Just Be There Blog

Rescue

5/30/17
Rescue

Tension grew tangible in the make shift transport berth with every passing minute. A four year old boy strapped securely in a child harness secured on a reclining seat next to his mother, fidgeted and hid his face with his arm from the growing crowd of refugees still sliding into g-harnesses. His mother's soothing whispers that everything would be okay, seemed to have little effect. She tightened her grip on his tiny hand as if she would be able to pull him away from all impending harm. Worry and dread shadowed her features as her brown eyes searched but wouldn't find the familiar figure of her husband. Only children and women were boarding this particular shuttle.

The moment the last woman and child was secured, the transport shuddered as great rockets ignited lifting nearly two hundred desperate souls toward one of many stellar ships. They road to safety in a vessel designed for inanimate cargo, not for living cargo. Children and adults whimpered, screamed, cried and moaned as the g-forces pressed down without mercy. Mercifully for the pilot, after the initial forty or less seconds of takeoff, most of his passengers lost consciousness and the ten minute trip to Goliath was relatively quiet. Rolf Ungersol was the best pilot this side of the 'verse and he kept the vessel well below the red for launching...but there hadn't been time nor enough g-suits to give to the passengers so any launch inertia that reach escape velocity would be excruciating. He knew medical would be waiting to make sure any broken bones were tended to before SDJ (steller drive jump).

Outside, explosive bursts star-flashed around the hundreds of inertia lifts and rocket tranports carrying humanity from the planet's surface. Hundreds of thousands of lives would find refuge within the huge star-transports of which, Goliath was one; but, so many more would not leave the planet in time before the pending geophysical forces tore it apart.

Millions would perish with their planet this day.

****

Zanghorn was young as captains went but he'd the experience of a life time of space cargo. His thin willowy form strapped into his command chair gave him a bird's eye view of the break up of New Zeus. The horizon within his viewing monitors showed other star transports, some larger than the Goliath, many more smaller, all in the frantic process of a world wide evacuation. He didn't call any world home, having been born On the Star Freighter Goliath, but the Sorbad system was familiar stomping grounds. He had friends on New Zeus. He prayed to the 'verse most would find a way off world today.

Just three planetary rotations ago everything was dull routine and then his third officer had received the galactic distress from New Zeus just as they were getting ready to engage their interstellar drive at the edge of the Sorbdad planetary system. They had left New Zeus with a cargo of heavy machinery, having completed a routine stopover and some R and R. The urgency of the distress message required immediate action. Lt. Commander Bishop woke his Captain and within an hour the cargo was dumped on a giant ice planet and the Goliath sped back to New Zeus. Ninety seven hours after receiving the distress call, Captain Zanghorn had all his transports in position to start evacuation. His ship was designed to carry ten passengers and his crew of fifteen, as well as a full cargo. With his cargo bays empty, he could uncomfortably squeeze in seven thousand people, give or take a couple hundred. Finally, after hours of ferrying seventy-five civilians per boat with ten boats per wave and within the last ninety minutes receiving other waves of Goliath's cargo shuttles into the massive hold of his ship, he watched as the last wave approached. This final wave would place him over capacity, he had already passed safe capacity, but he knew his ship and the last loads were mostly women and children.

Purposely, he refused to look at the port monitors showing the milling, frantic crowds of humanity he wouldn't be able to lift from the dying planet.

Zanghorn pressed the intercom switch on the arm of his chair. "Ali, prepare to receive the last boats. We leave orbit twelve minutes after the last boat is secured, so hustle up down there."

Alihm Neshin, a tanned, squat young man who obviously wasn't space born, slapped the com switch near entry bay 5. "But Captain, if we ditch half our shuttles we can gather another couple thousand people."

Zanghorn bit his lip. The thought was very tempting. "You have my orders, Mister. Secure the boats and the refugees in about fifteen minutes."

***

"Aye, Aye, Captain." Ali shook his shaved brown head and blinked back tears of fear and frustration from pale blue eyes. The Air was always 'fragrant' in the lower cargo bays, but now with all the people crowded in like so much lifestock, the smell was worse than a slaughter house. Fear had its own odor and from this day until he died, Ali would remember the stink of fear. The sound of fear was more unnerving. Here and there the sounds of children crying were hushed by the whispers of their parents. The sound of fear was tensely quiet with brief eruptions of primal cries.

***

Zanghorn ran thin bony fingers through his short auburn hair. Another two thousand refugees wouldn't be plausible. He didn't believe there was enough time to return to the surface, load the boats and shuttles, and lift off before the planet self destructed. His eyes strayed to a monitor at one of the departure ports showing part of the crowd left on the surface. A middle aged man held up a child to the skies and screamed. Captain Zanghorn ripped his gaze from the monitor.

He couldn't save them.

The ship shuddered as ten life boats, docked and locked at their perspective births outside the ship. The shuttles were less noticeable since they slid weightless inside the ship. He watched as one by the one the amber lights turned green indicating the boats were secured and the shuttle bay doors were sealed.

"Captain, the last boat is secured."

"Noted. Secure the refugees."

A molten rip tore through the surface of the planet cleaving green fields, mountains, forests, and cities. Zanghorn's face tensed as he realized he didn't have six minutes, let alone twelve, as he watched the escalation of the planet break up. Suddenly LSO (low synchronous orbit) became deadly.

He grit his teeth to hold back his gasp of alarm as the planet diameter shrank and he knew everyone had run out of time. He hit the ship wide alarms and the emergency collision beacons and initiated the emergency boost rockets.

The automated warning blared everywhere on Goliath. "All hands brace for collision." and a countdown of less than a minute of the impending collision commenced.

"Varner, get us out of here."

The pilot didn't answer his captain, his hands were full maneuvering around slower orbiting ships and applying more thrust against what visually appeared to be greater gravity. From his perspective it appeared he was falling toward the planet. In reality the planet was exploding and the faster he pushed the ship away didn't quite compensate for the abrupt speed of the planet debris expanding toward them.

"Full power--now. Initiate SD."

Everyone aboard the Goliath felt the immense surge of the ship's massive stellar drive ignite. Zanghorn caught sight of some of the smaller ships totally engulfed by the expanding molten planet before they could escape. He gripped the arms of his command chair as g-forces pushed him into the cushions. The intership-com-board lit up like a Christmas tree all red and amber and multi channel chatter filled with screams as unprepared ship's crew and civilians alike were thrown against bulkheads by inertia. He watched his screens showing the rear and peripheral views to see most of the ships on this side of the planet escaped the fiery debris of a dying world. Those class ships that didn't possess stellar drive were caught and lost in a fiery expansion of New Zeus' last death convulsion.


saved: 5/30/17
rewrite: 9/2/19