“Very nice, Kim. That’ll come in handy out here. We need all the warning we can get when something’s incoming.”
No sooner had the words left her lips than an insistent BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP erupted from the speakers.
James jumped. “What’s that?”
“Speak of the devil,” Sverige replied. “That’s the proximity alarm!” Indeed, a blip appeared on the sensor screen at the same moment the alarm sounded. Sverige watched the bogey’s course for several seconds. “Kim, you’d better call the captain.”
Kim swallowed nervously before complying. She toggled the ship’s intercom system. “C-captain Singh. You’re needed on the bridge. Captain Singh, please report to the bridge.”
James went white and gripped the controls tighter. This can’t be good.
The captain ducked through the hatchway. If the bridge was cramped with three occupants, it was downright claustrophobic for four. Singh shoehorned himself in behind James, stooping beneath an overhead console. “Report.”
Janet spoke first. “Captain, we have an incoming from our forward starboard quarter. It’s too soon to tell whether it’ll impact, but it’ll be close. It’s a good ten meters across and moving fast. We have less than a minute.”
James made to cede the pilot’s seat to the captain.
Singh held out an open palm to stop James. “Sit, sit, Mr. McKie. The Flyer is a tortoise, not a hare. She can neither outrun nor evade a fast-moving meteoroid. One minute isn’t enough time to remove ourselves from harm’s way; but it’s enough time to present the smallest possible target. We shall have to rely on this turtle’s shell for protection. Janet, what’s our best course?”
“Eight-oh-three-mark-nine.”
“Do it, Mr. McKie.” When James hesitated, Singh reiterated. “Now, Mr. McKie! There’s no time for indecision!” While James punched in the new course, Singh said, “Janet, sound the alarm.”
The ship slewed to starboard as fast as she was able. The plan was to point her narrow armored prow almost directly at the incoming meteoroid and hope the rock would sail by. The Ares Flyer wasn’t nimble; there was no guarantee she could turn in time.
Sverige signaled the ship-wide alert. As the BRAAK-BRAAK-BRAAK! sounded, she keyed the intercom. “Brace for collision in forty seconds! Repeat, brace for impact. This is not a drill!”
“Can you tell yet if it’s going to hit, Janet?” the captain inquired.
“No, sir. If it misses, it’ll be very close—on the order of a few meters at best. A lot depends on how far we manage to turn. Thirty seconds.”
James, not a particularly religiously man, said a quick prayer. Please, God! Don’t let my hesitation kill anyone.
The Aries Flyer valiantly tried to make herself invisible to the hurtling boulder.
Sverige toggled the intercom back on. “Impact in twenty seconds.”
James’ tunic stuck to his chest in the moist, heavy air of the bridge. As he waited, his heart beat an allegro rhythm against his ribcage. Come on, come on!
“Ten seconds.”
“Everyone grab something!” the captain ordered.
The Flyer kept turning, turning, seemingly in slow motion.
Will it be enough? James silently wondered. You can do it, old girl! James unconsciously pressed down firmly with his right foot where the accelerator would be in a groundcar. Move it!
“Brace for impact! Five…four…three….”
James took a deep breath, steeling himself for sudden and violent death.
“Two…one…impac—!”
CHAPTER 5
Engineering Marvels: Orbital Docking Facility (ODF)—The construction of the first space elevator required tens of thousands of tons of iron and carbon as raw materials. By 2060, the matériel was already in short supply on Earth and would have been too expensive to launch into orbit; therefore humanity had to find it somewhere in space, retrieve it and insert it into Earth orbit. First, however, entire new industries had to evolve to address the issues of mining, refining and construction in space. In addition, there was a need for an engine powerful enough to move multimillion-ton asteroids.
At a tremendous cost, and with the unprecedented cooperation of the national Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the reformed Russian Space Agency (RKA), and private enterprise, in 2065 two small asteroids were located and redirected to geosynchronous Earth orbit. One was carbonaceous, the other metallic. The iron-nickel asteroid was turned into steel for the construction of the new space station, while the carbonaceous one was used to create a super-strong ribbon cable made of a carbon nanotube composite.
— Excerpt from Encyclopedia Solaris, 2176
* * * *
The ship shuddered and the lights went out. Kim gasped in the dark.
After a long second, the lights came back on.
“Status!” Capt. Singh demanded.
“Checking internal and external sensors,” Kim reported with a quaver in her voice. “No damage detected. It glanced off the hull.” The sound of several people’s breath being exhaled filled the room.
James closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself and took a deep breath.
Singh winked at Kim. “Well done. It looks like we all owe Ms. Cappelletti a debt of gratitude for upgrading our sensors just in time. A few seconds less warning and we might have taken a gut shot from that rock. Instead we only need a little bodywork. Double portions of dessert for Ms. Cappelletti tonight!”
Kim blushed becomingly.
Sverige keyed the intercom again. “All hands stand down. It looks like we dodged a bullet. Repeat, all hands return to your duties.”
“I-I’m sorry, captain,” James said, looking miserable. “I almost got us killed.”
Capt. Singh held the young man’s eyes with his own. “Nonsense! This was your first time under fire. A moment’s hesitation was understandable, and you did get us turned in time. You won’t hesitate the next time I give you an order, will you?”
James shook his head emphatically no.
“See? You learned a valuable lesson today. No harm done. That rock hardly scratched the paint.” He grinned at James, who gratefully responded in kind, albeit crookedly.
* * * *
Word quickly spread about Kim’s and James’ roles in the Flyer’s narrow escape. Within an hour of shift change, while they and Daniel relaxed in the Commons, everyone aboard had given them either a hug or a slap on the back. Somehow, James suspected, his role in the affair had been overblown.
The rumor mill at work? Or Capt. Singh being generous in his praise?
Either way, after the first few times, James gave up trying to set the record straight.
“That’s the last of them,” Daniel announced after Jamison left.
“About time,” Kim declared. “I don’t think my back could take another whack. Some of those guys don’t know their own strength!” The two men grinned.
“So how about a game of three-way Crunchball to loosen your sore muscles?” Daniel asked. “I’ll even spot you a goal each.”
James snorted. “Not like I need the goal, but you’re on. That’ll teach you to underestimate your opponents.”
“Same here,” Kim agreed. “I need to grab a shower first, though. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll meet you there.”
“A shower first?” Daniel frowned. “But you’ll need a shower afterward anyway.”
“Maybe so, but a girl has to look her best at all times.”
Daniel looked to James, who merely shrugged.
* * * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s crunch time. The score is knotted at twenty-four. The next goal decides the match. The gallery is hushed as it awaits the pivotal serve.”
“Shut up, Daniel; just serve the ball.” Kim knew this was simply one of Daniel’s tactics to distract the others, but it was annoying nonetheless.
Let’s just get this over with.
Daniel spun the grapefruit-sized rubber ball b
etween his fingers before hurling it at the left corner of the far wall. All three competitors launched themselves to the right to catch the carom. The ball hit the corner seam and bounced off at an odd angle.
Daniel was the first to reach the right-hand wall; he kicked off in an upward trajectory, followed closely by the other two. He snared the ball, but James and Kim blocked his view of the yellow goal on the left-hand wall—Daniel’s target. He flipped and twisted so that he’d be in position for another bounce off the ceiling. James and Kim made similar adjustments in order to stay between Daniel and his goal.
He’s lining up his shot. I’ve got to time my lunge just—yes! The ball deflected off Kim’s right wrist and sailed toward the floor to the left.
All the competitors were still drifting to the right and it was a mad scramble to get into position for the rebound at just the right angle and speed. This time James reached the ball first in a nifty combination flip-twist that left him within arm’s length of the ball just as it caromed off the floor. He was in a perfect position to score in the red goal—his—on the front wall. James reared back for the decisive shot and Kim snatched the ball from his hand as she flew past.
Damn, I’m good!
She sailed unimpeded directly toward the blue goal on the right-hand wall. With only three players today, the green goal on the back wall was unused. Kim slammed home the winning score, bounced off the wall, and performed a triple somersault with a double twist before landing lightly on the far wall.
The two young men watched openmouthed. This was the same klutz who needed remedial zero-gee training less than three weeks ago?
James shook his head in disbelief. “I think we’ve been had. She’s been sandbagging us from the start.” The two men joined Kim by the door.
“All right, Kim,” Daniel demanded, “what gives? There’s no way you learned to do all that in the last couple of weeks.”
Kim’s face dimpled in a self-satisfied smile. “I never said I did. My father’s an astronomer, too. I lived on ODF Glory Road for four years when I was a kid, so I had a lot of time to practice. And that flip-wall-wall-floor maneuver I pulled on James a moment ago, well, let’s just say that when you’re a former junior billiards champion, you learn a lot about playing angles and double- and triple-wall caroms.” She finished with her best cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.
“But—” James was still having trouble coming to grips with all this. “Then how could you be so inept during orientation? You looked like you’d never been in zero-gee before.”
Kim grimaced. “Oh, that. As I said, I had a lot of time to practice when I was a kid, but it was always solo. There weren’t any kids my age on Glory Road at the time, and my dad was always too busy to exercise with me. So I wasn’t used to performing in front of an audience. It-it felt like everyone was staring at me in orientation and I got stage fright, I guess. I froze up and couldn’t do anything right.”
Daniel shook his head in wonder. “You sure didn’t freeze up today.”
She shrugged. “I was too busy concentrating on the match to worry about anyone watching.”
“Remind me not to spot you a goal ever again.”
“Okay, don’t spot me a goal ever again!”
“Gee, thanks for the reminder.”
“Anytime you want to get your ass whipped by a girl, give me a call.”
Daniel assumed a playful mien. “Hey, that sounds like fun! What kinds of whips do you have?”
“Smartass!” She slapped him lightly on the arm.
“Smart asses are the best kinds of asses to whip.”
James shook his head. “Oh brother. I think I’m gonna be sick. Why don’t you two just get a motel room and be done with it?”
Daniel grinned. “Well, let’s see. I’d estimate that the nearest motel is a good twenty million klicks from here. If we get out and walk we should get there in, oh, a few thousand years.”
“Men!” Kim headed for the showers while the other two trailed behind, trading progressively raunchier barbs.
* * * *
From piloting the ship to this! James McKie shook his head in disgust as he scraped the food into the disposer.
Everyone else has a regular job, but no, little Jamie has to do something different every other day. It’s not so bad when they need me to help with navigation, or even cargo, but come on, washing dishes? It’s humiliating. I’m a professional, not a menial laborer! Three days of this and I already hope I never see another dirty dish in my life.
He continued wallowing in self-pity a while longer before winding down.
Well, it was pretty obvious the captain hated to have to ask me, but with half his crew sick there was no one else available to do it. Okay, I guess it could be worse. I could be lying in my bunk staring at the walls, bored to tears because I don’t have anything to do. Or I could catch whatever bug laid out Martino and dumped his job in my lap for a few days.
He sighed. Hey, look at the bright side: when he feels better, I get to return to my usual duties while he has to come back to this! The thought brought a slight smile to his lips. Yeah, it could be worse.
James had just put the last of the dishes in the sonic cleanser when the deck lurched. He stumbled, smacking his skull against a bulkhead compartment.
Ow! What the hell?
He put his hand to his temple; it came away smeared with red. He shook his head to clear it, then grabbed a napkin before ducking out the door into the main passageway.
Meteoroid strike? No, there would have been an alarm.
He glanced both ways while dabbing at the blood. There was smoke to his left. James threw down the napkin and sprinted toward the haze.
James ducked into Engineering to find an inferno enveloping the engine. There was no hope of reaching it. He squinted through the dense black, acrid veil that blocked his view and stung his eyes.
Over there! Movement.
James coughed and pulled his tunic up over his mouth, squinting. It didn’t help much. The pall was so heavy he had to crawl to see anything. Three meters, then four. His hand contacted something soft—an arm. He looked all about; there was nothing else but writhing smoke. Heat beat at his right side with a physical presence as he pulled and yanked at the body.
The same non-slip floor coating that normally gave such good footing now served to impede his progress. The man seemed to weigh tons.
This is no good; I can’t drag him.
He coughed again, this time unable to catch his breath and gasping for air. If I don’t get us out of here ASAP, neither of us is going to survive this.
He rose to his feet, eyes burning. Now totally blind in the all-encompassing blackness, James reached down and wrapped his arms under the man’s armpits and across his chest, lifting and dragging him toward where he thought the door was.
I know the fire was coming from my right when I came in. I have to hope it hasn’t spread much since then.
Using the heat as his guide, James stumbled backwards. His shoulders and head hit solid wall, momentarily dazing him. Oh no! Which side of the door am I on? Think!
I must be the left. If I were on the right the heat would be unbearable.
James sidled to his right along the wall for another meter, still dragging the body. The heat intensified with every centimeter. He fell back through the open doorway, still blinded by smoke, with the man landing on top of him.
He was hit with another coughing spasm, but this time there was fresh air fighting with the smoke. I’ve got to get us away from here.
He struggled to his feet and grabbed the man’s arms again. James pulled and suddenly they were floating centimeters off the ground.
Damn! The fire must have gotten the GFG.
That was a two-edged sword. On one hand, James no longer had to fight gravity and friction; on the other, they were now adrift. James didn’t have enough momentum to get him to another surface where he could push off and get them both to safety; at least not before they suffocated in the smoke bil
lowing through the door and flooding the corridor.
At least he could see now—barely—through watery eyes; but well enough to establish the victim’s identity. I’m sorry, Alvarez, but this is the only way.
He pulled the man to him, then pushed away firmly. The two drifted in opposite directions—Alvarez to the floor and James toward the ceiling. James twisted and flipped so he was rising feet first. His feet touched; he immediately pushed off back to Alvarez, who had bounced slightly off the deck. James bent at the waist, hit the floor with his feet, grabbed Alvarez, pushed off at an angle, and launched them both down the corridor.
Two meters, then…three…five…eight and they were clear of the worst of the smoke.
James looked up to see Capt. Singh and Bernie Jamison zigzagging toward him. “Captain—” he croaked. Then a blackness far darker than the smoke swallowed him.
* * * *
James’ dreams were troubled by wraiths wailing in a smoky room. He was unable to understand what they were saying, or to touch any of them. Yet he had the distinct impression they were berating him for not trying harder. They beckoned; but no matter how hard he fought his invisible bonds, he couldn’t reach the ghostly forms.
At times he thought he saw Kim, Daniel, and Capt. Singh through the mist, but their features swam too much to be sure.
When he finally awoke, he was still unable to see clearly—the room was a blur. He saw a shape in the doorway and tried to call out. A sort of gurgle emerged. James put a hand to his mouth, only to encounter a mask over his lower face. Now scared, he tried to sit up, but was restrained by someone. It took him a moment to recognize Jennifer Szumska, the Environmental Systems Officer and ship’s medic.
“Easy, young man, easy. You’re going to be okay. You just have to relax and let the treatment run its course.” Her strong hands gently held James down until he relaxed. “You’ve been unconscious for three days.”
The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative Page 7
