0 comments/ 11416 views/ 2 favorites Escape Velocity By: martincain "We can rule out pirates," Jena said as she reviewed the list of cargo the casualty collection team had scanned during their search of the cargo bay. Once the atmosphere was determined to be untainted, the boarding team had removed their cumbersome helmets, Jena's floated next to her. "There're no cut-ins on the hull and all the cargo is accounted for, unless it was an inside job. One guy signs onto a ship and then sets his shipmates up for a pirate attack." She and Batty worked around the bodies filling the Mordicai's small medical compartment- one collecting personal effects, the other cataloging causes of death, and all had died in brutal fashions; strangled, heads crushed with blunt instruments, throats cut. Some had been mutilated after death. Gouged eyeballs or severed fingers were found floating around the bodies they'd been removed from, as if the killer had not been satisfied with merely taking life. "Not in the way these people went," Batty said, waving a hand at the bodybags floating around her. "It doesn't make sense to mutilate the dead in the middle of a running battle. My money is on one sicko." "Ok, so what happened to the sicko?" Jena asked and felt a chill race up her spine. She checked over her shoulder on impulse, suddenly half-expecting to see a maniac pulling himself out of an unzipped bodybag. "DSA manifests in a lot of ways," Batty said and sighed as she jotted the description of a corpse. "Sometimes it makes you kill other people, sometimes it makes you kill yourself, sometimes it does both." "How many bodies do we have?" Jena said as she drifted to the med-bay terminal desk against the bulkhead and arrested herself, then dropped and belted herself into the chair mounted beside it. A few quick keystrokes entered an emergency override command and she was given access to most of the ship's systems. She brought up the crew roster and the ship's log. Batty looked around for a quick visual count. "Twenty-eight." Jena brought the boom-mike connected to her ear-piece closer to her lips, "Kelly, where are you now?" "We've cleared the cargo areas and are moving into engineering," Kelly radioed back after several moments. "There's a secondary airlock on the bottom of the hull that's been vented but the pressure door is holding. The control panel beside it was broken in and there was some blood floating around. We think a fight happened there." Twenty-nine, Jena thought and said, "Keep on your guard. There's still one or two unaccounted for. Stay away from the airlocks if you can help it." "Don't worry about that, ma'am," Kelly replied. "This ship is giving me the creeps as it is. What's the operating plan if we find a survivor?" "Help them out if they need it," Jena said and accessed the ship's log first. "Just remember that they might not be mentally stable- safety first. If they go for you, take them down, my call." "You're call, ma'am. Roger that." Jena paged down the log entries until she found the most recent one: dated 48 hours previous. "And another thing, stick together. I don't want you two getting separated." A laugh came over the radio, breaking the tension she could feel building, then Kelly said, "No worries, ma'am. Moralez is practically glued to the back of my vacc-suit." Jena left the last transmission unacknowledged as the last log entry began to play. The captain of the Mordicai appeared on the display. He had been a handsome, 50-something man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a baritone, no-nonsense voice. "We've come out of transit without incident. The ship's manifest was sent off to Tau beacon who confirmed reception. We've realigned the primary dish and have been picking up signals from Mars, and to a lesser extent, Earth. It's good to be back. The crew have fully woken from cold sleep and are operating at near peak efficiency, except for a few newbies who still have the chills. Nelson, Butler, and Veronica have been removed from the watch schedule and sent to the med-bay for treatment of same. Doc tells me that they're expected to recover soon. We have half a load of fuel and are angling for Mars capture. We should begin orbiting Mars in approximately seventy-two hours." The view on the display faded as the log entry ended. Jena sat back in the chair and realized that Batty had been reading over her shoulder. "What do you think?" Jena said. Batty shrugged. "If this was from seventy-two hours ago, then the killing would already have started," Batty said and turned away. "And unless I overlooked something, and I haven't, the man who made that log entry is neither tagged nor bagged, so if I had to make a guess about who it was that did this, I'd say it was him. Unless it was one of the ones without a head." "Let's not jump to any conclusions," Jena said and cleared her throat. "Mordicai boarding team calling Charlie November, come in, over." "We read you Mordicai, over." The Constellation called back. "This is Mitchell. We count two-seven KIA over here. There's no sign of a perpetrator but we found an airlock that'd been blown. We think maybe he got flushed out into space. We have people making their way back to engineering right now to finish sweeping the ship. I expect we'll have to replace some circuit boards before we can get the engines lit again, over." "Mitchell, this is the Captain," Crites' voice came through the tiny speaker mounted to her vacc-suit. "We're sending a repair team over with parts and some addition command crew. Get that ship together and take it to our Mars base. I want everything you find documented thoroughly. There'll be an investigation and I don't want any slip-ups, do you read me? Over." "That's a roger," Mitchell said and supressed a snicker as Batty rolled her eyes. "What's the ETA on the repair team, over?" "They just launched, so figure they'll reach you in ten mikes. You'll be the ranking officer on board, Mitchell, organize the repair party and get underway. Constellation is burning for the Virginis jump point. I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but we've got to catch up with the rest of the fleet, over." Jena felt a lump rise in her throat. She and her boarding party were being left behind. "Sir, once we get to Mars we'll be unable to reach you before you make the jump, over." "That's affirmative, Mitchell. Command has been notified of your situation. You'll be put on the next ship heading outbound as soon as available space can be found. We'll rendezvous with you and the rest of your salvage crew on the frontier. Charlie November out." "Smleck." Jena said and slouched back in the chair. "Look on the bright side," Batty said as Jena gave her a skeptical shrug. "At least we don't have to deal with Crites again for quite a while." Jena frowned. "Small compensation." *** SOL-8/Neptune Triton The faculty of the SOLC 11 station were dressing the halls of the dome settlement for an event that happened once every one hundred and sixty five years. At 4,496 kilometers out, the planet Neptune was completing an orbit of the Sun and the crew of the Triton colony planned on bringing the new year in with a bang. "We don't get a chance like this very often," Said attendant Christina Warner, who led Ajax on a tour of the facility. Bonventure was sitting outside on the surface of the frozen Neptunian moon, waiting for a team to top off its tanks with liquid Hydrogen. "We haven't done anything like this since we left Earth. It's a once in a lifetime thing so, it might get a little bit crazy around here." "I can imagine," Ajax said as he marveled at the zero-G fuel refining going on outside the clear plexi the dome was made from. "But with rationing in effect I'm not sure you'll have much to party with." "We tried to save some provisions, like from the only time we received a shipment of steak so far, we put aside enough for the staff to have one each," Warner said and turned down a corridor, following a marker indicating the community areas. "I think everybody has a little bit of something or another put away for that special occasion. The best thing about Triton is that the surface is covered in water ice." "Which helps us with our own potent micro-brew," A voice called, halting the procession. Ajax turned and saw a man approaching fast, Merrill Weston, the station commander. "The local favorite is called Triton Tank-Swill and it packs a mean punch. Our station family will be a Neptunian year old tomorrow. We relieved the old crew eleven Terran years ago, but to have made it this far is a big step for us." "When's it supposed to kick off?" Ajax said as Weston joined the group and they continued onward. "If we're still here I hope you wouldn't mind if we joined in." "The party is set to start at the beginning of the station's next orbit around our host world, Neptune," Weston said and shot a knowing look at the attendant, who moved off as her commander took over the tour. "The site for the party is going to be in the middle of the station's greenhouse. It's really the centerpiece of the whole outpost. So much like a rainforest that we forget where we are sometimes." "Did you all get any effects from the solar storm?" Weston shook his head and said, "Negative. We were on the lee-side of Neptune when it came through. We'll have to add that to the list of things to celebrate." "We picked up a few maydays on the way out but search and rescue already was already getting help to them," Ajax said and, through a nearby viewport, spotted an odd looking structure beside the refinery out on the surface. "What the hell is that?" Weston stopped and squinted as he peered out the same viewport. "This was a science station before the company took over and founded the colony here. Once we moved all the scientist out they decided to leave the telescope array. We get better shots of Alpha Centauri than we do of our own sun. Amatuer astronomy is quite a popular hobby among the crew." "So you service the ships that come through and spend the rest of the time trying to kill boredom?" Ajax said and stared at a bevy of beauties that waved at Weston as they passed in the opposite direction. "That pretty well describes what we do here," Weston said, using his hands to elaborate as he he spoke, barely acknowledging the women who walked away giggling. "We've been planning the New Year festival for months but it'll be a working festival. Business before pleasure. It wouldn't do to have someone T-O on account of our fun." The rounded a corner and came upon the station's recreation complex, a larger geodesic dome. Dozens of people were in sight, some in various stages of undress, bathing in an artificial lake built into a small crater on the surface. Others exercised in a large common area full of equipment, conditioning muscles for their eventual return to Earth. Vines of some leafy vegetation hung from overhead supports, recharging the Oxygen beneath the domes. "It's been a while since I had to make a stop this far out," Ajax said and admired several of SOLCorp's best. "The last time I was inbound I had to stop on Titania. What's the going rate for fuel here?" "The Outworld Alliance lets the colonies set their own rates for services, but fuel is still regulated from Earth like all the rest of the SOLCorp stations in the human sphere," Weston said and led him through the complex toward the administration dome on the other side. "Four hundred credits per liquid ton." Ajax snorted a laugh and said, "It's double that in the Eridani system, Lalande, too. Maybe you haven't been around at all but I have and the company is gouging hell out of people outside Sol system." Weston shrugged. "You're very well traveled, Mister Kinkaid, I'm just a glorified wageslave from Kentucky who's never been anywhere. I'm sure there's some price fixing going on… but not here, not in Sol." "Do I get a corporate discount?" Ajax said hopefully. Weston barked out a laugh and shook his head. "Everyone gets treated equally," He said as they came to a sealed hatch. Weston punched in a security code at the heavy door slid open. There were office spaces behind it. "That's why our arbiters are in such high demand. People respect our impartiality." Ajax nodded a silent agreement. SOLCorp arbiters had negotiated the end of the Procyon crisis and the eventual UNSOL withdrawl. The unified Earth government had eventually been broken by squabbles over who was most responsible for the perceived defeat. "I appreciate you showing me around. Usually we just land, fuel, and get back underway. It's nice to feel some honest to goodness gravity." Ajax said as Weston guided him through the door and toward another one near the back of the compartment marked "Private." "I know what you mean," Weston said as he made his way around the desk that took up most of the compartment. "I was assigned to a station in the asteroid belt a few years ago, Pallas, are you familiar with it?" "I know of it," Ajax said and hoped that he was able to hide his discomfort with the question. "I had a girlfriend once that said she was from there." "Anyway, once I finished my assigment I went back to Earth," Weston said absently as he busied himself entering information into the station computer. "The damned gravity had me laid up in bed for two weeks before I started getting used to it again. I don't how the people that live on these low-g worlds can tolerate it." "Most of them have only seen holos of Earth," Ajax said and removed a TIL purchase card from his pocket, sliding it across the desk into Weston's waiting hand. "Maybe they get to Mars once in a while, maybe they never leave home." "True enough," Weston said and scanned the card with a small handheld laser Device. He smiled and handed the card back when the computer chimed pleasantly. "Which means that except for people like you, Solcorp would be out of business." Ajax laughed. SOLCorp was the largest business entity in known space. The fuel stations they built across the human sphere made interstellar commerce possible. "I'm sure you'd be able to turn a few credits here and there." "I lost a few credits when you got caught, Mister Kinkaid," Weston said and opened a small locker beneath his desk, removing two bottles marked, "Triton Tank Swill," and passed one to Ajax, who smiled as he accepted it. "I was betting you never would." Ajax laughed and said, "So was I." *** SS Mordicai Jena was waiting at the docking station when the transfer shuttle arrived. She listened to the sound of it thumping against the hull and slid away from the door. It opened after a minute had passed and two men wearing light pressure suits floated through carrying a large crate between them. "What've you got?" Jena said and pointed at the crate. "Multipurpose mainframe boards." Came the reply. Jena pointed down the corridor behind her. "All the way down and to the right," She said. "It's a straight shot to engineering." "Aye-aye." The pair said in unison and drifted away. The next person out of the shuttle wore the emblem of an Assistant Adjutant General. "Welcome aboard," Jena said and offered a hand but withdrew it when one wasn't offered in turn. "I'm Lieutenant Mitchell. I assume you'll want to view what we've collected?" "Correct." Was the terse reply. Jena pointed down the corridor. "Straight down, to the left, and up one deck to the Med-Bay," Jena said and pointed down the corridor. "We've set that up as a casualty collection point." And so it went. The repair team was directed back toward the engine room, supply bearers were directed to the crew areas "What the hell are you doing here?" Jena said and laughed when she saw the last person come off the shuttle. It was Tali. "The XO asked for volunteers to come over for this and I raised my hand," Tali said as Jena triggered the hatch and it slid closed behind them. "There was no way in hell I was going to stay on Constellation and deal with Crites all by myself. We're battle-buddies, remember? You watch my back, I watch yours." "Thanks for remembering," Jena said and pushed off from the bulkhead, drifting down the corridor toward the main axis. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you. There's so much to do here I was starting to wonder if I could've done it all myself." "Have no fear, Power-girl is here," Tali said from her trailing position. "Just tell me what I can do." "First I need you to run checks on the navigation and helm systems," Jena said. "I'll probably be back in engineering for most of the trip to Mars. I just need you to make sure we get there. Once you get those systems checked I need you to get billets assigned and a watch schedule made out, nothing fancy, make sure everyone gets adequate rack time." "No problem," Tali said, sounding eager to begin her assigned tasks. "Which way to the bridge?" Jena pointed left as they came to hatch sealing off the main axis. "It's all the way up front. The systems in this crate are old but I think you'll be able to handle it." "I usually don't handle old equipment," Tali said as she floated toward the nose of the ship. "But my dad worked on a model like this when I was a kid. He told me all about it and I still remember most of it. You have your radio on, right?" Her radio crackled to life before Jena could answer. "Lieutenant, this is Kelly. We found something. There's a compartment back here that's locked from the inside. We can hear something moving around in there, over." "Just stay put. I'm on my way, out," Jena replied, rotated 180 degrees and pushed off down the corridor heading aft toward engineering. "Get to the bridge," She called over her shoulder. "We need to get underway as soon as possible." "Aye-aye, Jena. I mean, aye-aye, Captain." It took 10 minutes to reach Kelly and Moralez, who left chemical light tabs floating behind them as they explored. Both men started as she drifted into their midst. Jena stood with her back against the bulkhead, bracing herself against it, nodding towards Kelly as she raised her 10mm pistol to firing position. The muzzle pointed at whatever living thing was behind the steel door. "Do it," Jena said. Kelly spun the manual release mounted beside the hatch, this one turning more easily then the one on the hull. The door groaned as it slowly but steadily opened. "Just be ready in case whatever it is decides to make a rush for us." "You just keep that pistol handy, " Kelly said, grousing as he kept the locking wheel spinning, in less than a minute the hatch was ¾ open. "I guarantee you that I'll be out of your way if you have to shoot." The cavernous storage locker was filled with floating debris, things of all shapes and sizes caught in the beam from the light attached to the shoulder hard-point of her vacc-suit. Small food particles, condensation droplets, and mold spores drifted into crumbled ration bags, empty water bladders, and dirty socks… a free-floating mess that began to drift out into the corridor. "Anybody home?" Moralez called into the darkness. His voice echoed off the metal bulkheads but got no reply. "Hello?" Moralez turned with a sheepish smile on his face. "Maybe they're just shy." "You two were sure about this?" Jena said and gave Kelly and Moralez a suspicious look. She lowered the pistol. "What did you hear? Start from the top." "We were making our way back toward engineering when we think we hear someone laughing," Kelly said and rubbed the back of his neck. "Or maybe like they were just talking to themselves. We checked the cargo bay, and all the rest of the storage lockers. This one was the only one sealed from the inside." "Christ and Allah, you two scared the hell out of me," Jena said and waved the pistol toward the darkness beyond the hatchway. She relaxed and allowed herself to drift away from the bulkhead. "You know what happened here. Here I was thinking that you might've found a witness, but no. All we got is a garbage locker." Escape Velocity "Sorry, ma'am," Kelly said as Moralez coasted to a catfall on the bulkhead beside her. "We just felt so sure that we found a survivor." A hysterical face, bathed by their suit-lights and glowing moonlike, lunged toward them out of the recesses of the darkened storage bay, bellowing psychotically as Jena raised the pistol and fired. The recoil of the shot propelled her backward, she heard the sound of her head slamming into the metal bulkhead behind her, then there was only black silence. *** SOL-8/Neptune "I almost made it out-system once," Weston said after a pull off his swill bottle. "But fate was against me. I was on a transport with the NorCom women's gymnastics team on our way to the Eridani games. We were at the jump point ready to go into transit. The problem was that it had been ten years since the drives were overhauled." "Smleck," Ajax kibitzed and lifted his own bottle of swill to his lips. "That's an accident waiting to happen." "It sure was," Weston agreed but a smile slowly spread across his face. "So the captain shunts power to the drives and instead of opening a transit tunnel the drives short out. A power feedback fries the control circuits on the reactor and the damn thing starts to go runaway. We'd had an emergency drill so we got to the lifeboat with no problems, just me and the gymnastic team. When the transport goes up, the blast wave from it hits the lifeboat like a ten-ton asteroid. I thought we were dead, but instead it just knocked out the climate control." "I never heard about that one," Ajax said and set the empty bottle down on the table at his elbow. Two other empties already rested there. "I must've been out of system when it happened." "Now the problem wasn't that it was too cold," Weston continued, his eyes glossy and heavy-lidded with intoxication. "The problem was that we couldn't disperse the heat that was building up. The only way to cool off was to strip off our clothes. So there I was, stark naked in a lifeboat filled with naked gymnasts, who were all scared as hell and in need of the kind of comforting that only a man can provide. It took search and rescue twelve hours to find us." Ajax laughed heartily at what Weston was implying. He'd already decided that the story was probably a lie, but it was told with such gusto that he almost believed it- almost. "Sir! Sir!" A flustered aide barged into Weston's office as Ajax was lifting a fourth bottle of Triton Tank Swill to his lips, catching both men by surprise and causing Ajax to choke on the swallow he'd just taken. "What is it?" Weston drawled. "Our fuel shuttle is back, sir. They report that a body was found in the shipping lanes. They recovered it and have it in storage," The aide said and succeeded in partially composing himself. "Whoever it was suffered a naked exposure to hard vacuum. It isn't pretty, sir." Suddenly sober, Weston jumped to his feet in the weak gravity and made for the hatch behind the aide, leaving Ajax no choice but to follow. "Christ and Allah," Weston complained as he led the way into the maze of gray corridors that connected the settlement. "For us to have found someone out there, he must've collided with fuel shuttle or at least floated past someone's window." He turned at the waist to address the aide following behind them. "What the hell happened out there?" The aide cleared his throat as he increased pace to draw even with Weston. "The victim was wearing a personal rescue transponder. The signal was very weak but was picked up by the shuttle crew. They responded and found the victim after two hours of searching." "Did the shuttle complete its fuel delivery?" Weston demanded. The aide shook his head. "Yes, sir. Five hundred tons, refined, to the bulk freighter Apex Universal," He said. "They picked up the transponder signal on the return leg." "Good, if they'd diverted from a customer to pick up some corpse, I'd have put them on the next ship for Earth with a reprimand in their records," Weston said and smiled as he looked at Ajax. "Business must go on, isn't that right, Mister Kinkaid?" Ajax returned a drunken smile. "You got that right, Merrill. I wonder how long the poor son-of-a-bitch has been out there." "Impossible to tell," Weston said and guided him into a corridor branching off the right side of the main. "We might be able to come up with an estimate based on the battery strength of his transponder, but unless he's got some data on him that can give us something specific, he could've been out there for decades." After 10 minutes they found a hatch at the end of the corridor. Behind it was the unused med-bay that served the settlement as a cold-storage morgue. Weston entered a 4-digit code into the keypad next to the heavy hatch and the door slid open. A man and a woman, each wearing well-worn station garb, stood around a table supporting a sheet-covered body bathed by a single overhead light. Weston, Ajax, and the aide stepped through the hatchway and took up positions around the head of the table. "This is Senior Pilot Kimble. She was controlling the shuttle," The aide said and pointed out the woman. He indicated the man. "This is Associate Hannah. He performed a space-walk to recover the victim." "You are both are to be commended," Weston said and nodded to both the Associates though his attention was fixed on the corpse beneath the sheet. "Dismissed. Tell noone of this." "Yes, sir." The shuttle crew echoed in unison and tromped out. Once the hatch had closed behind them, Weston reached out and took the sheet by an edge, pulling it off the body in a smooth, motion. "Christ and Allah." Weston exclaimed and let the sheet drop. Ajax blocked out the light with his head as he leaned in for a closer view. The dead man appeared to be in his late '50's, a grandfatherly figure with a full, salt & pepper beard that was an odd accompaniment below the frost-burnt gray of the rest of his face. His mouth was open- yellow teeth bared in a rictus of pain- but most unsettling were his empty eye-sockets. The eyes had burst when exposed to hard vacuum, leaving strands of ruptured flesh frozen to the edges of each cavity. The body had been committed to the vacuum wearing dirty blue work-coveralls. A circular patch on the shoulder identified his ship as "Outworld Alliance- SS Mordicai." "Let's see what he's got." Ajax said softly and reached for the cargo pocket on the nearest coverall sleeve. "Hold on," Weston said and removed a small radiation counter from a wall of tools next to the table. He swept the body from head to foot with the device before replacing it on its peg. "He's radioactive- probably absorbed a lot of high energy particles while he was out there- maybe even passed through someone's engine wash." "Sir, shall I send for the medical-tech?" The aide asked, nervous eyes darting from the irradiated corpse to the hatch, wanting to be as far from the body as possible. "I doubt there's anything they could do for him." Weston said and the aide made haste for the door. Once he passed through the hatch Weston motioned for Ajax to follow him out. "He's putting out a lot of rads, too many to allow us to stay here. It's best if we let the authorities handle this." Weston sighed and moved toward the hatch. "I've got some transmissions to send… Customs is going to dump so much paperwork on me for this I might never dig myself out," He said and stopped himself before he went through. "You and your crew are welcome to stay for the new year's celebration if you like." "Your kindness is appreciated," Ajax said and moved to follow him through. "I'll pass on your offer to my people. I'm sure they'd enjoy a little respite before we jump for Alpha Centauri." "Of course, Mister Kinkaid. Our facilities are at your disposal." *** SS Mordicai Jena opened her eyes to a blinding glare. "Goddammit, get that light out of my face," She said and lifted an arm to blot the light out. Her head throbbed with dull pain. The light went out and when her eyes adjusted, she saw Batty looking down at her, a mask of clinical curiosity on her face. Kelly hovered next to her. "What the hell just happened?" "You caught a hard edge. The corridors on this boat aren't padded the way Constellation is," Batty said and removed the portable light she had clipped to a headband. "Don't worry, it's nothing serious. You just broke the skin. You were unconcious for a few minutes though. You had Kelly here worried sick." "What happened to the guy?" Jena said and let the question trail off as Batty slapped a black derm-patch on her neck that immediately eased her discomfort. "I don't think he was expecting you to shoot at him, ma'am," Kelly said and leaned into view. "You missed, but it scared him enough that he gave up on the spot. He started begging us not to kill him. I think he must've thought we were pirates or something." "Where is he now?" Jena said, suddenly worried that the man might've escaped, not thinking he had no place to escape to. "I gave Moralez your pistol to guard him with and sent them both forward," Kelly said and nodded in the direction they'd gone. "The JAG-off wanted to get a statement." Batty and Kelly moved back as Jena eased herself onto the nearest bulkhead surface and appraised her situation. The filth from the storage locker had established a presence in the corridor. "Find a portable vacuum and get these spaces clean," She said to Kelly as her training took over. "This is our ship until we get back to the Connie. I don't want to see any particles or other trash the next time I come through here." "Aye-aye, ma'am," Kelly said and nodded as he looked around for the nearest equipment locker. "You want me to save anything that might be useful?" "If you think it might help us find out what the hell happened on this ship, then save it," Jena said as she pushed off the surface and drifted forward. "Just don't empty the filters until we can turn this tub over to Customs Authority. Once you're done, get with our people in engineering and find out how much longer it's gonna take to get the engines lit, report in once you find out and we'll go from there." "I want to have a look at the prisoner once JAG is done," Batty called at her back. "He'll have to have a workup up done." "First things first," Jena said. "The man's a survivor- not a prisoner, yet." She looked up as the lights built into the side of the corridor began to glow. Within moments she could see the fixtures of the ship in grubby glory. A figure was approaching from directly ahead. "Jena? Jena? My god, are you all right?" Tali said as she recognized Jena and began slowing her advance by dragging her hands against the nearest surface. "I heard on the radio that you'd been hurt and came straight down." "I'm fine," Jena said as Tali rotated and assumed a position behind her. There was not enough room for them to drift side by side. "I got a goose-egg on the back of my head but that's all. I got lucky." "There's some blood on your collar," Tali said with more than a little concern in her voice. "You could've been killed." "I knew that I needed to be braced to fire a weapon in zero gravity," Jena said and gave a heavy sigh. "I just forgot. Things could've gone much worse. That's why I got lucky." "Maybe this will cheer you up," Tali said. "I looked over the controls and they seem to be okay. Whoever the captain around here was really took care of his systems. Once we get the mainframe back up, I could probably get us to Mars without the navigation systems. My manual plotting skills are a little rusty but I think I could get us close enough for Customs Authority tug to reach us." "What makes you think it wasn't a her?" Jena said and shot a wry look at her friend. "Are you saying that women aren't up to the job?" Tali wrinkled her nose and said, "It doesn't smell like a woman was in command of this ship, more like a herd of goats." She sighed. "Men for you." Jena laughed then groaned and put a hand to her head. The Judge Advocate General's Assitant, Lieutenant Lindsey, had set up shop in the crew quarters several spaces back from the bridge. When Jena and Tali found their way forward, the prisoner was already restrained, bathed in the glare of a single suit-light, and perspiring. "State your name for the record please," Lindsey said as Jena and Tali pushed through into the otherwise bare compartment. "You're being recorded so try and speak clearly." "My name is Allin Huxley," The man said as if choosing his words carefully. "I signed on as a cargo-specialist two years ago." "What happened here?" Lindsey said and cast a glance at the gray bulkheads around them. "Start at the point where this ship emerged from transit in Sol system." Huxely took a deep breath and dropped his eyes to the deck. 'The captain was a very sick man," He said quietly. "He used medication to keep himself under control but, it only took a few weeks onboard to realize that there was a problem. He was moody, extremely so, prone to fits of rage at the slightest things." Lindsey cleared her throat, interrupting him as he paused for a breath, the look on her face one of displeasure. "This is all very interesting," She said with ice in her voice. "But you haven't answered my question." "I'm sorry," Huxely said looked from Lindsey, to Jena, to Tali. "It's just that I've been through so much it's difficult, difficult to remember anything but what we endured." "Starting from the time you arrived in Sol system, please." Lindsey said again. Everyone's patience was wearing thin. "I was the last one to awaken from cold sleep," Huxley said finally after several seconds of silence. "The ship's medical-tech, Lieutenant Cox, seemed very distressed, I noticed that right away. When I asked what was wrong, he said that the captain was worse than usual. One crewman, Sowete, I think, had already been disciplined for failure to obey orders. The crew was in a very pensive mood, to say the least." Lindsey nodded with practiced understanding. Jena folded her arms in silence. The logs that she'd viewed had given her no hint that morale on board was a problem or that the captain had been unstable, not like Crites. "Despite Captain's behavior, most of us were glad to be back in Sol system," Huxley said as a gloom fell over him. "Many of the crew had never been to Earth before and we'd been promised shore leave before we'd jumped from Alpha Centauri system. The load we carried was sure to pay off well, even though we would only get a percentage of a share of its value. I thought that all I had to do was put up with captain until we made planetfall… a week at most, then I could take my wages and disappear… find a new ship, but it wasn't to happen. Captain saw to that." "What's that supposed to mean?" Lindsey said and maneuvered around to face him. "Keep in mind that mutineers go straight to the DeepCore. You know what that is, right?" At that, Huxley nodded, becoming visibly upset. "You think I would have a part in the murder of my commander?" He cried out and wailed as he rocked back and forth in his restraints. "No, no, no, I would never do such a thing. I am no murderer, ask anyone, ask my old captain, Romalev in command of the Apex Titan. He will vouch for me." "We will," Lindsey promised. "Now please continue." "Captain announced that there would be no shore leave while the ship was in Sol system," Huxley said and heaved a great sigh. "We were to immediately load a new cargo from Mars orbit, a modular factory of the robotic type, and launch for the Lalande system. This is not the worst part. There was talk in the ship's galley, Kendall, the Captain's steward, told stories of finding empty bottles of that… Transterran devilry in the Captain's quarters. He was a heavy user. It was after that the disappearances started." Lindsey perked at that, as did Jena and Tali, finally they were getting somewhere. "About how long were you in system before this started?" Lindsey said as Jena mulled the implications of this new testimony in silence. "Less than a week," Huxley said. "Kendall was the first to go. He just stopped showing up for his assigned watches. Noone knew where he had gone, not even the captain. We looked for him but this is a big ship, there are many places to hide. The med-tech was next, then the solar-storm hit us and knocked out power. It was madness after that." "Was there a panic onboard?" Lindsey said. Huxley nodded vigorously. "Captain turned into a beast, a monster," Huxley said and visibly shivered at the memory. "He knew the ship better than anyone. He waited for us as we tried to go about our duties despite the darkness. It was horrible. I cannot forget their pleas for mercy. Once I realized that something terrible was happening, I hid, I hid and prayed that he would not find me. When you opened the hatch to the locker I was in, I thought my nightmares had come true." "Let's go," Jena said to Tali and reached for a handhold to pull herself toward the hatch. "I've heard all I need to hear." Once in the corridor she set herself in motion toward the bridge. "Do you think it was him?" Tali called from behind her. "Maybe," Jena said as her mind digested the facts they'd uncovered, comparing them to the events that Huxley had related, something wasn't matching quite right. "If it was him, he's in a lot of trouble, he'll get the Deepcore. I've heard it's worse than hell. All I know is the sooner we hand him and this scow off to Customs Authority the happier I'll be." "Kelly here," A voice came through her ear-piece as her comm.-unit went active. "I got the mess cleaned up and talked to the mechanics. They say the engines are warming up and the main computer is rebooting as we speak. We should be underway before the hour, over." "Roger that… out." Jena said and felt her lips form a smile. "It's about feking time. Christ and Allah." *** 55 Cancri Zebra Station A convoy of large gray hulls on a bee-line for the station could be seen with image intensifiers from the station observation deck. Traffic controllers used RADAR to track their progress. Each one was coming tail-on, slowing as they approached, destroyer escorts already in far orbit of the prime star, refueling. "Delta November calling Zebra Station. Your signal is five-by and clear. We have beacon lock. Awaiting transfer to approach control, standing by to begin data feed. Over." "Roger, Delta November. Transferring you to approach control." Miller said and let up on the "Transmit" key. The L3 button on his board opened a channel to a console several rows behind him. "Yeah? Henderson here." "It's Miller. Pick up Task Force Romeo on one-eight-one for standard approach." "It's about god-damned time they got here. We're almost down to field rations and bug juice." "I just want to know how the Cubs have been doing." Miller said as he transferred his data-feeds through to Henderson. "Don't get your hopes up," Henderson replied. "However they were doing when Task Force Romeo left, they've had six years to get worse." Henderson laughed. He was a Philadelphia native. "I don't think the Phillies have won any World Series' lately either," Miller called back. "Twenty C says that the Cubs made it to the playoffs the year the convoy left." "If you feel like losing your credits, you're on," Henderson said, bringing a derisive snort from Miller. "The Cubs made the playoffs every year for the last decade." Miller finished his generic CANSS insta-caff, then removed his headset and got to refill his cup from the dispenser that the mess-crew brought up at each change of the watch. It was nearly empty. Miller tipped it to drain the dregs. He paused on the return leg to read the memo-board next to the hatch. Escape Velocity "There's a football sim on at eighteen-hundred… you gonna be there?" Lt. Alexander, the watch officer, said and hung new postings on the board. Alexander was from Coventry, England. "Depends on who's playing, sir." "Lufthansa at DC United for control of the Atlantic Conference." Alexander said. Miller sipped at his cup and nodded. "Sounds good," Miller said. "Save me a seat in front of the big screen and put fifty on DC United, would you sir?" "Right." Miller offers a coffee-cup salute and moved back towards his station, cringing when he donned his headset again, the irritating alert tone was peeping. "Why does this always happen on my watch?" He said quietly to himself as he lowered the volume and checked his display. A solo contact had tripped the same sensor buoys that 5 Kreigsmarine had, then another, then two more, then a dozen more. As he watched, the display continued to fill. Other sensor buoys were being triggered now as the contacts closed on the station. The computer logged over two hundred signals. "Watch officer to station twelve. Watch officer to station twelve." Miller called hoarsely into his boom-mike, his mouth very dry, his heart stuttering in his chest as each scanner sweep traced more contacts. He gulped down insta-caff and runs the SARS. The analysis came back as "Unknown Parameters/Signal Unidentified." "What have you got, Miller?" Alexander said as he arrived at Miller's shoulder. "I don't know, sir. I… I just don't know. Look at all… there's so…" Miller said and let his voice trail off in disbelief. The number of contacts has risen to three-hundred. Alexander gasped as he examined the display. "What are those?" "The SARS couldn't tell, sir. Whatever they are, they're closing on the station at fifty k.p.s." "That's not Task Force Romeo is it?" Alexander said hesitantly. Miller, fixed on the screen, shook his head and pointed out a second, much smaller group of signals approaching the station from the opposite side. "No sir, that's Task Force Romeo," Miller said and began a second check for errors. "We registered a power spike and then these just came out of nowhere." "Could they be sensor echoes?" Alexander said. "The EuroCons are supposed to have a jammer that creates sensor echos like that." "Maybe, but I don't think that these are sensor echoes, sir." Miller said, then started in his chair as the alarm went off again. The feed from one sensor buoy was lost, then the whole outer-line went down. The last data packet they received indicated that the buoys had been vaporized, heated by some force to temperatures exceeding that of a star. The power spikes recorded before demise registered energy levels far above those suitable for weapons use. "Red alert." Alexander called and punched a code into the tele-com next to Miller's console. The klaxon began sounding a second later. "Admiral Rivera." "This is operations control, sir. We have a situation." Alexander said as Miller switched to the feed from the station radar. The only signals displayed were those from friendly vessels. The battleship USS Republic had been on stand-by alert and was already moving away from her mooring. "What the hell is going on down there?" "We're tracking upwards of three-hundred contacts, sir, and we just lost the outer DEWS line. Confidence is high." Alexander said, his anxiousness making him trip over words. "Contact," Miller called out loudly. "Signal characteristics consistent with Eurocon type-twenty ECM array. Positive match… ninety-four percent." "Damn them. I'll be right down. How much time do we have?" Admiral Rivera said from his office above them and rose from his chair. "Ninety minutes, sir," Alexander said. "They're heading straight for us. The last active sweep taken before they started jamming logged plus three hundred returns." "Battle stations," Riviera said as the main lights went out. The ones that were on started flashing red. "Sortie the fleet." "Sir, what about Task Group Romeo?" Alexander said and let his eyes drop to the icons for the approaching supply convoy. "If we shut down the beacon…" "Shut down the beacon, Lieutenant. Full alert," The station commander interrupted him. "And make contact with Task Group Romeo immediately. They'll have to be diverted. Packet all available data and get it on a drone for Earth." "Sir, USS Republic reporting in… they underway and moving to the rendezvous point," Another operator called. "They request instructions." "Set rendezvous point at defense platform Alpha and start getting the guns warmed up," Riviera said and wiped away the single bead of sweat that moved out of his hairline. "Remove safety interlocks from all torpedoes. Noone is to engage until my signal... all commands respond." "Courier away, sir." ***