Chapter 50

Third Mission, inbound in star system RKO-289 aboard the FUP Deep Space Exploration vessel Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing as the red lights continued to blink from the emergency fixtures on the overhead, but I had to! The regular lighting returned about two-thirds normal brightness; however, that illumination was still overwhelmed by the blinking-red emergency lights!

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. AN EVACUATION EVENT IS IMMINENT. REPEAT, AN EVACUATION EVENT IS IMMINENT.“

“What the FUCK!“ Mister Kyler shouted as he grabbed his AK off the deck between his right knee and the opened case of pseudo-Glocks. Still kneeling and looking around with wide eyes, he suddenly hurried to put the sling of his AK over his head. Then he stuffed the two holstered pistols back into the pouch he’d already filled with extra magazines for his AK, along with those for Xazan’s AR, and the spare pistols mags, as well as the cleaning kits.

“Are you hearing this as well, my naughty husband?“ Anika’s voice came to me over the clamor through my ear-bud. Her voice sounded guarded, almost skeptical, yet certainly not frightened. In the center panel of my visor a pop-up informed me that accepted user Juliet had linked to my present ongoing communication in mute mode and was monitoring the opened channel as I noticed an emergency evacuation warning beginning to flash along the bottom of the panel as well!

“Yes, I am! Hold the line open you two,” I told them knowing more specific information should be coming since this was not a drill. I felt my heart start trying to get out of my chest as what was happening took root as real in my head as well as in my body.

“Attention Sections Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen on Eight Deck through Four Deck, “ the voice announced as the red lights flashed in the lowered-lighting of the compartment around me. “An evacuation event projected by the C-ELMER system requires ALL evacuation boats serving these areas to abandon ship in ... thirty-nine minutes and thirty-two seconds—countdown beginning from ... MARK.“

A slight rush of relief came over me at what I was hearing about the time available to us—as well as the little ahh, ahh, ahh sounds I realized I was hearing from Kyler kneeling down on the deck near me. I exhaled—39 minutes! Blinking three times, I brought the C-ELMER Channel up in the right panel of my visor. I focused on taking slow, deep breaths while wanting to monitor information about the evac event directly from the source. My paranoid ass-wipe started yammering that I had other things I needed to set into motion since we had that much time available until Ships Away!

“Be advised, other Sections and other Decks of the Ship will experience different evacuation thresholds. All collision bulkheads in Sections Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen on Eight Deck through Four Deck will deploy five minutes before impact. Do NOT block collision bulkhead tracks with vehicles or other obstructions.“

My mind worked at what seemed like warp speed, as everything around me seemed to slow down to a crawl. Having such a large amount of time before Ships Away was a new twist and not how Evacuation Drills were run! According to the announcement, we actually had a buffer of almost 40 minutes in this section of the main hull; but maybe less in the other sections and decks not mentioned in the announcement I was hearing!

With that long, won’t the Glenndeavor be able to maneuver out of harm’s way? my inner geek demanded.

I didn’t know about that, but I knew Evac Drills always required the crew to get to their Evac Stations as soon as they could make it, with your EDE suit on or not. EDE suits! I thought. Ours were up in our quarters!

“For your safety,” the female voice announced as if we were about to get on an amusement park ride, “go to your assigned Evacuation Stations or the closest Evacuation Station immediately, in good order. Go to your Evacuation Stations immediately!“

Part of me focused on the 39 minutes or less we had before C-ELMER started launching evacuation boats from our Section if nothing resolved whatever was threatening the Glenndeavor before the end of the countdown.

“For more information or to report any accidents or malfunctions preventing your evacuation, set any communication device to C-ELMER Channel and report your situation. REPEAT. For more information or to report any accidents or malfunctions preventing your evacuation set any communication device to C-ELMER Channel.“

I was breathing a bit easier and my heart was happy to beat as if I’d just had four-minutes of mat time with Gunny Moanauer not holding back. The important thing, I reminded myself, and my paranoid ass-wipe, was we had time to get things done, and having something to focus on would keep everyone on task and busy, and less frightened, until we blasted out into the Big Black in the Royal Yacht—or the Evacuation Event was cancelled.

“C-ELMER projects a seventy-eight percent chance of the Ship sustaining multiple hull breaches accompanied by explosions and catastrophic decompression in affected areas of the Ship.”

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL... “

I stopped listening to the computerized voice as it began the announcements all over again. I reached out and firmly took hold of Kyler’s right arm as he finally managed to struggle to his feet while sounding as if he might hyperventilate. He was looking around wildly in the reduced light and flashes of red, holding on to his full pouch of magazines, pistols, and cleaning kits as if his life depended on what was inside with both hands, the strap of his new assault rifle across the chest of his duty blues.

A few meters away, Bea was focused on me with a questioning look on her face; but other than breathing fast under her ballistic vest, she seemed in control of her emotions and her body. At her side, she did keep clenching her right hand into a fist and then unclenching her fingers.

“Anika, Juliet, listen to me,” I spoke in a bit louder voice than necessary for my RTC to pick up my words. “Take the cumshaw cart up to our suite, the tow-lift too if you can find an empty pallet or two and put them on the forks. Once at our compartments, stack anything that lends itself on the tow-lift. Put one of the blankets over the netting in the cart so little stuff doesn’t fall through. Oh, throw everything you guys can on blankets or sheets on the deck and then drag loads out to the cart or over to the Evac Station to be taken down to the Yacht.

“One of you start farthest away from the hatch and one from the farthest locker and work toward the hatch,” I rapidly told my wives, surprised that part of me was calm and able to tell them about the plan my PAW and I had gone over and over in my mind’s eye since the first time I got aboard a space ship. “Grab everything you can get out of our compartments. Dump the contents of all the drawers onto the blankets or just take ‘em out and stack the drawers on the tow-lift forks.”

“Everything?“ Juliet’s voice asked me in my right ear.

“Yes, everything we can get,” I told her, realizing they could hear the frantic edge I was hearing as my growing fear tried working its way into my voice. “Whatever we don’t take we’ll have to live without, and there’s plenty of room in the Yacht.”

My inner geek was worried I’d started repeating things and waste time, letting me know that the 37 minutes or so we had left would go by in a flash. I took a deep lungful of air and focused on what I needed to tell my loved ones, before getting Bea and Mister Kyler and my own ass moving down here.

“Get on the C-ELMER Channel that damn computerized voice keeps tell us about to monitor the countdown closer,” I said and took another slow breath to calm down, but it didn’t seem to work. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t start moving!

“When it gets down to about eight minutes,” I told Juliet and Anika over my Kilo comm system, talking fast as I worked to speak clearly, “get your butts back to the Yacht if I haven’t come up there by then. When you need the combinations to my locked drawer and locker, call me. Strip the suite bare if you can, drag the stuff in the blankets into the lift if you must. If this evacuation isn’t cancelled, we don’t know how long it will be before relief arrives from the Federation once they receive the distress drones. Get everything you can down to the Yacht and pile it all into one of the empty cargo holds—use 002, understand?”

“A-firmative, my husband, you can be counting on us, “ Anika replied through my ear-bud. “Ah, Juliet has offered Xazan and Kyler the hospitality of the Yacht and she has accepted for both of them. However, she is wanting to go to her quarters one deck up and gather what things she can. What shall I be telling her? She is saying that a girl is having to have fresh underwear for God’s sake, “ and my Fireball actually giggled! I could hear Anika’s nerves in the sound.

“Sure, why not?” I replied keeping hold of Kyler when he tried to pull away from me. “But tell her if C-ELMER says it’s time to go and she’s not back, she’s on her own. Wait—ask her if she wants me to send her boyfriend up to help her.”

That got Mister Kyler’s attention and I saw him focus on my face through my tinted visor and the flashing lights as I heard Anika repeat my words to Xazan. I didn’t hear a reply. I wasn’t going to wait, I had things Kyler could help with right here.

“Bea, you and Kyler get one of the other tow-motors,” I directed. “If you see empty pallets back there, put two of them on the forks, or else put the blue tarp down on the forks. Place everything you can on the damn thing from what we’ve got here, but make sure the top of your load will clear the top of the cargo lift’s hatchway, and strap the stuff down if you need to. Better bring two lifts if there are more. We’re loading everything down here for the Yacht.”

I turned Kyler around and let go of his arm before I pushed him on his shoulder toward Bea and commanded, “Now move!“

I was happy to see they both hurried off to get transportation without Kyler asking about Xaz; he just hustled after Beatrice holding his full pouch of stuff and with his AK over his back. I guessed he either trusted Xaz or was more worried about himself. Time would tell, if we had time. I hoped that another 35 minutes or so found us laughing about the near misses as the evacuation was cancelled, or all of us watching the high-def monitors inside the Royal Yacht as Juliet displayed her piloting skills getting us clear of the impact zone—whatever it was that C-ELMER’s logic circuits projected was going to be hitting our section of the hull.

I told my inner geek to stay shut up and not demand to know more information about what might hit the Ship, we had other things to worry about right now.

I felt a little shock go through me, realizing I’d sent Kyler off with an objective before I’d heard if Xaz wanted his help! I could always call Bea if his girlfriend required his assistance.

“Xaz says,” Anika’s voice came into my ear-bud over the sound of the computerized female voice repeating the Evacuation Event information, “to be finding meaningful work for him as Kyle is being overly excitable at times. He would be getting in her way. She also might be bringing one of her roommates if the young lady is present. She is calling her now to find out if she is, and will be telling her to be waiting for her.“

From the background noises I managed to hear through my ear-bud, I could tell that my ladies were on the move up in the Yacht.

“Also, Jameson, I am knowing your combinations. The desk drawer is mindy sixty-nine, all lower case and numerals, no space between; your locker is fireball sixty-nine, all upper case, numerals, and no space, “ my younger wife informed me. “You are also having ingenious but easy hack that allows you to be translating my native tongue to your electric eyes, thinking I am unaware. And, you are dearer to me than life itself, my husband!“

“You little sneak, I love you as well; same for you, Juliet!” I said and started laughing as that powerful emotion began to fill me up in spite of the fact my stomach was tied in knots and I felt like I might shit in my pants at the slightest loud noise.

“We are loving you, “ Anika said in my ear. “Be seeing you in Yacht; out.“

It took one-and-a-half tow-lift loads, and 13 minutes-and-change of controlled panic to load the remaining contraband from the piles on the deck onto the lift-trucks—some of the stuff was damn heavy. Bea had found a pile of pallets next to the charging station where the little tow-motors were parked. With the pallets on the forks and our Ship’s Logistics Specialist directing what went where, we didn’t use either of the tarps and none of the ratchet straps to secure the two loads. Kyler tilted the forks backward and the contraband rested against the wide lattice-work of the safety shield coming up from the rear of the forks and intended to protect the driver by keeping cargo from falling off the back of the load. We stuffed a tarp and all the straps we could grab in a hurry into the wire-mesh equipment box on both tow-motors they brought to retrieve loads of contraband.

I sent Bea and Mister Kyler up with the first bunch of contraband to the Yacht with orders to meet me at our suite once they dropped off their load. When the lift car came back down, I went up with my partial load to Seven Deck. The female-sounding voice continued announcing emergency information inside the lift car and, I’m sure, on all the audio emitters in the entire ship.

The hatch opened in front of my tow-lift and I was shocked! Through the lattice-work of the safety shield in front of me, I noticed at least two blankets, looking like Santa’s bag of gifts, crammed with belongings and resting against the right bulkhead of the Evac compartment. Beyond that, the outer hatch to the passageway was locked open. Yellow-and-blue flashing lights from the emergency beacons over the outside entryway to the Evacuation Station mixed with the red flashing emergency lights from the corridor overhead, the colors flashing on the far bulkhead and the passageway decking. The ever-present digital voice repeating the Emergency Event notice filled the air, threatening my last nerve. All that and the adrenaline bubbling through my blood created a frightening, eerie, tension-filled atmosphere from my insides out.

My inner geek prayed we’d wake up. My PAW wondered if the cause of the Evac Event was un-plotted asteroids, Brotherhood attack-craft somehow, or what! At least my paranoid ass-wipe was satisfied that since the threat was coming from outside the Glenndeavor that the cause of this chaos wasn’t from conspirators among the crew!

As I drove out of the lift car into the Evac Station, I could see through the wide hatchway in front of me and out across to the open hatch of C001. Guiding the tow-motor through the hatchway and into the corridor, I noticed Juliet was moving about under the pulsing light near the desk in C001. Behind her, as I rode across the passageway, I noticed big bunk drawers on the carpet near the walk-through. The cumshaw cart was waiting between the open hatches of C003 and C005. The cart’s load-bed was over half full with haphazard layers of belongings and gear. I pulled to a stop close to the hatchway for C001 and Juliet saw me. She gave me a pinched smile from under her visor. I called out and asked if she needed help and she nodded.

I got off the back of the lift-truck and hurried inside. Looking around, I saw the bunk didn’t even have the mattress on it! My footlocker was gone. Glancing quickly to my left, the cabinet doors under the counter in far corner were open and the insides empty. I saw all the lockers at the front of the compartment were open and the deep drawer below each of the bigger lockers was pulled out on the carpet and the middle one was missing. A sheet down on the deck near the desk was full of towels, shampoo bottles, containers of toilet paper, and other things that had been in the head. I saw the green box holding the Ducal ring in the pile as well as the rest of the contents of the desk drawers. I looked to the right and Juliet was bent over between the bulkhead desk and the shelving, getting something off the bottom shelf; it was a big, open cardboard box.

“The shelves are the last of it,” Juliet said as she started to stand up with the big box, giving me a faint smile from below her visor. Moving to the pile on the sheet she said, “Put your electric eyes down and you’ll be able to see better, love.”

Once down, with four blinks, I had my Kilo system compensating for the flashing lights and everything I saw through the panels of the visor in the compartment looked brighter and almost normal. I grabbed one of the EDE suits in its emergency-yellow tote from the shelf near me and, one after the other, I tossed each one as fast as I could at the left side of heaped up gear and belongings on the sheet. Each tote hit the carpet and then flopped into the pile while leaving Juliet room to move.

We continued shifting everything off the shelves as fast as we could—I didn’t realize there was so much stuff! I was starting to pant, from my rapid efforts stepping back and forth, or with the growing alarm and tension that, so far, I’d managed to keep from taking over my mind and body. Finally the shelves were empty—even the POC chargers were gone.

“Anika and Mel are next door,” Juliet said quickly as she put the last container on the pile. “This is the last in here. Anika said if we have time, she wants to take the benches Merch sent us, can you believe that?”

I could hear a commotion coming from C003; a drawer hitting the carpet-covered deck. I bundled up the four corners of the sheet as best as I could and pulled the whole load toward the hatch as Juliet hustled around the empty drawers on the deck and rushed through the opening into C003.

It was a squeeze getting the bulging sheet of belongings out of the hatchway. I had to work the bundle back and forth three times, as I stood in the passageway and pulled. Once that obstacle was behind me, I heaved for all I was worth as I pumped my legs while adrenaline coursed through my system. Pulling my load around the tow-lift and across the corridor, I backed into the Evacuation Station. Stopping inside, I grabbed the four tied-together ends of one of the other big bundles with my right hand.

Somehow, I managed to drag both loads to the open lift car, but had to pull them in one at a time. Inside the lift, I tied the ends of my sheet-load of belongings together. As I turned around for the next couple of loaded blankets, beyond the Evac compartment and outside the hatchway across the corridor, I saw Juliet up on the tow-lift I’d parked. She drove off toward C003 and out of my line of sight.

With some swearing, I got the remaining loaded blankets piled in the elevator car; thanked goodness the ends of every load of stuff had been tied together—Anika I figured. I took the lift down to the Yacht embarkation deck. When the hatch opened, I dragged the loads just outside of the car to clear the elevator. Then I moved two blanket loads in the first go, two in the second haul, and finally the sheet, pulling backwards across the decking, up the ramp, and into the airlock. I discovered the loads of belongings in the blankets were even heavier than the load in the sheet, but they were blankets and the material had actually made those loads easier to drag across the decking. I was worrying the sheet would rip open under the heavy weight with every backward step I took.

Acutely aware we had to beat the clock and huffing and puffing as if I didn’t regularly attend PT, I lined up each load against the right bulkhead inside the airlock leaving plenty of room down the center of the deck for the cumshaw cart and tow-lifts to get by and into the shuttle. As I turned around to run back to the lift, I realized I could hear the drives of the Royal Yacht already humming at idle speed and another big rush of adrenaline hit my system! That was when I saw the access panel on the forward airlock bulkhead with the stenciled information: Winch—3000 Kg. max.

Thinking that the cumshaw cart was going be over maximum capacity and heavy as hell to get up the ramp, I stepped over and pushed the release paddle. The big, vertical panel swung opened to my right accompanied by a Beep! Beep! Beep! as a flashing yellow light began to strobe from inside the big opening. I stepped back as the winch spool-and-motor mechanism tracked automatically about half-a-meter out of the bulkhead. I saw two fluorescent-orange remote control boxes clipped to the top of the assembly. Taking one, I turned it on and thumbed the Wind Out Release button. The heavy-duty safety hook and a length of the thin cable moved out of the guide and then dropped from the turning spool to the deck of the airlock with a clunk.

I picked up the articulated hook and pulled the cable out behind me as I hurried out of the opened airlock. Three-quarters of the way down the ramp I put the hook and cable down on the edge of the incline with the bright controller next to the hook.

Standing back up, I checked the right panel of my visor and saw the countdown was proceeding at T-minus 19 minutes and 34 seconds!

As I bolted down the ramp, I heard Bea calling from almost right behind me and in my ear-bud as well, then I heard the footfalls of two people as she and Kyler passed me by in about three strides going at a dead run toward the closed hatch of the lift!

Inside the rising lift, Bea told me Juliet called and said their tow-motor wasn’t needed but extra hands were! After using three of the ratchet straps to secure the tow-lift to the decking in Bay 002, she and Kyler had left the machine inside the bay. Kyler laughed, looking at me with wide eyes, and asked how much the stuff in the blankets weighed and how did I manage to drag each one up the ramp by myself? I told him the material of the blankets lowered the coefficient of friction across the decking dramatically, but I’d worried about the tensile strength of the sheet with every step I took up into the airlock!

I could hear my inner geek praying to hear the voice in the audio emitters cancel the Evacuation!

The hatch opened in front of us onto the Evac Station and I was just able to see the top of Anika’s Kilo helmet waiting behind the huge pile of sheeted-over belongings stacked up on the cumshaw cart. I even saw there was at least one of the mattresses sticking out from under the sheet-edge at the bottom of the load! As I got to one side of the car, Bea and Mister Kyler hurried out along the other side and ran past Anika.

I heard squeaking noises from the cart fittings over the female voice still announcing the evacuation event information as my Fireball pushed the huge load into the elevator car, telling me that with the tow-lift I brought up, we would be able to get the rest of her things from C003 as well as what little Mel had in C005. Anika brought the load to a halt using the handbrakes; she told me from below her visor she was impressed because it took her and Mel to shift some of the loads in the blankets.

I told her it was the adrenaline and sheer terror, and to look for the winch cable and control box on the left side of the Yacht’s ramp to help get the cart up into the airlock. Anika gave me a relieved smile and then told me if that was so, then get my cute ass over to help collect the rest of her belongings!

Smiling at Anika despite my clenching stomach, I got out of the lift while feeling sweat start running down the sides of my ribs from my armpits in spite of my tee shirt. As the hatch closed behind me hiding my view of Fireball’s own cute ass, I heard a commotion that wasn’t the artificial female voice droning on about the evacuation and I turned around. G2 Xazan and a tall young woman who was red-faced and sobbing rushed from the passageway into the Evac compartment.

In each hand, Xaz held a big duffel bag by the handle strap; and on her back, she wore an over-sized, yellow alpine backpack. The G2 with her, who was taller than Xaz by a head and more—topped with purple-dyed short hair—held a third ExServ space bag against the chest of the jacket she wore over her duty blues with another full, small pack slung from her left shoulder. The blonde Corpsman puffed out a lungful of air and gave me a relieved looking grin before she walked over to the left side of the back bulkhead. She stopped by the opened iris hatch of the big Evac tube people who didn’t have access to the lift could use to get down to the Embarkation Deck. That’s where Xaz carefully put her big duffels down. Then she shucked off the huge, stuffed backpack. By the way the pack moved as she handled the load, it seemed to be quite heavy.

Thank your lucky stars, my PAW sighed as he watched from my lizard brain, we don’t have to use the tube!

Hey! he snorted out, you think that backpack and the duffels are her SHTF bags?

Xaz’s friend just stood inside the open hatchway with tears wetting her red cheeks and sniffing every fourth or fifth breath as her chest heaved. Then I realized that she was wearing two different unzipped jackets. Quickly comparing the two women, I realized that Xaz stood about halfway between Juliet’s height and Anika’s vertically challenged stature. Her purple-haired friend was about seven centimeters tall than me.

“Get over here Caz,” Xaz commanded, pointing at the deck in front of her bags. “Stand by my gear, and do not move.”

The tall young woman shuffled over by the two duffels on the deck and the backpack leaning against the bulkhead and then turned; looking past her smaller friend at me as if she’d just realized I was there.

“You’re not going to leave me here, are you?” she asked in a shaky-sounding voice that was just on the verge of becoming a full, beseeching whine.

“We’ll be back for you. We’ve got to go help the others,” Xaz told her, and stepping over to me, she grabbed my right hand and then pulled me quickly out of the compartment.

“Cazinska will stay back there,” she told me as we approached the tow-lift between C003 and C005. “She’s scared completely out of orbit. If I wouldn’t have gone back to our compartment, I doubt she’d have ever left for our Evac Station without help! Our other roomie’s on duty, so she’s not coming back—Caz would’ve been shit-out-the-air-lock if I hadn’t gone up there for my gear!”

One of the reasons the Glenndeavor had so many Evacuation Drills at the beginning of each mission was so the crew would automatically react and head to their stations in an emergency without having to think. I hoped there weren’t any other members of the crew cowering inside their quarters alone, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

Bea and Kyler came out of C003 and started stacking what I recognized as bunk drawers now crammed full of different things onto what was already a chest-high pile on the two pallets tilted back toward the machine. There were two straps going from the front of the outside pallet and hooked to the top bar of the safety shield coming up from the rear of the forks. The ingenious fix was keeping what was already stacked on the forks in place as each new item was wedged under the straps if there were other belongings already back against the lattice work of the wide operator’s guard.

We started to go into C003 only to have to stop and get out of Juliet’s way as she carried out another the big drawer full of Anika’s sinful towels!

“We’ve almost got this taken care of,” Juliet told us as she handed the drawer to Kyler standing by the stack of goods already in place as the lights flashed outside my visor and the Emergency Evacuation notice continued being announced over every audio emitter around us. “Can you two guys go into Mel’s and drag her mattress over to the Evac lift?”

“Yes, my love,” I told Juliet as she went back inside. Looking back at Kyler who turned and nodded to me, I saw the latest drawer was already in place on the load. Then Juliet’s request sunk into my awareness. With a shrug of my shoulders, I motioned for Kyle to follow me past the front of the tow-lift and we headed next door to C005. As we moved by the stacks of belongings on the front forks, I realized if we put the mattresses in different bays, we’d have some privacy for personal household matters. The fancy, articulated couches on the Passenger Deck might be great to sleep on once they were in their fully reclined and deployed position, but I hoped I wouldn’t get used to loving up my three women in front of Xaz, Kyle, and her roomie, Caz. It certainly wasn’t that point in the Mission as far as I was concerned.

As we entered C005, I flashed on the fact that we had 24 military-grade air mattresses already aboard the Royal Yacht! Feeling I needed to score points with Juliet to make up for not telling her about the possible 24 infiltrated Morlocks earlier, I reached down and got a hold on the right foot of the mattress and Kyler went to the head of the bunk. I notice Mel’s footlocker was already gone. I hoped that wherever those 24 Morlocks were sleeping would be ground zero for whatever was going to strike the Glenndeavor! Then I checked the right panel of my visor.