by Ryk Brown
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of,” Nathan admitted, more to himself than to Jalea.
“Nathan,” Jessica spoke up, pulling him aside and turning away from them. “Four strangers, only one of which barely speaks our language, cannot be of enough help to justify the risk,” she insisted.
“How do you know they’re only talking about these four? They’re only from one ship, and there were at least six of them out there before.”
Jessica began to offer more reasons, but Nathan turned away from her to speak with Jalea again.
“How many people do you have that can help?” he asked slowly.
Jalea turned to Marak, undoubtedly asking him the same question. “Many,” she answered.
That did sound like it might help, and Nathan’s expression turned from one of skepticism to one of curiosity.
Marak noticed the change in Nathan’s expression, and said something else to Jalea.
“We have many more to help, but not here.”
“Could turn into an ally?” Nathan explained to Jessica. She still didn’t look convinced. “I’ll let you keep your big gun pointed at them the whole time,” he promised, drawing a patronizing look from Jessica.
“You’re in command,” she said.
Nathan turned back to Jalea and Marak. “We accept your offer,” he explained slowly. “But this nice lady and her friends will have to watch you. I apologize, but we do not yet know you very well. Is that alright?”
Jalea explained the terms offered by Nathan as best she could to Marak. The two of them seemed to debate the issue for a bit longer than Nathan would’ve thought necessary. But then again, sometimes he and Cameron probably debated things for a bit longer than normal as well. In fact, the captain had scolded him for allowing it to happen too often.
Finally, Jalea turned to him. “Yes, is good.”
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Now, these people will take you to where we need the most help.” Nathan turned to Jessica. “Escort them to engineering, please.”
“Yes Sir,” she reluctantly agreed.
Before she could get away, Nathan grabbed Jessica by the arm and stepped in close to her ear and whispered “I wasn’t kidding before, Jess. Keep an eye on them at all times.”
“I had planned on it,” she assured him.
Nathan smiled at them as they filed out of the room, one of the armed crewmen leading the way, with Jessica and the other crewmen following them out the door. After they had left, Nathan flopped back down in his chair, breathing out a sigh of relief. After a moment, he turned on the comm-set. “Engineering, Briefing room.”
“What is it now, Nathan?”
“Vladimir, I have a surprise for you.”
As Nathan made his way forward from the briefing room, he noticed several people helping the injured get to medical. He realized that it only made sense that anyone not helping with damage control would be helping with the injured, it just hadn’t occurred to him, like so many other things today.
“Help!”
Nathan spun around, the cry coming from somewhere behind him. He didn’t see anyone. “Hello!” he called out.
“Help me!” the voice cried out again. It was a woman’s voice, and it sounded like it was coming from around the corner farther down the corridor. Nathan broke into a jog in the direction the voice had come from, stopping at the corner to look down the corridor in search of the woman calling him.
About ten meters away was a young woman that Nathan recognized as one of scientists working on the jump drive. Bloodied and disheveled herself, she was fighting a losing battle to get a seriously injured crewman to medical for treatment. The injured man was considerably larger than her, and she would’ve had difficulty handling him even in an uninjured state.
Nathan quickly ran over to help her with the injured crewman. “Here, let me take him,” he offered.
“I can’t make it,” she pleaded. She looked like she was about to collapse herself, probably from the large gash on her forehead that was still actively bleeding. Nathan immediately stepped in between them, taking the injured man’s arm and draping it over his right shoulder. Once he had the man securely in his right arm, he grabbed the woman with his left arm to provide assistance to her as well.
“Here,” he told her. “Hold on to me.”
“I don’t think I can make it,” she pleaded. “I just need to rest.”
“Come on, it’s just a little farther, you’re almost there.”
She continued to plod forward, her head hanging down low from fatigue.
“Your leg, it’s bleeding,” she pointed out to him, noticing his blood soaked left pant leg.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Quite a lot actually,” he chuckled, wincing in pain with each step. He had thought his leg was broken when he first woke up back on the bridge. But the more he had gotten used to the discomfort, the more he was convinced that it was just a deep laceration at most. He had managed to ignore the pain up until now, with more important concerns to distract him. But now, with the additional burden of these two injured persons, each step was sending blinding pain shooting up his left leg into his hip. “But I’ll be alright.”
The trip to medical felt like it took forever, despite the fact that it only took a few minutes. As he approached, he called for help and two more crewman rushed to help.
Nathan followed them into medical, not realizing what he was walking into. There were at least twenty people with varying degrees of injury. Some had obvious broken bones and severe lacerations that would probably only require some bone knitting and suturing. But others had far more serious injuries, including traumatic amputations, wide open abdominal wounds, and crushed torsos. And nearly everyone had some sort of burns, which explained the strange smell that hit him as he entered. Oddly though, the less seriously injured seemed to be in the most pain, while the more critically wounded seemed to be too far out of it to feel anything.
He watched in horror as those that could helped care for those that couldn’t. Most of them had little more than basic emergency medical training, and it was doubtful that any of them had practical experience. But yet, there were all in here, doing the best that they could in unbelievably difficult circumstances. They were in a barely lit room full of the injured and dying, while drifting in a wrecked space ship that was waiting to be picked off by the next enemy that came along. How did we end up this way? he wondered. How did it get this bad?
He had almost made it across the main treatment bay, when he noticed an open door to an adjacent room. The room seemed oddly quiet, especially considering the limited space in the main treatment area. Nathan wondered what was in that room, and why it wasn’t being used to treat the wounded. The room was unlit, except for the scant light spilling into it from the main treatment area. Perhaps it was the darkness that peaked his curiosity and drew him closer to the door to peer inside. He wished that he hadn’t. Because in the darkened room were the bodies of the dead, piled unceremoniously just to get them out of the way. The gruesome sight caused a wave of guilt to wash over him. Did these people all die because of me? Because of the decisions I made?
It was almost too much for him to bear, and he quickly made for the small utility room nearby, barely making it to the wash basin before heaving up his breakfast. His head spun and his skin became cold and clammy. Were it not for the counter, he probably couldn’t have remained vertical. He stood there for several minutes, trying to pull himself together. But the guilt was still twisting his gut into knots, and making him want to vomit again, despite the fact that his stomach was empty.
“Are you alright?” a female voice came from behind him. He turned his head slightly to look at her.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“Yeah? Well you don’t look fine. How much blood did you lose?”
“Huh?” he asked, turning to face her. She was a petite Chinese woman, young, wearing a medical uniform that was stained with bloo
d. Her long black hair was tied back in a pony tail that had also been pulled up into an additional knot, no doubt to keep it out of the open wounds of her patients. She wasn’t even wearing the usual exam gloves that medical personnel always wore, having given up on changing them every few minutes as she jumped from patient to patient in rapid succession. She looked like she had been at it for days, even though it had been just over two hours since the first jump put them into harm’s way. But despite it all, she was still observant enough to notice his discomfort.
“Your leg,” she explained. “It’s bleeding?”
“Oh, that,” he remembered, realizing it was still throbbing. “I can wait. Besides, you’ve got plenty of patients worse off than me.”
“Are you sure?” She suddenly noticed that he out ranked her, and added, “Sir.” Then it dawned on her. “Are you here to talk to the captain?”
Hope suddenly sprung forth in Nathan’s mind. He’s still alive? And he’s conscious? Suddenly, he thought that an end might come to this nightmare called command. If the captain survived, even if was infirmed for awhile, at least he might have someone to come to for advice in the interim.
Nathan looked at the woman, noticing her blood-smeared name tag for the first time. ‘M. Chen M.D.’ “He’s alive?” he asked. “How is he, Doctor? Is he conscious? Can I speak to him?”
“Maybe, he’s in and out,” she warned. “He’s severely injured.”
“Will he make it?”
“If we can get him back to Earth, maybe. He desperately needs surgery.”
“Well can’t you do it?”
She looked at him a moment, puzzlement on her face. “I’m just a resident, not a surgeon. He needs to be taken to a properly equipped facility with a good trauma surgeon, and soon.”
Nathan’s hopes suddenly began to fall again. “I don’t think that’s an option right now.”
“Surely you sent out a distress call? It shouldn’t take more than a few hours for help to arrive from Earth, right?”
“I’m afraid you’re the only chance he’s got right now, Doctor.”
“But I’m not a surgeon. I’ve only assisted in a few minor surgical procedures so far,” she protested. “Besides, we can’t perform surgery as long as the power is out.”
Nathan hadn’t thought of that. “And if the power was restored?” he asked, “could you operate then?”
Doctor Chen looked around, thinking of how she might pull that off. “Maybe, I guess. I could have someone call out the procedures to me from the medical database to help.”
“How long has he got?”
“I don’t know, could be hours, or it could be minutes,” she admitted. “But I still don’t see why we can’t just wait for a rescue ship to come? He’ll have a much better chance if…”
“…There is no rescue ship coming!” he interrupted, frustration getting the better of him. She could tell that he was upset by their current situation. And she saw by the insignia on his uniform that he was bridge staff, so he probably knew more about their situation than she did.
“Can I see him?” he asked.
“Yes, but keep it brief,” she warned. “He’s in the corner,” she added, tilting her head to the right.
Nathan stood up straight, gathering his strength as he straightened his uniform. A few moments later, he was standing at the foot of the captain’s bed. His head was wrapped with a bandage that was soaked with blood where it covered his right eye. His right shoulder still appeared odd, and Nathan realized it was probably dislocated. He had a large, wet bandage laying over his right abdomen that was also stained with copious amounts of blood. He had several large bags of fluids hanging from the ceiling, all connected to an intravenous line that had been placed in his left arm. And there was a large bag of a synthetic blood replacement fluid connected to a tube leading to the one in his right arm. He was breathing on his own, through an oxygen mask that fogged up slightly with each exhalation. His face was swollen and puffy, and at first Nathan wasn’t even sure it was Captain Roberts.
Nathan stared at him for several minutes. He wondered what the captain would have done differently if he were still in command. Would he have killed two of his crew just to suck the boarders out into space? Would he have put the ship in further jeopardy by detonating that torpedo while they were still too close? Would he have allowed those strangers to come aboard and help repair the ship? But mostly, he wondered if the captain’s injuries had somehow been his fault as well.
He was about to leave, as the guilt was starting to make him nauseated once more, when the captain spoke.
“Lieutenant,” he whispered from behind the oxygen mask.
Nathan tried to come to attention, fighting back the nausea that was still swelling up inside him. “Yes Sir!”
“How’s my ship?” he managed to ask.
“She’s busted up pretty bad sir. But we’re still here, and repairs are underway.”
“How’s the XO?”
Nathan was afraid to answer, but knew that he had to be honest. “I’m afraid he’s dead sir.”
The captain coughed several times, which appeared to cause him much discomfort.
“Chief Patel?”
“Missing.”
“Who’s in command?”
“I’m afraid I am, sir.”
The captain flashed what looked like a smile to Nathan, but it was hard to tell with all the swelling. “Well, we’re still alive, so I guess you’re doing okay so far.”
Nathan felt his guilt swelling up again. “I don’t know about that sir,” he admitted. “I think I’ve just been lucky so far.”
“Nonsense,” the captain insisted. “You’re a natural born leader, Nathan. Just like your old man.”
The statement struck Nathan as odd. Although he was aware that the captain knew of his father, he wasn’t aware that he knew anything about him.
“Sir, I don’t know that I can do this,” Nathan admitted. The thought had been running through his mind since the moment that he assumed command. And it felt good to finally admit it to someone.
“Bullshit. Just remember, it’s not about being right and knowing all the answers. It’s about making the call.” The statement had taken a lot out of the captain, who closed his eyes for a moment to rest. Nathan thought for a second that he might have slipped back into unconsciousness, but then his eyes opened again, slowly. “Nathan, take the bars from my uniform.”
Nathan looked around, finally spotting the captain’s cut-up uniform shirt laying on the counter behind him. He picked it up and carefully removed the blood stained bars. He was about to hand them to the captain, when he realized his intentions.
“Put them on,” he ordered softly from behind the oxygen mask.
Nathan reluctantly replaced his lieutenant’s bars with the captain’s bars.
“I hereby order you to assume command of the Aurora, effective immediately.”
Nathan looked down at the floor, unable to look the captain in the eye. He didn’t want the captain to see the fear in his eyes. The fear for his captain’s fate, the fear for his own fate, and most of all, his fear of command. After a few moments, he managed to raise his eyes to meet those of his dying captain, stiffening and offering a salute.
“I relieve you, Sir,” Nathan announced quietly, but with far more conviction than he expected.
The captain could not return his salute. “I stand relieved.” A wave of calm seemed to wash over the captain at that moment, as he closed his eyes again. Nathan started to turn away to exit, when he felt the captain’s hand tug at Nathan’s shirt, stopping him.
“Get them home,” he stated emphatically as Nathan turned back to him. “Get the jump drive home,” he coughed. “It’s their only hope.”
Nathan watched as the captain’s grip on his shirt loosened, his hand falling back to the bed as his eyes closed. Suddenly, an alarm on the bio-monitor started beeping rapidly, startling him. Oh my God.
Doctor Chen had been watching the entire
exchange as she cared for a nearby patient. Hearing the alarm, she dropped what she was doing and came running over. “He’s crashing! I need some help in here!”
Doctor Chen pushed Nathan aside as she rushed past, her eyes on the bio-monitor the entire time. “He’s in V-Fib!” she declared.
Nathan backed away, making room for the few people available to help the Doctor as she frantically tried to resuscitate the captain. But Nathan already knew it was too late. The captain had known it as well. That was why he had transferred his command to him.
Nathan exited the sick bay and began wandering the corridor, his mind racked with an overpowering combination of guilt and grief. The medical bay was packed full of people with injuries he had probably caused, and there was a pile of bodies, bodies of men and women, all of whom had sworn to serve their world just as he had upon graduation only a few short weeks ago. Is this what it’s like to be in command?
He wandered down the corridor, not really headed in any particular direction that he was aware of. He passed an ensign that was carrying supplies back to medical. Upon seeing the captain’s bars on Nathan’s collar, the crewman immediately stopped and snapped to attention, which was something that was only done for upper level command staff. At that moment, the lights in the corridor came back on. And suddenly, Nathan knew exactly where he was headed.
Minutes later, Nathan walked onto the bridge. A young marine armed with a close-quarters defense weapon snapped to attention as he passed.
“Captain on the bridge!” the marine announced. It was the first time Nathan had been referred to as captain, and it felt strange, but in a good way.
Cameron spun around from the tactical station, expecting to see Captain Roberts, miraculously healed and returning to take command and get them safely home. But instead, she saw Nathan, wearing a pair of blood-smeared captain’s bars.
“Sorry,” Nathan apologized, seeing the disappointment in her eyes. “It’s just me.”
“I guess it’s official, then,” she admitted reluctantly. She also knew what it probably meant. “Is he…”
Nathan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, she saw it in his eyes.
