Chapter Fourteen
Full Speed Ahead
Lieutenant George Saunders is somewhat surprised when the Captain and First Officer walk through the entrance to Engineering. If one had come, he would have called the moment expected, but both had been more than he would have anticipated. As the new man, he had not been surprised to be told, at the end of Alpha Shift, that he would assume command of Gamma. This is a clear test of so many things that he feels he could reasonably expect anything from a mechanical breakdown to a domestic squabble, but he has his self-image to consider so he won't blink when the ship's CO and XO walk in and Mercer comes directly to him and not to the other three Engineers.
"There's a crisis on Earth. We need to get there now."
Thus it begins. Well…. "Sir, the ship is already running at maximum velocity."
"We need to get there faster. Lives are at stake. Crank it up all the way."
"Sir, I'm too new at these systems to know if there are any non-standard improvements that would affect us, something I'm not – Sir, I should check with Chief Engineer LaMa –"
"I'm not talking to the Chief Engineer; I'm talking to you."
"Sir, the safeties –"
Mercer's face darkens. "Screw the safeties, Mister. I'm telling you we have to move faster."
"Sir, I believe I could push us up to the red line for an hour, no more. By then, I can have Lt. Cmdr. LaMarr here and I'm certain he can get you what you need."
x
Mercer grabs his arm hard and four inches separate their faces. "Screw safeties, screw red line and screw LaMarr. I don't care if we all suffer radiation poisoning or whatever, you get that system up and you get it up now."
Eyes locked to eyes; Saunders says what he's sure Mercer wants to hear. "No, sir."
"No?" The grip tightens and Saunders wonders if he guessed wrong.
"That much power risks the safety of the crew. You can Court Martial me for disobeying Orders but no, I won't do that."
The PM-44 he hadn't noticed is at his head.
x
"CAPTAIN!" is Grayson's shout and it mingles with four other cries of distress. George is too stunned and thus no one moves –
Until the First Officer comes up beside the pair. "Well done, Lieutenant." Mercer slowly withdraws but his expression, his red face, are not those of an actor coming off a scene, no matter how intense. "You made the right call; the safety of the crew is always paramount." She smiles. "And don't worry, the 44 is uncharged."
Mercer reholsters the weapon, takes and exhausts a deep breath. "Well done."
But then, without a word, he turns and stalks out and Grayson follows.
x
"Shuoi," Ensign Grevs breathes. "I only got a cascade failure of the life support."
Saunders is not sure what to say. He had seen the weapon as it was reholstered.
It was not unpowered.
xx
Ten steps away, Grayson whirls on Mercer. "What the Farginas was that?"
"We're taking too long," the Dastarn snaps.
"We have hours to go. We dare not blow our covers and you –" His fist crashes into her left cheek hard enough to stagger her. She catches herself against the bulkhead and pushes off. No one was there to see the strike, but if she hits back and someone comes around a corner...
She wipes blood from the edge of her lips and sees it smeared on the side of her index finger and hand and fixes her Dastarn with her hardest glare. "We'll settle this."
"If this mission fails, Vinclis," he grates, emphasizing her lower rank, "no matter how many Zarlani you've bedded, not one of them will raise a hand to save you."
"I won't need them. Failure starts at the top."
xxx
Crystal hadn't intended to silence the room, but such is the effect upon her new crew mates who sit or lie staring at her after she'd said 'and meantime I could get you two loose.'
"What?"
"I'm sorry I mean I didn't think I mean I forgot that is when I left she I mean my sister I forgot abou –."
"Reverend!" he barks, leaving her wide eyed and mute. "Back up, take a deep breath and tell us."
She manages to obey the explicit directions; they don't ease her shame or distress but she can talk through those. "When I left Earth, my family threw a 'going away party' and my sister gave me an engraved compact, not exactly a compact actually, more like a mini travel set; base, blush, rouge, masc–"
"Lieutenant!"
"It also contains mini-scissors, clippers, nail file –"
"And you have it on you."
"Yes, Captain, it's as much a keepsake as a … well, it's in my jacket pocket," she finishes with a glance down to her left.
She lays down upon the deck, works her way with shoulders and heels toward Kelly, who also lays back but rolls away so that she will be able to reach into the jacket pocket.
By judicious rolls and turns the two women, arms secured behind their backs with wrists bound to elbows, are able to remove from Crystal's pocket a five-inch golden metallic disk. Then, back to back, Kelly securing her grip on the disk while Crystal removes, one handed, a nail file and a tiny pair of scissors from the flat base, manages not to drop either small tool and passes the file to Kelly.
The instruments are small, the ropes thick and strong, but they do not count the time as they labor at each other's ties with much wincing, sharp intakes of breath and whispered apologies.
x
Kelly is ultimately freed and, disdaining freeing her feet, rolls over, takes the scissors and attacks with élan her rescuer's bonds.
In time both are free and when they stand the first thing Crystal does is to unzip and strip off her uniform jacket and hand it to her naked Commander.
"You look good in green," Mercer quips.
"Green top and blue skirt," she counters, "as soon as we get those off."
x
So saying, the women attack the man's restraints. In short order all three are free. Ed removes his blue jacket; Kelly wraps the sleeves about her hips and ties the ends at her right.
Crystal retrieves from the deck the tools from her round compact, slips the small scissors and file into slots in the base, then reaches out to Kelly to restore the device to the pocket of her jacket.
Kelly catches a glimpse at the engraved lid before the case is gone. 'Don't neglect the girly girl'. "Thank you."
"You okay?" Ed asks.
Kelly pats the bound sleeves at her otherwise bare hip. "You haven't held me here so snugly in years."
Crystal looks down and away and Kelly decides the priest doesn't need any blush from the device.
x
"I don't want to sound like a party pooper," Alara declares, flexing her muscles constrained by the thick steel links, "but those things are going to do absolutely nothing for these."
"No worries," Crystal says, riding a wave of optimism and trying to do anything she may to dispel the image the two senior officers had sparked. "We'll pick the locks."
"Do a lot of lock-picking, Reverend?" Ed inquires.
"Well, uh," she meets Kelly's eyes, anyplace but her Captain's and feels her hot face grow redder. "Actually… ah… no." She shrinks from the Executive Officer's 'then why bring it up?' look. "I was hoping you'd know."
x
"I have an idea." Ed Mercer says. He reaches for the left sleeve tied around Kelly's waist, then releases it with a sigh of disgust. The electronics embedded near the cuff have been torn apart, but he grasps the wrist of the green jacket she wears, then looks to its owner. "You lead a charmed life, Reverend."
"A blessed one, sir." She wishes, though, that like Paul and his fellow prisoners, her prayers would be answered in immediacy and an Angel would act to have the chains fall from Alara.
"Whatever. Listen, we can't risk calling John for fear the phony Mercer, Grayson or Kitan will hear, can't predict where they're going to be in Gamma but I'll take the chance that none of them are in Botany. I want you to call Lieutenant Schapp, have him go to Engineering. If none of them are there and John is, have him have John call you."
"Yes, sir."
xx
The Botany Department is closed during Gamma shift, not for the occasionally quipped reason that plants need light to grow but because the entire department consists of five people who are truly busy only when the ship makes planetfall.
Thus, Kevin Schaap is deep in sleep and though he's having dreams that involve plants it's of a lush field shared with an equally lush and perhaps suitably fertile young woman who calls his name in the throes of ecstatic consideration of planting and seeds. 'Kevin. Kevin. Kevviinnn.'
"Kevin?" doesn't sound like the same voice, isn't said in the same tones and definitely lacks the promises of
"Kevin? Kevin, can you hear me? Kevin, are you there? Kevin!"
"Wh-oo? Whaaa?"
"Kevin, it's Crystal! I need your help!"
Still an appeal, and from a beautiful woman, true, but nothing like – "Crystal?"
"Where are you?"
The urgency pulls him further out of his dream but still leaves him in a place no less surreal. "I'm in bed."
"Are you alone?" pushes it from surreal to the outrageous.
"Mother, I respect you and all but that's really none of your bus–"
"This is Captain Mercer," comes the last voice he could have expected. He doesn't want to think of the dream, a field of flowers or the ship's Chaplain and their CO. "I need you to find Lieutenant Commander LaMarr without using the intercom or communicators. Tell him I need him in Cargo Bay 2 immediately and he is to bring a Type NP Cutting Beam." Schaap repeats it for confirmation. "Be sure you tell him it is a Thirteen Button Salute."
"I have it, sir." He's not at all sure what he has, but he'll relay the cryptic message.
"Tell no one about this. Not Lieutenant Kitan, Commander Grayson and especially not me."
- - - "You, sir?"
"Thirteen Button Salute, Lieutenant. MOVE it!"
xx
"We have got to be more thorough in indoctrinations," Mercer says as Kelly turns off the communicator on the sleeve of her loaned green uniform jacket.
"With respect, Captain," Crystal says in defense of her traveling companion, "I don't know what a Thirteen Button Salute is either."
The look Mercer gives his XO means 'add it to the next general briefing'. "A 'Thirteen Button Salute', Reverend," and he decides he can hardly fault her for not knowing, as she is as far outside the Chain of Command as an Officer can possibly be, "is a code that signals that a ship has fallen to a hostile force and Union Central is to be notified immediately."
"So, what do we do now?"
Mercer takes in the resources of his team, particularly the chained woman on the deck before them. "We wait."
He can see how much this plan contents his Security Chief.
xx
By good fortune the wait is but fourteen minutes before Alara perks up her attention. "They're here."
More acute attention reveals the muffled sound of voices penetrating the door. The portal had been locked, which delays the Chief Engineer not at all, though it opens to two very surprised men.
"I knew there had to be some reason," LaMarr, clad in brown pants and casual blue jacket, probably the first things his hands had closed on, declares, "why you were all acting like jerks."
"I'll bear it in mind," Mercer says. "SitRep."
"We're headed for Earth like a Dumarian who just docked during the height of the mating season."
Mercer could do without that image but Kelly, glancing at Schaap, finds less humor in his staring at her, particularly with Ed's jacket wrapped about her hips, for despite the adequate cover it does leave the line of her right side bare and the entire garment reaches only to her knees. "Refocus your eyes, Lieutenant!"
He snaps to ramrod Attention, gaze locked on one of the crates. "SIR! I mean Ma'am!"
But she finds she can't keep too much aggravation. He was, after all, the key to their rescue, and as she might observe to Alara or Claire on any other occasion 'Damn, I've still got it.'
"Will somebody get me out of these?" snaps through the bay with even greater force.
x
The laser tool is a compact, hand-held model, but its beam is very powerful and consequently fantastically hot. An examination by LaMarr and Schaap reveals that only two lengths of chain were used, one for her arms and hands, the other shorter one for her ankles. The locks are considerably less dense and thus it is simply a matter of careful aim.
While they work Kelly, having had enough of the virtually bottomless image her borrowed clothes imply, steps to the large synthesizer at the far end of the short front wall. She activates the verbal interface.
"One Duty Uniform, Grayson, Kelly, with appropriate undergarments."
The materialization field rises and falls and the blue and black garments appear folded in a stack, the white garments atop.
The communicator, imbedded in the left sleeve, is already programmed for her. She has no need to test it, and no intention of risking a transmission to anywhere.
When she looks over the room it's with the distressing realization that in order to accommodate the vast number of seed crates destined for Catonis II, every bit of space beyond the first ten feet is piled high with plastic crates, creating a ten by twenty room without an inch of cover.
Across that space Alara is free and being helped to her feet, and from her grip on Schaap's arm she's probably lost much of the circulation in her feet.
Kelly can't go outside until they're ready for whatever plan they can devise so she has no choice but to change here. The two women she doesn't worry about, she and Alara have seen each other in the sauna and the priest, well… but the men.
x
"Gentlemen," she calls. The five are conversing in a diamond with the women on either side of Ed but LaMarr and Schaap are facing her.
Everyone had looked across at the sound of her 'Officer Voice'.
"Gentlemen, Aboouut – FACE!"
LaMarr and Schaap instantly turn to the far wall with whatever feelings of disappointment she doesn't want to know but Ed, who as Captain need not heed the order of a Commander, turns as well and his smile grows from 'got you' to anticipatory.
'Screw it,' she thinks. 'He knows me inside and out.'
x
But that thought dies under the abuse of what that other 'Ed' had done to her.
She could say out loud whatever it would take to make him behave but she drops her Commander mask and lets the pain, shame and misery shine on her bruised and bloodied countenance.
He turns around and no one will move for the time it takes, but in that final instant she saw his promise that when they retake the ship and all is over, they will resolve much.