The Morebaeus was still docked at the far end of the docking arm, exactly where it had been several days ago when he’d last had the opportunity to look outside. Next to it, the tiny ship that was the Ulysses had ignited its drives and was pulling clear of the dock. Hamilton winced as he saw the docking gantry and service umbilicals were still attached. The gantry broke free first, sending glittering shards of metal and plastic dancing through space. Then the umbilicals drew taught then pulled free of the ship. Unlike the gantry, the designer had thought about stupid pilots. They pulled free without damage to either themselves or the ship.
Maybe Jones was right to be concerned. Hamilton thought. Too late to worry about it now.
He turned back to Jones, who had remained by the jury-rigged door. “Go get the others, we’re leaving soon.”
Jones nodded and disappeared, leaving Hamilton alone in the room, looking after him. It was then that Hamilton noticed the pulsing red light by the door panel.
Tell-tale. He thought. I should expect company soon.
He moved over to the door leading to the medical area. Just as he took up a position alongside it the door opened and the officious looking clerk strode in, accompanied by two guards, or orderlies, wielding stun batons.
Their attention automatically moved to the right as they entered, staring at the open doorway to Q-section. Hamilton, standing to the other side of the door, went unnoticed.
He stepped forward, grabbed the baton arm of the nearest guard and punched hard into the man’s left temple with his other hand. The man collapsed without fully realizing what was going on. Hamilton kept a hold on the unconscious man’s wrist as he fell. When the second guard turned to see what had happened, Hamilton jabbed at him with the baton, striking him in the solar plexus. The unconscious guard’s baton was not activated, fortunately for the other man, but the blow doubled him up anyway. Hamilton dropped the guard he held and finished off the second man with a knee to the face.
The clerk had only just completed turning round by the time it was all over. He stared in surprise and fear at Hamilton.
“Remember me?” Hamilton grinned, grabbing the frightened man by the collar. “You’re going to help me a little bit.”
By the time Jones arrived with the rest of the crew the clerk had, under duress, deactivated the tell-tale and called back to the medical section to tell them it was a false alarm. Hamilton removed the man’s pass card and then thrust the little man at Carl.
“Keep hold of him. He might come in useful.” Hamilton told the Enjun. If the clerk had been afraid of Hamilton, the big Enjun positively terrified him.
Klane picked up the shock batons and passed one to Rames and the other to Grimes.
“Don’t you want one?” Grimes asked.
She shook her head. “Nah. Never liked ‘em much. They’re the refuge of people who don’t know how to do hand-to-hand combat. Not my style.”
“Well, thanks.” Grimes said, not certain whether he was being insulted or not.
Hamilton turned away from the conversation to hide his smile. Klane was trained in hand-to-hand combat, it was true. However, since she had acquired her cybernetic limbs her idea of physical combat involved more foot-to-face than hand-to-hand.
He glanced around. “Is everyone here? Wait. Where’s Johnson?”
The others looked around themselves, as if expecting to see her when Hamilton could not.
“I think she was with us in the lounge area.” Charlton answered, frowning.
Hamilton sighed. Nothing ever went smoothly. “Okay. Klane, Rames. Lead everyone on through the medical area. Aim for the airlock on the other side. I’ll go find Johnson and meet you there.” He handed the clerk’s pass-card to Jones. “You might find this useful.”
Rames and Klane nodded and began herding the others towards the long corridor that led to the medical section. Hamilton turned and went back through the door Jones had opened.
Johnson was not in the lounge area, nor did she appear to be in any of the facilities areas such as the gym, which left only the accommodation compartments. Hamilton went down the corridor, banging on each door heavily and calling out her name. The vocalization was, he knew pointless, since all the personal accommodations were soundproofed, but it made him feel like he was doing something helpful, regardless.
He’d nearly gotten to the end of the corridor when he heard the near-silent swish of a door opening somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw a bleary-eyed Johnson peering at him confusedly.
“What’s going on?” She asked sleepily.
“We’re leaving.” He told her, walking back down the corridor towards her.
“Leaving? What?”
“You weren’t in the lounge at all, were you?” Hamilton asked rhetorically as he reached her.
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t feel so good, so I went back to bed.”
“Okay. Well, to summarize then. We all need to get out of here or we’ll end up in prison someplace.”
“Prison? I don’t understand.” She frowned.
Hamilton nodded. “I know, but there’s no time to explain now. We have to get going. Grab whatever you need and let’s go!”
She nodded, looking a little fearful and disappeared for a moment back into her room. In less than a minute she was back.
“That was quick.” He noted.
She smiled. “Only had to put my shoes on.”
“Okay. Follow me.”
Hamilton led the way back to the reception room.
*****
In the meantime, Klane had led the others along the corridor to the door that opened into the medical section. Jones was working on the door – neither the pass card, nor the clerk himself seemed able to open it, much to Klane’s irritation.
“Perhaps they’re on to us already?” Grimes suggested.
“I suspect there’d be more alarms if that was the case.” Rames answered him.
Jones had the panel off and was diligently pulling out wires and twisting other ones together.
“Hurry it up, Jones!” Klane told him. “We don’t have all day!”
“I’m doing it as fast as I can!” He scowled back at her. “This isn’t just a standard door. It’s a security door. It takes longer.”
“Oh crap!” The voice came from somewhere to the rear of the group. Everyone turned to see who had spoken.
It was Veltin. The pilot stood at one of the windows lining the corridor that looked out over the exterior of the station down as far as the berthing ring.
“What’s up with you?” Puckett muttered. The two men rarely saw eye-to-eye.
Veltin gestured out the window. “Look and see for yourself.”
Puckett walked up beside the other man and looked out. The rest crowded round as well.
The view of space was impressive, as was the bulk of the station spread out below them. Against that backdrop, the Ulysses seemed to crawl upwards towards them with a snail-like velocity.
It took Puckett only a few moments to understand what the other pilot was going on about. “Oh crap!” He echoed.
“What!” Klane prodded Veltin.
The pilot turned to her. “Whoever’s flying that thing doesn’t really have a firm grasp of the laws of momentum.”
“What does that mean?!” She glared at him.
“It means,” Puckett answered. “That whoever is piloting that ship is paying more attention to getting here quickly and less about being at a dead stop when they arrive!”
Klane glanced back out the window. The Ulysses was still heading towards them, seemingly at a sedate pace. “It’s going to hit the station?”
Both men nodded.
Klane turned and bellowed at Jones. “Door open! Now!”
*****
Aboard the Ulysses, Miko Harvan sat uncomfortably in the Captain’s chair, watching the station grow ever larger on the viewscreen.
The plan, conceived by Rames and Hamilton, with Miko’s input, was to fly the ship up to the medical qua
rantine section and dock using the umbilical tunnel they typically used for boarding actions. Miko would take four of the Marines and would force an entrance if necessary and fight their way to the Captain. The other two would remain aboard Ulysses to protect the ship.
Once they had all rendezvoused, they would head back to the ship and be off. Where, Miko did not know. Everything beyond the point of escape depended on circumstances of which he had no knowledge.
He wasn’t exactly sure the captain was doing the right thing by throwing in his lot with that Hamilton character, but he had known Rames for quite a while. Long enough to trust his judgment anyway.
Time will tell. He thought, fatalistically. Either he was helping to save humanity, or he was consigning himself to long-term imprisonment.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” He asked Private Torin, who clutched the controls for the ship with grim determination.
“Sure. I did a year in flight school, remember?” Torin replied. His voice betrayed the stress he was feeling.
“You told me it was six months!” Alvin muttered from where he sat at the sensor console. “Also, I have a feeling you should slow down a bit.”
“Who’s flying this thing! Me, or you?” Torin shot back.
“Just get us there in one piece.” Miko told him. “No rush. There haven’t been any formal alarms yet. Whatever the Captain and the others are doing, it hasn’t drawn any attention.”
“They may not have,” Corporal Malik stated from the comms console. “But we certainly have. Port Control is going apeshit about our rude departure and our current vectoring. I think Alvin may have a point, we need to slow down.”
“Alright! I’ll slow down! I just need to adjust our orientation to bring the thrusters to bear properly on our vector.” Alvin was sweating heavily. His hands darted over the controls, but there was a certain amount of hesitancy with each movement.
He’s struggling to remember what everything does. Miko thought. God help us!
*****
Hamilton and Johnson got to the reception area for Q-section just as the Ulysses port bow collided with the station two levels below them.
The sound of stressed and tortured metal echoed up through the station’s structure to them and there was the faintest of vibrations and physical movement beneath their feet. Tantalus Station outmassed by many thousands of times the seemingly insignificant gnat that was the Ulysses. It noticed the impact, but was relatively unimpressed by it. Shaken, but not stirred, as it were. Nonetheless, the station didn’t simply shrug off the impact harmlessly.
Two levels below the outer bulkhead bent in and split as the port bow of the customs vessel impacted and then slid upwards along the hull. Pressure differential sent air and small objects blasting out into space. As luck would have it, that section was given over to storage, so no people were among the pressure induced exodus.
The Ulysses scraped upwards, exacting a similar toll on the level above, mostly machinery and maintenance areas that were again devoid of life.
Then it reached the quarantine level.
*****
Klane and the others felt the initial impact. They had already seen the bulk of the Ulysses sliding up past the window for some seconds before the shock of the impact below came to them. The Ulysses might be tiny in comparison to the station, but it was massive compared to any of them.
“Got it!” Jones exclaimed as the door slid open.
“Everyone through!” Klane ordered, needlessly. No one had to be encouraged.
Klane turned to see Hamilton and Johnson at the other end of the corridor, both watching with horror as the customs vessel blotted out the starscape outside.
“Come on!” She yelled to them. “What the hell are you gawping at?”
The pair started along the corridor.
The Ulysses port bow reached their level. The flooring buckled up first, then one of the windows cracked from top to bottom under the pressure. A howling gale suddenly filled the corridor, blowing relentlessly towards the damaged window.
*****
Hamilton stopped and dragged Johnson back. There was no way they would get past the damaged section without being killed. The window had cracked, rather than shattered, because it was made of Steelglass, a material more akin to metal than glass.
The Ulysses continued its upward trajectory and the window crack became a huge rent. The Steelglass panel buckled and bent horribly. The howling gale became a hurricane of violence.
Hamilton and Johnson staggered back through the door into the reception area just as the door began to close automatically in response to the breach.
*****
At the other end of the corridor, everyone else stumbled through into the medical section as the door, so recently opened by Jones, also began to close automatically.
“Damn it!” Klane cursed.
“Hamilton?” Rames asked.
She shook her head. “Stuck back in Q-section. He’s on his own now.”
“Who the hell was flying that thing?” Veltin demanded.
“One of my Marines.” Rames admitted.
Veltin looked incredulous. “You gave a flight assignment to a jarhead! Are you crazy?”
“Ease up, Veltin!” Klane barked. “It was that, or we all go to prison!”
Veltin wandered away, muttering about idiots in command.
Puckett shook his head. “It could have been worse. We could have had him flying it!”
“What now?” LeGault asked.
Klane shrugged. “Carry on as planned. Assuming your flyboy can manage to dock that ship?”
Rames nodded. “He’ll dock it. I’m just wondering how many more dents he’ll put in it, first.”
“Let’s get on with it then.” Klane said, striding away.
*****
Aboard the Ulysses, Miko was chewing out Torin for his poor flying skills. For his part, Torin was on the defensive.
“Look! I had six months in flight school! I happen to think I’m doing an awesome job, considering!”
“Awesome? For all we know you’ve killed the people we’re trying to rescue!” Miko growled.
“I told you it was only six months.” Alvin pointed out.
“Enough chatter!” Miko was getting irritated. “Can you dock the ship?”
Torin nodded. “Yes. Now the velocity has been scrubbed off, I should be able to.”
Malik snorted from the comms console. “About that scrubbing off… Looks like Tantalus Control didn’t appreciate that. We’ve got about five minutes before the point defense craft are launched and get here. Also, it seems like a couple of the big ships are mobilizing for departure.”
“Which ones?” Miko asked.
“Seems like the Triton and the Shiva, as far as I can tell from the chatter.”
“Great.” Miko muttered. “That destroyer that ‘escorted’ us home and a cruiser. Get us docked Torin. Get us docked now!”
*****
Hamilton and Johnson picked themselves up from the floor and stared morosely at the sealed door in front of them.
“I guess were not leaving after all.” Johnson observed.
“Not that way, anyway.” Hamilton agreed, his mind racing. In a few minutes, at best, the area would be crawling with repair crews and medics. If the terrorist alert hadn’t yet propagated here they still had a slim chance.
“Can you act?” He asked the woman.
She frowned. “Can I what?”
“Act. Pretend. That sort of thing.”
“I guess. Depends on what you want me to act as.” She looked concerned.
Hamilton grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the reception area, back towards the lounge in Q-section. “Think you can pretend to have a collapsed lung?”
“What? I don’t know what that would be like!”
“Nor me.” Hamilton admitted. “Just wheeze a lot and gape like a fish! I think that should cover it.”
“Gape like a fish?” She gave him a hard stare
as she ran alongside him.
They entered the lounge in time to see the access light above the main entrance begin to flash. Someone had activated the decontamination procedure in order to gain entrance to Q-section.
Hamilton gestured at the floor. “Lay down there and look hurt!”
Shaking her head she did as he asked, muttering. “This isn’t going to work!”
“Just do it!” Hamilton hissed.
Johnson lay back and began to pretend to be dying of asphyxiation. To Hamilton, who knelt down beside her and tried his best to look concerned, it wasn’t very convincing.
The access tunnel finished its decontamination cycle and the entry door hissed open. Men in pressure suits spilled out. Some were technicians, some guards and some medical personnel. The latter made a bee-line for the apparently injured couple.
“What happened?” The first medtech to reach them asked, his voice oddly modulated by his suit speaker.
Hamilton affected a panicked, fearful look. “My wife! The ship hit the station! I think she’s hurt real bad!” He grabbed at the man’s shoulders. “Please help her!”
The medic shrugged off Hamilton’s concerned hands. “Alright, let me look at her.”
“It’s alright honey!” Hamilton told Johnson. “The doctor will save you!”
“Hmmm.” The medic stated, begin a physical exam. Through his suit gloves, it was doubtful he’d be able to feel anything broken anyway. Hamilton had seen field medics in toxic, or low-pressure environments do exactly the same thing whilst wearing bulky suits. They weren’t feeling for injuries. They were looking for reactions.
When the medic’s gloves reached Johnson’s torso, Hamilton reached surreptitiously under Johnson’s right leg and pinched the back of her thigh viciously.
Johnson shot bolt upright with a shriek.
“Okay! Okay!” The medic stated, startled. Clearly he hadn’t expected that much of a reaction. Neither had Hamilton, to be honest. The medic pushed her back down and turned to two others stood nearby. “Get me a stretcher, now! Looks like some kind of abdominal injuries.”
A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) Page 7
