Waypoint Kangaroo (30 page)

“That's an excellent fucking question,” Jemison says.

A trilling noise fills the room, and a stripe of blue light outlining the floor begins pulsing. I feel like I should recognize this.

“Should we be worried about that?” I ask, pointing to the blue lights.

“That's the acceleration warning,” Sawhney says. “Prepare for gravity.”

“But aren't we still at midway?”

“He has navigation control,” Jemison says. “The fucker's changing course.”

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Dejah Thoris
—Deck B, officers' briefing room

19 minutes after the hijacking

Captain Santamaria, Commander Galbraith, Chief Jemison, Cruise Director Logan, and I are gathered around the conference table, looking at the images from suite 5028 and my eye scans of main engineering. I've stowed my duffel bag of Red Wine in one of the wall storage compartments. I'm pretty sure nobody's going to want any wine right now.

“Am I the only one who thinks this is completely insane?” Galbraith asks.

“Which part?” Logan asks. “The murder or the hijacking?”

“Let's go over this one more time,” Santamaria says, looking at Jemison. “Chief?”

“Sir.” She pulls up my radiation scan, taken from the hallway outside 5028. “This is the best image we have of the body we originally identified as Alan Wachlin. We thought the PECC was inside the chest, but after closer analysis, it looks like it's just about level with the spine. Probably burned through the body when it reached critical mass. Wachlin knew the fire and radiation would make identification nearly impossible.”

“Can we test the DNA?” Santamaria asks.

“That will take time,” Logan says. “Dr. Sawhney is collecting samples now. He says he can send the data back to Earth, but it'll have to go through PMC Legal and FBI for authorization and a privacy release before we can even search for a records match.”

“That could take weeks,” Jemison grumbles.

“Mr. Rogers,” Santamaria says, “do you think the State Department might be able to speed things along?”

I nod. “More than likely.”

“Thank you. Please work with Dr. Sawhney on that,” Santamaria says. “Logan. Has anyone else on the ship been reported missing?”

Logan shakes his head. “I've asked all our cabin stewards to verify their passengers visually. We'll have a full count soon. Security is helping to get everyone secured in their staterooms.”

“Good.”

“Can I just get this straight?” Galbraith says, waving her hands over the tabletop. “You're saying that Alan Wachlin killed his own mother. He intentionally gave his brother David the wrong medication to drug him into a stupor, then killed their mother while she was sleeping.

“After that, he abducted another passenger, murdered him too, and then put the body in his own bed with a spare atomic power core he'd smuggled aboard earlier? Is that what we're saying?”

“Yes,” Jemison says. “And then he dragged his catatonic brother to a lifeboat and planted the murder weapon on him. Alan Wachlin wanted us to think his brother was the killer. He was probably hoping we wouldn't find David until later, after he'd died from the drug overdose.”

“And now this man has hijacked the ship?” Galbraith says, her voice almost cracking. “He killed his mother, framed his brother for the murder, hid himself from every housekeeping and security inspection for three days, and now he's locked himself in Main Eng with Chief Gavilán as a hostage? What is he, some kind of supervillain?”

Jemison and I exchange a look. I steal another glance at the captain, but he's staring down at the tabletop. We can't tell anybody else what we suspect: Alan Wachlin had help from Jerry Bartelt. Bartelt was Wachlin's handler.

And someone else is running both of them.

“He's ex-army,” I say. “Special Forces. He probably did worse things during the war.”

“Most of the ship's systems have primary control routed through Main Eng,” Jemison says. “We still have life support, but he's cut us off from everything else, including external comms, navigation, and propulsion.”

“He chose this ship and this sailing for a reason,” Santamaria says. “Erica, have you been able to determine our new course yet?”

“Yes. We don't have engine control, but I still have read access to the nav computer,” Galbraith says. “This new course doesn't make sense, though.”

“Explain.”

Galbraith moves her hands over the tabletop, touching control areas. The display changes to a black background and a collection of colored dots joined by curved lines. Alphanumeric labels float next to some of the dots and curves. I can understand the words EARTH and MARS, but that's about it.

“This was our original course.” Galbraith traces a curved white line with her finger. “Earth to Mars, standard delta-vee plus-and-minus with midway turnaround. Seven-day travel time, orbital insertion at Earth perigee.

“We've been under constant thrust since the engines restarted. This is the new course he programmed.” Galbraith points to a yellow line leaving the midway marker. “We're actually accelerating
toward
Mars. If he doesn't change course or speed, we'll arrive in just over a day.”

“Why would a hijacker take us where we were going anyway?” Logan says.

“Erica,” Santamaria says quietly, “would you expand that navigation view into Mars orbit, please.”

Galbraith nods and manipulates the navigation chart. Mars grows from a red dot to a large disk in the center of the display. The white line showing our original course curls backward around the planet, putting
Dejah Thoris
into orbit around the planet. The end of the yellow line—our new course—stabs sideways into the edge of the red disk.

“He still wants to go to Mars,” Santamaria says. “He just doesn't want to stop when we get there.”

“Oh,” Logan says.

“Bastard,” Galbraith says. “That's why he chose this sailing. Dammit.”

“How is that even possible?” I ask. “Don't interplanetary transfer orbits have to be very precisely calibrated?” That's what Oliver always yells at me when I ask if I can change my space travel plans.

“Yes,” Galbraith says. “But our current voyage is the shortest Earth-to-Mars transit possible. It's timed to take advantage of when the two planets are closest to each other in their solar orbits.”

“Perigee,” Jemison says, making it sound like a curse.

“We always carry an emergency fuel reserve,” Santamaria says. “Combined with our normal fuel load, it's more than enough for a full burn.”

“And he won't even use all of it,” Galbraith says, tapping on the table and making more numbers appear. “See? We're thrusting at point nine gee, same as we would have, and all he had to do was re-aim the ship and time the delta-vee properly. Our original course had us thrusting outward, and now we're heading one-six-seven degrees off that. We're actually precessing Mars orbit even more than—”

“Fantastic,” Jemison says. “Where are we going to hit?”

Galbraith frowns. “Excuse me?”

“He doesn't just want to crash the ship,” Jemison says. “He wants to scare people. It's going to be a populated area, or a landmark, or both. Check the planetary rotation.”

“It's not going to matter,” Galbraith says. “
Dejah Thoris
masses over ninety thousand metric tons. The impact will crater half the planet.”

“So Mars needs to know which half to evacuate,” Jemison says.

“Do the math, please, Erica,” Santamaria says.

Galbraith stares at Jemison and says, “Aye, Captain.”

“We need to evacuate the passengers,” Logan says. “How much time do we have?”

“Twenty-five hours and eleven minutes,” Galbraith says.

“Go, Jeff,” Santamaria says.

“Going.” Logan leaves the briefing room.

For a moment, the only sounds are the whir of the air conditioning and the tapping of Galbraith's fingers against the tabletop. Then I hear the captain chuckling. Jemison stares at him.

“Something funny, sir?” she asks.

“He's making a statement,” Santamaria says.

It's clear from the captain's tone of voice that “he” is not Alan Wachlin. “He” is whoever's back on Earth, pulling the strings and masterminding this operation. Santamaria wants Jemison and me to think this through, help him figure out who's ultimately responsible—who we can tell Paul to take down.

“No warning shots,” Santamaria continues. “The Martians drove asteroids into our oceans when the war started. You remember. Close enough to coastal cities so civilians could see pillars of steam rising from the sea for days. They wanted us to know the cause of the dead fish washing up on our beaches. It scared people, but in the end, Earth was more angry than scared.”

“He's going to start another war,” Jemison says.

“No.” Santamaria shakes his head. “In his mind, the last one never ended.”

That “he” is starting to sound less like a pronoun and more like a specific person.

“Captain,” I say, searching for an excuse to talk to him alone, “can I ask you about that DNA—”

“Okay, I think I have the target site,” Galbraith says. I'm amazed that she managed to tune out everything in the room except her trajectory calculations.

“I need to check something in my quarters,” Santamaria says, and walks away from the table.

“Captain,” Jemison says.

She moves to intercept him, but she's got the whole length of the table and Galbraith in the way. Santamaria goes out the door, and Jemison stops short as it slides shut again, her hand gripping the edge of the conference table.

What's in his quarters? And why aren't you following him, Chief?

“What just happened?” Galbraith asks.

“Never mind,” Jemison grumbles. “Where's the target?”

“Well, the plot's kind of rough, and I had to estimate atmospheric drag—”

“Best guess.”

Galbraith suddenly looks like she doesn't want to answer. “Hellas Planitia. Southern rim. Capital City.”

I hear Jemison grinding her teeth. “Thank you. Rogers, get yourself to a lifeboat.”

“What?” She can't be serious. “I'm not leaving. You need me.” I lower my voice. “You need my
specific skills.
”

Jemison clamps a hand around my left wrist. “Let's talk about this outside.”

*   *   *

I wait until we're in the hallway and the briefing room door slides shut behind us before speaking again. “You're really going to send me packing? Now?”

“Are you or are you not the only person in the known universe with a goddamn superpower?” Jemison hisses, still gripping my arm. “You're a triple-A Diamond asset. We have standing orders to convey you out of harm's way.”

“I'm an
agent,
” I say, “not an asset.”
I don't need your so-called protection.
“And we still don't know who we're fighting. It's not just Wachlin and Bartelt. What if there's a whole squadron of fighters shadowing us?”

“There's nobody out there,” Jemison says. “As soon as Wachlin killed our external sensors, I put people on visual scanning. We'll know if anything bigger than a cantaloupe gets within a thousand kilometers.”

“And then you'll fight them off with what, kitchen knives?”

“You have weapons in that pocket?”

“Maybe.”

“Fine,” Jemison says. “Take out all your equipment and supplies and leave them here. Then get yourself off this ship before we crash.”

“I want to speak to the captain.”
What is he doing in his quarters? What did he figure out when he saw our new course, and why is he not telling the rest of us?

“The captain's busy.”

What are
you
not telling me, Chief?
“Doing what?”

“None of your business.”

I look over at Jemison's face. She continues staring straight ahead, not meeting my gaze—and not saying anything. Not explaining why I'm wrong. Why not? Why isn't she giving me another detailed lecture about how off-base I am or how I'm not following protocol? There's no reason for her silent treatment right now, unless—

“You don't know what's going on,” I say out loud. “You have no idea what Santamaria's doing in his quarters.”

“That's
Captain
Santamaria,” Jemison says, “and like I said, it's none of your business.”

“But it
should
be
your
business.” I use my free hand to point at her. “You're the captain's right hand. Not Galbraith, not Logan, not any of these
civilians.
You're
agency.
You fought a war with the man. The two of you stood shoulder to shoulder at Olympus, and now he's cutting you out of the loop? What could he possibly—”

I'm not exactly sure how Jemison manages it, but without releasing my wrist, she spins me around and slams my face into the wall. The tendons around my shoulder scream with pain as she applies pressure.

“I am only going to say this once, Rogers—”

Aw, fuck this.

I open the pocket right next to her face. I couldn't have done it unless we were both facing in the same direction, but now I can punch a hole into hard vacuum two centimeters in front of her nose. I open the pocket without the barrier, so Jemison's staring into a black circle while air rushes past her face and into the void.

She goes stiff and stops talking, as expected. I hold the pocket there for a few seconds to make sure she understands what she's seeing.

That's deep space in there, friend.
I
can never fall in, but I open this portal large enough, and you're
gone.
I close the portal and you're trapped in the pocket universe all alone. No air, no light, no heat, no rescue. Science Division says it's even money whether you'd freeze to death before you suffocate.