Aces (8 page)

Nelson and Sam
exchanged a glance, then followed the archeologist, their boots leaving sharply
outlined prints in the bone dry red soil. The chill wind in the thin air barely
disturbed the clouds of dust kicked up by their boots. Looking at the lazily
swirling dust clouds behind the archeologist, Sam thought he had never seen
such a desolate place.

Kaylee had not
been able to contact anyone over the ship
’
s phone system,
and no one had come to check on them. The phone didn't even respond.

“The lights are
on, and the gravity, that means we have power.” Manny
’
s
eyes narrowed, he looked thoughtful. “Jen says the gravity takes lots of power,
it can
’
t run off batteries the way the emergency lights
do, remember, Kaylee?”

Jen! “Jen will
know what to do.” Kaylee tucked the phone into her waistband. “Let
’
s find her.
”

“Kaylee,” Manny
responded, uncertainty in his voice, “in an emergency, passengers are supposed
to stay in their cabins, until the crew comes to get us, or they tell us where
to go over the intercom.” Emergency drills had been conducted every Thursday
morning. Sometimes the passengers were instructed to stay where they were,
sometimes they were escorted to the shuttle bay, sometimes they were escorted
to the lifeboat pods. Always, they were escorted, and instructed to stay in the
cabins until the crew came to get them. “Mom will come looking for us here.”

Kaylee pointed to
the phone on her hip. “The phone isn
’
t working, Mom can't
call us. We
’
ll just go out into the hallway, if anyone is
looking for us, they can find us there, right?”

Manny considered
that for a moment. “Okay.” If they heard someone coming, they could step back
into the cabin. Gingerly, keeping close to the walls so they had something to
hang onto in case the ship moved again, they walked out of their parent
’
s bedroom, across the main compartment, and to the door leading
into the hallway. The door didn
’
t slide open when Kaylee
pressed the button. “Try the handle?” Manny asked uncertainly.

Kaylee pressed
the button again repeatedly, then gave up. She flipped aside the access door,
grasped the manual handle, and pulled down on it. The door cracked open a
couple centimeters, enough to get a grip on. She looked out into the hallway,
it looked like the hallway always did, bland, pastel colored, and empty. Brother
and sister held onto the edges of the door and pushed it aside. “
Hello?
”
Kaylee called out. Her voice echoed off the walls. No one answered.

Manny stepped
into the hallway. “
I don’
t hear anybody. Hello!” He
shouted.

Kaylee stepped
cautiously into the hallway to join her brother. It was quiet in the ship,
except for the faint creaking sounds that seemed to be coming from the walls.
“Hold my hand.”

Manny frowned. He
was over the initial wave of fear. Whatever had happened, the huge ship wasn
’
t going to fall apart. He put his hands down by his side. “I
’
m not a baby, Kaylee, you don
’
t need to
hold my hand.” He protested. “I
’
m going to the observation
porthole.”

“No! We need to
stay here, in case someone comes looking for us.”

“Kaylee, it
’
s right down the hall.” Manny pointed down the corridor toward
the opening which lead to the observation room. “Maybe I can see what happened.
I promise I
’
ll be right back, okay? You stay here in case
someone come by.”

Kaylee had
clasped her hands in front of her and was rubbing them together the way she did
when she was anxious. “All right, but you come right back here.”

“I will.” Manny
was still at the age when he seldom walked anywhere if he could run. Why adults
were so incredibly slow, he couldn
’
t understand. He ran
full speed down the corridor, turned to the right, and ran down the short
hallway ending at a clear bubble that stuck out from the side of the ship. From
the bubble, he could see to starboard, and a bit forward. At first he saw
nothing unusual, then he craned his neck to see forward.

He gasped in
shock. The familiar rear of the command section's curving saucer no longer
blocked his view forward. Instead, there was empty space. He could see torn
struts, pipes and wires from the access tube that previously connected the
command section to the rest of the ship. Now that he was looking for it, he saw
many pieces of debris floating around the ship, and-

The command
section itself, rotating slowly end over end. It was already far enough away
that we could no longer read the symbols painted on the surface. “Kaylee!” He
shouted, his voice strained. “Kaylee! Come quick!”

His sister came
running. “What is it?” She asked breathlessly. Manny silently pointed out the
porthole, unable to speak. She looked out, and a sudden intake of air almost
made her choke. “Mommy!” She screamed.

The walking was
slow going for the three men stranded on the surface, over the rough terrain.
The surface was dotted with rocks and craters, big and small. The big rocks
they had to detour around, the small rocks they had to avoid tripping over.
Nelson warned the others not to walk down into the bigger craters, because
loose sand and dust had collected there, and made for treacherous footing.
Walking down hills was the worst, they slid and skidded on pebbles, until they
called a halt, and began using safety lines. It was taking too long. The sun
was edging toward the horizon, and their oxygen supply was limited. Sam looked
up, as the bulging disk of the star touched the horizon. It was going to be a long
night.

“Kaylee,” Manny
said with a sniff as he wiped away tears with the sleeve of his shirt. He was
coming to his senses again, after he and his sister spent a minute holding onto
each other, screaming and crying. This is not what his parents would do in a
crisis. “I can see lights coming from the command section. See? There
’
s lights coming through those portholes. They have power, maybe
they can call us on the radio. We should go back to the cabin, maybe?”

Kaylee avoided
looking out the porthole, knowing it would make her cry again. “No. We need to
find Jen. She
’
ll know what to do. Maybe we can help.”

“Help do what? We
’
re kids.” Manny pointed out.

“Do, do anything
Jen needs us to do! All the other crew are with Mom. Or Dad. Jen
’
s
the only one here with us.

“Okay.” Manny
agreed. “Where do we look?”

Kaylee pursed her
lips and thought. She wiped away her own tears with the back of her hand. “Jen
’
s office is on the deck below us, where she keep her tools and
fixes the robots. We
’
ll look there.”

“
Wait,
let’
s leave a note for her, in case she comes looking for us.”

They went back to
the cabin, found a marker, and wrote a note on the corridor wall next to the
door. Manny then went to stuff the marker in his pocket, when he had a better
idea, and they both got their backpacks and slung them over their shoulders, in
case they needed to carry anything. The elevator between decks wasn
’
t working, so they had to crank open a door, climb down a
ladder, and open another door at the bottom. It seemed like an awfully long
way, in the empty, silent ship.

Captain Gante
returned to check on her executive officer
’
s search
progress, but the communications technician waved to her first. “I was just
about to call you, Captain, I can
’
t contact the
Atlas
Challenger
. I
’
ve hailed them repeatedly. No response,
Ma
’
am.”

If Gante was
startled by the freighter
’
s silence, she didn
’
t show it. She turned to the first officer. “XO?”

Ross shook his
head, and suppressed a yawn caused by the insufferable boredom of watching the
scanner. “Nothing yet. Still scanning.”

She pursed her
lips, and walked over to stand behind her XO so they could speak quietly. “No
sign there was ever a ship in distress here?” She asked.

“No sign there
was ever a ship here at all, Ma
’
am.” Something in his
captain
’
s tone of voice caught his attention. “What are
you thinking?”

“It
’
s
not-“ her voice trailed off.

He lowered his
own voice to a whisper. “
Kim, we
’
ve
worked together for almost a year now, I know when there
’
s
something going on in that head of yours.”

Gante allowed
herself a tight smile. “They say there
’
s no sound in
space, XO. There
’
s not supposed to be any smells, either,
but I smell a rat.”

“Diversion?”

“Exactly. The
Isaac
Newton
was never here, somebody wanted to lure us away from Ares. Somebody
who knows we are the only Navy ship patrolling this sector.”

“And lure us away
from the freighter?”

Gante raised an
eyebrow. “I hadn
’
t considered that, I thought maybe there
is something on Ares that the mining company doesn
’
t want
the Navy to see. But you may be right, the freighter could be the target,
although I can
’
t imagine why. It
’
s
just a transport ship.”

“What do you want
to do? Abandon the search? Captain, if we abandon the search, and we
’
re wrong, and there are survivors aboard the
Isaac Newton
…”

“I know. I also
know
for a fact that there are people aboard that freighter, and people on Ares. No,
I
’
m not wasting any more time here.” She straightened up,
and raised her voice. “XO, retract the antennas, charge the Jump engines, and
plot a course to Ares, maximum speed.”

The
communications technician looked at her quizzically. “Shall I inform Fleet HQ,
Ma
’
am?”

Gante and her XO
exchanged a glance. “No, we will not inform the Fleet at this time. Keep
sending that message to
Atlas Challenger
, but I want you to modify the
message a bit-“

On
Ace
’
s bridge, they had opened a medical kit, splinted Gina
’
s arm, and given her painkillers. For Vassily, there wasn
’
t as much they could do. The ship
’
s second
in command had lapsed into unconsciousness from a blow to the head. Seth and
Joy brought him to his cabin, strapped him to his bed, made him comfortable,
then hurried back to the bridge. As Schroeder had pointed out, their priority
had to be to get control of their own situation first.

Joy
’
s
face was looking pale, her eyes were slightly crossed. “I think I
’
m
going to be sick.” She wasn
’
t dealing well with the zero
gravity, on top of the emotional shock.

Schroeder himself
took a dose of anti-nausea medicine from the medical kit, brought it over to
Joy, and told her to rub it into the skin on the inside of her wrist. “This
acts fast. And don
’
t be embarrassed, I
’
ve
been on spaceships for over thirty years, and I still get queasy in zero Gee
sometimes. That
’
s why we invented artificial gravity.”

Joy held onto the
back of a chair, and concentrated on breathing, in and out, in and out, until
the nausea passed. “I
’
m better now, thank you.” The ache
in her heart remained.

“Why?” Gina
turned to Schroeder and asked the simple question that had been on all their
minds. “Captain? Why attack us?”

Seth spoke first.
“Maybe there
’
s something on Ares they don
’
t
want anyone to see.”

Schroeder shook
his head with a frown. “No. If they had something to hide, they wouldn
’
t have sent a distress call, no matter how bad their situation
was. The
Tigershark
said they were responding to another distress call,
I think that was also a fake, to draw the Navy away from here. And to make sure
we were the only ship that could respond in time. No, for some reason, they
wanted
this
ship here, and they set this whole thing up to get us here.”

“But, why didn
’
t… why didn
’
t they just intercept us in
hyperspace, when we were in the middle of nowhere?” Seth sputtered.

Schroeder
’
s brow furrowed as he thought back to his own Navy
service days, years ago. “I suspect it is because, while rocket-powered
missiles can be purchased on the black market, hyperspeed-capable missiles are
much harder to get. They needed to get us out of hyperspace, so they faked a
distress call. Now, thanks to us saying we could handle this rescue on our own,
the only Navy ship in the sector is lightyears away, and we have no way to
contact them. Somebody put a lot of effort into planning this operation.” He
said in disgust, as if he should have anticipated the attack on his defenseless
ship. He added, in a low tone that may have been intended only for himself.
“What I can
’
t answer is, what we have onboard that could
possibly be worth that effort, worth the risk, and the expense, to steal it?”