Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 2

by Jim Baen's Universe! staff

  Bending her knees, she flattened her feet against the hull. Her leg twisted, nearly wrenching her hip out of its socket as one boot caught. Then the other. She let out a cry and a hiss of breath as her tumble stopped, twisting her body, jerking her as she floated a moment then slammed against the steel. Finally, she lay at rest, spread-eagle across the hull. Weight pulled at her, her suit felt heavy. Gravity was back.

  She grabbed the end of her belt tether and searched for someplace to hook it. The maintenance ladder that ran around the entire ring was an arm's length away. Rolling toward it, she hooked the tether and breathed a sigh of relief, fogging the inside of her helmet.

  Just beyond the ladder was a depression in the hull, covered with warning lights and safety markings. The airlock. She used the tether to help climb to her feet. Pulling herself along, she crossed the few steps to the airlock.

  Now, if she were very lucky, Drexler wouldn't have changed her access codes.

  She collapsed by the control panel, still clinging to the tether with one hand, using the other to punch the keypad. Her hand was shaking so much she had a hard time finding even the oversized keys designed for use with bulky suit gloves. She paused, taking a few deep breaths, letting her heartbeat slow. She'd come too far to panic now. A few more steps, that was all she needed. Rest later.

  She thought about trying a universal emergency code, which even Drexler couldn't cancel. But the station computer would alert Control immediately if she used it. Drexler could still track her using her personal codes, but the computer wouldn't sound an alarm.

  Holding her breath, she faced her suit keypad to the hatch's scanner. A laser reader tracked her. Another light flashed to green. A warning signal lit inside the hatch as the air cycled out. At last, the door slid open. She dove inside and punched the keypad to reverse the airlock's cycle.

  When the outside hatch locked and the air monitor flashed safe, she finally took off her helmet. She'd been breathing her own recycled air for so long, the station's recycled air smelled good.

  In a panic, she hit the control to open the interior door. She knew better than to sit in an airlock without a helmet. Drexler could have just flushed her.

  She fell out of the lock and onto the deck outside, rolling out of the way as the door closed.

  The airlock opened into a small prep room. A couple of spare suits hung on racks in an open closet. A door led to the corridor.

  Segment by segment, she peeled out of the suit. Her body was bruised from being knocked around inside the suit, her muscles sore from fighting with it for every move she'd made in the last hour. Carefully, she removed the data chip from the recorder in the helmet--all her proof, everything she'd been fleeing for--and tucked it into a breast pocket on her jumpsuit. She shoved the rest of the gear back into the airlock in the hopes that it would escape notice long enough for her to get away.

  She wore a gray jumpsuit and a set of thermals underneath. Maybe she could blend in, lose herself among the rest of the crew. Except she was stocking-footed. Her shoes were back in the fourth sector EVA suit-up.

  Her best plan was to act normal. Just a technician en route from one place to another, in stocking feet. She ran her hands through her short blond hair in an attempt to comb it straight. She was dripping with sweat. After wiping her face on her sleeves, her hands on her pants, she slid open the door to the corridor, and tried to act normal.

  The corridors on Covenant were never crowded. The station could hold a thousand people; a few hundred dispersed through it nicely. The fewer people she saw before she reached the Trade Guild office, the better.

  Ahead, the corridor branched. She took the narrow side hall which led to a set of cramped offices designed for lower level bureaucrats. Most were empty, but Covenant Control had relegated its Trade Guild liaison to the farthest one. Just because the Guild demanded compliance to certain regulations, Control didn't have to like it.

  The hallway was clear. A small, glowing label on the door's exterior control panel marked the Trade Guild office. It wasn't locked, it had no message asking visitors to announce themselves, so she pushed the key to open to the door.

  The office consisted of two rooms. The first, a small annex with a plastiform desk and chair tucked to the side, was empty. She went through the doorway to the next room.

  There, a man sat behind a larger desk. He rested his elbows on the bare surface, held his hands folded calmly before him. He was thin, with milk-pale skin and close-cropped gray hair, and he wore a station issue gray jumpsuit.

  "Drexler," she murmured. The Control Chief smiled. Her glance shifted, taking in the two figures standing behind him. They had web guns hooked to their belts.

  "Technician Hart. What do you think you're doing?"

  It was fairly obvious. "Where is the liaison?"

  "Not here, for the moment. He had business elsewhere."

  "You had something to do with that?"

  He shrugged, his smile never wavering.

  Drexler had second-guessed her. The whole race had been for nothing.

  The Control supervisor stood and came around the desk.

  "Walk with me, Hart."

  "Where?"

  He didn't answer. The two security people fell in step on either side of her as they walked to the corridor.

  Drexler might even have cleared the corridors ahead of time so no residents would see the suspicious scene: one of their own technicians, escorted under armed guard. No witnesses.

  They walked back the way she'd come, toward the airlock, and she had a sickening thought. She almost caused her own accident out there with that insane free jump. Drexler could cause another one, and he'd never have to explain why she'd disappeared. He still had his chance to flush her.

  She said, "So. What do you plan to do with all those plasma guns?"

  The Control Chief smiled thinly. "Despite what you might think, I'm not the villain in some video melodrama. I don't have to explain myself. I wouldn't expect you to understand." You're just a tech, was the unspoken thought that always accompanied statements like that.

  She mentally examined deck layouts, level plans, access vents, anything between here and the airlock that might help her escape, give her hope.

  The ring held three levels, plus an innermost maintenance level occupied solely by pipes, wires, and vents. One level down, where the sector two arm met the ring, was a communications relay station. Now, if only she could get there. . . .

  The male security guard walked to her right, just behind her. His web gun was closest. She only had a second to move.

  She ducked back a step and grabbed the gun, pulling it from his belt as she rammed his side with her shoulder. He crashed against the wall. The other guard, the woman, was fast. She drew her gun and fired before Hart could recover. The web gun spewed a stream of a viscous compound.

  Hart stumbled away. Most of the shot hit the other guard, plastering him to the wall with a brown, gooey mass of tendrils. One of the tendrils caught her leg. She pulled away. It stretched; she pulled harder, standing and trying to run. She thought the guard would fire again, trapping her this time. Drexler got in the way.

  She thought she could ignore Drexler; he had security with him because he couldn't fight. Of course, neither could Hart, but she was desperate and that counted for a lot. But he came at her, grabbing the hand that held the gun.

  As long as he wrestled with her, she was safe from the other web gun. In a straight fight, she could beat Drexler; she was in better shape, from time spent running all over the station on his errands.

  At some point, the web tendril trapping her leg broke. She planted her feet on Drexler's chest and pushed. The move wrenched him away. He kept hold of her arm, but he was at such an angle now that she could bend her wrist and fire.

  The stream shot directly into his face. He screamed, the sound becoming muffled as the substance completely covered his mouth and nose. When he reached to scrape the stuff off, he let her go. She fired again at the guard, t
hen ran. She didn't take the time to look behind; she'd either hit the guard or she hadn't. She still heard Drexler's muted screams. If he couldn't peel the stuff off, he'd suffocate.

  At the sector two arm, a lift provided access to the other levels. Down one level. She reached the communications center. There, one lone tech on duty looked up wide-eyed from his console, no doubt surprised to see her standing in the doorway pointing a web gun at him.

  "Get out." She waved with the gun. Web guns didn't kill--usually--but somehow, just the shape of the thing awakened a primal fear. The young tech scampered out of his chair. She stepped aside to let him slip through the doorway.

  She shut the door and shorted every control she could.

  She didn't know enough about the communications systems to be able to institute any fancy tricks. She depended on the automated controls.

  Which were locked by a Control override.

  She shouted and slapped the terminal. Couldn't anything about this be easy?

  She didn't have to be quiet anymore. She didn't have to avoid sounding any alarms. She used her emergency code, hoping it would work on the comm systems the way it worked on maintenance.

  The ready light went green. She pushed the command to broadcast to various Trade Guild locations on Mars. Universal broadcast.

  She plugged the data chip from her suit into the computer. The trip hadn't damaged it. It still held the information, the radiation readings, the video from the storage units, and Drexler's avoidance. She copied the data to a broadcast message. All the displays showed systems positive.

  Do you wish to broadcast? the display asked.

  She pushed the button. Yes. Yes yes yes. She set the message on continuous repeat.

  Then she sent the message through all internal communications systems. The data was now flashing on every on-board comm panel and monitor. Let Drexler explain radiation poisoning and illegal weapons possession to Covenant's two hundred residents.

  For the first time in what seemed like hours, she had a moment to think. She sank into the chair and held her head in her hands. Spreading the information inside the station might start a riot. Covenant Station might be destroyed by this. She hadn't thought so far ahead.

  She had to believe that she was doing the right thing.

  Before too long, the display flashed a malfunction warning: power to the broadcast array had been shut down from another location, message no longer broadcasting. Then, power to the entire communications console failed. She had now lost contact with the outside.

  She'd expected that. Now, she had to wait and see what damage her message accomplished. She waited calmly, hopefully, for a rescue from Trade Guild, or for the protest of the station residents. If she could only wait long enough. She was so focused on the goal of transmitting the data, she hadn't thought about what happened next. She had run out of good ideas.

  * * *

  He screamed and struggled, trying to pull that junk off his face while he ran out of air. The compound had slapped him like wet rubber. His ears were still ringing from it. Then his lungs burned from lack of air. He really ought to stop screaming.

  Finally, one of the guards sprayed a releaser on the webbing compound, which melted away. The stuff smelled foul, tasted worse--like ethanol and sour lemons. Then he'd shouted at the guard, his temper breaking at last. She'd scrambled away to help her comrade, still tangled in the goo.

  That was when a technician found him and bleeped an urgent update at his handheld. "Sir, someone's bypassed the comm override, they're using every frequency to blast a message to the surface--sir, oh my God--"

  Drexler shut off his handheld comm, cutting off the panicked, amazed voice. He found the nearest peripheral control terminal. He still had the station's command codes, the overrides. For a little while longer yet, he was still in charge.

  He was so tightly wound he might have been spring loaded. This wasn't about protecting the plan anymore. This wasn't about moving forward. The thing burning along his nerves wasn't calm, wasn't pride at how well he was handling the situation. It was rage. This was about revenge, now.

  She'd destroyed him. He could return the favor.

  He found the comm terminal that was broadcasting. Shut it down. A little checking found that she'd already sealed the room, locking herself in. Good. Made his next step easier.

  For all its problems, Covenant's foundations were sound. It had been solidly built. Had to be, like all good stations. Airtight.

  The ventilation system fed air into that tiny little room. All he had to do was reverse the flow. It wasn't just enough to stop the flow and seal off the room. She'd still have a few hours of air. A few hours to wait for rescue. No, that wasn't good enough at all.

  She'd destroyed him with the touch of a button when she broadcast that data. Now, he could do the same. Reverse airflow to that room. Done.

  Then he turned, and saw the crowd coming for him.

  * * *

  She wasn't going to get out of this alive, was she?

  The room was completely silent. The background noise on a space station was so ubiquitous she didn't notice it--the sound of air hissing through vents was as constant and familiar as the sound of her own breathing. But when it stopped--

  The flow of air started again a moment later. When she stood on the chair and reached to the vent on the ceiling, she felt the air flow--past her fingers, into the vent. Flowing out of the room.

  She shut her eyes and pressed her cheek to the cool wall. She'd fought so hard. She'd won, hadn't she? Could she still fight, with only one life to save now, even if it was her own?

  She found the comm station's tool kit in a wall cabinet and dug out the grips needed to lift the deck plates. She lifted one that looked the right size out of the floor, held it over the vent, and bolted it in place. The kit's tube of hull sealant gave her a scare when she thought it was empty. But she managed to squeeze out enough to seal the plate over the vent.

  The fix was temporary at best. She had air now, but only a limited supply. She'd last longer than she would have if Drexler had managed to pump out all the air in a matter of minutes.

  So, more waiting. For rescue, for her air to run out. To stop breathing. To think of a better plan.

  She lay propped against the wall--conserving her air and her energy, she told herself. The temperature in the room had risen ten degrees, at least. A sheen of sweat covered her, made her clothing stick to her skin. She couldn't fight her way through another plan if she tried. Her wrist chronometer told her that two hours had passed since she locked herself in the comm room. It seemed longer.

  A banging on the door started. Drexler and a security detail, no doubt. Almost, she was ready to let them find her.

  They stopped the direct approach fairly quickly, after discovering the mess she'd made of the door control. She crawled closer to the door--not too close, as she thought of explosives--and pressed her ear to the wall to listen.

  Someone was patiently removing deck and wall plates to gain access to the actual mechanism of the door.

  She grabbed the biggest, meanest looking wrench she could find from the tool kit.

  The door slipped, lurched. A couple of men groaned as they took up the weight and lifted it out of the way. She stood by the wall, the wrench gripped in both hands, waiting.

  "Hart? Hart? Are you in there?"

  It wasn't Drexler calling.

  "Matson?" Her voice came out a scratching whisper. With everything else, she'd gotten dehydrated as well. She coughed and tried again, slumping against the wall.

  A small, stocky man, with close-shaved hair and beard, leaned into the room, his eyes widening when he saw her, wrench still raised as a weapon.

  "Matson," she sighed and dropped the wrench.

  A few hours later, she lay on a bed in the medical ward. Calm and comfortable, at last. This was a precaution. She'd been dangerously dehydrated from overexertion, and the medics wanted to keep her for observation. And, she suspected, to keep her saf
e. No one knew who'd been part of Drexler's plan. The Control Chief was under arrest, but he wasn't talking. The investigation would go on for weeks, months maybe.

  But a hazmat crew was already outside taking care of those storage units.

  She'd been about to fall asleep--definitely enjoying the peace and quiet--when the Trade Guild liaison came to see her. He was one of Trade Guild's finest up-and-coming, a younger man, sharp and well dressed. Everything she wasn't. Everything she'd avoided. To think, if only she played by the rules, she could have a suit like that.

  If she played by the rules, Drexler would still be duping them all.

  "May I?" he said, not waiting for permission before taking the seat by her bed. She listened quietly. "We've located one of Drexler's contacts off-station. An arms dealer. They wanted Covenant Station to front a warehouse for shipping large-quantity orders of Earth and Mars manufactured weapons to colonies and mercenary outfits staging conflicts on the frontier. Without having to pay taxes and tariffs for shipping out of system, Drexler could undercut industry prices. By keeping it secret, he wouldn't need to obtain the licenses for handling the weapons. As you might imagine, Earth and Mars governments as well as the Trade Guild are very grateful for the information you delivered."