by Aaron Bunce
Lex looked down at the watch on her wrist, and her face paled.
“Jesus. It says twenty-five minutes.”
The Betty shook and reeled then, as if agreeing with her. Soraya screamed and turned, running back down the passage.
“I’ll go help,” he said.
“What…what about him? What should I do?” Lex pointed right at Erik; his peculiar posture made him look like a statue. A twisted and gruesome one, at that.
Jacoby was on his feet and out through the door. He moved to jump through the inner pressure door and almost tripped over a dark shaped just inside. The bridge and galley were practically bright with light, compared to the last time he’d seen the space, thanks to the massive orange planetoid filling the windscreens.
“Not going to make it. Too many to do. Not going to make it,” the person on the ground moaned. Jacoby bent over before he recognized it was Lana.
She fumbled two pieces of fiber data cable together, then with shaking fingers, enclosed them with a splice, fumbled it into the splice tool, and squeezed.
“I’ll help. How many more do you have?”
Lana scoffed, her shoulders sagging. Then she gestured ahead, at the long string of broken sections of cable. Jacoby didn’t understand what they were doing or why, but he understood that it was probably for a rather good reason.
“He didn’t rewire everything to get down there. You realize that, right?” Lana asked, her voice rising. It broke and she sniffled loudly. “Look at our trajectory. We’re pointed right at Titan…nose to the equatorial line. He wanted to burn us up. All the work he was doing was to make sure we couldn’t stop him.”
“How do you know that?”
She shrugged again and dropped the splice tool. “I don’t. But he told us he wanted us dead. And that’s what people that want you dead, do. There’s no way we’re going to make this work. The…thing…” she sobbed, and pointed towards the bridge, where Anna’s silhouette moved before the now brightly glowing windows.
His best friend turned and seemed to perk up.
“How many more do you have left?” Anna yelled, “Do you need help?”
“It’ll work. You and Anna. You make a good team. I believe in you. But we’re down to minutes, Lana. We need to move!” Jacoby said, and scooped the splice tool off the ground and held it out to her.
“Yeah. Twenty-five minutes. No, less than that now. Oh, god. We’re kissing the exosphere in minutes, man. Did you hear me. That’s when we heat up if we can’t slow down and nose her up for a proper angle. I don’t want to die…”
Jacoby grabbed her before he realized what he was doing—both hands under the armpits, and heaved her bodily off the ground.
“Lana!” he shouted, shaking her. She mouthed silently, her eyes going wide. “We’re not dead yet. And you’re not going to die, not if I have anything to say about it. You can help us avoid that. Please.” He let her drop back to her feet, scooped the splice tool up once again, and held it out. “Please help us live.”
Lana sniffed and reached out and accepted the tool, just as Anna ran into the galley.
“Coby!” she gasped, and hit him with a smothering hug.
“What…?”
“Don’t ask. Not enough time,” he said, cutting her off, and she nodded.
“Yeah,” Lana coughed. “Yeah. I got this.” Then she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, grabbed the tool, and jumped forward to the next broken section of cable.
“There is a plan, right? Tell me we have a plan.”
Anna nodded, “Kind of. Yes. But you’ll hate it.”
The Betty shook again, the vibration in the deck so much stronger against his feet.
“Done! Moving. I hope you know what you’re gonna do when I get this Frankenstein of a cable spliced together,” Lana yelled, and crawled crab-like forward to the next cable junction.
The skin around Anna’s eyes tightened, Titan’s haunting light deepening her worry lines.
Soraya ran back into the room then, the cardboard box still in hand.
“Lex said sixteen minutes. Sixteen. She’s taking Erik down and putting him in the airlock. He’s not right, and it has her really freaked out,” she said, nervously moving between feet. “We’re going to make it, right? Please tell me yes. Why am I still holding this box?” Soraya moved to set the box down.
“Wait!” Anna yelled, jumping forward. “The battery relays!” She tore into the box before Jacoby or Soraya could move, then pulled back with a handful of shiny, black cylinders. “I need to get these back into the battery corridor or we’ll have no power to flaps, exterior lights, or landing gear.”
“Anna. I’ve got two splices left. Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better start doing it.”
Anna had only managed a single step towards the battery corridor and stopped, then hovered, as if caught between two opposing forces.
“Give them to me. Soraya and I will get them back in. You just go and do your thing,” Jacoby said and scooped the relays out of her hands.
“Match the pins and once they are in, turn the disconnect. Use this, it’s dark in there.” Anna fumbled her headset off, the small work light barely glowing, and pressed it into his chest.
They were moving towards the dark door off the galley then, Anna sprinting back into the bridge. Jacoby fumbled the headset on as the black enveloped them.
“I hope you know what these things look like.”
“I do. I do,” Soraya gasped, “I busted up my elbows, shutting them off back when the computer lost its damned mind. They’re just up here. Shine your light.”
Jacoby followed her, pointing the light at the left wall.
“Here!”
They stopped before a jumbled section of boxes and wires on the wall. A series of three clear covers sat covering switches, but the clear material was broken.
He fumbled the first relay up before him, using the weak light. It had two matching pins on one side and a flat, blade style connector on the other. The clock inside his mind ticked down, the vibrating, shuddering ship only making it louder.
Jacoby fumbled it up to the port, his fingers shaking so badly he lost his grip, but caught it before it could fall. “Damn,” he breathed, sucking in a breath to try and calm his nerves, then he carefully slid it into place.
The relay snapped into place with a satisfying pop. Without waiting, Soraya lifted the broken door and flipped the shut off. A beep echoed from the battery room further down the hall.
“That’s got to be a good sign. Next one. Hurry,” she said, then grabbed his arm and pulled him along.
Jacoby checked the next relay, tried to fit it into the space, but had it backwards and flipped it around. The second shut off clicked and another beep sounded in the battery room. A healthy hum filled the air now, as if parts of the ship were coming to life. Or that’s what Jacoby told himself. He didn’t want to think about what it could be otherwise.
They slid in front of the last relay port as someone yelled from the galley. He held the small cylinder up, but the light was almost completely dead now, and he had to use his fingers to distinguish which side had the pins. Someone else hollered in the distance, but he couldn’t tell if it was Anna or not.
“Just worry about this. Worry about what we can do,” Soraya whispered.
Jacoby cursed as the weak light died, his hand immediately crawling out and over the wall. “I can’t see. Shit. I can’t see.”
“Just breathe and slow down. It’s there. In the same spot as the other two. Just rebuild it in your mind from memory.”
Jacoby sucked in a breath, forced it back out, and breathed again. Then started searching the wall again. He found a cold box with three cables coming out of both ends. He remembered one like it before. Then the picture started to form in his mind. The relay port was above and just to the right. Jacoby slid his hand up and over slowly, but it wasn’t there. Panic bit into his chest and his heart fluttered.
“It’s not there,” he said, just as
he swept his hand back and let it drift upwards a few inches. His fingers settled into a depression, a port. There it was. He’d just been a few damned inches low. “No. No. I got it.”
Jacoby fumbled the relay into place, Soraya flipping the shut off almost instantaneously as it popped into place. He grabbed her hand and led them back through the dark battery corridor, only it wasn’t completely dark now. Small, flashing green and red lights blazed from the darkness all around them as small ancillary systems came back online.
They stepped into the galley just as Lana yelled.
“Don’t you understand? That was my last splice. There is one more section of cable, and I don’t have a way to get it to you.”
-:7 Until Entry
The Missing Key
Anna watched Lana for a long moment before her words sunk in. She was out of splices and was still ten feet away, holding the two ends of their last cable run. That was it. Ten feet. They were going to fail, over a matter of ten feet of data cable.
“This thing shows like seven minutes on it. How are we looking?” Lex asked, crawling up from below.
“One damned splice, man. Dead because of one splice.”
“Dead? What happened?” Lex yelled.
Anna’s frustration mounted and she immediately moved towards Lana, intent to rip the cable free from the other woman’s hands and find a way around it. But she was still holding onto the NavCom. The power cable caught and pulled tight, but then it popped and moved.
Terrified she’d ripped the power cable free, Anna immediately turned it over. The cable was still secured. She’d simply pulled more of the cable free from the console. She pulled a little harder and more slid free. Anna moved towards Lana slowly. More cable pulled free, then a little more, before catching and the whole, tangled mass of wiring tumbled forth and hung in the air.
Anna had closed three, maybe four feet. She was almost halfway there.
“Lana…” she started to say and turned, but the other woman beat her to it.
“Maybe I can free up some slack on the other end. Hold on!” she screamed, dropped the cable and sprinted towards the back.
Jacoby and Soraya appeared from the battery corridor. The ship shuddered, that horrible, whistling vibration growing louder all around them.
“Coby. Grab that cable. Just don’t pull on it hard. Those thermal splices are strong, but they will break.”
“Got it,” he yelled and ran right at her.
“Soraya ran in, leapt over the back of a seat, and immediately started strapping herself in next to Shane. Lex followed suit, jumping into the seat next to Emiko. The nurse’s head lolled to the side, only the straps now holding her up.
“Why does it feel like we’re rolling to the side?” Soraya asked.
“We’re in the exosphere. Or on the cusp of it. It could be gravity, too. We’ve got no way to correct attitude and angle. We’re floundering, like a ship caught in turbulent water. We need to fire the thrusters to pull her nose up, then bleed off speed,” Anna said, but knew they were hitting atmosphere; she could hear it hitting the Betty’s fore panels and windscreens. Heat was already building, and quickly.
“Try it now!” Lana screamed from beyond the maintenance passage, her voice adrift on the ship’s loudening environment. Jacoby pulled on the data cable and it gave way. He moved towards her one step, and then another. Then the cable pulled tight again, and he jerked to a halt.
“Lana screamed again–angry or hysterical. She couldn’t tell what she was saying. But the words didn’t matter, only the meaning.”
“That must be it,” Jacoby muttered and looked up at her.
Poole, I don’t know where you are, but it’s time to test your on-the-fly ingenuity.
Anna dropped the NavCom into her left hand, turned, and extended, stretching with her right towards the extended cable. Jacoby reached forward, pulling to meet her. The cable was two feet away, then a foot, then brushed against her fingers.
“Just need…another few…inches.” Her shoulders creaked angrily, her back and hips screaming in protest. Then she felt the cable slide into her palm. “Coby, this is going to get rough. Strap yourself in,” she said, and threw herself into her digital control center.
The halfmoon workstation materialized, everything flashing into place with blinding speed. She felt arms wrap around her, Jacoby’s weight and strength solidifying as the ship tipped and rocked.
“Wake up from sleep mode complete.” Her dark-haired counterpart appeared next to the monitors with a pop.
“Begin atmospheric entry protocol now!”
“Understood. Booting atmospheric entry protocol.” The monitors glowed to life again, the sensor and system data flooding into place. “Error. I am showing no input. Please check the NavCom wiring harness and try again.”
“Shit! No! Shit! It’s there,” she yelled and looked down. She wanted to cry, to smash something, or crumble to the ground. All of it.
A NavCom appeared in her left hand suddenly, along with a digital representation of the data cable in her right. Poole blinked in behind the program, his face ashen and tight. There were no jokes, no flash and bang.
“I feel the data. See the light from the fiber. How do I tap into it?”
The Betty rocked and shook, her stomach lurching in response.
“It is data but transferred as light. Light is just a form of energy. Your muscles and nerves speak that language. Use that, designate a new channel inside your body. Focus. The harder you focus, the faster you will move inside your digital world. It is your way of increasing your mental clock speed.”
“Do it. Help me. I don’t know how.”
“I will enter sleep mode in thirty seconds due to inactivity.”
“No. Stop. Don’t!”
“Anna, darling. Anything I do won’t be nearly fast enough. You have more power than you know. More power than me. Look at the light in your palm. I know you can feel it. Guide it to where you need it to go. But I’m going to warn you. This process won’t be pleasant.”
Anna growled and met Poole’s dark, sad eyes. Something had happened. Something profound. But she didn’t have time to open that can of worms now. They’d be dead in minutes, maybe less if she couldn’t get the Betty back online.
She looked down at her hand and the red glow shining through her skin. She felt it, heat and light, but deeper, the data they so desperately needed. Anna strained, forcing every ounce of focus into that one thing, that one glowing spot of skin and muscle in her hand. Her brain started to ache, but she pushed harder.
Anna’s heart slowed in response, the time between breaths doubling, then tripling. Her thoughts flashed, the heat building inside her hand. She felt the muscle and nerves come to life, firing electric impulses like miniature repeaters. Then she remade them.
A searing pain fired into her hand, a dark, burning line tracing up her wrist. It was the most exquisite pain she’d ever felt before—the fiery agony of an industrial laser boring a hole clear through her. She clenched her jaw and screamed, but focused harder still, the line marching up her arm.
Jacoby’s hold around her stiffened and she heard his voice, but responding required that she divide her focus. She pulled the transformation up past her elbow, then through her bicep and to the shoulder. The heat hit her neck, and she thought it would kill her, painful nerve impulses firing up and down her nearby spine and into every corner of her body.
She felt it reach the base of her skull and her old seizure implant. She moved to connect it to the medical device, but paused for a microsecond, then routed around it, realizing that she would have to reconfigure the device. The optical pathway burned the rest of the way to the base of her brain, the sensory receptors of her digital world lighting up like a Christmas tree in December. The pain retreated back down her arm as the data tumbled into her mind—gigabytes upon gigabytes of data.
“Restart atmospheric entry protocol.”
“Protocol restarted,” her computer counterpart said
, and this time Anna felt the data flooding through her brain, then firing back down her left arm and into the NavCom.
Data started to flood across the screens, but it was all wrong. Instead of degrees of roll, temperature, and wind speed, she saw strange symbols and glyphs.
“Error. Data is present but corrupted or unreadable. I do not have a language preset available for current selected format.”
Everything jumped and then she felt the Betty list. Jacoby slipped but kept her up, barely. Anna divided her focus, the dark expansive backdrop of her virtual workspace melting away. She left her interface up, allowing it to meld seamlessly into her physical surroundings.
“It’s too late, Anna. I’m sorry. I love you,” Jacoby whispered, and the ship jumped, almost throwing them free. She saw the others, strapped into their pilot’s seats, jostling, and bouncing animatedly. The fore windscreen was aglow with bright, fiery light.
“We aren’t dead yet!” she growled and summoned a glowing vault out of the floor. The walls tumbled free, her mind stripping away the locks and embedded safety protocols. The inner protections blew away in a single, violent mental blast, revealing the strange, vibrating file from Titan. The distortions bled off the file—the same, odd glyphs Erik had programmed into the temporary controller.
“Please tell me this isn’t the single largest mistake of my lifetime.”
Anna picked up the corrupted file with her mind and threw it at her digital counterpart. It melted into the dark-haired Anna’s body and she immediately changed. Her form broke up, her arms and legs pixelating, then disappearing and reappearing on different parts of her body.
“Tal-Nurgal,” she said, suddenly pulling back together. She looked at Anna expectantly. “The course is not set. It must be set.”
“We need your help. Please. We don’t have control of the ship and we have already breached the atmosphere.”
“Yes. I feel it. Heat. Thermal updrafts. Magnetosphere distortion.”
