Misjump Page 6

  “This is Neuholme if Gregor says it is. I am not sure that it is the Neuholme that we left, but it is a Neuholme,” said Meilin.

  “No way,” said Jax. “That ain’t the way that things work.”

  Gregor half raised a hand. “Whatever. Is not time for argument. We find fuel. We jump somewhere else and see what they think. Is nothing here for us.” The crew looked at Gregor for a long moment.

  “No,” said Lori. “We need to find out what happened to the people here. We owe them that much. It is the decent thing to do.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know that we owe them anything,” said Jax. “For all we know, we are the last people alive. There has to be stuff worth salvaging here and it doesn’t help anyone if it goes to waste.”

  Lori nodded slowly. “Fair point but we don’t have much time for searching. Fumi is deteriorating — not fast but a little each day. We need to get her to help.”

  Jax didn’t meet her eyes. “Yeah, if there is anyone to help. We will know that better when we have figured out what happened here. It is all kinds of messed up.”

  “Yes,” replied Lori, looking down.

  “How long is it safe to wait?” asked Gregor.

  Lori hesitated before answering. “There is no safe amount of time, but she is getting worse. We shouldn’t wait longer than we have to.”

  Gregor nodded. “It is going to take me about two days to get the ship ready for another jump. I won’t need help so you should do whatever salvaging and scouting that you need. Jax, you are in charge of the operation. Listen to the others and try not to be asshole, okay? Let’s go back to ship and get what you need. I will be back in fifty hours, less if I can, same bay. Come on, let’s hustle.”

  #

  Jax split the crew into two teams, taking Ivo for his and leaving Meilen and Lori for the second team as he called it. Lori was just glad that she didn’t have to put up with Jax at the moment. It wasn’t that he was incompetent, but he was apparently running on testosterone at this point. Meilin would be more useful for what they were doing in any case.

  “So, where are we going first?” asked Meilin, her jumpsuit partially covered with clip-on bags and equipment.

  “The hospital first,” said Lori. “They may have something that we can use, and if there were wounded, there would be some records of what happened. I think it is our best option.” The main local hospital was on the edge of the city and they would be walking unless they could find a working vehicle. That seemed unlikely given the state that everything was in, so Lori had brought a pair of cargo grav lifters. They could be attached to a cargo crate and take all or some of the weight, but while they were powered down, they were quite bulky and heavy. She handed one to Meilin, who put it in her backpack. “Ready?” Lori asked. Meilin nodded and moved her jacket to free up the stun pistol on her hip. Lori wasn’t carrying a weapon as there hadn’t been enough for everyone, and besides she had little faith in the ability of the stunners to make much of a difference. They were short range and it didn’t take a lot of armour to stop one.

  The streets around the starport were strewn with cars but not as many as they would have expected. Close up, they were in a worse state than they had looked from a distance. Most of them were empty and closed up except where the rust had eaten away at exposed metal parts. The shells were all some form of plastic. Neuholme was a low metal world and they used ceramics and plastics more than most. The roads became somewhat more congested as they moved out into the city proper. It would have been difficult to have driven a tracked or wheeled vehicle through some areas, but there was fewer ground vehicles than might have been expected.

  Meilin spotted the first corpse and made a sharply indrawn breath that sounded loud in the near silence. She pointed it out to Lori and pulled out her pistol to cover her. Lori walked over to the car. “I think that we can be pretty sure that he is not a zombie but yes, not nice. Try not to look if it bothers you, meimie,” she said, her tone gentle. She looked more closely. “Actually, we can be certain that she is not a zombie. Adult woman.” Lori opened the door and stepped back at once, holding her breath. The stench would linger in the confined space, but there was no sense in breathing in more of it than was needed. She steeled herself and started to examine the corpse, which had mummified to a degree. She described what she was doing, more to put herself in the mindset of an autopsy than because she thought that Meilin would care.

  “Not an advanced state of decomposition, probably due to lack of oxygen … clothes look like a business suit but torn. Mass of blood in the lap and over the belly from … yes, wound there. Gutshot, maybe?” Lori cut away some of the crusty cloth with a pocket knife. “Not an energy weapon, no obvious powder burns, but it is hard to know with the decomposition. Possibly a stab wound. There is a lot of dried blood and she may have bled out. No exit wound.” The suit had pockets in the jacket and she quickly patted them down, finding a small wallet and an older model PDA. The ID card inside the wallet had a name, a picture, and a biometric barcode. “Hanna Sussman, age … well, probably about forty when she died. The PDA looks to be intact. Do you think that you can get it running again, Meilin?”

  Meilin nodded but looked doubtful. “I think so, when I get back to the ship. The battery will be shot, but if it stayed sealed then maybe. Even if not, I can try to get something from the storage.” She put the PDA into her backpack, handling it with distaste. Lori squeezed some alcohol gel onto her hands and looked at the corpse in the car. It didn’t seem right to leave it that way, but there wasn’t anything that she could do about it. There would doubtless be other corpses. She looked over at Meilin and saw that the computer specialist was looking pale, almost greenish. Lori thought back to when she had first seen an autopsy back in her student days and hoped that her friend would never have to get used to the sight of bodies.

  They carried on through the city centre and found more ground vehicles on the road and walkways, some of them showing signs of low-speed collisions. They were mostly at the sides of the road, perhaps pushed there by survivors. None of the other cars that they saw had bodies in them, but white bone stood out from a few alleyways even in the grey light that filtered through the clouds.

  “Meilin, is it just me or would you expect to see more cars and bodies around? I do not see signs of looting either. Any idea what the population of this place was?” asked Lori.

  Meilin paused before answering. “I have been to the capital and that was busy for a world this far out from the core. Not as busy as home, but there were at least many hundred thousand people, I would say, perhaps millions. This is a smaller city, perhaps a third smaller. I would still expect at least several hundred thousand. Yes, I would say that there should be more people than this. Perhaps they escaped in ships?”

  Lori shook her head. “I doubt it. The local spaceport hasn’t been used much if at all and it looks like someone nuked the one in Erste. If there had been a widespread evacuation, wouldn’t Grossemarkt spaceport be the obvious choice?”

  “They had to have gone somewhere. There must have been millions of them,” said Meilin. “Maybe Erste was attacked later than here,” she suggested.

  Lori nodded. “Maybe. Too many to evacuate quickly. I hope that we will get some answers at the hospital.” Meilin only nodded in reply. It was unlikely to be an answer that she would like.

  #

  “Okay, here is the plan,” said Jax. “We focus on salvage, anything portable and useful or valuable that we can trade if we meet anyone. If we find information then great, we have information, but one way or another, we will need things that will help us to survive. Got that?”

  Ivo nodded. “Yes, of course. What do you consider of value though? The local currency is probably not much use for anything, and I can’t imagine any survivors are going to be in the market for jewellery. They would probably want food or clothing more than anything, and I can’t think that we will find any food still in edible condition after all this time.”

  �
��Yeah, or weapons, but we are not going to trade weapons to anyone who is likely to use them against us. That would be dumb.” Jax fiddled with the strap of his backpack. The pack was oversized and he had insisted that Ivo bring one of the big cargo grav lifters in case they found anything that was too large to carry.

  “Do you think that there will be anyone to trade with? I would have thought that if there were anyone here, then they would have already looted anything worth having, They have had a hundred years already, no?” asked Ivo.

  Jax shrugged. “Maybe. Better that we have it than not have it though. We are jumping on, and things might be different where we are headed or maybe we will find something that we can use directly. We are light on weapons so we should head for a police station. We might find out what happened while we are there.”

  Ivo nodded. “Worth a try. Any idea where we can find a map?”

  “Yup,” said Jax. “Mass transit. Bound to be one there. Should be signs to the nearest mass transit terminal and odds are that there are maps that show things that tourists need — like police stations.”

  As it happened, they found the police station before the mass transit terminal. While the word for “police” varied from language to language and culture to culture, the buildings all tended to share a look: blocky with darkened windows. The size of the building also varied according to how draconian the law enforcement was and how large a population they served. The building was damaged, the glass windows bowed in, held by embedded wires. The door hung open, slanting from one hinge.

  “Okay,” said Jax, “here is how it is going to go. We both approach the door from the side, staying well under the window and stand backs to the wall. I go in front of the door, crossing to the other side so that I can look in but won’t be out of cover for more than a couple of seconds tops. Once I have seen inside, I will make the decision to go or not go. If I say go, we both turn towards the door and take on any threats that we can see — which there probably won’t be any but best to be ready. Look on your own side for hostiles and only engage with your buddy’s threat if your side is clear. Aim for the centre of mass unless they are obviously wearing body armour or if two body hits don’t take them down. Clear?”

  “You do know that all I have is this stun pistol, yes? It is accurate enough to hit a drunk in a bar, but it is no damn good for storming somewhere,” said Ivo.

  Jax nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just do what you can, okay?” Ivo nodded.

  Jax led the way, running parallel to the wall in a half crouch, staying below the level of the windows, which were fortunately small. Ivo followed, attempting to imitate the awkward movement, but he lagged behind. Jax got to the door well before Ivo and stood with his back pressed to the building while he waited for Ivo to catch up. A few seconds after Ivo got there, Jax held up a hand with three fingers raised, making sure that Ivo could see it. He lowered one, waiting, lowered another, paused, and lowered the third before pivoting his body and darting across the opening. The weak light revealed little, but there was no visible movement. He pushed his back against the wall and listened, trying to hear over the pounding of his heart. There was nothing except for the slight hiss of the rain that seemed to have settled in for the day. Jax had not seen enough to be sure, but the stillness and silence probably meant that there was no-one there. He held up three fingers again and counted down silently. After he reached one, he called out “Go!” and both men turned and stood in the wide doorway. Jax stepped to one side to avoid being outlined in the door and gave Ivo a shove, making him stagger to the other side. Jax looked around at the empty room, his gun dropping from a ready position to point at the floor. Ivo was standing with both hands on his stun pistol, looking for something worth aiming at and failing to find it. The room was a mess with a counter shot up and broken with charring on the walls. Large fragments of a transparent material that could have been plexiglass jutted from the walls and bits of what might have been bench seating mouldered in place. The weather had blown in and everything was rotting with spindly white plants reaching outward where there was light from the hole where the door had been.

  Ivo straightened up before Jax did. “There hasn’t been anyone here for years, Jax. Just look at the floor. Whatever happened here happened a long time ago.”

  Jax straightened and unclipped a heavy flashlight from his belt, shining it around. “There has been a blast here, bigger than a single grenade. It takes a lot to smash the screens that they have in these places.” Jax gestured to the fragments sticking out from the wall. “That stuff is supposed to be bulletproof. This is the only place where we have seen signs of any resistance.”

  “All the shots look to be outgoing to me. Look at the pitting on the wall to the outside,” said Ivo, gesturing.

  “Yeah, well,” hedged Jax, “there must have been someone resisting for there to be shots fired, I guess.” He did not sound convinced by his own words. He pointed the beam of the flashlight down and white fragments gleamed back. He scanned the light across the floor and saw a skull on its side. “Not now, of course. Come on, let’s go in.” Jax picked his way across the rubble on the floor, some of which crumbled under his feet. He used the butt of the rifle to noisily bash one of the larger fragments of the charred screen out of the way before climbing over the desk. He noticed Ivo was hanging back. “You okay there, mate? I don’t think that there is anything left alive here.”

  Ivo gulped. “Yeah, I know. It is just … well, bones.”

  Jax nodded. “I was the same first time I saw death. It isn’t nice or good, but they can’t hurt you. They are just some poor bastards who were in a situation that didn’t work out for them. Damn shame and all that, but the important thing is that we are still alive and we will stand a better chance of staying that way if we can scrounge up some supplies. C’mon. Don’t look at them if it bothers you.” With that, Jax dropped onto the other side of the counter and heard bones splinter under his boots. He took a deep breath and didn’t look over at Ivo as he pushed away the ribs with his foot. Ivo slowly walked forward and crossed the counter.

  #

  Lori looked up at the hospital and its dark windows in the failing light. She was wearing her light intensification goggles and had a scarf over her face to keep the steady drizzle off. She looked oddly insectile with her smooth head, the goggles and her blue-black skin. She adjusted the filter on the headset to infrared, but the windows all looked much as they had in visible light. There was no sign of warmth or life in there.

  “Anything?” asked Meilin.

  Lori shook her head. “No. If there is anyone left on this planet, they are few and far between. I don’t understand it. There should at least be bodies. We saw a few dozen on our way here, but there must have been many thousands of people here. Look at the hospital — it is big enough for a fair-sized city and it would have cost a fortune to build. There must have been enough people to justify it.”

  Meilin looked at the signs. “There doesn’t seem to have been an emergency department. Wouldn’t there be one in a place this size?” she asked.

  Lori jerked her head upward. “There would be, but it would be on the top floor, most likely. This was a high-tech world and a newish hospital. They would be using grav vehicles as ambulances. If anyone came in by foot, they would probably be sent up as quickly as possible.”

  Meilin nodded slowly. “It looks pretty dark in there, but we can work on torches for a while. I hope that we can rest before too long. I have been awake for more than eighteen hours already.”

  Lori nodded back. “Yes, me too. We will take a look for a couple of hours then break. We should have an idea of what there is in the way of records and equipment before then. Food first though. Does that seem like a good idea to you?”

  Meilin smiled back, her lips thin. “Most things seem better after a meal.” She started to remove her pack to get the meal packs out. She had picked the self-heating emergency rations, reasoning that this more than qualified.

  #


  The horizon bobbed very gently as Gregor watched the viewscreen. The Sarafina was hull down in a large lake forty klicks west of the spaceport and the water was barely darker than the sky. He mechanically ate from a plate of stew while watching the gauges displayed on the main console screen. It showed figures relating to litres of water per minute and yields as the ship sucked in water and filtered out the deuterium. The contaminant levels were well within limits, but the return was a little lower than Gregor would have liked. It would do if he ran the pumps continuously. They didn’t really need monitoring with such a clean feed.

  He had tried the radio on a range of frequencies, many in the VHF band since that would be reflected from the ionosphere. There hadn’t been anything but static hiss, no sign of a carrier wave. Whatever had happened here, there seemed to be no-one left to tell the tale. He rechecked the time, finding it two minutes later than the last time that he had looked. There was still more than half an hour before either team were due to check in. He went for another spoonful of stew but found that he had already finished it. He went to wash up the plate and get a cup of coffee. It would take up a few minutes and take him closer to the next contact. He took his time and sipped his drink while the clock ticked on. Eventually, he switched the screen back to comms and paged Jax and Ivo. That would cause the comms to vibrate without making much noise, just in case that would make a difference. Gregor didn’t think it would, but there was no sense taking a risk that could be avoided. The call was picked up in a few seconds.

  “Yo,” said Jax.

  Gregor sighed. “Yo. What is report please?”

  “We are holed up in the police station and we have a date for when it all went to hell. Year 958, day twelve at about four AM local. There are paper reports of Erste being wiped out and a huge storm that followed, maybe from material thrown up from the impact. There seems to have been rioting and the reports get pretty confusing from there. Scratch that. They were confusing already but they stop making any sense at all after that. There was a firefight here and someone had a grenade or something similar. Some of the cops bought it here. Must have been gas or a risk of it as a lot of them were wearing masks and a couple were in CBN suits,” said Jax.