Farlost: Arrival Page 4

  The aching in her ears was painful and she knew the tank was losing too much air, too fast. In moments, some chunk would rip away and they would all be sucked out into space to die.

  Villanueva was close now, his arms outstretched. With movements practiced by a career of emergency drills in space, they hooked arms together. Then, Villanueva was tugging on the line, sending them tumbling end over end back toward the airlock.

  The lights in the tank began to fail, creating an erratic, lightning-bright flicker. On one of Lou and Villanueva's rotations, head over feet back towards the airlock, she saw Commander Dwyer's corpse.

  Ed was picking up speed, drifting toward the wall perforated by the tiny damn rocks.

  Lou held on tight but did her best to keep her joints from locking, to bend the way Villanueva pulled her and not to fight his rough handling.

  She looked back at Ed Dwyer's body again.

  Ed looked relaxed in death. Almost as if he'd accepted his end.

  That made Lou angry.

  They were halfway through the airlock when the pressure on Lou's ears doubled. She screamed, and she felt a giant invisible hand grab her and tug her out of the airlock.

  Yellow lights strobed as the airlock began to close.

  Villanueva held on tight with one hand and found the rope again with the other. His body tensed, the arm holding Lou crushing against her chest and throat. They cleared the sliding metal plates just in time, and the rushing in her ears all but disappeared as the metal and polymer panels sealed shut.

  The airlock closed, Lou pulled herself out of Villanueva's grasp. She didn’t want him to feel her trembling.

  “We’re alive!” Beacham shouted, and began braying hysterical laughter. “Holy blue fuck, we’re alive!” He slapped Stan Renic on the back, tipping the younger man away from the wall, where he spun, stranded, on his axis. Lou reached out with her good arm to snag his belt and pull him back to the wall.

  Beacham’s laughter was cut off when a loud impact hammered into the armored exterior of the C&C. Then another. And another.

  Lou looked out a porthole, saw the stars swinging madly. The micrometeorites were still coming, and Six was spinning out of control.

  “We’re alive for now,” she whispered.

  For now.

  9

  Lou looked back at the closed airlock doors. The metal alternately groaned and rattled. She knew what the sounds meant. The tank outside had been ripped open to space.

  She had been seconds away from going with it.

  Lou made two grabs before her fingers held fast to the handlebar along the side wall of the airlock. She gave a shaky nod of thanks to Third Officer Villanueva, then followed the jumbled limbs of Taggart, Stan and Beacham into the C&C.

  "Secure this airlock," she shouted to Villanueva as she crossed the threshold back into C&C proper. She could barely hear his acknowledgement.

  Lou trembled from head to toe. Adrenaline and experience kept her functioning. She felt emotions and chemicals sing through her body, sickening her, and exhilarating her.

  She channeled her terror into action, digging her fingers in the torn fabric of her shirt and tearing the the sleeve free to examine the wound. She hissed as her fingers explored the wound, but she’d had worse. She’d had much worse. It was just a flesh wound, mercifully. Bleeding was all but stopped already. She’d live.

  They were under attack. There were no grey areas now. The universe wanted them dead and it was now her job to kick the universe in the teeth. She kicked off toward the command console.

  She plugged her nose hard between her fingers and her palm. She blew as hard as she could. Horrible pressure and pain radiated from her sinuses, her ears and throat, but when those sensations receded she could hear more of the alarms and the frightened screams of the crew.

  Emergency alerts blinked on every panel. Okoro floated beside her, following her like a confused puppy, hands wrapped around the closed emergency case from the airlock. Lou grabbed her by the arm and shook her gently. "I need you working, Rose," she pleaded hoarsely. “Please. Get strapped in and check the status boards."

  Rose sniffed once then nodded. Lou took the emergency case from her and stowed it in an empty, wall-mounted storage rack, then spun slowly around and counted heads.

  Rose, Villanueva, Taggart, Renic, Beacham, herself and one more. Floating at the far end of the Command and Control module, holding onto the doorway to the Commander's cabin, was Senior Vice President Benjamin Burkov.

  "What happened?" Burkov looked angry. "Where's the Commander!"

  Sorry, Mister Vice President, Lou felt the sudden giddy urge to say, but the universe just fucked up your goodwill tour.

  "HHL-6 is in harm's way, Mister Burkov. Strap yourself in, right now!"

  Burkov snarled. "Since when can a radiation storm cause pressure leaks? What the hell is going on!"

  Lou’s blood ran cold.

  The rad storm. She’d forgotten all about it.

  “Radiation didn't do this," Beacham said, coasting in beside the VP. "Micrometeorites. Millions of uncharted dust and rock particles. Too small to chart.”

  A blank look from Burkov. “Space bullets, then! Get it now, Alexei?” Beacham snapped. “We’re in the path of an intergalactic drive-by, and odds are we’re already done for!”

  The powerful man blinked, incredulously, and swung his head to Villanueva, then to Lou.

  When no one said a word to counter Beacham, he dug his fingers into his hair, palms covering his eyes.

  “Bozhe moi!”

  Oh my god.

  Fresh impacts rang on the hull, setting loose more blaring alarms.

  “Sorry Alexei,” Beacham said, his voice tinged with terror. “Either he’s not listening, or he’s the one throwing sand our way.”

  Lou laughed. She could’ve said those words herself.

  Beacham caught her eye and shared the laugh.

  Am I really laughing with Doctor douchebag, Lou wondered to herself? Maybe she was dead already.

  Vice President Burkov got himself into his seat in record time, once Beacham had translated the chaos into terms he could grasp.

  He didn’t mutter and scream like Beacham, and Lou appreciated that fact. One hysterical, potentially hazardous tourist was all she could handle right now.

  Another impact rang of the hardened skin of the C&C.

  Beacham flinched and raised his hands over his head-an automatic and futile defense. “Cocksucker!” He wailed, then spun towards Burkov. “Alexei, order a boost. There’s likely a mess of rock and dust in tight formation. Any impact could be the one that wipes us out, if we boost, we’ve got an even chance of avoiding the concentration of rocks!”

  Lou snarled, her fear and rage finding a target in the arrogant prick in front of her. Boost their engines? While flying blind and tumbling out of control? That was another name for suicide, she thought.

  She reached out and grabbed Beacham by the front of his jumpsuit. “Or an even chance of running into the largest concentration of rocks!” Tucking her ankle around a monitor support strut, she pushed him into the chair at the station behind him, yanking its harness across his chest. "Strap in and let us do the flying, goddammit!"

  She spun to Burkov. "You too, Burkov!"

  New alarms and voices competed for her attention. Some of the crew squared away in the storm cellars were screaming, other computerized voices announced various emergencies: depleting air supply alerts, altered flight trajectory warnings and a dozen more.

  Beacham's fingers white-knuckled the the five point harness he'd just clicked shut. "What did it say?" His eyes worked across the C&C, even as he worked to undo the harness again. "What did that computer just say! The one about trajectory. Dammit, somebody tell me who's in charge!"

  "I am,” Lou responded instinctively.

  She realized it was true and her stomach knotted.

  Something like a hundred souls now depended on her.

  Until space dust and pebble
s poke a few bigger holes in us, she thought. Then it would all be over.

  She watched Beacham’s eyes. He had been looking at Burkov. She followed the look and saw the Vice President glaring back at her. She was sure he was about to object to her assuming command.

  Well, too bad. Chain of command was clear and she was in command, now that Ed was gone, and both first and second officers MIA.

  She felt a hollow pang in her chest, felt the loss hit her.

  Ed.

  She pushed that down in the box where she kept the rest of her fears when she needed to operate.

  When Burkov didn’t say anything, Beacham strained toward her in his harness. "What do the boards show? About our trajectory!"

  Lou heard something in his voice. Not panic, something calculating.

  She needed to know anyway. “Give it to me audible, Rose," she called out. “Update on trajectory, acceleration and integrity.”

  "Reactor and engines are offline," the young woman called out over too many klaxons as Lou slammed into the CO's chair in the center of the room and strapped herself in.

  "We've bled a lot of atmosphere," Rose stammered, but continued. "We've lost thirty-four percent of our acceleration. We are off-course and tumbling. Infrastructure reports are hitting yellow across the ship."

  "We're operating on batteries,” Villanueva cut in hoarsely. “Only a few of the emergency propellant systems are working. It’s not enough to slow our tumble. Redundant systems are…Diyos mio! Reactor one has a containment breach!”

  Lou grimaced. Talk about the universe kicking them when they were down. First the radiation storm, then the the rock storm messing with trajectory. If they couldn’t move, the cellar water shields and C&C’s thicker layers of shielding might also be the crew’s only protection from a quick, ugly death from Six’s very own power source.

  So they could suffocate to death in space, floating without power for acceleration.

  "How bad?" She asked.

  Moments ticked by with her heart pounding in her throat until Villanueva called out again. "It's... manageable, I think. System is responding to safety protocols and rerouting around the breach."

  We’re not dead yet, Lou told herself, slapping her code into Dwyer's terminal, replacing his pre-sets on all the screens.

  We're not dead yet, so how do I keep us that way?

  “Villanueva, trigger all automated reactor stabilization protocols and task all the thrust we’ve got to stop our tumble.”

  "No!" Beacham roared at Villanueva. “Forget the tumble, don’t slow us down for anything, unless you want to kill us faster!”

  10

  "Forget the damn tumble!" Beacham shouted again. His voice trembled but still had enough authority to reroute Nav officer Okoro's eyes in his direction. He snapped his fingers at her, solidifying his hold.

  "Are the cellar water shields still intact?" he demanded.

  Lou swiped through diagnostic reports on her screens to find the answer to his question. "Yes," she and Okoro answered simultaneously. She let go of a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. “Everyone in the cellars is safe, so far,” Lou amended.

  "Good,” Beacham said, and Lou thought she detected actual human compassion. Then his glare refocused on her. “Now listen to me if you want to keep them that way!"

  The lights in the wide, dome-shaped room flickered, then returned to full strength.

  Lou's anger came back. She was about to order Taggart to tranquilize Beacham until this clusterfuck emergency passed, when a shudder of realization shot through her.

  She tracked her thoughts: an uncontrolled spin was a terrible threat to a spacecraft. Protocol said to immediately stop the spin, kill all momentum and present the armored top of the C&C -the only truly armored part of HHL-6 - toward the oncoming impact threat.

  If she followed that Standard Operating Procedure, she'd bleed off so much speed they'd be essentially stranded right where until the engines came back online.

  Which meant they would remain in the path of the imminent cosmic storm much longer.

  "Rich, isn't it, Chief," Beacham called out to her. She met his eyes and knew he’d seen understanding hit her in the face. He looked annoyed, like a man who’d thought of everything, but still hadn't found an answer he liked. "If we stop moving, we bake in the rays. If we keep tumbling, we maybe break apart."

  Beacham was counting on getting systems back online before the stresses of their tumble tore them apart. Lou instinctively decided he was right, that his idea was the only play.

  She nodded her understanding. “Villanueva! Belay the order to kill spin.”

  She pulled up a wireframe display of HHL-6: all the crew tanks flashed red - exposed to vacuum, little or no power. Engineering and Propulsion systems both flashed yellow - leaking atmosphere and interrupted power.

  The color schemes were designed to let command rank like herself quickly assess ship readiness. She let her eyes move to the first of the storm cellars.

  Sensors across the ship were already recording the first radiation spikes. In hours, every human body not inside the C&C or the rad-proofed cellars would begin absorbing what would become a lethal dose of radiation, if they couldn't get reactors back online and get their asses moving soon.

  If she didn’t want to cook like a hamster in a microwave, someone had to get out of the cellars and fix the reactor.

  Suicide for someone, but otherwise it was certain death for them all.

  "Villanueva, can we get a circuit back open to the cellars! Rose: at current acceleration, how long will we be exposed to elevated incoming rads?”

  She stared at Okoro, at the beads of sweat forming on her upper lip. The assault on Lou's ears cut off, and she sighed in relief, despite the harsh ringing that remained.

  Okoro's fingers stopped moving, her head craned down to a monitor across her body from Lou.

  Moments passed. The woman said nothing.

  "What is it?" VP Burkov asked. "What's she doing?"

  An alert on Lou's monitor showed Beacham was tapping into Rose's screen to see for himself.

  "Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Beacham swore aloud.

  "Somebody tell me what's happening!" Burkov roared.

  Rose Okoro turned. Her face was white. "It's on your screen, Chief."

  Lou looked down at another wireframe image of HHL-6. A rainbow was washing over the ship and beneath the graphic were two counters.

  The first was the ship's estimated exposure time to radiation at their current velocity.

  The second was an automatic warning message, generated by health monitoring software. This counter showed how long before occupants of the storm cellars and C&C also received a fatal dose of radiation.

  The second counter would hit zero out long before the first.

  How is this happening? Lou wanted to scream.

  The ship was designed to protect Haskam resources and crew from the radiation now bombarding them. Only, no one had expected the ship to be driven off course by the tiny meteorites. Nobody expected the precious water shields around the huddled crew to have to last so long, and absorb so much.

  Lou looked around. All eyes were on her.

  "Lady," Burkov shouted, terror strangling his words."What the hell is happening to us!"

  How was she going to save all her people?

  Sensors began to bleat. A red bar appeared at the bottom of her screen.

  The full force of the radiation storm had reached the ship.

  11

  The walls of the C&C thundered with hit after hit, as the onslaught of rocks and dust continued.

  Lou's mind raced, and panic threatened to climb out of the hole she kept it in, whenever shit hit the fan.

  She clenched and released her fists, working on her breathing to just bring her heart rate down before she sent a ripple of panic through the few surviving officers Manning the Command and Control module.

  Un-fucking-believable, she told herself: as their course intersected with a
radiation storm HHL-6 had been built to withstand long enough to fly out of, an uncharted swarm of micro meteorites and dust had hammered the craft, damaging it's reactor and shutting down propulsion.

  Ed Dwyer, her Commander and friend, was dead. First and Second Officers had been sent to each of the radiation-proofed 'storm cellars' in case just such an emergency occurred, to ensure leadership survived. C&C had lost all communication with each of the special tanks where the crew waited, and the chain of command now made the lives of everyone aboard her responsibility.

  She felt her breath shudder as she sucked in air, and squeezed and released her fists again. You don't get to have a panic attack, Security Chief Montagne, she told herself. Time to play the hero.

  Flashing warning screens hammered at Lou’s thoughts. Mercifully, Villanueva hadn’t re-engaged the audible alarms and everyone in Command and Control was working hard to keep their panic to themselves.

  "Communications are still out with the cellars!" Villanueva reported, his face grim.

  She nodded in acknowledgement, grateful for his calm, controlled demeanour.

  He soldiered on, saying nothing about the seemingly sure death the radiation storm now surrounding them would bring if they couldn't get HHL-6 moving again, and quick!

  She appreciated his courage, doing his duty all the same. It reminded her what she had to be, now.

  She was also glad the comms to the cellars were still down. What would she have told the people trapped in those water-shielded tanks anyways? That more radiation than they ever expected was coming to kill them, unless Lou could find a way to move HHL-6?

  Without the reactors powering the main drive, how was she going to move a crippled spaceship? Get out and push?

  A blue security alert popped up on her screen: Doctor Beacham was attempting to log in to more of the C&C's systems from the screen beside his chair.