13 Erbe 1117: Jumpspace
I woke up with my chest on fire.
Breathing hurt, and my head felt as if it was stuffed with packing foam. I tried to sit up, and my muscles protested. After struggling for a moment, I fell back into the bunk and tilted my head to look around.
I was in a passenger cabin; I could tell from the overhead panels. There were three bunks, which meant that someone had reconfigured the passenger deck while I was out. The bunk to my right was empty, but an unmoving Shelly was lying on the one to my left. Seeing her triggered my memory, and I abruptly sat up, ignoring the pain in my chest as I did.
Percy floated over. “Please, Captain Kodai,” it said in its soothing voice. “You need to rest.”
“Rut that!” I said, followed by a spasm of coughing. Speaking had felt as if someone was jabbing needles into my throat. But I needed to know what was going on. “Where… what is going on?”
“You have been severely injured, Captain. You need to rest.” Anything more it might have said was interrupted by Doctor Korvusar entering the cabin.
“I’ll take this Percy, thank you.” It floated away as she came over. “How do you feel.”
“Like unrecycled biowaste,” I said, groaning. “What happened? Are we OK?”
“No. You and Steward Tharis are quite sick, and Ms. Dradon has some injuries as well. You really shouldn’t be awake. Here, let me help you.” She produced an injector from somewhere and reached for me.
I pushed her arm away. “No! I need to know what is happening first!” I looked upward. “Gray, call Saahna.”
Doctor Korvusar frowned but backed away, returning the injector to her bag. Saahna’s voice came from the overheads. “Derek! You’re awake!”
“Yeah,” I said, followed by another fit of coughing. “What’s our status?”
“On my way!” she said. She clicked off.
I turned to Doctor Korvusar. “What happened?”
“You were poisoned,” she said in the same tone that she might have used to describe the weather. “There was a neurotoxin in the crate that the Dradon’s brought on board. You, Ms. Tharis, and Ms. Dradon succumbed to it, but fortunately, Ms. Dradon resisted it better than you did. Ms. Tharis, unfortunately, had a serious reaction. I have placed her under Medical Slow until we reach proper facilities. There is nothing I can do for her here.”
“Neurotoxin?” I doubled over in another coughing fit. Doctor Korvusar was watching me with concern when the door slid open, and Saahna came in.
“Derek!” she shouted, rushing over and giving me a painful hug. “I… I was… I was worried about you. I…”
I pulled her arms away from me. She was hurt for a moment, then she saw my expression and took a step away. “Oh! Sorry! I…
“It’s OK!” I said, fighting another round of coughing. “What’s our status?”
She took a deep breath. “We’re fine. We’ve confined the Steton’s to their cabin. Jami found the altered circuits in the cargo bay and the airlocks, and we’ve jettisoned the air-raft.” She winced as she said that. “Sorry, but it was the only solution I could think of.”
I gritted my teeth against the pain and to the effort of blocking another coughing spasm. “Back up a bit. What happened?”
The door had slid open again as we were speaking, and Do’rex, Jami, and Varan had rushed into the room, filling it to capacity. Varan tried to move towards me, but Saahna blocked him.
“OK,” she said, taking a deep breath. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“Shelly opened the iris to the air-raft bay. There was an awful smell. And…” I grimaced as I tried to remember. “That’s… it?” I finally succumbed to the coughing fit and doubled over, feeling as if I would lose a lung.
Saahna waited, looking at the others in the cabin with concern. “OK. It seems as if that crate the Steton’s brought with them had something in it. Something corrosive and poisonous. We got lucky in that we had it in the air-raft, which is in an airlock. Otherwise, we might all be dead.”
“What?” I was still trying to get my brain working. How long had I been out?
She sighed. “Someone tried to poison us. It didn’t quite work.”
“Who?”
“It was in the Steton’s cargo, but… they’ve probably been set up themselves.”
I took several deep breaths, trying to wake myself up. “How long was I out?”
“About… 36 hours.”
“Ugh!” I looked around. “Can… someone grab me a coffee? Or a stim-stick?”
Doctor Korvusar frowned. “Captain, in your state…”
“I’m still the Captain!” I snapped. The pain was putting me on edge. “I need to understand what is happening on my ship!”
She frowned but nodded. Varan had already left the cabin and returned a few seconds later with both a coffee bulb and a stim-stick.
“Chew the stick first,” he suggested. “Then, coffee. It will kick in faster.”
I gratefully took both of them then bit into the stick, which only reminded me as to how hungry I was. I took another bite, then washed it down with about half of the bulb.
“OK,” I said, feeling somewhat better. “Now… what happened?”
Saahna took a deep breath. “Here’s what we’ve been able to figure out. The crate that the Steton’s brought on board had something in it. Something corrosive, along with a chemical weapon of some kind. The corrosive ate through the crate and the air-raft, which then released a neurotoxin into the air-raft hanger. It was fine there–it’s an airlock after all–until Shelly opened the iris. Then it got loose into the passenger lounge. It really affected Shelly, knocked you out, and gave Passenger Dradon some issues that we are dealing with. We reconfigured everything so we could lock the Steton’s in a cabin, then set this cabin up as a medical center. Doctor Korvusar has done what she could, but you and Shelly both need medical treatment that we don’t have on-board.”
“What about the crate?”
“We jettisoned it into Jumpspace. And… the air-raft too. Sorry. We felt it wasn’t worth trying to go in there.”
“That’s… fine.” I coughed again. “How did we miss it?”
Jami spoke up. “Someone had tampered with the circuits in the cargo bay and both airlocks. They would continue to show normal reading no matter what was going on. I pulled the modules they had attached and jettisoned them as well.”
“We should have kept them. Evidence for when we hit Gaashmumi. They’re still Tlianke, remember?”
She winced at that. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK.” I coughed again. I paused, thinking.
“Wait… you jettisoned that much mass in Jumpspace? What does that do to our Jump?”
She winced. “We’ll still hit the system, but… we’ll probably overshoot the planet by some distance. It will take us some time to get in.”
“And we’re short of maneuvering fuel because of the other games they played.”
“Yeah.”
We looked at each other. This wasn’t good.
“Well, I’m glad you’re OK,” said Varan, breaking the silence. He stepped past Saahna and hugged me. “Glad you’re back with us!”
I uncomfortably hugged him back. “Thanks.”
He held the hug a bit longer, then stepped back. “Sorry, but… we were all worried.”
“Thanks.” I fought back my own emotions.
“So,” I asked. “What else?”
“That’s about all we know,” said Saahna.
Jami nodded. “Apparently they thought we would put that crate in the cargo bay. Then, when the corrosive ate through, the neurotoxin would be released into our life support system. Luckily for us, you put it in an airlock, so it was confined there. If it had been in the cargo bay when it went off…”
“What?”
“Well, we would have all succumbed to it before we could have done anything about it.”
I groaned, then coughed again. “Well… they really don’t like us. Gashuumi should be fun.”
“Can we just refuel at their gas giant and Jump out?” asked Saahna.
‘We’re carrying freight. If we don’t deliver it, we’ll get flagged as pirates.”
She groaned. Doctor Korvusar spoke up.
“Ms. Tharis cannot survive another Jump. I have stabilized her as best I can, but she needs full medical facilities. As do you. You really need to be resting right now.”
“I’ll survive,” I said, though the pain I felt all over my chest implied otherwise. “Wait… why didn’t that poison affect you?”
She paused, then shrugged. “I… was prepared to stay with the Navy for another term before I decided to join you. I… had already gotten my injections. One of them blocks the neurotoxin you were exposed to.”
I frowned. “I don’t suppose you could have given that to the rest of us?”
“Yes, I could have. But I had no idea that it would even be necessary. I have since injected the rest of your crew.”
“Is there anything else you can inoculate us against?”
“I’ve given your crew the entire broad-spectrum inoculation. I can’t give it to you or to Ms. Tharis until you are treated for your current condition.”
I groaned and tried to stand up. Saahna moved to help me, but I staggered helplessly before falling back into the bunk.
Doctor Korvusar came over again, injector already out. “All right, Captain. You have your report. Now, you need to rest.”
“I need…” I couldn’t finish before another spasm hit me.
“You need to rest!” she said, shoving the injector against my arm. I was too weak to protest.
“Your crew has things under control,” she said as I fell back again. “They will take care of things.”
“Saahna,” I said, turning to her. I was already fading, whatever the Doctor had given me was kicking in fast. “Check everything! Make sure…”
“We’re already on it, Derek. We’re…”
Whatever else she was saying was lost as I faded out again.