I looked at her to see if she was serious, angry at her blind stupidity. “Leave the bridge at once, Doctor. That’s an order!”
“Aye aye, sir.” She saluted and left, unfazed by my anger. She thought well of me, perhaps, like the foolish seamen in the Hope Nation bar. But I knew better. I had Philip Tyre and Ardwell Crossburn to add to my long list of failures.
Days later, Lieutenant Chantir told me Philip had been sent to him again. Lars was obviously unhappy.
“I don’t need daily reports, Lieutenant. Just do your duty.”
“I will, sir. It’s not a pleasurable one.”
“Even with Mr. Tyre?”
“Even with him, whether he earned it or not.”
“It’s the first lieutenant’s job, Mr. Chantir.” I brightened. “However, if your arm bothers you I will excuse you for medical reasons.”
He considered it. “My arm is troubling me somewhat, Captain. Not enough to see the Doctor, but it’s noticeable.”
“Very well.” I summoned Alexi. “Mr. Tamarov, the first lieutenant has a sore arm. Move the barrel to your cabin. That duty is yours until further notice.” Ruefully, Mr. Chantir shook his head. Alexi, expressionless, saluted and left.
I went to the launch berth every day at random hours. I always found Lieutenant Crossburn at work.
I shared a watch with Philip Tyre. He walked carefully onto the bridge and eased himself into his chair. “Good morning, sir.” His tone was meek, his eyes riveted on his console.
“Good morning. I’d like you to run docking drill today, Mr. Tyre.”
“Aye aye, sir.” I called up the exercise and he began his calculations. Halfway through, he stopped and looked up. “It isn’t fair, sir.”
“What isn’t?”
“What he’s doing to me. I can’t stand it. Please.”
“What are you talking about, Mr. Tyre?”
“Mr. Tamarov. He’s after me all the time!”
“Are you complaining about your superior, Philip?”
He didn’t have the sense to deny it. “Not exactly complaining, sir. I’m just telling you.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Tyre. That won’t do. My compliments to Mr. Tamarov. Please tell him I’m annoyed with your conduct. Right now.”
“I’ve just been there,” he wailed. “He’ll cane me again! Please, sir. Please!”
I raised my voice a notch. “And six demerits for disobedience, Mr. Tyre. Another word and it’s six more.” He fled the bridge to meet his fate. Never again did I hear a word of complaint from Philip. On the few occasions that I saw him he appeared miserable. It bothered me not at all.
At last it was time for our nav check, before a final jump to Hope Nation. “Bridge to engine room, prepare to Defuse.”
“Prepare to Defuse, aye aye, sir.”
I waited.
“Engine room ready for Defuse, sir. Control passed to bridge.” The Chief’s familiar voice came steady over the caller.
“Passed to bridge, aye aye.” I set my finger at the top of the drive screen while Derek watched. “Let’s see where we are.” I traced a line from “Full” to “Off”.
“Confirm clear of encroachments, Derek.” A normal check, hardly necessary but part of the routine. He checked his instruments.
“Hey! An encroachment, sir, course two hundred ten, distance fifty-two thousand kilometers!”
I gaped. “What?”
“Encroachment, sir. There’s something out there.”
“It can’t be. We’re interstellar.” I puzzled. “A stray asteroid, perhaps. How big is it?”
“I read two hundred sixteen meters, sir.” Darla.
“Small for a planetoid. What’s it made of?”
“Metal,” Darla said. “Too far away to see, but it’s radiating on the metallic bands.”
I thumbed the caller. “Mr. Haynes to the bridge. And Mr. Chantir.” No, Lars Chantir had a fever and was in sickbay. “Belay that summons, Mr. Chantir. Mr. Holser to the bridge.”
Vax came bounding in. He stopped to take in the situation. A few moments later Mr. Haynes arrived, breathing hard. The Pilot slipped into his customary seat. “Morning, sir.” He glanced at the sensors. “Want to go take a look?”
“Good morning, Pilot. I think so.”
Vax nodded. “If we’re this close, we might as well check it out.” I hadn’t asked his opinion, but he didn’t seem to notice. “It’s probably just a hunk of ore skewing Darla’s calculations.”
“Button it, joey!” Darla flared. “I remember the last time you insulted me!”
“Cool it, Darla. He meant no harm. Pilot, put us on an intersecting course.”
“Aye aye, sir. Just a moment.” Pilot Haynes was carefully affable. I felt a twinge of guilt. He thumbed his caller. “Engine room, auxiliary power.”
“Auxiliary power on standby.”
“On standby, aye aye. All ahead one-half. Steer two ten, declination twenty degrees.”
“All ahead one-half, aye aye. Two ten at twenty degrees.”
After two hours, the Pilot at last began braking maneuvers.
I cleared my throat. “Mr. Holser, start calculating Fusion coordinates for our jump, please. No need to waste time.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Vax reluctantly tore his eyes from the simulscreen and tapped figures into his console.
We were closing fast. “Maximum magnification, Darla.”
“Whatever you say, boss.” The screen flickered.
The unmistakable outline of a ship.
“Holy God!” The Pilot was on his feet.
Vax looked up from his calculation and froze.
The Pilot whispered, “One of ours!”
I swallowed. Not again. All those people. “Focus on the disk, Darla.” Pointless; we were already at maximum magnification.
The image expanded slowly as we neared. Darla obediently narrowed her view to the ship’s disk.
A gash ran across all three levels, right down to the engine room, as if parts of the hull had melted. The entire disk was open to vacuum.
The name stood out against the gray metal of the hull.
“Telstar!” Vax whispered. “Gone, like Celestina. No lights, no power. No signals.”
There might somehow be survivors. “Pilot, bring us alongside. Mr. Holser, organize a boarding party. Three seamen. We’ll take the gig.”
“Aye aye, sir. Shall I go with them?”
“No.”
“Lieutenant Tamarov, then?”
“No. Me.” I saw Vax’s expression and added, “I need to know firsthand what happened.” For a brief moment I recalled Captain Von Walther, and the crowds of travelers who visited the memorial he’d left on Celestina. With shame I suppressed the comparison.
Vax was stubborn. “It could be dangerous, sir. Don’t leave the ship.”
“This time it’s in good hands. Mr. Chantir, Alexi, you. I’m going across; don’t argue.”
I’d left him no choice. “Aye aye, sir.”
I made it even clearer. “Lieutenant Holser, you will remain aboard under all circumstances.”
“Aye aye, sir.” His tone was glum.
I smiled. “Besides, I’ll be all right. I’ll carry a rad meter and stay away from jagged metal. Don’t be my nanny.” That produced a reluctant smile.
The Pilot carefully maneuvered us to within two hundred meters of U.N.S. Telstar. With gentle applications of the thrusters he brought us to rest relative to the stricken vessel.
“Vax, be prepared to Fuse as soon as I’m back. Derek, come help me with my suit.”
We went down to Level 2. I took my regular suit from its bin in the launch berth lock and began to struggle into it. Then I stopped; I might want to clamber around the outside of Telstar’s hull. “Get me a T-suit, Derek.”
A thrustersuit was cumbersome but had the advantage of greater mobility. In my own suit I could walk, step by magnetized step, across the surface of Telstar’s outer hull, but in a T-suit I could lift off from the hull and sk
im over for a better look. At Academy I hated regular suit drills but loved the T-suit instruction.
I stepped into the semirigid, alumalloy reinforced suit-frame. Derek handed me the helmet; I slipped it into the slots and gave it a half turn. Derek locked the stays into place; I double-checked them all. I had no intention of accidentally breathing vacuum.
With a grunt Derek lifted the heavy tank assembly and clipped it to the alumalloy supports on the back of my suit. We strapped the propellant tanks into place. My helmet’s sensor lights flashed green; I was ready to go. Derek’s hand fell on my arm and lingered. “Be careful, sir,” he said softly. “Please.”
I shook loose my arm. “Remember you’re a Naval officer, Mr. Carr.” He meant well, but a midshipman must know better than to touch his Captain, no matter how many vacations they’d taken together. Sometimes Derek had no sense of propriety.
The three sailors were suited and waiting. We cycled through the lock and clambered into the gig. “Open the hatch, Vax,” I said into my suit radio.
“Right, sir.” I jumped; his voice was loud in the speaker.
All seamen were given a modicum of training on small boats; I gestured to a sailor I knew had additional experience. “Go ahead, Mr. Howard. Take us across.”
A couple of squirts sent us gently out the hatch. We glided across the void. From Hibernia’s bridge, the distance to Telstar seemed small, but from the tiny gig it was immense. We neared the silent ship.
“Steer past the disk, Mr. Howard.” At negligible speed we drifted past the rent in the fabric of Telstar’s hull. The edges of the tear appeared to have melted and run. What could have generated so much heat?
“What’s the radiation reading, Mr. Brant?”
The sailor held the rad meter steady. “None, sir. Nothing at all.” Odd. If Telstar’s drive had blown, we’d find substantial emissions.
When the trouble arose, Telstar’s drive couldn’t have been ignited, or we’d never have found her in normal space. Telstar had Defused at the usual checkpoint, as we ourselves had, to plot position before proceeding past Hope Nation to Miningcamp. With a six percent variation for error, that meant she could have Defused anywhere within eight million miles of where we’d emerged. Pure luck that we’d stumbled upon her.
If Telstar’s drive was turned off, what could have vaporized her hull? I had no answer. Whatever it was, we had to know, lest the same happen to us or other vessels in the fleet. I remembered Darla’s glitch and shivered. “Mr. Howard, take us to within a meter of the hull. Mr. Brant, open the hatch and get another reading up close.”
A moment later Brant put down the rad meter. “Still nothing, sir. The hull isn’t hot.”
“It could have been hull stress, sir.”
I jumped. “Damn it, Vax, lower your voice before you give me a heart attack. And that’s rib stress fracture. We’ll see what we find inside.”
I had Mr. Brant transfer to Telstar’s hull. He planted a magnetic buoy from our gig at his feet, activated it, hooked our mooring line to it. Now, if one of us pushed against the boat as he stepped off, the gig couldn’t drift away and leave us stranded.
We climbed out onto Telstar’s hull. Her locks were sealed from within; the simplest way to board was to drop through the gaping hole into one of the cabins. The edges of the tear were rounded and smooth, minimizing the risk of ripping our tough-skinned suits.
“You first, Mr. Ulak. Take a light with you.” The seaman jumped down through the hole, into Telstar. “What do you see?”
“Just a mess.” He opened the cabin hatch, peered into the corridor. “Come on down, sir. We can walk around easy enough.”
“Be careful, sir.” Vax sounded anxious.
I climbed into the opening in the hull and jumped down.
I was in a passenger cabin.
Everything loose had been swept out in the decompression. A bed remained, bolted to the deck. A sheet drooped forlornly from one corner. I swallowed.
“Vax, we’re on Level 2. The corridors are dark, but we all have lights. Mr. Brant, explore Level 2. Mr. Howard, Mr. Ulak, go down to the engine room; see if you can figure out what caused the damage. Vax, it doesn’t look like any of the disk sections are sealed. I’ll go up to Level 1 and try to get onto the bridge.”
“Take one of the men with you, sir.”
“Don’t nag, Mother.”
I clambered along the debris-strewn corridor. Flotsam flung about by the decompression had settled everywhere, making the ship seem grossly untidy. I walked slowly, checking hatches as I went. Many were closed, but none were sealed from inside. I climbed the ladder to Level 1.
I passed the wardroom, then the lieutenants’ common room. The hatch was slightly ajar. I opened it, stuck my head in.
“Oh, Lord God!” My scream echoed in my suit. I flung out my arms, stumbled back in terror.
“Captain! What is it?” Vax was frantic.
I gagged, swallowing in a frantic effort to hold down my gorge. “Unh! God. I’m all right, Vax. A corpse. Somebody in a suit, with a smashed helmet. The head is damaged, like it was eaten away. Something must have penetrated the helmet.” It had been inches from my nose.
I breathed deeply over and again, in an effort to slow my pounding heart. The adrenaline had left me trembling. I sagged against the bulkhead, steadying myself. “Sorry.”
“Let me come across, sir!”
“Denied. Stay on the bridge. I’m all right; I just got a fright.” I headed for Telstar’s bridge. “I’m trying to figure out what happened here. Right now I’m about ninety degrees along the disk from the damage.” If I kept talking, I wouldn’t have to think about what I’d seen. “The cabin where I found the corpse had no hull damage. I guess something ricocheted down the corridor and hit him just as he opened the hatch. Okay, I’m at the bridge now.”
I slapped the hatch control, to no effect. “The bridge is sealed; I’ll never be able to get in without tools. I’ll check the remaining cabins past the corridor bend.” A figure moved in the dim standby light. “Mr. Ulak, is that you?” I hurried toward him. “What did you find belo—”
I froze.
“Captain?” Vax.
My mouth worked. No sound came.
“Sir, are you all right?”
I produced a small whimper, like a child in a nightmare. Urine trickled down my leg.
“Say what’s wrong!” Vax bellowed.
I whispered, “Ulak. Brant. Howard. Back to the gig, flank! Mr. Holser, sound General Quarters! Battle Stations!”
I tried to back away. My feet seemed glued to the deck. The figure in the corridor quivered. It wore a kind of translucent suit that sat legless on the deck, flowing from an irregular base to near my own height.
Globs of matter seemed to flow along the skin of the suit. A jagged patch on the suit, a meter above the deck, contracted and expanded again. Colors flowed.
I willed myself to step backward. “There’s something here! It’s alive and it’s not human.” Why did I whisper when nothing could hear through vacuum? I took another step. “Lord God ...” We ask thy mercy, in this our final hour.
“General Quarters! Man your Battle Stations!” Vax bellowed orders into the caller. “Mr. Carr, seal the bridge!”
The creature moved. I couldn’t see how. It ... flowed toward me. I took another step back, then another.
It moved again. It changed shape as it flowed, then regained height. It seemed subtly changed.
Suddenly I understood.
“Oh, Lord God, it isn’t in a suit! That’s its own skin; it can live in vacuum! Vax, it’s changing shapes!” A surge of adrenaline freed me to move. The creature darted away, heading the opposite direction along the corridor. It moved with breathtaking speed.
I turned and ran. “Ulak, Brant! Where are you?”
“Back at the gig, sir! Hurry!”
I stumbled down the ladder, the steps pulling at my magnetized feet.
“Howard reporting. I’m in the gig. Where is it
, sir?”
“I don’t know!” Panting, I pounded down the corridor. I risked a glance backward. Nothing.
“Oh, Jesus Lord! It’s coming out of the hull!” A shriek.
“Launch the gig!” I shouted. “Back to the ship! Don’t wait!”
Vax roared, “Belay that! Pick up the Captain first!”
“Go!” I gasped for breath, racing to the cabin I’d first entered. Wait. I skidded to a stop. If one of the beings was emerging from a tear in the hull, it must be in one of these cabins. I couldn’t get out the way I’d come.
“We’re clear of the hull! Captain, come on out, we’ll try to reach you!”
Vax. “Man the lasers! Seal all compartments!”
I keyed my caller. “Mr. Howard, back to the ship!” I raced to the ladder to Level 3. “I’ll come out below!”
“We’re thirty meters distant, sir! Where are you?”
“Engine room!” I swung my light wildly around the darkened compartment. Stars glinted through a breach in the hull. I clambered toward it, squeezed myself through. In a moment I stood on the hull, trying to spot the gig against the black of interstellar space.
There, about fifty meters aft.
“Here!” I waved my light.
“Right, sir.” Seaman Brant maneuvered the gig closer. “That ... thing is halfway out of the hull, behind you.” I spun around; an alien form quivered in a gap in Telstar’s hull, over one of the cabins. My skin crawled.
I remembered my jets, touched the nozzle control at my side. I lifted off. Clear of the infested ship, separated from whatever scampered in its corridors, I felt weak with relief. Still, I floated alone in space, with no protection but a suit. I hadn’t even thought to go into Telstar armed.
Hibernia shrank perceptibly. I shuddered. Vax was moving the ship clear to Fuse. To abandon us. Helpless, I calculated distances. My panic ebbed. He was only turning the ship to bring her lasers to bear. “Darla, record!” I shouted. “Full visuals!”
“I have been, sir.” Her voice was calm. “Ever since you took the gig.”
I keyed my thrusters, propelled myself toward the gig’s silhouette.
Someone moaned.
Midshipman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 1) Page 41
