Severance (18 page)

Kinsella’s mouth hung open, wanting only to scream
obscenities at the man, but unable to think of anything foul enough. “Look,
Eric,” Helot said, getting up from his chair. “I know you. You’re an adaptable
guy. Look at what you were planning to pull on me today. That showed real
gumption! This ship is going to need that part of you now. You’ll still get to
be mayor of the Argos. I’m not taking that away from you.” He paused, smiling
weakly. “Just part of your mandate.” He walked around his desk towards
Kinsella, then stopped, seeming to think better of it. “I know we’ve never been
friends, but I always admired you. You’re a pragmatist. Not one to fight the
hopeless fight. You’ll get on with your life, and you’ll die an old and happy
man,” Helot said. He returned to his desk and shoved it back into its original
position. He looked down at something on the display. “Now, I have a bit of
work to do here, so if you’ll go quietly with the Chief…”

Kinsella did not wish to go quietly and explained as much
using the strongest language available. A brief and lopsided struggle followed,
which inevitably left the mayor of the Argos unconscious on the floor.

§

The entertainment value of seeing their mayor’s body dragged
from the captain’s cabin and out of the command center was appreciated by the
naval personnel present, whose morale had been suffering of late due to the
implications of recent job–related duties.

§

In the fan room on the third floor of the Bridge, the heavy
access hatch had been resealed a few hours earlier by a couple of harried naval
technicians. The lighter wall panel remained on the floor, where it had sat
since Bruce had removed it. The technicians had long since left the room, as it
was located on the wrong side of the gap that would soon form.

The mechanism located within the cavity came to life. With
an audible clunk, the disconnect sprang open, both halves of the enormous clamp
releasing the handshake they had begun two hundred and forty years previous. At
the same time, at a hundred and seven similar spots throughout the aft, a
hundred and seven identical clamps did the same.

Pistons mounted within the cavities began to push off
against each other. Six months of accelerating at a tenth of a G, followed by
two hundred and forty years of waiting, had caused the two halves of the Argos
to bond tightly together. A shove would be needed to knock them apart.

As the pistons began pushing off, the cavities began to be
exposed to vacuum, beginning with the ones closest to the exterior of the ship.
The thin insulating foam began to crumble away as the two halves of the ship
struggled to free themselves from each other.

But after so many years, not all of the pistons operated
properly, even with the secret maintenance that they had received over the past
half–decade. Knowing this could happen, a contingency plan for such a failure
was in place. The pistons that were operational began pushing and relaxing in
concert, trying to rock the aft end of the ship back and forth, working to pry
it off like a champagne cork. Terrifying, otherworldly groaning noises
permeated the ship as forgotten joints and bonds began flexing.

After minutes of this, the aft of the ship finally broke
free, but critically, along one side only. The other side held fast, metal
screaming in protest. The pistons continued their frantic rocking action, as
the separation on the other side of the ship increased, growing to almost half
a meter. The creaking and groaning noises increased, as the whole ship started
to vibrate.

Suddenly, the pistons in the disconnect cavities ceased
their fruitless shoving match. The aft of the ship, still partially attached,
hung motionless for a second. Then, the massive forces stored in the bent metal
on the stuck side, began to slowly tug the ship back into alignment, like a
spring returning to its original shape. The ship slammed shut, unimaginable
forces smashing the separated sides back into each other.

Some of the pistons leapt into action again, this time much
more feebly. Many had been destroyed in the impact, and a significant chunk of
the disconnects, having tasted freedom ever so briefly, slammed shut around
their opposing members in the sudden impact. The ship was together again.

§

“All sections report they’re intact. No penetration of core
compartments reported.”

“Disconnect 6–3–2 reports full connection. 5–3–1 does as
well…fuck. Okay, let’s just say that
a lot
of them are reconnected. Most are still
offline though, no reading.”

“I’ve lost readouts on the rest of the Argos. Have we lost
the hardline?”

The control center was a flurry of activity, men and women
hunched over their control screens, shouting status reports to the room, all
assuming that someone was listening.

“Everyone, shut up!” barked Helot from his perch on the
upper–level of the command center. “I want everyone to calm down. Nobody say a
thing unless I ask for it.” Helot scanned the room slowly, locking eyes with
every officer in turn, reassuring them that he was still in charge. That done,
he stood up straighter. “Okay, first things first: how’s the core envelope?”

“Okay, sir,” replied the officer sitting at the engineering
panel. Curts, hovering right behind him, nodded at Helot. “There is no sign of
vacuum in the core, sir. All bulkhead doors are online and appear to be intact.”

“How about the rest of the ship?”

“I can’t tell, sir. I think the hardline must have been
disconnected.”

“Can we fix that?” Helot asked.

“Maybe. That will take a while. In the meantime, we should
be able to patch back in over the wireless. We’re working on that now.”

“Good, let me know when you do that.”

“Sir?” the officer at the engineering panel interrupted him.

“What is it?”

“Our bulkhead doors along the Africa and America side
elevators are showing a loss of pressure on the other side.”

“Vacuum? Is it just in the space between the doors, or is
there a breach on the other side? At street level? Don’t answer, I know you can’t
tell yet.” Helot exhaled. “Okay, Smith, give me a status report on all the
disconnects. A
summary
status report.”

“About a third of them are offline right now. During the
detachment, a bunch of them failed to release — mainly in the two and three
series. Then, after the detachment, a bunch of them slammed shut again. It’s
hard to tell how many.”

Curts had crossed over to look at the officer’s screen and
turned to Helot. “We’re going to need to inspect these all visually before we
try that again.”

“
I know
,” Helot said, annoyed at Curts’ obviousness. He
turned to the officers perched in front of him on the upper–level of the
command center. “Engines? Navigation?”

“Engines and positioning thrusters are fully operational. We’re
rotating well off axis though. 0.12 degrees per second.”

“Hardly our biggest problem right now,” Helot muttered. “Okay,
keep an eye on it.”

“Sir? We’re patched back in to the main Argos network via
wireless. Everyone should be seeing that on their screens now.”

Helot turned to the officer at the engineering panel. “How’s
the rest of the ship?”

“The bulkhead doors along 9
^th
Avenue are all
intact. No signs of vacuum at street level.”

Helot nodded, repeatedly clenched and unclenched his hands,
mentally working through his options. “Okay, everyone. I don’t want to see anyone
panicking. We’ve got a year long window here. Lots of time to try again. But,
let’s not waste any of it. Curts, get your people and start inspecting those
disconnects right away.”

He looked at the images of the crowds gathered on the other
side of the bulkheads, knowing they weren’t likely to give him a year.

§

A clang rang up from the darkened hole in the floor,
followed by a thud. Helot and Thorias looked at each other with concern. “You
okay, Curtsy?” Thorias asked.

“Yeah,” Curts’ voice echoed up from the hole. “Hang on.”

They were standing in a dormitory on the fifth floor, just
above the threshold along which the ship was to have split. Bunk beds had been
shoved aside, along with the confused civilians in them, family members of
security and naval officers. This had uncovered the massive access hatch which
opened up onto one of the jammed disconnects. Curts’ head appeared in the
access hatch and looked around, blinking. He hauled himself out of the hole and
flopped down on the ground, covered in sweat and grime following six hours of
uncomfortable work.

“It’s going to t–t–take at least a couple months,” he
reported, getting to his feet. “We’ve only inspected a fraction of them, but I
think I can fairly safely say that we’re going to have to physically c–c–cut
through almost a quarter of the disconnects with fuse torches. There’s a
problem though.”

“They’re in vacuum?” Helot asked.

Curts bit his lip. “Probably some, yes. But most evidently
aren’t.” Eyes closed, he shook his head. “No, wait. That’s not what I’m, err…that’s
not the p–p–problem. I’m thinking…I mean. The issue is — a lot of them have
resealed. Or there’s not enough separation to blow the seals completely. That’s
part of it. The other part is that…it’s hard to explain. I mean, most of the
disconnects can only be accessed from the other side of the ship.”

Helot’s knuckles whitened.
Spit it out you fucking idiot.
“It means your men will need access to the other side of those cavities,”
Helot said, seeing Curts’ mouth open, wanting to pre–empt him. He had already
guessed that would be necessary. Curts nodded.

Helot turned to Thorias. “So? This is what you were worried
about, yes?”

Thorias turned his head to the side, cracking his neck. “If
the people on the other side of those bulkhead doors don’t know what happened,
they will soon.” He looked at Helot meaningfully.

Helot grimaced and twisted his fingers together. It had been
stupid telling everything to Kinsella. But it had been irresistible — to have
kept a secret like that for so long and be home free. Telling that oily bastard
where he could stick his kiddy–diddling pics was fantastic, the best part of
what had admittedly been a pretty shitty day. “Can we maybe find him and make
him be quiet?” he asked softly.

“We can try.”

“Okay. Quietly, if possible. And alive please,” Helot said, wishing
he didn’t have to specify that, not wanting to take the chance. “Now, what
else? We’ll still need to keep people out of the aft. So, we’ll keep the
bulkhead doors down. But people will ask questions.”

“Call it a terrorist attack,” Thorias said. “Everyone will
have felt the shaking. That will give us an excuse for sending officers out
hunting for the mayor. We’ll keep most of them back here. Open a few bulkhead
doors to serve as gates. Set up barricades. Call it a security perimeter. A few
squads will roam the bow, looking for the terrorists who did this. And we
already have a couple readymade terrorists to pin this on.”

Helot rubbed his fingers together. “Okay. Do all that
immediately.” Thorias turned away and began making calls. Helot directed his
attention back at the filthy chief engineer. “Curts? Get started with those
fuse torches.
Quickly, please.
” He left the engineer by his hole, and
left the room, waiting for the door to close behind him before rubbing his face.
What was supposed to be a clean cut, surgical procedure now felt an awful lot
like picking at an open sore.

§

Sergei swallowed again. He had had to do that too much
lately. He had too much damned saliva in his mouth. He guessed it was just
nerves. No one had ever told him of all the saliva that came with the nerves.

Four in the afternoon and he was standing guard at a hastily
erected barricade on Africa–1. Another eight security guards were there,
working through their own symptoms of the nerves, casting nervous looks down
the street to the north.

It had been an interesting day. He had slept uneasily the
night after leaving the bar with Laura. Sergeant Koller had been at the bar,
staring right at them both. For a while, Sergei had thought it was just a
coincidence Koller was there, and that he had been staring at them like a
pervert simply because he was one. But a part of him couldn’t shake the idea
that Koller was there specifically to watch them. Sergei had sleepwalked
through the next day, constantly checking over his shoulder to look for any
familiar faces, finding none. They weren’t watching him. Which meant they were
watching Laura. He had decided that he should probably warn her about that, but
he hadn’t decided on the safest way to do so when he had gone to bed, hopeful
he would think of a solution by the morning.

No solution was waiting when he awoke, but a message was,
one accompanied by the distinctive chirp indicating it was a priority message.
Still a couple of hours before Sergei was scheduled to come on–shift, he knew
it was almost certainly a “Get the fuck in to work right now” chirp. The chirp,
unwelcome though it was, was at least familiar. The message that accompanied it
was not:

COMMENCE DRILL 1A. ARRIVE AT SECURITY HQ IN 30 MINUTES WITH
1 STANDARD BAG OF PERSONAL BELONGINGS.

Sergei read the message twice before reluctantly getting out
of bed. He knew what the drill was — they had done this once a year since he had
joined the security ranks. It was intended to prepare the security corp for the
possibility of a long term deployment in a fortified aft, on the chance that a
massive civil war would break out in exactly the same way as the first one.
Sergei remembered his first such drill clearly. “They’ll know who you are and where
you live,” his commanding officer had told him. “And will have no hesitation
about destroying everything you own. Take everything that’s valuable to you.”
Sergei had thought that a particularly overdramatic touch. They had been doing
these drills regularly since the Breeder conflict, though they had always been
announced in advance and never via a message. That was odd. Sergei couldn’t
recall any drills announced via a terminal message before.