Aces (7 page)

            “
Lift
off and wait for your signal, acknowledged
.”

            The
ground was coming up scarily fast, and they were still accelerating. Rick
’
s view between the pilot seats out the windshield was
terrifying, it seemed like there was no way the shuttle could avoid boring a
deep hole in the red surface of the planet below. Nelson pulled the stick back
once again to flatten out their vertical dive, and felt the whole craft shudder
violently with the strain, it was vibrating so badly he could barely see the instruments
in front of him. Warning lights flashed on, he ignored them. He was doing
everything you were NOT supposed to do with a big, fat, clunky cargo hauling
shuttle owned by Universal Transport. The company could deduct it from his pay
for all he cared, as long as he survived. For a gut-wrenching moment he was
afraid that he had misjudged the dive, not sure they could pull out before they
smacked into the surface hard, but the shuttle
’
s belly
cleared a ridge with a meter to spare, and he banked to the left, where there
was a flat area to land. He chopped the throttle, kicked in the belly jets, and
fired the nose retro rockets in a blur of motion. The retros came on full
power, jerking him forward in his seat against the webbing of the harness, the
straps digging into his waist and shoulders. Once their forward motion had
halted, he lowered the shuttle fast, too fast, on the belly jets. “Sam! Pop
both the doors, don
’
t wait for it to depressurize,
override the safeties!”

            The
shuttle doors were an airlock, designed to have the inner door, or the outer
door, open at any time, but never both doors at the same time. Sam engaged the
emergency override system to force the doors open while the shuttle
’
s cabin was still full of air, and while the shuttle was
still flying. The shuttle jerked to the left as the air rushed out to starboard
door, and there was an instant mist of red dust swirling crazily in the cabin.
Without being prompted, Sam lowered the landing skids and locked them in
position. “Hang on!” Nelson shouted as he gave the belly jets one last burst,
then cut them off. The shuttle hit hard, bounced, almost rolled over on its
starboard side, then settled on the landing skids. “Get out!”

            Rick
didn
’
t wait for an engraved invitation, all
he could think of was whether his family was safe, yet somehow he had the
presence of mind to reach under the seat, grab the spare oxygen bottle,
unbuckle the seat harness, reach under the seat next to him and grab that
oxygen bottle also. Then he leapt out of his seat and was the first out the
door. Sam was right behind him, followed by Nelson, they were so close together
that the three collided, and sprawled face down in the red dust. With the wind
knocked out of his lungs, Nelson managed to gasp “Shuttle! Go!”

            There
was another intense cloud of red dust as the shuttle
’
s
belly jets roared back to life, the craft wobbled toward the sky, unsteady due
to damage from the hard landing. The three men were pelted with pebbles, and
would have been blinded, except for the dust-repellant magnetic field which
coated the faceplates of their helmets. Nelson turned to lie on his back,
watching the shuttle climb, trailing smoke from the damaged starboard wing. The
right rear landing skid had partly collapsed when the shuttle hit, Nelson figured
he wouldn
’
t be able to fly the shuttle back into orbit
even if the missile somehow missed the shuttle. As he watched, the shuttle
’
s main engines fired, and the craft began to move forward and
pitch the nose up. He was about to say something to Sam and Rick, when his
peripheral vision caught a bright streak of light coming in from the north, and
the shuttle exploded in a fireball. His helmet
’
s faceplate
automatically darkened, but not soon enough to prevent him from seeing spots in
his vision. A piece of high-speed debris from the explosion hit the top of Sam
’
s helmet and punctured a hole in the hard material, Sam felt a
searing pain as the hot chunk of metal came to rest inside the helmet at the
back of his neck.

“
Nelson!
I
’
m hit! Ahhh!” The inside of his faceplate fogged
up quickly as the air vented out, in just a few seconds, Sam couldn
’
t see anything.

Nelson, with
spots still swimming in his vision and his faceplate still darkened, crawled
over to Sam. “Where are you hit? Are you losing air?”

“Top of my
helmet!” Sam gasped, his lungs struggling to take in enough of the remaining
air to breathe. “Quick!”

Nelson fumbled
with the suit controls, trying to get the faceplate to become completely opaque
again so he could see. “Hold on a sec, buddy, I
’
m-“

Rick slapped a
patch from his suit repair kit onto the hole in Sam
’
s
helmet, and held it firmly in place. “I got it! I got it! Try to breathe
normally, Sam. Are you bleeding?”
            Sam took a
deep breath, and opened his eyes a crack, now that the helmet was filling up
with sweet air again. “
I don’
t know.” Now that the chunk
of metal had cooled, he couldn
’
t feel anything. “Give me a
minute here.”

Nelson held out
his hand to Rick. “That was fast, professor, you
’
re a
handy guy to have around.”

Rick shook Nelson
’
s hand and said “I was looking in the other direction when the
missile hit, so my vision is fine. Nelson, what the hell is going on?” He made
no attempt to disguise the fear her felt, for himself and his family in orbit.

“I think I
’
m OK.” Sam said, and pushed himself to his feet with a helping
hand from Rick. “Thanks, professor. I owe you one.”

“Great, call me
Rick. Nelson, can we contact the ship? My family is up there.”

Nelson toggled
his suit radio on. “
Ace
, this is Nelson, we got out of the shuttle in
time, thanks for the warning. What the hell is going on up there
,
over?
” He turned to Rick. “Their radio sounded busted up, I don
’
t know if they can pick up a signal from our low-powered suit
radios.
Ace
, do you read? This is Nelson, respond, please. I
’
ll set the message to repeat until we get an answer. We may
have to wait a while for a response, if they
’
re dealing
with their own problems up there.”

“What
is
going on?” Rick asked.

“Your guess is as
good as mine, but I
’
ll bet that medical research ship has
something to do with it.” Nelson said angrily. “When I get back up there. I
’
m-“

Sam interrupted.
“
Hey, man, I don’
t want to spoil the party, but nobody
’
s going back up there. Our shuttle is gone, it blew into a
million pieces. So, unless you figure out how to fly shuttle pieces, we
’
re stuck here. And we
’
re
gonna run out of air some time.”

“All right, all
right.” What to do now, Nelson asked himself? Rely on his training, in this
case, his Navy training was more useful for this type of situation.  “How
much air do we have? I
’
ve got a full tank in the suit, and
I grabbed a spare O2 bottle.” Nelson held up a bottle that was already coated
with red dust.

“Me too.” Sam
added.

Rick held up the
two bottles he had carried out of the shuttle. “I got two spare bottles.”

“Hey, you
’
re the man!” Sam shouted, and pointed at Rick.

“How much time
does that buy us?” Rick asked grimly.

Nelson held up
his hand while he thought. “Uh, the suits partially recycle the air, so each
bottle lasts six hours. A spare gives us another twelve hours, and if we share
your extra bottle, that
’
s another, uh, two, maybe? So,
fourteen hours total. Battery power-“ Nelson checked the indicator on his right
wrist. “Fully charged, so we
’
ve got more power than we
’ve got air.
”

Sam looked around
at the desolate, unforgiving, empty landscape that surrounded them. “Hey, Rick,
man, I
’
m sorry I got you into this mess.” He said in
apology.

“Huh? Why? This
isn
’
t your fault, Sam.”

“Yeah, but if I
hadn
’
t told the captain I needed your help down here-“

Rick cut him off.
“Then I would be in trouble up there, instead of in trouble down here. I
volunteered, remember? Let
’
s keep focused on getting
ourselves out of this mess. Nelson, how far is the mining camp?” Rick asked.

Nelson thought
for a moment. “Let
’
s see, we were on final approach, real
close, less than twenty klicks, before we had to dodge that missile, we went in
the opposite direction. Maybe thirty klicks? We can walk that.”

“Yeah, except,
remember, the reason we
’
re down here is their life support
is running out.” Sam reminded them.

“No it
’
s not.” Rick snorted derisively into his suit microphone. “I
’
ll bet that whoever fired the missile at us faked the whole
emergency at the mining camp. The distress call was a ploy to get the ship
here.” Rick said emphatically.

“I think he
’
s right, Sam.” Nelson agreed, after a minute of thinking about
it.

“Why? What for?
We
’
ve got a ship full of junk upstairs! None of it is
worth stealing!”
Sam protested.

“The only thing I
care about on that ship is my family. No response yet
, Nelson?
”
Rick asked anxiously.

Nelson answered.
“No, not yet. That might not mean anything, on their last transmission, the
signal was weak. You guys ready? We should get going, the mining camp is in,
oh, hell.” He looked around. The land was pretty much the same in all
directions. Red, jumbled rocks. Red sand. His skills as a navigator applied to
orbital mechanics and hyperspace flight, not to walking across arid, dried-out,
lifeless, sun-blasted red oxide dust. He pulled out a compass, let it settle
down to find the local north magnetic pole. Ares had neither the population,
nor the money, nor the need for global positioning satellites, so the miners
found their way around by radio beacons scattered across the surface. Radio
beacons that were now shut down, leaving Nelson to make his best guess. He
pointed to the southwest, “This direction.”

“
Nelson?
”
Rick asked. “You got any lights? It looks like it will be dark soon.” He shaded
his eyes with a hand and tried to gauge how close the star was to the horizon.

“Oh, darn. No.
The lights attach to the side of the helmet, or the wrist, I didn
’
t
bring any out of the shuttle. Sam?”

“No, man, I got
out as fast as I could.”

Rick opened the
bag he was using as a toolkit. “Wait, I got a light in here. Just one, and it
’
s small. Let
’
s see what else I got.” He
rummaged around, and found, among other things, Kaylee
’
s
holo projector. He remembered putting it in the bag, intending to review the
programs on it, and delete the Us4U holo, then he
’
d
forgotten about it. Seeing it now, with his daughter possibly in danger above
him, caused a lump in his throat.  “Uh, I
’
ve got, um,
a power cell, fully charged, and a bunch of tools. Nothing much useful right
now.”

“At least one of
us was using his head, Rick, you hold onto that bag, never can tell what we
might need.” Nelson said admiringly, increasingly impressed by the
archeologist's coolness under pressure. “Now, the big question is, do we try to
contact the mining camp by radio? They could come out here in a crawler, and
pick us up.”

Sam shook his
head no. “Nuh-uh! Or they could come out here and shoot us. If they faked a
distress call and attacked the ship, I
’
m thinking they ain
’
t exactly friendly.”

“
I
don’
t see we have much choice, do we?” Rick asked impatiently. “For all
we know, whoever attacked the ship took over the mining camp first, maybe the
miners are just caught up in this like we are. You
’
re
right, Sam, at least one person in that mining camp isn
’
t
friendly. Maybe there
’
s an outlying building with nobody
in it, a place we can rest for the night. Some place with oxygen would be
nice.” He slung his bag over his shoulder and looked off to the southwest.
Everything, the ground, the sky, even his companions, had a reddish tint. The
color of the sky was unnerving, pink toward the horizon, almost black straight
overhead. It was daytime, and stars could be seen directly above. The dull
light from the red giant star didn
’
t help things look
comforting. “That way, you say? Let
’
s get going, huh?”