Dremiks

by Cassandra Davis

  “There are communications buoys within range, and we now know exactly where we are located. As soon as the engines cool we will begin repairs.”

  “But we could die out here?

  Hill stifled a sigh. “All crew and civilian vital signs are within normal range.” He made a point to glare, briefly, at his brother, daring him to contradict the obvious lie. Marissa’s vital signs were anything but “normal”, now. “The probability of anyone aboard dying is miniscule. Furthermore, we have determined that there is a jump node nearby. It wasn’t on any of our charts previously, but there is a working Dremikian relay buoy at the site.”

  Trell scratched his neck. He was convinced the captain was down-playing the danger. They were, after all, drifting through an uncharted region of space, far from their designated route. A veritable legion of stellar cartographers, human and Dremikian, had meticulously plotted the Hudson’s course. Without their combined experience and intelligence the ship was surely doomed to wander, lost, for years. Military officers, in Chancellor Trell’s experience, liked to act as if they were in control. The more assured an officer acted the less control he actually had.

  To throw the captain off his guard, Trell switched topics. “I assume a full briefing regarding the pilots’ errors will be forthcoming?” The captain would have to acknowledge that he had less than perfect command of the two wildcats piloting the ship.

  Predictable, the captain thought. He’s decided to place blame before we have any idea what went wrong. It was odd that the Chancellor chose to blame O’Connell, given his symbiotic political relationship with Admiral O’Connell. “There are no indications of pilot error. Commander O’Connell and Lieutenant Price are to be commended for their excellent work during the initial malfunction. My entire crew has worked endless shifts to make sure we are back on course as soon as possible.” The captain paused for breath. He glanced at his watch. “In a little less than three hours, Lieutenant Guttmann will begin the engine inspection. I will have more information for you at that time, Chancellor. If you will please excuse me?”

  The two civilians watched him depart then traded glances.

  “He’s hiding something,” Trell whined.

  “Oh, undoubtedly. Many somethings, I’m sure. I’ll try to find out what he’s so anxious for us not to realize.”

  “And get me a report on the engines, before he comes back”

  Ryan had his backed turned, hiding his expression of scorn. “And a report on the engines, from the moment the team leaves the tubes. Which means you’ll have to excuse me, as I will need to set things up.” He left the chancellor staring at the empty room, wondering who Ryan’s sources were.

  ***

  Dr. Ruger does a far better job of controlling her hair than Maggie does.

  That random thought drifted through Swede’s mind as he stared down at the doctor’s bent head. She was drawing blood to confirm his bio readings. Despite the late hour, it was after midnight, she insisted upon being present for the decontamination procedures following the port engine inspection. Her small hands moved deftly over his arm, releasing the tight elastic band that helped her find an available vein. Swede watched her work, but didn’t really see.

  There’s no doubt, not now.

  He replayed in his head the look of the internal conduit in the starboard engine and compared it to the port engine conduit he had finished inspecting less than twenty minutes before. His first class engineer’s mate had surely noticed as well. Guttmann met the man’s eyes across the small decontamination chamber. They looked back, grim as his own.

  Sabotage. Careful, pre-planned sabotage. Done so skillfully that I might never have noticed, if the chambers had vented correctly.

  “Lieutenant?”

  He jerked his gaze back down and met the concerned gaze of the ship’s doctor. “I’m sorry ma’am. I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

  “We’re all tired. Sadly, I cannot hope that you’ll head to bed when I release you. The captain and Maggie are pacing the decks waiting for your report.”

  He should have been concerned to hear that O’Connell was still awake, given her long shifts at the helm throughout the day. It was as true as possible an indication of his dismay that he couldn’t summon the energy to comment.

  “I promise to collapse into my bunk the moment I’m finished briefing them, if you’ll promise me you’ll do the same.”

  The doctor’s pretty grey eyes twinkled. “Collapse in your bunk? Why, Lieutenant, I had no idea you felt this way.” She giggled and patted his bicep while he blushed.

  “Ma’am you know that’s not what I meant.”

  “And you know better than to call me ma’am. Your readings are acceptable. Please remember your entire inspection crew is on medically-mandated stand-down for the next twelve hours. That means no physical exertion of any kind. Sleep, eat, sleep some more.”

  He gave her a mocking salute before gesturing for Petty Officer Peritts to follow him out the door.

  ***

  “Stop pacing, Commander. He’ll be here soon enough.”

  The object of the captain’s order turned her head. She was too tired to restrain her irritation. That she wasn’t, for once, specifically irritated with the captain didn’t matter. The muscles in her neck bunched with tension. She opened her mouth to make an ill-advised retort, when the door chimed. While Guttmann and his subordinate walked in, she shot the captain a final glare before moving to stand in the back corner of his office. He glared right back at her.

  “Be seated gentlemen.” The captain wasn’t such a martinet that he would keep the two obviously exhausted men on their feet while they reported. Besides, his own tense neck muscles couldn’t take the strain of looking up at his engineering officer.

  Guttmann didn’t prevaricate or mince words. “There’s no doubt it was sabotage, sir. The starboard strut was purposely manipulated to fail. I’ll know more once I pull it out and examine the mountings. All I can confirm right now is that it was deliberately positioned so the engine would vibrate once we were in the jump conduit.”

  O’Connell blanched.

  “And once the engine vibration reached a certain harmonic level?” The captain knew what Guttmann would say, but he needed the stark answer for confirmation.

  “The control systems tried to compensate by surging more power down that engine, which made the vibration worse and caused a cascading failure.”

  The four people in the room sat silent. Grim faced, each mentally replayed the sequence of events and the possible horrific outcomes.

  “You’re absolutely sure the strut didn’t shift on its own due to the stress of previous jumps?”

  “Sir I’ve reviewed the recordings from the previous engine inspections. You can clearly see that the strut was properly placed following our second jump.”

  “Could it have just broken... on its own? Metal fatigue?”

  Guttmann shook his head to the commander’s question, but it was Peritts who answered. “There’s not a chance, ma’am. The strut is physically sound without any indication of decay or poor design.” The petty officer looked at his boss before continuing. “We can play the video feed for you. The whole bottom side is loose and has moved five millimeters from its original position.”

  The captain cleared his throat. “Who else knows about this?”

  The two engineers exchanged glances. The junior man shrugged. Swede answered, “Just the two of us as far as I can determine. If anyone else noticed the malfunction during the starboard inspection they didn’t speak up, and they would have.” He paused and hung his head. “Should have. Sir, whoever did this has to have fairly extensive knowledge of the engines. It was meant to break the engines and stop us in our tracks—but not to cause a hull breach or any permanent damage.”

  Captain Hill’s expression turned even sterner. “I’d say the saboteur had less than precise knowledge of what would happen, given that it was only the superb flying of O’Connell that kept us from losing
the whole engine.”

  Maggie noted the praise for later contemplation. Her thoughts were still in a constant re-play loop of the engine shutdown sequence. Only a mad man or a complete idiot would cause an engine mount vibration in the middle of a jump sequence. She felt like vomiting just thinking of what could have happened.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. When your medical stand-down is complete the two of you—and only the two of you—will go back in that engine and replace the strut. I assume we have a spare, or can fashion one?” He waited for Guttmann’s nod in the affirmative. “Once that is done, you will recheck every single nanometer of the engines to make sure we don’t have any more surprises waiting for us. Your official finding will be metal fatigue in the strut mount. Fix the report so it can withstand scrutiny. The four of us in this room, and Price, are the only ones who will know the truth.

  “If we’re going to find the bastard who did this, we need to act exactly how he expects us to: oblivious. He expected the engine venting to burn up the evidence, right?”

  “That’s my assumption, sir. Until I can examine the parts in the lab I cannot confirm the exact method used to move the strut. But, if the engine had vented properly the strut, out of position as it was, should have been charred. For whatever reason, the secondary vent chamber took the brunt of the heat exchange.”

  “Then we let him, or her, think that the evidence is gone. We tell everyone it looks like metal fatigue caused a part failure, and that we were damned lucky.” He took pity on the engineers, then. “You both look beat. Go get your rest. I’m afraid you have a lot more work ahead of you, and a lot of added responsibility.”

  Despite their exhaustion, both men executed smart about faces before leaving the room. The door slipped shut behind them. Silence reigned.

  Captain Hill stared at the top of his desk. He clenched his hands until they hurt. He counted his own heartbeats. His pulse throbbed in his temple.

  “Son of a BITCH!” O’Connell’s outburst, oddly, seemed to release some of his own tension. Hands fisted, she turned, and for a brief moment the captain was sure she was going to punch the wall of his office.

  “Precisely.” His tone was dry and calm. He didn’t feel calm. He felt like punching the wall, too. “Kindly refrain from breaking your hand in some idiotic gesture of frustration, Commander. You have more important things to be doing.”

  “Like?” She snapped at him, not caring that her tone was an egregious breech of conduct.

  When he spoke, the captain’s words were as coldly brittle as his expression. “Like piloting us out of this mess and finding a saboteur.” He paused, waiting for her to take a few deep breaths. “And, keeping me from killing him with my bare hands once you do find him.”

  Chapter 10

  Commander O’Connell stood at rigid attention while the captain read through Lieutenant Guttmann’s latest update from engineering. The engine strut was replaced. Two stress tests, one at high rates of speed, had been successfully completed. Microscopic examination of the damaged strut showed traces of explosive residue, and wiring for what they surmised was a remote detonation device.

  “The lieutenant reports that the “chatter” in engineering indicates the crew accepts the story of metal fatigue causing the failure.”

  “Yes sir.” She watched as the captain pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Similar conversations overheard in the mess facilities and weight-room indicate the civilians also buy the story.”

  He raised his head and glared at her. He thought, distracted momentarily, that he had been doing a great deal of glaring at his second-in-command. As a way to bleed off stress, it wasn’t entirely without pitfalls. She fairly quivered with ill-contained ire. If anger at him kept her focused and sharp, he would just have to accept that she might hate him for the rest of her days. He needed her fighting mad at the moment.

  “I tasked you with finding the saboteur, Commander. I can listen to crew gossip and whispers on my own time. Guttmann needs to be focused on the engines, not worried about what his staff thinks. He has performed admirably. What have you been doing?”

  “Sir, it was a remotely activated device. Anyone could have triggered it. Reading through three months of engineering access logs isn’t going to tell me who decided to detonate the device. He didn’t have to be in engineering to do it.”

  “Yes, thank you, Commander. I believe I’m up to speed on the nature of remote detonation. Why are you here with excuses? If the engineering access logs aren’t providing clues, you’ll have to turn elsewhere for answers. Someone on this ship caused that malfunction, and I want to know who. Now.”

  You stupid, arrogant, ass, she thought. Do you expect the guy to be walking around with a great big scarlet S for saboteur on his forehead? “Maybe I did it, sir.”

  She winced. Ahh shit, I just said that out-loud. Smooth.

  He rolled his eyes. “The stupidity of that remark is astounding and obviously born of your frustration with your inability to complete this task. I know that neither you nor Price had anything to do with this. No pilot who has survived basic flight training would willingly cause a vibration in an engine mount. Likewise, I know that Guttmann and Peritts love the ship like their own mothers and wouldn’t conceive of harming her. You need to find someone with just enough engineering knowledge to make him, or her, dangerous, but without an ounce of piloting skills or sense.”

  He could tell the instant a new thought occurred to her. She blinked several times and briefly chewed her lower lip. Her green eyes snapped back into focus. “Or someone gullible enough to believe what an engineer told him. If that device was planted inside the strut mounting during installation or our shake-down cruise, perhaps it wasn’t anyone currently on board who thought up the idea.”

  “A mastermind who enlisted a willing patsy to push the button at a pre-determined time?” The captain sounded skeptical.

  She rushed her words in her effort to convince him. “It would make sense, sir. The saboteur would have to know that planting a device inside the engine coils once the ship was underway would be damn near impossible. During construction, though, he could plant it and walk away, leaving the dirty work to anyone on board he chose to enlist in his scheme.”

  Hill held up a hand to forestall her from expounding further. “I get the drift, Commander. I’m just not sure I like the idea that we’ve gone from one incredibly daft saboteur to an entire conspiracy meant to control, or damage, the ship.” He pinched his nose again. His headache was back. If he was prone to petulance, he would blame O’Connell for his near constant headaches. Fortunately for her, he was more self-aware.

  Captains of naval vessels since time immemorial had been the penultimate power while a ship was at sea. Their word was law. It should have been that way now. He was separated from superior officers, planning commissions, civilian authorities, and political squabbles by several galaxies. He should have been the Lord God Almighty of this tiny encapsulated universe that was the Hudson.

  Except, there was at least one person aboard, perhaps even a handful of people, working to thwart his intentions. They didn’t recognize his authority and were determined to stop him from completing his mission.

  O’Connell didn’t know what was going through the captain’s mind. The look on his face terrified her. Whatever he was thinking of had him in a cold, deep-burning, rage. She sincerely hoped she was not, and never would be, the target of that rage.

  When he looked back up at her face, Captain Hill realized that he hadn’t concealed his inner turmoil. He worked to slip his composed, orderly, veneer back in place. “Think about a motive, Commander. That might be your best bet for finding this person, or persons. Why would they decide to slow, or stop, the Hudson here? Why this jump? Figure that out and you might find a clue to their identity.”

  ***

  Ensign Chi checked the corridor behind him, again. Assuring himself for the third time that he wasn’t followed, he entered the aft s
tation room of the engineering bay. Flipping his wrist upward, he made sure his locator was turned off. With it off, only the captain or Commander O’Connell had the authorization to ascertain his whereabouts. With a grin that belied his nervousness, he nodded to the three other men in the room and sat.

  “All quiet on the bridge, then?” Swede was shuffling the cards. His fingers were as adept at handling the cards as they were at manipulating the gears and mechanisms in the engines. He quickly dealt three cards to each player.

  “O’Connell has the watch and everything is quiet. Engines are running just fine, now, and we’re ahead of schedule for arrival at that new node. No one should need us for at least three hours.” Chi, without looking at them first, laid his hand over the neat pile of cards. He watched Swede Guttmann, Tony Price, and Nate Robertson all repeat the gesture.

  The four officers were playing spay-ya bushki, a popular card game in university dorms and military barracks all over Earth. The name was a bastardization of the Russian phrase “grandmother’s tears”. No one was entirely sure who had named it thusly, or where the original idea had come from. The rule set had evolved over the years, and, as was common with every game, each group of players added their own quirks. Played with one hundred four cards from two distinct decks, spay-ya was a bizarre combination of bridge and poker. Each player was initially dealt three cards. They had to bet before looking at those “hole” cards. The bets hovered a foot above the table to each player’s right side, projected by small keycards that recorded wagers and money won or lost.

  Swede flipped two cards face up from the top of the deck. These cards became the high and low trumps. Because a spay-ya deck had eight suites, there were several possible designated trump suites and numbers. Casual players had a hard time keeping track of which hands won. A skilled player combined card counting, strategic thinking, and a great deal of luck in his game play. The reigning Grand Master of the game was a thirty-year-old autistic man from Austria.