by B. V. Larson
“Can you send me the data? And a vid-clip of the contact?”
“Sure,” he said, “but it’ll look like a freckle on a pig’s ass from ten meters away.”
“Can you enhance it?” I asked.
“Tell me why I should bend over for you, first. You’re dangerous.”
“Look Logan, let’s just agree that I owe you already, and I’ll do what I can to clear that account someday. Could you just share what you’ve got? According to you, we only have an hour left.”
“I made my peace with death back when I was on the wrong side of that airlock door,” he grumbled. “But anyway, we still have equipment damage I’m dealing with from the boarding attempt. If you come back to the transport, I can show you what I have on the big screen.”
“Hmm. The time it’ll take to head over there and all the way back here again is more than I can risk.”
“Are you seriously thinking you can save the day, Chief?”
“Logan, if you’re on my team, that’s what I do.”
“You say that like you mean it, Gray. I don’t know… you were planning on having Whitman transport the engine out to Viper right now. That’s another whole basket of crazy right there. At least the captain came to his frigging senses.”
I hesitated. “That’s what I was calling about. Fill me in…what’s going on right now?”
“The captain said there was too much resistance coming from Jessup,” Logan said. “Hughes is on Quark now knocking heads with him over it. I can hear them right through the bulkhead.”
I smiled confidently. “I trust the colonel to win that battle. Do you know where Fairweather is?”
“Yeah—that weird little deep-diving sub-thing is in our hold already,” he told me.
“Good to hear. I’m at Viper now—looks all clear to me. Dr. Brandt and I will escort the engine into Quark’s hold, but I still want to see your footage.”
“All right, well… I can tag you using online mapping. I’ll head your way—but you still owe me, asshole. Big time.”
“How about meeting me near the bay where the engine is stored?” I asked.
“You’ve got it. Give me ten minutes.”
“Make it five if you can.”
“Don’t get pissy, Gray,” he said. “I’m not feeling any love for you yet.”
“Same here,” I told him, and I ended the connection.
Chapter 27
Once I got off the line with Logan, Jillian hopped back to her feet. “Sounds like you’ve been making some serious friends.”
“Yep, that’s me—I can’t help it.”
“Well, we’ve got to get Fairweather and the field generator off this station. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a miracle.”
“We’ll probably need several miracles.”
She looked troubled. “We’ve all got to go sometime, I guess,” she said.
Putting an arm around her shoulders, I gave her a squeeze. “Not on my watch.”
“I trust you,” she said. “After all this intrigue, I believe the only way my work is going to reach its potential is with you pushing it over the finish line. I don’t like that fact, but I believe it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence or resignation or… whatever,” I said, managing a smile.
Every light on the station suddenly dimmed and a deep and buzzing alarm began bleating through the echoing passages.
“Emergency protocols engaged. All personnel, abandon the station.”
A calm feminine computer voice began repeating the message over loudspeakers on a loop, and it immediately became unnerving. Jillian had her hands clamped over her ears and looked to me hopefully.
“Obviously,” she shouted, “this is pretty serious.”
“Yeah—this is a great time for one of those miracles,” I yelled back.
We took off for the engine bay one last time. As I’d hoped, the guards were gone, so I pecked at the sensor pad.
The main vault doors began to draw apart in slow motion. The entire front of the bay where the field generator sat in hibernation had soon receded from view.
“We’ve got to get this baby ready to move, Jillian,” I yelled.
She went to work, and I tried to pull up Logan on my comm-link. While I was giving him a third try, he bounded into the bay with a team of yard-dogs behind him.
Wearing ear protection, he tossed me a hostile glance, but he went to work without an argument. He had a bag with him, and he set it down near the engine. At his touch, the top spun open like an iris. Pulling out several headsets, he tossed one to me.
The design was slim-line, but the set was noise-cancelling and comm-link ready. Slapping it over my ears brought me immediate relief. The emergency klaxons were cut out, but I could hear the team of spacers puffing and cursing as they attached cables and bolts to the engine mounts.
Logan looked like he smelled dog shit, but he showed me how to sync up my comm-link, and his voice rasped in my ears.
“Hey Chief. I really hate to tell you, but Captain Whitman has assigned me to helping you get your sorry ass the fuck off this station. Everyone else is hitting the lifeboats or taking the shuttles down to Luna. Not us—we’re going to have to slum it aboard Viper after we get your prize turd loaded.”
“Glad you could help,” I said evenly, and I meant it.
Without him, I didn’t think we could do it. This emergency was intensifying by the minute. I didn’t entirely understand the nature of the threat, but it didn’t matter. When people tell you to run in space, you run and ask questions later. The environment is intensely hostile, and almost anything can kill you.
Within twenty minutes, we were back down near Viper’s docking bay again—watching the transport sidle up to her hold. As the hauling and loading process advanced, Quark was quickly able to hand over the payload to the spacers.
Viper’s aft cargo doors yawned wide, and the engine slowly drifted inside the vessel. It looked like big fish was eating a small fish in slow-motion.
“How about you show me the vids that kicked off this party?” I suggested to Logan.
Sourly, he followed me into a small lounge, and I slid the door closed behind us. This muted the raucous alarms even further.
Logan started pulling out a wide-screen smart scroll. He quickly flattened it, and then it flashed to show the black of space.
The lounge door shot open and Jillian stepped in.
She closed the door, and Logan tossed her a headset of her own. Once she was shown how to sync up the comm-link, I asked her to get in touch with Colonel Hughes.
“Tell her we’ll be there shortly, and get ready to test all that hard work,” I said.
Logan and I took a look at the vid footage, and Jillian stepped aside to get a private word to the colonel.
“This is from the docked transport’s point of view,” Logan stated. “I noticed this first—right here.”
He pointed at a tiny crawling speck. So far, I was not impressed.
“It gets a lot better than this, I hope.”
“Don’t wet your panties, Chief. It gets better.” He drew his fingers away from the speck and pulled the view in twenty-fold. It was silver and primitive because of the low grade instrumentation, but the clear shape of a boxy freight tug was unmistakable.
“I see what you mean,” I said. “We’ve got something big inbound.”
“Yep. That’s a big load, and it’s hauling ass.”
“It should’ve been slowing down a long time ago for a safe approach, but I can see all twelve jets are lit up at a full burn.”
“A full burn in the wrong direction,” Logan said. “It’s accelerating toward us. I can’t think of anywhere else it would be heading. It makes no sense that it would be going past us. The lidar sensors predict it will make a direct hit.”
The computer ran a projection, and over a short time the arc of the incoming hauler grew more obvious. The angle decreased steadily, indicating it was indeed coming right at us. The projection slo
wed to a crawl, but the hauler was still inching closer.
“When was this computed?” I asked.
“A little while before you got in touch with me.”
“Have we got a better visual on it now?”
“Not a believer yet, huh?” he asked.
I began to protest. I only wanted a better view—but he slapped my hands away from the computer paper and made adjustments. Accelerating the time-lapse, he corrected for the drift in the image.
“This is the best we’ve got,” he said. “The fresh stuff from just before I got assigned to help you with your little project.”
“Hmm, it’s still fuzzy and largely featureless, but it’s getting bigger fast. Hold on—pause it there.”
Logan sighed, but he did as I asked.
I studied the vid for a few seconds while Logan watched with obvious impatience.
“The manned part of this craft is here in the center of this array of massive hauling silos,” I said, showing him with my finger. “The crew and all their machinery along with everything else they need to live and work would be housed in that core area.”
“So the web of thick spokes around it is just structural?” Logan asked. “Built to hold up the storage bins?”
“That’s right. I’d guess she’s only manned by a small crew despite the size of this thing.”
“So…” he said. “These six rectangular cylinders must be gargantuan.”
“I’d say so. Each of those could be filled with ore that came from sources outside of local space. The combined weight of that potential payload on Earth would be in excess of a billion tons.”
“That’s great news…” he said, dialing up more vids. “Now watch this.”
We watched thirty more seconds. I didn’t like what I saw after that.
“Shit!” I said.
“Yep, that’s what I thought too. It starts to spiral slowly at first,” Logan explained, “but keeps increasing the spin.”
With resolution that basically showed a silhouette, a shocking scene unfolded on the wide screen. The craft had begun to rotate like a rifle slug, and as it spun it began to emit a spiral of material that gracefully expanded away from the ship in a fanning pattern.
Jillian turned back to us and took a look over our shoulders. “What is that hauler doing? Is the captain crazy?”
“It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on at this point—but it’s all coming this way,” Logan said.
“I can tell you what’s happening,” I told them in a grim tone of voice. “They blew the cargo doors on one of their storage silos. That spiraling streamer is a million tons of pulverized rock pouring out.”
We watched quietly for a moment as the load poured out and expanded steadily. Then, another silo began to pour out its load. This beautiful and horrifying picture began to grow in size as it came closer to us, and then it went blank.
“That’s where it was when I left the transport to come help you,” Logan said.
“Do you have any more of these headsets?” I asked.
“I’ve got a couple more to spare.”
“They look like they’ll fit under a spacer’s helmet, at least. Let’s all put one on.”
Logan didn’t argue. He dug out the headsets and passed an extra one to Jillian to give to Hughes.
“How long do we have?” Jillian asked.
“Thirty to forty minutes, according to the computers,” Logan said.
“But the debris field is spreading,” I added, “meaning it will threaten a very wide area by the time it gets here. Even a grain of sand is dangerous when it’s moving thousands of kilometers an hour faster than you are. Anybody that wants to avoid these rocks ought to be leaving right now.”
Exiting the lounge, we found a cross-section of crew, civilians and yard dogs scattered in pandemonium—many of them covering their ears.
We looked out the viewports to see how the spacers were doing with the loading job—it was happening, but not as fast as anyone would have liked. The engine was delicate, and Viper’s crew wasn’t fully cooperating.
“They’ve stopped the engine,” Jillian said. “It’s just hanging there on cables, they’re not loading it.”
“Predictable,” Logan said. “This leads us to my next point: I was thinking we should bail out now.”
“And leave the engine behind?” Jillian demanded in shock.
Logan shrugged. “You can build a new one, can’t you? But not if you’re dead.”
“There you go again,” I told him. “I already choked you once for talking like that. We’re going to get that engine aboard. It’s the only acceptable option.”
Logan looked pissed again and touched his throat, but he kept quiet at least. I took the opportunity to leave the chamber.
“Wait a minute—where are you going, Chief?” Jillian asked.
“I’ve got to go make sure Captain Jessup is behaving himself. We still need his cooperation to complete Colonel Hughes’ project.”
“Good luck with that,” Logan laughed. “You’ve got to be the biggest optimist ever.”
“You can do it,” Jillian said.
I ran through clusters of panicked crew as I moved through the docking zone and boarded Viper. There was total confusion in the docking tube area. Lots of people were trying to flood aboard to escape the station.
“Use the lifeboats!” a petty officer shouted at the crowd.
“We’ll die out there!”
The bland computer voice continued to alert us: “Emergency protocols engaged. All personnel, abandon the station.” The warning klaxons beat at the air relentlessly.
Moving through the milling mass of spacers and families, I shoved through them and flashed my ID to the crew at the entrance.
There was a snarling moment where I knew the petty officer in charge didn’t want to let me in. I pushed past him after he ran my ID and looked surprised.
“You’re good to board, Chief,” he said, and then he turned back to the angry crowd. “You’re wasting time, people. Get to the lifeboats now and get out of here!”
Grumbling, the crowd began to break up.
I took the time to tell them to get aboard the destroyer, then kept going with a ground-eating pace few could match.
I came upon an upset couple arguing with one of Viper’s ensigns. It became physical, as the woman pleaded and grabbed the officer’s arm, and the man drew a small pulse-beamer he’d been concealing.
Before Jessup’s man could wrestle the weapon away from the desperate civilian, a shaft of white heat shot out of it and through the meat of my thigh as I passed.
I hissed in pain but gritted my teeth and kept moving. The ensign shot me a couple glances before I was out of sight, but he had his hands full subduing the pair.
Trying to hurry down a narrow passage, with a hole in your leg in low gravity is a real test of patience. It’s like sprinting in the sand with a knife stuck in you. You’ve got to slow everything down and move like you’re wading hip deep in a pool with glass on the bottom.
I managed to slip aboard Viper without being slowed or challenged further. The general emergency helped with that, and thankfully my wound—which was clear of the bone—was charred and of modest diameter.
The sound of the alarms wasn’t so deafening aboard the destroyer. I dropped the headset around my neck so I could hear onboard sounds.
It wasn’t long before I found Captain Jessup on the bridge. Like a guard robot, he sensed me the moment I set foot on his deck. Whirling around on one heel, he approached with blazing eyes.
“You!” he bellowed. “You’re the one flooding my ship with refugees now, aren’t you?”
“Uh…” I said, taken by surprise. “We’ve got orders from Control, sir. We’re to move the cargo to your ship and leave this area immediately.”
“I saw those orders. I’m still trying to get them confirmed with Earth.” His dark gaze was bloodshot, and I wondered if he’d been drinking.
My eyes wandered ar
ound the bridge. It was crowded with people I knew. Many of them I recognized as members of Colonel Hughes party. In the back of this group, I saw Toby.
He stood in a well-lit section of the passage. He flashed me a knowing grin and gave me a nod.
What had he been up to? That thought made sweat tickle under my arms. Sure, I’d needed him to edit my orders, and he’d performed in an outstanding fashion. But now I was getting the idea I’d opened up Pandora’s box. There was evidence in every conversation I’d had with that weird mutant that some kind of funny business was occurring—something I had no control over.
Had I accidently given license to Toby? Was he freely making stuff up? If he was, it was bound to blow up in our faces eventually.
“…are you even listening to me, Gray?” Jessup demanded.
“Yeah… of course I am, sir. Let me explain—”
“No,” he said, making a chopping motion with his hand. “This is a warship, Chief. Viper is responsible for patrolling this region of space, and a state of emergency has been declared. Do you know what that means, Gray?”
“Uh… I’m sure you’ll tell me, sir.”
“That means I’m free to ignore any order I feel is nonsensical. That includes orders regarding or concerning you.”
I stood a little straighter. “That is your prerogative, Captain,” I agreed. “But don’t you think evacuating the space dock makes sense?”
“Of course it does. You and these scientists can ride the shuttles down to Luna, or you can take the transport that brought you out here. Hell, you can take your chances aboard a lifeboat for all I care.”
“But Captain,” Colonel Hughes protested. “We’re already here, and we need to get underway right now.”
“That’s too damned bad. Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to board my ship without prior authorization from me, personally.”
There it was again. What had Jillian said about people building tiny kingdoms in the isolation of space? Jessup was angry because we hadn’t consulted with him, begged him, and kissed his ass until he felt like helping out.
Pulling out a rattling sheet of computer paper, I made strokes with my fingers over the text printed there.