Far Space (39 page)

“Okay,” Robin said. “I just hope you guys are fun while we sit in quarantine for six weeks.”

The decision made, it took five minutes to cycle through the airlock with the complete decontamination procedure. As Ian huddled in the lock holding Jennifer, he wondered if the antiseptics and ultraviolet bath would kill anything inside them. They had breathed the air and who knows what Jennifer had swallowed while diving or eating any of the local food.

Inside, Robin helped Ian get Jennifer to the infirmary – really just a fancy name for the medicine cabinets and auto-surgeon stowed to one side of the common room.

Robin converted the table to a bed and Ian set his wife gently down.

Ian jumped when he heard a hiss and felt a sharp pinch on his arm. He looked over to see Robin holding a massive auto-injector. His arm began to burn.

“Crap, Robin,” Ian shouted, suddenly angry. “What the heck was that?”

“Let’s just call it a Close Encounter Cocktail,” Robin said. She moved past Ian and delivered an identical dose to Jennifer.

Jennifer moaned and turned her head to one side.

“Maybe we should’ve waited on her,” Ian said, leaning over Jennifer.

“Don’t worry, Captain,” Robin said. “She just got three full-spectrum antibiotics, her vitamins for a month and enough nannites to neutralize anything that should not be inside a human body. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get the rest of our guests on board.”

Mason and Ghost were next. Rider insisted on staying outside until the end.

When Rider finally made it on board, Ghost was already in the pilot’s seat, ready to go. He called back over the intercom, “What’s the plan, sir?”

Robin activated a suspension field around Jennifer. She looked at Ian, “Sir, you want to try and take care of her now with the auto-surgeon or head for orbit?”

“What about Tom and Quade?” Mason asked from a corner of the common room. “We can’t just leave them.”

Ian looked down at Jennifer, her pale face a sharp contrast to her dark hair falling from its tight braid. He hit the intercom button.

“Get us out of here, Ghost.”

Ian ignored Mason’s sputter and looked over at Robin. Nodding at the auto-surgeon tucked quietly away in its mount, he asked, “You know how to run that thing?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Robin said, “I don’t have to.”

“Grab a seat,” Ghost called out from the bridge.

Robin hurried forward to help Ghost at the controls. Ian settled into a small seat next to Jennifer while Mason and Rider strapped in on a bench seat across the small room.

Mason leaned forward to examine Jennifer’s bindings then twisted around to look at the auto-surgeon. “Yes, excellent,” the older man murmured.

Ian rocked in his seat as the Reaper lifted off. He stroked Jennifer’s hair and asked, “What?”

Mason had to speak up to be heard above the noise of the thrusters cutting through the atmosphere. “You have an first-rate auto-surgeon, better than the one they demonstrated to us in my pre-med days.”

“You’re a medical doctor?” Ian said. He grabbed Mason’s arm. Ian would have kissed the man if he were not strapped down for the lift-off.

“Not exactly,” Mason said. “But, I think I remember enough to prep Jennifer for surgery. As your crew-member said, the auto-surgeon will take care of the rest.”

Ian looked down at Jennifer, his hope soaring for the first time since he had seen her lying beside the pool back in the cave.

“You better get up here, sir,” Robin called back.

Rider let his head fall back against the wall behind his bench seat. “That can’t be good.”

The Reaper had stopped shaking and the thrusters had cut out for the moment, meaning they had achieved orbit and zero-gee.

Ian shrugged off his shoulder harness and pulled himself the short distance to the bridge.

Once there, he needed only one look at the main display to see the problem.

A Soosuri ship hung in space.

“Crud,” Ian muttered. He pushed himself into the command chair and started to strap in. “Ghost, if you are not already reading my mind…”

“AM drive at one hundred percent,” Ghost said. “We are running.”

“But where?” Robin said.

“How soon until they can fire at us?” Ian said.

“Not sure,” Ghost replied. “They’re only forty thousand klicks out.”

“Get the planet between us and them,” Ian said. He leaned around his chair and forsaking the intercom, shouted, “Professor, Rider, stay strapped in.” Ian faced forward again. “We’re going for a little ride.”

On the display, Ian watched as the alien ship altered its course to pursue the Reaper.

“Looks like our little friends down there called for back-up,” Ghost said.

“No,” Ian said, remembering the Soosuri in the pool. “If both Jennifer’s ship and their attacker were destroyed in a fight, these guys are probably
trying to find out what happened. If we had a ship overdue for a few weeks, we’d send out someone to take a look.”

“We might be overdue if we don’t do something,” Ghost said. Belatedly, he added, “Sir.”

Ian thought for a moment before speaking.

“How far to our wormhole, Robin?”

Robin checked the nav computer and shook her head. Two hours at max speed.

“Maybe we should fight,” Ghost said.

“No,” Ian said. “We got lucky last time. They were as surprised by us showing up as we were at finding them.”

“They are closing the gap,” Robin noted.

“Find us a hole,” Ian said. “Find it fast.”

Robin went to work. Just two minutes later she said, “There’s a wormhole threshold three minutes away.”

“We don’t know where it goes,” Ghost said.

“Maybe they don’t know either,” Ian said. “Power up the jump drive and take us in.” He thought wryly of Six’s jump from Earth Space out to Saturn Space.

“Powering up,” Robin said.

An alarm sounded on Ghosts console. Ian felt the lateral thrusters kick in and the ship entered a violent roll maneuver.

“Proximity alert,” Ghost reported coolly. “They’re shooting at us.”

“They’re too far away,” Ian said.

Concentrating on his console, Ghost said. “I’m lining up for the threshold.”

“Ninety seconds,” Robin said.

Ian tightened his shoulder straps as the Reaper began to rattle. His thoughts drifted back to Jennifer. All he wanted to do was put enough space between him and the enemy so they could get her the care she desperately needed.

“Three, two, one, threshold!” Robin called.

Seconds later, Ian found himself staring at a gas giant. “Are we in the same system?

Robin and Ghost both checked the sensors.

Ghost was nodding.

“We’re back out at the wormhole cluster from jump sixteen,” Robin said. “Same system.” She continued tapping on the control board. “Our planned jump point is two minutes away. I’m resetting the wormhole drive.”

“Are we going to be gone before the other ship gets to our new shortcut?” Ian asked.

“It’ll be close,” Ghost called. “If I may, sir?”

“Now is not the time to be timid, Lieutenant,” Ian replied.

“I can send a self-guided cruiser back toward the exit,” Ghost suggested.

“Mine the wormhole,” Ian said and nodded. “Do it.”

It took Ghost only a few taps on his console to ready the weapon. “Cruiser has been released and is heading to the threshold.”

“One minute,” Robin called. “Everything looks good.”

“What’s the yield on that warhead,” Ian asked.

“Nineteen kilotons,” Ghost replied, not looking up from his board.

“Cripes,” Ian said, “remind me to check the rest of the manifest when we have a free moment.”

“Active wormhole!” Ghost called out. “It’s them.”

“The missile?” Ian checked his control board. A cruiser was designed to be undetectable until its passive sensors picked up a target. It did not register even with the Reaper’s sensors.

“We’ll find out in a second,” Ghost said.

Just as Ghost finished speaking, the cruiser lit up their sensors as its boost motor ignited. The Alien ship had no time to respond.

The screens darkened as the nuclear blast disintegrated the alien ship.

“Twenty seconds,” Robin called out.

“Please tell me we’re not going to get caught in a debris field, radiation blast, or something equally horrendous,” Ian said.

Ghost looked from his sensors back to Ian. “Not if we get to the wormhole first.”

“Robin?” Ian said.

“I can’t go any faster,” Robin said in a sing-song voice. “Okay, three, two, one, threshold!”

Ian was shoved back in his seat by the now familiar but still unpleasant sensation of wormhole travel. When it was over and they found themselves one jump closer to home, Ian rolled out of the harness and headed off the bridge. Over his shoulder he called back, “Ghost, give it an hour quiet time and get us to the next jump. Robin, you’re the expert on the auto-surgeon. Mason says he can help prep.”

“Coming,” Robin said.

Ian pulled himself back to the common room, surprised at his own calm moving from one emergency to the next. Hoping this sort of transition would not be needed again in the near future, he focused his thoughts on Jennifer and prayed, “Lord, let this work.”

Feti’i Natata Caverns

Planet 4576B-2, Far Space

“We must share what we have learned, Ra’atiri,” Myrna said. “It is the only true way to honor Suse’s sacrifice.”

“Do not lecture me on sacrifice, patea,” Rosh replied. “You know as well as I the transmitter has not been used in more telar than any of us can remember. It is for extreme emergencies only. Ahe’, we must not use it.”

“What emergency are we waiting for?” Myrna shot back, clicking her beak angrily. “Even if we were really in trouble and called for help, who would come? The same Soosuri who cut us off? Unless you have some taio out there I don’t know about…”

“You will obey your ra’atiri,” Rosh interrupted, clicking angrily and thrashing his tentacles in agitation.

“Rosh,” Myrna said softly, “This is what we have been asking for in our faisen. The lost Soosuri have not totally forgotten Yu’os. If we do not remind them of the Son’s iho, who will?

Rosh was silent for a moment before saying, “Offering validation of our beliefs with nothing but our word will be useless. We will simply be drawing attention to ourselves. The fan will simple send another va’a to destroy our transmitter. Or worse.”

“The ruling fan will always oppose us,” Myrna pressed. “But, there are sensible Soosuri. Give them proof and they will insist on investigating. The Ari’i Council will have to listen!”

Rosh shook his head. “We are missing the one thing necessary for your dream to be realized, patea. We have no proof but the words of our dying Suse. Ahe’, the Ari’i will hear nothing of Yu’os, his Son, or aris’a’kai. They do not believe they must be saved from their isao and they certainly are not interested in the iho of aniyu life. They care only for themselves and protecting their own tupu.”

“We must try,” Myrna insisted. “Please, Ra’atiri…for Suse.”

Rosh wrapped his kannai around Mryna. “Patea, even if we had proof, even if we reach anyone who will listen, we have no idea what the outcome would be…”

“The outcome is in the hands of Yu’os,” Myrna insisted. “It is in his plans we must trust.”

Rosh bobbed his head. “You win, Patea. But what more can we tell them besides what Suse told us before passing on to aris’a’kai?”

Myrna held up one of the human display devices. “Jennifer had several of these in her clothing. I found this in the pool where the humans had set up their natata. There is a recording of everything which transpired between the human and Suse.” Myrna let out a long keening. “It is beautiful.”

“Come, Patea,” Rosh said and started to swim away.

Myrna grabbed Rosh. “Where are you going?”

“We have a message to send.”

Reagan Space Corps Base

Jupiter Space

Ian was surprised to find how excited he was to see Reagan’s lights as they descended toward the surface of Europa. Not even the argument Ghost was having with the field tower, attempting to convince the controller to approve their landing clearance, dampened his spirit.