“Unless we can communicate with the guys we picked up, I’m not sure we’ll ever know, Master Sergeant,” Berg said. “Hell, we still don’t really know what the engine of the ship is for. It might be God’s washing machine and just happen to have a warp setting.”
“Good point, Berg,” the SFer said, a grin in his voice. “Darren’s off on another bit hunt. Do you think you can get ahold of this thing?”
“I can try,” Berg said, positioning himself for a run at the large and in many places sharp bit of debris.
“There is no try,” the master sergeant intoned. “There is only do. Or do not.”
“Yes, O Master… Sergeant,” Berg said with a chuckle.
“Let’s go,” Guzik replied, engaging his jets.
Instead of trying to figure the arc, Berg just headed right for the rising end of the thing. The thing caught him in the crotch of the suit, no danger there and he engaged his thrusters downward, trying to get a handle on some of the extruding bits. Finally, he snagged a couple of pieces of what looked like reinforcing bar. As the tumble slowed he cut his thrusters.
“Nice snag,” the master sergeant said. “Ballsy, but not bad.”
“I didn’t figure I could catch up to it,” Berg admitted. “What now?”
“Take it back and strap it to the hull,” Guzik said. “On my count, engage your number six and seven thrusters at three percent output and we’ll tow. Three, two, one, Mark!”
“And just how are we supposed to get this stuff into the boat?” the chief of boat asked. The senior NCO of the Blade, he was in charge of all things nautical. Or, in this case, astronautical. Such as securing big bits of alien space craft for later analysis. Which was why he’d donned his space suit and was now standing on the hull, fists on his hips, looking at the latest bit of junk to be brought to his boat. “First of all, we don’t know if it’s contaminated. Second, ain’t none of the hatches big enough. Take your pick but it ain’t going in the boat.”
“Space tape?” Berg said, then wished he hadn’t.
“Go on,” the COB said, not dressing the Marine down, which was what Berg had expected.
“They might not survive, but we can just tape them to the hull,” Berg continued. “Or tie them if there are any tie points. But I think the tape might do it.”
“If we end up with enough pieces we could just ring the hull,” Master Sergeant Guzik said. “How much space tape do we have?”
“What is it with Marines and space tape?” the COB moaned. “Okay, okay, try it. See if it will hold. Mind you, it probably won’t when the CO gets near a planet. Sometimes I think I’m going to have to get a spill-proof cup. And then where would my cred be?”
“I guess this will give him a good reason to take it easy on landing,” Berg said.
“There’s a point.” The COB looked up at the debris floating very near the Blade and then back at the sail of the boat.
One of the Marines was floating between the largest piece of debris and the boat with about four centimeters between the feet of his Wyvern and the boat and about a hand’s breadth between his head and the chunk of debris. Just as the Marine reached up to grab the large piece of metal a violet arc of lightning stretched from the debris down the Wyvern and jumped the few-centimeter gap on to the boat.
“Holy maulk! Aaarrrggghhh!” the Marine cried as he lost consciousness from the electrical shock. He fell forward in his Wyvern, forcing his thrusters on and spinning him wildly out of control, bumping into debris and then back onto the hull of the Blade.
“What the hell!” the COB said surprised.
“COB?” Spectre asked over the net.
“Somehow the debris just shot a lightning bolt at one of the Marines and he’s spinning out of control.”
“Himes! You and Berg secure that Marine now!” Guzik shouted.
“Got it, Master Sergeant!” Berg and Himes replied, thrusting at full throttle to the unconscious Marine in his out-of-control Wyvern. In a flying tackle both Himes and Berg hit the Wyvern at nearly the same instant, pinning it down against the boat. It took several more moments to fight the thruster pack into the air-lock.
Berg cycled the airlock controls as he and Himes held on tight to Lance Corporal Smith, bracing their arms and legs against the bulkheads to hold against the low-power cold-gas nitrogen thrusters.
“Green light Two-Gun!” Himes said as the airlock door opened into the ship where the watch Marines were waiting along with a few firemen.
“Get a corpsman here.” Berg shouted.
“Marines, stand down and do not touch the debris or the ship until we get this sorted out,” Guzik ordered.
“You think it was an attack?” the COB asked the Space Marine.
“Negative, negative,” Weaver interrupted over the com channel.
“Commander Weaver, do you have some input here?” Spectre added.
“Yes sir. Space charging, sir.” Bill said.
“Space what? Charging?” Guzik turned the bulbous torso of his Wyvern toward the COB, who was just standing there motionless.
“You want to elaborate on that, Lieutenant Commander Weaver?” Spectre asked.
“Yes sir. It’s the same reason you have to ground an airplane before you refuel it. The hull charges up and can cause an electrical arc from the plane to the ground. Well, in this case, the Blade is the ground and the debris is the plane. They’ve seen this sort of thing on docking spacecraft for decades. Been hazardous a few times for the Russians and I believe on the International Space Station,” Weaver replied. “That could have been millions of volts difference between the debris and the ship.”
“And you were going to let us know about this when?” Spectre raised an eyebrow. There was just so much more to space travel than flying or being on a boat. So. Much. More. Jesus.
“Sorry sir. I just thought about it. We need to get the COB some grounding wires with big alligator clips on them. Clip one end to the Blade and then clip the other to the debris and then reel them in. Once metal to metal contact is happening the cable is no longer needed.”
“Did you get that, COB?”
“Aye sir.” Weaver could have told him. Getting that kid hurt was gonna hurt his cred. But hand it to the lieutenant commander, he knew what the problem was almost immediately.
“Space tape?” Spectre asked incredulously. “That’s the best you could come up with, Chief of Boat?”
“Yes, sir,” the COB said stoically. “We’ve got the two chunks of alien debris that showed energy emissions taped down to the forward hull. I used a lot of tape.”
“Better than the last time, sir,” Weaver pointed out. “When we dropped on Area 51 with that big crabpus hooked over of the bow like a trophy deer I thought they were going to chither themselves. In warp, it’s not going to experience any acceleration. You might have to take the landing slow, though. And we’re going to have to land in Nevada, first, again.”
“Whatever,” Spectre said with a sigh. “Last bit. The Dreen bit. Tell the Marines they’re on point on this one.”
“Here we go,” Dr. Chet said.
He was munching on a bag of microwave popcorn and watching the monitors avidly. The three aliens had been placed in a quarantine room, the air adjusted to match what had been in their emergency bottle, and their “luggage” placed in there with them. And after thirty minutes of, apparently, testing their surroundings, they appeared finally ready to open up their suits.
“I hope the light level is right,” he continued. “There wasn’t any way to figure that. So I set it low.”