Cameron massaged his brow. "Solutions?"
"Repair of the external oxygen solar array would reduce the time for cabin repressurization by more than half, but because of our proximity to the sun, heat tolerances for extended RND operations have been exceeded. However, one of our crew would be capable of making the necessary repairs in a space suit before overheating. Unfortunately, the exposure to radiation during the estimated time would exceed the recovery capability of the crew member."
Cameron knew that only Dan Mueller their chief engineer would be capable of making such a repair. "He would die?"
"Correct."
"All our advanced technology and we haven't designed space suits capable of withstanding intense cosmic radiation."
"Not of this intensity, sir. And incidentally we have only one suit that is repairable to the point of safe use in the allowable time-limit. I need your authorization to divert the repair nanites to make it functional."
"Do that."
"Yes, sir. Repairs will be completed in roughly four minutes."
"All right." Cameron drew in a bitter breath. "So we're asking Dan to undertake a suicide mission." To save people I don't even know.
"There would also need to be a manual recalibration inside the ship requiring complex calculations which I cannot perform at this time."
"Can Malcolm perform these calculations?"
"He does not have a background in the necessary maths. I can guide him, but I estimate he will not succeed before half of the enhanced until perishes."
"Are you saying that Dan Mueller is the only one who can achieve both of these tasks?" Anger sifted through his voice. "Then why the hell did you suggest a non-solution in the first place?"
"Yeah," growled Lieutenant Mallory, listening in with the rest of the crew in Life Pods. "Maybe she or he just likes messing with our minds."
"But there is a possible solution, Captain Cameron. One of the Enhanced Soldier Combat Unit members possesses the power of biological entity duplication."
Cameron squinted at his reflection in the transparency, which was scowling back at him in disbelief. He hadn't bothered to memorize all the alleged powers of his super-guests. They weren't in his command loop, after all.
"Name?"
"Cal Winters, sir."
"If he has the power of duplication" – Dan Mueller broke in – "why not just have him duplicate the suits? Or our Life Pods, for that matter?"
"He has limited energy reserves. I'm not even certain he can achieve this task."
Cameron released a long breath – a luxury that many others on the bridge lacked. "What do you think, Dan?"
"I'm somewhat concerned that the laws of the universe may be overturned by having two such unfathomably brilliant intellects sharing such proximity."
Mallory's appreciative cackle sounded through the speakers. Cameron closed his eyes for a moment, seeing his father smiling at him, hearing his words. These are the kinds of decisions you were bred to make, son. He must've also been bred to feel a painful uncertainty about his qualifications to make them.
"How do we decide which Dan goes outside?" he asked. "Assuming this actually works."
"May I suggest guessing a number between 1 and 10," said the Chief Engineer. "Seeing as how we don't have any straws handy."
"Pat," said Cameron, "select the winning number. And inform Cal Winters of the situation."
"Yes, Captain."
Cal was feeling woozy as he followed Pat's summons to the far side of the bridge. He'd learned in the training camp that he was approximately 7 times stronger overall than he had been – a trivial number compared to a few of the team's super-people, especially his supercharged daughter and granddaughter – but about average for the super-group and more than adequate to prevent him from ballooning into a corpse in a vacuum. Like the other "breathers," Cal's nanites were furiously striving to keep him oxygenated, but there was only so much they could do, so many resources they could extract, and the battle was slowly being lost.
Now he listened to the AI "PAT" explain its bizarre plan, founded on utilizing his dreaded super-ability, but with a draconian twist: one of the men would be condemned to die. He still had nightmares about the two Murray Templetons arguing about who would drive home. What was about to happen, assuming he could make it happen in his weakened state, promised to consign the Templetons to the Pepsi Lite of nightmares.
A very awkward moment when Chief Engineer Mueller was helped out of his Life Pod and into his spacesuit by two of the enhanced soldiers. He was nearly blacked out from the vacuum by the time they'd pressurized the suit. They waited anxiously as Dan's eyelids fluttered and he flicked boiling moisture off his tongue. But a few breaths seemed to stabilize him and he stood upright on his own power.
"Interesting," he said. "I always wanted to experience a vacuum and live to tell about it. Something to tell my grandchildren if I'd ever bothered to have children."
Pretty ballsy sense of humor for someone with a 50-50 chance of becoming cosmic toast, Cal thought. Dude might be full of himself, but he sure as hell had a pair.
Pat directed Cal to give the suited-up Chief Engineer the requisite touch or hug for replication. Cal had found that it didn't take much contact to duplicate even large objects, but in his current physical state he was taking no chances. He embraced Dan Mueller, to the degree he could wrap his arms around the suit. It took a little longer, but he felt the familiar "creation buzz" build and recede
Two Chief Engineers in spacesuits faced him and the other raptly staring crewmembers.
"Hello, Other Dan," said both of the Chief Engineers, extending their hands simultaneously. They both hesitated before grasping the other's hand. Mirror images, Cal thought. Something a tad disquieting about that. Living proof of determinism?
In quick succession, Pat asked the two men to pick a number between one and ten. They both picked 6. Pat randomly assigned the six guess to one of them. The other begrudgingly ventured 5. The correct number, Pat informed them, was 3. And just like that, one man would live and another would die. It made Cal – and he guessed from the expressions around him a lot of others – feel queasy.
The Muellers shook hands and wished each other luck. That wish was echoed by Captain Cameron and other crewmembers. Then one of the Chief Engineers trundled off toward the now non-functional decompression chamber and the hatch door while the lucky other busied himself inside with the elaborate calculations required to recalibrate the life support and other complimentary systems. Maybe it was the suits, Cal thought, but neither Mueller showed any emotional distress that he could see. It was all very brisk and businesslike. Perhaps the unlucky engineer took solace in knowing one of them would live on?
Captain Cameron lay in his Life Pod feeling guiltier by the moment. Objectively, he knew that preserving his and his immediate crewmembers' lives was a no-brainer under these circumstances. Subjectively, it seemed ridiculously random that one person should be permitted survival while another was marked for death. Added to that was the surreal creation of two Dan Muellers. If anyone was "inimitable," surely that would be Dan Mueller? And the coin-toss determining which of them lived or died. One of his good friends and much-esteemed crewmates was about to suffer a terrible death, but would anyone truly notice or mourn his passing?
To distract himself from such cheery reflections, Cameron asked Pat if it could see the alien craft.
"Yes, from a forward camera," Pat replied. "Since telemetry's offline, I can only guess, but it's position relative to us appears unchanged."
"Probably waiting for us to finish our repairs before blowing us into atoms," said Lieutenant Mallory.
Cameron faced another unpleasant question: How had the other starships fared? Pat's initial report indicated they were all under attack. Pat had been granted joint autonomic command, and in that capacity had directed the four USSC ships to fire a fusillade of SHE and Proteus missiles before entering subluminal space (superluminal space took too long). Perhaps his frie
nd Horace's Peacemaker or Martin Armstrong's John F. Kennedy had escaped any significant damage. But if so, they should've already been here offering assistance.
He could only hope they and the Ardent were doing as well as the Cheyenne's crew.
A NEARBY portion of the preserve's wall abruptly turned transparent, as Terry Mayes had programmed it in advance to do. That was the announcement that they'd reached their destination – the Earth's sun.
The sun filled most of the transparent wall: a muted, golden orb frothing and roiling with unspent energy. Just beyond the corona lay one larger red orb: the Luminate ship. In the distance, four blue orbs represented the USSC starships. The display had been programmed in advance by Terry in the waning moments of Jake Culler's stint as a Luminate. That was the extent of the pre-programming. The rest was up to them.
Dennis had recovered his teleportive ability, and together they'd constructed a new carrier: a tree trunk long enough to easily hold all the people. He couldn't quite lift it on his own, but a small telekinetic assist from Jamie made it a cinch. It was time to go back, but were the Cheyenne or the other starships in any shape to receive them? The display on the preserve wall only said they existed in some form, which Jamie chose to take positively. If they were still intact enough to register on this ship's telemetry, they probably hadn't suffered enough damage to kill her daughter or dad or the enhanced soldiers.
Or maybe the Luminate ship was holding its fire, showing restraint and mercy, which another attack might reverse?
"The Luminates haven't destroyed our ships, if I'm understanding that display right," said Tildie. "Are you sure you want to go back in there guns blazing?"
She was looking at Jamie, but Major Harrington replied.
"Since they could destroy all of them at any second," he said, "and they tried to kill all of us, I think we might want to take that option away from them."
"Have you guys thought of how they might react?" Tildie asked. "I mean, what will be ultimate fall-out of our screwed-up attack?"
"You're suggesting they'd declare war," said Dr. Kushner.
"They wouldn't go to war over one mistaken attack," said Jamie, adding another block of apprehension to her pyramid of fears. "Would they?"
"Who the hell knows what they'll do," said Jake. "The only thing we know is that taking them out's the only sure way we and our people out here are gonna stay alive."
"I agree," said Harrington.
"Okay," said Jamie. "I think we should return to the Cheyenne and see what the situation is. You can always teleport us back inside the Luminate ship, can't you, Dennis?"
"Yes. I believe I'm linked to it now."
"Fair enough." Kushner frowned as though it pained him to say that. "Let's go back to the Cheyenne and see what happened with our starships."
WHEN JAMIE and the others materialized in the Cheyenne, they found a crew busy completing repairs and enhanced unit members mostly stretched out on the floor nursing the worst hangover of their lives or standing around looking sick. And almost everyone gawked in disbelief at the fifteen-foot tree trunk that appeared in their midst.
"Good to see you all," Captain Cameron greeted them, with a dry look at the tree. "I take it the original teleportation carrier was lost."
"That's right," said Kushner. "We had to improvise. What happened here?"
"The Elemental ship reappeared and fired some nasty stuff at us. We were able to prevent catastrophic damage by engaging our space compression drive, and so were the other starships. A handful of crewmembers died."
His eyes shifted to Jake Culler, who had released a harsh laugh.
"You find something humorous in this?" Cameron asked.
"It's not an Elemental ship, Captain," said Jamie. "It's a Luminate ship."
A prolonged silence followed. Both the crew and the enhanced soldiers shuffled closer in around them.
"Ooops," said Lieutenant Mallory.
"You're certain about that?"
"Yes, Captain Cameron," said Jacob Kushner. "We communicated with them. By the way, the main body of their ship is filled with water. Turns out they're an aquatic species."
Cameron sank slowly down into the nearest chair, his mind reeling. "But when you realized they weren't Elementals why didn't you call off the attack and explain the mistake?"
"We did, later," said Jamie. "But when we first appeared they instantly opened fire on us. We just defended ourselves."
"After essentially invading their ship," Chief Medical Officer Keira Quinn spoke up. "In their eyes, they would surely have seen that as self-defense."
"But you say you communicated with them, explained the situation?"
"Yes, Captain," said Jamie. "But they apparently didn't accept our apologies..." She looked around, a new fear forming. "Where's my daughter?"
Cameron's downcast eyes and the sudden silence around them raised Jamie's anxiety instantly to red-alarm levels.
"Tell us, Captain." Dennis spoke in a hoarse rasp.
"All I can say, Jamie, is that she's missing." Cameron's voice was heavy with regret. "Pat was offline then. A couple of people say they spotted her near one of the many breaches with a large Afro-American man."
"Thomas." Jamie exchanged a look with Dennis, feeling some of the relief she saw in his face. "She was with Thomas."
"Apparently. I'm afraid that's all I know."
"She wasn't killed, baby," Cal stated, placing an arm on his daughter's shoulder. "Neither of them were. They went out into space on their own volition. I didn't see it, but I'm sure they left to take on the alien ship."
"They were two of the strongest of us," said Jake. "If the initial strike didn't kill anyone else, it sure as hell didn't kill them."
"That's a good point," said Cameron. "I don't know much about the specifics of your powers."
"You might not want to know," sniggered Horner, with a salacious grin aimed at his old Marine buddy, who made a growling noise in return.
"We need to leave now, Jamie," said Dennis. "She and Thomas must've attacked the ship. Maybe that's why the ship hasn't fired again?"
"I hope you're right." Captain Cameron wore a painful expression. "They sure blew everything apart we threw at them."
Jamie refused to indulge the new wave of fear those words introduced. Her daughter was alive. Her brilliant little brain would remember Jamie telling her about slowing down to bypass the ship's defense. And her husband was right – if they'd succeeded, that would explain why the Luminate ship was just sitting out there.
Kylee was okay. She had to be.
"Let's go," she said to Dennis.
"I'm coming, too," said Tildie.
"Count me in." Jake moved to her side.
"Me, too," said Horner, stretching his muscular arms. "I always enjoyed me some deep sea fishin'."
"These aren't fish, Greg." But Jamie smiled at him. "I won't turn down your help. Not with Kylee's life possibly at stake."
"Okay," said Jake, racking up his DAK rifle. "Let's squash some slugs."
"I understand your feelings, Jamie," said Captain Cameron, "but I'm asking you to consider the larger picture. If there's any way you can negotiate or avoid further hostilities, please take that road. For all our sakes."
"Of course, Captain." Unless they've done anything to my daughter.
They climbed onto the tree limb and in the space of a few breaths were inside the Luminate ship, cruising swiftly through a series of deserted chambers in N-Space. Jamie spotted flashing prismatic lights far ahead.
"Looks like the cops pulled someone over," said Jake.
They accelerated, soon entering a room and floating in what struck Jamie as the mother of all freak lightning storms – and she'd seen more than a few growing up in North Dakota and Minnesota. But here the "lightning" was every color imaginable, emanating from a maze of concentric circles on the floor. Many of the circles appeared damaged – smashed in or ripped to one side.
"Did you do this when you here before?" Jake asked.
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Jamie shook her head. "We were never in this room. It looks like a central control area, and..."
"And someone trashed it," Jake finished. "If they'd left a note, I wonder if it would say Kylee Was Here?"
"That's kind of what I'm thinking." Jamie resisted a rush of hope. "The damage doesn't look natural –"
The rest of her sentence stayed on her tongue as they were engulfed in hissing light. While the others covered their eyes and threw up their arms protectively, Jamie merely winced. They were in N-Space. Nothing in the outer world could hurt them. But she knew even as those thoughts formed that they were standing in the midst of a massive explosion. The maelstrom inside the chamber had just reached its fiery conclusion.
"The ship just exploded," Jamie said in quiet, grim tones. "Don't worry. It can't touch us here."
"But Kylee..." Dennis's voice broke. "If she..."
"I don't think she and Thomas are still here, if they're the ones that damaged the control area. They would've left when the electrical storm started."
"Ah..." Dennis clasped her right arm in gratitude or for support. "That makes sense."
The light faded and they were drifting before the swollen, baleful eye of the Sun.
"What about the preserve section?" Tildie asked.
Jamie nodded to Dennis. In a moment they were back inside the huge Earth wildlife refuge. Everything appeared unchanged.
"Dennis, let's take it slow going back to the ship, try to follow the line of flight Kylee and Thomas might take."
"We could leave N-Space and then use our EAS tablets," Tildie suggested. "I don't know how far they can scan, but if they're not too far away we might be able to detect them. And we can all survive a few minutes in space, right?"
"Maybe not so close to the sun," said Jamie. "It's actually hotter out here than it is on the surface." She turned to Dennis. "Just take us back slowly enough so we could have a chance of seeing them or their..."
The last word clogged in her throat. Dennis dipped his head, jaw clamped tight.
Back in space, Jamie performed a continuous sweep from the area between them and the sun outward to deep space on their way back to the Cheyenne. Debris from the Luminate ship milled around them – sometimes larger pieces traveling together in packs but more often misty clouds of fine particles – reflecting sunlight in muted or fiery shades. Perhaps some of them actually were on fire. Jamie calculated the odds of spotting a human figure in the debris field as next to none. It was maddening.
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