Cloak of War Read online

  Now, I hate to speak poorly of the dead, but sweet Jesus. I don’t believe he ever washed that suit. It stinks like a an old sock did five rounds with a rotten onion. Smells tend to linger and grow inside of a vacuum suit. Colby informed me that it was Winkelman’s lucky charm; he said as long as he didn’t clean it, they’d get through.

  Bullshit, I say. It just stinks like hell. Once I get back inside, the first thing I’ll do is clean it.

  We enter the maintenance airlock. She cycles it. A dim green light flickers above the hatch, and she pushes through.

  The maintenance airlock is an oversized space with tools, kits, repair parts, and anything you may need to service the outside of the ship. One hatch leads to the outer hull. A smaller hatch, barely big enough for a person to crawl through, leads to the cloaking gas chamber.

  I start to snug into a tool belt.

  “Hold it, no belts,” Colby says. She hands me a brand-new welding gun and a slag hammer.

  “What? How the hell—” Gotta have my tools. How else can I work?

  “It’s all you need. That gas is corrosive; we bring out the bare minimum. Now you first, just wait on the other side. We’re relieving Hauptmann and Sebic.”

  She opens that narrow hatch. It’s a finely polished titanium; it has that dull gray tint to it. I slide my body inside and lay the tools next to me. The gate clangs shut. It is dark, and then a green light glows. I struggle to open the hatch and finally get it to pop. I pull myself through and then the tools.

  The inside of that chamber stretches the entire length of the ship. It has the look of a recently pumped septic tank. Scale and oxidization grow from the walls in slabs of green, orange, and blue. It reminds me of an ancient cave on Old Earth, all filled with stalactites and stalagmites.

  Two vac suits weld above me. There’s some gravity, but not much right here.

  With welding, you need a base metal. You can draw an arc on rust or slag all day long, but it won’t stick. It’ll fuss and fiddle, blast and sputter. Hell, it might even look like a nice bead of slowly hardening metal. But it’s not. It’s like pouring glue onto sand.

  Colby follows in a second later.

  “We’re in, decon, and hold,” Colby says. She beckons me to follow her.

  About then I notice a dim sheen in the room. Light flickers, tenses, disappears, then reappears again. It’s like a mirage is playing itself out at a low intensity. It’s intoxicating to watch. I hold my hand before me and watch as a finger disappears and then reappears again.

  “Quit fucking off. That’s the gas. Now come here. I’m hunting, you’re welding. Time’s burning, boy.”

  And so we go. The chamber is kept close to pure vacuum. This draws in any of the cloaking gas that is huddled on the hull outside. As the gas flows through those tiny holes, they grow larger and are hence easier to find.

  That’s the theory.

  In reality, we’re racing the clock. Eventually, the gas will destroy our suits. The only thing that holds up to the mixture is the specially designed alloy of the hull itself, but even that isn’t impervious.

  Colby crawls on the surface with a device like a long wand. She stops and taps it. “Here. Hit it with the hammer, break off the oxidation. Let’s get a look.”

  I hammer once. Twice. It’s like smacking a sheet of rubber. A giant chunk peels off and reveals the base metal. It’s etched and scarred, and tiny pinpricks dot the whole surface.

  “High-energy laser scatter,” Colby says. “Lay down tacks on the big one. We’ll see how it looks.”

  I connect my welding gun to the heavy metal cable snaking back into the ship. Then I start. My mask auto-dims to compensate for the brightness of the arc. Without it, my eyes would look like Henna’s by the end of the shift.

  I strike one bead. Then the next. Tap. Weld. Tap. Weld. The only delay comes when my mask recovers. Finally, I stare down at a tattoo of molten metal that slowly dims from orange to red and finally black.

  “Hammer,” Colby says.

  She pushes me to the side and starts whaling on the tiny tacks with that hammer. Bam. Bam. Bam. I can hear a tinny echo as she hits. It must be the gas transmitting sound. Bam. She gives it everything.

  Then I remember what the first officer said. If the weld fails, the ship will die. Suddenly I don’t notice the stink in the suit quite as much.

  “Thirty minutes,” Yao calls over the suit comms.

  Colby clambers along and sweeps the wand. She points out another spot, and once more I head out. We repeat this three more times. At each one, I have to fiddle with the amperage and feed rate. Too many amps, and it’ll burn through. Too little, and it won’t go deep enough.

  I picture those probes driving through space, like two spotters along a boxing ring. Once they get that side profile, we’re fucked. Haymaker, baby.

  “Ten minutes, we need to test it,” someone calls from the bridge.

  “Almost,” Colby replies.

  Where’s the captain? Shouldn’t he be running things while, you know, the ship is minutes from disaster?

  “Here!” Colby points to another spot.

  I start welding as soon as I break free the slag. She goes back and checks the previous one. Just as I finish up I see a crack winding along the hull. Cracks are bad. As long as you have one, it can grow and keep growing.

  “Got a crack!” I start tracing the bead and filling it in.

  Colby’s at my side in a quick moment. She hammers above me, below me, breaks free the nasty slag. I fill it in slowly, building up a layer, pulling back a fraction of an inch, then going forward again. Stitch, push, stitch, push.

  The crack keeps going. On the bottom side it ends at a strut. I crank up the amperage and burn it deep before quickly toning it back down. Is it enough? I hope so. Normally you drill a hole at the end and press in a pin. No time for that now. This puppy better hold.

  “Here, lift your arms,” Colby says. She ties on a length of titanium cord.

  “What’s this for?”

  She kicks off toward the hatch. “Keep welding!”

  I focus on the crack and keep following it up. Will it end? Those pods must be close, have to be. I pass over an area that they’ve already welded on once. The crack is barely visible. I lose it. Then find it.

  As the metal heats, the crack appears, just barely, like the slightest hair. I chase it. I can’t stop now or I’ll lose it.

  “Bridge, go on the pump,” Colby calls.

  “Clear the slag!” I yell. I’m approaching the slag with the gun. I can’t stop. Not now. Colby bashes it and pulls a piece away.

  “Get ready, just weld until you can’t see. The bead is gonna float on you. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I reply without really listening. The crack turns, heads toward a strut. That has to be where it’s headed.

  A dim clang sounds through the chamber. A moment later, a swirling current of mirror drifts in front of me. I have to keep the heat, so I keep tapping the electrode on the hull. It disappears. Reappears. Gone again.

  “Fuck me.”

  “We gotta go. Now,” Colby says.

  “Not yet, I’m almost—”

  “It’s corrosive, our suits aren’t going to last long.”

  “Head back to the hatch, pull me in, but I gotta keep going!” The crack appears again. It’s a tiny wisp of a shadow. It must be near the end.

  Colby goes.

  The mirrors and shadow shift around me. It goes dark, light. I dance the arc from side to side. I can’t even see it now. Then once more it comes into focus.

  My mouth is dry, and I give it one last swoop.

  A sudden yank rips me away from the wall, and then I’m drifting away. It’s a madhouse of colors, shapes, shadows, lights. In one second, a shadow drifts through me, and then my legs go out of focus and come back.

  ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM. Bright red letters flare across my vac suit face shield. Shit. “Breach!”

  The tugging hammers against me again. I can’t see anythi
ng.

  “Here we go!” Colby calls. The signal is twisted, hollow. Makes sense—this gas absorbs any energy, even radio waves.

  The hull is suddenly on me, and I smash into it. A hand reaches out. All I can see now is a giant red warning. My suit is breached. How long until it eats into the suit?

  Colby stuffs me head first into the tiny airlock. I feel the hatch on my feet. As soon as the light is green, the other hatch opens. Two suits tear me out. They close the hatch quickly.

  “Stand up!” a woman yells.

  I stand and hold my breath.

  The other suit sprays me with an orange foam. It sizzles and hisses. Bits plop down onto the metal floor.

  Colby exits the hatch. “Bridge! Full pressure! Give it!”

  The three of them all turn and watch a massive pressure gauge. It’s the old style with a dial. I wipe the orange foam from my visor and stare with them. It climbs up.

  Higher.

  Higher.

  It hesitates a moment. Shit. Did it blow?

  Then up it goes again.

  The needle wavers back and forth before settling right on a green dot.

  “Full pressure, bridge,” Colby calls.

  “Acknowledged. We’ve already equalized. Well done.” It’s Yao; his voice sounds a bit calmer.

  Colby slaps me on the shoulder. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next few days, I lie in sick bay with my hands wrapped tight with gauze and neutralizing cream. At first, it was spent in a mild narcotic haze. Then they tapped my sternum and started pumping in medicine.

  The acid that binds the cloaking gas is nasty stuff. Once it contacts your pores, it burrows into your skin. The first thing it does is deaden the nerves. Then, bit by bit, it seeps into your muscles until it finally gets what it wants. Calcium.

  At that point, it’ll seek to balance itself out. A little acid means a little bone damage. But every acidic ion wants to bind with a dozen calcium ions.

  Dr. Mohammad said that high amputation is the only way to stop the acid from dissolving your entire skeleton. As if this is supposed to make me feel better. I guess he did explain this just before the bone marrow implant.

  Talk about painful. I was even good and stoned when…whammo! Like a hammer to the chest.

  But at least I’ll get to keep my hands.

  First Officer Yao found me after the sternum tap. Once they could reflow the cloaking gas, the sensor pods came up with nil, and the ship was able to slip away. It was a risky move. They basically made one quarter of the ship visible, the quarter away from the hostiles. Had there been another destroyer, it would’ve been game over.

  Yao looks better than before but still worn thin. I want to ask about the captain, but by the hushed tones and quiet voices, I sense that this isn’t new.

  Henna spends her time telling me how her eyes feel like sandpaper. She describes it in a variety of ways.

  “Like something is caught, a bunch of eyelashes, or like suede underneath my eyelids.”

  “It sounds terrible. I mean, all I have is a tube stuck into my chest right? And acid, don’t forget the acid.”

  Dr. Mohammad frowns at the two of us and leaves the little med bay. It’s in between shifts now. They’ve gone to an eight-hour stretch now that we’re out of combat. That, and we’re bouncing.

  I’ll elaborate a bit: on this ship, it’s different than a passenger liner. About half of the Orca is for the cloaking system; another quarter is just for the astrogation compiler. The ship needs to bounce accurately enough to land outside of the patrolled zones. It’s easy for a liner to just point at the gravity well and dump it in.

  If the Orca did that, she’d land right in a minefield or at teatime with a pack of Tyrolean warships. So that massive thinker helps plot the proper course. The big battleships have them, cruisers too. The little ships just stick with them guys. Space is no issue on a tub like that. But here, it’s huge.

  As it is, the bounce takes time. There’s variations in gravity, dark matter, solar winds…hell, they don’t even know all the variables. What takes two weeks now might take three weeks on the next trip. For now, we bounce in interstellar space without a worry of seeing anyone. We’re light-years from nothing and anything.

  Now take the remaining quarter of the Orca and add weapons. Beyond that, you need to keep the crew alive too. A surprising amount of storage for food. This explains why there’s so much space everywhere right now. They’re at the end of a patrol.

  Something beeps on one wall. It’s a medical buzzer that says something is very wrong. I turn my head and try to see it. A number flares on a screen. Six.

  A voice bellows and screams. It echoes down the hall. It’s a terrible sound of grief, anger, fear.

  “What is that?” Henna says. She sits up and looks ahead, even though she’s still wearing a bandage over her eyes.

  “I have no idea.”

  The main passage empties. A few groups of crew that have been lounging about suddenly disappear.

  What is going on? If anything, this should be bringing everyone to help. It sounds like bloody murder.

  I swing onto the floor. The tube sticks out from my chest, I support it one with hand and look.

  Dr. Mohammad rushes through the bulkhead and holds it open. On the other side, two men carry a hammock. Something thrashes inside of it. A hand shoots out and latches on to the hatch. The doctor rushes back and peels the white-tight fingers free.

  “Get him in!” Dr. Mohammad yells. He pushes me back. “Get into that bunk and stay out of the way! He’ll grab onto anything, even your marrow tube!”

  An operating table drops down from the ceiling and locks into a set of steel legs. The man thrashes inside of the hammock. Hands jut out, tear at the edges. The two crew struggle to hold him up. The doctor secures restraints on the front and back.

  Growling and snarling erupt from the hammock. Then spitting, gnashing, inhuman sounds. I can’t do anything but watch.

  “What’s happening?” Henna asks, still blind.

  “It’s ok, Henna, just a—”

  They lift the hammock onto the table. The cloth sides fall away, and Captain Hallverson thrashes about.

  “Seizure.” That’s it. What else could it be? I look away and then back again. It’s a damned private moment in a ship where there’s no privacy.

  This must happen often; otherwise, why would the crew disappear?

  “Grab his hands, dammit, Smyth!”

  Smyth pins one hand down, and the doctor tightens a restraint.

  “Why aren’t the sedatives working, Doctor?” Smyth asks. His face is red with effort.

  “Anastasia! Anastasia!” Hallverson bellows. It’s a terrible scream. With every word, he lurches up and struggles to free himself. Veins pop out from his neck like angry snakes. “Marcus! Viola! Samantha!”

  Dr. Mohammad snaps one restraint down, but it just makes the thrashing worse. Now he has a surface to leverage himself off of.

  Hallverson slams a fist into one of the crew. The man falls like a bag of potatoes.

  I leap out of the bunk and pin one arm down. The strength is amazing. His muscles flare and burn beneath my hands. It takes everything to hold him with my hands still wrapped up.

  Then the anger really hits. His eyes pop wide open, almost bulging out from the sockets. He grits his teeth. Spit flies as he yells. “Anastasia! Get the children out now! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”

  The crew member tries to hold Hallverson’s chest down. Dr. Mohammad struggles to get a leg anchored.

  Then the strap breaks.

  Hallverson leaps off of the table and is on me. He squeezes my shoulders with an iron grip. In a moment, we’re on the floor, his face just centimeters from mine. “Get the children! Why don’t you save them!” he screams again and again.

  Dr. Mohammad rips open a cabinet and pulls out a pneumatic injector—the sort they use to inoculate cattle. He fumbles with an ampule and finally snaps it i
nto place.

  Hallverson stares at me, his eyes focusing and unfocusing. “You’re not Anastasia? Where are my children? You bastard!”

  He pulls a fist back and slams it into my face. Stars ripple across my vision.

  At that moment, I know I’m fucked. The pain of his body pressing down on the marrow tap is excruciating. How much can it take? It must snap, or my sternum will break—something has to give. I can’t dodge. I can’t escape. I just have to take this beating until the doctor gets his shit together.

  Another punch comes, and another. Hallverson elbows another crew member who tries to pull him off me. Finally, the satisfying sound of the pneumatic pistol firing.

  Hallverson rears off of me and crouches like an animal waiting to pounce. “Ana…” His words slur, and he falls to a knee. “Get them…oh…”

  And with that, he collapses onto the floor.

  Dr. Mohammad drops the pneumatic injector with a thud.

  The crew emerges when the screaming stops. A few come to check on Hallverson. No one asks any questions; they just peek into the med bay and leave.

  I sit in silence and watch the doctor. When he finishes tending to Hallverson, he checks on my marrow tap.

  “The stress is extreme. It wears on us all. Now”—his eyes look pained as he speaks—“we are a family, and families understand certain things. He’s the best of us. It’s just the stress.”

  “Why didn’t you sedate him before, Doctor?” I say. I figure those few punches I took earned me the right to ask.

  Dr. Mohammad looks away. He retapes the dressing. “The captain’s orders. We don’t do it unless we must.”

  “But why?”

  “The dreams, Mr. Jager, or rather the nightmares.”

  A few hours later, they return Captain Hallverson to his quarters. Dr. Mohammad acts as if nothing happened. The next day, he removes my dressing and considers me good enough to return to duty.

  I sense something that I can’t quite place. As I walk out of the med bay, I realize what it is. Guilt. But for the life of me I can’t decide why.

  The first officer assigns me to sensors until the captain says otherwise. There’s not much worth looking at in the midst of interstellar space.