Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chalmers woke thinking a large woman was sitting on his chest to restrict his air while beating every inch of his flesh. He tried to shake her off, thrashing around, but it did no good. The large woman just clamped one of his wrists in a massive fist.
“Chalmers, cut it out!” Jackson said.
Chalmers briefly wondered why his partner was a part of this weird fetish-sex dream he was having, but then realized it was Moose who had him by the wrist and that Jackson was actually yelling at him from his other side.
“What the hell?” Chalmers croaked. He had to repeat it, louder. The roar of engines covered anything less than a shout.
“You passed out! Heat stroke!” Jackson shouted back.
Chalmers thought about things for a moment. The engine noise was a screaming rumble that made it hard to think. It dawned on him the pressure he’d felt all over and thought was someone trying to suffocate him was actually the g-forces of liftoff.
As if thoughts of the forces at play ended them, Chalmers felt the sudden removal of the weight on his chest. The subsequent full throat and swollen-head feeling of zero-gee was even less comfortable. He smiled anyway. They were on their way.
“Holy shit, we pulled it off,” Chalmers said, voice reedy and thin to his own ears. His lips were parched, his throat dry where bile wasn’t trying to surge up from his belly.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Jackson said. His grin was violet in the dim illumination of a R’Bakuun chemlight.
“Still not done, snake,” Moose said.
Chalmers nodded more soberly. “Jesus, you two had to do everything on your own?”
Jackson shrugged awkwardly against the four-point restraints rigged to the scaffolding. “Nothing new. I’m used to carrying your white ass.”
Moose was more serious. “Wasn’t that big a deal. I got the scaffolds built, and Jackson strapped you in.”
They were side by side in the narrow space, half-seated on and half-suspended from the scaffolding that Moose had begun to rig when Chalmers walked out of the hold and passed out. The scaffold was like a seat, but relied on a suspension rig rather than cushions to prevent injury from the rattling associated with high-gee maneuvers.
“Everyone else?”
“Still good, last we checked.”
“They didn’t delay the launch to search for me?”
“Nope. In too much of a rush, just like Yukannak said they’d be.”
“How long?”
“Were you out?”
Chalmers nodded.
Jackson checked his watch. “A bit under five hours. You were well and truly cooked, and the A/C unit took a while to chill us out.”
“Speaking of which…” Moose said. He unhooked a canteen from the scaffold next to him. It had been fitted with a nipple preflight to prevent the contents from floating off in microgravity. “Drink up.”
Chalmers sucked greedily. There was a weird, almost floral flavor to the water. He swallowed.
“What’s in this?”
“It’s laced with hegi petals tribal healers use to treat dehydration,” Moose said.
“Where’d you pick that up?”
Moose slowly spread his hands. “Spent a lot of time around one of the SpinDog docs who trades with the healers at the poles.”
“Spent time?” Chalmers said with a half-hearted leer.
“Nothing like that,” Moose said flatly. “I don’t like to waste time, so I try and pick up new skills as and when I can.”
Chalmers wasn’t sure what that meant, but the big guy clearly wasn’t going to say any more on the subject, so he occupied himself with draining the rest of the canteen. He was already feeling better by the time it was done.
“Bet we smell a treat,” Jackson said.
“Speak for yourself, I only smell sweeter the more I sweat,” Moose said.
“Bullshit,” Chalmers said.
“Just like I’ve only grown prettier with each passing year,” Moose continued.
“And your wedding tackle’s bigger?” Jackson grinned.
“Nah, can’t improve on perfection,” Moose said, lacing his fingers behind his head, the motion somewhat ruined when one of his elbows caught on the container wall.
The partners stifled laughter. It was unlikely they’d be heard through the container wall, the bulkhead, hatch, and several meters of corridor to the cockpit, but shit could happen and probably would, given their luck. Murphy’s Law, after all.
Chalmers looked to his left and right, and decided—shit luck or no—he’d rather not have anyone else along on this particular ride with him. They just had to survive the next thirty-plus hours of claustrophobic inactivity, take over a spaceship without getting killed or breaking anything important, and then join up with a group of recently unreliable allies.
“Easy peasy,” Chalmers mumbled. He waited a beat, then added, “Not that I need to, yet, but where do we piss?”
A faint vibration woke Chalmers from a half doze. It was repeated a little while later. He stretched to ease a cramp and bumped against Moose’s shoulder. He checked his watch: twenty-five hours in. He looked up from it to see Jackson was watching him. His partner flicked his gaze to the container wall and pressed a finger to his lips.
“I think…” Moose’s whisper was hoarse.
Chalmers looked at him, but the big veteran had his eyes closed. “What?” he said after a moment.
Moose gestured him to silence with one hand. The other was flat against the container wall in front of them.
Chalmers looked at his watch and waited a full minute without hearing anything before whispering, “What is it?”
“Shh…” Moose laid his other hand on the wall.
Chalmers did the same, just in time to feel a faint vibration through the composite. He looked over at Moose to find the other man’s eyes open, and his mouth set in a thin line.
“What was that?”
Moose looked at him and whispered, “I think…a container door is open. It keeps hitting the bulkhead every ten seconds or so.”
“Did one of you hear the corridor hatch open? Someone walking out there?”
“No,” both men said.
“Who would leave a container doo—” Jackson started.
Chalmers popped a cold sweat. “Fucking Yukannak.”
“Jesus,” Jackson swore.
Moose put his hands to the latch for the container doors and looked a question at Chalmers.
Chalmers hit the release on his harness. Jackson did the same beside him. They both braced themselves. Prepared to launch himself out, Chalmers nodded at Moose. He unlatched and threw open the doors, which clanged against the bulkhead and sent the torn inspection seal flying free to join the one from Yukannak and Vat’s container. Jackson and Chalmers were both out and almost inside container one before the doors started to rebound.
Vat hung in his harness, unconscious or dead. Yukannak was conspicuous in his absence.
Chalmers launched himself for the cargo console and paged through some data until he found the graphic for the crew’s remaining drinking water. Not quite halfway to the point they’d figured sufficient to knock them out.
“I’ll take care of Vat if he’s still kicking,” Jackson said.
Moose bounced from the corridor wall to grab a convenient rung next to the console. He pointed with his chin at the touch panel next to the hatch.
Chalmers looked. Bypass clips were hooked into wires within the panel. The floating face of the panel still glowed a steady green, indicating the portal remained unlocked.
“Why go before they were fully dosed?” Moose asked.
Chalmers shrugged, resultant inertia nearly pulling him from the console.
Jackson didn’t turn from Vat. “Because he wanted time to talk them into backing his play, and them being a little loose from the drugs would only make it easier…”
Chalmers launched himself across at the hatch leading to the regular crew module. “And just because the plan called for them to consume more, didn’t mean it was strictly necessary. We were erring on the side of caution. Wanted them good and soused when we came out.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what do we do now?” Moose’s knuckles were white where he clutched at the rung.
Chalmers swallowed. “Go after him—them. Fast and hard.”
“Right.” Moose pushed off, fetched up against the hatch leading to the crew spaces.
Vat moaned. Jackson turned from him. “He’s unconscious, but he’ll be fine. Looks like Yukannak slipped him the same mickey we were giving the crew, only he got the full dose.”
Relief flooded Chalmers. As much because he wanted Jacks next to him in a fight as for the news of Vat’s condition. He pushed off for the side opposite Moose and caught himself with a minimum of flailing. Moose already had his sap thonged to his wrist. Chalmers pulled his out and did the same with it.
“We need to move fast once we open this,” Moose said.
“Tell me again why they won’t just vent the atmosphere when we appear?” Chalmers asked.
“According to the SpinDogs, venting atmosphere is a good way to get launched off course very rapidly, not to mention a waste of resources,” Moose said.
“But even if the Kulsis assholes think the same way guys brought up in orbital habs do, they might try it outta spite,” Jackson said, joining them at the hatch. “And in that case, we should have a bunch of visible warnings as they override the safety measures to vent atmosphere.” He held up his sap. “At which point it’s crackin’ crackers’ faceplates till they think better of the idea.”
Listening to Jackson, Chalmers felt a surge of confidence that simply wouldn’t withstand rational analysis. Deciding not to overthink it, he rode it.
Moose looked at them both. His sweat-streaked paint job made him look vaguely clownish—or rather, like a militaristic version of the clown-creature in It. “Much as I like watching you two wind each other up, the more time we spend here, the more time Yuk has to pull shit. We need to go.”
The crew module had crew cabins aft of the hatch to the cargo bays, a small mess/briefing room immediately beneath it, and the bridge—flight deck, really—forward of it. Each had its own hatch. “So,” Chalmers said aloud. “Down this hatch, forward to the bridge hatch, through it, and take out whoever is at the controls. Regroup, head aft and deal with anyone behind. Jacks in the lead, me next, Moose bringin’ up the rear.”
“Right,” Jackson and Moose chorused.
“Go.”
Moose pressed the panel. The hatch irised open.
Jackson pulled himself through first, launching headfirst between the decks. Chalmers came second, turning to watch the crew cabins. The short corridor that let out on the cabins was empty and silent, their individual hatches closed.
Seeing no one, Chalmers tried to look the other way. He only succeeded in imparting a spin to his movements. “Below” him, Jackson bounced on his hands and shoved off toward the bridge. Chalmers was less graceful about it, banging his shoulder painfully as he rebounded off the deck.
Moose managed to not only grab Chalmers but hook both feet under a pair of grab bars. Grunting with effort, he hauled back and launched Chalmers toward the hatch.
Stifling the urge to puke as his ears and eyes disagreed with which way he was traveling, Chalmers prepared to stick his landing this time.
He coasted past Jackson, who was pulling himself forward hand over hand.
This hatch wasn’t rigged like the one between crew module and cargo bays, leading Chalmers to wonder just where the hell Yukannak was.
Chalmers brushed a couple grip bars, slowing his rush to the hatch.
“Try it and see,” Jackson said quietly.
Chalmers realized that if the hatch opened under his touch, Jacks was lined up to fly straight through without slowing. Thinking he probably looked like a shitty Superman, he reached out and punched the panel.
The hatch irised open. Jacks went through.
Neither of the crew was suited. The pilot looked over, a dopey grin on his face. That grin barely had an opportunity to congeal before Jackson was on him. Moose flew through, blocking Jackson and the pilot from view.
Chalmers pulled himself into the crowded flight deck just as Moose swung his sap at the man punching buttons at the engineering station. The engineer shoved back from his workstation. Moose missed, the momentum from his swing carrying him around in an unsteady—and uncontrolled—spin.
Chalmers launched himself at the engineer, who was struggling free of his seat webbing. He heard a meaty thump and hoped it was Jackson cracking the pilot a good one rather than Moose knocking himself out on a bulkhead. Then there was no time for thought. He grabbed the frame of the engineer’s chair in his off hand, punched out with the sap in hopes of losing less body control on a miss, and clipped the engineer’s shoulder instead of his chin. The man grunted, popped the rest of the way out of the restraint system, and somehow managed a strike to Chalmers’s gut.
Wind whistling as it fled his lungs, Chalmers swung around the pivot-point of his death grip on the chair, wrenching his wrist with the sudden, awkward change of direction.
The engineer kicked out at Chalmers, or tried to. The odd booties Kulsis spacers wore struck a control. Something glowed an angry red in response.
Releasing the weapon to swing from his wrist, Chalmers shoved hard off the deck with his sap hand and legs. He spun back around, his pivot-wrist shrieking protest. His fist missed. The sap, on its several inches of thong, did not. Something gave way with an audible crack, but Chalmers was too busy slamming his chest against the chair to know what. Wheezing, he tried to keep station and see what was happening, what needed doing next.
The engineer was floating gently back toward the hatch, motionless.
A bloody-faced Jackson was straddling the pilot’s chair while hammering his sap at the occupant. There was a lot of blood in the air around them, and the pilot didn’t look like he was fighting back.
“Jackson,” Moose called. “Ease up. We’ll need him.” The big soldier drifted slowly forward.
Jackson looked their way.
Chalmers swallowed. The hate in Jackson’s eyes was limitless. His partner’s face was a bleak ruin, his right eye swollen completely shut, and his jaw visibly misaligned. Bloody bubbles expanded from his nostrils with each tortured breath, expanded, grew to impossible size and popped.
“Easy, brother. Easy,” Chalmers said.
Jacks mumbled something, madness fading from his eyes. He unlocked from his three-point grip on both pilot and his chair. He and the body beneath him drifted apart. If there was any question, the shit stink proved the pilot was dead.
“Hit ’m so ’rd,” Jackson mumbled. “Thut I wuh dead. ’Urts.”
Chalmers reached out, took Jackson gently by the arm, and eased him into the engineering seat.
An alarm klaxon sounded. Chalmers looked down. The angry red light he’d seen in the engineering console was flashing now. “What the fuck?” he said, struggling to decipher the unfamiliar data.
Moose had grabbed the engineer.
“He all right?” Chalmers asked, half-hoping the guy could be convinced to help.
“Dead,” Moose said, towing the engineer toward the hatch.
“What?” Chalmers blurted.
“Temple’s bashed in.”
“Fuck.”
“Can you shut that alarm off?” Moose asked. He opened the hatch and shoved the body out.
“I’m not even sure I know what system it is,” Chalmers snapped. “Looks like a countdown of some sort.”
“Countdown to what?”
“Do I look like fucking Scotty to you?”
“I’m not looking at you. I’m watching our six, like a good rear guard is supposed to. Yukannak is still outstanding. Jackson is down for the count.”
Suddenly fearful, Chalmers glanced at his partner. Jackson was out cold but breathing. Even minor injuries incurred in microgravity could be a very real problem. Simple swelling could get out of control with no pull to direct the fluid in a given direction.
“Focus, Chalmers. One problem at a time,” Moose said. “Get a read on what the hell is going on with engineering.”
Getting a grip on his incipient panic, Chalmers started to sort through the various readouts he could access. A lot of it was locked down behind a security wall. He was sweating and his wrist throbbed, distracting him. Near as he could tell, the engineer had been busy with something to do with the power plant. He’d… Chalmers checked the readings, panic mounting.
“Fuck,” Chalmers breathed. He scanned through another set of reports. The engineer had intentionally removed a section of shielding on the power plant. He tried to undo it, but ran into a request for a password or fingerprints. He ran at it another way, figured out that whatever the engineer had done, they’d also remote-locked the engineering console located in engineering.
“What?” Moose said. His usual calm voice was ground thin with impatience.
“Not sure, give me a minute,” Chalmers said, checking additional radiation meters farther up the vessel. He breathed a sigh of relief. The power plant was well enough back in the ship the radiation leak wouldn’t reach them with anything like a lethal dose. Not in the next few hours, anyway.
“Get me the engineer.”
“I told you, he di-di-mau’d, dead as dirt.”
“He’s still got fucking hands, don’t he?” Chalmers snapped.