His jaws clamped tight, eyes glaring, Brad sensed
his companions rise to their feet around him.
Kumiko first, stood and wordlessly glided to the
closed passage portal. Her back to the others, she
waited for the panel to clear. Zolan, on his feet,
mouth agape, stared at Xindral.
Adari, still seated, gawked in bewildered disbelief
from Xindral to Brad to Hodak. Hodak glowered,
gestured rudely and cursed furiously and loudly.
Myra stood, silent behind an icy mask. Xindral,
perched on his stool, arms in his lap, impassively
observed their reactions.
The scene held for several seconds. Xindral broke
the silence.
"Your formal orientation and training begins when
you return. First I must speak with your Commander.
Please excuse us."
He turned and touched a disk on the bulkhead. The
entryway cleared and Jenkins appeared.
"Escort our friends back to their compartment,
Jenks. Commander Curtin will remain with me.
Return the group in an hour."
"Yes, sir."
Myra, Adari, Hodak and Zolan milled about for a
moment, then joined Kumiko at the portal. Passing
through, they spoke and gestured animatedly to
each other. The portal clouded over.
Xindral hefted his stool forward, placed it
alongside Brad, and folded his long frame onto it
facing the view tank.
"Just so you know, Brad," he said gently, bridging
the silence between them, "those of us who work in
Strategic Penetrations carry no formal rank. If we
did, yours would be the equivalent of a Lieutenant
Commander in the United Inner Planetary System
Space Force. Mine would be a notch or so above."
He shifted his frame about and bent a long leg
to bring his foot up to the lower rung. His tone
shifted into neutral. Cool.
"My friends call me Ram. OK?"
Brad nodded, eyeing him. Ram drew back a bit
and contemplated the control in his grasp. After a
moment he stroked the keys. A rainbow of colors
swirled and drifted off, replaced by an ash-gray
sphere. Planet Pluto spread across half the tank
with its flat stretches of methane frost broken
by low, jagged chasms, hillocks and craters. Charon
and the Slingshot Logistics Depot hung off near
the edge of the tank's flattened top.
Brad glanced at the scene, and back to Ram.
"Brad," Ram spoke slowly, quietly, "a trite
expression, repeated all too often during our
history, is 'humankind now faces its greatest
crisis'. The statement has been declared so often
across the ages that it's lost meaning, obviously
because it changes in context and perception
from one event, century or millennium to the
next. I suppose those who said it, believed it.
Nevertheless, even if the term 'crisis' never
really applied in the past, it does in these times
for humankind's destiny.
"The deficits in our nonrenewable assets, and the
many other natural substances we depend on, if
not resolved within the next few centuries, could
force us back into caves, and I don't use that word
'figuratively'. Ceramics, composites, and other
substitutes are fine as far as they go, but they
do only a tiny part of the job.
"We'll soon be running short of substitutes for
our substitutes. Building bigger and better colonies
in space over the past thousand years or so has
consumed far more of our resources than expected.
Earth is almost barren and many space colonies in
both regions can no longer meet existing needs
fromtheir regions, let alone those of the future.
"In short, our dispersed civilizations must have
access to sources for minerals and other industrial
substances, not only now but in perpetuity, in order
to survive and evolve. Our species isn't built to
accept inactivity or slipping backward. If we don't
move on to something new and challenging, then
we'll drift into extinction. You've heard this all
dozens of times; I won't dwell on it further."
Ram stood, paced, and turned his head to keep Brad
in sight as he paced and reversed direction. Brad's
eyes fixed on the view tank and stayed there.
There was nothing new in Ram's words, so far.
"Slingshot schedules are in their most critical
phase. We have a launch window for the Extractor.
It's not much of a window. If we miss it, Slingshot
fails. It's that simple. The launch cannot be
aborted; there'll be no second chance. People
across the system, by the millions, are committed
to the schedule. You, and your crew now serve in
that legion."
"What's going on here?" Brad cut in. "Are you
telling me we've been pressed into this job with
no choice of our own?"
His anger showing, Brad thumbed over his shoulder
toward the entryway, then at his chest.
"Tell me, Ram," Brad demanded, "how did it happen
that we six, three men and three women, are here
at this time for this purpose?"
"We'll get to that in time." Ram said, "I've
reviewed your trial record, but I'd like to hear it
from you -- straight. What happened?"
Brad stared at Ram for several seconds, obviously
making up his mind. Finally, he shrugged, and
contemplated his hands.
"Well, then you know I was Captain of a space
freighter," he began. "My job was to transport
high-mass mining equipment, ores and refined
stuff between Mercury, Venus and Luna.
"When this mess happened, we were Luna-bound with
a full load of worn out track-layers, rock-crushers,
drill robots, filters and other tools in the
forward and aft storage bays, and ingots
well-secured in stress-certified compartments.
The ship was at capacity, but within legal limits.
Mass and balance had been certified by Space
Traffic Control before they cleared us from Venus
orbit. The ship was in order.
"We were only about twenty-million kay from
the Luna Space Traffic Control Zone, but still in
max drive. Plenty of time to kick-in vector and
deceleration programs."
Brad paused, shifted position, rubbed his jaws,
sighed deeply, glanced sideways at Xindral and,
his voice tighter, continued.
"That's when that strung-out jock in a space-buggy
took us on for a game of 'chicken'.
"The buggy was a single-seater, tiny, barely ten
meters bow to stern, but the way she whipped
around us, it was plain to my duty officer that
she was charged by a micro deep space drive.
My duty officer hit the alarm; I got to the bridge
within ten seconds after the buggy's first pass.
"I checked our status and proximity-to-mass
in vicinity; then my ship's scope analyses of the
buggy's thrust and gyrations. She was obviously
overpowered for mass, especially in the confined
lanes plowed by slow freighters like mine.
"My three-hundred-meter freighter with all storage
bays packed bulkhead to bulkhead with high mass, is
barely maneuverable under the best of circumstances.
Evasive action against some hot shot in a souped up
space-buggy was out of the question.
"It got worse. Not only did the jock ignore my
warnings; he lined up alongside my bridge and
danced on his thrusters. He flipped from relative
vertical to horizontal, then corkscrewed us
lengthwise fore to aft and back. To add insult, he
whirled his buggy on its tail like a damn dervish,
right alongside where I stood on my bridge and
then cut across my bow. That hotshot was one
good pilot, I'll grant him that.
"After a minute or so of that, the buggy circled
my ship, close. The pilot probably liked what he saw,
because he surface-snaked us again bow to stern.
That must have been boring; he peeled away, tore
ahead a quarter-million kay, skewed around, and
came straight at my bow, curdling space. When
collision was just about unavoidable, he did an up
and over. In doing that, he cut us much too close,
snapped off a dozen masts, sensors and nav guides.
"The jock must have gone berserk; he took us on
for full 'chicken'. He shot ahead about a million kay,
flip-flopped, and came at us head-to-head, taunting
us with his collision signals. Our computer showed
him as boosting all the way."
Another long pause. Brad looked directly at Xindral.
"We collided, head on," he said. "That brightly
colored, beautiful little flitter buried itself
deep in our forward cargo bay. My rescue team
went in, but we knew ahead of time what we'd find.
It was there: chunks of metal, shards of bone,
and scraps of flesh splattered on mining gear,
rock-crushers, and other odd pieces of equipment.
"The Space Guard hearings were followed by a
quick trial. The jock was the son of a politician,
so here I am."
Brad looked away, then back at Ram.
"Your turn," he said. "What's the story on how we
became the 'chosen'?"
"The selection was certainly not random," Ram
stood and stretched to his full height as he
spoke. "Despite the billions of citizens in the UIPS,
we're all tagged and catalogued. It's a simple job
for the computers to correlate any unique manpower
requirements the government might have to the UIPS
index, cross-check phys-psy profiles, professions
and technical skills plus experience, competence,
reliability and anything else that we crank in as
rating factors. You mentioned 'three men and
three women'; your mission can not exclude
gender compatibility consistent with the prevailing
psychosocial construct -- this is what we are.
"In my line of work, our data bank produces
an optimal selection of personalities, skills and
identities for the best possible teams we might
need to support our contingency plans. Old stuff;
we've been doing that throughout history. Why you
folks? The computer selected you, showed where
each of you was located and why, and that you were
all, shall we say, relatively unknown and available.
None of you will be missed."
Brad and Ram locked eyes as Ram added, "As far as
the mission goes, you and your colleagues were sent
here for confinement and rehab, whatever the reason
and however rehab was to be done. It's just that
your team has been diverted. Coddling and other
amenities of confinement are not part of our
program. If you feel you're being treated unfairly,
that's unfortunate. We need every qualified man
and woman we can get. The prime requisite is that
the team, meaning you and your colleagues, have
and share the intelligence, initiative, guts and
whatever else it takes to do the job."
"That's another point right there," Brad shot
back. "You've assigned us a mission, you tell us it's
dangerous, and then add, as an aside, you've judged
us up to it, whatever in hell that's supposed to
mean. But let me tell you, if I'm the guy to run
it, I want to know a lot more. I've got to have
confidence each team member will be there when
the chips are down. So, what can I expect?"
For a moment, Ram gazed shrewdly at Brad. His
eyes twinkled, and his features mustered a sly grin.
"You seem to have slipped into the role of team
Commander," he said.
Brad looked away, hesitated a moment, and rubbed
his jaw thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "I agree with what you've said
about the mess we're in. No question in my mind
that Slingshot is our only option. Obviously, I
have nothing else on my schedule. Just doing time
in this tin can would be a bore. But that doesn't
justify your pushing me -- us -- around. OK, that's
said, let's get back to my crew. I'll not pry where
I've no business to, but who are they?"
"Their psychological profiles are available to
you," said Ram. "I agree, you'll know all you need
to know about them to get the job done. I can give
you a quick rundown on each now, if you wish."
"I do."
"Myra is a logistician and a Medic certified to
Level 4 in space-related trauma, physical and
psychological. She was Med-Exec to a research
team in a mini-tank town off Venus. Somehow,
she got involved with the leader of a gang running
controlled substances around the Inner Region. When
the net was pulled in, there she was. Tried as an
accessory and judged guilty. Nowhere near criminal
in my judgment. She's quite bitter because she was
used, and then convicted and sentenced on what
she feels are false charges."
"I understand her bitterness."
"Nothing we can do. Your engineer, Hodak, is a
damned good heavy-duty spacecraft maintenance
engineer. Also lots of experience on a broad range
of space support equipment used in surface ops.
He's been all over the Inner Region, and worked
on Ceres where he was the spaceport's Chief of
Maintenance for about ten years. Got into a fight
off Mars while on R & R and killed a guy. Convicted
of manslaughter. He's an expert in the martial arts
and in using exotic weapons. Space-wise."
"Understood. Next?"
"Zolan. As he said, a communicator and, I might
add, from way back. As a child, he was classified
'gifted' and treated accordingly by the system.
At the age of twelve, he came up with design
refinements for spunnel cracking and transmission
that raised eyebrows among the top pros in
the field. His skill caused his downfall: he was
convicted of illegally penetrating and modifying a
database that was integrating a highly sensitive
project. Just enjoying the challenge, he claimed.
The project engineer didn't get wise until too
late. During the trial he told off his former
bosses; called them incompetent and not qualified
to pass judgment on him or his work. Anyhow,
he got a couple of years to cool off."
"Does this job call for his kind of communications
expertise?"
"Yes, and more. Zolan is an extremely important
asset for your mission. You'll agree, I think, when
we get to your orders and the operation. I should
add that, when your training is over, you will all
be good communicators. But Zolan is at the hub."
"That leaves Adari and Kumiko. What's their input?"
"Adari is your navigator. She knows both Regions
like the palm of her hand, and her record shows
she's well versed in nav for the entire system. She
got drunk on duty and borrowed the ship's recreation
funds without permission to have a gambling holiday
on Luna's Station Vegas. She returned broke as well
as hung over. To add to her problems, some joker on
Vegas gave her a whiff of Titan's deep strata gas.
Almost blew her mind, but she's OK now. Spent
a year in hospital on Guardian 18. No permanent
damage. Now, she's doing time on the funds charge.
Excellent navigator and gutsy."
"Kumiko?"
"Ah, little Kumiko," Ram smiled. "Last, but far
from least. Kumiko is a former officer of the UIPS
Space Force and an expert in space armaments.
She can break down entire systems, and repair and
reassemble them, blindfolded, from micro-miniatures
to the big stuff. For some reason, her talent
made her rather defiant of authority. Took
manual control of her ship's guns when her patrol's
sensors tagged unknowns inbound across no-mans-land
sunside of the Jovian orbit. The unknowns were
under a heavy screen and wouldn't cooperate with
the Space Guard's self-identification requirements.
Her Commander told her to punch a tiny hole in the
screens, just enough to identify.
"Instead, she not only blew the screens away, she
scorched the bow of a UIPS cruiser on a classified
mission. The cruiser was out-of-line, of course;
they should have responded to the query; protocols
call for them to do so. But Kumiko went too far.
She was forced to resign from the Service, and
offered a choice to either join a penetration team
to the Outer Region or work in an arsenal under
tight supervision. She made her choice."
"Quite a group."
"All different, yet six of a kind," he said. "None
of you, by far, are hardened offenders of the law.
The crimes you were convicted of were, how shall
I put it, less than deliberately malicious."
"Hah!" Brad's bitter snort curdled in his gullet.
Xindral shrugged. His manner changed; tightened.
He motioned toward the view tank.
"Let's get on with it, Brad," he said. "There's a
lot we need to cover."