Belters

by Greg Alldredge

  Lea needed to change the subject. She knew too well the frailties of the human body. “Tell me, why are none of the access hatches labeled?”

  “If we were ever to get boarded, it would keep the invaders guessing, now wouldn’t it…?” The man chuckled like pirates were some kind of joke. “I think the ship’s master and family like keeping the passengers in the dark, myself. You’ll learn your way around soon enough. The ship isn’t that large.”

  Lea shook her head. It wasn’t that the damned ship was large, it was just every hall and hatch looked the same. This place was a nightmare waiting to happen.

  “Shush… they are coming.” Tian patted the table to get the pair’s attention. This time it was a pair of family members. Other people joined them at the long table. Something was about to happen.

  Eight people filed in, all dressed in the gray flight suits of the family. They were joined by a ninth and tenth, the elusive Doctor Abe with Reo at her side, both in bright orange.

  Lea was concerned she’d breached some protocol. Each ship had different variations of former Earth-bound customs held over and adapted from the times of sail. Some crews’ expectations were stricter than others.

  Those at the head table remained standing while the crew took their seats. Once the room grew quiet, the master of the ship cleared his throat. “I am pleased to announce we are in for a wonderful trip. The stores are full, and the engines firing five by five.”

  The family members slapped their palms on the table and shouted, “Five by five.”

  Baal continued, “I look forward to leading you into the dark, returning to port by the bye.”

  Once again, the family slapped palms to tabletops, shouting, “By the bye.”

  “For it is our wish to survive, nay to live, to fly the sky.”

  The family shouted louder, “Fly the sky!” as a great cheer erupted from those dressed in gray.

  Lea noticed DiSanto followed through the motions but expended no heart in the ritual.

  “Let the first feast begin,” Master Baal ordered.

  The final words said, the family stood as a single unit and shouted, “Let the feast begin!”

  The cooking staff stepped from the galley to the long cafeteria-style heated tables. Rather than be served the food to eat tableside, the meal was laid out in a buffet. Those who prepared the meal got head-of-the-line privileges. The others of the family filed in behind. Those seated at the head table sat and waited for everyone else to eat. The alcohol started to flow in earnest.

  Lea watched Abe. She wanted to strangle the woman, but now was probably not a good time, given there were nearly a hundred witnesses. Surely one of them would come to the woman’s rescue.

  “Let’s go.” Tian tapped DiSanto and Lea on the arms when it was their turn.

  Lea shifted her attention to Reo. He sat next to the doctor but looked just like Lea felt. Like someone laid out a large steaming cowpat for him to eat. His lips quivered like he spoke to someone unseen.

  DiSanto was right, Lea wasn’t sure how they pulled off the feast over three hundred million kilometers from Earth. The food was a minor miracle. As good as anything Lea could have prepared on Earth. Each dish was spiced with enough fire to send mortal taste buds into orbit. Each bite she took was quickly followed by another sip of the warm whiskey. Anything to help staunch the burn in her mouth.

  For a brief moment, Lea let her anxiety slip away as she listened to the people around her celebrate their last meal for what might be several months. The scotch probably helped her mood more than the meal, but near the end, she was as close to giddy as she’d been since the attack in San Francisco.

  The first officer’s voice boomed over the main circuit announcement system, MC for short. “Coms have been secured. We are on our way, people.”

  To Lea’s surprise, the family cheered even louder, much to the chagrin of the orange flight suits that had been peppered throughout the room.

  Master Baal stood, with arms raised over his head. The crowd settled down. The room worked its way to silence, and the tall master said, “Now, I’m sure there have been rumors flying about where we are going. It is time to put the scuttlebutt to rest. I introduce our benefactor, Doctor Vizminda Abe, head of the FlyRight team.” With that, Baal motioned for Doctor Abe to take over and took his seat.

  Doctor Abe looked tiny and out of her league sitting at the table of spacefaring giants. However, when she spoke, her words flowed as a person used to being in charge. Gone was the little girl hiding behind smart glasses on the docks. This woman was in her element. “Thank you, Master Baal. I will cut to the chase. A little over two months ago, my instruments caught what appeared to be a short gamma-ray burst that originated in our solar system.”

  Tian whispered, “A what?”

  Lea and DiSanto both shushed her.

  “Before you ask, we don’t know the origin, nor the cause, but we believe the origin was inside the orbit of Eris, or at least very near.”

  Lea was surprised at how silent the room had become. Every eye was glued on the diminutive woman.

  “Our task is to locate the cause of the event and discover any useful data from the effects to the surrounding area. I will now entertain a few pertinent questions.”

  One of the orange suits with a high and tight haircut asked, “Weapons test?”

  “I’m sorry, we don’t know.”

  Someone blurted out, “Aliens?”

  Abe shook her head. “We don’t know the cause of the event. The burst only lasted a few seconds.”

  “How powerful was the burst?”

  “By my calculations, the tight beam was sufficient to… If focused on Earth, the resulting impact of ultraviolet radiation would have caused blindness in up to seventy percent of the population caught in the rays. Gamma radiation and long-term effects would have… The Earth would not… If the beam was directed at the Earth… The blast was an Earth-killing event. Thankfully, the core of the explosion fell harmlessly into space.” The woman remained ever so calm while talking about the destruction of the Earth. The coldness freaked Lea out. “The amount of energy it produced… is mind-numbing.”

  There is the key. Lea wanted to shake her head but forced herself to sit motionless. All about the money.

  “Does anyone else know? About how close we came to extinction?” asked an unknown orange suit.

  “We hope not. Listen, I know all this comes as a shock, but you all need to understand something. We need to discover the cause and make sure it can be controlled or, better yet, stopped.”

  Lea thought, And how the company can make a profit off it.

  <=OO=>

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Frazier

  The Frazier wasn’t dead yet. Despite weeks of repairs, it was in no shape to fly. Bypassing the minor systems and rigging the life-support functions took longer than Jacob ever imagined.

  They had plenty of power, air, and food. The communications had been triple-checked, but no signal was leaving the ship.

  The panel before him remained mostly dark. Jacob sat on the bridge. He stood the watch alone. Ava headed off to sleep hours ago. Sweets was working in the suit out area. Her armored suit might have saved her, but the high-tech electronics took a beating. She might never get the thing to work. Now she scavenged parts from the weapons systems in an effort to repair life support and mobility.

  Jacob and Ava’s older model mining suits still worked.

  It took longer than he expected to get the scrubbers working. They also found the atmospheric pressure had grown too high. Probably what caused them to become lightheaded. The ship should have warned them of the imbalance, but with so many control and monitoring systems blown, they had been regulated to manually monitoring the entire ship. A task normally done automatically was taken over in three eight-hour shifts.

  The coms were still down, but the three of them came up with a plan to rig a makeshift transmitter. The problem was a body was needed outside to finalize the connections. Th
e three drew straws, and Jacob pulled the short one. He should sleep. In a few hours, he would need to cram himself back into the filthy suit and take a walk outside.

  He was used to being in vacuum. It was the thought of the contaminated suit that turned his stomach. Despite his best efforts to clean the dammed thing, it still stank to high heaven. He planned a shot of nausea meds and an empty stomach to keep from fouling his helmet.

  Without some sort of transmitter, the three were doomed. Might as well stick a message in a bottle and throw it out the window.

  A light flashed in the darkness, drawing Jacob’s attention. Something kicked up a dust cloud. This rock wasn’t large enough to draw in debris. Whatever hit the surface must have traveled a damn long way. Hopefully, it wasn’t parts of the Miyajima raining down on them.

  Jacob whispered, “Dum spiro spero… while I breathe, I hope…” The words Layman Ping used to repeat when Jacob chaffed at the treatments. “While I breathe, I hope…” he repeated once more, watching the dust cloud in the distance remain scattered over the rock, suspended in the microgravity like a slow-motion dream.

  Chapter 17:

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

  As the celebration dragged on, Reo could no longer take the onslaught to his senses. Rather than releasing a primal scream at the top of his lungs, he made his apologies and slipped from the gathering. The blank hatches lining either side of the corridor bothered the hell out of him. He reached out with his mind, and beyond the constant buzzing, he found ghosts of the people who lived behind the doors. Some were stronger than others, but he felt confident he might be able to label the doors and give some sort of clarity to the chaos.

  Eventually, he found his door and stumbled inside, sober. Perhaps he would have had more fun if he drank the whispering away, but he might also do harm to himself if he lost the small control he had over his mind. Crazy is as crazy does. Rather than throw himself on the mattress, he sat and tried to figure out the voices in his head.

  Left in his quarters alone, he might be able to figure out this mess in his brain. Reo sat on the edge of his rack, eyes closed in a dream state.

  In his mind, the ESPer walked for what seemed ages.

  “I want to know why your two are covered head to toe and I’m dressed like a tart.” Lea wouldn’t let her skimpy leather armor go. If it wasn’t that, it was something else. She seemed to have a ready-made complaint for every occasion.

  “I think you are missing the bigger question. Why are we here?” Mindy asked.

  Reo had a hard time not laughing when he thought of his tiny ex-girlfriend in the heavy plate armor, even if the image suited her iron-tough outer shell.

  “How do you mean?” Lea asked.

  Tian started to ramble, “If we assume the worst, we are on some quest to defeat a big bad.”

  Reo asked, “A what?”

  “A boss monster… The final conflict.” Mindy filled in the ideas. “I must say, good! I’m ready for a stand-up fight. All this walking… sucks.”

  “Bullshit.” Lea spit the words.

  His ex didn’t rise to take Lea’s bait. “Not my dream world. Ask him.”

  Reo shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Must there be…”

  “Listen to your scroll.” Tian recited the poem. “Once strangers meet and become the whole. / While shadows rise and courage falters. / One will be willing to pay the toll. / Little of life will be unaltered. / One will come to slide down the hole. / One will rise to greet the offer. / Once strangers meet and become the whole.”

  Mindy jabbed, “Your rhyme sucks, by the way.”

  Before he spoke, Reo started to jog ahead of the others.

  “Hey, ass… where you going? You can’t ditch us.” Lea’s voice rang in his ears.

  “Look, I need some time…” Reo didn’t finish his thought. Instead, he ran ahead, leaving the bickering females behind. The words kept ringing in his ears. Once strangers meet and become the whole.

  <=OO=>

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

  Lea stayed at the party long enough to be social. The heavy spices didn’t sit well on her stomach. Perhaps it was the quantity of single malt she consumed. After dinner, the majority of the partiers left their tables and started to intermingle. If this was a long trip, as Lea suspected it was going to be, the coupling and flirting rituals started the first night. The swapping of genetic material was always on most human brains. Lea wanted no part of that nonsense.

  Too many thoughts ran in her mind. The excellent single malt could not distract her from the dour mood that overwhelmed her. Talk of gamma-ray bursts and pirates, all the science fiction bullshit was sure to haunt her dreams for the near future.

  Besides, the longer Tian and DiSanto drank, the closer they became. Lea might not be able to distinguish which sex Tian was, but it seemed DiSanto didn’t care one way or the other.

  Her glass replenished for the trip to her quarters, Lea staggered into the hall outside the mess. Something must be wrong with the atmosphere controls. She never let herself get drunk so easily before. The crew must be pumping something into the air to help the party along.

  Lea snorted at the thought. Some family ships spiking the O2 so they could increase the chromosomal material of the crew sounded like something from a soft porn vid. Every teenaged boy fantasy come true.

  The series of identical corridors that made up the interior of the ship were difficult to navigate while sober. Tipsy Lea found herself disoriented and quickly became turned around, lost in the unmapped maze.

  Alone, she stood at an intersection, struggling to decide the direction she needed to travel. While she pondered directions, the sound of urgent whispers reached her.

  The first distinguishable words sounded like “Once strangers meet…” The rest she was unable to make out. How many people spoke was too hard to tell. She felt the need to learn more. Tiptoeing cautiously, she worked her way toward the odd sounds.

  She reached another corner, and before she peeked around, the voices stopped.

  Her heart was racing for some unknown reason. The blood rushing in her ears covered the normal sounds ships made as they hurtled through space at seemingly impossible speeds.

  It took a swallow of the amber liquor to moisten her dry throat and steady her nerves. Palms sweaty, she wiped them on her flight suit. Lea peeked around the corner, fearful of who or what she might find.

  She let her held breath out when she found a closed, locked, unmarked hatch. She finished the contents of her glass in one gulp. Someone was fucking with her now. She whispered to herself, “Creepy assed bullshit.”

  She knew she was alone in the hall, but for some reason, she felt like there were eyes glued on her every move. A shiver ran up her spine. On Earth, it was natural to feel watched. Chances were good a person or AI monitored your every move. Most people ignored the constant surveillance to maintain their sanity.

  The back of her hand wiped the cold sweat from her brow.

  The booming broadcasted voice of the first officer made Lea jump. “Make it to your racks, people, and take your meds. We will be accelerating to one G in ten. This is your ten-minute warning. That is all.”

  For the next three days, the crew would mostly be down, drugged into a stupor until time for watches. Only those strong enough to withstand the press of acceleration would be up and about.

  This would be the perfect time to find Doctor Abe and choke some answers out of her. Lea would love to get some sleep, she needed it. Problem was she was still lost. The thought of sleeping in the corridor did not appeal at all.

  <=OO=>

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Frazier

  “Just remember, string the cable and hook up the damn thing. Then get back in here pronto… No need to hang out longer than you gotta.” Ava helped Jacob into his suit. Despite his best efforts, the inside still reeked of human gunk.

  He didn’t need help, but after the shocking accident, the woman miner had started mothering him, despite
the fact he was a few months older. Jacob nodded, forced to suppress a snicker.

  “Look, just be safe, and no sightseeing.” She kept on.

  Sweets sat nearby. Her suit was laid out in several large pieces at her feet. The clamshell helm was in her hands. “You two need some time alone? I could go. Let you get to the smexing bit.”

  Both answered much too quickly, “No.” Then gave a weak chuckle at the coincidence. Jacob felt the blood rush to his face. Ava looked away.

  Sweets just shook her head. “Whatever…”

  The dress out room had three airlocks. One each to the top and bottom of the ship and one to the cargo hold aft. Its central location made for easy access to vacuum, but it was also considered a weak point for this class of ship.

  If any of the locks failed, and this room was lost, only a pressurized door would stop the crew compartments from being blown into space. As a miner or cargo hauler, it made for a handy configuration. Unfortunately, convenience normally meant some sacrifice. In this instance, it was safety.

  Jacob took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Normally a walk like this would be commonplace. Something the crew of the Frazier constantly did in eight-hour stretches seven days a week.

  That was before the burst of energy fried so many systems. With the electrical shorts throughout the ship, the crew had no way of knowing what system might fail next or when. Jacob didn’t want to even think about the possibility of another radiation event hitting them. If it did, they would be gone before they knew what happened.

  “Listen… when I crack open that airlock, I need you two out of here… just in case.” Jacob looked into Ava’s green eyes. The swollen vessels had finally cleared up.

  “What if you need help?” Ava asked, her worry clear as the stars outside.

  He explained once more, keeping the sigh to himself. “With the ship’s coms down, you will never know if I’m in trouble. You have a better chance of spotting me from the bridge.”