"What's your problem with me, anyway?"
Orlova turned her head, "Nothing, if you do your job. Look, some of the rules are there for good reasons. You'd have a hell of a time getting to an escape pod from there. Not to mention if your boss wants to find you in a hurry."
"I could set up an interface from there into the comm system. Wouldn't take long."
"Why do you want to be up there anyway?"
"I like a bit of peace and quiet. How'd you like to sleep in a room with five other people?"
"We haven't got room for everyone to have their own cabins, Harper."
"You've got one."
"I'm an officer."
"I know more than you about the computer systems already."
Orlova smiled, replying as the door opened, "It takes a damn sight more than that, Harper. Now come on, I've got some systems for you to play with."
The hangar deck was filled with espatiers milling around under Kozu's supervision; Esposito was checking out a flight profile with Dixon in the corner, the pilot pulling on her flight suit as she talked. Four of the shuttles were being prepared for launch by the harried maintenance crews, the small one at the far end for Orlova and her team.
"Garrison, Smythe?" she asked of the two maintenance techs standing by her shuttle.
"Yes, ma'am," they replied, in unison.
"Which of you is the archaeotech expert?"
"Me, ma'am," the bald man on the left said. "Smythe's an EVA tech."
"EVA?" Harper said, looking uncertainly at the shuttle.
Orlova turned, smiling, "Station's been in vacuum for a long, long time. You must have been checked out in Basic, right?"
"Yeah, of course."
"You three suit up on the ride out. Captain wants us to disembark immediately, see if we can find something that might help the ground team. Let's move." She scrambled up into the passenger's compartment and closed the airlock, hastily running through her preflight. Harper looked reluctant, finally hesitantly stepping into the passenger airlock. With the final lights, green, Orlova called the bridge.
"Transit One to Bridge. Requesting launch clearance."
Caine's voice chuckled over the communicator, "Bit of a change for you, isn't it? You have clearance to launch, elevator ready. Good luck."
"Thanks, Lieutenant. Catch you when I get back." Switching back to internal comms, she continued, "All good back there?"
Three voices replied, and she shut off the panel, not wanting to be disturbed. Normally she'd prefer to fly the shuttle out herself, but this time she opted to throw it entirely over to the automatic systems, calling up the datafile on the space station as the airlocks engaged, sending the shuttle drifting out into space before its main engines fired, kicking it onto the correct trajectory, before spinning the craft around to begin the deceleration sequence.
There were plenty of pictures of similar stations; apparently it was a design sold privately around the middle of the previous century, and the images were taken from a 'showroom' station in LEO. Half a dozen long modules around a central core, designed to be launched from Earth itself on heavy-lift boosters. Station staff of only twelve, so it would likely be pretty cramped over there, and already she could see numerous potential problems with the four of them drifting around inside.
"Change of plans, people. Garrison, Smythe, you might as well stay in here. Harper and I will go in, find a data port and get it working. We'll run the first analysis here, dump everything into Alamo's computers after a quick look-see."
"Can't I watch on the monitors?" Harper whined.
"Might need your special skills out there, Spaceman. Get suited up."
"Ma'am, this is my job," Smythe said.
"I need you here if something goes wrong, Spaceman. Be ready at a second's notice if needed."
Smythe was probably right, but she wanted to see the station for herself. The planet loomed large ahead as the shuttle decelerated into orbit to match the tumbling wreckage; she could just about make it out on the screen with the help of the heads-up display. Obviously the core had been disrupted at some point, but the modules were still connected by enough loose wires and cabling to keep them tumbling together. Narrowing her eyes, she looked a little more closely at one of the modules, a huge rupture in its heart. A hole that was inwards, rather than outwards. This wasn't a decompression problem, someone had actually punched a hole in the station.
"Alamo, this is Transit One. We sure there's no space activity in this system?"
"Nothing on scanners, Transit One," Caine replied, "And nowhere big enough for anyone to hide for long. Why?"
"I don't need a data dump to tell me that someone attacked this station, and did a pretty damn good job of it, too. I'd say every module's been hit, definitely from the outside."
"You want to abort, Sub-Lieutenant?" Concern filled the Tactical Officer's voice.
After musing for a second, Orlova replied, "No. We might need the data, but, well, be extra careful. I want somewhere to come back to."
"Don't worry, we'll be watching. Sing out if you see anything. Alamo out."
Behind her, Alamo was breaking into its own orbit, and she knew that Marshall would be taking his party down to the surface in a few minutes. She envied him that job; if she'd had her way she'd be sitting in the pilot's seat of Shuttle One right now, not some upstart midshipman, but at least she was commanding a little mission of her own right now. Even if she had decided – for a reason that now was beginning to escape her – to turn this into Harper's chance to prove herself. The computer pinged twice; it had stopped short of the minimum set distance, issuing warning calls of debris surrounding the station. About two hundred meters to go.
"Get ready, Harper, I'll be out in a minute." Orlova started to pull on her suit, double-checking each seal as she went, then clipped on the helmet. The mix looked right, but she took a couple of experimental breaths just to be on the safe side. Locking the controls over to remote operation from Alamo, she stepped into the small pilot's airlock and activated the release cycle, clipping her safety line to the rail. Outside, the station tumbled ahead, just over the purple sands of the planet below, with the angry star in the background.
"Orlova to Alamo. About to head over to the station; have we checked on the star lately? Looking a bit angry."
"Alamo here. Mulenga says it reads quiet, but doesn't want us to linger. Go in and get back as fast as you can."
"You don't have to tell me twice. Out." She switched frequencies, "Harper, you there?"
"Hang on a minute."
"Hurry up."
Drifting out around the hull of the small ship, Orlova saw the passenger airlock cracking open, and a suited figure emerge. She attached her secondary line to the figure, then gave a thumbs up, and detached her connection to the shuttle.
"Should we do that?" Harper said.
"Two hundred meters to jump; the line won't do any good and could get in the way. I'll guide us over, just concentrate on keeping yourself steady. Set your auto-thrusters."
"Yeah."
With practiced ease, Orlova tapped in a pair of buttons and started to move towards the station, quick bursts from her suit thrusters drawing her across the void. This was such an easy hop that she did it on manual; the computer would warn her if she messed up too much. A heads-up display dropped down in front of her, showing her the tracks of the debris, and again, she flicked it off. If there was any danger of collision, the computer would take the needed action instantly. As the slack was drawn out of the connecting line, she felt herself being dragged downward, spinning around.
"Harper, did you set your thrusters right? You're dragging."
"Hold on a minute, I can't work this thing."
Shaking her head, Orlova tugged on the line, bringing the two of them together. Reaching to Harper's wrist, she set the controls to the needed settings, lamenting that the designers hadn't built in proper remote suit operation. She looked up at the hacker, and saw that her face was covered in swe
at; she was turning pale.
"You all right?"
"I don't like these things, that's all. I can do this."
"If you're going to have a problem, go back. Smythe can take your place."
"I said I can do it. Let's just get on with it."
"OK, Spaceman. Hold tight."
The drift was slow and easy, the computer making periodic adjustments to tug them out of the way of a drifting piece of debris from the long-ago destruction of the station. Orlova had picked the command pod initially, but it looked to be a total wreck as they approached, holes gouged through in four different places. The interior was a tangled mess of metal, with a spacesuited figure hanging inside, frozen blood where his suit had been torn. Harper gasped, and started to breathe deeply.
"Ohgodohgodohgod,"she said, her eyes closing, her torso turning.
"Hold it together, Harper. Tap the green button, that's a relaxant."
"Got it."
"Let's try the Science Pod. That looks less damaged, and it might have the files we need."
"Yeah."
The two of them moved slowly across the surface of the station, Orlova shaking her head at the damage. This station wasn't merely destroyed, it was almost pulverized, as if someone wanted to make absolutely sure that it could never be used again. Drifting past a smashed solar array, she reached down to the science pod; there was a single gaping gash in the hull, but the inside of the pod didn't look as bad, and after a quick look, she could see why. A missile was sitting in the far wall, undetonated. Her eyes widened, and she turned back to Harper.
"I see a data port, over there," Harper said.
"Wait a minute." She switched over to the main frequency again, "Alamo, I've found an undetonated missile. You should be getting some images now, what does the warbook say."
"One mi...," Caine said, then replied, "That's a Mark VII Whirlbat. Martian-build."
"Martian? Are you sure?"
"Don't get close. It might still trigger."
"Caine, this is the most intact pod. If we're going to get the data we need, it will be here."
There was a long pause, long enough that Orlova knew that this decision was being pushed further up the command chain. She hung in space, one hand reaching for the hull, and started to examine the missile more carefully, looking for the serial number. Cursing under her breath, she realized that it had been burned off in the impact. It would long ago have run out of power, and setting up a generator would probably cause a rather nasty explosion, so the on-board databanks were inaccessible.
"Sub-Lieutenant, this is the Captain." The voice was distant, obviously going through a relay; by now the Captain was sitting in a pilot's seat of his own, taking a shuttle down to the surface. "Proceed with extreme caution. If you have any doubts, get out of there immediately."
"Understood."
"Be careful. Marshall out."
Orlova turned back to Harper, "I'll get the memory core powered up. You go tap in."
"What are you going to use?"
"Suit power should do it. We only need a few minutes."
Pulling herself up, being careful to stay as far away as possible from the missile, she swung around to the nearest emergency power socket. The adapters had been standardized decades ago, and there hadn't been any reason to change; one quick tug, and she connected her suit power pack to the onboard systems. As she got close, her heads-up display translated the Cyrillic into English with a flicker, and she isolated the circuits to keep the power where it was needed – the module's independent computer core. Taking a deep breath, she threw the final switch, and a couple of overhead lights began to flicker into life, illuminating the far end of the module.
She almost jerked it out again. A pair of bodies were drifting on the far end of the module, locked in an embrace, both of them obviously the victims of explosive decompression. One of them seemed to be grinning at her, his face frozen in its final posture, and she jabbed down the green button on her wrist, calming herself down chemically, and started to take deep breaths.
"Don't look at anything other than your work, Harper. That's an order."
"Gotcha." The hacker pulled out a couple of small data storage boxes and connected them up to the system, fumbling slightly in the unfamiliar gloves. The lights flickered briefly, and Orlova turned back to the power supply station, shaking her head. The damage was extensive, quite a bit of leakage. She isolated all the circuits she could dare close, then turned back to Harper, who was beginning to enter data into the computer at a frantic rate.
"Take your time, Harper. We've got at least five minutes."
"I thought you wanted to get out of here. I'm putting in a data spider."
Orlova frowned, "Just do a data dump. We can sort out the information later."
"Faster to do it now in its native environment."
"Do it the safe way."
"Relax, I've got this one."
Turning back to the power console, Orlova focused on keeping the power stable. The systems were failing again at an increasing rate, but the power flow was stable. She flicked on a diagnostic, but the text streamed down the screen faster than her system could translate it. Her Russian was lousy, she was only picking up one word in ten or so, but it didn't look good. Then the lights went out.
"I can't work in the dark, damn it," Harper said.
"Power's stable. The activation circuit isn't working." She flicked a button again, "Damn it. Harper, that spider, it's intrusion-based?"
"Obviously."
"You've triggered an anti-virus package. The OS is purging!"
"Impossible. It's far too advanced for anything this old."
"And they couldn't have upgraded?" Orlova's suit warning lights flicked on – her computer was reporting an intrusion in her own software, and systems were starting to blink on and off. "I've been hacked!"
Pulling the cable out returned the station to dormancy, but didn't solve her problems; her on-board anti-virus package wasn't coping with the problem. One by one, systems were being wiped, and the back-ups simply couldn't keep up with the rate of data deletion. Without waiting for Harper, she swung out of the station, leaping out into free space.
"What the hell? I lost data, damn it!"
Orlova didn't reply. She had to get back to the shuttle before the virus wiped out something she couldn't live without. Like the life support package. Stabbing down on her thruster controls, all she received was an error message. Red lights were dancing inside her helmet, and she realized that her core systems had already been infected. She gulped deep breaths, trying to take in as much oxygen as she could.
"Harper to Smythe. Orlova's in trouble!"
"On my way."
Smythe had evidently been ready in the airlock; Orlova could make out a figure heading towards her, thrusters burning recklessly to get to her as rapidly as possible. Her warning lights went from red to black; all of her systems had now failed. All she had left was the air in her suit, enough for only a few minutes. The universe swam in front of her, stars dancing around, and then everything faded out. The last thing she felt was hands reaching for her.
Chapter 8
Settling down into the couch, Marshall peered out through the viewport at the planet below, slowly growing closer as they raced towards the horizon. The shuttle passed over glistening ice draped over the pole, and he started to run a sensor check. In a matter of seconds, a dozen small points had registered on the other side of the planet, scattered across the hemisphere. His brow furrowed; that didn't make any sense. Colonies were usually kept within easy travel distance in the early years, unless there was some desperate reason to spread out. Even then, there would still be one central point, if only for space-to-ground infrastructure. He played with the communications sequences, but found nothing on any frequency. If anyone had been transmitting, their presence had caused them to cease.
Steele, sitting in the pilot's chair, turned her head, "Where do you want me to set down, Captain?"
"Pilot's
discretion. All of the heat points look similar enough; pick whichever looks like the easiest approach."
Biting her lip, she replied, "None of them look particularly easy, sir." Adjusting the descent to buy her some time, she looked over the computer summary of the best three landing approaches, finally selecting one near the equator. Banking around, she adjusted the course plot towards her new target. Marshall picked up a headset.
"Marshall to Alamo. How's Orlova doing?"
Caine's voice was hesitant, "There was some sort of accident. Spaceman Smythe reports that she's fine, but unconscious, some sort of suit failure. Be back aboard in a few minutes."
"Do you need the Doc?"
"Shuttle automed says that she'll come around shortly. Other than a checkup when you get back, I think she'll be fine. I'll let you know if anything changes."
"Thanks, Deadeye. I'll call again when we're on the ground."
Above him, Alamo was breaking into synchronous orbit overhead, an orbit designed to get shuttles to the surface in the minimum possible time. After playing around with the channels again, Marshall pulled out his datapad and looked up Russian emergency frequencies. No-one was transmitting, but they might just be listening.
"This is Lieutenant-Captain Marshall, of the Triplanetary," he caught himself before identifying as a warship, "spaceship Alamo. A shuttlecraft is descending to your equatorial belt. We come in peace but are able to defend ourselves if attacked. If you have specific landing instructions, please reply."
He set the message to auto-repeat until they were on the ground, then looked over at the young midshipman. Her face was a mask of concentration as she focused on the approach, bringing them in low over a jagged mountain range and curving into a long, wide canyon. Five lights sparkled at the end of the canyon, glistening red; as they grew closer, the lights flickered out.
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