Law's End (18 page)
Authors: Glenn Douglass
Tags: #adventure, #travel, #dog, #future, #space, #rescue, #supercluster
Software analysis of the programmed course
quickly classified it as a pursuit evasion tactic, and Sabha's
systems were familiar with the use of solar corona in this manner.
In a typical combat operation the maneuver would be used to break
hostile sensor track just long enough to escape or to allow
reengagement from an unexpected direction. Depending on which was
applicable in this situation the Sabha was able to calculate a
range of optimal responses to maximize operational capability.
Further analysis of what little cargo and
mission details were available to it indicated that the cargo was
organic and from flight clearances that the mission was an official
rescue operation. What was mainly of concern to Sabha was the lack
of information about the nature of these individuals and their
importance to the overall mission. They could have been soldiers,
prisoners, refugees, or held a variety of other classifications
which would dictate optimal tactics. If the individuals Sabha
carried had to be kept out of hostile hands at all costs then a
dive into the star to prevent their capture was the clearly
preferred option.
Another area in which Sabha had insufficient
information was Law's End itself. No one had ever fought a war in
what data indicated was a barren, uninhabited, and uncharted
region. Even Sabha's own historical records revealed little of a
tactical nature about this area of space. Records of systems being
taken offline, combined with indications that the region was
avoided, led Sabha to classify Law's End itself as hazardous to
mission success.
More recent records in Sabha's database
indicated only one other ship detected in the vicinity; designation
Armhamon. These records included the passive scan Kassad had
initiated which revealed a formidable and modern warship. With this
information Sabha was able to conclude that this ship was the
hostile which they were evading.
Each of these electronic conclusions narrowed
the potential escape corridors to avoid destruction in the solar
flare. Eventually three thin tube shaped courses were chosen as the
most likely avenues to pursue. The first was dismissed because it
left them too long in the mysterious hazard region. The second was
dismissed because it would leave too obvious a trail in the highly
energized plasma within the star's corona.
The entire emergency maneuvers process had
taken less than one thousandth of a second. Implementation of the
actions took much longer. Yet all of this happened faster than the
occupants could process and with little concern for the wellbeing
of the occupants.
When the throttle slammed back and forward to
apply proper thrust Kassad's arm was violently dislocated before he
could even register the event. When the Sabha flung herself through
a high gee arc it slammed Greene against her poorly secured
restraints leaving deep bruises. As thrust was cut for covert
egress from the coronal mass unsecured objects bounced around the
ship interior with a vigorous energy that imperiled soft tissue and
eyes. Sabha was safe and clear on a freefall flight out of the
system long before Kassad or Greene recovered from their shock at
the revelation of the solar flare.
Canis was the first to recover, and least
battered by the maneuvering. In the microgravity Canis bounded to
the center console, gripping it with his legs, and began barking
vigorously. Reverberating in the enclosed space the barking drowned
out any rebuke.
Kassad slapped awkwardly at the flight track
history with the hand on his good arm. He was only slightly
astounded to see that Sabha had executed the intended maneuver
flawlessly. In fact Sabha had managed it better than Kassad could
have hoped, and as they drifted at unimaginable velocity towards
the Law's End barrier Kassad felt the pain in his arm to be a small
price.
Gasping relief Greene pushed free of the
restraints their unbearable pressure on the bruises they had left.
Blood pouring back into her extremities caused them to throb with
an intensity that would take more than mild pain killers to quell.
Drifting out of her seat she caught herself with her legs so that
she drifted half in and out of the acceleration couch.
When Canis' outburst finally subsided Greene
looked over to see Kassad cradling an arm that jutted at an
unnatural angle from his body. "Are you alright?"
With the initial shock from the injury wearing
off the pain it revealed from the dislocated limb began crashing
over Kassad in waves of ever increasing intensity which made him
recant his earlier gratitude. "I guess Sabha thought I was too
slow. I think she broke my arm."
Canis bowed his head to sniff at the limb.
"It looks dislocated," Greene countered, "at
the shoulder." Certainly the limb looked wrong in a way her mind
found disturbing.
Canis instinctively licked at Kassad's face to
ease the suffering he saw there.
With a strained grin that pulled his flesh so
tightly to his face that it looked like it might push his skull
free Kassad said, "Great. Can you pop it back in?"
Kassad's idea horrified Greene. "What? I don't
have any medical training. I've never done anything like
that."
Through pain so intense it seemed to Kassad to
posses color and texture he gasped, "Me either. Just… just pull it
back to where it should be."
A double bark from a worried looking Canis was
clearly directed at Greene and encouraged action.
As far as Greene was concerned medical
attention was not something provided by people in any but the most
desperate and dire of circumstances. "No, we need to get you into
one of the automedics."
"If you put me in one of those it's going to
see the neural decay and insist on knocking me out for the rest of
the trip." What was left of Kassad's vision disappeared behind a
stabbing light in his eyes, and gasping in between the pain's wave
crests he pleaded his case. "You've got to do this. If the Armhamon
picks up our track and starts firing on us someone is going to have
to fly. Sabha's emergency maneuvering protocols won't be able to
pull that off without help. You have to do this."
There were many things that Greene had prepared
herself for in case of the worst that this trip might entail.
Handling the corpses of her husband and co-workers was one, but
manually reattaching a limb wasn't. As inescapable as the logic of
what she had to do was there was an unaccountable dread that
thought of actually performing the deed raised within her.
Bracing herself in position with her legs
against her seat so she didn't drift off in the zero gravity Greene
leaned over the center console, with Canis crowding in underneath
her, and then hesitated. "How? How do I get it back in?"
Greene's question distracted Kassad from the
peculiarity of the pain he felt. "I don't know how. I've never done
this either," he snapped, and then fearful that Greene might
abandon the attempt forced encouragement through the pain, "look,
it's supposed to be in the socket. It wants to be in the socket.
You just have to get it around so it pulls itself back into
place."
Canis let loose a single loud bark that was
deafening in such close proximity to their faces.
Neither Canis' canine commentary nor Kassad's
encouragements were helping and Greene shouted to shut them both
up. "Okay!"
When action to reset his arm didn't immediately
follow the shout Kassad shouted back, "Now, would be good!"
This time it was two loud plaintive barks that
split their ears as Canis looked back and forth between the
two.
Suppressing an urge to slap the man she was
looming over Greene shouted, "I'm doing it!"
In exasperation Kassad growled, "If you were
doing it then I wouldn't be…" Kassad was cut off as Greene grabbed
his arm and pain jolted him into silence.
Everything about the arm felt wrong in Greene's
hands. In part this was due to her Law's End addled senses which
rendered the limb more as a thick tentacle than anything arm like.
In larger part the revulsion she felt was a result of the way the
arm lolled loosely, as if a solid tug would tear it free
completely.
With his body secured in place by his seat
restraints Greene leveraged her body's weight against the limb.
Gripping under the armpit and at the elbow she wrested the arm out
and around the shoulder. The amount of force entire procedure
required had to be gauged by sight, and that had been reduced to
something like looking down a length of conduit at distant
objects.
Eyes bulging and spittle hissing out from
between gritted teeth Kassad stared wide eyed straight ahead. The
waves of pain had risen as a tide to swallow him whole. It was a
strange pain that echoed throughout his body into regions that had
no reason for complaint.
Greene's own eyes bulged and teeth gritted as
she struggled to see what she was doing and guessed at how much
force she was applying. Moving the arm wasn't difficult as it slid
gratingly in whichever direction she demanded of it with equal
ease. More important than how it felt was that it looked wrong as
she pulled it closer to the rounding the shoulder bone on which it
was the wrong side of. This went on interminably for both of them
until, with a sickeningly loud pop, the limb wrenched from Greene's
grasp and Kassad began coughing spasmodically.
Staring in horrified fascination at the limb
which appeared to be back in place Green collapsed exhausted back
into her seat. Kassad's coughing eased into rasping gasps as
Greene's momentum tried to carry her in a summersault across the
cabin restrained only by her powerful legs. Both of them panted as
if overcome by physical exertion.
In between the two recovering forms Canis
alternated yipping encouragingly at one then the other while
wagging his tail.
Recovering first Greene said, "Let's not do
that again."
Kassad's response was to use his good arm to
gingerly cradle his restored but still woefully sore arm close to
his body. Then with his vision still not returned he again used
that good arm to reach out and fumble with the cockpit's first aid
kit until it produced pain killers. Getting the patch into place
under his suit was unpleasant but after it was complete resulted in
a sigh of contentment at the immediate relief provided.
Embarrassed by the obviousness of the treatment
Greene observed, "We probably should have done that first."
Shaking his head weakly Kassad opened his mouth
to speak but nothing came out. It took a moment with the distorted
sensory feedback to guess that his mouth and throat were too dry to
work properly. Fortunately his suit's built in water supply was
more easily at hand to bring relief to his throat.
Eventually Kassad managed to ask, "Can you
still see?"
"Yes," Greene responded realizing the
implications of the question, "you can't?"
Kassad shook his head in the negative. "It's
not even blackness. I just can't see. My brain keeps trying to fill
it in with patterns and shapes, but trying to focus on anything
just hurts. Feels like a needle through my eyes."
Scanning the numbers and symbols on the cockpit
wireframe display Greene asked, "How long until we're out of
here?"
Shaking his head again Kassad admitted, "I
don't know. It depends what last minute tweaks Sabha's emergency
routines made to the course." After a moment he added, "It will be
at least seven hours, could be days or weeks." With a sigh of
resignation Kassad concluded, "It's possible our course has us
heading deeper into Lawless space."
Forcing down the rising panic Greene "You…
you'll have to teach me how to read the navigation data. Then if
we're off course you can tell me how to correct it."
"If we can correct it." Kassad corrected
direly. "We don't have a lot of fuel left. I kept just enough for a
little jinking if the Armhamon starts firing on us. There's no
telling how much Sabha used to throw us clear of that flare."
Unwilling to surrender easily Greene said
defiantly, "Well I assume there's a fuel gauge on this thing
somewhere?"
For the next few hours Kassad coached Greene
verbally on the intricacies of the heads-up-display. Sometimes this
was accomplished by guessing at what the numbers should read and
sometimes by sketching out the symbols on the console with his good
hand. Determining their exact status was a process involving much
trial and error and bickering.
As user friendly as the controls of the Sabha
were the process of deciphering it shouldn't have taken nearly as
long and it frustrated both of them. Both mental and physical
fatigue combined with the degenerative effects of Lawless space to
aggravate their attempts. Three times they gave up on the task and
a half dozen more times they restarted the learning process from
the beginning before they agreed on the display readings.
Pushing back into her acceleration couch Greene
rubbed at her eyes in a vain attempt to force her rapidly fading
vision to return. "So it's six hours and three hundred kilos of
fuel."
Kassad had stopped caring one way or the other
an hour ago and replied simply, "It would appear so."
"Is it going to be enough?"
Spreading his hands in defeat at the
overwhelming number of unknown variables Kassad guessed, "Maybe
enough to evade a few shots."
It wasn't the sort of clear definitive answer
Greene was looking for. "But is that enough?"
With a sigh Kassad explained, "It may be enough
to get us clear of Lawless space but it won't be enough to match
velocity with our destination. Everything in the universe is in
motion at a particular speed in a particular direction. If we can't
produce delta-vee to match the speed and heading of the
destinations' own then we'll zip through the Horsehead nebula at
such speed the cloud's gasses will tear us apart."
quickly classified it as a pursuit evasion tactic, and Sabha's
systems were familiar with the use of solar corona in this manner.
In a typical combat operation the maneuver would be used to break
hostile sensor track just long enough to escape or to allow
reengagement from an unexpected direction. Depending on which was
applicable in this situation the Sabha was able to calculate a
range of optimal responses to maximize operational capability.
Further analysis of what little cargo and
mission details were available to it indicated that the cargo was
organic and from flight clearances that the mission was an official
rescue operation. What was mainly of concern to Sabha was the lack
of information about the nature of these individuals and their
importance to the overall mission. They could have been soldiers,
prisoners, refugees, or held a variety of other classifications
which would dictate optimal tactics. If the individuals Sabha
carried had to be kept out of hostile hands at all costs then a
dive into the star to prevent their capture was the clearly
preferred option.
Another area in which Sabha had insufficient
information was Law's End itself. No one had ever fought a war in
what data indicated was a barren, uninhabited, and uncharted
region. Even Sabha's own historical records revealed little of a
tactical nature about this area of space. Records of systems being
taken offline, combined with indications that the region was
avoided, led Sabha to classify Law's End itself as hazardous to
mission success.
More recent records in Sabha's database
indicated only one other ship detected in the vicinity; designation
Armhamon. These records included the passive scan Kassad had
initiated which revealed a formidable and modern warship. With this
information Sabha was able to conclude that this ship was the
hostile which they were evading.
Each of these electronic conclusions narrowed
the potential escape corridors to avoid destruction in the solar
flare. Eventually three thin tube shaped courses were chosen as the
most likely avenues to pursue. The first was dismissed because it
left them too long in the mysterious hazard region. The second was
dismissed because it would leave too obvious a trail in the highly
energized plasma within the star's corona.
The entire emergency maneuvers process had
taken less than one thousandth of a second. Implementation of the
actions took much longer. Yet all of this happened faster than the
occupants could process and with little concern for the wellbeing
of the occupants.
When the throttle slammed back and forward to
apply proper thrust Kassad's arm was violently dislocated before he
could even register the event. When the Sabha flung herself through
a high gee arc it slammed Greene against her poorly secured
restraints leaving deep bruises. As thrust was cut for covert
egress from the coronal mass unsecured objects bounced around the
ship interior with a vigorous energy that imperiled soft tissue and
eyes. Sabha was safe and clear on a freefall flight out of the
system long before Kassad or Greene recovered from their shock at
the revelation of the solar flare.
Canis was the first to recover, and least
battered by the maneuvering. In the microgravity Canis bounded to
the center console, gripping it with his legs, and began barking
vigorously. Reverberating in the enclosed space the barking drowned
out any rebuke.
Kassad slapped awkwardly at the flight track
history with the hand on his good arm. He was only slightly
astounded to see that Sabha had executed the intended maneuver
flawlessly. In fact Sabha had managed it better than Kassad could
have hoped, and as they drifted at unimaginable velocity towards
the Law's End barrier Kassad felt the pain in his arm to be a small
price.
Gasping relief Greene pushed free of the
restraints their unbearable pressure on the bruises they had left.
Blood pouring back into her extremities caused them to throb with
an intensity that would take more than mild pain killers to quell.
Drifting out of her seat she caught herself with her legs so that
she drifted half in and out of the acceleration couch.
When Canis' outburst finally subsided Greene
looked over to see Kassad cradling an arm that jutted at an
unnatural angle from his body. "Are you alright?"
With the initial shock from the injury wearing
off the pain it revealed from the dislocated limb began crashing
over Kassad in waves of ever increasing intensity which made him
recant his earlier gratitude. "I guess Sabha thought I was too
slow. I think she broke my arm."
Canis bowed his head to sniff at the limb.
"It looks dislocated," Greene countered, "at
the shoulder." Certainly the limb looked wrong in a way her mind
found disturbing.
Canis instinctively licked at Kassad's face to
ease the suffering he saw there.
With a strained grin that pulled his flesh so
tightly to his face that it looked like it might push his skull
free Kassad said, "Great. Can you pop it back in?"
Kassad's idea horrified Greene. "What? I don't
have any medical training. I've never done anything like
that."
Through pain so intense it seemed to Kassad to
posses color and texture he gasped, "Me either. Just… just pull it
back to where it should be."
A double bark from a worried looking Canis was
clearly directed at Greene and encouraged action.
As far as Greene was concerned medical
attention was not something provided by people in any but the most
desperate and dire of circumstances. "No, we need to get you into
one of the automedics."
"If you put me in one of those it's going to
see the neural decay and insist on knocking me out for the rest of
the trip." What was left of Kassad's vision disappeared behind a
stabbing light in his eyes, and gasping in between the pain's wave
crests he pleaded his case. "You've got to do this. If the Armhamon
picks up our track and starts firing on us someone is going to have
to fly. Sabha's emergency maneuvering protocols won't be able to
pull that off without help. You have to do this."
There were many things that Greene had prepared
herself for in case of the worst that this trip might entail.
Handling the corpses of her husband and co-workers was one, but
manually reattaching a limb wasn't. As inescapable as the logic of
what she had to do was there was an unaccountable dread that
thought of actually performing the deed raised within her.
Bracing herself in position with her legs
against her seat so she didn't drift off in the zero gravity Greene
leaned over the center console, with Canis crowding in underneath
her, and then hesitated. "How? How do I get it back in?"
Greene's question distracted Kassad from the
peculiarity of the pain he felt. "I don't know how. I've never done
this either," he snapped, and then fearful that Greene might
abandon the attempt forced encouragement through the pain, "look,
it's supposed to be in the socket. It wants to be in the socket.
You just have to get it around so it pulls itself back into
place."
Canis let loose a single loud bark that was
deafening in such close proximity to their faces.
Neither Canis' canine commentary nor Kassad's
encouragements were helping and Greene shouted to shut them both
up. "Okay!"
When action to reset his arm didn't immediately
follow the shout Kassad shouted back, "Now, would be good!"
This time it was two loud plaintive barks that
split their ears as Canis looked back and forth between the
two.
Suppressing an urge to slap the man she was
looming over Greene shouted, "I'm doing it!"
In exasperation Kassad growled, "If you were
doing it then I wouldn't be…" Kassad was cut off as Greene grabbed
his arm and pain jolted him into silence.
Everything about the arm felt wrong in Greene's
hands. In part this was due to her Law's End addled senses which
rendered the limb more as a thick tentacle than anything arm like.
In larger part the revulsion she felt was a result of the way the
arm lolled loosely, as if a solid tug would tear it free
completely.
With his body secured in place by his seat
restraints Greene leveraged her body's weight against the limb.
Gripping under the armpit and at the elbow she wrested the arm out
and around the shoulder. The amount of force entire procedure
required had to be gauged by sight, and that had been reduced to
something like looking down a length of conduit at distant
objects.
Eyes bulging and spittle hissing out from
between gritted teeth Kassad stared wide eyed straight ahead. The
waves of pain had risen as a tide to swallow him whole. It was a
strange pain that echoed throughout his body into regions that had
no reason for complaint.
Greene's own eyes bulged and teeth gritted as
she struggled to see what she was doing and guessed at how much
force she was applying. Moving the arm wasn't difficult as it slid
gratingly in whichever direction she demanded of it with equal
ease. More important than how it felt was that it looked wrong as
she pulled it closer to the rounding the shoulder bone on which it
was the wrong side of. This went on interminably for both of them
until, with a sickeningly loud pop, the limb wrenched from Greene's
grasp and Kassad began coughing spasmodically.
Staring in horrified fascination at the limb
which appeared to be back in place Green collapsed exhausted back
into her seat. Kassad's coughing eased into rasping gasps as
Greene's momentum tried to carry her in a summersault across the
cabin restrained only by her powerful legs. Both of them panted as
if overcome by physical exertion.
In between the two recovering forms Canis
alternated yipping encouragingly at one then the other while
wagging his tail.
Recovering first Greene said, "Let's not do
that again."
Kassad's response was to use his good arm to
gingerly cradle his restored but still woefully sore arm close to
his body. Then with his vision still not returned he again used
that good arm to reach out and fumble with the cockpit's first aid
kit until it produced pain killers. Getting the patch into place
under his suit was unpleasant but after it was complete resulted in
a sigh of contentment at the immediate relief provided.
Embarrassed by the obviousness of the treatment
Greene observed, "We probably should have done that first."
Shaking his head weakly Kassad opened his mouth
to speak but nothing came out. It took a moment with the distorted
sensory feedback to guess that his mouth and throat were too dry to
work properly. Fortunately his suit's built in water supply was
more easily at hand to bring relief to his throat.
Eventually Kassad managed to ask, "Can you
still see?"
"Yes," Greene responded realizing the
implications of the question, "you can't?"
Kassad shook his head in the negative. "It's
not even blackness. I just can't see. My brain keeps trying to fill
it in with patterns and shapes, but trying to focus on anything
just hurts. Feels like a needle through my eyes."
Scanning the numbers and symbols on the cockpit
wireframe display Greene asked, "How long until we're out of
here?"
Shaking his head again Kassad admitted, "I
don't know. It depends what last minute tweaks Sabha's emergency
routines made to the course." After a moment he added, "It will be
at least seven hours, could be days or weeks." With a sigh of
resignation Kassad concluded, "It's possible our course has us
heading deeper into Lawless space."
Forcing down the rising panic Greene "You…
you'll have to teach me how to read the navigation data. Then if
we're off course you can tell me how to correct it."
"If we can correct it." Kassad corrected
direly. "We don't have a lot of fuel left. I kept just enough for a
little jinking if the Armhamon starts firing on us. There's no
telling how much Sabha used to throw us clear of that flare."
Unwilling to surrender easily Greene said
defiantly, "Well I assume there's a fuel gauge on this thing
somewhere?"
For the next few hours Kassad coached Greene
verbally on the intricacies of the heads-up-display. Sometimes this
was accomplished by guessing at what the numbers should read and
sometimes by sketching out the symbols on the console with his good
hand. Determining their exact status was a process involving much
trial and error and bickering.
As user friendly as the controls of the Sabha
were the process of deciphering it shouldn't have taken nearly as
long and it frustrated both of them. Both mental and physical
fatigue combined with the degenerative effects of Lawless space to
aggravate their attempts. Three times they gave up on the task and
a half dozen more times they restarted the learning process from
the beginning before they agreed on the display readings.
Pushing back into her acceleration couch Greene
rubbed at her eyes in a vain attempt to force her rapidly fading
vision to return. "So it's six hours and three hundred kilos of
fuel."
Kassad had stopped caring one way or the other
an hour ago and replied simply, "It would appear so."
"Is it going to be enough?"
Spreading his hands in defeat at the
overwhelming number of unknown variables Kassad guessed, "Maybe
enough to evade a few shots."
It wasn't the sort of clear definitive answer
Greene was looking for. "But is that enough?"
With a sigh Kassad explained, "It may be enough
to get us clear of Lawless space but it won't be enough to match
velocity with our destination. Everything in the universe is in
motion at a particular speed in a particular direction. If we can't
produce delta-vee to match the speed and heading of the
destinations' own then we'll zip through the Horsehead nebula at
such speed the cloud's gasses will tear us apart."
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