In Every Clime and Place

In Every Clime and Place

Patrick LeClerc

First published in the UK by Firedance Books in 2014.

Copyright © 2014 Patrick LeClerc The right of Patrick LeClerc to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design copyright © Rebecca Kemp 2014

Interior book design copyright © Bill Sauer 2014

All rights reserved.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-1-909256-32-3

Firedance Books

firedancebooks.com

For all those who run toward danger.

ASTEROID BELT RESCUE SUBSTATION ECHO 7

“Seven Romeo Two, respond to the ship in distress. Seven Romeo Two.”

A piercing series of beeps followed by a sultry recorded female voice.

I cursed. I had just stepped under the water and soaped up when the tone sounded. Out here, we could go days without a call, but they never came when you were bored shitless, staring at the walls. No, all crises had to wait until you put a plate of food on the table or got naked.

I hopped out and toweled off, pulled on my pants, socks and boots, grabbed my tshirt and walked briskly out the hatch down the passageway.

I ran into the lieutenant. He was easy to identify, even if you missed the Rescue Service bugles on his collar, by his enormous walrus mustache.

“What’s up, boss?” I asked, pulling the shirt over my head.

“News vessel sent out a beacon,” he said. “Lost power to the engine, electrical shorts. Systems decaying. Crew denies any fire or hazard at this time.”

“How far out?”

“Close. Maybe an hour.”

“So there’s plenty of time for a hazard to show up and make life interesting,” I said.

“That’s why we make the big bucks,” he replied. “Gear up. You, Tini and Doc will be the entry team. Flash will pilot and run the coms.”

“OK. Ship not carrying anything awful? No explosives? No rare biological weapons? Drums of ethylmethylbadstuff?”

“Doesn’t seem to be. News team. Ship’s crew. Audio and video equipment.”

We kept moving while we talked, arriving at the gear room. I went to my locker and dragged out my suit. It was heavy and hot, resistant to tearing, cutting and heat up to 300 degrees Centigrade. Over that went a tank of compressed air, the helmet with the mic and data screen, and our web gear, which held our universal cutter, pneumatic jacks and a chemical foam extinguisher. All together it weighed roughly the same as the ship we responded in.

The rest of the rescue crew were soon suited up too. Well, ‘Tini’ was, being a door kicker, like me. Doc was weighed down with a big med kit and collapsible stretcher. The pilot ambled in as we were finishing, snagged a helmet from the hook on the wall and acknowledged us mere beasts of burden with a lazy smile and something he thought looked like a salute but really was just bringing his right index finger near his eyebrow. Not his fault; he just thought his hitch in the Air Force counted as military service.

We climbed aboard the rescue shuttle and belted in.

During the trip, we looked over the schematics of the ship downloaded from the Registry of Spacegoing Vessels, and checked the crew and cargo manifest. It looked like a three-man news team and a crew of four to run the ship. No real cargo, just equipment for the news crew and supplies for the vessel. No weapons registered.

Didn’t mean there weren’t any.

Plenty of spacers went armed. With what law there was provided by far-flung Navy ships, you couldn’t expect to call for help and have it arrive in a timely fashion. Even Rescue ships like ours had an arms locker. It just made sense. We carried a lot of expensive equipment, and had a duty to respond to any distress beacon, so it was easy to lure us out into trouble.

We were working in the new Old West. A lot of ship-to-ship interactions were done sleeves rolled up and guns on the table.

I didn’t have any bad feeling about this one. The ship had recently left Mars Station, and nothing out of the ordinary had been reported.

“Hey, Flash, where you planning to put us down?” I asked the pilot.

“The main hatch is right amidships,” he replied in a Louisiana drawl as thick as molasses. “That should be midway between the engine room and the mess. News crew will be in the mess. Ship’s crew might be in either.”

“Any enviro readings?” asked Angelina. Everybody else around her called her Tini, because it was a play on her overlong Guinea surname (four syllables is too much for a door kicker) – and because she was the smallest of us. But we’d come into the Rescue Service together, and I’d known her too long to use the new nickname.

“No alerts,” said Flash. “I’ll snake a probe in, soon as we get hooked up.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” she answered.

We felt the muffled thump of the shuttle docking to the larger vessel. Gravity, weak but noticeable, came back as our ship joined the rotating mass of the ship in distress. I hit the quick-release straps that held me to the bulkhead, took my spot at the foot of the ladder, ready to climb to the hatch. In the spin-induced artificial gravity of space travel, “up” was always toward the center of rotation—in this case, the news ship.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Flash, “the Beach and Boating forecast calls for standard pressure and temperatures in the mid 20 degrees Centigrade, oxygen levels normal, but significant particulate matter present, probably from burnt wiring. We advise you to keep your helmets sealed, and enjoy your stay. And don’t forget your sunscreen.”

“Restrict your transmissions to approved radio protocol.” The lieutenant’s voice crackled over the subspace frequency. This close, laser audio communication with base was possible. “Seven Romeo Two, are you coupled yet?”

“You guys are all the same,” Angelina smirked. “We’ve been on this date for less than an hour.”

“That is affirmative,” said Flash. “Locked together, probe engaged and download complete.”

“No comment on that one?” I asked.

“That one is way too easy,” she said. “I don’t want to bruise your fragile male egos too badly.”

Doc heaved himself off the bulkhead, swinging his med kit to a comfortable position. “Probably why they call him Flash.”

“At least Doc doesn’t shrink from shooting wounded prey,” I said. “Secure and check.”

We sealed our collars, snapped our helmets closed, zipped the cuffs to our gloves, turned on the valves to our air tanks, then checked one another, making sure everything was in order. In a hostile environment, your gear is all that stands between you and death, so if you want to do this job for any length of time you take your equipment seriously.

“Entry team ready,” I said over the mic. “Do we have the code for the hatch of this tub or do we get to start breaking stuff?”

“Code is downloaded, hatch is clear and unlocked.”

I hit the control and we moved into the airlock between the two ships, then closed ours before opening the hatch to the stricken vessel, just in case the probe was wrong and the air was toxic or on fire or something else unpleasant.

It seemed fine, but there was a slight haze, likely a combination of fumes from burnt wiring and fire-suppression residue. We moved into the passage, and turned toward the prow, heading to the chow hall. The three of us advanced, dragging an air line. The line was a ballistic cloth hose that snaked through an aperture in our hatch and ran from a pressurized tank on our ship. Ports along it allowed for the attachment of breathing masks for victims we might find, air supply for our pneumatic tools, or we could hook our own masks to it if we ran low on our bottled air.

It was also a nice handy lifeline to follow out if the place got too dark or smoky or just plain awful to see in.

We reached the chow hall and found the hatch closed. Angelina banged on it with her halgan. After a moment someone tapped back.

“Flash,” I said into the mic. “The chow hall hatch is sealed. Can you open it from your end, or can we void the warranty?”

“Power’s down, the electronic lock defaults to secure.”

“In English, flyboy?”

“Bust that mother open.”

“Music to my ears.”

I fired up the pneumatic saw. The carbide blade sheared through the deadbolts and Angelina heaved the hatch open.

Three men in commercial-grade vacuum suits stood back away from the door.

“Rescue Service,” I said. “You speak English?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody hurt?” asked Doc.

“No, but we need to contact—”

“Later. This ship is unsafe, we need you to follow us to the shuttle.”

“Where’s the crew?” I asked.

“We’re not sure,” said one of the men. “They went off to try to fix the power.”

“Probably the engine room,” said Angelina.

“There are four of them, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“OK, follow us, we’ll drop you and go find the rest of the crew.”

“I just need to stop at my cabin and grab my memory sticks,” said one of the men.

“Not gonna happen.”

“I’m sorry,” he persisted. “I’m Brian Jensen. From SNN. It’s all my research. I have interviews—”

“Hey.” Angelina grabbed his shoulder and spun him to face her. “You see this haze? That means something behind these bulkheads is burning. We don’t know what it is, but it’s probably compromising the integrity of the hull. It could be spreading above our heads and below our feet right now, and you can bet your ass it’s all toxic. So maybe you follow us straight to the shuttle and let us find the rest of your crew, before we give Doc a good reason to work you up for a concussion.”

Jensen may have been a bit of an idiot, but he was a quick enough study to know not to argue with my teammate.

We escorted the news crew to the hatch, passed them through the airlock to the shuttle, then proceeded to the engine room.

The haze was thicker, the temperature readings higher. When we reached the hatch and banged on it, we got a frantic drum solo in return. Angelina and I cut the deadbolts and shoved the heavy portal open.

A huge hunk of machinery was torn loose from its housing and lay on the deck. A man in a vacc suit was pinned beneath it, while three others were trying to lift it away from him. Sparks showered from the overhead, bouncing off the men, leaving blackened, smoking pits in their suits. Commercial suits were designed to be safe to weld in, or work on hot material, but not take the sustained beating of this kind of environment.

“OK, guys,” I said. “We got this. Back away and let us get a look.”

The men fell back. We saw a man’s head and right shoulder sticking out from under the debris. It looked like a piece of engine housing lying right across his chest. It didn’t look like it wanted to shift. Three strong men hauling on it hadn’t budged it a centimeter.

Angelina and I moved to the housing on either side of the man while Doc went directly to the patient.

The thing weighed a ton. No way we were moving it by hand, and it was compressing the man’s thorax.

“Can you guys get some of this pressure off him?” asked Doc.

“In two shakes,” I replied.

We took out two of our pneumatic jacks and inserted them under the housing. The jacks were a short cylinder with a SureGrip foot at either end on a swivel that we set in place. The surfaces of the feet molded to the deck and the housing and adhered. We locked the feet to the shaft so they wouldn’t swivel, and connected the air line to the pneumatic coupling on each.

“OK, Doc, we’re going to start extending the jacks. Let us know when you have enough clearance. We’ll watch for any shifting of this thing.” The less we moved it, the better the chance it wouldn’t roll or slide and pin more of us under it.

“Got it. Just hurry.”

“OK. Sweetheart, on three, slow flow from the valve.”

We cracked the ball valves on the air line and watched as the jack legs began to extend. Slowly the ponderous hunk of metal began to move, lifting straight away from the deck with no indication of sliding.

“That’s plenty!” said Doc. “Gimme a sec to stabilize him and then let’s ease him out.”

Angelina assembled the collapsible stretcher and set it near the patient. Doc whipped out a rigid collar and wrapped it around the man’s neck, extending the stays to secure his head and shoulders. Angelina and I each grabbed a shoulder of his suit and drew him smoothly out while Doc guided his head. We laid him on the stretcher.

“Ready to move?” I asked.

“Wait one,” said Doc, bent over his patient.

Flash’s voice cut over the helmet speakers. “Entry team. Pull back. Temperature readings are nearing danger levels. Particulate matter in the air is rising rapidly.”

That’s one reason we needed a man out with the instruments and the coms. Our suits were so good we couldn’t really tell when the temperature started rising. Until it was too late to do anything about it. Yeah, there are sensors and displays, but it’s easy to get busy and miss them.

“Received,” I said. “Coming out with three walking and one stretcher case.”

“Copy three walking one carried. Are you in motion?”

Doc swore. Swung the med kit off his back and opened it, rooting inside.

“Just about,” I said. “Doc is stabilizing the patient.”

“Forget that,” came the lieutenant’s voice over the subspace band. “Move him now, work on him later.”

Doc looked at me, shook his head.

I shrugged.

“Take these three out,” I told Angelina. “I’ll help Doc carry this guy.”

“We go together or we don’t go.”

“These three men depend on you,” I said. “I’ll be thirty seconds behind you. Trust me.”

“Don’t you even think of dicking around here,” she said with a glare. “I get them to the hatch, you aren’t behind me, I will turn right around, march back here and drag you both out unconscious.”

“I’ll be there. Just move.”

When she had marched the other crewmen out, I turned to Doc. “What’s wrong?”

“He has a pneumothorax. The weight must have damaged his lung on the left. It’s leaking air into his chest cavity. That air is building up and pushing everything over to the right, squeezing his heart, his great vessels, his one good lung. I need to decompress him.”

“Let’s do that on the shuttle,” I said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“He doesn’t have five minutes. This’ll take me thirty seconds.” He spoke while assembling some instruments.

“Are you moving yet?” demanded the lieutenant.

“I didn’t take this job to watch people die,” said Doc.

“Entry team! Report!” the lieutenant barked.

“On the way, boss,” I said. “Heading out with one on a stretcher.”

I cut my mic and spoke to Doc. “You got thirty seconds. Don’t make me regret it.”

Doc quickly cut the man’s suit away from his left chest. He swabbed a spot about a third of the way from the man’s clavicle to his nipple with betadyne, then jammed a needle into it. I heard the rush of air escaping. Saw the grey skin start to turn pink.