Hostile Legacy, page 23
part #2 of Afterwar Saga Series
“Not at all. At least half of the cargo out there is shipped in controlled crates. Series Three holds aren’t initially rated for sustained pressure maintenance, it’s an upgrade. If you want heat, good luck.”
I considered his words. It was a different way of looking at things. I’d always been around pressurized, heated cargo holds, but most of the cargo we’d hauled could be exposed to space. The only requirements tended to be passive power connections which were a mesh built into the hold deck. With that power available, sensitive cargo was most often shipped in self-contained habitat crates.
“We still need to breathe, don’t you think?” Addy asked.
“They’re completely separate environments,” I said. “The Series Three requires an aftermarket upgrade to even get to the hold from the crew area.”
“Okay, but we all agree the whole no-engine thing is a problem, right?”
“No getting around that,” Cassius agreed. “Four space drives. Makes me wonder if one of them is still operational, otherwise, why would Turnigy even send us out here?”
“Julian told me they had to abandon the ship,” I said. “If there was an operational space drive, he’d never have done that.”
“What are our options?” Cassius asked. “Do we turn around, tail between our legs, or do we check this beast out?”
“Turnigy is still not in breach of our contract,” I said. “I’m such a newbie that I didn’t think about his man attacking us. If we litigated, we could argue lack of good faith, but that doesn’t get us any closer to what we need.”
“And we lost four days coming out here,” Olivia said, her voice filtering in from the crew area.
“Time to make lemonade,” Cassius said.
Addy and I both looked at him with raised eyebrows. We were smart enough to know he wasn’t intending to make drinks, but the reference was lost on us. “I assume that means we should see if we can make the Series Three work.”
“Got it in one,” Cassius said.
“I’m going to need you to have a soft touch, kiddo,” I said, looking at Addy as I started making plans for capturing the freighter.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. “Have me drop you at the axis of spin? Do you see any tie-downs you can clip into?”
“That’s our only choice,” I said. “I’ll take a backpack with some fuel. Hopefully, the attitude jets are operational. Cass, see if you can get high-resolution images and find me a place to tie in, would you?”
“On it.”
“You need those arc jet thingies your dad always talked about,” Addy said when I pushed out of the pilot’s seat.
“ABGs,” Cassius said. “Arc-jet boots and gloves. They’ll run you a solid fifteen hundred to add to your wardrobe.”
“And that’s why we’re doing this EVA the good old-fashioned way with cables and clips.” I walked back to the crew area where I found Olivia dragging an unconscious Julian toward the bunks. I pitched in and the two of us lifted him unceremoniously into a bunk, his wrists and ankles zip-tied as comfortably as we could manage.
“We need this to work,” Olivia said, looking uncomfortably at me. “I fear that evil has already made advances. I can’t say exactly how, but I feel it.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t argue with her. “If Julian intended to take over Bandit this entire time, there might not be a way to retrieve the freighter. The spin suggests there wasn’t power when the life pod system launched.”
“I have faith in you, Quinn. You’re an extraordinary mechanic,” she said. “You can do this.”
The force of her belief in the statement settled on me like a promise. It was as if she knew something I didn’t. It felt weird, but it was a good weird. A thin smile on her lips suggested she was tracking my inner dialog. Was that even possible? Did I need to hear her confidence in me? Before I could completely melt down, I took a deep breath and released it slowly. I even managed to ignore the amusement on her face as she watched me process. Right, maybe ignore is too strong.
“Focus, Quinn,” she finally said quietly. “You’ve got this.”
“How are we coming, Addy?” I asked after activating my vacsuit’s helmet.
“Thirty seconds. Do you want me to spin with the freighter? It’s a slow rotation, but I can manage.”
“Try it,” I said, tapping the airlock control to open the interior door. I’d already set the backpack next to the door along with a belt specifically made for EVA operations. While the airlock cycled out the atmosphere, I readied both pieces of equipment. I’d connect a retractable cable to Bandit’s hull and try to find a handhold on the freighter. Simple plans are always best.
“Ten seconds, Q,” Addy announced.
With atmosphere removed, I opened the external hatch after clipping into a safety ring inside the airlock. The freighter was so close that it blocked off the starfield behind it. Almost. I might not have felt the rotation if not for the fact that the stars were moving at a pretty good clip.
Focus.
Olivia’s word wasn’t so much a demand as much as it was a nudge in the right direction. I scanned the image Cassius transmitted. He’d highlighted three clips next to an airlock that showed no sign of life. It could be a short trip.
The number one rule of EVAs is to go slow and make sure you’re clear of obstructions. Bumping something while in zero-g deflects your trajectory. Also, without friction, the amount of force used to push off is the same amount of force you’ll arrive at your destination with. Simply put, go easy, and don’t hit things.
I gently dove from Bandit, using slightly bent legs to push away. With gentle movement, I could make slight adjustments in the force used. It’s surprisingly easy to introduce spin in the process and that’s something to be avoided.
My AI projected the future point of my impact on the freighter’s airlock hatch. With Cassius’s rings well highlighted, it was an easy matter to grasp a large handle, allow my body to crumple against the hull, and then bounce slowly away. With the handhold, however, I had no trouble eliminating the force of my bounce and clipped in.
“Nice job,” Cassius said. I pulled the release on the cable connecting me to Bandit. In that the ships weren’t perfectly synchronized I couldn’t afford to continually add twist to the line. “Can you get power?”
I took a moment to orient myself. The airlock was a common design and when I didn’t get power from my first attempt, I didn’t panic but nudged open a panel that would give me access to a manual override.
“So far, so good,” I said when the manual override wheel unlocked.
Something to keep in mind with airlocks and dead ships is that the automated systems are in place to keep you safe. Manual systems aren’t nearly so friendly. Fortunately, my AI reminded me to stay clear of the hatch’s swing when I pulled the release lever. Good thing, too, as the hatch popped open with force, a puff of atmosphere burping out and dissipating in the vacuum.
“Hey, that’s promising,” Cassius said.
I peered inside and found that the interior airlock hatch was open. “Looks like the cabin was holding pressure,” I agreed, using regular handholds to pull me into the ship. Once inside, I retracted the cable holding me safe. I closed the airlock door behind me which had the effect of dousing Bandit’s bright lights.
Ship power was my priority. The surfaces inside the ship were cold. Most ships have heaters that keep things warm for extended periods of inactivity. That system had failed but it wasn’t unexpected. The artificial gravity was also off, but since the ship was spinning on the vertical axis, down was in the direction of the ship’s starboard.
“This place is a wreck,” I said, scanning the freighter’s crew area forward of where I entered from the airlock. “Oh, hey, they have the optional cargo access airlock.”
“You’re going to have to pull deck to get to the power systems,” Cassius said, helpfully.
“Got it,” I agreed, moving forward as I walked along the starboard wall.
I was grateful to find the deck tool, a half a meter long bar with a flat wedge on one end that perfectly fits and allows the decking to be unlocked and removed. I set a meter square panel against the bulkhead and slithered my way into the ‘tween deck.
“There’s some power,” I reported when I found blinking lights in the space beneath the crew compartment. Cassius said something but I was laser-focused on the power station. The glowing readout reported various failures. There was just enough battery remaining to power the display and report problems. First on the list was the failure of the engines to provide a charge. No kidding. There was a backup system for charging the battery that used the same fuel as the engines. The backup was also out of fuel. That was a problem I could fix.
I transferred five hundred grams of fuel to the backup generator and cycled a couple of levers that had been tripped during the power failure. Just like that, the freighter’s systems started waking up and with that, warnings of all sorts started sounding off. For several minutes, I flitted between systems silencing alarms.
“Atta boy,” Cassius said when I located the attitude jets and arrested the freighter’s spin. I didn’t have enough power to restore more than a tenth of the artificial gravity and warm the crew area at the same time. It was a nice change to be correctly oriented to the ship. “You have navigational lights restored. Maybe put her in maintenance lighting mode.”
“Copy,” I said. The move turned lights on all over the freighter. “The airlock is functioning. We don’t have atmo yet, but you guys are clear to come over.”
“Is it as bad as it looked from the camera feed?” Addy asked.
“Not sure. I’m below deck,” I said. “Do you need help getting tied up?”
“Nope, you should feel the clamps in three, two, one,” she said, her words perfectly timed with the impact of magnetic clamps impacting the hull and locking on. We didn’t have room to store a full hard-sided concourse that would link the two ships, but we had a tent version that would balloon out and hold atmo once it was filled.
Moving around inside a ship that’s mostly dead is a struggle, even in zero-g. Cold hinges don’t like to move easily, frozen condensation causes stuff to jam, and there are lots of different problems. Fortunately, we’d have heat soon.
The first warning I had of trouble was when the starboard side of the compartment I was floating in bumped into me … hard. I was in zero-g and floating neutral in the space. I hadn’t moved, the freighter had. My heart skipped a beat as I grabbed for purchase and tried to slide free of the ‘tween deck. For a second time, the ship’s bulkhead slammed into me.
Danger!
Nice timing on the update, Liv.
23
DEAL GONE WRONG
“Addy, what’s happening!?” I called over comms as I held on for dear life. In my mind’s eye, I imagined Addy accidentally hitting one of the flight sticks. Imagined is strong. I hoped that’s what had happened. The alternative was much, much worse.
“It’s Julian,” Addy called back, her voice on the edge of panic. “He’s loose in the ship. He shot Liv, and Cassius is floating free of the ship.”
“Where are you? No, wait! Get out of there. Get free of the ship,” I said.
“I can’t leave Liv,” she said.
Get out!
Technically, I wasn’t up to multiword telepathic communication. It’s a single idea, though.
Addy.
I hated it when we argued.
Now!
That I didn’t get a response wasn’t helpful. All I could do was hope that she was getting extracted.
The idea of forceful separation of two rafted vessels is something that the designers of connective systems consider. Ordinarily, the separation is some sort of mistake or possibly an emergency. Regardless, causing minimal damage is kind of the big idea. As soon as the forces exceeded certain limits, parts started letting go. First, the magnetic mooring clamps popped free with an excessively noisy twang and then the temporary concourse ripped apart.
As with all things in space, the violent separation had been enough to send the freighter into a new, uneven spin. As much as I wanted to look after my people, the freighter changing position in space was bad news for anyone who wasn’t aboard but wanted to be. I struggled to get back to the emergency controls but managed. Once there, I started a sequence to quiet the separation-induced drift.
Safe.
Olivia’s declaration was important, but my heart hammered at the possibility of what happened to Addy and Cassius. I made a quick decision and turned back to the ship’s emergency console. I powered up local communications and instructed my AI to work on locating the signatures of each of my crew.
“If you can report in, please answer,” I called over a multi-frequency broadcast.
“Doing quite well, thank you,” Julian answered almost immediately. If he’d gone to full burn, he wouldn’t have had the capacity to communicate. He was still in the area. Our troubles weren’t over yet.
“Stay off the comms, Julian,” I said. “Addy, Cassius, please report.”
“I’m here,” Addy said. “I’m okay. I don’t know where Cass and Liv are.”
“Ah, there’s a small matter of an item I need retrieved,” Julian said, ignoring my request to have him off our comms.
“I’m not getting you anything,” I said.
“Even to trade for the supply crates in this warm hold of mine?”
I bit my lip at my first response. I would kill this man. Preferably in the next thirty minutes.
“We’re a little busy just now retrieving crew from deep space. We’ll worry about food once we’ve figured that out,” I said.
“I could just wait until you die in a couple of weeks,” he said. “So boring and there’d be all the whining and wheedling. No, I’m thinking of a simple exchange. Enough to give you hope.”
I flicked off the comm channel. I’d think about his offer once I’d looked my crew in the face and knew they were safe. Not before.
With the ship at rest, I maneuvered out from the ‘tween deck and startled when I saw movement. A slim figure oriented on me and pushed off the wall a moment later. Addy slammed into me with reckless abandon. I was so overjoyed to have found her that I didn’t mind the impact to my back as we slammed into the opposite wall.
“Did you see either Liv or Cass?” I asked.
“No. I was hoping we could get some video help,” Addy said.
“I’ll sweeten the pot,” Julian said, establishing a new channel. “I’ll retrieve the big loser I dumped in space and pick up your annoying sister to boot. I’m not sure what happened to the frizzy-haired pilot. She’s your problem.”
“Don’t leave us out here, Julian,” I said. “Even after you attacked us, we weren’t going to leave you.”
“Yes, yes, you’re much better people than am I,” he said. “Are you ready to negotiate?”
“My crew, my tools, the food crates,” I said. “What do you need me to find?”
“Now, that’s the spirit. In the hold, there should be a partial load. Nothing valuable. That was the point. Not at all worth retrieving in the event of a catastrophe.”
“Nobody leaves a ship behind,” I said.
“Unless it’s been holed and the engines destroyed,” he said. “Pirates are such a bother. Now, are you ready to find this case I’m after, or do you need further instruction?”
“Why destroy a ship to hide a case?”
“We were being chased. The cargo in this case wasn’t the sort of thing that could be brought back in a life pod given that Curie Protectorate was involved in retrieving us. If I tell you much more, I’ll find it necessary to kill you,” he said. “Will you recover my case already?”
“I’m working my way to the hold,” I said.
The interior airlock was a pain to open, but with Addy’s help, we managed.
“What a mess,” Addy said.
Crates that should have been tied to the deck were floating freely. I had to swim through a cloud of small pellets to get a better view. Without my AI processing the visual clutter, I’d have had no chance of finding the case Julian sought. As it was, only a few minutes of moving things around yielded the expected case. I attempted to open it but found it securely locked.
“What do you suppose is in this?” I asked. “I’d hate to think I’m giving him something important.”
“Currency or a rare item,” Addy said. “This freighter is still worth quite a bit and he’s not even batting an eye at leaving it behind.”
“I don’t get what he hopes to gain,” I said. “We’ll contact Curie and report this once he’s gone. There’s no way they’re going to let him off. Turnigy will have to cooperate, or they’ll come down on him, too.”
“What are you thinking?” she asked. “We can’t risk him hurting Liv or Cass. We need to give him that case and hope he goes away.”
“Any idea how he got free? Liv would have given him enough tranquilizer to keep a rhino asleep.”
“He must have embedded nanites,” she said. “It’s the only thing I can think of.”
I nodded. Addy’s explanation was plausible.
“I’ve got your case, Julian,” I called. “It’s not showing up until my friends and those crates are aboard.”
“Hardly our deal. We make an exchange,” he said. “Choose one. I’ll give you your friends or the crates. You hand me the case, then I’ll give the other.”
No way this was going well. I needed to turn the tables on him, but couldn’t come up with anything. “My people first,” I said.
“Weak. Food is more valuable than more mouths to feed.”
“You’ll excuse me for not valuing your opinion.”
“Sure, kid,” he answered.
“Help me find a screwdriver or a flat bar,” I said to Addy, after turning the comms off.
“What are you doing?” Even though she asked, she didn’t hesitate to scoop a flat piece of metal from a floating pile.
“I’m not handing this case over without knowing what’s inside,” I said. “I’m tired of having mysteries come back to bite me.”
