All My Sins Remembered (21 page)

***

Hawke and Nathan had settled down to one of their favorite pastimes as the ship hurtled from jump gate to jump gate.  That is to say they were deep into a game of chess being projected by the holodisplay, each sporting a glass of the Captain's stash of bourbon, when a quiet knock sounded at the door.  Both looked at the door, and then at each other.  It clearly wasn't an emergency, else Raijan, who was on bridge duty in the captain's chair at the time, would have contacted them on a private coms channel, well knowing they were both likely deep into their chess, and perhaps the Captain's supposedly secret stash, though neither of them usually got drunk.  They had an obligation, after all, to not only keep discipline, but to
be
disciplined.

"Come."  Hawke grumbled roughly after a moment.  The door swung open to admit Tasha
, who quickly noticed both the chess board, and the bourbon, and did well to hide her amusement.  After all, she came from a hardy Russian background, typical of all the Multani people, and captains had a certain tradition of enjoying their vodka.

"
Prostite
, Colonel.  I did not know you were busy."  Tasha apologized.  Nathan snorted dismissively, and waved her to a third chair at the end of the table, adjacent to both Hawke and himself, of whom sat across from each other.  While the captain's quarters were far more spacious than everyone else's quarters, it still could quickly become cramped with three or more people in it.

"Shut the door, girl.  We're not busy, as you can see."  Nathan replied, slightly raising his nearly empty tumbler of bourbon.  Again Tasha
suppressed a smile as she quietly closed and latched the door, and took the offered seat.  Since their experiences on the
Choyo,
Nathan and Tasha has created a bond reminiscent of a man and his daughter.  Nathan had a knack for looking right through the strong exterior Tasha put up, and often saw the person beyond.  It was not uncommon, of late, to see both of them arguing about one thing or another, as both tended to form strong opinions and argue them until proven wrong.  Looking at the chess board, Tasha could see both players seemed to be evenly matched, though that did not particularly surprise them, for both seemed to be of the same mettle.

"I was...considering your offer to join the crew of
The Heaven's Gaze
."  Tasha mentioned.  Nathan snorted again as he gave Hawke a meaningful glance.

"So, he offered to take you, did he?" Nathan teased with a sly grin, then scowled at Hawke.  "Dang it Hawke, will you
move
already?"  Hawke scowled back, and moved, though his glare seemed laden with meaning beyond that of the chess game, to which Nathan laughed. 

Turning to Tasha, Hawke said, "And?"
  Tasha hesitated, coming to a moment of truth for her, and hoping Hawke would understand what she was about to say.

"And..." She said hesitantly, "I am open to the possibility, but until this is over, I cannot think of such things."  She replied.  Hawke stared at her for a moment, and she instinctively knew he hadn't caught what she was trying to say, though judging from the beaming grin on Nathan's face, he did.

"Isn't that exactly the same thing you said before?" Hawke asked, sounding confused.  Tasha let out a frustrated sigh, and turned to Nathan with an angry glare.

"
You
explain it to him!  I'm going to bed."  She growled as she stood back up.  Hawke, still looking confused, shook his head negatively.

"I still need you to
analyze that-"  Hawke began.

"
Nyet!
I have been up for almost another twenty hours.  I am going to
bed
!" She yelled, and stormed out with Nathan's laugh following her retreating footsteps.  Hawke looked at Nathan, his face full of confusion.

"What just happened?"  Hawke asked his best friend.  Nathan laughed anew.

"You," he said between chuckles, "Have just been told by a very angry, and might I add beautiful, Russian woman that you, my friend, are a typical, thick-headed man." 

Hawke's confused look continued to fuel Nathan's laughter until Hawke, believing he was beginning to understand,
slyly asked, "So what does that make you?"  That sobered Nathan.

"Let's just play." He growled at Hawke.

"Uh-huh."

"Jump complete.  No targets are on sensors." repo
rted the crew member at the helm, then muttered, "From what I can tell."  It had been six days of travel for the crew of
The Black Wave
, during which they had jumped into another system, and then navigated to another jump gate leading to the Deramaar system.  During that time, the crew had plenty of time to rest and recuperate, and both Hawke and Nathan had a chance to finish off the captain's secret stash.  Now, Nathan stood towards the front of the ship's bridge, peering through the carbonsteel view port at the sight of the Deramaar system that greeted them.  Deramaar was home to a massive supernova remnant that had since formed a nebula made of synchrotron radiation, a result of high-velocity electrons oscillating within magnetic fields.  Saying the nebula was beautiful was a bit of an understatement.  The nebula sported multiple colors.  Viewed from a distance, the nebula may have given most people pause as they enjoyed it, but up close, it was positively awe-inspiring.  Thankfully, the ship and crew were safe from the effects of the radiation, thanks to the ships armored hull and energy shields made to block out harmful radiation, though the radiation was wreaking havoc with the ship's sensors, making it difficult to concretely detect anything.

Nathan stared out of the viewport enjoying the view.  This was why he wanted to explore: to see more wonders, such as this, that no one had ever seen before.  In addition to the gorgeous and potentially deadly nebula,
Deramaar was also home to a lot of asteroids that cluttered the nebula.  Scientists believe that the asteroids were the remnant of some destroyed planetoid billions, perhaps even trillions, of years ago.  Now, the asteroids never strayed too far from the nebula, though why remained a mystery.  The best explanation Nathan had heard was that the magnetic fields in the nebula attracted the metallic elements within the asteroids.  Whatever the case may be, it made for some dangerous navigational challenges even on a good day.  Given the limitations of their sensors, and the reason why they had come to Deramaar in the first place, Nathan had a feeling that it would not be a good day.

"Hold our position here, helmsman."  Hawke ordered, then opened a coms channel to engineering.  "Gordy, we're blind.  Anything you can do about that?  We'll never find the
Guan Yu
in this nebula."  There was a long pause, most likely because Gordy was trying to think.

"I don't know sir.  I'll get to work on it immediately."  Gordy reported.  Hawke leaned back in his captain's chair and sighed.  He should have thought of the affects of the nebula before hand, and had Gordy working on it during their flight, but he hadn't.  Oh well.  There was nothing he could do about it now, was there?  Instead, he simply waited while
The Black Wave
sat there, about 300KM from the jump gate.  There was no use doing anything or going anywhere until they could see again.

Meanwhile, in engineering, James Gordon was indeed hard at work, though he was not trying to solve the problem the nebula presented, rather he was trying to finish up his latest project, intended
to solve the problem Hawke had just presented.  After learning of their destination several days ago, Gordy went to his office and pulled up what information they had on the system, as was his habit.  Any good and competent engineer did this to anticipate any contingency natural spatial phenomena might present.  It was one of the industry secrets of ship's engineers everywhere that allowed them to gain their reputation as miracle workers.  They often anticipated certain problems long before they happen, and were already hard at work on solving them when their captain's tasked them to solve those same problems days, or perhaps weeks, later.  Captains, of course, did not know this.  After all, why bother them with insignificant details?

"Sir, there's not anything else made of iron on the entire ship."  Gordy looked up from the detonation mechanism he had been working on, and glanced at the engineer.  The man looked tired, as well he might, for like Gordy, he had been awake for a couple of days helping to complete this project
, with only an hour or two to get what little sleep he could.  Gordy was feeling it too, but it wasn't over yet, he knew.  He suspected that it wouldn't be long before he and his engineers would be called upon to keep the ship together while the Captain battled against the
Guan Yu.
  He hoped this time he wouldn't lose any of his people, most of whom he counted as friends, even though the possibility was almost certain.

"It's okay, Meecham.  I think I have enough."  Gordy said to the engineer.  "Go get some sleep.  I'll have someone wake you when we need you."  Meecham nodded gratefully and walked - well, staggered - off.  The poor guy was so tired he looked drunk.  Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Gordy took a deep breath and then returned to work.  He just needed five more minues...

Two decks above the engineering workshop in which Gordy worked, Hawke's fingers drummed on his armchair.  He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Gordy was perhaps the best engineer he had ever met, perhaps the best engineer in Gadari space, for all he knew, but as he considered the problem of their magnetotronic sensors being interfered by the magnetic fields created by the nebula, he wondered if their own technology would finally defeat them.  After all, it wasn't like Gordy could just remove the magnetotronic sensors and replace them with another type of sensor that
doesn't
rely on magentic fields in some way.  At least, not in space, and not without those other sensors.

It was perhaps ten minutes later before Gordy walked on the bridge, earning a glance from all of the bridge crew, including Hawke, who noticed the man looked as if he hadn't slept in days.  He wondered at that, for he knew that the ship was in good repair, and things had been quiet during their travel time, but didn't pursue the matter because there were far more important concerns just now.  Gordy gave Hawke a tired smile, and held out the datapad he was carrying to Hawke, who took it and began to
read the information it displayed.

"What do I have here, Gordy?"  Hawke asked as he perused schematics, technical readouts, and other engineering mumbo jumbo that he understood only a little.  After a moment, Hawke began to look a little confused.

"Some kind of powder dispersion mechanism?"  Hawke asked, his voice reflecting the confusion written on his face.  Gordy wearily took a knee next to the captain's chair before he replied.

"Yes sir.  It's...well, it's all I could come up with on such short notice, but I think it will work."  Gordy said tiredly.  "This powder isn't powder, it's iron shavings we created by basically grinding up anything on the ship that was iron and wasn't needed.  Thankfully, w
e had a lot of empty containers that were made of an iron alloy that had enough iron in it to still be used."

"Okay...but how do iron shavings help us see?"  Hawke asked.

"As you know, our sensors are magnetotronic.  Iron facilitates magnetism because of its atomic structure, so we've magnetized these iron shavings and put them in dispersion charges.  When dispersed, they will blanket any solid objects in the area, and our sensors can find the magnetic patterns and extrapolate objects from them." Gordy explained.  Hawke blinked, and then shook his head in amazement.  If this worked, their sensors would still be scrambled, but at least they would have a very rough form of sonar.  It just might work.  The man was an absolute miracle worker!

"You never cease to amaze me, Gordy.  How many charges were you able to make."  Hawke asked.  Gordy looked a little uncomfortable.

"Just shy of a hundred and thirty.  We ran out of iron."  Gordy apologized.  Hawke waved off the apology.

"That's more than I expected.  Let's see if this new toy of yours works.  How do we launch the charge?"  Hawke asked.

"We removed the charges from the forward, dorsal rocket launcher.  We'll have to manually load the charge in one at a time."  Gordy said with a grim note in his voice.  Manually loading charges was dangerous business.  First, because the launchers were on platforms that were recessed into the ship when not in use, but then when needed, bay doors opened and the platforms were extended to be even with the ship's hull.  Manually loading them meant a couple of engineers had to be on the hull, well away from any back blast of the launchers when it fired.  Though things were comparatively weightless in space, rocket charges, the smallest of their missile-type payload, was nearly as large as a man, and in full gravity, easily weighed a half of a metric ton.  Worse still, if they were in the middle of a firefight, the engineers could easily be blown off of the hull and into space.  Even though they were tethered, they could hit the energy shield, or even float into the path of the shield emitters and fry themselves instantly.  It was an extremely hazardous task, a fact that Hawke was not unaware of, but realized this was most likely the only solution.

"I'll try to be careful." Hawke promised.  Gordy nodded as if he expected nothing less.  Slapping his hand on the arms of his chair, Hawke stood.

"Well then, shall we?"  Hawke said, as he joined Nathan at the viewport at the front of the bridge.

"Helm, take us in slowly."  Hawke ordered.  "Let's go hunting."
  Gordy nodded and strode to the open engineering station on the bridge, and opened a coms channel to his engineers clinging to the ship's hull by the prepared rocket launcher.  Though he normally kept to engineering, at times it made sense to coordinate things from the bridge, and this was one of those times.  He had to stay in close proximity to the captain to relay his orders to the two engineers assigned to manually load the charges, as well as keep in communication with the rest of his engineers.

Slowly,
The Black Wave
nosed into the nebula, pink and red nebula strands of gaseous quality being pushed aside from the ships shields.  Out shot a canister from the fore rocket launcher.  Though he knew you couldn't hear anything in space, Gordy imagined he could hear a slight "WHUMP!" as the canister detonated, spreading iron shavings in every direction.  Breathlessly he waited as Tasha worked at her station, most likely trying to increase sensor resolution as she fiddled with various settings and sensor configurations.  After a moment, Tasha smiled.

"It's working, captain." She said in her thick Russian accent. 
"It's not perfect, but our sensors are able to extrapolate size, position, trajectory, and inertia of objects...we just can't see what those objects are."  Gordy allowed himself an inaudible sigh of relief as he ordered his engineers to load another round.  It looked like the metal shavings covered a wider area than he had hoped, which was another unexpected benefit.

For the next several hours their slow progress continued as
The Black Wave
burrowed her way deeper into the nebula, maneuvering between the asteroids, and intermittently firing another canister of iron shavings.  Through that time, the loading team had changed shifts, allowing exhausted engineers time to sleep, while Gordy, never moving from his station on the bridge, tirelessly oversaw the entire effort, and though they had made good progress, Hawke was showing signs of frustration at not having a clue as to where the
Guan Yu
might be hiding.  About three hours prior, they had finally found the supply cache for the
Guan Yu
, which had been stored in a shallow cave they had dug into a large asteroid, and a makeshift gantry to affect repairs on the ship.  After sending Squad three of the
Helljumpers
down to the asteroid to check it out, they reported signs that the
Guan Yu
had been there recently, though judging from the scattered tools and unanchored cargo bins that were bouncing around inside the manmade cavern, they had left in a hurry.  Now, they were continuing on, hoping to find where the
Guan Yu
was hiding.

"Sir, we're running low on canisters." Gordy reported.  "We have about t
wenty left."  Hawke nodded wearily and waved a hand dismissively.

"Gordy, at the next shift change, I want you to get some rest and have someone relieve you.  You won't do anyone any good if your too tired to-" 

“Sir, it’s the
Guan Yu
off the port bow!” screamed the navigator.  Shocked, Hawke stood frozen there for a moment, and then let out a curse as he looked up through the viewport to see the
Guan Yu
swooping in at them from above.

“Brace!” was all Hawke could yell just moments before
two ruby beams lanced into them.  The Black Wave shuddered as shield generators kicked in, and a flood of power flowed through shield emitters to try and negate the energy weapons as they came into contact with the shields, and somewhere down below Hawke felt, rather than heard, an explosion.

“Sir, a power conduit popped on deck two.  It seems some of the residual energy bled through our shields.  I’m ordering one of our damage control teams to the section now.” Gordy reported, not waiting for Hawke to ask him for a damage report.

“Sir, we can’t take too many more direct hits like that before our generators overload or our emitters melt from extreme heat buidup.” Raijan reported.  Raijan had recently relieved the tactical officer on duty just a half hour before, and now Hawke was glad to have him on the bridge.

"Gordy, how's our guys on the hull?" Hawke asked.  Gordy froze for a moment, realizing he had forgotten about them.  With a few button presses, he heaved a  quiet sigh of relieve.