“Or we open the inner doors and make a hole in the protection wall from H1 to H3, and then get them all out here.”
I waved my head.
“It’ll take time to go back and forth.” She added. “I’m not sure we can get them all alive if we do that. And then, there’s the matter of the five badly injured. They won’t be able to wear suits.”
“I understand.” I said. “But drill a hole in the protection wall will also take time and we’d be risking H1. As things lye, if we lose H1, we lose the whole ship. It’s too dangerous. We’ll have to do it the other way. Get the suits ready and find a way to carry the injured.”
“Something else, sir.” Said Ghish in a low voice. “The oxygen levels, sir. We have a lot of extra people in H1, and the levels aren’t good enough to last.”
Mira dismissed him.
“That’s a yellow problem, Mr Ghish. We can’t think of everything at the same time. Let’s focus on red.”
I looked at the red problems on the board.
“Bridge? What’s the problem with the bridge?”
“Structural. The whole tower is basically gone, the bridge is the only thing left standing, and the gravity control is pulling it so hard it may crash it altogether.”
“We… We should be thinking of relocating command to the H1 secondary bridge, sir.” Said Ghish.
“Except we have a few dozen people living there right now, Mr Ghish.” Said Mirany. “Where will we put them? We’re isolated.”
“Can’t we tune down the tower’s gravity control?” I asked.
“We can’t get to it. The corridor crashed. We’d have to go through H2, but it’s locked right now.”
I looked at the schematics and thought for a bit, holding my chin. Just then, a call came in for Ghish’s intercom.
“Lieutenant Ghish.” He responded.
Ghish had the comms opened, so we heard the voice on the other side.
“Mr Ghish, it’s Jilton. Is Captain Cavo there?”
“Yes. Captain Iddo as well.”
“Good.”
Ghish got the call on the speaker.
“You can speak, Mr Jilton.” Said Mirany.
“I’m at H4, Captain. It’s a mess! The fire is not controlled. I repeat, the fire is not controlled.”
I exchanged glances with Mirany.
“Are we in danger, Mr Jilton?” I asked.
“We can still hold it, sir.” Was the answer. “And we will get it under control. But we have a problem, sir.”
“What is it?”
“The fire is getting very close to the forward O2 tanks, sir. We need to get the O2 out of here.”
I frowned. If the fire got to a couple of O2 tanks, we could have a catastrophic explosion. Mira looked at me.
“But where and how?” She asked.
I nodded.
“Do you have any ideas on how to do that, Mr Jilton?”
“We have two choices, sir. We can connect the tubes in the main corridor, but we have to do it out there.”
“Can’t you do it from your end?”
“Negative, sir. Everybody with a suit is fighting the fire. We need two hands with suits from your end.”
Mira was uncomfortable.
“That means two suits we take from the H3 evacuation.” She said.
I nodded.
“Okay. Mr Jilton, what’s the other option?”
“Well, sir, we might be able to open the direct pipe to transfer O2 to H2, the only problem is…”
“That H2 is closed. Okay, Mr Jilton, standby, we’ll get back to you in a minute.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The call ended and I looked at Mirany.
“We need H2 operational. It’s imperative.”
She nodded.
“That will be difficult if they can’t turn on the gravity controls. I may have an idea, though.”
“Tell me.”
She pointed at the schematics.
“What if they unplug the tower’s gravity controls and plug them in H2. That way the bridge will lose all gravity, but it won’t crash and H2…”
“Will have gravity enough to be re-opened. That’s great. Let’s contact H2.”
But as I was looking for my intercom, Forter, the H1 hull-captain got in.
“Sir.”
“What is it, Captain?”
“There’s a man here from H6. He came across the main corridor in a suit. He asked to speak to you.”
“Oh, thank the stars! Bring him in.”
H6 was the Hull that we had been unable to contact. The one hull isolated in the back of the ship. A few seconds later, entered a young redhead bearded man covered in sweat and smiling mildly, still wearing half the ODA suit. He saluted me. I saluted back.
“Specialist Caryug, reporting, sir.”
“Welcome, specialist. What’s going on in H6?”
“The starboard engine is malfunctioning and creating interference. But I connected a protected landline, now, so you should have comms in a couple of minutes.”
I smiled.
“Good job, specialist. Find something to drink and relax for a bit. It’s on me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
*
On that first day, Hull 1 was our lifeboat. Without it, the ship wouldn’t have survived. Besides being the HQ for me and Mira and most of the operations that weren’t restricted to this or that hull, it harboured people from most of the other hulls.
It took us four and a half hours to evacuate H3. Mira had a good idea of extending a few cables from bow to stern in the main corridor so that Jilton would attach a box improvised from old storage containers. With this and a few climbing motors, they made some kind of shuttle that could move cargo from one end of the ship to the other. Mira’s idea was to use this device to transport the badly wounded from H3, and it succeeded in doing that, but ended up being much more useful than expected in the coming days.
Still, five people died in the evacuation. Three of those five badly injured didn’t make it, and an accident caused by oxygen-deprived crew members caused the death of two more.
H2 was re-opened after a three-hour operation on the gravity controls. The bridge was left without gravity, but that wasn’t a big problem as the team was properly secured to their seats.
I went back to the bridge a couple of times to check on everything. Apparently, the three Silent Boats that were still out there were having problems finding us, but they were still out there. They seemed more cautious in their movements as well. They didn’t really know what had happened to the lost sharks, I thought.
By the end of the day, both H3 and H5 were confirmed evacuated and closed. H4 had put off the fire, but still had many different problems to deal with. Least of all, the breach.
Communications with H6 were restored. The hull had a few problems, but nothing major. Still, that strange behaviour of the engine had us all worried. It would give us something to think about in the next few days. Anyway, we decided to shut it down and were left with only the port engine, running at less than 50% and with no-one to look after it.
*
“Casualty report.” I had asked at some point.
It was worse than first thought. We had left the Brury moon with 1863 people on board, between crew members, marines and commandos. We were now down to 1201. We’d lost 662 people in battle. And counting. The badly injured list was long.
*
After five or six hours of running around, I finally had the opportunity to go look at the infirmary. It was loaded. The doctors had made an incredible job triaging and responding to all injuries, but they were still operating. Surgeries in ships in space in those days were gruesome. Lots of blood and lots of problems and lots of chemicals. But the doctors did a great job.
I stumbled on B3, on my round. Lying in a bed, with tubes in his arm. I looked at him and smiled.
“We’re not out of the woods yet.” I said to him.
He smiled back.
“Better
die in here, where it’s warm, than out there in the cold.”
I sat on the edge of his bed, and we talked for a few minutes.
“You still have to tell me how your team was able to find us in Fumu, in the middle of nowhere.”
He kept smiling.
“That’s classified.”
“Classified, my…”
I stopped talking as I felt a specific humming disappear.
“What is it?” Bob asked me.
I looked at him and tried not to show my concern.
“We just lost our last engine.”
*
DAY 2
Bertin, my discrete orderly, had had the bright idea of getting some pillows and covers into the H1 captain’s office. Everywhere else was packed with people, he said, and we needed to rest sooner or later. I was completely exhausted after the battle and the several hours running around fixing things. Eventually, I looked at the pillows and said to Mirany, who was still very much focused on the reports and boards:
“I need to rest. Just for a few hours. And so do you. Want to lie down, for a while? If something happens, Mr Jilton and Mr Forter are here.”
They nodded. Ghish, the Q., was in H2, evaluating the inventory. But Mira waved.
“Not yet. You go ahead. We’ll be alright.”
I sighed.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t even looking at me. I waited until she noticed it and finally looked at me.
“I’m fine.” She said. “You need to rest. Go. If we need to, we’ll wake you up.”
And so I retired to a place in the floor, on the corner of that rowdy office. I was too tired to complain. Even too tired to notice the noise. I just fell asleep in a matter of seconds. I didn’t even have the time to think about what it was that bothered me in Mira’s behaviour. In fact, she was saving our asses a second time, with her ideas, expertise and commitment. So why should I be bothered?
I was awoken an hour later. Mira was lying next to me, cozying up, moving her body against mine. I barely opened my eyes.
“Sleep.” She said.
And I went back into unconsciousness as she laid her head next to mine. We were able to sleep two more hours.
*
When we woke up, Bertin got us both a bowl of hot soup, and we were off to work. We just rose from the floor and the pillows and sat at the table, drinking and getting acquainted with all the new information. Jilton had very dark eyes, and I knew he needed to go to sleep. But he made sure we knew what was going on before he did.
“H2 is getting back together, with gravity restored. But they think they have a breach, somewhere, even though they still can’t find it. That’s one of my major concerns. If we don’t find that breach soon, we could lose the hull. H4 is a mess. They’re closing the breaches and working on the damage made by the fire. They have problems with the power supply, as well as O2. They still don’t have gravity, so everything is slow. We need to evacuate people from there. At least 50 or 60 of them. We now can talk to H6, and they’re basically okay, but something’s going on with that starboard engine I can’t figure out.”
“You can’t figure out?” I repeated. Jilton was Tech-Comm. If he couldn’t figure out something that was going on with an engine, then who could? “I thought we shut it down.”
“It’s shut.” He confirmed with a frown. “I still should be going back there after I rest for a bit.”
I nodded.
“Okay. How about the port engine?”
“I think it’s dead, probably ruptured, but I’ll go to H5 as well and take a look.”
“Very well. You do that.”
“That’s it, then. The rest of the problems are logistic. May I be excused?”
“Of course, Mr Jilton, go on.”
Jilton went into a corner and lay down. And we looked at Ghish.
“What’s with logistics?” I asked.
“Well, sir… H1 and H2 were designed to accommodate about 400 people. They are now handling almost 900. I think we can manage the O2 supply for a few days, but water is another matter. H2 lost a lot of water, and the infirmaries have been using more than usual. The infirmary at H2 is already taking a 150% share, and H1’s is at 290%. I think we should consider all options to go get water from H3 and H5.”
Mira raised her eyebrow.
“They’re shut down. The water will be frozen by now.” She said.
“Yes, that’s the problem, Captain. But I think we should look into it. We also need to look into the food situation. We should be alright for a few days, but still… Power shortages could hurt us, sir. Same thing with waste, sir.”
“Waste?”
“Feces and urine, sir.”
“Yes, what about them?”
Ghish looked uncomfortable and scratched his head.
“Some of it goes into the recycling systems, but we’re having way too much than they can handle, sir.”
I still didn’t understand.
“So, throw it out.”
“That’s the thing, sir. The sewer shafts have been damaged. I mean, in H1, sir.”
I frowned.
“Are you saying we have a shit problem, Mr Ghish?”
Suddenly Mira started laughing out loud, without control. She just laughed and laughed. She wasn’t well. I knew it. But I still got back to what Ghish was saying.
“Mr Ghish?”
Ghish tried to ignore Mira’s laughter and looked at me.
“Yes, sir. We have to figure out a way to expel the waste from H1 or a system to take it to H2 and throw it off from there.”
Mira was still laughing. I put a hand on her shoulder and she tried to control it, putting a hand over her mouth.
I decided to go find out for myself what was going on in H4, so I went to put on a suit. Mira decided to stay at HQ.
The Arrabat’s main corridor was dark and eerie. A crew member was manning the cable lines and the «shuttle». The box was now being used by a suited team that was rescuing food packages from H5 and H3. As we still had 2000 tons of combat rations somewhere in the hulls, it was ironic that food was a problem. But that one was easy to solve. There was another team getting ready to inspect the water tanks in the abandoned hulls. They were waiting in line for a turn in the corridor. But I was put in front.
The specialist in charge of the cables attached my safety line to the main cable and gave me the go ahead.
“Don’t push too hard, Captain.” He said.
But I knew how to handle 0G’s. I nodded and stepped out. I quickly got the hang of it and floated towards H4. It took me a while, and I had to pull the cable a couple of times. But finally, I was there. I unhooked and was pulled inside by another crew member. A woman, smiling at me through the helmet’s glass. We saluted each other.
“I need to see the Captain.”
“Yes, sir. He’s in the infirmary.”
The infirmary was pressurised, and we could take our masks off, but there was no gravity, so it was filled with plastic bubbles to isolate patients and prevent the blood and other fluids from floating around. And it had a little bit more light than the rest of the Hull, but it was still dark for lack of power. A dark-haired woman lieutenant greeted me.
“Captain, sir. I’m Lieutenant Runna.”
“I know who you are, lieutenant.” I remembered Runna to be Hull-Captain Triul’s second. “Where’s the captain?”
“He’s in treatment, right now, sir. He had an accident about an hour ago, trying to restore gravity. Given the isolation procedures, I wouldn’t recommend you to go talk to him right now, sir.”
I sighed.
“So you’re in charge?”
“Yes, sir.”
I looked around.
“How many critical injured do you have here?”
“A few, sir. Twelve in treatment, plus ten in recovery. A few more coming in, I’m afraid.”
“Can you restore gravity?”
She frowned.
“I d
on’t think so, sir.”
“Then let’s get as many critical patients as possible to H2. You can’t treat them in 0G. It’s a mess. Just do a triage and start sending them to H2.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, show me around.”
It took me just a few minutes to understand the situation. Hulls had proud cultures. They thought of themselves as castles and would defend themselves ferociously. But enough was enough. H4 was hanging by its fingernails. No gravity, low water, low O2, low power. Almost half the hull was burned to beyond repair. Real bad shape. I turned to Runna.
“Lieutenant, you’ve done your best.”
I saw Runna’s face go pale inside her mask.
“Sir…” She started. I stopped her with a gesture.
“Enough is enough. You can’t go on like this. It’s too risky and not efficient. Start evacuating the hull to H1 and H2. Coordinate with Captain Cavo and Lieutenant Ghish. But start now. I don’t want you here. None of you. You need to go.”
She wasn’t happy. She probably thought her captain would have done better than her right now. But she was mistaken; I would have said the same thing to the hull-captain. Yet, she was a professional, so she said:
“Yes, sir.”
*
“We have a problem, Captain.”
“No shit…”
Now I was in H6. At least here there was power and the lights were on. And there was gravity as well. And sewers, as far as I knew. I looked at the hull-captain and sighed.
“What is it, Captain?”
The thin tall young man with big eyes scratched his head. His name was Torner, and he had been doing a good job.
“It’s the air, sir. Our recyclers are dying. Once they’re gone, all we have is the O2 coming in from H4.”
“Well, they’re evacuating, so you can have all their O2. The aft tanks, at least…”
He waved his head.
“It’s not going to last anyway, sir.”
I nodded.
“What do you propose, Captain?”
“Well, sir, if we could evacuate some of our people, it’ll give us a little bit more time.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I simply didn’t have any place to put any more people.
“I’ll see what I can do.” I told him. “Now, what’s this about the engine?”
He showed me. He took me next to the engine. It was shut down, but the core was humming in a strange way.
Shark-Killer (The Dark Sea War Chronicles Book 3) Page 8