by Ryk Brown
They leaned back as best they could in their bulky suits, craning their necks and rotating from side to side, in order to see the Celestia as they hovered upside down above her. Small docking thrusters located all around the ship perimeter fired tiny, repetitive bursts of accelerated propellant in shimmering blasts as the Aurora’s helmsman brought the massive ship to a complete stop exactly fifty meters above the Celestia on the surface of Metis.
Two of the technicians climbed up the two ladders located on opposite sides of the ERT deployment cart. Once they reached the tops of their ladders, the lead technician grabbed the maneuvering controls and fired the small thrusters located at various points around the ring. The top ring of the ERT began to rise off the cart, stretching out the collapsed tunnel behind it as it rose away from the Aurora and toward the Celestia directly above.
“Team One is ascending toward the Celestia,” the voice announced over the speakers on the Aurora’s bridge. “ETA to contact: three minutes.”
“It’s kind of hard to decide if they are ascending or descending,” Nathan commented as he watched the deployment process on the main view screen through the flight apron cameras. “I guess it depends on which ship you’re looking from.”
“At some point, they’ll have to invert themselves,” Cameron said, “or the gravity of Metis will pull them in head first.”
“It wouldn’t injure them though,” Nathan said. “The gravity on Metis is too weak.”
“True, but it would be… clumsy looking at best.”
Nathan nodded indifference as he continued watching. Just as Cameron had predicted, about halfway between the Aurora and the Celestia, the two technicians holding onto the ERT’s ring inverted themselves so that they were now descending feet first toward the Celestia.
“Eighty seconds to contact,” the technician announced over the comms. The technician controlling the ERT’s distal connection ring fired the ring’s thrusters several more times to compensate for the tunnel’s resistance to expansion as it began to approach its maximum length.
“I’m not sure that thing is going to reach,” Nathan said.
“It will reach,” Cameron answered confidently.
Nathan turned slightly to call over his shoulder to Naralena. “How’s the fuel transfer team doing?”
After a moment, Naralena answered. “The team leader reports the propellant transfer line is paying out correctly. They should be connected and ready to pressure test the hose in about five minutes.”
“Very good.”
“Contact,” the technician operating the ERT ring reported. “Connecting ERT to the Celestia’s topside midship service airlock.”
“I suppose you’ve thought about what to do if we have to leave quickly,” Nathan said.
“The ERT is self-retracting. When one end disconnects, the retraction winches at the opposite end automatically start pulling it back. It takes about ten minutes to fully retract the tunnel into its storage configuration.”
“What happens if there are people inside the tunnel when we have to leave?”
“The ERT has an iris at each end. In the event of a sudden decrease in pressure, the irises automatically close.”
“Good to know.”
“Celestia side is secured,” the technician reported.
“Team Two is moving,” the leader of the second team announced.
“All they have to do now is attach the other end of the ERT to our topside midship maintenance airlock, and we’ll be ready to start moving people and supplies over,” Cameron announced.
“What’s first on the repair list?” Nathan asked.
“We’ve already got a team working on the leak on the command deck. And another team is rigging a temporary tunnel the senior chief devised to join the command deck with the rest of the ship.”
“No more EVA suits just to go forward, then.”
“Should speed things along, yes. Lieutenant Montgomery’s plasma cannon turret team has attached several equipment-maneuvering units to the turret in order to fly it over to the Celestia.”
“Where are they planning on installing it?” Nathan asked.
“One of the survey teams discovered that the elevator platform for the missile launcher is fully functional, as are the bay doors,” Cameron explained. “Once they move the weapon over, they can close the doors and pressurize the bay in order to work more easily. There are also main power trunks running just under the missile deck, so tapping into them for power should be relatively easy.”
“We might make a warship out of her sooner than expected,” Nathan said as he rose.
“One gun does not make a warship, sir, not even a plasma cannon.”
“I can dream, can’t I?” Nathan stepped forward, patting Mister Chiles on the shoulder as he passed. “Nice work, Mister Chiles.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m taking a break, Commander,” Nathan announced as he headed for the exit. “You have the conn.”
* * *
Synda’s eyes fluttered slightly, slowly opening for the first time since she had been wounded. Her eyes opened farther as she began to examine the unfamiliar surroundings. She felt pain… and something else: tiny pinpricks all over the inside of her body. The sensation was extremely uncomfortable and was more intense in her torso than in her arms and legs. A wave of fear and confusion began to sweep over her as her eyes darted about the room. Where she was, what had happened, and why she was in pain: the questions only served to increase her building panic, made worse by the fog that still clouded her mind. Then she noticed Tony’s head lying on his folded arms alongside her, and her fear began to ease.
She lifted her left hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Tony,” she whispered, her voice weak and harsh.
Tony’s head rose slowly at first, then suddenly popped the rest of the way up and turned to look at his friend. “Hey,” he answered in hushed tones. “It’s about time you woke up.”
His beaming smile eased her fear and uncertainty even further. She looked at his face, lines embedded in his cheek from his wristwatch. She had always thought him an odd-looking man, attractive but in a way that might not be obvious to most people. She couldn’t help but notice, however, that right now he looked wonderful to her.
“I was starting to get worried,” he added.
“What happened?” Synda swallowed with some amount of difficulty, trying to wet her dry throat. “Where are we?”
Tony smiled. “You’re not going to believe this, but we’re on the Aurora.”
Synda’s face cringed as a wave of intense pinpricks surged inside her abdomen. “What?” She looked at him in disbelief, then noticed his clothing. “Is that an EDF uniform you’re wearing?”
“Yeah, they’re washing my clothes. You sort of bled all over me.”
“How did we get here?”
“We got ambushed on the surface, remember?”
“Vaguely,” she admitted.
“You were hit, so we came back with them.”
Synda didn’t understand. “But how? How did they get past all the Jung ships? They’re everywhere. Surely they didn’t just fly right in and…”
“I don’t really understand it all, Synda,” Tony interrupted. “All I know is that we took off from Earth, there was a bright flash, and the next moment, we were landing on the Aurora.”
“The flash,” she said, her memory returning. “I remember, when that shuttle arrived. There was a big flash and thunder and wind, and there it was, just hovering there. How is that possible?”
“I think it has something to do with their jump drives. I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “I just know that we’re here on the Aurora. Hell, I even met the captain. You’re not going to believe who he is.”
“Where’s Jessica?” Synda a
sked, cringing again from the pain.
“She was here earlier. She said she’d be back later. Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you in pain?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s strange. It’s like thousands of little, tiny needles, but on the inside.”
“Must be the nanites,” Tony told her.
“What are nanites?”
“I don’t really know. Josh said they were like microscopic robots that they inject into your bloodstream to fix you from the inside.”
“Who’s Josh?”
“Some guy I met in medical. He was getting some nanites injected in him as well. He told me they might cause you some pain, something about the nanites not being designed for people from Earth.”
“What?” Synda looked even more confused. Another wave of pain washed over her.
“He said the doctors knew what they were doing. The Corinairans are supposed to be more medically advanced than us…”
“The who? You’re not making any sense,” Synda insisted. She cringed again.
Doctor Galloway stepped through the gap in the curtain. “You are awake,” she said with her usual Corinairan brogue.
“She’s in pain,” Tony told the doctor. “I think it’s the nanites.”
“I will increase the dosage of the pain medication,” the doctor said as she moved around to the opposite side of the bed.
“Will that do it?” Tony wondered.
“It will not get rid of the pain altogether,” she warned as she made adjustments to the intravenous therapy systems mounted on the cart alongside Synda’s bed. “It should make the pain more tolerable.”
“Can’t you just get rid of the pain?” Tony asked.
“I am afraid pain is inevitable,” the doctor answered. She turned back to Synda. “You were badly injured by a Jung energy weapon. Much of your nervous system, both local to the point of injury as well as other places in your body, were overloaded by that energy. The nanites must repair the damage, or you will not regain full sensation throughout your body.”
“Just make the pain go away, please,” Synda begged.
“I will do what I can,” Doctor Galloway promised. She finished changing the dosage on the control panel. “You should feel some relief in a few moments. We will adjust it incrementally until you are comfortable.”
“Can’t you just give her the max dose?” Tony begged.
“Too much pain medication is a dangerous thing,” the doctor warned. “Be patient; relief will come.” The doctor moved back around the bed. “I will be back to check on you shortly,” she announced as she disappeared through the curtain.
“Whose idea was it to inject those things in me?” Synda wondered as she tried unsuccessfully to ignore the pain.
“I’m pretty sure you would have died if they hadn’t, Synda.”
Synda closed her eyes for a moment as a new sensation hit her. Her head became light, and her arms and legs felt lighter. “I think it’s starting to work.”
“The pain medication? Already?”
Synda opened her eyes again. “Yeah.”
“Is the pain gone?”
“No, it’s still there. But it just feels more like those things are tugging at my insides instead of stabbing me with needles.” She smiled. “It’s actually kind of nice.”
“Having thousands of nanites tugging at your insides?” Tony wondered.
“No, the medication.” She smiled even wider. “It’s very relaxing.” She turned her head and looked at him. “It’s like I drank a lot of beer but without getting all bloated and needing to pee.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Yup.” She looked at him again. “So we’re on the Aurora? How great is that?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Tony admitted.
* * *
Jessica entered the captain’s ready room unannounced and proceeded to her usual spot.
Nathan followed her with his eyes, his head unmoving as she plopped down on the couch under the large view screen on the compartment’s forward bulkhead. Nathan looked back at Cameron.
“So I guess you told her,” Cameron surmised.
“I suppose they’ve been on board since we left Takara?” Jessica asked, exhibiting uncharacteristic control of her anger.
“Of course.”
“So you’ve had one hundred super soldiers of questionable loyalties hidden in the bowels of the ship for over a month now?” She looked at Cameron. “What part of this doesn’t fall under the purview of the ship’s security?”
“There were questions of ethics involved,” Nathan defended. “I didn’t want to involve anyone else if I could avoid it.”
“Cameron knew, right?”
“She’s the one who found them,” Nathan said.
“What?” Jessica said, looking somewhat confused. “What were they, stowaways?”
“They were in stasis,” Nathan explained, “in a big shipping container. Tug told me he was giving me a parting gift. I swear I thought he was talking about all that dollag meat down in frozen storage.”
“Why the hell would he give you a bunch of Ghatazhak?” Jessica asked. “He didn’t think the Corinari were good enough?”
“They have several thousand Ghatazhak in stasis,” Cameron told her. “They don’t know what to do with them.”
Nathan noticed the confused look on Jessica’s face. “They are programmed somehow. It’s mostly to ensure their loyalty, but it’s also so they can overlook morality and ethics and do whatever the situation requires of them. Apparently, there are doubts as to whether or not that part of their programming can be undone. Until they are sure that the Ghatazhak are safe to return to mainstream Takaran society, they are keeping them all in stasis. Tug just figured we might need them. Turns out he was right.”
Cameron looked at Jessica. “They were pretty amazing to watch in action.”
“Scary would be a more accurate word,” Nathan added.
Jessica looked at them both. “Yeah, they are impressive.”
“You watched the recordings?” Nathan asked.
“Just finished.” Jessica sighed. “You still should have told me,” she added, pointing an accusatory finger Nathan’s way.
“Objection noted.”
“So what are we doing?” Jessica wondered as she leaned back on the couch and got comfortable.
“We were deciding what to include in the message to the Pentaurus cluster,” Nathan explained.
“How about, ‘Help, send everything you’ve got’?” Jessica mused.
“I was thinking of something a little more tangible,” Nathan told her.
“We should include all intelligence we have on the Jung, the core, and Earth,” Jessica suggested, “as well as a log of everything that’s happened since we left the PC.”
“We’ve already thought of that,” Cameron said.
“Did you include everything about the Celestia?” Jessica asked. “Especially the part about her jump drive?”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “Mostly, we were wondering what to suggest he send. Warships? Supplies? Manpower? Ordnance?”
“Why don’t you just ask for more Ghatazhak?” Jessica suggested.
Nathan looked at her, surprise on his face.
“Hey, I saw the recordings. I mean, if they have them all lined up like fruit-ice, why not? Can you imagine what a few hundred of them could do?” Jessica laughed. “Let them loose on Earth, and watch the Jung run crying for mama.”
“Are you serious?” Cameron asked. “Let them loose on Earth? You saw what they’re capable of, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. One shot, one kill. Did either of you actually analyze their combat tactics?”
“I didn’t think so,” Jessica scolded, leaning forward to sit on the edge of the couch. “Those guys prioritized their targets in the blink of an eye. They even took their shots based on target priority and maximum efficiency of execution. They left the enemy with zero time to react. It’s like they don’t have the proverbial ‘fog of war’. Those guys see and think with absolute clarity, even under fire.” Jessica leaned back on the couch again. “All those fancy moves? Hell, you can teach monkeys to do that. Those guys were fighting with their heads.”
Nathan looked at Cameron and shrugged. “Okay, add ‘more Ghatazhak’ to the list.”
* * *
The four equipment-maneuvering packs attached to the base of the plasma cannon turret spat their jets of thrust into space as technicians guided the turret down into the Celestia’s open missile launcher bay. Repeated blasts fired from the thrusters as the maneuvering packs countered for the weak, yet ever-present gravity of Metis. Slowly, the plasma cannon turret settled onto the elevator platform that would normally raise a missile launcher up from its bay. The turret finally settled onto the elevator platform with a small thud that was felt only through the vibration of the bay’s deck plates. The technician guiding the turret’s ungainly descent stood at the forward end of the bay in his EVA suit, watching as the other technicians checked that the maneuvering packs had completely shut down and were safe.
The massive overhead doors began closing over them, sliding in from port and starboard. They moved quickly, taking less than a minute to close and lock. Internal lights flickered to life, illuminating the entire bay. Despite its size, the Takaran weapon looked rather small, as the bay had been designed to hold a much larger weapon.