Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

“Chill out, Andrew. Check your toy, and let’s figure out how to get out of this room before the air runs out.”

I check the system for the location of the nearest unused escape pod, only to unearth more bad news.

“Fuck. They’re all gone.”

“What’s all gone?”

“The pods. They all launched. There’s not a single escape pod left in the hull. The last one launched seven minutes ago.”

Halley throws her hands up in an exasperated gesture that looks almost comically understated, considering our circumstances.

“Well, isn’t that just fucking awesome.”

“I can blow the lock on that hatch remotely with the admin deck, I think, but we won’t have any air to breathe.”

“Or any way off the damn ship.” She pauses for a moment, and then snaps her fingers.

“Can you see if the drop ship is still on the flight deck?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

I flick through a dozen status pages and submenus until I reach the optical feed from the flight deck camera. The feed shows an empty set of docking clamps over a sealed drop hatch. The flight deck is empty and dark.

“It’s gone. Looks like your pals left without you.”

“Well,” Halley says. “Then that’s that.”

“Don’t you guys have more than one drop ship on this tub?”

I see excitement in her face, which is a lot better than the fear that was there just a moment ago.

“Yeah, the spare. It’s in the far corner of the flight deck, in a berth. Can you see that on the camera feed?”

I cycle through all the visual feeds from the flight deck. Finally, one of the overhead camera lenses gives me a perfect oblique view of a Wasp-class drop ship.

“There it is. Looks like they didn’t want to take the time to fire that one up, too.”

Halley leans over my shoulder and studies the screen.

“That bird is dry and bare—no fuel, no ordnance. Even if we can lock it into the clamps and drop it out of the hatch, we’ll go in ballistic. We’re too close to that planet.”

“Well,” I say, “isn’t the refueler automated?”

“Yeah. The ordnance monkeys have to load the ammo by hand, but the computer does the refueling. I have no idea how to work it, though. They usually have it filled up and ready by the time they hand me the keys, you know.”

“Well, I don’t know how to do it, either, but I bet the computer does.”

For a minute or two, I dig through the systems that are still talking to the Neural Network, expecting the automated flight deck modules to be offline, or the system objecting to my poking around with a security lockout. Luckily, neither event comes to pass. The refueling module on the flight deck is active and idle, waiting for human input. I log into the refueling console remotely, and point to the screen of my admin deck to draw Halley’s attention to the menus.

“That’s gotta be the one,” she says, tapping the screen over the menu item that says “READY FIVE LAUNCH PREP”.

“Good thing they label their stuff clearly,” I say, and activate the sequence. The menu status changes to “INITIATED/IN PROGRESS”, and I switch back to the optical feed to make sure that something is really happening down on the flight deck. Near the drop ship, a warning strobe starts flashing. As we watch, the robotic arm of the refueling module comes into view and swivels around the Wasp to dock with the refueling port in the top of the hull.

“That takes care of the gas,” I say. “How long does it take for the tanks to fill up?”

“Ten minutes,” she replies. “Another five to fire up the avionics and do the pre-flight self-checks, and two to move the whole thing over to the drop hatch.”

There’s a low rumble going through the hull that makes the floor shake slightly underneath our feet. Over by the data storage modules, something starts to beep, and all the lights in the room go out briefly. When they come back on, all the storage banks in the NNC fall silent at once. I’ve never been in this room without hearing the drone of the cooling elements for the storage banks, and the lack of background noise is ominous.

“I think your shit just broke,” Halley says flatly.

“Yeah, no kidding,” I reply.

My admin deck is still running, and the local telemetry is still up, but the link to the hangar bay systems is gone. The neural network of a warship is terrifically resilient, backup data links on top of backup links, but now I can’t see anything beyond the local telemetry range, half a deck in either direction. Something big just broke, and the Versailles is dying. If the link had gone down twenty seconds earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to verify the presence of the drop ship on the flight deck, much less activate the refueling sequence.

“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” I say.

“No argument,”Halley replies tersely. “Let’s.”

I can’t see much through the viewport of the NNC’s hatch. The corridor outside is dark, and I can’t tell whether there’s smoke outside, or hard vacuum. The system only knows that opening the door would be dangerous, so the safety lock keeps the hatch closed.

“Can you unlock that with your toy?” Halley asks, pointing to my admin deck.

“Yeah, I can override the safety. There’s no air on the other side, though. It’ll blow all the air out of this room, and then we’ll suffocate.”

“What about the NIFTIs? We got a ton of those on every deck.”

“Of course,” I grin, and feel like slapping my forehead for overlooking the obvious. The NIFTIs—Navy Infrared Thermal Imagers—are stored in emergency lockers on every deck on the ship. They’re little masks with infrared goggles and a small oxygen supply, designed to let a crewmember see and breathe in the event of a major fire on the ship. I open the admin deck and check the emergency chart for the nearest NIFTI locker.

“There are three right on the bulkhead just before the aft staircase,” I say. “Twenty yards to the left. Think you can hold your breath that long?”

“I guess we’ll find out. If I faint, you’ll just have to drag me, you fierce combat grunt.”

“Like I have a choice,” I say. “I can’t fly a drop ship for shit.”

We both laugh, even though we’re scared almost witless.

“Where are we going after we get the NIFTIs on?”

I consult the admin deck again.

“Staircase, and down to Deck Seven. This thing doesn’t show any fires. We should be okay with the infrared from the NIFTIs. Just watch your step.”

“Let’s hope your toy is right about that,” Halley says as she zips up the collar of her flight suit. “I’d hate to open a hatch and get baked.”

“Check the hatches with your hand before you open them,” I say, recalling the firefighting lessons from Navy Indoc.

“Right. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I don’t really want to trade the relative safety of the NNC and its autonomous oxygen supply for the air-deprived corridors on the other side of that access hatch, but there’s no way of knowing how much longer the Versailles is going to hold together. I open the admin deck and find my way to the emergency override for the fireproof hatch in front of us. Once again, I expect the system to refuse my request, but the light on the door panel switches from red to green without complaint. I close the lid of the admin deck and stow the device in its carry pouch.

“Ready?” Halley asks, her hand on the door release.

“Left turn, twenty yards. Ready,” I say. “Go.”

Halley slaps the hatch release with her palm, and the locking bolts on the hatch retract with a loud clacking sound. Then she pulls the hatch open, and the room immediately starts filling with smoke. We step over the threshold of the hatch and rush out into the passageway.