“Tell me again why we are doing this?” Zeke asked.
“Because Jakey doesn’t want all these sick people to die. We’ll fire the engines and put them in a stable orbit.”
“Then we’ll get to the Petrel and move where we can contact someone to come and rescue them,” Jake said.
Nadine glared at him. “I still think we should take my ship. Bah. This door is stuck too.”
“Will there still be power to run the engines when we get inside,” Zeke asked.
“Yes, nobody ever shuts down a fusion plant,” Jake said.
“Why not?”
“Can’t restart them. Only the old empire could restart a failed fusion plant.”
Jake pried open the control panel. He held two wires in his teeth and began typing on the diagnostic unit Nadine had produced. Jake was surprised at her—it was manufactured by Fluke, a very reputable firm. She hadn’t seemed the type to spend money on good testing equipment. “There. In we go.”
Nadine swung the hatch open and walked inside. Jake followed.
There was a loud bang, and Nadine dropped.
“What? What?” Jake said. Zeke pushed him down behind some equipment. Suzanne reached out and grabbed Nadine and pulled her in behind with them.
“Who are you?” a voice yelled. “What do you want?”
“Who are you?” Jake countered. He couldn’t see who was speaking. They must have been hiding around the corner. “And, why are the engines off. We’re going to impact an asteroid.”
“An asteroid?”
“Turn the engines back on. We need some thrust.”
Nadine was rolling around in agony, on the floor. Zeke and Suzanne grabbed her and held her tight.
“You’re the pirates, aren’t you?” the voice said.
“We’re not pirates?”
“Why aren’t you dead? From the plague?”
“Some of us are. And the rest will be soon if we don’t change course!”
“You lie. I will call the captain. If you move, I will shoot you.”
Jake looked at Zeke. “He can’t shoot us while we stay here.”
“Is that the engine core? I have never been in an engine room. It is very large.”
“Nadine, are you okay.”
“No, I’m not okay, asshole. My arm is broken.”
Suzanne was working on her arm. “She is correct. It is broken. But it is a clean break. The bullet was a ship load, but it hit straight on. We will have to splint her.”
“You broke our friends arm,” Jake yelled.
“I will shoot you if you come closer.”
“Jake, he won’t,” whispered Suzanne.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s out of ammo. I should have heard the clack as he broke it open and reloaded. He had only the one shot. Zeke, you heard it too, yes? He fired his only shot.”
“Yes, Jake. Suzanne is right. Let’s charge him.”
“Wait, are you sure?” Jake asked.
“Of course., don’t you remember Sgt Russell’s discussion about listening and counting rounds?”
“No. I thought they were boring.”
“Jake, there are three of us. Even if he has more ammo, if we rush him he will not be able to shoot all three of us.”
“I don’t think I like those odds,” Jake said.
Nadine moaned again as Suzanne tried to hold her arm steady.
“What if it’s a whatcha callit, automatic shotgun,” Jake said.
“It wasn’t. Didn’t you see it when they boarded? They don’t have auto shot guns.”
“They don’t?” Jake strove to remember. He had seen the guns, but he couldn’t tell one gun from another. “But how do we tell?” Jake asked.
“Jake, sometimes you must just take the risk, yes? Jump before thinking,” Zeke said. “Sometimes there just is no time to plan. You tell me we need to start the engines. This is how to do it.”
“Okay, fine. You’re right.” Jake turned to Suzanne. She was propping Nadine up against the wall. Nadine was cradling her arm. “We go on three. Ready? One, two…wait”
“Three!” Suzanne and Zeke yelled and immediately broke cover. Jake cursed and ran after them.
It was surprisingly anti-climactic. Suzanne was right. The crewman just sat there. The gun laid on the floor.
“No bullets?” she asked the crewman.
“No. I found it here. It had only the one.”
“You broke our friends arm,” Jake said.
“What was I to do? You are pirates, and I am so weak I can barely move.” The man looked sweaty and feverish. He obviously wasn’t well.
“What’s your name?” Jake asked.
“Colau.”
“Colau, we’re going to crash into an asteroid if we don’t get the engines on. And even if we don’t hit anything, we’re going to freeze to death soon after.” Their breath was starting to fog in the air.
“Emperor’s Balls. What can we do?”
“Aren’t you an engineer?”
“No. This is my first trip. I polished the floors and cleaned.”
“We need to get the engines on.”
“But there is no fuel or reaction mass.”
“What?”
“The captain. He made an error. He is not a very good captain, really. The deputy engineer said he dumped the fuel after the plague hit. I am not sure why. I was very weak, and the deputy died soon after. They’re all dead. It is just me down here.”
“Okay. Plan B,” Jake said. “Collau, you come with us.”
“Where are we going?”
“Forward airlock, suit up, get over to the Petrel, fire it up, fix the control runs and get out of here. Collau, if you want to live, come with us.”
It didn’t take as long to go back as it did to go down the connection tube, but it still took time. Collau was weak and stumbled a lot. Jake helped him along. Zeke carried the empty shotgun, and Suzanne helped Nadine. They had foam splinted her arm from an emergency med kit they had found in the engineering room and tied it across her chest. They’d also given her a pain shot.
“Whoo, that’s good stuff.” Nadine said. “Here we go everyone.” Race you! And she started climbing one handed up along the tube.
They arrived in the upper cargo hold.
“Wait!” Nadine shouted and went to one of the cargo holds doors. She began playing with the lock.
“Nadine, what the heck are you doing? We have no time,” Jake said.
“We have at least forty-five minutes until we hit, and that’s my platinum in there. They took it off my ship. And yours too. I know you were buying it. We’ll just grab a couple hundred kilograms and go.”
“You are pirates!” Calou said, as he slumped to the floor against a wall.
“We don’t have time. We’d need to spend an hour working on the lock and…”
Zeke walked over to the far wall and collected a fire axe. He walked back, and with three swift two-handed swings smashed the lock and the hasp right off the door.
“How about now Jake,” Nadine said as the door swung open. “Do we have time now?” Nadine asked.
“She could be a lot of fun,” Zeke said, whispering to Jake.
“If you call getting shot fun,” Jake said.
Despite Jake’s protests, they all took as much as they could carry. Jake cursed but assisted by identifying the highest value metals. If there was no talking them out of it, the least he could do was help speed up the process. They hauled cases up to the next level airlock and dumped them in, then quickly suited up. Nadine was tethering cases to each of them as Jake looked out the airlock.
“Uh oh,” Jake said.
“Jake, what is it?” Zeke asked.
“They didn’t link the ships properly. Normally, you attach towing lines. Then you slave the boards, but it looks like the Petrel is just attached with towing lines,” Jake said, turning back to the others. Zeke and Suzanne looked confused but Nadine understood. “Jake means that towing lines aren’t en
ough. They should have linked the computers so that both ships would fire their thrusters in tandem, otherwise the stresses could break the lines. ” She peered through the window next to Jake.
The Petrel was hanging behind the Bountiful Onion at the end of a single line. Two or three other lines had obviously broken and were lashing around. With only one point of attachment, the Petrel the petrel was free to move in all directions. It spun. It rolled. It wrapped around the tow line from time to time. Sometimes the tow line went slack and the Petrel drifted towards the Bountiful Onion. Anyone trying to board would have to be very careful. They would have to time their leap in three dimensions.
“That looks…difficult,” Suzanne said.
“Okay, we’ll just need to take it slow and easy. Hold onto the line. Go down hand over hand all the way, otherwise you’ll just bang into the ship and get crushed,” Jake said.
“Jake, we cannot carry these cases and go hand over hand. We should jump instead,” Zeke said. He might have still been a little weak, but he was still Zeke.
“We’ll have to leave the goods behind. You’ll get killed,” Jake said.
“I’m not leaving a fortune in platinum here for Captain Onion or whoever he is,” Nadine said.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Of course it’s dangerous, Jake!” Nadine said. “But sometimes you have to take a risk.”
“That’s the drugs talking,” Jake said.
“Maybe. But I’m jumping.”
“Jake,” Suzanne stepped over and placed a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You are so good in zero-G, Jake. We will go first. You will make sure we are all safe. And it will be fun.” She smiled at him. Jake sighed.
“Here, you and I can carry two of these cases,” Nadine said, picking them up. “And the others only one. We will leave two behind. Hey, Zeke, Suzanne?”
“Yes?”
“Watch me. Just do what I do.” She stepped forward and crouched.
“Wait,” Jake said.
“Away we go! Whee!!!” Nadine, clutching two carrying cases of platinum to her chest, pushed off from the airlock and spun into space.
Jake cursed as he watched her spin over and over as she sailed toward the Petrel. But he needn’t have worried, she showed surprising grace. She extended her arms at just the right moment to control her spinning, executing a neat landing on the Petrel.
Wow, Jake thought. She’s good. He didn’t know much about Nadine’s training, but clearly some if it had been in zero-G.
Suzanne stepped up to launch next, clutching two cases.
“Suzanne, wait, leave one of…”
She leaped gently out the airlock before Jake could protest. She kept close to the line. That was smart, Jake thought. She’d be able to grab it and slow if need be. She kept almost constant speed as she floated across. The Petrel spun beneath her, and Jake had an anxious moment he thought she might have misjudged and would just miss the airlock. But she extended her arms out to slow her spin, and gently dragged a foot along the tow line to increase friction. She was almost there. Jake held his breath. He watched as she managed to land feet first, but hard.
“Ow,” Suzanne said over the comms. Jake let out a long breath. She’d made it and was waving back at them.
“Wow,” Zeke said. “I’ll go next.”
“Zeke, no. You’re not as practiced in zero-G and you’re still weak and dizzy. Just pull yourself along the line until you get here. Don’t take any cases.”
“I will be fine, Jake. Do not worry.” Zeke leaned down and grabbed two cases. Jake tried to snatch them back, but Zeke had already climbed away.
“Zeke, you don’t have to do this. Just go slowly down the line hand over hand.”
“And leave all the money? I shall not,” he said. “And besides, if Nadine can do it and Suzanne can do it, I can also.”
“Zeke, please. Don’t try to show off,” Jake pleaded. “This isn’t the time to be risky. You’ll die.”
“Everything will be fine. You worry too much, my friend,” Zeke said, and he launched himself from the Bountiful Onion with a case in each hand.
“Zeke, wait!” Jake yelled.
Zeke had jumped too soon. He had jumped as the Petrel was rolling away from the Onion. He should have waited until it was rolling toward the Onion, then he would have hit the target as it was moving away from him—a gentle landing.
Instead, the Petrel reached the end of its attached line just as Zeke pushed off. Zeke initially seemed to be floating slowly toward the Petrel as it coasted to a stop, held by the tension in the tow line. The tow line was a braided metal cable, but even metal will stretch a bit. Just like a ball on a rubber band, the two hundred-ton ship began to snap backwards toward the Onion. The Petrel began to race toward Zeke, gaining speed.
Zeke continued to coast, but his inexperience caused him to try to adjust the two cases he was carrying.
“Zeke, don’t move your arms,” Jake said into the channel. “You’ll unbalance yourself.”
“What?”
“You’ll change your center of gravity and start to spin. Keep your arms steady.”
But it was too late. Zeke began to roll and threw out one of his arms to steady himself, which induced a spin. Soon he was tumbling head over heels and side to side at the same time.
“Zeke, drop the cases. Drop the cases and try to stabilize yourself.”
“I don’t like this spin, Jake.”
“Zeke. Drop the cases and try to get your roll under control. You need to land feet first.”
Zeke was now in an uncontrolled tumble. Worse, the Petrel was accelerating toward him, so he was going to hit hard. The towing cable was now slack and had bent in the middle.
“Zeke, watch out for the tow line.”
Zeke plowed through the tow line. His foot caught on it as he spun by, pivoting him and sending him off course, away from his landing zone. Now he was tumbling toward one of the trusses on the Petrel.
“Zeke, drop the cases. Try to land on your feet. Push off! Push off!”
“I thinnnnkkk I am going to be siiick,” Zeke said.
Jake watched, helpless, as Zeke spun toward Nadine on the Petrel. Suzanne was yelling something over the channel, but he couldn’t understand. He was focused on his friend spinning uncontrollably in space.
He leaped out of the airlock, trained right on where Zeke was spinning. But the ship rolled and he lost sight of Zeke.
“Zeke!!!” Jake yelled as he landed on the side of the Petrel.
A sealed case banged around the edge of a truss and floated to a halt. Jake bounded around the corner, and saw Zeke caught up around a truss, floating. He wasn’t moving, and his back looked the wrong shape. There wasn’t any armor in a regular skinsuit, nor any fancy body monitoring tools, and Zeke wasn’t answering his radio. Jake jumped up, rolled Zeke toward him, and touched helmets.
“Zeke, are you okay?”
Zeke grimaced up at Jake through his helmet. He looked in pain. Then he smiled.
“Zeke, you’ll be fine. We’ll get you inside and put you in a med computer.”
“I do not think that will help. I…I cannot move my legs. I feel very cold.”
“I’ll just move you around here, Zeke. Stay focused.”
“You have been a good friend, Jake.”
“Just hold on, Zeke,” Jake said as he held onto Zeke with one arm and pulled himself along the Petrel with his other.
“That was a pretty impressive jump. Do you not think so?”
“It was great, Zeke. You did great.”
“I…I hope Nadine saw it.”
“She did.”
“Good. I wonder if she has a boyfriend? She would be fun.”
“Sure, Zeke. Why don’t you ask her when we get inside?”
But Zeke did not answer back.
Chapter 16
Suzanne was yelling over the comm as Nadine came around the truss to help. They took Zeke and steered him around and into the airlock. Nadine paused to grab
his two cases and stuff them in the airlock as well. Jake had Suzanne wait at the airlock as Colau, who was too scared to jump, came down the line hand over hand. Jake and Nadine carried Zeke toward the med bay.
“Shit,” Jake said.
“It looks like he broke his back,” Nadine said. “He must have hit something.”
Luckily the medical unit was on the same deck. They hurtled around the corner and loaded him up, then slammed the lid down. The machine began to flash codes. First green, then yellow, then red. Probes extended from the inside and touched his head and chest. Displays on the machine stayed red. Words finally formed. “No response.”
The door behind them opened, and Suzanne and Colau came in.
“Zeke, are you okay? Zeke. Jake, what happened?” Suzanne stopped when she got next to the medical unit and looked at the displays. Then she turned to Nadine. Nadine didn’t say anything, just shook her head.
“Suzanne, I’m sorry. He’s dead. He broke his back when he hit the ship. It…it killed him.”
“His heart stopped. Shouldn’t it be shocking him? Like in the vids?”
Jake shook his head. “There are no brain waves. It won’t bring his heart back if his brain has stopped working.”
Suzanne didn’t speak. She just started bawling. Jake felt like bawling himself. He sat down. Nadine patted them both on the shoulder, then headed off with Calou in tow. “I’m going to find the bridge and start getting us out of here.”
Nadine hustled through the Petrel to the bridge. There was no one on board. They must have abandoned ship after they had hooked up the tow lines to the Onion. Life support and power was on but at a caretaker level. It was a bit cold and dark, and she could tell that air pressure was lower than normal.
The staterooms were empty. The airlock to the bridge was wide open, and the control board wasn’t even locked down. She tapped a few screens and started a checklist to bring the engine online. The engine board showed green. Somebody must have repaired the control lines, she thought.
She brought the engines up to standby and remotely released the cable holding them to the Bountiful Onion. To her surprise, it worked and they were free. She hunted for the speaker controls.
Orbital Claims Adjuster: Adventures of a Jump Space Accountant Book 2 Page 19