Penance (RN: Book 2) (12 page)

***

Denz was zipping up his overalls and wholly ignoring the doctor whose tone had risen from sound advisement to near beration, as hefailed to impress upon Denz the need for more rest. Canthouse hurried into the medical unit and nodded a greeting to the doctor. “Commander. I’m glad to see you up and about.”

“Up and about!” Denz spat as he straightened his overalls with a snap. “I should never have been allowed to sleep, Lieutenant-commander.” Denz snatched his things from the bed and proceeded to leave, only to give the doctor who restrained him by the arm a savage look.

“Wait! I’ve not cleared you for duty yet, commander. You need at least twenty four hours more rest and monitoring as you suffered a severe psychotic break. You may relapse and cause permanent damage. I need to monitor you.”

“Do you hear that doctor?” Denz pointed upwards and they listened to the repeating gong for several seconds. “That’s the proximity threat warning that lets the crew of the ship know there’s a possible threat within one AU of our current position. As we speak dozens of professionals are preparing the ship for a possible confrontation. And with the teeth marks of our most recent contact ringing the aft hull, I strongly suspect there is a measure of unease amongst the crew that will not be assuaged by the thought of their commanding officer lying in a surgery bed twiddling his thumbs. Now, you’ve scanned me, prodded me, poked me and invaded every crevice your finger will fit in and found nothing wrong. I have no history of psychotic disturbances. My physical health is top notch and I feel perfectly fine, so can you please tell me what is to be gained by my staying in this accursed room any longer?”

The doctor, a man considerably younger than Denz, gave the commander a despairing look. “Fine, you’re right. You have no history and I could find nothing wrong. So it’s because of this, and only this, that I am allowing you to leave this infirmary. However, for the record, and in front of witnesses, I have to state that I’m wholly against you leaving the surgery at this time. And I must insist that if you show even the slightest sign of another episode I’ll be keeping you here for forty eight hours of observation. Can you agree to this?”

“Absolutely, doctor,” and without further adieu, Denz stalked out of the surgery with Canthouse hot behind him.

“Double time it, Lieutenant Commander,” Denz said and proceeded at a brisk jog with Canthouse keeping pace. They covered the ground quickly. “Bring me up to speed.”

“All the repairs we can make have been completed, and all munitions have been replenished from stores. The shield generators have been swapped out and the expected splash damage to the other generators has not been proven. We now have one hundred percent shield capacity and she’s as purpose ready as we can make her, sir.”

“Excellent. And the proximity warning?”

“Ops detected an emergency beacon matching an EDP signature and we will drop out when –“

Canthouse’s explanation was cut short by a loud,
whump,
like a gas cloud igniting and Denz’s forehead driving into his left ear as the Bristol jumped and then staggered sideways. Powerful gyroscopic forces threw the two officers hard against a bulkhead, where they were pinned as the ship was ejected from its gate path and sent spinning into normal space.

The
ha-roo, ha-roo
of the calamity alarm sounded throughout the ship as Denz pushed himself off his first officer and rolled to the floor. His head rung from when he had struck Canthouse, and he gingerly picked himself up checking for broken bones and extra joints before turning to assist his first officer. Canthouse clasped his right shoulder and grimaced as Denz assisted him to his feet. After a cursory examination of the pained areas, Canthouse insisted he was ok to continue and both men proceeded to the bridge.

The bridge was a repeat of the creature attack with people and equipment strewn all over. A temporary medic assistant relieved him of Canthouse who cautiously lowered himself into a chair and submitted to a medical examination

Denz moved to where Avery squatted near a prostrate form lying near the far left wall. The second officer looked old, pale and broken.

“What happened here? What’s our condition?” Denz barked as he gazed about the disorder around him.

Avery stood to face Denz, “Something forcibly overloaded the gate drive, which caused the gate systems to crash, ejecting us from the gate stream. I’m not sure what it was, but Wheyer mentioned something about an enormous pulse, like an EMP, moments before it happened. I’m suspect the two events are connected.”

“Any ideas where it came from or what caused it?”

“Not as of yet, sir, no. Most of the systems were knocked off line by the event and are only now reinitialising.”

Denz despaired. He believed the Bristol’s systems to be hardened against such events. “Our condition?” They moved to the operations console where the ops officer ran through a series of reboot sequences as he watched.

“Well,” Avery wiped his dripping brow with his sleeve. With the life support systems yet to reinitialise the room was growing hot and humid. Avery’s fingers gestured magician like over his tablet, “Initial reports say the hull’s fine. The stability dampers took the brunt of it, but with so much inertia they overloaded and tripped out. That’s the reason for the mess and the light footing. What voice reports we’ve received report the motive units are OK, with the sub-light units rebooting as we speak. Shields and weapons are unknown, though we do know the forward torpedoes are out of action due to a collapsed munitions rack blocking access to the cyclic magazines. Status of the LAW is unknown.”

The ops system completed its validation and data poured down the screen.

“Operations, what happened? What took us out of transit?” asked Denz.

“I believe it was a magnetic pulse, Commander.” Stavener, the replacement operations officer and a man had no formal knowledge said. “A pulse of sufficient strength to overload the drive safeties and kill the repulsion charge that keeps us ahead of the wave. Rather than just being pinched from the rear, we were also pinched from the front and spat out sideways.”

“A magnetic pulse! You mean an EMP? Damn it! I thought we were hardened against these things?”

“Under normal circumstances we are, sir. But this event was highly focused and of unprecedented scale. It was far beyond the standoff EMP weaponry we’re hardened against.” Stavener said. “If the most powerful EMP weapons the EDP forces have, those on the Russian Tirrol class destroyers, were a stubbed toe. This event would be like having a house dropped on you.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Denz.

Stavener shrugged in a,
search me
, gesture that infuriated Denz, but now was not the time for recriminations.

“Casualties?” Denz snapped glancing at Canthouse who had joined them, his right arm in a sling and hurriedly strapped to his chest.

“Injuries are being reported all over the ship.” Avery said looking over a constantly refreshing list on his tablet. “There are a lot of impact traumas, some concussions and possibly a fractured skull in engineering. There are two people unaccounted for and we have one fatality, sir.” He indicated the still form with an inclination of the head.

Denz looked past him to the man on the floor. “What happened here?” He walked across to the body partially covered with a service jacket, which he pulled back to reveal the ashen face of operations officer Wheyer. Blood had matted the hair on the left side of Wheyer’s head to pool about his shoulder, with an angry purple black bruise running from beneath the matted hair to cover the left side of his white face like a lightning strike, before disappearing inside his uniform at neck level.

“It’s operations officer Wheyer,” Avery said with genuine sorrow. “The force of the ejection threw him sideways against the bulkhead and broke his neck.”

“It’s these damn sideways located consoles,” Canthouse said. “I made an objection in the prelaunch spec review but nothing was done about them.”

“He should have been wearing his safety belt,” Denz said with grim soberness. He glanced at first officer, “And you Malcolm?”

“The medic suspects a fractured scapula, sir. There’s no quick fix, and as the surgery is over capacity I asked him to bind it until I can attend.”

“See that you do,” Denz again looked around the recovering disorder. “Gentlemen, let’s clean this up and make good on any repairs we can. Lieutenant Avery, I’d like you to arrange a search party to locate our missing crew men. I’d hate the thought of them lying injured under some displaced equipment somewhere.”

“Aye, commander,” Avery said and departed.

“Lieutenant commander, I’d like you to –“ Denz noticed his first officer suppress a wince as he repositioned the sling and glanced at the bandaged arm. “Malcolm, are you sure you’re up to this?”

“Perfectly, sir,” Canthouse replied, though his pained grin said otherwise.”Just don’t ask me to bowl overhand.”

Denz stared at his first officer, mentally selecting the tasks the injured man could best carry out. He was sure Canthouse would lie about how long he’d been awake if he asked, and was beginning to suspect he may be using alternative forms of banishing the need to rest. A voice from somewhere in the recesses of his mind said,
but not Canthouse, he would never resort to such things
. He overrode such thoughts to dismiss them as quickly as they had arrived.

“If you’re sure you’re able I’d like you to take charge of the immediate repairs and ensure we can move again. Motive units are the priority. I’d hate for one of those tadpoles to arrive and find us bare cheeked and squatting.”

“Immediately, commander.” Canthouse said stiffly. He picked up his tablet with his left hand and made to pass it to his right, only to pause awkwardly on encountering the sling. He glanced at Denz who shook his head in disbelief at his XO’s apparent foolishness whilst muttering,
Lord help us!

A grin broke across the first officer’s anxiety ridden face and he turned away to find a place to work one handed.

“Operations!” Denz snapped to bring back a sense of order, “Ship status?” But he never heard the reply, instead turning to face the door at the rear of the bridge, which slid open to reveal a solitary figure entering the bridge. Denz stared at Cummings with a barely controlled desire to move across and hold her. Cummings approached him and stood to as formal attention as possible.

Despite the fatigue in the attentive stance, a slightly flushed complexion and a small gauze patch taped against her right temple, Cummings looked almost normal. Yet, Denz sensed a house of cards holding her up as if sheer will alone had brought her from the infirmary. “Request permission to return to duty, commander.”

“It’s good to see you on your feet, SPO Cummings. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine, sir. Maybe a little weak from the time spent in bed, but nothing a little exercise won’t cure.”

“Has the doctor cleared you for duty?”

“Not exactly, commander. But the sick bay is quite full and I couldn’t just fill a bed needlessly, so the doctor has cleared me to assist with some of the lighter duties.”

Denz considered instructing her to go to her quarters and rest, but she would only protest. If not publicly then certainly later in his quarters.

“Very well. Mr Avery is arranging a search party to locate two missing crew men. Do you feel up to joining him?”

“Certainly, sir. May I ask who is missing?”

Den looked toward Canthouse who considered the tablet in his left hand.

“Rating, David Stain and a Leading Hand Esta Brula. It’s good to see you up and about, Cummings.” He projected as much goodwill as possible into his smile even when he detested the pretentious actions that had gotten her injured in the first place. She may be the commander’s favourite, but who did she think she was really? What reason could this pretentious, self-important fool have for entering the bridge and commandeering the crew’s attention during a time of crisis. It was little more than a thinly veiled attempt at currying her lover’s sympathies and favoured attentions above everything else. God how he detested her.

“Thank you Lieutenant Commander, “she returned the smile. “With your permission, commander.”

“Carry on,” Denz said. “Just don’t go overexerting yourself, Rachel.” Denz’s face dropped at his informal use her first name before the crew, several of whom fed on such drama.

Cummings blushed and gave a constrained smile. “I won’t,
sir
.” Denz and Cummings stood looking at each other.

“The search party are forming at mid point, deck C,” Canthouse said to fill the awkward void.

“Aye, sir. Thank you, sir” Cummings said and turned away.

Ignoring the two ratings who crouched by Wheyer’s body with a black canvas bag, Denz turned to face the front screen, which displayed a cycling display of the ship’s readiness, He’d made a fool of himself in front of the entire bridge crew and his mood was bitter. He watched peripherally as they moved about their business and wholly ignoring him with a forced deliberance, but he knew what they were thinking. Knew they were secretly laughing at the old fool who courted a lesser rank and carried on as if nobody knew about it. It would be all over the ship by lunch time, if it wasn’t already. And if they thought the doddering old man had lost it, then he’d give them something to consider.