Conflation

Part 16 —Responsibility

Monday, 19 October 2009 23:12

Okay, Marianna thought to herself, this wasn't too bad. Well, it could be worse. Not much worse, but it could be. They were adrift, but that was better than crashing. Main power was out, but auxiliary systems seemed to be kicking in with no major difficulties. Some life support was better than no life support. Look on the bright side. Check for silver linings. Where there's a will there's a way. Insert clichéd aphorism here. Yes, that was the way to do things: spout tired and overused phrases until you believed them.

It had taken her almost fifteen minutes after the crash to free herself from the tangle of restraints and buckles that had pinned her to her seat, and which to give them their due had probably saved her life. It might have taken less time if she'd been less frantic and frustrated at being trapped to begin with, but she supposed that couldn't be helped now. She was stiff and sore from the impact, and she'd very likely have some impressive bruises in some very tender places the next day, but for now she was pretty certain there was no serious damage. Her head rang like a kettledrum, but that was to be expected.

Getting all auxiliary systems online had taken another twenty minutes, after which she'd been able to ascertain the status of her crew. Well, almost all of them. Jarod was still unaccounted for. Whether he was dead or unconscious or simply in a part of the ship where the com system was too badly damaged for use remained to be seen. She bit her lip hard and refused to think about it, trying to quell her mounting frustration at being completely helpless until the door mechanism was released: whatever had happened, she'd deal with it when she could.

Jaswan was already bitching about the artificial gravity being out of whack, which was a good sign. He'd never been particularly gifted at zero-g stuff anyway, and if he was complaining about that, it meant that he wasn't injured or incapacitated in any other way. Xiao Mei had checked in once, and she sounded fine as well. Three out of four crew members present, accounted for, and apparently uninjured, although she was planning to insist on a full medical check-up when things were back to normal. Or as close to normal as they could be with Vanya stranded out there somewhere and the Starburst in less than stellar condition.

She tried her com button again. "Jarod, do you copy? Jarod. This is Marianna. If you can, please give me a status report." There was no point in repeating her attempts at contacting him, and she knew it, but it made her feel better to be trying something, anything at all.

The com crackled. "Geez, Marianna. It's not like Jarod's sitting somewhere with his arms crossed, wilfully ignoring you. If he was able to, he would already have contacted you. Just give me a minute to work on the door releases and keep your damned pants on! You're driving me batshit!"

Jaswan, of course. Not that Xiao Mei wasn't as sarcastic or unpleasant when she wanted to be, but she usually reserved that particular pleasure for when she was face-to-face with you. Jaswan was more the type to snipe over the airwaves: safer, and also more passive-aggressive. With a superhuman effort she managed to hold onto what was left of her temper, and hit her com panel again.

"What's our ETA on the doors, then?" she asked.

"Like I said: a few minutes. I'm working as fast as I can! It's bad enough that the artificial gravity isn't functioning properly, but everything else on this stupid tin can is all warped thanks to whatever you crashed us into."

"It was an asteroid, and it crashed into us, thank you very much. I don't want excuses, Jaswan. Just get the doors open."

"Whatever. You're the pilot, therefore it's your job to avoid having things crash into us. Hey, are you sure that that ship isn't still lurking out there somewhere?"

"As sure as I'm going to get with half our systems offline."

Impulsively Marianna hit the unresponsive door with her fist. She bruised her hand, but she did feel better after that, and at least none of the crew were there to witness her lose her temper with an inanimate object that certainly wasn't responsible for being broken. Whatever had happened when they'd bounced off that asteroid, it had jammed all the release mechanisms for the automatic doors in the ship, both standard and emergency. It was as though all the metallic surfaces in the ship had warped just enough to make it impossible to get anything opened again. Certain she wouldn't be overheard, Marianna allowed herself a shout of frustration.

A few moments later, Jaswan's triumphant tones came over com again. "Got it. Try it now."

The door slid open, revealing the narrow access tube that lead to the ship's much larger loading bay. She waited until her eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness: only a few of the emergency lights were on out here. Marianna grinned to herself, her earlier outburst immediately forgotten: they might not be presentable in polite society, but damn her crew was good.

Now she could get down to work: she had a crew member to find, external communication  to restore, and her captain to rescue. There was no doubt in Marianna's mind that Vanya was in need of rescuing by now: before the Starburst had been shot at and then sent into a tailspin by an asteroid, she had seen the large spot on her screen that indicated a large explosion right at the coordinates where Vanya had planned to land his shuttle. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the shuttle must have been destroyed early on.

"Marianna, I think I've found him. I'm on the second level, and it looks like the gun turret has collapsed partially. I can't get in there, but I'm pretty sure Jarod's trapped behind there. I'm going to need tools, and a lot of help."

"Copy that, Mei. Jaswan, did you get that?"

"Yeah, I'm on my way. I'll see what I can get my hands on in terms of tools. Uh... Xiao Mei, give me an idea of what we need? Are we cutting through to him, or pushing stuff out of the way?"

"Cutting, I think. It's a real mess in here. I think some of this actually melted," Xiao Mei sounded impressed.

"Did you bring any medical supplies with you?" Marianna opened a hatch and began climbing the ladder as fast as she could, skipping every second rung.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response. I'm not hearing anything from the other side. He must be unconscious or dead."

"Don't try to sugar-coat it for us, or anything like that," Jaswan's voice came over the com system again.

"Why bother mincing words? If he's dead, then my not saying it won't make him any more alive. Anyway, the sooner you get up here with those tools, the sooner we'll be able to help him, if we still can."

"I'm working on it! It's not my fault I have to do everything around here! I vote we hire an engineer if we get out of this alive. I'm sick to death of having to deal with every single mechanical failure that takes place on this damned boat."

Marianna rolled her eyes and kept climbing. Sweat poured down her back and made her grey tank-top cling like a second skin. She had discarded her blue cardigan before leaving the bridge, knowing it would only slow her down. The gun slung across her back jabbed painfully into her ribs, but she ignored it and kept climbing until she reached the hatch leading to the second level of the ship, just below the gun turret.

Xaio Mei was waiting for her, looking impatient. Then again, Xiao Mei always looked impatient. True to form, the medic had set up a small tray of medical supplies, ready to spring into action the minute they freed Jarod from his unlikely prison. Xiao Mei arched an eyebrow wordlessly at her, then extended a hand in her direction. It took Marianna a minute to figure out that Jaswan had just come through the door behind her, and was already pulling tools from the large bag slung across his shoulder. For once he hadn't announced his presence by bitching loudly about how mistreated he was. Instead he simply handed each of them a blowtorch and protective goggles, and with a grim look on his face turned his attention to the mass of twisted metal before them.

Without a word Marianna pulled on her own goggles and joined him. It looked as though this section of the ship had suffered the worst, though she was uncertain whether it was the result of the Gato Nero's weapons fire or the impact with the asteroid. She hoped it was the latter, because the blast from the Gato Nero had probably resulted in a hull breach, which all but guaranteed that Jarod would be dead, of suffocation if not his injuries.

The work was awkward but didn't take as long as she'd feared: the doorway had crumpled partially, but there was no debris behind the metal partition to block their path once they had cut through. Marianna kept expecting to feel a sudden movement of air that would inform her (perhaps too late) that the hull had been breached, but to her considerable relief, nothing happened. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Within less than twenty minutes they had cut a fairly even line about six feet in length through the three inches of metal that stood between them and their goal. With Jaswan's help Marianna pried apart the two large sections of metal with a crowbar until the doorway looked like nothing so much as a gigantic metallic flower that had begun to wilt in the sun. She clambered into the opening, holding her torch in front of her like a beacon. There was no illumination at all beyond, and the bright light of her torch cast deep shadows that flickered and danced in the corners of her vision. She stood very still for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness.

A moment later the beam from her torch illuminated a familiar-looking silhouette. "Xiao Mei, are you ready?" she asked over her shoulder.

"I've found him."