Status Quo: The Chronicle of Jane Doe

by Chris Kuhn

  No.

  I settled on a (rather obvious) working theory.

  The bad guys are going to steal the missiles and then destroy the ship, no matter what Byers tried to sell me. Byers could surely find a way to make the Pridemore commit suicide. I was pretty sure that the scuttling charges required command codes from two senior officers. I was also pretty sure that Byers would have thought of that.

  Assumption: Byers either has a workaround for the scuttling charges, or some other method to blow up the ship. The anti-helium generator could do it. He had already sabotaged Anna with all of the false warnings before things went full-on batshit. There are probably other ways.

  Whatever.

  There might - might - be a narrow window for me in there, between when they physically left the ship and when the exploding started. Probably not. They knew - Byers knew - that I was onboard. He'd probably take whatever measures he could to make sure I didn't get away. If the exploding was going to start as soon as the job was done, then the obvious course of action was to delay the job. I didn't want to make the job impossible - that might expedite the exploding.

  Just a delay.

  What resources do I have? What tools? What weapons?

  I remembered what I'd been doing in the reactor room when everything had gone to hell.

  Railguns and orbital strike cannons. Jump drive capacitors. Two shots that had never been fired. The railguns, like all of the Pridemore's weapons, were normally fired from the bridge. I couldn't get to the bridge. But if I downgraded my sanity, I could get to one of the railguns. If I could hit the Pit-Fiend in the engines, or damage her in some way, that would surely delay the job.

  Since I wasn't lugging a RATU this time, I took the crawlspaces most of the way. The trip back to the shuttlebay took a fraction of the time it had previously. I emerged in the same corridor from before, the corridor with the smashed motion sensor. The corridor where I realized I'd been stabbed.

  Pushing the thought aside, I opened the door to the shuttlebay.

  Everything was more or less how I'd left it. Felix the shuttle, Jimmy the RATU, and the dead Firian in the room's center. Apparently, Udo was in no rush to recover the dead.

  EVA time.

  The main purpose of the shuttlebay was - obviously - to launch shuttles, but it was also used for Extra Vehicular Activities operations.

  I had mixed feelings about spacewalks, but I decided not to dwell on them. There were eight pressure suits on the bay's starboard wall, none of which were meant for me. They were custom-fitted for the EVA maintenance team, none of whom were female. Ideally you were supposed to get into the things with an "EVA buddy" - both to make the workload easier and to ensure you remembered to seal everything. But I was buddy-less.

  I'd have to manage.

  First, however, I had a little hotwiring to do.

  For obvious reasons, there were sensors connected to the personnel airlock. They were just tampers, really - switches placed on the inner and outer airlock doors. The sensors were tied to both a control panel next to the airlock and the EVA Ops console on the Pridemore's bridge. I didn't know if anyone was on the bridge at the moment, but it didn't seem like a good risk to take. I didn't want any welcoming parties when I returned.

  I hadn't been trained on the airlock sensors, but they weren't exactly cutting-edge tech. When the inner door opened, it separated two pieces of copper. The broken circuit then triggered the alarm. Simple shit. I stripped the sheath back on the wires leading to the inner door, then - very carefully - twisted the two pieces of metal together. Keeping my eye on airlock control panel, I eased the inner door open. Nothing happened, and no alarms went off.

  Perfect.

  I crawled into the airlock and repeated the procedure on the outer door. It was a little tougher, because the sensor wires were sealed in a vacuum-proof casing. I finished up and threw everything back in my tool bag.

  I could now - hopefully - go in and out of the ship undetected.

  Time to get changed.

  Each member of the EVA team had a personal locker, and I yanked on their handles until I found one that was open. Inside was a pair of running shoes, a set of red boxers, and a baseball cap.

  Huh.

  Hopefully the guy had additional clothing elsewhere.

  I set the tool bag inside the locker, and frowned. I didn't feel great about leaving it behind, but I didn't want to bring it through the airlock. There were bound to be parts inside that weren't vacuum-proof. Besides, there were toolkits in the bay specifically meant for EVA work.

  Now for the fun part.

  I wiggled my way into the EVA suit, nearly falling over in the process. The suit wasn't skintight, but neither was it as bulky as the ones I'd trained on. The range of motion was actually pretty decent. Now I needed power. The suit would keep me alive, but its maneuvering jets sucked. They were fed by a tiny MMH tank affixed to the suit, and had neither the power nor the capacity for what I'd need to do.

  My plan required the Mumu, which was - inexplicably - stored on the opposite side of this shuttlebay.

  Hooray for Navy planning.

  Bracing myself against the wall, I took an experimental step in the EVA suit. Not bad. I could walk in it, but I'd be thoroughly screwed if someone came into the bay looking for a fight.

  As quickly as I could manage, I made my way across the bay to the Mumu.

  The Mumu was actually the MMU, or Manned Maneuvering Unit. It was a backpack with kick-ass rocket jets on the back. Fun. It was also, I noted, about as light as a rhinoceros. I wrestled the thing onto my back and strapped it into place. Connecting the interface cable to my EVA suit, I fired the thing up. I heard a fan kick on, and a mild humming noise soon joined it.

  Okay.

  My HUD lit up, showing that both the suit and the Mumu were ready for action.

  Walking with the Mumu was next to impossible. Every step put me off-balance, and I was afraid I'd tip over and break the thing. To preclude this, I got down on all fours and crawled to the airlock.

  I managed to get inside and seal it. Then, reaching for the controls on the inner wall, I triggered the exterior door.

  It slid open, and then there was space. This is when I figured out we were over Dakarta. It was a beautiful sight, watching the green and blue planet turn beneath us, but it was... what? Haunting? Empty? Something.

  As someone once said, they should have sent a poet.

  I could hear myself breathing in the suit, the mask slightly fogging with each breath. A message appeared in the corner of my HUD, advising me that everything was okay and the suit had established a comm link with EVA Ops on the bridge.

  Wait. What? Oh, fuck!

  Could they hear me? Was my voice - or the sound of my breathing - coming over a speaker on the bridge somewhere? I sure as hell hoped not, but I didn't know. Then I heard it.

  Static. Background noise. Open channel. Shit.

  I tried to silence my breathing, but it was nearly impossible. I scrolled desperately through the suit's comm menu, looking for a way to disable the transmitter (or at least mute the microphone). After what seemed like an eternity, I found it. Disable suit transmitter. I selected the option and pressed OK. A new dialog box appeared on my HUD.

  Navy regulation 1701-D mandates open suit comms at all times. Are you sure you wish to proceed?

  Yes, Goddamnit. I'm sure I wish to proceed.

  The little microphone icon turned red, and I released the air from my lungs. Wow. Hadn't been aware of that cute little feature. Not that I would have been, but still. I turned up the volume on the suit's speakers, listening carefully for the slightest hint of anything from the bridge.

  Voices. Footsteps. Whatever.

  There weren't any.

  Damn, that could have gone badly.

  I took another moment to go through the rest of the suit's menus, looking for other cute features that might get me killed. I didn't find anything.

  Okay. Let's do this.

  I ex
tended the Mumu's control pad and grasped the joystick as delicately as I could. I put a tiny amount of forward pressure on it, and I felt it kick on. Nice. I increased the acceleration slightly, moving away from the airlock. Using my suits maneuvering jets, I reoriented to face "downward". There were more railguns on the top of the ship than the bottom, but I wanted to stay clear of the bridge tower. There were a hell of a lot windows there - the officers mess, the briefing rooms, a few other places - and with my luck, someone would see me scooting by with the Mumu. The bottom of the ship had almost no windows. It was also relatively flat, which meant I was less likely to crash into protruding structures.

  I moved below the ship, and my eyes widened.

  Wow.

  I knew the Pridemore was huge - I knew her exact dimensions, actually, but the view was breathtaking, framed by the planet “below” and the docked Pit Fiend “above” me, connected to the Pridemore via an extended docking ring. It was an artificial landscape of staggering proportions, the curves of each hull forming a series of mountains and valleys that stood in stark contrast to the planet.

  I headed for the nearest railgun. As I approached the hull, I activated the magnets in my boots. Should make things a little easier. I landed next to railgun number eight, which I immediately christened Debbie. Like the Pridemore, at over 6 meters long, the railgun was far more massive than I'd imagined. Funny how that works.

  I carefully walked to the railgun's base and popped open the access panel. There was an oversized power switch inside - presumably so clumsy EVA gloves could operate it. I paused before flipping it. Technically, what I was about to do could be seen on the bridge. I didn't think it would trip any alarms, but I didn't know for sure.

  Well, shit. I realized with a snort: One way or another, these guys are gonna know what I'm up to pretty damn soon.

  I flipped the railgun manual power switch to the on position. The tiny screen flickered to life, bringing up a maintenance menu. That made sense. The primary reason for going EVA to a railgun (or just about anything else) was maintenance and repair. Ideally all maintenance would be performed in spacedock, and nothing would ever break while you were out on a mission.

  Sure.

  I backed out of the maintenance screen to the main menu. The third option was AZ/EL Servo Control.

  There we go. I tabbed into it, and was rewarded with a series of arrows. Coarse and fine adjustment. Okay. I tapped one, and the railgun shuttered slightly before moving to the left. I grinned. Okay. We can work with this.

  I looked up at the Pit-Fiend. The cargo pod was open now, exposing a series of metal racks. Most of them were empty.

  One of them wasn't.

  Anti-matter missile.

  They'd already started to load them up, and it dawned on me that what I thought was a cargo pod might actually be a launching system for the missiles. Whereas the Pridemore could only launch one at a time, this modified pod configuration made it possible to launch a much larger salvo. This ship was jump capable, too, and could now level an entire planet with the push of a button.

  Something about that made me sick to my stomach. Still, I admired the simplicity of their whole plan. No fleet of ships. No coordinated attack. Just two “friends”, one ship, and a ridiculous notion of doing the world a favor.

  I was honored to be the one to fuck it all up.

  As I watched the freighter, I caught the tiniest hints of movement from the back of the Pit-Fiend's missile pod. Shit. I wasn't alone out here. I had a partial view of a small crew in EVA suits. Using my helmet HUD to magnify, I zoomed in to see three crewmen near the rear of the pod. Next to them, floating serenely in space, were four of the anti-matter missiles.

  One in the missile pod. Four in space. One was still missing. Problem for later.

  Using the AZ/EL keys, I did my best to line the railgun up with the missile pod. It would have been a ridiculously easy shot for the targeting computer, especially at this range, but it was a little trickier for me. I had to do it visually, climbing up and setting my head on the top of the railgun (the size of a city-bus), looking down the barrel, then moving back to the manual controls and making adjustments. They must have loaded another two missiles by the time I was feeling good enough to lock down the servo motors.

  Now for the fun part.

  There was no menu option to fire the railguns. Naturally. I could, however, apply power to the mag rails. That was the hard part really, the rest was just getting a titanium slug into the chamber. I unbolted the cover of the ammo drum at Debbie's base. Not really a drum; more like a box. Each of the slugs was a half meter long and weighed almost a quarter-ton. Or it would have, had gravity been a thing.

  I eased one of the slugs from the ammo drum, being very damn careful not to puncture my suit. Like an old - school artilleryman (woman?), I guided it into the front of the railgun's barrel. As it disappeared into the hole, I gave it one final shove. Hopefully that would take it all the way to the back of the chamber. Returning to the menu, my fingers hovered above the control that would apply power to the rails.

  I needed a moment's pause.

  There was no going back from this. It had seemed rational enough before, when I was sitting in the maintenance locker. Delay the theft, buy time, await the proverbial cavalry. But it felt different now, and I was no longer sure if it was a good idea. Come to think of it, I wasn't sure about much of anything.

  Fuck it. I tapped the key.

  With a brilliant flash with no sound, a half-meter titanium rod burst from Debbie's barrel at nearly half the speed of light. In a fraction of a second, it had punched through the cruiser's missile pod, shattering it into countless fragments that shredded the loading crew nearby.

  Nice work baby, I said, patting Debbie affectionately. Let's do that again.

  After a brief moment of “winging it” with the servo controls I fired again. The effect was less impressive the second time. Debbie's power supply from the Pridemore was almost dead now, and the projectile moved slowly enough that I could - barely - see it fly through space. I still hit my mark, and it still got the job done.

  The hit impacted the support strut for the docking ring connecting the Pit-Fiend cruiser to the Pridemore. The strut shattered almost instantly, and the disconnected Pit-Fiend began to slowly drift away as debris filled the surrounding space. As it moved away, various umbilicals and trusswork shattered apart from the cruiser, filling the sky with a glittery mess of parts and pieces that reminded me of confetti.

  I. Fucking. Win.

  Ideally I'd have destroyed the Pit-Fiend - it was probably still operational - but this would have to do. I deactivated the magnets in my boots and pushed off, then fired the Mumu. I was less delicate with the controls this time, and the wild acceleration made me smile.

  Then I heard the voices.

  They were coming over my headset, over the EVA Ops channel. People had entered the bridge. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but they were speaking rapidly and talking over each other. There was even some yelling, which made me pretty happy. I didn't know how long it would take for them to work things out, but I wanted to be safely back inside by then. I increased the Mumu's thrust again, accelerating as fast I felt capable of handling.

  As I approached the airlock, I started to hear fragments of sentences.

  "Also... to the freighter! Smith went... the last...air law! Find that lasso... briar!”

  Briar? Probably not. Byers.

  Find that asshole Byers.

  "Be late that!" Said a voice, clearer than the others.

  Belay that.

  It was Udo. Udo was on the bridge of the Pridemore.

  "Bring the last is sell... backhoe the bane. I'll get by rest my sell."

  My brain was processing the distorted sounds, trying to arrange the pieces. It didn't take long.

  “Bring the last missile back to the bay. I'll get Byers myself.”

  Back to the bay.

  Oh, hell.

  There was only one r
eason to bring the missile back to the front missile bay, I realized, reaching the airlock.

  They were going to use it to scuttle the Pridemore.

  I'd screwed myself. No, I corrected. I'd screwed Udo and his merry band of pirates. And myself. I cycled through the airlock as fast as I could, and got back into the bay. I dumped the Mumu on the floor and ripped off the EVA suit like a stripper on cocaine.

  Think. Think now.

  I grabbed my gear from the locker and ran to the nearest crawlspace. Gotta get out there first, I thought, yanking the access panel open and throwing myself inside. Gotta move. I went as fast as I could, doing an awkward run - crawl on all fours. I probably had a few minutes, at best. I'd be moving a hell of a lot faster than someone with a missile on a cargo sled, and the crawlspace was a straight shot out to the bay.