CHAPTER FIVE
Orbital Aid 370
The ship was quiet.
To them, being experienced in space, this was…unnerving. Nonetheless, they did not panic. They made certain of their burdens, and by unspoken agreement, sat upon the couches available in the engineer’s quarters, watching the lights, which did not flicker. Pressure was firm for now, though how long that might continue was something Chernak did not care to speculate upon.
They must move soon—and there was only one move available to them. First, though, they must take stock. Chernak cleared her throat.
“Are you rested, Pathfinder Stost?”
The question was not idly asked—and it was a routine of theirs, born from the habits a creche-mistress had long ago instilled.
“Yes, Pathfinder Chernak, I am rested. I am fed also, well enough to continue any mission to hand.”
Chernak signaled acknowledgment, since they were easy on admitting such things, having leaned heavily each on the other over time. A weakness of one would be met by strength of the other, as well as might be done.
“And your recent wounds. Are your wounds a problem?”
“They are not.” He looked at the scratches, moved his wrist, and sighed.
“I have not much experience,” he admitted wryly, “in reading the body language of such civilians, as you know.”
“Indeed, such have rarely come our way. You did well. The civilian is unharmed, if dismayed. I will admit to dismay, as well.”
Grakow, as the engineer had promised, had been waiting in the man’s quarters.
Grakow had been less than interested in meeting new people, and even less interested in giving up his perch so that the pathfinders might sit and study the dials and readings available regularly to the ship’s head engineer. Thus had Stost taken his wounds.
Having now studied the screens, it appeared that one section of the ship, out of forty-four reporting, held air and other pressures at reasonable levels. They were in it.
Three sections reported reasonable power levels. Two would be, according to the engineer’s report, now unreachable by ordinary means, being on the far side of the sundered bridge. The inspection bug, however, was on their side—and so their choice was made for them.
After his discussion with Stost, Grakow had fallen back to a capsule tucked undertable, which was complete with bedding, small amounts of food, and water. He was, apparently, willing to defend himself again if need be. Also, there was evidence that Grakow had eaten well during the transition to this space, as they had not.
Chernak touched her wrist, pulling back the sleeve to show the thin band of the comm she wore. Stost touched his own, right there near several of the scratches, and the quiet blip told her that they were on the same frequency.
“We are,” Chernak said quietly, “arrived at a point where orders, experience, and training give us little in the way of a rational and obvious path forward. We must rely on the intent of our orders, the intent of our training, and the support and intent of our history. I shall sum up my thoughts and make a suggestion, if you are able to listen.”
Stost glanced at his uniform’s blouse front, ticked at the pathfinder’s star beside his name, and nodded toward her. “You are senior and I will defer if you have an alternative suggestion, or guidance.”
“Yes, Pathfinder, of course.”
Grakow stirred, yawned, and stretched, staring with green eyes up into Stost’s face.
Stost nodded gravely. “As you are the de facto civilian advisor to this expedition, your needs and suggestions shall also be considered, Grakow.”
He carefully reached toward the open door of the capsule in salute, receiving attention in the form of careful eyes, and then in an open-mouthed half word “Grakow…” before the capsule’s inhabitant settled down again.
“So,” Chernak said. “To sum up…”
* * *
Summing up had not taken very long; their choices were limited and they did not even consider putting aside their orders, or those precious things that they carried.
So, they traversed the corridor one more time, to the Jarbechapik, where they used the engineer’s keys to good purpose. Stost strapped Grakow’s capsule into the observer’s seat while Chernak took the pilot’s chair, and used yet another key to bring the tiny ship awake.
The ship oriented itself with the lightweight beacon the compact dock emitted. There were stars visible, which relieved her, however foolishly, and which meant that the lock was fully open. The minuscule amount of power required to remove them from the well was applied to underjets of compressed gasses; motion happened. The radar would begin as soon as they cleared the dock.
The repair bug’s computer was stupid, but even it knew within seconds that the other inputs it should be receiving were missing. Tiny dishes sought particular signals, other sensors looked for absent running lights or orient marks. The unfamiliar board flashed, gave warning in colors, drastic colors. None were about the condition of the craft; all detailed missing signals and networks.
“It complains,” Stost said, who was sitting with his seat back to hers. “It fails to locate the Primary Navigation Points, and offers the rails as security.”
Chernak chuckled grimly—they’d found the volume control while familiarizing themselves with the vehicle—and had turned it as low as it could go.
“The complaints make themselves known here, as well. I have no confidence in the grid rails…”
“The computer tells me that we can begin a skin check at any point, via the rails.”
“The computer is a fool.”
“The computer is logging skin breaks now. It reminds me to report in, though it fails to find the correct frequency for doing so. Your screen?”
“The screen shows our ship, some bits of debris, and…dust. And how shall you report in? Our comms heard nothing.”
“It was a large ship, and two compartments on the other side hold air. Our engineer may have been a pessimist.”
“Check, if you like,” Chernak allowed her second. “You are comm. But think—where would we put a fourth and fifth, even if we had airlock access?”
Stost mumbled, reached across the panel to flip a more distant switch. “Local radio. No stations.”
There was background noise, a hiss of static from guttering connections somewhere within the dead vessel.
There was another noise then, low, a grumble that came from the capsule on the observer’s seat. Chernak glanced at the cat, imitated the low noise and was rewarded with flinched ears. She did it again and—
“Grakow!”
They laughed, made soothing motions. Stost put palm to lips to ask for quiet.
“Grakow,” the cat implied heavily, and they laughed, being what they could do as the tiny vessel rose above the wrecked skin and decks.
“Grakow, mah…” Chernak offered to the cat, now on its feet, stretched against the flimsy ballooned film that kept it steady in the zero-G. She laughed again, fiddling slightly with the radar controls as a debris field became evident, moving at a distant intersect.
Beyond the debris was a spacescape at once unfamiliar and strangely comforting—a dark and deep nothingness, smudged here and there with tails of gas, and a bright, unsteady light that might have been a star or a beacon or another ship.
Behind her, she heard a noisy intake of air.
“We broke through the Rim,” Stost said. “We see it from the far side.”
Indeed, thought Chernak, remembering to draw her own ration of air. The mission would have had them forsake the—their—universe for one supposedly unharried by the Enemy, and for which they had no use.
“It is comforting,” she said dryly, “to learn that the coords were good.”
Stost snorted a half-laugh, and she felt her own awe ease. In truth, they were ill-suited to awe. They functioned best in the terrains of practicality and fact. And, right now, practicality demanded that they orient, and attempt to find aid or ally in this empty piece of space.
Chernak touched a jet to slow the Bug, to allow that randomness to get beyond them as they explored, and the cat complained then: “Marrow!”
As if that had been a command, there came sudden sounds within their vessel: beacons, working beacons! A ship, in fact! The image on the screen went from a potential debris field to a solid thing, closing.
“Kerzong? Asmala kerzong? Chicancha! Kerzong!” Stost demanded, on comm, and repeated, “Identity? Will you share identity? Attention! Identity!”
* * * * *
“Power flare,” Joyita said again.
Theo felt the tingle down her spine. A piece of equipment had come on-line; energy had been released; radio waves were being bandied about. She and Bechimo shared the sensations while Win Ton and Joyita challenged each other with IDs for the static and frequencies of the vibrations reaching through the ether.
Joyita called out: “Shuttle sequence?”
Win Ton answered with, “Hold gates. Pressure gates.”
“Lifeboat!” Joyita said eagerly, but Win Ton doubted this—
“Taking too long for a lifeboat; it’s too complex—look!”
Radio energy and machine static sparkled inside Theo’s head—and across the screens.
Bechimo upped shields and drew subtly closer to the wreck, dancing between wariness and curiosity, waiting, waiting…
Another flare; their shields thickened in response.
“Shield too much, and we might invite hostility,” she cautioned him aloud, drawing Kara’s eyes and Clarence’s.
She intercepted those glances and added, “Clarence, be so kind as to uncap the manual fire switches. I note that the circuits are unpowered.”
“Captain,” he said, “uncapped. I note that we have no targeting information.”
“That is correct, Pilot,” Bechimo replied. “The captain has not authorized live targeting. We are merely ranging.”
Kara was guiding one of the free scans around a section of the wreck that seemed undamaged.
“This section probably still holds air,” she murmured, talking as much to Hevelin, who was acting as her second, as to Theo. “I’m not catching any energy spills, or power readings. None of the engine bays are live, nor any of the probable command points. Survivors…Could there be survivors, perhaps in suits, or…Oh!”
The scan had moved beyond the undamaged section, ridden across a gap in the debris cloud, and found a hole ripped into the shipside. It looks like a pool, thought Theo, and for one mad moment, the eyes wanted to make the floating bodies swimmers…
“No life readings,” Kara said, voice strangled.
There was a busier quiet on their bridge, and Theo felt Hevelin’s horror, even as she heard him whimper.
Kara spun the scan back toward the only section still green-limned as a potential survivor zone on the template Joyita provided.
“I have a signal!” she said sharply, Hevelin’s whistle echoing her excitement.
“On the far side of the green area,” she said, and Theo felt Bechimo focus their attention on the section—across the width of the wreck from their position—there! A tiny flare of power shivered down her backbone, barely warm.
“At skin level,” Kara said, still bent to her scan.
Theo felt Bechimo’s excitement; his verification of Kara’s data.
“That’s your lifeboat?” she asked the bridge at large.
“Not a lifeboat, I think, Theo,” Win Ton answered. “The position is wrong.”
“What then?”
“Perhaps a repair boat.”
That made sense, Theo thought. Lifeboats were kept near the skin, the bay rigged for a quick getaway. They’d seen what had remained of Orbital Aid 370’s lifeboats and bay. A repair boat, though, would have its system of routes to the skin, and a series of egress points.
“All right,” she said, nodding at Clarence. “We’re going in. Everybody look sharp.”
Bechimo’s feed became a rush; piloting math and approach scenarios twisted together in a frenzy of hope, in which she could barely keep her—
“Captain,” Joyita’s voice was like a lifeline thrown; gratefully, Theo focused on him. “We have a transmission. Not data. Unintelligible, but it may be a voice—human voice.”
“Let’s all hear it,” she said, taking a deep breath and consciously loosening her grip on the arms of her chair.
There came static, rustling sounds, a sharp snap, a low sound that might be someone muttering over an unfamiliar board…then—loudly and suddenly enough that all of them on the bridge jumped: “Grakow!”
Laughter—human laughter!—came over the open line.
“Grakow,” said the first voice again, insistent.
Theo felt a tug at her knee, and looked down to see Hevelin extending his arms toward her. She lifted him onto her lap, while more laughter came in response to that second declaration.
“Grakow, mah…” That was not the original voice, but a simulation of it…and a sound that might have been a low chuckle.
A video image was building on Screen Five, as Bechimo combined the data streams—
“There!” Theo cried, Bechimo’s internals showing her what was not yet visible on the screens. “Joyita—get me a line!”
Bechimo was tracking a very slow-moving object, just now coming into range of the screens as their motion made the hulk appear to roll under them. Theo leaned forward until Hevelin grabbed her arm for balance, watching as the object emerged from a port protruding from the aft of the ship, gingerly, like a mraka bird in Father’s garden, watching for the dangerous field birds that never came close to the Wall.
Bechimo was excited. He was overfeeding her with information on mass, albedo, spin, radio frequencies, item ID mismatches and probabilities, while on the bridge, Win Ton was confirming Joyita’s target acquisition, Kara backing him, and Clarence sitting pilot’s duty…
“Line available,” Joyita murmured.
Theo snatched on a headset, watching as the tiny object came fully free of the dead ship. She took a breath to speak…and hesitated. The form reminded her of something she’d seen not all that long ago…something under fire.
She had it then, and wished she hadn’t; her eyes stung with the memory.
Beeslady, the ship had been called. No Jump, little cargo capacity, no range but for inspection and local…the ship she’d seen dying, then dead—the pilot she had been too late to save…
“Mrrow,” stated a voice that was definitely not human; laughter came again.
Theo shrank in on herself. Laughter in the face of such disaster? What crew would laugh, knowing their shipmates dead, the ship itself a tumbling wreck? Were they injured? In shock? Had—were these pirates, who had been responsible for the death of Orbital Three Seven Zero Service Unit, laughing in victory?
Negative, she heard Bechimo say, though it appeared that no one else of the crew heard him. The craft is underpowered and overused. Pirates would have provided better for themselves.
“I have activated navigation beacons,” Joyita said. “I have no confirmed language match as yet.”
“Nor I,” Bechimo said aloud.
“Kerzong? Asmala kerzong? Chicancha! Kerzong!” The voice was loud over comm, and Win Ton jerked to the edge of his chair.
“Yxtrang!” he said sharply to Joyita. “Cross-check Yxtrang.”