by Andrew Beery
“Engines? Shields?”
Ellison shook his head.
“We have basic impulse thrusters. Our Skip Drive is operational, but the primary power feeds are fused and will have to be replaced. We can trickle charge capacitors and execute short-range jumps but that is it.”
Again, I nodded.
“Have Engineering make the Skip Drives number one priority. How about weapons?”
Ellison shifted slightly. I had a feeling the worst news was yet to come.
“We got lucky with the weapon systems. They are pretty much undamaged. But, sir, there is one other thing I need to report.”
“Out with-it man. What could be worse than what’s already happened?”
“Sir, it’s the Artemis. It’s gone.”
2100.1985.0619 Galactic Normalized Time
Commander Tanny Mumba tasted blood in her mouth. The bridge of the Artemis was completely dark, except for an occasional flash caused by circuits continuing to short out.
“Computer, Lights,” she ordered.
Nothing happened. She wasn’t surprised. A small fire began to burn at the Navigation station. The fact that the fire suppression systems hadn’t already doused the flame was somewhat alarming.
The ensign that had been manning the station was laying across an adjacent consol. He was either unconscious or dead. She couldn’t tell at the moment. The sound of groans, coming from various areas of the bridge, let her know that she was not the only survivor.
The light from the fire let her see better. She had apparently been thrown across the width of the bridge. That would explain what felt like several broken ribs.
She used the flickering light to reach for the manual override that engaged the backup power systems. Thankfully, the emergency power was run on redundant circuits. The bridge lighting resumed at half intensity and a handful of consoles began to power up.
The fire suppression systems kicked in, as well as the air circulator.
She looked around the bridge. It was a wreak. But, at least, they weren’t dead. Not yet anyway.
Chapter 4: Rescue
“Gone? As in destroyed?” I asked.
My heart was in my throat. We had lost so many already . . . I couldn’t understand why a few dozen more should affect me the way it was, but it did. Perhaps it was because the hundred dead on the Diaspora were still just numbers. The crew of the Artemis weren’t just numbers. They were names I knew already. They were the names of friends.
“I don’t think so, Admiral. Sensor logs show she broke free of her moorings when we took the first few hits. She may well be intact . . . but . . .”
His voice trailed off. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. We all knew what went unsaid. The Artemis was in the path of those weapon platforms. If the enemy chose to fire on her, there would be no surviving the blast. If they chose to ignore her and fly past, the radiation they were generating would cook the crew of the Artemis alive. Either way, they were dead, unless we could rescue them. Given the current state of the Diaspora, that was unlikely to happen.
Commander Ellison looked at me.
“We have to go get them, sir. They may still be alive.”
“I’m open to suggestions, Number Two. We’re pretty banged up ourselves. We’re not going to be jumping anytime soon by the sounds of your Engineering report.”
“The Solomon, sir.”
The Solomon, of course! I rocked back on the balls of my feet. It felt like I had been physically struck. It wasn’t often that I was surprised by an idea. The thing was, I particularly gifted when it came to ‘thinking-outside-the-box.’ That meant that I was usually the guy coming up with the ‘out-of-the-box’ solution. I’m not saying that to boast. I’m just acknowledging a reality. Commander Ellison had surprised me . . . in a good way.
I remember being briefed that her Skip Drive was already installed. The ship, itself, was little more than a skeleton but it could jump. Oversight of the ship’s construction had been one of Ellison’s duties so, of course, he would be familiar what she was capable of.
“Mister Ellison, you just earned your pay for the month. What will it take to get jump-ready and mount a rescue operation?”
His answer was immediate and well thought-out.
“We have a small power plant installed. It’s just enough for testing. It won’t really get us to another star system, but it should be more than adequate for Skip jumps within the solar system. Aside from no airtight space, the only serious problem is the lack of navigation hardware. There’s no way to calculate jumps.”
I nodded. These were the same obstacles I had anticipated.
“Can the docking port be used to latch onto the Defiant?” I asked.
Ellison paused to think for a moment.
“The interface hardware is certainly compatible. It’s not fully reinforced yet, but a couple of R2 units and I could get it done in ten minutes. The Defiant could provide all the computational power we need to plot jumps. I think it could work, sir.”
“Make it so, Number Two. And Commander, when this is all done, I want Skip Drives installed on all the launches.”
“Understood, Admiral,” the commander acknowledged, as he raced off the bridge.
Several medical personnel exited the turbolift as Ellison got on it. One of them was my wife. She headed over to Ensign Donaldson. She felt for a pulse on his neck but, shortly thereafter, shook her head. She spoke softly to one of her staff and then made her way over to me.
“Rough ride,” I said.
She nodded.
“It’s a mess down there,” she pointed to the elevator with her chin. Her hands and eyes were busy inspecting a cut on my forehead I hadn’t realized I’d received.
“You should let me do a scan of this in the Sickbay,” she said, as she sealed the cut with surgical glue.
I smiled. She knew the chances of that happening anytime soon floated somewhere between nonexistent and none.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“You could have a concussion . . .”
I shook my head . . . which was a stupid thing to do.
“No. I mean how is it with the crew and passengers?”
Lori’s eyes went moist. “It’s bad.” Her words echoed Commander Ellison’s.
“Tell me what you need,” I prompted.
Now it was her turn to shake her head.
“I have all the medical staff I need. Most of the injuries are broken bones or cuts and bruises.”
She looked down at her hands for a moment.
“Most of the really serious cases are already dead, JD.”
We both looked over at Ensign Donaldson.
“Doctor Chapel and Doctor Pulaski are managing the surgical cases. The rest of us are handling triage,” she continued.
“I need a medical team for a special project,” I said.
My wife raised an eyebrow.
“Tanny and the Artemis are missing. We think the Artemis broke free of her moorings when we were attacked. The ship may still be intact, but they’ve likely sustained serious damage and, if they have drifted too close to those alien weapons, there is a good chance they will be exposed to some serious radiation as well.”
“How are you going to reach them? You’re not planning on jumping the Diaspora back there. It would be suicide.”
“Give an old admiral some credit. We’re going to piggyback the Defiant onto the Solomon and use the Solomon’s Skip Drive to do a micro-jump. With any luck, we’ll be in and out before the bad guys can line up for a shot.”
“We?” Lori asked. “You’re not planning to go along on this rescue mission.”
I knew she would never accept my reasoning, but I tried to explain anyway.
“I’m still the most experienced pilot on this boat and I’m not about to order somebody else to take a risk I won’t take myself.”
“Fine. Then, I’ll grab one of the nurses and meet you on the Defiant in five minutes.”
“That’s not exact
ly what . . .”
“Can it, mister,” she said. “I’m still the most experienced trauma doctor, and an expert on radiation sickness.”
I hated it when my own words came back to haunt me. Over the next several decades, I would be haunted many times.
***
Twenty minutes later, Lori stood next to me on the bridge of the Defiant. The Solomon’s systems, such as they were, were slaved to those of the Defiant’s. Aside from my wife, there were only three other people onboard the Defiant. One was an engineer and the other two were medical support staff. To my knowledge, the ship had never flown with such a minimal crew. My rationale was simple. The fewer people onboard, the fewer lives at risk.
If everything went according to plan, we would exit Skip Space right next to the Artemis . . . transfer her crew and jump back to the Diaspora, all in less than ten minutes. Hardly enough time to need even the most critical systems, like life support, staffed.
There was one other being on the ship. Arquat had cloned a stripped-down version of himself into the ship’s AI core. The clone would be merged back into the whole once the mission was done.
I had left Commander Ellison in command of the Diaspora where he would oversee the repairs. He had a tremendous amount of experience in Engineering. I felt confident leaving him in charge. He had proven he had a good head on his shoulders.
I took a seat at the Navigation console and started my preflight checklist. Things were a little more complicated, because I was actually flying two ships, joined by a docking port and some hastily installed support struts.
I had no idea how much stress the system could handle, so the only thing I could do was to minimize it as much as possible. That meant minimal use of the sub-light engines and maneuvering thrusters. The slightest deviation in thrust vectors between the two ships . . . either accelerating or decelerating . . . could result in ripping the two ships apart.
“Arquat, are you ready with those jump coordinates.”
It was a silly question, I knew. The powerful AI likely had the numbers I needed before I was halfway through forming the first words of the sentence.
“Transferring them to your station now.”
“Thank you. Once we jump, you take control. Scan for the Artemis and do the second micro-jump right on top of her.”
I hit the ship-wide comms.
“All hands. We’re jumping in thirty seconds. Once we exit Skip Space, things will need to proceed quickly. The longer we take to accomplish our mission, the more danger we are in. Bottom line, be quick people. Riker out.”
Lori got up and made her way to the turbolift.
“I’ll see you on the other side, JD,” she said, with a slight smile.
To my everlasting shame, all I did was nod. I was focused on what I was about to do.
If I had known that was the last time I would see my wife in the flesh . . . I might have acted differently. Hell’s bells . . . if I had known that was the last time I would see her in the flesh . . . I would never have let her go!
When the thirty second countdown expired, I hit the jump button.
The view screen flickered but otherwise stayed the same. A tactical holographic display changed more dramatically. The six ships that had fired on the Diaspora were behind us. Before I could locate the Artemis on this display, we jumped again.
This time, the forward view screen changed dramatically. Now it was filled with the slowly rotating, battered and broken hull of the Artemis. I worked the controls to carefully match the spin and direction of the disabled ship. Despite the damage, the ship looked to be in one piece. In my mind, that meant there was at least a chance of survivors.
I opened the comms, as I continued to slowly tweak our course and rotation. I had to be careful not to push things too hard or we would lose both the Solomon and our ride home. Eventually, I got the ships in sync and we extended a flexible docking tube between the two vessels.
“Defiant to the Artemis. Artemis come in.”
I kept trying the hail. Lori reported that there were indeed survivors and they were making their way to the Defiant. She and her team were dealing with the injured. There was no sign of Tanny or the bridge crew. That area of the ship seemed to have taken a significant amount of damage. I refused to give up.
It took a good five minutes of hailing but eventually the forward view screen flickered and the somewhat worse-for-wear face of my first officer appeared.
“Good to hear your voice, Admiral, but I must admit I’m surprised to see you. This is a bad neighborhood. The locals aren’t at all friendly.”
“I’ve pickup up on that. What’s the status of your ship and crew?”
“Internal comms are sketchy but I believe I’ve got two dead and five injured. The bridge is in bad shape. The turbo lifts are inaccessible, and the Jefferies tubes are blocked. Other than that, the ship looks worse than it is. The engines are fine. I just don’t have a working helm . . . oh, and long-range communications are out. We can receive but not transmit.”
She paused to catch her breath. It was obvious she was in some serious pain despite her claims to the contrary.
“Fix the helm, and we could probably fly her back to Paradise, but then, we’d have to deal with our nasty neighbors. I thought the best option was to play dead, in the hopes they would ignore us.
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t counting on all the extra RADs we picked up as they passed us. I don’t know if we got a lethal dose, or not, but most of us are puking over here. If you come for a visit, you may want to wear an encounter suit. I’m sure the smell is pretty bad.”
“No worries, Commander. I’ve got a team heading over there now . . . including my wife. She’ll square you away, no matter how long you spent baking in the microwave.”
“Good to hear, sir . . .” Tanny paused and checked a readout on her console. When she looked up there was a look of alarm on her face.
“SIR, YOU MAY WANT TO CHECK YOUR EXTERNAL SENSOR FEED!”
I switched the view on the forward view screen.
Not good. I hit the general broadcast link.
“People . . . our timeline just got moved up. Our friends noticed we dropped in and are turning to say hi. I would encourage you to hurry!”
2100.1985.0620 Galactic Normalized Time
Doctor Lori Riker heard her husband’s plea for haste. It was pointless in her mind. Her entire team was moving as fast as they could. Most of the Artemis’ crew, the uninjured, had already transferred to the Defiant on their own.
Lori and her people were focusing on the wounded who were unable to move themselves.
Their engineer, Chief Roker, was proving himself invaluable. As fast as they encountered an obstacle, he would devise a way around it . . . be it bypassing a control circuit or finding a manual override. Only once did a hatch prove intractable, forcing them to circle back and try a different route.
The bridge was their final stop. Of the survivors, Commander Mumba, with several broken ribs, was the most seriously injured. One crewman, Ensign Potter, was dead. His crushed body was pinned. If they had an unlimited amount of time, she would have insisted they recover it but, as it was, she had to focus her attention on the living. She suspected the Ensign would understand from wherever his soul was watching.
The Chief helped Tanny to the turbolift while she took one last circuit around the disheveled bridge. She’d hate to think they left somebody behind because they didn’t take a quick moment to double check.
Chapter 5: Desperate Gambit
“How long before they can turn around and get a firing solution on us?” I asked Arquat.
“If what I suspect is true, then we have less time than you might imagine. I suspect they can fire their weapons from both their forward and rear-facing orifices . . . meaning they will have a firing solution in just under two minutes.”
I hit my comms.
“Lori, how long for you to get your team back onboard the Defiant?”
“Three minutes tops,”
she answered.
“Listen to me, honey. Drop everything. You’ve got less than sixty seconds to get back on this ship. Tell me you understand.”
There was silence.
“Lori?”
“JD, I’m too far away. I’m racing as fast as I can but I’m at least two minutes away.”
I looked at Arquat. He shook his head.
“OK, listen, honey. Button up your encounter suit. I’m going to draw them away from the Artemis. Get to the airlock. Once I’ve drawn them off, I’ll circle back for you.”
“JD, you can’t! You need to get the people you already have to safety. Don’t risk their lives for mine. Promise me, JD. Promise me!”
I cut the communication link. I wasn’t giving up on my wife . . . not yet.
“Arquat, am I correct? Those weapons changed course only after we started using thrusters. Not when we exited Skip Space, correct?”
“That is correct, Admiral. It’s possible they are unable to detect Skip Space events.”
I checked the status board. Most of the people that had been on board the Artemis had made to the Defiant. The only exceptions were Chief Roker and my wife. Apparently, the engineer had dropped off his charge and then, returned to get Lori.
I hated what I had to do next but there was no choice.
“Disconnect and retract the boarding tube,” I ordered.
“Boarding tube retracted,” Arquat confirmed.
I eased the Defiant back and slowly spun her about. Once the Defiant and Solomon were pointed in the right direction, I slowly accelerated. I was putting more stress on the coupling between the two ships than I would have liked, but I needed to put some distance between us and the Artemis. With any luck, they would be drawn like moths to a flame, and follow me.
The turbolift door opened behind me. Tanny and Chief Kelson, the Artemis’ engineer, stepped onto the Defiant’s bridge. Kelson was helping the Commander walk.
Tanny looked even worse in person than she did over the comm-link. Normally, I’d have insisted she report to the Sickbay, but these weren’t normal times, and I needed her help.
“Permission to come aboard, Admiral.”