Melina wrestled with the cargo net she’d purposefully tangled herself into, until she managed to get her helmet wedged into the collar clamps and latched the seal. The suit reacted by hissing in her ear with promises of comfortable pressure levels and easy respiration. She became weightless once more.
“Go ahead and void the cargo hold, Ox,” she said to the XO.
After giving pause, he said, “You know what? I changed my mind, don’t call me that… it just makes it weird.”
The bay doors retracted, revealing a quartet of TODDs who were there to pilot the Mainsail with her. They were fittingly referred to as “The Four Corners.” She was going to fly the “Catcher’s Mitt,” the deepest and centermost part of the Mainsail. Melina’s job would be to boost the thrusters on the Mitt hard enough to keep the boulders from ripping the ship apart, but not so hard as to fling them into the Natlie. Everyone knows how icebergs hitting boats turns out.
The Four Corners’ job was to thrust in such a manner that their quadrant became wider or narrower to intercept chunks along the way, funneling them to the Mitt with enough control to allow for proper counterthrusting.
There were dozens of unmanned sails surrounding the Natlie that auto-deployed and remained static relative to the hull, and there was even a barrier cone designed to protect the nose of the ship, but those sails all served one purpose: to funnel everything back to the Catcher’s Mitt.
“Stations, people!” Melina said.
“We’re not people,” said one of the TODDs.
She didn’t reply, instead using her suit jets to descend to her rig, a white, oblong pod that housed the flight controls for the CO2 thrusters she’d use to maneuver her part of the giant net. She floated to the pod untethered, rather than climbing down, which would have been the proper protocol, to convey a sense of urgency to her crew, who were each strapping into the open-space cabins of their respective pods.
Gary gave them the two-minute warning.
“Thank you, XO,” she said as she climbed into the bucket of her rig and strapped herself into the seat. “Are we all here?” she asked.
“Station One, check,” said the upper-right corner pilot, who in turn released a burst of compressed gas, confirming his jets were working, something each station had to do prior to unlatching the Mainsail.
“Station Two, check.”
“Station Three, checkers.”
“Estación Cuatro, el check-oh,” said the upper-left and final Corner, call-sign 3386, and pulsed his obligatory portion of gas.
“Don’t try to get cute, 3386. It’s wholly unbelievable coming from you.”
“Sorry about that. Just embracing my new culture,” TODD 3386 said.
“What’s he talking about?” Melina demanded.
“He’s José, now,” Gary answered.
“No way!”
“Si, señora,” José replied.
“Whatever. Estación Cinco a go-go,” Melina said and tested her thrusters in turn. She flipped her visor down and the HUD powered on without fanfare. “XO, release the clamps.”
“Aye, Captain.”
A two-second burst of CO2 set her pod in motion, dragging with it the two-hundred-meter by two-hundred-meter square netting that was the Mainsail. The ensemble unfurled in a patient ballet as she guided the Catcher’s Mitt down and away from the ship’s cargo hold.
“Corners out,” she said, and José and company released rhythmic gas bursts of their own, setting their edges in motion.
“Charging perimeter in three, two, one,” Gary said. When he reached “one” in his count, an electrostatic charge energized stabilization rods that filled the outer rim of the sail. Hundreds of meter-long segments snapped together to form four rigid but flexible poles, each of which abutted the corner pods where the TODDs sat.
“It all looks good from up here, Captain. Contact in ninety seconds,” Gary announced.
“Roger that, XO.”
“Did you need something, Captain?” one of the Corners radioed.
“No, why?”
“I thought I heard you say ‘Roger’ is all,”
“You’ve got to be kidding me—they gave you Roger? A bot on a military ice-runner is named Roger?”
“Afraid so,” Roger said cheerfully. He’d been dying for this moment since he’d caught wind of his new moniker.
The dance began as a meter-wide by two-meter-long chunk of blue-white water-ice came into view.
“Okay, well let’s dispense with the pleasantries. We have José and Roger… who else we got?” Melina asked.
“I’m Phil,” said one of the TODDs and the others all snickered in anticipation of number four’s announcement. Phil drove his corner up and away, snaring the chunk and sending it tumbling down to Melina.
“And I’m Rodger.”
“I already heard from you, Roger, try and keep up,” Melina said.
“Did you need something?” Roger asked.
“I think she meant me,” said Rodger. “I’m Rodger with a ‘D,’ he’s just—”
“Zip it. I’m goddamn sorry I asked. We don’t have time for this horseshit,” Melina grumbled as she began counterthrusting to catch the boulder.
“Yes sir, sorry,” the Rogers said in unison.
The boulder made impact firmly with the net and Melina accepted its weight with ease. “We got that one,” she confirmed. “I thought you said this one was gonna be a challenge, Gary?”
“Be careful what you wish for, Captain. You’re not seeing what I am.”
“Well, then, take us into the thick of it, we’re all set here,” Melina ordered.
“Aye, Captain,” Gary responded and immediately the Natlie’s hull jets fired, angling the ship up relative to Europa’s surface, and pulling the Mainsail further into the debris field. “By the way,” Gary continued, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, my historical records tell me what a horse is, and the other thing, of course, I know after a decade serving under meat-bags, but I don’t feel like that’s what you’re saying. What is ‘horseshit’?” Gary asked.
“Your attitude, at the moment. Stop calling me a meat-bag.”
José was the first of the sail jockeys to see the mountainous chunk. “Ay ay ay! Look at the size of that one! Oh Dios mío! It’s probably got its own gravity well.”
“Enough with the racist stereotypes,” Melina warned, “One more and I’ll dock your pay.”
“Women, am I right?” José said as he deflected some sedan-sized pieces down the net.
“That technically wasn’t racist,” Rodger said, then thrusted his corner out to remove slack so that the sedan-sized chunk would find its best angle down to the Mitt. Each of the corners and Melina were now busy with their own part in the choreography, absently jawing at one another all the while—a skill they’d perfected over the course of hundreds of missions and many years’ service in the Solar Confederacy.
“If we can snag that behemoth the rest will just follow suit, like little moons,” Phil said.
“Sounds like somebody’s been studying up on gravity,” José said.
“You hear that, Gary? Let’s go home early; set a course for that big mother.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Gary said.
“Gary, what do your historical records tell you about ‘walking the plank’? Do you want I should have you walk the plank?”
“I hardly see how that would work in zero gravity, it would be much more practical to simply put me out a pressurized airlock.”
“Or you could just take us to that big mother,” Melina said.
“Roger that, Captain.”
“What did he say?” said Roger and Rodger in tandem.
“You guys have been planning this stunt for a while now, haven’t you?” Melina asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Roger.
“How’s it working out? As you’d hoped?”
“Not in the least,” said Rodger.
“Speaking of gravity,” Phil interjected.
“Were we?” Melina said.
“I’ve been doing a lot of reading about gravity lately. It’s a pretty heavy subject.”
“Not the time, Phil,” Melina said, then added, “I, however, am reading a book on anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down.”
In unison, every TODD on her boat, twenty-seven total, even the XO who wasn’t directed by North-Star and therefore was free to make his own decisions, gave an exaggerated “Ahaaaaaahhhh” of laughter. The cacophony was deafening.
The monstrous chunk came into Melina’s field of view for the first time and she questioned whether she’d been too quick to order Gary to change course. She tightened her every muscle and clenched her teeth. “Okay, that’s bigger than I’d expected. XO, be prepared, this could get a little rough. I may need a burn from you. Finger on the trigger.”
“Roger that.”
“Did you need—”
“Not goddamn now, Rogers!” Melina shouted and tightened her grip on the control yokes of her module, preparing to boost into the massive iceteroid. She accelerated to meet the massive glacier, ensuring there would be ample slack in the net when contact was made. The smaller chunks they’d caught moments before were being tossed shipward by her thrust. “We have small frags heading your way. Change attitude one degree to port,” Melina instructed. The enormous slab of ice passed between the Corners with a generous clearance to avoid snagging the net, which would have caused tumbling—that, to an ice-catcher, could mean disaster.
“It’s showtime, people!”
“We’re not people,” the Corners and Gary replied again in unison.
“Melina, not to alarm you,” Rodger said, “but we got a hitchhiker.”
“¡Chinga tu madre!” José said.
“That one’s earned, I’ll let it slide,” Melina said, “I see him.”
A TODD with substantial structural damage clambered farther into view. She could see what was left of his legs and feet rounding the sheer face.
“Looks like your boyfriend’s back in town,” Gary said.
“Unless you’d like to switch places with him, I’d suggest you never call him that again,” Melina said and thrusted hard to her right, moving the netting into the path of the boulder where it snagged on a rough edge of the ice. The ship bucked, the shock-absorbing couplers securing the Mainsail to the cargo bay having been maximally depressed in an effortless instant by the supermassive payload. The glacier began tumbling inward and Melina quickly re-centered the Catcher’s Mitt.
“Help me out here, who would I be switching places with? That sentence wasn’t clear,” Gary said.
As the mansion-sized lump of ice made its rotation, the hitchhiker came into full view… and within short-range, or line-of-sight, comms range.
To no one in particular, the damaged TODD said, “All that just to get crushed in a fucking ice-net?”
Melina felt sorry for him. Unlike Marwick and the rest of his Purifiers, she felt a kinship with the TODDs because they shared in the misery of being subject to the will of their creator, whether that creator was North-Star or Bethlehem… or Elliot Glassman, the architect of Bethlehem, the Purifiers, and her own facsimiled existence. She’d been created as an indestructible effigy of his dead wife and had never been offered the choice to be anything more.
“I got you, buddy, just hang tight,” Melina said to the hitchhiker.
“Buddy’s in Sector Seven. I’m Rick. Do we look alike?
“Okay, Rick. Stay still. XO, prepare for a jolt.”
“I have been, ever since you insisted on flying the Mitt. It’s literally every-time you jockey the sail we almost die.”
“I’m still your superior officer,” Melina said through clenched teeth as the droid finally tumbled out of view.
“Central Command told me I could say whatever I wanted to you on my last day...” Gary said.
Melina jammed the thruster to full bore and slammed the Mitt into the glacier.
“… and since we’re all about to die, anyway…” Gary continued.
Because she’d taken all the slack out of the net and allowed the target to tumble past the midline while allowing Rick to roll out of harm’s way, the ice hit with angular momentum and the Natlie yawed to starboard with a violent snap.
Over the general comms, she could hear multiple alarms sounding and sirens blaring and shouts from concerned TODDs who were presumably no longer named TODD.
“Oh shit, we may actually die this time,” Gary mumbled.
The ship and glacier began orbiting an invisible center of mass just about where José’s pod was floating.
“Fold ‘em up, boys!” Melina shouted, and the Corners spun dials on their consoles that altered the current flowing into the electromagnetic stabilization rods. This change in amplitude further magnetized the meter-long segments, and they folded and bunched the perimeter into a tight bundle, cinching the net. The Natlie had a firm grip on the mountain of ice, for better or worse.
“XO, I’m going to need some help here, the Mitt’s at two-G and climbing. It can’t hold up much longer.”
“Twenty seconds counter-burn on my mark,” Gary said and at the shout of “Go!” began burning his engines to port, while Melina focused all her jets to starboard. After fifteen seconds, the klaxons finally fell silent. At the twenty-second mark, they both cut their thrust and the comms chatter died down. They were stable.
Melina heaved a deep sigh and relaxed her iron-tight grip on the yokes. “Reel us in, XO.”
“You got it, Cap.”
Rick climbed to the top of the ice mountain and gave her a thumbs up.
“How did you wind up in orbit, clinging to an asteroid?” Melina asked.
His one word answer spoke volumes. “Marwick,” he said.
Again, the music of twenty-seven laughing TODDs flooded the comms.
4: Do Not Disturb
Under her instruction, the rogue comet that was Rick pulled himself through the netting and onto Melina’s cab where he clung until the Mainsail had been retracted into the cargo hold and secured.
Melina slaved the Mitt’s thrusters to Gary’s controls and climbed out. To prevent another flat-spin, they would need to utilize the gas jets of the Mitt for any and all maneuvering. Luckily, none of the supply hoses had been damaged by the giant glacier, or else the Corners would be forced to carry out tanks of CO2 to splice into the feeders, meaning they’d only have a limited number of course corrections before some poor bastard had to hump out another tank.
Melina grabbed the mining droid by the very same spot Marwick had when he’d tossed him into orbit by way of PolyBlast and then used her suit-jets to boost Rick and herself back to the airlock.
Upon further inspection, only one of his appendages was in somewhat working order, and his head lolled about uselessly on one functioning servo: all hydraulics and hardened anchors had been shorn away in the blast. Luckily for him, the arm that had fared well was the one with the enormous hand, rather than the drilling attachment, which had allowed him to keep hold of the mountainous ice chunk, or else he’d likely have been flung beyond orbit.
“Get him to the machinist, whatever his name is now,” Melina said, removing her helmet and placing it into the storage locker bearing her name.
“We’re calling him Doc,” José said.
“That’s… that’s actually the only one so far that makes sense.”
“Because he likes fishing?” asked Phil.
“No, it’s… never mind, just you guys haul this one up top and get him checked out. That head is hanging on by a thread. It’s gonna come right off when we hit G so hold onto it. I want zero decapitations this run,” Melina said and began keying in her suit’s command log to uncouple and relax the tensioners that compressed her extremities.
“Are you ready for me to start the burn to Ganymede?” Gary asked, knowing the answer already.
Melina let out a sigh and aborted the command to release her suit fasteners. “Not yet. Prepare my s
huttle.”
At this, the Four Corners along with Gary burst into laughter. Rick wanted to join in, but didn’t understand the joke.
“And just what’s so goddamn funny?” Melina asked, offering each of them a stern look before settling on José. She silently wheedled him with her icy-blue stare.
“No, nothing,” José said, finally and held her gaze.
“I’m way ahead of you, Cap.” Gary broke in, disrupting the unfortunately named Mexican Standoff, “Shuttle’s all prepped and we’re just trying to track down some Al Green music for you.”
“Fuck off, no Al Green. Come on, José, what were you laughing about?” Melina demanded.
“No way, man,” José said, finally breaking the stare and reaching down to the mangled Rick.
“Just show her,” Roger or Rodger said. No one was sure.
José finally caved, let go of Rick, who now started drifting towards the Rogers, and said, “Nothing, it’s just that XO sent us a text like ten minutes ago and bet us all ten bucks you’d be on your shuttle as soon as we didn’t die. That’s all.”
“You boys are real fuckers, you know that?” Melina said, trying and, for once, failing to sound angry.
“We’re sorry we can’t find your sexy-time music,” Gary said, this time over the ship’s PA, further exacerbating the painfully uncomfortable situation for the Captain.
“Save the music. I’m just going to have a word with him about destroying my equipment.”
“So now we’re just your equipment? I’m wounded. It cuts me to the bone,” Gary replied, now electing to use the comms. He’d called her bluff once, but didn’t want to press his luck.
Rick bumped into Rodger in his drifting meander, who nudged him absently towards Phil. Rick had been that day a drilling-bot, a projectile, space junk, and was now downgraded even further to the esteemed position of “hot potato” to a handful of sail-jockeys.
Europa Affair: The Ice Must Flow Page 3
