“Guys? Leave Doctor Kumar alone. He's the only doctor, and he's in the middle of a major crisis. Just like us. Keep looking for survivors, please.”
***
The casualties were incredibly light for such a violent event. Two things acted to save the colonists: the early warning allowed them to get in their spacesuits, and the ShelterCans acted to protect them from the worst of the violence during the moonquake.
It took several hours, but the job of search and rescue was eventually completed. Several safety bunkers were pressure tight and, miraculously, so was Sick Bay. The main kitchen was a mess, as were the five cafeterias.
Peter was a controller—the voice from HQ that the crew heard in their headphones all of the time. People seemed to instinctively follow him, and men were content to have their efforts coordinated by someone who obviously knew what they were doing.
***
Peter gathered everyone inside the main cafeteria. Even though the space was not pressure tight, it was the closest thing they had to an assembly area. Occasional rumbles of aftershocks or the impacts of ejecta that had circled the Moon thrummed through the flooring.
“I don't think I'm telling anyone something new when I tell you we're in a lot of trouble. But I will tell you our mission. Stay alive. Later on, after we know more about just what the hell happened, we'll have a better sense of the next mission. But right now, we stay alive. I've asked Horst Nygaard, the Assistant Chief of Engineering, to summarize our situation. Horst?”
“Moonbase Collins is really hurting. As far as I can tell, here's the status of the major systems.
“Life Support is down. The LOX situation is the most critical. I'm slowly getting a handle on the amount we have on hand, and the numbers don't look good. Just inside Collins, we’ve got enough LOX in the various ShelterCans for about a week, given moderate activity. McCrary, bless his stubborn heart, cranked out twice the number of ShelterCans as there were people, so everyone has a spare ShelterCan filled with LOX. In addition, there are large LOX tanks in the Engineering spaces. So, the situation is bad, but nobody's going to be gasping yet.
“Water and sewage are a lot more difficult to assess. Given the vacuum around here, I will have to assume that we have lost a majority of our habitat's water, both liquid and vapor phases. We have tankage filled with water, of course, but we're going to really run The Works hard to bake some more water out of the regolith before I'll feel close to comfortable. Sewage. Look, folks, it's going to be terrible for a bit, until we can get hydroponics back up and running. I hate to tell you this, but your waste products, along with whatever we've got in the tanks right now, is it when it comes to water. I know you've always suspected that you've been drinking recycled urine. Now, there will be no way to avoid it. I'm advising Peter to prohibit all urine dumps. We'll find a storage tank for it all until we get some kind of processing set up.
“Electricity is off, and it appears that the reactor is down. Solar panels are probably smashed, of course. I have no idea how the Works is faring, but it also appears to be off, which is not surprising.
“So, in a nutshell, I recommend the following actions: First, find and patch all breaches, concentrating on the hydroponics area so we can get the water and oxygen cycles going again. Second, get the electricity back on. Third, search for all LOX and consolidate it. Finally, get a work party out to The Works and perform a damage assessment.”
The radios were dead silent when Horst stepped back behind Peter, having given his report.
“Thank you, Horst,” said Peter, raising his hand to show who was speaking. “I've asked Doctor Kumar to speak. Doctor.”
The red cross on the left arm made it easy to tell who was speaking this time. The precise, clipped tones from the man were as exact as his well-known surgical techniques. This was a man you could trust with your life, and often had to.
“The areas that concern me here are the immediate casualties, triage, and disease control. We have counted twenty-five dead, and we have twice that many with work-limiting injuries that will need immediate attention. I suggest, Mr. Brinker, that we keep this meeting short so I might get back to these people.”
“Where is Sick Bay right now?” asked Peter.
“It hasn't moved. Sick Bay survived, but that is all one can say about it. Oh, there are some items that can be salvaged: gauze, tape, casting materials. Drugs must be examined one-by-one, some of them are in glass vials and have shattered. I will have an inventory for you within two days.” Doctor Kumar stepped back.
“Thank you, Doctor. Where do people go if they discover a medical problem? Sick Bay?”
“No. Do not go near Sick Bay at all—it is packed to the gills with casualties. I worry every time I have to operate that airlock. No, we have a triage clinic in a safety bunker down the northeast wing, first one on the left. But make sure you are hurting. I won't be pulling splinters there.”
“All right, folks, you heard the man.” Peter called over the general frequency. He raised his hand and turned to the doctor. “I know you've got to get back to Sick Bay. I'll stop in and brief you later.”
Peter turned around slowly, again with his hand in the air. “You better be walking on stumps before you hit up the clinic—and Sick Bay is off-limits unless the clinic sends you there. Engineering and Medical have spoken. Anyone else? As I see it, we aren't going to do any outside operations until we have the inside patched up. There aren't going to be any ships in here for a long time, and we have at least three years of iron rations. Horst will put you in work parties by ability. We've got a lot of destruction to pick up, and I hope we get the Collins back to running order as fast as possible.”
“Who made you king?” called a peevish voice on the radio. “Work parties? I came here to perform scientific work, not to be a common laborer.”
Horst put his hand on Peter, forestalling his reply. “This is Horst Nygaard. Do you know who I am, hierarchy wise?”
“Yes,” admitted the voice. “But that doesn't mean you can elevate anyone to be Commander. There has to be a vote.”
“In theory, perhaps, although the UN has been selecting the Commander for as long as anyone can remember. Does the current situation not meet with your approval?”
“Certainly not! I demand the right to pursue my scientific investigations, at least as soon as the airlock is cleared. I will not be drafted into a common labor pool.”
A babble of voices tried to jump in the conversation. It ran the gamut from righteous indignation to the kind of approval you see when people know they will never be identified after the fact.
Horst keyed the device on his communications panel that ran a high-frequency sound, akin to fingernails on a chalkboard, through the communications system.
“I understand. How about this? We'll escort you out to the main field. Since you cannot do your work, perhaps its best that you return to Earth. Is that satisfactory?”
“Yes,” said the voice. Horst believed he had the man pinpointed. The man was researching something very tricky with gravity wave measurements. The prickly nature of his work had warped his view of the rest of the crew. He was easily the most disliked man in the station.
“Bubba, please meet the gentleman on the doors leading out. I'll see if we can clear, uh, who's in right now? Ravel, right? Place the gentleman in OTV Sandy and start warming it up. Anyone else that wants to go home, please follow Bubba Cranford. He has both hands in the air. Thank you.”
A bare handful took the bait. After they left, Horst turned to Peter. “All yours.”
Peter smiled, knowing that nobody could see it, except Horst. “As I was saying, Horst will divide you into work parties and assign priorities. Medical is excused from all work parties until the casualty situation improves. We don't know enough right now to do anything beyond those barebones things we must do to survive. I'll take questions later. Let's get to work.”
Reality Bites
UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, June 17 2082, 2230 EDT<
br />
McCrary was surprised to find himself helmet to helmet with an angry man trying to get out of the airlock. Behind him were a few others trying to push their way past him.
“Whoa! Where's the fire?” he asked. “Where are you all going?”
“Sir, Cranford here,” said Bubba, from the back of the crowd. Last names were common in Engineering. Although Bubba was not officially assigned to that department, the habit stuck whenever he ran into McCrary. “These gentlemen insist on being transported back to Earth. Brinker asked me to take them to Ravel's OTV for the ride home.”
McCrary caught the elaborate wink that Bubba gave him, stepped aside, and let them through. “Keep an eye on the sky, there's still some debris falling.”
“You OK? We were worried,” said Bubba.
“Cave is pretty trashed. Suspect The Works are, too. Hurry up, I'll need you back inside.” McCrary cycled through the airlock and disappeared into the interior gloom.
As he walked through the debris-strewn wing on his way to the center, McCrary noted the complete lack of lights, power, and air. If Brinker was running the show, that meant there was something wrong with the chain of command. He hurried as fast as was prudent.
He emerged into the Center of Collins, a space large enough to swallow the beam from his suit lights. McCrary spied the two figures huddled in a constellation of spacesuit lights across the cavern. He had seen weaving lights of other work parties in the distance at the ends of the rubble-strewn corridors, but they seemed to be doing useful labor, and he did not want to disturb them. Two figures, though, seemed to have something about them that smacked of authority. McCrary knew the personal spacesuit markings of most of the senior members, but those were usually seen in well-lit conditions like the suiting chambers or outside in sunshine or the light of a sunlit Earth. Here, all he saw were silhouetted forms backlit by bright suit lights. It was impossible to tell who was who. He walked carefully toward the two figures hunched over a table that had survived the moonquake.
The figures stopped and both turned to look at him. McCrary heard nothing, until one of them flashed a light three times. He tuned to channel three.
“Hey! Everyone's supposed to be on a work detail. What's the matter?”
“I haven't been assigned to one,” he said.
“McCrary!” they shouted, dissolving into a babble as each poured out their findings to the Chief Engineer. “We thought...well, we hadn't heard from you in half a day, and well...”
McCrary held out his hands in a warding gesture. “Stop. First things first. Where is Commander Lee?”
“Sick Bay,” said Brinker. He had worked with McCrary on the surface many times, and was well used to his clipped, economical speech.
“What about your boss, Brinker?” asked McCrary.
“Dead. Spar speared his ShelterCan. Died instantly.” Peter shook his head inside his spacesuit.
“Damn,” said McCrary with feeling. “Greeley was a good man. You're senior Lunar Operations Controller, aren't you?”
“Yes, sir,” Brinker said.
“If Commander Lee is out of action, and Lieutenant Commander Greeley is dead, then I am the senior officer and I assume command. You two are the next most senior. Do either of you object?”
“No way!” said Horst.
“Sir, I accept you as my commander,” said Peter formally.
“On my authority, you are hereby provisionally promoted to Greeley's slot, however, I remain in overall command. Do you accept?” asked McCrary.
“Yes, sir,” said Brinker. It was almost imperceptible, but he stood taller and prouder, even in the shape altering spacesuit.
“Good,” said McCrary. “Let's start again. How's Commander Lee?”
Peter turned towards Horst, deferring to him.
“Head wound, unconscious,” said Horst.
“Casualties?”
“Some,” admitted Horst. “We count twenty-five dead, another twenty severely wounded, thirty more walking wounded. Sick Bay has pressure.”
“Lucky. Anywhere else that can hold air?”
“Some safety bunkers. No engineering spaces, dammit,” growled Horst, as if it was his fault the engineering spaces had lost their pressure tightness. “Kitchen and one cafeteria will take a day or so to be made pressure tight.”
“Oxygen?”
“ShelterCans are either full, down a third, or empty. We're consolidating them now.” Horst found himself adopting McCrary's signature clipped style.
“Power?”
“Mighty Thor is offline, condition unknown. No battery or solar panel power evident, reason unknown. Suspect wiring damage. How are The Works?”
“I came straight in. It's still dangerous outside. We'll need another three days or so before most of the rubble impacts.”
“What happened?” Horst was honestly curious. “We got your speech, but that didn't tell us much.”
McCrary sighed. “Some energetic event in the south. Huge amount of debris blasted off the surface. I'm betting everything within a million kilometers of the Earth will be shotgunned full of holes. No more satellites, no TDRS, no rescue, no resupply. Chaffee was getting saturated with hard radiation. I would guess impact, but that doesn't explain the radiation. That's not important now. Survival is. What have you two got everyone doing?”
Horst and Brinker conferred with McCrary on goals, priorities, and available labor.
“We need a division of labor here,” said McCrary. “I've got command. Horst, you're going to be Acting Chief Engineer. Brinker, you're going to be Acting Operations. Questions?”
Brinker frowned. “What happens when Commander Lee returns?”
“Simple. I resume Chief, Horst moves back down one. We've done that dance before, we can do it again.”
“OK. Now, sir, I need you to look me dead in the eye and tell me one thing. Are we going to get out of this alive?”
McCrary peered at Brinker through the thickness of two acrylic plastic helmet faceplates and the meter of vacuum between them. “I have every intention of doing so. I don't have enough data right now to answer your question. I do know one thing, though.”
“What's that?” asked Horst.
“We have to behave as if we will get through this, because if we don't, it's certain that we won't. I don't want to spend my last days alive in some zero-sum game of fighting over the last tank of LOX, agreed?”
The other two men exchanged glances. “Agreed,” said Horst. Brinker concurred.
“All right, then. Enough of this gloom. Here's what we need to do next.”
***
Bubba's leg was recovering slowly from its liquid oxygen bath, helped along by the blazing sunshine on the suit and the heat-generating exercise of walking. He and his band of angry men rounded the shoulder of the hillside that sheltered Moonbase Collins from the Orbital Transfer Vehicle landing pad, cutting them off from any radio contact with the base. The group consisted of most of the scientists, with a smattering of crew who were looking to escape a dangerous situation. They poured out their emotions onto the common frequency, each potential returnee validating the other on the wisdom of their decision.
“I tell you, anyone who remains behind is a fool. Nobody can live at that base for more than a week,” said one high voice. An occasional sniff punctuated his commentary. “No lights, no heat, no air. They're going to die as soon as the LOX in those damn ShelterCans runs out.”
“I hear ya,” said another voice, this time a great booming one. “I heard the reactor's out. That's a thorium one, and starting one of them up is a chicken-and-egg thing. You have to melt the salt to get the reactor started. The problem is, you need the power of the reactor to melt the salt in the first place. There's just no way they can do that with suit batteries.”
Bubba trudged ahead of them. He smiled to himself as he led them on the path that led to the OTV. They were in for a rude awakening. He kept looking up, but he wondered about what he would be able to do about a rock coming at hi
m at a couple of miles per second.
“Why aren't we riding? I seem to remember riding here on some kind of bus when I arrived,” asked the peevish voice. “Hey, you, uh, Bubba? Why aren't you driving us to the rocket?”
“Yeah, it's kinda dangerous this way,” said another.
“What about our things? I have samples that need to come with me?” The other five joined in.
“Bum's rush, I say.”
“Rather high-handed.”
“How am I going to get my stuff?”
“I have a friend in the UN, I tell you.”
Bubba was tempted to tell them to shut up, but it was much better this way. In fact, the OTV field should be just over the next rise.
To knowledgeable eyes, it was clear that the ship was never going to fly again. It wasn't just the half-meter hole in the pilot's chamber, and the peeled-back metal on the other side of the hole, but the OTV's noticeable lean from a bent landing jack would have tipped off anyone remotely connected to reality. It took the brave band of angry scientists another two hundred meters before one of them noticed the problem.
“Hey! What is this? I thought you were taking us to our ride home!”
“I did. This-a-here is Pilot Ravel's ship, OTV Sandy. You're free to git on in. Mind y'all don't cut yourself on any of them jagged edges. Of course, she ain't going to fly without a massive overhaul. Y'all been pointin' out we ain't got no power, water, heat, oxygen, and all the other problems all y'all were dumpin' on us Moondogs to be fixin'. You know, I don't reckon we’ll be gettin' around to Sandy for a coon's age.”
The silence stretched as reality hit the scientists in the face. Bubba wished he had a toothpick, and maybe a post to lean against.
“Maybe y'all kin patch 'er up for us. While you're at it, I'd be learnin' some piloting. I think I saw them running Pilot Ravel up to Sick Bay with somethin' dreadful. I hope he's OK—he's the only pilot we've got on the Moon.”
“Shut up, will you! Just shut up!” shouted Peevish Man. “You could have told us all this back there, instead of leading us on a wild goose chase.”
Come In, Collins (Riddled Space Book 2) Page 4
