Farlost: Arrival Page 2

  “I’ve been been diverted, Rodriguez,” he said in a deep voice, his face wearing its usual blend of wisdom and patience. “Beacham requested assistance ensuring his prototype array was properly stored before moving to a safe zone. I’ll be into the aft cellar for the duration.”

  “Everyone’s heard how Beacham ‘requests assistance’,” Raj laughed, then sucked back the spit the gum had stimulated and nearly set free on the zero-G. “That's why 'payload specialist' is the best job on this boat," he told the First Officer. "No customer service skills required."

  Dina laughed and poked Raj in the shoulder, sending him spinning into Mur's side. "He's got you there, Bill."

  The first officer’s smile looked just a little worn. "There are days I agree with you, specialist Patel."

  Murray and Raj chuckled politely, like school kids before their favourite teacher. Dina was always impressed by Bill Chu's ability to effortlessly inspire respect and cameraderie from the crew. Even miscreants like Dina's man-children.

  She wasn't sure how he did it. Chu didn’t scream or dole out punishment duties like Third Officer Villanueva, he didn't promise stock options and promotions like Second Officer Devine did, nor did he project the kindness and confidence Commander Dwyer did.

  As Murray and Raj gave feeble salutes (which was more than they did for anyone else but Dwyer-and only then on a good day) she wondered what Chu's secret was.

  Chu never laughed out loud, never got hot under the collar, never huddled with the men to inspire them. He just kept calm and listened. He watched you with his kind brown eyes while you talked and somehow, when he got around to answering your question or asking you to do something, you did your damnedest to do what he asked.

  Chu nodded and sank back down into the airlock. "Don't let me slow you down.”

  Dina smirked. Sure enough, her guys picked up the pace and disappeared into the access way above. Without a single command, glare or request, Bill Chu had the two laziest crew on board hotfooting it. She bounced her way after them.

  Between Chu and Dwyer, she thought, at least Haskam had bought a couple good officers.

  She held her backpack against her side as she stopped herself at the top of the access way, and felt the nicotine gum. Strictly speaking a controlled substance, but both her boys had been smokers in early life and as addicted now to patches and gum as they ever had been to cancer sticks.

  Dina idly wondered about the new lady security chief. Montague? No, Montagne. As she kicked off, she realized there’d been no flag on her last supply requisition - which had included her boys’ nicotine treats.

  In her four years with Haskam, hardly a supply shipment had gone by where she hadn’t been asked to produce some new security form in triplicate for anything that could in any way be ingested, injected, swallowed or absorbed into a bloodstream.

  Did that have something to do with Montagne? Could ‘Six’ be lucky enough to have three competent officers?

  “Raj, stop yanking on Mur’s shirt tails!” She hid her laughter as Murray tugged the hat from Raj’s head and sent it tumbling past her.

  They might be idiots, but they were her idiots.

  4

  Lou followed the Commander into the the bridge airlock, and with two gentle nudges redirected herself through the open airlock assembly into Tank One. She saw Dwyer reach for the door and pull himself quickly to the side and barely had enough time to do the same before a figure in an all-black jumpsuit tumbled inelegantly through the opening into the bridge.

  "A little help, Dwyer,” ordered the man with black, slicked-back hair awkwardly coasting into the bridge. Vice President Alexei Burkov, the newest of Haskam's sixteen corporate VP's.

  The CO, still holding onto the frame of the airlock, clasped the VP's arm to steady him, and patted him warmly on the back. "Thanks for joining us in Command and Control for the show, sir," he said, hiding his assistance behind the gesture and his words of appreciation.

  Outside of the two storm cellar tanks, heavily insulated with water and reflective shielding, the C&C was the only place the corporation had insulated to withstand the kind of radiation storm that was coming. C&C was specified a five man load, despite having more than enough gas, water and supplies for twice that number to ride out a month with twice that number.

  Regulations in the Corporate world only counted if you were rank and file. Here, if a Veep wanted a window seat, you changed the rules. Lou rolled her eyes, angry with herself that it still pissed her off so. She’d known what corporate life was like before she’d signed on with Haskam.

  It’s not like she had any other choice of careers in space. Even still, knowing her, Dwyer had asked her if she could handle the more fluid nature of regulations on a corporate boat when he offered her the job. She really had thought she could.

  Lou's lip curled as Burkov failed to even acknowledge Dwyer's help getting him back on course. Dwyer saw the snarl, and she fought her face back to stony and impassive, fixed on the opposite wall from where she floated.

  Once the VIP was through the airlock, Lou started to apologize — but with a kind shake of Dwyer's head, she felt the need to do so dissipate.

  No apologies, she told herself, just stop doing that shit.

  Dwyer deserved better from her, and she promised herself for the third time that day that she would give him better.

  They pushed off for the far end of the long tube.

  HHL 6’s hardened nose cone, much like the capsules that used to launch on ancient rockets but a dozen times larger, sat atop a variable number of layers -currently five- of a dozen external fuel tanks wrapped around a core of nineteen softer-skinned cylinders, all joined together by struts and connecting passageways.

  Even when all the workstations that were now folded away into cabinets were fully deployed, Lou could look all the way down Tank One and through the house sized airlock joining it to Tank Two, but with company sensor arrays already registering hazardous radiation incoming from the cosmic storm, the airlock ahead was shut.

  And the one behind them into the ‘stem’ of HHL-6’s mushroom-shaped command and control module would be closed as soon as Ed finished saying whatever it was he’d dragged Lou outside to say, and corralled the last ‘guests’ headed for C&C: Beacham and his assistant. They would exchange pleasantries with the arrogant golden boy and his lackey, then they'd float back up and through the lock to C&C and offer Burkov some peanuts and choice of in-flight entertainment.

  Shit. Already her promise to be a kinder, gentler corporate stooge already wasn't working.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  Lou had served aboard HHL-6 for four months. She’d known Ed Dwyer for a decade, and served with him in the US Space Force on three separate postings.

  She'd had her share of trouble in in that uniform too. Now, the cartoony red white and black Haskam jumpsuits were the best she could hope for, and only thanks to the man floating beside her.

  “He’s a pain in my ass too,” the Commander said quietly, as the two floated down the center of the hundred meter tube-usually a hive of activity but now eerily silent, with all workstations locked down, pressure doors sealed. “Still, you can’t talk about it so plainly.”

  “Are we talking about Beacham or Villanueva?” asked Lou. "Or Burkov." She couldn't resist adding his name to the list, but flashed him a sorry look immediately after.

  Dwyer sighed. "I wish I could say it wasn't like you to hassle the officers you served under-"

  "Only when they deserve it." Lou laughed. "Besides, what good is a security chief who plays nice and follows orders?"

  "This isn't the Force, Lou. Here, you have to play nice with the brass. Private money pays for your ride, remember?" A long silence followed the Commander's words as they continued drifting down the center of the long, hollow tube.

  Lou wasn't used to so much empty space in a spaceship. Not that ‘Six’ really was a space craft. More like a space station, just one orbiting the Sun instead of a planet. That didn't c
hange the way it felt serving on her: everyone on board the Haskam owned and operated lab ran on twenty four hour schedule and followed international laws for a spacefaring vehicle.

  Except when they didn't follow those laws.

  For the most part, Haskam demanded a well-oiled machine, and Lou ensured they got it. Even if she was struggling with the fine points of when to 'officially' report problems and when to whisper it in the appropriate ear. That was how she originally got on Villanueva's shit list: reporting things corporate culture usually dealt with unofficially, with that whisper in the right ear.

  Getting on Villanueva's bad side had been an honest mistake. A culture clash. Staying on Villanueva's bad side, though, that had been pure stubbornness - and stupidity - on her part.

  She tried to veer her mind from Villanueva, and considered instead the marvel of recycling that she floated through. The series of fuel tanks, jettisoned in orbit from space ships once their fuel had been spent, had been collected and welded together around sausage-shaped inflatable laboratories and airlock rings, sprinkled with solar panels and sensor arrays. Then it had been cut loose to slingshot between the planets in an irregular orbit around the sun, tweaked as needed to pick up and drop off Haskam assets and personnel along the way.

  In some ways her duties were much the same as pulling Space Force or UN peacekeeper duty on one of the space stations or near-earth cutters. In other ways, like comprehending which regulations she was supposed to follow and which ones she was supposed to work around, this boat was an alien world.

  "I'm trying, Ed, but private property or not, some of the things Haskam traditionally overlooks would be jailable offences on a coast-guard cutter pulling over a billionaire in a private yacht."

  "You said it: it's a Haskam boat. You know that makes it different. I'm serious, Lou," Dwyer hissed. "Villanueva isn't the only person on Six you make uncomfortable. I told you when I brought you in things were different here, and to come talk it over with me any time you weren't sure what to do."

  Lou gritted her teeth. "Ed, I'm goddamn grateful you got me this gig, I really am. But Operational and Crew Security is my job. Kissing up to Villanueva and the other corporate animals isn't."

  Dwyer was silent a moment longer, then chuckled as they approached the far end of the tube in time to see the massive red square in the display beside the airlock into the next tube wink out, and a yellow one take its place.

  Someone was entering the airlock. A certain very annoying someone.

  "What the hell, I’ll retire soon,” Dwyer chuckled. "What are you gonna do, get me fired? And if you want to get yourself fired, who am I to stop you?"

  Lou's righteous indignation fizzled out, as she followed close by Dwyer, reaching for one of the dozens of hand loops floating near the airlock and turning her body to bleed off speed with her muscles.

  That last shot hit home. She knew she was lucky for her position, and pay draw. Corporate jobs didn't grow on trees, especially for for someone with her disciplinary record. She knew she was letting him down and she felt miserable about it.

  "Don't sweat it, Lou,” Dwyer said, as they floated toward the closed airlock ahead/below. "You haven't shot yourself fatally, not yet. It's a change, going private. Don't I know it."

  Lou swallowed profanity she aimed at herself. She was working in zero g, in a position of authority no less, because the man beside him had cashed in a not inconsiderable number of personal chips to get her back into space.

  "Sure, but somehow you got your head around it. Sorry that it's taking me so long, Ed," Lou forced herself to say. "I forget what it's like for you sometimes. Not least, you have to deal with Villanueva after I set him off."

  Commander Ed Dwyer waved the apology away. "Villanueva talks tough but he's a good guy. He never served, is all, so he doesn't get where you're coming from. Don't beat yourself up too bad: you can still shift gears."

  "I just hope I learn enough ropes I don't hang myself once you're drawing pension."

  Dwyer nodded. "Yup, that's the nut of it."

  Ouch. “So what do we do with Burkov for the next, what is it, five days?"

  “He can sit at the Second Officer’s seat: protocol puts our Second Officer at the ass-end of ‘Six’ until the emergency condition passes. We'll regale the Veep with stories if he wants to hear them and we'll give him first dibs from the stores at every meal. And we'll remember he is our boss. Capiche?"

  Lou grinned. She had a history of hearing 'Capiche' from Dwyer. Just that word from him helped settle her. All those other times involved firefights or sucking chests wounds. She could hack this.

  She had to, if she wanted to keep flying.

  5

  “I’ve never spent more than twenty minutes with the brass,” Lou told Dwyer. “Not sure I’ll be that good at playing stewardess but I’ll do my best.”

  The CnC would weather the incoming radiation storm just fine. Being the nerve center of HHL-6 and the front-most part of the craft for the majority of its time under acceleration, it was also the best protected area: many times more layers of insulation protected it than the rest of the craft.

  "Don't worry about Burkov looking over your shoulder while we sit out the storm,” Dwyer said, as he and Lou watched the yellow light change back to red as the other side of the airlock closed again. "Think about it: he chose to be in the CnC. He could have holed up in a luxury suite in a cellar. He's interested in what we're doing out here, not just the profit margin."

  “You make a point,” Lou said grudgingly. She hadn't thought of it that way.

  The 'cellars', AKA storm cellars, were two specially treated tanks with heavy duty water shielding, ensuring the health of the people inside. Storms were old hat on interplanetary jaunts, inconveniences for the most part and soon forgotten after the water and rads were dumped.

  "Besides," Dwyer finished, his business face back on as the red light switched to green, and the locks began releasing. "He's Beacham's sponsor. He’ll take the brunt of the geek’s verbal diarrhea about his crazy experiments."

  Lou laughed. “So he’s kind of a storm cellar or our own, huh? To absorb Beacham being Beacham?” She hadn't thought of that either. “Nice.”

  “You could say that. I’d just say they love to hear each other talk. Still, this idea of structural particle fields getting FTL to really work?" Dwyer mused as air hissed out from the over-pressure airlock. "Pain in the ass or not, if he can make a ship go faster than light without blowing up, he's worth all the money Haskam throws at him."

  “And all the hassle he throws at us,” Lou agreed. “Though there are other scientists on board that might disagree," Lou amended, as the airlock motors began to hum. “I’ve heard a few arguments in the labs with the other scientists, who say his force-fields and FTL plan is insane. Gotta say that view sounds more likely.”

  FTL was the great white whale of space. More scientists had promised a solution to travelling faster than light than had promised to deliver cold fusion to the masses. The USS Zeus was one of a handful of manned attempts to travel faster than light, and a horror story many a sailor raised their glasses to.

  United States Spaceship ‘Zeus’, the first of less than a handful of government space vessels ever commissioned and the first US space vessel due to be mothballed, had been refitted with an FTL drive for her last mission. It was a good use of resources, on paper, and more than the minimal required crew volunteered for the experiment. Every fly-boy wanted FTL to come true….

  Of course, Zeus had been lost with all hands.

  That had happened half a century ago, but Lou remembered it. Every spacer remembered the story of the Zeus.

  “I’ve seen his structural whatsis in action,” Dwyer said. “I’m not saying it’ll make FTL work, but that stuff’s right out of the movies. Beacham made honest to god force fields work. Just that is… amazing! he can dial up how much gets in, too: all the way down to a black egg not even letting visible spectra through.”

  In spite of
herself, Lou was curious. “The mission briefing said they can tweak the fields to let in only certain waves, allowing radio but block the hard stuff, right? Why aren’t we using it now? For this rad storm? Why are we still stuffing everyone in the cellars and C&C?”

  “Unsafe draw on the reactors. Of course, if he ever licks the power demands, life’s going to get pretty rosy out here. And Beacham will get another raft of patents and awards.” The commander chuckled. “I hate to say it, but he actually does have a brain to match his ego.”

  The airlock cracked open - one half sliding up, one sliding down - to reveal three men inside.

  A black man with a clean shaven head, steely glare and a Security jumpsuit floated to Dwyer's side of the airlock. That was Taggart, one of the officer's Lou had the most time for. She bit her lip, embarrassed to wonder if it was because he, like she and Dwyer, had served before going private.

  Or maybe it was the fact Taggart was always in as much mud with Villanueva as she was herself.

  Shit, she had to get over this. The rules were different here, they just were.

  Taggart sketched a salute with his free hand. His jaw was pulsing. Lou didn't have to ask why.

  The answer was floating on her 'side' of the airlock, facing away from her and deep in conversation with a thin, wiry youth. Stanislaw Renic, she remembered. He looked at her and paled.

  The shorter man facing away from the airlock door went on speaking, his head of thick black hair bobbing along with his words.

  "Of course they said it’s not safe, Stan, they want you scared of them. Obedient. Well, we’ve got a job to do and it's too bad if they don't like it."

  Commander Dwyer rolled his eyes in Lou's direction and coughed.

  Stewart Beacham sighed and turned, two handedly and awkwardly tugging himself around.

  Lou saw the flash of white teeth, the reddish-brown Native American skin, the perceptive eyes, and thought again that Stewart Beacham was almost roguishly handsome.