Episode 605: Devil's Compromise, Part Two
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Rina: (over the comms) Okay, good … hopefully you’ll jiggle this shit and I can—(strains again)—get it off me …
It’s dangerous, very dangerous. At her end, she could destroy Equinox’s engines and no one will be going anywhere. At Rina and Joshua’s end, she could move everything too much and they’ll get crushed as the ruined ship collapses on them. Everything that’s pinning her crewmates is also pinning Equinox. Affecting one end of the equation also affects the other. Dare she risk it? She could stick to Rina’s plan—that of manually adjusting the omnidirectionals to channel the engine blast in a more controlled manner. But THAT is something only her engineers can do and they are both effectively out of commission.
Or she can, God help her, have Crazy Man do it. And Boston isn’t going to lift a finger unless and until his dead family gets moved onto Equinox. Therefore, Nika will haul ass and start shifting his family. She quits the bridge and grabs the hover pallet from the cargo hold on her way out. It should be sufficient to the task of transporting Boston’s family aboard. She calls ahead to Kiera and Arden to tell them she’s on her way with the pallet and that they should alert Boston when they see him. Kiera promises she’ll tell him.
Meanwhile Boston is trying to get to the last of his family. He’s going to have to get past Kiera and Arden to do it. The sight of Kiera aiming a gun at his head, however, gives him pause.
Kiera: (icily) You can take the last body so long as you don’t interfere with Arden.
Boston: (of Beglan) Is he going to be okay?
Kiera: Yeah. He’ll be fine.
Boston: I didn’t want to do that.
Kiera: I can tell you got a lot of remorse.
Boston: I’ve done a lot of things to get by on—.
Kiera: I’m so happy for you.
Boston retrieves the body of his last remaining child and makes it outside. He looks askance at Nika until he sees what she’s brought with her. He quickly lays his child on the pallet and bends to pick up another. Nika silently lends him a hand.
On the burning ship, Rina throws a mighty push against the bar. Joshua’s still conscious, still encouraging her efforts.
Arden is bloodied up to his elbows now, trying to save Beglan’s life, concentrating on stabilizing the wound. It’s been twenty minutes and he’s running out of supplies.
Rina hangs on to her lever and takes a minute to catch her breath. As she breathes she runs the math through her head again, pitting angle and force against the mass she’s trying to move. She adjusts the placement of her lever and tries again. The crap pinning her to the deck shifts and settles … but it settles differently and she knows she’s on the right track. She recalculates the math, adjusts again and hauls on the lever. Joshua keeps up with the encouragement.
Joshua: I love you …
Rina: I love you—(hauls some more)—love you back …
Joshua: With a horrible flame. I think I’m getting a tan.
Fifteen minutes later, Arden is down to nothing but his hands, the last of his supplies used up and still Beglan bleeds. But the blood loss is slower, now, and that’s a chance in his favor. Slim, but it’s better than none.
Meanwhile, Nika and Boston have managed to transport only two of his family aboard Equinox. There was room for all four of his family if they’d stacked them on the pallet, but this was something Boston adamantly refused to do in deference to the dead. It means making a second trip, burning up precious time they could have used to save the living. Nika doesn’t argue with the man, knowing that he’s the only engineer she’s got. As they make their way to the cargo hold, she can get a good long look at her starboard engine and she doesn’t like the view one bit. Nope.
Arden is still working away on Beglan. Though he’s got the artery stabilized, there’s another bleeder he can’t quite find and tie off. Every time he thinks he’s got it under control, the blood starts flowing again. Where the hell is he bleeding from?
Arden: My fingers are cramping.
Kiera: Shut up! (looks at him) Seriously?
Arden: No.
Rina is still working away at shifting the debris off her. Joshua’s still cheering her on but he’s getting muzzy and nauseous from the heat and the poison gas.
Joshua: This is actually kinda comfortable now that I’m all settled in … It’s like a beach vacation …
Rina: I’m sorry … (works harder) … I’m so sorry …
Joshua: It’s okay … I like drama ... I wish I had some Flomoxi-my-pan … my head hurts … keep pushing …gonna hallucinate you’re having a baby soon …
Rina: I’m pushing hard enough—grahhhghhh …
Arden manages to keep Beglan alive another ten minutes.
Outside, Nika and Boston get the last two bodies in. She watches as Boston stares at his family laid out on the cargo deck. Despite the lives still hanging in the balance—in part due to this man’s obstinacy—Nika is still moved by his heartbreak. He’d spent years trying to find his wife and children, spent his resources feely, had come all this way. And for naught. He arrived too late to find them alive. So she stands witness to his loss and gives him a moment to grieve. Then she puts a gentle hand on his arm and says:
Nika: There’s going to be more dead people if you don’t help me. Please.
Boston: (thinking it over) Hmm ….
Nika: I brought you here to get them. Please help me get my people out of here.
Boston: Could you get a blanket for them?
Nika: Yes.
Nika hustles and gets several blankets, helps him cover his family, tucks the corners in. Finally satisfied, Boston goes straight to the engine room.
Boston: It’s loud in here with all the klaxons going off. Turn them off …
He turns them off and suddenly you can hear yourself think. A blessing. Nika uses the respite from the noise to comm her crew.
Nika: We’re getting ready to attempt to get the ship loose and hopefully blow out the fire at the same time.
On the ship next door, Joshua blinks at his fiancée.
Joshua: Rina? Do I wanna know how … that works?
Rina: (grokking the odds) No. Just close your eyes.
Joshua: Thank you … I didn’t think I did.
Rina: I love you.
Joshua: I love you, too …
Nika takes to the bridge and when she gets there, she hears Boston asking over the comms:
Boston: Can you patch me through to your engineer?
Nika: Yes.
She gets it done and Rina hears Boston over her suit comms.
Boston: Ah, Ms. Sebastien.
Rina: Yes? … (hauls on lever) … uhnnn …!
Boston: Am I correct in assuming that the manual override valves to the directional thrusters would be located in the cargo deck and the flight deck?
Rina: Da! Yes.
Boston: Oh-kaay. And …so they’d be behind … I’m looking at the schematics here …
Rina: (hauls some more) … Look faster …
Nika: Rina, tell the man what he needs to know please. Quickly.
Rina gives up on the lever and tells him what he needs to know. Quickly.
Boston: Well, it’s not quite that simple … This is not something you would normally do … You are breaking your ship. Intentionally. As I recall, you’re not a person in favor of experimenting, but prefer the standard play-by-the-book—
Rina: (hauling again) Actually … I’m in favor of flaring the gravity fields around the ship—
Joshua: We don’t have a … gravity field.
Rina: Yes, we do.
Nika: Your science and his science do not mesh. Leave it at that and we’re working in his Universe.
Joshua: No … it would work. It would just … kill the two of us.
Rina: (to Boston) Let’s go with your plan.
Boston: I’m going to need a way to puncture the starboard hydrogen tank, too—
Nika: What?!
Boston: Well we’re going to want to pump as much hydrogen into the atmosphere as we can to help ignite this puppy.
Nika: But that would ignite the atmo outside this vessel, which may in fact blow up the ship that two of our crewmates are in.
Boston: Yeah. They’ll probably want to seek some cover.
Joshua: Yayyyyy! I’ve …. passed all the way from “cool!” to … “I’m about to die” all the way back … to “cool!” again.
Kiera’s following this exchange over the comms and breaks in acidly:
Kiera: Why don’t you use a screwdriver on the starboard tank—oh, that’s right. You left it in Beggar!
Back on the burning ship, Joshua’s still talking.
Joshua: It’s the … cycle of life …Tell me when it’s … gonna blow … I don’ wanna miss it.
Beglan’s blood is still leaking around Arden’s hands.
Arden: This whole visit to this planet blows.
Nika breaks in from the bridge.
Nika: Are you people done with the chatter out there?
Joshua: I’m gonna die and … you don’t want me to chatter? Geez …
Boston: Captain? I’m switching the—on one of those monitors you should be getting an engineering schematic. I’m putting it on your screen. You need to go down to the cargo deck and start pulling off these panels here …
On the screen, she sees them getting highlighted remotely. They blink on and off blindingly fast and Nika manages to keep up. Thanks to her stint learning the ship while blind, she knows the ship better than anyone else, save Rina. She notes the positions on the screen, matches them up with the reality of the cargo deck below … On the burning ship, Rina struggles with her lever. On the ship two doors down, Arden finally—FINALLY—catches sight of the stubborn bleeder that’s been eluding him for so long and ties it off. Arden rises up from the deck, aching from the hard surface, and together he and Kiera start moving Beglan for Equinox’s med bay. Beglan’s going to need a blood transfusion to replace what he’s lost. They find a towel to wrap around Beglan’s neck to act as a makeshift cervical collar, as a precaution against any spinal injury, and they buddy-lift him out of there.
Kiera: You know what? They’re gonna fire up the ship the second we step out.
Arden: Wouldn’t that be fun?
Down in the cargo hold, Nika’s doing her best to get the panels off. It’s hard going. Most of the panels haven’t been removed in years and inside some of them, the factory-installed wire tabs are still in place. She doesn’t argue with Boston’s directions, however. Now is not the time. She’ll take the heat from Rina later. Right now, she’s more concerned that there will be a Rina for later.
She’s not the only one concerned. Rina repositions her lever again and hauls for all she’s worth.
Arden and Kiera make it to Equinox and get Beglan installed in med bay, hooking up to blood and fluids to replace what he’d lost.
Joshua blinks and takes stock.
Joshua: So .. where are we …?
Rina: Pinned under some wreckage. (replants lever) About to die … arrrhhhhghh …
She gives it one last pull and miracle of miracles, the debris shifts JUST enough for her to get her booted foot free … And that’s all she needs to slide out from under the crap pinning her down. She eels out and very carefully removes the lever, not wanting the debri to slam onto Joshua again. Looking down, she sees she has indeed injured her leg and trying to stand, she finds she can’t quite walk on it. She can manage a hobble and she moves, determined to get Joshua free. She slides her lever into a likely spot and throws her weight on it.
Joshua: Hey, hey-hey-hey … Get out—No. Don’t argue with me … We’ve already had this argument at least twice in this flaming inferno, but don’t argue with me. Get to the ship … help … (waves vaguely) … help Crazy Engineer Guy … like … do what he has to get done.
Rina: I’m not leaving you, Joshua.
Joshua: Do it. That’s an order.
Rina: When in your life have you seen me respect an order?
Joshua: I know … I ... know, like … I’m fine. See? I’ve been … fine for, like … an hour, now …
Over their heads the metal groans and squeals as the fire weakens it further. Looking for a way out, Rina doesn’t see an immediate avenue of escape. In fact, the way they came in is blocked. Collapsed actually. They’re trapped in the six-way intersection of the corridors. The metal up in the ceiling has been fused by the heat of the fire and there’s no finding something to pry it aside. Knowing that the Bumblebees have been subjected to explosive stresses before and that they were made to be taken apart at certain seams for shelter building, she looks for those points where the hull sections might have cracked wide enough to let her and Joshua through. Again, her search finds nothing. She looks for weak spots that might allow her to bash her way out. She grips her lever and gives a promising area a hard whack, then shoves her lever into the resulting crack and throws her weight into it.
A gout of flame roars out of the crack she’s opened up. Her suit shields her from the fire but even so, she takes wounds and stun from it. Joshua likewise takes on some damage. The debris pile protects him from the worst, but the fact that he’s no longer got his helmet on makes him vulnerable nonetheless.
Joshua: Okay, for my sanity … please put that fire out. I do not want to watch my … fiancée burn to death.
The only thing she’s got to work with is her suit. It’s made to take the heat and the fire, and given Joshua’s already adversely affected by the toxic crap in the air from the fire, he doesn’t need more of it. The suit comes off and she stuffs the crack she’s made in the hull with it. She saves a glove for the comms built into it, but now she’s got no protection from the atmo and the flames. Ironically Joshua’s odds of surviving without her go up a notch. She stares at the fire around them.
Rina: I’ve got to get us out of here …
Joshua: Please get out.
Rina: Wait a minute … (thinks) … I’m trying to blast us a way out of here.
Joshua: No. Blast you a way out. Get out.
The oxy in her suit. She had some minutes left. Could she somehow breach the supply and cause it to blow up in the fire it’s blocking, blasting a hole through the hull to the outside? No. It’s not enough. And looking at the progress of the fire around them, she’s not going to have much more time.
Rina: I have to leave this chamber and make a way out.
Joshua: Find another … beam … Find something …
The two external exits in the six-way are melted shut, too, the iris-valve hatches permanently crumpled in a half-open/half-shut diameter too small for her to get through. The iris-valves at the top and the bottom of the chamber, oddly enough, are still functional. It goes against logic but she doesn’t argue it. She has to decide—does she go up or down in hopes of finding a spot to bash a way out? Heat from fire travels upwards, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics, and Rina chooses to go down, thinking her odds are better where it’s cooler. Going down also leaves her with fewer levels to explore, as opposed to thirty to fifty feet of decks above. Fewer levels means a faster search and right now, faster is definitely better. She kisses Joshua before she leaves.
Joshua: … Bye …
Rina: I’ll be back.
Joshua: You better not be. Get back to the ship. We’ve covered this … before. Don’t make me… argue with you again, Rina …
Rina: Breathe slow.
She goes down to the deck below. It’s actually somewhat down, somewhat sideways. The arm that functioned as an airlock connector is on this level and it is crumpled and bent in the tilt of the ship. It’s impassable. The airlock at the other end of it is not an option. She goes to the level below, fairly certain that there’s probably not an airlock but probably not isn’t always so. Bumblebees are also a favorite of miners for the various hatches in the design that afford them access to storage spaces and other places to stash their ore. She might be able to bust her way into one of those compartments and thence a way out.
The next level down is surprisingly serviceable, being the bottom level of the ship and here she discovers floor plates sitting ajar. There’s a space beneath them and there’s no doorway leading to whatever’s down there. She scares up something to pry the plates up and gets to work, racing the progress of the fire above.
Back on Equinox, Beglan’s sufficiently stabilized and Arden offers to help Nika open up the panels. Nika accepts. Yes! Dear God, please. Kiera shoos him out for the bridge, promising she’ll watch Beglan.
Trapped under the debris, Joshua starts counting sheep. Mind, the sheep are on fire, but they’re still sheep and he’s counting them blearily.
Arden and Nika work feverishly and slowly Equinox looks as if some odd infestation of scales has taken over the ship, as they loosen and align the panels to Boston’s specifications. It looks wrong. It feels wrong. Arden questions it.
Boston: Just keep taking them off.
Arden: And he’s telling us to do this, why?
Nika: He’s going to blow up the ship.
Arden: Why does he want to blow up the ship?
Boston: To save your friends.
Arden: That doesn’t seem to work quite well for me …
Nika: Shut up and do it.
Arden: Okay. If I die, I’m never speaking to you again.
Nika: If you die, I will be your slave in hell.
They’re having trouble with some of the panels. They have to work together to get them up and repositioned. On one of them Nika pulls at a panel and there’s a clink! and then a snap!
Arden: I don’t think it was supposed to make that noise. Are you sure—(of her look)—never mind.
Boston: How’re you doing down there?
Arden: One of the panels seems to be jammed now.
Boston: Oh well, do another one. We won’t need them all. Probably. You don’t hear any hissing sound, do you?
The next panel they realign goes along much smoother.
Back on the burning ship, Rina catches a break. She pries up the deck plates and finds herself looking at heat shielding material. It’s metal and concave and she realizes that she’s in the space between the dorsal hull and the ablative shield. Sticking her head down in there, she takes a closer look. The space below should be big enough to hold two people. She also sees that though the perimeter of the shield shows some gaps to the outside, there is also a goodly amount of dirt blocking the cracks. The concave crawlspace is nearly all entirely below the earthen grade outside.
There’s little better insulator from fire than dirt and at the moment, there’s not a lick of fire present. Surrounded on nearly all sides by dirt and coupled with the hull above and the ablative shield below, the crawlspace should be sheltered enough from the blast. There are cracks here and there, and in places there are some tiles missing, but even so, it should be good enough protection from the blast. Should be. She hopes. Hands down, it’s better than staying on the upper decks and waiting for the fire to take them. When the blast runs its course, she’s even reasonably certain she and Joshua could dig their way out through the dirt. She scrambles up and retraces her steps to Joshua. She keeps her eyes peeled for a shovel and she finds something that will serve as a shovel as she makes her way to Joshua.
On Equinox, Arden and Nika have realigned the last of the directional panels and Boston talks them through the next stage of the plan: venting the starboard hydro tank.
Boston: And now for the tricky part … You might want to tell your friends that this is the time they might want to seek cover.
Nika: (on comms) Rina.
Rina: Ma’am.
Nika: Rina and Joshua. I need you to find a way to take cover.
Rina: Yes, ma’am. I think I found a place.
Nika: Okay.
Rina: I know where I’m going. Ablative shield. We’re covered by earth. There’s no way for practically any of the crap on the outside to get to us. It’s a nice roomy coffin. Anyway, let’s go.
Rina’s made it back to the six-way junction. She strides right in, talking to Nika the while as she pushes her lever into the debris pile, and starts shifting the crap off her fiancé. For his part, Joshua can’t believe Rina came back instead of bugging out. No, wait. She would. What was he thinking? She’s too stubborn by half to listen to common sense. Even so, he has to try.
Joshua: What are you doing? Get back and get into cover. Good God, woman.
Rina: Not without you.
She throws her weight on the bar. The crap isn’t moving. There’s a beam keeping it all in place. It’s partially melted into the bulkhead by the extreme heat near the ceiling. Arden’s listening in over his comms and makes a comment on Joshua’s channel.
Arden: She’s just as stubborn as you are.
Joshua: No, she’s not.
Arden: Yes, she is.
Joshua: I’m stubborner. I believe I won that argument about—Rina!
He waves her off. Nope. She’s not paying attention to him. She’s got her eye on something else. Thinking about the interstitial fire that originally lured them here, she hits upon the idea of poking a hole through the inner hull in just the right spot so that the interstitial fire could shoot into the compartment like a makeshift blowtorch. If she can angle the hole so as to direct the flame at the beam pinning the debris on Joshua, she can cut him free and drag him to safety.
All she needs is something strong enough to make those holes. Of course, she’ll have to make that hole carefully. If she gets the placement wrong … She starts looking for something to make that hole.
Rina: Either I save you or give us a quick death. Either way it’ll be over.
Joshua: Wait … Is that “all die” as in … both of us? Or “all die” as in everyone?
Rina: Just us two.
She picks up one piece of metal. Discards it. Picks up another, tests its edge. No …
Joshua: So what are you doing?
Rina: Shut up.
Joshua: No, no, no … You cannot tell me to shut up … What are you doing?
Rina: I’m getting us out of here.
She finds what she’s looking for and searches for the right spot on the inner hull for the hole, thinking all the while … making the calculations in her head, figuring the angles, the coefficients of heating and cooling, strength of materials, the melting point of metal, the weird fluorine vitrification … She finds a rod of the right diameter, abstractly recognizing it as a chord strut even as she starts looking for something to hammer it through the wall.
Joshua watches the flames getting closer, the atmo getting deadlier.
Joshua: Would you … get your ass … back to whatever cover you found … Would you please … if you love me … get under cover …
Rina: (fierce) I can do this!
Joshua: I will be fine … I have survived worse than this …
Rina: Here’s the thing. I’ve got no way out.
Joshua: But you’ve got cover. (off her look) I might survive. I’ve survived worse.
Rina: No.
If she leaves him here, the hydrogen blast will take him. She would rather risk dying with him, trying to pull a last-second save, than abandon him to a certain death. It’s all come down to her determination and her wits and her ability to bore a hole in the hull. She finds that spot, places her rod just so, and hammers it home.
FWOOSSSSHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFFF!
A brilliant jet of flame shoots impossibly fast and bright from the hull and Rina jumps back, taking the rod with her. The jet hits the ceiling beam right where she needs it to melt and the beam turns orange, then red, then white hot. That’s the moment she’s been waiting for. Rina gets her lever into the debris and throws her weight onto it … and the crap on Joshua starts to move as the ceiling beam begins to bend. She makes herself heavy and puts all her weight on her lever.
Just a little more … a little more …. FREE!
Rina kicks a bit of debris under her lever to prop everything up, grabs Joshua, and slides him out from under.
Rina: Let’s go. Time to go. Come on. Time to go.
She hauls him up to his feet, plants a big smacker of a kiss on his lips, and pulls him for the lower decks.
Rina: Now let’s go …
Joshua: (dazed) … Okay …
She keys the comm on Joshua’s suit and yells into it.
Rina: We’re on our way!
Back on Equinox, Boston comms the cargo hold.
Boston: Mr. … ah, what was your name again?
Arden: Arden.
Boston: Dr. Arden, if you could go to the engine room I can give you instructions on what you have to do. I need to be on the fuel cells.
Arden hustles to the engine room. Boston explains when he gets there.
Boston: When the Captain hits the pulse, you need to pull these two levers down. They’re a bit far apart but you can probably manage it. I’ll be on the fuel line.
Nika gets herself up to the bridge. Rina gets herself and Joshua into the crawlspace of the heat shield. It’s a tight fit and Rina hugs him tighter. In med bay, Beglan’s already tied down and Kiera braces herself. Nika straps in and puts her hand on the throttle, poising her finger over the pulse button. She takes a deep breath, sends a prayer Heavenward … and pushes the button.
PULSE!
The engines cycle explosively, the force of the pulse channeled right where the shields deflect it, and everyone hears a sound from Equinox we’ve never heard her make before. It sounds rather like the tortured wail of Summer’s Gift when she died. Equinox bounces in place, the port engine pushing the ship while the starboard engine is pinned by the wreckage. Everything starts to shake, rattle, and hum. Nika keeps her hands steady on the controls, forcing herself to ignore her instincts which are screaming at her to shut everything down.
Down below in their hidey hole, Rina and Joshua are getting slammed by the shockwaves vibrating through metal and earth. Fire shoots through the cracks where the earth has failed to plug them and the air in the crawls space starts heating up. Rina hangs on tight to Joshua.
Rina: I love you …
BOOM!
A horrendous explosion blasts the expedition site and everyone but Joshua blacks out.
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