8. Entebbe Rescue

Muschivk left the engineering startup in Perez’s hands and started back aft, not because he was worried about the team, but because he felt there was something strange back there, “You three, come with me. Nobody moves around in less a team, until we get this contraption underway.”

“Right, Master Chief,” said the three he motioned.

The team leader tactical display showed the locations of all the members of team one, and general locations of the other teams. Team Two was headed forward towards the Bridge, but it would take them several minutes, maybe as much as 20, to get there with the side transit modules down, Sevrinofsky was obviously following the book and conserving suit power when recharges weren’t readily available. Muschivk approved. Perez was still in the Engineering Control Room.

He said, “PIM, build me a map of the drive module. This thing is irritating me, none of the passageways go where they are supposed to.”

“Acknowledged, displaying from ships data,” replied the PIM.

A 3D tactical map built up in front of him, superimposed on the wall. The search team was on the aft side of the main fusion reactor, on the way to the subspace engine. The EM drive was aft of that. Because it was a separate module and not a real starship, it had some strange setups. It had separate propulsion living quarters all the way aft with small mess and berthing, an extra Sickbay, an extra hangar bay, and some other oddities. It was as if someone built a miniature starship on top of a drive unit, which is just what they did. When it mated with the ship or the supply ferry most of the support functions were moved forward.

“PIM, are the aft living quarters shielded with the drive in subspace," asked the Master Chief.

“I think they are, but this cannot be verified. Once CPO Perez and his PIM get the central processing unit up, I will be able to answer that. Regardless, it would be prudent to do so, because any subspace variance will cause the gravity to fluctuate.”

“Right. That’s what I thought, ” said Muschivk.

He followed his nose and the map back towards the aft berthing and sickbay.

“Master Chief, the COB is here, his SAR is docked with ours,” said Lin.

“Tell him to come on in, the water’s fine,” said Muschivk.

“Master Chief?” asked Lin.

“Never mind, it was a joke, tell him to join us... And tell Eagles as well when she gets here.”

“Right, Master Chief,” said Lin.

Muschivk never tried to explain how he knew what he knew about the environment, because he had no idea, but just like he knew there were no more big buggy aliens on this ship, he knew there were living survivors, and he had a general sense of their direction. He’d always been able to do it, and it drove Perez crazy.

“Do we have a medic in one of the teams,” asked Muschivk.

“Yeah, Master Chief, HM1 Crunich is on Team Four,” said Lin, "She's the Independent Duty Corpsman attached to the rescue wing."

“Get her in here, I think we are going to need a Medic,” said Muschivk.

Nobody asked how he knew Crunich was a she, all the current members of the assault teams worked with Muschivk and Perez before. He’d handpicked the replacements for Outpost 127 for the last year. It took Muschivk and the guys with him about 10 minutes to make their way around the power plants, it probably would have been faster going through it, but he figured they could loop around and go through on the way back. Perez might have the lights and gravity on by then, that would make things go much faster.

“Lin, patch me through to the Skipper," said Muschivk.

“Give me a sec, Master Chief, the XO is on that circuit.”

“Good, put me on with them, I need to update her, can do both at once.”

“Okay, in 5, 4, 3, 1, in.”

“Muschivk, here,” said the Master Chief.

“Excellent, Master Chief. Good timing,” said Cohen, "Report."

“Hi, Master Chief, we just made it to the Bridge. It’s a mess, three of my bad boys got anti-emetics from the suits. Maybe we need to update the sims,” said the XO.

“Good, ma’am. You know what Perez is doing, but I think we have a couple of survivors around here somewhere. I’m looking for them now. I can’t really tell where they are.”

“You think they are in survival suits set for cold storage,” asked Cohen.

“Yes sir. I do. I think once we find them, I can get them into the sick bay here, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to wake them up without talking to Tunney,” said Muschivk.

“Muschivk, all them are probably Naval Supply Systems, they are civvies. I wouldn’t trust myself to wake them up. I think we’ll keep them in cold storage till we get out of this. I’ll talk to Tunney and see. If any of them are regular Navy, we might consider that,” said Cohen.

“That’s what I figured. My guess is if they aren’t in cold storage, they are probably catatonic,” said Muschivk.

“We’ve got Crunch with us, right, Muschivk” said the XO, Crunch was the Team Medic's nickname.

“She’s with Eagles, be here in a couple of minutes, the COB is here,” said Muschivk.

“Have Crunch go with you but send the COB up top, cause I need some people that won’t faint, and as soon as Perez gets me power and mobility we are moving.” said the XO.

“Okay, will do. Can we pull the SARs into the aft hangar bay, “ asked Muschivk.

“Good job, Master Chief, I’m very happy there were no losses, and yes, as soon as you clear the ship, pull the SARs in.” said Cohen.

“Don’t worry, Skipper, it will get much harder,” said Muschivk.

“I know,“ said the Captain.

“All right, XO, you check on Perez. Tell him he doesn’t have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, just get us power and motion. He can do his science projects later,” said Muschivk, “If you do it, he might actually listen.”

“Someday, someone is going to tell me what’s going on with the two of you,” said the Captain.

“Someday, maybe, sir, “ said the XO, "Don't count on it."

“Right. I’m going to say something all Captainish, here... Get moving and be careful,” said Cohen.

“Yes sir,” said Muschivk.

“That was very good sir. I’m taking notes,” said the XO.

“CO, off.” said Cohen

“Lin, were you listening,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Yes ma’am,” said Lin.

“That’s very bad manners, Petty Officer,” said the XO.

“Yes ma’am,” said Lin.

“Make all that happen,” said the XO.

“Make all that happen, Aye, ma’am,” said Lin.

“Don’t get snippy with me, young man, I’ll take your Disney away. XO out.”

“Everybody is a comedian,” said Muschivk.

“No, Master Chief,” said Lin.

“Petty Officer forever, I see,” said Muschivk.

“COB came on board and headed up country, Master Chief,” said Lin, pausing to listen to the chatter.

“Crunch headed this way?” asked Muschivk.

“Yep. She and her fire team, like you said,” said Lin.

“Perez still busy?” asked Muschivk.

“Yep. He looks pissed," said Lin.

“He’s wearing a suit. How does a suit look pissed?” asked Muschivk.

“Dunno, but he looks pissed,” said Lin.

“Did he say how long,” said Muschivk.

“Hang on,” said Lin, and a couple of seconds passed.

“Perez says, 'about 10 minutes and quit nagging. Go find your lost souls',” said Lin, repeating the dialogue.

The Master Chief grunted and cut the circuit, his team had rounded the power plant and were about halfway round the subspace enclosure, but they hadn’t stopped during the conversation. The whole ship had that surreal, dead look, like that tridee Perez had got him to watch from the 20th century called Aliens or some such. He didn’t know whether the XO had rubbed off on Perez or the other way round. They’d been making the same dumb jokes for as long as he could remember.

“Attention, Aft Medical Section is the next corridor on your right. You are in the main aft starboard passage,” said the PIM.

He motioned left to the guys following and they nodded and followed him around the corner, or rather he tried, but the guy on the right grabbed his arm and the guy on the left peered around first. It was the first junction they came to that had no visibility.

“Captain’s orders. We need you alive, Master Chief. He told us on the separate circuit,” said PO1 MacFadden.

“Mick, you are irritating me, “ said Muschivk.

“Master Chief, Captain said you’d say that, he tole me to tell you that he’d kick your ass around your ears if you don’t listen, and that your freaky sense thing doesn’t always work perfect. He said once it went wrong and almost got you both killed and that I was to tell ya that he remembered it,” said MacFadden.

“It worked fine. I just didn’t believe it myself,” said Muschivk.

“Master Chief, he said you’d say that too. He said to tell you that it wasn’t a big deal and to shut up, and let us go first,” said the other, PO2 Barnes.

Barnes hopped across the passage and nodded, “We good. Let’s go.”

“Oh, jolly good,” said Muschivk, “I’m going to kick his butt on Thursday.”

“Master Chief, “ piped in the 3rd smaller suit, “ He said you’d say that too. He said you’re welcome to try, and since you got surprised by a dumbass like Reagan, you’d might consider hanging up your belt before old age made it fall off.”

Muschivk took a deep breath and reminded himself that the CO just loved to mess with people. Usually his target was Perez, but sometimes....

They trotted on down the corridor to Sickbay, light gravity making a smooth pace possible. The suit generators couldn’t compensate completely for the ship’s loss of power but they could anchor the suit itself to a nearby mass. Sped up travel enormously. The intensive training enabled the space qualified battle suit wearers to change the point of attachment to help them move along, making them look like fuzzy grey kangaroos.

The Medical Section door was shut. And shielded with a low level EM field. His PIM displayed the energy as in the watts, as if they had hooked a battery up to the wall. Muschivk thought about it, and decided that’s exactly what they did. He looked at the door, looked at the small smartass suit, said “Briggs, be polite. Knock.”

“What?” asked Briggs.

“Knock, idiot. Walk up to the door and bang on it with your hand,” said Muschivk.

“Why?” asked Briggs.

“It’s only polite. Besides, why blow in, crack, hack, pick or whatever the door, when someone might just open it for you.”

“There’s somebody alive in there,” asked Briggs, looking at his monitor.

“Alive might be too strong. Not dead would be much closer,” said Muschivk.

Briggs walked up to the door and knocked, "Crap!" he said as it zapped him.

His suit crackled and snapped a bit with static lightning, but the shield had no other effect. Muschivk walked over and put his suit palm on the door pad. The door blinked green, but stayed put.

“There is pressure on the other side of this hatch, “ said his PIM.

“That’s what the green light means,” said Muschivk, He looked at his overly zealous bodyguards, “Wasn’t there a safety locker about 100m back around the corner?”

“Yes, Master Chief,” said MacFadden.

“Go get me a portable pressure lock and a generator, and tell Crunch to get her ass over here, post haste.”

“Excuse me?” asked MacFadden.

“Never mind, just tell her to get over here right now,” said Muschivk.

“Right, Master Chief,” said MacFadden as he took off back down the hallway.

Muschivk leaned up against wall and considered. With the light gravity, it was more comfortable than a feather bed. He wasn’t sure what he considered since the options were so limited. “PIM, it’s pretty clear the aliens can travel through subspace somehow, and emerge without an energy release. With my political science background, I can’t really help very much in figuring this out, but are there any other incidents that resemble the current situation, where crew have survived?”

“No Master Chief, nothing in my records,” said the PIM.

Briggs and MacFadden came back carting the safety locker crate between them. They set it down and anchored it in place. It looked like a big army style footlocker from the early 20th century, and instead of a lock, it had a keypad and a flip up terminal. The top sprang up vertically, and Briggs reached in and grabbed a folded bundle and tossed it into the middle of the passage. It floated there for a second and then expanded into a grey partition with a futuristic cool zipper.

“Master Chief, we can match the pressure on the other side of the hatch easy enough. It might be easier to wait till Perez can re-pressurize the entire ship. Do we need to get in there right now,” asked Barnes.

“Yes, right now. Get the pressure up so we can open the door.” said Muschivk

Barnes took a gas generator out of the storage box and rested his hand on it. It started spitting out gasses in a steady, rather visible stream. It took about 2 minutes to bring the temporary airlock up to about .95 atmospheric pressure. Muschivk walked over and put his palm on the hatch again. This time, two green lights, one on the hatch and one on the doorframe. The door unsealed itself and slid back and then sideways.

“Let’s go. Barnes, you stay here and wait for Crunch. She should be here in five minutes.”

“Right, Master Chief,” said Barnes.

He walked into Sickbay, a 3 room suite with 5 medical beds, and office to the side, a head and several storage closets. The third space was an Operating Room, fully sealed. Nothing on the beds or in the office, the helmet lights making an already spooky scene spine chilling. His light travelled slowly around the wall and stayed focused on the OR viewing window.

“Ah,” said MacFadden, who was a Power Electrician.

“What,” said Muschivk.

“They ran a lead to the wall from that last bed. The beds are powered internally so they don’t need wheels. Look,” and he pointed to the last gurney and the thick cable running to the wall.

A thick lead ran from the bed next to the OR window towards the wall, into a box lying on the floor. The box was welded to the wall, which was a partition wall, not a bulkhead.

“That must be how they are restricting the field to the Sickbay. Don’t have the slightest clue how, but they powered it with the bed or gurney or whatever they call it,” said MacFadden.

“Perez,” called Muschivk.

“Lin here, Master Chief. Perez is still fighting with the control system, he says he thinks a couple more minutes and he can start bringing the main busses up.”

“Ask him if it’s possible to power Medical and the Bridge from AuxCon.”

“One sec... He says “no”, and he will explain why as soon as he gets you power.”

“Okay, Lin. PIM, does medical have an Emergency Power Generator?”

“No, Master Chief, it is directly powered from the fusion plant startup capacitor.”

“Oh, that’s just a great design.”

“Sarcasm detected: I agree, Master Chief. The design is ill thought and slightly dangerous, but cost-saving given the engine module being separate from the cargo ship and the station section,” said the PIM, " and only used as a ferry most of the time."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Barnes, is Crunch there?” asked Muschivk.

“Yes, she just got here.”

“We need a lamp.”

“Hey Master Chief, do we need that shield? If not then I should probably take that down,” asked MacFadden.

“Disconnect it, but leave it alone, otherwise. Evidence,” said Master Chief.

“Right.”

MacFadden got busy doing stuff on the other side of the gurney, and the door hissed open. Two suits, one really large and black and one kind of small and white walked in. The large suit was holding a tripod and ring setup. He set it down out of the way and turned it on. The light tripod extended to the ceiling and the ring expanded to about a meter and started to glow. Vision went from black and white to color.

Muschivk walked over and looked in the OR viewing window, “Doc, don’t look in the OR yet. I need you.”

“What?” asked Crunich.

Muschivk walked over to PO2 Andrew Banner, the big suited figure, “Hulk, keep her away from the window for now.”

“Right, Master Chief,” He looked over at Crunch and motioned toward the back wall.

“Hey, “ said Crunch even while she moved back.

“Sha, we aren’t going to argue about this, are we,” said Hulk.

“Well, no, Drew, but what if they’re wounded in there,” said Crunch.

“There are, but you won’t be able to help them if you’ve got the screaming meamies, as Perez says,” said Muschivk, “MacFadden are you afraid of bugs?”

“Nope. I’m from New Sydney, land of the monsters," said MacFadden.

“All right, grab me a sheet off one of those beds and we’ll clean up a bit,” said Muschivk.

Muschivk palmed the door of the OR, and it flashed red, then green, then slid sideways. He and MacFadden went in. Some indistinct blurring from the helmet lights showed a large messed up shape leaning against the window. It kind of moved and fell down. Muschivk rolled the operating bed out into the ward, on the bed was most of a person, head and torso and about half an arm. It was covered by an emergency survival bag. The bed itself was powered and providing minimal life support functionality, as shown by the recessed green lights in the panel.

“First customer, Shakisha,” said Muschivk as they wheeled the gurney back out into the Sickbay reception.

“What the hell happened to him?” asked Crunch.

“I eat the claws first when I eat lobster,” said MacFadden sardonically.

“The arms were eaten,” said Crunch.

“Yep,” said MacFadden.

“Not helping, MacFadden. The eater is in there. Scalpel in the head. It seems dead, but I’m not taking any chances,” said Muschivk.

“Any others in there,” said Crunch.

“Two, both alive. Sort of,” said Muschivk, “Barnes, I need a missile weapon cannister or some kind of equivalent about that size. Any ideas?”

“We could make one, if we had any power in a couple of minutes. Wait, how about an EVA reaction tank? This tub has a hangar bay, right?” asked Barnes.

MacFadden lit up an empty gurney and pushed it into the OR.

“Good idea. I think we need to get that thing into a cannister and get an EM field around it. I don’t know how they find each other or leave feeding trails, but I have no intention of leading a trail of them back to the ship.”

“The other search team should be near the Hangar Bay now, we can have them bring something up,” said Briggs.

“Lin, get in touch with the other search team and have them bring me a cannister about 3 meters long and 1 in diameter,” said Muschivk.

“That’s a big body bag,” said Lin.

“It’s a big body, ” said Muschivk.

MacFadden came out of sickbay with the gurney and most of another body, this one in a civilian vac suit.

“Crunch, I wish you were a combat medic, this is going to be hard on you,” said Muschivk.

“I’ll be fine, Master Chief,” said Crunch.

“I know you will,” said Muschivk.

Crunch got busy doing medical things with the suits. MacFadden lit up a third gurney and went back in the OR.

“MacFadden, what are you doing,” asked Muschivk.

“Getting the leftovers,” said MacFadden.

“Uh.” said Muschivk, speechless for a second.

MacFadden stuck his head out, ”Excuse me, Crunch, I need another emergency bag. Where would it be.”

She turned and pointed at a closet in the office section.

“Thanks,” replied the Master Chief, responding for his resident psychopath.

He went in the office and came out seconds later with a small package and went back in the OR. MacFadden came out several minutes later with a very lumpy emergency bag on top of the gurney. “You’ll have to sort out the owners, if you want to reattach them or something. I couldn’t really tell in the dark,” he said.

“What are you talking about,” asked Crunch.

“The arms and legs,” said MacFadden, "I dumped them in the bag."

Muschivk coughed, and said, “Lin, what’s the hold up on the power?”

“There’s no systems left, Master Chief. Perez and the XO are writing the scheduler and the supervisory systems. They could start the plant up, but it would just shut down, because the bottle software is gone. He says they are almost there.”

“Tell the XO we have an alien. Mostly. Someone, looks like the ship’s Doc, stuck a laser scalpel through its head and most of the rest of it. Ugly thing,” said Muschivk.

“Okay, are there any survivors?” asked Lin

“Crunch is about to tell me that,” said Muschivk. He looked at the Corpsman.

“This one is alive, Master Chief. The medical logs for the suit shows that the occupant went into fibrillation and deep shock, and the suit emergency response injected hibernation drugs. Prognosis, unknown, but not positive. The suits are flooded with pure O2, breathing is less than 1 respiration for victim Alpha, here, and none for victim Beta. The heart in victim Alpha does not appear to be contracting at all, and the suit is applying small amounts of compression to the leftover limbs and torso. The heart in victim Beta does appear to be contracting around 1 beat per minute, but I think the emergency stimulus in the suit is triggering it. We need to get them into true hibernation as soon as possible. I can reattach limbs if I can get a working OR and a medical AI. If they are all there.”

“That’s going to mean getting back to the station, Crunch. Perez and Sevrinofsky say the AI’s are all dead. We need to reset their parameters I think. I don’t think I would trust any of the AI on this ship. I think if we bring them back from storage they would simply erase themselves again. These were civilian AI. The way they look at it, their organic components were eaten,” said Muschvick

“Definitely not, Master Chief, not without some pretty thorough scrubbing,” said the PIM.

“How fast can I get them back to the station?” asked the medic.

“Depends. If the dynamic duo can get the power and systems back up, I can release a shuttle pretty quick,” said Muschivk.

“What’s the hold up. I thought all they had to do was turn it on?” asked Crunch.

Hulk turned and said, “That’s only if the command and control structure is functioning, Sha. It’s a stellarator type mag bottle, and it requires continuous precise tuning. The plasma moves at .8c and must travel a pretty precise path to maintain the reaction rate. The bottle has a command system, the shield and energy condenser recovery system has a command system, the fuel injection system has a command system. They all work together. Somehow, someone, probably an AI, wiped the entire structure, probably using the destruct codes. The AI’s don’t have access to the scuttling charges, but they can wipe the software.” Propulsion Control 2nd Andrew Banner'sa voice was at odds with his appearance, a smooth erudite tenor.

“Scuttling charges?” asked Crunich.

“Yes. They destroy a ship in case of capture or... well, loss of subspace capability more than a year from a system. Or some other reasons,” said Hulk.

“Why don’t the AI’s have access....”

“Read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. You’ll figure it out. It’s a physical switch, with a voice code, ” said Hulk.

Muschivk looked at MacFadden and motioned at the OR, then his comm dinged.

“Joe, this is Randy. We think we’ve got enough of a scheduler to start up the plant. We can’t change power levels though, so you get about 50%, and it's fixed at 50%. Stopping is going to be a problem till we get it sorted,” said Perez.

“Okay. What does the XO think,” asked Muschivk.

“She wrote most of it, she’s faster than Sally and I are in a pinch,” said Perez

“If any of the main equipment is on will it cause problems,” asked Muschivk.

“Only the main EM drive and the subspace drive,” said Perez.

“Lin, is the other team doing Engineering right now?”

“They’ve been through Engineering, no life signs,” said Lin, "lot's of dead sign, blood and parts they said."

“Tell them to make sure the drives are off. Pull the emergency cutoffs in both the subspace compartment and the EM space,” said Muschivk.

“Aye, Master Chief.” said Lin.

“Good idea, Joe,“ said Perez.

“Lin, put me through to the XO and COB,” said Muschivk.

“Aye, Master Chief.”

Barnes popped up on his HUD, “Master Chief, Squad Two is here with that cannister. “

Muschivk looked over at MacFadden, “Will that little box work on a cylinder big enough for your dead bug.”

“No problem. I can use one of the lantern batteries in the storage unit. I’ll hook it up as soon as we cart it out. Do you know if they brought a grav dolly?”

“I would think so, Barnes, did they bring a floater?” asked Muschivk

“Yep,” said Barnes

“Have them bring it in,“ said Muschivk.

Barnes and the Squad Two suits pushed the big tube into the OR, banging it on the door a couple of times.

“Joe, got another problem,” said Perez over the link.

“What now,” said Muschivk.

“They dumped the reaction mass,” said Perez.

“They what!!! Why?” asked Muschivk.

“Yeah, I just got Propulsion Control linked to AuxCon, and the water tanks show dead empty. I think we can take half the load from the 4 SAR’s and get everything up and running, but only for about 5 days. Forget immerging. I have no idea why. The XO is trying to do some forensic analysis on the ship’s logs, but so far zip.”

“Fabulous, you got any other good news, Perez?” said Muschivk

“I should have everything running on emergency power in, oh...... about... ” said Perez with a pause.

The lights came on, and the ship shifted and turned some microscopic amounts as the gravity fields came up and it aligned itself with the subspace Higgs field.

“... Now,” said Perez.

“Oh, and you are a drama queen,” said Muschivk.

“It’s my only entertainment,” said Perez.

“Does the Skipper know about the water?” asked Muschivk.

“I told the XO, and she seems to still be cursing up a storm. I’m guessing when she calms down, she’ll tell him. We are transferring minimum reaction mass now. Give me about 20 minutes and you’ll have fusion power and normal space EM drive. The reaction thrusters are out of the question till we get more mass,” said Perez.

Barnes and MacFadden and Squad Two came out of the OR pushing the big tube. The little black box was sitting on the top of the tube. They pushed it out the door and shut it.

“Crunch, can you deal with this here,” said Muschivk, "We might be here for a bit."

“All I can do is stabilize them and wait to transfer them to Medical on the station, and try and clean the place up. Can I take the Vac Suit off,” asked Crunch.

“Nope, said Muschivk, ”Not until the air and the power plants are all running again. We can change out your suit for an engineering or battlesuit though, which has replenishment. Hulk, can you help her out,” asked Muschivk.

“I can get Briggs to get me an engineering suit from the drive room. Adjusting it shouldn’t take too long. I’ll even phototrope it white with little red crosses,” said Hulk.

“Can you guys guard her and help her get this place functional? We might need it really soon.”

“Aye, Master Chief.” said Banner.

* * *

“Kosnar, any ice in this vicinity?” asked the CO, after the conversation with the XO and Muschivk.

“Gotta be some sir. I’ll look.” replied Kosnar.

“We need about 15000 tons, soon,” said Cohen.

“We are on it,” said Kosnar.

“I need to write up a ships status and get it distributed, we need to get the ship of station-keeping mode and into movement mode, and we are short 1/3 of the crew. The ferry crew being missing is a real pain.”

“Yes, sir. When the XO gets back we need to redo the watchstanders list, and we have other problems,” said Kosner.

“Besides the reaction mass,” asked Cohen.

“Yes, sir. There’s no way we can move the ship, defend it, build the new hardware, man all the watchstations, crew the small ships and function as a station at all,” said Kosner.

“I’m not going back to station mode, after the move, that should help some,“ said Cohen, “and I want everyone on this tub in Armor. No more Vac Suits. I don’t care if we don’t have enough. Make some.”

“Did the dummy transmitter get deployed,” asked Kosnar, also acting XO.

“Not yet. The contraption is in the aft hangar bay. It’s not AI controlled, so once it leaves the ship, it will start up,” said Cohen, “so having two stations would probably set off the dumbest lookout's suspicions.”

“And you are handwaving all the engineering problems, not to mention strategic problems that the new hardware is going to create,” said Kosnar.

“Yep.”

“Why.”

“Why not? We don’t have the slightest idea who the enemy is or how they react, we don’t know any of their objectives. We have not a clue how effective the Seekers and Cobras are going to be, or even ‘whether or not’ they will work at all. I used to have the same discussion with Sevrinofsky. So did Muschivk, by the way. Drove her crazy, she likes plans and contingency plans and backup plans,” said Cohen.

“Do you all know each other?”

“Not all. Muschivk likes to picks people he can rely on for his little chores,” said Cohen.

“Why do I get the feeling you know way more than your telling,” said Kosnar, “And who the hell is that guy that everybody always defers to him.”

“I don’t defer to him when it’s my ship he’s messing with, and I do know more than I’m telling, that’s my job, to look all knowledgeable and stuff, and Muschivk is exactly who he appears to be, the senior enlisted member in the entire damn Navy. I think he has a couple of other reserve ranks. He is probably also the most decorated sailor in the Navy and the oldest on active duty.”

“How old is he,” asked Kosnar.

“Have to check his service record, but when I was at SO school he was in his fifties.”

“Are you telling me he’s in his seventies!”

“Um... eighties I think.”

“How is that even possible,” asked Kosnar.

“Don’t know. Perez is about 50, doesn’t look it either,” said Cohen.

“Aren’t you the same age?”

“Why yes, I am, thank you,” said Cohen.

* * *

“XO, is Perez ready to turn on the fusion plant,” asked the COB. They had more or less cleaned up the Bridge, which meant the standing pools of blood were gone, and the COB was acting as the IOW/OOD. The XO was commanding, and they had Jones and Rhodes at helm and comms. Two other battlesuited figures were on detection and navigation, both PO1.

“Haven’t heard,” she clicked over to the ship circuit. “Lin, how close are we.”

“We’re waiting on enough reserve reaction mass to make ship’s position ma’am. Then we pull three of the SAR’s in and light off.”

“What is Perez doing,” she asked.

“He’s running diagnostics and sims, ma’am,” said Lin.

“Tell him to come up on the circuit,” said Sevrinofsky.

Small delay.

“Yes ma’am, Perez here.”.

“You do realize you’re the damn Engineer of this tub until I have you relieved, you moron. Get busy,” said the XO

“Why isn’t that Muschivk?”

“He’s busy with the whole picture. He told me it was gonna be you. He wants to make sure our specimen and the survivors are taken to the ship, and he’s Salvage and Recovery Officer, in charge of the whole operation. We agreed you’d be Engineer cause nobody else could get the thing running.”

“Barb, I’m not too sure about this software. I …"

“This is the ships circuit, Chief.”

“Oh, crap. My apologies, XO,” said Perez.

“Until Kosnar formally relieves you, you are now the Engineer. Get on the stick, asshole!”

“Yes, Captain,” said Perez as he straightened up unconsciously and came to attention, “I am the Engineer, I have the plant and the drive, not yet ready to answer bells. Status: we are about 10 minutes from reactor startup, and about 15 minutes from minimum systems power. I have about 1000 tons of reaction mass aboard, and guesstimate that it will be about an hour before we have the minimum loadout plus fifty percent to get us back to the ship in normal space drive. The capacitor systems are completely drained, and solar panels are not functioning out here.

On the plus side, the workshops are intact and there is another full size 3d printer, the systems pass the diagnostics we just wrote, and my PIM gives us a 99% probability of being able to do Ahead Full, on EM drive. There seems to be no degradation of hardware systems due to the unanticipated shutdowns.”

“Very good, Engineer. Let me know before you light up. Good job on the lights and gravity. I will be very happy when you get me air, and you like me way better when I am happy,” said the XO.

“An hour ma’am. The reaction mass estimates include 1 Terran atmosphere of N2 and 02. The balance will get better as people breathe it. We have the nitrogen available, though it’ll be close.”

“Excellent, Mr. Perez. Get going. Captain out.”

Lin looked over at Perez, “Well, you’re in the shitter now.”

“Shut up, Lin. I’ll get her for this somehow, I swear. And ‘oh by the way’, find someone to relieve Rhodes and Jones up on the Bridge. I need them here.”

“Sounded just like an officer, there, Chief.” said Lin.

“Oh, shut up.”

* * *

“Captain this is Muschivk.”

“What’s up, Joe,” said Cohen.

“Nothing, just called to chat,” said Muschivk.

“Oh, you are funny,” said Cohen.

“Just a little payback for the bodyguard theater,” said Muschivk.

“Oh, goody, I thought you’d enjoy that,” said Cohen.

“Incidentally, we found a dead alien, and it’s in a sealed shipping container with an EM field, because I have no idea what dead means to them. XO give you a status update on the ship itself.”

“Yes, she called as soon as Perez told her they dumped the reaction mass. My comm link is still vibrating.”

“I think we have enough people to pull this off, but we might be a couple of hours behind schedule. I don’t think that will cause any problems, but you never know,” said Muschivk.

“Not a peep. I’ve had a couple repair tugs out running around the edges of the flatspace, and nothing.”

“This is a stellar LaGrange point or whatever you call it, right? That’s why they put the station here,” asked Muschivk.

“Yeah, the space here and subspace are congruent. I see where you’re going with this. You think the alien thingies ride subspace curves or whatever the right eleven-dimensional word is,” said Cohen.

“Yes. You always were my best student,” said Muschivk.

“I thought Perez was,” said Cohen.

“Perez doesn’t listen for shit,” said Muschivk, ”He’s lucky to be alive, that and he’s so goddamn smart he compensates for that by being so damn dumb.”

“Now, now. Listen, if their ability works the way you think, we could assume they would have to come through subspace in the direction of the galactic east bouy, so why do we build up some kind of immerged detector to detect smaller masses. That could give us as much as a half hour’s warning,” said Cohen.

“That could be very useful,” said Muschivk.

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves, Master Chief. We need to save my ship before you decide to butcher the aliens,” said Cohen.

* * *

“Captain, this is the Engineer, we have minimum reaction mass on board, and full startup capacitance. We can start the fusion plant now,” said Perez.

“Very good, Eng, go ahead,” said Sevrinofsky, acting CO.

“You’re pretty hard on him,” said WaMamere, the OOD.

“He deserves it. Besides, it’s my job to give him a hard time,” said Sevrinofsky, “and besides, he’s been ducking any responsibility for 25 years.”

“That’s two besides. I don’t think that’s legal.”

She sniffed. It sounded very strange in the suit, “I can do whatever I want where Perez is concerned. If he weren’t so irritating, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I think that it’s my turn to change the subject,” said WaMamere, “normally you do nasty things to people who irritate you.”

“Perez is a special case.”

“So I gathered.”

As they talked on the Conn, the ship somehow vibrated, shifted and started to thrum. The lights brightened and the Engineering repeaters all came up and started running their numbers. The Reaction Mass alarm went off. Rhodes walked over and silenced it.

“Fusion Plant, start up, ma’am. Reaction mass alarm low warning. Switching Control level power to main fusion. That should give us some stabilizing loading. This piece of junk has no hotel loads at all.”

Rhodes flipped some switches, “Captain, Bridge and Control on Main Fusion.”

Rhodes flipped some more switches, ”I’ve transferred control of instrumentation and environmental hotel systems to Control, ma’am. Do you want active detection?”

“Not right now. Let’s sit tight until we can actually move. There are ships still out there and I don’t want to fry them. Thank you, Helm,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Ah, you and Perez did it,” said WaMamere, in his Britishy accent, “Damn good job.”

She made a little flashy bow in the suit, which was much harder to pull off than it looked.

“Rhodes, Perez is very conservative in his estimates... what’s the real time to minimum movement mass,” asked Severinofsky.

“Looks like, about 20 minutes, ma’am.”

“So he inflated his estimate by a factor of three.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rhodes, sitting on the Helm.

“Thank you, Helm,” said Sevrinofsky, ” I should have never taken him to see that movie,” she muttered.

“What movie,” asked WaMamere.

“It’s an old classic, ‘Search for Spock’ in the “Star Trek” series. Never mind,” said Sevrinofsky.

Beep. Jones, walked over to the Comm panel and said, “Bridge.”

“How did we hear that when there’s no damn air,” said Rhodes.

“The comm system underlying supervisor must be up. It’s transferring comms to our suits, ” said Jones.

“Muschivk here, two of the SAR’s are in the hangar bay, and transferring reaction mass via the fuel pumps. The third is still outside. We are clamping the Enviro tanks to the outer cargo module. That thing that Perez cobbled up replicate a SAR is also outside. Hulk says we can use it with some mods when we go get mass.”

“Can I have the pilots? Perez says he needs Rhodes and Jones.”

“Sure thing, Ma’am,” said Muschivk followed by some indistinct murmuring.

“Perez inflated his estimates again. Rhodes figures about 17 minutes to minimum propulsion reaction mass,” said the acting Captain.

“You’re the one who took him to that movie. He talked about it for weeks,” said Muschivk

“You know, I was just thinking about that,” said the acting Captain.

“I have Squads One and Two running around securing stuff. We don’t know how this is gonna go. I don’t want a big hole in the thing right after we fill it up,” said the OOD.

“Good thinking. How are we on time?” asked Muschivk.

“It’s going to be close, but I think we’ll make it,” said Sevrinofsky.

“We won’t make it by the time the transmission goes off,” said Muschivk.

“No, but space here is flat. That’s why the outpost was put here,” said Lin.

“Oh, that’s clever. You’re back on my Christmas List,” said Sevrinofsky.

“You’re Jewish,” said Muschivk.

“So it’s short. Sue me. Good work, Master Chief. I would recommend you for promotion if there was any point. Can they promote you to God,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Relax, the scheme is going to work, Captain, it just got moved up a bit. We’ll make it,” said Muschivk.

“I hope so. I’ll report to Cohen right now. Acting Captain, out,” said Sevrinofsky.

* * *

“Engineer, we are steady at ten percent power. Reaction mass will reach ten percent in about 5 minutes. All support systems appear normal. No fluctuations in power or mag bottle field for about 10 minutes,” said Lin.

“Did you have to do that, Lin,” said Perez.

“The acting Captain said you were the Engineer.”

“Great.” said Perez, “Sally, call the Bridge.”

“Bridge, Perez here.”

“Captain here.”

“Captain we will be ready to engage the EM drive in about 5 minutes.”

“Well done, Engineer, you exceeded your estimates by a factor of 3,” said Sevrinofsky.

“How else can I keep up my reputation as a miracle worker,” said Perez.

Sevrinofsky’s face twitched. She laughed, “I was just telling Joe that I shouldn’t have taken you to see that movie.”

“Are you kidding, that was great," said Perez.

“So you said at that time, at great length. Good job, Randy and thank you. Muschivk and Cohen think we will make the schedule now. We had a bad moment when you told us they dumped the reaction mass. I think you’ve saved the bacon again. You and Joe are back on my Christmas list.” said Sevrinofsky.

“You’re Jewish. You don’t have a Christmas list,” said Perez.

“Just you and Joe,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Perez as he came to attention, “Bridge, we will be ready to answer bells in about two minutes, maximum Ahead Full. Reaction thrusters are unavailable for quick maneuvering. Flank will not be available at any time till we get the other fusion plant up.”

“Very good, Engineer, standby for Engine Orders,” said the Captain.

"Standing by, Captain."

* * *

On the Bridge of the Outpost Kosnar said, “Everything is inside, and they are moving. ETA, two hours. They don’t have enough reaction mass to boost with both fusion thrusters. They are going to light off with one and then switch to EM reactionless.”

“Very good, XO,” said Cohen, "Thank you."

“Should we send a shuttle to get the wounded here faster,” asked Kosnar, "We have two available."

“I talked to Tunney and she said no, it wouldn’t make any difference. She’s preparing the OR now and HM1 Crunich has done an excellent job stabilizing and ID’ing the patients and their pieces. “ said Cohen.

“So Perez and his boys pulled it off,” said Kosnar.

“Of course they did,” said Cohen, “Now we need those interceptors you magicians worked out. Can we make enough in the 18 hours or so left to make a difference?”

“The ferry has another 3D printer. That will make all the difference, we can make more than we have possible pilots,” said Kosnar, “What will really help is getting Sevrinofsky back here so I can do some real work and get the heck off this bridge.”

“Modesty, thy name is Engineer,” said Cohen.