Right Hand Man

Posted on Jun 05, 2016 @ 9:14pm by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Jun 05, 2016 @ 9:14pm

Mission: Fortress: Earth

= Right Hand Man =

(cont’d from “Non-Stop”)

LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Main Engineering

STARDATE: [2.16] 0605.1647

A few hours had passed since Jake Crichton’s epiphany. Maynell had been roused, and he and Jake, along with James Barton, had poured themselves into the work once more. Jake had switched from coffee to water right about the time he could feel his heartbeat in his back teeth, but the adrenaline rush that came with new ideas had so far staved off the worst of the caffeine crash. Now Jake paced before the holodisplay that hovered over the Master Systems Console, the last of the coffee rush making his movements rapid and a little too herky-jerky to seem normal.

“Final checklist,” Jake said, drumming his fingers rapidly along the surface of the workstation in a meterless staccato. Barton and Maynell exchanged an uneasy glance.

“You sure you don’t want to sit down?” Barton asked, cocking an eyebrow towards Jake.

“Sit later, checklist now,” Jake said, waving off the concern. “Maynell. Go.”

“Heatshield layering, check,” Maynell said, thumbing through the list on the screen before him. “Maneuvering thrusters, check. Descent reduction module…”

Jake’s head whipped over to Maynell, who was frowning down at the readout on his display.

“John?” Jake asked expectantly.

Maynell sighed. “Check. I still don’t think this is going to work, boss.”

“It’s going to work,” Jake said, waving off Maynell’s concern. “Jim, check out the numbers. Are you going to be able to move around in this thing?”

Barton shook his head. “Not a chance. But you said you had that taken care of.”

“Did I?” Jake asked. For a moment, his gaze seemed to drift somewhere between Barton’s eyes and the ceiling.

“Yes, you did,” Barton said, snapping his fingers a few times. “Hey! You with us?”

“Right,” Jake said, shaking his head, his eyes no longer distant. “Sorry. Yes, I did say that.”

“Everything else checks out,” Maynell said. “Ready to begin simulation.”

Jake nodded. “Do it, Ensign.”

The holoimage above the table shimmered, and resolved into a picture of a Federation runabout, hovering some distance above the shining blue sphere of planet Earth. The cargo area towards the rear of the runabout opened. The figure that stepped out onto the ramp looked comical, and didn’t do much to allay any of James Barton’s fears over this particular project. He cut his eyes sideways at Jake, who was staring intently at the holodisplay and didn’t notice.

The figure was humanoid, though wrapped in so many layers of thermal shielding that one could be forgiven for missing that particular detail. The suit was so bulky that the simulated figure couldn’t even hold its arms down at its sides; they poked out slightly, held up by the layers of material underneath the figure’s armpits and along its chest. It reminded Jake of the cold weather gear they’d had to wear on LAVENZA II, but considerably thicker. The figure was wearing a thick helmet, shiny and black, which concealed a self-contained oxygen recycling system. Its feet were covered in more of the thermal shielding, ending in thick, metallic boots that looked like they were made of the same material as a starship’s bulkhead. All in all, the figure looked like someone had crossed Frankenstein’s Monster with a high-end dishwasher, and as it stepped out onto the docking ramp, it moved slowly and unsteadily.

“We’ve already got a red flag,” Maynell reported, glancing down at his terminal. “Weight limit exceeded.”

“It’s taken care of,” Jake said. “Computer: begin the jump.”

The computer chirped its compliance, and a second later the holographic figure leaned forward and fell out the back of the runabout, tumbling end over end in the direction of the planet below. As they watched, light suddenly flared up from beneath the figure’s boots, and after a moment the figure’s aimless tumble stabilized into a curved descent towards the planet below.

As they watched, Jake narrated.

“That doomsday shield means we can’t get close enough to rely on the planet’s gravity to pull you all the way in,” he said. “The boots stabilize your descent and push you close enough to the planet for gravity to take over. But the doomsday shield will detect the material and power signature of the thrust boots, so…”

The holographic figure’s boots suddenly split, each of them falling away in three separate pieces. Each piece suddenly flared into a tiny sun, burning away with such intensity that the three men had to close their eyes against it. The holographic figure zoomed ahead, the blue crescent of Earth rapidly taking up more and more of the background of the holodisplay.

“We’ve passed the Aegis Shield,” Maynell reported.

“The boots disengage and self-destruct before you pass through the shield,” Jake said. He was rubbing his hands together now, and his eyes had gone wild. The image of a cackling mad scientist suddenly flashed through Jim Barton’s mind as he watched, acutely aware that the holographic figure falling to its uncertain fate in the display before him was an analogue for himself.

“What if I’m too close when the boots go up?” Barton asked. “It could set my suit on fire.”

“Never happen,” Jake said. “The planet’s gravitational pull has got you now, you’re moving too fast. The suit’s pressurized,too, so your blood doesn’t boil as you fall.”

“And he’s still overweight,” Maynell said, looking up at Jake with increasing desperation. “He’ll never slow his descent in time to-”

“Patience, grasshopper,” Jake said, holding up a finger to silence Maynell. “When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, then it will be time for you to leave this place.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Maynell said. “Rate of descent is increasing at an alarming rate, Jake. Thermal stress on the suit rising. External temperature at 1800 Kelvin and rising.”

“You’ve hit the atmosphere,” Jake said, glancing at Barton. “Now you see why we have you so wrapped up you can barely move.”

Flashes of light begin to appear from beneath the top layer of the figure’s dropsuit. These flashes increased, eventually turning into gouts of flame that licked greedily across the surface of the suit, until the entirety of the figure was engulfed in a streak of orange flame. The figure now looked like a meteor, a whitehot orb of flame trailing at fiery tail behind it as it zipped across the sky towards the ground, still far below.

Barton cleared his throat and glanced over at Jake. “So, I’m… not dead in there, am I?”

“You’re fine,” Jake nodded. “Drink lots of water before you go, you’re going to be sweating buckets, but the thermal shielding is thick enough to protect you from damage. It won’t be comfortable, but it won’t be fatal either. And the best part…”

“Do I want to know?” Barton asked.

Flaming bits had been trailing behind the dropsuit since it had burst into flames; now these bits were coming faster and faster, each one a miniature sun, snapping free from the suit and burning up, as the figure fell faster and faster. From his workstation, Maynell looked up.

“Weight’s decreasing,” he reported. “Friction from re-entry is burning away thermal layers from the suit!”

“I thought you said it would protect me!” Barton said, frowning at both Jake and Maynell.

“It will, it will,” Jake said. “We just needed a lot of it. Enough to soak up damage, burn away, and leave you with more underneath. Rinse, repeat.”

“And if you’ve flubbed even one calculation during this process-” Barton started.

“I haven’t,” Jake said. He hadn’t taken his eyes away from the simulation.

“You can barely keep yourself upright,” Barton said, crossing his arms.

“Maynell double checked my math,” Jake said.

Barton frowned suspiciously at the young Ensign.

“Did you?” he asked.

“I did,” Maynell said. “And, uh…”

“‘Uh’ what?” Barton asked.

“You’re still falling too fast,” Maynell said. He looked guiltily over Barton’s shoulder at Jake. “I’m sorry boss, but even if he makes it this far, there’s no parachute in the galaxy that’s going to slow his descent in time for him to-”

“Pebble!” Jake said, cutting Maynell off again. Frustrated, Maynell and Barton looked back at the holodisplay.

The final layers of the heatshield had started to burn away, eventually revealing a suit with a much thinner layer of shielding, suitable enough to protect Barton from freezing as he plummeted through the low temperatures.

“Residual heat from re-entry means we were able to scale back a bit on upper-atmosphere protection,” Jake explained. “The bottom layer of your dropsuit soaks up heat as the upper layers burn away. You’ll be nice and toasty all the way to the bottom.”

“Which is approaching a lot more rapidly than I’d like,” Barton said. “Jake, I’m not slowing down, I haven’t even deployed my chute.”

“Chute wouldn’t work,” Jake said. “You’re still falling too fast, even with the air resistance working against you. Not enough room to slow down.”

“So then what the hell am I supposed to do?” Barton demanded. “Curl myself up into a cannonball and aim for their command center?”

“Maynell suggested that as a backup plan,” Jake said, offhandedly. Barton’s eyes flashed on Maynell, whose own eyes suddenly went wide.

“I didn’t-” he started.

“Watch,” Jake interrupted. “Now it gets really cool.”

Barton and Maynell looked back at the display. The figure was moving so fast now that it was hard to make out what it was doing, but Barton thought he could see it activating some kind of control mounted on the wrist of the dropsuit. A second later, a huge parachute burst free from the rear of the dropsuit. It trailed out behind the figure, end over end, before bursting apart into a wide sheet of fabric. The figure lurched upward, the sudden increased air-resistance cutting off the speed of its descent with such force that Barton suddenly imagined the sound of his neck snapping from inside the confines of the dropsuit.

As if sensing his concern, Jake glanced over at him. “Looks worse than it is, big guy. I promise.”

“Right,” Barton nodded. “And you just said the parachute won’t work.”

“I said not enough room to slow down,” Jake said. He keyed a control on his workstation, and looked back at the holodisplay.

The falling figure was suddenly engulfed in a burst of shimmering blue light. As the light cleared, Barton saw the figure was no longer there. He stared just long enough for the realization to set in, just in time for the figure to suddenly re-enter the holodisplay, falling from the top of the display towards the planet below, parachute still deployed.

“What the hell…?” Barton asked. “Was that a transporter?”

“Localized site-to-site transport,” Jake said. “Mounted to a portable power-pack built into the suit. You have enough juice for two, maybe three transports. They’ll shift you back up, high enough to give you more opportunity to slow down. There’s some chance rematerialization might tangle your chute, but you have a spare.”

“One spare?” Barton asked.

“Didn’t say it would be easy,” Jake said with a shrug. “But it’s damn possible, Jim. Look.”

The figure shimmered away again, disappearing from the frame once more, before falling back in from the top. The descent had noticeably slowed, even as the ground rushed up from below. As they watched, the figured finally touched down, trailing its parachute behind. The landing was hard - very hard, Barton saw, like “snap your femurs and knock you senseless if you do it wrong” hard, which wasn’t exactly comforting - but as the dust kicked up from the impact began to clear, Barton was amazed to see the figure crawling out, apparently still alive. The figure rose to a knee, stayed there for a moment as if in silent appreciation of its simulated survival, then rose to its feet. It took a few shaky steps, and then the holodisplay de-rezzed and faded away.

“Well,” Jake said, looking over at Barton. “What do you think?”

“There’s a lot that can go wrong,” Barton said. “If my trajectory isn’t lined up before I lose the thrust boots-”

“We can stream navigational data to the HUD in your helmet,” Jake said. “You’ll have a visual representation of your arc of descent, and we can tie the boots through that system and have them do most of the work for you.”

“Most,” Barton repeated. “And even so, if something goes wrong-”

“You have the transporter,” Jake said. “You can think on the fly. You’ll figure something out.”

“Your faith in me is inspiring, but not enough that I’m ready to die over it,” Barton said.

“Look, Jim, I know it isn’t perfect,” Jake said. “It can’t be. There’s too much…”

He trailed off.

“Too much what?” Barton asked.

Jake sighed, and rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his palms. Then he looked at Barton.

“Frankly,” Jake said. “Too much room for human error.”

“Human error?” Barton asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I can protect you from the forces we can measure,” Jake said, gesturing towards the space that the holodisplay had formerly occupied. “And we’ve done that. But if you make a mistake, you’re dead. Other than give you options, there’s not much else I can do about that, except trust that you won’t make a mistake.”

Barton absorbed this in silence, his eyes drifting back up to where the holodisplay had been.

“For what it’s worth,” Jake continued. “You’re the only person on the ship who I think has a chance at pulling it off. And I wouldn’t agree to send you if I didn’t think you could do it.”

“Me too,” John Maynell put in helpfully.

Barton didn’t look at either of them. His eyes were still on the empty holodisplay, but his mind was far away, falling faster and faster through layers of atmosphere towards rocky ground below.

“Okay,” Barton said finally. “Okay, Crichton. Looks like we have a plan. How long to build the suit?”

“Few hours,” Jake said. “If you need more time, I can fudge the numbers, stall for you with Kane…”

“No,” Barton said, shaking his head. “A few hours is fine. Let’s just get it over with.”

“I’ll be there when you jump,” Jake said.

“You need to sleep,” Barton said.

“Me and Byte have our own mission with the satellites, so it isn’t out of our way,” Jake replied. “I want to do the final checks on the dropsuit myself.”

“You and Byte, huh?” Barton asked.

Jake’s expression didn’t change. “Yeah. Me and Byte.”

“Hmm,” Barton nodded, making a noncommittal sound. “Guess we’re all going above and beyond, aren’t we?”

“Guess we are.”

Ensign Maynell was suddenly confused as to why the two more senior officers both suddenly seemed to be having a completely different conversation. Barton guessed that Crichton hadn’t gone to anyone else with his suspicions about Byte, not even to his staff. Jake Crichton didn’t strike him as a man who played things close to the chest by way of habit, and Barton had an idea how far outside his comfort zone Jake was when it came to harboring secret suspicions towards his crewmates. Talking about it couldn’t have been easy, and Barton felt a strange satisfaction at having been taken into Jake Crichton’s confidence on the matter. Barton glanced over at Maynell and decided to let the subject drop.

“Okay,” Barton said. “A few hours. I guess I’ll… make my goodbyes, then.”

“We’ll let you know if anything comes up,” Maynell said. “Thank you for your help, Lieutenant.”

Barton nodded to the ensign, then looked over at Crichton.

“See you in a few hours.”

Jake nodded back. “A few hours.”

After Barton had left, Jake turned to Maynell.

“You can handle the fabrication of the dropsuit without my help, right?” he asked.

“Of course, sir,” the ensign nodded. “I’ll pull Chaucer to help me.”

“Good,” Jake said. “I need to sleep.”

=[/\]=

LOCATION: San Francisco, EARTH

SCENE: Basement

The sounds of the restaurant above them, though muffled, could still be heard through the building’s wooden floor. Occasionally, smells would waft down the stairway, and each time they did, Raxl Dreyton’s stomach rumbled loudly. When the latest aroma - salmon, if Raxl’s nostrils were working correctly - drifted down, the accompanying rumble was loud enough to make Selyara look up from her PADD in annoyance.

“Is that going to keep happening?” she asked, frowning at him.

“Can’t help it,” Rax said. “It’s been, what, 12 hours or more since either of us ate anything. You must be hungry too.”

“I’m fine,” Selyara said, dropping her eyes back to the PADD. “If you’re hungry, I’m sure we could have something brought down.”

“You spent the rest of our money bribing your way down here,” Rax said. He glanced uneasily towards the ceiling. “Wasn’t the most impressive bribe, either. Only reason that manager isn’t turning us in is because he’s got no idea who’s looking for us. If that changes, he’ll sell us out in a hurry.”

“We don’t have to stay here much longer,” Selyara said. “I just needed a quiet place to access the planetary network. Once we have the information I need, we can move again.”

“Well, work fast,” Raxl said. “Your friend Johnson doesn’t strike me as a ‘grass grow under his feet’ kind of guy. You saw what he did to that kid Declan’s apartment. I don’t think a restaurant full of people will make him hesitate.”

Selyara glanced up at him from over the edge of her PADD and nodded gravely.

“You’re right.”

Rax sighed and started pacing. His stomach rumbled again, and he rubbed it. There were a few crates and boxes down here, but the basement wasn’t refrigerated, so Rax doubted any of them contained food. Still, there wasn’t much else for him to do while Selyara worked, and so Rax began picking his way through the assembled containers. He found nothing of interest, but it kept him occupied until Selyara looked up and turned her PADD around for him to see.

“Okay,” she said. “This is him.”

Rax glanced at the PADD’s screen, which showed an image of squat, balding man with an almost pinched expression. He wasn’t looking at the camera, he appeared to be looking off to the right, at something out of frame. When the picture was taken, it appeared the man was walking quickly, maybe while looking around.

“Don’t recognize him,” Rax said, with a shrug.

“Leonard Cagney,” Selyara explained. “Edgerton’s personal assistant and attache.”

“His right hand man,” Rax said.

“Exactly,” Selyara said. “Lately, he’s been showing some signs of misgivings towards the Neo-Essentialist agenda. His history is one of absolute loyalty, but it seems he might balk at the idea of murdering every man, woman, and child on the planet. Go figure.”

“How do you know all this?” Rax said. “I thought you don’t have access to your information network.”

“I don’t,” Selyara said. “This is from Edgerton’s information network.”

Raxl’s eyes widened a little. “What?”

“I hacked Federation security and pulled surveillance data,” Selyara said. “Cagney’s change of heart hasn’t gone unnoticed, but Edgerton’s put men on him and hasn’t seen any signs of betrayal. He’s close enough to Edgerton to be useful to us, and he might be open to turning against him if it means saving this planet.”

“But Edgerton’s watching him,” Rax said. “How do we get close to Cagney without tipping Edgerton’s goons? Or putting Mr. Johnson back on our trail, for that matter?”

“We can’t,” Selyara said. “We can’t go to Cagney directly. But Cagney’s got a partner.”

Selyara tapped a control on the PADD, and the image changed to a plain-faced middle aged man with brown hair that had started to go grey at the temples and kind brown eyes. Rax didn’t recognize him, either.

“Stephen Flass,” Selyara said. “Schoolteacher. He and Cagney never married, but they’ve been together for almost ten years. Edgerton’s file on him is short; he checked him out years ago and decided he’s no threat. Now he’s only of interest to Edgerton in terms of leverage against Cagney, so there won’t be anyone watching him.”

“Okay,” Raxl nodded. “So we find Flass, get him to get a message through to Cagney. Maybe once we’re communicating, we can find a way to help him slip his tail, meet face to face.”

“And Cagney can give us the information we need to find Edgerton,” Selyara said.

“You found all this out with a PADD in some restaurant’s basement?” Rax asked, trying not to sound impressed. Selyara gave him a tight smile.

“Edgerton’s security isn’t as tight as he thinks,” she said. “I doubt he expected anyone would be working against him from behind the lines.”

Raxl’s stomach rumbled again, and he looked down at it.

“You have what you need,” he said, looking back up at Selyara with a desperate expression. “Any chance you can download us a couple of cheesesteaks while you’re at it?”

Without really meaning to, Selyara smiled. “Come along, Mr. Dreyton,” she said. “We’d better get you fed before your stomach gives away our position.”

=====================================================================

NRPG: The dropsuit’s more or less ready to go. Barton has some time to say any goodbyes he might want to say, and then it’s time for his leap of faith. Meanwhile, Selyara and Raxl have decided on their next move, but Mr. Johnson is still hunting them. Will Barton arrive in time to turn the tide? And what will Jake and Byte discover when they examine the Aegis Satellites?

ALIX: Hope this works, let me know if you want to JP.

DALE: I figure Barton can ride out on the shuttle Jake and Byte are taking to examine the satellite. Jake’s got some info for Barton before he jumps, in case they need some more backup down on the planet, so maybe we can do that scene together before you write Barton’s big jump.

Moar posts!

Shawn Putnam

A.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX

And

Raxl Dreyton

A Very Hungry Working Stiff