by Terry Mixon
“Yup. They’ll need a cutter to open it. Once we dump the atmosphere, they’re screwed. We need to suit up. It’s time to take you on what I’ll loosely term an adrenaline-pumped thrill ride.”
He keyed his microphone and told Wu’s people to abort the attack. They were committed now.
* * * * *
Hale suited Rachel. With the unfamiliar gear and the deadly nature of the dive they were about to take, she didn’t object before she stripped down and put on the under suit. It had the standard fittings for waste disposal, so she had him turn around while she got that settled.
He strapped the bulky suit on her starting with the torso and then adding the limbs.
“This is designed to keep the blood going to your brain,” he said. “That means it’s tight. It will also assist your breathing as needed. We’re going to be in heavy gravity, so the extremities have a power assist. The ship will provide protection from the radiation.”
It took a few tries to get the legs and arms the right length. The helmet went on last. It was thick and had a bunch of information on a heads-up display. She’d used that kind of thing before, so it didn’t intimidate her. As long as the suit was working, she’d be fine.
She wouldn’t be running any marathons in it, though. Rachel felt like a knight in shining armor as she tried to move. Hale took her into the ship and strapped her into one of the control couches.
The front area of the ship was cramped. The back wasn’t empty, either. It had crates of the same size as the one they’d found with the FTL drive. Supplies for the station below, probably. Then they could reuse the containers to send completed drives back up.
He put their bags into a compartment and locked the ship down as soon as he finished. He strapped into the other seat and brought the controls fully online. Holographic windows appeared, no doubt showing the view from cameras on the hull of the ship.
“Systems green,” Hale said. “Ready?”
“I’m not sure I have a choice now.”
“Believe me, diving in a ship that I haven’t thoroughly and personally checked has me terrified. Hell, I have no idea where their course is going to take us. You called me crazy before, well this is fucking nuts. Here we go.”
He touched one of the controls. A muffled hooting noise penetrated the hull. The shadows in the room quickly grew razor-sharp as the air bled away.
“I hope there isn’t a tug right outside the hatch,” he said.
The bay doors dropped, and the ship fell into space. Jupiter hung below them as they plummeted from the station. It was beautiful. And terrifying, considering where they were going. The Great Red Spot was almost out of sight.
It made her feel like an insect.
They’d barely cleared the hatch and turned toward Jupiter when a bright blast of flame came roaring out of the closing hatch. The vacuum abruptly snuffed it. Something had exploded inside the bay. There was surprisingly little debris. She hoped the walls shielding the men they’d overpowered had been strong enough to keep them safe.
“It looks like the guards used a breaching charge,” Hale said.
“They used a little too much,” she agreed. “I’m not seeing a lot of debris, so the hatch must’ve finished closing. Thank God. Those idiots might’ve decompressed the entire area.”
“I’m just glad we got out of there in time.”
The ship’s com system came to life. “Unidentified ship leaving Jove Station, what the hell is going on? Identify yourself and come about.”
“I think I’ll just let them yell,” Hale said as he turned the com off. “We have more important things to consider. We’re a little behind schedule according to the numbers, so let’s get a move on and make up the time.”
The ship turned so the station disappeared behind them. The bands on the planet below started sliding down the screen. They were headed for the north polar region.
“What should I expect?” she asked.
“Take the scariest rollercoaster you can imagine and then crank the dial up to eleven.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
He laughed. “We dive because it makes us feel more alive than we’ve ever been. Even more so than combat. Get ready for an experience that you’ll be telling people about for the rest of your life.”
“If I live.”
“Why are spies so pessimistic? Reorienting to begin deorbit burn. Once we leave orbit, you’re going to start feeling the G-forces.”
“I can handle three Gs. That’s what Jupiter’s gravity really feels like up here, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. That’s only the basic gravity. We’ll pull a lot more than that on entry and again on orbital burn. Even more than the old astronauts dealt with on Earth. Here we go.”
The ship turned, and she saw space again. The station was nowhere in sight, but if it had been, she was sure it would be rapidly growing smaller.
She tensed as the pressure holding her in her seat rapidly became suffocating. The torso module of the suit contracted and expanded, filling her lungs with air as she became so heavy that movement felt impossible.
It only got worse from there, because her overstrained muscles started screaming. They hadn’t had a chance to heal from slamming into Hale’s building.
The exterior view switched to the planet below them. The pale band of atmosphere they were over was just expanding to the point it filled the screen. Dammit. How fast were they going?
“Do…we really…need to go…this fast,” she forced out.
“Sissy,” he said with a laugh.
Even with the suit helping her breathe, her brain felt oxygen deprived as the entry forces crushed her. Her sight narrowed until she had no peripheral vision at all.
The ship shuddered as it bit deeper into Jupiter’s atmosphere. The view on the screens clouded until she couldn’t make anything out, so she closed her eyes and tried to stay conscious.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he spoke again, but the pressure was falling quickly. “Open your eyes or you’ll miss it.”
Rachel blinked and found herself looking at clear skies. Massive, breathtaking cloud formations hung in the distance as the ship continued to fall.
“Oh, that’s pretty,” she said. She could speak again, though it wasn’t easy. “Are we all the way in?”
“Hardly. The view won’t last much longer. This clear area is only about fifty kilometers from top to bottom.
“Welcome to the club. Less than a hundred people have seen this with their own eyes. Metaphorically speaking, since this is a holographic view.”
She drank it in until the haze below them rushed up and swallowed the ship. Visibility rapidly fell to nothing. At least the forces trying to kill her were down to levels the suit could compensate for.
“It won’t be long until we start feeling the transition to fluid,” Hale said. “It’s not a clear-cut demarcation, either. Not like the oceans on Earth. That means it’s going to be turbulent. You’ll need to hold on.”
“You mean it’ll be rougher than the ride so far?”
He laughed. “You’ve only felt the king’s gentle caresses. Now he’s going to slap you around some.”
The soup outside continued to thicken. The shocks started out small, but kept growing rougher until it felt as though they were slamming into physical objects. More than once, she feared her restraints would give way.
Eventually, the ride grew smoother until the ship felt like it was floating in a pool.
Hale looked over at her. “We’ve crossed the boundary. The course is still taking us down. We’re up to a hundred bars and climbing.”
“How deep can this go?” she asked.
“I’ve only gone to two hundred before. Anything more would’ve been outright suicide. Double Dick had the record at 250 bars.”
A minute later, he grunted. “Two hundred and still diving.” Hale was compulsively checking a number of screens with the air of a very worried man.
>
Moments later, a loud groan sent her heart into her throat. “What’s that?”
“The hull is compressing. It’s warning us we’re pushing its tolerances to the limit. Two hundred and fifty bars and still diving. Congratulations. We’ll have set a new record, if we survive.”
The groaning became much louder, and she thought the compartment was visibly smaller. They were going to die.
She opened her mouth to tell him to abort, when she felt the ship leveling off.
“The indicators have us at just over 300 bars,” he said. “We’re just short of redlining the hull.”
A beeping from the panel captured her attention. “That’s not bad, is it?”
He tapped the controls with a lot more dexterity than she’d have managed. “It’s a beacon. We’ve found the station. I wonder how they keep it in place in this mess. Hell, I wonder how they built it at all. They’re technologically ahead of the stuff we’ve been selling them.”
“Get us there and you can ask them. Frankly, in this gravity, I can’t imagine anyone is too mobile. I want to know how they can actually work there. Or survive the long-term effects of this crushing weight.”
“Let’s go find someone to ask,” he said, taking control of the ship and moving them forward into the swirling liquid.
Chapter Thirty-One
Adam turned the ship to the course laid out on the console and brought the holographic cameras to point at where they were going. The destination had to be close.
He was used to seeing the depths of Jupiter, but something looked off. The fluid ahead had a decidedly green tinge. Not what he was expecting at all. Almost an emerald shade. That wasn’t natural.
It must be something to guide the ship in. He supposed they needed something to be sure the pilots didn’t miss the station in the murk.
The light grew brighter as the signal luring them in became stronger. He finally saw a wide swath of metal in front of them and slowed the ship. The station had a massive hatch that looked strong enough to keep Jupiter at bay. Actually, it looked a lot stronger than that.
A chime from the console brought his eyes down. There was a new control. One for opening the hatch.
“We’re going in,” he told Price. “The people inside will be in suits similar to these, so they won’t be moving very quickly and they won’t be able to get a clear look at our faces. We need to find Zane and get the hell out of here before we waste all our strength.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said as he pressed the control. “They might be in support systems with treads and mechanical arms. We can’t assume anything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The hatch ahead of them slid ponderously open and he took the ship in. The chamber beyond was a tight fit, but he set the stolen craft down on the marks painted on the floor.
It was hard to make out details in the relative darkness and with the fluid of Jupiter’s atmosphere swirling around them.
He jerked a little when the ship started turning. Then he relaxed. There must be a rotating floor plate. That made sense. Backing out would be a bitch.
The fluid bled away. It was time to go meet their new hosts.
Adam released his straps and stood. It was easier for him with all his training and experience, but Price wasn’t doing badly. He verified he had his pistol and some spare ammo stashed in a belt pouch before he opened the hatch.
There was a tube snugged up to the side of the ship now. That would lead them to an airlock that made sure no poison made it where people were trying to breathe. It would also let the crew unload the supplies in relative safety.
Two men in suits identical to theirs were coming through an airlock at the other end of the tube. They tromped up to the ship with a clumsy wave. Their helmets, just like his, mostly obscured their faces.
“Welcome back, Tanner,” one of them said over a channel the suit automatically accepted. The voice was male.
“Davis,” the man said, nodding to Price. “Young wants to see you in his office. Hurry up. We only have half an hour in this window.”
Adam nodded and walked clumsily past them. He hoped Price kept her mouth shut. These people would know something was wrong the moment one of them spoke.
The airlock was pretty normal looking, though big enough for cargo. Four large crates waited for the men to load. Probably FTL drives.
He cycled the lock as soon as Price was inside. It was already pressurized, so he wasn’t surprised the process went quickly.
What shocked him was what was waiting on the other side. An eerie green glow leaked into the lock as soon as the hatch started opening. The unnatural light seemed to come from everywhere in the room beyond.
Adam stepped out and almost fell over. The suit’s musculature was fluctuating.
He grabbed Price and checked his readout. No, the suit was fine. Something was wrong with the environment. Something other than the horrible green light. Something impossible.
Jupiter’s intense gravity had abated.
* * * * *
“What the hell?” Rachel muttered softly to herself. The green glow around them wasn’t in any way natural, and she was having trouble with her balance. Though her breathing was easier.
That was it. The suit wasn’t forcing air into her lungs anymore. She was doing it on her own.
“I have no idea,” Hale said. “We’re not in high gravity anymore. It’s more like 0.8 Gs.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Exactly. How the hell are they doing this?”
A man walked out of the haze and stopped before them. He had something in his hand. Goggles, like the ones on his face.
That’s when it hit her. The man wasn’t in a suit. He effortlessly stood there in a Janus uniform, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
“We don’t have all day,” the man said loudly. “Helmets off and get these on. Young is waiting.”
Rachel knew it would blow everything wide open if she did, so it was time for plan B. She nodded, reached onto her belt, and grabbed the shocker. The list of people that were going to be pissed at her for using it on them was growing by the hour.
The man never realized what she was holding. He collapsed in a heap when she zapped him.
Hale popped his helmet and sniffed. “Seems breathable, though it smells funny. The damned light is blinding.”
Rachel fumbled her helmet off and agreed. It almost smelled like some kind of forest.
She grabbed one of the goggles and slipped it over her eyes. The odd green glare dropped and she could see somewhat normally now. She handed the other set to Hale.
The room they were in wasn’t a room at all. It looked like an oddly formed corridor. One that stretched off to the left and right at somewhat awkward angles. A rack with five gravity suits stood nearby, partly blocking the way to the left.
The airlock looked as though they’d set it roughly into the wall. Weird. This didn’t seem like something to skimp on.
“Five suits,” Hale said. “That means we have this joker, Young, Zane, and two others. I like those odds.”
“What is this place? How did they do this? And what’s with these idiotic lights?”
“I don’t know and we don’t have time to wonder. Get your helmet on and let’s go find this Young before he comes looking for us.”
“What do we do with this guy?”
Hale grinned. “We’ll take him with us. That’s the beauty of it. Anyone that we come across will worry about him while we deal with them.”
With her helmet back on, she helped Hale lift the man and slipped one of his arms around her shoulder. They started back the way the man had come, dragging his feet behind him.
They had to squat a little. The corridor wasn’t much more than five feet tall. Why build it so short? This whole place made no sense.
They went about fifteen yards, and the corridor made a hard right turn. They dragged the man between them until they came to a short rail
ing. A shaft opened in front of them. It was large enough for a single person to climb down, but that was it.
The ladder’s rungs were too close together, and the grip was stunted. It went down at least ten levels. How did Janus build something like this?
“This is simultaneously too large and too small,” she said. “The ladder is made for little people, and I suspect there might be more bad guys here than the number of suits indicates. Why no elevators?”
“I have no idea,” Hale said. “This place is spooking me.”
A man’s head stuck into the shaft below. Only one level down, and thankfully the unconscious man wasn’t in plain view from that angle.
“Hurry up. I don’t have all day.”
He vanished before either of them could have responded, even if they’d wanted to.
“That must be our host,” she said. “We’ll have to take a chance and leave this guy here. I don’t trust my grip with that kind of load, and we don’t have room. When Young tells us where Zane is, we get him and leave.”
They climbed down to find a corridor almost identical to the one above. The man was nowhere in sight, so she led Hale after him.
Right around the corner, she came to an open iris door. The interior of the room was somewhat trapezoidal. It contained a battered desk that looked wildly out of place. The man sat behind it, his goggles making him seem like a video drama villain.
“Get those helmets off so we can talk,” he said curtly. “You’re acting like newbies.”
Rachel unlocked her helmet and pulled it off, shaking her hair out as she drew her pistol. The man’s expression changed to one of deep shock.
“You must be Young,” she said. “We’re obviously not the people you were expecting. We’re on a tight schedule, too, so I’m going to need you to hurry it up. Where is Zane Hale?”
The man visibly flinched when she mentioned Zane’s name. This was the right place after all.
“You’re not going to get out of here alive,” Young said.
“I don’t have time to dick around,” Hale said. “You have my brother and I’m about to start breaking fingers. Where. Is. He.”
