Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Twenty

Bowden opened his eyes to see Captain Dave Fiezel, a former F-105F pilot in another time and place, walking into his room. Bowden’s eyes widened; this wasn’t his room—Where am I?

Everything snapped back. The takeoff. Rockets failing and brakes squealing. Going off the runway. Pain. Lots of pain. Blackness.

“Where—where am I?”

“You’re in the infirmary,” Fiezel said. “Don’t you remember?”

“The crash? Yeah, I remember the crash. I hurt all over.”

“You’re lucky to still be here to feel pain.”

“Why’s that?”

Fiezel looked around and his brows knit. “Hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Just woke up…I think. Told me what?”

“Uh…”

“Out with it,” Bowden said. He was obviously on pain meds of some sort; his thoughts were mushy and thinking was hard. The act of concentrating, though, brought things more into focus. “Told me what?”

“The only reason you’re alive is that the tire blew. The landing gear knob was missing. If you hadn’t been thrown to the side—up against the window—the sudden stop when you went off the runway would have impaled you on the lever. It would have gone right through your chest. As it was, it went into the meat of your arm. It still nicked your brachial artery, though, which almost killed you. They had to bring in one of the local witch doctors to use some of their magic weeds on you. Your recovery is nothing short of miraculous, according to our medic types.”

Bowden looked down; his right arm was a mass of bandages.

“You’ll be fine. It’ll hurt a while, and you’ll have to work it back into shape, but you’re going to be all right.” He took a breath as if he were going to add something else but then sighed.

“What?” Bowden asked.

“Not sure it’s my place to say…”

“To say what, dammit? What are you trying to avoid saying?”

“No one’s told you?” Fiezel temporized.

“Told me what?”

“I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but your seat belt was cut.”

“What—” Bowden did his best to focus. “What do you mean? It looked fine on preflight.”

Fiezel shook his head. “The part where you latch it was fine. It was cut most of the way through, underneath the seat where it goes into the latching mechanism. You wouldn’t have seen it unless you crawled up under the seat and pulled it out. It held under normal usage, but couldn’t take the deceleration of a crash.”

“How…Why would someone do that?”

Fiezel looked at the floor. “Well, I’m no safety inspector, but it looked like sabotage to me.”

“And I ask again: Why would someone do that?”

Fiezel winced as he looked up. “You weren’t supposed to survive that crash.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m no safety inspector or whatever you called them in your time, but that whole crash appeared to be an elaborate trap with one sole purpose: to kill you.”

Bowden lay back on the bed and chuckled. “A seat belt breaks, and you see murder plots? Are you still seeing VC inside the wires?”

“I wish it were as simple as that,” Fiezel said. He cocked his head. “It would make it a whole lot easier.” He paused and met Bowden’s eyes. “It’s not, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, after they pulled you from the aircraft, I went and looked at everything, inside and out. Once I saw the seat belt—which there’s no doubt in my mind was cut—I followed the chain of events from start to finish, and there it was.”

“There what was?”

“The plot to kill you.”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning? Perhaps the drugs or whatever the local shaman gave me has addled my brain, but I’m not seeing it.”

“Okay, from the beginning. You launch, but immediately your starboard rocket fails. I looked at it; the wire to the rocket was disconnected.”

“That could happen on its own. Strange that we didn’t see it on preflight or that the ground crew missed it when they were pulling the pin from it.”

“We’ll come back to that. Next, I looked at the brakes. There were pinhole leaks in the hydraulics to both of the brakes. The leaks wouldn’t have manifested until the system was pressurized, but then the hydraulics would have bled out.”

“But the right brake worked. At least I think it did.”

“It did, but I don’t think it was supposed to. I found the hydraulic line still attached to the strut, which came off when the tire blew. The line was holed, but the holes weren’t big enough for them to drain the system immediately. Whoever did this messed up. I think you were supposed to drive off the runway and hit something that resulted in a sudden stop, catapulting you—when your seat belt failed—into the landing gear handle, which would have impaled you right about here.” He pointed to his heart. “If not for the fact that the starboard brake still had enough fluid to throw you to the side, you’d be dead right now.”

“But why? Who would…”

“Good questions.” He shrugged. “It was meant to look like an accident. If I hadn’t happened to see the cut seat belt, I would have thought it was just a series of unfortunate accidents. Why did it happen? I don’t know. The ‘who,’ though, that’s a lot easier to figure out. Have you pissed off any of the ground guys? Someone that might want to frag you?”

Bowden shook his head, overwhelmed. “Not that I’m aware of. Who even does that?”

Fiezel gave a wry chuckle. “Happened in my era a couple of times. One time a ground maintenance guy got extended when he thought he was going back to The World. Got pissed off and, under the influence of drugs, messed up some of the planes’ systems. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone; he just wanted to take his frustrations out on the planes and break some stuff. Didn’t matter to the guy who did a shitty preflight and took one of those jets flying. He crashed and died. When we found other planes had been sabotaged, we tracked it back to the maintainer. He was sad—and even sadder when he went to Leavenworth for his crimes—but that didn’t bring back the pilot who died, who was a friend of mine.” He shrugged. “Like I said, it happened sometimes.”

“No, I’m not aware that I pissed off anyone or that any of the maintenance guys were mad at anyone or anything. And we did a good preflight. We knew about the missing ball from the landing gear handle, but we figured we’d just get a new one when we got up to the habitat.”

“That’s just it. Whoever did this knew the systems. Some of the stuff was insidious. You wouldn’t have spotted it—the seat belt was cut underneath the seat where you wouldn’t have been able to see it, and the brake lines wouldn’t have failed until right when you needed them. Not sure how you would have missed the rocket, though…” He pursed his lips. “Who followed who around the plane?”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you following Hrensku around, or did he follow you?”

“As the qualified guy, he followed me.”

“So he could have loosened the wire after you checked it.”

“But why?”

“No idea. The fact remains, though, that someone—someone who knows the systems in the aircraft really well—took a lot of time and effort to crash that plane, and to do it in a manner that would kill you without being obvious about it.”

“But the cut seat belt was obvious.”

“It sure was.” Fiezel nodded. “Here’s the thing, though. When I took Sam Hirst out to the bird to get his opinion on if whether or not it was repairable, the seat belt was missing and the rocket motor wire had been reconnected.”

Bowden’s jaw dropped as everything became real to him for the first time. “Any chance you were wrong?”

Fiezel shook his head. “I don’t think so. I know I saw the wire hanging, and I know the seat belt was cut. I guess it’s possible that all those things just happened to line up…but I doubt it.”

“Had Hrensku been out to the plane before you came back with Hirst?”

“I asked around and one of the maintenance guys said he saw Hrensku coming back from the aircraft. Apparently, he left some of his stuff out there when they brought you in.”

“Anyone else go out to the wreck?”

“A few of the maintenance types, but none of them remember seeing the seat belt in the cockpit. Hrensku said the same thing when I asked him.”

“So he knows you may be onto him.”

Fiezel winced. “Yeah, I wish I hadn’t asked him, but I did. I’m not much at police work, I guess. If it’s him that did it, he at least knows I’m looking into it.”

“Well, until we get this figured out, I wouldn’t get into an aircraft that he’s been around.”

“That thought had crossed my mind.” Fiezel coughed theatrically. “I think I’m coming down with the R’Bak crud. May not be able to fly.” He shrugged and coughed again. “Could take me a few days to get over it, too. Depending on how things turn out.”


Hrensku looked up from the schematics he was going over as Bowden walked into the base operations building. “My friend! It is good to see you mobile again.”

“Am I?” Bowden asked.

“Mobile? It certainly appears so. You are walking around, which is better than the last time I saw you.”

“I wasn’t talking about mobility; I was talking about friendship. Am I really your friend, Burg?”

“Yes. Of course you are. Why would you ask that?”

“Because friends don’t try to kill friends.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t try to kill you. You were the one at the controls when we crashed. In fact, it was you who told me to keep my hands off the controls.”

“I did…but I didn’t know you had sabotaged the aircraft.”

Hrensku’s cheeks turned bright red. “I did not sabotage the aircraft! You will want to take that back right now!”

Bowden walked up to Hrensku and looked him in the eyes. “You didn’t sabotage it? Because it sure looks like you did.”

“That is madness! Why do you even think it was sabotage? This isn’t the first time you’ve seen a rocket bottle fail.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the first time I’ve seen pinholes in brake lines and cut seat belts, though.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? How about the missing knob on the landing gear handle? Without it, it makes a great stake to impale myself on.”

“We both saw it. We both looked for it and couldn’t find it.”

“I’m wondering if we couldn’t find it because it was in your pocket. You’re the one who wanted to go even though we hadn’t found it.”

“Because we were going to miss our launch window. You haven’t done many launches, but even you have to know that.”

“It’s all very convenient, isn’t it?”

“What is convenient? I didn’t try to kill you! I was in the same craft with you!”

“Investigators always talk about looking for someone with motive and opportunity. You certainly had the opportunity to cause all the problems…what I don’t understand is why? Why would you do that, Burg? What do you have to gain from killing me?”

“That’s just it—I don’t have anything to gain from killing you, especially when I’d be putting my life at risk to do so.”

“That might be the best alibi I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not an alibi; it is the truth! You ask me why, Bowden, and I ask you the same thing. Why would I try to kill you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because there is no reason. This is all ludicrous. I didn’t try to kill you.”

Bowden stared into his eyes for a long time, but he couldn’t find deceit in them. “Fine,” he finally said. “I believe you.”

“Good,” Hrensku said. “Because you should.” He indicated the chart on the table. “Now, can I get back to this? I have a meeting with the mechanics in fifteen minutes; that shuttle will not fix itself.”

Bowden nodded, turned, and left.

“Did you believe him?” Fiezel asked as he walked out the door. Fiezel had been waiting around the corner, “just in case.”

“Yeah,” Bowden said. “But that scares me even more than if I didn’t believe him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if it wasn’t Hrensku who sabotaged the plane, who did? And when will he or she strike next?”


Back | Next
Framed