Death Sentence

by Roger MacBride Allen

  "Where is here?" Jamie asked.

  Hannah checked her nav displays. "Good news there," she said. "Right on the money, in the Metran System, and on a clean initial course for Metran itself. Except of course that we have to start our braking maneuvers pretty soon or we'll just shoot past the planet and head right back out the other side of the star system."

  "But now that the reinforcing cables have failed, can we put on the brakes?"

  "The cables didn't fail," Hannah said. "If they hadn't been there to take the strain, it would have been the docking rings that would have had to take it on--and probably torn themselves to shreds."

  "Okay, I take your point," said Jamie. "But I'd suggest that having a cable snap, then bury itself in a viewport wasn't exactly what Gunther's team had in mind when they attached them."

  "I won't argue--but we're alive right now because those cables snapped instead of the docking rings shredding. As to whether we can fire up the Sholto's engines and brake the combined vehicle--we'll have to inspect things as best we can. My guess is that yes, we can, if we don't crank the thrust up too high. But--I think it's obvious that we shouldn't attempt another docked transit-jump. We've lost the cables; and both ships have damage to the hulls caused by cable strikes--plus the smashed-in viewport window. Space knows what hidden damage there might be. We'll have to jump the ships back individually--or else abandon one of them here and fly both of us back in one of them. That's going to complicate matters."

  "Yeah," said Jamie. He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. "This is one hell of a mess," he announced.

  "Yes it is," Hannah agreed. "But at least we have some time to work on sorting it out." She ran some numbers through her nav plot. "Even if we keep the thrust down to say, five gees, we have about--let's see--eighteen, nineteen hours before we have to start the burn. We can hold off a lot longer than that if we decide we can use a higher thrust."

  "But the other minor issue is that we brought the Adler along for a reason. We need to get aboard to continue searching her as long as we can. And we can't fly her down to Metran."

  "I know, I know."

  "But can we do anything else? The basic flight plan was for both ships to ride in together, riding on the Sholto's engines until we were most of the way slowed down, then to cut loose the Adler and have her light her own engines and park herself in a Pluto-class orbit while the Sholto flew on to Metran. And then there's the trip back. The Sholto doesn't have enough power to do all the work by herself. The Adler will have to accelerate herself and match course with the Sholto. We need both ships at least reasonably healthy to do all that."

  Hannah nodded. "Even if we weren't planning to search her, we still have to get back aboard the Adler to program her for autonomous flight and configure her to receive external flight commands."

  "It was a mistake to bring her along," Jamie said.

  "It's starting to look that way, at least for the moment," Hannah agreed. "But it was Kelly's call--and mistake--not ours. But what if, right now, we're five days away from whatever will touch off this war, and we save three days by having the Adler along for the ride? Even if it turns out that we both die and we lose both ships, but we stop a war--well, you and I won't enjoy it much, but could you really say Kelly made the wrong decision?"

  Jamie didn't answer directly. "Okay, let's forget about the big picture just for the moment," he said. "The main thing is that we have to get aboard the Adler, repair her, continue searching her, and then program her for autoflight and external control and cut her loose. Right?"

  "Right."

  "Okay then. A good solid mechanical hard dock connection is one thing, but airtight is another. After what it's been through, the flexing and twisting and who knows what other forces, would you trust the docking tunnel to serve as an air lock?"

  Hannah checked her instruments. "The tunnel was pressure-matched with the Sholto's cabin when we closed the hatches ninety minutes ago. It still is."

  "That's something," Jamie said. "In fact, it's quite a lot. But do you want to trust it as an air lock?"

  "No," Hannah said. "Not after what it's just been through. I think it's even possible that we won't be able to undock the two ships. The whole mechanism might be fouled up. We'll worry about that when it happens. In the meantime, I don't want to stress the system any more than we have already."

  "And using the lower-deck air lock on our ship, doing a space walk right past that loose cable and the smashed window, then opening the Adler's lower-deck lock manually and cycling through it seems awfully risky, too. A lot could go wrong. I think we have to depressurize the Sholto so both ships are in vacuum, open the nose hatch, and then open the Adler's nose hatch and cross to the Adler that way."

  "Agreed," said Hannah. "But there's one slight problem. Let me check something." She pushed back from the control panel and started taking advantage of zero gee. She spun herself around, grabbed the rope ladder, and pulled herself down toward the lower deck headfirst. She propelled herself across the lower deck toward one of the equipment lockers and opened it. She sighed wearily. "We're really going to have to talk to Gunther about improvising more brilliantly and making sure all the bases are covered when they're doing what no one has ever done before on the rush and without anyone in overall charge. His people didn't hang an extra suit here."

  "What?" Jamie called down.

  "Suit. Pressure suit. There's only one emergency pressure suit on this ship. There's another on the Adler, but that's not going to do us much good right now." She looked up at Jamie as he stared down at her from the upper deck. "Any suggestions?"

  "I was the one who worked out what to do," said Jamie as he entered the lower-deck air lock, hauling in a stack of gear. "I still think I should be the one who goes over."

  "This from the guy who almost lost his lunch when the ships starting tumbling and who is looking a little green after doing nothing more than floating from one deck to another in zero gee," said Hannah as she set down the stack of airscrubber canisters in the corner of the lock chamber. "Okay, air scrubbers, spare oxy, food, water. Comm system up, running, and patched into the loop with the suit radio."

  "Check, check, check, check, and check on the supplies, and yes, the comm system is online. If I never get any practice in zero-gee operations, I'll never have a chance to adapt."

  "Agreed," said Hannah. "But this isn't the time to practice--or the time to start acting like the big brave hairy man who has to do all the dangerous stuff. What if your stomach hits the eject button when you're in the suit, you've got the helmet on, and you're in vacuum?"

  Jamie shrugged. "Then we probably both die," he conceded.

  "Look, if we live through this, we can leave the grav system shut off for the whole ride back, and you can do all the practicing you want."

  Jamie grinned. "I don't know if that's such a good idea. I'm not sure I want to have to spend the whole trip back cleaning up after myself."

  "Well, don't expect me to do it," Hannah said with a laugh. "Look, I know it's not exactly an ego rush, but this is the way we have to do it if we want the best chances of both of us staying alive. You hunker down in the lower-deck air lock, while I use the suit and do the repair. For what it's worth, I wouldn't want to do what you have to do. I'm not that crazy about getting crammed in a box."

  "Thanks for putting it that way." Jamie glanced around the inside of the Sholto's lower-deck air lock. "I feel a whole lot better about it now."

  "Sorry," Hannah said. "I shouldn't have said it like that."

  "It's okay," said Jamie. "But look me in the eye and tell me that you really think getting stuffed in the lower-deck air lock, because it's the only place that we can keep pressurized, seems heroic to you."

  "No," said Hannah, without any attempt at joking or banter. "No, it doesn't."

  "But being dead wouldn't feel much better," Jamie said ruefully. "So lock me in and go do your job."

  "You get in there, and do yours, Mr. Tactical Planning Genius," sh
e said. "We're going to need lots of options for maneuver-masking and rendezvous flight plans."

  "Yes, Mom. I promise to stay in and do my homework."

  "I'm not kidding, Jamie. We're going to need those options, and we aren't going to be able to work them out from scratch on the fly before we cut the Adler loose. The time when you're locked in here might be the only chance you'll have to work them out."

  "And I will. I know. I know."

  Hannah rubbed her eyes and sighed. "Well, if we both weren't on edge by now, there would be something wrong with us." She glanced around the tiny chamber. "Sorry it's so cold in here," she said. "But you'll be glad we cranked down the temp soon enough. Sooner or later, the lock chamber's going to start getting warm."

  "I know," he said. "Believe me, I know. Good luck out there."

  "And good luck in here," Hannah said. "I'll keep you posted over the suit radio."

  Neither of them was eager for what came next, but both of them knew it had to happen. Hannah pulled herself forward, they shook hands awkwardly, and Hannah gave Jamie an affectionate cuff on the shoulder. Then she grabbed at handholds and pulled herself out of the air lock and into the Sholto's lower deck. She braced her feet on the deck and closed the air lock hatch while Jamie stayed where he was, silently watching her. Jamie knew beyond all doubt that the same thought was going through both their minds.

  This could be the last time we see each other alive.

  Things always took longer than planned. It was a half hour later before Hannah was sealed into her suit and the main cabin of the Sholto was in vacuum. She hauled her improvised pack of cobbled-together equipment and supplies behind her and made her way toward the nose hatch. She worked the controls to drop the pressure inside the hatch tunnel and waited while the scavenger pumps ran. For about the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, she resisted the temptation to give Jamie a status report on every trivial step of her progress. Okay, I've pushed the depressurize tunnel button. Okay, the tunnel is depressurizing. Okay, the panel is showing vacuum in the tunnel. Okay, I'm opening the hatch. I've got the hatch open....

  It might make her feel better to keep up the chatter, but she knew it would drive Jamie to distraction--and probably she'd start getting on her own nerves before too much time had passed. He could hear her breathing through the comm loop. That would be enough to let him know she was still more or less all right. Far better simply to keep him posted on the big items and otherwise leave him be.

  The panel showed the tunnel in vacuum--and once again she resisted the temptation to report that thrilling news. She popped the hatch and moved on into the tunnel, hauling the gear behind her.

  She paused in the tunnel to examine the join between the docking rings of the two ships, but she could spot no obvious flaws or damage. But, of course, the most crucial and complex parts of the docking system were hidden from view inside the tunnel walls. They wouldn't know for sure until they tried to undock the ships, and even then they wouldn't be absolutely sure they would be able to redock without giving it a try. But that was so many problems down the pike that it wasn't even worth worrying about.

  Time to open the hatch to the Adler. Hannah moved forward down the tunnel, worked the controls, and pushed the hatch open. She latched it open, but didn't bother sliding the stanchions that held the rope ladder back into place. In zero gee, it didn't much matter if there was an overhang between the top of the ladder and the lip of the hatch.

  The power was still out on the Adler, and she planned to keep it that way until she had checked out as many systems as possible. She powered up her helmet lights and peered into the shafts of light and ever-shifting and looming shadows they revealed.

  It was amazing how utterly foreign and mysterious, how menacing a perfectly familiar place could look, merely because it was in darkness. Except this place was menacing, in fact downright dangerous, after that cable had come smashing through the viewport. There could very easily be razor-sharp shards of viewport or other debris floating around--and her suit was a lightweight one-size-fits-nearly-all emergency job, not an armored hostile-environment unit.

  She scanned for debris as best she could with the helmet lights but didn't spot anything. She used an oversized eyelet attached to her gear bag to secure it to a handhold, then opened the bag up. The first things she pulled out of it were two empty utility bags.

  First things first. She made her way carefully down to the Adler's lower deck and starting going through the equipment lockers. She pulled out the Adler's emergency pressure suit and the breather masks and any other sort of gear that they might conceivably need two of in the next emergency. Better late than never. That equipment went into one bag. The other she filled with the Adler's patch kit and leak-repair supplies. They were going to need just about every bit of patching material from both ships if they were going to have a prayer of sealing the hole where the viewport panel used to be.

  She zipped both bags shut, then moved carefully back up to the nose hatch. She lined up the bag with the pressure suit and the survival gear in it, aimed it down the tunnel, and gave it a gentle shove. She felt mildly pleased with herself when she saw it sail smoothly down the centerline and clear into the Sholto.

  In theory, she was at the point where she could return to the Sholto, repressurize the cabin, get Jamie out of the air lock and into the second suit, then depressurize again and have both of them go aboard the Adler. But Hannah doubted the time burned up in all that would be saved by having two people on the repair job. Besides, given what the docking systems and the hatches and associated equipment had been through already, she didn't want to cycle any of it more times than necessary. Every time she sealed a hatch might be the last time it would seal properly.

  And though she wouldn't admit it unless pressed, she genuinely didn't like the idea of Jamie's slightly spacesick self working in a space suit in the dark in zero gee. Someday there would be enough time between missions to get him on a zero-gee acclimatization course. Until then, she didn't want to risk his pride, let alone his life, or the mission, if it wasn't utterly necessary.

  Which left her to get on with the job. Still unsure whether there was sharp-edged debris floating in the darkness, she pulled worklights from the gear bag, clipped them to convenient handholds, and pointed them at the pilot's station and the viewports. The result was a vast improvement on the lighting provided by her helmet lights alone.

  "Jamie, you there?" she called over the suit comm.

  "Where else would I be, and how would I get there?"

  "Yeah, you're there all right. I'm in the Adler without any problems. It's a mess in here, but it could be worse. Whatever they make those viewports out of is mighty tough stuff. The cable smashed into the starboard viewport and punched the whole thing, viewport, edging, and all, clear out of the frame. The cable end hit it more or less end on, somehow, and simply lodged in the transparent viewport material. The whole show slammed right into the headrest of the pilot's seat. If I'd been sitting there, I would have gotten my head sliced clean off before I even knew the cable had struck the viewport."

  "Aren't you full of cheery thoughts," said Jamie.

  "I am, actually. I was imagining the Adler's cabin full of shards of glass and the cable snaking and twisting everywhere. Instead, I've got one solid chunk of viewport and the cable just hanging there peacefully, sticking straight out the hole where the viewport used to be. It doesn't seem to have struck anything else or damaged the control panels or any of the electronic systems. All I have to do is rig some way to hold the cable motionless while I bring up the cutting laser, slice through it, shove it very carefully out the window--and I've got a nice clean hole to patch that shouldn't be too big for the patching equipment we jury-rigged."

  She and Jamie had removed a couple of deckplates from the Sholto's lower deck and then used the Sholto's viewports as a sort of template to guide them in cutting the pieces into the right size and shape to give a rough fit over the viewport. They had cut two suc
h patches in case Hannah needed more than one try to get it right, but at the moment the job looked a lot more straightforward than they had assumed. By combining the cut-down deckplating with all the patching material from both ships, they ought to be able to seal the hole. Hannah was very decidedly not all that happy about using all the patches on both ships. They'd be in big trouble if another leak developed. But they didn't have much choice. They'd need every square centimeter of patch they had for this job.

  "Great," said Jamie. "So, what? I'll see you back over here in, say, five minutes?"

  "It might take just a bit longer than that," she said. "But I'll keep you posted."

  "No more than you have to," Jamie said. "I'm trying to catch up on my sleep."

  "I'll bet you are," she said. "Wolfson out."

  Jamie hoped his kidding around was enough to keep Hannah from worrying about him. She hadn't been joking about how hot it would get in the lock chamber. The air lock didn't really have an environmental system to speak of. No reason why it should have one. It had been designed as a way in and out of the ship, not as a place anyone would need to stay for hours on end. That was why they had had to bring in the air scrubber canisters to remove carbon dioxide from the air, and the breather mask and oxygen tanks.