Chapter Thirty-Six
As Chalmers hurried back to the truck, he paused to strip the tarps bearing the Twin Stars logo from its sides, revealing the Fangat logo. The paperwork inside the truck was Fangat, too. The tarps went into the back of the truck. That done, he climbed into the cab and started the engine. Leaving the truck idling to keep the refrigeration unit running, he went to open the hangar doors the rest of the way.
The lighter was inside, a vast shape that loomed almost two stories tall and stretched all the way into the far end of the hangar. The lighter’s flanks were built to accommodate six of the shipping containers on each side, each bay accessible via external hatches and from a central corridor running fore and aft between them. Clamshell hatches closed over the containers in flight, protecting them from reentry stresses. All but one of them was shut tight, hiding the containers Chalmers had delivered over the last few days. The only open cargo hatch was the one just aft of the crew section. Intended to carry the crew’s in-transit consumables, those containers were always loaded last.
“A lot of work for one guy,” he huffed as he set his feet and started to push the first door wide.
He walked to the back of the truck and nervously tapped a specific sequence on the metal. A moment’s delay, then he heard the answering sequence.
A reassured Chalmers climbed into the cab and drove the truck into the hangar.
Parking beside the massive lighter, Chalmers carefully lined up the container with the lift. Leaving the truck running, he buttoned the hangar up and hurried to the lift controls. He brought the lift bed up and under the container, raising it an inch or so off the truck bed. He took the lift system’s remote and hooked it to his belt. Chalmers climbed the external ladder built into the fuselage of the lighter to enter the empty container bay of the interface craft.
Chalmers took the extendable power line from next to the central corridor hatch, returned to the ladder, and dropped the power lines down to the container. Another climb to swap the lines out, shut the truck off, and then had to spend more time he didn’t feel he had making sure the load was properly balanced on the lift. He really didn’t want to have the container slide off while he was loading it. Finalizing the check, Chalmers mopped his brow before climbing the ladder. Again.
So fucking hot, he thought.
Chalmers took a break on reaching the top, wishing he’d been smart enough to remember to clip his canteen to his belt. Parched, he pulled his watch out, put it on, and checked the time. Jackson should be here soon, assuming everything had gone according to plan on his end.
He pulled the remote from his belt and punched the “up” button. Hydraulics whined loudly as they raised the heavy load. Chalmers leaned against the hatch coaming, intending to rest a moment, but he realized he’d forgotten the hose. Which was pretty stupid, since without it, the entire mission was screwed. Cursing, he climbed down and retrieved what resembled a narrow-bore fire hose from the back of the truck cab. Looping it over his shoulder, he bent and tapped a knuckle on the passenger side fuel tank. Satisfied it was the one they’d left empty, he attached the hose.
He climbed up again, sweating bullets this time as he unwound the heavy, flattened hose a meter at a time in his wake. On reaching the open hatch, he removed the remaining loops of hose and lay there panting for a short while.
“So fucking thirsty, I forgot it again.”
He was just standing up when the office door swung open to reveal Jackson.
“You made it,” Chalmers called, trying to sound less relieved than he was.
Jackson smiled an immediate reply, but didn’t speak. He just stood, bent over with both hands on his knees, and breathed.
Moose entered just as Jackson finally caught his breath. Both men wore dark clothing and face paint that blended easily into the night. Or rather, had worn when they began the operation. Both had sweated so profusely their paint ran from their heads in discolored rivulets.
Recovering first, Jackson closed the office door behind Moose, clapped the bigger man on the back, and crossed to the base of the ladder.
“How are my firebugs?” Chalmers asked. The lift continued to rise, cutting Jackson from view unless Chalmers wanted to poke his head out. He did not.
“We’re here, ain’t we?” Jackson called.
“Fair enough,” Chalmers said, biting back an angry retort. What Jackson said was true. If things had gone wrong for either Moose or Jackson, the two were to make for the airport and fly out with Umaren and Vizzel.
The top of the container reached the point he could step out on it. Chalmers stopped the lift. He stood carefully at the container’s edge and looked down.
Moose had crossed to join Jackson at the foot of the ladder.
“If you two are finished sucking wind down there, I could use a hand,” Chalmers said.
“Right,” Jackson said, beginning the climb.
Moose, wiping his brow, looked up and said, “So was this part of your plan? ‘Say, let’s just take the big guy out and make him run in the heat, then make him climb, then work him like a dog.’ Yeah?”
“You slept since what, ’69?” Chalmers asked.
“Something like that.”
“I’d think you well-rested.”
“Fuck you, Chalmers,” Moose said, beginning the ascent.
The issue with stowing away on any spacecraft, Yukannak had told them, was that everything was repeatedly weighed. The need to effect a weight transfer was why he’d humped a hose up hill and over dale in thousand-degree temperatures. In theory, the weight of every container was checked and then rechecked during preflight by flight control planners and then supply officers on the ground. In practice, this procedure was not rigidly adhered to when operational demands necessitated a tight turnaround, let alone when there was some kind of emergency on the ground. The Kulsians were comfortable with this because in the extremely unlikely event of a discrepancy, both mission planners and officers knew sensors in the hold itself would detect any variance from the bill of lading to the actual weight of each cargo container and automatically abort takeoff if it was in excess of tolerances.
They’d struggled with how to get around the problem—that any stowaways would trigger those sensors—until Chalmers remembered Umaren’s complaints about stripping Loklis of A/C parts. It was all about shedding weight in one place so you could add it to another.
Chalmers walked into the central corridor of the lighter and across to bay two, where the last container he’d brought across the wire resided. Checking the manifest to be sure it was the proper one, he smiled. He pushed a specific, palm-sized, section of the container in and to one side. A spigot not unlike a common garden hose bib was mounted within.
He turned to find Jackson stepping off the ladder.
“Hook a brother up?” Jackson said, holding the remaining loops of hose out for Chalmers to connect.
Chalmers grinned and grabbed the hose. He walked into the corridor, hooked it to the master cargo console set beside the hatch to the crew area, and then ran an integral line from the console to the concealed spigot on container two. He made sure the connections were tight and called to Jackson, “We secure down there?”
“Looks good,” Jackson said.
“No kinks?”
“Only your own, brother,” Moose said.
“Opening.” Chalmers tapped the button on the console to begin pumping. A button next to it lit a dull amber. He pressed it home without reading the label.
Liquid gurgled, gushed, and filled the hose as a pump integral to the machinery below the console kicked on, pulling liquid from the container to the console and then on down the line and into the truck’s empty passenger-side fuel tank. The empty fuel tank would hold the equivalent of seventy-five gallons.
The hose leading through the bay started smoking. Not a real smoke, more like hot Florida pavement struck with a cold rain of the Caribbean.
That’s not right, Chalmers thought, sluggish and slow.
Chalmers looked from it to Jackson, who gestured at the console where the hose to the truck connected. Chalmers looked down. The fitting was rimed in smoking ice.
“Did you forget to turn on the heater?” Moose called from outside, a note of alarm in his voice. “’Cause this hose is looking mighty fat.”
“Fuck,” Chalmers said. He swallowed against a dry throat and stood to look down on the controls. The button that had glowed amber to warn him of the temperature difference was still lit. He slapped it, but nothing seemed to happen.
He took a second to actually read through all the markings on the console, found one below the button he’d pressed to start the water flow that was marked HEATER. He jabbed it, hard. The flow slowed as it was run through a heating coil before being pumped out, but it was already too late. The waxed-fiber hose running from the pump to the truck had been at room temperature, nearly a hundred degrees. The metal fuel tank off the truck, absorbing the heat radiated from the tarmac all day, was even hotter. The water in the cargo container was held at just above freezing. Rapid expansion of the water as it warmed made for a buildup of vapor in the line, leading to gulping backups at the truck end of the hose as the air sought a way out of the closed system. Without a release valve, pressure built. With pressure came more heat, which in turn built more air pressure in the line. The hose, made stiff and even somewhat brittle by the cold water rushing through it, was called on to expand to hold the mixture of pressurized air and water. Said pressure mounted until the local-manufactured hose split with a sound like a diarrhea-afflicted giant’s extremely wet fart, if said wet fart was sufficiently powerful to tear the farter’s pants apart with an accompanying ripping-fabric sound.
“Jesus!” Moose shouted from the hatch. The hangar was gray and misty beyond him as the torn hose continued to vent in great gasping burps.
Chalmers hit the emergency shut-off.
“Shut it down!” Jackson screamed.
“I did!” Chalmers yelled back.
The sound of flowing water and burping hose ends slowly diminished.
Moose, brows drawn together like a thunderhead, turned from looking below and stalked past Jackson toward Chalmers.
Chalmers thought—for just one idiotic instant—about pulling the sap from his pocket to defend himself, but the big man pushed a hand past his shoulder and turned the pump back on.
“Still gotta get all the water out of there.”
“Fuck,” Chalmers gulped, trembling.
“No use crying over spilt milk,” Moose said, not unkindly. “Much as I want to toss you down there for a swim.”
Jackson was at the cargo hatch, looking down. He turned to stare at Chalmers. His lips were a thin, bitter line. “Smooth move, ex-lax!”
Chalmers threw his hands up. “How was I supposed to know that would happen?”
“Because Yukannak told us to make sure the water was room temperature before pumping. You either didn’t hear him or ignored him because you don’t like him. Either way, you done fucked us all.”
“Get your panties untwisted, Jackson,” Moose rumbled. “That kinda shit ain’t helping anyone.”
“There’s a freaking lake under us and you want me to calm down?!”
Moose sighed and said, “You been through a monsoon before?”
“A what?” Chalmers said at the apparent non sequitur.
“A monsoon, motherfucker,” Jackson snapped. Chalmers was hard-pressed to remember when his partner had last been so angry with him.
“More accurately: when the leading edge of a monsoon hits,” Moose explained. Seeing nothing but blank stares, he said, “No? Well, the air is dry enough, even on a humid coast, to dry a paved road in a very short time, even at night.”
“There a lot of paved roads in Vietnam?” Jackson snarled sarcastically.
“Downtown Saigon? Yeah,” Moose said. “Not to mention the airport.”
Jackson calmed slightly, still muttering angrily as he climbed down the ladder to secure the tank end of the hose.
“That true?” Chalmers asked quietly.
“Fuck if I know.” Moose turned on him, poking a finger into Chalmers’s chest as if to emphasize his point. “I do know something from personal experience. Back in ’Nam, some guys got it into their heads that fragging leadership was fully justified. It isn’t. At least, not during an operation. No matter how much command might deserve a Willie Pete shoved down their throat, during the mission, all is forgiven or all is lost.”
Chalmers swallowed, looked away.
“Let’s get the rest done, then we can start sweating Lake Chalmers.” Moose was grinning as he stepped from the corridor to the container bay.
Failing to see anything funny in the big man’s words, Chalmers turned and went to retrieve the necessary tools from the ship’s locker.
By the time Chalmers collected the tools and returned to the hold, the mist hanging in the air outside the lighter had cleared and the container had been fully drained of water. Chalmers passed the cargo console. A different amber light glowed a steady warning above the status lights for bay two, the one they were working on. Chalmers grunted in satisfaction. Some things were going to plan. Yukannak had said the light would be red if the weight was too heavy, amber if too light as the latter was far less to worry about than the former.
Moose finished uncovering the last of the concealed bolts securing the end of container two. Chalmers knelt and set the pneumatic wrench to the first bolt. It came free after less than a minute. Nineteen more to go. The work was hot, awkward, and time-consuming, if not terribly difficult. And it was necessary, seeing as each container was inspected by the supply officer after installation and, if not intended to supply the flight crew, affixed with a chemically treated lead seal to prevent opening. Trying to reattach the seal after penetrating it was simply not something they could do on anything like the operational timeframe they’d have, so Vat had come up with this particular workaround.
“Moose, need you over here,” Chalmers said, gesturing with the pneumatic wrench at the front of the container, which was now loose enough to fall forward if unsupported.
Moose dropped the coiled hose off the edge of the container and joined Chalmers.
“Make sure this shit doesn’t fall on me.” Chalmers blinked sweat from his eyes and blew a raspberry to clear his mouth. “So damn hot,” he muttered.
“Got it,” Moose said, leaning his bulk against the container front.
Chalmers resumed working. The tenth bolt came free. Eleventh. His world narrowed to the bolt, the wrench, the task. Rinse. Repeat.
“Running out of time, Chalmers,” Jackson called from below. Distantly, he heard the cab door slam and the truck start.
“Got it,” Chalmers said as the last bolt came free. At least he’d stopped sweating. He stood. The world swayed, steadied. He helped Moose pull the container end free and carefully wrestle the slab of composite material to the deck. The expandable bladder that had contained the frigid water was bunched up by the spigot, leaving a space approximately two meters deep and just under three meters wide on all sides.
“Get the scaffolds set up while I help Jacks?” Chalmers said. He was too tired to trust the accuracy of his work and this next phase was tricky.
Moose took the tools from him and nodded. “Good work, Chalmers.”
Chalmers just nodded and staggered out of the bay onto the container top. The floor of the hangar still shone with damp, but there wasn’t a lake to look at. Bone weary, Chalmers sighed and looked at his watch. The mental arithmetic was far harder now than when the night began, but he got there: one hour until flight prep. The fires would be about out by now.
They were on borrowed time.
Jackson had moved the truck outside, was struggling to push the hangar door back into place. He was too close to finishing for Chalmers to get down and be of any real help.
“Can’t see the fires anymore,” Jackson called. He finished closing the hangar door and jogged across the floor toward the office. He had Chalmers’s canteen in his hands. He went into the office, emerged a minute later.
Chalmers did not feel at all well.
“Hey, you take your pills?” Jackson shouted. He was at the base of the ladder. How had Chalmers missed his only friend’s approach?
“What?” Chalmers muttered. He staggered, almost fell forward and all the way down, leaned back in alarm, decided to take a seat and fell on his ass atop the container. He blinked, thoughts turgid and slow.
Next thing he knew, Jackson was there.
“Here, drink this.” Jackson’s voice was worried as he put the canteen to his partner’s lips.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re burning up. Dehydrated as fuck.”
Chalmers pulled at the canteen, had to admit the liquid felt phenomenal going down, but then he puked. Dry heaved, really.
“That’s not right,” he mumbled.
“No, it isn’t. Keep drinking. Stay put.”
“Mmmkay,” Chalmers said. He went away for a while.