As I shot through nuclear storage and into the engine room, I began to feel strange, light headed and disconnected. It wasn’t altogether displeasing, but it wasn’t right.
“What the hell?” I said, my voice several keys lower than it should have been. I snatched a breathing mask from off the wall and fixed it over my face. The problem was clear, but the source wasn’t. We had a Xenon fuel leak, and it was a big one. I removed Liberty’s earpiece and stuffed it in my sock.
The area around engine control was pressurized like the rest of the ship, but the air mix was mostly inert, with little or no oxygen to encourage fire. Air flowed into me from a properly fixed breathing mask as I ventured inside the space, noting first that César’s tools were missing from their usual hook on the wall. I thought nothing of it. Griffin must have taken them as a memento.
Nine hundred slender black canisters of Xenon gas filled the tight space between hulls. I frantically searched over and around, squeezing between copper pipes and plastic tubing like an interplanetary spelunker. I took out my gas meter, using it to find the source of the leak by concentration. After a couple moments the perpetrator was clear.
Seven tanks of Xenon gas were leaking. Their pipes, leading out to the engines where they’d be converted into a stream of ions, had been cut. I began shutting the tanks off one by one, then pressed a button, activating the emergency fans to clear the section of abnormal gases. Xenon wasn’t deadly, but it was sometimes used as a general anesthetic like nitrous during medical procedures. I didn’t need the crew passing out for surgery.
I inspected the damage, getting as close as I could before scanning it with my watch. The pipes had been cut roughly by a plasma torch. One whose tip was in desperate need of repair.
I rushed back into the engine room, checking to see which engines still operated. The damage had caused five of the sixteen to go offline. At this rate I wasn’t confident we could slow down in time to engage the enemy in orbit around Mars, even with the extra power output from the Photon Focusers. Without strong enough brakes, we’d go hurtling past the red planet God knows where. I had to get these fixed immediately, or we could fail. But there was something more pressing. Who’d done this? Somehow it didn’t seem to be Dour Face’s style.
Before I could call the bridge and inform the Captain, Lank Hair floated toward me, his hair standing on end like a madman, stun stick in hand. “Don’t twitch a muscle, Goddard.”
I’d been wrong in my original assumptions. It hadn’t been Dour Face at all. “It was you,” I growled, looking for something to use as a weapon. I raised my yellow handled plasma torch, flipped it on with a flash of blinding light, and held it out before me. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll melt your fucking face off.”
Dour Face came up behind Lank Hair with Higgins in tow. “Goddard, don’t make this harder than it has to be. We don’t want to hurt you.”
I blinked. Wait, what? My intensity faltered. “I have to protect the crew!” I shouted, face going red. “We have to make it to Mars on time!” Which one of them had done this? Whoever it had been convinced the rest I was the enemy.
“And now we won’t because of you,” Dour Face responded, the muscles in his arm going tight, fingers clasping his stun stick with violent intent. “Navigation ran the numbers. Without all sixteen engines, we’re out of the race.”
“Why did you do it, Goddard?” Higgins asked, eyebrows crinkling. “Why? You were always such a patriot.”
“Excuse me?” I said, looking at them each individually, torch trembling in my hands. There was no way out of this. I was backed into the engine room and they were covering the only exit. Besides, where would I run if I did escape? In circles? “What did I do? It was you, all of you! Don’t try and turn this around on me.”
“We don’t have time for this shit,” Lank Hair said, and threw back his arm. He hurled the stun stick directly at me. I tried to dip out of the way, but it didn’t have far to go. The tip hit me in the chest.
Ten thousand volts shot through my nervous system. I wanted to scream at the pain, but all I managed to do was gurgle. The torch in my hand fell away, powering down automatically.
“There we go,” Dour Face said, and they took me by the arms, cuffing me. “Off to the brig.”
They unceremoniously tossed my limp body into one of the cells. “Mind the gap,” Lank Hair said, slamming the bars shut. He then bent over and inspected my tools, mainly the torch. He clicked his tongue. “The culprit’s right here. He used this torch to sever the lines. I hope we can recover.”
Dour Face frowned as he left with the rest. He seemed somehow disappointed. None of it made any sense. Nothing made any sense. What the hell was going on?
“Shit,” I spat. “They think I did it. They think I sabotaged the ship. Just because I was in the engine room with a tool that could have done this didn’t mean I was responsible. Why would I? The target set this up. It was him.” I thought this over for several minutes, trying to choose my next move. I wasn’t giving up, not yet. I had to save everyone.
I reached into my sock and fished out the earpiece. I wasn’t sure why I’d put it in that damp place, but I was glad I had. “Lib, you there?”
It took several moments for her to reply. “Now is not a good time, David. I can’t fraternize with enlisted, let alone spies.”
“Spies?” I blinked. “No. It’s me. You know me. It’s Davie, that dusty kid from Arsia Mons, and I’m in trouble. Really bad trouble. I need your help.”
“I can’t, David. Damn it, I can’t.”
A wave of cold terror crashed over me. “Please, Liberty.” This wasn’t going how I’d expected. I was being hung out to dry.
“David, they’re saying you put cameras all over the ship to keep track of us.”
“I did, but it was—”
She cut me off, her voice taking on an edge. “And that you hacked in our main computer, leaving Griffin alone during a firing solution. You put all of us at risk doing that! Not to mention, you were planning to upload a virus. They found it on your tablet.”
“Upload a virus? No. I had to hack in so I could—”
“And that you tried to frame her for giving César the drugs, but it was you all along. Your prints are on the case in Med 1.”
“I would never do that. I was trying to—”
“And that you sabotaged the engines! You wanted to give the enemy a better chance to attack our home? There are children on Mars!”
“That isn’t me, damn it! Let me get a word in!” My throat went hoarse. I lowered my voice, “Liberty, I’m not the guy. There’s a spy on board, that’s true, but it’s not me.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You know what else? Father told me about your dad. He had contact with the enemy. He told me that the two of you were going to escape and live among the Axis.”
My stomach filled with an oily dread. “You know she’s right,” the whisper in the dark told me. “I tried to help you out. Tried to keep you safe.”
“That was him, not me,” I said, doing my best to govern my tone. “Dad made his own choices. He thought by escaping Brethren territory I could flee Brice’s torment. But after Brice was dead, he gave up the notion. Please believe me. He wasn’t a traitor, just a scared parent. You have no idea what it’s like on the bottom. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with people like Brice when the authorities won’t step in.”