by Sam Renner
“That’s God talking to you, son.” She’d be looking at him after he told her he knew what he’d done was wrong.
“But you went and did it anyway?” she’d ask. Then, after he’d nodded his yes while staring at the floor, she’d tell him that God was trying to get his attention. Lebbe believed it as a kid. He wasn’t as sure now. If there was a God, why would He bring Lebbe all the way out to Zulu just to start talking to him now? Why did He never just check in to say hi? Why did He always try to get Lebbe’s attention in moments of crisis?
The elevator doors open and Lebbe and Keith step on. Lebbe thinks more about the dead ship and tries to listen to the thing in his gut for specifics. Is the ship too small? Is the hole in the side too perfectly placed? Was the response from the woman on board just a little too perfectly dramatic? The problem: The answer to each of these questions is “Yes.”
“You didn’t see it before it started trying to ping us?” Lebbe asks.
“What? The ship out there?”
“Yeah. Just seems weird that no one saw it. That it sort of materialized on our radar.”
“I was wrapped up in other stuff,” Keith says.
The elevator begins to rise with a shake. “But isn’t it your job to sit and watch the screen? To not be caught off guard?”
“That’s an aspect of my job, but it’s not my single responsibility.” Keith’s defensive. “I also, among other things, watch the feeds from the cams inside Zulu. Technically that should be someone else’s job, but it’s fallen to me.”
The elevator chimes their arrival on Zulu’s top floor. The doors open to the long hall that leads to the control room. “Yeah, yeah,” Lebbe says. “I’m not accusing you of anything, so stand down. There’s just something about this that feels off to me.”
“Our system isn’t perfect. Stuff comes and goes from the edges of our view all the time. They’ve put the beacons up to maybe combat some of that, but what we can see isn’t total. Doesn’t happen all the time, but this isn’t the first example of something sort of materializing. Usually, though, they disappear almost as quickly as they came.”
They walk through the doors to the control room and Keith sits back down behind his computer. Lebbe eyes the picture of the floating ship.
He begins shaking his head.
“What?” Rebecca asks.
“It’s just something,” Lebbe says. “I don’t know. We need to let it be. Just let it float out there.”
The doors to the control room swing open again.
“We can’t,” comes from behind everyone. It’s Grey. “It’s in the way. Even if we have no obligation to actually help that crew—and before either of you say anything, I know we don’t technically—we do have an obligation to make sure that the ships scheduled to come here can do it safely. Think of this as sweeping the walk. We’ve got to get the trash up so no one trips.”
Grey moves to the rail and looks up at the small view they’ve got of their hauler. The picture is still somewhat grainy and soft. She squints to try and force a better view.
“My vote is to leave the broom at home,” Lebbe says. “Have McKibbon and his guys take a few Zig Zags out there and turn that ship into a fine dust.”
Rebecca: “And what about the woman who we heard?”
“Something tells me that she’s not a concern anymore.”
“Dead?”
“You can only die if you were ever alive.”
Grey turns to Lebbe, her mouth twisted with confusion. “What are you saying?” she asks.
Lebbe puts up a hand and waves off the comment. “It’s nothing.”
Grey pauses a beat then turns back to the view of the ship.
“OK,” she says. “Let’s get this mission started.”
+++++
Zig Zags are lined in perfect rows six across, all set at a 45 to the large bay door that they launch from. The door is mostly glass, a wide open look out into space that Keith and Lebbe don’t get to see often. Both men slow to appreciate the view as they pass. When the darkness isn’t all encompassing, space like this can be beautiful.
The Zig Zags are small ships and mostly engines. Three exhaust ports on the back, stacked vertically. A large clear canopy covers the single-seat cockpit just in front of that. Two small mounts on either side of the ship hold a pair of mini guns. They are fun to fly, but not meant for heavy combat. Perfect for protecting Zulu from a rogue insurgent or two, maybe a set of wayward asteroids, but not much more.
Just beyond the Zig Zags sit two larger ships. Scars from space debris are conspicuously absent. The painted markings indicate that these pristine birds have never flown. McKibbon is a few yards ahead of the other three, and a large door on the side of one of the larger ships yawns open as he approaches. It’s empty space inside, some sort of cargo hold.
Keith and Lebbe follow McKibbon onto the ship. “Take a look around if you want to, guys. We aren’t going to be leaving for a bit longer.” Both men disappear into different parts of the hauler. Keith heads for the cockpit. Lebbe goes to investigate the crew quarters.
Grey leans a shoulder into the cold metal of the ship’s exterior. She traces the outline of the ship’s call letters painted on the side in a bright white.
McKibbon shuts the cover to the storage bin where he’s stowed his bag then approaches.
Grey smiles. “Be careful,” she says in a low voice.
McKibbon looks behind him. Keith and Lebbe are still poking around the hauler. He leans in and gives Grey a quick kiss. “We’ll be fine,” he says. “That’s a dead ship floating out there.”
“Don’t say that.” Grey stands up straighter. “Someone responded when we called. Someone’s out there. I want to believe that.”
McKibbon shakes his head. “If you say so, but I don’t think this is going to end the way you’re hoping.”
“Maybe not. But we have to try to help if we can. And, if the situation is a worst case then we need to bring that ship in. It’s not safe to have it just floating out there. Can we do that?”
“We can tether to it and drag it back here. That’s not a problem.”
“Good,” Grey says. “Now go.”
McKibbon gives her a wink. “OK, boss. See you soon.”
Keith and Lebbe appear back in the hold and two other soldiers round a corner, bags over their shoulders. They step on board and store their gear as Keith and Lebbe exit the ship.
Grey walks quickly to a door behind her. She goes through and one of the other soldiers escorts her to an observation bay. Keith and Lebbe join her a moment later.
Sirens sound and a voice comes through the overhead speakers. “Initiating launch sequence. All human personnel leave the launch area.”
The doors in front of the ship open. Locks that hold the ship in place fall away, and the craft lifts uneasily from the floor. The engines begin to rumble and rattle. The roar builds until it’s deafening. The window in front of Grey shakes, and she presses a hand to the glass to feel the power.
The voice from the speaker returns. “Main engines started. Pilot you’re free to depart. Fly safe.”
The ship eases forward and out into the black.
FOUR
“That’s it?” Lebbe asks. “It just eases out the door like some car pulling away from a curb?”
Grey: “You wanted something more dramatic?”
“I don’t know,” Lebbe says. “I guess I expected something more like a runner breaking from the blocks.”
“That ship’s a short-class hauler,” Keith says. “It’s not meant to go zero to 60.”
Grey turns from the window and heads toward the hall that leads back to the main floor of Zulu. Keith and Lebbe follow. The smell of smoke hangs in McKibbon’s office as the group passes through. A stack of a dozen or so hand-rolled cigarettes sit on his desk. Lebbe keeps an eye on Grey then steps over and pinches a handful from McKibbon’s stack. He brings them to his nose and breathes deep. Until he saw McKibbon earlier that afternoon, he thought
he couldn’t get tobacco on Zulu, that the cigarette he’d crushed out on the ground in front of the ship that brought him here was his last. Now, here it is. The scent of a freshly opened pack hitting him in the face. He puts the cigarettes in his shirt pocket.
“Here’s what I’d assume, though.” Lebbe continues his discussion with Keith. “If that ship is a hauler then it’s got some big engines on it. If it’s empty then shouldn’t it …”
Keith interrupts. “Those are big engines, but they take quite a bit to get a full fire in them.”
“Are you boys done?” Grey stops. She’s halfway down the hall that leads to Zulu’s main room.
“Yes, ma’am,” Keith says and steps next to her. Lebbe doesn’t answer.
Grey tells Keith that the two of them will head back to the control room to watch the progress of the mission on the monitors. Then she turns to Lebbe.
“I don’t think we need you anymore,” she tells him. “You’re free to go do whatever it is you do around here. Make laps of the main floor or something.”
Lebbe doesn’t move. She’d come and grabbed him for this, to get his thoughts. He didn’t want to be involved, but now he is. Or had been. She’s just dismissed him like some hanger-on who won’t leave the cool kids alone.
Lebbe stares at Grey. She stares back then sends him off with the wave of a finger. Lebbe steps between Grey and Keith and then through the doors to Zulu’s main hall. The crew from the 5:30 arrival is walking aimlessly around the floor. Lebbe thinks back to the kids he saw earlier that day—the trio with fresh ID ink and dreams of taking money home in boxes. Those kids don’t know that this was how you turned out. That once you’re done pumping ore and minerals from your asteroid you are left with dead eyes, a confused smirk on your face, and an addiction to Modi that you’ll spend the next year back home trying to kick.
Not everyone ends up like that, of course. Those from this crew who still have at least part of their senses are either picking up toiletries at the convenience store or are grabbing food at the Quickstop. Frank is working. Evenings are usually slow, and Lebbe takes a spot at the far end of the counter.
“How’s things?” Frank asks.
“It’s Zulu, man. It’s Zulu.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Things are fine.”
“You’re out here later than normal. To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Grey,” Lebbe says. “She had me working on something.”
Lebbe watches the screen above the counter. Showing is one of the few actual programs that they get this far out. All of the TV is beamed into a server using technology that Lebbe doesn’t understand. Anything that isn’t the news is months old by the time Zulu gets it. That’s why most of what Zulu sees is news, although even that is a couple days old by the time it’s relayed this far out.
On the screens now is a game show. Players answer questions to earn tiles that they use to cover squares on a board. It’s all confusing and overly complicated, but the blonde who helps the contestants cover the squares makes the confusion worth it.
Frank watches the screen for a moment too then steps down the counter to check on the two gentleman eating there.
“Hungry?” he asks Lebbe as he comes back.
“Yes. A burger would be great. One of those you make on the rye bread.”
Frank shouts something through the window that opens to the kitchen then comes back to Lebbe who’s still watching the blonde with the tiles.
“So, what’s happening?” Frank asks.
Lebbe doesn’t turn from the screen. “This is about it. As exciting as it gets.”
“You left with Grey earlier and haven’t really been back out here since then. What’s really happening?”
Lebbe turns on his stool. “Oh, that. Nothing. Just something blipping the radar that she wanted my opinion on.”
A bell rings in the window and Lebbe’s burger appears. The game show ends, and Lebbe eats while news from home plays on the screens. More fighting in new cities. There are shots now of brawls in Kansas City and Des Moines. There are pictures of well-suited leaders leaving meetings in New York, braving crowds of masked protesters who are dancing on the edge of violence. Just the smallest breeze and that smoldering flame will become something roaring out of control.
Then there are shots of Dallas. Shots of real fire and real fighting. Lebbe’s city has become a literal war zone in a matter of hours. Body counts roll across the bottom of the screen. The city that looked familiar earlier in the day now doesn’t.
Frank puts a cup of coffee in front of Lebbe. He adds creams and sugar without ever looking away from Dallas. Commentators offer opinions of either side. Moderators ask meaningless questions. Lebbe just wants to see more pictures. He wants to make sure he doesn’t see his girls. Zulu is too far out for a quick call from either of them just to say “Dad, I’m OK.” Not that they’ll call. Not that Lebbe will either. They both got his pride, although their mom would call it stubbornness.
The pictures on the screen switch to something else, the news moving on to “elsewhere in the world” content. Lebbe digs in his pocket for a couple of bucks and puts them on the counter next to his empty plate. He waves to Frank then stands. As he heads to the main floor he taps his chest pocket and feels the cigarettes he grabbed from McKibbon’s desk. He pauses for a moment then reverses course.
He waves to Frank again then shouts, “Matches?”
“You need matches?”
Lebbe nods.
Frank brings a box from the kitchen and slides them across the counter to Lebbe. “Don’t use them all. You want breakfast tomorrow I’ve got to have some way to light the stove.”
Behind the Quickstop is a door that leads to a maintenance walkway. At the end of the hall is another door, this one leads to storage space. A few boxes are scattered along the floor. Dim lights glow above. Lebbe finds the sturdiest box and climbs on top. He pulls one of the cigarettes from his pocket then a match from the box. He puts the cigarette between his lips and inhales before lighting it. The tang of the tobacco tickles the back of his throat; its sweet scent tickles his nose. He scratches the match along the side of the box, and it glows to life. He brings the flame to the edge of the cigarette and takes a long drag to make sure the tobacco catches.
The smoke burns as he pulls it deep into his lungs. He’s a 16-year-old kid again, stealing smokes from his old man and learning to enjoy them in an alley a few blocks away from his family’s apartment. He coughed his way through the first handful, but got the hang of it within a week. He watched himself handle the cigarette in a broken piece of mirror that had fallen from a Dumpster. He practiced holding it, wanting to look natural. Trying to find the pose that was just cool enough.
He hasn’t had a cigarette since he got to Zulu. Hasn’t had more than a couple dozen the few years before that. Ships like Zulu and the others that he’s been stationed on don’t allow smoking. He’s been forced to give it up to take this job, like so much else in his life.
Here he is now, in Zulu’s version of a back alley. Some storage room that isn’t being used for much of anything. He coughs out the first lungfuls of smoke and laughs at himself. He looks across the open floor and takes another long drag. This one goes down smoother.
All the open space in front of him, and how Grey left things stings again. Make laps. Lebbe lets the words loop over and over in his head. That’s all she thinks of him. He’s the guy who makes laps of the main floor and nothing more. He’s someone you hire to watch over the shoppers at some market, making sure no one tries to get a five-finger discount.
Make laps.
“If that’s what she thinks I do,” Lebbe says to no one. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”
She wants me to walk the floor then I’m going to walk every inch of this damned ship. Lebbe continues the conversation in his head. Every nook and cranny of this place is going to get covered.
+++++
McKibbon leans back fro
m the controls of the hauler and turns to the two soldiers who’ve come with him. Grace has barely been on Zulu more than a month but a good kid as far as McKibbon can tell. She’s a new pilot, but almost everyone who comes out to Zulu is a new pilot. Experience isn’t wasted on a station like Zulu. Martin is an outlier. He’s been on Zulu longer than McKibbon, but he isn’t motivated either. He’s told McKibbon of his early days flying -- fighting in the End of States wars, daily battles against alien enemies on near-in space stations, putting down what felt like weekly revolts as everything political sorted itself out. McKibbon figures that Martin has earned a spot at a station like Zulu. He deserves the quiet. McKibbon wouldn’t have tapped him for this job if Martin hadn’t been the first person McKibbon saw after Grey left him to get everything set up.
