Ammonia?
Oh, shit no. Worse.
Acid.
He coughed and jumped up just as two bodies leaped out of the darkness, hitting him full force and knocking him to the floor. Both of them tried to climb over his body and desperately dove for the door. Blinded by the acid vapors and struggling not to gasp in another lungful of the fumes he lashed out with both arms and snagged two ankles. One in each hand.
Trying to drag himself out of the lethal cloud, he pulled on both of them with all his strength. He heard bones breaking, but his only thought was to get out of the airlock before he had to draw another breath. He knew he’d only have a few seconds and nothing else mattered. The crunching sounds turned to retching and then wet gurgling noises that faded to silence. He squeezed through the half open hatch and crawled toward the far end of the docking arm, not daring to suck in a lungful of air until he was all the way to the opposite bulkhead door.
“I can’t see anything,” he gasped. “Crate was full of acid.” His throat sounded like he should be splattering blood as he tried to talk.
“Say again?” Ammo asked. “I am on my way.”
Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat and took in another breath, coughing. “No! Acid in the airlock.”
“Acid?” Rene asked his voice calm but confused. “What kind?”
“Bad kind,” he hissed, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. They were clearing some, but they still burned when he opened them. “I think there was a timer in the crate too. And a bunch of wires. It looked like they were pushed into packages of white—”
“Where are you?” the engineer cut him off abruptly.
“I’m on my ass… inside the far emergency bulkhead, I think. I can’t see yet and it’s hard to breathe.”
“Listen Quinn, you’ve got to get on the other side of that hatch. NOW!” The sound of tearing metal and the whistle of escaping air just before his ears popped, told him they were ripping the ship loose from the docking clamps.
He pulled himself up to his feet on the edge of the hatch sill and dove through just as the safety lock slammed it shut, just missing his leg as he fell forward.
“Keep running,” Rene yelled. “Just keep running! Get out of the stanchion.”
A second, substantially louder, rumble shook through the deck plating like thunder. It only took him a second to realize that the Olympus Dawn was pushing back under full maneuvering thrust. The entire stanchion was shaking apart under the stress.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” he gasped. As he stumbled forward toward the lift shaft, he ground at one eye and kept his other hand out in front of his face.
“It’s a bomb,” the engineer said. “Keep moving. It might be—”
The deck lurched sideways under him and his next step missed the floor as the gravity plating failed. Darkness descended on the corridor for an instant before a bright flash lit up everything outside the observation windows. The recoil from the one leg that had been in contact with the floor sent him shooting into the ceiling. Fortunately, his forward velocity turned the impact into a rolling hit, and he tumbled away to bounce off the floor and at least one wall before he snagged something to stabilize himself.
“Are you still with us?” Ammo asked, her voice sounding like she doubted he’d still be among the living.
“I’m not sure,” he gasped.
“If you’re still in the dock, you need to get down to the station. The entire stanchion structure is listing hard. Even in the light gravity it doesn’t look like it will last.” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm but left no doubt that he needed to take heed.
A groaning shudder put an extra dose of motivation in his hands as he pulled himself along the ceiling plates with a sense of self-preservation he didn’t know he had. “Copy that,” he coughed as he plunged headfirst into the empty lift shaft and downward toward the safety of the station below.
Chapter Ten
Most of the asteroids in the Cybele Cluster were chondrites so 65 Cybele was nothing more than a loose pile of rubble held together by a very weak natural gravity. That meant anything that caused a rumble of the deck plating over a distance was quite an event. Ethan sat trying to ignore the amorous stare of his waiter when the floor shook for the first time. Not violently but enough to set his shipmaster senses on alert. He set his fork down and looked around at the other patrons of the Plowboy.
Most of them went on with their meals in ignorant bliss, at least until the warning claxons started. And then the air pressure fluctuated just enough that he knew emergency bulkheads were sealing somewhere in the distance.
He tapped his collarcomm over to his private command earpiece and asked, “Marti, we’ve got something going on down here. The pressure doors are sealing and there are general alerts ringing in the commons.”
“There has been an explosion and we are maneuvering. Stand by.”
“Maneuvering?”
Silence stretched for several seconds with no answer. For an AA like Marti with its trillions of parallel synaptic channels, that meant it was a problem. A big one.
“Yes, Captain,” it said when it came back on the comm. “We are bringing the Olympus Dawn and the Elysium Sun to a standard parking orbit. The explosion destroyed the docking stanchion. Phrygian Center has declared a civil emergency as the structure collapses to the surface.”
There were several stanchion towers in the shipyard complex, with many of them rising more than two klick from the surface. At the local gravity, it might take hours for all the debris to rain down.
“What happened? Is everyone alright?” He jumped up and headed for the bar to close out his tab while he waited for an answer.
“At this point the precise whereabouts of Quintan—”
“Captain Ethan Walker! Stand down! Place your hands on the bar in front of you and don’t move.”
“What the Frak?” he said, spinning to face the voice and catching sight of at least a half dozen station security pouring through the door behind the one that was shouting at him.
“I said DON’T MOVE!” Bringing his eyes up, he realized the man had a stunner pointed almost square into his face and the business end was less than a meter from the tip of his nose. It wasn’t a good sight at any range, but this was something he did not want to be staring down. In his peripheral vision, he could tell the other officers were fanning out to the sides. One of them had the bright red lethal force authorization placard displayed below his badge. Tracking him without turning his head, he realized that one was swinging a lot bigger heat than the stun gun the one screaming at him sported.
“Easy,” Ethan said. He slowly raised his hands and turned back to face the bar.
The waiter stood stone-still, staring with far more white showing in his eyes than normal.
Easing his hands out to the side, Ethan brought them down on the surface of the bar top. He moved slowly, not daring to even breathe until he had to. As he leaned forward, he tried to smile reassuringly at the waiter. “I guess they don’t like cannibals here?”
A second guard lunged forward, smashing his face down on the wooden bar. Grabbing one of Ethan’s wrists, he twisted it painfully around behind his back to latch it into place with a binder cuff. During the whole process, Ethan never looked away from the mirror, maintaining eye contact with the one carrying the real gun. As long as that one didn’t get twitchy, there was a chance that this might not go into the recycler.
The ground rumbled again and, although it wasn’t his biggest concern, Ethan realized that the pieces of the stanchion were hitting the surface somewhere above them. “What the hell is going on? What happened?”
“That’s a good question, Captain Walker,” the one with the stunner said. “Care to explain yourself?”
The one who had cuffed him pulled him back to a standing position by his arm and twisted his wrists high behind his back. His left shoulder screamed in protest and he jerked in response.
“He’s resisting!” th
e officer shouted, slamming him back down against the bar and pulling out his own stunner. He pressed the muzzle against the small of Ethan’s back. If he pulled the trigger at that range even a stunner pellet would bite deep enough that Ethan would lose a kidney, or more.
“I’M NOT!” he shouted. “I just don’t know what’s going on here. Honest. You’ve got the wrong person!”
“Jaxon stand down!” the one with the placard said.
“But Sarge—”
She flipped up her visor and Ethan sighed, remembering special officers with lethal weapons certs were trained to remain calm no matter what. She might be his only safety net. The rumbling in the deck was getting louder and he could tell she was the island of calm in a sea of nervous adrenaline hyped arm breakers.
They were over muscled and well-armed, but nothing more than scared kids under a falling sky.
“Luis, you take charge of him,” she said. “Jaxon, outside.”
The one that had been trying to shove his stunner up Ethan’s nose nodded, holstering his weapon, and stepping forward as the other guard released his grip on his arm and stepped back with a puff of air.
“You are Captain Ethan Walker?” she said, stepping up and slinging her rifle behind her back. It was obviously a reflexive action, but it was somewhat pointless because he wasn’t going to make a grab for her weapon with his hands wrenched behind him. It did, however, show the level of her professionalism.
“I am. What’s going on?”
“There’s been an explosion in Shipyard Stanchion Six East,” she said. “It appears that one or both of your ships may be to blame.”
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“At this point it is very possible,” she said. “Both your ships left the stanchion without clearance immediately before the explosion.”
“Are you binding me?”
“That isn’t my decision,” she said. “Our orders are to bring you in while the security office investigates.”
“I had a crewman in the stanchion when it happened, do you know if he is alright?”
Her eyebrows shot up high enough they disappeared under the brim of her helmet. “Are you admitting you had one of your crew at the source of the explosion? When it occurred?”
Oh Frak.
As two of the officers grabbed him and turned toward the door, Ethan glanced over his shoulder at the waiter. “Sorry for the excitement.”
“Watch out, he’s a cannibal!” he shrieked.
“What?” the placard officer asked, blinking in surprise.
“Long story, but I think I should shut up now,” he said.
“I think that might be a good idea.”
Chapter Eleven
It was only the top five hundred meters of the stanchion that the blast obliterated. The rest had damage ranging from minor to severe, but somehow Ammo managed to squeeze a shuttle pod down through the debris. She docked one deck above where they were holding Quinn while a medic looked him over and rinsed his eyes with hydroflush. He was bruised and leaking blood from dozens of small cuts, and his eyes were swollen almost closed, but he was alive. Given how the rest of the mooring facility looked, that was just short of miraculous.
She skidded to a stop as two security officers leapt in her direction with their arms flung wide. “You’ll have to stand back—”
“That’s a member of my crew,” she said, pushing forward against one of them.
Marti lumbered up behind in its Gendyne 6000 industrial automech. It had extended its legs fully, and was running all its high-power work lights, to make itself look imposing. From the reaction of the security officers, it worked. With its sensor head extended, it stood almost five meters tall and bore a striking resemblance to a machine gun toting metal spider. It held its heavy manipulator arms out in front like claws, and even without that posture would have set the most confident security types back on their heels. Or running for cover.
These two guards didn’t seem inclined to bravado and as they turned their attention to the behemoth, Ammo ducked under their barricade of arms and rushed toward Quinn.
The officer standing over him spun as she approached. His hand flashing to his holster before he assumed her to be a minimal threat. Instead he said, “This is a security investigation, ma’am. I need to ask you to go back outside the secure perimeter.”
She didn’t waste a glance in his direction. “Quinn, are you alright?”
He shook his head then shrugged. “I can’t see very well but doc here says it’s a superficial burn and I’ll heal.”
“What was it?”
“A form of potassium chlorate,” the officer said, referring to his thinpad. “But who are you, and why did they let you through?”
“Boss, a problem!” One of the guards she’d just ducked past hollered, sounding panicked. Marti was pushing forward, and they were falling back, but not because they wanted to. Both of them had their shoulders pressed against the automech as it marched on unhindered. Their feet slid along the deck plating like it was ice.
“It’s alright, she’s with me,” Ammo said, ignoring the commotion and stifling a grin. “What’s potassium chlorate?
“She?” the officer asked.
“It’s a chemical salt used in industrial applications,” the medic offered.
“It can also be used to produce rapid oxygenation of reactive organic materials,” the automech said as it stopped several meters back and squatted down to its more normal height. The two officers looked relieved.
“Rapid oxidation? Like explosively rapid?”
“Yes, Investigator Parelli,” Marti said. “Under the right constraints and given the proper containment, it may be a component of an explosive device.”
“How did you come in contact with this stuff?” the officer said, pausing as he realized the machine had identified him without asking for a badge. As an obvious afterthought, he pulled it out and flashed it at Ammo.
“I already told you, I opened the crate in the airlock and this stuff blasted me in the face,” Quinn said.
“Where did the crate come from?”
“I don’t know,” he said, turning his face toward Parelli and blinking repeatedly. “It said it was engineering parts.
“Why would your engineer order caseloads of industrial salts, or oxidizer, or whatever it is?”
“Our engineer did not order this,” Marti said, a bit of a defensive tone in its voice.
“And you know this why?” Parelli didn’t turn to face the automech, unimpressed with a talking robot.
“All orders go through me.”
“A battlebot?” he snorted.
“I am a remotely operated automech. This body is under the direct control of a registered Artificial Citizen. I am Marti, the AA of the Olympus Dawn.”
“You have an AA running around playing soldier?” He still addressed his question to Ammo and not the AA.
“This body is a Gendyne 6000. It is an industrial application servobot I use to assist in ship maintenance,” Marti said. “And for other duties as necessary.”
“Other duties? Like running over security officers and interfering in an ongoing investigation?” This time he turned to face the body.
“I am very careful around organics. I chose not to run over your officers.”
“Well maybe their pride was a little beat up,” Ammo said, winking and trying to diffuse the tension. Marti was so much more subtle in its Humanform body. But a lot less intimidating too.
“Ego degradation is not an offence for which they can hold me liable,” it said.
“Wait, a minute.” Parelli was almost grinning, but he looked like it might have caused him pain. “I don’t care if you stepped on some figurative toes, I’m trying to assess what happened.”
“Yah, Quinn. What happened?” Ammo asked.
“I was coming back to the Dawn to escort you back to the Plowboy for drinks. When I got to the airlock, things didn’t look right since the lights were out and the inner hatc
h was partially open. I went in and found a crate in my way. There were several more in there too.” He pulled up the bottom of his thinskin and pointed at the bruised knot on his shin. “I was going to bring them in, but Rene said they weren’t our stuff.”
“Rene is your engineer?”
“Yah. Rene Pascalle,” she confirmed.
“He said it wasn’t ours. So, I opened one of them up to look and see—”
“How did you know how to get it open?
“I’m a handler for frak sake. I do know about cargo packaging, and it was just a standard medium shipping crate. I popped the latch, and when it opened, I got hosed with acid eyewash.”
“Potassium chlorate is not an acid,” the medic said.
“It is a neutral salt with a pH of—”
“Nothing personal Marti, but I don’t care. It stinks like ammonia and burns like hell,” Quinn said. “Anyway, when I opened the crate it went off, and then two guys tried to run me over.”
“Potassium chlorate is odorless,” Marti said, cocking its sensor head forward and activating its scanners. “There are other trace compounds on your skin.”
The medic pulled his handheld scanner out and tapped the screen several times before he shrugged.
The investigator leaned back and shook his head. “If it’s not going to kill him, he needs to keep talking.”
“I sucked in a lungful of whatever it was and almost passed out before they hit me.”
“They?”
“Yah, there were two people in the airlock when I got there.” He shrugged. “I managed to slow them down as I hauled my ass into the hall. From there, I remember stumbling until I got far enough away to be able to breathe.” He shook his head as if he was trying to clear it. “I think I remember Rene warning me the Dawn was pulling a hard retreat, and I needed to get past the safety door.”
“It pulled loose without authorization.”
Perelli looked at Ammo and she nodded. That would be another mess to clean up.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 68