by S. Walker
A bulky case suddenly made an appearance as she hefted it onto the cushion next to him with a grunt of effort. "Sorry. Didn't mean to hit you with that," Jamet whispered, then unsnapped latches while raising her voice. "Check the course time on that. Should be a counter in the upper right callout box. I had the simulation on fast forward to make it easier to plot things."
"I see it. Twenty nine point one four total hours doesn't sound too bad. Was the acceleration a problem?"
"That counter is in days, sir." The lid came open sideways, swinging wide enough to bang into Janson's extended legs with the dull chock sound of hardened plastic on shinbone. He winced and gave her a wounded look. Jamet pretended not to see, rummaging messily through containers until she found the injector. "It would only take about two days to get to the meetup point that way. Easiest route if all we're looking at is fuel consumption. But after getting there we'd have to wait for the smelter to show up, and it's on a long orbit." A box of small pieces tumbled over the edge, breaking open when it hit the floor. Tiny things scattered everywhere.
"That would be... an exceptionally long time."
"No joke." Click, snap, hiss. Jamet held the loaded injector like a stunner pistol, then eyed Janson's right arm with the intensity of a gunfighter. He slowly turned away, one big hand coming up to cover the threatened body part as she kept talking. "Especially since I think we only have two weeks of emergency rations on this thing."
"Ah've been thinking, LT." He sounded completely in control and not at all like a large man pretending not to be nervous. "This headache isn't that bad, and ah really don't mind-"
"Engineer."
"Ma'am..?"
"Shut up and don't move."
"Ma'am." He resolutely looked forward as she savaged his arm with the injector, beard set in an extreme downward turn. "Ow." Warm feelings rolled upward from his arm in a wave that chased away the last pounding headache traces. "Oh. Ah take it back, that's rather nice."
Jamet threw the injector back into the case and forced the lid closed with a satisfied air. "Well I feel better for making you feel better." She snapped the latches closed and started hauling it back out of sight, unaware of how quickly he got both legs out of the way. "Anyways, captain-- the best alternative I could find was a straight burn, directly for the smelter and a hard decel on the other end. Uses up almost all the fuel but we'd get there and not have to sit around for weeks trying to find ways to ignore each other using the sanitizer."
"Oh. Gah," Emilia sounded disgusted. "Thanks for that lovely mental image. Guess I didn't want to take that boat for a ride after all."
Something slammed behind Janson's couch, then ratcheted upward into place with a sound like abused hydraulic assists. He tried very, very hard not to express an inner rage at tools not being put away properly. "Not to ride the point too hard, ma'am. But about that deceleration...?"
"I was just about to readdress that myself." Siers did something that updated the lifeboat's display surface. "Can you perhaps do a longer, more gentle slowdown? Or take it in stages, like this?"
Jamet climbed back over his couch, stepping perilously close to his inner thigh as she went past on the way to the forward console. He checked downward with a cross-eyed look while she poked at the navigational course. "No good, sir. We're committed to approaching from this angle to meet the facility as it orbits past. If we slow down or brake in stages like this," she updated the display, time lapsing it forward until the two dots missed each other. "We'll be off by nearly a thousand miles."
"Can you turn? Angle and make up the difference?"
She was already shaking a negative, resting one arm on the back of the couch while tapping updates with the other. "Not really. We could accelerate away from the facility and then brake, but that leaves us at vapors in the tank if absolutely anything goes wrong. It also leaves us dead in vacuum, with that same problem of waiting for it to catch up."
"I see. Paul, assuming they have to turn and go through another gravity smash what are the odds we'll have another... medical concern?"
Janson smiled. "Ah appreciate you being tactful on that, captain."
"Of course. Paul?"
A long, aggravated sigh preluded the Medical technician's answer. "Hard to guess. Just assume the worst and prepare would be my only advice. Janson? Are you sure you can effect a biochip restart again, if necessary?"
Jamet glanced backward at him with real concern. He in turn looked thoughtful, slowly tugging on his beard while slowly looking around their cramped quarters. "Not entirely sure, to be honest. It's not like... I dunno, some hatch toggle or release. Ah just had a problem and did it, sort of like asking someone to close their eyes 'n touch their nose. Can't promise to nail it every time." He shrugged expressively, then reached over and tapped Jamet on her nose, turning a worried scowl into a surprised snort of amusement. "Ah'm willing to give it a shot, though."
"Alright." Siers didn't sound reassured. "Then we'll go through with your original course, lieutenant. How long until you need to start slowing down?"
She checked, cycling through menus until the callout appeared. "Seventy four minutes exactly. Lifeboat sensors are terrible, but we'll have an extremely long range visual on the smelter here soon if you want it, Emilia."
"Kinda do, actually. Tired of sitting around doing nothing while you three handle the big stuff." Somehow Jamet could actually hear the small woman cross her arms in a huff. "Some new images to process would finally let me contribute around here."
Which was a blatant lie and an outrageous bit of revision for the last day or so. Jamet opened her mouth to start listing all the things Emilia accomplished lately-- not the least of which was burning an entire storage room of hostile drones-- but she stopped. She was starting to get a feel for the tetchy Comms tech's personality, the way sarcasm was sometimes both a whip to drive others away and a lasso to pull them closer.
So rather than get into an argument she rolled with it. "I know the feeling, Comms." Janson side-eyed her on that one. She gave him weaponized side-eye right back until he started silently laughing. "I'll set images to auto-send as long as we're in range, then. Let me know if you want me to adjust or if anything comes in at a bad angle."
Their comms link filled with a long, suspicious pause. "Okay. Alright. Thanks...?"
Jamet fought hard to keep any traces of victory out of her voice. Guesses confirmed! "Getting the boat turned now, we'll open a link again just before retro burn. If anyone needs us before then I'll be listening, same channel." She tapped the disconnect option, then fist-pumped. "Ha!"
Janson poked her in the shoulder, then gave a thumbs up. "Finally figured Em out, did ya?"
She kicked the pilot couch release and spun it one-handed to face forward again, nearly slicing his kneecaps off in the process. "She wants to argue! I don't know why, but it's like she is dead set on always looking for a fight. About anything, no matter how small." Then she frowned down at him. "Why are you holding your legs like that?"
"No reason, ma'am." Boots thumped on the deck. "And yeah; Em's been that way forever. If it helps ah can tell you she treats us all like that, it's like her way of saying you're worth her time. At least ah think so." He carefully rubbed the back of his neck with one broad hand, then rolled each shoulder one at a time. "Just a guess, but ah think she spent a lot of time getting ignored while growin' up. Now she fights the whole universe to make it pay attention."
"That is," she chose words carefully. "Rather sad, if it's true. I might need to think it over, maybe come up with a good argument or three. I could research her profile, make a checklist of likes and dislikes-"
"Ma'am." He looked amused.
"Engineer?"
"Maybe don't do that. Let 'er happen kind of organically is probably the best. Besides," he pointed at the console and gave her a knowing look. "She's our Infrastructure tech, too. She'd know if you snooped around in personnel files."
Jamet shot a look at the console in alarm, eyebrows flying upwa
rds. "Good... call. But speaking of organics-- how are yours?" She winced, then waved the air like words were something that could be smacked around. "Sorry, bad phrasing. Not used to checking in with people yet. Anyways, what can I do to help? Anything?"
He considered. "I don't think so? If anything comes to mind, ah'll let you know." Janson slowly pulled himself upright, keeping slightly crouched to avoid banging the overheads with the top of his head. "In the meantime I'm going to get everything put away back here."
"Oh, I already did that." Jamet pointed at the medical storage rack, currently halfway jammed into the holding cubicle.
He followed her finger, then slowly closed both eyes before running a hand over his face. "Ah'm going to do it again, ma'am. No offense."
It sure felt offensive. "None taken. I'll just be... adjusting retros. Getting the boat ready." She didn't turn around, though.
Another thumbs up, this time without looking. "Mm-hm."
More hesitation. "If you need help, though-"
"Nooope." He briefly touched the overloaded medical pullout, causing it to immediately crash to the deck. Equipment bounced between the acceleration couches in a wild jumble. "Ah will be juuuust fine."
Chapter 36
Dead Man Switch
Jamet adjusted controls that didn't need it, then double checked inputs that hadn't changed. "I don't like this."
"Not too crazy about it either, ma'am." Janson pulled down on his harness straps, checking for any stray piece that might have come loose in the last minute or so. "How long are we planning to decelerate for?"
She put the course on screen, then staggered callout windows on top of it. "I made timers. And a couple checklists." Both items received a separate finger point. "We're on countdown to retro burn now, with some coast time afterward just in case. Then we'll switch to the docking checklist for arrival." Jamet flipped between the two lists nervously, then layered them side by side.
He started laughing. "You made two checklists. Ah'm a little touched now, LT-- you always get this prepared when you're nervous? Go overboard on the action items an' such?"
Jamet stared straight ahead, refusing to turn around. But he could see both ears slowly turning red. "No."
"Wait a minute. How was it you got around that prank we pulled when you first came aboard?" Janson tapped fingers against his beard, pretending to think hard. "Something about the ship's appointment calendar, wasn't it? Now why would you be checkin' through that during stressful times, ah wonder?"
Her hand slowly came up, prominently extended one middle finger and gracefully descended again to touch a communication icon. "Captain? We're about to start deceleration."
"I see it, lieutenant. Your lifeboat is pretty much the only show to watch at the moment."
Which reminded her. "Any problems with our rescuees and the ex-CEO?"
Emilia jumped in. "Pfft, as if. I have a couple of 'em with too much energy organizing a card tournament right now. First place is a week's worth of cleaning drone use, so they're going nuts with brackets and stuff. Although there was a bit of a problem last night."
Jamet looked worried. "Someone hurt? Sabotage?"
"Attempted conspiracy to murder, actually." Paul seemed inappropriately amused.
"What?!"
Janson's eyebrows shot up. "Here ah thought we were havin' all the fun. Who's conspirin' to murder?"
Emilia just laughed, loud and bright over the increasingly bad radio link. "The workers tried to make the 'ex' in our ex-CEO's title a little more permanent about two hours before wakeup. I had an alert set for too many hatches open at once-- mostly because I was worried about boarders popping up again." She snorted, then did something that made the link beep a couple times and cleared the static up. "Didn't want to give any new drones an easy run through the ship all at once. But instead of maniacal little triangles all the alert caught was a gang of people going down the corridor opening every door looking for the Exec."
"Did they find her? No wait, obviously not." Jamet pinched her nose. "Or you'd have started with something like 'so the Exec took a spacewalk today...'"
"Ha! It's like she knows me."
"No, they came nowhere near." Siers sounded like he was trying hard not to laugh. "Although they did find our aft break area, which gave Emilia the idea for a card tournament."
Jamet stared upwards as if she were pleading with the stars. "Two breakrooms. A Cruiser-class vessel with an ambassador's reception room and not one, but two- why am I even shocked, anymore? Massive automation, double reactors, ludicrously big Krepsfield, enormous weapons stockpile, emergency skinsuits with image capture, huge sensor arrays... and the breakrooms are what gets me?"
A gentle on the shoulder from behind helped her move past the running total of budget costs. "It's a different world, ma'am." Janson sounded sympathetic and close to laughing at the same time. "Just stick to checklists an' you'll be fine."
"Oh! Speaking of which," she checked on-screen items. "Next after harness check is making sure all loose items are stowed. Did you get everything the way you wanted it with the supplies?"
"Mostly, ma'am. Missing a lot of little stuff, odds an' ends that didn't get put back right. Especially from the medical kit." Jamet looked embarrassed, opening her mouth to explain. He just kept going. "But don't worry about it. Ah also checked under and around everythin' up front, didn't find any loose items. Hopefully anything ah missed won't put holes in us in the first coupla seconds."
That reminded her. Jamet touched the comms icon. "Kipper, fifteen seconds. I'll keep the line open." She tried to look over one shoulder, voice worried. "And um, if you start having trouble, do you want to... I guess shout, or maybe say something...?"
"Would it help to know, ma'am?" He sounded genuinely curious.
"Well I guess I could worry harder, maybe. But there's no stopping the retro slowdown unless we want to miss the smelting facility and shoot off into deep space. Sooo..." Shoulders moved a fraction of an inch against harness straps. "Maybe?"
"Ah tell you what, ma'am." The countdown timer began to blink red, like a heartbeat. Five, four- "If ah pass out, ah'll make sure to tell you."
Jamet let out a relieved breath. "Thank you, that means a lot... wait." Her head tried to swivel around again. "You'll say something if you pass-"
Retro rocket noise ripped through the cabin in a thunderclap of sound that instantly rose to painful levels. At the same time giant, invisible hands slapped them both in the chest, then kept pushing like something was trying to turn internal organs into red-colored paste. Janson croaked a complaint that the lieutenant answered with a raw groan, then both concentrated on the forward screen. Specifically the bright red countdown, sitting just above a nosediving fuel indicator.
"Engineer? Hanging in there?" Paul's voice over the link was barely audible, more the suggestion of words than any actual output. The sheer hilarity of getting crushed to death while an annoyed medical technician asked impossible to answer questions would have sent Jamet into fits of laughter if she could have. Instead she wheezed rhythmically, listening to Janson doing the same behind her.
Something started rattling in the aft section of the lifeboat, a banging cacophony that rose in volume. She fought tunnel vision and oxygen loss, slowly checking everything on the workstation display for critical errors or damage. Nothing showed up, but it was getting harder to see the whole screen at once as the edges went dark from oxygen loss and blood pressure tag teaming her eyeballs.
Jamet settled on watching the retro countdown, thoughtfully placed front and center for easy viewing. Past a minute now and going down.
"Captain, they are not responding." Professional worry now, panic hidden in an undertone of status reporting.