerable. Most of the last half of the boom was visible with the Eddie's Rascal the second ship down from the camera and two ships beyond it.

  The Chinese ship came into view from the other side of the boom. It took up station over the Eddie's Rascal with good crisp ship handling. There was a minimum of maneuvers and corrections with no hesitation between them. The hold of the Moment of Tranquility was already open and a swarm of armored suits erupted as soon as it took up station.

  Jon noted none of the soldiers landed directly on the Eddie's Rascal. They all landed on the boom or braked to a halt without making noise against her hull. Bright flashes filled the shadows between ship and boom as the charges cut the ship off her docking grapples. They only needed five or six seconds to place the demo and jump clear. It was choreographed nicely.

  The ship hesitated, then came off the boom crooked, rolling slowly, pieces of seal dangling where they were ripped free from the port. The air rushing from both boom and ship seemed to push them apart more than the explosives. The boom actually bent in an arch away from the ship and then rebounded. A cloud of ice fog marked the loss of air from the open locks and dissipated rapidly. Several suited figures dove on the drifting rolling ship to attach thruster packs to the hull and get its motion under control.

  Boarding parties didn't even wait for the roll to be controlled. They formed up in groups of three, taking on delta formations. A couple lone soldiers pursued the ship from the boom and several jumped from the Chinese ship with lines to attach and draw her into their hold.

  The first group of three approached the Eddie's Rascal opposite it's drift aimed at a tangent to the outside of the hull. They must have had coaching from another viewpoint because the fellow in the lead kept making little adjustments to his speed, slowing down. It was a masterful piece of suit work, the open lock coming around just as his boots reached the tangent point and he landed in the lock opening. He squatted, knees absorbing the difference in velocity and back jets puffing briefly to push him in the opening instead of being flung back out by the spin.

  Something went wrong though and he came flying back out of the opening arms and legs stretched in front of him in comic exaggeration by some sort of impact. He was not much more than a meter outside when his helmet and all four limbs blew off with a white glare that overloaded the camera.

  "Holy shit, what did he get hit with?" The Earth controller asked before thinking. Nobody answered him, all still intent on the video. The two other members of his triad tumbled out of control from the near explosion, unable to catch the edge as neatly as their leader.

  As the open lock turned out of view from the camera there was a bright flash inside the control deck of the Chinese ship that lit it's view ports just before they shattered. No surface hole was visible, but a shaped charge caught the pressure tank for the flight crew oxygen and burst it. A big cloud of debris flew out the opposite side of the ship, all sparkly in the sunlight. Another round exploded on contact cratering the hull covering a space plane like this needed to enter atmosphere. The next shaped charge passed right through the ship, not finding anything substantial enough to detonate it. The last explosive round fell further back entering the open lock and impacting one of the suited technicians waiting to secure the Eddie's Rascal right between the shoulder blades on his tanks. The flare lit up the dark opening for an instant and then an assortment of suit parts and debris came out of the dark opening.

  "Nope, that ship is not going to land anywhere without major repairs," Dave agreed.

  Another set of three soldiers formed up near the Eddie's Rascal and little points of light marked the hull as thrusters slowed its spin. The middle suit erupted with an intense light that blew his legs off. The other two poured fire into the o
pen lock, but got none of the explosive rounds back. Instead the dome over the flight seats erupted with repeated fire, chunks of hull peeling back and pieces of machinery and a silvery cloud of metallic fluid expanding from repeated explosions. The Eddie's Rascal stopped rolling, under control now and one by one four soldiers cautiously pulled themselves through the open lock and disappeared inside.

  Eddie's Rascal was pulled into the hold with what looked like unnaturally slow deliberation to Earth eyes, but was actually reckless haste for safely moving something massive and weightless by hand. When the two ships actually touched it was with enough force to see the big Chinese ship move from the bump. Under normal conditions that was criminal negligence. Given the damage she carried from Edward's fire it probably didn't matter, unless any of the technicians were unlucky enough to get caught under her in the tight fitting hold.

  The armored soldiers started coming back to the station boom. Each stopping and undergoing some brief procedure at the open hold.

  "What are they doing?" Jeff wanted to know.

  "I think Edwards took out their cabin Oxy so they are all stripping their suit tanks off for the pilot. That means they have about fifteen minutes of suit air, closer to ten maybe being so active, to get in the boom and through the airlock on the cap end."

  "Can they make it?"

  "Depends on how many they can fit in the lock and how fast they can cycle," Dave explained. As head of a repair company he was their expert on mechanical systems. "An emergency lock like that they can emergency purge instead of pump down if the last few are running really low on oxy. So yeah, they can all make it if they are familiar with the lock and how to override the pump cycle."