Free Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher Page A

enough. The
surviving tube went into her pouch. She gave the stuff ten minutes to harden
then started up the air vents. She felt her suit relax around her as the
pressure went up.
    Once there was a full
atmosphere in place it only took her a few moments to work up the nerve to take
the helmet off. Her improvised seal held. Not that she’d want to take it
through an atmosphere. Or put more than a few gravs on it. She turned to the
comm console and activated the guard channel. “Any ships, any ships, this is Fives
Full requesting assistance. Repeat, Fives Full is requesting
assistance. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
    A Demeter-accented voice
answered immediately. “ Fives Full , this FNS Assaye , here in
response to your distress call. Please relay your coordinates.”
    “Navy, we are on an uncharted
rock. Approximate coordinates . . .” she reeled off the numbers from the
plotting table. “We require medical and engineering assistance. Also we’re
missing a rescue bubble, please watch for a beacon. Um, there may be a hostile
ship out there as well.”
    “Roger, Fives . How many
casualties do you have?”
    “Two dead, five injured.” She
used her handcomm to let the rest of the crew know help was on the way.
    “ Fives , we’ve been
asked to check on the status of your special passenger.”
    No mystery who that was. “Injured,
stable, receiving care, in safe place.”
    “Thank you, Fives Full .
We expect to rendezvous in two hours.”
    “Looking forward to seeing
you, Assaye .”
     
    ***
     
    “Sorry, folks, he needs a few
more minutes,” apologized the corpsman second class. His comment that the
captain was “almost ready to unbox” had brought the whole crew over to the
autodoc.
    Mitchie eased back from the
huddle to look around the cargo hold. The Navy had been overjoyed at a chance
to put its damage control training to work. A pressure tent had been put up
over the shattered window. Welders were slicing off the shards of transparent
aluminum. The observatory was gone. Tsugawa had talked his way onto a cruiser
detailed to search the area for any possible accomplice ships.
    “Here he comes!” called the
corpsman.
    The top of the autodoc folded
open. Schwartzenberger woke up. A glance took in his waiting crew. “I guess the
good guys won,” he croaked.
    Bing offered a squeeze bottle
of water and quickly brought him up to speed on events.
    Bobbie shyly picked her way along
the deck as she approached the crew. An older Navy man followed her. The
captain saw her coming. “Hello, Bobbie. Good to see you looking so well.” That
was a relative ‘well.’ Bobbie’s eyes were red from crying. Guo had broken the
news as gently as he could but she still took John’s death hard.
    She flushed. “Thank you,
captain. I’m glad you’re feeling better. And thank you—and your crew—for
everything you did for me.”
    “Just doing our duty.”
    The Navy man broke in. “Sir,
I’m Lieutenant Commander Trevayne, master of the Assaye . We’re truly
impressed with how you stood up to that pirate. Absolutely outstanding work.
Nothing left for us to do except clean up.” He gestured at the welding team. “We’re
trying to do what we can for you.”
    “I appreciate that, Commander.
It’s been a rough day.” Schwartzenberger started questioning Guo about the
state of repairs. The mechanic was confident they could be on their way in less
than a day. The Navy officer chimed in with more offers of help.
    A rating came in through the
airlock and bounded over to the captain’s group. “Sir, secure message came in.”
He held out a blank sheet to his commander.
    “Thank you, Moxley.” Trevayne
moved off to read it. His thumbprint produced a single line of text. “Huh. Miss
Smith? This is actually a message for you.”
    Bobbie floated over and took
the sheet. Her thumb filled the sheet with text. She turned to read it
privately. As she reached the end she snarled, “Stupid romantic bastard.” She
looked up and