Everyone knew what they had to do, except Beth. She sat in the chair for a little longer, but the silence on the bridge and the anger emanating from Vihaan threatened to swallow her up. Fear crackled like static across the room, against the walls and through the screens, over their skin. She knew she should say something, do something, but she had no idea what. Eventually she muttered something indistinct, stood, and fled down through the ship, to the Sleep room where her parents’ pods lay.
She visited the Sleep room every day, and she knew the others did too, although oddly no one ever talked about it. The lights were kept low and the pod monitors glinted in the half-dark. Beth looked down at her mum’s face, the steel-hard bones under her skin and her jutting chin.
“What would you do, Mum?” she whispered.
Probably mount an attack armed with toothpicks and a piece of gum, she thought. Carol McKay was the kind of person who seemed to succeed by simply altering the universe to make it so.
Her mum didn’t move, except to breathe very slowly. Beth went over to her dad’s pod. He had strength too, she thought; the strength of a farmer battered by wind and fickle crops who only frowns and starts again, and again. A cheerful stubbornness in the face of disaster. She sighed. She could use some of that, too.
“Everyone’s scared,” she whispered. “And no one wants to say it; we’re just pretending.” Her voice trembled. “I miss you.”
All of you, she thought, looking at the pods. She missed all the grown-ups, all the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. They were all depending on her, and she had no idea what to do.
“Well. Here goes, eh?” She stood straight and looked around the room, and something struck her. All these pods, she thought. Her parents, all of the crew… There was something wrong about them. Something obvious. It was like an optical illusion; it was one thing, but if she looked at it just right…
A shadow appeared at the doorway; Mikkel came in and nodded to her.
“I have to adjust your patch,” he said, gesturing towards the Sleep disc on her neck. She stood still as he checked it. He was humming again.
“How do you do that?” she asked. “Stay so calm, I mean.” He blinked as if he didn’t understand the question. “You’re always so relaxed. Don’t you worry?”
Mikkel finished checking his readings and thought about it.
“My brother is here,” he said at last. He walked to one of the other pods and looked inside. Beth followed him. The boy inside this pod looked similar to Mikkel, the same white-blonde hair, same neutral face. He was a couple of years older.
“We climb,” said Mikkel. “At home. Lofoten, in Norway; we climb all the time. Rock climbing, ice climbing … night climbing in the summer when it is light until midnight. Jonas and I, we climb together.
“Climbing is easy, but you must prepare. Jonas tells me all the time, you must forget nothing. You must train your mind to remember. You must be methodical.”
He placed one hand softly on the top of the pod. “One time, Jonas and his friend, they climbed and his friend fell. His leg was broken. They were many kilometres away. Jonas carried him home himself. No one to help. I said to him, were you scared? He said he had to remember to be not scared. He had to be methodical. And so he carried his friend home.”
Mikkel smiled and looked up at Beth. “So, I am remembering to be not scared. And I am methodical. And I will carry my brother and my fathers home.”
Beth stared at him, standing with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on the pod, his face relaxed.
Eventually she said, “Good plan.”
He nodded. “We should return to the bridge,” he said, and headed out. Beth looked around the room again, but whatever she’d noticed before had escaped her. She shrugged and followed him up.
As she stepped on to the bridge she felt the tension again, as if everyone in the room was tied together by barbed wire, every move full of danger and threat. Beth looked at Mikkel and thought, I am remembering to be not scared. She took a breath. I am the master of my own ship.
“Right,” she said, as if she knew what she was doing. “What’s the status, Lauryn?”
“Booting now,” said Lauryn, without looking away from her screen. “It’s going to take about twenty minutes, but we should be clean after that.”
“Good work. Lucille?”
Lucille shrugged. “I am waiting for the emitters.”
“OK. Good. Good. Um…” I am remembering to be not scared.
She stood in front of her seat and tried to think how a captain might talk. “We’re all ready. The Gizmos will adjust the emitters. You’ve got the settings. Lauryn’s fixing Ship, Mikkel’s sorted the Sleep discs, Vihaan’s on defence and Arnold’s got weapons. Ship trained us for this, remember? We know what we’re doing.
“We’re going to get out of this. I promise.”
Nobody answered. Beth wasn’t sure if she’d convinced them. She wasn’t sure if she convinced herself. But it was better than nothing, right? Right?
One hour left.
They waited.
20
Captain Murdoch
Stumpy the Gizmo had completed fixing the first emitter, and the second Gizmo had reached another and was adjusting it very slowly with its one good arm.
Could they Jump right now, with only two fixed? Jumping took time; if the Scrapers arrived and noticed them powering up the emitters, they might shoot them right there and then. Would one or two extra working ones really make the difference? Lucille said yes. Beth had to trust her.
Ship’s hologram shimmered on to the bridge. “Normal operations resumed,” it announced. “There has been a temporary unscheduled interval of downtime. This was due to a security violation which has now been resolved.”
Lauryn snorted. “You mean, I resolved it. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Beth nodded. “Good to have you back, Ship.”
Lauryn was ready. She’d found time to make some modifications to Beth’s microphone, and now she was running scans and checking over Ship’s cyber defences for future attacks. The others were ready. Beth was ready – if by ‘ready’ she meant that she had absolutely no idea what else she could do. They waited.
At two hours and thirty minutes the Scrapers arrived.
First, a blip on Mikkel’s console. By the time he’d reported it there was another, and then two appearing at once. Then the rest, until the screen was filled with small white dots.
Beth’s heart started hammering, and she felt her stomach churn. “Ship, report,” she croaked.
Ship said, “Twelve craft of unknown origin have Jumped into local space. Six are Scout class. Five are Cruiser class. One is Devastator class. Nearest craft is four hundred kilometres away. Vessels are unauthorised and may be hostile.” It showed the ships on a holographic sphere in front of the children.
Unauthorised. That meant they weren’t officially recognised by Earth. They were illegal. Scrapers.
Beth stared. There was something she was supposed to do now, but it had completely gone from her head. Twelve craft? Twelve?
“Emitters,” hissed Vihaan.
“Yes,” she managed. “Mikkel, what’s the emitter status?”
Mikkel nodded. “Charging,” he said casually. “Three minutes to ready.”
“Did the Gizmos finish repairing enough to Jump?”
Lucille was bent over the navigation console. She said, “They got two more. Stumpy is coming back now. The second Gizmo has … stopped, I think.”
“But you’re ready to Jump?”
She laughed, slightly too shrilly. “Oui, oui.” She muttered something under her breath; it was in French, but Beth had a pretty good idea what it meant.
That was it. They’d done what they could. Beth tried repeating the mantra Ship had given her. I am the master of my own ship. I do not control the seas. I cannot control the wind. But I am the master of my own ship.
She activated the switch on Lauryn’s modified pick-up a
nd spoke into it. “Testing, testing…”
The others turned in astonishment. As Beth spoke, the listening software converted her voice, deepening the pitch. When she talked, her mum’s voice came out of the speakers, shocking and so familiar that for a moment Beth felt as if she was about to burst into tears. She swallowed and blinked. Lauryn gave her the thumbs-up and she managed a smile that she hoped looked better than it felt.
The dots were starting to move. The Scraper crews were waking up. Mikkel put up a countdown timer above the main screen, reading two minutes twelve seconds – how long until the Orion’s emitters were ready to Jump.
“Incoming communication!” called Lauryn. “Ready?”
Beth took a deep breath. “OK,” she said. “Do it.”
There was a crackle over the speakers, and the screen flickered on.
Beth knew what to expect. Scraper ships were filthy, built from scraps and parts stolen from others. Their captains commanded by rule of force, and the crew themselves survived vicious fighting every day and carried the scars to prove it.
So the bridge in front of her was a shock. It was gleaming clean, and the three crew members near the front had short cropped hair and were dressed in smart uniforms of black shirts and trousers. Sitting behind them in the captain’s chair was a tall woman with blonde-grey hair and a long, sharp face. She wore a black uniform like the others, but hers had coloured symbols above one pocket. She sat with her hands on her armrests and her legs crossed, and in one hand she held a small silver pen, tapping it idly on the arm of the chair.
“Orion,” she called. “We meet again.” Her voice was crisp and precise.
Beth stared at her.
After a moment, the woman looked to her crew, questioning. “Orion, are you there?” she asked.
Beth shook her head. “Scraper vessel, this is Captain McKay,” she said. Her strange voice echoed. “Please state—”
“McKay?” asked the woman, lifting an eyebrow. “Where’s Captain Joshi?” She leaned forward. “And why can’t I see you? Your screen is dark, Orion – what’s going on?”
“I’m the captain,” Beth said, trying to sound confident. The voice boomed out from her. “Please state your intentions—”
“My dear captain,” the woman drawled. “If that is really who you are… I’m sure by now you know what we want. We’ve spent a long time looking for you and we will have it.”
Beth blinked. She looked around the bridge and the others stared back, as confused as her.
“You, ah… I think you have us mistaken for another vessel,” she said. “Who am I talking to, please?”
The woman on the screen rested her chin in one hand and tapped the little silver pen with the other. She seemed to be thinking.
Eventually she said, “Very well. Let us play this game. I am Captain Murdoch and this is the Free Republic starship Scorpio. And you are the Orion, out of Earth and headed for Eos Five. Which makes you rather lost, Captain McKay.
“So, no Joshi,” she continued. “Perhaps that explains the little dance you’ve led us on.”
Beth stared at the screen. What was she talking about? Forget it. They’ll try to distract you, Vihaan had warned her. Beth tried to go back to her plan. Above the screen, the counter showed one minute thirty.
“Scraper vessel, your actions—”
“Don’t call us that.” Captain Murdoch’s mouth twisted. “I’ve told you that we represent the Free Republic.”
“Captain Murdoch, your actions appear hostile and we must warn you that we are prepared—”
“What are you doing here, Captain McKay?” asked Murdoch, cutting over Beth’s voice with effortless authority. “Why haven’t you Jumped? If you consider us hostile, why didn’t you attack when we arrived?”
She turned to one of her crew, who muttered something. She nodded. “Ah,” she said. “You can’t, can you? According to our scans, you can’t move, you can’t attack, and Jumping would be a very bad idea. In fact, it doesn’t look as if you can do much at all. Thank goodness we’ve arrived to help you out.”
Vihaan muttered, “She’s moving the other ships around us.”
“Stop moving your ships!” called out Beth.
“Or what?” asked Captain Murdoch.
“We knew you were coming,” Beth tried. “We’re prepared!”
Thirty seconds.
The woman sighed. “Captain, this is unnecessary,” she said. “And frankly it’s bizarre to communicate in this way. Activate your screen, please.”
“We, ah, can’t. There’s a problem with the bridge cameras.”
The eyebrow lifted again. “How inconvenient…” She shrugged. “Very well. Let us be clear. We have found you, helpless, and we are going to carry out a rescue mission, because that is what civilised people do. I would have thought you’d be happy at the news.”
Beth shook her head. “I know what you’re going to do. You’re going rip this ship apart and take our food and supplies, because that’s what Scrapers do.”
“Well…” mused the other captain. “It will probably be a rescue and salvage operation, to be sure. But that seems like the best offer you’re going to get, hmm?” Again, the tapping pen.
Vihaan muttered, “They’re powering up.” He stared at his console. “They’re about to rush us.”
Captain Murdoch leaned forward. “There’s no need for unpleasantness here, captain,” she said. Her voice purred like a tiger. “We’re coming in with rescue vehicles, and we’re going to dock. If you allow us to do this, then we will have our rescue mission. We’re not monsters. Surrender, and we’ll take what we need, give you passage to a colony, and all of this will be over. But, let me be clear –” her mouth firmed – “we are coming in. So I advise you to make sure there are no surprises this time, no unexpected moves, do you understand?”
Beth stared at the woman on the screen. What was she talking about? What surprises? What moves? What was going on?
Captain Murdoch’s eyes flashed. “Am I quite clear, Captain McKay? We’ve followed you a long way, and we mean to get what we want. Respond.”
She cocked her head, listening for a reply.
Vihaan was staring at her. JUMP! he was mouthing. Lucille was shaking her head. It might be a rescue, thought Beth. She could be telling the truth. She’s not what I was expecting…
“Captain,” murmured a crew member on the other bridge. “Their emitters are powered up.”
Captain Murdoch looked into the screen. “Orion, Jumping now would be a very bad idea. Firstly, you don’t have enough emitters for a safe Jump; you’ll rip your ship in two. And secondly…” Her voice dropped into a snarl. “If you run again, we will hunt you down – and when we catch you again, we will gut your ship and leave you to rot.” The friendliness in her face was quite gone, replaced by bones of steel. “Do you understand me, Captain McKay? We found you before, we can find you again, and next time … we will eviscerate you.”
Beth stared at the screen, mesmerised.
“They’re closing in,” muttered Vihaan. “Captain…”
She couldn’t speak.
“Ten seconds!” shouted Vihaan. “Do it! Five! They’re going to destroy the emitters!”
We will eviscerate you.
“Jump!” squeaked Beth.
There was a moment to see the look on Captain Murdoch’s face, the furious order to fire… And then Beth collapsed into her chair, her Sleep disc activating as the Orion plummeted into Jump and her consciousness disappeared.
21
Videshi Space
Bridge Sleep was different from in the pods. As Beth pulled herself up from the depths, trying again and again to stick her personality back together from fragments, she became aware that she was already sitting upright, eyes open, hands lying on the armrest controls.
Ship hovered in front of her, giving a report. “Jump completed. Sleep cycle completed successfully. Jump location not as intended. Current location: Sector Fifty-seven, Sub-sector Thr
ee-five. Ship-wide damage has occurred. Generators One and Four are operational. Generators Two and Three have structural internal damage. Gravity is operational. Oxygen generation is operation. Life support is operational—”
“Damage report,” snapped a crisp voice.
“Minor surface damage has occurred in several locations along the hull. Two more emitters have become misaligned.” A hologram of the Orion appeared in front of Beth, with a few new areas marked in red.
“Looks…” She coughed and tried again. “Looks like we rolled a six.”
She became aware of Lucille ahead of her, rubbing her eyes blearily and peering at the screen. To her left, Vihaan was tapping into the console and running scans. Already he seemed as if he’d never been Asleep.
He stood and came round in front of her. “All systems more or less operational, captain.”
“What is there nearby?” asked Beth. “Where are we?”
Ship said again, “We are in Sector Fifty-seven, Sub-sector Three-five,” but Beth shook her head; it meant nothing to her.
Lucille was still staring at her screens, trying to make sense of them. This was their first Jump since the Event. They might be anywhere. But eventually she said, “Yes, it was Strand Five. We crossed to Strand Five. We are…” She stopped. “Oh no.”
“Tell us.”
“This is Videshi space,” Lucille whispered.
The bridge fell silent.
“Well,” said Beth after a moment. “We’re still alive, eh?”
She shook her head again and managed to loosen some of the grey fog. “Send the working Gizmos out again, Arnold – emitter repair.”
Orion Lost Page 13