Chapter 5
If anyone had expected the red carpet to be rolled out, they quickly had their hopes dashed. The airlock opened and they were hurried in an orderly fashion from the jump ship by a man who looked none too pleased to be given the task. He gave Mr. Kennedy a harsh look and muttered something under his breath that only their teacher could hear. Judging by the redness of his cheeks, Caeden figured it wasn’t appropriate for any of the kids to have heard. The man left them standing in the hold area. The class was quiet and they looked at Mr. Kennedy for direction. He seemed to still be hearing what the man had said. When he spoke, it was slowly and with purpose.
“Ok, well, this rig is currently short-staffed, so we won’t have a guide to take us around. Luckily, I’ve seen a few rigs in my time. I should be able to give you the ten cent tour,” he said.
“What’s a tencent tour?” one of the sophomore girls whispered. Her companion shook her head and folded her arms across her chest.
Caeden looked around the docking bay cargo hold. It looked a lot like the jump ship they had just come in. The same color scheme at least. Large gray and blue boxes were piled in neat stacks throughout the room. Tim Reidal piped up.
“Is that blue, Mr. Kennedy?”
“No, Tim. They don’t ship in small containers like that…at least not at this stage. Though we won’t see a freighter today, they are massive vessels that dock with the rigs while they’re mining. The blue goes straight into the freighters. C’mon folks, this way.”
They walked down a narrow corridor in near single-file. Caeden wondered if it was all this confined. He was having to duck under nearly every doorway. Maybe that was the real reason he would never be a miner…he was just too damned tall. They all ascended a set of stairs and came out into an open circular room that was the width of the rig, which Caeden realized was not as big as he had expected.
Though he could now see out nearly every side of the rig, the ceiling pressed down on him no more than a few inches above his head. There was piping and wiring that landed haphazardly here and there. He spotted his father leaning over a console at the center of the room. This must have been the primary staging area. A round graphical video table was beneath his left hand. He was gazing at a monitor and had either not noticed, or was doing an excellent job at ignoring, the large class that had just entered.
“Hello, Jack,” Mr.Kennedy said.
Caeden could tell it was a bad day already. He suddenly felt bad for Mr. Kennedy.
“Mr. Kennedy. Ladies and gentlemen, please be aware that if I ask you to do something or to cease doing something while you are aboard this rig, you will comply with my request immediately. As you can see, we are in a state of repair. This rig is essentially in shutdown. We are not currently mining blue at the moment. Enjoy your stay. Mr. Kennedy, if I may have a word?” Jack Llewellyn said, beckoning Mr. Kennedy closer.
He grasped him by the shoulder in a feigningly casual way and said something that only Joe Kennedy could hear. Caeden’s father finished with a curt nod, then turned back to the monitor he had been working on. He hadn’t acknowledged Caeden’s presence at all. When Mr. Kennedy turned back to face the class his smile was somewhat strained. His voice was lowered and his demeanor seemed to be quelled.
“Folks, listen up. This is a quick visit, so we’re going to try and get a good look, then head on back so that we’re not in the way.”
This last point he raised his voice on, just an octave, so as to be heard by everyone present. The class gathered around so they could hear.
“This is the central hub of the rig. Nothing goes on that doesn’t get initiated here. Freighter docking, blue shaft extension and retraction, altitude, communications, personnel transport, life support, etcetera. You name it, it’s all directed through here.”
“Mr. Kennedy,” asked a small sophomore girl named Sandy, “how many people are on a rig at one time?”
“Well, let’s see,” he said and tapped a finger against his chin, “Takes four or five men to man the shaft. There’s always two crews on a rig, so that’s eight to ten right there. At least three engineers, a programmer, and a technologist. So, that gives us thirteen to fifteen, minimum. And, we’ve obviously proven that twenty six can successfully board.”
Caeden’s father suddenly spoke over his shoulder. A rig could carry as many as fifty personnel, he said, though he didn’t know how comfortable that would be or whether he would want to be on a rig that packed. An audible alarm on the monitor at his hands ended his part of the conversation.
“Hold on,” he said, “There’s going to be a bit of a bump.”
A bit of a bump was certainly downplaying what happened next. The entire rig shifted to Caeden’s right side, sagging momentarily before righting itself. A few girls cried out. Caeden watched Mr. Kennedy. The color had drained from his face. He was looking at Caeden’s father as if to say, Ok, I believe you now.
“Folks, I think it’s time for us to head back. Looks like things are a little rougher up here than I thought, and I don’t think your parents would appreciate me keeping you up here.”
Caeden watched as the class formed a line to go back to the jump ship. He turned and saw his father leaning over a monitor. He had placed a headset on and was now in dialogue with someone. Caeden moved closer.
“I don’t understand, Steve. I’ve checked the programming. Everything looks clear with that booster. What are you seeing down there?”
“I don’t know, Jack. It seems ok for a moment, then it wants to engage the reverse thrust,” said the man named Steve.
“And the diagnostic isn’t saying anything’s wrong?” Jack said.
“Nope, ran it twice.”
“Go figure.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Listen, keep your running shoes on. It seems to be getting worse. The computer can’t seem to make up its mind in time whether it wants to correct with the adjacent booster. Something’s not quite right. If this rig drops, I ain’t gonna be on it. Jack out.”
“I hear ya, Jacko. Engineering out.”
Jack turned to find his son standing close to his shoulder, a look of concern on his face.
“Cae,” he said.
“Dad?”
“Go on with your class, Cae,” he said, then muttered, turning away, “Joe Kennedy should’ve known better than to bring you kids up here. Of all places.”
“I guess you can’t just reboot, huh?” Caeden said, trying to get a smile from his father.
“No,” Jack said without smiling. “Caeden, the jump ship is down that hall a bit, now don’t make me tell you again.”
“This is a Softex system?”
“Same basic principle, yes. Caeden.”
“So, it’s connected to a network?”
“Caeden.”
“I’m just asking, Dad.”
“Yes, there is a network. Encrypted ten times stronger than the one in the module.”
“Have you looked for anything suspicious?”
“There’s a firewall and several layers of protection, Cae.”
“Yes, and your eighteen-year-old son regularly taps into a similar system with little or no effort. If there’s a will, there’s a way, Dad.”
“Why the hell…?”
“Because they can, Dad. Surprised it hasn’t happened before.”
The audible alarm returned.
“Hold on to something, Cae.”
The craft shifted again. This time the lurch was double that of before.
“Damn it,” Jack said.
There was a crackle over the speaker on the console.
“Jesus, Jack, that one had us at the doorway. What the hell is going on?”
“I hear you, Steve. Listen, we’re going to have to disengage that thruster for the time being. Let the remainder pick up the slack. Take it offline as well. Make sure the network connection is closed.”
“What are you thinking it is, Jack?”
Jack turned and looke
d at Caeden.
“I think we might have to run some firewall countermeasures. Maybe some moon duster’s playing space commander.” Steve laughed.
“Alright, shutting her down. At least she won’t be bucking the ship apart. It’ll be about two minutes before she’s completely off. Engineering out.”
“Cae, get to the jump ship. Everything is going to be ok up here.”
“You sure? I could stick around and get some extra credit learning the ins and outs of rig software.” Jack smiled.
“Stick to residential software.”
“Alright,” Caeden said, turning to head to the jump ship, then he stopped.
“Dad, I’m really sorry about what I said last night. I want you to know that I heard everything you said, and I’ve been hating myself for it.”
“Cae,” Jack said.
“No, wait. I know why you were angry. I’ve been angry at myself ever since. I’m going to try and be better about things like that. I want to be the person you raised me to be.”
Jack walked up to his son and grasped him by the back of the neck, pulling him into a hug.
“I love you son. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. For you to be the best man you can be. Someday, and I hope you’re around for it, that’s going to mean more than you can imagine.”
Caeden smiled at his father, then turned and made his way out of the room and down the stairs. He could hear some sort of commotion the closer he got to the docking bay. There were some raised voices. Mr. Kennedy was loudest.
“Miss Turkovitch, you need to enter the ship. I promise I will not close the door without Mr. Llewellyn.”
“I’m not getting on that ship without Cae,” she was saying. “You looked like you were going to seal the hatch, Mr. Kennedy. Were you?”
“Miss Turkovitch, you’re overreacting.”
“You looked like you were ready to launch without a head count. Are you that much of a coward?”
“Miss Turkovitch!”
Caeden came into the docking bay to find Mr. Kennedy with his arms stretched out at his side in exasperation.
“Cae!” Anita shouted. She ran to him as best she could.
“What’s going on?”
“Miss Turkovitch has made a gross misjudgment of my character.”
“He told Dan to shut the doors once he was inside. Then there was that lurch and he gave him the order to return before half of us screamed that you were still on board.”
Caeden looked to Mr. Kennedy. His face had lost all of its color, and his brow was covered in sweat.
“Well,” said Caeden, “it doesn’t matter now, does it? I’m here. Let’s get going. Mr. Kennedy?”
“Yes, let’s go,” Mr. Kennedy said. He wiped his brow and turned away from them. Caeden pulled Anita close.
“I’m not going to leave you, ok?”
“Ok,” she said and they walked toward the ship together. They were nearly to the hatch when it happened. The rig lurched again, this time with more force than it had before. The magnaboots were only useful if the floor was steady. This time, it put people to the floor, releasing the grip of the magnetic boots from the floor. When Caeden regained his balanced, he realized that the room was filled with flying cargo containers. Something had broken loose in storage. He saw Mr. Kennedy leaning against the doorway, holding his head. Blood was flowing out into the air from a gash on his forehead where he had collided with the doorway.
“Cae!”
Caeden turned to find Anita floating toward the ceiling. A cargo container caught her silently from one side. She disappeared behind it and he heard a dull thud.
“Anita!”
Caeden crouched down and slipped out of the boots. Then, judging the speed of the container, launched himself off the ground. He had put too much momentum into his leap, and he braced himself to meet the ceiling. The bruise wouldn’t be too bad, he thought. Anita floated lifelessly against the ceiling. The rogue container moved on without remorse. Caeden gasped a pipe and dragged himself along the ceiling. Her body was limp against him, and he pulled her close to him, calling her name.
“Anita, c’mon baby, c’mon. Sweetie?”
She was still breathing as far as he could tell, but the blood on her temple suggested worse. He watched a drop float away from her head. Mr. Kennedy’s voice came to him.
“Bring her down, Cae. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Caeden turned and, cradling Anita’s akimbo body in his arms, he pushed off from the ceiling, this time without as much force. Mr. Kennedy braced himself to catch them. He grasped Caeden by the shoulders and guided them to the ground.
“I’ll take her,” Mr. Kennedy said, and he carried her through the doorway. Dan Henderson was waiting for them. He beckoned to Caeden, who looked back up the way he had come down.
“Cae, your father knows what he’s doing,” said Dan Henderson. “He’ll be ok. Let’s get you home.”
“I can’t just go. What if he’s up there hurt?”
“He’s got a job to do, Cae.”
“I couldn’t live with myself, Mr. Henderson.”
Mr. Kennedy appeared back in the doorway, holding a damp cloth to his wounded head.
“Damn it, Mr. Llewellyn, get in the ship. I don’t know what’s wrong with Miss Turkovitch, but it’ll be your hide if we don’t get her back in time.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Kennedy, I think it’s your hide you should be worried about. You should have just taken us on a guided tour of Io’s volcanoes. Would have been safer.”
“I didn’t hear anyone complaining when we came up, Mr. Llewellyn.”
“What did you expect, Mr. Kennedy? No, no, Mr. Kennedy, we don’t want to go into space for the first time. Please don’t show us the coolest thing we’ve ever witnessed in our entire lives. You probably could have told half of them that there was a chance the rig would fall into Big Red and none of ‘em would have blinked.”
“Damn it, Cae, get in the effing ship!”
Caeden stared at Mr. Kennedy, his face contorted in a sort of rage he had never seen in another person. The ship shifted and Mr. Kennedy’s eyes darted madly. There was spittle at the corner of his mouth and he spat when he talked.
“You’ve got five seconds to decide, Mr. Llewellyn!”
Caeden looked at Mr. Henderson, who now had a look of some concern regarding the man who stood beside him.
“Joe, that’s a bit…”
Mr. Kennedy turned on the man.
“Back off, Henderson. You keep your mouth shut. You just take your place and get ready to launch.”
Dan Henderson looked like he had been slapped. Rage and fear wrestled with his face, but he backed off, looked sympathetically at Caeden, and made his way to the center of the jump ship. Caeden could see that all of the students had buckled themselves in. Anita was strapped in to a medical platform along the wall. He heard Mr. Kennedy breathe deeply before he spoke.
“Mr. Llewellyn, you are my charge and I am telling you to get aboard this ship. You can comply, or suffer the consequences upon your return.”
Caeden stared at the man. Mr. Kennedy looked small now. He stood in the doorway, suddenly tired and fatigued. His hand returned systematically to his forehead, patting the gash. The ashen skin of his face seemed taught and paper-like. The bangs of his brown hair were plastered against the creases in his scalp. Caeden thought he could see some of Mr. Kennedy’s blood floating between them. He pushed off from a nearby container toward the door. Mr. Kennedy backed away from the entrance to allow Caeden entry.
The shift occurred just as Caeden entered the doorway. He flew upward, scratching his face and then latching his arm in the doorway. His lower body continued upward and he watched in horror as the door came to a close on his forearm. He screamed, half from the pain, half from the sound of the crack that resonated through his body. The grip of the door seemed to ease for a moment and he pulled his arm out, cradling it against his side. He floated, loosely gripping a conduit that ran
along the wall. His arm had clearly broken, but there was no blood, much to Caeden’s relief.
The door shut, whether from some malfunction, or by purposeful action. He watched as an interior door sealed the hatch. A light above the doorway turned green and they were gone. The jump ship had left without him.
Caeden pushed himself back to the floor and slipped the magnaboots back on. He tried his best to run. It was hard going. The rig shifted again, and this time, there was a distinct sideways motion to the lurch. The rig was beginning to spin.
Caeden reached the stairs and called out to his father, then cried out in pain when he collided with the banister on his broken arm.
“Dad!?” He called out again. “Jack!”
“Cae? Caeden? What the hell? The ship jumped. What the hell are you still doing here? What the hell happened to your arm?”
His father was standing at the top of the stairs, leaning down and grabbing Caeden by the back of the jumpsuit.
“Dad, I couldn’t leave you here.”
“Cae, Jesus, I thought you had more sense.”
“I couldn’t leave you here with this place jerking around like this. I needed to see you. Make sure you were all right.”
“Looks like I’m still doing better than you. Jesus, Cae, I’ve ridden worse rigs than this. I’m never more than a few steps from the escape pods. I’ve done this before…”
He had barely finished the sentence when the rig lurched again. This time there was a crunching sound that accompanied it. A sound like grinding metal. Jack looked up at the ceiling as if expecting to see something right above them.
“Well, that’s a new one,” he said. “C’mon.”
He guided Caeden back into the bridge. There were three other men there waiting. A sour looking man, who Caeden now recognized as one of his father’s old coworkers, Doug Barnes, spoke up.
“Jesus, Jack. What the hell is your kid doing here? That ship jumped already. Is he hurt? Christ. What the hell was that Joe Kennedy thinking? C’mere boy.”
Doug came over toward him and ran his hands up and down Caeden’s arm, massaging it in places, eliciting a stifled cry from Caeden.
“It’s broke, but you didn’t need me to tell you that. What the hell happened?”
“He closed the door on me.”
“Cae, Mr. Kennedy wouldn’t do something like that,” Jack said.
“Dad, he knew I was there. The door closed,” Caeden said, and he looked in his father’s eyes.
“Son of a…,” said one of the other crewmen.
“I’ll have Joe Kennedy’s ass when we get back,” Jack said.
“Jack, we’d better get the hell out of Dodge. This rig is done for,” said the sour-looking man.
“I think you’re right, Doug. Sound the beacon. Send the signal to Callisto. Get in the pods, and let’s get the hell home.”
The men moved with purpose. Tasks were completed quickly and they all moved together down a second set of stairs that went down two floors and opened onto a small narrow bay with doors on either side of a hall.
“Dad, what the hell is happening with the rig?”
“Someone’s actually trying to send it down, son. At least that’s the best we can figure. We shut down that thruster, and once it was down, that set off a chain of events that we just couldn’t keep up with. Every countermeasure was corrupted and, essentially, the rig’s trying to enter the atmosphere. When they track down the bastard who thought this might be fun, I want to be there when they string him up.”
“So, that’s it, huh? The rig’s lost.”
“It’s as good as lost, son,” said Doug. “Not much longer and the increased radiation will start to get through. This place’ll be hotter than the bright side of Callisto on a summer’s day. One rig ain’t worth lives lost trying to save it.”
“We’ve already lost significant altitude,” Jack said.
They felt the next one coming, but no one could anticipate the severity. It threw them all to the left side of the hall. Caeden felt his magnaboots release from the floor. They just weren’t designed to provide that much grip. This time the view from the windows in the hallway accentuated the movement. Caeden felt his stomach churn as the planet below became horizon then disappeared just as quickly. The rig was in a definite downward spin and he could feel the forces pushing him toward the ceiling.
“Caeden!”
“Dad!”
He could see the three men huddled inside the doorway of one escape pod as he slammed into the ceiling, back first. He hit his head and saw stars. The sounds of grinding metal were deafening. His father was stretching out the doorway for him and the men were either trying to hold onto him or pull him back.
Caeden reached out his good arm. The force against it was tremendous. It took all his effort to reach out. The pressure was increasing. He could feel the pipes from the ceiling digging into his back. He thought he could see the walls bending inward. He could barely keep his eyes open. The world was going blurry.
“Caeden! No!”
There was an implosion before Caeden’s eyes. He had little time to register the flying glass and metal, searing heat, incomprehensible pain, crushing lack of air, tugging sensation, flash of blue light, and the overwhelming stench that enveloped his senses before darkness conquered him.
End Part I
Look for Part II of Liquid Blue in July 2014.
S.A. Mulraney was born and raised in New Jersey. He attended The Richard Stockton College of NJ and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Literature. During that time, he studied creative writing and was mentored by a Pulitzer-prize winning poet.
Mr. Mulraney writes young adult sci-fi, fantasy, and post-apocolyptic paranormal stories. His first full-length novel is coming out Summer 2014. Keep an eye out for Danny Dirks and the Heir of Pendragon, a YA fantasy twist on the Arthurian legend.
He lives with his wife and son in Central NJ.
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You can find S.A. Mulraney rambling online at his blog (https://samulraney.com), but his favorite haunts are Twitter (https://twitter.com/samulraney) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/S.A.Mulraney).
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