We had no T/S Folds near us after they came through the last one, hot on our trail. The captain had decided we’d try to run to this asteroid belt, then along the belt edge, maybe lose them among the outer rings. Didn’t happen of course. We were a rabbit, they the hounds. We could run and dodge with the best, but eventually we’d gotten tired and the hounds ran us to ground for the kill. The last words the captain said before we went under was, “May God have mercy on us.”
Every human on the planet had watched our first contact with a non-human species by our New Earth president, Mr. Harwade, and his scientific team. Only eighteen months ago? Seems so long. An exploration team hit a short jump and had seen the ship. It made our six thousand man Giant Carrier look like a dwarf, and it was alien in design. They jumped back and reported their findings. Recordings were studied, and it was decided they would try to contact it. By that time the ship was at the fringes of our system so the President was told his re-election was in the bag if he was able to be the first human to talk to aliens. The equipment was set up and it ensured they were broadcasting back to us at light speed through a tight laser for the monumental occasion. They approached the alien ship and hailed it on all the frequencies it could.
The unknown ship slowed and sent several large space suited aliens to the little ship. All were welcomed in, the hatch was closed, and the humans removed their helmets in welcome. The cameras caught it all.
The aliens took out a large saw knife and one at a time slowly cut off the crew’s heads, the blood curdling screams rang throughout the colony. All six were beheaded. The cameras caught it live, people got sick all over the planet. The screams still echo in all our minds, and those big red eyes kept peering out of the helmets of the aliens to keep us awake at night.
Such were my thoughts as I waited. “Well, dear departed wife, rest in peace, you kept your head,” I thought aloud.
“Morbid,” Sylvia said.
“Status on the engines?” I asked, as I shook it off.
“I don’t know for sure. I have the robots heading there now, but it will still be awhile,” she said. “Can we get out of these space suits? I got an itch I can’t scratch.”
“Computer, hull status?” I asked.
“All external leaks repaired and tested to two atmospheres pressure. Integrity considered minimal,” it said.
“Okay, but if anything happens get it back on ASAP,” I told her.
She popped off the helmet and opened the front of the pressure suit. It was held with three separate layers of Velcro with a soft spongy plastic seal between each set, providing an airtight, but reasonably quick on/off process. She stripped to her flight suit, unzipped the top, ripped off her bra, and started scratching under her breasts. “Damn issue bras!” I could see red marks under each one.
She finally stopped and looked at me. “What? Like you haven’t seen them a million times?” she asked.
“The red marks, I think you may be allergic to them,” I said.
“No, really? You think?” She let it ride. She let the bra float and zipped up the flight suit.
I took my pressure suit off and secured it with a magnet to the hull. She finally did the same.
“Robots are almost there,” she said, as she went back to scanning her panels. I always felt our robots were great for what they do. Just too slow. They were compact and efficient beasts of burden. Various quick connect tools attached to arms. If they were hooked into ship power they had a plasma cutter and wire feed welder built in. What made them slow was the small treads used to move. These were carefully designed with super thin interlocking pieces of polymer plastics with metals added. It received a small electrical charge across the polymers creating a magnetic field. The hull was coated with a metallic composite that allowed the magnet a secure grip. To finish the design the treads had self-contained motors and were attached to the frame of the robot by a modified swing arm and gimbals system that allowed the tread to always remain flat to the hull, even up on the tight nose section.
Along the exterior of the hull were anchor points. The robots had servo controlled systems like a ‘D’ ring on the cable end. Clipping a thin cable to an anchor point, it played out as they moved. When it needed to un-hook, a simple servo would open the anchor ring and the robot could rewind the cable and reattach it to a new anchor. This prevented the loss of the robot if it, or the hull, ran out of power, or, if the robot became detached for some reason. Complicated and slow, but it worked. NASA had sworn they were the second most expensive pieces of equipment behind the F/F reactor.
We latched on to our two remaining crew and re-secured them in their chairs. All our safety harnesses had broken on impact with any one of what turned out to be three asteroids.
A quick check found Gil had broken his neck, probably against the inside of the hull during one of the collisions.
Our suits were not space suits. They had an umbilical hooked to the ship, which provided power, water, air and food, and allowed waste removal. If the ship’s systems went, you had a little over fifteen minutes if awake, or a few hours in dead sleep, before you were just dead.
Sylvia and I both had impact damage to our bodies, inside and out, but the painkillers given when we were awakened would help for a few hours. I checked myself carefully for broken bones and didn’t find any. I checked Sylvia over and she did me to make sure we did not miss anything. Black and blue whelps here and there, but nothing that would not heal as long as nothing ripped inside. It would be a while before we would know that by the oldest means known, if we passed blood or started coughing it up, we would be fairly certain we were in trouble.
Sylvia set to work reading up on the engines, wiring, controls, and plumbing. I did the same on ship’s electrical systems. I traced out blown cards, replaced those we had spares for. We replaced switches, bulbs, and brought a few additional circuits back on line. I told the computer to rerun all systems diagnostics.
“Diagnostics complete,” it said.
“Systems status of off line units,” I said.
It was definitely shorter and most were non-critical, like the two-minute timer on the four-sheet toilet paper dispenser. Some accountant figured the max anyone needed was four sheets at one time. Guess they never ate the green goop we ate.
Sylvia had the robots doing all sorts of tests and pulling various parts from external storage lockers.
“Prognosis?” I asked her.
“Well shock me to tears if I do not think I can get one motor online in a few days. We need reaction mass for the F/F reactor though. We need water ice or enough hydrogen and oxygen to make some. Any other gases can be used to fuel the attitude jets,” she said.
Somehow, I doubted if anyone anywhere had ever gotten a tear out of her. “Okay, you starting a scan for elements in the area?” I asked.
“Already started,” she said. Then a red flashing light went off with a low wailing siren.
“Alert, long range FM waves detect an approaching ship; correction, two ships along the path of the last departure,” the computer said.
“Damn, can we get the death sleep in time?” I asked.
“Negative, to do so is sure death for the other two and almost certain for you,” it said. That meant we could not re-suit, no way to hide the heat and life signs.
“Suggestions?” I asked Sylvia.
“All systems off, reduce temperature to absolute minimum. Vent the ship back to minimum and we use a survival pouch with a heater and have the inside robots wrap it in the emergency thermal blankets to reduce heat signature, then wait it out,” she said. I knew she was a smart cookie.
“Other options?” I asked the computer.
“Unable to move to ram. No mass to go critical. Only other option is to void the ship to space and all die.”
“Okay, we go with the first one. Computer, if we are boarded, vent us all. Do not let them get us, understood?” I asked knowing it was a computer; it did not care.
I got out one of the three pouche
s and hooked up the air, water, and food lines. Sylvia took off everything and climbed in. I looked at her questioningly.
“You don’t think I am going to spend maybe the last couple days of our lives wrapped up in this little thing with you and do nothing, do you?” she asked.
I smiled. What a way to go. We slipped inside the large pouch. The robots sealed the end and we felt them wrapping us loosely in thermal wrap. When done the only heat being given off would be the minimal air inside the ship required to keep pressure high enough to stop our pouch from bursting, well, in theory.
Inside there were four little LEDs that ran along the fold. There was a small sense of heat from the electric coils in the pouch walls and enough movement room that we could almost sit up. With heads bent and knees drawn, you could, just. NASA saw these as a form of short term, cheap escape pods, but often as not the seam would not hold in the vacuum of space. It was found if temporary emergency shelter was needed on the ground, or in a minimum pressure environment, they could theoretically sustain life for several days. The ship’s computer had access to a small speaker panel between the void tubes.
“Unknown ships will arrive in the area in two hours thirty minutes,” it said.
Sylvia said, “Well? You got two hours.”
Love her finesse and charm. I admit I always did love her though. She knew it. Later I started to move and she hugged me and stopped me. “Don’t, you have no place to run off to, just relax.” She kissed me, slow and gentle, something very new and different. It was usually wham bam, thank you, Sir, now get lost. We were weightless now so it wasn’t any problem.
She was right up front about what she thought and how she felt. You never had any doubt where you stood with her. “We’re going to die aren’t we?” she asked quietly.
“I honestly don’t know, but likely as not, yes. Don’t forget that we have already thought that once,” I whispered.
“I do care sometimes, you know. I feel it, love I mean. Seldom, but enough to know it scares me so I must ignore it, hide it, smash it for its evilness.” She said it so flatly, so void of emotion.
I could barely see her in the light from the LEDs. She was just staring at my face, eyes moving back and forth. “If we are going to die, I figure I needed to tell that to someone. Someone I did have that little feeling for, just once in my life before I go, since I know you don’t have the time to hurt me for it.” Almost a smile and a slow kiss, deep, and for the first time in the six years I had known her, it had feeling behind it.
“We have time, once more please? Nice and slow.” It was not the usual fun, it was totally relaxing and enjoyable and I told her so.
“I know, different, relaxing, like we don’t need this, we just, I don’t know,” she said. She hugged me and just kept staring at me, then kissing me, then staring. It went on for a while.
The speaker said, “Shutting down all systems, detection range.” Everything went off, even the LEDs and heater coils. It would get chilly now, depending on the efficiency of the thermal wrap and the conducting ability of the pouch.
Outside I knew a little red light blinked once every 50 seconds.
~~~
The Fleet Commander was mad. He had already looked for them once and now he was ordered back to find them a second time. He was ordered to try and find a little ship that plowed into a belt where he couldn’t go. He was told to find it, or signs it had left. They wanted it to study. He placed his cruiser outside the belt, and his second inside. All thermal imaging and gravity distortion gear was on and recording as they slowly ran past the last know position of the enemy. Nothing. All the fields showed where they had passed by earlier, but there were no signs of anything leaving the belt except a few torn pieces of metal, which were recovered.
Somewhere in that mass of rocks was a shattered little ship now part of an asteroid. He claimed his kill and ran all his tests last time, now he ran them all again with the same results. He would go home and celebrate his victory. There were whole planets full of humans—these six were not important. He finally ordered the other ship to move out as soon as it was clear, and to head home at maximum economic speed. He turned his around and they both left the area.
~~~
The LEDs came on, the heat came on, the air came on and two humans were locked in their own private little world, waiting for the end to come. Instead, they felt the slow spinning of being unwrapped. The bag was unsealed and the shipboard lighting entered to blind them.
“I think we have company requiring our attention,” she said, as she kissed me and unwrapped.
I checked the ship time. Five hours and thirty minutes had slipped by in there. No wonder my legs and arms were almost numb.
We stored everything. “I shall keep the warm fuzziness as long as I can,” she said.
“If possible I would like to try and at least make the attempt to leave these rocks,” I told her, as we finished dressing. We got our flight suits back on, but Sylvia refused to put on the bra and left it floating around.
The computer said, “Maximum allowable status time in one hour.”
“Bring them up,” I told the computer. “Not a lot of options.”
It took forty-five minutes to bring them up to full awareness. She reinitialized the scan for resources as we waited for Mary and Bill to come back to life.
Mary saw the bra floating by and said, “You too?” as she ripped hers off and let it float. She scratched and rubbed the large red areas that were far more extensive than Sylvia’s. Seems they were made of some new fibers we developed on New Earth as a replacement for the dwindling supplies we brought with us.
Once Bill was fully awake, we filled them in on what happened and how we hid in the pouch to avoid the Head Hunters when they came back. They were filled in on what we needed. They only exhibited a trace of hope for our future.
We stripped the captain and Gil of everything they had and placed them in the large black body bags designed for that purpose. I then sent their bodies through the air lock to the coldness of space, with a short prayer for eternal peace.
Mary was our ground surveyor, geologist, chemist, and space analyst. Bill was our scout, nav and radio/computer specialist. Mary would look at the data coming in to find anything we needed. Bill would gear up and go try to recover it. I always liked Mary, but I still felt something off about Bill.
Sylvia would continue to work with the robots and see what repairs could be done. The cam view showed one motor had been smashed in, a clear impact from the side, and most of it had flown apart. Though the part in front of them was smashed almost in half it held, just gave a weird twist to the centerline of the ship.
A digital video recording of our two-week flight from the various cam views showed the enemy ships shooting at us, then the ship careened into the asteroid field as we saw the impact with the first rock and the ship trying to twist under high Gs to miss it. Pow. Motor crushed and air was venting. The asteroid was seen shooting out of the field into the nether.
The ship started slowly spinning like a bottle on a table. Next was a clear view of another asteroid hitting near the engines of the ship as it vented its last air into space. The venting was partly computer controlled through service vents to prevent explosive decompression.
There was one final jolt as the ship came to rest where it was. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. You couldn’t see were the HH ships went or even how far into the belt we traveled before coming to a stop. Next was a low power view as the robots were about, welding here, patching there. We knew the rest.
“Sylvia, did that motor exploding hurt the other one?” I asked.
“Not a lot, they were almost stopped—we were out of power remember? We were on our last few sputters and the F/F reactor was already down. The fact the attitude jets even helped us come around enough to almost avoid the first one is amazing.”
“Yes and I feel the fact we coasted so long removed all the heat trails we’d normally leave behind as well. How long before we can
try to move?” I asked.
“Mary would better answer that. It depends on what she finds usable for the reactor and ices for water and gases. The left motor is usable as soon as I get a few more repairs done, the F/F reactor should be usable as well. We took some hard hits. We are just totally out of gas, broke down on the side of the road with nothing but fun things to do.” Sylvia smiled at me as she said that. Mary caught the glance and snickered.
The robots set up a couple solar arrays to gather the weak light and energies of the stars for the capacitor. The captain had already fired off both chem generators we had on board to maintain our speed as long as possible, so they were no help.
Mary finally looked up from her little console station. “Trace elements show all over, but the analyzer appears severely damaged. We could be sitting on top of a huge supply and I doubt we’d know it for sure.” She still had her flight suit opened and was scratching under her breasts. I went to the med kit and got a can of spray bandage and tossed it to Bill. He caught it and had Mary raise her hands as he sprayed it on and slowly rubbed it in. She appeared to get a little relief from it. Bill winked at her and promised another application later. Mary blushed a bit and mockingly slapped him.
I said, “Let us hope there is a later, Bill.”
“Yes, I know. Heck, at least we still got our heads longer than we thought. Gotta look on the bright side of things.” He smiled. “Soon as my head quits pounding and I get a bit of food I’ll suit up and have a look.”
They both had been in stasis the maximum recommended time, and I knew they hurt.
“We have nothing can’t wait a few hours. Pop some pills and take a snooze, both of you. That is an order.” I threw the pain pills to Mary. She smiled in appreciative thanks.
They went to the back. They did not quite get the privacy curtains closed all the way.
Sylvia came over, wrapped her arm around mine, and whispered, “Thank you by the way. I felt different, can’t explain it, maybe later.”
Blood Sabers Page 3