Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  Issk’ath hissed and strained on the straps.

  “Are you okay?” asked Rebecca, pushing herself up to hang in the air in front of Issk’ath’s face.

  “This one says he has a weapon,” said Issk’ath.

  Blick held up his arms. “Stay cosmic, my friend. It’s only an expression. I don’t really have anything that will hurt anyone. I might lighten Liu’s credit stack a little, but it won’t harm him.”

  “It’s a joke, Issk’ath,” said Rebecca, pressing it gently back. Issk’ath relented, sinking down.

  “A joke?”

  “An idiom. A social interaction that means something different to friends than it would to a stranger. Did your people have jokes?”

  “Perhaps. They would not have told them to me. I was not a friend.”

  Liu shook his head with a low whistle. “That’s cold,” he said.

  “Well, you’re friends now,” said Blick. “Lose a few rounds of Trojan Relay and you’ll get the jokes.”

  “Thank you, Blick. But I am still uneasy about this secret weapon.”

  “Ah, don’t worry, we’ll keep you on our team. You can use Emery as your secret weapon too.”

  Liu laughed. “No offense, Emery, but you don’t strike me as the bluffing type.”

  Rebecca smiled and pulled herself back to the table by the handrails. “You forget I’m an anthropologist. I don’t need to bluff if I can read all your tells.”

  Liu squinted at her. “Hmm. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you can bluff. I’ll still take you all.”

  “Bluff— this is a game of deception?” asked Issk’ath.

  “In part,” conceded Rebecca, “it is part luck, part deception and part detecting deception in others.”

  “You deceive for entertainment?”

  “Well when you put it that way,” said Liu, “Kind of makes us sound pretty rotten.”

  “Didn’t your people tell stories? Or play gambling games?” asked Rebecca.

  “Yes, but they didn’t involve deception.”

  “Wait,” said Blick, “so none of your stories were made up or added on to?”

  “I am not aware of any. Our stories were based in fact,” said Issk’ath.

  “What about the story you told us, the story of the first Issk’ath? You really believe there was a boy— uh, nymph that pushed a clutch of eggs into a campfire and burned them up?” asked Rebecca.

  “Yes.”

  Liu leaned forward over the table. “So— I don’t understand, can you lie— deceive at all?”

  “We have spoken of this before. I have the capability, yes. As did the People. But we do not do it for entertainment.”

  Liu sniffed. “Glad it’s on your team, then,” he said with a smile as he rifled through his tokens.

  “I’m glad Issk’ath’s on my team, too,” said Rebecca, giving the robot’s chassis an affectionate pat. Issk’ath watched her without speaking. Blick shivered and chafed his arms.

  “Where is Andrei? He said he’d be right back with a heater,” he said twisting to look out of the doorway.

  “Heater? I told him the bridge section couldn’t take more power drains. We had an outage when we were repairing the door—”

  “I know, Gang, he told me. Said he was going to make a chemical heater with some blankets.”

  “Is that safe?” asked Rebecca.

  Blick shrugged. “I told—”

  Rebecca felt a hard shove against her back. Her stomach slammed into the edge of the table and she lost her breath. Liu’s tokens tumbled from his hand as his head struck the crates behind him. The game pieces struck the table with a series of metallic clangs. She heard three before the deep ripping roar of an explosion drowned out everything else. Issk’ath’s glinting pincer shot out and grabbed Blick by an arm before he could hurtle into the door frame. She gasped and clutched at her shirt, trying to suck in a breath. It took a few panicked tries, but cold air finally swept in through her open mouth and she spent a few seconds just concentrating on the rise and fall of her own chest.

  Rebecca was the first up, gliding over the table and reaching for Liu who was blinking hard. A high, thin whine pulsed in her ears, made it hard to concentrate. Liu’s mouth moved but she couldn’t hear. She ran a palm over the back of his head, checking for blood. He grabbed her hand and shouted. She shook her head, she still couldn’t hear. He pointed to the sonic extinguishers that were hanging crooked on the wall and launched himself up with a hard press of his feet on the floor of the lock. She floated after him. The extinguisher was awkward. She’d never used one without gravity. She turned toward the door, but Liu dragged her back and thrust her helmet onto her head. Then he turned to wriggle into his own suit. Rebecca slid into hers and twisted the helmet into place as the extinguisher floated beside her. The whine in her ears was slowly diminishing and Blick’s shouts were garbled and dim, as if they came through deep water. He was trying to tell Al Jahi something. The wail of an alarm gradually increased against her eardrums. She pushed past Blick and shot out into the hallway. Issk’ath snipped the strapping holding it in and drifted after her. Martham and Dr. Cardiff were clinging to the handrails in the corridor still clothed in night uniforms. Cardiff was rubbing her eyes blearily. Martham shouted something. Rebecca thought it might have been a question, but she just shook her head and spiraled past them. Leroux came shooting back toward the bridge, her small medical kit clutched to her chest, her lips in a firm frown. Rebecca passed Alice in the doorway of her quarters. She squeezed her friend’s arm, glad to see she was okay and continued on.

  A slim gold rod shot across her chest and stopped her momentum. Issk’ath gripped the rails with a pincer to hold them still. She could hear what sounded like speech, but without lips, the robot was difficult to understand. “Too hot,” she thought she made out. After a second, an extension unfolded from its thorax and touched the filament port at her wrist. An image of flame burst across the feed. She held up the extinguisher. A series of words shone through the flame. “Too close, too hot for organics. You will terminate,” it read.

  “If we don’t put it out, the whole ship will terminate,” she shouted.

  “Give the device to me,” the words scrolled. She glanced back at Liu. He nodded. Rebecca pulled herself along Issk’ath’s legs to the wall. She put the extinguisher in one of its pincers.

  “Aim this big round thing at the fire. You’ll need both hands, you’ll have to press this at the same time,” she shouted, pointing to a red button. She pressed it to show him and a low growl erupted from the extinguisher. “The sound waves will put it out.”

  Issk’ath looked at her. “This frequency will work?”

  Rebecca nodded. It handed the extinguisher back to her. “I can replicate it,” it said.

  Issk’ath let go of the wall. It waved her gently back and extended its great wings. It stretched its legs as far as it could, the triangular head brushing the ceiling and its feet dragging over the decking. The wings took up almost the entire span of the corridor and Rebecca realized it was creating a shield. The low tone began a few seconds later. Issk’ath twisted slightly and moved forward. “I don’t even see any flames,” she said.

  “I can feel it though,” yelled Liu, “even through the suit. It must be a chemical fire in the lab. Lab structure contained it. Mostly. Fuel line would have blown a hole in half the ship, sucked us all out with it by now. It’d be freezing instead of hot.”

  She looked over at him. “So it’s good news, right?”

  “Dunno. The fire’s sucking up the air. The longer it burns, the worse our air supply will get. And the alarm hasn’t stopped, even with the fire out. There must have been a buckle or a hole somewhere.”

  Blick glided to the rail beside them. His suit was crooked. “Where’s Andrei?” he yelled.

  Rebecca shook her head. “We haven’t seen him. You don’t think that was him, do you?”

  “Did he say what he was mixing?” asked Liu.

  “No. I— I joked with him, t
old him not to blow anything up. He laughed and said he knew what he was doing.” Blick’s face was stricken. “I shouldn’t have insisted on playing in the lock.”

  Liu grabbed Blick’s helmet and looked in. “Stop it. We don’t even know if he’s in there. Could have been a fuel line. Or a spill or a bad wire. The Wolfinger’s old. All the ships are old, something was bound to happen. And for all we know, Titov’s in the john wondering what all the noise is.” He slapped the side of Blick’s helmet and let go. The alarm cut off abruptly as someone disabled it from the bridge.

  Issk’ath’s deep thrum ceased. Rebecca took a few cautious steps farther, trying to see the robot. “Issk’ath— are you ok?” The heat became unbearable and she had to retreat.

  Issk’ath’s voice floated down the smoky corridor. “Do not approach, Emery. The flames are extinguished but the area’s temperatures remain too high for organic life. I am operating within normal capacity. Thank you for your concern.”

  “What about our labs?” asked Martham, pulling herself along the handrails. She stopped short. “All of our work?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t see that far, there’s too much smoke.”

  “As long as the doors held against the blast, the internal controls should have kept them safe and cool,” said Liu. “Each section was meant to be self-contained in case of just this kind of thing.”

  “But the hallway is too hot,” said Rebecca.

  “That’s what worries me,” said Liu, “but the infirmary’s doors may have failed and the others remained intact. Or the explosion may have moved too quickly for the failsafes to prevent outside damage. We will have to wait and see. In the meantime, we need to find Andrei, and I need to go outside and check the hull.” He turned back toward the bridge and pushed himself off.

  Issk’ath emerged a few feet from them as the ship’s environmental controls finally cleared enough smoke. Its shine was dimmed by a grimy layer of oily soot. It shook the hinged plates of its wings with a rattling clack and then straightened them before they slid away behind its chassis. “Your infirmary is not accessible,” it said, “I do not know if the fire continues inside.”

  “Andrei?” asked Blick.

  “I found no one. The temperatures were not conducive to organic life.”

  “Everyone else is accounted for,” said Martham.

  “Poor Celia,” said Blick. He sniffed and tried to rub his arm over his face, forgetting the helmet. “And Peter—” Rebecca hugged him awkwardly through their suits.

  “Flaming Core,” swore Martham. “What is going on?”

  Rebecca blinked hard and shook her head slightly to clear the tears from her eyes. She’d never cried without gravity. It was more unpleasant than normal, but it didn’t stop more from coming. “It was an accident, Beatrice,” she said.

  “There have been too many accidents on this mission. We’re either the unluckiest people alive, or something else is going on.”

  “What?” asked Blick, “What is it you think is going on?”

  “Someone’s taking us out, one at a time.”

  “Now you sound like Andrei. Thought you didn’t buy into his conspiracy theories,” snapped Blick. Rebecca was a little surprised to hear it. Blick was usually calm and quiet. Nothing had pushed his buttons, not even the stress training.

  “Wake up! These aren’t accidents. Something is picking us off. Probably you .” She stabbed a finger at Issk’ath. It just turned its large, soot dimmed eyes toward her. “Nothing bad happened until you came along. Then we have what? A woman who died when you speared her in the head—”

  “She was already—” interrupted Rebecca, but Martham’s hand shot up to stop her.

  “An unexplained medical failure after you gained access to our systems, the falling death of someone who was with you in your home, and now an explosion— another system failure, no doubt—”

  “It was not a system failure,” said Issk’ath.

  “W-what?” stammered Martham.

  “It was not a computing error that caused the explosion.” It reached for Martham who pushed herself back with the handrails. Issk’ath turned to Rebecca and held out its extension. “May I?” it asked pointing to her wrist port. She nodded and it touched her filament again. A video of the Infirmary began to play.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “You can’t! We haven’t run a practice walk in six months. We’ve got no help if anything goes wrong—” Al Jahi lowered her voice to a low hiss, “you know I can’t call for assistance.”

  “It will be fine, Chione,” said Liu, snapping on his thermal suit. “It’s not like we’ve never done it before. And it has to be done. We could be bleeding fuel or air or water, I have to check and make repairs so we can get home. There’s no way an explosion like that didn’t have some effect on the hull.”

  Al Jahi crossed her arms. She glanced out of the lock to be sure they were alone. The others were all staring toward the ruined lab. “And what if something happens to you, hmm?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen. It’s routine. Been doing it almost every mission until we had to start training for this. You’ve been out with me. You know how they go. Find Titov and make sure he’s okay. Calm everyone down. Check the labs. I’ll be back in an hour, two if I need to weld.”

  “No. You aren’t going, that’s— it’s an order.”

  Liu sighed. “What do you think is going to happen? You think I’m going to get eaten by space sharks or something?” He elbowed her, but she didn’t laugh.

  “If something does — look, it’s not just you. That would be bad enough. But nobody else knows how to fly this thing. Not without communications to help. We’re aiming at one tiny ship— no, we’re aiming at where we think the Keseburg will be in all this emptiness. Even if I could figure out how to steer this damn thing, we could blow past it by hundreds of miles and not even realize it without you.”

  “But there isn’t anyone else, Chione. You and I and Leroux are the only ones trained for this. And whether you like it or not, you’re the captain. You have to stay. So that means I’m the one to go.” He snapped on a leg piece. “So you can arrest me when we dock, okay? Right now there are six other people that need you to tell them what to do to get through this.”

  “It should be me then,” said Al Jahi, yanking a thermal sleeve from his hands. “You’re acting captain while I’m gone.”

  “What? No, you’ve done this how many times? Five? I’m more experienced.”

  “Yeah, okay, you are. But you’re also more valuable in here than out there. I can weld a plate just like everyone else. You can talk me through it over the feed.”

  Liu started to protest but Al Jahi stopped him. “Look, I’m a communications officer on a ship without long range communications. I got unlucky enough to be senior officer and so now I have to make all these shitty decisions about whether we live or die or condemn people to a life on a dying ship or risk annihilation on a strange planet— I’m going Gang. That’s my decision. I’ll take someone with me.” She peered out of the lock again. “You’ll need Leroux if Titov is hurt. I’ll take Emery. At least she paid attention during the training, none of the rest of them did.”

  Liu shook his head. “She’ll just be a liability, someone else you have to look out for when you should be taking care of yourself.”

  Al Jahi shoved the helmet over her head and twisted it into position. “If it isn’t dangerous, then why are you worried? We’re going. She’s better at maintenance than I am. Without her, it’ll take twice as long and I’ll probably do it wrong. I can’t send her out alone her first time, so we go together. Get out of that thermal and go find her. Check the others and then get to your console, I’m going to need help.”

  Liu’s local feed flickered and images of the infirmary slid past his eyes as he guided himself through the long corridor to where the others were standing. He saw the blanket darken at Titov’s feet and watched as the chemist swore and switched on the glowing incubating cu
be before crawling under Oxwell’s station. Titov’s hand shot out from beneath the counter just as the incubating cube flashed white hot and the image blanked. Liu’s heart sank. Dead then. He pushed it aside, a grim ache that would return later, when all was quiet and he had time to examine the uncomfortable pressure in his chest. Just then, he had a ship to save. “Emery,” he called.

  She turned toward him and Issk’ath’s extension retreated from her arm. “Andrei—” she said.

  “I know,” said Liu. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and reversed their direction, gliding slowly toward the bridge, away from the others. “I saw. We’ll find out what happened, but we need to make sure the Wolfinger isn’t damaged. We have to make sure we can get home.”

  Rebecca nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Your dad ever teach you to weld?”

  “Sure, it was ninety percent of his job. Said no child of his was going to confuse a stitch for a seam.”

  “Good. How’d you like a change of views?” Liu grabbed a thermal suit from the rack as they entered the equipment lock and handed it to her.

  “We’re going out there ?” she asked, twisting off her helmet and hastily waving away the tears still hovering around her face.

  “It’s just like training,” said Al Jahi, partially bending around the stiff suit to check the tool kits. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  “But— you’re supposed to be the captain and I— I only did this once, for practice. Dad never committed a crime— he never did exterior maintenance.”

  “His loss. You have no idea how beautiful it is out there,” said Liu, snapping the thermal boot over her left foot. “You just stay calm, breathe slow and hang on to Chione. She’ll give you the grand tour, okay? And if you see a hole, you just do your thing, right? A sizzle and a spark and we’re on our way. You’ll be back inside in a few hours.”

  “Look, I’m going to do something wrong. There has to be someone who has more experience at this. I don’t want to blow us all up—”

  “Rebecca,” said Al Jahi, “Liu has to fly this thing. He can’t go. Leroux has her hands full, she’s got to set up an emergency infirmary in case of more injuries and see if anyone was wounded in the blast. Besides— besides Titov, I mean. Everyone else failed their exterior trainings. They should have kept training, but Gabriel— he thought we’d be able to handle this part of things. It’s you and me. You aren’t going to blow us up. I’ll be right there with you.” She shot a look at Liu. “I’ve done this dozens of times,” she lied, “it’s normal. Almost every mission. I’m just slow at welding is all. And if we’ve got a plumbing problem, I’m terrible at those. So I need your help. Okay?”