Mission Zero (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘If you have to defecate, which is known to spacers as ‘making a crusty’, that will also be dried very quickly but will remain in your pants. That’s obviously uncomfortable, physically and psychologically and has obvious hygiene issues, too. So if circumstances allow, people are permitted to ask for a ‘time out’ from being suited up to make use of lavatories in a secured location.

  ‘On Minnow, that’s here in sickbay. Even in extended suit-drills, the skipper makes sure that everyone gets comfort breaks every couple of hours. During a launch, though, that isn’t an option, and it isn’t uncommon for first timers to experience involuntary defecation – nothing to be ashamed of, honestly. It’s entirely beyond your ability to control. No matter how much you may know intellectually that the process is safe, your body has other ideas and may kick into fight/flight hindbrain instincts in which bladder and/or bowel cutting loose is built in at the genetic level as an extreme survival instinct. Once you’ve been through it once, though, it’s as if your body learns that it doesn’t need to trigger that response – like, the first time you ride a rollercoaster is always higher adrenalin than the second. I can, if you’re anxious about it, either prescribe you a mild sedative or create an isolation space for you with as much suppression of noise and vibration as possible.’

  ‘No, no, thank you, but I’ve decided to ride it out on the command deck,’ Mako said, in a tone which made it clear that that decision had been made. Which it had, for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was that he did not want to have to tell his kids that he had bottled out on the launch. Privately, though, he felt that the person he had the most to prove to in this was himself.

  He had never felt that he lacked for courage. He was a prison inspector, which required a good deal both in terms of being thick skinned in dealing with hostile staff and in working with and around some of the most aggressive, dangerous people in League society. His kids teased him about refusing to go on high adrenalin rides when they went to theme parks and the like, but he had just never seen the point of terrifying yourself for fun and certainly had not considered them as any test of courage.

  Now, though, his courage had become a very direct issue here, as to whether he would be treated like a poor helpless little civilian cowering on his bunk or would ride out the launch with the crew. He was surprised to find how much that mattered to him. He didn’t mind them laughing at him, really, recognising that many of the things he said and the questions he asked were hilarious to them. Pride was at stake in this, though, and seeing that, Rangi Tekawa smiled.

  ‘Well, it only lasts half a minute,’ he observed. ‘Though it will seem a lot longer. That’s adrenalin. If you can focus on keeping track of the time, hanging on for forty or fifty seconds, that might help. But do, please, go change into this delightfully stylish and glamorous underwear,’ he handed him a packet containing a fibrous pair of knee-length body-snug shorts, and indicated the sickbay shower unit with a grin.

  Mako took care of business, emerging a couple of minutes later wearing the diaper shorts under his suit. They felt strange but not too uncomfortable. He was surprised, as Rangi helped him to get into the suit, how light and comfortable that was, too. It seemed enormous at first, but pulling on tabs at the waist drew it in all over to fit snugly. The gloves just astonished him. They were more like surgical gloves than the kind of gauntlets he’d have expected on a spacesuit, with very fine tiny scales. The fingers had a different kind of coating, almost metallic but so flexible it barely felt as if the gloves were there at all. The real surprise came, though, when Rangi told him to feel a nearby surface and he found that he could sense it just as clearly as if the gloves weren’t there.

  ‘That bit is tech-classified,’ Rangi told him. ‘I’m going as far as I can, there, in using the words ‘nanotech pressure sensors’ but they’re very good, aren’t they? Excellent for starships, where rapid operation of controls or tech-repairs would be hampered by restrictive gloves. So, let’s get your helmet on.’

  That surprised him too by being more like a plastic bag than the kind of rigid helmet he’d expected. It inflated and stiffened up once it was suctioned onto the suit’s neck-ring and when he touched it experimentally, he found it quite rigid.

  ‘Your face is protected by the visor.’ Rangi helped him to feel a slightly bulbous edge around the clear front of the helmet. ‘Also high tech, though recently declassified for civilian production. It generates an impact protection forcefield and has polarising protection to protect you automatically from any dazzling glare. You will notice that you can hear my voice normally, too, though the audio will block out ear-damaging levels of noise, and there is no need to ‘speak like this!’’ He adopted a ludicrously earnest ‘talking through soundproof glass’ manner and Mako grinned appreciatively.

  ‘It feels fine,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘Hardly as if I’m wearing it at all – you could forget you had this on, I guess, once you’re used to it.’

  ‘Yes, that’s very common.’ Rangi affirmed. ‘People are always smacking their hand on the helmet because they go to scratch their ear or something without thinking. But you do get used to them very quickly. So, suit basics.’ He spent several minutes taking Mako through the suit functions and showed him how to recharge it at a damage control point. To Mako’s relief, that was so straightforward even he could do it.

  ‘You have to suit up, of course, if an alert goes off which requires it,’ Rangi observed, ‘but if you are ever in any doubt about that, play safe and put a suit on, all right? And do not, please, please, I beg and implore you, ever ignore an alert because you ‘thought it was just a drill’.’

  ‘Come on.’ Mako couldn’t help grinning at that. ‘Even I’m not that dumb.’

  ‘Seriously, you would be amazed by some of the things passengers say,’ Rangi told him. ‘I have friends who work on liners and some of the things they tell you beggar belief. They swear its true that they never get through a voyage without at least one passenger complaining about safety drills and asking if they can turn off the alerts, and it is, apparently, quite common for them to ignore alerts entirely because, they say, they just thought it was a drill for the crew. I know you won’t do that, really, but do just be aware that that is the all time number one passenger stupido. In any situation where you are in any doubt about it all, put a suit on. You can even just take one to practice getting in and out of it, that’s not a problem. Just, as good practice, let the life support watchkeeper on the command deck know you’re doing that so they’ll log it as personal suit drill. But how about practising taking it off, now? Don’t worry, there’s time. And if you are a normally constituted human being, even if you peed five minutes ago, putting on a spacesuit immediately makes you feel you want to go again.’

  Mako laughed but didn’t argue the point. He found that the suit was easy to get out of and that when he returned from another visit to the shower unit, he was able to put it on without assistance.

  ‘Twenty six seconds.’ Rangi informed him, though Mako had not realised he was being timed. ‘We time that from first touch of the suit to helmet seal,’ he explained. ‘Fleet regulations require crew to be able to get into a suit in less than twenty seconds in pitch black and freefall. Minnow standards are rather higher and any member of the crew who took longer than eight seconds to get into a suit would be detailed for agility training. But twenty six seconds is respectable for your first time. It’s actually quicker in freefall once you’ve mastered the technique, which I’ll teach you another time. For now, don’t worry about it. There’ll always be a member of the crew nearby responsible for getting you suited up if an alert goes off. Anyway, let’s get you settled on the command deck, okay?’

  Mako felt self conscious, returning to the command deck and being the only person in a spacesuit, but nobody made anything of that or of seeing the medic instructing him in freefall safety.

  This turned out to be somewhat alarming. There was a kind of footrest underneath the datatable t
hat closed down gently onto his ankles when he hooked his feet through it. Rangi showed him how to release it with sideways kicks, but then, with his permission, locked off the safety on it just in case he should release it by accident. There was also a harness that came out from under the chair and strapped him in, criss cross over his shoulders and his thighs. And as if that wasn’t enough, a grab-bar clipped out from under the rim of the table, like a padded handrail, which Rangi told him to hang on to with both hands once the launch started. Even as he was explaining that, the skipper touched a hand to a control. ‘Attention on deck,’ he said. ‘Last calls, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Mako, after just a little hesitation, used the comscreen they made available to him on the datatable and called his family. His son was linked into the call already and Mako saw his eyes widen with shock at the sight of him. This was nothing to his daughter’s reaction.

  ‘Dad!’ She practically shrieked. ‘You’re in a spacesuit!’

  That made him laugh. His heart was beating faster now and there was an odd hollow feeling in his stomach, but there was a kind of exhilaration to it too and his daughter’s astonishment just made him bubble up with mirth.

  ‘Well, I’m on a spaceship!’ He pointed out, and grinned. ‘I can’t talk long – we’re about to start our launch run, and comms will go off, then. So I just wanted to say bye, you know – no big drama. I may be able to send you some messages on other ships, but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while, okay?’ he smiled, particularly, at his wife, and she smiled back, though she too was looking rather amazed.

  ‘You just look so different!’ She told him, but having given him a searching look, broke into a grin. ‘Excited, though. Are you enjoying it, love?’

  Mako nodded. ‘Very much,’ he said, which was true. However wobbly his stomach might feel at the moment, he was feeling thrilled at the prospect of going out there, out into the wildest of wild places, venturing upon the perils of space. ‘But I have to go – we’re getting into position for the launch. I love you all.’

  He parted from them with eager waving and calling out from his children and a final, ‘Take care, love,’ from his wife.

  ‘All right,’ said the skipper, a couple of minutes later, over the PA. ‘Last call for anyone who wants to get off.’ He gave Mako one of his quick, attractive smiles. ‘I always say that,’ he explained, making it clear that this was not aimed at him, as there was a cheer from below. ‘Ship tradition. And we are going to sealed airlocks…’ he was watching a screen, and tapped a control, ‘now.’

  They moved into position amidst a flurry of exchanges between the ship and the port authority station, between the skipper and the engineer and between the Exec and command deck team. Every seat was occupied now. Everyone else had suited up too by then and there was indeed a good deal of furtive rubbing of lucky talismans going on. Though Alex von Strada, Mako noticed, wasn’t doing anything like that.

  ‘No, I don’t have a talisman,’ the skipper commented, seeing that the inspector was looking at him speculatively. ‘I do, however, have a launch ritual. I always make sure I’m leaving port with a ship in the peak of condition that’s been strip-down prepped by a first class crew and inspected by some of the finest officers in the Fleet. For ensuring good luck on the patrol, I find that answers the purpose very well.’

  Mako caught on after a second and grinned, though the skipper was acknowledging final launch clearance from the control station by then. A nod of confirmation from Buzz and ‘All ready, sir,’, and Alex gave a nod.

  ‘Thrusters, engage,’ he said, and a moment later, ‘Engines, engage.’

  For the first few seconds Mako thought they must have been making fun of him after all, winding him up to have a laugh when the actual launch turned out to be nothing at all. The ship had gone into freefall and emergency lighting, to be sure, but the freefall was actually quite pleasant now that the implant meant he didn’t feel sick. He could sense some vibration but nothing very much.

  Then the ship gave a tremor as if it had just ridden through some kind of turbulence and he saw the skipper lay a hand flat on the datatable with a happy little smile. The ship trembled again and seemed to buck a little, straining Mako against his harness. Then, by the feel of it, they seemed to be going into some kind of long, somersaulting spin. All the hatches were closed now but several of the crewmembers packed into the command deck began a low kind of roaring, as Mako had seen people doing on rollercoasters as the carriages climbed up for the drop. It was getting louder and rising in pitch, too, as the intensity of the shaking increased very rapidly to teeth-jolting impact.

  Mako felt his head snap back and was convinced that the ship had gone into a mad spin. Only the calm demeanour of the officers and the smile on the skipper’s face told him that it was okay. Thrown up against his harness again by an even more violent impact, it felt as if the ship was running into things, as if it were slamming into some kind of waves of resistance, throwing them up and spinning them around.

  Then the noise started. There was a creak of metal under extreme stress immediately followed by a little staccato popping that sounded like something electronic shorting out. From directly above came a groan that sounded as if the hull might rip apart at any moment and from below came the awful, tearing sound of deck plates grinding against each other.

  They were coming up on the launch tunnel, a long path of satellites generating a crackling shimmer of energy like liquid lightning. Mako was unable to see it properly because the vibration was so intense now that everything was blurring. He was amazed that the officers could even see the screens, let alone speak normally, evidently unconcerned by the ship apparently coming apart at the seams.

  ‘Abort or go, sir?’ Buzz enquired formally, his hand on a control panel.

  ‘Go, go, go,’ said Alex, in what was evidently an equally formal response. With that, the Exec moved his hand away from the abort-slap, hitting the ‘brace for launch’ slap control instead.

  ‘Brace, brace,’ he said, and Mako saw him taking hold of the grab bar himself to keep his arms from flailing as the ship went through the launch. Everyone else grabbed on tight too and the anticipatory roaring exploded into adrenalin howls.

  This is it, Mako thought. We’re crashing. I’m going to die right here. He could hear himself screaming but there was just no way he could even begin to make sense of what was going on. It felt like being put into a high speed blender. He was being spun and tumbled at dizzying speed whilst at the same time the ship was jolting and bucking like a wild bronco ride, and vibrating, too, fit to shake rivets loose. From above came a terrible rending sound that must surely mean that the hull had wrenched apart. It just seemed to be going on and on with a feeling of terror and utter helplessness.

  He had time for a pang of grief that he would never see his wife and children again, but most of his attention was taken up merely by the imperative need to hang on. His hands were clamped around the grab bar, white-knuckled, as if hanging by his fingertips over the edge of a cliff. ‘ARRRRRRRGH!’

  And then in the next heartbeat it stopped. There was one final lurch and then a miraculous calm with the vibration easing off at once. There was no more jolting, no more awful tearing noises. The ship was just cruising as effortlessly as it had when leaving the system.

  ‘Green, all green, sir.’ Buzz Burroughs reported, a huge grin on his face. The rating at the helm was whooping and punching the air as everyone cheered. Rock music came blasting out, which all the crew either cheered or laughed or joined in with singing as they reactivated consoles and got busily to work.

  ‘Gonna fly, gonna fly, gonna gonna fly for ever…’

  Mako sat panting, still hanging onto the grab bar with such force that his hands were hurting from the grip. He could hardly believe that he had survived.

  ‘Are we all right?’ he asked, though he could see that they were, really. He jut needed to hear it to believe it. ‘Is the ship okay?’

  ‘We’re
good, the ship is fine.’ Alex assured him with an understanding look. ‘That was a good launch.’

  ‘Sweet!’ said the helmsman and patted the helm console. ‘Who’s my darlin?’ he picked up singing again, giving the helm another pat as he did so, ‘’Cos baby, you and me were born to fly.’

  Mako found himself laughing, partly in relief and partly, admittedly, with a touch of adrenalin fuelled hysteria.

  ‘Woo hooo!’ he yelled, and punched the air himself, feeling that the moment justified some release of the energy now pumping through his veins. He got a look of warm, friendly approval from Buzz Burroughs for that, too, and a look of amusement from the skipper. ‘And no,’ Mako declared, on such a high that he was feeling no inhibitions, ‘I do not need to go change my underwear.’

  He got a cheer for that but it was evident that even with the pumped-up atmosphere and singing along with the music, the crew were getting very purposefully to work, so he controlled himself and stayed quiet, then. He had hardly had time to catch his breath before final signals were exchanged with the launch-clearance station and they curved away, heading out into deep space.

  ____________________

  Chapter Six

  Mako was just amazed by how quickly the system vanished behind them. He had seen this view of Chartsey thousands of times on holovision. ABC used a view from deep space as part of their station logo, zooming in on the system before a montage of shots of the capital world’s most famous sights merged into a montage of some of ABC’s most famous award-winning journalists and studio presenters, focussing down to the studio that was on then.