by Alan, Craig
“The outer hull is charged,” Vijay said. “There is quite a bit of sensor interference. Radiation levels within safe limits.”
There was a downside to Elena’s strategy. Every time a charged particle struck an atom of lead in the innermost radiation shield, it emitted a burst of high energy gamma and X-rays that could poison the crew. The lead shield had been wrapped with an aluminum sheath and water jacket to catch the particles before they reach the lead, but it was physically impossible to stop all of them—and worse, the outsider missile had left a hole in Gabriel’s defenses.
“Dr. Golus will be busy for the next few days,” Elena said.
Nausea and vomiting would be epidemic. Every member of the crew would undergo a white cell count in the next forty eight hours, Rivkah would force feed them antibiotics for a week, and their stem cell therapy would have to be accelerated. Elena had factored all this in to her decision, and calculated that a day or two of discomfort—and a slightly abbreviated lifespan—was preferable to lying crippled and helpless in enemy territory.
“The flare has reached Jupiter,” Vijay said.
Solar wind washed over the planet. Within seconds Gabriel had been swept up into an enormous ion storm, with Jupiter at its eye. The trail of sulfur dioxide that Io left in its wake erupted, and firebolts danced between the planet and the moon, each one powerful enough to wreck her ship with the slightest touch. Magnetic whorls flooded the radio band and blinded the scopes. It would be almost for impossible for Gabriel to detect another ship inside that gale until it spent its fury and died out.
Elena took some comfort in knowing that outsiders would not be able to find her anymore than she could find them. She could see nothing in the gale but Jupiter itself, enormous auroras blooming above its poles.
“Can you get me visual of the planet without straining our power requirements?”
“Realtime is not possible at this range, but I can give you frames.”
“On the holo.”
Elena had seen pictures of Jupiter from before the Storm. She had thought it strangely beautiful, a pearl wreathed in cloudy red and gold bands, flecked here and there with black and white spots like imperfections in a gemstone. And its southern hemisphere, just below the equator, had been marred by an enormous red bruise, which astronomers claimed had been a cyclone three times the size of the Earth.
But this place hadn’t looked like that for a long time. The Storm had left its mark on Earth, but on Jupiter it had never ended. It had raised a hell terrible enough to still be burning after a century. The atmosphere’s gentle bands had disappeared, and in their place was a whirling kaleidoscope of hydrogen hurricanes, as if the atmosphere had been stirred to a froth and left to boil.
For added effect Vijay enlarged the hologram beyond normal limits, so that its foaming surface seemed to touch their consoles, and Elena watched as lightning bolts long enough to straddle continents coursed beneath the clouds. She wondered how the outsiders could look up every day at that ball of rage in the sky, a hundred times larger than the Moon from Earth, and stay sane.
“Flash alert, warning red! Vampire inbound!”
Elena barely had enough time to register that the alert had been sounded by Hassoun and not Vijay before her eyes and mind were fixed to her own watch screen. There was a blaze of energy on a bearing almost directly ahead of Gabriel—bright enough to be the plume of a rocket missile. But without full sensor capability, she had no way to what it really was.
“Helm, steady as goes,” she said. “Watch, threat profile.”
“Flash alert!” She had never heard Hassoun shout before. “Weapons free!”
“Disregard that! Weapons hold.”
Elena reached out to her watch and helm screens with both hands, and with a few taps she locked Hassoun out of both stations.
“Cap’n—”
She turned to Hassoun.
“Mr. Masri, shut the fuck up or get the hell out. Vijay, where’s my profile?”
“Threat unconfirmed, warning yellow. Resolving now.”
New telescope exposures came in—the flare was already dimming. If it was a missile, it was throttling its rocket nozzle.
“Warning green, Captain.”
Vijay pursed his lips—he knew what was coming next.
“End alert status.” She struck her chair with the heel of her hand, hard enough to send a bolt of pain up her arm even in zero gravity. “Mr. Masri, what was that?”
“Captain, I had a positive reading.”
Elena threw the sensors record up on the holo. Now that it had multiple exposures to work with, the computer could triangulate the surge’s position. A bright, jagged bolt of plasma lanced across the holographic display, from Jupiter to a point within Io’s orbit—the moon itself was on the other side of the planet. The lightning bolt had been millions of kilometers distant, and almost as long.
“Does that look like a missile to you, Mr. Masri?” Elena asked.
“Captain.” He seemed to be searching for his words and finding none that he liked. “At that distance, the intensity, it looked like…I’m sorry, ma’am. I misidentified the reading.”
“Distance, three million kilometers. You think the outsiders are stupid enough to fire a missile at us today and hope to hit us tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Hassoun said. She could see from his face that he was fighting the compulsion to close his eyes.
“What if we’d lit the fuel cells and Chief Nishtha had opened fire? Or if Officer Yukovych had tried to evade? I can guarantee you that you would have seen your missile then.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Elena sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. A private message arrived at her station.
Ease up.
She looked at Vijay, but he didn’t look back at her.
“Mr. Masri, please tell Officer Lamentov to report to the bridge.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“She’ll serve as your relief for the rest of the shift.”
Hassoun swallowed, then bent over his desk.
“Aye, Captain.”
“And while you remain on the bridge, you are to leave the scopes alone. I think the officer of the watch can handle his job for the next few minutes without your help.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Elena turned away so that he could let out a breath without her seeing.
Vladlena Lamentov arrived from forward weapons control in only a minute. Elena could see that she was carefully avoiding looking Hassoun in the face as she relieved him. He left without a word.
The changeover was scheduled for a few hours later, and one by one the second shift entered the bridge and took over for their counterparts. Elena turned her chair over to Lamentov, who by happenstance had drawn this week’s rotation at the flight station—Ikenna, in addition to his alert station in forward control, was the permanent third shift flight officer.
Elena exited into the interlock compartment, Vijay behind her, and made no effort to go anywhere once the bridge doors were closed.
“Go ahead.”
Vijay tapped his bracelet a few times, and each of the other four hatches closed and dogged themselves.
“Was that necessary, Captain?”
“Don’t tell me you agree with his call.”
“No, and dressing him down was appropriate,” Vijay said. “But breaking him is not.”
“You haven’t seen me break someone.”
“And I do not wish to. But please understand, Captain. Hassoun blames himself for Arnaud.”
“Well,” Elena said, “he’s not the only one.”
“He wants to make up for it.”
“He’s not going to do that by pretending to be officer of the watch. And certainly not by doing it badly.”
“Yes, but there is a little something to be
said for being wrong for the right reason.”
“Very little.”
“But not nothing.”
Elena sighed and made her way to the topside hatch.
“Tell Mr. Masri that I expect him to report at 0800 tomorrow to the communications desk.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Put some emphasis on that last part.”
Vijay smiled.
“Excellent. Shall I accompany my commanding officer to her stateroom?”
“I was about to do an inspection, if you’d like to come.”
Vijay checked his bracelet.
“Oh, look at the time. Must be off.”
He pushed off the wall towards the bottom hatch, but turned back when he got there.
“And Captain? Whenever a public lashing is in order, respectfully, delegate it to your executive officer. That is why you have one.”
“Si.”
“My thanks, Captain.”
Elena knew he was right. Respect was one thing, fear was another. Hassoun didn’t need to think that he had enemies onboard Gabriel to go along with the ones outside.
She began her inspection, pulling off access plates and vent covers at random to check the wiring and filters. Marco Montessori never minded the captain poking around his work—on the contrary, he enjoyed having someone for which to show off. Elena floated from compartment to compartment, squinting into the jungle of machinery that lined the throat of every corridor. Machines were easy. If there was something wrong with one, she could find it and fix it. And if it couldn’t be fixed, she didn’t have to think twice about replacing it.
Elena concentrated so closely on her work that she never heard the door to the medical office. They bumped into another. Though Rivkah was the larger woman, Elena sent her flying. She reached out and grabbed the doctor by the arm to keep her from bouncing off the bulkheads. Rivkah gripped her wrist, and Elena reeled her in—the doctor was upside down and must have been wondering what the hell had happened. It was hard to tell who was more embarrassed.
“I am so sorry, Doctor,” Elena said. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Quite alright, quite alright,” Rivkah said. Her eyeglasses were askew on their chain, and she brushed them out of her face before she grabbed the doorjamb with one hand and flipped herself upright. It was a maneuver that took surprising strength and agility. “I had been hoping to run into you, anyway,” she said.
Elena wasn’t sure if that was a joke, and so stayed prudently quiet.
“Captain.”
Elena glanced back at the medical office. Hassoun was floating in the doorway, shoulders hunched. He’d been following Rivkah outside.
“Mr. Masri.”
She nodded to him, unsure of what else to say. She found maintenance inspections to be soothing—a holdover from her own days as a boatswain—and all the anger had gone out of her. But Hassoun didn’t know that, and it seemed unprofessional to tell him in front of another officer.
Hassoun nodded to Rivkah.
“Doctor.”
He departed without another word. He hadn’t looked Elena in the eye.
“I have a personal request to make of you, Captain.” Rivkah spoke as if they had not been interrupted.
“Yes?”
“Today is the first day of Passover, and tonight I will hold a seder. I would be honored if you would attend.”
Elena suddenly remembered that this was the day off that Rivkah had requested. She tried on a smile.
“I’m honored that you would want me there, Doctor.”
“You don’t know what a seder is.”
“No. I’m sorry, I knew that you had requested a holiday for religious reasons, of course. And I understand that completely. I grew up in the Church, after all. More than one, actually.”
“You are not religious.”
“No, I am not. How did you know?”
“No one says they grew up in the Church if they are still of it.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Elena said. “I may not be religious, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect yours. I just don’t know much about it.”
“There’s no need to apologize for that, Captain. There are so few of us to teach you these days, after all. If you should like to learn, come to the wardroom at 1900 hours. That is when the sun will set over Jerusalem.”
“The wardroom?”
Rivkah smiled for the first time.
“Chief Officer Nishtha has been kind enough to reserve it for my use.”
Elena made a mental note to commend Vijay for his beneficence later. There was no way to hold a religious ceremony in one of the cramped senior officer’s quarters.
“I’ll be there, doctor. Should I bring anything with me?”
“I will have prepared everything that we shall need. I will see you in a few hours, Captain.”
Rivkah turned and glided aft, towards the hatch and the wardroom on the other side. One more thing occurred to Elena, and she called through the door as it closed.
“Will there be anyone else there?”
“Yes,” Rivkah said.
The door slid shut.
Elena arrived at 6:55 pm sharp. She was about to ring the bell to the wardroom when Hassoun appeared in the compartment and came to attention.
“At ease, Mr. Masri. We can go in together.”
He smiled nervously and joined her at the threshold. Hassoun was right to be anxious. He was a junior officer in the presence of the captain who had chewed him out, and an Arab joining a Jew for Passover. Elena didn’t know which was more awkward.
As they had in Europe, attitudes towards Jews in the Arab world had changed only when there were no more Jews to hate. Hassoun’s ancestors had played no part in the Second Holocaust—they were to blame neither for Tel Aviv, nor its bloody aftermath. His country had even opened its borders to the Israelis and Palestinians fleeing the fallout and the violence. But an Arab could no more escape the past than a German could.
There were was only one table inside the wardroom, set against the forward wall next to the door, opposite the small galley aft. Rivkah had set four plates. There would be no burning of candles aboard Gabriel, but she had managed to scrounge a spare tritium tube, and it glowed softly at the center of the table. Fixed in the slots next to the plates were four small handbooks.
“There will be one more,” Rivkah said. “Have a seat, it does not matter where.”
Each of the four plates—they were certainly not standard Agency issue, though Elena felt certain that they had seen more time in service than she had—were ringed by a six circular indentations around their edges, like the airlock bowls set into Gabriel’s hull. Each had been painted with a single Hebrew letter. Elena sat down and anchored her legs, and opened one of the handbooks and discovered, to her relief, that it was written in English—though it strangely appeared to have been printed backwards.
The door opened again, and Ikenna entered. He seemed unsurprised at everyone and everything that he saw, and took a seat at Elena’s right. Hassoun was on her left. Rivkah exited the kitchen, arms ladled with goods. She worked while she spoke.
“Before we begin,” Rivkah said, “I must ask. Who is the youngest at this table? It is certainly not me.”
“I am thirty six years old,” Ikenna said.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll say it out loud,” Elena said.
“I’m thirty,” Hassoun laughed. “I guess that’s me. Why?”
“The youngest asks the questions,” Rivkah said. “You can open your haggadahs.”
Though Rivkah did not explain, they all deduced that this was the name of the handbooks she had given them. Elena opened it to the first page once more, and briefly debated calling attention to the error she had found.
“Turn to the end,” Hassoun said to her. Elena flipped the
pages, and fund that the haggadah began at its conclusion.
“Hebrew is written right to left,” he explained. He glanced at Rivkah, and she smiled slightly. “Like Arabic.”
“Pretend that I am lighting a candle,” she said.
First she tied to each place a full beverage pouch, and placed a fifth before an empty seat. Then she took a spoon and carefully dabbed each of the indentations with a dollop of food paste. Each indentation got a different flavor, and each one was wet and heavy to help it stick to the plate and not float away. Rivkah took four small balls of bread from her bag, and tied them to a table inside a plastic pouch. Finally she raised a large bag of dark red liquid, and bowed her head over it and began to speak softly. Elena caught the words, but did not understand any of them. She supposed that Rivkah was praying in Hebrew.
When she was finished, Rivkah extended the bag’s tube and pumped each of the five pouches full of liquid. Then she sat down.
“Tonight, we drink four cups of wine, to remember the promises that God made to my people four thousand years ago. Captain, would you like to read the promises?”
Elena cleared her throat.
“‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under your burdens. I will deliver you from slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched hand and great judgments. I will take you to be my people, and as the Lord your God, you will know that I have delivered you from the tyranny of evil men.’”
“Have a drink,” Rivkah said. They sipped from their pouches, which had been filled with grape juice. There was no alcohol aboard Gabriel, but Elena could almost taste the wine that the priests and the nuns had given her during the Eucharist, all those years ago.
Rivkah took a wet sponge, one that held water tightly and didn’t let it escape. She turned to Ikenna and gestured. He obediently held out his gloved hands, and she rubbed the sponge over them lightly before letting it soak the water back up. It might have seemed pointless, as they were all wearing full body uniforms that covered their hands, but no one at the table appeared to think so. This pattern repeated around the table, until Hassoun had washed Rivkah’s hands and returned the sponge to her.