Rand got back to her with the information that the
passengers were ready to board before Madison's hour was
up. Larssen went down to the lock to see what they had,
and would have been dismayed at the sight of a horde of
scared civilians with nary a Starfleet uniform in sight
if she hadn't been too tired to feel anything. Her own
appearance, she guessed from the way they drew back
from her when she appeared at the lock, was hardly of the sort
to inspire confidence.
"Hello." she said, smiling warmly. "My name is Corrina
Larssen and I'm in command here. I'm afraid your
accommodations are less than luxurious, but they were
the best we can do at the moment. I'll show you where
they are. But first, can I ask anyone with technical
qualifications to come forward? Tech or mech certificates
of any level, or practical experience without formal
recognition, all those people please come forward."
Fifteen of them, of varying ages. Larssen gestured to
them to come up to the lock. "Please go into the first
room on your left through the lock and wait for me there.
I will be with you in just a moment."
"Do you - are you short handed?" one of them asked, a
woman about Larssen's age.
A true answer to that would send panic through the rest.
"The Lady Grace isn't designed to carry passengers."
Larssen said honestly. "In order to get you all moving
in best possible shape, we can use all the help we can
get." Not a lie. Not the truth.
The small group went inside, and Larssen turned back to
the crowd. "Now, anyone here who works in personnel,
administration, psyche services, that sort of thing?
Please, if you have experience with organization or
counselling, please step forward."
Quite a few more came out of the crowd in response to
that appeal. Larssen explained to them the basic nature
of the accommodations, the need for everyone to keep
calm. She divided the rest of the refugees into teams with
each of the twenty or so people before her as team leaders,
and led the way into the cargo bay.
Some of the refugees were complaining already when
Larssen's comm. went, but others were looking around
with the kind of rigid fearful posture that Larssen knew could
be more trouble than the whingers. The kind of frozen
terror that could turn into anything - tears, panic,
anger, stupidity.
With a few more words to the team leaders about the
importance of morale, the need for calm, she stepped out
into the corridor.
"Larssen here."
"Ma'am, it's minus nineteen hours and Madison isn't
answering his page."
"Thank you." Larssen said. She went back to main
engineering via the lock, collected the baker's dozen of
tech and mech qualified passengers and led the way to
main engineering.
"N'o." she said. The lieutenant detached himself from his
job and came across the room with the slow, straight-
legged gait of the very drunk or the impossibly exhausted. "Find
out what these people can do and set them to work."
"Affirmative, obedience, furry." he said, antennae lifting
a little. Any help was welcome.
Larssen left them to it. She guessed Madison would be in
his office, and when she got to the door she saw she was
right. He was in the desk chair, so deeply asleep even
the normal unconscious tension of his muscles had gone
slack. Almost all the lines of strain and anger were
erased from his face, and on the floor beneath his hand
was the little amulet she had torn from his neck.
"Madison." Larssen said, and he didn't stir. She crossed
the room and leaned against the desk, looking down at
him, and then bent and picked up the amulet. She put in his
open hand and closed the fingers around it. "Madison."
she said again, and then putting her hand on his shoulder
she shook him gently. "Madison, it's an hour. Wake up."
He slept on. Larssen found herself deeply reluctant to
bring him back to the nightmare he had so thoroughly fled.
Madison, wake up, she thought. Time to remember that
you have a full day of backbreaking work ahead, under the
orders of a woman you despise, helping people you hate
steal your ship from under you. Madison, wake up.
There wasn't time for such squeamishness. "Madison,"
she said again, "Madison, hull breach."
Two words that every spacer whether Starfleet or not had
engraved on the deepest recesses of their consciousness.
He came awake all at once, lunging to his feet so fast that
he nearly struck Larssen in the face and then wavered,
disoriented.
"It's an hour, Madison." she said. "We have our passengers
loaded. It's time to take her out of dry dock for the final
work."
He just blinked at her, slow coming back, slow to
recognise her. Lost and open, so that it was impossible for
Larssen to fear him. His gaze searched her face as if for
a clue to what was going on. Sudden pity for him swept
her, and then turned to fury. How dare he make her feel
sorry for him? How *dare* he change the rules that let her
force him to the work she needed?
"Get it together, Madison." she said mildly. "Clock's
ticking." Turning away from the pain that flashed
across his face, she led the way back to main engineering.
Now they needed more than Rand on the bridge. Larssen
sent N'o up there to handle the helm and Farley to handle
communications. With the tech qualified refugees
dispersed between engineering and life-support, there
were enough hands to handle the work that needed to be
finished before they could start the last stages of
repairs, the ones that needed null-G . Larssen trekked
up to cargo to tell her team leaders to prepare the
passengers for null-G conditions for at least five hours,
and make sure they had enough barf bags to go around.
Loose vomit in null-gravity would really and truly end
their chance to get life-support up to maximum. When she
was half-way back to main engineering she heard the
clang of the grapples loosing vibrate through the hull.
"Take hold." Rand said over allcall. "Take hold.
Manoeuvring in sixty seconds. Take hold. Take hold.
Manoeuvring in fifty seconds. Take hold."
A five minute burn took them into position to enter
space dock, and then several heart stopping minutes
while Larssen imagined N'o handling the helm and wished
she was up on The bridge to at least *see* any collision
coming at them. A mass proximity alarm, quickly
silenced, but bringing a wail from cargo bay audible all
the way down to where Larssen stood. The clanging of
space dock tethers settling in, not quite on target,
scraping across the hull to their settings. Then Rand's
voice again.
"Null-G in sixty seconds. Null-G in sixty seconds."
She had to go back to cargo and reassure them. When
gravity suddenly flickered and vanished her progress
got harder. The slow, floating strides that null-G
required were not second nature to her, and strained
both muscles and concentration.
It took her fifteen minutes in cargo, hanging on to the
doorframe and shouting herself hoarse, to persuade the
passengers that the ship was not about to hit anything.
Over-sensitive sensors, she explained the mass
proximity alarm. Everything was on course. Everything
was fine.
Somebody threw up and missed the bag. Larssen left
the team leaders to clean up and bounced back down the
corridors to main engineering.
The civilian techs were not doing well in the conditions.
Mercifully, by the time Larssen got there they had
already emptied their stomachs and were only looking
grey and occasionally dry-retching. Her crew were
alternately working and trying to chivvy the civilians
into action, and a few of them were looking pretty green
as well. Only Madison seemed at ease in the lack of
gravity, and as Larssen watched he pushed off from the
warp core housing neatly, used his momentum to rotate
in midair and fetched up lightly against the wall near
her.
"What can I do?" Larssen asked him.
He studied her impersonally. "Get some rest." he said.
"I'm fine."
"Lady, you might be in command on this ship but this is
my engine room. You're not touching a spanner in that
condition."
She had to admit he was right. It wasn't that her
hands were shaking, it was her whole body that
trembled. "Wake me in thirty minutes." she said, and
pushed off from the wall in the direction of the
engineering office.
The thing about null-G was that you didn't need chairs
or desks or beds, Larssen thought as she lay down in
midair in the little office. The hair that had escaped
her plait floated around her head, and she was in the
middle of wondering whether it was worth the effort to
tuck it back into place when she went out.
"Reports are that early ships are pulling out." Uhura
said. "Still eighteen hours to deadline, and eighty
percent of ships are still docked nose to ring."
"Any details on those early ships?"
"All civilians, sir. Names - the Dargonel, the Gay
Blade, the Lucrecia. None known to us, sir."
Not the Lady Grace, then - although, Kirk thought, it
wasn't any more likely that his crew would be on the
ship they'd taken in than on any other. It made sense,
too, that the first ships to pull out would be civilian
vessels. The Starfleet ships would remain as long as
possible, their crew needed in the evacuation.
~My crew too,~ he thought. ~God. They're so young.~ Janice
Rand's face flashed before him, then Brand with his
freckles and his disingenuous innocence.
"No crew manifests or passenger list available." Uhura
informed the bridge at large.
"No," Kirk said, "that's standard practice. Knowing who's
there and who's off would be a distraction to anyone with
family or friends on the station."
"Like us." Chekov muttered.
"Exactly like us." Kirk chose to hear it, although he
usually let his crew blow off steam. "Which is why we're
going by the book, Mr Chekov. Down to the last
footnote."
"Well," Sulu said cheerfully, his eyes on his board and his
fingers playing constantly over the controls to get the
maximum speed from the Enterprise, "that would certainly
be a novelty, sir. For the Enterprise." Lighten up, sir,
he meant, and Kirk took the hint.
"There's a first time for everything, Mr Sulu." he said.
"Except for leaving our crew behind."
"That's the exception that proves the rule." Uhura chimed
in, with a smile. Damp patches of sweat spread across
her uniform tunic, and one finger tapped incessantly
against the console, but she maintained an unruffled
expression. They were all walking a tightrope between
urgency and panic, made more precarious by the lack of
opportunity for action. ~All of us,~ Kirk thought, ~doing
the high wire act in a stiff breeze.~
Except he had somehow to hold the wire steady for the
rest of them, as well.
Deliberately, he leaned back in his seat. "Ms Uhura,"
he said, "have I ever told you the story of the exception
that didn't prove the rule?"
"No, sir."
"It started," Kirk said, "in a little bar on Varillious
Nine..."