~ Devil's Due ~

by

Rhobin Lee Courtright

Several hours later, third-shift completed the first half of their double shift. Lieutenant Lenoir Blunt slapped Hecht’s arm. “Let’s break.”

She looked at the Class S-20, third largest of the Embassy shuttle vessels under a maintenance overhaul in the interior repair bay. The ship hung over their heads in a huge sling above the safety cradle where shuttles usually rested for most routine work.

She and Ensigns Hecht and Schug had just finished the microscopic inspection of the shuttle’s lower skin sections. The job was tedious, but an important safeguard for hull integrity. Usually the markers studded the skin showing sections needing repair, but this ship’s lower hull was in good shape. Lenoir called up to Major Chambers and Lieutenant Swoboda who remained above, inspecting the skin covering the upper hull.

“We’re finished down here. Good news! No new skin needed. We’re breaking.”

Lieutenant Swoboda answered, “Go ahead, good job! I’ll join you in a minute, we’re almost done here.”

Lenoir noticed Major Chambers kept working, as usual, and did not expect her to join them. She took note that she could now easily address her superior officer as ‘Major,’ and smiled; a step indeed.

The Major kept to herself, delivered her orders in an economy of words, explaining any problem the crew didn’t understand. Blunt respected Chambers because she had never met anyone else so competent, or so patient showing others her skills, but she wasn’t sure she liked, or trusted, her.

The four-member crew had discussed their crew leader thoroughly over the last few months and Lenoir knew the others now respected Chambers, a true change of heart. Still, their relationship with her was strange. They didn’t doubt her competency but her dedication to duty, to the Corps, was questionable. Swoboda had advised them, “learn everything you can from her in shuttle maintenance and piloting skills. Ignore the rest.” It was hard.

The Major remained remote with them on a personal level. That worried Lenoir. She often found herself in the unusual position of defending the major to her friends. She was unsure, though, if the major would support the crew. Smiling, she remembered how two months ago ‘the major’ was a derogatory address. Now, it was said with respect.

The three were on the deck heading for their coffee when they heard the ominous sound of a cable stretching beyond its limits. If broken, the whipping end could easily maim or kill. All three turned and ran back toward the shuttle.

“Get down,” Lenoir yelled, but she saw it was too late. The weak cable stretched further, too unstable to allow safe descent from the upper hull. The shuttle already tilted at a precarious angle. The major crouched on the upper hull, but Swoboda had slid dangerously down the shuttle’s side. He was hung up in his twisted safety harness. A strap caught on one of the shuttle’s thrust valves. His tether was coiled and caught between two projecting jets. Lenoir saw he could barely move, barely breath with the strap squeezing his chest.

Seeing them approach the major screamed, “Stay back!”

They watched helplessly as the major moved, cautiously but quickly, along the top of the shuttle towards Swoboda. With a sinking feeling Lenoir saw Swoboda slump, stopping even his feeble attempt to free himself.

The cable made an ear-piercing whistle and dropped the shuttle slightly. The major clung to the rounded slope of the surface as the shuttle shuddered into a new position. She slid but managed to grab Swoboda’s tether before falling, then used the tether to slip down to Swoboda. Lenoir saw the effort Chambers made to free the harness held by the valves and Swoboda’s heavy body. She failed. Swoboda sank back against the shuttle, his body motionless.

Chambers removed her harness and strapped it around the hanging body. With a laser knife she cut through the hung-up harness. Swoboda’s body floated free from the ship, dangling from her tether. Lifting the rigging control from her belt she punched a command, pitching the control away at the same time she grasped Swoboda’s tether. Chambers propelled herself and Swoboda into a further slide down the sloping hull of the shuttle.

Lenoir kept her frantic gaze on Chambers. The woman repelled off the wing vent with both feet. She used the tether to swing herself and Swoboda away from the shuttle. The stressed cable broke a split-second before the others released. As the shuttle pitched downward the cables shot through the support rigging, producing an earsplitting scream.

The shuttle dropped into the safety cradle, landing with the sickening sound of crumpling plasmetal. Hot acrid clouds of disintegrating materials made Lenoir’s eyes water. Abrupt silence filled the compartment with the released cables settling into circular floating motions above the shuttle. In the same span, Lenoir watched the tether swing away from the shuttle and start back. The broken cable’s initial recoil caught the tether in a whipping action, slicing it like butter, then hit the major and Swoboda, propelling them outward in a falling arch. She watched helplessly as Chambers and Swoboda landed on the deck with a dull thud. With sudden sound, air ventilators started, sucking the contaminated atmosphere. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.