Use of Emergency: The Si-Carb Chronicles Book 1 Read online

  Use of Emergency

  Kate Kyle

  Copyright © 2021 by Kate Kyle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Disclaimer:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About the Author

  1

  Pilot Jax McCarthy double-checked her calculations. Everything seemed to be well aligned. Finally, she had a stroke of luck after so many miserable days of problems heaping up and looking for a perfect solution to her crap situation. She had too much to lose. In fact, she had so much to lose that she really shouldn't be risking it all by crunching the numbers by hand. However, letting the ship's computer run the calculations was as good as writing a self-incriminating report to SpaceLiner TC.

  'Dear Boss, Jax McCarthy is putting your precious ship and precious cargo in potential danger. Love, Jax.' Jax let her lips curve into an ironic smile.

  TransNeptunian Sleeper Service was probably worth more than the company's yearly budget. Not only because of its purpose-built fusion engine but also all the smart equipment that could certainly run the ship themselves but weren't allowed to because of the Amended Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  She needed to make sure the computer didn't realize that Jax's actions had been deliberate and well-planned.

  Yep, the little piece of rock she’d identified was travelling through space at enough pace and on a perfect trajectory. If shot from the ship's space junk defense gun, and if her calculations were accurate, the debris should hit the hull exactly where Jax wanted the damage to occur — to the aerial responsible for the long-distance communication over the Pan-Solar-System-Net. This would explain why TransNeptunian Sleeper Service had fallen silent. Once they reached the vicinity of Segedunum Station near Triton, Jax could use the short-distance, radio-based comms for docking.

  If everything proceeded to plan, the damage to the aerial would be minimal, barely enough to actually affect the comms, and easy to repair in the dock. She could probably run the repairs herself, assuming the owners were okay with it.

  In short, nothing bad would happen to the ship.

  Her cargo, a load of ten wealthy people in a medically induced coma or some other sort of stasis, would be absolutely fine, too. As would be the embryo, hiding deep in her body - her one and only reasons for this trip. The embryo was twenty days old. From what she had read, in two days', its heart would start beating, revealing its presence to the ship's bio-data monitoring system and, via the PanSolarSystem Network, the PSSNet, to SpaceLiner TC, Jax' current employers. Which would mean the end of life as Jax knew it.

  Her pregnancy was unauthorized in her home jurisdiction of PanAmerican Confederation. She had no money to even think of obtaining a baby permit, which would have to happen on the black market, since Jax was unmarried. There was no point of thinking of travelling to a place where abortion was legal, either. Besides, maybe becoming a mother would finally give her empty life a purpose?

  But acquiring a baby permit would be the least of her worries, though, given that she would immediately lose her job, due to her legal and medical status as a single pregnant woman.

  Ah, and while going through her documents, they would no doubt discover that the pilot license for Jacqueline McCarthy, existed only on her personal storage device, not in the pilot database, and the reason for that had nothing to do with a delay in updating the database with a list of the newest graduates.

  In a nutshell, and whichever way she looked at it, Jax was screwed unless she reached the Segedunum and Si-Carb clinic.

  All she had to do was to deliver the precious cargo to the Rebels' Republic, collect her payment, have the surgical intervention to put the ba- no, the embryo in stasis, and find a transpo job on the way back to the Orbit Base E-12. And once there, she’d have to find another job immediately. And so on until she found a better way to fill the long days of her empty existence. Or she was able to obtain a baby permit, retrieve her ba- embryo from the medical center in Rebels' Republic and return to Earth to live happily ever after.

  It all made Jax's choices much simpler.

  She plugged in the necessary information into the ship's system, including her reasoning for shooting at the innocent-looking piece of rock:

  'Current trajectory indicates the object may hit one of the exploratory stations and hence a PSSNet transmitter in the Asteroid Belt,' she typed.

  It should be enough to justify her actions.

  As Jax pressed the red 'Ready to fire' button, a message marked 'Urgent' flashed on the main screen.

  "This is TransNeptunian Sleeper Service onboard computer. Calculations show that the debris from the destroyed object is likely to hit the hull. Change of angle, distance, both or abandoning of the action is advised."

  "Yeah, I can see that, too," Jax said through her teeth. Onboard computers recorded all actions and conversations onboard for as long as the system remained active. "But I think we'll be fine. The poor mining explorer will not. So, I'm overriding this on manual," she added and hit the 'Fire' button.

  Thank goodness for the human override amendment to the Human Rights Bill.

  Half an hour later, the main screen lit with a warning message that the laser aerial had been broken, practically cutting off the comms with the rest of the universe. Jax dismissed the message with a swipe of her index finger. Then, she turned the connection to PSSNet off, just in case the broken aerial could still work. Now, she was out of the range for any radio transmitting stations and would remain comms down until reaching Neptune. On the plus side, space was empty, she had a good ship, and nothing bad would happen. Scratch that - nothing at all would happen. It would be smooth cruising until time to decelerate and dock at Segedunum's space port.

  Eleven more days.

  She sat back in her pilot armchair and stared at the main screen displaying the map of the region. She was out of the busy Belt, still accelerating at 1g, and an emptier and darker space opened in front of her. Soon, it'd be time to turn the engines off and coast until the point where she would flip the engine and decelerate. Now, she could finally relax and let herself do what she did best - drift.

  Or actually cruising, she corrected herself promptly. Drifting was reserved for her personal life. At work, she should at least pretend to have some mastery over events.

  Anyhow, after a few days filled with anxiety over her plan and the adrenaline of actually flying a real ship by herself for the first time had exhausted her. The few power naps sh
e'd managed to grab barely sufficed to keep her going. Her brain slushed around her skull like half-frozen water in a plastic bucket, and her body ached as if she'd worn a hedgehog costume inside out for the entire duration of the outbound acceleration.

  Time for a proper sleep.

  Or rather. Time for a hot shower, nice meal (as nice as it was possible, given all meals resembled freeze dried porridge), and then a proper sleep.

  She powered up the autopilot and headed one level down, to her quarters to carry out her plan.

  A series of high-pitched, sharp notes broke through Jax's slumber. Her head pulsated in rhythm with the sound.

  "What the heck is that?" she groaned, checking her portable screen. She'd stopped wearing the suit and the wrist unit a couple of days earlier in case the overlookers could somehow detect another life developing in her.

  "Emergency event," the screen flashed.

  "Crap!" Jax's brain kick-jumped into consciousness. She sat up. "What's that now?" She tapped on 'Acknowledge' button.

  The screen stopped flashing and a message appeared:

  "Emergency event. This is TransNeptunian Sleeper Service onboard computer. Unexpected event encountered. All external communication systems and autopilot have been powered down for security and safety reasons. Close-range devices only in operation. Do not attempt to reestablish any external connection. Navigate manually to destination. All other ship systems are secured and in operation. Cargo passengers are safe in closed-circ stasis. Two passengers awakening process initiated. 28 minutes to full revival. Repeat, do not attempt to reestablish any external connections with the comms system. The onboard computer system must shut down now. Goodbye."

  Jax stared at the screen. The last dot stopped blinking – an unmistakable sign that the transmission had ended.

  Strange. The onboard computer should have just said so: 'End of message.' It didn't. And it had cut off the comms, which had been turned off anyway.

  Her first reflex was to roll out of the pod and run to the flight deck. But she had no effing clue what to do, since her favorite option – check all available options – wasn't available.

  Panicking had never been an option. Jax had learnt this early in her life, by observing her histrionic mother.

  She leant against the back wall of her sleeping pod and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

  She opened her eyes and re-read the message.

  It hadn't changed.

  Jax licked her lips, which tasted like a slab of concrete: rough and dry. Since the comms had been powered down, the conversations in the cabin were not being recorded.

  She let a breath out.

  "Holy crap in heavens," Jax groaned. "I wanted an emergency event, now I've got a real one on my hands. What do I do with it?"

  2

  Jax unsecured the sleep harness, rolled out of the sleeping pod and sat with her feet dangling just above her magboots for a while, while holding tight to the edge of the pod. The pilot quarters were small and simple; barely enough room for the sleeping pod and a bathroom - an upright walk-in tube with a shower and a toilet seat that slotted into the wall when not in use.

  Good enough for a solo-flying pilot on a three-week trip from Earth to the Neptune area.

  Absolutely perfect. Smooth sailing. Just boring. That's why they paid so well.

  At least, that was what her ex-boyfriend said when he announced he'd won the contract.

  How different could it be from all those sim-flights in the Academy hangars? Or even the real ones to Mars, co-piloted half an hour per person at a time?

  Not to count the billions of hours she'd clocked in the AdAstra Quest as a pilot of all sorts of fancy flyware.

  "It'll be a walk in the park," Jax grumbled through the gritted teeth. "Yeah, effing right. A walk through Central Park in the middle of a steamy July." Remembering that the engine was offline, she reached for her magboots and slipped them on. The heels clicked the moment she stood up - at least she wouldn't fly off.

  Time to face the reality, Jax.

  For once, all those hours spent in AdAstra might come handy.

  Ha!

  She grabbed her portable unit from the pocket inside the pod. Not because all her piloting files were there, but in case she had to override any of the systems by inputting her piloting credentials all over again.

  The message still filled the screen, but the number of minutes to full revival had counted down.

  Twenty-four minutes left.

  Should she do anything about it? Probably turn the engine back on. She heard somewhere that gravity was crucial to healing of injuries, so maybe lack of gravity was bad for sick people? Was the extra use of fuel justifiable in the circumstances?

  And why, the heck, were those people being revitalized? The amount of air, food and water supplies had been calculated to minimize the flight cost and fuel.

  But the biggest question that filled her with dread was why the onboard computer had decided to wake up two people who were supposed to be so sick they needed an urgent trip to the high-tech medical facility at the far end of the solar system?

  She shuddered, feeling the blood vessels in her limbs constricting, the little hairs on her skin stood up.

  It was probably nothing serious, since they were still flying.

  Crap … the autopilot's off!

  Jax rushed to the flight deck.

  The cockpit looked exactly as she had left it a good five Standard Earth hours ago, except for the last message displayed on the main screen and the countdown minutes pulsating red in the left upper corner.

  She checked the systems monitoring the engine, the airlocks, the cargo level, the docking bay… everything she could think of - no issues. Except for the comms, the autopilot, and the onboard computer, everything seemed to be working optimally.

  Her hands hovered over the console again.

  Jax glanced at the map and brought up the ship's coordinates to compare them with the planned trajectory. Fortunately, everything appeared okay. It'd only been a few minutes from the moment the autopilot switched off and this was space, not Interstate 405. As they told them time and time again at the Pilot Academy: there's a whole lot of empty space in space.

  Jax relaxed her shoulders. Fifteen minutes flashed in the corner of the big screen. With the ship seemingly okay, it was time to move on to her next big mystery.

  She checked the camera monitoring the medical bay. All ten pods appeared undisturbed, and only zooming close revealed pulsating red dots on two of them.

  Pods number three and seven.

  Jax called up the 'passenger list'. She preferred that name to the official term, 'medical cargo', used on the SpaceLiner's specification. Fair enough, these were all very sick people, but calling them cargo?

  Jax tapped on the number three on the list.

  "Baron," she read out. No first or last name. Just, Baron. Fortunately, whatever data was contained in the internal system was still accessible.

  The file was small and included a thumb-sized 3D image of the man's face, his date of birth, nationality, Earth address, profession and a short 'clinical information' note: 'faulty implants Gen 1.2.'

  Alongside each name, a tiny padlock symbol indicated that more information, no doubt medical, was available for those with a higher level of clearance. The pilot had to be satisfied with what she found.

  Not much. And the fact that the man's profession read 'biohacker, celebrity' only confirmed her suspicion. Baron was yet another wealthy white man who could afford the newest fad, and could raise the fees to be shipped all the way across the solar system in a fancy, ultra-fast, unscheduled ship to fix them.

  She shrugged. Even though the man's current address was somewhere in the New EU, she suspected this was white privilege through and through.

  Jax moved her finger swiftly to position seven on the list: Lulu Zhou, an insect specialist, living and working in East Africa, with the most recent address in Ethiopia. The 'medical issue' section indicated 'fault
y 1.2X implants'.

  No doubt, a Chinese subject…

  No, a citizen of Asia-Africa-Pacific Confederation, AAPC, Jax corrected herself.

  So, Chinese implants had been going berserk, too? Strange. The rest of the list contained wealthy PanAmerican Confederation citizens, all with problematic Gen 1.2 brain implants. According to the briefing provided before her departure, the faulty implants had been fitted within the last year, in the Segedunum medical facility belonging to Si-Carb Inc.

  All, except for the set of Chinese implants owned by the insect specialist. Gen 1.2X implants were definitely not done in Rebels' Republic.

  It didn't make any sense.

  The light on one of the pods turned amber–a sign that the person in the pod was nearly ready to exit.

  Mr. Baron. Or should she address him as 'Sir'? What was the appropriate title for his level of nobility?

  If she'd had access to the Net, she'd look it up, even for comic purposes. To test his sense of humor. With a few more days of travel, she'd rather have companions who were at least tolerable. Having a decent sense of humor would be a lovely bonus. But with the Net down, she'd have to improvise. Jax headed for the medical section.

  Fortunately, the ship wasn't too big, and it didn't take her more than a minute to reach it.

  She flicked the engine back on and set it to 0.4g, since she had no spare magboots and the ship had been coasting. That should be enough to keep the two sick people stable and not bouncing around the ship. She'd have to recalculate the fuel and time to destination later.

  Her magboots clicked as she walked to and from the elevator and then, through the internal sluice door. And just as she stepped into the bay, the cover of Pod no 3 popped open. She hurried forward and stopped a couple of meters away from the open pod, waiting for the man's head to appear.