An Accidental Alliance (28 page)

     
“This is your final warning,
Hendrick Hudson
,” the voice of the
Vigilant
replied.

     
“And this is yours,
Vigilant
,” Park replied. “Back off and allow us to do our work. You cannot afford the penalties.”

     
There was a brief pause and then something bright shot out of one of the
Vigilant
’s weapons and hit the satellite. There was a coruscation of flashes and sparks from the satellite and Park heard the screams of outrage from the aft compartment.

     
The shot was answered from Iris’ station and a bright spot appeared on
Vigilant’s
hull followed immediately by a small explosion. “You bloody pirates!” the
Vigilant’s
officer screamed at them.

     
“Arr!” Park growled back. “Now you get back to Luna and tell your buddies to either start packing or start paying the back rent on that joint.”

     
“They are backing off,” Tina reported.

     
“Good,” Velvet replied from the hatchway to and from the bridge. “Skipper, I want permission to go inspect the damage.”

     
Before Park could reply the entire ship shook. “They’re returning fire,” Tina reported as a loud hiss filled the cabin.

     
Iris fired the defensive laser at
Vigilant
once more and another small puff appeared on their hull. The Galactic ship turned and flew off at high speed.

     
“Permission denied,” Park told Velvet. “We’ve a leak. Condition red! Everyone into their suits. Velvet put the first suited team on patching the leak. Tina, get us started homeward, then suit up yourself.”

     
“But, Skipper!” Velvet protested. “The satellite…”

     
“Low on the totem pole now, I’m afraid,” Park told her even as he was scrambling for his space suit. “Our first priority is going to be a safe landing. Manage that and we’ll see about the satellite next trip.”

     
“Then we are coming back?” Velvet asked.

     
“You heard me talk to Captain Vigilant over there, didn’t you?” Park retorted, slipping quickly into his suit with practiced ease. He was glad now for the hours of practice he’d had. “We own this system and if they want to stay, they’d better start paying rent backdated a thousand millennia or so. If they’re not careful I’ll give them a Covenant to sign too. See how they like being forced.”

     
The loud hissing sound cut off abruptly as someone plugged up the hole, but Park ordered everyone to stay suited up when it was reported the plug might not hold all the way back to earth.

     
“Skipper, we lost the aft life support modules,” Velvet reported once the homeward course had been set. “And a lot of the power. It’s getting cold back here,”

     
“Then bring your team up to the bridge,” Park told her. “You’ll have to sit on the deck, but at least you won’t be frozen.”

     
“Before we do that, we need to go outside and do a visual inspection of the hull,” Velvet told him. “The leak was suspiciously near a wing joint.”

     
“Hmm, that would make flying problematic, would it?” Park asked dryly.

     
“Well, we could stop arguing over whether to add flame-painting details to the job on our hull, Skipper,” she replied.

     
“Give us an hour, Vel,” Tina told her. “We’ll be coasting by then, unless you want to wait until low orbit.”

     
“I’ll wait the hour,” Velvet replied, “but we may not have the option to orbit before landing. Not if the repairs don’t hold.”

     
The ship shook again and a muffled boom resounded through the cabin. “Now what?” Park asked. “Are we under attack again?”

     
“Not unless we hit a mine,” Iris replied. “Vel?”

     
There was another shudder and the overhead lights went out. “Delayed damage is my guess,” Velvet conjectured. “Maybe we should coast now before something else goes.”

     
“Cancel the maybe,” Park told her. “Make it definitely. Iris, what will that do to our course?”

     
“We’re still headed for Earth,” Iris replied, “and I wasn’t sure where we were going to have to land in any case.” She got up and stared toward the navigation station. “I’ll start working on it.”

     
“Engines disengaged,” Tina reported. “Vel, you’re cleared for EVA.”

     
“Be careful,” Park told her.

     
“Right-o, Skipper,” she replied.

     
The next hour was a nervous one with Velvet refusing to report until she had a chance. Park knew enough to give her the room she needed to do her job, but he had to stop himself several times from suiting up to join her team. Finally, the lights came back on, although much dimmer than they had been and their spacesuits were standing between everyone and hypothermia.

     
“I think it was warmer outside,” Marisea remarked after removing her helmet.

     
“The suits will keep us alive,” Park told her.

     
“Only for twelve hours,” Velvet informed him, “but I think I can rewire the life support to work on the bridge at least.”

     
“And the rest of the report?” Park asked.

     
“I want a rematch with the Galactics,” Velvet growled. “That one shot at us left a hole in the port side of our belly.”

     
“The next one could be dead on,” Park pointed out. “We don’t even know what they shot at us.”

     
“I think it was a ball of plasma,” Velvet replied. “And it seems to me I read something about magnetic shielding against such a weapon.”

     
“We are not allowed such technology,” Taodore told her.

     
“Another silly interpretation of the Covenant?” Park asked him.

     
“Not as such,” Taodore denied, “but they refuse to share that technology with us.”

     
“And yet, they’ve allowed you to read their scientific journals,” Velvet smirked. “I’ve read enough to think I can cobble something together. It’s not entirely unlike our stasis technology, really, just sort of inverted.”

     
“Well, you have my support on that,” Park assured her, “but first we need to get down in one piece.”

     
“And still breathing,” Tina added. “We lost a lot of breathing air. Was there an explosion?”

     
“One of the air tanks let go,” Velvet replied, her breath condensing into a white cloud. “That qualifies as an explosion. When the tank ruptured it damaged other nearby systems. We’ve patched her up as best we can, although we’re still working on a bit of heat in here. Excuse me, Skipper I should get back there.”

     
“I’ll come too,” Marisea volunteered.

     
“No, dear,” Velvet smiled at the teen. “You haven’t this sort of training. Don’t worry, maybe next time. Stay up here. Believe it or not, this is warm in comparison.”

     
The heat rose to a mere ten degrees Celsius over the next hours, but it was enough to conserve the power in their spacesuits. “We’re going to have to use the aft compartment when landing,” Iris pointed out.

     
“We want to all be in our suits with helmets closed I should think,” Park replied. “Velvet can we land safely?”

     
“We can’t stick our thumbs out and hitch a ride,” the radio officer, a Mer named Garnore Theens, told them.

 
    
“Um, do the Mer hitchhike?” Park asked, momentarily distracted.

     
“Not that way,” Garnore laughed, “but one of the guys at Van Winkle Town told me about it. But the thing is I can’t pick up any radio traffic. I think we may have lost the antenna.”

     
“One more problem,” Park sighed. “We should have named this bucket
Murphy’s Chariot
. No helping that now. Keep transmitting in case the problem is only one-way. Iris, what’s our ETA?”

     
“Estimated time of arrival?” Iris considered. “I guess that depends on where we land, but we should be reentering the atmosphere in two hours.”

     
“Velvet?” Park asked. “How much trouble are we really in? I mean what’s likely to happen when we start scraping the atmosphere.”

     
“It’s going to be a bumpier ride than on the training flights,” Velvet replied, “but I think we’ll make it. This bird doesn’t come in on a blanket of fire like our old ships used to, you know. We come in under power and can control our descent.”

     
“Yeah,” Tina added, “but given the lack of air, we’re going to have to balance powered flight with a choice of landing spot.”

     
“I estimate we can land in one of the east coast cities,” Iris told them. “I just hope they see us coming.”

     
They spoke less and less often over the next two hours and Marisea took to sitting on Park’s lap for emotional comfort and looked so worried when the crew started back toward the after cabin, Park allowed her to sit at the laser operator’s station which, except for when Iris had returned fire on the
Vigilant
, had been empty most of the trip. And then finally, they felt the first kiss of the atmosphere.

     
It started as a low, soft whistle, barely loud enough to hear, but it soon rose up in pitch and intensity, and then all became quiet again. The calm lasted two more minutes and then the
Hudson
began to vibrate. “Oh, I don’t like this,” Tina remarked.

     
Park looked over and saw her white knuckled grip on the steering yoke. The yoke was vibrating worse than the spaceship. Outside, the sky had started turning blue again but Tina was still holding the yoke with everything she had. “Park, take the co-pilot’s yoke, please,” she requested. “It’s going to take both of us to hold her together.”

     
Park, already seated in what was supposed to be the co-pilot’s seat, reached forward for the controls. Tina was right. The ship was fighting the air every inch of the way. They were still ten miles up when there was a horrendous shriek of tearing metal.

     
Somebody screamed. Park thought it was Marisea. He didn’t blame her. He felt like screaming himself, but he was too busy trying to hold them on course to wonder whether the wings were coming off. He did know that suddenly the ship was incredibly less aerodynamic.

     
And then the engines stopped and the ship was falling. “Hold us!” a hoarse female voice told Park. It was Tina who had been screaming even as she had maintained her post. “I have to reinitialize or we’re dead.”

     
“Got it!” Park shouted. Shouting wasn’t necessary to be heard in the cabin, but no other mode of speech was emphatic enough. He kept the ship’s nose in the air, but even so felt himself lighten in the seat. It had to be an illusion, but he now felt lighter than air and that without the seat belts he would have floated away. And this too he shoved to the back of his mind as inconsequential. Nothing but keeping them level while Tina worked to reinitialize the engines had any meaning.

     
Turbines whined forlornly and there was an occasional slight cough as Tina prayed, “Come on! Catch! Catch!” and then suddenly something reignited and they had power again. Tina’s capable hands gripped the steering yoke once more and Park allowed her to guide them, merely working to keep the ship going where she pointed it. The ground was a lot closer now and Tina had them in nearly full reverse. Park heard the sounds of the wheels coming down for a landing. Outside he saw a gently hilly landscape with a lot of dark green grass and clumps of trees. A part of his mind wondered whether it mattered if they crashed on the grass or into the trees. At the moment they were somewhat blurred together so he supposed not.

     
They continued coming down fast. And then Tina suddenly tried to bring them upward again. There was a slight thump as they touched the ground, but the ship obeyed one last command and managed to stay up as the landscape stopped blurring quite so much. There was another shriek of tortured metal as they touched down again. Park was certain they had lost the port side wing. It didn’t matter. This bird wasn’t flying anymore; now it was skidding.

     
Landscape was moving past the windshield sideways and then suddenly everything stopped. Park took a deep breath and then the wheel at the nose of the craft collapsed and they fell with a thump, leaving the cabin with a frontwards list.

     
“Are we dead yet?” Marisea asked bravely even though fear showed in her voice.

     
“If so,” Tina rasped, “I hope this is Valhalla. I certainly was screaming like a valkyrie.”

     
“Not a
bean sidhe
?” Park asked, some amusement coming back into his own mind.

     
“If I were Irish perhaps,” Tina admitted with a fierce grin, “but I’m Scandinavian.”

 
    
“You’re a bit short for a valkyrie,” Park observed.

     
“And you’re a bit short for a storm trooper,” Tina laughed, “but you’ll do.”

     
“Anyone hurt?” Park asked the others. A chorus of negatives greeted him as he got out of his seat and climbed with some difficulty toward the aft cabin. Marisea made an adjustment to her suspensor and hopped over to help him. “How about back here?” he asked as they came through the hatch.

     
“A few bruises,” Velvet told him from one corner. Three others, two Mer and a human man were disentangling themselves from her. They had obviously all fallen there together.