Escape from Olympus (The Falken Chronicles Book 2) Page 18

  Falken shrugged. “You better save that part for last, then.”

  “This job ain’t worth what they’re paying us,” another crewmember protested.

  “If we don’t fix that engine, we’re not getting out of here,” the foreman told him, frowning. “Simple as that. Now quit bitching and gear up.”

  Falken watched as they slipped their masks on and shouldered their equipment. Then the foreman tapped Falken on the chest. “I’ll be watching you out there. Try to fuck us and I will make sure they shoot you in the fucking head. Your real head, back in the research center, mind you. Not this clone thing.”

  “Your friends are going to shoot me eventually, either way,” Falken said.

  “Not necessarily,” the man told him. “Not if you help us, first.”

  Right, Falken though. No harm in leaving a bunch of witnesses hanging around the scene of a major crime, right?

  The foreman tapped a control on his wristpad, and the ramp swung down, the light from the cargo bay spilling out into the night. He gestured at Falken, and pointed outside.

  Me first? Okay.

  Falken walked down the ramp and stepped several paces out onto the ground. Then he turned and looked back at the repair team, who stood at the top of the ramp, watching him warily. Falken held his hands out to his side.

  See? No dragons.

  Reluctantly, the team shuffled forward and down the ramp.

  … yet, Falken thought.

  The foreman led the way over to a ladder built into the hull of the ship – the rungs followed a meandering path up along the outside of the engine bank. He pointed at it, and Falken grabbed the first rung, hauling himself up. One by one, the repair team followed. At the top, Falken twisted and set a leg up onto thermal tiles, then scrambled up. Below, he could see the damaged engine nozzle, lying askew just below the lip of the ship’s hull.

  He turned and saw the lead crewman struggling to climb onto the hull – he held a heavy toolbox in one hand, and despite the planet’s weaker gravity, he could not lift the box high enough to clear the hull. Falken bent down and grabbed the man by the collar of his uniform, lifting him bodily up off the ladder with the proxy’s enhanced strength. He set the wide-eyed man down on his feet on the hull.

  When the entire repair team had reached the top of the engine bank, the foreman directed them to begin their work, using hand gestures, and occasionally typing more complex instructions into his wristpad for them to read. Falken walked away from the group along the hull, and carefully set the noise cancellation staffs in place in a rough circle around the workspace, arranging them as best he could to create a sound-dampened bubble for the repair.

  They started by detaching the engine nacelle from its housing, dangling it from a hastily-erected pulley arm and several heavy chains. It slid out of its housing without issue, and the foreman climbed down to it and gave it a quick once-over with a flashlight, checking for signs of damage on a small handheld scanner. Satisfied, he climbed back up onto the hull, and they eased it back toward its slot.

  Suddenly, a loud metallic CLANG rang out – the engine had knocked against its neighbor. The repair team froze. Falken glanced over his shoulder, instinctively searching for dragons, but the night was still inky black – he saw nothing. The foreman stared at him questioningly. Falken tapped at his wrist urgently.

  Hurry up. The clock’s ticking now.

  They slid the engine back in place, and minutes later, the last bolt was tightened. The crewmen detached the engine from the jury-rigged harness next, and then the welder climbed over the edge of the hull, dangling from his waist on one of the chains from the pulley. He stepped down the hull, set his feet firmly in place, flicked a safety visor down over his oxygen mask, then held a flint over the end of the welding torch. In a spray of sparks, the torch burst to life, hissing loudly. He set the torch against the ruptured line and began welding.

  Falken squatted down next to one of the noise cancellation staffs, fingering it nervously. The bright white of the torch had ruined his night vision temporarily, but the proxy’s eyes had been built differently from human eyes – the white spot disappeared quickly, and soon he could see the dark bulk of the mountain again, rising up over the dim light of the research center’s vehicle bay. Off to the left, Falken spotted the running lights of the Liberty Belle winking softly in the night as it sat on the center’s landing pad. Then a dark shape occluded his view of the ship – just for a moment – before disappearing into the blackness again.

  Shit. Here we go.

  He turned and waved, and caught the foreman’s attention. Falken hooked his thumbs together and flapped his fingers in unison, imitating a set of wings. The foreman’s eyes went wide, and then he began pushing crewmen toward the ladder. Falken saw one of the men bend over to pick up a toolbox; he straightened up, and in the blink of an eye, simply disappeared off the top of the ship in a blur of motion. The toolbox he had been holding dropped to the hull, spilling socket wrenches and screwdrivers across the tiles.

  “Go!” the foreman yelled.

  Falken grabbed the nearest noise cancellation staff and set it to Lure, then hurled it out and away from the ship. Then he shook his head in chagrin.

  Why am I helping these assholes?

  A heavy duty wrench had landed near his feet – he picked it up, feeling the heft of the tool in the proxy’s hand. The foreman’s back was turned to him – in two steps, he could have covered the distance to the unsuspecting man.

  They’re probably going to kill you, he reminded himself. But probably isn’t the same as definitely. And if you kill them first, you’ll have to live with that on your conscience forever.

  He looked at the wrench one more time, then tossed it over the edge of the ship. The rest of the repair crew were halfway down the ladder; Falken and the foreman were the only ones left atop the ship. Falken leaned over the edge and saw that the welder was still working on the ruptured fuel line.

  “Hurry it up!” the foreman barked.

  “Almost done,” the man grunted. “There.” He shut the torch off and started to hand it up to the foreman, but the man waved him away.

  “Just drop it! We gotta go!”

  Falken hauled on the chain, pulling the man back up to the top of the ship. The crewman unbuckled his safety harness, and then dashed over to the ladder, starting down it. He had stepped down two rungs when a dragon landed on his back, sinking its talons deep into the man’s flesh. He screamed, and the dragon tugged him off the ladder, holding him up in the air. The dragon tried to bite into the welder, but its teeth closed on the oxygen tank on the man’s back. Frustrated, the dragon tossed the man aside – he bounced off of an engine housing and fell limply to the ground below. Then the dragon, still hovering in mid-air, turned its attention to Falken and the foreman.

  Falken grabbed the foreman by the shirt, then turned and jumped. They landed on their backs on the curving hull of the ship, and for a second, merely slid down the hull. Then the curvature of the ship grew much steeper, and their gentle slide turned into a swift plummet. Falken tried to grab at the hull, but the smooth tiles gave him nothing to grip. A moment later, they hit the ground.

  “Ah!” the foreman gasped. “My leg.”

  Falken clapped a hand over the man’s mouth, silencing him. Then he stood up and grabbed the foreman by the collar, pulling him underneath the ship’s hull. He saw the ramp of the ship ahead of them and hurried toward it, dragging the foreman behind him.

  “Behind us!” the foreman called, wrenching Falken’s hand off of his mouth.

  Falken glanced back over his shoulder. The dragon had landed on the ground, and was now crawling on its wings and hind legs beneath the ship, snarling as it pursued them. Falken willed the proxy’s legs onward, putting on a burst of speed. The ramp ahead began to move – someone inside the ship had started to close it. Falken tugged the injured foreman out from under the ship and then hauled him up and onto the ramp as it swung upward. With a final effort, he le
apt and caught the edge of the ramp with both hands, pulling himself up and inside the ship a split second before it sealed shut. He slid down the far side of the ramp, landing heavily on his side at the bottom, next to the foreman.

  “You broke my leg,” the foreman said, wincing in pain.

  Falken sat up and leaned against the bulkhead. “Yeah? Would you rather be in here with a broken leg, or still up on top of the hull?” he asked.

  The foreman fixed him with an icy stare. “You called those dragons in on us,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

  Falken shook his head. “No. That welding torch woke up every dragon on Olympus,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Bullshit,” the foreman said. “I think you fucked with one of those noise devices, and lured them in to try to take us all out.”

  “I just saved your ass,” Falken said. “Why would I do that if I wanted you dead?”

  “My men are dead because you didn’t protect us,” the foreman said.

  “Those men are dead because you brought them to Olympus,” Falken told him. “And I’m guessing they won’t be the last ones to pay for that mistake. Your ship’s fixed: I’m out of here.”

  He bit down three times, and his vision went dark as the connection to the proxy was severed.

  Chapter 28

  In the evening, the crew of the CGS Extremis gathered in the ship’s mess, taking seats at tables, and watching as Commander Jiyake fiddled with the vidscreen at the front of the room. Chief Risley and Detective Adnan stood to one side, waiting. Finally, Jiyake straightened up, and turned to address the crew.

  “I want to ask something of you,” she told them. “It’s a little unusual, and probably dangerous, so before you answer, I want you to be fully informed. Okay?” She turned to Adnan. “Detective?”

  He stepped forward and cleared his throat, as a mugshot of Jens appeared on the screen. “I’m Detective Adnan, Harrison’s PD. This is Jens. He’s a crane operator here on Harrison’s – the same crane operator who tore a hole in your hull earlier today. He says he was drunk this morning, but we also have evidence that somebody paid an escort to sleep with him, and they may have been blackmailing him ever since. In short, we think someone forced Jens to disable the Extremis. In order to keep you guys out of the way.”

  “Out of the way of what?” a crewmember asked.

  Adnan turned to Jiyake, who tapped a button on her wristpad. Exterior footage of the space station appeared onscreen. “This is a view of Harrison’s during the crane incident. All inbound traffic is on hold, and here’s the Liberty Belle leaving her slip and getting ready to head to Olympus. Beyond her is the Starfarer – scheduled for New Caledonia – leaving at about the same time.”

  “Didn’t we inspect Starfarer, ma’am?” a female crewmember asked.

  “Yes, we did. They passed inspection.” Jiyake looked over the room. “The Liberty Belle has since arrived at Olympus. Soon after, the emergency distress beacon on the Adrenaline Junkies went off. I’ve been unable to reach anyone on that ship since then. But I have had two conversations with Captain Muir on the Liberty Belle. In both conversations she was unusually … abrupt. I’m not sure how else to describe it, she just seemed uncommunicative. Not her usual self.”

  “They’re running a rescue op out on Olympus on their own,” an ensign pointed out. “Could just be stress, ma’am.”

  “It could be,” Jiyake agreed. “That’s absolutely true.” She took a deep breath, then exhaled. She held up fingers on one hand, counting on them. “So here’s where we’re at: the Ecolympus crashed, and we don’t know why. The Adrenaline Junkies is now offline, too – status unknown. The Liberty Belle is at Olympus now, but their captain is acting strange. It also appears as though somebody went to some lengths to sabotage us, in an effort to keep us here at Harrison’s. And finally, the Starfarer departed Harrison’s at the same time as the Liberty Belle, headed in the same direction. You guys remember what was in the Starfarer’s hold?”

  “A couple of big shipping containers,” the female crewmember said.

  “Yes,” Jiyake agreed. “Two large, empty, metal shipping containers of a custom design. I think they could be used as cages … for dragons.”

  The room was silent for a moment. A petty officer raised his hand. “Why steal dragons?”

  “I don’t know,” Jiyake admitted. “They’re dangerous and protected – no one’s allowed to transport them off Olympus. That makes them rare, exotic … valuable. And anytime you make a rule, someone’s going to want to break it.”

  “What do you think, Chief?” another crewmember asked.

  Risley crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I dunno who’d be stupid enough to want to keep dragons, but I think the commander’s got a nose for trouble. Remember two patrols ago, when she had us hang out for a little longer at that rendezvous point, and we ended up bagging the smuggler crew? If she thinks something fishy is going on, I’m with her.” He pointed a finger at the deck. “And if someone fucked with my ship to pull off some heist, I’m sure as hell not just sitting around on my ass, doing nothing.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” Jiyake said. “But let me be clear: this is all just a theory right now.” She looked at Adnan. “A hunch. We’ve got a lot of seemingly random coincidences that add up to something suspicious. But we don’t have definitive proof of criminal activity, aside from what I’ve told you so far.”

  Adnan nodded. “From an investigation standpoint, it’s compelling, but if the Starfarer crew were here right now, I wouldn’t have enough to charge them. At this point it’s just a lead.”

  “Right,” Jiyake said. “It could be nothing. I could be jumping at shadows.”

  “… or there could be not one, but three different ships in danger on Olympus right now,” Chief Risley pointed out.

  “True,” Jiyake said.

  “Ma’am? Even if it’s true, their plan already worked,” the petty officer said. “We’re benched. We can’t go anywhere with that big hole in our hull.”

  “Patched hole,” Risley corrected.

  “Well … yeah, Chief,” the petty officer replied. “It’s patched now. But we still can’t leap to faster-than-light. That patch would come right off, and we’d get torn apart at superlight speeds.”

  Chief Risley eyed Commander Jiyake. “There’s a super-freighter at Harrison’s right now,” she said. “It tied up at docking arm twelve yesterday.”

  The petty officer frowned, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “You want to stick us inside the super-freighter’s cargo hold.”

  “We’d fit,” Jiyake said. “With room to spare. I checked.”

  “Then the super-freighter flies us to Olympus, we pop out of their cargo hold, and suddenly we’re back in business,” the crewmember said. “That’s sneaky as hell, ma’am. I like it.”

  “Well, there are two problems with that plan,” Jiyake said. “For starters, I’d have to commandeer the super-freighter. There’s a provision in the Colonial Guard policy manual for that kind of scenario, but it’s a little murky. Basically, if we commandeer the super-freighter, and it turns out nothing was happening at Olympus, I can be held liable for any of their lost revenues. And I’d probably lose my commission. But … I’m willing to take those risks.”

  “The other problem,” Chief Risley added, “is that we don’t know what we’re up against. At minimum, we’re probably facing off against the Starfarer. If they’re the kind of assholes we think they are, and they attacked one or more of the ships at Olympus, then they’re definitely armed. Normally, we can out-gun most anyone that’s stupid enough to take us on. But we’ve got a compromised hull – any hit on our little patch-job is likely to take out the whole ship.”

  “And there could be other hostile ships at Olympus, too,” Jiyake said. “Multiple armed ships, for all we know. We’d be flying in blind, against an unknown enemy, in a wounded ship. That’s a lot to ask of any crew. So … if we go at all … it would be volunteers only.”
>
  Chief Risley set a pad of paper and pencils on the nearest table. “Anonymous voting. I wanted to just go around the room, but the commander’s a softie, so we’re doing it her way. Tear off a piece of paper, write ‘yes’ on it if you’re in, or ‘no’ if you’re not, and we’ll see what we see. I’m writing ‘yes,’ for the record. Nobody fucks with the Extremis on my watch.”

  Within a minute the papers and pens had been handed out, and the crew were soon passing their decisions back to the front of the room. Jiyake reviewed them, one by one, and then looked over the crew and smiled.

  “Prep for launch,” she told them.

  * * *

  “I’d like to come, too,” Detective Adnan told Commander Jiyake, as their transit tube sped through the bowels of the space station.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. Outside the spherical pod, the gray tunnel walls flashed by, punctuated occasionally by the bright white lights of a station stop.

  “You might need a lawman to make some arrests,” he said.

  “Detective, every member of my crew is empowered to make arrests,” Jiyake told him. “We do it all the time.”

  “Well … I want to see this one through,” Adnan said. “It started here on Harrison’s, so I feel some responsibility for it.”

  “There’s a good chance we see some fighting,” Jiyake warned. “If we’re right, the Starfarer is not going to go quietly.”

  “I understand,” Adnan said. “All the same – if you can find room for me, I’d appreciate the chance to tag along.”

  “It’s fine by me,” Jiyake said. “I never say ‘no’ to help.”

  The transit tube slowed, jerking slightly, and then came to a stop at a station marked 12. Jiyake kicked the door open. She stepped up onto the platform, with Adnan close behind. A gray-haired man wearing a well-worn captain’s uniform stood waiting for them.

  “Commander Jiyake?” he asked.