CHAPTER 10 - INCIDENT

"How was it?" Kuw said, tilting her head.

"Let's never accept jobs involving xenofauna shipping from people in medieval-looking clothes again," Rachel chuckled. "But we got paid at least. How are the new sensors?"

"These chohjozra are working very well," the relmai said, "Yeah, these four stubby paws aren't so good for handling tiny objects but they are very good at moving big parts. Honestly, I thiiiink we overshot the ETA for the upgrades."

"That's good."

***

16 Apr 2231

It was officially Elektra and Patch's shift now, but Patch was too busy assisting with sensor installation, so the medical officer was the only one in command.

The beeping of a datapad alarm app sent Jamaad awake. This new sound, replacing the usual ringing sound, was instead a shrill cacophony fine-tuned to dispel sleep as quickly and thoroughly as possible. He had downloaded it from Biukwoulsab-1's databanks, because of course the relmai would design such a thing.

Apparently, Artur was not spared from its reach, even despite the soundproofing between the captain's quarters and the officers' bunk room. The wolf-man stumbled out of bed, his tail pointed down.

"Good morning sir, I almost had a fuckin heart attack from that noise!" The weapons officer then oriented himself in microgravity.

Jamaad couldn't help but chuckle. "I suppose I shouldn't have jailbroken the pad to amplify the volume up past the limit. The previous sound just burnt out on me, you know?"

Artur rubbed his eyes. "Are you sure our sleep schedules aren't just fucked up these days? All that coffee is strong but we go to sleep at such wildly varying times. And, you know, maybe it's how we sleep in uniforms? On my last ship we didn't sleep in them and that was…"

"Oh, Greenpaw, Greenpaw… you must've gotten used to it already. For this mission I requested the latest nanoweave unifs. You probably don't notice it anymore, but it really feels like a second skin. All sweat and dirt gets wicked away. Fabric cleans itself if soaked in water and heated up. Only civvies need to change clothes."

"Fair, fair… I haven't been getting much of my usual exercise and shit so far, though. Let's see how that 'self-cleaning' handles it," Artur snorted.

"Well, it's not our time to be in command now, so go ahead, Officer Greenpaw. I'll have to catch up on what happened overnight, though."

Artur stretched and floated down the hall to the entertainment room, after taking care of himself. Trash and clutter from the party still remained, from shreds of confetti– large enough to not be sucked into vents, of course– to what remained of the boombox after he accidentally sat on it yesterday, just after the party was over. Perhaps Grant could fix it up again, but he was not present. Instead, in the room were Kuw, Rachel, the quartermaster Rogier, and the electrician Zheng. They were off their shift and playing some kind of board game involving a three-dimensional board with layers, several tracks, and a whole bag of dice. It looked very complicated, and magnets were the only thing stopping the dozens of counters and tokens from floating off and lodging themselves in the ventilation system.

Artur leaned over the board for a few seconds, shrugged, and decided to not disturb the four. Kuw briefly waved to him, but returned to focusing on the game.

It had indeed been a long time since the weapons officer felt the metallic embrace of the multifunctional exercise machine. His bulging, mutated muscles, threaded with actuator wires and extra sinews of nanotubes, ached as he pulled the ratcheted levers to his chest with his hands and to his belly with his thighs, and back. After every few pulls, he pressed a button to increase the tension of the springs more and more. Fifth level, effortless. Tenth level, effortless. Twentieth level, almost effortless. Fortieth level, slight difficulty. Fiftieth level– the maximum– just right. The machine creaked and groaned under the strain of dozens of presses done with superhuman speed, but Artur didn't hear it. The power metal playlist drowned out the poor device's desperate cries for mercy. Artur finally got into a rhythm…

SNAPBANGCRACK!

A shower of springs, cogs, and bolts exploded from the exercise machine's sides. The four crewmembers at the table instinctively ducked, protecting their heads from the ricochetting grapeshot. The boombox, already heavily damaged, was directly hit by the shotgun-like blast and thus reduced to scrap. Its components joined the eviscerated machine's innards in a cascading pandemonium of metal shrapnel, accompanied by screaming and profuse swearing.

After all the clanking and confused yelling subsided, the aftermath became apparent. Chipped paint on the walls. Dented and cracked shelves. Carpet with holes. Cracked computer casings and screen-protectors. A mess of mechanical parts mixed in with some board game pieces floating in the air.

"Jebat…" Artur said.

Immediately after, he pushed free of the ruptured machine and dashed towards the four, inspecting them for injuries.

Fortunately, the military-grade nanoweave uniforms cushioned at least some of the impacts. Still, there were several injuries: Kuw had a hole through one of her sideways-facing fluffy ears, and lacerations on her back; Rachel's tail tip was bent in a painful-looking way while a black eye graced her face; Rogier's exposed forearms were heavily bruised and his thumb was dislocated; while Zheng was lucky and had some light bruising in various parts.

"I… I'm sorry! I… fucking… are you all okay?!" Artur immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out his datapad. It was shaped like a gunmetal-gray metallic brick, with a keyboard taking up half of its front and a ruggedized screen occupying the rest, as well as an extensible antenna and heat-sink grooves. Before anyone could say anything, he sounded a medical emergency alarm.

While waiting for the medics to arrive, he picked Kuw up and gave her a hug. Not a tight one, as to avoid damaging her fragile, delicate relmai body, of course. "Please please forgive me…"

Kuw whimpered. Though her species could not cry in the same way humans did, it was obvious that she would if she was able to. "Ya… didn't mean to. It's fine…"

Artur, on the other hand, could, but wouldn't. Canids did not cry. When they did not revel in visceral satisfaction, they kept an air of stoicism. At least that's what his father taught him.

Rachel clung on to her, while the two human ensigns continued cowering under the table.

Elektra kicked open the door, the entire cadre of medics following behind her, with Jamaad trailing at the end.

The blue-skinned CMO looked around, her hairless eyebrows raised and her large eyes widened even further. "What. In God's name. Happened here?"

"The exerciser blew up," Artur said, "I didn't realize it was meant for baseliners and not… me."

Jamaad just floated there, silent.

"It's… I… I didn't know! Don't demote me!"

The captain left, leaving the door open. The medics started work on first aid, then carried the injured to the medbay. Artur followed, thinking to himself. No, it was not combat that caused the first medical emergency on the ship. It was this stupid incident.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

***

Four cots were being watched over by one doctor each, including the CMO. Artur paced back and forth in the 'hallway' between them and the medical equipment. His mind was a mess of anxious thoughts, guilt, and uncertainties about his future.

"Will they be okay?" the Canid asked.

"You asked this for the third time in fifteen minutes," Elektra said exasperatedly, "Nothing bio-gel can't fix. Just flesh wounds."

Artur continued pacing, until Jamaad entered. He lowered his head and his tail. Nothing could save him now. He would be dropped off at this very station and replaced by a chohjozra.

"Weapons Officer Greenpaw, I want to inform you about something."

Artur was quiet.

"Do you understand what you have done?"

…

"I repeat, do you understand what you have done?"

Artur made a whining sound. "I nearly killed a fifth of the crew."

"Did you?" Jamaad leaned against the back of a cot.

"How didn't I?"

Jamaad sighed. "Well, did you intentionally destroy the machine? Did you have a good reason to expect it to fail so spectacularly? No?"

"Of course not," Artur said, not sure what to expect.

"Then you did nothing wrong. Please don't blame yourself, Greenpaw. It's bullshit, but you weren't responsible for it. I can name several other people who could be called more responsible. The engineers who designed it. The robofac overseers who watched over production. Myself, for not verifying if it can handle your strength," Jamaad said.

Artur stopped looking at the floor and instead looked Jamaad in the eyes. "Do you really forgive me for this?" He turned and gestured to the four, who were watching the captain talk to him.

"Yes," Jamaad replied bluntly.

They shook hands.

***

The ship had no dedicated janitor, unlike larger vessels. This unglamorous job was assigned to one of the engineers when necessary. In this case, it was Ensign Sabauri.

Collecting all the little bits of debris into a bag was insanely tedious work. He cursed under his breath in his native Georgian as he toiled away at every nut and bolt… but then an idea crossed the engineer's mind. He floated over to the air scrubber vent, into which blew an ever-so-slight draft of wind, and placed a sheet of thin, porous paper from his toolbox onto its grille. Then, he began fiddling with the air quality controls in the corner of the room. The switch that throttled scrubbing when air quality was already good was turned off, while the knob that controlled air flow was turned from 'low' to 'TURBO'.

The scrubber started howling like a miniature jet engine, and all the junk floating around the room immediately started gravitating towards the sheet of paper, as if pulled by a magnet. Temo Sabauri then scooped up the pile into a bag. Now only sorting was left: separating the scrap from the board game components, which were thankfully large and different in shape, being mostly flat. Some were dented or bent, but nothing an application of a small mallet couldn't fix. To think that before the age of asteroid mining, people would waste hydrocarbons on plastics, instead of using cheap, hefty, and durable alloys for almost everything.

Soon, everything was sorted into several little baggies. The room was no longer messy, but it was still devastated.

"This will be a long day," Temo thought, fiddling with his mustache, as he went to the supply room to grab various spare parts, then the engineering deck to retrieve a handheld welder.

***

It was not long until the sensor package was finally replaced with a chohjozra-made unit. Its dishes, compared to the plain and utilitarian Terran-made ones, were much more ornate: hundreds of gemstones and what looked like an angular version of golden filigree decorated their back ends.

Rachel was in the CIC, allowed to perform her duties despite Elektra's concerns. Her tail tip was hastily splinted and a ring-shaped bandage covered the black bag around her eye. She just couldn't wait to check out her new toy. Jamaad was beside her, replacing the CMO off-shift.

"You know, before I start, I gotta comment on something. Everything the chohjozra make is blinged-out. Aren't they supposed to be like, an ostensibly equal but harsh society? Like the old communist regimes of Earth, but with a religious twist? Doesn't that require austerity?"

"Does it?" Jamaad said, "By human standards, perhaps it does. But they do not nearly have the same mindset as humans do. They're like crows, they like shiny things, and it just so happens that their homeworld, I think it's called Akeruh, has a lot of gold and a lot of gems. There's enough for everyone."

Patch beeped. "According to my database, the totalitarian regime of the Hxzrchkiizra Dynasty that once ruled the entirety of pre-space-age Akeruh hoarded wealth and decorations. As part of societal reformatting after the Great Cleansing that killed almost a third of the chohjozra population from warfare or starvation, two centuries before full recovery and invention of space travel, gold and precious stones were distributed to every citizen, including to all attendees of the feast where the royal family was consumed."

Rachel's eyes widened. "That's brutal."

"Alien history frequently is," The robot monotonously stated.

All the talk about the chohjozra species reminded Rachel of what she was supposed to do now. After thanking Patch for the arduous task of navigating a labyrinth of dependencies and adapter software to connect the alien sensors to the ship's systems, she pointed the package towards the star-yacht, which of course continued trailing behind the ship. It was relatively close, but not within hailing range or on a rendezvous trajectory.

The scan did not take long. It revealed that the suspicious vessel, Greenish Pearl II, was not a stock Cocytus Shipyards TQ-102-Ultra yacht. Instead, it seemed to have been rather heavily modified. In addition to larger fuel tanks and engines with nozzles optimized for efficiency, it seemed to have panels on its sides concealing… something. At the time, it seemed to be heading on a trajectory approaching the closest inter-system auto-courier depot, having previously been on a parabola-like distant flyby of the station and the attached ships.

Rachel relayed the readings. "What do we do? Tell the chohjozra space cops? Fly out ourselves and ask them what the fuck is up? Just keep going and hopefully lose them?" She added.

Jamaad sat down on his command chair, deep in thought, and put his chin in his hands as he contemplated all the different courses of action, like a chess player would calculate variations in a complicated position. Three such variations were obvious, each with its own upsides and downsides. The chohjozra Starguard could fail to catch up to the yacht before it leaves, or there could be a violent confrontation that ends with its destruction, without further information. The yacht might evade attempts to intercept it, or worse, open fire with weaponry of unknown power. And simply continuing on the trip would save the most time, but who knows for how long the yacht could keep pursuing the Pheidippides like a Neolithic hunter stalking a gazelle?

After a while, he finally made a decision.

***

The ship hastily took off from Kyrrhtazh Station 01. It was only 2 hours until it reached the warp boundary. It was heading for the chohjozra frontier system of Oekiczzarh. Seven hours, according to the calculations.

But thirty minutes in, Jamaad suddenly gave the order to cut out the Ugolnikov drive prematurely.

Rachel clutched her head. Kuw clutched her head. Sabauri clutched his head. A staggering headache split through the minds of everyone in the vessel like a bolt of lightning. The physical jolt knocked Rogier out of his cot, sending him spinning through the medbay.

"What… why?" Rachel said, her tail swinging from side to side in confusion.

Jamaad did not answer. "Officer Patch, turn the ship thirty degrees starboard. Then set course to Hxet-ktee."

"The Kjee Empire?!" Rachel rose out of her seat. "Weren't we supposed to go around? Go under it through the Commonality?"

"Yes, yes the Kjee Empire. The kjee themselves will protest, but they can go fuck themselves. We're faster than them. And the yacht will think we're still going to Oek, since the light from us moving in that direction will be seen for… a month? Yes, we likely cut a few years off the drive's lifespan with this, but it'll all be worth it."

"But wouldn't it cause a diplomatic accident to vio–"

"What are they going to do?" Jamaad chuckled, "Send a strongly-worded letter? There's no trade, no useful relations with them. Plus, if we take this little shortcut, we'll make back the time we spent on upgrading things."

Nine hours was the ETA for the new, changed route.

***

The pain from Rachel and Kuw's injuries dulled the voices, much like acclimatization did. While, for safety reasons, they could not be on the same cot, Elektra complied with a request to move them closer together. They held hands, reaching over the gap between the cots. Rachel felt anxious over the captain's decision. Would it really be worth it to put everything in jeopardy just to put some distance between themselves and this seemingly non-hostile pursuer?

The catgirl and the relmai drifted off to sleep.