Fatal Boarding by E. R. Mason Page A
Authors: E. R. Mason
Tags: Science-Fiction, adventure, Romance, Action, Virus, Alien, Philosophy, Plague, ufo, martial arts, spaceship
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elevator up one deck
and stepped out into the wide corridor that leads to the mess hall.
A little alarm of awareness suddenly went off in my head. I stopped
and listened. The faint echoes of dishes and trays could be heard
clamoring in the distance, but other than that there was nothing.
No sound at all. The plan had been for us to back away from the
alien craft at 03:00, bring her around, and make the jump to light
thirty minutes later. But there were no waves of superstructure
vibration coming off the walls and no subsonic resonant drone from
the Tachyon drives.
We weren't moving. I hastened my pace.
To my surprise the place was packed and
noisy. It should have been nearly empty with the first shift people
all at their stations. Instead, they were here celebrating another
unexpected break in routine. Even more surprising, they were not
dressed in regulation duty wear. That meant they knew they would
not be called to their positions any time soon. They sat around the
hall drinking coffee, eating late breakfast snacks, and talking
cheerfully around the colorful plastic tables, looking like a bunch
of tourists on holiday. I searched over the heads for a sign of
R.J. until an arm suddenly jutted up over the crowd. To my dismay
he stood partly up and called, "Hey, Buck, over here!"
There was sporadic laughter from points
around the room, as though too many understood the reference. It
was impossible to judge just how red my face became, though I am
certain it conveyed an adequate betrayal of guilt. I weaved my way
through the masses, nodding sarcastically, and joined him at his
table.
"R.J."
"Yes, oh grand marshal of this fortuitous
gathering?"
"Later, I will kill you."
He blurted out a laugh and pushed an empty
mug and coffee dispenser at me. I poured and eye'd him
threateningly.
"Nira was in here earlier. She looked very
refreshed."
"R.J., keep your voice down. So what about
Nira?"
"Oh, just thought you'd like to know she was
doing well, that's all."
"Is there no damn privacy on this ship at
all? How do you know about Nira?"
"Apparently she bumped into a nurse's aid
while sneaking back into sick bay last night. When asked where she
had been, she laughed and claimed to have paid a little visit to a
Mr. Buck Rogers. Of course we all have no idea who that could
be."
"Oh my god."
"I'm sure it was heavenly, my amorous
friend."
"R.J., it never happened."
"It makes me wonder why you've never been
married."
"R.J., it never happened.
"Of course not."
"So why aren't we underway? What the hell's
going on?"
"Oh yeah, you're gonna love this one. Guess
who fucked up last night. I mean, really fucked up."
"No guessing games, please. It's too
early."
"How 'bout if I give you a big clue. It was
Space Operations favorite daughter."
"Brandon? The child-queen of the analytical
group? What did she do?"
"Like I was telling you last night, the
scanners they took on board that ship really didn't pick up too
much. What they did pick up seems almost undecipherable. Except for
one thing, star charts. One of the scientists in ole', or should I
say young, Maureen's group happened to notice a pattern in the
alien gibberish that reminded him of star charts. Ms. Brandon, who
is always anxious to validate Space Ops undeserved confidence in
her, decided it was the big break she needed to crack the code. The
latest mapping we've done hadn't yet been imported into the
analytical computer base, so Ms. Maureen races down to navigation
and uses her rank to bully the engineer on duty into letting her
have access to the ship's main nav computer. She inputs her alien
star segment into the database and tells the computer to find a
pattern match. The host computer goes away to do the job and never
comes back. Whatever happened, it wiped out our entire nav
database. The whole system had to be completely powered down and
then rebooted. They're replacing the optical storage mediums with
backups to get it back. And that my friend, is why you see
and stepped out into the wide corridor that leads to the mess hall.
A little alarm of awareness suddenly went off in my head. I stopped
and listened. The faint echoes of dishes and trays could be heard
clamoring in the distance, but other than that there was nothing.
No sound at all. The plan had been for us to back away from the
alien craft at 03:00, bring her around, and make the jump to light
thirty minutes later. But there were no waves of superstructure
vibration coming off the walls and no subsonic resonant drone from
the Tachyon drives.
We weren't moving. I hastened my pace.
To my surprise the place was packed and
noisy. It should have been nearly empty with the first shift people
all at their stations. Instead, they were here celebrating another
unexpected break in routine. Even more surprising, they were not
dressed in regulation duty wear. That meant they knew they would
not be called to their positions any time soon. They sat around the
hall drinking coffee, eating late breakfast snacks, and talking
cheerfully around the colorful plastic tables, looking like a bunch
of tourists on holiday. I searched over the heads for a sign of
R.J. until an arm suddenly jutted up over the crowd. To my dismay
he stood partly up and called, "Hey, Buck, over here!"
There was sporadic laughter from points
around the room, as though too many understood the reference. It
was impossible to judge just how red my face became, though I am
certain it conveyed an adequate betrayal of guilt. I weaved my way
through the masses, nodding sarcastically, and joined him at his
table.
"R.J."
"Yes, oh grand marshal of this fortuitous
gathering?"
"Later, I will kill you."
He blurted out a laugh and pushed an empty
mug and coffee dispenser at me. I poured and eye'd him
threateningly.
"Nira was in here earlier. She looked very
refreshed."
"R.J., keep your voice down. So what about
Nira?"
"Oh, just thought you'd like to know she was
doing well, that's all."
"Is there no damn privacy on this ship at
all? How do you know about Nira?"
"Apparently she bumped into a nurse's aid
while sneaking back into sick bay last night. When asked where she
had been, she laughed and claimed to have paid a little visit to a
Mr. Buck Rogers. Of course we all have no idea who that could
be."
"Oh my god."
"I'm sure it was heavenly, my amorous
friend."
"R.J., it never happened."
"It makes me wonder why you've never been
married."
"R.J., it never happened.
"Of course not."
"So why aren't we underway? What the hell's
going on?"
"Oh yeah, you're gonna love this one. Guess
who fucked up last night. I mean, really fucked up."
"No guessing games, please. It's too
early."
"How 'bout if I give you a big clue. It was
Space Operations favorite daughter."
"Brandon? The child-queen of the analytical
group? What did she do?"
"Like I was telling you last night, the
scanners they took on board that ship really didn't pick up too
much. What they did pick up seems almost undecipherable. Except for
one thing, star charts. One of the scientists in ole', or should I
say young, Maureen's group happened to notice a pattern in the
alien gibberish that reminded him of star charts. Ms. Brandon, who
is always anxious to validate Space Ops undeserved confidence in
her, decided it was the big break she needed to crack the code. The
latest mapping we've done hadn't yet been imported into the
analytical computer base, so Ms. Maureen races down to navigation
and uses her rank to bully the engineer on duty into letting her
have access to the ship's main nav computer. She inputs her alien
star segment into the database and tells the computer to find a
pattern match. The host computer goes away to do the job and never
comes back. Whatever happened, it wiped out our entire nav
database. The whole system had to be completely powered down and
then rebooted. They're replacing the optical storage mediums with
backups to get it back. And that my friend, is why you see
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