Rogue Galaxy, Episode 1: The Captain and the Werewolf (7 page)

I
n Sickbay, while Lieutenant Eban writhed furiously under the care of Dr. Carlson and Witch Walsh, Miller finally found a moment after the first few hectic minutes to draw Blaine aside into a corner and hiss, “What is he talking to that goddam drug-dealer for right now?!”

“Calm down, Roy,” she murmured. Truth was, she was wondering the same thing; even if the captain was crazy enough to still plan on going into the Tubes to wrangle with that werewolf, she didn't see why he needed to consult with Dobbler this very second. But there they were, whispering in the far corner.

Then again, when Blaine looked back at the captain, she saw that Dobbler was gone and that Tracy Fiquet had taken his place. That made more sense—Carlson and Walsh were too busy to field any medical or magical questions he might have. Still, there seemed to be something surreptitious about their interaction, too.

Miller stalked back over to the bed where Eban lay red-faced, sweating, struggling against his restraints. They couldn't give him any tranquilizers, because they would be lethal to a werewolf, if indeed Eban had been fully transformed.

“He's infected,” said Miller to Carlson and Walsh. “Isn't he? It's the were-rabies.” Miller spoke with such bitterness and grief for his team-member that Blaine not only grieved for her friend, but also worried what might happen if he spoke to the captain before he got that anger under control.

“Well, he's definitely infected,” said Carlson, too busy ministering to her patient to look directly at Miller or Blaine. “As for whether it's a full-blown case and he's going to transition all the way to werewolf, we're just not sure yet.”

“Lieutenant-Commander Miller,” said Blaine. “I understand the werewolf did not bite Lieutenant Eban, but only scratched him?”

“Correct, Commander. He was 'only' scratched. We came to the Manito Buffering Panel, and your engineering people were about to check behind it to make sure the werewolf wasn't hiding back there.  Well, it was. As we approached we heard a loud growling, like it was warning us off. We had to roust it out, and carefully, both because of the captain's orders about the werewolf's well-being, but also because of the sensitive nature of the equipment behind the Manito. That equipment meant we couldn't even point our net guns at the thing—basically we just had to walk toward it and wait for the animal to run at us. Which is exactly what it did.”

Blaine felt a chill at the thought of the werewolf lurking behind one of the Manito Panels. Miller was certainly right, there was no way he could have risked using force, even aside from the captain's orders.

She took another long look at Eban, gnashing and thrashing. He'd always been a handsome guy: tall, black hair, olive skin. That skin was dark red now, and glistening with sweat. “I'll be back,” she said, and walked over to the captain.

He was alone; Fiquet and Dobbler were gone. Blaine gave him a serious look as she approached; he gave her a look like he knew what she was going to say and was resigned to it.

“Captain,” she murmured, then found it difficult to continue. She'd been prepared to fight, but now that she could see he was ready to give in anyway, it felt like she should try to be gentle. “The werewolf has attacked and infected a crewman,” she said, intentionally ignoring his orders to call the werewolf Lieutenant Summers. “And it's hiding out behind the Manito Panels after all. That absolutely cannot be allowed, sir.”

Farraday was gazing into space. Almost as though he were speaking to himself, he said, “She knew we wouldn't be able to attack her if she was behind the Panel....”

Now Blaine's anger flared up again. “All due respect, sir, there's not a Jennifer Summers there to 'know' any such thing. The werewolf is simply less susceptible than we'd thought to the manito waves.”

“She didn't bite Eban, did she? Or kill anyone? She utilized the minimum force necessary to free herself. It's still Jennifer, only too confused by the werewolf transformation to understand that she should turn herself in.”

“Sir, even if that were true, that very confusion would still render her an unacceptable threat.”

With horror, Blaine realized that this conversation was likely to end with her relieving Farraday of his command and taking over the ship. That wasn't something she'd ever imagined she would do, but the risk to the
Galaxy
had become far too great.

But, mercifully, Farraday turned so that he wouldn't have to meet her eyes, and he said, “Blow the Tubes.”

Blaine blinked. “Sir?” she said.

“Get everybody out. Then blow the Tubes. Expose them to outer space.”

“Aye, sir.” She took in his ashen face, his look of utter defeat. “I'm sorry, sir.”

“Yeah, well. Better hurry.”

“Aye, sir,” she said again, and walked away. Once she'd gone a discreet distance, she raised her wrist to her mouth, said “Blackmon” into the communicator, and, once she had the chief on, ordered her to send word into the Tubes that it was time to clear it of all personnel, in preparation for opening that section up to the vacuum.

Just as Blackmon was about to sign off, Blaine spontaneously said, “Wait.”

Blackmon obeyed. When Blaine didn't say anything else, Blackmon prodded her: “Commander?”

Blaine had been about to tell Blackmon to convey to Security her order that they spend a few more minutes doing one last sweep for Summers. But there really wasn't time—and after pushing the captain to be so hard, the least she could do was match him.

“Nothing,” she said. “Carry on.”

T
en minutes later, Blackmon and Blaine were standing outside the Tubes entrance on Deck Three, surrounded by the just-evacuated Engineering and Security personnel, ordering the
Galaxy
AI to seal off the Tubes—but to no avail.

Miller came walking up, having left Eban's bedside to make sure all his people got out. His presence wasn't necessary, but Blaine suspected that Walsh and Carlson had suggested the errand to shoo him out of their hair. Not that she could spare much energy worrying about it, busy as she was tapping the same commands onto her tablet again and again.

Miller came to a halt, looked at the way Blaine was glaring at her tablet, took stock of the particular quality of the waiting tension in the air. “What's going on?” he asked a huddle of his subordinates; it was clear by the tone of his weary voice that, whatever it was, he found the whole thing disgusting.

Blaine answered: “The seals don't want to work.”

“They 'don't want to work'?...” repeated Miller, raising an eyebrow.

“I don't get it,” said Blackmon, distressed, guilty-sounding. “I double-checked everything. The diagnostics didn't show anything wrong with the seals.”

“It could be a problem that wouldn't show up till you try to actually, physically institute the command,” said Blaine. She looked up at the innocuous-seeming Tubes entrance and began mentally tabulating all the vital things the werewolf might be chewing through at this very moment. “The laser damage must have knocked more out of whack than we thought,” she said, dubiously, trying to figure out how that could have happened. “Blackmon, you stay here and keep trying. I'll head back to Engineering and see what I can accomplish there.”

As she took her first few steps past the somber personnel lining the hall, though, she saw Farraday approaching. With him was Dobbler, carrying propped on his shoulder a set of plastic poles with multiple complicated joints and attached nets—after a confused moment, Blaine realized it must be traditional gear for wrangling para-apes. They had crap like that on the ship? Maybe the punk had kept the stuff in his trunk, as a memento of his glory days on the Bone World rodeo circuit. Blaine came to attention for Farraday, managing to simultaneously cast a stern glance at Dobbler, who also came to attention. Which was awkward to do, while carrying all that junk.

“Everybody at ease,” said Farraday. “What's going on, Commander?”

“Not sure, Captain. But the upshot is that we don't seem able to reliably seal the Tubes. The seals keep detaching on their own, as if we were telling them to. We may have to seal off the whole deck, just to be safe.”

“Well, now, hang on, Commander. That doesn't sound very safe to me. The deck seals run on the same program as the Tube seals, don't they? What's to say they won't spontaneously pop open, as well?”

“It would be a calculated risk, sir.” A pretty dangerous one, she had to admit.

“I don't know, Commander; I think you better concentrate on trying to fix that glitch before we go opening any hatches. In the meantime, I guess Ensign Dobbler and I will go into the Tubes after all. Just until you're able to seal them—then we'll skedaddle.”

Blaine narrowed her eyes at Dobbler. “If I may ask, why do you have all that para-ape gear? If the current plan is to blow the Tubes?”

“I did hear that, Commander, but the last order the captain gave me was to gather my gear and meet him here,” said Dobbler, innocently. “I figured I shouldn't assume anything had changed till I heard it from him directly.”

So those had been the orders Farraday was giving Dobbler when he took him aside in Sickbay? What had he been saying to Fiquet, then? Blaine shook the idle speculations off. “Anyway, I've got to get to Engineering and see if there's something more I can do. Sir, you and Dobbler can't go into the Tubes. As soon as I fix the problem we've got to blow them. Even if I can't repair the seals, we've got Harriman coming up with the portable airlocks to seal the place off manually. They'll be up in twelve minutes.”

“Then I'll send Dobbler out in eleven. Come on, son.” And Farraday progressed to the entrance, Dobbler in tow.

Miller stepped in front of him. “Sir, you're the commanding officer of this ship, and I can't let you go in there and tangle with that werewolf.”

“Lieutenant Summers and the rest of the crew are in immediate danger, Miller. Largely through my own missteps. I've only got twelve—no, eleven now—eleven minutes to make things right. Stand down.”

“Sir, if you want to make a last-ditch effort to bring the werewolf in, at least send me....”

“She won't listen to you, Lieutenant-Commander.... See, I really believe Jennifer's still there inside that thing.” Farraday smiled, and leaned forward and spoke softly, so that only Miller could hear: “Don't worry, Roy. If it all goes south, you'll have a hell of a CO to replace me.”

Miller seemed shaken by sudden emotion at these words. “Sir,” he managed to say.

But Farraday was already moving past him, saying, “There's no time, Miller. Blaine, if you figure out how to blow those Tubes, you go ahead and do it. For the good of the ship.” He paused, then turned to Dobbler: “Ensign, if you'd like to give me that gear, I can go on alone.”

“Sir, no way. You can't track that thing well enough to catch it in the next ten minutes.”

“Ensign, in less than ten minutes, those Tubes will be exposed to space.”

“Beats solitary. Come on, sir, let's go.” Dobbler marched past him into the Tubes. Farraday watched him for a second, then shrugged and followed.

Miller turned to Blaine, asking with his eyes what he should do.

She only shook her head, then turned and headed to Engineering at a run.

F
arraday was no expert on para-ape wrangling, but like everyone else he knew it depended on the wrangler establishing some kind of psychic link with the prey. So as he and Dobbler were taking their first couple dozen steps into the Tubes, he kept his mouth shut and let the kid concentrate, even though he was bursting to tell him to pick up the pace.

Finally Dobbler's eyes snapped out of that foggy look they'd had. He stared straight in front of himself, as if he could clearly see something that was invisible to Farraday, and said, “Let's go.”

“Have you got her?” the captain asked eagerly.

“Come on!” said Dobbler, and tore off running, the articulated pole with its nets brandished before him like a spear, or a banner. All trace of deference to his superiors was gone; he was in the mildly psychic trance of a para-ape hunt. Or, well, a werewolf hunt.

Farraday ran after him, trying to keep up.

***

B
laine and Blackmon both dove into the programming, trying to isolate the glitch in the sealing system and construct a work-around. If they failed, there would still be the portable airlock sealants. Installing those was a pretty straightforward job, and Blaine had her less than brilliant but very reliable underlings doing it.

“I found the bug!” exclaimed Blackmon, from her terminal. “Highlighting it now.”

“I see it,” said Blaine, once she'd called up to her own screen the code Blackmon was grappling with.

“I'm not sure how long it'll take to construct a workaround for this....” said Blackmon.

Blaine consulted her chronometer. “Well, in five minutes those portable airlocks'll be set up, and if we haven't cracked it by then, it'll be moot anyway.”

Blackmon was quiet a moment, and her fingers slowed, though she kept working. “Commander,” she said. “Will you really blow Captain Farraday, Lieutenant Summers, and Ensign Dobbler into outer space?”

“Those are the orders.”

“But, Commander....”

“Quiet!” barked Blaire, loud enough to make Blackmon jump.

The two went back to work, wordlessly.

***

T
he portable airlocks were big folding screens; when you unfolded them the simple AI whose circuits were woven into the hard, super-strong, airtight fabric gauged the contours of the space it was supposed to seal off—in this case, the hallway—and extended itself in exactly the correct shape. There was a door built into the screen—one had the option of setting two of them up alongside each other, to form a true airlock, but for the
Galaxy
's purposes they only needed a one-layer seal right now.

Theoretically, all the personnel setting it up should have to do was run diagnostics on the mechanism before and after deploying it and then, after popping it open and sealing off the target area, checking the atmosphere around its seals to make sure there was no leakage of air flow from one side of the barrier to the other. Theoretically. But in actual fact, the ensigns were having trouble unfolding the damn thing—it was stuck. A male ensign grabbed one corner and a female the other, and they tried to pull it apart. The male's grip was weak, and the portable airlock's corner slipped out of his fingers as his partner went flying onto her backside, the still-folded screen landing on top of her.