Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  “I see it,” Clay reported, walking 10 meters ahead of her. He tipped his head back to say this. So his mouth was in water now. Damn.

  “If I die –” he attempted.

  “Don’t!” Sass barked at him.

  “Hunter –”

  “Tell him yourself, asshole.” In Sass Collier’s book, there were times to be sensitive and understanding. This wasn’t one of them. She’d kick his ass to that ship if she had to.

  Not that they had any real reason to believe the ship offered safety. It had been sitting on the ocean floor, gradually sinking into even higher pressure, for years.

  A gurgle came over the comms. It took her a minute to realize he was laughing underwater. Good. And now she could see the ship. The bad news was that it was a bit farther away than they thought. The good news, incredibly, was that its lights were on.

  “Stop following the anchor line,” she barked. “Head straight for the lights.”

  Clay didn’t bother to respond. Maybe he couldn’t anymore. Sass swam to catch up and seize the dratted ball tether from his hands. He struggled momentarily, then looked her in the eye. She was right. His mouth and nose couldn’t tilt to find air anymore. And the ship entrance was still 30 meters away. A quick dash through air. A hard slog through leaden sea.

  The air line was still bubbling through the water in his helmet. In sudden decision, Sass unclamped his headgear, and pulled it off. Clay’s eyes widened in panic at first, then he nodded in resolve. He held still for her to disconnect the hose and stick it in his mouth. He spit out the water in his mouth, and sucked his lips around the life-giving air.

  His eyes squinted against the discomfort of the ocean water. Denali’s was similar to Earth’s, but not entirely, with a large concentration of painful ammonia, a touch of sulfuric and carbonic acids, and alien organics.

  It didn’t matter. He would endure.

  She racked her harpoon on his back and seized his belt. She’d released the cargo ball tether for only an instant, but the current grabbed it. She dove for that and grabbed it just in time, then lost more precious seconds rolling it to find its tether again.

  But she was with the right guy for the crisis. When she pointed her headlamp the right way again, he’d already walked ahead 5 meters, headlamp clamped under his arm and lighting the way.

  He wouldn’t be able to see much longer, his eyes failing to the caustic bath. Sass hastened to rejoin him, as much as her trailing ball would allow. At least here it could roll behind instead of hammering her butt – they’d reached a sand swath on the ocean floor.

  With 10 meters further to the source of the lights, she caught up to him, and held his hand. She’d love to put their gear down, get him inside faster. But they needed every bit of it, and the current would snatch it away. Better to get all of it inside, even if he died along the way.

  This was rational. This was cruel as hell. But then, she was a cyborg and able to make such cruel choices, yes? No.

  He grasped her hand back fiercely. And they walked on, in ultra-slow motion, pushing against unbearable water for every step.

  Ahead, every chance was that the water entry pool had flooded the ship, even with the lights on. One problem at a time, Collier, she chided herself.

  And they reached it. The ship was half the size of Thrive, but generous indeed for one man. She didn’t care right now. More to the point, she still had 10 more meters to traverse under the ship, looking for the way in. Back in Neptune, they’d told her there was a diving hole in the bottom, ‘of sorts.’

  Clay continued walking, his eyes squeezed shut. She yanked his hand to change direction, and pulled him toward the middle of the underbelly. Something stuck out ahead of them. Yes, Belker had a trapdoor hatch, like Thrive did, though smaller. He hadn’t cut a hole, merely opened the hatch.

  She dodged under the doors, and transferred Clay’s hand to one, its corner about shoulder height on him. She had no way to tell him to wait here, she’d be right back. No time for that, anyway.

  The downside of this diving hole was that it was too high, with no ladder. She tried to jump up, but got fouled by the cargo ball. Dammit! She considered her options. No, she didn’t want Clay holding anything else.

  She leaned down trying to figure out how to at least increase the tether length to the ball, then tie it to her foot somehow. But the harpoon shifted on her back and got in her way.

  The harpoon!

  No sooner thought of, than back in her hands. She shot straight up. The spear rose, then drifted back down. She peered upward, but there was nothing to see but dark water. No lit room beyond just a meter of water, a view familiar from Neptune’s diving bay.

  She reloaded the harpoon as fast as she could. And she tried shooting it again, taking care to shoot it straight up, with her arms extended for another meter’s advantage against the water.

  Bingo! This time, when she yanked on its line, the spear did not return.

  Me first? Or him? She had no way to communicate with him what she wanted him to do. Would he figure it out from her putting a carbon fiber cable in his hand? He’d need both hands, but hopefully he could hold onto the airline with his mouth. But she still didn’t know what was above them, what he was facing, and he’d be in her way to find out.

  Too complicated. She squeezed his shoulder briefly, all the message she could send. She started pulling herself up, her anchoring cargo nuisance dangling along. It only took a few more feet above her head until she could grab onto the sides of the trapdoor, which offered hand-holds.

  She wasn’t out of the water, though. Was it only her imagination that it grew lighter above? Or worse, an underwater light from a flooded cargo hold.

  She dragged the damned ball up and over, onto the floor of the hold. She patted around and found the usual grab bar to lash its tether onto. Finally, she bought herself some freedom of movement.

  Still holding the harpoon cable, she pulled herself up through the trapdoor airlock, and onto the flooded cargo floor beside her ball. She stood up.

  And her helmet broke the surface into air.

  18

  Sass gazed around in wonder. The ship’s cargo hold was well flooded, up to her shoulders. But it was also well lit from overhead, and still in good condition. She briefly considered talking off her helmet to see if the air was breathable.

  But no, that didn’t matter.

  She grasped the harpoon line and drifted back down to Clay. He wasn’t holding onto the door anymore, and his air line drifted free. Dammit! He’d lost consciousness. In all likelihood he’d already drowned. Or maybe he’d just given in.

  But she couldn’t waste time on that. Thinking quick, she tied the harpoon launcher around him and tested it.

  There was a retract button, that might jet him upwards. But then she’d be stuck below, and he’d still be unconscious. Bad plan.

  No, good plan. He had a second harpoon. She detached that from him, and shot it upwards. This established her a second sound climbing cord. Holding firmly onto that lest it get fouled by the unconscious man, she positioned Clay as best she could, and engaged his harpoon launcher retract button. Slowly but surely, Clay started to rise.

  Sass wasted no time clambering up alongside. She almost lost her grip in surprise inside the trap airlock, as Clay suddenly sped up and accidentally kicked her along his way.

  But soon she was on the cargo floor again, then standing. Clay hung above her, dangling from the ceiling. Huh, should’ve thought of that.

  Well, first things first. Could they breathe in here? With great trepidation, she unsealed her own helmet. Then immediately sealed it again. Where is Clay’s helmet? She hadn’t picked it up because he wasn’t holding it anymore.

  Down she went again. She lucked out. The helmet hadn’t yet rolled beyond the ship lights. She grabbed it before the current could steal it away, then returned to the harpoon lines yet again.

  Retract? Or climb? Hm. The bright side of retracting was that it put her on the ceiling
with Clay. The downside was that dangling from a ceiling wasn’t the most convenient position from which to accomplish anything further.

  But she could simply let go and splash back down. Retract express it is. She quite enjoyed the elevator experience, gracefully drifting upward with the mechanism doing all the work for the first time all day. Then she hit the surface, with a distinct slurp, and bounded up to the ceiling so fast she feared whiplash.

  And she dangled. From this vantage point, it seemed best to check on Clay while she kept her own air supply intact. He hung at finger reach from her, so she swung a little until she could grab hold by his belt.

  This roused him enough to start coughing, soon spewing a cup or so of liquid out of his lungs onto the placid dark waters below. Though it seemed a bit selfish, she let him breathe the air first. His eyelids fluttered open, showing whites turned painful red, then scrunched shut again in pain. But he took a deep breath, coughed one more time, and settled in, his chest rising and falling normally.

  Reassured for the moment, Sass studied her surroundings. Unlike Thrive, this cargo hold was only a generous 4 meters high, with no catwalk. Though the ship was taller than that, as she’d seen from the outside. Yes, there was a stairway, or given its steepness, a ladder. She saw no engine room door, nor med bay. Thinking back on her time trying to get in, perhaps this curved-corner room was the entire extent of the lowest level, sort of a pregnancy bump on the overall shape.

  Experimentally, she tried the line release on the harpoon, just a little. Nope, it didn’t do ‘just a little.’ She splashed down into the hold, teetered precariously by the maw of the exit pool, and recovered.

  Clay still seemed to be breathing, though his flippers bobbed a frustrating half meter above her fingers. So she tried taking her helmet off.

  Gah! Fumes of ammonia and sulfur wafted from the water. She gagged and her eyes watered. This temporarily obscured the key salient point – she could breathe. She didn’t especially enjoy it. In fact her lungs burned. But she could breathe.

  “Computer,” she attempted, “are you online?”

  “I am online,” the ship replied, in exactly the same voice Thrive used, though perhaps at a different setting for cordiality.

  “Computer, can you raise the air pressure slightly? Maybe 3%.”

  “Current air mix is nonstandard for humans. Attempting to correct.”

  “Computer, cancel that!” Sass ordered hastily. “I want the current atmospheric mix, at slightly higher pressure. If you could also remove the ammonia, that would be lovely.”

  “Argon supplies are depleted. Water supplies are below levels for basic life support. Cannot manufacture more argon.”

  Only then did Sass realize that she wasn’t squeaking. In fact, her voice sounded deeper and lower than usual. She tried singing a little, and ended up laughing.

  “Oh, computer, you crack me up!” she rumbled. “Can the water in the hold be cycled into the water reserves?”

  “Checking… This water is not within tolerance. Initiating reverse osmosis filtration system. Filling the pre-purification tank by osmosis will take approximately four hectours.”

  “Hectours, huh? Computer, please respond to me using Earth-standard minutes and hours.”

  Earth-standard wasn’t much different from Mahina time-keeping, though substantially off from Denali’s weird system. The locals used a 24-hour Earth clock during the dark months, without astronomical reference. Then they switched to a 20-hour clock synced with the sun for spring and fall, a cycle truly annoying to the human circadian rhythm. So they resumed 24 hours during the summer, when the sun was always up anyway.

  Hectours were a Ganymede aberration, dividing a 24-hour day into 100 decimal segments. Sass didn’t remember offhand how long each hectour was.

  “Tank will be full in one Earth hour,” the computer replied. “It will take a further 1.6 hours to purify into the life support system.”

  “And then you will be able to increase air pressure? With the current atmospheric mix. Minus the ammonia and sulfur.”

  “That atmospheric mix is toxic to human life.”

  Sass decided she had a few hours to figure out how to win that argument with a dumb computer. But she’d had plenty of practice. “Computer, is there a ladder in the cargo hold?”

  “There is a ladder from the cargo hold to the habitation level,” she agreed.

  So damned literal. Sass was not impressed with Ganny advances in artificial intelligence. But then again, that meant this ship was roughly as stupid as Thrive, which was convenient.

  She proceeded with the 20 questions game until she at last located a chin-height step stool in a closet. Opening the door wasn’t too bad, so long as she wasn’t in a hurry. The water displaced slowly, like oil.

  Along the way, she learned the ship’s name, the Nanomage. Belker had a planetary scale ego.

  And finally she could climb up and hold Clay. She hit his harpoon release button, then awkwardly carried him down to the surface of the water. Holding him by the shoulders, she floated him across, then had to carry him again up the ladder to a large landing.

  Doggedly, she retrieved the helmets and the cargo ball. If she was draining the cargo hold, it was imperative that their tools not escape. Sadly, that included the harpoons, which would never be any easier to reclaim than they were right now. She killed 20 minutes on the project, prying at spear heads with her knife, perched on tip-toes atop the ladder, and falling in a couple times. But she got her harpoons back, and into their tidily retracted configuration. The step-stool she moved back half a meter, but left it erected to roughly mark the location of the trapdoor hole.

  At last she was back to Clay, who seemed to be sleeping soundly, despite a rough snore from the foul air.

  But the fact that she could operate so well on this air was a godsend. They still had nearly half of the air tanks they wore to walk here, plus equal refills inside the cargo ball from hell. And if the computer could be believed – and cajoled – possibly unlimited time here.

  That reminded her. She used her helmet comm to assure Neptune that they made it. Then she called Thrive and brought Abel up to date. She caught him in the dining room, so soon they were on speaker and everyone was chatting, and laughing at how deep her voice was after squeaking so long.

  Copeland bullied through. “Cap? The RO filtration and purification take a lot of power. Cracking air even more so. If you can breathe, I advise you stop that project until you know how much power you’ve got left. I’m amazed the lights are on after all this time. You might be cutting it close.”

  Sass sighed. “Thanks, Cope. Will do. Sass out.”

  Well, at least that set her next priority. She rose, found the engine room, figured out where the tell-tales were, and checked her fuel levels.

  That can’t be right. “Computer, assess fuel levels.”

  “Point 4 capacity. At current usage, fuel levels are good for over twenty thousand years.”

  “Computer, that is a star drive, isn’t it?”

  “This ship is powered by a third generation sky drive.”

  Since no one ever mentioned a generation, Sass supposed hers was an original sky drive. “Computer, where was this sky drive manufactured?”

  “Manufactured in grief at Sanctuary Fab-5.”

  Strange counterpoint to ‘made with pride.’ “Is this Fab-5 on Ganymede?”

  “Ganymede Colony was destroyed 71 standard years ago. Fab-5 is on Sanctuary.”

  “Did the survivors of Ganymede go to this ‘Sanctuary’?”

  “There were few survivors of Ganymede. The Colony Corps retreated to Sanctuary.”

  The Colony Corps were the crews from Ganymede, Mars, and the Moon who steered the vast refugee ships leaving Earth, three of which came to the worlds of Aloha, including this one. Sass had long suspected as much, that after leaving Aloha, her benefactors retreated to yet another world, separate from the interstellar migrants. The Colony Corps prepared its own bolt-hole.
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br />   There was a problem with that notion, however. “Computer, what is the population of Sanctuary?” Her own ship, the Vitality, relied on a crew of only a few hundred.

  “At time of departure, Sanctuary’s population was 8,000.”

  More questions shot through Sass’s mind like firecrackers. She could grill this computer all day, all night, and for a week beyond. What had become of the rest of humanity? Playing 20 questions with a dumb machine, that would take time to answer.

  And she’d have to repeat every word of it to Clay.

  What he wasn’t interested in, however, she had someone else to share with. She opened a channel and hailed Thrive. She nearly bounced on her toes while Abel got Copeland on the line.

  “Cope, I found the engine room!” she boomed, ever froggier as the day progressed. “The computer says it has power for another twenty thousand years!”

  “Sounds promising,” Cope allowed. “But it’s the wrong question. May I? Computer, does this vessel have enough fuel to reach Denali orbit?”

  Both Thrive and Nanomage replied, but they ignored Thrive’s simple ‘No.’ “There is insufficient fuel to establish orbital velocity. It would reach orbit and fall back to Denali.”

  “Oh,” Sass said. After that, she kicked back and let Cope play tease-the-computer to learn its engine specs. Along the way, she learned that her own ship featured a 2nd generation sky drive as primary, with a reconditioned 1st generation as backup.

  Their main engine could burn the same fuel as Nanomage. But as Copeland patiently retried each query from three perpendicular directions, they learned Thrive would get 25% less power out of the Nanomage’s 3rd generation fuel. “But 40% increased power over the 2nd generation fuel.” Several more pointed questions eventually elicited, “The 2nd generation fuel is compatible with the 1rst and 2nd generation drives.”

  “Cap,” Copeland urged, “I need this star drive and its fuel.”

  “I can’t put them in my luggage, Cope. You should see the cargo ball I had to drag here. I can bring back data dumps, and that’s about it.” Sass yawned, and found that her ears popped. “Computer, did you raise pressure?”