“Sorry ’bout your job, I’ll let you know if something comes up in the next forty years!” The trademark laughter was back in Robbie’s voice, and despite herself, Red Becky felt the corners of her mouth twitch.
“You do that, Robbie, you do that.”
She went to meet her sergeant.
◆◆◆
The Colt Peacemaker was designed by two of Colt’s best engineers: William Mason and Charles Brinckerhoff Richards. Production began in 1873 with the Single Action Army model, and it was referred to as the “New Model Army Metallic Cartridge Revolving Pistol.” Quite the mouthful. I liked its more romantic nickname, “The Gun That Won the West.” The production was discontinued twice over its illustrious career, but it was brought back both times due to popular demand. Its power, accuracy, and handling made it a winner with both the government and the general public. It is usually loaded with a .45 bullet, but models were made that utilized the .44, the .38, the .38 Special, and the .357 Magnum. The third generation of the gun ran until 1982, and the serial numbers ran in the range of SA80,000 to SA99,999.
The gun in my hand had a dull sheen, it was well oiled, powerful and deadly, and its serial number had been filed off.
It made a metallic clank as I put it on the table between myself and the large man in front of me. We were in a holding area, row upon row of identical metallic tables and chairs. It was a quiet morning, with the sun making the dust in the air sparkle as it shone through the bars. The man was muscular, clean-shaven, had short brown hair, and was almost a match for my height. The nametag read “Robin Johanson, #3344.” He had a vacant stare in his blue eyes, and the sound of the gun hitting the table made more impact on the table than it did on him.
“Your nemesis.” I slowly twirled the gun around with a finger. No reaction from him.
“Robin Johanson, Robbie to his friends. Murder in the first degree. Killed a kid with an illegal handgun. The very same gun that four years earlier had shot and killed his daughter in the university shootings that sparked the cleansing of handguns and assault weapons from this country. The gun that changed his life, was his life, and ended the life of a first-year student, the kid who had shot her, and the life of Mr. Johanson as he was sentenced to thirty-five to life for murder.” I gave the gun another spin on the table.
“This gun, as it so happens.” This finally got a reaction from him, and he turned his head to face me.
“You don’t think I recognize it? I slept with that gun under my pillow every night for over four years, dreaming of the day I would get to use it.” His eyes wandered over to the barred window again. The chains holding Robbie to his chair were not thick, but they were there, for every move reminding him of who could walk out of here and who could not. Not that he moved much.
I nodded. “Yes, I thought you’d recognize it.” I slid the gun over the table to him. “You want it?”
Robbie arched one of his eyebrows and gave me a suspicious glance, but made no reply.
“It has already dominated your life for years, why not take it and let it dominate your death? Or do you have so much to live for in here that the thought never crossed your mind?”
The chains shifted as he half-turned away from the gun. “That thing never dominated me. It was used as an instrument of death, both by the bastard who shot my girl and by myself. I make no excuses, and I knew what my punishment would be.”
“How very noble of you, taking one for the team. Of course, you could’ve just brought the kid in. The surveillance footage from the shootings were good enough for a facial recognition, as you well know, and then it would be him sitting in here, not you.” This finally sparked some emotion as Robbie leaned towards me and put his chained hands on the table.
“But he would be alive! And my daughter would not. I made my choice, now I’m living with it. And speaking of choices, I think I would like to leave now.” He raised his hand to signal the guard, but I waved him off before he could make his way over to us. Robbie glared at me.
“And who are you, anyway? What do you want? Besides bringing me an illegal gun that by all rights should’ve been destroyed a long time ago.” He nodded over at the guard in the corner. “And what about him, how much did you pay to get him to ignore a fucking gun in the holding area?”
“I didn’t have to pay him anything. I asked politely, and when he refused I asked him again. Not so politely. You see, I am a man who usually gets what he wants. And right now, I want an engineer.”
Confusion flickered over Johanson’s features. “An engineer.”
“Yes. The man I had lined up for the job failed his psych evaluation quite miserably, and I have some very specific demands for the position. First off, singlemindedness. I need somebody who will not stop before the job is done. I need somebody with a top-notch education who can fix just about anything with limited resources. I need somebody who has nothing to lose. In short, I need you.”
He glanced down at the gun in front of him. “How did you find me?”
“The search programs these days are excellent, and I have a very high degree of access to databases. Your name popped up at the very top of a very short list of people fulfilling all the requirements I set. Of course, I could settle for second best and go with somebody further down the list, but in general I do not like second best. But you are of no use to me if your life is still fixated on that gun. You might as well take it and end it properly.” I gave the gun another shove so it rested against his fingertips on the table.
“You can get me out of here.” It was not a question, but I answered anyway.
“Yes.”
“You want to give me a job.”
“Yes.”
“And I guess this job is both dangerous, difficult, and long-term, or else you would’ve just gone with second best.”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Robbie twirled the gun around a couple of times with his forefinger. “I have no regrets, you know.”
“I know.”
“If I do this, I will owe you nothing. As I said, I have no regrets, and I am prepared to serve my sentence in peace. I will do your job, and nothing but your job, and then I will be done.”
“Agreed.”
“All right. I won’t ask how you can do this, since you obviously can, but you have a deal.” He shoved the gun back to me.
“Excellent! You will be out of here tomorrow. I would tell you to pack your bag, but I gather you don’t have much to bring along.” I carefully put the gun back inside my jacket.
“Nah, I don’t have much. I do have a request, however.” A small smile had formed at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes?”
“Do you have need for an excellent medic?” The smile broadened.
9. The Burn
Captain Reinholts could feel his ship dying around him. As soon as he saw the green and purple waves dancing across the invisible boundary of the shield, he knew what had to be done. He knew that he had been wrong to turn a deaf ear to Nadia's pleading to contact NASA and get a confirmation for her solar flare calculations and her doomsday prophecies, and he knew that he only had seconds to save his ship. He slammed his fist into the small windshield beside his chair, smashing it thoroughly. After a moment of groping he got a hold of the handle there and pulled down as hard as he could. A split second before the emergency shutdown was initiated he heard a sharp crack from behind and below him, and he also knew that he had been too slow.
As the lights went out, so did the dance of colors outside the windshield, and the bridge turned pitch black. He was alone up here, as he usually was, and he had spent so much time in the small room that he could reach out and grab anything he needed with his eyes closed. Which was a good thing, since after he had pulled the emergency override for the reactors there was supposed to be no light whatsoever. A glow rippled through the cabin. His hands instinctively reached down under his chair and grabbed the oblong case that was there. He quickly popped the seal and opened it in the increasingly yellow flicker th
at was filling the bridge.
Fire. There was a fire somewhere under the deck plating, and he needed to deal with it immediately. He pulled out the small, portable extinguisher, pushed himself in a controlled somersault backwards out of his chair while holding on to the top of it with one hand and landed with a loud clunk as his mag-boots grabbed him to the floor. The fire was directly beneath him and he could see the waves of orange and blue floating lazily across the wiring underneath the grille he was standing on.
He wasted no time pulling the safety pin, pointed the extinguisher at the fire and pulled the trigger. The apparatus hummed to life and the waves of flame were sucked into it as it picked up speed. At the same time as it was sucking flames out of the air, it sprayed a thin mist of adhesive chemicals right at the source of the fire. It would play havoc with the electrics, but since it was them that was ground zero for the fire in the first place, he figured he was ok.
As quickly as it had begun, the fire on the bridge was put out. And with it, the light. The Captain cursed and fumbled around, trying to find the discarded emergency kit. Damned if he was going to let a small thing such as the end of the world prevent him from whipping his ship back online. He found the kit, and with it the small flash light, and went off in search of answers and solutions.
◆◆◆
Nadia listened intently as the Billionaire and Johanson argued about how to proceed. She knew exactly how to proceed. Get suited up, help the others, and finally secure her lab. Different scenarios played out in her mind as her fingers worked to secure the straps of the emergency suit, and they all started with this one act. She forced herself to take even, measured breaths, inducing calm in the midst of chaos. She had been too late. It was on her if anybody was hurt because of this. If only she had been more adamant in her warnings to the Captain, they might have been better prepared. If only she had been more confident rather than the nervous wreck who struggled to get through each day. If only she had put on the role of the streets of St. Petersburg, the front she had sworn she would never wear again.
Guilt struggled for dominion over her feelings, but fear reigned supreme, closely followed by panic. She was not really supposed to take one of the suits if there were no immediate issues with the globe she was currently in, but at the moment she couldn’t care less. It was bulky, a multipurpose toolbelt integrated around the waist for emergency repairs and sealing, and the helmet was attached with a cord, making an unwieldy anchor that bounced around her as she worked. If there was a breach in the hull somewhere she might have to act fast to help, and the sickbay was sparsely populated and in no immediate danger.
The suit would not be missed.
The argument seemed to reach a conclusion and the duo in the room next over set out Earthwards to get to the control room for the reactor. To fix the ship. Not a second of discussion about the drama that would be unfolding in other parts of their vessel. She knew what really mattered, though: the people. The ship was nothing without its crew. Her family.
And they needed her.
She pushed off towards the airlock closest to her, helmet trailing and bouncing behind her, and twisted the wheel to enter. Closing the hatch behind her, she kicked off and floated to the other end, taking a moment to peer through the hatch. Nothing. Total darkness. She could barely make out her surroundings in the airlock by the weak light leaking from the emergency light two rooms behind her. Nothing for it, she would have to feel her way through the living quarters. She was fairly certain she remembered the exact layout of the hallway, but she hesitated and took a moment to calm herself before engaging the wheel.
She had a brief moment of panic as the wheel refused to take and spun ineffectually around. The helmet bounced off the wall beside her and she glanced to the side. The dead man’s switch on the wall had been engaged; there was vacuum on the other side. She reined in her wayward helmet and quickly did the double-twist that they had practiced so many times. There was air enough for about an hour of work, and she ought to be able to switch bottles of air as needed along the way. She pulled the lever that allowed her to open the hatch and twisted the wheel. This time there was resistance, and she barely remembered to brace herself as the locks disengaged and the hatch flew open, releasing the trapped air into the vacuum in a sudden, violent gust. She grabbed the edges of the hatch and pushed off before the fear and the doubt could halt her actions.
She floated slowly down the middle of the hall, following the curve of the enclosed rod transecting the globe, gently tapping it with her fingers both to correct her course and to have a safe anchor in the darkness. As she went, she tried not to envision what was behind each door as she passed it. The Wayfinder operated on a three-shift schedule, so there was always somebody sleeping in the strap-down bunks. Somebody had died here, not long ago. Asphyxiated, struggling to breathe in a rapidly dwindling atmosphere as whatever had caused the breach in the hull did its ugly work. The doors had a tight fit, but they were not impervious to vacuum. But there was a chance, albeit a slim one. Somebody might have had time to put on the emergency masks, somebody might be behind those doors, waiting in vain for help that would arrive too late by far. She would need extra suits, extra masks. Extra help.
Frustrated and scared, she tapped the curved rod harder than planned and immediately floated off in the darkness, quickly losing her bearings. She flailed around with her arms, desperately trying to get a grip on something solid, something substantial. There was nothing, just the darkness and the isolation. Her breathing came in shallow gasps, and her heart hammered in her chest as she floated down the corridor. She tried to force herself to be calm, to be rational. She was travelling in the right direction; she would hit the end of the corridor in a moment.
The next globe over was the dining globe, and hopefully there would be light and air there. She was on the edge of panic, and it would not take much to push her off. Her hands caught something invisible floating in the corridor with her, and she latched on to it, thinking it was her target hatch. Whatever it was she had grabbed hold of was not attached to anything, however, and she spun about gently as she pulled it closer.
An arm. Rigid with frost, closely followed by the rest of the body. For a moment she froze, teetering on the brink of a chasm with no bottom and no easy way out. Then she gently steadied herself, softly pushed the body away and found the source of light that was her entry point. After a few careful probes with her arms she found she could reach a wall, and a moment later she was back on track and heading in the right direction. She let herself drift through the darkness, the woman who had walked the streets of Russia gently steering her actions.
A moment later her fingers touched base and she twisted the wheel. This time she positioned herself way to the side as she spun the wheel for the last turn and hastily pulled her arm out of harm’s way. The hatch flew open and a sliver of light was reflected off the glass. Light. Warmth. People. Through the glass she could see at least five men and two women working at different positions, electrical panels open and wires jutting out. And suits. Emergency suits in row after beautiful row along the walls of the tube. She let out a small cry of triumph and spun open the hatch, the manual system automatically closing the one behind her as she worked. She emerged into the dining globe both triumphant and exhilarated, twisting her helmet off and letting it dangle at the edge of its line. She vaguely recognized the man closest to her, one of the technicians doubling as a materials expert.
She grinned and raised her hand in greeting, and the man smiled in return and promptly disappeared. The explosion tore through him like paper, and Nadia was flung back along with the debris from the tank he had been working on. She hit the far wall with a resounding crash and was immediately bounced back at an angle, spinning through the room. As she gasped to regain her breath after the impact, she could feel her body accelerating while flying through the room. She was not supposed to do that. It was impossible. While moving through zero gravity you do not accelerate without an external input. Her
helmet, still attached to the cord on her utility belt, smashed into the side of her head and she nearly blacked out. She flailed about, trying to get her bearings, and suddenly saw why she was accelerating. The explosion had torn through the bulkhead, and the ship was open to space. Everything that was not bolted or secured in place was being sucked out through the hole as the universe tried to equalize the difference in pressure between the tiny ship and the vacuum of infinity beyond. By the time she had pulled air into her lungs to scream, she was outside, in the cold vacuum of space.
◆◆◆
Captain Reinholts had just entered the tube connecting the personal hygiene globe with the dining globe when he both saw and felt the explosion that tore a hole in the bulkhead in the globe ahead of him. In the first few seconds there was just the flicker of flames being vented into space before quickly being extinguished, and then a part of the hull tore free, and all hell broke loose. As he reached down to put his helmet on he could see a body being thrown from the ship, arms flailing, brightly lit by the vortex of fire in the next globe.
It was Nadia, without her helmet on. The professional in him took control and set aside all emotions as he clicked his helmet home and twisted the wheel to open the hatch. The hatch slammed open as the little air that was contained in the tube rushed out, and the captain held on to the hatch just long enough to get an additional boost in speed in the direction of the open hole, and beyond it, space.
◆◆◆
She was outside. Outside the ship. Tumbling away at a frightening speed with no control. Her mind blanked, and Nadia left her emotions in the ship behind her, the cold professional that had been nudging her actions now taking full control. She squeezed her eyes shut, exhaled hard to avoid injury to her lungs and fumbled for her helmet. She had about ten seconds to close it up before she would suffer badly from the vacuum around her. Her flailing hand found the cord that held her helmet, and she pulled, too hard. The helmet bounced off her shoulder and careened away from her again. The seconds ticked away in the back of her mind.
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