Drifters' Alliance, Book 1

by Elle Casey

  The twins are busy installing the new boom chuck with Adelle’s help, and Jeffers is making a meal. I’ve lost track of which meal it is. Lunch? Dinner? I told him not to make anything too fancy. I’m still not ready to reveal to Beltz and his crew the extent of our biogrid, even though we’re now an unofficial part of his Alliance —hoping to be made official upon a voting of the rest of the Alliance members— and his crew is coming to join us at the table. Our first meeting with the entire Alliance group is scheduled to take place ten hours after Tam is telling me our ice-grab will be completed. I’m trying to talk myself out of being nervous, but it’s not working.

  “We’re all set down here,” Gus says, speaking from inside the boom cab below the ship. The small clearpanel there allows him to watch as one of Adelle’s robotic systems attaches the boom chuck on the mechanism that will soon be lowered to a position outside of the hull. Like most people I’ve known, Tam and Gus avoid doing any Dark-walking, and I support that. I’ve seen too many people unintentionally float when something’s gone wrong. Adelle’s here for a purpose, and I intend to find out all she’s capable of; after which, I’ll exploit her systems as much and as often as is reasonable, safe, and smart. So far, I’m impressed. Apparently, Gus and Tam have given her a few upgrades, which is pretty amazing considering the budget they’ve had to work with.

  “Good,” I say. “When will you be ready to start the process?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  Tam leans in and whispers in my ear. “More like twenty.”

  “Good.” I nod at Tam. “I’ll be on the flightdeck waiting for your go signal. How close do I need to be to the surface?”

  “Two thousand meters?” Gus says it like he’s afraid to even hear it coming out of his own mouth.

  I can’t control the hiss that comes with my sharp intake of breath. Two thousand meters? Is he insane?

  “It’s the only way we can do it and not be detected,” Tam says, sounding like he’s apologizing. “I talked with that Jens kid. It’s how they do it on the Mekanika.”

  I shrug, acting like it’s not the huge, death-defying maneuver that it is. If Beltz can do it, I can too, right? “Yeah, I get it. Just give me a shout when you’re ready.”

  I leave the engine room and stride down the corridor, talking to myself the whole way. You can do this. You’ve done it a hundred times on the simulator. Even closer ice-grabs than this. And you have Adelle. She can smooth out your approach. The systems are good. The ship is in decent shape. And after it’s all over, we’ll be meeting our new allies. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. You can do this. My flightsuit is sticking to me with sweat. Again.

  The portal to the flightdeck is before me. I stare at it for a few seconds before waving my hand over the keypad. Beyond this door lies the controls I must take in hand and use to maneuver this ship into grabbing ice directly from the surface of Xylera from a mere two thousand meters above, while walls of ice and who the hell knows what else surge up from the surface and threaten to swallow my ship whole. I must be insane.

  I let out the breath I was holding and walk through the portal. If I’m going to die, at least it’ll be a quick death. The ice of Xylera freezes solid anything that gets within eight hundred meters of it, including drifter ships and the people who crew them.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  BACK ON THE FLIGHTDECK AFTER my little mission to stash the picochip in the delivery chute of the water uptake boom, I find Beltz waiting for me. He pledged to guide me through my first ice-grab, even though I told him I didn’t need his help loud enough for everyone to hear me. Inside, though, I’m glad for his presence, and I think he knows it. It makes me wonder if he had a mentor when he started.

  As I take my seat, he stands behind me, silent but for the occasional grunt or hiss of breath as I begin our descent toward Xylera’s surface. We’re still in clear view of anyone looking our way, but without our boom out, we look like anyone else just settling into a planet’s atmosphere for a little bit of time away from the dangers of flying space junk and random asteroids. We won’t be swallowed by Xylera’s famous mists for another few thousand meters.

  I slowly guide the DS Anarchy closer to the surface of the ice planet, mindful of the weather systems circulation map that’s being displayed on one of the clearpanels ahead of me and to the left. So far so good. There are no storms that I can see anywhere close by, and we have only another four or five thousand meters to go. I’ve only been sitting here for ten minutes, but it feels like an hour.

  “Easy does it,” says Baebong, his fingers flying over the navigation array as he communicates with Adelle’s systems. “Easy… We’re at six point eight thousand meters and dropping ten meters per second. We don’t need to get there yesterday.”

  “You must like hanging around here or something,” I say flippantly. I moved twice this fast in the simulator when I practiced my ice-grabs. But then again, that simulator never creaked and groaned the way the DS Anarchy is doing right now. Is that normal? Was the simulator I used missing a sound effect module?

  “Ship surface integrity check,” I say to Jeffers, not sure if he’ll know what I mean if I use the acronym we learned in the sim. S-S-I means nothing if you don’t have the training.

  He sounds nervous when he answers me. “The computer says eighty percent fore, ninety-three aft, sixty-eight below deck, Captain.”

  “That’s not good,” I mumble to myself. I’m even more motivated to go quickly now. I can’t have parts of the ship sloughing off before we’re finished. Xylera’s gravitational force will swallow them up, and we’ll have to do without, and those parts are expensive, not to mention sometimes absolutely necessary for continued safe flight and landing.

  “Three thousand meters, descending two hundred meters per second.”

  “Not too fast, Captain,” Beltz says from behind me. “You will get there. Be patient.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” I glare at the clearpanel before me that shows what’s going on below the ship. The white and blue colors of Xylera ice are taking up the entire frame now. No longer is the Dark anywhere viewable below us. We’re nearly to our final altitude when a change in the surface tension of the ice planet catches my eye.

  “That doesn’t look good,” I mumble mostly to myself. I’ve heard about ships getting hit with a huge wave and being dragged down into the ice never to be seen again, and I don’t want that to be our fate. The gravitational field coming from Xylera is pulling at the ship, but Adelle counteracts it with the thrust I’ve programmed at my array, lightening the gravitational field on the ship to ensure we can still move about freely. But if an ice wave hits us, it’ll throw everything off.

  “I’m getting an alert over here,” Jeffers says.

  “Talk to me,” I say, all my attention on my own business. A red flashing light tries to distract me off to my left, but I ignore it in favor of reading my boom readiness. The new chuck seems to be working just fine so far, which is good because without it, we might as well be a giant yo-yo on a string being flung around the planet by the boom not tethered to the ship properly.

  I press the button that will release the first segment of the boom from its inner chamber. Exhaust vents open on either side of it automatically. The reverse pressure they provide will make it easier to grab that ice and water in one giant flow.

  Jeffers’ voice is shaking when he speaks again. “Ship surface integrity below deck is dropping rapidly. We’re at forty-nine percent.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. Time to rock and roll. “Commencing ice grab in five.”

  I flip the switch that floats up out of the array at my left hand. With my right, I use the joystick that controls the boom.

  “We’re not at altitude yet,” Baebong says.

  “Four… Too bad. If the OSG ship sees us, they see us. I can’t risk the integrity of the ship.” The mist from the planet’s atmosphere won’t cover us completely here, but I have to count on the fact that what I�
�m doing is so crazy, they won’t think to be watching for it.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing. Just keep going.”

  I shrug off Beltz’s pat on the back, but it gives me the strength I need to continue and not cry my eyes out.

  “Three,” I say, continuing the countdown and flipping the lever that will lock the boom into place so it can begin its final descent. Please don’t let me destroy my ship!

  “Integrity dropping again,” Jeffers says, louder this time. I’m not even sure he realizes he sounds like an old woman at this point. “Thirty-three!”

  “Two… Holding here.” I stop our descent and ready the ship for the uptake, the below deck thrusters set at forty-two percent burn to keep us from losing more altitude. Flipping the all-comm switch above me, I speak while still keeping my attention on my clearpanels. That fucking dark blue ice wave is coming closer, and I don’t like the look of it one bit.

  “Commencing ice-grab. All hands on deck.” Things can get a little bumpy from here. I hope my crew knows that because it’s too late for me to educate them.

  Beltz flicks the all-comm off for me.

  “One! Aaand we’re launching the boom.”

  I punch in the numbers that I previously designated as the combination that would begin the sequence. A rumbling below deck is followed by a bunch of mechanical clanking sounds. Everyone’s eyes are glued to the panel that shows the boom extending itself to maximum length, headed for the surface of Xylera. It doesn’t have to go far, the pressure enough to pull the ice and water up to us. I can’t help but think how phallic the damn thing is. I don’t dare look at Baebong right now. He might make me laugh, and if that were to happen, I would sound unhinged. I’m that close to the edge of sanity right now.

  “Below deck’s structural integrity at twenty-nine percent now.” Jeffers stands and turns to face me. “We should go. We’re too close.”

  “No.” I shake my head as sweat pours down my face from my temples. “We need the water.” And I need to get rid of this fucking picochip once and for all. I surreptitiously punch in the code that will open the delivery chute’s access door and let it fly out into the atmosphere of Xylera. A confirmation light flashing five seconds later tells me my secret mission was a success; the chute is empty of all foreign matter. Find me now, Asshole. I’m swimming in the Sea of Xylera as far as you’re concerned.

  The suction through the boom starts, and I keep my eye on the indicator that will show me how much ice and water we’re taking on. It feels like we’ve been here for minutes already, but my timer says only twenty-three seconds have passed. We don’t have nearly enough water to leave yet.

  “Adelle!” I say much too loudly. Dammit. Now they know I’m panicking.

  “Yes, Captain.” Her computerized voice is calm and soothing. I’m glad Langlade picked her to be the compubot’s host and not one of the other more commanding modules used to synthesize human speech. I really feel like I need a momma right now, and Adelle is fitting the bill. It makes me wonder why Langlade picked her. Was he ever unsure about what he was doing on this ship? I find it hard to believe that he was.

  “What’s going on with our integrity?” I ask, swiping with the back of my hand at a droplet of sweat that’s tickling the edge of my ear.

  “Failure to perform regular maintenance has compromised the integrity of the connections and seams below deck. I recommend a complete rehabilitation of the hull at your earliest convenience.”

  “When was the first time you noticed this little problem?” I ask angrily, my eyes glued to the water-level indicator readout. We’re at a quarter of a megaliter. Not enough. And that ice wave is less than one klick from the bow of my ship. Dammit!

  “One year ago,” Adelle says, like she’s not delivering the most shit-awful news I’ve ever heard in my life. “I reminded the former captain once per month at his request.”

  Rather than scream like a wild, unchained she-monster, I growl instead. “Bastard!” Langlade gave me a ship that he knew full well was in sore need of maintenance and didn’t say a damn word about it. He was probably laughing as I walked away from that givit table. I guess the rumor that he spends a lot of credits keeping his fleet maintained in top shape was one of those myths that surrounded him.

  “We have to go, Cass,” Baebong says, sounding almost like he’s going to cry. “The ship’s going to break apart. I’m too young to die.”

  “Shut up, we’re going to be fine. Stop being so dramatic. None of us are going to die until I say so.” Forty percent uptake. Come on, you fucking boom. Get me to eighty and I’ll leave! I can almost imagine the warm shower I’m going to have as soon as this is over. Maybe there’ll be enough water to wash away the gallons of sweat I’ve accumulated in my clothing too. I can’t remember the last time I had a proper washing. Most of my bathing over the past three years has been at a public sink.

  The ship groans even louder. Then it begins to shake. I have to hang onto the arms of my chair to keep from sliding around in the big seat below my butt. Sixty-two percent uptake. Come on, you bitch! Do this for me!

  “Time to leave,” Beltz says.

  “Eight more percent.” My new goal drops from eighty percent to seventy. I can live with seventy percent. I’m determined to see this through. “We can do this.” I shift my focus to my array, punching up a command for my onboard computer hostess with the mostest. “Adelle, get me a shield on that below deck area. Pick and choose, the weakest areas get the most shield. Go!”

  “Yes, Captain. Partitioning shield on below-deck panels eight, nineteen, twenty-three…” Her voice keeps droning on with more panel numbers, but then a twin gets on the line and cuts her out.

  “Hey! What’s going on up there?! We’re losing shield integrity all over the place!”

  “I moved it to the below-deck area. I just need thirty more seconds.” My voice is surprisingly calm, considering that inside I’m falling apart worse than my ship is.

  “You have about five seconds and then we’re going to bend over and kiss our own asses goodbye down here in the engine room.”

  “Copy that,” I say, cutting off the comm.

  Red lights flash on my array and on the clearpanel. The word ALERT in red floats as a hologram in the air in front of me. I’ve seen this in the simulator a few times, and I know it for the doom that it signals: I’ve hit the maximum stress level this ship can take. The next message I’m going to get is Game Over if I don’t get the hell out of here.

  Another blue alert shares the red one’s screen space announcing the arrival of an ice wave big enough to eat my ship whole.

  My fingers fly over the controls, cutting off the magnetic suction that was pulling the ice up, starting the retrieval sequence for the boom. “Hang on!” I yell as the farthest tip of the nearest ice wave hits the starboard side of the ship. I swear I can hear the crackling of the steeloid as it freezes on contact.

  “Release the boom chuck!” I yell at Baebong, hoping none of that ice hit the boom at the point where it connects to the ship. Otherwise, my little maneuver isn’t going to work; it’ll just tear the boom free completely.

  “We can’t release yet! We’ll lose it!”

  “Just do it!” I scream.

  “Listen to her!” Beltz yells, adding to the insanity of the moment, his voice so loud it echoes around the flightdeck. “She knows what she’s doing!”

  I give the ship thirty percent starboard thrust, moving us away from the next ice wave building in our direction. The boom slides freely in its slot below us. As we move away from the storm, the boom appears to swing toward the coming wave.

  “The boom … it’s going to get ruined,” Jeffers says weakly.

  “The boom will be fine. Just watch.” I’ve practiced this twice before. Twice. Not enough to be as confident as I sound, but they’ll never know that. The first time in the sim I failed miserably; the second time I mostly succeeded. Let’s hope I improve with practice.

&nbs
p; The ship moves fifty meters to the left, the boom trailing behind and angled to the right, giving the ship enough distance from the storm to allow me to breathe again.

  Now that we’re free of the immediate danger of the next ice wave, I can continue the uptake of the boom segments. One by one they lock into place until they’re completely within the boom chamber, and the door bangs shut behind it. All the red lights and holograms fade out and disappear altogether. I wipe another several drops of sweat from my face.

  “Withdrawing from ice-grab,” I say before flipping on the all-com and speaking again. “We’re done for now. Got about seventy percent full on this grab. We’ll try again another time to top off.”

  I nod at Baebong who’s staring at me as if seeing me for the first time.

  “Bring us out of atmosphere,” I say, nodding at him. “Chart a course to meet up with the DS Mekanika.”

  He turns around without a word to follow my orders.

  I sit back in my seat as the ship starts its ascent and the groaning of its exterior panels lessens. When we’re finally on track to head out, I allow myself to relax. My body feels nearly boneless as I sag in my chair. “Holy shit that was close,” I whisper to myself.

  Baebong hears me and glares at me over his shoulder. “Too close.”

  A voice instantly recognizable as Rollo’s comes over the line. “When’s the soonest we can shower, Captain? Rollo had a … uh … small accident.”

  Picturing him pissing his pants, I start giggling and can’t stop. All the stress from the danger of that ice-grab is making me feel like my head is going to explode. I bury my face in my hands for a few seconds, trying to get a grip on my runaway emotions. Slowly but surely, my brain empties of thoughts of my near death and that of my crew and I can breathe normally again.