“This is the only place I can set you and the sled down.” Mia explained. “You had better hurry.”
Kelsoe picked up her harness and slipped it over her shoulder. “Are you implying that we didn’t hurry the first time?”
Dashtra rolled her eyes and groaned as she slipped on her own harness. “Can we save this argument for later?” Kelsoe growled as the women began to pull.
“Don’t forget, if you are late this time there is no going back. The timers are set to give us exactly five minutes to escape if you take one hour for the entire trip.” Wheezing and panting, the women began to run.
The run across the alien landscape was a nightmare, but Kelsoe was beyond pain. It took her three tries to type in the simple programming code, but finally they were done. Glancing at her clock she was shocked to see that they had only fourteen minutes to return to the ship. She glanced up at Dashtra, who was slipping on her harness, with sick eyes. “Forget that.” She said as she glanced down to make sure the green light was glowing on the mine. “Just run.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Dashtra gasped as she staggered out of the door.
It was a small crevice, easy to overlook in the dim light, especially when you were on the verge of exhaustion. Kelsoe saw Dashtra stumble and fall, as they both had many times before. This time the larger woman didn’t get up, and as the younger woman approached she saw the sliver of bone, probably from the fibula, sticking out the leg of Dashtra’s EVA suit. The older woman was gasping in pain. “Go!” She wheezed. “I stepped in a crevice and broke my fool leg. If you wait you will be too late.”
Kelsoe grabbed the woman’s arms. “Think light thoughts.” She grunted as she began to pull. “All right you damned Abreeza Vector, HELP!!” She growled, focusing her thoughts inward as she spoke. Suddenly energy washed through her, and she was almost running backward, pulling Dashtra behind her. Then she was pulling the larger woman up the ramp as it dissolved back into the hull of the saucer. Air hissed into the airlock, as Kelsoe was ripping her helmet off her head with trembling hands. “Do we have enough time to get away?” She shouted to the air.
“I…I don’t know.” Mia answered in a subdued voice. “We only have seventy five seconds until detonation, and we are going as fast as we can.”
“Can we engage the jump drive?” Kelsoe asked desperately. Glancing down she noticed that Dashtra was already unconscious, which was probably a good thing.
“We are too deep in the planetary gravity well.” Mia answered slowly. “Detonation. I advise you put your helmet back on and hang on.”
Kelsoe slammed her helmet back on her head and took an instant to spray a sealant foam on Dashtra’s torn suit, right over the protruding bone. Still in the small airlock, Kelsoe clung protectively to her friend as the saucer flipped end for end, like a thrown coin, and with a sound like they had been struck by the hammer of the gods, everything went black.
~~~
She was still alive, for the moment. Opening her eyes, Kelsoe took a deep breath of her endlessly recycled suit air that stank of rubber and sweat, and never smelled anything as good. Red emergency lighting showed her that Dashtra, although still unconscious, was breathing without obvious difficulty. The bio-telltales on the wrist of the Marine EVA suit showed mostly green, with very few yellow readings, and no red. She made the woman as comfortable as she could, clipping her suit to a small restraint on the floor. She floated upright and noted idly that the artificial gravity was out as well as the normal lights. Status lights by the airlock door told her that there was breathable air in both airlock and the ship beyond. Kelsoe slowly removed her helmet and sniffed gingerly. Ozone and the unmistakable scent of burned electronics came immediately to her nose. She pushed open the airlock door, and the smell of burned circuits increased. Red emergency lights flickered throughout the ship. Stopping for a moment, she took a long sip of water from her suit reserves. It had been a very long day, and from the look of it would probably be much longer. She was on her feet and functioning, but for all she knew she had accumulated a lethal dose of radiation. She really did need the medical pod, along with Dashtra, but she didn’t have the time.
“I need a lot of things.” Kelsoe answered her own question with a grin. “First and foremost, I need to know what has happened to our ship.” She put her hand to a bulkhead, and instantly missed the small vibrations that indicated a living ship. “Can you locate G’Fleuf?” She waited. “Mia?” Silence. “Damn!” Moments later Kelsoe found the Drugud strapped down and unconscious in his small berth. He was still alive and that was all she needed to know.
Kelsoe sighed. “So, it’s up to me again.” She murmured to the silent ship. “This, I was trained for.”
Engineering, in the small saucer, was a single round room located in the exact middle of the ship. Checking the main power panel, Kelsoe frowned. “Even the backups let go.” She mused, flipping switches. A portion of the interior lights came back on, and she sighed with relief. “At least the batteries still work.” For four hours. She thought to herself. “I wonder if our sensors are still up.”
Sitting in the partially lit bridge a few minutes later, the view screen flickered back to life. Kelsoe stopped breathing as a long barracuda-like ship passed startling close to them. “Holy shit!” She whispered aloud. “A Fleet destroyer.” A second and then a third destroyer passed by without slowing. “Why don’t they see us, Mia?” Silence. The answer to her question slowly came to her, from one of her interminable classes in the education chair. The hull of the Wyvern is a special composite. Her internal voice said to herself. It is absolutely neutral to visual and scanner detection. Since our power sources are inoperative, one of those ships would have to physically run into us to find us. They are looking for survivors of the Vonuborg Armada, or Task Force Eight she realized with a shudder. As she watched a light cruiser slid past, barely a mile away. There was an intense beam of light in the distance, and a small burst of light as something exploded…and then another beam and another explosion. Her eyes widened as she realized that they were probably firing on Fleet lifeboat beacons. Her stomach lurched. And then grasped that Admiral Bacheva had probably launched empty lifeboats before the Task Force rabbited. Another lifeboat flashed into incandescent vapor in the distance.
Kelsoe glared at the screen. “Nice people.” She said sarcastically.
The Fleet warships finally pulled away and disappeared as they shifted into jump space. She stood and turned back to restarting the power systems.
In engineering Kelsoe had no problem restoring the backup power, but primary power took her a while longer, and required an EVA to repair a damaged section of hull. The preliminaries finally out of the way, back in engineering Kelsoe touched a single button. The ship vibrated for a moment before the general and station lights came back on, along with the reassuring hiss of the air handler. She pressed another button.
The speaker in engineering let out an undignified squawk, before a neutral monotone voice began to speak. “This is the ship’s AI.” It said. “How may I be of service?”
“Oh no!” Kelsoe whispered, and then aloud. “Status of AI personality matrix Mia?”
“The personality matrix is in data storage, but the interface has been damaged.”
Kelsoe began to shed her EVA suit. “Do you know what circuits have been damaged?”
“Sections rho, sigma and tau are damaged.”
Kelsoe kicked her suit into a corner and picked up her tool bag. “Display damaged sections and their location on the monitor.”
“I’m sorry, the monitors in engineering are currently inoperative.”
Kelsoe grumbled. “What is operational?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.” The neuter voice replied.
Kelsoe chewed her lip. “Can you access my corneal HUD and display the data there?”
“Affirmative.” Her corneal HUD lit in dim green, showing the block diagrams of the circuits as she turned her head. A brightly lit section of the dia
gram showed her where the fault lay, and she smiled, opening her bag and taking out a small tool.
“Oh my!” Mia’s voice said out of the air some time later. “That was unpleasant.”
Kelsoe slumped in an empty seat. “Nice to have you back, Mia.” The young woman confessed tiredly.
“Hmmmmmm.” The AI hummed to itself for a moment. “Before you head to the medical pod, please replace a damaged circuit in section kappa.” Kelsoe’s HUD flared to life again. “That will reactivate my nanite repair systems.” Kelsoe dragged herself to her feet, and changed the circuit with strangely shaking hands.
“Get to the medical pod NOW!” Mia demanded.
“But Dashtra…”
“I will take care of Dashtra.” Mia interrupted. “Go!”
Kelsoe set down her tool bag. “I’m going. Don’t get your tail in a twist.” The AI growled, right up to the point where Kelsoe reached up and shut the cover to the medical pod down over her.
Kelsoe pushed the cover up and out of the way, stretched and sat up. The wardroom was empty, and around her the ship hummed. Moving air that smelled faintly of pine trees touched her cheek, and she smiled—right up to the point where she noticed the other occupied medical pod. “How is Dashtra?” She asked the air.
“You friend is well on the road to recovery, as are you. I’m,” the voice paused, “glad you survived. My sensors and your own suit recorders indicate a lethal dose of radiation, but…there seems to be no permanent damage to either you or Leiutenant Varoshi.” Mai murmured in puzzlement.
Kelsoe found her voice trembling with emotion. “I’m glad that we all survived. How is Dashtra’s leg?”
“Although the wound was serious, the medical pod and her Vector were able to save it. We felt it was better for her to sleep for a few days. G’Fleuf is on the command deck.”
“The ship?”
“Out of danger, thanks to you, and heading for Charybdis at normal speed. We should arrive in three more days.”
“The refinery and the Vonuborg Armada?”
“Went pffft!” Mia murmured. “The resulting explosion was somewhat bigger than we envisioned—by a factor of three. Admiral Bacheva’s Task Force was lucky to escape at all, but escape they did.”
“Have you contacted them to let them know we are alive?”
It was Mia’s turn to sigh. “The section of the hull with our long range antenna was damaged, and will require an extended EVA for repair…after we land and preferably by someone else.” She added pointedly.
“Fine.” Stepping out of the medical pod Kelsoe stopped to look down on her naked body, and winced at the bruises, and how thin she had become. “I guess I need something to eat.” She admitted as she slipped on her clothes.
“You do, three times a day.” There was a snicker from the AI. “I’ve taken the liberty of cancelling your classes, for today.” Kelsoe groaned.
“It looks like a Fleet base.” Kelsoe murmured as they passed over the grounded warships sitting on the dusty surface of Charybdis. Fifty of the Fleet’s finest was a significant number in anyone’s books. The rest of the support ships, she knew, were hidden in the rings of the nearby planet. The huge Vonuborg transport was safely tucked into its canyon, and Kelsoe saw crews busy concealing it from prying eyes and sensors.
“It’s your Fleet base, Kelsoe.” Dashtra said from her bridge seat. A metal crutch leaned on the console beside her, and her face was still drawn from her ordeal, but the twinkle was back in her blue eyes.
“Mine.” Kelsoe whispered, in a tone of wonder.
Where would you like to land, Kelsoe?” Mia asked as the Wyvern hovered invisibly over the new Den.
Kelsoe grinned impishly, and Dashtra rolled her eyes. “Please put me through to the flagship.” Her grey eyes were sparkling at the thought of the confusion she was about to sow. “Battlecruiser Courageous, this is the Fleet Scout Wyvern. If you would please open your hangar door we will just tuck ourselves right in.”
END
Wrecker's Moon Page 21
