Twice Removed... 4

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Xia Phar had a good life for a human on Saer’kah. She didn’t wear a restriction band and the Saer’khi family that had raised her since the Migration treated her like one of their own. Others humans on Saer’kah though had no reason to love the Saer’khi . At least Xia had some semblance of freedom. So when the humans decide to rebel against the Saer’khi and she discovers the real reason for the presence of humans and other aliens on Saer’kah Xia decides to take action. Enlisting the help of her family and her friend Tarek she forms a plan to get everyone out of the alien barracks without arousing suspicion and get them off Saer’kah on one of the newly built colony ships. Sounds pretty easy right? Now Tarek’s crush on her is the least of her problems and leaving Saer’kah is just the beginning.

 
 

Twice Removed
Chapter 4
Boom!

By
Amethyst
“An explosion,” Dennis half growled, “And it came from the direction of the bridge.” He took off at a run with me close on his heels.

 


 
Author's Note: Thanks as usual to my readers and of course the Big Closet team who work tirelessly to give us all a great place to post and read TG fiction. ~Amethyst.
 


 
Chapter 4: Boom!

To my great relief most of the colonists aboard the ship were willing to give the Saer’khi a fair chance. The notable exceptions to this were of course Jared, Jake, and their dozen or so supporters who seemed to hate and distrust all aliens equally. For the most part they kept to themselves while the rest of the humans seemed to be making an effort to get to know the Saer’khi and other aliens a bit better. I hoped that this opening of the lines of communication would help prevent any future misunderstandings, at least within our community. Things were beginning to look up, though I still had a nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen before this trip was over.

Once the colonists were all settled in the six colonist dormitories scattered across the ship we gave them a tour of the Bounty and gave a simplistic explanation of how the ship was traveling through subspace. Then when we finished the tour at the dining hall I waited until everyone was seated and relatively quiet before calling for their attention. “As I have mentioned before we have limited the Saer’khi aboard the Bounty to the bare minimum required to maintain and pilot the ship. This does leave us in a bit of a pickle though as the six of us are spread a little thin. So I am going to ask for some volunteers.”

“Volunteers for what?” a reedy woman with greying hair asked. “As you already pointed out, none of us knows how to pilot or maintain this ship.”

“Mostly I’m looking for volunteers to run the kitchen, help out with the food growing in hydroponics, and do what cleaning is necessary,” I replied. “These jobs may not seem that important or glamorous but they are just as important for day to day operations of the ship as what myself and the rest of the crew do. Also if any of you have any skills that might be useful here on the Bounty or when we explore possible colony planets please let me know.”

“Who the hell named it that? Isn’t that just begging for bad luck?” someone asked.

I sighed and shook my head sadly. “I’m afraid that the name was my doing. Given what Jared was trying to pull on Saer’kah I understandably had my doubts about this working. We’re all cast-offs, sent here because there was no place for us on Earth, so I think we all know what betrayal feels like, and before living with the Saer’khi I was victim to some of the worst cruelties humans can commit on one another. So I bitterly suggested it as a joke. The name stuck because the Saer’khi were unaware of the reference.”

Sarah quickly raised her hand and gave me one of her warm smiles. “I volunteer to run the kitchen. I did it on Saer’kah, so I might as well keep doing it.” I silently thanked her for getting back to the topic at hand as the rest of her kitchen staff was quick to volunteer to fill their old positions as well. I did assign a Nezan that could read Saer’khi to the kitchens as well to run the food dispenser that would generate the proteins and raw materials for use as ingredients. There were also volunteers for cleaning and hydroponics and so many volunteers for exploratory away missions that I thought I might have to set up a lottery to select landing parties. When we were finished Sarah and her staff returned to the kitchen to start on the midday meal, the crew left for their duty stations, and I went to the captain’s quarters to change into my uniform.

I had just finished dressing and was adjusting my goggles and bandana when I heard knocking at my cabin door. With a shrug I walked over to the door felt around inside of it with my mind and telekinetically popped the opening mechanism. The door slid open with a slight hissing sound to reveal Dennis White standing on the other side. “Oh hello, what can I do for you Captain?” I asked cautiously.

“I think it’s more what I can do for you Commander,” he said with quick salute. “May I come in so we can speak privately?”

Dennis had proven himself to be a pretty decent guy so far so I nodded. “Please come in and make yourself comfortable.” Once the large man was inside I sealed the door shut and took a seat in an overstuffed chair.

“Thank you Commander,” he replied as he took a seat in a chair opposite me. Then without preamble he stated, “You realize that Jared and his cronies see a great big target on your back now don’t you?”

I sighed as I leaned back in the chair and nodded. “I do, he’s a fool and he would have gotten them all killed or somehow succeeded and killed a bunch of innocent Saer’khi. This was the only way to get you all doing what you came here for and to help you realize the truth.”

“I realize that,” he agreed. “It was very brave of you to propose such a plan and go through with it yourself. Jared could still be a problem though; even a fool shooting blind can get lucky and hit a target. It could be the one they’re aiming for or it could be one standing beside it.”

He was right and we both knew it, I and all my allies on the ship were in possible danger. “That’s the feeling I’ve been getting since I first came aboard this ship, something bad is going to happen. Why do you think I jokingly named this ship the Bounty?”

He actually laughed at that. “I was wondering if that was your doing, though it seems like asking for bad luck to name a ship that,” he said, repeating the sentiment from earlier.

“I didn’t think the name was actually going to stick,” I complained, shrugging my shoulders. “Apparently it’s tradition for Commanders to name the ship when they first come on board and at the time I didn’t even know that they put me in charge of this.” Then to get back to the subject at hand I asked, “So what do you have in mind about Jared?”

“Until he pulls something there’s not much you can do against him directly without looking like you’re the bad guy. You can take preventative measures though in case he does get it in his head to try something,” he suggested.

“I already suggested certain measures to make the ship more secure and we’ve put them in place,” I responded. “The bridge crew quarters and all important areas of the ship can only be accessed by someone with telekinetic abilities, which means me or the Saer’khi.”

“That’s a good countermeasure, I wouldn’t have thought of that. What I’m suggesting though is that you take me on as a personal bodyguard so Jared will think twice about attacking you.”

I thought about that for several minutes before finally answering with a small sigh. “I don’t know if I like the sounds of a personal bodyguard, it’s too obvious. Maybe I could use you as a head of security though. That way, you and those you choose can keep an eye on me, the other crew members, Sarah and areas of interest on the ship as needed while making it seem like one of those jobs we just didn’t have enough crew for. Do you think you could find five or six people you’d trust enough to protect me and the others and keep order on the ship? I would prefer loyal people with an ability to be intimidating without a weapon.”

The Captain looked pensive for a moment and then he grinned at me. “I think I know just the people for the job.”

I returned the grin as I stood up. “Okay then, go find them and meet me back here as soon as you can.”

* * *

If I were to go by appearances alone, all but two of the six people that Captain White brought to my quarters would have been good candidates. The first of the six and one of the two who stood out was Lieutenant Luiza Sanchez. She was a human woman in her early thirties of Hispanic descent a good foot shorter than me and maybe one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. I figured though that if the Captain had chosen her he probably had a very good reason. It turned out I was right, before she had one of her lungs punctured by a stray bullet Luiza had been a Navy Seal. She now had two fully functional lungs again and in addition to her combat training while in the service she had mastered three different forms of martial arts. Dennis claimed that she might not look like much but she could take him down faster than he could blink.

Next up were two of the ships Murqui population: Lirra was the Murqui who had spoken up during the meeting in the hanger and was roughly six feet tall. Her feline grace, powerful looking muscles, and sharp claws and fangs gave her a decidedly dangerous appearance. Beside her stood a darker brown Murqui male named Trabu who was nearly as tall as Dennis and bearing a more muscular frame than Lirra.

The next candidate was a Haran named Loxx, well that’s as close as I could come to pronouncing it as part of the name contained sub vocals that a human voice just isn’t capable of. The Haran resemble five foot tall humanoid lizards with scaly skin, long tails, beak-like snouts filled with razor sharp teeth, and rather than arms they have feathered wings with a trio of long prehensile fingers at the wingtips ending in nasty claws. They kind of remind me of velociraptors and judging from his red and yellow feathers he was male. Haran grow up genderless and their personalities or needs of the community effect their gender. They traditionally wear toga like garments and the only real way for humans to distinguish their gender is by the feathers on their wings and on their heads. Children or young adults have feathers in dull greys and browns until puberty when their feathers begin to change color to suit their new gender. Males’ feathers are bright reds and yellows and females’ are blues and greens.

The next candidate was Matt Scott. He looked to be maybe nineteen years old with blond hair and his one natural eye was blue. He had nasty looking scars on his chin and the right side of his face and his right eye had been replaced with a cybernetic one. There must have been serious damage to the optic nerve if he had opted for that rather than a cloned eye, though I suppose he could have chosen it just to look bad-ass. If the latter was the case it was working, as between the eye, the scars, his obvious physical fitness, and the fact that both arms were fully cybernetic right up to the collarbone he looked like a pretty tough hombre. Something about both his name and his face was really familiar to me but I just couldn’t seem to put my finger on it.

Finally we had the other odd egg; Eric Townsend. He just looked like your average Joe. Like Dennis and Luiza though he was former American military, but where they were army and navy he had been with the air force. Unlike the other pair, who were discharged due to their injuries, Eric said he had left the air force to go to Saer’kah because he had wanted to go into space and had come with one of the last ships. He was a tall and fit man in his late twenties with brown hair and eyes and looked like the type who could blend in just about anywhere. It was he who offered to keep an eye on Jared and at the time it made sense.

Once I had been introduced to them all I issued each of them a thumbnail sized disc shaped device. “Okay people you are now this ship’s security team so let’s get you properly equipped. I’m afraid that only people with a certain skill set will be able to access the weapons lockers but I do have for each of you a subspace communication disc patched into the same frequency the crew uses and a stun baton that will only work for the person whose DNA it’s coded to.” I was just distributing the six guards the comm discs and batons that I had gotten from storage when we heard the tone that indicated it was time for lunch.

I quickly patched my communications disc into the frequency for the ship’s intercom and cleared my throat before I addressed the crew and passengers of the Bounty. “You all may recognize the tone you just heard as the mealtime indicator. Before we all make our way to the dining hall to eat I do have one brief announcement to make. Beginning after lunch the textiles room will be open to everyone aboard the ship and you will all be allotted the resources necessary to make three complete outfits. However, one of those must be a ships uniform. This is non-negotiable as these uniforms will also serve as environmental suits in case of emergency.”

I paused to let that all sink in for a brief moment before continuing on to explain,. “The process for using the facilities in the textiles room is simple. Just step into one of the twenty booths, remove your clothes, and step onto the glowing pressure pad on the floor with your arms spread out. Once the booth has mapped your body the map will be coded to your DNA and you may get dressed and leave the booth to use one of the touch terminals to make your selections. Your uniform will be automatically added to your clothing selection and to add other clothes just use the arrows to flip between options and the green touch-pad to accept. You will then be able to take your selections from the nanite weaver alongside your terminal within a few minutes. Krie and I will try to be available in the textiles room all afternoon in case anyone has issues using the system. We ask that due to the limited amount of terminals and booths you get yourself mapped and make your selections as quickly as possible so that everyone can get their clothing bundles as soon as possible.”

With that done I securely locked my door behind us before leading my new security team back to the dining room and our first meal aboard the Bounty. Lunch was the best that Sarah and her team could make it using foodstuffs that mostly came out of a food dispenser; that stuff always seems to lack taste. After lunch we headed to the Textiles room with Krie and began watching over the colonists as they went through the process for obtaining their clothes and uniforms. Very few needed help with the process but Jared and his cronies seemed to take much longer than anyone else to make their selections just to cause trouble. Between that and the number of colonists it took two days to finish the process.

* * *

Over the next week things aboard the Bounty settled into a pattern of various duties, meal breaks, and sleep. There wasn’t much call for Krie and I other than some space sickness and the occasional accidental injury but I tried to keep myself busy by helping out in hydroponics and the kitchen and by helping to relieve the boredom of many of the colonists. The latter I did by teaching them how to play some of the games in the entertainment room and by telling stories about my life on Saer’kah and what it was like living with a Saer’khi family. I even did a round of all the dormitories each night to check on those I had treated for space sickness and to tell the younger children bedtime stories. I couldn’t bring myself to mention just how I had been altered yet though, as I really wanted these people to get to know me as a person before I told them my secret.

Seven days out things were beginning to look interesting on the exploration front. We had dropped out of subspace twice to drop new anchors and during the last foray back into real space we had discovered on long range scans a yellow sun system with seven planets, two of which seemed to be within the green zone necessary to possibly support life. Tarek calculated another half day of subspace travel before we could reach the vicinity of the system and when we did we would have to be extremely careful when dropping out of subspace. I was cautiously optimistic though and had been giving the colonists regular updates of our status. As luck would have it, that was when the shit hit the fan.

We were near the outer edge of the magnetic influence of the last subspace anchor we had dropped and were holding position. The plan was to open up a tiny hole in our subspace bubble just big enough to get some readings. If we were too close to the star, a planet or some other stellar body then we would move a little further away from or pull back toward the anchor to try again elsewhere. Tarek and Tanna had requested my presence on the bridge for the operation so Captain White and I were on our way there when the deck beneath our feet shook with the force of the explosion. “What in the hell was that?!” I shouted as I managed to steady myself.

“An explosion,” Dennis half growled, “And it came from the direction of the bridge.” He took off at a run with me close on his heels.

As we were running Tanna’s voice slipped into my mind sounding panicked. *Commander! Eric and some other humans just used some sort of explosive device to blow open the door!*

I felt a stab of pain from my link to Tarek and a sudden dizziness. *Dennis and I are on our way,* I quickly sent back as I tried to steady myself, *What’s your status there?*

*I think Trabu and Loxx are dead. Both of them were caught in the blast.* I could feel the fear, confusion and grief swirling in her mind as she updated me. *There are nine of them. Eric and the one named Jared have some sort of weapons and came in shooting. I don’t know what kind of weapon Jared has but from the look of the beam that Eric’s fired it must be based on our particle beam technology. Tarek is unconscious and bleeding, but alive. They’re demanding that I take us out of subspace.*

The thought of humans with particle beam weapons was disturbing but I had more important concerns at the moment. *Did you explain how stupid that is? If we don’t take proper sensor readings first we’ll have no idea where we’ll appear, we could end up inside a sun or something.*

*I tried telling them that Commander, but they aren’t willing to listen.*

*Dammit!* I could vaguely hear Dennis on the comm channel with Matt, Luiza and, Lirra but I had more important matters on my mind. *I’ll be there soon with my medical pouch. See if you can get into my situation room. It’s not far from your station and there’s a weapons locker in there. I’ll give you a signal when we’re ready to help you care of the riffraff.*

I was about to turn the corner to the bridge entrance when Dennis held me back. “We have no idea what’s going on in there, we need to wait for the others.”

“Tanna’s conscious so I have eyes on the inside,” I explained. “Eric is working with Jared apparently. They blew the door to the bridge and went in firing. There are nine humans in total but only Eric and Jared seem to be armed.”

“How the hell did they get weapons and explosives?!” Captain White half yelled and half muttered.

“The Saer’khi trusted us humans to cooperate with this colony idea since it was mutually beneficial. They just don’t understand human nature so they give us more trust than we really deserve. They weren’t exactly checking people’s luggage when they were brought aboard the Migration ships. I should have expected something like this but I guess the Saer’khi optimism has rubbed off on me,” I grumbled.

“Most of us were ready to cooperate,” he tried to reassure me. “What I would like to know is why now? If either of them had this kind of gear stowed away why didn’t they use it while they thought we were slaves?”

I shook my head as I contemplated that. “I don’t know, but I plan on finding out.”

“Any ideas on how to retake the bridge? Luiza and the others are on their way but nine against five isn’t very good odds, especially if two of them have guns.”

“How about we even the odds then?” I said with a grimace. “We passed a weapons locker on our way here.” I dashed back the way we came and turned a corner to almost run headlong into Luiza, Lirra, and Matt. I hit the opening mechanism with my mind and the panel in the wall opened to show four particle beam cylinders and two plasma rifles.

*I’m sealed in your situation room Commander,* Tanna informed me. *I have a particle beam cylinder and I’m ready to attack on your command.*

*Good work Tanna, when we bust in I’ll give you a signal so we can catch them from two sides. Please try not to get shot too, it’s bad enough that Tarek is hurt. Krie, I’ll need you ready for Tarek and any other injuries in sickbay, but be ready to grab what you can and evacuate to the medical drop ship just in case.* I sent to the two other Ji’turi.

A resounding reply of *Yes Commander!* echoed through my brain and opened my eyes to find Dennis giving me a questioning look.

I just gave him a determined grimace. “Tanna knows what to do. We may be outnumbered but we do have more weapons. I’ll let you four have the particle beam cylinders,” I said as I took one of the rifles. “I don’t want this used on the bridge unless absolutely necessary.” I charged the plasma rifle and gestured to the weapons locker. “The particle beam cylinders are easy to use, just point the open end at what you want to shoot and press the green button.”

Dennis nodded, taking a cylinder for himself and handing another to each of my other three security guards. When everyone had a cylinder, and the humans and the Murqui woman had been cautioned only to fire if necessary and not to hit anything that looked important, we beaded back toward the Bridge and I peeked around the corner to see Jake watching the hall. Or rather I assumed that he was supposed to be watching the hall. In actuality he was leaning against the wall near the remnants of the bridge entrance looking bored.

“Can I borrow your baton Captain White?” I asked while sending to Tanna, *When I say go, open the door and make your shots count. Try and throw something at someone telekinetically if you can as well as a distraction.*

Tanna gave me a mental nod but when she replied she sounded even more panicked than earlier. *We need to hurry Commander, I don’t like leaving them alone in there.*

Dennis looked a bit confused but handed over the weapon. Then he stared at me like I had grown a second head as I stepped into view of the bridge entrance and said, “Hi Jake.” As Jake looked up at me I hurled the baton at him putting all the telekinetic force that I could behind it while sending *Go* to Tanna. Seconds later the baton struck Jake squarely in the head rendering him unconscious. I turned to smile grimly at my companions and gestured toward the bridge, “Shall we?”

We rushed past the unconscious Jake and onto the bridge where I tried to quickly assess the situation. Everyone was looking at Jared who was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor when Captain White and the others tore into them and Tanna started firing. Captain White and company might not have been using their weapons yet but it was obvious that non-lethal means were a secondary concern. Lieutenant Sanchez had snapped one man’s neck and swept the feet out from under a woman before either of them realized what was happening and Lirra had pounced upon another man and was making damn sure he wouldn’t be getting back up.

Matt was using his metal fists to pound a large red-headed man to a pulp when a man who was about to attack him from behind was hit with a well-aimed shot from Tanna’s particle beam cylinder, knocking him to the ground with a hole in his chest. I was trying to make my way to the subspace controls while Dennis leaped on the man who was reaching for Jared’s dropped revolver. I however had my sights set on Eric Townsend who was standing at the controls for the subspace bubble. I took a quick look around for Tarek and found him slumped on the ground by his about twelve feet away from the subspace controls and Eric.

Tarek had what appeared to have a bullet wound just between his left shoulders. It looked like he had also hit his head when he had fallen so I quickly added a concussion to his list of possible injuries. Eric looked up and saw me aiming my weapon at him but either didn’t know what it was or thought that nobody in their right mind would risk using a plasma rifle on the bridge and ignored me to keep doing whatever he was doing at the controls. Suddenly the ship lurched violently as we left subspace and I was only able to stay upright by using my telekinesis to steady myself. That was not a normal result of leaving subspace and neither was the sudden power failure that followed. Emergency power soon kicked in though and we had minimal lighting and the control panels were on but their indicators were mostly flashing red.

*Status!* I half-screamed in my mind as I sent my thoughts out.

Karran was the first to respond from engineering. *The safety protocols on the subspace bubble were overridden somehow. Most of the ships systems are down Commander. We’ve got emergency power and life support but not much else. Half of engineering is gone, along with most of the port side of the ship, I think.*

*What do you mean gone?* I replied as I tried to shove down my growing panic. *They can’t have just vanished.*

*If I had to guess, then I would say that half the ship materialized inside of something solid,* Xawin offered. *Most of the sensors on the port side are offline, half of engineering is cut off by a mass of black rock, and we were very lucky to be on this side. That depends on how you define lucky though. We have maybe an hour of air and what’s left of the particle accelerator is overloading and frying what is left of the ship’s systems. We were venting atmosphere in some areas as well but photon shields have been erected and are holding.*

Most of the mutineers were down now, either through particle beam blasts or my guards’ fierce attacks. Eric managed to get to his feet though and he had his long barreled weapon pointed at Tarek. “Okay girlie put the weapon down or I’ll burn a hole through his head.”

Plasma rifles are nasty weapons. The whole crew had been trained to use them in case the Bounty was attacked but I was reluctant to do so. Unlike particle beams, which cause matter in their path to lose cohesion and actually cause fairly clean wounds that are easy to care for if they’re not too serious, plasma rifles fire superheated plasma in concentrated bursts. You can’t control the heat of the plasma you fire, only how much of it there is and hope it hits where you’re aiming because whatever it does hit it will likely incinerate. Wounds caused by superheated plasma, if there is enough left of the victim to be merely wounded, leave the area burned to the degree of a badly cooked Christmas ham as a best case scenario. Since I was only ten feet away I had it on the absolute minimum setting when I aimed for the hand holding the gun and when it hit… well the scream of agony will likely haunt my dreams for many years to come.

I did my best to shake off my horror at actually using a weapon like that on someone as I walked toward him. I hadn’t wanted to fire but he had injured and now threatened to kill Tarek and whatever he had done to drop us out of subspace had probably resulted in casualties if we really did partially materialize inside an asteroid or something. Whatever his gun had been it was now a molten ruin on the deck and the man himself fared only marginally better. Most of his arm was gone leaving a nasty-looking, steaming, cauterized mess of a stump between the shoulder and where his elbow had been. The right side of his face and body had severe burns right down to the knee. I forced myself to look, if only to show him I meant business and gauge his chances for survival. The latter was not looking good at all.

*Krie we’re going to need a medical tube filled with a burn bath solution and a neuro-suppressor up here stat. The patient has lost his right arm beneath the shoulder and has third degree plasma burns over the right side of his body. We’ll also need to treat Tarek for a bullet wound injury to the left shoulders and a possible concussion. We have other wounded as well and we’re going to need to evacuate the ship,* I sent as I knelt beside the traitor to get a closer look at those wounds. The plasma burns along his right side had caused serious damage to not only his flesh but possibly to his organs as well, his breathing was labored and his pulse was erratic but that could be because he was going into shock.

I took an injection gun from my medical pouch and set it for a nanite solution that would temporarily block out the signals his pain receptors were sending to his brain and flicked through the vision modes on my goggles to try to make a better assessment. The organs seemed fine and the worst of the damage seemed to be the missing arm and the burns. His right eye would also need replacing from the looks of it. It was then that something caught my eye. I quickly switched between x-ray and MRI modes and found that there was definitely something there that wasn’t standard issue on a human body, something at the base of his skull.

Dennis took that moment to kneel beside me. “We put down the others, a few are still alive but they’re going to know they were in a fight when they wake up. How’s the traitor?”

“He’ll live, but I am very interested in this device I’ve just discovered at the base of his skull,” I replied grimly. “I think we’ll need to question him about that and that little weapon of his too. It will have to wait until we have him stable and off this ship though.” I began to cut away the scorched remnants of Eric’s clothes as I waited for Krie to arrive. “Could you please tie the hands of other surviving mutineers Dennis? I know we don’t really have anything for that, but rip up their shirts and use the pieces if you have to.”

“We’ll get right on that Commander,” he said with a nod. “Where would you like us to put them when we’re done?”

“We’ll need to evacuate to the drop ships if any of them are left, so start getting everyone ready to move out a.s.a.p.” I replied grimly. *Karran and Xawin do we still have drop ships?*

*The Starboard and medical hangers seem to be unaffected,* came a relieved reply.


*Good, start evacuating people to the starboard transport and get on it yourselves, take weapons just in case there’s more of Eric’s and Jared’s mutineers out there.*
I instructed. *I’ll be sending Tanna as well.*

*Yes Commander,* both engineers replied.

Krie arrived with the medical tube and supplies and got Matt to help her lift Eric inside. *Can you give me ship-wide communications?* I asked Tanna once Eric was in the tube and I started helping Krie prep him for transport. I needed to begin evacuation procedures immediately.

Tanna quickly offered, *Regular intercom systems are down but all of the ships intercoms have a built-in emergency subspace communications chip. I can broadcast you on that frequency.* She rushed over to the communications control panel and reset the frequency to the one that our comm discs were broadcasting on. *Okay Commander, you are all set.*

*Thanks Tanna, now please go to the starboard hanger and prepare the drop ship for launch, if there’s anything there to launch,* I mentally muttered. Just because the hanger was still there didn’t mean the ship was okay. *The rest of us will head to the medical drop ship. In case we don’t see one another again, let me just say it was an honor serving with you and good luck.*

*I am on my way Commander, and the honor has been mine. Good luck to you as well,* the young Saer’khi woman replied as she dashed off for the hangar.

“Are you sure it’s safe for her to leave the bridge alone?” Captain White asked as he watched her run off.

I nodded as I replied, “I’m sending Karran and Xawin as well and they’ll be armed.” Then I cleared my throat to calm myself and addressed the ship. “Attention everyone, this is Commander Phar speaking. That lurch you felt was the Bounty making an unplanned drop out of subspace. As a result we have taken on severe damage and need to abandon ship. I need you all to make your way carefully toward the starboard hanger bay and board the drop ship. If you are near your possessions you may bring them but please do not go out of your way to retrieve your belongings as time is of the essence. Please remember that we are all in this together, evacuate in a quick and orderly fashion, and help your fellow passengers if necessary.”

I cut the signal after that and turned to the others on the bridge. “Okay everyone; let’s get moving to the medical drop ship. I’d have us go with Tanna on the personnel ship but we can’t treat injuries there and we’ll need the supplies on the medical ship. Besides there’s the option for photon shields on the patients rooms there for quarantine. Those rooms can act just as easily as prison cells until we figure out to do with these people. So, let’s get those who can walk walking and carry or drag the rest of them. Krie will take the medical tube and I will take Tarek.”

I checked Tarek’s wound as quickly as I could and found, to my great relief, that it hadn’t hit any vital areas. It was located just between the left upper and lower shoulder joints and had miraculously avoided damaging anything important. I cut away the surrounding fabric of his uniform and carefully reached out with my mind to pull the bullet out. Then I cleaned the wound and treated it with a nanite wound sealant that would both seal the wound and repair any damage to the surrounding muscle and tissue before gently waking him. There were tears in my eyes as I said, *You had me scared there Tarek. Do you think you can walk?*

*I think so,* he replied as I continued to look him over.

*Good, because if you couldn’t I’d have to get Dennis to carry you,* I said as I wiped away the tears and got back to work. There was no wound on his head from the fall and I was in the process of checking for a concussion when the sound of complaining informed me that my security team had successfully roused Jake, Jared, and the three other surviving members of the mutiny. With a sigh I helped Tarek to his feet, put his upper arm over my shoulders to help him walk, and turned to face the group. “Let’s get moving people, I don’t want to be here to find out if the Bounty runs out of air or explodes first.”

 © 2013 Amethyst Gibbs
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i just knew

i just knew the ailen haters would try somthing i just didnt expect it to happen so soon

~belle~

belle

It was inevitable

Amethyst's picture

Eric and Jared jumped the gun a bit, each for their own reasons and we will see why in the next chapter. There is far more than a mutiny going on here.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

I hate it when I'm right

It seems someone was a sabotaur after all. His timing couldn't had been better, NOT!
This part felt a little rushed to me, but I still enjoyed it!
Hugs
Grover

When you're right, you're right

Amethyst's picture

I had debated going more into their journey but life aboard a spaceship is incredibly boring and rather than slowly leading up to what all my readers knew was going to happen eventually I thought I'd blindside you all with it so that the shock of the readers was on a level with Xia's own.

Glad you enjoyed it though.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

I was worried about this.

So, what happens now? Are they close enough to a planet to land? Can there be a rescue mission? Wow, this is the pits. Why would she keep the mutineers alive, is there no air lock to shoot them out?

Sorry, I guess I am harsh.

Gwen

For some of them

There are a few questions that need to be asked. Eric has agent written all over him. He not only did more than a few things he shouldn't have been able to do, but had a smuggled in weapon as well. As for Jared, it needs to be determined just how much of an idiot he really is.

As for that airlock, well, lets wait till they find a planet, so they get to play Red-shirt with the wildlife. :)
Hugs
Grover

Yes

Amethyst's picture

There are a lot of questions that need answering and Xia doesn't want to make Jared a martyr by spacing him without a suit. She's also a doctor and summarily killing someone, even people like Jared or Eric, goes against her vow to preserve life. She didn't even want to use her weapon against Eric. She will find out what they're up to and then she will have to decide what to do with them.

Personally I would space them, but Xia is trying to better relations between humans and aliens and doing that wouldn't help her cause.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

A more deeply hidden agenda?

Now you do have me wondering. As Aliens, they should not have shared ALL their knowledge, and being humans, certain factions most certainly want it all so they can in fact weaponize every single thing, ya know.

So, you are saying that there is a faction on Earth that wants to ransack the good aliens? Why is this not a surprise to me?

I am not at all friendly to Humans, and if I was an alien I would embark on the most aggressive genetic modification campaign imaginable to make humans tractable and unable to cause trouble. Perhaps making them break out in shingles at the mere mention of anger. Grrrr.

Agendas

Amethyst's picture

The Saer'khi haven't shared everything, but they did share a lot that they probably shouldn't have. There is an agenda or two but what they are will be revealed as the story progresses. Next chapter we'll see some of that coming to light.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

Like I said

Humanity is no prize.

The fact folks have to be reminded constantly to behave for the common good through religion and stuff has always been a sure sign of that.

Humanity...

Amethyst's picture

does have a lot of flaws but there is potential too.

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

All of us.......

D. Eden's picture

Have the potential for good and evil. It is what we do with that potential that defines each of us.

I personally have seen more than my fair share of evil - but I have also seen spontaneous bursts of good and compassion from people at the worst of times. I have seen inherently good people do bad things, and I have seen great good arise from those that I would call evil.

We must each make millions of decisions within our lifetime, and it is the sum of those decisions that determines who we are - but even the worst of us can be redeemed by one random act of kindness, one sudden and unexpected act of selflessness, one over riding act of goodness.

That is the potential that I see in humanity. It is that belief that helped to keep me sane in my darkest moments. It is that belief which I cling to when I awaken soaking wet and crying in the darkness of night.

Dallas

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

Exactly

Amethyst's picture

there is so much potential in all of us and nobody is beyond redemption. Some people just need a chance to see their potential for evil before they can be steered toward good. If Xia spaced those men without letting the colonists in on the decision then she's just as bad as the mutineers. That was Xia's choice between sparing them and doing what was right or sinking to their level. Who knows maybe this disaster will let some of them see how wrong they were.

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

BIG f'ing clue bomb was dropped here gang

The mysterious chip inside Eric's skull.

WTF is it? What was/is its purpose? Why exit subspace at that moment? Was he expecting to meet *friends*?

BTW how many are dead?

And are Jared and Jake idiots or something else?

Also Xia said she thought the name of the cybernetic man was familiar somehow?

Hum?

IE are ALL the seeming traitors dead/captured or not?

And only one plot or several as our authoress has hinted? And after the disaster of this will any of the conspirators turn on their own?

Plus at some point Xia will have to reveal how much she was changed when the aliens cured her.

John in Wauwatosa

P.S. Plus how much have they lost? How much of the ship and crew is salvageable? Can they call for help and rescue ? More to come same Bat time same Bat channel!

John in Wauwatosa

I guarantee

Amethyst's picture

Most of those points will be addressed and at least partially answered in the next 2 chapters. Our heroes have gotten themselves into a real mess now and we'll see soon just how bad things are.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

I Agree with Gwen....

Humyns. Can't live with them; can't extinct them without bothering other life on our planet. Heck, one in a million might actually do some long term good. Maybe.

Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee

Humans as a species are

Amethyst's picture

Humans as a species are troublesome but as individuals they have potential. It's not what we are but who we are that defines us and I often try to stress this in my writing.

*hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

Well it just figures.......

Those blankety blank idiots just couldn't wait to raise cane! And the "Bounty" lives up to her name sake! Xia really has her hands full now! Amethyst sweetie, still lovin' it hon! Loving Hugs Talia

yup

Amethyst's picture

They just had to cause trouble and as a result Xia and company in it deep now. I'm glad you're enjoying it Talia :)

*big hugs*

Amethyst

ChibiMaker1.jpg

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

That 'Mandatory Uniforms' Thing...

...being given to a group that was confined by hardware in its last setting, would have set me off. (I was wondering if Jared's was going to double as a straitjacket.) If people felt they were going to be treated like inmates, it doesn't seem that surprising that they would have tried to take over the asylum/prison.

Putting three aliens (and a cyborg?) on the security detail couldn't have helped; they're not Saer'ka, but humans involved with what they see as a fight for freedom and survival may not be too picky about that.

And how loyal to our commander will the security detail turn out to be? Even the captain may have second thoughts once our heroine fully reveals herself, and FWIW, the loyalty of the other five would seem to be to the captain -- who'd probably be the most capable human aboard to command, should things come down to that -- rather than the part-alien commander, if a conflict arose.

The surprise here is the speed at which the mutineers acted, their ability to override ship security, and Eric's implant. (Sounds as though their weapons, while unexpected, can be accounted for by the swiftness of the departure.)

Doesn't seem likely to me that the location of the attempt was predetermined, unless it was known in advance precisely where they'd come out of subspace, and my impression is that it wasn't. I'm not sure whether destroying the ship itself -- whether in that way or any other -- was part of the plan. Mutineers, after all, usually want to take command of the vessel and maroon (or worse) the exec officers. Then again, if they know how to run the drop ships and can't operate the big one, I guess they'd need to do it this way.

But it seems unlikely to me, even if the enemy knew where the ship would be materializing, that it would have the precision and engineering skill to slide a massive object into its path. I suppose there's also the possibility that they were able to attract the ship to the object, but my impression was that the technology doesn't work that way. And it came awfully close, it seemed, to destroying the entire ship including the people and drop ships inside. Was that the enemy plan?

Good chapter, and as unexpected -- at this point -- as our author intended, at least to me.

Eric

wow!

mutiny on the Bounty !

DogSig.png

Seems the name of the ship

Amethyst's picture

Seems the name of the ship was appropriate after all ;)

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Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3

To air lock or not to air lock

Jamie Lee's picture

Jarad, Jake, Eric, and the others, have put the lives of the colony ship in danger--or have already killed many--by their stupid play. That alone should get them spaced immediately--the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few sorry bastards.

But other concerns must take precedence before finding out why they acted. Or how Eric was able to get the ship out of subspace, maybe killing many, and basically stranding them where they are.

While it may seen humane to keep them alive, it can be necessary at times, like this one, when removing bad apples is the only way to save the rest.

Others have feelings too.