Harric blurted back, “What are you playing at, Anton? I haven’t done any such thing.”
“What if it reads positive?”
Harric grew angrier, “Then the damned thing is broken and we’d all be risking getting charged with drug use while on duty! Look, I’m sorry they found it in you, but we’ve all got enough to face as it is!”
Garam clenched his fist. “I’m not trying to sell you out, Harric! Don’t you get it? I wasn’t on drugs, and this machine is telling me I went nuts because something got in my blood. I know I didn’t take it, whatever you believe. Now, you all lost control, too. What, did you drink that much? I mean, if you did, tell me now and I’ll take the blame for being high.”
Tegue grimaced. “I didn’t. I know it.”
Harric huffed. “Prove it! Garam can’t, and neither can we. I can’t remember half the night, and who knows what those rich snobs fed me?”
Garam flung up his hands. “Don’t you get it? Each of us did different things, equally stupid. If I’m right, and Tegue’s right, then there must be a reason! This feels like it could be that reason. But we need to know. Please, one of you, strap into this and give us a fighting chance to explain what happened. Or we are going to take the blame lying down?”
Quiet reigned.
Then, Tegue rolled to his knees and managed to crawl over to the sofa. Laying out on the ground, he rested his arm on the cushion. “Fine. Strap me in, Doc. What the hell? At least I’ll feel better. They can drum me out of the Academy with a clear head.”
“That’s the spirit. Alright, I’m no expert, so this might sting a little.” Garam angled the needle to where the auto-meds screen said to hold it, and then hit the ‘execute’ button.
Chapter 11
Sound didn’t travel in hard vacuum. So, Dianne didn’t hear the tired whine of the drill’s turbine as it sputtered to a halt. Fortunately, with her radio switched off, her string of un-officer-like cursing was also lost as she watched the machine’s oil indicators drop into the red.
Bouncing in the quarter-gravity of mining asteroid Z-39-LJ7641-GH0912, dubbed ‘the bubble’ by the cadets stranded on it, she rounded the bulky machine toward the access hatch leading into the diagnostics crawl space. Chinning her microphone on, she called out, “Seiji! Didn’t we chase down the faults in the lubrication system?”
Seiji Masogi was straining for breath as he answered over the radio, “Took me three hours to replace all the seals. They were all eaten away like acid had gotten into the lines.”
“Well the whole drive train just seized up, and all signs are pointing right at the internal cooling system. Can you give me a hand?”
Instead of the immediate help Seiji normally offered, he turned her down, “I’m down the side-tunnel, Di. Brace-claw 3 was sliding out of its groove. If the oil hadn’t failed out, you would have been seeing the drill slipping off its alignment soon enough. Can’t get her going again without fixing this.”
Dianne stopped in her hopping run and smacked the side of the hulking machine. “Dammit! You piece of archaic garbage! We show you love, and you just spit right back in our face?” She gave it another smack for a little added emphasis.
She spoke again into the team channel, “Reygi, what’s the competition doing?”
Reygi Masden’s reply was soaked in disgust. “Nura Phann’s team is already drawing on their assigned bank. They finished their tunnel a half-hour ago, and they’ll have drained the gas pocket in a couple hours.”
Dianne scowled. She wasn’t Sam, and the Trinitians never quite got under her skin like they did for him. She had kicked their collective asses in the class rankings for four years, and was happy enough to go on doing it right to the end. But they had been crushing everyone in this gas mining effort, and spent the off-hours practicing their professional grade arrogance as they bragged about their success. Just once, she wanted fate to give her a break and let her take them down a peg.
Unfortunately, her team’s drill equipment was plagued with errors. She might have taken that personally if the equipment wasn’t older than her father. Every drill on the planet had its idiosyncrasies, and most of the ones assigned to the cadets failed on a regular basis. Theirs just happened to be the worst of the lot.
Unable to help herself, she asked, “What about team 5?” She tried to make the question innocent.
Amusement clung to Reygi’s voice, clearly seeing right through the paper-thin ploy. “Greg and Lind aren’t much better off than us. They’re reading at about 50 meters deeper than us, but their drill bit fractured into pieces at half its life cycle. They’re struggling to get a new one in place.”
“And the others?”
“Jenna’s team just reached their pocket, and I’d say Ian’s crew will be right behind them if nothing else goes wrong after their shattered drive chain.”
Dianne whistled, having nearly forgotten about that. They’d been warned that the antique machines could snap their own chains, but Ian MacCullum’s had practically disintegrated in a way that should have been impossible. “Fair enough. Means we aren’t that far behind. Alright, tell Terro to give Seiji a hand with the claw along with auto-mech 1. It has the stronger lifting arm. Then send Suzi my way with auto-tech 1. All three of us are small enough to fit in the oil chamber. We can chase the faults together. You can keep auto-tech 2 and be ready to kick off the re-start cycle as soon as we report all faults are cleared.”
She’d taken over as defacto leader of the team without much effort. They were all trained to be leaders, but none of her team had any illusions about her drive to be at the top of the cadet pile come the end of the year. When they’d been asked to pick their own teams, she hadn’t wasted a minute gathering together a stable, excellent, but nicely deferential group that she could lead to victory.
If only this blasted tower of hell-bound metal didn’t have it in for her!
The struggle didn’t get any easier. They suffered through hours of endless troubleshooting as the drill belched out error after error. They couldn’t quit. Their entire grade depended on meeting a daily quota, and they’d already missed too many.
So, it was hours after the normal end of the student shifts when Dianne’s exhausted five-cadet team stumbled out of the shadows of the asteroid’s shadowy night into the shelter complex. They had drained their assigned gas pocket and met the quota, but they would barely have time to catch a few hours of sleep before they would be back in the fight.
Feeling every kilogram of the weight of their vac-suits, they moved even slower once back inside the complex’s artificial gravity field. Dianne racked her helmet, left the suit nestled in its alcove, and sank onto one of the couches in the deployment/recovery room beyond.
As she waited for the rest of the team to finish, the handsome pair that was Greg and Lind appeared from deeper in the station. They spread out, picking seats to either side of her. Lounging into the cushions, the pair tried their best to make sure they didn’t look sympathetic. Greg asked, “Are you just coming back in?”
Dianne was too tired to drum up a clever answer. “You’ve seen the team status board. We didn’t deliver on three pockets since we kicked off. That’s one more than you and Jenna, and two more than Ian. We had to get this one done, no matter what.”
From the doorway, a sly reminder came on the wings of Nura Phann’s soprano. “Three more than mine.”
Dianne had heard the Trinitian woman’s slim form described as serpentine, and she lived up to that now as she slinked her way over to the coffee dispenser. Of course, there was no reason for her to be in the DepRec. The coffee was better in the cafeteria. No, she was there to gloat.
Unbidden, Lind came to her defense. And his own. “Awfully easy to meet your quotas when your drill works perfectly every time you haul it out of storage.”
Nura struck an arrogant pose as she leaned against the wall. “Ever heard of preventative maintenance? We look after our kit, and it doesn’t let us down. Maybe your teams are sloppy. I’d say
incompetent. Then again, a team is only as good as its leader, isn’t that right?” She let slip a mocking huff. “Guess you can fool them in a classroom, Dianne. But get you out in hard vacuum with a deadline to meet, and you fall apart.”
Greg jumped in this time, “Wasn’t it her ship that blew yours out of space earlier this year?”
Nura waved that away. “She was hiding behind Pierce. He might be a traitorous bastard, but he can fight. What do you say, Dianne? Time to step down and admit you’ve lost? Might not be too late for your team if you throw in the towel now.” Trailing a line of snickers, she carried her coffee from the DepRec with a celebratory swing to her hips, a snake that had swallowed its mouse.
Dianne had a firm hold of her tongue. She tasted blood.
Seiji appeared in the airlock hatchway in time to hear the last of the exchange. “Worst thing is, she isn’t totally wrong. They warned us that these drills were old, and part of the test is how well we keep up with obsolete tech. Not sure the instructors will give us any leeway because ours can’t stay in one piece. Certainly not enough to offset how much gas Nura’s team is pumping into the tanks.”
Dianne steepled her fingers on the table in front of her. “She might be right about that, but she’s dead wrong about maintenance. We’ve kept on top of it. We’ve doubled the hours her team has spent crawling through our systems. I would swear on whatever star you want that the oil system was tight enough to hold in the atoms inside, much less the fuel itself. There is no way it should have leaked.” She glanced at Greg. Usually she kept a careful distance from the man she found so distracting, but at that moment she admitted a need for his support. “How about your team?”
Greg didn’t hesitate. “I had an engineering status check running as soon as I entered the holding bay for my drill. We haven’t stopped since. Our central switchboard was sparking and shorting out after we overhauled the whole system two days prior. At first, we thought dust was getting in, but the vents and filter weren’t blocked or jammed or anything.”
Dianne bounced a fist off the table. “Ian and Jenny are getting the same sort of random errors. This must be part of the trial. Could the instructors be inputting these faults?”
Lind tasted that but spit it out. “I can’t see why. For every error that doesn’t make sense, there is another that feels more natural.”
Seiji objected, “But those are all minor, and tend to be on the systems we actually forgot to check because we’re so busy with these other ones.”
Greg added, “Besides, if the instructors were doing it, how can you explain Nura getting away clean?”
Dianne demanded he be serious. “Sam might care the most, but we’ve all seen how certain instructors line up the Trinitians for success.”
Lind reminded her, “Only one of the five instructors is Trinitian. The others would insist that Nura and her team get messed with as much as the rest. They’d be watching our reactions and testing to see how we respond to stress. They’d notice if Nura was floating by untouched.”
She surrendered. “Guess you’re right.” She kicked her feet up onto the opposite seat. “I guess I don’t want to admit we’re being slow at figuring this out. Especially with Seiji on my team. The one thing I didn’t worry about for a second was the engineering side of this.” She flashed the cadet-technician a smile. “I still trust you, Seiji. Really, I’m angry for you. I don’t think you’ve missed anything, and it isn’t making sense. I hate when things don’t make sense.”
Greg leaned in, wanting to put a hand on her shoulder in comfort. He stopped midway, still not sure she would welcome the connection. “Don’t suppose you want to go commiserate over a late supper?”
Lind added from the other side, never easily left out of the dance that was their competition for Dianne’s affection. “We’re buying?”
Dianne side-stepped the trap without thinking about it. She was too caught up in the problem at hand. “We have another three hours to scour every inch of the damned drill tonight. Seiji, maybe we shouldn’t let it cool down. We babysit the system all night, keep the sub-systems warm, and get an early start. Maybe it’s the cold soaks every night that are hurting it.”
Greg and Lind exchanged regretful but unsurprised looks. Their faces betrayed the clear message to each other, Better luck next time.
Seiji sighed, knowing they were in for a long night. “I’ll tell the others. Not sure what this will do, but I’m fresh out of ideas. If this works, you know we’ll have to keep it up every night from now on?”
“Then we’ll take a book from navy ships and set watches. We’ll trade off. Whatever it takes. I’m not going to let invisible gremlins destroy us!”
Chapter 12
Korey Lanyen glanced left and right, a sarcastic glint in his eye. “Well, if I had known I could come to the dullest planet in the galaxy to sit in yet another auditorium, I would have come sooner.”
Sam hated agreeing with any other Trinitian who called himself part of Tanner’s clique on principle. This time, he couldn’t help himself. Even the auditorium wasn’t interesting. It was modern enough, but utilitarian at best. Boring at worst. It was also small, just enough to hold the twenty-five cadets. The similarities to their classrooms on Sanctuary were impossible to miss, perhaps constructed by the same company.
Sam turned to Sandy Kyper, commenting, “He’s right. This isn’t an auspicious start, is it?”
Sandy was doing his best to keep down his lunch, his skin clinging to an unhealthy green pallor. “I’m just praying they’re going to let us go planet-side.”
Sam eyed him carefully. “Are you saying you’re still space sick? The station isn’t on spin gravity, Sandy. The artificial grav is within a decimal point of the home world.”
Sandy scowled. “As if that makes it normal? I come from Shield, Sam. It has a 1.08g field. I always feel so light.”
Smothering a laugh, trying not to be mean, Sam pointed out, “That isn’t exactly a heavy-world. I’m from the First Point, you know. Has around 1.6.”
“What, are you bragging? All I know is that I feel light, and I can feel the station moving!”
Sam shook his head. “That’s your imagination. You can’t feel us orbiting. Not with an artificial gravity field in place.”
“It ain’t natural, man. I can sense it.”
Sam rolled his eyes a little and tried to find something else to occupy his time that wouldn’t drive him crazy. Shield was a notoriously low-tech world, preferring to live closer to nature and eschewing many of the modern conveniences typical Alliance citizens took for granted. Sandy had made it out into the stars to join the Academy, but he hadn’t quite shaken the nerves and distrust of that technology. How he had managed to make it to fourth year was anyone’s guess.
A subtle blend of honey and spice wafted into his nose a second before the seat next to him was filled with the lithe perfection that was Brenna Styles. “Mind if I sit? For once you aren’t surrounded by your entourage.”
Sam told the small part of him that surged hard at her proximity to settle down and tried to remember what happened the last time he trusted her. “Hypocrite. Oh, maybe not. You’re usually busy being part of someone else’s entourage, aren’t you?”
Brenna folded her legs in a way meant to tantalize Sam’s senses, managing the feat well despite her gray cadet uniform. “My, you have a sharp edge today.”
Admitting he had started on the attack, Sam kept his caution in place but didn’t chase his last insult with another. “The prospect of staring through a microscope for the next couple months isn’t doing anything for my mood. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m looking forward to our final exams when we get back. At least we get to dredge up our tactical knowledge one last time.”
Brenna made disappointment look desirable as it spread over her face. “You’re as hopeless at biology as everyone says, aren’t you?”
Sam huffed. “If I’m being fair, I understand it. I flew through combat first-aid. Medical a
pplication has always fascinated me, even if I really don’t think I have the aptitude. But this slow-paced scientific research? I’d rather be doing anything else. I get sloppy, and that always screws up the results.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so onerous if you could mix it with something else.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“Maybe a little harmless flirtation?”
“Harmless?”
“Mostly harmless.” Her teeth flashed as might a kitten’s or a tiger’s.
Sam decided it was probably both. “You seriously want to pair up in the lab?”
She shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said I liked this kind of thing. So, let’s suffer together. If we don’t, I’ll end up with Korey or Mayla. That will make the time drag out even further. I need to pair with a Trinitian. You’re one of us, like it or not. Now’s the time to prove it away from your feud with Tanner.”
“Tanner definitely wouldn’t be pleased. He gave up faith in me, and I know he hates that you keep pressing.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Since when do you make your decisions based on what he thinks?”
“Isn’t that your job?”
She tisked lightly at him. “Back to being nasty already? You’re supposed to be on the permanent high road, remember?” She let out a sigh. “Enough fencing. We’re outside the Gate, this is the last major project, and graduation is only months away. I’ll admit this much to you; Tanner didn’t say a word before I left. Maybe he’s decided that trying to play games across the light-years wouldn’t work. Maybe he’s focused on his own Trip-E work and didn’t have time to cook up any plans. He didn’t make a single demand on me. So, now I get a little freedom to do things how I would want.”
He weighed her sincerity, and oddly enough didn’t find it wanting. “Didn’t think loyalty was so onerous.”
“I never wanted to be fighting you, Sam. That’s what’s onerous. Your feud with Tanner isn’t with me.”
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