by Ryk Brown
“That was a risky call, Major,” Nathan said.
“Perhaps. At the time, I felt that haste was called for. In retrospect, it appears that I was correct.”
“For all we know, they weren’t even expecting the extraction. Maybe they were just hoping to capture us, to interrogate us and learn what our cell was up to.”
“In which case, my decision not to wait for a single jump entry angle saved you,” Major Waddell said with one eyebrow indignantly raised. Jessica glared at him in return.
Nathan recognized Jessica’s body language and decided to end the confrontation. “Major, see to your men. I’ll expect an after action report from you as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” the major answered, snapping a salute before departing.
Nathan turned to Jessica. “Now, what were you saying about Admiral Galiardi?”
“Apparently, he was captured a week or so ago. They don’t really know for sure. One of their operatives saw him at a hospital in Geneva all beat up or something. I guess he’s on death’s door.”
“If Galiardi is captured, who’s in charge?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica said, lying through her teeth. “That’s not important, though. I know where the Celestia went.”
“Where?”
“Metis.”
CHAPTER TEN
“We’ve been working on this thing for days now,” Luis said as he handed Devyn the data pad. “Are we even close to making it work?”
“What’s the matter? Are you getting tired of me already?” Devyn quipped.
“No, of course not. It’s been great having you here, especially after just talking on the comms for months. I’m just starting to wonder if we’re not wasting more oxygen trying to fix this thing than if there was just one of us on duty at a time up here. I mean, we’ve got to be burning up O2 working our asses off all day long in this cramped little corridor.”
“We’ve got plenty of oxygen, Luis,” Devyn said. “It will take weeks, if not months, before we need to haul the oxygen candles up from the aft section. We’re just lucky I was able to find parts down in the cargo bay. You know, Kovacic should feel pretty stupid right about now, being a supply officer and not knowing there was a cargo bay full of parts and equipment still waiting to be installed.”
“Yeah. If we ever get back to Earth, I’m planning on giving him a lot of ribbing about that.”
“As well you should…” Devyn stopped mid-sentence and froze. “Did you hear that?”
Luis also froze, listening intently. “I don’t hear…” He listened again, hearing a faint beeping sound coming from the bridge. “Oh, crap!” He dropped his tool and wiggled his way around the various pipes and conduit in the narrow utility space alongside the Celestia’s bridge, making his way toward the hatch at the far end. He reached the end and exited, turning to his right and entering the bridge. He paused, listening again to determine which console the beeping was coming from. After two more beeps, he headed for the sensor station.
“What is it?” Devyn asked as she came out of the utility corridor.
“Sensors have picked up a contact,” he said as he frantically worked the console. “It’s small, a scout ship or maybe a shuttle of some kind.”
“Is it one of ours?” Devyn asked hopefully.
“I don’t think so,” Luis admitted. “The configuration is all wrong, and the energy readings I’m getting are way… Well, they’re just weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Where did it come from?”
“That part’s even weirder. There’s no track. It’s like it just appeared out of nowhere.”
“That’s impossible. There must be a malfunction.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Luis insisted as he transferred the track to the tactical station. He moved quickly from the sensor station to the tactical console behind the command chair. “Whatever it is, it’s already here.” Luis activated his displays and patched one of the Celestia’s many external cameras into the display on his console. “What the hell is that?” He strained his eyes, trying to see more detail on the tiny screen. “Screw this,” he mumbled as he activated the main view screen.
“Wait,” Devyn objected. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll pick up the emissions from the view screen?”
“They already know we’re here,” Luis said as he picked up his comm-set. He thought for a moment, setting it back down. “They might pick that up.” He activated the ship’s internal intercom system instead. “Engineering! Bridge! I need Kovacic, now!” The main view screen came to life, showing a small shuttle above them. It had already turned on its searchlights and had begun aiming them directly at the Celestia, blinding his view. He quickly switched cameras to get a better view.
“Hello! Tilly! Are you down there?” He called over the intercom.
“What is that thing?” Devyn wondered as she stared at the image of the small ship. “Where did it come from?”
“I have no idea,” Luis said as he waited impatiently for someone to answer his hails on the intercom.
“I’m here! I’m here!” Tilly answered over the intercom. “What’s up?”
“I need Kovacic!”
“I sent for him! What’s going on?”
“We’ve got company.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“‘Oh, fuck’ is right,” Luis agreed, “because it isn’t one of ours.”
* * *
“That’s her,” Jessica said as she peered out the side cockpit window over the copilot’s shoulder. “Damn, she looks just like the Aurora, doesn’t she?”
“Never thought I would see a ship that size sitting on the surface of anything,” Major Waddell stated.
“EDF shuttle calling the Celestia. Do you copy?” the copilot called over the comms.
“She’s covered with dust,” Major Waddell added as he tried to see from behind Jessica.
“EDF shuttle calling the Celestia. Do you copy?” the copilot turned his head and looked back over his shoulder at Jessica. “It’s no use, sir. She’s not answering.”
“She’s probably shut down, gone cold to hide,” Major Waddell commented.
“She looks dead,” the major mumbled.
“The Earth resistance said the Celestia had orders to go cold: no comms, no sensors, as little emissions as possible—preferably none at all.”
“How are we supposed to make contact?” the major asked.
Jessica turned to the copilot in front of her. “Take us down, parallel with the boarding hatch. Down there,” she instructed, pointing at the Celestia forward section. “There’s almost no gravity down there, so you shouldn’t have any pull to fight. We’ll put the cargo ramp in platform position. Then back us in close, no farther than a meter or two. We’ll jump across.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jessica turned around to exit, facing the major behind her. “Grab your helmet, Major,” Jessica said. “We’re going for a walk.”
* * *
“Are you sure it’s not one of ours?” Kovacic asked over the intercom.
“There’s no way, sir. It’s just too strange,” Luis answered from the Celestia’s tactical station. “It has to be a Jung shuttle.”
“Why would they send a shuttle?” Kovacic asked. “I thought shuttles were for orbital flights. Who the hell takes a shuttle all the way to Jupiter?”
“Maybe it’s one of our people,” Devyn said. “Maybe they stole it to make contact with us. Or maybe they defeated the Jung and that was all that was left.”
“You’re a tactical officer,” the lieutenant commander said. “Any of that seem plausible to you?”
“More optimistic than plausible, I’m afraid,” Luis ad
mitted. “At the speed a shuttle flies, it would take them years to get here.”
“Maybe Jung shuttles are faster,” Kovacic said.
“I’m looking at her now, sir, and I’m not seeing enough of a propulsion system to support…” Luis stopped mid-sentence as the image of the shuttle on the view screen changed its attitude. “It’s doing something. It’s moving.”
“Where?”
“It’s sliding to port and descending. Wait, I’m switching cameras.” Luis switched to one of the Celestia’s port side cameras. The shuttle appeared at the very top of the view screen, moving down the screen as it slowly rotated its nose away from the camera. “It looks like a cargo shuttle, sir. It’s got a big rear hatch on…” Luis stopped again as the hatch on the back of the shuttle began to open, slowly swinging outward and down from the top edge of the shuttle.
“You cut yourself off,” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic said over the intercom. “What did you say?”
“Its rear hatch is opening, sir,” Luis reported as he watched the shuttle descend. The image of the small ship began to grow in size. Luis looked down at his display, checking the distance between the contact and the Celestia. It was decreasing. “It’s moving closer.” He looked back up at the screen. The rear hatch was now completely opened, sitting parallel with the longitudinal axis of the enemy shuttle and revealing the opening into the back of the spacecraft. He could not see inside the ship, as it was too dark within the tiny craft. Then a body appeared, stepping out onto the ramp. It wore an EVA suit of some kind, but it was a design he had never seen before. Then another person stepped out behind the first, followed by four more. The last four carried weapons.
“Oh, God,” Luis exclaimed.
“What is it?” Kovacic asked.
“Sir, I think they mean to board us.”
* * *
Jessica looked down at the surface of Metis, nearly eighty meters below her from her position on Jumper Two’s cargo ramp, as the shuttle floated over the surface of the small moon. The Celestia seemed massive from her current perspective as the shuttle slowly backed toward the ship. As she peered out through her visor, she couldn’t help but feel like she was looking at a gigantic, sleeping dragon lying peacefully on the crater floor.
The shuttle’s maneuvering jets shot out tiny spurts from thrust ports on either side of the aft cargo hatch, leaving her hanging motionless next to the Celestia. Jessica walked out to the end of the cargo ramp, its weak, artificial gravity just strong enough to keep her from floating into space. The gravity of Metis was so weak that, from this altitude, its mass had almost no measurable effect on them.
The end of the shuttle’s cargo ramp was at least ten meters away from the four-meter-deep depression in the side of the Celestia’s hull containing her port boarding hatch, as well as her massive cargo hatch located directly below.
“Huh,” Jessica said over her suit-comms. “I thought there would be a ledge there.” She turned around and looked at the six men in pressure suits standing at the shuttle’s cargo hatch. “Guess I forgot about the cargo hatch below.” She started walking back toward the shuttle. “Any chance we can get a little closer?” she asked over the comms.
“With that ship powered down, her hull could’ve picked up a static charge. I’d like to avoid that if possible.”
“No matter,” Jessica said as she reached the men at the hatch. “There’s no gravity to speak of out here anyway, right?” She winked at Major Waddell, who was standing in his pressure suit in front of her, then turned back around and took several unnatural-looking, running strides toward the end of the ramp, jumping off into space. She floated easily across the ten meter gap, bumping softly against the Celestia on the other side. She grabbed the edge of the grappling bracket just below the boarding hatch, holding firmly so she would not float off. She activated her mag-boots and placed them firmly on the hull of the ship, locking them in place. She bent back in order to look up at the shuttle now hovering over her. “Come on over, guys,” she called over the comms.
“Perhaps we should run a safety line,” Major Waddell suggested.
“Let your boys do that. We need to get inside and make contact ASAP.” She watched as the major ran clumsily across the ramp and jumped out. He floated across more quickly. In mid-flight, he fired tiny maneuvering jets in the suit’s thick, midsection ring, rotating his body so he was falling feet first toward the Celestia. He landed with a bit more force than Jessica had, but he landed more gracefully and on his feet.
“Show off,” Jessica said as she stepped aside to make room for the next man.
“Training,” the major replied, a grin forming behind his visor.
One by one, all four of the major’s squad came over in the same manner, also landing on their feet. “I guess you guys practice this kind of stuff on occasion,” Jessica said.
“We have made considerable use of the Aurora’s zero-gravity training room,” Major Waddell said.
“Open that panel next to you,” Jessica told him. “There’s a crank in there to manually open this hatch. Would you mind?”
Major Waddell opened the hatch and unfolded the crank handle. He began turning the crank, causing the boarding hatch to split down the middle and slowly slide away into the hull of the ship.
Jessica looked down into the unlit airlock below. “Give me that crank handle,” she instructed the major.
Major Waddell removed the handle and passed it to Jessica, who in turn pushed it downward toward the airlock below. The handle floated down toward the opening, drifting slightly toward the dark gray deck of the airlock as it passed all the way through and bounced against the inner hatch.
“This will be interesting,” she said as she sat down on the hull with her feet dangling down into the airlock. She bent her legs to her right, placing the soles of her boots against the dark gray deck and allowing her mag-boots to take hold. She slid off the hull into the open hatchway, transitioning into a squatting position with her body now oriented to match the Celestia. After standing and turning to her right to face out the hatch, she looked at the five men staring down at her, each of them at a ninety degree angle to herself. “Okay, this is weird.” She looked at their faces. “Are you guys coming?” she said as she turned and headed inward.
* * *
“Sir, the port side boarding airlock’s outer hatch has been manually opened. Whoever it is, they are inviting themselves in. I think we need to be ready,” Luis said over the intercom.
“It’s only a few men so far, right? You said the ship was small. How many men do you think it can hold?”
“In EVA suits, ten or twelve. But that’s not the point…”
“It is the point, Ensign. We need to find out who they are and what they want.”
“I think it’s obvious who they are, sir.”
“You said you had never seen that type of ship before, correct? Then how do you know it’s a Jung ship?”
“You’re right; I don’t, but…”
“There is no manual override for the bridge airlock. The only way in there is to cut it open. If they do that, then it’s safe to assume they’re hostile.”
“You’re assuming they’re coming here,” Luis pointed out.
“If they wanted to get to engineering, wouldn’t they use the aft boarding hatch?”
“Assuming they know where it is. And if they were EDF, they’d damn well know where every hatch was located.”
“That’s a good point, I have to admit,” the lieutenant commander said.
“Nothing so far indicates that they’re our people: not the ship design, not the weapons some of them are carrying, not their EVA suits… nothing.”
There was a long silence on the intercom.
“I’ll have Tilly set the charges,” the lieutenant commander finally said.
&
nbsp; “That’s all I’m asking, sir,” Luis answered.
“But I’m not destroying this ship, Metis, and probably half of Jupiter until I’m damned sure there’s no other choice.”
“I concur wholeheartedly, sir. Besides, there’s got to be a much larger ship nearby. That shuttle couldn’t have made an interplanetary trip all by itself. If we can wait long enough, she might show herself.”
“It would be nice to take a big fat Jung target out with us when we go, wouldn’t it?” the lieutenant commander agreed. “I’ll contact you when the charges are all set.”
“Yes, sir.” Luis switched off the intercom and leaned back in his chair.
“What do we do now?” Devyn wondered.
“We sit and wait,” Luis answered with a sigh. “And we hope you’re right… that they’re really our people using Jung gear,” he added, feigning optimism for Devyn’s sake.
* * *
“It’s like walking through a ghost ship,” Jessica said as they made their way through the Celestia’s dark, unpressurized command deck. “I can’t help but feel like I’m looking at our own ship, abandoned and falling apart.”
“You have an overactive imagination,” Major Waddell said over her suit-comms. “Many of these command quarters have been lived in recently,” he added as he exited the compartment that he had been exploring and returned to the same corridor as Jessica and the others.
“Where are they, then?” she wondered. “Maybe they’re dead. Maybe they all suffocated when this deck decompressed.”
“Unlikely,” Major Waddell said. “The Aurora is very compartmentalized for just that reason. Being her sister ship, the Celestia should be similarly designed. It also appears that these areas were carefully evacuated. They took everything they needed with them, leaving very little of value behind. This would indicate a slow decompression, perhaps hours or even days.”
“Makes sense. If that’s the case, I’m betting they’re on the bridge. It’s designed to be a self-contained vault. It has its own power generation, life support, and water recycling systems. It even has its own airlock into the corridor. It can support the entire bridge staff for months. At least, the Aurora’s bridge can.” She looked around at the numerous open panels and loosely hanging conduits. “I’m not so sure about this place.”