War of the Spheres Read online

  When no one struck him, Toby quickly puffed up and started to lecture us.

  “This protuberance is an element of the cooling array—for the idling-reactor. It’s the hook-up site to keep the engine from overheating during the primary leg of a long-distance voyage.”

  Toby was leaning over the top of the elephant-sized crate—pointing at a gizmo on top.

  “That thing almost got hit by laser-fire,” I observed.

  “Do you have any idea what that means, Chief?” the youth asked me.

  I shrugged and offered no comment.

  “Well—let’s put it this way. If this item had been hit, we’d have been starting over… As it turns out, we’ve been very fortunate. I’ve already made a quick assessment, and the damage to the engine itself is minimal—two glancing contact points are damaged, but they’re stock structural components. They can be replaced.”

  “That’s great, weasel,” the sergeant told him. “Maybe someone should make you the director of this program.”

  “We couldn’t possibly be worse off if someone did,” he agreed.

  The light was different once we reached the top of the building. It was harsh. Knox contacted me just before he came into my view.

  “You intact, Chief?” the major’s voice crackled in my good ear. “We’ve been stressing up here, hoping you didn’t piss your pants on this mission.”

  “I’m fine, sir, and so is the device.”

  He had a gaggle of people around him, some wore lab coats and others military uniforms.

  “Fair enough. You’re relieved for now, Chief,” he said.

  He stuck his palm out face up, and I realized he wasn’t trying to shake my hand. I placed the man’s gun in his hand and he holstered it.

  “It’s a real beauty, Major,” I told him. “I liked the feel of it.”

  He gave me a controlled smile and walked away to yell at people on the launch pads. There were buzzing air-lifters everywhere. Cargo was being taken to the spaceport every minute or two as the stunned-looking scientists were relieved of their belongings as the cartons were loaded and sent away.

  We were literally in the open now. I watched the sky for new trouble, hoping I wouldn’t find it. The team of people that were with the major scurried to get the engine from the cargo lift onto a massive glidecar. The shuttle would haul it to the spaceport after that.

  Robotic lifters and smart cables came out once more to get the thing moved. Once the payload was secure on the glidecar again, the swarm parted. Led by Knox, they headed for the shuttle.

  Colonel Hughes was up top with the rest of the scientists. They fussed over every detail, but she ignored most of their complaints.

  “Sean,” she said, “I want you to check the rosters and find out who’s not accounted for.”

  “Gladly.”

  “Jillian, I want you to do a full assessment as soon as we’re aboard and before we launch if you can.”

  “I’d like nothing better,” Jillian said, and she meant it.

  The big machine got fawned over like a rock star leaving a concert. While the entourage passed slowly by, Major Knox paused to talk with his sergeant for a few minutes. During this time, they cast a few glances in my direction.

  At last, Knox came toward me, looking thoughtful.

  “That whole thing down in the elevator shaft—it bothers me,” he told me, his voice barely audible over the wind. “I’ll have to admit, I was planning to make you an exception to the flight roster and kick you off of this project right here and now—no matter who assigned you.”

  I looked at him with surprise. There was no way I wasn’t going up with that engine, but he didn’t know that—not yet.

  “Anyway,” he said, watching my reaction, “I’ve changed my mind. I want you aboard this transport when it leaves. It’s going up in twenty minutes. Are you ready for more, Chief? When you get to the spaceport, I want you to do what you’ve got to do.”

  “Ready and able, Major. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Knox nodded and then yelled. “Sergeant!”

  The sergeant stepped away from the mob nearby. “Sir?”

  “Get this man aboard the shuttle.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The major walked away, and I saw he was wearing thick gloves too—gloves that might pass for welding equipment. Or were they just a natural precaution around heavy loads?

  Damn. I decided following a trail of welding gear wasn’t going to narrow down anything. I’d have to find another way to identify the bad seeds.

  Chapter 10

  When our shuttle and all the other cargo-drones met up inside a blast-pan at the spaceport, I was paranoid all over again.

  It would be so easy for our opponents to destroy us right now. We were out in the open, and a simple accident might land a thousand tons of spacecraft on our circle of staff and cargo.

  When the big transport lifter finally came down from orbit, it was quite a sight. Things had progressed in the area of large atmospheric cargo ships since I’d last been awake.

  How long ago had that been? A decade? I hadn’t checked, and I didn’t think I wanted to know the truth. The idea of lying dormant in an organic soup for years was disturbing.

  The ship landed on the roof, and we gathered around it. Most watched the shuttle, the engine, and the lab people who were doing the loading—but I watched the crowd. I watched their hands as they moved from pocket to nose, to equipment and back again. No one drew a weapon, but I watched them still in case they did.

  A corporal walked up and handed me a tunic of dark blue and pants of gray—neatly folded. “These are for you, sir.”

  I lit up and took them. I was glad to see a fresh uniform. My first one had been destroyed, and the second had been singed by radiation beams.

  “Thank you, Corporal,” I said.

  “Someone has issued you the good stuff, sir. The jacket, the pants—they both self-repair.”

  I laughed. “I might need that capability soon. The clothes have got to fit the man.”

  We exchanged an appropriate salute, and he spun away. I found a door to duck behind and was dressed right in two minutes.

  Boarding the ship after the generating engine was loaded in the aft hold, I saw Colonel Hughes give me a double-take. She walked over to my side, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at me.

  “Didn’t Knox have a talk with you?” she asked, interposing her small form between myself and the big transport hatchway.

  “He certainly did. He insisted I join you on this jaunt into space.” I neatly sidestepped her and spoke over my shoulder as I did so. “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been off-planet, and I’m looking forward to it.”

  She frowned after me in confusion. Had she possibly been the one pushing for my removal? Or had someone else made the call? I thought during our last meeting she’d been in agreement with me on the idea of my tagging along—but maybe that had been for show.

  It hardly mattered—only killing me would keep me off their ship.

  Hughes didn’t argue any further, but she did watch as I mounted the short flight of steps and vanished into the interior.

  It was as spacious inside as it had looked from the spaceport. I found a seat, strapped in, and waited.

  Noticing Fillmore across the cabin, I caught a snotty look from him. I was thinking there might be something personal behind his unpleasant expression, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. It could be that he didn’t like to fly—hell, maybe it was just the man’s charming personality.

  Finally, he screwed up his courage enough to speak to me.

  “Chief?” he said. “Chief Gray—that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what I’m called, Sean.”

  “What are you doing aboard this ship? I thought that was—settled. We’ve got a real security team now. We can’t have you causing trouble and confusion.”

  “That’s very considerate of you, Dr. Fillmore,” I told him, “but I’m not inconve
nienced in any way by this trip. I’m enjoying the ride, as a matter of fact.”

  The transport hadn’t taken off yet, but it was rumbling its jets ominously.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Fillmore said irritably.

  Colonel Hughes intervened. She sat down next to Fillmore, strapped herself in and put a hand on his wrist.

  “Major Knox asked for him. We’ve already discussed it. He’s back in.”

  “I wasn’t informed about this!”

  “Look Sean, sometimes, routine decisions are made without consulting you. Sorry to burst your bubble.”

  The two exchanged annoyed glances, and they both fell silent.

  I considered this new state of affairs to be a blessing. They were each galling in their own way, but they currently cancelled each other out as a pleasant side-effect.

  At last, the silver ship heaved her decks and launched into the sky. The field-generator, something like thirty passengers, and a cargo hold full of our gear was all sent hurtling into the sky.

  We were nose up, lying on our backs. The ship jarred violently as force pinned us to our seats, and one of the techs promptly vomited. Fortunately, he wasn’t in a seat near me.

  I watched white clouds streak by with increasing rapidity—then the cloud cover broke and the blue sky purpled. Soon, it turned black.

  Vomit, which had begun to pool on the empty seat next to the queasy tech, started to drip back onto Sean Fillmore. He swatted the occasional trickle without much luck, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as karma played out before me.

  After several more minutes of hard acceleration, we began to feel the relative relief of freefall. We moved up into orbit and began to float. Our harnesses kept us tethered to our seats.

  Again, I carefully swept my eyes over the crowd. Most people were relatively helpless in null-G. You had to be specially trained to handle yourself in such a foreign environment. Knox and most of his men sat near each other—some of them started to break-down weapons and polish or swap out lenses.

  The details about why escaped my memory, but I knew I had been trained in this way. It felt very familiar, and if anyone had been considering making a move, I knew this would be an opportune time.

  As nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I decided to move on.

  “I’m going to check on the cargo,” I told Colonel Hughes.

  She and Fillmore had been having an intense discussion, but the background noise in the main cabin had prevented me from overhearing it. I rather thought the topic of contention might have been me.

  Hughes nodded to me dismissively, and I unbuckled my harness. Soon, I was floating toward the circular hatch in the deck at the back of the passenger cabin.

  The hatch clanked open into my face, and I saw Toby behind it.

  “I didn’t know you made it aboard the ship,” I said.

  He looked me up and down in equal surprise. “…and I understood that you were to be excluded as unnecessary.”

  “Any idea as to why?”

  He shrugged. “A message from on-high, I suppose. I know Dr. Fillmore has been communicating with a lot of people, trying to figure out who sent you and why. After he was unable to get a precise answer about the culprit who signed your orders, he’s been speaking to Colonel Hughes about removing you—as a precaution.”

  “Their best move would be to keep me around,” I pointed out. “Perhaps you could mention that to them, since you witnessed the events on the elevator.”

  Toby shrugged again. “I’m puzzled that I need to tell you this, but no one listens to me. They’d probably like you better if I disparaged you with complaints.”

  “You’re a big help, punk.”

  “That’s also a derogatory labeling-word, you know.”

  I snorted. “Tough.”

  He floated carefully away in irritation, and I slid smoothly through the various doors and hatches to the cargo area. There, at least, things did look secure. There were only two spacers in the chamber—transport crewmen, not any of our people. They looked bored, indicating they belonged there.

  “Anyone guarding the engine?” I asked them.

  One pointed to his belt, where a sidearm was holstered. Again, it was a radiation unit.

  “These needlers aren’t as effective as a real gun,” he said, “but they won’t punch a hole in the hull of your ship, and the recoil won’t spin your ass around in null-G when you fire one.”

  I nodded to the man. A needler was a radiation-emitting device for very close range—basically a small, hand-held pistol. I didn’t bother to tell him, but I’d seen real combat in null-G, and that pea-shooter wasn’t going to help much if a problem manifested itself.

  “Keep your weapons ready. I was fired at on Earth while escorting this cargo.”

  “We’re in space, pal,” said the first man. “Nobody is sneaking aboard.”

  “Somebody shot at you over an engine?” the second asked in a disbelieving tone.

  “This is a special engine—it’s a prototype. Keep your eyes open.”

  They dismissed me with headshakes and went back to doing nothing. I continued to glide down gleaming passages to inspect the rest of the ship.

  Next, I followed the sound of raised voices to the engine room. There I found several techs having an argument. One of them was Dr. Brandt. She had changed once again, into that bright coverall, which was more appropriate for working while weightless aboard a spacecraft.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” a woman told her. “The device was supposed to come aboard without damage from gunfire.”

  “I didn’t even know there was a problem,” one of the techs defended, “until you ran that diagnostic panel minutes ago.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Brandt said. “We’ve wasted our time—everything.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting.

  The two techs that Dr. Brandt had been haranguing took their cue and wisely melted away into an adjoining compartment. I floated closer without apology. To align myself with Brandt’s face, I spun in the air as if it was my natural environment.

  “Oh… Chief Gray,” she said. “I didn’t realize—”

  “That I hadn’t been kicked off the roster after all?” I asked her with a poker face.

  She shrugged.

  “Yeah…” I said. “I gathered from the gang in general that the plan was to ditch me on Earth. But here I am.”

  “It wasn’t my decision.”

  “Did you people have a meeting while I was babysitting the generator and decide it was time to remove me from your team?”

  “Certainly not—none of that kind of input was from me anyway,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got no hard feelings about it. So, what’s wrong with the engine?”

  She shot me a look. “You overheard that? Oh, of course you did. It’s your job to snoop around. Well, the two situations are related.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You insisted on being the only person to ride the freight elevator up with the field-generating engine, right?”

  “No, I didn’t insist on ‘being the only one’. I insisted on not letting it out of my sight.”

  “That’s pretty much the same thing, as there wasn’t much room on the platform. But in any case, it’s failing its diagnostic check, and I’m not sure we can fix it.”

  That caught my attention. Perhaps my mission had failed already.

  “What does the diagnostic check say?”

  “It’s a calibration issue. The generator is very delicate, especially before installation. Once active, it’s designed to run continuously, but we can’t start it up until we secure it into its permanent place. Are you following me?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Good. Well, this machine isn’t going to fire-up right. That’s what the diagnostics are saying.”

  Frowning, I considered the problem. “You tested it before and after the elevator ride?”

  “Before we packed it, and once we got it i
nto the hold.”

  “Could a radiation pulse damage the unit?”

  Brandt narrowed her eyes at me and put her hands on her hips. She seemed suspicious. “Why exactly do you ask?”

  I explained about the ambush I’d experienced in the elevator. She squinted at me thoughtfully, and noticed my ear. Changing her mood, she clucked in concern. Calling me over, she applied herself to patching me up as we talked.

  “Hold still so I can have a look at that.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did I mention before that my earliest training was as a medical doctor?”

  “Nope, but it figures.” I said, smiling.

  “Oh really?”

  She pulled my head around to where she wanted it, and I let her.

  As she worked, her body was near, and she smelled nice. I had no idea how long it had been since I was this close to a woman.

  Her attractive figure wasn’t exactly helping me to keep my priorities straight, and when she pressed herself against my arm as she worked on my ear… Well, the contact was impossible for me to ignore.

  “You were right to wonder about a radiation burst,” she said. “A discharge like that could damage my engine. It wouldn’t have to show physical evidence, but it could easily disrupt the internal fields…”

  Pausing, she lowered bright, green eyes but then looked up to meet my own. She was very close and very intent.

  “Do you think they were trying to shoot at my engine?” she asked me, almost whispering, “…or were they trying to hurt you?”

  I permitted the corner of my mouth to smile as I enjoyed her proximity and concern. “I was doing my damnedest to make sure they weren’t hitting anything.”

  “A lot of the control nodules are located at the top of the configuration,” she said. “I really hope they’re is okay… We’ll have to run a diagnostic script.”

  “Nodules? That almost sounds organic. Are you talking about that fuse box thing with nano-fiber cables running out of it?” I asked.

  “Exactly.” She went back to patching up my injury.

  “Hmm… It could be that I was overvaluing my priority as a target on that elevator ride—maybe they were shooting at the engine.”