Waypoint Kangaroo

by Curtis C. Chen

  Wait a minute. Is it possible Ward’s hard-sell routine wasn’t an accident? I mean, obviously it wasn’t an accident, but could he also be in the loop—an agency operator—like Captain Santamaria?

  It wouldn’t be the first time Paul’s secretly planted helpers along my path. He’s always telling us how important it is to compartmentalize information, for security purposes. I think he just enjoys being the only one who knows everything—the spider in the center of the web. But he also hates deploying personnel without good reason.

  More people in the field means more chances for others to compromise our operational security. Paul wouldn’t throw extra agents at a situation unless he saw a specific need, and I can’t imagine what that might be in this situation. There’s only so much trouble I can get into while trapped on this cruise. Paul’s got more important things to worry about right now—like saving our department from being audited out of existence.

  Am I just being paranoid? Am I incapable of relaxing and being on vacation?

  “Here we are, sir,” Parvat says. I snap out of my reverie and look around.

  We’ve reached deck fifteen, where the boarding and excursion airlocks are located. Three other passengers are already waiting here: two middle-aged men and a white-haired woman who looks like she should be someone’s grandmother. We introduce ourselves. The taller, skinnier man, Arnold, has a pencil-thin gray mustache. The other man, who’s balding and wearing a short-sleeved shirt printed with colors that should not exist in nature, is Jason. The woman, Gemma, has a surprisingly strong grip. Must be all that knitting and crocheting.

  “Are we all ready for the tour?” Parvat asks cheerfully. I mutter an affirmative noise, which is drowned out by Arnold and Jason’s shouts. Gemma nods. “Excellent! This way, please.”

  We pass through two different security gates, the first while moving from the passenger area into the crew-only lower decks, the second when entering the engineering section. There’s a distinct change in the environment when we pass into the crew sections. Nothing here is decorated, just bare walls with occasional scuff marks, probably from service robots dragging supplies and luggage around out of view of the passengers. There’s no constant, faint background music. Even the smell is different: no subtle food odors added to entice passengers to buy snacks or drinks, just the antiseptic fragrance of recycled air.

  Being in the crew section feels strangely soothing. The plain gray surfaces remind me of our basement offices back in D.C. Home. Whatever Lasher and Equipment and Surgical are doing right now, they can’t possibly be having as much so-called fun as I am.

  After the second security gate, Parvat leads us down a stairwell into a very narrow corridor. I allow my fellow tourists to go through first. Jason and Arnold shove each other the whole way. Gemma slides through delicately, arms raised as if she’s afraid of touching anything. I follow without any problems. Compared to a military spacecraft, this is downright luxurious.

  I hear gasps, then murmurs as the three civilians exit the narrow corridor into a wide, open area. I’m sure Parvat took us through that passage on purpose, for the dramatic reveal; I can see a much larger service corridor leading here from an elevator on the left. We’re standing in the middle of a large chamber, right at the edge of a black-and-yellow safety line on the floor. The edges of a thick door protrude from the far walls on either side.

  Directly in front of us is a circular railing overlooking a transparent plexi disk set into the center of the deck. On either side of that opening, and along the three surrounding walls, uniformed crew stand at various control stations while service robots scurry about. I wonder if this much activity is normal, or if this is just for show during the tour.

  “Welcome to Main Engineering,” Parvat says, spreading his arms in a grand gesture. “If you will step forward to the railing, my friends, you can look down and see the ionwell that powers this entire ship.”

  He leads us up to the round viewing window in the floor. There’s not much to see—the exterior of the reactor is just a big metal sphere with occasional protrusions—but it’s very big.

  “Boy, that’s big,” Arnold says.

  “You said it,” Jason agrees. “Bigger than we had on the Maitland, even.”

  “I didn’t know you served,” Gemma says. She sounds surprised, but I’m not. These two act just like a lot of the overeager space cadets I’ve had to deal with. Even though they look old enough to know better.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jason says. “Two tours patrolling this side of Red Alley for ‘stray rocks.’ And Arnie got even closer. Right, Arn?”

  “Close enough to spit at ’em,” Arnold says.

  “Damn right. You guys could have won the war, if not for—”

  I’m surprised when Gemma interrupts him. “Gentlemen, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to continue this tour.”

  “Same here,” I say, and point at a random display. “What’s that do?”

  “Well,” Parvat says, waving us to one side, “if you’ll follow me, stay together, and please do not touch anything, I’ll point out some of the major components of our ionwell engine…”

  “You okay, ma’am?” I ask Gemma quietly.

  She nods. “I’ve heard more than enough about the war.”

  The way she says it makes me think she lost a family member. Her spouse? A child? I don’t want to pry, but I’m still curious. I’m trying to figure out how I can coax the information from her when Parvat stops us.

  “Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to get any closer to the controls, but you can see the primary reaction sphere, where over three quarters of the ship’s power is generated.” Something clanks on the far side of the console next to him. “And here’s Dejah Thoris’s chief engineer to tell us more about how the ionwell works!”

  I know it’s a show. This whole ship is one big put-on, a gaudy curtain drawn over the vast, bleak emptiness of outer space, a choreographed diversion from the boredom that generally defines space travel. It takes a long time to get from one planet to another, and there’s not much of anything in between. So hey, look at these shiny objects instead!

  But as much as I knew our entrance into the engine room was staged, I was still impressed by the presentation. And even though I know the officer coming around the corner must make this appearance repeatedly, as a routine duty, I can’t help but feel a little thrill after Parvat’s enthusiastic introduction.

  The chief engineer of the whole ship! And … she’s a pretty lady?

  I never thought anyone could make a blue work jumpsuit and black insulated boots look sexy, but this woman does. Her long, straight brown hair is tied back in a ponytail that reaches down to her shoulders. Her big, bright eyes and wide smile express nothing but genuine delight at meeting yet another bunch of tourists gawking at her engine.

  “Hello, folks,” she says. “I’m Eleanor Gavilán, chief engineer of Dejah Thoris. You can call me Ellie.”

  She shakes our hands as we introduce ourselves. I’m last in line, and I make a monumental effort to keep my eyes on her face and not her body as she grips my hand for the briefest of moments.

  “Evan,” I say.

  “Nice to meet you, Evan,” she says, and steps back. “So, who here has seen an ionwell up close before?”

  Jason’s hand shoots up. “Right here, miss.”

  “Okay, Jason,” Ellie says. “You can call me Ellie, or Chief, or sir. Do you work in astronautics?”

  Oh, I like her. Ex-military? She’s old enough to have been in the war. Or to have known better.

  “Uh, no,” Jason replies. “I’m in the Outer Space Reserve. Did a tour on the Maitland during the war. Electronics Technician, Power Systems—”

  A loud noise blaring from above us drowns out Jason before he can tell us his full name, rank, and serial number. The alarm is accompanied by orange lights that illuminate all around the compartment, flashing above every control console.

  “Sorry, folks,” Ellie says in a calm and even voi
ce. “Please stay where you are. Nothing to worry about. Just give us a moment to sort this out.”

  Parvat steps forward and offers his own reassurances while Ellie turns to talk to one of the other engineers. I’m not familiar with Dejah Thoris’s alert protocols, but I would guess that an Orange indicator—somewhere between you-might-want-to-pay-attention Yellow and we’re-all-going-to-die Red—is fairly serious.

  I look over my fellow tourists to see if one of them might have stepped over a safety line or something. Gemma’s eyes dart around nervously, both arms wrapped across her midsection. Arnold and Jason watch the engineers. They don’t seem overly concerned. Arnold’s scratching his arm, and he even seems a little excited. Is he just rubbernecking, or did he come on this tour to cause trouble?

  I blink to activate my eye scanners, cycling through the medical view—Arnold’s skin temperature is on the warm side, but he doesn’t appear otherwise agitated—and going to the electromagnetic spectrum. A false-color overlay appears over the entire compartment, showing me ambient radio waves and energy fields. That’s when I see it.

  “It’s not the ionwell,” I say, raising my voice over the alarm and projecting toward Ellie.

  She stops working at a console and turns to frown at me. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re reading a power spike, right? Possible containment breach? It’s not the ionwell.” I point at Arnold. “It’s him.”

  Arnold’s skin temperature shoots up a few degrees. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

  Ellie calls to another engineer, who hands over a portable scanner. She moves back toward the ionwell railing and aims the device at Arnold.

  “Son of a bitch,” she says, then looks embarrassed. “Sorry. Arnold, you’ve got an electromotive battery implant.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Arnold rubs his left shoulder sheepishly. “Brachial nerve damage from the war. The docs had to rewire some stuff. Is that a problem?”

  Ellie points toward the black-and-yellow stripes in front of the main doors. “I need you folks to move to the other side of that safety line, please.”

  Parvat herds us back while Ellie consults with her crew. After a moment, the alarm goes silent, and the lighting returns to normal. Ellie hands off the scanner and walks back to the tour group. Her face is neutral, but her vitals indicate severe annoyance. I suddenly feel like I’m invading her privacy. I turn off my eye.

  “Sorry about that, folks,” she says. Arnold looks away to avoid her stare. “We do ask when you sign up for the tour whether you have any implants.”

  Jason grunts. “A lot of fine print on that registration form.”

  “Shoulder-phone signals can interfere with our equipment,” Ellie continues. “And military power cells tend to trip the safety monitors here in Main Engineering.” She glares at Jason, then turns to me. “You gentlemen know each other?”

  “We’ve never met,” I say, a little too quickly. Dammit. Now I have to come up with a cover story for why I knew Arnold had a battery in his arm. “I just heard those two fellows talking about being in the war, and I took an educated guess.”

  “Were you in the service?”

  “Oh, no. I work for the State Department. Interplanetary trade inspector. I know a little bit about spaceships. Just enough to be dangerous.” I flash her my best innocent smile.

  She nods. “Okay, folks. I won’t be able to walk you around the compartment, but you’ve already seen the ionwell, and you can still see everything else pretty well from back here.”

  “Not much of a tour,” Jason mutters.

  “You’re welcome to leave any time,” Ellie says. “We’ll give you a full refund.”

  Arnold elbows Jason in the ribs, and he shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool.”

  Ellie turns to Gemma and me. “Most of Earth’s warships utilize second-generation ionwell propulsion systems. Dejah Thoris is the newest Princess of Mars Cruises spaceliner, and she was built with state-of-the-art technology.” She waves at the center of the floor. “This is a fourth-generation ionwell, which incorporates design improvements and safety features originally copied from the Martian frigate Valor, which was detained by Earth Coalition forces during the first days of the Independence War.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Jason says. “We spanked those Reds at hide-and-seek.”

  “What kind of safety features?” Gemma asks.

  “Well, you can see how much physical shielding there is around the engine,” Ellie says. “There’s no radiation danger from the ionwell itself, but the superheated plasma produced by the reactor is highly volatile. Shielded conduits direct that plasma out through our main drive rockets and also into generators that supply power to the whole ship.”

  “That does sound dangerous.” Gemma seems genuinely concerned. I wonder if this is her first space voyage.

  “All the power generation systems are located in the engineering sections,” Ellie says. “And as you’ve seen, we monitor everything down here very closely. We don’t send anything except electricity up to the passenger decks.”

  “Not even the kitchens?” I ask, attempting to make a joke.

  Ellie raises an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t want to cook with this stuff. Not unless you like your meat fused into charcoal.”

  “It ain’t pretty,” Jason adds. “We had a plasma conduit rupture on the Maitland. Vaporized two spacemen—”

  “What happens if there’s a rupture here?” Gemma asks Ellie.

  “The whole system is designed for safe shutdown in the event of failure,” Ellie says. “If the exterior of any conduit overheats by even a single degree, it’s shut off and flagged for inspection. If the ionwell is damaged—even if the shielding goes out of alignment by as little as one centimeter—the reactor will scram automatically.

  “The ionwell reaction itself requires a delicately balanced environment. We have personnel on duty twenty-four hours a day, monitoring to make sure nothing goes wrong. In the unlikely event of an emergency, our backup batteries and solar panels can provide full power to the whole ship for thirty-six hours.”

  Jason and Arnold have been muttering to each other this whole time. I don’t really care to know what they’re saying.

  “If this is just the top part of the ionwell,” Gemma says, pointing at the metal sphere in the floor, “and it’s a ball shape … How large is it, exactly?”

  “Including shielding, the reactor sphere has the same circumference as the ship’s beam, or width,” Ellie says. “If you look at a diagram of Dejah Thoris, all of deck twenty-five is the full diameter of the ionwell.”

  “That seems awfully exposed,” Gemma says, frowning. “If one tiny dent can shut down the reactor, shouldn’t it be more protected? More inside?”

  She is truly worried about this. I can see it in her face. So what’s important enough to get this nice old lady onto a ship that she thinks might kill her?

  Ellie nods. “Very true, Gemma, that is a concern. Though outer space is mostly empty, we do sometimes encounter debris in our flight path. And because we travel at such high velocity, even a small object striking the hull can cause serious damage.”

  “Like birds hitting aircraft,” I say, hoping a familiar analogy will help put Gemma at ease. Her face tells me that probably wasn’t the right analogy to make.

  “Right.” Ellie smiles at me. Just part of the show, I remind myself. “Although out here, it’s more likely to be frozen human waste that’s been dumped out by other spacecraft.”

  Everyone laughs, including Gemma. Nice save, Chief.

  “Fortunately,” Ellie continues, “Dejah Thoris’s navigational deflector system mitigates any potential impacts. Radar sensors detect any approaching objects of a size and speed likely to cause more than cosmetic damage to the ship, and then flash-lasers blast those objects until they’re no longer a threat.”

  “You worked on NAVDEF, didn’t you, Arnie?” Jason bellows.

  “Yeah, I have,” Arnold says. “Um, Chief, is the Thoris using EP to drive those lasers
?”

  “Dejah Thoris,” Ellie corrects, with a smile and a hard stare. “And yes, we do route electroplasma directly to the exterior laser pods. But those lasers are all mounted in the nose of the ship, or around the lower, engineering decks.” She nods at Gemma. “Nowhere near the passenger sections.”

  “But you gotta get the plasma from down here all the way up to the nose,” Jason says. “You can’t do that without moving it through the passenger decks.”

  Ellie turns to me. “Those power conduits run through the cargo section. If you saw Dejah Thoris from Sky Five, before you boarded, you may have noticed a large number of cargo containers on one side of the ship.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Like a block carved out of a hard-boiled egg.”

  “That’s a good analogy. I’ll have to remember that one.” She taps the side of her head and winks at me, then turns back to Gemma. “In addition to passengers, Dejah Thoris transports several thousand metric tons of cargo on every sailing. Some of that is supplies for the cruise—food, drink, and other consumables—but a large portion of it is commercial freight. After loading the cargo, the ‘cut-out’ section is covered with solar panels, and we fly with that side of the ship always facing the Sun to collect additional power.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more cost-efficient to move cargo by other means?” Gemma asks.

  “Not necessarily,” Ellie says. “I won’t bore you with the math, but the nature of the ionwell reaction dictates how large the reactor sphere has to be in order to move a ship of this size. And though we don’t have to worry about aerodynamics in the vacuum of space, we do want a symmetric hull structure for the engine to push against. The accountants at Princess of Mars Cruises have also done the math, and they’ve determined that carrying both cargo and passengers is cost-efficient.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Jason scoffs. Arnold elbows him. “What? I’m just saying. The Reds wouldn’t hesitate to blow a cargo drone out of the sky. They’ll think twice about shooting at a few thousand civilians.”