Time Bomb

by R. M. Olson

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tae struggled to his feet and leaned against the wall of the gunner’s tower. He was breathing heavily, and when he touched the throbbing spot on his forehead, his fingers came away red.

  He turned and locked eyes with Ysbel. Her face was pale, expression grim.

  Neither of them needed to speak.

  “We’d better get down there,” said Ysbel at last. He nodded, and followed her out the door and down the ladder.

  His head ached, and his arm, where it had been slammed up against the gunner’s seat, throbbed. But it was nothing next to the sickness in the pit of his stomach.

  When they reached the cockpit, Jez was still in the pilot’s seat. She looked stunned, her face bloodless, her expression desperate. Her eyes found him the moment he stepped into the cockpit, and from the look on her face, he knew it was bad.

  He’d known it was bad the moment he’d felt the gentle, almost imperceptible hum of the ship shudder and disappear.

  He shoved his way past the others and crouched beside the paneling. Jez unclipped her harness, hands fumbling with the straps. She leaned heavily on the arm of her chair as she got to her feet, her movements slow and uncertain, and knelt beside him as the others stepped back to give them room, and carefully, he removed the paneling.

  Even before he had it all the way off, he caught the thick charred scent of burnt wiring and scorched controls.

  Jez looked like she might faint.

  He pulled the paneling free, and they both leaned over to look inside.

  It was gone. It looked like the entire control section had burnt, the wires and components melted together in an ugly tangle.

  Jez met his eyes. Her face was haunted. “The shot must have hit us right as we entered hyperspace, knocked us off course,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  He nodded.

  She didn’t speak, just put a hand on the ship’s paneling, and there were tears in her eyes.

  “Well,” said Masha from behind them, “there’s no point in all of us staying here. Lev, please come with me to check the damage to the body of the ship. Ysbel, would you and Tanya look over the shields? The sooner we have an accurate damage report, the sooner we’ll be able to plan our next steps.”

  Jez didn’t react. Tae wasn’t certain she’d even heard, or if she had, if she’d understood.

  Lev got to his feet. He looked down at Jez and hesitated. Tae gave him a slight shake of his head.

  There was nothing Lev, or he, or anyone else could do for Jez right now. She probably didn’t even know they were in the room.

  Lev gave him a wry half-smile of understanding, and stepped out after Masha.

  Jez reached into the paneling, touching the smoking internal controls with the tips of her fingers. It was probably hot enough to burn her, but she didn’t pull back. He sighed and stood, walking over to the holoscreen. That, at least, was working, which was more than a miracle.

  He glanced down at Jez again.

  He’d studied the hyperdrive tech, and what she’d done, pulling them out of an off-balance hyperjump, should have been impossible. The ship should have been torn to pieces, and pieces of him and every other person on this ship should have been strewn across about three different galaxies.

  Although, with Jez behind the controls of a ship, ‘impossible’ became much more flexible of a concept.

  He pulled up the readout and studied it more carefully. Something like dread sat heavy in his stomach.

  The entire screen was a red damage report. He wasn’t frankly certain if there was anything that wasn’t damaged.

  Controls—offline

  Weapons—damaged, unresponsive

  Shields—down

  Body—damaged, but somehow still intact. He blew out a breath. Of course, if it hadn’t been intact, they’d already know, because they’d all be either dead or in the process of getting there.

  Oxygen supplies—

  He felt suddenly cold.

  “Hey, Jez,” he said quietly. “The oxygen converter is offline.”

  She looked up, staring at him as if she hardly recognized him, and it took a moment before he saw understanding on her face.

  “Oxygen?” she murmured, as if it was a concept she hadn’t heard of.

  “Yes, Jez,” he snapped, suddenly angry. “Oxygen. The stuff we damn well breathe. How many days’ reserve do we have?”

  “Two, I think,” she murmured.

  “Alright, then we have two days before we all suffocate.”

  “Oh.” She turned back to the burnt wiring.

  He slammed his hand down on the dash. “Jez!”

  She jumped. “What?” she said at last, in a low voice.

  “Can you just pay attention, for the Lady’s sake? We have problems right now. You can’t just—”

  “Yeah,” she said, and there was a weariness in her voice he hadn’t heard there before. “I know. We have all sorts of problems. The oxygen is offline, I saw that before you came in. We have damage to all the main ship systems. We didn’t finish stocking up on supplies at the last zestava. Someone’s after us, and our weapons are damaged and our shields are non-functional. I know. But the thing is—” She turned back to the control panel, shoulders slumped. “The thing is, this ship—I—” she paused helplessly for a moment, then dropped her head against the arm of the pilot’s seat. “What do you want me to do, Tae? I can’t fly. I can’t get us out of this. My ship’s dead, and if my ship’s dead, I might as well be too. There’s nothing I can do.”

  He bit back his anger. “Come on,” he said at last. “I think we’ve learned everything we can here. Probably should get everyone else’s report.”

  They were the first out on the main deck, but Ysbel appeared not too long after, Tanya behind her. She shook her head when she saw them.

  “Perhaps before the jump you could have pulled the weapons online by fixing the wiring,” she said. “Not now. I’ll have to repair them, and I don’t think we have any of the components we need to do it. I’ll look through what I have, but—” She gave a helpless shrug.

  Tae nodded. It was no more than he’d expected.

  “Shields too,” she said. “Those aren’t my area of expertise, but I did look at the physical components on my way back. Three of the capacitors are broken, snapped in half, and two others are burnt. I’m not certain if they’re fixable.” She broke off as Lev entered the room, her face going cold, and turned away quickly.

  Tae gritted his teeth in frustration. Whatever had happened before he stepped through the doors to the main deck earlier, Lev and Ysbel had picked a stupid, stupid time to get into a fight.

  Masha stepped in after Lev, and her face was grim.

  “It’s not good news,” Lev said quietly. “Looks like several of the back compartments burned out. I assume you already know about the oxygen situation.”

  Tae nodded.

  “Tae,” said Masha, “would you please summarize for us?”

  He nodded again and took a deep breath. “As it stands right now, the ship is dead. The oxygen converter is fried, and we have maybe two days’ worth of oxygen stores before we run out. Even we get everything fixed up, without the hyperdrive it’s twelve hours to the nearest wormhole than another ten or twelve to get planet-side. I haven’t had time to go through the wiring and the controls in depth, but I’ve seen enough to know that it’s not just re-wiring. We’re going to need to replace half of what’s in there, and I don’t know how many of the components we have. Internal and close-range coms are online, but we’re not going to be calling out long range for help. Even if there was anyone we could actually call who wouldn’t try to kill us. Weapons are down, shields are down, and life support systems are running on redline. If the thrusters didn’t overheat, maybe we can pull them back online. That’s our first option. If not, we’ll just hope we can get the oxygen converter repaired to give us time to fix the thrusters. And that we have the right parts.”

  “And
if we don’t?” asked Lev.

  He shook his head and didn’t answer.

  “And we can’t forget what put us here in the first place,” said Masha in a quiet voice. “Even if we get out of this, Lena isn’t going to let up. We’ll be maneuvering ourselves straight back into a space battle, and with our ship like this? It’s a battle we aren’t going to survive. We have credits from the heist. If I know what we’re up against, it’s possible we can negotiate our way out of this. But if I don’t—” she broke off, and gave a meaningful glance around the room. “I need to know what those dates on your tags indicate. I need to know everything I can about this situation. Because if I don’t, fixing this ship will only take us back to be killed more quickly.”

  Tae glanced around at the rest of the room.

  Jez slumped in one of the chairs, staring out at nothing, but he’d noticed the stiffening of her posture every time Masha spoke. Lev looked tired, and was steadfastly avoiding Ysbel’s eyes. Ysbel stood next to Tanya, but there was a look on her face that would have terrified him if he’d had the energy to be terrified.

  He swore quietly to himself.

  Maybe Masha was right. Maybe they had a chance of getting out of this alive.

  But if they did, it was pretty damn slim.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hour 1, Jez

  Jez was pretty sure people around her were talking. She wasn’t paying attention, and to be quite honest, she didn’t care.

  Who the hell had time to care about stupid crap like oxygen when her ship, her sweet, beautiful, perfect angel, had died?

  Once she’d seen that—once she’d looked under the paneling and seen the scorched remains of the gorgeous thing that had talked to her, sung to her, responded to her every movement and her every thought—everything else had been a sort of haze.

  Tae was upset, she could tell that. Still, Tae was the kind of person who would get upset about irrelevant crap like that.

  She still hadn’t managed to wrap her mind around the enormity of what had happened.

  Sure they’d all be dead in two days, probably, but that seemed distant and unimportant compared to the sight of those scorched, melted controls under the paneling.

  “Jez!”

  She blinked and looked up into Tae’s scowling face.

  “What?” she muttered sullenly.

  “I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t have the energy to say more.

  Tae narrowed his eyes. “Jez,” he said deliberately, “I will slap you in the face if that’s what I have to do to snap you out of it.”

  For a moment, she contemplated letting him try. Damn tech-head had never been as quick as she was.

  Still—she probed the aching swollen spot on the side of her mouth with her tongue.

  Still, being slapped in the face while she had a broken jaw was probably something she’d want to avoid. She assumed. At this point, she didn’t really care, but she assumed that once he’d slapped her, she might.

  She sighed and turned to glare at him.

  Everyone else had been here too at some point, she was pretty sure. She’d heard Masha’s voice and tried to block it out, which, in fairness, she did pretty much every time Masha talked. And Ysbel, and Lev—she was pretty certain she remembered something about Ysbel and Lev before her whole world had exploded in smoke and flames and charred wiring.

  Something about …

  Damn.

  She looked up at Tae, actually seeing him for the first time since they’d pulled out of hyperspace.

  “Tae. You should probably know. Ysbel’s pretty mad at Lev.”

  He glared at her. “What? Is this important right now?”

  She somehow managed a grin, although it felt weak and shaky. “Probably, since if she tries to kill him, I’ll try to kill her and she’ll probably end up killing me instead, and I don’t think Masha can fly this thing well enough to get us somewhere safe if we’re trying to limp her in.”

  Tae’s scowl deepened. “Noted,” he said icily. “Would you mind telling me why everyone on this ship wants to kill each other suddenly?”

  She grinned again. “Well, Ysbel wants to kill Lev because he’s a damn idiot, and also he told her he was the person who planned her extraction five years ago,”

  “Wha—” Tae began, face going slack with shock.

  “And I want to kill Ysbel, because she’s trying to kill my copilot. And I also want to kill Masha because she’s a plaguing bastard, and Masha wants to kill me because let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?” She paused a moment. “I don’t think anyone wants to kill you at the moment.”

  He glared at her in disbelief. Finally he shook his head and muttered something about the feeling not being mutual, because at this point he’d happily kill all of them. She grinned wider.

  “Looks like you might not have to. We’re pretty well on our way all by ourselves.”

  “Shut up, Jez,” he grumbled. “I’m going to go take a look at the thrusters. Are you coming, or are you just going to sit here and use up our oxygen?”

  She glared at him and pushed herself painfully to her feet.

  She hadn’t realized until just now, but being thrown around the cockpit hadn’t done anything good for her bruises. Or her broken ribs, or, for that matter, her arm, which throbbed painfully every time she tried to move it. She looked at Tae more closely, and frowned.

  “You got something on your head.”

  He glared at her in exasperation. “I know that! It’s called blood. I was plaguing well thrown head first against the gunner controls, you plaguing idiot.”

  “Oh.”

  “Come on.” He turned in disgust and started down the hallway that led to the engine room. She followed, shaking her head.

  When they reached the engine room, she ducked in after him, wincing at the movement.

  The massive, cylindrical thruster engines on either side of the room took up most of the space, and as she stepped inside, the sharp, chemical stink of overheated metal took her breath away. The thruster engines themselves groaned dangerously, smoke trickling out from the cracks in the panels.

  “Tae,” she began, suddenly wide awake. From the look on his face, he’d seen the same thing she had.

  “Get the access ports open,” she snapped. “We’ve got to get them cooling down.”

  He jumped for one of the access ports, and she jumped for the other, ignoring the jolt in her ribs at the movement. She yanked it open, and smoke poured out, choking her.

  Too hot. Way too hot.

  “Wrench,” she said through gritted teeth, and Tae tossed one towards her. She jammed it onto the nearest bolt, but the bolt was glowing a dull red and the metal twisted as she tried to turn it. It would only be a matter of seconds before the wrench was far too hot to touch anyways.

  “Use the mallet.” Tae’s voice was tense. She snatched one and, gritting her teeth, hit the red-hot bolt, shearing it off.

  The creaking intensified.

  “Get on the other one,” she said over her shoulder. “Get the bolts off, I don’t care what else you have to take off to do it.”

  He nodded, grim-faced.

  She sheered off three more bolts. The panel vibrated under her hand, smoke curling from the edges.

  Five more to go.

  Sweat trickled down her face, the heat from the metal scalding her skin.

  Two more bolts.

  The whole thruster engine was groaning, and there was the hiss and ting of overheated metal from inside.

  She struck the last bolt with the mallet and leapt backwards as the heavy panel sprang open, the compressed smoke billowed out, stinging her eyes and throat.

  “Tae!” she coughed, waving ineffectually at the air in front of her eyes. “Did you—”

  “Almost.” His voice was strained. She blinked uselessly. She couldn’t see a damn thing in here.

  “Tae—” Then she saw his dark form through the smoke and sprinted ove
r to him. He was doubled over coughing, his breath coming short. She brought up her mallet and slammed it into one of the two remaining bolts. It jarred loose, and the pain in her side almost made her pass out, and then Tae managed to land a blow on the last bolt. They both stumbled backwards as the panel sprang free, and she grabbed his arm and dragged him from the room. The smoke was choking, and she was lightheaded from lack of oxygen. He pulled her down, and despite the screaming agony of her ribs, she dropped.

  The air here, at least, was fresh enough to breathe, and for a few minutes they sat coughing and choking the soot from their lungs, and she almost whimpered at the pain of it.

  By the time they’d recovered, the engine room had cleared enough that she could see through the billows of smoke.

  Tae looked at her, the black streaks on his face making his expression appear even grimmer than usual. He pushed himself to his feet, and she followed painfully, swallowing back the sickness in her stomach.

  The panels on the two bulky thruster engines lay open like a body prepared for autopsy. Their insides, usually a display of smooth, clean silver lines, were blackened now, delicate internal fins twisted and warped from heat and strain. Most of that was probably from her last push, when she’d managed to shove them forward hard enough that she could jolt them out of hyperspace.

  She’d known what she was doing. Probably hadn’t had a choice, honestly, because from the look of it, they’d been burning up.

  Still …

  She felt like she’d killed someone.

  “So much for the thrusters not overheating,” Tae muttered. “No wonder they’re offline. Look at that carbon buildup. There’s not a millimetre of clean surface on any of these fins. Let’s hope that Lev and Ysbel get the converter up.”

  She swallowed hard, selected a wire brush and the narrowest chisel-tip she could find, and started to chip away at the blackened carbon choking the fins. Get those cleaned up first, and then she could see how bad the rest of the damage was.

  Tae grabbed a wrench, and started yanking on the half-melted bolts holding together the still-intact side panel on the thruster engine opposite her, much more violently than he actually needed to.