5

“Captain on the bridge,” Ensign Kyle Walker announced, prompting everyone to stand. I was already on my feet, off to one side of the well-staffed bridge.

Captain Cynthia Thomas Younger strode into the room. Her crew responded with the unique professionalism that I still thought contrasted with their not-very-uniform uniforms—standing and facing Younger for the moment it took her to wave them back to their posts. Not for the first time, I thought the ship crews of Xad overcompensated for the shabby, repurposed clothing most of them wore.

“Reaper,” she said to me by way of acknowledgment.

“Captain,” I said.

 Her attention turned back to the task at hand. One of the Wallach ships was struggling. “Commander Gile, what is the situation?”

“The Republic of Wallach Ship Jumping Fox is reporting engine troubles. We are the closest ship that is ready to render aid,” Gile said. “The RWS Spirit of Wallach is prepping a repair team but also requests our help.”

“Open a channel to the Spirit,” Younger ordered.

“Hailing the Spirit of Wallach now, Captain,” said an ensign.

A man I now recognize as Captain Quincy Drysdale appeared on the holo. Middle-aged, his uniform was well-tailored, and he had the look of someone who still played contact sports during his leisure time.

“Thank you,” Captain Drysdale said. “We are preparing a team but welcome your assistance. All reports indicate your people are skilled at this type of operation.”

“We are glad to help,” Captain Younger said. She glanced down at a screen, then back to the holo. “We are deploying a shuttle now. You should receive our ship telemetry and an itinerary of how the operation will proceed.”

I watched until I saw the shuttle arrive at the malfunctioning Wallach ship. To my surprise, the heavy-duty EVA suit that Path was so fond of these days emerged first. Three other people followed him, also in the beefed-up, ready-for-anything equipment.

Captain Younger saw my expression. “Your weapons master always volunteers for spacewalks. He’s extremely good for someone not raised in the Xad system.”

“He’s a strange one,” I said. X-37 berated me privately at the implication of my statement. I made a quick course correction. “My people aren’t as comfortable in the void as yours. For Path, floating in space is the ultimate form of meditation.”

Captain Younger smiled knowingly. “I’ve had several very interesting conversations with the man. His appreciation for the beauty outside of the ship is sublime.”

“Beauty, terror, it’s hard to draw the line sometimes,” I said.

She laughed, but I noticed more than a few members of her crew seem to resent my casual conversation with their captain. This made talking to X-37 difficult, unless I wanted to make a scene.  Which was always an option.

Younger turned back to her work, seeming like she was in a good mood. The crisis on the Jumping Fox didn’t bother her much. “Has anyone figured out what a fox is?”

“Some type of animal, I believe,” Commander Gile said.

Younger glanced back at me.

“It’s like a small dog with a pointy face. Very clever,” I said.

“You’ve seen one?” she asked.

“Only in books. I took a sabbatical for a while, did as much reading as was allowed,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole convicted murderer and two years on death row thing right now.

“Allowed? I can’t imagine a situation where someone told you what to do,” Captain Younger said. “I’m not saying you’re a bad soldier, but there is something about you.”

“Reaper Cain, Elise has volunteered with the backup crew,” X-37 said. “I thought you should know, given her record for getting into trouble when outside of a ship.”

“Thanks, X. That’s good news. She has been spending far too much time tinkering with that micro-fighter,” I said.

This time, the crew of the Bright Lance of Xad ignored me, preferring to focus on their assigned jobs.

 “I believe Elise is concealing her involvement in this rescue mission,” X-37 added.

“I couldn’t stop her from volunteering if I wanted to,” I said. “And it’s not like she’s doing anything. Standby is what it is, mostly just waiting around.”

“You may have just jinxed her,” X-37 said.

“Look who just got superstitious,” I said. “I didn’t think that was in your programming.”

“I believe you understand what I mean,” X-37 said. “What you explain away as superstitious presumptions, I treat as an evidence-based prediction. Many times when you have relaxed, and thus spoke casually about our chances, things have gone horribly wrong.”

“That’s not enough to show causation,” I said, watching several of the holo screens, looking for Elise even though I knew she was just standing by, not getting involved. She knew what she was doing. We’d been through EVA missions more dangerous than even the people of Xad were accustomed to taking on. That didn’t mean I wanted her getting involved in this. Mixing her freewheeling style with the long-established methods of the Xad salvagers could be a real headache.

 “We have a problem, Captain,” Commander Gile said.

I edged as close to his workstation as I could without being in the crew’s way. Captain Younger also shifted her attention. I felt the energy in the room go up. Something was wrong and everyone saw it before I did.

This was their world, not mine. I’d been doing so many ship-based missions that I had become overconfident. I forgot that people like Captain Younger devoted their lives to ships and what they could do.

 “What am I looking for, X?” I asked, trying to stay out of everyone’s way.

“Power output is fluctuating on the RWS Jumping Fox,” X-37 said. “It won’t be long before one or all of the engines fail. They are also having trouble with maintaining course, which should not be even the slightest issue without there being a serious internal problem.”

One of the small ship’s engines cut out, causing it to turn.

 “In any other circumstance, this would not be a problem,” X-37 said.

“I get it, X,” I said. “Why can’t they compensate for the change?”

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “I am listening in and it seems to be a hardware issue, something that must be repaired on the exterior of the ship, preferably while docked at a space station.”

“Of course,” I said. “Nothing can be easy.”

Slip tunnels were easy to use. Once a vessel was inside, the pilot only needed to keep going until the end. One thing everyone knew, however, was that touching the wall of the slip tunnel was deadly. The deviation and course that the Jumping Fox was making would have been invisible if they were in normal space. As it was, a collision with the green wall of energy appeared to be imminent.

 “This is Captain Peterson of the Jumping Fox,” a man said, voice only on the communications link. “We’re cutting all engines to avoid further course deviation. The more course corrections we make, the greater the error in our navigation. Please direct your crews to the steering jets on the port side. We can handle the main engines. My engineers believe it is the small thrusters that started the problem and continue to aggravate it.”

“Understood, Captain,” Younger responded. “We are directing our teams now.”

Peterson replied distractedly, then ended the conversation to work on more pressing issues on his end. The bridge of the Jumping Fox sounded like there were a dozen crew persons jumping from one crisis to the next.

“Captain, I suggest sending all available EVA teams to deal with the problem. There will most likely be more than one navigational thruster that needs attention,” Commander Gile said.

“Agreed,” Captain Younger said.

I watched as the alert went out inside.

“So much for Elise staying out of trouble,” X-37 said.

“We should have just sent her first thing,” I said.

A half dozen shuttles with as many EVA teams surrounded the Jumping Fox. I couldn’t see what they were doing without looking over the shoulder of one of the mission controllers who was watching through individual EVA video feeds.

“At least they’re not being shot at,” I said.

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “But thanks for bringing up that possibility. If I had the capacity to worry, this would have caused me distress.”

“Maybe I should have you upgraded,” I said, immediately deciding that would be the worst possible personality upgrade I could force upon my X unit.

Captain Younger supervised without interfering with her subordinates. She walked the deck with the practiced bearing of a professional officer. Eventually, she stopped near me.

“Now we have two of your people working with mine,” she said. “None of you lack for bravery.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” I said. “It’s easy for Path. Elise has faced her death more than once in that type of environment. She’s the one I’m worried about.”

“I would like to learn your weapon master’s secret,” Younger said. “How does he stay so level headed?”

“His actual name is Grigori Paavo. He’s a sword saint, all meditation and calmness in the face of death. Very annoying sometimes,” I said. “If you don’t watch him, you’ll find him floating in his spacesuit with star fields all around him happy as a pig in—”

“What’s a pig?” Younger asked, then waved back my explanation with a wink. “We also have this phrase. I’m toying with you.”

“We have another problem,” Commander Gile announced.

* * *

“Partial hull decompression on the Jumping Fox!” Gile said, raising his voice for the first time.  “Their crew is fixing it from the inside, but we have several of our people floating free.”

Alerts sounded, and I saw them spring into action on what they called a floating free immediate action response or FFIA. Several members of the spacewalking repair team were recovered in seconds, which was important because while the relative speed of the Jumping Fox and items near it was nearly constant, it wasn’t exactly the same.

Several dots drifted from the repair site.

“Check on Elise,” I growled at X-37.

“I’m doing my best, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I heard one of the small clicks that my limited artificial intelligence hadn’t made for quite a while now. This indicated he was working at his maximum capacity.

“There is too much data flow,” X-37 informed me. “Each unit has an emergency tracker and there is a large amount of information about the repair still flowing between ships. It’s a mundane issue, but very critical to life-support systems on the Jumping Fox. They are also scrambling all relief efforts toward the people floating toward the wall of the slip tunnel.”

“Is one of those people Elise?” I asked.

“Unknown.” X-37 clicked and popped, working more energetically than I’ve ever heard him, even when he’d been trying to save my life and in some very impossible situations.

At least I hoped that was what was happening. It had taken me a long time to get my LAI and all of my hardware working smoothly. Thoughts of the malfunctions I’d endured since Dreadmax weren’t reassuring.

“I have a vector,” Elise’s voice said over the main channel. Everyone on the bridge was listening to her now. “But my safety line isn’t long enough. I’m going to jump and knock Specialist Beaufort off his current course.”

“What the hell are you doing, Elise,” I muttered. “And who is Beaufort?”

“She is attempting a rescue without the proper resources,” X-37 said. “Beaufort is a member of the repair team.”

“Good luck, Elise,” a member of the bridge crew said.

I wanted to punch him.

“Are you thinking of punching the comms officer of the Bright Lance?” X-37 said. “Your biometrics correlate with past incidents of senseless violence.”

Ignoring a reaper LAI wasn’t impossible, especially when all of my attention was on my reckless protégé. 

The scene unfolded in slow motion like everyone was moving underwater. Additional personnel arrived on the bridge. Every sensor and communication channel was manned. Several conversations began at once.

Elise wasn’t the only one taking action to save her fellow team members. I focused on what I needed to hear, hoping I would catch anything else relevant or that X-37 would monitor the other conversations.

“I just need to run at it,” Elise said. “Once I catch him, I’ll expend all of my steering jets to change his course. Can you give me an update, Bright Lance?”

“I’m streaming the bare minimum of telemetry to your HUD. Please don’t deviate from that information, as we have a very busy bandwidth right now. I won’t be able to make alterations on the fly,” her controller said.

My knuckles popped as I clenched both fists. A second later, the blade in my left arm snapped out.

“Control yourself, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I’ll get right on that.” Standing, retracting the blade, I tried not to interfere with the crew. I needed to get out there. This was the last time I’d let the kid go solo.

I moved as unobtrusively as possible to stare over the shoulder of the young man talking to Elise. He didn’t have video for me to spy through. I could, however, hear her breathing increase as she sprinted across the deck of the Jumping Fox.

“You’re doing great,” her controller said. “You’re quick. Where did you learn to run like that in space gear?”

“She’s been on missions,” I answered, startling the young ensign. “Xad doesn’t have a total monopoly on extra vehicle activity skill.”

Elise’s controller nodded, shaken by my looming presence, and went back to work with his calculations. The screen he used was simple, dots with predicted paths of each unit, including Elise. Her icon was brighter than all the others on his small holo screen. Her target, Beaufort, was also emphasized as he drifted toward the edge of slip space.

 “I hope this Beaufort character is worth it,” I grumbled.

The man at the control terminal glanced back over his shoulder, again more nervously than I liked. “The girls all find him stunning.”

“What?” I shouted, drawing the attention of several other mission controllers.

The bridge of the Bright Lance was far larger than the Jellybird or other small ships, but still very compact compared to a full-sized Union worship. Right now, it was full of people working to save lives.

“I’m sorry,” the controller said. “I… need to get back to work helping Elise.”

“Are you telling me the kid is risking her life to save some boy she has a crush on?”

The controller ignored me, face reddening second by second. He bent over his work screen and typed furiously, double and triple-checking his calculations.

“Leave it be, Reaper Cain. It would be natural for Elise to have interest in the opposite sex,” X-37 explained. “And now is not the time to address the issue.”

“We are definitely going to talk when she gets back,” I stated, then crossed my arms. Shifting my weight from foot to foot, I felt like a nervous wreck. The sensation was alien to me. I couldn’t even punch the wall or stalk the deck or smoke a cigar in this environment.

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