Chapter 4

My hand moved convulsively to hold onto the chair so I would not go into the stasis pod I stopped the effort when I found myself in a completely dark environment. There were not even one of the sensor panels working. I was even drifting for there was no gravity as there should have been.

"Borin, report!" I desperately needed to know our status.

There was no reply. I repeated myself but I knew she would if she could. I looked around for anything but found only darkness but then I saw some small points of light. They were stars. I started to panic and used my mind to find anything that could make sense of what had happened. My hand did find a solid object and my mind fastened onto it. I pulled it up and in doing so my feet hit a surface. I quested out and found more objects and then I was able to keep a solid footing. The stars seemed to gain brightness. I knew that we must be open to space. My suit had automatically closed when needed.

The ship must have been hit and all the power had dissipated. I had obviously awoken from a stint in the stasis chamber. I cast my mind out again to find Soldoy or anyone else. I found nothing.

This was the most frightening time of my life. I could not mindspeak to anyone and not even a computer. My mind started to race thinking of what had happened to everybody. It took many minutes for me to even start to come to terms with this. It is almost unimaginable to actually be alone.

I think it was my wish to live that brought me to the conclusion that I needed to find a source of power or I would run out of recycled air within a dozen days. More light came into the cabin and I noticed that the ship had been slowly rotating. Some nearby stars gave enough light to see by. I knew that I was still in my ship but the ship itself had changed dramatically The hull had been more than breached, it had been almost stripped away.

Using my PK again. I was able to move out of this enclosure and look at the remainder of the ship. I needed to see to my crew. This was a slow process for I could not see till the ship rotated into position. In twenty minutes I felt a loss I had never felt before. Along the spine of the ship were small pods that held my crew. A large hole in the side showed that there was one pod missing and another destroyed.

Mino, the last Seffra I had seen had been in the missing pod. Beside her was Fera's. Though there was little light I could see a frozen visage under the clear canopy. The field around the unit was not there.

I had not cried in a long time but once I started I couldn't stop. These people had been intrusted into my care and I had let them down. My mind warred with itself till I had to face the fact that I still had three others to protect.

I hid behind work this time too and searched the ship for what I could use to save us and make it to the rendevous point. One of the things I needed was to get the computer working for I didn't know where we were. The ship had been thoroughly destroyed and I was surprised that not only were some of us alive but that the ship had kept the four of us together.

The small ship I originally fabricated was located on a lower deck. A burst of energy had gone through this area too and took out some of our equipment and part of the this ship. The engines and reactor were small but looked to be able to function. That was good because there was no trace of the much larger engines and reactors that drove our larger ship.

The small boat became my home. It had enough to keep a small crew alive for two years but would drive all of us crazy before that time with the small size. There was air, food, water and power available. Self doubts crept in and I wondered if any of this was useful.

In nine days I was able to hook the power from the boat to the ship. There were a great many short circuits and breaks in the system but I did get the gravity to work. A day later a weak shield and lights now existed.

Each of the stasis pods were checked and the remaining three were working fine. This led me to wonder how I was awoken. An investigation found a broken conduit had come undone and the emergency procedures had been instigated to revive me. Otherwise I would have been like poor Fera whose body was still in her pod.

I opened Borin's home and found it damaged. The processor module though was still whole but a good portion of the computer was damaged. With power now available I got it to begin repairs.

My stasis pod still had some usable parts. The reactor and accumulator were good for hundreds of years but mine was very low on fuel. This brought another worry to me and I quickly checked the rest. All of them were low and would only last thirty to forty more years. This means that we had been in stasis for a long time. My estimates ranged from two hundred and seventy years to two hundred and ninety years. Even if I could get to the rendevous, the ship would not be there.

Our people usually chose to live for thousands of years and it was quite possible my family was still alive. All our friends could also be but the Suma were hot on their trail and they didn't have the speed to escape. There was still a chance to find them and this is what pulled me along now.

Though it hurt me I removed the undamaged equipment from Fera's pod and used it to supplement the ships power. Fera, I put in a room still open to space for now. The boat needed work done on its computer too and I found enough spares to start it doing this. The boat's computer actually came around first.

It was not an intelligent computer but it would still follow orders if they were phrased correctly. The main fabricator on the ship was in parts but the much smaller one in the boat was still working.

I began to gather all the useless parts into one area and use their mass to begin fabrication of parts that would provide a benefit to us. I thought that things would go faster with more help but the truth was that we still had problems with life support and safety. They could still wear their suits but I didn't want people to act as I knew they would when they awoke. Our families were now very far away but possibly alive. They would have thought that we were dead though. The only way the crew could assist me was when it looked like we had more of a chance of getting back to civilisation.

The first manufactured parts made went into repairing the boat. This was the purpose of this device anyway. Our main computer restarted and soon after Borin appeared. It was good to have her back but I was still angry at being thrust into the stasis pod. I was the captain and it was my place to see to my crew's safety. I did vow that when we got to a safe place the programming that went into this computer would be searched and this directive removed.

Borin and I had a long talk after she did her own assessment of her situation. I was told that after I was put into stasis and the special fields energised that she had continued to lure the Suma away. They had followed, probably wanting the weapon we used so effectively on them. The heavy salvo of missiles had struck from their rear. This was too much for all but one ship. The last one had been hit four times but was still serviceable.

The fire now on us increased as if they were playing with us before. Hours later a missile and energy barrage came and we were lucky to find a clear place to really damage the ship. Their missiles continued though and we took out the larger ones but smaller ones were more lucky for them. We were hit and then hit a great many more times by debris from both the missiles we destroyed and the ships themselves. The shield had finally failed at the last. The flying debris, travelling very fast, did just as much damage to us.

Our engines and reactors had been ripped off and power was then very low. Borin used the last bit of energy in the accumulators and even the back up power in the computer to destroy a large portion of enemy hull that would destroy us if it hit. After that Borin had to go into emergency shutdown from the damage to her systems and the loss of power. Over the centuries even the trickle that was left dissipated.

I sat back in my damaged chair and thought about all that had happened and what we had to do in the future.

Borin's home had been repaired but had taken all our spare computer parts. This was not a frivolous expense because she would play a major role in us getting back to civilisation. For the next cycle, I worked on rebuilding the larger fabricator. When this was done, Borin would be able to manipulate it much better and quicker than what I had been able to do but only for the simple things. Most of this work relied on my own mind and its abilities to manufacture the tiny substructures. The fabricator built into the boat had never meant to be that sophisticated.