by Richard Dee
“Orca, this is Urssa control,” crackled the voice. “Nice landing, we will deploy the walkway, standby.”
I exhaled, releasing the tension I felt. Turning, I saw that all the crew were stood behind me and they broke into a round of applause. “Thank you,” I bowed, “but now I need a lie down and my shirt needs wringing out.”
“Thank you,” echoed Nancy.
“Tan,” said Rixon, “take the ramp control, open when ready and let’s get started.”
Tan nodded and taking the GFH with her, she left the bridge.
“Nice job,” said Rixon. “You could have done that without Nancy, couldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “I saw where you were standing though, and it helped me concentrate.”
He grinned. “Captain always looks out for the safety of his ship, but I had confidence in you.”
On the monitor, we watched as the unloader swung through its arc, eventually coming to rest on our stern. Its locking annular, on its flexible joint, fitted neatly into the recess around our stern door, guided into place by three suited figures. Once it was snug, the annular was inflated, filling the recess and creating a seal.
“Orca, we are pressurising now, you can open your doors when ready.” Griff had gone to the stern and taken local control. He compared the pressure on both sides of the stern door and finding it equal started the motor and opened the ship. There was no need to slide the ramp out, one was attached to the shore walkway, and as soon as they could, the unloading crew bridged the gap.
Large hydraulic rams had come out from the station, and supported the Orca, holding it firmly in position for the discharge operation, which looked like it would commence as soon as the formalities were observed. Tan was waiting at the stern, where a self-propelled crane was poised to start unloading. Stu and Ardullah were removing lashings while Mitch dragged them out of the way.
Two white-suited men were checking the paperwork and inspecting the condition of the packaging. After a couple of minutes they waved the crane in and work began.
Chapter Eighteen
I had nothing to do, I wasn’t involved in cargo work, we had no onward destination and the surveys were all up to date. I fancied a look around; it seemed like an idea to get off the Orca for a while, so I walked down the discharge arm, avoiding the crane and the pallets. When I came to a fork in the corridor, I turned away from the cargo operation, and headed into the station.
The corridors were painted a very bright white and had airlocks every twenty or so metres. There were cameras and alarms everywhere, and lots of posters giving evacuation drills. Every section had its own lifepod, clearly marked. I guess that in the event of a problem each section would be isolated and it would be up to the people in each part to get to their own lifepod. The whole set-up was very professional looking but the most noticeable thing was the absence of many people. A few doors were open, surprisingly ordinary doors in the high tech environment but there was no clue as to what was behind them.
I hadn’t gone far when a security guard came towards me. “Hold it there, sir,” she said. “Can you tell me your business here, please?”
Of course I had not asked for permission to stroll around and had no ID badge. I must have been spotted by one of the cameras, or perhaps there were motion sensors in the floor. The guard scanned me with a handheld wand. “Are you from the ship on the pylon, Mr Travise?” she asked.
“That’s right; I just wanted a change of scenery.” She gave me a funny look; I could see her thinking, ‘aren’t all spaceships the same?’ She was very polite, though. She turned away and I could hear her as she muttered something into her comms set. The words were indistinct, the reply made her turn her head back to me. She was smiling and nodding. She looked at me again, turned back and said a few more words.
“Well we can’t have you wandering around without permission, sir. We spotted you on the cameras; of course we didn’t know who you were. We can’t scan the corridors, the field would interfere with the other things we do. The Duty Officer sent me to find out who was wandering around. Now she knows who you are she wants to see you; she was going to invite you over anyway.”
“Is that the woman I heard on the radio?”
“That’s right, sir; she wanted to ask you about your manoeuvre. Now you’re here I can take you to the control room, we can get you a security badge.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry for the inconvenience; is she mad at me?”
“She was a bit upset, but I told her that you’re cute. Once she’s seen you she’ll be okay.”
I thought that was a funny thing to say.
She led the way through another airlock to a lift, which was the old continuous type, slow moving platforms without doors that you hopped on and off. We rode up for several decks. Down a corridor and through a door and we were in the control room, a large open space, crammed with tech and people. So this was where everyone was.
The guard took me over to the central desk, which was manned by a very attractive woman, her shaven head and make-up emphasising her features and blue eyes. Dressed in a skimpy vest and very small shorts, she was talking into a headset and typing with one hand on a virtual keyboard that was hovering in mid-air over the console. She had nice legs.
“Here he is,” the security guard announced.
She looked me over and I realised that she was sizing me up. She had the sort of expression a cat has when it sees a mouse. The name badge hanging on one strap of her vest announced that she was ‘Liesh’, but whether that was her first or last name wasn’t obvious.
“So you’re the pain-in-the-ass guy setting off all the alarms?” she said. “Didn’t you pick up a badge before you started wandering around? There should have been a box of them by the ramp.”
“Sorry.” It sounded inadequate. I hadn’t seen them but then I hadn’t really looked either. In the Navy we just went where we wanted and it hadn’t occurred to me that I might need permission. She scanned me quickly and efficiently with a small handheld reader.
“So, Dave Travise, you’re the pilot of the Orca?” I nodded. “I wanted to see you anyway, that was a pretty impressive docking,” she said. “And quick. No messing about with you is there; straight in! You’ve done that before.”
The way she said it and her wide eyed expression made me blush; there was too much innuendo here for my liking. “Beginner’s luck,” I said, trying to sound casual. I didn’t mention Nancy; for some reason I wanted to impress her.
She licked her lips and I suddenly realised that it had gone quiet; everyone in earshot was hanging on her words. Call me slow but I got the impression that the cat thing was about right. She was still talking.
“Well the last one who tried to do it that quickly wrapped himself around our solar array when he bounced off for the second time, and HE said he was an expert. Didn’t get anywhere with me after that. Where did you learn to fly?”
“Navy,” I said and immediately wished that I hadn’t.
“That explains the wandering around then,” she said, with the familiar quote from the Blessed days, “Navy goes where they want! What ship?” she added.
And I was stuck, should I say Moth and risk more questions, or maybe they wouldn’t know.
She solved my problem. “Have you heard the latest? One of the Rim fleet has gone missing, they think it’s lost.”
I tried to look shocked, but was conscious of the fact that I didn’t know what my chip might say about my past. I hadn’t read up much on Dave’s history so I had to be careful, “Really? Any idea what happened?”
“The last report said they were sent from Michael’s Hollow to investigate some dispute out in the sticks,” she pulled a face. “It’s sad for all the crew but there will be no love lost for the skipper. He was a nasty piece of work, you might have heard of him; Hermann Dror?”
“Oh everyone’s heard of him,” I said. “He’s not the best recruiting tool, but very good at his job.”
“You would
defend him I suppose,” was her slightly resigned response. “I guess you all stick together.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” I said. “Anyway, I’m not Navy now. Tell you what, buy me a drink when you finish up here and I’ll tell you my life story.” I don’t know why I said it, I thought that I would get knocked back, but instead, her eyes narrowed as she thought about it.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “Thought that I was going to have to suggest it. There are no interesting men left on here and it’ll be a change from all the ugly, sweaty miners hitting on me. Come back here at twenty-two ship time.” Her look changed. “And by the way, if I like your story you won’t be leaving before tomorrow morning.” She turned back to her task. I couldn’t help noticing that I was attracting envious looks from everyone who had heard her.
Chapter Nineteen
As I headed towards the lift, my escort gave me a visitor’s security badge, which I hung round my neck. She rolled her eyes and smirked. “Liesh likes you,” she said. “It’s a sure thing. Lucky you, and lucky her! Go down to level eighteen and follow the signs for the Pylon.” I realised what she was on about and felt myself blush as I walked to the lift.
Funnily enough, with everything going round in my head I missed my floor and got off at level seventeen. As I walked down the corridor I actually took notice of my surroundings and saw the signs on the passageway framing every few metres. Realising I was on the wrong level I was about to retrace my steps when I passed a lab with a lone worker bent over a keyboard. I had an idea, put my head round the door and said hello. “Hi,” he replied, “can I help you?”
He was the archetypical techy, thick glasses, ill-fitting clothes and pathetically grateful to be involved in a conversation with a real person. He pushed his mop of greasy hair back over his forehead every few words, and even though I was metres away, I could tell he had bad breath.
I told him my problem. “I’ve got a DNA lock I need to open,” and he gave me a patronising look.
“Is that all, I thought it would be something difficult. I can lend you a synthesiser, but I’ll need it back.”
“I’ll be back to see Liesh later,” I said. “I can drop it in then.” At the mention of her, he looked deflated.
“Lucky you! She’s friends with everyone but she never notices me,” he said wistfully. Rummaging around on his bench he found a small grey pen. “Here you are,” he handed it to me, “put the black end on the lock and press the contact.”
“Thanks.” I turned to go. “I’ll bring it back to you later.”
“I’ll be here,” he sighed. “I’m always here.”
Now I knew about the signs, I was back on board in no time. The unloading was proceeding slowly, there was only room in the alleyway for one pallet to be unloaded at a time and because they were delicate they were being handled carefully.
I rushed to my cabin and got the box out, pressing the pen against it I mentally crossed my fingers and pressed the contact. There was a pause, a click and the box opened. Straight away I removed the pin from the locking bar, now I couldn’t lock it again by accident.
After the anticipation, the contents were strange and a bit of a disappointment, a couple of ordinary looking pebbles and a screwed up piece of paper. I smoothed the paper out, it had a series of numbers written in blocks, they looked like coordinates, underneath were the letters V&VC. Now we might be getting somewhere. I would have to investigate them later.
My stomach was telling me it was time to eat; I had two hours before I needed to return to see Liesh so I stuffed everything back under the blankets in the drawer and went in search of food.
“Where have you been?” asked Rixon; we were in the mess room. “I wanted to ask you to sort out some routes. Never mind you can do them on watch tonight, we’ll be finished and sailing in an hour.”
I calculated, that would be 2100 station time, we kept our own time in space, based on the last place, or the next, and as we were only going to be here a short while we hadn’t bothered adjusting. I was about to mention my meeting with Liesh but thought better of it. We would be long gone by 2200 and my sure thing would be receding into the distance.
“Where are we off to, Boss?” I said instead, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Come up to the bridge after you’ve eaten, I’ll explain it all,” he turned the conversation to other things, and as they were about things that had happened before my arrival I lost interest and went in search of food.
I was tucking into my meal when Tan, who had been watching the unloading, came into the room and took a cup of water from the cooler. Sitting down, she addressed Rixon. “We gotta problem, Boss,” she said simply. My ears pricked up at this, but I kept quiet.
“Go on,” said Rixon. “What has Vlad got us into this time?”
“I don’t think it’s him this time, it’s the station Duty Officer,” said Tan. “The stupid bitch has got some issues with the ship; she says we have to have an equipment inspection before they can let us go. The kicker is they can’t do it till tomorrow sometime.”
“That’s crap,” Rixon replied. “Dave, this is your department. You’d better tell me that everything’s up to date.”
“Of course it is,” I answered. “And anyway it all checked out on arrival.”
Rixon looked puzzled. “You’re right, go and see her and sort it out.” He pulled out a roll of notes. “Take some cash, or you could try and charm her.” Beside him Myra looked disapproving. He shrugged, “I’d go myself but…”
“Will do, Boss.” I knew what was going on but had to keep up the fiction.
Chapter Twenty
I had plenty of time but left anyway. I remembered to take a badge this time. On my way back to the control room, I took a detour and dropped the pen off; the tech was still in the same place.
“What are you up to?” I asked him, he gave me a pitying look as if I would never understand.
“Oh, just working out some gravity calculations, offsets for the results of our experiments. Did the pen work?”
“It did, and thanks, but it’s only given me another puzzle.” I figured, if no one ever talks to the guy, he would be safe with my secret, and he might even help me solve it.
He looked interested. “What you got?”
I told him about the blocks of numbers and the letters, his eyes glazed for a couple of seconds. “The numbers could be anything but the last bit sounds like it could be a case sensitive password,” he said. “People forget the computer sees capital letters differently and put in lower case when they shouldn’t, it happens all the time.” He bent back to his task, I figured I was forgotten.
I was still early, so instead of going to the control room, I followed the signs to the lounge. I found that all the living spaces were nearer the centre of rotation and were extensive. There were gardens and walkways, large glazed panels and a feeling of space after the cramped, windowless alleyways. It looked like a good mess room as well, with the smell of real fresh food, maybe they grew it here.
The gravity was weaker and it almost felt like I would float away as I neared the centre of the station. There were a few people about and they looked at my badge, I guess everyone knew everyone.
I got back to the control room just before 2200; there was an argument in progress. Liesh was handing over the watch to a tall woman who was getting red around the face.
“Why is that bloody ship still on the pylon?” she shouted at Liesh. “They should have been gone by now.”
“Safety gear inspection,” she replied.
The woman’s face changed to a knowing grin. “Well I hope he’s worth it.”
“Check him out,” she said, pointing at me. “He’s on time, must be keen.” She got up from the seat and handed over the headset. “It’s all yours then,” she said. “Goodnight.”
She walked over to me. “Hi, Dave,” she greeted me, putting her arm around my waist. “Let’s go.” I could feel the gaze of most of the room, hot on my nec
k as we walked out.
“What was that all about?” I asked her as she led me into the centre of the station. Again I could feel my weight reducing as the gravity caused by our rotation decreased.
“Just jealousy; I saw you first,” was her reply. It made me feel like a piece of meat, maybe that was how girls felt. It probably served me right.
We passed the open spaces that I had seen before and entered a different lift, tucked away in the corner. This one was card operated. It took us up to a row of cabins which must have been at the top of the station. We entered one of them and I almost stopped breathing.
One entire wall and all of the ceiling was made of plasto-glass, with a spider’s web frame of metal. The cabin was above the rest of the station and seemed to be floating in space. The Gas Giant was in view, its rings tilted and sparkling, behind it was a carpet of stars. The motion was sedate and mind blowing.
“Nice view,” I said, it sounded trite and broke the spell.
“Come and sit down,” she called, and I turned. She was half-lying on a couch, in front of which was a low table with a bottle and two glasses. “Have a glass of wine, totally unofficial of course.”
I took the glass and sat next to her, she wriggled in close, lifting her legs over mine. “So, Mr ex-Navy man Dave,” she said. “What are you doing driving the Orca?”
“Long story,” I answered, thinking of something to say that wouldn’t drop me in it. “I’d had enough of the Navy and wanted a change. This came up.”
The answer seemed to satisfy her. “A lot of interesting things on your chip.” I wondered what they were; I just hoped she didn’t want details. She put her hand on my arm and traced the line of my biceps, the touch electric.
