by C. Gockel
Alvarez looked at the main viewer and saw a bright, green wave enveloping them. Thomson attended to Jitters, but Alvarez jumped onto Jitter’s console. He feverishly punched commands repeatedly changing the view screen. He wanted to see how the wave impacted objects as it traveled. He saw it hit small debris first and then the space probe in the distance. Finally, it struck the star itself with the rest of the burst traveling on faintly into the darkness beyond. The wave’s impact was subtle. Alvarez thought he could see small debris shift slightly when struck, but larger objects appeared unaltered.
Alvarez realized he was holding his breath. He tried to exhale slowly, but it came out noisily instead.
“Brennen did it,” he said.
He looked at his crew expecting to see faces of joy and relief. But all he saw was confusion. Jitters was on his feet now, holding gauze to his head with one hand and cleaning blood from his cheek with the other.
“Are you okay?” Alvarez said.
“I’ll be fine,” Jitters said. “It’s no worse than the hangover I woke up with.”
Usually Alvarez would have laughed, but his sense of relief had passed. They were still in trouble. Was the Constance contaminated? If not, they were still stranded without engines.
And the burst would emit again. This hiding place might not work next time.
Despite Brennen’s genius and herculean effort, they had gotten lucky. Alvarez knew one thing:
You can’t count on luck.
III
Outpost
Chapter Sixteen
YORK, ALONE IN the hole-in-the-wall Novos called a cafeteria, poured another cup of coffee. Her nerves were rattled, but she needed a boost. She grabbed the cup and exited into the main corridor.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Brennen coming her direction. From a distance she said,” Dr. Brennan, you did it. I thought we were through. But at the eleventh hour, you brought the cavalry over the hilltop.” York appeared pleased with her use of imagery.
Brennen looked straight through her as if she wasn’t there. He wore his space suit but had his helmet off, which was unusual.
“Aren’t we supposed to store suits in the cargo bay after decontamination?” she said.
He marched toward her without slowing down or acknowledging her in any way.
She sipped her coffee, still expecting a reply. As he passed by her, he smacked her hard on the rear. York half choked, half spit out her coffee. She turned, bewildered, and stared at Brennen who walked off without saying a word.
York was used to being accosted by grunts. She was surrounded by lewd gestures and daily, unwelcomed solicitations, but she had never had an encounter with a senior officer before.
“Terra, where are you?” Parker said over the comm.
“I just stopped to get a cup of coffee,” she said.
“I'm in the bay suiting up. We've got to get back out there as soon as possible,” he said.
“Did we get new orders from Alvarez?”
“I'm not waiting for orders,” he said. “If we don't get the combustion chamber back in place…You saw that green pulse as well as I did. I don’t know what’s going on, but it can’t be good. Right now, I need to get a look at that chamber. Being tethered to the hull—who knows how banged up it is? It may have suffered irreparable damage. I can't sit here and wait. I’ve got to see it for myself.”
“I understand, but worst case scenario—can’t we use the IST generator without the combustion chamber?”
“We could,” he said, “but inertial dampeners aren’t going to work. It’s an integrated unit, and the computer can’t adjust without the entire propulsion system online. Even if we rigged it somehow, what would happen if we came out of IST too close to a star or black hole? Without thrusters post-IST—I don’t want to play those odds.”
She swallowed a big gulp, not enough for the long day she knew was ahead of her. Then she said, “I'm on my way.”
Alvarez looked over Thomson’s shoulder. He knew it was a bad habit, but he couldn’t help it.
“What's our relative location to the probe and the object?” Alvarez asked.
“We've moved a few kilometers, but we're on a very slow piece of rock,” Thomson answered. “The probe, the spherical object where the blast came from, and this asteroid—they’re all roughly in the same orbit.”
Alvarez said, “That's good…I think. It would be better if we were on the opposite side of the star, away from that sphere.”
“Better would be back at Novos,” Thomson said with a grin.
Alvarez didn’t smile. The thought of retreating was not an option. It wasn’t a real option anyway. He shuffled through data reports on his console, a pretense. Really, he was procrastinating. He knew his next move, and his mind was already made up, but he needed courage. There was a certain attraction to inaction, waiting just a moment longer before you really step in it. The longer he dithered, the more unsavory his respite became.
Finally, his frustration and shame towards the smaller, more cowardly part of himself caused him to blurt out, “Plot a new course to the sphere and relay that information to the shuttle’s computer.”
Thomson raised an eyebrow but followed orders. Alvarez got on the com. “Parker what's your status?”
“York and I are walking the hull on our way to the combustion chamber.”
“You read my mind,” Alvarez said. “Just so you know, I'm taking a team to the sphere.”
“Is that wise? If you get stranded, we can’t come get you until engines are back online.”
Alvarez paused. Parker was right. There was some wisdom in waiting. But whatever the trouble was, he needed to work the problem. He couldn’t sit idly by and hope the situation would improve. Leaders took action and if he waited any longer, his fear would grow, which could crush him, paralyze him. Whatever advantage there was in waiting—it was for someone else to gain. He couldn’t operate that way. There was a threat, and he was going to run towards it.
“That's why you're the scientist; you’ve got all the brains,” Alvarez said, finally. “Unfortunately, Novos put a soldier in command. I’ve got to check it out. If we can shut the plasma burst down somehow, we’ll buy more time to investigate the probe and see exactly what this whole thing’s about. But Parker—David I need you to assume the worst. Assume that I can’t shut it down in time. Those engines need to be back online yesterday. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, John. Good luck.”
Alvarez toggled to another insignia on the comm. “Sarge, meet me in the cargo bay.”
“Right away, sir.”
“While you're at it,” Alvarez said, “bring three of your best grunts with you.” He looked at Jitters who was back to work. Except for his bandaged head, there was no sign of injury. That was one of Jitters’s redeeming qualities. Once he got to work, he lost the junky routine. He could get the job done, whatever it was. Jitters didn’t get into trouble until after hours.
“How's the head?” Alvarez asked.
“B-b-barely feel it now,” he said.
“What about your foot?”
Jitters looked down. “Oh, I already forgot about it.”
“Can you march?”
“I think so.”
“Then you’re coming with me,” Alvarez said. “Thomson, you’re in command until Parker gets back.”
“Yes, sir,” Thomson said.
Alvarez turned to Jitters. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seventeen
TERRA YORK HELD tightly to the rail. She was tethered to it, but she wasn’t taking chances. As she approached the hatch, her communicator clicked on, automatically opening a channel with Parker as it detected his proximity. Surrounded by ambient noise in atmospheric conditions, the click was almost inaudible. But in space, the sound made you flinch.
“Okay, no more pretending to work,” she said. “I’m back. Now we can get down to business.”
Parker looked over, startled. “There you are,” he said. He must
have been too engrossed in his work to hear the click. He looked at her as if something new caught his eye. She didn’t look away.
Maybe it was the shared comm channel, or maybe it was the absence of other familiar sounds; regardless, something drew people together on extended spacewalks.
Parker looked past York. “There they go,” he said.
York turned to see the shuttle heading in the sphere’s direction. “At least we don't have to do that,” she said.
“I don't know. Right now, I think I would trade places,” he said.
“The combustion chamber is in that bad of shape?”
“It's banged up a little, but I think it will be fine,” he said. “We're still trying to squeeze an Atlas-class part into a smaller designed ship. We can install it, of course, but then we can't close the hatch. So, what I think we'll do...”
York interrupted. “Flatten two sides and reverse fill the interior with this alloy?” She pointed to the cylindrical chunks of metal tied to the transport table.
Parker smiled at York. Her intuitive abilities were uncanny. Although it had only been a week since they left Novos, the two of them had already logged long hours together. He found working with York to be uncommonly easy. York could finish most of Parker's sentences, an occurrence which would have annoyed him if York’s skills didn’t rival his own.
“As much as I want to get this mission over with,” Parker said, “I’m going to miss having somebody as capable as you to work with.”
“Is that all I am to you,” teased York, “just a capable assistant?” She tried to act offended.
“Well, no. You’re much, much…” Parker bit his tongue. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just I’m not used to working so well with people. I’m usually a one-man-band back at Novos. It kills me, but I have more in common with that hermit Brennen than I care to admit.”
York winced. “I hope you don’t have too much in common. You wouldn’t believe what he did thirty minutes ago.”
Parker looked at her inquisitively, then assumed a protective posture difficult to recognize under a spacesuit but was evident nonetheless.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Let’s get this work done.” The two braced the chamber against the side of the ship, took an impact hammer and began to flatten out one side, and then the other side of the chamber.
“You know, York...”
“David, call me Terra.”
Parker swallowed hard and continued. “I've never had a chief-mechanic pick up one of my new designs as quickly as you have.”
York beamed. “You're the first space-architect to stick around long enough to notice,” she said. “Usually, they don't have anything to do with us grease monkeys.”
After they finished flattening the sides, they began to weld new alloy to the interior of the chamber to strengthen it. “So, how long of a tour have you signed up for with Novos?” Parker asked.
“I can barely keep track,” she said. “I just keep renewing every time.”
“You like it that much?”
“No,” she said, “but I don't know what else to do. This is the only thing I'm good at.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“What, David, you don't have a real life back home?”
“Nothing that even resembles a real life. I have a couple of buddies from school I keep up with and a few hobbies. But that's about it.”
York smirked. “Hobbies, huh? Have any pet fish?”
Parker chuckled. “I guess you saw me.”
“Just a few times,” she said.
“I don't know what it is about the aquaponics system. I go in there, and I'm able to forget about it all for a few minutes. Don't you have a way to relax?”
“Oh, I have ways,” she said suggestively.
Parker swallowed hard again, but this time his throat was dry.
She winked. “I'll get inside the service shaft. As you line up the combustion chamber, I'll help thread the bolts.” She had a way of taking charge without seeming insubordinate. She loosened two straps from around her chest and then started to remove a loop from one shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Parker demanded.
“I’m small, but I’m not that small,” she said. “If I’m going to squeeze into the shaft, I need all the room I can spare. As long as you promise to rescue me if I float away, I’m better off without this propulsion pack.”
Parker agreed with a nonverbal gesture. In a surprisingly quick movement, he hooked an additional tether to York’s belt and attached the other end to himself.
She looked at him incredulously. “That propulsion pack was your redundancy,” he said. “You’re removing it, so I’m adding a new redundancy.”
“I can read a mechanical blueprint,” she said, “but deep down I’ll never really be an engineer. You’re the most risk averse people in the universe.”
“That’s why people trust us to design multi-trillion cert spacecraft.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Look, I’ll bring my p-pack along, just in case,” she said.
The two worked quickly. Knowing exactly what to do, there was little need for talk. With the chamber in place, York began threading bolts.
Parker worked up his nerve. “When we get back to Novos, I have some designs I'd like to show you.”
York didn't reply. Her hands, still threading bolts, started to slow.
He continued. “I have an enhanced energy-transfer coupling prototype that should make the job we're doing now obsolete. It's back in my lab. I'd love to have you…” He coughed. “I’d love to have you come over to check it out. Maybe we could get dinner while we're at it.”
Parker couldn't see York, except for her hands on the bolts. Her movements slowed even more.
“There’s an excellent Tahitian grill I discovered,” he said. “It’s on an orbiter that’s really close to my lab.”
Her hands stopped moving.
“Terra, are you okay?”
She didn’t respond. He wished he could see her face, see her expression.
“Terra?” He reached forward and gently touched her hand.
She jerked hers away.
“Listen, I'm sorry if...” He stopped in mid-sentence. York was back to work. But she was unthreading the bolts.
“Hey, I'm sorry if I said something wrong,” he said. “I didn't mean to offend you.”
Her hands moved quickly, faster than he had ever seen her work before. Two of the four bolts were loose. He continued to apologize to no avail.
She had the bolts free in no time. She pushed the combustion chamber hard. Parker, on the other side, backed out of the hatch. He didn’t speak. He didn’t resist. Shell-shocked, it was all he could do to tether the combustion chamber to the rail before it floated past him.
Another object darted out the hatch. Parker watched as York’s propulsion pack zipped away, lost forever. York climbed out of the hatch and began her spacewalk back to the cargo bay entrance.
“What did I do?” Parker pleaded. “Fine. I'll do this myself.” His voice trembled. “You've got a lot of growing up to do, York!”
York pulled herself via the rail, hand-over-hand, toward the cargo bay at an astonishing pace. She was reckless, untethered, and without her propulsion pack. Dumbfounded, Parker heard the click in his helmet as York moved out of range.
Then he heard a crackle over his headset. “Parker, this is Alvarez. We've landed on the sphere.
Chapter Eighteen
THE SHUTTLE WAS packed tight. It wasn’t designed for more than six passengers, but Alvarez, Brennen, Jitters, Sarge, and three grunts were crammed in together. The uninvited man, Brennen, had showed up right as they were leaving.
Alvarez wasn’t convinced bringing him along was a good idea. His brain could prove useful, but his attitude and propensity to disobey orders could be problematic. Alvarez allowed Brennen onboard, choosing to pick his battles. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? he thought. If he gets too deep und
er my skin, I’ll just leave him down here.
The men were getting antsy. Everyone stood and waited for Alvarez to give them the green light to open the rear hatch. Alvarez used the shuttle’s sensor to survey the surface of the object. This nearly perfect sphere wasn’t noteworthy. If anything, its lack of features was its most defining quality—like a small moon without craters. What notable characteristics it did have were all located in close proximity to where the shuttle landed. What drew Alvarez to this location, even before he noticed the features on the landscape was some sort of energy signature that emanated most strongly from their current position. It wasn’t until they were about to land that they had observed the anomalous rock formation.
Alvarez checked for atmospheric readings but found none. The surface of the sphere was a vacuum.
“I'm surprised we have this much gravity,” Sarge said looking over his shoulder. “This rock is tiny. It must be incredibly dense to have this much pull.”
“That’s not all that’s odd,” Alvarez said. He expected Brennen, the only scientist there, to join the conversation. But he appeared disinterested.
“Everyone keep your helmets on,” Alvarez said. “There's no atmosphere out there. Grab your weapons and reattach your extra tank of oxygen.”
Most of the men were ready except for the extra oxygen. Each suit came standard with an extra tank for longer missions or for occasional malfunctions. Most grunts habitually removed the extra tank to lighten their load.
The amount of disorder Alvarez’s command created was almost comical. The grunts stumbled over each other like corralled livestock. Alvarez noticed Sarge’s weapon was different than the grunts’.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Alvarez.
“Well, I don’t know what you think it is, but it’s a twentieth century Mossberg, pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun.”
Alvarez was half intrigued and half concerned. “Is that really appropriate out here?”