by Scott Baron
“Oh, for chrissake, shut it, you two. We’ve got a situation, here,” Tamara said as she jumped out of her pod, landing solidly on steady feet and heading for the chamber’s heavy airlock doors.
“Barry, you have the waking process under control?”
“Yes, Tamara,” he replied.
“Okay, get the others moving. We don’t have time to waste. I’m going to get to my station and make sure the botany pods are secure, engage the emergency air filters, and look for signs of fire in those sections. Mal, if you can hear me, I’ll check in when I’m there.”
“Thank you, Tamara. Do be careful. It is disconcerting having a problem of this nature off my sensors.”
As she hustled out of the chamber, another young woman Daisy’s age dry-heaved over the side of her pod. Daisy threw one last annoyed look at the rubber-legged engineer, then turned to scope out her newly-awakened crewmate.
“Hello, Sarah.” Barry leapt into action, electrolytes in hand. “You are waking from cryo early. You need fluids. Drink this electrolyte pack, but slowly.”
Chapter Two
Within minutes the crew was charging through the ship to their duty stations. Reggie, the stocky co-pilot, passed through the thick airlock doors of command and dropped into his seat beside Captain Harkaway.
“Captain, what happened? Mal woke up everyone.”
“I know. Impact on the port side. Sensors are down, and there’s fire on board.”
“Are the engines all right? I can head down there—”
“Barry’s already on it. They seem to be untouched, but we’ve had a few artificial gravity fluctuations, so he’s going to examine the pulse feeds. Once he’s done there, I’m having him do an EVA outside to check the collection panels for damage.”
The Váli, unlike most ships, possessed an unusual secondary propulsion system, one that allowed for extremely long-range travel without draining power. While the standard fusion engines would provide basic propulsion and maneuverability, the collection panels would gather cosmic energy and solar radiation when deployed, gradually filling a series of reserve power stores, while also directly feeding a supplementary pulse drive.
Without the resistance of an atmosphere, this system allowed the ship to progressively ramp up its speed over time. It also allowed, should an emergency occur, for several short, but intense, bursts of speed. The only drawback being such an act would drain the entire system and require quite some time to recharge.
“Captain, what about the shuttle?” Reggie asked.
“Impact was up top, so it was protected by the body of the ship. Good thing it’s mounted upside-down to the bottom. Unfortunately, that means our comms and navigation array are what took a beating. How are the others coming?”
“I saw Vincent and Finn gearing up. Do we know where the fire is?”
“Negative. We have to do a full-ship check, starting with compartments in proximity of the damaged area. Where the hell is Gustavo? We’re flying blind here.”
“Here, Captain,” Gus called from the airlock door. The command center’s lights reflected off the exposed metal patch of his skull near his cybernetic eye. The metal, like Tamara’s arm, smoothly blended into his skin. Whatever had happened to him, they’d done extensive repairs, including not just his skull and eye, but part of his ear as well. The navigator slid into his seat.
“Plug in,” Captain Harkaway barked. “No wireless, it’s glitching. Go hard-line and tell me what you can see.”
Gustavo pulled a high-capacity data cable from his station and plugged it into the slot at the base of his skull.
“I see where Mal’s problem is, sir. Several relays near Starboard Seven have been damaged. Possible fire, though I can’t be sure.”
“Starboard as well? Get Swarthmore and Moore in there. Those two are going to have their work cut out for them.”
“Affirmative, sir,” he said, switching on his mic. “Daisy, Sarah, do you copy?” Gus asked over the wireless comms.
“Copy,” Daisy replied through her headset. “Sarah’s still suiting up, but she copies too.”
“Okay, listen up. Captain wants you to hit the Narrows. One of you in the exterior layer, port side near Pod Twelve, the other starboard near Pod Seven.”
“We’re on it,” she replied, clicking off the comms.
“The crawlspaces. Why does it have to be the crawlspaces?” Sarah lamented.
“Because of our slender builds,” Daisy quipped grimly. “That, and we’re the only ones who know how to re-wire this thing by hand if need be,” she added, strapping a slim tool kit to each thigh and one to her left forearm.
Captain Harkaway’s voice crackled over the comms.
“Swarthmore, Moore, make sure you each bring a respirator and extinguisher. Mal says we may have a small fire somewhere, but her scans are inconclusive. It could be in the Narrows for all we know.”
Wonderful. Just how I wanted to wake up. A crew full of strangers and a squeeze through a crawlspace… oh, and it might be on fire. Ugh. Kill me now.
“Copy that,” Daisy said in her outside voice. “We’re on it.”
The two women looked at one another. Sarah was twenty-five years old, just like Daisy, something she knew from the crew roster trickle-fed into her mind as they journeyed toward Earth. They had largely similar skill sets, but given the nature of the vessel they were flying in, that redundancy made perfect sense. There was a lot of work for a tech on a ship like the Váli.
“All right,” Daisy said. “Let’s get crackin’. I’ll hit starboard.”
The women bumped fists as if they’d been friends for years, then split up. Daisy felt a comfortable confidence in her partner, though logic told her she’d only just met her.
Freaky thing, those neuro-stims, she thought.
An entire crew of strangers, uploaded into her head as she slept. They were strangers, but not. Years upon years traveling through space, a drip-drip-drip of information slowly feeding into each of them, keeping their minds active and sharp. The system even uploaded new skills and training updates given enough time, though that was all very carefully controlled.
It was said the early neuro-stims drove people insane, pumping far too much data into their minds at once. Only after the inhibitor safeties had been invented and fine-tuned did the system finally gain widespread use. Twelve safeties, in all. It was a lot of redundancies, but then, when it’s your mind at risk, better safe than spiraling into paranoid insanity.
“Entering the Narrows,” Daisy transmitted.
“Copy that. Plug in and update when you’re set.”
“Will do.”
The crawlspaces, while part of the vessel, were the one place standard wireless comms didn’t work. The necessity of protecting vital wiring and processing equipment in those tight areas resulted in the little spaces also being the thickest parts of the ship, shielded from just about anything they could think of. Even so, she and Sarah wore Faraday suits. The thin material wouldn’t protect them from the elements, but the fine mesh would shield them from any unexpected bursts across a wide spectrum of waves and radiation levels.
It was eerily silent, having no comms chatter during a crisis situation. Until she plugged into a hard-line terminal, Daisy was on her own.
She crawled ahead, as one is wont to do in a crawlspace, slowly inching her way toward the area of suspected damage.
Just lovely, she thought as she scooted forward. Up ahead she could see a data hub that had overloaded. It was smoldering, but there was no fire. Her sense of unease was a constant. The weight, or rather the lack of weight directly on the other side of the wall pressing against her side was unnerving. She knew the bulkhead was solid, but having the void of space so close, and while stuck in an area too small for an EVA suit, let alone a hard-hat helmet, left her uneasy.
“I found the source of smoke,” she said, plugging in to the nearest comms port. “I’m swapping out the parts now. Should only take a few minutes. There’s a fair amount of
scorching, but only a few relays were damaged, and there’s no fire.”
“Copy that, Daisy,” Gus replied from the command pod.
Daisy carefully pulled the tools she needed from the pouch on her left thigh and stuck them to the Velcro on her forearm. The dim light surrounding her flickered briefly. While the Narrows had illumination, they were almost never accessed, so it was the flashlight collar’s steady glow that provided most of her light.
One by one, she removed the melted pieces. The smell of smoke was still thick in the air.
That can’t be good to breathe, she noted, putting the respirator over her nose and mouth.
Ah, better. The smell of smoke filtered out, she pulled the last relay, stuffed it in her rear hip pouch, and set to work locking in the replacement parts.
“Venting Port Four,” Vincent said as he typed the command into the small panel of the passageway’s airlock door. Inside the chamber, a warning claxon sounded. Moments later the outer airlock door opened to space, extinguishing the fire inside.
“Re-sealing Port Four,” he informed Command.
The door cycled shut. Moments later a green light appeared on the panel. Vincent keyed open the interior access and stepped into the in-between space in the threshold. The door sealed behind him, then the inner door to the pod opened.
It was a mess. Fire had destroyed most of the equipment in the room. Tool fabrication machinery was melted, as were several racks of raw materials. Fortunately, the metal storage bins seemed to have withstood the blaze. It would have smelled awful, but the thick helmet protected him from any toxic fumes.
“Looks like we can salvage a lot, sir,” he transmitted. “Finn, how’s it looking in your neck of the woods?”
The jovial ginger opened his comms. “If you don’t mind tea for a while, I think we’ll be fine. Some damn piece of who-knows-what blew through the external storage in Starboard Eleven. Looks like we lost a lot of our coffee supply before the auto-foam sealed the leak. Gonna have to reconfigure the food replicators to stock us up with another batch once I get this mess cleaned up. Can’t be drinking sealant foam with breakfast, now can we?”
“Glad you have priorities, Finn,” Vincent said with a laugh.
“Hey, food is my priority. If we’re stuck awake a full six months longer than anticipated, shit’s gonna get old real quick if we don’t have all our culinary options available.”
“You’re the man, Finn.”
“So I’ve been told. Now go clean the rest of that crap up so we can call it a day.”
“Cut the chatter, you two,” Captain Harkaway interrupted. “Keep the comms clear. We’ve still got crew in the Narrows, and a possible fire.”
“Sorry, Captain,” the pair replied.
“All right, all right. Get back to work, and be careful,” he said, then turned to his pilot. “Let’s just hope it was only bad sensors. I do not need an uncontrolled fire aboard my ship on top of all that’s happened today.”
Chapter Three
“Come on you bastard, get in there!” Daisy struggled in the cramped space, angrily wiggling the last, stubborn relay circuit that simply did not want to click into place. She’d spent several minutes longer than expected cleaning melted plastic from the contacts.
A lot of that got in there. Too much, actually.
She brushed a few hairs from her eyes as a pressure change sent a waft of air across her face.
Great. Somewhere, there’s yet one more thing for me to fix. After this current pain-in-the-ass task, that is. Come on—fit, you bastard!
Click.
The piece slid home at last, surprising her with its sudden obedience, and Daisy wound up whacking her elbow from the unexpected lack of resistance.
“Son of a bitch!”
She looked at the soot that smeared across her throbbing arm. There really shouldn’t be so much.
“Everything all right, Daisy?” Gustavo asked.
“Yeah, I guess I leaned on my transmit button. Sorry. Just hit my elbow, is all.”
“So how’s it coming in there? Sarah’s done, and it looks like the rest of the ship is under control.”
“Just locked in the last relay. Hang on, I’ll power it back up.” She reached out and reactivated the unit. “Okay, it’s on. You reading the corresponding points?”
“Affirmative. That’s the last of it.”
“Great, it’s about time.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Now hop on out of there.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Daisy felt herself unexpectedly floating.
“Hey, did you kill gravity down here?”
“Negative. Must be another glitch. I’ll have Mal run a diagnostic.”
“Copy that,” Daisy replied. “I’m gonna get out of here. It looks like—”
She froze. A flickering, drifting light was approaching.
Rapidly.
Fire.
“Oh, shit, there’s a—” Her comms cut out as she forcefully pushed back from the panel, yanking the cord from the connector.
Shit, shit, shit! No wonder there was too much soot. Fucking busted antigrav let the fire float away.
The ball of strangely pulsing flames drifted near, closing the gap rapidly as another pressure shift caused a slight breeze, pushing it toward her even faster. Daisy passed from one section to the next, scrambling backwards as she went. Her legs abruptly slammed down into the hard metal as she crossed the transition into the segment behind her.
Goddamn antigrav, make up your mind!
“There’s a fire! I repeat, there’s a fire!” she shouted into her comms.
No reply.
“Fuck!” Daisy crawled backwards as fast as she could, banging her knees as she went, the floating fireball becoming hotter and hotter against her skin as it neared. She whipped the fire extinguisher from her hip and fired it. The stream of foam arced then fell short, the gravity of the section she was in taking hold before it could reach the zero-gravity section and continue to its target.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
The gravity beneath her suddenly went out, and she felt herself floating again, the fireball moving closer at a dangerous speed.
The access hatch has to be only twenty meters behind me. Straight shot. I can do this in zero-g.
Daisy pushed, hard, rocketing backwards toward the open access.
Yes! I’m going to—
Artificial gravity slammed her knees into the metal again. She didn’t stop to think. She didn’t even stop to swear. A fiery death was speeding toward her. All Daisy could do was scramble backward as fast as she was able. One foot cleared the lip of the access hatch. She gave a final shove, sending her body out the narrow hole, but was yanked abruptly to a stop, pain shooting from her arm to her shoulder.
Her forearm tool kit had become snagged on something.
Panic flowed over her as the flames raced closer. Gravity fluctuated on and off, but she could not break free. Her gaze drifted across old scribblings decorating the tight space around her. She hadn’t noticed them before, and now it looked like she would never get a chance to look closer in the future.
Because she didn’t have one anymore.
Of all the ways to—
Daisy felt powerful arms wrap around her waist, yanking her from the Narrows, her tool kit tearing free with a painful wrench. She tumbled to the deck in a heap and looked up to see Vincent aiming a fire extinguisher into the shaft.
“Come on, you bastard.” He eyed the space intently. “Gotcha!”
The gravity shifted again as he fired. The stream of thick foam blasted forward, propelled the full length of the gravity-free crawlspace, its force enhanced by his solidly anchored body. Vince had leaned into the zero-g space to take the shot, but had the presence of mind to keep his feet firmly out. The foam utilized that extra force and slammed into the speeding fireball, blasting much of it into oblivion, coating the entire crawlspace. Despite the apparent mess, the specially
-designed foam would evaporate to vapor in a few minutes, leaving no trace.
Unfortunately, a sizable ball of fiery death had escaped and was hurtling toward the opening. Vince pulled himself free and dove to the side, just as the flames leapt from the open access panel into the pod.
While gravity was now taking hold, making the fire more traditional in form, that, combined with the speed with which the flames exited the zero-g Narrows, made it spray out like a mini flamethrower. In a split-second, the condensed ball had grown into a wall of flame spreading across the pod floor and walls.
“Look out!” Daisy yelled, shoving Vince out of the way of a rapidly advancing tendril of fire. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!” She tugged fiercely on Vince’s arm as he scrambled to his feet.
“Wait! The Narrows!”
She realized what he was saying. If they didn’t seal the access, the blaze would just make its way back to the zero-g space in the walls, bigger and stronger than before. They’d be even worse off than before.
“Clear a path to the door! I’ll seal the panel!” she shouted over the now-roaring flames.
Vince nodded and took off in a hunched-over run, staying below the smoke as best he could. Daisy dove low and slid on her belly, snatching up the access panel from the deck.
“Please let it be here,” she said, digging in her rear pocket. “Gotcha!” she cried triumphantly, pulling a spare power ratchet from its depths.
She slammed the panel in place and quickly torqued the first two bolts into place. Her eyes were already burning from the smoke, and her lungs ached from holding her breath, but she knew there was no other choice. The panel had to be sealed, and she was the one to do it.
Her lungs burned, desperate for air, as the power ratchet whirred, the remaining six bolts driving home, sealing off the Narrows from smoke and fire alike. Daisy felt her legs wobble as she dropped to her knees, pressing her face to the floor, desperately searching for a breathable gulp of air in the blazing pod.
Gotta get up, she told herself, but her oxygen-starved body wouldn’t respond. She felt light, almost like she was floating in the air. It took a good several seconds before she realized she actually was floating. Well, to be fair, she was being carried, but whatever her means of transit, she was off the floor and rapidly heading for the airlock doors.
