Day 157, GC Standard 307
SEVEN HOURS
Sissix fought with the controls, trying to think through the fear and the din of voices.
“No buoys,” Ashby yelled. “Jenks, did you hear me? Kizzy?”
“Ahead fourteen ibens,” Ohan said.
“I can’t,” Sissix said. “We’re all over the place.”
“But we must,” Ohan said. “The space behind us will—”
“Yes, I know,” she snapped. Without a cage, the newly punched hole would be closing rapidly. And without normal space bracing them from behind, they’d be tossed around like a bird in a gale if they sat in one place for too long. She could already feel the ship trembling.
“Lovey? Dammit, anyone!” Ashby said. “Shit, the voxes are down.”
“Jenks won’t drop buoys now,” Corbin said. “He’s got too much sense for that. He knows what would—”
“Sissix, fourteen ibens, now,” shouted Ohan.
Sissix hissed profanities as she tried to stabilize the ship. Her readouts were flickering, and the propulsion strips kept veering out of control. Her vision swam, as it always did in the sublayer, and without readouts or any visible stars, she had nothing to orient herself by. She clenched her jaw and punched controls. “I’m disabling the safeties. We’ll be off-kilter, but it should give us enough push to—”
“Sissix—” Corbin began.
Her feathers stood on end. “If you think I care about the fucking conservation levels right now—”
“You think I care?” he said. “Use what you need.”
She glanced back and met his gaze. “Can we keep it this high the whole trip?”
“Yes.” He looked to his readouts. “Yes, we have enough.” His eyes were frightened, but sure. “Do whatever you need. I’ll watch it close.”
She gave him a quick nod and cast a glance over her flashing readouts. “Dammit, Kizzy, I need—” She grimaced, remembering the voxes. The Wayfarer lurched as the sublayer began to fall in around them. “Fourteen ibens?”
“Yes,” Ohan said.
“Stars help us,” she said. She threw the ship forward.
Kizzy tore off the primary access panel leading to the nav grid. All through the engine room, lights flashed, tubes groaned, walls shook. Everything sounded wrong.
“I’ve got to get to the core,” Jenks yelled across the room. “We’ve got to get the voxes back.”
“There’s no time,” Kizzy said, staring at the mess in front of her. “If the main routing cable is fried, that’ll take hours. I need you here.” Her eyes flashed over the damaged circuits. She ran back toward the tool cage, her steps feeling thick and slow. The sight of her engine room falling apart would’ve been bad enough in normal space. In the sublayer, with time weaving in and out, it was a nightmare.
“We can’t assess the damage without Lovey.”
“I have eyes,” she said, grabbing fistfuls of tools. There was a loud, wet pop from a nearby wall, the sound of a fuel line breaking. “Oh, stars! Get that!” She ran back to the access panel, trying to determine where to start. It was going to be a hackjob fix, but she had no choice. She’d put it back together later. If they got out of this.
She watched the circuit lights scurry around the grid, their patterns wild and unfamiliar. Shit. “Sissix has the safeties off.”
“Great,” Jenks said, ripping open the other wall. Fuel sprayed fast from the burst line. Lashes of thick green goo arced out, spattering the walls and pooling on the floor.
Kizzy watched the circuits, her mind racing. Without the strips working at full capacity, Sissix needed the extra oomph, no question. But on Kizzy’s end, having the safeties off made her task of repairing the grid while in use all the harder. With Lovey stuck in the core, and without knowing what Sissix was planning to do next, she’d have to guess at what to patch. And a bad guess could send them spinning out of control. “I need to know what she’s doing up there.”
“I’ve got it,” Jenks said, dropping his tools. He pulled out his scrib and darted away from the steadily flowing fuel. “Give me five minutes. I can network everybody’s sib transmitters together. We’ll all have to hang onto our scribs, but—”
“Genius,” she said. “Do it, then come help me.”
“What about the—”
“Leave it,” she said, and almost laughed. How screwed were they, that a broken fuel line was the least of her worries? “If we can’t fly, it won’t matter.”
Rosemary came stumbling around the corner, bracing herself against the groaning walls, her steps halting and uneven. Kizzy remembered walking that way once, during the first days of her sublayer training. “Give me something to do,” Rosemary said.
“Why aren’t you out?” Jenks said.
“There wasn’t time to get dosed,” she said. “Dr. Chef went to be with Ohan, and I know I’m no tech, but—”
Kizzy took Rosemary by the wrist, ran over to the fuel line, and pushed her crewmate’s hands against the gushing tear. “Press down hard. And whatever you do, do not let go.”
Hours crawled by, but Sissix did not feel them. All she could feel were the controls beneath her hands, and the constant shudder in the floor plating, and the sublayer making her world blur. With the bore still active, the ship was creating a sort of temporary tunnel, just big enough to keep moving forward. But without buoys, the gap around them only lasted a few minutes, giving them little time to calculate their next move. Her readouts held steadier now, but the grid was still fighting to do its job. So was their Navigator.
“I need a heading,” Sissix said, feeling the shudder grow stronger.
“Yes,” Ohan said, panting. “Yes.” Dr. Chef crouched alongside them, holding them by the shoulders. Ohan’s hand trembled as it darted across his scrib, calculating faster than Sissix had ever seen. “Six-point-nine-five ibens, straight up.”
“We’re over halfway now,” Ashby said. “You can do this, Ohan.”
“Yes. Of course we can. Of course we can.” Ohan drew in a ragged breath. “Seven… no, no, eight… aei!”
Sissix whipped her head around as Ohan’s stylus clattered to the floor. The Sianat Pair had slumped back against Dr. Chef, raising their trembling arms.
“No,” Ohan cried. “No, no, no, not now, not now.” Their fingers hung limp, like puppets with the strings cut. They stared at their useless hands in horror.
Ashby leapt to his feet and ran over, fitting a vial into the syringe that Dr. Chef had given him earlier.
“Give it here,” Dr. Chef said. Quickly, gently, he pushed Ohan’s head toward the floor, exposing the shaved patch on the back of their neck. He looked at Ashby. “This was going to be taxing enough under normal circumstances. Heightened adrenaline is not the best thing for them right now.” He slipped the needle into the bruised skin.
Ohan gasped, their arms jerking ghoulishly. Sissix felt ill, but she did not look away. The shudder in the floor swelled again. Her pulse raced to match it.
Ashby retrieved the stylus from the floor. “Ohan?”
Ohan drew in a terrible breath, like wind through dry leaves. They reached out to take the stylus.