by Phil Rossi
“Welcome back, Lieutenant,” said a voice from behind her. She suppressed a frown and swiveled on the stool.
“Hi, Captain.”
Captain Walter Benedict stood in the doorway, black mug of coffee forever attached to one hand, cigarette between the fingers of the other. His long, pepper black hair was matted to the sides of his head and it was a curled mess where it hit his shoulders. Expressionless, he watched her with his one good, blue eye. Benedict’s other eye was made from glass and was as unnatural and protruding as ever. Marisa always wondered why he hadn’t opted for an implant when he had lost the eye in a knife fight so many years ago.
“How did your meeting with Kendall go?” he asked.
“There was no meeting,” she replied.
“That a fact?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I thought he might’ve had something to say to you about those armed mercenaries shooting up that fine tavern. He requested a personnel list of hangar security on duty the afternoon those assholes arrived,” Benedict took a drink of coffee. “I told him I would deal with my crew and that I didn’t need him involved. He gave me the impression he’d pursue it anyway—you know how Kendall is. I went to bat pretty damn heavy for you, Mari. If he does talk to you, I’d expect nothing more than a slap on the wrist.” Benedict nodded once.
Marisa felt relieved, though at the same time she wanted to shout, People died because of me! She bit her tongue—exhaustion was making her feel dramatic. She was happy that the captain had stuck up for her. When it came to locking horns with Mayor Kendall, most people backed down. She saw no reason for her captain to behave any differently. Benedict held her gaze and Marisa felt herself lips tug themselves into a grin. It felt good to smile. She had made a mistake at the docks. That was all.
That’s not all, she thought. There’s no way I could’ve missed those guns.
“Well. He hasn’t bothered me yet and I’m not going to go to him. So. We’ll see.” Marisa did find it a little odd, though. Kendall was always quick to come down on anyone who fucked up. He came down hard and in a timely fashion. But, there had been no one waiting for her when she was discharged from the hospital. There had been no one sitting in her apartment smoking a cigarette—no messages on the comm.
Benedict said, “To that end, I’ve decided to take you off of hangar detail for a while. To give you some opportunity to mull over where you screwed the pooch.”
Marisa chewed on her bottom lip for an instant, keeping back a rebuttal.
“Welcome to your new job. You’ll work the monitor station here in this office for the time being,” Benedict said, and sounded satisfied.
“Great.” Marisa turned her attention to the monitors.
“I knew you’d be pleased.” He tossed her a wink. “Now, get to work.”
(•••)
“We have arrived, Captain,” Bean’s voice drifted from the comm.
“I see that, Bean.”
The asteroid field drifted over the frozen surface of Anrar’s most distant planetary body. This field was nowhere near as dense as the site of Gerald’s first haul for Kendall, and for that Gerald was thankful. All the same, he felt out of his comfort zone. Gerald was used to flying alone. There was something about having a passenger aboard, as mouse-ish in her silence as Ina was, that made him nervous.
“Shall I take us to the coordinates, or would you rather show off for the lady?” said the ship’s computer.
“Take us in, Bean.”
The hauler banked and the thrusters fired. Bean brought them into the heart of the asteroid field on a slow approach. Dark, rolling boulders drifted past the viewport, breathtakingly close. Gerald glanced at Ina, who for once was not looking at her feet, but instead gazed out the viewport in wide-eyed wonder. A stray lock of hair had fallen across one high cheekbone. He felt the irrational urge to brush it away. Her eyes were like bits of blue-gray glass; they moved from the viewport to meet his.
They both looked away.
“I haven’t spent all that much time in space,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
“I can tell.” Gerald smiled. “I see crap… rather, things like this every day. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I don’t know how you could ever get used to it.”
He looked at her again and she was watching him with keen interest. He shrugged and glanced over to the radar array.
“Now, who the hell is that?” Gerald said.
“What’s wrong?” Ina asked.
There was a red blip eight thousand meters out.
“It’s a ship,” Bean replied, “but not the ship.”
“Has it spotted us?” Gerald leaned forward.
“It would not appear so; however, it is difficult to say. There is a lot of magnetic disturbance out here,” Bean said.
“Kill all non-critical systems. Let us drift.”
“Captain, you might be interested to know the transponder code is registered to Crescent.”
“Very interested, Bean. Can you activate the cameras? Or would that put off too much of an energy signature?” Gerald asked.
“Shuttles have a weak sensory array. Our cameras will not alert them to our presence.”
The visual camera display shimmered to life in front of the control couch. It showed not one, but two specks against the milky body of Anrar VI. The camera zoomed in, each frame increasing with a jerk. Two ships were tethered together.
“Son of a bitch,” Gerald said. “There’s two?”
A space-suited figure crawled out of an unmarked cargo carrier’s top hatch. He was followed by another individual. The pair pumped their legs, leapt from the cargo ship, and floated a short distance to a Crescent cargo vessel’s open rear hatch.
“Are we safe out here?” Ina asked. Faint rose petals blossomed on her cheeks. She looked from the viewport to Gerald, her eyes reflecting the same sense of unease that he was feeling. Something glittered in her liquid blue gaze. She asked with such anticipation in her voice it seemed to Gerald that she wanted the answer to be no.
“Well.” Gerald brought up the radar overlay with a wave of the hand and zoomed out several clicks with a twirl of his fingers. “So long as we don’t see any more colored dots in this view, yeah, we should be okay. And if they don’t notice us floating out here.” Gerald gestured to the camera view that now showed the two suited figures floating back to the unmarked cargo vessel; they were guiding a long, heavy-duty crate into the ship’s hold. What is that? Gerald wondered.
“So we wait?” Ina asked before Gerald could speculate any further.
“Yeah. Pretty simple. We wait.”
Ina sighed. Gerald could see her breath. He was surprised at how quickly the heat had dissipated once the life support systems were cut to a minimum. Bean shouldn’t have cooled off so fast. Clearly, there was still collision damage that needed repairing. He was about to ask Bean to check into it when Ina placed her hand on his cheek. It was cool and soft. Gerald looked at her, his brow rising in surprise and more than mild confusion.
“Is my hand cold?” she asked.
“Yes. A little bit. I’m sorry about that.” He was about to go on to an explanation of bad circuits and clogged vents when she put her other hand on his cheek.
“How about this one?”
“Yeah, that one too.” Gerald felt his cheeks getting hot despite the cabin temperature.
“How long do you think we’ll be waiting?”
Ina inched toward him, close enough that he could smell her hair. It smelled clean—like spring time, planet-side. The scent made him feel a little light-headed.
“I don’t know. Not long? Long?”
“Oh.” Ina trailed the fingertips of one hand down the line of his jaw and down his neck to rest on his collarbone. She closed the distance between them, her arms sliding out over his shoulders. She brushed her lips over his. Gerald was not surprised that they were as soft as her hands. He brought his head back, but she was still only centimeters away.
Her breath drifted toward him in warm puffs.
“Ina. I’m flattered, but I’ve… ”
“Got a girlfriend millions of kilometers and two hulls away?” She silenced him with her index finger. “Or is it a wife? A boyfriend? I don’t really care. I don’t know what’s come over me, Gerald. But, were I you, I’d consider myself lucky to be here.” She kissed him again, this time with a fierceness that caught him off guard. Ina pushed him back into the control couch and straddled him. Her hair hung down over his face and tickled his cheeks. For an instant, he thought he glimpsed a shadow behind her. A trick of the light.
“Gerald.” She paused, rocking forward and back once. “Captain.” She bit her lip. “You no doubt have a bunk on this ship? With blankets?”
He nodded in response.
“Good. Take me there.”
(•••)
At first, it was cool in the small sleep quarters. Gerald had closed the overhead vents to preserve what little warmth remained. Forty-five minutes later, he wished he had kept them open. Their lovemaking turned the four-by-four meter enclosure into a sauna. The smell of their combined sweat and the tang of sex was pungent, but not unpleasant. Ina lay beside him, her arm and leg draped over Gerald’s naked body. His chest rose and fell as his breathing returned to normal. Either he had set the life support systems too low or he had to start hitting the gym.
“Thank you,” Ina said and looked up at him, blinking her wide, clear eyes twice. She gave him a tentative smile, closer to the shyness he had witnessed at Heathen’s and again in the hangar.
Gerald didn’t reply, but only returned the grin. Ina had been far more adept between the sheets than he would’ve expected. It’s always the quiet ones.
“Don’t tell my father.”
“Not a word.” Gerald slipped from her slender arms and pulled on his pants. He smiled, trying to make his face appear as safe as possible. He placed a hand on her bare thigh. “Really, I’m not such a bad guy.” Just weak willed, he mused and thought of Marisa. He pushed the guilt down before it could sneak up on him.
“I’m counting on it,” she said, strangely.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He removed his hand.
“I don’t know. That’s not what I meant to come out.” She looked away. “I’m not… I never…Sorry.”
“It’s okay. About that day in the cafeteria… ” Gerald said. “I wanted to ask you about it in Heathen’s, but… ”
“What day in the cafeteria?” She looked confused.
“You seemed very upset about something? Gave me a stern talking-to.”
“I don’t ever remember being in the cafeteria,” she said, and sounded perfectly sincere. Gerald nodded and shrugged.
“Maybe I dreamed it. Look, I’ll be on the bridge. Come out when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
“And that’s enough of that. No more apologizing or thanking—don’t make me lock you in here.”
Her lips quirked in a ghost of a grin and he left her there to get dressed.
(•••)
The mystery ships were gone by the time Gerald returned to the bridge. He sat in the control couch and watched the empty camera feed for several seconds, tapping his chin as he contemplated the next move. He waved away the camera overlay, replacing it with the radar. The field was clear, which meant nothing, Gerald knew. It could fill with a dozen red blips at any second. He reinitialized the ship systems one by one and Bean began to hum to life around him.
“Bean,” Gerald said.
“Take us to the coordinates?” the computer replied.
“You got it.”
Ina returned to the bridge as the engines fired. The change in inertia caused her to stumble. Gerald grabbed her by the waist and she placed her hands on his. He settled her into the couch beside him. He didn’t look at her. It was time to focus now. It didn’t matter if Bean was in control of the ship or not.
(•••)
The comm crackled.
“Captain,” Bean’s voice sounded tinny in the small helmet speakers. “The lifeboat’s reactor core is still hot.” Gerald stopped his descent and gripped the hauling tether with more force. Starlight glittered on the tiny, interlocking plates of the cable. It looked like the hide of some chrome-scaled, interstellar snake.
“You’re kidding me,” Gerald said.
“Older model ships relied on heavy fusion cores for propulsion. The lifeboat’s core would still be hot three hundred years from now. You are going to have to jettison it.”
“At the risk of sounding repetitive here—you’re kidding me.”
Bean was right, of course. When they dislodged the vessel from the crater wall, the lifeboat would be under more stress than it had been in hundreds of years. The stress just might be enough to agitate the reactor and blow the whole ship into pieces, taking Bean, Gerald, and Ina along with it.
Gerald ran his hand over the edge of one of the lifeboat’s tail fins. Dust came away in a milky cloud that hung suspended in the cold starlight. He looked to the gaping opening in the lifeboat’s side. The metal was twisted and sharp. He hoped that…
“You’ll have to go in through the opening in the starboard side of the lifeboat.”
“I can manually pop one of the belly hatches,” Gerald said.
“Captain. I’m sure the mechanisms that allow for manual hatch release are sealed from exposure to hundreds of years of space dust.”
“I could tear my suit if I go through that hole.” Gerald let go of the tether and fired one of the suit’s small air jets, propelling himself to the lifeboat’s hull. He landed silently and the magnets in his boots automatically adjusted to simulate 9.8 gravities. Measured steps carried him along the curving hull to the underside of the vessel, his booted feet kicking up small, cream-colored clouds of dust with each silent step. The helmet lamp grew brighter as it adapted to the darkness. Gerald crouched and began wiping the hull-plates clean until he found one belly hatch. After several attempts at turning the manual release, Gerald realized that trying to open the thing by hand was futile. For a moment, he considered letting a drone try to open it, but in the end he knew it would only be a waste of time. The hatch was sealed. He grumbled as he returned to the starboard side of the lifeboat, looking up to Bean’s bulbous body when he halted. Ina was watching him through the viewport, and he waved. He felt like an idiot for doing so. She waved back.
“Captain. Bear in mind, I am not making you go through with this. Neither is our guest.”
The comm crackled and it was Ina speaking now.
“Why don’t you send a drone to release the core?” she asked.
“We’re wasting time talking. The drone would be just as likely to blow us all to bits—if not more so. I’m going in.”
Gerald walked to the edge of the wound in the lifeboat’s side. He wiped away some of the dust with the pad of his thumb, exposing more silvery material. There was no sign of charring. An explosion within the shuttle hadn’t made the opening. Gerald could not begin to imagine what had.
“Bean. What are the rad levels like in there? Am I already frying?”
“I would have informed you if radiation levels were not within tolerable limits.”
“All right, then. Here we go.”
Gerald released the magnetic hold of his boots. Firing the suit’s jets for an instant lifted him off of the hull by several meters. He guided the suit above the opening and then began his descent, drifting into the lifeboat at an excruciatingly slow rate. The metal tatters that had once been hull plates were as jagged as they were sharp—they looked serrated. Gerald heaved a dramatic sigh of relief when he cleared the opening.
“I’m in.”
Gerald continued to settle toward the port wall of the compartment he had entered. All he could see was the lifeboat’s deck in front of him and darkness to either side. The deck was riddled with debris. Everything was covered in a creamy concoction of frost and dust. He startled when h
is feet contacted with solid paneling and bit his bottom lip to keep from yelping. Re-activating the magnets in his boots, he walked down the port wall to the floor. His helmet lamp cut a shaft through the consummate darkness—he had entered at the hibernation chamber. The floor was lined with rows of long, slender sarcophagi. He couldn’t tell if they were occupied or not. Their interiors were dark; ice crystals obscured the glass surfaces of the tubes.
The way he had entered was a path of destruction. A single row hibernation tubes had been busted apart. The damage seemed to culminate with the gaping hole. Gerald began to feel a rising tingle of fear, starting first at his balls and then clawing for his chest. His breath came hard and his head darted from side to side.
“Captain, your respiration rate is increasing rapidly. You will hyperventilate if you don’t control your breathing.”
He heard Bean’s voice but he didn’t comprehend it. He took several staggering steps backwards and got tripped up—it almost felt like something had grabbed his ankle. His boots detached from the deck and he drifted to the port wall. His heart pounded in his ears. He couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t breathe.
