The Merrimack Event (Shieldclads Book 1)

by David Tatum

  Rappaport was at once astonished and annoyed. Those sorts of modifications to the ship just weren’t made without consulting the ship’s captain, never mind the approval of the Chief Engineer. “Chris, if you ever do something like this again without telling me first, I’m going to skin your hide... and then I’ll have you expelled from the Academy,” Rappaport warned. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry sir,” said Chris, for once intimidated into remembering the formalities.

  “But if your numbers hold up, it was the right engineering decision,” Rappaport said, “So I’ll let it stand for the moment – if I study your math and find a miscalculation, we can still remove those bulkheads. We don’t have the parts to build that quantum wheel, yet, and getting the ship airtight and the environmental systems working is more important, so your current modifications can stand as a shortcut to functionality. Now, how much longer until the hull is airtight, anyway? Lt. Katz said something about wanting to talk to you as soon as you returned to the Gnat.”

  Chris checked his watch. They had been talking for about twelve minutes, and he could make a pretty fair estimate as to how much work the other engineers could manage in that time. “No more than forty-eight hours and fifty-nine minutes, sir.”

  Rappaport nodded as understanding dawned. Chris was going to get the Chihuahua ready for his cabin mates to move in before the men who harassed Rachel were out of the brig if it killed him.

  ——————————

  EAS Gnat

  “...forty-eight hours and fifty-nine minutes,” Rappaport’s image on the comm screen said, an amused smile on his face as he repeated the suspiciously specific estimate. He glanced down, and his wrist came into view. “That was about ten minutes ago, Ms. Katz, and he may have revised his estimate since then.”

  Rachel grimaced. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ve got work to do, but I said I’d give you a call. Rappaport, out.”

  The screen went blank, and Rachel cursed. Damn, he’s overworking himself again. I was afraid of that. She had to try and talk him down from the work. Rappaport had said he wouldn’t mind if Chris took off ‘early,’ given how much he’d already worked, so maybe she could convince him to take a break. Changing the frequency on the comm unit, she tried to hail him.

  “Desaix. Go,” Chris answered. He sounded tired. He was also acting somewhat distracted – he usually checked to see who was calling him without asking.

  “Chris?”

  “Rache!” he exclaimed. He seemed to perk up at her voice. “What’s up?”

  “I’m told you’re not coming back for more than a day,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back for a few hours and catch some z’s somewhere in there?”

  Chris shook his head. “Nah. I’m okay. I’ve worked without sleep for longer periods.”

  Rachel shook her head in disbelief. “Yeah, but this has to be more tiring than fixing up a chess clock.”

  “True,” Chris admitted, laughing. “But like I said, I’m okay. Besides, I’m the only one who knows what the complete plan for the refit looks like. Rappaport doesn’t even know everything – he’s too busy trying to use his regular navy status to speed the requisition through for all of the material we need to get this old girl flying again.”

  Rachel hesitated. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? You sound completely exhausted, already.”

  “I have to finish this. If I tried to sleep before the life support was functional... I think I’d have nightmares.”

  Rachel frowned, remembering his problems sleeping. “You can’t go through life fearing your dreams, Chris.”

  “I don’t,” Chris tried to reassure her. “It’s just that, right now, there’s a lot on my mind, and I’m pretty my nightmares would be worse than usual.”

  “What’s on your mind? The refit?”

  The long pause before his reply told her something was off. “Yeah. The refit. That’s it. With our inability to establish life support right away, we’re falling way behind schedule and that’s wearing on me a lot. We’ve got to make up several days worth of delays, somewhere, and I’m not sure where yet. I hope you’re getting those cabin assignments taken care of quickly, because we need more people over here as quickly as possible. I’d bring more of you over, already, but we’ve maxed out our portable oxygen supplies. I’ve got to get back to work, now, or I’ll be stuck here even longer.”

  Rachel chewed her lips. “I’m worried about you, Chris. I might have trouble sleeping if I’m not sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m all right,” Chris insisted. “Trust me.”

  Rachel wanted to argue, wanted to say that it was obvious he wasn’t all right, but she knew that would only make him dig in more. She thought she knew the source of his unrest... and it was her fault. She hadn’t been able to diffuse the situation with Farmburg’s trio of friends before it came to blows, and now he was blaming himself for not anticipating their attack. The best strategy to avoid future attacks was simply for them to leave the Gnat... and that would take finishing the refit of the Chihuahua as fast as possible. No, there was no way to talk him out of this.

  “Okay, Chris,” she finally said, surrendering. “Good night.”

  “‘Night, Rache,” Chris replied. “Don’t wait up.”

  The transmission was cut, but Rachel just continued to stare blankly at the comm. She wasn’t sure what to do, now, and she felt helpless.

  It was then that Schubert came back into the room, followed by Flint and Weber. He took one look at Rachel and frowned. “Hey, Rache, what’s up?” he asked.

  Rachel shook herself out of her stupor. “Nothing much. Where’ve you been?”

  “Down in Marine country,” Flint replied. “Had some things to discuss with them.”

  “I’ve got some things I want to discuss, too, Rache,” Schubert said, much to the surprise of Flint and Weber. “Can you come outside for a moment.”

  “Sure,” Rachel said, getting up and joining him outside.

  Schubert gave her a sympathetic smile. “Okay, you look like you just lost a fight with Chris. What’s wrong?”

  Rachel snorted. “‘Lost a fight with Chris.’ I would have to start one to do that, and he was too exhausted for me to even try.” She sighed. “He’s overworking himself again. Severely overworking himself. He hasn’t slept in far too long, and he won’t stop working until the Chihuahua is airtight. I tried telling him that he shouldn’t be working so hard, but then he told me he was afraid of the nightmares coming back to him. I can’t talk him out of it, dammit, but he can’t keep up this pace. It’s not healthy.”

  “He’s gone without sleep before,” Schubert replied cautiously.

  “Yeah, but not like this,” Rachel answered. “You didn’t hear how he sounded when he answered the comm. Once he knew it was me he tried to hide it, but I could tell just how tired he was from hello. I don’t like it, Schubert, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Schubert said. “I never have liked it when he’s gotten a project into his head and just won’t stop on it. But there’s never been anything I could do, either. I don’t have the right to stop him, and neither do you.”

  ...don’t have the right to stop him... Rachel repeated mentally. “You and I might not, but there is one person on this ship who does.” She walked over to one of the comms located in the corridor and adjusted the frequency. “Captain Burkhard, do you have a moment, sir? There’s something I feel we need to talk about....”

  CHAPTER X

  EAS Gnat

  Burkhard sighed, rubbed his eyes tiredly, and looked across at the two cadets. “Okay, Ms. Katz. You woke me up so this had better be good – I was having a rather pleasant dream about strangling our so-called ‘Acting-Commodore’ to death.”

  Rachel was not normally one to chuckle at such insubordinate humor, but considering what the Acting-Commodore’s decisions were doing to her friends she found herself agreeing wi
th the sentiment. “It’s Cadet Desaix, sir. He’s been working on the Chihuahua for,” she checked her watch, “more than twenty two hours now without a break. And it was several hours before then that he last slept. I talked to him on the comm a couple hours ago, and... well, he worries me, sir. I’ve known him ever since his first day at the Academy, sir, and I have never heard him that tired... which, if you don’t know him as well as I do, is saying a lot.”

  Burkhard ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head to clear it. “Excuse me, did you say he’s been working for twenty-two hours straight? That’s not good. He’s liable to make a mistake if he doesn’t take a few breaks from time to time.”

  “No, it isn’t good,” Rachel agreed. “And I fear it’ll only get worse as time goes on. He and I argue about things like this all the time, but this is one time I don’t think I can afford to let him win.”

  Burkhard grinned. “Well, I definitely agree he shouldn’t be working without sleep for as long as you claim. I guess I’ve got to go for a little trip, then.”

  ——————————

  EAS Chihuahua

  Chris was really wishing he could wipe the sweat from his brow at the moment. It was collecting under his helmet, and the visor was fogging up – his suit’s air conditioner must not have been working at an optimum level. He’d have to take a look at it after he finished this weld.

  He finished sealing the small crack in the bulkhead and sighed, shutting off the welder and closing his eyes. He almost dozed off, but caught himself in time, and started checking the various instruments on his suit.

  He’d just isolated the problem when two people who he didn’t recognize right away entered the mechanical room he was working in. He frowned. No-one else was authorized to be here.

  “Chris,” Rachel called. “Don’t you think it’s time to take a bit of a break?”

  “Rache?” Chris sputtered, startled. He had been hanging from the wall to repair the crack, but upon hearing her voice he nearly jumped off of it and into free floating. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I already told you, Chris. I think it’s time for you to take a bit of a break. I’m here so you don’t blow me off.”

  “I’m not leaving until I’m done,” Chris snapped stubbornly. “Anyway, I didn’t think you were allowed to come here. Only the engineering staff was permitted over to work in the biosuits.”

  “I authorized her visit, Mr. Desaix,” Burkhard, the second unexpected visitor, explained. He squinted, looking through the visor of Chris’ biosuit at his face. “Are you okay? You’re sweating like a pig.”

  Chris grimaced. “Minor suit malfunction. I’d just localized it to the thermostat when you got here.”

  “That’s because those biosuits aren’t supposed to be used for nearly as long as a standard environmental suit,” Rachel said. “You, of all people, should know they’re not supposed to be worn for more than twelve hours in a row. You’ve been wearing it for more than double that time.”

  “It’s holding up. There’ve been a couple minor malfunctions, but I’ve been able to fix them pretty quickly, and I wouldn’t be able to work effectively in one of the more durable environment suits.”

  “The point is, Mr. Desaix, you shouldn’t be working this much in the first place,” Burkhard said. “There’s a reason the Navy now orders that no-one, outside of actual life and death emergencies, should be working more than two eight hour shifts in a row, and you’ve already been through three. It wears you out and makes you prone to error. Add the danger of working in a biosuit well beyond its design tolerances, and I’m afraid that as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm I cannot condone your remaining out here for a fourth straight shift.”

  Chris looked at him, eyes widening. “But... this project needs me here. Mr. Rappaport is too busy working on our requisitions, and he’s the only other person who can run this project. Without me, the refit will shut down!”

  “Nonsense,” Burkhard snorted. “The lack of one person won’t affect things that much. And I’ve reassigned Rappaport back to working on the refit in your place. Our purser, Cadet Ensign Anson Polk, will take care of supply like he’s supposed to.”

  “But Anson doesn’t have the clout to get the supplies we need!” Chris protested.

  “Neither does Mr. Rappaport,” Burkhard said evenly. “Don’t worry. We’re making other arrangements for those materials as we speak.”

  “It’s unnecessary,” Chris said. “I’m still perfectly capable of doing my job. I’ve worked without sleep for even longer than this with no ill effect.”

  “Perhaps,” Burkhard said. “But you won’t this time. You are hereby ordered to return to the Gnat and get some sleep. If you do not, you will leave me no option but to get the guards to confine you to your quarters.”

  “But...” Chris replied weakly. “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I... sir?”

  Burkhard shook his head, smiling. “No, you don’t. That’s why they’re called ‘orders.’ Ms. Katz, would you care to escort Mr. Desaix to his quarters? I need to have a meeting with Mr. Rappaport. Return to the Gnat and then send the shuttle back for me.”

  Rachel saluted. “Yes, sir.” Grinning at Chris, she said teasingly, “Right this way, Mr. Desaix.”

  ——————————

  Chris and Rachel were the only two passengers traveling back to the Gnat in the shuttle, accompanied only by several dozen expended oxygen tanks. The pilots’ cabin, where Weber was flying the shuttle, was closed and locked up. Chris had removed his helmet and was mopping his forehead off with a convenient rag that had been in one of the shuttle’s supply kits. Rachel, meanwhile, looked as satisfied as the cat that had swallowed the prized canary. She had succeeded – now Chris would have no choice but to get the rest she knew he needed.

  Chris, meanwhile, was constantly glancing in her direction with a betrayed look on his face. Rachel noted his expression, and almost laughed. I can’t believe he’s pouting over something as silly as this.

  “Oh, come on, Chris,” she protested. “You’ve lost arguments to me before. Don’t be so upset.”

  Chris sighed. “Yes, I’ve lost arguments to you. But you actually got Captain Burkhard involved! It’s always been just you and me arguing, before – we never brought anyone else in.”

  Rachel’s smile turned a little sheepish. “Sorry, Chris, but I knew I couldn’t make you come back on my own. You do need the rest, you know.”

  Chris growled. “You know I’m not going to be able to relax until we’ve all moved over to the Chihuahua and settled in.”

  Rachel shook her head in exasperation. “You are so frustrating, Chris. You need that sleep – I can see it in your eyes. You’re an incredibly valuable resource to the Navy, Chris, and it’s important you keep yourself in good shape.”

  For some reason, that answer rubbed Chris the wrong way. “Oh, so is that all I am? A valuable resource to the Navy?”

  “No!” Rachel almost shouted, surprising herself with how hard that accusation hit her. “Of course not. Why in the world would you think I meant that?”

  Chris just shook his head. “Maybe I was just hoping for a different answer.”

  “Well, it is the reason I first started looking after you, ya know,” Rachel said. “And it still is one of them. Not the only one, though – not any more. We may still argue periodically, but I think we’re slowly starting to get along, aren’t we?”

  Chris said. “I’ve thought of us as friends for months, now. I’m a bit surprised you only think of us as ‘starting to get along.’”

  Rachel smiled slightly. “I’d like to point out you don’t have to get along to be friends.”

  “True,” Chris said. “But since when haven’t we gotten along?”

  Rachel laughed. “You mean you’ve forgotten all the arguments we’ve had?”

  “We’ve had arguments, yes, but I’ve always thought they were friendly arguments,” Chris noted. “Was I mistaken?”


  Rachel hesitated. “I suppose you’re right. Though with as many as we’ve had, it’s hard to tell sometimes....”

  “I understand,” Chris said. “It seems almost every time we talk, we argue. We’re arguing right now, after all, aren’t we?”

  Rachel laughed. “I suppose we are. It’s not like our usual arguments, though, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Chris agreed. “Normally, by now, you’ve gotten pissed off enough that you’ve let your nose wrinkle in frustration, trying to keep yourself from actually shouting.”

  Rachel blinked. “I wrinkle my nose?”

  “Oh, yeah. It looks pretty cute, actually.”

  Rachel wrinkled her nose at him. “Cute, huh?” she teased.

  “Yeah. Why do you think I get into so many arguments with you?”

  Rachel frowned, unintentionally wrinkling her nose again. “I thought it was because you were a stubborn bastard who simply refused to bother with formalities.”

  Chris laughed. “Well, that, too...”

  “I knew it!” Rachel crowed. “And you’ve admitted it! You do know that I’m going to use that little bit of information against you, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Chris replied. “But, since I am a stubborn bastard, I just won’t care.”

  “You won’t?” Rachel teased. “Then I won’t wrinkle my nose for you any more.”

  “What!? No fair. That little nose wrinkle is the only reason I put up with you, some days!” Chris protested playfully.

  “Well, we’ll see. If you’re good, I’ll wrinkle my nose for you whenever you want,” Rachel promised.

  Chris sighed dramatically. “I suppose that means I won’t be allowed to call you ‘Rache’ any more, will I?”

  He looked like such a sad little puppy dog that Rachel just couldn’t resist. “Oh, you ham!” she laughed, swatting his knee – the only part of him she could reach strapped into the shuttle’s passenger chairs. “Okay, you can still call me Rache, and I guess I’ll stop complaining about it. At least when it’s you... anyone else isn’t allowed, and that includes Wolf!”