tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28751323062917795772024-03-12T23:26:10.219+00:00Clandestine ConvocationA small gathering of all my less substantial friends.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-89950163114304559752016-11-11T20:36:00.001+00:002016-11-11T20:36:15.099+00:00Day Eleven<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>6.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner watched Trane
working on the controller robot, keeping herself several feet from Trane,
Courtenay and Ward, who gathered around it. She was still wearing the jury
rigged suit, because she'd strapped on her sidearm before putting it on and
didn't want the others to see it, unless it became necessary to use it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane had cut free the rest of
the vinyl and was pulling out port protectors, laying them neatly to one side
in such order that they could be replaced in the same ports they'd come out of.
He was humming and looked as happy as Sumner had ever seen a technician.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Fully exposed, the crouched robot
looked pristine and Sumner wondered if it had ever been activated at all. Maybe
it was just housing for wafer packs and none had ever been inserted? Despite
how useful a functioning controller would be in their current predicament, she
found herself hoping it was just an empty shell. Controllers could be dangerous
when they malfunctioned - but at least in static housing they couldn't run you
down and throttle you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She glanced to one side, looking
at Nick Mitcham, who was also keeping his distance. It was hard to know for
sure, but from how little and how smoothly his eyes moved, she suspected he was
running his EyeSpy, capturing the moment for whatever grubby little newsfeed he
could sell it to. Ordinarily, Sumner was not very sympathetic towards
corporations, but in this instance, she was rooting for 4L to confiscate his
recordings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane jacked his datapad into one
of the ports on the thing's head and crouched down in front of it, head bent
over his screen. She saw Mitcham stepping in, trying to get a shot of the
readout. Sumner knew from past experience that there would be nothing of use
for Mitcham there - Technicians wore contacts to decrypt controller output and
they were the only ones experiencing time fast enough to be able to read it as
it blitzed up the screen anyway. Still - the fact that there <i>was</i> output
meant that this was not an empty shell.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She expected things to take a
while, but almost instantly, Trane and the robot stood up in synch. A number of
coloured lights flashed in what was almost certainly a test pattern underneath
the robot's faceplate. From somewhere near its head, the thing played a series
of chimes, then rattled its way through a raft of phonetic sounds. The pitch and
timbre of the voice was soft and only slightly on the male side of androgynous.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Now that the thing was standing,
the 4Life logo on its left breast was visible and instead of a standard ID, it
had 4LANCE stencilled underneath it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham said, "Four Lance...
what are the odds that's some stupid corporate acronym? Four Life something,
something, controller something, I bet."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay glared at him, but
everyone else ignored him in favour of watching Trane and the robot. Trane
pulled his jack out and pushed the reel in on his datapad, stepping back to
watch the robot himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said, "Give it some
room to test its mobility."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They all stepped away, including
Sumner, who was already feet further off. She tucked a hand into her suit and
reached down to release the restraining strap on her sidearm. She kept her
other hand near the main abdomen seal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The robot went through a short
series of moves, many of which would have been impossible for a human to
perform. Spinning its hands on its wrists, it's head doing a 360 and some kind
of balance test that was so abrupt, Sumner almost drew her weapon on it. After
that, it returned to a straight stand, the lights under the faceplate resolving
to a gentle green glow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane asked a question that he
almost certainly knew the answer to already, "Controller, what is your
common designation and how may we address you?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The thing said, "Four Life
Ambulatory Neural Controller Experiment twenty six. I may be addressed as that,
or 'controller', 'Four Lance', 'Twenty Six' or 'Lance'."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Told you," Nick
smugged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said, "Explain in
brief your primary purpose."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The thing said, "I am an
experimental controller. My purpose is to demonstrate the advantages and
viability of ambulatory neural controllers. I am compelled to inform you that I
have three external emergency shut-downs," it used one hand to point out
three yellow and black chevronned tear-aways on its torso, the back of its head
and the small of its back, "I may also be shut down wirelessly with the
use of a tone sequence, which is: A flat minor, F sharp and D minor. May I
suggest you prepare that tone sequence in a shortcut upon your datapads for
easy access."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane held up his datapad and
thumbed a button. His pad played the tone sequence and the lights on the
robot's faceplate faded out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said to Courtenay, "I
think it's safe enough to use. Its basic observations are green across the
board, the only thing wrong with it is that it's a little low on glucose and
oil after being in storage so long."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay asked, "What about
its Heppa?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Not introduced yet - it's
an experiment, they didn't need it to run that fast."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner asked, "Would it be
fast enough to trim an engine? Theoretically."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane nodded, "Sure, you're
ships a tiddler. No offence, but this thing is wafer-stacked for bigger jobs
than shuttles."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"How many donors?"
asked Courtenay.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane's enthusiasm damped a
little, "Well, only six. Which isn't ideal."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner frowned, "What does
that mean?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay sighed, "It means
the organic matter used to make the wafers came from six individuals. Most
controllers - even small stack unit ones - have a minimum of ten donors as a
safety standard."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Why?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Well..." Courtenay
looked uncomfortable, "Because of things like the <i>Vera Lynn</i>."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner frowned at her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a lengthy silence,
during which time they all looked at the controller, gleaming and silent and
unlit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Eventually, Courtenay said,
"Restart it. Let's ask it about this facility and take it from
there."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
To general disappointment, the
controller knew absolutely nothing about the facility. It had been made, run
through basic tests and diagnostics and then mothballed shortly after the <i>Vera
Lynn</i> disaster - which none of them believed was a co-incidence. Even more
disappointing, it couldn't get past the security blanket any more than they
could.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner turned to Mitcham,
"You said you've broken through security blankets before. What do you need
to try?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham licked his teeth,
"Well, there's usually something, somewhere designed to get through it
legitimately. I was surprised there wasn't a comm station in the suit lobby. I
hate to say it, but I think we're going to have to risk going down that comms
corridor."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay said, "We have no
idea what the warning meant. It might be like going into a hot zone without radiation
shielding."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ward said, "So send the
robot. Trane, you can set up a digital feed so we can see what it sees, can't
you?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"It doesn't see the way we
see," said Trane, "You wouldn't understand the output. Even I'd only
get parts of it, you'd need a Violet Tech to match that data speed."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham shrugged, "So lets
strap a datapad to its forehead and link to that instead."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ward laughed, "You think
like an engineer, Nick."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay nodded, "Do it.
Whose pad is the most expendable?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Everyone looked at Mitcham and
Sumner had to fight to keep a smirk off her face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham sighed, "Well
fuck."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
A half hour later they were back
in the hub, watching the controller - looking significantly less pristine with
a datapad duct-taped to its head - walk down the Black marked corridor labelled
COMMS.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They gathered around Courtenay's
pad, watching the digital from the datapad. Sumner noted that they had
instinctively gathered as far from the Black trimmed corridors as they could
get and she wondered if that meant anything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
On the small screen, they watched
the controller open the door, go through the dustlock and emerge on the other
side into a pie-wedge room that looked a lot like the one they had just
vacated. The only real difference was what was on the shelves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Before the controller could get
far into the room, Trane spoke into his own datapad, "Lance, walk half as
quickly and pan side to side so that the pad's field of vision catches
everything on those shelves."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>'Confirmed, Technician Trane.’</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Any adverse
conditions?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>'Not that I am equipped to
detect.'</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The thing slowed down and panned.
At first it was just closed cold cases with unhelpful labels, like 'Vauxhall
seven' and 'Jane DeWitt'. Then they saw stacks of what Sumner thought might be
an antique phone - or a very early datapad. One the other side as the view
panned around, what was unmistakably a public terminal, its wiring sprayed out
uselessly from the back.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I wasn't expecting 'comms'
to be so literal and yet so useless," said Mitcham.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner grunted in agreement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The shelves further on made less
sense. There were several vinyl wrapped skeletons - looking unpleasantly real
with their brown-stained grain. A number of cups, or vases with designs on
them. A board covered in letters and numbers. A snarl of bare wiring, twisted
into a rough man-shape.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"What the fuck is
this?" asked Mitcham.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay said, "I told you
they were a bit of a joke... I wonder who approved the storage costs of all
this?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "Tell it to
speed up and find a working comm unit if it can, Trane."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane looked to Courtenay, who
nodded.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The digital was harder to follow
after that, though they all kept peering at it anyway. They saw the controller
trotting past more shelving, hearing only the sound of its rubber-gripped feet
on the silksteel. They were so clumped together around it, that when the lights
went out, Sumner felt every twitch and jerk from the rest of them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Shit! Someone jump up and
down," said Ward.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Someone did, but the lights
stayed off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said, "The feed's dead
too."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner unhooked her torch from
her belt, turning it on. It should have made her feel better, but it didn't. It
was a good torch, but it still didn't seem bright enough as she instinctively
shone it towards the comms corridor. The light barely reached the dustlock
door.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay said, "Get that
feed restored, Trane."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'm trying."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
More torches came on and that was
a little better. Ward set hers down pointing at the wall behind them so it
bounced back and made a little puddle of light for them all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane tried to get the feed back
for almost twenty minutes before Sumner cursed and popped open the seal on her
suit's abdomen - simultaneously unhooking the restraining strap from her
sidearm.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'm going in. I could do
with someone to watch my back."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay shook her head,
"No you're not. We don't know what's going on."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner drew her sidearm,
"I'm armed - I have the correct permits and license. We might not know
what's going on, but we know what <i>will</i> happen if we don't find some
solutions to our predicament."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They all looked at the gun and
it's red trim when she turned it on. The suddenly distrustful way they looked
at it and her justified her concealing it up to now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham asked, "Are you a
cop, or something?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No," said Sumner,
"I'm a shuttle captain. Very well - I'll go alone. Trane, do you want to
set up another feed to my pad?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'll try," said Trane,
"Yeah, there we go. Hook it to your suit outwards, high as you can."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While Sumner hooked her pad to
the chest of her suit, Mitcham said, "I'll go with you."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner raised an eyebrow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He shrugged, "I'm a curious
fellow, remember? Besides, you've got a gun. If the boogyman tries to get us,
you can blow it away. You're packing fat tens, I hope? I don't feel like
sucking vacuum."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner nodded, "They're
hull-safe," she looked at Courtenay, "You know I'm right. We're out
of options."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay inhaled sharply through
her nose, then said, "Alright - but if you don't come back, no one else is
going in there, do you understand?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I understand."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Mitcham mumbled something to
himself and then started sealing his suit ready to put his helmet back on. It
wasn't a bad idea and Sumner did the same. Then, she hooked her torch back onto
her belt with the beam fixed ahead, turned on the torch on her gunsights and
started down the corridor. She wasn't sure if Mitcham really would follow her,
but after a slight hesitation, his heavy step joined hers. She still didn't
trust him, but she was confident that she could beat his fat arse in a fight
and she was willing to take a chance with him just to have another set of eyes
on the perimeter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-5141943988397418062016-11-10T23:51:00.002+00:002016-11-10T23:51:43.899+00:00Day Seven to Ten<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>6.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They were almost completely
without natural light now as the Darkside lived up to its name, entering its
long two weeks of night. The journey from the Qentiga to the facility took
nearly four hours, although by the time they reached it, even the newbies were
managing a respectable pace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Personally, Nick couldn't decide
if he was glad for the sedate journey or not. He was still sore as hell and
didn't feel up to much, but spending this long in an unrated suit made him
nervous. He kept the suit heater as low as he could bear, fearing a suit fire
from the improvised wiring. He kept imagining he smelled burnt electrics.
Despite keeping the heater low enough to make his fingers numb, he was still
sweating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Even up close, the facility
blended in with the moonscape so well that the only thing that made it stand
out was its low convex shape. It looked like a reverse crater. It was a
singularly uninteresting structure - just plate after plate of unmarked
moon-grey silksteel under their torchlight. Nick thought this was odd, since
most companies slathered their colours and logos over their equipment with
pathological fervour. What was it the Courtenay woman had called it? <i>Brand
identity</i>. Yeah. No brand identity out here. Nick began to wish he'd turned
his EyeSpy on before they'd set out, even if it would wreck his eyeballs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
A minute later, Captain Sumner's
voice cut through the quiet snow of the short wave radio frequency their suits
were tuned to, "Any idea what this place is for, Miz Courtenay?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No. Well - Darkside is
mostly R&D - but I don't know if this is a lab or a water tank. I'm
sorry."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Let's hope it's the
former," said Sumner, leading them around its circumference in the slow,
skipping 'walk' the gravity imposed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They found a doorway a third of
the way around the facility. This too bore no logo or even any indication of
what type of door it was. Executive Courtenay came forward to jack her suit
into the door's control and a small console unfolded from the panel a moment
later. The rest of them gathered around her in a semi-circle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a few minutes of watching
Courtenay fiddle with the door console, Nick asked, "Are you getting
anywhere with that?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Shut up, Mitcham,"
said Sumner.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick looked at her, but couldn't
see her expression through her faceplate in the dark, "You forgot the
'mister' that time, Sumner."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She turned slightly towards him,
but said nothing. Nick had time to reflect that even through a faceplate, she
was pretty good at stare-downs. Then a light started flashing orange on the
panel and the door opened upon an airlock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They trooped inside, turning off
torches as the airlock lights flickered on. Captain Sumner checked that they were
all in, then started the cycle. While the pressure readout counted upwards, a
message scrolled across screens upon each wall of the lock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Maintain suit integrity -
decontamination ahead. Do not open suit seals - decontamination ahead.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick pulled his hand away from a
seal, where he had been primed to open his suit enough to get at his datapad
and turn his EyeSpy on. They'd try to wipe his footage when they got back to
Earth, of course, but he was a professional - he had ways of hiding copies. He
glanced around and saw Sumner staring at him again - her frown visible under
the lock lights this time. He gave her a smile. He hoped he could manage to
stay at the rear on the way back so that he could ditch the signal booster he'd
retrieved from the cargo bay while helping to relocate the bodies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When the pressure equalised, the
inner door opened. Animated markers on the walls pointed them onwards while the
decontamination warning kept scrolling above them. At first Nick thought they
were being ushered into a dustlock, but it was much more than that. After the
air blast to vacuum away dust, they were jet-hosed with a pale blue liquid,
bathed in UV light and then blow-dried by the air nozzles again with something
smoky.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Engineer Ward bent to peer at one
of the side panels, "What are they decontaminating us <i>from</i>?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick said, "Maybe they think
we rolled in tardigrades before we set out?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said, "There's nothing
we could have brought in on the suits. It might be decontamination for when we
leave."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner grunted, then shook her
head, "If that were true, there wouldn't be a decontamination warning on
the outside airlock. We should stay suited until we find out more about this
place."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick frowned, watching as the
smoke jetting at them stopped, then was sucked away in a high-pitched blast of
white noise as the jets reversed flow. A few moments later, the light above the
far door went green and the door opened.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They stepped through cautiously,
Sumner in the lead, lowering her torch as more facility lights clanked on, revealing
a very grey looking suiting lobby. There wasn't a hint of a logo and even the
red, white and black of 4L livery remained conspicuously absent and Nick's
sense that he was on the edge of a really huge story only increased.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
A canned-sounding voice announced:
<i>Welcome to warehouse nine. To proceed further, proper authorisation is
required. If you do not have proper authorisation, please return to the
platform executive who issued your work order and report priority S-O-R.
Repeat: priority S-O-R. Thank you.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Executive Courtenay stepped
forward, switching her comms to external and speaking to the ceiling, for want
of any obvious source, "Controller, this is Courtenay, Eleanor: Four
L-E-R. Define 'proper authorisation'."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was silence and after a
moment, Courtenay said, "Controller, respond!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Still nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane walked to the far door and
felt the wall near it with one gloved hand, "Controller, please run Tan
diagnostic one and output to the nearest display."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When nothing showed up, Courtenay
said, "Perhaps there isn't a display in this room."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"There is," said Ward,
"There's smartsheeting above both doors and a thinner strip most of the
way around."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner started opening suit
lockers. She wasn't doing so violently, but Nick thought she was irritated anyway
- the yanks just a little to abrupt. Mind you, he couldn't pinpoint a moment
when she <i>hadn't</i> seemed irritated - moody cow. Most of the lockers were
empty - room for incoming suits, made sense - a couple had suits in them,
though.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick pointed to the plain suits
hanging from their hooks, "A couple of staff must be here, anyway."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No," said Sumner,
"These are spares in case someone comes in with a damaged suit."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Well, we can get out of
these un-rated deathtraps, then."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She shook her head, "As I
said, we should maintain suit integrity until we know what we're dealing
with."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick tugged on one of his seals,
his suit giving a little gasp as it opened, "Sorry, I'm not going to risk
another four hours with improvised heating if I don't have to."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner studied him coolly as he
opened another seal and unlocked the helmet. She said, "Then you can be
the guinea pig, Mitcham. If you start acting strangely, or drop dead, we'll
know for sure. Disobey another order and I might just leave you here
anyway."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Orders? I'm not one of your
crew, <i>Captain</i>."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"In an emergency, I am the
ranking officer and I will command."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay cleared her throat,
"Actually, that only holds true aboard your ship, Captain Sumner. In
Four-L facilities, I have authority. I'm perfectly willing to work with you,
but this bickering is counterproductive."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner scowled, then nodded
sharply, "Very well. Until we return to Qentiga."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick smirked, but only for a
moment as Courtenay said, "Nick Mitcham, next time you do the opposite of
what has been suggested without consulting anyone, we shall return you to the
airlock until we're ready to leave."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay didn't bother waiting
for his response, turning instead to Trane, who had popped open a control panel
by the far door and was examining it closely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay asked, "Well,
Trane? Why isn't it responding?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane looked around, "It's
not a controller. It's a computer. I haven't seen anything like this for a long
time. No wetware, ma'am. I can get some output on my pad, but it's nothing I
can work with."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ward went over to look at Trane's
pad, "I might be able to do something... not sure what though."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay joined them and got her
pad out of the heated pouch on her thigh - the luxuries of a properly rated
suit. She pulled out the jack and plugged it in to the panel, muttering,
"Exec. Red should be enough to get us in, surely?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The door didn't open. The
recorded voice was prompted to repeat its earlier message though.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner asked, "Do you know
what 'priority S-O-R means?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While they were all distracted,
Nick reached inside his suit for his own datapad, pulling it out enough to see
the screen so he could activate his EyeSpy and start recording.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay said, "It's...
well, it's referring to Special Ops. They're a branch of the constabulary -
sort of. However, the only constabulary presence on Luna are on the platforms
and there certainly aren't any special operations facilities here."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "This facility
begs to differ, it seems. What do they do that is 'special'? Are they a
commando type division?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay snorted, "Hardly.
To be honest, I've always thought they were sort of a joke. None of them are
above Red classification, not one. Their remit is annoyingly vague, I think
only the top executive tier really knows what they get up to."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
With a noticeable thinning of
patience, Sumner asked, "Vague or not, what is their remit?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"To protect against and
engage with threats to the citizenry and the company that fall outside the
reach of the regular constabulary."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick frowned. 'Vague' was an
understatement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "So, foreign
affairs? Either way, it seems we need their authority to get in, unless either
of you two can work a way around it?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ward and Trane exchanged a
glance. Ward said, "Maybe. We might be able to use Executive Courtney's
classification..."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane supplied, "We can pull
the Red from hers and try to find the one missing component. So long as it
doesn't have a list of all Red Spec. Ops, it might work. If it were a
controller, I think it would notice and shut us down, but a computer - it don't
know any better than pass or fail."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"We'll have to make sure it
doesn't count the fails or it will lock us out," said Wade, poking at the
control panel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane leaned in, absent-mindedly
taking Courtenay's pad out of her hand and murmuring, "You deal with the
counter, I'll sort out a routine it can understand for the battering ram."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Failing that, we <i>could</i>
just try to force the door lock."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I bet it's got a lockfuse
against that sort of thing."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay sighed, stepping back
from the console, "Just do what you can."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
By the time the door opened,
they'd all been forced to open their suits - simply not enough canned air to
stay inside them and still make the trip back to the Qentiga, even with the
emergency spare canisters in the lockers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick was sitting with his back to
the wall, sipping some flat and unpleasantly warm water from his new suit's
supply. He'd long since turned the EyeSpy off again and he was coping with the
crushing boredom as best he could. Sumner had spent most of the time pacing back
and forth - which was annoying. Courtenay was sitting down now too, her fingers
twitching now and then as if itching for her pad.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They were alerted to a change of
circumstance when the canned voice announced: <i>Welcome, Special Operations.
Please ensure maximum wards are applied if you cross Black threshholds. Thank
you.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay stood up, her fists
clenching and cried out to the ceiling, "What does that even <i>mean</i>?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Take it easy," said
Sumner, "Just let's keep our eyes peeled for black indicators on corridors
and doorways - until we find out what it means, we might just be able to stay
this side of them."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick got up, grunting. The
gravpads in the facility were woefully functional and the extended sit on a
hard floor hadn't done his aches any favours. He began to miss the lighter Nick
that had skipped his way across the surface. He turned the EyeSpy on again,
wincing a little this time as it grabbed his eye muscles in its restrictive
grip. If there was another locked door past this one, he wasn't going to bother
turning it back on until he saw a tap-dancing unicorn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Beyond the suiting lobby was the
sort of dull, utilitarian corridor Nick associated with hospitals and prisons.
It was a long one with no obvious markings - black or otherwise. Just bright
rectangles of light on the ceiling and pale grey everywhere else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They trooped along it, none of
them talking now. Nick didn't like the way their boots clunked on the flooring.
The way every sound reverberated. The place felt both empty and haunted
simultaneously and as much as he chided himself for being stupid, he couldn't
shake a growing case of the whim-whams as the suiting lobby got further and
further away behind them - shrouded in blackness now as lights went out behind
them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ward's torch got unhooked from
her belt, likely not secured properly to begin with, and when it hit the floor,
Courtenay and Nick startled badly. Even Trane and Sumner twitched.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Sorry," said Ward,
picking it up and attaching it more firmly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Take it easy," said
Sumner again, quietly, as if they were in a library.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They could see the end now and
the closer they got, the more obvious it became that it was a hub in the centre
of the dome. More corridors spoked out of it, all of them considerably shorter
than the one they'd just walked down. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was some colour, at last.
Some of the corridors marked with green trim around the entryway. Some with
red. Two with black. Above the black corridors were the words 'RED SPEC. OP.
ONLY.' One had the additional label, 'COMMS.', but the other had no extra
information.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They looked around at the
markings and labels and Courtenay said, "As tempting as 'comms' is, given
our situation, I'm open to alternatives before we break any more company
guidelines."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick snorted. Guidelines, indeed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane said, "The one marked
'controllers' is red. If I could talk to a controller, we might find out
everything we need to know - although it will probably need to be started up
first."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick asked, "Why would it be
shut down?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Oh, they get a bit funny if
you leave them on and alone too long. They need regular adjustments and input -
think of them like goldfish. Only ones you can freeze and thaw out when you're
around to feed them and change the water."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Some goldfish."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane smiled, but it was an
odd-looking thing. Technicians were weird. Just the one-eye-at-a-time blinking
thing always made Nick thing of lizards and that smile was just wrong, like
Trane had forgotten how long to twitch the muscles for people on regular time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner nodded, "Makes sense.
A facility controller might be able to enlighten us as to the danger of the
black corridors. It may even be able to signal a platform for us."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick said, "It says
'controllers' - plural. Why would they have more than one?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay gestured to the
corridor, "There's only one way to find out. Let's take a look."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
At the end of this shorter
corridor was a doorway that proved not to be locked - another dustlock, which
made them all seal their suits and put their helmets back on for the duration.
This one actually was just a dustlock though and they were soon through it,
free to take off their helmets and turn off the air supply again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
This space was more like what
Nick thought of when it came to warehouses. Rows of industrial shelves packed
into the pie-wedge shaped space, right up to the curved dome above them. Some
of the shelving was empty, some had heavy cases stacked into them, or irregular
shapes wrapped in thick vinyl shrouds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Feeling less spooked for the
mundane surroundings, Nick moved further away from the others than he had since
they'd left the suit lobby and he noticed with amusement that everyone else was
doing the same.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Holy shit!" Ward
cried.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They all turned Ward's way and
she grinned, embarrassed, "Sorry - just, look." she pointed at one of
the bulky cold-cases on a shelf.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was labelled '<i>Vera Lynn</i>'
which prompted Nick to echo Ward's sentiment. The <i>Vera Lynn</i> had been a
very public 4L disaster a few years back. A rogue controller had caused four
figure deaths on board a flagship high orbital cruiser - a public relations
disaster as well as a literal one that had resulted in a re-branding of the
whole company.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane was reaching for the case
controls when Courtenay barked, "Don't touch that!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She was pale and her nostrils
were flaring, "We're all going to end up in full assess, you realise?
Let's not make it worse than it already is. Just find this facility's
controller."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick wasn't sure what full asses
was, but he was going to guess some sort of company punishment. A nasty one, if
the way Courtenay looked was anything to go by.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "Spread out and
look for a controller station. Don't touch anything," she looked at Nick
when she said that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick wasn't insulted. She was
right to be suspicious, he was going to touch the hell out of anything he could
get away with if it looked interesting enough. He tried to saunter out of her
glaring range, but wasn't surprised when she opted to keep an eye on him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jackson had said that there was a
story on the Moon fit to rival the Eden massacre. Nick believed it was somewhere
in the warehouse. They'd crashed almost on top of it - relatively speaking -
and whatever objections Nick had to being almost killed by what was supposed to
be a <i>landing</i>, he just couldn't ignore a story that potentially large.
The deaths. The guilt. He might as well come away with something to show for
it, or it was all meaningless.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As far as Nick could tell,
everything on the shelves was some sort of controller - although a lot of it
seemed to be historical models. The <i>Vera Lynn</i> cold-case probably contained
whatever was left of the controller that had wrought that dark deed. He would
have liked to get a shot of that, but instead had to content himself with a
loving slow pan over it's exterior. In his head he was already making up
taglines for it - <i>Mass Murderer Kept On Ice In Secret Facility. Crazy
Controller's Plastisteel Prison. Cruiser Nightmare Never Ends For Dreaming
Death Dealer...</i> well, he'd work on that one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Executive Courtenay!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick and Sumner turned to Trane's
call, which did not sound alarmed. They headed that way and met up with Ward on
the way, who said she'd found nothing but inert controller components and
parts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Executive Courtenay was already
with Trane and the two of them were contemplating what Nick at first through to
be a body - then he realised it was just a manikin and as he got closer still,
he began to realise it was neither of those things.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Crouched on a lower shelf, its
vinyl wrapping puddled around it, was what looked suspiciously like a robot. It
was shaped like a man, but the arms and legs were too thin to be anything other
than artificial. Its head was roughly human-shaped, but it had no features -
just a faceplate like on their helmets. There were jack ports in several places
on its head and arms. Nick couldn't see as much of the legs, since the arms
were wrapped around them, metal fingers gripping metal and rubber jointed
elbows in a space-saving, but unpleasantly human crouched pose. It was shiny
with white, red and black livery and it bore the companies old logo - <i>4Life</i>
- which made it at least three and half years old.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay was just staring at it
with something like distaste, so Nick asked, "What is it, Trane? A robot,
right?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane ran a finger almost
lovingly over the thing's head, tapping one of the jack ports there, "This
is a controller port. I think it's a controller. One that can walk around -
Captain Sumner, we could walk it back to the ship, you need a controller to
trim your engines."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner looked almost as perturbed
as Courtenay, "My engines are nearly out of fuel and not operating at
sufficient capacity to get us out of the Moon's gravity."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Trane shrugged, as if this were
mere quibbling, "Either way, it might be able to tell us about this place.
It might be able to contact the nearest platform."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was silence for a while,
then Trane said, "It's that or the 'comms' corridor without knowing what
that wards warning was all about. Right?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay made a noise of
disgust, then said, "Fine. See if you can start it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-46268517326326501462016-11-06T22:02:00.000+00:002016-11-06T22:02:12.009+00:00Day Five and Six<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>4.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner woke from a short
and unsatisfying sleep in her quarters and fumbled for the datapad bleeping
away at her. She clawed it into range and squinted at it. It was a text message
from one of the 4L engineers, telling her more bad news. For a moment, she lay
on her back and contemplated throwing the pad across the room. That
self-indulgence weighed up, then dismissed, she got up and stumbled into the
bathroom to piss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her eyes were more yellowed than
bloodshot now, which was something - everyone had burst vessels in their eyes
during the crash and had spent the last couple of days wandering around looking
like monsters from a cheap horror digital. She still couldn't breathe without
her ribs screaming at her, though. The straps from the co-pilots chair had left
her black with bruises from her shoulders to her thighs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She opened the medicine cabinet
and remembered for the second day in a row that she'd given the medic all the
painkillers. She slammed the cabinet shut and leaned against the sink.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Anyway, it was time to give
everyone the news.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Most of the Qentiga was under
emergency lighting, making for gloomy travel through its innards. They kept the
launch lounge brightly lit and it was where everyone congregated. It was the
largest area on the ship - save the cargo deck, which they'd de-pressurised
after putting the bodies of the dead in there, tied down with netting in one
corner. Both of the other executives were dead - thrown to death by the impact.
If she'd taken the drunk back a pressure chair... but she hadn't. Sumner had
contemplated jettisoning Casey's body, not liking the idea of the traitor
technician lying next to people she'd been responsible for killing, but Dawud
had talked her out of it. He insisted the dead did not mind and she needed
Dawud to stay focused, so she acquiesced. Besides, jettison would have been a
waste of air.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When she entered the lounge,
everyone was already there, waiting and quiet. She'd put her pressure suit and
her officer's face back on and she moved to the front of the lounge to address
them. Expectant gazes all fixed upon her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Clasping her hands behind her
back, Sumner said, "I know most of you are waiting upon news of the rescue
ships. I regret to inform you that I do not believe a rescue is coming."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She left a pause for anger and
denials, but no one said anything - not even the one remaining executive. She
took a deep breath, "We appear to have crashed under a communications
security blanket. Our transponder has burned out, despite being isolated from
the controller. We do not yet know how that happened, or when it occurred,
since the controller cannot be relied upon to have reported accurate data at
any stage during our flight. Furthermore, shortly before launch, our pilot
received a course change authorised by L.T.C. Given the extent of the sabotage,
which certainly required more than one person to achieve, it seems probable
that the authorisation was counterfeit."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
A few people looked suspiciously
towards Dawud, who was sitting hunched forward in a launch chair, cradling his
broken arm in its very makeshift splint and sling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner continued,
"As far as we can ascertain, no-one but the saboteurs know where we are.
We have no means of communicating outside the security blanket. Our engines are
severely damaged, we are low on fuel, the controller is destroyed and we are
not equipped with supplies for more than a short flight. Even with recycling
and severe rationing, we cannot sustain ourselves for as long as a month. We
cannot just wait to be found."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
One of the heavy machine
operators asked with a peculiar flatness of tone, "Are you telling us
we're going to die here?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No. We're <i>under</i> the
security blanket - that means we can still transmit and receive across the
terrain," she pointed to the 'senior' engineer, only Cyan class, but due a
promotion in Sumner's opinion, "Mrs. Ward and her assistant have worked
wonders with our LADAR. We've picked up a facility just under two miles away at
thirty degrees west of north. This ship has five pressure suits - only three of
which are rated for outside work. Two have been jury rigged with extra heating
and Fomeseal - they should serve, if they're used with care. I intend to lead a
team to the facility and see if we can find a way to punch through the security
blanket to contact L.T.C."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Fresh life rippled through the
onlookers and there were a chorus of volunteers and questions. Sumner waited
until they had most of it out of their systems before she raised a hand for quiet,
"I will lead. I need an engineer and a technician, if Mrs. Ward and Mister
Trane will oblige?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Both Ward and Trane gave their
assent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "That only
leaves the two jury rigged suits, which I will only risk upon people who have
suit certifications of five or above."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Raised hands dropped. Most of the
staff being transferred were low classification. There was something of a
collective sigh of disappointment. One hand was still raised, however.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I think I can still just
about squeeze myself into a suit, if it's sized for a man," said Nick,
"I'm rated seven - had to do a whole three month course on FastNews's
ticket for a story they ended up shelving."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner gave him a long,
hard look, "And what assistance will you bring to the expedition, Mister
Mitcham?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He rolled a shrug,
"Communications. I've covered stories in places without feeds more than
once, some of which had some very tricky state or corporate security blankets.
I know how to make my voice heard, Captain. It's kept me alive more than
once."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner wanted to say no - but she
realised that this was a purely emotional response. She didn't like the man.
This wasn't the time to let personality clashes made decisions and after
weighing up how she felt, versus what evidence she had, she decided he was as
trustworthy - or untrustworthy - as everyone else on this ship. Given what
Casey had done, she couldn't be sure of anyone. Not even Dawud.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Very well, Mister Mitcham,
if your rating checks out, you may join us. You are aware of the dangers of
using a jury rigged suit."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was not a question and Nick
merely nodded.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "While I am out
of the ship, pilot Dawud El Amin will be your point of contact for all matters
concerning the ship and will have final say on what work is approved upon
Qentiga. Executive Courtenay will of course remain in charge of all non-Qentiga
matters for four el staff."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Executive Courtenay stood up,
"I need to go with you."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner raised an eyebrow and
watched Courtenay rubbing her hands together. A curiously fraught gesture that
Sumner did not care for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay said, "You might
need my classification to get you into the facility. There is something else I
need to discuss with you, Captain. Privately."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner nodded, "Very well,
we will discuss it. Ward and Trane, if you go to the airlock you will find the
pressure suits you will be using in the lockers. Please observe the safety
checklists on the locker doors. Dawud, confirm that Mister Mitcham's
qualifications are sufficient."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Yes, Captain."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While Ward and Trane made their
way out, Nick got up and moved over to Dawud's chair, offering up his datapad.
Captain Sumner gestured for Executive Courtenay to follow her. When people
tried to stop Sumner to ask her questions she just shook her head and pointed
towards Dawud. She might not be sure of anyone after Casey, but the rest of
them didn't need to know that and she hoped that any remaining saboteurs aboard
Qentiga had just as much interest in staying alive as she did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They went to Courtenay's
executive suite and as soon as the door was closed behind them, Sumner asked,
"What's the problem, Miz Courtenay?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay exhaled, going to her
locker and getting out a bottle of wine. She shook the bottle, remarking,
"Thank god for plastisteel - would you like some?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No - and if you expect to
get into a suit and go to the facility, you'll put that right back where you
found it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay shrugged, putting the
bottle back in the locker.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"You're not rated at all for
pressure suits, are you?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Shaking her head, Courtenay brought
a secure-looking metal case out of the locker and said, "How much do you
know about Heppa, Captain?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Hnh. It's four el's
investment protection for its staff and it carries benefits tailored to the
specialisations of the staff - that's about all I know."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Investment protection,
yes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay used her thumbscan to
unlock the metal case. Inside, nestled in tight foam cubbies, was a selection
of small red capsules. Two of the foam holes were empty. She held this out for
Sumner to see.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I have twelve days supply
left. Twenty four if I use half rations, but that would be very uncomfortable -
I would not be able to function well. Once I run out, I will go into
withdrawal. The more investment that has been put into an employee's training,
the more unbreakable the bond between them and their corporation - it's saved
us hundreds of thousands in potential lost assets over the years. Probably
millions, actually."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner folded her arms, leaning
against a wall, "Spell it out for me. How does this affect our situation?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay ran a finger over the
ruby vials in loving caress, "Once an employee accepts promotion to Blue
classification, or above, severe withdrawal can become life threatening. Not
all of them will be carrying a two week supply - this was supposed to be a five
hour flight."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"So you're telling me I
might lose more of my remaining passengers and the rest are going to turn into
squirrelly junkies gagging for their fix in the next few days?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay frowned, snapping her
Heppa case closed, "This isn't a joke."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'm not <i>remotely</i>
amused," Captain Sumner pushed herself away from the wall, ignoring the
bolts of pain this drew from her ribs, "Can the medic do anything?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay put the Heppa case back
in the locker, slotting it into a mesh pocket, "She's only Green, she'll
be alright once the worst of it is passed, but she's not cleared for cessation
management, let alone full withdrawal."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner paced the width of the
suite, "Will there be Heppa in the facility?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I don't know. If it's
unstaffed, maybe not ... either way you <i>do</i> need my clearance to get
through security and I think we both agree that the faster we can procure a
rescue, the better."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"What's your suit
rating?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Courtenay spread her hands.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner exhaled, "You'll have
to use my suit - I'll use the other jury-rigged one," she put words into
action straight away, unhooking her helmet from her belt and breaking the seals
on her suit, telling Courtenay, "Get that skirt and those ridiculous shoes
off, you can wear the rest of your clothes under it. Hurry up."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a moment's hesitation,
Executive Courtenay twitched into action, hooking a finger behind her heel to
pop off her power shoes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-89941635096726123942016-11-04T21:30:00.001+00:002016-11-04T21:30:56.039+00:00Day Four<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>3.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick was conscious for all of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He'd hit the brace button almost
before the Captain had finished saying it the first time, the tear-away panel
already on the floor beside his launch chair. This was not how things were
supposed to have gone down, but the moment the gravity had turned off, he'd had
a feeling things were going awry. When the radiation alarms had sounded, he
decided he'd been fucked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Even strapped down, padded with
pneumatics and wrapped tight in the brace mesh, the first impact had been
horrific. Nick had been sure it was the end right there and then. Then,
miraculously, the gravpads had whined back into life. Even with the 3G leeway
to smooth things out, the next impact rattled his bones and made his head feel
as if his brain was slamming into his skull. It seemed to go on forever -
jarring hits punctuated by terrifying pauses where he <i>knew</i> another
impact was coming. Then the skin of the ship was screaming as it dragged along
the ground and Nick was sure it would never end. This was his life now - being
trapped in the dark with the roaring, metal shrieks of the ship he'd helped to
kill.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It did stop, eventually. What
replaced it was a silence broken only by the ticking sound of something,
somewhere cooling down. He could smell the acrid smoke of electrical burning
and suddenly gripped with the image of being burned alive in his cocoon, Nick
struggled under the brace webbing, trying to find the release ripcord.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
By the time he found it and the
webbing fell away, Nick could hear moaning from some of the other passengers.
Small systems lights blinked away in mute distress somewhere in the darkness of
the lounge. He groped at his straps, hitting the release button and tried to
get out of his slowly deflating chair, feeling like a fat turtle that had been
put on its back.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Oh go-od," someone on
his left.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick flailed and flopped out of
his chair. His legs wobbled and he had to clutch the chair to stay on his feet.
He hurt all over, but the headache seemed to be the worst of it. Once he was
steady, pocket-hunted for his datapad, muttering, "Be okay, be okay, don't
be broken."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was another guttural moan,
interrupted by a shriek and the sound of moving material as another batch of
webbing was released.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick's pad was unbroken. He
unlocked it and opened the EyeSpy settings, turning it on and feeling the
reassuring grip of the EyeSpy jitter-dampeners on his eyeballs. He flicked on
night-vision and suddenly he could see again - albeit in greyscale.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He panned the lounge, seeing most
of the occupied chairs still covered in webbing. Some of the webbing was
bulging with faint movement. There was a short woman on his left getting out of
her chair with no more grace than he had managed. She had one hand wrapped
around her middle protectively, her hair coming out of a ponytail and falling
over her face in sweaty strings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Three unwebbed chairs had people
in them. Two were either dead or unconscious. One was gasping air in uneven hauls
and staring ahead bug-eyed. On the far side of the lounge, three people were
tangled together in a heap of unlikely angles. He turned back to film the woman
on his left who was bent over and dry-retching.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He sympathised - he felt a little
like puking himself. Like all his bones were fractured glass and his insides
had been liquefied. He was filming, though and filming always put him at one
removed, from the situation and from himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The woman stopped gagging and
croaked out, "Controller, lights."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nothing happened and she tried
again, "Controller - lights. Controller, respond," she looked up and
around at what to her would be almost total darkness, "Well, fuck."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She turned and Nick saw the ID
stitched to her overalls; <i>Andrea Ursler 4LMG</i>. She looked young so Nick
took a chance on the term of address and said, "Miss Ursler, that em on
your ID, are you a doctor?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She jerked around, groaning and
massaging her midriff again, "What? Yes. Well... sort of. Not really. Who
are you?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Name's Nick - journalist. I
have an EyeSpy with nightvision so I can see a bit. There are people hurt, do
you have a medical bag or anything? What do you mean 'not really?'"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Ugh. There's a bag strapped
to my launch chair, but -" she hit the chair next to her with a fist,
"This isn't mine, it was just the closest when the gravity went out. Don't
run that EyeSpy too long, you'll wreck your eyes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Right," Nick started
looking around for the bag, moving gingerly as his own innards complained,
"And 'not really?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Ah, well - I'm only Green."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"And so?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"And so I'm still a student.
I'm going to intern with Doctor Kacza on the platform."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Not today, you're
not."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Two or three more brace meshes
zipped away and there were more sounds of movement and distress. Nick tried to
speed up his search and tottering around another launch chair he saw one with a
bag strapped to it emblazoned with both the 4L logo and a caduceus, because
like most companies, 4L thought it 'looked better' than a Rod of Asclepius.
Nick had always thought the medical penchant for using ancient religious
symbols was weird, no matter which one they used. Why didn't they have a string
of DNA on their bags, or something?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"You see it, Nick?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Yeah, yeah," he shook
himself out of his chain of irrelevancies and crouched to unstrap the back,
adding his own groans to the growing chorus around him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was more light now, people
getting up and using their datapad screens to illuminate the surroundings. A
couple of people were crying, but most of them were keeping their distress
muted. After a wrestle with the strapping, Nick got the bag free and grunting
and huffing, brought it over to Andrea, who was looking at the ruins of her own
datapad - an A4 medical model - that had snapped in half.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick dropped the bag at her feet
and said, "There's some people tangled up at the end. I think they might
be dead, but you should check."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her mouth twisted unhappily, her
eyes huge in the gloom. She looked like a kid. Hell, she probably still <i>was</i>
a kid and Nick felt like a very old and ugly bastard as he asked, "Are you
the only medic on this ship?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She swallowed, nodded and said,
"The only one in this lounge anyway. Show me where they are. Can I use
your pad for light?"<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nick took her upper arm and
started guiding her towards the bodies heaped together. He had no intention of
giving up his pad to be used as a torch, so he nudged one of those who already
were lighting up the area with their pad as they passed, "Hey, give her
some of that light, she's a doctor."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Medical student! I'm just a
medical student."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He transferred her to the care of
the man with the light source and stepped away, not wanting to be involved. As
the number of pads being lit up increased he turned off the nightvision and
filmed for a few minutes, trying to immerse himself in the work. Trying not to
think.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He watched people feeling
themselves over, working out how hurt they were and how bad the situation was.
Radiation was checked - high, but not 'holy shit' for now, it seemed. Andrea
moved from person to person, staying with some longer than others and she still
looked like some frightened kid being made to play doctor at gunpoint. The
people in the heap were all dead. One of the people in the un-webbed chairs was
dead too. Broken neck. The other two unwebbed passengers had broken limbs and
possible internal injuries.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>You did this.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
No. No he fucking hadn't. Jackson
had told him that the shuttle was going to make an unscheduled landing - a <i>landing</i>
- and be unable to take off again for a couple of days so that they'd be forced
to explore for supplies and he could film what they found. This was not his
fault. All he'd done was plant a signal booster. A signal booster. It was
supposed to be a <i>landing</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He checked his pad, hoping in
vain that Jackson, or some other arsehole had got in touch with an explanation,
or reassurance for a rescue - but there was nothing to see. All feeds were
down. He'd never been anywhere where <i>all</i> feeds were down before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a light beeping noise,
a hydraulic hum and the door to the lounge ground open, one door squealing
metal on metal as it opened.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner stepped into the
lounge, industrial torch in one hand, a large bag in the other. She was wearing
a pressure suit, with the helmet hooked to her belt, air-lines dangling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner shone the torch across
the lounge, her expression not showing any sign of distress, or dismay as she
saw what Nick had been seeing. She dropped the bag near the door, "Medic,
I've brought what first aid supplies we have. Also some water, more torches and
some spare oxygen canisters for the emergency masks, just in case. My pilot's
broken his arm - when you have time, go up to the cockpit and see to him."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Andrea looked up from her latest
patient like a bunny in headlights, "Yes, Captain."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner glanced towards the
tangled heap of dead people, "How bad is it?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Andrea sniffed wetly, her voice a
wobbly contrast to the Captain's iron-steady tone, "Uhm. Four dead.
Three... no, four broken arms. A broken leg. Possible internal injuries on a
couple of people... it's hard for me to tell. Everyone's got headaches. My pad
got broken..." this last said almost in a whisper.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner's torch dipped
slightly to the ID patch on Andrea's chest. Sumner crossed over to her, bending
to speak face to face quietly, putting one hand on the girl's shoulder as she
did so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was a great shot and Nick
sidled slowly around in an attempt to see Sumner's lips so that the software
could subtitle what she might be saying. The Captain was annoyingly brief and
all he caught on the subtitle layer was '<i>simulation</i>' - then Sumner stood
straight and snapped her fingers, holding out a hand, "Someone give me
their pad for the medic to use."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a pause and Sumner
near-shouted, "Now!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Several people twitched and
brought their pads back into plain view. The man who had been holding the light
for Andrea handed his over, saying, "All the feeds are down anyway."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner took the pad without a
thank you and got out her own, touching the pads together and thumbing a
keypad. Then she passed the man's pad to Andrea and said, "The red icon is
an emergency radio frequency. Use it to contact me if you really need to. The
green icon is for the internal doors. You may need to manually pump the
hydraulics, do you know how to do that?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Andrea looked blank, but the man
who'd given up his pad said, "I do."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner considered him and his ID,
"Then you're her assistant for the duration of this emergency, Mister
Pemberton."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Alright."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The redhead executive that had
been haranguing the Captain just before the gravpads went out, stepped up and
asked, "Are you going to tell us what's going on now?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'll tell you what I
know," said Sumner, "But it will have to be brief, I still have two
passengers and one crew member unaccounted for."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Are we in immediate
danger?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No. We still have hull
integrity and we were able to restore basic functions, such as gravpads,
shielding, air scrubbing."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"When will the rescue ships
get here?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner's jaw tensed a little,
"Unknown."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The executive asked with more
annoyance, "How did this happen?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Everything points to
sabotage," said Sumner, "Before we lost contact, our technician
seemed sure someone had tampered with the controller."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Sabotage?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I should be interested if
you have any idea why someone would sabotage my ship, because it's a mystery to
me."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Eleanor shook her head, frowning,
"Why would I know?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner shrugged,
"Once damage has been assessed, I should like the assistance of 4L staff
to perform any repairs possible in our present situation - are you prepared to
authorise the work, Executive Courtenay?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Executive Courtenay folded her
arms and scowled, "Of course I am. It's the only way I'll find out for
sure what's going on, it seems."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner turned her attention to
Nick, "You. Come with me."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick tried stop the instant rush
of guilt from showing on his face, "Me?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner didn't bother clarifying,
just staked back through the doorway, pausing to stare expectantly at him at
the threshold.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick exhaled and thumbed off the
EyeSpy before pocketing his pad. He didn't want whatever she was going to say
on digital record.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He followed her down a dark
corridor, nothing but Sumner's torch to light the way. The pace was
uncomfortably brisk, but Nick did not complain. He was too busy trying to gauge
how suspicious she was and what he ought to say. She'd found him in the cargo
bay before launch, after all. The signal booster would still be there, if the
impact hadn't knocked it loose.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He chewed his lower lip. He could
say he was looking for signs of sabotage - that he'd had a tip off. It's not
like this was his fault - he'd been misled. He was as much a victim as anyone
here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As they neared what Nick thought
was the rear of the ship, Captain Sumner paused, turning to stare at him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick was breathing a little heavy
from the pace she'd set and he frowned at her, knowing he was all red-faced and
sweaty - seeing that she was not, "What?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Mister Mitcham, if you know
anything about what has happened to this ship and assist me in rectifying the
situation, I may be moved to speak well of you when the rescue vessels
arrive."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She took half a step closer,
looking down at him - which made Nick realise she had at least an inch and a
half on him. She said, "If I later discover you had a part in this and you
did not assist me... I. Will. End. You."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick kept his frown, long
unimpressed by empty threats. If he confessed to anything related to corporate
sabotage on this scale - not that this was his fault - he'd be lucky not to end
up in a batch of controllers himself no matter what a shuttle captain had to
say on the matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He said, "I had nothing to
do with this and if you threaten me again, I will report it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They glared at each other for
what seemed like forever. Then, snorting, Sumner turned on her heel and resumed
her stalk through the corridors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick exhaled. After a moment he
followed again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She led him to what he assumed
was the control room. There was a dustlock to go through, although it wasn't
working beyond whining open in a lacklustre fashion and puffing a miniscule
breath of air at them. On the other side, they both hesitated. Nick paused
because he saw blood - a lot of it. It was spread in great smears and splodges
on the floor, two walls and the ceiling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He followed Sumner around a
large, formerly white console that had smoking input panels and smelled like
burning bacon. The ship's technician was in a heap on the floor behind it, half
her head crushed in and both legs bending in unnatural directions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick's foot hit something and he
looked down to see the line for a cutter. He followed the line around and found
the cutting torch still burning, uselessly cutting a trench in the floor
panels. He turned it off, keeping his distance from the captain, who was
crouched down beside the technician, feeling for a pulse. He didn't think she
was going to find one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As a distraction, he started
searching the room, seeing a panel in the central console that had been three
quarter's cut around - one corner bent outwards where the tech had clearly
tried to pull it open despite the cut not being finished. The burnt bacon smell
was stronger and when Nick used his pad to shine some light inside the hole,
all he could see was crisped wafers and delivery lines. At first he thought the
cutter must have burnt them, but with a little more attention, he noticed the
worst of the damage was too far from the cut line for that. It had burned for
other reasons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He found nothing else that seemed
interesting and he went back to the body cautiously. Sumner was still crouched
beside it, but now she was looking at something on the tech's pad - the screen
was cracked, but still illuminated.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a few minutes, Sumner
stuffed the cracked pad into an inside pocket in her pressure suit and she said
quietly, "I owe you an apology, Mister Mitcham."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick raised an eyebrow,
"Oh?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She pressed her lips together,
looking at the body, rather than him, "It seems my technician took payment
in return for giving the controller some new protocols. She left a confession
on her pad. She didn't expect it to crash the ship, or kill her controller -
but she took the credits and slotted a foreign wafer pack anyway."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick felt a heady - if dirty -
rush of relief. Here was someone far more responsible than he was - and she'd
had the decency to take the fall before she died. Out of gratitude, he said,
"I think she tried to fix it. She was trying to cut the panel open right
to the end - the cutter was still on."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner stood up, her face
like stone, "My ship is disabled and at least four of my passengers are
dead. She's lucky the crash killed her."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner walked past him, heading
back to the dustlock, "I need to find my last two passengers."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick looked at her back, then to
the body, then back to Sumner again. He was off the hook, it seemed, but he
still didn't think it was safe to try and retrieve the signal booster just yet.
Instead, he thumbed his pad and turned the EyeSpy back on, feeling his headache roar into fresh life as it tensed muscles. He hurried after
Sumner so he could capture either the rescue, or the discovery of the two
missing passengers. He could get better shots of the control room when they got
the lights back on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-50683847479972976112016-11-03T14:29:00.000+00:002016-11-03T14:29:34.901+00:00Day Two and Three<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>2.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Shuttle Qentiga was never going
to win any beauty competitions. With the exception of some luxury fittings for
the executive suits, she was a ruthlessly practical beast and with all the
animated advertising slathered on her thick hide, she most closely resembled a
skip dipped in glitter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner suffered the looks
of incredulous disdain on the faces of first time passengers with stoic
indifference. If they were boarding, she already had their credits. Today,
she'd seen aboard sixteen 4L platform staff - always prompt boarders, they
didn't want to be fined by their company. The three 4L executives had boarded
rather later, one of them already drunk. Now she was just waiting for the last
one, a late addition to the passenger list.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner had heard of Nicholas
Mitcham and had even seen a few of his reports on the contract infractions war.
She hadn't liked him then, she didn't expect to like him now and she checked
the time on her datapad, fully expecting him to be the one that cost everyone
the delayed departure fee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As it turned out, he made it to
the shuttle twenty minutes before departure. She didn't recognise him, at
first. The lithe reporter in combat fatigues who had graced the newsfeeds more
than a decade ago, had been replaced by a fat, middle-aged man in baggy
comfort-wear. He rolled out of the auto-cart that had brought him and his
luggage out to the launch pad and shouldered his bag with a grunt, casting his
gaze over the ship and smirking in a way that did not improve Sumner's opinion
of him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He made his way up the boarding
ramp and presented his datapad, "Captain Sumner? I'm Nick Mitcham -
journalist. Four El commissioned me to shoot some footage of the approach to
Luna Seventeen for a promo. You were told, I hope?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner scanned his pad with her
own, checking the handshake for his pass and that the credits had been
transferred before she said, "At one o-clock this morning, yes. As I told
Executive Clark, you may <i>not</i> shoot your footage from the cockpit - we
can, however, provide you a good view from your suite which is on the approach
side."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He smiled, canting his head to
one side slightly, "I'm sure that will be fine."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She passed his pad back and
gestured to the doorway, "Follow the gold line for the executive suits, you're
in number three. I suggest you stow your bag and take your seat in the lounge
without delay, we launch in ..." she checked her pad, "Approximately
seventeen minutes, forty seconds. There is a significant penalty fee for launch
delay and the chartering companies are in the habit of charging the individuals
responsible."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Well then, can't have that.
I'll just splash some water on my face and be along to the lounge
directly."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He gave her another smile that
was trying too hard to be charming and Sumner stared him down until it faltered
off his face and he got moving. Once he was inside, she sent the ramp on its
way back to the terminal, went in and sealed the airlock, check-listing the
indicators on her pad before stalking her way up to the cockpit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The cockpit was a three-seater.
Room for a pilot, co pilot and flight engineer. Qentiga only needed a pilot to
fly, but Sumner had chosen this model purely for the extra room it afforded for
monitoring feeds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She dropped into the co-pilot's
seat and asked the pilot, "Dawud, how are we looking?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud was concentrating on his
comms screen, punching buttons, "We've had a course change, Captain. Came
in a couple of minutes ago - authorisation checks out. They want us to go
Darkside and come in from the east."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I thought Darkside was off
limits to franchise traffic?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"They've given us a tunnel
through it - something to do with a radiation flare in the main shipping
lanes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner frowned, "I wish LTC
would find a system that works and stick with it. Who's paying for the extra
fuel?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud glanced over and flashed a
grin, "Good thing you're sitting down already - the company's paying for
it. They've given us a ticket we can redeem at the platform, they'll refuel us
there."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"There's our luck for the
day," Sumner reached up and hit the intercom, switching to the control
room digifeed, "Casey, how's the controller?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a moment of silence,
then Casey came into view, her hair in the sort of disarray that suggested
she'd been crawling around in the maintenance ducts, "Controller's green
across the board. Gave it extra glucose on feed line A. Worked that micro delay
right out."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Launch in approximately
thirteen minutes, can you get up here and help Dawud with the pre-flight?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Yes, Captain."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner closed the feed and started
flicking through the other channels, seeing that at least four of her
passengers were still faffing about in their quarters instead of taking seats
in the launch lounge. She sighed and got out of her seat, "Every damn
time."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
With the controller playing
automated get-in-your-launch-seat messages with increasing frequency, Captain
Sumner chased down the strays and herded them into the launch lounge, not at
all surprised to find that the journalist was poking around in cargo, claiming
to be 'looking for the bar'. He was probably looking for an angle - the
freelancers always were - and she wondered if it would be possible to 'lose'
him at the platform before the return run. That would almost be worth the
penalty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After making sure they were all
secured and with less than a minute to spare, she made it back to the cockpit
to strap herself in. Casey was already in the bucket seat behind Dawud. She was
bent over the controller output screen with that peculiar intensity common to
4L technicians, who took a drug that speeded up their perception of time,
leaving them living in a world where everyone and everything around them moved
in slow motion. 4L techs blinked one eye at a time so that they could see the
controller output on their screens without missing a nanosecond, which was
important, because despite Dawud's skill as a pilot, it was the controller that
trimmed the engines, managed the grav pads and both monitored and operated life
support and radiation levels.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Status?" asked Sumner.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"All green," said Casey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Flicking switches over his head,
Dawud said, "All is well. Permission to launch, Captain?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
With one last look at her own
screens to make sure everyone was still strapped down, Sumner said,
"Permission granted."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud dialled the comm and
flicked the switch, "E-T-C, this is A-R-K Qentiga. Confirm clearance for
departure on six, nine, eighty to Luna Darkside fifteen, seven, eight."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Confirmed A-R-K Qentiga, you
are cleared to proceed. You have a lane to eighteen thousand metres at six,
nine, eighty - hold there for further clearance from L-T-C, confirm."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Confirmed, control, clear
to eighteen thousand metres at six, nine, eighty and hold."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Safe flight, Qentiga. E-T-C
out.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As Dawud set things into motion,
the dispassionate and androgynous 'voice' of the controller echoed through the
shuttle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Final launch warning. Please
ensure you are in your pressure chairs and secured. Launch in ten... nine...
eight..."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner wiggled her shoulders more
securely into the back of her chair and watched the digifeeds showing the
launch lounge, where her passengers were strapped down. Their expressions
ranged from the lady who had fallen asleep, to the white-knuckled terror of the
drunk exec, who had been warned to launch with his head turned to the side in
case he vomited and choked to death. The journalist looked nervous too, but was
much better at keeping it in check. Sumner was faintly surprised - she expected
a man like that to have almost as many launches under his belt as she did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>...two... one. Launch.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a subtle vertigo from
the gravpads ramping up in an attempt to compensate for the launch. The
acceleration quickly overwhelming gravpad capabilities. Pressure chair
pneumatics hissed and gasped. A couple of the passengers could be heard wailing
over the feed as the pressure mounted, crushing them into their chairs until
they looked like stick men in marshmallows. As Qentiga reached her speed, the
pressure eased off more gradually than it had been applied until the gravpads
were in control again, rubber-banding them back to 1G.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner was happy to see that the
drunk exec had managed not to vomit all over her launch lounge and she
unbuckled her straps to see to the more tiresome business of making sure the
execs were kept happy for the duration of the flight.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Casey, when we reach LTC
space, tell the controller to blank the viewports. That reporter doesn't have
clearance to film anything but the flight approach to Lunar Seventeen and he's
probably fitted with an EyeSpy."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Yes, Captain."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Honestly, I'm surprised
they didn't stipulate that when they changed the route - I suppose we'll just
be going over rock and covered facilities?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud shrugged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Casey said, "I'll let you
know if the controller sees anything interesting."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There were complaints about the
blanked viewports - from the executives of course - but not from the
journalist, which was more of a surprise. Aside from that, the flight out of
Earth's atmosphere was uneventful and Captain Sumner went through her routines
of safety checks and passenger management almost on automatics. She had found
that passengers, far from being wild cards in the shuttle business, were very
predictable once you got to learn their ways. They fell into categories and
she'd developed techniques for dealing with each type.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She'd expected to have to keep
herding the journalist away from areas of the shuttle off-limits to passengers,
but after his initial wander he stayed in his launch seat, unstrapped, but
otherwise unmoving, all of his attention on his datapad. Sumner even went so
far as to ask Casey if he was transmitting or receiving anything on the pad
using the 4LBk encryption, but Casey told her all he seemed to be doing was
compulsively checking his mail and occasionally checking the 4L news feeds -
all on standard encryption.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She was interrupted from her
suspicious scrutiny of the journalist by one of the execs - not the drunk, who
had retreated to his suit, but a woman in a sharp suit with artfully cascading
red hair, which had come through the launch almost untouched.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Excuse me, Captain? I'm
Eleanor Courtenay, Four el ee ar - I have some questions about this ship."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner lifted her chin,
"Ma'am?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I couldn't help but notice
that all the ground staff referred to your ship as Ark Qentiga, instead of Four
El Qentiga. Why is that?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner internally sighed, sensing
more than a whiff of corporate outrage brewing, "The ship's full name is
A-R-K Four El Qentiga, but all traffic control care about are the ship's
manufacturing origins. A-R-K is the traffic designation for Aratek ships."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The exec stiffened almost
imperceptibly, "But the controller is Four El. The controller talks to
traffic control, yes?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Yes, ma'am, but the
controller transmits Aratek engine codes to traffic and our silhouette is
Aratek. Also, most of our traffic control communications are confirmed by an
Aratek pilot."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"But you're flying Four El
personnel to Four El facilities!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"We are fully licensed to
serve with and for a number of corporations and Four El Engineering is our
biggest customer - however, none of that helps traffic control recognise our
ship, which is of Aratek make."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Grasping the sheer lack of
importance of 4L components to traffic control seemed to be beyond the woman.
Captain Sumner resigned herself to paraphrasing exactly the same information
until the exec grew annoyed enough to threaten to report the 'incident', which
would provide the opportunity to distract her with contact information and
complaint forms, all of which could be explained at a later date to hopefully
more sensible people. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Eleanor wagged a finger, "I
think the chief executive of resource management would be <i>very</i>
interested to hear about the sidelining of our brand identity. In fact -"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The gravpads above and below them
made a slightly distressed whining noise and then Sumner, Eleanor and everyone
else in the room started to hover off the floor as the gravity cut out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Captain Sumner grabbed hold of
the nearest launch chair and then took hold of Eleanor's sleeve to stop her
from drifting further. She raised her voice, "Everyone return to your launch
chairs - make small and careful movements. If you need assistance I will help,
if you are patient. Do <i>not</i> try to 'fly' around the room, the gravity
could come back on at any moment."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Several of the platform staff
aborted their grinning attempts to head ceiling-ward with some panicky
arm-flailing in the direction of the nearest solid object. One of them was
already too far up and was swearing up a storm.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Well honestly," said
Eleanor in tones of high disgust, "I can see I'll have more than one thing
to report."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner steered Eleanor's hand to
the launch chair she was holding onto and said, "Yes, Ma'am. Please, strap
yourself in."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"You advertise with 'when
you can't afford mistakes', don't you? I wonder what the regulator's would make
of that piece of misinformation<i>?</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Strap yourself in,
Ma'am."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When she was sure the exec was
going to do as she was asked, Sumner pointed at the idiot flailing about on the
ceiling and said, "Stay still! I'll come up and get you."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While she was kicking off gently
to glide to the idiot, Sumner pinched the comm. button on her collar and cut
off the alarm bleeping away in her earpiece, "Dawud, report."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"<i>It's the controller.
It's shut down half of its systems, shall I switch to manual life
support?"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner reached the ceiling and
with her free hand grabbed the belt of the floating staffer and used one boot
against the ceiling to carefully alter their trajectory to the lounge floor,
"Yes, do that and confirm when it's green. Casey, report."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Casey came over the comm,
sounding uncharacteristically excited, "<i>Controller's not talking,
Captain. Trying to ascertain why.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Get a move on. I want a
shipwide sixty second warning before the grav pads come back on, make sure I
get it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"<i>I'll try.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner frowned, letting go of the
comm button, but keeping the channel open. She focused her attention on making
sure the rest of the staff were down and buckling in now she'd brought the
flier back to a chair. She wanted to say a good deal more in stronger language,
but she didn't want her passengers to hear it. Besides, she still had two stray
executives to secure and she only knew for sure where one of them was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Before she was all the way out of
the lounge another alarm sounded - this one over the shipwide speakers. It was
the radiation alarm and she heard some of the staff groaning. Most of them were
very familiar with radiation alarms and what they meant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner called back into the
lounge, "Stay secured!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Eleanor shouted, "What's
going on, Captain?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"We have a malfunction - as
soon as I have more details they will be announced over the comms. Until then,
all passengers must remain secured for their own safety."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"You know more than you're
telling us! I demand-"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner cut her off by closing the
lounge door. She ripped off the tear-away panel by the door and punched in the
lockdown code, sealing the lounge to anyone who didn't have a crew identifier
on their datapad. Before she was done, the radiation alarm stopped.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She pinched the comm. again and
said, "Dawud - make reassuring noises to the passengers if you get a
chance."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She checked her pad, trying to
get access to the monitors so she could verify the two missing execs were in
their respective suits, but the controller managed the ship's intrafeed and she
couldn't get into anything. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Over the shipwide speakers, Dawud
said, "<i>Ladies and gentleman, this is your pilot speaking. We have
switched to manual radiation management for the time being and expect the grav
pads to be restored shortly. In the meantime, please remain secured and await
further instructions."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud's message played on repeat
in five-minute intervals. Captain Sumner found the drunk executive floating
around in his bathroom, covered in sick. She gave him a towel to wipe the worst
off and carefully manoeuvred the weeping man to the suit's bed and tucked him
in tight, telling him not to get up until the all clear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The other exec - a small and
weasel-like fellow who looked as if he overdid his own corporate drug usage -
wasn't in his quarters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner got back on the comm.
"Casey, report. Also, if either of you know where Excutive Mateu is, let
me know immediately."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was no immediate answer of
any kind and Sumner was about to ask for Casey again, when Casey came on the
feed, "<i>Captain... the controller's ignoring every soft command sent to
it. I tried to get into the controller housing to hard command and it won't
even open the panel, I'm going to have to cut my way in."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner frowned, "What are
you telling me, Casey? Has it gone rogue?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"<i>I don't think so - it's
never shown any signs of instability and the way it's acting now... I think
it's just running a new set of protocols,"</i> a faint static breeze
clouded the feed, only audible when Casey stopped talking. The static was
radiation, meaning Dawud wasn't keeping the shielding to the standard it ought
to be at.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a pause, Casey said, "<i>Captain,
I think we've been sabotaged.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner paused in her slow
progress down a corridor, pulling herself along by any handhold she could get
and fighting the urge to increase her momentum. Who the hell would sabotage a
shuttle on what was, basically, a very small crew run? They weren't even
hauling cargo. Personal vendetta? She didn't think she had any rivals who rated
her highly enough to perform this level of crime.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She shook her head and re-focused
on the task at hand. Didn't matter why right now. All that mattered was how and
what systems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
An answer of sorts to the second
question came over the comms a moment later as Dawud said, "<i>I've lost
control of the engines and we're being steered down to the Darkside a lot
faster than I'd like, I need some help up here.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner said, "I've lost
Executive Mateu, he's probably not secured."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"<i>Captain, you're going to
lose more than one if we touch down at this velocity.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Right," Sumner changed
direction, speeding up despite the risk if the gravpads came back on without
warning, "Casey, you get into that controller and cut its link to the
ship. I don't care how you do it."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"<i>Yes, Captain</i>.<i>
I... yes.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner made it to the cockpit in
less than seven minutes, hauling along almost recklessly and pulling more than
one muscle yanking herself from one trajectory to another. Once she was there,
she heard the radiation alarm again - evidently just cut off from the shipwide
broadcast. There were all manner of other alarms going off too and the panels
were festive with flashing lights. Dawud's hands were flying over his console
as he fought for control.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Getting into the co-pilot's seat
and strapping in, Sumner raised her voice to be heard over the wooping and
buzzing alarms, "Dawud? What do you need?"<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He didn't look away from his
task, his voice only slightly tighter than usual, "If you can keep trying
to power down the engines, I'll see if there's a way I can use the test
routines to re-align them. Until Casey gets that thing out of my systems, our
best option is to try to redirect into space."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Even as she started to do as he
had asked, Sumner said, "I don't much like the idea of spinning out -
we're tight on fuel thanks to that route change."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"We'll catch some more rads
and we'd have to sit out there for a few days before we can be tugged in, but
it beats hitting solid ground."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"What are LTC saying?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud did snatch a glance her way
then, the depth of his concern clear in his eyes, even if his tone was still
only a notch up from professional boredom, "Nothing. We're deaf and dumb
outside this ship. I can't even tell if the transponder's replying to them
anymore."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sabotage. There was no doubt in
Captain Sumner's mind on that matter now. While she battled with the engine
shut-offs - about as effective as hitting them with a pillow, presently - she
opened comms to the controller room on the main panel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Casey, any news?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>"If I find out who did
this to my controller, I'll kill them!"</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Unlike Dawud, Casey's voice was
high-emotion. She almost sounded hysterical. Sumner said, "Keep it
together, Casey - report."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a short patch of nothing
more than the fuzz and static of radiation, Casey said, <i>"It's dying.
We're losing it."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I didn't ask you to save
it, just get it out of my ship's systems."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>"If it dies, the ship's
dead anyway, it's blown and fused so much..."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Casey! If we can't stop the
engines, we're going to crash. Better to drift in than power in. Get it
done."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The pause was longer this time,
the static broken only by Casey's laboured breathing and what sounded
suspiciously like a sob before Casey said, <i>"Yes, Captain."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The feed cut off - killed at
Casey's end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Another alarm started up, this
one a recorded woman's voice that stated with firm, repetitive urgency, <i>Pull
up - terrain. Pull up - terrain. Pull up - terrain.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Sumner looked out cockpit window,
seeing a lot of dark grey - twilight on the Darkside, a mess of jagged-edged
craters and some low domes that barely stood out amongst the surface. It was
all going past very fast. She realised her innards weren't floating anymore.
Not 1G, not the gravpads - but the Moon's gravity taking hold.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Dawud..."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Dawud was still flicking switches
at a furious pace and he said, "Don't worry, Captain. Casey will get it
offline any second," he paused mid-switch and then added, "<i>Inshallah.</i>"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
And with that expression of
doubt, Sumner knew that Dawud believed they were going to crash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She believed it too and she
switched comms back to shipwide, shouting over the alarms, "Brace for
impact! Brace! Brace! Bra-"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The Qentiga clipped the edge of a
crater and tumbled. The engines were still running and for a moment it
spluttered upward again in a twisting rotation, like a Catherine wheel torn
free of its pin. Then the engines finally cut out and the Moon's embrace brought
it back down. The Qentiga landed aft-first, tumbled again two or three times
kicking off the surface, then bellied down and gouged a rut into the surface
for more than three miles before it slowed and fetched up on its side on the
slope of another crater. Dust and smoke enshrouded it and the twilight grew
imperceptibly darker.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-63975291171443781752016-11-02T00:04:00.001+00:002016-11-02T00:04:17.129+00:00Day One<br />
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Qentiga</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<b>1.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Monkey Crocodile Temple was one
of many nightclubs that had re-invented itself to cater exclusively to the
Aztec Band craze. A two-story rectangle of concrete covered in garish paint and
rippling with capering animations of stylised animals and the sort of old gods
who demanded blood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nicholas Mitcham entered the club
with the wary curiosity of someone who hadn't set foot into a nightclub for
twenty years. A lot of the territory was familiar to his memories; the bass
pulse in his innards long before he reached the main wall of noise, the smell
of cheap booze and air-freshener failing to mask the heady undercurrent of hot,
hormone-ravaged bodies and the inevitable glowering bouncers prowling the
perimeter of the dance floor. Amongst this was the unfamiliar. The music was
nothing but a rhythmic, pounding noise to him. The synthetic feathers, bones
and body paint the kids were done up in looked ridiculous, but still not quite
as stupid as the dance moves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He made his way through the edge
of the heaving press towards the booths near the back bar. The music changed
gears and most of the lights went out. He had to slow down to avoid barging
into people - or a supporting pillar - and he felt the tension level in the
club start to climb, the movements of everyone around him getting stiffer with
anticipation. When the music resolved in a barrage of bass, light came blazing
back in the form of a shower of artificial rain, made of glowing multi-coloured
drops of <i>Slick</i>, a gel-like self-illuminating sweet designed to
bio-degrade in minutes once it was out of its container. The crowd exploded
with fresh energy, hands raised up to catch the Slick, cramming it into their
mouths as they danced.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
At forty seven, Nick was old
enough to look at the crowd of be-feathered, jerking bodies under the flashing
lights and wonder what the fuck was wrong with the youth of today - but he was
not so old that when the beat dropped he didn't feel it. Some primal call in
the music distantly answered in the back of his mind, where his lizard-brain
capered in the same tribal way as the skinny, spotty little arseholes all
around him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He slipped into a small, sticky
booth, kicking some empty bottles out of the way from under the tiny table
while his gut scraped a few more off the tiny table. He got his digipad out and
thumbed his way through settings for his EyeSpy camera to compensate for the
shitty lighting before he started to record. It was 01:45 and what was going to
happen was supposed to happen soon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As soon as the EyeSpy was turned
on, the muscles in his eyes respond to the twitch-dampeners and he did a few
slow pans of the dance floor to get back into the feel of it while he waited
for the main show to begin. He hadn't personally set up any of it - he never
did, if he could help it - but things had been passed along by second and third
parties and if all had gone to plan, once that particular batch of Slick kicked
in, he'd have himself a story. Not a <i>great</i> story, but things had been a
little slow lately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was barely noticeable at first,
just a few dancers halting mid-thrash and gazing up at the ceiling with their
arms dropping limp by their sides. It spread, accelerating through the crowd
until the few that hadn't been crunching down mouthfuls of Slick stopped
dancing themselves, looking around at the sudden field of open-mouthed, glassy
eyed ceiling-gazers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
A bouncer crossed Nick's frame of
view shouting into his collar mic, "We've been fucking zombied!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick twitched half a smile as he
filmed the un-zombied dancers shifting from unease, to a more annoyed alarm.
They knew as well as he did that the rozzers would be on their way soon and
they ducked and scampered their way through the zombies to make themselves
scarce before the law showed up. What they didn't know was that this particular
nightclub was smack-bang on the border between 4L London Constabulary territory
and their bitter rivals, Surrey CapSec Security. Both forces had been called
out by two separate barmen who had been slipped a few credits for their trouble
and while the zombie-footage was something Nick could sell as stock 'zombie
menace' for the news feeds, a story showing two private police forces having a
dust up at the scene was a rent-payer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
CapSec were usually a bit slower
off the mark, but given the contested territory, they still managed to be the
first to arrive, decked out in navy blue hardshell armour with battenberg bands
and the corporate abortion of 'PROLICE' stencilled across their backs. For some
reason they were already flashing their laser-sighted guns around the club,
sending a spray of red dots over the completely harmless zombies on the
dancefloor. A CapSec officer with pips was waving her arms around, shouting and
Nick's EyeSpy translator took a stab at lipreading, flashing up subtitles on a
separate layer. It was never a sure-thing, but the gist seemed to be that the
officer wanted the music killed and the house lights put on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While the officer was shouting at
a bouncer, 4L Constabulary rocked up, materialising out of the gloomy
entranceway in black silksteel softshell that proudly displayed the word
POLICE, since 4L was the only company with the licence for it. Their officer
was a man with sergeants stripes who was so solidly muscled, he looked like he
could snap the CapSec officer with one hand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The argument started almost
instantly and the flashing lights and pounding rythm made a great backdrop for
the scene, subtitles stuttering across the bottom of his vision. He would edit
them later, either to a best guess, or to whatever would make the best story.
If Nick had any sympathy at all, it was for the CapSec officer. CapSec were a
bit gun-happy, but on the whole he trusted them more the 4L lot, who depended
less on hardware and more on wetware and augmentations. Nick had never met a
single 4L constable who didn't have <i>some</i> heavy alteration and he was of
the opinion that there wasn't a man or woman amongst them who hadn't joined up
out of a deep seated desire to be 'fixed' somehow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
His distrust of their
augmentations bore fruit less than five minutes into his footage of the
increasingly juicy inter-security row. The big 4L sergeant, for reasons Nick
couldn't fathom, suddenly flared his nostrils and looked directly at him. For a
couple of beats, neither of them moved, then the sergeant pointed a finger at
him and the subtitles translated his mouth movements into a probably very
accurate '<i>Stay right there, Sunshine</i>.'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
While he hadn't personally done
anything beyond making some requests of some fixers, who did all the real
arranging - a night in 4L custody trying to explain why he was filming at the
club didn't really appeal. Nick weighed his options up. The Sergeant looked too
heavy to be a fast runner and there was a packed dancefloor full of zombies
between him and Nick. The emergency exit, on the other hand, was right next to
Nick's booth and he hadn't been chipscanned on the way in, so short of a
facematch, they'd have a job finding him and he was wearing some 'moisturising'
cream that by sheer co-incidence showed up as solid black on most face-scanning
cameras.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The 4L sergeant made a 'hang on'
gesture to the CapSec officer and began to walk Nick's way. Nick thumbed off
his EyeSpy, squeezed himself back out of the booth and made for the emergency
exit as fast as he could.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When he was filming, Nick forgot
he was fat. When he crashed through the emergency exit, the alarm joining in
with the thudding beat from the dance floor, he remembered he'd put on a little
weight. By the time he'd run the length of the side-alley and cut hard left
into a back alley, his memory caught up with reality and he felt an unpleasant
stab of panic when the noise from the club flared up behind him as the
emergency door crashing open again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He put on the best spurt of speed
he could, hoping like hell it was still the big sergeant after him and not one
of the more whippet-like subordinates. If he could just out-run the ox, he
could lose himself in the rubbish-strewn riverside alleyways and get out of
even borderline 4L jurisdiction. All the sounds of the club were behind him
now, fading, fading and replaced by his own thudding footfalls and laboured
breathing. He could already feel needles of pain shooting through his
over-burdened ankles and knees and he silently cursed all the sitting and
eating he'd been doing the last few years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Two more alleyways on he was
forced to burst out onto the main road, cross over a street sparsely populated
with clubbers and drunks wending their way either to the next venue or the
nearest fast food joint. Wheezing, Nick paddled a drunk out of his way with the
flat of one hand and jogged across to another alleyway. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Behind him, he heard the Sergeant
roar, "Stop right now, or I'll shoot!"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a scream from a
colt-legged girl and a chain-draped ginger boy shouted, "Fly, fatboy, I'll
hold off the filth!'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick risked a glance back,
automatically trying to jink to avoid being shot. He saw the big cop <i>did</i>
have his gun out, but the trim was ebolt blue instead of a deadly red and the
ginger idiot was dancing in front of the cop spoiling a shot anyway. At least until
the cop just ran through him, sending the boy flying with only a slight dip of
his shoulder to meet the impact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Deciding he'd seen more than
enough, Nick scampered into the next alleyway. He was lucky that the cop was a
slow one - almost as slow as he was. He had no doubt about which one of them
would run out of stamina first though and he started looking for somewhere to
hide, pulling plastic rubbish bins down behind him as he went along the back of
a row of shops.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
His possible salvation lay two
turns further on, in the form of a miraculously unlocked dumpster. Under normal
circumstances, Nick wouldn't have been able to boost himself into it, but the
particular panic of being hunted leant him some of his old athleticism for a
few seconds and in a flailing of legs, heavy grunting and a final teetering of
balance, he fell in a crackling, crunching heap into the dumpsters contents. He
flailed one chubby hand at the lid, pulling it closed and trying to muffle his
laboured wheezing into the crook of one elbow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He heard the Sergeant thud his
way down the alley, but any hope he had that the man would run straight past
died as the policeman's boots scraped to a stop. Nick strained to listen,
fighting his lungs desire to tear breath.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The sergeant, by contrast, was
breathing easy, as if he'd done nothing more strenuous than take a stroll. Nick
hated him for this and grew no fonder as he heard the bootfalls coming closer
to his dumpster - the prospect of a night in constabulary custody seeming near
certain and making all this exercise an unpleasant waste of time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He was saved by the sergeant's
comms, which tootled an alarm before Nick heard the sergeant answer it with an
inpatient-sounding;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"What? I'm still in
persuit."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a pregnant pause,
during which Nick discovered his elbow was in something squishy and
unpleasantly fragrant and his lungs tugged at his diaphragm insistantly. Then
the Sergeant's tone changed to exasperation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I'll be there in five -
don't let it escalate."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a few seconds of
silence, then the sergeant - right outside the dumpster now - said, "You
are one lucky fat man. I smell you anywhere near my patch again and I'll have
you," the man exhaled heavily, muttered, " <i>Skurwysyn</i>,"
under his breath and then Nick heard him moving away, picking up speed as he
ran back the way he had come.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Free to gasp for air again, the
smell of the dumpster suddenly became a more pressing concern and Nick gagged
as much as wheezed as he flung the lid open to let a little fresh air in,
almost not caring if the copper had been playing a trick on him. He didn't
think he had - he thought the cop had known exactly where he was hiding, but
just hadn't the time or leisure to drag him out. Nick hoped the CapSec lot were
busy beating the tar out of the 4L freaks back at the club.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It took him twenty or so attempts
before he realised that he couldn't get himself out of the dumpster alone. He
was too low into it and the footing was a mess of shifting food sludge and
slippery wrappers. As he slid back into the mess for the umpteenth time, he
almost felt like crying out of sheer frustration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He was still trying to decide his
next best course of action when his digipad bleeped at him. He pulled it out
and accepted the call, seeing that it was Jackson - a digifeed editor that on
occasion, commissioned stories from him. Good ones, usually.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jackson looked hatefully safe and
comfortable in a well-lit office, a glass of whiskey and water at one elbow,
"Nick! Where the hell are you, on a job?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick worked his face into a sort
of professional self-assuredness he didn't much feel at present. What he felt
was a nasty wetness seeping through his trousers from the rubbish he was wedged
hip-deep in, "Evening, Jackson. Always on a job, you know that. What have
you got for me?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Something fairly big, if
you're up for it? Corporate expose, offworld."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick pursed his lips, "Who's
paying for it and what corporation?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jackson took a sip of his
whiskey, "Confidential and I can't tell you what corp until I know you're
on board. You'll need to use a device - I know how you are with personal
involvement, but..."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"I like to stay out of
jail," Nick glanced at the bottom of the screen, noting a completely
unfamiliar encryption protocol flagged on the signal, which piqued his
curiosity despite his instant misgivings, "Just how big is this?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jackson smiled, "Remember
the Polymol massacre on Mars? At least that big. Probably bigger."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick straightened up, crap
rustling all around him, "Seriously?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Seriously. I can't tell you
any more over a feed. If you're interested, come to my office and have your
thumb ready for the NDA you'll need to sign before I can fill you in - whether
you take the job or not."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick thought about it for less
than two seconds. He could always turn it down, after all. He had to at least
hear the deal out. He nodded sharply and said, "Sure thing, but I need a
favour from you first."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"What sort of favour?
Offering you the job is a favour, you know."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Nick grinned, "I know and
thanks, but if you want me at your office tonight, I need you to send a couple
of your lads my way. Ones good at heavy lifting."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jackson frowned, "Is this
trouble?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"No, just heavy lifting and
my back's not what it used to be. I'll send you my location. Alright?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"Hnn. Alright - you'll be
here tonight for sure?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
"For sure, you have me
intrigued."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After the link was cut, Nick
tried to make himself comfortable in the rubbish while he waited for help to
arrive. He hoped they'd come quickly, before that ox of a copper decided he <i>did</i>
have time to fish a journalist out of a dumpster after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-82163312099534880302016-10-15T20:25:00.001+01:002016-10-21T16:35:01.415+01:00Coming Soon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKcNRszdy_y_yz1b9T1YdzQ8_AS6kdlDTdjdXzdLorMpcmc6UPoB7fAQhZ5DwJInLjk9k2BFEATYpK8aLsbNKQz84UN8t6qoPdbqeqgUAlWoiaUDokTqLeFVVAC4g4CFbTg8wXBs27AHQ/s1600/Qentiga3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKcNRszdy_y_yz1b9T1YdzQ8_AS6kdlDTdjdXzdLorMpcmc6UPoB7fAQhZ5DwJInLjk9k2BFEATYpK8aLsbNKQz84UN8t6qoPdbqeqgUAlWoiaUDokTqLeFVVAC4g4CFbTg8wXBs27AHQ/s640/Qentiga3.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
November is coming and so is another trip into space, this time courtesy of the fully licensed franchise shuttle ARK 4L Qentiga - the first and best choice for short-hop personnel transport, executive tours and supply runs.</div>
<br />
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</ul>
<br />
Unlike many other franchised shuttle owners in the London area, Captain Sumner has <i>never</i> been penalised for breakage or loss of cargo or personnel and all our delivery times have been within accepted margins.
Our Raqueeb class Aratek pilot, Blue class 4L technician and experienced
Captain ensure a smooth and safe journey for all your assets.<br />
<br />
When you can't afford mistakes - Fly Qentiga<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*additional gravpad fees apply for any combined cargo/personnel over six tonnes.</span>MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-47002325718154321092016-01-10T13:07:00.001+00:002016-01-10T13:07:04.940+00:00The Great PurgeAs ever, with the Nanoing done, the screaming more or less over and a big messy pile of first draft in the bag, the purge had to come.<br />
<br />
If anyone wants a copy of the complete first draft, feel free to ask and tell me what format it's best delivered in.<br />
<br />
Thank you to everyone who came along for the ride (two rides, for this beast) - this was a job long procrastinated and it's wonderful to finally have a whole draft after so many years of tinkering and putting it off.<br />
<br />
Where will we go next Nano? No idea, but I'm sure we'll have fun when we get there.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-57112484483914861482015-10-30T23:14:00.000+00:002015-10-30T23:14:04.660+00:00The Story So Far<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<h4 class="MsoNormal">
Fair warning, synopsis are not my forte - something which will become self evident if you read this - but it's been a while and writing a quick(!) recap seemed like a good idea.</h4>
<h4 class="MsoNormal">
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</h4>
<h4 class="MsoNormal">
In the Who's Who on the left, the characters that are greyed
out have, for a variety of reasons, passed out of the story, never to return.</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>'Mouth'
Adsil is the former crown prince of the land of the fae. After trying to
prematurely take the throne, he was exiled and chained to a tree in the mortal
lands. He is released from this imprisonment by Saint Karl, an agent of the god
Siber San.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As a fae,
Adsil must honour all promises he makes and he is promise-bound to assume a
mortal form. Because he doesn't understand either the importance or the
duration of the shape he takes, he opts for something small and stylish -
unlike all those thudding mortals. As a result he stands 3ft9 and is easily
mistaken for a child when clean shaven. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Out of
spite and general mischief, Adsil uses magic to severely damage the City of
Indye while Karl is there on official business for his god. As a result, all
gods are barred from conducting business within the city and both Adsil and
Karl are punished for this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Adsil's
punishment is having all his magical abilities divinely burned out of him.
After this has been done, an angry Saint Karl dumps him in the town of
Wheatsheaf to fend for himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ill-equipped
for living a mortal life, Adsil spends a year as a beggar. Deciding he can't
stand the indignities anymore and believing that if he kills his body, his
spirit may return home to Nakata, he attempts to hang himself. It goes poorly
and he is saved from indefinite strangulation by 'Remus', one of the local
crimelords.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
spending some time as one of Remus's 'Moonlighters', Adsil becomes involved in
a turf war to increase Remus's stake in the town. The violence of the skirmish
attracts the attention of the King's ministers and they scour the town,
arresting anyone likely to have a connection to Wheatsheaf's criminal element.
Adsil is amongst those arrested and he is taken away for questioning under
torment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thinking he
will soon be destroyed and not wishing to give the ministry any satisfaction,
Adsil promises that he will protect Remus from the ministry forever - making it
impossible for him to inform.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
significant personal risk, Remus rescues Adsil from the ministry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Badly
wounded by the torments, Adsil realises that his unnatural rate of healing will
reveal his non-human nature and he believes he will be killed for it once Remus
realises he is one of the fey. Remus tells him that he has known this secret
for some time and has no intention of killing him, provided that Adsil keeps <i>his</i>
secret - that despite the nature of his chief occupation as a burglar, Remus is
much prone to fear and fainting and he needs a helper on his jobs to be handy with
the smelling salts,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bound
together by their secrets and the ties of loyalty both have proven to each
other, they become inseparable partners in crime, with Remus's role as Adsil's
boss becoming more paternal as he trains Adsil to be his successor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When Karl
returns to Wheatsheaf, offering to take Adsil away somewhere he may be safer
from mortal troubles, Adsil refuses to leave. Karl warns Adsil that he is
attracting dangerous attention to the town, but Adsil declares that if Karl
does not leave him alone, he will bend his knee to Remus's god, Ynor. Karl
leaves the town, telling Adsil that he will only return if Adsil calls for him
via a priest and he will never answer him if Adsil decides to serve Ynor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A high
priest of Ynor arrives in Wheatsheaf and gives Remus this message:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>Ynor has
decided to raise a new kingdom from the dust of the Drylands. A king or queen
will rise in one of the towns upon the eastern trade - Sowsa, Wheatsheaf,
Tentar, Goska or Sansin. Only one shall be crowned and the crown must be won by
conquest. In each town, the priests have chosen one of their congregation to be
given this knowledge. The priest of Wheatsheaf has chosen you to be the herald
for this town.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Remus is
ambitious. He wishes to be free from fear of the king's ministry and he wants
to legitimise his people and the bastard child his lover is carrying, so he
accepts this role to becomes a king-maker. Remus is bound to the task by the
blood of Ynor and must now succeed, or die trying.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While this
effort is underway, Adsil is tempted by the priest of Ynor. The priest tells
him that his much-missed magic might be returned to him, if he agrees to take
Ynor's godmark and serve him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He has yet
to reach a decision.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-58428940516137804072015-10-17T03:59:00.001+01:002015-10-17T03:59:21.743+01:00Coming Soon (probably)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9XtTJOsUEIVG85n89HHIb1-SQ9uD_Y5KKz2iNoEjlev6xM6WsTadwwA7q-5Aq2JCP_Rj6s8mrv6uPQSOWhh6xG_wwOgTBKerb5BUxjl5B_RdCSuorrLG5ct5EwhLesAOQI3V8LwjlaQ/s1600/fgs5TRIMMEDPOST.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9XtTJOsUEIVG85n89HHIb1-SQ9uD_Y5KKz2iNoEjlev6xM6WsTadwwA7q-5Aq2JCP_Rj6s8mrv6uPQSOWhh6xG_wwOgTBKerb5BUxjl5B_RdCSuorrLG5ct5EwhLesAOQI3V8LwjlaQ/s640/fgs5TRIMMEDPOST.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark days ahead for the moonlighters.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rebelling again this NaNo and making a second attempt at finishing Flapjaws Get Stecked. Given that I stalled in almost exactly the same place as last time, wish me luck, for I shall need it.<br />
<br />
Apologies for anyone who read all through and got left hanging when I ran away and cried earlier in the year! Life notwithstanding I shall try very hard to get to The End on this one before we all die of old age.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-37825739688131339502014-10-13T12:39:00.002+01:002014-10-13T12:42:17.847+01:00Coming Soon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNa-b1bOnR8TTzx1tFdq2x_S_MRmNiDBhUiTO9VJQtg5-yBdocHSSO6YleH8J7JKYq6iCtOhzah_fBn4_DKf6abmMRYHIFco-V6t_P3Yj0dJMf6QJLjonACLtq5HenurBYl6Ow9Z7RKtg/s1600/Hue+and+Cry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNa-b1bOnR8TTzx1tFdq2x_S_MRmNiDBhUiTO9VJQtg5-yBdocHSSO6YleH8J7JKYq6iCtOhzah_fBn4_DKf6abmMRYHIFco-V6t_P3Yj0dJMf6QJLjonACLtq5HenurBYl6Ow9Z7RKtg/s1600/Hue+and+Cry.jpg" height="640" width="428" /></a></div>
This year, I'm a NaNo rebel. Instead of a new project, I'm going to attempt to use the intense focus to finish something I started sometime in the mid to late nineties. Some of the characters in this go back to the mid eighties when I was quite a little thing, so the danger of being overly-precious about it is high. The only way to find out is to try!MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-47301979257385162112014-07-11T01:31:00.001+01:002014-07-11T01:31:13.731+01:00Long overdue purgeFinally got around to taking last year's NaNo down!<br />
<br />
No idea what I'll be doing for the next one, but looking forward to it all the same - it's always fun.<br />
<br />
My 2010 NaNo novel is now out on submission. I hope you'll join me in wishing the <i>Vera Lynn</i> a good flight and let's hope it goes better than the last time she had a maiden voyage.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-34162968567467600452013-09-30T13:14:00.002+01:002013-09-30T13:16:32.150+01:00Coming Soon<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<h2>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTyocpdcsCLabqsKWFCFFg_3NhqfBC_-9ZsGvDXf0Nl8fftKFwOG3tiYzDDfNaQFLz_W6dAag1x6KOjR_L3lPhyphenhyphenX93eQJNoqlqHK51d5z1axtxtjG3Be9np-Bw6Txu-xkSJ0oXEbLrdY/s1600/MyrtleFinal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTyocpdcsCLabqsKWFCFFg_3NhqfBC_-9ZsGvDXf0Nl8fftKFwOG3tiYzDDfNaQFLz_W6dAag1x6KOjR_L3lPhyphenhyphenX93eQJNoqlqHK51d5z1axtxtjG3Be9np-Bw6Txu-xkSJ0oXEbLrdY/s640/MyrtleFinal.jpg" width="347" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">
<u>NaNoWriMo!</u></div>
</h2>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It's that time of year again when, all bright-eyed and hopeful we set our sights on another <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">month of writing like maniacs</a>.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
This is the time when everything's possible, all ideas are brilliant and a work of literary genius is sure to result. Breathe deep and savour it; ten days in most of us will be crying into our keyboards and wondering what drugs we were taking in September that made us think this was a <i>good</i> idea.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm taking a break from the Sci-Fi this year to return to my longer-term love of fantasy. After some <strike>nagging </strike>persuasion from Sunjumper, I decided to make an attempt on an idea I've had lurking in the back of my mind for a while that has a female protagonist. So, meet Myrtle. She's eight, but this will not be a children's story, I don't think I'm capable of writing something completely inoffensive. That fellow behind her is Winter. He may or may not be contemplating slitting her throat.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I'm going to do my utmost this time to finish, unlike last years car crash of fail. I have a reasonably good idea of <i>why</i> I failed last year, so - fingers crossed, good luck everyone and however it ends, enjoy the ride.</div>
MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-80266224612796814502013-08-05T20:36:00.000+01:002013-08-05T20:36:28.547+01:00Purge time again - The Stacks did not fare well and has become a story I may, or may not finish. There's a lot wrong with it, but it's being kept somewhere safe and I will consider fixing it at some point in the future. I suspect I will fix it, because for all it's brokeness, there's enough right with it to make it worth the job, I think.<br />
<br />
Hey ho - better luck next time!MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-27136199182309755212012-09-02T23:38:00.000+01:002012-10-06T11:02:21.029+01:00Coming Soon<br />
In a couple of months that crazy, brakeless and prone to de-railing train known as <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">National Novel Writing Month</a> begins again. Once more my ticket comes courtesy of 4L Engineering, but in a break from tradition, this time feet are staying firmly on Earth.<br />
Szwejkowski is just <i>thrilled</i> about this.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeU8mdzCkKtyQlnoyFcni9kohnzCvgnHFylv1mP0k_fEYu1ri42p_T4xZ_DUBIs8o4lSjfOWi2pI1xYjDL6qakYjR6uFnClRnqhV1i7rmmUuTb23lOZn9gmnxK4Zu2ZR_yVCwfmrxsHPQ/s1600/SzwejkowskiStacks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeU8mdzCkKtyQlnoyFcni9kohnzCvgnHFylv1mP0k_fEYu1ri42p_T4xZ_DUBIs8o4lSjfOWi2pI1xYjDL6qakYjR6uFnClRnqhV1i7rmmUuTb23lOZn9gmnxK4Zu2ZR_yVCwfmrxsHPQ/s320/SzwejkowskiStacks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-27488864901244530672012-06-02T16:28:00.001+01:002012-06-02T16:28:12.614+01:00Little bit of politicsPolitical interlude for anyone other than the eastern European spam sites that drop by here from time to time. Particularly the UK visitors:<br />
<br />
Check out <a href="http://www.policeoracle.com/forum/index.php?/topic/16337-privatisation-of-the-police-service/">this thread</a> and <a href="http://www.policeoracle.com/forum/index.php?/topic/16723-the-winsor-report-thread/">this thread</a> to get yourself up to speed on the concerns and shenanigans surrounding the Winsor Report and the creeping privatisation of our police force.<br />
<br />
I am, as many of you will know, a lefty liberal occasional protester - not a natural ally to the Old Bill, although I never went for chucking things at them either. After poking around a while to get some info on policing for the next outing of my 4L Constabulary, I came to the conclusion that our existing constabulary could do with a bit more public support than they're getting - or we're going to lose them.<br />
<br />
Personally I'm happier writing about a <em>totally fictional</em> privatised police force. Please contact your MP (in person would be best, but email would be better than nothing) and voice your concerns too. Remember, <a href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/">they work for you.</a>MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-43857786754039712052012-05-07T12:16:00.001+01:002012-05-07T12:25:02.031+01:00The great purgeAfter a huge months-long overrun the 2011 NaNo finally came to an end for me last month with a complete first draft of 143,713 words. The time has come to take the first draft off the web page and stick it in a metaphorical drawer to await some editing. I already miss the boys, but I'm confident I will see them again in another marathon slog sometime.<br />
<br />
A massive thank you to everyone who came along for the ride - if you missed it and want to check it out, PM me at my usual haunt and ask for .doc, .rtf or mobi.<br />
<br />
Right now I'm taking a serious swing at editing the 2010 NaNo, STEAM and its every bit as hard as I thought it would be. The next NaNo seems impossibly close, but I'm going to try not to think about that until it's a lot closer. Lots to do, not much time to do it in, unless I become a lady of leisure.<br />
<br />
Kick back, have a beer, think about future journeys into the unknown.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-52127786343253889952011-10-18T04:03:00.003+01:002011-10-18T04:16:44.471+01:00Things you do when you're not allowed to start writing yetPoster time!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrso0CDswb0aOxX7CEB3WM2rVJaFSqjXz04fKpEqpm4PzLPXPkiK2eTPwxo2egD5ibhwq96twOcgbLgSrGgSSWU32DOIH7UuMZBZbixUGmfTIBkHY_BpR2a-_HrpXf3JIe4OC3as9qG40/s1600/Haunted+Planet+Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrso0CDswb0aOxX7CEB3WM2rVJaFSqjXz04fKpEqpm4PzLPXPkiK2eTPwxo2egD5ibhwq96twOcgbLgSrGgSSWU32DOIH7UuMZBZbixUGmfTIBkHY_BpR2a-_HrpXf3JIe4OC3as9qG40/s640/Haunted+Planet+Poster.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunteQ8zP3O-FgGAUyEp12hXJLagcCsbrNza3Ucs4P8Jiz74AVdoK4gR9Pi73iXwSNuIffRBgX5ICiYtAyvvYxlnJPt2-UY43wjGm8RpyMP4ZNGhGJQMncTVgU0NF9s84j8bZzOHDb8FE/s1600/Haunted+Planet+Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>Szwejkowski and Balestra heading up poster time. I can now write Szwejkowski almost without having to stop and think where the Z goes.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-50733591312773790992011-09-17T11:53:00.000+01:002011-09-17T11:53:01.416+01:00Coming Soon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmfq8ZUhSHxZj8E6pr6KwTrh9vvf1-EFlHizjLjPv8R8OIsAyIn8eTtGf58_UsLxe-eU2_IAoJ6gPD3RxUKke4jn21FhDX5nIeXoJueazz-5Dh1ISRoOLTbt7HRd3Ty543rYPpFIVDXIs/s1600/OnsetStationMars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmfq8ZUhSHxZj8E6pr6KwTrh9vvf1-EFlHizjLjPv8R8OIsAyIn8eTtGf58_UsLxe-eU2_IAoJ6gPD3RxUKke4jn21FhDX5nIeXoJueazz-5Dh1ISRoOLTbt7HRd3Ty543rYPpFIVDXIs/s320/OnsetStationMars.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>It's almost travel time again and this year, I'm going to Mars, courtesy of <strong>4L Engineering</strong> (formerly 4Life, but a rebranding was considered wise after a certain publicity scandal).<br />
If you want to come along, drop back on Nov 1st when <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node">National Novel Writing Month</a> kicks off.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-38079497141684887542011-05-09T22:12:00.001+01:002011-10-06T07:33:37.575+01:00Pissing about with Poser<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV1wjWqPffkA4nUmEjFF-Pt_7M5pcbITdAPphBXe4ndrgYt5Px48SF3KQLq16DCOR5qP8QwhxLApi_INvYRnmLHv9H-A7lEcgxg_gGoOxxeim5fv_xoa-9xU7qgNgDzQAb2gUdTr5Nkg/s1600/Mandor+Sawall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV1wjWqPffkA4nUmEjFF-Pt_7M5pcbITdAPphBXe4ndrgYt5Px48SF3KQLq16DCOR5qP8QwhxLApi_INvYRnmLHv9H-A7lEcgxg_gGoOxxeim5fv_xoa-9xU7qgNgDzQAb2gUdTr5Nkg/s320/Mandor+Sawall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is how I see the delightfully dandy and devious Mandor Sawall from Roger Zelazny's Amber series.MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-5879057536534077422011-03-24T14:15:00.007+00:002011-09-17T22:59:10.544+01:00The Sergeant and the Surgeon<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b>Excerpt from the journals of the late Captain Brindach.</b></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There's something wrong with this city.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">I have been in the Watch and now the City Guard for near twenty years and aside from a six-month posting at West Keep, I have not ever left the city. It would be easy to think all cities are like this - that all people act this way, when crammed so together – but I have talked with soldiers and merchants from other places. We have swapped tales. Much of what I seen here, I have not told them. Compared to their yarns, I fear they would think my city had a sickness and take their money elsewhere. If the lords thought me driving off trade, I would find myself a guest in my own cells.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Take as example my first day in the Watch. Just twelve years of age and fresh as rain. I was sent to the gaolhouse for the carrying out of chamber pots - buckets for the most part and a nastier job I could not imagine at that age, though I know now that it is good work to strengthen the backs and stomachs of recruits and I make the new boys do just the same work.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the time, I were miserable and lazy enough to be always looking for excuse to have a rest from it. Even on the first hour of my first day, I’d had enough of it and by the sixth hour I was driven along by clouts from the Sergeant. I knew how older folk loved to talk about their business and seeking respite from both his wrath and my work, I asked the Sergeant what the story was behind the prisoner in the farthest, deepest cell.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">The man in that cell had cried hard all the morning and I were young enough to think that grown men could not cry so. Not only that, he was in a run of cells all by himself and I was feared he had plague or somesuch. I had not gone near enough to collect his bucket. Stranger still, down in that run, there was a flavoursome smell, despite all the other stenches and even with the smell of shit pounded all through me, that other smell made me start wondering when lunch would come.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I asked about him, the Sergeant’s eyes lit up. He bent with his hands on his knees to tell me about it face to face.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It seems this man was a surgeon, making some work off of the Guard, but most work off the tradesmen who often have occasion to be in need, with their dangerous tools and heavy loads. He had been working the city for years and probably would have kept at it for many more, if he had not been caught so red-handed – or flour-handed as the story went.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Watch had been called upon to visit a one-legged carpenter and remind him that he had been paid by a rich family for work he had yet to deliver. Mindful of how folk find pressing business out the nearest window when the Watch knock, they slipped the latch and came into the carpenter’s house on their quietest feet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There they found the surgeon with two legs instead of one and he was making pastry for a pie. There was foodstuff all around - sausages, pies that had already been cooked, salted meat, aspic and a pot on the stove bubbling away with long bones poking out of it. The surgeon was up to his elbows in flour and he turned around sharp when he finally heard them come upon him. In one hand he held the carpenter’s peg leg, what he had been using as a rolling pin.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was not long before they realised what was going on. The surgeon’s excuses for being there were the lies of a man in sweating red-faced panic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quick stir of the pot rolled up a man’s skull and that was that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Under the Captain of the Guard’s orders, the surgeon was put in one cell and all them pies and sausages and the like, put in the cell next to him but one, so that he could not reach for it through the bars and eat the evidence. The Captain questioned the man and it did not take much to get a confession, but all the time he was confessing, the surgeon was looking past the Captain at the food and his lips were shining with spit for it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The surgeon said he had heard a story from a soldier years before, who claimed to have eaten the flesh of the fallen as a means to surviving while in the frozen wastes of the north. The soldier had told him that he had never tasted its equal and it was a cure he was looking for – a cure for this dreadful longing. He had tried potions and powders from all sorts of merchants and surgeons and now he had come to this one. The surgeon could do nothing for him and the soldier was found hanged the very next day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The surgeon said this story haunted him – that it was like a curse that the soldier had put on him, because he could not cure him. This was his plea, that of bewitchment, but the Captain was having none of that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A year or so after the soldier's tale, the carpenter got himself run down by a cart and his leg was so ruined it had to be taken away. The surgeon does the job, but instead of burning the limb decently, he took it home. Just to find out, he says – and who needs to know? So he took it and roasted it and said it was the best meat he has ever had.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A while after that, the surgeon found he could not forget that taste and he started finding more cause to be taking bits off people. A finger here, a foot there. The trouble is, no matter how often he dared to do this, none of them tasted as good as that first leg. Not even close.<br />
The surgeon said that for near three years he tasted the meat of a good portion of the citizenry and some of the Watch and Guard, but all it did was make his craving for that first meat even worse until at last he could stand it no longer. He found the carpenter, did him in and was caught mainly by virtue of how he did not want to waste a single drop of flavour. He’d boiled the bones white and made preserves and all he could think of to make the carpenter last him a long time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Captain asked him what he planned once he had run out of carpenter to eat. The surgeon answered that the carpenter had relatives, who might well taste as fine.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Captain declared he would see the surgeon hanged just as fast as he could get the warrant and the surgeon said that he understood and perhaps it was the only way to lift the curse, but what would the harm be in letting him have some of the food he had made? Just one pie. A couple of the sausages. One slice of pie, even.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All the rest of that day, the surgeon begged for a taste of the food in the cell just beyond his reach. He told anyone who would listen that they should try it too – that if they did they would understand and have pity on him. He told them all that if they tried it, they would never taste anything finer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then, at the end of the day, some of the food was noticed missing. The Captain went berserk, had the place searched, watchmen and guards questioned, but there was no sign of it. The surgeon said nothing, so the chances are good he got some of what he wanted.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> The </span>Captain was still fit to be tied and he had all the food what was left, nailed into a coffin and he organised a cremation – with the blessing of Lord Sil, no less, who has already been down to have a look at such an unusual corpse. The carpenter’s relatives attended the cremation never knowing that they were weeping over pie and sausages.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that, said the Sergeant, is why the surgeon is crying and wailing in the cells as if his heart were breaking. Not because he is sorry for the murder, or because he hangs tomorrow, but because he knows he will never again taste that sweet, sweet carpenter.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By that point I reckon my eyes must have been starting clean out of my head and my hair almost stood on end. The Sergeant laughed at me and said now it is lunchtime, would I like to share some of his pie?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He took out a hefty slice wrapped up in his kerchief and even before he unwrapped it, I knew that smell. It was the same smell from those cells what made me hungry even while I was slopping shit and I turned and run. Just as I turned, I saw the Sergeant’s face turning meaner than it had been all day and I felt his fingers slip against the nape of my neck as he tried to catch hold of me. Out I ran, faster than I had thought I could go, at least until I ran smack into the Captain, who shook me until he could understand what it was that had got me so undone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now there is some who would take this all as a joke, on my part, or on the part of that Sergeant, but I swear on my own blood that the next day when I crept into the gaolhouse, that Sergeant was gone – and one or two of the watchmen besides. ‘Gone to West Keep and never coming back’, the Captain told me. The keep is many things, but one of the uses it is put to, I know, is the hanging of people they do not want seen to be hanged.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The smell of that pie. I have never forgotten it. From that day to this, I make it a firm point to always stand upwind of cremations.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-17646473929584032912011-01-12T15:39:00.000+00:002011-01-12T15:39:23.593+00:00Things you do when you should be editing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWYbFvXRt4QHQlIZNdkKtZ1piFul_SIWsw5mkfaMi4Vk392TZxN1mlxnfhuVo0rKhvCAVgnomfC9I1RyzvQg1M3ml2NeZXFaMpg073-A3xiAaMxXUcxgEB_D0xOs9olv0SW_qIA2jooM/s1600/Steam+Cloud.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWYbFvXRt4QHQlIZNdkKtZ1piFul_SIWsw5mkfaMi4Vk392TZxN1mlxnfhuVo0rKhvCAVgnomfC9I1RyzvQg1M3ml2NeZXFaMpg073-A3xiAaMxXUcxgEB_D0xOs9olv0SW_qIA2jooM/s320/Steam+Cloud.gif" width="320" /></a></div>Steam cloud! Geddit? Geddit? Aw nuts.<br />
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Sitting at home with some kinda snot-producing, throat-killing, random-spikes-of-pain-everywhere plague and aside from sleeping and whinging, not getting a hell of a lot of use done. All I've managed on the editing front so far is to write notes about what I <em>intend</em> to do, which won't do me any good at all until I actually start doing it. Right now I'm thinking I should get my reading obligations out of the way so that I can (haha) 'concentrate on the editing undistracted by guilt' - yeah, right.<br />
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Join me procrastination and make your own book-cloud <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">here</a>MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2875132306291779577.post-574722605901032372011-01-01T00:08:00.000+00:002011-01-01T00:08:28.716+00:00Where Did Everything Go?It's revision time and that means my Nano-novel thingy has to come down and be worked on. Thanks to everyone who dropped by to take a gander and revision is going to be a whole lot easier with the feedback I've had so far.<br />
Happy new year!MetalDoghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01539730700058648848noreply@blogger.com0