It was still creepily silent throughout the ship. The silence from the Captain was starting to wear on him as well; Blair had been on the bridge. He should have been co-ordinating the effort to restore the ship – not Kyle and Wong.
“The door is secured,” Li told him as she checked out the entrance to the main computer core. “No power at all, and this should have an emergency supply.”
“That’s… bad,” Kyle said aloud. He clicked a channel open to Secondary Control. “Jackson? Relay me through to Wong.”
“Yes, sir.”
A moment later, the Chief Engineer was on the line.
“Roberts. What’ve you found?”
“Security to the core is sealed and has no power,” Kyle told him. “Is that as bad as I think it is?”
“It’s… not promising,” the engineer said grimly. “Give me thirty seconds, we’ve got a second AM plant and I’ll re-direct power to that section. You’ll need it to boot the core regardless.”
“Thanks,” Kyle said absently, eyeing the black control panel next to the door.
A few moments passed, then the panel lit up with its usual colors. The hallway lights followed a moment later.
“There you go,” Wong told him. “You have lights, doors, and power to the core. You don’t have gravity – I’m not turning a single mass manipulator on this ship on until we finish our survey of the Class Ones.”
“How long is that going to take?” Kyle asked as he input his access code into the door panel.
“Get used to mag-boots,” the engineer replied dryly. “And get that computer booted, that may help us bring gravity back sometime today.”
The door slid open and Kyle gestured Li forward into the server room. The lights slowly flickered on around them, glittering across the solid black stalagmites of molecular circuitry that made up Avalon’s brain.
“There’s a maintenance console,” Li told him, pointing across the room. “I’ll check it out.”
Kyle nodded and gestured for her to get to work as he glanced around the room. Molecular computer cores were not his specialty, but even he knew there were supposed to be status lights on their bases. All of them were gone.
As he looked around the room and Li started to boot the maintenance console, he realized that several of the cores were melted – the tops had begun to slag and run down as their fragile circuitry collapsed. A strong enough electromagnetic pulse could shut down the cores, but it would take major radiation to cause that kind of damage.
“It’s all completely shut down,” Li told him. “I can reboot it, but it’s basically going to be core by core – there’s too much damage to do anything else and I’ll need to run self-check on each core as I start.”
“How long will that take?” Kyle asked, looking over at the frazzled looking young Ensign.
She met his gaze uncertainly.
“At least an hour, sir,” she admitted. “I’ll have some computer support back up for Commander Wong inside of ten minutes, and I don’t know if we’ll get anything near a hundred percent capacity.”
“The ship has a fifty percent computing reserve over its requirements,” Kyle reminded her gently. “Get us over sixty percent online, and I’ll put you in for a commendation.”
The realization that she wasn’t expected to perform miracles seemed to help, and the young woman relaxed, focusing on the computer.
Kyle glanced around the room, then up at the ceiling. They were on Deck Three. The bridge was immediately above them, on Deck Two. Above that was a consumable water storage tank, to provide an extra layer of protection for a bridge that was more exposed than most were comfortable with.
Each Deck of the ship had its own layers of radiation shielding. If enough had made it through to here to melt computer cores, what had happened on the bridge?
“I’m going to go check on the bridge,” Kyle told Li with a mental sigh of acceptance.
“I might be able to boot some of the systems from there too,” she replied. “Do you need me to come with?”
Kyle looked at the young woman at the maintenance console. Alison Li was twenty two years old, six months out of the Academy. She was a Navy officer, on a tactical track, but still in a field that would rarely require her to see death and horror first hand.
The man who’d walked into the slaughterhouse of Ansem Gulf couldn’t take that officer – that kid – into what he suspected was waiting above them. There would be time for the war to show her those horrors yet – but not tonight.
“Nah,” he told with the breezy cheer he’d mastered long ago. “I’ll only slow you down here, and we’ll need those computers.”
Deep Space
00:30 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – Bridge
The bridge was… about what Kyle had expected.
Even the emergency lights were out on Deck Two, burned out by the same EMP and radiation spike that had shut down the core, before it had passed through Deck Two’s radiation shields. Kyle switched on the flashlight built into his pistol and used it to find his way to the open doorway into the bridge.
The smell warned him long before the light ever fell on anyone. A sizzled, burnt pork smell wafted out of the bridge, and he swallowed down nausea as he moved forward. Regardless of what awaited him, someone had to see it.
Someone had to stand witness.
The first body was hanging in zero gravity just inside the door. Kyle let the light rest on her for a long time. Chief Petty Officer Janet McKellen had at least tried to escape – slightly more resistant, maybe, to the immediate effect of the extreme radiation.
Her shipsuit looked melted, the complex polymers having run down her body in rivulets even as the radiation burned all of her exposed skin. If his memory of radiation damage was correct, she’d likely died of either heart failure or brain hemorrhaging.
At the level of radiation that would do that, it would at least have been quick.
Slowly, carefully, Kyle swallowed his urge to run and stepped forward over Janet’s body. The light from his flashlight played over the night shift on the bridge. Seven other men and women were slumped over their consoles. Senior Lieutenant Antonio had been spared his shipmate’s anger only to die here, his radiation-blasted corpse floating free between chairs.
It would take a medical team to confirm the definite cause of death and confirm individual identities. The crew’s internal implants were as burnt out as the consoles that surrounded them.
Much as he wanted to run and leave the mausoleum Avalon’s bridge had become to that medical team, he had one duty he had to fulfill – both to the Navy and to himself.
His mag-boots clicked on the metal floor, echoingly loud, as he walked towards the raised dais in the center of the room, and shone the pistol flashlight on the occupant.
Malcolm Blair had been older than most of his crew, though that meant little in the twenty-eighth century, and his cybernetic eye meant he was more vulnerable to EMP than anyone else on the bridge. He appeared to have died instantly, still upright and locked into his chair with his natural eye open and staring.
Kyle looked at his Captain for a long, long, time. His implant was recording the footage, and the Navy’s records would need it, but shock pinned him to the ground. He’d known – known from the moment he’d had to co-ordinate the repairs with Wong – what had to have happened.
It still was a shock to see the old man like this.
Slowly, gently, Kyle reached out and closed Blair’s staring eye. It was all he could do for the man now.
#
Ensign Li was working away on the consoles when Kyle stepped back into the computer core. She looked up at his arrival, and something in his eyes must have told her something was up.
“Do we have any of the cores back up?” Kyle asked.
“Just one,” she told him. “I’m just linking in to Engineering now.”
“I need access, command override,” he told her flatly.
“We’ll get to that next, but we need to take care of this first,” Kyle replied quietly. “I wish we had at least Kelly or Pendez, but you’ll have to stand witness on your own.”
No one replied to that. Li looked confused, unsure what he meant. Wong was silent – he knew exactly what that had to mean.
The Ensign gestured to the console.
“It’s set up for you,” she told him. “It’s one-twentieth normal speed and power, it won’t be fast.”
“That’s fine,” he replied and stepped up to it.
“Avalon, record for the record,” he said loudly, his voice formal.
“Official recording confirmed,” a tinny voice replied from the console.
“Avalon, please download the video file I am transmitting from my implant to the record,” he told the computer. “Confirm once complete.”
“File downloaded.”
“Avalon, please note for the record that Captain Malcolm Blair, Commanding Officer of the Castle Federation deep space carrier Avalon, is deceased.”
“I am activating Succession Protocol One,” Kyle told the computer, his voice gentle for the benefit of his shipmates, not the machine. “I am assuming command.”
“Succession Protocol One confirmed,” the computer replied emotionlessly. “Command of DSC-001 Avalon is transferred to Acting Captain Senior Fleet Commander Kyle Roberts.”
Chapter 32
Deep Space
00:45 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – Main Computer Core
“All right,” Kyle said into the silence that followed the computer’s announcement. “Wong, what’s our status?”
“We’ve got four antimatter plants up and running,” the Chief Engineer replied. “That’s enough that I should be able to start initializing zero point cells as soon as I have enough computer support.”
“Can you spare any engineers to support Li?”
“I haven’t been able to spare anyone to wake anybody who wasn’t already awake,” Wong said grimly. “Once the network is fully up, I can start pinging people’s implants. Until then, anybody who’s asleep is staying that way, and we’re working with the hands we’ve got.”
Kyle considered for a moment.
“The bridge is a write-off,” he told Wong. “I’m going to check in with the infirmary, and then see what I can do about co-ordinating waking people up and searching the outer hull for survivors. Keep relaying through Secondary Control and keep me updated.”
“Fine,” Wong replied shortly and cut the channel.
“Are you okay to work up here on your own?” Kyle asked Li, glancing around the shadowy computer core.
“It’ll be okay,” the young ensign replied with a shrug. “You can’t help me, in any case, and keeping me company seems a little much for the Acting Captain.”
Kyle sighed and nodded.
“Relay through Secondary Control and Jackson if you need anything,” he told her. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to send anyone up until we have full comms back, but we need these computers more than just about anything short of power.”
“I’ll get them back up, sir,” she told him. “It won’t be fast, and we won’t get all of them, but I’ll get them back up.”
Deep Space
00:50 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – Main Infirmary
The infirmary was as much of a chaotic mess as Kyle had been afraid it would be. With the only communications aboard ship via personal communicator, it seemed pretty clear no-one here had had a chance to even try and raise anyone.
Like Engineering, it looked like the night shift alone was trying to deal with the deluge. The scary part, to Kyle at least, was the certain knowledge that the only people who were making it to the infirmary were those awake enough to realize they were unwell, and capable of moving here under their own power.
That relatively small fraction of the crew was completely overwhelming the handful of medical Lieutenants and ratings trying to treat them and get them on their feet.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked of a passing attendant, trying to keep out of the man’s way as he carried a tray of canisters full of anti-rad nanites.
“That’s apparently me,” a familiar, utterly exhausted, voice said from behind him. Avalon’s Acting Captain turned to find Kelly Mason standing behind him, looking utterly shattered.
“Where’s Doctor Pinochet?” he asked.
“She was off-duty,” Mason replied. “I showed up here with Michael and nobody had a clue – the senior officer on duty is Carstairs.”
Kyle winced. Xue Carstairs was Avalon’s cybernetic specialist, and his own encounter with her after Hessian had left him… unimpressed with any of her skills beyond the purely technical.
“So you took charge,” he concluded aloud.
“Yeah,” she shrugged. “Got Michael into surgery, got the attendants dosing people with anti-rad, got beds lined up – but I know not everyone is making it here. We’re getting crew from Decks Eight and Nine, which tells me that Two and Three are just as bad – and One and Ten are worse! The secondary infirmary on Deck Three has to be swamped too, and without the resources we have here.”
“Deck Two is gone,” Kyle said softly. “Everyone on the bridge and up is dead. I’ve assumed command,” he concluded, “of such as there is to command for now.”
“How’s Michael?” he asked after a long moment. “You said he was in surgery?”
“Not rads,” Kelly replied, clearly trying to process what she’d missed. “He got himself caught in an emergency airlock saving my life – lost both of his legs just above the knee. He’ll be fine, but…”
“Not today, not in time to help,” Kyle finished for her. He glanced around the infirmary.
“Do we have any walking wounded?” he asked finally. “Two thirds of the crew were asleep when this went down, and most won’t have woken up. Some of them never will no matter what – and some of them won’t if we don’t wake them up soon.”
“Plus,” he continued grimly, “Doctor Pinochet’s quarters were on Deck One. She’s gone. So is everyone else on One, Ten, Two and probably Three.”
Kelly inhaled as if he’d punched her in the gut. “That bad?”
“That bad,” he confirmed. “We need to start waking people up – we don’t have enough engineers to fix the ship or doctors to fix the crew – or to spare to wake up the rest!”
“The treated are this way,” she said slowly, leading him through the infirmary. “We should be able to pull together a working party.”
Deep Space
03:20 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Avalon Shuttle Four
With the mass manipulators offline, getting a shuttle off of the flight deck was a slow, careful, exercise. Michelle wouldn’t normally fully interface when flying a shuttle, as it didn’t require the reaction speed and control of a starfighter.
Today, she was completely linked in, her physical body ignored in the front cockpit as she was the shuttle slowly maneuvering its way out of the deck with tiny bursts from the emergency thrusters.
Part of the problem was that while almost everything on the flight deck had been secured, there was still debris floating in the microgravity.
“Okay,” she said over the shuttle’s radio to Senior Chief Hammond. “I’m past the inner airlock door.”
Mounted on superconducting magnetic bearings, the airlock doors for the main flight deck normally opened and closed so quickly and automatically that the starfighter crews were only vaguely aware of their existence.
With Avalon’s computers still focused on directing the search parties; that service was instead being provided by the se
nior Space Force NCO on the ship and a hand-picked team of Navy and Space Force techs.
“Hold one,” the Chief replied. A second later, he continued. “Okay, Flight Lieutenant – now you’re clear. I assumed you’d want to keep the last ten centimeters of your engine nozzles.”
“Fair enough, Chief,” Michelle replied. She wasn’t sure how Hammond could be so cheerful – she knew, at least, that Angela was alive and fine, but so many of their crewmates weren’t.
Hell, the Captain was dead. She’d have followed Kyle Roberts into the Starless Void as her CAG, but she had no idea what to think of him as the Captain.
The air transmitted the vibrating shock of the inner airlock door sliding home behind her. A moment later, the outer door opened and Shuttle Four was thrown out into space with the air and the garbage.
Finally free of the hull, she could at least bring up the secondary engines. Jets of fused plasma shot out, stabilizing the shuttle a hundred and ten meters away from Avalon. Michelle rotated the ship so her nose, with the shuttle’s powerful sensor suite, was pointed back at the eight hundred meter bulk of the carrier.
Here, in the void between the stars, the ship looked… strange. Without running lights, without power, the ship was almost invisible in the darkness. Ignoring the shuttle’s other sensors for a moment, Michelle looked on her home with just her eyes. All she could see was an impression of sharp edged darkness against the stars.
Sighing, she brought up the sensor suite.
“What exactly are we looking for?” she asked of her companion in the shuttle, one of Wong’s senior engineers. “I’m not seeing much in terms of visible damage.”
“We probably won’t,” the man admitted. “We need a full sensor sweep of the Stetson stabilizers though. Given what the XO said about the bridge, let’s start with the top of the ship. If there’s any visible damage, it’ll be there.”
Space Carrier Avalon Page 26
