Captain Cook An hour later she finally left the sickbay ready to eat nails the boats huge Sickbay hospital and headed for the bridge to check on the progress of all the transport boats. Besides, she was to the point that one more question about the Commander and she was going to blow her top.
On the bridge she sat in the Command chair and punched the enter-ship public address comm to all the transport boats. “Your attention please. You have all done a remarkable job saving a Quarter of a million lives today. I am incredibly proud of all of you. As far as Commander Collins is concerned. He was still in the basement when the bomb went off and the building dropped. I am told that there is a possibility that the Commander’s suit could keep him alive for a few weeks if he was not crushed but he was most likely crushed and killed in the collapse. The English are just waiting for the dust to settle and the temperature to go down and their rescue troops to arrive to start tearing into the pile. It will just take time to find out for sure if he is alive or dead. Captain Summers has promised to keep me informed about their progress looking for the Commander and I will tell you as soon as I find out anything new. All transport boats will be leaving shortly for the Star Queen as soon as they are finished unloading refugees or mustering their marines and securing equipment. Again. Job well done Marines. That is all. Captain cook out.” Captain Cook sat back to relax for a few seconds before deciding she could use some coffee as they waited to lift the transports and head home . The sooner they got away from this disaster the better she would feel.
It took less than a minute before a marine lieutenant stopped Captain Cook as she headed for the medical transport boat’s ward room for a cup of coffee. “Captain sir Sir . My platoon is ready to return to the building sight to look for the Commander. With your permission Sir.”
“Hell no lieutenant. What do you think you are going to do? The English have thousands of men and specialized equipment coming to go in as soon as they can.”
“Sir. It could take days before they go in. We can go in now with our suits.”
As he talked. More officers came out of the ward room farther down the passageway . “We are ready as well sir.” They started repeating again and again as they came out o f the hatch.
C aptain Tanaka aptain Sounders walked up in . “Captain Cook, my company is ready to go out and look for the Commander. We have finished servicing and upgrading the equipment with the necessary sensors.”
Captain Cook forced herself not to scream at the Captain or say anything at all as she walked into the ward room with the compartment filling up rapidly with voluntaries, all demanding to go look for the Commander.
Finely as she poured herself a cup of coffee and the room became quiet with everyone looking at her. Captain Cook slowly turned, took a sip and then answered trying her best to keep a level controlled voice. “Listen; that tower had a a thousand ton depleted uranium weight sitting half way up it and another one near the top to keep it from swaying. The lower weight was doing approximately the speed of sound with the other well above that when they hit and they did not stop until they embedded themselves into the bedrock. Anyone that was in that sub basement sub-basement is dead. There is also enough crap covering the ground around the crater to collapse every tunnel within a half mile of the crater. There is no possibility of a miracle, no plausible pocket or vault protecting him. If he was in that basement or within a thousand meters, he is dead gentlemen. Accept that fact.” Taking a sip of coffee, she turned around and added s u rger sugar to her coffee as the public address speakers blared.
“Captain Cook, please come to the bridge.”
“Now what?” She tapped her wrist comm. “Number one. What is the problem?”
“Sir; Transport boat number 7 is dropping down into the crater with its marines spreading out searching the wreckage working their way outward. Number 10 is sitting at the transportation tunnel entrance a mile to the north and we are getting complaints from Captain Summers about our guys knocking over barricades and opening blast doors ignoring orders to stay out of the tunnels because of the danger of collapsing tunnels from the hundreds of feet of material over the top of them. Our troops have even fired warning shots at the English guards as well as tying them up. It seems our third boat has not moved. Its marine company is scattered around that side of the perimeter of the debris field working their way toward the center.” The wardroom exploded into demands to join the search on this side of the debris field as Captain Cook stormed from the compartment.
On the bridge she took one look at the main screen of the hold and the 40 or 50 vehicles starting their cores with a mass of suited marines around them in suits that did not look anything like combat suits but more like construction workers ready to dig a hole to china , biting at the bit for the hatch to drop so they could leave. “Get me number 7 and...” she leaned in to look at floating platforms hanging above the heads of the marines and their equipment in the hold. “What the hell are those platforms ready to do? They are just transport platforms.”
“Captain Sir.” Came a voice from behind her. “The platforms have had ground penetrating sensors added across there bottoms. They should be able to find any voids or even the remains of the Commander at several hundred feet down short range or a suit beacon buried at at a thousand if they are directly over it couple hundred feet even buried . Sir. The other companies have not had time or did not think of using them sir. We should be able to find the Commander in a few hours sir. Alive or dead if his suit’s emergency beacon is still transmitting, which are almost indestructible. Sir .”
Captain Cook took a long drag on her stogy and looked up. Blowing a big smoke ring over the heads of the officers crowding into the l arge transports it tle boat ’ s bridge. “Damn Number one; I don’t have much of a choice here do I.” Shaking her head as she took another puff. “Open the hatch and let the dogs out.”
The whoops and yells behind her quickly disappeared as the hold rapidly emptied with the roar of equipment . The boat looking like a beehive that someone had just pissed off. The officers around her jumping from the closest emergency hatches 5 stories above the ground to join their platoons rushing form the cargo deck. The open hatches letting some of the toxic air into the ship before they could close. Punching the comm on the Command chair. “Captain Summers, I am deploying the rest of our troops to search for Commander Collins. I will keep you informed if we find anything. Over.” She had to admit that felt damn good.
"I said my people would take care of the search when we can safely get in Captain. I don't appreciate reports I am getting about your troops shooting at my the troops guarding the tunnel hatches and arresting them as well as steeling equipment. It is not safe down those tunnels until we have had time to brace them."
Cook took a deep breath. "Well Captain , then call your guards back if you won’t send your crews in to help. My marines are going to find Commander Collins one way or another and I don't have much say in the matter it right now."
"What?" Shaking her head , Summers sneered at Captain Cook. "Ya, typical Tramps. Can't follow orders if your lives depended on it."
"Got news for you Captain Summers. My ships marines are trained as American marines have been trained for thousands of years, to go to the sound of the fighting, ignoring the costs since Command structures in Combat have a habit of falling apart when things are at their worst. I know it has saved this ship a time or two as well as many other Tramps. Now get your damn troops out of my marine’s way. They have sensors and equipment the locals and maybe even your recovery troops don't have thanks to Commander Collins and you, so let them use them. Out."
Captain Cook started back toward the wardroom to get the her coffee she had forgotten about. Walking down the cro ss passageway toward the ward room she passed through the intersection with As soon as she entered the long side passageway running along the side of the ship from one end of the boat to the other , she saw a stream of marines troops missing pieces of armor with bandages and casts and some without
even armored suits walking and hobbling down the passageway from the wards toward the elevator at the hospital’s entrance area . "What the hell is going on here!" She bellowed even though she already knew, rushing down the passageway towards Sickbay and the elevator she had come up in a half hour before.
Doctor Wells, Doctor West and a several other doctors and nurses came running out of the sick bay ward. "Get back in here all of you. None of you are in any shape to go t r amping around a damn collapsed building."
"I have one good eye Doc." A woman with a bandage wrapped around her head said as Doctor West caught up to her. "I can still read a sensor screen and walk."
"Bullshit Sgt. Flannigan. The eye you have left is badly burned and needs time to heal if you don’t' want to lose it and I have to get into the other eye before the tissue degenerates too much or you won’t have that eye. Now get back into pre-opp."
Captain Cook shook her head as she listened to the doctors and nurses trying to get the patients back into the sickbay wards.
"You heard the Doctors." Captain Cook She bellowed this time on purpose. "Get back into your bunks and I will have Doctor Wells release everyone that is fit for light duty as soon as they are checked." When no one moved. "Now people, move it!" They started shuffling back into the sickbay ward at a fraction of the speed they left it . Several of them tried to tell the Doctors they were fine only to have the Doctor tell them that no they weren’t. While several simply slumped down to the deck with their backs against the bulkhead lacking the energy to even return to the wards now that their adrenalin rush was gone.
Back on the boat's bridge a half hour later, Captain Cook sat in the Command chair sipping her coffee with a fresh stogy hanging out of the corner of her lips, wishing she had better displays to watch and track the hundreds of vehicles running around the devastated landscape as well as better comm units to direct them.
She could not help feeling that they were missing large s waths area around the building s . She kept finding search units that had moved to fare away from the surrounding units all too often and then taking far too long to get in contact with the unites to fix the problem. Finally remembering that Captain Summers had said that one of the transport boats was a command boat she finely had enough and ordered an APC to take her off the medical transport boat to transfer to the boat that had the Command Center only to be stopped halfway out the hatch.
“Captain Cook." Captain Summers appeared on the bridge screen behind her. "Your people have just found the Commanders beacon closed off in one of the lower side maintenance transport tunnels a thousand meters from the tower's foundation in the middle of the worst section for collapsing tunnels. You can recall your search parties Captain. Join me in the transport that found his beacon, aa ,, number 10 , the command transport at the tunnel maintenance head. Bring your senior officers. They should have him out, dead or alive, by the time we get there. That is if they can even get to him. Captain Summers out. You may just wind up losing a bunch of marines going after a corpse.”
Captain Cook hit the fleet wide com but it was obvious that it was probably not needed since most of the icons for the marines and sleds on the screen were already headed out of the crater and the surrounding devastation but she made the announcement anyway. After all, that was half her job; making useless announcements especially when she did not have control of anything. But then she reminded herself that she had been training them for 21 years to do exactly what they were doing w ithout need of her having to micromanage impossible to predict situations such as this . This could just as well be the Star Queen fighting for its life or death and not just a crewman .
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The hatch screamed in the dark smoke filled tunnel. Mark turned his head to watch. His glasses in infrared mode told him that there was a huge machine placing shoring piles from the floor to the ceiling on the other side of the hatch. Then the face of the hatch exploded and a section of the hatch flew it flopped out into the air on this side of the hatch with a loud bang and then clanged as it flopped to hit the floor.
Light flooded in from half a dozen sun bright lights and Mickey darkened his glasses protecting his eyes as much as she could from the bright light of the high intensity floods. But after diverting most of her power breaking down CO2, manufacturing oxygen and to keep Mark alive, she did not have enough power left to darken them much.
"Damn ass holes! Enough with the light already." Mark exclaimed with a whisper. He didn’t have the energy to do much more as his breaths came rapidly trying to grab as much oxygen from the oxygen pore air he had to breathe .
He turned his head around away from the bright lights, looking down the short distance as the tunnel he was in rapidly squeezed down with the overhead touching the floor less than a hundred feet past Mark. The 6 inch thick plasticrete of the tube was no match for the weight of couple hundred s of feet of the collapsed building above it. He had already realized that the hatch with the thick wall across the tunnel was the only thing keeping the tunnel from completely collapsing around him.
"Did everyone get off the tower?" Mark said a bit light headed but no one answered. The suit’s comm seemed to be out as well as the rest of the suit's heads up display. functions. In no hurry , Mark stayed sitting as suits flew through the slowly bowing hatch frame and support post on the other side still clutched in the pile machine’s jaws trying to keep it straight . The ma chine starting to skid across the floor with a screech as it slowly lost the battle. The beam slowly bowing in the center.
Mark smiled. “You guys could have taken a little longer. I was just thinking about getting a nap.” He tried to get up but he had hit one or a dozen too many posts, tunnel sides, hatches and corners. His suit just was not in any mood or hurry to cooperate. The fact that his suits coils had finely failed, forcing him to scoot the last thousand feet on the floor wondering, hoping, he could out slid the collapsing tunnel around him probably did not help much either. As it was, he swore he felt the overhead pushing his feet against the floor the last few feet before friction with the floor finally stopped his head long rush.
The suit just did not want to work worth shit after that as he crawled the few feet to where he could stand up but settled for simply sitting up. “Must be the cheap workmanship. Have to tell the English to make better suits.” Alice the little ball was suddenly flitting around him. Looking up Mark w hispered he said . “Where the hell have you been deserter?”
A pair of suits rushed up to him with a marine taking each side of Mark and grabbed him under the arms . Flying him out the hatch and up the tunnel past the machine still holding the last piling placed across against the hatch opening trying to hold up the ceiling as it slowly slid screeching sideways with the push of the bowing pilling beam . The Marine running the machine jumped out and joined the exodus back up the tunnel gaining speed with the rest of them as the tunnel behind them started collapsing like before around the hatch and machine, without the blasted armored hatch closed to help support the tunnel’s ceiling.
The suit’s helmet which had slowly opened a crack long ago allowing and Mark was able to finally breath when his suit ’s air system had stopped working, again as he watched the collapsing ceiling catching up to them snapping the rows of the pilings shoring up the overhead like toothpicks . Mark could only helplessly watch the overhead quickly catching up to them until they suddenly flashed finely got through the next hatch and it closed behind them with a squeal ending in a bang.
Still trying to catch his breath. “Ok, you guys can slow down now, we are safe.” But they ignored him as they zipped past hundreds of pilings shoring up the overhead and through several more hatches. They finally came out into a larger transportation tunn el and turned 90 degrees only to speed up again. . Mark’s head starting to clear with the oxygen rich air noticed that the tun nel a short ways down the tracks behind where they had entered had collapsed as well . Hundreds of pilings shoring that overhead as well.
After going through two more hat
ches t a s they approached the end of the tunnel at an intersection and t hey finely started slowing down as they app roached the end of the tunnel and an intersection . Mark looked over his shoulder to see marines gathering along with the original English troops guarding the tunnels. He suddenly felt self-conscious at his helpless position.
Trying to put his feet down with the suit not cooperating did not do him much good with his feet 6 feet above the floor of the tunnel . Finely he twisted around and slipped out of the grasps of the two marines, falling to the floor of the tunnel between the two train track s steel rails where he rolled to a stop .
The two marines continued to fly on for a few seconds raising rapidly toward the overhead before turning back not believing they had lost hold of him.
The two marines As they returned dropping down to each side as Mark got slowly to his feet having to use more muscle than suit as his chest still heaved sucking in air by the lung full through the partially opened visor . Waving them back when they reached to help him Mark he started walking toward the end of the tunnel. The two marines with their visors still down, seemed to look at each other then landed next to Mark and started walking , flanking each s ide of him. J themselves , j oined shortly by the rest of his rescue party.
After a few minutes of having to take some effort to move each leg to walk while trying not to trip on the rail ties that were not far enough apart to walk on with a normal step but to far apart to take two ties with each step, Mark realized that he was not going to make even the end of the tunnel before exhaustion set in. “Damn Mickey; damaged is one thing but this is ridiculous. How do I get this thing off?” The little ball landed on his shoulder only to have Mark brush it off.
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