Frontiers Saga 10: Liberation (7 page)

“Neither have I,” Yanni admitted, “until now anyway.” Yanni followed the sergeant through the wide hatch into the forward end of the main hangar bay.

“Well, you’re about to join an elite club,” the sergeant said as they turned left and headed toward the port side of the hangar deck.

Yanni looked suspicious. “What club is that?”

“Only about a hundred Terrans have traveled a thousand light years from Earth, and only thirty of them are still alive to talk about it. Soon, you’ll become the thirty-first.”

Yanni swallowed hard. “Assuming I live to tell about it, that is.”

Sergeant Weatherly let go an uncharacteristic chuckle. The stoic marine smiled at the young Swiss. “You’ll be fine. The Takarans turned out to be pretty nice folk.”

“What do you mean, ‘turned out to be’?”

“Long story. I’m sure the flight crew will tell you all about it during your journey back to the PC.”

“PC?”

“Pentaurus cluster.”

“Oh, right.” Yanni looked out across the massive hangar bay as they approached the super-jump shuttle sitting on the forward elevator pad. “Have you been there?”

“Takara?” The sergeant laughed again. “Yup. It’s a lot like Earth, except more rain.”

“And they’re nice, you say?”

“Mister Hiller,” the sergeant said as he came to a stop, “you’re bringing them the entire history and knowledge of the birthplace of humanity… of their long passed ancestors. I suspect you’ll be welcomed with open arms. Besides, Prince Casimir and the captain are very good friends. The prince will take good care of you.”

“Really?”

“You’ll probably have beautiful, young women tending to your every need.”

Yanni’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Well, maybe not your every need,” the sergeant warned. He turned toward the group of men at the back of the super-jump shuttle. “Lieutenant!” he called out.

Lieutenant Montgomery came over to them, appearing to be his usual polite and not overly friendly self. “How may I help you, Sergeant?” he said, returning the sergeant’s salute.

“Lieutenant Montgomery, this is Mister Hiller. He is the technician from Earth who is responsible for the safety of the data cores.”

“An honor to meet you, Mister Hiller,” the lieutenant said with a nod. “Your arrival is well timed. We were just trying to decide how best to shield your data cores from the effects of the zero-point energy device.”

“The what?” Yanni asked, a curious look on his face.

“Sir,” the sergeant said, stepping back to depart. He winked at Yanni. “Good luck, Mister Hiller.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Yanni turned back to the lieutenant, his curiosity still piqued. “What were you saying? A zero-point something?”

* * *

Nathan watched from the command chair on the Aurora’s bridge as his helmsman, Mister Chiles, manipulated the ship’s docking thrusters. The view screen before them was filled with the image of the Celestia sitting on the surface of Metis, which loomed above them. “This just doesn’t feel right,” he mumbled to his XO who stood next to him.

“Up, down… it’s all relative in space,” Cameron reminded him.

“At least this big view screen is finally good for something,” he said as he leaned his head back to look straight up at the top edge of the screen as the Celestia grew larger in the screen and slid slowly aft.

“One hundred meters,” Mister Riley announced. “Speed: one meter per second. Range to Celestia: two hundred meters. Closure of two and a half meters per second.”

“At what distance are we going to stand off?” Nathan asked his XO.

“Fifty meters at our closest points,” Cameron answered. “Any closer and we’d be constantly adjusting our position to avoid being pulled down on top of the Celestia.”

“Is fifty meters far enough?” Nathan wondered.

“It will have to be. The rescue tunnel is only sixty meters long, so even if we stand off at fifty, we’ll only have ten meters of slack available. We’ll have to counter with station-keeping every twenty minutes or so to avoid ripping the tunnel. However, Mister Chiles has programmed the auto-flight system to maintain our position in precise fashion.”

“A pilot after your own heart, eh?”

“If you mean a
good
pilot, then yes,” she quipped.

“Firing thrusters,” Mister Chiles reported from the helm.

“Forward speed at zero,” Mister Riley reported. “Still descending. Closure at one meter per second. Range to stand off distance is fifty meters. Drifting slightly to port.”

“Correcting,” the helmsman answered as he quickly calculated the amount of thrust necessary to stop the drift. A moment later, he entered a command and the port thrusters answered.

“We’re directly over our targeting point,” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s station. “Zero drift. Still descending. Point five closure. Thirty meters.”

“Tell the attachment team to stand by,” Nathan ordered.

“Attachment team is already in position and standing by,” Naralena reported from the comm station.

“Twenty meters.”

“Queuing up final parking thrust cycle,” Mister Riley reported calmly.

Four technicians in Corinairan EVA suits stood in a circle on the Aurora’s flight apron and faced aft. Below them, four long rows of heat exchangers stretched out from under the aft edge of the flight apron to the forward edge of the drive of the ship’s massive main propulsion section. In between them was the specialized deployment cart that carried the Emergency Rescue Tunnel.

They leaned back as best they could in their bulky suits, craning their necks and rotating from side to side, in order to see the Celestia as they hovered upside down above her. Small docking thrusters located all around the ship perimeter fired tiny, repetitive bursts of accelerated propellant in shimmering blasts as the Aurora’s helmsman brought the massive ship to a complete stop exactly fifty meters above the Celestia on the surface of Metis.

Two of the technicians climbed up the two ladders located on opposite sides of the ERT deployment cart. Once they reached the tops of their ladders, the lead technician grabbed the maneuvering controls and fired the small thrusters located at various points around the ring. The top ring of the ERT began to rise off the cart, stretching out the collapsed tunnel behind it as it rose away from the Aurora and toward the Celestia directly above.

“
Team One is ascending toward the Celestia,
” the voice announced over the speakers on the Aurora’s bridge. “
ETA to contact: three minutes.
”

“It’s kind of hard to decide if they are ascending or descending,” Nathan commented as he watched the deployment process on the main view screen through the flight apron cameras. “I guess it depends on which ship you’re looking from.”

“At some point, they’ll have to invert themselves,” Cameron said, “or the gravity of Metis will pull them in head first.”

“It wouldn’t injure them though,” Nathan said. “The gravity on Metis is too weak.”

“True, but it would be… clumsy looking at best.”

Nathan nodded indifference as he continued watching. Just as Cameron had predicted, about halfway between the Aurora and the Celestia, the two technicians holding onto the ERT’s ring inverted themselves so that they were now descending feet first toward the Celestia.

“Eighty seconds to contact,”
the technician announced over the comms. The technician controlling the ERT’s distal connection ring fired the ring’s thrusters several more times to compensate for the tunnel’s resistance to expansion as it began to approach its maximum length.

“I’m not sure that thing is going to reach,” Nathan said.

“It will reach,” Cameron answered confidently.

Nathan turned slightly to call over his shoulder to Naralena. “How’s the fuel transfer team doing?”

After a moment, Naralena answered. “The team leader reports the propellant transfer line is paying out correctly. They should be connected and ready to pressure test the hose in about five minutes.”

“Very good.”

“
Contact,
” the technician operating the ERT ring reported. “
Connecting ERT to the Celestia’s topside midship service airlock.
”

“I suppose you’ve thought about what to do if we have to leave quickly,” Nathan said.

“The ERT is self-retracting. When one end disconnects, the retraction winches at the opposite end automatically start pulling it back. It takes about ten minutes to fully retract the tunnel into its storage configuration.”

“What happens if there are people inside the tunnel when we have to leave?”

“The ERT has an iris at each end. In the event of a sudden decrease in pressure, the irises automatically close.”

“Good to know.”

“Celestia side is secured,”
the technician reported.

“Team Two is moving,”
the leader of the second team announced.

“All they have to do now is attach the other end of the ERT to our topside midship maintenance airlock, and we’ll be ready to start moving people and supplies over,” Cameron announced.

“What’s first on the repair list?” Nathan asked.

“We’ve already got a team working on the leak on the command deck. And another team is rigging a temporary tunnel the senior chief devised to join the command deck with the rest of the ship.”

“No more EVA suits just to go forward, then.”

“Should speed things along, yes. Lieutenant Montgomery’s plasma cannon turret team has attached several equipment-maneuvering units to the turret in order to fly it over to the Celestia.”

“Where are they planning on installing it?” Nathan asked.

“One of the survey teams discovered that the elevator platform for the missile launcher is fully functional, as are the bay doors,” Cameron explained. “Once they move the weapon over, they can close the doors and pressurize the bay in order to work more easily. There are also main power trunks running just under the missile deck, so tapping into them for power should be relatively easy.”

“We might make a warship out of her sooner than expected,” Nathan said as he rose.

“One gun does not make a warship, sir, not even a plasma cannon.”

“I can dream, can’t I?” Nathan stepped forward, patting Mister Chiles on the shoulder as he passed. “Nice work, Mister Chiles.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m taking a break, Commander,” Nathan announced as he headed for the exit. “You have the conn.”

* * *

Synda’s eyes fluttered slightly, slowly opening for the first time since she had been wounded. Her eyes opened farther as she began to examine the unfamiliar surroundings. She felt pain… and something else: tiny pinpricks all over the inside of her body. The sensation was extremely uncomfortable and was more intense in her torso than in her arms and legs. A wave of fear and confusion began to sweep over her as her eyes darted about the room. Where she was, what had happened, and why she was in pain: the questions only served to increase her building panic, made worse by the fog that still clouded her mind. Then she noticed Tony’s head lying on his folded arms alongside her, and her fear began to ease.

She lifted her left hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Tony,” she whispered, her voice weak and harsh.

Tony’s head rose slowly at first, then suddenly popped the rest of the way up and turned to look at his friend. “Hey,” he answered in hushed tones. “It’s about time you woke up.”

His beaming smile eased her fear and uncertainty even further. She looked at his face, lines embedded in his cheek from his wristwatch. She had always thought him an odd-looking man, attractive but in a way that might not be obvious to most people. She couldn’t help but notice, however, that right now he looked wonderful to her.

“I was starting to get worried,” he added.

“What happened?” Synda swallowed with some amount of difficulty, trying to wet her dry throat. “Where are we?”

Tony smiled. “You’re not going to believe this, but we’re on the Aurora.”

Synda’s face cringed as a wave of intense pinpricks surged inside her abdomen. “What?” She looked at him in disbelief, then noticed his clothing. “Is that an EDF uniform you’re wearing?”

“Yeah, they’re washing my clothes. You sort of bled all over me.”

“How did we get here?”

“We got ambushed on the surface, remember?”

“Vaguely,” she admitted.

“You were hit, so we came back with them.”

Synda didn’t understand. “But how? How did they get past all the Jung ships? They’re everywhere. Surely they didn’t just fly right in and…”

“I don’t really understand it all, Synda,” Tony interrupted. “All I know is that we took off from Earth, there was a bright flash, and the next moment, we were landing on the Aurora.”

“The flash,” she said, her memory returning. “I remember, when that shuttle arrived. There was a big flash and thunder and wind, and there it was, just hovering there. How is that possible?”

“I think it has something to do with their jump drives. I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “I just know that we’re here on the Aurora. Hell, I even met the captain. You’re not going to believe who he is.”

“Where’s Jessica?” Synda asked, cringing again from the pain.

“She was here earlier. She said she’d be back later. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you in pain?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s strange. It’s like thousands of little, tiny needles, but on the inside.”

“Must be the nanites,” Tony told her.

“What are nanites?”

“I don’t really know. Josh said they were like microscopic robots that they inject into your bloodstream to fix you from the inside.”

“Who’s Josh?”

“Some guy I met in medical. He was getting some nanites injected in him as well. He told me they might cause you some pain, something about the nanites not being designed for people from Earth.”

“What?” Synda looked even more confused. Another wave of pain washed over her.

“He said the doctors knew what they were doing. The Corinairans are supposed to be more medically advanced than us…”

“The who? You’re not making any sense,” Synda insisted. She cringed again.

Doctor Galloway stepped through the gap in the curtain. “You are awake,” she said with her usual Corinairan brogue.

“She’s in pain,” Tony told the doctor. “I think it’s the nanites.”

“I will increase the dosage of the pain medication,” the doctor said as she moved around to the opposite side of the bed.

“Will that do it?” Tony wondered.

“It will not get rid of the pain altogether,” she warned as she made adjustments to the intravenous therapy systems mounted on the cart alongside Synda’s bed. “It should make the pain more tolerable.”

“Can’t you just get rid of the pain?” Tony asked.

“I am afraid pain is inevitable,” the doctor answered. She turned back to Synda. “You were badly injured by a Jung energy weapon. Much of your nervous system, both local to the point of injury as well as other places in your body, were overloaded by that energy. The nanites must repair the damage, or you will not regain full sensation throughout your body.”