by Ryk Brown
“Damn it!” Robert cursed in frustration.
“At least we know we’re on the right path,” Sasha reminded him.
“New contact!” Kasma reported urgently. “Two point three five light minutes, along the same course as the debris! Size, shape, composition…it’s gotta be them, sir! I’m even picking up thermals!”
“I’m moving us closer,” Robert announced, dialing up a two-minute jump and quickly pressing the jump button. A moment later, a distant object appeared in the left forward window.
“I’ve got it!” Kasma reported. “It’s them! It’s the forward section! Six thermal signatures, but everything else is cold. Jesus, Captain, they’ve got zero power.”
“Do they have comms?” Robert asked as he maneuvered their gunship in closer.
“Doubtful,” the sensor officer reported. “I’m not even picking up emergency battery power. It’s cold as hell in there, as well.”
“Something’s wrong,” Sasha insisted. “They shouldn’t have run out of power and heat this quickly.”
“Their ship jumped in pieces, Sasha,” Robert insisted as he peered out the window, maneuvering their gunship alongside the wreckage.
“Jesus!” Renny exclaimed as he came floating up into the cockpit, looking out the window. “Are they even alive?”
“I’m picking up six sets of life signs,” Kasma assured them. “Five of them are really low, though.”
“Metabolic suppressors?” Sasha wondered.
“Good boy, Aiden.” Robert tapped his comm-set. “Striker Three, Striker One. Do you copy?”
“Kas, try to get a detailed scan so I can do a damage assessment on them,” Renny requested.
“I’m working on it.”
“Striker Three, Striker One. Do you copy?”
“It looks like all their environmental lines were severed when they jumped,” Sasha commented. “They may have lost all pressure.”
“Not if the auto-cutoffs worked,” Renny said.
“Pressure inside Striker Three is about half what it should be, Captain,” Kasma warned, “and their CO2 levels are climbing.”
“That means their scrubbers aren’t working,” Renny decided. “Maybe not even their oxygen generators.”
“Striker Three, Striker One. Come on, Aiden. Wake up!” Robert ordered. “Flash them.”
“Flashing port floods,” Sasha replied as he started flipping the port floodlights switch on and off.
“Aiden, it’s Robert,” Robert called over comms. “Come back to me, kid.”
“Captain, the only way we’re going to get them out of there is with a breach box,” Renny insisted.
“It will take too long to get one,” Robert insisted. “Besides, where would you attach it?”
“Maybe I can rig one of our oxygen tanks to their lines,” Renny suggested. “Maybe even connect a battery to give them a little heat. Buy us some time until we can figure out a way to get them out of there.”
“You want to go out there and try to repair that?” Sasha asked, surprised.
“I don’t want to, but I’m sure as hell willing to give it a shot.”
Robert pushed his throttle a tad to the left and then released it, causing his starboard translation thrusters to fire momentarily.
“What are you doing?” Sasha wondered.
“I’m going to give them a nudge,” Robert replied. “Try to wake them up.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Robert,” Sasha warned.
“I’m with Sasha, Captain,” Renny agreed. “That thing looks like it could crack open if you even breathed on it hard.”
“We need someone awake in there,” Robert insisted. “You’re going to need someone on the inside if you want to hook up O2 and power.”
“Good point,” Renny agreed.
Robert watched as his gunship drifted closer to the wreckage. At the last second, he pushed his flight control stick imperceptibly to the right, this time causing his port translation thrusters to fire, slowing the closure rate a bit. A moment later, their hull impacted the wreckage, bumping it ever so gently.
Aiden felt himself jolt to one side, startling him out of his stupor. He looked around, forcing his tired eyes to open. It was so cold he could barely feel his fingers.
“Stri……Striker One…………you co……”
That’s when Aiden realized the cabin was being intermittently filled with light…light from outside their ship.
“Aide……bert. Do……opy?”
Aiden pushed Charnelle off of him, climbing to his feet to look out their starboard window, still groggy and unsteady. What he saw outside woke him rather quickly. “Hey!” he cried out instinctively, waving his hands in the hopes that they would see him. “Oh, shit,” he said, remembering his comm-set and reaching up to tap it. “I’m here!” he called out. “I’m here! We’re all here!” We’re alive!”
“YES!” Renny exclaimed, shaking Sasha by the shoulders with excitement as the rest of the crew aft and below him also shouted with glee.
“Suit up, Renny,” Robert ordered, tapping his comm-set again. “Aiden, it’s Robert! Sit tight, kid, help is on the way!”
“Good to hear, sir,” Aiden replied.
“Kas!” Robert yelled. “How many comm-drones do we have left?”
“Just the one,” Kasma replied. “I’m prepping it for launch now.”
“What’s your status, Aiden?” Robert asked over comms.
“Totally screwed, sir,” Aiden replied. “I’m afraid I fucked us up pretty good.”
“You did fine, kid. Is your crew alive?”
“Yes,” Aiden replied. “I’m pretty sure. I gave them all their shots. They’re out cold, and I do mean cold. Should I wake them up?”
“Negative,” Robert insisted. “Renny’s going EVA in a few minutes to give you oxygen and power for heat. Don’t wake your crew up until we’re sure we can keep you all alive until help arrives.”
“Sir, our airlock is gone,” Aiden warned. “I don’t know how you’re going to get us out of here.”
“Don’t worry, Aiden, we’ll figure something out,” Robert assured him.
“Whatever you come up with, I hope it’s soon,” Aiden replied. “I’m freezing my dick off, here.”
“I promise we’ll get you out of there, kid,” Robert assured him, “dick and all.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“This is new,” Josh commented as the Falcon’s console came to life.
“What did you expect,” Loki asked as he went through the startup checklist, “that everything would still be exactly the same as it was seven years ago?”
“Well, not everything.”
“It’s not even the same ship.”
“Close enough,” Josh said, smiling.
Loki looked over at his friend and smiled, as well. “Yeah, it is, actually.” He tapped his comm-set. “Aurora Flight, Falcon. Ready for departure.”
“Falcon, Aurora Flight. Cleared for immediate departure, starboard, aft ramp, via airlock five.”
“Shall we?” Josh said.
“You heard the lady,” Loki replied, gesturing out the window toward the open airlock door.
Josh eased the ground throttle forward, engaging the electric motors that drove the Falcon’s landing gear. Much like its aerodynamic predecessors, the Falcon used its rudder pedals to steer on the ground, a practice that Josh found amusing.
He guided the Falcon through the airlock doors, rolling to a stop exactly on target in the middle of the transfer airlock. Half a minute later, red lights flashed around the perimeter of the airlock as powerful pumps sucked the air out of the compartment. In less than thirty seconds, the air pressure was too low outside their ship to support human life, and the lighting changed to solid red.
Josh scanned his console, checking that everything was normal, despite the fact that Loki had already checked the systems at least three times since they had received their clearance.
The outer doors opened, reveali
ng the open, aft-facing end of the starboard flight deck. Josh eased the ground throttle forward again, sending the Falcon rolling smoothly through the outer doors and into the flight bay. He stomped hard on the right pedal, causing the ship to turn sharply to starboard, and then fired his translation thrusters just enough to lift them a half meter above the low-gravity flight deck. He thrusted forward with a brief tap of his flight control stick, then gave the stick a twist to the left, causing the ship to yaw quickly in the same direction. As they approached one hundred and eighty degrees, he twisted the flight control stick back to the right, arresting their yaw as the ship slid out the back of the starboard flight bay and onto the open, starboard, aft flight apron.
Another burst of thrust and the Falcon translated sharply upwards. Josh fired his translation thrusters two more times, increasing their climb rate, then pushed his throttles full forward as they cleared the top of the Aurora’s forward section.
“Aurora Flight, Falcon is away,” Loki announced as they accelerated forward at an incredible rate.
“Falcon, Aurora Flight, find our people, guys.”
“We’ll do our best,” Loki replied.
“Couldn’t you say something more confident, like ‘not a problem’ or ‘piece of cake’?”
“What’s wrong with ‘we’ll do our best’?”
“It sounds so non-committal, like you’re afraid to promise something you’re not sure we can deliver.”
“But, I’m not sure we can deliver,” Loki insisted.
“That’s what being confident is, Lok,” Josh argued. “It’s acting like you can do anything.”
“So, it’s about lying?”
“It’s not lying.”
“I don’t know, Josh. It sounds a lot like lying to me.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “We’ve got a reputation, remember?”
“For lying?”
“No! For being able to do the impossible! Jesus, don’t you get it?”
Loki laughed. “I’m just fucking with you, Josh.”
“What?”
“Turn to one four seven, down eleven, and increase your speed to one five zero,” Loki added, still laughing.
“You suck,” Josh declared as he brought the ship onto the new course.
“Set your range for five light minutes, and prepare to jump,” Loki instructed, still fighting back the laughter. “Let’s go find them.”
Josh set his jump range as instructed.
“Anytime you’re ready, Josh.”
“You still suck,” Josh insisted as he pressed the jump button.
* * *
“It’s not that I doubt your integrity,” Commander Andreola apologized as they drifted in the escape pod. “It’s just that your story seems so implausible. I mean, the odds of jumping at precisely the moment an antimatter event occurred and then jumping a thousand light years into the middle of a space battle… The odds are practically incalculable.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Jessica told him.
“And the Aurora is not exactly the greatest warship of all time.”
“But she does have the greatest captain,” Jessica stated. “And back then, we were the only ship in the galaxy with a jump drive. That gave us an incredible advantage, since no one knew how to defend against us.”
“But now, everyone has the jump drive,” the commander surmised, “which means you no longer have that advantage.”
“But we still have Nathan Scott.”
“That’s a lot of faith to put in one man,” the commander insisted.
“That’s what I’ve always said,” Sergeant Sodano agreed.
“Then why do you still follow him?” the commander wondered.
“Because my commander follows him, and I trust my commander’s judgment.”
“And you never question it?”
“I do not,” the sergeant replied. “I am Ghatazhak, as is he. There would be no reason to doubt it.”
“But you just agreed with me,” the commander said. “That it’s a lot of faith to put in one man.”
“Yes, but I did not say that faith was misplaced or that Captain Scott was not worthy of such faith. In fact, he is, and he has proven so on numerous occasions.”
Commander Andreola shook his head in disbelief. “I find it hard to trust another so implicitly,” he admitted.
“When you have been through what all of us have been through, with Nathan leading the way, that trust comes rather easily,” Jessica explained.
The commander looked at Jessica. “Do you believe he can liberate Orswella?”
“Without a doubt,” Jessica insisted. “And keep it that way. All you have to do is show us where your world is and how it is defended. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Commander Andreola sighed. “I think we must first be rescued.”
Jessica smiled. “Yeah, that would make it easier.”
* * *
“I miss everything about flying the Falcon, except for this part,” Josh declared.
“Sensor sweeps?” Loki wondered.
“No, sitting on my ass doing nothing, while you do sensor sweeps.”
“Then, ninety percent of our missions aboard the Falcon,” Loki observed.
“I’m starting to miss the Seiiki.”
“You know, I always wondered what that word meant.”
“Seiiki?”
“Yes.”
“I think it means ‘sanctuary’.”
“Odd name for a cargo ship, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” Josh argued. “It was home for all of us, so sanctuary kind of fits. Find anything yet?”
“Lots of debris to sift through, all sizes really.”
“How can you tell the difference between debris and an escape pod?”
“Debris generally flies on a direct path away from the event point. More importantly, it tumbles. Escape pods are propelled away under their own power, therefore they do not tumble.”
“So, everything else tumbles. Got it.”
“Almost everything tumbles,” Loki corrected. “You just track the ones that do not tumble and look for a jump flash. The one that flashes is the escape pod.”
“And you can see all that?”
“Normally, yes, but once you get past the actual event point everything is obscured by the event. So I have to keep watching the same few seconds of light, over and over, trying to see an escape pod launch. It’s like trying to see a fly jumping off a building, from a kilometer away, at night.”
“Except the fly’s ass glows,” Josh joked.
“Not quite sure I’d put it that way but, yes.”
“Then find that glowing fly butt, dude.”
“I already have,” Loki replied as he studied his console.
“Then, let’s go find them,” Josh declared, sitting up straight.
“Not so fast, Josh,” Loki advised. “I’m still trying to calculate their trajectory based on just over a second-long sighting. It’s not much to go on.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything,” Josh complained.
“About what?”
“That you found them!” Josh declared. “That they’re alive!”
“That’s because I don’t know that I found them. All I know is that I spotted something launching, under power, from the Amonday, one point three five seconds before the antimatter event occurred. I don’t even know if it was an escape pod.”
“What the hell else could it be?”
“I don’t know, Josh. That’s the point. When I know, that’s when I’ll get excited.”
Josh shook his head. “And you think there’s something wrong with me.”
* * *
“I’ve got the O-Two cylinder,” Renny reported over comms. “I’m heading over, now.”
Robert watched out the port window from his place in Striker One’s cockpit as his engineer fired his EVA suit’s thrusters, propelling himself toward Striker Three’s wreckage, the oxygen cylinder in tow. “Don’t forget
to fire your deceleration thrusters early, or that tank you’re towing is going to float right past you and slam into them.”
“Not my first rodeo, Captain,” Renny replied.
“Fifteen minutes outside the ship and he’s a space cowboy,” Sasha commented.
“Exterior repairs are part of his training,” Robert pointed out, “and you’ve been watching too many old Earth movies.”
“Firing decel thrusters.”
“Aiden, you still with us?” Robert called.
“Yeah, I’m still……here,” Aiden replied, sounding out of breath.
“You alright, kid?”
“Oxygen……is getting……low. CO…Two…climbing.”
“Try not to talk,” Robert instructed. “It uses more oxygen. One click for yes, two for no. Understood?”
Robert’s comm-set clicked one time.
“Are you at panel forty-seven?”
Another click.
“Good. Just stand by. Renny’s going to patch your leak, then hookup the oxygen tank to replenish your cabin air.”
Another click.
As expected, the oxygen tank he was towing slid past and ahead of him. Renny pulled on its tether, hauling it back toward him and maneuvering it between his legs. He fired his thrusters again, slowing him down to the point of near-zero motion relative to Striker Three’s wreckage. As he drifted across the last few meters, he reached out with his hands, absorbing the last bit of his momentum as he made contact with Striker Three’s wreckage. “Contact!” Renny announced. “Hooking up.”
“You need to work quickly, Renny,” Robert urged. “Aiden’s starting to have difficulty breathing.”
“I’m working as fast as I can,” Renny assured him. He looked at the mess of tangled conduits, wires, and piping. “Shit, this is a mess.”
“How bad?” Robert asked.
“Bad,” Renny replied. “Fucking bad.”
“Are you going to be able to fix it?”
“I can’t even tell what’s what,” Renny admitted as he examined the twisted wreckage. “I’m going to have to hook up the O-Two tank first, then open it a bit and have Aiden check for any flow. It’s the only way I’m going to know for sure if I’ve got the right line.”
“But if you don’t fix the leaks first, that oxygen will just vent to space,” Robert surmised.