by Brown, Ryk
“That’s pretty good thinking, Doc.”
“Not really,” she admitted as she finished applying the bandages that would cover his wound while the bonding agents worked their magic. “It’s standard disaster management. I learned it during my internship. Frees up beds for the more serious cases.”
“Any word on Doctor Thomas?”
“Still missing,” she told him as she finished his bandage.
“Well, I guess that makes you chief of medical for now.”
Doctor Chen said nothing in response as she finished bandaging his leg. Nathan could feel the tension, and knew it had been brought on by his last statement.
“Doc, you okay?”
Doctor Chen just looked at him for a moment. “No, I’m not,” she admitted. “I’m not okay. And I’m sure as hell not ready to be in charge. I’m only three weeks into my residency! I barely know what I’m doing half the time!”
“Hey, come on,” he urged, trying to reassure her. “Look at me? I’ve only been at the helm for a little over a week! And I’m suddenly the captain?”
“You don’t understand. All those people out there? They expect me to save them. Me.”
“Yeah, I saw those people out there, Doc. And you know what? I’m the one who got them injured in the first place! They’re out there because of what I did, because of the decisions I made! You wanna trade places?”
She stared at him again, finally asking, “Hand me the pneumo-ject from the cabinet behind you.”
“The what?”
She shook her head, a slight chuckle in her voice as she reached behind him to get the device herself. “You wanna trade?” she mocked as she loaded the pneumatic syringe. “I’ll do it, but only on one condition.”
“What’s that?” he asked, cringing as she injected the medication into his leg.
“Promise me it’s only temporary.”
“No problem,” he assured. “The minute we return I’m sure they’ll replace us all with more experienced officers.”
“Good, because I don’t want to be in charge any longer than I have to.”
Nathan wanted to tell her that he felt exactly the same way. But he had no idea where they were, or how long it would take them to get home. And the last thing the crew needed was to know that their captain didn’t want to be in command.
“Well, I think I should warn you that it might be a little longer than you think.” Nathan braced himself for her reaction, but got nothing more than a concerned look from her tired eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
“It may take some time for us to get back to Earth.”
“But they’ll come for us as soon as the fighting is over,” she surmised. “I mean, Jupiter is only a few hours out, even by our slowest ships, right?”
“Well, we’re not exactly orbiting Jupiter anymore,” Nathan admitted as she finished bandaging his leg. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”
Doctor Chen had taken the news of their situation, and the details of how they had gotten into trouble better than Nathan had expected. In the end, she had realized that despite her misgivings about her own abilities, she was the only person on board even remotely qualified to do the job. Nathan had thanked her for his treatment, and left her to tend to her numerous patients. As he left medical, he had a feeling that the petite, soft spoken Doctor was far stronger than she realized.
* * *
Getting to Engineering had been more challenging than Nathan had expected. Because of the size of the hangar bay, most of the corridors skirted around it, between the bay and the inner hull. Unlike medical, which had been located deeper inside the ship, these sections had taken a considerable beating. Most of them were still intact and passable. However Nathan had been forced to make a few detours to get around some of the more severely damaged sections. He wished that he had thought to go through the hangar bay instead of around it. Not only would it have been easier, but he also would’ve gotten to see the rebel ship that was still parked inside.
Nathan worried about what he would find when he got to engineering. It was located at the uppermost edge of the amidships section, just forward of the massive propulsion section at their stern. The location had been chosen to facilitate quick changing of her reactor cores. But that left the area more vulnerable to attack. Captain Roberts had been aware of this weakness. During their battle with the Jung patrol ships, he had protected it by attacking head on, and later by rolling the ship to show their reinforced belly while passing over the enemy.
The smell of burnt electronics became noticeable as Nathan approached Engineering. Once he stepped through the main hatch it became almost overpowering. There were signs of burnt out panels and exploded consoles everywhere. Several of the damaged consoles had multiple data pads wired into them to act as temporary interfaces until they could be properly repaired. There were several expended fire suppression bottles laying about, along with a few pieces of burnt clothing. In the corners were piles of circuit boards so badly burnt that they could not be repaired.
A half dozen crewmen, most of them engineers or technical specialists, were busy trying to repair the most urgent systems. In the middle of it all was Vladimir, bigger than life, barking out orders to at least three different work teams simultaneously. In contrast to Doctor Chen, Vladimir appeared to be enjoying the challenge.
“Vlad!” Nathan called out as he came toward him. Vladimir spun around to see Nathan limping slightly on a bandaged leg and sporting bloody captains bars on his collar.
“Nathan!” he smiled. To Nathan’s surprise, Vladimir gave him a big hug. “I’m so glad you survived, my friend.” Before Nathan could speak, his friend turned and barked more commands to a nearby work team before continuing. “And you are a captain now?!”, he added, slapping Nathan on the back. “But still, I am not going to salute you.”
Nathan noticed one of the rebels scurry past carrying some type of wiring harness. “How are they doing?” he asked Vladimir, tilting his head toward the passing man. “Are they much help?”
“Yes! They are very good! Not as good as me, of course. But they seem to know their way with such things. It makes me wonder what they have in their ships,” he added under his breath.
“You think they might be more advanced than us?”
“Nathan, everyone is more advanced than us!” he exclaimed.
Nathan hadn’t thought about it before, but now he realized that Vladimir might be right. The people of Earth had only started getting back into space about thirty years ago. And there had been little research and development done beyond the technologies found in the Data Ark. With the threat of Jung invasion looming over them, there hadn’t been time. They had heard that a few of the fringe worlds had been less impacted by the plague. So it made sense that some of them could’ve developed more advanced technologies over the last millennia, while the people of Earth were rebuilding from the ground up.
“But with these people, I think it is sometimes yes, sometimes no.” Vladimir could see by Nathan’s expression that he was confused. “At some things, they are amazed, like they cannot believe what they are seeing. At others, they cannot believe we are still using them!” he laughed.
“How are the repairs going?” he asked, getting back to the reason for his visit.
“Oh, terrible! So many things not working! No engines, no maneuvering, only two good reactors. And as you can see, many consoles are badly damaged. It will take weeks to repair! But do not worry, Nathan. We will fix it. We will fix everything.
“How long until we have maneuvering again?”
“A few hours at the most. Main propulsion, I do not yet know. But soon, we will have all four reactors online, so we will have full power once more.
“Then do we have weapons?”
“Soon, soon,” Vladimir promised. “First rail guns, then torpedoes. Missile batteries, they must still be installed. But since we have no missiles to fire, it does not matter.”
“Well, the sooner you c
an get us moving, the better. I have to tell you, being a sitting duck out here makes me nervous.”
“Just try to keep us out of trouble for awhile, Nathan. That would be of great help.”
“I’ll do my best. But our intel says we’ve only got about a day at the outside.”
“Intel? What intel?”
“Our guests, they tell us the Takarans will come looking for us soon.”
“Who are these, ‘Takarans’?” Vladimir had spent the entire time in engineering, and still had no idea of what they had been through. All he knew was that he and his fellow engineers had been bounced around on three separate occasions. “What is going on, Nathan? Where are we?”
“I wish I knew. My best guess is somewhere out on the fringe.”
Vladimir looked at Nathan like he was crazy. “The fringe?…”
“…I know it sounds crazy…”
“…It is not possible!”
“It’s complicated…”
“…It’s got something to do with that evil doctor woman, yes?” Vladimir surmised.
Nathan again recounted the day’s events for the benefit of his friend. Vladimir took the news far better than Doctor Chen had. In fact, he seemed more excited about the existence of the Jump Drive than anything else. And it appeared that his new chief engineer was looking forward to the challenges ahead with absolute glee. It had not been the reaction Nathan had expected, but it had been a refreshing one.
* * *
“So how bad off are we?” Nathan asked Cameron as she followed him into his ready room. As he entered, he was suddenly struck by the starkness of the now empty room. It had been at least sparsely decorated when it had been occupied by Captain Roberts, but now it had been stripped of even those few mementos.
“I took the liberty of clearing out the captain’s belongings,” she explained, noticing his reaction. “I hope you don’t mind.”
It had not occurred to Nathan that this task would need to be performed. And now that she had done it, he realized that it would not have been easy for him. For that small kindness, he was surprisingly grateful. “No, not at all,” he answered softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What did you do with…”
“…I packed them safely away,” she assured him. “I’ll see that his family receives them when we get back.”
Nathan nodded his approval as he made his way across the small room and around the desk. “You can skip the engineering stuff, I already got that from Vlad.”
“Well, the bow took a beating. There are multiple hull breaches. Most are from weapons fire as we backed away from that Takaran warship. The biggest breach of course is from ramming them.”
“Not my fault,” he defended. “We were pretty much dead-stick at the time.”
“Yes, I was there,” she reminded him before continuing. “The forward section is going to be uninhabitable until the breaches are sealed and the hull is repaired. In port, that would take a few days. Out here?” she shrugged, indicating she had no idea.
“Maybe never,” Nathan admitted.
“Of course, most of the forward section is housing, and some recreational areas. But since we’re shorthanded, there should still be plenty of housing available aft of the forward bulkheads.”
“And what about crew?” he asked hesitantly. He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
Cameron took a deep breath before giving him the news. “Thirty-eight dead, forty-two injured.”
Nathan fell into his seat. “Thirty-eight? Oh my God,” he muttered. The first thought that crossed his mind was how many of those deaths had occurred after he assumed command. It was a small point, insignificant to those that had perished. But it meant everything to Nathan. “How many injured?”
“Forty-two,” she repeated. “But twenty of them are minor and can still man their posts.”
“So we’ve only got forty people to run this ship?”
“That’s it.” Cameron could see that Nathan was devastated by the news. But as bad as she felt for him, if he was going to be captain, he was going to have to get used to such news.
“We can’t run the ship with forty people, can we?” It didn’t seem possible to him, but he wasn’t sure.
“Technically, no. But there are several departments that either were not online yet, or are too damaged to be of any use right now, so we might be able to squeak by. But there are some areas that are going to present problems, especially if we have to go into battle again.”
Nathan looked at her, a confused look in his eye. He was still stuck on the number of crew he had lost and was not yet thinking clearly.
“We can fly the ship, and we can fight with her, but we won’t have anyone for damage control.”
“Maybe we can get some more help from these rebels?” Nathan suggested off the top of his head.
“Nathan, I’m not sure we should trust them too much just yet,” she warned. Like Jessica, she was far more suspicious of the rebel’s motives than Nathan seemed to be. And his eagerness to trust them worried her.
Nathan considered her warning. “Yeah, you could be right about that. I just don’t see that we have much choice given the circumstances. I mean, badly damaged, barely enough crew to fly the ship, and God knows how far away from home?”
“Oh, and low on consumables,” Cameron added.
“What?”
“Food? Water? We weren’t loaded for an extended voyage you know.”
“Oh, great. You see, that’s what I’m talking about. We’re gonna need friends out here if we’re gonna survive long enough to find a way home.”
“You’re right, I agree. I’m just not sure that these people are the type of friends we want, Nathan. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And on that we agree,” he conceded. “But until we’re presented with other options, we’re gonna have to utilize what we’ve got. And for now, that means these people.”
“Just be careful,” she warned him.
“Look, sooner or later, we’re gonna need to find safe harbor. I mean, we can’t very well conduct repairs while hiding out in an asteroid field. Once we find a populated world, we’re bound to find some other people and make some more friends. Hopefully ones that are not so quick to throw themselves into the jaws of death.”
“Make more friends, huh. That’s your plan?”
“Hey, we’ve gotta play to our strengths,” he smiled. “Now speaking of consumables, I think it would be wise if we tried to get everyone something to eat while it’s still quiet around here. Any ideas?”
“With all that’s happened, you’re thinking about food?”
“We’ve gotta eat, Cam. We don’t want the crew we have left passing out from low blood sugar, do we?”
Cameron knew he was right, as she herself was a bit hungry. “There’s about a hundred lunch kits down in the galley, along with the left-overs from breakfast. What would you like?”
“Surprise me.”
“I’ll get someone on it right away,” she promised as she turned to leave.
“And make sure everyone eats, even if they have to eat while they’re working.”
“Yes Sir.”
“And when the food comes, have Jalea come in. I think she and I need to talk.”
“Yes Sir,” she answered as she left. She wasn’t sure if she liked the idea of Nathan and Jalea meeting in private. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She was sure that he wouldn’t intentionally do anything wrong. But she had already noticed that Nathan had a tendency to act on impulse, especially in conversation, instead of thinking things through first. And in the case of a conversation with Jalea, she was twice as concerned. She had noticed the way that Nathan had looked at the woman. Jalea had unusual eyes that seemed to catch your attention and hold it. Jessica had noticed it as well, and had also voiced her concerns about Nathan’s judgment in regards to Jalea and the rebels.
CHAPTER 8
“You wish to speak with me?” Ja
lea called from the doorway.
“Ah, yes, Jalea, please come in,” Nathan told her. He stepped out from behind the desk and pulled up a chair for her. “I thought we might talk a bit,” he explained, returning to his seat. “I would like to know more about you and your people.” Nathan began opening the two lunch kits that Cameron had sent in earlier. “Are you hungry?”
Jalea nodded tentatively, unsure of what the packages contained. “What do you want to know?”
Nathan handed her one of the open kits and a small bottle of water. She looked at the contents of the kit. It contained several different vegetables in varying shades of green, red, and orange, along with some small pieces of fruit, and several slices of some type of meat and cheese. She watched as Nathan picked up one of the red vegetables from his kit and popped it into his mouth. She picked up the same red vegetable from her kit and placed it carefully between her teeth and began to bite down.
“Be careful, those can…”
Jalea bit down on the small tomato, which split open, juice squirting out onto the desk and down her chin. She tried to catch the dripping liquid with her hand, but was too late.
“…squirt a bit,” he finished. “Yeah, it’s better if you pop the whole thing into your mouth.” He watched as she chewed her small tomato and swallowed. She gave no indication as to whether or not she liked it.
“So, where are you from?” he asked as he continued eating.
Jalea watched Nathan, waiting for him to eat something different before she tried it herself.