by Piers Platt
“Starting to feel better?” Adnan asked, shutting the door and glancing briefly at the video camera.
Jens nodded. “Think so,” he said. “You gave me a pill?”
“Yup,” Adnan said, taking a seat across from the crane operator. “It’s standard procedure these days for folks like you that come in with a high blood alcohol content. Neutralizes the alcohol, speeds up your body’s metabolism … sobers you up quick, and we can get on with our business. The only trouble is when folks are so drunk they’re vomiting. If they can’t keep the pill down, then we just sober them up the old fashioned way – let them sleep it off.”
Jens sipped the coffee, while Adnan watched patiently.
“This is your first safety incident, according to your boss,” Adnan said.
“Yeah,” Jens agreed. “I’m usually pretty careful. Been working on cranes for close to ten years now.”
“What happened this morning?” Adnan asked.
Jens sighed and looked down at the table. “I got drunk. Didn’t realize where I was, or what I was doing. I’m so sorry.” He looked up at Adnan. “Really, I am.”
“I believe you,” Adnan said.
“Is the captain here yet? I’d like to apologize to her in person.”
“Commander Jiyake is on her way,” Adnan said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Jens, do you usually drink in the mornings?”
Jens shook his head.
“Do you drink a lot?”
“No, not a lot. Some,” Jens admitted. “I mean, I keep some booze at home. I usually have a couple beers in the evening. Might get a little drunk on weekends, if I’m hanging out with my friends.”
“Mm. I’ve been doing a little digging on you,” Adnan said. “You’ve never been admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and we’ve never arrested you before for drunk and disorderly.”
“No,” Jens said. “I never really had trouble with alcohol before.”
“You ever had treatment for addiction? Alcohol or otherwise?” Adnan asked.
“No,” Jens said.
“What about depression? Or any other mental health conditions?”
“No,” Jens said.
“And you don’t normally drink in the mornings,” Adnan repeated.
“No.”
“So … what happened this morning?”
Jens squirmed in his seat. “I can’t explain it. I just felt like getting drunk.”
“You just woke up and said, ‘I’m going to get drunk this morning, before I go to work.’ ”
“I guess so,” Jens said.
Adnan sighed. “Jens, that just doesn’t make sense to me.”
“No, sir, I guess it doesn’t. It doesn’t make much sense to me now, either.”
“Maybe you can help me out with something else that doesn’t make sense,” Adnan said. “You say you suddenly got this idea to get drunk this morning. But I know you bought that bottle of whiskey two days ago.”
Jens looked up suddenly. “How’d you know that?”
“I checked your purchase history,” Adnan said.
Jens frowned. “Okay. So?”
“So that tells me maybe this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Adnan explained. “That tells me maybe something else is going on, if you bought that bottle a couple days ago.”
“I don’t understand,” Jens said, frowning.
“Well, that makes two of us,” Adnan said. “Let me lay it out. You’re not an alcoholic. You’ve already got booze at home. Then suddenly, out of the blue, you decide to buy another bottle of booze – not a regular-sized fifth, mind you, a little, pocket-sized bottle. And two days later, you wake up, decide to get shit-faced at nine in the morning, on a workday?” Adnan leaned forward, shaking his head. “Help me out here, man. What’s going on that I don’t know?”
Jens sighed again. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How long have you been married to your wife?” Adnan asked.
“Uh,” Jens frowned. “Four, five years. Five now, I guess.”
“Everything okay between you two?”
“Sure. Kady’s great.”
“Uh huh,” Adnan nodded. “I gave her a call a little while ago. She seems like a real nice lady.”
“Did you tell her about what happened?” Jens asked.
“Well, she asked why I was calling, but I just told her not to worry, that you were safe, and that you’d give her a call in a little bit. I figured you’d probably want to be the one to tell her what happened.”
“Thank you,” Jens said, relief washing over his face.
“Yeah,” Adnan said. He patted Jens on the knee. “Listen, I’m gonna go check and see if the commander’s here yet, so you can make that apology, like you asked. Sit tight, okay.”
“Okay,” Jens agreed.
Adnan stood and opened the door, but paused in the frame. “Jens.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Whatever’s going on, I can help you. You understand? I want you to think about that while I’m gone.”
“I will.”
Detective Adnan nodded, and Jiyake saw him shut the door to the interrogation room. A moment later, the door to the observation room swung open, and Adnan walked in. He shook his head and looked at Jens on the vidscreen.
“He’s hiding something,” Jiyake said.
“Yes, ma’am, he certainly is,” Adnan agreed. “But right now I don’t have a clue what it is. At first I thought he was trying to cover for one of his buddies. Like, somebody else hit your ship with the crane, and Jens is taking the fall for it. I mean, it’s not often somebody walks up to our front desk and turns himself in for something, you know?”
“What did you arrest him for?” Jiyake said.
“That’s the thing, I haven’t yet,” Adnan said. “He was drunk when he got here, but he wasn’t being disorderly or anything. I think I’m going to have to book him for reckless endangerment for the crane incident.”
“But you think someone else did it?”
“No,” Adnan shook his head. “Jens did it. Besides the fact that he’s been asking to apologize to you since he got here, I’ve got security camera footage of him going up into that crane before it hit you, and then coming right back down again afterwards.”
“So he was definitely the one that hit us,” Jiyake said.
“Yup. But his whole story stinks.”
“It feels like he knows it doesn’t make sense, but he’s sticking to it, ‘cause he’s worried if he says anything else, he’ll slip up,” Jiyake said.
Adnan pointed his finger at Jiyake. “That is exactly what it feels like.” He rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. “His wife said he’s been acting a little strange the past few days. Avoiding her a bit. And he called her in tears after the crane incident to apologize.”
“He’s just apologizing to everybody,” Jiyake said.
“Yeah,” Adnan agreed. “Jens is like half the workers on this station – maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, but his heart is in the right place.” Adnan studied the crane operator on the screen for a moment. “I’m afraid he’s in over his head in something big.”
“You think you can get him to open up?” Jiyake asked.
“I dunno. But either way, I’m going to keep pulling on this thread ‘til I figure out where it leads,” Adnan said.
“Keep me in the loop?” Jiyake asked.
Adnan looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, ma’am. The thought had occurred to me that there are bad elements out there who might like to see a Colonial Guard ship sidelined for a few weeks.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, too,” Jiyake said. “Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe someone was targeting us.”
“Right,” Adnan said. “Well, are you ready to go get your apology?”
Jiyake exhaled noisily. “I suppose so.”
Chapter 16
Falken leapt up onto the hood of the truck, scrabbling toward the shatter
ed windshield.
Just gotta turn on the autopilot, and send the truck back to the ship …
The massive dragon roared and struck, lunging down to snap at Falken. He rolled to one side, and her heavy snout battered a dent in the hood right next to Falken. She shifted, her maw gaping wide, and for a panicked second, Falken felt the skin of her jaw against his side, and a razor-sharp set of teeth pressed against his leg. But he kicked hard and pulled himself forward on the truck’s dashboard. He tumbled into the driver’s compartment a second before her teeth snapped shut.
Falken fell onto the floor of the compartment, below the truck’s dashboard. Overhead, he saw the dragon lift her head, and her gill-like nostrils flared along her neck, sniffing, searching for his scent. She lunged down again, and Falken felt himself pinned to the floor by the tip of her snout. She twisted, grinding him against the floor, her hot breath washing over him. He screamed in terror, but the gap between the seats and the dashboard was too narrow – her jaws could not open to grab him.
She withdrew, and Falken, recovering his wits, reached up blindly and pawed at the vehicle’s control panel.
“Please say a command,” a cheerful female voice suggested, emanating from the vehicle’s speakers.
“Start up!” Falken yelled.
The vehicle lifted up on its hoverfans, and the dragon roared again.
Uh oh. That pissed her off.
She disappeared from view, and a second later a jarring impact rocked the truck. Falken was thrown against the far door of the truck; his head cracked against the metal and he saw stars. The dragon’s tail whipped down across the top of the truck next, battering it a second time, and then again, and Falken heard the metal frame groan, bending under the assault.
“Autopilot on!” Falken ordered.
“Exterior sensors damaged,” the truck’s robotic voice told him. “Unable to operate in autopilot mode due to safety protocols.”
Oh, shit. She broke all the cameras and sensors – the autopilot can’t see anything.
Suddenly the dragon’s head reappeared, and she bit down into the middle row of seats. From a foot away, Falken could see her teeth sink deep into the upholstery, taking a firm grip. The truck lurched upwards, and Falken felt his stomach drop.
Jesus Christ! She can’t pick this thing up and fly with it, can she?
But the dragon had merely lifted the truck over her head, and as Falken watched helplessly, she tipped it – and him – upside down above her.
The truck’s speakers hooted an alarm. “Unsafe piloting,” the truck warned. “Return to low-level, non-inverted flight to prevent injury to passengers.”
Falken felt himself slipping. He caught a glimpse of the ground, dizzyingly far below, over the dragon’s shoulder. In a panic, he scrambled for a handhold, but his clumsy grab missed the truck’s wheel, and he tumbled out into free air, bouncing off of the dragon’s wing before falling to the ground. He tumbled as he hit, rolling to a stop several yards behind the dragon. The drop might have killed him on Earth – on Olympus, it merely knocked the wind out of him.
Falken realized his oxygen mask had been knocked loose, too – he pulled it back on, gasping, and then rolled onto his back. The dragon had let go of the safari truck – it righted itself and hovered back down to the ground on its own, coming to rest on the far side of the dragon, waiting patiently. Falken lay on his back, totally exposed, on a patch of lichen below the massive beast. She drew a bead on him, and Falken saw her jaws open wide, and the muscles in her neck tense as she prepared for the final strike.
HONK! HONK!
Both Falken and the dragon turned to see the Adrenaline Junkies truck roar into the clearing. Quiss was at the wheel with the truck full of tourists’ proxies. He slewed the truck through a tight turn before pulling up sharply between the dragon and Falken.
“Okay, first team, you’re up! Go! Go! Go!”
As Falken watched, four of Quiss’ guests tumbled out of the truck, running toward the dragon. She showed her teeth, and knocked the first three over with a tail swipe, then ate the fourth proxy in a single bite. Quiss’ proxy turned in his seat to face Falken.
“I’m going to try to lead her away, mate – get to your truck and get out of here!”
Falken nodded and scrambled to his feet. The dragon was ripping into another of the proxies – Falken dashed around her tail, and saw her head come up, sniffing. Quiss honked the horn again.
“Yoo-hoo! More yum-yums over here!” he yelled, and revved the engine, scooting away from the dragon. Falken saw another guest jump off the truck and wave her arms in the air.
“Eat me!” she yelled.
The dragon hissed and lunged forward, biting her in half. Falken sprinted the final few feet, jumped in behind the wheel of his own truck, and gunned it. The truck roared out of the small clearing, shattered glass sliding off the hood as Falken floored the accelerator. He headed for the nearest trail, finding it quickly, and then risked a glance over his shoulder. There was no sign of the dragon. The radio in his truck crackled to life.
“You clear, Falken? She’s right on my ass!”
“Roger that,” Falken replied, a grin crossing his lips. “I owe you big time, Quiss.”
“We got your back, brother,” Quiss replied. “Listen, I can probably give you about ten, fifteen minutes more cover, and then I’m gonna be out of proxies to feed her.”
“That should be enough,” Falken said, driving hard through a tight turn around a rock column.
“Jesus, will you look at the size of her?” Quiss radioed. “Where the hell have you been hiding all this time, big girl?”
A new voice came on over the speakers. “Falken, this is Hylie.”
“Hey, Hylie. Thanks for the assist.”
“No worries,” she told him. “Can you talk? I don’t want to bring any unwanted attention your way.”
Falken glanced behind his truck again, and gave the sky a quick once over, as well. “I’m clear right now. If I go quiet, you’ll know why.”
“Got it,” she said. “We lost comms with the Ecolympus. What’s your status?”
“Everyone’s safe, but we lost power and internal atmosphere, and we’re running out of emergency oxygen.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That was our guess. We figured you were gonna try to transport everyone to the research center.”
“If we have to,” Falken agreed. “We have less than an hour of air remaining. What’s going on with the Liberty Belle?”
“They launched, but they’re still about two hours out. You sure you don’t have more than an hour of air left?”
“Pretty sure,” Falken said.
“Well, if your air calculations are correct, I don’t think you can afford to stay put.”
“Agreed,” Falken said, turning right at a fork in the gravel road. “Did the Belle already clear an emergency approach with the Conservation Department to come get us? Those drones shot us up pretty good on our way in, I don’t want the rescue crew getting hit, too.”
“They should have cleared it already, but I’ll confirm,” Hylie promised. “What else can we do to help?”
“I’ve got an open-air truck here,” Falken told her, glancing up at the steel frames that had once supported the glass canopy. “Zero overhead cover for when we head to the research center. My noise cancellation staff is working, but my truck’s beat to shit … I don’t know if the onboard noise cancellation is still working or not.”
“You’re not going to have time to repair any of that,” Hylie said.
“No. Any chance you have another batch of proxies built already, so you can run cover for us when we make a dash for the research center?”
“Sorry,” Hylie said. “We’re building another batch, but the printer’s gonna need a couple more hours. Not enough time. Quiss, you there?”
“Barely,” came the reply. “If you’re going to ask me to try to save some proxies, I’m afraid you’re too late. I’m going to have to sacrifice my own
just to get the truck back to base camp in one piece.”
“It is what it is,” Falken said. “We’ll just have to haul ass and hope for the best.”
“Hang on, let me patch in the research center,” Hylie said. “Olympus Research Center, Adrenaline Junkies, over.”
Falken hovered over a gurgling stream, then slowed as the path wound through a tight formation of columns. Small drops of rain were beginning to fall, wetting his hair and stinging his eyes.
“ORC, ORC, this is Adrenaline Junkies, over?” Hylie repeated.
“ORC,” Falken heard a deep male voice reply. That sounds like Brondi.
“Roger, are you monitoring the situation with Ecolympus?” Hylie asked.
“We got an update from the Liberty Belle before they launched,” Brondi replied.
“Okay, I’ve got Falken on the line with me.”
“Hey, Falken,” Brondi said. “Glad to hear you’re okay.”
“Hi, Brondi,” Falken said. He wiped rain from his eyes, squinting to see through the droplets as he drove. “I’m bringing in a truck full of survivors in the next hour. Can you or Luthena keep a close eye on the external sensors, and open the vehicle bay door the minute you see us coming?”
“You got it,” Brondi said. “I’ll be at the control center, and I’ll have Luthena by the airlock with a medical kit.”
“Perfect,” Falken replied. “I’ll give you a shout on the radio when we’re headed in if I can, but I may need to stay radio silent if we see dragons on approach.”
“Understood. We’ll be ready for you. ORC, out.”
“Hylie, this is Quiss.” His voice was strained, and they could hear his ragged breathing. “Final report. Truck’s at base camp. Good luck, Falken.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
“Shit. Here she comes agai—”
The radio went silent. “All right, I got some traumatized guests to attend to,” Hylie said. “Falken, call us if you think of anything else.”
“Will do. Thanks again, Hylie.”
“Junkies out.”
* * *
It was raining steadily by the time Falken pulled up next to the wreck of the Ecolympus. The ship’s stern, still burning, smoked and hissed in the downpour. Falken left the truck running, afraid that it might not start again if he shut it down, and jogged over to the airlock, slapping the outer door open. The inner hatch slid open at his touch, and he stumbled into the dark corridor.
