Kas nodded. “She does.” He sighed. “You really don’t seem to understand the situation, Doctor. The Rekesh is a dead ship. She’s been dead for over a century. No atmosphere. No gravity. No power. The last survivors shut her down completely, and then opened her to space.”
“Opened her to space? You mean the whole ship’s been in vacuum for over a century?”
Kas nodded again. “We think so, Doctor, though we haven’t verified that by searching through her.”
Ro-Lecton looked puzzled. “Then why do you need us? I mean, no microorganism could survive a century of the vacuum and cold of space.”
Kas shrugged. “Don’t you mean ‘known microorganism’, Doctor?”
Ro-Lecton flushed. “Of course. Sorry.”
“We don’t know what the ship might have picked up,” Kas continued, “or where. The ship’s last Commanding Officer left us a log crystal with his diary on it and several crystals that he gathered in the med lab, in hopes that their work would give us a head start. Weren’t you given those crystals, Doctor?”
Ro-Lecton nodded. “Yes, of course. But whoever gathered them wasn’t a medical man. The crystals are incomplete, and fragments. The first thing on my “to do” list is to board the ship and get the rest of the crystals from it. They’ll provide us with a starting point. Them and any cadavers that might have survived.”
Kas chuckled grimly. “Cadavers are no problem, Doctor. The bodies of the crew were gathered up and put into cargo nets in the hangar bay, which was then decompressed. They’ve been frozen in vacuum for a hundred years, waiting for you — and for a decent burial. But Doctor,” he added, “Please don’t forget that these are not just frozen cadavers donated to a medical school for study. They are Fleet crewmembers who died doing their duty. They are to be treated with respect.”
The little doctor’s grin was rueful. “Yes. As you can see, I’m unaccustomed to working in space. In most epidemics, getting undecomposed corpses to study can be a difficult task. Here, it appears to be the easiest and getting to and from the lab will be the hardest. Odd.” He shrugged. “But it’s still vital that I get aboard that ship and retrieve their medical files — all of them. There’s no sense even beginning work until we learn what was done by the ship’s medical personnel.”
Kas explained to the doctor that it would be several days at least before his entire twelve-person team was revived. He also reminded Ro-Lecton that he could not board the plague ship until he had learned to move and work in a suit — at least a week.
Ro-Lecton howled. But Kas couldn’t relent. There was no way to get the doctor on board the plague ship except in a suit — and suits contain so many ways for its wearer to kill himself that it would be criminally careless to allow Ro-Lecton to board Rekesh without a proper suit check-out.
“Now,” Kas continued when Ro-Lecton paused for breath, “You’ll need to give Gran a list of the people you need revived and the order in which you’ll need them, so he can begin waking them. While they’re being revived, I’ll have one of my crew give you a quick suit checkout. Then you can examine the bio lab and I’ll take you over to Rekesh myself.”
Lady Jane took Ro-Lecton in hand for an accelerated vacuum-suit qualification.
Chapter 9
Kas called a crew meeting. “I’m concerned about security,” he began. “If that alarm we set went off right now, we’d be nearly helpless. Oh, we’d have time to get the lasers on-line, but they wouldn’t be much protection against a frigate or destroyer.”
Lady Jane was frowning. “You don’t really believe that the navies of the Alliance or the independents would attack us, do you, Kas? I mean, well, maybe the Glory. They consider anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs less than human. But the others…”
Rom snorted. “I know Admirals in the Imperial Fleet who wouldn’t be above a bit of murder for a prize like the Rekesh!”
Kas nodded. “Rom is right. The skipper who brought the Rekesh back to one of the independents would be a planetary hero. Nobody would bother asking uncomfortable questions.”
“So,” he continued, “It’s essential that we get some protection. Toj, how long before that bio lab is operational?”
The big man frowned in thought. “I should have it ready by lunch tomorrow. Then we can decompress the cargo bay to test for leaks.”
Kas nodded again. “All right. As soon as you can, decompress. If there’re no leaks leave the bay in vacuum and run out the lasers. They’re not much protection, but they’re what we’ve got.”
He turned to Rom. “We’ll be going aboard the Rekesh tomorrow, Rom. If possible we want to try to get some of her weaponry on line. I also want to shut off that damned plague beacon. We homed on it, so could someone else. Gran, I’d like to have you along, but you’re going to be tied up with reviving cold-sleepers for some time. Rom, Toj and I will have to handle it.”
Rom nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem, sir. I’m sure we can rig something.”
Toj shifted uncomfortably. “It may be harder than you think, sir,” he rumbled. “The weapons systems have three independent fusactors powering them. One powers the port and one the starboard laser and particle beam weapons. The third is much larger, and provides power and plasma for the plasma cannons. And then, of course, there's the big one that powers the shields.” He shrugged. “Getting the fusactors on-line should be fairly straightforward, especially if they were properly shut down. But with the ship’s AI dead…”
Kas frowned. “I thought there were independent weapons comps that could run the weapons systems even if the AI were gone,” he said. “There are smaller comp systems all through the ship if I remember correctly. Otherwise, a hit to the AI would leave the ship helpless.”
Toj nodded. “That’s the theory. But crews get pretty lax about keeping the backup comps at top readiness. A lot of jury-rigging can take place over a century.”
Kas grinned with relief. “That should be no problem. You’re thinking of her as a hundred-year-old ship. But she was only twelve years old when she disappeared. You might say she’s been in storage since.”
The big man’s somber expression lit up with a huge grin. “Of course, sir! She’s not a hundred-year-old ship — she’s a twelve-year-old ship! If her battle comps weren’t damaged in the rioting, we should be able to get almost all her weapons systems operational.”
Toj’s assessment turned out to be correct. It took only thirty hours to get nearly all of the cruiser’s weapons systems online. Fuel and reaction mass were brought over from Starhopper. Kas didn’t want to take the time to find and activate the cruiser’s stores comp.
It was with a great sense of relief that Kas keyed the switch and saw the Gunnery Officer’s console on the battle cruiser’s bridge come alive. In the airlessness, it was impossible to hear the comp’s verbal readiness report, but the console indicator dials and lights assured Kas of the system’s readiness.
He wouldn’t pressurize the Rekesh ’s bridge, of course. There would be no atmosphere aboard Vir Rekesh until the medical staff certified her safe from contamination. He set the controls for nonverbal reporting, and reported the console’s readings to Toj. Then he muttered a prayer to any god that happened by and punched the button that should launch a practice target.
There was no sound, but after a panicked moment, a blip appeared at the bottom of the main gunnery display, driving away from the ship. At its preselected point the target’s tiny onboard comp began running it through an array of zigs, zags, and wild, unpredictable course changes. Kas keyed a trigger, and his screen showed the target narrowly dodging a laser beam made luminous by the gunnery comp. Without atmospheric particles to excite, of course, the beam itself was invisible. He keyed another, and a particle beam swept space just vacated by the target.