by Jacen Aster
Vairc looked incredulous. “One where we all die of old age!”
Henry and Hamilton looked at each other, then at Vairc. Perfectly in sync, they said, “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
Vairc paled further and started muttering prayers under his breath. Henry and Hamilton just grinned.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
The console pinged. “Gate at 98%! They're opening the portal.” Walter announced. “98.5%, 99%, 100%! Shift in effect. Shift established. Beginning scan.”
Henry, Hamilton and Vairc's fingers flew as they trained every sensor on the rift and began flipping them through their full spectrum of modes. Minutes passed and Henry announced, “Gate is powering jump portal, drone on standby, jump portal to test system designate X85-4C opening in five, four, three, two, one, portal established.”
A tense few seconds passed and nothing happened. Doctor Hamilton finally spoke into the silence. “Well that looks like it—”
“Danger! The portal is destabilizing!” Vairc shouted.
Hamilton lunged for the readouts. “No! This isn't possible. These readings can't be right. This could only happen if the rift shifted too far inside the effect of the black hole. We left a huge margin of error for the test phase.” His fingers flew while Henry and Vairc looked on, helpless. This was far beyond them. He froze, then calmly said, “Henry get me a delta band reading. Vairc, double check it.”
Confused, Vairc moved to join Henry and both tapped away at the scans. Henry heard Vairc grunt and felt him fall. He spun around only to see an extinguisher in Dr. Hamilton's hands, descending towards his face. He tried to bring his hands up, but was too slow. An impact, then nothing but black.
Outside, the gate went critical, exploded, and the ship simply disappeared.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
A pinprick of light entered Henry's vision and slowly grew into a blazing sun that forced him to close his eyes, which he hadn't realized he'd opened in the first place. Struggling through the grogginess, his mind slowly gained traction as he started his self-check. Move his head to one side then the other, crack open his eyes. Good, minimal dizziness, no blurred vision. If he had a concussion again, it was a minor one.
Forcing his eyes open and accepting the pain as they adjusted, he took a sweeping look at the room. Vairc looked like he was still out cold, but strangely, so was Dr. Hamilton. Wait, if the doctor knocked them out, why was he unconscious? Henry rolled, getting his arms under him, and heaved himself to his feet. Slight dizziness. Probably just from the sudden blood flow. No ringing either, now that he thought about it. Probably not concussed. Though he still had a pounding headache. The doc better have a damn good explanation for this.
Hesitating for only a moment, Henry made his way to Vairc first. Dredging up his limited knowledge of the Arabuli, he came up blank for medical information. Lovely. Pockets, right. Henry had pockets, lots of pockets, useful things those. Oh, and a portable. Even better. And it still worked, lovely. Gotta remember to write another testimonial for them. He wasn't sure what had happened, but it was likely violent, again, and the portable still worked, again. Awesome. A few taps, there were the concussion symptoms for an Arabuli, excellent. Breathing, check. Heart rate, normal. Eyes, oh good they are focusing. Probably not concussed. Right.
He took a stimpack from another pocket and pressed its injector to Vairc's arm. He shook him. “Wakey wakey, minion. No sleeping on the job.”
Vairc groaned, then growled and rolled away when his brain started working. He came up into an, admittedly somewhat shaky, combat crouch and lashed out at Henry.
Henry lurched backwards, barely out of reach of the Arabuli's clawed hand. “Woah! Hold it! I'm not the one that knocked you out, damn it!”
Seeming to process Henry's words, Vairc hesitated, his eyes darting to Hamilton. “Why is he unconscious?” he snarled.
Henry subtly put a bit more space between them as he talked. “No idea. He knocked me out right after you. I just woke up. Figured I'd get you on your feet first, in case he tries something else.”
The Arabuli stared suspiciously for a moment before seeming to settle on believing him, at least for the moment. “Where is everyone else?”
“Don't know, but given that the lights are in emergency mode and no one has come for us in the three hours my portable says we've been out, I'm guessing they aren't in any better shape than us. Might be why the doc is out too.”
Seeing Vairc tense further, Henry kept a wary eye on both him and the doctor as he moved to find an active console. He passed over three that were completely fried before he got one to partially boot. Needing to give it more attention, he sighed and risked taking his eye off Vairc. “Keep an eye out for him waking up. I'm going to try and fix this console enough to find out what's happening.”
Vairc made a noise of agreement and several minutes of silence passed. Vairc broke it first, sounding confused. “These marks...it looks like he knocked himself out?”
Henry turned to him in surprise and found him examining the doctor. “What? Why would he do that?”
Vairc shook himself, nostrils flaring. “I don't know!” he bit out. “What have you found?”
Henry sighed. “I got the console working, mostly. It doesn't look good. Most of the ship is a wreck. Half the systems aren't reporting and the main engines are offline. No sign of anyone else in the system. Four hull breaches that the automatics sealed. Life support is on backups, but those look intact. Thank the Almighty for that small miracle. We're going to have to go look for any other survivors the old-fashioned way.”
Picking up the doctor and moving him to a seat, Vairc firmly announced, “I won't leave him behind us. We either wake him and get answers, or we tie him up.”
Sighing in resignation, Henry waved his fellow engineer off and took out a penlight. Checking the doctor, he frowned. “Mild concussion. He might not be very with it.” Using a stimpack on him anyway, he waited a moment and shook the doctor awake.
“Huwah?” the doctor groggily muttered as he came to. When he focused, well mostly focused, on Henry, recognition slowly lit in his eyes. “Oh, Henry. What's…? Wait, why is my head…? Oh!” The doctor jerked half way up before exclaiming and falling back to the seat, head in his hands and looking dizzy. It took several moments before he seemed to gain focus again. “Shit. Concussion. Well, at least we're alive.”
Vairc snarled, “Alive! What are you talking about, Hamilton? Why did you knock us out?” He looked ready to pounce.
The man gave a dry chuckle. “Right, right. Apologies for that. But the Gate was going critical. Knew we were too close, had to knock us out.”
The other two men looked incredulous and Henry voiced both their thoughts. “The Gate exploded so we had to be unconscious? Have you lost it?”
The Doctor wheezed another chuckle, looking pale. “No, no, far from it. We were out of the radius for outright destruction if the Gate exploded. But, at least in theory, it would have released massive alpha and delta waves. If we'd been conscious, we'd also be brain dead. As it is, I suspect it took us some hours to recover and I imagine we all have headaches quite aside from the head trauma.”
Henry nodded numbly. He'd taken a painkiller when he'd been working on the console and it hadn't done a damn thing.
Vairc, on the other hand, paled dramatically, an odd sight on his dark skin. He shakily collapsed into a seat and half whispered, “So no one else could have survived?”
Dr. Hamilton looked pained. Well, more pained at least. “Not if they were awake. Unless some chance knocked them out, the only people who might be alive were the ones going into stasis for the portal trip.”
Vairc perked up. “Stasis would protect them?”
The doctor nodded, then looked like he regretted it, putting his head back in his hands. “Of course. The whole point in the stasis pods was to make sure someone survived the trip. We didn't think the portal would be saturated with those same waves, but we couldn't be sure. So all the
second stringers went into stasis pods.”
Vairc looked so optimistic that Henry hated to burst his bubble. “Someone might be in the pods, but we weren't supposed to be going through yet, so most people were still out helping prep the ship. Maybe Areina, I don't think she had any prep duties.” Strangely, this seemed to actually cheer Vairc up further, rather than depress him. Henry's head still hurt far too much to try and sort that one out.
Heaving up from where he had fallen into a chair, Henry moved to the doctor. “Well, we need to check for survivors and find out what's going on. But first, I suggest we hit the medbay and grab something for the doc.” When Vairc looked to protest, Henry added, “Besides, anyone in stasis will be fine. The pods have self-contained backup. Though if they've fallen back on that, it would explain why they haven't auto opened like they were programmed to. We are well past the preprogrammed time limit. Assuming anyone is in them, of course.”
Vairc reluctantly agreed and helped Henry hoist the doctor. All together, they set off for the medbay.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Most of the crew were dead, but they had found two pleasant surprises. Jonas, the youngest medic aboard and an expert in exotic energy, had recognized the danger and knocked himself out. The other, Areina, was in her stasis pod, having apparently gone under only minutes before the accident. The sheer relief present on Vairc's face when she was successfully revived was not missed by Henry. He added it to his mental list of oddities about the Arabuli engineer but deemed it unimportant on the whole. Perhaps he had a crush, or else simply didn't want to be the only member of his species amongst humans.
Sadly, with the ship itself there was little such luck. It had been a near thing, avoiding destruction, and the ship was in very rough shape. That wasn't the worst news, however, and as Henry stared out the miraculously intact cockpit viewport at an empty void, he found himself utterly at a loss for words.
Areina was not. “What the hell? Where are the stars? Or the rift? Did we get sucked into a black hole or something?”
Doctor Hamilton had been, like Henry, simply staring up until that point. Seemingly spurred on by her comment, he moved to a console and tried to bring it to life. He frowned when it only flickered. “Henry? A hand?”
“Of course.” Henry shifted position to lend his expertise and in short order they had the console functioning on emergency reserves. It took a few minutes longer to patch enough undamaged, or at least mostly working, sensors into a makeshift array for the doctor, who went silent for some minutes more as he studied the data. Henry, unable to remain still, gestured Vairc over and they began checking on the ship in more detail.
Eventually, an impatient Areina broke the silence again. “Well?”
Hamilton slumped. “Sorry, I was checking my results. Hoped I was wrong.” He hesitated.
Aggravated, she snapped, “Out with it already!”
He sighed. “I'm afraid we are nowhere.”
Eyes narrowed, she looked ready to strike him as she said, “That isn't an answer. We have to be somewhere.”
Hamilton shook his head and resignedly tried to explain. “No, actually, we don't. Or I supposed we do, subjectively, but that's a debate of semantics. The Gate was intended to take us Everywhere, but when it exploded, it propelled us out of the Somewhere that we occupied and into Nowhere, a sort of void that is outside of Everywhere, if you will. That isn't space you're seeing out there, it's nothing. Complete nothingness. This isn't anywhere and it never will be, because by its very nature, it is nowhere. Almost the concept of nothingness really.” He hesitated. “I'm afraid I don't really know how to explain it any better than that.”
Henry interjected before a visibly confused Areina could sort that out. “I think I understand, at least a little. But it's also mostly irrelevant to understand. The important question is, I think, can we get back?”
That seemed to snap all of their focus away from their confusion.
An aura of despair began to seep into the cockpit when it took several long minutes before Hamilton answered. Finally, he admitted, “Maybe. If I could create another, similar, explosion. But before I could even think of trying that, the ship would need to be functional again. I'd need the labs, all the power I can get, and a whole lot of luck.”
Henry heaved a sigh of relief and placed a hand on Vairc's shoulder. “We've been looking over the ship. It's bad, but I think we can get most of it running again.” He grimaced. “Though, even with everyone's help, it's going to take weeks. We have the supplies for it, but is that going to affect our ability to get back?”
Hamilton quickly shook his head. “No, at least I don't think so. If we do it the way I'm thinking, it won't matter if it's in six minutes or six months. We'll also only get one shot, so better take our time and do it right.”
Henry nodded firmly. “Alright then, let’s get to work people!”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
It was a long six weeks getting the ship functional again. Even with Hamilton and Areina helping out where they could, fixing such major damage outside of space dock was an arduous and draining task. Things only got worse when Hamilton's research into recreating the effects of the explosion dragged on for weeks longer yet. As the days dragged on, tempers began to fray, as they often do in such trying times. Neither they nor the ship had been intended for long term assignment and their present situation only amplified the problems this created. Henry, by far the most experienced, as well as the most busy besides Walter, had it the easiest. But Jonas, with youth, inexperience, and little to do, was beginning to show substantial signs of strain.
Things only got worse when he began flirting with Areina. She didn't seem to mind, though to Henry's older eyes it was painfully obvious that she wasn't interested. Jonas simply amused her, and being the youngest of the group, she was still slightly prone to the unintentional cruelties of youth. She egged him on for her own amusement, giving a little encouragement from time to time when she got sufficiently bored.
Regrettably, this drove Vairc up the wall. Henry still hadn't figured out just why, despite plenty of time and thought. Thus, it didn't surprise him when he walked in on the inevitable confrontation.
“YOU MISS-RANKED ASSHOLE! STAY OUT OF MY WAY.”
He was, however, rather alarmed by the snarl of rage on Jonas's face. He'd really thought that Vairc would snap first. But there was Jonas, face beet red and chest heaving as he stood right in Vairc's surprisingly calm face.
Henry got the glass of water he came for.
“I will not. You are a useless, inept pale-skin of no value to us now, and likely little at any time.”
Ouch. Before Jonas could strike, Henry took a quick step closer and calmly poured his ice water over the both of them. While they spluttered in shock, he pushed them away from each other. “No fighting or I'll throw you both out into the void.” Henry's voice was calm, but cold and stern, leaving no doubts that he both could and would make good on his threat. At least as far as they knew.
Vairc simply shrugged, threw a disparaging parting glance at Jonas, and stalked off.
Jonas looked ready to punch Henry, but after a few moments he simply collapsed onto a chair in the small lounge they had cobbled together. Shoulders slumping and head falling into his hands, he took a few deep, ragged breaths before addressing Henry. “Sorry, Henry, I know I shouldn't be causing trouble when I'm not even able to help much. But when he told me that it would be best if I stayed away from her, I just lost it. Oh, I know it's just a crush that is unlikely to amount to anything. I am a doctor after all, I recognize the signs of situational infatuation readily enough, but it's still hard in a closed environment like this.”
Hmm, well that was a better response than he'd hoped for, honestly. Still, better try to lighten the mood a little. Affecting a humorous tone, Henry teased, “Oh? Well, you need to work on your taunts. Really, 'miss-ranked ass'? What was that all about?”
Jonas snorted and chuckled. “I don't really know much about
the guy to insult, but I remembered you saying he was a strangely high ranking Arabuli for his position. Figured a shot in the dark might hit something, though it doesn't seem to have had any effect.”
He hesitated then slumped further and admitted, “I don't know much about that, actually. The hierarchy, I mean. I knew almost nothing about the Arabuli before this job and I've mostly been catching up on the medical differences since taking it. I don't really know how their hierarchy works. Only that their skin tones show their rank, and that the darker the skin tone, the higher up in the hierarchy an individual is. Or something like that. Though how that works, I don't know. I have no idea what it means to be higher up the chain either, for that matter. Some sort of caste system, I suppose.”
Henry's face showed his surprise. “Huh, the Arabuli aren't common, but they're so important to space travel that I'm a bit shocked there's a spacer that doesn't know much about them.”
Jonas gave a wry grin and straighten a bit. It seemed he appreciated the change in subject. “I wasn't intending to be a spacer at all, actually. I got caught up in all of this mostly by accident. Published some papers on the effects of exotic energy and suddenly found myself offered more money than I'd make in ten years on the colony back home. Per month.”
Henry's confusion cleared at that. “Ah, I see. Well, you're not wrong about the skin tones, though it's a bit more complex than you might be thinking. Everything about the Arabuli is tied up in their hierarchy. Which isn't really a caste system, even if a lot of people dismiss it as such.”
Jonas perked up further, looking interested. Whether it was out of academic curiosity or desire to know more about his crush's culture was anyone's guess, Henry figured.
“What do you mean? I tried to find a bit about it, but couldn't lay my hands on a good source right away, so I focused on the medical stuff until I had time to look deeper.”
Henry chuckled. “You wouldn't. They discourage people from publishing much about them. Surprisingly insular for all that they mingle with the other races readily enough. Still, there are sources. Generally, it's stuff written by spacers for spacers though, so you have to know where to look.” Seeing his audience's continuing interest and figuring a little understanding could only help things, Henry settled into lecture mode. “The Arabuli hierarchy is the center of their species’ culture. Often dismissed as a caste system, it's actually closer to a merit system of sorts. While it is true that each Arabuli is born higher or lower in the hierarchy, based on their parentage, that really only affords them more opportunity to learn and a small bit of privilege until their first dye day.”
