carbotanium hatch slid shut, its seal engaging with a solid clunk.
“Come on, then,” Erick said. He slipped through the floor hatch into the lower deck. His neural nanonics provided him with an image from the starship’s external sensor clusters. The spaceplane was floundering, just metres away from the hull. Without a full navigational datalink, Brendon was having a great deal of trouble inserting the spaceplane’s nose into the hangar’s docking collar. Novice pilots could do better, Erick thought, wincing as reaction-control thrusters fired hard, seconds before the radar dome tip scraped the hull. “Ye gods. We might not have anything left to inspect at this rate.”
The lower deck was severely cramped, comprising an engineering shop for medium-sized electromechanical components, a smaller workshop for electronic repairs, two airlocks, one for the spaceplane hangar, one for EVA work, storage bins, and space armour lockers. Its walls were naked titanium, netted with conduits and pipes.
“Collar engaged,” Andre said. “Madeleine is bringing him in now.”
The whine of actuators carried faintly through the starship’s stress structure into the lower deck. Erick accessed a camera in the hangar, and saw the spaceplane being pulled into the cylindrical chamber. A moth crawling back inside a silver chrysalis. The retracted wings had a clearance measured in centimetres.
He datavised orders into the hangar systems processors. When the spaceplane came to rest, power lines, coolant hoses, and optical cables plugged into umbilical sockets around its fuselage.
“There’s very little data coming out,” Erick said, scanning the docking operations console holoscreen to see the preliminary results of the diagnostic checks. “I can’t get any internal sensors to respond.”
“Is that the processors or the sensors themselves which are malfunctioning?” Andre asked.
“Difficult to tell,” Bev said, hanging from a grab hoop behind Erick to look over his shoulder. “Only ten per cent of the internal databuses are operational, we can’t access the cabin management processors to see where the fault lies. God knows how Brendon ever piloted that thing up here. He’s missing half of his control systems.”
“Brendon is the best,” Madeleine Collun said.
The console’s AV pillar bleeped, showing a single communication circuit was open from the spaceplane. Audio only.
“Anyone out there?” Brendon asked. “Or have you all buggered off to lunch?”
“We’re here, Brendon,” Erick said. “What’s your situation?”
“The atmosphere is really bad, total life-support failure as far as I can make out . . . I’m gulping oxygen from an emergency helmet . . . Get that airlock connected now . . . This is killing my lungs . . . I can smell some kind of plastic burning . . . Acid gas . . .”
“I can’t cycle the cabin atmosphere for him,” Erick datavised to Andre. “Our pumps are working and the hose seals are confirmed, but the spaceplane pressure valves won’t open, there’s no environmental circuit.”
“Get him into the airlock, then,” Andre said. “But don’t let him into the life-support cabin, not yet.”
“Aye, aye.”
“Come on!” Brendon shouted.
“On our way, Brendon.”
Bev ordered the airlock tube to extend. The spaceplane’s fuselage shield panel slid back to reveal the circular airlock hatch below.
“Lucky that worked,” Erick muttered.
Bev was staring into the AV pillar’s projection, watching the airlock tube seal itself to the hatch rim. “It’s a simple power circuit. Nothing delicate about that.”
“But there’s still a supervising processor—Hell.” Environment sensors inside the airlock tube were picking up traces of toxic gases as the spaceplane’s hatch swung open. The console holoscreen switched to a camera inside the metal tube. A curtain of thin blue smoke was wafting out of the hatch. A flickering green light shone inside the cabin. Brendon appeared, pulling himself along a line of closely spaced grab hoops. His yellow ship’s one-piece was smeared with dirt and soot. The copper-mirror visor of the shell-helmet he was wearing covered his face, it was connected to a portable life-support case.
“Why didn’t he put his spacesuit on?” Erick asked.
Brendon waved at the camera. “God, thanks, I couldn’t have lasted much longer. Hey, you haven’t opened the hatch.”
“Brendon, we have to take precautions,” Bev said. “We know the invaders can sequestrate people.”
“Oh, sure, yes. One moment.” He started coughing.
Erick checked the environmental readings again. Fumes were still pouring out of the spaceplane cabin; the airlock tube filters could barely cope.
Brendon opened his visor. His face was deathly white, sweating heavily. He coughed again, flinching at the pain.
“Christ,” Erick muttered. “Brendon, datavise a physiological reading please.”
“Oh God it hurts.” Brendon coughed again, a hoarse croaking sound.
“We’ve got to get him out,” Bev said.
“I don’t get any response from his neural nanonics,” Erick said. “I’m trying to datavise them through the airlock tube’s processor but there isn’t even a carrier code acknowledgement.”
“Erick, he’s in trouble!”
“We don’t know that!”
“Look at him.”
“Look at Lalonde. They can build rivers of light in the sky. Faking up one injured crewman isn’t going to tax them.”
“For God’s sake.” Bev stared at the holoscreen. Brendon was juddering, one hand holding a grab loop as he vomited. Sallow globules of fluid burped out of his mouth, splashing and sticking to the dull-silver wall of the tube opposite.
“We don’t even know if he’s alone,” Erick said. “The hatch into the spaceplane isn’t shut. It won’t respond to my orders. I can’t even shut it, let alone codelock it.”
“Captain,” Bev datavised. “We can’t just leave him in there.”
“Erick is quite right,” Andre replied regretfully. “This whole incident is highly suspicious. It is convenient for somebody who wants to get inside the ship. Too convenient.”
“He’s dying!”
“You may not enter the airlock while the hatch into the spaceplane remains open.”
Bev looked round the utilitarian lower deck in desperation. “All right. How about this? Erick goes up into the lounge and codelocks that hatch behind him, leaving me in here. That way I can take a medical nanonic in to Brendon, and I can check out the spaceplane cabin to make sure there aren’t any xenoc invaders on board.”
“Erick?” Andre asked.
“I’ve no objection.”
“Very well. Do it.”
Erick swam up into the empty lounge, and poised himself on the ladder. Bev’s face was framed by the floor hatch, grinning up at him. “Good luck,” Erick said. He datavised a codelock at the hatch’s seal processor, then turned the manual fail-safe handle ninety degrees.
Bev twisted round as soon as the carbotanium square closed. He pulled a medical nanonic package from a first aid case on the wall. “Hold on, Brendon. I’m coming in.” Red environmental warning lights were flashing on the panel beside the circular airlock tube hatch. Bev datavised his override authority into the management processor, and the hatch began to swing back.
Erick opened a channel into the lounge’s communication net processor, and accessed the lower deck cameras. He watched Bev screw up his face as the fumes blew out of the open hatchway. Emerald green light flared out of the spaceplane’s cabin, sending a thick, blindingly intense beam searing along the airlock tube to wash the lower deck. Caught full square, Bev yelled, his hands coming up instinctively to cover his eyes. A ragged stream of raw white energy shot along the centre of the green light, smashing into him.
The camera failed.
“Bev!” Erick shouted. He sent a stream of instructions into the processor. A visualization of the lower deck’s systems materialized, a ghostly reticulation of coloured lines and blinking symbols.
“Erick, what’s happening?” Andre demanded.
