Double Jeopardy

By Kevin J. Phyland

The whole ship rang like a bell, forcing me rudely awake and alert. I could feel the vibration throughout the interior of the small courier ship as I hastily reviewed the red lights which had suddenly appeared around the thruster board.

The rear port thruster had shut down from an obstruction to the plasma flow and the imbalance had shut down the starboard thruster as well. I was coasting through space now with just attitude jets to manoeuvre with, and in the main belt asteroids, some big rocks with which to contend.

I queried the onboard smartcomp. “Any thoughts on what happened, Shep?”

Naming my AI after my childhood dog didn’t seem nearly as clever now as when I did it.

“Based on the shape of the plasma flow before cutoff and the vibrations registered I surmise something hit the engine causing a glancing blow. Probably a meteoroid. The engine bell is slightly deformed. It will need to be reshaped to tolerance level for the engine to reignite.”

“Can I do an EVA and fix it?” I asked more out of hope than expectation.

“Negative. You will need something to push against and that’s not really possible in space. You will need to land somewhere.”

I checked the monitors outside. A whole lot of black nothing even for the belt. Despite being hit by a meteoroid, space is pretty empty.

“Anything nearby?”

Shep made one of its occasional attempts at being human and released what sounded suspiciously like a snort. “There is a largeish asteroid just eighty kilometres from you which you can reach if you are careful in your attitude jet usage.”

By this I understood that Shep would be undertaking the rendezvous.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s get there and see how much trouble we’re in.”

I was reluctant to send out an SOS due to both the expense and the embarrassment involved, so a visual inspection first couldn’t possibly hurt.

In idle curiosity I asked about our destination.

“Catalogue calls it 298 Baptistina,” said Shep. “It’s about 21 kilometres in diameter and surprisingly spherically symmetric. Gravity will hold the ship down if we don’t bounce too much, but I wouldn’t try a high jump. You might just reach orbit.” Shep gave another exaggerated snort.

Shep brought the small craft down to the surface of Baptistina as smoothly as was possible. Not really designed for landings, the courier had landed on its loading access skids, much like an old scissor lift.

Milligee is harder to deal with than free-fall. It’s a regime where gravity is more like a guideline than a strict law.

I then proceeded to prove it by making a highlight reel worthy of Sir Isaac Newton’s Funniest Home Videos.

Using a powered suit requires finesse. Not something I was renowned for, but powersuits are essential for solo flights, when you have to do everything unassisted.

So when I swung the three kilo mallet at the deformed engine bell Newton three reminded me of its immutability. As the mallet hit the metal and stopped, I proceeded to shoot up in the air, flailing ridiculously. I landed awkwardly about ten metres away, lucky not to have cracked my face plate.

I looked around, half expecting somebody to be laughing at me. Shep obliged in its own mechanical way.

“Try shorter hits. I’ll monitor for accuracy. Currently the bell is at 97 percent correct geometry. If you let me control your suit I can do it fairly quickly.” There was an unheard question there.

“Ok,” I said, and became Shep’s marionette for a few minutes.

After a while Shep interrupted. “Carlos, we have company.”

“Wha?” I said, startled out of the vague reverie I had drifted into.

“I had noticed a gravitational wavelet before we landed. It had the signature of a small ship. I assumed it had left the area but it must have landed just over the horizon. I detect a suited figure freewalking towards you.”

Short choppy sentences were not like Shep.

“Trouble?” I enquired.

Our little dialogue was interrupted by a harsh screech in my headphones and a masked voice told me to “throw the weapon away.”

Since I didn’t have a weapon I assumed they meant the mallet. As I was about to throw it behind me, Shep vocalled me in the emergency band, “Go limp!”

There was urgency there and I did so.

Immediately the suit locked up in some strange places. Knees, shoulders, back. Then the suit hurled the mallet up and away into the starry blackness behind me.

The intruder sounded amused. “I said throw it away, not put it into solar orbit!”

I watched them. They were holding a torch welder. Useful for getting at tricky places for hot welds. Easily as useful for melting holes in space suits.

“I just need you to give me the exotic matter container you’re carrying and I’ll be on my way. And you may be too.”

Light dawned. Somebody had spotted the manifest when I left the base on Ganymede and thought to make a quick pirate run.

Shep's voice broke in on the emergency channel. “Just stall for a minute if you can. I'm working on something.”

Putting both my hands in the air I leaned against the engine bell. “Hi. My name is Carlos. Can we reach some sort of accommodation here without anybody getting hurt?”

“Sure,” the pirate said. “Just get the exotic matter and give it to me. Since I can't actually let you back into your ship you'll need to use the hold door. Get your ship to open it for me.”

I chewed on this. They were obviously familiar with my ship. Just as I was about to make up some problem with the computer Shep closed the cockpit door leaving the pirate without a way in, and me too. It occurred to me that this pirate wasn't too bright. Why hadn't they just entered and taken my ship?

Shep interrupted this tableau. “When the terminator crosses in about ten seconds, duck around the bell and we'll play a game of hide-and-seek with her.”

Terminator? I had forgotten that this rock was also rolling around its centre of gravity as well as the solar system. Suddenly I was in complete darkness. I ducked around the bell and started moving around the other side of the ship.

“I can't see them,” I subvocalised. “You'll have to steer me. Wait. Her?”

“By running the voice through a frequency analyzer I have determined that our visitor is female to about 0.9 probability. Or a just-pubescent boy.”

The pirate had finally got her eyes dark-adapted and was making irritated noises. I wondered how long I could play this dodge and run game for. I had about twenty minutes of oxygen left.

Shep must have read my mind. “Just move when I tell you. I'll keep track of your oxygen. If worse comes to worst we can surrender.” 

Now it was my turn to grumble. Losing a valuable cargo would make my business model look less than successful.

“I have more oxygen than you do,” said the pirate. “Let's be sensible about this, eh?”

I decided replying would just waste breath and we danced about for another ten minutes. I wondered just what the hell Shep was up to. Then I thought about that terminator. It sure had come on fast.

“When does the sun come back up, Shep?” I asked.

“Ah, you've guessed.” It sounded a bit crestfallen. “In about five minutes. If you can manoeuvre her back around to where you started from then we should see some action.”

I waltzed with the pirate for a few more minutes. Then decided on a more direct mode of action.

“Ok, I'm coming out. I'm low on oxygen. Don't shoot. I'll get the container.” I pushed out from behind the engine bell again and just stood there. The pirate shuffled back into view near the closed cockpit door.

Then from behind me came sunrise. It shone directly into the pirate's faceplate causing an instant blackout from the visor. She was temporarily blind.

I moved forward to wrestle the welder from her when something else happened. A three kilo mallet bounced from the ground behind her and struck her in the back, throwing her forward. 

“What the hell?” I yelped.

Shep sounded smug. “Ahh, so you didn't figure it. When I took over your powersuit I'd calculated the speed and trajectory for a low orbit of this planetoid. If the pirate was back in the same spot at the end of an orbit it would come down about there.”

“But what if she wasn't?” I asked.

“She'd still have left herself open to the sun. Let's get away.”

I concurred and we hastily absconded. The pirate was getting to her feet a bit groggily. All of a sudden she waved her hands and broke into our comms.

“Hey! I'm almost out of oxygen. I don't have enough to walk back to my ship.”

I chewed this over. What an idiot. The universe is hard on idiots. But she sounded pretty young.

“Drop some oxygen, Shep,” I muttered. 

Shep, for once, did not comment. The pack ejected and drifted slowly to the surface.

Sometimes you just have to tell the universe to take a day off.

About the Author

Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.

Retired now from teaching he amuses himself by reading, writing, following his love of weather and correcting people on the internet.

He’s been writing since his teens and hopes he will one day get it right.

He can be found on twitter @KevinPhyland where he goes by the handle of CaptainZero and his work is around the place if you search using google or use the antisf.com.au archive.