April 3: The Middle of Nowhere (14 page)

"Opening," he announced and slid their outer door to the side and fastened it down. He turned the recessed handle that undogged the exposed station hatch. It actually popped open a little with a soft sound when he pushed on it because of a slight positive pressure in the ship. His suit puffed a little and his ears had that funny feeling from a small drop in pressure until he swallowed a few times. Then he heard a sigh as the pressure came back to his setting. He backed out of the ship, bag in one hand, pulled their security camera out on an arm for Edwards and pulled the hatch back against resistance until he heard it latch. If something happened that pressure dropped in the mast, all the pressure hatches would snap shut. 

"Don't forget to bring some sauce," Edwards reminded him. "I like the green stuff."

"Salsa verde," he agreed. The camera was already doing a slow scan as Edwards surveyed the mast from inside. "I like it better than the red stuff too." He gave the net sack a little shove towards the hub and spin, following after with his gloved hand floating around the rail ready to brake or give occasional little tugs. Every hatch seemed to be occupied, although not all of them were open. There were two crew of another ship in flight suits coming out the opposite hand rail, but nobody on his side going in station.

The mast was simply a long tube a bit under three meters across. They were docked halfway down, about eighty meters. So he'd reach the station proper, the end cap that didn't rotate, in about two minutes. Docking collars were spaced on opposite sides and the hand rails ninety degrees from the hatches. Behind the rails, wiring and pipe runs were bare without any decorative effort to hide the industrial clutter. Every couple meters a lighting module filled the inside with a bluish tinted glow. There were no view ports to let in sunlight.

There was a sudden odd noise, loud even in his sealed suit, that dropped off quickly and a disorienting sensation Tommy didn't understand. The hand rail trembled under his grip not a neat ringing harmonic of a single tap but the rough grinding of something tearing. He abruptly started going the wrong way, the rail feeding out through his hand and the net bag coming back to impact on his chest. The immediate false sensation was that the tube was moving under him.  One arm went around the bag and he clamped down with his hand until the glove squealed on the metal, but the rail just kept feeding through his hand although he was clamping on it as hard as he could.

He threw both legs around it and came to a jarring halt when his ankles jammed hard into the next stanchion that held the rail off the mast wall. The off center bag spun him around against the wall, but he managed to get his elbow folded over the rail and held on to it. The sharp crack to his ankles smarted, but he could tell it was just a bruise not the sort of pain that signaled broken bones. Ignoring it he clipped a line on the bag, irritated with himself that he hadn't before and then got a foot up on the rail stand-off he'd slid against.

The flow of air that had sucked him back the wrong way ended almost as abruptly as it started so he was weightlessly floating again, held between his foot on the stand-off post and left arm with nothing tugging either way. He let go of the bag now that he had it on a tether and turned to look back down the narrow mast. The detail in the distance was hard to see, the more so because the raw glare of sunlight flooded in a opening that shouldn't be there. Loose flecks of debris such as paint chips and dust sucked loose from the corners and crevices by the air rushing out tumbled in the vacuum. The distance to the sunlight was about right for the
Eddie's Rascal
. The two in ship suits who he'd passed going the other way flashed back past him pulling hard hand over hand down the opposite rail. They hesitated about as much as a couple salmon swimming up a river home and didn't spare a glance at him or tarry in their headlong dash.

He did hesitate for just a heartbeat what to do. He called on com and there was no answer. What would Click tell him his job was at the moment? That was clearly to deliver the freight he had in his possession. The ship was Click's responsibility to command and Edward's responsibility to guard and the bag was clearly his. So, reassured in his own mind of his duty he pushed off again for the station. The end of the mast would have sealed, but there was an airlock to the side of the emergency drop seal. Once he was safely in pressure somebody would know what had happened.

He heard Edwards call on com, a short transmission and unclear. When he called himself again but there was no answer. It was frustrating.

* * *

Edwards was thinking about an upcoming poker tournament when he was jerked forward doubled over his safety harness. Without it he would have been thrown through the airlock opposite him, if not by the force of the motion then by the air. The privacy curtain was carried away by the gale that emptied the ship in a single burp. When he straightened back up he still had his weapon in hand not on its tether, which was a source of considerable pride.

The downside tempering that was that the view out the lock was of the open port on the station boom receding and rolling out of sight. The station hatch was obviously disabled from closing. Around the opening were the large black shapes of troops in armored spacesuits, so this was no accident, it was an attack. As he watched one flexed his legs and jumped toward the receding
Eddie's Rascal
before the boom rolled out of sight and the open lock only showed stars spinning past. The jump would just augment his suit jets and Edwards was sure he's see the fellow much closer to the lock when he completed a full roll. That was going to take near a full minute, he guessed.

"Click, who are they?" he called on com but there was no answer. A glance to the front of the cabin showed an arm dangling loose from the command chair. That told him enough. Dead or unconscious, it didn't matter, because this had to be dealt with now.

Edwards expected the roll to continue on around until the station came into sight again, but instead was surprised when a big space ship rolled into view. It floated not two hundred meters away with the black maw of a cargo hold gapping open towards them. The opening had more black combat suits around it, some on lines, just as the station boom had. That's when he realized it wasn't just an attack, it was a capture mission. He started to lift the grenade launcher but the spin took the ship out of sight before he could get it to his shoulder.

Okay, next time around he'd have an ugly surprise for them. He cracked the weapon open and slid one of the thermobaric rounds in the weapon. He braced himself and tugged the harness tight on his middle, taking a shooting stance waiting for the ship to come back into sight. He even had time to turn the dot on his holosight all the way bright so he could see it against the bright white ship. Several bumps felt through the ship announced he had boarders on the outside of the hull.

Mid-turn a figure in black armor slid into view catching the edge of the lock with both feet as the edge rolled into him. He absorbed the motion nicely in a squat and pivoted in with his back jets, a short weapon clutched tight across his chest.

There was no time to change rounds. Edwards fired at his belly point blank and blew him out of the lock. When he was a meter outside the secondary charge ignited and it blew all four limbs and the helmet off sprouting white fire. The jets of erupting gas and flying suit pieces tumbled the two soldiers closely following him away from their landing in the lock. Edwards snapped off a couple quick loads of flechettes at them. Not all of the suits were thickly armored and he might get lucky and puncture them somewhere.

It was time for the ship to come into view again and he simply flipped the lever down to choose explosive rounds and shaped charges. If he tried to load his second thermobaric round he'd probably miss his second chance at the ship. One thing he knew for sure from the first view. The ship was marked with a big red star. It was Chinese.

"Click?" he tried on com again. No answer.

The ship rolled into view again. It was visibly closer and Edwards led it, aiming at the edge to allow for his roll. He pumped four rounds into it, trying for the flight deck, before it rolled out of sight. Two rounds he saw explode on contact and at least one shaped charge went home because he saw debris erupt from the far side.

"Click, Click can you hear me?" he called. "They are capturing us. You need to set the charges!" There was no reply and Click's arm still hung loose. Then he saw the helmet floating loose and knew he was alone. The keys to setting off the destruct charges were forward in the two flight stations. They might as well be back on Home for all of his chances of getting to them. They'd never thought to put one back by the lock.

When the opening came around toward the station side again there were three suited soldiers waiting for him. Not attempting to enter the lock again they were holding position waiting to fire on him. He fired for the center one and saw the flash as an explosive round caught him in the crotch and blew both legs off. The shrapnel had to have holed the others too. It didn't appear to have a major effect though, the muzzles of the other two soldiers lighting up with bright flares. They both got one short burst off before it rolled them away from the recoil.

One cut across his chest, absorbed by his armor, but one round went through his left arm above the elbow, but lacked the shock of a bone hit. The second burst caught him in both knees and he screamed in pain and felt the hot flood of his own urine as his bladder emptied. There was a >FWOMP< of seals inflating above his knees, cutting off the loss of air and hopefully compressing the leg enough to stop the bleeding too. His ears and eyeballs both ached from the sudden pressure drop and rebound as his suit valve roared full open.

The ship jerked under him and the stars outside the lock slowed and then stopped. They had thruster packs on the hull and weren't going to give him another shot at their ship. 

No way he'd ever make it to the controls to arm the charges. At least he could damage the compensators they carried. He aimed at the housings around the coaches and fired. The shrapnel from his own rounds exploding just three meters away peppered him, stinging and he heard multiple whistle tones of escaping air. It didn't matter anymore, he was a dead man anyway. He carefully aimed and caught another housing with a shaped charge. It gutted it end to end shredding the torus and housing. He'd just pumped the fifth round into the machinery and the escaped silvery quantum fluid was a mass of BB sized droplets filling the cabin when a Chinese soldier rolled over the lock edge and shot a burst almost point blank into his helmet.

* * *

"Local control  M3, this is local control ISSII. We have an, uh, a situation here."

"Non-standard I take it ISSII?"

"Uh, very. Your Home registered vessel, the armed merchant
Eddie's Rascal
is in, uh, some distress."

"This is the shift supervisor for M3. Would you please quit fumbling about and state clearly what the problem is? You are certainly in a much better position given your proximity to render aid. What's wrong and what do you want us to do?"

"Report it to someone, I guess. The owner, or whatever, uh, authorities would care. The Chinese had a ship lingering at dock.
The Time of Tranquility
. When your boys docked they shoved off and busted the
Eddie's Rascal
off the mast by blowing the grapple points. Our mast is blown and there is quite a bit of debris and, uh, dead bodies and suit parts from the fighting. They stuffed the
Eddie's Rascal
in their hold and left."

"ISSII, do you have any of our personnel there, dead or alive?"

"No, no, the Chinese took them away in
Eddie's Rascal
. They abandoned a crowd of suited soldiers, three dead Chinese in armored suits and enough loose parts for two or three more. Kind of hard to tell they have been blown to hell so thoroughly."

"Yes, that sounds like our Mr. Edwards," he acknowledged calling the crew roster up. "Can you tell us if they seem to intend an Earth landing?"

"No way! The
Time
was heavily damaged. On our camera feed you can see the flight cabin is depressurized because the ports are blown out. There are some pretty big holes in her. No way are they going to take that ship in atmosphere without it breaking up, but they did break orbit with us and move off. Main thing we wanted to say is we didn't have anything to do with it! Last time you and the Chinese mixed it up here the
Happy Lewis
burned the shit out of our yard tractor and cut all the antennas and radar off the station. We just don't want a mix up and get hit again."

"I'll inform our militia Captain and the owners. With particular emphasis on your innocence," he said dryly. "Is there anything else ISSII?"

"Yeah, correction on the personnel. Sorry, I'm kind of shook up. My number two reminds me the guy doing the freight transfer, Tom Waldecker, was on station when they got hijacked. We saw him on an internal boom camera and security is on their way down there now to assist him and arrest some of the Chinese loose in the area. Guess he's going to need repatriated unless he just takes a commercial shuttle home. Let his boss know he's here and okay, will you?"

"Roger that, ISII, I'll do a conference call, would you hold for any questions please?"

"M3 Local Control, conference call add, Jon Davis, Home Militia, Dave, Dave's Spacecraft Services, Eddie Persico, Lewis Couriers and Jeff Singh, Singh Technologies," he instructed his com. The screen split in panes that all filled rapidly. The first few, seeing empty panes, waited for them to fill. In twenty seconds Dave came on last and they had a full call board. M3 Local Control described the situation with economy to them.

"ISSII, Since it is a Home registered vessel. I'm making an official request of information for Home Militia," Jon Davis told them. "I'd like a copy of your external camera feed of the event. I also need navigational data on where this Chinese ship is going. I have a warning going out right now to all militia members to avoid similar attacks at dock, a weapons free order on the Chinese ship and an alert that further data will be following. I plan on sending all of them the full visual feed and orbital data."