by Lewis Dually
“I don’t know. I got up at five yesterday in Houston.”
Hirsch looked at his watch and then at me. “No wonder, I’ve seen better looking corpses. That’s thirty one hours. You know better than that. You know how sleep deprivation can sneak up on you in space. Go to bed. Now! That’s an order.”
Why was everybody so concerned with my sleep habits? I knew the answer to that and they were right of course. Without the pull of the moon and the day night cycle of the Earth’s rotation the body’s clock has no way to regulate its sleep cycles. If precautions aren’t taken you’ll end up collapsing into a light comma after eighty hours give or take. You have to maintain a sleep schedule or your system will go haywire. Still a grown man doesn’t like being told to go to bed. But I had orders from the only man on board who could give me orders so I gave in and headed for my quarters. Entering them I realized it was the first time I had been in my quarters since coming on board. I stepped into the bath room and looked in the mirror. No wonder everyone was concerned. I did look like crap. And I was still wearing the red jump suit. I stripped down to my boxers and thought about a shower but fatigue overpowered that notion so I laid back on my bed and closed my eyes.
“Sir, do you copy?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure if someone was talking or if I was dreaming.
“The Wade Sir.” The voice interjected again. “She’s seven minutes out. We cut back to point six and we’re closing in. Do you want us to hail her Sir?”
“OH….. Yes. Hail her for an inflight safety inspection. I’ll be right there.” I lied. I didn’t remember answering the coms but apparently I had so I crawled out of my bunk and looked in the mirror.
“Geeze.”
I was beginning to grow a beard and most of it was grey. Then I started to pull on the red jump suit but my brain was telling me wrong color.
“Dangit, where are my uniforms?” I growled.
It took a few minutes before I started to think clearly and found my uniforms hung neatly in my closet where I assumed Walters unpacked them for me because I sure as heck hadn’t. Then I dressed, grabbed a fresh can of snuff from my duffle and headed for the bridge. By the time I got there we had pulled alongside the Wade and Dr. Shaw, Sprite and Walters were waiting for me.
Sprite looked at me with a grin “You need to learn my habit of cat napping” He said. “It works.”
“Thanks, I’ll try that. What’s our status?”
“The Wade has answered our call and is awaiting the shuttle for inspection.” Barnes answered.
My first thought was to go over myself but protocol mandated the Commander stay on board while the ship is in flight. Still I could ignore protocol if I felt it warranted. I almost did but finally decided Sprite and Barnes could handle the inspection.
“Ok here’s what I want. Barnes, you lead the inspection team. Take Commander Sprite and Walters with you. We’re looking for anything unusual. I think there are ships parts and supplies over there heading to the black market. And by black I mean The Black. You may even come across the Black themselves. They look human enough to pass as one. Look for anyone wearing sun glasses or goggles to hide their eyes. Compare the passenger manifest to the actual passengers on board. If you find anything, contact me on secure channel before you react. I want them to think this is a routine inspection, nothing more. Got it?”
“Got it.” they replied in unison and headed for the shuttle as I took my chair and turned to the coms officer.
“Send a priority one message to the Shasta on command link channel fifteen. Tell them we are about to board the Wade for inspection.”
“Yes Sir.” Coms officer Warren replied. If the Shasta was still at U E One they would get our message in about three hours. If they had jumped to sector six it would take eighteen hours to reach them. Finding one of these Alien radios would sure change things.
Eight minutes and one spent snuff pouch later I watched the shuttle approaching the Wade when something unexpected appeared. A row of what looked like strobe lights flashed on the Wade’s midsection. Three strobe lights flashing in sequence left to right, each one flashing three times. Almost immediately the collision alert sounded followed by the unmistakable sound of high velocity impacts on the hull. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
Flipping the switch for ship wide broadcast I shouted. “RED ALERT, BATTLE STATIONS, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!”
CHAPTER 7: A Passionate Embrace.
Supposedly there are two responses to danger. Fight or Flight. I learned a long time ago that there are actually four responses. Fight, flight, crap your pants and cursing rage. Rage was the one that usually got me. Several years ago I had made a concerted effort to stop cursing and I had succeeded until just now. I started cussing a blue streak while simultaneously calling out orders.
“HARD TO PORT, SORRY SONS OF…., GET ME A TARGET FIX ON THOSE GUNS, SOMEBODY SHUT THAT DAMN ALARM OFF.”
The Wade was breaking off to port and I was about to give chase when I remembered the shuttle.
“Get me the shuttle” I commanded.
“They’re on two” the coms officer called back.
I flipped to channel two and keyed the mic. “Are you guys alright?”
“Yes Sir we’re fine” Barnes replied.
“OK then get your butt back on board ASAP, the S O B’s are getting away!”
Sitting back in my chair I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I wasn’t scared, I was mad! Get ahold of yourself, I thought. You’re the Commander now act like it.
“Give me a status update. Where did they hit us and with what?”
Just then Cob burst onto the bridge gasping for air and hugging his chest with both arms. “Are we taking fire?”
It was more of a statement than a question. Seeing the Chief of the Boat all worked up helped to cool me down for some reason.
“Yep,” I answered. “The Wade just fired a burst of something at us, I don’t know what.”
Just then Petty officer Warren called out “They hit us in the forward array Sir, we’ve lost all forward sensors.”
Great! The Wade was breaking off to port and speeding up. By the time the shuttle gets on board she’ll be out of sight and without our forward sensors we won’t be able to find her and that’s probably what she intended.
“Let me know the second the shuttle is in and get a damage team started on those sensors.” I ordered and realized I was shouting again.
Three minutes passed before the shuttle was back on board and as expected the Wade was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately that three minutes had given me time to cool down and I calmly ordered. “Turn us about and see if you can pick her up on aft sensors.”
The helmsman spun the dial and the ship followed suit slowly spinning on its cross axis. At about 150 on the dial the weapons officer yelled out. “I got her. 163 mark 57. She’s making a sweep to starboard.”
“Full reverse, set course 162 mark 57” I ordered. “We’ll run her down backwards, get us into visual range and spin back around.”
Seven more minutes passed, then eight. Sprite, Walters and Dr. Shaw made it back to the bridge and I looked over at Sprite and said, “Get your team ready, were boarding that ship one way or another.”
“Yes Sir.” Sprite answered and then headed back down to get the Seals suited up.
Nine minutes passed. Finally we were within visual range. “Spin us around, helm.” I ordered.
Turning a ship one hundred and eighty degree while traveling at three hundred million miles an hour is not an easy task. It has to be done slowly and precisely or the ships inertia will tear it apart. If the Wade had been unarmed I wouldn’t need to turn around but sense she was shooting, and the front of the Dawn Rising was designed to handle asteroid impacts, turning around was better than exposing our vulnerable backside. The helmsman, Ensign Chaffey, was as good as they came and I wasn’t worried, much. He started a slow gentle turn to starboard but at about a third of the way around the ship started to groan. The inertia
dampeners weren’t able to keep up with the g-forces and I felt a sudden wave of nausea hit me. Then behind me I heard Walters hurl and I hoped she had found a bucket but there was none to be found. Finally after a full agonizing minute the G-forces subsided and we were turned around and facing the Wade.
“Give me an open channel.”
Warren punched in a channel and said, “You’re on six Sir.”
I keyed the mic and addressed the Wade. “Transport carrier Wade. This is the U E S Dawn Rising. You have unlawfully fired on a United Earth Space ship. Reduce your speed and prepare to be boarded or we will fire upon you.”
There was no response from the massive cargo ship and I was about to repeat the command when the Wade opened fire again, this time from a gun battery on her keel. For an unarmed cargo ship she was sure throwing a lot of steel down range. Only two of the nine projectiles hit us this time. “Not the best marksmanship.” I commented.
“That’s it, I’m pissed. Fire control, put a shot in her stern.”
“Yes Sir” the weapons release officer replied already having the cross hairs on the Wade’s back side. He punched the weapons release button and the forward mounted five hundred millimeter railgun fired one armor piercing round. Three seconds later the bow section of the Wade erupted in a brilliant mass of white light followed by a visible shock wave that ran the entire length of the ship. A few seconds after that we got pummeled with debris as sections of hull and superstructure whizzed by followed by a couple dozen shipping containers. We’d hit her in one of the shipping holds and something in there had exploded.
“Get us out of this debris field” I ordered the helm. “Pull up alongside and let’s see if she’s got any fight left.”
Chaffy maneuvered us out of the debris field and pulled us up beside the Wade. There were no more shots fired, no changes in speed or trajectory, there weren’t even any lights visible.
“She looks dead to me Sir” Lieutenant Barnes remarked. “I’m getting no readings on the magnetron. Her engines are dead, can’t tell what the reactor is doing yet.”
Sizing up the situation I said. “I don’t want to board her at this speed and it doesn’t look like she’s capable of slowing down under her own power. We’ll have to grab on and stop her ourselves. Helm, flip us over and line up under her midsection. Cob, do you feel up to operating the mag clamps?”
“Yes Sir” Logan replied. “Let me at them.”
I looked back at Walters to see her sitting on the floor in a puddle of vomit.
“Dr. Shaw, could you escort Walters to sick bay?”
Shaw looked like he was about to upchuck himself but said. “Yeah, sure.” as he helped her up, being careful not to step in her puddle, and escorted her from the bridge.
I was about to call for a cleanup crew when the weapons officer blurted out. “REACTOR BREACH”
“HOW LONG?” I demanded.
“Twenty seconds Sir. She’s going critical!”
Twenty seconds was not enough time to outrun the massive electromagnetic pulse that would accompany the Wade’s reactor explosion. Even with our new engines it would take a full minute to reach a safe distance from the ship killing discharge.
I leaped forward to the helm console. “JUMP, NOW” I yelled.
Ensign Chaffey was way ahead of me. He was spinning the reactor dial to one hundred percent while flipping open the Warp jump control pad. He punched in location vectors and hit the execute button and the jump control computer started an audible count down. Five….four….three….
“Breach in fifteen seconds Sir!”
It was going to be too close and I anxiously peered into the empty space ahead. “Anytime now” I said aloud.
With our forward sensor array down we would have to visually locate and enter the warp bubble. Finally I saw the bubble start to form and slapped Chaffey on the shoulder. “There, straight ahead, full speed!”
Chaffey pushed the forward graviton control levers and we leaped into the opening hole in space. Just because we were in the warp bubble didn’t mean we would be safe. As long as the bubble was open the EM pulse from the Wade’s reactor would follow us in and the two hundred gigawatt pulse would tear through our systems like a title wave on a desert island. We were going to take some damage, the only question was how much.
“How far will this warp bubble take us?” I asked.
“I’m not sure Sir. With the forward sensor array down I had to guess. Maybe five or six seconds to the other side.”
“There” I said and pointed ahead. “The other side.”
Just as we reached the far side of the bubble the Wade’s reactor went supernova. A blast of light momentarily lit up the bridge and I squinted to see Chaffey’s finger poised over the Warp engine shutdown.
“Now” I shouted and Chaffey flipped the switch. The Warp bubble collapsed behind us but it was too late. Every control panel on the bridge lit up in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics. Sparks flew, the ship shuttered and everything went dark. Then I felt the unmistakable sensation of weightlessness as the gravity plates failed and I reached out a hand to steady myself just as the ship started to spin. The port drive rail had shut down but the starboard drive rail was still pushing and the offset thrust forced the ship into a clockwise rotation. Without the aid of the inertia dampeners anyone not belted in their seats were flung to the walls of the bridge. I found myself pinned against the rear bulkhead as the g-force built higher until the second drive rail finally shut down.
“Helm, do you have thruster control?” I shouted.
“I think so Sir. I’m trying to reach the controls.” Chaffey shouted.
The emergency chemlights came on and I could see Chaffey reaching for the control panel but the g-forces were working against him. Finally he got a hand on the manual controller and started adjusting the thrusters to stop our spin. It took Chaffey two minutes to arrest our spin. Long enough that half the crew had probably passed out from the prolonged G-force. I looked around the bridge through the eerie green smoke being illuminated by the twelve emergency chemlights mounted in the walls. Cob was floating near the environmental station. Chaffey and Gale were still strapped in at the helm and I could see Gale holding her neck.
We locked eyes and she said. “I got some whiplash I think but I’ll be fine Sir.”
“Cob, you ok?” I asked.
“Yes Sir, I’m fine I think. No more pain than before.” He answered. I kind of doubted that considering he was already suffering from two broken ribs.
I kicked off the wall and shot over to the helm control. It was dead. No power, no nothing.
“Barnes, Chaffey, Warren, sound off.”
“Chaffey here Sir, I think I broke my arm.”
“Warren here Sir, I’m fine but Lieutenant Barnes is out cold. He’s bleeding from the back of his head Sir, bad.”
“Cob see what you can do for him, Warren get over here and help me pull this door open. Gale, get the emergency coms units out of the storage locker. Let’s hope the EMP shielding on those lockers protected the com badges.
EMP is short for electromagnetic pulse and they are murder on anything electrical. They are emitted by a nuclear or GUT explosion. They are also emitted when a star goes supernova. They travel at the speed of light and any system on the ship that had power when the EM pulse hit was fried. All our circuits, processors, capacitors and batteries were now junk. Fortunately this is an event for which we plan. Every electronic devise on this ship has no less than two replacement parts stored in shielded containers that in theory should protect them from an EM pulse. Now all we had to do was get them out, install them and restart the reactor. The trick was that we had no gravity, no light, no air being scrubbed of carbon dioxide, no heat to ward off the negative four-hundred-fifty degree chill of space and probably half the crew was injured to the point of being useless in the endeavor. We also had to figure out where we were and how fast we were traveling.
Gale opened the storage locker and pulled out the cas
e of coms badges. She took one out and slid the power switch ON. “We’re in business Sir. The coms are working.” She gleefully proclaimed as she attached one to her vest and started tossing out the rest.
Warren and I positioned ourselves on either side of the bridge door and started cranking on the manual release handles. The door slid open and we slipped through into the corridor. Looking through the dull green glow of the chemlights I saw three people floating in the middle of the corridor. Commander Sprite had Dr. Shaw in what appeared to be a passionate embrace. Then I realized he was giving him mouth to mouth and Walters was trying to pull the two of them to the ladder tube.
“Help us.” She called out. “He’s stopped breathing. He’s awake but paralyzed.”
I kicked off from the bridge door and shot down the corridor like a torpedo. Taking hold of Sprite and Shaw I helped Walters pull the two of them down the corridor opening three doors and traversing down two decks to sick bay. Sprite continued the CPR for the entire trip and by the time we got to sick bay he was soaked in sweat. He had spent eighteen minutes breathing for two people and had probably saved Shaw’s life. Sick bay was a mess. It was a floating minefield of medical supplies; needles, scalpels, bandages and people. Blood was suspended everywhere in undulating blobs of crimson.
Dr. Hirsch saw us, grabbed a manual hand respirator and floated over. “I told you this was a bad idea. Is he conscious?”
“He was about five minutes ago. Sprite has been giving him mouth to mouth for almost twenty minutes.”
Hirsch felt Shaw’s pulse. “He’s alive. Good work Commander, you should have been a doctor.” Then he looked at me. “We got this, you go get me some power. You have about an hour before we all turn into popsicles.”
Grabbing Hirsch by the arm I asked. “Did we lose anybody?”
“Not yet. I got two over there that need immediate surgery and I can’t operate in zero G so get to it.”
“Yes Sir.” I replied. Hirsch was the only person on the ship that could give me an order so I jumped to and started to leave when he gave me another.