Escape from Enceladus (Stark Raven Voyages Book 1)

by Jake Elwood

  The Raven's gravity field faded as he fell, until only momentum pushed his feet against the deck. His boot magnets clicked, and he looked around. He was in a big square room with a high ceiling. Pale emergency lights lit everything with a soft glow. Crates were stacked against the walls, held in place by cargo nets. A jagged, fist-sized hole in the ceiling gave him a view of the stars.

  He could hear the others on the suit radio, bickering over who would come through next. Liz and Singh didn't want to leave Joss alone on the Raven, but wouldn't say so in so many words. Finally Joss moved into the airlock.

  Chan walked into the cargo ship, falling back into the habits of weightless movement. He ran a covetous eye over the crates, wondering what they contained. Salvage could wait, though.

  There was no sound when the airlock opened behind him, but the room brightened momentarily. He turned to see Joss coming through, flailing as she left the Raven's gravity field. She had found an extra vac suit in a storage locker. It was too big for her, making her look strangely thick-bodied, and her eyes barely reached the bottom of the helmet's visor. She gave him a wave, then clumped over to stand beside him.

  He was glad of her company. The silent, empty ship was spooky.

  "What do you guys see?" Liz asked over the radio. "Are you okay?"

  "We're fine," Chan reported. "So far all I see is a big empty room."

  He walked deeper into the ship, Joss at his heels. On the far side of the room there was a closed hatch. He tapped the door panel, not expecting much, but the door slid open.

  By the time he stepped into the corridor beyond, Vogel was hurrying through the cargo room behind him. The three of them explored the corridor, stepping around holes in the deck. The corridor opened onto a galley with seats for a dozen people. A cupboard door had come open, and several plates floated just below the ceiling.

  "This place creeps me out," Vogel muttered.

  "I know what you mean," Liz said, stepping into the galley. "Still, there are no bodies. I wonder where they went?"

  It didn't take long to tour the rest of the ship. There were no crew cabins, just coffin-sized capsules for sleeping. The bridge was tiny, a pod with room for two seats and banks of controls. The Mixatonic was bigger than the Raven, but everything was built on a smaller scale to maximize room for cargo.

  And there was very little cargo aboard. The main hold was a dark void running the length of the ship. There were empty shelves and stacks of partitions lashed against the bulkheads. The crates they'd passed were empty. Aside from an electric cargo mover, that was all they found.

  "They must've dropped their cargo off," Vogel said. "They were on their way back when the pirates attacked them." He chuckled. "Old Hairy Face would've been pretty ticked off when he found out the ship was empty."

  "Bloody hell," Liz muttered. "No cargo, and the ship's so full of holes she's not worth much for salvage."

  "We already traded the Albatross for the Raven," Chan said. "It's been a brilliant day. Let's not complain."

  Liz didn't reply, and Chan shrugged inside his suit, trying to get rid of a crawling sensation between his shoulder blades. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd stumbled into something far bigger than he realized. Two ships had been destroyed, two crews had either died or disappeared, and Chan had a nagging suspicion that it was just the tip of the comet's tail.

  Maybe their part in this drama was over, though. He brightened at the thought. There was no sign of the crew, and no way to tell where the lifeboat had gone. They could tow the Mixatonic back to Coriolis Station and sell her for scrap. So long as no one found anything else…

  "Hey," Singh said over the radio, "I found something! I think I know where the lifeboat went."

  He was on the bridge, wedged into one of the seats, and he gestured at the screen in front of him. "There's some sort of base on Enceladus. That must be where they went."

  The crawling sensation worsened, and Chan frowned. There had been a research station on Enceladus once, but it had been abandoned for more than a decade. Who had the resources to build a base on a frozen moon? Why keep it secret?

  "We could pretend we don't know," said Liz. "Claim the ship for salvage." Chan wanted to agree with her. He felt like a fly surrounded by the invisible strands of a spider's web. The last thing he wanted to do was move deeper into the trap. Still, he had to do what he had to do.

  He opened his mouth to object, but Liz spoke first. "No, I guess we can't leave those poor bastards down there." She sounded angry. "Stupid survivors. Let's go rescue them. Maybe if we're lucky, they crash-landed."

  Chapter 4

  They left the Mixatonic in orbit and swept in low over the surface of Enceladus. Even knowing the coordinates, they had a hard time spotting the station. It was the lifeboat that they saw first, parked in the middle of what seemed to be a blank, snowy plain.

  Liz landed the Raven beside the lifeboat. When Chan peered through the glass he could see the station just beyond the lifeboat. The corrugated walls were painted white, and the roof had a thick coating of frost, making it invisible from above. It all blended into the snowy background, and he found it impossible to judge the size of the station.

  "Liz, I want you to stay with the ship," Chan said. She opened her mouth to argue, and he interrupted her. "I don't know what we're going to find, and I'm not leaving the ship empty. I want you to stay on the bridge with the engines warm, ready to lift off at a moment's notice."

  She glared at him, and he braced himself for an argument, but she surprised him by nodding. "All right, Captain."

  "Singh, I want you to grab a first aid kit and a stretcher. Vogel, you look for a weapon. I wish the pirates had left us some guns." Chan shrugged. "Get a couple of big wrenches, or whatever you can find."

  Vogel nodded and the two men left the bridge. Joss put her hands on her hips and said, "what about me?"

  "I think you should stay here," Chan said, and Joss scowled.

  Liz gave him a meaningful look. "Maybe she should go with you."

  What you mean is, you don't trust her on the Raven without someone to keep an eye on her. Chan sighed. "All right. Why don't you come with us, Joss?"

  Her face lit up. "Great! I'll go find a big wrench."

  She hurried out, and Liz murmured, "If it turned out that she got left behind, it might not be such a bad thing."

  Chan ignored her and went in search of his helmet.

  The Raven had a large aft airlock, one without a docking ring, designed for stepping out onto the surface of a planet or space station. All four of them were able to fit in the lock. Vogel had a hammer, and he passed a heavy pipe wrench to Chan. Joss had a wrench of her own, a huge thing longer than her arm that she held in both hands.

  The hatch to the outside cracked open, and Chan felt a slight push as the thin atmosphere of Enceladus rushed in. The hatch dropped, becoming a ramp as it came into contact with the surface. Chan walked down the ramp, feeling the ship's gravity field fall away, and stepped onto the surface of the little moon. He was standing on snow, and he knew that if he dug down deep enough he would find ice underneath. His boots sank in a finger's width or more, and he wondered just how deep he would have sunk in Earth-normal gravity.

  The gravity on Enceladus was about one percent of a gee, and he made a great, bounding leap with every step. He bounced toward the closest wall of the station, taking in details as he went.

  The walls were mostly featureless. He guessed the building to be about thirty metres wide. There was an occasional small window, and a section of wall that stuck out four metres or so. He headed for the protrusion, and found an airlock on the section that was perpendicular to the main wall. He pressed his palm to a panel beside the lock.

  Nothing happened.

  "There's a window," said Joss on the radio. He followed her pointing finger. There was a small pane of glass, badly frosted over, set in the lock at eye level. He scraped the worst of the ice away, cupped his hands around the visor of his helmet, and
peered in.

  It was dim inside, making details hard to pick out, but he could see that the lock's inner door was open. A dark shape was caught at the bottom edge of the door, keeping it from closing. He peered closer, waiting for his eyes to adjust, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

  "Buddha's buttocks," he swore.

  There was a chorus of voices over the radio, and someone jostled him, wanting to look.

  "I think it's a body," he said.

  "Are you sure?" Vogel's voice was high-pitched, almost panicky.

  "No, actually," said Chan. "It's dark in there. It could be an empty vac suit." He stepped back from the little window. "All I know for sure is, we're not getting in this way."

  They walked around the protruding section of wall. On the opposite side of the protrusion, no more than ten or twelve metres from the first airlock, they found a second airlock. Chan checked the window and saw nothing but an empty, closed chamber. He gestured at Vogel, who was closest to the control panel. Vogel tapped the panel and the lock slid open.

  For a long moment Chan stood unmoving, staring into the lock. This is your last chance. You can turn around, go back to the ship. You know it's the sensible thing to do. Don't go in!

  "Jim?" Singh said. "It's kind of cold out here."

  Chan stepped into the lock, and the others followed.

  There was another window on the inside of the lock, and Chan peered through, but all he could see was a blank wall two metres away. The lock was already cycling, air rushing in. They were committed. Chan tightened his grip on the pipe wrench, took a deep breath, and waited for the lock to open.

  The inner hatch slid open and he stepped into the station. The ceiling was too low for bounding leaps, but the magnets on his boots let him take small, controlled steps. He was in a dressing room, brightly lit, with racks on the walls for helmets and frames for hanging spacesuits. There were safety posters reminding people to check their seals, and a mat for cleaning the snow from your boots. Eight or ten suits hung in tidy rows, and there was a matching number of helmets.

  "Clean spacesuits!" said Vogel. "I'm taking one on the way out."

  Chan looked at the readout on his sleeve. The air pressure was one atmosphere, the temperature was a comfortable 22 degrees Celsius, and all the readouts were green. Singh was checking his own sleeve, and he met Chan's eyes and nodded. "Looks good."

  A nervous voice in the back of Chan's head told him to keep his helmet on. The protective shell of metal and hardened plastic was comforting. But the helmet made it difficult to see, nearly impossible to hear, and impossible to smell. He unsnapped the helmet and pulled it free.

  The others followed suit, and put their helmets in the racks on the wall. They kept their suits on, and looked to Chan for guidance.

  He sniffed the air. It was humid, with a faint aroma that made him think of flatulence. That would be the residual Enceladus atmosphere that had come in with them. Beyond that, all he could smell was the reek of unwashed spacesuits.

  There were two doors at the far end of the dressing room. Chan crossed to the door on the left, trying not to be obvious as he hefted his wrench. He listened briefly at the door, then grabbed the handle and yanked it open.

  He found himself staring into a drab, industrial-looking corridor with gray carpet on the floor and doors on either side. He stepped forward, the magnets on his boots no longer connecting, and tried the first door. It was a tiny bedroom, just a bunk and a small sink. The others floated after him as he tried one door after another. There were nine of the tiny bedrooms, three bedrooms that were slightly larger and had private bathrooms, and three big, Spartan rooms with half a dozen bunks each.

  There were family pictures pinned to the walls, and potted plants not yet wilting. One room had a coffee cup beside the sink, still half full.

  "This gets creepier and creepier," Vogel whispered. They were all being as quiet as they could.

  At the end of the corridor a larger door led to the next section of the building. Chan turned in a slow circle, getting his bearings. They were following the perimeter of the building, moving farther from the blocked airlock. When he was sure he was oriented, he grabbed the handle and swung the door open.

  The carpet ended, replaced by some sort of linoleum. It was an office area with cubicles and desks. Here he saw the first sign of disorder, some loose paper strewn across the floor. The magnets in his boots were able to connect through the linoleum, but the soft surface let him move quietly. He crept through the cubicles, the others close behind him.

  Private offices lined one wall. He glanced in, seeing desks and chairs and holos of kids graduating or booting soccer balls back on Earth.

  "This terminal's live," Singh said, plunking himself down behind a desk. He tapped at the screen. "Looks like most of the files are bio-locked. But there's a live connection to Earth-net."

  "Live" was a relative condition, of course. Earth was almost an hour and a half away by radio. Still, it meant databases and newsfeeds that were practically up-to-date. Chan was aware of a sudden tension in Joss as she stepped behind Singh, watching the screen over his shoulder. Singh slid his chair sideways, keeping Joss in his peripheral vision.

  "Well, would you look at this." His voice held a layer of satisfaction over an underlying strain. "There doesn't seem to be a passenger ship called the Dawn Treader registered anywhere in the solar system. No ships at all with that name, in fact." He tapped the screen some more. "Now, let's look at news reports for pirate attacks. Let me see. A couple of prospectors in the asteroid belt. A freighter on the Mars to Venus run, but that ship escaped. And a water hauler by Titan." He gave Chan a grim look, and edged his chair a bit farther from Joss.

  "Now, it might not have been reported as piracy," Chan said, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Sometimes ships just disappear."

  "You're right," Singh said with an unpleasant smile. "Let's take a look at ship disappearances in the last couple of weeks."

  "Don't bother," Joss said. There was no guilt in her voice, no distress. She just sounded tired. "I didn't know who you were when I first met you. I certainly didn't trust you."

  "I know the feeling," said Singh. She ignored him.

  "You might have been allies of the pirates. After all, you were right there on their ship. I wasn't about to tell you I was a cop."

  Singh gave a derisive snort. Chan, though, felt the twist in his guts ease slightly. He glanced at Vogel. The young man looked ill. By Vogel's standards, a cop was worse than a pirate.

  "I work for IPBI," she said. "It stands for Interplanetary Bureau of-"

  "We know what it stands for," interrupted Singh. His voice dripped skepticism. "I don't suppose you have a badge?"

  "On an undercover assignment?" she retorted. "Of course not."

  "And is 'Jocelyn O'Reilly' your real name?"

  "No. My name is Special Agent Jocelyn Greene." The ghost of a smile touched her lips. "My friends really do call me Joss, though."

  Vogel's forehead puckered while he processed this new information. "So you're an undercover cop? Going after pirates?"

  "Yes."

  "Huh." He shrugged. "I guess that's kind of cool."

  "Now," said Joss, her voice chilly, "if you're done checking up on me, let's see if we can find those survivors."

  She turned and walked off, Vogel following her like a loyal puppy. Singh stayed put, tapping at the screen, and Chan edged over to take a look.

  Singh was composing a message to the IPBI office on Coriolis Station. I have encountered a young woman who claims to be an agent of your Bureau, but she doesn't have a badge. Do you have a Special Agent Jocelyn Green?

  "You don't need to do that," said Chan. "She's telling the truth."

  "Well then, I guess you'll be able to say that you told me so." Singh sent the message and stood.

  "Hey, guys?" There was a strange tremor in Vogel's voice. "I think you better come see this."

  They hurried pas
t the cubicles and up to the doorway of a meeting room. Vogel and Joss stood on either side of the doorway, staring at something on the floor. Chan stepped into the doorway and froze, moving only when Singh gave him an impatient shove.

  The only furniture was a shattered table near the side wall. That wasn't what held everyone's attention, though. There was a tentacle in the middle of the floor. It was smooth, more than a metre long, and tapered from the thickness of a fat man's leg to a delicate tip. It was blue-gray in color, and the thick end was ragged and torn. The flesh inside was dark blue, almost purple. Purple blood was splashed all over the floor around it.

  Chan's eyes followed the blood splatter across the floor to the wall. The wall was a mess. It looked as if it had been hosed down in litres of purple blood. There were holes in the wall, dozens of them, most of them no bigger than a wedding ring. He stared, baffled.

  "Those are bullet holes," said Singh. "Full automatic. Someone had a machine gun."

  Chan looked at the holes, thought of the desperate battle that had been fought here, and wondered why he suddenly felt good. He was standing straighter than he usually did, and it came to him that the others were waiting for him to take charge.

  It was the coppery smell of blood and the faintest hint of gunpowder, little more than a memory in the sterile, recycled air, that finally chased the last vestige of sludge from his nostrils. It was over. The long months knee-deep in stinking green crap finally came to an end while he stood there looking down at a place where someone had died.

  He smothered something that was almost like a smile. It was wrong, surely, to feel good in this place, at this time. Wrong to revel in the death, in the peril that his people faced. But there it was. I'm not the sludge man anymore. I'm not that loser. I have responsibilities that actually matter.