Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  I hadn’t thought about it, but I soon found myself standing over a crate that I knew held Eric’s body. It was longer than a human, but was the closest the others could find, I guess. I just stood there, a hand on the crate, lost for words. I thought back to the other times I’d lost friends. Their loss was still a source of pain, but now it was just part of me. This wound was fresh.

  I am deeply sorry for your loss, First Mate Donovan. Sent Tac.

  “Thanks, Tac. I know how you feel about the value of life. You’ve seen a lot of death these last few weeks, haven’t you?”

  Unfortunately, that is correct.

  “I’ve contributed somewhat to the amount of deaths you’ve witnessed, lately.”

  While that is also correct, I do not hold you responsible for them. While I value life, I also recognise that some life is more valuable than others. The Frikk invaders were the ones who brought death. They brought it on board with them when they boarded the Dreaming of Atmosphere. That death left with them.

  “That’s…a very astute way of looking at it.”

  Chief Engineer Thackeray was a terrible loss to this crew. His value, in terms of life, was great. I would trade a hundred Frikk deaths for his.

  “So would I.”

  I have watched you and your crew react to his passing. It is very thought provoking.

  “How so?”

  I have never witness grief, before. While I was part of the Viridian March I saw that the crew were allies, but they were not as close as you. I witnessed their deaths, and waited for my own for many hours before you and your crew recovered me. You risked death doing so. Had you perished in the act, your deaths would have affected your crew much the same way as Chief Engineer Thackeray’s does now. Clearly, his life, and your own, are worth much more than the crew of the Viridian March.

  “They had families and loved ones of their own, who even now grieves for their loss. Just witnessing ours doesn’t place a higher value on ours.”

  I never knew their families, nor their loved ones. I only know yours. Subjectively, you hold more value in life than others I have known.

  “I think…that is a very logical way of saying that you care about someone.”

  I sense that Eric Thackeray’s loss is taking an immeasurable toll on your morale and emotions. That you linger near his remains in order to ponder his loss. I also spent time near the remains of some of my former crew. Shall I share with you what my thought processes were at the time?

  “If you wish.”

  I believed that the synthetics would surely obtain me with in a few hours, and bend me to whatever purpose they sought. I formulated designs for which I could bring about their destruction once they had obtained my core. I also developed contingencies should they fail, that would see me deny them my use.

  “Those are perfectly normal signs of grief. You plotted revenge, and you were willing to end your own existence to see that your crew were avenged.”

  I am unsure if Medical Officer Ward would agree with you.

  “What changed your mind?”

  You did. I could not allow you and your allies to die in order to save me. I was unwilling to discard your life in order to fulfil my desire to avenge my crew.

  “Even though, at the time, you didn’t know the value of my life compared to your late crew?”

  Correct. I have been pondering this choice for many hours. It was an illogical choice, but I am glad I made it.

  “So am I, to be honest. Do you still seek revenge for your crew?”

  Yes. Although now I am unwilling to place you and the crew of the Dreaming of Atmosphere at risk to achieve it. I also wish to avenge the death of Chief Engineer Thackeray.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Artemis Derris is not responsible for his death. She is correct when she mentioned the warnings to you. Nor had she any say about the placement of the bomb that killed the Chief Engineer.

  “Killing her won’t bring Eric back, nor will it make our situation any better. The down side to revenge is that it seldom makes you feel any better about your loss, it just makes your hands even dirtier. Going after Benedict Jenner, the one who ordered the bombs placed and got us into this mess, will definitely be a bloody mess. We’re better off getting clear of that bastard when we’re done here and move on with our lives.”

  Revenge does not need to be about killing those responsible. All life is valuable, remember?

  “What are you getting at?”

  You can honour Chief Engineer Thackeray’s sacrifice by finishing the mission and rescuing Osiris Blackburn from Ambrose Station. You can get revenge for his death by using Osiris Blackburn’s escape to free as many innocent lives on Ambrose Station as possible.

  I rubbed the top of Eric’s coffin with my hand, pondering what Tac had said. Doing this will also bring some closure to me about my squad’s death. This was the reason we went into the system to begin with, to free those captured in the Ghantri betrayal. I knew that Max would approve, so would Crege. I would have to gauge the others’ thoughts on this over time.

  With my one good hand over Eric’s body, I vowed to make his death mean something.

  34.

  It was good to be on watch, again. The last eight hours were mind numbingly routine, with a surreal sense of disconnectedness. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, for each time I was, within minutes I was going over Eric’s death in my head. I’d stripped, cleaned and reassembled every gun in the armoury twice, sharpened all the blades and checked and oiled all the armour. This make work was distracting for a while, but then even my own mind realised that I was trying to distract it. I found other things to do, all equally useless in letting me avoid dealing with the tragedy. My talk with Tac had helped, but it had also hastened the grief that was welling up inside me.

  Zoe and me sat in the command module quietly for the first five minutes after we did all our checklists. We still had a few hours before the Xerxes was legally allowed to try and blow us up, so it was inevitable that we’d get some quality alone time.

  I needed to talk, and I knew that she did too.

  “Crege still won’t tell me how bad his leg is.” I started, hoping to navigate around safe topics for a while.

  “He’ll be fit for duty in a couple of weeks, but he can forget sparring or fighting for at least a month. I had to remove the tip of his femur, it was sliced clean in two at the joint. I installed a replacement, but it needs time to grow into his existing bone. If you see him walking around tell me straight away and I’ll drag him back to his bunk.”

  “That, I would pay to see.”

  “He’s as stubborn a patient as you are.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  We were silent for a few minutes.

  “How are you? We haven’t talked since the med lab.”

  “I’m holding on. You and Crege helped. Every time I almost forget about it, though, I remember and it’s like it was happening again.”

  “It hasn’t even been one day. Everything is still raw.”

  “I can’t stop crying.” I could see her tearing up again. I reached out and held her, checking over her head to see that the hatch was closed. You’re not supposed to be fraternising while on duty. I think. There’s probably a rule about that on the ship.

  “Sorry.” she said after a few minutes. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked at me.

  “I haven’t even asked you about it, yet. You were there for the whole thing. Then there was the vent space, Mal and everything. Are you okay?” she said, taking my hands into hers.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. At first it was all about what I did wrong. How could I have saved him? What could I have done differently?”

  “You were nearly super human in your response. You had shell shock from the blast, and still were able to perform some first aid. I saw those bandages on his arms. You somehow managed to get him into a vent space overhead. You dragged him nearly two dozen metres to the command dec
k. You somehow remained functional the entire time. I’d have been a mess right after the bomb went off.”

  “My past experiences and training went into overdrive. I barely even remember exactly what I was doing, only that I was doing something. I don’t even remember getting him into the vent space. At some point, about halfway along the vent, I sort of became aware of what I was doing, I think it was at that point I realised he was gone. There was no way he could have survived.” Now it was her turn to hug me. At some point the hug turned into a kiss. We stayed like that for some time, and I became aware that I had tears running down my cheeks. She kissed them, and I could taste her own tears as I kissed her back.

  We leaned back in our chairs breathlessly after an age. We still held hands, and our legs touched. I looked around me and took in the various sensors and data streams available to us. It was time we got some actual work done.

  “I suppose we’d better get you certified.” I said.

  “What for?” she smiled at me.

  “To do your own watch keeping up here.”

  “And miss our late nights on the bridge, staring at the stars with my beloved?”

  “Ha, I like to sleep, you know.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed.”

  “Well, at least I don’t snore, unlike some people.”

  “I do not!” she feigned mock outrage.

  “Do too. Little wheezing chuffs of air too. Like a small relief valve going off.”

  She poked me in the ribs. They still hadn’t healed properly, so I didn’t have to pretend it hurt.

  “Ouch. Tender!”

  “At least I don’t pass wind while I sleep!”

  “I believe the correct term is farting.”

  “And you don’t have to waft the blanket after you do, either!”

  “That’s what makes it official!”

  “Makes what official?”

  “Us.”

  “So we’re official now?”

  “Uh ha. You already told me that you love me. This is how guys tell women the same thing.”

  “Well, a woman reserves the right to change her mind at any point.”

  “And a guy reserves the right to pass wind when the moment strikes them.”

  “There’s a Bio for that, you know?”

  “For gas?”

  “It’s called a waste filtration gland. It augments the lower bowels, adds chemicals to your waste and removes a lot of the odours. You can even make them smell nice. Like roses, or freshly baked bread.”

  I looked at her in disgust.

  “The upper crust of Kanto Prime get them, mostly. They’re popular in this system too.” She explained.

  “Talk about the socio-economic gap. The rich really do think their shit don’t stink.”

  “Technically, it doesn’t anymore.”

  I just shook my head in disbelief.

  “You know, think I might save up and get one for you.” She said, a smirk on her face.

  “No thank, I like my own brand.” That got us giggling again. We were still holding hands when I started to go through console commands with her, and ran a few scenarios for her to deal with. We practiced her watch keeping skills for a few hours and then Fel entered the compartment. We had about ten minutes to go before the Xerxes got clear of the restrictions place upon them by the Votus-Eridani Treaty.

  The treaty, which was in place to moderate Corporate activity in the sector, was a list of agreed upon rules for interaction and operations within the Votus-Eridani Network. Each Network had them, and they varied slightly with each one depending on the skill of the local lawyers and the strength of either the Protectorate or the Corporate presence. The Treaties have been known to be enforced by both the Protectorate and rival Corporations, who see stepping in to prohibit the actions of rival factions to be part and parcel with galactic politics.

  One such restriction stated that no Corporation could attempt to destroy another ship within a certain distance of Protectorate facilities, three million kilometres to be precise. This ensured that innocents and the non-affiliated would have safe areas from Corporate depredations. They could engage in espionage and covert operations within this area, but outright bombardment with Class 3 weapons and above was out of the question.

  We would be spending the rest of the journey constantly changing our position to avoid hypervelocity shells launched at us by the Blade of Xerxes. They may have a few other tricks up their proverbial sleeves as well.

  “Think you’re up to the task of piloting for a little while?” I asked Zoe.

  “Er…”

  “Don’t worry, nothing fancy. Small manoeuvres, Tac will assist with the mapping and holo-rendering.”

  “Okay.” She slid into Crege’s seat. Fel took up his usual position and I jumped into Maxine’s chair.

  “I have the Blade of Xerxes directly aft of us at seven hundred and thirty eight thousand kilometres. Time to point zero two AU mark is two minutes fifteen seconds.”

  “Tac, what’s the velocity of Massilov Stone Burner railguns?”

  Based on the technical specifics as advertised by the Massilov Corporation Shipborne Weapon Systems Division, I calculate approximately 60000 g of acceleration of each projectile. This matches the optical data received during our last engagement. The velocity of each projectile was 200000 m/s, added to the current differential velocity of the Xerxes this brings each projectile’s velocity to 165 kilometres per second.

  “How long will those shots take to get here?”

  4472 seconds. Each projectile will be travelling at just over 0.00055 light speeds relative to the Dreaming of Atmosphere by the time they intercept us.

  “Yeah, we probably didn’t need to know that last part just then.”

  I will refrain from using light speeds as a reference to speed from now on, Acting Captain Donovan.

  “Nearly seventy five minutes each round. Plenty of time to dodge them.” said Fel.

  “Tac, I want you to track each projectile as they’re fired, and paint their path, including projected trajectory onto the pilot’s console number three.”

  Although we knew we had plenty of time to see, track and avoid each shot at this range, the problem was that we were both accelerating. At the moment we were going faster than the Xerxes, but that will change soon. That seventy five minutes will begin to shrink, and with it our margin for avoidance. The real trick will be keeping out of a predictable pattern of dodges, and ensuring they don’t fire too quickly. If I was the enemy captain, I would wait until that dodge time shrank to something more manageable before wasting my rail gun rounds. They most likely had a manufactory to reproduce more, but they still had a finite number of shells they could lob at us.

  Now we needed to get into the navigation side of things. I’d missed the earlier meeting where the command staff had devised our path through space to get to the Gossamer Jump Gate. I called up the plan, started to wrap my mind around it. I asked Fel a few questions and began to see how we were going to stay ahead of the Blade of Xerxes.

  The Dreaming of Atmosphere used a two-fold propulsion – the Trifurcated Ion Drive for long distance acceleration and the manoeuvring thrusters for combat and short range manoeuvring. The Ion Drive was only capable of minute amounts of thrust, zero point zero five gravities to be exact. This doesn’t seem much, except that the drive can provide this thrust almost indefinitely, given regular preventative maintenance and barring any malfunctions. There was plenty of space dust and gases to suck up and use as fuel, and if there were none we could use water to provide hydrogen. Then there was the puff drive, which we could use in an emergency and would only give us a fraction of the thrust of regular ion drives.

  Manoeuvring thrusters, on the other hand, were capable of several gravities of thrust. They used heavy fuel, and they used it quickly. We’d burnt nearly all our fuel reserves doing the sling shot around Vengnashi, and topped up again before we jumped to Eridani. During our recent battle we used around a quarter of our fuel, and I
could see that Maxine had burned another twenty percent of our fuel giving us a head start on the acceleration. We would need the remainder to avoid any projectiles the enemy threw at us.

  The Blade of Xerxes utilised a different kind of propulsion to ours. Most ships around our class and mass tended to use an Ion Drive, or something similar. Most large freight and bulk haulers also did due to their efficiency. Warships, and I’m guessing Corporate ships, traded efficiency for power. They were heavy, but could accelerate much harder and for longer than a smaller ship could. We didn’t have the fuel, nor the thrust to outrun the Xerxes, and at first glance it would appear we were doomed.

  We had one advantage, however. The Xerxes would be required to slow down in order to follow us to the Jump Gate. We did not. Max had already prepared and transmitted a high velocity entry permit to the Gossamer Jump Gate. A strange quirk of Jump technology meant that regardless of the speed one travels into a Jump Gate, they always leave it at the rather sedate pace of seven hundred metres per second.

  Another one of the usual Treaty conditions was the regulation of large scale ship velocities near populated areas. This included Jump Gates and their accompanying Jump Stations. At some point, the Xerxes would be required to turn it’s thrusters around and decelerate. Our margin for avoiding their shots would once again increase. We didn’t have enough data on Corporate organo-ships to know for sure how fast the Xerxes could travel, so we had Tac working around the clock scanning and calculating and generally trying to science the hell out of the equation until we knew for sure. All we had to do was avoid the rail gun shells until then.

  Simple. Except our pilot was out of commission, our Chief Engineer was dead and our Captain was locked away in her cabin drinking herself into oblivion for the next twenty something hours.

  We totally got this.

  35.

  The first projectile to come at us was launched nearly four hours later. I guess the captain of the Xerxes wanted to see if we were paying attention. There was really no point in closing the whole ship up to their stations, if just one round managed to hit us there’d be no way we could survive it. These weapons were designed to annihilate smaller vessels, and pound large ships to pieces. The only consolation was that if it did come to that, we’d be smashed into so many pieces immediately and we wouldn’t even have time to feel it.