The Blunt End of the Service

by L. J. Simpson

  “Sure boss,” said Chuck as the others filed out of the room. “What’s up?”

  “It’s about the cadet from the academy,” said Jacobs when they were finally alone. “I think the best thing to do is to team her up with someone and all things considered, you seem to be the best man for the job.”

  “Who, me?”

  “Let’s face it, Chuck. Who else could I ask? Baz is not long out of school himself. Guns, on the other hand, is as old as this station. He should have taken his pension years ago but I don’t think he has anywhere else to go. Bernie isn’t a bad chap but he isn’t in the best of health. Have you seen him recently? He can barely climb the darned stairs. Archie is quite possibly the laziest man I have ever met, Bill’s a blustering oaf, Vinny’s in jail, Duke’s a drunk, and as for Ollie, well they don’t call him Ollie the wally for nothing.”

  “How about Shorty?”

  “Shorty has, by all accounts, the largest collection of pornography in the sector.”

  “I believe they call it ‘gentlemen’s special interest’ these days.”

  “I don’t care what they bloody well call it, I am not putting a cadet in the care of a pervert like him and that’s final. Sorry, Chuck but you’ve been selected. By default if you wish, but selected just the same.”

  “Thanks a bunch, boss.”

  “Best thing all round, I reckon,” said Jacobs. “She can learn more from you than she could from any of the others, or from any of those posers over on Phoenix for that matter. And a bit of responsibility won’t do you any harm either. You know, Chuck, you can’t go on marking time forever. You should be first officer on a liner by now, not bumming around on a half derelict like O1.”

  “I’m happy where I am, boss,” said Chuck.

  “I’m sure you are, but the thing is, Chuck, this situation won’t last forever. The Titan contract will keep us going for a while, but after that? The best thing you can hope for is getting my job after I retire. Not exactly the pinnacle of ambition, is it?”

  “On the contrary, it’s the sum of all my dreams,” said Chuck with a smile.

  “Seriously, Chuck. You need to think about moving on.”

  “I’ll give it some thought, boss,” said Chuck.

  “Do. And I need to do some moving on myself,” said Jacobs looking at his watch. “Time for my mid-morning coffee. See you later, Chuck,” he said with a wave.

  Phoenix Station

  Dan Lister sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. As head of IT on Phoenix he was charged with tracking down the faults that had so beleaguered the station. He’d been staring at lines of computer code for ten straight hours and had reached the point where he was looking but no longer seeing.

  At any particular moment there were thousands of commands whizzing around Phoenix’s data net, all containing multiple packets of information which themselves contained hundreds or even thousands of lines of code. On top of that there were chunks of redundant code that the system had failed to flush out, not to mention fragments of routines that existed simply because in an age of virtually unlimited data storage, the art of writing concise, elegant code had been all but forgotten. As he had explained to the station administrator, it was difficult to tell the wood from the trees and even if there were any remnants of malicious code floating around they wouldn’t be easy to identify, let alone isolate.

  It was a damned ridiculous situation, he thought. Anyone with half a brain could see that something wasn’t quite right with Ulysses but no-one was prepared to admit it, most of all the Comtec men who steadfastly refused to believe that anything could possibly be wrong with their wondrous creation. To compound the matter, only Comtec employees were allowed access the core, much less probe its dark secrets – if indeed it had any. For the past few days an endless stream of Comtec engineers and technicians had sealed themselves inside Ulysses’ inner sanctum; what they were doing in there was anyone’s guess and whether they’d discovered anything of value was even more of a mystery. If they had found anything they were keeping it to themselves. All Lister could do was keep trawling through the data banks and hope to get lucky.

  He returned to the screen and focused on a few lines of code that had just passed through the data node he was presently monitoring. As far as he could tell, they were meaningless but there was something familiar about them; just a few lines and ending with the same suffix. It wasn’t a suffix that he was familiar with but with a little checking it should indicate where the code originated. A few minutes later he had his answer; the point of origin was Server 6. That was decidedly strange as there were no workstations in Server 6.

  He went back over the files he had checked during the previous forty eight hours and found a dozen similar fragments, all bearing the same suffix that tied them to the same place – Server 6. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. He picked up his phone and dialed the administrator’s office.

  One person who hadn’t lost the art of elegant coding was Spencer Benedict. Anyone in the know would describe Arrowhead as a thing of exquisite beauty. The problem for Dan Lister was that there were very few people who were in the know and, more to the point, none of them were anywhere near Phoenix.

  All over the station, small packets of information were gliding from one node to another, passing through hubs, workstations and servers, pursuing a never ending, random course through the station’s data net. It was true that they might be detected as they meandered their way around but Benedict had allowed for that possibility. The station’s IT department might even realize the significance of the Server 6 suffix and try to use that to their advantage, but Benedict had allowed for that possibility as well. Arrowhead was to all intents and purposes unstoppable.

  The packet of data that the technician had been looking at was now on the other side of the station, sitting in the buffer relay of a communications array. Contained within the packet was a clock which was slowly but surely counting down to zero. It wasn’t alone; in a thousand locations a thousand clocks were all ticking off the final seconds in unison. The instant the timer reached zero the packets dispatched themselves to a pre determined location and immediately began to merge with one another, unique digital hooks connecting each packet to its neighbor in the correct sequence. Seconds later the resurrected Arrowhead headed straight to the core where it was meekly absorbed by Ulysses. Mike Pederson was about to have another bad day.

  Viewed from Phoenix’s observation deck, the Countess Class astro-liner made a majestic sight as it slid smoothly towards its assigned docking gate. Sleek and graceful, its contoured lines proclaimed luxury, speed and power. You could almost imagine it shouting “Look at me, look at me,” as it drifted slowly past the onlookers. And look they did.

  “Say what you like but they sure build ‘em pretty these days,” observed an off duty cargo handler.

  “That they do, that they do,” replied his colleague with a gleam in his eye. “Look at the curves, the streamlining. Poetry, that’s what it is, sheer poetry.”

  “I could never work that out… what’s the point of all that streamlining in space? There’s no air. What’s it matter?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? Look, it’s all for show. It’s... what’s the word... aesthetics, yeah, that’s it, aesthetics. Visual impact. No good having the most expensive liner in the universe looking like a flying shithouse, is it? Has to look the part. Makes them on the inside feel all important and sophisticated.”

  “Still don’t see the point. They’re all on the inside. What’s it matter what it looks like on the outside?”

  “Because they know the likes of me and you are out here looking in, mate. That’s what.”

  The cargo loader grunted. “Whatever… Wonder if I’ll ever get to see inside her?”

  “Put in for a transfer to cabin cleaning. That’s about as close as you’ll ever get.” That drew another grunt as both men wandered off.

  Meanwhile, the view of Phoenix from the astro-liner was even more impressi
ve. Space docks were ten a penny and even space elevators were nothing out of the ordinary. But Phoenix was something else, a whole city floating in space, with towers, spires, arches, domes and just about every other architectural feature you could think of. Like the Countess, Phoenix had been built for show and wasn’t something you came across every day. The passengers sitting on the starboard side were treated to a grandstand view. Those on the other side had to make do with the stars.

  The astroliner reduced speed to a few meters per second as she reached the last phase of her journey, the final approach to the gate. A few bursts from her thrusters and she slowed to a dead stop.

  In seat 15D, Penelope Parker remained seated while those around her busied themselves removing hand luggage from the overhead lockers. It was always the same, passengers jostling each other in the race to disembark as quickly as possible despite the fact that the doors were still closed. The middle aged lady in the adjacent seat was making a determined effort to wedge herself in the aisle, undeterred by the fact that the available space was somewhat less than her ample frame. She was succeeding too. Good for you, thought Penny, smiling to herself.

  Once the Countess had achieved a hard seal on the docking gantry, the doors opened and the passengers gushed out to engage in the next leg of their race, the battle to be first in line at the transit and customs desks. The lady from 15C was long gone by the time Penny showed her passport to the transit officer who pressed it to his scanner. Her details flashed up on his screen.

  “Welcome to Phoenix, Miss Parker,” said the official with a smile. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “I’m sure I will. Thanks,” she said as she collected her documents and made her way to baggage collection where an attendant popped her ticket under a scanner. Within seconds her bags arrived on a conveyor. So much simpler than jockeying for a place by the baggage carousel, watching an endless stream of bags pass by as you waited for your own to arrive, gradually wondering if it ever was going to.

  On her last trip home it hadn’t, something that happens to all frequent fliers eventually. You wait patiently as the first bags trundle through the curtains and watch the first few passengers heave their bags off the conveyor, then more and more, growing to a rush until the rush slows to a trickle and your bag is still nowhere in sight. About this time you begin to have misgivings which grow by increments until you realize that the grey suitcase now passing by was doing so for the seventeenth time. This is when you finally become resigned to the fact that your bags are probably still sitting in some baggage container dozens of light years away.

  The baggage staff had been very apologetic, assuring her that her luggage would catch up with her in day or two and had meanwhile given her ten credits to cover the cost of necessities. Just about enough for a toothbrush and a pair of knickers. In hindsight she may as well have taken her chances with the grey suitcase. You had to wonder who arrived at the sum of ten credits for necessities. Did they never change their socks?

  Reunited with her bags she set off in search of her hotel. After taking a quick shower she was looking forward to spending the rest of the day sightseeing before taking the shuttle over to O1 in the morning.

  Leaving the arrivals lounge she found herself on a wide, airy concourse which led to the heart of the station. Lined with shops and boutiques, the concourse gradually widened until it opened onto a large, circular plaza, a great open space which stretched several floors above. A series of elevators, escalators and walkways criss-crossed the void which was topped with a great glass dome with just the stars beyond.

  According to the floor map her hotel – The Phoenix Clarendon – was three levels up on the other side of the plaza. Taking an elevator she then traversed the space above the plaza on a walkway constructed almost entirely of glass, the sides and curved roof crystal clear, the floor smoked. Leaving the walkway she found herself on an avenue lined with fashionable bars and restaurants, with the Phoenix Clarendon located at the far end.

  As she walked past a rather chic wine bar she felt the faintest shudder under her feet. A few steps later it happened again; the deck seemed to drop a few inches before returning to its original position. As she walked further the shudder developed into a very definite shimmy. Four years of training at the space academy had given Penny a robust pair of space-legs and she rode the various wobbles with comparative ease but for many of the visitors to the station it was a disconcerting experience as the station shifted beneath their feet.

  In the Ops Center Mike Pederson was dashing from console to console as alarms rang out across the room.

  “The attitude thrusters have fired,” said one of the operatives. “According to my data they’re trying to compensate for a shift in the station’s inertia.”

  “What shift in inertia?” said another. “There isn’t any shift. We’ve got optimum readings across the board.”

  “They’re reacting to an error that doesn’t exist,” said Pederson.

  “And then over-compensating, by the looks of things.”

  The attitude thrusters kept the station on a precise even keel in relation to the planet below. In normal circumstances one or more would, from time to time, fire a brief burst to correct any slight misalignment. Now, whole groups of thrusters were firing prolonged bursts seemingly at random and the station was beginning to gyrate slowly about all three axes.

  “Much more of this and we’ll have half the station space-sick,” said Pederson as the deck sank one way, paused for a second and then abruptly tipped back in the opposite direction. A few of the staff in Operations were already starting to look a bit green around the gills. A few minutes later one of the com operators clamped a hand over his mouth and dashed for the bathroom, weaving left and right as the station wallowed. Finally, after about twenty minutes the see-sawing came to an end and the station returned to equilibrium.

  “Attitude thrusters disengaging,” said the operative.

  “Scramble a tech team,” said Pederson. “Find out what happened, what caused it and who I can blame. And when you’ve done that–”

  “Maneuvering jets coming on line!”

  “What? Shut them down, shut them down!” barked Pederson. Unlike the attitude thrusters, the maneuvering jets were heavy duty engines, built to make changes in the station’s orbit. If they fired up at random it would be more than a wallow that the station’s occupants would have to put up with.

  “I can’t shut them down,” said the operative. “Shutdown sequence offline. Engines firing in ten, nine, eight…”

  Standing in the hotel lobby, Penny sensed the station cease its oscillations. A few of the guests and staff were still swaying backwards and forwards as their brains struggled to interpret the signals coming from their ears. The hotel concierge gazed around to make sure that everything was indeed in order and reassured, guided an elderly couple towards the check-in desk. Following behind was a bell hop pushing a luggage trolley laden with bags.

  “Attention!” blared the station’s public announcement system. “Brace for g-forces. Repeat, brace for–”

  Before Mike Pederson could complete his warning a pair of fusion engines on the western side of Phoenix burst into life and the whole station lurched into a clockwise spin. The elderly lady and her husband just managed to grab hold of the handrail fixed to the check-in desk and were hanging on for grim death while Penny and the concierge went staggering off to the side. The bellhop lost his balance completely and was sent sprawling to the floor, his luggage trolley shooting across the lobby, spewing bags in all directions.

  All over the station people were hanging onto the nearest solid object they could find as drinks overturned, shelves disgorged themselves of their wares and anything not firmly nailed down danced across the floor.

  Ten seconds later the fusion engines on the opposite side fired up and sent the station careering back the way it came. Confusion reigned inside the station but the ships moored alongside were most at risk. As Phoenix danced about the ships were being dr
agged along with it. Not designed to take such loadings the docking clamps were beginning to creak under the strain. The first to fail were the clamps on the Countess. Airlocks were hurriedly evacuated and sealed as the strain approached critical point, the captain of the liner slamming his hand down on the docking release just seconds before the clamps were torn bodily from the hull.

  Inside and out, things were going from bad to very much worse.

  CHAPTER 5

  Orbital One

  “Anyone seen a cadet?” said Chuck as he entered the crew room. Bernie and Guns looked up from their coffee and shook their heads.

  “No. Has she arrived?” asked Bernie.

  “So I gather. Got a buzz from the boss last night. I’m supposed to meet her here at nine thirty this morning.”

  “Any idea what she’s like?” said Bernie.

  “It’s a female,” said Guns. “What’s it matter what she’s like? They’re all impossible to understand. It was bad enough having to go home to one without having to work with one as well.”

  “Guns,” said Bernie, “You haven’t been home to a woman in forty years.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday. Murder, it was, absolute damned murder.” He closed his eyes and gave a little shiver. “I was in the old navy back then and of course, we’d be away on a tour of duty for months at a stretch. I tell you, she’d moan and bitch the whole time I was away, start to finish. ‘I’m lonely,’ she’d say. ‘I can’t manage on my own’. Then when I got back on leave what would she do? She’d spend every waking minute either complaining or in tears. Impossible, bloody woman. God, I hated leave, could never wait to get back on duty.”

  “Must have loved her once, though?” said Chuck.

  “Suppose I might have done, though I can’t really remember when. Women do that to you, you know. They nag and they niggle and they chip away until you forget all the reasons you got married in the first place. In the end all you remember is the bitterness. That’s all I remember, anyway,” said Guns mournfully.