فصل 12

Chapter Twelve

Solar Array 22-X. Republic Longbeam Aurora IX. 35 minutes to impact.

“Now, Petty Officer,” ordered Captain Bright, and Innamin activated the fire suppressor systems. A line of green foam arced out from nozzles mounted below the Longbeam’s cockpit, impacting the flames rippling across the damaged sunfarm’s docking ring.

The moment the fire was out, Bright maneuvered the ship forward, trying to get a good seal with the docking mechanism. It wasn’t easy.

The array had been badly damaged when the hyperspace projectile smashed through its outer arms, and the whole station was in a loose, fast spin. The giant mess of solar panels, bracing struts, and the large central crew compartment were all equipped with external thrusters, which were trying to compensate for the spin. But whatever droid brain was in charge of the anti-spin system didn’t seem to understand that the mass of the array had changed drastically when it lost so many arms in the collision.

All the little attitude adjustments, vapor buzzing out into space from the maneuvering jets…they just made things worse. The central sphere, where the operations crew lived and worked, was vibrating, buzzing like a hive full of irritated insects. Connecting the Aurora IX to the station’s docking system without destroying ship, station, or both required the most skillful possible flying.

Fortunately, Captain Bright was a very skillful flier.

“Let’s get in there,” he said, watching his control panel light up green as the diagnostics told him the docking seal was good. He looked up and saw his team—Petty Officer Innamin and Ensign Peeples, both of whom had suited up in emergency rescue gear pulled from the Longbeam’s lockers.

“This station had a crew complement of seven,” Bright said. “It’s not that big, but there are still plenty of places to hide. They aren’t responding to our comms, which means either they’re injured or the array’s systems were damaged when the projectile hit. We’ll have to do a sweep. We’ll split up, each of us taking a third of the decks. If you find someone, bring them back to the air lock. If you need help, call for the droid.”

He nodded toward the floating silver cylinder hovering just outside the cockpit, vertically oriented and rounded on top and bottom. A pill droid. Very simple design, with one large, round crystal eye and a speaker grille below. It didn’t seem particularly functional, but that was deceptive. Bright had seen these things work. The droid had a variety of extender arms hidden behind sleek panels on its body, and could use them for everything from moving wreckage off trapped victims to performing basic on-site surgery. Handy machine to have around.

“Let’s go,” Bright said, and pressed the release that opened the Aurora IX’s air lock.

A wash of furnacelike air flooded out from the damaged station, bringing with it odors of chemically tinged smoke, melted plastoid, and overheated metal.

“It’s burning,” Ensign Peeples said, his proboscis vibrating almost as intensely as the station itself. “It stinks. Maybe the solar array had too much pharphar for lunch.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting it, too—my tentacles are almost as sensitive as your nose, Peeples. Just put on your mask and take shallow breaths.

We have a job to do.”

The three operatives spread out through the station. The smoke thickened, and despite the tech-enhanced goggles they all wore, it rapidly became obvious that a visual search would be ineffective. The searchers called out as they moved along the decks, paused to listen for responses, then kept going.

Bright was becoming increasingly sure that everyone on the station was dead when he heard a weak voice call out from behind a collapsed control console.

“Please, I’m here…please…”

He moved toward the sound and saw a dark-skinned human sitting with her back against a bulkhead. Blood ran down the side of her face from a wound on her scalp. Another crewmember lay beside her, unconscious. She had taken his head in her lap but didn’t seem to be able to offer anything else by way of assistance to the man.

“I’m from the Republic,” Bright said to the woman. “My name is Captain Bright. Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll get you both out of here.

What’s your name?”

“Sheree,” she said, her voice weak. “This is Venn. I’m…not sure if he’s…He might be dead. He hasn’t moved in a while.”

“Don’t worry about that now, Sheree. Are the other members of your crew still alive?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “We lost contact with one another when… everything caught fire. The station’s comms are down.”

As I expected, Bright thought.

He pulled a comlink from his belt and lifted it to his mouth.

“Innamin. Peeples. I have two survivors. One is too injured to move. I’m going to call the pill droid and get them back to the Longbeam. Have either of you had any luck?”

As he spoke, he tapped a remote clipped to his belt that would summon the rescue droid to his location. Hopefully the machine would be able to do something for the unconscious man—Venn. And if not, the medical bay on the Aurora IX was equipped to handle a number of different emergencies.

Bright’s comlink crackled to life.

“No other survivors yet, Captain,” Innamin said, his voice clouded by static—evidently the damage to the station was causing interference. “But we have another problem.”

“Talk to me,” Bright said, watching the rescue droid glide silently into the room.

He signaled to Sheree that he was going to keep moving, continue his search. She nodded, her expression pained but grateful.

“I started on the lowest level,” Innamin continued. “It’s where they stuck the operational stuff for the station—power, life support, all that.

I had a hunch and wanted to check the main reactor. I’m glad I did. It took some serious damage. It’s unstable. If it’s not repaired, it’ll blow for sure.”

Blast it, Bright thought. Not that he’d expected this to be easy, but this was an entirely different level of challenge.

“How long do we have?” he said.

“Honestly, sir, if it were up to me, I’d pull us out right now. It could go at any second.”

“Can you do anything? Stabilize it, even just long enough for us to continue our search? I found two survivors—there are bound to be more.”

Innamin was an engineer by training. Of the three crewmembers of the Aurora IX, he was the only one with the skill set to even consider fixing a damaged reactor. That also meant he was the only one who would be able to accurately assess whether he could do anything about it. Innamin could easily just say, Sorry, nope, can’t do anything, we need to leave now, we did our best, and who would know the difference? The kid was young, had a lot to live for. Bright almost wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d said it was time to go.

“I can try,” Innamin said. “Might be able to buy us a few minutes.” Bright felt a surge of pride wash over him.

“We’re all the Republic,” he said.

“We’re all the Republic,” Innamin replied.

“We’re all dead if we don’t finish searching the station,” Ensign Peeples chimed in from another deck. “I have another survivor. Badly injured. Send me the pill.”

A tremor struck the station at just that moment, a quick tight snap, as if someone outside had whacked it with a durasteel rod a hundred meters long. It knocked Bright off his feet, and he barely caught himself before what could have been a nasty fall. He was sure this was it. They would all be blasted to vapor, three would-be heroes gone in an instant along with the people they were trying to save. But the shaking eased, and he still had a deck beneath his feet and walls to either side. The station was still intact. Bright decided to consider the incident a valuable reminder that they had to get the hell out of there.

“Buy us time, Petty Officer,” he said, pulling himself to his feet.

“And Ensign Peeples, I’ll send the droid to you as soon as it’s done handling my two survivors. I’ll keep looking.”

Bright began to run, sweeping his eyes from side to side, scanning the haze for person-shaped outlines.

“But by the light…both of you…hurry.”