Dremiks (16 page)

“Yes sir, but the sooner we get the engines powered up the sooner we get steerage. That means significantly shorter days for the pilots and bridge crew.”

“Don’t rush on our account, Lieutenant.” Maggie favored the engineer with a cocky grin. “Now that I don’t have to fight that damn long-wave vibration, there’s not much to piloting the old girl.”

Captain Hill gave her what was meant to be a quelling look. It didn’t work, since she was studiously avoiding eye contact. He returned his attention to Swede. “If the doctor is ok with your schedule, then you are cleared to proceed.” He motioned with his chin for Lieutenant Price to report.

“Sir, I will be taking lander 3 out to do a visual and sensor scan of the hull, with emphasis on the external engine casings. I anticipate no trouble with docking, egress or ingress, as long as the commander can avoid any more stray comets.”

The commander snorted.

“Good report. I’ll let you all get to it. Order of the day includes hot meals. Make sure your departments are getting what creature comforts they can. They can catch up on sleep once the engines are on-line.”

The captain paused to watch the mess clear. O’Connell walked to the fridge and yanked the door open. She grabbed a bottle and pivoted to kick the door shut as she twisted the cap off. While Hill watched with a look of mild amusement, she chugged back half a caffeinated drink.

“How’s your head, O’Connell?”

Her mouth quirked at the corners. “How’s the jaw, sir?”

He rubbed it and gave a slight shrug as a response.

“I would think after growing up with him, you would learn to dodge your brother’s right hook.”

“Left hook.” He caught her curious look. “Ryan’s left handed. You know, I think you are the only one who has any idea how I got this bruise.”

“Yeah, well, I was the one who watched you storm off after hearing Cassie’s report.” She tipped her head back to finish her drink.

“How many of those have you had this morning?”

She paused long enough to answer him. “Third, no, maybe fourth. Not sure.”

His chuckle echoed up from the depths of his chest. “You really need more caffeine after all those stims?”

The back of forearm dragged across her mouth, preventing speech. She held up the bottle as if peering at the label would yield the answer to his question. “No, I need the caffeine to recover from the crash
after
the stimulants.”

“There’s logic there, somewhere.”

The empty bottle flipped end over end and clunked into the recycling bin. “Yup. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lecture scheduled about all the harmful things I’ve done to my body in the past thirty-six hours. After which, I get to sit pilot’s watch for another twelve hours.”

“Boring day.”

Maggie grinned and tossed her head. “Join the ISA they said….”

Captain Hill watched as she walked, or bounced if he was honest about her movement, down the corridor towards the lift. He knew she was over-doing it, but he didn’t have the luxury of caring. He needed every person on the crew working as hard as possible for as long as possible. He resisted the urge to kick the chair beside his foot.
Two perfect jumps and now this
, he thought.

In the medical bay, O’Connell was busy rolling her eyes and being as annoying as possible while Dr. Ruger lectured her. Since she’d experienced the after-effects of stimulants on multiple occasions, Maggie wasn’t really paying attention. She figured there was a regulation, somewhere, stating that all doctors had to advise their patients about the need to properly reduce dosages of stimulants in order to avoid a cascading crash of the body’s nervous system. Really, though, O’Connell knew there was no easy or comfortable way to recover from being dosed. She didn’t have time to puke her guts out every time she ate, or to deal with the crippling migraine that her soda consumption was barely keeping at bay.

“I’m surprised, really.”

Maggie blinked. Her inattention caught up with her, since she had no idea what the doctor was talking about. “Uh?”

Cassie sounded only mildly exasperated when she replied, “That you aren’t cursing the captain for not letting you fly the lander to check out the hull.”

The commander raised a hand in front of the doctor’s face. Her fingers trembled. It wasn’t a large tremble and it wasn’t constant, but she made her point.

“I knew without him telling me that the captain couldn’t let me fly that mission. My reflexes are all shot right now. It’s a delicate task. I’ll need another couple of hours to get back to full readiness.” She stood and rolled her head around clockwise. “It’s ironic you know. They give me stims to keep me on duty for as long as possible, but then they can’t let me do my job—well, the fun parts anyway—for twenty-four to thirty-six hours afterwards.” She continued, “So it’s back to sitting on my ass and not doing a damn thing for the rest of the day.”

Realizing that whether she was finished with her lecture or not, O’Connell was departing, Cassie gave her roommate a rueful look. “Try to grab a protein bar at midwatch. Your stomach will thank you.”

Maggie made a grunt that could have indicated several emotions as she left. A second later she was back. “Hey, by the way, how’s your head? The duty roster has you listed on sick call for a concussion. I didn’t even know!”

It was Dr. Ruger’s turn to brush off the other woman’s concern. “I’m fine. It was more of a bad headache than a concussion. Nothing to worry about at all.”

“Uh huh. I’ll see you later?”

Cassie smiled more brightly. “Yeah, if we’re both still awake.” She waved her hand in a shooing gesture. “You better go; the captain will dress you up for being late to watch.”

Maggie giggled. “Dress me
down
, Cass. Please, the reverse is just too disturbing to contemplate.” With visions of the captain decking her out in the play-clothes of a little girl, complete with over-big hat and shoes and her mother’s long necklaces, the commander chuckled all the way to the bridge.

***

Captain Hill sat on the edge of the chair Chancellor Trell offered. He kept his back rigidly straight. His hands rested gently on his knees, betraying none of the emotional or physical exhaustion that he felt. Trell’s quarters looked nothing like the orderly and Spartan space that the captain inhabited. Metal frame chairs were draped with thick quilts or covered with pillow-like cushions. A lamb’s wool rug covered the deck. That, thought the captain, was a hideous waste of quality and comfort. No one walked around barefoot on a starship.

Ryan Hill lounged in a chair to the side of the divan where the Chancellor splayed his chubby thighs and leaned forward.

“Are we going to die out here?”

Captain Hill blinked. That was definitely not the question he’d anticipated. He was prepared for recriminations, accusations, and general ranting. Questions about their survival didn’t even occur to him.

“No life systems were affected by the power surge. We are in a relatively open area of this system with few obstacles to travel.”

“Except for a few stray comets,” his brother interrupted.

The captain didn’t need to take a deep breath to control the flash of irritation he felt. He was far too used to his brother’s wheedling. He stored for later contemplation the fact that Ryan knew about their close encounter with the comet—knowledge the captain was sure only the bridge crew was privy to.

“There are communications buoys within range, and we now know exactly where we are located. As soon as the engines cool we will begin repairs.”

“But we
could
die out here?

Hill stifled a sigh. “All crew and civilian vital signs are within normal range.” He made a point to glare, briefly, at his brother, daring him to contradict the obvious lie. Marissa’s vital signs were anything but “normal”, now. “The probability of anyone aboard dying is miniscule. Furthermore, we have determined that there is a jump node nearby. It wasn’t on any of our charts previously, but there is a working Dremikian relay buoy at the site.”

Trell scratched his neck. He was convinced the captain was down-playing the danger. They were, after all, drifting through an uncharted region of space, far from their designated route. A veritable legion of stellar cartographers, human and Dremikian, had meticulously plotted the
Hudson’s
course. Without their combined experience and intelligence the ship was surely doomed to wander, lost, for years. Military officers, in Chancellor Trell’s experience, liked to act as if they were in control. The more assured an officer acted the less control he actually had.

To throw the captain off his guard, Trell switched topics. “I assume a full briefing regarding the pilots’ errors will be forthcoming?” The captain would
have
to acknowledge that he had less than perfect command of the two wildcats piloting the ship.

Predictable,
the captain thought.
He’s decided to place blame before we have any idea what went wrong.
It was odd that the Chancellor chose to blame O’Connell, given his symbiotic political relationship with Admiral O’Connell. “There are no indications of pilot error. Commander O’Connell and Lieutenant Price are to be commended for their excellent work during the initial malfunction. My entire crew has worked endless shifts to make sure we are back on course as soon as possible.” The captain paused for breath. He glanced at his watch. “In a little less than three hours, Lieutenant Guttmann will begin the engine inspection. I will have more information for you at that time, Chancellor. If you will please excuse me?”

The two civilians watched him depart then traded glances.

“He’s hiding something,” Trell whined.

“Oh, undoubtedly. Many somethings, I’m sure. I’ll try to find out what he’s so anxious for us not to realize.”

“And get me a report on the engines, before he comes back”

Ryan had his backed turned, hiding his expression of scorn. “And a report on the engines, from the moment the team leaves the tubes. Which means you’ll have to excuse me, as I will need to set things up.” He left the chancellor staring at the empty room, wondering who Ryan’s sources were.

***

Dr. Ruger does a far better job of controlling her hair than Maggie does.

That random thought drifted through Swede’s mind as he stared down at the doctor’s bent head. She was drawing blood to confirm his bio readings. Despite the late hour, it was after midnight, she insisted upon being present for the decontamination procedures following the port engine inspection. Her small hands moved deftly over his arm, releasing the tight elastic band that helped her find an available vein. Swede watched her work, but didn’t really see.

There’s no doubt, not now.

He replayed in his head the look of the internal conduit in the starboard engine and compared it to the port engine conduit he had finished inspecting less than twenty minutes before. His first class engineer’s mate had surely noticed as well. Guttmann met the man’s eyes across the small decontamination chamber. They looked back, grim as his own.

Sabotage. Careful, pre-planned sabotage. Done so skillfully that I might never have noticed, if the chambers had vented correctly.

“Lieutenant?”

He jerked his gaze back down and met the concerned gaze of the ship’s doctor. “I’m sorry ma’am. I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

“We’re all tired. Sadly, I cannot hope that you’ll head to bed when I release you. The captain and Maggie are pacing the decks waiting for your report.”

He should have been concerned to hear that O’Connell was still awake, given her long shifts at the helm throughout the day. It was as true as possible an indication of his dismay that he couldn’t summon the energy to comment.

“I promise to collapse into my bunk the moment I’m finished briefing them, if you’ll promise me you’ll do the same.”

The doctor’s pretty grey eyes twinkled. “Collapse in
your
bunk? Why, Lieutenant, I had no idea you felt this way.” She giggled and patted his bicep while he blushed.

“Ma’am you know that’s not what I meant.”

“And you know better than to call me ma’am. Your readings are acceptable. Please remember your entire inspection crew is on medically-mandated stand-down for the next twelve hours. That means
no
physical exertion of any kind. Sleep, eat, sleep some more.”

He gave her a mocking salute before gesturing for Petty Officer Peritts to follow him out the door.

***

“Stop pacing, Commander. He’ll be here soon enough.”

The object of the captain’s order turned her head. She was too tired to restrain her irritation. That she wasn’t, for once, specifically irritated with the captain didn’t matter. The muscles in her neck bunched with tension. She opened her mouth to make an ill-advised retort, when the door chimed. While Guttmann and his subordinate walked in, she shot the captain a final glare before moving to stand in the back corner of his office. He glared right back at her.

“Be seated gentlemen.” The captain wasn’t such a martinet that he would keep the two obviously exhausted men on their feet while they reported. Besides, his own tense neck muscles couldn’t take the strain of looking up at his engineering officer.

Guttmann didn’t prevaricate or mince words. “There’s no doubt it was sabotage, sir. The starboard strut was purposely manipulated to fail. I’ll know more once I pull it out and examine the mountings. All I can confirm right now is that it was deliberately positioned so the engine would vibrate once we were in the jump conduit.”

O’Connell blanched.

“And once the engine vibration reached a certain harmonic level?” The captain knew what Guttmann would say, but he needed the stark answer for confirmation.

“The control systems tried to compensate by surging more power down that engine, which made the vibration worse and caused a cascading failure.”

The four people in the room sat silent. Grim faced, each mentally replayed the sequence of events and the possible horrific outcomes.