Belters

Chapter 12:

Chapter 12:AD 2100 Inner Belt – Daniel Frazier

Jacob wanted to drop to the floor of the corridor outside the infirmary, curl into the fetal position, and cry his unfair life away. The call of self-pity was an uncommon feeling for him. However, at this moment, life seemed too unfair for words.

The results of the medical scans were as the man feared, before the suit telemetry crapped out, the medical machine calculated he’d received a lethal dose of unspecified radiation. Why he’d not cooked in his suit like the others was anyone’s guess. According to the remote dosimeter, he should be dead. His blisters grew in size. The damage done to the outer layers of his skin would leave him forever scarred. If he lived long enough to scar.

The fact he wasn’t dead yet should have been cause enough to celebrate. Injected with meds to flush out the contamination and enough iodine to lace a salt mine, he’d been treated. The efforts were only temporary until better treatment could be received. Like Ava, if he received proper medical treatment in the next few weeks, he should, against all the odds, survive.

There would be one hell of a story to tell if they made it out alive.

The radiation wasn’t what crushed his spirit to move. When the screen flashed, “Unknown spinal muscular atrophy detected,” too many painful memories flooded back to him. With the added stress of the past few hours, he simply couldn’t take it anymore.

Growing up was never easy. The social pressures and stress of fitting in during childhood had always left behind an inordinate amount of causalities. No one had discovered a way to make reaching adulthood easier. Facing the struggle, alone, as an unwanted ward of the state, crammed into a system overloaded with other unwanted children didn’t help.

Now he lay alone, crying in the hall. A situation that only pissed him off more. Life engrained in him the need for strength, but at times, he couldn’t find it.

Jacob had come to accept his disability. The fact it might help him control the mining rig even helped him silently admit the loss of his legs might have helped him escape his old life on Earth.

As a young man, the first problems with his mobility became apparent shortly after puberty. Along with the acne and other signs of growing up, Jacob became clumsy. Like his legs had a mind of their own. Loss of feeling and tingling that never went away were a constant reminder he was different. He complained to his caseworker about what he was feeling, or the lack of feeling, in his legs, and the overworked social worker ignored him, told him he’d grow out of it. Went so far as to tell him it was all in his head, all kids faced the same problems, suck it up, and other pearls of wisdom to sluff the boy off.

Well, Jacob showed her when, one morning, he couldn’t get out of his rack in the group home. The headmaster accused him of faking it. No matter how hard they beat him, Jacob crawled out of bed but couldn’t stand. A group of boys followed as he dragged his lifeless legs out of the room, taunting him. The old headmaster pushed him along with a belt. Finally, a layman follower at the facility stopped the assault and stood between the bitter old man and Jacob. He took the belt from the old man and threatened him with it.

In many ways, the young man named Layman Ping saved Jacob’s life. That was when the first sign of kindness made its appearance in an otherwise miserable life.

That was when the physical pain truly started for Jacob. Taken to one state doctor after another, Jacob suffered as they tried to discover what was wrong with him. Different illnesses were batted around: ALS, MS, MDMNA, Schneider syndrome. The list grew more exotic and remote with each new visit, but none agreed on what caused the paralysis.

The final diagnosis was a nonspecific spinal muscular atrophy. Which basically meant his legs didn’t get the correct signals from his brain. Jacob would be stuck in a chair until he could afford implants for his legs or an exoskeleton to help him walk. All very expensive treatments. They called it HBS after the doctor who diagnosed the illness.

Despite all the advances to treat common sicknesses, there was no approved treatment for what ailed Jacob. If he’d been born of money, there were more than a few experimental therapies that might have worked, but no human tests at state-run clinics. The cynic in Jacob wasn’t surprised when the government failed him once more, leaving him a cripple.

So many times, he wanted to give up, to push his wheelchair onto the subway tracks, down a flight of stairs, anything to stop the agony, both physical and mental. Through it all, Layman Ping stayed with him. A constant ray of hope in Jacob’s dour existence. His words, “Dum spiro spero,” rang in Jacob’s ears.

When the state money ran out for his treatment, and no cure was discovered, Ping kept Jacob going. Giving him a place to stay.

It was at the layman’s insistence, as a way to continue treatment, that Jacob applied for the corporate-sponsored mining suit testing program. Located in Philadelphia, the boarding school would take care of all Jacob’s needs while enrolled. The classes proved a godsend.

When Jacob was accepted and excelled in the simulated zero-G training, his life began to look up. Still, the corporate doctors could not find out why his legs fought against him. The best they discovered was a combination of genetic and environmental factors caused his rare form of paralysis. The good news was it didn’t seem to be affecting his internal organs or progressing to more of his body. The doctors assured him he’d live a very long legless life.

All would have been perfect with Jacob’s future until word reached him that Layman Ping had taken ill and was calling for him.

Jacob dropped everything and rushed cross-country to the man’s side. Ping had been the father Jacob never truly had.

Words failed Jacob when he found the man he loved stretched out on a wooden bed with no mat. He looked ancient. The years had not been kind to the man. Ping was only twenty years older than Jacob, but he looked older than the rotten old headmaster once did.

With a weak motion of his hand, Ping called Jacob to his side. With his dying breath, he whispered, “Always remember the world is nothing but reflections and echoes of the truth. You need to find your truth.” The man died on the next breath.

What the f**k does that mean? Jacob thought. He looked around the room, and everything before him looked false. His whole life had been predicated on a lie. Jacob had followed the rules, did as he was told, and the system failed him.

If he stayed on his current path, the future was laid out. The way set for him was to play the cards dealt and end up broken like the man who just died. There was no way Jacob was going to die a young man, alone, with not even a mattress to call his own.

Jacob rolled out of that room and sold the few possessions he had. With a little research and groveling, he found a friend who could get him hired on as a freelance miner. Anything to leave the reflections of his old life far behind him. It was time to make his own way in the world. For better or worse, he would not rely on another for his freedom. He needed to see the solar system before he died.

After his first freelance mining ship, his reputation as a hard worker preceded him. The jobs lined up as crews needed filling out. Finding a job became easy. When the Frazier offered a cut of the haul, he rolled at the chance. With enough cash, he hoped to one day pull back the reflection and echoes of life and find an underlying truth. It might all be for naught, but he’d be damned if he would die a corporate stooge fighting for the next promotion.

The coms remained down. “I hate to interrupt, but we have a situation in here.” Ava’s voice shouted from the common room. The words broke Jacob from his pity party.

He must have been dehydrated. Despite the need to cry, no tears flowed from his eyes. It was for the better. Ava would have ridden him into the ground if he showed up with eyes filled with tears. “Yeah… On my way.” He grunted. Arms strong from years of carrying himself pulled his weight along the hall, the handholds spaced so he flew through the ship with practiced grace.

A woman’s low growling voice reached him before he made the common area. “I said let me go now, and I will put in a good word for you… Kidnapping security force personnel is a serious offense.”

The strange woman had survived. She seemed pissed. Jacob didn’t blame her. The situation would surely get worse before it improved.

Jacob came upon a tense situation. Strangely enough, the woman he rescued appeared calm, despite the fact Ava had tied her arms and legs to the rack supports. The female miner was true to her word. She had all but stripped the security force woman down to her thin undergarments. She had to be freezing. Jacob found it hard to make out the blisters from the goose-pimpled flesh.

The worst part was Ava standing guard over her with a power drill aimed at her chest. Every time the woman spoke or twitched, Ava would flinch and squeeze the trigger, causing the impacting diamond bit to spin a few inches from the woman’s breastplate. If Ava slipped, Jacob’s rack would be covered in gore, and the woman would surely die.

“What did I miss?” Jacob forced himself to remain calm. There was more than enough tension in the air already.

Ava swung the improvised weapon in his direction. “You should have left her outside.” She used the heavy core drill as a pointer with each word jabbed at his groin. At least his friend’s ire was directed at him, not the helpless woman.

“We had this discussion… It isn’t going to happen.” Jacob needed to defuse this situation quickly, or Ava might not let the sole survivor live. The only person who might know what happened to them needed to live long enough to tell her side of the story. “The reactor started?” he asked.

If looks could kill, Ava’s eyes would have shot holes in his skull. “No.” The drill point now came up to Jacob’s face. “You going to live?”

Jacob couldn’t distinguish the sentence as a question or a threat. He risked resting his hand on the wicked-looking business end of the tool. “Maybe you should go try to start it… I’ll look after.” He remembered the woman’s nameplate. “Sweets.”

There were a tense few seconds while Ava deliberated over her options. Jacob being from Earth and Ava from Mars, the chances remained high he was still stronger than his friend, even without his legs.

“I’ll go, but…” Ava paused at the exit and glanced back at Sweets.

Jacob took it as an implied threat and promptly ignored his friend.

She floated, the tool still in hand.

Jacob said, “You don’t need that to get power back online…”

Ava pushed off with her legs, drill in hand.

“Sorry about that.” Jacob took a quick glance at how Sweets was bound to the rack support stanchions. It was lock wire, so he needed wire cutters to free the woman. She shivered from cold or exposure, didn’t much matter to Jacob. After his quick inspection, he focused on the woman’s face. No need to appear like a lecher.

“She always this insane?” Sweets asked with a guarded voice.

From the woman’s reaction, it was obvious to Jacob he was more bothered by her near nudity than she was.

Pulling a blanket from the rank above his, he did his best to cover her shivering body. “Only when blasted from space…” He forced himself to smile, working hard to keep his hands from touching— “You didn’t catch us on our best day.” When she didn’t comment, he filled the silence with sound. “Your name is Sweets, right?”

“Margaret Sweets… Yes.” The woman introduced herself. “What should I call my kidnappers? It would be nice to have the correct names when I file the arrest report…”

“Listen… it isn’t like that.” How could he possibly explain? Rather than waste what little time they had, he gave up before starting. With a push, he floated to the far side of the compartment. The crew storage lockers and junk drawers should have what he needed. Jacob found a pair of wire cutters in a catchall tool drawer. “My name is Jacob…” Telling Sweets he pulled her busted ass suit in from the vacuum of space might ease the situation, but that wasn’t his style. “My friend is Ava.”

The woman never commented, her eyes glued on the tool he held. The debate raged in his head. If he cut her free, she could prove a massive problem. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a world where he was required to keep any woman bound away from the limited medical attention she needed.

“You need treatment. We were all exposed to a massive blast… of radiation.” Jacob slipped the edged cutters over the first wire and clipped the strand. Arm’s length from her now, he spotted the blisters raised on her flesh like his. Her state-of-the-art suit must have offered better protection from the event than the miners’ suits did. Close to the surface, she should have suffered more exposure than the crew deeper in the shaft.

The woman didn’t move while he worked.

Her first arm freed, she flexed, and Jacob recoiled for fear of being attacked. Instead, the woman gingerly touched the sores blossoming on her face. “Am I?” Her touch paused on her lips. “Am I… scarred like you?” The words came with a halting pace. Jacob had taken a long look in the mirror while the med bot treated him. There was no way around the fact he looked like s**t. A cross between a greasy pizza and an overcooked pork rind.

Jacob shook his head, and rather than cut her second wrist free, he pushed off to the tool drawer and retrieved an inspection mirror. He doubted she would use the mirror as a weapon, and it might give her something to take her mind off her near nudity. He busied himself with cutting her free while she spoke.

“Where… what happened to my ship?”

Jacob shook his head. “I don’t know. I was kinda hoping you could tell us what happened. We were deeper in the shaft when… when the s**t hit the fan.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure. Did anyone from the Miyajima survive? What about my team?”

“I didn’t find anyone.” Her wrists and ankles free, Jacob reached out for the mirror. “We found you near our captain… He didn’t make it. None of our crew made it. You are the only other person we found. Our electronics are fried. If we don’t get some things working, we will all die soon enough. No need for us to fight now… First, we need to survive.”

She placed the mirror in his hand, her thoughts kept to herself.

“We need to hook you up to the med computer… get your treatment started, or you will get sicker until you die.”

Sweets must have been in shock. She nodded but didn’t move. Thank all the gods she didn’t attack him. He was in no shape for a tussle.

Jacob reached into the rack and offered her his hand. “Please, let me help you.”

Sweets took his hand. “You said the reactor isn’t working?”

“Correct.”

“So the engines are…?

“Offline.”

“And we are on batteries?”

“Yes.”

“How long until we freeze, or the CO2 gets too high?”

Jacob chuckled. “Long enough for us to get you to the med bay and back, I promise.” He wished there was a better answer, but things needed to get fixed, or they would all die soon enough.

The med unit confirmed what Jacob assumed. Somehow, Sweets received a smaller dose of radiation than Jacob and Ava. The better suit protected her.

She sat perched on the treatment table while Jacob watched the scans. “Good news, you should fully recover.”

“If we don’t die from…”

Jacob didn’t know how to read the woman. “One problem at a time.”

“I can’t get the damned thing started. The batteries are running low.” Ava had discarded the wicked-looking boring tool for a tablet computer. “I can’t make heads nor tails of these damned prestart instructions.”

“If…” Jacob didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but he felt they needed to know. “If we received a blast of ionized radiation, chances are good we lost a good portion of the electronics… We might never get the thing started.”

Sweets shook her head. “Are neither of you engineers?”

“Look, grunt, we are miners. We crack rocks. You murdered our crew…” Ava spit the words and tossed the tablet at the pair in the infirmary. The woman stormed off before a reply came.

“These older ships are made so most anyone can run them. They are built tougher than the newer models.” Sweets pulled the monitor tabs off her chest.

“You’re an engineer?”

“No, but all Holly and Burnt employees are required to have a basic understanding of ship components… You never know when you might be called upon to fill in…” Sweets didn’t finish the words. She didn’t need to. Jacob knew what the mercenary implied.

Sweets worked for the largest service provider in the solar system. The mercs filled slots on ships and stations systemwide. They had a habit of being in the hotspots when the balloon went up. Only the most skilled and resourceful survived in that line of work for long.

“Care if I take a look? I might be able to find a workaround.” She reached for the tablet.

Jacob had no choice. He didn’t know s**t about the ship’s systems. But if they lived long enough, that was an ignorance he felt compelled to change—and quickly. A few meters away hung a pair of crew coveralls. He reached them with a slight push. “Can’t have you freezing to death before you save our asses.” He tossed the covering to her.

She nodded. “Good. I’m not ready to die just yet.”