by S. H. Jucha
Ude offered.
Alain’s calm was shaken by the growing complexity of the problem. He turned toward Hermione, much as he’d seen Alex look at Julien for advice.
Alain viewed the image he received. The Trident’s four travelers sailed outboard of the warship.
Hermione provided details for Alain.
Down below, the pilots launched their travelers. They sat quietly in their seats. Hermione had control of their ships.
The holo-vid displayed the increased swath of space that would be covered, as opposed to the Trident’s capability. The coverage represented a nine-fold increase, and Alain nodded approvingly.
Becca received a set of instructions from Hermione. She examined the search routine. It was complex, requiring the Trident to weave a pattern. Then the travelers would be recovered and charged, while the warship made a short transit. She ordered thé to bolster her focus.
* * * * *
Kara and Jackie jerked awake, grabbed coveralls, and dashed toward the bridge.
“Black space,” Jackie muttered, as she gained the bridge.
“Shut down the engines,” Kara ordered, as she stepped around Jackie’s broad stature.
“Done, Captain,” the third mate replied. “There’s more news. As we dropped out of transit, engine one shut down.”
“Jackie, query the controller and plot our trajectory changes,” Kara directed.
Jackie jumped into a chair and ran the numbers. “We deviated by less than a half degree for six point three seconds. Then, two point seven seconds later we shifted again by one point one degree.”
“Port and down. Then port,” Kara mused.
“Correct our trajectory, Jackie,” Kara ordered. “Bring us to a parallel course.”
“Employing attitude jets, Captain,” Jackie replied. She judiciously adjusted the freighter’s trajectory to turn the ship to starboard and slightly up until the pilot confirmed they were on a parallel course.
“Displacement?” asked Kara, when she heard the pilot’s report.
“We’re out of position by six hundred and forty thousand kilometers, Captain,” the pilot replied.
“Jackie, how much is left in the attitude tanks?” Kara asked. “Can we adjust our course to reach our original vector and then correct our trajectory to maintain it?”
“How soon do you want to regain the original vector, Captain?” Jackie asked.
“What’s the matter?” Kara asked, as she regarded Jackie with concern.
“I used more than half of the tanks to come to a parallel course,” Jackie explained. “Two more course corrections would require that I use only a quarter of the tanks each time.”
“And?” Kara pressed.
“Using the tanks that sparingly would mean ...” Jackie began, but halted. She sent her calculations to the pilot, who dropped the numbers into her program.
“Captain, we would rejoin our original vector in thirty-eight hours,” the pilot reported.
“And we would have no attitude jets until we fired our remaining engines,” Jackie pointed out.
“Which are both on the starboard side and would shift us farther off course,” Kara said.
“Use a quarter of the attitude tanks to make the first course correction, Jackie,” Kara ordered. “Then get the crew together and find out what it’ll take to give us even thrust. You’ve thirty-eight hours to make that happen. Otherwise, I don’t think our escort will ever locate us.”
Before Jackie exited the bridge, she checked her panel to ensure the freighter was sending an emergency signal. It meant that the freighter and the Trident had separated to a distance that comm signals would be taking a while to reach each other. The best course of action would be to flip end over end and come to a halt. Unfortunately, engines one and three opposed engines two and four and without balanced thrust, maneuvering was impossible.
Jackie gathered the crew, who were clustered in the corridor just outside the bridge. Worry was evident on their faces.
“Suit up,” Jackie ordered. “The engines might be shut down, but that area is still hot.” When the crew remained fixed in place, she growled, “Move it,” and they jumped into action.
When Jackie confirmed that every crew member was properly suited, she regarded the twins through her faceplate. They were the freighter’s engine maintenance engineers.
The twins headed aft through the ship’s bow section. Then they entered the long galley that ran through the cargo modules. The last section was an extension of the ship’s tail. Trusses anchored the engines to the cargo modules. If the engines failed to shut down in an emergency, explosive charges could separate the trusses from the cargo module section.
The first compartment at the end of the trusses held the engine control room and generators. The crew found the compartment eerily quiet.
The starboard and port pairs of engines were governed by separate consoles, and Patrice and Paulette each stepped to one and ran diagnostics.
Patrice was the first to speak.
The hatch wasn’t meant to be accessed on a regular basis. Repair on this order was reserved for the orbital platforms. Crew members set about removing the retaining bolts that locked the hatch in place.
Hatch was also a bit of a misnomer. It wasn’t like Pauline and Paulette were going to walk through the opening pushing a tool cart. The small round hatch gave the engineers access to a crawl tube.
While the crew members removed the retaining bolts, the twins sorted through their diagnostic equipment, selecting the devices they expected to need.
The twins finished packing their devices. They slipped packs on their backs, and Pauline sent,
A crew member grabbed the locking handle and tried to twist it. It didn’t budge. There was room for two individuals to grab the handle, but their combined attempt failed. They turned to Jackie, their eyes appealing for help.
Jackie rolled her shoulders. Her suit gave her greater dimension, making her appear as wide as she was tall. The crew members vacated the space, and Jackie grabbed the handle and heaved. It still didn’t move.
Anger at the dilapidated state of the ship rose in Jackie. It merged with her fear of being stranded in space and dying slowly of oxygen deprivation or water or food — whichever came first.
The emotions drove Jackie, a New Terran born with an extraordinary physique. Jackie grabbed the handle, braced a boot against the near bulkhead, and levered herself into position. With her entire body straining, the handle squealed in metal torment as it gave up and turned.
The crew made various private comments about Jackie, while she jerked her thumb toward the hatch, which she’d swung open.
Paulette went first. She placed a knee in the opening, ducked her head, and crawled into the tube. The light on her suit lit the way. Pauline quickly followed. Behind them, the crew closed the hatch, lubed the stubborn handle, and then locked the hatch.
The last crew member to exit the control room closed the hatch. Jackie checked her suit, which indicated the room’s air pressure, oxygen level, and temperature. When the indicators were seen to be good, she retracted the faceplate, and the suit shut down the air supply.
Jackie sat down, bracing her back against a bulkhead. Her thoughts drifted. At first, she tried to imagine ways out of their dilemma, but every option required outside help. If the escort didn’t find them, then help wasn’t coming.
Finally, bored and needing a distraction, she accessed the controller, selected the vid that she’d been watching when the emergency struck, and let the images transport her to another place and time.
The twins crawled through thirty meters of tube. Then it angled. Another ten meters farther, they met another hatch. Beside the hatch was a panel that glowed green, and Paulette pressed it. The tube’s air was evacuated, and the panel turned red.
Despite the horrendous circumstances, Pauline couldn’t help but chuckle about the image of Jackie in her suit wedged permanently in the tube.
Paulette’s first and second attempts at the hatch lever were unsuccessful. She felt a tap on her leg. Reaching behind her, Pauline placed a short pry bar in her hand.
Underneath the lever was a shallow depression, and Paulette stuck the blunt end of the pry bar into the depression and pulled as hard as she could in the confined space. When the lever didn’t move, she used the top of the tube to brace herself so that she could place all her weight on the pry bar.
Move, you ugly piece of stubborn metal, Paulette thought, as she shoved hard. Like the first hatch lever, this one also shrieked in defiance as it gave way.
Paulette felt pats on her leg from her twin. Then she handed the pry bar back, shoved open the hatch, and crawled into the engine compartment.
The lights of stars outlined the edges of the massive engine, and the twins were momentarily mesmerized by the view.
Pauline disconnected a thermally protected line from the engine. Embedded within the line was a circuit that handed off engine indicator signals to the control room. She connected a diagnostic tool in its place.
Simultaneously, each twin’s implant received the same message from the other sibling. It noted engine two as the next destination. A slap of hands celebrated their mutual triumph. They had an answer to their dilemma.
In short order, the twins reversed their route. At the far end of the tube, Pauline touched the red-lit pressurization panel and waited for the sound of hissing air.
Paulette suggested.
Then Pauline banged methodically on the hatch.
8: Stranded
Ancient warrior armies battled on an open field for control of a city surrounded by tall stone walls. The warriors wore helmets and short leather skirts. They held swords and spears, and they fired arrows.
Jackie didn’t understand the reason for the fighting, but she enjoyed the display of the scantily clad, muscular men.
The sound of metal on metal disturbed Jackie’s focus, and she halted the vid. Immediately, she focused on the hatch as the origination point. She closed her faceplate and checked the panel beside the hatch. It glowed red. “Black space,” she growled. Then she banged on the hatch to indicate she’d heard.
Jackie consulted her implant, which she’d set to track the twins’ approximate air reserves.
In the tube, the twins lay on their stomachs to slow their air consumption. It wasn’t long before th
ey heard the sound of a drill on the other side of the hatch.
The hatch was constructed to handle decompression from the engine side. It was also made to withstand the explosive ejection of an engine. Those two circumstances meant that the hatch wasn’t only thick, but it was poured from the hardest alloy New Terra had at the time.
Crew took turns leaning into the drill. An hour later, they were on their third bit and only a third of the way through the hatch.
Jackie replied.
Opening a storeroom door, Jackie sought a tube of nanites paste. She intended to dissociate some of the metal alloy, but the problem was application. A solution occurred, and she ran to medical. Rummaging through the supplies, she located a long slender syringe and ignored the needles.
Jackie arrived in the engine control room and sent,
When the teams cleared the space, Jackie drew a measure of the nanites paste into the glass syringe. She inserted the syringe into the hole until it touched the far end and injected a tiny amount. She waited the required length of time for the nanites to have been spent. Then she repeated the operation.
Slowly, Jackie’s progress exceeded that of the drilling. Time and time again, she refilled her slender syringe and went after the hole. The far end of the hole widened slightly, but its depth increased much faster than the width.
A growl escaped Jackie’s lips.
Jackie didn’t bother to wonder or worry that the captain had left the bridge. She regarded the piece of thin tubing and turned questioning eyes on the captain.