The Outback Stars

by Sandra McDonald

  “Lieutenant? Jodenny?” Hultz sounded worried. “Spacesick so soon, eh? Don’t worry. I used to puke all the time. Here’s your cabin.”

  Jodenny forced herself to focus on the hatch. The sign J. SCOTT was already in place. She logged her thumbprint and voice into the door lock and walked inside to a small cabin filled with standard blue and gray furnishings.

  “Dump your stuff and we can go grab a snack,” Hultz said.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll stay here for a while, get myself oriented.”

  “You sure?” At Jodenny’s nod Hultz said, “Okay. I’ll come and get you for dinner. See you at eighteen hundred hours.”

  After the ensign was gone, Jodenny began unpacking. She tried to remember everyone she’d met. Captain Umbundo. Clara Hultz, with her short hair and unfocused enthusiasm. That bloodshot tech who worked for the SUPPO—Bartis, that was his name. David Quenger, so incredibly full of himself. His unhappy friend Ysten. And Osherman, on the bridge. Jodenny went to her desk and accessed Core.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Scott,” a male voice said. “Would you like to set up your agent now?”

  “No. Tell me when Commander Samuel Osherman reported onboard.”

  “May first.”

  Eight days earlier. “Where did he report from?”

  “Alice Training Base.”

  Nonsense. She had never seen him at Alice. Jodenny sat back in her chair. After a few minutes she leaned forward to check her imail. Standard messages had already started pouring into her queue. Rules for quarters, emergency procedures, boring bureaucracy … Where had Osherman been since the accident? Definitely not at Alice. She logged onto the ship’s message boards and scanned the several dozen listed topics. Thousands of messages from strangers, the chorus and chaos of a ship she knew so little about—

  An alarm shrieked through the cabin, making her jerk away from the desk. General Quarters. The alarm that had started the nightmare on the Yangtze.

  It was starting all over again, all over, all over …

  CHAPTER THREE

  Myell’s gib beeped as soon as the birdie landed.

  “Get yourself over to T6,” Chief Nitta said. “Ishikawa’s sick and I need someone in the tower for launch.”

  Myell was a sergeant and Ishikawa was an able tech. Underway Stores had twenty personnel assigned to it, and almost any of them could have babysat the DNGOs in Tower 6. But there was no use arguing about it. He dropped his rucksack off in his cabin and took a tram from Mainship to the Rocks. The access ring to T6 switched him around to the tower’s gravity orientation and six minutes after Nitta’s page he was relieving Ahmed Lange in the command module. Lange had his feet up on the counter and was playing Snipe.

  “What’s wrong with Ish?” Myell asked.

  “Who knows?” Lange gestured toward the windows. “Your dogs missed you.”

  Myell gazed out at the tower, which measured fifty decks from base to dome. DNGOs darted silently and efficiently in the zero-g of the central shaft, their guide lights glimmering like stars. Directly beneath the command module, Loading Dock 6 received deliveries from the DNGOs and sent them over to Mainship via a mag-lev Direct Conveyance System.

  “Anyone else around?” Myell asked.

  “Strayborn and some others are down securing the dock. I’m off to a security watch.”

  “Right, then. See you.”

  Myell locked down the command controls and took the lift down to the base of the hold. Dim down there, cold as hell, but the gravity shell kept him rooted to the deck. Ishikawa had left three DNGOs at his workbench and a log of what she’d done while he was on Kookaburra.

  “Again, Castalia?” He patted the Class III’s round surface and took a look at her damaged thruster. “What have you been banging against?”

  Although DNGOs couldn’t feel emotions, he fancied a certain glumness in her eyes. Beside her, Boann, a Class IV, had damaged her camera while retrieving items in the slots. The Class I, Isis, had stopped responding to recalls from the control module. He could probably fix the latter two but Castalia would have to go to the Repair Shop. When he went to attach her leash, she rose swiftly from the bench and hovered in place ten meters above him. The damaged thruster made her wobble dangerously.

  “Damn it,” Myell said. Ishikawa knew better than to leave the unit on standby. He switched his gib to the DNGO command channel and ordered her down. Castalia spun hesitantly, listed to the side, and descended with an air of resignation.

  “Sorry, girl.” Myell slid in a restraining bolt. “It’s an unfair universe.”

  He tugged Castalia into the lift, up to level twenty-five, and across the access ring to the Rocks. The restaurants, shops, and other businesses along the kilometer-long promenade were closing up in preparation for launch. Electronic ducks cruising the winding stream began to tuck their heads under their wings, and similarly artificial koalas retreated to the upper branches of a live eucalyptus tree. The overhead dome offered a stunning view of Kookaburra but after they dropped into the Alcheringa, holograms would simulate blue skies or starry nights. In a month or so they would emerge at Mary River, and after a week or so continue down the Alcheringa to Warramala and Baiame. He didn’t mind Warramala so much. He had no intention of stepping foot on Baiame.

  “Launch minus two hours,” the comm announced. “All passengers return to quarters.”

  A tram stopped at a nearby station. Inside it, a dozen youngsters jumped up and down in excitement while red-robed nuns tried to calm them. An elderly couple smiled at the children and stroked a pair of puppies squirming in their laps. As the tram started to slide away Myell saw something he never expected to see on a starship, even one full of immigrants and travelers: a naked Aboriginal man, dusty and short, standing at a set of doors with a wooden spear in hand. He wore a belt of knotted hair, and his skin had been painted with swirling white designs from forehead to hips. He was scowling at Myell with such a fierce expression that Myell took an involuntary step backward.

  All the trams were equipped with cameras, and Security would never let anyone wander around naked and armed. Yet no one on the tram even seemed to notice him. Throat suddenly dry, Myell told himself it was some odd trick of the light, maybe a prank by someone with a hologram projector. He forced himself to look away for a few seconds. When he turned his head back the tram was far down the boulevard and the Aboriginal was gone.

  Pushing down a sense of unease, Myell tugged Castalia over to the Repair Shop.

  Pug-ugly RT Engel, who nobody much liked anyway, said, “We’re closed.”

  “Says who?” Myell asked.

  “New rules. We close two hours before launch.”

  “Why?”

  “He said we’re closed, swipe.”

  He knew that voice. Had listened to it almost every day during the bad months, when Greiger had been the DIVO but everyone in Underway Stores understood who was really in charge. Myell turned to Chief Chiba. “I heard him.”

  Chiba had at least six centimeters and ten kilograms on Myell, and spent two hours a day weight lifting. Myell had seen him once put his fist through a barracks wall in a fit of pique. It was hard not to step back when he approached, or beg for mercy right away to avoid being hurt. Myell stood his ground anyway, despite the cold sweat beading on his palms.

  Chiba said, “You heard him but you don’t listen, Myell. You never listen.”

  “Two hours is ridiculous—” Myell said, and made the mistake of glancing toward Engel. Chiba grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and shoved him up against the bulkhead. Something jabbed him so hard in the lower back that he gasped. Chiba’s arm went across his throat, choking off most of his air supply.

  “You have a lot of problems,” Chiba growled, his face so close Myell could smell onions on his breath. “But I will always be number one on your list. Understand?”

  Myell tried to pull Chiba’s arm away but couldn’t. The Repair Shop grayed at the edges as the pressure against his throat grew stro
nger. How would they explain his body if they killed him? Maybe they’d shove his corpse out an airlock, or stow it in a tower until someone found it by accident.

  “Understand, swipe?” Chiba asked.

  “Yes,” Myell ground out.

  The crushing pressure eased away. Chiba stepped back. “Good. Get the hell out of my shop.”

  Myell grabbed Castalia’s leash and left as quickly as he could. His face felt hot and his fists shook. He should have gone AWOL, he should have never joined Team Space, he should have—

  The General Quarters alarm started shrieking. Passengers who’d been dawdling on the Rocks jerked in surprise. A tram that had started across the gulf to Mainship ground to a halt and reversed direction. Fire and radiation hatches slammed shut as comm orders squawked overhead.

  “Crew to emergency stations. Power Plants into standby. Lifepods, prepare to launch.”

  Myell’s lifepod was back in Mainship. He’d never make it. He leashed Castalia to a lamppost and sprinted toward T6. Twenty seconds passed. Thirty. The alarm blasted against his eardrums. He reached a crew ladder and scrambled down to the station below the access ring. The press of his thumb opened the hatch and registered his location with Core. More than a dozen men and women had already crowded inside, some from his own department, the others from Maintenance or Tower Support. All the lights on the boards shone a steady green.

  Myell pushed his way forward. “What’s going on?”

  Only Gordon Strayborn, as immaculate and straight-shouldered as ever, deigned to answer. “When I got here, Engineering was lit up like a Christmas tree. But everything switched back. It must have been a screwy sensor.”

  Chardray Nagarajan slapped the panel. “Maybe it’s this shitty machine, and the whole ship is going to hell around us.”

  “Like the Yangtze,” someone said.

  Strayborn ordered, “Don’t say that name.”

  Although the module was well ventilated, Myell smelled the dank odor of fear. Nearly eight hundred people had died on the Yangtze. The board lights remained green, the comm silent. He asked, “Can you get the bridge channel up?”

  Strayborn shook his head. “It’s locked out.”

  An able tech from Maintenance raised her hand. “Sometimes I listen to the Repair channel. It’s simplex, but they forget to lock it.”

  Strayborn punched it up. They heard a fast clicking sound, then a man’s irritated voice. “That’s a big fat zero. I double-checked. Nothing looks out of place.”

  “They’re looking for sabotage,” Strayborn said tightly.

  Or maybe a CFP bomb. For thirty minutes they listened to the one-sided conversations. The GQ lights and tones finally faded and the comm announced, “All conditions normal. All personnel report back to duty. Passengers are restricted to quarters. T-minus two hours and holding.”

  Myell approached the tech who’d spoken up about the Repair line. “That was a good suggestion, AT Holden. What else can you hear?”

  She gave him a nervous smile. “Almost all the B channels. Not Security, not Medical, but you can listen to Tower Support bitch about passengers and hear what the captain’s ordered for lunch.”

  Myell grinned. “You don’t want to be caught eavesdropping on the captain.” Everyone knew his punishments were swift and severe.

  “You’re right about that.” Her smile widened, but then she focused on his nametag and all good humor fled. “You’re Sergeant Myell?”

  He said, “Last time I checked, yes.”

  “Oh.” This time her voice was filled with ice. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Myell watched her go. Her reaction reminded him of Chiba and the swipes back in Repair Services. He trudged back to the Rocks to retrieve Castalia, but she was no longer attached to the post where he’d left her. Myell tipped his head back, wondering if she’d floated off, but the dome was stark blue with no sign of the DNGO. He opened the command channel on his gib but she didn’t come when called, and in fact made no response at all.

  “Shit,” he said. Something else to be blamed for.

  * * *

  Jodenny had fled her cabin blindly, with no idea where she was going. On the Yangtze, her emergency station had been on H-Deck. On the Aral Sea, it could be on any of a dozen others. Flummoxed, she came to a complete halt on the ladder she was climbing. A hand shoved her ass indelicately and she stumbled out to the nearest deck. The GQ klaxon screamed into her brain as it had so many nightmare-soaked nights in the Alice barracks.

  T6 lighting up like a supernova. Parts of its shredded hull shattering the Rocks and ripping into Mainship. Thick smoke all around her, the wounded screaming in pain and panic, the pulsing fear that something terrible had already befallen her friends—

  “Them’s the breaks, boot,” Jem would have said, had he lived.

  Jodenny blinked. F-Deck. Damn it, this wasn’t the Yangtze. She hauled herself down the ladder and made for her old station. A slim, short chief named Vostic was supervising as personnel rushed past.

  “You don’t belong here,” Vostic said to Jodenny.

  “I don’t know which one—”

  “We’re full. Try J-Deck.”

  Nonessential personnel from Supply, Medical, and Ops pushed their thumbs to the wallgib and hurried inside the lifepod. Jodenny said, “No! They might not have room.”

  “Try D—”

  “Chief, nothing in this universe is keeping me from getting into that pod,” Jodenny said, and meant it. Something in her expression must have convinced the chief of her desperation, because Vostic grabbed Jodenny’s thumb, pushed it to the gib, verified it with her own print, and shoved her inside the pod.

  Tears threatening to blind her, Jodenny staggered down the row to one of the last remaining seats. She pulled the safety bars down over her body and sat on her violently trembling hands. The crew around her tactfully ignored her shaken state.

  “If this is a damn drill, I’ll kill the lunatic who planned it,” an ensign said.

  Someone answered with, “I’ll help you dispose of the body.”

  Jodenny squeezed her eyes shut. Jem’s corpse had been lost in space. Dyanne had been crushed between bulkheads until only a mangle of bones and flesh remained. Voices swam around her in debate, some fearful, some petulant. Campos had been right. She should have never left Kookaburra.

  “You know what I think?” a sergeant said. “I think whoever decided naming these ships after environmental disasters back on Earth ought to have a psych consult.”

  For several minutes Jodenny forced herself to exhale and inhale through her nose. The Yangtze had been lost. The Aral Sea was still intact. The longer the lifepod stayed in dock, the more likely it was that the GQ was either a false alarm or a test of crew readiness. There was no way that the fanatics of the Colonial Freedom Project could have successfully planted another bomb. When the comm clicked to life, Jodenny’s head shot up.

  “All conditions normal,” a voice said.

  Complaints and conversation drowned out the rest of the announcement. Jodenny stood up and was nearly crushed by a swarm of bodies. By diligently keeping her eyes on the hatch she was able to keep from panicking, and after an interminably long period of pushing and pulling she broke free into the passage.

  Vostic was there, in conference with a commander. Embarrassed by her overreaction, Jodenny tried to slink off unnoticed but didn’t get far.

  “Lieutenant Scott!” The commander came her way. He was short and compact, with steel-colored hair. He squeezed her hand like a vise. “Fayid Al-Banna. You ready to check in with me?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, but he had already walked away.

  Al-Banna brushed past the line forming at the lift. “Bet this scared the hell out of you.”

  “A little, sir.”

  “Piss on that. I was scared, and I didn’t just come off the worst wreck in TS history.” The lift arrived and Al-Banna boarded immediately. “Goddamn drills. Probably delay us at least two hours. What do they
think on the bridge, that we’ve got nothing better to do down here?”

  Jodenny didn’t think he was setting a good example, complaining in front of the crew that way, but she tried to make a diplomatic response. “Maybe it was a mistake.”

  “Whoever made it should get his ass demoted.”

  On the Flats, people scurried to get out of Al-Banna’s way. He led Jodenny past Bartis’s counter and into his office, which was small and immaculate and located in the middle of a desert. The grammed walls showed bleached sand and pale blue sky in all directions. She wondered if he considered himself a direct descendant of the nomads of ancient Egypt or a reincarnation of some mighty pharaoh.

  Al-Banna gestured for her to sit and then dropped into his own chair, his back ramrod straight. “There have to be dozens of supply lieutenants down on Kookaburra, just waiting for an assignment like this. How’d you land it?”

  “I was lucky, sir.”

  “Piss on luck. Did you pull strings? Call in a favor or two, use your fame with the higher-ups?”

  She almost denied it, but that seemed pointless. “Some might say so, sir.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. But if you ever try jumping over my head, I’ll slap you down so hard they’ll have to scrape your career off the deck with a spatula. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I’m putting you in Food Services. Try not to poison anyone important and we’ll get along fine.”

  Jodenny took a deep breath. “The captain put me in charge of Underway Stores, sir.”

  Al-Banna stared at her. “He did what?”

  “He said I’m replacing Lieutenant Commander Greiger.”

  “Goddamn it! Who the hell is running this department?” He stabbed his comm button. “Larrean, this is Al-Banna.”

  An administrative aide replied, “I’m sorry, sir, the Executive Officer is unavailable. May I tell him you called?”

  Al-Banna hung up. “Fuck it all. Go ahead and take over Underway Stores. It’s the worst division I have. If Greiger hadn’t run himself into a mountain I would have fired his ass. You’ll piss off Quenger, who was supposed to get it. Wildstein, too. She’s his mentor. But those are your problems now. Have fun.”