Chapter 8

The crew was gathered in the main cabin; it looked strange to Jass, with sleeping hammocks lining the walls and boxes of their personal effects tied down against desks and chairs. Every crew member was seated and buckled into their launch harnesses.

“In about a half hour, we're going to start the manual maneuvers for docking with the Pequod. Things may get tricky, and I need everyone to be alert and on the lookout for any potential problems. If we do everything right, then we get to be the big damn heroes today. Kara, as soon as the signal comes in from Captain Morris, put it through to me. Aaron, as soon as that signal comes through, I need manual control of our main engines. Denjiro and Kristin, be ready to help at the airlock. Everyone else, just hang tight and be ready to move if we need you. Let's rescue some folks.”

The cabin fell silent except for the beeping of the communications console. The ship itself seemed to be holding its breath, though Jass knew that was an illusion. The minutes passed, and several of the crew members shifted in their seats.

A loud beep sounded, making a few people jump. Kara glanced at her console and hit a button. “That's the Pequod, captain. Sending the call to you now.”

Jass put the call over the speakers. “Hello, Captain Morris. What's your status?”

“We've slowed as much as we can, and are headed your way. I'm sending our coordinates and velocity to you now so you can match it.” The captain's voice sounded muted over the speaker. Jass saw the file appear in on her console, and sent it to Aaron.

“Excellent, captain. I'll have my navigator set our course. I'll keep this call live so you can reach us quickly if you need to.” She turned to Aaron. “Mr. Dewitt, what is our course?”

“Maintain our current heading, captain,” he replied, checking his screen, “and burn our main engines at full thrust for three minutes and forty-seven seconds. Engines going on my mark...mark! Main engines are go.”

Jass felt a jolt as the engines started, and was glad she was sitting down. As the engines blasted the ship through the darkness, the crew was pressed back into their seats by the acceleration. It felt to Jassmyn like the ship was curving up, up, up, until it was pointed straight into the sky but the star field outside the window never moved. She marveled at how strangely acceleration could mimic gravity, and was tempted to drop something just to watch it fall behind her.

The floor of the ship thrummed as the engines pushed them along the course that would allow for a rendezvous with the other ship. Shortly after four minutes had passed, Jass heard Captain Morris' voice come through the speakers again.

“Curious Machine, this is the Pequod. We're coming up on your position. You're about a hundred kilometers from us right now, we should be in position in a few minutes.”

“Heard and understood,” Jass said, just as the engines cut out and the crew fell forward against their harnesses. “We've finished our engine burn and are ready to welcome you aboard. Over and out.”

“Captain, I have them on our aft cameras. It looks like we've matched velocity pretty closely, and the docking should be able to take place as planned.” Kara put the aft camera view on the large screen, and

Jass saw the Pequod. It was hard to see much detail at this angle, but it was a large ship, one that had seen more years than the Curious Machine.

The ships edged closer and closer, and she could now seeing the small thrusters firing from the sides and nose of the Pequod, inching it closer to the side of the Curious Machine.

“Ms. Marshall, Mr. Takahashi, please advance to the airlock to assist our guests.”

The two unbuckled themselves from their harnesses and quickly pushed out into the corridor. In a few moments, Kristin signaled that they were in place.

“Pequod, we are go for dock.”

“Acknowledged, Curious Machine. We are approaching you now.”

After a tense moment of silence, the ship rocked slightly as the larger vessel came into contact.

“Captain, this is Kristin. Docking is complete and the airlock is secured. Waiting approval to open outer airlock door.”

Jass unbuckled herself from the launch harness. “Open the outer lock and let them start getting their people and cargo ready to move. I'm coming down to greet Captain Morris.”

She pulled herself hand over hand through the corridor and arrived at the airlock just as the captain of the damaged ship signalled that the first load was aboard. Kristin hit the button to open the inner airlock door.

“Permission to come aboard, captain.” Captain Morris offered her a tired smile and a handshake. Jass shook his hand.

“Permission granted. Let's get your people and cargo aboard. We've got everything set up for you here. It'll be a little crowded, but I think we can make do for a week. Mr. Takahashi, can you go aboard the Pequod and arrange for the oxygen and fuel stores to be transferred?”

Denjiro nodded and stepped through the airlock.

Captain Morris was a tall balding man, with a a sharp look in his eyes and a ready smirk. “We appreciate the lift, Captain Stewart. The prospect of waiting for rescue on board a damaged ship wasn't particularly appealing.”

“I can understand that. Come with me, I'll show you where you'll be staying.” The two floated down the hallway toward the crew quarters. “I've heard that the rescue crews are spread pretty thin right now; there have been more accidents than usual on the deep space missions.”

“Not all the deep space missions,” he said, glancing at Jass. “Just the ones run by the private shipping companies. None of the Federated ships have experienced these losses, no matter how small the ship. Rumor has it that Federated has paid to have a saboteur aboard each of the private companies' ships. If they wreck enough ships, damage enough cargo, then people will stop using the other companies to ship. If Federated becomes the only safe option for shipping, then they can charge whatever they want since they'll still get all the business.”

“Rumor is a funny thing, captain,” Jass said. “Rumor has it that you had a crew of twelve aboard the Pequod when you set out from Cybele, but I only counted eleven when you boarded my ship.”

Morris was silent for a moment before responding. “You know, it's a funny thing about airlocks. If a person, maybe someone who isn't really welcome on board anymore, steps too close to one at the wrong moment, or someone accidentally leans against the control panel, they can be gone into the black before anything can be done about it.”

Jass shuddered, but kept her face composed. “I wondered if that might be the case. Here are the crew quarters, captain, you can assign them as you see fit. There are four double rooms, and four single rooms. The computer access stations in each room should walk you through syncing up your personal systems and schedules with ours. If you need anything, please let me know.”

He nodded, eyeing the small rooms. “We'll make it work. Please extend our gratitude to your crew; suddenly adding this many people to your ship isn't an easy thing for anyone.”

It took several hours to get all of the oxygen and fuel siphoned into the Curious Machine's tanks, and almost as long to load the parts of the Pequod's cargo that could be saved. Several crew members had had to leave personal items behind in the hopes that they would be safe if the ship was salvaged soon. Jass saw Merriam trying to console a dark-haired girl who was in tears over a box of rock samples deemed too large to bring aboard. Kristin had gotten into arguments with several of the Pequod's crew over which items could be brought and which would have to be left behind. Captain Morris instructed all of his crew that her decisions were final, but it didn't stop the arguments when he was not on hand.

By the time the transfer had been completed, Jass hadn't slept in thirty-two hours and had a raging headache from the caffeine pills she'd swallowed to stay awake. Denjiro had manually undocked the two ships, and over the course of an hour, the two vessels had drifted apart. When they were far enough apart to not pose any danger, Jass instructed her crew to go to the main cabin, then alerted the Pequod's crew to strap themselves into their hammocks for the duration of the main engine burn.

When all of her crew had gathered in the main cabin, Jass turned toAaron.

“Mr. Dewitt, please set the thrusters to fire to change our course for Cybele.”

“With pleasure, captain.” After he entered a series of commands into his console, he looked up and reported, “thrusters will be firing in ten seconds. Please prepare for momentary disorientation.”

The thrusters fired from several places on the ship's hull, turning it back towards the asteroid that had been her original destination. Jass felt a touch of nausea as the small amount of acceleration played with her sense of gravity, but it was short-lived. In a few minutes the ship was pointing out into what seemed to be empty space.

Jass checked her screen: everything was ready to go.

“Attention on board: we are ready to burn the main engines to blast us back into a route that will take us to the mining colony on Cybele. We will be performing a five minute burn, followed by twenty minutes of ion drive power, and another four minutes of rocket burn. Please stay in your harness until I give the order to release.”

Again the ship seemed to rise up as the acceleration built until it seemed that they were lying on their backs in their seats. The engines felt silent after five minutes, and the sense of gravity disappeared. Jass made a mental note to take something to settle her stomach before she slept: the rapid accelerations over the past few hours had thrown off her sense of balance and she felt queasy.

No-one spoke while they waited for the main engines to start again. Jass found herself thinking about her conversation with Captain Morris a few hours before. Had he really thrown the saboteur out of the Pequod's airlock? It was an undeniable fact that they were missing a crew member. She wondered if she should inform someone, but there were no real authorities outside of Earth and Mars: each colony had a peace-keeping force, but they only had power in their respective colonies. Besides, she had direct proof that Captain Morris had actually done what he implied. Even if she had had video of the incident, Jass thought, she probably wouldn't have done anything. Anyone who endangered their own crewmates deserved whatever he got.

Just as she wondered what she would do if she caught the saboteur aboard her ship, Aaron called out a warning for the next engine firing. She lay back in her seat, closed her eyes, and concentrate on not getting sick.