Acid Sky (26 page)

On another camera, the Frigate’s tail fin came into view as it rose onto the flight deck. The small aircraft quivered in the wind that tore down the length of the flight deck.

The
Langley
rolled slightly to the right, and Donaldson countered it. Got to try to keep her level now, he thought, as the Frigate’s engines spooled up for launch. He corrected for another gust, and for a moment, the giant carrier rode steady.

Now – don’t wait, go now!

As if it had heard him, the Frigate released its hold on the deck and leaped into the air, climbing rapidly up and away from the labouring carrier. Donaldson heard the roar of its engines above him, and watched it come into view through the side windows as it turned to the left, and dwindled upwards and away towards safety.

He flicked off the cameras, and sat back in the helmsman’s chair. So. Everyone had got off the carrier, and now there was nothing to do but keep on flying and wait for the end.

He wondered what it would be like. For a while there would be little warning, just steadily increasing gusts, and then the ship would begin to encounter the real winds, the storm force shears that he could see outlined on the weather radar. At some point, the damaged right wing would stall, the airflow over it too disrupted to maintain lift, and then the ship would slowly heel over to the right, nose down, and begin to fall from the sky.

Would the storm tear the ship apart before it was crushed by the pressure? He didn’t know. Whatever happened, it would be spectacular, and he resolved to watch it happen from the control room, where he had a good view, and could see his doom approaching.

Now that the last aircraft had left, there was no need to hold the flight deck level. He re-engaged the autopilot, and stood up and walked slowly around the room. He had never been in here alone before, it had always been full of people and activity, and the noise of shouted orders and acknowledgements. Now, with no one here but himself, it seemed strangely quiet, with just the faint hum of electronics from the consoles, and the background of radio conversations between the departing aircraft. He had shut off the other channels some time ago; he had no desire to listen to the endless requests from USAC for situation updates. They would find out soon enough, when the survivors started landing on board the
Wright
.

He walked over to the ship’s dedication plaque, set at the far end of one wall, by the windows. He hadn’t looked at this since he first came aboard, nearly two years ago. He stroked the raised brass lettering. Built in sections on Mars and Earth, assembled and fitted out in Earth orbit, and piloted down to a re-entry over Venus in 2136. What an experience that must have been, he thought. The carriers were brought down from orbit upside-down, their reinforced upper surfaces taking the heat and aerodynamic loads of re-entry, protecting the vulnerable lower areas.

He could visualise the scene here in the control room, as the piloting crew brought the orbit lower and lower, until the atmosphere started tugging on the ship. Then there would have been the searing heat and buffeting of re-entry, leaving an enormous trail of fire and smoke through the sky, and finally the slow roll upright, before the ship was born into the skies of Venus. Finally, the tower and upper structures would have been raised from their protective covers, and the
Langley
could begin its life as a carrier.

And below the dedication plaque, a portrait, of a jovial, bearded man with a twinkle in his eye, leaning back in a chair. Samuel Pierpont Langley, 1834–1906, the title read. Astronomer, engineer, builder of the first manned aircraft launched from a boat, physicist. Langley’s features looked back at him knowingly.

And below that, the engraved list of captains. His was the second name on the list, below Carpenter’s, and now would be the last.

The Astronautics Corps had never lost a ship as big as the
Langley
before. There had been numerous accidents in the spaceplane fleet over the years, but that was a risk that everyone in the Corps accepted; launches and descents from orbit were hazardous by their nature. The only complete hull loss amongst the deep space fleet had been the
Ulysses
, but that had been lost in deep space, with no hope of any rescue.

This was different; the
Langley
and the two other carriers were enormous vessels, status symbols of the Corps, and the most expensive assets in the fleet. Now here it was, a full-scale shipwreck, conducted in the full glare of publicity, complete with distress calls, lifeboats, and a ship drifting onto rocks in a storm.

And a captain, going down with his ship.

It would be nice to have a drink, he thought, and he considered the bottle of twelve-year old single malt that he kept locked in his day cabin. If there was ever a time to break the rules, this was it. It was probably time to sign off anyway, and he turned to the stream of communication requests coming in. He didn’t want to get dragged in to any tedious conversations, not now, so he ignored all the messages and typed a simple, final one of his own:

ALL SURVIVORS ON BOARD AIRCRAFT AND AWAY SAFELY. LANGLEY LOSING POWER, CANNOT STEER AWAY FROM STORM. ALL OFFICERS AND CREW COMMENDED FOR EXEMPLARY CONDUCT AND BRAVERY DURING EVACUATION.

S. DONALDSON, COMMANDING.

He quite liked that. It might even be quoted in the future, he thought – the last message of the captain of the
Langley
. His last message to Marion was already safely in deposit on Earth, and would be given to her on his death. All the same, he wished he could say one last goodbye. But it wouldn’t do to send a personal message, not with so many channels listening, and with the prospect of every transmission being analysed and debated for years to come. No – he must protect Marion, and although it would grieve her, he had already decided how he would go down, how he wanted to be remembered. It would be in the finest traditions of the Corps, he thought – it had to set an example now and for the future.

The top brass at USAC Command could sneer all they wanted about his motives as they abandoned the investigation into his conduct, but they wouldn’t dare say anything in public. Not against the brave captain who stayed with his ship to make sure that everyone got away safely. It would be career suicide for any of them, and they would know it.

His day cabin was quiet after the control room. He unlocked a drawer in his desk and reached to the back for the whisky bottle, and picked up a glass from the bar. He poured himself a large measure, then realised that measures didn’t matter any more, and carried on pouring.

The neat spirit burned his throat, then warmed it as it went down. The fumes of peat and oak rose into his brain. Yes, this was how he was going to go out. He picked up the bottle and walked towards the open door, and then he noticed the coffee stain on the carpet in front of his desk. He almost smiled at his pointless concern, then stopped.

Foster.

Shaffer was dead, sucked out with all the others when the tower had torn away. Everyone else thought that Foster must have been in the tower, but Donaldson knew that wasn’t true. What would Shaffer have done with her? Nobody else knew about what he had done. What had Shaffer said he would do with her?

Somewhere where she won’t be coming back from.

So he was going to dump her overboard, but how? Not off the fantail, that wasn’t Shaffer’s style; he never did things directly. So where else? Somewhere on the underside of the ship, but there were no exits there. Except one.

Donaldson put the bottle and glass down. It wouldn’t matter if he did nothing to help Foster, and she might already be dead. Did he want to go out this way, though, wondering if she might still be alive somewhere on board? At the very least, she deserved a drink, he thought, staring at the bottle in front of him. It wouldn’t take long to check.

He still had time.

After Shaffer had gone, leaving her alone in the darkness, Clare had been close to panic. Barely able to move in the smell and the filth of the garbage container, she had struggled uselessly for a while, before screaming her anger and frustration out into the unyielding walls of the container. The sound of her own voice seemed to reaffirm that she was still alive, so she yelled some more, and then she was quiet again for a while.

She wondered if it would hurt, falling down into the atmosphere. She knew that the lack of oxygen should render her unconscious after about twenty seconds, but some small part of her mind whispered that she might last longer, might feel the crushing force of the atmosphere. First, it would be her eardrums, then her eyes would begin to hurt, then—

She jumped as a colossal
bang
erupted from somewhere above her; a huge impact that made the container quiver, then another, and a long rumble, then more bangs, this time from further away. It felt like the whole ship was moving around, swaying from side to side, but she knew that it was just the garbage mechanism preparing to jettison the contents of the container into the air. She steeled herself for the rush of daylight, and the sudden drop, but none came.

Dimly, through the walls of the container and the room, she could hear the sound of alarms, and the sound of running feet in the corridor outside. Then it faded, and after that there were several violent movements of the ship. Each time the ship heaved, she flinched, fearing the end, but after this happened several times she began to realise that something was going on, that all was not well with the
Langley
. With sight denied to her, Clare’s other senses were enhanced, and she could literally feel the carrier labouring in the air, rolling and heaving as it fought to stay aloft. Sometimes she could hear faintly the noise of more alarms and announcements over the ship’s PA, but she couldn’t make them out.

What was happening?

Something was wrong, and that gave her a faint hope. If the ship was in any difficulty, then there might be some chance that routine, automated tasks like jettisoning the garbage might be suspended. Which meant that she had more time. With that in mind, she began to recover mentally, to focus on her situation again.

Whatever happened, she needed the use of her hands. There must be something sharp in the buried garbage, and she was going to find it. It was going to take a while, but she could use her fingers, and she could shuffle along on her back through the garbage. She set to work grimly, sifting through the rubbish and greasy papers that she lay on, searching for anything sharp. There were no tin cans on board, but there were plenty of discarded items from the engineering teams, and buried in those were bound to be—

A thin sheet of metal. Her fingers closed on it and explored it. About postcard-sized, bent in the middle. She turned it over in her fingers, checking its edges, and sure enough, one edge was sharper than the rest, where it had been cut with metal snips. It took some manoeuvring, but she managed to get it in the right position, between her fingers, resting on the cord that bound her hands. They were looser than they could have been, or else this would have been impossible.

Very slowly, she began to move the sharp edge of the metal over the cords. It was agonisingly slow, and several times she lost her grip on the sheet and had to search for it again in the rubbish, but she could feel the tiny strands in the cord slowly parting, one by one. As more broke, she could get fractionally more use out of her hands, and made better progress, until she was down to the last few strands, and suddenly it got easier, and the thin cord parted.

She tried to tug her hand free, but she was still bound. She cried in frustration as she realised that there were multiple knots. Shaffer hadn’t taken any chances. She repositioned herself and started attacking another piece of cord, but it was getting harder and harder to make inroads – the thin alloy sheet was getting blunt. She needed something else, and she began moving around again to try to find something sharp. Somehow, in her movements she managed to drop the sheet of metal again. She groped behind her with her fingers, but try as she might, she couldn’t find it this time; it must have slipped down between the other rubbish. The panic, which until now had lain dormant under the thin veneer of hope, rose up again, and she struggled uselessly against her bonds as she realised she would never get out of the container.

There was a new sound, a bad sound. A thump of something heavy and metallic sliding. This was it. A screech of seized bolts. She didn’t have any strength left to resist, and she hoped it was going to be quick.

Just get it over with!

Then again, just like before, but with a kindness that she would never forget, the light came back on in the room, and there was a face peering over the edge of the container, and then a short ladder was dropped over the edge, and someone in a uniform was climbing down to rescue her. She finally lost it then, and burst into tears.

‘It’s okay, you’re okay now,’ the voice reassured her, and her bonds were being cut, and he lifted her up, helped her to the ladder. It took several attempts to get out; her hands and ankles wouldn’t work properly, but she succeeded in the end, and she swung over the edge, got her feet on the steps and stumbled down. She fell against the wall of the chamber, as far as she could away from the awful container.

She saw that it was Donaldson, as he came down the steps behind her. Her confused mind couldn’t take it all in, and she scrabbled to get away from him as he turned to face her. He looked down at her, but his eyes only held sorrow.

‘I’m sorry, Foster,’ he said, and he sat down opposite her, on the painted metal floor. ‘I’m sorry that he did this to you. There were things – I shouldn’t have let happen.’ His eyes dropped for a moment. ‘You’ve got to get out of here, the carrier’s going down. Can you walk?’

Clare nodded dumbly.

‘Come on.’ He stood up, extended a hand, but she shrank away from it. He sighed. ‘Look, I know you’ve no reason to trust me, but I didn’t get you out of there for nothing. We’ve had a crash on deck that damaged the engines – we can’t hold our heading and we’re going straight into a storm. Shaffer’s dead, he was killed in the accident. So was Captain Hartigan – I’m sorry. There’s no reason why you have to die as well.’ He stood up, but Clare didn’t answer, just sat there, looking up at him.