Ion Trail 9: On Edge

As soon as everyone endorsed my plan to go on to Proxima Tau, I began to second-guess myself. I took pains to make it clear that Bekter’s Rim was still an option and that I’d already inputted the navdata. They all listened attentively, then asked me which plan I thought was better; when I said that I thought Proxima Tau was risky but the better plan overall, they all simply agreed. Just getting out of the room nearly caused a panic attack after it was all settled and we’d discussed some of the details. It was like they couldn’t see that I was flying by the seat of my pants, and that half the reason we weren’t dead was blind luck, rather than some special insight I had. Of course, I’d gone to great pains to hide that fact; leaders don’t want to look insecure in front of their people lest they undermine their own cause. Though I wasn’t at all sure that this wasn’t going to bite me in the ass, I guess the only direction to go was forward.

Besides, if I messed up it’s not like anyone would be able to yell at me.

After I left the engine room I swung by the med bay to check in with Harper. I peeked first, just in case they’d started the procedure, but I found her talking quietly with Shanna. She smiled at me when I poked my head in further, so I came in and closed the door behind me.

“Hey,” I said. “So, uh…?” I glanced at Shanna, then toward the desk, where the med kit was still laid out.

“I’m discussing with Shanna what I think is going on, and what I’m going to do to try to fix it,” Harper said. I looked over at the injured girl who looked scared, but took the effort to smile bravely at me. She had a pretty smile. I hoped everything went well for her.

“What’s your timeline?” I asked. She looked up at the edge in my tone, and studied my face for a moment.

“It’ll have to be soon,” she said. “She’s not getting better, so I can’t wait long. Is there a concern I should be aware of?”

“Uh, probably nothing to worry about,” I said hesitantly. “Leaving shouldn’t jar anything, and hyperspace is smooth sailing ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“But?” she replied.

“But if anything happens before we can jump to hyperspace again, things could get dicey.”

“Dicey?” Shanna spoke softly, but I could hear the strain in her voice. I looked at the girl again, and weighed my options. Her face was waxy, almost yellowish in the dim light of the cabin, and her eyes bright and feverish. I hadn’t been planning on telling anyone but my ‘crew’ until we were underway, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to tell them both what the plan was.

“Well, as you know, we’re very likely being tracked by the black ship,” I explained. “We’re stopped now, trying to remove the, um, tracking nanites from the hull. If we’re still working on that when the black ship, or whoever, arrives, I may have to take evasive maneuvers again.” She nodded her understanding, and winced at the movement. I glanced at Harper as well before I continued. “I’ve also decided, after conferring with some other people, that we’re going to push on to Proxima Tau.” This got a blink of surprised from Harper, so I rushed on to explain. “The only other viable place is more than a week away from where we are now, and we’re already so low on food that I don’t think we’re going to have anything left, very soon. There’s a small mining station that we should be able to resupply at, and I believe we should be able to avoid getting near Proxima Tau station, where most of the risk is likely to be centered. I wouldn’t do it if there were a better option, but…”

“I see,” Harper replied simply. “It seems like you’ve thought this through, at least.” She looked back at Shanna, and frowned thoughtfully. “I’d like to do the procedure this evening, unless you think that’s a bad idea. I don’t know that Shanna should wait any longer without a very compelling reason.”

“If anyone shows up that early, there’s not much we’ll be able to do anyway,” I replied. Just let me know when you’re beginning and when you’re done, okay?” I smiled at Shanna and reached down to awkwardly pat her shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” I told her. “I have every confidence in Lorna’s skill.” I stumbled over the name, but figured if that’s what she preferred I’d make a point of using it, at least when talking to her patient.

“Thanks, Captain,” the girl replied with another brave smile. She actually seemed to have taken heart from my words, which made me feel a little better too. I excused myself after that and went back to the cockpit. Diaz was there, slumped on his elbows humming tonelessly when I got there. He didn’t seem to notice me walking in, so intent was he on the chatter from my commlink. I couldn’t resist; I reached over and tapped his left shoulder, then quickly moved around to his right. He reacted as you’d expect, looking around to his left, then snapping back toward me when found no one to his left.

“Just makin’ sure you’re awake there, Diaz,” I chided in mock seriousness. “You can get out of here for now, I’m back.” I dropped back into my seat as soon as he was out of the way.

“So what’s the plan, Captain?” he asked. “Did they convince you to go to Bekter’s Rim?”

“Nope,” I said. “They all endorsed your crazy plan. We’re headed to Proxima Tau as soon as they clear the hull.”

“It’s not my plan!” he protested, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I just made a half-baked suggestion, you ran with it!”

“Well, we’re all running with it. I made sure they knew the risks and alternatives, but they agreed with me. It’s the best we’ve got under the circumstances.” I stretched, feeling the tension knotting my shoulders and wished I could get a massage. Diaz would probably be happy to oblige, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas after the other night. “Go on, get out of here. Oh, and I’m not planning on telling everyone else until we’re underway. They all want to put their trust in me, well, I’m gonna take it, and if they want to mutiny once we’re moving, then so be it.”

After Diaz was gone, I sat there in my cockpit and listened to the conversations out on the hull. Barry had gone and replaced Alan, and he and Craig were talking about food, of all things. Clinton had taken over for Kyle in the engine room and at the moment he was enthusing about a fondue place he liked to take dates whenever he had time off back at Kestrel. About half-way into telling a particular story, he stopped suddenly; no one filled the silence for a few minutes. My guess was that they all remembered that Kestrel Station was likely a debris field now. Eventually Barry mentioned that he’d cleared his section, and could Clinton check it over on the diagnostics? After that, the conversation slowly picked back up again.

This went on for a couple more hours before Diaz stuck his head into the cockpit to let me know Harper was starting her procedure. I closed my eyes and hoped that everything worked out. I even considered trying to pray to Sister Estrada’s Jesus, but just couldn’t bring myself to; I didn’t believe, and it seemed disrespectful to try even for the sake of a life. Despite my worry, it didn’t take long to get lost in the minutia of the mission on the hull, though even that faded to a buzz as fatigue and tedium crept up on me. I think I was half dozing when Kyle, who’d taken over again in the engine room, finally caught my attention.

“Captain?” he said, sounding like it wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said quickly. “Go ahead.”

“Listen, we’ve been going for fourteen hours now, and even Clinton’s starting to make mistakes.”

“Hey!” came an indignant protest from Clinton.

“Sorry buddy, but you know it’s true. Any chance we can table this for a few hours of sleep?” I hesitated for a moment. If anyone showed up with the job undone, we’d just wasted all of this time for nothing. But I knew how tired I was, and they’d been doing a lot more of the work; if Kyle was asking, then I think they’d all reached the end of their endurance.

“Permission granted,” I said, then grimaced at how pompous I sounded.

“Aye Captain,” Kyle replied, with a smirk that came straight through in his voice. “You heard her boys. Reel it in, and let’s get a few hours of sleep.”

“I think I’ll be fine to go back out in four to five,” said Clinton. “I’ve done it enough on, um, ‘time-sensitive’ salvage jobs that I’ll be good by then.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” replied Kyle. “I guess I can do what needs to be done, too. You going to catch a few hours of shut-eye too, Captain?”

“Guess I should try,” I said with a frown. I hadn’t heard anything back from Harper, and it’d been a couple hours, at least. I didn’t want to disturb her if she was still working, but I was getting worried. “Signing off. Make sure you wake me when you get started again,” I added. “I need to be ready to jump as soon as you’re done.”

With that, I went back toward the cabins, wondering if maybe I should peek in on Harper and Shanna after all, but when I got there it turned out to be a moot point. Carla was standing outside of the med bay, leaning back against the wall with her eyes closed looking exhausted. She had a chucks pad from the med kit taped around her torso, and it was nearly black with blood. My heart started pounding as soon as I saw her.

“Hey,” I said. She jerked slightly, and opened her eyes, taking a moment to focus on me.

“Captain,” she replied, “Hey. Didn’t hear you coming.”

“Is… Are you…” I couldn’t seem to get the words out, that sense of dread crowding into my throat. Sleep was no longer even a thought.

“Oh, we’re done,” she said wearily. “Just finished up a moment ago, Harper’s covering the incision, said she didn’t need me anymore for that part.” She glanced down, seeming to only then notice that she was covered in blood and she blinked a few times before she reached up to try to take it off, with fingers that didn’t seem to work right. I leaned forward to help her, doing my best not to touch the dark, wet stains.

“How is she?” Her words had calmed most of my anxiety, but there was just so much blood.

“It was really touch-and-go for a while,” she replied, sighing as the chucks finally came unfastened from behind her back. “Give me a minute, I’ll see if Harper can tell you more about it. I just did what she told me. I didn’t really understand everything that she was doing.”

“Take your time,” I said, and leaned back against my door to wait as she went back into the room. Several minutes passed and I think I actually dozed off standing against my door before the med bay door opened again and Harper came out. Despite how long of a procedure it’d been, she barely looked any different than she usually did, though there was a smudge of blood on her cheek that I doubt she realized was there.

“Hey Captain,” she said with a tired smile. “Shanna’s out of the woods, for now. She had some decent-sized lacerations on her hepatic vein that was causing some hemorrhaging and the jaundice that I’m sure you noticed earlier. I had to clamp it and suture it to stop the bleeding. I didn’t find anything else except for the bruising and her broken ribs, but I’d already bound those the best I could.”

“So she’s okay?”

“Well, she will be, God willing,” she replied. “I’ll have to use the rest of the Neocodone in the kit for pain management and I’ll be dosing her with the antibiotics to try to prevent infection, but I think- I think she’ll make it. The rest is up to her.” I sighed in relief, once again feeling the fatigue as I released some of the tension I’d been holding.

“You going to try to sleep now?” I asked her. If anyone deserved it… well, a lot of people did, but she was certainly one of them.

“Yeah, June is going to come sit with her while I catch a few winks,” she replied. “After I get cleaned up, of course.” She gestured at herself, and then looked back at me. “Looks like you should be doing the same.”

“That’s the plan. I just wanted to check with you before I crashed.”

“Good plan. Good night, Captain.” With that and another smile, she went to her room, and closed the door. I stood there for another minute, looking at the med bay door before I went to my waiting bed.

=+=

Four hours of sleep was worse than no sleep. Well no it wasn’t, probably, but I was definitely feeling bleary and cranky. I sat cross-legged in the cockpit with both hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee that I’d scrounged from the galley, listening to Clinton and Kyle jabbering cheerfully at each other on the commlink. Kyle had been just as grumpy as I was when we’d first gotten started but he’d warmed to Clinton’s upbeat commentary, quickly leaving me feeling especially sour at their banter. Only Barry seemed to be properly surly and while I’d barely ever spoken to the man, I felt an unusual kinship with him in this particular moment. The rest of the ship was asleep, further heaping insult on top of everything else.

Still, the rest seemed to have done them good; the job was progressing well enough, all things considered. When I’d asked, Kyle has estimated maybe another six hours at the pace they’d been proceeding. That timeline made me nervous, but considering the scale of the problem, it was probably better than I had any right to expect. So I sat and I listened, the whole time arguing with myself as to why I’d decided I needed to be awake for this.

An hour passed, and the part of my mind that was arguing for going back to bed was gaining ground, especially considering that the coffee was gone. I checked the long range sensors again, but all I saw were the same asteroids that I’d seen the last dozen times. If anything jumped into the system anywhere near enough to be an immediate threat, the alarm I’d set would let me know, but I didn’t have much better to do. Just then, tapping at the door distracted me from my internal debate.

“Yes?” I called, turning in my seat to look at the door as June opened it. The woman had a small plate of food and- bless her- another cup of coffee.

“Morning Captain,” she said. “How’s the work coming?”

“Slowly but surely,” I replied, eyes fixed on the coffee. She chuckled and handed it to me, along with the plate of food. I took a long swallow of coffee, nearly scalding my throat, but I didn’t care; it was nectar, it was ambrosia. After a moment, I took a nibble of the food feeling my stomach grumbling eagerly.

“Let them know breakfast is ready and we’ve set aside plates for them,” she said. “Alan is ready to relieve them whenever, and Craig was just finishing breakfast when I left.”

“Will do,” I said around a mouthful of powdered egg. “And thank you.” She waved in acknowledgment as she left, and I tucked into the food with a will, what little there was of it, and soon was scraping the plate for whatever scraps of flavor I could find. After that I settled down with my second cup of coffee and returned to listening. Craig and Alan took over for Barry and Clinton, and work continued apace.

“Uh, Captain?” It’d been at least an hour, maybe two, and I was drifting when Kyle’s voice changed from his normal bantering tone.

“Yeah?”

“The nanites just, uh, disappeared,” he told me. “Stopped transmitting, at least.” We probably had about… ten percent left to remove, mostly in harder to reach locations, and they just vanished from the scanner.”

“That’s strange,” I replied, feeling a prickle on the back of my neck. “Um, keep trying. Give me a minute.” I checked the scanners again, tweaking the settings and diverting a little more power, trying to push their range out a little further. It wasn’t much use, as my ship wasn’t configured either for combat or scout-work, though this line had been used for both, with other configurations. They still showed nothing unusual, but the nerves just wouldn’t go away. The chatter on the commlink, a near-constant background noise for the last day, had also gone silent.

“Nothing, Captain,” Kyle came back, breaking the silence. “Nothing on any frequency I can think of. No subspace, no microwave, nothing.” There was a pregnant pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was tentative and unsure. “Maybe… maybe there’s not enough of them to keep an active web anymore? The remaining patches were mostly around to the sides of the ship.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, trying to calm the yammering voice in the back of my head. That voice was always present whenever I was in a crowd, but had grown considerably quieter over the last several days, as I’d come to know the passengers, and they’d felt less like strangers. There was no comforting sense of familiarity about its return, and I felt on the edge of panic. Something wasn’t okay. Something was very wrong. “Craig, Alan?” I waited for their acknowledgements. “Get back inside, okay? Just- hurry up.”

I started to prep the ship for departure. Sensors still showed nothing, but they could have been screaming of incoming missiles and I wouldn’t have been anymore keyed up. I keyed the intercom and announced that we were preparing for departure, and then over the commlink told Kyle to let me know as soon as Craig and Alan were back inside.

“Please be nothing,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand as I primed the hyperdrive, activated viewscreen polarization and selected the Proxima Tau navdata. “Just nerves, that’s all.” I wasn’t convinced, and the panic was edging higher. Kyle announced that everyone was inside, and without acknowledging, I kicked the throttle up and slewed the ship around a bit too abruptly toward the nearest patch of clear sky.

As soon as I started moving, my long range sensors started blaring as something large immediately started closing from just beyond their maximum range. I almost hissed in vindication. Bastards must have been waiting to see what we’d do. I snarled fiercely and swatted my hand down on the Jump button, and the viewscreen flared white before polarization kicked in, and we were gone.

“Not this time, assholes!”