Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 From: Kenneth Bearden Hi, everyone, I've gotten some personal e-mails from a couple of people who said that the entire short story I posted did not appear when they read the post. Maybe this was because it is so long. Mabe this was because of some problem on my archaic computer--I don't know. But, for those interested, and to answer the personal posts, here it is again. Again, let me say that I'm a little embarrassed posting this--the story does need some work. I originally wrote it for my player's eyes only, but there has been some interest in it. For those who are, I hope you enjoy it. TRAVELLER INSTANT REPLAY POV: Daeus Jacks at OSIRIS Base By Kenneth Bearden DAEUS JACKS stood at the door to the lunch room trying to make sense of what was coming over his comm. Too was back on the ship screaming about 'intruders' and 'all hell breaking loose' before the doctor switched off as if to take care of something more important. The pilot grimaced. What could be more important than letting the rest of the crew in on what was wrong on the Harrier? The good doctor had yelled loud enough to garble the message and was a little hysterical. Then, poof. No more reply from the ship. Daeus had a bad feeling about this trip from the start. Not that the first two jumps were any better, mind you. They had blasted their way off Aramis after robbing the Leedor museum. Then they had to infiltrate the communications control station at the Tukera ship yards on Natoko to cover their tracks from the job on Aramis. Two security guards and three innocent people had been killed then. What made him think that this third jump would be any better, he didn't know. It was those damned Jade-Londonists that sparked his caution. As soon as he found out that the low berthers they were transporting had contact with that particular Tureded House, the feeling had set in. It was the same feeling that the whole crew had felt, but, for Daeus, it made his spider sense tingle. When that sixth sense alerted him, Daeus usually tried to be extra careful. That's why he had packed the 10mm snub when he left the ship. Now he stood at the door to the lunch room. One hand held the communicator and the other held the gun. "Where are your weapons stored?" It was Ulric yelling at one of the six station employees there with them in the room. Daeus had tried to clean up the message from Too, and some of the others had heard enough of the transmission from the hand unit to get an idea of the trouble on the ship. A few moments passed as everyone digested what was going on, and Ulric had to repeat the question. The reply came back that the station's personnel weapons were located in medical in the center of the station. Daeus couldn't get a reply from the ship, so he slipped the comm on his belt, raised his weapon at the ready, and slammed his free hand against the door release button. This was rapidly turning into a combat situation. Combat was something that he was trained for, and he knew that hesitation usually meant death. The door slid to the side. Daeus already had his pistol centered in the classic combat stance with his right hand bracing his firing arm and his legs spread to shoulder width. Nothing. Immediately outside the door, it was quiet. There was nothing but the sound of the air filtration system. Bending his arms at the elbows, Daeus kept his grip but moved the gun to point at the ceiling. He took a step to the edge of the opening and peered around into the corridor. Again, it was quiet, and he saw nothing in either direction down the hallway. He turned to face the others, "OK, two objectives. We try to reach the Harrier and we pick up the weapons along the way." Nobody said anything in reply. In fact, nobody said anything at all. The six station personnel and the other three Harrier crew members just stared back at him blankly. Daeus took that as an affirmative. He was, after all, the ranking combat specialist in the room. He didn't expect an argument from Ulric, the ship's minority owner, and he didn't get one. Putting his mind back on the task at hand, Daeus jutted out across the 14 meter wide hallway and slammed a shoulder up against the other side. Still nothing out of the ordinary down either way, he edged to the intersection with the corridor that led back to the ship. He poked and eye around the corner, and again, it was clear. He looked back at the door. One of the station personnel ran across the hallway to the spot directly behind Daeus, and Glynn was standing in the doorway staring at him with an expectant look. The steward silently wanted to know the status down the hallway. Daeus gave him a negative nod. Then he leaned back around the corner to look down the hallway. There were too many civilians here that could get hurt, and it was Daeus' responsibility to make sure that it didn't happen. A couple of quick footsteps echoed from behind the pilot, and before he could turn to see who it was, Glynn Connal passed him, tearing ass down the hallway back towards the ship. Daeus looked at the others crowded in the open doorway for an explanation before the station man behind him jumped from the wall, ran around Daeus, and took off after the steward. Daeus jerked his head back at the too fools tracking down the hallway. Air broke from his lips, "Shit." He knew he couldn't let them go alone. He was the only one in the group with a weapon. With a look and a nod at the others in the doorway, Daeus swung his snub around the corner to cover the two fleeing idiots. The two were half way to the intersection. The pilot nodded for the others to follow then broke into a jog behind Glynn and his new partner. He made his way close to the right side of the corridor. There were doors sporadically spaced down either side of the door. Each could hold some sanctuary if someone started firing at you. You didn't want to be out in the open in this situation. It was evident that the other two didn't know this because both Glynn and the station man were hauling ass right down the middle. Daeus had made it about three quarters of the way when Glynn and the other man disappeared around the left side of the "T" intersection at the end of the hallway. The others were in a group jogging about 25 or 30 meters behind him. Daeus did a sprint across to the left side of the hallway when Glynn came running back from where he had come. The steward was waving his arms, "Go back. For Christ's sake, go back!" Just a fraction of a moment later the station man was following Glynn's lead--except he didn't slow to turn back this way toward Daeus and the others as Glynn had. Daeus saw him run across his line of vision down the right side of the "T". There was trouble up ahead, it was obvious. A few short steps, and Daeus was at the left side corner of the intersection. He transferred his gun to his right hand and poked both his arm and the top of his head around the corner to get a good shot at whoever was coming down the hallway. But Daeus had to hesitate. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. There around the corner were eight individuals fresh from cold sleep. A couple of kids, a couple of women, and a few men were all naked except for the thin paper garment they wrap you in when they put you under. Standing in their bare feet, the electrode connections were still connected to their heads. What was more out of place were the weapons. All the children had high tech gauss pistols. The adults carried assault rifles, and Daeus could make out the tell tale bulges of ammo belts under the paper sheets. Immediately, the lead low berther, a little boy, looked him straight in the eye with a blank expression on his face. The big gauss pistol looked too heavy for the child to wield, but the boy drew it up singled handed. He knocked off a shot at Daeus' exposed head without aiming. The shot nearly killed the pilot. A millimeter to the left and Daeus would have been hit right between the eyes. A perfect kill shot. Instead, the bullet grazed the wall, blowing out shrapnel at eye level. A good sized piece of the wall shot into Daeus' forehead, and the pilot went down. The skin on his forehead split open, and blood flooded out of his head. Luckily, his skull was not penetrated. Daeus didn't know what hit him. One moment he was taking aim at the low berthers, the next, he was unconscious. He didn't even know he had hit the ground. It was the loud boom of automatic fire echoing in the spacious hallway that woke him up. His eyes stung from all the blood on his brow, and his head felt like someone had smacked him with a fusion power nail gun. Mechanically, he used his sleeve to soak the blood from his eye sockets, and he sat up bracing himself on the floor with one hand. Automatic fire was destroying the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. All the people in the group he was supposed to be protecting were in a dead run around the corner in the direction the first station man, the one that had been following Glynn, had taken. Daeus didn't have time to think of why no one was stopping to help him. With all the blood, maybe they thought he was dead. The pilot could see the low berthers. Four of them--a man, a woman, and two children--had spread out across the corridor and were spraying automatic fire into the group of his friends. The other four had turned around and broke into a calculated trot back down the way they had come. Daeus could guess that he had only been out a matter of seconds. A couple of the people in the group went down--hit by the hail of bullets emanating from the assault guns carried by the low berthers. Expertly handling their weapons, the man, woman, and little girl were emotionlessly murdering the pilot's friends. Daeus wasn't sure who had gotten hit, but he did see Ms. Rygoff, the low berth supervisor from the jump, take one through the back. There was an invisible blow that lifted her into the air. Before she hit the ground, her chest had exploded. The intruders were using some sort of high explosive round. Fighting to see and keep the blood out of his eyes, Daeus struggled to get up. His movements caught the attention of the little bastard that had shot him in the first place. The little boy was closest to the hallway intersection on the end of their firing line just a few paces away. If the kid had his weapon, Daeus would have been dead, but as luck would have it, the child had simply dropped the weapon to his feet. Daeus caught sight of the gauss pistol with its barrel protruding from the end of the gun and the chamber stuck in the open position. The pilot recognized a jammed gun when he saw one. First the millimeter of wall saved his life then the shooter's gun jammed. Somebody up there liked him. But Daeus guessed that whoever it was up there didn't like him enough. When Daeus was hit, he must have thrown his gun forward, because the next time the pilot wiped the blood to see, the little boy was about 5 meters in front of him bending down to pick up Daeus' own 10mm snub. With every ounce of his strength, Daeus pulled himself up--bracing himself on the wall. He pressed his sleeve to his forehead to keep the blood out of his eyes and hopped the two paces to the door behind him. He stole a look in the direction of the little boy and prayed that the door was not locked. The boy had crossed two thirds the distance towards Daeus and was raising the pistol as the pilot jabbed a bloody thumb onto the door release. Daeus' prayers were answered, and the door immediately slid open. Daeus jumped through. The boy was so close he could reach out and touch him. If the pilot hadn't been so close to the wall, he wouldn't have made it through before the boy shot him. Thank God for his training. Daeus swung three-sixty around to see the boy, gun raised, about to follow him into the room. The pilot's thumb hit the close button first, and the door slid shut almost taking the kid with it. Frantically, Daeus typed in a manual lock code. He hoped it was faster than the boy could open it from the other side. If the controls on a door of this type were operated on both sides at once, one side would deacitvate defering to the first command received. Daeus could hear the buzzer sound on the opposite side of the door as the boy repeatedly hit the open switch, but Daeus beat him by a fraction of a second. His commands took precedence because he had hit the controls first from this side. A moment later, the red lock light appeared. The door was secure, and Daeus was safe for the moment. The door and wall were reinforced, and there was no way the kid was getting through with only the pilot's snub. Then Daeus remembered. Those big units on the underside of the adults' assault rifles. They had grenade launchers too. His sleeve was soaked with blood, and Daeus had to use his other arm to wipe the blood again away from his eyes. He studied the wall. Grenade launchers, uh? Maybe it would hold; maybe it wouldn't. Safe for the moment, the pilot turned to examine his surroundings. He was in some type of barracks or common room. The room was large and well lit. There were bunks, stacked three high, dotting most of the center area. Lockers lined the walls. It looked a lot like some of the military bases he had been stationed at during his 16 years in the Imperial Navy. There were two other doors exiting the room. One was in the right wall and was of a smaller, less sturdy nature. Daeus thought it probably led to the common rest/bath room. The other door was exactly like the one he was leaning against. Daeus shoved off the wall and walked over to that one. He was getting some of his strength back, and his head only felt like it had been hit by a sledge hammer now. Daeus slapped the release to open the door and did a fast take out into the hallway. It led right and left, and the pilot could still hear automatic fire coming from the right. Pulling back in, Daeus typed in another lock code and only turned from the door when the red security light came on. His left sleeve was becoming soaked as well, but Daeus knew that he first had to secure the room before he could tend to his wound. Moving to the smaller door, Daeus went through the same motions. He knew that he would not be that good in a hand to hand fight right now--especially if he got hit in the head, and he didn't have any weapons. Hell, he couldn't even see, but he damn well was going to take every advantage he could by moving through an unknown doorway as he was trained to do in case there was someone on the other side. It turned out to be the bath room, as Daeus had suspected, and no one was there. The room was empty and secure for the time being. Daeus ripped a sheet to wrap around his head. It was a temporary bandage that would do for now. He looked at himself in the mirror, and if it didn't hurt so bad, he would have laughed. He looked like a red Indian with a turban and a Frankenstein brow from the swelling starting to set in. His whole torso was drenched in blood, and he reminded himself of a worker in a groat slaughter house on Focaline. Daeus knew he had to move fast because his eyes may be swollen shut before long. It took a few minutes to search the room. He was looking for weapons or a first aid kit. He didn't find either. All of the lockers were empty. It seemed that this room wasn't in use for the moment. It was probably built to house workers when they were mining this side of the asteroid. In the lunch room, the station people had explained that most of the mining had moved to the opposite side. The only connection between here and there was an airless, zero-G connection port. Well, if it came to that, the room was equipped with an emergency vacc suit and Portable Life Support System, although the PLSS was only good for 4 hours. With the search completed, Daeus decided to do a better job on his head. He couldn't afford to pass out from blood loss. Then he would get on the comm and try to raise the ship or whoever he could catch listening. It was strange that he hadn't heard anything else from any of the other crew members. He hoped to hell that the reason for that was that they were all busy and not dead. Another quick, but better, sheet job done on his forehead, Daeus picked up his comm. "Harrier come in, this is Jacks." There was nothing but static on the line. He tried again. "Harrier, do you read me? This is Jacks. Too, are you there?" Again, no answer--only static. "Well Jacks," he said to himself, "it looks like you're going to have to save your own ass." He moved over to the second outer door and listened. He couldn't hear anything but the quiet in his own room. These were definitely reinforced walls. They were probably designed to secure the atmosphere in case of a station emergency. Most living quarters on bases were. Daeus tapped the lock code, and the door slid open. It was quiet in the hall, and he could no longer hear any gun fire. Were they all dead? He stepped out in the hall. Nothing happened. There was no ambush by that little bastard kid--an expert one handed shot. He took a few steps, cautiously, to the right. The end of the hall should circle around to where the low berthers were murdering his friends. But he had to be cautious because he did see the other four of them trotting down this way. He had almost reached the end of the corridor when he heard several loud explosions. They were definitely coming from the direction he was walking, but farther away than the ambush site he had left a short time ago. He stopped in his tracks and listened. The explosions happened a few times, paused, then continued a few more times. At first, he thought the low berthers were using their grenade launchers, but then he realized that those were starship weapons. They were still alive! Probably making a stand on the Harrier, no doubt, but still alive. He sure would like to see what those guns would do to the little bastard that gave him this head ache. Daeus turned and moved back to the security of the room. He needed to think. The Harrier would have a tough time navigating the asteroid field without a pilot, and he was the only person qualified. Of course, he didn't much like the prospect of being left here with those murdering things either, but it wasn't only his own life he was trying to save. The others needed him too. Back in the room, he typed in the lock code. A light was flashing, silently, on a panel beside the door. It was the inter-station comm. Looking at the unit, Daeus noticed that it had limited station computer access. This was where the attention light was blinking--not from the comm. Pressing the receive button, there was a general warning displayed on the screen. Daeus' heart dropped. "Oh, shit!" The primary and secondary reactors were on a count down to explode, but there was no count down time. In that part of the display, it read "00.00". Daeus jammed the send button on the inter-station comm and tried to reach somebody--anybody. He was greeted again with static. The pilot bowed his head. Somebody wanted them all dead. They had substituted some type of high tech androids for the family members of the station personnel and programmed them to blow the place to Kingdom Come. The androids were taking out the others with their automatic weapons--keeping the humans busy while some others disabled communications and rigged the reactors to blow. If the primary didn't go, the secondary sure would. Beautiful. Just fucking perfect. Daeus eyeballed the timer. It was still on "00.00". That meant that the place should have already gone up. The androids probably disabled the display to add more confusion. Daeus took a double take. Then why was the message here at all? There was only one answer. Somebody was working against the androids in one of the computer mains. That's why there was no general alarm. The androids probably wanted to blow the place up without any warning, so they disabled the warning system. Somebody had found out and was trying to let everyone in the station know by using the computer system--since all the comms were out. As if to answer Daeus' thoughts, the timer kicked in. It read 11.4 minutes. "Hoo-leee Fuck." Then, as Daeus watched, the readout switched to another emergency screen. The pilot tapped the screen and saw that the station had been decompressed! The lock on the door switched to a different shade of amber. It was the emergency seals to secure the room against vacuum. Daeus had been right about the reinforced walls. Just a few moments before he had been standing in the outer hall way--a hallway that no longer had any air. What made him turn around and come back in here instead of venturing farther down the hallway? Whatever it was, it had just saved his life. That's two close calls in less than half an hour. He didn't hear anything because sound doesn't travel in vacuum. That means that the leak is a distance away, or he would have at least felt something. He remembered what he thought were the guns on the Harrier. They probably hit the wrong wall. The timer on the wall screen was clicking down. He had to get out of here. And, this new development just made that task harder. He moved to the emergency vacc suit locker. It took him a little longer than usual to suit up because of his head. If he blacked out, he was dead. Suit and PLSS on, he grabbed his gauntlets and helmet and moved to the door. He typed in a manual override and set it for 12 seconds. That's how long he guessed it would take him to cross the room and barricade himself in the bathroom to guard against explosive decompression. With the manual override primed, he first locked on his helmet, then he set the controls on the PLSS and locked his gauntlets on. His gloved finger touched the control to start the 12 second door release delay when an explosion rocked the room. This one was close--so close that he thought the reinforced wall would shred apart. It was apparent that something big had blown right outside the door. He caught his right boot behind his left in the bulky suit and tripped to the floor. He hadn't gotten 12 centimeters from the door, much less across the room, when it slid open. Daeus did what he could to put his arms over his helmet and crouch into the fetal position as he was sucked out into the hallway with everything else not tied down in the room. He saw a glimpse of flame that enveloped him and caught some of the flying bed coverings on fire as he flew 15 meters into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. He hit the wall first on the back of his helmet, and his head jerked to slam against the inside of his head covering. He then immediately dropped 5 meters straight to the floor because of the still functioning grav plates. The last thing he saw was the flames smothering on his arm as all of the oxygen blasting from the room rapidly depleted from the area. His last thought was that he would have burned up if the flames' fluel hadn't left so quickly. For the second time in 30 minutes, he woke from unconsciousness induced from head trauma. He lay crumpled up against the wall with several pieces of half burnt pillows, sheets, and blankets from the room. There were dark places all over his vacc suit from places where it had caught fire. It was a miracle that the integrity of the suit had not been compromised from all of the burned areas. Where did all this flame come from? Some of the lighting in the corridor was struggling to stay lighted, and Daeus turned his head to see the problem. There, at the end of the hall way was a hole--a giant hole where the medical department used to be. Daeus found his way up. The blood from his head wound had soaked his makeshift bandage and was beginning to drip into his eyes again. Inside his helmet, he could do nothing about it. He made his way down the corridor keeping one hand on the wall for support. At the end, he could see that the entire wall, ceiling, and floor had been scorched, and the light panels towards the hole were melted. The floor at the end of the corridor was torn up, and items of debris were floating because the grav plates had been destroyed. Down at the opposite end of the corridor, the scorch marks were lighter, and the damage wasn't as bad. It started to make sense to him. The medical section was the station's life pod. Somebody was in there and hit the eject button to escape the reactor explosion. They had probably seen the computer message too. The station design made more sense to him now. The medical section was a self contained unit in the center of the base. The four wide, long hallways served as channels to direct the life pod lift engines. This being a tech level 9 station, the drive was probably chemical. By directing the heat through the hallway channels, it preserved the rest of the station from unnecessary damage. That's why those walls were so reinforced. They were built to withstand the ejection of the life pod. It was just Daeus' misfortune that he set the door to open just as the life pod was taking off. He fell from the vibration, the door opened, and he was sucked into the last of the chemical blast from the life pod. Six seconds earlier and Daeus would have been as melted as the light fixtures. Maybe his head wound was a blessing in disguise. If it hadn't been for it, he would have gotten his suit on quite a bit faster, would have been out in the hallway, and would have been a crusty mess burnt on the floor. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Daeus tested where the grav plates had failed. It was a strange thing to have gravity in one spot and no gravity in another spot just one millimeter away. Daeus could see across the pit made by the pod to the far side corridor leading to the Harrier. He had to traverse this now. There was no telling how much time he had left before the reactors went. The ship could already be gone, they could all be dead, or he could get caught in the explosion as he moved, but he was going to try. He had come too far not to. Besides, somebody up there liked him. Daeus is a specialist in zero-G maneuvering, but that only made him realize how tricky crossing this pit was going to be. He wasn't outside a ship, scrambling around on a hull. He was moving from a gravity environment to a non or low gravity environment. Some of the grav plates out there could only be damaged and not destroyed. There is no telling what type of pulls he was going to encounter crossing to the other corridor. When some force acts upon you in zero G, you go in the opposite direction--no 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts'. And, you keep going that way until another force acts upon you. He could end up on the wrong side of the pit and have an even longer path to cross. Just the time it takes to compensate could burn up valuable minutes and ensure the he got caught in the reactor explosion. Well, what the hell. He couldn't stay where he was. No guts, no glory. Daeus jumped into the zero-G area in an attempt to somersault onto his back and push off the wall with his feet. He didn't quite make that maneuver. Only one leg lightly touched the protrusion on the corridor giving him an uneven shove, and his leg hyperextended to shoot him in the wrong direction. There was a momentary pull as he soared threw a weak, but still functioning, grav field. Weak it was, but it was also enough of a force to shoot him down the wrong way just as he had feared. He flew in a 15 degree angle toward the bottom of the pit and slammed his back up against the jagged rock. It knocked the wind out of his lungs when he hit, but he reacted quickly and grabbed a piece of construction wire protruding from a fallen piece of flooring before he bounced away. He could just see himself being bounced out the hole in the ceiling--out into space where he would be caught in the blast of the asteroid being blown up. He floated on his back, anchored by his grip on the construction wire. At first, he thought that he had punctured his suit when he hit the jagged rock, but then he realized that the sharp pain he was feeling was just the bruise damage he had sustained. As he caught his breath, Daeus used the wire to swing himself around on his belly. His feet were floating up higher than his head, and he looked like a diver on the bottom of the ocean. It was now apparent that it was too dangerous to project himself across the pit. He opted for a safer, albeit slower, mode of zero-G travel. Hand over hand, Daeus found anchored handles to pull himself across the bottom. It took some time, but he managed to push off from one hold in the direction of another, catch himself, and move to the next. Precious moments later, but without further incident, Daeus made it to the correct corridor. The trick here was to push himself gently in low enough to land on his feet when he entered the gravity area. He was on the side of the crater, trying to angle up past the broken floor to the corridor. Daeus gauged it, but he didn't take too much time because he had wasted so much already. He went with his first instinct and pushed off. The angle was too steep, and he over shot his aiming point. The blood was stinging his eyes and droplets floated around in his helmet. He felt like he was looking through a red fish tank with bubbles. Out into the corridor, Daeus shot, and when the gravity kicked in, he fell like a rock. He tried to roll his feet beneath him, but he only got his knees up and hands out, in the doggie style, as he crashed to the floor. The pain shot up his legs from his shins to his head. Damn, he hoped he hadn't broken his leg after all of this. A moment passed, and he forced movement. Yes, he could move it. It couldn't be broken. He struggled up, favoring one leg and bracing himself against a chunk of blasted wall. Using the wall as a crutch again, he moved on down the corridor towards the hangars. He spotted large blast holes in the wall separating the corridor from where the Harrier was housed. Daeus noticed that the debris was on this side of the wall. This must be the result of the use of the Harrier's weapons that he had heard, in what seemed like, hours before. Daeus edged his way to the first opening that he could walk through and peaked around into the hangar. Whoever was in the ship's starboard turret saw him immediately, and the twin laser cannons swung a fraction into his direction. For a moment, the pilot thought he was dead. He waved his hand frantically, and to his relief, the guns never opened up. Stepping through the wall, he skipped as best he could towards the ship. The guns continued to track him. "You idiot," he thought, "the androids don't need a vacc suit." But maybe the gunner knew this, because he didn't shoot. Daeus caught a glimpse of another hole in the wall. This one went straight out into space, and it was evident where the station's decompression had started. The starboard side air lock broke open, and the stair ramp moved down. Daeus noticed more floating debris, and by the destruction of the cargo/shipping grav plates just below the laser turret, he guessed that it had become necessary to knock out the grav units underneath the ship. Daeus was more careful this time. He used his hand over hand method to crawl to the ship. He couldn't afford to make a mistake and go spiraling out through the hole in the side of the hangar. He reached the stair ramp and carefully pulled himself up. A moment later, he was in the lock--navigating the ladder to the bridge. The iris hatch opened before he got there, and the Captain and Gvoudzon helped to pull him up. They got his helmet off and blood dripped from it to the deck. The Captain's face crinkled, "Oh my God." Before he knew it, they had his suit off and the doctor had given him something for the pain. The towel came off, and Too put some sort of clotting agent on his wound. It burnt like hell, but at least his vision was much clearer. As the doctor worked on Daeus, the others helped the Captain suit up in another vacc suit. The Baron looked at Too. "Can he get us out of here?" The doctor didn't take his eyes off his patient as he answered. "He's going to have to." Daeus answered him too, "Don't worry about it. I will." They locked the helmet on the Captain's suit. He adjusted the PLSS unit, and got in front of Daeus before he left the bridge. His voice was mechanical from the external suit speaker. "I'm going to get that damn hangar door open from the auxiliary control room so that we can get the hell out of here. I want you to get us moving as soon as my boot touches the stair ramp." Daeus looked up at his captain, blood crusted in his eye brows and lashes. "You can count on it." The Captain gave a few orders to Gvoudzon before he exited the bridge, but Daeus was busy sliding down into the pilot's station. The controls were already operational from their prior use. The pilot ran his blood soaked hands over the panel smearing blood onto the unit. He prepped the maneuvering thrusters and made sure the M-drive was ready to blast them, as the Captain had put it, the hell out of here. The doctor excused himself and said he had another patient in sick bay. It occurred to Daeus that he hadn't even asked who was on the ship. All he had seen was the Captain, the doctor, and the vargr. He assumed that Frank was in the gun turret because he was the only other crew member left aboard when the rest had gone with Daeus to mingle with the station people. Somebody was in sick bay. Daeus hoped that some of the others had made it through the ambush at the end of the corridor, but it was doubtful. Maybe somebody had made it back to the ship wounded. Ouch, his head hurt. A writhing pain shot through his whole brain. The doc's stuff was not working fast enough. Too had said that he couldn't give him too much for the pain because it would inhibit his reflexes, and he needed those to get them out of here. Daeus keyed the Harrier's comm. Maybe some of the crew had escaped in the life pod. He sure as hell hoped so. Static answered him. Whatever the androids had used to jam communications was still in effect. He adjusted his heads up displays and set the landing gear for automatic retraction after lift off. Then the Harrier's intership comm beeped. Daeus had forgotten to put on his comm dots. The comm beeped again. He manually hit the switch then took two of the wafer pads to attach to his throat and mastoid, "Bridge, go." It was the Captain's voice. The indicator read that the lower, starboard comm unit in the air lock was being used. "The doors are open. Let's go, dammit, go!" Daeus hit his board. The Harrier lifted off and moved backwards at the same time. Gently, Daeus eased the ship in reverse out through the narrow doors. The outer starboard lock door was just closing as the stars came into view when the ship cleared the bay. The Captain must have had a good view of the lift off. Daeus touched the port thrusters and swung the nose of the ship away from the base. As the trajectory cleared to the first path away from the asteroid, Daeus lit the Harrier's M-drive. The full force of the 1-G drive shot the ship away from the base like a rock from a sling shot. The blue ionization flame jutted 15 meters from the twin directional cowlings as 3.57 metric tons of liquid hydrogen started to burn. The pilot checked his scopes, and Gvoudzon flew through the hatch onto the bridge from whereever he had been to man the sensors. Daeus did a slight course correction to avoid a cluster of dense asteroids, and from there, made a straight leap at full power. The Captain scrambled up through the deck hatch. He took off his helmet and gauntlets and just slumped into the computer station's couch. The bridge was completely quiet--the pilot and navigator intent on their station operations and the Captain quietly sitting with look of shock on his face. He was probaly thinking about how close they had all just come to dying. 1.2 minutes later, Gvoudzon spoke without removing his eyes from the sensor station. "I think we've cleared the blast radius." 14 seconds after that, there was a bright flash from behind the ship. "She just blew." Gvoudzon confirmed from the sensor station. There was a collective sigh on the bridge. Daeus looked over at the Captain, awaiting orders. His eyes were in a squint from the forehead swelling. All the hair on his head was stiff from the clotted blood. The Captain cracked a smile, "You look like pure hell." "Well, I should," Daeus told him, "I've just come from there." The pilot thought a moment, then he looked again at the Captain, "But that's OK. Somebody up there really likes me." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Before reading this, you may want to read my comments in part one. Here's the second part of the Daeus Jacks story I posted a couple of days ago. We pick up with the Harrier zooming away from the exploding asteroid, Daeus collapsing from his injuries, and the crew wondering what the hell they are going to do with the fake cold berth unit from which all of this misery had sprang. Again, if you don't like foul language, you won't like this post. That said, here we go. TRAVELLER INSTANT REPLAY POV: Gvoudzon and the aftermath of OSIRIS Base By Kenneth Bearden "Are you sure you want to do this, Pepper?" The Captain said as he manhandled the helmet over Gvoudzon's snout and wrestled to engage the locking mechanism on the collar ring. It took a moment for the vargr navigator to reply because the suit's external speaker would not activate unless the helmet was locked on and the PLSS was engaged. Gvoudzon set the controls on his life support system as the Captain gave the helmet a sharp turn. There was an audible click as the helmet snapped in place, and a moment later, a sharp burst of static preceded the vargr's reply. "Look, sir." The navigator's voice came through electronically enhanced, and a bulky arm motioned to the two crewmen on the floor. Daeus was lying on the floor right behind the pilot's station--his head wrapped in bloody bandages--as Dr. Neimerani hunched over him with medical instruments, auto- injectors, gauze, and tape. "We've got our pilot down. The Dr. has his hands full with Daeus and the human administrator we picked up at the base. Frank is in the gun turret looking for asteroids since our sensors are down. Every other crewman is missing in action and probably dead." The visor on the vargr's helmet went dark for a moment then brightened again as Gvoudzon set the control to automatic. Looking through the now clear dura-glass, his breath momentarily fogging a small circle in front of his snout, Gvoudzon finished with the suit check and paused to finish addressing Praygor. "That leaves just you and me. I don't know about you, but it is a good bet that the cold unit down in the hold is the cause of our sensor and communication black out. You're the ship's owner and Captain. I have chosen to serve you. And, you can fly this grouther if you need to. By process of elimination, I'm the one who has to go take care of this problem." The Captain held Gvoudzon's look. It was clear that the vargr was right. Praygor shook his head. "Just take care down there, Pepper. I've lost enough crew members today." Gvoudzon moved to the starboard floor hatch and cycled it open. He looked over at Too, who was already staring his way. The Dr. gave him a nod. "Be careful." Daeus, at the doctor's knees, weakly raised his head. It looked like it took all of the pilot's energy to raise his hand a few centimeters, extend two fingers, and give Gvoudzon a that-goes-for-me-to wave. The Captain was about to sit down at the computer station. "When you get down there, use your hard link to give me instructions over the ship's comm." Gvoudzon gave the defacto bridge crew a human thumbs up. Then he stepped down a few rungs on the stainless ladder to where his waist disappeared from the other's view. "Hey." It was the Captain again. Gvoudzon shifted his weight on the ladder to look over his shoulder at him. "I'll see you in a few minutes." "Wag your tail on it." The vargr took a couple of more steps down the ladder to where his head was below the bridge deck. He cycled the hatch closed, then grabbed the outer edge of the ladder with his hands and thighs and slid the rest of the two meters down to the cargo deck. With one last check of his vacc suit and equipment, he peered out the air lock view port into the cargo deck. He could see the rear of the ATV, the far wall of the hull, the port air lock, and the air/raft but nothing else--nothing out of the ordinary. It was all as quiet as it should be. Gvoudzon touched the wall control to cycle the iris hatch open and stepped out onto the cargo deck. His suit respirator rang in his ears as he breathed the precious oxygen mix that it provided. A turn to the right, because peripheral vision was for shit in the helmet, proved that the walkway between the ATV and the wall was empty. A scan to the left proved the same thing. The 4.5 ton cold berth cargo unit that held the androids was there just as he had seen it last. The doors to the cold units were still open, and the medical panels still read as if humans were still under in the berths. What was left of the android that Gvoudzon had pumped two full clips of ammo into lay in a milky pool of liquid at the edge of the unit. Damage from the bullets that had gone through the android dotted the area on the cold unit above the slumped android's head. The vargr walked a diagonal line from the air lock to the center of the deck just aft of the ATV. He wanted to make sure that he had enough time to react in case there were any surprises. Over at the cold berth unit, the opposite side was clear as well. All Gvoudzon could see were the open units and the pool of blood on the deck where the OSIRIS administrator had fallen and laid for 45 minutes. Turning for a complete look, the navigator scanned the whole forward cargo bay, from the aft wall of the demountable L-Hyd tanks to the bow cargo doors, for trouble. The deck was definitely clear. Walking over to the tangled heap of the fallen android, Gvoudzon almost slipped in the greasy, milky substance that pooled on the floor. As he bent down to activate the magnetic unit attached to his boots, he realized for the first time that he hadn't taken a weapon with him when he left the bridge. What had he been thinking? The fact that he had been a corsair for 20 years only made him kick himself harder. He was getting lax working with these humans. The boots had several settings, but what he needed now was an anchor to the deck that would also allow him to walk. The mag grips came to life as the full bottom of the vargr's boots seemed to depress into the deck. Just about all of the thin layer of milky substance between his boots and the deck squished out around his feet. The magnetic units allowed for very little to come between them and whatever they were stuck too. Even though liquid would be pressed out as the boots pulled themselves to the floor, all Gvoudzon had to do to walk, on this setting, was pull his legs. The processor in the grip would acknowledge the slight tug, and the mag unit would deactivate until again pressed to the floor as the operator stepped. There was a safety feature that interlocked the two boots so that neither were deactivated at the same time. This hindered movement but ensured that one foot was always fastened to the deck. Another safety feature ensured that the wearer would not be swept off his anchoring by a forceful blow. Explosive decompression could occur, but the sensors in the boot units would ignore the pull--keeping the operator secure in one place. Gvoudzon knew that this last feature was sometimes more dangerous than it was helpful. The vargr had seen beings have both their legs broken at the shins because of the ungiving magnetism. Gvoudzon reached out with his gloved hand and shoved the android. The thing slid off the back of the cold berth unit it was leaning against to lay completely on the floor. It was definitely deactivated. Studying the android for the first time close up, the navigator could see the damage he had caused to it. Gvoudzon had pumped half a clip into the android's head and the other half into its chest. When it went down, it was still moving, so the vargr had stood less than two meters away and pumped another full clip into the thing. That had finally stopped it. There wasn't much left of the android to look at. Those were high explosive rounds that he had used. Now, it was a mess of milky liquid, shiny metal protrusions, and something that looked like a flesh covering. Although he didn't know why, the Captain had told him to save the android. Maybe Praygor thought it would be useful later. Gripping the human form under the shoulders, Gvoudzon scooted backward toward the air lock he had entered from. A trail of sticky, milky liquid ran from the puddle all the way back to the air lock hatch, and to the vargr's surprise, acted like a lubricant--making it easier to drag the thing. A few minutes later, back in the air lock, Gvoudzon caught his breath and touched the intership comm. A moment of static emitted from the suit's external speaker just before the vargr's words. "Captain, Gvoudzon here." "Shit, Pepper," the Captain sounded concerned, "what the hell took you so long. I was getting ready to come down there after you." "Sorry about that. This android was pretty heavy." "Good, you got it." The Captain's voice replied. "What's next." Gvoudzon touched the send button. "I'm going to hook up to the tethers from both umbilical assemblies in the port and starboard air locks. Then I'll plug in with the hard wire and give you instructions from there." "Roger that. Anything else?" "Negative." The navigator replied, "Gvoudzon out." Two minutes later, Gvoudzon had the access to the umbilical tether open and the line fastened to his belt. The tether was designed to anchor individuals to the air lock when they were in space walk. There was no reason not to use them inside the ship as well. Gvoudzon had already forgotten his weapon, and although he hadn't needed it, it was a stupid mistake. He wasn't about to make another one. Walking across the deck with the line attached, Gvoudzon made his way to the port air lock to repeat the line connection. A couple of minutes later, he was anchored to the deck by his magnetic boots and to opposites sides of the hull via the tether. He was ready to start the operation. Back over at the hatch to the starboard air lock, Gvoudzon zipped open a pouch on his vacc suit and brought out a line of cable with plugs on both ends. One end of the cable plugged into the chest of the vacc suit--the other Gvoudzon attached to the inlet on the wall comm panel. A loud static crack snapped over the receive speakers in the vargr's helmet as a channel was established to the bridge. "Bridge, can you read me?" The Captain's voice boomed back through the speakers, "Loud and clear. You?" Gvoudzon winced and adjusted the volume control. "Oh yea, its loud all right." "I'm at the comp station with the deck controls in front of me awaiting your instructions." The vargr tugged on each of his anchor lines and sensed his feet to make sure the boots were functioning properly. Satisfied, he hit the send control on his chest. "OK, decompress the forward cargo deck." "Roger that, Pepper. Decompressing." Vents in the ceiling of the cargo deck opened and sucked out all of the air. A few minutes later, Gvoudzon was standing in pure vacuum. The Captain's voice echoed that fact. "Decompression complete." "Roger that here too, Captain." The vargr said. "Open starboard cargo hatch." It was erie not hearing the hydraulics on the cargo door wine as Gvoudzon was used to. The large side door silently popped outward from the hull as the seal broke, then slid aft back toward the skimming intakes between the hull and the atmospheric wings. The cold reality of space revealed itself in the opening, and Gvoudzon could see asteroids tumble around in the distance. "Hatch reads as fully open." The Captain said. "Roger." Gvoudzon replied, "Discontinue gravity on the cargo deck." A moment later, the navigator could feel the weight of the suit disappear. His boots kept him firmly in place, but the familiar free feeling of zero-G spread all over his body. "Gravity reads as zer--" "Roger that, Captain. On my mark, discontinue the gravitic clamps on the cargo unit. OK, mark." Then, as Gvoudzon watched, the cargo unit magically floated up a few centimeters. It reminded him of a magician's act he had once seen. "Cargo unit is in free fall. I am disconnecting the hard link and will be removing the cargo unit from the hold momentarily." "Roger that, Pepper. Be careful." With that, Gvoudzon jerked the comm cable from his suit but left the other end in the wall. The black cable floated in the zero-G like some strange, slender snake. He jerked his leg, took a step, and started his move to the weightless cargo unit. It was 4.5 tons in normal 1G gravity, but here, Gvoudzon could give it a push and send it reeling out into the void. At the left side of the unit, behind the air lock next to the outer wall, the unit had wedged itself up against the hull. It was clear that Gvoudzon would have to push the other side out away from him then move back here to pull this end around and push the unit out long ways. The cargo hatch was too narrow for the unit to be pushed out at this angle. Gvoudzon made his way to the other end of the cargo module. He placed his hands on the unit and gave it a push. The cargo unit took off. Gvoudzon had pushed it too hard, and an instant later it slammed into the L-Hyd tanks. There wasn't enough time to notice if the demountable tanks were punctured from the collision because Gvoudzon was too busy bracing himself for the impact as the cargo unit bounced back toward him. The cargo unit hit him with considerable force, but the navigator managed to keep his knees from buckling and catch the unit. The magnetic boots were a great help. Winded, Gvoudzon thanked his luck that the unit was not able to pick up more velocity. Peering around the now motionless unit, Gvoudzon could see that the L-Hyd tanks were not punctured, but there was some damage where the cargo module had crashed into the wall. The opposite side of the cargo unit had a little more damage from the collision. That was a pretty big hit, and they might have felt it on the bridge. Gvoudzon decided that he had better reconnect to the hard link and report before he saw he Captain exiting from the air lock to check on him. Moments and a few steps later, he was grabbing for the floating hard link cable to reconnect himself to the ship wide comm. He could see that the red receive light was on. Someone on the bridge was already trying to contact him. Frank Fornne sat in his transpara-composite bubble that made up the ship's starboard side twin laser turret. His gunner's boots were locked into pedals that he used to control his facing and gun direction of the turret sphere. Pulling his right foot up would make the turret swing toward his head. Pressing down would make the turret move in the direction of his feet. It didn't matter if the direction of the gunner's head or feet were towards the bow, dorsal, ventral, aft, or any combination--the direction was, by design, from the gunner's perspective. This keeps it simple. A gunner doesn't have time to orient himself with respect to the ship during combat. His left foot controls the side to side movement of the turret. Any direction he wants to face can be accomplished in an instant with slight positioning of the feet--rotating around the two axis. This had been one of the most difficult things he had to master when he was learning to become a turret gunner back in the Corps. Direction control with the feet made sense because it left a gunner's hands free to control the gun, but Frank still sometimes had trouble with orientation. This was something that Sandy, his best friend, had always been good at. The Captain had ordered Frank up into the turret to visually scan for asteroids since the ship's sensors were being jammed. The Captain was right, of course, and the ship couldn't afford another crisis by being hit by an asteroid, especially with what crew remained after the fiasco on OSIRIS base, but Frank couldn't help but thinking about his friend. Frank had known Sandy for a long time--more than 20 years, and they were more than friends. They were brothers. Now, just an hour and twenty five minutes after landing on the base, the Harrier was out here in the belt with a skeletal crew and a whole new set of problems. The base had gone up in a double fusion reactor core breach, and the ship had gotten out of range with just three minutes to spare. Frank's best friend, his brother, was one of the missing souls. It made the gunner's heart ache. Frank had been listening in on the intership communication between Gvoudzon and the Captain. It helped keep his mind off his missing friend. When the vargr had ordered the starboard cargo hatch opened, Frank swiveled his turret to observe the opening. He wanted to keep an eye on things in case there was trouble. This gave him something more to do than just sit there, look at the asteroids, and think--think about Sandy. A few minutes after Gvoudzon had made his last communication there was a slight vibration that Frank felt through the hull. Normally, Frank wouldn't have felt a vibration so slight, but the turret was centrally located between the Harrier's two decks. A big enough impact could travel up the hull and be felt by someone sitting in the turret. Frank adjusted the turret to get at the best vantage point for the cargo hatch. He had turned the turret in that direction before, but he was also half way turned out to space. His job, after all, was to watch for close asteroids. Just as Frank finished positioning the turret, a flash of flame momentarily jutted out through the opening from the cargo deck. The canopy immediately darkened from what was unquestionably an explosion. These new vibrations proved that. Frank blinked and saw debris go sailing out into space. The sensors for the gun had also been inoperative, but they suddenly sprang to life a millisecond after the explosion. The gunner's targeting unit read that the flame had reached 52.9 meters from the hull. "Oh my God," were Franks first words. Then he activated his comm dot. "Fire in the hold. Fire in the hold. Man down. Repeat. Man down." Captain Vaan Praygor was drumming his fingers on the console at the computer station. Gvoudzon sure was taking his time, but any minute now, the cargo unit that the androids came in would be floating out into space. They had all bet that their communication and sensor problem would be solved as soon as they had got rid of the cargo module. Gvoudzon had just communicated over his hard link that he was about to push the thing out of the hold. The Captain was anxious about it. He wanted the damn thing off his ship. He stole a look over at the doctor and Daeus. As Gvoudzon had made his way down to the hold, Praygor had helped Too get the pilot to his acceleration couch. Then Praygor had transferred helm control to the nav station--just in case there was an emergency--and sat back down here at the computer station to await Gvoudzon's instructions. The doctor was still working on Daeus' head wound, but the pilot looked as comfortable as was possible on the bridge. Too was working diligently on the 3rd officer and seemed not to notice the Captain's glance. There was an almost imperceptible vibration that the Captain felt through the floor. It was a sharp jab-- like someone had dropped something very heavy. If Praygor hadn't been sitting there waiting with his attention on nothing but thought, he wouldn't have noticed it. Too was on his knees fishing for something in his med kit. He must have felt it too, with all of his legs in contact with the deck, because he looked up at Praygor with a questioning look on his face, "Did you feel that?" Praygor didn't take the time to answer the doctor. His thumb was already turning white as he pressed the comm send button. "Gvoudzon, come in. Is every thing all right. Come in Gvoudzon. Pepper, respond." There was no answer, and even though the panel read that the hard link was still disconnected, Praygor kept trying. There was movement behind him, and with a quick look, the Captain saw that the doctor was rapidly packing the contents of his medical kit. That told Praygor what Too thought about the vibration. "Gvoudzon, come in. This is the Captain. Come in Gvoudzon." There was still no answer. The clicks of latches behind him told the Captain that the doctor was ready for an emergency. Then all hell broke loose and shook the ship so that Praygor had to brace himself on the console. Too, behind the Captain on his knees, hadn't stood up yet but fell prone as the deck rattled. Daeus, in the pilot's couch was the first one to say anything. "Jesus, what was that? Did we hit an asteroid?" Frank's voice burst over the comm. "Fire in the hold. Fire in the hold. Man down. Repeat. Man down." The Captain switched the channel, "We're on it, Frank." Then he switched again, "Gvoudzon, what the hell was that? Pepper, respond. In God's name, what is going on down there?" Too already had his medical kit and scanner on the deck next to the floor hatch. He checked the read out then looked at the Captain while simultaneously cycling the hatch open. "Reads as atmosphere safe in the lock. I'll jump down. You close the hatch, repressurize the hold, and turn the gravity back on." "Yea, right," the Captain responded without taking his eyes off his panel, "and I guess I'll tell you if we have a hull breach as well." Too jumped to the ladder, his hands bracing himself on the deck as he grabbed his med kit and scanner from where he had laid them. "That would be nice." The Captain worked fast. Panels changed as fast as the console processor could build them. "Oh shit." Too's head popped back up from the hatch. "What?" "Oh, good." The Captain's expression changed to a more positive expression. "We've got a buckled bulk head on the port air lock, but I'm reading no hull breach." There was a quick finger movement. "You read that Frank. Is the hold door closed?" Frank's voice boomed again over the loud speaker. "Roger. Visual confirm on the cargo hatch." "Repressurize! Repressurize! Repressurize!" It was Too's last words as he cycled close the floor hatch. Half a minute later, Too's voice came from the comm in the air lock. "Damn. It looks like a battle took place in there. The bulkhead is blown to hell. I can see debris all over the place, but I'm reading a standard atmosphere and gravity." "Roger, Too." The Captain responded. "I had already started repressurization and restored gravity before the outer hatch was closed. I'm reading A-OK in the hold as well." "I'm going in." The light showing transmission from the air lock indicated that the comm unit was no longer in use. Another light came on, indicating that the air lock door was being cycled open. A whisper broke from the Captain's lips, "Shit, be careful." As Too stepped through the hatch, he had to kick debris away in order to place his foot. There were pieces of cargo module and machinery all over the bay. It looked as if the opposite bulkhead of the port air lock had taken the brunt of the explosion and crumpled it, but the ATV and, more importantly, the wall of the L-Hyd tanks seemed to have held. There was all manner of wreckage protruding from the seats of Too's air/raft. He spent a couple of hours a week maintaining the grav vehicle, and he could tell that he was going to have his hands full for a while with the upholstery. There were droplets of blood immediately in front of the doctor which drew his attention to his right. There, in the space between the ATV and the wall, was the bloodied fabric of a vacc suited arm and two knees protruding straight up from the debris. Too took three steps to reach the fallen vargr, knelt, and flung the pieces of debris off Gvoudzon's body. There was something sticky on a sheet of the cargo module's outer covering that the doctor had pulled off the vargr's chest. It was covered with bits of trash, and Too started to toss it away with the other debris when the doctor realized that it was connected to Gvoudzon's body. Too's mouth dropped open as he realized that he was holding his crewmate's intestine. The vargr was in bad shape. The face plate on his helmet had burst, and Gvoudzon's face was a mass of blood, cut flesh, and glass. The rest of the suit seemed to have withstood the explosion and provided the navigator some protection except for the chest area. It was shredded like a popped balloon, and the doctor couldn't tell where vacc suit ended and internal organs began. Gvoudzon's knees bent straight up in the air even though the vargr was laying flat on his back--his feet were still being clamped firmly to the deck. The magnetic boots were still on. In an instant, Too had his medical scanner out. It was a good thing that the piece of equipment could diagnose both human and vargr vital signs without readjustment because Too didn't have time to mess with it. Normally, the doctor would also search for a pulse the old fashioned way but there was no where to put his hand. The opening in the face plate of the helmet was too small, and the vargr had nothing else but internal organs exposed. Too had to pull out a vibro-scalpel from his med kit and cut some of the vacc suit away in order to have an area to attach the scanner's contacts to Gvoudzon's body. The doctor noticed that one of the outer control units that should be on the outer chest portion of the vacc suit had been blown away, and Too guessed that it being ripped from the suit started the vacc suit tear that exposed the vargr's chest to the force of the explosion. With a portion of the vacc suit cut away, exposing the vargr's shoulder right under the collar ring, Too used his first two fingers to press the contacts from the med scanner to Gvoudzon's skin. The indicator on the scanner turned green, and Too couldn't believe his eyes. Two steps later, the doctor was on the wall comm which was amazingly still functioning. "Medical emergency in the hold. Get Frank to get the portable automed to the bridge. Pepper's still alive!" Gvoudzon grabbed the hard link snaking its way out from the wall comm. The cargo unit was in front of him, floating awkwardly above the deck. It had started a slow drift toward the forward wall--probably due to the ship itself drifting. That was all the navigator saw before it exploded. Being around the air lock corner from the module, he had some protection from the wall and the ATV. Nevertheless, the force of the explosion sent him to the ground like a 100 kilo doll that couldn't stand. His boots still magnetically attached to the deck, he bent at his knees and would have bounced back as his back hit the floor, but the force kept him pinned. He was lucky that he wasn't facing the other way because his legs would have been broken at the knee as he was slammed to the ground forcing his legs to bend in the opposite direction. It seemed as if his chest and helmet face plate exploded simultaneously. Suddenly, he couldn't breath as all of the air was being pulled from his lungs. His eyes were being pulled from their sockets, and he just couldn't blink anymore with his left eye. It took him a moment to realize that his eye lid had been torn off. Glass cut part of his lip on the left side of his stubby snout, and two fleshy, whiskered halves floated out exposing his teeth. With the initial instant of the explosion gone, Gvoudzon began to float back up in a vertical position because of the zero-G. He was like a balloon with his legs acting like the string--his magnetic boots faithfully keeping anchored to the deck. His legs felt as pliable as string too. He didn't have strength to pull his tongue back in--much less move a limb. It was a miracle, or a curse, depending on your point of view, that he was still conscious. Gvoudzon decided that it was a curse, because he had seen what happens to a body when exposed to zero- G. Over 70% water, fleshy bodies like himself tended to turn to globs of jelly as their lungs and stomachs exploded from the zero pressure. He saw something in his fuzzy vision, but it took every ounce of energy he had to focus and bring his mind to recognize what it was. Alive by definition only, his brain seized on the image, processed it, and told him what he was looking at. His own entrails were floating out in front of him. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Well it seems that this short story is not that short--for e-mail standards anyway. Here's the conculsion of the second short story. Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel. Continuing the aftermath of OSIRIS base... By Kenneth Bearden This was it. This was the end. He was becoming one of those gelatinous blobs of flesh that he had seen before. But he was still conscious. By all rights, he shouldn't be. Barely cognizant of his surroundings, maybe, but he was still breathing albeit not very well. Then he realized why. Tiny miracles. That's what the universe was made up of--tiny miracles. His PLSS was still functioning and pumping the precious oxy-nitro mix into his helmet. The gas was just as fast escaping out the disintegrated face plate, but he was able to gasp little bits of life giving air. Still, this wasn't enough to keep him alive. There must be something else. He should be dead from the temperature or zero pressure alone. He forced his mind to work. Debris was starting to fall. He felt the floor swing up at him as he realized that he was back on the deck. Items of trash were dropping on him. His last thought before he blacked out was that it was ironic that he would loose consciousness just as someone was reactivating the deck gravitic units and repressurizing the hold. They were tiny miracles. "How is he, doc?" Praygor stood at the entrance to main engineering. Too was just inside the access way, working on Gvoudzon in one of the large automeds. Sickbay was crowded with low berth units with barely enough room to pass, shoulder width, between the equipment and the bulkhead. When the Captain had refitted the Harrier, he had two 6 ton, Cr200,000 automed units installed. The only place to put them were here, in the front of engineering, in what little dead space there was aboard the ship. Too took the time to look away from his patient, so the Captain knew immediately that Gvoudzon was going to be all right. "I've got him stabilized, but he's still going to need surgery. Besides the obvious damage to his chest and abdomen, he's missing an eye lid; he' got a two inch cut on his lip; his eyes have nearly been sucked out of their sockets; there's massive facial trauma due to the broken glass; part of his left ear is missing; There's over a hundred cuts, bruises, and breaks; he's bleeding out of every orifice on his body, and he's lost a lot of blood." The Captain looked serious, "What's the good news?" Too sighed and motioned towards Gvoudzon. "The good news is that his legs aren't broken from the magnetic boots, and even though his exposed organs look to be in bad shape, I think he'll be all right once I've had time with him in surgery." Praygor noticed a swollen pink thing protruding from Gvoudzon's mouth. "What's the matter with his tongue?" "That, like his eyes, was almost sucked out of his body as it was exposed to zero pressure. The hairless white skin you see around his face is where the cold burned his dermis and hair follicles, and the skin has died. These were just two of a hundred other things that are wrong with him, like internal bleeding and missing intestine, that I haven't got time to tell you about." That was Praygor's clue to leave the doctor alone. "Well, I guess he won't be french kissing for a while, will he?" Even with the seriousness of Gvoudzon's health, Too couldn't help but crack a smile. The Captain was purposefully relieving tension. Too jabbed a scalpel Praygor's way, "I'm going to tell him you said that." "Well, good," the Captain replied, "that's why I came down here--to make sure that he would be able to hear you later." Too took in Praygor's concern, "I'll fix him." "I know you will." The miner used his miner's pike to blast open the surface of the asteroid. The blue arch from the tool flashed across the miner's helmet as it disintegrated a half meter hole at his feet. It was hard work. First you blew holes in the crust every meter or so, then you came back through with the with the sensor equipment to check for the particular ore for which you are prospecting. There were probably more than a hundred thousand miners out in the Patinir belt like himself. There were probably half as many more in Pablo's Belt, the second asteroid belt farther outsystem. Stuck on a small, spinning rock that measured just 30 meters in diameter, all you had for piece of mind was a space suit, a miner's hut, a power generator, the tools they gave you, a few supplies, and a communicator. The supply shuttle would come check on you once a week to check your progress and make sure you were not dead. But this miner felt that he was one of the lucky ones. He was contracted to one of the larger mining companies. That meant hazard pay, reliable shuttle schedules, and someone there to answer him if he was in trouble. He had tried going it on his own in the past, but that had nearly gotten him killed. In a modern day society, criminals liked the privacy they found out in the belt, and this miner liked the extra protection he got being connected with a large organization. The PB Mining Company didn't take kindly to having their miners robbed or killed. The miner activated his pike and blew another hole in the ground. It was shit work, but the pay was good. There was also a lot of time to think. Usually he would let his mind wander from topic to topic, spending the 16 or 20 hours or so of his day blasting holes in the surface of his asteroid--but not today. Today, there was danger in the belt, and he kept his attention on the recent events and his mining. Just under two hours ago, a Type R merchant vessel came speeding over his head. He could see the ship clearly, and from the blue ionization trail emitting from the ship's maneuver drive, she was running at full thrust. A moment later, there was an explosion from the direction the ship had just come from. He couldn't see exactly what had gone up, but the only big installation he knew of in that direction was the OSIRIS base. Of course, it could have been a ship that went up as well. The miner had rushed back to his miner's hut, de-suited, and got on the communicator. All he received from his transmission was static. He realized that he was being jammed, and he started to get worried. He got suited up again, grabbed his weapon, and exited the hut to pick up visual scanning. He climbed a hill like protrusion a short distance from the hut, got down on his belly, and sighted the merchant ship with his image converter binoculars. The ship had slowed to a complete stop and started a drift. No self respecting pilot would leave a ship in that condition, so the miner assumed that the people on the ship were hurt--most definitely the pilot. The miner checked his suit comm. It was still jammed. A tug from behind him made notice that his umbilical, stretched back to the hut, was getting taut. He pulled out his piton gun and fired a spike into the rock. A snap disconnected the umbilical, and pulled a secondary tether from his pack to anchor himself to the stroid. As a belter, he had learned to always play it safe. Next, he went back to observing the vessel. It was a long while before anything happened. The ship just floated there with what he guessed was about a 15 degree drift. All he could see of any interest was a man in the gun turret. Zooming in, the miner could see the man operating the turret in different directions. The gunner seemed to be practicing his foot controls. The last thing the belter saw as the ship disappeared below his horizon, due to the rotation of the asteroid, was the starboard cargo hatch pop and begin its slow gate down the side of the ship. It would be exactly 12.4 minutes before the ship would be visible again. The miner knew this because he had counted it uncountable times as he walked across the stroid, blasting holes in its surface. The 12 minutes seemed like forever. Communications were still down. The miner had nothing to do but wait. He watched the count down on the chrono he used for timing charges. At 11.8 minutes, he repositioned himself on his ridge. At 12.1 he raised the IC binoculars to his helmet. At 12.4, the ship came into view, and the miner gasped at what he saw. There was debris floating away from the ship. The cargo hatch that he had seen opening was closed again, but there were black marks all around its edge. The miner hit a control to switch the IC mode and reexamine the black marks. His best guess was that they were scorch marks. The man in the turret looked worried. As an afterthought, the belter tried his suit communicator again. To his surprise, this time it worked. His suit comm was short range, so he needed to get back to the hut and use the large unit. Inching down the ridge, he detached the tether and reconnected the umbilical. 14 minutes later, he was back in his hut in front of the comm contacting his company controller. That was earlier. He had reported to his controller about the explosion he had witnessed and the ship. He was right about OSIRIS base, and was told about the emergency situation. There had been a message from an escape pod from the base reporting survivors. There was nothing he could do on his small asteroid so he went back to work. Now, he was back outside, resuited, continually blowing the holes in the asteroid's surface. The ship was just over his left shoulder. There hadn't been any change in the condition that he had seen since he was back out from the hut. There was the usual blue flash, and he blew out another hole as some movement caught his eye. Turning his head, he took in the sight of the ship. Someone had disconnected the dorsal launch and was trying to turn the small ship in the direction of the asteroid. The belter could tell that whoever was piloting the small craft hadn't done so in a while, or maybe it was the same pilot who had sluggishly stopped the mother ship in her present position. The pilot seemed to get the small ship under control and point it toward the miner's asteroid just as the craft disappeared past the horizon. The belter paused a moment and wondered if should take cover in case of danger. Given the report from his controller, he decided against it and went back to work. He was already behind schedule surveying this rock. Three minutes later, the launch he had seen swung into view over his right shoulder. The pilot must have taken the long way around the stroid. Looking at the vessel, the miner guessed that the ship was at full thrust, and judging by the direction, it was headed back towards the general area of OSIRIS base. He raised his arm to wave at the ship and muttered to himself, "Good luck, you poor bastard." The ship seemed to hear him and definitely saw his wave. It rocked from side to side in the age old maneuver recognized as an aerial salute. It wasn't long before the miner could no longer see the small vessel. Just less than an hour later, the miner stopped his work again when he noticed the return of the small vessel. Attached to it, five times its size, was a spherical, multi-sided escape pod. Both of the ships disappeared back behind the miner. He guessed it would be 8 minutes before the rotation would take him around to observe the larger merchant vessel. For two and a half days, the merchant vessel hung there, just four minutes flight time from the miner's asteroid. He was curious about what was going on aboard her, but he decided against contacting the ship until he had spoken, tight beam, with his controller. The company had responded that she was the merchant vessel March Harrier, and the scoop was that she had contacted the OSIRIS officials after rescuing some of the base personnel. The ship's pilot was injured during the escape from the base, and they were waiting until he was healed enough to guide the ship in to Joyston colony. It was a smart move, the miner thought, because navigating an asteroid field was not a job for the non-skilled. The miner was on the wrong side of the asteroid when the Harrier fired its maneuver drive in the direction of the colony. He didn't catch a glimpse of the ship until is was far off in the distance. But, something on his side of the stroid caught his attention. There was a movement on one of the nearby asteroids. It was one of the bigger rocks--one that was on the miner's itinerary to survey later on in the year. A ship, about half the displacement tonnage of the Harrier, touched off the stroid's surface and hovered a moment before jutting off into a direction away from the Harrier. The miner wondered what would keep a ship on silent running for two and a half days. It was probably trying to mask itself behind the asteroid, and whoever it was, it looked like they had been successful. The ship, the miner recognized, was a Type A2 far trader, and in minutes, it too was out of sight. The miner wrestled a moment with himself about contacting the company or the Harrier, but he decided against it. There were people dead on OSIRIS base, and he didn't want to be added to the casualty list. It was doubtful that they picked up on his tight beam, but he didn't want to take the chance. If they knew he was here, for whatever reason, they had decided to let him live. If they didn't know he was here, he sure wasn't going to give them another chance to find out. His controller had said that OSIRIS had experienced a double fusion breach. Sometimes accidents happened, but it was very unlikely that two reactors would go up at the same time. Whatever the far trader was hiding, they had thought it important enough to wait, impatiently the miner would bet, for over two days in order to make an undiscovered getaway. No, the miner thought, he was too smart to get in the middle of this.