Ancient Birthright (50 page)

“If you would have someone lay on the table, I can make finial adjustment to the light’s focus,”
Jerrod
told Dr. Andrews.

Both doctors and two of the three nurses took up positions around the table. Mays acted as patient and climbed onto the table’s surface.

The medical team continued to make minor adjustments and had
Jerrod
demonstrate his ability to extrude instrument stands and equipment like IV poles and head restraints.

“Thank you,
Jerrod
, that should be just what we need to get started if we have injuries requiring surgery,” Dr. Andrews said.

“We are approaching the installation, and I should be able to connect a docking tunnel in three minutes,”
Jerrod
announced.

The extent of the damage to the station was evident this close. Debris formed an expanding halo around the structure with several large pieces of solar array spinning in space very close to what remained of the installation.

A light bump signaled contact with the docking port.

“The docking ring is locked, and I have pressurized the connecting tunnel,”
Jerrod
reported.

“That was some beautiful flying,
Jerrod
. I have never seen a smoother docking in any of the news reports,” Colonel Bitman said.

“I was not flying the docking maneuver, Colonel. Reedn had manual control from five miles out.”

Striker edged next to Bitman. “I told you these three were the best spaceship pilots I’d ever seen. When we landed on the Moon, we were in those two PTOs you saw in the hangar and they were connected as a single unit with the load-pod between them. Dantee and Tuuan were the pilots that time. Dantee had to shut down her main engine during the landing. The team work between Dantee and Tuuan during the emergency was seamless.”

The hatch opened and exposed a short tunnel that ended in a frosted access door built into the ISS module.

Mays crab-walked into the tunnel and wiped the frost from the viewing window in the center of the access door. “There’s movement in there, but it looks like they’re freezing.” He worked the airlock controls and soon had the outer door open and was working on the inner door. The door shifted, and a blast of super-cooled air caused him to recoil.

Jerrod
increased the heating in the tunnel to compensate for the extreme cold of the air coming from the ISS module.

Mays backed out of the tunnel, and placed his frostbit fingers in his arm pits.

One of the doctors took him to the rear of the ship to treat the frozen flesh.

“We need to get the survivors out now,” the other doctor said. “If it’s that cold in there they only have minutes until the cold kills them.”

“We’ll go,” Dantee said,” pointing at Tuuan. “We brought along our spacesuits.
Jerrod
, can you turn off the gravity in the tunnel without affecting the main cabin?”

“The gravity is off, Dantee.”

Within seconds, the two little girls were suited up and poised on the lip of the hatch. They pushed off and floated into the interior of the ISS module. The bodies they encountered were barely conscious and had patches of white exposed skin.

“Here’s the first one,” Dantee called as they pushed the first unconscious body through the airlock and toward the waiting hands in
Jerrod
. Once they had the man in the tunnel, they pushed off and let the man’s momentum take him the remainder of the way.

It took three minutes to transfer seven people to
Jerrod
. Two of them had broken bones, and one had a deep cut on her left thigh.
Jerrod
grew two additional operation suites for the injured people and provided detailed internal scans of the injured areas as the doctors prepared to operate to set the broken bones. With Sergeant Wainwright’s help, a nurse was already cleaning the deep laceration on the woman’s leg.

“There’s one more woman in here behind a section of panels we can’t move,” Tuuan called.

“Dantee crawled behind the panel and says she’s still alive but the panel is stuck and she can’t get her out.”

Saigg brushed past Bitman and leapt into the tunnel.

He floated to a position beside Tuuan, “What needs to be moved?”

“It’s this section.” Tuuan patted the equipment rack.

Saigg grabbed the edge of the rack and shifted his feet around to brace against the module’s wall. Veins popped out on the surface of his arms and forehead when he tried to move the rack. Finally, it shifted about half an inch.

“You almost got it,” Tuuan said.

Saigg relaxed, reset his feet and extended his dorsal spines to the bulkhead to help brace his body. This time he bent his knees and locked his arms around the rack. With a scream that was issued jointly by Saigg and the shifting metal rack, the blockage moved away from the wall and crashed into the equipment on the other side of the aisle.

Tuuan was already maneuvering the comatose woman through the airlock when Dantee grabbed Saigg who was shivering uncontrollably and seemed on the verge of passing out.

Bitman helped the medical team shift the unconscious woman into
Jerrod
before he turned back and observed Dantee handling Saigg’s mass with surprising ease.

“It looks like you’ve had practice moving objects in zero gee,” Bitman told Dantee as he grabbed Saigg’s body.

Dantee turned back to the ISS, closed, and locked the airlock doors. She then scrambled through the tunnel and back into their ship.

“I’ve spent months in zero gee on the
Endeavour
, and we practiced in the PTOs on the way to the Moon,” Dantee told Bitman.

When the medical team pulled Saigg into
Jerrod
, Dantee followed, shaking Saigg’s hand, and trying to get him to respond.

“The tunnels clear,” Dantee reported, close the hatch.

“Where to,” asked Reedn.

Bitman turned to the medical team. They were all involved with patients. Bitman raised his voice, “What facility can handle injuries of this magnitude?”

The two doctors looked at each other and shook their heads. “We don’t know of any facility on Earth that can handle tissue damage this extensive.”

“It will have to be the
Universe Explorer
then,” Reedn said as he quietly talked to
Jerrod
.

Dantee left her father and resumed her seat beside the main pilot’s station.

“It’ll take us about five hours to reach the
UE
if we stay within normal interplanetary speeds.
Jerrod
says he can do it in less than an hour if he bumps his faster-than-light drive. The only problem will be whether he can start the drive and shut it down quickly enough to synch speeds with the
UE
,” Reedn told the group.

“Most of these people will be dead in five hours, and if we take them back to Earth, we will waste at least that much time trying to get them to a medical facility.”

Bitman turned to Reedn. “It may be a long shot, but it’s the only hope these people have.”

Reedn turned around in his couch and faced forward. “We need to get beyond the satellite and debris field that surrounds Earth, but we don’t have time to ease our way through. So we’ll have to track and plot all possible objects that could impact us as we move outward.”

Three navigational consoles appeared in front of the children and the hands of all three flew over the actipads as they calculated trajectories and orbits. Within minutes, a course zigzagged in a series of navigational tracks that would take them beyond the objects that provided Earths satellite TV, radio, telephone, military surveillance, and GPS signals.
Jerrod
followed the plotted course as the three youngsters franticly calculated additional course corrections.

The course straightened the further they got from Earth’s surface until they were finally clear.

“Is everyone ready?” Reedn asked.

After receiving affirmation, the universe shifted. Bitman shook his head. It hadn’t been so much a physical spasm, as it was more like the involuntarily flinch that happens from a sudden loud bang.

#

The passengers were looking back and forth trying to see if everyone had experienced the same sensation when the view screen suddenly filled with the image of the
Universe Explorer
approaching at an extremely high rate of the speed.

Jerrod
shifted course to ensure they would pass safely, and then began accelerating to match velocity with the
UE
. Dantee was talking to Command Prime Garuu on the
Universe Explorer
explaining their emergency, while Tuuan was talking to the
Universe Explorer
’s medical personnel to ensure they understood the injuries to the rescued humans.

Reedn had again taken manual control of
Jerrod
and was heading for the center engine tube in the tail of the ship.

Several people let out gasps of fear as they entered the large dark engine tube.

Reedn made a perfect touchdown in the landing cradle then turned to the people in the ship. “We will be deplaning in an area of very low gravity. So be careful, or you’ll find yourself floating for what seems like a very long time. The medical teams of the
UE
will be waiting to assist you once we are stowed in the hangar bay. Please follow them and their orders, so that your patients can be treated as soon as possible.”

There was a slight bump as they locked into a docking cradle rack, and
Jerrod
opened the hatch. The first person through the door was Doctor Marra followed closely by Becca and Nadya.

Mays’s eyes widened when they landed on Nadya and a smile split his face. “Jeeze, you’re even more beautiful in person than you were on the view screen.”

Nadya blushed to the tips of her ears at the complement.

Becca thrust baby John into Striker’s arms and went to help get the injured off the ship. The sight of the half-naked women was almost as much of a shock to the human medical personnel as the quiet efficiency of Dr. Marra Feuua and her staff.

Marra stopped to do a quick exam of Saigg, who had his hands, arms and sections of his chest lightly covered in gauze.

The three-luzzon youngsters crowded around as Marra completed the exam. “He’ll be just fine. In a couple of days, he won’t even need to have the burns covered,” she assured them.

“You should have brought along your spacesuit, Dad. You never know when you’ll need it,” Dantee scolded.

“Saigg, Dantee, Reedn, Tuuan, I want to thank you for what you did to save these people. Most of them would not be alive if you hadn’t acted quickly. I’m going to make sure the people of Earth know what you’ve done,” Colonel Bitman said.

Airman Mays was the last person with injuries to leave the ship. He rushed to catch up to the group that included Nadya as they made their way to the ship’s hospital area. Sergeant wainwright had gone with the first group of medical personnel to help transport the patients.

“Do we need to head back immediately, or do you have time to meet a few souls and get a some rest?” Striker asked Bitman.

“I think we can take a little time after what we’ve been through today,” Bitman answered.

“Okay kids, let’s go find your moms and see how the hatchlings are doing,” Striker said.

The three youngsters pushed off the top of the stairs with whoops of delight and arrowed through the air for the hangar bay hatch. Command Prime Garuu, who’d just come through the hatch caught them while they were still in the air. He gave them hugs and nuzzles before he released them to find their mothers and siblings.

Striker started down the entry stairs, “Colonel Bitman, I know you only met the three luzzon children a few hours ago, but what they did today and the way Reedn stepped up to take control of the ship made me so proud I wished they were my children. I only hope John Jamz here, grows up to be half as good as those three.”

Striker waited for Bitman to step off the stairs and join him.

“Hello, Command Prime. Sorry to have to bring this kind of mess to you,” Striker said.

“It sounds like you had no other choice. How about introducing me to your friend?”

“Colonel Bitman, I’d like to introduce you to Jamz Garuu, Command Prime of the
Universe Explorer
,” Striker said.

Colonel Bitman snapped to attention and offered a crisp salute while Command Prime Garuu held out his hand in the human greeting.

Colonel Bitman dropped his salute and the two greeted each other by shaking hands.

“Thank you, and your crew for helping us. Our doctors had little hope that any of the injured people we rescued from the damaged space station would survive if we took them to Earth. The doctors couldn’t think of any facilities that had the capacity or expertise to handle cold injuries this severe. I also want to congratulate you on having three outstanding grandchildren. What they accomplished during and after the rescue was nothing short of a miracle,” Bitman said.

“Thank you, Colonel Bitman, Let’s go to my quarters so we can relax and talk. Striker, I see you’ve found your son. I assume your mate is with the medical staff.”

“Rebecca Jollye was the copilot on the
Endeavour
,” Striker explained to Bitman as they walked to Command Prime’s quarters. “We became mates during our long trip to rescue the Russian’s on
Nauka 7
. John Jamz here is the result.”

Command Prime Garuu ushered Bitman and Striker into his quarters where he introduced Caraa.

“I just received and update from Marra. All of the injured are alive. They have the ones with the worst frostbite in the treatment tanks. Two of them could not be immersed until they have their wounds sealed, but they should be ready for the tanks within the hour. Saigg’s injuries can be treated with a few days of outpatient care. One man has minor cold-burns to his hands, and Nadya is bringing him here,” Caraa reported.

“What do you mean when you say treatment tanks?” Bitman asked.

“We’ve had a fair number of cold injuries over the many years we’ve been in space,” Caraa explained. “Our medical scientists have developed a treatment tank that holds a solution that slowly thaws the damaged areas and provides the nutrients necessary for the tissue to repair itself. Unfortunately, it’s not a fast process. The patients will be in the fluid for several weeks. Marra says the good news is the speed of your rescue. The tissue damage would have been much more extensive if you’d been even an hour later.”