While Making Other Plans:
Chapter 9
Two hours later, any repairs which they were able to make made had been. All in all, they’d been lucky. None of the thinned sections of the hull showed any signs of giving way, but the areas remained evacuated and sealed as a precaution. A few of their instrument packages on the far side of the ship had been mostly spared by the blast. They’d only been shorted out and the engineers had been able to bring them back online, same for the instruments towards the rear of the ship.
They still had only one remaining main wall display panel on the bridge, but it was sufficient for navigation. They didn’t explicitly require any of the wall monitors since every individual station had its own dedicated display, and most of them remained functional. Compared to the all-around view they’d had before though, the barren lifeless surfaces which now surrounded them seemed somehow eerie, claustrophobic.
So far they had remained in a standard orbit around Yuri, and the alien vessel had shown no signs of activity. Things were calming down on the ship now after the chaos of the battle, leaving thoughtful consideration more possible now. Kathryn had given everyone an hour off in rotation to eat, catch a quick nap, or whatever else might serve to recharge them while she and the rest of the senior staff planned their next move.
Kathryn, Jaren, Maggie, Felix, Patricia, and Margaret were all sitting around a table in the captain’s private dining room off of the main mess hall discussing their options.
“Protocol requires we report in and request further instructions,” Jaren observed.
“Phbbt, protocol…” Margaret dismissively retorted.
“I didn’t say that’s what we should do,” he snapped. It was rare for his demeanor to sharpen so. He quickly softened, feeling bad about barking at her after realizing he had. “Sorry, just… stating a fact.”
“We all know what those instructions would be though,” Felix stated. “They’d order us back.”
“They’d really want us to just leave that thing out there?” Maggie asked, it was clearly as inconceivable to her as anyone at the table that they might just leave it floating in space there, to just walk away from a mystery of that magnitude.
“Yes hon,” Kathryn answered. “This ship was built to be ready for this kind of situation. It’s why we survived the encounter, but we’ve been severely damaged.”
“The ship is impressive,” Patricia softly conceded while pushing her food around her plate, then looked up at Kathryn. “But you also all handled yourself impressively well in that situation. A lesser crew with a lesser captain is unlikely to have survived even with this ship.
“Thank you, Patricia,” Kathryn nodded with practiced humility. “Impressive as this ship is, it was not built for investigating a damaged, hostile alien vessel of unknown origin.”
“No ship in the fleet was,” Jaren pointed out.
Kathryn lifted her fork towards him with widened eyes and nodded in agreement.
“Damaged or not,” Felix offered, “this ship is still the closest thing we have to one designed and equipped for a mission like this. Who else would they send?”
“Also true,” Kathryn agreed. “But the thing is it’s not just the ship. We were only granted this command because the mission was expected to be relatively routine. Yes it was the first new star system we’d accessed, but we weren’t expecting to find…” she hesitated, not exactly sure how to succinctly sum up what they’d found.”
“Nonsense,” Margaret snorted. “You three are more qualified for something like this than anyone else in the fleet.”
“Perhaps,” Kathryn granted with a smile, appreciative of the sentiment. “But that could also be the point. They might rather experience up others who haven’t had as much fun as we have over our careers.”
“Fuck that.” Finished her food, Margaret sat back and relit the remaining half of her cigar. Kathryn watched as the smoke immediately disappeared into the atmospheric control vent. The simulant had augmented herself to no longer need to eat to avoid the simulation of starvation, but still enjoyed eating when the food adequately appealed to her or if she just wished to fit in at the table. The quality of their dinner left it unclear to Kathryn which it was in this case.
Kathryn chuckled to herself. She certainly agreed with Margaret’s sentiment in her heart. She certainly didn’t want to relinquish command of the ship and let someone else have all the fun, but was still nonetheless sympathetic both to her sense of duty in the abstract, and to the others who would be robbed of the experience and the impoverishment of the readiness of the rest of the fleet overall as a result. Skilling up other officers was all the more important now that they had enemies out there. “We are required to check in,” she reiterated, leaning towards their duty.
“And they’ll certainly recall us,” Felix noted, “refit the ship, assemble a new crew, and leave us back home while they send the ship back out for further investigation.” He made no effort to obscure his disappointment with the prospect.
“What if there’s somebody over there who needs help?” Maggie asked. She looked around as if surprised nobody else had brought it up.
Everyone at the table looked at her in consideration. “Kid’s got a point,” Margaret said.
Kathryn looked over to Jaren who tilted his head to the side with his wry smile. She was right. It was a defensible justification to continue operations unabated.
“Indeed,” Kathryn outwardly agreed to the rest of them. “There is a ship out there in clear distress. In a distressed state we put them in no less. It could be argued we have a higher obligation to render any assistance we can before reporting in.”
“Now you’re talking,” Margaret encouraged her, puffing up a cloud of smoke around her head to keep the cigar going.
“Given that they’re not responding to our hails, the only way we could attempt to help them would be to board their ship and investigate,” Felix offered.
“Protocol would still dictate we report in our current status and new intentions,” Jaren reiterated. She knew he didn’t enjoy being the stick in the mud he sometimes could be. Truth was in context of his own planet he was considered quite rebellious, and he’d adopted that as part of his personality. It frustrated him greatly that to outsiders he still seemed so proper. Like anyone though, he could only be what he was.
“Hmm,” Kathryn considered. Having finished her food she pushed the plate forward and leaned back in her chair. “How long until our scheduled check in, Felix?”
“Five days. Our first was just a couple days ago when we came through the rift.”
“How long would it take to get to that ship?”
“At two gee about a day, twelve hour push then another twelve hour pull.”
“Right,” Kathryn nodded in though for a moment. “Well, I think we are obligated to provide as detailed an accounting of what’s happened and the present situation as we possibly can, don’t you? Give them all the information they could possibly have to best plan the next move, right?”
“Of course,” Felix answered with a mischievous smile.
“Okay,” she decided. “Yes, strictly speaking protocol demands we immediately report in. But we do have a legitimate obligation to render aid to our new friends if we can, and in doing so we are likely to gain valuable intel on them, which we can then pass along in a more complete report.” She looked around the table at each one of them in turn to get affirmation of their agreement.
“It’s settled then.” She pressed a button on the panel embedded in the desk. “Barnes to bridge, plot a course to rendezvous with the alien ship at two G and execute when ready.”
“Acknowledged, Admiral.”
“Jaren and Felix, please work together on a way to board that ship. Bring in whoever else you need to, top priority.” Everyone nodded their understanding.
“Attention all hands, prepare for sustained two G burn.” the helmsman announced over ship wide.
“Alright, best get to work then everyone. As soon as we’re underway and you’ve made all the preparations we can for the encounter, the crew can have free time until two hours before the encounter. Dismissed.”
Felix, Margaret, and Patricia left the room, all seemingly in pretty good moods.
“Maggie, are you okay with this?” Kathryn asked. “You being on board is the top reason why we should forget the whole thing and head home.”
“I’m fourteen Mom. I can handle myself.” In other contexts she might have said the same thing in a snotty way, but here she just seemed to genuinely wish to reassure her mother.
Kathryn toussle her short purple hair in a way she hadn’t in a long time and smiled at her. “I know you can sweetie, but you don’t always have to, okay? Promise you’ll talk to us if things get too intense or scary, okay?”
“I came out here with you hoping for some adventure, for a story to tell. I’m getting a lot more than I expected,” she pointed out. “That’s a good thing.”
A warning klaxon blared through the ship, and they all felt their weight increase and sank deeper into their chairs.
“Fair enough,” her mother granted. “Now run along to your quarters while we get ready. We can spend some time together while we’re in transit.”
“Okay Mom…” The girl seemed disappointed to again be relegated to her quarters, but she obeyed.
“And be careful with the extra weight, you’re not used to it,” she cautioned before the door closed behind her.
“Am I a terrible mother?” Kathryn asked, only half serious.
“No more so than I am a father,” Jaren thoughtfully answered. “The girl’s got a point though. She came out here for a story and she’s getting it. In theory, the part she really shouldn’t have been here for has already passed. She seems to have taken it remarkably well.”
“Maybe that’s only because she doesn’t really understand how close to death we all really were back there.”
“Do the young ever really appreciate the possibility of death?”
Kathryn smiled and put her hand on his arm. “No…” she answered, “but that’s why they have parents, isn’t it?”
At two G, it felt like their uniforms were lined with lead. Prolonged exposure to that much weight was considered safe but it wasn’t particular pleasant to experience, especially for long stretches at a time. While it was possible to get around and do one’s work with extra effort, it was most comfortable just to lie down, so when everyone’s was prepped for the encounter, they were free to do just that. Rest might come easy, but not sleep with the looming encounter on all of their minds.