Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “If we don’t jump, those missiles will tear us apart. That star carrier is about to blow any second, it’s getting hammered. We need to do it. Now.”

  What the hell, Irene told herself, decision made. “Can you find where the preprogrammed jump options list is? We can’t program a jump by ourselves.” Even if a jump was programmed in the drive navigation system, would it be usable without adjusting for the damping effect? She did not know, and that was the problem.

  Derek peered at his console, touching unfamiliar controls. “I think this is it. I think. Uh, yes! System shows one hundred percent capacity,” he noted. That had to be the jump drive capacitors, the Toaster had not jumped in days, so the capacitors would be fully charged. The ship rocked from multiple maser beam strikes, yellow lights on the display showing where the white-hot beams had burned through the defensive shields protecting the critical aft engineering section.

  “Select the second option and authorize it,” she ordered as she tried to find the controls to release power from the capacitors into the jump coils. One thing she did know for certain was that the coils could not safely hold a charge for long, once power began flowing from the capacitors the coils needed to be used or the power discharged quickly.

  “Why the second option?”

  “Those Bosphuraq knew where the star carrier was jumping to, we don’t want to make our jump obvious by using the primary Assembly Zone option. Ready?” She didn’t need a reply as she could see the second option on the list was now blinking blue. “Five, four, three,” she reached out with her right hand to touch Derek, the jump now being on automatic.

  Derek took her hand, squeezed it and turned to say something, when the ship violently skewed and shuddered as the Jeraptha star carrier exploded.

  Then they jumped.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Easy, easy, Ma’am, it’s not a race,” Dave cautioned as Perkins got her safety line snagged on a piece of debris protruding from a gaping hole in the ship’s hull.

  “I’m fine, Czajka. You’re not my babysitter.”

  “No, Ma’am. I do have more spacewalk time than you. Let me go first.”

  “Why?” Perkins was predisposed to be irritated, because of the dangerous situation, the lack of time and the circuitous route they had to take toward the ship’s engineering section. And because Sergeant Czajka acted like he needed to hold her hand the whole way. “Because you are younger and a man?”

  “No, Colonel. Because, if one of us is expendable, it’s not you. There’s a whole lot of stuff attached to the hull that could kill us,” he pointed to sparks arcing from another hole in the hull, “between here and that airlock. I should scout ahead.”

  The sergeant’s reply had chastened her, she had let impatience, anger and fear overcome her need for cool judgement. “Czajka, none of us are expendable. Not humans, not out here. We don’t know if anyone is left alive on Earth. UNEF on Paradise may be all that is left. Thank you, go ahead and check for anything that might blow up in our faces, but be careful. Careful, you got that? I can’t, I don’t want to lose you,” she added with a lump in her throat.

  “Yes, Colonel,” Dave’s feeble grin could be seen in the faint lights illuminating his helmet faceplate.

  The ship had successfully jumped away from the battlespace, or successfully enough, and the Bosphuraq ship had not pursued. After a terrifying fifteen minutes trapped in their designated section of the ship, not having any idea what was going on as the comm system was offline, comms were partially restored and Perkins had been able to use her command codes to get a rough and confusing status report. What she saw shocked her. The entire forward section of the ship was missing, simply gone, and the hull was breached in multiple areas. Main power was off, even emergency backup systems were spotty and intermittent. Attempts to contact anyone in authority were a failure until Perkins located a feature that tracked the ship’s officers. One, there was only one adult crewman whose comm system indicated activity, and that person was several sections aft, in the primary engineering control center. That was why Perkins and Czajka were in spacesuits, clambering along the outside of the ship. Much of the ship’s interior was a dangerously impassible shambles, with airtight doors closed and not responding to the codes Perkins had been given. She had quickly decided her best option was to travel aft on the ship’s hull and enter the engineering center through an airlock, despite the danger. The ship shuddered occasionally as one system or another overloaded and exploded or pipes ruptured, or a thruster unhelpfully fired all by itself. To move at all required clipping a safety line, crawling along the hull using whatever handholds were available, and then clipping another safety line. They could not rely on the expedient tactic of floating between handholds, for the ship might suddenly jerk away beneath them and they would drift out to the end of the safety line, wasting precious time and exposing themselves to the jagged bits of debris surrounding the ship like a predatory cloud. It was a damned good thing, Perkins told herself, that the Toaster was a training ship, for the hull had regularly spaced handholds and attachment points for safety lines that would never be allowed on the exterior of a true warship.

  “Got it!” Dave announced as he hooked his boots into a clamp at the bottom of the airlock. “Thank God! It’s active, Ma’am, I’m starting the cycle now.”

  “Would it be best to wait for me to get there?”

  “No,” Dave shook his head though the gesture was barely visible in the blackness of interstellar space. “Having the door open will give you more to grab onto. It’s opening,” he noted with great relief, swallowing his fear that the airlock might refuse to respond to a human.

  That airlock was intended for a single maintenance person, not groups of trainees, and it was a very tight fit for two people wearing spacesuits. “Uh, Colonel, maybe I should wait outside while you cycle through.”

  “Screw that, Czajka, get in here right now. I’m not risking this thing crapping out on us while you’re out there. That’s an order,” she added when he hesitated.

  It was a tight fit, even a tight squeeze. They managed to stuff themselves into the airlock enough so no limbs stuck out to block the door sensors, and the outer door slid slowly closed. “Czajka,” Perkins grunted as his helmet pushed her head to the side at an awkward angle and one of his knees was jammed into her crotch hard enough to make her left hip hurt. “Unless you’re gonna buy me dinner first-”

  “Oh, sorry,” he tried moving his leg but there wasn’t much he could do about it. His right hand was free so he used it to activate the emergency pressurization cycle, using a bottle of stored air to rapidly flood the lock with air. In moments, the inner door’s locking pins retracted. “Door’s opening,” he gasped as one of her elbows dug into his chest hard enough to leave a bruise. “The engineering compartment holds air,” he reported, as the pressure gauge read ninety two percent of normal.

  Perkins got herself untangled from the sergeant and through the inner door first. Her hopes faded as her gaze took in the main compartment’s condition. Most displays were dark, with others flickering or displaying static or scrolling lines of gibberish. Without gravity, objects both broken or merely loose floated everywhere, a tool bounced off her helmet before she could see it coming. “Come on,” she waved to Czajka without turning to look at him. Keeping a firm grip on handholds, she pulled herself across the compartment to where an injured Ruhar officer was loosely strapped to a table, surrounded by four cadets. As she approached, she reached up with a thumb to crack open her faceplate and swing it up, using her lips to pull the helmet microphone closer to her mouth. “Hello? I am Lieutenant Colonel Perkins of the human ExForce,” she spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each word so the translator would not make unfortunate mistakes.

  A female cadet who had been literally hovering over the injured officer looked up, and Perkins recognized her as Jinn Garnor, a girl Nert liked very much. “Colonel Perkins,” Jinn turned toward the newcomers with an expression that was a mixture of fea
r and relief. The human Colonel being a senior officer might take some of the responsibility off Jinn’s shoulders, but since Perkins was an alien, she was not likely to be of much use in the crisis. “Urmat Datha is badly injured,” she put a hand over her mouth to contain her fear as the Urmat shuddered and blood bubbled from his lips.

  “We need to move him to the medical station,” Perkins did not like the paleness of the officer’s lips, nor the tiny bubbles of blood exhaled from his nose with every labored breath.

  “We tried, we can’t,” Jinn explained. “The passageways are all blocked. I-how did you get here?” She looked toward the big door at the far end of the compartment, which still had its locking bars engaged to hold it shut.

  “We spacewalked along the hull outside.”

  “You did?” Jinn’s eyebrows lifted, and again Perkins was struck by how some expressions were universal between species. Between bipedal species that walked upright, she reminded herself, and only those few species she had met. “That is too danger-”

  “No more dangerous than being in here,” Perkins ducked and pushed away a broken piece of metal and composite that had floated in front of her face. “Urmat Datha is the only survivor of the entire crew?” She knew the Ruh Tostella had departed Paradise with a limited number of adult crew, as senior cadets were expected to gain real shipboard experience by standing watches, performing routine maintenance and other roles that would be filled by fully-trained adult crew members. Losing the forward part of the ship had taken away the bridge and command crew with it, but how could the Urmat be the only survivor?

  “We think so, yes,” Jinn nodded a bit too vigorously, her fear evident. “There were seven of us on duty here, with Urmat Datha in charge. Klasta Amatu and Cadet Surtil were killed,” she looked at the blackened mark on the hull. “It’s just us now. None of us are trained as medics, are you?” She looked to Dave hopefully.

  “Not in Ruhar physiology,” Perkins frowned. “He needs the resources of a full medical station. His suit,” with one gentle hand, she wiped away some of the still-wet blood on Datha’s right side, and did not like what she found. A rip! A tear wide enough that the suit’s nano repair mechanism was not able to close the fatal opening. “Can we patch this?”

  “We used the patch kit for Cadet Surtil. That was Datha’s order, but it did not save him,” Jinn looked sadly to where the unlucky Surtil’s body was strapped into a chair. Perkins could see at least three patches attached to that suit, she thought the patches had done their job, but Surtil had died anyway. Datha had probably thought he was being noble by telling the cadets to use the patches on a crew member more badly injured than himself, but Perkins knew that was the kind of amateur wishful thinking civilians indulged in. As the lone surviving adult officer, Datha should have known his duty was to have his own wounds tended to, so he could assist others. Now, everyone aboard the ship might all die, and there was nothing noble about that. “The nanomachines,” Jinn glanced up to see if Perkins understood the translation. “They worked to repair the suit, then after we blocked the air leak, they pulled inside to stop Datha’s blood loss.”

  “Your nano tech can work on mechanical and biological systems?” Perkins asked in surprise.

  “No,” Jinn reached up to wipe away the tears brimming in her eyes. “The suit can inject medical nanobots into a user, and they did, but-They needed help. The mechanical nano,” the translator stumbled over the term, “as you said, it can only act to block blood vessels. It plugs leaks,” she looked up at Perkins, seeking understanding.

  “You did what you could. The Urmat needs skilled medical treatment. Is there another suit available?”

  “No, there are no spares available now. The locker with spare suits was damaged, that is where Surtil was when he, when he was hit.” Jinn closed her eyes tightly, causing droplets of tear to float away from her face. “He can, he can use my suit,” she offered.

  Perkins looked from Datha to the anxious cadet, judging their sizes. “I don’t think he will fit.”

  “He can use my suit, Ma’am,” Dave began to pull off his helmet.

  “Forget it, Czajka. You know what it’s like out there, you need to guide us back. Uh, you,” she pointed to another cadet, “you look about Datha’s size. Get out of-”

  “You,” Datha’s eyes opened and he reached up to grasp her forearm, missed, and his arm bounced off the table. Gently, Perkins caught his hand and wrapped her glove around his. The Ruhar officer tried to squeeze his hand but his strength was gone. “Ship?”

  “Badly damaged, the forward hull is missing,” Perkins did not sugar-coat the information. “We’re on backup power and that is failing. We have no shields, no propulsion, sensors are scrambled and that Bosphuraq battlecruiser could jump in on top of us at any second. Urmat Datha, you need to know right now that we believe you are the only adult crewman to survive.” Perkins told the truth without sugar-coating anything. Datha was an adult, a crewman, an officer, with the rank of ‘Urmat’ being equivalent to a major in the US Army. The unvarnished truth is the least they owed to him.

  “Everyone, else, dead?” His words came out in a wet whisper, bubbles of blood choking him as he spoke.

  “Yes,” Perkins squeezed the man’s hand. The dead crewmen were his shipmates, friends, people he might have served with for years. All gone now. “There are senior cadets who could assume-”

  “No,” Datha declared with vehemence beyond his strength, and it threw him into a coughing fit, bubbles of blood spewing from his mouth onto the front of Perkin’s suit. She did not flinch, merely held the Urmat’s hand while he recovered. “You,” he pointed to Perkins with an index finger, “are an officer. Senior officer. Your rank is equivalent to our ‘Ormath’,” he paused to take a breath. Perkins knew that was not quite true, as the rank structure of the Ruhar military was more complicated than the commissioned ranks of the US Army, but the point was not relevant to the situation. “You must take command.”

  “Me?” Perkins pointed to herself as all four Ruhar cadets sucked in sharp breaths. “Urmat Datha, I am not Ruhar. I am an alien. Surely a-”

  “A senior cadet,” he coughed, “is not an officer. Trainee. You,” he scrunched up his eyes as a wave of pain struck him. “Have experience. Combat experience. You take command.”

  “Um,” Perkins looked to Czajka, both of them stunned.

  With his other hand, Datha pawed for the zPhone on his belt, Jinn pulled it out and put it into his free hand, as Perkins released the hand she had been holding. With both of his hands so shaky and weak he needed Jinn to steady the phone, he pressed buttons and a command application popped up on the screen. Datha spoke quietly into the phone. “Urmat Farpew Datha, transferring command of the warship Ruh Tostella to Lieutenant Colonel,” he looked up to see if his pronunciation was correct, “Emily Perkins, of the human Expeditionary Force.”

  “Transfer of command acknowledged,” a mechanical voice issued from his phone at the same time Perkins’ own phone beeped and vibrated.

  She looked at her phone, seeing a cascade of command authorizations scrolling past. They were all in Ruhar script, she could barely read half of the words. How the hell could she-Just then, her phone must have realized she needed to read English, for all the commands blinked and the words were then recognizable. She was in command of a Ruhar warship?! No, she was in command of a battered hulk that was leaking air and had no source of power, with a crew of frightened cadets, in deep interstellar space that was now a warzone. “I accept command,” she saluted Datha, using the two-fingers-to-her-cheek gesture of the Ruhar. “Until you are able to return to duty. Sergeant Czajka, take two cadets with you and get Urmat Datha to the medical station. First priority is to restore main, or at least auxiliary power.” Her fuzzy recollection of the ship’s systems was that auxiliary power was a sort of fuel cell that did not have enough output to run more than basic systems. And a fuel cell needed a fuel tank. With the hull so peppered with breaches that it looked like Swiss chee
se, did she dare hope a fuel tank had survived unscathed? “Cadet Garnor, who is the senior engineering cadet?”

  “Sath Callon, but I have not been able to contact her. She was,” Jinn’s lower lip quivered. “Her duty station was in the forward section of the ship.”

  Perkins knew she had asked the wrong question. “Who is the senior engineering cadet right here, right now?”

  “That is me,” Jinn swallowed, her incisors sticking out over her lower lip. “Ormath Perkins, I am not qualified-”

  “You are as qualified as anyone available. Sergeant Czajka, when you get forward, pass the word for engineering cadets to make their way aft, we need all the help here we can get.”

  “Ormath, I barely know-”

  “Senior Cadet Garnor, I know nothing about these systems,” she waved a hand to encompass the shattered equipment around them. “We are in interstellar space, without power, and with a Bosphuraq battlecruiser probably hunting us. If we can’t restore power, we are dead, is that clear? You cadets came aboard the-” she almost referred to the ship as ‘Toaster’ which now seemed inappropriate. “The Ruh Tostella, to gain real-life experience. Think of this,” Perkins forced a smile she didn’t feel, “as a problem added to a training simulation.”

  “A problem in a training sim, right,” Jinn bit her lip as she thought. A sim. Yes, she could think of the disaster as a particularly challenging, an outrageously, ridiculously unfairly challenging test in a sim. That way, she could push the very likely possibility of impending death to the back of her mind and concentrate on the problem. “Right,” she looked up at the other three cadets. “Pranz, you are with me-”

  While two cadets got the now-unconscious Datha out of his useless suit, Dave pulled Perkins aside. “Ma’am, maybe you should go with the Urmat.”

  “No, Sergeant, I need to be here. Priority One is restoring power, or this ship is nothing but a composite tube that will be getting cold soon. If Garnor needs my command codes to reactivate a system,” she waved her phone, “I need to be here. Right now, this is the heart of the ship, the rest of the hull is just dead weight without the reactors.”