The Long Way Home

by Darrell Bain

  Jeremy simply stayed where he was. He had no immediate duties.

  Whistler now turned his gaze from Brackett to Shinzyki and back to Brackett, staring at them as if they had both gone mad. Jeremy knew that Whistler had no idea of what was going on, but he also knew he would have to know soon. They had dropped out of hyper in an almost ideal position in relationship to the Jovian planet and its life-bearing satellite and been accelerating inward from the hyper point in this star system's gravity well ever since. Shinzyki had taken almost no time to change vectors and adjust thrust to the pre-approved plan. It was a great feat of piloting, for none of them had ever expected to come out so near a favorable position.

  "Commander, I make it five minutes to deceleration on my mark. Counting ... mark!"

  Brackett opened the circuit to the cargo bay where Wong and Siegfrer were waiting with the disc and its attached bomb.

  "Lieutenant Wong, initiate Rose Toss when indicated."

  "Rose Toss, ready!"

  "Commander! What in hell is going on!?” Whistler asked shrilly. He left his station and went to hang over Shinzyki. He studied the vectors and icons on his screen for a second then screamed. “Commander! This is all wrong! Why are we decelerating? We'll let those aliens catch up to us!"

  "Lieutenant Whistler, return to your station and stand down!"

  Whistler looked rebellious for a moment, but went back to the astrogation station. Jeremy had no immediate task other than to watch for the appearance of the Monkeyclaws, but Brackett would be able to see them on his own screen and Shinzyki would have them on his when they appeared. He decided to keep his eye on Whistler between quick glances at his screen. The astrogator looked afraid, and the tic was working now on both sides of his mouth. His lips were compressed into a thin line.

  The Monkeyclaw ship was detected in its usual position, but it was a bit closer than normal. Jeremy thought it must be because they were being cautious, having been mouse-trapped near a Jovian planet with satellites like this one once before, when Hurricane Jack made its escape. He hoped the ‘Claws didn't get too close, or everything they'd planned would turn to shit. As he watched, the ship's icon disappeared behind the bulge of the gas giant obscuring a third of his screen.

  "Rotating boat! Stand by for deceleration!” Shinzyki announced.

  Jeremy felt the sudden heavy surge of momentum before the compensators overtook the new thrust parameters. It continued for an interminable time while everyone in the control room stood frozen, waiting for the next step. Shinzyki had promised one hell of a jolt, and it was happening. He had never experienced such a powerful reverse thrust. It made him feel lightheaded at first, but the sensation soon passed.

  Jeremy continued to watch Whistler between glances at his screen. The astrogator kept turning his gaze to Shinzyki as if he was the culprit behind all these sudden and completely new maneuvers. Then he saw a glimmer of understanding begin to appear on the man's face. It spread. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in a silent scream of horror.

  It wasn't long before he broke his silence. “No! We can't fight them! This is suicide!” He lunged across the control room toward Shinzyki, but Jeremy had been waiting. He ran two steps forward and threw himself in front of Whistler's reaching arms in a powerful block just before the man could have grabbed the controls.

  "No! Stop it, sir!” he shouted. “This is all planned!"

  His exhortation did no good. Whistler struggled with strength amplified by madness to reach Shinzyki, while Jeremy tried just as violently to keep him away. And all the while Shinzyki hardly appeared to care. From the corner of his eye, while trying to get a good hold on Whistler without moving into other spaces, Jeremy saw the COB counting to himself, moving his lips but making no sound.

  Shortly, Shinzyki looked toward Brackett and said “Rotating ship. Forward thrust in twenty seconds on my mark. Counting..."

  Jeremy finally gained a good hold on the crazed astrogator and held him to the floor, employing a painful grip. Across the room he saw Brackett speaking, but he couldn't hear what he was saying over the sound of Whistler's screams. He seemed not to care if Jeremy broke Whistler's arm, as he was on the verge of doing.

  "...Mark!” Shinzyki yelled, the rough rumble of his voice clearly audible.

  For almost a minute nothing happened.

  "Rose Toss, initiate in ten seconds. Counting, ten, nine.... one, mark!"

  "Bomb is away!” Terrell announced through the com.

  "Begin second deceleration!” Brackett called.

  Jeremy knew that was to keep the boat well back from the imminent explosion.

  "Rotating ship. Decceleration on my mark. Counting ... Mark!” Shinzyki called, his words running together but spoken clearly. Almost immediately, the surge of induced gravity changed again, more violently than ever.

  Jeremy began beating Whistler's head against the steel deck in order to get him to shut up so orders could be heard. Blood began dripping from the astrogator's face as Jeremy smashed his head into the deck again and again. Whistler's voice changed to a bubbling rasp and was finally silenced.

  "Rotating ship. Steady in space. Ready,” Shinzyki announced.

  "Weapons!” Brackett said.

  "Weapons ready!” Lieutenant Rayne Medford called back, the happiness in her voice matching the grin on her face. She was ordinarily so quiet and studious that Jeremy had trouble remembering when she was around.

  "All hands, prepare for battle against Monkeyclaw starship!” Brackett announced over the all-hands circuit.

  Jeremy knew he might be needed but Whistler still struggled.

  "Sparks, get over here and help me!” he yelled.

  Sparks left his post and ran over help him secure Whistler. Within a few moments, Whistler lay on the deck with his hands and feet tied behind him. He drooled and spat sprays of blood from his broken nose and cut lips and cheeks.

  Jeremy wiped his hands on his cammies and ran to the astrogator's station. He took a bare moment to see what the screen showed and began calling out the data.

  "Approaching Jovian planet, slight vector toward satellite.” He was saying nothing that Brackett and Shinzyki didn't already know, but the gravity detectors were an additional check on the parameters their screens showed. He had an image of the alien disk controlled by Lieutenant Wong or Siegfrer approaching the Monkyclaw ship, moving silently in space on the momentum given it by Hurricane Jack and on a slightly changed course by the controller for the disc. It would come into play soon, if it worked at all. The boat would possibly be close enough to the alien ship for them actually to see the action. Jeremy waited anxiously. The encounter was getting closer.

  Jeremy sat tractored in his seat, watching his screen. His heart thumped excitedly in his chest. He could feel his pulse pounding on each side of his neck as blood coursed through his carotid arteries. The key maneuvers could only be calculated, not seen, for the boat had to be rotated at the precise time: seconds before they met the alien starship coming around the curve of the huge planet. Hopefully, the Monkeyclaws still thought they were heading toward its most prominent satellite. The disc bomb should go off at the same time, if everything was in order.

  Shinzyki still sat calmly in his seat with his hands splayed over the control board, ready to maneuver once more if that proved necessary, although it was highly unlikely that there would be time for that. The alien ship and the boat would be too close to each other. Lieutenant Medford was at the weapons station, her grin gone and her body stiff with tension.

  Jeremy wanted to scream at the Commander, because Brackett chose not to sit at this crucial moment and be secured in his seat by its tractor field. He stood beside his chair at the center of the control room, where he could oversee all that took place. Sparks was gone. He had dragged Whistler out of the control room and was busily tying him in place somewhere. He thought suddenly of Lisa and wished she could be present at this moment—the culmination of so many long months of waiting.

  "Rotat
ing boat two degrees ecliptic on mark. Counting ... Mark! Rotating."

  Jeremy watched his screen, feeling excitement and tension build inside him. He felt a sudden need to urinate and suppressed it with difficulty. An icon bloomed suddenly on his screen right at the edge of the Jovian planet. It was the Monkeyclaw starship, abnormally bright with its nearness to them, and he knew the disc bomb must have failed.

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  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "Weapons free! Fire all!” Brackett called loudly but Lieutenant Medford hadn't waited. She already had her first two missiles on the way, and the other two followed seconds later. Behind them, the two pulse cannons trained on the alien ship shot bursts of raw concentrated energy across space. The pulses blasted furiously against the Monkeyclaw just before its shields went up. The first missiles exploded amidst the pulsing violet beams very near the same spot, and the other two added their violence seconds later.

  It was pistol range, like gamblers drawing and firing their derringers across a poker table. Jeremy knew immediately that the Monkeyclaws had been utterly surprised, because Medford's first missiles were away with the two others following close behind before the enemy ship became aware of its danger. The icon of the Monkeyclaw ship flared and blossomed with the massive bursts of energy, but the onslaught wasn't quite enough. The aliens managed to fire a brace of missiles through the roiling clouds of sun-hot plasma enveloping their ship.

  Jeremy tensed his body and waited for more to follow—not that it would make much difference. Those two missiles were more than sufficient to destroy Hurricane Jack and everyone in it. He knew with sorrowful certainty that he was about to die. And then the disc bomb finally exploded, adding its horrendous, concentrated energy to that of the missiles and pulse cannons. The Monkeyclaw ship boiled with violent fires and exploded into pieces. The roiling clouds of energy reached out and engulfed the missiles it had fired just before blowing up. For a moment he thought they had been saved, but the enemy projectiles emerged from the hellish clouds of destruction and steered unerringly for the longboat. A moment later, a fierce rumble of force clawed at the longboat and the screen blanked.

  Jeremy had been watching Shinzyki. He heard him swear bloody murder and saw him shove the thrust bar to full stop. Then, his body twisted back and forth in his seat from the impact of the first enemy missile. It sounded as if it had exploded near the stern of the boat. He felt his heart tear at the thought that Lisa might be engulfed in it.

  Across the control room, Commander Brackett cried out as he was flung free of his grip on his chair. He careened across the control room and slammed against Jeremy's seat, just as another dreadful explosion went off. It didn't shake the boat quite as badly as the first, making Jeremy think the COB had gotten them partly clear of it with his violent maneuver from almost a dead stop, yet he didn't understand why the first one hadn't already killed them. He remembered the Sam Johnston and that ghastly flare visible even over the rim of the gas giant when it was destroyed by the Monkeyclaws.

  "Damage Control teams! Report!” Shinzyki called. There was no answer.

  "Costa! Head aft to Alternate One and see what's happening there. I'm showing all red from the cargo hold forward to the starboard organics tank."

  "Yes, sir, COB,” Jeremy answered. He wanted to see how badly Commander Brackett was hurt. His face showed a grayish pallor where he lay unmoving on the deck beside his chair. Instead, Jeremy hurried out of the control room and headed toward the stern of the boat. As he left he heard Lieutenant Medford talking to a damage control party just reporting in about a fire. A moment later, he saw the smoke from the blaze and then the fire itself. It was coming from amidships and starboard. One of the storerooms had been punctured by debris and its contents were burning. Juanita was leading several explorers in putting it out and seemed to be getting ahead of it.

  "Have you been farther aft yet, ‘Nita?” he stopped to ask.

  "No, but someone else got a look before this fire started. It's a wreck, but at least it's not burning."

  "Okay, that's where I'm headed. Can you send someone there when you have this out?"

  "I will. It'll be a little while, though."

  He continued on and soon saw wreckage. The deck became warped and hatchways on the starboard side had been blown open. He swallowed his gorge as he came to the first body. He barely recognized Mr. Cantrell's remains. His body lay partly atop another he couldn't identify. Several explorers were working over others. Their hands were bloody and their cammies smeared with gore. Other bodies lay crumpled against the bulkhead where they had been flung by the force of the one solid hit by a Monkeyclaw missile.

  "Chief Costa! Can you give us a hand here?” Spacer Wynonna Jones called.

  "I've got orders to find the XO and her group. I'll send someone.” He continued on, having to climb over burst boxes of supplies and mangled hatches. As he did, he noticed a trickle of water flowing on the deck. He tapped his forearm.

  "Control Room. COB."

  "Mister Shinzyki, we need some help aft of the acceleration seats. We have numerous casualties and some wounded there. I'm still on my way to the alternate."

  "Will do. Continue."

  He stumbled on until he was halted by even higher piles of jumbled goods and supplies in crumpled boxes and cartons and spilled wares from others. They were getting wet from more water flowing along the deck. Someone called to him. He looked back and saw Juanita. She was climbing over the same piled-up cargo he had surmounted, but she was talking over her com as she came.

  "We've got free water flowing, Lieutenant Medford. Probably from the bow starboard tank. We need a welder or some heavy duty patches and a crew to apply them.” She listened for a moment, tapped out, and caught up with him.

  "What happened, Jere?” she asked. “Why aren't we dead?"

  "You didn't believe we could whip the Monkeyclaws?"

  "Don't make fun, Jeremy. Too many of us are dead for that."

  "I know. Sorry.” He climbed over a fallen stack of burst boxes in what once had been a storeroom and reached down to give Juanita a hand up. Forward of it was one the small cargo bays that had served as the alternate control room. Inside was chaos. A dead explorer who had been serving as an emergency runner lay just beyond the burst hatchway and bulkhead. Further in the lower part of another body was visible. The trunk and head were crushed under a spare generator still in its storage box, where a support bar had collapsed under pressure and allowed it to fall.

  Jeremy's pulse pounded behind his forehead as he faced more wreckage and was forced to his hands and knees to crawl under a portion of the upper deck in order to go farther in. He began to feel sick at what he was likely to find.

  A bloody head with the skull caved in met his eyes. He knew it must be Joyce Chambers from the collar insignia, but otherwise he wouldn't have recognized her. Wreckage covered most of her body, but a hand stuck out from it that was too large to belong to her. He pushed some of it aside and uncovered the body of Lieutenant Terrell Wong. He wondered what he had been doing there. Maybe he had been trying to work his way forward and had come this far when the missile hit. He remembered that Siegfrer had been with him, but there was no sign of her, nor could he see Lisa anywhere. He stopped to get his bearings and heard a muffled groan from farther in. He tried to move toward it, but found he was stymied even after trying to crawl through a narrow opening only to find it blocked.

  "'Nita, I'm going to have to back up. We need to clear some of this wreckage away to get farther inside. I heard someone groan back there."

  He heard Juanita calling for assistance on his way out of the dead end. They were both still struggling to move heavy machinery and goods when help arrived, led by Mister Lake. His strong Caucasian features inherited from Nordic ancestors were set in grim lines. Explorers Charley Vane and Marvin Bullock were with him, bearing cutters and pry bars. They got to work, with Jeremy lending assistance.

  Siegfrer was uncovered first. How she
had arrived there was a puzzle, but she was still breathing and conscious, although both her legs were broken and she was trapped by the heavy beam that had fallen on them.

  "The XO is back there,” she said through pain-wracked lips. “I think she's alive, but I don't know for sure."

  Jeremy's heart leaped. He began prying and pulling at support bars with renewed vigor. Lisa's shoulder came into view first, and then her head and part of her chest.

  "She's alive, she's alive!” he called exuberantly. He didn't even stop to think that just because he saw red froth bubbling from her mouth with each labored breath only meant that she was alive. It didn't mean she was going to live.

  "Over here, Bullock,” Lake said. “I think if you get the pry bar in under this bracing and let Vane cut through the shelving there, we can drag her out. Costa, hang where you are. You pull on her shoulders when I tell you to."

  Gradually they worked her free and got her onto a litter. Her head lolled alarmingly, but he could find no major wounds on her body other than an obviously broken arm and a bloody bump on her head. Both the ulna and radius poked through the skin of her forearm, but there wasn't too much blood. Apparently the fragmented bones had missed shearing an artery.

  "You two get her on back to sickbay,” Lake said. “It's set up across from the big stern storeroom. Costa, you stay here and help me cut this beam off Sorenson."

  Jeremy thought his heart might tear out of his chest and go with Lisa when her litter was carried away. It took a conscious effort not to let it show. How did falling in love with her happen so quickly? he wondered. Or had it been building up and that night just brought it into the open?