by Richard Dee
“You know what this means,” said Myra, with a worried voice.
“Dave wasn’t the only traitor on the Orca; someone else was working with him.”
“Looks like it, but who?”
“We’ll find out, I don’t want to tell Rixon yet in case someone else gets hold of the message, I’ll tell him when I see him.”
Afterwards, I thought about things and it wasn’t a comfortable thought. There was a second traitor and both Stu and Myra had known the password for the drive. Stu was dead, could it be Myra? Surely she would never have revealed her knowledge like that? Or had she just got carried away and forgotten? Could she have turned against her brother?
I remembered what Stu had told me, how Rixon would sabotage her relationships. Would that be enough to make her plan to destroy him? It went round and round in my head. Van had lusted after her but I didn’t know how she felt about Vlad.
Chapter Forty
I had a sleepless night; was I cuddled up next to someone who would destroy me? I decided against asking her straight out, it could kill our relationship. I would just keep my eyes and ears open, hoping I was wrong but ready in case I wasn’t. The trick would be to pretend everything was normal.
It wasn’t like I had nothing else to think about. It was time for the first flight. We had been granted permission to fly in atmosphere to the testing and certification station. Ria wanted to come with us but Evan forbade it. Myra said it was safe though and despite anything else, I trusted her as an engineer.
It was a cold day when the Sprite was towed out of the barn with Evan’s tractor. Rain blew around the barn and the cloud was low and scudding as the Sprite was dragged into the open air for the first time in goodness knew how many years. I didn’t want to use the engines in case the thrust got out of hand and demolished Evan’s barn. We were dragged well clear and rotated so we faced into the wind and the exhaust pointed harmlessly across the fields.
Ria jumped from the tractor’s cab, her yellow waterproof jacket was slick with rain and her hair wet and matted abound her face. It was plain brown, maybe the box wasn’t in use. Or maybe it just wasn’t waterproof. She disconnected the tow-line and Evan backed off. Ria looked up at me and waved before moving away, her feet splashing in the damp ground as she followed the disappearing tractor.
I was on the bridge and Myra was in the engine space. I called down on the intercom to let her know we were clear.
“I’m starting the main engines,” she said and there was a low rumble as they spun up. Lights changed on the panel as more systems came online. When Myra was happy she handed over control. I gently lifted the Sprite into a hover, about two metres off the ground. We drifted sideways in the wind and I rotated the thrust-baffles to keep us in position. The controls worked smoothly and I revelled in doing what I loved. I glanced down at the panels, all the lights were green. “Myra,” I called, “we’re airborne. How’s it looking down there?”
Her voice sounded slightly agitated. “Just hold it there for a minute.” I could hear alarms in the background, it felt like déjà vu from that night on the Orca.
I felt powerless to help and had to juggle the controls to hold station in the light crosswind. I hadn’t retracted the wheels so could drop quickly if there was a major problem; at least I still had main power. Whatever was going on couldn’t be that serious.
After what felt like an age, Myra called back, “All sorted, Dave, just a couple of low pressure leaks on the auxiliary systems,” while behind her voice it was silent. I lifted up to 200 metres, the vast barns shrinking below. The clouds engulfed us but the scanner showed clear air all around us. As I turned the Sprite onto the heading required for our destination I called traffic control to let them know we were airborne. They confirmed that they had us tracked and cleared me to proceed, giving me course and altitude.
“Are you ready?” I asked. This was it; everything was going well so far, now for the big test.
“All green down here,” said Myra and I put on the power. The Sprite might have been old but it still had the acceleration the class had been famous for. We broke through the clouds into bright sunlight as we reached our flight level, outrunning the storm. In no time we were back over the ruins of Brethren’s Host and approaching the shipyard.
We landed and introduced ourselves. The mechanic came out to have a look and whistled, “Wow,” he said appreciatively, “haven’t seen one of these for a while, I used to work on them, this’ll be fun.”
He plugged the Sprite into their analyser and fired it up. “The checks will take about three hours,” said the mechanic. “If you want to go into the town you can get a meal while you wait. I’ll call you if there’s going to be a delay.”
We found a monorail just outside the yard; it whisked us into the centre of the new city. The car was full and we stood, strap-hanging for the short ride. When we climbed down to street level we found a huge map of the city on a stand by the exit. In 3D it showed the state of the reconstruction and at the press of a button illuminated all the restaurants in green.
The whole place was in chaos, buildings were built and half built all around us, and everyone ignored the work and carried on with their lives as if it was perfectly ordinary. The rebuilding had been going on for years and was still only half completed so I guess it was.
“What do you fancy for lunch?” I asked Myra as we approached a street full of restaurants.
“Something to celebrate with,” was her answer. The food we eventually had was good, but it wasn’t any better than Evan’s. And we couldn’t drink wine anyway.
The atmosphere was strained, probably because of the knowledge that we shared about the second Chenko spy on the Orca. Obviously I was having disturbing thoughts about Myra’s involvement, if she was guilty she hid it well, she was itching to get back to see Rixon and tell him what we had found out.
Not only that but I knew that the whole renaming thing was about to come up again and I wasn’t keen on another argument. So in the end we ate in silence, walked back to the station in silence, and returned to the yard in silence.
When we got back to the yard, certification had been completed and we were ready to go. All we had to do was sign the register, pay the fee and we would be official.
“She’s in really good condition,” said the mechanic, “you’ve done a wonderful job.”
“How about the trans-light systems?” asked Myra, this was important; we hadn’t been able to test it out, for obvious reasons; and we were relying on the analyser to reassure us.
“The trans-light checks were all good, you shouldn’t be vaporised when you flick the switch,” he said with grim humour. “If you are, you can come back for a refund.” Very comforting, the humour was pure Navy. It took me back.
“One more thing, what’s the name of the vessel?” the mechanic asked. “Do you want to keep Seeker or have you got another.”
And that’s when we argued about it for the second time. “We’ll keep Seeker,” Myra said, at the same time as I said, “Freefall.”
“I thought Ria had talked to you,” I said.
“She did but I’m not convinced,” she replied, “and it’s a bit low, getting her to argue for you.”
“She has her reasons as well you know. Anyway, I’m paying.” I played my trump card.
She glared at me. “No you’re not,” she said with perfect logic. “Vlad Chenko is paying. It’ll be bad luck,” she repeated her prediction. I shrugged it all off.
“Change the name to Freefall,” I told the man. He nodded and sent his apprentice to carve it on the main beam.
“Why Freefall,” asked Myra as we flew back to Evans.
“It’s a reminder of my slide down the social scale,” I told her, “from naval officer to smuggler with a false name.”
“Ah,” she replied, “but now you’ve stopped falling,” she said. “You’ve got me and you’re a ship owner and trader. Things are looking up.”
Chapter Forty One
&
nbsp; Now that we had got the Freefall certified we were ready to meet up with Rixon and start earning. I still had a little bit of the Chenkos’ money left, and all of my own but the lack of movement was starting to get me down. At least my relationship with Myra had survived the renaming episode and things between us were good, although the presence of Ria was becoming a bit of a nuisance, she was always hanging around asking about Griff, it was love and hate depending on whether they had spoken or not. She gave us a load of message disks for him and made us promise to persuade him to call her more, or even better, come and see her.
On the way back to Evan’s we had sent a message to Rixon, telling him we were ready to start work. We heard nothing for several days, eventually he answered, just a brief message giving us a rendezvous. I worked out a route and let him know our ETA. We had time for a last meal with Evan and Ria.
We went over but it was an uncomfortable evening, it was obvious that Ria didn’t want us to go; we were the last link she had with Griff. She drank a lot of wine and started getting maudlin, she sobbed that she would never see Griff again. Evan got angry; he disapproved of Griff anyway and thought that he was a waste of her time. It looked like we were going to have a repeat of my first meeting with them when Evan wound up the evening and we said our goodbyes.
Early next morning we took our leave, lifting off into the clear skies of Wishart, the barns dwindling below us. I reached orbit and set up our route to meet Rixon. I was still missing the ease of working with Nancy but the new system that Griff had installed was better than the Navy way, and I couldn’t afford my own Nancy at the moment.
There was a brief moment of worry as we worked up to light-speed. I was alone in the wheelhouse; Myra was at the controls in the engine room. Apart from the tests, the trans-light drive had not worked for many years, and I delayed engaging the drive long past when we could have fired it up.
In the end, Myra forced the issue. “Are you going to have the balls to do it or should I?” she asked. “We’ll never get anywhere like this.”
She was right of course; I opened the cover on the panel and pushed the button. On the intercom I heard the whine as the Inverter fired up, creating the flux field. The view from the port flickered as we overtook the light from the stars, the ports tinged red and to my relief the instruments showed no problems.
“It’s all good down here,” said Myra over the intercom. “I’m coming back up for lunch.” If she said it was alright then it was, I relaxed and went to the mess to meet her.
“We need to talk to Rixon about the other traitor, show him the files.” Myra was desperate to see her brother; the thought of him in danger had unsettled her. If she had have been involved she was a very good actress.
“What if it was Griff?” I wondered out loud; although it was painful to consider and didn’t bear thinking about it had to be said, and it moved suspicion from her.
“That makes no sense,” Myra dismissed my idea. “He’s been around forever, he doesn’t need Vlad’s money, he has a bigger network of friends than the Chenkos and as much clout.”
We were just tucking in to some of the food that Ria had left on board for us when there was a nervous cough from the alleyway.
“Who’s there?” Myra called out and Ria sheepishly put her head round the door.
“I couldn’t stay there and now I feel bad for leaving him,” she said. “But I want to see Griff again. I need to see him again. Evan didn’t want me to but I don’t care about that any more either.”
“I think you had better call Evan and explain,” said Myra. “He’ll worry and be cross.”
Ria hedged, “He says that Griff is too old for me. I’ll do it later.”
We had quite a way to go to the rendezvous and I called the Orca a couple of times to say we were on the way. They never answered but I was sure that they would be there. I assumed that Ria called Evan; she was very quiet for the rest of our trip, keeping out of the way except for mealtimes. Myra was busy in the engine room all day, which left me with a lot of time that I used to set up a maintenance schedule and perform a full inventory of the ship’s gear. I could have done with her help but I didn’t like to ask.
Almost before we knew it, we had arrived. We dropped out of light-speed and approached the system that was our destination. Freefall had performed faultlessly on the journey; just a couple of minor faults that Myra had sorted easily. We were even early on my ETA.
Our long-range scanner showed that there was no one in orbit around the Gas Giant that was our destination, but they could be in its shadow. As we got closer no one appeared.
“They’re not here yet,” I said, and again tried to call. There was no answer, so I put the Freefall into orbit around the nearest moon, set up a listening watch and we settled down to wait.
On one of our orbits, in the middle of the night, we passed through a debris field, objects bumped against the hull, waking us up.
“Must be asteroids,” said Myra.
“Let’s take a look, some of them are filled with valuable stuff,” I suggested. Plenty of people had got serious amounts of money from scooping asteroids, the tec market was screaming for a lot of the rare materials that seemed to congregate in asteroids.
“It’s two in the morning,” Myra grumbled. “We’ll have a look later.”
“They might not be there next time around,” I persisted.
“I’m awake now,” she sighed. “I might as well.”
We went to the wheelhouse; Ria joined us. “What’s going on?” she yawned.
“Dave thinks he’s made us all very rich,” Myra laughed as she manipulated the scanner, suddenly the smile faded and she turned very pale, her shoulders shook.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s the Orca,” she sobbed as Ria and I went to comfort her. “It’s the wreckage of the Orca. There’s metal from their hull; whatever happened to them must have been catastrophic.”
“What about the shuttles and troopships?”
“I can’t tell,” she sobbed. I switched our receiver to the emergency frequency and we listened for beacons as the moon and the Gas Giant turned below us. We were all stunned and forgot sleep, drinking hot coffee as we listened.
Six hours later we picked up a faint beacon and headed down. I piloted the Freefall towards the rock and lava strewn surface, homing in on the signal, which got stronger as we approached. We found the source under a high cliff, it was defiantly one of the Orca’s troopships, and it looked the worse for wear.
Chapter Forty Two
We touched down as near as we could to the wreck; it had had a rough landing. We left Ria on board; she had no suit experience so Myra and I went over to investigate. We found that the hull was intact and the airlock had not been damaged, the outer door could still be opened. Perhaps everyone would be on board, unable to communicate.
Inside we found Griff. He was alone and unconscious. He had lost a lot of blood, judging from the state of the cabin. His face was a mass of cuts where flying equipment had hit him. His left arm had suffered the worst damage, but at least he had managed to bind it up before passing out. The first aid had probably saved him from bleeding to death; his breathing was faint and his pulse hardly noticeable.
“What’s going on?” Ria called from the Freefall, she was following our progress from the wheelhouse.
“We’ve found Griff,” Myra said. “He’s badly injured.” There was a gasp over the radio. We had a modest medical set-up on the Freefall, nothing as grand as the pod we had salvaged from the Bishop, but good enough for basic field surgery. It would have to do for the time though.
Myra and I managed to get Griff into a marine combat suit and carried him as gently as possible back to the Freefall. Before we left, Myra went to the data recorder on the control panel and shoved the chip in her pocket. As Freefall’s hold pressurised and the access opened Ria was there with the diagnostic trolley and we rushed him into the bay.
I cut the sleeve of his suit off and ex
posed his arm, below the elbow it was a mess, the skin was peeled back and bones and tendons showed. Blood welled as I took off the tourniquet and put the scanner sleeve over his arm. Myra meanwhile hooked him up to the monitor, following the instructions the machine put up on the screen. Lights flashed and the scanner whirred, I could hear the sound of the parts moving over his arm as his injuries were analysed and surgery attempted. The screen showed his vitals and although they were low, it seemed happy enough with them.
After a few hours it was obvious that his arm couldn’t be saved. If we had the pod from the Bishop we might have done but the Freefall’s gear was just too basic. Automatically it amputated the shattered forearm and the elbow joint. Ria was in tears and I dreaded to think what Griff’s reaction would be. He was going to have to make some serious adjustments to his lifestyle.
Ria sat in the bay by Griff’s side refusing food and only leaving to use the bathroom. Myra and I kept her supplied with coffee; free from her presence we discussed our next move.
We agreed that there wasn’t much we could do until Griff woke up and we could find out what he remembered. Orca was gone; it looked like our planned working arrangement was out of the window. The data recorder chip Myra had recovered was inconclusive, all it showed was the craft separating then being hit by a shock wave and tumbling out of control to the planet. Just before it had hit the ground it had fired engines to cushion its landing, although whether that had been automatic or manual was impossible to discover. And there was no way we could find out any more about the Orca from it, the chip was only written to when the troopship was detached.
Myra suited and went back over to the wreck; she looked around for quite a while, with the comms link off. I didn’t think that there would be much to see, the hull was badly damaged by the impact and it was unlikely that there would be traces of anything untoward, like explosive residues in the internal atmosphere or other signs of sabotage. I think she was just looking to keep herself busy, and to have a bit of time to reflect on Rixon, he was her brother after all. At night she cried in my arms and I tried to comfort her, but I was pretty grief stricken as well. Time blurred as we sat on the moon, the only one of us who got any rest was Griff.