Morgan just grunted.
The moment came…
…and she had him! The angle was awkward, his head was pointed somewhat to the right of her feet, but she had a good grip on his torso with her one arm. Carefully she extended a bit of cord from the thruster pack’s frame, looping it around him and connecting back to the other side of the frame. She’d need both hands to control the thrusters.
“Great job!” West said, before diving right back into the hard questions. “How is your air supply doing?”
“Uh,” Morgan said, looking away from the new icon on her HUD – the nearest airlock on the other side – so she could check. “Thirty percent. It was already quite a bit below full before this started. I just got back from a shuttle ride from Albion and must have used more than I thought during the trip.”
“Okay. That’s okay. The hard part is done. You should be able to coast most of the rest of the way. Can you tie into his suit; get a read on his vitals?”
That wasn’t an idle question, unfortunately. Under normal conditions, a skinsuit wouldn’t broadcast the user’s information to anyone, or allow anyone access to the suit’s systems, but emergencies were another matter.
That the suit wasn’t already doing so meant it hadn’t recognized there was an emergency. There were several reasons that might be, none of them good.
Morgan managed to turn the man around so he was facing her and confirmed a few things, also none of which were good.
The first she’d suspected, given he wasn’t moving about at all; he was unconscious. The others were more immediately a problem.
“Lieutenant West, his suit is completely non-functional, probably fried, and there is a slow leak from his faceplate. He’s also unresponsive and appears to be unconscious, but he is breathing.”
West swore, probably away from his pickup, as it was muted and indistinct.
“Can you get your hose connected?”
Blast it. I didn’t think of that. I should have. “One moment.”
Morgan yanked the emergency hose off the bottom of her suit’s backpack tank unit, pulling it around and trying to get it connected to his. The movement sent them spinning, and she had to spend several long seconds to correct it after finally getting the hose connected.
“Done.” She checked his faceplate again. “Speed of the leak has sped up a bit, air must have already been thin in there.”
“You’re getting close, it shouldn’t be an issue. Your air just needs to hold out a little longer.”
Careful not to start them spinning again, she had her uplink update her on time to target, and then took another look at her air supply. ‘Not good’ was something of an understatement.
“I’m going to be cutting it far closer than I am comfortable with there. Should I try and speed up?”
West swore again, and this time the curse came through completely clearly.
“If you speed up much more you’ll just need to slow down at the other end. Add in minor corrections and I don’t think it will save you anything.”
Morgan ran some more numbers and was forced to agree.
About the only good news was that the angle at which the crewman had launched off his ship meant they didn’t need to traverse the entire four-kilometer diameter of the station’s cavernous hold from one point to the opposite, just most of it.
West’s suddenly came back on the comm line, his voice stern and commanding. “Take evasive action now, debris coming up from behind you!”
Spurred into action, Morgan fired off the thrusters, pushing them down relative to the station’s main docking ring, and scant moments later a large piece of what looked like hull plating passed over her.
“Where did that come from?” Morgan asked as she started trying to figure out what airlock would be the closest along their new trajectory. Just as well there are seven different docking rings along the interior of the station. If we had to aim for just the main one, we’d be in big trouble about now. She paused her thought process, looking over the data her uplink was feeding onto the display in her helmet. We might be anyway.
“Sorry about the late warning,” West said after a moment, “Tracking showed no dangerous pieces, but two of them collided, sending one toward you.”
“Understood,” Morgan said. She wanted to gripe about it, but that would just use up more oxygen. “I’m headed for an airlock on the next docking ring down. My uplink lists it as part of Beacon of Twilight’s berth. Empty right now, of course.”
“I’ve got your new trajectory now, confirmed. Looks like your ETA is two minutes.”
“Air will last that long. Just be sure to have a doctor there, I don’t know how badly off he is.”
Despite her confident words, Morgan spent the seconds anxiously watching the air gauge dip lower, driven not only by her breathing but his and the leak in his suit. As it hit fifteen percent, she realized she was breathing faster, almost at the edge of panic.
For just a moment, she felt like she was back in the terrorist base, trapped on a bed, and then back on her previous ship, pirates shooting at her. She even felt like she was back on her homeworld, trapped in the cramped mines she worked in at a young age, her skinsuit feeling far, far too restrictive.
Drawing on the breathing exercises her therapist had taught her, Morgan got it under control. It wasn’t quick, or easy, but it worked.
It was just in time, too. They were almost to the airlock, which someone had taken the helpful step of opening on the inner side.
I hope they remembered to also turn off the gravity plating, Morgan thought. Well, if they haven’t, it’ll be a fun few seconds, but it will be the last few seconds of this ordeal.
“You are off just a bit. Small corrections, we don’t want you doing too much and needing to correct the correction,” Lieutenant West told her over the comm.
You don’t need to remind me of that, Morgan thought, but did not say, as she split her attention between the display of her air tank and the position of the approaching airlock. A bit to the left, now up, slow down a bit, and drift right in.
The gravity in the airlock was off. Morgan quickly disentangled herself from the crewman, pushing him down until he was more or less on the floor, and herself standing on it.
Another crewmember was watching her from outside, and first closed the airlock behind her and then turned on the gravity plating as the chamber re-pressurized.
As soon as it was safe, Morgan retracted her helmet, taking big gulping breaths of the sweet air. Even knowing how close it had been, it was shocking how stale the air in her suit had gotten.
The outer door opened, and several people rushed in, neatly and efficiently hoisting the downed crewman onto an anti-gravity stretcher and pulling him into the corridor.
Morgan rapidly found herself alone in the airlock, but that was fine with her. She didn’t want anyone to see her hands shaking anyway.
With her helmet retracted, the open comm channel with DCC had switched to her uplink’s pickups, so she raised her wrist up to her mouth.
“They’ve got him, we’re both safe,” Morgan said. Not feeling particularly up to chatting, she added, “I’m sure there’s still plenty going on with the explosion. I should go so you can get back to helping with that.”
She cut the link. Probably a bit rude, but she wasn’t wrong about how much chaos there was going to be, thanks to the explosion on the freighter.
As she walked out, she realized it wasn’t just her hands that were shaking; her legs were none too steady, either.
It’s just your body coming down off the adrenaline, she reminded herself, willing herself not to panic, not to overreact. She resumed the breathing exercises, and moved over to an alcove opposite the airlock. She fell back against the wall with a muted thump, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor.
Morgan closed her eyes and just sat there; she wasn’t sure how long. Once she was ready, she stood up and finally took a look around her surroundings.
Sh
e wasn’t familiar with that section of the station, but then, she wasn’t familiar with most of it. Even just the level that stretched around the main docking ring was something around twelve kilometers in circumference; each ship’s docking port was more than a kilometer away from the next.
Granted, most of the station was taken up by the cargo spaces, the environmental and power plants, the massive hydroponics bays that doubled as an oxygen-producing system, and so on, but there was still more station than any one person had probably seen.
Remembering back to that first day she’d come aboard, what felt like forever ago, when she’d gotten lost on the station, brought a smile to her lips.
Well, not lost this time. Still a crisis to put out, though not one I need to deal with.
Stepping over to the windows, she looked out into the central hold. With no ship docked, she had unobstructed sight lines up towards where the Herald of Spring lay.
Or at least, mostly unobstructed. There was still a lot of debris in the way.
Are they towing the ship out? Why do that? They’ll have to ferry anyone over by shuttle, or do another vacuum walk like I just did. Not especially dangerous, but compared to just walking over…
…Are they afraid the whole thing could blow? Is it even possible to get it a safe distance from the other ships and station while still inside?
No wonder Lieutenant West didn’t quibble about me cutting off the line. I was closer than I realized to being right.
Thinking about all the people on the ship, plus all the others helping, sent a shiver down her spine.
She’d never been involved in a rescue operation of that size before, but she had done plenty of seemingly hopeless recovery efforts back in the mines.
Guess I was involved this time, wasn’t I?
Not feeling like mucking around with the labyrinthine station layout, she just started walking around the observation deck she was already on. It was at the same time comforting and disquieting.
The former, because it was something she had often done to relax, the latter because of the way everything looked just slightly wrong, being most of a kilometer lower on the station and therefore lower down on the curve.
Oh, and of course, nothing going on above her helped either.
Morgan had been feeling tired before she’d arrived on station, but now she was positively exhausted.
I can deal with all this later. I also don’t need to report to the captain until tomorrow. There isn’t anything else I can do to help, not with my tank all but empty, so I might as well get some sleep.
She hadn’t heard anything else about the damaged ship in the hour it took her to wind her way around the station and then back up to the section used to house the crew of the Daystar Fading, Gertrude’s ship, at least for a few days longer.
I guess that means it didn’t blow up, was all she could manage, followed by a halfway incoherent stray thought wondering when they’d need to move quarters, since Gertrude was going to switch ships to stay opposite Morgan’s schedule.
Morgan managed to get showered, changed, put her suit in to be cleaned and refilled, and was lying on her bed before a few thoughts managed to force their way through her tired mind.
I wonder where Gertrude and Haruhi are? I would have thought they’d be home before I even got in on the shuttle. It’s well past Haru’s bedtime, it’s even past mine and Gertrude’s most nights.
Bother, if we had already moved quarters, I wouldn’t have had to walk all the way back here, she’s transferring to the Beacon.
Ugh, I left my bag in the middle of the hallway by the Herald. Most of that stuff isn’t so bad, but the silk robe Emily gave me must have cost a fortune.
Silk robe or no, I’ll just have to get it in the morning.
Morgan was almost asleep when one last thought caused her to lunge bolt upright, completely forgetting for a moment that she was in her alcove on the station and not a bed in Emily’s estate.
Luckily, the station alcove had padding on the ceiling, which the bunks on the ships lacked, so her head bounced harmlessly off with a muted thump.
Daddy’s spanner! It was in the bag!
Chapter 02
Mementos, keepsakes, reminders, talismans, tokens, relics, heirlooms, they all basically come down to the same thing: A physical object to represent or encapsulate memories. I don’t care how evolved, civilized, or intelligent you think humanity has become, something as basic as a scrap of cloth, a toy teddy, or a tool passed from father to son can evoke more emotion and longing in a person than almost anything else. Without our past we are lost, and the past is often represented in objects.
- Jillian van Daam, Historian in Residence, New Utrecht University
Sgt. Eck
SERGEANT MAX ECK stood there, trying to ignore the chaos going on outside and behind him, and trying a bit harder to ignore the pain in his feet.
Should have gotten the fitting checked on my skinsuit last month, but no, I didn’t want to go through the hassle of shaving my whole body, ‘it wasn’t urgent.’ Dumbass.
Grunts standing about and complaining wasn’t anything new for the mercenary, of course. It was in fact a storied and ancient tradition, stretching back hundreds of years to Old Earth, and thousands more before that, before humanity had left their birth world.
Complaining about the food, the gear, the weather, and the officers, it really was universal.
That last one wasn’t true for Max, at least not at the moment. It wasn’t the higher-ups fault that they’d been ordered to guard the areas near the dock to keep the curious away. It even made some sense, since the mercs couldn’t really help with the repair, rescue, or mitigation efforts.
Not that it stopped him from complaining about the officers anyway.
The chronometer display in his HUD ticked over to the top of the hour, and Max sighed, opening the channel to his squad.
“Anything to report?” he asked, not bothering to specify who he was talking to. If they didn’t know by now, they were stupid, and given all the ways stupid could kill you in space, that was something he needed to know.
The three team leaders responded in quick succession, ‘nothing to report’ having given way to a more laconic ‘nope’ about an hour previously.
Max just managed to mute himself before letting out a truly stupendous yawn.
Having the mercs guard the corridors was a decent idea. Pity that they didn’t really have the manpower for it.
Oh, Takiyama employed an impressive percentage of his company, but they were mostly on the ships, not in port. Each freighter might spend half its time in port and the other half out, but that just made it easier to assign each group of mercs to two ships, since their duties on board weren’t typically as arduous, and they weren’t being paid to stand around and do nothing.
Well, they were, actually, but not like that.
His musings on the boring nature of his job, which was, griping aside, his favorite part about it, were cut short as something truly odd appeared before him.
It was a girl, at first glance mid-teens, barefoot and wearing only a nightgown, looking quite upset, distraught even. Between the dark blonde hair and the dusky skin, she reminded him of a Milatan girl he’d known, what was her name? Jennifer? Rose? Pleasant enough memory, either way.
Seems an odd place for a girl to be wandering about in the middle of station night, though I guess that does explain the nightgown, sort of. If this were a holo I’d be worried that some monster is following along behind her.
“Team B, send one of your men over my way. Actually, scratch that, send me Private Wilkins.”
“Sure thing, Sarge,” Corporal Jenkins replied after a moment. If he thought requesting his one female private odd, he didn’t say so, but Max had been working with him long enough to hear the question in his tone. Well, too bad my friend, this time you just get to wonder.
The girl had closed a fair bit of the difference between them while he’d been talking, but not as much
as she could have. Even as he watched, she stopped, popping open a small storage unit built into the wall and looking inside before closing it and moving forward.
Stepping away from his post, Max called out to her.
“Little miss, we really can’t have you in this part of the station. It’s still dangerous.”
She didn’t respond to him, instead checking another storage unit.
“Little miss?” he said again, stepping closer.
She was even shorter than he’d assumed at first, probably not even reaching his shoulder.
He was about to revise his age estimate down, but something made him hesitate.
Never mind that, her age isn’t relevant. Cute, yes, old enough for you to hit on, no, so what do the specifics matter?
“Little miss, I really need you to say something,” he said for the third time as she opened another storage area.
Narrowing his eyes, he took a good look at her body language. He’d seen the like many times before, though mostly on his homeworld before he’d enlisted. However much she might be ignoring him, she did know he was there, and she was poised to react, and with more than just words.
“I know you can hear me. If you really want to sell the obliviousness, you need to work on your presentation. You’re tensing up and reacting to every step I make.”
“I don’t need your help. I just need to find my bag,” she said at last, opening up another compartment in the wall rather than looking at him.
“Your bag, huh?” Max said, drawing out the syllables. “I don’t have any objections to that, but this area’s still restricted because of the accident earlier.”
“I know that. I also know that this is about where I was when I lost it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It was just before the explosion.”
“Can we cut the bull?” Max said, wishing that Wilkins would show up. Flirting with the female of the species, he could handle. Training or working with them, he could handle. Dealing with civilian females being difficult, he could not. Female kids and teens, he especially could not, and that was when they were making a modicum of sense, and not prancing around a space station well past bedtime in their nighties. “Did you fight with your parents? Maybe you think they’ll not look for you here?”
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