Chapter 18

  Jake and Murphy stepped out onto the surface of the truss. Murphy leaned toward Jake and touched helmets.

  “Okay, kid, we’re going to slide down here really slow and easy until we’re over dock forty-three. Once there, we’ll lock on, and you’ll stay tied on while I reset that antenna.”

  Jake looked down the truss. He could see the vertical bars by each dock and located the one labeled forty-three, then he turned back to Murphy.

  “If that’s the way you want to do it, fine. But I’ll meet you there.”

  Jake leaned back and unclipped his tether from Murphy. He flexed his feet, disengaged his magnets with his chin button, and pushed off in one smooth motion. He tucked himself forward so that he began to spin. He rotated, staying within reach of the grab bars on the surface. He sailed along, passing truss after truss. Not long after, truss forty-three began to draw closer. Grasping a grab bar, he corrected his spin and engaged his magnets just before clunking onto the truss. His magnetized boots held him there, and he looked over his shoulder. Murphy still remained at the exact same spot Jake had left him outside the airlock. Seeing Jake attached, he exercised a duplicate of Jake’s flight, except he landed a meter higher and clanked on there. Murphy leaned his helmet toward Jake.

  “I guess you have been outside a time or two,” Murphy said.

  “Since I was four,” Jake said.

  “Okay, you pass. You want to help with this antenna?”

  “Sure. I’ll pass tools and you do what you need to. Then we can do my overflight.”

  “Good enough.”

  The antenna took longer than the thirty minutes anticipated, but not so much longer. Jake saw the radio light flicker on Murphy’s collar from time to time. He was in communication with inside.

  “Okay, done,” Murphy said. “Let’s get this overflight over with. Ha! I made a joke. Over the overflight. Get it?”

  “Sure. The first one is there,” Jake said, pointing.

  Jake made sure that the overflights were more than cursory, but not long enough to be obviously delaying. He looked at each winch, flashed lights on it, inspected the couplings, and made notes on his comm unit. Thorough, but not irritatingly so. But time-consuming.

  They finished up the last coupling, and Jake stepped over toward the nearest airlock. It was a single-person manual model—slow to enter and exit. Jake decided to implement his plan. He leaned back and touched helmets. “Hey, are you in radio contact with your boss?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can radio her that you saw me inside this airlock, and then flip yourself back to cargo main and join your crew there. They can vouch for your arrival. Save you clearing in and out again, and meets regs.”

  “That’s great. Thanks. Free trades, kid,” Murphy said.

  Jake broke the helmet connection, gave him a thumbs up, and began to spin the locking wheel on the airlock. He didn’t take his eyes from the lock until he swung the door open, then he looked around. Murphy was nowhere in sight. Jake closed the lock and spun the wheel closed. He turned off his regular beacon. To the station tracking systems, the disappearance of his beacon meant he had entered the airlock.

  Jake climbed down a truss away from the docking ring and toward the container ring. Partway down, he stopped and turned off both his emergency beacon and his emergency light. Now, even a radio query wouldn’t trip a beacon. He spun 180 degrees and looked below him. The container ring rotated slower than the docking ring. The ships on the docking ring needed gravity. The containers on the next docking ring needed less. All he needed to do now was watch the container ring until the right container came into view.

  Jake watched the numbered container docks. Most had containers attached. Jake saw one labeled ‘57’ appear. He needed the container in dock sixty-three. He continued watching and counting, and soon saw a container with blue lettering on its side. He pushed himself off in a gentle launch, and floated down, landing on the truss not more than five meters from the container. He swung alongside it and edged hand over hand to the outer edge. The doors on the opposite end from the station lock were closed and latched, but they opened when Jake pulled them out. The container was already depressurized. Inside was a large blocky backpack, to which a huge pile of balled-up netting was attached. Jake towed them out of the container, closed the door, and climbed his way to the top. He shouldered the backpack—nets and all—and looked up at the docking ring. Now, he waited for a particular ship to slide by. As soon as he saw it, he launched himself into space.

  He moved smoothly, but not for long. The net had unpacked behind him and began to spool out, and he started to tumble. The roll was slow at first, but intensified as more net streamed out behind him. The tumble started to unbalance him, and the net was tangling his arm. He couldn’t quite adjust the spin, and began to roll a bit from side to side. Jake struggled to stretch his arms out to counteract the roll, but he could only get them partway. He was spinning too fast and adrift. If he didn’t correct it soon, he’d smash into the truss.

  And with no beacon on and no record of him being outside, he’d drift in space forever. And die when his air ran out.

  Jake continued to struggle with the net, pulling harder at his hands. They were entangled in the net. He was still rolling, and he was going to hit hard. Struggling wasn’t working. Jake stopped pulling. Don’t panic. Relax, he thought. He watched his spin. He couldn’t stop it, but could he correct it? Jake pulled himself into a tight ball, as tight as he could. Momentum must be conserved, so he began to spin faster. More of the net came out and wrapped around his arm. Then more. The last of the net came out and hung up on his backpack. Jake was still spinning hard, but at least now it was steady. He saw the truss flash through his vision, disappear, and then flash again. “Easy, Jake,” he said to himself. “You’ve done this thousands of times.”

  He was spinning very rapidly, and careening toward the truss. At the last possible minute, he fully uncurled his body. This slowed him down considerably, but he was still moving. He managed to stick his boots out in front of him and engaged the magnets. He banged into the truss, feet first. The magnets gripped, but didn’t hold for long. He had slowed down, but his momentum was too great for him to completely stop. He bounced off the first truss and approached the second behind it. His pace was slow enough that he was able to slap his hand down and push himself sideways, missing a bruising impact with the metal flange. He sailed along the side of the truss now, snatched the next grab bar with one hand, and snapped to a halt.

  It took a few minutes for his breathing to return to normal. He didn’t move. He just hung there, breathing. His hands started to tremble, so he hung there even longer. Eventually, it passed, and he began to unwind himself from the net and stow it on the backpack. This time, he triple-checked the straps before starting toward the R&R.

  Nadine felt the acceleration as the engines fired up. She punched the comm button in her cube, but nobody answered, so she pushed it again. And again. After the third try, Riley’s voice answered.

  “What?” Riley said.

  “I’m bored,” Nadine said.

  “And I care why?”

  “You guys need me. You don’t want me to be unhappy.”

  “I kinda like that you are unhappy. I’m not sure we need you.”

  “Yes, you do. If you didn’t, you would have left me on the station, or put me out an airlock. But we’re under thrust right now, so that means we are going somewhere. And you wouldn’t be taking me somewhere if the people you called, but said you didn’t, hadn’t said it was okay.”

  “What if these non-called people said to keep you locked up?” Riley asked.

  “They wouldn’t say that.”

  “Guess again.”

  “They wouldn’t. They need me too. That’s why they hired me.”

  “You have eight cubic meters of space all to yourself, your own bunk and head—not even a roommate. Be grateful. My dad owns this boat, and I still have to share a room with him sometimes.”

  “Really? Must be a problem with overnight guests.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “The people who hired you don’t want me unhappy. This is making me unhappy.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  Nadine rolled her eyes. Riley sounded like the admiral. “Okay, you have to keep me away from the bridge, I get that. But why not let me roam around the habitation module? It’s only one deck, and you can lock down the bridge and the engineering tunnel hatches. And I can drink some basic, use the lounge, heat a tray. Why not? You took the guns in my bag.”

  “Because we can’t lock down the airlock, and you’re wearing a skinsuit. All you need is a helmet and gloves, which we also can’t lock down. And you can climb out on the deck and explore, and unlatch the containers—see where we’re going—and climb down to engineering, and shut off the fuel, or disconnect the power.”

  Nadine cursed before pushing the comm button again.

  “I was just going to unplug the control cables. Easier to do, harder to find and fix, and no possibility of damage, or of accidentally destroying a ship I happen to be living on.”

  Riley laughed. “I should have thought of that one. Thanks.”

  “No charge,” Nadine said. “What happens now? You can’t be too much of a bitch to me. It sounds like we might be working together. What have I ever done to you?”

  “I don’t actually need a reason to be a bitch to you. I might just like the practice,” Riley said. Another voice sounded in the background, and the comm went dead. Nadine waited. The new voice came on the comm.

  “Nadine, this is Rick. Riley’s going to come down and escort you to the lounge. You can eat and fill up on basic. We have a couple ship chores that need two people. If you promise to behave yourself, you can hang out with her. But no trouble.”

  Nadine pressed the comm. “That’s fine. I want you to get where you need to get so I can get my job started. Come on down.”

  “Riley’s on the way.”

  “Is she going to give me back my bag?”

  “No, we’re not giving you any guns,” Rick said. “Just wait for Riley.”

  Nadine stepped back and smiled. She reached down to her ankle and pulled the hidden Gauss pistol out of its holster. Riley might be good at running a ship, but she didn’t know shit about searching people. The Gauss pistol showed that it was fully charged, so she returned it to the holster.

  “I don’t need your stinking guns,” Nadine said to herself. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Riley was begrudgingly as good as her word. Nadine filled up on basic, which she hated, but a girl needed her electrolytes, right? They each heated a tray and chatted a bit. The chat went on for a long time. From the sounds of it, Riley was a pretty good pilot, at least as good as she could be outside of formal training. Somebody had to fly this thing, and it was big enough Rick couldn’t do it all on his own. Riley exuded competence, and Nadine liked that. Riley knew a lot about cargo and ship economics. She also seemed to know her way around most of the ship systems, and had some idea which end of a shotgun was the dangerous part. All good skills to have on a Free Trader. And she was pretty, with that red hair and freckles. No wonder Jake Stewart perked up when she was around.

  Nadine would feel sad if she had to shoot her.

  Riley, for her part, found Nadine’s insouciance refreshing after having to deal with her dad’s boring trader colleagues. Her dad was a great guy, but he was, well, her dad. He was always stressed, rarely smiled, and was very steady. She loved him, but he wasn’t much fun. Nadine seemed much edgier, as if anything could suddenly happen around her. An evening in a bar with her was bound to turn into an epic story. She was obviously a skilled pilot and had a lot of interesting things to say about the corporations and politics, and what was driving the trading market, and the Free Traders. She’d had a full set of revolvers and a long dagger in her bag, and she didn’t look like the type of girl to carry those if she couldn’t use them. Good plan if you were going to be a shady pilot-for-hire. And that long blonde hair—no wonder Jake Stewart smiled that goofy smile at her.

  Riley would feel sorry if she had to dump her out an airlock.

  Nadine kept her pistol hidden as she helped Riley out. It was true that she had been bored, and a malfunctioning life-support system would kill everybody, so she made sure that her help was useful.

  “What’s left?” Nadine asked as she helped tighten a bolt on an access panel. Visible inspections of air filters sounded stupid, but after you’d nearly died because of a problem with air recirculation, you tended to take them seriously.

  “We need to go down the access tunnel. Two of the emptier container hookups are showing abnormalities. Drawing too much power. Could be a short,” Riley said, leading the way to the airlock and unlocking it with a code. Nadine stood right behind her and memorized the code. Maybe it would work on the bridge.

  “Why do you even bother with that? You have power to spare while you’re boosting.”

  “True. We’ve seen it on a couple of trips. They are just outside of normal, but not much. But this is the first time we’ve ever had two at once.”

  “Whatever. I said I’d help, so I’m helping.”

  “Thanks,” Riley said. She closed the second door, and they proceeded away from the airlock. “And it’s a one-time code.”

  “What?”

  “That code you just memorized. It only works once. All the internal locks are set up for single-use codes. The ship computer will accept it the first time, then ignore it from then on.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” Nadine said. Emperor’s balls, she thought. The girl was good.

  “And my dad and I have codes. Duress codes. Trying to convince me to tell him something won’t work. Hold this light.”

  Nadine took the light from her as they moved down the access way to the container headspace.

  Riley climbed up a short ladder to see the head end of the container. This container had been mated to a collar so that the doors could be opened from inside the ship.

  “Here’s the first container. See the power draw? Not much extra. Could be a small short, but we’ll just look inside to see if there is a problem.”

  Nadine looked at the display next to it. “It’s supposed to be empty.”

  “Yup. Supposed to be,” Riley agreed. “It’s stuck. Hang on.” She picked up a wrench and slid it onto the locking wheel. “Duress codes. Location codes, time codes—all sorts. If I’m talking to my dad, he and I can exchange a lot of information without people knowing. So don’t even think about hijacking the ship.”

  “That’s a lot of codes,” Nadine said. “And why would I do that? You’re taking me where I want to go.” Though she might say that, Nadine didn’t like that she wasn’t in control of things. Damn, she’d have to shoot the girl first to prove she was serious. Just a small shooting. She reached down and pulled the Gauss pistol out of her holster and pointed it at Riley’s head. Riley didn’t notice as she was struggling to get the hatch open.

  “There,” Riley said, leaning on the wrench. She still hadn’t seen the gun. “It was stuck hard.” She yanked the bar, and the hatch flew open.

  “Empress’s vulva,” Riley said.

  Nadine stepped behind her to see what was going on.

  “Hi, ladies,” Jake Stewart said. He was relaxing in a cargo net, carefully draped from corner to corner of the container. His comm unit was open on his lap. A portable O generator was bolted to the floor, along with an electric heater. The comm unit was playing a video.

  “Good to see you two. I figured you’d find me eventually. Nadine, why are you pointing a gun at Riley?”

  Riley looked around at Nadine, then back at Jake. Her mouth worked, but she didn’t say anything.

  Nadine was equally surprised, but she didn’t lower the gun. “Jake, what are you doing here? How did you get here? What’s going on?” She looked at his screen. “Is that the Adventures of Angus McAngus you’re watching?”

  Things were a little confused for the next few minutes. There was a lot of shouting. Nadine kept flipping her gun back and forth between Jake and Riley, threatening to shoot them both. Riley threatened them both with the wrench, and promised they would be spaced. Jake talked about partial pressure of gasses.

  “Containers are a perfectly safe way to travel. It’s the amount of O that’s important, Nadine, not the pressure per se. As long as I get enough O, I will survive. I have to watch the CO2 buildup, of course, but this unit freezes it out. As long as I connect to the circulation pipes, the CO2 goes away. And the electrolysis splits O out of water vapor I breathe out as well. It just vents the H outside. And if you calculate the internal volume of the container—”

  “We don’t need to hear any more calculations, Jake,” Nadine said, still holding her gun, but now pointing it at the deck. “I get why you haven’t suffocated, fine. But why didn’t the acceleration mush you against the walls? I’m sure I felt nearly 3 g for about two minutes before.”

  Riley had dropped her hands to her sides, but she still held the wrench. “Yes, Jake. Dad tweaked the engines a bit. We have to be in our couches when he drops.”

  “The nets are flexible—they stretch. So, as the acceleration starts up, they have enough give that I don’t get bruised. Well, not too badly bruised, and then when you are under sustained thrust, I just hang there. I don’t get banged up against the walls. It takes a while to set up, but it’s just a cargo net.”

  The two girls looked at each other. “Jake, why are you here?” Riley asked.

  “Well, I knew you needed an engineering type person, so I figured I’d just invite my way into your crew. You need somebody like me.”

  “We need you?” Riley said. “Why would we hire you? We wanted a more experienced, regular engineer.”

  “You can’t afford that. I don’t mean money. I mean, you can’t have somebody finding out what you’re doing.”

  “What we’re doing? We’re a Free Trader. We’re not doing anything strange.”