by RJ Johnson
"As you wish, sir." Amla kneeled down next to the door, opened up a maintenance panel and began disconnecting wires from within.
Meade checked his ArmBar once again. Six percent. He hoped that whatever magic the small servant girl could work she would hurry up about it - they didn't have much time left.
The door slide open slightly and oxygen flowed into the arboretum in a gale force. Meade felt his ears pop as they adjusted.
"Come on!" Meade urged Amla, "You've almost got it!"
Amla worked quickly, reconnecting the wires within the panel and the door slid completely open. Sinjakama quickly exited into the hallway bent over in exhaustion as he caught his breath. Meade, Emeline, Suresh and Amla quickly followed.
"We have to find out what's happening." Meade wheezed. "Where's the bridge?"
"This way." Sinjakama said pointing down the hallway.
The group moved through the hallway the klaxon sounding the alarm loudly in their ears. Instructions in Chinese and Hindi were blaring over the loudspeakers. Sinjakama went pale as he listened.
"What is it? What are they saying?" Meade asked.
"It's a general call to abandon ship." Sinjakama said. "Whatever happened is considered catastrophic."
"I'm glad I'm charging you my hazard pay rate." Meade said as they rounded the corner that would take them to the bridge.
"I'm afraid those credits will be useless to you if you're not around to collect." Sinjakama said grimly.
"Then I s’pose we'll have to fix whatever's gone wrong." Meade replied wryly. "I'd hate to get this far and not get home to spend 'em."
Meade was interrupted by another loud bang as something large bounced off the ship's hull.
"Asteroids?" Meade asked Emeline as they approached the bridge.
"Only thing that's out here that dangerous, but contrary to popular belief, asteroids aren't all that close together in the 'belt. If the pilot's worth half his salt, he should've been able to set a course to avoid 'em all" Emeline said worried.
They approached the door to the bridge, the flashing red lights lighting their way to the massive door. It too was on lock down and Meade nodded to Amla to override the system. Working quickly, the door slide open and they were greeted with bedlam.
Several men were on the ground gasping for air, as repair crews dashed around the cockpit spraying Quickfoam on the small holes that had been opening up all over the ship's hull.
Sinjakama strode to the Captain and grasped the man's shoulder turning the man towards him. The body slumped over his seat, a large bloody hole open on his forehead. Sinjakama jumped back crying out in surprise.
"What's happened?" Meade asked one of the repair crewman.
"We don't know." He said frantically through his rebreather. "We were cruising through the belt when decompression alarms began going off all over the ship."
"Why didn't the magnetic shield protect us from the micro-meteorite storm?" Sinjakama demanded. "This is not suppose to happen!"
The crewman shrugged as he moved to the opposite side of the cockpit, spraying the quickfoam over a tiny hole sealing the cockpit closed. "The captain said something about the Higgs field malfunctioning, but I don't know why. He was killed before he could diagnose what was wrong."
"Who gave the order to abandon ship?" Sinjakama asked frantically. "Turn off that damn klaxon and repair the problem now!"
Meade could see Sinjakama was panicking. Control over his elements was probably the only thing that kept the man sane. Meade pulled the Captain's dead body out of the command chair and pulled up the diagnostic screen. Decompression alarms were flashing red all over the ship display screen.
"Em, get over here and help me out."
Emeline pulled the dead co-pilot out of his seat and began typing quickly on the command console. "The crewman is right, the Higgs field has gone beyond the electroplating and is being projected a good five klicks in front of us."
Meade went pale. Gravity was a weak force, but at that distance and at the speed they were traveling through space, the micrometeorites were being pulled into their gravity well and slamming into their duraplating with incredible force. No matter how strong the duraplating was, the combined energy was much higher than anything created on Earth could stand. They'd have to fix the Higgs Field generator if they had any hope of getting out of this alive.
"Where's the Higgs generator Sinjakama?" Meade asked, turning towards the pale engineer.
"Doctor..."
"Is this really the time doc?" Meade asked annoyed. "Less concern about the honorifics and more about our lives, how 'bout it?"
Meade turned to the crewman, "Can we cut power to the lower decks?"
The crewman spoke up eagerly, "We could, but the backup systems would just switch on and we would be right back where we started from. You'd have to kill that power manually. You'll have to go down five decks to engineering and steerage to shut off the Higgs Generator directly."
"Lead the way." Meade said standing up from the command console. "Em, keep us on course and see if you can slow us down some. Might be we can lessen the impact from those things out there."
"I'm on it." Emeline replied, one hand typing commands and the other throttling back the ignition. "But Jim, the readouts I'm getting from down there say the Higgs Field is alternating between zero and plus four G's..."
"I 'spose all those zero G fights weren't such a waste of time after all." Meade said a smile touching his lips.
The crewman opened the door and indicated Meade should follow him. Meade followed him out the door and smiled. At least the voyage to Rosetta was proving to be more entertaining than he thought it would.
Chapter Six
Meade ran down the corridor behind the Crewman. Five decks didn't sound like much, but on a massive vessel like Sinjakama's, it was further away than Meade thought they had time for. It wouldn't be long before the whole ship was turned into Swiss cheese and Meade would have to forgo the monster payday Sinjakama was promising him - well, that and his life. He'd have preferred there was less danger on this case, but then, what was life worth without some fear of it ending?
They made it to the lower deck and Meade suddenly felt as if he weighed four hundred pounds. The gravity well plates controlled by the Higgs Generator on this deck were definitely malfunctioning. He had gotten used to twice earth norm gravity because of his experience in the Zero G fights he participated in back on Mars, but, this was unlike anything he had experienced before. Meade reckoned they were approaching at least three times normal Earth gravity. If the Higgs field was being projected five kilometers into space at four times normal gravity, then it was no wonder that the ship was being ripped apart by micrometeorites.
"Through there." The Crewman pointed, struggling to lift his arm. Unlike Meade, the young crewman wasn't used to over gravitation and Meade could see he was having trouble standing. His back was hunched and looked like he wanted to collapse in exhaustion.
"Stay here kid, I'll take it from... look out!" Meade cried out as the heavy gravity broke a support beam above them. The beam fell and Meade was helpless as he watched the beam snap down on top of the crewman slicing the man's body in half.
Meade fell back, horrified at what he had just witnessed. Swallowing, he tapped quickly on his ArmBar, pinging Emeline. She appeared on his viewscreen, as she piloted the ship frantically punching buttons and maneuvering the Garuda out of harm's way. He forced the image of the crewman being cleaved in half out of his mind, "How long do we have Em?"
Even through the small viewscreen, he could see she was incredibly pale, "I managed to avoid the biggest storm of micrometeorites so far, but we picked up a big bastard of a rock heading right for us." His viewscreen flashed and on it, appeared an asteroid a couple hundred feet across. "I can't shake it, not while it's caught in our gravity well, it's up to you to shut down the Higgs generator, or we'll have to abandon ship."
"NO!" Sinjakama cried out over the comm and appeared in the viewscreen
over Emeline's shoulder. "Mr. Meade, you shut down that generator. I will not abandon our mission to Rosetta! Do you hear me? I want it shut down, whatever it takes!"
"How long do we have?" Meade asked ignoring Sinjakama as he moved slowly through the hallway. His boots loudly reverberating in the tightly enclosed space. Meade could feel the gravity getting stronger the closer he got to the Higgs generator at the bow of the ship.
"Maybe five minutes?" Emeline's voice wavered, Meade could tell she was scared, which only made him nervous, Emeline wasn't scared of anything. "Jim, unless you can shut down the Higgs field…” she shook her head and looked up at the screen. “There's just no way the Garuda can withstand an impact like that."
Meade swallowed as he strained to pick up his feet from the corridor's floor. It was taking all his strength to even stay standing. "I'm on it Em, you do what you can. I'll take care of this."
"You'd better." Emeline replied wryly, her hands a blur over the controls, "You've still got a bar tab to pay off."
"Well, damn, and here I was hoping for an extension." Meade replied. He shut the ArmBar off and got to work.
Meade reached the door to the generator room and punched in the override code. The door slide open and he stepped into the room. As he crossed the threshold, Meade collapsed to the floor as gravity doubled on him once again. He estimated it was at least four times earth normal gravity at this point. He would be lucky to avoid breaking any bones under the massive gravity fluctuations.
Hand over hand, Meade crawled slowly to the Higgs generator. He grunted, each meter a herculean victory over the massive gravity that had taken over the deck.
"You're almost there." Emeline said over the comm. "Just another thirty meters and then turn right."
"Easier said than done Em." Meade grunted through clenched teeth. The closer he got to the machine, the harder it was to stand. Usually these sorts of technical malfunctions were figured out before a ship left Drydock, but the shakedown process had been rushed, so things like this had been overlooked. That's what happens when you want to save a buck, Meade thought to himself. He didn't blame Sinjakama for rushing the ship out of dry-dock, if it were his father, he move heaven and Earth to get to where he needed, but he sure as hell could curse Sinjakama for skimping on the fine tuning.
He pushed those thoughts aside. His head was beginning to hurt bad, the weight on his frame now becoming almost too much to bear. He fell to one knee and struggled to get up, he was almost there, he couldn't give up now.
Emeline's voice came over his ArmBar, "You're almost there, turn right at the next junction and thirty meters ahead should be the Higgs Field Generator for Deck Five. Keep at it."
"What's the reading?" Meade grunted. Breathing was a problem now. His breath sounded ragged and he wanted to conserve his oxygen to move himself down the hallway.
"You're at plus 4.5 G." Emeline tried to sound encouraging, "Nothing you can't handle."
"Come on down and join me then," Meade said. His arm was in terrible pain. The ArmBar was beginning to weigh heavily on his forearm and was almost too much to bear. "How long til impact?"
"Four minutes." Emeline sounded worried, "Jim, I hate to say it, but I think we need to abandon ship. If you turn around now, you can still make it into a stasis pod and then..."
"No chance." Meade wheezed, "Rather die down here than be a frozen popsicle in a tin can for six weeks." He grasped his ArmBar, the weight of it was going to break his arm if he didn't take it off. "Have... to... take ArmBar Off. Keep shouting over comm, til I get there."
"Jim! No!" Emeline shouted over the comm, "It's the only way I can track you..."
"No... choice..." Meade stopped and rested for a moment catching his breath. The added gravity from the malfunctioning Higgs Field was beginning to be too much for him to even breathe properly. He had to make it there or he was going to die wheezing and alone in the middle of nowhere. He always figured when the end came, he'd be in bed, one hand on his whiskey and the other around a beautiful woman.
He wrenched the ArmBar off his forearm and heard a snap as he broke his arm taking the heavy computer off his forearm. He cried out in pain as he unceremoniously dropped the gadget to the deck floor. He hadn't taken it off since his father had given it to him so many years ago. Even now through the pain and in the supercharged gravity, his arm felt light and strange, as if he had torn off a limb.
Rounding the corner, Meade could make out the Higgs generator ahead. Only a few dozen meters to go, but standing was beginning to be too much effort. Meade dropped to his stomach and began crawling, arm over arm, every inch a victory. He glanced back at his abandoned ArmBar and watched it crush to the floor. The electronics sparked, and he grimaced. No more help from Emeline. For better or worse, he was on his own.
He counted down the seconds knowing that without him, they were all going to die. He imagined Sinjakama up on the command deck demanding they abandon ship and Emeline refusing to budge. He knew how stubborn she could be, and if he was staying til the bitter end, then so was she. Somehow, over the years, she had turned into an incredible friend, and he vowed to start being nicer to her. Though, she'd probably prefer he paid his bar tab first.
Finally reaching the Higgs field generator, he reached up and slowly began feeling around for the command console to enter in the emergency shutdown command. Confused, when he couldn't find it, Meade painfully craned his neck to look at the machine closer, the hair in his face annoyingly heavy. He laughed, half in pain, half at the irony.
There was no command console. The field generator was run off of a Consortium worker's ArmBar. The exhaustion and lack of oxygen to his brain were finally beginning to take its toll. There was no hope, and without his ArmBar (which now lay an impossible looking thirty meters away), there was nothing he could do. By his count, a good four minutes had passed already and they were just waiting for death from the massive rock plummeting towards their puny spaceship. The gravity along with the speed with which they were traveling, Meade only hoped they put on a decent light show for anyone who might be looking in their direction.
His arm fell, touching something in his left jacket pocket and he felt the outline. It was Aaron Shane's fancy ArmBar. He had stuck it in his pocket after relieving the gangster of it on Mars (an event that felt years ago) and forgotten about it. Laughing hysterically, he pulled it out of his jacket pocket, the ArmBar feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds. Struggling mightily, he pulled it onto his arm and booted it up. It was much faster than his old one, full of all the latest gadget, gizmos and applications he could possibly need to hack his way into anything the Coalition or Consortium had to offer. Typing quickly, he accessed the Higgs Generator's mainframe and disabled the malfunctioning equipment.
Suddenly he felt himself rise off the deck, all the weight of the gravity that had been crushing him instantly relieved.
"Shit ya!" Meade shouted in victory and did a happy weightless jig, which Meade figured if anyone could see him probably looked more like he was having a seizure.
Still chuckling, he tapped into the ship's comm and pinged Emeline's ArmBar. Her image appeared, her face relieved when she saw him on the screen. "How we looking Em?" He asked, still catching his breathe.
She grinned broadly. "You like to leave things til the last second I'll give ya that, but we're safe. With the gravity well gone, I moved the ship out of the asteroid's path just in time."
Meade sighed in relief. "Tell Sinjakama, we're gonna have to discuss adjusting my pay rate. Hazard pay doesn't include repair calls."
Sinjakama appeared on his viewscreen, looking more than a little relieved. "I can assure you Mr. Meade, you will be well-compensated for the inconveniences you have experienced." Sinjakama said, appearing on Meade's appropriated ArmBar.
"Just make it so I'm able to drink my whiskey in peace." Meade said over the comm. "I think I've earned a day or two off."
He shut his new ArmBar down and relaxed for the first time in what felt like da
ys. He always said man was not meant to travel in space, and sometimes, he really hated being right.
Chapter Seven
Meade spent the remainder of the trip to Rosetta in the Medical Bay. The high gravity in the lower deck had hurt him bad, with his arm taking most of the damage broken as it was in nearly four places.
He woke with a start and found himself staring into Suresh's worried face. The boy stood hovering over him, relieved once he saw Meade open his eyes.
"Mr. Meade. I am happy to report that you have recovered nicely from your injuries."
"How bad was it?" Meade asked wincing as he sat up. He looked at his left arm where his father's ArmBar had broken his arm, which was now covered in BlasterCast (the cast would fall off naturally in a few days once the injected nanobots had finished repairing his broken bone)
