by Ingo Potsch
“You mean I shall take it?”
“We have it on board for such emergency cases, don’t we?” remarked the doctor.
“Any alternatives?” asked Astley.
“We’re running low on methylphenidate”, told Coroner. “In people with healthy cerebral functions – and I know this to be the case with you - it works by increasing the activity of the central nervous system, just like cocaine. It produces such effects as increasing or maintaining alertness, combating fatigue, and improving attention. Methylphenidate and cocaine have a similar chemical structure, and both increase dopamine levels in the brain. They do this by blocking a dopamine transporter protein, which normally takes up dopamine from the synapse. - Anyway, I trust that you can cope better with the cocaine that my other charges, so I rather give the stuff to you than to them.”
“So, I’m your little guinea pig?”
“You’re the only one who can navigate us out of Aesuron-patrolled space far enough into the direction of our side”, replied Coroner. “Boxspanner told that he can alter the remaining hyperspace drive to issue Morse code signals. Once we’re far enough from the Aesuron hunting grounds and near enough to our chaps, we can descend from hyperspace, rest peacefully in normal space, and shout for help as loud as we can. But till then, we need to march on and you’re the only one who can get us there. And given your mental strength, I fear least that you’ll develop an addiction to the stuff. – Anyway, staying alive is the priority now.
He proffered the silver case. Astley seized one of the doses with hesitation.
"Thanks awfully!" he exclaimed gratefully when the effect had set it.
"Bit of luck," continued Randolphfield. "Found the case in the wreckage near a beer barrel. Must have gotten there by the mess which the shelling has caused. I don't think the commotion affected it. Case seems pretty tight. Thought I'd come on deck and share the stuff with you."
“You’re taking it as well?” asked Astley.
“Been busy operating since the calamities started, haven’t I?” replied Randolphfield. “Am I a machine?”
“Glad you aren’t!” Astley gave back. “My machines are one by one breaking down.”
Almost before the cocaine had reached the junior lieutenant’s synapses, a jarring shock made the Mandana tremble from her shattered bows to her jagged tail. Immediately afterwards the remaining hyperspace drive began to sputter with frightful force. The Mandana hat dropped out from hyperspace and now the remaining engine attempted to pull her back. The force field generator had been impaired, though, and the single derogated machine proved incapable of fulling off the trick. The compromised force field rampaged recklessly, working against the spaceship’s dimensional dampeners, with all of them out of sync with each other and the energy supply from the hydrogen fusion reactors.
Jumping up like on hot cinder – the adrenalin produced naturally in his body was much faster and more violent than even the cocaine - Astley sprang to his feet, fully convinced that the long-expected catastrophe had occurred, and that the bulkhead had given way, with the Mandana now disintegrating entirely. What he had to do was to cut off the hyperspace drive immediately, because the vibrations caused by its futile attempts were fatal for the now-frail vessel if allowed to continue. Pushing the emergency shutdown button forcefully, Astley created calm. Randolphfield, his first thoughts for his patients, scurried down the bridge-ladder in the conveyance tube and ran aft to where the double line of wounded astronauts lay on makeshift bunks, each covered by a hammock or whatever else textile fabric had been found, to protect them from the cold.
A minute passed by. There was no impetuous outrush of atmosphere. The bulkhead was still holding. The engine-room ratings had shut anything but the most basic life support systems, and the horrible, nerve-racking clank of the stampeding machinery had ceased.
"Hyperspace drive fouled some obstacle, sir," reported a petty officer. "Feedback loop and superimposition buffer stripped clean off the synchronizer, I’ll allow."
The fellow was right in his surmise. The last of the twin hyperspace drives had struck some overlooked object, with the result that the destroyer was no longer capable of moving through the superposed dimension under her own power. All she could do was to drift helplessly with the weak solar wind and gravitation. It would take an eternity to reach any inhabitable world like this.
Astley cursed. The cocaine increased aggressiveness, though even without the chemical compound to incite is ire he had reason enough to be angry. “Isn’t this supposed to be the Grand Inter-Arm Void? It should be called the Greatly Overcrowded Over-Abundancy of Obstacles! Can’t travel a lightyear without bumping into something.”
With a deafening hiss, a heavy cloud of steam released from the now useless cooling system escaped space-wards. The overworked engineering staffs were at last at liberty to stand easy.
Suddenly a beam of dazzling white light flashed through the darkness. Impinging upon the cloud of frozen steam from the Mandana’s broken cooling system, its reflected glare illumined the scene as clearly as if it had been broad daylight on a fair-sky planet. Then, with a quick, decisive movement, the giant ray was depressed, until it played fairly upon the battered hull, throwing every object into strong relief, and literally blinding the astronauts who looked out of the portholes with its dazzling glare.
"What ship is that?" pulsated the source of light in Morse code.
A couple of kilometres from the stationary Mandana was a large destroyer, with her search-light directed upon the object of her enquiry.
Astley took a torch light, directed the beam upon the bright spot and responded. The junior lieutenant's reply was invisible, though. The lack of precision in directing the beam and the lack of sufficient lumen prevented his Morse code from being understood. Again the challenge was repeated from the other side: “What ship us that?”
Standing upright in the full glare of the searchlight, and apart from his companions, a petty officer in heavy-maintenance mecha-suit provided the desired information. He had big floodlight torch with him, as he had just been mending some piece of the hull which had been torn during one of the violent altercations.
"Stand by to receive a hawser," commanded the lieutenant-commander of the unknown destroyer. "We'll take you in tow."
“Useless”, replied
The vessel was Human Nation Space Fleet ship Turandokht, one of the inner patrol of destroyers operating between Planet Amery Martial and Planet Maiden Meadows. Pelting along at twenty one lightyears per hour through the velvet darkness, her first intimation of the proximity of the crippled Mandana was the succession of odd hyperspace events from the destroyer’s deranged machinery. Prepared to open fire at an instant's notice, she trained her machine cannons abeam and tried to gain more knowledge about the strange vessel by means of her sensors. Soon after, the Mandana had dropped out of hyperspace. The Turandokht followed suit. Her infra-red instruments told her that there was a severely mauled vessel, though what kind of ship remained a riddle. It became apparent soon, though, that the vessel was bare of energy supply and missiles and therefore harmless. Thus, the Turandokht dared to come closer. She soon switched on her search-lights, only to discover that she had fortunately fallen in with a "lame duck" from the big battle in the Grand Inter-Arm Void - a craft whose absence was beginning to give rise to considerable apprehension on the part of the Human Nation’s Admiralty.
"Towing is useless”, repeated Astley. “HS drive down the drain. Need to call dock ship.” Even calling in a dock ship was actually waste, for the Mandana was only trash by now, and radioactive trash in top of that. The level of radiation was below the outright dangerous level, but nobody in his right mind would re-use any of her material. And as a ship, she was so defective that no amount of repair work was going to restore her to anything even coming close to her old glory, not to mention a useful member of the space fleet. But anyway, the human race ever since was sentimental and the Human Nation Space Fleet had their own emotional moment
s, too. Therefore, the Mandana was going to be salvaged and carried back to the territory of the Human Nation and perhaps even attempts would be made to mend her. Just as the Aesuron captain who had the opportunity of destroying her reckoned, this destroyer was going to be a bigger drain on the Human Nation’s resources when ‘half alive’ as compared to ‘fully dead’.
“So bad?” signalled the skipper of the Turandokht.
“Worse”, confirmed Astley. Then, he gave the most important details.
“Will have to tow her into the dock ship better stern-foremost, I fancy," signalled the Turandokht's skipper, as he noted the extent to which the Mandana was damaged by the bows.
"Yes, sir," agreed Astley. "There will be less pressure upon the bulkhead forward and all the structures in front of that. It has been giving us some anxiety."
"Is Bergerault on board?" enquired the lieutenant-commander of the rescuing craft.
"Badly wounded," was the junior lieutenant's reply. "We had it fairly hot for a time. Can you give us any details of the result of the action, sir?"
"Yes; we gave them a terrific bashing," said the skipper of the Turandokht. "Unfortunately, they gave us double. The most rotten part was that the Aesuron got away through clouds of white noise at will; and then they came back like out of nowhere to strike back. Still, they won't come out again in a hurry, I fancy, for we caused them bad enough losses. They've been very busy ever since sending out to all neutrals their fantastic claims to a decisive victory over the Human Nation’s fleet. By mere numbers’ comparison they certainly beat our pants off, but the good part about it is that Jollyheart made a demonstration in force just off the Aesuron territory yesterday, and the bastards came out just to retreat again upon meeting with us. They didn’t hold the space. By the way, we shall better get going. Hyperspace is fairly calm not and the sensors will reach far. We’re still quite close to the Aesuron side of the great divide and we better shan’t be run into by one of their dispersed cruisers, given your ship’s condition. We'll run alongside you and tranship your wounded. It will save a lot of bother if you have to abandon ship."
Adroitly manoeuvred in the darkness of normal space, for the powerful search-lights were now screened and radio silence was kept lest a prowling Cruiser might take advantage of the motionless Human Nation’s destroyers, the Turandokht was made fast to her disabled consort. Carefully the wounded astronauts were transferred, Doctor Randolphfield, at the junior lieutenant's request, going with them, since the Turandokht was one of a class of destroyers without the services of a medical man.
There was one exception. Bergerault resolutely declined to leave his ship.
"She's brought us through thus far," he declared, "and I will stick to her until we fetch home. Where are we now?"
Astley was unable to reply until he had enquired of the Turandokht's navigating officer the position of the ship. The answer was somewhat astonishing; the Mandana, when picked up, was on her way to Planet Coria Warden’s Boulder; though that way would have been still very, very long, even at her previous speed before the defects. But then, those defects were probably caused by the Mandana’s hyperspace force field colliding with the dimensional drive’s energy array of the Turandokht, pushing the weaker vessel out.
"A precious fine piece of navigation," remarked the junior lieutenant ruefully. "I was trying to make it to the Bodotria Tunnel, and instead I find myself barging into the Cluster of Planet Rosewood Forests."
"Might have done a jolly sight worse, old friend," said Bergerault cheerfully. "You're a great, Astley!"
The junior lieutenant flushed like a schoolgirl, and turned around. There was always something important to be done on the bridge that required the acting skipper’s attention.
Relatively soon after this conversation the awaited dock-ship arrived. She must have been around in the vicinity anyway or else her approach would have taken much longer. Given that there was lots of scrap to salvage, the idea of dispatching several dock-ships into this region of the Grand Inter-Arm Void suggested itself.
Now, the wrecked Mandana was to be pulled into the big vessel.
"All clear aft?" asked the dock-ship's commander.
"Aye, aye, sir," was the reply from a petty officer stationed at the after capstan, round which the towing-hawser had been made fast.
Very cautiously the damaged craft was towed into the dock-ship. Soon after, the big vessel with the smaller destroyer in her belly forged ahead at reduced cruising speed with her dampers adjusted at maximum softness. In the vicinity of the Aesuron side of the Grand Inter-Arm Void the manoeuvre was fraught with anxiety, for, had the produced hyperspace distortions aroused the suspicion of prowling enemy vessels, the dock-ship would have been as helpless as the wrecked destroyer she was endeavouring to save. But as things went well, only a couple of hours later she was on her way to Planet Coria Warden’s Boulder at a rate of seventeen lightyears per hour. They were good shipyards there under contract with the Human Nation Space Fleet.
When days later they all arrived at the military station orbiting around Planet Coria Warden’s Boulder, the Mandana again divorced her temporary yet very close marriage with the dock-ship and was taken over by a powerful tug. Alongside the tug, the further voyage of the wrecked destroyer began. Her wounded lieutenant-commander, lying helpless in his bunk, heard the inspiring news. He knew what it meant. A load had been lifted off his mind. His command was safe in port.
In the busy shipyards in different orbits around the Planet Coria Warden’s Boulder, the workers of the first of three shifts into which the day was organised were still hard at work turning out new vessels for the Human Nation’s Space Fleet at an unprecedented rate, in addition to effecting urgent repairs to spaceships damaged in action or by floating mines.
CHAPTER XVI - Too Late and Yet Just in Time!
"Eight days' leave – all watches."
The welcome order was given to the survivors of the Mandana's crew with a promptitude that betokened official regard and appreciation of the valorous destroyer's company.
The Mandana, safe in repair dock, was handed over to the care of the shipyard authorities. At high pressure, the task of getting her ready for outer space once more would occupy the best part of two months, so badly had she been knocked about. This was indeed madness, as the radioactivity which she had absorbed was forever going to cause defects in the advanced opto-electronics which hyperspace travel and modern warfare demanded. Furthermore, the same radioactivity was to give rise to issues with the hyperspace drive itself, and cause the very fabric of the ship, the steel skeleton and body, to brittle; slowly but inexorable. Nevertheless, the repairs had been commissioned, and the shipyard did what was being paid for. That increased radioactivity wasn’t conductive to the crew’s health either was such a small concern to the authorities that it wasn’t even considered. What counted more was the psychologic motive of having the Mandana up and running again. Showing resilience in the face of the enemy was important to the Admiralty.
When in orbital repair dock, a discovery was made that showed how narrow the Mandana’s escape had been from instant destruction. A large-sized Aesuron missile was found in her evacuated forepeak, its head flattened against the inside of the bow-plates. Fired at an insufficient distances, it had passed completely through the comparatively thin metal hull, and, failing to penetrate the other side, had remained trapped in the otherwise empty compartment. Examination showed that the safety lock in the head of the weapon had not had sufficient time to revolve and liberate the detonator. A very small difference in distance would have been enough to transform the innocuous missile into a deadly weapon, capable of blowing apart the Mandana like a heap of flour, for the missile did carry a powerful nuclear warhead. It had been this powerful warhead which oddly had saved the destroyer, for its security lock existed to prevent it from detonating too close to the originating vessel.
Having written up his report to the Commander-in-Chief, seen Bergerault safely into a firm-ground hosp
ital, and dispatched a hyperspace message to his home announcing his safe return, Astley bathed and turned in.
Sixteen hours later he was up for a short while, and then went to sleep again. His body had to recover lots of lost sleep. Only then he was feeling considerably refreshed. All that had to be done in an official sense had been carried out, and he was free to proceed on well-earned leave.
A military orbital ferry landed him and his scanty belongings at Gated Tower Town, by the side of a mighty river. Clad in civilian attire, since his uniform was little more than a collection of scorched rags, the junior lieutenant made his way towards the ground station there, from whence he wanted to move on.
Perhaps, now that the arduous period of responsibility had passed, Astley was feeling the reaction. At any rate his usual alertness had temporarily deserted him, for, on crossing a crowded thoroughfare in the busy town, he narrowly escaped being knocked down by a passing passenger glider; a pompous convertible.
"Why don't you look…?" began the owner of the glider; then: "Bless my soul, Astley! Whoever expected to see you here! Thought you had been done in, upon my soul I did believe you dead. Where is the Mandana? And how is old Bergerault?"
The speaker was Junior Lieutenant Tanguy-Raucoule , Astley's old shipmate on board the Apranik, where both had served as ensigns during the earlier stages of the war.
"They slung me out of the Cruiser service," said Tanguy-Raucoule , after Astley had briefly replied to his friend's enquiries. "Why? Oh, merely a bit of bad luck! Crocked my leg, don't you know."
Tanguy-Raucoule was too modest to give details. He had vivid recollections of a dirty day in the Inter-Arm Void, with cruiser Rostam lying in ambush behind a big gas planet. While the intended prey was coming close, and just when the cruiser ascended into hyperspace, a hostile mine fouled the Rostam’s intention. In short: the mine released a missile which made it through the defences far enough to explode quite close to the cruiser. The resulting release of energy fractured Tanguy-Raucoule 's thigh. The heavy warhead did more damage, but that was the part concerning Astley’s friend.
