Impulse (14 page)

She cut me off. “Goddamn it, Cochrane! This is
my
job! Now give me the goddamned charges and get that survivor out of here!” she ordered.

I looked to the hatch. Marker was only halfway back through the umbilical.

“Two minutes,” updated Layton over the com.

“That was an order, Commander!” she held out her hands and I pressed the charges into them, then turned around to the other survivor.

“You'll need to set the charges for proximity zero!” I yelled back at her through the com as I picked up the injured man off the deck and headed for the umbilical tunnel. “Ten second delay to get to the umbilical or you'll risk being blown into space!”

“I know what I'm doing, Cochrane! Now get that man off the ship and clear the deck!”

I looked back at her as she was adjusting the charges, setting and resetting them, without success.

“You need to arm the media first!” I yelled. She waved me off. She clearly didn't know how to set the charges, but I did. I looked down the umbilical as Marker came toward me on his return, then back at the struggling Dobrina, and made my choice.

I tossed the survivor in my hands down the clear umbilical tunnel toward Marker as hard as I could.

The survivor hit Marker directly in his midsection and started both of them flying back toward the Downship hatch. Then I turned and flung myself toward Dobrina.

“What the hell?” she exclaimed as I grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the bulkhead and the two charges, both of which I could see were not set. One advantage of zero-G is that the body with the most momentum always has the upper hand.

“Goddamn you, Cochrane! Put me down! That's an order!” she screamed at me in protest. But my mind was made up.

“You don't know how to set the charges, Commander, but I do. There's no time to argue!” I spun her around with one hand and dragged her to the hatch opening as she flailed at me in vain. I began to cut away the umbilical plastic with the cutting laser in my free hand. Seconds later, I had her wrapped helplessly in the umbilical material, then cut it loose and shoved her back toward the Downship.

“Cochrane!” she howled in anger. I reached up and shut off my receiver, but kept my broadcast channel open. I watched as Marker began to retrieve Dobrina from the collapsing umbilical, bringing her inside the Downship, then turned back to the bulkhead.

“I'm setting the charges now!” I said into my com. “Armed, with a ten-second delay. Once I hit the fire key I'll secure myself and ride out the detonation. The door will blow and the fire should burn out in the first few seconds. As the cabin decompresses I'll try and grab the captain and Poulsen. With luck I'll be able to find the tether and direct us to the Downship hatch.”

It seemed like a good plan. I had no idea if it would work.

I depressed the fire key using the detonator and then made for the far wall, picking up some scrap metal from a chair and then crouching next to the rear bulkhead, holding on to some safety straps and using the metal as a shield. Then I waited, watching the charges. The seconds ticked by, an eternity.

With a flash of bright yellow the charges went, the cabin door flying off in a silent ballet of metal, flame, and glass. Seeking escape from the pressurized cabin, the river of rapidly freezing fire went straight for the open freight hatch and out. Amongst the debris I saw an EVA-suited body rush out into vacant space. Then the bulkhead gave way, the metal turning to powder as it joined the flow of debris. I looked up as the exposed fire turned to silent gray mist, still rushing headlong to escape. Then I saw a second EVA suit, ripped free from a crash chair and moving rapidly toward the hatch. I let go of the straps and pushed off the way I had seen Marker do, plunging myself into the riptide. I felt stinging like thousands of needles poking me as I dove forward and then hit something with a
thump
.

I desperately tried to clear my visor of dust to see what I had captured. It felt like a man, but I couldn't be sure. An instant later I was through the hatch and floating free in space. I wiped the dust away and looked down at my captured prey.

It was Zander.

At least, it looked like him. I could see through his visor that he was unconscious. His face was charred black on the side, but his EVA monitor, still working, indicated respiration and heartbeat. He lived.

I had a moment of euphoria before I realized my new predicament. I was floating in open space and heading right for the metal hull of the Downship. At this speed I had no doubt that an impact could be fatal. I had only a few seconds, but I managed to duck my head and turn, protecting Zander from the impact by putting him beneath me, then fired my cone jets to slow us. I thudded hard against the metal skin and then we started skipping down the curved hull of the Downship in a painful, bumpy descent.

Shit!
I thought.
If I can't stop we'll skid off the hull and into open space!
Rescue would be very difficult then, and Zander would almost surely die of oxygen deprivation. I bounced against the hull a second and a third time as we rolled down to the maintenance hatch, the tether there still in place. I had only a second to react and I reached out desperately, trying to grab a hold on the line.

“Ahhhggghh!” I shouted in frustration, grasping frantically at the tether. My hand slipped off and we started floating free, away from the Downship. I swallowed into a dry throat. I didn't want my first commanding officer to die in my arms.

The next second we were enveloped in a cargo net, shot out of the maintenance hatch. We came to a stop with a wrenching jar, then the net started retracting back toward the hatch.

As we were reeled back in I switched on my com again and called in to the Downship. No one answered. A few seconds later and we were inside the maintenance deck. Marker came down and together we transferred Zander up to Layton. Once that was done we shut the hatch and normal environment and gravity were restored. Marker came over and put a firm hand on my shoulder and said, “Welcome aboard, Commander.”

I removed my helmet and nodded, taking in a deep breath of cabin air.

“Thanks, John. It's good to be here.”

Stranded

“Y
ou're going to stand for court-martial when we get back to High Station,” yelled Commander Dobrina Kierkopf. She was standing over me and pointing her finger in my direction, flanked on either side by Marker and Layton. There was no doubt that no matter what friendship had developed between us, she was my commanding officer right now. In fact, she was more than that, she was acting captain of
Impulse
.

We had assembled in the crew cabin of the Downship after completing the rescue of the survivors from Captain Zander's shuttle. The chewing out was coming nearly an hour after I had been rescued at the last possible second by John Marker and his grappling net. We'd spent almost all of the time since then getting Zander and the other survivors stabilized and into the emergency medical docks where their vital signs had been reduced to absolute minimum as a means of preserving what little energy they had left. Zander was in a state of stasis, which at the moment seemed like a far better option than facing the fuming Commander Kierkopf.

“I'm prepared for that eventuality. Hell, I was prepared for it when I made my decision,” I said back, trying to defend my actions aboard the shuttle.

“You could have killed the other survivors. You could have killed Corporal Marker. Hell, you could have killed me!” she seethed. “Your brother would never have pulled a stunt like that!”

I resented that comparison. “I'm not my brother, sir, and I'm aware of the chance I took. But the fact is that you weren't able to set the charges. You were more likely to die by your own hand than by anything I did.”

“The hell with that! You follow orders or you end up in the brig! I'd put you there now if this ship had one!” I said nothing to that. I assumed that since we were still in hostile space and many thousands of clicks from
Impulse
that she would need me, at least for a while more. The discipline would certainly follow, but I was ready to face that on my own terms.

When I said nothing more she turned away from me and addressed the other two crewmen aboard. “Layton, get us underway back to
Impulse
,” she said. The pilot departed for the cockpit while she swiveled to face Marker. “What's the report on our other survivors?” she asked. He looked dour.

“They're both in stasis and stable, just like Zander. But I'd have to say they're both in better shape than the captain. Mostly radiation burns and superficial debris wounds,” said Marker.

“In other words, they were lucky,” said Commander Kierkopf. Then she looked at me directly. “More than I can say for Claus Poulsen.” That stung. I liked Poulsen, and it wasn't me who'd attacked the shuttle, it was the empire, or at least the remnants of their automated defense weapons. I wanted to say something back but a look from Marker told me not to. The commander sighed, put her hands on her hips, and stared down at me.

“Get down to the cargo deck and keep an eye on the medical readouts. If anything changes on any of them, call me. Otherwise stay out of the way and keep your mouth shut.” With that she spun away from me and went up the three short steps to the pilot's nest to join Layton. Marker put a hand on my shoulder.

“I'm sorry, Peter. It's not for me to judge what you did or didn't do, but you made a decision and you saved the captain,” he said.

“But Poulsen—” I started.

“Was probably already dead,” cut in Marker. “There was nothing you could do for him. It wasn't your fault.” I picked up my EVA helmet, resigned to my situation, and started for the cargo deck. “Peter,” called Marker after me. “No matter what happens, remember Zander put you in charge for a reason. He trusted you to make the right decisions.” I stopped at that, but didn't turn around. “You made good decisions today,” Marker finished.

I said nothing to that. What could I say? I just started down to the medical deck, resigned to my fate.

An hour later I was still at my post, watching the monitors on the survivors in the medical docks. Zander's readings were very low, and I wasn't medically qualified to know whether he would survive or not. The stasis field had put him into a deep anesthesia mode, nearly suspended animation. Any lower and he would be officially “frozen,” neither alive nor dead, waiting until he could be revived by the superior medical technology on board
Impulse
.
If
he could be revived. I checked my watch, noting that we should have docked with
Impulse
by now. I presumed there must have been some complication, but I was in the dark, literally and figuratively, and that's where Commander Kierkopf wanted me.

I was surprised a moment later when my com beeped in.

“What's your status?” it was Commander Kierkopf's voice.

“They're all stable. Captain Zander is in the deepest state of stasis. He barely registers on the readouts,” I replied. For a moment there was no response, then:

“Lock them down in their current modes. We don't need anyone reviving right now. Then get up here.” I was surprised by this but did as instructed, setting the docks so that all the survivors would be kept at their current level of stasis. They could go lower if it was required to keep them alive, but they couldn't be revived automatically by the system without changing the settings.

I hurried up the staircase from the cargo deck and through the crew cabin to the raised cockpit. When I came in, Dobrina was in the center seat with Layton at the nav station on her left and Marker piloting on her right, closest to me.

“Where was
Impulse
's last location?” Commander Kierkopf demanded without looking back at me. I checked Marker's display for our current spatial coordinates.

“We should be right on top of her,” I stated.

“Should,” said Kierkopf. “But we aren't.” I stepped up and ran my hands over the controls, verifying for myself. She seemed to tolerate this for the moment.

“These are the right coordinates. At least these are the coordinates she was at when we left her,” I said.

“She's not here,” said Dobrina. “We've scanned an area almost a full AU across. Nothing.”

Marker turned to me. “She's not where we left her, Peter.”

“Does this ship have any longscope capabilities?” Kierkopf asked. “We've got to get a better look, try and find her.”

Without even thinking I pushed Marker aside and stepped in, accessing the limited longscope displays of the Downship. After a few quiet moments I had some answers—not many, but some.

“She wasn't destroyed, at least not by any weapons we know of, or there'd be debris and trace energy signatures,” I said. I continued to scan. After a few moments Kierkopf was getting impatient.

“Have you got her, or not?” she snapped at me. I shook my head.

“The capabilities of these displays are so limited—”

“I'm sick of excuses, Cochrane.”

“If you'll just give me another minute, Commander,” I said, working swiftly through the displays, confirming my meager findings.

“Come on!” she insisted. I took another ten seconds before responding to her.

“What I can tell you is that she activated her impeller drives and left the area, apparently on her own. There are enough propulsion traces to indicate her direction, but locating her will be difficult,” I said.

“Where did she go?” demanded Kierkopf. I turned away from my displays to face my new commanding officer directly.

“She was on a course for the inner system, Levant Prime, or possibly one of the satellites. And she was running full bore on the impellers, so much so that she'll run out of fuel reserves soon. She may be able to make it to Levant, but she won't be able to make it back out here without scooping more hydrazine,” I said.

“She's not coming back out here,” said Kierkopf. “She's on a one-way trip to Levant, for some reason. And I'm betting I know who's commanding her.”

“Tralfane?” I said. “I left him in command during the rescue.”

She nodded. “Remember when you told me the Historians had their own agenda? I didn't believe you. Well, now I do. Because the only explanation that makes any sense is that one of them just hijacked our Lightship.”

“But the crew wouldn't just follow Tralfane's orders and abandon us,” said Marker. “They'd fight.”

“They may not have had a choice,” said Kierkopf. “None of us really knows what a Historian is capable of, or what controls they have over the ship. The crew could merely be helpless passengers at this point.” She turned to me and looked me directly in the eye. “Do whatever you can, but find
Impulse
,” she said. Then she turned to Layton. “Plot us a course for Levant Prime, Mr. Layton. As fast as this bucket will go. And let's pray we can get there in time.”

Nearly four hours later, we were nowhere close to finding
Impulse
or reaching the inner planets of Levant. To say the Downship was slow and not intended for long-term interplanetary runs was an understatement. Commander Kierkopf, for her part, had grown silent after riding me for the first half hour. Even she seemed to realize that the Downship was not made for pursuit and that her instruments, especially her longscope displays, weren't geared for the task assigned. We were all growing increasingly frustrated and quiet as we tried to do our jobs. It was Layton who broke the silence, unfortunately with bad news.

“Commander,” he started, his voice jolting us all to attention. “According to the nav computer calculations we're quickly approaching a decision point. In less than thirty minutes we'll be at a point where we'll have to commit to going forward or turning back to the Search and Rescue shuttle.”

“Explain,” she said. Layton paused, considering his words.

“This ship was not meant for extensive interplanetary flight. We're still about 1.5 AUs from Levant Prime, a bit less from her moons, which might be habitable or have bases on them. We're still within range of a return to the Search and Rescue, at least for another thirty minutes or so. Once we pass that point though there'll be no turning back, and we'll run out of fuel less than halfway to L-Prime. Our life support will last a bit longer, but not much with the four of us on board and three more in stasis in the medical dock.”

“I see,” she said, then went silent for a moment. “So we can't catch
Impulse
, can't track her,” she looked at me then, “and we'll run out of fuel and energy before we reach Levant. Any other good news?”

“The Search and Rescue will buy us a day or possibly two if we drain all the power from this ship,” said Layton. Dobrina nodded.

“Opinions. Mr. Marker?” she said.

“What about that HD anomaly we detected? It's a power source. Can we reach it?” he said. I shook my head.

“It's farther than L-Prime. 3.82 AUs distant,” I replied. Dobrina looked to me.

“Any luck on locating
Impulse
?” she asked. I shook my head negative.