Into the Black: Odyssey One (25 page)

“I understand Major, I will inform my people. Please inform us when it is time for the first group,” Saraf turned to leave, but was interrupted by Brinks.

“The first group can leave immediately, Ma’am. Shuttle one is prepared to transport survivors as soon as the first group is ready to leave.”

“Very well, Major. I will inform my people immediately.”

Chapter 16

“Captain Weston, Sir?”

Eric Weston turned away from the view screen for a moment and made eye contact with the young ensign behind him, “yes?”

Ensign Lamont hesitated a little under his gaze, but firmed up a moment later as she went on with her report, “engineering reports that they’ve brought the recycling systems up to max, but for five hundred more sets of lungs, they’re going to have to unbox the backup units too.”

Weston grimaced, but nodded, “tell them to go ahead and log my authorization on the paperwork.”

“Aye Captain,” she said, gratefully heading back to her station.

Captain Eric Weston sighed, thumbing his way through the PDA that held the list of material that was being shifted, un-carted, installed, or torn out in order to make room for the five hundred refugees. It was a long list.

“Captain?” Waters looked up from his station.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Lt Samuels just radioed in, Sir. The first shuttle with evacuees’ will be arriving in less the fifteen minutes.”

“Good. Thank you, Mr. Waters. Commander Roberts. You have the Bridge.”

“I have the Bridge. Aye Sir.”

Weston nodded to the young man and turned back to the view screen for a last long look at the floating, spinning, carnage that lay just outside the Odyssey’s bulkheads then he spun on a heel and headed off the bridge.

It took Weston less than three minutes to navigate his way through the ship corridors and find Doctor Palin. The eccentric linguist was pouring over notes from his earlier talks with Milla Chans and almost failed to notice Weston, when he came in.

When Palin finally conceded to recognize the presence of the Captain, Weston smiled thinly and nodded to him.

“Doctor, the first load of survivors is due in soon. I’d like you to be on hand, to meet them.”

Palin nodded tensely, “of course, Captain. I’ve been compiling the tapes of all our conversations with Miss Chans. There should be no communication problems.”

“Excellent Doctor, let’s head down to the shuttle bay, now.”

On the shuttle deck, Weston and Dr. Palin waited as the Odyssey’s flight control officer reported the shuttles approach and landing. A few moments later the deep grating vibrations in the deck plates announced the final cycle of the combination airlock/elevator that was bringing the shuttle up from the lower flight deck.

Palins eyes grew wide as he saw the tail fin of the big trans-atmospheric shuttle rise from below, the big ship being slowly revealed, as it rose on the powerful elevator. “Oh my… It never seemed that big before.”

Weston glanced over at the vessel casually, “that’s because when you boarded the shuttle planet-side, it was docked in a control building being refitted and refuelled. You never saw the whole thing at once.”

Palin watched in fascination, as a yellow behemoth trundled over to the shuttle, backing slowly into place, until the nose of the big ship had been secured to a stout pin in the machines back. The yellow loader slowly stomped off, dragging the shuttle along with it, toward the docking pylons. Palin stared at the approaching duo in consternation, finally turning to Weston, a question forming on his lips.

Weston cut him off before he could start “null grav.”

“Huh?” Palin was more confused now than before.

“We use the walking loader, because this deck is zero gee. A wheeled vehicle couldn’t get any traction, and Cat’s require too much maintenance. The big feet on the walker are magnetic, the same as the boots you’re wearing,” Weston explained easily. “The Loader holds the Shuttle down, as well as moves it around, until it’s locked into place.”

“Oh,” Palin said, blinking as he processed information that he’d not really considered before.

“You wouldn’t want to see what kind of damage a shuttle could cause, if it started floating around down here,” Weston couldn’t help but add.

Palin just paled at the thought.

It wasn’t quite as bad as the Captain let the linguist think of course, the shuttle had its own magnetic locks that could hold it quite firmly in place, in an emergency, but the threat was credible. All fighters, shuttles, and in fact, all equipment entirely had to be locked down solidly before the ship could engage in sharp maneuvers.

Only the Cee-Emm fields made the null-grav flight deck a reasonable design feature, at least as it currently stood on the Odyssey.

The big loader had finally done its job, locking the shuttle into the docking pylon next to where the Captain and Dr. Palin were waiting. Four huge servo powered arms whined into position as they watched, locking the shuttle down completely and then the shuttle’s loading ramp lowered down and two of the special forces team stepped down.

“Fifty survivors aboard, Sir. The Colonel and the rest of the Team are organizing the rest into groups of seventy-five, for transport. This group needs immediate medical care.”

Weston nodded, returning the soldiers salute before waving the E-med teams in, from where they were waiting. “Good work, Men. Report to the infirmary after decontam, then hit the showers. You’re relieved until your CO is back aboard.”

“Sir,” Both soldiers snapped quick salutes and double timed off the ramp and out of the shuttle bay.

Weston stepped to one side, as people were being carted off the shuttle, the E-med teams rushing them through decontamination and sending them to the medical labs. As the last of the E-med units left the shuttle, a lone woman walked down.

“Captain, this is Titualar Saraf. She is the leader of these people,” Lt Samuels had stepped forward to introduce the woman.

“Very good, Samuels. You’d better get the shuttle prepped for another run. We’ve directed all available shuttles to help with the evacuation, but you’ll have to do at least one more run, after you’re refuelled.”

“Aye Sir.”

As Lt Samuels turned back to her cockpit, Weston extended a hand to the woman, anchoring her to the floor, as she moved forward. “This way ma’am, we’ll catch a lift up to the habitat levels after decontamination.”

The woman blinked, then said something in return that came through as a garbled mess, in his ear. Weston frowned, glancing over at Dr. Palin.

“I don’t know, Captain. One moment and I’ll…,” the suddenly nervous linguist muttered, tapping away on his PDA.

“Just a moment, Captain,” Samuels said, snapping the helmet of her flight suit down. After a moment she looked up, “I’m sending you the new program now.”

A tone signalled the download and Weston checked his PDA. He activated the new program and looked at Saraf, “Can you understand me now, Ma’am?”

“Yes, Captaine,” she told him, smiling patiently. “I can.”

“They speak a different dialect, Sir,” Jennifer told him. “It’s close, but the differences give the computer some problems.”

“Fascinating,” Palin said, already digging through the source code for the new modifications, “oh, I say! Who coded this… it’s quite remarkable…”

“Lieutenant Savoy, Sir,” Samuels said. “Captain, if you don’t mind?”

Weston nodded, “Go do your pre-flight, Lieutenant.”

“Sir,” She saluted, turned, and vanished back inside.

Weston turned back to Saraf and repeated his earlier statement, “We have to go through decontamination. I’ll escort you up to the infirmary where you can look in on your people. Will that be all right with you?”

The woman nodded following, as Weston guided her toward the far wall of the shuttle bay. “Thank you, Capitaine.”

Weston smiled at her as they reached the far wall. “No problem, Ma’am. All part of the service.”

*****

The twenty minute decontamination procedures, left them both tired, slumping them in the lift’s seats, as the capsule carried them to the Odyssey’s second habitation cylinder.

“I do wish to see my people,” Saraf said, in the peculiar accent that sounded almost, but not quite French, to Weston.

Weston looked up, “of course, Ma’am. We’ll visit the infirmary first. After that we’ll move over to the recreation decks, to find place for your people to stay. That’s the only place we have room and normal gravity.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Saraf brushed off Weston’s concerns lightly.

Moments later, the two of them strode into the medical lab, Weston guiding his charge over to where Dr. Rame was working.

“Doctor, how are your new patients?”

“Arrogant,” Rame didn’t look up from his terminal.

“Doctor!” Eric Weston snapped, catching the Doctor up, sharply.

Glancing up, Rame took in the woman at Weston’s side and the Captain’s dark glare, a deep, red flush crossing his face.

“Sorry Sir, Ma’am,” he said quickly, then nodded to them both. “They’ll all live. Mostly dehydration and nutritional deficiencies. A couple appears to be suffering from early stages of oxygen deprivation as well, but that is being remedied naturally.”

Saraf nodded, diplomatically ignoring the doctor’s first comment, “the youngest?”

“Ah yes, the infant. She’s fine, in better shape than many of the older children and adults. With youth comes remarkable resilience,” Rame smiled softly, his expression changing as he glanced over toward a makeshift incubator, in the corner.

Saraf didn’t respond for a moment. Finally she nodded, letting out a long and deep breath, “Yes. May I see my people, now?”

Dr. Rame nodded, “certainly. This way. We’ve had to improvise a lot of our facilities, I’m afraid. We simply weren’t expecting five hundred patients to drop in on us, so it’s a lot more hectic in here, than normal.”

Weston allowed himself to fall behind, watching Dr. Rame show Titalur Saraf through the infirmary. His eyes wandered the room, moving from face to face, as he tried to take in the scene. At his best guess, none of the patients were more than twenty years old, most considerably less and at the far side of the area, he noted the tiny baby in an enclosed environment, medical equipment closely monitoring the child’s condition.

Weston tapped the induction mic on his jaw to open a channel, “Commander Roberts, could you please come down to the medical labs. I want to be on hand, when Ithan Chans returns from the planet and I need to you show Titalur Saraf around and arrange accommodations for our passengers.”

“Yes Sir,” Roberts’s voice sounded in his ear.

*****

Ten minutes later, Weston was on his way down to the shuttle bay, checking the ETA on the next transport and the passenger list. The next shuttle wasn’t due for over an hour, leaving Weston with the time to do something, he had felt the need to do for several days.

He made his way over the Archangel One, his own fighter and pulled open a maintenance flap, so he could do the customary check.

The ‘Angels had a full maintenance staff, of course and his own fighter had been checked out long since, but Eric had never believed that was quite sufficient. He’d been a student before enlisting in the old American Marine Corps, specializing in philosophy, oddly enough. One of the lines from the old books he read, always came back to haunt him, when he flew the last of the old Joint Strike Fighters.

It was a foolish warrior, who entrusted his weapons to the care of any man, save himself
.

It was impossible for him to handle all maintenance on his fighter, of course, but he could check to ensure that the work had been done and done properly. So, despite the fact that his fighter was no longer his weapon, Eric Weston settled in with the computer interface and called up the maintenance log, and slowly moved down the checklist.

All the while, trying to keep his mind off what was happening outside the armor-plated hull of the Odyssey. Trying not to think about things he couldn’t change and things he couldn’t help.

*****

It was nearly forty-five minutes later, when Weston was disturbed by the reverberating clang of the flight deck’s massive airlock closing. Glancing up from his position, he noted that it was one of the Archangel’s returned from patrol. Weston was about to turn his attention back to the shakedown he was performing on his fighter, when he noted the markings on the returned fighter craft.

Extracting himself from his position, Weston pushed off of Archangel One and glided across the Null-Gee bay until he snagged the docking pylon that was locking down, over the newly returned fighter. As he got closer, he saw the pilot pull off his helmet, revealing a very tired and frustrated looking Steven Michaels.

“Stephanus, you look like hell,” Eric told the younger man flatly.

A wry grin twitched the corners of Stephanus’ mouth, though no humor entered the young man’s eyes, “thanks Captain. You always know what to say, don’t you?”

“I’ve already arranged the memorial service for Flare. You have a few hours to shower and change. From the look of you, I suggest you get some rest, too,” Eric said, patting his young friend on the back. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure it’s handled.”

Stephanus nodded slowly, the loss of Flare was weighing heavily on him and he knew that Weston was right. He did look like hell and he needed the time to prepare for the memorial service.

“All right, Captain. I’ll see you later.”

Weston watched as the young pilot dropped to the floor. His magnetic boots snapped down and then he walked away. In Weston’s experience, losing a pilot under your command was one of the most difficult things, a wing leader could experience. The added feelings of responsibility tripled the crushing weight that fell on a man’s shoulders, when he witnessed the death of a friend and comrade.

It was unfortunately, not something that anyone else could really help with. Stephanus was on his own, for the moment, at least. Until he burned the initial rage from his system, Eric knew that his young friend would listen to no one.