The Tartarus Directive

Chapter 7

Mr. Damir arrived presently and escorted Griff without a word to the A level armory. Waiting there were three of Commander Rowland's cohort armed to the teeth with gyrojet carbines, composite body armor, and respirator-helmets. Griff was kitted out similarly given a package of iodine pills, one of which he was to take immediately.

Rowland's claim that Griff would be briefed proved to be unsubstantiated. Mr. Damir had departed as soon as Griff reached the armory, leaving him in the care of these three men who looked on Griff with thinly-veiled scorn and deep distrust. To these grizzled veterans, Griff was a soft upper-deck wannabe barely able to hold himself together. These men had been shaped by violence from an early age and wore their battle scars proudly. Were these the men Griff was supposed to command? Any presumption Griff had that was the one in the position of power quickly dissipated as he looked each man over.

First, there was Harkness. He was the biggest, strongest, and hairiest of the bunch was with little hesitation the man Griff figured most certainly was the true commanding officer. Second, there was Rehema. He was short, slender, and quiet, but seemed to Griff fully capable of slashing a man's throat before his victim was even aware Rehema had entered the room. Finally, there was Stoica--a man who looked far better suited to drinking distilled alcohol than engaging in combat.

In no state to break the ice with a wisecrack, Griff merely waited around, deciding it was better to follow Harkness' lead rather than fail to assert himself to the group. The three men checked their equipment and filled their pouches with spare magazines, and filed out of the armory without a word. Griff brought up the rear.

The team entered the nearest service elevator and traveled down to G level. When they disembarked, there were a number of mining workers queuing for the next shuttle to the planet. They noticed the team of mean and most were visibly fearful, though many were more on-guard than afraid. The team walked towards the stern, passing the mineral processing plant and fuel refinery.

At the mineral processing plant, raw resources brought from the planet's surface were sorted and refined. Iron, copper, gold, platinum, and silver were among the most common minerals exploited from nearby planets and were used in various applications throughout the ship from electronics to hull repair. The great furnaces here roared every hour of every day. Steel, wires, screws--all these things began their life in this section of the ship. Though the plant was almost entirely automated, it required a constant shift of workers and technicians to keep the aging machines in working order. These workers paid no attention to the team as they passed.

Beyond the plant was the fuel refinery. The production of fuel for the ship was perhaps the most convoluted albeit necessary part of life on the ship. Special satellites had to be put into orbit around a planet with a gaseous atmosphere. These satellites in ultra-low orbit condensed the gases into their liquid state and stored them in tanks which would then be collected by small manned tankers at regular intervals. These tankers would bring the liquid gas back to the ship where, at the refinery, the select few gases suitable for ionization in the ship's propulsion system were separated and stored while the remaining waste was expelled out to space. It was a highly inefficient method of fuel production, but the fuel efficiency of the ion engines meant that what fuel was produced was not spent quickly. Here only a handful of technicians and engineers worked and none did as much as glance as the team passed.

The team arrived at the sealed entrance to the G level quarters. The automatic doors had been welded shut and covered with a heavy plate of steel and lead. Several peeling signs plastered on the bulkhead and cover plate warned of radiation exposure in bright red letters against a yellow background.

The quarters on G level had been quarantined for several years due to an extreme radiation leak during a reactor malfunction. It was believed that, while officially it was contaminated and uninhabitable, some residents may still have been living there out of desperation. It was perhaps the only place on the ship which had not yet been searched for Burgos. This was largely attributed to the high concentration of radiation there that would have made it impossibly dangerous for any human to live an extended period of time.