April 3: The Middle of Nowhere (15 page)

"They always monitor our feed, but I'll officially bounce that request up to Earth Control and my supervisors," the worried looking fellow on ISSII replied.

"You are either against piracy or you are aiding it," Jon explained patiently. "Neutrality as a docking host is unacceptable. If we don't have the data quickly we will consider you a party to the attack. I believe that was what you wanted to avoid?"

"I don't have authority to release station recordings," the controller protested.

"Ask them if you can scratch your butt while you're at it," Jon mocked him.

"I have other interested parties watching my feed," Jeff announced. He'd brought in April and Happy Lewis. Dave was sharing the call with his shop unannounced.

"Earth Control asks to be brought in the call," ISSII requested. A window opened.

"ISSII you do not need authorization to release video of public spaces," Earth Control told him visibly irritated. "It is available real time on several stations and even web cast for the space nuts to view. Just because it is recordings instead of the live feed is irrelevant. I suggest you let the man see who killed his ship before he concludes you wish to cover it up."

 "Let's have a look at that feed then before any more discussion," Jon requested. "It can't hurt to see what we are talking about first hand."

 The camera view that came up was off the mid-boom, high quality, with the sun just outside the camera angle so the glare was tolerable. Most of the last half of the boom was visible with the
Eddie's Rascal
the second ship down from the camera and two ships beyond it.

The Chinese ship came into view from the other side of the boom. It took up station over the
Eddie's Rascal
with good crisp ship handling. There was a minimum of maneuvers and corrections with no hesitation between them. The hold of the
Moment of Tranquility
was already open and a swarm of armored suits erupted as soon as it took up station.

Jon noted none of the soldiers landed directly on the
Eddie's Rascal
. They all landed on the boom or braked to a halt without making noise against her hull. Bright flashes filled the shadows between ship and boom as the charges cut the ship off her docking grapples. They only needed five or six seconds to place the demo and jump clear. It was choreographed nicely.

The ship hesitated, then came off the boom crooked, rolling slowly, pieces of seal dangling where they were ripped free from the port. The air rushing from both boom and ship seemed to push them apart more than the explosives. The boom actually bent in an arch away from the ship and then rebounded. A cloud of ice fog marked the loss of air from the open locks and dissipated rapidly. Several suited figures dove on the drifting rolling ship to attach thruster packs to the hull and get its motion under control.

Boarding parties didn't even wait for the roll to be controlled. They formed up in groups of three, taking on delta formations. A couple lone soldiers pursued the ship from the boom and several jumped from the Chinese ship with lines to attach and draw her into their hold.

 The first group of three approached the
Eddie's Rascal
opposite it's drift aimed at a tangent  to the outside of the hull. They must have had coaching from another viewpoint because the fellow in the lead kept making little adjustments to his speed, slowing down. It was a masterful piece of suit work, the open lock coming around just as his boots reached the tangent point and he landed in the lock opening. He squatted, knees absorbing the difference in velocity and back jets puffing briefly to push him in the opening instead of being flung back out by the spin.

Something went wrong though and he came flying back out of the opening arms and legs stretched in front of him in comic exaggeration by some sort of impact. He was not much more than a meter outside when his helmet and all four limbs blew off with a white glare that overloaded the camera.

"Holy shit, what did he get hit with?" The Earth controller asked before thinking. Nobody answered him, all still intent on the video. The two other members of his triad tumbled out of control from the near explosion, unable to catch the edge as neatly as their leader.

As the open lock turned out of view from the camera there was a bright flash inside the control deck of the Chinese ship that lit it's view ports just before they shattered. No surface hole was visible, but a shaped charge caught the pressure tank for the flight crew oxygen and burst it. A big cloud of debris flew out the opposite side of the ship, all sparkly in the sunlight. Another round exploded on contact cratering the hull covering a space plane like this needed to enter atmosphere. The next shaped charge passed right through the ship, not finding anything substantial enough to detonate it. The last explosive round fell further back entering the open lock and impacting one of the suited technicians waiting to secure the
Eddie's Rascal
right between the shoulder blades on his tanks. The flare lit up the dark opening for an instant and then an assortment of suit parts and debris came out of the dark opening.

"Nope, that ship is not going to land anywhere without major repairs," Dave agreed.

Another set of three soldiers formed up near the
Eddie's Rascal
 and little points of light marked the hull as thrusters slowed its spin. The middle suit erupted with an intense light that blew his legs off. The other two poured fire into the open lock, but got none of the explosive rounds back. Instead the dome over the flight seats erupted with repeated fire, chunks of hull peeling back and pieces of machinery and a silvery cloud of metallic fluid expanding from repeated explosions. The
Eddie's Rascal
stopped rolling, under control now and one by one four soldiers cautiously pulled themselves through the open lock and disappeared inside.

Eddie's Rascal
was pulled into the hold with what looked like unnaturally slow deliberation to Earth eyes, but was actually reckless haste for safely moving something massive and weightless by hand. When the two ships actually touched it was with enough force to see the big Chinese ship move from the bump. Under normal conditions that was criminal negligence. Given the damage she carried from Edward's fire it probably didn't matter, unless any of the technicians were unlucky enough to get caught under her in the tight fitting hold.

The armored soldiers started coming back to the station boom. Each stopping and undergoing some brief procedure at the open hold.

"What are they doing?" Jeff wanted to know.

"I think Edwards took out their cabin Oxy so they are all stripping their suit tanks off for the pilot. That means they have about fifteen minutes of suit air, closer to ten maybe being so active, to get in the boom and through the airlock on the cap end."

"Can they make it?"

"Depends on how many they can fit in the lock and how fast they can cycle," Dave explained. As head of a repair company he was their expert on mechanical systems. "An emergency lock like that they can emergency purge instead of pump down if the last few are running really low on oxy. So yeah, they can all make it if they are familiar with the lock and how to override the pump cycle."

As they watched the Chinese ship rotated on thrusters, more junk was flung out of the still open hold and flight deck windows by the motion. When it was realigned it did about a twenty second initial burn and slowly slid off behind as it fell away into a lower orbit.

* * *

Waldecker reached the airlock on the end of the boom well behind the two from another ship who had rushed ahead of him. That was fine because it was only a two man lock and they both filled it. His bag was so big it would be a squeeze to cycle it and him together. The others had already exited the lock and were pumping it down for him when he got there. The pressure curtain had sealed the normal corridor access off cleanly and didn't seem bulged or leaking. With damage this bad the station maintenance would lay some panels and sticky blankets over the inside of the curtain to secure it until repairs were done.

"Click, Click can you hear me?" he heard Edwards say as clear as could be. "They are capturing us. You need to set the charges!" When he called the ship had rolled away, the hull cutting off his reply.

The lock display said a minute twenty seconds to end of pump down. Tom rolled on his one handed grip of the take hold beside the lock hatch and looked back down the boom. There were figures in black armored suits inside the open hatch where the
Eddie's Rascal
had docked. That wasn't rescue gear. In fact now he saw they had weapons too. This wasn't any sort of accident. A capture, Edwards had said. They might be after him too. Two were helping another of their own who seemed to be limp and not moving. Then the danger of the situation hit him when one of them raised his arm and pointed down the boom to where he was hanging by the lock. Two left the one pointing and started down the rail with the limp fellow between them, awkward but accelerating.

It was eighty meters and they had the one fellow slowing them down, but a glance at the readout said he had fifty seconds before the hatch would open. By then they would be close enough to rush him before the hatch could close. They might even risk a single careful shot into the lock to stop him. That would be insanity with the only safe pressure behind him, but this whole thing was already insane.

The large yellow square said "Emergency Fast Cycle". He made sure the bag was behind him away from the hatch and punched it. The hatch popped open with a slight push of air against him but no sound. He swung the bag ahead of him and scrambled in the lock. The two approaching let the one between them coast and sprinted ahead hand over hand. Something looked odd about them. He slammed the hatch home and hit the same Yellow command square. Air flooded the lock so suddenly his suit went limp in a heartbeat. He was reaching around his bundle already, leaning hard in the inside hatch release when the pressure equalized and spilled him into the station.

The two crew who just cycled through were waiting for him. The insignia on their suits said they were United Kingdom crew.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" The older fellow with his faceplate up demanded. He was angry rather than frightened and the stereotypical British cursing made Waldecker laugh which just made the fellow angrier. It was shear hysteria and he couldn't control it.

"It's the damned Chinese," his buddy said eyeball to the small sight hole on the hatch, "and they've got guns too." he informed his mate looking back at them, eyes going to Waldecker's holstered weapon disapprovingly.

"They blew our ship off the boom!" Waldecker exclaimed. It was an anguished cry because he'd finally added everything up in his mind. "On com my crew said they were being captured."

"Can you dog this hatch?" he asked looking to see some way to stop them coming through. The manual handles had been designed specifically to avoid accidental jams. There were no projections or recesses to wedge a bar or block.

"Let me see," he demanded, leaning in to look through the tiny glass in the hatch center. The British fellow leaned back readily, looking askance at him. One of the Chinese was already in the lock, back to him and pulling on the unconscious one as his partner outside shoved him in the lock. He suddenly realized what looked odd about him. There was no air tank hanging on his back anywhere. Just a bright clump of brass fittings and regulator housings below his neck where they should hang. The outside hatch swung shut as he watched.

With no way to physically bar the hatch the only thing left was the control box and screen. The power should feed through from the station side if he could only stop it. Waldecker unholstered his pistol to both of the other men's alarm and wildly smashed at the housing with a screen and pad. Three hard strokes smashed the screen and had pieces of circuit board floating loose around them. He reholstered his pistol and reached in double handed and grabbed wires, ripping them loose with hysterical strength. Only the suit gloves kept him from injury.

"Here now!" the older fellow objected. "Do you really want to piss off these fellows? When they finally do cycle through you are likely going to have to deal with them anyway, right? And I expect station security will be along momentarily. Wouldn't it be better to calm down and look more reasoned and composed than the other fellows if you are in the right? Security is hardly going to appreciate you vandalizing station equipment. Why prejudice them against you?"

"I don't want to piss them off," Waldecker snarled at him. "I'm going to
kill
them. This isn't some dock rats stealing freight or something. It's soldiers and war we're talking now."

"Easy buddy boy. Nobody wants to talk about war with the Chinese. There are simply too many of the silly buggers. You could kill a billion and still have a problem."

Eye back to the peephole, Waldecker saw the Chinese who was mobile had the emergency panel open and was reading the instructions for using the manual controls to open the lock.

The English fellows didn't have a clue what was happening when he tore open his patch kit at his waist and put a sticky patch in his left hand. He checked the soldier's position again through the glass and drew his pistol without hesitation sticking it against the hatch and fired.

It sounded more like hitting the hatch with a hammer than a pistol shot. The pistol recoiled off the hatch less than a hand's breadth and a few spalled fragments peeled off the bullet rapped the walls around them, but nobody called out that they were hit. He slide the weapon back in his holster, ripped the film off the peel-and-stick patch and covered his dimpled bullet hole. He looked back at the English quickly, scared they might try to grab him and disarm him. Nothing was further from their minds. They both had drawn back horrified.

Back at the glass he looked in the lock. He could see the black suit close to the glass moving slowly like a drift, not purposeful motion, but nothing beyond, as it cut off the view. A couple dark marble sized balls of blood floated by and the suit stopped moving just inches from the glass. There was pounding, not from inside the lock, but faintly from the boom beyond. After maybe two minutes he was sure there was no motion and backed off the glass and started shaking. There was one more frantic round of distant pounding then none. He was still coming off the adrenaline high and shivering when station security arrived.