James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 08

by Hellfire

  “Preparing for what?” Driver asked.

  She looked at him through red-rimmed eyes. Her lips quivered, as though she had said something she shouldn’t have.

  “Preparing for what?” Driver persisted.

  She backed toward the door. “I will try and get you something. Something you may use, so that you can know something of our world. Are you going to finish that?” She pointed to his half-eaten meal.

  “I suppose I will have to, at some point,” he said resignedly. “But I’m never going to complain about the food from the AutoChef again.” She touched his hand and whispered. “Ten Thousand.”

  “Excuse me?” Driver asked.

  “Ten thousand…. There are ten thousand of us left,” and with that, she slipped out of the cabin, and the hatch sealed behind her.

  Section 06

  Hellfire Station 3

  Eliza Change’s quarters were almost exactly the same as Matt Driver’s, a cylinder, three meters wide an four deep. It also had four narrow bunks that folded down from the walls, and a bench on the far wall with a display screen over it. It was a bit larger than a junior officer’s berth on a Tango-Class mining frigate, but it didn’t have a line of gouges across the lower bunk where helm operator Davidson had punched her rock-knife to keep a tally of her sexual conquests. Nonetheless, to Eliza Jane Change, it felt rather homey.

  Change rested in her bunk, legs bent at the knees, staring at the ceiling. This was not a meditation technique or anything, Change was actually just enjoying the accommodations.

  This whole journey, in fact, with the utilitarian, no frills ship, the constant danger, the terrible food and the dealing with dim-witted station bureaucrats was a trip down the Memory Space Vortex for her.

  It was spoiled, in the midst of her pleasant downtime, when the hatch swung open. A guard looked in. “Get up, Manager Aso wants you in the command center.” Without a word, she got up out of bed and followed her guard to the Centralized Command Center. She thought it was probably not wise for him to turn his back on her, and idly wondered whether he had realized she was no threat, or alternately was just stupid.

  The Centralized Command Center had none of the sleek brushed metal and glossy black surfaces usually associated with a space station. It had been battered pretty badly in the preceding centuries by the hard solar radiation the wear and tear of thousands of gruff extraction workers. The data processing units and display screens were badly fitted to the racks that held them, and only a third or so seemed to be functional. Most of those that were flickered or presented their data in drug-trip colors from malfunctioning color correction units.

  The chairs in front of the workstations were mismatched and dilapidated. There were panels missing in the ceilings and walls that showed bare wiring and conduit, some of which occasionally sparked. The floor had been punched aluminoid, but the raised patterns had been worm flat in the high traffic areas.

  The place had the feel of a post-apocalyptic fiction-holo-drama, or one of the junkyard towns of crashed and scavenged ships built in the moons of the Sapphirean outsystem by rogue mining guildsmen, or as Commander Keeler might have described it, some of the less shabby parts of Panrovia.

  Matthew Driver was already there, standing next to Aso. Aso addressed her, “I have something to show you. Come follow me, please.”

  Aso led her and Driver to a large oblong table in the center of it. He tapped some buttons on the side. The screen built into the top of the table flickered. He smacked the side hard and the display screen activated, showing a low resolution depiction of the station. Just outside, almost two dozen ships were waiting, forming a loose semicircle.

  “The Solarite pirates have regrouped, and returned in greater numbers. Twenty pirate ships now surround Hellfire Station 3.” He tapped an ideogram near the center of the pirate fleet. “This one is a command ship.”

  “They’re going to take the station,” Change stated the obvious.

  “We think the arrival of your ship aggravated them,” Aso said, glowering. “They may attack before repairs on Liminix are complete.”

  “What are you going to do?” Change asked.

  “We will offer to surrender the Station to them in exchange for free passage,” Aso told them.

  Driver shook his head. “They won’t accept that.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Aso growled bitterly. “But it will stall them long enough to complete evacuation. We will take the three functioning ships away along three vectors.

  Hopefully, one or two of them will make it.”

  “What about our deal?” Change demanded.

  Aso shook his head. “We can’t possibly repair and fuel Liminix CH-53 in time. Your people can come on our ships, and we’ll try to return you to yours, but…”

  “No!” Change barked at him. “That’s not good enough.”

  “What else can I do?” Aso shouted.

  “Fight them,” Matthew Driver said. “Hit them really hard, and they’ll hold back and regroup. That will give us enough time to complete repairs.”

  “We don’t have enough weapons…” Aso began.

  “What do we have?” Change demanded.

  “A few missiles and some half-depleted anti-proton cannons,” Aso answered. “And four or five defensive drones. Not enough to hold them off while we finish repairs to Liminix CH-53

  .”

  “They could attack at any moment,” said a male technicians whose Crucial Space Fuels Company jumpsuit identified him as ‘Dolo.’

  “If we try to run, we’ll die,” Driver stated with eerie calmitude.

  They were startled when a small child jumped on top of the tactical display table, a wild-haired, snaggle toothed boy somewhere between seven and ten years old. He jumped on the table and howled like an animal.

  “Jo Jo, No!” Exclaimed Dolo. “Bad Jo-Jo!”

  The child snarled at him.

  “Get him out of my command center!” Aso ordered. The coveralls man lunged for him, but the buy dodged him, jumped, hit the floor, and ran from the center, pausing only to snarl at them from the open door before running ito the corridor.

  Change had been unperturbed by this, and continued her intense study of the table display. “The command ship is the key,” she decided. “If we really hit it hard, we can buy enough time to finish repairs and loading on Liminix CH-53.”

  “An attack will only provoke them,” Aso insisted.

  Then, there came a screeching noise, and every operational display in the Central Command Center flipped. The Solarite Pirate Commander appeared on the viewscreens, his face hidden behind a metal mask. Behind him, five men and a woman were shackled to a wall.

  “Yarrrrrr!” the Solarite yarred at the screen “Yarrrrr. YARRRRRR!” The translation matrix stumbled, then produced a text transcript. “I didn’t think you could translate the Solarite language,” Change said.

  “We can’t,” Dolo told her. “They, however, can translate ours. The audio message is accompanied by a text message.”

  The text message read:

  You were not made for the fires of Hell. This system is for us.

  Leave. Return to the rocks from which you came. Leave.

  The same sun that burns your flesh only warms our own. The breath of our sun is deadly to you, but it is the breath of life to us.

  Leave. Return to the rocks from which you came. Leave.

  On the screen, the badly beaten man was shoved into the camera, so that his bruised and beaten face filled it. He spoke, “This is Shipmaster Koko, of the Tritium Heavy Transport Ship Liminix CH-53, Ident number KK-17561-J1. There are six of us still alive. Do not negotiate. Kill them. Kill them all!”

  The pirates pulled him away from the screen. The lead pirate began yarring at them again.

  Leave. Return to the rocks from which you came. Leave.

  And all prisoners will be killed. Leave.

  Return to the rocks from which you came. Leave.

  “That makes it soun
d as though he will kill the prisoners, regardless,” Change observed.

  “He will,” Aso answered. “It’s how they think. That display was not intended as a bargain, it was a threat. They’ll kill the prisoners regardless, but we might escape. It is intended to give us fear for our lives.”

  “How much time do we need to fix the ship and load cargo?” Change asked Aso.

  “Another five millcycles, give or take.”

  “About 22 point five standard hours,” Change figured out loud. “We’ll have to make sure they don’t attack during that period.”

  “How?” the man asked.

  Change stared intently at the screen “Maybe I can give them something else to keep them busy. Bring up the station inventory.”

  Dolo accommodated her, quickly switching the screen. She scrolled through and quickly found what she was looking for. “What are these?”

  “Class Nine Shuttlepods,” Dolo answered.

  “Can they fly?” Change asked.

  “Barely,” Dolo answered.

  Change turned to Driver. “I know you know what I’m thinking.” He nodded. “I think so.”

  “I suppose you will load them with bombs and explosives,” Aso said dismissively.

  Change cocked her head. “Not really, we’re just sending a peace offering to the Solarites. Hopefully, they’ll take our shuttles aboard their ships. We will sabotage the reactors to go critical as soon as the Solarites open the shuttle hatches. It will have the effect of detonating medium-yield nucleonic weapons into the most vulnerable part of their mother-ship.”

  “They’ll kill us all,” Aso hissed.

  “Maybe, but they’ll need some time to regroup first,” Change told him. “With the command ship out of action, that will take some time. Hopefully, enough time for us to finish the work on LiminixCH-53. ”

  “I will not allow you to attack the Solarite pirates!” Aso insisted, sounding desperate and near panicked. “We don’t have the weapons to hold them off. They’ll kill us.” Driver disagreed strongly. “Nay, you have to punch them hard. It will make them think we’re stronger than we are, and it will delay the attack.”

  “If you try to gain access to the shuttles, I will have you killed!” Aso shouted at them.

  He was terrified, it was clear, near mania in his terror of the Solarites. Before Driver or Change could even offer argument, he was shouting orders. “We will prepare the ships for immediate launch. Move all personnel to the ships. Emergency evacuation order is implemented.”

  “Liminix isn’t ready!” Driver insisted.

  “That will be your problem,” Aso hissed. “I want to be prepared to break dock at the first sign of a Solarite pirate attack. Mr. Moto, escort the visiting crew to Liminix CH-53.

  Prepare to abandon this station. We will leave as soon as soon as the ships are secure, or as soon as the attack begins.”

  “Then, at least let my people work on Liminix, ” Change insisted.

  “Yes, your people may finish work on Liminix, ” Aso agreed.

  Hellfire Station 3: Repair Dock

  Overseeing the repairs on Liminix CH-53 was an old Mechanic named Miko. He walked on mechanical legs, which did not faze Eliza Jane Change in the least. There were quite a number of legless mechanics among the mining guilders, mostly through accidents, but also a number who had had theirs amputated intentionally, since it was easier to navigate in 0 G

  without them. And the amputees, deliberate or accidental, overwhelmingly preferred machine legs over bionic cloned replacements. In fact, their artifical legs would often be adorned with spikes, blades, noisemakers, and even smoke blasters. It was something of a competition.

  “The power regulators are still unstable,” the chief repair technician among the Hellfire Station crew told Eliza Change. “And engine #3 has has had no calibration, no balance. There is no way of knowing how it will respond in flight. And we’ve barely touched the fire damage in the ventral compartments. That whole section could be structurally unstable.” The repair dock stank of rust and chemicals, and there was a trace of acrid smoke in the air that the atmospheric circulators just could not come to terms with. Everything about this old mining outpost provoked homesickness. She was really going to miss this old place. In the background, through the large oval portal that looked out over the docking ring, Eliza Change watched as Miko’s spacewalk team worked on the ship with plasma-arc welders, up-armoring the ship with plates of depleted uranium from the station, the better to ensure it would survive the journey. It was not the strongest of materials, but it would defray the smaller asteroid fragments and some of the Solarite compression blasts.

  Miko pounded meaningfully on the side of Liminix CH-53 with a remote manipulator arm. “Would’ve been a shame it had burned up. The last of the Starliner SP’s. It’s a bit of history, that’s what it is. A piece of history…” He paused. “However, with the damage, it’s not likely…”

  Change interrupted him, she already knew how bad off the ship was. “How is the fuel loading proceeding?”

  “We restored the containment system to the cargo tanks as first order of business,” he said. “The cargo handlers have been filling her up. Another 35,000 liters and she’ll be topped off.”

  “What are those men doing to the other ships?” Change asked, pointing to the ships docked above, below, and adjacent to Liminix CH-53. ”

  “The three ships we are taking out will all have explosive charges attached to key systems and structural points,” Miko told her. “If the Solarite pirates capture them, we will destroy the ships.”

  “All right,” Change told him.

  “We could do the same to your ship, to Liminix CH-53,” Moto offered. “Death is preferable to capture by the Solarite pirates. But we don’t have time.”

  “We’ll take our chances in the asteroid field,” Change told him.

  Miko touched her shoulder and spoke confidentially, “You did a real fine job of piloting the ship through the sun, through the debris field, and avoiding the pirates. Manager Aso thinks we could use someone like you.”

  There was a clanking high above them. They looked up to see Jojo clambering over the conduits that ran along the top of the chamber.

  Change sighed, “Thank you for the offer, but I will remain with Pegasus.” Miko understood, but still he warned her. “There’s a very good chance the decoy ship isn’t going to make it. You can pilot one of our ships. I know you may not like the idea… but you could make a better life for yourself among us.”

  Change looked out at the ships again. “I already have the life I want,” she said unconvincingly. “I’m not piloting the decoy ship, Matt Driver is,” she informed him. “It will make it, and I will be on the command deck when it does.” Miko started to interrupt but Change cut him short. “Good luck. I hope you make it.” Miko accepted the finality of her rejection. “We’re going to continue repairs until the last possible micron. Your Lieutenant Jeff has made a lot of progress integrating the controls on the Number 3 engine, even though we had to salvage it from a CE class.”

  “If he had been on from the beginning, the ship would be a lot more spaceworthy,” Change growled.

  Miko frowned. “Aso was not supposed to be the station manager. He was Mr. Hata’s assistant, before Mr. Hata died of radiation poisoning. He… he is not the most effective of men.

  And the Solarite pirates terrify him.”

  Change could help snickering. “Incompetent managers seem to be a constant throughout the galaxy.”

  “In the best of times, they are an annoyance,” Miko agreed. “But in the worst of times…” He left the thought hanging there, and went back to work on Liminix.

  Liminix CH-53: Four Hours Later

  They had just managed to stabilize power to the Number three engine control panel when the attack they had been dreading commenced. The stations alarms began whining, and the voice of Mr. Moto came over the station’s communication network. “The Solarite Pirates have launched their attac
k. Fourteen to Twenty incoming missiles have been detected.

  Detonations are imminent.”

  “That’s it, we launch now,” Change declared above the warning sirens. She was standing on the dock with Miko.

  “We still have time,” Miko insisted. “The pirates are just testing our defenses. I’d like get the reverse thrusters on three operational, and get your plasma cannons operational. We have the time to do this so long as no one panics.”

  The next voice they heard was Aso on the communication network. “All ships prepare for immediate evacuation. All crew to evacuation ships. We are abandoning the station.” Miko through his laser spanner into his tool kit. “Unfortunately, someone has panicked.”

  A “chunt chunt” noise echoed through the station. “What is that?” Eliza asked.

  “Moto is firing the last of our missiles and particle cannons in hopes of holding off the pirates while we escape,” Miko explained. “The weapons will be ineffective, and will only alert the pirates to our desperate situation. I must get to my ship now.” He favored her with one last look. “May the fire ride with you, Navigator Change.”

  He exited through the hatch. A few seconds later, the first shockwave rocked the station. Change ran to the airlock and boarded her ship. She met Driver in the passageway between the engine control room and the bridge. “Are you ready?” she demanded.