14 Erbe 1117: Jumpspace
I didn’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up again, nothing seemed to have changed. Shelly was still lying in the other bunk, and Percy was drifting around the room on the air currents. I sat up and swung my legs off the bunk, then groaned.
Percy reacted to that. “Captain Kodai!” It said as it floated over. “It is imperative that you rest.”
“Rut that!” I said, then coughed. “Captain’s override. Hells, Owner’s override. Take care of Shelly. I’m ok.”
“Confirm.” It said flatly. It drifted over to Shelly’s bunk.
I stood up, staggered, then pulled myself upright. I looked at myself. I was in my underwear. I sighed, staggered over to the cabin dispenser, and punched in for a robe. I’d probably fall over if I tried to pull a ship’s jumpsuit on. I could tell that I was in bad shape, but I had to know what was happening.
When I entered the passenger lounge, Doctor Korvusar jumped up from the couch and ran towards me.
“Captain Kodai. Derek. You really need to be resting. Please, go back to your cabin.”
I shook my head and shoved the injector she was holding away. “No. Let me get an update, and I’ll go back. But, our exit tumble is scheduled for tomorrow, and I need to make sure that we’ve got everything under control.”
I coughed and staggered, and she led me to the couch. When I could speak again, I looked up at the ceiling. “Gray? Open shipwide comms.”
“Confirm.”
Doctor Korvusar gave me a disapproving frown, but she went to the other couch and sat down.
“Everyone, this is the Captain. Me. Derek. Let’s… have the pre-landing meeting. Now. I’m… upstairs. And everyone is invited. Passengers are free to join if they want. I’m sure all of you have questions.”
The door to cabin 2 opened almost immediately, and Reina rushed out. “Derek! You’re… ok?”
“I’ll live.” I coughed again. “I think.”
“Gods. I was worried.”
“Thanks.” I paused as I remembered that she had been in the lounge with me. “Are you ok? You were closer to the airlock than I was.”
She shook her head and went to a chair. “Not totally, no,” she said as she sat down. “I’m… tired. All the time. Your doctor tells me that it is a result of the neurotoxin that got released. I’m glad you weren’t hurt more than you were.”
“I’m… not good,” I admitted as the iris to the crew lounge cycled. Saahna was the first one up, followed by the rest of the crew and Karran.
“Are you ok?” asked Saahna, more worried than I had ever seen her.
“Yeah, I’ll live. It hurts, but I’ll live.” I looked around. “I just… I need to make sure we’re ok before we tumble into Gashiuumi.”
Do’rex clicked. “The best estimate I have is that we’ll be about 18k diameters out when we arrive. We can maneuver in, of course, but it will likely be a day or two before we can land because of our reduced fuel capability.”
“Feel free to yell for a Fuel Rat,” I said, fighting down a cough. “Are we clear otherwise?”
Jami spoke up. “They screwed us up back at Girar. We had all kinds of overrides on our internal sensors. They knew what they were doing.”
I nodded and let out the cough. “Obviously. Are we good now?”
“Yeah. And I’ll be sure to do a complete scan of everything next time.” She glanced away. “I was so concerned with the bad fuel load that I didn’t pay enough attention to everything else. I’m… sorry.”
I shook my head. “No, you fell into the same trap the rest of us did. Fixate on the obvious problems and miss the non-obvious ones. The sophonts on Girar deserve more credit than I gave them.” I paused as I succumbed to another fit. “Our bad. All of us. Including me. So… are we ok now?”
She nodded. “I’ve given the ship the best sweep I can. If we’ve got something else on board, then they’ve hidden it really well.”
“Anything hidden in the rest of our cargo?”
“I’ve run a full scan on everything. We’re clear,” said Varan.
“Good.” I paused as I suppressed another cough. Plus, I needed time to think.
“This is going to be a bad stop,” I said finally. “We’re going to be down longer than normal. We’ve got to get Shelly to a treatment center. And you,” I added, looking at Reina.
She had been rubbing her chest, but stopped and waved her hand when I mentioned her. “What? No! I assure you, Derek, that I am fine.” She coughed, refuting her statement.
“No. You were injured on the Grayswandir, and I’m not going to let anyone say that we don’t take care of our passengers.”
“Captain, I assure you…”
I shook my head and coughed myself. “No. We’ll take care of everything.”
She smiled, suppressing a cough of her own. “Well… thank you.”
“Of course.”
“And you too!” spoke up Doctor Korvusar. “You’re even more severely injured than her. You need treatment as well.”
“Yes,” I turned to her. “I know. That’s the other thing. I can’t manage our trades when I can barely get out a complete sentence.” I coughed again. “So… we’ll be on Gashuumi for a while.”
Saahna shook her head. “Don’t worry, we’re fine.” She laughed. “Hells, with the profits we’ve made over the last few months, we’ll be fine.”
“Good.” I looked around. “Anything else? Because I really need to collapse again.”
“What about the Stetons?” asked Doctor Korvusar. “You know they didn’t have anything to do with this.”
I let out a sigh that turned into a cough. “They admitted that Girar had asked them to set us up. They must have known they were carrying something in their ‘cargo’ and didn’t bother to mention it. They had enough.”
“And when Girar blames them?”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “When we land at Gashuumi, there will be questions. A lot of questions. Since Girar has planned all of this, they must have had a contingency plan in case we survived. That means they must have sent a message that will get there about the same time we do if they didn’t send it ahead of us while they were working this out. And they will blame it on the Stetons. Or the friends of Kol’toti and Kahma back on Tlianke that we were supposed to deliver that cargo to, but didn’t. What do you suppose will happen to them?”
I sighed and coughed, then looked up. “Gray? Tell the Steton’s we need to talk to them. Then unseal and open their cabin.”
There was a pause, then the door slid open. Damaris immediately rushed out.
“Captain! I must object to this treatment! We had…”
“Shut the rut up!” I said, grimacing in pain. “Maybe you didn’t know what it was, but you had to know that you had something in that crate.”
“No! We didn’t! The Relocation Ministry packed everything up! We were just…”
“Conveniently in your cabin when we opened that iris. Guess what; the only air-tight seals here are the irises to the airlock and the crew deck; you would have died as fast as the rest of us if we hadn’t managed to close the airlock. And, if whatever that corrosive was had eaten through the seals, it would have been the Final Jump for all of us!”
Kyris had exited the cabin behind him, obviously distraught. She had literally torn some of her hair out, and she looked as if she had been crying for days. “Please, Captain! Please! If they blame this on us, then… I’ll kill myself before I let them cut me apart to give my parts to someone else!”
I shook my head. “I know it wasn’t. But, we’re arriving at Gimisaapun tomorrow. And we have no choice but to land because I’ve got injured crew and a damaged ship. We can’t make another Jump.” I released the cough I had been holding. My throat was already raw, I wanted nothing more than to go lie down again, and I really didn’t want to have a long argument.
“So tell them that!” Damaris retorted.
“I will! But your overlords don’t particularly care for us right now. And given that you’re still recording all this, I don’t know what else you expect me to say.” I tapped my eye as I did, and he angrily snatched his monocular off.
“I’m not recording anything!”
“Doesn’t mean that they aren’t. Look, I’m one of the injured crew, so I’m not going to be able to last long here. I’ll tell the authorities that I think you were set up, assuming that I’m conscious at the time. But given that we’ve admitted to trying to smuggle something onto Girar, I don’t know how much they will listen to me. That’s all we can do.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Captain. Please!”
“I honestly don’t know what you think I can do.” I coughed, then turned to Do’rex. “When are we tumbling out tomorrow?”
He clicked uncomfortably. Around 0900, but given that we ejected a lot of mass in Jumpspace, it could vary by several hours.”
“Fine. Someone wake me up around 0700. I’ve got to go lie down before I go to sleep on the floor here.” I stood up and winced at the pain in my chest.
Doctor Korvusar stood up and stepped toward me. “Captain Kodai. You really need to rest. Your crew can handle the landing.”
Kyris stepped toward me as well. “That’s it! That’s all you can do?”
“If you can think of something else, please let someone know. I can’t stay here.” I doubled over in a massive coughing fit. I saw blood splatter on the carpet and tried not to think about what it meant.
I saw her glance at Damaris, who had a resigned look on his face. Doctor Korvusar came over and took my arm.
“Please, Captain. Derek. You need to rest.” She started guiding me toward the cabin.
I looked around. “Do’rex. Saahna. I want to be there when we exit.”
The crew had stood up as well, and I saw Saahna take a step toward me. “Yes. I will.”
“Good. Thanks. Um… meeting over.” I coughed again as Doctor Korvusar led me into the cabin and helped me lie down.
“You really need to rest,” she said, pulling out her injector.
I didn’t object as she pressed it against my arm. “This is my ship.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“I need to…” Whatever else I was planning to say was lost in blackness.