Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship (22 page)

Mach pulled himself around the pod’s outer shell until he found a small porthole. He peered inside and saw no movement. There was a light on, though, casting angular shadows among the console desk and flight chair.
 

“It’s a ship,” Mach said to Adira. “Not just a pod after all.”

“Huh, clever disguise,” she said. “Ah, found it. Give me a hand here.”

Adira had fitted the tool into a narrow slit.

“Just keep turning,” Adira said. “It’s the manual airlock control.”

“This isn’t exactly stealthy,” Mach said. “Whoever is in there is going to know what’s going on.”

A burst of static exploded over their comm channel, making Mach wince with the unexpected blare of white noise. Adira yelled out but continued to turn the airlock release bolt. Mach stared back to the orbital, convinced the Black Swan or one of her many goons suspected what they were doing, but a small, almost digital voice spoke over the comm channel.
 

“Who’s out there? I’m armed and not afraid to blast you into space.”

“Is that you, Tulula?” Adira asked as both she and Mach continued to wind the airlock bolt. The hatch was starting to open, a few millimeters at a time.

“Who’s asking? I’ve paid the Swan this week; I was promised I’d be left alone.”

“We mean you no harm,” Mach said. “Look, I’ll come to the porthole; you can see me. We’re nothing to do with the Black Swan. We’ve come to help you.”

“I don’t need helping,” the small voice said. Mach detected a considerable tremble of fear.
 

“Tulula, you’re a vestan engineer, aren’t you? Well, we’ve come to hire you.”

“No, can’t be hired. I stay here.”

“Listen to me, we haven’t come to cause any trouble, but if you stay here, the Black Swan is going to do something you really don’t want to happen.” Mach left the unwinding to Adira and floated around to the porthole. When he peered through, he saw the small vestan hunched over her console desk. He waved and smiled. “See, I’m just here to help you. The truth is we were hired to kill you, but we couldn’t do it. We just want to get away, get as far from this place as we can. We have transport; we can help you.”

He didn’t like lying to the vestan, but he didn’t see any other option with their time running out.

“You’re the people from the Jaguar Mk1, aren’t you?” the vestan said, standing up from her console and coming closer to the porthole. She was shorter than most vestans, probably no more than a meter and a half tall. She had bright yellow hair plaited into four ponytails. Two flopped down on either side of her head, reaching down to a small, pointed chin. Large yellow eyes looked out at him with a mix of wonder and fear.
 

Like most vestans she had altered her physical makeup to the most practical for her designated lifestyle. She had double-jointed elbows and fingers, allowing her to manipulate complicated tools with ease. Her short size meant she could probably fit into almost any ship’s maintenance hatches.
 

Her near-black skin was smooth, almost glossy where it showed around her neck and upper arms. A leather jerkin, stained dark with grease and oil, featured a multitude of pockets and loops, all of which seemed to carry one type of tool or another.
 

“The Jaguar, yes,” Mach said, smiling, trying to appear friendly and nonthreatening. “How did you know?”

She turned and pointed to a bank of computers lining the left side of the pod. It reminded Mach of Babcock’s place. She must have been listening in on flight control, but how did she know his ship was a Jaguar?

“How did you get that ship? They’re not even in general use yet,” the vestan asked.
 

“You know about that, how?” Mach asked. He looked back briefly to Adira; she was nearly done with the airlock, the hatch hanging open at a forty-five-degree angle.
 

“I was one of the principal designers, before I was shipped out here. How does she fly?”

“She doesn’t, not really, that’s why I need your help. I need an engineer to fix the fusion crystal array; something happened during an L-jump and we’ve lost almost all flight capacity apart from thirty percent on the Gamma Drive.”

Mach kept her talking while out of the side of his eye he spotted Adira climbing into the airlock. “Listen, Tulula, we really mean no harm, I promise. I’m not sure what else I can say for you to believe me.”

“There’s one thing,” she said, bringing her face closer to the porthole.

“Name it,” Mach replied, finding himself mesmerized by her huge eyes.

“Take me with you.”

“What?” Adira said.
 

Tulula spun round then back to Mach. “You want me to fix the array, right? Then you take me with you. The Black Swan… she uses me for vestan secrets, and… other things. I can’t take it anymore. And with what happened yesterday to the destroyers, I don’t think there’d be a better time.”

“Let us in and we’ll talk about this,” Mach said. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.”

The vestan hesitated for a moment, her eyes lingering on Mach. Then, as if a switch in her mind had gone off, she nodded. “Okay, come in.”

Mach smiled and pushed himself over to the open airlock. He gave Adira the thumbs-up as the hatch closed behind him and it started to pressurize. When it had equalized with the pod’s interior, the bulkhead opened.
 

Tulula stood there, holding a stun webber.
 

“Walk slowly,” Tulula said. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’m not afraid to shoot.”

Adira inclined her head to show her agreement and stepped into the pod. “It’s not loaded,” she said almost as an afterthought as she spun round, taking in the pod’s interior.
 

Tulula glared at her, lowering the weapon. “How did you know?”

“It’s her business to know these things, don’t worry,” Mach said. He placed a hand on the vestan’s shoulder to show her he meant no harm. “I’m Mach,” he said, “and this is my able colleague, Adira.”

“You already know my name,” Tulula said with a curt nod to both of them. “Now, we ought to get moving if you’re to get your ship away from the orbital.”

“Before we do that,” Adira said, taking off her helmet and shaking her hair out. “What do you know of the attack on the destroyers? Did you see what happened?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try us,” Mach said. “Perhaps it was the Atlantis ship per chance?”

The young vestan narrowed her eyes in that scrutinizing way of her species. “You knew?”

“Of course we do. Why else do you think we have a Jaguar?” Adira said, crossing one leg over another as she sat back.
 

“You’re…. going after it?” Tulula said.
 

“We are if you can help us.”

The vestan engineer whooped with a surprising joy and dashed across to the console, sitting down in the swivel chair. “You’ll take me with you? You promise me?” she said over her shoulder.
 

“Sure,” Mach replied. “Fix our ship and you can stay onboard as long as you want. But we’re going to need to get to the hangar and beyond the Swan’s armed guard first.”
 

Tulula spun the chair to face Mach. “I have a plan. How adverse to risk are you?”

Adira laughed. She jabbed a thumb towards Mach. “This fool doesn’t know the meaning of risk.”

“What do you have in mind?” Mach asked.
 

“Take a seat next to me and we’ll get started,” Tulula said with a glee in her face that Mach couldn’t quite tell was from living like a hermit or genuine insanity. Either way, he sat in the copilot chair and held on as the vestan decoupled the pod from the tether and blasted up and away from the great spinning orbital. The hangar was on the other side, toward the end of a central hub that stretched out for at least a couple klicks from the main orbital structure.
 

When Mach got his breath back from the surprise thrust, he asked, “If this thing could move like this all the time, why hadn’t you left before?”

“Orbital defenses and the old destroyers…” she said, pointing to the field of slowly orbiting debris. “I’ve already disabled their main laser battery array after it took damage from the Atlantis ship, or whatever it was, but they could come online any time.”

“We better be quick, then,” Adira said from the couch, her fists gripping an overhead handle to prevent falling around the pod’s interior.
 

“Here,” Tulula said. “The hangar bay door.”
 

“Can you hack into the
Intrepid
’s comm system?” Mach asked.
 

Tulula brought the pod to a quarter klick away from the hangar and matched its rotation so that it appeared they were stationary. She then brought up a holoscreen over the console and started to mess with the radio system.
 

“I’m not seeing any system to get into,” she said, “which is expected, but there is a live node in there. Something I’ve not seen before.”

“Must be Squid,” Adira said. “Can you get a message to it?”

Tulula manipulated the controls some more before saying she could.
 

“Tell the squad to make sure everyone’s inside the
Intrepid
,” Mach said, “if you’re planning on doing what I think you’re doing.”

The vestan smiled and nodded.
 

“The message is sent. They’re all inside. Now we go in.”

“Go in?” Adira asked. “What do you mean exactly?”

“Once we’re inside, make sure your helmets are on.”

“You’re not…” Adira gripped the overhead handle with both hands. “Oh shit, you are.”

Mach leaned forward as Tulula laughed and launched the pod toward the hangar bay door, her hands speeding across the ship’s controls. As they came closer, Mach could see the hangar doors opening. He could only imagine the surprise of the guards inside.
 

When the door had slid up into the station about halfway, the pod was just a few meters outside. Orange bursts of gunfire lit up the dark space. The pod boomed and rattled as half a dozen rounds struck against its shell. It was clear to Mach it wouldn’t stand too much of that.
 

Tulula raised the pod higher, following the rising hangar bay door.
 

Mach could see the half-dozen armed men and women struggling to open the door behind them.
 

“They won’t get out,” Tulula said, her voice flat. “I’ve overridden the controls. They’ll die of hypoxia in a few minutes. Now we wait.”

For those two solid minutes, Mach had to look away, unable to watch those guards die a horrible death, even if they did pass out after just fifteen seconds due to the pressure difference.
 

“Don’t pity them,” Tulula said. “They’re murderers and rapists. They deserve this fate.” She lowered the pod and navigated it inside the hangar, bringing it next to the Jaguar. It clattered to the landing deck, rocking back and forth until a landing magnet engaged. “We’ve got just a few minutes,” the vestan said, nodding her head to the airlock door already opening.
 

Mach made sure his suit was appropriately set up and made his way over to the airlock. Adira was also suited up and joined him. The vestan took a look around her pod without any show of emotion and stepped out of the airlock with no suit, her body far more hardy to the perils of the vacuum of space than humans.
 

“Patching us into the device onboard the
Intrepid
,” Tulula said.
 

“It’s called Squid,” Mach said.
 

A garbled response came over the comm channel and eventually resolved into Babcock’s surprised voice asking a hundred questions all at once.
 

“Just open the airlock for us, we’ll explain everything.”

When Mach and the others stepped out of Tulula’s pod, alarm klaxons blared.
 

“That’s our cue to get out of here,” the vestan said, dashing across the hangar bay floor, leaping over the still bodies of the guards until she reached the airlock on the side of the Jaguar.
 

Mach and Adira followed her into the craft.
 

Sanchez waited for them on the other side, helping them through to the main cabin area. “What the hell’s going on?” he said. “And who the hell is that?”
 

“Sanchez, this is Tulula. She’s going to help us. Now let’s not hang about here,” Mach said. Then, raising his voice so all could hear him, “Everyone, get to your stations. We’re leaving right this minute.”

Adira raced through to the bridge, where she settled into her position on the lasers, getting the systems online. Danick and Lassea were already firing up the Gamma Drive.
 

Mach showed Tulula to the engine module and introduced her to Babcock and Squid, the latter chirping happily at her.
 

“Can you fix it?” Babcock asked the vestan, the two engineers leaning over the fusion crystal array. The first three of which were dimmed, unusable in their current configuration.
 

“I think so,” Tulula said, leaning closer to inspect the installation. “You have the configuration all wrong. It’s a wonder the LD worked at all.”

“How long will it take?” Mach asked. All around him the klaxons continued to blare. It surely wouldn’t be too long before the Black Swan figured out what had happened, especially as Stessoa was going to come to any minute now.

“I don’t know,” the vestan said, “ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

“You’ve got five.”

“Where are we going from here?” Babcock asked.
 

Mach grinned. “I think you already know the answer to that, old friend. We’re following your signal scan, after all.”

The two engineers, and even Squid, stared at him.
 

“The wormhole?” Babcock said with a hushed, almost reverent tone.
 

“Damn straight. We’re gonna go catch us a fish.”

Today was the day of the arranged meeting. Morgan sat up in bed and watched the sun rise over the distant mountains through his penthouse apartment window. The view was fit for an admiral, albeit a puppet one.