An angling curve. Dropping.
With some more pinches and pulls, she extrapolated the data. The graph came up. Matti-Jay leaned back.
The damaged Donner’s orbit was decaying. Heading into the atmosphere.
As she descended, she would graze the atmosphere and slow even more.
“Charlie,” Matti-Jay said. “Please respond.”
Unless someone got the engines to pull her to a higher orbit, the Donner was going to burn into the atmosphere. She would impact the surface in less than an hour.
Chapter Nine
Matti-Jay worked hard at the console controls in the Blue Defender’s cockpit. The air grew gradually warmer, but she barely noticed it. She brought the little runabout in close to the Donner.
Her home ship was a mess. Nothing would save the vessel now. There was just too much damage. The dragon had torn a huge hole through the central hull. From her range, Matti-Jay could see that the ruin crossed through everything from cabins to workshops and, worse, through vital services and structural components.
Working carefully, she brought the runabout in to within sixty meters. There was the issue of debris, but because it was all moving at the same speed as her, more or less, any impacts were negligible. She did hear occasional tings and metallic clunks on the hull. She tried not to think about them and the damage they might be doing to her already damaged little ship.
It was true that the self-repair materials actually were stronger than the ship’s own hull. Because the gels and fibers were thicker and knitted differently. You didn’t build a whole vessel from the repair gels–they would be too heavy and take up too much volume. But for smaller sections they did the job quickly and effectively.
The holes in Blue Defender’s hull had used up just about all the repair gel reserves. She couldn’t afford another hole. So Matti-Jay proceeded with caution.
There was no radio response. No indication of ship’s systems operating. No, that was wrong. The attitude jets were still attempting to correct the tumble. Not enough of them actually working to make any real headway. And there were some bots working in the hole with the Donner’s own repair systems. They’d placed some sheets of carbon-knit in place.
The hole had to be ten meters across, and the sheets were about a meter square each. The valiant little bots were working hard, but it was going to take a whole lot of sheets and knitting and welding to seal both holes.
Then Matti-Jay saw movement in one of the observation sections. Was that people in there, looking out?
The Donner had several observation domes. This was the largest. On the upper hull, like a whale’s dorsal fin, just ahead of and around from the main area of damage. The dragon had gone through side to side.
Matti-Jay moved the Blue Defender closer. Because of the tumble it was impossible to juggle the controls to stay above the observation dome.
She backed away and flew ahead. With some tweaks on the runabout’s sensors, she was able to grab a set of images of the dome the next time it came around.
And then the Donner’s spin had carried it out of view.
Most of the images were grainy and blurred. But one showed the dome clearly. And its occupants.
Three people. Faces.
At the resolution Matti-Jay had it was hard to tell who it was. But she knew everyone onboard. The three looked like Cassie Glendon, Indra Collins and Karl Petersen.
Survivors.
So all was not lost. If only Matti-Jay could figure out a way to communicate with them. Comms were down.
Maybe she could write something on a sheet or a display and hold it up in the runabout’s cockpit window. Impractical and time wasting.
Light. She could use the runabout’s lights. Since the little vessel was designed to set down on a planetary surface, it had external lights. Powerful enough to light up ahead in case the vessel had to land in darkness.
There had to be a routine that would flash the lights on and off. Once there had been a code that would carry messages like that. Moritz Code or something. Back when radio was was a brand new thing–like faster than light travel was now. Ships in distress could send a code to attract rescue.
The ships probably both had that code locked away in their databases. If there was time to access it. And maybe they could signal back.
Matti-Jay accessed the system’s message sending system. “Tell them to get into the runabouts,” she said. “The Golden Glow and the others. They need to get off the Donner. Fast.”
Matti-Jay paused as the message text appeared on one of the displays.
“Send it in code,” Matti-Jay said. “Light code with the Blue Defender’s landing lights. Something that the systems on the Donner will understand.”
The message was too long. Sending a code of individual letters would take much longer than she safely could keep the runabout facing the observation dome. Though since it was computer to computer, maybe it would only take a half a second.
“Simplify the message,” she said. “Get to the runabouts.”
The text appeared.
“No. Make it just ‘abandon ship’.”
The text changed. A set of five code choices appeared. Morse, Bloksem, binary, altitud and Kikoo.
“All,” Matti-Jay said. “Use them all.” She waved in front of the display, quickly selecting all of the choices. “Just send and keep sending.”
The word Acknowledged came up on the display.
Matti-Jay positioned the runabout again, ready for the reappearance of the observation dome. Something in back of Blue Defender creaked.
They were still high, but those vague thin parts of the atmosphere were beginning to graze against the hull. And against the Donner’s.
They were running out of time here.
Abandon ship. It seemed so final. Like giving up.
As she moved the runabout back, ready to send the signal, she saw movement beyond the ship. Just from the corner of her eye.
Far off. Almost a speck.
Another runabout. Moving away from the wrecked main ship.
Some of them were making their escape already! A thrill surged through Matti-Jay. Of course they were. They didn’t need her to tell them. It was obvious.
Make your escape.
The observation dome came into view again. No one there. They’d all gone.
No. One face. Indra. Alone. Face pressed right up to the glass. Had the others gotten out? Gone to one of runabouts?
There had to be other runabouts ready to go. Not everything had been destroyed in the dragon’s impact.
Indra was waving. Hard. Both hands. Right over her head. Waving back and forth.
Coded message on repeat, the display flashed at Matti-Jay. They didn’t need it now. They knew what to do. Matti-Jay smiled. She leaned forward to the cockpit window. She waved back. It was going to be all right. There would be survivors.
And then two more faces appeared beside Indra. Cassie and Karl. Panicked looks on their faces. They were talking with Indra. She nodded and stopped waving.
The three of them just stared at the Blue Defender.
Why weren’t they getting out? They should just... were they trapped?
Matti-Jay swallowed. The observation dome was close to the damaged parts. They could be behind a bulkhead. With just vacuum on the other side.
Trapped.
And then the ship’s spin carried them out of her view.
Matti-Jay leaned back into her seat. She closed her eyes, shivering.
Chapter Ten
Matti-Jay opened her eyes immediately. This was no way to get things done.
The Blue Defender’s cockpit air was now just a bit too warm. And there was a hum to the little ship as she maneuvered back from the slowly spinning Donner.
“Runabouts?” she said. “Come in. Who’s out there?”
No response. Maybe the problems with her own comms. Or maybe just people panicked aboard those other runabouts. Who wouldn’t be? She was feeling pretty panicked herself.<
br />
Matti-Jay made some control waves into the displays. She brought up a course to take her through to the other runabout she’d seen.
Blue Defender whined. The acceleration pushed her momentarily. Quickly they came up on the other runabout. It wasn’t the Golden Glow, but it was one of the others that was identical to the Blue Defender.
Telemetry from the other runabout came up on the displays. She was the ExR7. Small capacity. She’d shut off her drive and was just drifting with everything else. The Donner and all her debris.
She kept calling as she approached. Got no response.
Matti-Jay brought the Blue Defender in so that the two vessels were bow-to-bow.
“Come in,” she said. “ExR7, come in.” Did it have a name? Maybe not. Only a few of the runabouts had ended up with people attached to them. At least the way she’d taken to Blue Defender. That was almost as if it was the people in charge just indulging the youngest member of the crew.
The comms crackled back at her. Nothing there. But there had to be someone aboard. Didn’t there?
Maybe the Donner had launched the runabout on automatic. All of the runabouts could be piloted on remote from the main vessel. And with the damage, maybe something had triggered the launch. She could be wasting her ti–
“Matti-Jay?” a crackly voice said. “Is that you out there?”
“Yes.” Her whole body shook with relief. A tingle ran through her. Top to toe.
She’d actually made contact.
“I’m going to buy you a beer later,” the voice said, still crackly and unrecognizable. “You saved us.”
“One,” Matti-Jay said, “who are you? And two, I’m not old enough to drink beer.”
“Soda, then. It’s Charlie! You warned us about the dragon. Captain sent us down to the runabouts.”
“How many of you?”
“All of us. The whole of the flight crew. We abandoned. Touch and go there. I think we didn’t even got off the ship until the thing hit us. A dragon! You were right.”
Matti-Jay took a breath. A soda would be good. Her mouth was dry. She waved up the runabout’s beverage menu.
“Charlie,” she said, working through the menu. She felt a little guilty having a sweet drink while there were people trapped aboard the Donner. And some people who must have died.
Maybe she owed it to them to survive now.
“I’m here,” Charlie said.
“I...” Matti-Jay’s voice broke. She took a breath. The display read Cola, Berry, Lemon. She chose lemon. Her seat’s armrest whirred as the drink filled. “I think yours was the only runabout to make it off.”
Silence in response. Some background crackle and hiss.
The seat clunked and a panel opened under her left arm. A tall, teat-tipped bottle wound out. Filled with clear liquid with bubbles. The little black valved teat prevented liquid bubbling out in zero gravity. Ordinary bottles or glasses didn’t work. Everything had to be sealed.
“You’re right,” Charlie said. “None of the other runabouts got away.”
“Are you alone there?”
“I’m with Delle and Simon. It’s kind of cramped.”
“I bet.”
“What do we do now?”
“You’re asking me?”
“You are the one out there. You saw the dragon first. Also you know your–”
“All right Charlie. Stop talking. We need to get people off the ship.” The vision of the three in the observation dome was going to haunt her.
“You want us to go back?” Charlie said. “We don’t have any more room.”
It had to be quite a squeeze over there with three of them in the tiny space. But the Donner had bigger vessels at its disposal. More than enough to take the entire ship’s complement. There were tiny escape pods, and bigger vessels that had a capacity of twenty five.
But with all that damage around the hangar area, some of those vessels would be inaccessible. In fact, she should have seen some of the others by now. If people were getting off there had been time.
Plenty of time.
Which meant there were issues aboard. Issues with bulkheads or damage, or problems with the pods and small vessels themselves.
“There!” Charlie practically yelped. “See it? There’s the Marauder! It’s just come out of hangar two.”
Charlie knew the Donner’s layout far better than Matti-Jay. She waved at the displays, bringing up the cameras again. With some tweaking, she got a good view of the tumbling Donner. Debris around it. And another, smaller vessel.
The Marauder Quite mis-named, since it was really just a science vessel, equipped to land on the planet’s surface and set up with labs and inflatable accommodations. It had a capacity of twenty-five. Why couldn’t it have been called the Curie or the Lovelace or the Einstein? Something that suggested science.
So that made twenty-nine of them who’d gotten off the Donner. Assuming that the Marauder had filled up. Or maybe it had gone over-capacity, like Charlie’s ExR7.
“Marauder, Marauder,” Matti-Jay said into the comms. “Come in Marauder”
No response.
“Charlie,” she said. “My comms are kind of beat-up here.”
“We can hear you so they should be able to.”
“I think I’ve got to be close. Your voice is pretty scratchy.”
“Copy that. Let me call them.” Charlie repeated the call.
A scratchy reply came in. Fifteen aboard. Some of them hurt.
“Matti-Jay,” Charlie said “This is real bad.”
Another runabout came flying out of a hangar hatchway. Out of control, the runabout was spinning itself. Then another appeared. People were escaping.
But would it be enough?
“Charlie?” Matti-Jay said. “Did the buoy launch?”
A beat. Charlie thinking about it. “The emergency return buoy?”
“If we can’t get word to Earth, no one will know that we need rescue here.” They needed the buoy to jump back and broadcast their emergency message.
“Who can come and get us anyway?” Charlie said.
“They’ll figure it out.”
Another beat. “I don’t know if the ship launched a buoy.”
Matti-Jay watched the tumbling runabout. It wasn’t stabilizing. “All right,” she said. “We need to get to the planet’s surface.”
“What? No. We need to stay in orbit. If we–”
“Our runabouts have reserves for two weeks,” Matti-Jay said. “But with three of you aboard yours, you’ll start getting hungry and stinking each other out in less than ten days. You want to do that?”
“Marauder has many more reserves. And only fifteen aboard. We can transfer over.”
“Hello?” another voice said. It had to be coming through by relay from Charlie’s runabout. “This is the Marauder Nicole Berring here.”
The third officer. At least someone from the command structure was out here.
“Go ahead,” Charlie said.
“You can’t transfer to us, sorry. We suffered damage on launch. Our airlock dock is all bent up. You won’t be able to make a secure seal. You’d have to EVA over, but we don’t know the condition of the lock itself. There’s no way to get you aboard.”
Charlie cursed softly.
“She’s right,” Nicole said. “We’ll have to set down on the planet.”
Matti-Jay saw another runabout speed away.
No. It wasn’t speeding away. It was coming closer.
And it wasn’t a runabout.
It was the dragon. Swinging back for another run at the Donner.
Chapter Eleven
Matti-Jay tapped at her displays. She brought up the best tracking data she could find.
How had the dragon survived the impact with the Donner? Any vessel should have been simply torn apart. Nothing more than debris itself when it exited the other vessel.
Unless this was another dragon. Matti-Jay shivered.
As she worked, she bumped her soda.
The bottle tipped and spun away in the zero gravity. She hadn’t even taken a sip from the lemonade yet.
“There are more people getting out,” Charlie said. “More runabouts.”
“We need to select a landing point on the planet,” Nicole said. “Make sure that we all set down within close proximity. Marauder will take the lead. You can follow us down.”
“Once everyone is off the Donner?” Charlie said.
Matti-Jay tracked the dragon. Definitely coming in again. Slower this time, but still accelerating.
The soda bumped off the wall and tumbled back toward her. Like the tumbling Donner. Matti-Jay grabbed the bottle and put the teat in her mouth. She sucked and the lemonade taste was subtle and delicious. It surprised her how dry her mouth had become.
“The Donner’s beginning to lose velocity as it grazes the atmosphere,” Nicole said. “We’ll co-ordinate efforts to get as many people off as we can. We’ll need to move to higher orbits. Once we have a fleet, we’ll begin the landing process.”
“Good,” Charlie said. “I’m glad you’re out here to run this.”
“Stand by for further instructions.”
“Copy that.”
Matti-Jay watched her displays. The status of the Blue Defender occupied half of the left hand display. The damage was clear, with numerous orange points alongside the names of various ship’s systems.
The other display showed both the imagery of the approaching dragon, and the tracking data. A line running ahead of the dragon straight toward them. The runabout’s computer was doing a good job of figuring out where the attacker was heading.
The track headed away above the planet. Off into... wait a moment. Matti-Jay waved up commands. She brought in more data. So that it included the Donner’s decaying orbital path.
The two didn’t intersect.
So the dragon wasn’t for the Donner. Why would it? The main ship was already doomed.
Matti-Jay waved some more, pinching and adjusting the data. She put in her own orbital track. And the ExR7’s. Neither she nor Charlie were in the dragon’s sights.
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