Crossfire Station, page 14
“The Commonwealth has always guaranteed repatriation to Earth for anyone who wants to go. All they have to do is file a request. They get free housing, guaranteed employment, schooling…”
“What if they don’t want to leave their homes behind forever. Some of these people are third, fourth generation. They’ve never even seen Earth. They have the right to live as they choose.”
“If your theoretical person actually cared more about the welfare of his child than some mistaken pride for a burned-out Hab Dome, they’d take the Commonwealth’s offer and go back to Earth. Things can be replaced, but people can’t. I learned that the hard way. In battle.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m just not getting through to you, am I?”
“Neither am I, apparently.”
“It is truly a shame, Lieutenant. I’d rather have you on my side, and if truth be told, I think at least a part of you understands what I’m saying. As it stands, though, you’re going to have to remain here, at least for a time. It would have been easier for us if you’d decided to cooperate, but that merely forces us to accelerate our plans, not abandon them.”
“Are you going to kill Ramsey and I?” he asked.
“That depends on you. Ramsey will go home once our current mission is complete. You’re another case, but we have a few outposts of our own, and I’m sure one of them will have a place for a trained engineer. You might not be willing to help us, but you’ll work to survive, if you have no other choice. You’ll never see Earth again, of course, but that is your choice, not mine.”
Shaking his head, Quinn said, “Don’t try and play this off on me. All of this is down to you.” He paused, then replied, “You want to avoid bloodshed? Give me back the shuttle, let Ramsey and I go, but put us on a course that will take a day or two to get back to the station. That’ll buy you time to pack up and leave. I’ll report what I know to my superiors, but you’ve given me little enough to work with that there’s no realistic chance we’ll be able to track you.”
“Mercy, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t want to fight any more than you do. I know what a battle will cost, and that’s a price I will only pay if you give me no other choice.”
She looked at him for a minute, nodded, then said, “I was right. You do understand, even more than I thought. We will talk again, Lieutenant. My word on that. As soon as our mission in this system is over, I will once more try to convince you to join the side of the angels. For now, though, I’m afraid you must sit this fight out.” Turning to the door, she shouted, “Pierre?”
The hatch swung open to reveal the two guards, still standing outside, and she said, “Take the Lieutenant back to his cell. See that he has anything he needs. Books, films, anything. I’d rather his stay was comfortable. Until later, Lieutenant.”
Nodding, Quinn said, “Next time, Commandant, I think our meeting will be on my terms, not yours.”
“We shall see, Lieutenant,” she replied. “We shall see.”
Chapter 19
“There’s got to be some way out of here,” Ramsey said.
Quinn looked around the room, then at the door, a thin smile on his face. He estimated where the locking mechanism was, then turned to the pilot, and said, “Think I’ll do some stretches, try and loosen myself up.”
“Exercise? At a time like this?”
Turning away from the door, he raised one foot, putting it against the wall, then lowered it to the ground, replacing it with the other. A few seconds later, there was a soft clunk, and the hatch slid open as the magnetic lock disengaged. Instantly, the guard outside peered in, looking at the door with a frown, but before he could make a move, Quinn kicked him square in the chest, knocking him unconscious with a well-aimed chop to the neck.
“How the hell did you do that?” Ramsey asked, as Quinn retrieved the guard’s sidearm, stuffing a spare charge clip in his pocket.
“Let’s just say these aren’t standard issue boots,” Quinn replied. He looked around, shook his head, and said, “We need to move, and fast. If an alarm hasn’t already sounded, it will any time now. I think this is one of the old Rhodan-class bulk freighters.” Gesturing down a side corridor, he said, “This way. Look out for a maintenance hatch.”
The two men hastened down the corridor, making it fifty paces before a siren sounded, echoing from the walls, crimson lights flashing, casting eerie shadows all around. The sound of footsteps resounded in the distance, a reaction force on its way, but just as Quinn was about to panic, Ramsey waved his arm ahead, pointing at the far wall.
“I think…” he said.
“Come on,” Quinn replied, racing to the hatch, tugging it open with the manual release and gesturing for the veteran to climb inside, following him a moment later, sealing and locking the hatch behind him. They scrambled down the ladder, heading into the darkness, the sound of the sirens growing faint, distant, lost in the silence.
“Where are we going?” Ramsey asked.
“Fuel tanks. They wrapped the around the outside of the ship, so they could serve double duty as radiation shielding. Old design. Of course, the fuel’s long since been replaced with good old Haitch-Two-Oh, so there’s no risk of contamination. I spent a week on one of these when I was at the Academy, practicing boarding actions. Assuming they haven’t made too many changes, we just might have caught a break.”
“Why do I get the idea that you planned this?”
“Possibly because I did,” he replied. “I hoped, anyway. Fortunately, our friends have played into my expectations, but we’ve still got to finish the job.” He paused, then said, “The next part gets pretty damned risky. If you don’t want to try it, wait five minutes of so, then climb back up. I’m sure they’ll take you back into custody without a fight.”
Shaking his head, Ramsey said, “Not a chance in hell. You think I’m going to miss out on a chance to stick it to those bastards? Besides, I’ve got another score to settle back on the station. I’d like to have some well-chosen words with the people who sent me out here and rubbed my name in the dirt.”
“Good. Then I’ve only got one more question. Can you swim?”
“Swim?” he asked. “I haven’t even a swimming pool since I took EVA training when I was sixteen, back in Canberra.” As he continued to descend, he said, “Let me guess. The water tanks.”
Nodding, Quinn replied, “They connect all over the ship, lots of nice maintenance hatches. I got bushwhacked that way during my final assessment. We should be able to make our way right around the ship to a docking port, grab a shuttle and run for home.”
“As simple as that?” he asked.
“The plan has to be simple, even if the execution isn’t.”
With a grin, the old prospector replied, “I guess they taught you some useful stuff at that Academy of yours. I’m game to try, but I guess we’re going to need respirators first. I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.”
“If we keep going, we’ll get to a maintenance airlock. By now they’ll have locked everything down, but we ought to be able to open a storage bay. You up for this?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The two men continued to climb down, the sound of sirens periodically increasing in volume than decreasing again as they weaved in and out of the populated areas of the ship, finally swinging into a side passage, laden with condensation on the walls, cold and dank, the ominous sound of gurgling above them, endlessly raging in the night.
At the end of the passage, a glowing red light marked a maintenance airlock, the control panel dark, remotely shut down. As he’d hoped, Quinn was able to tug open the locker next to it, a trio of emergency respirators dropping out, slender tanks swinging loose.
“These should make about thirty minutes,” Ramsey said. “You think we can get where we need to be in the time?”
“I think we’d better,” Quinn said. “We’ll have to swim almost all the way around the perimeter, then make our way into an emergency access port. From there it should be a straight run to a shuttle, and we’ll be attacking from an unexpected direction. We ought to catch them by surprise.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we think of something else.” He clamped the respirator over his ears, locking it in place, then quickly tested the oxygen tank, nodding as a green light winked on the device. Ramsey was only a second behind him, snatching a spare tank from the locker and jamming it in his pocket.
“Just in case,” he said. “You never know when it might come in handy.”
Nodding, Quinn headed to another ladder, this one rising to a rusty hatch in the ceiling, and he eased the manual release to force it open, the aged metal groaning as it swung free, back and forth, almost catching him as he climbed into the pressure lock. Ramsey pulled himself up after him, reaching down to swing the lower door in place, while Quinn turned a wheel, sending water cascading from the ceiling, running all around, flooding the cramped compartment. A minute later, the upper door opened, and he pushed off, heaving with his arms to rise into the greater mass of the tank, looking around for signs of pursuit, for security.
Ramsey tugged at his arm, gesturing to the right, and Quinn followed the old man’s gaze, smiling as he saw a pair of huge goldfish swimming away from them. The tank had been filled with water for decades, some of the old ships having little ecosystems of their own from waste flushed into them, bored crews often tailoring them deliberately, some of them even turning them into fish farms to augment their dreary rations.
Evidently the crew of this ship hadn’t worked out that trick. That would make their progress easier, but the clock was already running, and they didn’t have enough air to loiter. Quinn picked a direction, trying to orient himself in the unfamiliar space, and pushed off, reaching out with his arms as he pulled himself through the water, bubbles rising from his respirator as he exhaled, the waste gasses released behind him.
Ramsey was a better swimmer than he’d admitted, easily moving to Quinn’s side, a beaming smile on his face as he smoothly drifted through the water. The old Rhodan-class ships were huge, a half-mile long, used once as colony ships, later as bulk transports before the military markets dried up. More than a few had been converted into improvised space stations, all across known space, though only a handful still served their original function, passing from one over-ambitions shipping company to another.
The minutes drifted by, only the indicator of the respirator tank giving any sense of time passing. Quinn’s monitor light winked from green to amber, alerting him that he’d used up half of his air, and he pushed himself harder, trying to move faster. There was nowhere to hide in these tanks. They hadn’t been designed for access under these conditions, and normally, anyone going swimming would use customized equipment designed for the purpose, not standard-issue field respirators.
Ramsey was still leading the way, turning back to Quinn and gesturing forward, pointing towards a hatch in the distance. Quinn nodded in response, hoping that it was the right one, that he’d judged their journey correctly. Only a few dim lights illuminated the vast, endless expanse in this section, and he felt himself struggling to fight through the gloom, the oppressive half-light, the gentleness of the water around him.
He’d spent an hour in a sensory deprivation tank once. This was like that, but more so. Infinitely more so. He could almost feel himself floating away, a part of him wanting to remain in the comforting embrace of this alien environment forever, drifting free in the dark.
Almost before he realized it, he’d reached the hatch, Ramsey kicking back to allow him to lead. The light on his respirator was flashing red now, warning that he had less than five minutes of air remaining. He worked the control release, waiting for the hatch to open, but nothing happened. He glanced at Ramsey, then tried again, then a third time, then a fourth.
Either they’d realized what he was doing and locked him out, or this hatch had failed, probably neglected for too long. He looked around, spotting another hatch a hundred meters distant, and without another word, pushed towards it, desperately reaching for the remaining exit, knowing that he and Ramsey would be dead long before they could return to the hatch they used to enter the strange watery world, even if they didn’t run into a group of armed raiders waiting for them when they arrived.
The seconds drifted away, then the minutes, and the winking light was almost constant as he reached the next hatch, pumping the manual release. This time, mercifully, the hatch opened, and he climbed inside, Ramsey pushing in after him, climbing onto the ladder, his respirator in no better state than Quinn’s, on the verge of catastrophic failure.
They didn’t have time to properly exit the hatch. Quinn reached up, pulled down the upper door, locking it closed, then reached down to the emergency release, triggering a pair of explosive bolts beneath them. He hung onto the ladder for his life, bracing himself for the report.
Instantly, the lower hatch fell away, letting the water inside fall down into the corridor below, running into a hapless guard beneath, evidently trying to work out why someone was messing with one of the unused maintenance hatches. Quinn ripped off his respirator, tossing it to the floor, then dropped down to the deck, Ramsey almost colliding with him in his haste. As the old prospector snatched the unconscious guard’s gun, Quinn raced down the corridor, heading to what he hoped was one of the docking corridors.
Confirmation came quickly, in the form of two more raiders running towards them, pistols in hand. Quinn was faster, his gun in position to cover them both, the two men looking at each other before raising their hands as Ramsey moved to stand next to Quinn, looking at the men in disgust.
“You know them?” Quinn asked.
“I thought I did. Scratch two off the death list.” Gesturing to the one on the left, he added, “His wife won’t be pleased to hear it. I hadn’t seen her that happy in years.” The man took a step forward, and Ramsey raised his pistol, adding, “Don’t do anything stupid, Yuri.”
“We need a shuttle,” Quinn said. “Fully fueled, ready to go.” The two guards looked at each other, and he added, “Either you live long enough to wave us goodbye, or I shoot you both now and we find it ourselves. Choose.”
“Airlock Three,” the one on the right said, glaring at Yuri. “Sure as hell I’m not being paid enough to die for this.”
“Take off your gunbelts, then toss them to Ramsey,” Quinn ordered, as he moved over to the indicated airlock, keeping the two men covered at all times. He risked a brief glance inside, spotting a shuttle lock below, and said, “Looks like you get to live.”
“It won’t do you any good,” Yuri said. “You’ll never get in.”
Quinn waved his booted foot over the scanner, and a few seconds later, the hatch popped open, the lights inside coming on as the systems started to boot. Ramsey, two extra sidearms in hand, pushed past Quinn, climbing into their ship, while the pilot kept the others covered.
“How the hell…” the second guard said.
“Trade secret,” Quinn replied. “Stand back. One false move, and it’s all over. Don’t do anything stupid now.”
“You’ll never get away,” Yuri warned. “I promise you that.”
As he pulled down the hatch, Quinn replied, “Funny. I think we will.” As the hatch slammed shut, he fired a quick shot at the ceiling sensor, setting the fire suppression system working, new alarms sounding all around.
“What the hell was that?” asked Ramsey.
“I figured I’d better give them something to think about,” he replied. “Now comes the hard part.”
“That was the easy part?” Ramsey asked.
“Sure,” Quinn said. “Now we’ve got to fly this thing back to the station. Ideally before the fighters can scramble after us.” He looked at the controls, then asked, “Ever flown this mark of shuttle before?”
“No. You?”
“Never.” Quinn grinned, and said, “This should be fun.”
“Lieutenant,” Ramsey replied, “To quote my favorite film, I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
“Come on, where’s your hope and faith?”
“Gave ‘em to charity.”
With a chuckle, Quinn said, “I’ll take helm, you take flight engineering. Let’s see if we can get this beast into the sky before our friends back there decide to catch a lift.”
Chapter 20
“Separation,” Ramsey said, as the shuttle floated free, immediately falling away from the side of the transport. Quinn counted to three before firing the main engines, setting the shuttle soaring through the majestic sky, racing away from the vast gas bags supporting the transport, keeping it suspended high in the air over the unimaginably hostile surface below.
“Coming up to full thrust. Watch the aft sensors.”
“Doing it,” the prospector replied. “They won’t let us go easy.”
“Agreed,” Quinn said. “I don’t intend to give them a chance.” His hand danced across the navigation controls, and the shuttle dipped down, heading towards the surface, gaining speed with every second as the air grew thicker. Ramsey looked at him in horror, eyes wide, then back at the trajectory plot, now a sea of crimson warning alerts.
He shook his head, and said, “You really believe in living dangerously, don’t you. How deep do you plan on going?”
“Those fighters must be modified to work down here, but even then, they’re operating at the edge of their performance envelope. This shuttle’s got more leeway, more of a margin, and I’m going to use every bit of it to give us some distance before we pull up.”
“Better not wait too long,” Ramsey said. “I’m getting cautionary alerts on the lower hull. Temperature and pressure rising fast. If we go too far, it’ll crush us like a beer can.”
Quinn smiled, firing a thruster to turn the ship to starboard, racing into the heart of a vast, thousand-mile storm, lighting crackling all around, clouds of thick, viscous gas obscuring the camera pickups as the internal systems labored to compensate, throwing the image into a strange sea of greens and purples. After a minute, Ramsey turned to him, a frown on his face.
