Chapter FIVE
His jaws clamped tight, eyes glaring, Brad sensed his companions rise to their feet around him. Kumiko first, stood and wordlessly glided to the closed passage portal. Her back to the others, she waited for the panel to clear. Zolan, on his feet, mouth agape, stared at Xindral.
Adari, still seated, gawked in bewildered disbelief from Xindral to Brad to Hodak. Hodak glowered, gestured rudely and cursed furiously and loudly. Myra stood, silent behind an icy mask. Xindral, perched on his stool, arms in his lap, impassively observed their reactions.
The scene held for several seconds. Xindral broke the silence.
"Your formal orientation and training begins when you return. First I must speak with your Commander. Please excuse us."
He turned and touched a disk on the bulkhead. The entryway cleared and Jenkins appeared.
"Escort our friends back to their compartment,
Jenks. Commander Curtin will remain with me.
Return the group in an hour."
"Yes, sir."
Myra, Adari, Hodak and Zolan milled about for a moment, then joined Kumiko at the portal. Passing through, they spoke and gestured animatedly to each other. The portal clouded over.
Xindral hefted his stool forward, placed it alongside Brad, and folded his long frame onto it facing the view tank.
"Just so you know, Brad," he said gently, bridging the silence between them, "those of us who work in Strategic Penetrations carry no formal rank. If we did, yours would be the equivalent of a Lieutenant Commander in the United Inner Planetary System Space Force. Mine would be a notch or so above."
He shifted his frame about and bent a long leg to bring his foot up to the lower rung. His tone shifted into neutral. Cool.
"My friends call me Ram. OK?"
Brad nodded, eyeing him. Ram drew back a bit and contemplated the control in his grasp. After a moment he stroked the keys. A rainbow of colors swirled and drifted off, replaced by an ash-gray sphere. Planet Pluto spread across half the tank with its flat stretches of methane frost broken by low, jagged chasms, hillocks and craters. Charon and the Slingshot Logistics Depot hung off near the edge of the tank's flattened top.
Brad glanced at the scene, and back to Ram.
"Brad," Ram spoke slowly, quietly, "a trite expression, repeated all too often during our history, is 'humankind now faces its greatest crisis'. The statement has been declared so often across the ages that it's lost meaning, obviously because it changes in context and perception from one event, century or millennium to the next. I suppose those who said it, believed it. Nevertheless, even if the term 'crisis' never really applied in the past, it does in these times for humankind's destiny.
"The deficits in our nonrenewable assets, and the many other natural substances we depend on, if not resolved within the next few centuries, could force us back into caves, and I don't use that word 'figuratively'. Ceramics, composites, and other substitutes are fine as far as they go, but they do only a tiny part of the job.
"We'll soon be running short of substitutes for our substitutes. Building bigger and better colonies in space over the past thousand years or so has consumed far more of our resources than expected. Earth is almost barren and many space colonies in both regions can no longer meet existing needs fromtheir regions, let alone those of the future.
"In short, our dispersed civilizations must have access to sources for minerals and other industrial substances, not only now but in perpetuity, in order to survive and evolve. Our species isn't built to accept inactivity or slipping backward. If we don't move on to something new and challenging, then we'll drift into extinction. You've heard this all dozens of times; I won't dwell on it further."
Ram stood, paced, and turned his head to keep Brad in sight as he paced and reversed direction. Brad's eyes fixed on the view tank and stayed there. There was nothing new in Ram's words, so far.
"Slingshot schedules are in their most critical phase. We have a launch window for the Extractor. It's not much of a window. If we miss it, Slingshot fails. It's that simple. The launch cannot be aborted; there'll be no second chance. People across the system, by the millions, are committed to the schedule. You, and your crew now serve in that legion."
"What's going on here?" Brad cut in. "Are you telling me we've been pressed into this job with no choice of our own?"
His anger showing, Brad thumbed over his shoulder toward the entryway, then at his chest.
"Tell me, Ram," Brad demanded, "how did it happen that we six, three men and three women, are here at this time for this purpose?"
"We'll get to that in time." Ram said, "I've reviewed your trial record, but I'd like to hear it from you — straight. What happened?"
Brad stared at Ram for several seconds, obviously making up his mind. Finally, he shrugged, and contemplated his hands.
"Well, then you know I was Captain of a space freighter," he began. "My job was to transport high-mass mining equipment, ores and refined stuff between Mercury, Venus and Luna.
"When this mess happened, we were Luna-bound with a full load of worn out track-layers, rock-crushers, drill robots, filters and other tools in the forward and aft storage bays, and ingots well-secured in stress-certified compartments. The ship was at capacity, but within legal limits. Mass and balance had been certified by Space Traffic Control before they cleared us from Venus orbit. The ship was in order.
"We were only about twenty-million kay from the Luna Space Traffic Control Zone, but still in max drive. Plenty of time to kick-in vector and deceleration programs."
Brad paused, shifted position, rubbed his jaws, sighed deeply, glanced sideways at Xindral and, his voice tighter, continued.
"That's when that strung-out jock in a space-buggy took us on for a game of 'chicken'.
"The buggy was a single-seater, tiny, barely ten meters bow to stern, but the way she whipped around us, it was plain to my duty officer that she was charged by a micro deep space drive. My duty officer hit the alarm; I got to the bridge within ten seconds after the buggy's first pass.
"I checked our status and proximity-to-mass in vicinity; then my ship's scope analyses of the buggy's thrust and gyrations. She was obviously overpowered for mass, especially in the confined lanes plowed by slow freighters like mine.
"My three-hundred-meter freighter with all storage bays packed bulkhead to bulkhead with high mass, is barely maneuverable under the best of circumstances. Evasive action against some hot shot in a souped up space-buggy was out of the question.
"It got worse. Not only did the jock ignore my warnings; he lined up alongside my bridge and danced on his thrusters. He flipped from relative vertical to horizontal, then corkscrewed us lengthwise fore to aft and back. To add insult, he whirled his buggy on its tail like a damn dervish, right alongside where I stood on my bridge and then cut across my bow. That hotshot was one good pilot, I'll grant him that.
"After a minute or so of that, the buggy circled my ship, close. The pilot probably liked what he saw, because he surface-snaked us again bow to stern. That must have been boring; he peeled away, tore ahead a quarter-million kay, skewed around, and came straight at my bow, curdling space. When collision was just about unavoidable, he did an up and over. In doing that, he cut us much too close, snapped off a dozen masts, sensors and nav guides.
"The jock must have gone berserk; he took us on for full 'chicken'. He shot ahead about a million kay, flip-flopped, and came at us head-to-head, taunting us with his collision signals. Our computer showed him as boosting all the way."
Another long pause. Brad looked directly at Xindral.
"We collided, head on," he said. "That brightly colored, beautiful little flitter buried itself deep in our forward cargo bay. My rescue team went in, but we knew ahead of time what we'd find. It was there: chunks of metal, shards of bone, and scraps of flesh splattered on mining gear, rock-crushers, and other odd pieces of equipment.
"The Space Guard hearings were followed by a quick trial. The jock was the son of a politician, so here I am."
Brad looked away, then back at Ram.
"Your turn," he said. "What's the story on how we became the 'chosen'?"
"The selection was certainly not random," Ram stood and stretched to his full height as he spoke. "Despite the billions of citizens in the UIPS, we're all tagged and catalogued. It's a simple job for the computers to correlate any unique manpower requirements the government might have to the UIPS index, cross-check phys-psy profiles, professions and technical skills plus experience, competence, reliability and anything else that we crank in as rating factors. You mentioned 'three men and three women'; your mission can not exclude gender compatibility consistent with the prevailing psychosocial construct — this is what we are.
"In my line of work, our data bank produces an optimal selection of personalities, skills and identities for the best possible teams we might need to support our contingency plans. Old stuff; we've been doing that throughout history. Why you folks? The computer selected you, showed where each of you was located and why, and that you were all, shall we say, relatively unknown and available. None of you will be missed."
Brad and Ram locked eyes as Ram added, "As far as the mission goes, you and your colleagues were sent here for confinement and rehab, whatever the reason and however rehab was to be done. It's just that your team has been diverted. Coddling and other amenities of confinement are not part of our program. If you feel you're being treated unfairly, that's unfortunate. We need every qualified man and woman we can get. The prime requisite is that the team, meaning you and your colleagues, have and share the intelligence, initiative, guts and whatever else it takes to do the job."
"That's another point right there," Brad shot back. "You've assigned us a mission, you tell us it's dangerous, and then add, as an aside, you've judged us up to it, whatever in hell that's supposed to mean. But let me tell you, if I'm the guy to run it, I want to know a lot more. I've got to have confidence each team member will be there when the chips are down. So, what can I expect?"
For a moment, Ram gazed shrewdly at Brad. His eyes twinkled, and his features mustered a sly grin.
"You seem to have slipped into the role of team
Commander," he said.
Brad looked away, hesitated a moment, and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "I agree with what you've said about the mess we're in. No question in my mind that Slingshot is our only option. Obviously, I have nothing else on my schedule. Just doing time in this tin can would be a bore. But that doesn't justify your pushing me — us — around. OK, that's said, let's get back to my crew. I'll not pry where I've no business to, but who are they?"
"Their psychological profiles are available to you," said Ram. "I agree, you'll know all you need to know about them to get the job done. I can give you a quick rundown on each now, if you wish."
"I do."
"Myra is a logistician and a Medic certified to Level 4 in space-related trauma, physical and psychological. She was Med-Exec to a research team in a mini-tank town off Venus. Somehow, she got involved with the leader of a gang running controlled substances around the Inner Region. When the net was pulled in, there she was. Tried as an accessory and judged guilty. Nowhere near criminal in my judgment. She's quite bitter because she was used, and then convicted and sentenced on what she feels are false charges."
"I understand her bitterness."
"Nothing we can do. Your engineer, Hodak, is a damned good heavy-duty spacecraft maintenance engineer. Also lots of experience on a broad range of space support equipment used in surface ops. He's been all over the Inner Region, and worked on Ceres where he was the spaceport's Chief of Maintenance for about ten years. Got into a fight off Mars while on R & R and killed a guy. Convicted of manslaughter. He's an expert in the martial arts and in using exotic weapons. Space-wise."
"Understood. Next?"
"Zolan. As he said, a communicator and, I might add, from way back. As a child, he was classified 'gifted' and treated accordingly by the system. At the age of twelve, he came up with design refinements for spunnel cracking and transmission that raised eyebrows among the top pros in the field. His skill caused his downfall: he was convicted of illegally penetrating and modifying a database that was integrating a highly sensitive project. Just enjoying the challenge, he claimed. The project engineer didn't get wise until too late. During the trial he told off his former bosses; called them incompetent and not qualified to pass judgment on him or his work. Anyhow, he got a couple of years to cool off."
"Does this job call for his kind of communications expertise?"
"Yes, and more. Zolan is an extremely important asset for your mission. You'll agree, I think, when we get to your orders and the operation. I should add that, when your training is over, you will all be good communicators. But Zolan is at the hub."
"That leaves Adari and Kumiko. What's their input?"
"Adari is your navigator. She knows both Regions like the palm of her hand, and her record shows she's well versed in nav for the entire system. She got drunk on duty and borrowed the ship's recreation funds without permission to have a gambling holiday on Luna's Station Vegas. She returned broke as well as hung over. To add to her problems, some joker on Vegas gave her a whiff of Titan's deep strata gas. Almost blew her mind, but she's OK now. Spent a year in hospital on Guardian 18. No permanent damage. Now, she's doing time on the funds charge. Excellent navigator and gutsy."
"Kumiko?"
"Ah, little Kumiko," Ram smiled. "Last, but far from least. Kumiko is a former officer of the UIPS Space Force and an expert in space armaments. She can break down entire systems, and repair and reassemble them, blindfolded, from micro-miniatures to the big stuff. For some reason, her talent made her rather defiant of authority. Took manual control of her ship's guns when her patrol's sensors tagged unknowns inbound across no-mans-land sunside of the Jovian orbit. The unknowns were under a heavy screen and wouldn't cooperate with the Space Guard's self-identification requirements. Her Commander told her to punch a tiny hole in the screens, just enough to identify.
"Instead, she not only blew the screens away, she scorched the bow of a UIPS cruiser on a classified mission. The cruiser was out-of-line, of course; they should have responded to the query; protocols call for them to do so. But Kumiko went too far. She was forced to resign from the Service, and offered a choice to either join a penetration team to the Outer Region or work in an arsenal under tight supervision. She made her choice."
"Quite a group."
"All different, yet six of a kind," he said. "None
of you, by far, are hardened offenders of the law.
The crimes you were convicted of were, how shall
I put it, less than deliberately malicious."
"Hah!" Brad's bitter snort curdled in his gullet.
Xindral shrugged. His manner changed; tightened.
He motioned toward the view tank.
"Let's get on with it, Brad," he said. "There's a lot we need to cover."