Stars in the Sand

by Richard Tongue

   “Just another star, lost among millions.”

   “What about Hydra Station?”

   The wall glowed over in a far corner, evidently it was programmed to respond to voice commands. He squinted at a dim point of light, and shook his head. His ship was back there, and more than a hundred of his crew. For the first time he really regretted leading this mission himself, though he knew that if he hadn’t, he would almost certainly be back there right now, sitting in his office, regretting not having led the mission.

   “Even smaller,” Caine said. “I think the wall must be using magnification to show it at all.”

   He turned to her, then saw a blue flash up above, and his face grew pale, “Deadeye, is that what I think it is?”

   Turning, she saw the light fade, and a small dot appear, slowly moving towards the station. “We’re both thinking the same thing. Dammit.”

   Reaching for his communicator, Marshall said, “Ouroboros, this is the Captain.”

   “Race here. We just…”

   “We saw it too. Civilian or military?”

   “Identification says both. Military supply auxiliary.”

   “We’re on our way back. Stand by to get the ship buttoned up, and make sure all our supplies are on board.”

   “I can guess where they are going,” Caine said as she made her way to the elevator.

   “So can I. Fleet spares and repairs.”

   They stepped inside, and tapped for the docking ring. It waited a moment, as if reluctant to obey their orders, then started to race through the levels, heading back for their adoptive ship. Suddenly, this station felt like a dangerous place to be, and even the comparative safety of Ouroboros would be welcome.

  Chapter 14

   Orlova leaned over the sensor console, watching the unidentified ship cruise towards the station; behind her, Race was frantically programming a new hendecaspace course into the computers, his fingers rattling across the keys. Spinelli looked up at her, shaking his head,

   “Heading right for us. I’ve identified it as a military supply tender, Arak-class. From the way she’s accelerating, I’d say she’s running empty at the moment.”

   “Any clue as to where she has been?”

   “No signs of battle damage, she looks brand new.” He shook his head again, then said, “Your guess is as good as mine. We didn’t see any tenders of this type during the battle, but they’ve had enough time for someone to get there and back. We’re still only one jump away here.”

   She turned to ask Race a question, but saw him snapping a stylus in two; she decided to reach over to the auxiliary station and get the answers for herself. Ouroboros was fully fueled now, at least, and the inventory records showed that most of the components they needed were back on board. Only four members of the crew were on the station – but that including Caine and the Captain.

   “Spinelli, get us launch clearance from Station Operations. For, say, ten minutes.”

   “Shouldn’t we wait until the Captain gets back?”

   “Having it doesn’t mean we can’t change our minds, does it?”

   “No, ma’am,” he said, turning to his station.

   “Once you’ve got it, I want to speak to that ship.”

   Nelyubov drifted into the bridge; his eyes widened, and he said, “You’ve got to be crazy.”

   “Right now we’re operating in a vacuum. We need to know where that ship has come from, and if they’ve managed to identify us. We haven’t got the equipment or the people to run a proper hack, so the only thing I can think of is to ask them.”

   “And if they decide that we are the bad guys, and to try and swat us?”

   “Two missile tubes is all they have,” Spinelli said, “and no sign from my board that they are preparing to fire them.”

   “They’d wait to close the range before they played their hand, Maggie.”

   “We have launch clearance,” Spinelli added. “Do you still want that ship?”

   “Get its Captain on the communicators now. Voice only unless they insist.”

   “Aye, ma’am,” he replied, and Orlova braced herself for the impending conversation. She reached down to a liquid bulb underneath her chair and took a quick sip of water, clearing her mouth, then pulled up a microphone.

   “This is Margaret Hooke,” she began – like the Captain, she’d decided a fake name was best, “First Mate of the Ouroboros. Thought I’d check in and welcome you to the system.”

   A stern voice replied, “This is the Hermann Balck. While your greeting is welcome, it is not necessary. We instruct you to clear your docking port at once.”

   “Balck, there are several other docking ports…”

   With a sneer, he said, “And you have the priority one, which is the one we need. You’ve been given clearance to take off, anyway, so leave.”

   Race turned from his station, saying, “We can leave the system. We’re cutting it a little tight, but it’s only a short jump to the next star on our list. Course is laid in.”

   “Message from Airlock Two; Marshall is now on board, and heading up here.”

   “Very well, Balck,” she said. “We are departing now. I hope you enjoy the docking port as much as we did.” Snapping off the channel, she said, “Race, clear the station and proceed to the hendecaspace point, best acceleration. Spinelli, I want you to watch that ship like a hawk. If it so much as twitches, I want to know about it.”

   “Maggie,” Race said, “You realize that our course will take us well within firing range of the Balck.”

   “I do,” she replied. “If we make an effort to stay out of its way it will be so obvious that the dimmest tactical officer would have to notice. Just hang tight.” With a jerk, the ship detached from the station, dropping down and away, and the engines flicked on, the acceleration pushing her back into her seat. “Frank, get the countermeasures running.”

   “Right,” he replied, tapping controls. All he got for his troubles was a frown, and he said, “They aren’t working.”

   “Not working?” she said. “What’s wrong with them?”

   “I don’t know. I can’t get a feed through to the exterior antenna. Spinelli, am I doing something wrong?”

   The technician started to run a series of quick checks, then replied, “If you are, then I am too.”

   “I’m going down to the communications suite,” Orlova said. “Frank, you have the conn until the Captain gets up here.”

   “Any orders?”

   “Cross your fingers and try and look innocent. And don’t talk to any strange tender captains.”

   “Got it,” he replied, as he struggled up to his feet, taking labored steps over to the command couch before sliding in. Orlova grimaced as she walked over to the elevator, the sudden return to gravity weighing her down. Pausing at the weapons locker, she pulled down a pistol and slid it into her holster.

   “Traditionally I think engineers use a toolkit,” Nelyubov said.

   “Just being careful. Get Weitzman down there, and tell him to make sure he is armed as well.”

   She stepped into the elevator, tapping a button and holding carefully onto the rail. The car slid down the decks, then back to the rear of the ship; this ship might be smaller than Alamo, but at a gravity and a half she didn’t really want to have to walk. The doors slid open, and she cautiously stepped out into the corridor, Weitzman apparently already waiting for her, standing opposite the doors to the communications suite.

   “What are you waiting for, Otto?” she said, walking forward, only to find out as she reached the door. Durman was standing at the console, one hand working the controls, the other with a plasma pistol pointing at the communications technician.

   “What the hell? You decide to turn us in now?” she said.

   “I’m just doing what I have to do, Maggie,” he replied. “Stay still, or I’ll have to use this.”
<
br />    “Fire that, and you’ll take out the hull. We’ll all die.”

   “Your choice, right now. Not mine.”

   A voice echoed down over the ceiling speakers, and Orlova took advantage of that to throw herself out of the way, pushing Weitzman in the other direction. She managed to get out of range, but Weitzman stumbled on the floor, still just in the line of fire.

   “Don’t move, Spaceman. I haven’t got a choice on this, and I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

   “Dammit,” Orlova said, “with a gun like that, you don’t need a hostage.”

   “I know what I need better than you.”

   Pulling out her communicator, she said, “Orlova here. Get me the Captain.”

   “Way ahead of you, Maggie,” Marshall’s voice replied. “What’s happening?

   “Durman’s gone rogue, he’s taken over the communications suite.”

   “Spinelli breaking in. He hasn’t sent any messages, yet. I can realign the antenna so that isn’t an option.”

   “Why has he taken the communications suite, then? He must know we'd disable his external feeds,” Orlova said.

   “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get him out of there.”

   “He’s got a plasma pistol, and Weitzman as a hostage. It isn’t going to be that easy.”

   “What about the airlock access?” Nelyubov said.

   “No, we’d have to stop accelerating. Our new friends in-system would suddenly develop an interest in us, and the game could be up.”

   “If he’s sending signals to someone, the game is up anyway.”

   “He still isn’t though. And I’ve got countermeasures back on-line,” Spinelli said. “All running as they should.”

   “Get Cooper and, ah, Cantrell to the elevator access point. I’ve got an idea,” she said, walking away down the corridor. As she turned a corner, Weitzman flashed her a desperate look, and she tossed him a quick wink in reply; she wasn’t going to abandon him. Walking over to the wall, she pulled upon the deck maintenance locker, and started to work her way down the rack of tools.

   The door opened, and Cantrell bounded out first, gun in hand, “What’s going on?”

   “We’re going up into the air shafts.”

   “What good will that do? He’ll have the room isolated by now.”

   Tugging out a diamond drill, she said, “That just means I’m going to have to make a new hole, doesn’t it. Cantrell, go to the life support station on this deck, and start lowering the pressure in the communications suite.”

   “It won’t do anything,” she said.

   “Not yet, but once the system registers that it has access to that area again, it should go into overdrive. I don’t want him killed, just sleepy.” Tugging out a respirator, she tucked it under her arm. “Cooper, head down to the corridor and keep an eye on Weitzman. When I give the word, I want you to create a diversion. Make sure it is noisy.”

   “A plasma pistol firing is pretty loud,” he said. “I presume that isn’t what you want.”

   “Got it in one, Corporal,” she said, reaching up to the ceiling hatch, grunting as she climbed up the hand-holds on the side of the corridor, pulling the control and, with an effort, sliding into the overhead space. She pulled herself down the shaft, carefully negotiating the corner, glancing up at the wall for directions; the network was a maze in this region, that looked more as if it was grown rather than built. Reaching forward, she almost toppled down as her hand found nothing, and looked down into a deep shaft, running all the way to the bottom of the ship.

   Pausing to take a quick breath, she inched her way cautiously around the hole, glancing down at her watch. Turnover in two minutes, and if she remembered the course plot right, they’d be in optimum firing range any second. There was still a long way to go, and she continued to drag herself forward in the gloom, only the occasional ceiling light to illuminate the passage.

   A warning siren sounded, and she braced herself; the acceleration ceased, and she started to float. This was an opportunity she wasn’t going to waste. In ten seconds she could get further than she would with five minutes of crawling, and she pushed off down the sides of the shaft, racing as fast as she could, swinging from hand-holds and pushing off from every protuberance on the wall. All too soon, Ouroboros began to decelerate, and she slid to the ground with a crack, knocking the wind from her body.

   Now, at last, the junction she was looking for was ahead. Dropping into position, she pulled the drill from her pocket, braced it into position, and started to cut her way through the hull. This ship had been rather over-engineered in a few places; reading between the line, its Captain had been concerned that someone might try a takeover, and the communications suite and bridge were both sealed, able to be cut off from the rest of the ship. They’d been fortunate not to have as much of a fight when they boarded, though Bailey’s technicians had been able to open a few doors for them.

   The drill whirred, and she carefully watched as it bored its way into the hatch. They still had ten minutes before they were going to jump, and she should be into the room in eight. Her communicator chirped, and she jumped for a second, the drill briefly slipping out of its groove before she replaced it.

   “Orlova here.”

   “Cantrell here. I’ve got the air systems working.”

   “That took a while.”

   “He must have realized we’d try it. I had to hack into the system.”

   Her face flushed red, “Could he have known you did it?”

   “I don’t think so. No sign of data transfer, anyway.”

   She frowned, then said, “Go and join Cooper. Orlova out.” It might not matter whether or not Durman realized what they were doing. Trying to tamper with the life support systems was an obvious trick, and they wouldn’t necessarily know that it wouldn’t work. Suddenly, she felt very exposed up there; one shot of the plasma pistol, and she’d never know what happened.

   Her wrist began to ache as the drill continued its ever-slow progress through the hatch, a small pile of dust growing as it finally began to make headway. The minutes seemed to be racing past, but finally, she realized that she was close to her goal. Pausing for a second, she pulled out her communicator.

   “Cooper, time for the diversion. I’ll be through in a few seconds.”

   “Right,” he replied. Through the hull, she had no idea what he was going to do, or whether it would be effective; she just had to trust him. The drill bit dived into the hull, and finally, with a crack, broke through. Tugging the drill free, she braced herself for Durman’s response, then felt a strong breeze pulling at her, the life support system following it instructions. She waited for what seemed like an eternity, before the hatch beneath her slid open, Cooper standing underneath her, Cantrell tying Durman up in a corner with a convenient cable.

   Tumbling down into the room, she raced over to the communications console, slamming switches to disable everything he had done. Over in a corner, Cantrell was restoring the pressure – just as well, as she was gasping for breath despite the fresh air coming in from the corridor – and Weitzman was briefing the bridge. It seemed darker in the room than normal; she glanced up to see that one of the light fittings had been shot away.

   “Your diversion?”

   Cooper smiled, then said, “Seemed like a good idea at the time. What did he do?”

   “I don’t know. I’ve closed off the communications channels he opened, but I can’t work out what he was doing with them. There’s no record of any communications with the other ship.” Pulling out her communicator, she tapped for the bridge. “Orlova here. Any change in target aspect?”

   “Negative, Maggie,” Marshall replied. “They’ll be docking at the station in a minute.”

   “This makes no sense,” she said. “What was so important to him?”

   “Hey,” Cantrell said, glancing at a console, “He’s tied in all the gra
vitic sensors to this console.”

   “The gravitic sensors?” she said, frowning, walking over to it. Her eyes widened, and she reached for her communicator again, the channel still open to the bridge.

   “Mr. Race, you have the call,” she heard Marshall say.

   “Belay that!” she yelled, but an instant too late; she felt the brief disorientation as the ship transition into hendecaspace, and gave a deep sigh.

   “Maggie, what’s wrong?” Marshall said.

   Glancing over at the console, she replied, “There’s only one thing Sleeping Beauty could have been doing. He’s plotted a new hendecaspace course.”

   “Are you sure?”

   She walked back to the console, and started going back over the logs again, “He routed it through half a dozen auxiliary systems, but that’s what he was doing. He must have just finished when I captured him.”

   “So what you are trying to tell me is that…”

   “That we aren’t going where we planned to go, and that only an unconscious traitor knows what is waiting for us at the other end.”

  Chapter 15

   “Any luck working out where we’re going?” Caine said to Marshall as they walked down the corridor.

   “Right system, wrong hendecaspace point. The problem is that we don’t know which one. Apparently there are half a dozen egress points close together, some sort of crazy cluster of plutoids out in the system’s Oort cloud.”

   “So until we make the transition…”

   “We won’t know which one. It’s strange,” he said, shaking his head. “It isn’t even as if there is anything in the system to write home about. According to the logs, there are no permanent settlements, no outposts, just an unmanned relay station.”

   “Which means it must be a trap.”

   “A very well sprung one,” Marshall said, drifting around a corner. “Whoever set it couldn’t have known we’d head this way.”

   “Then Durman was just...no, that doesn’t make any sense either. He’s had far better opportunities to betray us, and he passed up every one of them. That he would choose now just seems illogical.”