“Abort jump!” He ordered. “Adjust vectors to bring us around in minimum time. Make max boost toward Starhopper!”
Before he was even finished speaking, To-Ling was streaming orders.
It took almost a full day to vector the huge battle cruiser around and reverse course, another two days to drive back across the system, and yet another two days to slow the big ship and match orbits with Starhopper.
Kas replied to Rom’s first transmission almost immediately, but the lightspeed lag of more than half an hour prevented two-way communication for nearly two days. They established two-way communications as soon as possible, of course, but even then, lightspeed lag of minutes prevented most contact. Kas would receive a transmission from Rom, and reply. But before Kas’ message arrived, several minutes would have elapsed, during which Rom might have sent additional transmissions on totally different subjects. By the time Kas’ message arrived Rom had to try to figure out which message Kas was replying to, and how it might affect the messages he had sent in the interim. The same applied in the other direction, of course, and until the lightspeed lag was reduced to seconds instead of minutes, little could be accomplished.
Nevertheless, Kas finally got a coherent picture of Starhopper ’s condition.
When the enemy fleet had emerged, Starhopper had her inboard lasers deployed, in accordance with Kas’ standing orders. Ler-Traken had immediately ordered all weapons to open fire, and Gran had responded quickly, firing the lasers and even the quick-firers in Starhopper ’s nose.
For a moment, it had seemed they would reach the jump point unscathed. Then one of the destroyers had hit Starhopper ’s bridge with a particle beam, nearly destroying the Astrogator’s console, and inflicting either direct or decompression injuries on nearly the whole crew.
“If our jump comp hadn’t been slaved to yours there’s no telling where we might have ended up,” Rom said. “But even so we almost dropped out of jump several times. It was only thanks to Tera and Edro that we made it at all. Edro cobbled together controls that let Tera manually control emergence.”
Til Be’Rak’s eyes widened. “Manually? But that’s…”
“Impossible?” Rom’s grin was detectable even over the voice-only transmission. “I’d have agreed, until I saw Tera prevent us from dropping out of jump, then manually recompute the emergence using the captain’s station, then manually drop us out of jump. Sheol, I’m amazed we’re even in the right galaxy, never mind the right system! She hasn’t slept in forty-six hours, so I just ordered her to bed. She deserves a medal, Commodore.”
As more information poured in concerning the battered Starhopper, Kas began assembling repair crews. He relented and allowed Tremling to take charge of the team. Kas also alerted Ro-Lecton. He was pleasantly surprised when Tremling immediately established communication with Toj Kray aboard Starhopper and began drawing tools and supplies from Rekesh ’s stores.
Aside from the Astrogator’s station and the com system, Starhopper ’s damage was not serious. There were several hull breaches, but all but one were in the ship’s huge cargo bay, which had already been in vacuum.
The other one, of course, was on the bridge. Rom had managed to slap a self-sealing patch over the holes left by the particle beam quickly enough to save the crew’s lives, barely.
Unfortunately, several large pieces of the Astrogator’s station had struck Captain Ler-Traken, gashing his head, and smashing his left thigh. Worse, a large piece impacted his left side, shearing off his left arm at the elbow.
Edro had been quick enough to apply a tourniquet to the arm until the stump could be sealed. A quick examination convinced them that the captain’s best chance would be treatment aboard Rekesh. They put him in the sick bay’s stasis pod and Rom had assumed command.
Luckily, the civilian techs aboard Rekesh were qualified to repair Starhopper ’s Astrogator’s station, and they had plenty of spares and parts.
As soon as they pulled alongside Starhopper, they extended a pressurized tube between the two ships’ personnel airlocks, so they could avoid the necessity of suiting up to move between them. Kas followed the medical team aboard, even elbowing aside the repair techs. He accompanied Dr. Kor-Nashta to the bridge, while Ro-Lecton and the rest of his team went directly to the sick bay and the stasis pod.
Everyone on the bridge displayed injuries to some extent. Rom’s right arm was in a sling. Edro hobbled on a makeshift crutch while favoring a heavily bandaged left leg. Both of Gran’s hands were bandaged, and the blackened com panel revealed the reason. Kor-Nashta wasted no time in pushing Edro into the padded captain’s chair and scanning his leg. “Compound fracture of the tibia,” she said tersely. She raised her wrist com. “Doctor Ro-Lecton, I need a stretcher on the bridge,” she snapped. Without waiting for a reply, she whirled on Rom, who tried to wave her off. “It’s just a dislocated shoulder,” he protested.
“Really?” She replied frostily. “And where did you study medicine?” Nevertheless, after scanning the area, she was forced to admit he was correct.
“But that doesn’t mean it isn’t serious,” she continued, turning to Kas. “Commodore, I realize that you’ll need the Commander at the moment. But I warn you, if he doesn’t report for treatment within a few hours, I’ll… I’ll sic Dr. Ro-Lecton on you!”
“Not that!” Kas chuckled and raised both hands in surrender. “I promise, Doctor. Two hours… Or less,” he added as her expression clouded.
She jerked a nod and sniffed. “Very well. Mister Telker, you will come with me and get those hands tended. Now, what about the other one?”
Rom sighed. “You’ll probably need another stretcher team. Not that she’s that badly injured,” he added hurriedly as Kor-Nashta straightened. “But she was totally exhausted. I gave her Deepsleep. She won’t be waking up for… uh… six more hours.” he finished after checking his ring watch.
Kor-Nashta nodded and murmured into her wrist com again. “Uh, Doctor,” Rom added. “She does have a nasty head wound, and I’m really worried about her eye. The eyeball was literally jarred out of the socket and hanging on her cheek by the nerves and blood vessels. I.. uh… I popped it back in and bandaged it.”
“The nerves weren’t severed?”
Rom shrugged. “I don’t think so. But it was a hell of a bloody mess, and I didn’t do a careful examination. I just did what I had to do. We all did.”
The doctor’s nod matched Kas’. “What about Toj?” Kas asked.
Rom shrugged again. “He got bounced around, but you know those heavy-worlders. They can take a lot. Far as I can tell, he just has cuts and bruises. But I don’t think he’d admit to needing treatment if he’d lost a leg.” He smiled. “An arm, maybe. He wouldn’t be able to work as well without an arm.”
Kas chuckled in relief. Only Ler-Traken’s injuries seemed to be life threatening, and with the Rekesh ’s medical facilities even he was in little danger. “Don’t worry, Doctor,” he said. “I’ll order Toj to report to the Rekesh ’s sick bay at the earliest possible moment. Just now, though,” he continued, “we have to get Starhopper in condition to jump. I’ve ordered the Rekesh to deploy a tractor beam and take Starhopper in tow. We’re already boosting for the jump point.”
Rom looked surprised, then troubled as Kas turned to him. “Sorry, Rom,” he said, “I should have cleared it with you. But every moment we stay in this system, we’re in danger. We have to get back into supralight.”
Rom’s face cleared, and he nodded. “Understood, sir. But that only gives us a few days to complete repairs…”
Kas shook his head. “No. We’ll have to get the Astrogator’s station back on-line, but you can keep a work crew aboard and complete any other repairs while we’re in jump.”
Rom nodded again. “Yes, sir. Uh, with the captain injured…”
Kas sighed. “I don’t know, Rom. You’ve done very well. But I haven’t decided who will command Starhopper. Yes, you’re command qualified. But you’ve been away from military service for quite a while.”