Absolve: The Lost Fagare Ship Book 2
by Edward Antrobus
Copyright © 2017 SEAM Publishing. All Rights Reserved
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Contents
Jim slumped onto the
Bobby tapped his foot
Dropping his end of
Despite what Jerrol had
Jim held his arm out
Jerrol slid into a
Krazirk led them out
Jim contemplated warning them
Brua wiped the grease
Krazirk pulled up the
Jim didn't wait for
Jim slumped onto the bed in his quarters. The adrenaline from the battle was wearing off and sleep threatened to take him if he sat there too long. Damn the Fagare for making everything so comfortable. He stood again, trying not to move his head too much. The wound on his temple still throbbed. If they had a med drone, he might even be tempted to use it.
The hard chair at the desk much better suited his mood. He should be getting dressed in the pressure suit stored in his locker. He’d told the others that they needed to hurry. He laughed a short, bitter bark that startled even himself.
That was probably the biggest lie he’d ever spoken. They had all the time in the world. The Resolve had all but been destroyed in the battle. The choice seemed to be to spend their days adrift in the Asteroid Belt, eating Fagare rations until they died of old age or were obliterated by a space rock, or to rob the graves of the enemy they’d defeated at a cost greater than Jim had wanted to pay. If it were only him, he’d take the first option. It was what he deserved. He never had the taste for fighting. But he’d made a series of mistakes that lead him to kill more than a thousand Razak on the Star Destroyer.
But he owed it to the others to get them back to Earth and safety. Get them safe. That’s all that matters. I’ll stay here with the victims of my mistakes.
The resolution seemed to energize him a little. He stood again. The injury still ached, but he ignored it. He had a space suit to figure out how to put on.
Jim stared at the pieces scattered on the bed. The Fagare procedure that had inserted his ancestor’s skills and memories in his head left odd gaps. His understanding of orbital mechanics probably matched the best minds at NASA, but this suit eluded him.
He picked up an arm piece, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. It should fit together with the glove, but the edge was smooth. He ran his thumb against it, looking for even the smallest indentation, but there was none.
“Resolve. How does this stupid thing work?” He’d already asked, but gotten no answer. This time wasn’t any different. “Resolve, how can the Fagare engineer such marvels but not program a computer to respond with ‘I don’t know’?”
“The Fagare consider it a waste of time to respond with no answer,” the simulated voice of Chemogg answered from a speaker behind his personal viewscreen.
“Sure, answer that question,” Jim said to the empty room. He dropped the arm piece. It caught the edge of his bed and bounced. It made no sound when it landed on the floor. The material simply muffled all sound. It rolled twice and stopped with a loud click.
Jim stooped down. It had caught on the duck shape rock, he had recovered from their asteroid mining. He’d seen it on the viewscreen while Chris was reeling the rocks into the cargo bay. Melissa had always loved ducks, and he’d thought to surprise her with the small gift. The plan had been to grind it down and polish it, but the thing had turned out to be more iron than rock.
He pulled at the rock, but it wouldn’t budge. He yanked harder, and the duck came free. The force flung it from his hand, sending it crashing into his viewscreen. Like everything else on the ship, the screen was made of some super durable materials and the five-pound lump of metal didn’t make a scratch.
He looked from the duck to the arm piece in his hand and back. “Resolve, how do I activate the magnetic couplers on the suit?”
It took him nearly an hour to assemble the suit. The others hadn’t had much better luck. He met Chris in the hallway, each of them with their helmet tucked under an arm. “Fucking magnets,” Chris muttered.
The bridge was empty, so Jim knocked on the wall outside Melissa’s room. “Need a hand getting that thing on?”
“I’ll just be a minute,” she huffed through the door.
Jim sat at his station, looking surer about their next act then he felt. He didn’t want to worry Chris, but his weapon’s expert wasn’t paying any attention, using his foot to slowly spin his chair in circles.
Melissa entered, looking flush. “Bobby said he’d be right out. Something about needing a shower.” She plopped down at her station, allowing the flowing plastic to catch her. “I’m still not sure about this. Maybe some of them survived.”
Jim straightened. “Believe me; I want that more than just about anything in the world, err, solar system. But you heard what Krazirk said. That gas was toxic.”
“Maybe we should try hailing them again before we go over.” Bobby entered the bridge. Unlike the others, he was shorter than his forebear, and the shoulders of his suit reached his ears. He waddled slightly, the suit’s knees didn’t quite line up with his own.
“If they are alive, that’ll just alert them to our arrival,” Chris said. “Glad you could join us. Must be nice, taking time to relax in the bath when we’re trying to get stuff done.”
Bobby crinkled his nose. “Maybe you should have taken the time, too.”
Chris was up in a flash, but Jim was next to him immediately. Jim gripped the other man’s shoulders with his gloved hand and activated the small magnets in the finger pads.
Chris tried to pull away, but the Fagare magnets were stronger than either man. “This shit’s getting really old, Chris. It’s time to bury the hatchet.” Jim’s voice came out low and guttural.
“Oh, I’ll bury it alright. Right in his skull.” He yanked again but made no more progress than before.
Jim shook his head. “I swear to God. If you two don’t get your act together soon, I’ll drop you off on opposite ends of the Earth, and neither one will be in Colorado.”
“Fine,” Chris muttered. “I’ll behave. Now will you let me go? That grip’s starting to hurt.”
Jim released his hand. The shell of Chris’s suit was dented from the pressure of the hold. He looked at his glove as he flexed the fingers. “Sorry, I didn’t know this thing was that powerful.”
Chris just grunted and rotated his shoulder. He placed his own gloved hand where Jim’s had been but thought better of it and dropped his hands back down to his sides.
“I’d rather know what we are getting into than not, even if that means they do, too,” Jim said. “Resolve, open a line to the Star Destroyer. If they don’t answer, keep trying for ten minutes.”
Throughout the wait, silence continued to meet their attempts. “Okay, let’s get to the shuttle. Oh, and Chris?”
Chris stopped mid step and flipped around. “Yeah?”
“Go down to the armory. Get us some plasma cutters. T
hat ship’s probably going to be a mess.”
Bobby tapped his foot against the floor. The cargo hold was the one section of the entire ship that didn’t have the carpet-like substance, and the sound echoed against the walls.
“Cut that out, will you? It’s getting on my nerves,” Jim growled.
Bobby pressed his hand against his knee to stop the motion. “Sorry. You know what I get like when I’m nervous. What’s taking Chris so long, anyway?”
“Let me check.” He pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt. “Come on, buddy. Hurry it up down there.” The radio hashed a moment of static before ending the transmission with its annoying double beep.
-I’m on my way. - Chris’s voice filled Jim’s head. He jumped at the intrusion and dropped the radio. It clattered across the floor. Jim took a step to retrieve the device but thought better of it.
“Keep forgetting that we don’t actually need these any more. Guess I can do something I’ve wanted to do with these cheap walkies for a while.” He looked up, a crutch when dealing with the ship that he hadn’t been able to break. “Resolve, send the repair drone. You can use this crap for your repairs.”
As usual, the ship didn’t answer. He fought the urge to repeat the command, but the drone hovered over to the discarded part. One of its metal tentacles coiled around the radio and brought it into a hopper trailing behind it. A brief grinding sound followed.
“Guess we should have figured that it’d be pretty useless as-is,” Melissa chuckled. “Hell, we could barely use them.” She grabbed her own and chucked it at the drone’s hopper. Bobby’s soon followed.
Chris entered the bay at last. The plasma cutters that Jim had requested hung from loops around his waist. Weapons that looked like shotguns were slung over his shoulders and both hands carried duffle bags packed full with pistols, rifles, and guns that Jim couldn’t identify sticking out. Charge packs strapped to belts slung over his shoulders like a bandolier completed the effect.
The drone’s arm grabbed his walkie off of his belt and disposed of it in the hopper.
“Hey,” Chris yelled. He dropped the bags, pulling out his bowie in a single motion. He swiped at the drone, catching a three-foot section of tentacle.
It swerved away from him and beeped angrily. The truncated arm picked up the lost appendage and dropped it in the hopper as it left the room.
“What the hell is all this stuff?” Jim bellowed. “I said the cutters. Not the entire armory.”
“We don’t know what’s on that ship. If there are survivors, they won’t be taking too kindly to the guys that just blew their friends up, coming to scavenge their ship. I ain’t stepping foot on that thing unless I’m well-armed, and y’all are damned fools if you ain’t either.”
Jim opened his mouth, but Melissa was already sifting through the fallen bags. She strapped a pair of holsters around her waist before filling them with black pistols.
Jim glared at her. “Fine. Load it up. We’ll sort it out on the way over. Remember, the goal here is not to try to kill everyone. Them or us.”
The shuttle’s interior looked similar to the bridge of the Resolve, except plain chairs replaced the molten goo. The back two-thirds of the craft contained an empty space with tie downs spaced every few feet. “Anybody find any ropes or straps?” Melissa asked.
Jim shook his head. “I’ve covered every inch of the Resolve. Either they’re the one thing on this ship that didn’t survive a millennium of being buried, or Chris’s predecessor wasn’t very big on securing his loads either.”
Bobby settled into the pilot’s chair and flipped a series of switches in a seemingly random order. The shuttle responded to his touch and hummed with energy.
“Resolve, open the bay door,” Jim said. The viewscreen in front of them showed the great door lower. Once clear, Bobby’s display changed from red to green. “Take us out, Bob.”
“Yes, sir.” He pushed on the throttle. The shuttle gave a little jolt and cleared the floor. Once out the door, they shot forward towards the hulking wreck of the Star Destroyer.
They continued to attempt contact with the Razak ship as they crossed the distance between them. “Well, if they aren’t going to invite us in, let’s take the back door. Bobby, see if you can squeeze us in through that hull breach.”
“Got it,” he said without looking up. They steered towards the aft section of the Razak ship. As they approached, the sheer scale of the Star Destroyer revealed itself. The crater from the Selenium explosion provided ample space for the shuttle. Hell, Jim thought. Could probably fit the whole Resolve in that hole.
“Jesus,” Melissa breathed. “No wonder they haven’t been answering.”
“Guess they thought their shields would take care of everything and cheaped out on construction. See it all the time with car manufacturers,” Chris quipped.
“Since when do cars have shield generators?” Bobby responded.
“Shut up and fly,” Jim cut in before they broke down into an argument yet again. “This hole was already here when I offered Krazirk the surrender. They probably locked this section of the ship down, but not before the gas got in. Find us a place to land.”
Bobby placed the shuttle on the floor between two upright cylinders that looked like boilers. Red emergency lights provided just enough light to see by. The one closest to the breach flickered in an uneven rhythm.
The shuttle powered down and the four attached the clear bubble helmets to their suits. “Chris is probably right.” Jim spied the duffle bags still sitting where the weapon’s officer had dropped it by the entrance. “Everybody grab a gun. But remember, our goal is to get in and out and not engage survivors unless we have to.”
As he had back at the secret base on Earth, Bobby stuck to a single pistol. Melissa reached into the bag and tossed a couple charge packs to him. Chris strapped a two-handed cannon to his back and stuck more pistols in his pockets before gripping a rifle.
Inside, everything that hadn’t been bolted down had been sucked out into space. Blood marks on the bulkhead proved that some of that space debris had once been living. Other than that, there wasn’t much left to the room but a single hatch leading to the rest of the ship.
Jim looked for a switch to operate the door, but nothing was obvious. “I’m starting to really miss doorknobs.”
The others crowded behind him. “Well, I guess this was a short trip,” Melissa said.
“Hold up.,” Chris said. “I found something in the armory that might help. He jogged as fast as the spacesuit would allow and disappeared into the shuttle.
“Well, now we’re waiting on Chris again,” Bobby muttered.
“If he can get us through that door, we’ll be further along than we are right now,” Jim said.
Chris came back with a handful of discs; the size of coasters and a gray golf ball. “If I understand the directions, these,” he held up the discs, “are shield generators. We mount them to the wall and they’ll form a force field around us. Then this grenade will get us through the door.”
“How long will the shield hold?” Jim asked.
“Don’t have any way to connect them to power, so not long. Few minutes. Probably less when it takes the impact of the explosion.”
“Grab another set. We may have to do the same to get out again. We’ll mount the shield generators.” Jim took the small discs from the larger man and handed one each to Bobby and Melissa. “Try to make a dome shape, large enough for the four of us to stand away from the charge when it goes off.”
The walls and floor presented no challenge, but the ceiling was a different matter. “Don’t suppose we have a ladder.”
“Melissa can sit on my shoulders,” Chris offered.
“I’ll sit on anyone’s shoulders.” Melissa frowned. “But yours. You’ll just cop a feel. I’m still getting CC’ed on your dreams at night.”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t think you’ll reach from anyone else’s shoulders. The ceilings have to be fifteen feet high.”
“I’m not doing it, dad. You don’t have to experience his dreams. They’re sick.”
“They’re perfectly natural dreams for a red-blooded American male to have,” Chris countered.
“Bobby, you’ll climb up on Chris’s shoulders.”
“What?” Bobby shouted. “Uh-uh,” Chris shook his head in a small motion.
“Let’s try it this way.” Jim gritted his teeth. “As your Captain, and your boss, I order Bobby to climb on Chris’s shoulders to attach the last shield generator to the ceiling. Unless you want to rot a billion miles from home.”
“Fine.” Chris dropped to one knee and locked his fingers together to give the shorter man a boost.
“You better not drop me.” In a practiced motion from climbing up and down heavy equipment for so long, Bobby hooked his leg around Chris’s neck. Melissa handed him the disc, and they rose. Chris swayed before finding his balance. Bobby reached up to the ceiling but it was still out of reach. “Stand on your toes, I’m almost there.”
Chris just glared at Jim, but did as he was asked. He grunted as he pushed their combined weight onto his toes. “You really need to go on a diet.”
Bobby ignored him. “Almost there.” He flailed his arms, swinging his legs in the process. Coming back, his boot landed square in Chris’s ribs. “Got it,” he yelled.
Chris collapsed under him. The two went down. Chris rolled away, hugging his chest and curled into the fetal position. Bobby’s leg caught under him as he landed and he let out a shriek.
Jim and Melissa rushed to them, Jim taking the bigger man and Melissa rushing to Bobby.
“Are you okay?” Jim inspected the spacesuit but couldn’t find any damage.
“I’ll be okay. I think.” Chris grunted. “Bruised a rib. Don’t think it’s broken.”
Jim pursed his lips. “Ribs are tricky. You’re going to hurt like hell tomorrow. Do you think you can continue for now? Maybe we’ll find their infirmary.”
Lost Fagare Ship 2: Absolve Page 1