by CJ Williams
“It’s inhabited?” Gus asked hopefully.
“I fear not. According to their AI, the pirates murdered the staff of a scientific research site during a raid for Acevedos artifacts. It is possible they left the camp’s facilities intact.”
“Should I not stitch her up then?”
“I recommend you continue. Miss Yoshimoto found that the surgical sutures were still functional when she treated your injury from the shark.”
“What’s that mean?” Gus asked.
“If you will permit me, I will advise you. I suggest that you first wash your hands thoroughly.”
Once the basics were taken care of Alyssa guided him step by step. First, clean the wound. When it came time for the stitches, she explained the needles were composed of nanites.
Once the point touched Kyoko’s skin, the needle took over. It penetrated the epidermis cleanly, stretched across the cut to come up on the other side, and even drew it closed with the exact amount of tension to hold the edges together without bunching.
Gus cleaned her head wound and felt along her skull but had no idea as to the extent of the damage. Alyssa wasn’t any help either. “Clearly her unconsciousness is from cerebral trauma,” she said. “It is possibly her most serious injury; however, without proper diagnostic equipment I have no suggestions at this point except that you should monitor her situation.”
Gus could only follow the AI’s guidance. Hannah refused to help; the girl was useless when it came to treating a wound. But once all the blood was cleaned up, she did help with wrapping Kyoko’s ribcage. They rigged a stretcher and finally got their patient settled in her own berth. Kyoko was coming around and moaned with pain. Gus threatened Hannah to make her stay by Kyoko’s side, but she refused and fled.
“What’s our status?” Gus asked Alyssa.
“While you attended to Miss Yoshimoto, Miss Schubert finished stowing the sails. I have started atmospheric penetration. I shall exercise caution to ensure a smooth ride.”
“What about the other ship? Any threat to us? Anyone we need to worry about?”
“I detected four survivors in my last contact, but based on your treatment of their injured on the main deck I concluded they were of no interest. By now, they will have died from cold or loss of oxygen. Their vessel lost power and is currently adrift. I calculate it will enter this planet’s atmosphere in eighty-seven days and disintegrate on reentry.”
Gus reflected on his actions. In the heat of battle, throwing those guys overboard had seemed appropriate. But it might have been a mistake. “According to our laws of war, I was wrong. If an enemy soldier is injured, I am morally obligated to provide medical assistance. I guess I could go to jail for that.”
“That would be unfortunate,” Alyssa replied. “However, I would suggest the assailants were not enemy soldiers. They were criminals in the act of invading your property. Do your laws not allow lethal force in the act of self-defense?”
Gus nodded. “That’s true. I didn’t think of it that way. And yes, as I understand it, I can shoot an armed intruder. But then, I didn’t actually shoot them. I threw them overboard. And at that point, they didn’t have any weapons.”
“That is incorrect. I absolutely confirm that both assailants were armed at the time, that they were still capable of hostile action, and that neither one had capitulated. In my culture your actions were appropriate.”
Gus nodded. “Good enough, I suppose. We call that justifiable homicide.”
“An apt concept,” Alyssa said.
Gus pushed the thought from his mind. “I can’t do anything about it now. What about us? Are you okay? We took a lot of fire.”
“I am not. One of their shots severed the cable to the subspace antenna.”
“I can repair that once we’re on the planet.”
“Understood. However, the impact created a spark, which sent an electrical surge into Nineteen’s subspace transceiver.”
“Are you saying it fried our radio?” Gus asked worriedly. Being able to talk to Carol was the only thing that kept him going.
“It is worse than that,” Alyssa confessed. “The disruption created a short, which also destroyed the star drive’s autopilot.”
“What does that mean? Can we not land on the planet?”
“No, that is not what I am saying. My atmospheric gravity drives are fully functional, as is my navigation computer. It simply means that once we depart this solar system, you will have to steer the ship manually. That was the normal mode of operation for the previous crew so you should not perceive that as insurmountable. As we have discussed, the original intent of my design was to reproduce the traditions of ancient times.”
“All right then,” Gus said. “What you’re saying is that we can still land on the planet and take off. And that you can still navigate us to Wheelers Bright. It’s just that I’ll have to stand at the wheel.”
“That is partially correct. You and your crew will also have to manage the sails to keep the star sail functioning.”
That was doable. It was like being in the water again; a lot of hard work, but that’s what Hannah was for. “Okay,” Gus said.
“Also,” Alyssa added. “In penetrating the pirate’s AI, I was able to access their complete navigation system and correlate it to my own. I have determined that we are almost as close to Earth as we are to Wheelers Bright. Would you rather proceed directly to Earth when we depart this planet?”
Finally! A bit of good news. “You’re damn right I would. Good job, Alyssa. That helps a lot. Anything else?”
“Negative.”
“Okay then,” Gus said, suddenly in a better mood. “We stopped here in the first place for supplies. Maybe the camp has some stuff we can use. Do you know where the research team was located?”
“Yes. We will touchdown in two hours.”
*.*.*.*
Gus was revolted by the scene. Men and women lay dead on the ground or sprawled in their tents; innocent victims of murderous thieves. Any lingering doubts about how he’d treated the pirates after the battle vanished. When Hannah saw the first dead body, she threw up and ran back to the ship.
Gus promised himself to come back later and bury the fallen, but his first priority was to search for their medical supplies. He found them on the far side of the camp in a big tent marked with a red cross. There were no bodies inside the makeshift hospital. The physicians had probably died while fleeing or attending to others.
The facility had several medicine cabinets. For a welcome change, everything was labeled in English. He filled a doctor’s bag with painkillers, antibiotics, and other drugs recommended by Alyssa. By the time he got back to the ship, Kyoko was awake but in a lot of pain. She was disoriented but grateful for the Tramadol Five capsules.
Gus promised she could have all the painkiller she wanted for two days, but after that, he had to wean her off since they were addictive. His cautionary advice was wasted breath; she didn’t understand what he was saying. By late evening she looked worse and lapsed into unconsciousness.
Alyssa said, “Based on Lifeboat Nineteen’s limited medical background, I recommend you start Miss Yoshimoto on a course of diuretics. Her appearance suggests rising intracranial pressure, and that is of concern. We shall have to keep close track of her condition. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. Additionally, I suggest that you start an IV drip.”
Hannah, of course, refused to assist.
*.*.*.*
It took Gus three days to bury all the victims. The worst part was establishing their identifications. Only a few had ID on them when they died, so he searched through their tent quarters trying to find photos. In the end, he was able to place a marker with the appropriate name on all eighteen graves. When he needed a break, he moved medical supplies to Alyssa’s infirmary.
Once the deceased were buried, Hannah agreed to show up for a memorial. Afterward, Gus put together boxes of personal effects and left them in the administrative tent. Someone would eventua
lly show up and perhaps return the items to the victims’ families.
Gus was disappointed but not surprised to find all the communication equipment smashed and bullet-ridden.
With so much misery, one brighter moment came when Gus discovered the food supplies. It was like being in a supermarket. Four tents were chock-full of freeze-dried rations. He grabbed a case of breakfast meals—vacuum packs with hash browns, scrambled eggs, and pork sausage mixed with peppers and onions. He hurried back to the ship to boil some water. Once everything was hot and on the table, he called Hannah to join him for the first real meal they had had in forever.
Hannah took one look and hesitated.
Gus sighed. “Oh, right,” he said. “I’m sorry, kid. I forgot all about you being a vegetarian. No problem.” He picked up her plate to dump on his own.
“Nein!” Hannah grabbed it, her eyes full of dismay. She gave the plate a little tug, trying to rescue it from his grasp.
Gus gave her an amused glance. “You sure? I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” Hannah pulled on her plate until Gus let go. Funny how a couple years of nothing but fish and fruit could turn someone into a flexitarian. The two ate in silence, enjoying the meal.
That afternoon Hannah found a tent filled with linens. She spent several hours refitting all their beds and supplying their respective bathrooms with real towels. Gus had to agree it was a nice change.
*.*.*.*
The next morning, Gus began moving food from the storage tents to the hold. He drafted Hannah to assist.
“Why don’t we just wait for the next resupply mission?” she asked, after making a couple of trips. “It’s safe here, and we won’t have to move all these boxes.”
“We can do that,” Gus said. “But before you decide, go count the meals these folks have on hand and the number of researchers we buried. Then tell me what you think.”
Hannah thought about it for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “They have enough food for over a year. It might be a long time before anyone comes back.”
“Still want to wait?” Gus asked.
Hannah shook her head. “I’m ready to leave. I want to see my family and I’m worried about Kyoko.” She picked up another case of the scientists’ rations.
“Me too,” Gus said. “We’ll leave in the morning.”
Gus went to bed thinking of his wife. She would be worried because he hadn’t sent a video since the pirate attack. She was probably worried sick right now. If she could just hang on a few more weeks, he would be home.
Hannah woke him just before dawn. “Kyoko’s worse,” she said worriedly. “Komm und sieh.” Come and see.
Kyoko’s condition had indeed deteriorated. Overnight the wound on her side had become red and swollen. This was one of his worries. Infection could create deadly complications. “What should I do, Alyssa?”
“Treat the incision with medical soap and warm water. If the wound reopens do not worry. Check her temperature and blood pressure. Her condition indicates the possibility of sepsis.”
Her temperature was high and her blood pressure low. “Now what?”
“Miss Yoshimoto needs additional antibiotics; however, the information I have from Lifeboat Nineteen does not include several of the medical labels you have given me so I cannot advise you which one to administer. Perhaps the local research facility contains medical references that could help.”
Gus thought about everything he had seen. “Maybe,” he said. “I’ll go check.”
*.*.*.*
At the medical tent, he found a square leather bag under one of the desks. Inside was a rugged computer. He took it back to Alyssa’s infirmary and turned it on.
“Excellent,” Alyssa said. “Establishing a connection. Standby.” Ten minutes later she said, “Download complete. The device is indeed a medical library. I have identified the names of required medications on the video display. They include stronger antibiotics and a mild vasopressor to boost her blood pressure for the head injury.”
Gus spent the following two hours attending to Kyoko’s worsened condition. When cleaning the wound, he found a metallic splinter buried deep in the cut. That had probably been the culprit for the new infection. He didn’t have enough of the magical Acevedos sutures, so he sewed her up by hand with surgical implements from the researcher’s supplies. By evening the redness around the newly opened wound had diminished.
Hannah called from outside the room, “Dinner is ready.” She didn’t wait for his reply. He found her at the table in his cabin. She had prepared two hearty meals for the two of them and a bowl of soup for Kyoko.
“Are you going to feed that to her?” Gus asked.
Hannah shook her head with a guilty expression. “I can’t.”
Gus suddenly realized there was another issue here. He should have recognized a long time ago that her reaction to blood and violence must be indicative of a deeper problem.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
Hannah shivered before answering. She took a deep breath and quietly said, “Hanover stadium. Level two.”
Gus groaned out loud. That would certainly explain her psychosis. The horrific terrorist attack had happened a decade ago, and the news coverage had lasted for weeks. The strategically placed IEDs caused the entire arena to collapse. Some of the survivors had been trapped for days, buried amongst thousands of dead bodies. Hannah would have just barely been a teenager back then. Gus decided that from here on he would give her a pass on her inability to handle trauma.
“All right,” he said. “You did good during the fight. That’s enough for me.”
Hannah gave him a quick hug. “Danke, Opa,” she said, and quickly straightened up with an embarrassed expression. “I’ll get us ready for departure. Should we leave right now?”
Gus considered. Kyoko needed a doctor, but right this moment he needed a night’s sleep. And according to Alyssa, with just him and Hannah able to perform crew duties, sleep was going to be a thing of the past. “First thing in the morning,” he said.
Gus got Hannah to help move one of the midshipmen’s bunks up to his cabin and put clean linens on it. Then he moved Kyoko in with him. That way he could take care of her and still get some sleep.
*.*.*.*
“Let’s get off this planet,” Gus told Alyssa as the sun peeped over the horizon. The ship rose from the ground, and after a quick stop along the nearby coastline to replenish her water storage, began the ascent into space.
Going into orbit was no longer such an overwhelming event, but it was still a beautiful sight. He stood on the quarterdeck and watched the sky change from a light blue to absolute black. Alyssa gave the signal and Hannah scrambled into the rigging to unfurl the sails. Because the ship’s auto-navigation system was off-line, Gus had to winch all the sheets down tight.
“I thought I was done with this,” he grumbled.
The process was lengthy because Alyssa needed all the canvas deployed. The last to fly was the star sail itself. It took almost an hour, but eventually they were ready to go.
“Firing the star drive,” Alyssa said, and the ship began to move away from the local sun.
Gus told Hannah, “Just like we did at sea, we’ll rotate our shifts with eight hours on duty, four hours off. Alyssa, make sure Hannah doesn’t oversleep.”
“Acknowledged,” the ship’s AI replied.
*.*.*.*
Two weeks of round-the-clock operations got old pretty fast. And Gus couldn’t really get four hours of sleep when Hannah was at the wheel. Alyssa often wanted him to trim the sails, and the ripple effect of adjusting one line meant adjusting all of them. It normally took an hour to get everything in what Alyssa called superluminal alignment.
After each shift-change, Gus also checked on Kyoko. She was better but had not yet completely kicked the infection. Something was wrong inside her body, and he had no idea what to do except to follow Alyssa’s generic medical advice.
Kyoko woke from
time to time but was never really coherent. Once she called his name, but mostly she talked in Japanese. He changed her bandages regularly, soaking the wound with hot compresses, trying to conquer the bacterial ailment. Alyssa prescribed different courses of medication, trying to come up with the right combination of drugs to defeat the illness.
His eyes grew red, and he pushed himself to the point that he had difficulty concentrating. He told Alyssa to keep him awake during his shift at the wheel.
After sixteen days, Kyoko made a turn for the better. The infection was receding. Her fever was almost gone, and her tossing and turning had stopped. After two more days, she woke up enough to ask for food. Gus mentally upgraded her situation from Critical to Guarded.
*.*.*.*
“Here I am,” Hannah said, coming up the steps to the quarterdeck.
“Good,” Gus said with feeling. “I’m ready for some sack time. You have the conn.”
“I have the conn,” Hannah replied.
“Before you return to your quarters…” Alyssa said.
“Not now,” Gus moaned.
“I have to insist,” Alyssa urged. “You must adjust the tack two points to starboard. I am detecting a slight imbalance.”
“All right,” Gus said. The unexpected whiny note in his voice left him feeling self-conscious. He headed down to the waist and let Alyssa guide him through the adjustments. An hour later his shoulders were burning from the strain of winching the sails. One thing he would never understand was how they could stay so taut while in space simply from the light atop the mizzenmast.
“I have a concern about our flight parameters,” the AI said when he was done.
“Alyssa, I’m bushed. I can’t go through that again, and that’s no joke.”
“I understand. However, I still require one more task if we are to continue. Can you please fire off a stability round?”
“Are you serious? Didn’t we do enough damage with the last shot? That gun is laying on its side.”