Shiplord: A First Contact Technothriller (Earth's Last Gambit Book 3)

by Felix R. Savage

  Whoever disabled this particular shuttle, they had to have been going for a really spectacular explosion. Not satisfied with merely melting the tail off one shuttle, they’d tried to trigger a fission reaction which would have blown the entire vacuum dock out the side of the ship. They’d failed, but Hannah had worked with fission reactors for years. It was time to put her long-mothballed expertise to work.

  All she needed was a little more help from Iristigut.

  His silence gnawed at her as she tweaked the gauge field settings. At the moment, with Ripstiggr breathing down her neck, she was just trying to get it right.

  “Sorry,” Ripstiggr said.

  “What?” Hannah said inattentively.

  “Sorry I went too far.”

  She turned and stared at him. He had apologized. She couldn’t recall him ever apologizing for anything before. Treacherous hope sparked. “What brought this on?” she said warily.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Oh my God, it’s a miracle,” Hannah said lightly.

  But later, back in the jewel-hued twilight of the Shiplord’s cabin, they knelt on the bed, hugging. The height differential was so great that Hannah’s face rested against Ripstiggr’s sternum. She could hear his heart beating, faster than a human’s. They clutched each other tightly, without moving, without speaking, until Ripstiggr rubbed his face against her hair and said, “Tell me exactly what I did wrong, because I don’t know. I’m not human. I don’t know.”

  “Oh, hell,” Hannah said. “I didn’t want to do it with all those guys, Ripstiggr! Why did you make me do it? I feel like a slut.”

  “But you enjoyed it,” he said.

  “Yes, because I was hammered.” She beat her fists against his chest. “Drink and drugs make people do crazy things. You know your extroversion acts like a drug on me.”

  “I’m not doing it now.”

  No, he wasn’t. And the sad thing was that she liked the feel and smell of him, anyway. Stone cold sober, she liked the suede-soft skin, the salty odor, the ribby breadth of his torso, the way he trapped her in his arms. It made her feel small, sheltered, safe. It made her want to stay on the Lightbringer forever.

  “Do you want me to punish the others?” he said.

  “Oh hell no. It’s not their fault. Anyway, Eskitul used to play with the crew, right? We’ve got to keep them happy. It’s all about morale.” She heard herself saying these things, as if the rriksti really were her crew. But she had decided to kill them all. She nuzzled her face frantically against Ripstiggr’s chest, knocking him over backwards. She landed on top of him, struggling with her need for reassurance.

  “At least we don’t have any damn introverts on the crew anymore,” he said, cuddling her. “They’re the ones you have to watch.”

  “Introverts?”

  “Like the guy who blew up all those shuttles.”

  “I thought Eskitul did that?”

  “Eskitul was more led than leader by that time. She may have started it but she didn’t finish it. That was Iristigut.”

  Icy shock stabbed Hannah in the stomach.

  “In English his name would be Keelraiser.”

  CHAPTER 37

  So I’m getting the picture you’re a demolitions expert.

  Skyler strained to read the dark green words on the dark brown screen. Numb, he had to remind himself to breathe.

  I’m guessing you’re one of the guys who came aboard with Eskitul. In fact, now I remember you were there on that first night. I respect your privacy, so I’m not going to ask what you look like, or what name you’re using now. Hell, maybe you’ve found somewhere to stow away in the lower decks.

  That’s cool, Iristigut. That’s cool.

  All I’m interested in is your expertise.

  Does the gauge field exhibit hysteresis?

  Skyler skimmed over the dense, technical paragraphs that followed. Using the key that Hriklif said was the back button, he returned to the previous email. This one was from Keelraiser to Hannah: a multi-page screed, mostly about the Jewish faith.

  “Hurry up,” Hriklif said, floating in the door of the Cloudeater’s computer room, so that the autorip couldn’t close. “He might come back any minute.”

  “There are thousands of emails here,” Skyler said, hitting the back key again. The text danced like dim ghosts on the low-contrast screen. Words jumped out at him. Bombardment … calibration …gauge field … harem … what??? He stopped to read that one. I can have as many men as I like. That simply made no sense. It must be code for something, he decided.

  Back, back, back. Humorous complaints about food. Scathing behind-the-scenes commentary on the Hannah Ginsburg Show. All of this interspersed with dry-as-dust lists of Rristigul vocabulary and technical essays. Giles would love to see this stuff. But what struck Skyler was …

  “She sounds just the same as ever.” He pinched the inner corners of his eyes, blotting moisture. Mixed emotions whipsawed him. “She hasn’t changed a bit.” And she didn’t seem to be pining for rescue—least of all by Skyler. His name didn’t come up once. I can have as many men as I like … No, that couldn’t mean what it said, because not in a million years could he imagine Hannah writing that sentence. “She doesn’t sound depressed or anything.”

  “Well, they’re not exactly going to be mistreating her,” Hriklif said. “She’s the Shiplord.”

  “Why did they make her Shiplord to begin with? Why not pick one of themselves? Why didn’t this douchebag Ripstiggr implant the chip in his own head?”

  “I’m not absolutely sure,” Hriklif said. “It’s just a rumor. But apparently the chip has side effects. For one thing, Eskitul drank like a fish.” Hriklif opened his mouth wide in that rriksti expression indicating amusement tinged with sorrow: what a crazy old universe we live in … “And also, I heard the chip kills your libido.”

  “Seriously?” Was Skyler an asshole to think this sounded like good news?

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s true. Eskitul was a decorated mother. She had some kind of stupid Darkside medal for childbearing. I think she had like a hundred kids, which suggests a pretty active sex life. But she never hooked up with anyone while we were on Europa, and it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. Keelraiser was wild about her.”

  Skyler decided not to get sidetracked by a hundred kids, which suggested yet more unglimpsed facets of rriksti physiology. “Do you think the chip would have the same side effects for a human?”

  “I have no idea. Might, might not. Your biology is different.” Hriklif looked over his shoulder. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Wait, just give me five seconds. I’ve got to email her.”

  “No!” Hriklif shoved him away from the screen and hastily shut down the comms software, returning the computer to its state it had been in when they sneaked in here. “Are you nuts? He’d see it in the comms log.”

  Skyler saw that Hriklif was only willing to disobey his boss so far and no further. And anyway, maybe he was right. Skyler no longer trusted his own judgement. Given a second to think, he sank into a morass of hypotheticals. He followed Hriklif out of the computer room.

  The door sealed behind them. They flew down the hot, dark, silent corridor.

  “I feel better now, anyway,” Hriklif said.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, you know. I thought …”

  “You thought he might be in contact with the Krijistal.” Skyler, unlike Hriklif, had no emotional investment in Keelraiser’s integrity, and had suspected that immediately. The difference was he didn’t feel better now. He felt worse.

  “It shouldn’t even have crossed my mind,” Hriklif said. “But everything’s so crazy. How do you know who you can really trust?”

  They flew into the passenger cabin, cover story at the ready: they’d been using the Cloudeater’s instruments to continue their scientific observations of the sun. However, no one even noticed them. The hospital was overflowing. Everyone extroverted was working flat out.r />
  The newest batch of patients exhibited different symptoms from the former lethargic victims of malnutrition. They fought healing, or confusedly tried to get out of the cabin, walking into the walls in the expectation, Skyler imagined, that these would autorip and magically deposit them back on Imf, in a familiar world where the sun did not spit out flurries of lethal neutrons.

  Nene, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, floated up to Hriklif. “There you are. Sorry, Skyler, I am stealing him.” Hriklif was mildly gifted. He’d done extroversion on Skyler as a favor before. “People are suffering. Science will have to wait.”

  “That’s OK,” Skyler sighed. “The sun’ll be there.”

  *

  Four hundred septillion watts, blazing away on the other side of that crappy little umbrella.

  Skyler sat near the top of Staircase 6, barely sitting, more like floating, because gravity was weak up here, elbows balanced limply on his knees. He had decided to weather perihelion right here, where the wind from the fans on the axis tunnel could at least cool the sweat encasing his body. Others had had the same idea. Rriksti lined the upper reaches of all six staircases, like birds on curving telephone wires.

  When the rriksti try to escape the heat, you know it’s hot.

  There was nothing special about perihelion. It was the moment when the SoD would approach closest to the sun. It was hot now and it would continue to be hot as they pulled away again. Yet everyone on board had come to see it as some kind of a milestone: like, if we make it through this, we’ll be OK … when in fact, passing perihelion would just bring them closer to the the life-or-death decision at the end of their journey.

  Closer to the Lightbringer.

  Skyler knew perfectly well that in Jack’s mind, there was no decision to be made. If they could catch up with the Lightbringer, they’d nuke it.

  He’d considered telling Jack about Keelraiser’s secret email exchanges with Hannah. He’d come very close, but indecision stopped him. He knew Jack well enough to know the information would not change his mind. Jack would say that eight billion lives mattered more than one, and ninety-nine people out of a hundred would agree with him.

  Hell, even Skyler agreed with him.

  There must be some way they could save Earth and Hannah.

  Such as???

  Skyler couldn’t think of any way to affect an outcome that depended, anyway, on the SoD getting through perihelion without melting. He couldn’t even muster the energy to move.

  So damn hot.

  Pings and creaks sounded through the wuthering roar of the fans. These were terrible noises. They meant the steel hull was expanding.

  Not everyone had fled the floor of the hab. Determined gardeners worked their shifts, and shadows moved on the off-white tarps of the kitchen tent. Some of them had bio-antennas.

  Melting here.

  I can have as many men as I like …

  Skyler buried his face in his hands.

  *

  “Neutron flux,” Linda said. “We did warn you.” She glared up at the squids in front of her. It was so freaking hot, she could not even manage to feel much anger or hatred. They could take it as read. “Neutron activation transmutes elements into other elements. What that means for the human body, apart from the radiation effects, which are bad enough, is that sodium turns into magnesium.”

  Koichi sat beside her, pulling his own hair and talking in Japanese. He bumped his head on her shoulder like a child.

  “Sodium is essential to nerve cell function, OK? So his nerves are taking a holiday. He’s suffering from fatigue, confusion …”

  “Lethargy, muscular flaccidity, memory loss,” said one of the squids, through the intercom speaker on the other side of the kitchen cabinets. The voice seemed to come from behind her, but she knew it belonged to the squid that was waving its black tentacles at her. “We’re familiar with these neurological issues. Many of us are affected, too.”

  “Well, excuse me for breathing,” Linda said.

  “Neutrons are like little bullets,” said the squid with red tentacles. “Sometimes they hit you. Sometimes they hit something else before they hit you. It is pure luck.”

  “Hey, you’re squids of science,” Linda mocked, remembering the children’s book series about Alastair, ‘boy of science,’ that she used to read to Rufus. The memory of her son came so vividly into her mind that she realized she was probably having neurological issues, too. Reality was breaking up. All she had to ground her was the weight of the tethers around her ankles.

  “We are going to heal him,” Red Tentacles said. “We just wanted you to know what we’re doing.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Linda said tiredly.

  They held Koichi down on the floor with their horrible flappy hands. Black Tentacles didn’t join in the torture, or whatever it was. “Have you ever been to this moon base?” it said to Linda.

  Linda struggled to think what ‘moon base’ it could be talking about. She was having difficulty recalling their mission. Kill the squids, yeah, but after that? And what were they supposed to do if they failed? To fail to plan is to plan to fail. But the Victory crew had had no plan B, because humanity no longer had a plan B. All their eggs were in one basket … or were they? At last the pieces of memory fitted together. “Oh, OK. Camp Eternal Light. No, I’ve never been there, but my husband and son are there now. That was the deal.”

  “What is the population of Camp Eternal Light?” said the squid. “How many ships and shuttles have they got? What about their defenses?”

  Linda shrugged. It was too hot to think. “Grigory. Where’s Grigory? He knows that stuff. Ask him.”

  “He’s dead,” said Jack. Standing with folded arms, he watched the squids who were treating, or torturing, Koichi. “Don’t you remember?”

  Now she remembered. It crushed her that she could have forgotten. Grigory had died a few days ago, or was it a few weeks ago? Heart failure, or internal bleeding, or sepsis from all the germs in this hab getting into open abrasions, who knows? Basically, he died of getting beaten up by a bunch of fucking aliens.

  Some of which were pawing Koichi right now.

  Koichi moaned, and rolled over. Linda started towards him. Her tethers tripped her. She fell back against the cabinets, banging her head.

  Jack squatted in front of her. His body odor, although pungent, made a welcome change from the salty reek of the aliens. “He’s going to be fine, Linda. Look—look. He’s smiling.”

  Koichi’s eerie smile put the exclamation point on this nightmare.

  “I don’t care what you do to him,” Linda said, belatedly remembering that she was supposed to hate Koichi. “He’s a traitor to humanity. Just like you.”

  Jack sighed. “Oh, Linda. Can’t you just drop it?”

  Jack had changed frighteningly. Gaunt, with silver glints in his blond hair, he seemed to have aged a decade in less than four years. New lines bracketed his mouth and a newish scar creased one cheek. She didn’t remember this cold, detached attitude, either. Maybe it was just that he was still pissed at her, which, OK, would be understandable. But the really really fucking scary thing was the way he opened his mouth wide from time to time, while staring with raised eyebrows, just like the squids, and she wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it. This above all convinced her that Mission Control had been 100% right. The original crew of the SoD, as well as the squids, had to die.

  So no, Jack, sorry. I’m not going to just drop it.

  “Go to hell,” she slurred.

  Jack glanced at the squids gathered around Koichi. “They’re finishing up with him. You’ll be next.”

  “No! No fucking way.”

  “Grigory died. I’m not going to let you die. You’ve got a husband and son. They need you. Right?”

  She hated him for using Stephen and Rufus against her like that. “My husband and son are on the moon. We’re not going to the moon. You’re going to go head-to-head with the Lightbringer and get us all killed.”

 
; “Give me patience,” Jack muttered. Koichi sat up. Jack turned to him. “Feeling better?”

  “Uwah,” Koichi said. “Naotta. Honto ni naotta.” He looked up at the squids who’d been pawing him. “You guys … how do you do that?”

  The dopey smile on his face disturbed Linda. But he was obviously back to himself.

  She remembered to scowl as he came to squat in front of her. She even tried to spit at him, but her mouth was too parched.

  “I feel like a million bucks. You should let them do you, Linda.”

  “Yes, you should,” Jack said to her, “because I need you to pilot the Victory.”

  “What?” Linda yelped.

  “Um, pilot it?” Koichi said. “It’s welded to your truss.”

  “As soon as we pass perihelion I want to go to full thrust. That means all three engines thrusting together.” Jack floated a hand up from his knee; they all watched it rise as if it were a bird. “We’re going very, very, very fast. We have to burn some of this momentum off. If we trim our speed just the right amount, and hit just the right vector, we’ll catch the Lightbringer as they slide into Earth orbit.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re mad?” Linda said.

  Jack grinned, and for a second he was the old Jack she remembered from NASA astronaut training and the Atlantis mission. “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.”

  “Green cheese,” she said suddenly.

  Jack looked blank for a second and then roared. “God! I completely forgot about that.”

  “’The moon is made of green cheese,’” said Black Tentacles. “Is this correct?”

  “Blue cheese actually,” Jack said. “While we were on the ISS, I took a picture of the moon but I Photoshopped a nice ripe Stilton onto it. It was very subtle. I was hoping it would make it onto NASA’s website before anyone noticed.”

  “That answers your question about the moon base,” Linda said to the squid. “It’s made of Stilton cheese.” Her laughter caught in her throat. It’s made of dreams, she thought. It’s made of hope. And Stephen and Rufus are there.