Destination Europa: Chapter 23

The Lifeboat

Oct 04, 2024

Navigation Index

Previously, Quill and Priska made their way through the Farm towards the Deck 9 lifeboat, until they were spotted by Olga as they passed the apiary…

“Don’t shoot!”

The yellow light from the apiary office reflected from the broad planes of Olga’s face like gilding on an ancient ikon. Quill and Priska looked up at her from where they crouched in the shadow of a lemon tree in its planter. Quill began to get to his feet. Olga seemed to be staring at a point just above his head. What’s going on? We don’t have a weapon.

“We don’t have…” he began.

“Just don’t hurt me, please!” Olga stepped backwards. Now that Quill was upright, she locked eyes with him. Quill was a good thirty centimetres taller than her, so she was looking up and away from Priska. Olga then waved her hands rapidly, gesturing in the direction of the lifeboat hatch. Her meaning began to dawn on Quill. She’s letting us go. She’s telling the ai we’re threatening her, but not looking at our hands. Not allowing her optical feed to show it we actually have nothing. Kind of shouting, but actually not that loudly. Plausible deniability. Quill reached down, keeping his eyes on Olga’s, and pulled Priska up. He felt her shaking as he put his arm round her, but a quick glance at her face showed him she was stifling a fit of giggles. The morphies he’d given her for the pain were in full effect. She sneezed again, and again, then broke into wild uncontrollable laughter.

“Don’t hurt, please,” said Olga again. She sidestepped around the planter, again gesturing towards the strawberry section where the lifeboat hatch was located. Quill grabbed Priska’s uninjured left arm and pushed her in that direction.

“Don’t move, or we shoot,” he told Olga. She nodded, an odd gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Quill backed away as quickly as possible, then turned, spinning Priska round with him, and started a half-run, half-limp out of the orchard.

They stopped at the edge of the strawberry section. Priska’s nose and eyes were streaming, but she seemed to have come to her senses enough to stop giggling. Quill pulled her in behind a rack of strawberry trays. 00:57. Still in time. Saf said she’d have the coast clear for us. I guess Olga will have had to call Security as soon as we were out of sight, though. We have to move fast.

“Stay here,” he breathed. “I’ll get the hatch.”

Even in the violet half-light, it was easy to see where the entrance to the lifeboat lay beneath the floor. Rows of trays had been rolled aside earlier, as crew and colonists had prepared to evacuate the ship. The two square metres of the hatch cover had slid back into place, but around it was a litter of torn plants and scattered soil. The racks and planters were secured against weightlessness, but over the course of a long voyage, almost everyone grew lax in tying things down. A whole tray of seedlings had spread itself across the floor. An irrigation pipe had somehow got torn and was now plinking a steady drip of water, forming a muddy slick. A pair of secateurs had smashed through the hood of an incubation tray, leaving the handles sticking out like dismembered fingers. It looked like cleanup had started but then been suspended for the night. Safira’s work, I bet. I don’t see Bowen leaving things in this mess without someone forcing him to take a break.

The control panel was on the other side of the lifeboat hatch. Quill crossed the space in three long bounds and flipped open the protective cover. The panel inside turned on, the buttons internally lit in phosphorescent green. Everyone on the Leifr had been trained in emergency use of the lifeboats before the mission, but Quill was glad of the instruction diagrams printed on the inside of the cover. He breathed a prayer of thanks that the lifeboat access controls were fully manual, a safeguard built in against failure of the ai. Too bad they relied so much on the ai in the rest of the ship. He pulled down the switch to start the hatch opening. A prompt flashed green on the control panel’s small LCD display.

> ENTER CONFIRMATION CODE

The code for each hatch was printed in large numerals on the cover with the instructions. As he angled the cover to get a better view, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun round. The space in front of him was dark and quiet. Priska was directly opposite, hidden where he’d left her. The movement had come from his right, from the direction of the Farm’s airlock to the Blue Ring corridor. Quill stared into the dimness but could see nothing except rows of incubation trays with their half-hidden strips of red and blue light. Keep moving. No time to imagine things. He turned back to the control panel and tapped in the code on the manual keypad, glancing back and forth between the printed numbers and the tiny screen.

> 15031564

A metallic clink echoed from his right-hand side. Quill jumped, swinging round fast to look back in that direction. Nothing. He already had his aural filters on maximum gain, to try and get advance warning of anyone coming. Someone’s there. Unless it was just something still settling after the disruption? If it was Security, surely they’d just come charging in and stun me? He stood and listened uneasily, the sweat damp in his armpits. Need to keep moving. He looked back at the control panel.

> INCORRECT CODE
> ENTER CONFIRMATION CODE

Shit. What’s gone wrong? His heart rate spiked. Maybe I typed it wrong. Maybe I didn’t press the buttons hard enough. He tried again, fingers trembling as he punched in each number, fumbling with the foreign physicality of the square metal buttons.

> 15021564

There was a buzz of acceptance. The whirring of a small motor began, and the floor lighting around the hatch began to flash amber, accompanied by a low-pitched beeping. At the same time, a clattering, the sound of someone righting themselves after stumbling, crashed into Quill’s ears. He spun round, automatically grabbing a small Farm trolley that stood next to the control panel. He recognised the figure on the other side of the lifeboat hatch. Jörg.

Jörg was wearing a red volunteer’s vest over his uniform, with SECURITY blazoned across the front. He was holding a stun gun in front of him as if it could fire bullets, and even from a couple of metres away Quill could see that his hands were trembling.

“Step away from the controls!”

Quill tried to pull the trolley in front of him, but it wouldn’t move. Magnetic wheel clamps, he remembered. Without moving from where he stood, his hand searched for the switch under the handle of the trolley. In the floor to his left, the hatch had opened a hands-breadth, and the lights in the lifeboat’s airlock section were flickering into life.

Jörg took a step forward. “I said step away!” He glanced back over his shoulder. Waiting for backup.

“Jörg,” said Quill. Maybe I can buy some time. “Brother. Since when were you on the same side as FSS Security?”

Jörg scowled at him. “Shut up. You are not my brother. I love my country, and I will defend it from terrorists and criminals.” He was shouting now. Performative posturing, thought Quill. Showing his loyalty. Covering himself.

Quill’s hand found the trolley switch. He clicked off the magnetic clamps, then swung the trolley round so it was between him and Jörg. The hatch was a quarter of the way open now. Jörg glanced back towards the Farm entrance again. He’s terrified. Maybe I can use that. He looked at the contents of the trolley. It appeared to be an assortment of things the Farm team had been gathering as they tidied. Quill’s eye fell on a small box of lemons. In the red-blue half-light, they looked black. He grabbed one with his left hand while with his right he swung the trolley round head-on then shoved it as hard as he could towards Jörg. The trolley clattered over the remaining half of the lifeboat hatch then hit Jörg in the legs, while Quill lunged over the opening to get Priska.

Jörg stumbled and gasped as a sharp corner of the trolley caught his shins, but managed to keep his balance.

“Down here!”

Quill heard him shout to someone approaching from the corridor. He slid behind the rack where he’d left Priska, only to find her gone. He swore.

“Priska! Where are you? Get in the hatch!”

He turned back to Jörg, who was circling towards him, still holding the stun gun. His nerves seemed to have steadied. Quill took a deep breath. I need this to work. He transferred the lemon to his right hand, fitting it into his palm and pressing a finger into the nub at the end of the fruit as if it were a trigger. He held it up.

“Jörg, get back.”

He saw the tall Norsker freeze. The hatch was nearly fully open now. The white light from the lifeboat overspilled into the Farm, and Quill realised with a jolt that the lemon in his hand looked more yellow than it had a few moments earlier. This is never going to work.

“Get back, or I will throw this grenade at you!”

Quill was rewarded by seeing Jörg take a shaky step backward. Quill stepped from behind the cover of the rack and moved towards him. “Keep going! And tell your friends to keep back too, or I will throw this!” There was a sound of running footsteps approaching. Jörg backed away a little further.

“Security Team Alpha! Help!”

To his side, Quill saw Priska sneak out from behind another rack of trays. “Get in,” he mouthed to her. He took another step towards Jörg and raised his arm as if he were about to throw a cricket ball. I wish I were better at ball sports. With all the power he could muster, he threw the lemon at Jörg’s head. Jörg screamed and ran, dropping his stun gun.

“Come on!” Quill rushed over to Priska and pulled her over to the ladder into the lifeboat. From the direction of the Farm airlock, he could hear voices, Jörg gabbling urgently. Quill knelt on the floor and helped her onto the ladder and down into the airlock, a narrow chamber that formed part of the lifeboat’s docking plug while connected to the ship, and an airlock proper when in vacuum. Her eyes were a little glazed, and he wasn’t sure how much of the situation she was really taking in.

“Quill!”

Bowen’s voice, coming from behind him. Quill scrambled to his feet and spun round. Bowen was running towards him from further inside the Farm. Demas was with him.

“Quill, what the hell?”

His Martian colleagues stopped as they saw the open hatch. Priska’s head was still above floor level. Bowen looked at the scene in shock.

“Grab him!” shouted Demas, springing at Quill. Quill sidestepped but Demas’ foot caught him in the leg. They fell together into the open hatch, landing painfully at the bottom and taking Priska with them on the way. She gave an agonized shriek, like the cry of a wounded animal, as she landed on her injured hand.

Quill was first to get to his feet. He leapt for the button that opened the door into the lifeboat proper. No confirmation codes were needed this time. There was a hiss of pistons and the floor began to open.

Demas was on the edge nearest the growing hole. He grabbed the ladder to haul himself to his feet, cursing as one leg fell through into the lifeboat. Holding onto the rungs of the ladder with one hand, he swung at Quill. Quill dodged him, and pulled Priska down into a sitting position, her legs dangling into the opening. Then Demas had him by the throat in a headlock.

“Quill, you idiot, you can’t do this,” said Demas quietly. He was taller than Quill, and stronger. “You’ll thank me later.” He kneed Quill in the groin, hard, then hauled him up and over the edge of the hatch, back into the Farm.

Quill rolled over, groaning. Demas had grabbed his collar and was dragging him away from the lifeboat. Quill kicked and for a moment managed to free himself. He lunged for the lifeboat hatch. Out of the corner of his vision he saw two red uniforms charge into the space. Gundarsson and NiDorn. He thought he saw a third figure, shadowy, coming behind them. For some reason Bowen was sprawled unconscious on the floor.

“Priska! Go!”

For a moment he saw over the edge of the hatch and saw Priska drop down into the body of the lifeboat. He pushed himself forward, slithering over the side and lunging head-first for the emergency launch button, glowing jewel-like halfway down the airlock chamber wall. Someone jumped on his legs, and despite the half-g gravity he felt a searing pain as bone broke. He screamed. In the distance, he thought he heard Tark’s voice shouting. Upside-down, his fingers brushed the square green of the launch button and with one last desperate surge of energy he pushed it. He could only reach far enough to get it half-way, and then he blacked out.

“Wake up!”

A jolt of electricity stabbed him in the ribs. Quill felt his back muscles spasm. He gasped, then sank back into blackness. There were voices, though.

“Chief Gundarsson, please stop!”

“Shut the • up!”

Another shock, followed by a kick in the side. Quill shuddered, and his eyes opened. His focus fuzzed and blurred. There were faces above him. Gundarsson, angry and pale. Tasha NiDorn. Demas, his expression unreadable. Jörg, pale and smug. Tark. He thought she was crying, but he couldn’t see clearly enough to be sure.

Gundarsson was holding a stun gun to his chest. He leaned in over Quill, his face like a bearded moon, his breath like stale cheese.

“Aquilla Augustine O’Neill, on behalf of the Federation of Scandinavian States, I arrest you under Section 37.2 of the International Space Terrorism Act. Anything you say or do will be recorded and may be used as evidence against you.”

Quill tried to speak. “I was only—”

“Shut up!” Gundarsson jabbed the stun gun harder into his chest, though he didn’t trigger it.

Gundarsson and NiDorn hauled him to his feet. Quill yelped as his broken leg gave way, and blacked out again. When he came to a few seconds later, they had slung his arms around their shoulders and were dragging him towards the corridor. He turned his head to try and see back towards the lifeboat hatch. The ring of lighting round the rim had turned red. Tark took a few steps after them, then Gundarsson shouted something and she stopped. Quill heard a buzzing in his ears, and the world faded back into black.

← Previous chapter

→ Next chapter

Navigation Index

If you enjoyed this story, let me know with a like, comment or share!