Symphony of Destruction (The Spindown Saga, #1) Page 13

  “OK?”

  She nodded. A tiny nod, so as not to smash her face into the helmet, almost imperceptible.

  “Alright, now here comes the click - OK?”

  “OK.”

  -Click - The helmet locked firmly into place.

  “Now, let’s turn on your air - ready? It’s this one here, remember?” He pointed to the button on his own suit, and she copied his motion, crossing her right hand over to her left bicep and pressing the button.

  -Wshhhh -

  The air flowed into her helmet and she found its coolness soothing.

  “Now take a nice deep breath,” instructed Colin, “nice and slow, that’s good. Just relax.” He talked her through a few minutes of relaxation breathing. She really was doing great. Few trainees took to the suits so easily, and Colin told her as much. His guidance, and more importantly his support, helped her enormously, and it wasn’t long until the pair were ready to proceed onto the cursory motion and control lessons.

  Jumping, jogging, and grip were the three mainstays of pressure suit operations. Hannah reached a reasonable skill level in each of them with unprecedented speed. Mastery would take weeks of practice, but by the end of the day Colin was confident that Hannah could maneuver herself well enough that his own misgivings were quenched. This half-baked scheme of theirs might actually work.

  Chapter 44

  Hannah stood in the airlock hatch between sector E and D. Sector D still had gravity, but had dropped to minimal atmospheric pressure, and was lit only by amber strobe flashes glinting eerily through the two plasglass hatch ports that led to corridors D-1 and D-2, like the angry eyes of some ancient dragon. She placed her gloved hand on the lever to her left, the door marked D-1. She glanced back briefly at Colin for reassurance.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  She cracked the seal, pulling the handle down, and the air gushed through, pushing on the hatch against her pull, threatening to pull the door shut again.

  “Don’t fight it!” reminded Colin. “Short bursts is good until it equalizes.” Once, he had seen a recruit stick their hand in the hatchway to try to stop the hatch from closing. They had left that battle with one less hand.

  Soon enough, Hannah had mastered the hatch, and they were through to corridor D-1. It was familiar territory, and soon they were at the blast hole at the mess hall. This was the spot where Colin had saved Hannah’s life. It was a weird feeling for both of them. They stopped in briefly, crawling through the hole, avoiding carapaces, and grabbing a couple Omega Bars each for the day. Although they obviously couldn’t eat while suited, Hannah had excitedly planned a “picnic at her place.” It would be fun.

  Colin couldn’t help but notice the crack in the floor, even now in the darkness. ‘Crack’ was no longer the correct term, actually. It was now more of a tear or a rip, or perhaps a chasm. ‘Chasm’ implied something substantially larger, which in literal size alone would have been a great exaggeration, but in terms of effect on Colin’s mood was no exaggeration at all. It scared him. It chilled him to the bone. His subconscious mind filled in the blackness of the crack with the void of empty space. Colin half-believed he was staring right through the hull. It was not true, of course, but he could not shake the feeling of imminent doom. For a moment he wondered if they should turn back, aborting this silly mission.

  “Come on!” Hannah called. He had fallen behind and she was already stepping gingerly through the hole, one foot already back into the corridor.

  “Yep.” He hurried up, but still spared a backward glance, and tripped over his own feet. Even with his experience, the suit was a clumsy matter. By the time he made it through the hole, Hannah was already about twenty meters down the corridor toward sector C. He jogged to catch up as she approached the next airlock intersection.

  This time there were no flashing dragon eyes. Apart from the corridor strobes now behind them, the hexagon was six sides of dark sealed hatches. Hannah shone her headlamp through the viewpane of the hatch ahead to her right. It led to corridor C-2, which in turn led to her quarters, deck C28A. Corridor C-2 was on Hannah’s most familiar and well-travelled route on the ship, linking her quarters to the ship’s main facilities. She would make the trip to mess hall on a regular basis. Some days she had taken regular meals in mess hall with the crew. Just as often, though, she would stay sequestered in her studio for days at a time, not emerging for any reason, and subsisting on Omega Bars, and the occasional hot meal brought to her by her mother. From this airlock, the corridor slanted up and toward the ship’s starboard side, so that her lamp illuminated the floor mostly as she gazed through the plasglass. There was a strange reflection amidst the stark shadows, which seemed to shift as she watched. Something about the light and shadows didn’t make sense. Something was moving in the corridor.

  “There’s something there!” she gasped. “Something alive!”

  “What?!” Colin exclaimed, while quickly moving close in order to attempt to see through the viewpane. He literally couldn’t see at all, what with his helmet, and Hannah’s helmet in the way, and the small size of the viewpane, and the fact that the light basically shone only directly where Hannah was looking. “What is it? I can’t see it?”

  Hannah tried to get a better view, and she bumped her helmet into Colin’s, making an unexpectedly loud sound that rang for a moment in their ears.

  “Oh!” they both responded simultaneously.

  “Just a sec...” said Hannah, and Colin gave her a bit more space. “Uh. Umm. Yeah... What?! It looks like... Yeah, it’s somebody’s portable console I think. But it’s floating in mid-air!”

  Colin laughed. “Aha! That kind of thing happens when the whole power grid crashes. It can trip off the gravity too, as well as life-support systems.”

  “But we still have gravity - just no lights or pressure.”

  “Sector D got lucky.”

  “So once we go in here, we’ll be floaters!?”

  “Yep.” He thought he had explained this during the practice sessions yesterday. I guess it’s one thing to hear about it, and another to see it with your own eyes.

  Hannah looked at Colin and tried to remain calm. She took a deep breath. He could hear it on their short range comms.

  “You got this!” he told her. “We got this.”

  A few more breaths, then she agreed. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s good... Ok, I’m ready.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  A final confirming glance, and Hannah pulled the lever.

  Nothing happened.

  “Shit,” swore Hannah. “Is it broken?”

  “We’ll have to force it manually,” said Colin, opening a panel beside the hatchway. He pulled a large lever downward about forty-five degrees, until it wanted to stop. Then, putting his weight into it, leaned into an almost hanging position, grasping the lever which creaked slowly downward, releasing the lock. He then pushed the lever back up and latched it back in place, and began laboriously rotating an aluminum wheel below the lever, in a counter-clockwise direction. The grinding sound of each rotation was an indication of the torque needed, and he began sweating profusely, his helmet now starting to fog up.

  “Dammit! Now I really can’t see a thing!” He kept working though, and the hatch began opening slowly.

  “Alright, that’s far enough,” Hannah said after a minute or so.

  “Oh thank god!” replied Colin turning toward her. Both of them grinned, though neither could see the other due to the fog in Colin’s helmet. “Now where’s the damn defogger?” He held his left forearm in front of his face. There was a control for that on his arm panel - if only he could see it.

  “Let me help!” said Hannah, taking his arm in hers and finding the correct control button. She turned up the airspeed in his helmet, and the fog began clearing slowly. Soon he could see again, and he sent a smile her way.

  “Thanks.”

  “OK, here try this...” Colin took a large wrench from his tool belt, and slowly approached the ope
n hatch, with his arm extended in front carrying the wrench. He stopped and beckoned Hannah over, guiding her right up beside him. He slowly extended his arm again, into the corridor, repeated the motion twice and then handed the wrench to Hannah.

  She repeated his motion, moving her wrench-wielding hand into the corridor. As she extended her arm, the wrench became lighter, and her arm seemed to float upward.

  “Oh my god!” she shrieked, “it’s weightless!”

  “And so shall you be, my dear,” he joked, quoting some ancient half-remembered literary source.

  Hannah stepped forward lightly, then again, even more lightly, as she began to float off the deck. Just before her foot left the ground, she remembered to propel herself toward the wall to seek an anchor. It was a flimsy thrust and she gained little momentum, which was lucky in that it gave her time both to visually locate a grip, and to relish her flight toward the wall. “Look at me! I’m flying!” She began giggling uncontrollably. It truly was quite an exhilarating feeling drifting weightlessly. A rush of risk-induced adrenaline mixed with the pure bliss of enjoying super-powers reserved only for the gods and birds.

  Colin chuckled along while he waited for her to settle on the grip, before joining her there.

  “Pretty great, eh?”

  “Yeah!” Hannah launched herself again, this time with more thrust, and she sailed up the sloping corridor, nearly to the end. They made good time through deck C, arriving within just a few minutes at the short rectangular corridor that led to the deck C28A airlock.

  It was a retrofit that did not completely suit the architecture of the ship. Hannah did not notice this fact, nor would any normal person, but Colin did. The airlock itself was a different type than the rest of the ship, which was a pretty stupid decision as far as maintainability goes. He snorted almost silently to himself. It was not only a different model, but made by a competing manufacturer. There would be a very low chance of compatibility with the existing spare parts supplies. Such were the daily perceptions and musings of an engineering man. Nevertheless, he continued through, into the mismatched airlock, and grabbing hold of the nearest grip, situated himself near the control panel.

  “If we are lucky, the airlock is powered from the side of your quarters, assuming your quarters still has power, which I’m not really sure about.” Like a couple other retrofitted areas, it hadn’t shown up at all on his ship wide assessment reports. He attempted to trigger the automatic airlock sequence, and discovered that in fact it was not powered. “Crap - I’ll need to armstrong it again.” The manual override system was essentially the same as the last one. At least some things were relatively standardized between manufacturers. The unlocking lever worked the same way, but now there was no gravity to weigh him down against it. He had to spin upside-down and perform a weightlifting squat, leveraging his bent legs against the ceiling. It took considerable force, but he was able to release the lock. Then he began working the wheel. It barely moved, and after only a few degrees of rotation, seized entirely. “Come on!” he coaxed, but soon was cursing it instead. As his helmet fogged up, he became more frustrated and angry at the uncooperative wheel. He wedged a large wrench across the radius to multiply his mechanical advantage, but still it refused to budge.

  “Well fuck you then!” He slammed the wrench against the ornery wheel with a loud ringing bang, then turned and hurled the wrench across the airlock. It flew like a bullet and ricocheted off a solid steel section, then crossed the airlock again, still at a high velocity. It barely missed Hannah, bounced off the wall behind her, smashing a control panel, then continued on to hit Colin in the shin. “Oooooow!” he yelled.

  Hannah burst out laughing, even as Colin curled into a semi-fetal position ineffectively attempting to soothe his shin through glove and pressurized leg. “I’m sorry,” she apologized for laughing at him, “but you deserved that, really - that thing nearly hit me you know!”

  Now it was Colin who apologized sheepishly. He let the circumstance get the better of him and he felt foolish. Foolish, unprofessional, uncaring and stupid. That flying steel object could have killed them both. You never throw stuff around in a spaceship. Dejected, he threw his head back in disgust and frustration. This act caused the back of his head to hit his helmet, sending him a fresh pain signal that blended with the one from his shin. He let out a low moan as he spun slowly in space, Hannah drifted out of view, and for a brief moment he thought she might be better off without him. But no, he was trying to help her, and things had been going well. They had been getting along well, and Hannah even seemed happy. He acknowledged that he wanted to make Hannah happy. But now he was failing in that mission. Now she was drifting back into view as he continued to rotate, and they made eye contact. “Well this sucks.” Colin stated.

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter 45

  “So now what?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Should we ask Brother Anderson?’

  “What’s he gonna do?”

  “Maybe he can override it or something?”

  “It’s got no power. Plus, it seems like it’s jammed mechanically. Like the twisting of the ship, and the vibrations and everything have pinched it together or whatever.”

  “Well maybe he’d have some ideas?”

  “Ugh.” Colin resisted the idea, but it was just the mental kick he needed to break him out of his torpor. Surely if there were ideas to be had, he should be the one to have them. If there’s one thing men will always beat robots at, it’s ideas. The mind was ultimately stronger than any hunk of metal. And that gave Colin an idea. If he used one of the thruster-tugs to get a solid grip on the airlock from the outside, maybe he could twist and bend it a little bit, just enough to free up the jam. Of course, if he was outside in a thruster-tug, someone else would have to be inside trying the wheel. It would be dangerous. Too dangerous to put Hannah in that position. Could Brother Anderson pull it off? He had the strength. His dexterity was actually very good too, perhaps better than human. Yes, he could certainly operate the manual override controls. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t need to. What if they ran a long power cable out, just for the airlock motor controls? They could disable the ship-side door so it stayed open - Sector B was already depressurized so it wouldn’t make a difference - then a cable could run straight through.

  Colin turned on his suit-to-ship comms. “Brother Anderson?”

  The comms crackled back in mocking reply.

  “Brother Anderson, this is Colin, do you copy?”

  Just more crackling.

  “It’s no good. We’ll have to go back and talk to him.”

  Hannah thought to herself, ‘Huh, he actually took my advice!’

  The journey back to medbay was uneventful. Colin talked a bit about thruster-tugs, and power cables. It seemed like he had a few ideas after all.

  Chapter 46

  “Yes that could work I suppose.” Brother Anderson concurred, after Colin explained to him what he hoped to do with the power cable and the thrustertug. “We will have to be careful about how much force is being applied, though.”

  “I know. We might break the ship.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Except the ship is already broken. So it won’t really matter.”

  “Well. Technically, yes the ship is broken. But there are still safety considerations. Both for our own safety and that of the ship and cargo.”

  “I’m starting to think that is a lost cause, Doc.”

  “You might be right, but we are not authorized to make such a decision. Either way, I better run some simulations.”

  “OK, you do that. I have to go fix the suit-to-ship comms, I guess. I tried to call you, but it didn’t work too well.”

  “Yes, I heard you speaking but it was difficult to make it out. I ran the audio through some filters, which did help somewhat, but I believe the weakened signal is a result of missing transponders in the fore sections. Perhaps boosting the signal on the Sector E transponder migh
t be enough to compensate.”

  “Good idea. I’ll go crank the gain up.”

  Chapter 47

  As Colin talked with Brother Anderson about the plans he and Hannah had discussed on the way back from sector B, Hannah’s mind began to drift. She was not especially interested in the technical details, and she had already spoken to Colin about it on a big picture level, so now it just seemed like repetition to her.

  She began to think about her studio, and her belongings which it held. Belongings. It was a funny idea. As if the things you owned made you belong with them, or like they belonged with you for some reason. She had never thought of it before, but now that she had been removed and separated from her previous normal life, the old standards of normalcy began to seem strange. In some way, she did feel a sense of loss, but at the same time, another paradoxical perspective had grown in her subconscious and now bubbled up into her conscious mind. She really didn’t care about the loss, apart from that of her mother. All the things she had taken for granted meant almost nothing to her now. She had changed wardrobes as easily as simply putting on a shirt. Her comfort shifted into the different style with barely a second thought. Her dark wardrobe traded for the pale hues she now found perfectly natural. Even her new social connections were starting to work out alright. All the people that she had previously thought were so important - what were they to her really? Her producers, her musical collaborators, her marketing directors, they had all been merely professional relationships, connections of mutual economic benefit. They were not friends. They were not family. Would they even notice if she never spoke to them again?

  Colin was not like that. Colin would notice. Colin would care. Colin would be sad if she disappeared. She would be sad if Colin disappeared. She would miss him. Not in the way she missed her mother. But she would miss him. Not in the way she missed Cherise or Suzzanne, either. She did miss them sometimes, but it was more that the thing she missed was the fact of having someone around - not so much having them around. Not them in particular, just someone. With Colin, it felt different. She didn’t just want someone around. She wanted Colin around. Specifically, Colin.