First Journeys Chapter 09

Chapter 9: Aftermath

After the Enroe ships and a Union ship had arrived, everything happened fast. The wounded were evacuated. I had stepped down from the Command chair and felt myself ignored as robots and help crews rushed back and forth. I simply sat back down and waited for whatever would happen next. The heat of the battle was over. While it was happening I was neither afraid nor did I have any doubts, but now I wasn’t so sure anymore. Should I have tried to escape and not stay and fight? Was I responsible for the whole mess in the first time for sitting in the Togar woman’s chair?

Then a tall man in Enroe uniform looked around the now empty bridge and snarled.” Who are you? I don’t see you on the manifest.”

“I am Eric Olafson .”

“What are you doing up here? passengers are not allowed on the bridge. Are you hurt?”

“No I am not hurt.”

“Then get your ass of the bridge. I still like to know who you are. You are not mentioned in the manifest. Are you a stowaway?”

“No he is my personal guest and he saved our lives.” Alex Enroe stood in the door. “I was looking for you, Eric. The Union captain and I just watched the bridge recordings and we must talk.”

I saw he had tears in his eyes. I learned that all of the bridge crew, except the tactical specialist who had been sucked out, had survived.

In an empty cargo bay the crew and a delegation of the Union ship had assembled. The American Dream crew had twenty two fatalities among them the chief engineer and the man servant butler. Alex had cried open tears and he didn’t seem to be ashamed of them and addressed us standing behind the row of elongated cargo boxes, now used as coffins. “I am deeply sorrowed about the losses in my crew. One of them was Finlay Pearson, much more than a butler and employee. He was a dear old friend.

War has been avoided and while tensions are high, peace has been restored; yet this brief period of violence was not without suffering, injury and death. We stand before the remains of twenty two of our co-workers, employees, crew members and friends. The reason we stand here and do not share the same fate as them is thanks to a young and new friend of mine, Eric Olafson. Let us pledge in the memory of our friends to be more vigilant at all times and do our utmost to prevent such tragedies in the future.”

Three of the coffins were released into space; the rest so I learned would be delivered to their families.

In a debriefing before the Union officers, the Togar captain and Alex I was shown the bridge recording and every word I had spoken. After the recording had ended one of the Union officers asked. “How did you come to the decision to reverse thrust?”

“The Dai threatened to release Fighters, he had to open bay doors for that and lower shields to launch fighters. I could not let that happen. Fighters would have meant our certain doom”

“It was a brilliant tactical decision.”

The other officer looked onto his PDD.” If you want we can take you to Corri-Door system. Space bus service to Arsenal Gate should resume shortly.”

I wanted to say yes, but Alex stood. “I make sure he will be there on time, but I think I owe the man for saving my life.”

“You owe me nothing sir.”

“Please give me a chance to at least finish that coffee we had started earlier today.”

Interlude 10: Cirruit

There was panic, people screaming and yelling. Something had hit the space bus and damaged it. Against the instructions, Cirruit left his seat and went towards the rear. His eyes capable of seeing across the entire electromagnetic spectrum had no problem using infrared emissions. He avoided colliding with a human crew man in a space suit.”What is going on?”

“A Nogoll ship has fired upon us, we have a hull breach in the middle deck and we lost life support. The Main Life boat release is fused and we can’t activate the seat safety capsules. Our engineer who could fix it is dead.”

Cirruit said.” Go help the passengers put on space suits. I am a decent engineer I see what I can do.”

He went past the man cycled through the air lock. His sensors noticed the coldness but it did not hinder him, neither did the lack of air. He saw two dead men and a freshly sealed rupture in the main hull. He saw the partially melted data and system command trunks, got hold of a floating tool box and began to reconnect the command and data lines. The ship was hit again, but he ignored it and kept on working. Then he reactivated the life support emergency by pass, extinguished a plasma fire and patched a Nuc gas fuel leak to the main drive. In all this he realized how much fun he had. The situation was serious, deadly serious and the lives of a thousand passengers depended on his work, but he was confident. He knew what to do and those were humans. Some of them may even be related to those marines ignoring their own safety to free Mothermachine. He established Inter ship comm. and called the bridge.” Can someone on the Bridge hear me? I am an engineer. I have just re established life support and the Data trunks to release the Life boats. You also should have the main drive back in three minutes.”

“Whoever you are, Mister, you earned a medal and all our gratitude. Can you get me helm control back?”

“I don’t have the parts, but I bypass the broken lines and you should have helm back for about twenty minutes, these bypass lines are not meant to handle that kind of streams for long.”

“It’s all we need. We are only twelve minutes from Corri-Door. Wolf Crafts have just arrived and take care of the Nogoll.”

“Good news. Let them blow those cursed Kermac lackeys to space dust. Give me a little more time...”

Then he smiled, only on the inside of course, as his face was unable to translate even the most rudimentary emotions.”You got helm control, guys.”

The door cycled and two Space bus crew members came in, they started hugging him and shaking his hand.” We made it thanks to you.”

One of them said with a sad face.”We did loose eight passengers and three crew men, but it would have been 1015 dead, without you.”

Cirruit learned that the nice girl that had sat next to him was one of the victims. The second hit had ruptured the hull right next to her seat. Sadness and anger that he didn’t react faster, mixed inside him to a cold rage against the Nogoll.

He was celebrated like a hero on Corri-Door but he didn’t feel like it at all. He had heard the news and knew about the details and why the Nogoll had attacked the space bus and how close the Galaxy came to war.

A man approached him.”Are you Cirruit Sevenninefour?”

“Yes that is me.”

“I am from Schwartz industries and am instructed to take you to Omni.”

Cirruit handed him the contract. “I am not going to Omni. I am flying to Arsenal. I am going to become a Union engineer and the next time there is war I am doing my part to protect the Seilaghs and all the other beings of the Union.”