by Terry Mixon
Not as sexy to the uninitiated, but a far more dangerous aspect to the sport. He’d done a few of the powerful northern storms before, and that had padded his bank account while getting him a lot of cred in the diving community.
Depth was one of the milestones divers used to compete against one another. His accomplishments weren’t too shabby, but Double Dick held that record at 250 bar, a damned impressive achievement.
Others had gone deeper, but they’d died in the attempt. Only their data recorders made it back out. Divers only counted a record if you lived.
They also used wind speed and atmospheric pressure for records. Plus, the fans valued the wildest rides.
Public opinion was more than raw statistics, though. It was a combination of risk, daring, and panache. Adam thought he had Double Dick beat when it came to showmanship. The fans seemed to agree.
Once he had everything checked, Adam stretched his back. “Time to make the donuts.”
* * * * *
Rachel arrived in the launch bay she’d tracked Hale to tired and confused. Sleep hadn’t come easily, and Zane’s kit had been maddeningly short on answers to her pressing questions.
He’d brought along some encrypted data chips, but none of the normal passwords they’d shared worked. Either he hadn’t wanted her to know what was on them, or he’d been extra paranoid.
She’d gone by the rooms that the station had Hale listed as living in, but he hadn’t answered the door. Frankly, the place looked semi-industrial. A passerby had sent her here.
The bay looked nothing like what she’d expected. It covered a lot more room than she thought and had far too many people milling around.
There were at least a dozen work bays, about half of them occupied. She spotted Hale and another man in one of them looking over a sleek blue ship. Well, it really looked more like a weapon, but she was sure the station wouldn’t let them build something like that.
The thing was too small to go anywhere meaningful. Hell, she wasn’t sure it really held a person at all. Time to gather some more information.
She made her way to where most of the people were talking and drinking. There were large screens mounted on the walls, but they weren’t on. The chatter was all about pressures and temperatures, radiation and depths. It made no sense to her.
Giving up on figuring it out on her own, she found a likely looking guy off by himself and played tourist.
“Excuse me?” She smiled brightly at him. “I’m new. What’s going on?”
The young man looked up from his tablet. “They’re almost ready. Give them another ten or fifteen minutes and they’ll begin heading out one by one.”
“Doing what?”
His smile grew quizzical. “You really are new. They’re going storm diving.”
She heard the words, but drew a blank on what he meant. It must’ve showed, because he continued.
“They’re going to take their ships down into Jupiter and ride the storms.”
Rachel considered what she knew of the massive planet and shook her head. “I must be misunderstanding something. That’s suicide. Why would anyone even consider that?”
He shrugged. “For the rush? And, yeah, they sometimes don’t make it. That’s what makes it exciting.”
That wasn’t exciting. That was insane.
Rachel thanked the man and stepped back against the metal wall. She used her com to bring up information on storm diving and discovered it really was a sport. One for the crazed and deranged.
They took those little ships and drove them deep into the Jovian atmosphere where the incredible winds and pressure killed a number of them every year.
She looked into the bay where Hale and his companion were lifting the ship on a hoist. They intended to dive into something like the Great Red Spot.
Any doubts she might have had about Hale’s personal bravery evaporated. If he could do this, he had no fear at all. And absolutely no common sense.
It took her a few minutes to discover there was a huge following for these storm divers. They apparently recorded their feats of crazed bravado and beamed them all across the system.
She’d thought the people doing the long drives across the face of Mercury were nuts.
Hale even had a page for fans to track his dives. Holy crap. He really had dived into the Great Red Spot. He’d dropped down to where the atmosphere changed into a liquid and then went into that like a submarine.
A few clips showed his ship skimming along through storms in the ammonia clouds where he was fighting the ship for control. His incredible stupidity stunned her. What would make anyone risk death so cavalierly?
She put her com away and watched Hale come out of his bay in a mechanically enhanced flight suit. How could that thin metal protect him from the lethal radiation?
Not that she’d cry about it if he died, but he might have critical information about Zane. If he killed himself before she got it out of him, she might never see her partner again.
Well, she certainly couldn’t walk up to him and tell him what an idiot he was being right now. She had to hope for the best and try other angles to figure out where Zane was.
She watched Hale climb into his ship, and several of the monitors in front of her came to life. It dawned on her that all these people were here to watch the dive as it happened. They were vultures, waiting to see if someone died today.
It was sick.
And so very much like humanity. Some people would go out of their way to see someone crash and burn. The kind of people that got some kind of vicarious thrill watching an accident where someone died.
Three of the monitors showed the outside of Hale’s ship. One faced aft and two forward, angling off to the right and left. A fourth monitor showed Hale inside at his controls. The damned thing was so tight he barely fit.
She’d seen videos of people skiing down mountains after dropping from helicopters. That had always seemed crazed to her. This was beyond the pale. Yet his page said he’d made over seventy dives. Was it really as dangerous as it seemed?
A search said divers on average either retired or died before fifty drops. Rachel guessed that answered her question. Well, she wasn’t here to save him. She had a mission to accomplish, and his absence gave her a chance to get some work done.
Chapter Five
Adam completed the internal check on his ship again. All still green. He was the first up today, so he called traffic control as soon as Jason moved him into the lock and drained the atmosphere.
“Jove Control, this is Alpha Delta One Five. Request permission to depart Jupiter inbound.”
A woman’s voice came back promptly. “Alpha Delta One Five, you are third in the queue. There’s a freighter south of the station going retrograde. A repair tender is right behind it. Two minutes until your window.”
“Copy that, Control. Standing by.”
“Have a good dive, Alpha Delta One Five. Come back safe.”
“That’s the plan. Out.”
He knew the controllers thought he and his friends were madmen, but they’d be there for him if something bad went down. He respected the men and women at Jove Control more than almost anyone else in the universe.
Of course, their best wasn’t good enough to save anyone deep in the Jovian atmosphere, but they’d managed to direct help to a few divers that had made it out with some kind of problem. They’d saved more of the construction crew when the Disruptors struck than seemed possible.
Two minutes later, almost to the second, Control gave him the green light. He gave the internal camera a thumbs-up and hit the hatch activator. The plate under his ship split in two and his ship fell free as it opened on either side.
The small screens ahead of him showed the view from the ship as he fell away. This part wasn’t exciting for the fans, but he found it thrilling. Jupiter filled the sky below him, magnificent and terrifying. He was an ant daring the king’s boot.
Small bursts from his thrusters slowed his orbit, and his ship s
tarted falling. He’d already laid in a rough course, but the king’s storms and winds were not the easiest thing to forecast. He’d have to make some adjustments as he went. Once he was in the fray, he’d be flying by the seat of his pants.
Somewhere behind him, a series of probes would take his feed back to the station. For a while, at least. It wasn’t in as high a resolution as his ship was recording, though. That was for the subscribers once he made it back out. Assuming he did.
As his ship plunged toward the gas giant and the protective tiles began absorbing the punishment, the pressure on him grew stronger, climbing to the point where only his suit kept him conscious. It was worst during the blazing descent and the eventual flight back up to the station.
His vision narrowed, and he fought to keep all the data in his head as the ship transitioned from being an object above the planet to one coasting toward a red sea of clouds below him. A small white oval just to one side was quickly growing larger.
He dropped into the red, flying blind at this point. It wouldn’t clear until he fell below the clouds.
Adam edged the ship over until it entered the swirling storm he’d targeted. He was going with the winds. Fighting them directly was a recipe for disaster. He’d work with them as much as possible. On a crazier day, he’d go the other way.
It took a while, but he finally dropped below the ammonia clouds and into the water zone. Lightning was rarer on Jupiter, but each strike was several times more powerful than their tiny cousins on Earth.
They would make a good show, if he found any. The sky was boringly dark, not showing a hint of the flashes he wanted.
He nosed the ship deeper into the atmosphere and closer to the storm. It shuddered as crosswinds tried to rip it from the sky. The G-forces had finally dropped down to manageable levels.
There! Off to the left, a small flash hinted at the action he wanted. He arrowed closer, upping the thrust. He broke into a clear zone. It was probably a storm band. It allowed his cameras to catch some amazing images from the clouds ahead.
They swirled angrily, with bright flashes illuminating them from within. Excellent.
“Here we go.” The microphones would pick up everything he said, saving it for the fans. He was too deep for the folks on the station to receive him at all. Jupiter put out some surprisingly strong radio noise.
A massive lightning strike shot out of the clouds and off to his right. His eyes closed for a moment, far too late to block the glare. The screens dimmed the worst of it, but he still blinked away the afterimages.
“That was a nice one. I hope you folks are enjoying the show as much as I am.”
He’d fly along in the open for as long as he could. That would get some great shots.
Everything went according to plan, too. Surprisingly. The clear area stretched along for further than he’d hoped, and the storm cooperated by shooting some damned nice blasts all around him.
He checked the clock. He’d need to start up soon if he intended to catch Jove Station on this orbit. He had fuel for a longer run, but he liked having margin.
That’s when the holographic monitors blanked and he jerked as though he’d touched a live wire. It only lasted a moment, but he knew he’d taken a lightning strike.
They’d designed the ship to conduct any hits along the outer hull, safely allowing them to dissipate, but the ship hadn’t been able to handle this one as cleanly as they’d hoped. Obviously.
The screens came back on, and he began a systems check. A loud tone sounded in his ear even as a warning began flashing luridly on the caution and warning panel.
Dammit. Port thruster two had failed. Thankfully, they’d built a lot of extra margin into the ship.
“Well, this was a little more excitement than I expected, folks. Looks like the storm knocked out one of my thrusters. Time to call it a day.”
He brought the nose up and increased the thrust until it pressed him painfully back into the seat.
The screens blanked a second time, and this time they didn’t come back on. Louder warnings echoed in his ears. He’d taken another hit and lost the primary electronics as well as starboard thruster two.
Now he was in real trouble.
* * * * *
Getting into Hale’s place was as simple as bypassing his rather upscale lock and his uninspired alarm system. She figured Hale’s friend would be back at the bay while the dive was taking place, so she had at least a few hours.
Waste not, want not.
Rachel activated a highly illegal com jammer and went in. If there was an alarm system, she didn’t want any signals getting out. These days, hardwired com lines were rare, thank God.
The interior wasn’t the quarters she’d expected. It was a workshop. Parts—presumably from Hale’s ship—sat on benches and hung from the walls. While he no doubt considered them important, she needed to find his personal belongings.
She found them in a rat’s nest in back. It wasn’t dirty, but it certainly wasn’t where he brought women. Or men, if that was his thing.
It consisted of a cramped bedroom with only enough space for a thin mattress and a closet. The room beside it was a kitchenette, if one stretched the definition enough. It might be capable of reheating leftovers or cooking pre-prepared meals on a good day.
A check of the mini-fridge confirmed her suspicions. He ate those cheap-ass meals one bought frozen. His taste in beer was better, but not terrifically so.
Rachel found the high-class liquor in one of the cabinets. The bottle was dusty and mostly empty, but at least worthy of the name. It wasn’t in the same league as the bottle she’d filched from Mister Fingers, but hardly anything out here was.
Hale’s bathroom was a horror show. She held up a razor he should’ve tossed out a few months back and shuddered. She’d wash up when she was done. Somewhere else. With something more potent than soap.
She planted her hands on her hips and curled her lips in distaste. What a pigsty. She’d expected better of Hale.
Hell, he didn’t even have any pictures up in the bedroom. Not any Army awards, either. The kind one earned for slaughtering helpless civilians. Maybe that was why.
He might pass out in this hole, but he didn’t keep his important things here. She’d have to do some more digging.
First up, she decided to plant a few bugs. It wouldn’t hurt to see and hear what he was up to. If she poked at him again later, he might reveal something when he thought he was alone.
That turned up the first interesting thing about this dump. She found a bug in the kitchen. It didn’t look like the ones used by the RIS.
It was a good thing she’d been jamming the coms. That would keep her intrusion a secret. She examined the device under a magnifier. It was short range and had no memory. There’d be a central unit in here somewhere.
Who the hell was spying on Hale? It wasn’t as if he had anything worth overhearing. Unless it was about his brother.
Would station security have bugged him? That seemed a trifle extreme for a missing persons case. Except for her investigation, of course.
Rachel went over every centimeter of the place. She found a dozen bugs of the same style. She left them just as they were. The central unit turned up behind his wall screen. It, too, was an unfamiliar model.
Hacking it wasn’t a straightforward task, but she managed to worm her way in. The central unit sent out the recorded data every day or when triggered, so she had time to finish up and erase her presence from the stream.
No need to get someone all excited. The timer said she had another three hours before the scheduled data dump. Then it would erase what it had recorded.
Too bad it didn’t have more memory. The history would’ve been useful. She copied what there was before she put the unit back into its hiding place.
She planted her own bugs, leaving one where she could see who came for the central unit. Hers had enough range that she could collect their take with a casual pass outside the shop. Once she was done here, s
he’d remotely fry them.
Now, she still needed to find his stash of private papers. They turned up in the shop, hidden inside a large piece of equipment. It held the usual things: important documents, spare cash, and mementos.
She took pictures of everything. There’d be time to parse it all out later.
Some of the pictures caught her eye, though. Zane and Hale, standing shoulder to shoulder, grinning like fiends. They looked happy. Hale was in his Army uniform, so it had to have been from a few years before Mars.
She’d thought they’d always had a bad relationship. Apparently not. Something had driven them apart. Based on how they looked, something horrible. The Mars massacre, probably.
Well, nothing here would tell her any more about Hale until she’d studied the documents.
She started to close the hiding place back up, but a strand of loose wire at the bottom of the machine caught her eye. It seemed like a piece of scrap, but the color was different from all the other bits like it. It sat over a seam, so there might be a secret compartment down there.
Rachel carefully removed everything and examined the area. She’d put everything back exactly as he’d left it.
The hidden compartment was similar to the kind Zane favored, so opening it was easy enough. The first thing she saw was a leather book. A woman would call it a diary, so she supposed it was his journal.
She smiled. This was priceless. If he’d seen Zane, he’d have written it down.
The compartment also contained enough illegal weaponry and ammunition to send station security into a seizure. Military-grade stuff. How the hell had he smuggled them onto the station? Was he a Disruptor?
He didn’t seem the type, but she’d have to be cautious. If he didn’t play ball, she now had a way to take him out of play.
Even if he did, come to think of it. One call to station security and he’d be locked up for the rest of his life.
Rachel’s smile turned vindictive. Now she’d get the answers she wanted, and she’d make the bastard pay for what he’d done to her friends. Today was looking up.