Outward Bound

by Juanita Coulson

  That was debatable. But Dr. Ives was tops in emergency space medicine. In her judgment, there was no alternative.

  "Okay," Brenna said, her resolve becoming durasteel. "We'll get them there."

  The pilots conferred, busier than they had ever been. Yuri and Hector, like Tumaini, had the benefit of Space Fleet backgrounds. They went on "war footing," as if the Chase ships were under attack. In a sense, they were—by impending death for the three Prototype pilots. Brenna and Shoje were civilians, but moved in step with their comrades.

  Vectors, closing. The emergency medical craft was piloted by one of the older team members. But she had trained with Kevin McKelvey and Olmsted and knew her stuff. The flight paths lined up delicately. Sleds shuttled back and forth between the emergency vehicle and Chase One, transferring the med staffers. FTL Station was falling farther behind them every second. Reserve fuel packages were transferred from the emergency vehicle to Chase One and Two as well, setting them up for the long ride to Mars. As soon as the transfers were completed, the emergency craft headed home for FTL Station. Chase One and Two plotted fresh vectors, two silvery spaceships darting side by side through the void at hair-raising speed. There was no sensation of speed at all, though. Those were the laws of physics.

  The medics took over. Brenna's and Yuri's emergency training had carried their friends this far. But now they needed much more than any layman could give. The doctor and her aides were manipulating arcane tools by remote controls within the three Pods, using knives and tubes to bypass seared lips and throats and to force air directly into the injured lungs of the pilots. Brenna retreated toward the cockpit, feeling helpless. By the time she reached her seat and took up part of the piloting from Yuri, Dr. Ives was talking urgently over the com. "For God's sake, get us to the hospital. Time is critical. They're all losing ground fast."

  Flight Director George Li contacted them. "Brenna, we've sent word ahead. Wyoma Lee Foix Space Hospital will be on standby, waiting for you. You're cleared straight in..."

  A rogue signal, illegally boosted, overrode George's information. A new face supplanted Li's on Brenna's screen. "Hello? Are you receiving me out there? This is Dahl. We understand from the news pool feed that there's been some kind of problem on the superspeed test. How about some details, Saunder? Is McKelvey involved? Who's—"

  Brenna's drawn-taut patience snapped. "Goddammit, Charlie! Get off this frequency! This is a life-and-death emergency!"

  Charlie Dahl. TeleCom. Nakamura and Associates. That outfit had been a rival of the Saunders since Brenna's father was a young man. And they were still rivals, in a minor way, always nipping at Saunder Enterprises' heels and gloating whenever a Saunder flopped. This was a flop, and Charlie Dahl was like a shark in an Earth ocean, sniffing blood. Nakamura and Associates had their own faster-than-light project, a matter-antimatter experiment—still pretty much on the drawing boards but with a good theoretical chance of working out someday, if someone didn't beat them to it!

  Helen Ives was cutting in, repeating the same things Brenna had said and stressing her medical credentials, ordering the callous newshunter to butt out. She was less profane than Brenna and had less effect.

  "You can't tell me to get off the free air—or space!" Dahl's techs were using excessive power, blasting George Li's incoming messages. "Just because your family owns half the Solar System, you don't have any right to—"

  "If you interfere and cause a fatal delay, Charlie, I'll personally fly you over Nix Olympus and drop you into the crater!" Brenna thundered at him.

  "TeleCom will take this to Protectors of Earth, Saunder! There's freedom of the—"

  "You fornicating cretin! George, pull the plug on him." The flight director, unable to get through, had been listening. At that command, he used more power than TeleCom's, drawing on the greater resources of Saunder Enterprises. Dahl's voice choked off in mid-syllable, as if he had been strangled. For a few moments, there was blessed silence. Then more messages, legitimate ones, started pouring in. Updates from FTL Station and Breakthrough Unlimited's HQ on Mars were now closing the communications gap between the Chase ships and the planet. New programming was feeding the ships' computers. Fuel expenditures were predicted.

  There were outgoing messages, too. Dr. Ives was conferring with her colleagues aboard the Space Hospital, saving time they would need when they arrived.

  Brenna let Yuri handle the calls meant for their ship. She was still relishing Charlie Dahl's consternation with vicious triumph. That pompous TeleCom bastard! Well, he wouldn't cut in on them again. SE techs would take care of that. Dahl's broadcast center would need hours to repair the feedback it had dumped on him. That was one advantage—among many—of being Todd Saunder's daughter! Blitzing a rival's signal, especially this time, had felt damned good.

  Of course, there would be hell to pay later. No doubt Dahl's company would lodge a noisy legal protest with P.O.E. That might cost Saunder Enterprises at least a day's income in fines. Well worth it.

  If it came to a hearing, she would admit what she had done without shame. She had run roughshod over another corporation's com network franchise—another quasi-nation company, as Saunder Enterprises and ComLink were branches of the Saunder quasi-nation. That was a bit different from faking out gypsy newshunters, which was a shady but winked-at practice.

  But, dammit, this had been an emergency! Even Protectors of Earth's stodgy courts should understand that. And if not, Brenna didn't care. She cared about those three people in the Pod Carriers.

  She flicked on the screen showing the emergency equipment bay, not wanting to see what was going on but compelled to look in. Dr. Ives's team had peeled away part of the ruined helmets and spacesuits to let stera-gel and other medications get to the terrible burns. Rue's face and Morgan's were awful. Morgan's entire head was a bleeding lump, no discernible features, no eyebrows, no hair.

  He'll hate that. Women love to run their hands through his curly mane. I guess it'll be a while before he and Jutta sneak off to his estate for some lewd and lascivious pleasure. Or maybe he'd rather go back with Pauline. Or that dispatcher with Space Fleet, the one Morgan was asking Derek about at the gala. So many beautiful women! And he keeps them all coming back for more! Overgrown playboy! Morgan Saunder McKelvey, ideal of every would-be free and sexy, healthy human male...

  Suppressed tears hurt Brenna's eyes. She was holding reality off and pretending things were as they had been. Confronting reality meant reliving the earlier FTL ship's tragedy—and that was unbearable.

  Bio readouts flashed on one of the screens as Dr. Ives sent fresh data to Space Hospital. Life signs ominous, downturning. Tumaini barely holding his own. Morgan failing badly. Rue in the worst shape of all.

  Time was the enemy, standing between the mercy-run Chase ship and the hospital orbiting Mars. Brenna gobbled hyperendors and CV levelers. All the pilots were doing that by now. They had never expected to make this long a flight. Those special medications weren't supposed to be used for these purposes, but those handling the controls needed the boost.

  Breakthrough Unlimited's regular shuttles made the FTL Station-to-Mars run in seven hours if they were stripped and heedless of fuel consumption. Heading Sunward added a lot of velocity. The Chase ships were not only carrying light passenger loads, they were full-fueled, taking a direct ballistic course, and they had a much more powerful propulsion plant than the shuttles. They used the extra push. Gauge readings dropped. But the ETA was shortening steadily, too. Five hours and thirty-five minutes, and shrinking. Deceleration time was already on the boards. There was nothing much they could juggle there. Brenna considered the options, then fed reserve retro fuel into the programs and increased Chase One's speed a trifle more. She saw Yuri's expression and was grateful. No protests.

  No remarks about how she was gambling. All the other pilots were willing to gamble with her. They knew that if any problems surfaced along the way now, they would be in trouble, with no power to spare.

  Again th
at vid-drama schematic of the Solar System formed in Brenna's mind's eye. She saw their tiny ships arcing "down" through space. They weren't the Prototype, racing to shatter the light-speed barrier. But they were very fast, cutting corners, missiles aimed at Mars.

  The radically altered course and program kept them all busy. Brenna was glad of that. The hyperactivity couldn't cancel out her intense worry, but it forced her to fix her attention mostly on hardware. She filled her thoughts with update figures and revised schedules. This was what she had prepared for ever since falling in love with space travel. Sudden catastrophe was a part of that career, a threat you could never quite outrun. No pilot allowed it to take over his or her emotions, though, not for long. That alone could be deadly.

  Grimly, Brenna checked the screens, watched the chronometer readings. Elapsed time. ETA. Four hours...

  Three...

  Two and a half...

  Two...

  The messages continued to flood in. Saunder Enterprises HQ sifted out the chaff, sending through only the important ones. One of those came from Dian's ship. She was nearing Earth, for the linguistics conference. It would take her days to return to Mars. But she was doing just that, from the instant she had received the terrible news. She was cracking the whip, too, via ComLink. Dian wasn't a physician, but she had established the Wyoma Lee Foix Medical Foundation as a memorial to her grandmother, a heroine of the Death Years and the Chaos. The late Dr. Foix had never enjoyed the luxury of a real hospital. She had done most of her lifesaving on the war-torn streets of Chicago, in the region that was slated to become one of the United Ghetto States. She would have been amazed and proud to know a modern social services and medical facility now bore her name. The W.L.F. Medical Foundation had numerous branches on Earth, Mars, and the satellites, and one of the very best, specializing in space accidents, was the hospital in Martian orbit.

  "Brenna, our salvage crews are standing off near Prototype II," George Li reported. "We'll monitor until she cools down."

  Sensible. No need for them to rush in and risk their lives.

  An extremely personal message came through Saunder Enterprises' discreet relay system. A familiar voice, shockingly agitated. Derek. The message was received on a delayed basis and recorded, with George Li's replies. Hiber-Ship's convoy was six days anti-Sunward from Mars, but the words were very clear. "Breakthrough? Do you read? Hiber-Ship Ferry One-Seven. Spirit of Humanity, we just got the news here. What happened? Who's hurt? Brenna? Let me talk to Brenna. Is she...?"

  George Li answered him, soothing. He spelled out details, and Brenna heard and saw Derek's relief when he learned Brenna wasn't among the injured. She saw, too, his face draining of blood when he heard about Morgan and the other pilots.

  "I'm returning. Over and out."

  How well Brenna knew that tone! Loved it, sometimes raged against it. Derek in his absolutely dead-set mode. When he was going against her wishes, she could fight all she wanted to and it wouldn't do any good—not when he adopted that icy manner. His mind was made up. His sudden decision affected her deeply. Yan Bolotin and the Hiber-Ship board members would seethe when they found out their popular captain, the selected leader of New Earth Seeker, was disobeying orders. They wanted the supplies he was ferrying out at Jovian orbit, at the interstellar ship. Instead, Derek Whitcomb was detouring. Brenna could tell them to save their breath and not bother yelling at him. He would refuse to listen. Morgan McKelvey was his friend, and he knew how this failure would hit Brenna as well. So he was coming home to Mars, to be with them. It was the next best thing to having him alongside her in the cockpit.

  Other messages. Someone getting hold of Aluna Beno, arranging for transportation up to the hospital so she could be there with her badly injured husband. Brenna remembered Aluna's pinched face during the PR sessions. Had Aluna Beno anticipated disaster for Tumaini? Would she blame Tumaini's fellow pilots for what had happened? That was a meeting Brenna wasn't looking forward to.

  Messages from high-ranking people just receiving the news, reacting with horror, conveying their sympathy and concern. Aunt Carissa, saying all the right things. Zahra Kisongo, sounding very distressed. Governor Ma Jiang of Goddard. President Grieske. Councilman Ames. Chairman Hong. Ambassador Quol-Bez and Chin Jui-Sao, seeming sincerely upset.

  "Brenna," Yuri said, waking her out of job-tending on the contrbl panel. "Incoming message. It's your father."

  Todd Saunder's square face was lined and haggard. He raked his nails through his hair. "Brenna? Thank God I got hold of you. Some idiot didn't notify me until just now. Didn't want to interrupt a meeting. Can you imagine? Morgan—what about Morgan?"

  In less than an hour, the Chase ships would be at the orbiting hospital. There was no signal lag at all. Brenna replied at once. "Morgan's alive, Dad. So are the others. There's not much else I can tell you yet. It's up to the doctors..."

  He wasn't listening anymore. He had made his decision, talking to someone off screen... dump the meeting! Elaine can take over. Ah, call the spaceport."

  Brenna tried to talk sense to him. "Dad, they won't let us be with Morgan. Not at first. He'll be in the burn ward, quarantined to prevent infection..."

  The screen was empty. An apologetic Saunder Enterprises aide came on and covered up for his boss's abrupt departure. "It's okay," Brenna said wearily. "I got the message. Breakthrough Unlimited Chase One, out."

  At five hundred kilometers the hospital's traffic department locked into the incoming ships' systems. No one remarked on the nearly empty fuel reserves. These wouldn't be the first spacecraft to arrive at W.L.F. Hospital running on hope, bearing mangled victims of a disaster. Traffic drew the high-speed ships directly into the docks. There was nothing for Brenna or her fellow pilots to do at this point except stay out of the medics' way.

  They watched helplessly as Dr. Ives and staffers from the orbiting hospital hustled the Pods into Emergency. Saunder Enterprises personnel were on guard in the corridors, to keep the curious out of Brenna's hair. One more fringe benefit of being the daughter of the hospital's sponsor! A courteous hospital liaison officer suggested the pilots would be more comfortable waiting up in the lounge. Out of their element, suddenly bereft of tasks to keep minds and hands occupied, they went along without an argument. The hospital was a wheel-shaped space station, with free-fall conditions at the hub and an artificial, two-thirds Earth gravity beyond the outer rim. That was supposed to aid both patients—in free-fall ICU wards—and visitors newly arrived from Mars or Earth. It wasn't good news, however, for space pilots who had just made a breakneck plunge from high ecliptic orbit, gobbling anti-stress medications en route. The drugs were beginning to wear off.

  They sprawled in the lounge chairs. A few passersby eyed them, but the SE guards made them stay their distance. All the Breakthrough Unlimited pilots were famous, recognized on sight because of their appearances on the vid. Little wonder the civilians watched them in fascination.

  Brenna lost track of time. She remembered, dimly, that there had been a message from Adele Zyto and Joe Habich, now plodding their way back from the distant completed hop point. Brenna wished she had some good news to send back to her fellow pilots. After an hour and a half, Hector Obregon volunteered to go down to see if the medics had anything to report. When he returned, the others looked at him hopefully, but Obregon shook his head. "Maybe soon, they said." He fussed with his mustaches a moment, then dug into his flight-suit pocket. "The overload record. I picked it up while I was down there. Do we want to look at it?"

  Yuri cracked his knuckles loudly. "Sorry. I suppose we should," he added with great reluctance. "That is the drill, is it not? We must find out what happened."

  Brenna pointed to an available playback monitor, and they gathered around it to watch the last minutes of Prototype II's tragic flight. The first scenes were especially poignant. Their friends were putting Prototype II through her paces, coaxing the graviton spin resonance drive toward peak function. Morgan's craggy, good-natured face split in
a grin, and he winked at the recording lenses as if he, Rue Polk, and Tumaini Beno were putting on a show.

  Then the screen turned an impossible fiery golden color. Morgan was yelling, "Mayday! Field instability..."

  Everything occurred in fractions of seconds. Explosion. A wave of awesome fire, generated by forces outside current knowledge. Energies discharging as heat. Fragments of equipment hitting the lens. A brief, sickening glimpse of Rue Polk thrown out of her couch like a doll, smashing into a bulkhead amid the thickest flames while the explosions still raged. Tumaini, slumped over his controls, and Morgan dragging him bodily, flailing in free fall and violent deceleration stresses. Then Morgan plunging into the inferno to get Rue out of danger—even though it was already too late! The onlookers watched in numb shock, seeing suits disintegrating in those strange energy waves; helmets, searing skin, covering beloved, familiar faces. Morgan was ablaze, screaming in wordless pain, carrying Rue forward. The automatic systems were damping the fire, but not in time. The three of them were tossed about wildly. Morgan McKelvey—nearly two meters tall and weighing more than ninety kilograms, an impressive mass even in free fall—was being battered! Losing his grasp on Rue Polk, his head swallowed in the lingering flames.

  Their bodies sagged, tongues of flame snuffing out, the victims not caring. Merciless, the cameras rolled on. Electronic recording gear could take much more heat than the human body. An erratic stream of data tracked below the grisly images of the charred pilots, spelling out the disaster Brenna and her comrades had witnessed.

  "My God, no...!"

  Todd Saunder was standing behind the pilots. He had obviously walked into the lounge while the tape was running, a gaggle of aides accompanying him. The older man had seen part of the terrible record. Too much. Brenna moved toward her father as he started to crumple. Yuri Nicholaiev, Hector Obregon, and the aides caught him hastily, helping him to a nearby chair. Brenna forgot her tough test-pilot pose and knelt in front of her father, clasping his hands tightly. He didn't seem aware of her presence. She had never seen him look so beaten and old.