Lifeboat: A First Contact Technothriller (Earth's Last Gambit Book 2)

by Felix R. Savage

  “Well, maybe.”

  “He was …” Alexei searched for the English term. “A grade-A pillock.”

  “Beyond a doubt.”

  “So that is three and a half reasons you don’t lose sleep about it. I don’t want to lose my sleep, either. Goodnight.”

  Jack started to wring his hands, stopped himself. “Here’s the problem. All those ‘facts’ about Lance? I heard them from none other than Skyler Taft.”

  Alexei’s eyes opened wider. “You think he lied.”

  Jack nodded wretchedly. He had not thought of that at the time. But in the long months since then, his conscience had refused to let him alone. Lance lived in his memory like the innocent Iraqis who’d died when Jack bombed them in 2003, based on faulty intelligence. He’d never seen those villagers. They were dust before his Tornado GR-4 flashed over the horizon and away. But he had seen Lance, and the frozen face in his memory whispered, You wronged me, Jack Kildare. You flew off the handle and I died.

  Now intrigued, Alexei sat up in his coffin. “Why would Skyler lie? What did he gain with Lance dead?”

  “Need you ask? He took his place!”

  “He got wrong end of that bargain. Dead man is better off than passenger in this tub.”

  Jack said impatiently, “It’s bound to have been some internal NXC fight. These creeps are always maneuvering for advantage. But the point is, Skyler used me to put his rival out of the way.” Unconsciously, he started to wring his hands again. “He set me up, and I played my part, like a good little soldier boy.”

  Alexei grasped Jack’s hands, stilling them. “Me, too. I was a good little soldier boy.” The bomber pilot momentarily looked out of the haggard cosmonaut’s eyes. “But no more, eh? No more.”

  “No more,” Jack echoed. He freed his hands from Alexei’s. He wasn’t as comfortable with physical contact as the Russian was. “No more good little soldier boys. But he thinks he’s got me in his power. That’s what I can’t stand. He’s holding this over my head, and he’s just now let me know that if I don’t play nice …”

  “If you don’t play nice, what’ll he do to you? What, Jack? He’ll tell Kate, maybe?” Alexei pulled a faux-horrified face.

  “Maybe he already has,” Jack said.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Alexei said with certainty. On this point, Jack believed him.

  Yet he said, “And what if he does?”

  “What if he does? We’re six hundred million klicks from home. There are no police out here.”

  Jack managed a smirk. “That’s a better way of looking at it,” he said, although he was a bit unnerved by the cold glint in Alexei’s gray eyes.

  He left Alexei to get his sleep and plodded towards the bridge, still worrying. It was all very well to point out that Skyler couldn’t hurt him. But Jack’s parents were elderly and alone. The NXC’s power on Earth extended beyond the borders of the United States. It certainly extended into the UK. What if Skyler took it into his head to order up an ‘accident’ for John and Helen Kildare? Various ghastly scenarios danced in Jack’s mind. The worst of it was, he knew they were all warped reflections of what he’d done to Lance Garner.

  Disconnected the LOX heater in his spacesuit.

  Lance’s head had frozen. His eyes had burst in miniature eruptions of ice crystals. He’d died without knowing what was happening to him, or why.

  It had been underhanded. Cowardly. Worthy of Lance Garner himself, when he shot Oliver Meeks in his wheelchair.

  Jack could never make that up to Lance. And right now, he didn’t feel like he could make it up to himself, either.

  CHAPTER 7

  Skyler lay in his coffin with the lid open. Peas, strung up on stakes, blocked his view of the rest of the hab. He imagined he was lying in a garden, back on Earth. The roar of the fans could be wind, and the throb of the steam turbines might be … um …

  It was no good. He couldn’t forget they were cruising towards Jupiter, straight into the crosshairs of whoever or whatever inhabited the MOAD. He felt the bottomless, hostile abyss of space cupping the SoD like an uncomfortable garment.

  He closed the lid of his coffin. The LEDs around the inside of the lid came on, and Skyler’s thoughts skipped from the threats outside the ship to the threat within.

  He rolled over in his hammock and reached underneath it. His fingers found a tab of duct tape and peeled it back. He retrieved his gun.

  Flopping on his back again, he held the gun up and scrutinized it with dislike. It was a Glock subcompact, the trigger grip modified so he would be able to shoot it even wearing a spacesuit. The ten-round magazine held frangible bullets that would go through a person, but not a wall. The NXC had insisted he bring it. Skyler hated guns. The damn thing had to be cleaned and lubed at regular intervals, in secret. He had often thought about just chucking it out of the airlock. I mean, if you wind up facing hostile aliens with a Glock, basically you are already very, very fucked.

  But of course the NXC had foreseen that he might have to use the gun against his fellow crew members.

  And now it looked like (as usual!) they’d been prescient.

  Jack Kildare had practically threatened his life with a potato knife ten minutes ago.

  Stay cool, Jack, Skyler thought. I don’t want the truth to come out, any more than you do.

  He sucked in a breath, stifling the beginnings of a sob.

  He sat up. It was just possible to sit up in a coffin, if you were only 5’8”. He stuffed the Glock into the waistband of his shorts—something the shooting instructors always told you not to do; fuck ‘em. His t-shirt was too tight-fitting to hide the gun’s outline. He tied a long-sleeved shell around his waist. Very preppy.

  He had to find somewhere better to hide the damn thing.

  If Jack suspected Skyler had a weapon, his coffin was the first place he’d look.

  Skyler climbed out of his coffin and headed for the aft stairs.

  He had a hiding-place in mind.

  And maybe he had something else in mind, too, but doesn’t everyone? Who on this ship wouldn’t sell their soul for a cuddle right now? Don’t judge.

  *

  Hannah was still cleaning up globs of mash that had baked onto the inside of the turbine cabinet when her still exploded during the HERF crisis. The gooey lumps of sugar and starch had hardened to a rock-like consistency in the heat of the turbine room. She’d just chipped off a big lump with a screwdriver when Kate Menelaou slipped out of the keel tube.

  Hannah yelped in shock. Pulling herself together, she said, “Oh, hi, Kate. Are you off duty?”

  What was Kate doing here? She hadn’t visited Engineering in months! Well, apart from weekly inspections, which Hannah had advance warning of.

  Hannah kicked the turbine cabinet shut, which sent her floating in the opposite direction.

  “Just thought I’d drop in,” Kate said. She floated down to Hannah’s level and braked her drift by catching her sleeve.

  Kate Menelaou was a tall, angular woman of fifty-two, a rare female top achiever in the male-dominated astronaut corps. Her last name might be Greek but she looked more Nordic, with the bone structure that you needed to carry off a blunt-cut bob. She intimidated Hannah on every level. Ironically, Hannah was used to dealing with male bosses; she still hadn’t worked out how to handle a female boss, apart from keeping her distance.

  “Whatcha doing there?” Kate said, nodding at the screwdriver in Hannah’s hand.

  “Um, nothing,” Hannah said. Her mind was a blank.

  “Oh, that’s good,” Kate said. “So we can hang out and chat for a while.” She drifted down over the top of the turbine cabinet. “Phew, it smells a bit in here. Where’s that coming from?”

  “There was, uh, a spill. I’m cleaning up.”

  “Great.” Kate spotted Hannah’s squeeze bottle duct-taped to the wall. “God, I’m thirsty,” she mused. “Mind if I steal some of what you’re having?”

  “No,” Hannah yelped.

  Kate arche
d her blonde eyebrows.

  Hannah’s stomach knotted. Sheer terror left her speechless. For years and years, while she rose to the top of her profession at NASA, she had kept her drinking a secret. She’d had two simple rules. #1: No drinking at work. #2: No drinking at home. Religiously followed, these rules confined her to ‘after-work drinks,’ which might last until after midnight, and end in blackouts, but which could not swallow her whole life.

  But there were no tequila bars on the SoD. No dives. No anonymous bar stools at T.G.I. Friday’s. Here, work was home and home was work and Hannah had nowhere to escape her anxieties.

  So she’d cast both her rules to the winds. She’d figured everything would be fine as long as she was careful.

  Like all carefully engineered systems, it had worked great until it didn’t.

  “Is there something you want to tell me, Hannah?” Kate said.

  Hannah gave up. “Ma’am, the smell is coming from my still. It’s in the housekeeping turbine cabinet. It exploded during the HERF incident. Stray sparks don’t play well with alcohol.” She touched the burn on her left hand. The cabinet door had absorbed the explosion. She’d gotten burnt later, when she was frantically prying the hot wire off the heat exchanger pipe. “I know it was against regulations, and clearly it was a safety hazard, so I’ve mothballed the project.” This was a lie. Most of her waking hours since the HERF incident had been occupied with getting the still up and running again. “I apologize for violating regulations, and I’ll fully understand if you want to report me to Mission Control.” She stopped there, heart pounding. She felt like she might actually pass out from shame.

  But Kate showed no sign of being surprised by Hannah’s confession. “I assume that’s the product?” she said, indicating the squeeze bottle.

  Hannah nodded.

  Kate worked the bottle out of the duct tape holder, tilted it to her lips, and sucked. Her face reddened. She coughed. Droplets of Hannah’s precious moonshine spurted out of her mouth. “Whew!” she gasped. “Holy fucking shit! Woman, what the hell is in that?”

  “Mostly potatoes. A bit of grain, for variety.” Hannah plucked an absorbent wipe out of her pocket and automatically chased down the floating droplets. Kate helped, capturing them with her sleeve.

  “Kicks like a fucking mule. Looks like I am definitely gonna have to write you up, Hannah.” Kate caught a globule in her mouth. “It is a crime to not drink this on the rocks.”

  Hannah faced her in the air. Disbelief and apprehension warred with dawning hope. “How long have you known?”

  “A few months?” Kate said. “One time, when you pinched water from the irrigation system, you forgot to turn the spigot off all the way. I got a drop right in the eye. Then there were the humidity spikes. Oh, and I spotted some bits of grain in the water for the algae tanks. I guess you flushed the residues down the crapper? It went all the way around the sterilization loop and came back.” She shrugged in the air, and caught herself on the top of the turbine cabinet. “Little things, y’know?”

  “But you never said anything!”

  “Why would I? You do your job. You do a great job, if I haven’t mentioned that recently. If it ain’t broke …”

  “But the regulations …”

  “Screw the regulations,” Kate said dispassionately. “We’re hundreds of millions of kilometers from Earth. We almost died in that HERF attack. We may die in the next attack. Oh yeah, there’s going to be another one. The analysts are pretty sure of that. But we won’t know it’s coming until it comes. So, in the meantime? I would dearly love a glass of your ‘sourdough bread.’ If you’re willing to share.”

  The truth was, Hannah did not want to share. If she gave Kate some, there’d be less for her. She might run out before the still got through its current fermentation cycle.

  But she dared not demur. Kate seemed to assume her still was a mere hobby, like Alexei’s vaping.

  Alcoholics were selfish about their booze. Ordinary people shared.

  So Hannah had to act like a drinking buddy was what she’d always wanted.

  “Ma’am, I would be honored. How about I go get some ice?”

  *

  Skyler flew through Secondary Life Support, which had been Xiang Peixun’s domain. Giles had stepped up to take over the dead man’s duties. He nodded amiably as Skyler passed.

  Popping out into the storage module, Skyler paused to consider what he was going to say to Hannah.

  You’ve got a lot of space back here. I was wondering, can I stash this somewhere?

  Well, yes, actually, it IS a gun.

  Please don’t freak out. I can explain.

  Please let me explain.

  Please.

  Oh, Hannah.

  Please.

  He recognized that this was a fairly desperate ploy. Asking a woman to hide a gun for you? That had to be one of the least slick romantic moves ever. But this was Hannah. They’d been so close before … before Skyler wrecked it by lying to her about his own role in Lance’s death. She’d asked for the truth, and he’d stonewalled her. That had badly damaged their relationship, reducing it to a hollow farce of superficial friendliness.

  So he’d tell her the truth now. Roll the dice. Throw himself on her mercy.

  He flew into the engineering module.

  She wasn’t there.

  She must be in the turbine room.

  He flew to the aft keel tube … and braked, gripping the edge of the tube.

  He heard Kate’s voice from below.

  The white noise of the fans made it impossible to catch her words, but at this point, Skyler could identify each crew member by the way they breathed, let alone their intonations.

  Goddammit.

  Swallowing disappointment, he considered going away. He could come back later, when Hannah would hopefully be alone.

  But on the spur of the moment, he drifted into the keel tube. Braking with fingers and toes, he edged aft until he could catch what the women were saying.

  *

  “So which of them have you slept with?” Kate said. She smiled mischievously at Hannah, her eyes glassy from the moonshine.

  “Oh my God,” Hannah gasped. “Don’t tell me you’ve …?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “But the regulations …”

  “There isn’t actually a regulation against sex on a spaceship. There never has been. You’re just expected to be discreet. God, I could tell you stories, going back to the days of the space shuttle …” Kate sighed nostalgically. “Anyway, on a ship this size, discretion is a lot easier.”

  “Obviously! I had no idea.”

  “Jack and Meili were getting it on for a while. That’s cooled off now.”

  “Wow.” Hannah shook her head in amazement at how blind she’d been. Like a little mole, hiding away in her hole back here. “Actually, I can see that,” she realized. “Jack and Meili, yeah. But you, Kate?”

  “Oh, I haven’t slept with Jack,” Kate said. “I thought about it, and I’m sure he thought about it, too, after the Meili thing went south. I mean, he’s attractive, right?”

  “Right.”

  “He’s got that blond beast thing going on. But ultimately, he’s just not my type. Too right-stuff, too straight-edge. It must be what they teach them at English public schools.”

  “I don’t think he went to Eton or anything.”

  “No, but you know what I mean. I prefer bad boys.”

  “So,” Hannah pretended to ponder, “Giles?”

  Both of them cracked up. Although she knew it was mean—poor Giles! He couldn’t help being a dork, with a receding hairline no less—Hannah laughed until she cried. It had been so long since she had a good chat with another woman. All right: a drunken chat.

  “No, I’m afraid poor Giles’s only friend is Ms. Rosy Palmer,” Kate sighed, wiping her eyes. They were bobbling around at ease in the turbine room, squeeze bottles in hand.

  “So that only leaves one guy,” Hannah said. “Al
exei?”

  Kate smirked. “It could have been Peixun.”

  “Apart from the fact that he’s dead.”

  “Or Skyler.”

  Hannah was tongue-tied. She hadn’t even thought of Skyler and Kate as a possibility. She wondered how she would feel about that.

  Kate put paid to her nervous imaginings. “Skyler’s cute, but that really would be cradle-robbing. No, you’re right: it’s Alexei. Didn’t you guess? Really?”

  “No, but that explains a lot.”

  “It does?”

  “It explains why you guys can’t stand each other. Who broke up with who? If it’s OK to ask.”

  “No one broke up with anyone,” Kate said, her eyes widening. “I screwed him this morning before they EVA’ed.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Oh, hell yeah. He’s an animal. And you’re right, I can’t stand him, on a personal level. That makes it spicier.”

  “Kate, this is eye-opening. You’re almost as screwed-up as I am.” Back on Earth, Hannah used to pick up strangers when she was drunk. It was a terrible habit she’d never been able to kick until she boarded the SoD. Out here, there were no strangers.

  “I hope I haven’t completely lost your respect,” Kate said.

  Hannah hastened to assure her she hadn’t. “If anything, I’m in awe. Alexei scares me.”

  “Yeah, he can be intense. He’s actually an idealistic kind of guy. Beats up on himself when he doesn’t live up to his own ideals. He and I are similar in that way, I guess.”

  Kate’s expression softened as she offered these insights into Alexei’s personality. Hannah thought to herself that the mission commander was in denial. That wasn’t how you talked about a friend with benefits that you couldn’t stand on a personal level.

  But Hannah understood. Kate was in a difficult position. As mission commander, she couldn’t allow her relationship with Alexei to become anything more than a sexual outlet. She risked losing the crew’s respect as it was, if it got out.

  “I’ve never really gotten to know Alexei,” Hannah said diplomatically.