The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


TWENTY-ONE





J

odenny was sitting at her desk after quarters, fighting fatigue for just a little while longer. On her deskgib was the sketch of the glyphs she and Myell had seen on Mary River. Wondjina runes, or so Ng believed. On her desk itself was Sergeant Rosegarten’s report on the missing DNGO. You can guess who did it, but they’ve always got alibis on the other side of the ship, Francesco had said.



“Holland, can you access the lifepod rosters during the last GQ? Tell me where Chief Chiba and RT Engel went.”



“Chief Chiba reported to lifepod H-23. RT Engel went to lifepod I-26.”



“Show me their response times,” Jodenny said.



There it was, on the screen. Chiba’s alibi. And the numbers didn’t work at all. He’d checked into H-23 ninety seconds after the first alarm, but he couldn’t have gotten there from the Repair Shop in that short amount of time. Not with the trams between Mainship and the Rocks locked down. Likewise Engel could have never made it to I-26. Jodenny called up the supervisors of both pods and wasn’t at all sur-prised to see Nitta’s and Quenger’s names.



“Holland, call Commander Picariello for me,” she said, just as the General Quarters alarm started to blare. For a moment Jodenny was perplexed—was she just imagining the alarm, based on her reading?—but the intensity of it jerked her to her feet and to the front office. Caldicot had a morning watch to stand and Mrs. Mullaly was all alone.



“Where do we go?” Mrs. Mullaly asked.



For a moment Jodenny couldn’t remember. You got through this be-fore, she told herself. You can do this again. Overhead the comm an-nounced, “This is a drill. This is only a drill. All crew and passengers to lifepods. Power Plants retain full power.”



A knot of tension eased in Jodenny’s chest. “Do you know where your lifepod is?”



Mrs. Mullaly’s voice shook. “Back in our tower, but I’ll never make it.”



“You go to C-Deck,” Jodenny said, because there was an auxiliary pod there for civilians with day jobs on Mainship. She’d learned that much from going over watch qualifications with the junior officers. “Do you know how to get there?”



Mrs. Mullaly wrapped her arms over her stomach. “I don’t want to climb any ladders. Can’t I just stay here?”



“No.” Jodenny tugged her out into the passage, which was busy with sailors dashing to their stations. She urged Mrs. Mullaly up the nearest ladder and tried to shelter her against jostling while staying focused on the present day. Aral Sea, not Yangtze. A drill, not a tragedy. She fought off memories of an AT sheared in two, of burning hair and melting plastasteel. On C-Deck, they moved aft toward the life-pods. Beneath the wail of the siren she heard a ping on her gib. Who the hell would call her during a GQ?



“In there,” Jodenny said, getting Mrs. Mullaly to her station. Chief Roush checked her in. Jodenny whirled to head off to her own life-pod, but her gib distracted her again. She accepted the call and glared at Ysten’s face.



“We’re in the middle of a drill, Ensign!”



“There’s been an accident. A dingo hit Myell—”



Jodenny ducked into an alcove. She didn’t think she had heard him correctly. “What? Where are you?”



“He was in the slots—”



“Patch me through your board.”



“I don’t know how—”



“Holland, patch me through,” Jodenny ordered. The audio chan-nel filled with an odd, strangled sound that she first supposed was a DNGO

malfunctioning. But no, it was someone choking. Myell, choking to death.



“Hosaka, report!” Jodenny ordered.



“He’s on level forty-eight, D-block, but I can’t get any of the din-goes to pull him out. Core won’t release them under a General Quar-ters lockdown.”



Ishikawa’s voice joined the line. “I can do it, Lieutenant. I can climb down and get him.”



Hosaka said, “There’s no time for you to get into an EV suit—”



“I don’t need one.” Ishikawa sounded afraid, but also confident. “All I need is oxygen—”



Jodenny lost the rest of Ishikawa’s words as she rushed down the nearest ladder. She landed with both feet on D-Deck and sprinted for the tram station. Myell’s choking grew worse, became strangled, fell silent. Shit, shit, shit, she thought as she reached the station. The plat-form was empty, with one car locked in place and powered down. Jo-denny peered down the tracks. She could run the distance, but it would still take too long to cover the kilometer that separated her from the Rocks.



“He’s not responding,” Hosaka said. “I can’t raise him!”



“Ensign Ysten, get into an EV suit and go get him,” Jodenny or-dered.



“Me?” Ysten squeaked out. “I haven’t been in a suit since the acad-emy.”



Hosaka cut in. “I’ve got Emergency Services on the line, Lieu-tenant. They’ll be here in three minutes.”



Emergency Services had their own tram system for getting around the ship, with private cars running on separate lines. The team re-sponding would most likely be coming from Mainship, but neither she nor Myell had time for her to flag them down to hitch a ride. Cursing, she jabbed her gib and said, “Captain Umbundo, this is Lieu-tenant Scott. This is an actual emergency, this is not a drill, please re-spond.”



A few seconds passed before she got a response. “Commander Larrean here. What’s your emergency, Lieutenant?”



“I have a critically injured crewman in T6,” she said. “I’m on D-Deck, platform two. Car 731’s right in front of me. Can you acti-vate it?”



“Standby,” Larrean said. Several more precious seconds passed. Jodenny spliced into the command module cameras and saw Ishikawa climbing down the railings of the shaft with only an oxygen mask strapped over her face.



Umbundo’s voice came over her channel. “This is the captain. You’re authorized for voice command on car 731.”



The tram doors slid open and Jodenny jumped onboard. “Full speed to T6,” she ordered, and nearly lost her balance as the car lurched forward and sped up to its top velocity. Jodenny hung tight to a pole and stared at her gib while Ishikawa disappeared into the slots on level forty-eight. She spliced into the stream from his EV suit and saw that he didn’t have a pulse.



Thirty seconds. One minute. Ishikawa didn’t have thrusters to move through the slots. Every meter had to be navigated using hand-holds. The General Quarters alarm abruptly silenced, leaving Jo-denny with a ache in her ears.



Hosaka said, “Lieutenant, Emergency Services is here.”



Ishikawa emerged from level forty-eight, towing Myell behind her. The inside of his helmet was bloody and his limbs were lax. The zero-gravity allowed Ishikawa to make quick progress, but even if Myell was still alive, brain-death might already be setting in. The man who woke up—if he woke up—might not be the man she knew at all.



Ishikawa reached the command module just as Jodenny’s tram slid into the first station. The Rocks were deserted, all the stores left open. Secbots patrolled overhead to prevent looting. Jodenny ran for the access ring, her right leg twinging in pain. Myell wasn’t brain-dead, damn it, not with that family who loved him so dearly back on Mary River, not at the age of twenty-eight, not while working in the stupid slots. When she reached the module he was flat on the deck, with two medics working on him and a medbot hovering overhead. The medics had inserted an airway and were pumping oxygen into him.



“Pulse is coming back,” one said.



“He’s got internal bleeding,” said the other.



Beneath the blood, Myell was shockingly pale. His fingers were curled up and his lips tinged blue. Ishikawa sat nearby, shivering vio-lently. Hosaka was on the comm with Mainship and Ysten was star-ing at everyone, utterly useless.



“Yes, Master Chief,” Hosaka said. “Lieutenant Scott’s here now.”



The medics quickly stabilized Myell, then loaded him onto a stretcher. Jodenny remembered him playing baseball on his brother’s farm, running the bases with his head down and fists loose. She hadn’t realized how grim he usually looked, how clenched and un-happy, until she’d seen him surrounded by people who loved him.



Hosaka said, “Lieutenant. The SUPPO wants to talk to you.”



“Get Ishikawa a blanket,” Jodenny said to Ysten. She forced herself to the comm. While she briefed Al-Banna on what little she knew, Hosaka showed Ysten where the thermal blankets were kept. They shook one out and wrapped it around Ishikawa. When the lift came back up it was full of representatives from Security and Safety.




Chief Bishop from Security said, “Who can tell me what hap-pened?”



“I can,” Hosaka said. “One of the dingoes stopped responding in the slots. Sergeant Myell went down to retrieve it. The GQ went off, and a minute later Circe smacked right into him. AT Ishikawa pulled him out.”



“Anyone would have done it,” Ishikawa said, rather shyly.



Ysten hadn’t done it. Jodenny said, “You saved his life. You were ex-tremely brave.”



Ishikawa’s cheeks turned pink. “Sergeant Myell’s a good guy.”



Was that a note of admiration she heard in the AT’s voice? A hint of infatuation? The idea almost made Jodenny smile, but the blood on the deck made her guts churn. She said, “I’m going to Sick Berth.”



She didn’t remember much of the trip over. Gallivan and Timrin were already in the waiting room when she arrived.



“He’s in surgery,” Gallivan said.



“How does a dingo run into someone?” Timrin demanded. “Wasn’t the tower locked down?”



“We don’t know exactly what happened.” No longer sure she could stand straight, Jodenny sank down in the nearest chair. Gallivan pressed his cup of coffee into her hands.



“You probably need this more than I do,” he said.



What she needed was some way to erase the image of Myell lying white-faced and bleeding on the deck. Timrin sat down across from her and bowed his head. Gallivan came and went, preferring to pace outside. The wallvids provided background noise with ship’s news and announcements. After several loops of the same information Timrin got up and shut it off. Master Chief DiSola came by to check, as did LCDR Zarkesh, Chief Roush, Ensign Hultz, and Sergeant VanAmsal. More representatives from Security and Safety showed up, all to take statements. Hosaka arrived, having changed out of her bloodstained jumpsuit.



“The level was locked, Lieutenant,” she said. “I swear it.”



Jodenny squeezed Hosaka’s arm. “It’s not your fault.”



Lunch had long come and gone before Wildstein arrived with Commander Picariello at her side. They took Jodenny into a small side lounge where no one else could overhear. “How did this hap-pen?”

Wildstein asked.



“He’s still in surgery,” Jodenny said, not caring how peevish she sounded. “Thank you for your concern, ma’am.”



Wildstein grimaced. “I know he’s still in surgery, Lieutenant. I’ve been listening to the reports. What happened?”



Jodenny went through the story again. She expected Wildstein to reprimand her for calling Larrean and circumventing the chain of command, but instead Wildstein turned to Picariello and asked, “Commander?”



“Lieutenant Scott, do you think this was an accident?” he asked.



She blinked in surprise. “Could it be anything else?”



“Sergeant Myell stood a security watch the night before last, and he and his partner broke up a fight between some sailors in the E-Deck gym. Sergeant Spallone, RT Engel, and AT Olsson were involved.”



Chiba’s men. Jodenny said, “Sergeant Myell didn’t mention a fight to me. But I don’t see how this kind of accident could have been en-gineered.”



“I understand there’s some long-standing animosity between Myell and Spallone,” Picariello said. “If Myell dies, if this wasn’t an accident—it could be murder.”



Wildstein and Picariello stayed for a short time, but departed when it became apparent Myell wasn’t coming out of surgery anytime soon. Jodenny blinked at the clock, her eyesight so bleary that she could barely make out the digits. She’d been awake well over twenty-four hours. Just as she was thinking of finding more coffee, Dr. Lee emerged in surgical scrubs.



Dr. Lee asked, “Are you Sergeant Myell’s division officer?”



“Yes.” Jodenny indicated Timrin. “This is his roommate. How is he?”



“He had a dislocated shoulder, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a sprained hip. I’ve already started healing the fractures and they’ll be fine. He was without oxygen for a period of time, but I don’t see any indication of severe brain damage.”



“Severe?” Timrin asked.



“He might evidence the usual symptoms of a concussion—

confusion, irritation, mood swings. He doesn’t remember anything since breakfast, so there’s retrograde amnesia as well.”



Jodenny knew too much about amnesia. Sometimes the disaster on the Yangtze seemed like it was just inches away, able to be grasped if she simply reached out. At others it was a blank white wall, fea-tureless and smooth. She asked, “What’s the good news?”



“That is the good news.” Lee rubbed the side of her head and sti-fled a yawn. “He’s alive and should be back to limited duty in a week or so. He can have visitors now. One at a time.”



Timrin went in to see Myell first. Jodenny went to the head and washed her face with cold water. She didn’t imagine the incident would fade away even though Myell was expected to recover. The safety investigation would take days if not weeks to complete. Some-one or something would need to be blamed. Ishikawa deserved an award. When Myell returned to duty he would need to do something a little less strenuous than being run over by DNGOs, and someone would have to take care of the jobs he’d been performing.



She had no intention of letting anyone in the slots until Circe’s er-ratic and potentially fatal behavior could be explained, accident or not.



Vu came looking for her. “I heard the good news. Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”



“It’s not dinnertime,” Jodenny said.



“It’s almost eighteen hundred hours.”



Anger made her fists clench. Most of Underway Stores had been off work for at least an hour. None of them felt any responsibility to at least drop by Sick Berth on their way to more important activities? Even Nitta hadn’t bothered to put in an appearance.



“I’m not hungry,” she said.



Vu wasn’t persuaded. “Sure you are. You just don’t know it.”



Timrin came out of the recovery room. “Terry would like to see you, ma’am.”



Jodenny went inside. Myell didn’t look half bad. Still pale and groggy, but not bleeding. His hair stuck up in all directions. A sheet demurely covered him to the neck, and she could see the outline of healing casts underneath it.



“Kay,” Myell murmured.



No use correcting him when he was obviously under the influence of drugs. “Sergeant. You gave us a scare.”



The fingers of his right hand twitched. She hesitated, then slid her hand into his grasp. His skin was cool and dry. She told herself she would have held Ishikawa’s hand if it had been the young AT on the bed. Strayborn, too. Even Nitta.



“Sorry,” he said.



“Everything’s fine,” she assured him. “Rest up. You’ve earned it.”



Myell murmured something she didn’t quite catch. His eyes slid closed. For a moment she thought he’d up and died on her, but a quick look at the monitors dissipated that particular fear. Jodenny studied his face, watching tension ease away into drugged sleep. She bent and kissed his cool lips and yes, there it was, she was doomed for her feelings. She pulled her hand from his lax grip and backed away to the waiting room.




“Let’s go get dinner,” she said to Vu, but the food was tasteless and all she could think about was Terry.



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