“Huh.” Kaylee observed. “That’s cool. What were the kids like? Major Thompson’s kids, I mean?”
“A girl, Carla, and her brother, Eric. They were twins, both were 15 the last time I saw them.”
“Rocko? Do you miss them?” Manny asked.
“Yes.” The robot admitted. “I do not experience emotions, but my functioning has been incomplete, without them.”
Valjean was breathing hard, filled with rage. He pulled out his gun, screamed, and shot at the freighter’s hull, leaving dark scorch marks. The blaster fire had little effect, other than making him feel better. He jammed the gun back into the holster he wore on the outside of the e-suit, and forced himself to calm down. To think.
It was time to get out. By himself, apparently. He’d shot Taney, who had probably been eaten by now. Becker was either dead or unconscious. Dooley, the moron, was locked in a crate? And that stupid robot! Valjean had never trusted the damned thing. He looked up at his ship, hanging motionless a kilometer away. He had no shuttle. Nightengale, in her current condition, could not be remotely piloted, even if Valjean knew how to do that.
A kilometer. He needed to cross a kilometer of space.
How?
Clearly not by walking, so?
Valjean trudged over to the airlock, only to find it locked. Just before departure, Manny had dashed back inside Ace, closed and locked all the cargo doors, and manually locked this airlock door. Keeping a firm grip on his emotions, Valjean walked the hundred meters forward to the next airlock.That one opened. He stepped inside, cycled the airlock, and stepped back inside the ship, gun drawn, wary of wild beasts. He opened his helmet faceplate, and sniffed the air, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The doors at both end of the corridor were securely locked. In between, he found three small storage compartments that were unlocked, none of them had anything useful.
He went back into the corridor, looking around for inspiration. And found it.
Nelson decided it was time to check on Sam’s progress, in person. Not that he didn’t like the miners, they were nice enough. They also let him know, gently, that he was now mostly in the way now, as they moved around, assessing the damage, and cleaning things up. In this tightly-knit community of people who had served together on unfriendly Ares, he was an outsider.
What he found was not what he expected. Sam and Rick were sitting on the floor of the large chamber which contained the life support core, their tools scattered around. Somewhere, one of them, probably Sam, had found a bottle of something, and they were sipping an orange-colored fluid from tiny paper cups. Nelson was astonished. “Sam, what the-“ He looked around for signs the two men had been doing anything but drinking. Access covers had been removed, and stacked in a corner. Various pipes, coils, wires, and boxes had been pulled out of the core. So they had at least started working, before they started drinking. In fact, it looked like the two men had almost completely disassembled the unit, and had tried to jury-rig something together. There were pipes attached to other pipes, which clearly weren’t designed to fit together. Tape and sealant connected them, and somebody had gotten overzealous with the sealant, the pipe joints were coated in big globs of the stuff. It looked like a half-assed job, and that made Nelson even more angry. “What the hell is wrong with you two? Drinking booze on the job? Get your asses to work!”
“I wish it was real booze, man, it’s homemade fermented papaya juice, or something like that.” Sam didn’t rise from the floor, instead, he hoisted the bottle toward the pilot. “Might as well relax and have a drink, Nelson. We’re in deep doo-doo. The oxygen recycler core is shot, I mean, really shot. The pirates went at it with a rifle or something, one of them must have gotten his jollies shooting it up. It’s busted, man, scrap, no way to fix it.”
Nelson’s anger deflated. He should have known Sam wouldn’t be so irresponsible. Now he saw what Sam meant, there were holes shot right through the core, jagged edges around the impacts. “Why?”
Rick drained his cup, crushed it in his fist, and threw it across the room. “The pirates know the Navy is eventually going to show up here. When they do, instead of hunting down the pirate ship, the Navy will have to waste time staying here to rescue the miners. And us. That gives the pirates plenty of time to get out of sensor range. Once they do that, they’ll probably transfer to another ship, and be long gone. Sam’s right, there’s no way to fix this piece of junk.” Rick said disgustedly. When he first saw the life support unit, he was encouraged to see that, unlike most mining outfits, this one had good equipment, and maintained it well. Then he and Sam went around to the backside and saw the bullet holes. Explosive-tipped slugs, Sam said, surplus military issue. He seemed to know what he was talking about.
“So, how long do we have?” Nelson asked.
“The good news is that butthole Mac wasn’t lying about one thing; they did have fifty hours of oxygen, back when they first called us. We can stretch it out some.” Sam shrugged.
“What about putting some people into crawlers, they have a temporary air supply?” Nelson suggested.
“You been to the crawler garage yet? No?” Rick answered. “Same idiot that shot this up, shot the crawlers up real good too. Only one of the crawlers is operational, that one only holds two people. We are all going to have to put on e-suits in a few hours, when the oxygen in here runs out. After that, well, we have to hope somebody rescues us, pretty soon.”
“Ace’s only shuttle is history, man, so we gotta hope the Navy figures out something ain’t right, and gets here pronto.” Sam added glumly.
“Damn.” Nelson’s shoulders slumped. “Then, I guess, uh, sure, give me the bottle. I need a drink.”
CHAPTER 18
Seth used the very last dregs of thruster fuel to stop the command section from spinning. He turned to Schroeder, and said quietly “That’s it, Captain. We’re rotating at one revolution every fifty minutes, that’s the best I can do.”
“Very well. Seth, talk them in.”
“Captain, this kid’s never flown before. He’s low on fuel, and we’re running out of time, so he can’t take too many tries to lock onto us. And, pretty soon, we’ll be into the top of the atmosphere, so we’ll be picking up turbulence.”
“Understood. If it looks like the shuttle is in danger, I want you to wave him off, get the shuttle away from here, and into a safe orbit. I’m not risking the lives of those children.” Schroeder said, with one eye on the childrens’ mother, who would expect him to save her children first.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Excellent. Carry on, Mr. Putri.” Schroeder said in a loud voice, slapping the back of Seth’s chair for emphasis. He wanted Joy to hear how well everything was going. “Gina, Joy, help me bring Vassily to the airlock, please.” Schroeder ordered. He wanted to get Joy Sanchez far away from the bridge.
Seth guided Manny to within a hundred meters of the command section, and made sure the shuttle’s course and speed matched that of the command section. After that, it would all be up to Manny. A twelve year old boy, who had never flown anything before. “Manny, this is as far as I can go with you. If I try to guide you in the rest of the way, I’ll only get you confused. You need to fly over to mate your door with the docking port. It’s a universal docking port, your door will automatically clamp on and form a seal, but you need to be on target within twenty centimeters, left or right, up or down. Any more than twenty centimeters off center, and the door won’t clamp on, OK?”
“OK.” Manny replied, in a voice that did not sound confident at all.
“Manny, you can do this. You flew halfway around the planet, and you arrived exactly where we needed you to be. That’s excellent piloting, you can’t ask for better than that. Here’s what you need to do-”
Manny’s first couple of tries weren’t great. Seth had said to fly by eyeball, looking out the shuttle’s front windows, judging the distance, moving in slowly. Some shuttles had systems which would automatically fly the craft in to dock; this shuttl
e, and the command section, lacked those conveniences. There were radar systems which provided information like location and how fast the shuttle was approaching the command section, but their usefulness was limited, and less useful the closer the shuttle got. Pilots relied on their experience, which Manny lacked completely. The first time, the shuttle came in too fast, and Manny had to back off quickly, which threw the shuttle into a spin. That took twenty minutes to sort out.
The second, third and fourth tries were all too far off center. Manny got the shuttle lined up correctly to start, and moved in at a moderate speed to within ten meters, but then he had to stop looking out the window, and guide the shuttle in by looking at a view from the door camera. It was confusing, and he took so long to get lined up, that the docking port rotated out of range, and Manny had to back off and start over.
“You ready, Manny?” Kaylee asked.
“Yes.” Manny said shakily, wiping his sweaty hands on his shirt. He was nervous, and he felt like he really needed to pee. The shuttle lacked a bathroom. “One more time. You watch the door camera. This time, I’m going to come in a little low, so the docking port will rotate towards us as we move in.”
Manny twisted in his seat, so he had a better view to the left side. He held the thruster control stick lightly in this right hand, and gently nudged it to the left.
“Closing at two meters per second.” Kaylee said softly.
Manny watched the command section’s docking port approach. Something was wrong, it was tilted. No, the shuttle’s nose was tilted, and tilting further. “We’re spinning again!”
Seth broke in. “Manny, we’re in the very top of the atmosphere now, it’s going to affect the shuttle, and your controls. Use the thrusters to bring the nose back down.”
They were in the atmosphere?! Manny, already a bundle of nerves, didn’t need to hear that. In his inexperience, he overcorrected, and soon the nose was too far down. Then, he made a mistake, and suddenly they were moving too fast, headed toward the command section!
“Manny!” Kaylee warned.
“I’m trying!” Manny slewed the shuttle around, and tried to move away, but he was too late. The left side of the shuttle’s nose hit the command section at an angle, and the shuttle’s cabin was filled with a horrible screeching, as the shuttle's nose scraped along the skin of the command section, snapping off two antennas along the way. The shuttle’s nose crumpled inward, damaging the radar antenna inside.
“What is that?” Joy shouted, in fear not for herself, but for her children.
“I will ask Seth,” Schroeder said calmly, although he knew what that sound had to be.
The shuttle slid past the edge of the command section, and out into space, spinning nose over tail. Now without radar, Manny had to rely on the seat of his inexperienced pants. This was so much harder than a sim! “Seth!” He pleaded.
“Manny, you’re safely away from us now. Get the shuttle stable again, then we’ll talk.” Seth looked at the displays in front of him, fed by the datalink. The shuttle wasn’t losing air, thank God for that. On the other hand, they were now too late. Skin temperature of the command section’s leading edge had climbed fifty degrees in the past three minutes. They were going down.
Schroeder called. “Seth, status report.”
“Captain, I- they can’t do this.” Seth concluded reluctantly. “We shouldn’t have asked them. It’s too late. We’re in the atmosphere now, and the shuttle will be harder to control. Plus, we’ll start to spin faster now. There’s no way, sir. There’s just no way. I’m sorry.”
Schroeder’s knuckles grew white as he clutched the phone. “I understand.” He turned toward Joy. “Ms. Sanchez, I’m terribly sorry. We’ve run out of time. We need to get your children safely away from here, now, before it is too late for them.”
Joy nodded, tears in her eyes. She wiped away her tears, and erached for the phone. “I’d like to talk to my children, please.”
“Certainly.” Schroeder handed her the phone, and pushed himself away, to give her a small measure of privacy.
“Manny, Kaylee, babies, listen to me.” Their mother’s voice came over the speaker in the shuttle’s cabin. “I know you tried, we all do, we know you tried really hard.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Manny answered warily.
“I am so proud of you. I want you to listen to Seth, and do what he tells you to do. You need to get away from here, now, or-“
“What? Mom! No, we’re not leaving you!” Kaylee shouted.
“Kaylee, Manny, you need to do this.” Joy’s said sternly. “Your father needs you. Think about him.”
Manny broke in. “Mommy, that’s crap! We don’t have the fuel to fly down to get Dad! We’re coming to get you!”
“Manny, no. This is not a sim, it’s not a game, you tried real hard, but it’s too-“
Kaylee angrily stabbed her finger into the button to cut off the radio. She looked her brother in the eye. “We are not running away. You need to do this, for real. Right now.”
“You got that right, sis.” Manny blinked away tears, extended his arms in front of him, and cracked his knuckles. He tugged his seat straps tight. “Enough screwing around, let’s do this.”
Kaylee stared at Manny for a moment, wondering who this strange creature was, who had taken over the body of her annoying little brother. “Sure. Yes. Ready.”
“Standby one.” Manny announced, and grasped the control stick. “Radar’s down, we’ll have to eyeball it all the way in.” He puffed the thrusters. “Closure rate?” Forget about the shuttle, Manny told himself, this is a sim. He had done this a million times in sims, when the fate of the entire galaxy was at stake! He wasn’t Manuel Sanchez, twelve year old kid, flying a shuttle, instead he was his sim avatar, Commander Raul ‘Razor’ Salvio, at the controls of his FA-45 Dragon starfighter. And this time, the fate of the whole universe was at stake.
“Three point five meters per second. That’s fast, Manny.”
“I’m coming in fast, because the command section is starting to rotate faster. The docking port will move out of range soon.” He puffed the thrusters once again to speed up, then once again to stabilize the shuttle in the mild turbulence. “Come on, come on, come, on,come on, fly straight!” He said through clenched teeth. That was something Razor would say.
Kaylee didn’t know what to make of that comment, so she stuck to the facts. “Closure rate four meters per second. I can see the docking port in the camera.”
“Switching to camera view.” It was close, too close. “Slowing now.”
“Two point three meters per second. Manny, we’re drift-“
“Shut up. I see it.” Manny puffed the thrusters. “On center. Slowing.”
Kaylee sat back in her seat, silently reciting a prayer. Talking would only distract her brother.
“On center, drifting, come on, come on, come on, come on! On center, got it!” Manny shouted triumphantly, as the shuttle was jolted when it touched the command section. There was a series of banging sounds, as the door adjusted to match the docking port, when a whooshing noise. A green light came on, above the door. Manny popped his harness buckles open. “Kaylee, get that door open now now now!”
The first face they saw, once the door, and the airlock beyond, opened, was their mother. “You are in big trouble, young lady.” Joy sobbed, before flying forward to hug and kiss her two children.
“Move the robot out.” Schroeder ordered, as people began to crowd into the little shuttle.
“No!” Both children shouted at once.
“Manny, Kaylee, we don’t have room for your robot. It’s heavy, and we’re already packing seven people in here. We barely have enough fuel to establish a stable orbit.” Seth explained.
“No! Rocko saved my life!” Kaylee protested.
“He saved everybody, you too!” Manny added. “If he didn’t give me the code for the shuttle, we wouldn’t be here!”
Schroeder looked to Joy for support. Before Joy could say anything
, the robot ended the argument. “I must leave. You are in danger, and you must climb into orbit immediately.” In the zero Gee, it began to pull itself along toward the door, squeezing past Schroeder on the way.
“No!” Manny held onto the robot’s foot. “Rocko, no!”
The robot stopped, and turned around to look at Manny and Kaylee. “I am programmed to protect children. You must not stop me.” With its right hand, it popped open a door on the side of its armored head, and pulled out a shiny cylinder. It held the cylinder out to Manny. “This processor unit contains my personality program, and my memories. You may install it into another chassis, if you wish.”
The robot reached down to its foot, and gently peeled Manny’s fingers away. Manny took the processor and held it tightly as he watched the robot float out the door. It halted in the airlock, letting Gina come into the shuttle.
Captain Schroeder waved her in. “Gina, you’re injured, take the last seat, please. Ms. Sanchez, I’m sorry, could you squeeze into the storage closet, with your children? It will only be for a short time.” Schroeder explained. Seth was in the pilot seat, Schroeder himself would take the copilot chair. They had the unconscious Vassily strapped to the seat behind Schroeder.
“Kaylee, Manny, come here, please.” Joy said quietly.
“Wait, Mom.” Kaylee held up her finger for one second. She turned to face the airlock. “Goodbye, Rocko.” She said, choking on tears.
“Bye, Rocko.” Manny added, his eyes stinging with tears.
The robot swung itself around, so that it appeared to be standing on the floor, in normal gravity. It raised its right hand to its forehead in solemn salute. “Kaylee, Manuel, it has been an honor serving with you.” It held the salute, as Schroeder pressed the button to slide the door closed.
Schroeder pulled himself around, wiping away a tear of his own. “Ach, he is a good soldier. We will not let his sacrifice be in vain, aye?” He floated past the Sanchezes and into the copilot seat.
Aces Page 21