by James Evans
“Those aren’t standard clones,” said the voice. “How do I know you’re human?”
“It’s a long story,” said White, removing his own helmet. “How about you let us in and we talk about it over a cup of tea?”
The figure in the corridor stared at them for a long moment, then the gun disappeared, and it waved them through.
“Okay, can’t imagine an alien asking for tea. Come on in. I think we lost the last of our tea in the cross-fire,” the voice said apologetically, “but we might find you a shot of rum, if that’ll do instead?”
“Maybe later,” said Cohen. “Who’s in command here?”
“Sub Lieutenant Corn, sir, at your service.” Corn held out her hand and Cohen tried to shake it – an awkward manoeuvre since they were inverted. “Let me help out, sir,” said Corn, flipping herself around so that she was the right way up from Cohen’s perspective. “Welcome aboard Palmerston, sir.”
“Is this your ship, Corn?” asked White.
“No, sir, but Lieutenant Ruskin was killed during the opening exchange. Bit of bad luck. Some sort of projectile – a railgun round probably – came through the wall of the bridge and near sliced him in half. Decompression almost killed the entire bridge crew before anyone could get an emergency patch panel in place.”
“So you’re the surviving senior officer?” asked Cohen. “Was it you we were talking to on the comms channel?”
“Yes, sir. We were waiting for Admiral Morgan’s orders when something went past us at high speed and raked Palmerston with railgun fire.”
“Then you’re in command now, Captain Corn,” Cohen pointed out.
“Yes, sir. I suppose I am.”
“Take us to the bridge, Captain. Let’s see what’s left of your ship.”
“Aye, sir,” said Corn, leading the way.
They floated down the corridor to a bulkhead door that slid smoothly open as they approached.
“You have internal power?” asked Cohen as he looked around the bridge.
“Yes, sir,” said Corn, “although only enough to run the vital systems. Life support was mostly functional when we arrived, but the landing must have shaken something loose and the air scrubbers are offline. We’re trying to restore them, but without fabricators, we’re probably screwed.”
“Ascendant has functioning maintenance fabricators,” said Cohen, peering at the status displays. They showed, as Corn had said, that Palmerston’s systems were largely inoperable. “But we only have minimal power at the moment and it’s all going to the hyperspace engine at the moment.”
Corn nodded sympathetically. “Do you have cloning bays? We have casualties we’d like to redeploy.”
“Yes,” said White, “but we don’t know what state they’re in or whether the clone stock has survived, and in any case, we don’t have enough power to run them.”
“What the hell is this?” said Cohen, plucking a small white ceramic ball from the air as it floated across the cabin.
“Sample projectile, sir. We make them to test the mass fabricators when proving the system, although the real missiles are about a three hundred times the diameter of that thing. You can keep it, sir, it’s no use to us,” said Corn.
“Who else is left from your command crew?” asked Cohen, pocketing the ceramic sphere.
“Lieutenant Ross was the only fatality on the bridge,” Corn said, gesturing around the room, “the other five bridge crew survived, thanks to Midshipman Meeks’s quick reactions. He saved the ship when it was hit – fitted the emergency patch over there, and piloted us safely into your hangar. Well, mostly safely. I was amidships, or I wouldn’t have been able to contact you.”
“Which one is Meeks?” Cohen asked.
A man on the other side of the small bridge who was fiddling with his console, stood up and saluted.
“Well done, Mr Meeks. Carry on.” Meeks nodded and went straight back to what he had been doing.
“You mentioned casualties other than Lieutenant Ruskin?” Cohen asked.
“Yes, sir. We lost most of the weapons and engineering team, another six crew in total. I only have Stent and Yards left. Small ship, small crew.”
“And your role, Corn?” asked Cohen, pulling his attention from the status monitors.
“I’m the XO on paper, but in practice, my main role is running engineering and weapons, sir. Stent and Yards work for me – we feed the weapons, manufacture projectiles and make sure everything’s working. Of course, my team is well understrength right now.”
“You’re the XO and the chief engineering officer?”
“Yes, sir. As I say, Palmerston is as small a ship as it is possible to make. Everything’s wrapped around the rail cannon and geared to supplying it, so the crew complement is restricted to the bare minimum. Everyone has to be cross-trained to fulfil more than one role.”
Cohen nodded. “What’s your assessment of the damage? Can you get Palmerston operational?”
“Yes, sir,” said Corn confidently. “If we can get some time on your fabricators, we’ll have her up and running again in a week or so, although not back to top form and, of course, without a full crew...”
“Very good,” said Cohen, nodding. “Give Lieutenant White your list of requirements and he will find you time in our fabrication roster as soon as our power issues have been resolved. But you have only three days, then I want Palmerston ready for action.”
“Understood, sir, we’ll do our best.”
6
“Right,” said Cohen, strapping himself into his chair on the bridge and looking around at his team, “let’s do this. Ms Martin, drop us out of hyperspace and let’s see where we are.”
The journey through hyperspace had allowed them to escape the Deathless ambush and given time for some basic repairs, but it had pushed the ship to its limits and shaken loose every worn fitting and damaged panel.
Ascendant limped along on emergency power and every hour brought new reports of damaged or failing systems as the remaining crew worked their way across the huge vessel. Unable to repair the core systems, the crew had concentrated on getting far enough away from the enemy that they could recover in peace before attempting the return journey.
“Aye, sir,” she said, hands on her control deck, “disengaging hyperspace engine now.”
Cohen’s stomach fell as the ship dropped back into normal space. Then the main display, still only partly functional, changed to show the view ahead.
“Get our location, Mr Jackson,” ordered Cohen.
“Aye, sir,” said Jackson doubtfully, “might take a while.” They had rigged a personal data slate to stand in for the navigation computers, and although it worked, the incomplete sensor array and reduced processing power meant nothing was happening quickly.
“Anything nearby, Mr MacCaibe?”
“Checking, sir. Looks quiet so far, but without the starboard sensor arrays, it’s difficult to be certain.”
“Get me what you can, then,” said Cohen, containing his frustration. Almost everything they tried to do, anywhere on the ship, was disrupted by the vast amount of damage done by the Deathless.
The fact that the maintenance team’s primary spare parts store had been breached by at least one explosive projectile had not made life any easier. Much of the fabricator suite had survived the attack, but with the hyperspace engine taking all the available power, they weren’t able to spare enough energy to manufacture replacements.
At least they had managed to cobble together enough spares to repair the power systems that supplied the main engines. Cohen hoped that was the case. They had certainly spent a lot of time relaying cables and swapping out shorted or destroyed power circuit components. Whether anything would work, however, was still unknown.
“What’s the status of our engines, Sub Lieutenant Mantle?” said Cohen, triggering the link to the engineering department.
“They’re still broken, sir,” said Mantle, somewhat testily. “We’re working on them. News to follow.”
She cut the connection before Cohen had a chance to ask another question. He ground his teeth, but there was really no point in pressing the matter. Mantle was hard-working and reliable; if she wasn’t telling him what he wanted to hear, it would be because the news wasn’t yet good enough.
“Still broken,” muttered White, shaking his head. Mantle’s attitude to non-engineers was dismissive and abrasive, but she knew her stuff.
There was a whir of fans from the vents near the ceiling, and fresh, warm air started to flow into the bridge.
“That’s a good sign,” murmured Cohen as he looked at his slate. The life support systems had been restored to minimal function soon after Ascendant had entered hyperspace, but they had run only intermittently to minimise power drain. Supplies were low, and if they ran short of power for the hyperspace engine, it would execute an uncontrolled stop and give them something new and horrible worry about.
A report from Mantle flashed up on Cohen’s data slate.
Cohen snorted and showed the slate to White. A week ago, that would have been extraordinarily bad news. Today, it was more than he had hoped for or thought possible, given the state of the ship.
It wasn’t going to be enough to run the exotic matter conversion systems within the advanced fabricators, but the basic matter assemblers would be able to function, which meant they could begin building the sub-systems they needed to repair the rest of the ship.
“A rare piece of good news,” said White quietly, echoing Cohen’s own feelings.
“Right, people. The air-con is back on, and Sub Lieutenant Mantle says we have enough power to do something useful. Let’s see if we can boot the bridge systems and start taking control of our ship.”
There was a general work-like muttering from the bridge crew as they began to fiddle with their computers, restarting and reactivating where necessary.
“And let’s get the forward view up on the main screen,” said White. “I want to see what’s going on out there.”
“Don’t know which system we’re in yet, sir,” said Jackson, “but we seem to have emerged on the edge of an asteroid belt.”
“Very good, Mr Jackson. Gather everything we can, people, I want to know what’s going on. Mr White, you have command.” And Cohen left the bridge in the capable hands of his XO.
“Finally,” muttered Cohen, slipping his slate into his pocket and pushing away from his hammock to head for the door. The artificial gravity still wasn’t working, so the crew were floating everywhere using the handholds conveniently built into the ship’s walls and ceiling.
He worked his way back down the ship towards the bridge. The lights were still on and the air was fresh, both of which he took to be good signs. After days of work, the ship was at least reasonably airtight and warm, two critical factors in space travel.
“Good morning,” he said to the skeleton crew manning the bridge as the door slid shut behind him. He took his chair and strapped himself in. It was comforting to see everything the right way up, even if the whole concept was essentially meaningless.
There was no immediate response, which Cohen took to be ominous.
Most of the command team were away from their consoles, either sleeping, eating or working on repair duties, but there was little enough going on and no need to call them back. Only Jackson was at his station, diligently monitoring the systems that had so far been restored to working order. The monitors and sensors showed nothing of interest – they were floating a long way from the local star, far from the dozen or so planets that made up the system.
The door slid open and Mantle floated in. She had redeployed to a standard RMSC clone as soon as they had reached New Bristol, claiming she hadn’t felt truly at home in the lizardman she had worn at NewPet. Cohen hadn’t ordered or authorised the redeployment, but the head of the engineering team had both the personal sway and the access necessary to make her own decisions.
“Lieutenant, good morning,” he said.
“Is it?” she grunted, hooking her foot around a nearby console to anchor herself in place. “I’m not sure you’ll think that when we’ve been through this shit,” she said, pulling out her slate.
“I was hoping with the air and lights still working and the news about the engine…” he trailed off as her expression darkened. “Go on. What else do I need to know?”
She flicked at her slate to call up a list, but Cohen was sure she could recite it from memory.
“The main engines are working,” she began, “but at no more than five or six per cent of normal output. And they might fail at any moment or suffer fluctuations. That means no sudden manoeuvres, very limited control and absolutely no combat.”
Cohen nodded, his face a mask. That was worse than he had hoped, but still better than he had feared.
“What about the wormhole comms system?” asked Cohen. “Is that back online yet?”
“Negative. We’ve lost most of the system’s exotic matter, so we can’t activate the mechanism to form a wormhole.”
“Lost?” said Cohen incredulously. “How?”
Mantle shrugged, as if it were a minor matter. “Some sort of armour-penetrating explosive round by the amount of damage. It destroyed the core wormhole generator and spread the exotic matter across vacuum.”
Cohen frowned. “But we have spare parts? Backups?”
Mantle shook her head. “We had spare parts, but they were largely destroyed during the attack.” She put her head on one side. “I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the sheer quantity of damage done to the ship, the engineering team and our backup systems, sir.”
Cohen took a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh. “Maybe I haven’t, Lieutenant, maybe I haven’t.” He stretched his neck to try to relieve the tension. “I don’t suppose the fabricators–” he began, but he stopped when he saw her face. “No, I guess they’re damaged and we don’t have the power to run the matter fabs in an case.” Mantle gave him a curt nod. “Fine. I had hoped to make repairs in-field, but without a wormhole communicator, we’ll have to head straight home and deliver the news in person.”
Mantle raised an eyebrow and Cohen groaned, just a little. Then she gave him rest of the bad news. “The hyperspace engine needs work, sir. We’ve taken it offline for repairs.”
“What?” snapped Cohen, frowning hard. He had assumed the hyperspace engine was going to be his emergency escape route, if something else went wrong. Once the navigation computers were restored and operational, getting home by hyperspace was the obvious next step. “Is this really the time to take the drive down for a bit of maintenance?” he asked, the stress obvious in his voice.
Mantle sniffed. “We do maintenance to a schedule,” she said. “We plan it, make sure it’s flagged well in advance, get all the parts ready and make sure our teams all know what they’re doing, and then we do it somewhere safe and quiet where it won’t cause any problems.” She flicked at her slate and passed it to Cohen. “This isn’t maintenance – these are repairs. We do them when forced and because there’s no other choice. They’re necessary now because the engine has been damaged by being over driven for too long with inadequate, fluctuating power supplies. It’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did, given the abuse it’s taken.”
She waited while Cohen skimmed the slate, reviewing the list of necessary work that her team had identified and p
lanned.
“But this suggests you need weeks to complete the repairs,” he protested, letting go of the slate so that it hung in the air between them, spinning slowly. “We don’t really have weeks, Lieutenant. What are the other options?”
She sniffed again, obviously unimpressed. “These are just the things we know about now. We could cut back on testing, skimp on the repairs, stretch the operational lifetime of the strained components and generally half-ass the job, sir, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“But how long would it take?” said Cohen. A six-week repair schedule made a lot of sense from one perspective, but he couldn’t get the image of the HMS Apollo rolling through space and spewing bodies from the gaping hole in its side out of his mind.
“If we cut corners – and I really wouldn’t advise it, sir – then maybe we can get a minimally functional engine together in seven to ten days. That might be enough to get us home, but it might also blow us to pieces as soon as we switch it on.”
“Do what you must, Ms Mantle, but get us moving. You know the state of the ship, and you’ve seen how the fleet was ripped apart. We don’t have weeks to spare. We need to get back to New Bristol and get word to the Admiralty.”
“Then find me somewhere quiet and safe to work, somewhere with a ready supply of elements to feed into the fabricators.”
“Like an asteroid,” murmured Jackson from his seat. Then he realised that both officers were staring at him and that he had spoken more loudly than he had meant to. “Sorry, sir, ma’am, but I couldn’t help overhearing. We’re a long way from the nearest planets, but we’re practically on top of the asteroid belt.”
Cohen looked at Jackson then turned to Mantle, who nodded. “A large asteroid would do nicely,” she said. “I’ll return to engineering and make the arrangements.” She plucked her slate from the air where it floated and stuffed it into a pocket. Then she pushed off the console towards the door and disappeared.
“Right. Mr Jackson, find us a nice large asteroid, the bigger the better, and set a course. And sound the call to action. I want the bridge fully crewed and ready to run.”