Dubious Heroes: a novel Read online

  “This is in the manual?”

  “In so many words, yes. If you miss, just reel yourself back in and try again. You'll have to give yourself a pretty good push to disengage your surface adhesion units.”

  “My what?”

  “Your sticky shoes “, she said. “As you already know, you can walk all over the hull with your suit sticky shoes. The slower you move, the better they stick. But now, you don't want them to stick, so take a couple of short, quick steps, and jump. You'll leave the hull, then.”

  “How well are we tethered to them, anyway?” I asked.

  “I already told you”, Angie said. “The two grapples are holding just fine. I don't think the Cooper could get loose even if they tried to.”

  “So it's safe”, I said.

  “Relatively speaking”, she said. “You are on an EVA, after all. If I didn't feel you'd be safe, I'd have never suggested this course of action.”

  “Quit stalling and just do it”, Cozi said, from his comfortable seat on the Bridge. Next time, he could do this.

  “Oh well, fuck it”, I said, and I took a couple of short steps, and jumped. The Cooper floated across from me, looking huge, but still so far away. I could see Saturn off to my right, hanging in space like a big illuminated ball. Millions of stars dotted the black void as I watched, enthralled, slowly drifting toward the ship.

  “Doon”, the suit radio said, startling me. It was Angela. “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry”, I said. “It's my first EVA. I was sort of sightseeing. You should come out and see this, Cozi. The view is amazing.”

  “Maybe next time”, he said.

  “I'm serious”, you're suited up, come on out.”

  “Ship’s regulations, gentlemen”, Angie said. “You can follow them or not, but they're there for a reason. All of the crew shouldn't be outside the ship at the same time.”

  “So why'd you have him suit up? I asked, as I coasted closer to Cooper's Dream.

  “In case of an emergency“, she said. “Different rules.”

  “Would you quit stalling and just get on with it?” Cozi said.

  “What do you want me to do, flap my arms? I'm going as fast as I can.”

  I could feel the cable vibrate as it fed from the spool on my belt. After a minute, it became clear I wasn't going to end up anywhere near the ship. I touched the switch on the reel, and jerked to a stop fifty or sixty feet above the Cooper.

  “Well, that didn't go so well”, I said. “Now what?”

  “Try again”, Angie said.

  I hit the switch to reel myself back in, and nothing happened.

  “It's not working”, I said. “Now I'm really screwed.”

  “Calm down”, Angie said.

  “I am calm.”

  “Not according to your suit telemetry”, she said.

  “Watch your own damn telemetry”, I said.

  “What I meant was, calm down, this is not a problem”, she said. “Just pull yourself back over here by hand. It's slower, but we are at zero gee.”

  “Oh”, I said, feeling like an idiot. I began pulling myself back toward the Enigma, and tried not to get tangled in the cable as it floated around me. A few minutes passed, and I was standing back in the airlock.

  “Try another reel”, Angie said, “And check it, this time.”

  “Fine”, I said, and did just that.

  The next one I tried worked, no problem. I attempted to throw the bad reel and three hundred feet of cable out of the airlock, which worked about as well as the reel had, with the whole mess slowly drifting around the hatch. Hopefully, I could avoid it.

  “Okay”, I said. “Let’s try this again.”

  I repeated the routine, and jumped again. And missed again. This was harder than it looked. I suspected Cozi and Angie were watching me via the vid cameras, but thankfully, they were leaving me alone. I knew that my motion, relative to the ships, was essentially zero, and there was no gravity to alter my trajectory. This meant that the misses were my fault; I needed to jump straight.

  Whoever it was that came up with the old cliché third time's the charm was an optimist. On my fifth attempt, I finally reached the habitat module of the Cooper.

  “The Eagle has landed”, I said proudly.

  “The what?” Angie asked.

  “It's a Loonie thing”, Cozi said. “The first guy on Luna said that, a long time ago.”

  “Neal Armstrong: Twentieth Century”, Angie said. “In fact-”

  “Guy's”, I said, “I'm busy here. Can we not do this over the radio?”

  “Sorry”, both Angela and Cozi said, simultaneously.

  “Wait. I have movement on the tri-d”, Angie said. “A ship was using the asteroid belt to hide. It's headed this way. Jump free and reel yourself back in. If we leave now, they might not be able to catch us.”

  “How much time before they get here?”

  “That's going to depend on how fast they can go, and how much of a hurry they're in. All I know for sure is, they're at thirty thousand clicks range, and accelerating toward us. We may have forty minutes.”

  “I'm going in”, I said. “This shouldn't take but a few more minutes, and I'm already here. How do I get in?”

  “Somewhere around the perimeter of the airlock, you'll see a panel, which should be clearly marked. Open it, follow the instructions inside, and that should get you into the airlock. My advice is that you return at once, Captain.”

  “Believe me, I'm not going to dick around over here a second longer than I have to”, I said, as I found the panel, and popped it open.

  Carefully, I punched the correct sequence of keys, and after a few seconds, the airlock hatch irised open. I climbed inside, then detached the reel from my belt, and clipped it to one of the handholds outside the hatch. Thirty seconds later, I had the outer door closed, and air cycling into the room.

  “I'm in”, I said. “Bad news, though. The control pad by the inner airlock door has been smashed, probably intentionally. How do I open it?”

  “No response from any AI?” Angie asked.

  “Negative”, I said. I tried calling over the radio, switching to several different frequencies. I suspected Angie had already done the same, but I had to try. There was no response.

  “No one's answering the radio, either”, I said.

  “We heard”, Cozi said. “Just run a bypass. Those things are fairly standard gear. We should have a schematic here.”

  “We do”, Angie said. “I can walk you through it, or better yet, I can send it to you, and you can put it up on your heads-up display.”

  “Just a second”, I said.

  “What?” Cozi asked.

  I stepped over to the heavy door, and banged on it with my fist, then kicked it a few times, for good measure.

  “Can't hurt to try knocking”, I said. “Maybe their radios are out. Maybe they don't even know we're out here.” I knocked on it some more.

  “Why don't you start on the bypass?” Angie said, just as the inner door slid open, and I found myself facing a petite woman with short blonde hair, pointing a very large gun at me.

  “Door's open”, I said.

  “Who are you?” the blonde asked. The pistol didn't waver.

  “Captain Orel Doon, of the Enigma“, I said. “We heard your distress call. I'm your rescue party.”

  “Took you long enough”, she said, lowering the pistol. “I suppose we're lucky you showed up at all. I was beginning to think Kyra was delusional.”

  “Kyra?” I said, suddenly feeling like I was the only person not in on some big cosmic joke. “Delusional?”

  “Yeah”, she said, turning and walking away into the habitat. She looked back over her shoulder. “You coming?”

  “Doon, what's going on?” Cozi asked.

  “What are the odds that we'd get involved in a rescue on our very first trip out?” I asked.

  “Well, given the opportunity, pretty good”, Cozi said. “But the chance of such an opportunity had to be
pretty slim.”

  “Then what are the chances that we'd be rescuing Kyra?” I asked, as I followed the blonde back into their MedLab.

  “Fucking unbelievable”, Cozi said. “You're not kidding, I gather.”

  “Nope, she's here”, I said, looking down at her, on the MedLab couch. She was strapped down, thanks to the zero gee, and there was a lot of blood on her gray coveralls, some of which had been cut away, so her wounds could be bandaged. She was either sleeping or unconscious, I couldn't tell which.

  The blond stood by the table. I noticed she was pretty battered herself.

  “Kyra said to send a distress signal, and fire off toward Phoebe using our attitude jets, since they're the only ones working. They ran out of fuel after a few minutes, but at least they got us moving in the right direction. She said there were probably two guys who were either on Phoebe or might still be near there, who'd be dumb enough to answer a distress call. No offense.”

  “None taken”, I said. “Especially since it looks like she was right. How is she?”

  “Not good”, she said. “She was in a lot of pain, so we gave her some pain killers and they knocked her out. She's lost a lot of blood.”

  “Doon”, Cozi said. “Would you please turn your external mike on and leave it on? Angela and I are going nuts, hearing only one side of your conversations.”

  “Sorry”, I said, and keyed the control to transmit everything the suit mike picked up on the radio.

  “And I should remind you, time is at a premium”, Angie said.

  “Gotcha”, I said.

  “Now, what's going on over there?” Cozi asked.

  “Apparently, as we'd guessed, they ran into some sort of trouble here-”

  “Raiders”, the blonde said.

  “-and they needed a couple of idiots to bail them out, and we're the idiots.”

  “Kyra did say you guys aren't really dumb, just um… inexperienced. Hey, I'm not complaining; you're here.”

  “Well, the reason we shouldn't have answered your call is bearing down on us with a purpose, and I suspect they want to do unto us what they did unto you.”

  “ETA is roughly thirty-five minutes”, Angie said. “You need to leave there at once.”

  “We have to get out of here now”, I said to the blonde. “Our AI says we're going to have company in maybe thirty-five minutes, and as much as I'd like to know what happened here, we don't have time to stand around and chat.”

  “I'm not sure we can move her”, the blonde said. “She was shot up saving our asses from the boarding party. I'm not leaving her.”

  “I'm not leaving her either”, I said, “But this ship is dead, and I don't think you want to go another round with the bad guys, so you can't stay here. We have to get back to the Enigma.”

  “Fine”, she said. “If you'll carry her to the suit room, I'll go get Eng. He's up on the Bridge. We'll meet you there. Try to get her suited up, if you can.”

  Everything was happening too fast, but I didn't see any alternative but to go with it. Whoever the blonde was, she had a better handle on what was happening than I did. I unstrapped Kyra, and picked her up as gently as I could manage, given my spacesuit, and carried her to the suit room by the main airlock. Even at zero gee, carrying a person is harder than it looks.

  “So, you guys are heading over?” Cozi asked.

  “ASAP”, I said. “Kyra is badly injured, so moving her is going to slow us down a bit.”

  “How many are there?” he asked.

  “At least two damsels, one gentleman”, I said, making my way down the passage. For the first time, I really began to appreciate sticky shoes. “Maybe more, I don't know.”

  “Any idea what happened?”

  “You know about as much as I do”, I said. “From what I can gather, the Cooper was attacked by someone; raiders, pirates, whatever you want to call them. And, as Angie pointed out to us in advance, they hung around to see if anyone answered the distress call.”

  “They were probably hoping a UP cruiser was either in the area, or would deploy from Iapetus”, Angie said.

  “Who would want to ambush a UP cruiser?” I asked.

  “People we don't want to screw around with”, Cozi said.

  “Are we sure that's not a UP ship headed this way?” I asked.

  “I'm not picking up any transponder signal”, Angie said. “Besides, they'd have hailed us by now and they've said nothing.”

  “Have you tried hailing them?” I asked.

  “Repeatedly”, she said. “No response.”

  “Can you fire our engines now, and get us moving away from them?” I asked, as I got Kyra into the suit room. I briefly tried stuffing her into one of the suits, and quickly realized I needed help.

  “I can't do that, Captain”, Angie said. “Not while we're attached to that ship. We didn't rig the grapplers to tow, so if I start the engines, our forward movement will swing the Cooper's Dream around and into us. If you want to leave, we're going to have to cut her loose first.”

  “Marvelous”, I said, just as the blonde rushed into the room carrying two large duffles. She was closely followed by a short Asian man, also wearing tattered coveralls, also carrying a pair of duffel bags. The blonde came over to help me with Kyra, as the man limped over and began suiting up.

  It took us a moment to get Kyra into the suit, and I checked that it was sealed and supplying her air. She'd groaned a couple of times during the process, but hadn't woken up. Her suit readouts were all read green. The blonde went to another suit, and quickly climbed into it.

  “I'm Lola”, she said, “and he's Eng.”

  “Are you the whole crew?” I asked.

  “We're all the crew that’s left“, she said. “We lost four people in the fight. If it weren't for Kyra, none of us would have survived.”

  “And they're on their way back”, I said. “How long do we have, Angie?”

  “ETA approximately twenty-two minutes”, she answered. “But they'll be in weapons range well before that.”

  “I didn't think our sensors could pick that up”, I said.

  “They won't”, she said. “But if it's the same vessel that attacked the Cooper's Dream, then data would indicate they have at least some sort of weaponry.”

  “Right”, I said. “Well, we're on our way over.”

  Lola picked up her duffles, as did Eng, and I put an arm around Kyra's waist, picking her up. We all moved out of the suit room, and into the airlock. The inner door didn't close behind us.

  “What's in the bag?” I asked.

  “Personal effects, weapons, and even some food”, Lola said. “Not that it's looking like we'll get a chance to eat it, though.”

  “You sound like someone I know”, I said, as we began arranging ourselves and the gear in the airlock. We'd all have to be lashed together for the trip over to the Enigma. The cable I'd left clipped to the hull was on the other side of the airlock hatch, so we couldn’t attach to it, yet.

  Eng vanished, then returned a moment later, carrying a handful of suit-to-suit tethers. Hooking them belt to belt, we made an impromptu train of people and baggage, then tethered us to the airlock bulkhead.

  “How do we close the inner door?” I asked. “The controls on this side are smashed.”

  “We don’t”, she said. “We'll have to blow the outer hatch, since it won't open if there's air in here.” She hooked another tether to her belt, and clipped the other end to a handrail, the same as Eng had done. “When the hatch blows, it'll be bumpy for a minute, so hang onto something. We're all connected, so we won't be blown out. Ready?”

  I nodded, then realized she couldn't see that, so I answered yes. So did Eng. Kyra just floated in front of me, still out of it. I grabbed the handrail with one hand, and her suit belt with the other. Lola opened a panel by the outer door and punched in a code on another oversized keypad. A loud alarm started whooping, clearly audible even inside the suit. An overhead strobe began flashing red.

  The hat
ch blew out into space with a sharp crack , and suddenly, all the air in the ship was trying to get past us, or at least it seemed that way. I realized that the inner doors would keep most of the ship pressurized, even on this level of the Habitat. Explosive decompression over anything but a small area of a ship was unlikely; there were too many safeguards designed to prevent it.

  After what seemed like an eternity, and a fair amount of bouncing around, we were in vacuum. Lola unclipped from the airlock, and I moved slowly toward the opening. She found the cable I’d left there, and hooked us onto it. She handed me the reel.

  “We're connected”, I said, and heard three or four voices acknowledge. “Reeling us in now.” I hit the switch, and the little winch began pulling us across the void between the two ships. It felt as though we were moving in slow motion. Nervously, I scanned the surrounding stars, trying to pick out the single hostile one swooping down on us, assuming spaceships could actually swoop. After a moment, I realized I was being silly. Yes, there was a hostile ship out there, and yes, it was headed our way, but it's not like the thing would be lit up with running lights. Unless they were decelerating, we probably wouldn't even see their drives. If they were close enough, we would, and I sincerely hoped they weren't that close.

  “ETA sixteen minutes”, Angie said.

  “As soon as we're inside and the hatch is closed, reel in the grapplers and light the engines”, I said.

  “What heading and thrust?” she asked. “Also, I'll need to fire the attitude jets to move us clear of the other ship, before we can line up on a course.”

  “That sounds like a lot of time, which we don't have”, I said.

  “Two or three minutes”, she said.

  “We can cut the Cooper loose now“, Cozi said, “Then fire the jets and move us away. The movement won't affect their getting aboard, and we'll have those few extra minutes.”

  “Procedure again”, Angie said. “I'm not supposed to fire any jets or engines during an EVA.”

  “They're nowhere near the jets or engines”, Cozi said. “They'll be fine.”

  “Do it, Angie”, I said.

  “Aye, Captain”, she said. “Magnetic grapplers are free.” We could see them as they snaked back toward the Enigma, moving a helluva lot faster than we were.