Captain's Away! Chapter Eighteen
"Fusiliers"
Captain’s Away! is a long form, weekly serial. New chapters come out every week (more or less). Comments and suggestions welcome as we go along.
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Previously in Captain’s Away!
Marie-Josée’s parents, Yolande and Bertrand Doucette, are trapped in an emergency bunker floating aimlessly in space with thirty-five other survivors. Her brother, Alain, is missing and presumed dead.
Unaware of the tragedy that has befallen the space station Northumberland and her parents and brother, as well as the circumstances that left her body comatose, Marie-Josée’s mind has awoken in another body on board a starship called the Beausoleil. There, a man named Commander Saito believes her to be his captain, Captain Jane Khiboda. Deeply concerned about his captain’s state of mind, Commander Saito has confined Marie-Josée to the captain’s cabin.
After learning as much about Captain Khiboda as possible with the intention of impersonating her, Marie-Josée has just escaped her confinement. Meanwhile, back in the emergency bunker…
Chapter Eighteen
“Fusiliers”
Yolande was aware of a painful knot in her left shoulder that felt like someone jabbing her with a pointy stick. She rolled her shoulders, trying to work it out, but it was no use. It was their second day trapped in the emergency bunker, and she had slept on the hard deck the night before. Bertrand still had not spoken a word to her, but that was the least of her concerns. Her number one priority right now was to fix the CO₂ scrubber. If she didn’t do that, and the CO₂ levels continued to rise, soon she would be too incapacitated to fix anything at all.
She took the scrubber apart, inspected it, cleaned it, and put it back together again. Forty-five aggravating minutes later she still hadn’t found anything wrong with the unit except that it was filthy inside and out. She cleaned it thoroughly, returned it to its rack, and turned it back on again. It hummed to life. Seven suspenseful seconds later the error code cleared. She breathed a sigh of relief.
By now she had developed a theory about why so many of the bunker’s systems weren’t working properly. She suspected that none of them had been tested in a while (if ever). Considering the violent nature of the bunker’s separation from the Northumberland it was probably fortunate that any equipment worked at all.
A din arose from the waiting room. Yolande pushed herself out of the equipment room to see what was up. A voice she recognized but couldn’t quite place exclaimed, “It’s the Realm!”
She propelled her way down the hall to find all eyes on the monitor wall. It was cycling through various feeds, most of which didn’t work, before returning to one that did. As Yolande watched, a ship hove into view several kilometres out.
Matthieu floated near the overhead, his arms clasped tightly about his chest. “They’ve come to finish us off. I knew it I knew it I knew it!”
Yolande fantasized jettisoning him into space.
“That’s no Realm ship,” Reverend Arsenault said. “It’s an Akkadian Marauder.”
Her hands on her extended belly, Liette said wonderingly, “So we’re rescued.”
Rescue would mean that Yolande wouldn’t have to deliver Liette’s baby—she was almost more relieved about that than she was at the prospect of rescue itself. She watched with everyone else as the marauder launched a shuttle that seemed to take forever crossing the debris strewn gulf between them. She thought about the oxygen seeping out into space and the CO₂ levels creeping ever higher. How ironic it would be if they all suffocated to death moments before the shuttle arrived.
Soon, though, she could make out the Akkadian flag on the shuttle’s hull—red, blue and white—and shortly after that the hull consumed the entire display. Yolande thought she could make out rivets here and there. A muffled thump and the bunker rocked slightly. More noises from outside as the shuttle finished the coupling process and pressurized the airlock. People began gathering their belongings.
Yolande heard the initial door open, the one connecting the shuttle to the airlock. Movement. The second door—the one connecting the airlock to the bunker—opened. A fusilier wearing full pressure suit combat gear floated out.
A cacophony of “Thank God!” and “You can’t imagine what we’ve been through!” and so on filled the bunker. The fusilier’s voice, amplified via his suit, silenced them all. “Everyone move aside. Back please!” Other similarly clad fusiliers drifted into the medical bay and began herding passengers around.
Something was wrong. Yolande peered at the armoured uniforms. They featured Akkadian flags on the shoulders. Unless the fusiliers were in disguise they were definitely Akkadian. Every single one of them brandished weapons. Why were they behaving so unfriendly on what was supposed to be a rescue mission?
A woman emerged from the airlock, also in combat gear but lacking the helmet. A woman with a hard, lean face. One that said, don’t mess with me.
It made Yolande want to mess with her.
The survivors glanced at one another, unsure whether to be happy or afraid and were settling on confusion.
“Doc,” the woman growled.
Javad floated forward. “Sergeant—”
“Let’s go,” the sergeant said.
“But Sergeant—”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“The others—”
“Will have to stay here for now.”
Matthieu whipped his head around. “What did she say?”
“She said she’s not taking us!” Liette responded.
Some of the survivors propelled themselves forward. The fusiliers raised their weapons. The survivors tried to stop—difficult to do in a weightless environment. Yolande was suddenly afraid—this could get ugly real fast.
“Let’s not be rash here, anyone,” Javad said loudly.
Yolande addressed him. “What is this? What the hell’s going on?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” Javad assured her.
“There’s nothing to take care of.” The sergeant spoke to Javad as though he were the only one present. “We can’t take anyone else right now. Those are my orders.”
“Why not?” Yolande asked. “The air quality, and the oxygen levels—”
The sergeant cut her off, raising her voice so that everyone else could hear. “We’ve forwarded your coordinates to Akkadian Central Command. Another ship is en route to retrieve you. It will be here within the week.”
“We’ll be dead within a week!” Yolande snapped.
The survivors received her words with a collective gasp, followed by an eruption of protests and exhortations. When that didn’t have any effect people surged forward again. The sergeant disappeared into the airlock behind her fusiliers. They formed a barrier preventing anyone else from following.
Javad cursed. He turned to Yolande. “This isn’t the end of this. I’ll talk to the captain.”
Yolande stared at him. “That’s your ship?”
Javad nodded.
Yolande considered. She would have liked to grill him more. She was certain that he knew more about her daughter’s condition than he was letting on. “What about Marie-Josée?”
“I’ll do what I can. I promise.”
Before he could say anything else two fusiliers grabbed him and pulled him through the airlock with them. When the last of the fusiliers had retreated, the airlock closed and locked into place with a series of ominous noises. Leaving Yolande and the rest of the survivors marooned once more.
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This has been an installment of the ongoing serial Captain’s Away! A Strange Dimensions book.
Also by Joe Mahoney: A Time and a Place
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.
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