The Prayer Wheel
Jason Cordova
“Shuttle Iwaneka is clear of the release point, minimal thrust initiated,” Orbit Control Specialist Arika Santiago announced in a flat, monotone voice as she stared unblinkingly at the display before her. A quick glance to her left revealed that Lieutenant First Class Wes Borland was matching her pronouncements to the slate he held in his hand. Not entirely unsurprising, but still insulting to the young engineer. She bit down on what she wanted to tell the aardvark and instead refocused on the task at hand. “Shuttle Kona has lifted from surface and will tether in ten seg—ah, seventeen minutes. Next shuttle scheduled to enter atmo in twenty minutes. Bro, comm. Skywheel Three. Open tether. Repeat, open tether. Message ends.”
“Concur,” the UN officer said after a long inspection of his notes. He beamed a happy smile in her direction. “On schedule and within the release variables. I’ll give you colonials credit: you sure make things run on time.”
Unlike you pigs, Arika didn’t say. She grunted instead, and swapped a glance with Assistant Orbit Control Specialist Andy Mather, who was doing his best to be invisible, obviously to avoid any attention at all from Borland. It had definitely taken too long. Everything seemed to be behind schedule now. Nothing the occupying soldiers did after taking control of Skywheel Three had improved her working environment. Of course, the UN representatives promised otherwise when they had boarded but since the fancy-suited rep left, the soldiers had taken a very laissez faire approach to some things, and a totalitarian one to others. Arika wanted to correct the issues, but inefficiency oftentimes led to problems for the UN, which she was all for.
Arika had been working on Skywheel Three since she became a certified aeronautical engineer six years before. It was an arduous process, since almost nobody wanted to work on a skywheel. The jump points were where the real money was at, her instructors had told her continuously as she worked twice as hard to make it through her individual classes. There had been no changing her mind, however.
Ever since she was a little girl, working on a skywheel was her dream. Watching the massive structure turn overhead as she looked out her bedroom window every night filled her with a sense of wonder that nothing else could hope to match. Nearly invisible in the daytime, it was only at night when they became apparent to all others on the surface of Grainne as their control lights showed as wisps. Most people thought little about them except that they were a cheap and efficient way to move ships to and from space. Arika was not most people.
“Well done, Arika,” Lieutenant Borland said as he moved slightly away from her seat. She heard him curse as he lost control of his slate again. She withheld a smile. The UN had been on the skywheel for long enough now that all Freehold personnel knew who was microgravity (emgee) adept, and otherwise. The lieutenant was a flounder.
“Skywheel Three, this is UNSS Guy Mollet, preparing to transfer storage goods to Temporary Holding Facility, Jefferson,” a voice crackled over the comm. Arika growled softly. The United Nations Ships and United Nations Support Ships received priority over all others, and their continued abuse of this power caused many headaches in Control. She swore there was a little bit of joy in their voices every time they took a priority slot.
“Mollet, this is Skywheel Control.” Arika kept the irritation from her voice. Maintaining a professional demeanor was what had kept her in charge of the skywheel after the others let their hatred show. They’d all been transferred groundside. “You have the tether schedule, I assume? Relay the coordinates so a release vector can be figured.”
“Let’s remember our jobs here, okay?” Borland murmured in her ear, his hot breath on her exposed neck. She withheld a shudder as he rubbed her arm. Fish out of water or not, microgravity allowed for people to sneak up on one another without making noise.
Oh my Goddess you stinking hairy window-licking ape get the hell away from me before I puke! she screamed internally.
“Rog, Lieutenant,” a robotic voice replied. It took her a moment to realize that it was hers. “Our jobs are to support the ships in space and ensure that everyone gets where they’re going in a safe and timely manner.”
“Right,” he smiled and gripped her upper arm tightly. She winced but managed to avoid flinching, though it was a close thing. “Let’s remember our duty. The rewards are…very beneficial if we all do our jobs right.”
I’m going to slit your throat in your sleep one night, you disgusting Earth pig.
“Yes, sir,” Arika nodded as she reached across the console and began to calculate the necessary release point so the supply shuttle could achieve an optimal flight path toward the provisional UN base. Jefferson had different flight rules now that the UN was in charge, and they oftentimes conflicted with their other stated rules. Arika couldn’t make heads or tails out of most of their regs, but predetermined flight paths were something she could wrap her mind around. And, when convenient, manipulate.
She paused a moment, pinged Docking Control One at the end of the twenty-kilometer Tether One and informed them, “Schedule adjustment, military priority, sending now.”
Payload Manager Rostom replied, “Well, short notice is better than none. Thank you, Control. Received.”
He obviously wasn’t saying what he thought.
Mental math told her that the supply shuttle would need to achieve a minimum acceleration of 0.13 km/s2 upon entering the atmosphere with a linear speed of 25 km/s. It would remain on the tether for 1.77 segs before release and reach the preferred flight line for Jefferson, with the momentum aided by the skywheel saving the shuttle over fifteen thousand credits on fuel over a direct landing. Her delicate fingers flew over the screen as she double-checked her math. It was only for record. Her math was almost always perfect.
The Mollet’s supply shuttle attached itself to the proffered tether and it changed vector toward the surface of Grainne, the acceleration almost imperceptible to the naked eye as the engines cut back to conserve fuel.
“All that in your head? You’re going to go far, as long as you have the right support behind you,” the officer said with a stupid grin. Arika swallowed back the angry retort and simply nodded. That was all she could do. She dared not speak another word. There was no telling what would come out of her mouth if she did.
“Specialist?” a head popped into the small, confined control room. Arika snapped around to see who called her and very nearly sighed with relief.
“Senior.” Arika nodded as her counterpart floated into the room. Senior Technician Tammie Darden flicked an annoyed look at Borland before turning her full attention back to Arika.
“How’re things?”
“Quiet,” Arika admitted after a moment of thought. Granted, the UN was shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies and equipment down to the surface every day, but it paled in comparison to what a skywheel could handle. Before the invasion Skywheel Three used to handle five times this amount. The UN soldiers on board thought the crew was accomplishing something when in reality they were hindering. “I have two shuttles on right now, and a satisfactory window until the next scheduled arrival. Adjustable mass distribution is negligible, less than one percent. Easy shift.”
“Get those shuttles off the tether and you can hit the rack,” Tammie said as she slid into her seat on the sister console opposite Arika’s. “You are relieved.”
“Rog,” Arika acknowledged as the senior technician buckled her safety harness and settled in at her station. Focused on the display, she felt rather than saw Borland drift away from her and back to the safety position where the UN staff usually observed from. The tightness in her shoulders eased as she realized that she would not be executed for murdering the lieutenant. If they could read minds, I’d be shot in an instant, she thought as the last shuttles from her shift released from their tethers. Satisfied, she transferred Control over to Tammie. “System. Control Specialist Santiago has been relieved. Duty station now occupied by Senior Control Specialist Darden. Time, date, and transmit. Have a good night, Tams. Night, Andy.”
Darden replied, “Night, Arika.”
Mather said, “See you next rotation.” He was on alter half shift and would be off the next day.
Arika swam past the lieutenant in emgee, who did not even look in her direction as she reached the passage. She gave him one final withering look before she pushed off and began to drift toward the outer ring of the skywheel. As she coasted slowly down the tube, she felt feathers of gravity affect her as the centrifugal force of the station started to push her to the deck. Once she was able to walk instead of float, she quickly moved to the berthing quarters for the assigned skywheel crew.
She passed a few female UN soldiers loitering in the passage, and with the exception of a snide comment they left her alone. The women of the occupying forces she understood. There was a certain attitude between the UN and Freehold personnel on the station, most of which began at dislike and worked downwards from there. The UN mostly left the station personnel alone, however, since the skeleton crew was the only reason that the skywheel was able to function at all. If the UN wanted to save credits and keep landing supplies in an efficient manner on Grainne, then the crew of the skywheel were essential.
Which was why Lieutenant Borland’s behavior both infuriated and confused her. When there was nobody around except for her he was a brash, abusive, and utterly contemptible human being who would not leave her alone. If someone else was in the room, such as Senior Tech Darden, then his behavior was completely different. Like a submissive and kicked puppy, and it was in this state that Arika almost felt pity for him. This, in turn, made her even angrier.
She entered her small cabin and sealed the hatch behind her. The UN had the override key, naturally, but it still gave her some semblance of privacy. It was her escape from the demands of her job and the overbearing presence of the UN, even if only for a little while. Arika needed it now more than ever before.
Breathing a sigh, she turned and looked at the single decorative piece in her tiny room—a wall-mounted Buddhist prayer wheel, a relic brought to the Freehold when her ancestors fled Earth generations before. Mass mattered, and the less aboard, the more could be transferred.
Stripping off her work coveralls, she tossed them into the corner to join a growing pile of dirty laundry. Normally a fastidious neat freak by nature, the clothes pile was her small way of rebelling against the UN. Though they were beginning to smell stale, she noticed as she went over to pick them up off the deck. She stuffed them into her laundry bag and made a mental note to get them all scrubbed before her next scheduled duty shift.
Her personal comm started blinking, telling her that she had a missed call. Surprised, she grabbed the device and flipped it on. She pulled up the missed call and saw there was a message. Immediately the smiling face of Ranil Kotelawala came on the screen.
“Hey Arika, give me a call sometime. I got a new job. We should meet up soon and sosh it. I’ll bring the drinks. Your place sound good? Call me.”
The message ended and left Arika in the silence once more. A wry smile creased her face. A few months before Ranil had just been another prospective lover, a young worker who transported goods as a day laborer on the planet’s surface. The duo quickly became friends instead and would remain so after he managed to get hired on at the skywheel just before the invasion. Since getting to the station, he was far too busy working maintenance to actually visit often.
During the initial stages of the occupation, every single employee of Skywheel Three had been subjugated to a questioning and DNA background check. She didn’t understand why until Ranil informed her they were looking for veterans. Since neither Arika or Ranil were, they were cleared to work on the station. More than a few employees were moved groundside in a support manner after the UN found out they’d served in the FMF.
It was funny, really. Arika knew that one could not throw a stone in Jefferson without hitting a vet, given its close proximity to Heilbrun Base. It was hard to find any qualified engineers who weren’t. She was one of the rare exceptions. She called Ranil back and he answered almost instantly.
“Hey,” he smiled. Not for the first time she studied his lean face and marveled at the odd attractiveness of the younger man. He wasn’t bulky and overly muscular as most maintenance workers were. No, the allure lay in his leopard-like build, slim yet powerful. Arika was also a sucker for eyes, and Ranil’s seemed to pull her closer when she gazed into them. “Got plans tonight?”
“I have plans,” she acknowledged with an impish smile. “I was hoping that they would involve you.”
“Ask and ye shall receive, lady. What time?”
“Give me five segs to get cleaned up,” she said as she quickly glanced about her room. Her own little private rebellion would need to go, she realized as her eyes lingered on the pile of clothes in the corner.
“I have some ’shine they cooked in Life Support,” he offered. Arika sighed and quietly chuckled.
“Pretty sure that’s not what the water condensers are for.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Deal,” Arika agreed. “See you soon.”
Quickly changing into the sexiest outfit possible, she sat at the edge of the bed and waited. Impatient, she stood back up and quickly walked over to her closet. Pulling the hatch open, she checked her reflection in the vanity mirror inside. Satisfied for the moment, she closed the hatch and hurried back to the bed.
“Shit!” she cursed as one of her breasts slipped out of the top. As she reseated it, there was a knock at her hatch. She stared at the source of the sound, aghast. “Are you serious right now?”
Then she nearly tripped as she hurried toward it. She yanked it open and there stood Ranil, somehow managing to look dashing in an old pair of gray coveralls. In one hand he held a large, dark green bottle. In the other were two coffee mugs.
“Mind if I come in?”
“Get in before someone sees you,” she hissed, blushing brightly and yanking him inside. She poked her head out into the passageway but fortunately she could see no one else. Slamming the hatch shut, she hurriedly secured it.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, fine, good,” she replied and moved across the room to her bed. She sat down on the edge as Ranil got comfortable on the deck. With a sigh, she accepted an offered cup and waited as he poured what she presumed to be alcohol into it.
“I heard this was good stuff,” he told her and filled his cup. He raised it up and sniffed. “Mech shine. Call it Old Greaser Number Seven.”
Arika took a small sip and realized that maintenance workers should stay away from brewing. However, it was the first drink of alcohol she’d had in months, and after burning away her taste buds it wasn’t really that bad. She drank it quickly, since it seemed to be that sort of booze.
“How’s tricks?” She asked. Ranil smiled and shrugged.
“How’s your end of things?”
“Slow,” she admitted as she held out her cup for more. Ranil half crouched and poured. “The UN is inefficient as hell. They insist on doing things in the most inefficient and difficult manner, and then congratulate themselves when it almost goes right. Idiots.”
“Inefficiency is good,” Ranil said after pouring her a second drink. He continued after he sat back down. “That mass distribution on the deliveries has to be very precise. If we got the mass wrong, how much would that affect your trajectory?”
“Depends on how much,” she replied as she stretched languidly across the bed. Ranil did not seem to notice, however. His eyes were far away, thinking about something else. Arika scowled. She was not going to throw herself at him, but she was not above pushing her breasts up to the point of screaming for more attention while she lay on her side. Experience told her that a man could not help but to look at cleavage. He was genetically predisposed to it. “Grams matter, you know.”
“Does everyone in Control see it, or only you?”
“Ranil, I’m lying half-naked on my bed,” she declared, exasperated. “I’m wearing a thin, see-through tank top and shorts. No shoes or socks. I painted my fucking nails. Do you really want to talk about work? Because if you do, let me throw on a sweater and scream in frustration before we do. Okay?”
Ranil smiled. “I’m sorry, I was trying to not jump your bones before we talked. I didn’t want to presume anything.”
“Presume all you want. Talk less. There are other things you should be using your mouth for, mister.”
* * *
Later, as they lay entwined together on the deck, Arika murmured softly under her breath as Ranil ran a finger along her spine. She could feel his strong arms around her and the heat of his body on her chest. His hand moved to the nape of her neck, then the back of her head, where his finger ran along her shortly clipped hair. A sigh of contentment escaped her lips.
“You ever think about growing your hair out and using a static pin to hold it in place when you’re in micro-G?” Ranil asked as he continued to trace her features with his fingers, moving from the back of her head to her jawline. Arika murmured softly under her breath.
“Not womanly enough for you?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ranil chuckled, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. “I just like something to hold on to…”
Arika giggled. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m not sure I like you having that much control.”
“You didn’t seem to mind when I had you in that one position,” he reminded her.
“That was because if I’d flexed my hips I could have crushed your balls,” she countered and gently pecked him on the lips. “Then you’d be of no use to me.”
Ranil smiled and looked into her eyes for a long time, silent. Arika, unused to such scrutiny from her part-time lover, squirmed uncomfortably. She reached down and tickled his hip. This broke the odd spell which had come over Ranil.
“Hey,” she prodded. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Well,” he began, then paused. His eyes were filled with uncertainty, she saw. “You know I trust you, and I really like what we do in your spare time. I mean, I like you a lot, and I trust you completely…”
“Ranil, you are not about to propose marriage to me!” Arika snapped as she bolted upright. Quickly disentangling herself from the sheets and her lover, she rose to her feet. She felt her hands begin to shake.
“Relax, Arika.” Ranil chuckled and propped himself up on one elbow, opting to remain lying on the deck. “I’m not going to propose marriage. Hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
“Oh, so now I’m just a piece of meat to you?” Arika asked as her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Your late night fling? Am I not even worth marrying?”
“No! I mean, yes…wait…are you messing with me?”
“Of course I am,” she laughed and grabbed her underwear from the edge of the bed. She tugged them on and then grabbed her shorts before sitting down next to Ranil on the deck. He looked around his immediate vicinity, found her shirt half-buried under his pants, and offered it to her. She gratefully accepted and put it on. “Sometimes you’re too easy.”
“I’ll remember that,” he muttered as he rolled onto his back. Arika slipped down next to him. She kissed him again before settling back on top of the sheet.
She apologized. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. You looked so confused there for a moment and I had to keep it going. Tell me…what were you going to say?”
“I don’t know,” Ranil said. He gave her a very strange look, one which she had never seen on his face before. “It’s weird…”
“No weirder than you wishing I had hair to pull when riding me from—” she reminded him and his sudden laugh cut off the rest of what she was about to say.
“Okay, fine,” he exhaled slowly. His eyes flicked to her right before they met hers steadily. “Do you love your home?”
“Well, in a way,” she allowed as she thought back to her childhood. “I mean, summers were always nice, and we could go swimming in the creek if it got too hot. Dad usually gave us a rifle in case a ripper showed up, but we only saw one once. You could say I love my home, yeah.”
“No, not your childhood home,” Ranil shook his head slowly. “Not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Freehold,” he stated simply. “Grainne. Do you love your home?”
“What?” Her confused question seemed to agitate him. His face grew cloudy and suddenly the happy-go-lucky technician was gone.
“The Freehold of Grainne!” he clarified. “Do. You. Love. Your. Home?”
“Yes, I love Freehold. It’s my home. Now tell me what’s going on?”
“How hard would it be for a supply load to accidentally get tossed into the wilderness instead of the ‘mistakes’ you’ve made with smaller payloads in the sea?” he asked instead, his entire body language changing on her as she scooted away. It was as if Ranil had flipped a switch in his mind. He had gone from seductive to intense to…she wasn’t entirely certain. It was a focused man before her now. Not playful, not endearing, yet not exactly terrifying. It was unsettling.
“It’d be really hard, because it would mean both the computer and I screwed up somehow,” she replied uneasily. The sudden change had thrown her completely.
“Just go with this for a moment,” Ranil continued, oblivious to Arika’s inner turmoil. “What if someone entered in the incorrect mass, and the computer and Control missed it? Could that happen?”
“Well…yeah, maybe.”
“Trapped up here, with no way to fight against our oppressors…did you ever think that you could have a more active role in the war?” he asked. Arika was shaking her head before he had even finished asking the question.
“No, there’s no war anymore,” she said as she crossed her arms. “It’s an insurrection.”
“Fine, call it whatever you like,” Ranil allowed. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face, fast enough that Arika wasn’t certain if she had seen or imagined it. “You going to just sit up here for the entire war, or are you going to do your part?”
“My part?” she asked, dumbfounded. “I’m doing my part.”
“Can you do more?” he asked. It took Arika a moment for the two seemingly separate conversations to merge within her head. When they did, though, her eyes widened in shock.
“That…” her voice trailed off as she began to process the possibilities.
“It’s almost certain that only you would detect the change in mass during our window,” Ranil told her. He was intense, urgent. “You already confirmed that. The UN would have to be watching you very closely to catch you.”
This made Arika scowl. “Lieutenant Borland watches me like a hawk.”
“Because he suspects you?” Ranil asked, looking at her oddly. Arika swallowed nervously and shook her head.
“No,” she replied. “It’s because he keeps dropping not-too-subtle hints that spreading my legs for him would earn me favor in the eyes of the almighty UN.”
“So he has no idea. Good. Now, do more,” Ranil stood suddenly. Arika, caught off guard by the surprise move, nearly face-planted. He grabbed his clothing and got dressed. “Imagine how bad it would be for all if those supplies were looted in some places that are a bit more difficult to get to?”
He left, leaving a stunned Arika behind.
Arika locked the hatch behind him and then began to pace the room, stopping every so often to spin her prayer wheel. Her fingertips felt the ancient leather facing of the wheel each time it rotated. The faint fragrance of incense and spices from ages past wafted into her nostrils. It might have been only a memory, or the smells could be real. She was never certain. Either way, she felt her anger dissipate with each rotation. As usual, her ancestor’s wheel reminded her to remain grounded, even while in space.
Especially in space, she thought as her eyes scanned the cabin. They took in the disheveled bed, the organized closet, and the lack of photos of any family members. Those she had destroyed as the UN was boarding the station. The theory at the time was that while the invaders might be able to track her family down eventually to use against her, there was no reason for her to make it easy for them.
Ranil’s words had weight. He had pointed out the one great flaw to her scheme: There really was no risk in the little things she was doing on the station. The UN was losing almost nothing with her occasionally sending a few tons of equipment into the sea. With as much as was being shipped through the skywheel, one- or two-tonne shipments were pathetic. She needed to up the ante.
If that man can do what he says he can, it wouldn’t hurt to send the occasional transport to the wrong location for the FMF to pick up instead, she realized. The only problem would be getting it past Borland. How do I do that?
She fell into the messy bed and stared up at the ceiling, deep in thought.
* * *
The perfect opportunity came three days later.
“Shuttle Andrei Davich, cleared from tether,” Arika called out as the computer informed her that the small UN transport had released into space. Segs later a small blip appeared on her screen as a new payload was attached. She checked it against the manifest and saw that it reported as weighing a little over fourteen thousand tonnes. However, the sensors informed her that it was actually slightly less than fifteen thousand. The difference, she noticed, was almost eight hundred tonnes.
It was almost too easy. It would appear as though someone simply entered in the numbers wrong, and at a quick glance it all looked fine.
“Payload One-Zero-Seven attached to tether,” she announced aloud as a quick swipe across the board cleared the incorrect information on the sensors. “Load good, descending to surface now.”
“Ah, the armament payload from the UNS Juneau,” Borland nodded as he floated over to her station. He glanced at his payload checklist and chuckled. “That’s a lot of ammo. Nonlethal, of course. But then, nobody ever said that nonlethal had to be painless.”
Mather turned, opened his mouth, and she shook her head a fraction. He closed up and faced back to his station.
“Just over fourteen thousand tons,” she murmured as the calculations came on the screen. The computer suggested a release speed of 2.17/km2 per second at 202.7 mil angle. Arika knew this was wrong and instinctively tried to correct it before stopping herself. The entire point of the mistake was to lose the cargo. She ran the math in her head and realized that the release point, due to the mass discrepancy, would actually be 5.5 mils early and way too slow. The UN was about to lose almost two hundred million creds worth of material…on the slopes of Braided Bluff, she realized as her mind mapped the trajectory. She held in her smile. The resistance would probably get to it long before the UN could, even accounting for the nearby base. “Release of Payload One-Zero-Seven…now.”
The payload released precisely on schedule. It accelerated as the automated craft began its preprogrammed flight. A warning flashed on Arika’s display. She glanced down and saw, without much surprise, that the craft did not have the velocity or angle to maintain an optimum flight path. Or any flight path, the computer confirmed a second later as the lander’s engines ran dry and it began to wobble. The onboard sensors attempted to compensate for the lack of momentum given from the skywheel but simply did not have enough fuel.
“Lieutenant?” Arika called out to Borland, who turned around in confusion. They both watched as the payload glided gracefully across the sky. The computer beeped another warning as the preprogrammed path of the cargo yawed to the left at exactly the correct time. Segs seemed to stretch into eternity as two pairs of eyes tracked the flight of the automated cargo shuttle. A new projected path appeared in the screen, showing that the cargo was about to fall over fifty kilometers short of its target landing zone.
“What the hell?!” Borland shouted as he watched the payload land gently on the slopes of the range. “Oh fuck. The fucking rebels are gonna get that before we can send out search and rescue! Fuck! How did this happen? I don’t understand…”
“Doublechecking the depot numbers now,” Arika said as she brought up all information on the cargo. She made a show of scanning the numbers—which now said precisely what they were supposed to, courtesy of Ranil’s computer magic—and shook her head. “Lieutenant? That payload was precisely what it was registered to be, mass and everything. Could have been a technical issue on the tether, releasing it too early. I’m not certain. It doesn’t appear—”
Borland began to curse under his breath. “Fuck. Seen this on Mtali.”
“Excuse me?” she asked, half turning in her restraint harness to look at the UN soldier. That was news to her. She had no idea that Borland had spent any time on the war-torn world of Mtali.
“Well…” he breathed out slowly. It was obvious to Arika that the lieutenant was reluctant to share the tale, so she decided to goad him a little. She even used the typical UN moniker which everyone on the skywheel insisted on using.
“Wes, you can share with me,” Arika said in the gentlest voice she could manage. “I trust you with stuff…”
“Equipment went missing all the time on Mtali,” he admitted after a second of contemplation. “I knew some guys who were implicated in the scheme. Turns out it was on the logistics end of things. They were reporting more equipment lost than actually was occurring, then turning around and selling the extra to the rebel factions on the planet for a pretty penny. Charges were brought up after the war but I’m pretty certain that nobody important served any real jail time.”
“That’s…horrible,” she lied. In truth it was the most beautiful thing that Borland had ever said to her. It was as though every wicked fantasy and prayer she had ever played out in her mind had come true. She kept her concerned face on the lieutenant while she cheered internally. “You think that’s what happened here? A mass variation due to someone pilfering equipment?”
“Maybe? I don’t know,” Borland admitted. “There’s going to be an inquiry. Let’s check the logs and see if there are any discrepancies.”
They spent the next fifteen segs confirming what the backup list told them. The cargo shipment was supposed to mass 14,890 tonnes. In reality, the station system had logged the mass at 14,089. This caused some initial alarm for Arika, who had forgotten that the transmitted manifest would differ from what the log read. However, this merely incensed Borland further.
“Are you kidding me? The fucking Juneau is pilfering goods?”
“What do you mean?”
“The updated manifest was sent from the Juneau right before we picked up the payload,” Borland reminded her. He pointed to the screen. “See? Whoever doctored the mass of the payload on the other end didn’t know that we had a copy of what was expected. Once they figure out who did, they’ll be punished for stealing eight hundred tonnes of arms as well as the loss of the entire payload.”
“Can’t you retrieve it?” she asked, genuinely curious now. It wouldn’t do for her to go through all the risk of ignoring the mass discrepancies if they could easily mount an operation to fetch it. “The cargo, I mean?”
Borland was shaking his head before she finished. “No, we can’t. Fucking heads are gonna roll.”
“That’s…that makes no sense,” she admitted. “Accidents happen.”
“If everything works right, there are no accidents.”
“Uh…” she shut her mouth. The sheer ignorance of the statement was lost on Borland. The power which the UN wielded over all created a dissonance toward the colonies they ruled. A minor, honest statement like that carried further in weight than all the false promises in the universe.
“I mean, accidents happen,” Borland said in a near-panicking voice. “But not into unpacified areas.”
“Five segs until the Novogorsk joins the tether and leaves atmo,” she replied after checking with the manifest. “Simultaneous tether with the transport shuttle Aries in orbit. Mass variance between the two is fifteen tons. Adjusting the distribution…now.”
“The Aries?”
“Free trader,” she responded as she punched in the final commands to shift the balance of the skywheel slightly to compensate for the lighter Aries. It was a mere five hundred kilograms worth of ballast, but it was enough to ensure that the free-floating nature of the skywheel and the stable orbit remained intact. “Outbound for Novaja Rossia.”
“Ah, right,” Borland nodded as he pushed his way over to the exit hatch. “You colonists still allow this sort of barter. That’s another thing we need to clamp down on eventually. Damn it. I need to go file the report on the lost cargo before the Juneau somehow jackrabbits out of here.”
Any sympathy she might have had for potentially getting Borland in trouble disappeared at that moment. She had allowed herself to forget that he and his kind had invaded her home. Ranil’s words echoed in her ears. Do more.
“Rog, Lieutenant,” she replied absently as Borland disappeared out of the compartment. Her mind drifted back to the next arms shipment. Could she drop the next one into the sea as well? Or should she send it to the FMF out in the wilderness?
Not yet, she decided after watching the two shuttles link up with their respective tethers. The mass distribution was perfect, as she expected, and the skywheel continued to turn. She would have to find a way to let Ranil know without the UNPF getting wind of it. But how?
In the meantime, she had to focus on the task at hand. Lying convincingly to whoever came asking questions about the payload being lost would be much easier than linking up two shuttles with massive mass disparities. Especially if they’re anything like Borland, she thought.
* * *
Arika’s father had a penchant for ancient sayings. One of his favorites, often told while he was imbibing a vintage port, was “when the shit truly hits the fan, you’ll know it.” She had never understood precisely what that meant until the day she stumbled upon a dead Tammie, two dead guards, and Ranil standing over all three while holding a bloody knife.
It had been a hectic week. Three more large supply drops had fallen into the hands of the rebels. One during her third shift, and two during Tammie’s. Borland had freaked out but there was little he could do. It was obvious to everyone that there was a problem on the Juneau. At least, that was the rumor, courtesy of Ranil and Arika’s careful planning.
Which all came crashing to the ground the moment she saw Tammie’s body.
“Wha—” she began before Ranil moved with the fluidity of a ripper. He clamped his free hand over her mouth and somehow pulled her out of the passageway and into the small alcove next to Tammie’s berth. She squeaked through his iron grip as his eyes bore into her.
“Ssh,” he hissed and looked around quickly. There was nobody in the immediate vicinity. “Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you. I found some aardvarks handling Tammie. Looked like they were staging an ‘accident,’ so I tried to stop them. Killed these two, but a third ran off. Guards are probably coming. It’s time to blow this fucker out of the sky.”
She tried to tell Ranil that she wouldn’t scream but all that came out sounded like a bunch of incoherent mumbling. Ranil quickly apologized and removed his hand from her face.
“Not going to scream,” she gasped as quietly as she could manage given the circumstances. She looked out onto the passage deck at Tammie’s body. “Poor Tammie…”
“She’d been doing what you were doing,” Ranil told her as he dragged her back into the cubby. He looked wildly around. “UN caught on. She wasn’t as good at hiding the evidence as you were. I heard that they were going to talk to her, but someone else decided to make it an accident. This is good.”
“Good?” Arika asked, dumbfounded. “My coworker is dead!”
“I’m sorry, but she knew—shit,” he stopped.
“She knew shit?”
“Hey, you!” a voice ordered loudly from behind her. Arika half turned and spotted a squad of UN goons standing in the passageway. She opened her mouth to speak but Ranil easily pushed her back down the alcove. Stumbling, Arika managed to keep from falling flat on her face. She pulled herself back upright through sheer determination and gave Ranil a withering look.
“Quit staring and move!” Ranil screamed at her as he hefted the blood-covered knife in his free hand. Arika ran as quickly as she could manage in the lower gravity. The UN guards bounded after her, though more ungainly. Their inexperience in space showed. Her lead grew with each step.
“Halt or we will fire!” One of the UN guards shouted. Arika almost stopped until she heard Ranil shout back at them.
“You can’t discharge a lethal firearm on a pressurized station, morons!” Actually, they could, but she assumed he was betting they didn’t know that.
A loud snap! echoed down the passageway. Arika looked over Ranil’s shoulder and saw the guards pull out stun batons.
“Yeah, those could hurt,” Ranil stated. He motioned at Arika without taking his eyes off the UN. “I don’t want to you be involved. Move!”
Ranil turned to follow her, so Arika decided that it was time to put even more space between herself and their pursuers. With each step gravity grew slightly less, and her emgee experience helped their lead grow. The UN guards pursuing them were doing decently well, but they were neophytes.
Ranil passed her but instead of being alarmed, she recognized his plan immediately. She knew that while she was skilled in emgee, Ranil lived in it. Whatever training he had before arriving on the station showed as he monkeyed up the handholds and pushed off, using the almost nonexistent gravity to move faster. She bounded off the deck and grabbed Ranil’s outstretched arm. He expertly maneuvered her to another stanchion as the guards closed the distance. She bounced off the wayside slightly and flipped up to the overhead next to her companion.
“On three,” he said as he began to count down. On “three” both shoved as hard as they could on the handholds, propelling them deeper into emgee. After nearly twenty-five meters of nothing else to grab, they reached the first set of stanchions just before Control. Ranil snagged her hand as he managed to catch the second grip of the set. He motioned for her to wait a moment as he readjusted his grip.
“What are you planning?” she asked as the UN reached the red line. His smiled grimly and reached into his coveralls. He pulled out a small remote device and passed it to her.
“Hold this for me,” he said as he locked eyes on the approaching guards. “Don’t mess with anything yet. I have to kill some aardvarks.”
Arika watched as Ranil flexed his muscles and pushed off from the wayside as hard as he could. She gasped. Every single spacer knew from training that one typically took it easy in space when flying around in emgee. It was dangerous and required caution at the utmost. She had seen more than a few injuries during training, all of which had been relatively minor. But, if one wasn’t too careful, a spacer would end up with a collection of broken bones.
Ranil didn’t seem to care as he flew at the UNPF armed with only his tiny knife. As surprised as Arika was by his sudden attack, the guards were even more shocked to see the diminutive man rocketing down the passageway at them. Other than stun batons, they were not equipped for close-quarter combat. All eight tried to slow their approach but Ranil had picked his contact point perfectly.
The UNPF, unable to slow or halt their momentum, were fed into the grinder that was Ranil.
Ranil, a quiet and mostly unassuming man, mowed through the UNPF as if they were floating targets and not living, breathing human beings. He stabbed two through the throat, then broke the neck of another. One of the guards trailing in the rear managed to disarm Ranil with a lucky shot from his stun baton and was rewarded by Ranil crippling him with thumbs into his eyes. The last uninjured guard cracked Ranil brutally across the chest with his own baton, stunning him. Off-balance and helpless, there was little the mechanic could do to protect himself from his attacker.
Suddenly Arika was there, driving the knife into the exposed neck of Ranil’s assailant. She screamed incoherently and wrenched the sharp blade to the side. Blood erupted from the jagged wound and the guard, stunned by the sudden rear attack, bled out faster than she anticipated. Her entire upper body coated in blood, Arika yanked the knife from the wound and pushed the dead guard aside. Maneuvering carefully, she pulled herself up to where Ranil floated.
There was little she could do for the man. The UN guard had crushed Ranil’s sternum and broken both arms. The blunt force trauma to Ranil’s formerly handsome features was enough to cause her to sob. She gently pulled him close.
“Who are you?” she whispered as she cradled Ranil’s twitching body in her arms.
“Just…a man…who loves…his…home,” he struggled with every breath. His eyes flicked to the remote she held in her hand. “Password…to…detonate…is…your…birthday.”
“My birthday?” she asked, shocked. “How did you know my birthday?”
“I…loved you.”
Ranil shuddered one final time and quit breathing. His lips turned cyanotic. His hands grew limp in hers. Arika, unable to do anything for her lover, was helpless as he suffocated in her arms.
“I love you too,” she cried into his still chest.
The device in her hand was a stark reminder that the mission still remained. Taking down the skywheel would be childishly easy. However, Arika wanted to do more than that. She wanted men and women in the UN who were like the detestable Lieutenant Borland to pay for attacking her home.
The length of the skywheel was just over 40 kilometers. If her memory served correctly, the current positioning of the tethers were about 640 and 140 mils respectively. Calculating the speed of the tethers, she realized that if she blew it at that moment then the skywheel would hit the planet’s oceanic surface area almost flat. It would create a huge wave, but that would be it. Her mind raced. The very edge of the tether would impact and the rest of the skywheel…would take out Jefferson City.
“That won’t do at all,” she muttered under her breath as she did more mental calculations. If she could manage to let the planetside tether hit the water at an 83 mil angle, the mass of the skywheel would allow the tether to buckle. This would potentially shorten the amount of reach the tether would have. It would also knock Control out of a stable orbit as it and the other tether would remain in space.
No, not eighty-three mils plus, she corrected herself. Seventy-two mils plus. Mass won’t be an issue. Velocity and mass…yeah, 72.22245 at a speed of 2.25km/s2. They’ll get a tsunami about two segs after impact, and the air pressure wave would be about a seg or so out…the very edge of the tether should strike the shoreline, which would create an impact crater. How deep? Deep enough I guess. Should reach my target area. Will it be too much and affect Jefferson City? Maybe. I don’t know. Damn it, think.
Either way, if she wanted to do the most damage to the UN, then she had to wait another eighteen segs until the angles were just right. That would be easy enough. As long as she avoided the roving patrols wandering the station, it should be simple enough.
“Hey you!” an accented voice yelled out from down the passage. She turned her head and spotted three UN guards in riot gear. They handled their nonlethal firearms with obvious unfamiliarity. “Don’t move!”
Of course, nothing is ever easy on a skywheel, she thought as she gently pulled Ranil’s still form to the proper position. She gingerly placed both feet on the dead man’s chest. “I’m sorry Ranil, but you’d understand better than most.”
Arika shoved Ranil away from her and toward the guards, who were carefully making their way through microgravity. The force of her push gave her some momentum away from the guards. While not the most effective way to escape, it did hamper her pursuers and got her moving at a faster velocity than the men behind could immediately match. It would give her precious segs, and that was all that she needed.
Her brain continued to count down the time when she would blow the tethers of the skywheel. The detonations would have to be triggered in seven segs—assuming that none of the UN soldiers got wind of what she was attempting and braked the rotation against the flywheel. She frowned and thought about that possibility for a moment as she drew closer to Control.
Most aardvarks don’t take a dump without permission, she reasoned as she grabbed a stanchion near Control’s entry. Her momentum nearly flipped her over but as she performed a twisting maneuver she was able to get her feet back beneath her. Arika’s legs flexed and they cushioned her, absorbing the impact. Finally stopped, she risked a quick look back toward the men chasing her. A smile creased her face. They had gotten caught up in the zero-G section, as she expected, and Ranil’s body had brought any progress to a halt as the UN tried to figure out how to chase her down.
“Too late,” Arika whispered and ducked inside Control. She secured the hatch—something the UN would never allow, and turned to Mather.
“Emergency conditions, right now!” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. “What do you need? You were away.”
Very firmly, she said, “I was. Evacuate.”
“What, now?”
“Yes. Pod. Now.”
He nodded with a “Yes, ma’am,” and scrambled out.
She reached her station. Quickly scanning the readouts she saw that her estimation of the tethers had been spot-on. The tethers were at 702 and 75 mils. She’d almost cut it too close.
She opened the station comm channel and announced, “This is Control. Emergency, emergency, emergency. Collision imminent. Real world. All personnel evacuate. All personnel evacuate. All personnel evacuate.”
There were only seconds, but the regular crew drilled on emergency procedures, would account for each other, and climb in the rescue pods without hesitation. Maybe they’d take some UN goons, maybe not. That was up to them.
Arika was not afraid to die. Dying blind, alone in space, however, was something that was unnerving. Being in Control helped alleviate her fears. She could see everything, courtesy of the consoles. A quick look at the tether display told her it was time.
“There is one love,” she began to whisper, remembering her mother’s favorite prayer. “One power. One presence. There is a single eternal source of all of life. An amazing wellspring of strength, courage, and comfort. A place of pure potential. A life of infinite possibilities.
“That life is my life. That power flows through my own veins. That presence is deep within me. An eternal source of strength that is my true self. A pure potential that I am now aware of.
“In this moment I reclaim my power.”
Arika detonated the bombs.
* * *
Skywheel Three was in the shadow of Grainne when the bombs blew. They were shaped charges which exploded internally, damaging the structural integrity. They did precisely as Ranil had promised Arika: made the skywheel inoperable. Thanks to Arika’s precise calculations when the detonations occurred, the rotation of the skywheel was destabilized enough to truly make an impact on the world below.
However, the detonations were small and internal and therefore invisible from below. Nobody could foresee the consequences—except for Arika Santiago.
At 0421 UN time the first tether of the skywheel struck water forty-two kilometers off the coast. Jefferson City, located four kilometers inland, was hit by the overpressure wave of the falling tether at 2.12 divs. Every man, woman, and child in the area was woken by the hurricane winds which ripped through, some clocking over eighty kilometers an hour on the UN sensors. The permanent structures in the city were not harmed. Much of the damage was limited to poorly installed polycarb windows and uprooted trees. There would be one civilian death reported later: an elderly man out walking struck and killed by a falling tree.
As the populace of the city began to crawl out of bed to try and figure out what was going on, the twenty-meter tsunami caused by the initial impact was diffused by the underwater breakers located just offshore. It slowed and boiled in the marsh and farmland between the city and the coast, though some wealthy mansions on the cliffs to the north took hard splashes. It did cause some minor issues upriver, jostling barges and piers. None of the water made it into Jefferson City proper.
The UN facility outside the city, though, was close to the coast.
UN troops were tossed from their bunks as the overpressure wave struck their camp. Temporary housing units, built of thin polymer, buckled as the storm winds tore into them. Gear and soldiers were thrown out of their beds and into the open as the wind slammed through. Many were injured by haphazardly flung debris. Some were killed as they struggled to stand up amidst flying shards.
As bad as this was, though, it was over as suddenly as it arrived. The general alarm belatedly erupted into the predawn sky, warning everyone of an impending…something. The unwounded survivors counted their blessings and tried to help their fellow soldiers out. Since officers were housed on the far side of the base away from the sea in more permanent housing, they suffered little when compared to the enlisted personnel. A few windows were dismounted, and one housing unit had its roofing torn off, but otherwise they survived unscathed.
Officers poured out of their lodging to issue conflicting commands. What initially started out as a mess quickly devolved into chaos. More than one high-ranking officer stated that things could not get any worse.
They thought wrong.
The tsunami hit. Muted as it was, it was still a five-meter surge from the river.
Debris sloshed through the already wrecked base. Carried by the force of the water, it did not cause many deaths itself. This merely delayed the relief effort and churned the base into muck.
The third act of Arika’s perfectly executed surprise attack struck at 2.26 divs as the remains of the tether, folded over due to its flexible nature, reached the planet’s surface at long last.
Thousands more died as the monomolecular filament tether, which was over four hundred meters wide where thickest, slammed directly across the runway. While low in mass and density, it still had enough to matter. Everything caught beneath it was instantly crushed. Fragments of the tether exploded outward upon impact, slaughtering hundreds of flight personnel who were trying to organize an evacuation of the survivors. It shredded everything not already destroyed. The results were catastrophic.
Through it all Arika watched from Control, where everything had begun. The compartment maintained a small reserve of emergency power, the charges having severed the main power line and backups. One solitary monitor remained active, tracking the progress of the tether’s damage. She glanced back at the detonator in her hand. It was mere segs before the last set of bombs exploded. Still in orbit around the planet, her time was short. She was happy, though. She was able to watch her childhood dream kill hundreds, maybe thousands of invaders.
Do you love your home? She heard Ranil ask her.
“I love my home,” she whispered back.
You did good, Ranil said. Arika started to cry. He chided her gently. There’s no need to cry, my love. This is a great victory.
“I’m not crying because I’m sad, you idiot,” she giggled softly as she closed her eyes. For a moment she could swear that his scent was there with her in the room. Fleeting, but tangible. A soft smile touched her lips. “I’m happy, though I wish we had more time together.”
We have all the time in the universe, love. Besides, Control doubles as a rescue pod.
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