Salvation and Doom: The Cathardi Prophecy

Josh woke to the clanging of the jump alarm. It only took him a few seconds to clear the disorientation caused by the jump. Then he quickly scanned the controls and silenced the alarm. Everything was in order. He reached over and shook Kim until she stirred, and then he did the same for Fauna, the ranking Cathardi for the exercise.

Once they recovered from the jump-induced blackout, Fauna checked on the rest of the crew over the ship's communication system. “All stations report normal operational status,” she said.

“Have we located the beacon?” Josh looked over at Kim, checking the scanner for the distinctive signal of their target.

“I have the beacon located,” Kim said. “It is quite close to our port.”

“I am plotting your course,” Fauna added. “We should be there in ten minutes using thrusters.”

“Very well. Prepare to deploy the arm for object retrieval.” Josh turned to Fauna. “I expected this to be harder.”

“They did not design the exercise to be hard, just to test your piloting abilities. You have done very well and should have a good score on our return.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. She seems less rigid than most of the Cathardi I have been exposed to since the ‘invasion’. He distrusted them. His Father said that once they got what they wanted from Earth, they would desert it. But they offered Josh the opportunity to learn to pilot interstellar spacecraft. An opportunity to visit new planets and new people not confined to the political, racial, and religious tensions of Earth.

When the Cathardi first arrived, he was surprised by how closely they resembled humans on Earth. During the televised address at the United Nations, his mother said, “They are Ocampans.” It took him a few moments to connect the reference, but now, whenever he looked at them, he thought of Star Trek. Their fine features and the ridges near their ears looked like the Tess character.

Cathardi military personnel all wore similar gray tunics over matching pants, making it hard to distinguish the gender of the individual. The uniform’s understated insignia required close inspection if one wanted to know the rank of the individual. All wore short ‘pixie’ cut hair. He now knew that the female officers had a faint cinnamon-like odor. He wasn’t sure if it was natural or if they all wore the same perfume.

They reached the beacon in nine minutes, and Josh gave the okay for retrieval and waited for word that the object was onboard.

RRRRRRRR! RRRRRRR! The alarms sounded, and red lights flashed a hull breach warning.

“Engine room report!” Josh called, but no answer came.

“Oxygen levels are dropping,” Kim reported.

Josh unbuckled his restraints. “Keep me apprised of the situation below. I’ll seal this hatch,” he said. Then he ran out of the bridge to the stairs, grabbing a portable oxygen mask from the emergency station at the top of the stairs before sliding down to the lower level. He could feel the air rushing through the passageway, the cold fogged his mask. He checked the engine room. It was clear. He ran to the cargo bay. Two Cathardi crewmen lay motionless on the floor. The bulkhead, near the robotic arm, had a hole in it. Air rushed through the hole, sucking loose objects toward the hole and out into the vacuum of space.

He went to the first crewman and pulled him through the hatch into the passageway. When he went back to the second crewman, he noticed blood on the floor. He pulled him out and sealed the cargo compartment hatch.

“Fauna,” he said through the com. “Do we have a visual view of the retrieval arm? A hole has been torn in the cargo hold hull. Both crewmen are unresponsive. I will need help down here.”

“I am on my way,” she said. “The visual is on camera three. You can access it from engineering.”

“Kim, can you shut off the alarm?” He went to the engineering console. The alarm stopped.

“I have the alarm off for now, but we are still slowly bleeding atmosphere.”

He checked the visual. The robotic arm had broken loose on one side and ripped away from the hull. It seemed stable for now, but he didn’t think it would take any kind of thrust. The inertia could tear a larger hole and maybe compromise any systems running through the wall.

“Captain,” Fauna said as she entered. “What do you want me to do?”

“The first thing is to tend to the crewmen. Help me get them into the galley.”

They carried the first crewman and laid him on a bench. He was alive but unconscious. Fauna took an oxygen mask and put it on him before they went back for the second. When they laid him on the bench, she said, “This one is dead. From the wound on his head, it appears he either struck something when he fell, or an object hit him as it flew toward the breech.”

“Dead?” Josh couldn’t believe it. This was just a training exercise. How could he lose a crewman on a training exercise?

“Josh.” He heard Kim through the com. “I cannot contact Eagle Station. Somehow, we have lost outside communications.”

“Keep trying,” he said. “Fauna, you need to see this, since you are more experienced with this ship than I am.” He took her to Engineering, and they looked at the video showing the arm. “I don’t think we can move with the arm like that.”

“I agree. We need to secure it or cut it loose.” She pointed to the monitor. “But it has to be done out there.”

“Do we have suits?”

“Yes, they store them by the airlock at the rear of the shuttle. I will show you.” She took him back and showed him where they kept the suits.

“Good. I think just to be safe you and Kim need to don suits. I’m going to see if we have equipment to do something about the arm.”

“What about the crewman?” she said.

“He should have one as well if you can get it on him. Otherwise, he will have to do with the oxygen mask until he regains consciousness.”

Fauna started putting her suit on while Josh went to Engineering, where he found the fusion torch and a metal repair sheet. Using the torch, he cut a square piece from the sheet several inches bigger than the hole. Then he went to the airlock with the torch and the patch. Fauna already had her suit on, and Kim was just putting on her helmet.

Josh got into his suit. “Kim, go back to the bridge and try to determine what is wrong with the communications. Fauna can stay down here and help with the tether. I don’t know how long we will be here, so only use the oxygen in your suits when it’s necessary. How much time will the suit give me outside?”

“You will have two hours if you do not overexert,” Fauna said.

“That’s cutting it close, but I think I can do it.”

Josh took the fusion torch, the hand grinder, and the patch inside the airlock. “Let me know my oxygen levels about every ten minutes,” Josh said over the radio. “I don’t want to stay out too long.”

“I’ll monitor your oxygen levels, Josh,” Kim said.

When the door closed, he started the evacuation cycle. When the outside door opened, he hooked the tether and floated out. Using the suit thrusters, he moved around to the breach. This was going to take a while; the arm had bent out the edges of the hole. He would need to grind them flat enough to get a seal with the patch. The arm was another story. There was no way for him to move it into a position where he could secure it. He would need to cut the fasteners still holding part of the base to the ship. If he wasn’t careful, the arm could move and hit him. First things first, I need to remove that arm.

He made his way to the lower fastener and began cutting through the large bolt using the torch. “Ten minutes.” He heard Kim through his helmet.

Moving to the upper fastener, he put both feet on the arm with his back against the hull. He began cutting through the bolt, keeping pressure on the arm with his feet. “Twenty minutes.” Just before he cut through, it gave way. His feet pushed the arm away from the shuttle. He was afraid it would spin around and hit the hull or him. But the momentum of the push got it far enough away that it cleared the ship.

Moving back to the jagged hole, he began cutting through the bent metal. Then he started with the grinder. It hummed through his gloves as he worked on the remaining bent metal. He took his time to ensure he could get a seal.

“Fifty minutes.”

He thought the surface was smooth enough, so he held the patch against the hull. There was a small gap at the bottom, but he thought the torch would fill it.

He began stitch-welding the plate to the hull.

“Sixty minutes.”

He welded in one-inch increments around the patch, being sure the overlapping welds looked good.

“100 minutes. Josh, You won’t make it two hours. Your levels are falling too fast!” Kim said.

“Keep me apprised. I am almost finished.”

The last stitch at the bottom proved the most difficult with the escaping air blowing through. He started the last weld.

“110 minutes. Josh, get inside!” Kim shouted over the radio.

“Five more minutes.” Josh worked to seal the last few millimeters, but it was hard for him to focus. “I’m done,” he called.

“Josh, hold on to the tether. Fauna will pull you in,” he heard through the com.

“I’m so—” He lost consciousness.

Josh woke on the galley floor. “What happened?” His head hurt and he couldn’t push himself up into a sitting position.

“You passed out,” Kim said. “Fortunately, Fauna was in the airlock, ready to pull you in. You cut it way too close.”

“How is the crewman?” he asked.

“He will survive. His oxygen levels are still low, but he is conscious,” Fauna said. “That was very brave of you to go out there. Do they teach hull repairs at the academy?”

“No, my father ran a machine shop. I had some welding experience before the academy, though it was much harder out there. I got drowsy towards the end. We should go check the patch.”

Josh staggered back to the cargo bay, leaning on Kim. The patch was holding fine, but he thought he should put a patch on the inside just to be safe. Once he could move better, he got another piece of patching. He had to push broken cables back into the wall space. I’ll bet one of those broken cables is for the radio.

When he finished welding the patch, he returned to the galley with Fauna. She checked his oxygen levels. “They are still lower than they should be. You need to rest with supplemental oxygen. I will set you in a seat down here and fasten your restraints.”

“Will you pilot us back?”

“No. Kim will pilot the shuttle back to Eagle Station. I will man the engine room since she and I are the only two crewmen still functioning.”

“I assume the accident was not part of the exercise?” His voice sounded more sarcastic than he wanted. It was just a rhetorical question.

“No, we would never endanger either you or ourselves in that manner.”

Of course, she took it seriously. I don’t think they have a sense of humor.

Josh reclined his chair. He had to admit that he still felt lightheaded. He hoped he had made no mistakes on the inside welds. Across the galley, the other crewman looked to be sleeping. Over the com, he heard Kim and Fauna going through their pre-jump checklists.

“Engines and gravity drive are fully functional. We can be underway at your command,” Fauna said.

He sank into his chair as the gravity increased and passed out.

After the two short jumps, Kim made the jump back to the designated return coordinates. When they completed the last jump, Josh felt well enough to return to the bridge. He went over to Kim and put his hand on her shoulder. She got up and threw her arms around him and hugged him so tightly he thought she would squeeze all the air out of him again. “Too tight,” he whispered into her ear. She eased up.

Josh held her for a moment. He caught a scent of coconut, probably from her shampoo, since regulations prohibited perfume in the close quarters of spaceships.

She released him. “I was so scared. I thought you would die out there.”

“Well, I didn’t. You and Fauna handled things, so we’re going to be okay. But we may not pass the exercise. We didn’t retrieve the target, and we exceeded the time limit. Hopefully, they will consider the mitigating circumstances. Have we had any communications?”

“Nothing yet. I set a repeating transmission and I’m watching the proximity sensors.” She sat back down at her console. “We are in the standard shipping lanes, and within sensor range for Eagle Station.”

He took his seat but didn’t bother with any of the controls. Smiling, he watched her work. Ever since they met at the Academy, he had found her attractive. She was petite, only five feet four inches tall, with long blond hair and deep blue eyes. He thought she felt attracted to him as well, but when he tried to get her to share a hotel room with him last Christmas break, she refused. She’s straight-laced and wouldn’t break the school rules then or service rules now.

***

After they docked at Eagle Station, medics and security officers boarded the shuttle before the crew could leave. They took Josh’s vital signs, and then escorted him off the ship. Inside the station, a small crowd had gathered. He recognized some of his classmates who stood toward the back along one wall of the passage leading to the main part of the station. He could see the worry on their faces. But his escort didn’t slow down. They rushed him to a treatment room in the medical area where they helped him out of his suit and made him lie down.

When the medical team left, the security officer stayed at the door. “What’s going on?” Josh said.

“You are being held until they complete the initial investigation of the incident,” the guard said. “You may not talk with or see anyone until they get statements from the entire crew and examine the physical evidence.”

While he was talking, medics carried the body of the dead crewman by the door. They’re blaming me for the crewman’s death. Is it my fault? Could I have checked the arm when I had the chance? How could I be so stupid?

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, just detained until the investigation is complete.” The guard closed the door to keep the curious from peering into the room. “The investigators don’t want your version of the events to influence the statements of the other crew members, especially the other cadet.”

There was a knock at the door. The security officer opened it for a Cathardi medical officer. “Cadet, I’m Doctor Kolvar. You are a very lucky man. You almost died out there and you still have some lingering effects from the low blood oxygen. Rest and you will recover.”

Josh leaned back against the raised head of the bed. The doctor worked behind him and brought tubes around that he put into his nose. When he was done, Josh said, “What about Kim and the other crew members?”

“They have no medical issues and are just being detained until the investigators can get a statement. They should return to Earth on the next shuttle.” He turned to leave but stopped. “You have created quite the uproar on the station. There has not been an accidental death in this sector since we arrived. Now rest.” He left, and the guard went out with him, closing the door behind him.