Star Runner

by Mark McDonough

  Chapter Seventeen – “Did We Make It?”

  “Did we make it?”

  Nick’s voice reached Pete in the near darkness. He lifted his head off the carpet and looked around. The flight deck was dark; only half a dozen of the red emergency lights were still lit. He turned his head and peered at the viewscreen. It was off-line as well.

  Gathering his feet under him, Pete carefully stood up and immediately lurched to the right. He frowned. The gravity compensators were off, causing the level deck to feel as though it was on a slant.

  “Did we make it?” Nick asked again from somewhere on the other side of the room.

  “Just a minute, Nick, let me find a window,” Alex answered.

  Pete unclipped his torch from his tool belt and thumbed it on. The bright beam swept across the room. Pete took it in in a glance. Zheen was picking at the console that he’d just been sharing with her; Tran stood near the door, legs splayed against the uneven gravity; Nick and Alex were across the room, Nick sitting on the floor, his back against a console as Alex worked his way towards one of the forward ports; and Holas was slowly picking himself up off the floor near the helm.

  Gotta improve those safety straps, Pete noted to himself.

  Three more beams snapped on in quick succession – Tran, Ace and Holas – as Pete swung his torch back across the room.

  “I see stars out here and space is black again!” Alex half-shouted across the room.

  Pete pumped his arm in the air. “Yes!”

  Holas swept past him and gathered his daughter up in a hug that completely lifted her out of her chair.

  “We may be out of that accursed Bubble, but without power, I don’t see how we’re any better off,” Tran grunted.

  Torches snapped to the cat-like alien. Tran stood there; eyes slightly squinted against the glare of the torches, arms folded across his chest, tail swishing behind him.

  “We’re out and we’re alive. That alone should be cause for celebration,” Holas told him in a quiet voice. “Never before has the Bubble been escaped.”

  “Besides, it won’t take long for Pete to have us up and running again,” Alex stated.

  “He’s already done it once before,” Ace agreed.

  Pete shot a look to where his brothers stood side-by-side. He swallowed and licked his lips, feeling his mouth go dry. He wished he had as much faith in his abilities as they did. Pete knew that he’d been stretched just getting the Star Runner powered up the last time. Without Holas, and especially Zheen, there was no way that he would have been able to do it.

  And now, with probably even more damage to the ship?

  He just didn’t know.

  “Then, I’d better not keep the master from his work,” said Tran, bending low in a long, sweeping bow that made his brown coat seem more like a cape.

  Pete started forward, doing his best to ignore the sarcasm.

  “Zheen? Holas?” Pete began. “I’m going to need your help. I’m going to need all your help,” he finished, taking in not only his brothers, but also Tran straightening in front of him.

  Zheen fell into step beside him as he made his way towards Engineering. He felt, more than saw, Holas slightly behind him with Nick, Alex and Tran bringing up the rear.

  As he stepped into Engineering, Pete felt the hard knot in his stomach that held his fear of failure lessen its hold on him. Quickly, he worked his way around the room lighting up the lanterns that he’d left ready. The bright glow that lit Engineering was even more of a balm to his tired body and mind.

  Pete stepped up behind Zheen, peering over her shoulder as she tapped away at the master console. Two of the screens flickered erratically and most of the tell-tale lights were missing. There was just enough green and blue lights lit to give him some hope that they’d be able to get Star Runner powered up without too much trouble.

  “What do you want us to do?” Alex’s voice broke into his concentration.

  Pete looked up, frowning. He’d nearly forgotten that the rest of his “crew” would be waiting for his orders.

  If only A.B. could see me now, he half-grinned to himself.

  “Alex. You and Nick head down to the pod and get her re-started. It only seems to be active power sources that get drained, but if she needs a jump, the last generator’s in the rear storage bay. It should have enough power to do the job.”

  Alex nodded, turned and snagged Nick’s arm as he headed out of Engineering. Pete glanced back down at Zheen’s board. It looked like she had everything in hand. He looked back up. Holas was standing ready; Tran though, just looked bored as he leant against a console, arms folded across his chest.

  “Holas, Tran, could you help me move the generator into place? We’re going to have to give the main engines another jump-start. We’re back down to running on batteries again.”

  Pete set to work with Holas and Tran lending support. He was fairly certain that Holas had the know-how to get the job done himself, but he seemed content to let Pete run the show. The generator was quickly aligned with the interface that Pete had set up earlier and the three of them began establishing the connections.

  “I’ve set the controls on the master console ready to take the power spike,” Zheen reported as she joined them near the generator.

  Pete rocked back on his heels, looking up at her. “What about the power couplings to the ion drive? We don’t want to overload them.”

  Zheen’s grey eyes glinted dangerously down at him, her hands on her hips. “Of course. I set them manually. And the ones to the FTL drive as well, just in case.”

  “Sorry, Zheen. Should’ve known better,” Pete smiled in apology. He knew that he really should have known better. The hours that they’d already spent in Engineering working on the engines before had shown Pete what a great engineer Zheen was.

  Zheen’s eyes softened as she accepted the apology with a nod.

  “This tub has a Faster-Than-Light drive as well as an ion drive?” Tran asked sceptically.

  “Indeed. You must understand that the ion drive is really only low tech. Strictly intra-system work,” Holas answered him. “The FTL drive though, is a Type 3 Warp. Far superior to anything that I have ever worked with and much better than you would expect on a ship of this size. It’ll go further and faster than just about any other trade ship within the Known Worlds.”

  Tran gave a low whistle, clearly impressed. “A Type 3 Warp? And it is operational?”

  “We’ll know soon enough,” Pete answered. “Tran, could you pass me that cable behind you?”

  Pete did a double-take as the cat-like alien used his tail to do so. Slowly, Pete stretched out his hand and took it.

  “Uh, thanks, Tran,” Pete stuttered as he tore his gaze from the tail and looked up into Tran’s clearly amused face.

  “Come, Pete, let’s get this finished,” Zheen said, jolting him out of his shock. As they moved to the side, she continued in a small voice. “Don’t let him get to you. Ok’nei delight in startling out-worlders and they know that using their tail like that will shock the most.”

  Pete nodded. “I guess it’s just been a big day. When I woke up this morning, I never would have dreamed that I’d be meeting and working with people from other worlds. It just takes a bit to get my head around it all.”

  “And yet, you seem to be doing quite well,” Zheen replied, her blue plait swinging forward over her shoulder as she knelt down.

  Pete nodded absently as he bent to his connections, trying to put the fact that he was talking to a three fingered, purple-skinned alien out of his mind.

  “That should be it, then,” Pete said to the room some time later.

  He crossed to the generator, double-checked the connections and pressed the buttons that brought it to life.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said as he started the power dump.

  The initial hum was quickly replaced by low beeps as console after console came to life. T
he main lights flickered on, admittedly only at a very low level, but more than enough so that they wouldn’t need the lanterns any more.

  “Looks like most of the repairs held,” Pete commented.

  “Are we able to get underway?” Tran asked.

  Pete shook his head. “Not yet. We still need to build up enough power in the ship’s batteries before we can initialize the ion drive. Couple of hours at least.”

  “That should give us enough time to check the FTL drive for any problems,” Zheen added.

  “And re-align the gravity on the flight deck,” Pete put in, “not to mention any of the other couple of dozen things that need looking at.”

  “Can we at least check our position?” Holas asked.

  “Yes, Father. The navigation computer should be operational again,” Zheen replied.

  Pete peered over Zheen’s shoulder as she and Holas worked the master console. The centre screen flickered as they tied in navigation. A map of stars appeared. Pete frowned at it, before shrugging. It meant nothing to him. But then, he was an engineer, not a scientist or pilot. He hoped that Ace or Alex could make something of it.

  “This cannot be right,” Holas breathed. “This is . . . nowhere near where we entered the Bubble. Five parsecs at least.”

  Tran came across to peer at the screen over Holas’ shoulder and promptly gave a snort of disgust.

  “Closer to eight parsecs for me,” he commented. “Looks like it’ll be a while before any of us gets home.”