Lord of the Flies-HOMEPAGE

My Home Town-HOMEPAGE

CHAPTERS

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The Christa Affair

Chapter Forty-Three

Jashi hovered at the edge of consciousness, barely aware of the smoke and intense heat. And the noise -- the same annoying sound, repeated over and over like the proverbial broken record. He felt he should recognize it, but it was faint and far away. A fit of coughing seized him, and the spasms forced him painfully awake; he recognized the incessant droning of the ship's computer. "Captain, the control room is on fire. May I suggest you extinguish it?" There was a pause. "Captain, the control room is on fire. May I suggest you extinguish it?"

Painfully, Jashi managed a sitting position, struggling to make sense of the machine's ominous reiteration. Smoke billowed from every console, and two of the command chairs were in flames. Several warning lights blinked angrily from the overhead status display, but there was no audible alarm, and the automatic combustion-control system didn't seem to be functioning. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he gasped for breath, precipitating more coughing; his head reeled as he tried to stand.

"Respectfully, Captain, if you don't get off your butt and put out that goddamn fire, we're all going to die! All automatic sequences are deactivated!"

Jashi heard, but he didn't believe. His preachy computer was \cursing\ at him, the ship was on fire, the automatic extinguishers weren't working -- \turned off\, according to the computer's pronouncement -- and he was supposed to be dead... He had \seen\ the beam from the landingcraft's Carlson! "Gotta be that damn weed!" he reasoned, wishing would wake up -- knowing that he wouldn't. "Reactivate all automatic sequences," he gasped, sinking again to the floor to escape the ever-thickening smoke. The clamor of what sounded like at least a dozen alarms sounded simultaneously throughout the ship.

Combustion-control was undamaged. In thirty seconds Jashi could breathe -- and see. Toko burst thru the door, needlegun in his hand. "Goddamn!" he exploded. "What happened? I was in the galley..." Jashi tried to answer, began to cough again. Before he had it under control Rang arrived, followed closely on his heels by Roi -- both clad only in shorts, their weapons at the ready.

Slowly a semblance of order was restored as Jashi told the others what he knew. By the time he was finished, they had been joined by Suu. "I guess the wand got them..." he finished lamely, realizing he had raised as many questions as he had answered. "I don't know. I saw the beam from the landingcraft's Carlson just as I triggered it, then something exploded... I don't even know who was aboard the boat."

"Get him out of here," Toko ordered, gesturing to Roi. "Take him down to recreation. Rang, stay with me... Roi, we'll join you as soon as I'm sure things are stable here. Round up everybody, I want to know who's missing."

"Lito's locked in one of the sensory chambers," said Roi, hoisting Jashi to his feet. "She thinks Tabor's in the other one. It was DeCarlo, Jash... She doesn't know how he got loose."

"That just leaves the kids... And Mowii," replied Jashi. Karli's asleep in our cabin. Better check the infirmary for Korlana."

They met Tad and Marty in the passageway. Jashi had recovered somewhat, and the youngsters took charge of him; Roi sprinted down the corridor toward the compartment containing the sensory-deprivation chambers. "Don't worry about Karli," Jashi yelled after his departing crew-mate. "Let her sleep -- I'll wake her later."

*********

Toko surveyed the disaster with dismay. Passive thrusters, communications, and scanning were the only controls overlooked in the vandalism -- everything else was fused beyond any hope of repair; he silently cursed the lack of an auxiliary control room. At least lifesupport and internal systems were okay -- their control was routed thru the ship's computer, which seemed undamaged. "Computer! Damage report!" he ordered.

"All external systems are unusable, Sir. Internal systems, comm and surveillance are damaged, but still functional -- I am repairing it now. The ship is leaking atmosphere from the number five cargo hold."

"Evacuate it!" snapped Toko. "Wait! What's in it?" He couldn't remember what was stored there.

"The chemicals supplied by the Keeper, including the stores of Infectogan," responded the computer, confirming Toko's fears; the drugs weren't packed in pressurized containers.

"Seal it... Maintain fifteen percent standard, pure oxygen!" There was \plenty\ of that on board -- it was only the inert gasses that were likely to become critical before the leak could be repaired. "Rate of loss?"

"At that pressure, twenty-seven point six two standard cube-units per minute, Sir."

"Satisfactory. Nature and cause of the leak?"

"The leak is a five inch tear in the main longitudinal seam in the ship's belly. It was caused by the explosion of the L'sa'rian wand, Sir. I am sorry, but the device was destroyed." The voice sounded genuinely sad.

"Can we maneuver at all?" Loss of the wand was the farthest thing from Toko's mind.

"Negative, Sir. All propulsion systems are nonfunctional."

Toko and Rang looked at each other with consternation. The \Klondike\ was a derelict! They were helplessly trapped in parking orbit about Sanctuary. Rang walked to the intercom and keyed in the recreation compartment. "Jashi, you'd better come back to the control room, if you're able." He wondered if they had found Mowii; she hadn't been in their quarters when the alarm awakened him.

*********

"I'm sorry, Captain... I don't \know\ who hit me," Tabor was saying as Jashi got up to answer Rang's call. "DeCarlo was just starting to really talk when it happened; the next thing I knew, I was locked in the chamber, plastered to the ceiling at three gee's."

"It must have been Mowii," said Roi softly. He had just returned from a thorough search of the ship. "She's nowhere to be found. She must have gone with him."

"That doesn't mean she went willingly!" spat Jashi, more sharply than he had intended -- the drug was wearing off and it made him irritable. He'd known her too long, and in spite of her many glaring faults, he refused to believe she would betray them. But she \had\ changed in the last weeks... "How am I going to tell Rang I killed her?" he muttered, heading for the door. "Everyone stay here, and keep your mouths shut till I know how bad the damage is." He was out the door and heading toward the control room.

As the door to the recreation compartment closed behind him, Jashi stopped in his tracks, then reversed his direction toward their quarters. He wanted to check on Karli, and he needed \something\ to clear his fuzzy head. Guilt and sadness at Mowii's death washed over him, mixing with his anxiety at their present predicament. He'd been careless -- negligent in his duty as Captain -- and it had cost Mowii her life and placed them all in grave danger. The others mustn't know... Not now! Later, if they survived, he'd tell them. He broke into a run, probing telepathically as he went.

It took more force than he liked, but he managed to rouse Karli from her stupor; by the time Jashi reached their quarters she was sitting up in bed -- groggy, but awake. Karli gasped as she caught sight of him. "What happened?" she mumbled, unable to comprehend his disheveled condition.

"Not now, Karli!" he snapped. "Here!" He handed her a yellow capsule, and a Revtab. "No, wait!" He struggled to remember; red for alcohol, blue for... The yellow one \was\ for the smoke, wasn't it? Or was it the green one?

(.... "It's the right one, Jashi....") Karli understood his confusion. (.... "I'm sorry, I'm the one who suggested it....")

"Now \now\, Karli!" he admonished again, abruptly severing the contact. He swallowed the pills. "Get straight before you come to the control room. I'll fill you in as soon as I can." He was gone before she could protest.

The drug did its work, and by the time Jashi joined Rang and Toko he was reasonably alert and level-headed. "Computer!" he snapped as the control room door slid closed behind him. "Seal ship's internal surveillance record for the past eight hours -- my eyes only! Absolute ID!"

The others looked at him questioningly. "Aye, Honorable Captain. It is done." intoned the computer.

"Repaired? By whom?"

"I have repaired it of course, Honorable Captain. Did you not wish it? You ordered all automatic systems reactivated. I am working on the surveillance system now -- scanning will be fully functional in five minutes."

"Why should that surprise me?" Jashi thought to himself. The damned machine had managed \somehow\ to remove a defective fusion-crystal; a simple repair job should be child's play. "Can you repair the anti-gravs?" he asked aloud.

"They are not damaged, Honorable Captain."

"Say what? ... Uhh... Clarify!"

"Only the controls were destroyed, Captain. I was able to confine consequential damage to the main control buss... The polarizer unit is fully functional."

An idea was forming in Jashi's mind; Toko beat him to it. "Can you tap into the control circuits at the main buss?" he asked.

"Of course, Sir!" the machine responded, a bit indignantly. "What would be the purpose? There are no controls."

"\You\ will control it," responded Jashi. "On my voice commands. Scan the technical data and build a command set based on my profile."

"If you wish, Honorable Captain, but I must point out that voice commands are very imprecise."

"Just do it!" retorted Jashi. "And shut up till you're ready!"

To his surprise, the machine didn't ask him to define "shut up"; instead, if offered a suggestion. "It would be much more efficient if you would allow me to interface with the Teacher, Honorable Captain. With you under the hood, we can control the ship as one. It will require seven hours to make all propulsion systems operational."

Jashi felt a hint of revulsion at the idea; the computer was a bit too much like another person. Angrily, he pushed it aside. "How long for gravitics only?" He wanted maneuverability \now\, while they were still shielded by the planet from the spaceport's scanners.

"One hour ten minutes, Honorable Captain."

Jashi checked the status display, and the projected map of near-Sanctuary space... One hour ten minutes, and the \Klondike\ would just be nudging the edge of the planetary shadow -- only minutes from being picked up by the scanners of Extasy's spaceport. The maneuver was just possible, with no margin for error. "Do it!" ordered Jashi. "There's no time to move the Teacher up here -- I'll have to fly it from the rec room."

"Aye, Honorable Captain," responded the computer.

"What's the hurry, Jashi?" queried Rang. "You got him, and he couldn't have sent a message... We were already in shadow."

"Did I?" retorted Jashi curtly. "We don't \know\ that! He fired just as I activated the wand... Maybe the wand only absorbed the beam, ever think of that?"

"He'd have fired again," protested Rang. "Wouldn't he?..."

"Not if the boat's Carlsons were destroyed when the wand absorbed the beam," responded Jashi. "And even if I \did\ get him, where did he go? Can he come back? Did another ship detect the explosion of the wand? We don't know a goddamn thing for sure!"

"Where are we going on gravitics alone?" asked Toko.

"Here!" said Jashi, pointing to the projected surface map of Sanctuary. "Right here, two miles off the coast, a hundred feet underwater. When our assigned orbital slot comes within scanner range, we just won't be there. You've got just one hour to repair the leak -- I suggest the two of you get moving." His voice was hard, and left no room for argument; Rang and Toko headed for the airlock without comment.

Jashi breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed, leaving him alone in the control room. Thank the gods Rang hadn't asked about Mowii -- Jashi would tell his brother himself, but only after they were safely hidden, and only after he knew as much about what had happened as the ship's computer could tell him.

He walked to the computer console. Placing his left palm on the ID window, he looked into the retinal scanner. "Identify and confirm we are alone," he said gruffly.

"We are alone, Captain Abram." The machine seemed to anticipate his intentions. "Do you wish to open the sealed log?"

"Yes. Who destroyed the ship's controls?"

"I do not know, Honorable Captain?"

"What do you mean, you don't know?!" Jashi's heart sank. Someone had altered the record before it was sealed. "Has the surveillance record been tampered with?"

"Negative, Captain."

Puzzled, Jashi tried another tact. "Where was Tabor when the ship's controls were destroyed?"

"I am sorry, Honorable Captain. I do not know." The voice was genuinely distressed.

As usual, things weren't as they were supposed to be. \Nothing\ had been as expected since this crazy adventure began; the injustice of it all only served to heighten Jashi's already considerable anger. "Explain." he ordered wearily.

"All automatic systems were turned off prior to the attack, Captain, including internal surveillance. There is no further record until you ordered automatic systems restored."

"Damn! Damn, damn, damn!" Jashi slammed his fist into the console in frustration, and gasped at the pain. Mowii was dead -- by \his\ hand; DeCarlo was gone -- dead if they were lucky, alive to cause trouble if they weren't; there might be a traitor aboard the \Klondike\ -- he \wouldn't\ believe Mowii was responsible for DeCarlo's escape; and the goddamn fucking computer couldn't tell him anything!

He was afraid to ask the obvious question. "Computer, who ordered the automatics deactivated?"

"Lady Mowii, Captain. By invocation of Federation Emergency-Access Code Alpha. The code was valid, Captain..." The machine paused, much like a small child waiting to be told he has done nothing wrong. "I am sorry, Honorable Captain."

For long moments Jashi stood rooted to the spot, his mind racing wildly. Would it still be there? Would it still work after the Keeper's modifications to the computer? Could he use it without slowing the machine's progress at connecting the Teacher and the anti-gravs. He made a decision, and strode to the computer console.

*********

For a considerable sum of money, a friend at General Galactic -- the same friend who had supplied the non-standard flight-computers for the original landingcraft -- had made a few discreet modifications to the \Klondike's\ computer operating system while she was being refurbished. Known only to Jashi -- he'd never even told Karli -- there was a back door into the system; all ship's records could be accessed and modified without leaving a trace. There'd never been a need to use it, but he'd always felt better knowing it was there. Too many things could happen in the empty expanses of the galaxy; the price for a wrong decision under pressure could be greater than he was willing to pay.

Jashi laughed silently at his hesitation. There would never be a \better\ reason -- and perhaps never another time. There was no reason for Rang, or anyone else, to ever know -- except Karli, and she already knew most of it.

He held his breath as he entered the discrete code into the keyboard -- would it still work, after all the Keeper's modifications? -- and breathed a sigh of relief when the computer responded as expected. When he was finished, the ship's surveillance record showed that all automatic systems had been shut down by invocation of Code-Alpha, and that the perpetrator's identity had been illegally deleted by person or persons unknown. Gone was the evidence of Mowii's duplicity.

He considered deleting the record of the hours he and Karli had spent locked away in their cabin -- five hours of neglect of his duty as Captain... Neglect that had cost Mowii her life -- carelessness that had left him unable to respond properly to an emergency that he could have prevented in the first place, if he'd been properly vigilant. No, that would be too clumsy, and anyway, he'd tell them, when all this was over; for now, he needed their confidence. They'd have to all pull together if they were to survive.

Jashi started to enter the exit code that would force the machine to accept the modified record as authentic and update all internal data accordingly; he stopped midway thru the complicated sequence. He located the record of their resignation from their Federation field commission -- the audio log made so long ago in orbit about Ultazari-Seven -- and deleted it. It had never been transmitted, now it no longer existed; Federation rank might still mean something to a \few\ people... Karli entered the control room as he turned away from the console.

*********

The computer delivered; one hour ten minutes, and Jashi had gravitics as promised, with control routed from the Teacher. He left Karli in the control room, and linked with her before going under the hood -- a safety precaution that allowed him to see the undamaged instrumentation from his post in the recreation compartment. It proved unnecessary; once he was in contact with the Teacher, it was as if he and the \Klondike\ were a single entity. Jashi \felt\ the instrumentation -- he felt the \entire ship\, from stem to stern -- and it coincided perfectly with what he saw thru Karli's eyes. It was incredible, exhilarating; he \became\ the \Klondike\. Jashi spread his wings and flew.

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