Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Empty, the shuttle had a completely different feel to Connor. It was a utility vehicle, a means of dropping fast and silent to a planetary surface. Now his boots clomped on the steel deck and bounced off the scuffed and stained walls, which now had a tomb-like quality.
When he stopped at his bench seat, Martienne shoved past with an indecipherable grumble and trudged to her pilot’s seat.
None of them wore environment suits or carried oxygen bottles with them. Every little bit of mass mattered, and asphyxiation was the least of the threats facing them.
The planet had left its stench on all of them—a foul mix of death and blood and the thick sweat it had drawn from their bodies. Even Drew, whose jumpsuit bore stains from the bug gore and the lubricant she’d smeared on the landing gear struts, had that fetid, primal reek.
She took Selen’s seat against the right wall, across from Connor. Fear made black hollows of the engineer’s eyes, a look that reminded him of her days before being fired.
Drew bit her quivering bottom lip. “What do you think the odds are?”
Connor looked up as a light came on. “The computer says close to fifty-fifty.”
“H-how close?”
“Maybe closer to forty percent.” He winced at the way she fell in on herself. “If everything goes right. I think it will.”
She nodded but stared down at her bouncing legs.
Everyone handled nerves differently. Martienne could seem like ice in times like this.
The pilot had a history flying in tough combat situations, a familiarity with blockade running that she rarely spoke of. She’d shared a few stories during a drunken moment a few years prior—enough to earn Connor’s respect.
As for him, he liked to find the positives and dwell on those.
What positives were there to embrace now? If everything went well, and they made it back to the Lucky Sevens, there was a chance, but it was slim. Getting the shuttle repaired quickly wasn’t likely. Landing the larger ship with all its problems on the planet was even more problematic than setting the shuttle down.
He pulled his pocket computer out and set up a master stopwatch app: how long they needed to go using the jets, then how long they needed to go using the rockets if they hoped to exit the atmosphere.
The lights dimmed, then the jets powered on with a climbing whine. Drawing oxygen from the atmosphere and using their remaining jet fuel meant they preserved the rocket’s liquid oxygen feed and its methane fuel.
But would it be enough?
He started the stopwatch.
Connor cleared his throat. “Drew?”
“Hm?”
“Harness.”
“Oh.”
She pulled the assembly over her head, fiddled with the straps, then finally locked everything into place. Connor made sure everything was snug, then secured himself just as the shuttle blasted off with a groan.
It was an ugly launch, the landing gear bouncing and the fuselage shaking in protest of the strenuous vertical thrust.
Once they were in a steady climb, he smiled. “That’s the first step.”
Drew let out a nervous laugh. “Y’know, I’ve been thinking about this. The accident.”
“The fuel line problem?”
She still wouldn’t look at him directly. “Another line rupture?”
“I know. But the coolant pipe gave off an alert.”
“This should have, too. I mean, it should’ve flashed an alarm immediately.”
He’d wrestled with the problem himself. “The broken relay in the console—”
“No. That wouldn’t prevent this alarm. Lights would show up in here, too.” She pointed to a panel on the rear wall. “Red. Right there.”
“Maybe we didn’t notice it.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s disabled, too, just like the relay was broken.”
“You’re saying it was definitely sabotage?”
“It has to be.” She finally looked up. “These aren’t system failures. One after another? Sure, these ships are old and they’re behind on maintenance, but this is…”
“I know. I think even Selen’s starting to see that.”
Drew’s mouth drooped. “She doesn’t trust me.”
Connor wanted to assure the engineer that he trusted her, but he couldn’t honestly say that. Even if she wasn’t using—and he had no proof of that—she seemed to be cracking under the stress. “Selen doesn’t have to trust you. If we find proof, it changes everything.”
“Proof? You mean like the maintenance log showing that I didn’t check the hangar bay airlock?”
“Don’t lock onto that one thing. We have other security records.”
The engineer’s eyes lit up. “Like?”
“Video logs. We’ve got cameras watching all the critical spots. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. There’s no way all the records could be deleted.”
She slapped her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’ve been away for a long time. When we get up to the Lucky Sevens, I’ll—”
“You mean ‘if.’”
“I mean when, Drew. When we get there, I’ll lock everyone else out of the security system, then we’ll be able to review everything at our leisure.”
The ship trembled, and the rumble of the engines sputtered.
Martienne twisted around in her seat. “Going to rocket.”
Connor checked the stopwatch: They’d fallen short more than a minute.
But the pilot showed no sign of stress. Yemi had said all along that the aggressive push for altitude meant they would consume fuel at a frightening rate.
A second later, the roar of the engines changed, and their thrust resumed.
Connor started the stopwatch on the rockets.
Now their window of success had truly shrunk.
He couldn’t focus on the computer display. That wasn’t a positive, it was…something else.
Sabotage. He could focus on that. What would that mean?
Someone was trying to ruin the mission. Or maybe they were trying to kill specific people.
It had to be Mosiah. He’d said earlier that no one that came to the planet escaped again and that he was wasn’t planning to.
Why? Was it suicide?
Did he need everyone dead for some reason?
Was it related to whatever the crates held?
Connor had to find out. He had to find whoever was behind the sabotage and stop them. Everyone’s life depended on it.
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