The Nightshade Problem: Sol Space Volume Two

by James Wilks

  The sensation didn’t last long, however, as Charis began her erratic movements to help Dinah trap the automated fighters in the cannons’ fields of fire.

  A moment after Templeton’s announcement came over coms, the weight vanished, and Gwen asked, “What’s happening now?” It was not the first time she had asked.

  Her father replied, “I still don’t know, kiddo, I’m sorry.”

  The two of them were in the main section of their family quarters strapped tightly into chairs. The room was cozy going on cramped, but it had been home to the three of them for the past two years. It was well organized, and the furniture was secured to the floor by a system of clamps that had strained under the extreme attitude changes that Gringolet had made as Bethany tried to keep the ship in one piece. Fortunately they had held. A loose chair or even book could have seriously injured either of them in the chaos.

  Gwen’s hair, tied up in a ponytail, had hung straight down like a stalactite for the past dozen minutes. Now it floated up and away from her, ringing her head. “Dad, will you tell me again about when you met mom?”

  John laughed lightly. “Again, huh? All right.” He regarded his daughter. Her skin was so pale that it approached translucent, a side effect of a largely sunless spaceship existence. She was small for her age and probably incapable of relating to other children, but she was bright and inquisitive and loved science and math like her parents. Under the captain’s tutelage, she had also developed a love of books and stories, and her parents had felt quite grateful for the added reading help and time that Staples donated. That had been cut in half during their journey from Mars, but even while the crew worked itself to exhaustion, Staples had found time to read with the girl. Sometimes he wondered if the captain ever slept.

  “Well, your mother was doing a semester abroad at the University of the United Korea. She was only going to stay for five months, but-”

  “But then she met you,” Gwen knowingly interjected. The story of her parents’ romance was one of her favorites, and no surprise, John thought. The girl had few opportunities to see strangers meet or interact with one another. The ship was like a small town. They might not all have liked one another, but they all certainly knew one another, so tales of new introductions somewhat fascinated the girl.

  “But then she met me,” he smiled. “Are you going-” He was briefly interrupted by the sudden turn of the ship to starboard. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was more to the movement, a downward pitch on the nose and perhaps a bit of a roll. “-to let me finish this or-” He attempted to continue, but he was interrupted yet again, this time by the sound of the broadside cannons. The guns were much closer to their quarters than they were to the bridge, and the deep and resonant droning made conversation impossible.

  Gwen’s eyes were large with fear, but John put on his best it’s-all-going-to-be-all-right smile and tried to act as though everything were fine. The ship pitched and rolled again, and as the cannons continued to fire sporadically, there also came another sound: the shuddering thuds of hostile slugs hitting the hull. They had heard these earlier, and though John had been eager to get his family off the ship after their conflict with The Doris Day two months prior, their combat experiences since had actually set his mind at ease to some degree. When he, Charis, and their daughter had first come onboard Staples’ new vessel, it had seemed little more than a tin can in space to him, fragile and small. Since their conflict with the first Nightshade vessel, he had come to realize that Gringolet had teeth. She was a well-built ship with an outstanding crew, and she could take a lot of damage, often giving as good as she got.

  Again the ship pitched and rolled, and John’s stomach jumped briefly into his throat. Gwen was more used to shifts in gravity than most of the crew as she had lived a full quarter of her life on the ship, but even she was looking slightly sick. The cannons continued to fire and slugs continued to pummel the hull. Suddenly there was a crack from Gwen’s room at the back of the cabin, a single sound louder and more distinct than the exchange of slugs. John’s ears popped, and he realized what must have happened. A nearly deafening decompression alarm sounded in the room a half-second later. Gwen began to scream.

  He knew he had no choice. John unbuckled his restraining harness and pushed off for the door at the back of the cabin that led to the bathroom and Gwen’s room beyond. Along the way he tore the patch kit from its holder on the wall. The doors that separated the rooms in their quarters were not airtight, and they were certainly not designed to hold up against vacuum. The door leading from their quarters into the rest of the ship was, however. John knew it had sealed the second the depressurization alarm sounded, and that meant that if he couldn’t patch the breach in Gwen’s room, he and his daughter would suffocate in a matter of minutes, perhaps less.

  As John shoved open the door and pulled himself into the lavatory, the ship rolled violently again. He was immediately thrown up against the sink, or rather, the sink rotated with the ship and into him. The counter-top hit him soundly in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of him, and his head pitched directly into the mirror, cracking it and bloodying his temple. John drifted away, only dimly aware of his surroundings. The klaxon continued to sound, the cannons continued to fire, and bullets continued to impact the hull of the ship. It was all very confusing, and John thought that perhaps he had better rest for a few minutes as he gasped for air. His head hurt terribly, and he was very tired.

  Dimly, over the cacophony of other noises, he heard someone shouting for him. He turned his head and looked through the door at his daughter, his precious daughter, who was yelling for him over and over again. She was strapped in tightly, and that was good. Charis and he had always taught her never to remove her restraints by herself; mom or dad would do it for her when it was safe.

  Safe.

  He needed to keep her safe. Through the confusion and the noise, John forced himself to picture Gwen dead and cold, strapped to the chair where her father had put her to keep her safe. It was enough.

  He drug himself back to full consciousness. It took him several seconds to find and retrieve the patch kit from where it had drifted behind the toilet. He was still having an incredible amount of difficulty breathing, and he suspected that it wasn’t just from the blow to his stomach.

  When he finally had the kit in hand, he looked at his daughter again and said, “it’s okay, baby.” He doubted that she could hear him. He could scarcely hear himself. There was so much noise, and the air in the room was becoming thinner and colder. He turned away from her, shoved open the other door, and pulled himself into Gwen’s room. The tiny cabin was decorated for an eight-year-old, with bright posters and stuffed animals. Some of the latter had flown harmlessly about the room, and now they drifted weightlessly.

  He immediately saw the problem. The far wall of Gwen’s room was hull-facing, and there was a porthole in it. It had been very important to them that Gwen have a view of the stars from her room. Now there was a small bullet hole in that window, and the atmosphere in the room was escaping through it rapidly.

  “John? John, are you all right? Are you there?” He heard his wife’s voice. He couldn’t be sure if it was in his mind or from his watch. The thinner air in the room was interfering with sound. All of the sounds, in fact, seemed to have stopped except that voice. No more alarm, no more cannons firing. The sudden silence was disorienting, but he kicked off the doorway and grabbed hold of a grip bar by the window. It was fiercely cold now, and when John went to take a breath he found that there was little to breathe in.

  Beginning to panic, he tore the lid off the patch kit and the pieces of it went everywhere. He spied what he needed, the small adhesive metal plate, and snagged it just before it spun out of reach. He ripped the film off the back to expose the adhesive, then forced himself to carefully place the patch over the hole in the window. It was difficult because his hands were shaking and beginning to turn blue. Finally it was in place, and the dim hiss of escaping air cease
d. John tried to take a breath to sigh in relief, but there was still insufficient air. His chest began to convulse, and his body began to shudder uncontrollably from the cold. Still hitching for breath, he turned and pushed off from the wall. He was aiming for the doorway that would lead back to his daughter, but his vision was beginning to cloud over, and he bumped his knee on the way through the door. He barely felt it.

  Gwen was still sitting wide eyed in her chair, trying futilely to take a big breath, and John realized that they were going to die of hypoxia in a perfectly atmosphere-capable room. He put a cold, numb hand on his daughter’s knee and smiled at her. She stared at him, her eyes as big as saucers and her chest heaving. As he finally relinquished his fight for consciousness, he heard the pressure door between their room and the hallway open. A rush of air and heat flooded in so violently that it pushed John back towards the rear of the cabin again. In the doorway stood the shape of a person who, to John’s fading vision, didn’t quite look human.

  Chapter 3

  This is going to be messy, Clea Staples thought as she stepped gingerly into Medical. She awkwardly made the ninety-degree transition to the gravity plating that allowed the room to retain its configuration regardless of whether Gringolet was in atmosphere or under thrust. There were five retractable patient beds attached to the far wall, each with its own monitoring equipment, and three of them were occupied. Closest to her was Declan Burbank, one of the ship’s two cargo roadies. His right forearm was splinted and a bandage was wrapped round his head. He was conscious. His eyes fell on her when she entered, then moved quickly to the ceiling.

  Next to him was John Park, their secondary engineer. He had a square of gauze on his head, mostly covering his temple, and there were three blankets on him that swathed him to his chin. He looked shell-shocked and tired, and he smiled weakly at his captain.

  The final bed was what drew her attention. Her young pilot lay upon it with a white blanket over her hips and legs. Her stomach was exposed, and a large bandage covered the right side of her stomach. Her upper torso was fitted in a pastel-blue surgical gown. She was not conscious. The brightness of the room, the white blanket, and the atrocious gown all served to amplify the darkness of her hair and makeup-shadowed eyes. Her coffee colored complexion, normally sun-starved, was paler and more bloodless than Staples had ever seen it. She might have thought her dead, except that she could see her chest and abdomen lightly rising and falling.

  There was one other person in Medical. The ship’s doctor was standing next to Bethany and reading over a surface that he held in his hands. He looked up when the captain entered. Doctor Jabir Iqbal was tall, exceedingly handsome, and one of the most consummate professionals that Staples had ever met. He had an uncanny ability to detach his emotions from his work, so when he favored the captain with a dark look, she knew that he was truly angry with her.

  “How are our patients?” She said it generally, to the whole room in the hope that someone would deign to answer. She didn’t know if it would be the crew member she had played favorites against, the man whose daughter had almost died under her command, or the doctor whose professional judgment she had attempted to circumvent.

  As it happened, it was none of them. “Captain?” Bethany’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked in Staples’ general direction. Immediately Jabir was at her side and taking her left hand in his.

  “I’m here,” Staples replied, and she swiftly crossed the room to the young woman. She took her other hand, then gestured with her head towards the doctor. Bethany turned to face him, squinting to refocus her eyes.

  “Tell me, how do you feel, Ms. Miller?” the doctor asked.

  “I feel…” her eyes closed for a moment, then opened again. “I feel warm. And numb.”

  Jabir nodded, a warm smile on his face. “That would be the morphine and the spinal block. I want you to know that you are all right.” She continued to stare at him blankly. “You’re all right,” he repeated. “Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you.” Her high and quiet voice was fainter than usual, and Staples found herself leaning in closer to better hear her. Bethany turned back to the captain and asked, “Is he okay?”

  Staples took he to mean the ship. “Gringolet’s just fine, mainly thanks to you.”

  “What happened?”

  Jabir broke in, and Bethany turned back to listen as he spoke. “We struck a tiny, almost microscopic piece of debris from the station. Mr. Templeton informs me that we were moving quite fast at the time. It pierced your abdomen in the front, here,” he indicated the dressing on her stomach with his free hand, “and exited through your back. I was able to stop your internal bleeding and suture the wounds. You’re going to be just fine.”

  Bethany stared at him blankly for a few seconds, seemingly confused by his answer. Then she turned back to Staples, “No, I mean what happened with the ship?”

  Staples opened her mouth to reply, but Jabir interjected again and addressed the captain directly. “Perhaps now is not the time for a ship’s status report. Our patient requires convalescence.”

  “No, I want to know,” Bethany said, and she squeezed Staples’ hand weakly.

  “I’d like to know too,” John’s voice came from behind the captain. Staples released Bethany’s hand and stepped back against the wall so as not to block him from the conversation.

  Jabir sighed. “All right, but keep it short please.”

  Staples nodded and began. “The Nightshade was gaining on us, but turned around so as to avoid exposing itself to Titan Prime.”

  John shook his head. “Then why chase us at all? It must have done the math and known it couldn’t catch us in time.”

  “Dinah thinks it was to give the fighters as much of a boost as possible. She doesn’t think they would have been capable of catching us otherwise, but we can’t be sure.”

  “And the fighters? Is that what…” John swallowed and continued, “what hit Gwen’s room?”

  “Yes.” She knew that Charis had come to check on her husband earlier. Once the doctor had cleared Gwen to leave, Charis had taken her up to the hydroponics bay. Medical had proved too intense for her, full as it was with battered and bloody crew members. “And I’m so sorry about what happened – what almost happened to you and Gwen in there.”

  The second engineer was taken aback. “It’s not your fault,” he said flatly. “You saved us, Captain.”

  Staples heard a snort of derision from Declan’s bed, but that was all. She decided to ignore it for the moment. She would have to deal with the situation she had created, but this was neither the time nor the place.

  “Captain…” Jabir’s reminder refocused her.

  “Yes.” She turned back to Bethany. “Once the ship stopped chasing us, we cut thrust and Charis and Dinah were able to deal with the fighters. They did some damage, but we’ll make it.”

  Bethany’s eyes opened wider and she leaned forward a bit, then gasped in pain at the contraction of her abdominal muscles. “What kind of damage?”

  Staples could feel Jabir’s patience evaporating, but she also knew that the pilot would not be able to rest until she had all of the details, so she reported as quickly as she could. “Three minor hull breaches, all portholes. Some of the starboard flak and slug guns are damaged. One of our missile ports needs replacing. But we’re sea-worthy, as it were, and on a slow burn deceleration for Titan Prime. We should be there in about ten hours. We’re going to be there for a while refueling and repairing. We’ve been going hard for a while now, and we need a break. Everyone’s going to have a chance to rest.” She smiled down at Bethany. “You most of all.”

  “What about Evelyn?” Bethany asked, and the question broke Staples’ heart. Bethany knew as well as they all did that the woman was dead. She had seen the station erupt into a million pieces just as everyone had in the cockpit, but she was asking anyway. She was asking if there was the slightest hope that Evelyn had survived, and Staples had to answer.

  �
��I’m sorry, I… she’s dead, Bethany. Everyone on that station is dead. There’s no way that…” She was overcome for a moment, then pressed on. “There’s no way that anyone survived.”

  Bethany reached out and took her hand this time. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know you liked her too.”

  Staples saw Jabir adjust his shoulders and take a breath, and she understood that her time was up. “You get some rest now.” She looked over at John, then glanced at Declan as well. He was still staring at the ceiling, and she didn’t know if addressing him would make things better or worse, but she said, “everyone get some rest.”

  “I’d like to speak to you alone for a moment,” Jabir said to her. She nodded grimly, as certain that this discussion had been coming as she was of anything anymore.

  “Clea, you know that I respect you, but if you ever question my medical judgment again, I will terminate my employment with you.”

  The two of them stood ten meters down the axis of the ship on a closed bulkhead door. The effects of gravity were light, barely two tenths of Earth standard, and Staples fought the desire to simply leap away from the doctor. Jabir used his professionalism to mask his feelings; the fact that he was calling her by her first name was a testament to exactly how angry he was. He had barely brought himself to use it when the two had spent a night together over a year ago. His proximity, only a few centimeters from her, brought that night to mind, which she found awkward and inconvenient given the situation.

  “I know, and you’re right. Of course you’re right.” Her tone was genuinely conciliatory. “I can’t very well hire a doctor to make medical decisions and then question those decisions.”

  “Especially in the middle of a crisis,” he amended.

  “Especially in the middle of a crisis,” she agreed.