Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances

by Margo Bond Collins

As it came into view, Ewan could see it wasn’t very big.

  Wall stepped in. She tilted her head up and pointed her chin towards the front. Two chairs, pilot and co-pilot, were turned towards the large view screen. “We should probably move the bodies.”

  Ewan jumped backwards with a yelp. The pilot and co-pilot, dressed in EVA suits, were slumped in their chairs. He stood at the threshold, grateful that there was little enough room for two dead bodies and one small tech.

  “That’s Captain Zappo and formerly Lieutenant Schoen. Zappo wasn’t just here to be a lecherous loser, I assume.”

  “Pardon?”

  She ignored him and continued. “Next. Environmentals. I can’t work that one out.”

  He held up his hand. “Six is already linked to the computers and…”

  A buzz came through the communications panel over Wall’s left shoulder. “Doctor Stewarts, your life signs seem to have elevated heart rates. Are you both okay?”

  “Yes, Six, we’re okay. Glad to see you got into the hoppercraft safely and got the intercom-link working.” Ewan turned around and looked for the speaker.

  Wall pointed over her shoulder.

  “So, Six is your android? How can he help us?”

  “They…” Six interjected. “This drone is referred to in neutral terms, ‘they’ not ‘it’ and I have been programmed to respond to drone or nutroid.”

  Wall flinched, cocked her head and then looked at him, eyebrows knitted in question. “Artificial intel?” She thumbed at the com panel. “How did you rate that? Isn’t that brahmi-caste mech? Aren’t you technoe-caste?”

  “I re-programmed Six for this mission myself.” Not exactly true. Six had been Ewan’s assigned lab assistant.since university. It’s a hobby.” He answered. Blast it, Six. I told you to act normal. What if Wall reported Six’s anomalous behavior? He could lose the project, the drone, and who knows what else. Ewan tried not to think about the consequences. He knew of one person who had been brought up on charges for theft when they took home some project work to study and recreated a nucleotide reaction. The project lead took the new process as a win for the team.

  Life lesson learned.

  Technoe-caste made cool toys and brahmi-caste appropriated them. There would be nothing he could do if some high and mighty technocrat pulled rank and decided Six was theirs.

  “Six is a medical drone, but because of the expedition, upgrades were ordered.” Ewan lied. He turned his head back up to the com. “Six, what can you do about environmentals on the ship?”

  “There’s a component that’s been damaged in the crash, Doctor Stewarts. But according to the manifest, there is a similar component on board. Repair kits are in one of the cargo boxes. Specialist Wall, can you help us locate it?”

  “Well, Six, since I get to call you by one name, it seems only fair that you call me Jody.” She leaned back keeping her head bowed so he couldn’t see her face. Wall’s EVA suit crunched against the bulkhead as her foot scuffed the metal deck plates. “And yes, if everything is where it should be, the manifest will have the exact position of the crates. On my walkthrough, it looks like everything is in place. But if you could double check?”

  “Very good,” came Six’s crackled reply.

  The corner of Ewan’s mouth curled up a little, flattening as Jody turned her head from the com panel to look at him. She validated his authority by not suggesting they exchange given names. And the way she talked to Six? Like more than just a drone? He admired Wall’s instincts.

  But it still annoyed him that she was taking over. That she thought of things before he did. It was time to take charge.

  “Next problem, Six, can we get to you and get out of here?” Jody asked.

  “It’s white out conditions. You have several hours of breathable air in your suits and they will keep you comfortable and warm. You can take your helmets off for eating and bathing, but otherwise, keep them on. I can get you out of there once the snow stops. The hoppercraft is equipped—“

  “Don’t we have a digger?” He said. He moved a little closer to the com’s pane, trying to stay as far from the two dead bodies as possible. “I thought there were two ATVs?”

  “Budget cuts. Remember?” Six replied. “We had to go with one ATV. One with the full suite of capabilities for planetary exploration, including mini-lab. That’s out here, with me, under the snow. The storm moved it from where you placed it, Doctor. It’s a few yards out.”

  Wall cut in, “That ATV is built to withstand a lot more than a snowstorm. It’ll be fine. It’s just a little buried is all. If we can get into it, somehow, we can use it to unbury the rest of everything else. But we have to wait for the rest of the storm to pass. How long do they usually last?”

  “The enviro scans on the hoppercraft estimate three hours, you will be fine in your EVA suits. Unless they were damaged.” Six said.

  “Hmmm… well...” Wall looked at her suit. “I don’t see any damage on mine. Turn around, Doctor. No, yours seems to be good. Check your suit diagnostics.”

  Not for the first time, Ewan resented being bossed around by a lowly tech. Enough was enough. That’s just not how things worked in Cordoba. Yet, she led with a natural ease, a skill that had eluded him. Frustrating him. Exasperated, he tried to take control, “Excuse me, how do you—”

  “Know so much about EVA suits?” she interjected. “I spend a lot of time transporting crap from point A to point B, Doctor,” she replied in a steady and commanding contralto, “I need to know how to live to survive another day. You think this is my first crash? Psssht. No. Six?”

  “Yes, Jody?”

  “Can you run air samples? If we need to take our EVA helmets off, it would be useful to know how much breathable air is in the ship.”

  “I will add that to my analyses.”

  Wall turned back to him, “We should move these bodies, so maybe we can sit down?” He gave up. She was going to take control no matter what he did. The way of things wasn’t going to work with Specialist Wall. The lilting tone appealed and yet the thought of dead bodies gave him goosebumps.

  He objected weakly, “I’m not sitting in a chair someone died in.”

  “Fine.” Wall leaned over, unbuckled Zappo and began wrestling with the dead weight. “A little help?”

  “No. I can’t. I’m not touching a dead body, either.” He watched as her body straightened, her back going stiff.

  Her arms flexed with a rigid intensity.

  “You’re not touching a dead body?” Her tone rose with the precision of a prosecutor. “Good thing you didn’t go into medicine.” The irony in her cadence clipped before striking for the heart. “This body, this person, died. But he was a living breathing human being and deserves some respect… even if he was a jerk. He was just another person in a long line of casualties: people dying for the good of the corporation. Aren’t you a good member of the corporate state? Don’t you feel a need to value him as a person? We can, and will, treat him with a modicum of dignity.”

  The truth of her words stung. This twist of Cordoba litany was new. Ewan’s face was on fire by the time she finished. He was glad for the shield on his helmet, separating his shame from her accusing glare. “I… Well... I just meant that it’s a little undignified for us to just be hauling people around, putting them away like folding chairs.”

  “Just grab an arm, Doc. It’s not going to hurt him if we move him to the floor and slide him off to one of the crew cabins. We’ll need to do that with all the crew. Or did you expect that they’d just disappear?”

  With a deep sigh, Ewan nodded and grabbed the arm of the former pilot. He tried to find something to take his mind off of the fact that a dead body was in his hands. “Don’t you have to be rated for ATV driving? How did a payload specialist get that?”

  “Oh, you think I know how to use all the good bits on that thing? Nope. I just know how to move it. How do you think we get the cargo on board? Magic?” She swiveled Zappo’s chair into his knee.

 
; “No, but they’re complicated… Oof!”

  Wall glared up at him again.

  They pulled the rest of Zappo’s body out of the seat. Rigor mortis had set in. The stiffness put the deceased captain of Ebudae into a quasi-fetal position making them carry him much like the chair Ewan had compared him to.

  “I’m not unfolding him.” Ewan deadpanned then saw Wall’s body stiffen. “Sorry. I’ve been told I have a bad habit of black humor in a crisis.”

  “That’s reasonable,” she said. Her shoulders relaxed.

  They carried him into the crew quarters, and found an empty bunk. Then they did the same with the co-pilot.

  “At least we can sit down for the rest of the time we’re here,” Jody said as they returned to the cockpit. “I need a nap. It’s been a very trying day. Wake me up when the storm has passed.”

  “You want a nap?” Ewan asked in disbelief.

  “Yes. That’s why I needed the chair,” her contralto was laced with mockery. She sat down in the now vacant captain’s seat and put her feet up. “It’s going to be a while before we can do anything. Didn’t you hear Six?”

  “But… But…” He sputtered. “W-w-we need to get out of here. My project…”

  “Not till the storm dies down…sir,” she added. “So, Six is pretty special, huh? More than just a medical drone?”

  “Uhh,” he hedged. She kept pressing on the point. He had to make the questions go away. Six was made of pilfered parts from various dead projects. During his lab time he’d worked extra here and there. That helped him get access to the parts he needed from trashed lab drones before they were sent to recycle. He hadn’t stolen anything; he’d just reassigned trash to his purposes. But up until now, he’d kept Six’s development a secret.

  He groped to understand his feelings. In the end, Ewan knew losing Six wouldn’t be like losing an ATV to budget cuts. “Six can do some high level diagnostics that the expedition needs. Their calculations are invaluable on this expedition.” Yes. Six was his ace in the hole.

  He warmed up to the conversation as it finally fell to his favorite topic. “It was Six that helped with the prebiotic synthesis of the nucleobase. The calculations helped me understand when triggered from a specific combination of HCN, the nuclease wouldn’t lose the specific quantity of ammonia needed to continue the process of synthesis.”

  “The craters here on Tapagoani XII can be tapped by hydraulic fracturing to contain and control the carbon process necessary to terraforming. Six’s calculations help quantify the fracturing that will be needed to tap the planet’s natural resource.” It was Six who intuited and nudged him in the direction of using the craters but an intuiting drone? That level AI didn’t exist on the market yet. If he told her, she’d either laugh or think he was in the pocket of a technocrat.

  “Wow. So, is it beneath them to have Six do a full diagnostic on the ship’s power arrays and solar wings while I sleep. Seriously, I’ve had a really tough day. I collapsed, remember?”

  He tilted his head in question.

  “It’s okay, I’m not hurt.”

  That made him feel terrible. She’d been in a crash, had some kind of fever, and helped him move dead bodies and all he could think about was his project and keeping Six a secret. He was so caught up in his own problems that he failed to check on her. She probably thought he was a complete jerk.

  He lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Wall,” he said. “I forgot.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Jody looked up at him and leaned over to slap his shoulder. “You know Six isn’t the only one that can use my name. We’re kind of stranded here together until they send a relief ship. Just call me Jody. We’re in this together.”

  “I…” he looked back at that adorable face. “Okay. Jody,” he said and managed a crooked smile. “Guess I’ve spent a little too much time with the drone. I’m Ewan.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she extended her hand.

  He took it and was met with a strong grip.

  “It’s okay, you’ve had a tough day, too, Doc. Some crazy chick in an ATV nearly ran you over.” She laughed and repositioned into the chair, reached her arms back, and cradled her head in her interlocked fingers. “Can I just get a quick nap? Come on. Give a girl a little space.” Before he could say another word, her head nodded backward.

  “If you’re sure you’re okay.”

  She gave him a reassuring, droopy lidded smile, “I’m just really, really tired.” She yawned.

  He watched her eyelids close and listened as, after a few moments, her breathing slowed.

  Chapter Four

  “SIX,” HE WHISPERED INTO THE COMLINK IN HIS SUIT, “where can I find that spare part? I can at least get that done while Wall sleeps. Then you can repair the environmentals.”

  “Yes, doctor,” Six said.

  Carefully, so as not to wake Jody, Ewan got up out of the co-pilot seat and slid the door open. When he closed the door a snuffling snore escaped as the latch clicked into place. Before he had time to linger he heard Six’s voice.

  “Sir, is your helmet on?”

  “Of course,” Ewan’s nose itched. He gamely twitched it. “Why?”

  “I have switched us to a private channel. I was able to link to the ATV and retrieved a medical scan. Wall initiated it on herself. The scan was complete but never accessed. Very likely she was too ill to remember.”

  “Does it tell you what made her sick?”

  “Yes, Doctor, there’s trace toxins in her blood work. I do not know what killed the rest of the crew, but I’m going to need your help with that. And another thing, Jodeen Wall was not the scheduled payload specialist. The manifest shows that she was a last minute replacement at Starbase 18.”

  “I’m trying to understand what you’re driving at, Six.”

  “I don’t know, yet. Not enough data. I’m collecting it now that I’ve uplinked to Ebudae’s computer through your portable station. I won’t have a full picture for a bit. Be careful, Doctor. You could be in danger. Both of you.”

  ***

  Jody opened one eye. The hard toe of her boot scraped across the control panel. Her hip cramped. Ther ache in her bones extended from her neck to her toes. Her muscles were like old elastic bands, ready to snap.

  “You’re awake,” Jody heard Ewan’s voice behind her. “I should have made you go to a bunk. That couldn’t have been comfortable.”

  His thoughtfulness gave her a warm glow. Weeks on end alone, undercover, mission after mission, had given her a wary edge. It wasn’t right to get close to people. That’s how you slipped up. That’s how spies got caught. Even on Ebudae she’d kept to herself using her payload duties as an excuse. She bit her lower lip. “I’m okay. I didn’t want to lie down anyway. I just hate being sick.” Her boots thudded as her feet hit the deck plates. Bending over, she stretched her lower back, touching fingertips to the floor.

  “Feeling any better?” he asked. “How’s your stomach?”

  “I’m…” She thought about it and rubbed her midsection. “Actually, I’m hungry.”

  “That’s good news.” Ewan stepped forward, taking her hand. His fingers felt strong around her wrist.

  Jody’s heartbeat pounded a new sensation. Turning to look up at him, she was met with a concerned gaze.

  He slipped a closed liquid container into her hand. “Drink. It’s clean water and you need to drink plenty of it.”

  She looked at it in surprise. That wasn’t where she thought they were going. Ewan wasn’t like the Cordoba crew. They’d exchanged so many bodily fluids she lost track of the liaisons. Yet another reason she tried to stay invisible. But now? In this situation? Vulnerable. Already she’d shown far too much of her real personality. Shown far too much of the commander that lay beneath the thin veneer of the low-rank. “Thanks.” She palmed her visor food access port open, put the container opening to her lips and took a sip. The cool liquid soothed her parched throat.

  “While you were asleep, I decided that we need t
o make a short tunnel out to the ATV.”

  She nodded, listening and sipping dutifully as he regarded her progress on the container.

  “So, Payload Specialist, what do we have for that project?” Ewan’s fingers drummed on his thigh.

  He would know what he needed and the capability of each piece of equipment, not her. Not Specialist Jodeen Wall, anyway. Commander Jody Benson on the other hand… Resolving anew to stick to her acquired persona, she played dumb.

  “Okay, well… I can tell you what we have, and what it weighs, and how to distribute it.” Jody brought the container to her lips again and watched him, sitting back and crossing her free arm over her chest. “Maybe we could, uh,” she paused for a moment, “find some sort of digging thing?”

  “Yes, that’s a priority. We can use the ship’s saved ambient power, but if we try the engines, they won’t have anything to run on until the solar cells are uncovered,” Ewan said.

  There was a snap on the comms as Six joined the conversation. “The snow has stopped I am reviewing the depth.”

  “Snow covered solar cells, right? Not so good for recharging.” And the jumpspace mechs aren’t really what we need. The solar collectors for the hyperboost are empty. They emptied when I tried to get us out of a tailspin. More things Jody could not say.

  How could she explain any knowledge of this and still be considered a simple payload specialist? No, the only way was to take another tack. Lead him to the answer. “Okay, so… short of melting the snow…”

  “Melting… wait, melting?” Stewarts covered hands met with a muffled clap. “That’s it! We could use some of the heating and drying units. The ones that are supposed to dry out specimens, clothes, keep us warm.”

  She nodded. Listening and sipping. Good. He actually does have a brain. And he’s kind of cute when he thinks he has it figured out. Oh stop, Jody. This is not the time to look goony-eyed at a warm body in an EVA.

  The EVA helmets were equipped with a large enough visor to see full face but shadows within and the curve of the clear composite distorted facial features. But his voice was a rich tenor that she found soothing and reassuring.