As much as I wanted to be part of the refurbishment of the Ancients' three colony ships, I couldn't be… at least not directly. I had a hospital to run, students to teach, and a hold to administer.
Thankfully, because of the assistance of Jaxom and Sharra, the personnel that had been selected for the day-to-day operation of Robinton Cove were pretty much autonomous, doing their jobs with very little input from me.
That didn't mean I wasn't keeping tabs on what was happening off-planet. Thanks to the scan pad I carried, I could monitor what was going on. And, thanks to Master Fandarel and his satphones, I could be reached on a moment's notice if there was any sort of question the refurb teams couldn't answer.
I had appointed Rill to supervise the restoration efforts aboard the Yokohama. I was counting on her desire to investigate Kenjo Fusaiyuki's mural, the asteroid it depicted, and the threat it potentially posed to Pern. She had already spent many sevendays going through the astronomy and astrophysics tutorials she found in AIVAS' tutorial files. Master Starsmith Wansor himself repeatedly commented on her dogged determination and dedication to the craft. I was certain she would not rest until she had the answer to the puzzle the mural presented.
On this particular day, the repair teams were running a somewhat routine diagnostic to determine how successful the hull repair they had just completed had been. It meant pressurizing each compartment on the exterior of the hull to twice its rated pressure ceiling, basically trying to deliberately get it to fail. If the compartment passed, they would move on to the next one until every exterior compartment had been thoroughly vetted.
I had insisted on two modifications to this testing. Those involved would be wearing spacesuits in case the hull breached during the pressure test, and I insisted that they wear safety harnesses and tethers to keep them from drifting away if a breach did indeed occur. Explosive decompression was fast, and for the unprepared, lethal.
As one bonehead rider was about to find out.
"R'das, you fool!" Rill called over her suit radio. "Put your damned helmet back on!"
"What's to worry about, Rill?" he chuckled, tucking his helmet under his arm. "Look!"
He reared back and kicked the repaired bulkhead with his foot, eliciting a satisfying thud.
"The test isn't over, you moron!" Rill yelled into the radio. "We're still overpressurized!"
Grinning wolfishly, the brazen healer-rider reared back and kicked the bulkhead a second time. He had also foolishly disconnected his safety tether to get a better swing with his suited foot.
Without warning, the repair patch gave way, the sudden rush of escaping air instantly sucking R'das out through the breach and into the vacuum of space!
The others, still tethered to the ship, whipped about like reeds in a tornado but otherwise were safe until the escaping air was completely vented overboard.
"R'das!" Rill exclaimed.
"Rill, this is F'lessan down in the docking bay," she heard over her suit radio. "Golanth has him. We're heading to the med bay now."
The loss of atmosphere was a setback but easily contained by the emergency airlocks and bulkheads that automatically slammed shut when the pressure loss was detected. Still, to Rill, it seemed to take a lifetime and more to cycle through the airlocks before she finally reached the med bay.
"How is he?" she wondered, checking in with one of the healer-riders assigned to the Yokohama.
"Dumb as a post," came the reply, "and lucky to be alive… thanks to Golanth's quick reflexes."
"Someone up there want to explain why the testing protocols were violated," I quietly spoke, my frowning countenance appearing in a small window on the med bay's scanner screen.
Rill had to swallow a lump in her throat before speaking. It was clear from my expression that I was anything but pleased by what had nearly happened.
"He was just being R'das," Rill muttered, shaking her head. "Stubborn, pig-headed, macho… but you get the picture."
I nodded. "I've half a mind to send you back to your former Weyr for pulling a stunt like that, R'das."
"It won't happen again, Masterhealer," he grunted, touching the bandages on the side of his face where the torn bulkhead had gouged out chunks of his flesh.
"You know how I feel about titles around here, R'das," I grunted, frowning down at him. "You got lucky. F'lessan was the one who insisted on having Golanth on safety duty in the docking bay… in case there was an accident. Be sure you thank them both before you get back to work. Robinton Cove out!"
It was several long minutes before anyone moved.
"Shards, but she's pissed!" Merla whispered, swiping her hand across her forehead in a gesture of relief.
"With good reason," Tai, F'lessan's weyrmate, responded as she came over. Fixing her stern gaze on the wounded R'das, she added, "You pull a stunt like that again and I'll skin you alive myself!"
It was no idle threat. Everyone knew how Tai had caught and skinned the felines that had attacked her, F'lessan, and their dragons. Gulping nervously, R'das nodded.
"Good," Rill sighed, feeling some of the worry lift. "Soon as you're able, you're to report to Master Fandarel for additional repair training before going back out."
Mutely, R'das nodded.
Thankfully, the breach hadn't affected the reason Rill was aboard. She had work to do in the vessel's observatory if we were to properly track Shi no hakobi-te, Kenjo-san's 'Bringer Of Death' and the meteor swarm preceding it if we had any hope of saving Pern from destruction.
Once she reached the Yoko's observation deck, she double-checked the stability of the atmosphere in the chamber and the strength of the arti-grav field before carefully shucking her spacesuit. She'd be more comfortable in the jumpsuit she was wearing underneath it.
"Bahrain observatory, this is Yoko base," she called on the ship-to-ship video link, pressing the transmit button on the comm panel, "do you read?"
"Loud and clear, Rill," Telsa radioed back, her image appearing on the screen.
She and Rill along with a third friend, Neela, had been arduously poring over the astronomy and astrophysics tutorials AIVAS was able to provide. They were as determined as everyone else to save Pern from destruction.
"Buenos dias from the Buenos Aires," Neela chimed in, her image popping up beside Telsa's on the screen. "We heard the radio chatter, Rill. How's he doing?"
"They had to clean the fecal matter out of his suit," Rill chuckled, shaking her head, "but he'll live."
"Baka," Telsa spat, her anger coming through. "His laissez-faire attitude is going to get him killed one day."
"If we don't succeed in tracking that asteroid and what it's bringing…" Rill muttered, shaking her head; leaving the rest unspoken.
The three got right to work.
About four hours into their effort, Telsa suddenly exclaimed, "I've got it!"
"Feed us the coordinates!" Rill ordered.
She and Neela programmed the data into their own telescope tracking controls. Rill gasped as the distant image of the asteroid filled the screen.
"Shards, it closer than we thought!" she hissed, feeling the color drain from her face.
"And look at all the rocks in front of it!" Telsa gasped.
"You girls know what to do," Rill responded as she began ticka-tacking on the tracking controls keyboard.
About an hour later, a sound no one at the hospital had ever heard before suddenly split the air. Having served in the Federation Star Service, I recognized it at once; something Aramina had thoughtfully included in the hospital's design… a red alert klaxon!
"Yoko, this is Robinton Cove," I signaled, using the ship-to-shore vid link in my office. "Report!"
"Dana!" Rill exclaimed, her expression frantic. "We have inbound… a large swarm of meteors heading your way!"
"Have you charted the impact zone yet?" I asked, my heart skipping several nervous beats.
A map of Pern popped up next to Rill's image, an oval marking the projected impact zone. Robinton Cove was dead center of it.
"Thanks for the warning, Rill," I responded, nodding to her. "We'll handle this. Focus on the asteroid now. Robinton Cove out!"
I broke the connection.
Robinton Cove healer-riders, I silently broadcast. We have inbound meteors heading our way. If you are nearby, return to the hospital. Otherwise, head to the Northern continent to get clear.
With that, I dashed out of my office, the red alert klaxon filling my ears as I raced up to the top floor of the hospital.
"Dana, Sylene passed the word to me," Ryeena spoke as she came up beside me, the two of us racing as if Thread itself was chasing us. "Shouldn't we evacuate the hospital?"
"We can't," I argued, yanking the door open at the top of the stairs. "Too many of the injured can't be moved!"
"What are we going to do?" she frantically asked, seizing my arm.
Lifemate, all the riders have returned! Tarnaa urgently reported from outside.
"What?!" I gasped, skidding to a stop.
"All of them?!" Ryeena spluttered, just as surprised. "You told them to go to the Northern continent!"
Seizing Ryeena's hand, the two of us vanished between, emerging seconds later outside on the grounds of the hospital in one of the few places that wasn't occupied by the Robinton Cove dragons or their riders.
"Why?" I demanded in a very loud voice. "I ordered you to the Northern continent!"
"This is our home," one rider spoke.
"We're here to defend it!" another chimed in.
"We can use our dragon's TK to deflect the meteors!" yet another declared as he boarded his dragon. "You'll see!"
"NO!" I argued, leaping in front of them to stop them from taking off. "Not from the air!"
"But why not?" yet another rider wondered. "The closer we get, the better our TK will be!"
"Physics," I replied, glancing about me.
"What do you mean?"
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction," I explained. "Come down a second."
The mounted rider slid down his dragon's side.
"You remember the zero-G practice you each had on board the Yoko," I asked, glancing about me, "and what happened when you pushed off of someone?"
"They went in one direction," Ryeena responded, "and I went in the other!"
"Equal and opposite!" someone exclaimed, the light coming on.
"And when you pushed off from your dragon," I went on, "what happened?"
"He hardly moved," yet another healer-rider responded, "and I went sailing!"
"Ah!" someone declared, realizing where this was going. "Up in the air, if we use our dragon's TK, it's like pushing off them in zero-G! We go sailing!"
"But if we stay on the ground," another realized, the growing murmuring in the gathered dragons and riders spreading outward, "because we're here on the surface and pushing from here…"
"We become the dragon flicking a flea away!"
"Dana, I…"
"I think you're all crazy for coming back," I chuckled, glancing around at the enormous crowd around me. "But… thank you!"
"Here they come!" someone shouted, pointing skyward.
Even in the brilliant tropical sunlight of the Southern Continent, there was no mistaking the fiery trails the meteors were making. As the first one got closer, it suddenly altered course, deflected out into the waters of the nearby cove. Cheers erupted throughout the crowd at this first success.
A smaller rock got through and was about to hit the crowd when, it, too, seemed to deflect off an unseen barrier, bouncing up and over the hospital, crashing to the ground out of harm's way. Tarnaa's bellow of triumph startled everyone, especially since she was looking straight at me.
You have the gift! she exclaimed, nuzzling me.
It was only then that I realized my hand was raised, my palm up as if fending off the space rock.
"Ancestors!" I whispered, staring in shock at my hand as I slowly lowered it.
"I wonder what else you inherited from Wirenth?" Ryeena laughed, giving me a fierce hug.
"Incoming!" someone cried out.
More meteors fell; some small, some with considerable mass. Yet, with each falling rock, the dragons worked together, using their combined TK abilities to deflect the meteors safely away from the hospital to fall where they could do no harm. Until,…
"Oh, shards!" someone hissed.
Glancing skyward, we all spotted a ball of flame heading straight for us. And with each passing second, it filled more and more of the sky!
"The asteroid?!" someone gasped.
"Too early," I replied, checking my wrist computer.
"Death Bringer's cousin, then," Ryeena grimly responded.
Every single dragon focused their considerable TK ability on this new threat, even me, but the space rock continued its relentless approach.
"It's not stopping!" someone cried out.
A quick glance about me, and I called out, "Stay here and don't move!" before I vanished from sight.
A heartbeat later, I appeared in that top floor room of the hospital where I'd set up the deflector controls. With only seconds to spare, I pressed the activation button, bringing the entire system online and at full power!
Outside, the gathered dragons and riders gasped and whispered amongst themselves as an enormous shimmering dome appeared over them. Seconds later, the massive meteor slammed into the shield, the air reverberating like thunder, forcing everyone to cover their ears. The energy of the impact caused the colossal rock to incandesce; the resulting thermal stress fracturing the multi-ton behemoth into millions of tiny shards that slid harmlessly down the sides of the dome, piling up in heaps against it.
"What was that?" someone whispered, gawking in absolute amazement at what had just happened.
Seconds later, the dragons were all communing with their riders, inquiring if anyone had been injured. To a one, every soul reported all was well. A heartbeat later, I reappeared in their midst.
"This is what you brought down from the Yokohama?!" B'gon exclaimed, gesturing at the still-intact shimmering dome. "This is that deflector shield you were talking about?!"
Heaving an enormous sigh of relief, I smiled and nodded. "Just don't become complacent because this thing worked. That meteor,…"
"Death Bringer's cousin," Ryeena said, coming up beside me.
"That meteor is about the limit this shield can withstand," I was forced to admit. "It would never survive an impact from the likes of Kenjo-san's asteroid. Nor will the rest of the planet unless we come up with a way to deal with Shi no hakobi-te."
Just then, my satphone, still clipped to my waist, started beeping.
"Rill? What's your status?" I asked as I switched on the phone.
"We saw the impact," she whispered, clearly in shock. "Is everyone okay?"
"Thanks to you three and your timely warning," I congratulated her. "What about Shi no hakobi-te?"
"Data's still coming in," she informed me, the data terminal she was at beeping in the background. "Shards and shells, Dana!"
"How long do you estimate before the asteroid makes its approach?"
"Maybe a sevenday," she responded after first clearing her throat. "We'll have a tighter fix for you in a couple of days."
"Call if you need help up there," I said. "We'll talk to you soon."
As I turned back to those gathered around me, I found myself wondering if we could pull off this one final miracle.