Lt. Reilly 2321

Chapter 5: Riding the Azmick

Captain Mitchell was good to her word. Within an hour of our conversation, Kayla and I were picked up by Fleet Police, put on a hopper that took us up to a military dock that was in orbit of the planet and then put in the brig of the T.S.S. Azmick. It was a small fleet supply ship used mostly for packages, medical supplies and anything that wasn't too large and needed to be delivered in a quicker timeline than the larger resupply ships that often didn't visit the bases on the outer borders more than once a year.

Accommodations for prisoners were not planned out for cargo ships, so all they had was a one-room brig for the occasional castaway or disobedient crewmember. Kayla and I were put in together, despite the lack of privacy from each other and the guards. There was a single cot attached to the wall, a polyplast toilet and polyplast sink; nothing more.Before being placed, we were run through the decontamination showers to guarantee that we didn't bring any of the local germs or pests with us and then they had us dress in maintenance jumpsuits that were hard denim meant to be worn on the outside of clothing. To say it was a less than comfortable situation would have been an understatement.

Kayla hadn't said a word to me since we were reunited on the hopper. As a matter of a fact, she didn't say a word to anyone as if speaking would violate an oath.

Walking into the cell, I put the single extra set of coveralls that they gave us on the floor under the cot and turned to Kayla who followed me in with her bundle of clothes in hand. “Well," I said, “We should probably sleep in shifts. It's going to take them at least four days to get to the nearest Starbase.

Kayla just glared at me for a moment, then in a fit of rage she screamed, threw her bundle at me and charged at me with her fist in the air. She pounded on my chest as hard as she could. She was not as frail as she looked and I had to shift my stance not to fall over, but she needed to get her anger out, so I endured it. I let her beat on me over and over again for maybe half a minute. By the time the guards, who were still learning the controls for the detention system got the clear plasma wall down, she had stopped hitting me and was sobbing on my chest. I put my arms around her and held her while she cried. The guards decided there wasn't anything they could do, so they returned to their desk at the other side of the room and put the security field back up.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said through sobs as a rush of bottled-up fears and anxieties came out all at once.

“It's okay," I said, “You just needed to hit someone. I feel like that all the time."

I moved us over to the cot and sat on it with her still clinging to me. She continued to cry softly as the purge of emotions was in such need she didn't want it to stop. So I held her and rocked her like a child until eventually, she fell to sleep. I laid her back on the cot and moved myself to sit on the floor with my back to the wall.

~~~

“Sorry, the accommodations aren't better," Captain Mitchell's voice came from the other side of the plasma field.

I opened my eyes, not realizing for a moment that I had nodded off. Stretching with a grunt and rolling my very stiff neck, I pulled myself up to my feet and stepped up to the transparent forcefield. “Hello Captain," I said, still not entirely sure if I could completely trust her to have my best interest at heart.

“Lieutenant," she said. There was a short awkward pause as both of us reviewed the regs in our head to see if either should salute the other. My rank was a fleet rank and hers a commission in the Marines. A Marine Captain is equivalent to a Fleet Lieutenant. If I were active duty, she would have to salute me as I would have status on a Fleet ship over a dirt pounder and vise-versa if I were on her turf. But I was not active duty, and I was a prisoner, which in itself would void the proprieties. Yet, I was also innocent until proven guilty, so if I still had my rank, it would apply. With a nod between us, we both agreed to move past the requirements and get to business.

“Thank you," I said, and she just nodded in acknowledgment, but her face was more the side of regret.

She looked over her shoulder at the two guards and then decided that it didn't matter if they heard what she had to say. “I just got a message from the JAG's office. They've decided because the incident happened on a civilian craft from a civilian port, we do not have the jurisdiction to take over the case. The governor of Apollo is sending a transport to meet with us and take you back to Lion's Head."

“What does the Governor of Apollo have to do with this?" I asked.

“He's the head of the Government on Apollo," she answered.

“Oh," I said feeling clueless. “I never thought to get the name of the planet we were on. Didn't plan on being around too long."

“If we don't figure out something to change this back to our favor, it will be where they lay your bones to rest."

I looked back at her with some surprise in her statement. “You're going to still try to help us?"

“Don't take it personally, Lieutenant. It's not like I have a school girl crush on you. I just don't have the stomach for the idea of sending anyone to their death without a good reason."

School Girl crush? I thought. Where the hell did that come from? I didn't for a moment think she felt anything for me outside of mutual respect. I decided not to risk embarrassing her with a comment on the remark. “Well, I appreciate that Captain," I said, “But I'm frankly at a loss. If you turn me over to their authority, I'm going to face a verdict that's already bought and paid for. Unless you have a plan to break me out of this prison."

I was only half joking, but she found no humor in the statement. Her stone face told me that she would do everything she could short of jeopardizing her career. “Okay, what ideas do you have?" I asked.

She looked down and shook her head, “Nothing right now." She looked back up at me, and for a moment her expression wasn't so hard. “I'm going to contact a friend who works in the JAG office to see if there is a legal wrinkle that I missed. If that doesn't result in anything there is only one other option, I can think of."

“What?" I asked

“Prayer," she said, and then turned and walked out.

I just watched and said a quiet prayer right there, not that I had put any stock in it before, but it certainly couldn't hurt.

“We're screwed, aren't we?" Kayla asked from behind me. I turned to see that she had woken up and was sitting on the edge of the cot.

“How much did you hear?" I asked.

“Enough," she said with a very defeated face.

“Well, we're not dead until we're dead," I said for lack of anything better to say.

“What?" she asked.

“Just something one of my Uncles use to say."

“It's pretty stupid," she said laying back down on the cot, not prepared to surrender the only comfortable spot in the cell.

“Yeah, Uncle Bob wasn't exactly the sharpest tool," I said more to myself.I then put my back to the wall and tried to contemplate any way to get us out of the mess.

~~~

Two meals a day was all that prisoners were allotted in an Alliance Brig. The idea was to provide enough calories to keep the prisoners in reasonable health, but not to alleviate hunger. Having been through survival training, I knew the trick to get by without hunger pains; eat slow. Once you start eating, the brain will release a chemical that will alleviate your hunger, but it takes about 20 minutes to work through your system. So if you can take say 30 minutes to eat what you have, you won't be as hungry by the time you get to the end. Something I tried to explain to Kayla when they brought our first meal around ten hundred hours. She hadn't eaten for over a day and scarfed down the scoop of oatmeal, half an orange and two slices of bread that was on her tray.

I sat on the floor, continuing to let her have the cot. With my tray on my lap, I tore the orange into smaller segments and ate just one. Then I took a half a spoon full of oatmeal, followed by a conservative bite of bread. Then I took a drink of water from my cup and closed my eyes to count in my head to prolong the experience as long as possible. Not only was I trying to minimize my hunger as I hadn't eaten for over a day myself, but I wanted to prolong the activity as there wasn't anything else to do to occupy our time other than the next meal in ten hours.

Through the quiet of the air, I could hear Kayla whimpering. She had licked her tray clean and felt worse than when she started. She had laid back down on the cot, rolled over to face the wall and was trying very hard to contain her misery.

I thought about what I could say to make her feel better, but nothing came to mind. There was only one thing I could think to do. I took one more spoon full of oatmeal, one more bite of bread and one more segment of orange. I then took the tray that still had just over half my meal on it and placed it next to her on the cot. Then I went back to my spot on the floor, sipped my water and tried to ignore the knot in my gut.

~~~

I think I was on the verge of nodding off when the jolt brought me to full attention. Something had struck the ship. I knew from the low rumble and a slightly longer jerk to one side, that not only did something hit the ship, but a compartment had blown out causing the second jolt. Alarms quickly kicked on. A flashing red light and a steady whoop call on the PA told me instantly that the bridge was calling for Battle-Stations. We were under attack.

Cargo ships carry some defensive weapons and are built relatively sturdy; usually well enough to fend off any pirate who would be foolish enough to go after a military craft. Yet the alarm came after the first impact. That could only mean they were caught off guard and the attacker was able to get close enough to get off a crippling shot in the opening salvo.

After years of reacting to the same alarm with a sprint to my duty station, I had never before felt so helpless as I did at that moment. I could feel Kayla standing behind me, one of her hands gripping a handful of my shirt. She was trembling with fear, and there wasn't anything I could say or do to make her feel better.

Another concussion from laser fire struck the ship nearly knocking both of us off our feet. A queasy feeling in my gut told me that the vessel was pitching down and to the port. The fact that I could feel the movement indicated that the gravity plating was not operating at full power, which meant the environmental systems had been compromised.

“You have to let us out of here!" I yelled at the Ensign who was guarding us at that moment. He looked scared as hell and was obviously too young to have ever seen combat before. “You have to lower the force field! The ship is going down! If you don't let us out, we're going to die!"

He was like a deer caught in headlights, not sure what to do. Just then the alarm changed from Battle-Stations to the three quick wales of the abandon ship alarm. With the activation of that protocol, the forcefield dropped. You can't keep people locked up on a sinking ship. I grabbed Kayla, and we ran for the door, but I stopped hard at the opening, practically knocking her over in my reversal. Running back to the young Ensign, I grabbed him by the scruff of his tunic and pushed him out the door, the entire time trying to ignore the pain in my knee that was stiff as hell. The hallway was narrow. To the right was the stern, but it was blocked by an emergency bulkhead that had closed to prevent decompression. The other direction was towards the aft and was still clear.

“Where are the escape pods on this boat!" I yelled at the Ensign.

Through a panicked stammer, he said, “ Ther er sh sh should be th-three just down the there."

The ship shook again as it took another hit and another section suffered a violent decompression. We moved as quickly as we could down the narrow corridor until we got to the escape pods. All three were still there, and I pulled the lever to open the hatch to the first one. It was large enough for four people with the small panel on the right side to pilot the limited craft. Large windows dominated the side that faced away from the ship, allowing those within to control the pod without the use of sensors, but with just the naked eye.

“Oh My God! Reilly! Look!" Kayla shouted pointing out the windows. Half a dozen pods had already launched, but what scared her was the sight of a laser hitting one of them, blowing it apart. The other pods scattered in random directions trying to evade the attacker, but within seconds a second pod was destroyed. I didn't stick around to watch the others get picked off, and I wasn't about to join them. The three of us climbed out and back into the corridor. I then grabbed the Ensign by the arm and demanded, “Where's the engine room?"

“This way," he said heading aft. The young man was still scared but was finding a little more courage as I was taking control of the situation. He led us down two decks and to the far aft section to the abandoned engine room.

“Kayla," I said, “Remember that little trick you pulled a few weeks ago to override the computer on the bridge so we could ration more power to the shower's heaters?"

“Yes, why?" she asked.

“The systems on an Alliance cargo ship aren't much different. All the command functions like weapons were disabled when they activated the abandon ship, but we can get control over other systems like helm control."

“Okay," she said, happy to have a little say over her fate for the first time in two days. She crawled under the primary control console and pulled open the panel that led to the computer networking system.

“What's your name?" I asked the Ensign.

“Palmer, Sir," he said and started to raise his hand in a salute, and then stopped himself uncertain if he should.

“Okay Palmer, we are going to do what we can to save as many of your crew as possible or die trying. You with me?"

“Yes, Sir," he said, still stammering a bit with his words.

“Good," I said looking around and taking a quick assessment of what we had. “Alright, Palmer, I need you to prime the main engine. Bring the reactor up to 120%, but do not open the thrust until I say. Got it?"

“Uh," he wasn't sure if he understood what I was doing as it was against a number of safety protocols as it could blow up the ship. Yet he decided not to argue. “Yes, Sir," he said and then did as he was instructed.

I then moved to the chief engineer's station and accessed the command controls. The computer tried to lock me out at first, but a backdoor that I learned from a friend when I was in the academy allowed me to trick the computer into thinking I was a fleet Admiral on an inspection and removed all lockouts. With access, I was able to view the Command Logs and find out what we were up against. The text was only a page in length, and it was little more than the computer's assessment of actions during the past five minutes as the Captain of the ship didn't have time to record a formal log entry. It started with contact from the Apollo Transport K-9A61 requesting the ship to slow and allow for docking, the acknowledgment from the Alliance Captain, the process for extending the docking collar, a warning of the Transport arming laser cannons, report of impact on the ship and the following list of damages as the ship took additional fire followed by the order to abandon ship.

“Son of a b***h," I said under my breath.

“Got it," Kayla called out as she completed the hack into the central computer systems and controls.

I got up and moved over to the control she was at. The main menu that appeared on all bridge control stations was up on her station.I pulled up the navigation and helm controls. Multiple monitors came to life around us as I assigned different external views to each. The one on the upper left corner showed the attacking ship. It was turned slightly away from us as it was chasing down one of the three escape pods that were still burning away from it as fast as their little thruster would go. Sensors, Quantum Speed, and weapons were all disabled when the bridge crew evacuated, but I still had engines and helm control, and that was all I needed. A little-known fact about the small fleet supply ships was that they were contracted by the same company that built asteroid mining ships and they used the same design. Asteroid mining vessels were designed with a reinforced nose to allow them to push their way through an asteroid belt without having to blast everything in front of them. With the center stern view on the center view screen, I moved the front of the ship into position, careful not to move too quickly. We didn't want them to get wise to what we were doing just yet.

“How are we doing on those engines?" I called out to Palmer.

“105% and it's indicating an overload," he said, with concern in his voice.

“Good," I called back. “Let me know when it gets to 115 and then call out as it goes higher.

“Yes, Sir," He nervously replied.

“Oh s**t," Kayla said as she realized what I was doing. “Are you insane?"

“It's either this, or we wait for them to come back to finish us off. If you have any better ideas, tell me now."

She opened her mouth as if she had something to say, but nothing came out. Instead she looked up at me and for a moment I thought she was going to try to kiss me, like the heroine in one of those cheesy movies where the couple who bicker through the entire film profess their love with a passionate kiss at the moment right before they die in a great sacrifice to save the world. But that didn't happen. Instead, she got a look on her face that was a mix of embarrassment and self-disgust. Then she shook her head and said, “Just do it already."

“Where are we at Palmer?" I called out.

“Between 113 and 114," he called back.

“Close enough," I yelled over the noise of the red line alarms. “Go to full burn!"

Parker ran his finger over the engine controls taking it from zero to 100% burn all at once. The ship lurched forward, and we cleared the 2/3rd-kilometer distance between us in about five seconds. The enemy ship didn't know what hit them as the impact bore through them, ripping a gash into its side nearly half its width and sending it tumbling through space. The Alliance ship shuddered, and the bulkheads moaned with strain at the impact, but held together and stayed in one piece.

Some of our exterior cameras were knocked out, but the port stern was still functioning that had the image of the attacker's ship as it was tumbling away from us at nearly the same velocity that we were still moving in. I knew immediately that we had struck a fatal blow when I could just make out escape pods emerging from the crushed hull.

My next task was to get our ship back under control. Usually, the ship would use reverse thrusters mounted around the hull, but with a third of them offline I couldn't use them. If they are not all burned evenly, the ship would tumble instead of slow down since space is literally nothing. So I would have to do it old school, the way they had used to slow ships about a hundred years ago. I cut the engines, so we were moving on inertia. Then with a two-second burn on the port thruster, the ship pitched to the starboard, and the vessel started to turn around while continuing to move in the same direction. With a few more nudges from the directional thrusters, I lined the hull up, so it was running completely backward through space.

“Palmer, prep the engine for a 40% burn and slowly bring them up on my mark," I called out.

“Yes, Sir," he replied with a voice that was still frazzled.

Slowing a 100-ton ship down with the main engine was not a simple process. If you burned too hot, you could crush everyone on board with force. Have your alignment off too much and instead of slowing you'd just tumble in a new direction. Most modern ships used a system of gravity plating to create an artificial gravity field to counteract the effect of sudden acceleration and deceleration, but they could only do so much, and if the environmental system had suffered a power loss, I would need to be careful.

“Mark," I called out, and he brought the main engine slowly up to a steady burn."

“Engines at 40% he called out."

“Good, keep it there until I tell you differently," I said as I monitored the progress.

“Reilly?" Kayla said as she had a moment to think about our situation, “Why did the crew abandon ship?"

“What?" I said, paying more attention to my task than what she was saying.

“I don't understand why they would all leave the ship to be killed by the people who were attacking us. I just don't get it."

“Crap," I said as what she said pointed out an even bigger problem for us. They would not have evacuated the ship in the middle of a battle unless staying on board would mean a definite demise. I called up the computer logs again and found the damage report. “Damn it," I exclaimed as I found the reason they evacuated. The environmental system hadn't just failed, but five of the ten decks had suffered decompression, and Cenerium gas used for thruster fuel had flooded deck two. They were unable to flush the gas out or maintain the filtration systems on the decks that still had pressure. The fuel leak was pushing the toxic gas through the ship and where we were was going to be the last safe place on board, but only for the next couple of minutes unless I found a way to flush out the poison without losing what breathable air we had left. Not having the answer at my fingertips, I called up the ship's schematics to get a better idea of what I had to work with.

“Reilly, what's going on?" Kayla asked as I hadn't answered her question.

“We've got just over two minutes to fix the environmental systems or get off this boat," I said pointing to the section of the screen showing the growing area of toxic air.

Kayla went into action herself, knowing what she needed to do to buy us time. She turned to the Ensign and demanded, “Where do you keep the rebreathers?"

“Um," he said trying to recall what should be basic, “I think there should be some in that locker, he said pointing to the wall next to the main door. She ran to it, pulled it open and grabbed three of the face masks with the portable air filters that would separate out the oxygen from the carbon dioxide that we were exhaling and give us back breathable oxygen for about 15 to 20 minutes. She threw one to Palmer who was keeping his post at the engine controls, placed one over her face and then ran back to me, giving me the third.

“What else do you need me to do?" she asked as I was placing the mask over my face. I switched on the microphone that would project my voice on the outside of the mask and said, “Take yourself and our friend here back to the escape pod and seal it. If I can get this fixed, I'll get you in a few minutes. If not, well your best bet is to launch the pod and try to catch up with the other pods. That will increase your odds of being rescued.

“What about you?" she asked.

“If I can't fix this I'll find my way to one of the other pods. Now go, you want to get there before the gas fills that section. These breathers can only do so much." I said with my attention on the systems readout that I was using to try and find a solution. Her hand was on my shoulder, and after a moment I realized she was still standing next to me. I turned to look at her, and her eyes met mine. A few tears had run down her cheek. I think she realized how unlikely it would be that I would survive, but also that I needed to try because the odds of being picked up by anyone in the middle of open space wasn't much better. “Go," I said. She looked over at Palmer who was still looking as frightened as when the alarms first sounded and knew that she needed to do as I said for both of them to survive. She nodded, quickly crossed to him and pulled him out the door. A signal on the main control screen indicated the gas was starting to reach the engine room compartment. My time was quickly running out.