As the ships descended to the surface, Greg was appalled at the condition of the station. Empty containers or at least Greg assumed they were empty, were strewn around the perimeter like driftwood on a beach. Containers labeled as containing fissionable or hazardous materials were mixed with containers labeled as holding foodstuffs. It was as if a hurricane had blown through and tossed the containers like a child tossed toys. Greg reflected that in space there are no hurricanes and only humans could make this big a mess.
The four ships settled on the landing cradles specific to their type of ship. The crews donned EVA suits and exited through the airlocks to the ground. They followed the directions as marked and entered the station’s airlock as a group.
About fifty women and a like number of children stood and watched as they entered. The flight crews had barely removed their helmets when two women came running out of the crowd. The one who wrapped herself around Monique was talking so fast and crying at the same time that she was impossible to understand even for those who understood French. The one who ran for Myra was less vocal, but her joy at their reunion was no less heartfelt. A tall distinguished looking woman walked toward Greg.
“Captain, welcome. I must inform you that in spite of our assurances to the contrary, you have indeed stepped into a trap. Should you or any of your companions make a single inappropriate move, we shall be obliged to destroy you and your ships.”
“I knew it was too easy,” Greg mumbled. Then he said, “We come to trade, to barter, or do what we need to do to procure supplies which I believe you have in stock. It is not our intent to harm you or disadvantage you in any way.”
“Can you defend us?”
“Against what?”
“Swordsmen or pirates or whoever shows up first.”
“Not here, no.”
She regarded him closely contemplating his answer. “But you can defend us somewhere else.”
Greg did not like where he saw this going. “Yes, I believe we can.”
“Then you must take us there. All of us.”
The flight crews, listening intently to the negotiation, gasped at the same time each aware of the enormity of the task they were being asked to do.
“You may have anything you want from the station and its stores, but for payment you must take us with you, and you must do it now before the pirates return.”
“And if I don’t, you will destroy my ships, and thereby eliminate any chance you might have had of escape,” Greg said. “I hate Mexican stand-offs.”
“You could be held for ransom,” she added brightly.
Greg was skeptical. “Maybe. Do you have a name?”
“Justine Donnelly.”
“Alright Justine, first tell me how you all came to be stranded here on this claustrophobia inspiring supply depot.”
Greg looked around at the women. He looked back at Justine and asked, “Is this some kind of brothel? I had heard that there were places like this. Is it true?”
She looked down, clearly embarrassed. “Yes, we are captives. We have been taken from our homes, from our ships, from all over the galaxy, and we have been forced to do the pirates’ bidding.”
Greg gently lifted her chin and said, “You know, if you had told me that first, we would gladly have taken you with us.”
She looked up at him and he said, “And after what we just learned I would probably be facing a mutiny if I didn’t offer to take you with us under these circumstances.”
The people within earshot cheered.
“When are the pirates due back?” Greg asked.
“They are overdue now,” Justine said.
“How long overdue?” Greg asked.
“Six months.”
“I doubt they are coming back,” Greg concluded.
“We had come to the same conclusion,” Justine affirmed.
“Where did they go?” Greg asked.
“They went to raid a Swordsman base. They said it would be easy pickings because the Swordsmen are so poorly trained,” Justine replied with skepticism.
“Obviously not. I am surprised the Swordsmen have not come to take this station.”
“We are too. But we know that if the Swordsmen come, they will kill us,” Justine said.
“Why?” Greg asked.
“They kill whores. To them we are full of dread diseases they do not want let loose on their populations. Swordsmen kill those they do not trust. They do not trust whores,” Justine offered.
Greg called out. “Monique, Angelina, can you fit all of these people on your ship?”
Monique looked around and said, “Yes, I think so, but how will we feed them?”
Greg turned to Justine, “How much food to you have in stock?”
“Enough to last a month at most. We were getting desperate.”
Greg commanded, “Gather the women, children and all the foodstuffs that you can find. Look for dry goods and prepared foods that don’t need refrigeration. Load them on your ship. Take whatever you can carry. When you have the ship loaded with as much food as you can fit, decide how much of their personal effects each person gets to take with them. Once you are completely loaded, go home. Run at one and a quarter G. Take all these people with you. Understand?”
“Aye, Sir,” they chorused.
The women turned to go, and Greg reached out for Justine. He caught her by the elbow and said, “Not you.” Greg gently held her arm and said, “You don’t go with them. You stay with me.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You are my insurance. Once your ship is out of danger, what is to keep you from sending a signal that destroys us here on the ground? No, you stay with us.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “It is a small price to pay for the safety of my people.”
“I hoped you would see it that way. You will stay and help load what we came for.” Greg called Sam and Brownie. “You need to decide. One goes with them, and one stays.”
Brownie did not hesitate. “I’m staying. Sam can go.”
Sam looked at Brownie said. “You are crazy, child. I’ll go, but we both should stay.”
“Not enough seats on the trip home,” Greg said, “One of you has to go now.”
Greg called Avi and Myra. “Take your ships and stand off the planet so we have warning in case we get intruders.”
The next eight hours were a frenzy of activity as they emptied the station’s stores and loaded the smaller cargo ship. Twelve hours after touching down, the ship headed out with its cargo of refugees bound for a new land.
Greg, Brownie and Justine loaded Greg’s ship using the giant cargo handlers and monstrous material lifts from the supply depot. They loaded all of the fissionable material they could find. They carefully wended their way through the morass of containers to select the ones they needed and hauled them with the big lifts to the ship and attached them to the ship’s tie points.
For four days, they loaded cargo. Greg finally decided his ship was so overloaded it jeopardized his ability to lift off. Resolving to return, or more accurately, hoping to return, he instructed the others to board the ship for departure. The cargo ship rendezvoused with the sentries.
“Justine, you go with Myra. Brownie, you go with Avi.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Avi asked.
“You need to get home quickly. I will follow. If something happens to this ship, we only lose one of us. I am the most expendable. Myra, as soon as you are away, send a courier missile to the nearest Space Force station and recommend they assume control of these facilities.” After a few moments of protest, Greg convinced them he was right.
“Intruder alert!” The computer brought them back to reality.
“Identify!”
They watched the displays as the ships dropped out of hyper and on the far side of the system.
“Four destroyers. Two scouts. One tender,” the computer gave the total when it appeared that no more were coming.
“Federation, Pirate or Swordsman?�
��
“Swordsman with transponders active.”
“Time to run!” Greg said. “Let’s go!”
Myra left first. As soon as it was prudent to do so, Avi followed. Greg left shortly thereafter. The ship responded sluggishly and Greg blamed the depleted fissionable material in the reactor and the fact that the ship was seriously overloaded. He settled in for a three-week ride home.
Five days into the voyage, he was napping in his command chair when the general alarm sounded. He sat upright and noticed the warning. One of the cooling fluid pumps on reactor number one had failed. Reactor Number One was overheating.
“Computer! Command mode! Shut down reactor One!”
“Aye sir,” the computer responded
With a reactor shut down and as heavy a load as it was carrying, the ship could no longer maintain the current acceleration. They would be late arriving home.
“Computer, what is our status?”
“Reactor Two appears to be functioning normally. However, we do not have enough power for hyper drive. We can coast at this speed but we cannot accelerate.”
“How long will the trip take us at this rate?”
“Three months,” the computer replied. “We do not have adequate food. As long as one reactor is operating you will have recycled water and oxygen, but you will starve to death before we arrive.”
HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“INITIATE MAXIMUM POWER CONSERVATION.”
All over the ship, airlocks closed and, with the exception of the flight deck, the life support systems that allowed Greg to wander freely through the ship without his EVA suit shut down. The cargo decks and containers were allowed to drift toward the cold of space.
“Computer, can the pump be replaced?”
“With difficulty. We cannot make repairs while we are traveling at hyper speed because you cannot do an EVA. Unless there happens to be a similar pump in the cargo holds from the material acquired at the pirates’ supply depot, the only possible replacement pump is on the shuttle and it has half the capacity of what we need. If we find an appropriate pump, we need a welder to install it. One other thing, the installation is not a simple procedure.”
“That much I guessed. But the alternative is death.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, we don’t have much choice. Decelerate to standard drive.”
“Aye sir.”
Greg donned his EVA suit and shut down as much of the ship as he could. While the ship decelerated for the transition back to standard drive, he rummaged through the cargo holds searching the material commandeered from the pirate base for the parts he needed. He found welding rods on the first day. He found the hose and nozzle rig on the second day. He continued to look as the ship decelerated. On the tenth day they dropped out of hyper into standard drive. Failing to find any further materials, Greg returned to the flight deck.
“Do you have a fix on where we are?”
“Yes. We are seriously in the middle of nowhere.”
“Can we send a courier missile from here?”
“Yes.”
“Could it find its way back?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a similar pump on an 86?”
“No, nothing matches.”
“Could we arrange a manifold with several pumps to accomplish the same task?”
“Perhaps.”
“Could we take four of the pumps we used to supply water to the animals in the cargo containers and force the water through a manifold?”
“Yes, if you had a way to manufacture a manifold.”
“Open the drafting program please.”
“Aye sir.”
“I am drawing the general shape of the assembly. You need to fill in the flanges and attachment points. Is the power compatible?”
“Yes.” The computer filled in the flanges and rendered the solid forms to develop the drawing.
“Put that on a data module and send it with our status, course, speed and location information.”
“Aye sir.”
Greg settled in to wait. The remaining reactor could safely power the life support systems in the crew quarters and flight deck far longer than the food supply would last. Pointed in the general direction of Homestead, the ship drifted silently through space. He continued to explore the cargo areas for parts that might be useful, but other than relieving his boredom, he met with little success. The cabin was comfortable as he floated weightlessly not knowing how long he would wait for rescue.
* * * * *
To say the courier missile caused consternation when it arrived would be an understatement of the first order. Its arrival was the first anyone realized Greg was late.
Chaos had reigned when Justine and company arrived. Homestead’s population had doubled overnight. Justine insisted that they be settled a distance from the others. She repeatedly commented that there was no sense in putting temptation before the men who were already there. Most of the men took offense at the idea that they could not be trusted. Others understood. Mark served as peacemaker. The new arrivals were eventually settled in their own community around a protected bay near a river delta a hundred kilometers south along the coast from the original settlement. This seemed to be the most effective compromise between the need to support each other and the need to be isolated.
The entire community dove into the task of building homes for the new arrivals. Justine, the women and children pitched in to the extent of their abilities and the project was moving along when the courier missile arrived. Greg’s delay had passed unnoticed with everyone so focused on settling the new arrivals. Myra was on patrol when the courier arrived at the decoy site.
Myra assembled the flight crews. They agreed Avi should leave immediately with as much food as she could carry. Sam and Brownie would follow in the smaller cargo ship with the replacement parts. There was no need in risking any more people than necessary on what could be a difficult and dangerous repair. Reactor system repairs required the deftest of touches and while Sam had confidence in Brownie’s abilities, Brownie was less certain.
David manufactured the required parts by welding together pieces of pipe from other systems. Concerned that the assembly would overheat, he encased the entire thing in a cooling water jacket. He built flexible extenders for the flanges so that if the manifold and jacket made the assembly too large for the space available, they could extend the entire contraption outside the reactor cowling.
Two weeks after Avi left, Sam and Brownie headed for a point in space.
Greg’s ship’s sensors picked up Avi’s ship as soon as it dropped to standard drive. Greg was in his EVA suit rummaging through the cargo when the call came.
“Well, hello there! Rescue is at hand.”
Greg checked his EVA suit. He had been wearing it a lot lately. “Ripe” was the word that kept coming to mind. Still in his suit, Greg returned to the flight deck as Avi entered her ship through the airlock.
“Shew! You stink!” Avi said when Greg removed his helmet.
“Well, that’s a hell of greeting!”
“Get out of that suit before I throw you and it into the hygiene unit!”
“I was thinking you’d be happy to see me. Running to me with your arms wide.”
“After you’re cleaned up, I’ll be glad to see you. You’re nasty!”
Duly chastened, Greg stowed his suit in the decontamination locker and headed for the hygiene unit. He had become rather shaggy in the weeks he had waited for rescue and the hygiene unit had its work cut out for it.
Drifting weightlessly through space, light years from anything, Greg and Avi savored the weeks they spent together floating in the cargo ship’s cabin dining on the supplies Avi had carried on her ship. When Sam and Brownie finally showed up, Greg and Avi were almost disappointed.
Greg’s suit had been decontaminated in the interim, and the four of them began the repairs. They spent another four weeks working on the ship before Brownie judged it fit to trav
el. She initiated start up procedures.
“Computer,” she commanded when the start up was complete. “Please run complete diagnostics, and produce a hard copy report.”
“Diagnostics starting.”
The report was several hundred pages. Brownie spent two days reviewing it. Not long after she had run the report, she pulled Greg aside. “Greg, you need to take Avi home. She’s not well. Sam and I can finish.”
“What do you mean?” Greg asked beginning to panic.
“I don’t know. Something is not right. Her color is off. She’s queasy. Take her to a doctor.”
“To Earth?”
“No, Dr. Turner will know what’s wrong. Please go now.”
“Avi won’t want to go.”
“I’ll take care of that. Get ready to ship out.”
True to her word, Brownie convinced Avi to head back with Greg. They barreled home at 2 G and landed at the settlement. Greg immediately woke up Dr. Turner and brought her to the ship.
An hour later Dr. Turner emerged from the crew compartment, still angry at having been awakened and said, “I assume you will marry the lady. Should I have Mark make arrangements?”
Greg stared at her not comprehending.
Dr. Turner shook her head. “She’s fine. She’s pregnant.”
“How can that be? We’re…” Greg stammered.
“Too old?”
“Yes.”
“One of the side effects of the birth control system the military uses is that it delays the onset of menopause a decade or more.” Greg stared at her. “What about,” he paused, “diseases?”
“Neither of your family histories show genetic problems. I did what tests I could. We will need to do more later. So, are you going to marry her?”
“Yes! Yes, of course. Call Mark. Can I see her now?”
“No. I gave her something to make her rest. Some women have morning sickness worse than others. Give her some room, and don’t baby her.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Avi’s pregnancy was greeted with universal happiness. Even Blondie seemed pleased on hearing the news. Helen, busy with her own baby, a boy named Sean, was excited and offered to mid-wife. They agreed that the wedding should wait until Sam and Brownie returned with the ship. Mark expressed his concern that he did not know how to conduct a Jewish wedding. Greg assured him as long as they were pronounced man and wife at the end in front of witnesses, little else mattered.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 17