Not With A Whimper: Survivors

by D. A. Boulter

  “No, sir. I’ve brought a datastick from my father. You should read it first. Then, if you have any questions, I’ll try to answer them. Then I want you to assign me a shift on the detectors here. After that, I’ll see Mother.”

  Tannon blinked in surprise. “Well, let’s see the datastick first.”

  He took it, opened the file, and began to read. Every once in a while he looked up at Owen. Then he returned his gaze to the screen. Finally, he finished, took a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh.

  “You believe what Major Temple told your father?”

  “Yes. Without a single doubt.”

  “That doesn’t give us much time.” He looked up to the corner of the office for a few moments. When he brought his gaze back down, he considered Owen.

  “Now, why should I assign you a detector shift?”

  “So that I’ll be busy, and my mother won’t feel she has to look after me in any way. And, if she needs family, I’ll be available to her.”

  Owen thought he could see respect in the older man’s face.

  “Good reasoning. Okay, I’ll do that. You’ve passed your course, your father says. Second in the class. That’s good. But I’m putting you on as a second. You still have much to learn. You can shadow Nick Fontaine.” He checked the schedule. “His shift starts in five hours. You up for that?”

  He really wanted to sleep, but figured he could do without. He’d soon enough get into the new shift. And he couldn’t afford to start by stating preferences.

  “I’m up for it,” Owen confirmed. “I’d better go see Mom if she’s expecting me.”

  Tannon nodded. “Good idea. That’ll at least give her a break.”

  “Let’s not tell her about the USNA thing,” Owen suggested.

  “Another good idea. No need to distract her.”

  * * *

  Jaswinder felt her stomach doing flip-flops. She and Owen hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Her lab time had cost her. Owen had warned her, and she had ignored the warning. Perhaps she had already lost him.

  She stood as he walked into the lounge. “Hello, Mother,” he said.

  Mother? Not Mom?

  “Hello, Son. I hear you passed the course. Congratulations. Sit down.”

  Owen smiled, and she felt like the sun had suddenly broken through clouds and rain. Nothing forced about the smile. He sat opposite her.

  “Yes, I did. Second in the class.”

  “Tell me about it.” She needed to take time for him, no matter that she had work waiting for her.

  “Not much to tell. They had a Paxton teaching it, and Ben Paxton as a student. Between the two, it started off uncomfortable. But,” he said, holding up his hand to prevent her from expressing her sympathy and distress, “Ben and I became friends, and Victoria Paxton wasn’t all that bad.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “And, mother, I met someone there.”

  “A girl,” she intuited. Her son was growing up.

  “A girl,” he admitted. “Her name is Sharon. She’s about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And she likes me, too.”

  He laughed, and she heard the joy in the laughter. Slowly the ice inside her began to melt. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. If she could just spend some time with him, maybe she wouldn’t lose him again. She winced inwardly. How could she do that? She had no spare time.

  “Mom, I’m staying on Haida Gwaii for a time. I’ll be shadowing Nick Fontaine on detectors to continue my training in real-world situations.” He glanced at his chrono.

  Staying on Haida Gwaii? That made things easier, and more difficult at the same time.

  “My shift starts in just over four hours.” He laughed again. “And I need to get some sleep. Anyway, I’m going to be busy putting all my training into practice, and doing further studies. So I’m not going to have much free time.”

  “I see.” She wasn’t sure what she saw, but it seemed a neutral enough statement.

  “Good.” He stood up. “But, if you ever want to talk, or if you want company at breakfast – or whatever meal it is, whenever it is – well, just give me a buzz on the comm.”

  Jaswinder stood, wondering if he would accept a hug. She didn’t wonder for long; he took the two steps over to her, and gave her what she craved. Her son, returned to her. She blinked back tears.

  Owen released her, and stepped back. “Oh, and Becca sends her love.”

  Jaswinder smiled and nodded, not trusting her voice. She hadn’t lost everything after all. She still had her children, even if she had lost Johannes, which she feared she had.

  CHAPTER 28

  Haida Gwaii

  Wednesday 25 August

  “Jaswinder?”

  The hand on her shoulder woke her. She blinked bleary eyes, and sat up. In front of her the screen gave its usual bad news. She glanced at the time. The sim had finished sixty minutes ago. And she had put her head down for just five minutes a half an hour before it was due to finish.

  But, someone had wakened her. She turned her head.

  “Hey, Bill.”

  “I have Ellen in the next room. We need to talk with you.”

  She closed her eyes tightly and rubbed at them. “I know, I know, I should get some sleep. Soon.”

  “No,” came Bill’s voice softly, “it isn’t that. It’s Matt.”

  She picked a little bit of something from the corner of her eye, and then opened both of them. “Matt?”

  “He’s done, Jaswinder. But he can’t see it, and we can’t get him to stop.”

  “And you think I can?” She didn’t need this right now. She had to make the equations work.

  “Come with me.”

  Reluctantly, she allowed Tannon to lead her from the lab. In the anteroom, Ellen waited, eyes red from crying.

  “He can’t do it any more, Jaswinder. He just can’t.”

  Jaswinder steepled her fingers over her nose. Ellen, she thought, couldn’t take it any more, either. Or perhaps only Ellen.

  “I’ll go see him.”

  Matt looked blankly at her when she walked into his office. Slowly recognition came to him, and he began to breathe more forcefully.

  “What is it, now? Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?”

  “Easy, Matt. Nothing’s wrong. I just needed a bit of a break.” She laughed, not feeling at all like laughing. “They forced me out. Said I was working to hard. So, I came here to commiserate with you.”

  “Oh, okay.” He slumped back in his chair. “They just don’t understand, do they? We have to finish – and quickly. You heard what Owen had to say, right?”

  “Yes, I heard,” she said. What had Owen had to say? “Yes, I agree with you. They don’t understand.” She glanced at his work screen. Then she took a closer look. An out-dated work order gleamed brightly. Why would he have that out?

  “What’s this?” she asked nonchalantly.

  He concentrated a moment. “If we don’t get this finished, we’ll fall too far behind. I don’t know what’s wrong with them, why they can’t see it.”

  Jaswinder nodded. “Tell you what, Matt. I’ll look after that myself. At least I’ll be doing some good, even if they won’t let me back in my lab for an hour.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No,” Jaswinder said, “thank you. I needed this time away. But I’d better go. I’ll feel better if I’m doing something.”

  Outside, she caught Nordine’s worried gaze.

  “Get me Johannes,” she told the secretary, then walked into the next office over, sat up and composed herself.

  She waited until Johannes’s face appeared on the screen before activating the switch that would allow him to see her as well.

  “Johannes?”

  “Jazz. How are you? It’s so good to hear your voice.” His own voice did something to her insides, but she couldn’t let that come up now. Best just get it out.

  “Johannes, I need you to come to Haida Gwaii.”

  “We’re just finishing up our
mission, Jazz. Should be done in—”

  “Finish it from here,” she interrupted. She couldn’t afford to let him argue, let him do anything, and certainly not let him see her total exhaustion.

  “What’s up?”

  “It’s Matt, Johannes. We need to get him out of here, and he won’t leave. Says he’s the head of the FTL, Head of the Yrden Line, that he can’t leave. I’ve had Bill Tannon take over his duties as Station Supervisor, but it’s not enough. He’s coming apart, Johannes, and it’s affecting everyone. If we want to finish things up, he has to go. Ellen’s frantic with worry.”

  Johannes turned around to look at something. She waited, trying for patience, while a voice inside her screamed at her to demand he move at once.

  “We have Twin Star here, loading. She’ll finish tomorrow. I’ll have her stop by Haida Gwaii on her way out.”

  Her laugh came out unlike anything she had heard from herself before. She skated on the thin edge of losing it entirely. “Not good enough.”

  “Wait,” he said, “I hadn’t finished. I’m catching the next available shuttle to Haida Gwaii – even if it’s one of Twin Star’s. They can pick it up when they get there. I’ll relieve Matt, tell him he was right, it’s time for me to take up the slack. Meanwhile, we need the Head of the FTL away from here, setting up our temporary headquarters.” He let out a short laugh. “There’s nothing to do there – just jammed to the gills with ships waiting for orders, waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

  “Thanks, Johannes. See you when you get here.”

  She disconnected before the tears started flowing. She couldn’t let him see her like that. Not now, not when everyone counted on her, and she didn’t know if she could meet the challenge. Lives depended on her. Not just station personnel, but the families of the workers that Matt had brought up. If she failed, they might all die.

  She took another minute to straighten herself up. Then she calmly walked out.

  “Johannes is coming,” she told Nordine. “He’ll take over from Matt. Says there’s nothing to worry about.” She smiled. “We’re going to get Matt to Twin Star and then out of the system. Johannes will need to be briefed. See what you can make of Matt’s notes. I’m going to talk with Bill, now. No one else goes in to see Matt. No one. Send them to Bill or me instead.”

  “Yes, okay. I’ll get on that.”

  Nordine started calling up files, looking happy to be doing something constructive. Jaswinder hoped that Johannes could convince his brother – otherwise she saw disaster in the offing for the Family, if not the Families entire. If Johannes forcefully deposed his brother, Matt would never forgive.

  Ellen waited with Bill Tannon.

  “Johannes is on the way. He’ll need to be briefed on all aspects of what’s going on here. Get each one of the department heads to work up a briefing sheet – and we’ll need one from you, too. I’ll have to write one up, as well. Matt won’t leave peacefully unless he’s convinced someone’s ready and able to take over.

  “Ellen. Start packing. Johannes has a plan, but it entails putting you and Matt on Twin Star. Twin Star will receive clearance to leave orbit tomorrow.” She glanced at her chrono. “As tomorrow starts in only a couple of hours, we’re on the clock. Get someone to help you.”

  She went up and hugged her sister-in-law, more to keep from seeing the tears that had started rolling down her cheeks than anything else. She held her a long minute, then released her.

  “Go now. Start packing.”

  She waited until Ellen had left.

  “Bill, I’m beat. I need a few hours sleep before Johannes gets here. He’s not happy with me, and I don’t blame him. But we can’t show that to Matt, and if I can’t—”

  “Go,” Bill said. I’ll look after everything else.

  * * *

  Thursday 26 August

  “Where is he?” Jaswinder asked.

  Bill Tannon took her arm, and walked with her. “In the conference room. The department heads are briefing him. You have your briefing sheet?”

  She handed it to him.

  “He’s been reading them, then asking the department head to come in to answer any questions he has. Just a couple left. How do you feel?”

  “Better,” she said, smiling. “Even a couple of hours of sleep did wonders for me.”

  But, outside of her now chronic tiredness, she didn’t feel better. Johannes sat in the next room, and she would have to give her own briefing. She had thought to lay it off on Kevin, but that would make her as cowardly as she felt. Besides, he deserved her presence.

  Bill took the briefing sheet in to him, and she only just barely stopped herself from running. If he outright rejected her, she didn’t know what she would do. Finally, the light came on. Time to face the music.

  Jaswinder walked out, her insides twisting. He looked good. Tired, but good. She wished they could just go off somewhere and talk. They couldn’t. She sat down.

  “What do you need to know, Johannes?”

  His face showed nothing, not even recognition of her. Inside, she quailed.

  He held up the reader. “This correct? No actual full-scale tests?”

  “No actual tests. We have three belts of nodes left to install.”

  He looked about as he had when she had tried to convince him of the possibility of changing speed in hyperspace – and not just in theory.

  “And no one has tried something similar to this before?”

  “No. It should work. We don’t need to actually go anywhere, just jump to hyperspace. That should prevent any of the field bending that prior acceleration imparts.”

  He looked doubtful. She didn’t need his doubts; she had enough of her own. “Then we’d drop right where we started. We have to get out of the system.”

  Always with the logic. “Yes, but we can manipulate the field in hyperspace, move off.”

  His doubts seemed to increase.

  “It will work, Johannes,” she told him in the exact same tone she had used twenty years previously when she had told him that field manipulation would work. “Trust me.”

  He stared at her a long moment, and then seemed to come to a conclusion. She feared to know it, feared to not know it.

  “Okay,” he breathed out. “Okay. But why are we still here, not moving?”

  What? What did he mean by that? She asked.

  “If you’re that close – three belts left – and ready to do a quick jump and drop, why are we still so close to the Moon, orbiting it, in fact? You should have left here days ago to head towards deep space. This close to a gravity well like the Moon, what with trying to jump something of Haida Gwaii’s size, you’re asking for disaster.”

  Her eyes opened wide. She hadn’t even thought of that. They still needed to complete the bolstering, and you couldn’t have the steel-workers doing that during acceleration. But, even so, they should have started moving. “Matt...” Her voice trailed off. “The construction.”

  Johannes sounded sure, ready to take over. “Right. Matt’s decision as to when to start. Mine now. Soon as I get him into Twin Star’s shuttle, and the shuttle away, we start moving. As for construction, unless we’re actually accelerating, velocity means nothing. You should know that. Certainly Matt knows that.”

  “I’m not sure what Matt knows any more.” And she didn’t. She had relied on him past the time she should have. But her own job required her full attention. She began to know how Matt felt.

  Johannes stood. “No time like the present. You going to back me up, or are you heading back to your lab?”

  She winced. How could he even think that? Did they have anything left to stay together for? “Better if I’m there. He trusts me, still. If I say you have everything under control, he’ll believe it.”

  With personal disaster weighing on her like the moon they should long ago have moved away from, she led him to Matt’s office. Once there, Johannes took charge as if she were nothing.

  “Hi, Matt. How are you?”


  Matt’s looked up in surprise. He found his voice, a voice filled with welcome. “Johannes! Good to see you. What about your project?”

  “Done. Finished. Completely successful. We have the data; we’ve evacuated the researchers and their families; I’m out of a job.”

  “You’re Captain of Venture.”

  “You told me that I couldn’t spend time with Jaswinder until we had that Preston thing cleared up. Well, I’ve spent weeks on it without being able to see my wife. You owe me this. I’m staying on Haida Gwaii.”

  Johannes put his arm around her. But he merely put on an act. If only the squeeze he gave her meant something. But she dutifully looked up to his handsome face, and smiled.

  Matt frowned, then smiled. “Okay, Johannes, you can stay. But Jazz, she’s busy.”

  “We can talk during breakfasts,” Johannes objected. “And, as long as I’m here, I can take some of the weight.”

  He had hit the right tone, breaking it to Matt in little bits, not going straight out, telling him that he was taking over. Matt’s relief felt like a physical thing, tension leaving the room. Then he seemed to have second thoughts. But Johannes didn’t give him any time. He just ploughed right on.

  “Let’s start with construction. Len’s moving well. He has the girders and beams that he requires, and the strapping for bolstering the framework. In fact we have 20% over what we’ll need for Jazz.”

  She listened as he spit out little factoids, trying to flood Matt with trivia so that he wouldn’t drill any deeper and find out that Johannes didn’t have the understanding of the situation that he pretended to.

  “As for Jaswinder’s end of it, she’s brought me up to speed. We’re going to move out immediately for the test site. By the time she’s ready to conduct her first real, life-sized experiment, we should have reached it, right Jazz?”

  “Right,” she smiled up at him.

  “There is a problem, though, Matt,” Johannes said.

  Jaswinder felt her insides clench as Matt winced.