by Tom Shepherd
Suzie’s mind reeled. She remote-checked the files in the Jackknife’s limited archives. “Nobody has ever gone FTL inside a starship.”
“Tanella Jennings did it… back in 2046.”
“Not a starship,” Suzie said. “Ground-based, robotic capsule. It was designed to stay in place, but it tore off the back of her laboratory at Stanford and crashed into a rice paddy in China.”
“Jennings was right.” Rodney coughed and fought to breathe deeper. “Just didn’t know how to... to calibrate.”
“Can you do it?”
“Gotta correct for… Nagoto’s artificial gravity…”
“Rodney answer me.”
“You said I was a techno-geek…” He tried to smile but couldn’t. “It can work, if we don’t explode… catastrophic failure of the mains before establishing the Jennings algorithm.”
“You really think you can do it?”
“I really hurt, Suzie.” He winced.
“Can you bloody do it?” She gave Rodney a final painkiller shot. Any more would knock him out, or seize up his respiratory system and kill him outright. “Rodney!”
“Maybe…”
“I’ll take that for an enthusiastic, ‘Yes, ma’am!’ And hope to Holy Mary you’re right.”
“I’m Presbyterian. Get me… nav console.”
She dragged the blood-drenched engineer to the bulkhead, secured him to the deck with restraining straps, and shoved a portable control panel into his shaking hands.
“Enter the ruddy commands!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rodney tried, but his fingers would not find the right keys. “Give me audio-enter.”
“You want to input the FTL sequence verbally?
Successful data entry meant recitation of a long string of mathematical commands, including compensation for the ship’s gravity field. Accomplishing that feat of hyperspace engineering lay somewhere between doing quantum physics in your head and whispering twinkle, twinkle, little star.
“Yes, ma’am. Voice commands.”
“I didn’t think humans—all right, let’s do it.” She didn’t mention that he could hardly speak, let alone dictate trans-dimensional equations of the Jennings algorithm. Suzie took the unit from him and reset the panel for audio input. “You’re locked and loaded.”
“Get to the flight deck,” he sputtered. “Fly the ship.”
“I’ll be in the command chair.”
Although the Jackknife boasted a powerful and compact central computer, it lacked the capacity to support Suzie’s immense bioenergetic program. Forced to scamper to duty like an ordinary crew member, she climbed the access ladder to a narrow landing and entered the smallish bridge. Suzie strapped herself into the command pilot’s position, activated her instrument panels, and discovered Rodney’s expedited shutdown had preserved enough residual heat for a quick start.
“Yes!” She spooled up the docking thrusters, and in a few seconds the Jackknife lifted off the deck to a two-meter hover. She looked up and swore in Zyra-Crispin. “Rodney, hurry up.”
Through the overhead viewports she could see ominous signs that someone was remotely waking the attack drones from roosting positions along the roof of their titanium cave. Lights flickered red and yellow as mini-blasters and thermal rockets deployed on pylons under stubby, weapons platform wings.
She opened a link to the cargo bay. “Mr. Rooney, can you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have you finished sweet-talking the drive package?”
“Yes, ma’am. You have FTL on command.”
“Good, because this flight bay is about to go batshit hostile,” she said. “Setting a course for any-bloody-where but here.”
“I’ll drink to that…”
Rodney barely clung to consciousness. Suzie was amazed he could even communicate with her, considering all the painkillers and smart-meds battling death while suppressing bodily functions. For Rooney to have successfully voice-program a lengthy sequence of FTL algorithms demanded a miracle of biblical proportions.
Suzie’s fingers flew over the nav console. Manual navigation felt so… terribly… slow and sluggish after years of service as the AI Main Library Computer, first aboard the Sioux City and later the Patrick Henry. Armed with Nevin’s promise that the Nagoto’s tracking systems was a shambles, she decided to throw caution out the airlock and fly directly to Tyler’s rendezvous point near Jump Gate Teri in the Mandela system.
Course entered, she was ready. If Rodney’s addled brain had slipped in the procession of mathematical commands, they were about to die.
“Give me the envelope, Mr. Rooney. Light plus. God save the King!”
“Irish-Americans… don’t have a king… Threshold systems engaged. FTL envelope established.”
“Let there be light,” she whispered.
Suzie pressed a green square and space-time distortions formed around the hovering Jackknife. The little ship shivered and trembled from the bones of her keel, to the shell plating of her structure, to the bridge at the uppermost deck. She drifted starboard, toward columns of attack craft lashed to the deck.
Just when Suzie was certain they were dead—the engine would explode or crush them against an impregnable launch door—whirling, distorted light filled the bridge viewscreens.
At that moment the drones launched, floated over the Matthews Company expandable heavy cutter, and opened fire. But the Jackknife had slipped the surly bonds and danced in skies of space-time. Drone mini-blasters unleashed a lethal downpour, too late. The Jackknife dove into the rainbow-swirl of the Cumberland tunnel and passed through the hull of the Nagoto like a ghost ship, entering hyperspace.
Drone weapons fire passed through the little ship like she were made of wind. The hovering swarm kept firing, as though they could not believe the target was gone. Their energy bolts punched holes in the deck and sent sparks into the confused auto-predators, who began crashing into each other, as if ramming something was preferable to missing a target so close.
Suzie sat back, astounded by their escape. “My God, Rodney! Did you see that?”
No answer. She repeated the hail. More silence. Suzie switched on internal video and saw Rodney sitting on the deck in a puddle of blood, slumped in his restraining straps. He did not appear to be breathing. She released the controls to autopilot and slid down the ladder to the cargo bay.
Suzie felt Rodney’s neck and found a weak, irregular pulse, so she clamped a fresh pressure dressing over the piercing wound at his collarbone and injected more blood expanders. She rummage the briefcase-sized med kit for something else she could administer and cursed herself when she discovered two tubes of micro-compressed synth blood. That should have been the first IV injection she gave him. She rolled up his jumpsuit sleeve and flushed both auto-injectors into the young lieutenant’s flagging bloodstream.
His breathing remained shallow and labored, and she feared the functioning lung had nearly filled with fluids. He was literally drowning in his own blood, a process the nanites could not reverse until they rebuilt his pierced lung and restored circulation to dry out the alveoli and improve gaseous exchange of carbon dioxide wastes for life-giving oxygen. It was a race between smart-meds and death by lung failure due to exsanguination.
At least she could keep him warm. Suzie found an emergency blanket in the med kit, ripped open the package and draped the metallic foil around him like a cocoon, neck to knees. With nothing more she could do, Suzie secured Rodney’s thin, blanket-wrapped body to the deck with cargo straps to keep him from further injury.
She squatted on the cold metal while the Jackknife hurled toward the rendezvous point, where Dr. Julieta Solorio and a complete medical facility awaited them aboard the Patrick Henry. Checking his vitals a few minutes later, she discovered Rooney’s respiration and heart rate had sunk to lethal depths, so faint she could no longer find a pulse or identify any breathing. His core temperature had dropped to thirty-four degrees Celsius. The smart-meds had failed. He was
simply too weak to survive.
“Rodney… Rodney… I am so sorry.”
Suzie stretched out beside Arabella’s lover and put her arms around his mummy-wrapped body. She wept softly until fatigue and hopelessness carried her to fitful sleep.
Eight
Chief Paco Léon opened the Henry’s docking bay door, and the Jackknife with her two fully deployed nacelles slipped through the atmospheric containment forcefield, squeezed past the parked Legal Beagle, and came to rest at the starboard docking space.
When Suzie lowered the access ramp, Julieta Solorio and a squad of holographic ER doctors and trauma nurses swarmed aboard. Suzie wobbled down the short ramp to Tyler, J.B., and Arabella who waited on the deck.
“I’m so very sorry,” she said to the Lebanese holographic engineer.
“Rodney… Where’s my Rodney?”
Suzie broke down and cried. Tyler embraced her. J.B. put a hand on Arabella’s shoulder, but she broke free.
“What happened to Rodney? Where is Rodney!”
Suzie couldn’t speak. She buried her head in Tyler’s embrace. Arabella took a step up the ramp but halted, as if entering the Jackknife and looking upon his body would certify the horror.
Suzie regained control. Broken, gentle words tumbled out. “Rodney single-handedly defeated four samurai with katana blades. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“How did… what happened?”
“Tsuchiya stabbed him through the collarbone, pierced a lung.”
Arabella moaned and bent in half. She was a hologram, but her heart broke with the words.
“I got him aboard and gave him smart meds and blood expanders and an infusion of nanites. And pain meds. He felt no pain at the end.”
“How did you get away?” Tyler said.
“Rodney again. He was suffering from massive blood loss and his lungs were filling with fluids, but he voice-programmed the Jackknife’s FTL sequence to activate from inside the Nagoto. We entered hyperspace from their hangar bay.”
J.B.‘s jaw dropped. “Inside the enemy ship? That’s never been done before.”
“He saved my life,” Suzie said. “But I couldn’t save his.”
Arabella burst into tears and Suzie pulled free of Tyler’s arms to embrace her friend. Suzie and Arabella cried together until their tears—bioenergetic and holographic—found a momentary lull. In the silence of the Henry’s docking bay, with no sound but an occasional sob amid the whirring of circulating air, Julieta poked her head from the Jackknife’s open hatch.
“Hey, Suzie! Nice job. We’ll have him in surgery shortly.”
Arabella gasped. “Rodney’s still alive?”
Julieta nodded. “Critical but stable.”
“He wasn’t breathing.” Suzie shook her head, dazed by the news. “He had no pulse. He was so cold. I found a thermal blanket and bundled him up. I couldn’t do anything else.”
Julieta scoffed. “Didn’t you read the label on the package, girlfriend?”
“I just tore open the kit and—”
“It wasn’t a thermal blanket, Nena. You swaddled the boy with stasis wrap, which dialed down his bodily functions and put Arabella’s honey in modified suspended animation. You gave the smart-meds and nanites time to work. I couldn’t have done better.”
“Will he live?” Arabella said.
“He’s got a fighting chance, thanks to Doctor Suzie.”
“I love you!” Arabella grabbed Suzie and kissed her hard on the lips.
Tyler laughed and shouted, “Hey, she’s taken!”
Arabella bounded up the ramp into the Jackknife’s cargo bay.
* * * *
When Julieta finished operating on Rodney, she ached toes to fingers. Even though she worked out daily with Rosalie, six hours on her feet in the OR stressed parts of Julieta’s body unaccustomed to the physical demands of major medical procedures.
She found Arabella sitting with Rosalie in the empty Officer’s Mess. The olive-skinned, holographic Lebanese beauty watched Rosalie sip coffee. Her eyes told Julieta that she had monitored every step of the surgery through her ties to the MLC. Arabella arose and embraced Julieta and kissed her cheek.
“When may I see him?”
“Not for at least eight hours. He’s in the ICU, resting comfortably.”
“Was there any permanent damage?” Arabella said.
“Too soon to tell,” Julieta said. “I suspect he’ll need an oxygen-enhancer implant for awhile. Otherwise, you’ll get him back whole and hardy after a month or two of recuperation and rehab.”
“Can he get that aboard the Henry?” Rosalie said.
“No,” Arabella said.
Julieta agreed. “Lieutenant Rooney needs a full service medical center, not just a trauma unit. We’ll have to medevac him to the closest human facility.”
“How about Mindori University?” Rosalie said. “Only a few light-years off Tyler’s flight plan.”
“Already thought of our alma mater.” She bent and rubbed her calves. “Dame un minuto, por favor. My feet hurt. I need a drink.”
“Is it a good hospital?” Arabella said.
Rosalie patted her arm. “Best med complex beyond Terra.”
Julieta got a double whiskey on ice from the food dispenser and returned to the table. “I spoke to Tyler right after surgery. He’ll launch the Beagle to ferry Rodney to Mindorius, then J.B. and his team can continue to Ounta-Kadiis space.”
“I’m not going with them,” Arabella said. “J.B. can find another engineer.”
“You’re also his Executive Officer,” Rosalie said. “He needs you.”
“Rodney needs me more.”
“What can you do for him?” Rosalie insisted. “I’m flying aboard the Beagle as First Contact specialist for the Ounta-Kadiis. Don’t you think I’d rather go with Tyler, where the real danger lies?”
“You can’t go with him to Mindorius, amiga,” Julieta said. “You won’t have holographic support for your program.”
“Can’t you arrange it?” Arabella said.
Rosalie sighed. “Mindorius has a ‘no-holograms’ policy. Oncaro district has a longstanding tradition of courtesan education, and the species who live there—mostly humans—are highly protective of the seductive arts. Holograms—”
“I know! We’re mass-produced whores. Taking jobs away from biological providers. I don’t care. Find a way to smuggle me into that med center, and I’ll take it from there.”
Suzie materialized in the officer’s mess. “You will be discovered, then quarantined or deleted, luv.”
Arabella trembled. “I want to go with him. Will you help me disguise my program?”
“No.”
“Suzie, please—”
“There is another way.” She rolled up her jumpsuit sleeve and exposed the double-helix tattoo running from wrist to elbow, the mark of her existence as a bioenergetic lifeform.
Arabella ran a finger along the intertwined diagram, something Suzie could not do without disappearing into the nearest cyber-net.
“I can really become like you?”
Suzie nodded. “If you’re certain Rodney’s your life-mate—sure enough to give up your holographic existence forever—Tyler has a token to make you a bioenergetic human.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes! Let’s do it now.”
“Not yet.” Suzie rolled down the sleeve. “Talk to Rodney on the voyage to Mindorius. Make sure he feels the same way. If he hesitates, stay aboard the Beagle and go with J.B. and Rosalie to the Ounta-Kadiis.”
Julieta smiled. “His father is a super-rich magnate politico. Ask the boy if he’ll bring you home to Daddy. You’ll have your answer.”
“Listen to Julieta,” Suzie said. “For a dispatcher, she knows her onions about life.”
Julieta managed a half-smile. “Thank you.”
“I’ll bludgeon Tyler to fire off a message to Rodney’s parents,” Suzie said. “They need to know what happened to him.”
Arabella glanced at Rosalie and Julieta, the two dispatchers. “What are we going to do about Tsuchiya?”
Julieta shrugged. “Naca-Jen?”
“It would be a difficult kill,” Rosalie said. “Tsuchiya knows us. You cleaned out Sakura House on Riley’s World for him, and he’s met me several times when Papá did business with the Shōgun.”
Julieta took a long drink of iced whiskey. “Sniper hit from a great distance?”
“Hard to get in position,” Rosalie said. “He seldom appears in public.”
“There is no hurry,” Julieta said. “We will find a way.”
“Let me kill him,” Arabella said. “After Rodney is well, you can teach me to be an assassin.”
“No,” Rosalie said.
“Tsuchiya doesn’t know me. I can get close. The old pervert likes young, pretty girls. I will blow his brains out, point-blank.”
“You are disqualified.” Julieta’s voice was crisp, professional.
“Why? If I go bioenergetic like Suzie, I’ll still be able to computer-hop. He won’t see me coming. If anyone wants him dead, it’s me.”
“That’s the obstacle.” Rosalie touched Arabella’s face with her palm. “Mi querida, you can’t do it, because it would be revenge.”
“Your JPT code? I don’t subscribe. Especially if it keeps me from putting down the animal who hurt my Rodney.”
Julieta shook her head firmly. “You are angry, unskilled. A danger to yourself and inocentes nearby.”
“Spend your energy on loving Rodney, not hating his assailant.” Rosalie stood. “I have to pack for the Ounta-Kadiis mission.”
“Tsuchiya won’t escape justice for his crimes,” Suzie said. “Tyler has sent a full report to M-double-I about his attack on the Henry.”
Rosalie took a deep breath. “Knowing Mamá and Papá, we are now at war with Tsuchiya Galactic.”
“Arabella, I’ll get Tyler’s coin. Meet you on the boat deck.” Suzie disappeared.
“Vaya con Dios, amiga.” Dr. Solorio kissed Arabella’s forehead. “I will assign two holographic doctors and a few multi-skilled nurses and med techs to the Beagle.”