below the shuttle’s port reaction-mass feed line, an exotic alloy pipe 15 centimeters in diameter pressurized to 3,000 atmospheres.
Michael had just finished when the command pilot called him. The man did not look happy. “What the hell are you up to, Helfort?” he demanded.
“I’ve asked you to turn back,” Michael said, working his way down the ladder, “and you won’t, so now I’ll have to make you.”
“And how will you do that?” The pilot’s voice dripped skepticism.
“Never underestimate a desperate man,” Michael said, his voice calm even though his heart was racing. “I’ve put microgrenades under the port feed line. If you don’t turn back, I’ll set them off.”
The command pilot’s face went dirty gray. “You wouldn’t,” he said.
“Oh, but I will,” Michael said. “Unless you want me to trash your main engines and a whole lot of other stuff as well, I suggest you turn back right now.”
“You’re bluffing.” The pilot had recovered his composure and some of his color. “There’s no way you’d do it. You’d kill us both.”
Michael swore some under his breath. He’d been so sure the pilot would turn back. “I might kill us both,” he said, forcing himself to sound nonchalant, “but since I’m a dead man either way, what have I got to lose?”
“You are so full of shit, Helfort.” The pilot sounded confident.
“I’ll take that as no, shall I?” Michael asked. “Right, Captain Asswipe; watch and learn.” Michael picked up his rifle and made his way to the very front of the cargo bay, stopping just short of the passenger galley. He clipped his safety line to a ringbolt, then brought the rifle up and rested it on a seat back, an awkward business thanks to his damaged shoulder. “Last chance,” he called out.
“Fuck off!” the pilot snapped. “You won’t do it.”
“I think I will,” Michael said. He took careful aim and put a single round into the junction box packed with microgrenades.
For one heart-stopping moment, Michael thought the grenades had failed to fire. Then they did. The blast filled the cargo bay with a sheet of intense white light and a cloud of ionized gas and smoke, the shuttle bucking under his feet as the shock front ripped through the airframe. “That should do it,” he said, throwing himself behind the galley bulkhead.
Nothing happened. A few seconds later, a lot did and in a very short amount of time. A small explosion followed the first; then the shuttle shuddered as a massive blast ripped through the cargo bay.
The shuttle lurched hard to one side into a slow tumbling roll as more explosions followed. Its overtaxed artgrav gave up the unequal fight. It shut down, and Commitment’s gravity took over. Thanks to the shuttle’s extreme nose-up attitude, the deck was now so steep that Michael could not stand up. His feet shot from under him. He dropped to the deck and into the shattered remnants of the galley. Around him, the whole shuttle shuddered, a hammering so violent that he thought complete structural failure had to be only seconds away.
Michael commed the command pilot. “Having fun now?” he asked through pain-gritted teeth, head spinning and nausea rising as his overloaded brain tried to work out which way was up, a problem thanks to his ruptured ears. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and wondered if he might not have overdone the microgrenades a touch. “I certainly am.”
“You’ve killed us all,” the man screeched. His face was white and beaded with sweat. Around him, the flight deck was raucous with the cacophonous racket of multiple alarms.
“That all depends on how good a pilot you are,” Michael replied. “Now, it’s only a guess, but I’d say you’ve lost the port main engine, the starboard main engine’s tripped out, and all of your primary and backup hydraulics have gone as well. Am I right?”
“You maniac,” the pilot snarled.
“I’ll take that as a yes, shall I? Michael said. “I hope you’ve been practicing your dead stick reentries, because that’s the only way you’ll get us down alive. Just thank your lucky stars I pulled the pin before we reached orbit.”
“I going to tear your fucking heart out,” the pilot screamed.
“Since that means we’d have made it dirtside, I look forward to you trying. Now shut up, get us down, and let me know when we can bail out.”
Michael cut the comm before the man could respond. He released his line and slid down the deck until he reached a crew seat. He dragged himself into it and sat down. Jury-rigging the safety harness to avoid the knife, he armed the seat’s escape capsule and sat back to wait, doing his best to ignore the pain that consumed his entire body. There was nothing he could do now. His life was in the hands of the command pilot. Provided that his little stunt hadn’t done more damage than he’d planned, the man had a reasonable chance of getting the shuttle down low and slowly enough that they could both bail out and survive.
A thought struck him. He commed the pilot. “Hey, asswipe,” he said.
“What?” The man still looked terrified.
“Settle down. You can do this.”
“You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”
“Tell me.”
“As well as everything else, we’ve lost hydraulics, and that means I’ll never control this thing long enough for us to slow down and bail out. There’s a limit to what the reaction control system can do, you know. We’re dead, Helfort.”
“Why would-”
“Because you want to live, you idiot! Now do it.”
“Okay, okay.”
It took Michael only seconds to see the damage for himself. The command pilot had not been exaggerating. The shuttle was doomed. Without hydraulics, the wings would stay fully retracted, and no wings meant no control as the air thickened. The problem was that the pilot had to do two things at once: keep the shuttle stable and slow down. If he failed, the shuttle would disintegrate and they were both dead men.
“Damn, damn, damn,” Michael swore under his breath. If only … An idea popped fully formed into his head. Michael put it to the AI, and ten seconds later he had his answer. It would be touch and go, but they might still have a chance.
“Captain,” he said. “Can you bring the starboard main engine back online?”
“I can, though it’s not in very good shape. I don’t know how long it’ll hold up.”
“We won’t need it for long. How’s the reaction control system?”
“The RCS is nominal, unlike everything else.”
“Okay; I think there’s something we can do.”
Hope brightened the man’s eyes. “There is?”
Michael forwarded the AI’s analysis. “Have a look at this,” he said. “The AI thinks it’ll work.”
“Mmm,” the pilot said. “Not sure if the RCS can keep us stable long enough, but I can use the main engine to vector the thrust, which will help. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”
Michael nodded. “Sure is,” he said. “Hey, look. I’m sorry about the Captain Asswipe thing. What’s your name?”
“Karroubi, Jakob Karroubi.”
“Good luck, Jakob.”
Michael sat back and patched his neuronics into the holocam behind Karroubi. It was if he were sitting on the pilot’s shoulder. He looked at the same screens, the same status boards, the same everything. It was unnerving, and for a moment Michael felt for the man. With the crippled shuttle now plummeting earthward, he had a huge challenge on his hands.
Karroubi fired the reaction jets to spin the shuttle around. Now the stern faced the onrushing air. A fresh set
