by Jacen Aster
Lore's voice came back, strong but slightly shaky. “We're all right. It was only the primary compensator blowing like Henry thought it would. It looks like our jury-rig didn't hold though, it took two of the others with it. We aren't getting to FTL speeds until we have at least one of them back online.”
“Damn. And you? You're alright?”
“Yes ma'am.” Her answer sounded less shaky. Evidently, she had just been startled.
“Good. Ignore them for now unless they are threatening other systems. We don't need FTL travel just yet anyway. Henry, find me that ship.”
“Already did. We came out within less than fifteen hundred km drift from our target zone. Scanners show the ship still in a slowly degrading orbit around the fourth planet. Can't say much more from here other than it's in bad shape and not responding to hails. It's...two hours out at maneuvering cruise.” Henry scowled. “I don't recommend going higher than cruise until we know what shape the engines are in. We've pushed our luck too far already.”
Sam sighed. “Agreed. It won't do them any good if we die a stone's throw from making our rescue attempt.” Swiveling her command chair, she turned almost completely around to address Xian'x.
“Captain, any ideas why they aren't answering hails?”
He tapped his forehead in a yes. “They were worried about how much power using the comm systems to reach us took. They probably powered down long-range comms once they were informed of the plan. We should be able to get them on emergency short-range frequencies once we are closer.”
“Right.” She swung back around. “Get us moving, Henry. Maximum maneuvering cruise.”
Henry rolled his eyes and hit the appropriate buttons. “This ship doesn't have a navigator, you know. You're supposed to be the one controlling course from your shiny chair there, oh lazy Captain.”
She waved dismissively in his general direction and settled in for the wait.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Some time later, they passed into comm range of the damaged cruiser. Henry had been creating damage reports with Lore, and Samantha was discussing last minute preparations, when a short squeal came from the comms, followed shortly by a welcome transmission. It was gibberish to the humans at first, until Henry activated the translator that they had worked out with the Aoreli in transit.
“Er.... Hello there? You wouldn't happen to be the Nova, would you? Only, none of us have ever seen a ship quite like that. Certainly no Aoreli ship. Is Captain Xian'x aboard?”
Samantha spoke up first, as was proper. “This is Captain Samantha Matterly of SLV Nova. Captain Xian'x is indeed aboard. I will put him on.”
Captain Xian'x stepped forward at her wave and spoke up...in the native Aoreli language. Only Lore had grasped it just yet, so Henry and Sam were in the dark until Xian'x turned to them some minutes later. Both were irritated that they hadn't thought to tie the translator into the outbound comms.
“I've explained the situation, Captain. With their limited comm power, we hadn't been able to tell them much before. I informed them that this ship is of a new race, and we were undergoing first contact when we received their distress call. I explained your gracious offer of assistance, with your ship as the only means to reach them in time. They are understandably nervous, but there shouldn't be any issues. I made it clear that you've gone out of your way to help them, and they are eager to get off their dying ship. Apparently, they only have another few hours of life support remaining, so we will need to hurry.”
Henry cut in before Sam could say anything. “That's a problem. A big one. I've scanned their hull and it's a twisted mess. None of the emergency ports near them look accessible by the shuttle you brought. Our smaller shuttles might get close enough to one, but a jury-rig to connect them would never hold under these conditions. And the ship is far too fragile for us to tow it out, the resulting strain would finish it off.”
Sam swore with an impressive and inventive degree of color. “Options?”
“None you're going to like. Only thing I can see to do in the kind of time we have is to send in one of our shuttles. Target a corridor they I.D. as intact and cut an emergency entrance. It'll take most of the time they have, but we can send environmental tanks over to give them additional life support for the evac. Then we take them out one small shuttle at a time. It’ll be cumbersome as hell, but their orbit still has at least fourteen hours before it hits atmo and we can't safely get the shuttle in and out any longer. It should work.”
“Should being the operative word.” There was only the tiniest of hesitations before she gave the order. “Go, make it happen. Take whoever else you need.”
Henry nodded and was out the door in moments, snagging the Aoreli medics and Lanteen as he went. As he led them to the docking bay for the shuttlecraft, he tapped his comm. “Lore, I'm handing off maneuvering the Nova to you. Take my place on the bridge. Put Michaels in charge of the engine room. Keep running the diagnostics from my console on the bridge.” Not waiting, he flipped channels. “Security, I need six of you in Dock 1. Two are going over with me, four stay here to keep the incoming under control and shift them to the cargo bays we outfitted for this. Two officers for each bay we fill.”
The security chief's voice came back, “Sir, that'll stretch us thin really quick.”
“I know, but we need people on hand to quell panicking if things get dicey.” A mental bit flipped and he added an extra order. “Grab some of the extra translators the Aoreli brought, we’ll need to talk to these people.”
“Understood, sir. I'll send the team once we have the translators.”
Henry nodded absently, even if the security chief couldn't see him. Two of the Aoreli medics had peeled off, heading to the cargo bays as planned. Good. Henry opened the hatch to the docking bay and moved to shuttle three. Thankfully, this shuttle was already equipped for what they were going to try or this would never be possible in the time afforded them. Waving the limited dock crew over, he set to work.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
“Alright. Easy does it, Henry,” Henry whispered to himself as he eased the shuttle in close to the hull. Lanteen, in his co-pilot seat, looked at him a bit oddly, but Henry ignored him and focused on his task. With a gentle thump and a small shiver, the shuttle made contact with the damaged cruiser. Henry breathed a sigh of relief before keying his comm on. “Alright, Jones, start the cutter. I'm on my way back.”
“On it, boss!”
Henry made his way aft, through the stripped main compartment loaded with atmosphere tanks, to the lower deck of the small shuttle. Jones and the two security officers had the cutter already running, so Henry moved to check on the portable airlock they would insert.
Fifteen minutes of work later, they had the lock in place and were tapping on a sealed internal hatch of the cruiser. It opened to reveal a short Aoreli, who began jabbering in his native tongue. Thankfully, one of the handy Aoreli translators, adapted in a hurry for human use, was now nestled in Henry's ear to provide a real-time translation.
“Oh God! You're here. You're actually here. Thank you!” The man threw himself at Lanteen, hugging him. Lanteen staggered slightly under the unexpected weight and looked highly uncomfortable with the embrace.
A second, older sounding, voice came from the other side of the door. “How do we know that these ‘Humans’ aren't a worse fate than death?”
A smack was heard. “Grandfather, don't say such nasty things about our rescuers!”
Apparently, the slightly odd moment broke the dam loose and they were soon swarmed by Aoreli. Thankfully, a few of the cruiser's security detail had survived and, aided by the Nova security officers, regained a sort of loose order fairly quickly.
“Move aside!” one yelled.
“Let the medics in! And the tanks!” shouted another.
The next few minutes were a mad scramble as the two Aoreli medics were rushed to the injured. A relieved-looking Lanteen, freed of his hug happy new friend, began helping Jones guide the atmo tanks into the s
urviving portion of the ship.
Henry found himself out of the press for the first time and looked on in shock. They hadn't been able to get a count of the Aoreli survivors before they came over. Their need to hurry had been too great. There had to be two hundred or more jammed into the single working section. Mind you, that section was half the size of the Nova, but still. Morbid as the thought was, Henry had to admit a moment of guilty relief that more had not survived. The Nova could handle this many, but it would be a slight strain. Not so very many more and they might have had to make a choice on who to leave behind.
The next five hours were a whirl of shuttles and supplies, a crush of people, and the awful smell of so many unwashed beings in one place. It was with a sigh of exhaustion that Henry, no longer piloting on Sam's orders for fear he'd make an error by virtue of mental drain, sent the last refugee along. Moving to help the remaining medic pack up, he paused as he heard a groan of metal.
He shook himself. He'd heard that groan a dozen times at least, and it was probably only so low a number due to the noise of people. Ignoring the ominous sound with a small effort, he reached down to help. She silently directed him what to grab, and what went where. Henry took one cart of supplies and she another.
They were halfway down the corridor when the world warped around them.
The twisted ship shifted and the massive weight of the cruiser bent the surrounding bulkheads, snapping reinforced metal as if it were made of mere matchsticks. Henry felt genuine panic for the first time in years as the writhing ship sheared the Nova's shuttle off the emergency lock, ripping the airlock out with it. A torrent of air blasted him towards hard vacuum as it rushed out the new wound in the hull. He grabbed the frame of an open hatch, halting his flight. Snap reflexes snatched his Aoreli companion in her tumble past him and he strained to keep them both rooted against the wind. His first truly visceral taste of the differences between their species came in that moment, her high strength-to-weight ratio displaying itself as she scrambled up his body. He couldn't breathe against the wind. Spots were starting to enter his vision as his straining muscles rapidly burned the remaining oxygen in his bloodstream.
Forcing a semblance of reason against the torrent of panic, his eyes flashed around for something, anything, to change their state of affairs. He saw an escape pod three hatches up. That was a start. Even with insufficient thrust power to escape this deep in the gravity well, it was at least air tight, and might still have an air supply. But how to get there against the wind?
It wasn't skill that saved them in that moment. It was pure luck. A metal panel ripped off a crumbling bulkhead and jammed for a few moments in the hole in the hull, cutting the wind rush dramatically for a few precious moments. Pulling the dazed and barely conscious medic with him, he reached the escape pod and threw them both in, slamming a hand down on the emergency seal control just as the debris cleared the ship and the rush increased again. He sagged against his companion in the cramped space, both of them gasping lungfuls of precious oxygen.
She made a half-delirious sign he recognized as a “thank you,” but her anatomy was telling again. The Aoreli had to pay for that strength-to-weight advantage somehow, and she needed more oxygen than he did. She was still gasping, only half-aware as he recovered.
“Don't thank me yet,” he muttered. “I might only have made our deaths slower.” Struggling with the Aoreli controls, he managed to raise the oxygen level. It would help her recover faster, and they didn't have enough time left for it to matter in any other way. More deep breaths from her as he brought up what he could on the escape pod’s controls, cursing that he only barely knew enough of their language to use their tech. “Pull yourself together! I need a translator here.”
Struggling upright as her breathing equalized slightly, she pointed to an obvious button. “That will eject us!”
Well, thank God the audio translator still worked, at least. Still, not helpful. “I guessed that, but that won't do us any good. Not enough power to get out of the gravity well, remember?”
Her shoulders drooped. “So we are dead anyway.”
“Maybe not. Don't quit on me yet.” He jabbed a finger at a section of data he had brought up, and mentally blessed the unknown Aoreli that decided putting schematics into the pod’s limited memory was a good idea. “What does this say?”
Baffled, she nevertheless responded, “Controls for the maneuvering thrusters. Negligible power. Far less than the explosive bolts.”
“Yes, yes, but how much energy is in them?”
“Err…five hundred standard units each. But what does that matter?”
She looked even more confused, but he didn't, couldn't, care at the moment. “Good, I think it'll be enough.” He began punching overrides, creating programming on the fly in a seriously crude way, barely understanding half of what he was doing. He cursed as safety interlocks popped up. Of course it wasn't that easy.
“What are you doing?”
He sagged back. “Nothing, I guess. I thought if we blew up the thrusters at the same time as the bolts, channeled into the focused space of the escape pod socket, it might have given us enough of a boost to make it. But I don't know the systems well enough to bypass the interlocks. I guess it really is over.”
She looked surprised for a moment, then contemplative. “That might breach the pod and kill us, but I suppose it doesn't matter.” Before he could protest that it was pointless anyway, she leaned over him and did something he couldn't see to the computer.
Struggling to control his poorly timed reaction to alien breasts pressing into interesting places, the shock of the safety interlocks releasing distracted him from the closeness. “What?”
She shrugged. “My father runs a repair shop. Always wanted me to take over when he retired, but I wanted to become a medic. Guess I owe him some thanks if I get out of this alive.”
Henry couldn't help it, he grinned. “As Sam would say, make sure I send him a cookie if we live.” That woman was a bad influence on him. He was sure of it.
Ignoring her disbelief at the oddly timed comment, he tripped his code again and hugged her to him, not bothering to pretend that that didn't feel good. By God, he might be about to die, and those were really a nice pair of breasts. “Hold on. It's gonna be rough!”
A boom translated through the hull and a massive jolt slammed her harder into him and him into the seat. “Magnificent breasts indeed” was somehow the only thought to survive the gauntlet of terror as the moments stretched on. Minutes passed and the pod slowed. Henry's mind rebooted and he cringed as he saw the flickering numbers on a newly cracked display telling a sad story. “Not far enough,” they said in a whisper, too solemn even to shout.
Just as his rattled mind started debating the merits of going for the first Aoreli-Human make out session in their minutes before death, the pod shook again. “What the hell?”
Lore's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. An external speaker pressed to the hull, he thought, in some remote corner of his mind. Probably a pickup too, knowing her. “Ah-ha! I gotcha. Try to match that one, Henry. Catching a tumbling escape pod with a drone.”
Clearing his throat, Henry managed, “Nope, you can have that one, Lore. Also, I'm buying you a cookie. Actually, make that a dozen cookies.”
In a smug voice that almost didn't sound like her, she informed him, “Two dozen, and they better be top shelf!”
Henry choked, not believing he had just heard her say that. Maybe he'd blacked out and they were really falling to their crushy-crushy doom? Then the, to-this-point-stunned, beauty in his lap unexpectedly lunged upwards and kissed him. Ah hell. If he was dreaming and about to die, it was sure a nice way to go....
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Obviously, as I'm still here, I wasn't dreaming. Though, sadly, with the chaos that followed, I lost track of my medic friend and didn't manage to set more inter-species firsts. As for the rescue operation, we safely recovered all two hun
dred and seventeen surviving Aoreli, but were unable to take them anywhere for some time. The damage to the compensators was far too thorough to repair any of them, and fabricating from scratch was not feasible with our resources and personnel strained. Thankfully, the Terlian arrived a few days later. Acting Captain Litliea had made for the system with all speed on her own initiative.
With our crew returned and the refugees transferred to the far larger Terlian, we were able to fabricate new compensators over the course of the following week. A week during which we made good contacts with the Aoreli people. Contacts which would make human development, as we know it now, possible. The Aoreli were quick to realize that they were actually dealing with a corporation, not a government, and both sides used it to their advantage. Jack strong-armed the Sol governments into playing nice with our new neighbors by controlling access to the Aoreli Ring Transit System. Technology was traded and so on. You all already know that gibberish though.
As for the people involved, Samantha went on to hold quite a few prestigious positions. Though for a time, she was forced to become far more the commander of a desk than a ship. As such, she and I drifted physically apart, even if we kept in touch. We are still on good terms and have worked together on a number of other projects over the intervening years. Though on balance, it’s rare to see one another more than once in any given year, and often not even so frequently as that.
Lore, well, I imagine many or most of you recognized that name. Lorana Reichen, with that excellent memory of hers, was the first human to ever learn the Aoreli language. Given that fact, and her status as an engineering prodigy, it should be of no surprise to anyone that Lore was tapped by Jack to lead the very first technology exchange between humanity and the Aoreli. She is now recognized as one of humanity’s leading scientists and has been responsible for many of our galaxy's most amazing breakthroughs. Like Sam, I worked with Lore a number of times over the following years, but those are stories for another day, or at least another chapter.
Captain Xian'x was reprimanded for breaking what turned out to be very strict, and existing for good cause, first contact protocols. In light of the successful rescue, however, he managed to retain his captaincy and his first officer was actually promoted in recognition of her own timely actions.