J Mauldin - Final Solution

Lank Hair snuck up on the other side, making the press of bodies and radiating heat even worse. “Got a few might end up in the brig rather permanently before this is over. Best to get off it and stay in line, proper like, no tampering with the mood of our bonnie ’ol conveyance.”

I swallowed and reached for my tool belt out of reflex. Both of my arms were pinned against my body as the press changed form and drew closer. I was bound in place like a mummy wrapped in limbs.

Lank Hair smiled, cold as ice. “A bit of action went down by the arboretum, lots of bitin’, screamin’, fluids endin’ up all over the place. Might say those involved went a bit feral, been trapped in a cage too long to keep track of what’s expected. I think they might need some tea and a plate of biscuits, a dash of VR to get away for a while. Instead, they opted for something, eh, a little less traditional, or perhaps more so in fact. Something not exactly in the family. Something God would not approve of. Understand?”

The crush of crew squeezed tighter and tighter.

“Hey! Give me some space, alright?” a woman shouted.

“If you weren’t so damn fat I wouldn’t need the space!”

“At least I eat normal food. Your sweat smells like a rotting onion!”

“Still smells better than those ape ropes you got hanging from your jumpsuit. It’s the 2070’s, not the 1960’s, you damn hippy. Shave your fucking pits, woman.”

Kelly spoke up, “Calm down, people, calm down. It’s just a little snug up here, that’s all.”

“We’re all feeling trapped,” Dour Face said, pushing against the crowd. “No sense in squeezing us up more.”

Lank Hair leaned into me, his breath hot on my left ear. “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened in the arboretum, would you?”

“I don’t think I get you’re meaning,” I replied, finding it harder to breathe, my heart having swelled so large it reduced my lungs to pancakes. Had there been another fist fight? Or had he witnessed Lib and I during our sexual escapades.

“Sure you do,” Dour Face groaned. “You know all about everything, Goddard. You’ve been everywhere in this ship, know everyone. You got the inside track, it would seem.”

“I keep to myself,” I said, slowly backing off through the press. “Excuse me, Doc. Kelly. Sorry, sir. I need some air.”

A voice came over my earpiece. “Turn complete. Good work, Navigation.” I bolted for the back of the ship where things might be less cramped. I needed to get some air, recycled or not.

As I neared the Cargo Bay events began to thread together in my mind, dots connecting to form lines pointing in one direction. Every single time I’d found damage, or something changed in the ship, I’d discovered a mindless doodle left behind. Not to mention, the drawing on César’s drug baggie looked very much like the artist’s handwriting. My suspicions had been right all along. I knew I never liked him, there was a reason, and I knew he wasn’t alone. But how do I take this to the Captain? Was there enough evidence to say anything? I couldn’t very well take them down by myself. They had stun sticks. I had tools.

My watch vibrated. It was an engine room alarm. Something was terribly wrong. I took off at a dead run, not a person in my way. Every soul was still up front watching our mid-journey pass.

The intercom boomed with the Captain’s voice in prayer: “Oh God, Lord of all the universe, bless us as we make good your righteous wrath and strike down thy enemy. Forgive us our sins as we have made mistakes against you…”

As I shot through nuclear storage and into the engine room, I began to feel strange, light headed and disconnected. It wasn’t altogether displeasing, but it wasn’t right.

“What the hell?” I said, my voice several keys lower than it should have been. I snatched a breathing mask from off the wall and fixed it over my face. The problem was clear, but the source wasn’t. We had a Xenon fuel leak, and it was a big one. I removed Liberty’s earpiece and stuffed it in my sock.

The area around engine control was pressurized like the rest of the ship, but the air mix was mostly inert, with little or no oxygen to encourage fire. Air flowed into me from a properly fixed breathing mask as I ventured inside the space, noting first that César’s tools were missing from their usual hook on the wall. I thought nothing of it. Griffin must have taken them as a memento.

Nine hundred slender black canisters of Xenon gas filled the tight space between hulls. I frantically searched over and around, squeezing between copper pipes and plastic tubing like an interplanetary spelunker. I took out my gas meter, using it to find the source of the leak by concentration. After a couple moments the perpetrator was clear.

Seven tanks of Xenon gas were leaking. Their pipes, leading out to the engines where they’d be converted into a stream of ions, had been cut. I began shutting the tanks off one by one, then pressed a button, activating the emergency fans to clear the section of abnormal gases. Xenon wasn’t deadly, but it was sometimes used as a general anesthetic like nitrous during medical procedures. I didn’t need the crew passing out for surgery.

I inspected the damage, getting as close as I could before scanning it with my watch. The pipes had been cut roughly by a plasma torch. One whose tip was in desperate need of repair.

I rushed back into the engine room, checking to see which engines still operated. The damage had caused five of the sixteen to go offline. At this rate I wasn’t confident we could slow down in time to engage the enemy in orbit around Mars, even with the extra power output from the Photon Focusers. Without strong enough brakes, we’d go hurtling past the red planet God knows where. I had to get these fixed immediately, or we could fail. But there was something more pressing. Who’d done this? Somehow it didn’t seem to be Dour Face’s style.

Before I could call the bridge and inform the Captain, Lank Hair floated toward me, his hair standing on end like a madman, stun stick in hand. “Don’t twitch a muscle, Goddard.”

I’d been wrong in my original assumptions. It hadn’t been Dour Face at all. “It was you,” I growled, looking for something to use as a weapon. I raised my yellow handled plasma torch, flipped it on with a flash of blinding light, and held it out before me. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll melt your fucking face off.”

Dour Face came up behind Lank Hair with Higgins in tow. “Goddard, don’t make this harder than it has to be. We don’t want to hurt you.”

I blinked. Wait, what? My intensity faltered. “I have to protect the crew!” I shouted, face going red. “We have to make it to Mars on time!” Which one of them had done this? Whoever it had been convinced the rest I was the enemy.

“And now we won’t because of you,” Dour Face responded, the muscles in his arm going tight, fingers clasping his stun stick with violent intent. “Navigation ran the numbers. Without all sixteen engines, we’re out of the race.”

“Why did you do it, Goddard?” Higgins asked, eyebrows crinkling. “Why? You were always such a patriot.”

“Excuse me?” I said, looking at them each individually, torch trembling in my hands. There was no way out of this. I was backed into the engine room and they were covering the only exit. Besides, where would I run if I did escape? In circles? “What did I do? It was you, all of you! Don’t try and turn this around on me.”

“We don’t have time for this shit,” Lank Hair said, and threw back his arm. He hurled the stun stick directly at me. I tried to dip out of the way, but it didn’t have far to go. The tip hit me in the chest.

Ten thousand volts shot through my nervous system. I wanted to scream at the pain, but all I managed to do was gurgle. The torch in my hand fell away, powering down automatically.