Across the Great Rift

by Washburn, Scott;

  “She was aiming for my neck. I was just lucky I could get my arm up to block her, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “So what do you suggest we do, Chuck?” asked Sheila. “I agree that something very strange is going on, but what do we do about it?”

  “Well, that woman clearly isn’t happy at the thought of a bunch of us coming to visit her—so maybe that’s what we ought to do.”

  “Board a Protectorate warship, Charles?” said Beshar Hannah, his payroll manager and part-time lawyer. “That could offend… a number of people.”

  “Like Admiral Maynard,” growled VanVean. “He’s as stuck up about his ‘personal honor’ as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

  “Do you think he’d rather have one of his ships—hell, maybe his whole fleet—hijacked?”

  “Hijacked?” said Kimmal, raising his eyebrows. “Is that what you think is happening, Chuck?”

  Crawford nodded grimly and then winced as Barringir did something to his shoulder. “I can’t think of anything else that fits the facts. I’m convinced that this woman is up to no good and that the watch officer over there is either dead or incapacitated. I don’t know if she’s alone or has anyone else helping her, but she’s clearly been working herself to death lately and that would indicate it’s only her or just one or two others. If she—or they—have done away with the other people on watch in Exeter, then they would be the only ones awake in the whole fleet.”

  “Except for us.”

  “Right. Me being awake threw a wrench into whatever plans she had. She tried to fix things by killing me. Now that that has failed, I don’t know what she’ll do. But I think it would be better if we pay her a visit before she manages to do it.”

  “But what’s the point of this?” asked Barringir. “What does she hope to accomplish? Wreck the project?”

  “That could be it, Giselle. There are plenty of folks who would be happy to see us fail.”

  “She wasn’t just sabotaging us, Chuck,” said VanVean, his bushy eyebrows scrunched together in concentration. “She was resetting the cold-sleep capsules for five months from now. What do you suppose is going to happen five months from now?”

  “Don’t know. The Rift Fleet will automatically drop out of hyper on target whether there’s anyone awake or not. Maybe she’s expecting some friends of hers to show up to help her.”

  “Show up? From where?” demanded Barringir. “Across the Rift?”

  “Why not? We made it. Others have, too.”

  “Either that or she’s got friends already here who she hasn’t thawed out yet,” suggested Kimmal.

  “That’s another possibility,” admitted Crawford, not liking the idea one bit. “All the more reason for us to get moving before she can.”

  “God, I hope the family transports are okay,” said Beshar. “Could she have gotten over there, do you think, Chuck? Maybe we ought to send some people over to check on them.”

  Crawford hesitated. Recruiting the people for the expedition had not been easy. Not that many people were willing to go into cold-sleep for ten years and leave family and friends behind. Preference had been given to people like Crawford, who were willing to make that sacrifice, or to people who were married to other needed professionals who could also come. But they had not been able to fill all the slots that way. A fair number would only come if they could bring their families along, and four of the ships in the fleet were carrying them. Beshar’s wife and child were on one of those ships.

  “I’m sure they are okay, Besh,” said Crawford. “We can send a party to check later. But right now we need to deal with this situation.”

  “So how do you suggest we do that, boss?” asked VanVean. “Just hop in one of the shuttle cars and zip over there?”

  “She’ll be expecting us to do that,” said Sheila.

  “Yeah, I think maybe we ought to be a little sneakier.”

  “Like how?”

  “Not sure.” Crawford sighed. “But as much as I hate to admit it, I think we’d better wake up the captain and some of his crew and see what they think. Greg, take some of the others and get on it.”

  “Right, boss. You just relax here and let the doc fix you up. We’ll take care of it.”

  * * * * *

  Carlina awoke with a start. The last she remembered, she was sitting at her com station, alternately cursing the fate which had put her here and crying over the fact that it had. She must have dozed off. She frantically looked at the time and sighed in relief when she saw that only about a half-hour had passed. She needed another dose of stimulants. If she let them wear off, she’d probably sleep for twenty-four hours straight. A half-hour she might be able to spare, but not a whole day. The Maker only knew what Crawford could do with a whole day.

  Him and his friends.

  Damn him! He’d woken up more of his people and now she was outnumbered. She could not hope to just kill him. There were too many to fight bare-handed. So what could she do? Even if she could, she did not dare destroy the ship he was on. It was vital to the gate construction project and had to be taken intact. That fact had been impressed upon her by her superiors very clearly: no damage to the fleet! If the gate could not be built then this whole operation was nearly pointless. Oh, she had been given contingency orders to destroy things if all else failed, but it had been clear that all else had better not fail. Far too much was riding on this.

  On her.

  She could still scarcely believe they had given her a job this important. Surely there were other agents with more experience. Of course there were, but none of them happened to be on ships assigned to this fleet. It was just luck of the draw—and she had hit the jackpot of all jackpots.

  And it should have been so simple! Everything had been going perfectly until that bastard Crawford had spoiled it all. What was she going to do? She started crying again. She was so tired. And so scared. She had never been so scared in her life.

  “Stop it! Stop it and do something! You have no time for this!” She lurched to her feet and staggered down to the galley to get some water. She took another stimulant tablet and washed it down. She glanced around and tried to remember the last time she had eaten. There were a dozen discarded rations containers littering the tables. There had been no time to cook anything for a week or more, so she’d been living on packaged field rations. Her stomach was tied in knots and she had no appetite at all, but she forced herself to munch down an energy bar. The stimulants sucked a lot out of a person, and if she did not refuel she might collapse.

  The routine action calmed her slightly and she made herself think about her problem and possible actions. She could not attack them directly and there was now no point in trying to reset the cold-sleep capsules on the other ships. They could just re-reset them, or hit the emergency revival buttons far faster than she could work. So, in a few days she would be outnumbered thousands to one. It seemed pretty hopeless.

  But she was on a heavy cruiser and they were all on merchant ships; that must give her some advantage. She could not blast them, but she could make it as hard as possible for them to get at her. She just had to defend herself from their attacks until help came. Once the squadron arrived it wouldn’t really matter if the civilians were awake or not, would it?

  It won’t really matter if I’m alive or not, either.

  For some reason, that thought was actually comforting. She’d accomplished her primary mission and her own survival was entirely secondary now. She had hurt The Protector! Oh, yes, she had! No matter what happened now, he was going to be hurt by this on many different levels. Even if she died now, she would take that satisfaction with her. And she was so tired, dying did not seem like such a bad idea. Just fall asleep and never wake up. What a wonderful thought.

  But she could not give up yet. The harder she made it for her opponents, the less time they’d have to react to the problems she had created for them. The thought of giving that Crawford a hard time felt almost as good as the idea of sleep. Almos
t as good as hurting The Protector. All right, how much trouble can I make for them?

  She went to her station and got to work.

  * * * * *

  Doctor Barringir had just finished on his arm when the communicator in the sick bay beeped. Sheila answered and Crawford could hear VanVean’s voice, although he wasn’t close enough to make out his words.

  “Yeah, he’s still here,” said Sheila. “Just a second. Why? What’s wrong? Okay, okay, he’s right here.” She turned and looked at him. “Chuck, Greg wants to talk to you… he seems kind of upset.”

  Barringir nodded and Crawford pushed himself toward the intercom. They still needed to get the artificial gravity turned on, but they’d need the ship’s crew for that. “Yeah, what’s up, Greg?” he said into the com.

  “Chief, can you come down here? Right away?” The tone in VanVean’s voice sent a chill through him. He instantly knew that something was wrong—very wrong.

  “On my way. Should I bring the doctor?”

  “I…uh, no…yes, yeah, bring her along.” He exchanged looks with the others in the compartment and then they all moved toward the hatch.

  He didn’t get down to the cold-sleep compartment quite as fast as he had on that first trip, but almost. He slowed himself to a stop, the others crowding up behind him, and frantically scanned the compartment. Everything seemed normal…

  “Chief! Over here!” called VanVean. Crawford looked and saw his foreman near a hatch in the far bulkhead. The hatch led to the separate cold-sleep compartment used by the ship’s officers. It was open and an electronic wail came from inside. The look on VanVean’s face made him shudder. “What’s going on, Greg? What’s wrong?” VanVean just shook his head and motioned toward the compartment. Crawford swallowed and went in.

  The first thing he noticed was the flashing red lights. The second thing was the smell, a strange chemical odor. The third was that everything was wet. There were some small droplets of liquid floating about, but nearly every surface, deck, ceiling, bulkheads, equipment, was glistening with moisture. Then he saw the cold-sleep capsules. They were fogged over.

  And they were a wreck.

  Someone had opened up the access panels and torn the internal machinery apart. Tubing had been pulled loose or cut, power leads severed. The moisture in the compartment had spilled out from inside…

  “Oh, God!” exclaimed Sheila MacIntyrre from behind him.

  “Let me through!” cried the doctor when she caught sight of things. She pushed past Crawford, but he could tell that she was far too late.

  Chapter Three

  “Hell, he’s just a kid,” grumbled Greg VanVean.

  “Yeah, but he’s still an officer—and he’s alive,” replied Charles Crawford, looking at the very young man lying in the open cold-sleep capsule. And he’s the only one on the ship that we can say that about! The thought formed in his mind without bidding and refused to go away. The horror they’d found in the officers’ cold-sleep compartment was still gripping him like some manipulator claw that had been chilled to absolute zero. They had all been dead. Every single one of the officers of the starship Neshaminy. Their cold-sleep capsules had been wrecked and the men inside had died without ever waking up.

  Citrone. It had been that Citrone woman. Before he had caught her in the control room for the other capsules, she had gone into the officers’ section and done her deadly work. If I’d known, I would have had that work-droid wring her neck instead of just knocking her out! Without realizing it, his hands had clenched into fists and he was staring at nothing. He jumped when someone touched him. It was Sheila.

  “Chuck, it wasn’t your fault. There’s no way you could have stopped her.”

  He bristled and then stopped and nodded his head. Good old Sheila, sometimes it seemed like she knew him better than he knew himself. “Yeah, I know, but it seems like I should have… I still can’t believe she would do this. She was just resetting the rest of the capsules’ revival dates, why’d she kill those men?”

  “I think I have the answer to that, Chief,” said Fred Kimmal. He was waving to him from the officers’ compartment. Crawford moved over to him by the main control console. “Look there.” Crawford looked and saw where the screen was filled, from top to bottom with: ‘Enter Password’, followed by ‘Access Denied’. Crawford looked at Kimmal.

  “She didn’t have the access codes. The controls for the officers’ capsules were all password protected. She couldn’t reset their revival dates. So she… she…”

  “Yeah,” growled Crawford. “She sure did.”

  “Charles, he’s coming round,” Doctor Birringer’s voice echoed through the hatch. Crawford reversed himself and headed back. The young man in the capsule was awake and looking about in confusion. Crawford grimaced, Greg was right: he was just a kid. But he was an officer. Just an ensign according to the ship’s roster, but still an officer.

  “What’s he doing out here?” asked VanVean, echoing Crawford’s thoughts. “How come he ain’t dead in there with all the others?”

  “All the capsules in the officers’ compartment were filled,” said Sheila. “I guess there just wasn’t room so they put him with the petty officers out here.”

  “Lucky break for him.”

  “What…? What’s going on?” said the man hesitantly. “Who… who are all of you?”

  “Ensign Frichette? Petre Frichette?” asked Doctor Birringir. “How are you feeling?”

  “Y-yes, I’m Petre Frichette. Who are you?”

  “I’m Doctor Birringir. This is Charles Crawford, the gate construction manager.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember you now, sir,” said Frichette, looking at him. Crawford frowned slightly. While he had a great memory for plans and diagrams, his memory for names and faces wasn’t nearly so good; he did not remember ever having met this kid, but he supposed Frichette must have seen him during all the preparation for departure.

  “How do you feel, Petre?” said Birringir again.

  “Okay, I guess. A little strange. A little chilly, too.” The boy looked down at himself and blushed, his cheeks suddenly flaring pink in sharp contrast to his pale flesh. They had tucked a towel around his waist to give him a little modesty, but it wasn’t much.

  “We’ll get you dressed in a few minutes,” soothed Birringir. “Now I want you to start flexing your muscles the way you were instructed…” The doctor continued tending to her ‘patient’ but Crawford turned when Sheila nudged him. She handed him a small hand-comp and he saw that it was displaying Frichette’s service record. He glanced at it and frowned at how short it was. The boy was only seventeen standards and this was his first shipboard assignment. He’d gone through six months of instruction at a private merchant service academy and then he’d been sent to Neshaminy—reporting aboard a mere week before the expedition set off. Great.

  “Take a look at the next page,” said Sheila, quietly. He touched the advance key and looked at the screen more closely. This showed personal information and Crawford whistled silently.

  “He’s one of those Frichettes?” Sheila nodded. The boy came from a very important family. Admiral Avery Frichette had been one of The Protector’s main allies in his struggle against the Council of Fifty, and the family itself could trace its lineage back all the way to Guillume the Great and the Yarmondi Conquest. Granted, this Petre was a second or third cousin of Lord Avery, but that still made him pretty damn important. What the hell was he doing as a junior officer on a construction ship? He could not remember the baron saying anything about him.

  While he had been checking out the data, Frichette had been disconnected from his capsule and was struggling into his clothes. Crawford went over to him. “My Lord? Would you come with me? We need to talk. And we have coffee ready in the galley.”

  “Uh, sure. B-but I don’t drink coffee. Tea would be fine, if you have any.”

  “I imagine we can find some.”

  They floated out of the compartment, but Frichette looked bac
k at the row of capsules. “Aren’t the other crewmen being revived?”

  “They will be shortly, but I need to talk to you first.”

  A few minutes later they were all in the galley, Frichette nursing a bulb of hot tea and Crawford seated across from him with coffee. He cleared his throat and tried to figure out what the hell to say. “Uh, Lord Frichette…”

  “Please call me ‘ensign’, sir, junior officers don’t use their titles on shipboard.”

  “Oh, well, then, Ensign, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.” The boy looked at him intently. “There’s been a… a problem in the officers’ cold-sleep compartment.” He took a breath. “I’m afraid… I’m afraid you are the only officer left alive on the ship. The others are dead.”

  “D-dead?” squeaked the boy. “Captain Dumphries? The first officer…?”

  “All of them. I’m sorry.” Frichette turned very pale and sat there blinking. He didn’t look like he was going to break down and Crawford reminded himself that the boy had only been on the ship for a week before going into cold-sleep. Likely he didn’t really know any of those people very well.

  “What happened? How…?”

  “Now it gets ugly, Ensign. It was deliberate sabotage. They were murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Yes, there is a saboteur—possibly more than one—loose in the fleet.” Crawford told his tale again and the boy’s eyes got wider and wider. “So, we have a big problem,” he said in conclusion. “We need to stop this woman and we are going to need your help, son.”

  “I’ll do anything I can, sir. But… but I’m just an ensign.”

  “You are also the ranking officer on this ship.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re the only officer here. That puts you in command, Petre.”

  “But what about the other ships? Surely someone else can…”

  “We don’t know about the other ships,” said Crawford and his throat tightened. That was the other thing that had been gnawing at him. “With ninety-eight ships in the fleet, it’s unlikely that Neshaminy was the first ship she’s visited. I’m praying it wasn’t the last, either, but we have to assume that this woman may have already killed a lot of the other officers.”