by Ian Whates
“I’m happy to agree that Ramon is a human cabbage,” said Harbinger, “but I don’t see why you’re classing Stone as the wolf and me as the goat. I’m the one with the weapon, not her. I’d obviously prefer to keep my pilot alive, but I can kill her if necessary.”
“Ship sensors would have warned us if you were still carrying a gun,” said Leveque. “You have a knife, but that would prove ineffective against the protective impact suit that Captain Stone is wearing, while she has a choice of two ways to kill you. Firstly, by utilising her extensive skills in unarmed combat. Secondly, by activating the control that blows the cockpit cover off in an emergency.”
Harbinger laughed. “I’ve plenty of experience in unarmed combat myself, and losing all the air would kill Stone as well as me.”
“There are two flaws in your logic,” said Leveque. “Firstly, you have no experience of unarmed combat in zero gravity. Secondly, since Captain Stone was flying her ship into a hazardous situation, she will have fitted an oxygen booster cell to her impact suit. Should she elect to vent ship air, the oxygen booster cell will provide her with enough air for her to reach the solar array safely.”
Leveque paused for a moment. “The one thing stopping Captain Nia Stone from killing you is that either method would also endanger the life of Diplomatic Aide Ramon. I’m making this point very strongly, because you seem regrettably eager to kill your hostage. You need to understand that course of action would inevitably result in your own death as well.”
I could tell Harbinger didn’t like what he was hearing, because he tightened his hold on my neck. “I thought the military were supposed to protect civilians, not kill them.”
Stone joined in the conversation. “That’s correct, but Ramon is the civilian I’m protecting, not you. Under military regulations section 91, I’m entitled to use any and all methods to remove an ongoing threat to Ramon’s life. Unless you give up your knife and surrender, I will happily take any opportunity to kill you. To be perfectly frank, since I’m a person you’d probably dismiss as irrelevant, I dislike you almost as much as you dislike Ramon.”
“All right,” said Harbinger grudgingly. “The cabbage will live if you take me to Apollo.”
“We can now move on to discussing the logistics of getting you to Apollo,” said Leveque. “Presumably you’re aware of the huge amount of power required to fire a drop portal.”
“I am,” said Harbinger. “What you’re going to tell me next is that the standard design of military ships allows them to fire two drop portals in quick succession, one to get them into a dangerous situation and another to get them out again. Since Stone used one to reach the peace talks venue, and another to get us back here, our ship hasn’t got the power to fire a third drop portal and reach Apollo.”
“It doesn’t,” said Leveque. “You have three options for getting the required power. Firstly, your ship can dock with a recharging point at the solar array.”
“We aren’t docking with the solar array,” said Harbinger.
“Secondly,” said Leveque, “your ship can dock with a snail – a specialist transport used to recharge other ships.”
“I’m not trusting any ships near us, snails or otherwise,” said Harbinger.
“In which case,” said Leveque, “your single remaining option is to wait for your ship to recharge its own power. That is a slow process. After checking the telemetry from your ship, I calculate that it will take precisely three hours and forty-six minutes to regain enough power to reach Apollo.”
“We’ll wait,” said Harbinger.
Three hours and forty-six minutes. I bit my lip. How could I bear three hours and forty-six minutes of sitting with a knife at my throat?
“There is, however, the issue of your air supply,” said Leveque.
“What’s wrong with our air supply?” demanded Harbinger.
“When your request for emergency evacuation was received, Hestia Solar Array Command followed the standard protocols in responding. It’s quite common for a retrieval mission to arrive and discover the size of party to be rescued has increased, so the standard protocol in this case was to send a ship that could carry four passengers rather than two. The only such ship at the solar array had just returned from deploying a monitoring satellite into geosynchronous orbit around Hestia. The ship’s drop portal power availability was still at maximum. Air supply was low but still ample for the expected mission.”
“You fools sent out a ship that was low on air?” Harbinger shouted the words, half deafening me. “How much air have we got left?”
“Fourteen minutes,” said Leveque. “That should be ample time for you to dock with the solar array and...”
“No!” Harbinger didn’t let Leveque finish his sentence. “We don’t go near the solar array and no one comes near us. We need another three hours and thirty-two minutes of air. You said Stone has an oxygen booster cell attached to her suit. There must be other oxygen booster cells on board. How do we use them to boost the ship air?”
There was a silence as if Leveque realised he’d made a bad mistake when he mentioned the oxygen booster cells.
“Answer me!” ordered Harbinger.
“Oxygen booster cells are designed to work with impact suits, but yes, they can be used to boost ship air too,” said Stone reluctantly. “If you pull open the green tab, the oxygen booster cell automatically generates oxygen at the rate needed to maintain breathable air until it’s depleted.”
“How many of these booster cells have we got?” asked Harbinger.
“The survey flight would have set off with two packs of six oxygen booster cells. There were two people aboard, and they did a spacewalk to position the satellite, so that would have used two cells. I’ve fitted another one to my suit, so there should be nine left.”
“Check that,” said Harbinger.
Stone turned her seat and rummaged in a low level storage pocket for a moment before waving a bulky grey object at us. “One pack of six booster cells.”
“Pass them to me,” said Harbinger.
Stone sent the pack floating across the empty seats towards us. Harbinger snagged it with his left hand and studied it for a moment. I saw it held a set of red objects labelled oxygen booster cells.
“Six.” Harbinger tucked them down under his feet. “I want the rest too.”
Stone reached into the storage pocket again, and sent a second grey object across to us. I saw this only held three of the red booster cells.
“That’s all nine of them,” she said.
Harbinger put that pack with the first one. “I want number ten too. The one attached to your suit.”
Stone didn’t move.
“Hand it over,” said Harbinger, “or I’ll start pruning a few leaves off the cabbage. It may not be good tactics for me to kill him, but I can chop off a finger or two.”
I couldn’t help looking down at my fingers, and picturing the knife cutting through them. I tried to hold back my scream, but couldn’t quite manage it, so it came out as a strange hiccupping sound of alarm.
“Take it, then.” Stone unclipped the tenth red oxygen booster cell from her suit, and threw it at high speed through the air towards us.
Harbinger caught it neatly in his left hand. “Now let’s discuss the air supply again. Is the tenth oxygen booster cell still full?”
“Yes,” said Stone. “I’ve been in ship air all the time, so it hasn’t had to generate any oxygen.”
“I’ll use that one first to make sure,” said Harbinger. “How much time does a full booster cell give us?”
Leveque started speaking again. “Each booster cell should provide one person with sufficient ship’s air for an hour. That means the ten booster cells will provide air for the three of you for three hours and twenty minutes.”
“So we’ll run out of air twelve minutes before we’ve got the power to drop portal to Apollo,” said Harbinger. “How much extra time will it take for us to land after that?”
“If we d
rop portal into the atmosphere at low altitude, then it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to land,” said Stone.
“We’re fourteen minutes short, then,” said Harbinger. “It has to be possible to make the oxygen last that much longer. I can choke the cabbage a bit to stop him using air.”
I heard myself give another alarmed hiccup.
“I repeat my earlier warning that killing your hostage will lead to your own death,” said Leveque. “It should be possible to stretch the air supply the necessary additional time by delaying utilising each oxygen booster cell for between one and two minutes. During those periods you may suffer from breathlessness, headaches, sweating, confusion, blurring of vision, and be aware of an odd taste to the air. These symptoms will grow progressively worse each time due to the cumulative effect of...”
“Enough, Leveque,” interrupted Harbinger. “We’ll wait here until we’ve got the power to drop portal to Apollo. You make sure that no ship comes near us or the cabbage dies. I can’t bear any more of your long-winded sentences, you’re even worse than the cabbage, so we’re breaking communications now. Shut him off, Stone.”
“With pleasure.” Stone tapped busily at her control panel for a minute. “Leveque’s been talking far too much in my opinion.”
I agreed with Stone. If Leveque hadn’t been fool enough to mention the oxygen booster cells, Harbinger would have been forced to let us dock with the solar array, which might have given the military a chance to capture him. Now he had total control of our air supply, there seemed no hope at all.
I wondered how bad it would be when the air ran out. My neck was already bruised and swollen after being half strangled, and now I was going to be suffocated multiple times. If I made it through that alive, Harbinger would kill me when we reached Apollo.
Red lights started flashing overhead, accompanied by the shrilling of an alarm, hurting my ears. The alarm warbled on for a few seconds longer before abruptly cutting out, but the red lights kept flashing.
“Ship air has run out and oxygen levels in the air are starting to fall,” said Stone. “There’ll be a second, even louder, alarm when oxygen levels approach danger point. I hope you’ve got the first oxygen booster cell ready.”
“I have,” said Harbinger, “but I’ll be the one deciding when to use it, not you.”
The air already felt thinner to me. I tried to breathe normally and relax, but then the second alarm sounded. As Stone had said, this was louder. I waited for it to stop as the earlier one had, but it just kept hammering its warning into my ears.
“Shut that noise off!” yelled Harbinger.
“You can’t... shut down... emergency alarms,” Stone called back, pausing to gasp for breath between the words.
I was breathing so rapidly now that it hurt my bruised throat, but the air tasted wrong and didn’t seem to be helping me. I could feel a stabbing pain between my eyes, and the ship seemed far hotter. How long had it been since the oxygen ran out? I could see the oxygen booster cell in Harbinger’s left hand. I could see the green tab he had to pull. Why wasn’t he pulling it? I knew he was struggling to breathe too, because I could feel the movements of his chest as he tried to gulp in air.
I saw Harbinger lift the booster cell towards his mouth, and there was a jerking motion as he pulled the green tab open with his teeth. I could feel the air start to change instantly, my breathing eased, and it seemed cooler again. The alarm kept sounding for a moment longer, then cut out.
“That will have gained us a few minutes,” said Harbinger smugly.
“You’d better not delay using the next one that long,” said Stone. “The effects will get worse each time, and if you go too far into hypoxia then you may not be able to pull the tab on the booster cell.”
“You two may have had problems breathing back then,” said Harbinger, “but I didn’t. I can leave it that long again, or even longer.”
I wanted to groan but daren’t. Harbinger had taken a sensible warning as a challenge to prove how long he could cope without air. That had been the first of ten booster cells. The first of ten times we’d go through that ordeal, and each time it would get worse. Harbinger would push us to the limits of endurance and beyond, because he was facing a death sentence back on Hestia. He’d rather die than give up his chance of escape, and if he died he was clearly intent on killing Stone and me along with him.
I’d believed in the diplomatic creed that words were more powerful than weapons, but right now I wished I had a weapon in my hand to hit back at Harbinger for what he was doing to us. A knife like the one he was holding at my throat. A gun like the one he’d used to shoot Kwame Ansah. Any kind of weapon would do, but I had nothing.
That was the moment when I remembered the silver flaming torch symbol in the pocket of my overalls. It was the proud emblem of an Alpha sector diplomat. More importantly, it was a piece of flat, unyielding metal, and the ragged edge of the flames was sharp enough to cut someone.
If I were going to attack Harbinger, I had to make sure he dropped the knife before he could slice my throat in two. No, I reminded myself that he wouldn’t drop the knife, or at least it wouldn’t fall if he released it. Whatever plan I made to get the knife away from him, I’d need to allow for the fact there was no gravity here.
Apart from that one useless attempt to stop Harbinger crushing my neck, I’d tamely submitted to everything he’d done to me. He wouldn’t be expecting me to start fighting back now, so I’d have the advantage of surprise. My best chance would be if I attacked when he reached for the next oxygen booster cell.
I moved my right hand furtively across to my pocket. My fingers slipped inside, stroking the cool metal shape of the diplomatic emblem, checking the sharpness of the edge of the flames. I chose the best place to hold it, and mentally rehearsed the moves I should make.
I was ready. The question was whether I’d really dare to try this. There seemed only the slimmest chance of success, but that was still better than waiting passively to be slaughtered on Apollo. It wasn’t as if I needed to win the fight against Harbinger myself. I just had to get the knife away from my throat for a few seconds, and Captain Stone would deal with him for me.
The alarm started ringing, and I felt Harbinger’s grip on my neck lessen as he leaned to grab another oxygen booster cell with his left hand. If I was going to try this, it had to be now.
I bent my head forward and bit savagely into Harbinger’s right thumb. I saw his hand splay open, loosening the knife so that it drifted to hang in mid-air in front of my nose. I lashed out with my left hand, trying to bat the knife in the direction of Captain Stone, while bringing my right hand from my pocket ready to stab at Harbinger with my makeshift weapon.
For a split second I thought my plan was working, but I’d sent the knife flying off at the wrong angle. It bounced off the window and straight back towards us. Harbinger thrust me aside so he could grab the knife. He had it in his hand, was turning to face me, when I struck at his neck with my diplomatic badge.
I hit out with the strength of desperation and Harbinger’s own momentum carried him onto the point of the symbol, which cut shockingly deep into his throat. Blood spurted out towards me.
An impact suit clad figure came soaring over the empty seats, and Stone’s stunned voice spoke above the insistent throbbing of the alarm. “Do diplomats often kill people like that?”
I’d closed my eyes to protect myself from the sight of what I’d done, but I could still taste the blood in the air. “Harbinger can’t be dead. I didn’t stab him with a proper knife.”
“Proper knife or not, you’ve still severed his carotid artery,” said Stone. “He’ll be brain dead long before we get him to the doctors on the solar array.”
In the panic of my battle with Harbinger, I’d forgotten about the air situation, but the ringing of the alarm reminded me of the problem. “The air,” I gasped, opening my eyes again. “We have to use an oxygen booster cell or we’ll all die!”
As I said th
e words, the alarm stopped ringing. I looked round in bewilderment and saw the red flashing lights had stopped too.
“I’ve already turned the ship air back on,” said Stone. “There’s a lot of blood drifting around, but the filter system will soon deal with that.”
“How could you turn the ship air back on? We’d used it all.”
“We have enough ship air to last us days,” said Stone. “When Leveque was convincing Harbinger that he needed to keep his hostage alive, he was also testing the man’s knowledge. Harbinger gave away the fact that he’d studied information on drop portals, but not impact suits. He didn’t know that a knife was the best possible weapon to use against me because impact suits are vulnerable to sharp objects. He even had the ridiculous idea that losing ship air would kill me.”
I blinked. “It wouldn’t?”
“Military impact suits are designed to keep their wearers alive in a variety of hostile environments,” said Stone, in the tone of someone politely explaining the obvious. “When there isn’t enough external breathable air, they automatically switch to recycling air internally. We only need to use oxygen booster cells to flush the air system when we’re dependent on suit air for a long period.”
“But Leveque said...” I broke off, and started my sentence again. “Everything Leveque said was carefully planned.”
“Yes, Leveque gave some misleading information about oxygen booster cells, invented an air problem, and sent me detailed instructions on my course display screen. There were actually three people doing the spacewalk earlier. I was one of them, so I still had a depleted oxygen booster cell attached to my suit. While I was messing around in the locker, I swapped that booster cell for a full one in the pack of six. That meant Harbinger thought he had ten full oxygen booster cells, but one was empty.”