by Lj Cohen
Snapping upright in her chair, Nomi she studied the ansible display. "No indications of any large scale communications disruption, Commander."
"Damage assessment?"
Nomi scanned her console, running a manual check on the array. All the indicator lights extinguished before the system rebooted. One by one, green lights winked on all over her panel. She held her breath, waiting as several of them flashed amber before holding on steady red. Still, most of the panel glowed green.
"Short range communications intact. Unknown damage to the long range antenna and receiving array." The familiar routine of monitoring her equipment quieted her pulse and pushed her fear for Ro aside. "External sensors off line. Visual inspection needed for full assessment and repair options."
"Continue monitoring all frequencies. Report any unusual communications. Mendez out."
Red lights continued to wash across the room. Nomi leaned back in the chair and stared into the display. What the hell just happened?
The adrenaline washed out of Nomi's body, leaving her trembling and dry-mouthed. She looked down at her micro, triggering the private communications tunnel Ro had programmed, her hands shaking.
***
The ship surged beneath him and Jem struggled to keep his balance. He slammed into the corridor. Bright pain burst in his shoulder and slid down to his fingers. The blankets slipped from his stinging hands. He didn't even have enough time to curse before something flattened him to the floor, squeezing his chest so tight, he couldn't breathe.
Darkness swarmed his vision, dulling the shiny metal surfaces. A high-pitched whine sounded from a long distance away. Jem's pulse thudded in his throat.
The ship.
Ro got the ship to fly.
What the hell was she doing?
She was going to rip the station to pieces. Jem struggled to stand against the shuddering and the press of the acceleration, managing to push up onto his hands and knees. He felt like he massed about a hundred kilos of dead weight. Gritting his teeth, he reached his left arm up, grabbed onto one of the small handles set into the corridor for low-gee navigation, and dragged himself to standing. His right arm hung useless at his side, the pain a strange combination of sharp tingling and numbness.
The engines continued to growl, gravity fighting his every step as he struggled toward the bridge. He growled back, an angry sound, deep in his throat. She could have killed him. She could have killed them all. Jem glanced toward the crew quarters. There were no acceleration couches, no tethers, and no way to check on Barre.
The scant few meters between the main corridor and the bridge felt more like a hard uphill climb of ten klicks. The ship lurched sideways and surged upward. The violent shift ripped his hand from the grab bar and bounced him around the corridor. His head smashed against the wall before he fell again, his shoulder collapsing under his weight.
He had to reach the bridge. Why wasn't Ro doing anything? Why was the ship still accelerating?
A warm wetness slid down his forehead. Jem blinked the blood out of his eyes and reached his left hand up to his scalp. He winced, finding the cut and pressed his hand to it until the blood slowed down to a thin trickle.
His vision refused to come into focus. Dizziness made standing utterly impossible so Jem crawled, wincing whenever he had to take weight on his right shoulder. He ignored it. He also ignored the throbbing in his head.
Muttering to himself and leaving a trail of bloody hand-prints, he half-dragged himself toward the bridge. The door stretched above him, distorted by double vision. Jem tried to blink it away and struggled to stand, reaching his hand toward the manual release. The door slid open and he fell across the threshold onto the bridge, panting with the effort.
Jem's body felt like one big bruise, but he pulled himself further inside. Garish red lights washed across the damaged consoles.
"Ro?"
A string of curses answered him.
"Ro?" Jem called again.
"My ankle is broken." Her voice, low and husky with pain, came from the far side of the room.
"You have to stop the ship!"
"You think?" Ro laughed, a harsh sound.
Jem grabbed the edge of the nav station and levered himself up against the acceleration. The ship shuddered again. The impossible weight lifted. He overbalanced and slammed into a console, the impact jarring his head. Bile flooded his mouth as the room spun around him.
He leaned against the console waiting until the urge to retch passed. Glancing up, Jem sucked in a shocked breath. The main display flickered and jumped and he blinked several times again in a useless effort to clear his eyes. Stars streaked across the screen, interrupted by the crack that split it into two slightly misaligned halves. Daedalus station was nowhere in sight.
Now what? How far had they gone?
Steadying himself on the ruined consoles, he lurched over to where Ro lay curled on the floor, her face nearly colorless. Jem's mouth dried. He shook his head and nearly threw up from a fresh wave of dizziness. "What have you done?"
"Fucked up," she said. "Monumentally."
"You have to get us back," Jem said, unable to tear his gaze from the unfamiliar constellations.
"Right now, I'd settle for some painkillers and help standing."
He blinked and looked down. If her ankle was broken, she would need far more than that. Jem choked back a laugh. She needed the infirmary on Daedalus and his parents. He pressed the knuckles of his left hand to his mouth.
"You shouldn't be here, Jem," Ro said, as he picked his way closer to her. She shut her eyes briefly. "But I'm glad you are."
He sat down heavily beside her, cradling his right arm in his lap and waiting for the room to stop spinning. "Do you want the good news first or the bad?"
Ro winced. "Good."
"I can probably splint your ankle," he said, looking around the bridge. The drones had stacked piles of scrap in the corner.
"And the bad?"
"I'm not the only one you didn't count on." He took a deep breath. There was nothing he could do about it now. "Barre's here, too."
"Great. Just great." Ro squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't deal with that now. Help me with my ankle. I have to get control of the ship, first."
"What do you mean?" Jem's pulse raced, his head throbbing with every heartbeat. "You didn't do this? Where the hell are we? Oh my God, Barre." He could hear the high-pitched panic coloring his voice.
"Jem!" Ro's shout hit him like a slap across the face. "If you want to help your brother, get me on my feet. We're still moving and I have no idea where the ship is taking us. "
He looked up at the display and swallowed hard. "How is that even possible?" he asked.
"Not sure that matters right now."
Keeping his head as still as possible, he went rummaging through the scrap piles for two slim uprights. "I only want to move you once."
Ro nodded.
"I dropped some blankets in the corridor. I need them for your splint. Okay?"
She nodded again. "Do what you need to."
Jem had to fight the urge to tell her not to go away. He couldn't move too quickly either. The tingling in his right arm remained, but at least he could use that hand. He steadied himself against the wall, leaving the bridge and the impossible star field on the forward display. They were flying. The hair prickled on the back of his neck.
This was crazy. He looked down the corridor toward the main airlock and where the station had been. Where it should be. "Barre?" he called, his voice swallowed up by the empty ship. Part of him wanted to leave Ro and find his brother, but his parents' training in triage took over: Treat the most serious injury in front of you first.
Barre would have to fend for himself, at least a bit longer. Jem snatched up the dropped blanket and limped back to the bridge.
***
The acceleration flattened Barre against the bunk, gasping for air. The padding compressed into a thin sheet of wrinkles that carved deep creases in his back. He str
uggled to get up, struggled to take more than a shallow sip of breath. The pressure was worse than the weight against his chest. What the hell had Jem done? Was he even aboard the ship?
The thought of being abandoned on a ghost ship sent shivers through him, distracting him from the pain. Someone had to be flying this thing. If not Jem then who? Time seemed to stretch thin as the ship kept hurtling on. What if it just kept accelerating? The human body could only survive a finite number of gravities. He couldn't help imagining himself flattened to the metal bunk to the point of organ collapse.
The terrible weight lifted so abruptly, Barre tumbled to the floor. Cursing, he limped over to the door. Staying hidden now made no sense. The whole station would have felt the impact of the ship taking off. No doubt, Mendez had already sent out chase boats. Who knew this old tub could even fly? This must have been what Jem had been working on with Ro.
At least no one would believe Barre had anything to do with it. Not fuck-up Barre with his just-adequate brain. Maybe Jem had done him a favor after all. Who would worry about some bittergreen when his brother had just stolen a fucking spaceship?
Out in the corridor, Barre squinted against the flashing red emergency lights and paused to orient himself. The bridge should be somewhere to the left, in the fore of the ship. That's where he would probably find Jem.
He struggled to keep his imagination in check as he walked through the too-empty ship. A low groaning echoed against the hard metallic surfaces. Barre froze, his pulse pounding. He peered down the poorly lit corridor but there was nothing to see but the wash of red shadows.
"Jem?"
A weak cough answered him.
"Shit." Barre sprinted down the long, narrow space, nearly stumbling on the body before he could stop. It wasn't Jem. He let his breath out in a long exhale. "Hey, are you all right?" he asked.
"Fuck, no," a hoarse male voice answered.
"Micah?" Barre reached out to his shoulder and looked down into the pain-lined face of Micah Rotherwood. "What are you doing here?"
He tried to laugh, but it turned into another cough. "Parts inventory. What do you think?" Micah wiggled his hands and feet and patted himself down. "Yup, all there. Help me up."
"You sure?" He didn't see any obvious signs of serious injury, but he could have internal bleeding or a concussion.
"No. But I'm not going to lie here all day."
Barre stood and offered Micah a hand up.
Micah glared at him. "What the hell did your brother do?"
He wasn't sure he liked the tone of Micah's accusation, even though it was what he had just been wondering. "That's what I was on my way to find out." His micro buzzed and Barre jumped, nearly hitting his head on the low ceiling.
"Going to answer that?" Micah asked, leaning against the corridor, smirking.
Barre tapped the micro through his pocket. Jem's voice poured through.
"Barre, Barre, are you all right?" Even through the small speaker, Barre could hear the panic in his brother's voice. He caught Micah's eye and shrugged.
"Where are you? What the fuck just happened?" Barre fired back.
"Thank the cosmos. I don't know what I would have done if. If —" Jem trailed off.
"Jem, pull yourself together. What did you do?"
"Barre, I swear … I didn't … I was just helping … coding an interface. You have to believe me!"
"It's not your brother's fault," a soft voice interrupted. "I don't know exactly what happened, but it'll be better if you see it for yourself. Come to the bridge. Ro out."
"She sounds like crap," Micah said.
Barre thought she sounded more like Mendez or his mother taking charge, throwing orders around. "Let's go see how badly we're screwed."
"I'd say pretty well screwed." Micah took a few steps toward the fore section and stopped, wincing. "Don't walk too fast, okay?"
That suited Barre just fine. The two of them leaned against the bulkhead walls and used the grab rails for support. They paused at the main airlock to peer out the viewport. A remnant of flexible tubing trailed after them like a tentacle. It must have ripped clean away from the station. "What a mess," Barre muttered.
"At least the airlock was closed at both ends."
They would have had a short, messy trip otherwise.
At the bridge door, Micah paused. "After you. I insist."
Barre didn't know Micah all that well and wasn't sure how to take his sarcastic tone. He tapped the door panel, and decided to ignore him. The door opened onto a disaster area. All the control surfaces had been destroyed, turned into puddles of melted polymers and sculptures of twisted metal. Jem crouched on the floor at the far side of the room next to Ro.
"How the hell did you get this scrap heap to fly? And what were you thinking?" Barre winced at hearing the ghost of his parents' voices in his own. Jem frowned and looked away.
"Help me up," Ro said, glancing at Barre.
"Who elected you in charge?"
Jem struggled to stand between Barre and Ro, his hands clutching the twisted console. "Help her up or I will. Her ankle's broken. I just splinted it."
"Shit, Jem, your head." What Barre had thought dirt, was a patch of dried blood that covered most of his forehead and the right side of his face.
"I can't put any weight on my leg. I don't want Jem to hurt himself any further. That leaves you," Ro said, spitting each word out slowly. She pointed to the console opposite her. "I need to get to my micro so I can figure out what happened to the ship."
"What happened to the ship is that it blasted off Daedalus." Micah limped onto the bridge. "Congratulations, Ro, your father will be so proud of you."
Ro's face blanched white and then flushed bright red. Her hands clawed at the base of the console as she dragged herself upright, her jaw muscles bunching with the effort.
Barre looked back and forth between them, their obvious anger the only thing he understood. He glanced over at Jem, but his brother glared at Micah and wouldn't meet his gaze. "Well, now that we're all one big happy family, would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?"
Chapter 20
"Ro?" Nomi whispered even though she knew she was alone in the communications room. Silence answered her. She bit her lower lip and tried running the program again. Unless Ro were actively ignoring her or her micro was destroyed, she should get some kind of response. The outgoing query just kept returning an out-of-range message. It made no sense.
Nothing made a whole lot of sense. She shifted her display from the ansible network to the external viewer, following a team of repair personnel in EVA suits as they swarmed over the antenna array. Frowning, Nomi studied the topography of the asteroid trying to figure out why it looked wrong to her.
It took her several minutes to process what her eyes were telling her and even then, she wasn't sure. Manipulating the display, she looked past the array and to where the station bit into the rocky surface of the asteroid. Beyond, she could see taller outcrops of rock. Between the station and those rocks, the spot where the clunker ship should have been was scoured clean as if by a burn-blast.
Her throat constricted. "Ro, what have you done?" The message on her micro flashed 'Out of range. Out of range'. That was no seismic event or large asteroid impact. The ship had gone, taking Ro with it. Nomi's hands shook as she flicked her screen back to the ansible network and its twinkling display that reminded her so much of space. Ro was somewhere out there, in the true cosmos, hurtling through a field of stars.
If the bumblebee survived its violent takeoff.
Cold washed through her body and she shut her eyes, muttering a prayer she hadn't said since childhood, in a language she didn't understand, to a deity no one in her family had worshiped for several generations. The alert tone nearly knocked Nomi from her seat.
"Attention, Daedalus Station." Commander Mendez's voice blared through the communications room. She could hear the echo of the station-wide announcement from the corridor. "Alert is canceled. Lock-dow
n is lifted. We are secured." She paused while the echoes died away. "I repeat we are secured. Intra-station communications are on priority override, urgent only. Updates will be broadcast every quarter hour. Senior staff to conference room one. "
Ro was on that ship. Nomi knew it. Her hand hovered over the comm channel to command. How could she tell Mendez what she knew and how she knew it? She balled her hand into a fist. But if she kept her silence, precious time would be lost trying to account for all the station's personnel. What if Ro were hurt or in danger?
She opened her hand and punched the emergency channel.
"Mendez here."
"Commander Mendez, this is Konomi Nakamura, communications. I have some information that may be critical to the situation." At least her voice stayed steady and professional, even if her stomach did back-flips.
A moment of silence seemed to stretch an eternity.
"I'm sending your relief. As soon as he arrives, join the senior staff briefing in Conference One."
"Yes, Commander," Nomi said, swallowing the lump in her throat. She didn't wait long.
The laconic man who had tried to flirt with her the other day took over the balance of her shift with barely a word beyond what was needed for turn-over. Emergencies had a way of doing that, even here, in the back end of nowhere. She signed out her terminal, leaving him to silent duty monitoring an ansible network they couldn't currently reach.
Even in the middle of third shift, she had never seen the station so deserted. Two armed security personnel stood at attention monitoring access to command. She recognized both of them, but couldn't recall their names.
The woman on the right blocked Nomi's way. "Ident chip."
She frowned as she handed the guard her ID for more than the cursory scan she expected.
"Konomi Nakamura, you may proceed."
"Thank you." Nomi shivered at the strange formality. Would the guard have taken out her weapon if Nomi hadn't stopped?
"Come with me."
The guard escorted her into the conference room, gave a crisp salute to Mendez, and spun on her heel to return to her post. When had Daedalus become an active military base?
