Murphy swallowed. “Sir, yes, sir.” Then: “Where do I start?”
* * * * *
Chapter Six
Near Spin One
Murphy approached the airlock. Although he was finally getting accustomed to moving in zero gee, he had hoped to return to the pseudo-gravity of a rotating environment before starting his final test. However, his Dog trainer had explained why that would have been a very bad idea.
Murphy admitted it was just common sense, once you thought about it. If some poor unsuspecting slob exited the airlock of a rotating structure, said unsuspecting slob carried its momentum. Said slob might not notice it right away, but he would…the moment he tried using the back-mounted maneuver pack. On which Murphy had to qualify today.
Worse still was that moment when the outer hatch opened and you found yourself perched at the edge of a starfield that was wheeling past at a puke-worthy clip. Hard enough for an experienced Dog to handle that kind of dizzying disorientation, but for a complete neophyte like Murphy? Disaster, probably of the sort that would require medical treatment. Or possibly, last rites. Murphy secretly doubted the Dogs bothered to memorialize individuals. Probably just reduced their dead to distilled water and basic proteins before discharging whatever remained into hard vacuum.
“Your tether, Major Murphy.”
He turned at the voice, even though it came from his helmet’s speakers. Behind him, his zero-gee maneuver trainer was miming the actions of fastening his safety line to a mooring ring. They had another term for the action, but Murphy was Airborne and for that part of the process, he was going to stick with the term he’d learned at Fort Benning, local equivalents be damned.
He attached the tether’s C-clip, locked it off, and announced, “Hooked up.” He punctuated that with an erect thumb—which drew a blank stare.
The trainer sounded like someone trying very hard not to be bored. “Move slowly. Keep an eye on your helmet gauges. If you are in doubt, remember that your training suit is skinless; you can see all the systems and visually confirm their operation. The only exception is the maneuver unit and life-support supply on your back.” The trainer waited, then sighed. “Visor, Major Murphy.”
Damn. Murphy pulled down the dark, polarized filter from its retracted position atop his helmet. Its tabs clicked into the neck ring’s receptacles.
The trainer nodded and pressed the outer hatch release.
It opened slowly, revealing a widening sliver of ink-black space. At first, Murphy couldn’t even make out any stars. Then, just as he did, a space-suited figure floated into view—and it clearly was not a Dog. Not only was this person wearing a bare-bones training suit like his own, but they had their hands spread out as far as they could, apparently to stop themselves when they reached the side of the training station. But the desperate tension in the arms and shoulders reminded him of a little kid grasping for the edge of a pool after having been thrown into the deep end.
So, that was Captain Mara “Bruce” Lee.
He had hoped to meet her here since the Dogs hadn’t yet taken the time to train her for “vacuum ops.” They had kept her busy and quartered near their leadership, which had prevented her from making private, face-to-face reports to Nuncle and Nephew. It had also kept her from meeting her new CO, Major Rodger Y. Murphy. All chance? Maybe, maybe not.
But now Lee was heading planetside, and the Dogs had yet to bring her up to speed on vacc-ops. Murphy had bet that their hosts, in order to finish training such distasteful lesser beings all at once, would push their sessions together. And sure enough, here she was.
A gentle push with his toes sent Murphy out into space, past the station’s hull—and into a sudden chill of realization: in just another second, he’d have no way to stop himself. If he didn’t grab the edge of the hatch…
But he did, just as Lee—the body in the suit was definitely gravity born-and-bred—reached out a hand to help stabilize him. Her next motion eliminated any lingering uncertainty regarding her identity: as she cocked her head quizzically, she gave a thumbs-up.
Murphy returned the gesture, scanned the area. Another space-suited figure was approaching casually. However, the moment he noticed that Murphy had emerged, puffs started jetting out of his maneuver pack. So, two minutes, maybe three. Certainly no more. Murphy touched the emergency comms jack located just behind his left ear.
Lee nodded and in five seconds they’d plugged into each other’s helmets.
“Major Murphy, I presume?” Her voice was a husky alto.
“Captain Lee. Glad we’ve got a minute or two—barely—to talk. How are you holding up? I’ve heard the audio feed from the battle.”
“I’m ready for duty, sir. I will be—”
“Lee, there’s no time for the formalities. Really, how are you?”
A pause. “Not sure, sir. Lot to get used to. What I lost back on Earth. This new world. Allies that are barely co-combatants. Assuming they don’t turn into adversaries.”
“And assuming the people who brought us here were really saving us from politicos determined to pull the plugs on our cryocells.”
Lee’s reply was immediate. “Sir, my gut tells me those two guys are on the level. Despite all that Nuncle and Nephew skullduggery.”
“So they used that codename crap on you, too?”
She shrugged. “‘You can’t reveal what you don’t know.’ Their answer to almost every question I asked.”
“What about your time with the Dogs? Any revelations yet?”
“Just that there are two different kinds. The big asteroid habitats? They call those the Spins. The folks from them are the SpinDogs. Then there are prospectors, miners, salvage-monkeys, scattered in small communities all over the outer system. They’re the RockHounds.”
“That’s useful data, but what can you tell me about them?”
Lee sighed. “That’s a work in progress, sir, and slow going. Haven’t met any RockHounds. But I can tell you that the SpinDogs are definitely not all alike. The ones who I’m with now, the Matriarch’s Family, seem to be the best of the bunch. For some values of ‘best.’”
“Such as?”
“They’re not as ruthless. Actually seem to care about each other. Have a larger sense of community.”
“In what way?”
She glanced at the approaching SpinDog. “Some Families are worried about the fate of everyone up here, SpinDogs and RockHounds alike. But the rest of the Families? Not so much. Some, not at all.”
“I’ve seen evidence of that. I hear you’re heading down to the planet soon, to train them on helicopters.”
“Correct, sir.”
“Keep me apprised. The Dornaani are leaving some satellites for us. I don’t know the details, but their sat comms are absolutely secure and private. Or so I’m told.”
“Good to know, sir.” Another glance toward the trainer. “Look, this guy who’ll be qualifying you on the maneuver pack. His name is Jarat. There’s something hinky about him.”
“Thirty seconds, Lee; give me specifics.”
“Nothing obvious, sir. But he wasn’t just assessing my vacc skills; he was sizing me up.”
“I take it you don’t mean sexually.”
“Correct, sir. Jarat’s attention was all business. Measuring my strengths and weaknesses. Character. Guts. That kind of thing.”
“So he’s gathering intel. Training, particularly under hazardous conditions, is a good opportunity for that.”
Lee shrugged. “In their shoes, wouldn’t you do the same?”
“Might try to be a little more friendly—or at least a little less creepy—about it.”
“No debate, there, sir. Uh, oh, teacher’s on the headset. Gotta go. Major: you turned your radio off by accident. I just talked you through turning it back on.”
“Got it, Captain.”
But Mara Lee had already yanked out her jack and was turning to face Jarat as he slowed to meet them next to the airlock hatch.
* * *
If Jarat suspected that the radio snafu was just a cover story, and that Murphy and Lee had managed a quick confab, he gave no sign of it. Then again, if Jarat actually was an intel operative, he’d almost certainly be able to conceal his reactions.
“So,” Jarat began, “do you feel familiar enough with the suit and maneuver pack to proceed with the final exercise, Major Murphy?”
Murphy looked down at the training suit. Either the SpinDogs had achieved major miracles in thin, lightweight protective materials, or he was going to pick up more than a few rads today. The lack of an outer covering, which allowed the trainee to observe the suit’s various systems in operation, also made all the hoses and wiring and filters and heat exchangers look naked, vulnerable. Which made Murphy a little nervous.
“Major Murphy, did you hear my question?”
“I did. I’m ready to go.”
“Very well, Major. Learning to use the maneuver pack is arguably the most important part of your training. It is also the most dangerous. Turn slowly, as you have been taught.”
Murphy swung his arm gently to the side; he began to rotate slowly in that direction.
Jarat nodded, inspected both the maneuver pack and life-support unit on his back. “You seem to have adequately mounted and connected both systems. Restabilize.”
Murphy counter-swung his other arm, but in smaller increments, correcting until he was motionless.
“Now run a standard check of the maneuver pack’s controls.”
Murphy did.
Jarat might have shrugged before he unclipped the tether from Murphy’s suit.
Murphy started: space suddenly felt much larger than it had a moment ago.
“We shall start with a simple ten-second burst, Major.”
Murphy almost started again. “Ten seconds? Isn’t that a lot more than—?”
“It is necessary to show you what can occur if you depress the thrust trigger for too long. You will remember to use short bursts, afterward. But on this occasion, you will maintain thrust for ten seconds. You will maintain constant vector…er, ‘hold a straight course,’ until you terminate the burst. You will then drift for ten seconds, tumble and initiate a precise ten second counter-burst. That will bring you to a stop.”
“Figured that much,” Murphy muttered.
“You will then fire two half-second bursts to commence your return along a reciprocal vector. It will be slow, but this is to teach you that in space it is more important to perform actions correctly than to complete them quickly. Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’m ever going to be,” Murphy admitted.
“Then you may commence.”
Murphy released the safety on the compressed gas jets. He braced himself for rapid acceleration as he squeezed the activation trigger.
Murphy had expected a sudden jolt, but the system was quite smooth, and the rate of acceleration seemed fairly modest—until he saw the velocity meter in his helmet, positioned just above his left eye. He watched the remaining seconds of thrust tick past on the recalibrated and Anglicized clock over his right eye. Six seconds remaining. Five, four, three…
Darkness. The primary life-support pump wheezed to a stop a moment after the gas thrusters cut out.
Damn it. Murphy toggled the radio with his chin. “Jarat, I’ve lost power in the suit. Thrusters are offline. Hell, everything’s offline.” Silence. “Jarat?”
That was when Murphy remembered that the suit’s systems all drew power from a single source. So, his radio was dead, too. Real suits had battery backups, but not training shells. Which meant he was heading downrange, totally dark, and at a velocity of…of…
Rising fear prevented him from making that calculation, but eight seconds of constant acceleration would reduce him to an undetectable speck pretty quickly. He felt panic coming up through the fear—
He swatted it down, the way he had plenty of times in the Mog and before. Yes, the blackness yawned before him, and yes, he was desperate to get eyes on the training station, to gauge how far off he was. But the quickest way to get the measure of that was also the worst. A sideways turn was fast, but later, he’d have to correct that rotation before he could initiate any attempt to return to the station—and now, wasted effort or seconds could be the difference between life and death. So, Murphy decided to go with the more difficult, but ultimately, more economical maneuver.
Making sure to keep all his motions in one axis so that he didn’t add any side-vector momentum, Murphy swung his hands forward and down. Sure enough, just like in the lessons he’d learned and practiced just this morning, he started into a lazy forward tumble: ‘ass over teakettle,’ as his grandfather would have said. The motion was initially more disorienting than a sideways turn, but once he adjusted, it gave him an upside-down look at the training station about every fourteen seconds.
The good news was that he could still make it out clearly. The bad news was that in another two or three minutes, he wouldn’t. The strange news was that there was no visible activity near it. In fact, he could still see Jarat, waiting alongside the airlock.
What the hell? By now, Jarat should have realized that something was wrong. Of course, Murphy allowed, with his clock dead and suppressed fear stretching each second into an eternity, he might have an exaggerated sense of just how long ago he’d lost power. But surely Jarat must have at least realized that Murphy’s radio was dead, and that a rescue was needed…
Unless…
Unless Jarat was not a trainer, and not even a surreptitious observer, but an assassin. If there was ever a plausibly deniable means of getting rid of one Major Rodger Murphy, this had to be it: a training accident on the riskiest vacc-ops qualification exercise. An unfortunate short in the suit’s power system when the neophyte was untethered for his first free space movement away from the station. Without the skills to correct his course, send or receive messages, or any thrust to effect a return, he would be out of range before his trainer “realized” that assistance was needed. At least, that’s the story Jarat would peddle, and who’d be able to prove otherwise?
As he started to counter his tumble—very slowly, so as not to impart force along any other vector—Murphy allowed that it was a relief to be able to keep eyes on the station, now. But his fate was sealed because he had no way to generate thrust.
Or did he?
He checked his suit: no impediment to manipulating the straps. Same with the various exposed systems, which suddenly went from looking like fragile bits of ugly machinery to a glittering array of lifesaving devices.
Murphy manually adjusted the choke that regulated the flow of air from the life-support unit. Without power, the rate at which it entered his suit couldn’t be fine-tuned, but the pressure in the air reservoir sent it rushing in. When he felt pressure starting to increase in his ears and along his body, he twisted the choke closed; that cut off the air flow. Then he rotated the intake valve into the closed position, thereby sealing the only opening in his suit.
Moving slowly, Murphy worked at loosening the strap releases until he was able to slip off the life-support unit without moving his shoulders or upper arms. He double-checked the lanyard that connected the unit to the suit harness, guided it off his back and around to his front. The rear of the life-support unit was now facing the dwindling station. Last step, now.
Using small arm movements, he repositioned himself so he could look over his left shoulder and see the station, and over his right, see the darkness into which he was disappearing. Then he used his left hand to reposition and brace the unit so that the air flow connector was also facing the blackness, while his right hand gripped the air flow choke…and briefly loosened it.
Air gushed out. Murphy closed the choke again, assessed. The burst of air had come out almost directly counter to his current trajectory. He had definitely reduced the rate at which he was moving away from the station but not by much, and his vector had altered a bit.
He repeated the action: opened the valve, closed it
, reassessed. The range to the station was opening even more slowly, but he was also a bit more off course.
But Rodger Murphy smiled. Because at this rate, he would ultimately cancel his forward motion and begin returning. Very slowly, very crookedly, probably far off course. But he didn’t have to rendezvous with the station. All he had to do was get close enough so that even casual observers couldn’t miss him: a drifting speck that wasn’t going to conveniently get swept under the endless black carpet of deep space.
So, before too long, someone—maybe Jarat himself—was going to realize that they had no choice but to rescue him if they wanted to cover up the botched attempt on his life. Soon enough, he’d be safely back on the station.
Surrounded by people who wanted him dead.
* * * * *
Chapter Seven
Spin One
Still in the liner he’d had to wear beneath the training suit, Murphy reached Olsloov’s docking collar just as the hatch opened and Nuncle’s voice invited, “Please enter, Major. First compartment on your right.”
Murphy followed the instructions, resisted the impulse to walk deeper into the alien ship, see if he could get a glimpse of one of the Dornaani. Instead, he walked toward the dilating iris valve to his right. “Ready for that briefing, sirs,” he announced as he entered.
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