Levi's Rock - Chapter One - A Death Wish - Part Two

Chapter One: A Death Wish (cont.)

Hawking barged into the crew quarters as though angry—merely out of habit—and found the newest member of the crew in a hammock, drawing on a lap computer with a stylus. Spencer Fyodorim holstered the stylus and sat up, but his eyes flicked only briefly at Hawking before resting on the floor.

“On your feet, Fyodorim. You’ve got work to do.”

They were both on their way out the door at a brisk pace before either spoke again.

“So, I’ve been approved?”

“Everything checks out. Surprised?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s good. Have you ever piloted anything larger than a Dreg?”

Spencer lagged a little, confused.

Hawking enjoyed a smirk while Spencer couldn’t see it. ‘Disappointed with your first assignment, Spence?’ he sensed. “Speak up,” he barked over his shoulder.

Spencer shrugged. “I didn’t know there was anything larger than a Dreg—except the place they park the Dregs,” he grumbled as they kept moving.

Hawking rounded a corner quickly, his long legs giving him a natural lead, and Spencer jogged to keep up. “And why is that?” Hawking quizzed as they moved up a ramp toward the lift.

“It's impractical. Anything bigger than a Dreg sucks too much fuel on accel and decel—plus the Dregs are difficult enough to maneuver as it is. I guess I just assumed that for the number of passengers you can fit in a Dreg, they're just about the limit of efficiency.”

“You assume correctly. Some greedy bastard is hoping to make an advance in colony transports and win over the commercial transports; my guess is that he's built a whale of a ship with crappy materials and almost no engine. It's just a giant balloon with a fuel tank strapped to it—a death trap for whoever charters one.”

“So they want us to test it?”

Hawking stopped suddenly and turned to face Spencer. “They want us to go on and on about how well-made it is and how smooth the ride is. So, my question is: what do you think I want you to do?”

Spencer took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “I'd guess you want me to shake the damn thing apart.”

Hawking snorted, then turned and moved on. “That's exactly what I want you to do,” he called back.

Spencer shook his head and ran to catch up.


Graeber joined Hawking on the observation deck. Below, through several layers of transparent shielding, they could see the enormous ship—called a Ghail—connected by a short docking tube to the side of the space station.

“He out there already?” Graeber asked, settling himself in a chair.

“Yes, he should be loose any minute now,” Hawking replied, moving from console to console, activating remote cameras and communications inside the Ghail.

“Is he checked out on the Ghail?”

“No. I didn’t give him anything to read, and he got no simulations. But he has flown the Dregs before.”

“He said that?”

“No; it’s in his file.”

“So you’re setting him up to fail?”

“With that monster? At least if he does, it will be a spectacular mess.”

On the big screen, Spencer appeared. He was sitting perfectly still, eyes closed. Graeber looked from the screen to Hawking and back again.

“Is he meditating?”

“I have no idea.” They waited for a minute or two. Graeber was cycling through some other views of the interior of the Ghail on one of the monitors. Hawking was pinging some of the instrument monitors to be sure they weren’t just getting echoes.

Finally, when Graeber started outright fidgeting in his seat, Hawking leaned down to the commlink, but just as he did so, Spencer launched into action on the screen.


His eyes snapped open. He knew what to do. The idea was to force the inevitable—to make the unexpected happen now, while the ship had only one passenger—and there was only one way to do that: stress. The ship would have to experience sudden and compounded stresses. He set to work quickly planning it out.

Ships had always been easy for him. Spencer adjusted the consoles and familiarized himself with the controls almost at a glance. He was a little surprised that Hawking didn’t bring him up to speed on the ship before turning him loose, but it made almost no difference.

“You want me to shake this thing apart?” he murmured. “Let’s do it.”


Hawking choked on his coffee.

“What did he say?” Graeber barked.

“I didn’t catch it,” Hawking lied, thumbing the audio off.

Graeber mashed his palms against his temples. He mumbled, “Anything beats retirement. Anything beats retirement.”


Spencer’s hands flew over the controls. With one hand, he was disengaging the connection to the space station, and with the other he was keying in a fairly ambitious flight plan. The moment the proximity signal from the docking tube went silent, while Spencer was still fastening the five-point harness across his abdomen, the Ghail lurched forward and an alarm sounded. It was distant—not in the pilot’s cabin, but somewhere else in the cavernous ship.

There was a fire somewhere.


“What was that?” Graeber demanded. An alarm was also sounding on the control panel in the observation deck. He thumbed a control on his armrest, and two of the auxiliary screens changed to Ghail schematics. Nothing unusual showed up.

“It’s nothing; there are always some bugs in the internal monitoring,” Hawking hedged, but he looked uncertain, and Graeber noticed.


Spencer ignored the alarm, assuming it was erroneous, but he hoped Hawking was paying attention. If there really was a fire, then what he was about to do would be more dangerous than he intended. Hawking had at least two minutes to warn him before the flight plan got ‘frisky’.

The Ghail was now a good distance from the station, and Spencer did some quick mental calculations. ‘Far enough,’ he decided. With the ship still in the middle of a rolling turn, he fired a pair of breaking thrusters and braced himself for the bucking in store. There was one violent whiplash, and Spencer cursed as his head struck the headrest. He was fairly certain the hull had just been breached; the buck was probably explosive decompression of the main cabin.

The ship attempted to continue with the flight plan, but all that happened was a slow turn—and only half the ship turned, Spencer gathered, as the creak and groan of metal told him that the ship was wrenching in two.

Then the tail section exploded, propelling Spencer and the control room into a spin—and away from the station at high speed. As Spencer flip-flopped, his stomach flip-flopped as well. He opened his mouth to call for help on the commlink, but, “Oh no,” was all he got out of his mouth before the vomit started flying.


Graeber saw the hull of the Ghail spinning toward them—the rear of the ship—and ignored the fact that his newest crew member was now whipping off into space somewhere. “Ben,” he drawled, strapping himself into his seat, “you sure can pick ‘em.”

Hawking sounded an alarm and slapped the console in front of him to communicate with the entire facility. “Attention, crew: brace for impact! I repeat: brace for impact!” He switched off the intercom and, to Graeber, said, “So, what do you think? I’m guessing the rotation of the station should deflect—”

At the moment of impact, Hawking was slammed into the console. He would have a mottled bruise across his chest for weeks, but what would really hurt later were Graeber’s next words. The lights threatened to go out, but power held, except that the station was slowing in its turn—causing everything to come loose and float.

Hawking tried to hold onto the console, but only succeeded in shoving himself up to the ceiling and then rebounding right into Graeber, who appeared perfectly composed, still strapped into the command seat.

“Well, Ben,” Graeber chuckled, “you have virtually assured yourself that I will never retire.”