“What the …?” Samisen’s eyes went wide. He was staring over Lissa’s shoulder.
Filbert felt his heart seize in horror as the sky outside the atmodome suddenly exploded into flames. Debris rained down on the unprotected atmodome. “Take cover!” he hollered. Grabbing his son by the shoulder he thrust Shane around the corner of the nearby building, covering the boy’s body with his own.
Lissa turned to look. It was Ash’s quick motion that saved her life. Before she had even begun to register the wave of fire rushing at the station from outer space, he had already grabbed her arm and thrown her off the wall. She landed in a soft patch of flowers that grew along the edge of the building Filbert now crouched behind. Ash was beside her in an instant, lifting her to her feet and shoving her against Filbert, placing his own body between her and the danger.
She had a split second to think and cry out, “Shiro!” before the wave hit.
The entire station shuddered. A blast of wind tore past them, forcing Lissa to shut her eyes as her hair flew across her face. Then it was gone and a high-pitched whistling sound pierced the air. Lissa looked up from Ash’s shoulder.
“What just happened?” she shouted in his ear.
He shook his head, pulling away from her to peer around the corner at the atmodome across the surface of the water. Lissa peered around him at the wall on which they had sat.
“Shiro!” she screamed. He lay unmoving at the base of that wall. Yanking out of Ash’s grasp, she ran to the other boy. Falling to her knees beside his still form, she seized his shoulder and shook it. “Shiro!” she begged.
He moaned and turned his head slightly, his eyes cracking a sliver before he shut them again, a look of agony shuddering across his face.
She looked him over. There was no blood, she was relieved to see, although a large bump was already forming on his head from the fall. But … “Shiro, your arm!”
His right arm, pinned underneath him, was bent at an unnatural angle away from his shoulder. She winced, feeling slightly panicked. She had no idea how to set a broken bone.
Ash came around her to the other side and did a quick assessment. “He just dislocated the shoulder, I think,” he said at last.
“D-do you know how to fix it?” Lissa stuttered. I need to get ahold of myself!
“I guess I do. On the count of five, Shiro,” he told the other boy, adjusting his torso and taking Shiro’s hand in his for the pull. “One, two …” He yanked as hard as he could.
Lissa squealed even as she heard the pop that told her the boy’s shoulder was back in place.
“Oldest trick in the book,” Shiro said somewhat faintly. But he gave Ash’s hand a small squeeze before the other boy let him go.
“Sorry.” Ash winced sympathetically and then straightened and looked around.
Semo seemed to have weathered the attack without any harm to her. She stood still, bracing herself on her four tall legs, Samison sheltered between them like a strange gray copse of trees.
The loud whistling noise was still pounding their ears, and now finally Lissa and the others turned to see that the atmodome had been pierced by whatever had gone on outside. The small hole in the massive sky shield sucked air and small bits out into space.
“Um … guys?” Lissa shouted over the noise, feeling very anxious about the loss of their air pressure.
“Don’t worry!” Filbert hollered to them as he and Shane emerged from behind the building. “The emergency shielding should come up any second now.”
As he spoke, it did just that. A low humming noise rumbled from beneath their feet, and Lissa and the others watched as what looked like enormous garage doors rolled up every side of the atmodome, sealing them within its protective armor. The whistling stopped. A klaxon wailed somewhere, then cut off. An alien voice rolled over the air in a boom that made Lissa wince. She could not understand what the voice said, but all around them, aliens dressed in business suits with top hats, dresses with ruffles and frills, and scientists in large smocks began to pour out into the streets, looking fearful but not panicked.
“What do we do?” Lissa heard Samison call to Semo.
Her thought-voice included them all as she replied, “I am going to see where they all go. Come, our experience in triage may be needed.” Semo led the way down the street from the docks into the crowd of civilians who gathered there. Lissa and the others fell in behind her.
Several blocks away they came to a wide-open space—a sort of city park, Lissa supposed, seeing the many-shaped benches and freshly mowed grass. She had noticed that grass grew on every planet they visited in the galaxy.
The crowd was frightened but manageable, sorting themselves into what seemed to be prearranged categories. Lissa watched with approval at this well-drilled state of the civilians. They each seemed to know what to do, if they did not know what happened, and even as they questioned one another and tried to decide what had exploded and whether they were under attack, still they placed themselves into position. Some few pushed their way to the front with datapads to call a sort of roll of who ought to be there; others helped wounded friends or family members toward a large pair of tarps laid out on the grass. The blue tarp held those with minor cuts and scrapes, the result of flying debris and falling shards of whatever material made up the cracked atmodome. The red tarp held those seriously wounded, of which Lissa was relieved to see there were only two so far. A third black tarp lay empty nearby. Lissa supposed with a gulp that it must be laid out for dead bodies. She was thankful that there were none to prove her assumption correct.
As they followed Semo, who parted the crowd with ease, Lissa’s translator bot picked out bits of the conversations about them, flashes of confused or distressed comments from those they passed, until they neared the front and the little butler-bot began to translate the announcement of the official standing on a raised bench.
“We do not yet know what caused this,” the portly little alien male said. “The most likely answer right now is that something went wrong with the installation of our new solar projectile systems.”
The crowd murmured. One man cried, “I saw the projectile test just before the explosion! It looked like the new system accidentally fired all our kernels instead of just one!”
The crowd around him gasped.
“Does that mean we have no more kernels?” one female asked. She wrung her hands before her delicate muslin skirt.
“I do not know,” the official said, hands wide. “A crew has been dispatched to assess the site and repair the damage to the atmodome. That must be our top priority. We leaked air. That leak must be repaired at once and the pressure stabilized so we can open the emergency shielding. Once we know the dome is safe, we can send to Jeropul for more kernels if needed.”
The crowd continued to murmur, but Lissa no longer paid attention. An alien female wearing blue latex gloves was tapping Ash on the shoulder.
“Can you three help on the blue tarp?” the woman asked him, pointing. “There are quite a few scrapes and bumps. Nothing lethal, but we could use volunteers.”
“I do not know your medicines—” Ash began.
“A helpful pair of hands, soothing voices, and cheery smiles are all that’s needed,” the woman reassured him. Her plump three-fingered hands pushed him toward that corner of the crowd. “Take your friends and ask Holiit for direction.”
The three humans made their way to the blue tarp and Holiit, who put Lissa to the task of holding a screaming blue alien toddler with a long trunk and two short tusks, one of which had broken off at the tip. The toddler’s mother was distraught over the shallow cut across her boy’s cheek, and it took all of Lissa’s newfound skill in alien diplomacy to get the female to shut up and let go of the boy so the medic could inspect him.
They worked their way through the victims, Lissa holding one of an alien male’s four hands as a cut on his third arm was sewn up, Shiro fetching gauze and some sort of topical antibiotic cream the doctors kept slathering over
everything, Ash helped one of the paramedics hold down a massive spidery-looking woman while two others picked shards of metal from her back. A medic told Lissa later that the woman’s species was allergic to all known forms of anesthetic. She winced sympathetically.
At last, a few hours after the disaster, as Lissa and her friends sat beside Samison on the grass, eating bowls of a chowder-like soup passed to them by another volunteer, the emergency shielding above their heads hissed and began to retract, revealing a repaired atmodome and the deep-space sky beyond it. A ragged cheer went up from the crowd still gathered in the park, a much smaller group than those who had gathered hours ago. Many of the citizens and scientists had already returned to their homes.
Lissa looked around for Semo and spotted the Kweep leaning over the official who had addressed the crowd earlier. Getting to her feet, she waved Ash away when he would have come, saying, “I’ll stay within sight. I just want to know what the plan is for the solar projectile system.”
Ash nodded and stayed where he was eating from his own bowl.
She stepped up beside Semo, who allowed her thought-voice to expand and include Lissa in the conversation. “So you have no other suppliers than the Jeropul Bazaar?” she was asking the official.
“They are the closest,” he admitted. “The nearest occupied star system from us is nearly three thousand lightyears away.”
“It would take you nearly three days to receive such a shipment,” Semo pressed.
“Yes, three days of shipping, if they were in stock,” the official whispered. “Unfortunately, our supplier says he has kernels on backorder. Given our pressing situation, he shot off a message to Sagittarius stating he needs resupply now, but it will still take him five days to receive them, and then another two and a half to get them here.”
“So even if you do manage to repair the damage…” Semo trailed off.
“We will have no kernels until at least seven days from now,” he finished. “By then, this whole station will be the same temperature as deep space.”
“You have no backup system?” Semo demanded.
“They destroyed it! Whoever did this meant it to be permanent. They ejected the kernels, blew them up, and also took out our secondary systems. The only reason we have air right now is that our hydroponics system is so old-fashioned they couldn’t sabotage it—we literally grow plants that convert our air, rather than using any artificial system. But without the solar kernel to warm and feed those plants …” He gestured around the park.
Lissa listened, her heart in her mouth. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? The system that projected their artificial “sun” into orbit around the station, casting light and warmth over the inhabitants, had been destroyed. In fact, it sounded like they had been intentionally sabotaged! Without new kernels to replace the old, and a way to repair the damage, the station would be uninhabitable in a matter of days. She glanced up at the sky. Above the atmodome, the solar kernel that Filbert had roped into the sky that morning was setting, its glow muted to a dull orange as the combustibles that made up its core burned to an ember. The last kernel they had, and it was almost out.
The official was begging Semo. “Please, Lt. Commander. There must be some way Space Patrol can help us. With the right supplies, we could repair the damage in a couple of days, but even that amount of time will bring the temperature of the station to nearly intolerable levels.”
“We have to evacuate your people,” Lissa told them both, stepping around Semo to look at the station official.
“Excuse me,” the alien male began, frowning. “Who are you?”
“She is the ambassador for the planet Earth,” Semo chided him gently. “Representative of nearly nine billion sentient beings.”
“Ah.” the male subsided.
“Ambassador Lissa is right.” Semo nodded her long head solemnly. “Even if we can get the parts you need, it would be better to evacuate while you conduct your repairs. The longer you try to keep civilian citizens onboard while temperatures drop, the more trouble you will have; trouble and possible medical complications.”
“Can your people assist with an evacuation? Send ships? All we have is escape pods—efficient enough but not comfortable for a week-long stay in deep space! The best we could do would be to jettison everyone and then group together while we waited for rescue.”
Semo shook her head at the folly of an architect who designed a deep-space station with no other means of escape from disaster. “I will contact my ship. If 3rd Patrol is finished with the Jeropul situation, they will come. We could fit all your citizens aboard her, although they would sleep in the meadow under the stars.”
“Better a meadow than an escape pod,” he said with feeling.
Semo stepped away from them to project her thought-voice toward 3rd Patrolship. Lissa wandered back to Ash and Shiro, who were now assisting the volunteers who had fed them to clean up the long tables that had served as a makeshift buffet in the park. At last, Semo called her from across the grass.
“Ambassador? Captain Naarl sends his regards. They are still investigating the situation at Jeropul and cannot leave to come to our aid, although he does wish to assure you that your friend, Captain Will of the 108th, has been cleared of all charges.”
“That is good news, thank you!” Lissa cried, relieved.
Ash squeezed her shoulder, also pleased. “There will be no living with Shika now, with her head stuffed full of love thoughts!” he said, ever the younger brother.
She punched him in the arm. “You don’t fool me! You like Will.”
Ash shrugged. “He’s alright.”
Shiro leaned in, his black eyes glittering. “Perhaps you can use Lollipop to reach Stephanie for the details. It would be good to know how this alien court resolved itself.”
Lissa had forgotten all about Lollipop and Octi, who had both returned to the ship. Gasping, she suddenly jumped up. “The ship!” She ran back to the dock, Ash and Shiro on her heels.
They rounded the corner to the wharves and saw the Forty-Five on the water at her mooring. The large ship seemed unhurt by the explosion or the resulting waves that had rocked it about, and when they reached the edge and darted up the plank, Lissa saw Octi wave a tentacle in reassurance from the deck.
His translator patched into the ship’s loudspeaker and he said, “We’re alright, Captain! The waves tossed us about a bit, but a few puffs of the stabilizer kept us from smashing into the dock. I would have called if there was trouble.”
“As long as you’re alive!” Lissa cursed herself for not remembering to check on them sooner. She was no good at this captain stuff. It had been hours!
Lollipop hopped across the deck and hurled herself into Lissa’s waiting arms. The girl hugged the frightened Friss sprout until she stopped shaking, sending soothing thoughts and running a gentle hand over the bright pink bristle of her fur.
Deciding it was a poor time to ask anything of the little Friss, Lissa turned to the boys and suggested they all get some sleep. “It’s early I know, but I have a feeling there’ll be a lot going on tomorrow.”
“There was a lot that went on today,” Ash said with a yawn. He and Shiro went below to find their bunks.
The solar kernel, hovering above the far horizon as its light cast an orange glow across the buildings and a flash of gold on the water, finally winked and went out. The stars above the atmodome—the gasses and sparkling glow of the Rosette Nebula, twinkled softly in space above them as Lissa walked toward her quarters in the sterncastle, Lollipop in tow. Removing her overdress and shoes, she had barely thrown the light coverlet over her and her Friss companion before she was asleep.
Star Stuff
Vega outshone the brightest torch Shika had ever held on a dark night upon the African savannah. It sat in space outside the atmodome of 3rd Patrolship, its light glaring down on her black skin as she stood behind Krywith among those gathered to watch the trial against the Dragg’k. She sweated, listened, and sighed
as the alien words washed over her hour upon hour.
She was glad Captain Will had been acquitted and knew that it was important to her new friends for these Dragg’k to be brought to justice for all their crimes on the surface of Jeropul below, and above, but still the long days of judgment and waiting, and more waiting, taxed her. She itched with the desire to hunt, or gather food, or mend clothes—any of the various chores a Mursi woman could properly do, tasks to make her feel useful.
At last, the trial broke up for the day, Dragg’k prisoners returning under guard to their cells below the meadow in the depths of the ship and the three judges turning to speak amongst themselves.
Shika was considering a stop for a meal on her way to her cabin when one of the three, Mr. Piff of the 32nd Patrol, caught her eye and tilted his head, a summoning look on his meerkat-like face. He nodded to his companions and left them, trotting over to speak to her.
“Your face has been sad each time I saw you today, Shika of the Mursi,” the alien male commented after greeting her with a short bow. “And it was so yesterday as well. What troubles you?”
Shika averted her eyes. She had been troubled these last few days, but not by the trial or the tedium of idleness.
“There are new ideas—strange ideas, in my head these days,” she admitted to him. Her bare foot brushed over a tuft in the grass as she tried to put her trouble into words.
“Lollipop placed the language of English into my head, but also many concepts—those of science and mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry …” She shook her head in confusion. “I never attended a university like my brother. I am female and stayed where I belonged among the people of our tribe. These new ideas—some of them are so strange. They go so very against everything I believed …” She trailed off, feeling helpless and lost.
“There is one in particular that troubles you?” Mr. Piff guessed. His voice hissed and squeaked below the translator bot’s clear mechanical words.
Shika ducked her head, feeling her cheeks warm. The one subject she had not heard spoken much of in space was religion. Her companions from Earth subscribed to the beliefs of their time—entirely materialistic ideas of how the world was formed, a philosophy very common to the first world on Earth. Shika had been raised to believe in the Old Ways in Ethiopia; she found it hard to explain these to an alien male who had probably never heard of her gods and would perhaps scorn her belief in the ancestral spirits.
Space Patrol! Page 20