by Thorne Moore
‘Meaning?’
‘I don’t know. The pilot’s dead?’
‘Just manoeuvre round it,’ said Tod.
‘For one circuit,’ repeated Addo.
‘For one circuit,’ snapped Tod.
Freddie checked once more. ‘There’s no sign of the courier.’
‘One circuit! What’s the pursuit ship up to?’
‘Pursuing. Closing in. If it intends to fire, I’m guessing it will do so in the next few minutes.’
There was silence as they watched the converging flickers of light on the screens. The incoming fighter was keeping to a steady course, approaching them head on.
‘I’m going to shift into...’ Addo began.
The fighter’s static interrupted him. ‘This is Red 14. ISF Abelard, you will identify your course and purpose.’
‘Is this any time to...?’ Freddie began, then stopped, realising what the robotic voice had just said. Tod was staring at the communications console, fingers clenched. With an effort he dragged his eyes away and met Addo’s questioning gaze.
‘ISF Abelard?’ asked Freddie.
Tod shook himself into life. ‘We are heading out from Triton, changing course at Gamma 8. State your business with us, Red 14.’
‘You will proceed with your manoeuvres, Abelard. We are on unconverging lines.’
Tod slowly smiled, unconsciously placing a hand on the console to steady himself. ‘We will adjust our position immediately to accommodate you, Red 14. Do not divert. Repeat, do not alter your course.’
‘Understood, Abelard.’
Tod spun round but Addo waved him silent before he could speak. ‘I’m dealing with it. Let’s just hope she has the sense to hold steady and let me do the work.’ He was intent on his controls, sweat gleaming on his brow, though he spoke calmly.
‘If it’s Yasmin,’ said Freddie. ‘I assume that nonsense meant something to you? Unconverging lines?’
Tod smiled. ‘Sheer poetry, Freddie. All right.’ He tapped the intercom. ‘Babs? Whatever you’re eating, put it down and stand ready. We’re going to be doing some fine manoeuvring, perhaps a bump or two, then stand by for a super-fast exit.’
Yasmin sat tight, forcing herself to breathe deeply. Her hands were shaking. She had reached her limit and gone beyond it and there was nothing more she could do.
It had been so easy, falling into line back at the military base, marching up to her allotted ramp, no suspicion, no questions asked. And then they’d shoe-horned her into her fighter and the hatch had hissed shut on her and there it was, the one problem she hadn’t reckoned on. Claustrophobia. She hadn’t even realised she suffered from it until she found herself wired into a tight metallic coffin. She was so intent on fighting to control her breathing and the urge to struggle, that she barely noticed the automatic launch, shooting her out into Space. Then nothingness swallowed her up, doubling her panic. She could do nothing except try not to scream.
It was the message on her screen that shook her back to life, prompting her to take control again. ‘Monitor malfunction. Disconnect before setting course.’
She stared, uncomprehending, for a moment, before it hit her. Smith was speaking to her. The words were like a hand reaching out to her. An anchor to grasp. What was he saying? Monitor. Of course, her bio-readings must have surged far beyond his powers of manipulation. Disconnect, as he suggested, before the whole surveillance team fixed on her. The need to force her fingers into action gave her the jolt she needed to regain control. Before setting course, the message had said. She had to set a course. Smith had told her what to do. Just stay calm and do it. Insert the disc.
Simple enough. Even so... Nothing had prepared her for this stifling, mind-numbing closeness. An hour, two hours, more, she lost track of time, or her sanity. For all she knew, she might have lost consciousness. In among her struggles not to hyperventilate crept the black reminder that the whole thing was futile. The Heloise wouldn’t be there at the rendezvous. Why would Tod bother, knowing the courier plan had failed? She’d be left here, trapped forever, with nowhere to go and nothing to return to.
Forcing herself not to give in, to keep breathing, she concentrated on the fighter’s instrumentation, so much more complicated than the Heloise’s shuttle controls. Panic turned everything to a blur, but she dug her nails into her palms, bit her lips, and let pain restore sanity. Gamma 8. That was what Smith had set as her target. No point in heading for Alpha 3. The Heloise would have passed it hours ago. Gamma 8 was the only hope.
Why was she tormenting herself with it? There was no hope. The Heloise was gone. As minutes stretched into hours, despair claimed her. It was all finished. But she wouldn’t go back. No, better to go out. Out anywhere. Out to escape and die as far from Triton and from any further delusions of hope as she could reach. Without even being conscious of her actions, she altered her course, heading into the open arms of death.
‘Target 215-259 now.’
Out of the silence, the message roared at her like a clap of thunder. Smith. It was Smith calling her back. Slipping in one more transmission. At what risk to himself had he done it? She would have to comply. Pulling herself together, she set the new course. Target? He must mean the beacon.
Numbly, she watched the Gamma 8 beacon appear on her scanner, then…
The signal of a great freighter.
Her brain refused to believe. It was a mirage. She was hallucinating.
Still the signals continued to converge, and gradually she began to accept that this was real. And, if it was, she had to act. She recollected Smith’s instructions. Communicate, somehow, without betraying anything to Triton Base.
Think, reconnect, take control again. She saw the Heloise. Almost as clearly, she saw Tod’s face. The solution came to her, the words spilling out as if preselected by exterior forces. Abelard. Unconverging lines. She sensed Tod’s urgent response, rather than hearing his words. The sound was unnatural, unreal, but some connection snapped into place. She knew he’d understood.
Slow up, but don’t try to interfere, Smith had said. Let the major do it all. Thank God for that. Setting co-ordinates to get the fighter from A to B to C had been the limit of her piloting skills. She cut out the forward thrust, but her brief lesson in shuttle-craft hadn’t equipped her for anything more intricate. There was only one more thing she could do. The unmarked disc. Use it at the last moment, Smith had said. Should she wait any longer? She was at the beacon, drawn into its orbit, the great ship dominating her screen, edging closer. What was she supposed to do?
With trembling fingers she inserted the disc in the command console, ripped off the fighter pilot’s ID and sat back, listening to the thunder of her pulse.
‘Hey!’ Freddie looked up urgently. ‘We’ve got problems. Or she has. There’s something not right here.’
Tod dragged his eyes from the screen and strode across to the Ultima monitor. ‘What is it?’
‘She’s slowed right up, but this is saying she’s got weird surges in her system. She’s going unstable.’
Tod stared at the confused information.
Addo put a hand to his ear to listen more intently to the signals he was receiving. ‘Mayday.’ He swivelled round to face Tod for a second.
Tod waved Addo on. ‘It’s a fake. A cover for us to use.’
Addo turned back to his controls. ‘Could be. It’s what I’d do. But Yasmin? We’ll go with it and see.’
Tod flicked on the communications channel. ‘Red 14, you are beginning to drift into our path. We are trying to compensate.’
He paused for a moment, before adding, urgently, ‘Red 14, we read your Mayday. You are drifting close. Nothing to be done!’
Did she get the message? The unexplained surges of energy were continuing but although Red 14 had slowed almost to a standstill, she hadn’t shifted a millimetre off her course. Tod checked again to confirm that their hull was concealing Yasmin’s craft from the pursuit fighter. Green 4, closing in behind, would be reading on
ly the distress signals and responses.
‘I’ll have her in the outer bay in four, three, two… right. Panels closed. Pressure up.’ Addo gestured to the forward hatch. ‘Get in there, Tod, and see just how fast you can bring her in. We’ve got maybe ninety seconds before we have company.’
But Tod was already gone, into the inner bay.
With abstract delicacy the huge ship slipped across Yasmin’s vision, engulfing her, blotting out all else, sending her scanner signals into meltdown. Her fighter was emitting high-pitched alarms. If it was going to explode, so be it. She couldn’t take any more.
A clunk, a vibration, an almighty thud crushed her even further into her harness. Unable to breathe, she grappled frantically to snap open the straps. The fighter coffin was still intact, but the seals were giving way, the hatch opening, and she wasn’t wearing a pressure suit. This could be the last breath she’d take before the vacuum of space claimed her.
She shut her eyes in anticipation and found herself being swept out, arms wrapped round her. Unresisting, she was dragged across a threshold, hearing locks seal, hatches hiss as she waited for her universe to right itself and the pounding of her heart to subside.
Then she realised it was the pounding of Tod’s heart she could feel. She opened her eyes. They were leaning back against the flanks of the Heloise’s shuttle, asleep in its dock. Tod was fighting for his own breath, too tense to speak, but he loosened his grip just enough to jab at the bay controls. She heard the hollow boom of the outer bay opening, the screech of metal on metal.
‘Fighter’s ejected,’ said Addo on the intercom softly. Then they heard him, more distant, suddenly urgent. ‘Red 14, you must pull back. We have a collision situation!’
‘Hold tight,’ said Tod, wrapping Yasmin fast again.
A muffled clang reverberated around them, an ominous scraping and then Addo’s voice. ‘Red 14! Respond, Red 14! We are pulling clear!’
Tod pulled her through into Flight Control. For a moment no one looked their way, eyes glued to the screen where Red 14, tipped out and skilfully nudged, was spinning out of control, tumbling away into the darkness.
‘She’ll never hold together,’ murmured Addo.
‘What’s Green 4 doing?’ demanded Tod.
‘Just watching,’ read Freddie. ‘Not rushing to help.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ said Addo. ‘Different squadron. Competitors. Just watching her crack.’
‘Yow!’ shouted Freddie, as the foundering fighter disintegrated in a sudden explosion. ‘Nothing by halves! No chance of rescuing anyone from that.’
‘Jo Jo,’ said Yasmin weakly. ‘He programmed her.’
Tod glanced at her, questions suppressed. He released her, then changed his mind and hugged her to him again.
‘Thank you,’ said Yasmin. ‘Oh God, thank you, thank you, thank you.’
Freddie was grinning at them. Addo allowed himself a smile at their expense, before turning his attention back to the instruments, making the necessary adjustments to show a ship recovering from collision, checking for damage, re-orientating itself. ‘I told you she’d never make it.’
‘Right as ever, Major.’ Tod pulled himself together. ‘What’s our audience up to?’
They watched in silence as Green 4, cautiously interested, wheeled away to examine the dwindling cloud of debris from Red 14.
Addo whistled silently. ‘Can we please get the hell out of here, now?’
Tod took a deep breath and looked up at the screen and the infinity awaiting them. ‘Go,’ he said.
Afterword
For anyone who would like to know How? Why? When?
After a century of catastrophes, Earth was in chaos. Repeated economic crises had been brought about by nationalist mismanagement. Droughts and rising sea-level resulted in starvation and mass displacement of populations. A fifty-year period had been termed World War III although it was actually a string of individual conflicts encompassing most of the planet, some of them minor, some major, one nuclear. The apocalyptic era culminated in the Great Meltdown, with a surge in rising sea levels following the sudden final collapse of the ice-caps.
The nation states that had not yet completely failed, attempted a recovery by establishing the United Nations Mark II, with forces intended not only to settle disputes and restore some semblance of law and order, but to supervise the distribution of food and medicines and the reconstruction of vital services and infrastructure.
Throughout the century of panic and confusion, private enterprise had naturally continued happily on its way, expanding any project likely to result in profit. Activity had progressed from early tentative ventures into Space, to a full-scale exploitation of its resources. A mere sixty-two years separated the first makeshift base on the Moon and the establishment of serious permanent colonies as far as the Jupiter orbit. The corporations, valuing stability, lent their support to the establishment of UN2, funding its operations to a large extent – in fact, to such an increasing extent, that it was eventually “agreed,” with the signing of the Four Protocols, that the Joint Corporation Council should take over from UN2 entirely. A security company, Seccor, assumed its enforcement role and corporation contracts replaced citizenship as the source of personal security and access to services.
By the time the Protocols were instituted, the corporations had begun to move into the outer circles of the Solar System, in a minor way, with temporary extraction bases supported by a handful of service repair stations. These were regarded at the time as extreme outposts, beyond normal activity, and were excluded from the Fourth Protocol, which established the application of the rule of Universal Law (as legislated by the JCC) on Earth and across all existing colonies as far as Jupiter.
Within a decade of the signing of the Protocols, game-changing technical advances made serious exploration, exploitation and settlement of the Outer Circles a practical possibility. The corporations were loath to relinquish the advantages of a free-for-all race to claim any resources out there, so it was agreed that, beyond the Protocol Line, free enterprise should be given its head without restraint: the Deregulated Zone.
Numerous corporations had risen to prominence in the Inner Circles; eleven had seats on the Joint Corporations Council, including Ragnox, Astromarina, LCD, Cybercorp and TransSy. Over time, some of the lesser ones were replaced by others. Ragnox began in a dominant position and went from strength to strength. It maintained the fiction of being first amongst equals in the Inner Circles, but its domination of the Outer Circles was complete under the directorship of Jordan Pascal. Until Pan emerged as a serious rival.
Pan was not incorporated. It was not a registered company. It was not involved with the JCC. Its identity was nebulous. What was known was that it operated beyond the Protocol line and its business was salvage.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Judith Barrow for bravely editing Inside Out, and to Trish Powers for proof-reading it. Also thanks to Catherine Marshall for having patiently encouraged me with it in the first place, almost too long ago to remember. And to Mr John Milton and the Rev George Herbert for some quotes and allusions.
About The Author
Thorne Moore
Thorne Moore grew up in Luton, and studied history at Aberystwyth. Nine years later, after a spell working in a library, she returned to Wales, to north Pembrokeshire, to run a restaurant with her sister, and a miniature furniture craft business. She took a law degree, through the Open University, and occasionally taught genealogy, but these days, she writes, as she had always intended, after retiring from 40 years of craft work. She writes domestic noir, historical mysteries and science fiction.
Books By This Author
A Time For Silence
When Sarah Peterson comes upon Cwmderwen, the derelict cottage where her grandparents had lived, she yearns to recapture their idyllic life. But perhaps it was not so idyllic when her grandfather was murdered there?
Motherlove
1990, three women are anti
cipating motherhood, with hope or desperation. Two daughters are born, and twenty-two years later, two young women are determined to discover who their birth mothers really are. It is a quest that will turn many lives upside down.
The Unravelling
When an apple rolls into a gutter, it sparks memories in middle-aged Karen Rothwell. Memories of an angel girl she knew at school: Serena Whinn. Everyone loved Serena. But what happened to her? What dark memory is it that Karen has been blocking out for thirty-five years?
Shadows
Kate Lawrence has an unfortunate gift. She can sense the shadows of past tragedies and traumas. There are shadows in plenty, embedded in the ancient mansion of Llys y Garn, but she’s determined to conquer them. So determined, that she fails to notice the present-day shadows forming around her.
Long Shadows
A Prequel to Shadows. Three novellas, The Good Servant, The Witch and The Dragonslayer, set in the nineteenth, seventeenth and fourteenth centuries, reveal the dark origins of the shadows of Llys y Garn, as the history of the house unfolds.
The Covenant
A prequel to A Time For Silence. In the last decades of the 19th century, Leah, youngest, brightest and strongest daughter of the Owens of Cwmderwen, is ruled by duty, to God, to her family, and to the farm that is sucking the life out of her – the farm to which she is bound by a covenant of blood. Her future is carved in stone – or is it?