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“Aybar! Can you hear me?” he called into the com but got no response. He switched channels.
“Yan, come in!” he shouted.
“Yan here. My God, are you all right?” she said.
“Affirmative,” he said, “but the skiff isn’t. Can you get a shuttle out here?”
“Negative,” came her reply, scratching over the com line. “The displacement waves are coming in at unpredictable intervals, and they’re getting stronger. They’re too powerful for the shuttles. I may have to shut down the scoops entirely.”
“Yan, if Aybar can’t get the skiff under control, she’ll drift right into the path of the next wave,” Renwick said.
“Understood. But I can’t do anything about that right now. Wait... hold on...” she trailed off, the line cracking with static. Interminable seconds passed before she came back on the line. “It’s your wife, Renwick. The Gataan frigate crew is going to mount a rescue of you and the skiff.”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Renwick, you know you can’t stop them. They’re Gataan.”
“Yan, it’s far too dangerous. Those frigates aren’t strong enough and you know it. It’s suicide!” he said. The line stayed quiet a few seconds more.
“They’re coming out. There’s nothing I can do to stop them. You know your wife better than I do, she can be very insistent, and she insists on rescuing you,” came back Yan.
“Just keep her off that frigate,” he said pointedly.
“That I can do,” replied Yan.
“Understood,” he said back, then looked up to the skiff, still spinning away from him in its slow death spiral. Then something else caught his eye, also moving away from the ship. “Yan, van you get a visual display on me?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just do it!” There was another moment’s silence.
“Oh shit,” she said. “One of the modules has detached from your pack.”
“I can see it from here. Probably twenty meters from me and moving away. Must have come off during my hard landing,” he said. “Can we get the ship running with only one diffuser?”
“We’ll lose critical time,” she said.
“Keep tracking it. And get that access hatch back open. I’m heading up there now.” Then he cut the channel to Yan and opened the channel back to the skiff. It was still silent and Aybar didn’t respond to any of his hails. He had no choice. He started his long and lonely climb.
#
WHEN HE GOT TO THE access hatch it was open again. He struggled inside, his strength nearing its endurance limits. He detached the module from his back pack and looked back out the hatch opening. The second module was spinning slowly, still within a tempting few meters of the Kali but an almost unreachable gulf from him.
“Are you aboard, Renwick?” called Yan.
“Affirmative.”
“Then get that module installed.” Renwick looked around the maintenance deck of the scoop tower. It was large, dimly lit, and split into two identical sections.
“Which side first?” he asked.
“The port diffuser is in worse shape,” said Yan. Renwick looked to his left, hefted the module again, and started down a wide hall. When he entered the module control room overhead lights lit up. There were monitors showing data in a language he couldn’t read coupled with running lights glowing in different colors. He had no way of knowing what colors meant what in relation to what systems. He located the diffuser module, packed into a large console system that extended through the floor.
“I’ve located the module,” he said into his com. “How do I remove it?”
“Do you see a panel on the wall to your left?” it was Amanda’s voice. It made sense. She would know the systems better than anyone else, even Yan.
“I see it,” he acknowledged. The panel was full of control icons of different colors with the strange data characters on them. The thought that the android was sending him to his doom with each instruction crossed his mind.
“Press the buttons in the following order: amber, green, blue, amber, red, orange,” she said. He did. The entire pane turned amber.
“If the panel is all amber, disengage the control field brackets,” Amanda said. Renwick looked down. The module was secured by a pair of brackets and a working suspensor field. He pulled the brackets back and snapped them open. They slid back mechanically and the suspensor field disengaged.
“Okay,” he said.
“You can remove the old module now,” Amanda said. He set down the new module and then reached down and pulled the old module from its pocket. It came out effortlessly. He set it aside next to the new module.
“Got it,” he said.
“Place the new module in the pocket and engage the control field. It should be immediately operational,” said Amanda. Renwick did as instructed. The new module slid in and the panel turned from amber to a light blue.
“Got a blue light here,” he said.
“Confirmed, it’s operational,” came Yan’s voice. Renwick went back to the access hatch and looked out. What he saw terrified him. The skiff was still spinning, but now the Gataan frigate had arrived and was attempting to contact it with a suspensor field. The frigate was far too high above the skiff, and far too close to the path of the waves.
“Renwick, this is Yan,” her voice came over a private channel, not the open com. “We have a problem.”
“Another one?”
“This is serious. The new diffuser is running perfectly. Unfortunately that’s increasing the imbalance in the damaged one. It could fail altogether,” she said.
“And if that happens?” he asked. Before she could reply the ship lurched and a massive plume of dark matter spewed out of the starboard diffuser, roiling like an uncoiled snake.
Right at the frigate.
“Yan, you’ve got to get that frigate-“ he never finished his sentence.
He was cut off by an explosion of light and turbulence, thrusting him back against the diffuser deck wall. He struggled to his feet seconds later, trying to regain his senses. He staggered to the open hatch and looked out.
The frigate was in multiple pieces, burning and drifting swiftly away from the Kali. The skiff was completely gone. In its place a few bits of gleaming metal and hyper-heated oxygen molecules burned their brief lives away. There was no sign of Aybar.
He looked frantically around, trying to locate the second diffuser module. He found it, spinning rapidly way from the ship and down towards the engine intakes. He tried the com, but it was fried, overloaded by the explosion.
He looked down at the module, moving further and further away with every second, and did the only thing he thought he could do to save the mission; he pushed off from the hatch and fired his directional cone jets, screaming off into open space towards the module as fast as he could go.
#
RENWICK REACHED OUT his hands as he accelerated towards the module. He was closing at a crazy speed, acting out of fear and desperation. He adjusted his directional jets and fired again, correcting his course as he focused on the module. At the last possible second he cut the jets, inverted them, and fired again to slow his approach. The effect was minimal; the jets had expended their fuel. He continued to close, his breath pounding in his own ears the only sound in empty space. Only seconds remained before he would either impact against the module or slip past it and into open space.
He strained with all his strength, stretching himself out to grab any part of the spinning module. His hands came close, but he had miscalculated. He shot by the module and continued accelerating towards the engine intakes, and certain death.
He was strangely calm, knowing he had done all he could in the situation. He turned to see the ship one last time; the Kali gleaming in space, illuminated by her running lights, the distortion of the diffuser waves as they poured out of the port, the gentle spinning of the module in open space. He took in a deep breath and thought of Yan. Being with her had been a good thing, the only good thing of this mission of misfortune. He grieved briefly for Aybar; but he knew she wouldn’t tolerate it, she wasn’t that kind of woman. Finally he closed his eyes.
“No regrets,” he said aloud, the sound of his own voice echoing in his EVA helmet. He knew he had precious few minutes now until the engine intakes sucked him in and his life ended.
He hardly noticed the first tug of the suspensor field in his reverie. He thought it was his imagination at first, some hallucination of false hope. When the tug came a second time he was almost sure his momentum had changed. He held back from opening his eyes, not wanting to break the illusion of a rescue he knew was impossible, only to have it dashed by the reality of his impending doom. The third tug got his attention.
He opened his eyes to a sight that he couldn’t believe. He was indeed being tugged back towards the scoop neck of the Kali, but not a by a rescue shuttle.
Above him the last remaining Soloth HuK was fighting the turbulence of the distortion waves, riding in the wake of the Kali’s lone working diffuser. Renwick determined the craft must have a suspensor field on him and the module as well, as it was no longer spinning. He watched as it was being steadily lowered to the neck of the Kali, where the android Thorne was waiting for it. He watched as Thorne took the module in both hands, then started the rapid walk up the scoop neck towards the access hatch, just like in Amanda’s animation.
With the transfer concluded, Renwick started being reeled in by the HuK. He wanted to believe there was some other explanation for his circumstance than the obvious, but he couldn’t. There was no doubt who was drawing him into the alien vessel.
What he doubted was Pal Zueros’ intent in doing so.
#
“YOU’RE EXTREMELY LUCKY,” said Zueros to Renwick after he had removed his EVA helmet. “You only had about a minute and a half of environment left.”
Renwick sat next to Zueros in a safety couch in the cockpit of the small but powerful craft. Renwick determined it was about twice the size of the skiff and half the size of the Gataan frigate that had just been lost. He said nothing to his nemesis. They both watched as the android Thorne emerged from the access hatch on the scoop neck, having completed the repair on the starboard diffuser, which was even now re-firing. Once both diffusers were fully operational, Thorne closed the hatch and began his descent back down the neck.
“I could destroy the robot from here,” said Zueros, “if that is what you want.”
“No,” said Renwick quickly. Zueros shrugged.
“I assumed you wanted the androids gone since you were foolish enough to attempt a repair like that alone. Insane,” Zueros commented.
“You’re not the first to express that opinion,” said Renwick. Then he turned towards the alien. “What the hell do you want?” he finished. Zueros started turning the HuK back towards the Kali’s stern and the landing deck.
“We can discuss that inside,” he said.
“We’ll discuss it now. And what makes you think Captain Yan will let you inside?” said Renwick.
“I do have the big guns in this fight,” said Zueros. “And I have you.”
Renwick snorted. “If you think that will keep Yan from blowing this ship to bits you’re as insane as I am. She values the Kali far more than me.”
“Does she now?” retorted Zueros. “I think not. But I don’t want to fight, Renwick. I want the Kali as much as Yan does.”
“For your own nefarious purposes, no doubt. Whatever they are,” said Renwick.
“No, not ‘nefarious’. We both want the same thing, Renwick. I want to get to the station and shut down that emitter, before it does any more damage,” said Zueros.
“And why should I believe that?”
“Oh, I think you know why, Senator,” replied Zueros. “If you don’t know with certainty you’ve surely guessed by now.”
Renwick crossed his arms and feigned ignorance. “And just what is it that you think I supposedly know?” he said. Zueros looked at Renwick.
“That I’m not a Soloth at all. That I’m an agent for a far more powerful race. A race that still seeks to influence the development of its children, before they become too powerful and destroy themselves,” he said.
Renwick spoke what he’d been holding back from Yan and everyone else on board the Kali.
“You’re a Preserver,” he said.
“Yes,” said Zueros, returning his full attention back to flying the HuK.
“I’m a Preserver.”