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!
It was an ordinary day on board the Akkadian space station Evangeline for the Doucettes and the rest of the station’s ten thousand inhabitants until a Realm battleship attacked the station.
While their space station Evangeline is under attack, the Doucettes wait for their chance to board an escape pod, but they’re last in line, and there may not be enough escape pods.
The Doucette’s escape pod takes them to another Akkadian space station, The Northumberland, where they join hundreds of other refugees. While exploring this new space station, Marie-Josée and her brother Alain have a strange encounter with a uniformed official.
While the space station Northumberland itself is attacked by the same battleship that destroyed the Evangeline, Marie-Josée Doucette herself is attacked in the Northumberland's Great Hall.
Drawing upon her specialized knowledge as a station technologist, Yolande tries to save her family as the inhabitants of Northumberland station flee en masse while under attack by a Realm battleship.
Chapter Six
“Emergency Bunker”
The avatar led them through a series of passageways to a set of elevator banks that weren’t working, and around that bank into a stairwell. As they descended, Yolande glanced back at Sebastian, certain that it was only a matter of time until it tripped and dropped Marie-Josée and crushed her daughter with its robotic body, which she imagined was quite heavy (she was wrong—Sebastian’s body was actually quite light), but Sebastian never did any of those things. It carried Marie-Josée with little apparent effort. All the while, Marie-Josée never regained consciousness. Yolande tried not to think what that meant.
There in the stairwell it was impossible to tell how the battle was going outside the space station. Maybe Akkadian reinforcements had arrived in time to save the Northumberland, but Yolande knew that was unlikely. Now that the Evangeline had been destroyed the closest space station was days away, and the capital of Akkadia, the planet Miscouche, was at least a week’s journey via the aether.
Halfway down the eighth flight of stairs the entire station seemed to shudder. The emergency lights went out and the Northumberland’s holographic avatar disappeared, leaving the stairwell in pitch black. Yolande fought down a wave of panic. She couldn’t see a thing until Sebastian turned its eyes into flashlights.
“Is everyone okay?” Yolande asked.
“Just peachy,” Bertrand said.
“Alain?” Yolande asked.
“My legs hurt,” the boy complained.
“Can you walk?” Yolande asked, slightly exasperated.
“I guess,” Alain replied.
“Sebastian?”
“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” Sebastian said.
“Good. Let’s go.”
They descended the staircase slowly, holding onto one another. The station shook again. Yolande was seized by a terrific compulsion to flee the claustrophobic stairwell. Only the presence of her family prevented her. After what seemed an eternity, they reached a landing. Dim emergency lighting flickered back on revealing that they were at the bottom of the stairwell. Sebastian reduced the output of its flashlights accordingly. The Northumberland re-appeared before them, looking grainy, obviously a much lower resolution than before.
“My apologies,” it said. “I am experiencing some technical challenges. But I am happy to lead you the rest of the way to your destination.”
It led them into the passageway, flickering in and out of existence, but substantial enough for the Doucettes to follow. They picked up their pace and rounded a couple of corners until they reached the medical bay.
Here the avatar abandoned its stiff, formal patter and addressed Yolande in a different tone. Because she had worked on stations like the Northumberland all her adult life, Yolande knew that she was talking to a different node now. A more highly functioning node. Maybe even the core of the Northumberland itself.
“All of Command has either abandoned me or is about to,” the Northumberland said. “So have all my technologists. I know that you’re a technologist, Yolande Doucette, and that you understand the special properties of this medical facility. I’m going to need your help isolating it from the rest of the station. I can’t do it on my own. A lot of peoples’ lives will depend on us succeeding.”
The weight on Yolande’s shoulders increased substantially. Now she was responsible for more than just the safety of her family. She didn’t like it, not one bit, but she accepted it. If not her, then whom? “Okay. Sure.”
The Northumberland acknowledged her agreement with a nod and disappeared.
The Doucettes entered the medical bay.
The facility was crowded with people of all ages, such as one might see during an unusually virulent flu season. The atmosphere was muted. People talked quietly amongst themselves. No one seemed to be in charge. Other than the deck there was no place to sit, so Yolande and her family remained standing. Sebastian continued to hold Marie-Josée in its arms.
Yolande wondered whether these people had any idea the danger they were in, whether they even knew about the medical bay’s special features. Of course, right now the bay was as vulnerable as the rest of the station. To remedy that Yolande needed to do what the Northumberland had asked of her. To seal off the facility, to close and reinforce every means of egress, to fire up the emergency generators and auxiliary power and engage the independent life support systems. But as urgent as all that was, right this very instant it was all too much to deal with, and Yolande had other things on her mind.
“I need a doctor,” she said to the people nearest her.
No one answered. Everyone seemed in a state of shock. Finally, a slim woman with a tangled mess of blonde hair spoke up. “The doctors are all gone. On the life pods.”
Yolande took that in. She met Bertrand’s somber eyes.
A man wearing the service uniform of an Akkadian sailor strode across the waiting room toward her. He was even pudgier than Bertrand and sported the kind of full beard that suggested a pathological aversion to razor blades. “My name is Javad. I’m a corpsman from one of the ships docked here. Maybe I can help.”
“Oh, thank God,” Yolande said.
“Make way,” Javad demanded with quiet authority.
He led Yolande and her family through the crowded waiting area into a small, rectangular examination room. There, Sebastian set Marie-Josée on a sophisticated-looking diagnostic bench where the Doucette’s run of bad luck held. The diagnostic bench lacked power. So did the bench in the adjacent room, and the one next to that. Yolande realized that they weren’t hooked up to the station’s emergency power. She wasn’t surprised. The emergency generators could only carry so much load and right now most of the emergency power was being used to charge critical life-support systems and the remaining life pods.
The lack of proper diagnostic facilities did not deter Javad. He shone a beam of light into one of Marie-Josée’s eyes, felt her forehead, took her pulse. He tapped on her knees and elbows and squeezed the tips of her fingers.
When he pressed on the side of Marie-Josée’s jaw, Yolande asked, “What are you doing that for?”
Javad ignored her and leaned close to Marie-Josée’s face. He coughed, cleared his throat, and said loudly, “Marie-Josée.”
Did he have a cold? Yolande worried about him transmitting whatever he had to her daughter. She wondered if she should say something.
Javad caught her looking at him. “Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of cough.”
“What kind of cough is it?”
“An occupational hazard.”
Yolande didn’t know what that meant but decided not to pursue the matter.
“Marie-Josée,” Javad repeated.
Marie-Josée did not respond.
Yolande wondered if he might try slapping Marie-Josée’s face next—she was prepared to intervene if he did—but he didn’t. She tried to remember if she’d said Marie-Josée’s name in Javad’s presence since they’d arrived. She decided she must have.
Javad produced a portable medical scanner from one of his pockets and scanned Marie-Josée from head to toe. Yolande thought it odd that he didn’t ask any questions about her daughter such as how long she’d been like this. Maybe his quick inspection had already told him everything he needed to know, but Yolande doubted it. As a station technologist (which she’d always considered analogous to a doctor, one who treated systems as opposed to people) Yolande always craved as much information as possible. As such, she did not form a positive first impression of this man. She began to suspect that, very likely, he was a quack.
“Well?” she asked impatiently.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“She seems stable. Her breathing is fine.”
“But what’s wrong with her? Don’t you want to know what happened to her? How long she’s been unconscious?”
“I already know what happened to her,” Javad said. “And how long she’s been unconscious.”
“How do you know that?” Could his brief scan have told him?
Javad glanced at Yolande briefly. “It’s too much to get into right now.”
Yolande clutched Bertrand’s arm for support. “What do you mean?”
“What’s wrong with her?” Bertrand asked. “Did something hit her?”
“To be honest, I don’t actually know what’s wrong with her,” Javad said. “It’s strange. She shouldn’t be like this.”
Yolande stared at the man, her suspicions confirmed. “Okay, that’s it. Get away from my daughter.”
Javad tried to speak but Yolande interrupted him. “Get away from her. Get away now!”
Javad raised his hands in a placating gesture and stepped back. “Okay. Okay.”
Yolande stepped out into the waiting room. “Are there any real doctors here?”
No one answered. People shifted uncomfortably. Yolande closed her eyes, trying to collect her strength. She felt a tug on her sleeve, which could only mean one thing. She opened her eyes to find Alain at her side.
“Shouldn’t we be on a life pod?” the boy asked.
Yolande sighed. “There won’t be any life pods left. We’re here because this is the safest part of the station.”
If, that is, its specially reinforced perimeters had been effectively maintained, and if Yolande ever got around to isolating it properly.
Help me make this chapter better! What do you think? Let me know in the comments! Don’t all comment at once! :-)
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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