Vitalis Omnibus

by Jason Halstead

  “Status?” Sharp croaked, grimacing as he did so.

  “Sir, you should get some rest. We’re a week away from our destination and—”

  “What destination?”

  Kira winced at the resemblance between sandpaper on rocks and the Captain’s voice. “There’s a planet, sir. Sensors are picking up readings I haven’t seen anywhere before, aside from Earth, that is.”

  “Earth?” he croaked.

  “Captain, please! Get some rest!”

  He glared at her, getting his message across without words. Kira shook her head and sat down. “Fine, but the longer you fight recovery, the longer Tarn’s going to try to figure out a way to run this ship.”

  Her ploy worked, making Sharp’s gaze jump over to Tarn. Tarn jerked as well, and then sent a scowl Kira’s way. “Captain! I never once—”

  “Sir, there’s nothing in this system large enough to slingshot us back towards the Core worlds,” Kira interrupted. “Our speed is too great. Given our remaining pusher’s status and our fuel level, we won’t be able to slow down nearly enough. We need a gas giant. The star is nearly identical to Earth’s, only younger. If we had more fuel, we could establish an orbit around it and head back, but with what we have we’d have to veer in too close to it and the Mule’s not built for that level of heat and radiation. We still might make it, but the odds are bad and a single solar flare would end it.”

  Sharp grunted, and then motioned for Tarn to help him stand. He gained his feet, sweat breaking out on his brow as he did so. Kira felt herself aching for him, knowing the agony he had to be enduring and the incredible willpower it must have taken for him to function that way. “Get some rest, Captain; I’ll figure something out for you by the time you’re ready.”

  He stared at her a long moment. Kira steeled herself, knowing that she had to show him she was confident. She was confident, at least in the area of knowing that she had an idea. It was dangerous, but not as dangerous as trying to use the star’s gravity well. It was also probably a permanent solution, but one that she felt she could live with.

  Kira stayed on the bridge, rerunning her calculations and rechecking her sensor readings. The planet was still eight days away, plenty of time for the rest of the crew to be back to feeling like human beings again.

  Chapter 15

  “You want to what!”

  Kira had braced herself, but the volume and intensity coming from Sharp’s outraged question caused his voice to crack. She forced the wince off her face as she met his angry gaze. “Sir, we’ve been broadcasting for nine years now. We’ve got three days until we need to make a decision, and that would still put us at six days until we reach our destination because we’d be slowing down. Nine days to broadcast a new message, indicating where we are, what we’ve found, and…well, whatever else we’ve got left.”

  “Why bother, there’ll be nothing left of us!”

  “Captain, I’ve run every possible scenario I can come up with and a few suggested by others. This is the only one that has any chance of success.”

  “We could bypass the system entirely and stay on the ship.”

  “Aye, we could, but at our speed we’d almost certainly stay ahead of any rescuers that attempted to come after us. Sir, with all due respect, I don’t want to die marooned on the Rented Mule.”

  Sharp’s eyes narrowed. He waited until Kira realized he was expecting her to go on. “So we rotate the ship and use the pusher to slow us down. Using the last of our reserves we can get to .29C. That leaves us with only our thrusters, which will produce a lot more immediate thrust but will run out quicker. My simulations show those are best saved for once we enter the atmosphere to help us maneuver and slow us down. The planet has a lot of water so if we can use the atmosphere and our thrusters for breaking we can land in the water and have a reasonable chance of surviving.”

  “Land? You mean crash,” Tarn muttered.

  “Crash land,” Kira corrected. “The engines will be on line and the inertial suppressor as well. An impact like that will override it, but by diverting all of our power to it at the last second it shows a decent chance of not being smeared against the floor. That much power will require the overrides be thrown though, and the inertial suppressor will be destroyed by the overload.”

  “What kind of chances?”

  Kira felt her heart leap in her chest. By asking that question she knew he was considering it. “Better than one in three, sir. If the timing is right on everything.”

  “Then what? The Mule’s not that kind of boat. This ship is rated at forty thousand tons, and we’re carrying another eight thousand in cargo. If we survive a splash-down then we’ll sit on the bottom and watch the water come pouring in.”

  “Sir, the course I’ve plotted maximizes our thrusters to put us at an angle. We’ll definitely hit and hit hard, but we should come to a rest near a shore. Hopefully not too deep so we can get out. Maybe even try to modify one of the mining surveyors to help us get out of here and to shore.”

  “You’re crazy,” Sharp growled.

  “Yes, sir,” Kira admitted with a nod. “Crazy and not ready to die, sir.”

  “You got anything better?” Sharp turned, addressing the others that were gathered on the bridge. Nobody spoke, though Tarn was fidgeting. The Captain swore and then shook his head. “I’ll think about it. Until then, come up with something better!”

  Sharp left the bridge. Eric sent Jeff off to check on the engines. Tarn hunched over his station, ignoring the rest of them. Kira looked on until Eric let out a pent-up breath and turned to her. “You really think this is going to work?”

  She reached out from where she sat and took his hand in hers. “It’s this or we drift through space forever. The odds of us coming close to another system are long, and even worse that it happens before we run out of time.”

  “We could go into a cold sleep again,” Eric said with a shudder.

  Kira shook her head. “We could, but we’d need a few weeks of getting ourselves to full health or we probably wouldn’t survive it. Our food will only last so long.”

  “The ship’s got recycling systems.”

  Kira knew her sour expression conveyed her thoughts of eating anything recycled. Eric nodded in agreement. “Yeah, as if the powders aren’t bad enough some days. Okay, so what are our odds?”

  “Depends on how the ship can handle the stress and how good our engineer is.” She smiled at him. “I think we’ve got the best engineer to be found outside of the Core worlds, so I’m feeling pretty good about it.”

  Eric frowned. “Best engineer outside of the Rim worlds, maybe, but that’s because I may be one of the only ones dumb or unlucky enough to be out here.”

  Kira squeezed his hand. “Stop that. I’m learning a lot about myself these days and it turns out I’m a lot tougher and a lot more capable than I ever thought I was. I know you are, too.”

  Eric chuckled. “You’re a special case.”

  She shrugged it off. “The computer gives us about a one in ten chance of survival.”

  “Ten percent!” Eric hissed. They both turned to Tarn but he seemed too engrossed in whatever he was doing at his station to notice them. “You told the Captain—“

  “One in ten is if the computer handles everything and we just enjoy the ride,” Kira said. “Autopilot on the way in and everything. With me flying and you controlling the power, our odds are better.”

  “From one in ten to one in three?” His expression showed his skepticism.

  “Yes, the computer can’t override safety limits.”

  Eric snorted. “For good reasons!”

  “The Mule’s never going to fly again,” Kira said in an even lower voice. She glanced around, feeling as though she was talking about the ship behind its back. “We just need the hull to remain sealed, the thrusters to be operational until we’re out of fuel, and the inertial suppressor to work for one last kick. We can overload them when we need them to increase our odds. If it breaks them,
oh well, we won’t be needing them anymore.”

  Eric winced but said nothing in response. Finally he nodded, and then glanced at Tarn again. “So we’ll be stranded on an undiscovered planet that your sensors indicate supports life. Is there any life already on it?”

  Kira’s hopeful smile faded. “Some. I mean there’s oxygen, water, nitrogen, carbon, and other elements that result from living creatures. I can’t pick up any evidence of electronic emissions or man-made elements.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.”

  Kira nodded. “But it beats the alternative.”

  Eric sighed. “Okay, guess it’s this or nothing. I’ll see about rigging up the necessary overrides so I can run them remotely, rather than being stuck in the engine control room.”

  Kira shook her head. “We need the opposite.”

  “The opposite?”

  “Well, I assume. We need to all be in the safest place in the ship in case something happens in spite of all our plans.”

  Eric snapped his fingers. “Brilliant!” he hissed. “If I reduce the coverage area of the inertial suppression field, I can increase the power of it far more effectively than covering the entire ship!”

  Kira grinned and kissed his hand. “I think I can handle being stuck on a remote tropical world with you.”

  “It’s tropical?”

  Kira grinned. “Heat and moisture readings show tropical climates for most of it, with temperate zones near the poles. Just think of it as a vacation.”

  Chapter 16

  A herd of six creatures large enough to rout an elephant was startled into a stampede by a crackling thunder overhead. A flash lit the sky brighter even than the sun, beginning with red and yellow flames until a darker shape emerged from it, streaking towards the ground below. Smaller fires burst free from it, giving proof to the unstable nature of the alien object.

  The largest piece slammed just off a recently abandoned shore, flash vaporizing the first water that came in direct contact with the superheated metal and sending the rest away in a surge that spread in all directions with the force of a tidal wave. Beating the tidal wave to the shore was the tremor as the Rented Mule slammed into the bedrock of the ocean.

  Creatures throughout the nearby forest howled and screeched, unprepared for the sudden tremors that threatened their footing and trembled the trees. A moment later, an unnatural quiet returned to the jungle. Birds had taken flight, but the animals that remained stared around in confusion. Some even dared to emerge from the edge of the jungle to the sandy beach and study the smoky trail through the sky that led to a growing wall of water. When the wave crested and broke against the beach, the uncomprehending creatures were swept away with the sand, water, and trees of the forest.

  The water slowly returned to the ocean or remained trapped in puddles and ponds. Small waves lapped at the shore, followed by another unnatural stillness. Cleared of any indigenous life forms, the machine that broke through the surface of the water several minutes later was greeted by nothing but silence. Water crested around it until it began to climb out of the water and onto the beach on wheels covered in metal treads. With less than a dozen feet to go the treads bogged down in the soft sand and jammed up.

  After a few minutes of attempting to rock the vehicle back and forth to free it, the wheels proved too jammed with sand and mud to move. A hatch opened on the side, hissing as internal and external pressures equalized. Tarn stepped out, plasma rifle in hand and a bandage across his head and leg. He climbed across the hull of the tracked mining vehicle and lowered himself carefully into the water. It was waist high on him, allowing him to wade forward slowly, his rifle held at the ready.

  Captain Sharp followed, bandages around his midsection and bloodstains covering much of his clothing. Kira and Jeff came next, supporting Eric between them. The extensive bandages on the engineer gave proof to where much of the blood on Sharp’s clothing had come from.

  They waded ashore, on their own or with the support of others, and all but collapsed on the beach. Eric glanced over, gasping for breath as he did so. Kira followed his gaze, tears running down her cheeks as she did so. A large serpentine fish flopped in a shallow puddle of water. As it gasped and extended its mouth, they saw the sharp row of teeth lining its jaw.

  “Tropical paradise,” Eric wheezed.

  Kira tried, and failed, to bite back a sob.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  She shook her head and fought back the tightness in her throat. “No, it’s all right. Just try to rest. We’ll get you in the shade.”

  “What shade?” Tarn called out from ahead. “Wave took out most of the trees and them that’s left got no leaves on ’em.”

  “Then we’ve got building materials,” Kira snapped at him. She looked around and gestured with the arm not holding on to Eric. “Gather up the broken twigs and limbs and we can make a lean-to.”

  Tarn stared at her, open-mouthed. He turned to Sharp, ready to sputter a protest when the Captain nodded. “Do it. There’s nothing around us for a ways; let’s make shelter and rest up. Grab some of those fish and we can have a real dinner, too.”

  “Can we eat them?” Jeff asked, staring at the sharp teeth in the mouth of the nearby fish.

  “If we can’t eat what’s here, we won’t last long. Might as well find out sooner rather than later.”

  Kira grunted, signaling to Jeff and they moved forward up the beach until they neared the first of the uprooted and broken trees that had been at the edge of the jungle. They gently lowered Eric to the ground. “Go help with the shelter,” Kira bade Eric’s assistant. He nodded and hurried off, limping at his own twisted knee.

  None of them had escaped the crash unscathed. Kira had a nasty scrape across her back that had torn her shirt and skin, but it was minor in comparison to the slivers of metal that had speared through Eric’s side when the inertial suppressor overloaded and exploded in front of him. His leg had been broken by a large piece of metal paneling and his head gashed when he’d crashed to the floor.

  Kira pulled back his bandages at his side and stared at the torn flesh. The edges were raw and pink. She shook her head, terrified at what the lack of real medical attention would mean. A new world with new strains of bacteria and an open wound — Eric’s time was limited, at best.

  “How is it?” he asked her.

  “The bleeding has stopped,” she said. That was the only positive thing she could think to say. The water from the ocean had cleaned it some. “Rest will determine what happens next. The metal pieces were through and through, at least, and so hot from the explosion they were self-cauterizing.”

  “Lucky me,” Eric groaned.

  Kira faked a smile to keep herself from crying. After all she’d been through, discovering both herself and Eric, it wasn’t fair that she should lose him now. Of all the people that had to be hurt, why couldn’t it have been Tarn or Jeff or the Captain? She glanced away, suddenly ashamed at herself for thinking that way. The Captain and Jeff didn’t deserve to be hurt any more than Eric did. Tarn — well…

  Jeff supervised the construction of the shelter, which quickly came to resemble a simple but spacious lean-to. Using the laser rifles, they started a fire and cooked up the fish. They found a few drowned or crushed animals amongst the fallen timbers as well, creatures that went unidentified. They left them alone, content to dine on the fish instead.

  The meal was simple but satisfying. They had no water to wash it down with, a problem that they only now realized. The ocean was far too salty to drink, another reminder of the human home world hundreds of light years away.

  The sun fell quickly, proving they’d crashed in the afternoon. With the setting sun came a sudden and surprising downpour from above. “All that water we kicked up when we crashed,” Tarn muttered. “Temperature dropped.”

  “Gather it up!” Kira snapped. “Use whatever we’ve got!”

  They looked around, scrambling to find anything they could to capture the rainwater. A loud
crash from the darkness drew them up short. “What was that?” Jeff asked.

  His answer came in the form of a loud roar that made their ears ring. They scrambled again, this time grabbing weapons and raising them to point into the waterlogged darkness. “Put the fire out!” Sharp hissed.

  “No! Leave it. Tarn, stay here; I’ll flank it,” Kira rose up, grimacing at the stiffness that had set into her back. Without waiting for a response she slipped into the night, picking her way as best she could over the fallen timbers and spongy ground. She grunted in surprise when she stepped in a puddle that was deeper than she expected. Adding a fresh twist of her ankle and wrench in her hip, Kira struggled up to her knee and raised her scope to peer into the darkness. She flipped the imaging mode on it to thermal and saw a massive shape approaching.

  A crackle followed immediately behind a burst of light that streaked across the rainy landscape. Unlike laser and ion rifles, a plasma rifle fired a burst of energized matter that was visible to the human eye. It let off a bright light, displaying for a fraction of a second the two-legged beast that stood close to twenty feet tall.

  Additional bursts of plasma followed, lighting up the darkness as both the Captain and Tarn opened up on the beast. Most of their blasts flew wide in the darkness but a few hit home, causing additional roars of rage but little in the way of actual damage. It spurred the creature on, bringing it towards them, closer and closer. The only thing saving them was the unfamiliar ground beneath the beast as it tripped and stumbled over the ruined landscape.

  Kira noted the range in her scope and fired when it was only a hundred yards away. Assuming the monster had the same general physiology as every other mammal, she had aimed for its head. She had a quartering towards her shot, so she put the crosshair just behind the beast’s right eye.

  The first shot rocked the beast’s head to the left. It had stepped in a depression as she had fired, lowering it just enough that the .276 caliber teardrop glanced off the creature’s forehead. It staggered from the impact, sidestepping several times to keep its feet, and then shook its gargantuan head and roared anew. More plasma bursts speared towards it, catching patches of its hide on fire. Kira stared calmly through her scope, noting additional heat spikes showing up as someone fired a laser rifle at the beast as well. Whatever the hide consisted of, it seemed highly resistant to energy weapons.