19. Gathering

Vince traversed kilometers, flying in the air, occasionally pushing himself to fight the air slowing him down. Helmet unlocked, hanging on…

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Vince traversed kilometers, flying in the air, occasionally pushing himself to fight the air slowing him down. Helmet unlocked, hanging on his back. Sometimes chatting, a few words coming through the radio, keeping half ear on the Perseus Train’s efforts to dock again.

Only took a few minutes in the weightlessness to find an engineering station manned. Mostly young, frightened kids, probably right out of school taking an internship on this vast cruiser in hopes of buffing up their references before moving up in the hierarchy on another vessel. A single ship’s ladder was mostly rigid, opportunities to ascend it rare, while the shipyards pumped out dozens of new ships daily, desperately in need of experienced engineers. Vince asked for the ranking officer and got empty eyes looking back, then the same eyes looking at each other. Almost two days from the accident, and they did not even know!

“I need to talk to the bridge, open comms, you!” — Vince took a stronger approach, need to brush them up. He knew how to fight the shock in others, he could not be a captain without it.
“On it, sir.” — a brown haired, twenty-something looking guy stepped to the console — “Sir, bridge does not respond, I think the console is broken.”
“None of you tried to reach them before?” — now many glazes took interest in the boots of others avoiding Vince’s sight — “I see, I get it, we are all afraid. You can’t let that determine you, the ship, the people on it need us. They need you, you to stand up and do your job. Especially in this situation.” — finally Vince felt a few pair of eyes on him.
“But what can we do? We were not trained for this, and we got no orders from anyone.”
“Start with what you can do, establish comms throughout the ship. You, get me to the bridge in person.”
“Wait, you are not from here?”
“No, I am Captain Vince Pier from the Perseus Train, we found you after Zodiak-12 issued emergency search and assist. They lost tracking of you and the bridge did not respond to them either.”
“Oh my, thank you, sir! Follow me! Able spaceman Hank Grast, for your service.”

Vince flew after Hank, as the others started to move around, sounds of tools taken and railings creaking under pulls filled the corridors. Vince and Hank exchanged whatever little information they had about the ship status while they were traversing to the main hull.

Hank described the harrowing moments everything flew hard into the ceilings and walls. They were under slow deceleration anticipating arrival in two months, everything going as clockwork, mundane days on the job. Then their senior engineer got killed, neck broken as he flew into the ceiling. Hank got off easy, just a pulled shoulder. Full pandemonium after that, fortunately their nurse was sleeping in a zero-gravity bed, not even a scratch on him.

“Though I haven’t seen him after yesterday one of the airlock’s siren went off. Hope he wasn’t thrown out or something.”
“Everything is going to be all right. Just focus on the next task, that will keep your mind on the right things. Can you tell me, how many people are on board and if you have any idea, how many injured?”
“We had ‘round sixty thousand, that is the usual count, at least environmental systems kept consuming as such. Per how much injured, don’t know… Though consumption fell to half, that can be from damaged systems and loose pipes.”
“I understand…” — or so many dead, need to talk to the shipmaster immediately, Vince guarded his lips against the dreadful thoughts slipping through, he needs to keep up morale.
“Cap’, do you copy?”

Vince pulled out the headset from his helmet to quickly respond:

“Yes, Greg, go on.”
“Cap’, it will take an hour to secure the cargo and the ship for docking. Gopher helped checking the ports and it does not look good, most of them damaged or non-responsive.”
“That is no good, we need clamps to hold onto the spinning hull.”
“Yep, I think I can hold for a few minutes on manual, but that won’t be good for transferring supplies.”
“We go through that bridge if we are there, just be ready to dock and wait. I am almost at the bridge, we figure out a plan with the officers.”
“Aye-aye, cap’, Greg out.”

Just as they finished, Vince felt the gravity of the main hull, few moments later stepped out of the train. Hank still in front of him, zig-zagging in between people. People lay down on the ground, on the waiting seats or just sit with their back to anything that could hold their weight. The station that normally transferred a few dozen people every hour in and out of the ring section was now a designated muster station.

Yet no order to abandon ship, not that they would have anything left working to actually do that, and no other communication, so many of the passengers and service workers stayed here. At least a few nurses and doctors were circling too, checking on the injured. Vince could not know yet, this wasn’t even the worst part of the ship.

They passed by a few similar rooms and halls as they progressed toward the bridge now on foot. The brisk walk between people switched by an empty park, thrashed like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. After a tsunami tried to clean it up. This ship was very different to what Vince was used to. At one corner, he could not believe his eyes seeing a tree trunk smashed a bistro to pieces. For a moment, in a better circumstance, he could forget that he is on a spaceship.

Hank just pulled him into a small corridor after the park, a minute later a square meter sized led panel crashed loudly onto the street next to their passing.

The bridge was almost at the center of the ship, halfway between the two large ring sections. Vince pointed onto the floor and the walls to warn Hank. Shrapnels everywhere, most are small pieces, here and there a piece of metal the size of Vince’s hand stuck out of the scenery. They proceeded with caution between the razor sharp edges.

When they entered the bridge, no-one noticed them. The view was considerable worse than at the ring station, half of the bridge crew frozen in blood, hundreds of small shrapnels dotting their bodies. An officer sitting on the floor next to the bulkhead Vince entered, holding his arm which had no hand attached to it, silently looking at it, unable to accept what he sees yet. Captain’s chair in the center of the room, barely visible in the dim dark lights of the destroyed fixtures and a few operational consoles.

Vince saw the shrapnel first, length like his arm, stuck out of the chest of the late captain and shipmaster. His right hand frozen around the shrapnel like his last thoughts was to remove it, yet he had not enough strength left to do it. Maybe he knew and wanted a faster way instead of the minutes of agony.

“Who is the ranking officer?” — Vince solemn voice broke the fiddling noises of the bridge crew. A tall shape stepped behind the captain’s chair, front of Vince.
“First-mate executive officer, Talm Shibar, call me XO.”

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