To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “Too lazy to get up and fill it?” the XO asked, teasing her.

  “No, that's what faithful minions are for,” the captain retaliated, holding out her empty cup imperiously. The XO grunted as she took it and got up.

  “Me and my big mouth,” she muttered.

  “You asked for it. You shouldn't bitch since you've been a bitch to Miss Irons,” the captain warned. “She will eventually get clued on to this plan.”

  “You said you weren't comfortable with her on board skipper. I'm not sure why you didn't can her ass from the start,” Adel said as she got the coffee and mixed in a bit of sugar and cream just the way the skipper liked it. What a lot of people on the ship and in corporate didn't know was that she and the captain were lovers. They took great pains to keep it secret. She had signed off on getting rid of Isley not just because she was a slut but because she could potentially threaten her “special” relationship with the skipper. She wasn't the sharing type, and she'd seen how Connie had eyed Isley's rear. She wouldn't have it.

  “I couldn't. Corporate sicked her on us. And since we were so close to moving out I had no choice,” Connie replied with a sigh as she finished reading the report in front of her.

  “Well, so far she's done wonders for crew morale,” the XO said nastily, smirking.

  “Pissing off an engineer isn't a wise thing to do,” the skipper warned.

  “Why? I'm her boss. She can't touch me,” the XO said with lordly disdain as she handed the coffee cup over to the captain.

  “Ahem. I am the queen of this ship. Never forget that, madam XO,” the captain said as she graciously took the cup. She took a sip. “Just the way I like it minion,” she teased with a lurking smile not quite hidden by the rim of the cup.

  “Funny, ha ha,” the XO growled mockingly as she flopped into her seat.

  “I'm serious though. She has someone's ear at corporate. She's also the ship's chief engineer. She could do all sorts of nasty things to make us look incompetent if you seriously piss her off,” the captain warned.

  “That's why it mostly comes from an order on high,” the XO said smugly, setting in her seat. She saw the ops tech take a drink, then down the drink in a couple gulps. She scowled. Owen knew better than to bring a drink on the bridge. Damn it … she wanted to protest but technically it was the captain's watch. That was fine; she'd fry his cahones later she vowed.

  Owen closed his eyes and prayed to Allah as he felt the liquid going down his throat. The people behind this couldn't give him an explosive the security people could detect so it was a binary one. He'd drank the first part before taking his shift, it had tasted vile but he'd chocked it down. This second one hit his gut and then hardened as the nanites in the walls of his stomach came alive. They pulled apart the first chemical, mixed it with the second as well as bits of food and his stomach acids to form the explosive. He knew he had moments to live.

  He turned to face the captain. “One people. One Allah, one Earth,” he said.

  “What?” the captain demanded, looking up. The XO turned to him.

  “Allah Akbar,” the tech said with a grim smile as he clenched his fists. “God is great. We will all be meeting him soon.”

  “Are you all right?” the XO asked, half rising out of her seat. “Seriously Owen …”

  She never finished her sentence. Owen doubled over in intense pain as the nanites ripped through his stomach wall and formed a chain to his spinal column. A small electrical spark from his central nervous system was all that was needed to ignite the explosives.

  His body exploded tearing his station and part of the bridge apart. His bones and the console turned into shrapnel that killed or maimed everyone on the bridge. In a flash of a terrible moment Prometheus became a dead stick.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  The ship rocked with the absence of the helm. The fins on the ship had been killed; one had been impaled by a piece of bone and glass when it had breached their null gravity station. The second fin fared little better; the smoke flooded the compartment as fires raged throughout the bridge. The ship's computer kicked the fire suppression system on but it was damaged. As a last ditch effort to save the ship, the computer vented the compartment to rob the fire of oxygen. That killed any survivors left on the bridge.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sayed demanded, coming into main engineering. The ship jerked again. “Is the bridge drunk?”

  “Another damn drill,” Isley muttered, checking the status board. “Of course, the bridge is out. Why not make it difficult?” she demanded, shaking her head. “Computer, report!”

  “An explosive device destroyed the bridge,” the computer reported in a flat mechanical tone. The computer didn't have much of a personality, apparently the captain and XO had liked it that way.

  “Sure it has,” the chief engineer sighed. “Bridge,” she called out. When no one answered she turned to Sayed. The Bosun spread his hands apart in supplication. “Go find out. Or better yet send a runner.”

  “Aye aye, ma'am,” he said. He turned to murmur something to a nearby tech.

  “Computer, who is at the con?” Isley demanded, hands on her hips as she stared upwards at the ceiling. She felt like an idiot doing that.

  “At the moment no one, Chief Engineer Irons. You are the senior surviving officer,” the computer stated.

  “Shit. This is so not funny,” Isley muttered as her people started to stop what they were doing to stare at her. “We need eyes. Can you patch a visual in of the bridge? And wake the other dolphins,” she ordered.

  “Chief, you better look at this,” Mister Waters, a neo orangutan said quietly. She looked over to him. The pong pointed to the monitor.

  “What am I looking at Red?” Isley stopped when she saw an image of devastation on the monitor. Okay, the XO's bullshit scenarios never got that detailed. She gulped as the image wavered and flickered. There was gore all over the bridge. The people were … it had to be a sim she thought, some sort of sick prank. She scowled when the doors opened and a rescue party entered wearing breathers. “This is no drill,” she whispered, then licked her lips in sudden dread.

  “This is the chief, who's up there?” She demanded, turning to the Bosun.

  He looked up to her. “Hassad. He just reported everyone is dead, ma'am,” Sayed said in a worried voice. “Ma'am, this for real. What do we do?”

  “This part wasn't covered in the books,” Isley said shaking her head. She settled herself with difficulty. “Okay, first thing we do is get control of the ship. Which we can do partially from here,” she said, looking at Mister Waters. “Bosun, we're setting up a temporary bridge here. Mister Waters you've got ops,” she said.

  “Me?” the Neo Orangutan demanded, eyes wide with fright. He'd never signed on to be some officer. He liked being a tech.

  “You. Don't argue with me, Red; we don't have the time,” Isley said firmly, one hand on his shoulder. She leaned over his shoulder. “You can do it,” she said in his ear. He chuffed and then nodded. He felt a kiss on his ample cheek. “That's my boy,” she said softly, then went back to the rest of main engineering.

  “Bosun get someone, oh to hell with it, computer?” She looked up again. There was an answering ping from the computer telling her it was listening. “Page whoever is alive and senior in the dolphin's habitat. Tell them to jack in and take the helm from there,” she ordered.

  “Understood,” the AI replied. “Miss Aloha has taken the helm. She is attempting to maneuver the ship but the sensor feed is garbled.”

  “Get on that,” Isley ordered, pointing to a tech. We need eyes, or we're going to run into something that will kill us for sure,” she said. The tech scrambled to obey.

  “The bridge is a write off, ma'am. It'll take us a lot of time to get her straightened out,” Sayed said, coming up behind her. She turned to him. “This is real,” he whispered. “Not a prank, I checked. We are so fucked,” he said.

  “Steady as she goes, Bosun. We'll get through it. One problem at a
time,” the engineer replied.

  “We need a course,” Aloha said from the overhead. The two humans looked up. Isley frowned.

  “Reverse course. We're returning to Sol,” she ordered.

  “Can that be done?” the Bosun asked. Isley shrugged.

  “Computer, reverse course. Feed the dolphins our back course until we can get someone on navigation,” Isley ordered.

  “Yes, Captain,” the computer replied. That settled it, she was in deep pucky. The computer wouldn't ever call her that if the XO or skipper were alive.

  “Open a channel ship wide,” she ordered. The computer pinged again. “This is Chief Irons. We've suffered some sort of explosion on the bridge. All crew, man your stations. I repeat, all crew man your stations. Bridge crew get up there and see what you can do to help,” she ordered.

  She cleared her throat after a pause then settled herself. “I have been informed I am the senior surviving officer so therefore I am taking command. When I know more you'll know more. Don't panic, let's work the problem. Out,” she said cutting the channel.

  “This is the infirmary. We've got some injuries. Everyone on the bridge is dead,” the CMO reported grimly.

  “Injuries from anyone up there? Can someone tell us what the hell happened?” Sayed demanded.

  “No idea,” the CMO replied. “I've got my hands full. If you don't want me completely overwhelmed, I suggest you get this ship straightened out soon.”

  “Working on it, Doc,” Isley said with a broad hint of exasperation in her voice. She heard a grunt and then click as the channel closed.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Reversing the ships course wasn't so easy. The bucks and jolts the ship had felt were shadow masses they'd hit while being a dead stick. Isley was fervently grateful they'd survived the experience. She wasn't so sure about dropping out of hyper to reorient the ship, but they had little choice.

  A review of the ship's log and the black box visual of the bridge leading up to the explosion told them it had been a bomb. A terrible bomb, one no one could have expected. Isley made certain that multiple copies were made in case something happened to the originals. Then she got back to work. The dead would have to wait for justice; the living needed her entire focus for the time being.

  She got damage control under way then went looking for ways to compensate for the absence of the bridge. The fins took control of the ship from their quarters but they were half blind.

  Aloha had indeed turned the ship around and headed back home. Unfortunately three of the injured were critical for the ship. Two had been junior officers, the junior navigator and junior sensor watch tech. The third had been Isley's assistant chief engineer, Butterby. The other two had gotten off with mild concussions and a dislocated shoulder, but Butterby had broken his leg in a fall from his bunk.

  “The old girl is beat up but still game. If we can get control of her. Right now she's bucking like a stubborn mule,” Butterby gasped out from where he was seated in engineering. He'd insisted on coming to engineering the moment his leg had been set. The two bridge officers had been kept for observation by the CMO.

  “We're headed back to Sol but we're half blind, dumb, and in a world of hurt. We're going to do a soft translation as soon as we're able,” Isley said to the engineering crew. “Miss Aloha has already dropped us into the high octaves of alpha, and she's translating us down now.”

  “Should we even be doing that, ma'am?” the bosun asked.

  “We need time. Time to get the bridge sorted out,” Isley said grimly. She was dirty, sweaty, scared shitless but game. “Rig for break out,” she ordered.

  “You heard the captain!” Sayed said, voice growing stern as he looked about him. “Look lively people! Rig for jump exit!”

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Something in the jump exit went wrong, horribly wrong. The ship was irradiated by radiation as they translated out of hyper. Every alarm went off on the ship. Computer systems sensitive to the radiation fried.

  “We are so fucked,” the CMO said glumly as they took stock of the situation.

  “No, we're going to do our best to get out of this,” Isley said. “We're what, three weeks from Sol?” She asked, turning to Bob the acting navigator. He nodded but then winced, touching the bandage covering his head wound.

  “About that, ma'am. Closer to two weeks six days,” he said carefully. The CMO looked at him with reproach then to the chief engineer turned captain. Isley ignored the look.

  “Sol can do something about the radiation damage if we get there. If. We still need to get there,” Isley said. “But before we do, we're going to order all nonessential hands to the cryopods,” she said.

  “Ma'am …” The CMO protested.

  “We've got terraformers on board. They can't help us, but we can help them. Putting some people into hibernation might save some lives,” Isley said. The CMO nodded. “Other than the bridge and the computers we're good to go, right?” She asked, then coughed.

  “Yes. ma'am,” Bob said.

  “Red tells me the work parties are focused on the essential systems now. The critical systems are okay; fortunately the radiation pulse was short.”

  “But a thousand rems is nothing to sneeze at, ma'am,” the CMO protested.

  “Flush those you can when you can. Focus on Bob here and those we need to get back home first. I've had treatments for aging so I should be okay for the time being,” she lied. “Get on that now,” she ordered. The CMO nodded again.

  “What about the fins? The radiation treatments are for humans, ma'am. We can adapt it for the pongs but …” Bob shrugged helplessly.

  “We need them to do what they can. The water in their habitat was some protection. Doc, when you get the time, send an SBA to check them out,” she ordered. “And get a list of where we are with the stores. Move people!” She ordered, clapping her hands. The Bosun flinched as she startled him then moved out, slightly slower than his brisk movements she observed.

  “We are so fracked,” Isley muttered ever so softly to herself. She ran a hand through her hair and then winced when she found it full of hair. She felt like crying but couldn't; she had to keep it together.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  They returned to Sol slowly, not being able to return to the beta band. But damage to ship meant the best they could do was the highest band of Beta. Three weeks three days seemed like a lifetime now Isley thought. Fortunately it was almost over, she thought tiredly. Seven of the crew had died of radiation sickness, another two had taken their lives. One of the dolphins was blind and blubbering. The others had gone primal. Only Aloha and her partner were left, and they were beyond exhausted. Half the crew was sick or too weak to be of much help.

  She fumbled as she sat in the chair. They'd gotten the bridge cleaned up and repaired but it still stank.

  “We're losing it! Helm!” Bob snarled. “Get it together!”

  “Trying,” Aloha said thrashing about on the monitor.

  “Keep it together. A few more minutes …” Isley said softly.

  “We're not going to make it,” Bob said softly voice foggy with emotion. “They've had it,” he said, indicating the image. One fin was out, either unconscious or dead. She floated, turning slowly upward. Aloha was barely conscious.

  “Just hold together for a little longer,” Isley said, fighting to remain awake. She'd lost kilos. She was a skeleton, she couldn't hold anything down anymore. She'd lost all her hair a week ago. Tumors covered her body; she did her best to hide them from the crew.

  “We're there!” Bob said, “Or close enough. Translating down,” he ordered, startling Isley awake. She watched as the ship started to come down. Slowly her feeble spirits rose. They'd made it, she thought, licking her cracked dried lips. Made it.

  “Computer. Transmit log on exit. If anything happens eject the cryopods and black boxes,” Isley croaked out.

  “Understood,” the AI replied.

  “Wait, something's wrong, Red, the emitters in the stern!”
/>
  “Stop the …”

  Isley rose to her feet in horror then toppled as the ship tore through the last veil between hyperspace and hope. She landed on one knee just as the stern emitters failed.

  The forward emitters were still on but the stern failure meant the ship's aft was torn apart in translation. Her ship ripped apart inside and out like a popcorn kernel, sending shredded debris across a hundred thousand kilometer area and growing.

  Prometheus’s computer had burst transmitted the ship's log, reporting her misfortune on her exit from hyperspace. A lot of it was garbled by the ship's force emitters collapse however.

  The omni directional mayday was immediately picked up by station 34 and others across the solar system. The transmission was traced back to its origin as Search and Rescue vessels were dispatched to investigate.

  Prometheus's wreckage was discovered as telescopes were focused on the unexpected hyper emergence. The spray of ejecta dismayed all who viewed it. Ships of all sorts swarmed the area to recover her pods and wreckage. It didn't matter whose ship it was; the code of a spacer meant everyone who could helped those in need. Less than twenty people survived Prometheus's destruction. From their death beds, they each told the story of the ship and then confirmed a bomb had taken out the bridge. They went on to explain the heroism of the crew and how they'd struggled to get home.

  Chapter 43

  November 2199

  Hannah felt bitterness and intense grief over her friend's senseless death, no, murder. She knew Isley's family was in shock and mourning her bitter loss. She did her best to send them a card. She also tried to call Amelia, but the woman's voice mail was left up. She left a soft sympathetic message and then cut the channel.

  She like a lot of people realized it was most likely was sabotage after Prometheus's final report was processed by Athena. It backed up what the survivors had had to say. Everything, word for word. It brought back all the pain that came with Jamey and Kathy's senseless death all over again.