Joyce had dozed off again and his eyes snapped open when the alarm beeped. He recoiled at the sight of the station looming close. The exterior lights, directed toward the outermost struts, made it look like they were going into a dark maw surrounded by brilliant teeth. When the top of the elevator moved into shadow, the light on his helmet allowed him to see the alignment shaft.
Now that they were passing the station’s gravity generator, Joyce and Maria were on the “bottom” and “side” for a few moments. The webbing held him tight, but he still didn’t like the feeling. They passed by the ringwheel shafts of the station, eventually feeling like they were on the “top” of the crate again. He hoped Maria had a good space stomach.
He felt the grinding of metal on metal as the crate settled in its cradle. All movement stopped and he quickly grabbed a strut to hold himself while he loosened the webbing. Preparing to jump down and follow the inner elevator, he looked over to Maria. She hung loosely from a strut with her legs sprawled strangely.
She’s unconscious. Joyce did a quick three-sixty turnabout, letting his helmet light go around the maintenance bay. It wasn’t pressurized. The maintenance airlock, about five meters from the crate, was the small crawl-through hatch type. Beside the hatch, to his great relief, was an emergency oxygen-supply station.
Meanwhile, the inner compartment of the elevator slid away to hook up with its airlock. He had a more urgent matter. He pressed the webbing releases and caught Maria as she fell from the scaffold strut. She wasn’t a burden by weight; under construction phase, most habitats kept the gravity down and he estimated it at seventy-percent normal gee.
However, lower gee didn’t discount problems from momentum. Her tall body was floppy and his suit was bulky. He struggled to get her over to the station. Once there, he pulled out the fiber-protected hose and connected it to the emergency intake on her suit, comparing her front panel to his. Her oxygen consumption was significantly higher than his, since he wasn’t close to the caution point yet.
Then he noticed the flashing light on the slate webbed to her arm. Pulling her limp arm forward across her chest, he read, “At the station, I may need emergency oxygen as soon as possible. Resuscitation equipment may be required, but remember that emergency stations might report their use to CP.”
Great. Even when she’s unconscious, she nags. He already knew what to do, thank you, Maria. Did she really think he’d forgo helping her, in hope of staying unnoticed by Command Post?
He couldn’t hear the hissing of the bleed valves or the intake of pressurized oxygen, but Maria’s oxygen indicator went green. She didn’t open her eyes and he couldn’t take the time to query her suit to see if she was breathing. He hauled her upright, twisting, and using her suit webbing to hold her against the tanks on his shoulders and back.
Bent to carry her weight, he stepped to the maintenance hatch with Maria’s limp body hanging atop his tanks, which were luckily the newer, low profile types—although that means I’ll end up as a smear on a bulkhead if they get punctured. Don’t think about that, Joyce. Tapping the plate beside the hatch caused it to go into cycle, which meant it was operating.
If there’s a crazy sitting on the other side, then we’re hosed. He grimly looked at the small airlock tunnel when the hatch swung open. Squeezing through with Maria on his back would be impossible. He’d have to drag her behind him.
By the time he had them both on the safe side of the airlock, he was sweating too much for the suit to compensate. He laid out Maria in the maintenance prep area, and removed his helmet and gloves as fast as possible. Searching about, it seemed to take him forever to find the CPR emergency station and grab the equipment. Before he disconnected the front panel of her suit, he pulled her slate off her sleeve because it was wildly gyrating.
“No external cardio-stim shock!” Its text shouted at him as soon as he held it in his hand. “Check pulmonary implant and attach to medical equipment.”
“Okay, okay,” Joyce muttered. At least Maria had shut down the audio.
He unlatched the front panel and unsealed her suit. Pulling it open and away from her chest, he frowned at her apparently seamless clothing. How the hell did it come off? He lurched to his feet, opened the electrical equipment locker, and found a portable point high-heat source used for vacuum soldering. He grabbed the neckline of her stretchy suit, pulled it away from her body, and melted his own seam.
He pulled open her clothes. Her firm breasts bulged upward from a bra like none he’d ever seen before, but he avoided staring. Below them, she had an implant between her ribs that resembled an asthmatic aid. Asthma had dwindled on Autonomist worlds, because in utero treatments often stopped it during development—often, but not always.
There’s no way she should have been bouncing around in an EVA suit. Her lips looked blue. She didn’t appear to be breathing, but when he attached a lead to her chest, the equipment said her heart was beating slowly. How long had she gone without adequate oxygen? He wondered what he’d do if she had brain damage, since there were no medical facilities on the station.
The med equipment should have queried her implanted device wirelessly, but it only sat there. Nothing blinked. Her device was Terran-made and had a medical-lead plug. Would it interface with their med equipment? He fumbled around on the cardiopulmonary equipment until he found the manual lead and plugged it into her implant.
Now something was happening. Lights flickered on Maria’s implant and blinked on the med equipment. Her implant hissed and he leaned back as her chest heaved. She wheezed and the implant sputtered as air and liquid spurted from it. Having a modicum of first aid training, he turned her onto her side.
An obviously painful session of choking and retching went on for at least ten minutes. During that time, he got her additional oxygen from a small tank he found in the med locker. When she was finally still, he removed his environmental suit.
“Thanks.” Her voice was hoarse.
“You’re welcome. That’s me, Dr. Joyce. I’ll bill you later.” He was pleased that her brain appeared to be functioning normally. Her slow heartbeat might have been induced by her implant, for all he knew, to get her through the pulmonary stress.
“What the hell did you do to my suit?” Maria, still on her side, looked down at her chest.
“Oh, that’s what you call that weird stretchy thing covering your body.”
“It has a finger-actuated seam in front. You didn’t have to ruin it.” She sat up, moving carefully.
“There wasn’t any time to feel you up and find the doo hickey that opened it.” Joyce walked along the personal lockers, naively unsecured, and examined their contents. He found coveralls that looked to be the right height and tossed them to her. “We should change our clothes anyway.”
“It’s hideous.” She wrinkled her nose at the light blue coveralls, examining the colorful orange piping and patches on the front.
“It’s clean.”
“Yes, but I’ll be wallowing in it.”
Joyce gave her a hard glance. “That’s the point. As you noted, these crazies don’t recruit women.”
Maria sniffed, but she stood up and started stripping down to her undergarments without any more argument.
Joyce looked away. Damn, that woman has a body that just won’t stop. Perfection like that, even if it didn’t run to his personal taste, was difficult to ignore. He had to push Maria into the part of his brain that held the women he didn’t think about in that way. Major Kedros, for instance, occupied that compartment and he never thought about her sexually. Well, not never. Hardly ever.
“What about my hair? What about weapons?” Maria had dressed quickly.
He shed his coveralls and pulled on maintenance ones while she rummaged through the equipment lockers. On her back was MNX-R1 in big orange letters, which would probably outrage her Terran fashion sense. He suppressed a smile.
“Plenty of Autonomist men wear their hair long. Here on-station, my recent military cut may stand ou
t more than yours. I’m worried that hard hats might affect our reactions, so try this.” He tossed her a head rag. She watched him put his on and mimicked him, arranging hers in a way that held her hair out of her face.
“No weapons, which isn’t surprising. How about this?” She tossed him something with a strap.
He put it over his shoulder before looking at it. “Plasma torch? They’re not going to help against flechettes, or stunners, for that matter.”
“They give us a purpose, and they can be pretty mean at close range.” She grinned. “Let’s get going.”
If Matt could see the warrior’s eyes, he’d have said he was witnessing a stare down of wills. But there were only dark shadows where the warrior’s eyes would be, as if it were wearing a stocking over its head. Warrior Commander “faced” David Ray, but Matt couldn’t decide whether it was considering David Ray’s objections or looking at an inconvenient lump on the floor.
Surprisingly, Contractor Adviser suddenly moved, gesturing for David Ray’s attention. “Please provide assessment of Pilgrimage assets on module, as justification of module’s worth.”
“It’s a sperm bank, for Gaia’s sake, and it’s important to the Pilgrimage ship line.” Matt decided to cut this short, adding, “The question is whether this sperm bank is worth our lives, as well as the lives of people on incoming ships.”
Silence. David Ray looked shocked. Slowly his face and jaw loosened, making him noticeably tired and old.
“David Ray?”
“I can’t make this decision.” David Ray shook his head and his voice was hoarse.
Warrior Commander turned suddenly toward the display. “Pilgrimage-ship is moving.”
“What?” Both Matt and David Ray peered at the hologram, as if they could change its field of view by mere examination. The warrior changed the display by twiddling its jewelry and it shrank, as if they’d moved back to view a larger part of the solar system.
“This is unexpected behavior?” asked the warrior.
“Yes. Once we configure the ship as a habitat, we convert the thrusters to station-keeping mode and stay close to the buoy.”
“They must have a hell of a reason to move that ship, because it’s a lot of work to move once it’s in habitat mode,” Matt added.
“Can you determine where they’re going?” David Ray asked.
“This is the projected path from their current position, given light-speed data.” The warrior showed a dotted orange line in the planetary orbital plane.
“You don’t have FTL data from the buoy?” Matt pointed at the triangle along the ship’s path, which indicated the projected current position.
“No. I cannot access any data channels on the buoy.” Warrior Commander’s voice grated like gravel on a landing strip, but the words were matter-of-fact, holding none of the frustration Matt expected from human dialogue.
He glanced at David Ray. If the Minoans couldn’t get comm or faster-than-light data, then nobody could, except maybe the isolationists. “If anybody shows up to rescue us, they’ll be sitting ducks.”
“What tactical situation is Sitting Ducks?” asked Warrior Commander.
“He means they’d be helpless. The Terran duck is an amphibian that can’t defend against predators if it’s caught nesting on land,” David Ray said.
“I think the duck’s a bird,” Matt whispered, tugging a sleeve.
“Then why do we refer to ducks being watertight?” David Ray quickly turned his attention back to the warrior. “What I’m saying, Warrior Commander, is our ships may not survive the transition. But we need a solution that won’t destroy my module.”
“In deference to Pilgrimage-future-generations, Knossos-ship has determined that mines can be moved without using module-two-zero-nine-eight. This process has begun, but it is slow,” the warrior said.
Matt made a mental note that the ship appeared to be the brains of this expedition.
“Thank you.” David Ray slumped. “Can we help in any way?”
“No.”
The emissary and warrior became motionless except for their hands, which ranged deftly about their control jewels.
He motioned David Ray to move away. “Let’s give them some room, and hope they can clear the channel.”
The two men retreated to a rounded corner and a bench formed from the wall. Even though Matt shuddered when his hands touched the substance, it felt comforting to his rear end. He leaned against the wall and yawned.
“I’m happy they’re not using the module, but if they don’t have their fancy directed-energy weapons, what will they use?” David Ray whispered. “And what if this is a self-healing minefield?”
“Self-healing minefield?”
“Meaning it reorganizes itself if mines are destroyed or pushed out of position. The individual mines move themselves as needed.”
“Great.” Matt hadn’t thought he could feel any more depressed. Until now.
“We can always hope these isolationists aren’t as advanced as AFCAW, or the Terran Space Forces.” David Ray crossed his arms on his knees and rested his forehead on his arms. He was quiet, perhaps catching a nap.
Matt closed his eyes. This was a good time to get in touch with someone with more influence. St. Darius, now there’re others involved—all the crew members on Pilgrimage . People I care about might die. Like Ari . . .
CHAPTER 19
Any weapon, weapon system, or weapon delivery system with lethal capabilities cannot be solely controlled by artificially programmed intelligence. . . .
—Section XVII, Lethal Weapon Control, Phaistos Protocols, 2021.001.12.00 UT, reindexed by Heraclitus 8 under Conflict, Flux Imperatives
Muse 3 dutifully recorded and analyzed Ari’s actions near the slip, as it had done when two separate groups of men tried to break into Aether’s Touch. The burglary attempts were easily thwarted. From the recorded comments, Muse 3 learned that Aether’s Touch had the most advanced security systems on the station and these criminals had already seized the other docked ships.
Ari’s actions, however, were confusing. Muse 3 identified her behavior as under duress, with controlling captors. She broke away from her captors, but then fell to her knees directly in-line with the cam-eye and appeared to talk, yet nothing was recorded. After Muse 3 ran facial analysis programs, it concluded that Ari had arranged to pass a message that would be unnoticed by her captors.
“Stop my ship.” She’d mouthed the command twice.
Perhaps a human receiving this message might understand, but Muse 3 was initially stymied by the indication of ownership. Ari didn’t own a ship. Then it widened its interpretation—pause for parameter change—pilots often referred to any ship they piloted as theirs, and even passengers used the same phrase.
Muse 3 reviewed the significant events in the log it was keeping for Matt and Ari. First, there was a change of personnel at the Beta Priamos Command Post. Male voices replaced two female voices and the professionalism of the “chatter” went down. The unprofessional behavior indicated that these were usurpers, per Hostile Takeover of Command and Control Centers, CAW SEP 12.35.15.
Then there had been the Golden Bull incident. After CP personnel changed, the freighter, or “behemoth” as Ari called it, was given orders to disconnect for some purpose. After disconnection, it went silent and started squawking an automated distress call. At the time, this was fortuitous for Muse 3, since it was able to bounce a signal off the freighter and down to nodes on the moon’s surface.
After confirmation of receipt from the slate, Muse 3 received no additional direction from Ari, and it continued to monitor the Golden Bull situation. Changes occurred on board the freighter, because eventually humans replaced the automated distress call. These humans weren’t allied with the usurpers in CP, considering the exchange of aggressive words.
Unfortunately, Muse 3 had no way to help the Golden Bull. The behemoth didn’t have the fuel to get to the Tithonos mining station, which was the next nearest facility wher
e it could dock, and its crew apparently didn’t want to dock back with the hostiles on Beta Priamos. It currently hovered off station and swapped threats with CP.
Muse 3 continued to monitor the CP channel. The Martian-registered ship Candor Chasma requested disconnection and undocking clearance. Muse 3 recorded the entire verbal exchange.
The pilot’s voice, after analysis, proved to be one of the men in the corridor with Ari. Other voices in the background could be separated, but Muse 3 had to enhance them, making voiceprint analysis difficult. Enhancement of the last message from the Candor Chasma had an additional female voice.
“Candor Chasma away. Wish us success,” the pilot said.
Almost simultaneously, in the background, a female voice said, “Go to hell.”
As the Candor Chasma departed Beta Priamos Station, Muse 3 enhanced the female voice and ran the phrase through analysis. There was an eighty-percent probability that this was Ari’s voice and she was under stress, although that result wouldn’t stand up in Consortium courts.
Stop my ship. Muse 3 had enough supporting data to conclude that Ari wanted to stop the Candor Chasma from performing its mission, whatever that may be. Several actions were possible, provided the Aether’s Touch wasn’t docked with the Beta Priamos Station. Muse 3 began separation procedures.
Pause for constraint evaluation.
The final set of physical clamps was controlled from the station CP. The Golden Bull had initially separated with CP approval, so there were no problems. If Aether’s Touch tried to pull away with clamps contracted, the ship would be damaged. While the damage wouldn’t affect life-support or maneuvering functions, the injury to the clamp anchors would prevent docking until EVA or bot maintenance was performed.
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