When he could stand it no more, he logged out of his workstation and made his way down to the mid-deck. It was inviting trouble in the form of unwanted conversation, but he had to eat.
“Everything is crated back up and put away, and we’ve just retracted the tube,” Rene said when he caught him sneaking onto the galley. The engineer followed him in and punched up a cup of pseudojo. “They aren’t happy that we’re powering it down and locking it down. You can expect to get an earful.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Walker said, glancing at the chrono on the food printer. “We’ve only got fifteen hours to go until I can hand them off to Captain MacKenna. From then on she can deal with their garbage.”
“Is Leigh drawing up paperwork to transfer them over?”
“I should have her start on it,” he said, grabbing his tray and walking over to the one corner of the dining area where he was out of sight from the lift. “The sooner I can get them out of my airspace the better I’ll be.”
“What about the cargo? I don’t think Kaycee will leave it behind and I don’t think a multicruiser can carry the modules,” Rene said, following him but not taking a seat at the table. “That’s a damned lot of stuff to hand-stack over.”
“I know,” Ethan said. He nodded to the open chair but Rene shook his head.
“Leigh won’t let us leave it parked here either,” he said.
The captain tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. “It’s twelve days round trip to get a comm back from Smythe, so the good wager says we’ll be doing a RTS run to get it back to Armstrong Station at least.”
“A Return To Sender means we’re eating the cost of both directions,” Rene said.
“And it means we’re not going to be free of Kaycee for a while,” he said.
“Or Elias,” the engineer said, tilting his head in the general direction of the lift. “I think I’ll leave you two to talk.”
When Ethan glanced in the direction Rene had indicated, he knew he should have starved quietly to death in his room.
“Captain, I’d like to make one last appeal to you,” the man said as he sat in the chair across the table, uninvited.
Walker shook his head.
“Put yourself in my place,” Pruitt said. “I’ve been away for two years and when I finally make it home, my family and everything I know isn’t there.”
“I understand your position, but there’s nothing I can do,” Ethan said. “I’m already facing the real possibility of my career taking an unfortunate turn from just going down there in the first place.”
“Nothing personal, but how does that compare?” he said, his voice showing the strain of trying to keep his emotions held inside. It made him very hard to read. “Your career versus my family? As far as we know everyone is dead.”
“That’s why we moved down to a close orbit,” he said, putting the lid back over his meal and sitting back. Glancing across the room to check the time again he shook his head. “Not to be insensitive, but we're looking for methane that would tell us if there are a lot of bodies down there. By this point, we’re on our third orbit. The longer it takes us to catch a positive hit, the less likely it is that there’s anything dead. We’d know already.” He was trying to be reassuring, but it appeared to have the opposite effect.
“If they’re not dead, then where are they?” he asked. His tone sounded almost like he was begging for help. It was disturbing to see this mountain of a human on the edge of tears. He stopped himself and looked down.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re dead.”
Elias swallowed hard and reset himself emotionally, replacing his despair with a thick veneer of anger. “You’re being unreasonable,” he said his voice close to a growl.
“Maybe I am, but this isn’t in my control limits anymore,” Walker said. He leaned back further in his seat and looked around, spotting Angel and Billy sitting against the far wall. They were watching the exchange intently. “I can’t do anything to change the situation. What happens from here on is Captain MacKenna’s call. The Magellan arrives in the morning and you can take it up with her.”
“She’ll give me the same runabout you are,” he said, balling his fists up and setting them on the edge of the table.
This is about to explode, Ethan thought, wondering how he could get his handlers closer before it did. “The one difference will be that she’s got a lot more leeway to interpret things than I do. If I had my way we’d have gone down already, but I can’t make that call.”
Elias slammed both fists against the table and Ethan jumped back. “Frak! Just give us a shuttle and let us go alone.”
“We’ve been over this. You’re not people as far as the company I work for is concerned. You are cargo,” he said as his handlers appeared on both sides of Elias and pulled him up out of his seat.
He jerked his arms free. “Sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath and struggling to find words. His eyes glassed over and he shook his head. “I have a three-year-old daughter down there. You can’t imagine how this feels.” He pivoted and walked away.
“Do you want us to lock him down?” Billy asked.
“No,” the captain said. “He’s right. I can’t imagine, so I sure as hell don’t want to make it worse.”
Chapter Twelve:
“Captain, we have a situation developing.” Marti’s voice sliced through the darkness like a laser.
Ethan snapped up in bed, blinking as his mind struggled to reassemble itself into consciousness. The lights were still off in his room so it had to be well before his alarm. He’d been dreaming about a small girl. He knew it had to be Elias daughter, or what he imagined her to be, and she was trapped in a cave under an empty dead city. He had been trying to dig his way through rocks and rubble to get to her and every time he pulled one rock away, ten more fell into the opening. The nightmare still held him gripped in its steel claws.
“What?” he croaked. His voice felt like he’d been screaming.
“We have a situation developing,” Marti repeated.
He glanced at the illuminated face of his chrono. 0110 hours. “What’s the problem?”
“I am detecting that one of our shuttlecraft is missing,” it said.
A shuttle is missing? I must still be dreaming. There was no way he’d heard the AA’s answer correctly. “Missing? Where is it?”
“Entering the upper atmosphere of Starlight,” Marti said.
He groaned, twisting and setting his feet on the floor. Squinting his eyes, he called up the lights and expected to see boulders cascading from the roof of the cave. It had to be part of the dream. This can’t be real.
“How did that happen?” he asked.
“I do not know,” it said, managing to sound embarrassed at not having a good answer.
“How the hell don’t you know?” he said. “You don’t sleep, and a shuttle can’t simply vanish.”
“I am uncertain,” it said. “I have to assume it is an awareness issue similar to the event that allowed the passengers to access the cargo containers undetected.”
Reality snapped into focus around him and he shook his head. Yes, this has happened before. “I’m guessing that Elias and Kaycee are in it?” he asked, standing up and grabbing his basic duty coverall out of the dressing cabinet.
“That would be a logical assumption,” Marti said. “I cannot locate them anywhere aboard the Olympus Dawn.”
“Have you tried to hail the shuttle?”
“There was no response,” it said.
“Of course not,” he said. He could feel his frustration building with each non-answer he got from the AA. “Can you override the controls and bring it back?
“Negative,” it said. “The teleoperation link appears to have been taken offline.”
Ethan rapped his knuckles on the top of the cabinet for several seconds before he shook his head. This is going to get twisty fast.
“Who’s awake?” he asked.
“Currently, only you,”
Marti said.
“Get everyone on deck,” he said. “Except Leigh. Tell them all to be quiet. I don’t want someone to wake her by accident and having her find out what’s going on until I decide what to do.”
“I assumed that would be your desire,” it said, pausing less than a second before adding, “I have notified all of them.”
He only barely got to the ConDeck before Nuko and Rene arrived. Neither of them was completely dressed, when they burst through the door.
“What’s swinging?” Rene asked as he skidded to a stop on the edge of the riser. “Marti said we’ve got an emergency situation?”
Nuko crashed into her seat and called up the ship systems screens on her console. “I don’t see any problems. The boards all look clear.”
“It’s not the ship,” he said as he punched the situation display up on the main screen. He pointed at the marker icon showing the position of the shuttlecraft as it dropped into the atmosphere. “That’s shuttle two.”
“Oh frak,” Nuko said. “How’d they launch without authorization?”
“I don’t see how it would be possible,” Rene said. He stepped down behind Ethan and leaned over the back of his chair.
“This is the second time Elias circumvented the surveillance equipment,” he said.
“This time he has also overridden several other systems,” Marti said.
Rene nodded. “He’d have to at least compromise the launch and approach control system, and the proximity detection grid. Then he’d have to hack a control code to even activate the shuttle’s pilot console. That’s nearly impossible.”
“Obviously not,” Walker said, flinging an arm toward the screen. “We need to figure out how he did it.”
“Did what?” Angelique Wolfe said as she appeared at the door grinding her fist into an eye and flopping down into one of the observation seats.
“The passengers stole a shuttle,” Nuko said.
“That’s nogo,” she said. “We’re frakking in deep now.”
The captain nodded, twisting to glance in her direction. “My thought exactly.”
“He has to have brought something aboard in his personal stuff that would let him do it,” Rene said. “I don’t know what it would be, but this isn’t a trick you can pull off without high-end tools.”
“Angel, go check his gear,” Ethan said. “Chances are he took his gear with him, but he might have left other surprises in his stateroom that we need to worry about.”
“Yah boss, cando,” she said as she bounced back up and disappeared through the door.
Turning back to Rene, he frowned. “I want you to go over every ship system and figure out what he did. I hate to say it, but I also think it would be a good idea to stick a finger up Marti’s ass and see if you can tell if there are other signs of tampering.”
“Anatomically that might be problematic,” the AA said. The truth was that it took a legal binder to access some parts of Marti’s system without its permission. The law considered any AA above level six to be a life form, so without its consent, a human couldn’t access any of the primary core systems where its awareness lived.
“Sorry Marti, but we need to be sure you aren’t compromised. If you’ll give us permission, I think we cannot take the chance,” he said.
“I understand. I have done a full diagnostic and although I have discovered no issues, the potential does seem to exist that there have been alterations to my awareness that I cannot detect. Unfortunately, your suggestion has merit,” it said. “I will figuratively bend over, so you can accomplish this exam.”
“Have you tried to talk them out of this?” Nuko suggested. She was staring at the display like she could turn them around by force of will.
“Marti says they didn’t respond to hails before,” he said.
“Kaycee likes you,” she said. “Maybe you should try it yourself.”
At this moment, he wasn’t much enamored of the doctor, but Nuko was right. He should give it a shot. He sighed. “Open a channel to the shuttle.”
“Signal link established. They are receiving you,” Marti said.
“Doctor—”
Nuko shot him an expression that said, ‘be friendly.’
He cleared his throat and started over. “Kaycee. What the hell are you doing?”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Obviously she thought he was hopeless.
Silence answered over the open com.
“Elias? Either of you? Please answer me,” he said, struggling to make his voice sound more worried than pissed. “You’ve stolen a shuttle and you’re about to cross a line we can’t walk away from. You need to turn around and we can pretend this never happened.”
He glanced at the chrono. “The Magellan is just over seven hours from entering the system. You can’t be on the surface when they get here. You have to return to the ship, now.”
Again, silence filled the ConDeck as they waited.
“I understand you’re desperate to find out what’s going on, but please don’t force me to come get you.”
“They’ve cut the comm from their end,” Marti said.
Preston and Billy both stood on the deck having only appeared in the last seconds of the captain trying to talk to the shuttle. That was enough to bring them up to speed.
“Are you up for another excursion to the surface?” Walker asked, looking over his shoulder at the med-tech.
“Excuse me?” Preston asked, his face wrinkling into confusion.
“Yah. Our passengers have escaped and we need to go get them,” Walker said.
“Right, I figured out that much, but I thought they told us not to go back to the surface,” he said.
“Details,” the captain said, trying to make light of the idea that he was about to follow them over the line in a huge way.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nuko said.
“Me either,” Ethan said. “I also don’t think I’ve got any choice.”
“Boss, you really need to think this through,” Rene said. “You’ve just managed to talk yourself into a survivable position with Leigh. If you go down there again, you’re one hundred percent foobed.”
“He’s right. If you do this, you’ll be venting your career,” Nuko said, her eyes pleading with him to change his mind. “This time you’re not only breaking company policy, you’re also disobeying orders from FleetCom. You’ll lose the advantage of having the two-ton bear on your side.”
“I know that, but what happens to my career if I lose two passengers?” he said. “We don’t know what’s going on and they could end up dead. I’m stuck between the devil and the deep dark black. I’ve got to get them back aboard.”
“There has to be another way,” she said.
“You could let them go and when the Magellan shows up, let MacKenna sort out their mess,” Rene said.
“And if something happens to them, I’m still liable,” he said. “Even if they did steal a shuttle to go kill themselves, I let them get away with it. I don’t have time to debate this.”
“Boss, I’m in Pruitt’s stateroom,” Angel interrupted. Even over the com he could tell she sounded frustrated. “It’s empty. He packed out entirely. Looks like he took everything but the bed sheets.”
“Copy that,” he said. “So they’re not looking to come back.”
“I’ll check Kaycee’s room, but the wager would be she’s skipped too,” she said.
“Stand by a second.”
He turned back to face Billy and Preston. “Do you think you can do another excursion?” he asked.
“Probably,” the med-tech said. “I’ll go get some gear and meet you in the hangar. I want to make sure we’ve got the right stuff to deal with the heat.”
“Make feet,” the captain said. “They’ve already got a half hour jump on us and I don’t want to lose them.”
As Preston spun and disappeared, he nodded to Billy. “Are you in?”
The handler nodded. “Far be it from me to let my c
aptain do something questionable without wanting to be part of the fun.”
“Angel, are you willing to volunteer for a walkabout in hell?” Walker asked.
“I don’t think that’s smart, but I’m good for dancing with the devil, as long as he don’t start playing fiddle music,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “You and Billy swing by the hurt locker and tool up for some bondage. We may have to bring them back by force.”
“Aye boss, as you wish.” she said.
“I’ll meet you on the hangar deck in ten,” he said, cutting the comm.
Billy launched himself out the door without waiting for orders and with an almost fiendish gleam in his eye.
He enjoys trouble a bit more than is healthy, Ethan thought. Once the three of them were alone on the ConDeck he shrugged. “Let’s hope this all doesn’t turn out to be too stupid.”
“I think that’s unavoidable,” Nuko said. She refused to look at him, so she missed the quick glare he shot in her direction.
“You’re really going to do this aren’t you?” Rene asked.
“If I had any other way to do it—”
“You do,” he snapped. “Send Marti down in an automech. At least then you aren’t risking your flesh and blood crew. No offense, Marti.”
“None taken,” it said.
“Marti, could you guarantee that whatever magic voodoo Elias has going on, wouldn’t override control of your skinsuit?” Ethan asked.
“Unfortunately, because I do not understand what he has done so far, I cannot,” the AA said.
“That settles it,” he said, pushing back from his console and standing up.
“Then let me lead the excursion,” Rene said. “If you stay up here, you can at least say I did it without permission.”
He shook his head. “You need you to figure out what he did, so that when I get his ass back here, he can’t do it again.”
“We can just keep him locked up and away from whatever tools he used to make it happen,” the engineer said. “Please. Let me do this.”
“No,” Ethan said. “If nothing else I need you up here because you’re the only one still on speaking terms with Leigh. She’ll go shitblind pissed when she finds out I’ve gone to the surface. I don’t care how you do it, but you’ve got to buy me as much time as you can. Take the deep-comm offline if you need to.”
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