Lifeboat

"So," said Stigsen, wishing to at least broach the subject that none of them had spoken of yet. "You and Brond will be living together; working together."

"Yes," said L'Gia, raising her chin defiantly. "And I intend to keep my demeanor strictly professional. I hope that in the years since our differences, he'll be able to do the same."

The conversation was cut off by the B-Level warning.

Both of their faces instantly shifted as they moved into action. Enod's motions were shaped by past field experience, L'Gia's by the countless drills she'd gone through since she'd been a small child.

Both of them were in their seats within moments, Enod in the pilot's seat as his flight rating dictated, L'Gia in co-pilot of necessity. Their straps slid automatically into place and they gave each other worried looks.

The moment the second klaxon sounded, a thousand emotions played across their faces as they realized the danger they were in and the fact that T'Laine and Brond would not be joining them, not in the shuttle, and possibly never again.

Enod's hand hit the launch button, before the automated systems could even kick into gear. The rear shuttle door sealed and the magno launchers, pre-charged, hurled their shuttle out of the cruiser at a velocity so huge that both of them fought to keep conscious as they were pressed powerfully into their seats.

To either side, they could see other shuttles, cargo pods, coffins, and equipment on similar trajectories.

Once they cleared the first acceleration, Enod's hands found the pilot's controls, but just rested there.

L'Gia couldn't help but let out a frightened cry of surprise as the shockwave from one of the big ship's fuel units exploding sent them careening in a haphazard direction.

"Cruiser's gone," muttered Enod.

The status display lit up.

"Hostile. Unknown attack. Methods, unknown, suspect solid, non-explosive guided ordinance. Follow stealth protocols until further notice."

"Hostiles?" whispered L'Gia. "Could the Arnon Federation have followed us?"

"Impossible," said Enod. "We would have known of their presence. No, it seems like we've found a local sentience."

He also spoke in hushed tones, a funny phenomena, because in space, there was no medium to carry their sound waves beyond the walls of their ship.

"What now?" asked L'Gia.

"Decoy," explained Enod. Protocols will take a pod or other device and start testing their tracking methods."

They looked out their viewport, and sure enough, about a klick away, they saw a shuttle opening its hatch.

L'Gia's realized that this would be a non-manned shuttle that had been ejected before it's occupants could board. That made the shuttle the 'winner' to be used as bait for whoever or whatever had attacked them.

A sled pulsed out of the shuttle and gave a slow burst of power to angle itself away from the rest of the ejected resources from the cruiser. They watched, expectantly, but nothing happened. Next, they saw it perform an extended burn, a pinpoint of orange against the black, starry backdrop of space. It then subsided to a deep red, a slow steady pulse.

"Wait," said Enod.

They did. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Nothing. After twenty minutes, they saw another orange flare, then a series of bright yellow pulses.

"It's testing the bands, right?" asked L'Gia.

"Right, count the pulses." said Enod.

The sled was now broadcasting on different areas of the spectrum. Infrared, Ancient FM, Microwave, subspace 1, subspace 2, and so on. When it reached the signal for subspace 5, they saw a bright light in the distance and then pinpoints of light emanating toward the sled.

"Run little fox, run," whispered Enod. "Chron, this isn't good!"

"What isn't good?" asked L'Gia.

"The hostiles picked it up on subspace 4 or 5," explained Enod.

"But, we've got other frequencies," said L'Gia.

"We do," said Enod in an ominous tone, "but the coffins don't. They are only equipped with subspace bands, 4 and 5 specifically. That means we can get a message to them, but we don't know where they are, and they can't signal us to let us know. Anyone inside of a coffin will be flying blind on autopilot until they either reach our planet, or run out of air and supplies."

Enod and L'Gia said nothing else on that, they simply let the weight of that sink in.

A few moments later, the comm lit up to notify there was compressed signal coming in on the K Microwave band. L'Gia waited for the screen to indicate the signal was complete then flipped on the playback.

"Attention TerraCorps survivors of the Cruiser bound for Hanshin's, this is the fleet. First, we want you to know that we are safe. We have limited our communications, powered down all non-essential power systems, and are making erratic, random course corrections. It appears that those who attacked you are either not interested or incapable of following us on to the next system.

In regard to your mission, we want to first congratulate you on your discipline and training. System reports from just prior to your ship indicate an 80 percent survival rate of your crew. 75 percent of you made it into shuttles which ejected safely, 4 percent were able to enter sealed quarters which separated safely and are now being retrieved by shuttles. One percent are confirmed to have entered escape pods, or coffins as they are sometimes called. Of the remaining five percent, we are sad to report a confirmed loss of at least 20 individuals. Beyond that, we can confirm the ejection of 94 escape pods, though we cannot confirm the numbers contained or the success of those ejections.

"This is important, however. Our communications staff have verified that there has been a fair amount of chatter on the subspace spectrum over the past three days since you entered your solar system. While we initially took it to be random radiation from the 5th planet in your system, it now appears to have been sentient communication. Whether these signals were attempts to communicate, warnings, or otherwise, we have yet to determine, but we are continuing our analysis. For now, limit your communications to the lower bands and use no subspace frequencies at the peril of your lives."

"For that same reason, we are aware that leaves the escape pods hanging in limbo. If you are able to visually identify a pod, with no effort, you have authorization to retrieve them. However, the pods are programmed to proceed to your destination planet and should all be capable of reaching there within four days' time. This is sufficient to get their passengers to the surface with ample oxygen, water, and nutrition. Given that Hanshin's is at the inner ring of the habitable zone, they will be hot, but they should survive.

Your orders are to proceed to your destination stations with as little communication as possible. Shuttles should reach the ground within a day. At the end of seven days we will ascertain all personnel, including attrition through loss, and reassign crew appropriately. Safe travels, crew, and stay tuned on this band for updates as we continue to analyze your attackers."

L'Gia and Enod sat in stunned silence until Enod spoke.

"Well, good news and bad news," he said softly.

"What's the good news?" asked L'Gia.

"They're not dead," said Enod. "Well, at least they're not confirmed dead. We would have received notice."

"I guess that's good," said L'Gia. "I suppose the flip side of it is, we also don't know if they're alive."

"That's the bad news," said Enod. He reached over and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "But, I have a good feeling that they are. Your mother is an incredibly intelligent woman, and Brond, even though he can be awkward as hell, he's got lightning reflexes and always scored top marks in crisis scenarios."

"That's good then," said L'Gia.

The two of them shook off their shock and began their full forward sweep. In the next two hours, they found two escape pods; one empty and one containing Forian Yand, an electronics master. After delivering him to his grateful wife in her shuttle, they followed protocol and initiated the thrust toward Hanshin's. It was time to start their mission, and wait for news.

"Fourteen hours until landing," said Enod. "I'd recommend we get some sleep, but I know that neither of us will. What should we talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said L'Gia. "The mission?"

"Bah," chuckled Enod, "We'll have plenty of time for that on the planet. Let's find something else to talk about. Shuttle, set course for Hanshin's, targeting our mission site."

"Understood," said the shuttle. "Commencing burn in five, four, three, two..."

***

Brond tried to remember which elephant had stepped on him. Suddenly, the situation came back to him. His eyes flew open and he tried to ascertain where he was. The light was the dim red of emergency LEDs. Something else red was drifting in front of him and after his eyes were able to focus, he was able to discern that it was a strand of auburn hair. As the rest of his senses returned, he realized his hands were locked in someone else's hands. There were two rather soft, lovely mounds pressed against his chest and more soft flesh touching the rest of his body. He would have been embarrassed at the somewhat intimate situation if the memory of how they'd arrived at the there wasn't still so fresh.

He could now see that T'Laine was still unconscious and her cheek bore a bruise, likely from where his forehead had collided during the ejection sequence.

"System, report on status," whispered Brond.

"Last known status of cruiser, disintegrated. Status of this unit, intact. Occupants of this unit, Brond Stigsen and T'Laine Onwald. Two occupants is not optimal, but there are sufficient resources to assure arrival at the destination zone in approximately 87 hours."

"I see," said Brond. "Given that there are two occupants, is there a chance you could further decrease the inflation of the shock padding to give us additional space?"

"Affirmative," said the computer. "However, our current trajectory calls for three additional rapid burns for course corrections. During those burns, and during landing, the shock padding must be fully inflated. Protocols also dictate that padding must remain at 90 percent for fifteen minutes after each burn.

"Understood," said Brond. "Please deflate."

Brond breathed a sigh of relief as the pod deflated the padding. This gave him around 20 centimeters space to push back away from T'Laine, though in the weightlessness natural in the pod, her unconscious body tended to drift toward him every few seconds.

He cracked the supply sleeve and retrieved a packet of healing salve and carefully rubbed a few drops across T'Laine's bruise which caused her to stir.

"Hmm?" murmured T'Laine.

She woke up, groggy and looked at Brond with a confused expression.

"Brond?" she asked.

"Accident, or attack, or something," said Brond. "We ejected."

"Right," she whispered. "The coffin. It was too far, you grabbed me."

"Yes," he said.

She moved her hand to her cheek and winced.

"Sorry," he said. "I think it happened in the escape. I was just putting some salve on it."

"Yeah, the escape," said T'Laine. "Sorry, I've never been good at high Gs. It was the rating that always kept me from making master pilot.

"No worries, you did great," said Brond.

"How long was I out? Or I guess I should say, how long were you awake before me?" asked T'Laine.

"Just a few minutes?" said Brond. "We're supposed to stay on the automated course, it should take around 90 hours, give or take."

"Wow," she said. "Any news from the Corps?"

"Not yet," said Brond.

"Chron!" cursed T'Laine softly.

They proceeded to take care of business, checking statuses on every system in the pod and confirming availability of supplies and nutrients. Power would not be an issue as they would be in full view of Hanshin's sun throughout their voyage. Beyond an extremely powerful fusion micro-reactor for navigation, the pod's surface was encoated with high efficiency solar panels that would extract every available calorie. With a full internal recovery system, water also wasn't an issue. Nor was air, the scrubber and chloro systems were fully functioning. Food would be an issue, there were enough rations for one person for four days.

"Well, there are worse problems to have," said T'Laine. "I've been meaning to lose a little weight anyway. By the way, are you getting hot?"

"Yeah, it is a little warm in here," said Bron.

"Attention," interrupted the pod's computer. "Encrypted transmission just received."

"Play it," said T'Laine.

The transmission, intended for them, laid out the details that people had heard in the shuttles.

"So," said the crisis officer on the transmission. "In no scenario are you to attempt contacting other crew. The hostiles are reacting to subspace frequencies 4 and 5, the only ones that the lifepods are equipped with. Do not broadcast at the peril of your lives and the lives of others. One other note, because of your proximity to the sun, your pod's heat dissipation systems will be extremely taxed. We have transmitted code and instructions for them to operate in the most efficient fashion. Please, trust in your pods navigation systems and make the best of what is to be an uncomfortable journey. Safe travels, survivors, we look forward to seeing you planetside."

"So, computer," said T'Laine, "what are these instructions?"

"I will now be initiating a slow rotation to assure no exterior surface is exposed to the star's full radiation for significant lengths of time," said the computer. "I will also be turning on internal fans to circulate air. Instructions advise that human occupants remove all clothing to facilitate maximum evaporative epidermal surface."

That last phrase hung in the air for several seconds.

"Well then," said T'Laine to Brond. "How about if we start with our skivvies and see if that's sufficient. Sound like a good plan?"

"I uh... yeah...I...okay." said Brond, his voice cracking in spite of himself.

"You first, handsome man," said T'Laine. I could turn away, if you wish, but I'm gonna see you anyway. So, go on, strip."

Brond blushed furiously.

Given their very close quarters, Brond did very well to get his flight suit unzipped without touching T'Laine too much, but he did have problems getting his sleeves off.

"Oh, come here," said T'Laine, giggling.

She reached over and helped pull down his sleeves. Once the flight suit reached his waist, he was able to pull down the rest, remove it, and stow his flight suit and shoes in the storage sleeve behind him. He was now in a skin-tight pair of lycra-like boxer-briefs that left little to the imagination. And, unfortunately, there was a growing volume within those shorts that one's imagination might... imagine. He was thankful that T'Laine said nothing.

His well-muscled, slim torso was certainly impressive. T'Laine couldn't help but ponder how it would look, glistening and tasty, as the heat increased in the hours and days to follow.

It was now T'Laine's turn. Choosing the simplest route, she ably unzipped and pulled down her flight suit to reveal her curvaceous breasts which were somewhat contained by the lacy bra she had put on that morning. She suddenly realized her situation before.

"Umm...if you could maybe turn away, just for a bit," she said, embarrassed.

Brond complied and rotated 180 degrees away from her. She quickly pulled out the panties she had stowed in her flight suit pocket earlier that day.

"Okay," she said.

When Brond turned back he could see that in addition to her bra, she was wearing pink and frilly boy shorts that even she had to admit complimented her ass and thighs in rather nice ways.

"So, here we are," she said, shrugging as she stowed her own clothes in a storage sleeve. "System, initiate circulation."

"Initiating air circulation at 20% of capacity," said the pod's computer. The pace will increase as needed, although I predict increasing discomfort in approximately 50 hours. Also, a warning, we will need a course correction in thirty-six hours, requiring full shock-padding inflation.

"Understood," said Brond and T'Laine at the same time.

"So, should we play a game?"

"Oh, sure?" said Brond. "How about battleship?"

"Perfect," agreed T'Laine. "We definitely need something to pass the time."

Brond retrieved a pair of vis-lenses from the supply pouch.

"We only have one pair, so we'll buddy breathe," said Brond. "Computer, activate game 'battleship', alternating players upon passing the lenses."

"Understood," said the computer.

"I uh..." stammered Brond, looking at T'Laine. "By the way, you don't need to?

"I... don't need to what? Play? I want to play?"

"No... you said you were planning on losing weight when we talked about rations. You... you really don't need to."

"Oh, aren't you sweet?" said T'Laine. "Look at you, flattering your future stepmom, well done, handsome boy."

"I just..."

She touched his arm softly.

"It was a nice compliment Brond, thank you. Now, let's set up our pieces."

***

Enod and L'Gia had talked about their backgrounds, played two word games, talked some more, double-checked systems, and had settled back into conversation. They talked about families, and personal things.

One of the things that touched L'Gia the most was the way Enod spoke of Brond. He had so many loving stories of Brond's awkwardness, his stubbornness, but also of his intelligence. She actually knew many of the stories, had even been part of some, but now she was seeing Brond through a whole new light.

"All right," said Enod, sighing. "It's time that I asked you the big question?"

L'Gia's eyes flashed open in alarm. What could 'the big question' be? Did she have a boyfriend? A girlfriend? Was she a virgin? Oh please, Chron, no!

"Umm, what question?" she asked, trying to sound calm.

"I've just always wondered, what exactly went wrong with you and my son. You two had a constant hatred for something like five years, ending in an impressive but damaging bout of hand-to-hand that left you both injured. Where exactly did it all start?"

"Oh, that," said L'Gia, blushing. "Well, your son was quite the prankster. When we were 11, I started receiving these secret messages from a 12-year-old who I had a huge crush on. He said he liked me, I said I liked him. We chatted for a couple of weeks. Well, one thing led to another and I ended up professing my love to him in front of the entire cohort. But, he had no idea what I was talking about. I was, of course, embarrassed and in tears. I went back to the messages and drilled into the code. I learned those messages had been spoofed, but they were sent from a personal comm verified as belonging to one Brond Stigsen.

"Oh my, that's terrible," said Enod.

"Yes, it was," said L'Gia. "So, I did something equally awful to him, I think the first thing was to have one of my girlfriends say she liked him, then deny it, and it just grew from there."

"Wait," said Enod, considering. ""You said it was sent from his personal comm?"

"Yes," said L'Gia.

"And how old were you?"

"Eleven."

"Not possible," said Enod. "Brond didn't have a personal comm until he was thirteen. His bio mother was a psychologist, and before she shipped out, she warned me about keeping a leash on his communications. Anything he sent had to be through a school console or our home unit until he turned thirteen. If you say the message code said it came from his unit, that isn't possible, he hadn't been issued one. I would guess it was someone trying to cover their tracks extra hard, a double spoof."

"Oh... Oh no!" said L'Gia. "That means all of those years, we fought over something he didn't do. And... and what if he doesn't survive. I need to apologize. Oh, Mr. Stigsen, I know I shouldn't say something like that, but all those years."