BattleTech

by Loren L. Coleman

  “In position,” he reported.

  “Great,” Brogden’s voice seemed faint. Armis hoped that was an effect of the shroud blocking transmission and not the man’s succumbing to his injuries. “Open in nine.”

  “Ready.”

  There were four pipes and four valves, though Armis wasn’t sure if that indicated four separate compartments inside the tank. He could reach three: one just to his left, the second directly in front of him, and a third a long stretch to his right. He knew the fourth was out of reach on the other side of the bundle of pipes.

  Until he knew how long he had between vents ...

  “Now!” Brogden’s shout interrupted his thoughts.

  Armis grabbed the two valves closest to hand and yanked them open. Fortunately, they were simple open/close levers, not wheels, and full flow was immediate.

  Now acceleration was added to the centrifugal force of the cylinder’s tumble. Blood rushed to Armis’ head as his suit creaked, straining against the lashings. A chill ache penetrated his suit and spread through his thighs as the decompressing water rushed through.

  “Close! Close! Close!” Brogden’s frantic shout came faintly. Definitely the shroud muffling the signal, thought Armis as he snapped the levers shut. The other cadet was clearly fully conscious.

  Armis shifted his left hand from the first valve to the one directly in front of him and stretched his other to the valve at the far right. In case there were four compartments, he wanted to get the maximum thrust from each flow.

  By the third revolution, Armis had the pattern. Every thirty-seven seconds he’d open the vents for six seconds. The ventings—Armis thought of them as “burns”—seemed a little long to him, but he wasn’t in a position to see what was happening. There was no choice but to trust Brogden.

  After the fourth vent Armis loosened the line holding him to the pipes. Keeping his grip through the fifth was difficult, pain shot through his lower back and already aching legs as the thrust tried to push him upward. The fact that he could hold on confirmed his suspicion that the force of the ventings had diminished.

  As soon as the fifth vent ended, Armis scrambled awkwardly around the pipes in the confined space until the valve that had been out of reach was in front of him. The valve that had been to his left, the one he had only used once, was now under his right hand.

  With no time to lash himself in, he jammed his right leg as far into a gap between the cylinder and the valve assembly as he could, twisting his foot sideways until it was wedged firmly. He hoped that would anchor him if he lost his grip.

  He rejected triggering the pain killer against the inevitable broken leg. He needed to keep his mind clear.

  “Now!”

  Armis opened the valves. His grip slipped against the thrust, definitely much stronger than the last. He felt his right knee pop as it torqued violently. But his leg held, even as the wave of pain and nausea threatened to knock him out. He was still in position, still conscious, when Brogden shouted the order to close.

  Cursing his earlier machismo, Armis quickly chinned the yellow injector. There was a sharp chill as the dispenser blasted microscopic crystals of medicine through the soft flesh over his jugular vein. A wave of giddiness passed through him as the powerful analgesic took effect.

  As he lashed his good leg to a pipe stanchion, he realized the deadline had passed. They should have been burned to ash by now. Had they generated enough thrust to bounce off the atmosphere? Or had they only delayed the inevitable by a few moments?

  Almost in answer to his question, the shroud behind him seemed to throb heat. Intermittent friction, he realized, as the water cylinder tumbled through the outer fringes of the atmosphere. When—if—they dug in a little deeper the leisurely rotation would snap the other way with the force of an inertia ram. He’d be crushed to paste before he felt anything. Right now all he felt was heat, though there must be a lot of it if he could feel it through his back pack and shoulder jets.

  His shoulder jets.

  In a panic he vented the jet pack’s fuel reserves. There was no place for the mist of microscopic droplets to go inside the shroud, of course, but there was little danger of the loose liquid igniting. His suit would protect him against a burning cloud of unconfined fuel in any case. A fuel tank explosion would have cut him in half.

  “Now!”

  The icy cold of the venting water coursing between his legs contrasted sharply with the sweltering heat building up inside his suit. What was Brogden feeling, tied to the outside of the cylinder, unshielded by the shroud?

  “Close!”

  “You okay out there?” Armis tried to keep his tone light.

  “A little lemon with a bit of butter,” Brogden answered, his voice scratchy with static, “And I should be perfect. Somebody better flip me over before I burn on this side, though.”

  “Be sure to vent your fuel,” Armis advised. “And fill as much of your suit as you can with patch to help insulate.”

  “Took the same safety classes you did, Half Pint,” Brogden somehow managed a chuckle. “How’s it look in there?”

  “We’re good,” Armis assured him, as though he could see the gauges which were well above his head.

  “Get ready,” Brogden warned. “Now!”

  Armis opened the valves, counting to seven before he shut them again. It was only after the rushing stopped that he realized Brogden had not given the close order.

  “Brogden?” he asked. “You still with me?”

  Static. Static and maybe a groan.

  “Brogden!” shouted, knowing his voice would be a scratchy whisper in the other’s ear. If the other was in any condition to hear.

  Armis hadn’t been counting the seconds since the last burn ended. Without Brogden he had no way of knowing when to open the valves again. He waited, straining to hear any sound from the other cadet.

  Now? he wondered, trying to count back the seconds in his head, Now? His hand twitched on the valve control, but he fought the urge to throw them open. A vent at the wrong time could undo all work they’d done.

  It had been too long. He knew it had been too long. He’d missed the moment to vent; he must have. He knew there was no way to way to see outside and trigger the valves at the same time, but he tried to think of one anyway.

  Anything was better than sitting blindly in the dark waiting to die.

  A cough on the radio, a gasp and then: “Now!”

  Armis’ hands already gripping the controls, twisted in a painful spasm, throwing the valves open.

  “Close!” Brogden croaked.

  “Good to have you back,” Armis said.

  “Yeah,” Brogden answered tersely. “Hang on.”

  “What?”

  “Hang—”

  Armis was slammed back against the shroud, his ears ringing from the helmet’s impact. Then he was slapped forward, his faceplate hitting the pipes so hard he forgot everything else in a frantic check for microfractures.

  His radio light flashed for attention. One of the commercial frequencies, he realized.

  “Brogden, I’m switching to channel L-four,” he broadcast, and waited a moment for the other to answer. Silence. With a sigh, he chinned the frequency selector.

  “Merchant Cadet Armis Tolan here,” he reported crisply, or as crisply as he could.

  “You the monkey on the valves?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

  “Aye.”

  “Lay off. This is the Castle Hayne, we’ve got a grapple line on you.”

  Armis didn’t recognize the name, but only a DropShip would have the mass to capture a tumbling water cylinder. Even one that was mostly empty.

  “How’s my partner?” he asked.

  “We’ll know in a minute.”

  There was another jerk; a second and perhaps a third grapple, Armis guessed. And faint clangs through the metal pipes; people landing on the cylinder?

  There was a slight pause.

  “His suit integrity’s good, he’s got pressure,�
� said a voice. A female voice Armis thought he recognized. “His faceplate’s fogging.”

  Armis nodded to himself in the dark as he listened to them secure the injured cadet for transport to the DropShip. An inflated suit and evidence of breathing; anything beyond that was detail. Brogden was going to make it.

  “Avast, Tolan!”

  “Ahoy,” Armis corrected Jenkins—for it could only be Jenkins—but not loudly enough for his mic to pick up.

  “Stay clear of the shroud,” Jenkins continued. “We’re going to blow the bolts.”

  Not questioning how he was supposed to stay clear of the titanium steel plates which surrounded him, Armis hugged the pipes before him tightly.

  “Clear!”

  There was a pause, perhaps a dozen heartbeats, then the yellow flare of explosive bolts and the sky opened up around him. His vented fuel flashed, a pale blue nimbus that dissipated almost instantly. Then there was only space, home, black with cold and distant stars.

  Twisting sideways, Armis tilted his head back, trying to see the DropShip that had rescued them. The Castle Hayne was the wounded Mule that had hit the gantry, which made sense now that he had time to think about it. It had been the only ship in position, already moving in their general direction. Of course it had scooped up the scattered cadets and come after the cylinder.

  Suddenly the other cadets were around him. Alison caught hold of his shoulders, bracing him, while Jenkins bent to work on his trapped and broken leg. He had never noticed the sword-and-sunburst patch on Jenkin’s shoulder before. There were others, but he could not see their name patches nor their faces through the polarized ferroglass of their helmets.

  Beyond them the golden crescent of Kathil cut across the sky as the cylinder swung on its tether, blotting out the stars. Armis pulled his mouth into a hard line.

  He never wanted to be this near a planet again.

  ECHOES IN THE VOID

  by Randall N. Bills

  Voidjumper III, Quetzalcoatl-Scout-class JumpShip

  Triangulation

  24.631 LY from Manotick

  15.662 LY from Gibraltor

  9.739 LY from Silver

  Abbey District, Free Worlds League

  6 July 3066

  “Just cannot be right. You go on an’ check it again.” The deceptively soft voice breathed across his neck, reeking of Tamarind dorith-jerky.

  Colt wondered if Cap might be going senile. Serve him right; Colt couldn’t stand the smell of the acerbic jerky, much less the way it made Cap sweat vile from every pore. (Colt never did figure out how the stuff could survive the air scrubbing so well.)

  Then again, Colt just couldn’t stand Cap, jerky or no.

  He turned and did as ordered. After all, whether plying the waters of ancient Terra, or the black voids of space, a ship captain was god incarnate. And on the Voidjumper III that couldn’t be more true.

  No way would Colt Stevens be “accidentally” walkin’ out an airlock!

  He tapped on the pilot’s console for almost five more minutes, the sounds echoing through the small confines of the JumpShip bridge. He turned to Cap, subservient look painted large.

  “Captain, just not here,” he said.

  Could’ve been a funeral service for the sounds coming from the rest of the crew on the bridge. In his peripheral he could see James and Teddy upside down above him in the microgravity, hunching until they practically kissed their monitors, while Jiptom and Santora, to his left and right, pretended as though they saw something more than endless blackness.

  In the center of the bridge, Cap sat—a bloated spider jerking the strands of his web to keep his prey leery and scrambling for survival. The Lyran merchant fleet uniform he wore could’ve come out of the Second Succession War. The fabric was soiled, half-heartedly mended and coming apart at the seams. His numerous jowls filled with dirt, sweat and who knew what else, were in sharp contrast to his almost boyish curly brown hair and pudgy hands—the right grasping onto a hank of jerky like an oxygen mask during decompression. On top of it all, cunning eyes lurked, dark and beady, emotionless, dead.

  Colt swallowed. Tried to imagine a cool breeze moving through the stale, regurgitated air of the star ship.

  “You been lied to,” he said. Not a flicker on the Cap’s face. Colt stiffened his resolve. This had to be it. The opportunity he’d been looking for. The Cap had screwed up too bad this time. Time to walk (no, roll!) the bastard out an airlock.

  Colt licked his lips. He’d won a poker hand to get on this ship and a silent tip to local authorities two years back had dumped the previous pilot into a rat’s hole and him into this seat. One more bid…he could do this, right?

  “Captain, there’s no long lost ship here.”

  • • •

  “I tell ya, you had to see you face.” Jiptom busted up laughing for what seemed like the tenth time.

  Colt tried to ignore the moron, glanced at the controls of the long-range shuttle craft that entombed them. He trimmed the thrust and began another long-range scan of near space. The usual, comforting sight of myriad stars in the void, distant scintillating pinpricks awash in the blackness, did nothing for him now. He tried not to think about the absence of a burning ball of gas taking up a good portion of near space.

  “You thought you going to get hot n’ heavy with an airlock. Right? I tell ya, I did. So did the rest.” The guffaws filled the small cabin to bursting.

  Glancing around at the cramped cockpit, feeling his flesh pushing against his bones, he couldn’t stand it any longer. Colt flexed his ass and tried to push feeling back into flesh smashed into the tight fitting shuttle cockpit for too many hours.

  “I’ll tell you, Jiptom! You keep flapping and you’ll be the one shagging with the airlock…and you can bet I’ll like the peepshow!”

  The small, wiry man turned off his laughs and smiles like a c-bill run out on a trideo game. The too big eyes in the sallow face looked like a kicked puppy.

  Damn, was he going to cry?

  “Look, Jiptom, sorry man. You know how I get around Cap.” He glanced down at the small device he clipped (hidden from Jiptom’s view) to the under-edge of his pilot’s seat. The warm green glow said no electronic listening devices were in play. Never could tell with Cap; he shivered at the idea he’d been sold a faulty device. Course, he’d have been cold and dead long before if that were true.

  He glanced back to his left. Realized Pup-man would be under his command soon. Had to keep the masses contended, not just scared, Cap! Doesn’t take much to content us. Couldn’t even do that!

  “Jiptom. Okay, yeah. Thought Cap might be taking me for the long walk. Just uptight. You know I hate gravity.”

  The smile burst on his face like a zit; a relief but not pretty. “No problem. I tell ya. No problem.” He waved his hands almost frantically, and Colt could almost see his tongue wagging. Pup-man indeed.

  “Hey, you stood up to him. Told him what we all thought. I tell ya, ballsy. You know it straight. Take us to danger, no sweat, but make it pay off. We treasure hunters, right.” The mad laughter again. “Always got to make a haul pay off. Or the cold-kiss for you. Yeah, ballssyy.”

  Colt rubbed his ear, slapped Jiptom on the shoulder companionably. The return smile and bobbing head looked more puppy than ever. A sickly itch crawled through his head at such subservience; tried to ignore what had just occurred on the bridge of the Voidjumper with Cap.

  But never forget men like him were useful.

  He glanced back to the console and tried to ignore his current situation. Closed his eyes momentarily. Tried to imagine the bulk of the Voidjumper around him, not this twenty-meter long delta-shaped craft of death; tried to feel the luscious lack of gravity, the floating sensation he’d signed on quick as you like with a passing JumpShip to always enjoy; to feel the climax of sex in zero-g (when Santora would give it up, bitch!): couldn’t do it. Cap stuck him in this Long-Range Shuttlecraft hunting down his non-existent ship cause he’d spoken out. Never mind
a half dozen other long range craft from the Voidjumper were swimming the darkness, hunting for a hint of metal in the great void. He was pilot, and Cap had to show him a lesson! Nothing he could do about it.

  Yet.

  The hours crawled by. Pup-man tried several times for conversation, but Colt didn’t want it. Not only did he hate gravity, he had a case of claustrophobia. He knew grounders might laugh at him, considering he’d lived most of his life on a JumpShip. He didn’t care. He knew the difference between a JumpShip and this pop-can, and right now he had one mother of a headache coming on like a Canopian whore looking to score.

  “What’s that?” Pup-man said.

  “Uh?” He’d almost dozed, trying to escape hell.

  “Something on the radar. I tell ya. Saw something.” Dirty, almost scabrous fingers twitched above the radar screen. The slightest hitch showed for an instant, could’ve been a smudge on the screen. Colt didn’t think so. He leaned forward, stretched, craned his neck until it popped loudly, and concentrated.

  He finally patted the man on the shoulder again; adoration eyes. Pup-man maybe stupid, but he’s got a good pair of eyes in that thick skull.

  Re-triangulating the scanners to focus on that particular quadrant, Colt’s hands moved smoothly to the controls. Cutting off his main thrust, he used the latitude thrusters to nudge the tail end of the craft up off its current axis. He rotated almost ninety degrees horizontal and forty-five degrees perpendicular to the plane of current movement, overcompensating for the bleed off of inertia needed in their present direction. Grimacing, he fired a strong burst, pulling the craft out of its heading and shooting it in a round-house arc towards the new destination.

  A small smile touched Colt’s lips. He was still a damn fine pilot! Light-years better than Cap had ever been before he’d seized control of the Voidjumper.

  Course, the Cap’s information had been right—he gave that up grudgingly. Still didn’t know if the money he paid for these coordinates would be worth it.