Tor stopped and felt the exhaustion sweep over him anew, his threatening posture slumped. Mihailov had been saved, and distantly Tor was relieved. He’d never struck a crewman and didn’t want to start now. “What?”
“When Sec took that picture. She moved.”
“You probably imagined it Tala. Hell, your eyes are pretty much swollen shut.”
“Captain. I am telling you what I saw.” Tala spoke with a force uncommon for Filipino subordinate.
“Okay. Relax.” Tor needed to dissipate the fractious atmosphere building within the group, not exacerbate it. Everybody was on edge and they still had to find an emergency escape set and get back to the Riyadh. “Mihailov, take another picture.”
Mihailov was still frozen in an apologetic stance, his features etched more by surprise than fear. “You sure, Captain?”
“Just take the fucking picture.”
Four sets of eyes watched as the actinic light washed across the young girls face.
“She flinched.”
“I saw it too.”
Tor thought he’d seen it as well, but the sight was inconceivable a play of instantaneous light and shadow. “Again.”
Tentatively, Mihailov lifted the camera once more and clicked the shutter. The tray shuddered as the girl arched her back. Bright blue eyes shot open, a look of sheer terror and agony twisted pristine features into a rictus grimace. She gasped and the party scattered, the tray clattered to the floor with a metallic crash. The girl, dressed in green scrubs was disgorged onto the cold tiled floor. Her plump body writhed – tangled amid tarpaulin.
Paralyzed by shock, Tor and his crew watched the girl gasp and spasm like a fish out of water for eternal seconds before trying to help. Frantically, Tor pawed at the comms button on his EVA suit and tried to hail the Riyadh, knowing it was useless.
Above the din and unseen, the morgues closed circuit camera began blinking and whirred to life. Surveying the unfolding scene beneath.
Chapter 6
The line opened with a click. The heavily encrypted frequency crackled like old, scratched vinyl. For a moment, the band seemed dead.
“You are awake?” The man’s voice was attenuated, the question less a question than a statement of the obvious.
“Yes. I allowed myself a day to recover.”
“How is the ship?”
“Compromised, life support systems are at or near their limit, stores as well. They will not make it to Reticuulum One for the proof of concept.”
“That was your objective, not mine. The samples, vials and notes are ready for transfer as agreed,” the man replied curtly. “And the crew?”
“In good health, for now. They have sent a scouting party over to the station.”
“That may compromise the delivery.”
“It may provide an opportunity.”
The line fell silent save for the faint buzz of skipping static, drawing out the moment.
“We have lost Nikolai Falmendikov,” the man said finally.
“That is unfortunate, but not unexpected.”
The man seemed uncomfortable with the concept of losses, he took a moment to digest the ambivalence the news was greeted with. He should be familiar with death after four years.
“You will be joining us then?”
“I am suiting up now. Ensure my route is clear. I will give the scouting party a head start.”
“Soon then,” he said.
With Hernandez and Stewart’s concentration fixed to the stripped VHF aerial, Aidan Bruce tried to loosen the high tensile steel lifelines cinched to his EVA belt loops.
“Don’t you touch those lines, rookie.” Hernandez’s high voice squawked through the helmet intercom. Hernandez’s mirror shade visor could not possibly permit him sight of the cadet, but Aidan thought better of attempting to further slacken the wires. Instead he tried to wiggle his numbing posterior in an effort to regain sensation and find something approaching comfort.
They’d been sat atop the Riyadh’s bridge for over two hours, nestled amongst the multitudinous metal and plastic aerials of the communications array that pushed like marsh rushes upward. Various violently coloured health and radiation warnings covered in skulls and electrocuted stickmen littered the monkey island railings surrounding them, cartoonishly mimicking grim portent.
Stewart and Hernandez had watched as Captain Tor and his recon party entered the unfathomable interior of the station. From his vantage, Aidan could see little more than the dark impact gouge Falmendikov used to gain access. He had however observed the subsequent radio silence.
“Diego, you got a copy? Everything OK topside,” asked Stewart, his Liverpudlian accent kicking up a spray of feedback as he pressed the button on his chest plate.
“Eh, you sound far away,” Diego replied, a whisper in static fog.
“Man, these comms are fried. That pendejo may as well just shout out the window.”
“I don’t see any visible damage.”
“There’s a little corrosion on the insulation, see here, where the gold plating has worn off and the underlying metal’s oxidized.” Hernandez pointed at various portions of the exposed aerial. “But that’s not uncommon, I mean, shit man, when was the last time this got serviced?”
“Paperwork says it got an overhaul last time on Earth.”
“Yeah, well this kind of deterioration shouldn’t cause a comms blackout at any rate, regardless of how shitty the overhaul was.”
Aidan looked out, past the array sat atop the bridge of the Riyadh and tried filtering out Hernandez and Stewart’s technical discourse. Long, thick black shadows stretched away from the maintenance crew and were crisscrossed by the thin knifing shadows of the aerials and railings that bent suddenly away with the curve of the Riyadh’s structure. The supergiant had moved behind them diffusing a delicate vermillion radiance that danced on the beautifully polished and intricate electricians tools; gleaming vanadium chrome spanners carefully ordered in the tool belt entrusted to the cadet.
The heat was less intense than Aidan had expected from something so vast, but after two hours anchored to the space pitted titanium fuselage, sweat sheened his back and forehead. Uncomfortable, he squirmed in the confines of his moist suit, desperate to fidget with his flash hood and relieve the pressure points building on his hips where the karabiners dug in.
“Hoy. Tool boy.” Aidan could see his awkwardly seated figure, like a discarded toy reflected in Hernandez’s visor. “I need the 6 mill spanner.”
“Sorry,” Aidan fumbled at the tools. Flustered, he momentarily forgot the limited dexterity of the EVA gauntlets, almost scattering the contents of Hernandez’s belt into space. Cussing, Hernandez batted his hands from the belt and plucked the small spanner from its housing.
“Fucking useless man, how long has this kid been on the ship?” Hernandez spat, gesturing with the spanner. His voice was an abrasive squeal in Aidan’s helmet speakers.
“Give him a break Hernandez, you were a trainee once.”
“I was a fucking good one.” Hernandez pounded his chest in slow motion, Aidan could sense the Mexican’s volatile, intense eyes piercing through the gold shading before he turned away. He was never entirely sure how genuine the motorman’s anger was.