Solar flare, p.17
Solar Flare, page 17
“Doesn’t matter,” said Raglin. “It’s the law, like the one against making or carrying weapons. That’s enough to justify a toss! Who’s the mastermind?”
Muntle looked at Byunu, then Vendi, then Raglin and said, “Me. My idea.”
“Lots of bad ideas,” said Raglin. “The mastermind gets to pick which one gets tossed first.”
Muntle looked from Vendi to Byunu and back. “Pick one? I…I can’t!”
Raglin huffed and pulled a large coin from his pocket. “Thank god I can always count on a coin to make a choice. Heads, the housekeeper goes, tails it’s that one.” Raglin pointed at Byunu, then flipped the coin.
The engines stopped, cutting off the ship’s pseudogee. Raglin’s coin remained spinning in the air; he snatched it and slapped it on his wrist. Vendi caught a glimpse of the top of someone’s head on the coin.
“It’s tails,” announced Raglin, pointing at Byunu. “That one goes first.” He returned the coin to his pocket. Raglin nodded to Vadigan, who struggled to maneuver in zero gee and push Byunu toward the bridge airlock, overcoming Byunu’s resistance with muscles and mass.
“We just wanted to see the deck,” protested Byunu, “Vendi sees it all the time, but us, never!”
Raglin laughed. “You’ll see a fantastic view of the deck—the whole ship, in fact, in a few seconds—for a few seconds.”
Raglin helped Vadigan corral Byunu into the airlock, then, moving clumsily in zero gee, wrestled the airlock hatch closed. He grabbed Muntle by her neck and pushed her face against the porthole in the airlock door. “Mastermind has to watch.” Raglin nodded to Vadigan, who pressed a red override control to vent the airlock. The airlock pressure dropped to zero. Byunu clawed at the hatch and gasped for air. Her fingertips bled, her eyes glazed and bloody froth oozed from her mouth and nose. Raglin turned to Vadigan. “Open the hatch and purge.”
Vadigan punched on the control panel. The whine of motors reverberated through the deck as the airlock’s outer hatch opened. Air hissed as it blew into the open airlock, sending Byunu tumbling out into space, her belly swollen with gas, her hands flailing for a handhold.
“Close the outer hatch and repressurize,” Raglin said to Vadigan. He shook Muntle by the neck. “Now it’s your turn. The housekeeper presses the button this time.” Raglin turned to Vendi. “Let’s see if you get respect from your space monkey pals after you toss one of your own.”
Vadigan gripped a handhold and used his other hand to wrestle Vendi toward the airlock controls. He pushed the tip of his ripgun barrel against her back to hold her in place and steady himself at the same time.
Muntle twisted free of Raglin’s grip and snatched Raglin’s ripgun, turned it on Raglin and pulled the trigger. The display flashed “UNAUTHORIZED USER.” Raglin laughed as Muntle stared at the display in disbelief.
Vadigan aimed his ripgun at Muntle; Muntle jumped at Vadigan as he fired. Vadigan’s round buried itself in Muntle’s chest and detonated with a loud wet smack, sending blood jetting from Muntle’s back in a writhing serpentine bubble that splashed against the bulkhead, breaking into smaller floating bubbles. Trailing tendrils of blood, Muntle continued toward Vadigan and pushed the barrel of Vadigan’s ripgun toward Raglin. When Raglin’s thermal image centered on the weapon’s display, the weapon locked on the target. Muntle fought Vadigan for control of the weapon and pushed Vadigan’s trigger finger hard against the trigger. Vadigan’s ripgun fired; the shell shot into Raglin’s meaty shoulder and detonated with the characteristic ripping sound that earned the weapon its nickname. The tiny burst deep in Raglin’s shoulder ejected a spray of blood that speckled red dots across the deck and the airlock hatch and left a vibrating, shimmering swarm of coalescing droplets hanging in the air. Vadigan twisted the ripgun away from Muntle, who, no longer moving or breathing, drifted away.
Raglin aimed his ripgun at Muntle’s body and fired. The round punched into Muntle’s inert body and detonated, causing a spray of tissue and another small wiggling jet of blood to erupt from her back. Surrounded by the random rain of droplets of his own blood, Raglin let go of his ripgun, pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his bleeding shoulder.
Prinder and Resch remained frozen at their stations. An alert on Prinder’s main display broke his trance. He tapped on the alert.
“Flash message for you, sir,” announced Prinder. “Should I call a medevac?”
“Roll the message,” said Raglin. “I don’t need a gaddamned medevac.”
A frame opened on the main display: “Flash Message from Olis Loun, Director, SSG.” The image of Raglin’s soon-to-be father-in-law filled the display.
“Charles—this video’s gone viral.” The display cut to a video of pink-shouldered Vendi, half her hair burned away, showing the syzer manual.
Vendi jumped for the exit as Loun’s voice continued, “A loxie gained access to the net—a major breach of the infowall. We’re calling it a fake and PR’s pushing out real fakes to dilute it, but it’s got legs and it’s put us in full-scale crisis management. We’re going to clear the loxies and put in an Earther crew for a PR tour. The video came during a freighter’s stop at Tarball. I need some reassurance that the first breach in sixty years didn’t happen right under your nose. Find the loxie that did it, find out who the Dynamic cretin is who managed the hack, how he got to her and then…well, manage it. Loun out.”
As Vendi dove through the hatch into the passage, Raglin fired off a stream of flechette rounds that hit the hatch and ricocheted off, leaving smears of toxin on the hatch. Vadigan chased Vendi into the passage, his clumsy zero-gee movements lagging behind her quick agility and obstructing Raglin’s effort to get through the hatch. Raglin, firing through the hatch from behind Vadigan, tapped on “OVERRIDE” to fire off a missile round without a target lock. The missile whizzed by Vendi and embedded itself in the insulating foam lining the bulkhead.
Vendi lunged into the laundry room. She grabbed her helmet from the bag in the cargo net, then jumped to the ducts. Vadigan’s shadow hovered at the door, then moved away.
Vendi pulled off the ventilation grille and pushed her helmet into the duct. She put her hands on the lip of the opening to pull herself in and felt a fuzzy lump in the duct. She felt for the trap, pried it off its adhesive backing, then retrieved the trap and a dead rat pinched under its spring bar from the duct. She released the rat from the trap, reset the trap and pushed it behind her. She wriggled into the duct, pried her T-belt in and pulled the grille back into place. Through the grille, she watched Vadigan enter the laundry room. While he prodded the laundry bags with the barrel of his ripgun, the airborne rat bumped against him, startling him. Flustered, he batted the rat away and hurried out of the laundry room.
Moving easily through the duct in zero gee, Vendi pushed her way to the library’s vent grille. She pushed the grille out of the vent. The library door’s latch rattled; Vendi grabbed the floating grille to keep it from drifting down in view of the window in the door.
Vadigan’s voice came from the other side of the door. “It’s locked. Been locked for years.”
Raglin’s voice responded. “Does she have a key?”
“No one’s got a key,” said Vadigan, “If anyone did, I would.”
“Keep scanning,” said Raglin. “She’s here somewhere. I’m getting my armor on.”
Vendi slipped out of the duct into the library, pulled her helmet out, replaced the grille and pushed off the vent toward the door. She came to a silent stop beside the door and tried the latch. It turned. She peeked through the window, saw no one, then cracked the door open a millimeter and looked out. Vadigan gripped a handhold by the laundry room, panning his weapon left and right, searching for Vendi’s ID tag. Vendi pushed up toward the ceiling, eased her way out of the library, gripping one of the light fixtures in the passage ceiling to stabilize herself. She nudged the door to close it, then stopped the door’s swing a millimeter before it clicked closed. Vadigan kept himself oriented feet-to-floor and faced away from her, scanning the airlock to the loxie passage.
Don’t look up! Earthers don’t look up!
Above and behind Vadigan, Vendi silently pulled her way along the clutter of light fixtures, pipes and conduits on the ceiling. Vadigan opened the laundry room door just a crack; after looking behind the door, he entered and closed the door behind him.
Vendi lunged for the airlock to the loxie passage and sailed along the ceiling. Vadigan’s voice through the air and through her comset made her stop short of the airlock. She pulled herself against the ceiling directly over the laundry room door.
“I got a signal!” said Vadigan. The laundry room door opened. Vadigan emerged from the room and swept his weapon around again, slowly panning left-to-right. Vendi held her breath, watching the balding patch on Vadigan’s scalp turn from left to right as he followed the display on his weapon.
“Nah,” said Vadigan. “Lost it in the laundry room!”
Raglin’s reply came through her comset. “Check all the cabinets—the ferrets can hide in tiny places.”
Vadigan turned back inside the laundry room. Vendi removed her rebreather and took deep breaths of the ox-rich Earther air. She jumped to the airlock hatch and opened it. The sound brought Vadigan out of the laundry room, looking. He didn’t identify the source of the noise until the airlock pressure dropped and the safety latch locked. Vadigan pulled at the hatch, but the latch held. Vendi spotted the bag that Muntle had tossed into the airlock and scooped it up, then hurried through the hatch into the long starboard passage.
Vendi’s comset rattled with Vadigan’s voice. “She’s in the airlock, going into the loxie passage.”
“I’m armored up. I’ll get her,” said Raglin. “Get your gear on. She’s got nowhere to go. Saves us the trouble of more clean up.”
Vendi jumped down the passage to the four-way airlock that opened to the barge. At the airlock, she looked in the bag: two of Nevon’s arrowspike spring pistols. She stuffed the bag into her T-belt’s main pouch. Vendi set her helmet valve on recirculate, put it on, pulled the manual compression adjusters on her suit and went through the four-way’s hatch into the vacuum. She closed and latched the hatch behind her, then brachiated toward the mass driver’s mount on the Tyree’s flipside. Knowing only a few breaths’ worth of ox remained in her recirculating air, she worked to stay calm and conserve energy. She reached the driver loading bay and the welcome, reassuring sight of Staffal and Galen. The sight of a roll rocket crate decked out in plastic tubing and tipped with a pair of coiled gecko whips mounted on a crude turret was less reassuring.
Staffal’s comset emitter flickered. Vendi switched her comset from the ship’s network to the line-of-sight mode.
“No pack. Need air,” Vendi said. “Ship’s on alert.”
“Get in,” said Staffal, pointing to the middle of the Bolt.
Vendi took the spring pistols from her T-belt pouch and handed one to Staffal. “Muntle and Byunu tossed these in the airlock. Wouldn’t count on ‘em, but they look mean.”
Staffal took the pistol, nodded, and tucked it into her T-belt, then pointed to a harmless-looking meter-long stick clipped beside Vendi’s position in the Bolt. The lightweight composite stick was capped with a crude rubbery grip on one end. “We have a stick here for you.”
Vendi tucked her pistol into her belt and climbed in, holding herself in a prone position in the middle third of the long tubular crate. Galen took the same posture at Vendi’s feet, and Staffal climbed in front of her. Staffal pulled the lid closed and sealed it. Through the increasing fog on her faceplate, Vendi watched the lid bulge away as Staffal pressurized the vessel. Vendi tapped on the wall, listening for sound to check for air. She cracked her helmet open and took a breath.
Staffal’s voice carried through the air. “Glad you could make it. From the comset chatter, you’d think someone reverse-wired the toilets’ suction fans straight to the power plant. Yant’s going to drop us in the driver in between loads as soon as she sees the Zecujet on the radar. When we see that tainer to our right go, we’re next.”
“Think she’ll remember to back off the power?” asked Vendi.
“If she doesn’t, we’ll never know. Our brains’ll be out our butts before we’re off the rail.”
“Never imagined going that way,” said Vendi.
“Quick and easy, that’s good, right?” asked Galen.
“Right,” said Staffal. “Ven, you’ve got the thruster controls. These windows aren’t exactly panoramic, but they’re windows.”
Vendi located hand-grip triggers labeled R, P, and Y. Staffal’s “panoramic windows” referred to two tiny five-centie round plastic windows. Two gauges mounted on a three-valve filling manifold bore the labels “Thruster pressure” and “Breathing air.” Both gauges read full.
“Yant just fired off a tainer,” said Staffal, “So they haven’t canked the off-load. Business as usual.”
A few seconds later, Raglin’s voice buzzed through Vendi’s comset on the ship’s radio channel, “I’m on the loxie deck. Nobody’s in the dorm. Where the hell are they?”
Vadigan replied, “We’ve got loads coming from and going to Skyhook and Amazon stations, sir. All four load teams are busy.”
Prinder’s voice broke into the conversation. “Sir, Outpost is asking for an update. Do we want assistance?”
“For one goddamned loxie?” asked Raglin. “Hell, no!”
Staffal’s voice echoed through the Bolt. “There goes the tainer! Buckle up! The Zecujet must be out there, but I can’t see it.”
Vendi looked ahead, trying to see past Staffal’s feet. A few of the plastic windows circled Staffal’s head in the nose of the crate, but if the quality of Staffal’s windows matched hers, Staffal might not see the Zecujet until they’d passed it. A webbing strap hanging from the crate lid near the small of Vendi’s back matched a clip on the crate wall under her navel. She fed the strap between her legs and latched it to the clip. Clearly, Staffal ran out of time to work on that—it would keep her from falling feet-first on Galen during the launch off the driver, but it sure as hell didn’t promise a comfortable ride.
“Here we go,” said Staffal. “Easy does it on the picker, Yant—don’t want to tear the latch-loops off this thing.”
The Bolt bumped its occupants around when the picker claw latched onto it and transferred it to the driver’s bucket. The makeshift spacecraft lurched as the bucket started its run back to the rear of the driver, then jerked again when it stopped.
“Let this not be a tandem coffin for three,” said Staffal. “Hold on!”
Vendi started to kick away an unusual squeeze on her feet, then realized Galen took Staffal’s words literally.
Why not?
Vendi reached forward, grabbed Staffal’s feet and held on.
The Bolt jerked again and lunged forward, accelerating. The acceleration yanked the webbing strap into Vendi’s crotch, delivering mind-numbing, pelvis-hammering force through the thinning fill-foam in her suit’s crotch piece. Her view out the window closed to a tunnel and dimmed. Vendi struggled to hold onto consciousness, but felt it slipping as the acceleration shoved blood from her brain toward her feet. As her consciousness slipped away, the fuzzy view out the window faded to sleepy black nothingness.
21
“Rakches!” Vendi’s shout proclaimed her return to consciousness. “Staffal! Galen!”
Galen’s groggy voice responded. “We there yet?”
A spinning dance of Earth, moon, sun and the Tyree flew by Vendi’s windows. “Staffal, I blacked out. Did we pass it?”
Staffal didn’t respond.
Vendi measured the spin and roll as the Bolt tumbled like a wildly thrown wrench.
Vendi gunned the air jets to get stabilized.
“Vendi! Get us stable!” Staffal’s uncertain voice wavered.
The tumble slowed. Vendi used miserly bursts from the jets to slow it more.
The Tyree rolled past her view, then the sun blinded her. She looked at the opposite window and triggered the jets again.
“I see the Zecujet!” said Staffal, “Get us stable! No way to get a line on it like this!”
Vendi looked at the tank pressure gauge. It rested a hair above empty.
“Shit, I’ve just got a puff left.”
“Use it!” said Staffal. “We’re almost past the Zec!”
Vendi pulled the trigger and held it. Air puffed from the jet, inadequate to stop the slow roll.
Vendi frowned at the rolling view of the Zecujet. “That’s all I got, chief—ah—Staffal.”
Staffal took aim through one of the windows. The head of a gecko whip shot out from the Bolt toward the Zecujet, then passed far below it.
“Rakches!” growled Staffal. “Not even close!”
The pressure gauge’s impotent needle rested on zero. Vendi’s gaze traced along piping from the gauge to the manifold to the breathing air gauge holding at half. “Hold on, I may be able to get another puff.”
Vendi opened the two fill valves on the manifold, bridging the breathing air tank to the thruster tank.
“If this doesn’t work,” said Vendi, “that air would just give us more time for regrets.”
As the breathing air gauge needle fell, the thruster gauge rose to a quarter.
Vendi watched the Zecujet to time the roll. She took a deep breath, checked the roll again, then pulled the trigger on the thruster. The needles on both gauges dropped to zero. The Zecujet held its position, steady.
“Now, Staff! We’re out of air.”
Staffal launched the second gecko whip at the Zecujet. The tip sailed toward the curvy ship, trailing a coiled line behind it.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Galen.
The full length of the line reeled out; the tip kept going, pulling the coils taut.
The tip smacked against the closer of the Zecujet’s lateral fins and stuck. Sunlight glinted off of a small window in the hatch of a dockway that extended from the open cargo bay on the back of the spaceship’s fuselage.
“Hold, baby, hold,” said Staffal.
Muntle looked at Byunu, then Vendi, then Raglin and said, “Me. My idea.”
“Lots of bad ideas,” said Raglin. “The mastermind gets to pick which one gets tossed first.”
Muntle looked from Vendi to Byunu and back. “Pick one? I…I can’t!”
Raglin huffed and pulled a large coin from his pocket. “Thank god I can always count on a coin to make a choice. Heads, the housekeeper goes, tails it’s that one.” Raglin pointed at Byunu, then flipped the coin.
The engines stopped, cutting off the ship’s pseudogee. Raglin’s coin remained spinning in the air; he snatched it and slapped it on his wrist. Vendi caught a glimpse of the top of someone’s head on the coin.
“It’s tails,” announced Raglin, pointing at Byunu. “That one goes first.” He returned the coin to his pocket. Raglin nodded to Vadigan, who struggled to maneuver in zero gee and push Byunu toward the bridge airlock, overcoming Byunu’s resistance with muscles and mass.
“We just wanted to see the deck,” protested Byunu, “Vendi sees it all the time, but us, never!”
Raglin laughed. “You’ll see a fantastic view of the deck—the whole ship, in fact, in a few seconds—for a few seconds.”
Raglin helped Vadigan corral Byunu into the airlock, then, moving clumsily in zero gee, wrestled the airlock hatch closed. He grabbed Muntle by her neck and pushed her face against the porthole in the airlock door. “Mastermind has to watch.” Raglin nodded to Vadigan, who pressed a red override control to vent the airlock. The airlock pressure dropped to zero. Byunu clawed at the hatch and gasped for air. Her fingertips bled, her eyes glazed and bloody froth oozed from her mouth and nose. Raglin turned to Vadigan. “Open the hatch and purge.”
Vadigan punched on the control panel. The whine of motors reverberated through the deck as the airlock’s outer hatch opened. Air hissed as it blew into the open airlock, sending Byunu tumbling out into space, her belly swollen with gas, her hands flailing for a handhold.
“Close the outer hatch and repressurize,” Raglin said to Vadigan. He shook Muntle by the neck. “Now it’s your turn. The housekeeper presses the button this time.” Raglin turned to Vendi. “Let’s see if you get respect from your space monkey pals after you toss one of your own.”
Vadigan gripped a handhold and used his other hand to wrestle Vendi toward the airlock controls. He pushed the tip of his ripgun barrel against her back to hold her in place and steady himself at the same time.
Muntle twisted free of Raglin’s grip and snatched Raglin’s ripgun, turned it on Raglin and pulled the trigger. The display flashed “UNAUTHORIZED USER.” Raglin laughed as Muntle stared at the display in disbelief.
Vadigan aimed his ripgun at Muntle; Muntle jumped at Vadigan as he fired. Vadigan’s round buried itself in Muntle’s chest and detonated with a loud wet smack, sending blood jetting from Muntle’s back in a writhing serpentine bubble that splashed against the bulkhead, breaking into smaller floating bubbles. Trailing tendrils of blood, Muntle continued toward Vadigan and pushed the barrel of Vadigan’s ripgun toward Raglin. When Raglin’s thermal image centered on the weapon’s display, the weapon locked on the target. Muntle fought Vadigan for control of the weapon and pushed Vadigan’s trigger finger hard against the trigger. Vadigan’s ripgun fired; the shell shot into Raglin’s meaty shoulder and detonated with the characteristic ripping sound that earned the weapon its nickname. The tiny burst deep in Raglin’s shoulder ejected a spray of blood that speckled red dots across the deck and the airlock hatch and left a vibrating, shimmering swarm of coalescing droplets hanging in the air. Vadigan twisted the ripgun away from Muntle, who, no longer moving or breathing, drifted away.
Raglin aimed his ripgun at Muntle’s body and fired. The round punched into Muntle’s inert body and detonated, causing a spray of tissue and another small wiggling jet of blood to erupt from her back. Surrounded by the random rain of droplets of his own blood, Raglin let go of his ripgun, pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his bleeding shoulder.
Prinder and Resch remained frozen at their stations. An alert on Prinder’s main display broke his trance. He tapped on the alert.
“Flash message for you, sir,” announced Prinder. “Should I call a medevac?”
“Roll the message,” said Raglin. “I don’t need a gaddamned medevac.”
A frame opened on the main display: “Flash Message from Olis Loun, Director, SSG.” The image of Raglin’s soon-to-be father-in-law filled the display.
“Charles—this video’s gone viral.” The display cut to a video of pink-shouldered Vendi, half her hair burned away, showing the syzer manual.
Vendi jumped for the exit as Loun’s voice continued, “A loxie gained access to the net—a major breach of the infowall. We’re calling it a fake and PR’s pushing out real fakes to dilute it, but it’s got legs and it’s put us in full-scale crisis management. We’re going to clear the loxies and put in an Earther crew for a PR tour. The video came during a freighter’s stop at Tarball. I need some reassurance that the first breach in sixty years didn’t happen right under your nose. Find the loxie that did it, find out who the Dynamic cretin is who managed the hack, how he got to her and then…well, manage it. Loun out.”
As Vendi dove through the hatch into the passage, Raglin fired off a stream of flechette rounds that hit the hatch and ricocheted off, leaving smears of toxin on the hatch. Vadigan chased Vendi into the passage, his clumsy zero-gee movements lagging behind her quick agility and obstructing Raglin’s effort to get through the hatch. Raglin, firing through the hatch from behind Vadigan, tapped on “OVERRIDE” to fire off a missile round without a target lock. The missile whizzed by Vendi and embedded itself in the insulating foam lining the bulkhead.
Vendi lunged into the laundry room. She grabbed her helmet from the bag in the cargo net, then jumped to the ducts. Vadigan’s shadow hovered at the door, then moved away.
Vendi pulled off the ventilation grille and pushed her helmet into the duct. She put her hands on the lip of the opening to pull herself in and felt a fuzzy lump in the duct. She felt for the trap, pried it off its adhesive backing, then retrieved the trap and a dead rat pinched under its spring bar from the duct. She released the rat from the trap, reset the trap and pushed it behind her. She wriggled into the duct, pried her T-belt in and pulled the grille back into place. Through the grille, she watched Vadigan enter the laundry room. While he prodded the laundry bags with the barrel of his ripgun, the airborne rat bumped against him, startling him. Flustered, he batted the rat away and hurried out of the laundry room.
Moving easily through the duct in zero gee, Vendi pushed her way to the library’s vent grille. She pushed the grille out of the vent. The library door’s latch rattled; Vendi grabbed the floating grille to keep it from drifting down in view of the window in the door.
Vadigan’s voice came from the other side of the door. “It’s locked. Been locked for years.”
Raglin’s voice responded. “Does she have a key?”
“No one’s got a key,” said Vadigan, “If anyone did, I would.”
“Keep scanning,” said Raglin. “She’s here somewhere. I’m getting my armor on.”
Vendi slipped out of the duct into the library, pulled her helmet out, replaced the grille and pushed off the vent toward the door. She came to a silent stop beside the door and tried the latch. It turned. She peeked through the window, saw no one, then cracked the door open a millimeter and looked out. Vadigan gripped a handhold by the laundry room, panning his weapon left and right, searching for Vendi’s ID tag. Vendi pushed up toward the ceiling, eased her way out of the library, gripping one of the light fixtures in the passage ceiling to stabilize herself. She nudged the door to close it, then stopped the door’s swing a millimeter before it clicked closed. Vadigan kept himself oriented feet-to-floor and faced away from her, scanning the airlock to the loxie passage.
Don’t look up! Earthers don’t look up!
Above and behind Vadigan, Vendi silently pulled her way along the clutter of light fixtures, pipes and conduits on the ceiling. Vadigan opened the laundry room door just a crack; after looking behind the door, he entered and closed the door behind him.
Vendi lunged for the airlock to the loxie passage and sailed along the ceiling. Vadigan’s voice through the air and through her comset made her stop short of the airlock. She pulled herself against the ceiling directly over the laundry room door.
“I got a signal!” said Vadigan. The laundry room door opened. Vadigan emerged from the room and swept his weapon around again, slowly panning left-to-right. Vendi held her breath, watching the balding patch on Vadigan’s scalp turn from left to right as he followed the display on his weapon.
“Nah,” said Vadigan. “Lost it in the laundry room!”
Raglin’s reply came through her comset. “Check all the cabinets—the ferrets can hide in tiny places.”
Vadigan turned back inside the laundry room. Vendi removed her rebreather and took deep breaths of the ox-rich Earther air. She jumped to the airlock hatch and opened it. The sound brought Vadigan out of the laundry room, looking. He didn’t identify the source of the noise until the airlock pressure dropped and the safety latch locked. Vadigan pulled at the hatch, but the latch held. Vendi spotted the bag that Muntle had tossed into the airlock and scooped it up, then hurried through the hatch into the long starboard passage.
Vendi’s comset rattled with Vadigan’s voice. “She’s in the airlock, going into the loxie passage.”
“I’m armored up. I’ll get her,” said Raglin. “Get your gear on. She’s got nowhere to go. Saves us the trouble of more clean up.”
Vendi jumped down the passage to the four-way airlock that opened to the barge. At the airlock, she looked in the bag: two of Nevon’s arrowspike spring pistols. She stuffed the bag into her T-belt’s main pouch. Vendi set her helmet valve on recirculate, put it on, pulled the manual compression adjusters on her suit and went through the four-way’s hatch into the vacuum. She closed and latched the hatch behind her, then brachiated toward the mass driver’s mount on the Tyree’s flipside. Knowing only a few breaths’ worth of ox remained in her recirculating air, she worked to stay calm and conserve energy. She reached the driver loading bay and the welcome, reassuring sight of Staffal and Galen. The sight of a roll rocket crate decked out in plastic tubing and tipped with a pair of coiled gecko whips mounted on a crude turret was less reassuring.
Staffal’s comset emitter flickered. Vendi switched her comset from the ship’s network to the line-of-sight mode.
“No pack. Need air,” Vendi said. “Ship’s on alert.”
“Get in,” said Staffal, pointing to the middle of the Bolt.
Vendi took the spring pistols from her T-belt pouch and handed one to Staffal. “Muntle and Byunu tossed these in the airlock. Wouldn’t count on ‘em, but they look mean.”
Staffal took the pistol, nodded, and tucked it into her T-belt, then pointed to a harmless-looking meter-long stick clipped beside Vendi’s position in the Bolt. The lightweight composite stick was capped with a crude rubbery grip on one end. “We have a stick here for you.”
Vendi tucked her pistol into her belt and climbed in, holding herself in a prone position in the middle third of the long tubular crate. Galen took the same posture at Vendi’s feet, and Staffal climbed in front of her. Staffal pulled the lid closed and sealed it. Through the increasing fog on her faceplate, Vendi watched the lid bulge away as Staffal pressurized the vessel. Vendi tapped on the wall, listening for sound to check for air. She cracked her helmet open and took a breath.
Staffal’s voice carried through the air. “Glad you could make it. From the comset chatter, you’d think someone reverse-wired the toilets’ suction fans straight to the power plant. Yant’s going to drop us in the driver in between loads as soon as she sees the Zecujet on the radar. When we see that tainer to our right go, we’re next.”
“Think she’ll remember to back off the power?” asked Vendi.
“If she doesn’t, we’ll never know. Our brains’ll be out our butts before we’re off the rail.”
“Never imagined going that way,” said Vendi.
“Quick and easy, that’s good, right?” asked Galen.
“Right,” said Staffal. “Ven, you’ve got the thruster controls. These windows aren’t exactly panoramic, but they’re windows.”
Vendi located hand-grip triggers labeled R, P, and Y. Staffal’s “panoramic windows” referred to two tiny five-centie round plastic windows. Two gauges mounted on a three-valve filling manifold bore the labels “Thruster pressure” and “Breathing air.” Both gauges read full.
“Yant just fired off a tainer,” said Staffal, “So they haven’t canked the off-load. Business as usual.”
A few seconds later, Raglin’s voice buzzed through Vendi’s comset on the ship’s radio channel, “I’m on the loxie deck. Nobody’s in the dorm. Where the hell are they?”
Vadigan replied, “We’ve got loads coming from and going to Skyhook and Amazon stations, sir. All four load teams are busy.”
Prinder’s voice broke into the conversation. “Sir, Outpost is asking for an update. Do we want assistance?”
“For one goddamned loxie?” asked Raglin. “Hell, no!”
Staffal’s voice echoed through the Bolt. “There goes the tainer! Buckle up! The Zecujet must be out there, but I can’t see it.”
Vendi looked ahead, trying to see past Staffal’s feet. A few of the plastic windows circled Staffal’s head in the nose of the crate, but if the quality of Staffal’s windows matched hers, Staffal might not see the Zecujet until they’d passed it. A webbing strap hanging from the crate lid near the small of Vendi’s back matched a clip on the crate wall under her navel. She fed the strap between her legs and latched it to the clip. Clearly, Staffal ran out of time to work on that—it would keep her from falling feet-first on Galen during the launch off the driver, but it sure as hell didn’t promise a comfortable ride.
“Here we go,” said Staffal. “Easy does it on the picker, Yant—don’t want to tear the latch-loops off this thing.”
The Bolt bumped its occupants around when the picker claw latched onto it and transferred it to the driver’s bucket. The makeshift spacecraft lurched as the bucket started its run back to the rear of the driver, then jerked again when it stopped.
“Let this not be a tandem coffin for three,” said Staffal. “Hold on!”
Vendi started to kick away an unusual squeeze on her feet, then realized Galen took Staffal’s words literally.
Why not?
Vendi reached forward, grabbed Staffal’s feet and held on.
The Bolt jerked again and lunged forward, accelerating. The acceleration yanked the webbing strap into Vendi’s crotch, delivering mind-numbing, pelvis-hammering force through the thinning fill-foam in her suit’s crotch piece. Her view out the window closed to a tunnel and dimmed. Vendi struggled to hold onto consciousness, but felt it slipping as the acceleration shoved blood from her brain toward her feet. As her consciousness slipped away, the fuzzy view out the window faded to sleepy black nothingness.
21
“Rakches!” Vendi’s shout proclaimed her return to consciousness. “Staffal! Galen!”
Galen’s groggy voice responded. “We there yet?”
A spinning dance of Earth, moon, sun and the Tyree flew by Vendi’s windows. “Staffal, I blacked out. Did we pass it?”
Staffal didn’t respond.
Vendi measured the spin and roll as the Bolt tumbled like a wildly thrown wrench.
Vendi gunned the air jets to get stabilized.
“Vendi! Get us stable!” Staffal’s uncertain voice wavered.
The tumble slowed. Vendi used miserly bursts from the jets to slow it more.
The Tyree rolled past her view, then the sun blinded her. She looked at the opposite window and triggered the jets again.
“I see the Zecujet!” said Staffal, “Get us stable! No way to get a line on it like this!”
Vendi looked at the tank pressure gauge. It rested a hair above empty.
“Shit, I’ve just got a puff left.”
“Use it!” said Staffal. “We’re almost past the Zec!”
Vendi pulled the trigger and held it. Air puffed from the jet, inadequate to stop the slow roll.
Vendi frowned at the rolling view of the Zecujet. “That’s all I got, chief—ah—Staffal.”
Staffal took aim through one of the windows. The head of a gecko whip shot out from the Bolt toward the Zecujet, then passed far below it.
“Rakches!” growled Staffal. “Not even close!”
The pressure gauge’s impotent needle rested on zero. Vendi’s gaze traced along piping from the gauge to the manifold to the breathing air gauge holding at half. “Hold on, I may be able to get another puff.”
Vendi opened the two fill valves on the manifold, bridging the breathing air tank to the thruster tank.
“If this doesn’t work,” said Vendi, “that air would just give us more time for regrets.”
As the breathing air gauge needle fell, the thruster gauge rose to a quarter.
Vendi watched the Zecujet to time the roll. She took a deep breath, checked the roll again, then pulled the trigger on the thruster. The needles on both gauges dropped to zero. The Zecujet held its position, steady.
“Now, Staff! We’re out of air.”
Staffal launched the second gecko whip at the Zecujet. The tip sailed toward the curvy ship, trailing a coiled line behind it.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Galen.
The full length of the line reeled out; the tip kept going, pulling the coils taut.
The tip smacked against the closer of the Zecujet’s lateral fins and stuck. Sunlight glinted off of a small window in the hatch of a dockway that extended from the open cargo bay on the back of the spaceship’s fuselage.
“Hold, baby, hold,” said Staffal.
