Dreaming of Atmosphere (33 page)

39.

The sea of data was once more my sanctuary. The trillions of data motes were faint sparkling dots in the dark waters, the only source of light in this place. The warm waves pushed gently at my body as I floated. The water was salty and sweet at the same time, refreshing and fulfilling. I began to drink, great mouthfuls of gulping data. I put my face down into the ocean and let the water flood my mouth, sending it down my throat and into my stomach. I drank and drank, an unquenchable thirst, an unfathomable desire to consume.

I was suddenly very full, I couldn’t swallow any more, but I had to! I couldn’t breathe, I needed to drink instead, as if I were a fish. Only I couldn’t get more water into my body. I began to choke and drown. I flailed about and tried to gasp for air but there was too much water. I awoke with a gasping start, sitting up quickly in the bunk.

As usual, when I wake up after being out like this I was in the med lab. Crege was watching me from his bunk, and Zoe was near him taking a reading on a device. My head throbbed and my jaw muscles hurt, like I’d been chewing for hours. I could feel bite marks on the insides of my cheeks. I had a pounding headache and a generally dusty feeling, as if hungover. I groaned and lay back down, a little too quickly for my hammering head. I fought a wave of nausea, swallowing weakly a few times.

Zoe had walked over to me and was scanning my head with a small hand held device. It emitted a quiet high pitched tone that warbled like a drunken baby bird. I squinted at her but couldn’t make out if she was mad at me or concerned.

“What happened?” I managed to say weakly.

“You suffered a grand mal seizure. Then you fell into a coma. You pretty much had a total burn out in your nano-proliferation implant.”

“Am…am I ok?”

She sighed and lowered her device, looking at me for the first time. I could see she had been worried. “This time. Your brain temperature rose to dangerous levels to compensate for a lack of charge and most of the electrical signals in your head were scrambled, hence the seizure.”

“I’m sorry, I checked my levels and they seemed fine.”

“Yeah, I took readings off your implant while you were out. Whatever you did there at the end was too much for you to handle. It wasn’t a paradigm, that’s for sure.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Look, I understand we had a need. The risk was worth it, to you. But you can’t keep running yourself into the ground like this. I’m scared for you. You don’t have enough control to put yourself through this kind of drain all the time. Your body needs time to recover, to renew and heal.”

“You’re right. I just dove into it without a second thought. I took over from you and Fel, just took over the whole ship and did what I thought I had to. Maybe we’d have been able to fight off those last drones without me doing that, but I find it hard to just take a back seat when shit goes down. What if something happens, to the ship, to the crew or to
you
and I could have prevented it by acting.”

“Were you like this in the Star Marines?”

I thought about that before I answered. “Yeah, I guess I was. It’s probably why I was so torn up when my squad was lost. Even my best wasn’t good enough to save them.”

“And you feel that you must be better next time, so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yeah, that does sound like something my screwed up brain would think.”

“You sound like a Garz’a.” she said.

“There is no higher honour!” called Crege from the far side of the compartment.

“Enough about me. How are you?”

“Shaken. Tired.”

“You did really well. I mean that.”

“Warrior has seen combat pilots spew facing lesser foes, little human, you can count yourself among the brave.” Crege offered.

“Thanks. I was so scared. Fel took me through some breathing exercises and something he called roto-cota or rata-cota…”

“
Rato-tekota.
It means ‘still mind’ in Orlese. One of his
Way
concentration techniques.” I explained.

“It really helped.”

“That’s Fel, calm in the face of anxiety and tension.”

“Warrior strongly recommends little human not play cards with Fel.”

That brought a smile to her face. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, what about me? Am I confined to med lab with the cripple?” I asked.

“
Ertak, et kar ka do, burbak!”
called Crege.

“No, if you’re feeling up to it you can go rest in your cabin. I’ll be checking in with you every couple of hours, though, to make sure your brains haven’t leaked out of your head.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. You need
rest
. So do I.”

“All right, can I take anything for this headache?”

“Only light painkillers.” She offered me two little heaven sent tablets of mild pain killers. I downed them with a gulp and a mouthful of water from an offered glass. She helped me stand, and walked me to the med lab hatch. She lingered at the entrance, and I turned to face her as I went to leave.

“You should talk to Maxine.” She said.

“Yeah, I guess I should. You sure you’re okay?” She nodded. “You need to talk, don’t hesitate.” She nodded again. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” She smiled and closed the hatch and I wandered through the passageway towards the mess deck. All around me were the signs of my recent gunfight, dozens of hard light holes and the occasional synthetic part that had rolled into a nook or gap in the deck plates. I rounded the last bend and entered the mess deck proper. Tables were still overturned and stacked aside. There was more debris from the fight; no one had started to clean up the area.

I remembered I hadn’t stopped to find out how Art and the Argen were doing. I quickly checked the cabins and found one of the Argen asleep.

“Tac, where is Artemis and the other Argen?”

Artemis Derris is on watch, along with Fel’negr. Deck Hand Hergo is assisting Engineer Cutler in the starboard nacelle with some repairs to the propulsion.

“Propulsion? We took a hit there?”

Engineer Cutler reports minor damage, but there is only minor loss of capabilities. Should I request a thorough report of damage to the system?

“Yes, please. Have it sent to my overlay for review.”

Certainly, Acting Captain Donovan. Might I also express my pleasure at seeing you active once more?

“Thanks, Tac. Walking around seems to help, somewhat. Still fell like someone’s taken to my head with a mallet at some point.”

The Heavy Assault Synthetic was dealt with rather masterfully, I might add.

“The big robot? Did Art manage to put it out of commission?”

Ms. Derris did indeed destroy the synthetic. She made short work of it once you had blinded it and crippled its mobility.

“I haven’t seen one that big before. What was it?”

An Overt Assault / Support Synthetic, model OA/SS-2398. Manufactured by the DonCrest Galactic Corporation on Restus Station. I believe the common vernacular for this particular model is the Ogre.

By then I’d reached Deck 1 and started towards the command module. The command deck was littered with debris also, although most of the mess was from broken bulkhead fittings and overhead cabling runs and pipes. There was still the heavy scent of burning plastics and the chemical smell of polycrete foam in the air. The hatch to the command module was open and I could see Fel and Art in there.

As I entered I cleared my throat, causing Fel to look up from his systems console.

“How are you feeling, Seth?” he said, smiling at me.

“Groggy. Alive.”

“Good to hear.”

“What did I miss?”

“Not much. After your little stunt with the ship we were pretty much in the clear. You gave Ms. Ward a hell of a fright.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“She’ll need to be chastised for leaving her station to tend to you, but overall she did very well as the pilot during our recent battle.”

“I noticed.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I did.”

“Good, you’re learning.”

“Very funny. How about you, Art?”

“I live. Few bruises and burns, hurt my shoulder again. You didn’t leave much of that big synthetic for me to smash.”

“Yeah, figured you needed an easy win.”

“I regret to inform you that your lovely exo-rig was trashed. Sorry.”

“I could never get my arse to sit right in it anyway.”

“It fit my arse just perfectly. I’ll miss it.”

“I noticed. While you were hoisting my over your shoulder, I had a great view of your posterior.”

“Tsk. Tsk. Flirting will get you everywhere, lover boy.”

“Sorry, I’m taken.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t break up your marital bliss. Made a promise to your absent Captain.”

“I remember. Fel, did Mal give any reports of damage to the bridge?”

“Not really, but he did mention that we’ll be at less than full propulsion for a short while until repairs are completed. I turned off the scoops and switched to local fuel for now.”

“Did he mention what got damaged or how long repairs will take?”

“I believe his exact words were ‘a while’.”

I rubbed my chin, and realised I was very tired and couldn’t think too deeply right now. Why was Mal being so vague about the damage?

“Tac, is that report ready?”

Compiling it now, Acting Captain. Should appear in your overlay shortly.

I waited until I could see the file download into my overlay. I accessed it and scanned through the report. Several hull breaches, repair times listed next to each. Aft cargo port side breach sealed after the pod was cut away, the rest filled with polycrete foam and awaiting EVA to apply a nanite skin and weld plating over them. The beamer was still out, that would have to be a priority soon. One of the starboard generators was offline due to a secondary explosion from battle damage. We had two of the point defence synthetics left that we’d welded to the outer hull.

“Tac, where’s the propulsion report?”

There was no damage reported to the propulsion.

“But you told me Mal and Hergo were working on the starboard nacelle?”

Correct. Perhaps Engineer Cutler forgot to add it to the report when I compiled it.

“Can you ask him about it? Actually, never mind, I’m going to go down there and see for myself.”

“What are you thinking, Seth?” asked Fel.

“Something doesn’t add up. Remember I ordered all the hatches secured before the shells converged? The Deck 2 ladder well was wide open. Something about it malfunctioning. Don’t you think that would have been mentioned when I gave the order? The Central Control hatch was open also. Mal was up on the mezzanine when I got there. At first I thought he’d run up there to hide, but now I’m not so sure. How would he know the mechs were on their way to him?”

“You think Cuts would sabotage the Dreaming?”

“Maybe not that, but he was always against running from the Corporates. I hope he’s not trying to get us caught.”

“That would be catastrophic.”

“I wouldn’t like that either.” agreed Artemis.

“If he is, I’ll space him.” I said. I meant it, too.

“That’s not how we do things on this ship, Seth.” chided Fel.

“Screw that, if he’s fucking with us, he needs to be put down.” offered Art.

What would Maxine do? I wondered once more how Max would handle this situation. Would she punish Mal, or give him the benefit of the doubt? We’d all been through a lot lately, and everyone has their breaking points. But without Eric to balance Mal’s hatred of me, perhaps he’d finally had enough and decided to take matters into his own hands. I couldn’t let him jeopardise the crew, if that were the case. Max would put the crew before any one crewman.

“Tac, are there any camera feeds within visual range of Mal?”

There are three, however they all appear to be non-functional. Perhaps they also suffered battle damage.

“Yeah, unlikely. What do you think, Fel? What would a practitioner of
The Way
do?”

“Lying is done with words, but also silence. To what end would Mal darken those cameras if he did not wish us to see what he was doing?”

“How long can we sustain thrust using only our fuel system for the Ion Drives?”

Current tank levels and reclamation rates indicate we have 9 days 22 hours and 47 minutes of continuous thrust remaining.

“Less than ten days…”

The Trifurcated Ion Drive that the Dreaming of Atmosphere used included three main ways of providing fuel to push the ship along. There was the main method, pulling in molecules from space using a magnetic net, or scoop. There was the puff drive section as well. Lastly, we could use the ship’s water supply to break the water molecules into oxygen to feed the life support system, and the hydrogen can be used as fuel. If we used up all ten days’ worth of water we’d have no water to drink, and we’d lose the oxygen boost to our life support. We would need to ration our fluids, and attempt water reclamation protocols. I really hated drinking reclaimed water. Just thinking about it reminded me of our last visit to the Corus Cluster. There was no way we could stop at the Jump Station before entering Gossamer, and I doubt there would be much time at the other side either.