by J. L. Curtis
Lherson eased into the pilot’s chair. “Okay, where are we, and where do we need to go?”
Solly sighed, “We’re two jumps from GalPat space. We’re in a dead system. There was apparently one habitable planet here, but it was destroyed sometime in the past. Two jump points are the only reason to drop in here.”
“Well, that and the forward particle shield failing. That was why we dropped here. Can’t go into hyper without it.”
She glanced at him, “We’re a little over a light second from the jump point. We need to head one three five, up eighty-eight. We don’t have enough mass to get there, so I’d recommend full power until we’re at fifty-four percent of mass, then cut power and drift at whatever speed we get. I figure we’ve got thirty-four days of food, water, and unlimited air, as long as the scrubbers hold out.”
He threw up his hands, then groaned. “Shit. Really? So all we can hope is somebody comes through here in the next thirty-four days is the best you’ve got?”
“The jump points here are unmanned. If we get close enough, maybe we can hit a beacon that will be picked up and relayed. Our other choice is point this thing at the sun and ride it in. I would prefer not to do that.”
Strapping in, Lherson said, “One three five, up eighty-eight, max power. Aye, aye, ma’am.” He gradually fed the power in as he fiddled with the joystick until he had the shuttle on the required course. Mumbling to himself, he scanned the displays until he found the mass totalizer. Looking at the flow rates, he did a quick set of calculations and said, “Looks like twelve, maybe thirteen divs unless we start getting vibrations.”
Solly nodded. “Okay. Do you mind if I get some rest?”
“Go for it, ma’am.”
“Call me Bridget, please. What’s your name?”
Surprised, he turned and looked at her, “Uh, Dean Lherson, ma… Bridget.”
She stuck out her hand, “Pleased to meet you Dean, and thank you for saving our lives. I’ll come back in four divs and give you a break.”
“Thank you.”
She eased out of the pilot’s station, and disappeared aft. He thought, Well, that’s fucking strange. Never had any officer in the line ask my name, much less give me their first name and want to be called that. Settling back in the chair, he stared morosely at the panels as he tried multiple frequencies to see if there was anyone in the system. Do I really want to hit the beacon now? What if whoever shot at us is still here? Nah, I’ll wait until… Bridget comes back and we can discuss it.
***
Twelve divs later, Lherson watched the mass totalizer run down to sixty-five percent and shut the power down. Solly still hadn’t come back to the cockpit, so he confirmed the heading was still good, put the sensors in AutoDetect, and got up, stretching slowly because of the ribs. He moved quietly back to the passenger compartment, noting Solly passed out and curled up in one of the seats, with Cedar sleeping in the next seat, a hand touching Solley’s hip.
He checked the matriarch, and she was still breathing, the IV running a slow drip. The young dragoon appeared to be asleep as well, and he moved cautiously by it. He found the e-rats and pulled out four energy bars. None of them looked that appetizing, but he needed to eat, so he peeled one and started chewing away. Taking the other three, he started walking back forward as the young dragoon yowled. He dropped one in its lap, and smacked the dragoon on the nose when it snapped at him, “Not food,” pointing at himself. Pointing to the e-rat, he said, “food. Eat it.”
That woke Solly up, and her moving woke Cedar, who sobbed quietly. Lherson handed the energy bars to both of them, “L… Bridget, I shut power down early. I forgot we need to conserve mass for the APU. We’ve got a little over two hundred eleven thousand meters per second of speed now. I figure we’ll get within maybe a half light second before we run out of fuel and food.”
Solly groaned and scrubbed her face and head, “At least we’ll have a chance if somebody drops into this system.”
Nodding toward the dragoons, he asked, “What are we going to do with them?”
She smacked her head. “Dammit, I forgot.” Scrambling up, she went forward to a compartment behind the cockpit, and he heard, “Ha! They’re here!” She came back dangling something on a lanyard and he realized it was a GalTrans.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Give it to the little Dragoon. He doesn’t have one yet. The matriarch told me they were on their way to Star Center for his implant.” She followed her words with actions, and walked back to where the Dragoon was still strapped in his seat. Punching a couple of buttons on the GalTrans, she looped it over the Dragoon’s head and let it settle against his chest. The lanyard automatically retracted until the device was nestled in the area of his throat, as he looked curiously at them, growling.
Solly waited a couple of minutes, then said, “Do you understand me?”
The GalTrans emitted a series of sounds and the young Dragoon looked down at himself, then yammered something. The GalTrans spit out, “What is this? How can I understand you? I thought…” He looked at the matriarch, and growled. “My Mother? She lives?”
Solly reached over and checked the IV and life signs, “She lives. She was badly hurt saving you. We are doing what we can.”
The dragoon gave his equivalent of a nod, “She lives. She must live!”
Lherson asked, “Do you know how to use the fresher? Can we trust you to do that?”
More growls and a whine, “Filth off! Clean, yes.” Straightening, he looked squarely at Lherson, then gave a long answer in his language, “I, Ton’Skel, heir to Ton’Mose do give my parole.”
Solly and Lherson looked at each other, then Lherson released the straps, helping the young Dragoon up and back to the aft fresher. He walked back forward to Solly, “Uh… Bridget, what they hell was that all about?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But we’ll see what happens. While he’s back there, I’m going to take Cedar up front and let her clean up.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.”
***
Six days later, the matriarch’s IVs ran out, and she passed quietly, never regaining consciousness. Ton’Skel curled up next to her body and cried for over four divs, before finally passing out. They let him sleep and grieve, moving Cedar into the cockpit and letting her play with the controls after Lherson safed them. Cedar finally fell asleep in Solly’s arms, crying for both her and Ton’Skel’s losses.
The next clock day, Ton’Skel finally came awake and turned to Lherson and Solly, his GalTrans spit out, “My mother’s body must be preserved until she can be properly buried according to custom.”
“Dave, what can we do? If she stays in here, she’s going to decompose, she’s already started…”
Lherson nodded. “Let me check something. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared through the aft hatch, mumbling to himself. A half div later, he returned to the cockpit. “I think we can put her in the aft airlock and bleed it down. That should mummify her body to the point that it keeps him happy, and doesn’t contaminate the rest of the shuttle. If we seal her in the soft suit, maybe… I don’t know…”
“I think that would work. The question is, will he accept that?”
“If he doesn’t, I’ll space his ass too!”
“Quiet! Let me go talk to him, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
Solly came back a few segs later, “He agreed. He made me promise you, we, will not space her body. I think he’s in shock right now. Cedar is sitting with him, holding his hand.”
Rolling his eyes, Lherson reached up, “The sooner the better.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to drop the grav down so we can move her. I’m not up to trying to maneuver that much weight under one G.”
“Let me warn them first, okay?”
“You’ve got a seg to do it.”
Solly left, mumbling under her breath. As the clock ticked down, he dropped the G to .3G and swam out of t
he cockpit. Ton’Skel was crooning something in their language, as Cedar cried quietly in her seat. They waited until he finished whatever he was doing, and gently closed her back into the soft suit, sealing the tabs and gently picking her body up. Ton’Skel cradled her head, tears rolling down his face, as he continued crooning softly. They moved the body back to the aft airlock, and gently placed it on the floor, curled up and facing away from the inner lock.
They had to pull Ton’Skel back into the shuttle, and Lherson slowly closed the inner hatch. Once it was closed and locked, Ton’Skel pasted his nose to the viewport, and watched as Lherson slowly lowered the pressure to a couple of pounds, explaining to Ton’Skel that he would leave pressure on the airlock to prevent either door being opened.
Lherson went back to the cockpit and cranked the inertial compensation back up to 1G, then turned to Solly, “I’m going to run one air cycle for the emergency scrubbers to get any particulate that may be in the shuttle. It’ll take about a half div, if you want to warn them. Then I’m going to climb in the fresher and try to get myself clean.”
She nodded and left without saying a word.
Missed Me
Back on Endine, things are happening…
McDougal bitched to himself, Bad enough I get left behind on a colony world, but insult to injury has me on a Det with the local militia. I’m getting behind on the booze making, can’t do it out here, light years away. And these guys don’t break shit, so I’m bored… And now we’re locked down because two of them got murdered.
As he stepped out of the Hab, he habitually jumped down the three steps, and survived the needle gun shot that was supposed to take him in the chest. He was on the ground, crouching behind the barrier before his brain caught up with what had just happened, What the fuck? These turds just tried to kill my ass! Sonics may stop them from physically getting in, but that don’t stop anything else from getting in…
McDougal scrambled around the corner of the Hab, jumped through the door of the maintenance module, and leaned against the wall, absently brushing the dirt from the front of his shipsuit.
“Hey, anybody see who shot at me?” He asked over his wrist comp.
“What?”
“Somebody just tried to kill me, Rai! Didn’t you get that on surveillance?”
“You didn’t jump and fall?”
“Nooo, I think it was a needle gun.”
“Standby… Okay, yeah we missed that one. We were watching a disturbance down by the feeder. Might have been a decoy.”
Oh good, now they’re using decoys… I’m gonna fix that shit… Damn “So?”
“Yeah, we got video, Senior. We’re putting it out, he’ll be on the arrest list in a few minutes.”
“So, what good does that do us?”
“Gonna put a warning out. You’re supposed to check surroundings before you open the Hab or any other external door, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”
McDougal powered up his maintenance system, pulled up the latest armored system diagrams and started drilling down, I know these fuckers have a repulsor module. Where is it? And how big? Ah, there you are you… Damn, that thing isn’t little! Hmmm, specs…
He pulled up the sonic fence specs on another screen, started comparing ranges and dug deeper into the repulsor module, If I back that range requirement down to… Match the sonics placement. Overbuilt to hell and gone. If I reduce that by a factor of… Three? Four, no, five.
That reminded him that he was going to work on an embedded code for the wrist comp that would allow the militia and GalPat to pass through the sonic fence by setting the mid-point to zero dB at six feet on approach and run it back up when the wrist comp was six feet past. Lemme see, 3 miles an div, that’s… 4.4 fps, I want 12 feet, so… three second off pulse, mid-point between any two legs. That’ll also take care of the requirement to go exactly between the two designated legs, controlled by security, which should reduce the threat to us. And even better, I won’t have to walk all the way around the damn module when I need to get to the RCA.
Pulling himself away from that, he got back on designing a repulsor module that was only twenty pounds and a little over a foot in diameter. In order to solve the angularity issues, he decided to mold in two feet that aligned to the flat plate angle, and orthogonal to the gravity plane, which meant it should effectively brace itself against the planet itself. In addition to the feet, he decided to color the mold a dark gray on the external face, and white on the internal face, Even a GalPat troop can’t screw this one up! Maybe I should have directions, maybe something like front toward enemy… Didn’t they do something like that back in ancient history?
He occupied himself with revising the programming for the sonics while he waited for the fabber to spit out the module he’d designed. Now, where can I test this? Sure as hell ain’t going out there to do it. Wait a minute, I’ve got a sim here…
McDougal set up the simulator to duplicate a section of sonic fence to specification in quarter scale. Inserting the programming into his wrist comp, he walked up to the beam, watched it cut off, and restart four seconds later. When he moved off center, to either side, he felt the tingle of the fence, which meant he’d gotten it right.
“Hey, Senior.”
The call interrupted McDougal and he growled as he came up from the maintenance documents, “What?”
“Senior, Master Chief Magar over at Feeder One. Did you file an incident report on that attempt on you this morning?”
“Uh, no? Didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“Ah, that explains why I have this uncorrelated report from Chief Rai on my datacomp. I’m pushing the report form to you. Please get it back in thirty. I have to brief the Captain at sixteen on status.”
“Uh, I’m in the middle of…”
“In thirty, Senior.”
“Yes, Master Chief.” McDougal glanced at his desk comp to see a flashing red icon in the middle of the screen, sighed, and reached for it, punching the icon as he did so.
Mumbling to himself, he wrote up what he remembered, tagged the security video camera and timeframe, re-read it twice, and submitted it. Thought security was supposed to take care of that shit…
***
“So, that’s all I’ve got, Captain Fargo, one probe at Feeder Four around zero five, and the attempt on Senior Sergeant McDougal at Feeder Three at zero eight. Perp was identified, arrest warrant issued, and he was taken into custody at eleven.” A picture flashed up in the holo, “Fedorice, Maurice. Age is thirty-six. Identified as anti-tech member. Works as a baker in an organic bakery in Center City. He’s not talking.”
Fargo growled, “What is it with these fuckers and needle guns?” Shaking his head, he asked more civilly, “Any idea why he was all the way out in Kwamaine? Also, any change in the frequency of attempts, Master Chief?”
Master Chief Magar shrugged. “They’re about the same, across the board. This is only the second attempt on one of the troops, and both of those have occurred at Feeder Three. I think that’s because that site is the most spread out. Remember, we couldn’t nestle the Hab and maintenance modules right at the Feeder because of the terrain. That’s why we put McDougal and the big module out there. It’s also the only one where the shuttle can actually land inside the perimeter.”
“Recommendations?”
“Double up security. Put an additional three-sixty view system up there, put two more people on watch. I know that is gonna impact their quality, but we were planning on rotating teams around anyway, just to keep them fresh and alert.”
“Do we move the big module and McDougal?”
Master Chief grinned, “I wouldn’t. He’s out of everybody’s hair out there. And frankly, he’s pretty clueless when he went to town. His situational awareness sucks. Besides, if we move him, it’d have to be someplace else big enough to take the shuttle.”
Fargo leaned back and groaned, “You do have a point. Tip of the spear, he’s not. Okay, tomorrow we’ll
do a few bounces with response teams. I want to make sure we do one at Feeder Three, fangs showing. Maybe that will slow them down a bit.”
The holo dinged three times, indicating an override, and a harried GalPat Lieutenant popped up, “Captain Fargo?”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, that man arrested for the attempted murder at Feeder Three just suicided. Some kind of pill. We’ve notified the locals.”
Fargo slumped, “Suicided? Really? How did he manage…? Oh, never mind. Duly noted, thank you.”
Fargo and the master chief exchanged looks over the vid, “This isn’t good. They’re escalating.”
Fargo nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Put an alert out to everybody.”
***
McDougal popped the first module out of the fabber, checked the metals levels and added another fifty pounds of plasteel pellets, making a note to order spare materials. He idly wondered if he could snag some run time on the big fabber GalPat had in Center City, but decided to wait until he had two units to see if his idea actually worked.
He glanced up and was surprised to see it was seventeen already, and he got up slowly, stretched and set the prototype repulsor on the bench. Deciding he was done for the day, he quickly calculated the capacity of the fabber, added two more bars of metal, and programmed for two more modules, figuring it would take most of the night for them to run. He hit start, then checked the perimeter that he could see before opening the door, quickly closing it, and scampering into the Hab module.
He headed to the autochef, fed in his order and turned to the little dining table, “Hey, Rai. Anything on that guy from this morning?”
Rai grimaced. “Dammit Mac, don’t you ever check your datacomp? They caught him, questioned him, and he suicided. It was on the alert broadcast an div ago.”
“Oh. Uh, I… I was busy.”
“Well, thanks to you, we’re going to be doubling up. The captain is bringing another three-sixty head and monitoring station up here tomorrow. That means we’re going to have four on watch at a time. Which means we’re basically on port and report. You’re not qualified to stand watch are you?”