by Jaleta Clegg
“We need to get here,” I said, pointing at the cluster of symbols in a narrow canyon.
“Give me the map.” Jerimon snatched it, barely glancing at it before jogging down the narrow street past the ruined buildings. I followed, leaving Tayvis and Jasyn to bring up the rear.
The street turned into a narrow path that petered into a dry stream bed. Jerimon led the way, moving with confidence. Jasyn stumbled, her feet leaving traces of blood behind. Tayvis wrapped his arm around her, supporting her over the worst ground. I almost wished I had lost my boots, almost. The stream bed meandered along the base of a tall cliff. Jerimon paused at several canyons, comparing them to the map before he shook his head.
Jerimon stopped, studying the map. “This way,” he said, pointing at a crack in the rock cliff. It was barely wide enough for one person.
I looked behind as I entered. We had climbed enough that I could see the city in the distance. A mob of Sessimoniss marched on the road out of the city, headed our way.
“They’re coming,” I said.
Tayvis and Jasyn pushed past, Jasyn biting her lip as she scrambled through. I came last, clutching my torn skirts and clambering over rocks. We hurried through the narrow slot. Jasyn stumbled, moaning. Tayvis pulled her arm around his shoulder, wrapping his other arm around her waist. I passed them, running to catch up with Jerimon.
The canyon widened. The ground changed from sand and sticker plants to gravel to tumbled boulders. Jerimon and I climbed as fast as we could.
The canyon opened into a wide flat area, scoured by water to bare rock. A ship rested in the center, its silver skin tarnished and blasted by sand. It was short, mostly engine, a long range scout of a type the Patrol used a hundred years ago.
We raced across the rock to the door. The airlock light glowed a faint green, a good sign, it meant the ship still had power. Jerimon punched the button. The light turned red. The door stayed closed.
“We’re locked out.” Jerimon slapped the ship in frustration.
I pushed the button. The light stayed red.
Jasyn stumbled across the rock, then collapsed against the side of the ship. Her feet left streaks of blood. Jerimon crouched next to her, patting her shoulder.
“You can’t even get a door open?” Tayvis pushed the button.
I gave him a dirty look. The light stayed red.
He lifted the cover of the door controls, punching the buttons inside. “Voice code override.”
“Override initiated,” the ship said in a prim female voice.
“Emergency lock activation code beta one-one-seven-two.” He laughed at my open-mouthed surprise. “They always said my fascination with antique ships was a waste of time.”
“Code invalid,” the ship answered.
Tayvis pushed another series of buttons and spoke another string of nonsense. The light stayed red. The sound of Sessimoniss battle cries echoed from the narrow canyon. Tayvis pushed more buttons. “Emergency override code beta gamma epsilon.” He sounded more than a bit frustrated.
The Sessimoniss emerged from the far side of the canyon. They waved heavy spears, and shouted their war cries.
“If it doesn’t open now, it’s too late,” Jerimon said.
“Code accepted.” The airlock grated open a few inches, then stopped with a horrible grinding noise.
A spear clunked into the rock less than a dozen feet away. Tayvis swore as he shoved his hands into the door opening. He pushed, his muscles bulging. The door stuck, creaking and grating before finally giving way. We piled into the airlock designed to hold only two people. I stood on Tayvis’ toes. Jerimon shoved Jasyn against me and squeezed in. Tayvis pushed the cycling button. I crossed my fingers and hoped the door still worked.
It ground and grated its way shut. A rain of spears hit just as it closed, thudding against the ship. The air cycled slowly. The smell of old grease with a weird undertone of fruit grew stronger. The inner door finally chimed and slid open as another volley of spears hit the outside of the ship.
Jerimon dove for the pilot chair, Tayvis and Jasyn at his heels. Jasyn dropped into the navigator’s chair with a sigh of relief. She powered up the station. Jerimon ran through the fastest preflight warmup I’d ever seen. Tayvis loomed over them, reaching past Jerimon to work the scanners. The ship was set up for a crew of two.
“The engines need a manual start,” Jerimon said.
“I’ll do it.” I headed aft to the engine compartment.
I ducked through the small hatch. The room was divided in two sections. The main one in front of me contained the drive engine. The sour smell of rotting algae flowed from the smaller life support room in an almost visible wave. I ignored it. If we didn’t lift off soon, life support wouldn’t make any difference. I reached into the engine for the reset switches.
Tayvis breathed down my neck.
“I do know what I’m doing,” I said as I flipped the switches.
“I can see that.” He backed a few steps to the engine room door.
I went through the steps to cold start the engine. It stirred sluggishly, with a lot of hiccups. The energy gauges moved slowly from red to yellow and finally to green.
“Engines up and running,” I shouted through the door.
“It’s green up here,” Jerimon shouted back. “Hang on.”
The hum went from barely noticeable to ear-splitting as he gunned the engines. The sublight engines roared. The ship wobbled. The force of liftoff knocked me flat on the floor. The engine whined. For an engine sitting idle for over a century, it flew well. I hoped nothing critical shorted out.
The atmosphere screeched past the hull. The ship lurched. I grabbed a set of pipes and held on. The noise faded. We were finally free of Serrimonia. The artificial gravity field cut out. I pulled myself to the other end of the engine, then whacked the field generator with a wrench. The field regenerated, but only at half strength. I swore as I fell to the floor.
The engine whined. I groaned. Bruises would have to wait. The tubing around the engine gurgled, not a good noise.
“We’re losing power,” Jerimon shouted.
“I’m working on it!” I picked up a big fitting coupling driver to go with the wrench. I found the main hydraulic pump and thumped it. The gurgling stopped, temporarily.
“Power levels still dropping, Dace.” Jerimon’s voice lowered to his cool professional level, a sure sign we were in deep trouble.
I said something that would have made the orphanage director on Tivor wash my whole head out with soap. I hit the pump again. The pipes gurgled. The tubing coils hissed. I said another bad word. One of the tubes over my head split open. Hot fluid gushed out. Wrenches and coupling drivers weren’t going to help now. I dove for the repair bin and almost hit Tayvis.
“Want some help?” He eyed the spraying hose.
I grabbed a roll of repair tape, hoping it would still work. I tossed it to Tayvis. “Wrap the whole tube,” I told him as I fished for another roll. Fluid leaked from the other tubes, small cracks growing wider by the second.
He started in without a word. The tape sealed the tube, the gush turned to a small trickle, then a few drips. I ripped open a second package of tape and started at the far end of the engine, taping every tube. The strain of hot fluid flowing through ancient, brittle tubing caused massive failures. We had no other option. The tape would have to hold.
I glanced at Tayvis as I finished a tube. He’d started on a new tube, wrapping tape around a series of widening cracks. A tube in the middle of the engine split; more fluid poured out.
I scrambled to tape it before we lost too much cooling fluid. Tayvis caught the next rupture. Hot fluid poured over my hands as I frantically taped leaks, leaving red burns behind. I did my best to ignore the pain. I caught the skirt of my evening dress on a pipe. I yanked it free, tearing most of the skirt loose. I threw it in a corner. After we made the jump to hyperspace, then I might have time to worry. Now I had to make the engine work enough to get us to hyperspace.
I glanced at the gauges overhead, most hovered in the yellow zone. I taped faster. We were losing too much fluid.
The ship suddenly veered to one side, then rapidly spun back the other way. I lost my footing, slamming into the wall. I bounced off, heading for the engine. Landing in a sublight engine while it ran flat out would be a messy way to die. I grabbed for a handhold as the ship spun yet another direction. My hand slipped across the wall without catching anything.
Tayvis grabbed the back of my dress, pulling me to the wall. I looped my arm through the handle to a parts bin. I closed my eyes and concentrated on just breathing for a moment.
“Warn us next time,” Tayvis yelled to Jerimon.
“Sorry. We have company.” Jerimon put the ship in another spin.
Something hit the side of the ship, shoving us sideways. Red lights flashed, alarms rang. Another tube split. Tayvis said something I couldn’t hear over the noise. From the look on his face, I didn’t think I wanted to.
He taped the leaking tube, jamming his feet against the wall and the bracing at the bottom of the engine. The engine developed a new rattle, one I wasn’t sure I could fix even in dry dock. I made my way past Tayvis to the door, hanging onto every projection on the wall as I went.
“How close to jump?” I shouted over the sirens.
“Almost there,” Jasyn said. “It’s working on the final jump calculations. It would help if we were on a straight course, Jerimon.” She sounded as cool and collected as her brother.
“Tell that to the ship shooting at us.” He rolled the ship.
The nav comp beeped. “Give me a straight line, five seconds,” Jasyn ordered.
Jerimon pulled the ship straight, gunning the engines. Smoke poured from the rattling sublight engine.
“Make it fast or the engine won’t make it,” I said.
Something screeched over the hull. The ship floundered to starboard. Jerimon wrestled the controls and managed to straighten it back out.
“Done!” Jasyn shouted.
Jerimon hit the switches for jump. The ship shuddered and hung on the transect boundary for a very long moment. I choked on the dark smoke pouring from the engine. We slid into hyperspace.
“Shut down the sublights,” I said.
“Already doing that,” Jerimon answered.
The hyperdrive hummed and fluttered before finally settling down.
Tayvis stood in the engine room frowning at the engine. Black smoke still poured from one set of couplings. I reached past him to hit a series of manual shut off switches. The tubes gurgled and sagged. The smoke dribbled away into the air filters. The overpowering stench of rotten algae from the life support system fought with the smell of singed engine parts.
“For an antique, she flies pretty well.” Tayvis grinned.
“Junkyard scrap. Nobody uses nested hydraulic couplings anymore.” I waved at the tangled mess of tape and tubing. “I hope the transducers are still balanced.”
“Or what?”
“We come out of hyperspace who knows where. If we come out at all.”
“With your luck? We’ll make it.”
“Maybe.” I glanced inside the life-support room. “If I can get this system running.”
“Life support tech, too?”
“Pilot first, with an assistant engineer rating for small ships. That includes basic life support maintenance. What did you specialize in?”
“Weapons and tactics. Want help?” Two people in the tiny room would leave me no room to work. I shook my head. He shrugged and left me to it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The air filtering system was a complete mess. Huge mats of algae covered the inside of the tanks and pipes. Dried mats covered the floor under the tanks. I pulled apart the pipes and started removing algae, looking for any still viable.
“The air vents aren’t working.” Jerimon paused in the doorway. “Maybe because you took it apart. Can you fix it?”
I shrugged. I had the entire fan unit taken apart and spread across the floor. “How much water and oxygen are still in the reserve tanks? The gauges are outside the door.”
He leaned back. “Oxygen reserves are at forty-three percent, water is,” he thumped the gauge, “five percent.”
“That’s still plenty as long as we only drink it,” Tayvis said over Jerimon’s shoulder. “Anything I can do?”
Jerimon twitched. “Jasyn’s checking the lockers. Why don’t I go help her?”
“Why don’t you,” Tayvis said flatly.
I muttered something about male cats having to mark territory.
Jerimon shoved past Tayvis.
I handed a slimy pipe to Tayvis. “Go clean that, if you are serious about helping. There should be brushes in one of the tool bins.” I picked crud off the pump mechanism with a screwdriver.
Tayvis returned a moment later with a handful of brushes. He sat outside the door and started scrubbing.
I pushed a pile of pipes and fittings where he could reach, then concentrated on cleaning out the pump. An hour later I had it mostly clean. It wouldn’t pass any inspection, but it would work long enough to hold us. I stretched cramped muscles.
Tayvis set a pipe to one side.
“How long until we reach destination?” I asked. “Where are we headed anyway?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Jasyn, where are we going?”
She glanced into the life support room, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “Talisen. It’s the only place I could remember. I just hope my memory and the charts aren’t too far off. I tried to give us plenty of wiggle room on approach. Is that what stinks?”
Tayvis’ lip twitched in his version of a suppressed smile. “How many days?”
“At least six. Probably eight or ten, and then another two or three under sublight.”
“If the sublights still work,” I said.
“If not, we should be close enough for an emergency beacon to work.” She nudged a pipe with her bandaged foot. “Are we going to have air to breathe?”
“We’ve got at least three days just in the reserve,” I answered. “We should be fine.”
“We hope,” Tayvis added as he pushed the pipes my direction. “You need more help, Dace?”
I shook my head.
He left the engine room.
I reassembled the filters and the pump. The fruity smell lingered, probably from gummed internal filters that I couldn’t clean, not without disassembling the entire life support system and gutting the ship. I tightened the last screw, then put the tools away. The ragged end of my skirt caught on one of the engine mounts, ripping off halfway up my thigh, leaving a piece hanging behind me like a tail. I tugged the piece loose and jammed it in a bin with the rest of the skirt torn free earlier.
Tayvis sat at the table sorting papers when I came back into the cabin area. The ship was laid out in a standard pattern for Patrol scout ships. The engines were aft, divided into the two rooms. The main airlock opened into the cabin area. Straight across from the airlock were two very small bunkrooms, hardly bigger than the bunks they held, with a very small bathroom tucked between. The galley fit between the airlock and the engine, a tiny cabinet with food and drink dispensers and a table with two chairs, all bolted to the floor. The controls were forward, curving around the nose and taking up most of the cabin. Jerimon lounged in the pilot’s couch, watching the lights flicker yellow and green. Jasyn sat on the floor with two piles of assorted items.
She flipped open a book. “I’ve read this one. That dress has definitely seen better days,” she said, tugging the tattered edge of my much-shorter skirt. She pulled a pale blue shipsuit from a pile and shook it out. The name tag on the front was embroidered Simms. “This one should fit you.” She tossed it to me. I caught it by reflex.
“Thanks.” I stepped over Jasyn’s pile. I felt grimy, inside and out. The name on the suit triggered fading memories. I shut the door to the tiny bathroom, then stripped off what remained of Estelle’s dress. I rinsed off grime in t
he sink, using as little water as I could.
Simms had been taller than me, by a lot. I rolled up the sleeves and the legs of his shipsuit after I slipped it on. I saw Simms through the Eggstone’s memories, a blur of blond hair and a toothy smile. I traced his name and tried not to remember watching him die. I found a comb and used it on my damp hair. Anything to keep from thinking about the two men who had once owned all of this. Blond Simms and his partner whose name had not been important enough for the Eggstone’s priestess to remember. The Sessimoniss hadn’t cared about the men, only that their world might be discovered. The men had died screaming under the harsh sunlight of Serrimonia. I put the comb away then opened the door.
Jasyn laughed. Tayvis smiled at her, showing off the dimple in his chin. My stomach knotted. I tried to swallow the huge lump that suddenly blocked my throat.
“Hungry?” Jasyn asked, giving me a searching look.
“No.” I turned away. I wanted her to be happy. Even if it broke my heart.
“Smart choice,” Jerimon said. “The only things still good are split pea soup, ration bars, or chicken noodle.” He swiveled the couch as far as it would go and grinned over his shoulder.
I couldn’t deal with him right now. “Who’s got first watch?”
“I’ll take it,” Jerimon said. “What shifts do you want to do?”
“Twelve on, twelve off. We need a pilot at the board, just in case.”
“Just in case what?” Jasyn asked.
“In case the hyperdrive flakes out.” I didn’t need to elaborate on the consequences. The best we could hope for was a gravity well nearby, but not too close, and that the sublights would still function. “I’m going to sleep while I can.”
I shut the door to one of the small cubbies, then lay on the narrow bunk and pretended to sleep.
The walls weren’t even close to soundproof.
“How bad are the engines?” Jasyn asked.
“I’m not an engineer,” Tayvis said.
“Judging by the telltales,” Jerimon said, “I’d say we have even odds of making it anywhere in one piece.”
“So, who wants to play cards?” Tayvis asked. “We have two decks. One that is definitely marked.” He said something too low for me to hear.