September 9, 2110

Space City, Brasilia

 

Petra Torrento gratefully ducked into the flight ops building and removed her veiled, wide-brimmed hat. Sheets of sweat, freed from the confines of the hat band, poured down the back of her neck and dribbled into her eyes. She couldn’t wait until she had enough seniority to rate the evening flights.

A crew chief, laden with tools and gear, passed her and nodded. Petra flashed him a smile and gave him the standard greeting. “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”

“At least your primary job is inside,” he said. “Inspections and maintenance on a hundred-plus-degree tarmac? It’s enough to make me doubt my career choice.”

Petra winced. He was right, she had it easy. “Let me get that.” She put her hat back on and grabbed a panel so he could open the door. He stopped at the nearest ship, and she propped it against the tire.

“Thanks for that,” he said.

Petra laughed. “Thank you for keeping me alive.”

Another crew chief approached them and gave Petra a salute.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I was never military.”

He waved her off. “You deserve it.”

Back inside, she leaned against the wall in the cinderblock building and pulled up the data on her wristdisks again. Her stomach flip-flopped as she considered what she needed to do. Maybe they had time – no. Take-off was scheduled for 1445. Not even the first class knuckle-draggers here could complete a three-hour job – plus ops check – in an hour and a half. She dragged herself to the scheduling office.

Clancey looked up from his own read-out. “What’s up, beautiful?”

“Not us.” She took a seat on a worn office chair.

“Whadya mean?”

The holo of the shuttle’s maintenance records soon floated over her wrists. “Here. The paramag juice. It hasn’t been changed in over eighteen months.”

“Aw, it’s alright. This ship’s been a Hangar Queen for the last six. Hour-wise, she’s still good.”

She pulled up the flight records. “She’s on the edge. They had to do so many test flights on her she’s only got a couple morphs left.”

“Paramags doesn’t expire. It can sit there for years –”

“That’s the magnetic nano-particulates – not the matrix. And those tests were in a controlled lab. What’s the data for a two-hundred degree flightline?”

“I forgot,” Clancey mumbled. “You actually know your boat.”

“What’d I miss?” asked Duck as he stuck his head in the doorway.

Clancey swiveled to face him. “Your fearless leader over here’s getting cold feet.”

“It’s not cold feet.” Petra kicked her chair away and paced the length of the small room. “I did the test flights on her.”

“So you know she runs good,” Clancey said.

Petra waved her hands at him. “But it was just me. I don’t feel comfortable taking her up to the Station with a full passenger load.”

“What’s wrong?” Duck leaned against the door jam.

“Paramag juice is on the edge,” Clancey said, smirking.

“Aw, come’on, Pete. It’s my test flight.”

She rounded on her co-pilot. “Which I’m trying to get you back from in one piece.”

Clancey crossed his arms and put on that expression that meant he believed the argument was going to be over as soon as he finished talking. “Hey, it’s Duck’s check flight. But aside from that, aside from being a major milestone in the career of your trusted friend and loyal co, did you take a look at this manifest?” The list of names wavered above his wrists.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s my point. Do you really want to put their lives, leaders of the semi-free world, at risk when we could just delay a day and make sure their ship is safe?”

“No can do, boss lady.” Clancey leaned back. “Their shindig starts on the Station in twelve hours. By the time I can get her in for maintenance, and a check flight, it’ll be all over but the singing.”

“Then they can holo-conference.”

Clancey shook his head. “Pete, if you want to go down to the powers that be and tell him you’re scrubbing the mission, be my guest. My maintenance logs are clean. By my tech order, she’s good to go.”

The sweat felt cold on her skin. If they weren’t going to back her up, she’d have to go alone.

She stopped at the ladies’ room first to wash her face in cold water. Or, what passed for cold water in a tropical climate. Her stomach had settled into a dull throbbing, and her body couldn’t seem to decide if it was going to continue to sweat or shiver, so it went for both.

She’d knocked on Gyro’s office door before she realized the raised voices were coming from the other side. She almost turned and walked away, but her hands automatically went to the knob when she heard her supervisor’s “Come in.”

“Ah, Miss Torrento. This is Lars Fluegel, one of your passengers.”

The short, white-haired man ignored her and continued what must have been a ferocious staring contest with Gyro. “Are we clear, Mr. Franco? I must be on that Station no later than 1900. Anything less would be absolutely unacceptable.”

Gyro actually almost bowed. “Yes, Mr. Fluegel –”

“Dr. Fluegel.”

“Dr. Fluegel, excuse me. You will make that meeting –”

“It is not a ‘meeting,’ Mr. Franco. It is the most important think tank conference of the century. The fate of life on the planet depends my being present.”

Petra scuttled out of the doctor’s path as he stomped out of the room.

Gyro leaned so far back in his chair Petra was afraid he’d tip over. “Oh, Pete, I’m so glad it’s you in that cockpit. Please get that man out of here?”

“Well, sir, I’d like to…”

He came forward with a clump of the front legs. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the paramag juice. I know it’s within specs, but I’m not comfortable with it.”

He set his chin on a hand. Dark rings underlined his brown eyes. He must be exhausted.

“Yeah, I saw that too. Pete, we have to get these people up there. You have no idea what I’ve been dealing with. Please. Just one flight. Take a case up with you and have them change it out at the Station.”

He could have given a direct order, but he left it up to her, as a favor, almost. “Yes, sir. Boarding’s at 1345.”

 

Petra tried not to pout. Duck didn’t say anything, but his trademark smirk was just a little wider than usual. They greeted the passengers and let the attendants handle the rest. Petra settled into the left hand seat and ran through their checklist.

Take-off ran smoothly. The engine combustion cowling morphed from turbofan to ram jet, and within minutes Petra was reconfiguring the amorphous metal to convert the power plant from ram to scram. The acceleration at conversion kicked and pushed them even harder into their thin, hard seat backs.

“Five minutes to firing rockets,” Duck said into the attendants’ channel as they approached Mach ten. “How’s it going back there?”

“Good to hook,” said Allie. “Except there’s a creepy, white-haired guy who keeps hitting on Betty.”

Petra rolled her eyes to herself. “Keep an eye on him, Al. Let me know if he gets out of hand.”

“Yeah, Pete’ll round-house his –”

“Mach eleven,” Petra said.

From inside her headset, Duck and Allie chuckled.

“Preparing for morph to rockets.” The engine should convert automatically, but Petra kept her eye on their speed.

Her fingers flew through the air as the interface on her wristdisks talked to the shuttle’s computer. On the head’s up display, the Sinai Peninsula passed below them.

And far too many red lights appeared before her.

“Control, we’re getting error warnings on our morph drive,” she said, keeping her voice calm.

“Roger that, Raptor,” said a voice from somewhere safe in Texas.

“Attempting to stabilize.”

She dug through the files into the paramag juice readings. A holo of the engine floated before her. She zoomed in to the interior of the cowling. The inlet body looked fine, but she didn’t like the looks of the thin, exterior funnel. In the material stress diagram, what should have been the blue of structurally sound liquid metal was pocked with yellow and red splotches.

“Control, we have juice breakdown,” Petra said. “Repeat, we have juice breakdown. We cannot morph.”

“Roger that, Raptor. Can you maintain current configuration?”

“Not likely,” Petra mumbled. She checked. “Negative, Control. Paramag matrix is too compromised. Estimate failure in two minutes.”

“That’s alright, isn’t it?” Duck asked. “We don’t need the interior cowling for the rocket phase.”

“We don’t have the speed.” Petra unfastened her harness. “Even if we switch to rockets now, put the brain-trust back there through all those gees, we won’t make escape velocity, and we can’t go back and land without the jets.”

“Where are you going?”

She stood and put a gloved hand on Duck’s shoulder. “Training’s over. Once I break off, fire up the shuttle’s integral jets and land her. Preferably on a strip. Try for Oz.”

Duck’s voice followed her as she climbed down the hatch in the floor. “Wait, what are you doing?”

She shut and latched the hatch, then settled into the secondary cockpit attached directly to the drive and fuel tanks.

“We can’t keep her up on the secondary drive,” she said to him through her headset. “Not with the weight of the primary craft plus all the fuel. If I don’t break away, we’re going to crash several thousand pounds of liquid hydrogen and oxidizer into the middle of India. The rockets can get the fuel tanks to the Pacific, but it won’t be pretty.”

Duck squeaked. She hoped he could get it together.

“Control, separation in seven, six,…” She pulled up the controls for the secondary cockpit. “Five, four…” The booster shuttered as clam-shells closed over the air intakes. “Three, two, separate.”

She cut the power an instant before she released the latches. No use separating from the shuttle if it was just going to fry in her exhaust. She counted fourteen fast, nervous heartbeats before Duck had the shuttle’s integral jet drive up and running. He extended the swing-wings and pulled away to the south, clearing her airspace.

“This is going to hurt,” she said. Whatever sad shape the interior cowling had held while its surface was deteriorating, the full blast of the rocket propellant burned it away instantly. She thanked the designer for the directional thrust exhaust ports, but she was barely able to trim with the force of the acceleration doing its best to crush her bones into jelly.

Still, it was liquid hydrogen, not solid fuel. India, Thailand, and a bunch of other green countries she couldn’t name flew past. The last time she’d been in Thailand, she’d spent the whole time shopping in Bangkok and hiking around Chiang Mai. This was definitely a different view. When the blue of the Pacific greeted her, she pulled back on the throttle and reopened the forward air intakes to cut thrust. The pressure eased as she went into free-fall. One more adjustment to the exhaust manifold to direct the rocket and fuel cells directly down – wouldn’t want them continuing their flight and smashing into a bunch of turtles – and she jettisoned the little command pod away from the multi-bazillion dollar “reusable” power plant. Her chutes opened automatically, and she floated into the sea.

Petra tripled-checked the emergency beacon eight times and tried her hardest not to think. She was in the kim-chee now. She had just destroyed a space shuttle and possibly killed several dozen highly important international leaders. And a few less-well-known people who were good friends. It didn’t seem fair she should be safe in her hot little tin can, rolling around on the ocean.

She removed her helmet and said a prayer for the people she’d probably just sentenced to die. As an afterthought, she said one for herself, although at the moment being swallowed by a wave sounded preferable to the political storm she’d face otherwise. Still, God has a plan and all that.

“Raptor II, come in,” said a staticky voice from the radio.

She wiped away the tears, surprised to be glad to hear from her rescuers. “Raptor II here.”

“Stand by for boarding.”

She unlatched her seat straps, but didn’t open the hatch. Best to let the pros at it. Before long, light and a cool breeze filled the cabin. The parajumper clipped her into the harness, and she rode the line with him up to the hovering chopper.

An awaiting medic gave her the once-over before agreeing to hand her a head set. Before she could ask, the pilot twisted back in his seat.

“No casualties. Your main bird landed A-OK down in Oz. Looks like we’ll be able to salvage the command pod and the rocket, as well. Nice bit of flying.”

She smiled weakly, knowing if he knew the whole truth, that she had known they shouldn’t have taken off but she did anyway, they’d probably shove her back out the door.

She heard no hint of what her fate would be the entire flight to the carrier. To her surprise, a VTOL flew her back to Space City. She didn’t think she warranted the special treatment, but maybe they wanted to prosecute her as soon as possible. Far too quickly, she was back in front of Gyro’s desk.

His eyes had sunk into his skull. The dark lines now ringed all the way around.

It must be taking a lot out of him to have to can her.

“Sir,” she said before he could speak. “I formally tender my resignation.”

“What?”

“I acted recklessly and without regard for my passengers or Agency assets. I resign from the Agency.”

He shook his head. “You can’t resign, Pete.”

“Why not?” Did they need her to stay in to punish her officially?

“Because the hero doesn’t resign.”

She opened her mouth, but found nothing to say and shut it again.

“As my last official duty, it is my honor to award you with the Flying Shield, First Class.” He rose from the desk and pinned the silver medal to her flightsuit epaulet. “For exceptional bravery, coolness under fire, and all that stuff.”

Her mind swam, but settled on a single thought. “‘Last official duty’? What do you mean, sir?”

He gave her a sad smile. “For careless disregard of passengers and Agency assets, I have been asked to resign.”

He shook her hand and shuffled to the door, but stopped with his hand on the knob.

“Stay here a bit. There’s someone else that wants to see you.”

As he shut the door, she sat heavily on the edge of his desk, landing on a name plaque and knocking over a photograph. Before her thoughts could settle into anything coherent, the door opened, and Rey Seren stepped through.

She snapped to attention. He was a little greyer than the last time she’d seen him, but still lean. The sneer was new. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him upset.

“Idiots,” he said. “Can’t even give you a proper ceremony ‘cus it’d be too much public admission of guilt.” He finally looked up. “Take it easy. We’re not at the Academy anymore.”

Her shoulders relaxed somewhat. Seren had always been straight with his students. “I have no idea what’s going on,” she said.

He took a seat in front of her and put his feet on the desk. “Easy. You called them on something, they blew you off. You saved their bacon. Now they need to get rid of you as fast as possible.”

He clasped his hands behind his head. “Which may work out better for you, anyway. How would you like a job?”