Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  “How is he with propulsion systems?”

  “No good.”

  “How are you?”

  “Better, but I’m no engineer.”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  “I was hoping you’d had some experience with this. How have you dealt with trouble crew before?”

  “I’ve left a deckhand behind on purpose, just left the station a few hours before we said we would. Didn’t want him staying behind and trashing the ship just to spite me. But nothing as bad as active sabotage.”

  “In his own twisted mind, he probably thinks he’s saving us. He still could be, for all we know.”

  “Bullshit, I know we can do this job. I know you can.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not a solution. Mal thinks we’re better off facing the Corporates and handing over Artemis. So far they’ve used mercs, drones, nukes, boarding pods and intimidation to try and get us to stop. I doubt the Corporates will just thank us for being good citizens and send us on our way.”

  “All right, we need to find out what Mal is doing to my ship. Can you get a vid-drone in there? Or one of your nanite friends?”

  “Vid-drone, maybe. I’m on stand-down as far as my NP is concerned. Burned myself out earlier. Doc says I’m supposed to be in bed right now actually.”

  “I’ll get Fel to work on something, then. Tac can fill me in on what I’ve missed. You go get some bunk time. I think we might just wait and see what Mal has in store for us. Maybe we can just work around him until we’re clear of this mess. Maybe try isolate him from the systems for a bit. Anything we need repaired that’s not near the engines?”

  “The beamer. We need that up and running soon. Might as well bump it up the priorities list.”

  “Good idea. I’ll order his arse on EVA and get him fixing that first. Just leave the drive on tanks for now, until we’ve found out what he’s trying to do. Maybe this is all just a misunderstanding, but I’m not putting the rest of the crew at risk on an assumption.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Max was back.

  40.

  With Max back on duty, taking care of yet another problem that had reared its ugly head, I was able to get some decent shut eye. My cabin was a mess, several rounds from the drone attacks had gone through the compartment and had messed up my locker and the shower stall. I quick check revealed that my M4 MAEL suit was trashed, a round had gone through the bulk of the armour and a short fire from the damage had eaten most of the combustible material. Thankfully, my bunk was undamaged. I checked the airtight integrity of the cabin and when Tac reported it was safe I threw myself down on the cot and was asleep in minutes.

  When I awoke, I felt much better. No head ache, and no aching muscles or burns. It was then that I realised I’d gone pretty much the entire gunfight in the aft cargo without suffering a single hit. Whatever my misgivings I’d had with nano-proliferation weeks ago, it was hard to argue with results. I just had to get my charge usage under control and I could see this technology bringing my game to the next level. Crege was right, however. I needed to make sure that I didn’t rely on it too much, or let it make me too confident. I needed an anchor, someone or something to remind me that I can fail. Not for the first time in recent weeks, I found myself holding my Star Marine medal, my thumb rubbing absently along one side. This is what I needed.

  I rummaged through the wreckage of my locker and found an old container I’d kept some mementos in. Inside was a titanium chain link I used to keep my dog tags on. I threaded the medal onto the chain and slipped it around my neck. I tucked it into my jump suit and ran my hand over my chest, feeling the solidness of it beneath the fabric. Yes, I mused, this was what I needed. My anchor. It was fitting, as the medal itself bore a stylised anchor wreathed in flames.

  I left my compartment and headed for the command module. I’d slept nearly a full half shit day, and was eager for news. I could tell by the fact that I’d not been woken by the Dreaming manoeuvring heavily that we’d not been fired upon again. The hatch to the command module was open, and I could see Denno on watch with Maxine.

  I sat down at my usual station and brought up a status report on my overlay. I saw that the beamer had been assessed and that work was scheduled in the next EVA cycle.

  “What’s new?” I asked ask Max greeted me.

  “I’ve filled Denno here in on what’s going on, with Mal. He’s going to check to see if Hergo is in on it.”

  “What do you think, Denno? Is Hergo capable of this?”

  “I do not believe that Hergo would betray his Captain, or this ship. Remember what I said about our culture? I’ve met Argen who do not follow our tenets closely, but Hergo has never been one of those people. If he is assisting Mal to sabotage this ship, it is without the knowledge of what he does.”

  “You think Mal could talk him into doing the wrong thing?”

  “It is possible. Hergo has always shown an interest in engines, as a hatchling, and Mal and he share common interests. He is not the brightest kid, however. It is possible that he is being misled as to the purpose of the work he undertakes at Mal’s behest.”

  “What is Mal doing now?”

  “Sleeping.” said Max, “but I’ve got him doing shifts on EVA, along with Hergo. They’re getting the polycrete foam lattice put up around the hull and working on the beamer, which is almost repaired. We’re running pretty low on foam, by the way. We can’t take too many more hull breaches and be able to plug them quickly.”

  “We got enough to finish the lattice?”

  “Just. Then we’re rationing it.”

  “How about the rest of the contingencies for railgun shells?”

  “Zoe let Crege make his way up here to program the auto-response manoeuvres. He complained about someone adjusting his seat, but I could tell he was thankful to be back in the chair. Think he was going crazy cooped up in med lab all this time.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Zoe said it was a bad wound. Any worse and she would have had to install a cybernetic prosthetic.”

  “I didn’t know we had any of those on board.”

  “We don’t. Crege would have been one legged until we got into port.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, that little bit of news has Crege playing nice with the Doc. I’ve never seen him so compliant while injured before.”

  “Remember what he was like with Doc Gallows?”

  “Ha! Roderick threatened to resign three times while he was our medical officer. All three were right after treating Crege.”

  “Remember when we did that job on Acheras Orbital?”

  “When Crege shot his own foot?”

  “I swear Crege was going to kill Rod for removing the rest of his foot.”

  “I told Roderick to hide in the aft cargo until he calmed down. We got so involved with placating Crege, and then we had that leak in the Imodium tanks, that I clean forgot about Roderick until the next day. Poor Rod was still hiding in a container when I remembered to go get him. Ha, ha! He wanted to be let off the ship at the next port, he was so pissed.”

  “Doc Gallows was the medical officer before Zoe?” asked Denno.

  “No, we hired on an ex-paramedic from Golus for a bit.” I said.

  “Caught him taking hits from our medical stores, cycled him out the first port we pulled into. After that we wanted someone a bit more…professional.” explained Max.

  “So anyway, enough of the side tracking. What else is going on?”

  “I’ve got Tac watching our nanite net anchor points, making sure no one thinks that letting the trail go will force us to surrender to the Corporates. We don’t have enough nanite containers to fix that sensor net too many times either, so I hope they don’t think to send us into high-gee manoeuvres too often.

  “The scoop is still offline. We’re letting Mal think we’ve bought his story about repairs, and I’ve started water rationing. From now on, all toiletry and ablutions are to be performed in the Deck 2 starboard he
ads.”

  “My shower is out of commission anyway.”

  “Showers are limited to 90 seconds per wash, once a day maximum, so make them count.”

  “Please tell me we’re not reclaiming potable water.”

  “Not yet, but if we don’t resolve this in the next few days, we will be.”

  “God, I hate reclaimed water. I’m still thinking of that water treatment plant we climbed through back on the Cluster.”

  “You and me both, Donny.”

  “How’s Fel’s investigation going?”

  “So far, he’s sent a vid-drone in to document all the work being done. He placed scanner nanites amongst it about ten hours ago. We should see more on what’s going on in a one ship day. Engines aren’t Fel’s forte, so he’s got Tac to go through all the data and cross reference it with any known fault conditions and issues that may justify the work being performed.

  “We’re giving Mal the benefit of the doubt?”

  “For now. Innocent until proven guilty. Whatever his actions, I still don’t believe he’d do something like this out of spite. I just wish I knew what his end game was.”

  “It’s got to be the water tanks. Surely.”

  “That’s my current train of thought. We’ve dropped a probe inside all the tanks to monitor the pressure in real time and I changed the codes a few hours ago. The new codes should be in your inbox on your overlay. If he was going to do something, those codes won’t stop him indefinitely, but it should force him to get creative if he wanted to flush our water out into space.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Sore. I’m definitely not drunk any more, but I’m not one-hundred percent either. I wanted to let you both know that I won’t be taking any more leaves of absence again. I’m sorry I let you all down when I did.”

  “Nonsense, Captain, you left us in very capable hands.” said Denno.

  “I’m very proud of you, Seth. You’d make your father a very proud man.”

  “Thanks. I had a great teacher. I also had a great crew. If you’re up to it, I’d like to give Eric a proper farewell today. A sending off from aft cargo.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “I was thinking of holding a little ceremony, we can all say our goodbyes and then we can shoot him off towards the Eridani star.”

  “How?”

  “Our last interceptor is just about beyond economical to repair. I’m going to pull the propulsion out and program it to fly straight to the star with Eric’s casket bolted on.”

  “Eric would have loved to go out this way.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d approve.”

  “Let’s do it. How about we do it tonight, head on up to the mess deck afterwards and hold a short vigil.”

  “No drinking?”

  “No drinking.” she agreed.

  “All right, I’m going to head on down to forward cargo and get to work. I’ll let you know when I’m done, and we can let everyone else know.”

  I got up and left the compartment, heading aft and down to Deck 2. I found Zoe in the mess deck nursing a cup of tea and staring off a thousand miles away. I decided that Eric’s funeral preparations could wait a few minutes, that the living needed care first. I sat down at the table, noting that the mess deck had been restored to relative comfort once more. She smiled as I sat, and I could see the tiredness in her eyes and a hint of sadness that yanked on my heart strings.

  “Hey, princess.”

  “Hey, Space Daddy.”

  “How are you holding up?” I reached across the table and encircled her hands in mine as she held her warm mug.

  “Tired.”

  “I can see that. Have you slept?”

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “Want to talk?”

  She smiled again and took a sip. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  “Uh oh. That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s this trip. It’s taking more out of me than I’d thought it would. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “I just take it one day at a time. I’m here for you, anytime you need me.”

  “That’s just it, I can’t just rely on you all the time. You have so much on your plate already, even if Maxine is back with us. You’re like this great rock that we all hold onto when the waters get too rough. I don’t want to be one more person hanging onto you when everyone else needs you as well.”

  “Zoe, you’re my rock. My head has been so screwed up these last few years, it’s only with you that I’ve managed to unscrew it. If there is any time that you need someone to hold onto, I’m there. I never knew how much I needed someone until I found myself needing you. If anything, it’s me that holds onto you.”

  We sat in silence for a while, just holding hands across the table. I wasn’t sure if what I was saying was sinking in, so I got up and walked around and sat next to her. I put my arm around her and she leaned her head against my shoulder and just enjoyed each other’s company. After a while, she realised she’d finished her tea and was holding a cold empty mug. We got up, she to return her mug to the auto-chef, me to head down to Deck 3. I kissed her and told her to get some rest, and she gave me a smile that made me feel better about her state of mind. The sadness was still there, but there was hope as well, and a warmth that I could only describe as love.

  I was reminded then, of how young she was. She was still in her early twenties, and close enough to her official age, biologically, that there might as well be no difference. Up until a year ago she was living a life of academic comfort, safe and peaceful on Kanto Prime. I’d hardened myself to the dangers of being an ‘active’ operator in space, but she was closer to what we called a civilian. Were the stresses we’d dealt with and the danger we’d faced these last few months, along with what we were yet to face, going to affect her as they had affected me? Were we responsible for stripping away her innocence and hope?

  As I mused, I’d travelled down to the forward hold and found myself once more before Eric’s casket. Here laid a man who’d given it all to the life. A true Nomad of the stars, no home, no place besides the Dreaming of Atmosphere. Was this where I was to end up? In a casket in the cargo hold, awaiting burial in space? Was this to be Zoe’s fate as well?

  Now that I’d felt I was in the right frame of mind to be working on organising a funeral, I got to work. I hauled our one remaining Interceptor back to the armoury and began stripping it for parts. I would soon have a coffin rocket fit to take my friend right into this system’s sun.

  41.

  We were all gathered in the aft cargo hold in a semi-circle before Eric’s casket. We’d cleared space around the aft loading airlock, and the coffin rested on a wheeled trolley ready to be taken into the airlock when we were finished. Artemis has volunteered to remain on watch, diplomatically removing herself from the ceremony. We’d gathered a few minutes ago, and milled about making small talk until I cleared my throat and asked for silence.

  “Chief Engineer Eric Thackeray was the oldest person I knew. I’d met older people, sure, but I’d never really known them. When I say I knew Eric, I mean it in every sense of the word. We never truly know someone until we’ve seen inside their souls, their very essence of what makes a man, or women, themselves. Knowing, as it stands, is very much the same as accepting them, for their good and their bad. When you really know someone this way, you can’t help but love them.

  “I remember when I first began to know Eric. I was thirteen years old, and he was showing me how to strip down a catalyst module in Central Control. Only an hour ago I’d been told that my father had been gunned down in a bar fight in the station we were parked at. Everyone expected me to just run to my cabin and cry. I did, but I didn’t stay there. Eric came and got me an hour later. Just opened my door and walked in, telling me I was late for the day’s lesson. I’d raged at him, called him a bunch of names, but he just stood there and took it all then when I was finished he told me these words.

  “He said ‘You’
ve lost a father today, not the ability to do work. If he were here, he’d kick you in the arse and tell you to get on with your lessons’. I replied then that because he wasn’t here he couldn’t tell me to go. He smiled at me, put his hand on his heart and said ‘But he’s here. In you. And he is telling you.’

  I placed my own hand over my heart. “Well now Eric is here, too. And he is telling me that we’ve only lost a friend, not the ability to finish what we started. The closest bonds we will ever know are the bond of grief, the deepest community one of sorrow. His passing has made us closer than ever, for we share the pain of his loss, we feel together his absence.

  “We have a part of ourselves in here with Eric’s remains. A part of our life. How much we each invested of ourselves in this man we now send into the cold abyss of space. He has no home but the stars, and to the stars we send him. This casket will take Eric to the heart of this system, and there he will forever remain, but also, he will forever remain within our hearts.”

  I nodded to Denno, who stood beside the airlock controls. He pushed a button and the inner airlock door opened. Fel and Denno then wheeled the trolley into the airlock, lowered the casket to the deck and returned with the trolley. When the airlock was sealed, they cycled the air out of the airlock.

  “We remember you, a friend

  for we hold you in our hearts.

  You live on, memory,

  forever the Dreaming’s son

  We give unto you, a son

  for of the stars are we made

  Our bodies, our form,

  are but borrowed star matter.

  We bid you farewell, a brother

  for now we must part awhile.

  Stars await, o’ Eric,

  your journey lies before you.”

  With a solemn nod, I gave the signal for the outer airlock to open. Gravity was removed from the ‘lock and gradually the casket rose and drifted out into space. The small propulsion system fired, taking the casket away, and soon it was nothing more than a speck in the inky blackness of space. The casket would take years to reach the Eridani star, decades at least. One final grand tour of space before being consumed by the star.