Authors: Jonathan L. Howard
“
Not much, but I don’t have anything better. When you’ve got that thing on, fetch me six connector leads from locker two and the tape gun in locker four.
”
“
Aye-aye, captain,
”
replied Kane and hurried himself into the suit.
‘
Aye-aye, captain
,’ thought Katya. ‘
Your minisub’s airlock.’ He’s right; Uncle Lukyan never made a secret of his will. I own the Baby. I am her captain. My first command.
She busied herself with the drone before the thought that the
Baby
might also be her last command had time to crystallise.
The
Baby
’s hull was pocked at frequent intervals with socket covers, each covering two sockets that allowed her to interface with equipment attached to her hull. A standard minisub would never be the master of any trade, so it had to content itself being a jack of many. The
Baby
had, at various times, mounted manipulator waldo arms, extra light banks, cable laying gear, a specialised magnetometer array and a thermic lance. It was unlikely the manufacturers had ever imagined her with two combat drones strapped to her hull. Katya had been cou
nting on the drones complying with
the same interface standards as the
Vodyanoi
, which she had noticed used
the
t
ypes of plugs and sockets that were
Russalka standard. It made sense; Russalka may have won its independence from Earth, but the Terran technical conventions they’d inherited were well tried and tested. There was little point in changing things simply for a misguided show of independence from th
e old world. Even so, she gave
an audible sigh of relief when the connector cables snapped home at both ends and the communication lights glowed, showing that the
Baby
had successfully detected the drone’s anti-gravity units and could control them.
Kane looked at the web of metal tape that Katya had created to clamp the drones in position to make sure the aft hatch and the dorsal airlock were clear and accessible. Satisfied, he hurried back to the console and checked the state of the
Leviathan
.
“
How are we doing?
”
called Katya as she stowed Kane’s coat and boots into a locker.
“
Just barely in time. Two minutes, I think. Get that hatch sealed, we’re doing it now.
”
Katya slammed that aft hatch and locked it shut, made her way forward to the plot’s seat and strapped herself in. She checked the Judas box – all lights were green.
“
Just you stay that way,
”
she muttered.
Outside, Kane sealed his suit’s helmet, made a quick check that its life-support systems were working correctly, and turned his attention to the active console. The antimatter containment was in a bad way. He guessed it would fail in ninety seconds, perhaps even less. He pulled up the ship’s operations controls and ordered the docking bay’s hatch to open. The control flashed green and the hatch started to dilate. Somewhere a decompression warning sounded.
“
Category one,
”
said a voice in Kane’s ear, so close he turned expecting somebody to be standing by him. It took him a moment to realise it was coming through his suit’s communicator. A sense of great and immediate peril, even beyond the
Leviathan
’s imminent death, overtook him and he started to run for the
Baby
. He was a metre away when the grappling cable snaked down from the chamber’s roof and grabbed his leg. Suddenly he was dangling upside down over the
Baby
. He could see how wide the hatch had opened beneath the minisub and knew it must start falling slowly through in any moment. He reached and his hand barely touched the rail beside the dorsal lock before he was pulled still higher.
“
Kane?
”
Katya’s voice was loud inside the suit’s helmet.
“
What was that? What’s happening?
”
Kane swung up and grabbed the tentacle-like cable. He tugged frantically, but it didn’t budge a centimetre.
“
I… Unh! The
Leviathan
. It won’t let me go!
”
He felt utterly helpless and allowed himself to flop limply like a rag doll in the cable’s grip.
“
Sorry, Katya. You’re going to have to make the descent yourself.
”
“
No! No! I will not…
”
“
Out of our hands, Katya. For what it’s worth, I’m glad I met you.
”
“
Shut
up
! I’m not letting that
thing
have you!
”
“
Look after yourself, Katya. Don’t think about me. You need to…
”
The tentacle dropped him. He fell slowly; the chambers artificial gravity had been deactivated when the hatch started to open. Even with only Russalka’s gravity, weakened by their distance above it, he still hit the top of the
Baby
hard and rolled off it. As he lay stunned, he heard the
Leviathan
speak to him for the last time.
“
Go.
”
Beside him, the
Baby
fell through the hatch, but all he could do was gaze up at the cable retracting lazily into the ceiling. Its voice... there had been something about its voice…
Suddenly, he realised his ride was leaving without him. He rolled over and pushed himself out after the
Baby
, shunting himself off from the hatch edge. It was little enough impetus, but just barely enough to catch up with the minisub. He grabbed one of the metal strips that secured the drones and then quickly transferred his grip to a stanchion rail running down beside the aft hatch before the sharp-edged tape had a chance to cut his glove.
“
Kane! Speak to me! I can’t see you!
”
“
I’m clear of the
Leviathan
. I’m hanging onto the
Baby
.
”
“
You’re clear? How?
”
“
I don’t know.
”
He looked upwards to where he could see the diminishing shape of the
Leviathan
between his feet, accelerating hard away from Russalka, away from them. In a moment, it was almost too small to see
“
It just… let me go.
”
“
Can you reach the dorsal hatch?
”
He laughed.
“
No. Not a chance. I’m only holding on with one hand. I can’t move anywhere.
”
There was silence for a moment. Then Katya said,
“
Kane, even with the drones, the passage through the atmos…
”
Behind them, the
Leviathan
exploded. For a moment, it glowed brighter than any sun as matter and antimatter combined in its heart and eliminated one another, changing directly to energy in the process. In an instant, the vessel, its huge but corrupt artificial mind and the bodies of two brave men were turned to plasma.
Kane was looking away and that saved his sight as the flash enveloped them, and made the cloud tops so far below turn to a rolling sea of white fire for achingly long seconds. Kane’s helmet filled with interference as the communication frequencies were jammed by the brief burst of radiation generated by the explosion. Kane knew his suit would absorb it and that the minisub’s hull would protect Katya. What he was more worried about was the possibility of debris raining across them and puncturing his suit.
Long seconds passed
,
but he was not perforated by a storm of metal particles travelling at hyperkinetic speeds.
This was small comfort. The re-entry into the atmosphere was still sure to kill him.
He heard Katya’s voice penetrate and grow in clarity as the radiation died away.
“
Kane? Are you there? Did you say something?
”
“
I just said that today has just been one long round of jumping out of frying pans into successively larger fires.
”
“
What? I don’t understand you.
”
“
I’ll explain later.
”
The
Baby
was starting to shudder as they entered the thickening atmosphere. Should there
be
a later, he thought.
“
Activate the drones, Katya.
”
“
I already have. We need to get you in quickly. You won’t be able to hang on during the turbulence.
”
Feeling the strain on his arm, Kane strongly doubted he would even last until the turbulence.
“
Don’t worry about me.
”
“
I’ve heard your brave farewell speech once, Kane. You’re not dying today.
”
Kane’s heart froze as he realised what was going through her mind.
“
Do not open the hatch
, Katya! You
will
die!
”
“
What kind of idiot do you take me for?
”
He was never so glad to have somebody talk to him so contemptuously.
“
I’ve got an idea, but you’ll have to be strong and hang on just for a minute. Can you do that?
”
“
A minute? I think so.
”
His arm burned with exhaustion. Even a minute seemed an eternity. He counted slowly to sixty to take his mind off the pain of the tortured muscles, deliberately losing count a couple of times and starting back a few numbers. He wondered what her plan was. He assumed the
Baby
might have a manipulator arm folded away somewhere that could hold onto him, but he couldn’t see such an arm and, anyway, what would it be doing at the back of the minisub?
He was just about to ask Katya what the plan really was when he discovered it for himself. The aft hatch unsealed and started to open before him. His eyes widened; Katya was going to get herself killed to save him.
He knew it was already too late to try and stop her – the compartment would already have lost its air – now he had to think of some way to get inside and repressurise the
Baby
rapidly. A couple of plans flitted through his mind, but they foundered on the immediate fact that he was trailing from a plummeting minisub several kilometres in the air by the fingertips of one hand. Then the hatch finished opening and there was Katya, as grim as death.
As grim as death, but very much alive. Strapped over her face was an emergency respirator pack. She’d punched a small hole at the base from which the green oxygen-rich fluid was fountaining across her clothes. Through the transparent mouth piece
of the LoxPak
, he could see the stuff foaming violently as the oxygen boiled out of it in the very low pressure. She’d known enough not to try and use the breather as a simple life-support unit – the pressure difference between her lungs and outside could have been fatal. Instead she was letting it make a breathable atmosphere inside the mask, the gases making their way into her lungs under their own pressure while she just kept her mouth open. It would be like breathing at the top of a mountain, but it was breathing. Not for the first time, Kane was astonished by her ability to think clearly when danger threatened and time was short. He would have hugged her but for that small detail of trailing behind a plummeting minisub by the fingertips of one hand.
She reached out and snapped a lanyard loop around his wrist, drawing it tight with a reflexive tug. Then she braced herself against the hatchway and started to pull him in on the line, hand over hand. The flow of fluid stuttered and stopped. She was running only on the oxygen in her bloodstream now. Summoning up his every reserve, Kane reached forward with his free hand and managed to grab hers. She placed one foot on either side of the hatch so she was horizontal to the
Baby
’s floor and, screaming silently with a desperate rage, she straightened her legs. Kane was half through the hatch now. He used the hand with the line wrapped around it to grab the internal stanchion rail above the door and heaved himself in. It took achingly long seconds to clamber around so he could close the hatch without falling out again, seconds in which he knew Katya was suffocating. Finally, the hatch slammed shut and he released the automatic pressure valves Katya had disabled to prevent the minisub venting all its air in a vain attempt to repressurise a compartment open to space.
Air flooded in. Katya lay on her back hyperventilating, her colour an ugly blue. Kane cursed the slowness of the pressure gauge, tore open the medical kit and gave her oxygen directly from its emergency cylinder.