by Ginger Booth
“I have reasons!”
“Probably. But you do it because you’re an incurable snoop. Collier, your ship is the island of misfit toys. Let them figure it out for themselves. What do you want? What will you get better at, captain?”
She sighed and thought about it. “I should probably understand better what Copeland does. Engineering, how the ship works.”
“Educational, good. That’s one.” Clay pointed to her tablet. “You do that by volunteering on his work teams regularly. So on a personal level, say relationships for instance?”
Sass glowered at him. “I cooperate with my lover’s attempts to…bond. By working with him and his scheduled work and play.”
“That’s two goals,” he agreed. “May I suggest a third?”
“As though I could stop you.”
“Copeland and Abel are fine leaders. Ben and Jules will be, too. But they need to screw up and fix it themselves. Let them. And instead, spend more time playing with me.” He laid a hand across his heart and fixed her with a hot gaze.
“What, now? I’m on watch!”
“My cabin is just steps away from the bridge. You know you want to.”
“Not while I’m on duty!”
“Very well. Come to my cabin anyway,” he plucked her tablet out of her hand and poked her pocket with it. “And get your nose out of other people’s affairs. Trust me on this, Sass. Getting whacked out, frustrated, furious, reaching the end of your rope – that’s the best first step to making lasting change. So give all your little darlings the precious gift of screwing up.”
10
Day 13 outbound from Mahina
140 days to Denali
“Wilder doesn’t mean anything to you!” Cortez shrieked, reaching around the fuel hopper to claw at Kassidy’s face.
Naturally, the fuel supply lived in the engine room with the star drives. Unique to the Thrive, that engine room was also their riotously green grow room, full of vegetables and even fruit trees.
Kassidy nimbly hopped sideways, and slapped away the guard’s scrabbling fingers. Her other hand tipped the hopper and sent fuel pellets flying. “We were just screwing around!”
Copeland grabbed one arm on each of them in a vise grip, and dragged them away from the hopper, into a bank of spinach and strawberries. “You two caught the part where this is engine fuel?” he demanded. “Cut it out!”
“But she –!” they both accused simultaneously.
“STOP!” Cope hollered. “Shut it, and keep it shut. Both of you!” He fished out his tablet comm. “Captain or Abel to the fuel hopper. Request immediate assistance.” In the meantime he dug his thumbs into the women’s biceps, making them cringe toward the floor in agony. The two of them were strong, but not nearly as strong as him. Or as angry.
Sass came running on the double. “Status?”
“Bimbo 1 and 2 refuse to shut up and work,” the engineer summarized. “Meanwhile I need this fuel pallet in the hopper. Not granules on my deck. Especially not sitting next to the rego engines!”
Sass nodded hastily and held out a hand to stop Copeland warming further to his theme. “Kassidy, Cortez. To your bunks. I’ll deal with you later. You will not budge from your beds until I say so. Understood?”
Copeland growled and squatted to pick up the dirt-colored pellets spilled during the scrimmage. These looked like shriveled walnuts. He was lucky none of them hit water with all the hydroponics in here. Add H2O, and the inert granules essentially turned into rocket fuel, via an exothermic reaction. That damned Eli let his plantings crowd too close to the fuel hopper again, too.
“Effing urbs,” he griped. “Not a one of you acts like an adult. When do you children learn your actions have consequences?”
Cortez and Kassidy ignored him, too busy glaring at each other. Sass followed and gave them a shove toward the door.
The pair of miscreants barely made it three steps before they started scratching at each other again. Sass grabbed Kassidy around the waist. “Cortez, you first. Double-time!” While they waited for her to clear the doorway, Sass asked Kassidy, “What were you thinking?”
“Don’t ask, cap,” Copeland overrode this. “Just get rid of them.”
Cortez turned to wing his head with something like a pebble.
“That tears it,” the engineer said. “Neither of you works for me ever again.”
“I didn’t throw anything at you!” Kassidy argued.
“Go!” Sass urged her, releasing her waist. Cortez had cleared the doorway. She started to trail Kassidy to make sure the women got where they were going without renewed hostilities.
“Cap, for crying out loud!” Cope demanded. “Help me with the fuel! Let the stupid whores kill each other. We’d all be better off.”
“Right,” Sass agreed just to placate him. She hastily took a knee to study his actions. “I’ll get the dust pan. Five seconds.”
“Make it three,” Copeland growled. But he conceded she was right. He’d underestimated how many granules had spilled. And the damned things didn’t look much different from dirt, dammit – in a room full of container plantings along with the hydroponics. Water everywhere.
Thrive’s design predated the advent of star drives. The builders just re-used the same asteroid hopper hull layout proven in orbit around Jupiter. Which meant this engine room was retrofitted to its ‘new’ engines. Its extra room for plants was nice. But the kludge fueling system sucked rotten eggs. Among the rings of Pono, that weakness hadn’t greatly mattered.
In sudden decision, he stood. “Wait on that, Sass. I want this fuel in the hopper yesterday. Help me lift it.”
Straining – there was a reason he’d brought two assistants for this job – he and Sass managed to tip the hopper just enough, and tip the barrel just enough, until the two locked together. Then he rocked the hopper back upright, with the new barrel on top. A couple pellets skittered free. They always did. Second barrel, same as the first.
Until he smelled it. He froze just an instant. But no, their best bet was still to finish this.
“Faster!” He slammed the tilting hopper upright and strained with all his might to dump the barrel. Caught off-guard, Sass lagged him by a split second. She was left holding the half-full barrel dumping into the hopper as Copeland jumped around the back. He hauled up the heavy hopper lid and held it poised to slam down and close the receptacle.
Sass didn’t understand anything but his anxiety. She kept tipping the refill barrel higher to dump as quickly as she could.
“Empty! Drop it!” Copeland yelled. The second Sass’s container cleared the lip, he shut the hopper lid with a clang and slammed the button to retract it into the bulkhead. There was a safety clasp on the lid. He made a grab to close it, but the hopper receded too fast for him.
“Cope –?” Sass attempted.
“DOWN!” he yelled, and tackled her to the floor.
WHOMP! A hot blast of air hit him from the hydroponic spinach and strawberries.
“No water on the fuel!” He desperately scuttled spilled fuel pellets underneath himself as fast as he could.
Sass rolled to a crouch and ran for a dry foam fire extinguisher mounted to the bulkhead.
“Around the star drive first, Sass!” he demanded. “Firewall it!”
She grabbed the extinguisher and came back at a run. Ignoring his instructions, she doused the floor around him first, then the star drive. “Copeland, get out of here!”
“Like hell,” the engineer argued. He scooped extinguisher foam onto the fuel pile beneath him, and rose halfway. This stuff on the floor could still blow. The broken remains of the hydroponic pipes were still dripping water. A half-ripe strawberry splatted to the floor, the triple leaves of its plant in flames. Basin. Drapes. Shutoff. He hung poised in indecision a split second.
Then he lurched into motion, leaping straight through the flames on antigravity to close the water valve. At low g, the pipes didn’t buckle at his weight. His hair and clothes caught fire. He fran
tically patted at the fires on the slow way down.
By then, Sass caught on to what he was doing and leapt through the flames to grab him out of there. “My job, Cope! I’m fireproof, you’re not!”
“Fuel pellets on the floor,” he gasped, still slapping out a smoldering bit of his pants leg. “Basin. Drapes. Eli’s.”
Sass, her hair burning, dodged away toward Eli’s equipment as ordered.
Copeland dug out his comm and clicked the public address. “Abel, Clay, Ben! Fire in the engine room! Do not, repeat not, use water! Dry foam only! Computer, cut all water to the engine room!”
Dammit, I could have told the computer to do that in the first place!
The computer replied calmly, “Cannot cut water to the sky drives without powering them down.”
“Do it anyway, computer!” Copeland attempted, then fell to coughing. He had to tell the computer it was an override command. But his lungs were trying to fly out his throat.
“Computer override,” Sass stepped in smoothly. “Cut water to engine room. Emergency power only.”
The brilliant online star drive core quickly started dimming from white to yellow. Copeland considered pulling off his black goggles, protection against the noonday glare of the engine. He quickly changed his mind as the smoke hit him. The fact remained, he could barely see.
“Talk to me, Cope,” Sass begged, returning with a basin and a tarp. Eli used the big plastic tub to mix soils, and the tarp to keep his dirt off the engine room floor while transplanting.
“Can’t,” he gasped. Even the one word set him coughing into his arm again. But he rose and grabbed the fire extinguisher, dropped by the smoldering spinach as Sass went for the other tools. He jetted a ring of foam around the dripping broken pipes. Overcome by another coughing fit, he pointed to the tarp in Sass’s hands and waved toward the ring. Fortunately, she understood this hasty pantomime, and started spreading the tarp.
By then, the three men he’d called burst into the room. “Ben, get Copeland into med-bay!” Sass barked. “Abel, get more foam retardant. Clay, help me!”
“Not going anywhere,” Copeland croaked, barely audible before another paroxysm overtook him. Ben slid to his knees in front of him.
“Esplain!” Copeland gasped to his ‘domestic partner.’ “Fuel! Water!”
Aghast, Ben gingerly took Copeland’s wrists and flipped his hands over. The one he’d used on the valve was covered in burn blisters, angry red and charred black. “Explain? Oh!” He yelled to the other guys, “Copeland says be careful! Fuel pellets catch fire when water touches them! Is that it, Cope? Water set off some fuel pellets?”
The engineer nodded agreement. Probably no one could tell because he was coughing so hard. He couldn’t solve that right now. “Floor,” he croaked. He pointed an elbow to the foam area of the floor.
Ben half-rose, and yelled further instructions, about what area on the floor Copeland was concerned about. He ducked back down. “Is that it, Cope? Can you let us take it from here? I gotta get you to the auto-doc.”
Copeland couldn’t answer. He just fell forward into Ben’s arms.
11
Abel helped Ben drag the engineer as far as the door to the cargo hold, then Wilder took over. They stuck Copeland into the auto-doc, charred clothes and all. Cool relief came to his agonizing burns with a tiny pinch.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. Ben must have told the machine to go to verbal mode. “Sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you, buddy, but these have to come off.” He snipped the headband, then gently pried the dark goggles from Copeland’s face. Even with the coolness drug, that hurt like hell. His face must be scorched, too.
A face mask appliance he’d seen in the cabinets descended toward him. “No,” Copeland gasped, thrashing his head.
“I’ll be right here with you, buddy,” Ben urged. “You can’t breathe right, Cope. You need this.”
And Copeland’s face was locked in, with a cooling mist spraying into his eyes and nose. He felt he was drowning, and thrashed all the more. Wilder must still be helping Ben, because they pinned him from both sides. The auto-doc chimed in with yet another drug, which sent the engineer’s panic attack into overdrive.
The face mask came off. “OK, buddy,” Ben crooned. “No face mask. I’ll find another way. Just calm down.”
Copeland’s heart pounded. His nerves felt like the devil was sawing on them like a fiddle. And he couldn’t get enough air. That last was probably worrisome, as another bout of wracking coughs overtook him. Out of reflex, he covered his mouth with the back of his fist, the burnt one.
Wilder pried his hand away and secured it inside the auto-doc for treatment. Then he held the horrifying face mask a few inches away from his face. “Don’t fight it, Cope. I won’t put it on you. Just let the medicine work. Ben, you getting anywhere?”
“Give me another minute,” Ben replied somewhere behind Copeland’s head.
That soothed him immediately. Ben hadn’t left him. Ben would figure something out. He could trust Ben. Wilder he wasn’t so sure about. Urbs were bad enough. A screw-up so bad even the urbs exiled him wasn’t much of a recommendation. In the rebellion up to his gills, Cope hated urbs even before he was sent to the mines, and working with the MA rejects there hadn’t improved his opinion.
“OK, buddy,” Ben said, “let’s try a half-mask.” He settled a more typical lower-face nose and mouth mask gently onto Copeland’s face. At first it offered just the cold flow of oxygen from a can, a standard emergency air setup. But the weird frozen face mask went away.
In another minute, Ben pulled away the half-mask, and affixed a sprayer to it. Then he settled it back in place. Copeland breathed in the oxygen, and the same drug the horror mask was trying to push on him. Ben held his eye and gently brushed his hair away from his face.
“Wilder, how are we doing on heart rate?” Ben asked, rather than glance away himself.
“He’s calming down,” Wilder replied. “Crossing down from panic attack into the anxiety range.”
Ben nodded, and smiled at Cope. “There you go, buddy. You’ll be fine. We just needed to get some meds into those lungs. That’s better, isn’t it?”
Copeland finally recognized that the horrible racking cough had subsided. His burnt hand tingled. And Ben’s stroking fingers and warm brown eyes were hypnotic.
“I think he’s drifting off now.” Wilder’s voice from a million miles away. Copeland’s universe was just Ben.
“I’ll stay right here with you, buddy. It’s safe to sleep.”
The engineer fought to keep his eyes open. He fought to hold onto the safety of Ben’s face and voice. But his heavy lids closed of their own accord, and he knew no more.
“What a mess,” Sass sighed in the engine room. “Computer, confirm remaining hot spots.”
“Three crew plus two engines,” the computer reported. “Engines are offline and cooling.”
Sass could see that for herself. The main star drive’s usual noonday sun white-hot glare had subsided to around the level of a grumpy brown dwarf. More illumination came from the blue emergency LEDs embedded in deck, bulkheads, and overhead. She’d never had occasion to see the emergency lighting before. Good to know.
Like herself, Clay was fireproof enough to handle the fuel spill. He finished scraping the pellet-protecting dry foam into a sheet they’d sent Abel to fetch. The first mate himself they kept way back from the fire zone and fumes.
“Computer, air quality?” Sass inquired.
“Toxic volatiles at 117 parts per million and falling.”
Clay wrapped the sheet. “Want to do a last pass, Sass?”
She nodded and got down on the floor with the dustpan. She took 10 minutes at it, being as systematic and thorough as she could. But she found no more wayward fuel pellets. She sat back on her heels. “OK, Clay. That goes out the airlock. Open the door while there’s still pressure to blow it away from us.”
“Will do.” He hastened out. Her lover looked
like hell, hair patchy and blackened skin hanging here and there, his shirt in burnt tatters.
“Get us a change of clothes, Clay?” If he looked like that, Sass didn’t want to think about what she looked like.
“And then we clean?” Abel confirmed.
Sass nodded. She rose and checked the lids on the empty fuel barrels again. “You can take this pallet out of here. It’s inert.”
Abel stepped over and activated the grav pallet to steer. “When do we restore power?”
“When I’m sure the ship won’t blow up,” Sass retorted. “Sorry. When I’m less nervous.”
She started to dig into her pocket for her tablet, but her burnt hand objected to the rough treatment. She stood peeling dead skin off the fresh new pink skin underneath. “Computer, echo my words on loudspeaker ship-wide.”
Her throat thrummed warm, telltale of her nanites working overtime to repair something. She ignored them. If she strained her voice box, no doubt they’d fix it.
“Crew, I have an update. The fire is out in the engine room. We are still without power until I’m sure it’s safe to restart the engines. Three crew injured. Clay and I will self-heal. But Mr. Copeland is the med bay. About a quarter of our crops were damaged.
“This accident was caused by two crew, Kassidy and Cortez, screwing around while engaged in a dangerous procedure. Their negligence damned near blew up our ship. Several babies on Mahina would never have known why their mommy and daddies died in a ball of flame and never came home to them. This will never, ever happen again on my ship.
“My highest commendation to Copeland for quick thinking and heroism. And I’ll say that again when he’s conscious, because I bet he isn’t right now. That is all. Computer, end broadcast.”
The heavy blast door to the cargo hold opened, and Eli slipped in. The botanist barely wasted a glance on his beloved plants, instead fixing his attention on Sass. Yup, she really must look a fright.