Aces (6 page)

For Rick, the
flight got boring again, until the shuttle encountered the planet
’
s
atmosphere, and he experienced the familiar roaring sound, and turbulence, of a
spacecraft slowing down by burning a hole in the air. In
Ace
’
s no-luxuries cargo-hauling shuttle, the descent was much
louder and rougher than the commercial spaceplane flights Rick was used to. At
some point, Sam came over the intercom to announce that, because the shuttle
was now surrounded by super-heated plasma, they would soon temporarily lose
contact with the ship. It was nothing to worry about, Sam said, everything was
going as planned.

“You
’
re in the pipe, five by five, shuttle.” Vassily
’
s
voice declared. “We
’
re losing you now, see you on the other
side.”

“Tssshhk-uttle,
acknowle-sssssss Nelso-“ The radio cut off, drowned out by static.

Kaylee glanced
over at Manny, to see if he was scared that they had lost contact with their
father, as his shuttle dropped through the atmosphere. If anything, he looked
excited. The video image on the screen now showed the shuttle
’
s
planned flight path, with a blinking light indicating the spacecraft itself.
Brother and sister had elected to sit on their parent
’
s
bed to watch the video feed, rather than on the sofa in the main compartment.
Kaylee was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed, Manny slumped back
nonchalantly against the pillows, both had an array of snacks to munch on.
Manny pointed to his watch, and was about to say something, when their mother
’
s voice came over the speaker.

“Kaylee, Manny,
this is nothing to worry about,” Joy said in a soft voice that had a worried
catch to it, “the shuttle can
’
t use its radio when they
are coming down through the atmosphere.”

“I know, Mom,”
Manny said, “they will be out of contact for seven minutes. It
’
s
because the super-heated plasma surrounding the shuttle drowns out radio
signals.”

“Of course you
knew that.” Joy replied, with a hint of a laugh.

“I knew that,
too.” Kaylee added defensively, and stuck her tongue out at her brother.

“Good. We will
talk to your father in a few minutes. The crew here tells me everything is
going smoothly.”

“We can see that
here, Mom, the shuttle is right in the flight path. Don
’
t
worry about us.” Manny said.

“All right. And
don
’
t eat too much junk, we
’
re having
dinner in a few hours.”

Kaylee rolled her
eyes at the speaker, and popped a chocolate into her mouth. “Yes, Mother.”

Captain Schroeder
couldn
’
t be blamed for what happened to his ship. The
Ace
was a transport, essentially a long frame with four large cargo boxes and a
hyperdrive, designed to haul cargo between the stars at minimal expense; she
had no defenses, and only limited sensors. The attention of everyone on the
bridge was focused on their shuttle
’
s descent through the
atmosphere, which was now approaching the period of maximum stress on that
craft
’
s heat shielding. No one was paying any attention to
the innocent medical research ship that was approaching.

Gina had been
chatting with Joy, to take the other woman
’
s mind off the
fact that they
’
d temporarily lost contact with her
husband, when a light on Gina
’
s console flashed. Gina
activated the display. That was odd. They had just lost the signal from the
hypercomm navigational beacon in Earth orbit. She figured there were two
possibilities; either the beacon had stopped transmitting, which had never
happened before, or something was wrong with
Ace
’
s
hypercomm gear. She didn
’
t consider a third possibility.
“Just a minute, Joy, I
’
ve got a-
“ she
hesitated, searching for a word that would not be alarming to the passenger
seated next to her, “glitch in my comm gear. I need to adjust something.” Her
console, like the rest of the ship, was old, and equipment sometimes
malfunctioned. The comm gear, however, had been through routine scheduled
maintenance while the ship had been in Earth orbit, and the hyperwave antenna
had been replaced. Gina frowned, and started tracing the problem through the
system. She started with the hyperwave antenna. It appeared to be functioning
normally.

While Gina was
trying to figure out why she
’
d lost the nav beacon, and
the others on the bridge were watching the shuttle
’
s
passage through the atmosphere,
Nightengale
fired
her thrusters, and rolled slowly around her long axis. That in itself was not
noteworthy, ships in normal space routinely rotated, so that radiation from the
star didn
’
t cook one side of the ship. If anyone on
Ace
’
s bridge had been looking, they would have seen that a bay door
on the medical ship
’
s port side was open. Now, that was
odd, if any of
Nightengale
’
s
crew were going outside, they should have notified any nearby ships. The open
door rotated toward
Ace
, and, for the briefest moment, a pair of
red-colored tubes were visible inside the airlock, then something shot out of
one tube.

The missile was
launched by a magnetic pulse, invisible to any human observer. Once the missile
reached a safe 500 meters from
Nightengale
, its
solid rocket motor ignited, and the missile altered course. The launch was
undetected, and the missile itself was unseen, until it had crossed half the
distance to the freighter. On
Ace
’
s bridge, the
collision alarm sounded, triggered by the low-powered radar which constantly swept
the space around the ship.

Seth barely had
time to check the radar, and see with shock that the source of the alarm was an
object traveling at high speed from the medical ship, when the missile struck
the freighter, right at the junction tube which connected the saucer-shaped
command section to the rest of the ship. The missile penetrated the thin outer
skin of the tube, then the low-power warhead exploded.

The blast ripped
through the junction tube, tearing it completely apart, and also cut through
the three structural frames which connected the command section to the rest of
the ship. The command section was wrenched free with the shrieking, groaning
sound of tearing metal and composites and separated from the rest of the ship,
spinning end over end, out of control.

On the bridge
there was pandemonium. Seth was the only person strapped into a seat, everyone
else was flung around from the force of the explosion. The artificial gravity
cut off immediately, along with the lights.  Joy was fortunate to be knocked
first against the flat bridge doors, then fall forward into Schroeder, who was
rebounding off the back off Seth
’
s chair. Gina and Vassily
hit the ceiling. Everyone was shouting, no one was listening.

The dim emergency
lighting snapped on, then a few consoles came back to life, navigation first,
followed by communications. Captain Schroeder, bleeding from a cut on his head,
managed to get a grasp on a handhold. “Is everyone all right?” He shouted out.

Seth
’
s brain felt like it had been on a rollercoaster ride. He
blinked, his vision was functional. “I
’
m OK, Hans.” He
responded, for the moment forgetting shipboard formality. Seth unbuckled from
his seat, and pushed off to grab Vasilly around the waist, then pull the engineer
down to his duty station and strap him loosely into his own seat. Vasilly had a
deep scar across his right temple, blood was welling up. His eyes were barely
open, and glassy, staring without seeing. He moaned in pain. “Vasilly
’
s alive, he took a knock on the head, I think he
’
s
unconscious.”

Gina cried out
from the far corner of the bridge, she was still floating in the air. “I think
I broke my arm.” Her voice was shaky from the pain. Her left forearm was at an
odd angle, she cradled it with her right hand.

 Joy
coughed, and spit blood from a cut on her lip. She had also bashed her nose at
some point, and it too was bleeding. Fingers and toes were moving. “I
’
m fine here. What happened? My bComm isn't connecting to the
ship computer.”

“
I
don’
t know what happened yet, my bComm is down also. Ms. Sanchez, can
you help Gina? Seth, make sure Vasilly won
’
t float around,
then get back to your station, we need to figure out what our status is.”
Schroeder pulled himself along the handholds, trying to get to a viewport which
looked aft. He stopped to speak over the intercom.

Joy, moving on
adrenaline, held onto a railing with one hand, and reached up to get hold of
Gina
’
s pantsleg with the other. Gently, she pulled the
other woman down toward the deck, until Gina got her legs wrapped around the
railing. “You can hang on now?”

Gina nodded
without speaking, her eyes streaming in tears from the pain. Her tears floated
away, forming salty droplets in the zero gravity.

“I have to check
on my children.” Joy said with determination, and was about to push herself
toward the bridge doors, when Schroeder spoke.

“
Ms.
Sanchez! Don
’
t. We are no longer attached to the
rest of the ship.” He said, with a tone of alarm in his voice.

“What? What do
you mean?” Joy, for the first time, felt panic well up inside her.

Schroeder pointed
out the viewport. “I can see behind us, and the cargo section isn
’
t
there. It
’
s drifting away from us. The blast must have
knocked us loose.”

“We have to get
there! My children are on that ship!” Joy awkwardly flung herself toward
Schroeder, nearly bashing her head on a console, but he caught her and guided
her away. He held tightly onto her shoulders and looked her right in the eye.

“Ms. Sanchez!
Listen to me! We have no way to get from here to the other part of the ship. We
only have one shuttle, and it
’
s on Ares right now. Your
children, listen to me, listen to me-“ he said gently as Joy tried to wrench
herself away, “are you listening? I
’
m trying to help you.
Your children are most likely in better shape than we are. The rest of the ship
has much more mass, the explosion would not have knocked it around nearly as
much. All the power and life support systems are in their part of the ship, and
Jen is there with them. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Joy
whispered.

“What we need to
do now is restore power to the radio, and contact
Nightengale
,
or the shuttle. They will-“

Seth interrupted.
“Captain,
Nightengale
isn
’
t
going to help. I think they fired a missile at us.”

It was
Schroeder
’
s turn to be incredulous. “What?”
He released Joy and made his way quickly over to Seth
’
s
console. Until then, Schroeder had assumed the explosion was an accident, a
mechanical failure, or a high-speed meteor impact. Surely his navigator was
wrong. Joy turned around to look out the viewport, and caught a glimpse at the
cargo section, it looked far away already. Her heart sank.

Seth pulled up
the brief radar track he
’
d seen before the explosion, and
played it back for Schroeder. “
Mein Gott
.”
Schroeder whispered, lapsing into his native German. “You are right. They
attacked us.” He pointed to a second image on the screen, in the opposite
direction. “What is this?”

“Hmm. I didn
’
t see that. I
’
ll play it back.” Seth ran
the brief recording back and forth, then looked up in horror. “They fired a second
missile-“

Schroeder
finished the thought. “Down at our shuttle. We need to warn them right away.”

“How?” Gina said,
her voice a dry croak. “Power
’
s out, 
radio
’
s down.” She clasped her right hand to her
face in sudden shock. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Schroeder
inquired.

Gina was stricken
with guilt. “Captain, before, just before the missile hit, we lost our
hypercomm, I couldn
’
t pick up the hypercomm beacon. I
thought it was a problem with our gear, but...”

Schroeder
nodded grimly.
“They were silently jamming our hypercomm. Which
means we can
’
t call the Navy for help. Gina, this is
absolutely
not
your fault. Even if you
’
d warned me,
there was no time to do anything about it.” Schroeder looked over to the
communications console, which only had a few lights glowing. “Hopefully they
don
’
t feel any need to jam ordinary radio signals, we need
to warn the shuttle quickly. We need to find a way to restore power to the
radio, and fast.”

“How much
longer?” Kaylee asked, bored with staring at a blinking dot on the video screen.

“Less than a
minute.” Manny answered without checking his watch. “See the counter at the top
left of the screen? It says ROS 0:54? That means fifty four seconds to
Reacquisition Of Signal, until the shuttle can use its radio again. It
’
s an estimate, really.”

“Oh.” When did
her little brother learn technical details like that?

Manny pointed out
other items displayed on the screen. “See the numbers down the left side? The
top one is the shuttle
’
s true airspeed, the one below that
is-“

The cabin heaved beneath
them and the lights went out, accompanied by loud booming and shrieking noises.
Kaylee was flung onto her back, she sprawled across the mattress, frantically
grabbing onto the comforter and a pillow, anything she could get her hands on.
Manny was knocked onto his right side, one of his sister
’
s
feet hit him in the face. Someone screamed, Manny realized it was both of them.
The cabin stopped moving as Kaylee slid off the side of the bed to land on her
butt with a thump. There was a brief wave of nausea as the artificial gravity
system fluctuated, then steadied. The cabin stopped moving, and red emergency
lights snapped on.

“What-“ Kaylee
started to say, when the cabin moved again. She clung to the bed as best she
could as she felt the floor vibrate in a series of pulses. This time, there was
no booming or shrieking, instead the sound was fainter popping and creaking.

“That
’
s the ship
’
s thrusters!” Manny shouted.
The thrusters were a familiar sound then the ship was in normal space, though
never so loud or so sustained. What Manny was used to hearing was a bare
whisper, this was almost a roar. The cabin moved several times, back and forth
over the course of about twenty seconds while the children hung onto the bed as
tightly as they could. Then the motion stopped, and the popping sound was gone,
but the creaking continued, intermittently.

“Kaylee, what
’
s going on?” Manny asked, hanging onto the headboard of the bed
in case the cabin moved again. Suddenly, he was again the little brother,
looking up to his big sister in a crisis.

“
I
don’
t know.” Her own voice was shaky. “Computer, what happened?”

There was no
answer. The ship
’
s artificial intelligence computer always
responded immediately, no matter what time of the day or night. Not now. The
regular lighting flickered on and off, then came back on steadily. The video
screen remained dark. Kaylee stood up shakily, picked up the phone from the
night stand, and held it to her ear. “The phone
’
s dead.
Hello? Hello? Anyone?”

“Kaylee, if the
phone is dead-“

“I can
’
t hear anything, that doesn
’
t mean no one
can hear us.” She insisted. “I
’
ll keep trying.”

The second
missile, guided by
Nightengale
’
s
radar at first, quickly acquired its target after launch, the shuttle was hard
to miss, as it was glowing hot from its passage through the atmosphere. The
shuttle was almost directly below, the landing had been planned so that
Ace
would be above, to provide radar tracking and advice if anything went wrong.
The missile
’
s small computer brain performed a quick
calculation, determining it actually needed to slow down first, in order to
avoid overshooting the target. It swung around, and ignited the solid rocket
motor, pointing backwards to slow down enough to drop out of orbit, then it
turned again, to point nearly straight down, accelerating at four hundred times
the force of Earth
’
s gravity. It bored heedlessly into the
thin atmosphere, not caring that tremendous heat was building up on the nose.
The nose was covered in a ceramic material that was designed to ablate away, to
flake off as the air heated it. The ceramic began to peel off in layers, and
the missile had to adjust its course as each piece broke away. Inside the nose,
the warhead and electronics were growing hot. It didn
’
t
matter. Before the heat fried the computers, the missile would reach the
target. Nothing could stop it.

            The
shuttle had come out of the communications blackout a few minutes before, and
was lining up for final approach to a landing at the mining settlement. The
expected call from above had never come.
“
Atlas Challenger
,
respond, please! What, are they deaf? I must have called them ten times.”
Nelson turned to Sam. “How sure are you that the radio antenna made it through
the entry intact?”

Before Sam could
answer, there was a burst of static from the radio, then Seth
’
s
voice, weak and distorted. “Shuttle, this is
Ace
! You have a missile on
your tail! Repeat: you have a missile on your tail. Set down now-now-now!”

            A
disgusted look flashed across Nelson
’
s face.
“Seth, if this is a practical joke, I
’
m coming back up
there to kick your-“

            “
No
joke! No joke! The ship has been attacked, the command section split from the
ship, and they fired a missile down after-“ Seth
’
s voice
was drowned out by static, as
Nightengale
jammed
the transmission.

            “
Seth!
Seth, come in! Seth! Dammit!”

            Rick
called out, forgetting Nelson
’
s rule that
passengers never speak, his voice slightly squeaky. “Can we look for a missile?
We have radar, right?”

            “
We
have navigational radar, which points down and forward, not up. But you have a
good point, professor. Hang on tight.” Nelson hauled back on the stick, and the
shuttle grabbed the thin air, standing on its tail. He fed power to the
engines, continuing the climb, until the shuttle had completed the turn, and
was now upside down and flying in the opposite direction. If you couldn
’
t steer the radar, then steer the ship it
’
s
attached to. “Sam, you see anything?”

            “
Hold
on, the radar is still set on close-range mode. Huh. I don
’
t
see any- Oh, God! There it is! Nelson, set us down now! I mean
NOW
!” Sam
’
s face had gone pale.

            Nelson
didn
’
t hesitate, he had glanced the incoming
blip on the scope. It was still far away, but moving extremely fast. This had
to be the real deal, military issue, not some probe modified to carry a
warhead. Nelson didn
’
t stop to think, or wonder why, he
simply reacted, and hauled back on the stick again, pointing the shuttle
’
s nose straight down, slamming the throttle full open.  As
the acceleration kicked him back in the seat and the rusty red surface of the planet
rushed at him, he shouted “Sam, Rick, as soon as we touch down, grab your spare
O2 bottle and run like hell! Shuttle, once everyone is clear, lift off and
circle this area at twenty clicks! And I don
’
t care if you
are damaged, you get out of here, no excuses!”