Captain's Away! Chapter Eleven
Marooned
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.
You can find the master index of all the chapters by clicking the orange Captain’s Away Index button below:
Previously in Captain’s Away!
Yolande and Bertrand Doucette are trapped in an emergency bunker floating aimlessly in space with thirty-five other survivors after Yolanda successfully severs it from the Northumberland space station moments before the Northumberland is destroyed by a Realm battleship. This after already having fled from the space station Evangeline after it too was destroyed, likely by the same ship.
The Doucette’s son Alain is missing, presumed dead, and their daughter, Marie-Josée, has been unconscious for hours, though she appears uninjured. The survivors can last in the emergency bunker for about a week if they’re lucky, and their oxygen and power hold out.
In this chapter, Bertrand and Yolande Doucette take care of their unconscious daughter and fellow survivors in the emergency bunker as new challenges loom, threatening their survival.
Chapter Eleven
“Marooned”
Marie-Josée’s colour was good and her breathing was fine but she had yet to stir. Yolande was deeply concerned. In this state Marie-Josée couldn’t eat or drink. She needed to be properly cared for. Only moments earlier the emergency bunker had been a medical bay, but Yolande didn’t think that was going to help much. For one thing, you couldn’t find anything easily. Even though the bunker had been set up to prepare for a sudden reversion to zero-G (you had to be prepared; it happened on the best of space stations) the place was still a mess. Objects that hadn’t been strapped or taped down floated everywhere, posing a hazard and making them hard to find. And even if you could find them there were no properly trained medical personnel around to wield them.
Well, except for one.
“I think I’m going to have to let that quack look at her.”
Yolande was only barely talking to Bertrand. She was still angry at everything, especially him. “He’s not an actual doctor, just a corpsman, but he’s the closest thing we’ve got.”
Judging from his silence, Bertrand wasn’t talking to her either. Yolande found his lack of response infuriating. Angry, she whirled on him. Or rather, did her best to whirl—it’s difficult to get a good whirl on in zero-G without sufficient leverage. She wound up whirling ridiculously slowly, which didn’t have anywhere near the same effect. “Well don’t you have anything to say about it?”
Bertrand didn’t have to say anything. The pained look on his face—the way he quickly averted his gaze—said it all. How Bertrand was holding it together at all after what he had done, Yolande couldn’t imagine (you lost our only son! she screamed inside her head). The fact that he was functioning at all in the face of this multi-faceted calamity only reinforced Yolande’s current notion of her husband as a callous, careless human being, the kind that lost sons indiscriminately. Never mind that this completely flew in the face of everything she actually knew about him: that he had always been a kind (if acerbic) and loving (if not particularly demonstrative) husband and father.
She decided a response wasn’t necessary. “Please find the corpsman and send him over.”
Bertrand pushed off the bulkhead.
It would be hard for Yolande to let Javad touch Marie-Josée, but they had now entered a time for hard things. Yolande would find time to grill the corpsman later, find out what his story was. In the meantime, there was much to do. The bunker had protected them all during the disintegration of the Northumberland, which was great, but Yolande knew that her work was just beginning. Her career as a station technologist had instilled in her a profound mistrust of space. It was, by its very nature, inimical to life. Space would do everything it could to finish the job the Realm had started. It was Yolande’s job to prevent that from happening.
Yolande stayed with Marie-Josée while waiting for Bertrand to return. Evelyn Gallant kept her company. Evelyn had barely left Marie-Josée’s side. Yolande had known Evelyn all the young woman’s short life, but she had only begun getting to know her recently, when Evelyn and Marie-Josée had started spending a lot of time together. She seemed like a nice girl. Yolande was grateful that she (and Evelyn’s single mother) had survived, and for her present company and assistance.
When Bertrand returned, Yolande did not wait to hear about his conversation with the quack. Nor did she make eye contact with him. Instead, she pushed away, heading for the rear of the bunker. Had she looked back she would have seen the hurt expression on her husband’s broad features. Bertrand need not have been hurt, though. It had little to do with the way Yolande felt about him. She was simply focused on a task list that just kept getting longer the more she thought about it.
Aware that she was putting off the more important, scarier work, which she just couldn’t face right away, she began with the conventional toilets, confirming that they had been properly stowed away and replaced by the weightless alternatives. She examined the hoses, making sure that the urine processors were working, and checked the readings for the waste containers, which were mostly empty. She tried one of the washrooms herself. It worked fine.
Afterward she forced herself to check the bunker’s critical systems. Without a working holographic interface there was only one way to do that: via the panel in the utility closet. Bracing herself, she called up the CO₂ levels. They were sitting at three and a half percent, barely within acceptable parameters. An excess of CO₂ in people’s bloodstreams would start making them cranky and anxious, if they weren’t already. Much higher and everyone on board the bunker could be looking at a future of convulsions, comas, and, if the levels continued to rise, death. Yolande felt weak. She needed to examine the scrubber as soon as possible.
She checked temperature and humidity levels and the rest of the bunker’s systems quickly but thoroughly. Everything was fine except for oxygen levels, which sat at fifty-eight percent. Exercising a completely unwarranted optimism, she tapped on the glass with a knuckle. The reading changed to fifty-seven percent.
Something was wrong.
Circumstances were perilously close to unraveling Bertrand. Only his tenuous, newfound faith kept him going. By choosing to believe (however naively) that everything would eventually work out, he found he was able, just barely, to keep from flailing toward an airlock, wrenching it open, and leaping out into the cold void of space. His faith had proven a surprisingly effective bulwark against despair.
No, it would not be the major calamities of late that would push him over the edge. It would be the little things. Such as clothes.
Ideally in zero-G you want clothes that fit snugly. That don’t have room to express themselves. In a weightless environment clothes don’t fit, per se; they just kind of float around you. The chiton and trousers that Bertrand wore now were usually his favourites. He liked to bum around in them on weekends. They may not have been the most attractive apparel ever, but loose and comfortable, they did the job—in full gravity. In zero-G they did not hang quite so nicely. The trousers looked baggy. The chiton billowed about his chest like a sail. As an ensemble they looked ridiculous.
That was not all. His back hurt. This often happened to him in zero-G. It had been a problem ever since he’d endured an extended period of weightlessness while serving as a correspondent on a deep space mission in his early twenties. Something to do with loss of paraspinal muscle mass. There was nothing to be done about it. It hurt now and would, Bertrand feared, just get worse in time.
Taken all together, Bertrand did not see how he could avoid a complete nervous breakdown in the near future.
On the plus side, at least the weightless washrooms were functioning properly.
A sock saw fit to drape itself across his face in the weightless environment. He clawed the smelly thing off and tossed it aside. Seconds later a plastic vial containing what looked to be a urine sample bonked him on the nose. He’d spent the better part of the last hour carving a path through similar objects. He batted it away and tried unsuccessfully to suppress a sob.
“I beg your pardon?”
Bertrand turned his head to see who had spoken. It was the young man with the ponytail and bushy beard. Bertrand had already begun to think of him as Beardo. Beardo tugged at his shirt collar. “It’s getting harder to breathe in here.”
Alarmed, Bertrand monitored his own breathing for a few seconds, but relaxed when it seemed fine. He considered telling Beardo that maybe he was just having trouble breathing through his beard but thought better of it. It was the kind of joke that he would ordinarily have made but now was not the time. Also, the fellow seemed distracted, a little panicky. No telling how he might react.
“Why is this happening to us?”
Beardo’s question stopped Bertrand cold. He realized that he wasn’t prepared to share his thoughts on the matter. His faith was delicate, fresh and unformed. He was suddenly afraid that it might not survive contact with reason. Not that the nervous young man struck Bertrand as any great arbiter of reason. Fortunately, Beardo did not wait around for an answer. He drifted away, muttering to himself. Bertrand made a mental note to avoid him in the future.
Unable to find the corpsman, he returned to the waiting room to find Yolande conferring quietly with Francis Pelrine. When she did not acknowledge his return (pointedly, Bertrand thought) he sighed ruefully and checked on Marie-Josée. He saw that while he was gone someone—it had to have been the corpsman—had set her up with a saline drip. Of course. Unable to consume fluids on her own, she would be dehydrated. Because of the weightless environment, the saline needed to be pumped using a specially designed capillary pump. Marie-Josée’s friend, Evelyn, was doing the pumping manually. Bertrand was happy to see that Evelyn had survived. He remembered seeing Evelyn’s mother amongst the survivors too.
Evelyn indicated with a gesture that he could take over if he wanted to. “The doctor told me it’s self-regulating,” she told him. “He said to keep the pressure up. And watch out for bubbles.”
Bertrand raised an eyebrow.
“He said that if we see any we should stop pumping and call him. But he also said that we shouldn’t worry because the pump is designed to keep bubbles out.”
Bertrand nodded and operated the pump as she had instructed, checking for bubbles occasionally.
“Do you think she’ll be okay, Mr. Doucette?” Evelyn asked, sounding worried.
Bertrand tried to answer but found that he couldn’t. He realized with alarm that if he tried to speak, he would be just as likely to cry. And there was no reason to cry. It was all going to work out. Alain would turn up alive, and Marie-Josée would snap out of whatever was ailing her. He managed a shrug and a wan smile instead.
This seemed to be good enough for Evelyn. “Good,” she said.
As they took turns pumping, Bertrand’s attention migrated to the conversation Yolande was having with Francis.
“It’ll be almost impossible to find,” he heard Yolande warn the old sailor.
“Nonsense. Just take a sharp pair of eyes. And they don’t get much sharper than these.” Francis jabbed a thumb unconvincingly at his own pale blue eyes, set within a sea of wrinkles.
Bertrand wondered what would be so difficult to find. A mouse? A rat? Maybe a handful of humans hadn’t been the only beings to survive the destruction of the Northumberland.
“We’d have a much better chance if everybody helped,” Yolande said.
Francis considered. “Wouldn’t wanna start a panic.”
This snippet of conversation didn’t necessarily rule out Bertrand’s rodent hypothesis. Though common on ships and stations, lots of people were afraid of the vermin. But Bertrand had a bad feeling that his wife and the sailor were talking about something more ominous.
“I’ll take panic over suffocating to death,” Yolande said.
“Omigod—do you think we have a leak?” Evelyn asked.
“Shh!” Yolande hushed.
It was too late. Liette happened to be floating by. “There’s a leak? We have a leak?”
Of all people, Beardo overheard Liette. “I knew it. We’re–we’re losing oxygen, aren’t we? That’s why I can’t breathe!”
He began drawing long breaths that became shallower and shallower. Soon he was doubled over, in the grip of a full-blown panic attack. Javad came to his side to calm him down. Before long the entire bunker was in a fine state.
Evelyn floated over to Francis. “Is there really a hole?”
“Oxygen levels are a little low, is all,” Francis told her. “Don’t know why. Could be anything.”
Bertrand suspected Francis was deliberately downplaying the seriousness of the situation. He wanted to pursue the matter himself but still didn’t feel sufficiently in control of his voice. Fortunately, Evelyn did it for him. “Francis, are we going to be okay?”
“Oh, I’ve been in lots worse situations than this. One time I was marooned in a freighter halfway to the Simone Nebulae with no rations, a cargo full of canned vegetables, and no can opener.”
Evidently deciding she wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of the man, Evelyn smiled and began to turn away.
“Okay, seriously.”
The change in Francis’s tone brought her back. Bertrand, who had begun to turn away too, touched the bulkhead to turn back himself.
“Three things,” the old man said. “Number one, stay positive. It’s not over until you’re dead. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And number two?” Evelyn asked.
Francis laughed. “Well, number two’s obvious. Isn’t it?”
Both Bertrand and Evelyn waited.
“Always carry a can opener.” Incredibly, he produced a can opener from one of his pockets.
“Wow,” Evelyn said. “Okay. I’ll see about that.”
Bertrand found himself nodding along with Evelyn.
“Number three, never give up.” Francis said.
“Never give up,” Evelyn said. “Gotcha. Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Bertrand saw Yolande push herself to the centre of the waiting room where she tried to get everyone’s attention.
Francis whistled piercingly, unexpectedly. “Let the woman speak!”
Bertrand winced and plugged his ears with his fingers.
Once people had settled down, Yolande said, “I’m not going to lie. The situation isn’t great.”
This threatened to provoke another uproar.
“It’s not great but it’s not terrible either,” she added hastily. “Maybe I should have started with that.”
“Ya think?” someone shouted.
“There are some issues we need to take care of,” Yolande said. “Once we address those we’ll be fine. But I’m going to need your help. We think there may a puncture somewhere. If so, it’ll be small and hard to find. But we should try.”
“What if we don’t find it?” asked Evelyn’s mother, Noëlle Gallant.
“We’ll run out of oxygen more quickly,” Yolande told her bluntly.
“Can’t we produce any here?” a portly man asked. “Electrolysis or something?”
Bertrand already knew the answer to this. They didn’t have enough water for electrolysis. The water they did have was for drinking and they were going to need that. Although most space stations had solar arrays large enough to collect moisture and perform electrolysis, if the emergency bunker had one it would be too small.
Yolande told the man as much, adding, “We do have some pressurized oxygen storage tanks as backups that will buy us time if it comes to it. And I noticed some ozonide oxygen generators tucked away in a storage closet. But they’ll only buy us a few extra hours at most. I need everyone who can to look for that hole. And while you do that, I have some other maintenance I need to perform.”
Everyone started to pepper Yolande with questions until Francis interrupted. “Let’s let Mrs. Doucette get to work. She’ll answer your questions later. Right now, everybody find that hole!”
“How will we ever find a hole that small?” Liette’s husband asked.
Francis shrugged. “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.” He pushed off the bulkhead.
“I should probably help too,” Evelyn said, looking at Bertrand apologetically before leaving as well.
Bertrand watched her go. He wanted to help but right now his place was with Marie-Josée. Before starting her own search, Yolande glanced his way, but Bertrand knew that it was only to confirm that someone was staying with their daughter. How long would she stay mad at him? Not long, usually. A few hours, a day at most. But that was for small stuff. This wasn’t small. This was enormous, catastrophic. What if Alain never turned up? What if this was something Yolande could never recover from? What if it was something he could never recover from?
They would, Bertrand decided. They had to.
Especially when they got rescued and Marie-Josée woke up and they were all reunited with Alain as one big happy family. It would happen, Bertrand knew. If only because he believed it would.
Help me make this chapter better! What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
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.
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram