by Rob Boffard
She trails off. Suddenly, she’s sick of that lie, a story she told her parents and her friends when they asked what her plans were. In reality, this was the only job she could get, and she had absolutely no idea how human resources at the Martian Museum of Natural History would view a stint as a guide for the world’s cheapest tour company.
“What about you?” she says. “If this hadn’t happened, what would you be doing?”
The captain doesn’t answer. Not surprising – it’s a ridiculous question. What would she be doing? What do you think she’d be doing? She’s been flying for Sigma Tours for twelve years. She’d be right here, in this seat, taking passengers around the station like always.
After a few moments, Volkova says, “Passengers OK?”
“What? Oh, yeah, fine.”
“Maybe you should go check. See if they need any help. Anyway, I have work to do. Can’t just talk all day.”
“Uh … OK?” Hannah puts the bottle down. What is Volkova talking about? The passengers don’t need her help – and it’s not like there’s anything to do right –
But Volkova’s shoulders are way too tight, and she’s gripping the controls like they’re about to escape. Of course. When your working life is spent entirely by yourself in a cockpit, it must be pretty jarring for someone to suddenly be in there with you all the time – especially when it’s not built for two people to begin with, and there’s no emergency to deal with. This is Volkova’s space, and Hannah’s set up camp in it. Set up camp and started drinking the supplies.
She smiles – something made easier by the vodka, which has set the inside of her cheeks alight. “You got it. See you in a bit.”
“Da. Thank you.”
Anita and Lorinda are the only people on the main deck. The old woman has her eyes closed, head resting on a jacket, while Anita is doing something on her lens. Hannah stops at the top of the stairs. “Where are the boys?” she says, hoping that the cheerful note in her voice doesn’t sound too forced.
“What?” Anita looks over to her, blinking. “Oh. They went downstairs.”
“OK. Thanks.” Hannah tries to think of something else to say, but can’t. She turns to go; she should probably make sure Jack isn’t trying to chisel his way through the airlock door or something. Then, she stops.
“Um, can I just …” she closes her eyes briefly, wondering how to phrase it.
Anita glances up. “Yes?”
Screw it. Hannah pushes herself off the railing, folding her arms. “You said you worked for a senator?”
“Tom Daniels, that’s right.”
“OK. Yeah. That’s what I thought. Because I just … I mean I wanted to ask … do you really think negotiating the Belarus Treaty was the right idea?”
Anita sighs, very quietly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“I don’t get why you’d want that? Haven’t we taken enough from the Colonies? They already pretty much lost the war.”
“Well, it might stop their ships attacking us, for one thing.” There’s an edge to Anita’s voice now, one that wasn’t there before. Behind her, a puzzled Lorinda looks back and forth between them.
“But that’s all the Frontier Senate does. Take and take and take. I just … I’m trying to understand, like, how could you be comfortable with that happening. How can you rationalise—”
“Rationalise?” Anita folds her hands in her lap. “I don’t have to rationalise anything. We thought the treaty swung a little too far in favour of the Colonies the first time round, so we went back to the negotiating table. That’s how it works.”
“You can’t just change things when you get bored with them.”
“You make it sound like we snapped our fingers and rewrote the whole thing. It’s taken two years of back and forth. Committees. Subcommittees. Diplomatic back-channels.” To Hannah, her laugh sounds cold. “And in the end? Everybody got what they wanted. They got increased aid packages and lifted sanctions, and we got them to give us a few outlying worlds, and agree to a reduction in their military spending. Seems to me—” she fixes Hannah with a pointed look “—that might be a pretty good idea.”
“Yeah – those outlying worlds?” Hannah leans on the words. “You’re just going to mine them for helium-3. What about the people living there? Do they get a say?”
“We’ve got a full relocation package ready for them. We’re even offering them Frontier citizenship, if they want it.” She sighs. “I know there are parts of the treaty that might be … controversial, but it’s about keeping the Frontier safe.”
“Oh, come on.”
Anita’s smile is as chilly as the main deck itself. “You don’t have kids, do you?”
Hannah is about to respond when there’s a noise behind her. She turns to see Everett coming up the stairs. “Hey. Do you know what’s up with the water?” he says.
Her retort to Anita is still on the tip of her tongue, and she has to force herself to focus. “What do you mean?”
“We’re only getting a little bit out of the tap.”
Anita has returned to her lens, blinking her way through documents, and it makes her feel a little silly. Hannah blinks. What is she doing, arguing about politics? Now? How much vodka did she have?
She follows Everett down into the bar. Brendan, Seema and Jack are huddled together at the far side, arguing about something. Hannah doesn’t bother to ask what their problem is, heading straight for the bathroom. It’s only when she’s halfway there that she realises the temperature in the bar has dropped even further. It’s freezing in here.
There’s a panel above the flimsy bathroom door, perhaps two feet square, with a recessed handle. Hannah stands on tiptoes, gritting her teeth as she touches it, the icy metal biting into her skin. It takes a few seconds of futile pulling before she realises she has to lift the handle up and out. When she does so, the panel swings to the side so suddenly that she almost topples back. The slight buzz she got from the vodka ramps up, threatening to make her lose her balance entirely.
The water tank itself is the size of a large upended bathtub, multiple pipes leading off it. She can just see its bottom half through the open panel. She grasps the edge of the opening, and uses it to pull herself up so she can put a hand on the plastic surface. It’s ice-cold, too, and when she raps on it with her knuckles, the noise sounds wrong. Like there’s not enough air inside.
There’s a valve on one of the lower pipes. She tries it without much hope – even if she gets it off, she won’t be able to see inside the tank itself. Nothing. It’s stuck fast.
“See anything?”
The voice makes Hannah jump. It’s Everett, standing behind her, and she can hear more footsteps coming down the stairs above them.
“I got it,” she says, flustered. Last thing she needs is a bunch of people standing around dishing out instructions.
“You sure?”
“… Yeah, I’m good. Some ice in the pipes, that’s all.”
“Ice?” Everett peers over the top of her head.
“Is that a valve?” Jack says. “What is this, the 1800s?”
“This whole ship is from the 1800s,” Seema mutters.
“We really run out of water?” Malik says from behind them.
Everett slides in next to Hannah. As he does so, she spots a small access hatch on the tank itself – one the company probably uses to clean it, assuming they ever get around to that kind of thing.
The panel is secured with a twisting handle. Everett is about to turn it when Hannah stops him. “Wait. What if we’re wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know I said it was ice in the pipes but …” She can see the panel flying open, a thousand gallons of precious water cascading down on them.
“Maybe there’s a sensor?” Anita says. “Or a camera?”
“I’ll go and ask.” Corey dashes off before his mom can say anything. He’s back in less than a minute, looking confused. “The captain says no. Also, she said the ship was crap,
and that it was a stupid question, and that I should stop bothering her.”
“Yeah, the captain’s smart like that,” says Mal, smirking. Corey nails him in the shoulder, which only makes the smirk bigger.
Everett thinks for a moment, then taps the panel. “Put your hand here,” he tells Hannah. He looks around, settling on Jack, and calls him over, too. “We’ll all hold it shut so I can open the safety lock. Then we’re going to slowly let it open. You feel any pressure from behind, even a little bit, you hold it shut so I can lock it again.”
“Is that actually going to work?” Jack says.
“Well, we’re not holding back the sea or anything,” says Everett. His voice is calm, but it’s impossible to miss the nervous edge to it. “Three people should be enough. We might lose a little bit if it’s still liquid, but that’s all. And I’m open to other ideas, if anyone’s got ’em.”
No one says anything. Carefully, Hannah, Jack and Everett position themselves, hands pressed against the hatch. “Remember,” Everett says. “You feel even a little pressure—”
“Yeah, just do it already,” says Jack.
“Be careful,” says Anita from behind them.
Everett turns the catch. Slowly, the three of them lean into the panel, Hannah having to stand on tiptoe to apply enough pressure. Why didn’t they just get Brendan over here? With his arm, he could probably have held the hatch in place by himself.
“Feel anything?” Everett says.
Hannah shakes her head. Slowly, very slowly, they let the pressure off the panel. Hannah is expecting – hoping, actually – that she’ll feel a sudden push against her hands, and that she, Jack and Everett will get a wave of icy water in their faces before they slam the panel closed. That would mean they’ve still got –
“Shit,” says Jack.
The water behind the panel is frozen solid: a thick wall of ice, wedged in place.
Chapter 19
Hannah’s heart sinks. This is not good. And who knows what condition the pipes are in? The ice might have burst them completely, somewhere they can’t see.
“OK,” says Anita, scratching her chin. “So we heat it up again. There’s got to be a way to do that, right?”
Hannah exhales, long and hard. “I hope so.”
“Any other water tanks on board?” Everett is frowning at the ice, like it personally offended him.
“Bigger problem,” says Brendan. “What if the whole ship gets like this? I mean, this cold?”
Hannah closes her eyes, trying to think. “We know the main deck’s heating circuits still work. Even if the bar’s down, we should be able to hold it off.”
“Maybe we can fix it ourselves,” says Anita. “Where would we find the broken part?”
For some reason, everyone turns to Corey.
“What you all looking at me for?” he says, giving a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”
Hannah has a sudden urge to send Corey into the space above them, have him crawl through just like he did in the engine room. But he’s not that small, and, anyway, the last thing she needs is to have a pissed-off Anita on her hands.
“Maybe they were damaged in the attack,” Everett says. He has his hands on his hips, staring up at the ceiling, brow furrowed. “Or when we busted into the hotel?”
“Maybe we could melt some of it,” says Brendan.
“Captain’s got a lighter,” Hannah replies.
“Actually …” Everett turns to look at the bar. He taps a finger against his lips, thinking hard.
“Actually … what?” says Seema.
“I was thinking of something a little more permanent.” Everett strides past them, dropping to his knees by one of the bar fridges, yanking the door open and sticking his head inside. “Do these have condensate pan heaters? Or a defrost cycle?”
When nobody answers him, he lifts his head back over the bar. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out.”
“Is that even going to work?” Jack asks.
“Don’t see why not. Be a lot easier if I had the right tools, though. And it’s more of a long-term solution – it’ll take me a while to put together. I need to insulate the coil so it doesn’t short.”
Long-term solution. Hannah shivers, making herself focus on the tank.
They can’t just not have water – even short term, even with the stockpile of JamFizz, that’s not good. It wouldn’t be good under normal circumstances, let alone when they’re all stressed and exhausted. And, more than that: maybe this is a way to finally stop these people from wanting to tear each other’s throats out. A way to take their minds off the fact that their only way out of here might already be destroyed.
And isn’t that what Mom and Dad always wanted her to do? Take responsibility? This might not be exactly what they had in mind – but, then again, they aren’t here, and she is, and this is something she can finally, finally, handle.
“All right.” She turns to the others. “I want everybody to get something they can use as a chisel. A screwdriver, a … a pair of scissors. Anything.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack says. “You want us to tunnel into the ice? Why?”
“Yep. Make a space for Ev’s … whatever he’s building.”
“Why bother? We could just hold it to the ice after he builds it, melt it that way. That’ll work, right?”
“Sure. But if he can’t make it work …”
“Oh, I’ll get it working.” For the first time since he came on board, Everett actually sounds happy.
“Even so.” Hannah meets Jack’s eyes. “This is a backup plan. We knock some of the ice out, put it in the glasses so it can melt.”
She wants to tell him that she knows it isn’t strictly necessary, that whatever Everett is doing will probably be enough. But she doesn’t know how to phrase it. Jack isn’t the kind of person who would buy the idea of them needing to band together as a group, and Hannah isn’t sure she has the energy to try and convince him. If a little lie gets him focused on the task at hand, she’s happy to tell it.
She’s saved by Seema, who pulls something out of her pocket and passes it over. It’s an old-fashioned penknife, a little rust on the red handle. “Will this do?”
Hannah feels a burst of triumph, taking the knife and flipping the blade open. “Yes. Exactly.” She waves it, a little wildly. “Anything like what Seema has.”
Gently, Seema takes the knife from her, pulling the blade back in and flipping out the bottle opener, with its thick, flattened end. “Let’s not mess up the blade, yeah?”
Hannah nods, blushing a little. “Right. Sorry.”
While Everett works on the fridge, yanking out power cables and pulling off panels and dispatching his wife to retrieve a roll of tape from the ship’s first aid kit, the others get to chiselling. There isn’t much to work with: Seema’s knife and an old pair of nail scissors from Anita’s cavernous bag are the only things they can find that would make a dent in the hard ice. They’d hoped to find some cutlery behind the bar, but, of course, there’s nothing back there. You don’t need a knife and fork to eat soychips.
Hannah is lost for a few seconds, realising how long it’ll take them to chip away with just the penknife and the scissors, but Brendan gets an idea. With Everett’s agreement, he smashes the glass on the second fridge, driving a metal fist through the pane. Malik pulls off his shirt, wrapping it tight around his hand and snagging one of the bigger chunks. “So I don’t cut myself,” he tells a horrified Anita.
Taking it in turns, Hannah, Jack, Brendan and Malik hack away at the ice, while Lorinda and Corey hold glasses up to catch the falling chips. The outside is grimy, crusty with frost. But, before long, bigger chunks start to come loose. A line of glasses grows on the bar, slowly melting chunks of ice dripping into them. Soon, everyone around the bathroom is soaked and shivering, piles of slush growing on the floor around them.
Despite the fact that she can no longer feel her hands, Hannah can’t help smiling. For the first time since the attack, they�
��ve stopped thinking about what’s going to happen to them. It’s working. It’s not going to work forever – she can already picture a bigger section of the ice coming loose, crushing someone’s arm underneath it – but it’s a good start.
After they’ve chiselled a foot-deep hole in the ice, Hannah calls time. She’s exhausted, her shoulders trembling, but her smile grows bigger as she walks over to the bar. She even high-fives Malik, barely feeling the impact on her frozen palm. Everyone else is the same – even Jack and Seema look happy, for once. Hannah passes the woman her knife back, then lifts one of the glasses that has more liquid in it than the others, and raises it to them in a toast.
“Shouldn’t we save it?” Everett says from the other side of the bar. He’s still not finished with his makeshift ice melter, and is adrift in a sea of wires and metal plating and shreds of tape. A heating coil lies on his lap like a pet snake.
“Think we’ve earned this one,” Hannah replies. She takes a small sip before passing it to Brendan, who winks at her.
“Agreed.” Jack has a glass of his own. “Oh hey, Captain, come on down. You want a drink?”
Hannah turns to see Volkova on the stairs, and the smile drops off his face.
“Captain?” Anita says.
“Come upstairs,” says Volkova. “Everyone needs to see this.”
Chapter 20
The jump gate is gone. Destroyed.
The ring, usually two miles wide, has been blasted to pieces. Big chunks of the structure still remain: huge, curved sections of polished metal with jagged, torn edges. The chunks are surrounded by hundreds of shards of loose debris, including what remains of the gate’s auto-turrets.
Jack wants to look away. He’s desperate to look away. But neither he, nor any of the other passengers, can tear their eyes from the viewing dome.
There’s one particular piece: the jump gate’s giant, cylindrical reactor. Half of it, at least. No way the Colony ship did this from up close – the energy released when the reactor was destroyed would have torn it to shreds. It’s all too easy to see what happened. They jumped, and left a few spheres behind to close the door.