Viking

Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Hardman

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission, except as allowed by
fair use provisions. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted
materials in violation of the author’s rights.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical
events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters,
places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance
to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Para mi linda estrellita.

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Rain slanted down in sheets, threshing the grass on the hillside. Claps of thunder
rumbled across the highlands and sank into the jungle below.

A few meters above the ground, a violet glow flickered, brightened, then leapt
outward as part of the sky disappeared. Beyond the emptiness, millions of stars winked
coldly before atmosphere swirled into the void. Water droplets, seeping through alien
leaves and soil, froze or boiled away with the abrupt drop in pressure. Sixty meters of
angular metal ploughed through the opening, a crust of ice congealing as it fell.

As the blink point stabilized, the entire module shuddered while wind shrieked
across its hull. Gravity reached out with a million sticky fingers and jerked them,
hard, in a very different direction than Rafa had expected. He felt his stomach lurch
and the harness stretch taut around hips and thighs.

A bone-bending thud rocked the cabin and left his ears ringing. The main lights
died, leaving only dim scarlet from the emergency panels. His head snapped forward,
then back again as padding caught his temples.

Then everything was still except for reflexive profanity from several nearby cocoons
and a primal thrumming overhead. The noise from beyond the hull sounded violent and
disturbing to Rafa’s anxious imagination. Maybe this world was another Halifax,
swarming with hungry insects alert to their presence and beating against the ship.

Finally one of the women laughed. It was a giggle, really, incongruous in the
strained semi-darkness. “It’s raining!” And she began to struggle out of her
straps.

There was a muddled chorus of grunts and murmurs as the words sank in and the crew
relaxed. More clasps clicked open, and a few vikings staggered to their feet, adjusting
awkwardly to the renewed gravity.

Rafa was about to release his own harness when the module tilted. He clutched the
straps ferociously. One viking, caught unprepared, careened past him and collided
headfirst with a bulkhead; the metal rang nauseatingly as she crumbled to the
floor.

The storm sounds were engulfed by a surging roar. A disquieting wave of movement
rippled around them. The bulkheads creaked and warped drunkenly. The deck heaved up,
dropped away, and spun overhead.

Those on their feet braced against bunks or the walls of the corridor. Several lost
their grip and thudded like rag dolls against bolted furniture. The lights went out
again, but the sensation of movement continued for a dozen heartbeats; then a grinding
squeal ripped the blackness, and the movement stopped as quickly as it had begun.

Silence descended as everyone awaited more disaster.

When it seemed likely that immediate danger was past, Rafa struggled out of the web
of straps, feeling dizzy and disoriented. In the ruddy twilight, someone was vomiting
onto what had once been the ceiling. Another was whimpering and clutching an arm that
had been twisted at a weird angle.

More than one lay motionless in contorted positions that did not bode well.

“I’m getting out before we start rolling again!” shouted one of the vikings as he
shouldered past Rafa toward the main hatch. A crescendo of agreement followed. Whatever
had caused the strange motion, they didn’t want to be around for a repeat
performance.

Rafa hesitated.

“Nobody’s going anywhere yet.” Heward’s voice cut into the chaos.

“Speak for yourself, soldier boy,” sneered one of the crew.

Fluorescing plasma leapt through the air and sizzled into the metal only centimeters
over the speaker’s head. In the dumb silence that ensued, Heward’s voice hissed.

“Let’s get one thing straight, boys and girls.” He hefted a laser pistol that had
materialized in his hand as if by magic, and surveyed their fearful faces. “I’m top dog
here. Remember?” He tapped the insignia on his shoulder with the muzzle of his gun.
“You got the implants. They bought off your prison time or financed your drug habit or
whatever they did to get you here. That makes you property, not free agents.”

Slaves
, thought Rafa.
Call a spade a spade, if you’re man enough.
Heward was a vicious bully, every bit as slimy in his own way as the prostitutes, the
rapists, the dregs that made up the rest of the crew; he seemed to thrive on the harsh
posturing and fear that bound them together into a sort of dysfunctional anti-family.
He’d had the vicarious reality implants that gave vikings their name from day one,
which seemed to support his brag of prior mission experience. It was hard to attribute
his re-enlistment to anything except masochism or a death wish. That he’d been given
temporary command defied all reason.

“...protect their investment,” Heward was saying. “So nobody leaves this ship until
I say so. We don’t know what just happened, and we better find out before we go
charging outside.”

He walked down the heeling deck to the woman near the bulkhead and prodded her over
with a toe. The face was a mangle of blood and bruised flesh. Heward knelt, his gun
still covering the room, and felt for a pulse.

“Roadkill,” said Whemper, a scarecrow with a dishwater mane. He seemed to think this
was funny, and started to chuckle, then doubled over in a fit of coughing, spattering
the fallen woman’s boot with bloody spittle.

“Watch your cough, scab-breath, or I’ll fix it for you permanently.” Another of the
crew, a scarred bodybuilder with a Jersey accent, slipped out the words with casual
malice. It was the tone you might use with a dog, Rafa thought, when you had a gun and
you warned it off your property—and you liked shooting things, so you didn’t really
want the dog to hear you.

You don’t shake your fist at tuberculosis, you moron. And if he’s not on the
mend like he claims, a few extra paces will hardly make things sanitary.

Whemper made an obscene gesture that the other man couldn’t see. Heward let the arm
flop limply and straightened up. “Panic and stupidity get you killed,” he continued in
a conversational tone. “So any chinga who wants to wet their pants better ask
permission first.” He sauntered over to the crowd in the corridor and swept the muzzle
of his gun toward them.

“On a mission like this, idiots aren’t the only ones who suffer. You lose your head,
maybe make a little mistake, you can kill everyone. So I can’t afford to keep you
around unless you’re going to stay calm and do exactly what I tell you. Better for me
just to put you out of your misery.”

He eyed the subdued faces in the gloom.

“Do I make myself clear?”

When nobody answered he flipped the safety back on and holstered the gun. “Good.
First thing to do is see who’s hurt and find out what the status of the module is.
Fazio, take a couple guys and do a visual inspection of the ship. I want to know about
the general condition of the hull, especially anything that looks broken. Whemper and
Montaño, see if you can deploy a robot to get a look at what’s going on, maybe
inventory damage on the exterior. You remember that from the classes?”

“Don’t need a hypno feed to run a remote control.”

“So do it. Compton, see if you can get the computers online.”

“How? I’m no techno-weenie, and our training was a joke.”

“If everything doesn’t start up with the basic drill, read the manual. They don’t
exactly build these systems for high IQs, you know. I’m going to go have a look at the
food and equipment. Chen, get your med kit and check out everybody who’s been injured.
The rest of you stay and help. Meet back here in fifteen minutes. Use the radio if you
need to; we’re all wired up. Any questions?”

Again silence. Heward nodded curtly and disappeared without a backward glance down a
corridor that led to the cargo hold. The malignant bodybuilder grunted at the nearest
two crew members and thumbed them in the opposite direction. In a minute the room was
mostly empty.

Chen was an elfin woman in her early thirties, maybe, with a single braid of
chestnut hair that ran halfway down her back. Unlike most of the crew, she sported no
tattoos, no rings in eyebrow or nose, no scars or other regalia that seemed to go so
naturally with the harshness of a viking mission. In fact, she was unusually
attractive, except for a strange jaundiced hue to her features.

And she knew it. She taunted the men by the way she dressed and walked and breathed
innuendo with a snicker. Obviously she’d walked the streets or something equivalent;
how she’d acquired any medical training was a mystery.

Now she was kneeling over one of the forms on the deck. She motioned at Rafa without
looking up. “See if you can find some large mylar bags. Big enough to put a body in.
We’re going to need a few.”

* * *

Rafa was one of the last to return to the bloody quarters. The chore of hauling
limp, bagged bodies into a vacant locker had been nauseating. He sank onto a sheet of
ribbed metal at the fringes of the group, glad to be done.

The room stank of sweat and disinfectant. Someone had turned most of the normal
lights back on. The panels cast vertical shadows as they pulsed up from what had been
the ceiling only minutes ago, painting the room with an eerie surrealism.

Moans sounded from one of the bunks. Another of Chen’s deputies, a slim man with a
swarthy complexion and midnight hair, was kneeling at the alcove. He had a cut over his
eyebrow, and one sleeve of his jumpsuit was stained maroon. He was administering an
injection.

In a moment he straightened up and limped over to Chen, holding out the used
syringe. Rafa noticed that she grabbed it carelessly, with an open, ungloved hand, and
dropped it in a box in the corner.

Heward was busy wrapping a cloth bandage around his own ankle. When he finished, he
stood and tested his weight, then addressed the group.

“All right, folks, let’s get organized. I want to hear everyone’s report. Chen, you
first.”

All eyes shifted.

“We lost three. Cooper had severe internal bleeding. Begay broke his neck. Ahmad had
enough trauma to the cranium to kill her three times over. And we’ve got half a dozen
broken arms, collarbones, and ribs. One dislocated shoulder. Bryzinski’s hurt pretty
bad. Concussion and punctured lung. He’ll make it though.”

The sudden tightness around her eyes and cheeks suggested otherwise. But what could
you say when the man was listening in his bunk a couple steps away?

“How about medical supplies?”

“We’ve got enough to stock an emergency room for a month.”

Heward nodded in evident approval, but Rafa shook his head. Was that supposed to be
plenty? He’d known all about the life expectancy of vikings before his sentencing and
immediate enlistment, but the matter-of-fact planning of a quartermaster suddenly made
it seem real.

Chen wasn’t finished. “What are we going to do about the bodies?”

“We’ll discuss that later,” Heward said with an indifferent shrug. He turned and
raised his eyebrows at a skinny kid with tattoos and a nose ring in each nostril who
was sprawled across the bottom of a countertop, head moving in time with unheard music.
The lollipop in his mouth made him look even younger than he was.

The kid sat up and removed the candy. “Me’n Whemper got out a robot, like you said.
Took some doing. We tried three hatches before one would open.”

“And?”

“You ain’t gonna like it.” He waited. Then, when Heward remained silent, he
shrugged. “See for yourself.” He lifted a touchpad, punched some buttons, and
everybody’s wrist displays came to life.