by Sandra Bard
Table of Contents
Mind to Body
Book Details
Dedication
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
THEN
NOW
About the Author
MIND TO BODY
SANDRA BARD
On record, Hideki Takamura is the Inspector sent to examine space station Grand Adventure to ensure it meets all safety requirements. In reality, he has been sent to destroy it, and there is an evacuation fleet two weeks behind him. If he fails, it will be his mother and sister who suffer for it—but the job is easier when planning than in reality, especially when it comes to Tyler, the aggravating pilot who will not stay out of his way.
Book Details
Mind to Body
By Sandra Bard
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Michael Jay
Cover designed by Aisha Akeju
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition April 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Sandra Bard
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 9781620043400
I would like to thank Stray,
who got me obsessed in the fandom.
Kush, who still reads what I write.
Xiu Fang who is the best librarian I know.
Thank you everyone.
THEN
Space shuttle crashes were never pretty.
Kaishi, seated in the third row behind the bounty hunter transporting a criminal to the Moon base for transfer, had been fast asleep when the emergency sirens went off. A veteran space shuttle traveler and a pilot in his own right, he had his helmet on before he was fully awake but knew it would do little to save him in an actual crash.
The helmets were supposedly designed to provide passengers with air in case of an air leak when they were in space. While Kaishi knew the shuttle provided helmets were of little help in case of a hull breach, he wasn't prepared to give up and pray for a quick death as many space veterans claimed to do in case of cabin decompressions.
Kaishi adjusted the helmet around his neck, making sure there were no stray hairs caught at his nape before activating the sealant, and felt with his fingers to make sure there were no gaps between his helmet and his neck. It was only after he was strapped in and the seats' emergency beacon switched on that he looked at the navigation display on his arm rest. They were just miles above the Moon's surface, which meant there was a chance they'd actually make it to the spaceport, or at least be rescued.
"Please remain in your seats. We're experiencing minor engine failure." The voice of the shuttle pilot, conveyed through the small speaker in his helmet, sounded neither calm nor reassuring. But Kaishi tried to think positively. He desperately wished he hadn't taken a commercial shuttle, that he'd just flow to the Luna Base on his own, damn the red tape and the expenses. His mother had been the one to insist he fly commercial—had told him it was safer.
The odds were in their favor. They were almost at the Moon base, which, though smaller than the Earth base, was the second largest groundside base in existence. True, there were much bigger space stations, better equipped at space rescue but the close Moon base was the closest. The Moon base had emergency personnel, medical facilities and everything else needed to handle a space shuttle crash. Additionally, the Moon's gravity was less than that of Earth, reducing the chances of a crash, and the lack of atmosphere meant less chance of catching fire.
Even if he and his seat were to be ejected, there was a greater chance of being rescued before his air ran out since, once again, he was close to a major base.
Provided his seat didn't drift too far. Which it wouldn't. He would be inside the Moon's gravitational pull, no matter how weak. The myth about how budget shuttle seats didn't eject was just that. Anyway, it wasn't going to come to that. He was going to make it.
The shuttle was going to make it, along with all the passengers.
They didn't make it.
Just one and a half miles from the Luna space shuttle landing facility, after skimming the surface, Agron-300 crashed into the Moon. The resulting explosion was visible to two of the Moon base's main domes, and it provided the settlers with something to talk about for the next one and a half decades until an asteroid collided with their orbital observatory, providing them with a much brighter explosion. (No one ever mentioned the incident when they lost their mayor during the Luna base weapons display mishap that happened a year later. That was just plain bad manners.)
The initial explosion and the decompression killed almost all of the passengers. Kaishi struggled to his feet, dazed, forehead bleeding inside the cracked helmet when a piece of the front compartment, carbon bonded alloy as light as aluminum, twice as strong as diamond and only two millimeters thick, propelled through the passenger compartment, pushed by the force of the explosion in the front, and sheered him in two. It sliced through Kaishi easily, dividing his body into two uneven sections. The upper section of his body fell to the carpeted floor of the shuttle.
If Kaishi had lifted his head, he would have seen that he possessed a stump of a right arm, about two inches long, no left arm whatsoever and no lower body at all. There was surprisingly little blood; the emergency nanites in his blood had kicked in, for all the good that it did.
The lower section of his body fell to the floor slowly, crumpling in stages, first the knees hitting the floor followed by a backward slide as if the body was still alive. There was no pain to speak of; all Kaishi was aware of was that he could no longer feel the rest of his body.
Damn, he thought resignedly. Must have broken my back again.
Still convinced everything was going to be all right the next time he woke up, Kaishi Yamato died for the first time in his life.
NOW
Hideki Takamura had come to shut down a space station. He wasn't proud of himself, but he did what was needed.
Hideki stepped out into the docking ramp that had been rolled up to his hatch opening, inhaled deeply and grimaced. Each space station had a unique atmosphere. It wasn't just the air composition; it was the smells, the sounds and the actual feel of the place. The people. From what he could smell, space station Grand Adventure should have been named Last Hope or Last Leg.
The air had a slightly smoky quality to it; the air filters were on the fritz and, to Hideki's sensitive nose, it was worse than the recycled air inside his ship, Assumption. Hideki felt his body protest at the sudden change in weight. He had spent almost a month cooped up in Assumption, a modified Palomino with the new hyperdrive, essentially an engine with just enough room for a single person. He'd become rather fond of Assumption, become aware of just how powerful and responsive the modified engines were. However, Palominos were meant for short distance travel; there was no artificial gravity, no separate sleeping quarters and definitely no shower.
He looked around, discreetly taking in the details of the docking bay: the decorative paint peeling off the bulkhead and the packing from a crater strewn across the ground sensors. Nothing major, but signs of creeping disorder, indications that things were not quite right. In any other station, someone would have spotted the peeling paint and the trash and would have rectified the situation by calling in the maintenance units
.
Perhaps the station didn't have any maintenance units in the docking bay since it wasn't used to its full capacity. Although the space station had room to support up to fifteen medium battle cruiser-sized spaceships, the docking bay currently held just a few, small planet hoppers, small spacecraft with enough room for a maximum of fifteen crew and enough supplies for short distance journeys, and one Omega class cargo ship with a hull breach that made him wince.
While the location of the station—on the edge of a star system with only three agriculture based settler planets close by—was probably why there wasn't much traffic, it did give Hideki one more reason to shut down the station. If the report before had been true, shutting it down would be a blessing.
All he really needed was to find a few more holes in their system before he could declare it unsafe for humans. The people aboard would probably be better off elsewhere anyway.
Intent on making his report as soon as possible, Hideki stopped short as he spotted something out of place. To the far right, out of the way of all the other spaceships, a tall shape loomed under what was commonly known as space tarp.
For an object inside a docking bay, where it was safe from the elements, to be covered by highly protective space tarp was in itself of great interest, and the shape of the object made it hard for him to discern what it was. Hideki stared hard to study the vague outline, but all he got was an impression of bulk and height. A little tapering on the top … a communication hub, perhaps … and a square middle, which was … What could be so important that—
Hideki supposed he could use the scanners in Assumption to see if they could decipher what was under the space tarp. But then he remembered that space tarp was resistant to most probes, even capable of shielding objects from space radiation.
"Welcome to Space Station Marion," said a tired sounding voice. "I'm Mason Green, your official escort."
Hideki jumped down the last few rungs of the ladder, knowing the low gravity setting of the station would mean less impact when he hit the floor. After placing both his feet on the floor of the docking bay, Hideki turned his attention to Mason Green, a small man in a shabby official uniform with frayed edges and scruffy graviton boots.
Hideki looked around carefully at the apparent lack of people in the dock and wondered where everyone was. Space station inspectors were as infamous as the space plague but drew in more crowds wherever they went. Perhaps everyone was watching his arrival through cams in the safety of their quarters.
He cleared his throat and swallowed a couple of times. "I'm Inspector Hideki Takamura on behalf of the International Space Federation, here to inspect your facility to ensure it meets all the necessary safety standards for human occupation." He hated making this face-to-face announcement but he was under obligation to do so. Though he'd announced his presence as soon as he'd entered the space station orbit, law demanded that he do the same in person when he was physically inside the actual station.
"I can assure you Marion isn't—"
"Marion," Hideki said carefully, forcing his mouth to move after days of disuse. "I was under the impression this was called—"
"Inspector Takamura, as you know, a space station is named by its people, not some distant administrative board that's never seen the inside of a passenger transport. We're a civilian-run, privately owned space station and we—"
"So the official name is …" There was very little chance that he was at the wrong station but perhaps Assumption had drifted off course while he was in semi-hibernation.
"It's The Grand Adventure, official reference number 1407 and we're in the Spiral Archway Three," Green told him a little grumpily, as if Hideki had forced him to utter swear words. "This way." He gestured for Hideki to follow him out of the docking bay through what was marked 'Right Exit'.
At least he was in the right place. Hideki took in the details one more time, watching the droids that had been moving Assumption clear off the docking tube, detach the cables and roll away the ladder. They were a collection of droids of different makes, though they worked as a unit. Some were larger than others and all were of diverse colors and sporting various identification tags.
Hideki frowned but refrained from inquiring why the service droids looked to be from different time periods. He was more troubled that they actually worked in a cohesive unit: it spoke of someone rallying the station resources to try and improve their standards.
"Has there been any recent space pirate activity in the vicinity?" Hideki asked as soon as they cleared the hangar bay. "Any attacks, or …?" He let the rest of the sentence drift off. He didn't want to know if there were pirates aboard the station.
"You'll have to discuss why you're here tomorrow with Station Manager Tan." Green was doing the classic keeping his mouth shut act, which was a little annoying but not unexpected.
"What happened to Vincent Manning?"
According to Hideki's information, the call for help had come from Vincent Manning, the Chief Manager for the Space Station. He had been the contact person for the last ISF inspector, John Turnbull, who'd made the initial assessment of the station. Turnbull had been rather vague in his report, writing only that space pirates were attacking the station and everyone needed to be evacuated. And Hideki was the forerunner to the evacuation fleet that would be arriving two weeks behind him. And for something much more destructive.
"He was relieved of his duties." Probably for contacting the ISF and for speaking to Turnbull.
"I know you plan on staying with us for some time," Green told him as he used smooth, long strides to propel himself off the sides of the narrow tube down which they were travelling. "I'll take you to your quarters. Do you have any personal belongings?"
Hideki didn't correct Green. The evacuation orders were meant for the station manager. Hideki always travelled with his data cubes in his pockets and an emergency decompression suit under his clothes. "I'll come back for them later," Hideki said as he moved carefully, grateful the gravity was set to low. He was still suffering from a case of space legs. However, he wondered why such a large space station had such low g. Much lower than standard space station g as required by ISF. Which was between Earth's g and .9g.
Grand Adven—Marion had been designed during the Third Space Age, when the architects were experimenting with novel structural components. As a result, the station was not the usual cylindrical shape, which rotated to generate its own gravity. However, the documents Hideki had gone over during his long flight informed him that the station was equipped with four gravity generators, each capable of providing an artificial gravitation field large enough for the entire station.
"I'm taking you through the mess hall," Green told him as they reached a junction in the tubes. "You can grab something to eat if you want to."
Hideki wasn't so naive as not to suspect a reason for his being steered towards a particular location. However, he didn't bother protesting. He wasn't particularly hungry but knew he needed to eat, and anything Marion offered was probably better than his space rations.
"How do you process your food?" he asked.
"We grow our own vegetables hydroponically. Most of them, anyway. We have food replicators, and some of the off-world traders barter food in exchange for services rendered."
Hideki frowned at the information. It indicated a stable economy, not a station at risk.
"We have some settlers from Orange and Way of the Will—er, close by pioneer planets who want to trade for technical help."
Hideki didn't remember the planets having such names, but he supposed just as the space station had been renamed, the planets had also acquired local names.
They walked a little further down the corridor and slid down an open hatch, using the walls to slow their descent, until they came to rest outside a compartment door with 'Dining Hall' on it in Standard English, Universal and Hanzi. They were closer to the centre of the station now, and Hideki could feel the gravity, much less than Earth standard though close to Luna base stan
dard, pull at his legs, making his knees shake a little, his joints protesting at the sudden shift in weight. It seemed he was reaching the limits of his body.
"This is where the crew eat, so don't expect anything fancy," Green informed Hideki as he walked towards the door. "But it's free. If you want some gourmet cooking, I'd suggest the Floating Food off the third auxiliary tube past Engineering. There's a bar as well, and most off station personnel relax and mingle with the crew."
"Thank you," Hideki said blankly. Now that a chance to rest had materialized, he just wanted to go to his quarters and sleep. He hoped he had a bunk to himself and some privacy, but he was not about to complain even if it was in a shared dorm. His body needed to recover, which meant he was about to crash—soon.
"Let me get this open," Green said as he waved his hands up and down in order to get the sensors to take notice.
"Does this often malfun—"
Hideki didn't have the time to finish his inquiry before the door slid open with the familiar hiss of standard airlock doors.
Either everyone in Marion was having a party or they were there for a reason—for example, to catch a glimpse of the space station inspector who had just arrived. Hideki cast Green a quick look, but the man had scuttled away as soon as the doors had opened.
Hideki braced himself for the usual hostility that came with his title. He would have preferred to carry out his job in secret, but space law demanded that he identify himself from the start. None of the glamorous undercover detective work for him. Anyway, once the evacuation order came, it wasn't as if he could pretend it wasn't his fault.
The dining hall was a large room with bolted-down tables and magnetic chairs scattered around. It was a very utilitarian area with no extra fringes, no color, no personal touches. Hideki hoped the Floating Food had a better atmosphere. The food was served in gray bowls placed on grey trays, and everyone seated had at least one bowl in front of them.
There were a few people standing as well, men and women in a variety of spacer clothes, body hugging with minimum decoration, all very practical looking. Everyone sported arm bands that identified them as station crew and wore emergency helmet rings around their necks.