by Chris Walley
“Now!” Merral shouted. He ran across the hold, winding his way past the boxes and the edge of the hoverer. The hold seemed full of bouncing and clattering objects. Under the lights, he could see glistening smears of fluid on the barrel. On the floor, though, there were only a few small drops. So far, at least, any leakage had been minor.
Handling the barrel, he realized, was going to be difficult, and he wished he had gloves. Trying to ignore the now persistent shuddering, he steadied himself against a sled, looking around for something to handle the barrel with. There was another flash outside, and he glimpsed the window smeared with rain.
To his right Merral saw a pile of familiar gray fabric cylinders in a box labeled “Tents.” He jerked one of them out and threw it to Lorrin, who caught it.
“Open it!” he shouted. The shaking was almost regular now, as if the ship were bouncing over a corrugated surface.
Lorrin tore it open and folds of green fabric spilled out. “Use it to push the drum upright!” Merral yelled, trying to make himself heard over the noises of the lurching ship.
As the two moved to the bouncing drum, Merral moved back, searching for something to lash it against the wall. Spotting the end of some line protruding from a holdall, he pulled out a coil of rope. He ran back with it to where the men had managed to get the barrel upright, smelling the chemical again and noticing that the floor around them was slippery. The hold was humid, and Merral was aware that he was sweating profusely.
Perena’s voice echoed about them. “Merral! We have to initiate separation shortly. Is it secured yet?”
Merral looked at the barrel, aware that the rope was still in his hands.
“Almost. Can’t you wait?”
“No. I need a decision. Can you guarantee it’s safe?”
Lightning flashed, so close that even through the portholes it illuminated the hold. An instant later, a peal of thunder rang through the hull and the lights above them flickered briefly.
Merral glanced at the men by him, aware of their pale, sweat-beaded faces watching him. Lord, he prayed, give me wisdom. He was aware that his options were few. If he told Perena to stop the ejection sequence and he couldn’t tie the Thyrol 56 safely in place, they might well blow up and perish. Yet if he let the cargo be ejected, they might never get another chance against the intruders. Merral wanted to shout, I’ve been captain for less than twelve hours and already I have to make an appalling decision!
“Perena, cancel the ejection procedure,” he said. “Repeat, cancel the ejection procedure. On my orders. If we blow up, I’ll take responsibility.”
“Cancelled on your orders,” came back the quiet voice. There was a further jolt. “So if we blow up, you’ll apologize as we wait to enter heaven, eh?”
For once she sounds like her sister.
With the two men pushing the barrel against the wall through the fabric, Merral looped the rope round a strut. Trying to ride with the bucking of the ship, he thrust the other end round a hole in a girder on the other side. With each jolt, Merral half expected to be thrown free. Somehow he managed to wrap the cord outside the tent fabric and pull it as tight as he could.
The barrel stiffened upright and Lorrin, his face running with sweat, gave a cracked cheer.
“See if you can find the leak,” Merral snapped as he tightened the knot, desperately hoping that the barrel was not irreparably cracked. He tied off the rope awkwardly and started another loop across the barrel.
“Sensors say severe turbulence coming up in less than a minute,” Perena’s insistent tone sounded from above them. “We can’t turn back.”
“The cap has been loosened, sir,” Lorrin shouted as the second loop was tied.
The ship lurched again and Merral could hear the Thyrol sloshing about in the drum tank. As he caught a fresh waft of its acrid fumes, his eyes watered. Now he grabbed a corner of the tent, found the cap, and twisted tight. For a desperate moment the fabric, greasy with liquid, would not grip the cap. Then it caught and Merral felt the lid tighten under his grip.
“You guys—get back! I’ll finish this off.”
They looked at each other, hesitating.
“Let me do it, sir!” Lorrin shouted.
“No! Get back! That’s an order!”
The ship seemed to fall again. Merral held on, and when he had stopped being jolted about, he screwed the cap further, until it would go no tighter.
Gasping, he stood back, bracing himself against a strut and another crate. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others now exiting the hold.
Without warning the ship dropped.
The force was such that, for a moment, Merral realized that every part of him was off the ground. Then he crashed down, his shoulder jarring painfully against a crate. Yet, although the barrel had bounced up and down, it had stayed lashed against the wall.
Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Merral stepped back and braced himself against a crate as further jolts struck the ship. It would have to do.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and carefully, mindful of his throbbing shoulder, he turned and made his way back to the hatch.
Back in the passenger compartment, aware that he smelt of disinfecting agent, Merral lurched back into his seat and strapped himself in. There was the sound of clapping, and he looked up to see everyone applauding him. Embarrassed, Merral shrugged and gestured to the beaming Lorrin and the other man.
“Very nice, Captain. And you two—many thanks,” Perena commented.
“So we may survive, eh, Vero?” Merral said, turning to his friend.
But Vero, his head deep inside the bag, was preoccupied with being violently sick.
An hour or so later, the appalling bouncing and shuddering began to wane and, shortly afterward, Merral felt the ship descending in a slow, low-angle flight path. Despite the limited illumination on the landing strip, Perena brought the Emilia Kay in smoothly to land on the wet surface. Or maybe, thought Merral, it just seemed smooth after what he had passed through.
“Welcome to Tanaris,” announced Perena. “Sorry about the flight.”
One by one, Merral and the other passengers filed down the stairs, picked up their bags, walked out of the ship, and stood on the gritty basalt runway. Under the thick purple-black clouds that hung overhead, a premature night was setting in. Here at least, though, the storm seemed to have already passed over, and there was only an occasional flurry of heavy raindrops. Far away, westward over the seething sea, the lightning and thunder still erupted spasmodically.
Merral, rejoicing to have his feet on the ground, said a silent but heartfelt prayer of thanks. He looked around in the humid gloom, aware that, by his side, Vero was feebly propping himself up against the fuselage. Beyond the strip, the lights of the runway showed a somber landscape of bare and jagged black rocks broken only by the occasional low tree. From the other end of the runway, a line of paired lights revealed a column of approaching vehicles.
Merral saw that Perena was next to him. “Is Vero all right?” she asked in a voice of quiet concern.
“Yes,” Merral said, “but it’s the last time he will switch the weather sats off when there is a risk of him flying. Nice landing, though.”
“It wasn’t hard, really. The Tanaris strip was made originally for emergency landings for in-system shuttles if Isterrane was closed with bad weather. I think it’s the longest on the planet. I could have come down vertically, but you need to be absolutely certain of your equipment to do that.” Then she lowered her voice and whispered to Merral. “Look—while the vehicles are arriving—come into the hold with me.”
Inside the ship, the smell of the disinfecting agent was still powerful and Perena sniffed dubiously. “Nasty stuff. Anyway, full marks. We survived. So you made a bold and decisive decision.”
“Thanks. And if we hadn’t survived?”
“It wouldn’t have been bold and decisive; it would have been rash, foolhardy, and badly judged. We won this one. But you got
a lot of credit for your action, and you made the right decision.”
“It wasn’t easy.” Merral was surprised at the emotion in his voice. “Would you really have ejected the module?”
Perena shrugged unhappily. “Under the old rules, yes. By letting you do this I broke with Standard Operating Procedures. But do those old rules apply in what is, effectively, a time of war?” She sighed. “You see, Merral, we are all having to learn new things and new attitudes.”
Making no further comment, Perena walked over to the barrel and peered around it.
“What are you looking for?” Merral asked.
“I want to find out why it broke loose,” she said, squatting and staring to one side of the drum. “Under normal conditions we’d have a full inquiry. There’s no time here. But I’d still like to know. It’s very odd—almost unprecedented—for a load to break free. But see, here’s where it was attached.” She leaned forward and lifted up a broken strand of silvery webbing. “Okay, so it snapped. But why, eh, Merral?” She looked at him, her face angular in the hold lighting.
Merral shrugged.
“Well,” she said, “we have an imaging record of the loading, so we will find who was responsible. And I’ll get this looked at in daylight.” She peered closely at it and muttered, “You know I think this is old. It’s got an orange safety thread in it.”
Merral bent down and looked at it, noting that he, too, could make out a fine orange line along it. Safety threads occurred in most critical rope or straps, whether for climbing or for lashing down equipment. Green indicated pristine condition with full strength, but over time and use that shifted to yellow, orange, and then red to indicate a progressive weakening. It was a well-known ruling that, for critical tasks, you never used less than green. He turned to Perena. “Okay. Let me have a full report. We nearly lost the mission before we started.”
“We could have lost us.”
There were noises at the hold door. A tall, green-clad man with a long face dominated by a hooked nose climbed into the hold. “Captain D’Avanos? Captain Lewitz?”
“Indeed,” said Merral, struck by the way the man’s wide smile was accentuated by his thin dark moustache. There was an awkward salute and smile on the broad face.
“Lieutenant Ferenc Thuron, sir. Welcome to Tanaris.”
“Thank you.” Thuron, Merral thought, going through the list of names in his mind. “Ah yes. You’re a team leader?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your team will come in from the west. Right, Ferenc?”
“Yes, sir, but I am afraid everyone calls me Frankie.” The gentle brown eyes were apologetic. “The Ferenc was because my dad was into the Old Hungarian at the time I was born, but it’s confusing to spell. So it’s Frankie. But only if it’s no trouble. You’re the boss.”
Merral found it hard not to smile back. “Trouble, Lieutenant, is a relative thing, and you going from Ferenc to Frankie does not really rate in the scheme of things. Not now. Does it, Captain Lewitz?”
She grinned. “Hardly. Not now.”
Frankie looked around and sniffed. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you haven’t half had the ship cleaned out, have you?”
“A leak, Frankie.”
“Yeah. I guess that explains it. I’m ready to take you to the base. Any immediate instructions, sir?”
“Only that I want to have a meeting with you, the experts, and the other team leaders later. We need to get started here fast.”
“Sounds okay, sir.”
As he exited the hold, Merral saw, by vehicles, other men wearing green. With a shock of recognition, Merral realized they were in uniform, and suddenly the significance of what he was about struck him. We have made soldiers, and I must lead them. It was all he could do to stop himself from trembling.
Zak, smartly dressed in a green uniform, was waiting for Merral at the main tent.
“Sir,” he said, with a smart salute, “good to see you here. Welcome to Camp Alpha.”
“ ‘Camp Alpha’? I thought this was Tanaris?”
Zak looked nonplussed. “We figured, sir, we ought to give it a name that wasn’t on maps. So if anyone overheard they wouldn’t know the address. That’s what they did.”
“I see,” Merral said, trying to ignore feelings that he was utterly out of his depth. “Camp Alpha, it is. Everything okay, er . . . Lieutenant?”
“Good, sir. Do you want me to brief you now?”
“I need to change my clothes.”
“Yes, sir, your uniform’s in the tent there. There are a couple of tunics and trousers; we weren’t sure of your size. You’ll want to put them on straightaway.”
“Thank you, Zak.” Merral forced himself to smile. “Let’s have the briefing later. I want to meet all the lieutenants, in half an hour, say, at seven-thirty.”
“That’s 1930 hours, sir?”
“Nineteen—? Yes, of course, Lieutenant, that’s what I meant to say. Pass the word around.”
“I’ll give the order, sir.”
Merral hesitated. “Yes, well, whatever. Go on and do it, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir!” Zak said with a snap in his voice, saluted, turned, and left.
Merral walked into the tent, closed the flap, and stared at the uniforms on his bed. He sat on the folding chair and put his head in his hands.
“Oh, Lord, they’ve picked the wrong man,” he said in quiet prayer.
Less than an hour later, the last few of the ten men and women Merral had summoned came into the office tent and took their seats around a long collapsible table. As the chattering and introductions slowly died away, Merral, feeling a little more sure of himself, gazed around again.
On his immediate left were five men in the same uniform that he now wore. All were in their mid- or late twenties, and Merral, whose twenty-seventh birthday was still six months away, felt slightly encouraged that he would not have to order men about who were much older than him. He reviewed again who they were and what their responsibilities would be if it came to fighting. Closest to him was Zak, sitting bolt upright in his chair as if he found it perfectly natural to be on a remote island wearing a military uniform and preparing to do battle. It wasn’t just pretense either, Merral reminded himself. By all accounts, Zak had excelled in organizing the setting up of the camp and had been designated as the leader of the team that was to approach the ship from the north.
Next to him was the lean, tall figure of gentle, apologetic Frankie Thuron, who, it turned out, was a chemistry research student and a long-distance runner. Beyond Frankie sat Fred Huang, a large, long-limbed man who wore his thick and lengthy dark hair tied back and who seemed to have a permanently fixed grin and loud, cheery voice. Fred, Merral knew, was a marine biologist and an accomplished diver from one of the smaller islands of the Mazarma Chain. It was Fred, Merral reminded himself, who would go with the diplomatic team and attempt first contact.
Forcing himself not to think about whether Fred’s mission could succeed, Merral moved his gaze to the tall figure of Barry Narandel slouched in a chair beyond him. Barry, down to lead the reserves, had his hair cut so close that it was almost stubble and thoughtful blue eyes that seemed to drift around in a lazy scrutiny. The fifth of the line of uniformed men was Lucas “Luke” Tenerelt, who had been designated chaplain, his green uniform marked with improvised bronze clerical flashings. Merral knew from his folder that Luke, whose almost gaunt face and piercing dark eyes were accentuated by the basic lighting in the tent, was in his late thirties and had, after an outstanding dual-track theology and engineering degree, become a leader in his home congregation in Maraplant.
As the silence deepened, Merral turned his gaze to those on his right. There was Perena, the still-gray-faced Vero, and next to him, looking unusually solemn, Anya. Beyond her was the head of communications, the short but strikingly blonde Maria Dalphey, and next to her, Lucia “Lucy” Dmitri. Lucy had been seconded from the Farholme Atmosphere Transport Board and made responsible for the log
istics; she was a willowy brunette with green eyes, and Merral was struck by her look of quiet competence.
So, the solemn thought came to Merral, this is my team. Well, his first impressions suggested that Vero, Corradon, and Clemant had chosen well. Merral opened his folder to a blank piece of paper. “Gentlemen and ladies,” he began, wondering even as he said it whether it was the right mode of address, “I just have a few things to say, and then in half an hour we shall adjourn for the evening meal.”
He caught the grimace on Vero’s pallid face. “For those who feel like eating, that is. But I thought it would be good if Luke, as our chaplain, would pray for us.”
Luke nodded, got firmly to his feet, and as everybody bowed their heads, prayed clearly in a loud, confident, and booming voice. “Lord of the Assembly, we pray that You go with us in our planning and preparations. We pray too that we do not forget You in the urgency of the hour and that You protect us all through the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, from all the powers and principalities of evil that we face. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Merral felt that if Luke had any doubts about the task ahead, he kept them well hidden.
As Luke sat down, Merral looked around. “By any reckoning,” he said, “the last meeting like this happened in the Rebellion. So I suppose this is, very sadly, a historic occasion.” He watched heads shake in agreement, then went on. “The schedule is this: After the meal, I want to address everybody briefly. Then we have three days of training ahead. Tomorrow I want an early morning meeting of us all for a progress report. At eight.” He caught a glance from Zak. “That is, 0800 hours. I would like to see you individually during the rest of the day. Is that okay?”
There were glances and nods of agreement. “Fine then. I want us now to go around. Briefly say who you are, what you see your job as being, and what stage you think your work is at now. Then we shall go and eat after that.”
There were more nods.
“So then, let’s start with Zak here. . . .”