Free Stories 2016

by Baen Books

  The day after my mom's funeral I woke to the rhythmic clang of a hammer landing on metal. The sun wasn't up high enough to burn off the mist yet and the air carried the sweet musty smell of autumn as I walked down to the equipment barn. My dad stood next to his harvester's disassembled corn head with a cutter blade laid out on an anvil. I could see the blade's edge was bent and chipped.

  "Let me guess. Albert Whittle turned wide and got into the fence."

  Dad looked up and a faint grin flickered across his already dirty face. "He means well. But it sure would have been nice if he'd told me."

  "Need me to run into town and get some new blades?"

  "Nah, if I can beat a couple of these flat and resharpen them, it'll get me through these next few days."

  He laid the hammer down, leaned on the anvil and pushed his hat back on his head. "When are you leaving?"

  I looked down at the ground and focused on a rusty washer near the toe of my shoe. "I've decided I'm going to quit. I'd really like to stay here with you. And help out."

  My mom had run the business part of the farm and I suspected that my dad would be lost in the books for a long time, if he ever figured it out at all.

  "Like hell you are. You've always loved the idea of going into space and you busted your ass to get this job."

  "Yeah, but it's really not all I thought . . . "

  "Bullshit. If you want to pile hurt on top of your mom's death, then quit that job and move back here. Make me feel totally worthless. I couldn't save your sister and I failed your mother. I sure—"

  "Dad . . . "

  "No, you listen to me. You're the only person I haven't fucked up yet. If you quit on your dream because of me then I'll be a total failure."

  I swallowed and nodded, but couldn't look at him.

  He stood up and crossed to stand next to me. "But if you're going to be here for a while, I'll let you help me fix breakfast. I can rebuild a tractor engine, but cooking anything beyond frozen pizza is going take some practice."

  I floated in a groggy haze for several minutes, never really blacking out, but not quite conscious either, before I finally realized it had worked. Both of my legs were floating free and so was the rest of me. I had forgotten that I wasn't tethered.

  I slowly extended a hand, but was a foot from reaching the closest handle or strut and was still slowly drifting farther away. I fought down the panic and found my makeshift tool still attached to me via several lanyards. I turned it around slowly and extended it far enough to hook the torque wrench's driver post behind one strut and gently pulled myself in until I could grab the safety ring.

  "Dumbass," I growled, and took a deep shuddering breath. Now that I was able to move around, I had options. I stared at the depot's dark, hulking form and felt a glimmer of hope. If I could keep Sievert off my back and had enough time, I might be able to fire the TRD's station keeping rockets to take us over to Stolid.

  I rotated slowly to the left and then the right, but saw nothing. When I looked down I caught a glimpse of a space suit. Sievert watched from the other side of a LOX tank. That worried me, but at least I knew where he was.

  I untaped my tools and put them away, checked my air—it was down to three hours and forty-nine minutes—then opened the TRD's control panel. Everything inside was dead and dark. The explosion had evidently severed a power line. Which meant I had to be even more careful. Chances of me getting into a grounded situation were much less likely in space than on Earth, but I wasn't thinking clearly so I decided to be extra careful. I closed the control panel and looked around.

  From my location, I saw that all six liquid oxygen tanks were all still intact. The irony was almost painful. Like shipwreck survivors who die of thirst while floating in the salty ocean, I had a very good chance of dying from the lack of oxygen while surrounded by tons of the stuff. I briefly toyed with the idea of trying to rig a converter, but it would require more equipment and time than I had. So I looked around again, hoping for inspiration. Ahead of me amid a tangle of piping, lay two large manifolds, one for oxygen and one for hydrogen. Each tank feed pipe had a lever valve in the line just above where it attached to the manifold. And I finally had my idea.

  I kept my voltage meter on and the probes at hand to test each metal object before I touched it, then slowly crawled deeper into the pipe maze using only arms. I braced myself and pulled the valve handle. At first it didn't move and I assumed it was frozen open. I immediately cursed the designers, then gave another hard tug and the handle moved. Once I was able to close it completely, I retracted my nasty comments about the engineering staff.

  With the valve closed, I pulled a wrench from my tool harness and detached the flange from the manifold, leaving the twelve tethered bolts floated around the flange like Medusa's snakes. I checked my air supply and groaned. Three hours and nine minutes. I also remembered to look for Sievert. At first I didn't see any trace, then saw him watching me from between two struts. A chill trickled down my back. A lot of structure and piping lay between us, but I couldn't forget about him again. He wouldn't hesitate to kill me if he had the chance.

  I scrambled up the pipe to the LOX tank, but that wasn't my goal. I needed to get to each of the five points around the tank's equator where it attached to the TRD structure. The only way to reach them without free flying would be to hold onto the cable race on the tank's exterior.

  Dragging myself along the three-inch cable box proved easier than I thought, and with only one bolt at each connection, the work was quick, but moving between attachments—free flying along the tank with no handholds or tether—was nerve-wracking. And I realized at some point that I probably hadn't picked the best tank for my improvised rocket. It not only had the ten-foot-long manifold connection pipe sticking out one side but also the spacecraft fueling probe protruding fifteen feet out the other. That meant if I managed to get it pointed straight at the Stolid, I ran the risk of spearing my only ride home.

  I looked back along the length of the TRD at one of the tanks without a fueling probe. If I used that one, and accidentally hit the Stolid, it would be a mostly depressurized composite ball hitting the titanium ship's hull. A much better risk, but did I have the time?

  It was two in the morning and I was fifteen, standing in the equipment barn, trying to stay awake and waiting for my dad to finish repairs on the tractor. I would never have volunteered to help had I known I'd be up so late.

  "Shit!" my dad said. "Hand me the vise grips. The big ones."

  I pulled them from the tool box and pressed them against his leg where he could reach them easily, the way I'd been doing since I was five.

  "C'mon Dad, let’s save this 'til morning and go to bed."

  He pulled his head out of the engine compartment and spun around, pointing the vise grips at me. I knew I was going to get blasted and braced myself, but instead he just stared at me for second, then shook his head.

  "Because sometimes timing is everything, Son. Tomorrow is Sunday. I can't go to town and buy the part I need because they'll be closed."

  "But you don't work on Sunday anyway," I said, not really caring about the stupid part.

  "That's usually true, but they have forecasted showers all day Monday and Tuesday. If I can plant that corn tomorrow, it will get a good soaking. If I don't, then I may have to wait until Thursday or Friday for the fields to be dry enough to not bog down the equipment."

  He turned around and dove back into the tractor. "Go on to bed," he said. "I'm not making you stay out here."

  I stood there for a minute, my fifteen-year-old brain being slow to process what I'd just heard, then I stepped up close to him.

  "I want to help. Is there anything I can do?"

  "There sure is," he said. "Hold those hoses out of my way."

  About twenty minutes later, while we were wiping down and putting away the tools, he paused.

  "Thanks," he said. "You're a pretty sharp kid. You must have got that from your mother."

  I decided to us
e the first tank and not waste more time. After removing the last mounting bolt, I worked my way back down to the closed valve, looked around for Sievert, but didn't see him. I had two hours and forty minutes of air left. I couldn't wait any longer.

  I held tight to the valve housing with one hand and twisted the lever about a quarter turn with the other and was rewarded as finely crystallized oxygen jetted from the pipe and I started moving. Looking down, I saw the exhaust dangerously close to my feet, but when I tried to move them pain bloomed in my knees like twin supernovas.

  Using only arms, I twisted my upper body to pull the useless legs away from the flow. It worked, for a couple seconds, then just as I was about to clear the TRD truss structure, I was yanked downward and to one side. I glanced behind me and saw that Sievert had looped his tether around the top of my utility pack and was pulling his way up to me.

  I immediately shut off the valve. Even though the thrust wasn't powerful enough to pull from of my grip, I needed both hands to free myself from the line. As I struggled with the tether he kept waving at me. Was he making a truce? I didn't trust him and was unsure of his intentions, but there was no reason why the tank couldn't take both of us to the Stolid. The process would actually be much easier if we had one to control the valve and one to see over the globe of the tank.

  Sievert gave me a small wave of reassurance when he came into view, then unlooped the tether from my back and attached the clip to a ring on the tank. I motioned for him to mount the tank at its equator, but instead he launched himself at me with a mighty push and squeegeed me off of the pipe.

  My arms wheeled, seeking purchase, and finally snagged a hook on Sievert's utility pack. I held tight and the sudden anchor point swung me back, bringing the pipe up between my legs. I screamed as it bounced off of one busted knee, but I clamped my thighs together despite the pain. I knew this was my last chance. If I let go I'd die.

  Using my leverage advantage I pulled Sievert over my head as hard as I could and let go. He grabbed at me, but missed and flew away from the tank and the TRD. I moved quickly up the pipe to the valve, expecting to have very little time before Sievert halted his departure, but when I glanced that direction I saw he wasn't using his thrusters to bring him back. He saved his gas, intending to let the tether halt his progress and had already starting pulling in the slack line.

  I couldn't let him do that. Hand over hand, I dragged myself up to the tank, detached the tether and tossed the end out into the black. By the time I scrambled back to the valve he had realized his predicament and fired his thrusters to return, but I didn't hesitate. I held tight and twisted the valve fully open.

  With a sudden lurch my rocket steed started moving, opening the distance between me and Sievert, but it had continued drifting while we struggled until the pipe nozzle no longer aligned with the direction of forward momentum. The added thrust created a slow conical spin.

  As the tank spun, I saw that I had indeed cleared the TRD, but was having a hard time getting my bearings and couldn't see the Stolid. I had no choice but to act fast and get the tank under some semblance of control. With arms wrapped tightly around the pipe, I double-checked the direction of my nozzles, then triggered long bursts of my suit thrusters. The spin slowed, but not enough. I gave another couple bursts, shorter this time and watched in near panic as my air supply dropped below the two hour mark. With no other options, I didn't stop thrusting until the tank spin rate dropped to almost nothing.

  Only then did I release one hand from the valve housing long enough to turn my body and look around. This time I was able to get a better understanding of my position. I saw the TRD amid a small cloud of debris behind me, but still couldn't see the ship. I used the cable race to crawl to the tank equator and look over. The ship was roughly ahead but about twenty degrees above me. Then I saw Sievert.

  He was on a course that could intercept mine, but he floated like a man face down in a swimming pool, with arms and legs limp and a slight spin that kept turning his back to me. Had he set his course then went unconscious? He probably wasn't dead yet, his suit would have gone into automatic minimum life support mode in order to maximize his chances. It would provide enough air to keep him alive, but not conscious, for about thirty minutes. Of course he could also be faking.

  Could I take the risk of trying to save him? And what the hell had he been thinking? He'd been safe. The two of us could have ridden the tank all the way to Stolid and both been saved. Of course then he would have had to explain his actions when I made my report. He would have been fired and probably jailed. Had he actually made getting rid of me a higher priority than even his own survival? Perhaps he expected to die and wanted to be remembered a hero, not a cowardly villain. Jerk.

  After tracking him for a few seconds, I could tell we were going to miss each other. He would pass behind me if I kept accelerating. I shut off the valve and estimated the new intercept. We were still going to miss, he was coming in too high. If he were faking he'd have to act soon, but I worried about what I would do if he didn't act.

  I counted down, carefully timing his approach, when an alarm sounded in my helmet. I hadn't checked my air in a while and it had just dropped below the forty minute mark. The realization made bile rise in my throat and I had to fight a sudden panic. Then Sievert was upon me, not attacking this time, but about to speed past overhead.

  If I stretched my arm I might be able to grab him. Did I dare? Would he try to kill me again? Worse yet, would his momentum break my tenuous grip on the tank and pull us both away from the tank to our deaths?

  During my junior year of high school, Dad and our neighbor, Ted, had a dispute over land they both wanted to buy. Greed turned Ted mean. He told lies and jokes about my dad to folks at the co-op, but Dad just pretended nothing happened. It made me furious and embarrassed that he didn't kick the shit out of the loudmouth.

  Knowing how much both men wanted the land, the retiring farm owner, Cecil Winn, decided to have an auction and see how much he could get. It poured rain the night before and by the time my dad and I arrived, the trucks and boots had churned Cecil's driveway into ankle-deep mud.

  We stood beside Ted and he nodded to us and then turned to give a sly wink to rest of the crowd. When the auctioneer began to talk, Ted spun around too quickly, lost his balance and was falling toward the mud when Dad reached and grabbed one of his flailing hands and pulled the man upright with one powerful yank. He could have watched Ted make a fool of himself without lifting a finger, but instead he made a huge effort to keep the loudmouth from hitting the mud. Then he let the man beat him bidding for the land.

  I crawled back in the truck and sulked. I couldn't believe he'd had the chance to pay Ted back—twice—and had let it go. I would have loved to laugh at Ted lying in the mud.

  Dad raised an eyebrow and asked what was wrong.

  "Why'd you do that?" I said, barely keeping my voice under control.

  "What? Let Ted outbid me?"

  I had meant saving him from the mud, but before I could answer, he laughed and turned on the truck.

  "Hell, I didn't want Cecil's three hundred acres, but I knew Ted did and he had the money to pay top dollar. Of course he wouldn't if he could get it cheap. Cecil needed the money, so I thought I'd just drive Ted's bids a little higher."

  I learned things that day. Dad didn't really care what others thought of him. And those men who were standing around smiling weren't making fun of my dad, they were laughing at what my dad had done to Ted. Finally I smiled and settled back in my seat. Dad gave me a conspiratorial wink and at that moment I even understood why he didn't let Ted land in the mud.

  I stretched high and tried to grab Sievert's hand, but was too late and just brushed his glove as he slid by. I was about to use my suit thrusters to jet after him and saw the tether, my tether, one end still attached to Sievert, the other sliding along the tank ahead of me.

  With a hard pull, I launched toward the rapidly departing line, snatched it with one hand and wra
pped it around my wrist. I grabbed a clip ring on the tank with my left hand and gritted my teeth. The yank was more violent than I'd anticipated and a hard pop sent hot pain through my shoulder. I cursed and gritted my teeth, wondering how the hell I was going to handle it. I recognized this injury. I'd pulled my shoulder from its socket before.

  The recoil brought Sievert back toward me, but at a more manageable speed. I latched the tether's free end to the tank ring, held on with my injured arm, and slowly reeled him in using my good arm. I clipped him to the ring, then transferred the tether to me.

  I checked my air. Twenty-nine minutes for me and I had no idea if Sievert was even still alive. I needed to come up with some ingenious way to pop my shoulder back in place, but sweat stung my eyes and everything hurt. We didn't have much time and I just couldn't think. I drew deep of my precious air and crawled up to the tank equator to get my bearings.

  Halting Sievert's momentum had pulled the makeshift spacecraft out of alignment with the Stolid. I mumbled curses and used more of my precious oxygen to turn the tank once again. When close enough, I turned the valve and a stream of oxygen jetted from the nozzle and I began moving in what I hopped was the right direction.

  I left the valve open, then deposited myself on the tank's equator so I could make minor course adjustments as needed. I also had to come up with a plan to get me and Sievert from the tank to Stolid.

  With Sievert on one end of the line and me on the other, we made quite a nice bolo. Using a couple more puffs of air, I lined us up properly on the narrow service "neck" behind the command module. When we lassoed the Stolid, I had dropped to ten minutes of air. Using only my good arm and a dose of panic, I pulled me and Sievert into the one-person airlock and cycled it. I took time while air filled the small chamber to tie Sievert's hands behind his back using the tether. I wasn't taking any chances.