The Voyage of the Star Wolf (7 page)

Korie shook his head sadly. This was not a problem that he could solve immediately. This decision could be postponed a while longer. It went against his grain to postpone a decision; the unfinished business seemed to lurk in the back of his skull gnawing at his consciousness, but—

He pulled himself forward, into the starboard corridor, then left into the shallow chamber directly above the starship's engine room. This was Chief Leen's office and auxiliary control station. At the moment, it was also functioning as the starship's Bridge.

The chief was strapped into a chair before a work station. He was running diagnostic programs, frowning and muttering to himself. “Nope. Nope. That won't work. That won't work. Nope. Shit.” Then he'd lean forward intensely and order a new set of routines to be run.

Korie hated to interrupt him, but—“I've thought of something else,” he said. Leen pushed back from the screen and swiveled to face Korie.

“What now?”

“We're on minimum life support. How long can we maintain?”

Leen thought for a moment. Korie could almost see him running the
subroutines in his head. “Six days,” he said, finally. “If we use the LOX for the fuel cells, we can buy ourselves another three weeks, but then we're out of power unless we recharge. And that doesn't allow any margin for the mass-drivers. I don't see any way around it, we're going to have to use the singularity sooner or later.”

“I know,” said Korie. “But I want to hold off as long as possible, and I want to minimize any use of it. We give off G-waves, they'll find us. Right now, if they're tracking us, all they see is a derelict.” He hooked one leg around a stanchion to keep from floating away. “We can survive without gravity. We have three months of food. We can ration our water. Our big problem is air.”

“Can't use the osmotics,” said Leen. “Not without the gravitors. And that's more G-waves. Y'know, if we could take a look-see, find out if there's anything hostile in range, we could control our radiations, keep them below the noise level . . .”

Korie shook his head. “Not yet. I don't want to risk opening up a scanning lens yet. Maybe in a week. Even a lens might give us away to the
Dragon Lord
. We just don't know how accurate her vision is. I have to assume the worst.”

Leen grunted. “You're not making this very easy for me.”

“I've been thinking,” said Korie. “We could go to aeroponics. String lights and webs in the shuttle bay, in the inner hull, maybe even in the corridors and the keel. We could use irrigation stems. Start out with Luna moss, take cuttings every two days. In fourteen days, we should be able to increase the volume 64-fold.”

Leen didn't answer. He just swiveled back to his screen and called up a set of extrapolations. “It'll be at least a month before you're getting significant oxygen production, even if you could double volume every two days. Which I don't think you can.”

“A month might work,” said Korie. “Just barely. It lets us keep our head down.”

“It's going to be messy.”

“We don't have a lot of choice in the matter. We're going to have to go to aeroponics sooner or later anyway. We have food for three months. We might make it on half-rations, but that's only a stay of execution, not a reprieve. What if it takes longer than four and a half months to get home? Let's start laying in our crops for the winter.”

Leen made a noise deep in his throat; it sounded like a growl of disapproval. “Sounds like a lot of busy work to me. We've got more important things to do.”

“No, we don't.” Korie cut him off. “As long as we drift, we're safe. We look like a derelict. The longer we can drift, the more convincing we are. This isn't busy work—this is work that will guarantee our survival.”

Leen didn't look convinced.

Korie shrugged and admitted, “Yes, all right. It'll give the crew a challenge they can accomplish. But they need that right now.”

“I think we'd all much rather put a missile up the tail of the
Dragon Lord
.”

“You tell me a way we can get close enough to do that and I will. Otherwise, my job is to bring this ship and her crew safely home.”

“You want my opinion? Let's just fix the engines and go.”

“I
always
want your advice, Chief—”

“But—?”

“—You know the ship better than anyone. But I know what we're up against. The Morthans aren't stupid. This wasn't just a hit-and-run raid. This was a full-scale attack. If I were a Morthan commander, I'd be cruising the area right now, hunting for hiders like us.”

“I don't like hiding,” grumbled Leen.

Korie shrugged. “It's not my favorite thing either. But we don't have the resources to do anything else right now. String the webs, Chief. Let's get that started. Then, I want you to build a passive G-scanner and let it run.”

“There's no accuracy in that.”

“I don't need accuracy. I just need to know if something's moving out there.”

“I'll use a split crew,” said Leen. “Half on life-support, half bringing the network back online. That'll give you the luxury of both options. And it'll give me the time to fine-tune each part of the system as I recalibrate. What do you want to do about HARLIE?”

“Let him sleep.”

“You sure?” Leen looked surprised.

Reluctantly, Korie nodded. “I'm worried about his state of mind. I'd rather not bring him back up until there's a ship for him to run. There's nothing he can do until then anyway. I don't want him going crazy with worry—or worse, amputation trauma.”

“HARLIE's too sensible for that.”

“Probably. I'd like to believe you're right. But what happens if you're wrong? Let's play it safe. HARLIE's a friend of ours. Let's not take any unnecessary risks with him. Okay?”

“You're the boss.”

“Only by default.” Korie looked suddenly troubled.

Leen hesitated. He looked like he wanted to ask something else.

“What is it, Chief?”

“Nothing. I just—”

“Go ahead. Say it.”

“Well, it's Captain Lowell. I heard that he—I mean, I don't believe it, but you know—scuttlebutt has it that he . . .” Leen was having trouble saying it; Korie waited patiently. “. . . Well, that he fell apart when the shooting started. Is that true?”

Korie started to answer, then remembered Captain Lowell's last advice: “You have to be straight with them, Mr. Korie.
Never ever lie to your crew.
” He flinched, then he looked directly at Chief Leen and said as sincerely as he could, “I was there. Captain Lowell did not screw up. The autolog will confirm that. And if any man on this ship says differently, he's going to have to answer personally to me.” He added, “You can let that be known wherever it's appropriate.”

Leen looked relieved. “Thanks. I knew that. I guess I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Korie nodded curtly and pushed off toward the door.

That's one
, he thought.
How many more
?

Captain Lowell wasn't dead.

But he wasn't exactly alive either. It made for a very sticky legal situation.

Korie spent several grueling hours scanning through the manual of regulations. It wasn't very helpful.

With the captain injured, Korie was supposed to assume command of the vessel. The problem was, he
couldn't
.

Without HARLIE up and running and maintaining the log, Executive Officer Jonathan Thomas Korie could not officially assume command. The ship's doctor could not log a medical report, and Korie could not legally declare the captain incapacitated.

Until such time as the autolog could be resumed, his was a command without acknowledgment. He had the authority, he had the moral and legal right under fleet regulations; but what he did not have was the acknowledgment of FleetComm's official representative, the constructed consciousness known as HARLIE. It was like being elected president, but not taking the oath of office. Just when and how does the legal authority begin?

The whole thing made Korie realize just how precarious his position was. His orders were technically illegal until such time as his right to give them was confirmed. He was floating adrift in a legal limbo every bit as real as the limbo in which the
LS-1187
floated. And he was every bit as helpless.

There weren't any contemporary precedents for this situation, although there were ample historical records. Unfortunately, those records could be used for academic purposes only. Out of respect for the diversity of individual cultures in the Alliance, FleetComm's regulations were not derived from any specific naval tradition, and no precedents were to be assumed, historical or otherwise, unless FleetComm itself authorized them.

Translation
: We're trying very hard to be fair and just and careful in the exercise of our authority. That leaves you without an umbrella. Good luck. Don't do anything stupid.

The problem was profound enough to interfere with Korie's sleep. And that made him irritable.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't dare resurrect HARLIE yet. The ship was still crippled; repairs, realignments, and recalibrations were proceeding painfully slow—even slower now that Leen had half his crew stringing webs and lights for the aeroponics.

“I know I'm doing the right thing,” said Korie to no one in particular. “Why doesn't it
feel
right?”

The door beeped. Korie waved at it. The door slid open and a grim-looking Fontana stepped into the room.

“I apologize for disturbing you,” she began, “but I saw by your monitor that you weren't asleep, so—”

“It's all right.” He sat up on his bunk. “What's on your mind?” He gestured toward a chair and she sat down opposite him.

She hesitated before answering. “I need an authorization,” she said, and passed the clipboard across to him.

“What kind of authorization—?” Korie was puzzled, then he glanced down at the clipboard screen and shut up. A
UTHORIZATION
F
OR
E
UTHANASIA
.

He read through the form slowly. Suddenly, the standard boilerplate paragraphs about “the failure of all best efforts” and “the unlikelihood of the individual's recovery to a normal and fulfilling life” and “the individual's right to die with dignity” took on a new meaning; especially the clause about “in time of war, the survival of the ship and her crew always takes precedence over the survival of any individual crewmember.”

Korie's eyes skipped down to the bottom. “Therefore, by the authority vested in me, by the Combined Allied Star Forces, I hereby authorize the termination of life support—”

Korie handed the clipboard back. “I can't sign this.”

Fontana made no move to take it. “I didn't know you were religious.”

“I'm not,” said Korie.

“Moral reservations?”

“Nope.”

“Then why won't you sign it?”

“I can't. It won't be legal.”

Fontana looked at him. “Say again?”

“I haven't been logged in. HARLIE's down. Until we can bring him up again, I can't be logged in. And we can't bring him up again until the network is repaired. Anything I do before then, I can only do as executive officer—which is quite a lot; but unless Captain Lowell dies, I cannot legally assume command. What you have there is an order that I have no authority to give. We could both be court-martialed.”

“You're kidding.” Fontana brushed a loose strand of hair back off her forehead. Her expression was unbelieving.

“Look it up—”

“I
know
the regulations,” she said, annoyed. “I just can't believe that you're
hiding
behind it.”

“I'm not
hiding
!”