Belters

Chapter 16:

Chapter 16:AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

Coffee finished, Lea made her excuses and returned to her room. She wanted to connect and search the net for any information on Master Baal, the Virgil, and Doctor Abe, but she didn’t dare risk her searches would remain private. Rather, she spent her time and bandwidth searching the news for any mention of the protest and the brutal response from the corporate elite.

She wasn’t surprised when there wasn’t a second of time spent on the story. She did find a few streaming videos from the strikers’ perspective before the feed was taken down. Over the years, the censor algorithms grew increasingly efficient. Early history was bursting with examples of people gaining control via the management of information. The pen wasn’t mightier than the sword, it was the control of what the pen wrote that held power.

It took a concentrated, organized effort to overcome the companies that made the news. Few upstart rebellions rose to the challenge. Those who regulated the information controlled the solar system and the ideas of everyone who called it home. Even the dark web had fallen to the corporate censors.

A few small independent sites struggled for freedom of information, but those were quickly squashed by denial of service attacks, trojans, worms, lawsuits, or black ice. Those in power showed no mercy on the net.

Two hours of fruitless searching later, a female voice boomed over the announcement speakers. “This is the first officer. Coms secure in one hour. First supper celebrations begin in one hour. Finish up your online crap, people. Time to get partying is coming up fast.”

Lea expected several women to hold high ranks in a family ship. These craft ran differently than the corporate commands she served on. Normally those promoted within a corps played the games of dirty politics the best. At the very least, the ones who could kiss the most ass while building a power base, all while surviving long enough to reach the higher levels of power within a cutthroat corporate structure came out on top. Business management was a brutal contact sport.

From Lea’s experience, corporate culture was dog eat dog, a zero-sum game. For every winner, the bodies of several, perhaps hundreds, of losers lay by the wayside. She had helped more than a few of the sneaky bastards advance a career at the expense of more morally sound and trusting individuals. Now she might pay the price for her past sins. She found herself in league with the devil she’d helped create.

An information junkie, Lea read too much, or at least that was what her last partner told her. There was a time when people thought the information age would bring an end to ignorance, those people were wrong.

Once information became free and accessible, research only proved what a few knowledgeable people already knew. Cherry-picking was real. Information and facts did not make people smarter. It was too easy to ignore uncomfortable truths and search for facts that supported your world view, no matter how insane the idea might be.

That was why religion made her uncomfortable. Not that Lea had any problems with God or those who believed in him, her, or them. She simply had no proof. Real proof, that is. For a true believer, the absence of facts was immaterial. They would find tidbits of facts to support their beliefs and beat anyone who disagreed with them into submission.

Science was just as reactionary as religion. For some, science became the new cult, and pet theories needed to be defended at all costs. Lea knew it was too easy to tip the scales with an unwatched thumb. In statistics, figures never lied, but liars figured all the time. Given a talented mathematician, any theory could be proven or disproven to the laymen. The devil was in the details.

Science and religion had their separate thoughts on death and dying, and Lea had spent too many hours awake worrying about what came after this life. The rich had ways to cheat death. She was not that fortunate. One day, death would call for them all.

During the return to her room, she noted none of the hatches were labeled. As she made her way back to the galley, it became clear Master Baal didn’t want the passengers knowing what was hidden behind the unmarked doors. She shook her head. Too many secrets.

Forty came much too quickly for her liking. If her career didn’t prove fatal, she had perhaps another hundred years or so till she needed to worry about meeting death. But before she knew it, she would learn what lay beyond the final frontier, that undiscovered country that waited for every mortal. She could live to two hundred, longer even, and not be ready for the end. Life was too much fun to die.

For the righteous believers of religion, they wore the cloak of faith in the afterlife. Like science, Lea feared only nothing waited at the end of life. These were the thoughts dwelling in her heart when she passed through the hatch leading into the mess.

The tang of powerful spices reached her, leading a clear path to the cooking now underway. Thankfully, when she reached the mess, there was an open bar set up to the right of the hatch. Anything to take the edge off the morbid thoughts that plagued her. The scent of strong spices nearly overpowered her.

A double shot of single malt was a luxury she never expected this far from home. It was the liquid courage needed to face a meal of unknown quality and a ship full of strangers.

Drink in hand, Lea turned and surveyed the sight. The room was half-filled with the orange of FlyRight and gray coveralls of the Virgil. Lea felt all the more conspicuous with the light blue flight suit. Even her clothing screamed she was an outsider. However, she wasn’t the only one out of place.

Something was off. Standing alone was a half-dozen people in orange flight suits. These were no egghead science types. The haircuts alone and inverted triangle torsos screamed special ops or security forces. Even the females of the crew looked too butch for Lea to fight. It seemed Doctor Dragon Lady came to the party packing muscle.

The tables couldn’t be moved. Each was attached to the deck, like the chairs. With the ship spending weeks or months in near-zero gravity, everything needed to be secured.

While still accelerating, the tables were decorated with centerpieces adorned with fake flowers. Red poppies, if memory served Lea. Individual place settings were marked by little cards. She never expected the family ship to be so… anal. They took this feast seriously. She didn’t have time to count, but there were settings for at least one hundred adults and children, with a few tables unused. She was correct, this ship was huge.

From the far side of the compartment, Lea spotted Tian waving from a table. The programmer sat next to the engineer Lea already knew. The one who carried such low regard for Doctor Abe and let his contempt be known on the docks. He might prove another useful ally.

Drink in hand, Lea wove through the intermingling strangers, making her way to Tian.

“I hope you don’t mind. I changed your card to sit near me. I thought you might like sitting with someone you knew,” Tian said. With a motion of zer hand, she introduced the tattooed engineer. “This is Mate DiSanto. He’s from Mars.”

The man reached out his tattoo-covered right hand. “Pleased to meet you, Lea. Tian has told me all about you.”

She reluctantly took the hand and found it surprisingly smooth, like the man’s voice. Not at all like her first encounter. “It’s nice to finally have a formal introduction.” She didn’t know how much Tian told the man about her. In truth, the programmer didn’t know s**t.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“I was on the dock… with the doctor.” Lea smiled.

“Ah, yes… sorry about that.” He gave her hand a slight friendly squeeze.

“I must say it was quite the performance…” With a light tug, Lea freed herself from his grip.

“I find it good to set expectations early. That way, I’m never asked to… well, you know.” He winked at her.

“Seems out of place on this ship. How does the Virgil family take to your… attitude?”

“Oh, I’m not a member of the family. I’m a hire-aboard.” The man grinned.

Lea sat where her card told her to. “I’m sorry, a what?” she asked.

“A few calls back… their mate met with an accident on the docks, found himself in the clink. I was hired to fill in.” Tian and DiSanto followed her example.

“Dare I ask what kind of accident?” The glass of scotch gave her a prop to hide behind.

“The kind that ended in a knife fight… blood… screams… the normal kind of barfight accident.”

The description of a brawl wasn’t how Lea wanted to spend the better part of the evening. Time to shift the subject to something more useful. “Is that table…?” Lea pointed to an empty table at the forward end of the compartment perpendicular to the others.

“The masters’ table… For the high and mighty, yes. They will wait for dinner until we are starving, but I’ll tell you it is worth the wait. This ship has the best food.”

“How so?”

“Beef, pork, turkey, all manner of vegetables. Good as anything you can get on Earth.” DiSanto beamed.

Lea didn’t want to burst the Martian’s bubble, but she had eaten the crap they served in space, and she would guarantee it was nothing like she’d become accustomed to on Earth. Though by the smells wafting from the food, the cooks liked their spice, maybe a little too heavy for Lea. She needed to prepare for the coming heartburn the smells promised. “So much spice?” Lea asked.

DiSanto nodded. “Thing about space, spend enough time in it, and everything tastes the same. It is my understanding sailors from Earth slathered everything in hot sauce, just to make the food… edible.”

“We aren’t on Earth…” Lea smiled, already regretting the conversation. She was never one to be homesick, but she always missed the food while away from home.

“We deserve a good meal. Going to be one hell of a trip.” The engineer grunted.

Tian asked, “How so?”

“Three days at one-G acceleration equals approximately nine million kilometers per hour, and over 300 million kilometers traveled in three days. Barely the distance of Earth to Mars. Once we reach speed… still only two-thirds of the way there.”

The fact the man knew any of this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Lea was shocked he let the information spill so easily. “So slow… Wait a moment, to where?”

“If we need to stop, remember, once we are going at speed, we will need to decelerate long or hard. There is no way around it. The human body can only take so much stress. If we push to decelerate more than two Gs, we might lose some passengers. Killing the paying public is never good for business. Besides, even with drugs and couches, I doubt many of the family members could survive more than a few hours of more than two-G acceleration. ETs aren’t made for the strain. It will be hard for them to work at one G for three days. Most of the family will be sedated for the journey.”

Lea reached out for his hand. “You missed my point… Where the hell are we going?”

He gave a quick twist of his head, pointing to nowhere. “Out there, of course… into the dark, those places between planets.” There was something about his boyish grin that made her skin crawl.

“Can you be a little more specific?” Lea grew tired of this man’s prattle. She needed facts.

DiSanto pulled petals off the fake poppies, holding up the first. “This is Mars.” He held up another petal before placing it on the table. “And this is Ceres… From here, we are cutting across Mars’s orbit, well behind Ceres, to a place where there is little but asteroids and damned few of them. With the current position of the planets, we are going to be very alone.”

“Why?”

His grin widened. “‘Cause no one travels that far out if they don’t have a dammed good reason. We might be in a part of space none have ever traveled in… uncharted territory.”

Lea shook her head. This was not good news. She knew most human activities revolved around the planets and asteroids where bases were constructed. To go out where there were few humans only increased the solitude of space.

“No, why are we going out there?” Tian finally asked.

“That I don’t know, but this will be a long lonely trip. If we run into trouble, we will be alone.” DiSanto lowered his voice as a group of orange suits strolled by, drinks sloshing.

“At the speed we are going… even longer.” Lea hissed.

“The ship can’t take it…” Tian’s voice cracked. “The speed, the distance?”

DiSanto shook his head. “We can’t… Humans aren’t made for that kind of pressure. Listen, this ship can accelerate faster for longer than anyone onboard could ever survive. If we push the engines to full for even a few minutes, most of the people on board would be dead.”

Lea needed to change the subject. She knew too well the frailties of the human body. “Tell me, why are none of the access hatches labeled?”

“If we were ever to get boarded, it would keep the invaders guessing, now wouldn’t it…?” The man chuckled like pirates were some kind of joke. “I think the ship’s master and family like keeping the passengers in the dark, myself. You’ll learn your way around soon enough. The ship isn’t that large.”

Lea shook her head. It wasn’t that the damned ship was large, it was just every hall and hatch looked the same. This place was a nightmare waiting to happen.

“Shush… they are coming.” Tian patted the table to get the pair’s attention. This time it was a pair of family members. Other people joined them at the long table. Something was about to happen.

Eight people filed in, all dressed in the gray flight suits of the family. They were joined by a ninth and tenth, the elusive Doctor Abe with Reo at her side, both in bright orange.

Lea was concerned she’d breached some protocol. Each ship had different variations of former Earth-bound customs held over and adapted from the times of sail. Some crews’ expectations were stricter than others.

Those at the head table remained standing while the crew took their seats. Once the room grew quiet, the master of the ship cleared his throat. “I am pleased to announce we are in for a wonderful trip. The stores are full, and the engines firing five by five.”

The family members slapped their palms on the table and shouted, “Five by five.”

Baal continued, “I look forward to leading you into the dark, returning to port by the bye.”

Once again, the family slapped palms to tabletops, shouting, “By the bye.”

“For it is our wish to survive, nay to live, to fly the sky.”

The family shouted louder, “Fly the sky!” as a great cheer erupted from those dressed in gray.

Lea noticed DiSanto followed through the motions but expended no heart in the ritual.

“Let the first feast begin,” Master Baal ordered.

The final words said, the family stood as a single unit and shouted, “Let the feast begin!”

The cooking staff stepped from the galley to the long cafeteria-style heated tables. Rather than be served the food to eat tableside, the meal was laid out in a buffet. Those who prepared the meal got head-of-the-line privileges. The others of the family filed in behind. Those seated at the head table sat and waited for everyone else to eat. The alcohol started to flow in earnest.

Lea watched Abe. She wanted to strangle the woman, but now was probably not a good time, given there were nearly a hundred witnesses. Surely one of them would come to the woman’s rescue.

“Let’s go.” Tian tapped DiSanto and Lea on the arms when it was their turn.

Lea shifted her attention to Reo. He sat next to the doctor but looked just like Lea felt. Like someone laid out a large steaming cowpat for him to eat. His lips quivered like he spoke to someone unseen.

DiSanto was right, Lea wasn’t sure how they pulled off the feast over three hundred million kilometers from Earth. The food was a minor miracle. As good as anything Lea could have prepared on Earth. Each dish was spiced with enough fire to send mortal taste buds into orbit. Each bite she took was quickly followed by another sip of the warm whiskey. Anything to help staunch the burn in her mouth.

For a brief moment, Lea let her anxiety slip away as she listened to the people around her celebrate their last meal for what might be several months. The scotch probably helped her mood more than the meal, but near the end, she was as close to giddy as she’d been since the attack in San Francisco.

The first officer’s voice boomed over the main circuit announcement system, MC for short. “Coms have been secured. We are on our way, people.”

To Lea’s surprise, the family cheered even louder, much to the chagrin of the orange flight suits that had been peppered throughout the room.

Master Baal stood, with arms raised over his head. The crowd settled down. The room worked its way to silence, and the tall master said, “Now, I’m sure there have been rumors flying about where we are going. It is time to put the scuttlebutt to rest. I introduce our benefactor, Doctor Vizminda Abe, head of the FlyRight team.” With that, Baal motioned for Doctor Abe to take over and took his seat.

Doctor Abe looked tiny and out of her league sitting at the table of spacefaring giants. However, when she spoke, her words flowed as a person used to being in charge. Gone was the little girl hiding behind smart glasses on the docks. This woman was in her element. “Thank you, Master Baal. I will cut to the chase. A little over two months ago, my instruments caught what appeared to be a short gamma-ray burst that originated in our solar system.”

Tian whispered, “A what?”

Lea and DiSanto both shushed her.

“Before you ask, we don’t know the origin, nor the cause, but we believe the origin was inside the orbit of Eris, or at least very near.”

Lea was surprised at how silent the room had become. Every eye was glued on the diminutive woman.

“Our task is to locate the cause of the event and discover any useful data from the effects to the surrounding area. I will now entertain a few pertinent questions.”

One of the orange suits with a high and tight haircut asked, “Weapons test?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t know.”

Someone blurted out, “Aliens?”

Abe shook her head. “We don’t know the cause of the event. The burst only lasted a few seconds.”

“How powerful was the burst?”

“By my calculations, the tight beam was sufficient to… If focused on Earth, the resulting impact of ultraviolet radiation would have caused blindness in up to seventy percent of the population caught in the rays. Gamma radiation and long-term effects would have… The Earth would not… If the beam was directed at the Earth… The blast was an Earth-killing event. Thankfully, the core of the explosion fell harmlessly into space.” The woman remained ever so calm while talking about the destruction of the Earth. The coldness freaked Lea out. “The amount of energy it produced… is mind-numbing.”

There is the key. Lea wanted to shake her head but forced herself to sit motionless. All about the money.

“Does anyone else know? About how close we came to extinction?” asked an unknown orange suit.

“We hope not. Listen, I know all this comes as a shock, but you all need to understand something. We need to discover the cause and make sure it can be controlled or, better yet, stopped.”

Lea thought, And how the company can make a profit off it.

AD 2100 Inner Belt – Frazier

The Frazier wasn’t dead yet. Despite weeks of repairs, it was in no shape to fly. Bypassing the minor systems and rigging the life-support functions took longer than Jacob ever imagined.

They had plenty of power, air, and food. The communications had been triple-checked, but no signal was leaving the ship.

The panel before him remained mostly dark. Jacob sat on the bridge. He stood the watch alone. Ava headed off to sleep hours ago. Sweets was working in the suit out area. Her armored suit might have saved her, but the high-tech electronics took a beating. She might never get the thing to work. Now she scavenged parts from the weapons systems in an effort to repair life support and mobility.

Jacob and Ava’s older model mining suits still worked.

It took longer than he expected to get the scrubbers working. They also found the atmospheric pressure had grown too high. Probably what caused them to become lightheaded. The ship should have warned them of the imbalance, but with so many control and monitoring systems blown, they had been regulated to manually monitoring the entire ship. A task normally done automatically was taken over in three eight-hour shifts.

The coms were still down, but the three of them came up with a plan to rig a makeshift transmitter. The problem was a body was needed outside to finalize the connections. The three drew straws, and Jacob pulled the short one. He should sleep. In a few hours, he would need to cram himself back into the filthy suit and take a walk outside.

He was used to being in vacuum. It was the thought of the contaminated suit that turned his stomach. Despite his best efforts to clean the dammed thing, it still stank to high heaven. He planned a shot of nausea meds and an empty stomach to keep from fouling his helmet.

Without some sort of transmitter, the three were doomed. Might as well stick a message in a bottle and throw it out the window.

A light flashed in the darkness, drawing Jacob’s attention. Something kicked up a dust cloud. This rock wasn’t large enough to draw in debris. Whatever hit the surface must have traveled a damn long way. Hopefully, it wasn’t parts of the Miyajima raining down on them.

Jacob whispered, “Dum spiro spero… while I breathe, I hope…” The words Layman Ping used to repeat when Jacob chaffed at the treatments. “While I breathe, I hope…” he repeated once more, watching the dust cloud in the distance remain scattered over the rock, suspended in the microgravity like a slow-motion dream.