by Mark Wandrey
“Where are the rest of the marines?” Ramirez asked as he examined Rick.
“Aside from four in Raptor Squad, we’re it,” Rick said. Ramirez stopped and looked up at him, shock and pain registering in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he removed a portable X-ray scanner from the backpack.
“We’re mercs,” Rick said; “it happens.” The doctor gave him a pained expression which Rick didn’t understand. He used the scanner on Rick’s arm for several minutes, downloading the data into one of the most complicated slates Rick had ever seen. It had two-fold out screens and a Tri-V projector. He watched as the wound was rebuilt in high-resolution detail on the Tri-V. For once, he was glad he was without emotion; otherwise, it would have been tremendously depressing. The severed bones and tissues were detailed in crystal-clear images.
“Okay young man,” the doctor said; “we have three options.”
“Let me have them,” Rick said.
“One, we stabilize the wound. I use a tailored nanite to clean and close, but that’s it. The pain remaining will be minimal, and you’ll be well-positioned for a cloned rebuild when we get to a suitable facility on Home. Two, I use some similarly-tailored nanites to begin prepping the wound for a temporary cybernetic replacement. I can have you up and going in a few hours with that, but the limb is extremely limited in ability. You’ll not really be able to pilot a CASPer with it, and it won’t be comfortable.”
“And the third option?”
“I use nanites to integrate metallic monocarbon into your bones, debride the wound, blend your skin and muscles with synthetic, and give you a permanent cybernetic replacement.”
“Why would it be permanent?” Rick asked.
“Well, strictly speaking it isn’t. But the bone and muscle rework isn’t compatible with a cloned replacement arm, so we’d need to cut above the modifications before attaching the new one.” The doctor reached out and touched Rick’s arm, just below the shoulder joint. “Right about here.”
“What are the advantages to each?” The doctor ticked them off on his fingers, one at a time.
“Option one, you get your actual arm back, almost perfect, but it’ll be at least 90 days once the genetic material is sequenced for cloning. It’s also pricey, so likely the Hussars are going to have to charge back some of that to you. With the partial cybernetic, you’d be back in operation almost right away, but at a considerably reduced capacity. At least you’ll have two hands. And the third option, a new arm, is more powerful than a Human limb, is nearly bullet proof, and feels just like the real thing to you.”
“Can you put a laser in it, or something?” The doctor shook his head and chuckled. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. How long for option three?”
“The treatment for your arm, about four hours. I can print the cybernetic in about the same time. Say two hours to install it, less if Nemo helps. So, five hours, tops.” There was a sudden shudder from the hull and a great groaning sound reverberated the length of Pegasus.
“Better make it option three,” Rick said.
“Are you sure, son?” Rick simply nodded. “Okay.” He touched a series of controls on his slate.
“Now what?” Rick asked.
“The arm is printing right now, and I set the computer to tailor the nanites.”
“I thought most of the systems were shut down,” Rick said.
“Wonders of modern Hussars’ technology. We have a micro-fusion reactor in medical. Similar design to the ones used in the drones. It’s linked to a miniature manufactory, all designed by Taiki Sato.”
“Smart man,” Rick remarked.
“The smartest,” Ramirez agreed. He fished out a syringe from his bag and mixed several one-shot ampules of drugs into it, then took Rick’s intact arm. “These are some preliminary enzymes to get things going. Eat a half-sized meal, drink at least a liter of liquids, no alcohol, and meet me around the corner in medical no less than an hour from now.”
Across the squad bay, Nemo gave Oort a monstrous injection and spoke closely to the Tortantula’s hearing organs. It was too quiet for Rick to hear what was said. After a moment, Oort blinked her eyes, her race’s equivalent of a nod of acknowledgment. Ramirez floated over and spoke with Nemo. He gestured back at Rick, and Nemo regarded the marine with his big blue eyes. After a second, the alien medic gave Rick an almost Human appearing thumbs-up, made all the more amazing because the race only had tentacles.
“One hour,” Dr. Ramirez reminded him, and he was off to see other patients.
* * *
“What was that shudder?” Alexis asked. With her in her wardroom were Paka, Chug, Glick, Edwards, Hoot, and Flipper, with Guylan and Long joining via intercom from engineering. It was the elSha DCC that answered a second later.
“That was gravity Deck 4,” he explained, “it’s gone.”
“So much for pushups,” Edwards said darkly. Despite his somewhat overweight appearance, the dwarf spent hours working out in gravity.
“Damage from the battle,” Long added, working with Guylan in engineering. “The hull was under stress, and it just broke off.”
“I think we can agree that a lost gravity deck is the least of our worries,” Alexis said, and those present nodded. “First, Paka, give me the casualty count.” The Veetanho consulted her slate and spoke.
“Among the crew, 29 are dead or presumed dead, six injured. Among the marines, 12 dead, two injured. The injured will be back up in about 24 hours, according to Dr. Ramirez.” A somber silence took over for several moments. It was the costliest cruise, in terms of lives lost, in any of their memories. “Do you want the names now?”
“Send them to my slate,” Alexis ordered, “I’m sorry to say we simply don’t have time to grieve.” She glanced at the display on her desk which read 167:58:01, the amount of time left in their current hyperspace trip. “Engineer Long, please give me the details.”
“Certainly, Captain,” he said from the rear of the ship. “As I guessed, recorded data shows we were hit the instant we transitioned to hyperspace. I estimate a yield between one and two terawatts, and the weapon was definitely a particle accelerator.”
“One of the battlecruisers,” Edwards offered.
“They were several light seconds away,” Alexis pointed out, “how did they manage that?” Glick explained.
“It was either a lucky shot, or the seeker drones gave accurate, ideal targeting data.” The Bakulu scratched an eyestalk with a pseudopod. “I’m leaning toward the latter.”
“It was the extreme edge of their range,” Edwards nodded. “Both the HecSha and the Maki employ five-terawatt particle accelerator cannons on their bows. Fired from that range, the attenuation table suggests a yield of no more than two terawatts remaining. We’re lucky it was at extreme range.”
“It would have punched halfway through the ship,” Alexis said under her breath. Both Edwards and Glick nodded in agreement.
“It was also luck it hit one of the torches,” Long said. “The engine chamber chewed up a lot of energy.”
“What did it do to us?” she asked the engineer.
“After the beam blew through the torch, it went through the side of Reactor Three. We had a partial containment loss, which caused considerable secondary damage, and a lot of casualties. If not for the assistant who vented the plasma, we’d probably have lost Reactor Two as well.”
“Put a commendation in that crewman’s file,” Alexis said, “and see that he gets double combat benefits.” Paka nodded and made a note. “Please continue, Long.”
“About eight percent of Reactor One was either blown to shit outright, or damaged when the buffers ran away and tore themselves loose from their housings. We salvaged nine buffers and a lot of the control circuits. That’s better than Reactor Three.”
“The big question is,” Alexis started, “can you get Reactor One online before Two fails? I assume you still predict it will fail?”
“Yes,” he said, “with a five percent p
robability per hour, increasing two percent cumulative.”
“Forty-eight hours,” Alexis said after running the math, “that’s all we have.”
“Yes, Captain. But probably less, if you play the odds. As for getting another reactor back in operation? Unlikely.”
“And there’s no chance of fixing any of those buffers on Reactor Two with the salvaged units?”
“No,” he said. “It’s the same problem we had back in Karma. The damaged and defective ones are inaccessible. Three are where we could reach them, but we’d have to shut the reactor down and open up the entire engineering section to get at the rest. A hot swap of a buffer is nearly impossible. The magnetic field is strong enough to suck the hemoglobin from your blood.” He was silent for a moment. “No, Captain, in about 40 hours, we’ll lose the last reactor.”
“
“What?” Alexis was so stunned, she accidentally spoke out loud.
“I’m sorry, Captain?” Paka asked. Alexis held up a hand to silence her. Instantly the XO recognized her boss’ state. Several of the other senior staff looked from their captain to the XO. Paka mouthed the word Ghost, and the others nodded their heads.
“”
“I heard you, I just don’t understand. Should we just give up and die?”
“
“And I can’t just give up.” Her eyes refocused and she addressed her engineer. “Long, I know you said it isn’t possible, but we have forty hours. Do everything you can to make Reactor One functional again.” She turned to Guylan. “Conserve every ounce of power we can so the reactor has as little load as possible.” The elSha DCC nodded. “All right, everyone, let’s get to work.”
* * *
Engineering became a beehive of activity as every hand available rushed to help. Long quickly found himself with more people than he could use and started turning others away. The marines sent two of their available micro-fusion power plants to other areas of the ship to power non-vital, but still important, systems. Oxygen candles were pulled from emergency lockers and used to keep the atmosphere breathable. Entire decks were sealed. They managed to wring another two megawatts of power from non-essential systems.
Although the failure clock stalked them like a relentless predator, Long began to think it might be possible to salvage the reaction vessel from Reactor One by overlapping parts with what remained of Reactor Three. It was far from perfect, but would probably hold long enough. The containment buffers were robust and could be turned up to hold the fusion reaction closer to the chamber center.
Alexis arrived to do what all captains have done throughout history—to see to the fate of her vessel in person. She was smart enough to stay out of the way, but she had to know. She had to see it with her own eyes. She’d never seen so many of her crew working on one project. There were even three CASPer-suited marines helping move the salvaged buffers into place to construct the improvised emergency reactor. She was also there when it all came crashing down.
“We’re done,” Long told her, floating over, “we can’t do it.”
“Why, what happened?”
“F11,” he explained. “The secondary tank is empty. One of the plasma fires took out the control circuity and breached the tank. Odorless and tasteless. The chamber probably has a few hundred gallons floating around in the atmospheric processors. We could get some back out, if we had a week.”
“So even if you get the improvised reactor built, you can’t make it run.”
“Essentially, yes,” he agreed. “And I expect Reactor Two to fail within about 40 minutes at the latest. There’s nothing more I can do.”
“I understand,” Alexis said, and turned to go.
“Captain, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You gave it your best, and then some. Thanks for trying.”
Alexis returned to the CIC and floated across the nerve center of the doomed warship. The numbers floated above the main Tri-V display, 150:22:11. A countdown that would never reach zero.
She went through the door into her wardroom and stopped by the desk. Pegasus had been her home for nearly 40 years. She’d spent more time on the warship than anywhere else. She’d been commander of the Winged Hussars for 12 years with Pegasus as her command ship, a company tradition going back to the Alpha Contracts. She had a suite back on Home, and she seldom saw it. This ship was more than her home; it was her heart.
Alexis slid in behind her desk, pulling herself down into the chair with long-practiced ease. She glanced at the watch she wore, a gift from her mother when she’d graduated from the Hussars’ flight academy. Ten minutes had passed since she left engineering. Twenty-eight minutes left. She stared at the ancient wooden desk for a long moment, then triggered the ship-wide channel with her pinplants.
“Attention all hands,” she said, her voice echoing throughout the ship; “this is your captain speaking.” She took another breath and composed her thoughts before continuing. “As I’m sure you are all aware, Pegasus was severely damaged in the battle in Grkata as we attempted to rescue our comrades, our family. The worst damage was caused by a weapons impact just before we transitioned into hyperspace. After sustaining damage so many times on this cruise and always managing to keep going, we’ve finally come up short.
“Despite the valiant efforts of our damage control teams, their leader Guylan, and our chief engineer Long, we’ve been unable to repair the only remaining fusion reactor. In 27 minutes, give or take, the hyperdrive will fail.
“I take personal responsibility for the chain of events that brings us here, and hope you draw some consolation knowing we saved thousands with our sacrifice. I hope you can find some peace in the minutes that remain. It’s been an honor to serve with each and everyone one of you.” She turned off the intercom and sighed. Then she did something she hadn’t done in 12 years; she cried. Alone with her failure, she quietly sobbed in despair. “I’ve failed you all,” she moaned. In freefall, tears don’t fall, they just build up like puddles over your eyes. She wiped hers away with the sleeve of her uniform tunic.
After floating in her seat for a few minutes, she activated the special channel on her pinlink.
“Are you there?”
“
“You are remarkably unconcerned, considering you’ll die with us.”
“” Alexis didn’t know what to say to that. “
“What are you going to do?” An alarm blared. Alexis launched herself at the door to the CIC. “Status?” she ordered.
“Hyperdrive just initiated a shutdown,” Chug said. Alexis drifted toward her command chair. “Ten seconds to failure!”
“What are you doing?” she asked over the pinlinks. There was no response.
“Five seconds,” Chug said. The Tri-V showed the flashing emergency status of the hyperdrive. ‘Danger – Imminent failure!’
“Damn you!” Alexis yelled over the links. “Why?” Everyone in the CIC looked around in that moment of panic before disaster struck.
“
* * * * *
Part III
I never really bought their line of bullshit. The Cartography Guild makes a lot of pretty excuses about how hyperspace is too unpredictable and intrudes on too many levels of quantum physics. I say, “Horse shit.” Hyperspace travel has been in use in our galaxy for at least a hundred thousand years, according to the GalNet. And records in the Science Guild’s archives back this up. There are no records, none, mind you, of a ship ever setting course for one star system, and arriving at another. So, we’re faced with an obvious problem. If those little black boxes that control the hyperspace generators are so damned polished they never make a mistake, how come no one has ever figured o
ut how to arrive someplace other than the predesignated emergence point around a star? Or have they, and that secret is carefully kept by certain people? Don’t rock the boat, our world government says. Well, I say some boats need rocking.
Excerpt from “In Our Own Time – Dawning of the Horsemen”
by Jimmy Cartwright, Sr.
* * * * *
Chapter 38
EMS Pegasus
Location Unknown
When the hyperdrive system shut down on Pegasus, the transition was like nothing any of the crew had ever experienced before. To most, it felt like they were ripped from their bodies and cast violently down a screaming whirlpool of fireworks that ended in a meat grinder. That lasted for an endless second, then it was over, and they were themselves again.
Status boards flashed messages, the big Tri-V flickered and came back on at the same time as the life support fans. The CIC was filled with the sounds of rapid breathing, coughs, and moans of pain, because everyone hurt like they’d just been beaten senseless.
“Is everyone still with us?” Alexis asked her command crew. Did her voice sound…funny? One at a time they all answered in the affirmative. They were still alive, and the ship was still intact. “Chug, where are we?”
“Checking,” the Bakulu replied, his eyes looking in three directions at once.
“Sensors are not responding,” Flipper said. “Both radar and lidar systems have failed diagnostics. Zero returns.” The sensor tech flipped through instruments. “EM sensors show nothing. Magnetometer has nothing. No hard radiation readings, not even the usual backscatter from our drives. Visual cameras are giving an error message. Normally, in hyperspace, we just see white, same as a direct view.”
Alexis let go of her chair and pushed off toward her wardroom. To her complete surprise, she only made it halfway there. In just a few feet, she quickly slowed to a stop. It was as if the air was as thick as water!
