Read Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) for Free Online

you’ve been to work on this shuttle—there’s a whole bunch of parts on the floor outside. What’s the plan?”
    “Ah, well that’s what you’d call my little project. Want to take a look?”
    “Sure, let’s go,” I said, allowing him to go first where I could see him.
    We stood looking at the underside of the shuttle, beneath the open compartment under the nose.
    “What are you looking for?” I said.
    “The battery.”
    “What for?”
    “The shuttles down below on the launch deck—that’s the lower level of this module—well they’re all fueled up and ready to go. Took a long time finding the manuals then working out what the hell was wrong with them, but I think I nailed it.”
    “Okay, so why the battery in this shuttle? There must be others.”
    “I’ve tried a lot of batteries—at least half the fleet already—all dead except for one. That one had enough juice for the start-up sequence to begin, but it died halfway through. All the ones over there in the storage racks were corroded through, but something about where they’re installed in the shuttle keeps that from happening.”
    “So you’re telling me that once we get a working battery we can fly a shuttle out of here?”
    He started cackling again, as if he knew something I didn’t.
    He shook his head and said mockingly, “Dear peasant, no, no, no. You see, that’s why I’m a C-E-O and you’re just a cop—”
    “You see anyone around here to stop this big peasant from bustin’ you scrawny ass?”
    He looked around.
    “No one except for Laetitia and she don’t like violence.”
    I sighed in exasperation, then shook my head and broke into a smile at the craziness of the conversation.
    “So, once the shuttle’s working, why can’t we fly out of here?”
    “The launch tubes, stupid—they’re as stuck as a hog in quicksand!”
    I left it at that. If we ever got a shuttle working, we’d need to find a way with the launch tubes later on. Apparently, the batteries were hard to reach without removing the nose cone—like the one on the shuttle under which we stood. So he’d needed to pull out many components to reach it from the flap underneath which could be opened.
    We worked together in near silence for several hours, trying to remove the battery. I liked Reichs better when he said nothing. We stopped partway through for some food and drink, of which he had an ample supply. In his shelter, I saw the walkie-talkie with the hidden the intercom badge inside. I placed my own walkie-talkie next to it. The apple juice carton with the other hidden badge could’ve been any of the ones already in his trash pile. It wasn’t in the half dozen in his filthy kitchen and I wasn’t going to hunt for it in the garbage.
    Over the next half hour, we made some good progress on the shuttle. Standing on a stool, he shakily passed the battery down from the nose compartment to me. I gently placed the twenty-pound box on the deck and helped him down from the stool.
    He eyed the white cube we’d spent the last few hours extracting.
    “How’s it looking?” I said.
    “Think she’s a winner, cowboy!”
    “Shouldn’t we test it or something?”
    “Err yeah, good point. Hey, you’re pretty smart for a cop.”
    I rolled my eyes and watched him crouch over it, picking up the multi-meter and testing the battery.
    The readout displayed the current and voltage and I asked, “Is it enough?”
    He looked up with his crazed smile.
    “Like I said, she’s a winner!”
    I smiled and, for the first time, had an inkling of hope that this might work. It still left the problem of the launch tubes, but it wasn’t as if we lacked time.
    “Come on peasant, let’s go try this thing out.”
    “Okay, lead the way.”
    I looked at the bearded old crazy guy, shuffling off toward the stairwell next to the elevators. I bent down, picked up the battery, and started following him.
    The shuttle was one thing, but I wanted to see the ship’s log for myself using