Rating - Ummm... some parts are steamier, but mostly PG.
Feedback - Naturally.
Notes - Thanks as always to Lelak and to Rocfankat for casting their eyes over this at some point or other.
Element
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |
Talis Remm was 34 years old, by the old scale. The newer 14 month calender on Gallus that took into account the elongated moon orbit had everyone confused. It was, she thought wearily, yet another example of the new "efficiency" that was being introduced across the military colony that was meant to make everyone's lives better. In this case, it just made her younger.
She snorted, looking out the window of the tactical centre wistfully.
The view from those windows would not have appealed to everyone, but she loved it. Down below the observation post was a series of docking bays, as usual filled to bursting with supplier transports, maintenance crews and robot unloaders. The dockworkers balanced perilously aroud the waiting craft in the low-grav atmosphere, attached only by long air hoses that looked incredibly thin from a distance, certainly not thick enough, safe enough, to reliably support life.
Then again, she mused, from her vantage point this high up pretty much everything seemed fragile.
She ran an impatient hand through short, shaggy blonde hair that was badly in need of cutting. She'd felt that yesterday undeneath her flight helmet, her golden locks curling around the base of her neck causing an annoying itch as she sweated.
She could almost hear her former boot camp sergeant berating her for her apathy in getting to the officer's barber. She could remember the old man vividly, face worn with age, voice gravelly from a lifetime of screaming himself hoarse kicking smart-ass recruits like herself into line. Wonder what he's up to now? What would he think of all these new regulations, efficiencies, changes…?
The old man had never been one for change. Then again, as you got older change was maybe the most frightening thing in the world for most people. Talis wasn't exactly old, but she knew she definitely had a way of doing things, her tried and true methods. That was why she felt attacked when someone tried to undermine them. Especially when it's the system doing the attacking, those people I'm supposed to be protecting.
She knew perfectly well that she wasn't the only one resentful of the way things were going. Every night in the galley people complained about everything from the new high protein diets through to the low fat milk they had to drink. Then there was the red-and-blue nutrient capsules they were forced to take, morning and night. New scientific discoveries for making military people stronger, faster.
Another way of saying "You're not good enough the way you are, soldier. Here take this, it'll make you better! More efficient!"
There was that word again. Efficient. What were we before? She mused, almost bitterly. Lazy? Weak? Slow?
The ordered bustle of the scene below soothed her frayed nerves. Behind her a desk full of computer monitors displayed data that had been ticking over for the past half-hour. The newer, shinier machines were mercilessly analysing the field data from the last training run. Military tactical programmes installed last month allowed the computers to spot errors while giving the supposedly unbiased reports on individual and group performance that the imperfect instructors were unable to give.
Suddenly the scene below burst into chaos. With an almost audible crunch a pressurised cable came loose from underneath one of the transports in the docking bay below and began thrashing wildly. Men scrambled as best they could in their pressurised suits to pick up the slack on the other three cables holding the ship stable. It rocked dangerously, but held fast.
She watched them struggle, admiring them. Each of them was one person, reacting on instinct to a volotile situation. They used minimal gadgetry and more human intuition, just living beings reacting to the ebb and flow of fate. Something in that simplicity appealed.
Of course, anything was appealing after four hours of evaluating statistical analyses. And yet, nothing the computer was telling her held much more information than what she already seen with her own two eyes while she was out there. She hadn't known that the angle of the cruiser flight path had been 12.973 degrees off, but she had known the angle was out. She hadn't calculated that the hit ratio was only 72.896%, but she'd known that pilots were missing their targets.
Again, simplicity.
She sighed. The men in the docking bay had reached the limit of what they could do. It was time for the machines to take over or someone's life could be in danger. Reaching over, she tapped the front of the communications console.
A measured voice answered. "Dock control."
"Tactical here. You've got more problems on the incoming transport. There's another cable loose. Your team is looking a little overwhelmed. You might want to send out some bots."
There was a chuckle down the line. "Looking out your window again, Major?"
She smiled into the comm briefly. "I've got a better view from here than you do on your monitors, Coop. I can see the bigger picture."
"Philosophical dock working. I can see that taking off in a big way," he mocked, good-natured. Fingers tapped audibly away at a computer console. "Report just in from outside confirms the problem. Requesting assistance. Despatching a second bot crew." She heard him punch in the instructions on his keypad. "You sure you're working in the right department, Major? We've got plenty of vacancies down here."
"But if I worked down there I wouldn't have the view I have now," she protested.
"You can be our rogue agent then. Our roaming eyes and ears."
"Right now you don't know how tempting that sounds."
"Yeah, well, the offer is always open, as usual, though I don't know how the Captain would take it if I poached one of his staff."
"Probably poorly. I don't think he shares our vision."
The docker chuckled. "The brass never do, major."
She grunted in agreement and flicked off the comm.
No sooner had she disconnected from the dock when a high pitched bleep began as the computer alerted her to an incoming report. She walked over and flipped on the monitor, scanning the contents. Maintenance requests for approval. Damage from the training run. Paperwork. Boring, more boring and mind-numbingly boring. For all the specialised skills she had that she was actually using she may as well be unloading transports in the docking bay.
***
Everyone in the hangar group looked on anxiously. "You don't think we might have gone too far this time do you?" A lieutenant in a rumpled uniform looked over at the monitor.
"If she gets into trouble, we'll see it a mile away," the hangar master replied. "It'll be good to see what she's made of."
"I hope you're right."
Little by little, the fighter plane on the monitor inched towards the hangar, the pilot obviously taking more care than for any ordinary landing. Still, the workers exchanged impressed looks as the hangar doors opened and the rookie flew in, steady and cool as a ten-year veteran.
"I don't fucking believe it." The hangar master waved his lieutenant over. "Who the hell gave this woman a Class D? She's at least a B, with room to spare. Where the hell'd she come from anyway?"
The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, watching with relief as the last of the docking clamps attached to the S2 fighter. "Dunno sir, she shipped in two weeks ago. I think her squadron has had two training flights since then… she's come up on top twice now. Whizzed past some guys who've been here for years."
"Well, B squadron hits tactical tomorrow, that'll sort her out. Not even flight experience on the outside gets rookies past Major Remm without a nose bleed or two." He disengaged the autolock on the hangar and gave the green light for the pilot to climb out of the cockpit. A tall, gangly figure in a regulation black flight suit hauled herself somewhat less than gracefully from the plane, roughly yanking off her helmet the second she hit the ground.
"Dammit, do you know I can't hear a damned thing you guys are saying out there? I didn't know where the hell I was going. There was some kind of interference through this helmet…" She stopped short as she noticed the Hangar Master grinning at her, eyes filled with mischief. "What?"
"Sorry about that ensign. We'll check the pickups on your helmet. Won't happen again." The lieutenant answered smoothly, reaching for the offending headwear.
"Wait a second…" She snatched back the helmet, peering suspiciously inside. "There's nothing wrong with the helmet, I checked it myself before take off." She threw a dangerous look at the onlookers. "Who played with the signal?"
The Hangar Master burst into laughter, followed quickly by the entire shift of dock-workers. She took a deep breath. "Do you have any idea what you could I have done?" She warned.
He grinned. "Easy now ensign, don't get your knickers in a twist, we were just playing with you. You were doing too well, it's part of the rules. We need to make things a little difficult for the rookie."
"So you sent static down the comm and had me fly in blind? Gee, thanks. What do I get for my birthday, faulty launch gear?"
"Oh, a defective nav system maybe, so you have to guess where the planet is…?" The lieutenant suggested, gleefully.
Carter looked him up and down. "Isn't this kind of thing frowned upon by the Regular Service?"
"Ease off ensign. If there had been any real danger we'd have hooked you up and brought you in."
"You couldn't let me just do it the regular way first, huh? Just once?" She dropped her shoulders, letting the tension ease from the muscles there. They're not assholes, it's just rookie hazing. Deal with it you wimp. Smile. She managed a small grin to appease the gathered onlookers. Proof that she could take a joke was all the dockers needed. Some wandered over to give her some congrtulatory claps on the back.
"No hard feelings, Carter?" The dock master winked.
She forced herself to grin. There was nothing worse than people thinking you had no sense of humour, then the rookie crap could go on for years. After all, she'd come in OK. There weren't even any bumps on the ship. She almost wished she'd carved a hole in the hull, just so the bastards would have something to fix.
"That's the spirit Carter. Gotta get you well and truly broken in before Major Remm has a go at you." The Hangar Master laughed. He walked back to his console to start the post-flight checkup on Carter's ship.
"That's tactical, right?"
"S'right." He leant over his desk, punching in some access codes. "Hey, dammit, how did you manually change the password on your shipboard console? How the hell am I supposed to pull your flight data without access?" He plugged in more numbers, his face growing progressively more agitated.
Carter chuckled. "I figured a bunch of fly-boys like you were smart enough to figure that out." She waved at them playfully and headed for the locker room. Of course, there was nothing wrong with a rookie getting her own back from time to time…
"Hey, Carter! Get your ass back here!" Their protests fell on deaf ears as she walked through the main doors and headed down a long corridor to the suite of ready rooms set aside for Squadron B.
A smile of anticipation spread across her face. She still wasn't comfortable with a lot of her new life; the military discipline and routine for starters, plus the steady stream of harrassment she got for her rookie status grated on her nerves sometimes. Being a woman didn't help. However, she couldn't deny the perks could be first class. The crew sauna and spa was something she'd never had, not in all her years in space. It was a real luxury. A little steam, a light spray massage…
She headed for the steam seconds after reaching the ready room. She unzipped her flight suit and dumped it in the laundry chute, wrapped herself in a towel and ignoring as best she could the appraising looks from some of the guys in her squad. With a shake of her head she released her long black hair from the tight ponytail and let it cascade around her shoulders.
The door opened and a young, brown-haired officious looking woman in civilan clothes stepped through, taking in the scene with barely veiled amusement. The men had the good grace to look embarrassed, while Carter simply turned her eyes on the clerk, oblivious.
"Ensign Mackenzie Carter?"
The rookie flinched at the tone. At this point it couldn't mean anything but something that would get between her and that sauna. "Yes?"
The woman checked some details on her clipboard. "You need to get washed and changed quickly, ensign. You've got a briefing in ten minutes up on level seven."
Carter cursed under her breath. "What's it about?"
"Don't know. They don't tell me things like that. Ten minutes." The woman was all efficiency, but managed a sympathetic look as Carter eyed the sauna door with regret. "I'm sorry Carter, but that's gonna have to wait."
Mackenzie nodded, the kind of curt, accepting nod she knew was acceptable for civilian personnel. She was happy not to have to salute wearing nothing but a skimpy towel. It just wasn't a good look.
"Crap." She said, to no one in particular. A paranoid thought crossed her mind. This had better be on the up and up. I don't need any more rookie pranks today. She shoved that thought aside and headed for the showers.
***
Remm pulled a face at her commanding officer. "You want me to take out a rookie on a standard patrol? Why?"
"Because some rookies could do with some extra guidance, and because I want you off this planet. Today. Cooper called me from the Dock and said you were watching out for the cargo ships again today."
She shrugged it off. "Big deal, it's right outside my window."
Captain Foster frowned, making Remm instinctively sit up straighter. "You've got cabin fever Talis, in a big way. I'm getting you out of here before you drive yourself, and everyone else around you, insane. Or you start knitting socks."
"I'm driving Cooper insane?" She asked, innocently. It was only her long friendship with the Captain that allowed her to use this tone with him, and she could tell today she was stretching it pretty thin.
Foster shook his head. "No, but five more minutes of this conversation and I'll be well on my way. I've made up my mind, Major. Your rookie will be up here in ten minutes. She's just come in from exercises."
"Oh great, you've lumped me in with a tired rookie who didn't get a chance to steam down. Another one of your punishments?"
"For her maybe, not for you. The only thing this rookie lacks is discipline and a nice dose of military lifestyle. She needs to know that back-to-back missions are part of the territory."
"'The only thing this rookie lacks?'" She repeated, raising a curious eyebrow.
Foster sat down in his chair, fingering a manila folder that was sitting on his desk. "This one is a bit different Talis. She's got history."
"Anything I should know about?" Remm replied, automatically reaching for the file.
The Captain stopped her, mid-stretch. "Actually, if you haven't already read much about Carter, I'd prefer you to fly this one blind. Test her out as you would any rookie. I don't want you to have any pre-conceived notions about her."
Remm frowned. "Sir, with all due respect, I would test her out like any rookie regardless of what kind of history she's had. Denying me access to her file before a solo training mission is not exactly protocol."
Foster stood, pulling out his desk drawer and shoving the file in. "I'm not denying you access Major, I'm asking you to hold off reading it for just this one mission. When you get back, you can read about her to your heart's content. Consider it an experiment."
"Yes, sir." Talis had been in the military long enough to recognise an order when she heard one, no matter how subtly put. "I assume that nothing I would read in that file affects her ability to perform as a military pilot?"
"That's correct." He answered formally, then his tone softened. "She's not exactly a clean slate, but she's no danger to herself, or to you. She's been through basic, not that she needed it. She knows her stuff."
"Then that's all I need to know." Remm stood, offering the Captain a quick, strained smile. He nodded, acknowledging her unvoiced protest without further comment. "When did you say the rookie was being briefed?"
Foster looked at his watch. "Actually, right now. You're welcome to sit in if you like?"
"No thanks, sir. I think I might grab a quick shower and meet her in the hangar. Shall we make it 1430 hours, sir?" That gave them a whole hour for a briefing. She was sure it wouldn't take that long, but the rookie deserved at least a little bit of time to unwind before heading back to the cockpit.
"That's fine, Major."
She saluted formally and left the office, a bemused commanding officer shaking his head behind her.
***
"You're late." Remm didn't look up from her clipboard when she heard the rookie enter.
"By about thirty seconds." Carter retorted. She regretted it instantly. Remm lifted her head up slowly, fixing the taller woman with a cool stare made worse by the odd, oval shape of her eyes.
Carter flinched, but couldn't help staring back. She'd never seen a halfling before, hadn't even known that halflings were eligible for military postings, especially as high ranking instructors.
Remm scowled. "The correct response is 'It won't happen again, Major'".
Carter swallowed and snapped to attention. "It won't happen again, Major."
"You will report for duty on time, every time. Understood?" Remm stated.
"Yes Major!" Carter wondered how someone so diminutive could ooze such a strong command presence. Those oval eyes were still prickling her skin with their intensity. Half Narroki if she wasn't mistaken, and she'd seen enough full bloods to recognise the traits. There weren't a hell of lot of those around.
"We'll be piloting S3s out there today. How much experience do you have in S3 flight?" Talis asked officiously, all the while going over their flight plan meticulously on the console and comparing it to the printed version she held in her hands.
"You haven't read my file, Major?" Carter asked, suddenly wary.
Remm didn't look up. "Do I need to?"
Carter felt the urge to snap to attention again, but she resisted. "No, Major."
"Then just answer the question, Ensign."
"Not much military S3 experience, but about five years in civilian T3s which are very similar. Major." She added the title as an afterthought. Shit, have to get used to that.
Remm looked up with interest. "Five years?" Most of the recruits she dealt with rarely had three years of flight experience in total, let alone five years in a specialist field. "How old are you?"
"I'm 30. Major."
Remm's eyebrows shot up. "You don't look it."
"Thank you, Major."
"It wasn't a compliment Carter, just a statement of fact. OK, grab your stuff, I'll run over the last details of pre-flight for both our ships and meet you in the hangar."
Carter hesitated. "If it's all the same to you Major, I don't fly planes I haven't checked out myself." Her feet itched to run away from the major's icy stare, but she held her ground. "It's life on the line out there. No disrespect intended."
Remm stared a few moments more, then grunted with approval. "Congratulations, Ensign, you just passed Tactical Flight 101." She looked over at the recruit, a little less intensely. "Captain Foster told me you had a story, but he didn't tell me what. I can see by just looking that there's something going on with you."
Carter grimaced. "Not any more, major."
Talis nodded. No interrogations now. "Let's do pre-flight. You're going to verbalise your entire check routine which I'm going to tick off on my little list here…" she tapped her head lightly, "then maybe I'll consider flying with you. At ease, Ensign. Follow me."
***
The flight had been as routine as Remm could have hoped for. She cursed Foster for being right, she had needed to head out and just fly, to get out of the station and away from reports and new recruits. Even the one recruit she had hanging off her wing didn't bother her, since Carter behaved less and less like a rookie the further they got out from the station. It was almost like flying with a veteran, as if Carter sat more comfortably behind the fighter's controls than she did in her own skin.
I mean, I wouldn't exactly trust her with my life just yet, but there's no doubt she knows how to handle herself.
Carter's voice broke into her helmet and destroyed her reverie. "Major, I'm picking up something on the long range comm, I think it might be a distress signal."
"Amplify the signal, see if you can make it out."
"Already underway… The ID coming through on broadband is ours Major. Not from Gallus though, from one of the outposts."
Remm frowned. "Ship ID?"
"Not yet sir. Working on it."
Remm was liking this less and less. "Any idea why she's distressed?"
"Nope. We should have a visual in about 60 seconds. There's no response on the comm."
"All right, keep on it. I'll call it in." She pressed some buttons on her console, switching to priority channel Comm back to Gallus. "Gallus 335 to Gallus Central, do you copy?"
"Gallus Central. Go ahead."
"Responding to a distress call, co-ordinates Three-Two-Zero-Alpha-Niner, looks like one of ours. Cause of distress unknown. Request backup." She didn't think it would be necessary, but something on her scalp was itching, and she knew how long it would take their backup to get there if they did end up needing it.
"Roger that 335, backup being scrambled. Keep radio contact."
"Roger that, Gallus Central. 335 out." She flipped her switch back to closed comm. "Carter, you got a visual yet?"
Carter's voice sounded strained. "We're being jammed sir, there's something out there that doesn't want us to know what's there when we get there. Traders maybe, judging by the area."
"Could be a residual jammer from when the fighter was taken out. No sense being stupid about it, we hang about until backup arrives, then we go in."
"Sir, what if he needs help now. It'll be another hour before backup can even possibly be here."
"Carter, I'm not risking the neck of a recruit by going in there guns blazing when we don't know what's around. Keep trying to get that visual. I'll cut some of the static from that distress call and see if it tells us anything."
"Yes, ma'am." Carter sounded reluctant, but obeyed orders. Remm wasn't sure why she was so relieved about that. She'd faced more than one headstrong recruit in her time and hadn't been beaten by one yet, but she could smell pig-headedness a mile away and this one had it in spades.
The distress call was muddy and almost undecipherable. Remm picked up the same ship ID as Carter had and some traces of the call but the rest of the message seemed to be drowning in a sea of static. Enough to tell them who, and approximately where, but not enough to tell them why, or how. Convenient.
"I've got the ship ID. I'm sending it out to Central and the outlying stations to try and get some backstory into the guy piloting this plane. Hang tight." Remm ordered, swapping out her comm again. She sent out the ship ID and a general request for information.
"Uh oh Major, I think your signal must have gotten somebody's attention."
Remm looked down at her scanner, frowning as the small blips of nearby ships popped up. "Well, it's always nice to have visitors. I'm assuming you've been briefed on how to use the weapons you have, ensign?"
She heard a soft chuckle in her ears. "Don't worry about me Major, I'm fully armed, and I'm really hard to catch."
"That sounds intriguing. We'll have to trade stories later."
"It's a date ma'am." Came the bemused reply.
Talis grinned, the smile registering in her voice as she spoke. "Nervous?"
The feral laugh she received in reply made a shiver go down her spine.
A few seconds later a quick glance at her scans confirmed that their visitors weren't friendlies, but not enough to confirm exactly who they were. "Is that distressed craft still showing on your scanner, Carter?"
"Affirmative, but we're gonna have to get past our little friends first."
"Well, power up, ensign. And welcome to Gallus." Remm watched as the red line indicating her weapons power shot up to full. "We decided to throw you a party."
Carter grunted. "Well, flowers would have been nice."
"You come out of this without a scratch on that fighter of yours ensign, and I'll send you a whole case of Narrokian beer. Better than flowers any time." Remm wished she could feel comfortable about this. They were outnumbered two-to-one, and she had a green recruit on her wing. She looked over to her left and saw Carter's ship as her gun ports slowly opened.
OK, so maybe she's not that green. We'll see.
"Their targeting sensors are locked on, Major, they're here to pick a fight. I've checked our nav systems, we're just inside neutral space."
Remm shivered in anticipation. What had it been, almost three years since her last firefight? She knew there was no danger she'd lost her edge, but this just seemed so out of the blue it made her nervous. What the hell was going on here, anyway?
"I don't get this Major, why just attack out of nowhere?" Carter echoed her thoughts.
"You may have been right. Traders protecting their routes?"
"Beats the hell out of me."
"Maybe we can disable one for capture when our backup finally arrives. But no heroics Carter, if he gets close enough to take you out, take him first. Getting out of this in one piece is your first priority, understood?"
"Roger that, Major. Whoever this guy is, I hope he's still alive."
The console flashed red. "Target lock. Follow me. Return fire only."
"Roger that."
"On my mark, break left." She let the lead enemy fighter approach, her trigger finger itching. "Break!" The two fighters banked left suddenly, startling the enemy momentarily out of formation. "Carter..?"
"I see it." Carter responded, accelerating into the momentary space, dividing the enemy down the middle. A laser canon shot from behind, narrowly missing her tail. Remm breathed a sigh of relief. The rookie was good. "First shot's gone, permission to fire?" Carter barked.
"Kill the son of a bitch." Remm ordered. Instantly a blast of canon fire burst from Carter's gun ports and one of the enemy fighters broke slowly apart as the inner compartments exploded. The shell of the craft drifted off away from the fight.
Remm peered down at her scanner. Still four left, and they were spreading out, trying to surround them. She accelerated through, almost sideswiping one of the enemy planes as she passed, executing a perfect turn and firing at the surprised fighter from behind. Canon fire blasted a wing from the plane and the rest was shoved out into space, spinning madly away from the melee.
"Well…" Carter drawled. "Two against three seems almost unfair odds, Major." Remm heard the click and realised Carter had broadcast that last comment on an odd band. The craft they were flying were unfamilar, Remm was sure she'd never seen anything like these planes before.
She switched on military comm. "Am I supposed to know what you're playing at?"
"Chat on the channel I sent you, and sound real cocky. They respond to that."
"They..?"
"If these guys are Traders, then they're not alone. Even if we blast them out of the sky they'll have backup here in seconds. A lot quicker than we can." She switched suddenly over onto the unfamilar channel. "Where did you say the rendezvous was?"
Remm's mind stumbled, but she flipped open the comm. "Well… it was supposed to be right about here. Where the hell do you think that cruiser got to? I'm tired of these pissants."
Canon fire burst across her bow and the craft shook around her. There was no real damage, but one of the enemy fighters had somehow managed to slip around to bother her tail. "I seem to have acquired a bug. Hang on, lemme squash it." She aimed, locked and fired a rear missile. The trailing craft shuddered and then split apart spectacularly. "Loser."
Carter chuckled, having switched back over to their secured channel. "I'm getting a fix on our disabled friend. I'm gonna break off and see if I can grab him. We need to hurry this up."
Remm's answer was a flip maneovre to avoid an oncoming missile and retaliatory fire on pure instinct that tore the wing from an enemy vessel. Making sure the Major's position was secure, Carter slipped away from the fight. The space around her flashed with canon fire as she dodged and weaved her way out.
As she moved away she found the jamming signal growing weaker. The mayday call from the pilot was a lot clearer now, enough for her to realise that the message was on auto-repeat. Not a good sign. "This is Gallus 386 to stricken vessel. Please respond." She waited a few moments, listening to the dull sound of dead air. No reply.
Gradually the stricken craft came into visual range. She saw the side of it torn up, a gaping hole in the wing. There was a chance for the pilot if he'd isolated his air supply fast enough in the cockpit. But that air wouldn't last long. How long had this guy been out here? "This is Gallus 386 to stricken ship. If you can hear me, please respond."
The silence felt ominous. Carter slowed to a stop close by the ship, now near enough to see the damage with her own eyes through the cockpit window. The craft was about twice the size of her own fighter, T1 class, not very maneovreable. It would have been a sitting duck if it had come across those Trader fighters.
Carter shook her head, shrugging back old memories. It had been a stroke of luck she'd remembered the Trader comm channel. She didn't know what good it would do, but at least the main ship, wherever it was hiding, would be in doubt whether the two small fighters were really alone. It might buy them some time if they thought for a moment they were just advanced scouts.
But time for what? She scanned the ship for life signs. One faint blip appeared on her screen. It was fading, but it was alive.
"Hey there, need some help?" Carter heard the voice through her comm, and smiled.
"Nice of you to show up. Did you kick their asses or did they run away?"
Talis chortled. "Nope, all dead. Whoever sent those idiots is gonna be pissed. Waste of good planes."
"All right, so next question. There is definitely someone alive in there, but life signs are getting faint. How're we gonna move him?"
"Grapple?" Remm suggested. "We could tow him back to port."
Carter considered that a moment. "That'll slow us down. We'll be crippled if more of the Traders show up."
"Then we don't really much choice, we have to get him out." Remm replied, already unhooking her seat restraints.
"You're going out there?" Carter asked, incredulous.
"Fire a grapple and hook the starboard wing. Keep the craft stationary, the last thing I need is sudden drift." The fighters they were in didn't come equipped with standard self-contained suits. She was going to have to hook a life support line to her fighter's air supply. If the spacecraft moved at all Remm knew she was in danger of having her air line severed, or being ploughed into.
"We're punching the clock major. His air is so low I doubt if he's conscious."
"Tell me something I don't know." She flew a grapple to Carter's ship, fastening the two ships together for steadiness. Carter did the same to the damaged ship and they were linked, three ships floating together in space. Carter's job was simple, keep the ships from moving. That could be easy or difficult, depending on the ebb and flow of space.
Talis crawled to the back of the fighter and rummaged for gear, preparing to open the lower compartment that served as a functioning airlock. Once inside she connected the airhose and checked her regulator. Someone in her training unit had once referred to this kind of space walk as pearl-diving. You just dropped over the side, wearing a pressure suit and breathing through a hose, hoping to God that whoever or whatever was up there controlling your air supply didn't get swept away by the currents. Of course, that was what anchors were for.
Her anchor buzzed on the comm. "Are you OK Major? All I can hear is grunting."
"Yeah, that'd be me. These rabbit holes are smaller than I remember." She shut the airlock and depressurised the compartment. Then the bottom doors opened, and she had that momentary dizziness as she stared out into the expanse of space beyond.
She uncurled her body and took the first steps out, gripping the edge of her ship for support. Once her whole body was out she tugged on the air hose to test it. Then, satisfied everything was as safe as it was going to be, she flung herself into space, swimming towards the damaged ship.
"Carter, any sign of company?"
A distant crackling. "Not yet."
She inspected the ship's hull, looking for the damage that had disabled the ship. Up close the laser blast that had hit the ship didn't actually seem that bad, and Remm ran a hand over the hull, checking for breaches as well as scorched metal. "This is weird. None of this damage looks that bad. Maybe something happened to the pilot?"
"Are you going in?" Carter replied.
"Yeah. I'm opening the hatch manually in three, two one…opening." She yanked the manual release as hard as she could and felt the door give. It opened just enough for her to squeeze into the airlock which was more spacious inside than she would have expected.
"Carter, run a quick diagnostic on the shell of the craft. Let me know if there are any real breaches to the hull."
"On it." She could hear some beeping as the computer clicked over. "Nothing. As far as I can see, barring propulsion damage that ship is good to fly."
"This just gets weirder and weirder. I'm going to access the ship computer, check environmental systems."
She punched a security override code into the computer console in the airlock with gloved covered fingers. The computer bleeped to life, spewing up data faster than she could take in. The ship ran a self diagnostic before powering up essential systems. Lights flashed encouragingly across the console. Green across the board.
"I think I can breathe in here." Remm muttered to herself.
"Major? I didn't quite catch that."
"Environmental controls are check."
"I'd hurry Major, that guy is running out of juice, fast."
Remm made a snap decision. She held her breath, unplugged her airline and threw it out the airlock, hearing Carter's distressed gasp as the ensign spotted the cable floating free. She shut the airlock and pressed the airlock control, pressurising the cabin with breathable air. Eventually the light flashed green and she undid the helmet seals, gulping in lungfuls of oxygen.
"Major? Major answer me! Do you copy?"
"Yes, yes, stop panicking, I'm fine. Internal environmentals stabilised."
"You could have told me you were chucking your lifeline out the window. I was getting ready to come in after you!" Carter's voice was thick with relief.
"I'm fine. I'm heading to the cockpit."
"Why the hell did his internal systems shut off?"
"They weren't shut off, just powered down. Minimal life support in the cockpit and enough to send that distress signal." She shoved her way through debris that had strewn all over the passageway. The ship's hull might not have been breached but the ship itself had taken one hell of a beating. "Maybe he just didn't know when the cavalry would show up."
Another couple of steps and she tripped over something large and heavy on the floor. Stumbling, she reached out and caught hold of the railing to stop her fall. Lying sprawled across the passageway was a lifeless uniformed man, his insignia branding him as one of her own.
She knelt down and instinctively reached for his pulse. She couldn't see any injuries except a cut on his leg, the blood from which was caked along his calf and over the passageway floor, still red and fresh.
"One down. Looks like he bled to death. Weird, the blood looks fresh."
"Can't be. There was only one life-sign when we first picked up the signal, and that's still there, right ahead of you."
"I swear Carter, you should see this, the guy looks like someone stuck something sharp in his leg, only there's too much blood for something like that. It's everywhere, and the wound looks like I could have done it myself ten seconds ago." She pulled herself up and stepped over the body, towards the closed door of the cockpit.
"I'm opening the cockpit door."
"Umm, Major? Did you consider that the door might be booby trapped?" Carter enquired.
Remm stopped short, mentally kicking herself. "Actually no, I hadn't. But even if it is, I have to open this damn door."
"Try a quick weapons blast to the door from a safe distance. That should trigger anything nasty."
Remm took a couple of steps back, aiming her blaster for the cockpit door. The blaster could have taken the door off without m uch trouble, but where abouts was the pilot sitting inside? If he was too close to the door she could take him out accidentally.
"I'm on the lowest setting. Firing!"
The blast rang around the cabin ominously, but there was no effect. The door held, and nothing surprising happened.
"Nothing. guess all I can do is open the door."
She fingered an access code into the keypad gingerly. The door slid open with reluctance, some damage she'd inflicted patrway down the door preventing it from sliding easily. Slouched in the co-pilot's chair another uniformed man breathed in shallow laboured breaths, his left hand clutching a wound on his right arm. The blood had clotted around his fingertips. She could see he'd lost a lot of blood, but nothing compared to the other soldier in the hallway.
"I've got him. He needs more help than I can give him with the ship's medi-kit."
"How are the thrusters on the ship? Will it fly?"
Remm did a quick survey of the cockpit, locating the central computer and running a series of diagnostics through it. "She'll move, but slowly. The aft thrusters are screwed. Steering will be hell."
Carter hesitated only a second. "Better than nothing. I'll cut your ship loose and let the retrieval team tow her back. They're on their way anyway. We'll fly grappled back to base."
Remm thought about it, her face grim. "I guess we'll have to risk the Traders."
"Certainly looks that way." Carter said.
"Firing engines. Let's see how much life I can coax out of this o