Destination Europa: Chapter 20

Gravity

Sep 13, 2024

Previously, after Demas’ arrest and the discovery of a second mysterious text painted in the ship’s central shaft, the Captain locked down communications and commanded all personnel to remain in their quarters. Quill did some orbital mechanics and discovered that not only was the threat imminent, but he now knows who’s behind it.

Quill sprinted round the corridor towards Safira’s cabin, the low gravity of the Green Ring soaring him towards the ceiling with every step. He wasn’t even sure she’d be in her quarters. When she’d left his cabin that morning she’d been planning to find Alex, the FSS intelligence officer, to try and convince him about the stowaway.

It was quiet. Almost everyone was ensconced in their cabins with movies or sims or games. Quill skidded to a halt at Safira’s door, and nearly crashed into Bowen, who was standing in the doorway.

“Alright, Quill?” said Bowen, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Bowen — quick — Saf?”

“Hell if I know,” said Bowen. “Supposed to be in quarters, innit? I was on shift in the Farm, just come back and thought—”

“Never mind,” gasped Quill. “Bo, listen to me. We’re in danger.” He fumbled in his pocket for the data qube with his calculations.

“What do you mean?” asked Bowen, frowning. Quill saw the doubt in his face.

“Come on, man, you don’t really think Demas is responsible?” He pulled out the qube and pressed it into Bowen’s hand. “Listen, there’s not much time. There’s a stowaway—”

“A what?”

“A stowaway. Terrorist.” The word choked in his throat. “I don’t have time to explain. Got to find her. Find Saf and give her this qube.”

“OK…” said Bowen, still looking confused.

“I’m serious. Find Safira, give her the qube, tell her I know what’s happening. She — they’re going to fire the ship into Jupiter. The millstone. That’s the ship.”

“OK, bro, slow down. That’s… crazy.”

Quill stared at his friend, willing him to understand. “I wish it were. But it’s not. Believe me. Trust me, Bowen.” He was almost shouting.

“I trust that you believe what you’re saying, but…” Bowen turned the qube between finger and thumb.

“Please. Just go find Safira. She’ll explain. Go. We don’t have time.”

Bowen scratched his head. “Well…”

“Go!” Quill grabbed the sleeve of Bowen’s overalls and dragged him out of the doorway. “Listen, if I’m wrong, I’m just an idiot. But if I’m right…” He shook his head. “The stakes are too high, man. We’re talking about the life of every man and woman aboard. Please, just find Saf!”

“Alright,” said Bowen. A sliver of fear had crept into his brown eyes. “OK, I’m going. Any idea where she might be?”

“Dunno. But this morning she was going to try and talk to Alex. The Navigation guy.”

“Alex the spy? Right.” Bowen turned towards the hatch to the Blue Ring. “Wait, where are you going?”

Quill had already turned the other way, towards the Yellow Ring.

“To find the stowaway.” Another thought came to him a few paces down the corridor. He paused and turned to yell back towards Bowen. “If you can’t find her, find Tark!”

Quill launched himself up the ladder to the Yellow Ring, the sense of gravity reducing as he came closer to the ship’s axis of rotation. He grabbed the last rung and shoved himself up and to the left, heading for the central shaft, and his stomach lurched like a fairground ride. He was flying higher and harder than he intended, and raised his left arm barely in time to stop his head crashing off the ceiling. He gasped as his wrist twisted under the sudden strain, then fell back to the floor softly and slowly as wet snow.

He didn’t stop to think, but took a running jump towards the hatch. In the tighter curve of the Yellow Ring corridor, he could cover the ground in a few steps. This time, as he left the floor, he knew something was wrong. The centrifugal force was far too low even for the Yellow Ring. He barely felt his own weight as he landed. By the time he reached the hatch, he was sure. The ship’s rotation was slowing, and with it the centrifugal force that gave the rotating section its artificial gravity.

At the hatch, he waited for the ship’s rotation to bring around the opening into the central shaft. Come on, come on. What if it stops completely before the hatch lines up?

An alarm began to ring. Quill blinked through his visuals to turn it off, before realising with a shock that it was a physical sound, blasting out through the emergency loudspeakers and vibrating on the air into his ears, not sent by AiLeifr directly to his auditory nerve.

The entry to the shaft slid round and aligned with the hatch, locking into place just as Quill lost the last sense of feeling that the floor of the corridor was “down.” I guess it’s engineered to keep all exits available when rotation is off. He pushed off the floor, turning in mid-air to land feet-first at the hatch. The door didn’t respond to his chip, but slid open as usual when he hit the button by the side. Quill breathed a short puff of relief. He’d been worried that the doors might have been locked shut. He sat on the edge of the opening and lowered himself into the central shaft.

The words painted on the wall opposite stretched blood-red below him. A little further aft, a cleaning robot was in the process of de-anchoring from the wall of the shaft, its orange light blinking. The noise of the alarm echoed and bounced like breath in a bagpipe drone; the voice of war and fear. For half a second, Quill pictured the standing waves of sound, the sinusoidal ripples of pressure, then he hastily turned up his aural filters to reduce all incoming sound. Then he grabbed the rungs of the long ladder that ran the length of the shaft, oriented himself, and launched himself towards the forward decks.

He was a little past Deck 5 when the lights went out. The emergency lights stayed on, four threads of orange-red glowing in the sudden blackness, connecting the illuminated numbers that marked the entrance to each deck. Quill grabbed the ladder to recalibrate himself, clinging onto the cold solid metal as he adjusted his optical filters to make the most of the dim light. A shadow flickered through a hatch some way aft of him, then another and another, before disappearing into the gloom. Technicians, maybe, heading towards the rotational engine? He shook his head. Wrong place to look, guys. He felt sure of it. A little closer, there was a crepuscular circle of pale light from where he’d left the Deck 8 hatch open, cast by the emergency lighting in the Yellow Ring. Still closer, another pale yellow pool from Deck 5. Ahead, forward, nothing but the orange-red worms and the numbers shrinking up to 1. He took a deep breath and shoved himself into the throat of darkness.

He stopped himself at Deck 1. The red of the emergency light circled the hatch, but the entrance was closed. Quill hammered the manual release button. Nothing happened. Shit. Still, it made him more certain he was on the right track. The bridge of the Leifr was on Deck 1’s Blue Ring. More significantly, the Yellow Ring hosted AiLeifr’s main servers.

He tried the button again, and again. Nothing. He looked around wildly into the gullet of the shaft, the strip lights glowing like veins. Even if there was something he could use to force the door, he wouldn’t be able to see it. He closed his eyes and tried to remember where the emergency fire kits were located. Surely they must hold a hammer or an axe or something. But he knew in his heart that would be no use.

“AiLeifr! Open this door!” He was shouting, but could barely hear his own voice beneath the muffling of his filters. The alarm was still sounding in the background.

There was a pause, then a message flashed into his optics.

SYSTEM ERROR. INVALID CALL AT ADDRESS 0x11E1A300.

Shit. AiLeifr is well and truly screwed. I’m going to have to go around the long way. Lord, help!

He blinked off the message, then re-oriented himself with his head towards aft and pushed back towards Deck 2. He hit the button at that hatch, and breathed a sigh of relief when the door slid open, casting faint yellowish light into the shaft. He was halfway through the hatch when a thought struck him. Why was the Deck 5 hatch open? The answer presented itself as swiftly and completely as an algebraic proof. Aren’t the backup servers on that deck? And wouldn’t it make sense to leave an escape route open? He pulled back out of Deck 2 and, wincing as his strained wrist took the force of his swing, started back towards Deck 5.

He was almost at Deck 4 when a warning flashed up on his optics, together with an automated voice; the default androgynous voice of an ai without any customisation.

WARNING: ACCELERATION BURN COMMENCING IN 30 MINUTES. ALL PERSONNEL TO STATIONS.

It’s happening. Quill felt a surge of fear, a dizziness and a nausea that almost overwhelmed him, the darkness and the vein-like lights fading and then flaring and burning into his eyes. And then there came a sense of utter clarity. He had just one purpose now. He turned off the warning.

Approaching Deck 5, he overshot the hatch and grabbed the ladder to stop himself. His head hit something hard with a crack like a cricket ball and he gasped in pain, involuntarily letting go of the ladder. He righted himself and in the pale light from the hatch saw Tark, holding the ladder with one hand and rubbing her head with the other. She had no aikon. The identification system was offline. Cautiously, he adjusted his aural filters, trying to cancel the noise of the alarm while allowing him to hear foreground noises.

“Tark!” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“What?” she shouted.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke a little louder, motioning to her to adjust her own filters.

“Looking for you! Bowen said you had gone towards the shaft, and I figured, maybe something to do with AiLeifr…”

“Get back to your cabin! Engines gonna fire—”

“In twenty-nine minutes, I know. But may as well die trying to stop this, as die in my bunk.”

“Safira told you? What I think?”

“Yeah.”

Quill shook his head. Any chance of saving the ship might depend on me going in alone. At the same time, it felt good to not be alone.

“I’m not leaving you,” said Tark, her voice low and strained.

He nodded slowly. “OK. But here’s the thing. I want to go in, try and talk her out of this. She sees you, she might freak. Stay back, would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean stay by the server room door. Don’t let her know you’re there. Don’t come in unless things go bad, OK? I need to try and talk to her.”

“OK,” she whispered.

They turned to the hatch. It had been jammed open with a tight wedge of what looked like scrap metal. Quill and Tark looked at each other, and pushed themselves into the Yellow Ring.

AiLeifr’s backup servers took up almost all the Yellow Ring on Deck 5. There was only one entrance, a quarter-turn round the ring from the entrance to the central shaft. A few feet from the door, Quill motioned to Tark to stay back, while he pushed forward.

The door was open. Again, it was physically wedged in place, allowing for a quick exit. Quill grabbed the edge of the door to pause and peer into the dark space beyond. His optics flashed again.

WARNING: ACCELERATION BURN COMMENCING IN 25 MINUTES.

He dismissed the message with a quick blink, and focused on the server room. At first he could see nothing but the gentle blink of tiny lights on the circular racks of machines; emerald-green and ruby-red pinpricks against the black. The cold air of the cooling system purred against his face, the sound masked by the alarm that he could still hear in the background. Then, behind the first server rack, he saw a pencilling beam of white light sweep up to the narrow ceiling then back down. A flashlight. He held his breath, heart racing. Lord, help me now. He used the edge of the door to nudge himself cautiously into the room and floated to the edge of the rack.

When he stuck his head around the corner, he saw nothing at first but a thin halo of blue-white light silhouetting a smooth dark head, at the far end of the rack. It moved, and he saw the light was coming from a suit-mounted head torch and scattering off a small display monitor embedded in the rack.

Now or never. He pulled himself out from behind the rack, swinging round into the narrow space and floating towards the monitor. The flashlight jerked round as the figure turned, spotlighting his arm then his chest then flaring into his face. He threw up a hand to shield his eyes. He couldn’t hear the sudden hiss of breath from the dark figure, but he heard his own voice as he spoke.

“Hello, Priska.”

She kept the light shining in his eyes. Quill moved a little sideways and tried to get closer, tried to see her better.

“Quill,” she said. Her voice sounded dry and husky, as if she hadn’t used it for a long time. Quill edged closer, pulling himself along by the handles on the rack.

“Priska.”

“Stop,” she said. “Don’t come any closer.” He stopped. The light from her head torch was still dazzling him.

“Pris… What are you doing?”

She said nothing, but kept the narrow beam focused on him.

“Pris, this is insane. Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t have time for this.”

“Priska, please stop!”

The light flashed from side to side as she shook her head. “It’s too late.”

Quill pushed softly on the hard polymer casing of the server rack, giving him some momentum towards Priska and the monitor.

“I said stop!” Her voice was no louder, but more forceful.

He ignored her, allowing himself to sail towards her. He caught a glimpse of her face, her eyes wide and white, and her arms moving to the sides, and then the flashlight beam flipped up and her boot caught him in the belly and sent him flying back down the passage between the racks. His head banged on a hard edge and he cried out involuntarily. When he re-oriented himself, she had turned off the display monitor and was propelling herself past him, towards the door.

“Priska!”

Quill shoved himself towards her, head-first, a slow-motion rugby tackle. He collided with her legs and for a confused couple of seconds they tangled and spun in mid-air. When they came out of the spin, Quill found his back against the wall and Priska pressing something into his chest. For the first time, he could look into her eyes, wild and hard, like they had been in their final argument in the grove outside Ransom City.

“Pris, please stop!” he gasped. “All these innocent lives.. Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Quill.” Her eyes softened, and for a moment he saw the woman he loved. “Get out. Come with me.”

“I can’t let you do this!”

“They’re not innocent!” she shouted.

WARNING: ACCELERATION BURN COMMENCING IN 20 MINUTES.

“Who makes you the judge?” he asked. “Come on, Pris! You were right about the FSS, but don’t do this!”

“I don’t have time for this! Come with me, or burn with the rest of them, but don’t try to stop me.”

She pushed on his chest, propelling herself backwards towards the door, and Quill saw what she was holding in her hand, still pointing at his abdomen. A gun.

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