by Dain White
“I am afraid not, Captain,” she replied softly.
“Well, you’re just going to have to toughen up for once, Gene,” he replied with what I can only imagine was a stratospheric eyebrow.
“Ugh,” I replied again, with far more eloquence than I felt.
“Indeed.”
“So why are you moping around back here with me, Captain? Don’t you have anything more important to do?”
“Well, I’m trying to decide what to do with you, Gene.”
“You already electrocuted me, what else do you want?”
He chuckled softly before taking a brief sip. “I am trying to decide if we need to leave you here with the medicos, or whether we can haul your skinny half-dead carcass across perdition with us.”
I sat up, well… in my head, anyway. Overtly I managed a bit of a squirm and a raspy croak, and managed to look him in the eyes, sitting there in the red light. “Damn it, Dak. I’ll be fine.”
He met my gaze for a moment, and then with an almost imperceptible nod, he smiled. “All right, mister. You’re coming along. Get some rest; I think you are going to need it.”
08242614@11:29 Shaun Onebull
“I have the conn; Yak, report,” Captain Smith called out behind us as he secured his crash bars with a muted click.
I leaned in to my screen. “Captain, Master target vector was 223 from the ecliptic, right ascension, 48 degrees.”
“Was?”
“Yes sir. It did that nifty disappearing trick a few moments ago,” I replied softly. “I am afraid we don’t have it on track at the moment.”
“Em, report.” he asked, punctuating the request with a swift sip.
“I think I can find it, sir…” Emwan said softly, like a breathless girl with crinkled nose and pigtails askew.
“How, dear?”
“I think I know where it’s going… though it is just a hunch.”
“Very well… your hunches are usually bang-on.,” he paused for a moment as he caught up on various screens at the helm. After a sip, he keyed the 1MC. “All hands stand by for immediate in-system jump.”
He immediately started hauling the ship over on a course away from the one Emwan had plotted. A gasp from my left made me smile a bit – not even Pauli missed that one.
I am sure Em and Janis noticed, but as neither of them felt obligated to mention it to the captain, I sure wasn’t going to.
“Janis, I need you to task the 3rd with a run through Altair. They’re in range of that sector, correct?”
“They are, Captain, but we don’t have a compelling reason to send them in that direction.”
“Well then, it’s a good thing I am looking that direction, isn’t it?”
“It would seem to be the case, sir,” Em said with a light burst of laughter, with an adorable little snort at the end.
Janis surprised us all.
“Captain,” she started with a bit of a stammer. “We don’t think you will intercept Master 3 on this course.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“No, Captain.”
“But, you girls have this all wrong for this system. There’s a really hot well on this heading – if you were looking to flee this system, this is the way to cut it. Let’s assume I was, for example, heading to Altair. This is the way I’d go, as a master of the spaceways.”
“Why Altair, sir?” Janis asked.
“It’s the lag, right? No comm drones, no comms, and no Unet link. We need to be mindful of this, ladies, we’re on a multi-faceted engagement here. Actually…” he paused for a sip, “I am a little curious about Altair, anyway. It’s pretty much the only dark sector here, and I haven’t seen anything in the Service traffic about it.
“Wouldn’t they want to maintain a local Unet node?” Pauli asked.
“That’s a thought. Why would they want a dark system?”
I chimed in, “They probably didn’t know what it was, sir. A com drone on a transit through a system could have been anything. It makes sense they’d kill first. They’re that type of critter.”
“Makes sense to me, Yak,” he replied.
Pauli wasn’t convinced. “Sir, it wouldn’t make sense for them to take out the com drone.”
“Pauli, I agree with Yak here. Besides, their AI was already throughout the Unet, right? What is a node going to give them, they don’t already have? No, I think they’re probably massing in Altair somewhere.”
Janis didn’t miss a beat. “Captain, it would appear that we need to be in two places at once.”
“I can chase the target,” Emwan said immediately. “I am pretty sure I know where it’s going, Captain. It won’t get away from me.”
“Well, I can’t really prop up a good argument against it, dear. Are you sure?”
Emwan paused for a brief moment. “Captain, it’s not going to Altair. I agree with your assessment; Altair has been on my mind as well. Something will definitely happen there, so please be on your guard.”
“Hmmm… now you have me thinking again, my dear. Clearly Janis can’t assist, is it wise to let our only preactive friend run off chasing a stray? What do you think of that, Yak?” he asked, not at all rhetorically.
“It’s not a good idea, sir. That ship shows up anywhere near a service ship at this point, the fight is on.”
“It’s a mighty big sky, son. What if that ship has the ability to seed another colony of those critters somewhere?”
Pauli choked. I looked at him trying to swallow his coffee again. “Well, sir. I guess that’d be bad. That’s probably why Captains don’t normally ask jarheads for advice… sir.”
“On the contrary, Yak. You’re right, I think. It is a bad idea for us to split up here.”
At this point I didn’t know what was a good idea or a bad idea. I was getting a little overwhelmed thinking of a colony of these things just dropping on some populated area like the end of that world, or us racing into the unknown, literally flying by the seat of our pants.
“Em, tell me why you think our fleeing friend is going to pop up there.”
“Captain, this system is on a major route, but it’s not a system people stop at.”
“I know of it… that’s Groombridge system, right? There’s a big frozen rock there, nothing much else. If they can handle the cold, it does seem like a pretty good place to lie low.”
“Em, you’re cleared for this mission. Don’t let me down. Scan us up when you get to Altair. We may need you”
“I will be there soon, Captain. I won’t let you down.”
“I am sure you won’t, my dear. Good luck!”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“Very well, we’re at Zebra, the crab is yours, dear.”
We held station while she launched from the cargo bay.
“I am away, sir,” she called out on comms a few moments later. We watched her pull ahead of us.
“Very well. We’ll be in Altair in four hours, give or take.”
“I’ll be there when you are, sir,” she replied immediately.
“Good hunting, and bring back that crab, please.”
“I will sir.” Her voice crackled a bit as the carrier wave skipped off the upper ionosphere of Vega 6, rolling interminably on below.
The silence on the bridge was deafening, as we waited for our orbit to line us up for our out-system burn.
Pauli spoke first. “Captain… do you think…”
“I do.”
“But, considering… do you really think—“
“I just said, I did, son. I would assume that you do as well.”
“I uh… well… um…”
“Well, maybe I was a little hasty in that assumption – Certainly Shorty thinks… Gene thinks, at least occasionally, when he’s awake. Our mean green killing machine here, he’s no robot – he’s a thinker, for sure. I honestly thought you did too, but your inane blather at this terrible moment in our epic storyline, now… I guess I am not sure…”
“Not sure of what, sir?” Paul
i said, persistently blathering. I fought incredibly hard to keep my cool, to remain stoic.
Another absolutely hilarious moment of silence rolled on. You could literally feel Pauli’s discomfort baking off him in waves. A long, slow sip of coffee gurgled on and on behind us.
“Pauli?”
“Yes, sir?”
“What the blue blazes are you blathering on about, son?”
“I don’t know… I think I forgot. “
Captain Smith snorted derisively, while I chuckled softly despite the squirming across the aisle.
“Son, you were going to ask me if I think…” he said dramatically, with a tremolo quaver and ponderous sigh.
Pauli laughed, “No, sir, I was going to ask if you thought it was a good idea to let Em head off on her own like that.”
“I see… and when you were opening the flappy part of your face, about to second guess a fully brevetted captain, albeit retired… you actually refer to that act, as thinking?”
I could hear the squeak of Pauli’s spine compressing as he hunched into a tiny little ball at his console.
“Sir, I’m sorry… I wasn’t trying to second-guess you, as such”
“Oh, you weren’t?” he laughed. “It sure sounded like that to me. Now, I don’t know what sort of ships you served on son, but on any of the finely painted and degreased ships I served on, we had all kinds of… ranks, I guess you’d call them. On my ships, see, I was the Captain, which is kind of like the top rank. You were a lieutenant, which if I recall correctly – and it’s been a while on account of my retirement and all – that was a little less than Captain. Did your ranking officers routinely ask you for your permission before they made decisions?”
Pauli laughed, a polite laugh, to be sure, but he was clearly gaining a bit of traction. “Actually, they did. I was extremely important, and consulted with constantly. On my ships, I was actually in command.”
“Oh you were?”
“Of course – all these flashing blinking lights – they only work because I make them work.”
“I see. And if this light here goes out, who fixes it?”
“Well, I do – or I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
“Well, I guess I do, on this ship.”
“That’s a damn good guess, Pauli,” I chimed in softly, with a chuckle. As much fun as the Captain was having at his expense, Pauli did have a bit of a point. Not enough of a point for me to join in – but it was worth thinking about. What if we needed the crab, or more to the point… what if we needed Em?
“Pauli, it’s a pretty tricky situation we are in here, and Janis can’t really help us out on this one. Emwan is built for intuition, right?”
“Yes…” he replied cautiously.
“Well, then she’s the right person to handle this job. If anyone can hunt down this runner – and, once she finds them, actually do something about it.”
“Captain,” I added carefully. “What if she isn’t able to do anything about it? What if she… doesn’t come back?”
“I will certainly come back, Yak,” Emwan said sweetly in my ear, while Captain Smith chuckled. I just about leaped out of my skin.
“She’s still here, you dopes,” he guffawed, laughing openly at our sheepish looks. Of course she was – I felt like a complete dolt.
“Yak, you poor man,” she said in a sultry contralto that made my cheeks burn. “Are you worried about me?”
Now it was my turn in the hot seat… and I wished Pauli and I had traded places – compared to Captain’s Smith’s good-natured ribbing, Em’s utterly seductive, maddeningly beautiful voice, drenched in emotion and warmth, with a slight laughing lilt at the very edges, as if she shared a private joke with only me – it was a million times worse.
“Janis, isn’t there something you need me to look at?” I muttered softly.
“As a matter of fact… no,” she replied smartly.
I sighed. “Are you sure? I mean, there’s an awful lot of targets here…”
“I have everything in control, Yak.”
“Of course you do…” I trailed off.
“I need help with something…” Emwan breathed softly into my ear.
“You do?” I breathed back, unwittingly.
“I do,” she said slowly.
I hung my head, and counted to ten, thinking about the Crossa league championships coming up, and took a deep breath. Honestly, I would have preferred being shot at.
At least I would have known what was expected of me.
08242614@11:46 Captain Dak Smith
“Well, that’s enough fun,” I drawled across the bridge, saving Yak from fates worse than, and all that stuff. Poor fellow, no longer sure which way was up.
“Outstanding, sir,” Yak replied, smiling across the aisle at Pauli, who was slowly coming up out of a legendary hunker.
It was really nice to joke a bit, to lighten up the dirge this ship had become over the past few hours. Between Yak and Shorty’s injuries, and Gene’s sudden need to take the biggest nap of all – this darn ship was losing morale, and that’s what made it go, in my opinion. People need to enjoy what they do, or they just won’t do it very well. My core mission, and the point to all of this, was to enjoy myself and have fun, after all.
Someone had to keep working though. “Pauli, I need you to work on something for us – we need a routine n algorithm to handle some of the waveform calculations that Gene’s been doing – I think I might need Shorty working on other things soon.”
“I ought to be able to whip something up… Shorty, can you send me information to help?”
“Can do, Pauli,” she replied immediately, as usual. One of these days, I should try to catch her napping – though I knew it was a lost cause. Shorty was wired tight.
Speaking of napping... “Shorty, as soon as we get into our next transit, I need you and Yak to go off duty and get some rest - doctor’s orders… so I actually mean rest, and not exercise.”
Yak chuckled, “You don’t have to tell me twice, sir.”
“He doesn’t even have to tell me once, Yak,” Shorty quipped.
Speaking of naps… “Janis, is Gene resting?”
“He is, Captain.”
“What do you think his safe g-load would be?”
“That is hard to quantify, sir.”
“What if you had to guess?”
Pauli’s shocked gasp made me chuckle a bit.
“Sir, if I had the helm, I wouldn’t push higher than 3g for longer than a few minutes. Certainly not past 4g for any length of time – Gene is under significant physical stressors at the moment, and needs some time to recover.”
“Very well, my dear… we can afford to take it a little easier, with Em on point in the crab.” I counted off the moments remaining, watching the pipe with one eye and the back of Yak’s head with the other.
“The course looks clear, sir,” he replied shortly, as if he felt the weight of my stare – and perhaps he had. I’ve been working on it.
“Very well, Yak.” I replied, and keyed the 1MC. “All hands, secure for acceleration in 120 seconds”
As the moments trickled on, I ran through the screens, checking a little closer than normal through engineering, trying to keep my head focused and my eyes open. As routine as it might be to swipe through what seemed like endless screens of green, complacency is a trait I work pretty hard to avoid.
“Shorty, are you watching Gene’s screens?”
“Only the ones you asked me to help with, sir.”
“Well… take a look at this, will you?” I asked, swiping the coolant systems reports to her console.
“What am I looking for, sir? This looks green to me.”
“Yeah, I see plenty of green as well… but those values across the top. Don’t they look… unbalanced?”
“Hmmm,” she replied, obviously putting on her engineer hat.
“I need more than humming. I have lots of humming up here with these lads”
She replied a scant moment late, to suppress a chuckle at my venerable wit, no doubt. “Captain, I see what you mean, but I don’t know what to make of it. It looks like there’s a slight fluctuation or pressure drop in harness 22A, but what that is, or what we’d need to do to fix it…”
“Yeah… well at least you see it as well. Janis, do you know what 22A is on this report?”
“Certainly sir, this is the topside harness that routes forward.”
“Is this what Gene was working on when… uh…” I suddenly felt myself without words.
“Yes, sir,” she replied immediately.
“Do you know what he was doing? Is there any chance you can finish it?” The countdown timer had gone orange a few moments ago, but the pipe still looked clear.
“I have deployed an assembler to that location, sir. I’ll figure it out shortly.”
“Do you want me to hold off on this burn?”
“Not on my account, sir.”
“Very well. Yak, are we still clear?”
“Clear, aye,” he replied after a moment.
I sat for a moment longer, thinking. Something really bothered me about this. I’ve made a long career of listening to that inner voice, and decided now wasn’t the time to stop.
“Yak, how long is this window going to be clear if we hold this track?”
He scrolled his screens forward, watching tracks. “At least seventeen minutes, sir.”
I stabbed the 1MC. “All hands, stand down and secure from acceleration. We’re going to hold this orbit until Janis can effect a repair.”
“Standing down, aye,” Shorty replied.
“Yak, you have the conn,” I called out. I wanted to head up and see what Gene was working on, and get some fresh heat for my cup.
“I have the conn, sir,” he replied a scant moment later, standing by while I was still trying to secure my cup.
“Keep an eye on the boards, son. We’re in a controlled layer here, but you never know. People are generally idiots when they get in control of machinery.”
“Idiots, aye,” he replied with a barely restrained grin.
“Other people, Yak.”
“Other people, aye sir.”
I chuckled, and kicked aft. I had to hand it to him; I pretty much set that one up perfectly. I definitely needed to address an alarming lack of caffeine in my cup.