by S. H. Jucha
Heinrich had turned back toward the airlock, taking the tiny steps as he had done before, still guided by Z’s directions. He wasn’t halfway back to the airlock when his helmet display lit up with a red indicator.
The warning had the opposite effect on Heinrich. The thought of dying in space froze him in place, and he began hyperventilating.
Eric had never heard Z speak like this before. His words were compassionate, entreating the scared young man to save himself.
Z continued to coerce Heinrich toward the airlock up until the young man’s respiration rate spiked and his biometric readings failed. Young Heinrich was dead. Z went quiet. He wanted to reverse all the protocol changes Julien and Cordelia had induced him to make, entreating him to employ care and compassion when interfacing with humans, but he couldn’t. For the first time in his life, Z had begun to enjoy a taste of independence. He recalled Cordelia’s warning:
Heinrich remained rooted to the hull, bent slightly toward the station while Z drove the city-ship with the maneuvering jets. Heinrich would continue to stand like a small pole on the hull until Z activated the engines. Then the acceleration would dislodge his boots, and he would drift off into space.
I am sorry, Heinrich, Z thought. I will speak for you and honor your sacrifice.
-28-
Once the Unser Menschen was able to ignite its main engines, the huge craft began to gain speed. Under the Captain’s orders, Z followed the same course as the freighters and its sister ship, the Freedom, skirting Libre to gain velocity.
As Eric and the Captain congratulated one another, they heard the Admiral say,
Both Stroheim and Reinhold stopped their celebrating. The Captain regarded his Leader, who had hung his head, placing one hand to a furrowed brow.
Eric berated himself for failing to employ the new lessons he’d been accumulating. The thought occurred to him that it might take years for him to become as considerate as many of his new cousins.
* * *
Four down, four to go, thought Alex as he counted the ships that had been launched and the ones still docked. Alex checked his timetable. It was 9.3 hours. The liners would be undocking at 17 hours, and he would be warning the shuttle pilots at 14.5 hours.
Alex’s sudden laughter had two people smiling. Andrea knew her Admiral needed a break from the stress, and she was happy to provide a small one. Étienne, at Alex’s outburst, wore a smile on his face as well.
Alex’s head was in his hands. The crux of the problem was that only the Unser Menschen could carry the amount of Librans that remained planetside. As it was, the city-ship’s late launch had already endangered the lives of more than a hundred thousand people. Waiting another half-day to gather the last Libran might seal the city-ship’s fate. And that half-day estimate is providing we don’t lose another shuttle or two in the meantime, Alex thought.
Julien wished, for the briefest of moments, that he was human. He would lay a hand on his friend’s shoulder and tell him not to try to carry the burden of an entire world.
* * *
After the Unser Menschen’s launch, the shuttles had begun employing the station’s landing bay, which for the shuttle pilots was more convenient. Unfortunately for the disembarking passengers, the station’s landing bay was three levels up and on the opposite side of the station from where the liners were docked. Liner crews managed the bay’s operation, clearing the passengers, while some of the crew led them to the docked liners.
When Alex arrived in the bay, his crew following behind him, he found the Bergfalk personnel carefully dividing the passengers into three groups before leading each group off, one after another. His anger threatened to boil over.
Being familiar with the clenched fists of his Admiral, Étienne sent,
The comment caught Alex off guard and he couldn’t help but choke out a strangled laugh. He placed a hand on his protector’s shoulder in appreciation. Alex let the liner crew lead off their three groups of passengers. Once they cleared the bay, Alex announced, “New plan, everyone, so listen up. We move the passengers off the shuttle as quick as possible in one long line into the corridor and onto the liners. Drop the first third at the first gangway, without breaking up a family, and proceed onto the next gangway. Do this until the Rêveur docks, and then my ship will take a share.”
* * *
Julien settled the Rêveur at the Unser Menschen’s recently vacated dock. Crew members on board the station extended the gangway with its nanites collar to seal against the hull, and as soon as the gangway was pressurized, the Rêveur’s airlock hatch was opened, and the crew, led by Renée, came flooding into the station.
Renée’s group met their fellow crew members leading passengers toward them, and she signaled her people to manage the boarding of the Librans, freeing the other crew to return to the landing bay. She followed them, and it took her a third of an hour to reach the shuttle bay via the station’s corridors and lifts. Renée found Alex directing the unloading of passengers and assigning the split between the liners, his implant apps accurately managing the counts. It didn’t cross her mind that they were in public as she walked up to Alex and threw herself into his arms, planting a kiss designed to stun and please at the same time.
Bergfalk personnel were surprised by the display of public intimacy, but the Rêveur crew smiled and grinned. As for the Independents streaming from the Outward Bound … well, as far as they were concerned, the Admiral could have anything he wanted.
you,> Renée sent as Alex lowered her back to the deck.
Renée tamped down her first response, which had been anger. She wanted to drag Alex back with her. As that was not feasible, she thought to plead with him to return with her, but she had decided long ago that she wasn’t going to be that kind of partner. Instead she kissed him on the cheek, and the sweet smile she gave him was in strong contrast to her words.
Alex smiled after Renée, who walked away with a different stride from her usual elegant glide. A rolling gait rocked her slender hips from side to side. The motion had Alex focused on her backside until she disappeared around the corner. When he turned a rather surprised expression toward his escort, Alex found Étienne had been caught staring as well. The two men shared a companionable chuckle over their astonishment and went back to work.
Taking an opportunity to get an update, Alex sent,
To Alex, it seemed everyone was working overtime to keep his mind off the approaching deadline and the people who would be left on Libre.
* * *
When Alex’s chronometer application chimed the 2.5-hour warning, he connected with Julien for the status of the flotilla’s shuttles. Two shuttles had just lifted off with full passenger loads. The third shuttle was en route to the planet, and the Outward Bound was approaching the station, a half-hour out. Alex ran the numbers with Julien, and the two of them choreographed the liner and shuttle exits.
Alex contacted the liner Captains and the two pilots who had just lifted from the planet.
When Hauser and Reinhold confirmed their orders, Alex dropped them off the comm along with the pilots, keeping Captain Azasdau and adding the third shuttle pilot, ex-Captain Lucia Bellardo, long a resident of Libre.
Lucia sat with her hand tightly gripping the control stick as she guided her shuttle planetside. She could feel the eyes of her copilot beseeching her to listen to the Admiral. The man’s partner and two children were aboard the Freedom. Lucia and her copilot had been shutting down the controller’s warning signals one by one for the last three days. At any moment, she had expected to become another fiery ball in the sky but was determined not to quit. But the Admiral’s entreaties brought her back to her senses. She looked at the pleading face of her copilot and felt the anger drain out of her, replaced by a great sadness.
Asu sent her.
Alex sensed just the slightest lift of Lucia’s heart in response to Asu’s sentiment. Two good Captains to know, he thought.
It took Julien several moments to scan the station and connect crew and passengers in a massive conference comm.
A half-hour later, the station bay’s warning sounded for the arrival of the Outward Bound. The shuttle landed, cleared the catch-lock, and the grav-lifts hauled the ship into the bay. The shuttle door opened, and Edouard, uncharacteristically, was the first off, bounding down the gangway, which was still in the process of extending to the deck. He raced up to Alex and delivered a crisp salute, “Admiral, permission to make one more run.”
Alex had an idea what was coming when he saw Edouard racing toward him, but before he could reply, Edouard surged on.
“Admiral, the other shuttles have to land aboard the liners now. They haven’t our power or our range, and they have limited air. The Outward Bound has none of those weaknesses. We can get another load and follow you. We have air for almost four days and can easily achieve the velocity to catch the Unser Menschen where we know you’ll be waiting. I’ve confirmed all of this with Julien.”
In response, Alex linked Edouard with his crew. Addressing Miko, Lyle, Zeke, and Pia, he said,
Alex may have been standing still, but his muscles were tensed. The inability to do something physically to help was frustrating. Edouard waited in front of him with an expectant look on his face. Alex was about to deny his request when Pia reached out to him again.
The tenseness drained from Alex, and he looked at Edouard, whos
e expression had turned from expectant to pleading. “Permission granted, Captain. But you better make rendezvous or you and I will have an issue. Do you hear me, Captain?”
A splendid smile broke across Edouard’s face as he saluted and raced back to his ship.
Edouard was already activating the grav-lifts to reload the shuttle into the bay’s catch-lock even as the gangway ramp was retracting, and the last two passengers were snatched off the end of the ramp by two hefty New Terran techs. So much for Méridien safety protocols, Alex thought.
Passengers, crew, and Admiral cleared the bay and headed for their ships.
-29-
The Outward Bound touched down on Gratuito’s terminal runway for the last time. In the field, 2,443 Independents sat patiently waiting to board the next shuttle. They were the eldest of Libre’s population; the youngest was 159 years old.
The techs hurried to top off the shuttle’s reaction mass. They would need every kilo to catch the Unser Menschen. Despite the fact that it was a one-of-a-kind ship, retrofitted for Julien’s friend, it was still only a shuttle.
Once the gangway ramp was deployed, Edouard and Pia stood in the hatch, helping the passengers to board. Their count reached 228, and they eyed one another. It was their agreed-upon limit. Edouard signaled Fiona, who stood watching from the top of the berm.
