"Have I mentioned that I hate the uncertainty of space travel?"
Ignoring the comment either because it wasn't constructive or because he couldn't hear it Kassad continued, "Of course that depends on where they are relative to us." After a moment's thought the obvious information his exhausted mind had missed came to him and Kassad inquired, "Is their identification code showing up on the navigation track? It'll be a blue triangle, except not blue because… you know."
Another bout of squinting at the display had Greene leaning forward in hopes of a better view. "No triangles."
"So either they turned it off, which isn't technically illegal, or they left." Kassad knew from long experience that a disabled navigation beacon was enough to get you inspected, fined in some polities, but generally wouldn't result in the loss of one's ship.
Greene was momentarily hopeful if confused. "They left?"
"I don't think they left. They certainly didn't sound like they were leaving last time we spoke."
Setting aside the irrelevant data Kassad had imparted and trying not to let her frustration build into rage Greene prompted Kassad, "So then they turned it off. Why would they do that?"
Not sure if he wanted to play 'guess what the crazy Lawship captain is thinking' Kassad suggested, "They must have done it when we entered the corona. Might be they're trying to spook us into giving up our position."
None of it made much sense to Greene but she was determined to understand the situation and not simply be a passive observer in it. "What about Sabha's navigation identifier? Why can't they find us with that?"
For a moment the thought of Sabha's navigation ID made Kassad start as he wondered if he'd actually disabled it given that it was an activity he did so often it had required almost no thought, then he remembered, "Oh, I set that to shut off when we passed into the corona, and I know it did because we're still alive."
Sourly Greene observed, "Unless another stray bit of stellar debris hits us."
Kassad responded dismissively with a clumsy wave of his hand saying, "Well that's always a possibility no matter what you do out in big vacuum."
******
Armhamon's sensor operator announced professionally, "I've got a promising sensor return." his predatory zeal having diminished under pressure from his captain's threats.
Slouched with her legs kicked up over one of her command chair's armrests the captain of the Armhamon responded grouchily, "What is it?"
Unaccustomed to standing long watches on the bridge Captain Andrews was too anxious to conclude the hunt to leave her command chair. Boredom she relieved by verbally berating the bridge watch standers for minor failings real and imagined. Stress she relieved by picking at the command chair's armrest padding until a sizable hole had been worried into existence.
Reading the analysis from the sensor software the operator answered, "A thin cloud of gas moving at high velocity."
Rolling her eyes at the report Captain Andrews was reflexively dismissive. "Space is full of gasses."
Trying to ignore the sarcasm the sensor operator explained, "It's moving approximately on a course and at a velocity expected for the target vessel."
While the report was encouraging Andrews didn't let her pleasure show in the slightest degree. "A cloud of gas is not a ship."
Annoyed by the rebuke the sensor operator retorted, "The cloud is composed of nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen. My guess is that their hull is ruptured and leaking."
Rapping her fingers on the remains of the command chair armrest to emphasize each word Andrews demanded, "So where's the Sabha?"
In spite of the sensor operator's best efforts at self restraint sarcasm defined their response. "I've narrowed the search region down to something smaller than the average stellar system."
Being a firm believer that the only way to get good performance out of crew was to pressure it out of them Andrews persisted, "And you haven't found them yet… why?"
Realizing that attempting to placate the captain was a losing proposition the sensor operator attempted the even more improbable task of reasoning with them instead. "Sir, they've gone dark and are somewhere inside a rapidly expanding cloud of sensor obscuring gas that is currently a quarter of an astronomical unit across and growing. This means that the only way I have to track them is to look at the stars in that region until something obscures one of them. I don't have to tell you that there are not a lot of stars this far out in Laniakea."
Adding more belligerence to her dismissive tone Captain Andrews snapped, "None of that concerns me. I don't care what you have to do just find me that ship before…"
The sensor operator cut off the captain shouting with malicious glee. "Found them! Relaying sensor track to tactical."
Bolting upright in the command chair Captain Andrews slammed her fist into the much battered armrest ordering, "Tactical, put a warning shot through her."
The Deck Officer, who had been dealing with the routine affairs of running the ship from an auxiliary console station, spoke up, "Shouldn't we issue a warning first?"
Annoyed by the interruption Captain Andrews clarified herself for the official record saying, "We're still too far out for a clean shot and they're too close to the Law's End barrier. I want a solid firing solution with a confirmed hit before tipping our hand. I don't want them rabbiting out into normal space and end up having to track them across half of Laniakea." Noting her Deck Officer's still disapproving expression Captain Andrews smiled shark-like, "Don't worry we'll just put a little hole through them to make them think twice about trying to run."
A Lawship could get away with a lot if the situation could be presented to a review board properly. With all the uncertainties of Lawless space Captain Andrews felt she could push a little further than usual. With the backing of University approval a review board would have to be severely pressured to find against any thinly justified action she undertook.
******
Aboard the Sabha time passed in silence. They were waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Armhamon to demand their surrender or open fire on them. As if to spite their anticipation nothing happened.
To find some relief from the stress Greene demanded of no one in particular, "Are we going to make it?"
With a flippant air Kassad replied, "I'm going to make it." He leaned over as if to look at Greene, his eyes wandering blindly, and then said with a chuckle, "I'm not sure about you. It seems like the pressure is going to get to you."
For a full second it sounded as if an enormous drill had been put to Sabha's hull. It could be felt as a harsh vibration even more than it was heard. The sensation resonated through the ship and through the acceleration couches bolted to it.
"What was that?"
"I think we've taken a hit. What does the sensor track say?"
"There's a trace of dots."
"They're shooting at us."
Chapter 15: "Bleeding Out"
"Loss of pressure is a scary proposition. Not the bulkheads blowing out and air whistling out of your lungs aspect either as they give you training for that so when it happens it seems almost normal. No, what's scary about a loss of pressure is trying to figure out where you're going to get more air to replace what you lost."
-Excerpt from interview with veteran spacer Gilles Montague.
Unfortunately the lack of atmosphere in the cockpit cabin meant that too little of Greene's voice could make the short trip from her mouth to Kassad's ears. Neither of them had remembered tie Greene's suit systems into Sabha's information network. Taken together with their diminished senses they both existed in ever shrinking pockets of reality utterly isolated from the universe around them.
That first shot was followed by Armhamon's warning blaring across the emergency channel that Greene couldn't hear but was very clear in Kassad's ears. "Sabha, this is the Lawship Armhamon. You are in violation of the Code of Law. Failure to match velocity and course for boarding will be taken as hostile action and you will be fired upon again with intent to
disable."
Needing no further prompting Kassad reached for the throttle. His hand bounced numbly off the control. Without sight or sense of touch Kassad was forced to guess at where the throttle control was through muscle memory. His hands grasped at air or clawed at the console surface only occasionally coming into glancing contact with the throttle.
Greene's own vision was so impaired that it was as if she were looking at the world down the length of a straw. She couldn't tell what Kassad was trying to do or how poorly he was managing it. Questions spoken or shouted received no response leaving Greene to look on wide eyed and helpless.
Once again Sabha was hit with the brief and powerful vibrations produced by metal being vaporized in vacuum. Sabha bucked as if a thing alive and responding to a painful prodding. The sensation sent the equilibrium of both Kassad and Greene spinning into further disorientation.
A sudden burst of pressure across his body indicated to Kassad that he'd finally grasped the correct control. With determination he tightened his grip and pressed what he thought to be the throttle forward. Confusingly the pressure of acceleration did increase but not in anything proportionate to his efforts. Putting the entire discontinuity off to the results of neural degradation Kassad kept his grip as firm and steady as he could.
******
"They're rabbiting." The Armhamon's sensor operator announced.
Knowing that there was no way of predicting with accuracy the position of the still light seconds distant erratically accelerating vessel would be Captain Andrews ordered, "Put down a dense spread of fire along their projected course." The projected course being a statistical best guess about where the ship would be when the shots fired actually arrived.
At any significant distance in space putting weapons on an actively evading target was a guessing game. Even at a short distance of five light seconds there was a five second delay in the feedback from weapons discharge, to the impact or miss of the attack, and then five seconds more for the information about the success or failure of the attack to reach the attacker. As a result captains on the offensive universally preferred targets that weren't maneuvering, and this generally meant attacking without warning.
Operational rules for Lawships meant that the best Captain Andrews could get away with was a 'lucky' warning shot. After that the Armhamon's copious firepower could only cover so much of the projected path that covered an immense amount of space. In the end they'd have to track down the offending vessel, now marked with the unmistakable and unique scar of a Lawship's laser.
******
Sabha lurched and shuddered. This time it was not another hit but instead the result of the final fumes of fuel being sucked unevenly through her twin engines. The disparity in thrust sent Sabha in to a slow flat spin along her final trajectory.
From within his sensory deprivation cocoon Kassad guessed at the meaning of what little information reached his still very active mind. It was with a fair bit of surprise that he found the entire situation more annoying than distressing. Being so far removed from the events around him had an effect of removing the weight of responsibility for making decisions about his ship and passengers as he no longer had the information necessary to make them. It was a relief of a weight that he only noticed in its absence.
In the other acceleration chair in Sabha's cockpit Greene struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. There was an overlap of images that she feared might just be hallucination following the complete loss of her vision. One was of the through the straw view of the world around her and another was a ghostlike rendering of the world as it should have been, but twisted in unreal ways.
With a mental effort Greene separated the images. What she was left with was a picture of Canis in his pressure suit straddling the center console. From his own acceleration couch Kassad gripped one of the dog's legs as if it were a control lever. Even stranger were the tints that everything was painted in, like wavering and washed out water colors, and Canis so close in his gleaming blue and white pressure suit.
Suddenly the color was very blue. Not the blue of sky, but like the blue of some idealized ocean, it was almost phosphorescent. It became more vivid and real the longer she stared at it.
As if the Sabha were trying to get Greene's attention the central wireframe display flashed in an angry red brilliant, piercing, and painful. Streaming checklists flashed in and out of existence in hues of blues and green. Abruptly it all disappeared leaving the cockpit dark and still.
Gradually it all came back again as an integrated whole in Greene's aching brain. The lights and colors and even the sounds began to return to their proper place. The twisted upside down and sideways world within Sabha was no longer back and white and wrong.
Reaching past Canis Greene shook Kassad's arm to inform him, "You're holding Canis by the leg."
With the images in his head beginning to conform to the expected reality around him Kassad looked down to see the truth of Greene's words. Releasing Canis' hind leg from his grip Kassad flexed his hand and wiggled his fingers. Sight was returning slowly but his hands already felt mostly normal again. Pain also returned in escalating waves and the brutal throbbing in his shoulder was joined by a violent stabbing in his head.
In spite of his discomfort Kassad took stock of the situation as quickly as possible. His eyes scanned the reports Sabha presented him through a haze of over bright colors and blinding glare. As he began to piece together their immediate past one hand absently returned the throttle for the now spent reaction engines to a neutral position.
After a few seconds reconfirming his distrusted senses Kassad announced, "We're clear of Law's End, and the jump drive came online and engaged as programmed."
Moving the conversation back to the confusing mess they'd just been through Greene asked, "Were we shot?"
It took a few more seconds to focus his eyes on and make sense of the relevant data entries. "Yes, looks like we took a hit's midsection. It's sealed, along with the micro-meteorite breech, and Sabha automatically began re-pressurizing the effected compartments. Automated medics aren't reporting any issues. I think we're good."
With a sigh Greene allowed herself to let go of hers fears. "So we're safe."
"Yes." Kassad said and then blurted, "Ow!" grasping his head in both hands as a sharp stabbing pain ripped through it.
Stretching her jaw in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure she could feel building behind her eyes Greene said, "I feel it too, like my head feels like is being overinflated."
Kassad shook his head. "It's not just my head. It's my joints, fingers, and toes. I don't even want to think about my shoulder."
As Kassad spoke Greene's awareness of the other pain in her body awakened and trying to massage the pain out of her elbows Greene grimaced. "Still this is better than being in Lawless Space."
Canis barked in enthusiastic agreement. Releasing the now useless throttle from his double paw grip Canis pushed himself into Kassad's chest in an acrobatic microgravity turn. In return Kassad embraced the animal in a single arm hug.
"And you," Kassad said bringing his helmet and Canis' together, "I don't know how you did it, but I am going to find you the biggest steak in all of the Horsehead Nebula."
A hearty round of barking voiced Canis' approval.
Removing her helmet Greene was immediately struck by how much cleaner the air smelled, it was much colder too, but other things attracted her attention as well. "Is it just me or are the colors wrong?"
Tapping the control to make his own helmet retract Kassad squinted at Canis, Sabha's control console, and his own hands. "Yes, like everything has gone slightly too bright and somewhat pastel." After a moment he added, "And I don't want to worry you, but it's like there are voices right at the periphery of my hearing."
"I didn't want to say anything either, but I hear them too." Greene admitted. "Perhaps one of us should have the auto-medic take a look at us."
Unbuckling and gently pushing his shoulder free of the restraints
Kassad said, "I'm not going to argue with that."
Canis barked and bounded out of the cockpit ahead of them.
Chapter 16: "Broken"
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-Product promotional blurb, Automated Medical Systems Incorporated
As they gingerly made their way to the automated medic Greene asked. "Will we be safe? Can they follow us?"
Kassad found the distraction from his physical woes too inviting to ignore. "Warp drives are fairly easy to follow. They leave trails like gaseous tunnels where they've scooped up and concentrated the interstellar gas along their course. Jump drives do leave telltale electromagnetic distortions that point in the right direction making it possible to follow a jump, but it takes a lot more time. Even in the worst case scenario we have twenty hours, more like days or weeks, if they haven't decided to be reasonable and just given up."
Setting the medical machine to provide an assessment without performing unsolicited procedures Greene settled down onto the diagnostic bed while Kassad waited. Enclosing the patient to prevent interference with its work the machine swept its sensor equipped arms up and down Greene's body. Eventually the arms settled to focus on her head as specialist neural scanners were brought in to study the activity in her brain.
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