“What if my line gets cut?”
“Anything that you can use to retain a grip on a solid surface will help. I’ve chewed gum.”
“Gum?”
“Yeah, some wiry little cosmonaut cut my line two missions ago, while his partner smashed my faceplate in with their multi-tool. I lost my wrench doing the same to him as I exhaled.”
“Your faceplate was smashed and your line was cut?”
“I’m telling you from experience, so you know it can be done. The wiry cosmonaut shoved me and I went swinging out, grabbed my gum, and used it to hold onto the Voskhod’s solar vanes. I crawled back and made that bastard pay.”
“How did you exhale and keep your gum?”
“Through my nose, Driscoll! Didn’t you ever go diving?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Do it. It’s the only reason I’m still alive and they’re dead. Remember that know-it-all idiot Lieutenant Cluff? That dumb bastard didn’t exhale. He got the bends and died.”
“They said that was a training exercise.”
“This is a training exercise—if it fails. Otherwise we are just silent weapons for quiet wars.”
As Cormac brought the X-20 in for a final yo-yoing approach, the night side came over them in a sweeping mantle of ebon-couched darkness, fracturing the last rays of sunlight.
Driscoll stayed quiet a moment, deep in thought before saying, “I’d like to think I am contributing more than that. You know, something for the greater good.”
“Yeah, me too. But it is what it is.”
“Are we going to die?”
“I made peace with that answer a long time ago.”
“If not for the greater good then why do it?”
Cormac snorted. “It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
He brought the X-20 into a violating rendezvous with the bizarre Soviet station. A hybrid made from the Salyut and Soyuz modules, the station seemed almost stationary in the vast deep of space. A pincer-like armature from the X-20’s left winglet grasped a jutting solar panel wing on the side of the station, causing the entire unholy union to subtly change its orbital spin as the whole body shook and twisted.
Cormac pulled his bowie knife from the side of his seat. “If they didn’t already know we’re here, they sure as hell do now.”
“That bad?”
“It’s all bad, but maybe if we scared them enough, they’ll slip up. You want to hear them bark at us? White found their frequency last week.”
The intercom crackled a quick spray of angry Russian.
“What did they say?”
“They said they were going to kill us if we didn’t leave.”
“What if they saw us coming and are ready?”
Cormac growled, shaking his head. “Listen, we’ve been in our pressurized suits the whole time. They haven’t. They’ll be sick and easier pickings. You take the wrench. If I’m fast enough, you won’t even need to swing it.”
“I still don’t feel right about this. Not face to face.”
Ryman broke in, “Trust me, Major Driscoll. This needs to happen. We must break with these melodramatic excuses of moralistic right and wrong. The Soviets are attempting a means to destroy and rule us. We must turn the balance and take back what is ours by dark divine right!”
“Yeah, yeah. You ready for this, Ryman? Let’s go.”
“Captain Ross, I am not a physical combatant. I am not getting out of the space plane until you clear all obstacles.”
“’Course. Never mind, if Driscoll and I get killed you don’t know how to pilot this thing home in one piece.”
“I would find a way.”
“I’ll bet you would try.”
“Quite.”
“I’m opening the airlock. Hold on to your damned book.”
“You have no idea.”
Cormac secured his bowie knife with a strap about his left arm and gave a thumbs up to Driscoll. The radio crackled as the Russians’ demands were again ignored. A sudden rush of pressure stole whatever oxygen had stowed away within the X-20.
Twin doors opened a portal to the vacuum of space. Stars set hard against deep black gave cold, unfeeling light.
“Unbuckle. We gotta move faster than they do.”
Floating in the dark ether, Cormac raised above his seat and floated over the top of Ryman, still clutching his book. He secured a fifty-five-foot line from an anchored reel to his harness and beckoned the same to the other two men, then went through the black gate to the outside void.
Driscoll followed suit, looking back once at the gleeful Ryman still seated and perusing his infernal book.
As Driscoll pushed himself up and out the X-20, Cormac grabbed his shoulder and guided him to a short antennae sticking off the side of the Salyut.
Cormac motioned to the stations airlock. “They’ll have a second one over on the ass-end of the Soyuz. I imagine they will swarm out of each hatch.”
“Why aren’t they out already?”
“They’re suiting up and pressurizing themselves. Probably think they can take care of us based on sheer numbers.”
“Numbers?”
Cormac then signaled he was turning off his radio and for Driscoll to do the same.
Driscoll did as the experienced cold warrior asked. Looking behind Cormac, he tried to take in the vast black gulfs beyond.
Cormac leaned his faceplate against Driscoll’s so they clacked together. The sound could only be heard inside the helmets as the vibrations resonated solely through the air in that tiny space. “This is the only way no one can hear us.”
“?”
“Listen! Ryman is up to no good—its like he wants us to fail. There is no way there are only three Reds on a station this big and that is obviously still under construction. Something fishy is going on.”
“What do we tell Manning and Crypto-Cosmic Command?”
“Does it matter? They agreed to this whole operation. We’re in for the long haul, but I don’t buy Ryman’s story. He wants something else.”
“What if he’s right? Maybe they have a bomb or something?”
“I doubt it.”
“What then?”
“Don’t get me wrong, having a bomb in space is an advantage, but it’s not enough on its own. We will always retaliate and give them our own endgame scenario and everybody still loses. Until the advantage is so far in one direction, nobody will ever have the sand to press that button.”
“Then why are we really here?”
“Ryman wants the station for something, but none of the logical answers make sense.”
“What if he is telling the truth?”
“You know he’s not.”
With that, Cormac turned his radio back on and pointed at a face staring at them through the portal window of the Salyut.
“That was a woman!” Driscoll blurted.
“Yeah, the Reds are real progressive.”
The radio crackled again with a stern Russian’s accent coming through. “American running dogs of the capitalist pigs. We know you hears us. You are given your last warnings. You take your craft and illegal war and leave or we will be forced to bring death to you.”
“What do we—”
“Just hold on. They always threaten a few times.”
The Russian tried one last time. “Americans, you are given your last warnings. We will shoot you!”
Driscoll looked at Cormac then back to the face in the portal window.
Cormac drawled, unconvinced, “They’re bluffing.”
“And if they’re not?”
“The Soviet Command wouldn’t let them bring extra weight on one of those capsules. Star City limits what they can bring, down to the fraction of an ounce. Their hypergolic fuel is too heavy. Nobody gave them a gun—more likely they know ‘the Cutter’ is here and somebody’s already evacuated into their suit.”
A clear line interrupted from Ryman. “Why do you not have control of that station yet, Captain Ross?”
&
nbsp; “Reds haven’t invited me in yet.”
“So get inside and deal with them.”
“I didn’t want to make a mess.”
“The messier the better,” snapped Ryman. “Make the Soviets bleed.”
Pointing at the hatch, Cormac said, “Let’s try and open that and get inside.”
Driscoll threw his weight into it but only succeeded in spinning himself. “It’s locked.”
“I told you, they were bluffing about having guns. Let me try.” The bigger man strained against the hatch but made no progress against it. Cormac ordered, “Bang your wrench on that portal. They’ll move.”
Driscoll knocked the wrench against the portal window. The force of the blow threw him back and he had to retain a stronger grip alongside the station. Just holding the wrench with his gloved hand was hard enough, but Driscoll imagined that back on Earth he would have easily crushed a car window.
The Russian negotiator barked,“Americans! You will cease this unlawful disruptions of Soviet space!”
There was little chance of Driscoll being able to smash in the portal window. But there was an unnerving feeling that if the portal window failed and cracked, everyone inside would be dead in seconds. Fear made them leave their true and relative safety.
“You leave us no choice, Americans!” crackled the reply.
“You got it,” Cormac said over the com-link to the Russians. It was the only response he had given their channel yet.
“Watch for that lower airlock on the Soyuz below us.”
Driscoll struck the portal window again, leaving a tiny white scrape but no real damage. He looked at what from his perspective seemed to be down at the Soyuz module.
“Poyekhali!” snapped the radio.
“What did that Russian say?”
“He said, ‘Let’s go.’”
What had been dark below now showed a shaft of light. The lower hatch had been opened.
“They’re coming out!”
“Keep steady. They’re cold bastards when they want to be.”
The hatch beside Cormac suddenly popped open.
Oxygen and water vapor blasted out into space.
Cormac moved in to slash the Russian.
A cosmonaut in an orange space suit stood just inside the airlock, a strange triple-barreled pistol in hand.
Shocked that his opponent had a gun, Cormac lunged left.
A mute projectile erupted from the gun barrel. Smoke and phantom blue flame leapt out.
The bullet narrowly missed Cormac beside the hatch only because the gunman had not been prepared to swing his weapon fast enough, nor had he braced himself for the impact it gave in zero gravity. The gun flung him backward against the airlock wall.
Cormac maneuvered himself around and above the hatch, ready to strike like an asp when the gunman emerged.
“Help!” Driscoll cried.
Three cosmonauts came at him from all sides, wielding strange dual-use Soviet tools. One had a hammer with a crude spike on the backside. Doubtless a utilitarian instrument but deadly none the less.
“There’s too many!”
Driscoll batted away their strikes, barely fending off the attack, never capable of taking the real fight to them.
“I can’t hold them off!”
Waiting what seemed an eternity, Cormac tensed ready to strike the gunman.
“Arrgh!”
The gunman didn’t or wouldn’t exit the airlock.
“Cormac! Help!”
Cormac watched Driscoll take several more hits, though the labored presence of his voice over the radio said his suit had not been ruptured yet.
Fearful the gunman would appear the moment he moved, Cormac launched himself off the Salyut at full force and all possible speed. He kept one hand on his line and at the right moment tugged on the secure tether, bringing his bulk as close to where he needed to be as possible.
A painful grunt spat over the radio.
Cormac raced not to aid Driscoll directly but to where the Russians’ tethers came across the bow of the Salyut. Stout refined rope, strong enough for mountain climbers and wrapped in a protective film, held the cosmonauts in trusted thrall but it was no match for sharp meteoric steel. Rather than fight the cosmonauts, Cormac cut their lines before they realized he was there.
Suddenly loose, the first cosmonaut struggled to grab a comrade. The other panicked and yanked on the line, only granting enough tension to ease Cormac’s slice through the tether. The cosmonaut’s line went slack and he floated inches beyond reach of the safety of the ship. He flapped his arms and legs wildly in futility.
With a companion grasping onto his shoulder, the last of the three cosmonauts halted his attack on Driscoll to focus on Cormac.
Cormac missed cutting the third’s tether, and his gut told him to move.
An arclight of blue flame and smoke erupted, narrowly missing Cormac.
The Jack-Hammer wheeled to see the gunman preparing for another shot.
Gripping his own tether, Cormac wrenched mightily and, sweeping hard right, he clothes-lined the gunman.
His finger on the trigger, the gunman shot again, forcing himself back against the ship.
Racing toward this most dangerous assailant, Cormac brought his knife to bear.
The gun-toting cosmonaut struggled for balance, tripping backward against the solar vanes of the Salyut. He prepared to shoot again and realized his mistake.
Cormac cut his tether.
The cosmonaut’s momentum kept him going backward, off and away from the capsule. Floating freely away and off-balance, he attempted one more shot.
The explosive gas rocketed from the triple-barreled gun, sending the cosmonaut away at greater speed, while the bullet went past Cormac and was lost in the far-flung cosmos. The shooter’s body spun end over end until it too vanished in the void of darkness.
The last cosmonaut still fighting battered away at Driscoll. The Californian fended off the attack as best he could with an oversized wrench. But clearly dominating the confrontation, the Soviet loomed over the American, trying to smash his faceplate in.
The second cosmonaut clung to the solar panel of the Soyuz like a man hanging on to a life raft in a raging storm. He seemed incapable of action, likely in shock from his near death in the emptiness of the infinite black sea behind him.
“Captain Ross, you need to assist Major Driscoll,” crackled Ryman through the radio.
“What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“I can not allow the Russians to sacrifice him.”
“Sacrifice?” The Jack-Hammer sped toward Driscoll and the cosmonauts.
Turning to face him, the cosmonaut swung his hammer in swift yet exaggerated round-houses. “Stay back or will kill your comrade most brutal!”
Cormac edged closer.
“Think will you to leave this place ever? Murderer!” said the Russian. “Your bones never to orbit leave!”
“You first, Ivan.”
“Warmongering dog! I fix you!”
Cormac leaned back, just out of range of the hammer’s swing.
Three times the cosmonaut attempted to strike. On the last swing Cormac rushed inside the extended reach and jammed his knife to the hilt into the cosmonaut’s ribs. He twisted and tore the blade out.
Blood boiled, pluming swiftly through the puncture in a cloud of crimson steam.
The cosmonaut screamed as even the saliva on his tongue boiled, returning to a gaseous state. His cries abruptly went silent, though he remained alive a few more seconds as the oxygen fled from his suit. Eyelids sunk as eyeballs swelled outward, the face stretched and warped into a fearful mask of horror.
Cormac sliced the tether and pushed the corpse away to drift in the eternal night.
The first cosmonaut cut loose slowly drifted farther away, kicking and screaming, while the frightfully paralyzed one clung tenaciously to the solar vane.
Cormac helped Driscoll stand as upright as they could comprehend. “You all righ
t?”
“Bruised, but I’m not broken. What do we do about that one?”
The cosmonaut shivered in fear, not even looking up at his captors.
“Don’t know. I never killed one who wasn’t trying to kill me at the same time. You want to?” He held his bowie out, handle first.
“No.”
“You sure?”
Ryman’s voice broke the predicament. “Captain Ross. Major Driscoll. Is the station contained?”
“No, sit tight. We have taken out the four cosmonauts who greeted us, but there is at least one more inside. We also have one, hanging on to the solar panel.”
“Excellent. Bind him and take him back inside the station once you have secured it.”
“Yes sir... I mean, Mr. Ryman.”
Using the shaking cosmonaut’s own cut tether, Cormac and Driscoll bound up his arms tight enough that he could not use them. They tugged him toward the airlock and looked in.
“Get in, precious,” said Cormac, as he pushed the cosmonaut through the opening. They attached their own tether lines to a bar near the airlock so that they could easily retrieve them upon leaving the station.
Inside the cramped airlock, they waited while the pressure equalized to a bare minimum.
“What or who is inside waiting for us?”
This particular cosmonaut spoke no English and only watched their faces and nodded with a false sense of understanding.
“No idea. But since they actually had a gun this time, let’s keep Brezhnev here in front of us as we open the hatch.”
“How did you learn to move so well in space?”
“I treat it like diving without the water. I use all the momentum I can to go where I want. I don’t do anything I don’t need to. Plus, the tether can be manipulated more than anyone ever understands. Kinda like a pendulum. The Reds would be getting better at it if I wasn’t killing them first.”
“Things will change. They bring guns now because of you and your knife.”
Cormac shrugged, then turned to watch the gauges. “It’s finished. We can remove our helmets while we are inside. I hate having these things on this long. Too hot.”
“It’s only been two hours.”
Space Eldritch Page 17
