If you have ever wondered how a dashing hero is made, here is some insight, in a story set on the rough and ready frontier that our solar system will turn into in the next few hundred years. It is the origin of a character whose mature exploits were chronicled in Martian Knightlife. Disclaimer: I don't make the puns, I just print 'em. . . . And hats off to Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint, who inspired the author. . . .
It was storm season in the southern hemisphere of Mars. Above the turbid orange clouds currently obscuring the western parts of Hellas Planitia and the region toward the equator, the "Mocha" freighter flew on a heading north of west. A thousand yards behind, the Skyguards escort gunship that was accompanying it to Lowell base, still a quarter of the planet away, maintained station slightly above and to starboard. Unseen satellites passing high overhead sent periodic updates on the vessels' progress to a monitoring program running in the computers at Skyguards' headquarters, located at Lowell.
As flying machines went, the Mocha was ugly and ungainly—a boxy, open-frame center-body designed to hold a variety of cargo modules; an independently maneuverable crew module in front; one from a selection of propulsion modules attached behind; and on the sides, either high-lift wings for atmospheric duty, or boosters capable of low-orbit injection to connect with the satellite transfer stations. But it was well suited to its role of hauling miscellaneous loads around the newly opening-up planet. Its name derived from the official designation of MOdular Cargo HAndler. Naturally, everybody called them Mocha ships.
At the rear of the flight deck in the crew module, rookie recruit trooper Kieran Thane sat cramped on a folding jump-seat between the rear bulkhead systems panel and an equipment rack, one arm resting on a run of power cables crossing the wall ribs, a close-quarters autocarbine wedged next to his leg beneath. The vessel was owned and operated by a general carrier at Zerolon base on the far side of Mars from Lowell that styled itself grandly "Haulers of Fame," and was carrying a cargo of space weaponry and programmable munitions that would fetch premium bid prices among the various mercenary forces, commercial rivals, and other squabbling enterprises taking form among the Belt habitats and beyond if it happened to go astray. Hence, the armed escort ship. Kieran had been put aboard the Mocha as link man between its crew and the escort commander, as routine required. The vessel was built to minimal surface utility standards, which meant that everyone was wearing EV suits with helmets close by, ready at hand.
"Escort Leader calling Mocha." The voice of Lieutenant Coombs sounded in Kieran's phones. "Acknowledge and report."
"Roger. Everything normal here," Kieran responded over the circuit.
"I read you. Out."
The three-man crew's captain, who was called Ursark and occupied the c-com station on the far side of the nav-display table, looked at Kieran with a mixture of cynicism and amusement. "Right on time again. That's a regulation-scrubbed toy soldier you've got there, kid. Does he come with a key sticking out of his back, or batteries?"
"I . . . guess everyone does things the right way until they get to know where they can cut corners," was all Kieran could think of to say in reply.
"Well, I'm sure glad it's not me who stands to get shot while he's learning," Ursark drawled. He seemed to be trying to goad. Kieran wasn't sure why. Probably just part of his nature. Kieran didn't respond, but kept his eyes on the windshield in front of the other two crewmen and watched the slowly creeping vista of whipped cotton candy stirred by descending canyons of clearer air. Occasional upthrusts of rock loomed as shadows, sometimes breaking through into the sunlight like yellow-brown icebergs riding in an ocean of orange foam.
Ursark was swarthy-skinned and fleshy in build, with oily black hair, several days' growth of stubble, and a barking laugh that revealed strong teeth while asserting disdain and defiance. His eyes were black and depthless, betraying nothing of what might be taking place within. But Kieran conceded inwardly that he had a point in his own artless way. The troopers dubbed the commanding lieutenant "Thumper" Coombs—everything was undeviatingly as ordained and stipulated in the book. But at least they weren't having to take orders from somebody learning in a combat mission situation, Kieran reflected. That would have been a lot worse.
He rested his head back against the painted metal bulkhead and idly surveyed the other two crew. Bolen, doing the piloting, was lean and muscular with somewhat drawn features and short reddish hair. He seemed to go about his work easily and competently. Kieran wondered what other tempting offers there might be for somebody like him out here—as opposed to working for the regular carriers or other agencies that employed pilots. Demand was said to be such that they could virtually name their own pay. Maybe the added kick of mixing a little danger with the job wasn't something that appealed to everyone. In the engineer's station next to Bolen was Wallax, black-haired, square-chinned, and rugged-faced. He had said little, not allowing Kieran to form any clear impression of him—although there had been a hint of an aggressive streak. Somehow, the three didn't really fit the image that Kieran would have guessed for an off-world flight-crew; but then, what experience did he have to guide him as to what should be expected in these distant places where humankind was finding new homes? As the freighter droned on above the wilderness, his thoughts drifted to the wider picture that he found himself part of.
Although still officially a "base," Lowell was creeping outward along the canyon bottoms from an intersection of canyons in the complex of Valles Marineris, merging its original dome structures between new roofs spanning between the walls to already become an incipient city. Earth had rebounded from its century of institutionalized technophobia and, with the advent of fusion, strong-force catalysis, and other nuclear technologies that had revolutionized just about everything from space transportation to materials extraction and processing, humanity was finally bursting from its home world to pick up again at what should have been the next step back in the years when the Apollo monuments were left on the Moon. Mars was opening up. The Belt worlds, natural and artificial, were seeing the beginnings of what some predicted would become a dizzying diversity of cultures and lifestyles. A few adventurous souls had established what looked like being a permanent human presence among the moons of the gas giants. Amid all the vitality, restlessness, innovation—and inevitably, rivalries and differences—comfortable Terran notions of a common system of enforceable law had been left behind. Some said it would follow eventually; others maintained it was already a dead concept, and some new system for restraining excesses and dispensing justice would have to be invented. In the meantime, there was plenty of work for go-it-alone operators like Skyguards, protecting life and property, and, where expedient or arguably justifiable, generally helping to "promote interests."
The Mocha's engine note changed suddenly to a succession of juddering coughs, bringing Kieran back from his musings. The craft dipped and banked to port, throwing him forward from the seat and causing him to grab at a side bracing. An alarm note wailed as the pilot's panel lit up with red indicators. Outside, the horizon of cloud titled and swam sideways across the windshield. Bolen slammed the controls to manual and threw a worried look back at Ursark.
"What is it?" Ursark barked.
"Major thrust loss. Synchronizer failure. Double-X category malfunction."
"Power system's screwed! We have to go down!" Wallax shouted.
"Escort Leader to Mocha Rider," Lieutenant Coombs's voice said. "You're altering course and attitude. What's happening?"
"Some kind of power failure, sir," Kieran answered. "The engineer says they have to put down."
"Hell, we're not asking for permission," Bolen yelled over his shoulder as he wrestled the manual stick, and Wallax called numbers and flipped switches. "Whatever he thinks doesn't come into this." The Mocha nosed into a descent, then angled back to use its braking thrusters, the main power note steadying but falling. Orange haze enveloped it, becoming denser, streaking past the windshield and ports to give a sudden hint of the craft's velocity. Bolen watched the forward radar imager and centered on what looked like a straight run of reasonably flat terrain ahead, clear of obstructions and boulders, flanked by rocky bluffs on both sides. "That's our only chance," he yelled to Ursark.
"Go for it," Ursark told him.
Kieran spoke into the stem mike on his suit collar. "It looks like a genuine emergency, sir. We're out of options here. Trying for a clear strip dead ahead at . . ." He raised his voice to call to the front. "What's the range of that?"
"Five miles," Bolen answered.
"Five miles."
"We're following you down," Coombs advised. "Tell the captain that I'm calling Lowell for an emergency pickup."
Kieran passed on the message and braced a foot against one of the metal steps coming up from the doorway behind, which led back to the access section, where the suiting chamber and airlock were located. A hazy, colored version of the radar image appeared dimly beyond the windshield, growing larger, flattening out, and then expanding to meet them as the Mocha came down. Additional dust blown up by the retros blotted out what view there was for the final few seconds before the skids struck with a jolt and a brief shriek of metal racing over frozen sand and rubble. The craft went up on a bounce, grounded again, and eventually scraped its way to a halt. As the dust thinned outside the windows and on the viewscreen, Ursark cut to a rearward shot showing the escort ship landing through the storm, maybe a hundred yards back. The Mocha's engines died, and the hiss of sand blowing over the outside hull became audible for the first time.
Ursark looked across at Kieran. He was showing his teeth, smiling in a strangely satisfied way that wasn't at all consistent with the situation. Kieran returned a puzzled look and was about to speak . . . when Wallax produced a pistol and leveled it at him.
Kieran shook his head noncomprehendingly. "What—"
"Not a word, kid." Ursark's voice was cool but menacing. He leaned over the nav-display table and reached across to tear the mike from Kieran's suit collar. Then he indicated the autocarbine by Kieran's leg and motioned with a hand for Kieran to hand it over. "Slow and easy, butt first, okay? Nobody has to get hurt."
Bolen was calling from the pilot's console. "Hello, Sandman. Do you read? Are you out there?"
A voice answered, patched through to the cabin speaker. "I hear you, Bird. You're a few hundred yards past the marker. We're on our way."
"Gotcha."
Coombs came through in Kieran's ear. "Escort Leader to Mocha Rider, report situation," But Kieran had no means of reply. "Come in, Rider. . . ."
Kieran lifted his weapon clear from the wall, reversed it, and set it in Ursark's waiting hand. "What's going on?" he demanded.
"Wait," Ursark answered, and stared expectantly at his viewscreen, still showing the shape of the gunship nose-on, standing in the murk. Wallax kept Kieran covered. Kieran followed Ursark's gaze. At the pilot's console, Bolen operated some switches, and an electric whine came from the rear, which Kieran recognized as the sound of the loading door of the cargo module opening. Maybe ten seconds passed by. . . . And then a quick series of flashes lit up seemingly behind the gunship, which lurched visibly, accompanied by the crump-crump-crump of weapon fire sounding deceptively distant in the thin atmosphere. A window opened on the screen to present a side view of the -gunship—evidently coming from an external source—that showed the rear end of its fuselage torn and holed, its the tail surfaces shredded. Then another burst of tracer streamed from a point near the camera and raked the stern engine pod. The damage was localized away from the personnel compartment, which was farther forward, Kieran could see; but the gunship wasn't going anywhere. It had been reduced to little more than a life-support shelter in the desert.
Coombs hadn't fully grasped the situation. "Mocha crew, alert! We are being attacked. Secure—" But a new voice cut him off, sounding on a channel evidently directed at the gunship, but which Bolen or Wallax had patched to the speaker circuit. "Calling you Skyguards turkeys. Can you hear me in there?"
Coombs replied. "I hear you. What is—"
"Your bean can is immobilized and covered by heavy infantry weapons." Which meant ordnance capable of taking the gunship apart at that range. "Sit tight, and this can be easy on everyone. You're not calling any shots. And let's not forget that we still have one of your people in the freighter." The viewpoint that the image was coming from began moving forward past the nose of the stranded gunship, and then ahead of it. Moments later, a smaller, approaching blur appeared on the screen showing the view sternward, and transformed into a general-purpose desert crawler—used all over Mars for survey work, exploration, scientific expeditions, and the like. It halted just short of the Mocha, and two figures clad in heavy-grade EV suits and helmets got out. They crossed through the sand spray toward the Mocha and disappeared from the viewing angle. Bolen switched to a camera showing the inside of the cargo module with its loading door open and the two figures just coming in off the ramp. "The voice that had spoken before announced, "Okay, we're in."
"We've got you, Roney," Ursark confirmed.
"Then let's move it."
Bolen closed the loading door. The engines started again, rose in volume, and Kieran felt the craft -moving.
"Escort Leader to Mocha Rider. Our position appears to be compromised. Unknown hostile elements are approaching you and are heavily equipped. If you are receiving this, offer no resistance. Repeat, do not resist."
Ursark flexed his console mike in Kieran's direction and gestured toward it, at the same time leering derisively. Despite himself, Kieran felt his face flush with embarrassment at his own helplessness. "Yes, sir," he acknowledged self-consciously.
"That's a good soldier," Ursark said.
The voice that Ursark had addressed as Roney came over the speaker again. "Calling the bean can. Just to let you know, we've left a functioning crawler about a hundred yards in front of you. It'll get you by until help shows up if your support system's shot. 'Bye turkeys."
The Mocha bumped its way up to speed, lifted off, and rose into the storm, by then growing darker with the first shades of evening.
Since there was no internal access forward, the two additional hijackers—for it was obvious that the whole thing had been a setup all along—remained in the cargo module. No doubt Coombs had already put out a distress call and reported the incident; but provided the Mocha relied on its navigation aids and stayed below the ceiling of the storm blanketing the region, the satellites would have little chance of finding it optically or on infrared—and naturally, the tracking signal being transmitted previously would have been switched off. Since its course was unknown, the area that it might be in increased with the square of the distance covered as time went by. A thousand miles of flying would generate over three million square miles to get lost in—and plenty of time to switch the cargo to a different vehicle, or whatever else the hijackers had planned.
Ursark's manner mellowed somewhat, now that the critical point was past. He produced a flask and some plastic mugs, poured out three coffees and passed two forward, along with a couple of film-wrapped sandwiches and a bag of chips, and then looked quizzically at Kieran, as if in an afterthought. "Eat?" he invited.
Kieran had no idea how long it might be before another opportunity might present itself. In any case, he was getting hungry. He nodded. "Sure. . . . Thanks."
Ursark filled another mug and pushed it across the nav table, following it with another sandwich. He unwrapped one for himself and began munching, at the same time watching Kieran curiously. "You know, you're not so bad, kid," he grunted finally. "You keep it cool, know what I mean? Not the kind that loses his head and acts stupid. Somebody like you could do okay if you had connections." He smacked his lips noisily and worked something from his teeth with his tongue. "Any idea what you could make, working for the right people?" He studied the expression on Kieran's face—firm, not looking for a fight, but refusing to concede or be drawn into anything either. "Still pumped up with principles and ideology, eh?"
"Give him another ten years," Bolen said without taking his eyes off the dust veils whipping by outside. "I used to fly for one of the enforcer outfits too, once."
"I never knew that. . . ." Ursark seemed about to say something more, when Roney spoke from the cargo module.
"Hey, Urse?"
"What?"
"I don't think we're going to have enough air here to last all the way to Quentas."
Ursark's eyes flickered alarm in Kieran's direction. "Watch your talk," he said into the mike.
"Oh . . . right. But we need to put down somewhere along the way and get fresh bottles from the cab."
Ursark turned his head in Bolen's direction. "Did you hear that? Can do?"
Bolen was already keying in a query to change the flight plan. A revised course appeared on a terrain map showing on one of his screens, and a string of numbers unrolled across the bottom. "There's a hard pad we can put down at forty minutes from here," he announced. "Increases final ETA by . . . less than a half hour. We should be okay."
"Forty minutes from now," Ursark relayed back. "Reckon you can hold out till then?"
"Yeah. Shouldn't be a problem," Roney replied.
Quentas, if Kieran remembered correctly, was a mesa-like geographical feature somewhere near the edge of the deserts of Elysium.
Night had fallen by the time the Mocha set down. The flight-deck screens and the view through the windshield showed the surroundings to be in a flat depression fringed by a rocky scarp—possibly a crater rim—appearing as disconnected crests and edges picked out against shadow by starlight filtering down through the still dusty air. But they seemed to be out of the storm. Kieran made out structures of some kind outlined dimly a short distance away—a construction gantry, maybe, and several storage sheds.
Moving awkwardly in his suit in the confines of the cabin, Ursark went back into the access section, taking his helmet. From the doorway behind where he was sitting, Kieran heard the clatter and clinking of bottles being taken from a rack, sounds of Ursark securing his helmet, and finally a suit monitor's triple beep confirming systems to be functioning normally. Then came the whirr of a the inner lock door opening, Ursark shuffling through, and the lock closing again. In the flight deck compartment, Wallax studied his fingers between glancing at Kieran, his pistol still close at hand. Bolen opened the cargo module door and reactivated the view of the inside to show Roney and his companion moving out onto the ramp to stretch cramped arms and legs in the light that had come on within.
"Any coffee left back there?" Bolen asked. Wallax passed him the flask. Bolen refilled his mug and returned to contemplating the scene outside, immersed in thoughts of his own.
Something was odd, Kieran realized. Why would Ursark have bothered putting on his helmet and going outside to take the bottles back, when Roney and the other with him were already fully suited? Ursark could simply have left the bottles in the lock chamber to be retrieved from the outside. The answer came when Ursark appeared in the view on the screen, and while Roney and his companion took turns attaching the replacement bottles to each other's packs, entered into an animated discussion with them over another channel, this time not switched though to the cabin: They wanted to have a private conversation. . . . And then, when Kieran had been watching with more-or-less detached interest for perhaps a minute, it suddenly hit him what it was they needed to talk privately about. After Roney's careless talk earlier in which he had let slip their destination, the problem was what to do with him—with Kieran! And now, guessing the subject of the debate, he was virtually able to follow the exchange from the gestures and body language—even in suits.
Roney—somehow Kieran knew which was Roney—arms spread, hands upturned; then a one-handed throwing-away motion, followed by hands crossed, opening to make a breast-stroke movement: What's your problem, Urse? He knows too much. Get rid of him; it's simple. Then the whole thing's behind us, clean and over.
Ursark—two-palmed restraining gesture; window--wiping movement; side-to-side shoulder swings, emphasizing shaking of the head. Finally, both hands turned up in appeal: Wait a minute, think about it. That's a whole different rap than for a heist if things screw up. I didn't agree to that kind of ride. He's just a kid, for chrissakes.
Roney's companion—half-turn away; pause; turn back, one arm sowing seed. Either way, I don't care. Can we just get this settled? We're wasting time.
The chilling realization came home to Kieran that they were arguing over his life. Wallax's idle toying with the pistol, and Bolen's studied detachment took on a whole new, sinister significance. He felt his mouth and throat turning dry. He was the kind who knew how to keep cool, Ursark had said, not one to lose his head. Yeah, right. . . . Not losing your head could come fairly naturally when you had no choices to make.
Then Ursark's voice sounded over the cabin speaker. "Calling the kid soldier. Get helmeted up and move your ass out here. Okay?"
Kieran stared around dazedly, trying to tell himself this couldn't be happening. He'd signed up for a tour away from Earth on what sounded like an exciting job, that was all. It wasn't supposed to end like this, and so soon. He looked at the others in a silent, desperate plea. Bolen continued staring implacably through the windshield. Wallax cradled the pistol more securely in his palm and looked up.
"I guess that means you," he said laconically.
For an insane moment Kieran tried estimating distances by eye with thoughts of trying to grab for it . . . but it was pointless. He got up numbly from the jump-seat and picked up his helmet from the ledge where he had set it.
"I'm not hearing an answer," Ursark's voice said from the speaker.
"He's on his way," Wallax replied.
Moving mechanically, as if someone else had taken control, Kieran went down the steel steps to the access section, initiated the lock cycle, and donned his helmet while the lock was filling. When the indicator changed to green he entered, heard the inner door close behind, and waited for the chamber to exhaust, refill with Martian air, and for the pressures to balance. The outer door slid aside, and the conveyor step carried him down six feet to the surface. His dreamlike sensation enhanced by the thirty-eight percent Earth-normal gravity, he walked back toward the opened cargo door. Ursark was waiting at the bottom of the ramp. Farther back, the other two were maneuvering something down from its stowage space between the center-body frame and the propulsion module. Kieran saw that it was the vessel's "scooter"—an open, two-person electric runabout carried by most larger craft for extending the range of surface activities; on occasion, they had also proved their worth as lifeboats. While Roney and the other proceeded to strip the radio and emergency beacon from the scooter's electronics box, Ursark filled Kieran in.
"Okay, so this is the deal. There's a Triple S on a bearing of two-forty degrees from here that you should be able to make in four to five hours. You've got extra air and water under the seat. We can't leave you with a live transmitter, but there's a homer that'll give you a fix when you get close enough. Just hope you don't hit problems. I know the chances aren't perfect, but they're the only ones you've got." Surface Survival Shelters, containing food, life-support gear, medical kits, and other essentials, usually located at radio navigation beacons, were dotted all over Mars for use in emergencies. Mars had no magnetic field; the electronic compasses worked off the satellite grid. Kieran opened his mouth behind his helmet visor to say something, but Ursark cut him off with a wave. "There's nothing to discuss. That's it. On your way, kid. Adios."
Wa-it a minute! . . .
Kieran had covered maybe three miles, when the subconscious processing going on in his brain suddenly delivered its conclusion that something wasn't right. He eased back the scooter's throttle, slowing the procession of sand and rocks through the scooter's headlight beam to a crawl to free up more of his attention to pondering what. . . . And then it came to him.
This had shown every sign of being a professionally planned and executed operation. The people staging it might be crude in some ways, but they weren't dumb. Professionals would have made sure to leave the crawler and come away from the hijack with fresh air bottles—or at least, bottles full enough to get them where they wanted to go. So, the Mocha had never been heading for Quentas.
Why, then, had Roney said it was? The only reason could be: for Kieran's benefit! The whole thing had been a setup to feed Kieran false information, which he was now supposed to take back and report, sending everyone who would be searching off on wrong trails all over Elysium. While the hijackers did . . . what?
The scooter came to a halt as Kieran followed the thread through further. Already, his blood was rising again, this time not only from the humiliation of being disarmed and made a hostage, but from being taken for a fool and used as a dupe as well.
If the Mocha wasn't going to Quentas, then in all probability the destination it had been heading for was right here—to do whatever was due to happen next, while Kieran was purring his way sedately on a jaunt across the desert. Why would the hijackers waste any of that time going somewhere else now? And he surely hadn't seen or heard any sign of the ship taking off since he'd set out, so something more was detaining them. His best guess was still that it was rendezvousing to transfer its cargo to some other craft.
Kieran turned off the headlamp, eased the scooter into motion again, and U-turned between the dunes to set off back the way he had come. He could manage without the lamp now, anyway. Phobos was -rising—on a clear night it could appear three hundred times brighter than Venus seen from Earth—and even with the residual dust from the storm he was easily able to follow his own tracks. He wasn't sure what he intended doing—get access to a radio; disable the craft somehow; cause some kind of mischief. But he was mad and had a score to settle.
The glow from lamps illuminating the area where the Mocha lay was visible before Kieran reached the last intervening ridge. He ditched the scooter on the reverse slope, and after taking a flashlamp, binoculars, and some tools that he thought might be useful from its utility compartment, continued from there on foot. The sight waiting for him when he reached the jumble of dusty rocks forming the crest and peered cautiously down was the one thing he hadn't thought of in all his conjecturing.
The ship was standing with its tail end in a pool of arc light, its wings removed and lying a short distance away on either side. In their place, two orbital--injection boosters were in the process of being attached. And the plan became clear in all its ingenuity and deviousness. The searchers could waste as much time as they wanted scouring Elysium—or anywhere else on the surface they liked; it wouldn't do them any good. For the cargo wasn't being diverted or disposed of anywhere on Mars at all. The rendezvous with another, probably longer-range craft was going to take place in orbit. Which made perfect sense in terms of getting the load the farthest distance away in the least time; and it would fetch far higher prices, say, out among the Belt frontier worlds. The only problem Kieran could see was short-term: the risk of radar detection while in orbit.
Fine. But what was he supposed to do about it? He tried tuning his suit's receiver to pick up the cross-talk between the hijackers but was unable to find the channel. To be expected, he supposed. They would be using some obscure frequency to minimize the risk of stray signals giving them away. Kieran found a hollow deep in shadow, where light wouldn't chance to reflect off his helmet or equipment, and propped himself back against a rock to contemplate the scene and wait for some inspiration.
The two booster tubes were attached at their forward ends, just short of the front of the Mocha's center-body, but presumably loosely, since their tail ends were still resting on the ground before being lifted into line. That meant there was a fair bit of work to be done yet—and hence time. Three suited figures were working around the booster tails, in the center of the lighted area. On the far side of the Mocha, some kind of tractor vehicle mounting its own headlamp was moving out from the sheds outlined behind. As it came closer to the arc lights, Kieran saw the gleam from the twin silver cylinders angling upward like gun barrels but supporting a curved cradle, and identified it as the mobile hydraulic ram used to elevate a Mocha from horizontal to vertical attitude for booster launching. As he continued watching, another figure came down the steps from the crew module and went back to join the others. The doorway continued emitting orange internal light. Curious, Kieran checked with the binoculars and saw details of the interior cabin itself, not just the inside of the airlock chamber. It meant that both the inner and outer lock doors were open. To avoid repeatedly having to wait through the lock cycle to go back and forth to the flight deck, since they were working in suits anyway, the hijackers had tanked the cabin air and left the entrance permanently open until they were ready to depart. Kieran sat up as an excitement that he already knew somewhere deep down he wasn't going to be able to resist suddenly seized him.
Three already out, one just having joined them, and one driving the ram unit. The five were all accounted for. And the way inside was right there, beckoning to him—at the front end, with the approach from that direction dead ground behind the ship's body. And even with Phobos in the sky, for anyone working under the arc lights, everything beyond their perimeter would be blackness anyway.
But what did he think he was going to do? . . . Yet even as he asked himself the question, a plan was forming in his mind. All craft carried a radio distress beacon as standard equipment—independent of the main systems, easily accessible, and operated by simply removing a safety latch and pushing a button. He could be in an out in a minute. The Mocha would be a flying lighthouse, and he could raise the alert when he reached the Triple S. . . . Or better still, at the cost of remaining in the Mocha a few minutes longer, he might even be able to radio from there and have the ship recovered before it got off the ground. Who'd be a "kid" soldier then, huh? He snorted to himself at the recollection. Checking through the plan revealed no flaw. Kieran pulled himself up onto his feet and began working his way around through the rocks and shadows toward the vessel's noseward side.
The approach to the ship went smoothly, as he had hoped. The ram was in place underneath the stern by this time, manned but facing away from him, its stabilizing spades extended into the ground. The final stretch had been his greatest worry. But now that he was dead ahead of the ship, he saw that the door-side booster, still angling downward from just behind the crew module to the ground, in fact screened him from the working area—a bonus which hadn't been obvious from his original vantage point. He gained the steps without a hitch, and a matter of seconds later was through the open airlock chamber and inside the access section of the crew module. The distress beacon would be somewhere around the captain's station on the flight deck. Kieran had just started climbing the steps into the forward compartment, when the whole structure lurched suddenly, causing him to grab at a handrail. The floor in front of him continued rising like a drawbridge, making him stagger backward, until he lost his footing and had to cling to an edge on the rotating wall, while the way through to the flight deck transformed into an impossible trapdoor moving up over his head. Finally, to avoid being thrown to the bottom of what was becoming a well below the lock access door—now almost lying sideways—he clawed his way into the stowage bay alongside the lock chamber and fell among the spare suits and special-duty garb that were kept there. He lay like a layer in a sandwich between items that were taking on the role of being "under," and others pressing down on him from "over," until he was fully horizontal, at which point the motion ceased. His thoughts would need a moment to reorganize, but it was already obvious what had happened: The Mocha had been elevated before the tail ends of the boosters were secured, not after, as he had assumed. In fact, already he could hear clunking noises coming through the structure from the stern, which sounded like the fastenings being made. Of course! . . . He groaned inwardly as the obvious reason came to him—too late. Why bother lifting the boosters against gravity to align them in the horizontal position, when they would align themselves automatically once the ship was vertical? And that also meant that there probably wasn't as much time left as he had presumed, either. No sooner had he thought it, when more clunks sounded, this time much closer—as if the top ends of the boosters had snapped secure and fast under a spring loading as soon as the alignment was correct. Which meant that the operation was virtually completed!
Kieran was still lying in the suiting bay, his mind a blank, waiting vainly for some continuation from there to suggest itself, when he became aware of a motor sound coming from outside the open lock now below him, getting nearer. Scuffling noises followed of somebody entering, and then a brief series of clacks sounded all the way up to the flight deck—a ladder being released from somewhere for forward access when the ship was vertical. A figure climbed from the chamber below and actually stopped at the suiting bay to slide shut the concertina-net that retained the contents—Kieran could see him through a chink in the suits and accessories burying him. A second figure followed from the lock, then a third, after which the motor noise came again, this time receding. Kieran could only conclude that the ram did double duty as a telescopic access-platform elevator—or maybe some other equipment was used. It didn't make much difference which. Either way, it seemed the crew were already boarding for departure. This was confirmed when the motor noise came again to deliver the final two hijackers. It receded once again, probably under remote control now, the two came through the lock, this time closing both doors, and followed the previous three up to the flight deck. The door up to the nose compartment slammed, and Kieran found himself left on his own.
Several minutes passed, but the indicators on the arm panel of his suit showed no sign of normal air or cabin pressure being restored. For a while, anyway, it seemed the inside would remain at suit environment conditions. Kieran couldn't think why this should be—but at least he had a supply of fresh air bottles back here. Then the whirrs and whines came of pumps and other machinery starting up within the ship. Kieran had barely finished improvising the best he could manage for a g-couch, when the boosters and main engines fired.
After the engines cut, the ship drifted in freefall for a little under an hour. Having nothing better to do, Kieran remained where he was, rearranging the contents of the bay for better concealment in case somebody decided to make a sudden excursion back. Then the engines started up again—but at low throttle, nothing like the power for liftoff from the Martian surface. Kieran's first thought was that they were maneuvering to match with another craft as he had guessed. But then came a gentle, barely perceptible jolt, followed by a short burst of scraping noises coming through the structure that sounded like the lightest of touchdowns, in the course of which Kieran felt himself sliding in the direction that had originally been "down" to make contact with his feet—barely; he felt as light as a snowflake—on what had started out being the floor when he first came aboard. Then the engines cut again.
There was some kind of gravity or gravity--equivalent out there. Conceivably, they could have matched course with some kind of rotating structure and now be sharing its centrifugal force. But the scraping sound had sounded wrong—too much like a rock-and-dust landing—which could only mean that they were on one of Mars's tiny satellites. The flight time seemed about right. And yes, of course—that would answer Kieran's question of how the hijackers hoped to hide from radar detection until their rendezvous ship arrived. Neat! If so, it would almost certainly have to be Deimos, Mars's smaller, outer moon, often described as a scarred potato, measuring something like ten miles in the long direction and seven or so across the middle. The larger moon, Phobos, about twice the size in both dimensions, was being turned into a transfer port for connections between surface shuttles and long-range vessels, and had too much work going on about its surface and in excavations to provide a hiding place. Kieran could only hope now that the hijackers' plans here didn't call for clothing or other gear from the stowage bay that he was concealed in.
He stood motionless, pressing himself against the rear wall while the earlier sequence was reversed, and the five hijackers came back from the flight deck to exit through the airlock, again leaving the doors open—it was clear now why they hadn't bothered filling the cabin for the short-duration flight. The dZj^ vu replay continued with jolts and internally transmitted vibrations coming through of work being done on the structure . . . and then all of a sudden it ceased, and the surroundings became uncannily still. After a while, Kieran's fears began rising that the hijackers might have departed by some other means and left him stranded here. His anxiety eventually forced him to come out and creep into the airlock chamber to risk a peek outside to see what was happening.
He found himself looking out at a miniature version of Mars—a yellow-brown desolation of dust and rock, some boulders and impact ridges, but with a black, starry sky. The Sun was low, near the close, visibly curved horizon, shedding a weak light and casting long shadows. Oddments of constructions and abandoned materials from previous visitations littered an area to one side, but there was no sign of current human presence. Yes, this could only be Deimos.
Moving to the outside of the lock chamber and edging his head past the doorway, Kieran saw now why the crew module he was in had suddenly gone quiet. The hijackers had decoupled it from the cargo frame, and two of them that Kieran could see were now working farther back, apparently preparing to disconnect the propulsion module. The intent was doubtless to ready the cargo module for pickup by a longer-range vessel—possibly, as Kieran had surmised, for onward transport to the Belt. The loading door of the cargo module was open again, and another figure glided out even as Kieran watched, making him duck his head hastily back inside the airlock again. So he was alone in the crew module, and the crew module was detached.
Hmm . . . Kieran's first plan for extracting come-uppances had failed. But the nature of the situation was already causing mischievous wheels in his head to begin turning again.
The Mocha crew module did not possess a propulsion system of its own. However, it was fitted with low-power, directable thrusters for course correction and independent maneuvering when in orbit. If Kieran's memory served him right, surface gravity on Deimos was somewhere around a thousandth of Earth normal—and it certainly felt like it. Escape velocity was only twenty feet per second—less than thirteen miles per hour. You could get off this place on a bicycle! Now, Kieran wasn't about to attempt any detailed calculations in his head, but surely, he thought, without anything else attached to it, there had to be a good chance that the maneuvering thrusters would be sufficient to get the crew module away. At least, away from Deimos—there could be no contemplating a descent to the surface of Mars, of course. But once off Deimos he would share its orbit around Mars, and from there he could radio down for a relief ship and wait in comfort and at leisure to be picked up—hero of the day, with the five hijackers captives, marooned on their rock as securely as in any lockup. It was all so deliciously simple.
With a plan of action now clear, delay could only decrease its chances. Using his arms more than his legs, Kieran hauled his way through to the flight deck, floated himself down into the pilot's station, and secured himself. Only then did the realization come that exactly what to do next wasn't as obvious as he had unwittingly assumed. Oh, like all recruits he had taken basic piloting skills during training, and as part of his self-education he had watched Bolen through the flight out from Zerolon and thought he had assimilated most of what was involved. . . . But the array of instruments and controls confronting him now seemed suddenly a lot more formidable than he remembered. And Bolen had never had reason to actually use the maneuvering thrusters.
Kieran activated the console, and after some trial and error succeeded in setting the controls to manual—he would never have deciphered the routine for directing automated sequences. Inspection of the panel labels, a system identification chart and guide that he located with one of the screens, and systematic elimination of what was irrelevant brought him to the thruster startup, throttle, and direction controls, which he figured would be all he'd need initially. From the system guide, it seemed that the thruster system coupled automatically to the manual control stick. Great news! It meant that coordinating them would be pretty much like flying a basic trainer. He could worry about how to operate the radio when he was safely off Deimos, he decided. Thus resolved, Kieran stretched a hand toward the starter switches, flexed his fingers over them for a moment, stared out at the bleak landscape while he gathered his nerve . . . and then he released the Enable safety lock.
Everything went wrong within seconds of his opening up the throttles. The nose lifted okay—faster than he had expected—and starfield filled the windshield; but the vessel carried on turning until yellow-brown rock came into view again, this time from the top, and he realized he was looping completely over. Trying to correct somehow added a rolling component, making things worse. This was nothing like regular flying. As Kieran tried desperately to pull out of what was becoming a turning, inverted dive, the craft slewed sideways, adding another dimension to what had already become too convoluted a motion for him to follow. The horizon tilted crazily with rock and sky in the wrong places, rotating, rising, and sliding by all at the same time; then the metallic bulk of the Mocha's cargo module suddenly appeared, growing larger for a split second . . . before the rending crash came, and the jolt of Kieran's being thrown against his seat -harness—he might have been virtually weightless, but he still possessed mass and momentum—as the cavorting crew module slammed into it.
Kieran's senses came back together raggedly. He was practically upside down. One side of the module's nose was buckled inward, part of the hull breached, and the windshield shattered below canted control panels. Screeching sensations reaching him through the stick still gripped in his gauntlets told of metal tearing against metal as the thrusters continued driving futilely. Kieran reached out dully and cut the throttle, bringing stillness. Spray was vaporizing into the vacuum from a ruptured pipe. He didn't know what risk there might be of an explosion, but with his mental faculties still only half-functioning, his first instinct was to get out. He released the harness, fell lightly to the cabin ceiling, and clambered back over the door lintel into the access section. The airlock was angled downward, and with some awkward contortions he lowered himself out onto the surface, ducked from beneath the body, and stood up. The crew module had impacted against the far side of the cargo frame from the loading door and now hung partly entangled in it. Kieran tested his limbs, body, neck, and head warily. As far as he could tell, he was unharmed. There was still no sign of anyone else. But after what had happened, he could hardly pretend any longer that he wasn't here. He had no place else to go. Drawing a deep breath of suit air to prepare himself for whatever the consequences would be now, he glided his way in light, sailing bounds that barely seemed to touch the ground around to the ship's other side.
The loading door was open, but no one was outside. Kieran reached the ramp, cleared it in a slow bound, and stopped to peer in. There was nobody inside either. He entered to check behind and between the banks of containers and crates. Nothing. Mystified, he came back to the door and scanned the landscape as far as he could see. There was nobody anywhere.
The military shuttle bringing the Skyguards relief force arrived a little over four hours after Kieran's radio call came in at Lowell. A Major Sileski commanded the party, accompanied by Lieutenant Coombs, still chagrined somewhat after his experience but relieved to know that the news wasn't all bad. They found Kieran looking relaxed and grinning cockily outside the open door of the cargo module, which he had adapted into makeshift shelter from the Sun, now high.
"We were worried about you, Thane," Coombs said, giving Kieran a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "Intelligence turned up some grim things about that bunch. They've got quite a record." He turned to survey the terrain and the ship with its partly detached propulsion module. The upturned crew module rammed into its other side would have been visible as the shuttle descended. "So I guess they got away, eh? Too bad—but there'll be other times. The main thing for now is that you're okay. I take it you were mixed up in that crash. Are you all right? No broken bones or anything?"
"I'm fine, sir," Kieran acknowledged. His grin broadened. "And you don't have to worry about other times. Everything's under control. They didn't get away."
Coombs looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" He looked around again. "Where are they?"
"Under confinement, sir. They should be coming over pretty soon. It takes about two hours. . . ." Kieran glanced at the readout on his arm panel. "In fact, they're due again just about now."
Coombs shook his head bemusedly. Major Sileski was equally at a loss. "What are you talking about, trooper?" he demanded.
Kieran nodded his head inside his helmet to indicate the direction behind them. "About half a mile away," he said. "You have to look up." It took them several seconds to pick out the specks, a couple of them growing lighter and darker as they tumbled in the sunlight, sailing slowly toward them above the horizon. "They've spread out a bit since the last time around," Kieran commented. "I guess you'll need to send a couple of EV mobiles up to fish them down with cargo nets."
For the five hijackers were in freefall around Deimos. It so happened that they had chosen that time to hold a conference in the open bay of the cargo module, when Kieran crashed into the other side. The impact was all it had taken to eject them with sufficient velocity to attain orbit. Fortunately, they were going round in the "short" direction, in which the surface of Deimos was almost circular and didn't intersect with their trajectory anywhere. Not that it would have done them much harm if it had—the impact speed would only have been eleven miles per hour. It was fortunate because it had prevented their getting their hands on Kieran.
"My God! . . ." Coombs gaped disbelievingly. "Are they all right?"
"They were the last time I checked," Kieran said. "You can pick them up on channel one twenty-six."
The two officers adjusted their radios. Strangled shouting that Kieran recognized as Ursark's streamed in as from above, the Mocha came into sight. "Don't think you're getting away with this! We've got your number, kid! NOBODY does this to me and walks! There's gonna be pay day! You'll find out! . . .I'm gonna send you straight to—"
Sileski was staring at Kieran in undisguised astonishment. "It's the most extraordinary display of initiative I've ever come across," he declared. "What made you think of it?"
"I was unarmed, sir. They were five. Where else was there to put them?"
The major still looked incredulous. "What's your name, son?" he inquired curiously.
"Kieran, sir. The guys call me Knight—on account of the initials."
"Hm." Sileski nodded approvingly. "The chess piece that makes complicated moves. Well, you've sure lived up to that. You'll go a long way."
Kieran did his best to look modest—not easy, given his present circumstances and state of mind. "Yes, sir. I think I've been told that today already," he replied.