“You alright?” He asked.
She shrugged. “I guess,” she replied, grateful for the shadows that hid her flushed cheeks. “A bit scared. Don’t worry though,” she added suddenly, seeing Mags out of the corner of her eye. “Go with your family.” She gave him a small smile.
“You are following us though, right? We were about to leave when I heard you were still here.” His gaze was a question.
“We’ll leave as soon as Semo does,” she told him firmly. “There has to be a way to keep her warm until 3rd Patrol arrives. My crew is working on that.” Actually, she and Octi had wracked their brains and come up empty so far, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Please, you can’t stay on the station!” He gripped her shoulders more tightly. “Temperatures a Kweep might survive would freeze human blood into solid ice!”
“I’m not leaving her!” Lissa snapped. It was the wrong thing to say. Shane glowered down at her.
“I’m not leaving you!” he said. And then suddenly his cheeks belayed his cold tone as they flushed.
Before Lissa could formulate a response, Shane yanked her into a tight embrace.
“There’s got to be a way to heat the station,” he murmured in her ear. She was glad the fur of her coat squashed against his shoulder hid her pink cheeks as she buried her face in his neck.
“Octi and I couldn’t think …” she began.
“My parents are both engineers,” he murmured, thinking. “There’s just got to be a way … The trophy!” he suddenly shouted.
Lissa winced at the pain in her eardrum. He pulled away from her so fast she stumbled, but even as he reached out to steady her with one hand on her waist, he was already turning away. “Dad, what about the trophy kernel you got from Emperor Trilldeian?”
Filbert, occupied with drawing Mags’ attention away from the little romantic scene that had been unfolding between his son and the ambassador, was rather slow on the uptake. He turned to face Shane with a puzzled look.
“What was that?” Mags demanded, wiping her tears on her jumpsuit sleeve.
“Mom, the trophy! Remember?” Shane was excited now.
“Emperor Trilldeian of Ratha III sent a trophy to Dad for his academic excellence after he graduated university,” Shane rattled off. “It was a gold kernel! I remember when I was a kid I asked Mom how much that thing was worth, and she said—”
“I said it wasn’t solid gold,” Mags whispered, comprehension dawning. “It was probably just gold-plated … with a real kernel underneath the plating.”
“Dad, where is your trophy?”
Filbert stammered, “I … I dunno, probably packed away.” He glanced at Mags.
“I packed it with the kitchen things!” Turning, she led the whole company away toward the escape pods.
***
They passed Semo and Samison on their way. Cold-blooded as she was, the Kweep was already beginning to show signs of hibernation mode as she sat, long legs folded tightly beneath her, eyes closed, huddled in the warmest part of the park with a thermoblanket thrown over her. She made no sound as they passed. Samison stood guard over her, dressed in an armored deep-space suit for warmth as well as protection. Lissa was glad to see he had a ray pistol in his lap and looked like he meant serious business to anyone who tried to harm his commander. They had discussed the sabotage and decided that Semo had been the most likely target of whoever had perpetrated this. Samison had argued and won that he might be the one to stay and guard her. Lissa saw Ash send up a quick prayer toward the sky as they strode by.
“What’s happening, Mom?” Ginny’s small voice came from the lit entrance to the first pod. She glanced with wide eyes at the gathered humans. “Wow, there are more Earthlings here!”
“Ginny, strap yourself in,” her mother ordered. “We’ll be leaving soon.”
Going to a nearby stack of cargo bins, she sorted through them until she found the one she wanted. Setting aside various kitchen utensils, she pulled out a small wrapped package and handed it to Filbert.
Lissa watched Filbert unwrap the packing material and lay the trophy on top of a cargo container. It was adhered to a black base, a small roughly egg-shaped lump about twice the size of Filbert’s fist.
“How do we get it out?” Shiro asked.
“Good question,” Filbert admitted. “Any attempt to melt the gold will likely ignite the kernel, creating a miniature sun right here inside the station and blow us all away.”
“Frozen or burned … Great choices!” Lissa quipped. The others winced.
“Gold isn’t very strong, though, right?” Lissa commented, remembering her studies. “Maybe we could just … scrape it off?” she finished, a bit lamely she thought.
Shane nodded. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, is it, Dad?”
Filbert pulled a multitool from his pocket and flipped up a knife blade. Digging the edge into the gold, he began to scrape off a tiny sliver.
“We need a bigger knife,” Ash suggested.
“Maybe …” Mags dug through her kitchenware again and pulled out a large paring knife. “Peel it like an orange?” she suggested, shrugging.
It took several tries and a few grunts of effort as Filbert dug into the gold layer. Luckily, the plating was quite thin and began to flake off after he made his way around the first curve. Underneath was a black substance, which, Filbert warned them, was highly combustible. Mags led Ginny back to her pod when the little girl stood close to watch and strapped her in.
“Mags, I believe you and Ginny ought to get into the first pod and go,” Filbert announced once he had a gold-free kernel in his hand. “We will need to rig a way to launch this and then ignited it. For that, I’ll need Shane.” He looked at his son, who grinned. Filbert did, too. “Then we’ll both follow you in the second pod.”
Mags glared at him. “And just how exactly do you plan rig such a device, Mr. Jones?”
“I’ll use an ionized rope and pulley, of course,” was the cool reply.
Everyone stared at him.
Lissa was the first to ask, “What does that mean, exactly?”
It was Shane who answered. “Dad is one of the last experts in the galaxy of pulley launching. Instead of using a computer to calculate the trajectory of a kernel, he uses augmented reality to create a rope to, well, sort of lasso it and then launch it into a proper solar curve around the station. It’s just …” he paused, biting his lower lip.
“It’s a dratted dangerous thing to do!” Mags finished, hands on her hips. She glared at her husband. “You haven’t done an unassisted solar throw since college.”
“I’ve kept my hand in,” Filbert said, unperturbed.
“I don’t get it,” Lissa said.
“An unassisted solar throw means no automatic pulley.” Shane spelled it out for the Earthlings. “No computer to monitor the curve or speed of the kernel. It means he could potentially throw the kernel out into space by accident. Or …”
Lissa frowned. “Or what?”
“Or make the curve too narrow …” Shane winced. “And it could hit the atmodome.”
“That sounds … bad!” Lissa said, her eyes wide.
“Indeed,” Filbert admitted.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “And the other thing is … how does this help us for more than a day?”
“Even a single day of heat could keep Commander Semo alive long enough for 3rd Patrol to come,” Lissa pointed out.
Mags suddenly threw up her hands. “Oh, fine!” They all looked at her. She sighed. “If we cannibalize the outer solar panels, we could rig them into that mess of heaters around the commander. As the kernel passes over the meadow, they’ll soak up power. That way, even after it burns out, she’ll still have more power than she does now.”
“That’s brilliant!” Lissa shouted, clapping her hands.
“How much power are we talking?” Ash wanted to know.
“One full day of direct solar light could probably fuel the cells enough to run the heaters f
or another fifteen hours or so.”
“So we buy her not one more day, but almost two,” Lissa said.
The three Joneses nodded together.
“Let’s do it!” She hit her palm with her fist. “Mr. Jones, there must be a way to rig the pulley that would minimize the danger to us all.”
He nodded. “Shane knows the schematics of a solar pulley. I taught him.” Shane nodded back.
“Good. Ash, help Shane rig the pulley. Shiro and I will go aboard the Forty-Five and ensure she is ready for an immediate getaway in case things go … awry.” Lissa turned to Mags. “Mrs. Jones, you probably should get Ginny away to a safe distance.”
Mags nodded, her lips tight. She paused for a moment, and then seized Lissa’s arm in a steel grip, forcing Lissa to turn and face her. “If things go wrong, you make sure my son is on that ship before you leave this station, do you hear?”
Lissa gulped and then nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Be sure you remember.”
“Mom!” Shane groaned, horrified at her veiled threat.
She only glowered at him. “I had better see you soon, young man.”
“What am I, a pile of innards?” Filbert complained from behind Mags. She whirled, her red hair a wave of cascading fire in the lantern light, and then she was in his arms, sharing a passionate kiss. Lissa tried not to squirm at the sight of the two of them.
Ginny made a face. “Yuck.”
Shane wandered over to Lissa and stood, his shoulder nearly touching hers. Out of sight of the others, his fingers brushed against her knuckles.
Shiro fell in beside Lissa and they walked back toward the Forty-Five. Shiro asked her, “Did you speak to Stephanie last night through the Friss sprout?”
She glanced at him, then away again. “No, I was worried about how frightened Lollipop seemed. I didn’t want to upset her more.”
“Perhaps I should do so now,” Shiro offered. “3rd Patrolship should know of our plans and that we have extended Semo’s window of safety.”
Looking for an opportunity to speak to Steph privately? Lissa fought a grin at the thought, but said only, “That would be helpful, thanks.”
***
Octi was out of his aquarium when they returned, scuttling across the railing toward them. “I was just about to call you, Captain.”
“We’re here,” Lissa told him cheerfully, “and I think we have a solution for Lt. Commander Semo.” Quickly, she outlined their plan.
“I’ll help you prep for launch,” Semo added.
“Wouldn’t do us much good.” Octi’s glum reply made them both look at him.
“Someone has sabotaged Airlock 9,” he informed them. “It’s sealed shut. There’s no way we’re getting out of the station anytime soon.”
Lissa used the station intercom to call all the others to the Forty-Five. When her crew, the Joneses, and Samison had gathered aboard, with Semo stamping her hooves on the dock in an attempt to stay warm, Lissa sent Ginny into her cabin to play with Lollipop.
“The news isn’t good,” she told the gathering quietly. “Whoever did this meant to take out Semo and us. The airlock won’t open—it’s been welded shut.” That made the others glance around and murmur to each other.
“We could blow it open, but that would suck all the air off the station and leave you stranded with no atmosphere,” Octi said.
“The emergency shielding …” Lissa began.
“It’s unlikely this saboteur left it untouched,” Filbert said, “once he saw how it saved us the first time. It’s probably been tampered with, but we’ll check to be sure.”
“There are four escape pods remaining,” Shane told them all. “Ginny is small and can fit with Mom in one. That leaves three more.” He glanced around. Octi could double up with someone also. That still left five humans and three escape pods.
Ash frowned. “Did you check the airlock last night?”
“Yes,” Octi bobbed his large head from where he clung to the rail. “The damage was done somehow in the night.”
“Which argues that the saboteur is probably still aboard,” Ash pointed out. “So how does he, or she, plan to escape?”
“MTrans?” Lissa suggested.
“He would need a ship,” Samison stated. “So either he has one hidden out there, or someone is planning to come pick him up when the job is finished.”
“Either way, we need to be prepared for the idea that someone is still aboard and means to harm us. Nobody goes anywhere alone, or without a weapon and preferably armor,” Ash glanced at the Jones family.
“Mags and Ginny need to get off this station,” Filbert said. His quiet voice was firm as he gave his wife a look that would have no argument. She nodded.
“Once they’re safely away, I will help you launch this kernel,” he held up the black rock in his hand. “For that I need Shane.”
“As soon as you launch it, you and Shane take escape pods and get out of here,” Lissa said. Shane opened his mouth to argue.
“No, Shane!” Both his parents and Lissa shut him down in unison.
“As ambassador for Earth, you are the least expendable human on this station,” Samison pointed out to her. “You should take the last pod.”
From the looks on Ash and Shiro’s faces, they had thought the same thing and even planned to shove her into one and tie her down if she argued. She looked from one face to another, thinking. They could easily fend off assassins from the Forty-Five she realized, the others might even be better off without her to guard. They could concentrate on guarding their own backs and blast out of the airlock once 3rd Patrol arrived and rescued Semo.
It was Ash who deferred, to her surprise. “It is also Lissa, above all others, who is most likely the target of this unknown assailant.” He glanced her way. “Even more so than the commander. She was aboard for weeks before we arrived. I think this timing is no accident. Lissa stays aboard with us. Otherwise, what is to stop him from simply waiting until she is out there in an escape pod and blowing her out of the sky?”
The pale looks on the others’ faces was all the reply he needed. A few other details were discussed and then at last they parted, their plan decided. The last escape pod would be left in its dock. Lissa and her crew would remain aboard the Forty-Five, guns ready against an attack, and wait for 3rd Patrol.
***
Nearly an hour later, the five humans gathered near the wreckage of the old solar pulley system. The repairs that had gone on before the evacuation were basic. The shattered airlock had been replaced and a single computer screen salvaged before the technicians had abandoned the station. To the right lay a pile of twisted scrap metal that had been hauled in from outside—all that was left of the old pulley system.
The airlock, a human-sized walkway into space, held a hatch, into which Filbert now placed the black lump. A hiss told them that the atmosphere surrounding the kernel was being sucked away, and then the outer hatch moved and the lump slowly drifted into space.
It hung there, a black lump against the blackness, lost in a sea of trillions of stars. No matter. Filbert donned the pair of black glasses that would connect him to the augmented-reality program. Letting the station sensors track where the kernel was, Filbert put his attention instead on rigging the pulley. He placed a pair of AR gloves on his hands and picked up the rope visible only to him. The laser rope crackled as he coiled it on the ground beside him, feeding one end through the pulley and allowing the rest to lie at his side.
He gave a contented nod over his right shoulder, which was Shane’s signal to hoist the pulley up, up, up into the airlock and past the atmodome out into space, where it hovered, waiting.
Filbert hitched his pants and settled his cap. He toyed for a moment with the laser rope and then, with a little scrunch of his shoulders, drew in a deep breath and pursed his lips. With his back to his audience, as though he hadn’t a care in the universe, Filbert Jones began to hum the same droll old tune he had hummed every morning for thirty-si
x years, and his fingers deftly tied the laser rope into a lasso knot.
With a deft flick of his wrist, the shining rope whipped out into space, flattening into a smooth round loop. The AR program made it look to Filbert as though his rope passed right through the atmodome without affecting it. To the others, he looked like a mime pretending hold an invisible rope. Another flick of the end in his grasp had it settling perfectly around the kernel.
The others all held their breath, watching as Filbert coolly looped the remaining few feet of rope behind him, getting it out of the way for his maneuver. He wrapped a coil around his hand once, twice. His right foot stepped out, widening his stance. His hum became a little louder, as though the crescendo of the song were timed just as perfectly as his launch.
It was then that Lissa saw something out of the corner of her eye. A shadow, a black hooded figure, and the flash of lantern light on metal.
“Ash!” she screamed. A ray gun flashed. The atmodome reflected the blast and a laser-point hole appeared in the ground two feet beside Filbert.
Ash and Shiro whirled, guns drawn. Ash held his spear in his right hand, the ray gun in his left. He advanced toward the dark alley, down which the assassin had disappeared.
“Be careful!” Lissa squeaked.
Filbert ignored them all, the AR rope in his hands still holding the solar kernel in place just outside the atmodome.
They had to protect him until he could launch that kernel, Lissa realized. Another flash of searing heat and light came flaming out of the alleyway, blocked from reaching Filbert by Ash who shielded the engineer with his armored torso.
Lissa crept the other direction, wishing she wore more than just her armored corset. Shiro followed, staying just a step ahead and to her left. If they could flank their attacker …
A street lamp flared suddenly to life, activated by Octi, Lissa realized, who must have hacked into the station computer to watch the launch from his aquarium aboard the Forty-Five. With the added glow, the gloom in the alleyway was lifted enough that they could see the assassin—a tall dark alien with his hood thrown up over his features. Ash fired a shot, Shiro’s coming a half-second later. Knowing his advantage was gone, the alien fled.
Space Patrol! Page 22