The Belt Loop _Book One

by Robert B. Jones

  “Captain, I’ve got a seaman second on report for losing his weapon.”

  “Losing his weapon?” Haad said in amazement. “How did that happen, chief?”

  “It’s probably nothing, sir, but the man was looking up some targeting information for his boss and took a file disc out of the weapons office and hit the bay at a trot. He left his sidearm on a stack of manuals on his desk. When he got back, the weapon was gone.”

  Haad grimaced. “Gone? Did someone else take it? Did he just misplace it?”

  “I wish it was so, captain. He called the master-at-arms and they searched the compartment thoroughly. Nothing. Then they noticed some dust and dirt on the desk. Looks like someone came through the air shaft and stole the gun, sir.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Nope. They got up on the desk and pulled the vent cover. Another round of dirt fell out onto the desk. The MA looked inside the vent and — and this is what he told me — it looked like someone had been in there. Scuff marks. Smeared handprints on the sides of the vent. They pulled one partial but no match in the ship’s database.”

  Haad got up from his chair and paced a few meters around the small compartment. “So, what you’re telling me is that we have an intruder aboard the ship?”

  “That’s what it looks like, skipper. As hard as it is to believe, we have someone, or something, living in the ducts. Remember that report from yesterday about the logistics tech that said someone was pilfering food? It’s starting to add up, sir.”

  “And that someone is small enough to crawl through the air duct system. Interesting.”

  “Not only that, but if it is indeed a small person, a kid, now that kid is armed.”

  “Did you report this to Commander Yorn? What did he have to say?”

  Penny scratched his head. “I couldn’t find him, sir. That’s why I came directly to you. The XO was last seen doing readiness inspections down on decks eight and nine, but that was some time ago. No one’s seen him in the last hour. I thought he might have been in here with you, sir.”

  Haad walked quickly to the comm stack and hit the stud for global broadcast. “This is the Captain. Commander Yorn to my ready room on the double. Commander Yorn.”

  “Should I alert the MA’s, sir?”

  “Not yet, chief. Give him a chance to report in. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Aye, sir,” Penny said. As the captain retreated to his desk, Chief Penny made his way back to the passageway.

  Shit, Haad thought. Uneasy is the ass that sits in this chair. He wondered what was coming next.

  * * *

  The rough hands on her shoulders snapped Max Hansen out of her nap. When the lifeboat docked in hangar bay two she stumbled out with the rest of the passengers and saw another set of men and women waiting for their turns on the worm. Several members of the departing throng had light suit-to-suit banter with the outgoing personnel but she did not participate. Her head was still aching and she was almost dead on her feet.

  She quickly made her way through the double airlocks; one for decontamination and one for air exchange and repressurization. Finally, after sixteen hours she was able to break the seal on her suit and pull off her helmet. The cool, dry, oily smelling air of the Christi hit her nostrils. It had a slight twinge of ammonia and that was enough to get her out of her stupor. She made her way up to deck four and her compartment. Relief at last.

  Max was still standing under the shower head when her alloted seven minutes of water expired. She quickly dried off, cleaned her teeth, donned a fresh body suit. She had to get a quick nap and head below to check on Har. When she approached her bunk she noticed the flashing light on the comm stack by the hatch. Odd.

  She pressed the button and found that she had a message from someone in personnel. After debating whether or not to reply before she could get her critical nap, her curiosity made the decision for her.

  “Lieutenant Hansen, here,” she said tiredly, “you have a message for me?”

  “Oh, yeah, right, lieutenant. This is Petty Officer Third Class Nan Reese, down in personnel? I’m a personnel specialist and I have a letter for your file, sir.”

  Uh-oh. What was this? “What kind of letter, Mister Reese?”

  “Ma’am, it’s from Elber. It’s about your son. Harold?”

  “Harold?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Actually, this just came in recently, on that last courier boat? Anyway, the original correspondence was from Earth. From one of your relatives. It seems that your son Harold was not on the cruiser from Elber. He missed the boat some kind of way.”

  Max was starting to panic. The Navy was finding out about her deceit. “But, it was three years ago that he left for Earth. Why is this information just getting to me now?”

  “Well, you know about the transit times. And there was a delay on the other end before the proper authorities were notified and then the wait for another outbound vessel to transmit that information to Elber Prime. It took them some time to look for him on the planet out here, too. Then Child Welfare had to be notified, then they notified the Office of Navy Personnel, then they had to get the information to us here on the Christi. You can understand the delays involved, can’t you?”

  Her breathing was slowly returning to normal. “Then that’s why you got the letter down there instead of me getting it in regular mail call.”

  “Exactly. It was marked urgent and addressed to the Lieutenant Commander, with a courtesy copy for you, ma’am. That’s the usual notification protocol in these matters.”

  “Notification protocol? What do you mean, Mister Reese?”

  “Oh. I thought you would have figured it out. Your son has been declared legally dead, lieutenant. After what was virtually a house-to-house in Nova Haven, a search of all outgoing ships’ manifests, the local civilian authorities on Elber Prime declared your son dead.”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Max gathered control over her emotions and tried to sound crushed. “Yes. I see.”

  “Anyway,” the personnel specialist continued, “The boss sent the captain the notification. And the forms for your bereavement leave. I’m sure he will have no problems signing off on it under the circumstances. I would also like to offer my personal condolences, Lieutenant Hansen. I know how you must feel.”

  This dimwit didn’t know shit. But Max stuffed her real feelings and said, “Thank you. This is heartbreaking news as you can imagine.”

  “Also, Lieutenant Fitz, our counselor, is available should you need someone to talk to.”

  Max knew Shar Fitzgerald. Talking with her was the last thing she wanted to do. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your concern, Petty Officer Reese.”

  She broke the connection. Okay. Her deceit was beginning to unravel. As long as Har remained hidden, it shouldn’t really change anything aboard ship. As long as her little firebrand son kept to his promises it should be all right. What really worried her was the reaction she had to show to the other people she interacted with on the ship. Information like this had a way of spreading from mouth to ear to mouth at a geometrically expanding rate. It wouldn’t take long before everyone on board knew of her tragic loss.

  Maybe she should figure a way to get Har off the Christi and onto the next courier boat headed for Elber. Use the offer of bereavement leave to take some time off and smuggle her son out of here. But that would only compound her problems should they be caught.

  Max retreated to her bunk and sat down hard on the edge, her elbows on her knees and her hands supporting her aching head. Soon the captain was sure to page her. What would she say? How could she fake her way through it?

  Her only salvation was the worm. With all of the other shit going on, maybe the worm would buy her some time.

  Maybe.

  * * *

  CPO Dawks was still on the case. Most of the other ratings in his worm crew had departed for the warm and comfy confines of the Christi. Not so for Dawks. He was eager to get to the h
eart of the worm, get the valve covers off the manifolds and see what made this beast tick. Dawks was old-school Navy, now in his eighteenth year of service. His baptism of fire had come in the Bayliss uprising and had acquired the veneer of blood in the Varson War.

  The chief was old-school in his work ethic but entirely new-school in his approach. He was not a tinkerer, he was more pragmatic. Using state-of-the-art sounding and sensing devices he poured over every inch of the massive worm propulsion chamber. The mechanisms he saw were very old and more than likely used a rudimentary fusion drive system. He noticed quite a bit of hydrogen embrittlement and cracks in the main chambers of the alien drive and speculated that if the engine were somehow brought to life, its run up would be disastrous. He tried to calculate how long the containment bottles would last and the answer he gave himself was frightening.

  He noted on his portable that the engine saw its better days two milennia ago. Judging from the accumulated ice, dust and debris, this engine room had not seen any action since before the days of the Battle of Hastings. Maybe even longer.

  “Chief Banes, this is Chief Dawks,” he said on his suit mike. “Hey, Willi, you there?”

  William Banes was his boss, a senior chief in the engineering section. Banes was the Christi’s engineman, and his responsibilities included keeping the fast-boat in top working condition and maintaining not only the AM engines but also both of the field-generation interfaces. “Go ahead,” Banes said.

  “Man, this tub of lard ain’t going nowhere. I see intake tubes that are caked with rust, cracks in the fusion bottle, holes in most of the control rods, and, really, a level of degradation that looks right out of a target boat. Somebody cut this bad boy loose and threw the mooring lines after it. No way she can make speed, sir.”

  “Understood, Tommy. You see any need to stay on that ship? I mean, anything else left to discover from an engineering standpoint?”

  “That’s a negative. I got it all recorded. This turd is not even worth salvaging.”

  Banes laughed and recommended that Dawks pull out and bring the rest of the ratings with him. No need to keep fishing in a dry river.

  Dawks was signing off when the whole ship shook violently, knocking him to his knees.

  Chapter 27

  “Oops,” Lieutenant Mols said aloud. “That was the wrong command.”

  Mols was sitting at what she assumed was the command chair on the bridge of the worm. It was a streamlined reclining plastic piece of alien furniture with thin metallic armrests and a double row of foot pegs that were about ten centimeters too far away for her to reach them without a stretch.

  “Mols! What the hell was that?” from an excited technician at her back.

  “Hey bridge, what the fuck are you doing?” somebody else yelled over her suit system.

  “Just trying to understand the control stack up here,” Mols said sheepishly. “I thought I was activating the main view screen. I think I just hit some kind of braking mechanism by mistake.”

  “Lieutenant Mols. This is Lieutenant Commander Griffin. State your status.”

  Geez. These Navy types were all over her. “Ahh, roger, commander. I’m sitting on the bridge of the worm and running the control stack.” She had no idea who the heck she was talking to. She assumed this Griffin guy was the watch commander on the Christi.

  “And what did you just do? My board lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  Mols told him what she had just done.

  “Do it again, lieutenant.”

  This time nothing happened to the ship. Mols tried to explain how she was entering commands via her patched-in keyboard, trying to interface her system with the alien technology. Her answer was not deemed sufficient.

  “Perhaps you should double-check your procedures, lieutenant. That whole tub just jolted. Almost tore away the docking collar and tunnel out to the lifeboat. Who’s in charge over there?” the concerned voice inquired.

  She looked around the bridge. Half of the ratings were exploring the tunnels below her present position and the rest of them were standing around watching her. Most of the big stars had returned to the Christi. “That would be me, sir.”

  Another voice on her headset said, “She’s straining the Higgs, sir!”

  “Standby, one, lieutenant.” This from Griffin.

  White noise.

  Two of the electronic techs walked over to the command stack and looked at Mols. Their gestures were easy to decipher even through their evo suits: What the fuck?

  The worm groaned and shuddered again.

  “Lieutenant Mols, pull your crew off that bridge. Mols. Acknowledge.”

  “Sir?”

  “Abandon that ship, lieutenant!”

  “Roger that. Heading home, sir.”

  She switched to her suit mike. “Ahh, now hear this, I guess it’s time to go. Commander Griffin just ordered us off the ship. All personnel muster at the lifeboat. I have no idea why, but we gotta go!”

  A storm of voices. A flurry of activity. She stood and looked around. Men and women were pouring out of every orifice. She tried to do a head count but her lack of experience in matters of emergency prohibited her. Why count heads if she had no clue as to how many men there were supposed to be? Where was the brass? Why had they all retreated and left her in charge? She was a fucking cryptographer not a ship’s captain. Mols grabbed her gear and stuffed it into her ditty bag. She made sure to grab the little recorder she had found and then she hurried back to the port compartment and grabbed the little spools of data for the machine. Without these artifacts, the whole enterprise would be rendered a huge fail.

  The worm shook violently. Mols had to grab onto the safety ropes to keep from falling over the side of the narrow walkway overlooking the huge bird death chamber. With the help of one of the electronic techs she just barely made it to the connecting tunnel that led back to the cargo hold before the entire walkway gave way and crashed into the boneyard down below.

  It took her a few minutes of supreme effort to reach the foot of the rope ladder. She saw several men running from the rear of the ship, their suit lights bouncing and dancing with their hurried steps. She waited at the bottom of the ladder until all of the sailors were headed up. Then she looked around the hold and waited. Satisfied that no one else was headed her way, she started to climb.

  It was then that the worm seemed to shake laterally, whipping back and forth like a desert rattler trying to get out of the hot sun. The violent motions threw her off balance and she held onto the rope ladder with all of her strength. It took another few minutes for the shaking to stop and she continued up the ladder. One of the techs was waiting for her at the head of the tunnel. He tried to grab her bag but she shook him off. No way was she giving up this prize. The tech pushed her in the back and propelled her down the tunnel towards the airlock in the docking collar. The lifeboat was waiting for the last two to board. She ran headlong for the hatch and lunged for the corrugated connecting tunnel, hoping that if something was to give way, maybe the tunnel would go with the boat and not stay with the worm. Her suspicions proved correct.

  Just as she dove headlong into the side of the boat the whole connecting tunnel collapsed. Ten hands grabbed her and hauled her aboard. She turned quickly and looked for the rating that had tried to help her.

  “Throw that man a line,” somebody yelled.

  “Get on the winch!”

  “Where is he, where is he?”

  “Get that door secured back there!”

  The whole scene was a jumble of squealing and yelling. Mols couldn’t be sure who they were yelling at, what they were squealing about. One of the men by the door was hanging onto a hand strap and leaning out of the door, while another man was playing out a heavy steel cable.

  “Breaking contact,” she heard in her suit.

  The lifeboat vibrated for a second and dropped ten meters, sending her rocketing towards the overhead. A pair of hands stopped her head from crashing into the metal storage racks above
her.

  She turned to thank the unknown hands that had just saved her when she saw a bright flash of light out of the corner of her eye.

  A huge gout of orange flame erupted from the side of the worm and engulfed what was left of the tunnel and docking collar. The blossoming explosion expanded quickly and silently towards the lifeboat, and once in vacuum, the fireball became almost invisible. Suddenly the craft wrenched hard to the left and accelerated away. One of the men at the door was screaming and battling unseen flames, burning hydrogen, that consumed his arms and exploded his faceplate. Mols turned her head against the bulkhead just in time. The mush that used to be his head peppered the back of her evo suit and the screaming in her ears stopped. She ventured a quick peek at the open doorway behind her and two things caught her eye. The first was the slack cable. The second was the hand and arm that used to belong to a sailor and was now banging silently on the metal deck of the boat, still attached to the flapping cable.

  * * *

  CPO Eddie Rich didn’t have time to go back to the weapons locker to retrieve his remote transmitter. The part where he crashed the drone into the side of the Christi to start his maniacal war with the worm had to be abandoned. He had hoped that in the confusion created by crashing the drone into the flank of the ship he could have possibly gotten away with his more complex plan of retaliation, saying that he just happened to be on station when the attack occurred and unleashed his counterattack out of instinct.

  And he also knew that by violating the firing protocols by not waiting for the orders to come from the bridge he would face severe penalties. But he didn’t care. What punishment could the Navy mete out that was worse than the ignominy he felt by virtue of being cast-off, set adrift and ignored?