Captain's Away! Chapter Nine
Lost in Space
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!
The Doucette family have fled their space station the Evangeline along with a maintenance robot and the station’s other ten thousand inhabitants after the Evangeline is attacked by the Realm. After their escape pod deposits them at another Akkadian space station, the Northumberland, 17-year old Marie-Josée is attacked by a man wearing an Akkadian naval uniform wielding a mysterious ancient artefact. The man refers to Marie-Josée as “Captain” before rendering her unconcious.
When Northumberland station is also attacked by the Realm, Yolande Doucette decides to lead her family to the interior of the Northumberland where she believes the station’s specially reinforced medical bay may be capable of protecting them, and where she hopes to find medical assistance for her unconscious daughter.
There, the same man who attacked Marie-Josée introduces himself to Yolande and her husband Bertrand as a medical corpsman and offers to help Marie-Josée. Unaware of his connection to her daughter, Yolande lets him examine Marie-Josée. Yolande quickly decides that he’s a quack, dismisses him, and returns her attention to the rest of the occupants of the Medical Bay just as the Realm attack intensifies.
After failing once to separate the emergency bunker portion of the medical bay from the Northumberland, Yolande finally succeeds, but only after her son Alain has gone missing. Severing the emergency bunker from the Northumberland without Alain present is tantamount to sentencing her son to death.
Chapter Nine
“Lost in Space”
As soon as the damage to the Northumberland began to threaten the emergency bunker the automation system took over and severed it from the rest of the station. This didn’t eliminate the threat, but short of a direct hit it reduced the potential for damage and injury. Apart from the abrupt loss of gravity the transition was not that dramatic for those inside the bunker. Powerful stabilizers had kicked in almost immediately, compensating for any momentum generated by the separation (which probably would have seriously injured or even killed everyone inside the bunker otherwise). And the loss of gravity wasn’t a big deal—zero-G was a fact of life for these Akkadians.
Still, Reverend Therese Arsenault had managed to trip and pulverize her shoulder just before they became weightless—the quack was looking after her—and someone else had regurgitated their lunch. It would take a while to clean that up, and they’d all be wearing bits of it soon.
Though Yolande counted herself lucky to be alive, she felt overwhelmed. Yes, they had bought some time, but now they were imprisoned in a bunker, a refuge that might as well have been a tomb. The Realm battleship was still out there somewhere. How long until it turned its sights on them? Even if it didn’t, they only had so much in the way of power and supplies. If nobody came along to pluck them out of space, they were just as doomed as the rest of the inhabitants of the Northumberland.
And there was Marie-Josée, who still had not regained consciousness. Bertrand was doing his best to keep their daughter from bumping into anything in the weightless environment. What was wrong with her? Yolande had no idea. Her gut churned with fear and worry.
And grief.
Thinking of Alain, the heaviness was almost too much to bear. Foolish, impetuous boy. She had failed him.
No.
Bertrand had failed him.
Yolande closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the awful reality of it all, casting about for something, anything to prevent her from sinking further into despair. And she found it: a spark, a tiny flame of anger. She clutched at it, at the realization that this never should have happened. If only Bertrand had kept a closer eye on Alain. Kept their son safe. Had that really been so much to ask?
Of course, having raised Alain, Yolande knew what Bertrand had been up against. But that was no excuse. Bertrand should have done whatever it took to keep their son safe, including, if necessary, tying the boy to a chair and gluing his feet together.
A part of Yolande—a small part—understood that blaming her husband for Alain’s death would not make their future any brighter. Still, she needed to do it. Needed to fan those flames of anger. It was the only thing that made her grief bearable right now.
It would be hard to look at—talk to—be with–Bertrand for a while.
Maybe a long while.
“You okay, Mrs. Doucette?”
Yolande would have recognized that raspy voice anywhere. She opened her eyes. Francis Pelrine floated into her field of vision.
“Guess it wasn’t a drill after all, eh?” Francis produced a lopsided smile.
Yolande tried to pull herself together. “Guess not.”
“Just did a count,” Francis said. “Thirty-seven, five in diapers.”
Thirty-seven out of thousands. The life pods would have saved many but not all, and hardly anybody who had been from the Evangeline. Yolande’s hands became fists. Someone had an awful lot to answer for.
“Gonna check the stores now,” Francis said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
Yolande did her best to wrench her brain into gear. Why was Francis telling her all this? As if she was in charge. She wasn’t in charge. She was just someone who’d needed a place to keep her family alive. For all the good it had done.
“Anything else I should do while I’m at it?” Francis asked.
Yolande wondered how much of this conversation was just for her benefit. All of it, she suspected. Francis’ pale blue eyes would have observed Marie-Josée’s condition. Would have noted Alain’s absence.
“You could convert the washrooms to zero-G,” she managed to get out.
“I’ll get right on that,” Francis told her cheerfully. “Why don’t you go check the oxygen and power levels?”
Yolande nodded and pushed herself off the nearest bulkhead. Francis’ obvious ploy to distract her had worked: she felt microscopically better. Enough to keep going. Enough to think a little more clearly. She headed toward the closet with the control panel.
An emergency bunker like this one could sustain a group of forty for a week. If the bunker had been properly maintained and outfitted. Checking the control panel, Yolande saw that the oxygen was already down to seventy-five percent. The batteries sat at sixty-two. Ninety percent for both would have been a lot more reassuring. CO₂ levels were at 3%. That was okay, but not great. High enough to start making people a little cranky. The scrubber appeared to be functioning properly, though. Maybe the levels would get better.
From the control panel, she turned off almost all the remaining lights. This immediately prompted shrieks of alarm.
Yolande pushed herself out of the closet. “Everyone listen up!”
Francis helped establish order.
When the survivors settled down, Yolande said, “First of all, I want you to know there’s hope. We’re alive. We can breathe. We have food and water. We have power. But it all has to be conserved. That’s why I turned the lights off. A few extra minutes of power could mean the difference between life and death. And we’re going to ration the food and water. That just makes sense.”
Someone near the far bulkhead shouted, “How long until we starve to death?”
Yolande allowed herself to smile slightly. Strictly for show—she sure didn’t feel it. “I wouldn’t worry about that. We’ll suffocate or freeze to death long before that happens.”
“Don’t sugar coat it or anything,” a woman called out.
Yolande half expected someone to ask who put her in charge, but no one did. She took a deep breath. “Okay, then. We’re going to get out of this. By working together. Okay?”
“Heck yes!” someone shouted over a murmur of assent from the rest. It wasn’t much, but it would do.
Bertrand approached. Yolande could hardly stand to look at him. At her own husband. All she could think of was Alain. He didn’t speak. Yolande felt a wave of hysteria. Why wasn’t Bertrand attending to their daughter? Was he trying to kill her too? But a glance confirmed that a pretty young woman was looking after Marie-Josée, trying to keep her comfortable. Yolande recognized her as another survivor from the Evangeline: Evelyn Gallant, one of Marie-Josée’s classmates.
Evelyn’s presence, the fact of her survival, was enough to make Yolande tear up with gratitude, despite everything else.
“Why don’t you clean up that vomit over there?” she told Bertrand, before he could say anything, and before pushing herself as far away from her husband as she could.
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