“You cannot kill him,” Odysseus said through his link.
Why? You don’t care about him, he thought back.
“Only he knows the command codes for the fleet. We need him alive until we can get them.”
“Fine,” Derek snarled out loud. “Paulson Lassiter, you are bound by law for treason and other crimes against the state.”
“You can’t do that,” Lassiter hissed.
“I can do whatever I please with you,” the Director said. “Your continued existence is only because Odysseus isn’t through with you yet. You betrayed me and that will never happen again.”
Waving a hand like he was telling a servant to dispose of an offensive lump of trash, he turned toward the captain of his guard. “Lock him up.”
Katana: Outbound from FleetCom Lunar L-2 Shipyard:
“You hungry?” Saf asked as Tana appeared from the lower deck. She glanced over her shoulder and stopped in shock. The doctor had bruising all over her face and arms that looked like someone had beaten her with a pile of bricks. “Oh my god, you look like hammered hell.”
“If they use hammers in hell, I’ll repent now,” she said, settling into a seat at the small galley table.
“What’s with the gravity?”
“This ship has a secondary drive. It’s called a Plasma Induction Engine. It keeps us accelerating without using the main engines.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Actually, you do. There is a rumbling hum that’s not much louder than the air ventilators,” she said. “It’s damned efficient too. From here to Mars it won’t use 500 kilograms of reaction mass.”
“If we’re still accelerating then we’re going to reach a max safe cruise, eventually?”
“Yah, I thought so too, but when the AA asked me if I wanted to use the cruise engine, it deployed a set of small sensor buoys in front of us to make sure we don’t have garbage in the way. It called them whiskers, and what they do is make sure space is empty for several million kilometers in front of us. With the maneuverability of this thing that puts our upward limit way above what anyone else could even dream about.”
“Sounds smart,” she said. “And it’s nice having gravity while we cruise.”
“I haven’t even begun to learn all the slick features this thing has, but the AA is sharp enough to offer help if it thinks you need it. It’s a level eight or nine hybrid-core.” Saf came over and put a plate on the table in front of Tana. “Sorry, the galley is kinda simple, but the bulk protein vat and the veggies are limited since the airponics are small and hadn’t had a chance to get much growth yet. In a couple weeks we should be eating better. But we’ll almost be there by then.”
“To Mars in two weeks?”
“Fifteen days, three hours and six minutes,” the AA said.
“Thank you Joe,” Saf said.
“I assume there’s a reason the AA is named Joe?”
“This vessel is named the Katana after the weapon of the ancient samurai warrior. The name is from a video entertainment series popular in the late 21st century. Samurai Joe,” it explained.
“Who gave you that name?”
“I chose it for myself,” it said. “The moniker seemed like a logical choice as it was easy to remember.”
“I can live with that,” Tana said. “Welcome to the crew Joe.”
“Welcome to my body,” Joe said.
“While accurate, that is a bit creepifying,” Saf said, winking at her wife.
“You should try living your life with humans crawling around inside your body,” it said.
Tana laughed and shook her head. “So was the Katana designed to be an emergency medical transport?”
“That was one of its primary design considerations,” Joe said.
“That explains the top tier equipment in the MedBay,” she said. “It’s small but whistle sharp.”
“How’s Edison?” Saf asked, looking at the bruises on Tana’s face and realizing that he must be in much worse shape.
“Am I dead?” he asked, his head appearing at the ladder to the lower deck. He groaned and winced as he pulled himself up another rung.
“Not anymore,” Tana said, jumping over to help him.
Saf passed her and jumped through the hatch before she covered half the distance. She had her arm around his waist to support his weight. He almost screamed.
“Careful he’s got broken ribs,” she said. “He should still be in bed.”
“Don’t want to miss the party,” he said, rolling his eyes and trying to smile. There wasn’t an inch of his exposed skin that wasn’t red or bruised purple. “I just thought I should come up here and spank the pilot.”
“That sounds like fun,” Saf said, feeling her skin almost blush. “I think you might need to get better first.” She was trying to figure out how to catch him without making his injuries worse if he fell. Fortunately, he made the climb even though it took several minutes.
“Are we there yet?” he asked, easing gingerly into a seat.
“Nope, another two weeks,” Tana said.
He looked pointedly at the plate that sat anchored in place in front of her.
“It’s the slick ride we stole,” Saf said. “We’re still accelerating.” She came back to the table and put a small cup of something that looked like motor oil in front of him.
He nodded, willing to accept her answer without questioning. “What’s that?”
“An organic suspension that resembles coffee,” Joe said. “It is actually a blend of enzymes and nutrients designed to restore your health.”
“Do I smear it on my skin?” Edison asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“The advised method of consumption is to ingest it,” it said. “A topical application may be useful, but it is not recommended.”
“Useful for an engine perhaps,” he said taking a sip. His upper lip retreated beyond his teeth and he hissed.
“It’s not poison Eddy,” Saf said, trying to stifle a laugh. “It will make you feel better.”
He slid his eyes in her direction, disbelief evident on his face. “So says the woman who tried to kill me.”
“I promise no more crazy piloting shit,” she said, reaching out and touching his arm gently.
He flinched in pain, even from her minimal contact. “Crazy piloting shit is fine. As long as you kill me first.”
THE END
Redemption
of
Sisyphus
Shan Takhu Legacy: Book Three
ERIC MICHAEL CRAIG
Dramatis Personae
Jephora Cochrane
Commander Jakob Waltz
Petra “Rocky” Rocovicz
Chief Engineer Jakob Waltz
Kiro Kamoto
Pilot Jakob Waltz
Shona McKeigh
Navigator Jakob Waltz
Alyx Donegal
Sensor Technician Jakob Waltz
Chei Lu
Nuclear Specialist Jakob Waltz
Dr. Danel Cross
Geophysicist Jakob Waltz
Dr. Anju Soresh
Physician Jakob Waltz
Corin Stone
EVAOps Specialist Jakob Waltz
Seva Johansen
EVAOps Specialist Jakob Waltz
Katryna Roja
Chancellor FleetCartel
Isao Nakamiru
Admiral FleetCom Operations
Jaxton Quintana
Admiral L-2 Shipyard Ops FleetCom
Ylva Visser
First Officer L-2 Shipyard, FleetCom
Gabriel Ducat
OpsCom Officer L-2 Shipyard, FleetCom
Hamid Roudini
Executive Officer L-2 Shipyard, FleetCom
Erin Sage
Defense Coordinator L-2 Shipyard, FleetCom
Graison Cartwright
Chief of Staff for Chancellor Roja
Carranza Pratte
Commandant Tsiolkovskiy Fleet Training Center
Rache
lle Pallassano
Mayor New Hope City
Elayne Jeffers
Captain Armstrong, FleetCom
Cassandra Mei
Captain Challenger, FleetCom
Carter Takata
Captain Galen, FleetCom
Nathaniel Evanston
Captain Archer, FleetCom
Tamir bin Ariqat
Former Chancellor SourceCartel
Derek Tomlinson
Executive Director New Human Union
Dr. Tana Drake
Former Chancellor WellCartel
Saffia Drake
Wife of Dr. Tana Drake
Kylla Torrance
Former Proprietor Colorado Café
Paulson Lassiter
Former Advisor to Derek Tomlinson
Edison Wentworth
Former Investigator General
Dr. Jahen Tanner
Acting Director DevCartel Operations
Dr. Ian Whitewind
Science Officer, Hector
Dr. Nisreen Sokat
Director Robinson Biomedical Center
Carlton Atwater
Commodore Unaligned Fleet
CHAPTER ONE
Athabasca Valles: Elysium Planitia, Mars:
Rocks and dust in an endless sea of red. Crashing over another stone wave, he would have screamed, except that he already had. So many times in fact, that his voice was nothing more than a rasping snarl. Instead, he gasped and hissed, biting back on a sob.
He looked down at his hands covered in crimson, and beyond them to the floor where a spreading pool of blood crept from beneath his feet.
Twenty kilometers, or fifty million. It didn’t matter. Betrayed and destined to die alone.
Mars was a hollow-hearted mistress.
Holding the tear in his stomach with one hand, he dragged himself up from the seat with the other, and using the edge of the instrument panel to stay steady, pulled himself back toward the medical gear locker.
He needed another coat of skinseal.
What he really needed was a doctor. And food. And water. But he had none of these things. So he made do with his own hands and the dwindling supply of everything in the rover.
He could feel the layers of adhesive he’d already sprayed over the wound as he applied another coat and pressed his flesh back together. The thick glue wasn’t designed to hold a gash like this closed, but it was the best he could do.
The pain was no longer on the surface of his skin, instead it radiated deep, feeling like steel fingers twisting his intestines with every bump or jostle. Sometimes it just grabbed and wrung the life out of him for no reason.
Bouncing over another ridge sent him slamming into the edge of the table behind him. He clutched at his belly and howled as he collapsed to the floor in a pile of broken flesh.
The darkness reached up to embrace him again.
“Primary drive failure,” the autopilot repeated, hauling him slowly back to awareness. He had no idea how long he’d lain on the floor, but since there was no new puddle of red under him, either it hadn't been long, or the skinseal had held.
Or I have no blood left to bleed out, he thought, almost laughing at the grim absurdity of the idea.
“Primary drive failure,” it repeated, knifing into his awareness and punctuating the point with the realization that he wasn’t moving. “Power level critical,” it added offering an explanation to a question he had not yet assembled in his mind.
“Where am I?” A map opened on the single screen that remained functioning. The rover had powered down all non-essential systems to keep life support and communications operational for as long as possible. Those two functions and the small AI that ran everything were all he had left.
He crawled over to the control panel and climbed into the pilot’s seat to stare at the display. It took all his will to focus enough to understand the map. His route showed as a line from where he started, straight west to the edge of the crater in front of him. 318 klick from where he started.
He could call for help, but he didn’t know if there was anyone to hear him. Mars was abandoned and there was no guarantee that anyone was still living in Robinson. Yet, he knew there might still be survivors in the base behind him. He couldn’t risk letting them know where he was.
Leaning forward with a groan, he looked out through the windows and surveyed the landscape. To the right, a huge mountain rose a half kilometer above him and he could see the rim of the crater sweeping around and disappearing into the distance behind that. A smaller mountain angled away to the left in front of him, and a wide pass between the two ridges slanted downhill to the floor of the crater. The down-slope showed the direction to his destination.
The sun was low in the sky behind him and still not visible except as a fiery glow reflecting off the far side of the valley floor. The air was a hazy pink-blue, and he searched for any sign of the colony dome.
It had to be there.
The steely fingers twisted at his guts again and he made his decision.
It was his only choice. He had ten hours of daylight, and one good EVA suit in the airlock.
It was only another sixteen kilometers.
CHAPTER TWO
RMC 040: en route to Lunar L-5
The Goliath Class Raw Materials Carrier was on a run to pick up a load of bulk aluminum from the L-5 transfer. It had been two weeks since all hell broke loose, but the silence of routine had reasserted itself, and the two men that piloted this ship spent most of their time watching tri-vids or sleeping. They were still almost twelve hours from reaching the station, so the navigator snored in his seat while the pilot fiddled with the video selection menu on his thinpad.
The local com crackled, and both men jumped in their seats. “Source RMC zero-four-zero this is the Coronado, we’re requesting an emergency tow.”
“Coronado, say again? Where are you?” the pilot asked, leaning forward and peering out the view port.
“We’re drifting about 2000 klick in front of you and we need immediate help,” the voice said.
“Copy, Coronado. What’s your situation?” he asked.
“We’ve blown primary power and are on back up. With no engine, and only minimal life support, we need a tow to L-5 Transfer so we can make repairs. Cando?”
Muting the com the pilot said, “Swing the scope around and let’s get a look at this.”
After a minute of scanning with the long range optic they spotted the ship hanging in the darkness. “You look like a science vessel, why aren’t you calling DevControl for assistance?”
“We’re not Dev. We’re a special. Copy?”
“A special, as in Unaligned Fleet?” the copilot whispered, shaking his head. “No way.” Most SourceCartel ship operators knew there were a few unofficial ships operating in the system, but nobody ever saw them.
After a long pause while they both stared at each other, the Coronado came on again. “Zero-four-zero, do you copy? I have codes.”
“Roger, send them over,” the pilot said, watching as his AI matched the ID to the ship and produced an authentic unaligned confirmation. Muting the com again, he shrugged. “Scans clean.”
“But sure stinks funny to me,” his copilot said, shaking his head.
“Who am I speaking to?” the pilot asked as the display gave him the name of the commander of the Coronado.
“Lee Brubaker, Commander,” the voice said.
Right answer. “Last update shows you and your ship as missing.”
“Well you found us, so we’re not missing anymore,” he said.
“Yah. I can tell that, Brubaker. Don’t be a smart ass. What’s your story?”
“I’m sure you heard about the stink storm at L-2? That was our party,” Brubaker said. “We took some hits, but we managed to get clear. We’ve been running dark and slow boating our way back to the platform. One of the love bites fragged an absorber plate in our primary reactor and the core chunked four days ago. The engineer says we need be
ryllium to refab, and we know there’s some at L-5. We just need to get a tow and then we’ll leave the zone. Come on man, throw us a tether and get us home. Cando?”
“Stand by on that Coronado I need to run this up the stack and see who salutes,” the pilot said.
“I’m not asking for cake and beer. Just needing you to drag us in to L-5.”
“Roger. But you don’t get a blowjob without me asking momma. Give me a minute and I’ll get right back to making you happy.”
“Just be quick about it, our batteries are flatlining,” Brubaker said.
“I don’t like it,” his copilot said.
“Yah, me too,” he said. “Crank the dish back around and let’s poke the hive to see if this swings in spec.”
A warning claxon went off. “Proximity alert! Proximity alert! Incoming unidentified vessel.”
“What the frak?” the copilot squawked as he jerked his hand away from the dish control.
Their proximity radar screen lit up like someone had just dropped a wall behind them and an instant later a bright flash scattered their com dish in a spray of molten fragments.
A new voice came over the local com. “Zero-four-zero, stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
“Who the hell is this?” the pilot said.
“This is the Kitty Hawk. I repeat, stand down. Failure to comply, will result in you having a long walk home. Do you copy?”
“Roger Kitty Hawk,” he said. “We’re rolling out the welcome mat.” He looked over at his copilot and shrugged.
“Coronado, we’ll take it from here,” the voice of the Kitty Hawk said.
“Didn’t I tell you it’d be easy as shooting pork chops in a cloning vat?” Brubaker said.
Shan Takhu Legacy Box Set - With an Extra Bonus Story Page 59