by Dain White
“Shorty, take a breath now, let's look at this obliquely.”
I took a breath, as ordered. “Captain, here's the deal. These need to be clean, and I mean cleaner than anything you've ever seen clean. Surgical clean is filthy compared to this.”
“What do you need, Shorty, what can we do to make this work.”
I thought for a moment. “Captain, a solvent and degreaser would help, at least it would knock off the grime, and get down to the crystalloid, but then I would need to polish the surfaces to remove the residue... but Captain, the worst part is dust. A stray particle, just a few molecules... not much more than that, and we'd be bathed in petawatts of beam energy the next time we lit her off.”
“Shorty, what about working in an airless environment?”
“Well, that's what I am talking about here Captain. These are hermetically sealed in the factory, they are never exposed to...” as I spoke, the realization of what I was saying hit me. The captain, ever the politician, guiding me towards my own solution, keeping his skin intact lest it be flayed off by my seething anger. Smart.
“Captain, don't think for one moment I don't see what you're doing... sir.”
“Why Jane Short, I have no idea what you're talking about.”
I laughed at his absolutely horrible accent. It felt good to laugh, even if it was an evil cackle of a laugh, filled with dire consequences.
“Captain, this is going to take me a little while. I'll do this in the top lock, outer door open. I will need to blow some compression to blast the dusty bits out of there first, then... maybe it will work.”
“That's my girl, Shorty. Make it happen.”
I gathered what I needed from supplies, and disconnected the focal rings, carefully checking throughout the inner housing with various lamping to fluoresce any stray particulates. Everything looked good, so I clicked the rings loose from their housing and carefully closed the access panel, holding my breath.
I had some tense moments navigating to the upper lock with my arms full, in null-g you really want to make sure you have at least a hand free to grab something. I did a fair amount of bumping, spinning, trying to catch things with my elbows, my knees, my teeth – I didn't so much as kick there, as ricochet.
Luckily Gene didn't see me, I would never hear the end of it. I know I could have made two trips, but where is the fun in that?
Once I had everything I needed at the top lock, I suited up. As much as I was in a hurry, this was one of those processes you simply don't rush. Seals need to be checked, double-checked, and then checked again, then pressurized, and then the suit readouts had to be watched for 60 seconds to make sure. It's a process I've done a thousand times, but there's nothing mundane about it.
With my suit vitals all green, I opened the inner lock and started transferring my supplies into the lock chamber, securing everything to tethers. This also took a while, but once I popped the outer door, I didn't want anything to go drifting away.
Once the inner lock looked like a mass of drifting noodles, and everything was in place and set, I pressurized the inner compartment to three atmospheres, and disabled the purge cycle. Rather than slowly dropping pressure to vacuum, I wanted a mighty pop when I cracked the outer door, I wanted every stray bit of dust in this compartment to vent out, at enough velocity to stay out.
As the outer lock opened, the force of the atmo venting to space completely caught me off guard. Usually, the lock cycle is a sedate, timed process. You wait for the light, the hatch opens. Blowing the door open was more like being inside a bomb, but at least I knew the room was clear.
I worked as fast as I could, though this was the ultimate in precision work. More than anyone else aboard the Archaea, I knew what would happen if I made even a single mistake – my only consolation was that I wouldn't be around to apologize for it.
Once I had worked through the process on each ring, I lensed it with image amps, looking for any errant fibers, specks, any contamination at all, and carefully re-sealed the housings.
“Shorty... I see telltales on the top hatch, does that mean you're done?” the captain asked right after I cycled the outer hatch shut, and was waiting for the chamber to pressurize.
“I hope so Captain.” I said with a sigh. “I did the best I could, hopefully it's good enough.”
“Shorty, I'll bet you a green bottle of dark beer that those rings are better than factory-new. If they blow up in testing, you owe me one instead. Deal?”
I laughed, finally a bet I can't lose.
*****
Yak and I had gone through the ring spaces as carefully as possible, following prompts from the captain as to where Red had been. We pulled everything apart, all cabinets were emptied, all drawers were pulled out and inspected, all deck plates that came up were popped up, and we checked every valve seal, every fitting, everything.
We had a pretty good system going. He would carefully inspect and remove panels, hatches, and so on, looking for any dangerous conditions or traps, and then after he tore into an area of the ship and had inspected it, he would move to the next area while I gave the area a second pass, and then re-assembled or secured behind him.
We were careful, and intensely alert for anything. Yak treated every panel like it had a pressure switch, every rail like it was coated with detanite, and every lever like it might have a razor blade wedged inside. We didn't know what Red may have done, but we weren't taking any chances.
One thing to our benefit was Red didn't exactly have any supplies when he came on board, and as best as the captain could determine, he didn't go into the machine shop at all. If he did anything at all, we figured it would have been in the mechanicals, the ducts, the various lines and valves cram-packed throughout every square centimeter of interior space – but Gene is incredibly persnickety when it comes to his mechanicals. He seals every valve, every lever, everything that can rotate, turn, adjust, open or close has a little snip of wire with a lock clamp on it, and a tag with his initials and date on it.
“Pauli, that's it” Yak said, as he stepped away from a hatch in the far corner of the aft bulkhead of sickbay.
“Okay Yak, go ahead and let the captain know, while I button this up”, I said, shoving my head and shoulders past a bundle of cables into a gap barely big enough to wiggle a finger in.
“Captain, Pauli and I are done with the ring spaces, sir. Everything looks good, all seals are intact, and we were unable to find any evidence of access.”
“Very well Yak. I need both of you to head aft to the cargo bay and see if Gene needs a hand. We know that Red spent some time around those cases, and of course, none of us trusted those cases from the moment we saw them. Who knows what he was able to do with them, so be careful!”
“Aye Captain, we will.” I said, catching Pauli's eye as he wormed back out of the hatch.
“And Yak...”
“Yes?”
“Don't cross the danger line in the gun deck. Ever. Especially now though. If you see Jane, do not make eye contact.”
“Aye skipper” I said, as Pauli laughed.
I had just about made up my mind to touch a crate, when the inner lock cycled and Yak and Pauli kicked in. I waved them down, and met them at the bottom of the ladder.
“How's it looking, Gene?” Yak said, looking concerned. Pauli had a similar look – neither of them wanted any part of these cases. I couldn't blame them. Both Shorty and I worked on opening these, and neither of us trust the internals of these cases.
“Well Yak, I don't know, really. Let me show you where Red was at – maybe it's safe to move all the cases away, except the ones he was near... maybe not though.”
“What are you thinking he might have done to these cases, Gene?” asked Pauli, looking at them thoughtfully.
“I've been going over that as well, Pauli... I don't know. These are pretty well built cases, top shelf stuff. There could be a hidden catch, a tap switch, maybe there's a biometric reader somewhere.”
“But you think th
ere is something?”
“Yes, almost certainly. These are built to protect and defend their contents, as needed. These aren't made just to make the gold easier to carry.”
“Yeah, I agree.” he said, taking a slightly closer look at the mechanism of the latch. We were on grabbers a respectful distance away from them.
“What if he was just hiding?” Yak said, clearly more comfortable than I felt.
“Well, I reckon that might be, Yak...” I said, though I had some serious doubts. “He was there for longer than he would have needed, to just be hiding.” I added.
“Gene, how's our gold?” the captain called back on comms.
“Well Dak, we're not sure, really. I am a little trigger shy here, to tell you the truth. We're still in the looking and thinking phase.”
He paused for a moment. “Gene, we've gone through some pretty high acceleration since we last saw Red. What if we just left them alone. Is there any risk?”
“No, I don't think so Dak. Are you thinking we should just leave them as is for now?”
“Well... yeah, I think now would be a great time to let those sit. Maybe you can build some sort of box for me, and we can crack them open a safe distance away from the Archaea, so we can catch the gold if they pop, or leak poison, or whatever – I'd prefer to do that later when we don't have two inbound bogeys closing at a good clip, one of which is almost certainly the Starry Dawn, and the other looks to be another million-tonner or better.”
Pauli and Yak kicked off for the inner lock, as I launched myself up towards engineering. “I am on my way to engineering, Dak, Pauli and Yak are on their way.”
“Gene, I want you and Janis to tune our tokamak. You have 5 minutes, but I want it done in three.”
“Dak... I don't think that's enough time, honestly.”
“Gene, I respect that.”
“But you still want me to try?”
“No Gene, I expect you to succeed. This isn't one of those things we get to try. Now scoot, I am working on a course with Janis, and I am going condition zebra in four minutes and eighteen seconds.”
“Aye skipper!” I said, hurtling myself across engineering to my station, hooking my couch with an ankle and swiping screens before my butt hit the cushions. The unmistakable whoop of General Quarters started blaring through the ship, and all hatches slammed and locked shut.
“All hands, General Quarters, battle stations. Material condition zebra is set at this time, stand by for burn in 4 minutes.”
Running out of time, and I haven't even started.
“Janis, I have scrammed the tokamak. Please reconfigure and prepare to balance as I pump her back up.”
“Aye Gene.” she said in an enthusiastic voice, bright and ready.
The scram cut the pumps, and the accelerator pulses through the field generators, and within moments the plasma slowed and was absorbed by the dampeners, just like it was designed. A full scram is not something we do very often, but we simulate it enough that I know what to look for – and we looked good.
“Gene, the fields are folded. Please ramp now.”
I looked at the clock as I started the emitters. We had a good 60 second scram, right about on time. I kicked in the klystrons when we had a good jet, and as soon as it lit, brought the pumps online. Right at first, the stream moved as I would expect, but as I was bringing on secondary pumps, the plasma was starting to hit the pinched sections of the fields and in almost no time, I had enough velocity to ramp up the ring accelerators. A quick check of all screens, and I noticed another 60 seconds had dropped off the clock.
“Captain, we're lit, nominal levels.” As I spoke, Janis was adjusting rate limiters on nearly every screen I had. I shuddered involuntarily at the scale of the changes we had just made, and just about danced out of my chair at the unbelievable power we had at our disposal.
“Very well Gene. Please ramp to previous maximum.”
As I ramped up, I had to increase resolution on the control before I could see our previous maximum. Once I had us set, I swiped a detent over to lock that value in, so I could hit it without trying next time.
As the tokamak ramped, the previous sound it made was completely different. It used to sound like a holding tank full of titanium bees, but now it had a strange oscillating, phased sound, much lower, almost below hearing range.
“Captain, we are at previous one-hundred-percent” I said, in awe of how much left we had on the throttle. “Sir, please do not ask me to go to new maximum.” I breathed into comms.
“Very well Gene. We are out of time, so we will just have to test our new capabilities as the situation requires. Right now, it's time we get gone.”
I scanned across the boards and flashed greens on his board. “Engineering is good-to-go, sir”
“Weapons, good-to-go, sir” Shorty added on comms.
“Very well. All hands, brace for acceleration.”
I had a moment to snug the crash bars right across me, and then with a shove that felt like it was going to break my back, the Archaea blazed into the starry night.
Chapter 11
“Sir, incoming hail”, yelled Yak, straining to get the words out against the acceleration crushing us into our couches.
“Very... well... Yak...” I managed, though I would have preferred a firm nod and a confident look, at the moment I didn't want to break my neck trying. “Open... channel...” I choked.
“Archaea, stand down or you will be fired on. By the authority of Americo Ventures, stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
I took a deep breath, and considered my options at the moment. They were slim, pretty much limited to fight, or flight. I didn't care much for the glom, but Les was not my target, and wouldn't be. Unfortunately, he had a job to do, so that pretty much ruled out flight.
“Gene... energize psuedomass!” I croaked, eyeballs flattening into my skull making stars out of the lights on my boards.
“Psuedomass... aye!” Gene stammered weakly. I thought for a moment that we probably should have had that warmed up before blasting without compensation. Next time, maybe... if we get the chance.
“Janis, compensate... dear...” I said as the world tunneled into gray.
“Compensating sir”, she chirped smartly, as the blood rushed into my head and I rebounded off the crash bars. My hands and feet tingled out of control, like they were on fire and a skull-crushing headache just about made me cry out. Somehow, I managed to bite my tongue, the last thing my crew needs is to see me yell.
“Archaea, cut your engines and stand down. Prepare for boarding. Stand down, or you will be fired on. This is your last warning!”
“Starry Dawn, this is Captain Dak Smith. I am not disposed at the moment to honor your request... with all due respect.”
“Dak, this is Les. Come on now... don't do anything you will regret.”
“Les, I am trying... believe me mister.” I was hoping he would understand... and understand we have no alternative – and hoping he would shoot wide.
I swiped a ghost of the target track off Yak's screen so I could keep an eye on their rate of closure. So far we were just blowing their doors off, but I knew as soon as they got going, that might change.
“Sir, turrets are active.” Shorty said, as calm as if someone had just asked her to pass the salt and pepper.
“Very well Shorty”, I said, matching her cool, but a tingle had just gone up my spine. That meant that Janis was firing intercepts for incoming, and at that moment, I knew the chase was on... I just didn't really look forward to where the chase was going.
“Yak designate unknown vessel Master-one, Starry Dawn designate Master-two.” It really hurt my feelings to do this, but the fact was, these were now hostiles.
“Master designation, aye,” he paused briefly, “Sir, incoming bogeys designate Masters three-through-ten... um. Sir, sorry about that. False alarm maybe. Nothing on screen.”
“Janis just took them out Yak”, Shorty added. “Check the solutions layer, an
d confirm with the gravimetric layer.”
“Thank you Jane, checking.” he paused briefly, adding “Sir, targets are destroyed.”
“Very good Yak.” I said, as Janis flashed an upcoming course correction with a 30 second clock. “Stand by folks, transit in 30!” As we were actively burning at the time, I couldn't line up the shot first, I was going to have to ride the pipe by hand. Of course, that only made me smile.
“Captain, Weapons. Nearly solid outgoing turret fire.”
“Yak?” I asked, tapping him on the shoulder with an eyebrow from across the bridge.
“Sir, same thing. Right as we pick up incoming bogies, they are being splashed. Damn near right in the launching tubes, sir!”
“Very well. Janis dear, superlative job. I am honestly about to run out of words to describe how good you are doing.”
“Thank you sir. If you like, I have included a list of 2,312 appropriate adjectives on the side of your screen”, she said smugly.
I burst out laughing. “Janis, after this transit I need help with shaping a new route to Solis through Mallory sector.”
“That is the course currently on screen sir” she said immediately, as the hairs on my neck grew an extra centimeter.
“Very well Janis. Well done, dear.” I played over the process I was going to do in the next... ten seconds, my hands dry on the yoke. “Stand by for course correction in 3... 2... 1...” and right on the mark, I hauled hard over to starboard and pulled the bow up, punching a new course right down the center of the pipe, a perfect hole shot.
As I was about to congratulate myself on a very nice bit of flying, the collision alarm blared out, and as the forward port blacked out, I knew what was coming.
“Look away!” I yelled across the bridge, as I looked down to the right, shutting my eyes as tightly as I could. Even so, the afterimage of the nova beam that scoured a hole through the stars off our port side burned purple into the side of my eyes.
I looked over the boards quickly for anything orange or red, then focused on the pipe, waiting for the new course. I could just imagine AV giving poor Les both barrels right about now, for missing on purpose. Except he hadn't, and we both knew it. I was rolling that one around in my head a bit, putting myself in his shoes and wondering what I would have done, when Janis flashed up a new course correction.