A Planned Improvisation (20 page)

“What about
Selati
?” Park asked.

Instantly the face
 
and shoulders of Selati’s captain, Mellit Hawshu appeared before Park. Mellit, Park knew, was the son of Larie Hawshu, the Mer Engineer Park had met some months earlier. “We’re fine, Commodore,” Mellit reported. “Minor hull damage that my people inform me is cosmetic only.”

“Just you and me then,” Park noted. “Prepare for another pass, but stay online.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Captain Hawshu responded.

Status of the darkships?” Park asked.

“Our stasis specials knocked out another two of them,” Iris reported. “Sorry I missed seeing that.”

“Me too,” Park smiled. There was an almost cartoon-like effect as a stasis missile went to work. First, as it pierced the hull it induced stasis on its target, making it a sitting duck. Then after a long pause the stasis was released and the explosive charge went off. To Park it always looked like the Outer Space version of Wile E. Coyote stepping off a cliff and just hanging there until he suddenly realizes that there is nothing underneath him.”

“Targetting for next pass,” Iris reported. “Missiles away.”

Almost immediately, the shrieking sound of metal being torn up recommenced and the view screen flickered through a constantly changing view of the sky. They were spinning out of control, something that had not happened on their first pass by the dark ships. Park, however, had only a subjective fraction of a second to realize Iris’ missiles had been detonated too close to
Independent
.

The imperfect stasis seemed to last forever and then suddenly it was over and the view in their screen was that of a phaser slicing through the hull of a dark ship. Its port wing detached from the ship and what was left of the hull looked like it was trying to reseal the massive hole, and then it fell apart as though it had suddenly turned to dust.

“Status!” Park commanded as two Mer engineers hop-ran on to the bridge and headed for the still-stricken navigators’ stations.

“Shaken, but not stirred, skipper!” the voice of the engineer below told him and Park suddenly recognized the voice as belonging to Claner Hinnerius, one of the Mer Engineers who had served with him on the
Hendrick Hudson
. Park wondered where Claner had heard that phrase, but shelved the question to listen to other reports.

“
Selati’s
drive is impaired and only operating under one quarter power,” her captain reported, “but we got one dark ship and wounded another.”

“We got the third one,” Iris added, “Thanks to Ronnie’s automatics.”

“The one surviving dark ship is changing course and headed for the outer system at high acceleration,” Katatack reported. He had moved into the assistant pilot’s chair and was doing his job from there. Park remembered thinking he should tell the navigator to do so, but knew he had never given the order. He made a mental note to commend the Atackack for doing so.

“Are we in a position to give chase?” Park asked.

“We are, sir,” Katatack replied.

“Laying in the course,” Tragackack added. “Permission to give chase?”

“Park,” Marisea cut in, “Our ships are asking for assistance.”

“Belay the chase,” Park told his pilot. “Our people always come first. Keep that last ship on our scopes though. It could still come about and attack once more. Do we have a status for Starblade yet?”

“No contact,” Marisea responded seriously, “not even a distress beacon.” Beside her, Cousin was crying for attention. Marisea picked her pet up and held her in her arms, making soft comforting noises as she radioed to the missing ship and the others in their fleet. “
Face of Theren
reports she is leaking air slowly but that they are getting that under control. Still no working drive.
Phoenix Child
is back under control and reports visual contact with
Starblade
. The
Child
is going to investigate.”

“All right,” Park noted. “And give Cousin a special treat tonight. She behaved well during the battle. Have
Selati
rendezvous with us and the
Face of Theren.
If she’s leaking I don’t want to take chances. We’ll transfer her crew to other ships and tow the
Face
back to orbit over Earth.”

“Ah hah!” one of the engineers exclaimed suddenly from the navigator’s station. “Well, there’s your problem.”

“What?” Park asked.

“It was a loose data cable bundle, Skipper,” the engineer told him. “It must have shaken loose during that first encounter. The way we were vibrating, I’m surprised that’s all that’s loose. Well, she’s fixed now and we’d better get back down to the engine deck unless you have more work for us.”

“I’m sure Claner needs you below right now,” Park replied. “Good work, though. Thanks!”

Independent
had just come along side
Face of Theren
when a call came in from
Phoenix Child
. “We have a problem here, boss,” Tina Linea told Park.

“Tell me,” Park requested, grimly expecting the worst.

“Starblade is electrically inert,” Tina explained. “No engines, no life support, no lights. We cannot even open the airlock to get in to rescue our people in there.”

“There are survivors?” Park asked hopefully.

“Either that or their ghosts are shining flashlights out the view ports,” Tina replied dryly.

“Can’t you link your airlocks together?” Park asked.

“I thought we could until we tried it,” Tina admitted. “Our airlock took damage. It can still open, but the docking ring is bent all out of shape. We won’t be docking with anyone until after Ronnie can work her magic on it.”

“All right,” Park sighed. “Beam your coordinates to us and stand by.”

“Better hurry, Park” Tina advised. “No life support, no heat. It’s getting cold in that can.”

“Roger,” Park acknowledged. “We’re on our way. Katatack plot a course as soon as you have their whereabouts. Marisea, tell Captain Hawshu to do what needs doing with
Face of Theren.
”

“Why isn’t there a physical way to open an airlock door?” Park wondered out loud a few minutes later. “I don’t recall airlocks back in the late Twenty-first that were strictly electronic.”

“It’s just the way we’ve always built them,” Claner replied as he entered the bridge. “I was taught it was impossible to lose all power on a ship without it being destroyed.”

“Well, now we know better, don’t we?” Park replied. “So you have a plan as to how we’re going to get inside that ship?”

“We’ll have to cut our way in,” Claner replied practically. “I just wish we didn’t have to cut through the outer door. It’s probably the strongest part of a ship. The inner door can be opened manually, though.
 
Are we towing
Starblade
back to Earth, or do I have to figure out what happened here?”

“Our first priority is getting her crew off that ship and given whatever medical attention they need,” Park replied firmly. “After that, we’ll see what sort of time I can give you with that ship.”

“Captain,” Claner argued softly, “I don’t mean to sound callous, but knowing what happened to that ship may be just as important as recuing her crew. Whatever happened to that ship is unprecedented and could have happened to any of us. It might be happening to our friends in the Alliance too. Knowing what happened might give us a better insight into how that strange weapon of theirs works.
 
Uh, the one that makes it sound like…”

“Like we’re being pulled apart,” Park finished for him. “Yeah, okay. I see your point. If we can we’ll tow
Starblade
back to Earth.”

“You’ll have to leave her in orbit, though,” Claner pointed out. “You can’t land safely with our airlocks docked.”

“No kidding,” Park laughed sourly. “I imagine all work on her will have to be in orbit.”

“Not at all,” Claner disagreed. “We can rig up a special cradle on top of one of our ships to bring
Starblade
down in. We’ve done that before.”

“We may have to do the same thing with
Face of Theren
,” Park pointed out.

“It will be worth the effort,” Claner told him. “It’s cheaper to bring a ship down that way and restore her than it is to build a new one from scratch. Also there are a lot of scientists who are going to want a look at
Starblade.
Ferrying them all up into orbit is expensive.”

“So are wars,” Park muttered, mostly to himself, “but at least we have a choice about those ships.”

The
Face of Theren
was spinning slowly on her axis when
Independent
arrived a short time later and Claner hurried back to the airlock to supervise the entry into the other ship. “We never practiced a docking like this in the simulator,” Tragackack click-clacked as he maneuvered
Independent
into the precarious orbit around the
Face
.

“Can you do it?” Park asked in spite of himself.

“It requires constant correction from our attitude jets, Skipper,” the pilot replied, not really answering the question. “Marisea-teacher, may I have an open line to Engineer Claner, please?”

“Engineering,” Marisea spoke into the intercom, “stand by for the pilot. Go ahead, Trag.”

Tragackack spoke rapidly to the chief engineer. “I cannot see the relative positions of our airlocks from here,” the pilot explained. “It would not normally be a problem, but…”

“I understand,” Claner told him. “Give me a few minutes and I think we can route the airlock camera output to your console.”

“That would be better than what I had in mind,” Tragackack admitted.

“Did you want me to shout, ‘Now,’ when we were in place?” Claner asked with some amusement.

“That did occur to me,” the pilot admitted. “The camera is a better idea.”

In spite of asking for more time, Claner managed to send the live picture to the bridge in under a minute. Park saw, to his satisfaction, that even without the video confirmation, Tragackack had managed to come within a few inches of alignment and was holding that position around the spinning ship perfectly. Now that he had a view of what was happening, however, the pilot quickly aligned the airlocks with seeming ease and nudged
Independent
to within three feet of
Starblade
. That last was an extremely tight and risky maneuver as the two ships had to nest with their wings no more than two feet from each other’s front viewports and their bows slightly beneath each other’s wings. To do that while constantly using the attitude jets to maintain the pose was an incredible act of pilotage.

Normally two ships were kept twice that distance apart, but in this case only
Independent’s
docking ring could be extended. “We’re in place, Engineeer,” Tragackack announced finally. Proceed with final docking maneuver.”

“Roger,” Claner replied. Park could not help but chuckle. The Mer had been traveling in space for thousands of years before the people of Van Winkle had come out of stasis, even if they had never been allowed beyond one hundred miles above the Earth. It seemed odd that they would have picked up the Human’s language and terms so readily, but he realized that since English was the language on a Human ship it was only natural that acknowledgements would be the same as Humans used. On Mer-owned ships the Mer language was used and Humans serving on them were obliged to use their language.

Park watched the display as the docking ring reached out and married to its counterpart on
Starblade
with a loud click. Then Tragackack performed the most sensitive part of the docking; he slowly and carfully countered the mutual spin of
Starblade
and
Independent
until they were at rest relative to the waiting
Phoenix Child
. “Done.” the pilot clicked out.

“Get in there, Claner,” Park commanded.

“Aye aye, Skipper!” Claner replied as Park head the low hissing roar of a torch being lit up and focused.

Even working quickly it was still fifteen minute before there was a large enough hole in
Starblade’s
outer door for people to step through safely. Then the engineers opened the inner door and everyone on
Independent
felt a sudden drop in air pressure. It alarmed Park at first and Cousin yelped softly and jumped off Marisea’s lap, but when it failed to continue dropping he sighed with relief while waiting for the first report on the status of
Starblade’s
crew.

“Oh, go down there and help out, Park,” Iris told him. “You know you want to.”

“I don’t want to get in the way,” Park replied, obviously tempted.

“You won’t,” Iris assured him. “In fact I’ll go with you. I’m not needed up here right now.”

Park got up and found Cousin trying to crawl up his leg. He picked her up and was about to hand the little primate back to Marisea, but recalled that ever since they had captured the Alliance base on Luna, more often than not he carried Cousin whenever they left the ship and the little darling obviously thought this was one of those times. He put her up on his shoulder and went with Iris to the lift down to the Engineering deck.

“It’s cold down here,” Park commented as he and Iris arrived on the scene.

“Not compared to what’s it’s like on
Starblade
,” Claner told him. “We started blowing warm air in there as soon as we had the inner door open.”

“Where’s their crew?” Park asked. “Shouldn’t at least some of them be on this ship by now?”

“I sent several crewmen over ever before we had the warm air flowing,” Claner replied. “but it’s only been a minute so far.”

“I would have expected folks waiting by the airlock,” Iris pointed out. “We’d better go in and help out.”

Park took Cousin off his shoulder and put her on the deck, saying, “Cousin, stay here.” However, Cousin was not listening. As soon as her feet were on the floor she shot off through the open airlock doors. “Cousin! Come here!” Park shouted
 
to no effect. “I think she’s more cat than monkey.”

“I’m fairly sure she’s more closely related to a lemur than a monkey,” Iris replied, “but personality-wise, I agree. She might as well be a cat. Well, we were going that way in the first place.”

Stepping on board the
Starblade
, Park and Iris found themselves in an odd sort of darkness. The gravity was very low and any sudden motion might through them into the air. Also there were several flashlights moving around on the lower deck of the ship, but they only made the rest of the deck seem all the darker until their eyes adjusted. When they did, they saw crewmen from
Independent
assisting those from
Starblade
toward the airlock.