LostFullStory

Rocket-ship X-4 - Lost

Prologue

Earth Defense Base Delta was alive with the sounds of thousands of men and women going about their daily tasks. Established in 1964 and buried deep under the sands of the Nevada desert, Earth Defense Base Delta served as the primary base for detecting and intercepting anything that might threaten the planet from space.

Even now the constant unblinking eyes of dozens of DRADAR dishes scanned the sky, looking out into deep space. Ever vigilant, watching for danger.

01 - Earth Defense Base Delta - March 3, 1982 07:04

Captain Edwin Morris was in the canteen getting breakfast when the routine sounds of the base were replaced with the one sound everyone feared.

The alert klaxon sounded the warning whoop as red lights came alive and flashed in every room and hall. The loudspeakers came alive: “Attention all hands! This is a General Alert! We have incoming meteors! Crews for X-1, X-3, X-4 and X-7 to your rockets! All other crews to standby. This is not a drill!”

Major Williams had been eating breakfast when the alert sounded and he bolted up and started giving orders to the personnel hurrying them off to their tasks. “You heard the man, lets go!!!”

Captain Morris pushed his way through the rapidly scattering crowd. “Major. I’m still down one crew member. We lost radioman Hill when he was reassigned last week and no one has shown up to replace him yet.”

Major Williams pursed his lips - the system was supposed to have a replacement lined up and ready to report as soon as any transfer happened. He hated when the paper pushers upstairs screwed up orders and left crews short. “Get to your ship, Ed. I’ll personally get a replacement down there if I have to put a qualified secretary in a suit and walk her down there myself. Go suit up and I’ll solve this.”

It was Ed's turn to look concerned, "I don't like trying to bring on a new crewmember during an emergency."

Williams put his hand on Ed's shoulder, "I know you can do it, Ed. Your first mission as co-pilot you were the new kid during a scramble. We'll get you that radioman and you get up there and take those meteors out. Got it?"

Ed nodded, "Got it. Any idea what's going on? 4 ships sounds like a big swarm."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. But I don't know more than you. Hopefully its just the screen jockeys being a little too eager and scrambling extra ships."

Ed gave the Major a quick salute and hurried off to the space lockers.

02 - Earth Defense Base Delta - Flight Deck - March 3, 1982 07:16

The base extended hundreds of feet underground, but the maze of tunnels was well laid out and it was actually hard to get lost. But Ed knew every corridor and nook of the base and could have found his way in the dark.

In the lockers Captain Morris pulled on his suit - the thick fabric and mesh as familiar as a second skin. He methodically clipped and attached the hoses and clips - tab A into slot A, hose B into port B - the well-rehearsed routine comforting and as easy as putting on his shoes in the morning.

Carrying his helmet under one arm, he stepped out onto the gantry. Before him the long tapered body of his rocket towered above and stretched down below him. Its smooth silvery skin only broken by the shape of the main hatch.

Before heading to the hatch, he did his routine once-around. X-4 was an Apollo-class Rocket-ship. The latest design and among the largest ships ever rockets. Nearly 50 feet at her widest and close to 200 feet tall from her powerful engines to the sharp tip of her nose. Morris did a quick walk around the outside visually checking out the silvery skin alert for defects.

In 10 nearly identical launch tubes, 10 nearly identical rockets were being looked over by their captains. Whether or not their ship was going up today, each captain wanted to make sure they were ready for the call. The thousands of men and women of Earth Defense Base Delta had their work focused on making sure these 10 rockets were ready to respond when needed.

He looked over the edge. 70 feet below him three fat fins held the engines off the floor. Looking up he could just make out the seams of the plates that covered the portholes - these could be retracted to let the crew look out during longer flights, but usually remained closed for alert calls like this.

He finished his walk around and made his way to the hatch where an ensign was talking with the deck chief and comparing notes on the chief's clipboard. Both came to attention when Morris approached before he waved them to relax. Ensign Taft handed the board and a collection of bright red "Remove Before Flight" tags to Morris, "Chief says everything is good to go."

Morris took the tags and clipboard and made a cursory glance over the checklist. Atomic fuel, oxygen, latest engine overhaul results. Everything looked good. He counted the tags - 8 tags for the 8 lockouts. He handed the board and tags back to the chief. “Looks good, Chief." Turning to Taft, "Crew onboard?”

"Everyone checked in, including our replacement radioman. He got here just before you did."

Morris whistled. “Wow. Major Williams can really motivate people when he needs to.” The deck chief nodded knowingly and Morris asked him “Is the new guy anyone you know?”

The chief shook his head, “Nope. He looks greener than a Nebraska cornfield, but at least he should know which end of the radio to talk into.”

“Well, so long as he can keep the radio working today we can worry about training him up later.” Morris returned the chief’s salute and turned to his ship.

He stepped through the hatch and Taft followed him, closing the hatch. A pound on the hard metal wall was answered when the deck chief checked the seal and pounded the response. Taft then did the same for the inner door of the airlock, securing it and preparing it for launch before climbing down the central ladder to his station.

Morris watched for the green confirmation light indicating that the door was sealed. He always waited for the light as confirmation of their first step - even though hundreds of little steps preceded this one to get his ship ready to fly.

He punched the ship’s comm button. “Alright crew. The boss is here. I’m heading up to the bridge now. We launch in 1 minute.” A chorus of “Aye ayes!” answered from up and down the central ladder-way.

He made his way up two decks to the bridge. Arrayed around the central access were the bridge stations humming with activity. He sat down in the captain’s chair and started his launch checklist.

To his left sat Lieutenant Ken Thompson at the operations and navigation station. He was speaking into his radio getting last minute updates that he was marking on the charts and sheets that were spread out across the chart desk in what looked like a haphazard mess but what was a form of order Morris had long since given up on trying to understand.

To his right in the pilot’s chair, Lieutenant Michael Taylor worked down his launch checklist. He flipped switches and watched for the corresponding ready lights. Checklist done he called “Pilot chair ready”. Morris had been flying with Taylor for 3 years now and knew that Taylor would now be doing a second checkover down his ready list.

Having gotten the pilot’s go-ahead, Morris pressed a button on his console. “Engine room, status?” It was redundant with the confirmation lights on his station, but he always did a verbal check with the crew before launch.

After a short delay space chief Green replied. “We are topped up and ready to go on your order.”

Morris hit another button. “Gunnery, status?”

Crewman Lewis replied almost over-eagerly, “Forward batteries are green across the board here. We’re ready to take out some rocks!”

Ward followed from station 2 “Gunnery station 2 reports ready for flight.”

Last was Jackson “Gunnery 3 reports clear for launch.”

“Good to hear it,” Morris replied.

One more glance at the bank of yellow status lights showed everything still clear. Around the ship, the crew of 12 were strapped in, their stations secure, and they were ready to go.

Switching the comm, “Radio, signal Space Control we are ready to go and request permission to launch.”

A shaky voice came back, “Aye aye, Captain. Requesting permission to launch.”

Morris heard some clicks and switches across the line followed by some mutterings and more clicks.

After a way too long delay, the radioman came back, “Space Control is on the line.”

“Thank you, radioman.”

“Space Control, this is X-4, we are ready to launch.”

“Roger, X-4.” Came back the voice of their launch officer. “We are clearing you now.”

Outside the ship, gantry ways were retracting, hoses were being disconnected, cables reeled in and blast doors were being sealed. Above the ship, the huge door covering the launch tube was rolling to the side, exposing the ship to the early morning sky.

“Deck reports clear.” Came the report from the engine room.

“Doors are clear.” Reported Taylor in the pilot chair.

Morris was waiting for the launch officer to give them the go-ahead to launch when Major Williams broke in the line “All ships, this looks like a relatively minor meteor shower, so we are going to send up just X-1, X-3, X-4 and X-7. The rest of you remain at ready state but stand down for training.”

“X-1, X-3, X-4 and X-7, you are cleared for launch.”

Morris hit the all-ship comm. “Ok, boys strap in. We are green to go.”

He watched a the last bank of 12 lights as each switched from yellow to green, the final confirmation that each crew member had securing their chair for launch. When the final light turned green, Morris gave the signal to Taylor and Taylor counted down. “5… 4… 3… 2… 1… and go!”

At the bottom of the ship, three huge atomic engines came to life and the ship started to climb out of her launch tube. Morris’ seat automatically tilted back as he was pressed into it by the force of the launch.

The ship cleared the top of the tube and the acceleration doubled again as the engines pushed to full throttle. In one monitor, Morris watched as the ground started to recede. In another monitor he could see 3 other rockets riding clouds of fire into the sky.

“Sending course corrections into the system now.” Came the navigator as he strained to enter the necessary coordinates.

“Passing 100 miles”. Called the pilot.

“Time to target?” Morris asked.

The navigator checked his dials. “We should be at target zone in 20 minutes.”

Morris switched on ship-comms as the force of the launch slowly ebbed. “We should be in the path of those rocks in 20 minutes. I want all positions ready for action in 15.”

A chorus of “Aye ayes” answered him.

03 - Aboard the X-4 - March 3, 1982 08:09

20 minutes later Morris scowled and hunched over Thompson’s shoulder and stared into the DRADAR console. Dimensional RADAR, or DRADAR, extended terrestrial RADAR to allow it to work in deep space. Now the invisible DRADAR beams searched out into the black for signs of the missing meteors.

Thompson checked the power levels and switched the console to higher gain. “Still nothing”.

Morris took a long draw from his cigarette. He hit the ship communicator, “Anything from the other ships?”

“Nothing yet.” Came Collins from comms.

“Guns?”

The gunners had poked their guns out from the sides of the ship and now studied their consoles, looking for signs of the coming meteor storm.

Lewis clicked on, “Nothing on my scope”.

“All clear here” replied Ward from station 2.

“Bingo from 3” reported Jackson.

Morris and Thompson turned to the charts and re-checked their position against predictions. They were right within the circle that indicated the expected interception.

Morris smashed his hand against the console, exclaiming “Where the hell are those rocks?!”

“Easy, Captain” Lt Taylor said, trying to calm the situation. “You know those long range DRADARs at the base sometimes get positions wrong. I’m sure we are in the right area, they just missed the timing on the interception.”

“Yea, I know. I just hate waiting.”

The minutes ticked on until finally the comm lit up, “Bridge, this is forward guns, I’ve got a hit!”

Before anyone else on the bridge had time to react, Collins called up from the radio station “X-1 calls a sighting, patching through now.”

The ship’s radio crackled to life. Captain Hughes of the X-1 called over the system. “We’ve got confirmed DRADAR hits. We are counting at least three dozen small rocks, but they are being trailed by 3 really big ones.”

Morris looked at the DRADAR scans “This swarm looks much bigger than the size we were briefed on. Looks like our day just got interesting.”

Hughes continued “I’m going to send a message back to base to warn them to launch some backup so they can catch any that get past us. Let’s make sure the backup guys are very bored.”

Captain Hughes rattled off some deployments and intercept coordinates and signed off. Thompson entered the new coordinates into the navigation system and Lt Taylor swung the ship around and pointed it at the new intercept.

Morris stubbed out his cigarette and hit the general comm “Alright men, break time’s over! Guns, fire at will at the little ones. We will be making a pass on our big target in just a few minutes, so save some juice.”

“Aye Aye” replied the gunnery stations.

“Thompson, keep a lock on our target and make sure we don’t get in the path of those other ships.”

“Roger”

“Engine room, make sure our capacitors are topped up and all the atomic piles are ready.”

“Copy” came the chief’s reply.

“Lets do this”.

04 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - March 3, 1982 08:23

The ship hummed from the sounds of the ship’s N-Rays arcing out from her main guns.

Morris watched in the monitors as another small meteor lit to a brilliant flare before vanishing.

He was about to ask how the crew was doing when the ship jolted hard to the side as a loud, ringing crash echoed through the hull. Followed almost immediately by the deep hum of an N-Ray.

“Sorry about that,” Taylor called. “One of them snuck out of nowhere before I could dodge it.”

“Don’t worry, L.T.” He pronounced it ‘El-Tee’ “I got it” Came crewman Jackson from guns.

Another flash in the monitor, another meteor eliminated.

“Captain?” Called Collins from comm, “Message from X-3, she has taken heavy damage and is pulling back.”

“Send an acknowledgment.” He turned to the pilot, “Make sure to keep us clear of the main swarm while we take pot-shots at it.”

Taylor pulled back on the yoke. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

The main comm switched on. “All ships, this is X-1. Let's make a pass on the first of the main meteors to see if we can make a dent in it.”

Morris hit the ship’s comm. “You heard the man. Everyone check your straps.”

He pulled his chest strap tighter and nodded to Lt Taylor in the pilot chair, “Take us in.”

05 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - March 3, 1982 09:05

The forward monitor showed the tail of the X-1 as she pulled closer to the huge body of the first meteor with X-4 a close second.

“X-1 will have contact in 20 seconds,” Thompson called from the navigator station.

Morris switched to ship’s comm. “Crew. We are 2 minutes out. Engine room, full power to the atomic beams. I want to punch a big hole in that thing.”

In the monitor, three extremely bright beams arced out from the X-1 and struck the rock with a bright explosion. A big chunk of the meteor evaporated and a deep gouge was carved into the black surface.

With a crackle, the comm unit came to life, “X-4, this is X-1”.

“Go ahead, X-1” Morris replied.

“See if you can drop a bomb in that hole we carved.”

Morris glanced around the bridge to see what the others thought. Thompson shrugged while Taylor looked a bit nervous about what would be involved.

“Roger, X-1. We will line up a bomb run.” He switched over to internal comm. “Ok, boys, we’re going to make a bomb run on the rock. Put on your goggles and prepare for blast.”

“Thompson, plot us a bomb run. Engines, once we release the bomb, I want to make sure we get clear. Ward, open the bomb doors and prepare for release. Guns, keep hot, we can expect debris.”

Morris reached for the key hanging around his neck and inserted it into the locked panel on his console. Inside housed the controls for the two nuclear bombs carried in the rocket.

“Nav, do we have a plot?”

From his navigation station, Thompson had his face pressed into the rangefinder module. With practiced ease, he flipped a couple more switches before acknowledging “Roger. Taylor, turn us 3 degrees. After the drop turn back to 25 and go full throttle. Captain, set release for 8 mark 2. We should drop in 45 seconds…. mark!”

Morris quickly went down the checklist printed on the inside of the panel, turning knobs and switches to set the bomb detonation. Finally, his finger poised over the big red button labeled DROP.

From Nav Thompson calmly counted out the remaining seconds. “6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… DROP” Morris pushed the button and a solid thump rolled through the ship as the bomb detached. He watched the detonation timer count down as he was pushed into his chair while the ship strained to get away from the blast.

“Goggles on!!!” He called, moments before the monitors all went white and the world erupted in a flash too bright to see.

06 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

Morris’s crawled up out of the deep well of a dream and opened his eyes.

Thompson was leaning over him and swam into focus “Welcome back, Captain.”

“Wha?” Morris said, trying to get up.

“Hold on there, sir” Came the voice of Edwards a crews mate from engines who doubled as the ship’s medical officer or Med-O. “Let me finish up here.”

Morris looked around. He was in the small common room off the main airlock strapped to one of the pull-out tables that doubled as a medical bed in the event of emergency. “What happened?”

“You’ve been out for about 3 hours. We’re not exactly sure how long since all of us blacked out when the blast hit.” Morris twisted to look at his watch, the face was cracked, useless.

“We lost all power. Only got backup power running throughout the ship in the last half hour or so. Chief thinks he can get gravity back in another couple hours if we can spare Edwards here from more pressing duties.” He nodded towards Edwards who was waving a medical scanner box over Morris’s chest.

Morris settled back against the headrest, “Any word from the other ships?”

“Radio’s out. Batteries exploded and took out most of the coils. Radioman Collins and gunner Jackson are taking apart gunnery station 2 to try and scavenge parts to fix the radio.

Thompson glanced away, “But Captain, there may not be anyone to hear us.”

Morris furrowed his brow. “Spit it out, Thompson. What’s up?”

“Well, “ he hesitated, “Without my navigation computer, I can not fix our location. I have no idea where we are, but just from some rough calculations, we are thousands of miles off-course.

“Without a long distance radio, we may have no way to reach Earth, and Earth might have no idea where we are.”

07 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

“Hand me the big wrench” Green called out, half sunk into the open wall panel.

Ward floated a few feet away and held on to the equipment box which in turn was magnetically attached to the wall. “Roger, Chief.” He rummaged through the tools until he found the largest wrench and dug it out without sending tools flying around the open engine room.

He pushed himself off towards the open wall panel, “This one?” he called, thrusting it into the chief’s waiting hand.

The chief growled, “No! The _red_ one! The big RED one!… Never mind, I’ll make this one work.”

The chief’s hand and the wrench disappeared into the wall and Ward heard the sound of banging metal on metal. “Come on you stupid pipe fitting… get _bang_ in _BANG_ there _BANG!_.” With the last bang came a loud whoosh and the hiss of equalizing pressure.

Chief pushed himself out of the wall and tried to check the console across the room. “Ward, go over there and read the dial marked ‘Second Phase Pressure’. It’s on the right side of that console.” He waved the wrench in the general direction of the console.

Ward pushed off again towards the console, but misjudged the angle and had to lunge out for something to keep him from sailing past.

“Not that pipe!” Chief yelled as Ward grabbed a bright yellow and black striped pipe.

“YAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!” Ward screamed and pulled his hand away from the frozen coolant pipe. His reaction caused him to careen into the console and bounce off it at an angle.

Chief rolled his eyes. “Crewman? I thought you were space rated…”

Ward spun in the air trying to grab anything to stop his spinning.

The chief sighed. “Are you going to just float there or are you going to tell me what that gauge reads?”

08 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

Morris used the central ladder to pull himself up the ship to level 3.

Collins and Jackson floated in the middle of a spreading cloud of debris from the now useless gunnery station 2. Parts and pieces and wires floated through the air or were taped to walls or attached to various surfaces. As he watched, one or the other would fish out a tube or patch of wires and add it to the growing widget that hovered between them.

Morris assumed it was the replacement radio they were working on, but it looked more like a twisted science experiment than any radio he had ever seen.

While Morris watched, chief Green almost collided with him as he pulled up along the ladder. “Oh, sorry sir!” His exclamation startled Collins who jumped and caused parts to scatter even more haphazardly. Jackson was so focused on a circuit board he hardly noticed the ruckus.

“Sorry, sir!” Collins apologized while trying to reign in the floating mess. “We will get this cleaned up right away.”

Morris waved his hand dismissively. “I would rather have a working radio than a clean workspace. Get me in contact with Delta and rather than writing you up for making a mess I'll be putting you up for a commendation.”

“Yes sir” radioman grabbed another main board and disconnected a tube while he turned back to the growing replacement radio.

“Sir?” Chief started.

“Yes, chief. How go repairs?”

“I was just heading up to the bridge to let lieutenant Thompson know that I have restored partial control to the stabilizers. He should be able to at least get the ship to stop spinning.”

“Good work. I was just heading up there myself, I will pass it along.”

09 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

On the bridge nav and pilot were pulling wires out of an exposed panel.

“Chief reports we have stabilizers back online” Morris said, causing both men to start.

Lt Taylor recovered first. “Great. I was just trying to route around junction 2 so I can get some limited controls back online.”

Thompson added “If we can get our tumble under control I should be able to get a better fix of where we are.”

“Great, how can I help.”

Pilot gestured towards the captain’s chair. “You can see how many of your controls respond. We need a good measure of our tumble so I know how to stabilize.”

Morris nodded and pulled himself into his chair. He grabbed a cable and ran it between the battery backup and his console.

After concluding his console was unresponsive, he told Lt Taylor he was going to check the deck 7 forward hold for anything.

“Deck 7” was a euphemism. It was little more than a small closet sized electronics room above the forward gunnery station. Normally not accessible under gravity, the hatch was easy to swing open and lock against the wall in free-fall.

Morris pulled himself in and shone a flashlight around. All the electronic circuits were black and even the battery backup was down. He was half way through checking the circuit boards for useful electronics when he spotted the small access port in the wall. Normally used only for repair access and to run auxiliary power while in dock, the small port led directly outside.

He grabbed Thompson and 30 minutes later, they had jury rigged a small glass cover for the port and had forced the port open with a crowbar. Thompson had grabbed the manual sextant that had once adorned the mess-hall wall and was trying to sight measure the ship's rotation via distant stars.

"I am measuring about 3 rotations per minute." He called down to the bridge.

Taylor had restored enough controls between his panels and the chief's control cable. "Ok," he called back. "I'm going to start trying to counter. Let me know when we get close enough to stationary."

10 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

The ship had stopped spinning, but it still rushed through the solar system on an unknown heading.

Chief Green had managed to restore partial gravity, but had been unsuccessful in getting the main reactors to restart, so the ship was dimly lit.

The crew had assembled in the small common room to go over their options. Morris addressed them. “I think our first priority has to be to get that radio working so we can call for help. No luck getting any response?”

Radioman Collins shook his head. “The radio is powered and transmitting, but we are not hearing anything.”

A moment while everyone considered their situation and Taylor asked. “What if there's some kind of ion interference? We could work up a bigger antenna and patch it in to the external antenna. Should be able to pick up a weaker signal.”

Morris thought about it. “That sounds like a good idea. Do we have enough spares to put together a bigger antenna?”

Taft answered, “I could probably put something together in the shop in 10 minutes!”

Morris nodded. "Good. Jackson, Collins, do an EVA and get that new antenna put up.

“Now, how long until we get the navigation station up? I want to know where we are.”

“I have to flush the main reactor again,” Chief Green said, “But if I can get it to restart cleanly, we should have plenty of power to get Thompson’s navigation system working.”

“It took some damage in the blast,” Thompson added, “But I'm pretty sure I've got enough function to get us a good bead on our location.”

“Good, good. So that leaves engines. Any idea on when we will have engines back?”

“I’m going to send out Edwards to run some external lines to the main engine. Once we get power working, the new lines should give us engine power.”

“Ok, sounds like we have a plan. Everyone get to your tasks.”

11 - Deep Space - Outside the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

The airlock door hinged open and three space-suited figures floated out.

“We are clear of the airlock.” Jackson radioed. “Heading to the antenna now.”

“I’m heading to the engines. See you guys on the other side!” Edwards said as he pushed off down towards the main engines trailing a long length of thick cable.

Together Jackson and Collins pushed, pulled and manhandled the ungainly structure of the new antenna. “Careful of those cross beams, Jack” Collins warned Jackson as they moved to prop the antenna up next to the original antenna.

Collins fished around in his tool belt and found a pair of pliers. “Now let me get the line feed disconnected from the original antenna and then we can strap the new one in place.” He set to work on the connection and before long the original wires and structure of the antenna were broken down and tied to a handhold.

Moving the new antenna into place proved almost as difficult as the entire journey from airlock to port. The antenna had to be forced into the same attach point and the alignment turned just so.

While they worked to get the connector secured, neither crewman noticed that the original antenna bundle had worked loose and was floating free.

Jackson pulled back to check that the top of the antenna was oriented. He turned and was caught by the jagged end of the antenna base.

He cried out in pain and surprise as he was thrown off the ship and loose into space.

12 - Deep Space - Outside the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

Collins lunged for Jackson's safety cable but could not grab it with his thick, clumsy space gloves.

"Hold on, Jackson! We'll get you!" Collins called out over the radio. He switched to the ship's general channel, "Man overboard! Man overboard!!!" he frantically repeated while he tried to scramble across the ship's surface and make his way back to the airlock.

He was halfway there when the voice of Edwards came over the radio. "Hold on, Ward. On my way!"

Collins looked up to see Edwards sailing through space, the thick electrical cable tied around his waist as a makeshift safety tether.

Edwards sailed right into Jackson's tumbling body and grabbed on to his crew-mate's flailing form.

Collins reached the airlock where the trailing electrical cable remained anchored to the ship. He grabbed the line and started to real the two crew back in. "I got you Edwards. You two hold on and I'll reel you back in."

13 - Deep Space - Aboard the X-4 - Date : Unknown Time : Unknown

The crew had reassembled back in the common room/medical bay while Edwards wrapped gauze around Jackson's stomach.

"Nothing looks cracked, just a bad bruise." He narrated. "Luckily the space suit was thick where the antenna hit or that could have been a deep cut."

Chief Engineer Green "Well, if you are half as good patching him as you were patching that cable, he'll be fine."

Green turned to the captain, "Engines are charging now. Should have them up in a few more minutes."

Morris nodded. "Good

"Taylor, Thompson, once we have power, I want to know where we are and to get us moving back toward earth.

"Collins, any luck with that antenna?"

Collins waved up towards the radio station, "I'll have the radio patched before we have full power and will let you know then"

Morris looked around at the crew. "All right, men. Let’s get home.

"Not so fast there, Jackson." He pushed the crewman back down on the medical bed. "You take a break. We'll manage without you for now."

He braced his arm across his aching chest, "Thanks, sir. I think I'll just try to sleep this one off.”

... end