Episode 605: Devil's Compromise, Part Three
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Of course, this means Joshua’s awake to experience the one thing that spacers pray they never have to face: explosive decompression. And despite the fact that he’s on land and in atmo, that’s pretty much what he’s enduring. The pulse from Equinox’s engines has done what we want it to do. Just like a carpet bomb, the explosion has forced all the atmo from the area clean away, leaving vacuum—however briefly—in its place. Since nature abhors a vacuum, the atmo immediately falls back into the hole its absence has made and it does so with a sonic boom. It’s the sound of Heaven breaking in two and it is no picnic to be in the midst of. And yet, Joshua is taking it all in with absolute wonder.
He can see the dirt move to the ripples the sound makes. He can hear individual molecules of air jump to the thunderclap. He can feel the breath of God go right through him and for one infinite second, the Universe stops spinning. A heartbeat, a breath, a blink … and the Universe spins again and Joshua is alive, his lungs pumping and his heart racing.
Dear God of Faria’s Ancestors, what a rush!
The adrenaline has Joshua energized, ecstatic to be alive, to move, to shout, to sing. He whoops at the top of his lungs and hears it only faintly, and realizes he’s gone partially deaf. It barely makes a dent in his joy. Joshua hugs the unconscious Rina tight and holding her securely, starts crawling back the way they came.
He finds the gangway of the airlock crane has been completely blown away, leaving the compartment wide to the outside and freedom. There’s smoke everywhere but no fire. Easing through the hole and pulling Rina carefully out, Joshua looks for Equinox. He finds her moved a bit from where he last left her and there’s crap still hanging off her, but our ship is still in one piece with steam rising delicately off her hull. Joshua shifts Rina into his arms and crossing the ground of Puck, he carries her home.
The manual override on cargo ramp controls still work and Joshua steps aboard. Inside, there is only the ruddy glow of emergency lighting. He carries Rina up the stairs to the crew deck and starts looking for the crew.
Nika comes to on the bridge and peels herself off her console. She hears someone calling somewhere on the ship.
Joshua: Hello-oooo.
Nika: (yelling) Joshua? Are you guys okay? We’ve no comms. (flipping switches) No power.
Joshua cannot hear her, his ears are still affected by the blast. Even so, he gets his bearings and carries Rina to med bay. He finds Beglan strapped into the main bed but there is a secondary bed to put Rina into. That’s the work of a few seconds and he checks her briefly—she seems okay—before leaving her to check the others. He doesn’t know what Beglan is doing on the bed but Joshua can see he’s injured. He checks his friend and sees Beglan is stable. Relieved, Joshua goes toward the bridge and meets Nika on her way out of it. Her lips are moving but he can’t really hear her. He cups a hand to his ear and silently mouths the query: I can’t hear you. What?
There’s an instant when Nika blinks, thinking that she’s been struck deaf too—but no, she’s fine. Joshua sees her double-take and realizes the reason for it. He makes himself speak normally, though he can barely hear himself talk.
Joshua: I can’t hear a word you’re saying.
Nika: Okay, got it. Fine.
Joshua: Rina’s okay. (yells) Rina’s okay! Where’s Arden? I didn’t see him.
Nika: (points aft) Down.
Joshua: I’ll go check. And Crazy Engineer Boy?
He turns for the engine room and Nika goes with him.
Nika: That’s the only place we can get power running again. Find out what the damages actually are.
Joshua: Not good. From the outside, not good. (singing softly to self) Walking on sunshine, whoa-ohhh … (to Nika) By the way, if you ever want to do that? Don’t. It’s like getting sucked out the door.
Joshua gets The Face from Nika.
Joshua: It’s like getting sucked out the door into the Black, I’m thinkin’. (grins) But that means I can cross off sucked out the door from my bucket list, cuz I’ve pretty much done it.
On that happy note, he and Nika manage to find Arden and Kiera and the rest of the crew and revive them with some gentle prodding. Joshua has a terse word with Rina when she wakes: dammit woman, what part of get your ass under cover did you not understand? And Arden pops the 64-thousand credit question.
Arden: Where’s Boston?
We scramble for the access point for the starboard fuel tanks and we find his remains. From what we can figure out based on the evidence, Boston got caught in a spray of liquid hydrogen from our tanks and it instantly froze him solid. The explosion was all that was needed to throw Boston to the deck, where he shattered like a china statue into a million pieces. Frozen red ice cubes everywhere. Which ice cubes are now rapidly melting into soft gobbets of flesh. Some larger pieces remain, a booted foot snapped off at the ankle, something that looks like an ear. Kiera surveys the damage with grim vindication.
Kiera: Well, that’s perfectly disgusting and yet emotionally satisfying.
Rina: Wow.
Kiera: I’m just thinking how we can hose him off the deck.
Arden: That’s icky but … it still means we’re not gonna get paid. (off Nika’s look) What?
Nika: that’s the coldest thing I think I’ve ever heard you say and I’ve heard you say some rude things.
Arden: (angry) I’m sorry, but did you see who’s down in sick bay with a screwdriver in his leg?
Nika: Rina.
Rina: Ma’am?
Nika: See if you can fire us up at all. I have no idea if we’re even functional but we have got to get off this rock.
It takes a fair amount of repairs but Rina manages to get our power back online. Our maneuver definitely did our ship no favors but our ship is no longer burning and it did save our lives by putting out the fire. Still, the hurts done to our girl makes Rina weep anyway. She sucks it up and continues working, getting our ship space-worthy enough to make it into the Black. Our thrusters are dicey, nonetheless, and they cannot take a subsequent landing through atmo before needing more thorough repairs. When we do repair them, it will require a spacedock. She tells Nika the news.
Rina: Do not make landfall until we’re fixed. Get us out in the Black and get us somewhere.
Nika: Where’s the nearest dock from here?
Rina: Beylix. Hopefully there’ll be an orbital station.
While Rina’s repairing our ship, Kiera and Arden are repairing our crew. As Arden cares for Beglan, Kiera keeps close tabs on Joshua. He’s still having trouble with his hearing. Rina’s taken some substantial pummeling as well but being she’s sturdy like a tank and stubborn besides, she hides it better. Nika came out with nary a scratch.
It takes Rina a day to restore power and the others help out by getting the burned debris off our ship. Checking the engines and the thrusters, Rina realizes that as bad as the pulse in situ was, it would have been far worse had Nika actually attempted to move Equinox off the landing pad. Given the sheer weight of the ruined Bumblebee resting on our girl, the wreckage would have taken our thrusters clean off their gimbals. Still, there’s no loss without some gain: thanks to the wreckage, we have LOTS of spare metal and hull plating to repair our ship with. A whole freakin’ colonist camp of it.
Rina: (sarcastic) Ohh, hey! Parts! Lots and lots of parts. Cooked in fluorine gas. Shiny.
Arden: What are we going to do with Boston and his family?
Nika: We’ll give them a decent burial in space when we breach atmo when we head back out.
Joshua: We’ll bury them together.
Arden: We aren’t going to bury them here?
Rina: (to Arden) Oh yeah, right. You can dig the graves.
Joshua: I’ll dig the graves. I don’t care if we do it in space or here.
Nika: As long as we bury them together, I don’t care.
Joshua: I agree.
Arden: Okay. Cuz … you know.
Nika: He risked his life to come find them knowing they’re probably dead and I think he knew he wasn’t leaving here.
Rina: (relenting) So I guess in the ground here would be more fitting. Do we have the names for Boston’s wife and children?
We do. It’s in our records and amongst Boston’s things.
Rina: We have scrap metal, yes? I will make grave markers with names for every single one of them if we bury them in the ground.
Kiera: And since Arden and I have medical bags, we’ll go pick up the gooey bits of Boston. I’ll get the gloves.
Arden: I’ll get the mop.
It’s decided and we gather the bodies of the deceased—and in Boston’s case, it a messy task—and hand out the shovels. Rina makes the markers up in our machine shop, cutting and polishing the metal smooth, engraving the names of the deceased on them. She also helps Kiera scavenge for a suitable metal box for Boston at Kiera’s request. She doesn’t want to bury him in an orange biohazard bag. Her enmity goes only so far.
We bury Boston alongside his family where the other graves at the settlement lie. Rina sets the markers, wipes them down, and they gleam in the watery sunlight. We say the words for the dead. Goodbye, sir. God bless you and Godspeed. There is a moment of silence and we turn away and get back to work.
Beglan, meanwhile, revives but due to the nature of his injury, he’s not able to leave his bed.
Beglan: I tried to warn ya that Boston wasn’t gonna go easy. He was tryin’ to … (gestures) … get his family, you know.
Arden: We noticed.
Kiera: He’s in itty-bitty pieces everywhere.
Beglan: Huh. Why does my … ? My leg hurts.
Kiera: You kinda got a screwdriver in it, dear.
Arden: The next time I want a screwdriver, I want a vodka screwdriver.
Rina: Yeah. Heavy on the vodka.
Kiera: Next time I’m bringing one with me and remind me I do not leave the ship without a pistol ever again.
Over the next two days after the explosion, Rina cautiously scavs parts from the ruined camp. Wary of the outgassing, she doesn’t leave the safety of our ship often or for long. She’s also not able to salvage much from the wreckage either, thanks to the weird enameling process with the fluorine. Still, she’s able to find a few things she can use and they are a help in getting us up and running again. As long as Nika doesn’t attempt anything fancy, we’ll be able to lift off and leave the planet.
Joshua’s busy totaling up the costs and damages to our ship’s finances. We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and then some. We’ve nothing left in our various accounts save for 22 credits. As for fuel …
Nika: Do we even have enough to get off the ground? He punctured one of our tanks.
Joshua: Fuel-wise? Lemme look … (checks his records) … We don’t have far to go, to be fair.
Nika: When we pulsed the engines, didn’t that eat some of the fuel?
Joshua: Oh, excellent … (checks again) …
Since Boston fueled us up before we left, we’re still good. We’re only down ten hours for the trip over and whatever we lost out of the pierced tank. Plenty of fuel is left. That’s one immediate expenditure we don’t need to worry about. The repair bill, however, is going to be ghastly. Even if the crew pitches in their personal funds into the kitty, it’s still not enough. Our food stores are pretty much depleted and to make matters worse, all the vac suits we have were ruined by either the fire or the fluorine.
Nika: Here’s the thing. We’ve been broke before. If we gotta go into hock to fix the ship and get back on our feet, then so be it. You’re all alive and that’s the important thing.
Joshua: Yeah, I agree. We’re still breathing, which I also agree with.
Nika: Which is lucky, since I had no idea if the plan was going to work.
Meaning that trick with the pulse.
Joshua: Nothing we ever try, we’re never certain it’s going to work. But it usually does.
Nika: (heavily) I made that choice knowing the two of you might not make it back. And I’m not happy about that.
Rina: You had me working the other end of the equation. Is there any doubt about it?
Joshua: That’s the decision you had to make, Captain. I tried to convince her—(points at Rina)—
Rina: (eye roll!) Well, we all know how well that worked.
Joshua: I tried to convince her not to risk her life to get me out, but you see how much she listens to me.
Nika: (to Rina) Good for you.
Rina gives Nika a long hard hug and whispers into her ear: Thank you.
Joshua: Never any doubt.
Beglan: You gonna report her for disobeying orders?
Joshua: No, I’m not doing that.
Nika: As a captain, I would have taken one look at the report and pphhhpbbtth!
Joshua: Yeah, there is that.
Beglan: Lack of discipline on a ship will do that.
Rina: Well, at least we’re not under Captain Crazy anymore.
Joshua: And I stood up for him, too.
Beglan: Loyalty was one of his issues.
Rina: He was a genius but he was a little …. (quietly) … but I will admit if it wasn’t for his idea, I wouldn’t be here.
Arden: I really want to go to a planet with a beach.
Meanwhile, Kiera goes through Boston’s effects and cleans the man’s wallet of cash. It’s not much but she takes it. Thanks to our incipient repair bill, we’re going to be short on cash. In fact, we all pitch some of our personal cash into the repairs fund. Nika keeps ten credits for a just-in-case. Rina forks over every last credit she has.
Joshua: How much are you keeping? Any?
Rina: Not a bit. You can have all of it. Baby needs new shoes. (shrugs) I’ve gone without credits before. As long as I can eat, I’m all right.
Arden: I’m throwing in 125 into the kitty.
Rina: (winking) Shouldn’t you ask the cat if he wants to eat money first?
Joshua: Actually the cat gets paid on a separate fund. The cat gets fed. (to Kiera) How much are you pitching in.
She’s got over a 150 credits. She keeps only 8, plus the 2 she filched from Boston’s wallet for a total of 10. Of course, she doesn’t tell anyone where she got the 2 credits. By God, she’s going to take that money and buy something nice with it. It’s her little bit of blood money for not shooting Boston over Beglan. As for Beglan, he pitches in his entire 10 credits and Joshua throws in everything he’s got as well.
We put it all in a pile and start figuring what we can do with it. Vac suits will be expensive to replace. One suit is 67 credits, give or take. We need to replace 6. And getting a few rebreathers would be nice. Assuming we get back to Beylix and its spacedock ….
Which we do. We take off on the morning of the 18th and leave Puck, and Boston, behind.
Wednesday, 18 Nov 2522
Space Dock, Beylix
It’s only a ten-hour flight back to Beylix. We limp into port and the space dock takes us in. They’ve got more of a repairs shop than a repairs dock and we get the estimate for the bare minimum of repairs we need. The amount we’re quoted is going to bankrupt us.
Our repairs list is extensive:
We have internal physical damage—struts and plates—as well as damage externally to our hull and propulsion systems. Our internal grav goes flaky and Rina jerry-rigs a hack around to stabilize it but it’s not a long-term fix. Our starboard fuel tank is ruptured of course, and it will need to be repaired before we fill it again. Our travel distance and fuel capacity will be reduced by half until that’s done. Our starboard thruster is also offline until damage done by debris is repaired.
We decide to sell our armored car. Kiera helps us in the negotiations and we net a very welcome 500 for it. We immediately plow that money into getting vac suits for everyone aboard. We also get a round dozen rebreathers, enough for everyone with 6 spares to place at strategic points around the ship.
We pool the credits left over with our own personal funds and get the minimum repairs done. We may still have scratches on the paint job, but we’re spaceworthy again and that’s really all that matters at this point.
Kiera asks if we can arrange a trip to see her father in-system at Sho Je Downs. He’s a rich industrialist/megacorporate. He might be able to throw business our way. If nothing else, Kiera is confident she can beg a cash advance from him to get our ship repaired all the way. We look around and find roughly 200 tons of cargo bound for Sho Je Downs, payable on delivery. We still have nearly 300 hours of fuel left. We can get it there. We take the job.
It’s a two-day voyage to Sho Je Downs, give or take. ETA 24 Nov, 2522. We take off on the morning of the 21st with little more than half a tank of gas, a bit of cargo, and a prayer that things will be better when we get there. It’s not much but after our escape from Puck, it’s enough.
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