The Outer Ring

by Martin Wilsey

  “Chen, can you help me, tomorrow, with a code review on Caisy?” Wes asked. Wes never asked.

  “Sure, but it will cost you. I hear Peck has some excellent bourbon.” Chen smiled. Both Wes and Barcus covered their eyes, just to be assholes about it. Wes feigned staggering away.

  “We’ll be done with our maintenance run by lunch. I will help you in the afternoon,” she called out to his back. "If this asswipe doesn’t sleep too late,” Chen called, as she pounded a fist on Barcus’s chest with a solid thunk.

  “OK, OK. I’ll buy you some bourbon, later, at Peck’s Halfway.” Wes retreated to the lift.

  None of them knew they were being watched from thirty-two angles.

  ***

  Peck’s Halfway was the closest bar to the ship’s outer ring.

  All of the heavies, (the people that lived in the outer 2G ring), went to this bar. They called it a ‘1G Joint’ and they all liked Peck, the owner. Peck had run this bar for as long as anyone could remember. He was fat, old and gay. He ate and drank too much. He slept in .5G all night and sat in his bar on a padded grav-plate stool that must have cost a mint. He had gout, a missing tooth, and all the ladies loved him. Well, the men, too. Even the heavies.

  Barcus walked into the Halfway, wearing his typical after work clothes: jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. He saw where the heavies sat and moved through the crowd toward them.

  “Hey, Barcus, you bucket of spit, get your ugly mug over here before I come over this bar and kick your ass!” Peck loved talking like that to Barcus; it made the newbies wonder.

  “I’d like to see that, you fat fuck. You better give me a bottle of this bourbon I have heard about or I’ll knock out another tooth,” Barcus yelled back, as he approached. Reaching out, their hands slapped together in a handshake that turned into a hug, causing Barcus to, literally, almost come over the bar.

  “How goes it, old friend?” Barcus said, sitting down to talk, as Peck set two fine crystal tumblers on the bar and withdrew a dusty bottle from somewhere, as if by magic. With a flare, he pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth, spat it onto the bar and poured for them both.

  “It goes very well. It will be going even better, soon.” He raised his glass, and said, “To sipping the joys of life, so they last longer.” Peck raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  Barcus sipped the bourbon.

  “Peck. You’ve just ruined my life. I now know I’ll never have another bourbon this excellent. I might as well die tomorrow.” Barcus sipped again.

  Peck downed his in one tip of the glass.

  Before his chin lowered, Barcus snatched the bottle from Peck’s hand and said, “You savage!”

  “Wait!” Peck stopped him, smiling. “Remember our discussion, Thursday last?” Once again, as if by magic, he produced a glass test tube about fifteen centimeters long and four wide. It had a humidity control stopper. Inside was a large cigar.

  “Are you nuts? Where’d you get that?” It disappeared into Barcus’s pocket.

  “Never you mind. And, you didn’t get that from me. That goes to the outer ring and stays there.” Tobacco was forbidden on the ship. This created a thriving black market for it.

  “Thanks, Peck,” Barcus said. “Put it on my tab.”

  He knew Peck wouldn’t. Barcus’s money wasn’t good in Peck’s Halfway and Barcus allowed it. He learned to live with it. He never took advantage, though. It made Peck happy. Barcus knew that Peck’s life was worth more than a big bar tab. But, that’s not why Barcus saved it.

  He approached the table and around it were the usual suspects, plus a few others. Chen, Rand and Jimbo sat in the back of the huge booth. Everyone knew that if you gave Jimbo shit about drinking OJ, you’d have to buy the next round. It looked like Jack Miller recently learned that lesson. Barcus wondered if he was stupid enough to make that one arm chin-up bet with Chen.

  To his surprise, Wes Hagan was there, as well. Two senior staff members? Hagan was having a close, heated conversation with Jimbo. There was Sarah, Bishop, Karen, Ross, and Beth Shaw from medical, as well.

  “Well, well, well. I see I am expected.” Barcus gestured, with the bottle, to the black tray that held a dozen clean glasses, sitting in the middle of the table.

  “You’re Peck’s favorite,” Rand teased.

  He sat in a chair next to Sarah, pouring a shot into each glass, and handing them around. “It’s just as well that this is a small bottle. Tomorrow comes all too soon.”

  Everyone took a glass, except Jimbo, even Chief Hagan. Barcus had never seen Jimbo drink alcohol, ever. They held their glasses up and waited. It was a tradition. Jack looked around, but then followed suit.

  After a moment of silence, Barcus said, “There is a pleasure in being mad, that none but madmen know…”

  They drank.

  Everyone talked at once, then. “Where do you come up with those?” Jimbo asked.

  “My God!” a few other people said.

  “This is the best bourbon, ever.”

  “Read a fucking book, Jimbo,” Barcus replied.

  “This bourbon is so good, I want to fuck it,” Jack said, causing dead silence.

  Then, everyone broke out laughing.

  They didn’t know about the malice that monitored them over the ship’s security cameras.

  ***

  “We drop out of FTL in eleven minutes, people. Stations, please,” Jimbo announced over the ship comms of the Memphis. Most of the crew on the command deck buckled their five-point harnesses. They lifted the disk up by its belt from between their legs and snapped the buckles in on each side. The five-point harness automatically adjusted.

  They all strapped in, except Myers. Myers was an asshole. Jim planned on talking to Captain Everett about finding him another duty station.

  The Memphis was the captain’s pinnace. A big one. It had a crew of thirty-six men and women, five levels, a huge cargo bay, and advanced FTL engines powered by three dark matter reactors. On this run, they also carried four scientists and a sixteen man security team; the very same team that ran the outer ring. Jimbo hoped to get to know them on this mission.

  One by one, all the units checked in. Even Sergeant McGrath, the leader of the security team, checked in with a simple, “Standing by.” Jimbo punched up the view of the aft briefing room. The whole squad strapped into seats in two 4x4 grids on either side of the aisle. They required an empty seat between the men, since their shoulders were so wide.

  “Dropping out of FTL, now,” Cook, the pilot, said.

  “Separation complete. Moving out to monitoring distance.

  Then, it happened.

  ***

  Rand was called out of a dead sleep by Captain Everett at 0420 hours. “I want you in command shuttle Charlie in fifteen minutes.” She was there in nine minutes. But, she was the only one there when it happened.

  ***

  Based on the conversations Barcus heard last night between Jimbo, Chen, and Wes, he decided to get down to the STU early. That way, Chen could be first in line on the flight deck for launch, and first back. Removing that specific dish for an upgrade will only take him half the time it said on the schedule.

  Coffee in hand, he quietly walked up behind Chen and bear-hugged her. His left arm wrapped diagonally and down in front of her, as she worked at the control terminal attached to the hydraulic leg that raised and lowered the ramp.

  She completely ignored him, as she concentrated on the panel. He released her and kissed the top of her head, handing her his coffee to share a sip. She took it and breathed in the aroma.

  “Let’s do the quick preflight and—” Chen and Barcus felt the deck heave, violently, followed by an explosion, far away, on the flight deck. They felt the hull breach in their ears. Another blast knocked them off their feet.

  “Stu! Close and seal,” she screamed, over the sound of the ship’s outer ring tearing itself apart.

  Barcus got to the ladder first, and turned in time to see the power cells ex
plode in the bay, directly behind the closing ramp. Chen was thrown into him at the ladder. “Go!” she screamed. He hustled up the ladder in a flash. She ascended, slower.

  Just as she got onto the shuttle’s flight deck and the hatch closed, another explosion slammed them into the ceiling. They crashed about in a violent, random, three-axis tumble. Blood splashed out of a tear in the belly of Chen’s flight suit.

  Barcus saw Chen bounce and catch the harness on the pilot’s seat, as he slammed down onto the open HMS. He grabbed hold and placed himself into the suit with practiced muscle memory. He initiated the closure sequence. Just as it closed, they were struck with a massive piece of debris.

  Barcus’s face slammed into the inside of the suit’s faceplate.

  The blackness overtook him along with the sensation that he was still falling.

  ***

  Multiple waves of Ventura debris tore into the Memphis, tossing it into an uncontrolled, end-over-end tumble. Half the crew died, instantly, from hull breaches, or from not being strapped in. The Memphis was on a collision course with the planet’s single moon.

  ***

  No one saw Jack Miller, in HMS number forty-two, get thrown clear of the Ventura as the last missile hit. He had over an hour to think about it, as he fell toward a nameless planet, before he entered its atmosphere. He considered hitting the HMS’s OPEN button, to make his death quick.

  He thought he’d stay and watch. Maybe Chen will come and pull another ‘Jonah’. He doubted it. So, he dosed himself with all the painkillers he found in the onboard med kit.

  He watched the debris around him burn like a shooting star. It was beautiful. It made him sleepy. He never felt his legs cooking.

  He died, still falling.

  ***

  It was not the end for Barcus.

  It was just the beginning…