“Comms,” I called, “Put a message out to all department heads – meeting in the Pit, fifteen minutes.”
The crew knew that something was up, long before the fifteen minute mark, and everyone was assembled early in the situation room. I had Rego send all the sensor imagery to the Pit projectors, and once everyone was seated we turned them on. I waited a few minutes while everyone took it in.
“It’s as bad as it looks, ladies and gentlemen. I won’t lie to you – I’ve no idea how widespread this is, but for now we have to consider the possibility that galactic society has collapsed.”
“But…how…who?” stammered the hangar control officer, a woman by the name of Lieutenant Anders
“Who do you think?” I swept my arm out, indicating the read outs and sensor images, “This is the future that we were supposed to prevent. This is the aftermath of the Ghantri invasion.”
I had no proof, but knew, in my heart, that I was right. I could see by the determined looks and the naked hatred in their eyes that they knew it to be true.
“What are we going to do, sir?” asked a wild eyed man. It was our supply officer - Lt Haldenstein
Haldenstein was a squat man, of Harawikan decent. I pegged his age to be slightly older than me, biologically, although his hair was thinning. His complexion marked him as one of the survivors of the Gossamer System – most of the starlight from Gossamer was infrared, meaning fair tans and pale skin.
“We need to introduce rationing on the autochefs. Until we find a viable biological replenishment for food, we’ll be limiting their use.”
“Understood, Commander,” he nodded, eager for direction, “Want me to lock them out? Regulate meal times?”
“Until everyone’s interface overlay proto-chips have activated, we’ll have to. No way to control it otherwise.”
“Nanites?”
“Aren’t they engineering’s responsibility?” I asked.
“Their usage is, but they’re a consumable, ergo they’re a supply item.”
“We may have to ration those too. Chief?” I asked, looking at Gannerson
“Should be doable. We never had nanites in Gossamer, most of my boys are used to repairing things the old fashioned way. When can we expect more raw materials?”
“Once we’ve shed the speed we picked up at Vanhoeven’s we can shift again. We’ll head to Argessi System and start mining the belt out there. It’s also the section of the Network that I know the best, spent a lot of my star faring years plying the Corus Cluster to Kersios run.”
Gannerson grunted and held up a hand. I nodded for him to go ahead. “There’s not a whole lot out that way, facility-wise, that could service a ship this big.”
“Which means it stood a better chance of avoiding the same fate as what happened here. It would take a long time to search out the Kersios Ring for ships that didn’t want to be found. It was a pirate haven, the bastards even had fully equipped space stations hidden out there. If anyone survived this, this is our best bet at finding them. Alex?”
“Sir?”
“Your marines will be in charge of discipline…”
“Discipline? I don’t follow, sir.”
I could see that many others were also confused by the order.
“There’s a very good chance that we’re going to be locked in here for an extended period, with limited resources and one hell of a hole in our bag of hope. People get desperate, they do desperate things. Frontiersmen call it ‘the fever’, Nomads call it ‘getting wet’.”
“You think people might crack under the pressure?” he asked.
“I know they will. It’s in our nature. It’s something all Captains have to know how to deal with. We lost our Chief Engineer on our way into the Gossamer System, and were chased for a stretch through Eridani by the Blade of Xerxes, all the while dodging rail gun rounds.
“Our surviving engineer cracked and tried to sabotage the Dreaming, figuring the Corporates would go easy on us if we surrendered.”
I paused for a moment to let the implications settle in.
“Make no mistake, these are extreme circumstances. There’s no telling what it will take to make someone snap. I want marines, armed with non-lethal weapons only, ready to respond to any incidents of the fever.”
The ship’s Acting Medical Officer, a near-human with pale purple skin, bright yellow eyes and a faint spotted skin pattern held his hand up to speak.
“Sub-Lieutenant….I’m sorry,” I said, “I haven’t learnt all of your names.”
“Miishan, sir. Am I authorised to sedate problematic crew? I don’t have the psychological training of Zoe…apologies, Lieutenant Ward.”
“Not yet. We can try isolation for now, but may need to review this on a case-by-case basis. Usually a good talking to or a few days rest is all that’s needed to undo a case of the fever. Or, as my old Chief Engineer used to say – ‘some contact counselling’.”
“Morale is going to be difficult to maintain,” said Lt Anders.
I nodded to her. “You’re right. The key to pulling through this is communication. Encourage the people under you to talk to each other, to talk to you. My office door is always open, if anyone needs to go over anything or to just talk. I may not have the people skills of my fiancé, but I know a thing or two about trauma.”
A lump suddenly caught in my throat. For the first time I realised that I may never see Zoe again, and even if I somehow managed to find her…forty years is a long time.
I took a moment to compose myself. It took several moments. Just before I was about to speak again, the Drone Squadron Leader stood up.
“Sub-Lieutenant Rakken, kitrak,” he said, thumping his chest, “Will warriors be hunting the kak grubs?”
I blew the air out of my lungs and took a deep breath. “At the moment our priority is to survive, and gather Intel. We need to know what happened and if there are survivors. Then we need to make contact. Remember that the Jump Gates have been down for a long time. The systems have been cut off from each other, or at least this part of the Network.”
The Garz’a nodded, sitting back down.
“We at least know that the Votus observation platform of Horizon Station is undamaged,” said Gunnery Chief Ensel.
“Very true,” I said, pointing at him and nodding, “I’m hesitant to jump back to Vanhoeven, given the miscalculation by the Professor. We’re still unsure if the added time dilation is due to the vicinity to the blackhole or a side effect of the Corporate fernian pressure bombs. Besides – everyone could have been dead on Horizon Station, we had no way of knowing their status. We received no transmissions from them the entire time we were in system. The Light Bridge was operation, however, so that’s promising.”
“A last resort then?” said Ensel.
I nodded, then pointed to Haldenstein once more, his arm raised.
“Sir, why aren’t we exploring Eridani further?” he said, “I mean, we’ve been here less than an hour. Isn’t it possible we may be overlooking survivors here? There’s a lot of interference around Barris Doon, there’s plenty of hiding places around its moons…”
“The devastation here is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” I explained, “Whatever destroyed Eridani Prime is likely to be fielding firepower that we’ll have no chance in repelling. Any survivors we encounter out here are more likely to be whoever caused this destruction in the first place. I’m not ready to face them, not yet. My gut tells me we need to regroup, get more intel.”
My answer seemed to satisfy him, and I looked around the Pit for more questions. All I saw was forlorn looks and ashen faces.
“We care for the living, first. We have people we’re responsible for that depend on us. Let’s make sure they don’t find us wanting.”
As the section heads started to file out of the situation room, the Professor sent me a text.
Commander, it said, we’re slow enough to start the jump.
I’ll be on the bridge in five minutes, Gaston.
&nb
sp; How did they take it?
About as you’d expect, I texted, they’ve faced dire circumstance such as this before and pulled through. I have every reason to suspect they’ll pull through this as well.
They’re a remarkable bunch. Tough. I’ve underestimated them. You as well.
Don’t go patting ourselves on the back yet. We’ve a lot of work to do before we’re done.
I understand, Commander.
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Frontier's End: A Seth Donovan Novel Page 31
