The Dead Zone chapter 03
Introduction:
Cait and Rhys deal with the fallout of their encounter
So far nothing had turned up on the sensors with respect to the missing vessel. No sign of the vessel or any debris or chemical compositions that would suggest explosions or escape of gases. For all Cait knew the vessel had simply emerged from the zone late and was back en route, and she had no way of knowing. In the interim she kept diligently performing regular sensor sweeps, which at least gave her something to do besides read or watch movies or exercise in the shipâs tiny gym. Unfortunately, the fact it wasnât leading to anything interesting did generate some disappointment.
âWhatâs new?â Rhys asked sarcastically as he drifted into the bridge and peered through the viewport to survey the stars. âI see the constellations are all right where I left them.â
âHmph.â Cait gave a half-hearted chuckle at the weak joke as she stretched, arching her back and shoulders after floating in one position for too long.
âNo news on the other ship?â Rhys continued.
âNothing. Not even regular radio broadcasts. Theyâd be old, but theyâd at least give us an idea if they were in trouble.â
âYou get so into the mindset that your comms are useless that you donât even think about transmitting a distress signal to anyone who might hear it and at least report that youâre dead.â
âChrist, thatâs morbid.â
âThatâs the dead zone.â Rhys shrugged.
âSo whatâve you been up to?â
âTrying to trick the predictive maintenance algorithms to detect problems that donât exist.â
âWhat?â Cait asked incredulously.
âWhat I do is manually introduce issues into the engineering environment. A temperature spike here, an intake restriction there, and see what diagnoses it suggests to optimise performance again.â
âAnd?â
âWell, the computer correctly identified the zone the issues were occurring in and then suggested potential remedies and preventative maintenance to stop it happening again. Itâs quite robust, though itâs not programmed to say things like âremove blowtorch from coolant line threeâ.â
âYou didnât!â Cait exclaimed, shocked.
âOnly for a minute. Donât worry, the torch wasnât hot enough to do anything to the conduit.â
âBut the coolantâŠâ
ââŠis specifically for the purpose of dissipating heat.â
âI will give you that, but please donât introduce fire to any other parts of my ship, please.â
âAye, Captain.â
There was a moment of silence as the conversation lulled and they listened to the incessant hum of the ship operating, a noise they usually tuned out. The silence grew longer and Cait predicted what Rhys was about to say.
âSoâŠâ Rhys said, always the least casual way to introduce a sensitive topic of conversation. Cait tilted her head and regarded him placidly, challenging him to continue.
âI know this might be a little sooner than you expected, but I wanted to feel out how we were going in terms of revisiting your standing offer.â Rhys said, about as smoothly as 60 grit sandpaper.
âI have to confess, Iâm slightly sceptical as to how urgent your needs are.â
âAdmittedly, the situation is not dire. But I had some thoughts around that.â Rhys began.
âWhich are?â
âWaiting too long might not be healthy, for either of us.â Rhys hesitated.
âExplain your reasoning.â
âIf we just approached this from a more casual direction and maintained things at a lower level, then weâre not turning to this last resort option once weâre already on edge, and it doesnât have to become this whole big thing.â
Cait pondered that for a moment.
âIâm not saying your suggestion is without merit, but counterpoint: itâs supposed to be a big thing. Remember that whole explanation I gave about professional barriers? Besides itâs been like four days. Iâm sorry, but no. I donât mean to be harsh but you played your cards too soon. Itâs not like youâve never gone four days before. Youâll live.â
âThis is different.â
âHow?â Cait asked with an exasperated sigh.
âYou donât know what itâs like for me. Iâm in my twenties, my prime, here in this metal crate spending months at a time schlepping between planets and suddenly Iâm making this trip sharing my quarters with this beautiful, intelligent woman who floats around half naked…â
Cait raised a finger warningly, cutting him off
âYou⊠asshole.â She said sternly.
âCait.â
âDonât put this on me. Youâre the one with the self-control issues. You know what the working conditions are, and I was very clear on how our deal would work and how it wouldnât. You come in here with some sob story about how I make things hard for you?â
Cait raised her arms, clenching her metal fists and blinking back tears as Rhys put his hands up defensively.
âYou think because Iâm some broken thing that Iâm going to fall for some bullshit line?â
âItâs not like that.â Rhys protested.
Cait took a long deep breath to compose herself and lowered her hands.
âGet out.â She said levelly.
âCait, listen.â
âNo. You donât return to this bridge.â She advanced on him and used her momentum to give him a rough shove to get his mass moving towards the door. Rhys caught the sides of the doorway with his hands.
âNo, listen!â Rhys pointed past her to the comms station.
âWhat?â She turned, noting that the comms panel had lit up and was gently pinging to report a signal. Momentarily forgetting her fury with Rhys she kicked off the door and braced herself at the station, flicking switches to receive the signal. A strained male voice cut in over the intercom.
**âŠrepeating, this is carrier vessel Aspire, we are under attack. Theyâve matched velocity and are attempting to board. We do not know their intentions, but assume theyâre after our cargo. I donât know who will hear this but⊠I hope someone does.**
There was an intense hissing noise followed by a crackle as the radio cut out, and then the signal was gone. Cait was already analysing the signal for metadata.
âThat transmission happened almost a week ago, probably smack in the middle of the dead zone.â She pulled up the message her father had sent. âAspire, thatâs our ship. It belongs to Starlanes Transit.â
âThey were attacked? Out here? By who?â
âItâs not like thereâs any other planets out here, someone must have established an outpost as a staging area and be jacking liners for supplies.â
âAnd matching speed with liners at top cruising speed? Thatâs insane.â
âI know, I know, theyâd have to get into position and start their intercept course days ahead of time.â Cait moved over to the navigation station and powered up the long range sensors, narrowing the angle to a 30 degree cone ahead of the ship and pumping as much power as she could to the antiquated array. âItâs going to take a few minutes for anything out there to ping, even if we are in range of something.â
They hung in silence for a long minute, waiting.
âWe should go back. Report to your dad.â
âWith our mass itâll take us a week just to slow down enough to turn around, not to mention the acceleration time to get back. Going through is faster.â
âGoing through is suicide!â Rhys protested. âIf they took Aspire they can take us too.â
âUnless they only want whatever Aspire was hauling. Dad said their cargo was classified. That means itâs a valuable target. We tell Fleet about the hijacking theyâll have ships all over this sector looking for that station.â
âDo you want to take that risk?â
âDo you want to make us a sitting duck for whateverâs out there?â
âSo weâre screwed either way.â
âIf whoever is out there wants this ship, thereâs not a damned thing at this point we can do about it.â Cait said, firmly.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes, waiting for a ping on the sensors that would tell them how for in the future their trouble was.
âCait.â Rhys started, with the air of a man with an unresolved argument to finish.
âWhat, Rhys?â Cait sighed.
âIâm sorry for what I said. But I wasnât feeding you a line. Iâm not saying Iâm in love with you or anything, but however it is you see yourself⊠I donât.â
âRhys, shut the fuck up.â
Cait tapped a few keys then disabled the long range sensors, leaving the passive sensors on to read any return signal from her initial sweep, then turned to Rhys.
âIf my sensor sweep didnât catch anything within four days of here itâs not going to. Thereâs no sense broadcasting our position to anyone not already waiting for us.â
âRight.â Rhys nodded, watching her expectantly.
âWhat do you want me to say, Rhys? That I believe you that Iâm not just some convenient stress relief for you? You gonna rescue me from myself? Fix my broken soul?â
âIâm not saying that. But this fire inside you. Exactly this fire. Youâre cool under pressure. Logical but passionate. And intelligent. And yeah, attractive. Youâre hard to ignore.â
âOk. Ok, I believe you. And hereâs your grand prize for seeing past all my flaws.â Cait doubled over, hooking her thumbs into her shorts and pushing them down, kicking them off and gripping the edge of the console with her ass perched on the edge and spreading her thighs to display herself to Rhys. Rhys looked down at her, his eyes automatically drawn to her crotch before looking away.
âWhatâs wrong?â Cait challenged defiantly. âI thought this was what you wanted? Get in here. Show me how bad you need it.â Her voice cracked as Rhys turned away from her and propelled himself back towards the door. âWhere you going? Come on!â She shouted at him as he disappeared down the hall. When it was clear he was gone, she buried her face in her hands and curled into a ball as a sob wracked her body.
—-
It was several hours later.
At some point Cait had cried herself to sleep, and woke up when she bumped against the ceiling bulkhead. With a sense of burning humiliation, she caught her shorts and slipped them back on and pulled herself to her chair. Looking at the sensor logs she confirmed there had been nothing on the long range sweep she had performed. The comms panel had not detected any further radio signals. As far as she could tell they were still alone out here, but knew that couldnât be true.
With her busywork done she was forced to confront her personal issues. Of course she knew Rhys would leave when she presented herself like that. She could never have respected him again if he didnât, but all that meant was that she had succeeded in alienating a decent man and her only companion out here, thoroughly humiliating herself in the process. It wasnât clear to her why Rhys was so persistent in trying to get involved with her, because all the kind things he had said they still rang hollow to her, but she was sure that bridge was burned now. Maybe, best case scenario, she could finish this run in relative peace, call her father from Ganymede, and hitch an express ride back to earth to try and enrol in the academy. She clearly wasnât cut out for the isolation of deep space haulage.
Taking a deep breath and swallowing her pride she keyed the shipwide intercom.
âRhys, can you come up here?â
She waited a couple of minutes to give Rhys time to think about it, and she heard a rustle behind her that told her heâd joined her.
âHey.â She said, her tone gentle. She couldnât bring herself to look at him yet.
âHey.â Rhys replied in kind.
âSo, I owe you an apology.â
âYou know, thereâs probably a couple owing each way. Why donât we just call it even and we go back to how things were?â
âI have something to say, so please just listen.â Cait turned to face him, holding the back of her chair to keep from drifting away. âI know that I have not been an easy person to get along with. I am not trying to blame my entire personality on my father or the accident, but they are some pretty big factors. They make it difficult to trust, they make it difficult for me to not be on guard all of the time. I do not have room in my brain to be vulnerable.â
âYou donât need to explain yourself…â
âBut I do. Because even in the best case scenario we are on this ship together for another nine or ten weeks, and our problems are going to stay here right along with us.â Cait sighed, glancing over her shoulder out the viewport. âAnd worst case scenario, thereâs someone out there who is going to stop us reaching Ganymede, and we might not even live to find out why.â
âSo whatâs the plan?â
âThereâs still no change to the plan, at least not in the big picture. We keep going and hope we make it, like always. As to right here, now?â
There was a pause, as Rhys waited for her to conclude her thought.
âI donât have all the details figured out. But if you wanted, Iâd really like to give it a shot.â