The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union (5 page)

“Why would it do that?” I asked.

“It’s safer for the people running the rescue,” Aul said. “Makes the two ships stable relative to each other. But it’s difficult to do because the
Chandler
pilot has to track the
Odhiambo
’s movements precisely.”

“Once the ship started tumbling it should continue to do so in the same manner,” I said. “I think that’s close to a thermodynamic law.”

“Yeah, but that assumes no additional input of momentum,” Aul said, and pointed to the
Odhiambo
in the monitor. “But the
Odhiambo
is damaged and venting all sorts of things. And we can’t tell when those venting events will happen. No, it’s a mess. So the
Chandler
pilot’s tracking all of that in as close to real time as it can.”

“Could you do it?”

“If I wanted to show off, sure,” Aul said. I smiled at this. “But I wouldn’t do it with anything larger than this shuttle. Whoever the
Chandler
’s pilot is, it’s doing it with an entire ship. If it messes up, you’re going to have two ships tumbling down on headquarters, not just one.”

“We need to tell them that,” I said.

“Trust me, Councilor, they’re way ahead of you,” Aul said.

“Hail the
Chandler,
please,” I said. “Tell them we’ve come to offer assistance if they wish it.”

Aul did as ze was told, muttering into a headset in zis own language while I watched the two human ships tumble in tandem.

“The captain of the
Chandler
is named Neva Balla, it sends its compliments and says that it requires no assistance at this point,” Aul said, after a moment. “It says that they are under some time pressure and incorporating us into their plans would just add to the pressure. It asks us to hold position at twenty klicks relative—that’s about twenty-five chu—and to monitor the
Odhiambo
for power surges or rapidly rising temperatures.”

“Can we do that?”

“Maintaining a twenty-five-chu relative distance is something we can do on auto pilot. And this shuttle’s packed with a good amount of sensory apparatus. We’re good.”

I nodded up to the monitor. “Any way we can stabilize the image of the ships so they don’t look like they’re tumbling? I want to be able to see what’s happening without getting vertigo.”

“No problem.”

“If the captain of the
Odhiambo
is still on the ship, ask it to send us a real-time data feed, please,” I said.

“Will do.”

“Also, Captain Neva Balla is ‘she,’ not ‘it.’”

“You sure?”

“I’ve met her before,” I said. “Humans generally prefer to not be called ‘it’ whenever possible.”

“The things you learn about people while you’re on the job,” Aul said.

*   *   *

“Here we go,” Aul said, nodding to the monitor. On it a lone figure stood in an open airlock on the
Chandler,
directly across from the
Odhiambo.
The distance between the two ships was less than thirty plint—about fifty meters in human measurement. Aul was right: Whoever was piloting the
Chandler
had impressive control.

The figure in the airlock continued to stand, as if waiting for something.

“Not a good idea to run out the clock,” Aul said, under zis breath.

A stab of light shot from the
Chandler,
striking across and at a small angle from the figure in the airlock.

“They’re firing on the ship,” I said.

“Interesting,” Aul said.

“Why is it interesting?”

“They need to cut into the hull,” Aul said. Ze pointed at the beam. “Normally for a rescue we’d send a crew over with some particle beam cutters to get through the hull. We have a couple here on the shuttle, in fact. But it takes time. Time they don’t have. So instead they’re just burning a big damn hole in the hull with a beam.”

“It doesn’t look very safe,” I said, watching. A venting blast of air puffed out of the
Odhiambo,
crystalizing in the vacuum wherever the beam didn’t turn it into plasma.

“It’s definitely
not,
” Aul said. “If there’s someone in the cabin they’re cutting into, they probably just died of asphyxiation. That is, if they weren’t vaporized by the beam.”

“If they weren’t careful they could have blown up the ship.”

“The ship’s going to blow up anyway, Councilor,” Aul said. “No reason to try to be dainty.”

The beam shut off as abruptly as it began, leaving a three-plint hole in the
Odhiambo
’s hull. In the monitor, the figure in the
Chandler
airlock launched itself toward the hole, trailing a cable behind it.

“Okay, now I get it,” Aul said. “They’re running a cable from the
Chandler
to the
Odhiambo.
That’s how they’re going to get them off the ship.”

“Across a vacuum,” I said.

“Wait for it,” Aul said. The figure disappeared into the
Odhiambo.
After a moment, the cable, which had drifted slightly, tightened up. Then a large container started moving across the cable.

“I’m guessing vacuum suits, harnesses, and automatic pulleys in that,” Aul said. “Get them suited up, secure them in a harness, and let the pulleys do all the work.”

“You sound like you approve.”

“I do,” Aul said. “This is a pretty simple rescue plan with pretty simple tools. When you’re trying to save people, simpler is better. A lot fewer things to go wrong.”

“As long as the
Chandler
can keep in sync with the
Odhiambo.
”

“Yes,” Aul agreed. “There is that. This plan has all its complications in one place, at least.”

There were several moments of nothing obvious going on. I took the time to look at the co-pilot monitor set, on which we were tracking the
Odhiambo
’s power and heat signatures. No excitement there either, which was a good thing. “You might suggest to the
Odhiambo
’s captain that any remaining crew might want to disembark as soon as possible,” I said to Aul.

“With all due respect, Councilor,” Aul said. “I’m not going to suggest to a captain that it abandon its ship a single second before it makes that decision on its own.”

“Fair enough.” I glanced back over to the monitor with the
Odhiambo
on it. “Look,” I said, pointing. The first of the diplomats was making its way across the line, swaddled in a highly reflective vacuum suit, chest in a harness, trailing behind a pulley.

“That’s one,” Aul said. “Nine more to go.”

The
Chandler
collected seven before the
Odhiambo
blew itself up.

There was almost no warning. I glanced over as the seventh diplomat disappeared into the
Chandler
’s airlock and saw the feeds on the co-pilot’s monitor spike into critical territory. I yelled to Aul to warn the
Chandler
just as the external monitor showed a wrenching jerk, severing the cable between the two ships. Aul zoomed out the picture in time to catch the eruption on the
Odhiambo,
mid-ships.

Aul yelled in zis headset and suddenly the image in the monitor began spinning wildly—or appeared so, as the monitor had stopped tracking with the two ships’ movements and had reoriented itself to our perspective. The
Odhiambo
had begun tearing itself apart. The
Chandler
had begun moving away from its doomed compatriot.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Aul was yelling at the monitor. “Move it, you stupid shit-for-brains, you’re too close.” I had no doubt ze was yelling at the
Chandler
’s pilot.

And ze was right; the
Chandler
was too close. The
Odhiambo
had now split in two and the pieces were moving independently of each other, with the fore portion now careening dangerously close to the
Chandler.

“They’re going to hit!” Aul yelled.

And yet they didn’t; the
Chandler
’s pilot yawed and skewed its ship, moving it across three axes in a mad ballet to avoid collision. The separation between the ships widened, too slow for my taste: fifty plint, eighty, a hundred fifty, three hundred, one chu, three chu, five chu, and then the
Chandler
stabilized its movement relative to Conclave headquarters and began to pull away at speed from the
Odhiambo.

“You should be dead!” Aul yelled at the monitor. “You should be dead, your ship should be dead, you should all be dead! You magnificent shit-eater!”

I looked over to Aul. “Are you all right?”

“No,” ze said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve soiled myself.” Ze looked over and on zis head was an expression that I assumed was of sheer amazement. “That
should not
have happened. Everyone on the
Chandler
should be dead. The
Chandler
should be an expanding cloud of debris. That was the single most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life, Councilor. I’d be surprised if it weren’t the single most amazing thing you’ve ever seen, too.”

“It might be in the top few,” I allowed.

“I don’t know who that pilot is, but I am going to buy that shit-eater all the drinks it wants.”

I intended to respond but Aul held up a hand, listening into the headset. Then it looked up at the monitor. “You have got to be kidding me,” ze said.

“What is it?”

“Those three other diplomats and the
Chandler
crewman,” ze said. “They’re still alive.” Aul spoke into zis headset and zoomed in on the aft portion of the
Odhiambo,
where the
Chandler
had burned its hole through the hull.

And as we zoomed in, we saw it: a reflecting suit, launching out from the hole, tumbling into space, followed by a second, followed by a pair, holding on to each other – the final diplomat and the crewman from the
Chandler.
The
Odhiambo
spun away from them, slowly.

“How much breathable air do you think they have?” I asked Aul.

“Not a lot,” ze said.

I glanced over to the co-pilot’s monitor, which still erroneously showed the
Odhiambo
as a single unit. The fore of the ship was rapidly cooling; all power had shut down and heat and power were venting into space.

The aft of the ship, on the other hand, was warm and getting warmer as I watched.

“I don’t think they have much time,” I said.

Aul followed my gaze to the co-pilot’s monitor. “I think you’re right,” ze said, then looked up at me. “You didn’t bring a vacuum suit with you, by any chance, Councilor?”

“I did not,” I said. “And the very fact of your question makes me begin to regret that fact very much.”

“It’s fine,” Aul said. “It just means I have to do this without a co-pilot.” Ze pressed a button on his pilot monitor. “Attention, team,” ze said. “You have two ditu to get on your vacuum suits. In three ditu I’m pumping the air out of the hold and opening her up. Be ready to take on passengers at speed. Have emergency air and heat prepared. These people are going to be cold and near asphyxiated. If they die once you got them, I’m leaving you out here.”

“Inspiring,” I said, after ze had finished.

“It works,” Aul said. “I’ve only had to leave them out here once. Now, slide in a little more, Councilor. I have to seal up this compartment. Unless you want to try holding your breath for a while.”

*   *   *

“The four of them haven’t drifted too far from each other,” Aul said, as we were underway, two ditu later. Ze put an image on the main screen showing the positions of the diplomats. “And two of them are together so we really only have three targets.” A curving line swept through all three positions. “We open the gate, bring our speed down, and literally let them drift into the hold. Three targets, three ditu, we go home, we’re heroes for the sur.”

“You’ll curse us if you put like that,” I said.

“Don’t be superstitious,” Aul said.

The aft portion of the
Odhiambo
erupted.

“Oh, come
on,
” Aul yelled.

“Give me tracking, please,” I said. Aul transferred the screen to the co-pilot monitor. The main portion of the
Odhiambo
’s aft was still spinning away from the diplomats, but a large chunk of debris was now launching itself in a different direction entirely. I watched as the shuttle’s computer plotted its trajectory.

“This debris is going to hit these two,” I said, pointing to the paired diplomats.

“How long?” Aul asked.

“Three ditu,” I said.

Aul seemed to think about it for a moment. “All right, fine,” ze said.

“All right, fine, what?” I asked.

“You might want to make your center of gravity as low as possible. The inertial and gravity systems in this thing are pretty reliable, but you never know.”

I hunkered down. “What are you about to do, Aul?”

“It’s probably best you wait until it happens. If it works, it will be really great.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then it’ll be over quickly.”

“I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“If it’s all the same, Councilor, don’t talk to me until it’s over. I need to concentrate.”

I shut up. Aul pulled up the diplomats’ positions on zis pilot screen and overlaid the trajectory of the debris. Then ze started moving the shuttle forward. Aul stared at zis pilot screen, typed furiously into it, and never looked up.

I on the other hand looked at the external view monitor and saw a distant rising mass of debris, and our shuttle moving inexorably closer to it. We appeared to be on a suicide mission straight to the heart of that debris. I glanced over to Aul but ze was in focus, all attention drawn to the screen.

At almost the last possible instant I saw on the monitor a white starburst which I registered—too late!—as a vacuum suit we were going to hit head on, just as the debris rose like a leviathan below us. I sucked in a breath to shout, saw the images on the monitor streak, and then clenched for the violence of the debris smashing into our shuttle from below. As Aul promised, it would be over quickly.