Impulse (13 page)

“What the hell are you all staring at? You have your orders!” I bellowed at the crew. They scrambled back to their duty stations. Tralfane made for his workstation and I followed.

“We don't have much time,” I reminded the Historian. He didn't look up from his station while responding.

“You could have saved some by not sticking that gun to my head,” he said.

“I deemed it necessary,” I replied, not willing to let him know I could never have pulled the trigger. Tralfane worked furiously over the controls, with no time to respond to me verbally. Finally he nodded to the longscope.

“Go! And use your com,” he said. I went to the 'scope and fired her up again, clicking in the com while her displays came to life.

“Click on the new display icon and activate the controls,” he said through the com. It was like he was standing next to me and whispering in my ear. Earth technology. I did as instructed, which he could no doubt track from his monitor station. The display came up with a green tactical target overlying a plain black screen.

“What am I looking for?” I said quietly.

“Be patient!” Tralfane snapped. He should have known it wasn't one of my better traits by now. Suddenly the screen painted with a hi-def display of one of the displacement wave weapons. It was still glowing red-hot from the first blast. I could see nearly into its maw, like I was just a few miles out.

“That's amazing—”

“Focus!” he hissed in my ear. I swallowed hard.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get me the vector marks to the target,” he said. I did as instructed. “Stand by,” he said. A second later and the screen painted with the target hardened. A firing resolution showed in a column to the left of the display.

“Can you follow these instructions?” I nodded, then realized he couldn't see me behind the hood.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“Good. Give the orders and fire at will.”

“What am I firing?” I asked. His voice came back after a second's delay.

“The forward coil cannon.”

I jumped from behind the longscope and shouted orders to shut down our visual and tactical displays, along with communications.

“Lock her down! Go black, Mr. Kasdan. Those are my orders,” I said. The bridge grew very quiet around me as I returned to the 'scope and my display. Coil weaponry was known on Quantar. It basically involved mixing chemicals in a chamber to produce and project high-amped laser energy. But we had never been able to use it for more than short-range pistols and rifles. I couldn't imagine what this one could do, but I figured I'd find out soon enough.

I peered in at my screen. The displacement wave weapon was changing color to amber, and its HD signature curve was climbing again. It was preparing to fire another salvo.

“We'd better do this quick, Mr. Tralfane,” I said.

“Transferring firing control to you,” he said, loud enough for the crew to hear.

My screen went all green as each of the items in the instruction list checked off. I targeted the asteroid and took the fire key in my right hand.

“Counting down!” I said loudly. “Three, two, one . . . firing!” I depressed the key, holding my breath. A beam of orange-white light shot across my view from right to left and struck the asteroid. The display exploded in a cascade of bright light, and I closed my eyes against the glare. When I opened them again, the screen was clear.

The asteroid had disintegrated in a second, and
Impulse
had felt nary a bump.

“Amazing!” I whispered, in awe of the power in my hands.

“Now you see why I wanted to keep this from you. Such power can destroy worlds if used improperly,” said Tralfane. I shut down the longscope and came out from under the hood, looking at the Historian face-to-face.

“I've no doubt of that,” I said.

I stood at the captain's chair, one hand on the arm, watching on the main bridge display as the remaining two displacement wave weapons propelled themselves away from the shuttles and toward the safety of L-6. I was amazed at how objects of such size and destructive power could move so fast.

“Do we pursue, sir?” asked Kasdan. I shook my head.

“Negative. Search and rescue is our priority now. Fire up the impellers and take us closer to the shuttles. I want you to calibrate the last known location of Captain Zander's shuttle and make for it at flank speed.”

“But what about shielding, sir? Our Hoagland Field is inoperative. We could take a pounding from those asteroids if they come back and fire on us again,” he said.

I looked down at Kasdan, a man just a few years older than me. Under normal circumstances we would probably be becoming friends and shipmates. Instead I found myself ordering a more experienced officer around.

“Par for the course, Mr. Kasdan,” I said. “We have no choice. I want
Impulse
to find the captain's shuttle. I'll be taking the Downship out with Corporal Marker to assist in finding the Search and Rescue shuttle. As soon as you get the Hoagland Field back up and running I want you to extend the field around the captain's shuttle.
Impulse
will have to pull the heavy duty.”

“Aye, sir, understood. But the Downship isn't prepped for S&R. She's made for atmospheric flight primarily, sir.” I frowned down at Kasdan from my perch.

“I'm aware of her limitations, Mr. Kasdan, but we have no choice. We've got to find those shuttles and conduct a rescue before those displacement wave weapons decide to come back.”
And while there's still a chance Dobrina and Zander might be alive
, I told myself.

“Is it wise for the commanding officer to leave the bridge in a crisis?” The words came from behind me, from Tralfane again. I turned to him.

“Wise?” I said. “This whole mission was unwise, Mr. Tralfane. But I intend to do what Captain Zander prevented me from doing in the first place, and that's being out
there
instead of locked into this chair.” I took a few steps toward Tralfane's station.

“Which reminds me, I need an Officer of the Deck,” I said. Tralfane shook his head.

“Not me. I'm not navy,” he said calmly. I crossed my arms, emulating the Historian's favorite pose when he was being intransigent.

“But you serve at the pleasure of the captain of
Impulse
. Given the circumstances, that may end up being me for quite a while. And I think you'd find serving under me might be something you'd rather not do for the rest of your life,” I said. Tralfane motioned me closer and I went.

“Cochrane, I'm not
navy
!” he seethed from between tight lips.

“I'm aware of that, Mr. Tralfane. But this ship is in crisis and it needs an experienced hand at the con. Now I'm asking you, will you take acting command?” I could see hesitation in his eyes, but also resignation. He knew it was the right thing to do.

“All right!” he finally said. “Go and rescue your friends! But keep in mind that once you relinquish command, I am under no obligation to return it to you.” This last comment pushed me to the line again. I stepped close enough to the Historian to feel his breath on my face and spoke in hushed but intense tones.

“When I return, Mr. Tralfane, be assured that I will take you on in any physical challenge you so desire. In the meantime, I assume you have some natural human feelings for this ship and her crew. I'm asking you to take care of them, hopefully only until Captain Zander returns.”

With that I stepped away, verbally gave the con to Tralfane, and was off the bridge in another second, sweat flowing inside my shirt as the lifter raced toward the landing bay.

“How long?” I asked Marker impatiently inside the Downship, watching as we approached the Search and Rescue shuttle in deep space. Marker checked his nav screen display, and then looked out the forward window for good measure. The shuttle grew ever larger.

“About four minutes, sir,” he said. I nodded and unstrapped my braces to stand.

“Take us in as close as you can. The tether won't hold me over more than thirty meters,” I said, “and I don't want to miss the hatch.”

“Aye, sir. Still insisting on decompressing the airlock sir?” asked Marker.

“Yes, Corporal,” I said as I prepped my EVA suit helmet. “I did it plenty of times in training. I'll just have to make sure I don't accelerate enough to punch a hole in the hull.”

Marker looked at me, a quizzical expression on his face. “Accelerate? How do you intend to do that, sir?” I touched the small white plastic cones fastened at each hip.

“Compression jets. Used them extensively for space-borne jumps, mostly for maneuvering, but you can use them almost all the way to your target to decelerate as well, at least in zero-G.” I didn't tell him that I'd never used them in such close quarters before, and that the last cadet I saw try ended up as a rather large stain on an exterior bulkhead of the shuttle he was trying to board. I figured, why worry him? It was my risk, and the commander and Layton were my friends.

“I still think we should use the umbilical,” Marker said. The umbilical was a tube of clear plastic and aluminum that extruded from the Downship and similar sized vehicles as a means of moving anything from heavy cargo to people between ships in space. It was a luxury I didn't have time for.

I shook my head no as I donned my helmet and sealed the clamps, then activated the suit com. “We don't have time. They'll be out of air just a few minutes after we rendezvous, and the umbilical takes ten minutes. You know that.”

I entered the airlock without another word and sealed the hatch behind me, then peered out the window just as the Search and Rescue shuttle came into view. Marker was indeed positioning the Downship perfectly, as promised. I made it less than twenty meters between the ships when he called full stop.

“Eighteen point six-five-four meters, sir,” called his voice in my ear.
Smartass
, I thought. “You ready in there, sir?” Marker said.

“Affirmative,” I responded. “Go on my mark.” I positioned the cones to point at a reverse angle to the exterior shuttle hatch, then checked my tether one last time. I pulled myself down into a tight ball, like a sprinter in his set crouch, and held my breath, my attention fixed on the airlock door. With luck I would shoot out like a torpedo, the deceleration cones would fire, and I would come screeching to a halt before I smashed through the shuttle's hull. With luck.

“Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!” I shouted into the com. The airlock door exploded open as the chamber decompressed. I became instantly disoriented—air rushing out around me, the shuttle above me, then the airlock door, then open space.

“You're stuck!” shouted Marker in my ear. “The tether's caught on something!” I believed what he told me but I had no way of knowing what to do about it. I was spinning wildly out of control and I felt nausea coming on strong.

“Which direction am I spinning?” I shouted out. If there was a touch of desperation in my voice it was because that's how I felt.

“Counterclockwise!”

I closed my eyes as I struggled to reach the firing mechanism for the cones on my inner left arm. I would have to shut one off and fire the other to slow myself down or I'd pass out before I could rescue anyone. I put my hands down to the firing controls. As disoriented as I was there was no way of knowing which one to fire, and there wasn't time. I had to fire one of them, but which? The sensation in my stomach was of falling from a great height and my ears were filling with the sound of rushing blood, my blood. Marker was yelling instructions at me but I couldn't recognize what he was saying anymore. I was passing out, and I had to do something.

I shut the valve on the firing control on one of the cones, I couldn't tell which, and then depressed the trigger on the other, praying for the best.

My universe went black.

In Deep Space

T
he next thing I was conscious of was that someone was speaking. Whether to me or someone else I couldn't tell. The rushing in my ears was calming and I could feel weight again. Breathing in was difficult and my chest felt heavy, but after a few deep breaths I slowly felt the heaviness subside and opened my eyes. I recognized the lights of the cabin above me but my vision was blurry. I felt a warm hand on my face as the voice I was hearing became clear to me at last.

I looked up at Commander Dobrina Kierkopf. She was bending over me in her EVA suit, her helmet off, with a very concerned look on her face.

“Commannndddurrr,” I mumbled out, my words slurring. There was a mask over my face feeding me oxygen, and it wasn't helping me speak any clearer. I tried to reach up to pull the mask off but my arms felt like lead.

“Stay put, Mr. Cochrane,” she said to me, then tucked my arm back in to the safety seat I was strapped into. I nodded, then looked around the cabin of the Downship. Layton was at the pilot's station, with Marker at the copilot station. Dobrina and I were a few rows back and down, in the passenger cabin. She had me strapped in like a baby in a ground car. I felt her run a hand through my sopping wet hair.

“What happened?” I said more clearly, or so I hoped.

“Your tether caught on an explosive clip that malfunctioned. You were spinning like a top at a carnival,” she said. I tried to smile.

“You needed help,” I said.

“Like hell!” she responded. “Another half minute and we'd have been out there to greet you! We took the displacement wave straight on against our shields. It burned everything out, communications, propulsion, you name it. But thanks to Layton here we were as ready as we could be. When we saw you coming we were already kitted out for EVA. We figured we'd just pop the hatch ourselves and float on over. That was until I looked out and saw you spinning like a pinwheel. Oh, and by the way, you fired the wrong cone. Nearly sheared your tether off too. By the time we caught you, you were almost at escape velocity. Thank goodness you didn't puke in the suit.” She smiled at me. I smiled back. The oxygen was quickly clearing my head.

“Did I have you worried?” I said. She squeezed my hand but said nothing, then turned to her pilot.

“Mr. Layton, ETA to Captain Zander?” Kierkopf asked.

“Eight minutes, sir,” said Layton. She turned back to me.

“You have that long to get yourself ready,” she said.

Captain Zander and his volunteer crew had less than ten minutes of air left when we rendezvoused with the bulwark shuttle. Marker had positioned us as close as he dared. Commander Kierkopf and I stood behind the airlock hatch watching the umbilical deploy foot-by-foot to the sealed main cargo hatch of the shuttle. It wasn't going fast enough.

“Status of the shuttle!” demanded Dobrina.

“Main cabin temperature 1140 degrees Celsius and rising. Cargo cabin is exposed and at space normal temperature,” said Marker. “There must be a hole in the hull we can't see from here.”

“If the pilot's nest is that hot then she must be burning hydrazine fuel,” I said.

“There's a main fuel line running through the pilot's cabin on the Werder class shuttles,” said Marker. “It must have burst.”

“That's a great design. Who thought that up?” I was angry.

“It doesn't matter,” said Kierkopf. “They can't survive much longer, even in the EVA suits. They're built primarily for space, not fire duty.”

“If we can directly vent the main cabin, the decompression would burn the fire out,” I suggested. She shook her head.

“Impossible. Blowing the cabin would send everything and everyone inside hurtling into space, including the captain. We'd never have enough time to rescue them all,” she looked down at her watch. “If they were piped into the reserve air supply in the shuttle they should have seven minutes left. How much longer on the umbilical?” she shouted to Marker.

“Four minutes,” he replied. Not enough time to get across, deal with the fire, and rescue the crew, not to mention we'd probably have to blow the service hatch with the charges I'd brought.

“We'll have to go now. Get your ass down here, Marker! Layton,” she called to her Search and Rescue copilot, “you have the pilot's chair. Hold her steady and keep her ready to fly back to
Impulse
at a moment's notice.” Layton nodded vigorously inside the helmet of his EVA suit.

“About
Impulse
,” I started. “I ordered her close to extend the Hoagland Field around us.” Kierkopf shook her head.

“She's taken a pounding from the displacement wave. I ordered her back out of range until we retrieve all personnel and return in the Downship,” she said. I didn't take her countermanding my orders as a personal affront to my plan of action. Truth be told, I was glad to have someone else in charge. Marker joined us and we all donned our helmets and activated our coms.

“The umbilical isn't going to make it in time,” said Kierkopf to both of us. “We'll have to go out through the maintenance hatch and propel over to the captain's shuttle.”

“That's my job,” jumped in Marker. “I'll go over, locate the damage hole in the hull from the attack, and set a tether for you to follow. Then I'll go in and cut open the crew cabin hatch from inside.”

“Affirmative,” said Kierkopf, nodding. Then we all made our way down the narrow spiral staircase to the maintenance deck. Marker hooked up a set of the cone jets to his belt and gave the thumbs-up.

“You'd better take a coil cutter with you, in case the bulkhead is sealed,” said Dobrina. Marker took one from the shelf and Dobrina took another, then handed me a third. The cutting lasers were different from our pistols and rifles, using a highly concentrated beam of light to cut metal or rock. This one was a hand-sized tool, cylindrical and just long enough to fit in your palm with an emitter at the end.

“Will this be enough to get through the bulkhead?” I asked.

“It's all we have,” said Kierkopf.

“We have proximity charges,” I replied. “I had Marker pack them before we left. We can use them to blow the bulkhead door if we have to.”

Kierkopf hesitated, then shook her head negative. “They're too dangerous. The explosion could kill them both, and us.”

“And these will take too long,” I said, raising the cutter. Kierkopf looked to Marker for an opinion.

“Wouldn't want to be inside when one went off, sir, but we may have no other choice,” he said.

Kierkopf relented, raising a pair of fingers to me. “Two,” she said. I went to the wall cabinet and unlatched it, then removed the charges as Marker sealed the deck and decompressed the cabin. We had six minutes when he popped the hatch.

Kierkopf and I watched from above as he dove through the small hatch headfirst, swimming into open space with the tether attached at his waist. I saw a small puff of air as he activated the cones and accelerated toward the shuttle. Dobrina followed next and I came out last, both of us holding on to EVA clamps and waiting while Marker crossed to the shuttle. By the time I got myself oriented Marker was almost on the scarred shuttle hull. It was black and mottled from the beating it had taken from the displacement wave. No doubt the collapse of her shielding under the pressure of the wave had caused a short in the shuttle electronics, and thus the fire.

I looked up to my left, toward the shuttle's pilot's nest. I saw a flash of deep orange reflecting out of the windows into space. “I've got visual confirmation of the cabin fire,” I said. Neither Kierkopf nor Marker responded, focusing only on the job at hand.

“Five minutes,” came Kasdan's voice in our helmets. I watched as Marker caught a handhold on the shuttle hull and pulled himself in, going hand over hand and quickly rounding the top of the shuttle, moving out of our sight. A second later he reported back.

“Tether secure, sir. There's a hole just big enough to get my shoulders through over here. Both of you should be able to make it in without a problem. I'm going in, one way or another.”

“Acknowledged,” said Kierkopf, then she started moving across open space, using a sweeping hand-over-hand technique on the tether. She was surprisingly fast. I gripped the line myself and tried to replicate her motion, but I was much slower than she was. One thing I was always told about open space EVA: don't look down. I reminded myself of this as I focused on Kierkopf ahead of me.

“Report, Marker,” she said, her voice crackling through my helmet. She was breathing heavily but still pulling away from me. A moment of silence passed and I began to worry.

“Scan shows two survivors in the pilot's nest,” Marker shouted. “Both in EVA suits. Low vitals but I can tell that they're breathing. Four dead in the main cabin, two survivors, both unconscious, four missing. Probably got sucked out when the hull ruptured.”

“Four minutes left,” came Kasdan's voice again.

“What about the captain?” said Dobrina.

“He's not among the crew here,” replied Marker. “My guess is that it's him and Poulsen in the pilot's nest, behind the bulkhead.”

Where the fire is
, I thought, and immediately picked up my pace. My thoughts turned to Natalie, and I wondered if she had survived the initial wave attack, then been killed by a similar fire . . .

I shook my head to clear those awful thoughts from my mind and refocused on the task at hand. My shoulders and arms burned as I passed hand over hand in a frantic attempt to aid in the rescue. Kierkopf said nothing more as she reached the shuttle and gripped the handholds, propelling herself and vanishing over the curve of the hull and presumably into the cabin with Marker. It seemed an eternity until I was able to reach the shuttle and do the same, cresting the hull into darkness and then in through the jagged hole in the shuttle's side to the crew cabin.

Inside the cabin was dark and cold, colder when I saw the charred bodies of the dead volunteers. I switched on my helmet light. Marker was at the now open freight hatch attaching the clear plastic umbilical. Dobrina stood at the bulkhead wall cutting the metal around the door seal to the pilot's cabin with both of the cutters. It was taking too long. I joined her silently as Marker took the first of the survivors into the umbilical and pushed off with his feet. I watched his technique as he floated through the tunnel and into the open airlock hatch on the Downship, disappearing, then starting his return trip a moment later.

“Three minutes of oxygen left,” said Layton in our ears.

The bulkhead metal was thick and difficult to cut through. I had started at the top right with Dobrina working the left side. She was almost to the bottom of the doorway but I was less than halfway down on my side. No air was escaping from the pilot's cabin. We weren't making it.

“Commander, this isn't working!” I said, putting down the laser. “We're running out of time!”

“I know!” she said angrily.

“We've got to use the charges,” I said. I saw her shake her head inside her EVA helmet.

“Not until we get the other survivor off the ship. Keep cutting.”

“Dobrina, there's no time! Zander and Poulsen will die if we don't blow the bulkhead!”

She put down her cutting laser, whipped her head around and slammed her helmet visor into mine. Her words came muffled through the visor but I could hear her clearly enough.

“Damn it, man, give me the charges then! I'll blow the bulkhead,” she demanded.

“You don't know how to use them,” I said, unwilling to let her put herself at risk. “It's my job. And with Zander incapacitated
you're
the acting captain!” I reminded her. She grabbed my arms while keeping her helmet pressed to mine so only the two of us could hear the conversation.

“
I
have to do this,” she shouted. “Give me the goddamned charges!”

“You're too valuable to risk—”