Belters

Chapter 17:

Chapter 17:AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

As the celebration dragged on, Reo could no longer take the onslaught to his senses. Rather than releasing a primal scream at the top of his lungs, he made his apologies and slipped from the gathering. The blank hatches lining either side of the corridor bothered the hell out of him. He reached out with his mind, and beyond the constant buzzing, he found ghosts of the people who lived behind the doors. Some were stronger than others, but he felt confident he might be able to label the doors and give some sort of clarity to the chaos.

Eventually, he found his door and stumbled inside, sober. Perhaps he would have had more fun if he drank the whispering away, but he might also do harm to himself if he lost the small control he had over his mind. Crazy is as crazy does. Rather than throw himself on the mattress, he sat and tried to figure out the voices in his head.

Left in his quarters alone, he might be able to figure out this mess in his brain. Reo sat on the edge of his rack, eyes closed in a dream state.

In his mind, the ESPer walked for what seemed ages.

“I want to know why your two are covered head to toe and I’m dressed like a tart.” Lea wouldn’t let her skimpy leather armor go. If it wasn’t that, it was something else. She seemed to have a ready-made complaint for every occasion.

“I think you are missing the bigger question. Why are we here?” Mindy asked.

Reo had a hard time not laughing when he thought of his tiny ex-girlfriend in the heavy plate armor, even if the image suited her iron-tough outer shell.

“How do you mean?” Lea asked.

Tian started to ramble, “If we assume the worst, we are on some quest to defeat a big bad.”

Reo asked, “A what?”

“A boss monster… The final conflict.” Mindy filled in the ideas. “I must say, good! I’m ready for a stand-up fight. All this walking… sucks.”

“Bullshit.” Lea spit the words.

His ex didn’t rise to take Lea’s bait. “Not my dream world. Ask him.”

Reo shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Must there be…”

“Listen to your scroll.” Tian recited the poem. “Once strangers meet and become the whole. / While shadows rise and courage falters. / One will be willing to pay the toll. / Little of life will be unaltered. / One will come to slide down the hole. / One will rise to greet the offer. / Once strangers meet and become the whole.”

Mindy jabbed, “Your rhyme sucks, by the way.”

Before he spoke, Reo started to jog ahead of the others.

“Hey, ass… where you going? You can’t ditch us.” Lea’s voice rang in his ears.

“Look, I need some time…” Reo didn’t finish his thought. Instead, he ran ahead, leaving the bickering females behind. The words kept ringing in his ears. Once strangers meet and become the whole.

AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

Lea stayed at the party long enough to be social. The heavy spices didn’t sit well on her stomach. Perhaps it was the quantity of single malt she consumed. After dinner, the majority of the partiers left their tables and started to intermingle. If this was a long trip, as Lea suspected it was going to be, the coupling and flirting rituals started the first night. The swapping of genetic material was always on most human brains. Lea wanted no part of that nonsense.

Too many thoughts ran in her mind. The excellent single malt could not distract her from the dour mood that overwhelmed her. Talk of gamma-ray bursts and pirates, all the science fiction bullshit was sure to haunt her dreams for the near future.

Besides, the longer Tian and DiSanto drank, the closer they became. Lea might not be able to distinguish which s*x Tian was, but it seemed DiSanto didn’t care one way or the other.

Her glass replenished for the trip to her quarters, Lea staggered into the hall outside the mess. Something must be wrong with the atmosphere controls. She never let herself get drunk so easily before. The crew must be pumping something into the air to help the party along.

Lea snorted at the thought. Some family ships spiking the O2 so they could increase the chromosomal material of the crew sounded like something from a soft porn vid. Every teenaged boy fantasy come true.

The series of identical corridors that made up the interior of the ship were difficult to navigate while sober. Tipsy Lea found herself disoriented and quickly became turned around, lost in the unmapped maze.

Alone, she stood at an intersection, struggling to decide the direction she needed to travel. While she pondered directions, the sound of urgent whispers reached her.

The first distinguishable words sounded like “Once strangers meet…” The rest she was unable to make out. How many people spoke was too hard to tell. She felt the need to learn more. Tiptoeing cautiously, she worked her way toward the odd sounds.

She reached another corner, and before she peeked around, the voices stopped.

Her heart was racing for some unknown reason. The blood rushing in her ears covered the normal sounds ships made as they hurtled through space at seemingly impossible speeds.

It took a swallow of the amber liquor to moisten her dry throat and steady her nerves. Palms sweaty, she wiped them on her flight suit. Lea peeked around the corner, fearful of who or what she might find.

She let her held breath out when she found a closed, locked, unmarked hatch. She finished the contents of her glass in one gulp. Someone was f*****g with her now. She whispered to herself, “Creepy assed bullshit.”

She knew she was alone in the hall, but for some reason, she felt like there were eyes glued on her every move. A shiver ran up her spine. On Earth, it was natural to feel watched. Chances were good a person or AI monitored your every move. Most people ignored the constant surveillance to maintain their sanity.

The back of her hand wiped the cold sweat from her brow.

The booming broadcasted voice of the first officer made Lea jump. “Make it to your racks, people, and take your meds. We will be accelerating to one G in ten. This is your ten-minute warning. That is all.”

For the next three days, the crew would mostly be down, drugged into a stupor until time for watches. Only those strong enough to withstand the press of acceleration would be up and about.

This would be the perfect time to find Doctor Abe and choke some answers out of her. Lea would love to get some sleep, she needed it. Problem was she was still lost. The thought of sleeping in the corridor did not appeal at all.

AD 2100 Inner Belt – Frazier

“Just remember, string the cable and hook up the damn thing. Then get back in here pronto… No need to hang out longer than you gotta.” Ava helped Jacob into his suit. Despite his best efforts, the inside still reeked of human gunk.

He didn’t need help, but after the shocking accident, the woman miner had started mothering him, despite the fact he was a few months older. Jacob nodded, forced to suppress a snicker.

“Look, just be safe, and no sightseeing.” She kept on.

Sweets sat nearby. Her suit was laid out in several large pieces at her feet. The clamshell helm was in her hands. “You two need some time alone? I could go. Let you get to the smexing bit.”

Both answered much too quickly, “No.” Then gave a weak chuckle at the coincidence. Jacob felt the blood rush to his face. Ava looked away.

Sweets just shook her head. “Whatever…”

The dress out room had three airlocks. One each to the top and bottom of the ship and one to the cargo hold aft. Its central location made for easy access to vacuum, but it was also considered a weak point for this class of ship.

If any of the locks failed, and this room was lost, only a pressurized door would stop the crew compartments from being blown into space. As a miner or cargo hauler, it made for a handy configuration. Unfortunately, convenience normally meant some sacrifice. In this instance, it was safety.

Jacob took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Normally a walk like this would be commonplace. Something the crew of the Frazier constantly did in eight-hour stretches seven days a week.

That was before the burst of energy fried so many systems. With the electrical shorts throughout the ship, the crew had no way of knowing what system might fail next or when. Jacob didn’t want to even think about the possibility of another radiation event hitting them. If it did, they would be gone before they knew what happened.

“Listen… when I crack open that airlock, I need you two out of here… just in case.” Jacob looked into Ava’s green eyes. The swollen vessels had finally cleared up.

“What if you need help?” Ava asked, her worry clear as the stars outside.

He explained once more, keeping the sigh to himself. “With the ship’s coms down, you will never know if I’m in trouble. You have a better chance of spotting me from the bridge.”

“All the more reason why I should go with you.” Ava corrected herself, “Someone should go with you.

“Listen, we have been over this. It is a one-man job. If the locks fail, we only need to risk one person. Besides, I need you two on the bridge to make sure this stupid fix works… We are running out of options… I don’t want to have a second crack at this.” He cleared his throat. “Sweets… can you make sure she is safe… stays out of here?”

“Sure… I’ll do my best… You know how she is.” The security woman didn’t even look up from her task. Her suit might never work again, but she refused to give up on it.

Jacob knew she was right. Ava would do whatever the hell she wanted to. “Time for you two to clear out… I got this. Trust me.”

Ava added, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“That’s the spirit…” He nodded. “Time for the helmet.”

Jacob didn’t imagine Ava’s eyes glistening as she lifted the foul helmet over his head. Once sealed in, rather than hold his breath, he just bit the bullet and took a huge deep breath. He coughed for several seconds, but the drugs did the trick and kept his stomach contents where they belonged.

The heads-up display sprang to life. With the suit powered up, he used all four hands and motioned the other two out of the suit up room.

Ava placed the coil of bypass cable on his shoulder.

For a test, he waved goodbye with the suit’s prehensile tail then ran all the servos through a set series of motions to test the unit.

The two women floated through the last hatch to the crew’s quarters, Ava’s pause was cut short by Sweets pulling her on through and sealing the door behind them.

With the mag-tight boots activated, Jacob walked to the hatch and double-checked the seal before turning his attention to the upper airlock.

At the ladder, with a thought, his boots disengaged, and he used the four arms to pull himself to the top of the ship. Inside the airlock, he waited a few seconds to make sure the seal held. Then depressurized.

Once exposed to the void, he took a moment longer to let the suit rest. He’d never felt happier when the HUD gave him green indicators all across the board and the seals on his unit all actually held. Looked like this was not the end after all.

Rather than rush to reach the first junction, he did what he promised not to do. He took a look at the stars splayed out around him and fought desperately to catch that feeling he once had in his youth. The feeling of grandeur the dark once offered. The feeling escaped him. The years in space had finally jaded him to the point where the simple beauty of the stars was lost on him.

With a sigh, he pulled himself slowly along the fore-and-aft safety rail to the first junction. It would be safer with tethers and mag-tight boots engaged, but he didn’t want to spend longer outside than he needed to. There was an uneasy feeling about this EVA that hastened his pace.

“First link engaged.” He spoke aloud, even if no one heard his words. The long-range antenna was easy to spot, right over the bridge. Ironically, it was the shortest, squattest of the lot. Some designer had a sense of humor. Jacob assumed there was some other factor than irony at play with the design, but he still smiled at the thought of the other antenna mocking the little guy.

His mix must be off. His mind wandered while he should remain focused. He forced himself to bury any thoughts other than hooking up the last bypass and getting his ass back inside.

There was no sound, but he felt the click when the last connection was made. Jacob exhaled a sigh of relief. He was so happy to have this little chore finished. Now he needed to see if the damned thing worked. Some sort of indication light for transmitting would be a needed addition to the antenna array, but the engineers probably never expected a ship being fragged by a gamma-ray burst like they had experienced.

The four arms of the suit pulled him to the windows that gave the bridge the only exterior view from the ship. Peeking over the edge, the first thing he spotted was Ava’s face plastered to the port, breath fogging the glass with each breath. Below her, Sweets glanced over her shoulder from the coms console, and when their eyes met, she gave him a thumbs up.

Jacob smiled but fought the urge to celebrate. Their chances of rescue went from zero to slightly above that. He didn’t want to think of the odds. It would only give him a headache. Ready to return to the safety inside the ship, he waved to Ava.

Sweets flailed her arms, struggling to get his attention.

He moved closer to where she stood, and she pointed out toward the forward part of the ship.

After a quick glance, Jacob didn’t believe what he saw. His mix must be off more than he thought. Out in front of him was the impossible.

Crawling toward him, straight from a horror vid, a huge creature that could only be described as a spider cautiously made its way toward him.

Irrational fears by their very nature are illogical. Since childhood, Jacob hid an overwhelming fear of spiders. Despite his obvious size advantage, the sight of an eight-legged creature sent him into a panic. He knew if anyone learned of his weakness, the practical jokes would never stop. Some humans relished in taking gleeful advantage of any perceived weakness. His chair would not have protected him from the expected torment. Everyone held secrets. Jacob learned that lesson long ago. His was just a little stranger than others.

Since he entered space nearly twenty years ago, his arachnophobia was moot. He’d encountered zero spiders in space. The fact he was so scared of them even spilled from his mind. Why worry about something that was so unlikely?

Chemical-induced hallucination or not, Jacob’s body reacted to the sight of the creature creeping closer. His suit misread the cues from his brain and overreacted.

In a panic, he lost control of the grip that held him safely onto the ship. Thrashing to get away, he started a spin.

He scrambled to regain his grip on something solid.

Contact with the rails lost, he drifted toward the side of the ship. Bouncing off the hull every few rotations, he finally tumbled slowly over the side without regaining control of his tumble.

The gravity of the rock the Frazier mined was barely enough to attract his weight. If he jumped hard enough in the powered suit, he might have reached escape velocity.

As it was, he drifted in an uncontrolled spin toward the rock below. His suit was made for underground excavation not EVA. Without jets for control, he rotated on three axes during the descent. On the last time he faced the ship, he swore the dammed spider watched him fall and assumed it was laughing at the sight of a huge powered mining suit tumbling to the rock below. Thank goodness for the anti-nausea drugs, or he would have lost anything in his stomach.

Despite the lack of normal gravity, the mass of his suit was able to pick up considerable momentum during the minute it took for the hundred-meter fall. Not enough to kill him, but the awkward landing knocked the air out of his lungs.

It took him a second to regain his composure. As soon as he did, he flipped to his back, fulling expecting to see a hoard of spiders dropping in attack from above. He quickly scanned his surroundings, searching for any creatures that joined him on the surface of the asteroid.

When he spotted nothing, rather than wait for the attack, he used the tail to regain his footing and bounded toward the nearest cable tethering the ship to the rock. His eyes glued to the edge of the ship, the four arms of the suit carried him to the lower airlock.

“Please, God, let this damned thing work,” Alone, he said the prayer aloud to an uncaring universe. Out of habit, he held his breath while the door cycled open. He slipped inside, and the door sealed behind him.

The sound of the atmosphere rushing into the airlock made his shivers of fear subside. It looked like he might live another day after all.

The inner door opened, and he was happy Sweets and Ava both ignored his warning and entered the suit out room to help him escape the torment that was his powered mining unit. His logical mind knew there was zero chance for a spider to have infiltrated his armor, but his skin crawled like a thousand tiny legs scurried over his flesh.

“What the hell was that?” Ava asked before she had his helm fully disengaged from his chest piece.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Jacob said. “So you really did see it too? Did you get a good look at it?” he asked.

“After we lost sight of you, it crawled over the side. Like it followed…” Ava talked while she helped free him of the rig.

The thought made Jacob cringe. If it followed him, the thing must not be afraid of humans.

“Spiders freak me right the hell out.” Sweets volunteered.

“Yeah…” Both Ava and Jacob agreed.

Sweets asked, “Are there any weapons on board?”

Jacob helped Ava crack the seal that separated his torso and arms from his legs. “Weapons breed violence.” He desperately wanted to scratch the uncontrolled itches all over his body.

Ava cut in, “I think we might need some violence soon enough…”

Sweets nodded agreement. “It is better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have one.”

Jacob acquiesced. There was no way he would fight a spider the size of his chest with a rolled-up paper. “Captain Allen might have one in his quarters.” A sworn pacifist, he might need to rethink his position when it came to creatures in the dark.

They had not entered the other members’ quarters since the accident. It felt wrong, an intrusion of their dead friends’ privacy. Faced with the possible invasion of huge space spiders, it was time for Jacob to reconsider some things. They needed weapons now.

Words failed him while the two women chattered away. Stripped of the suit, he checked himself and let out a soft sigh of relief when he found no bugs crawling over his skin.