Refugees on Urloon. Melissa Aires
the exhausted crew slept. Svana dozed when she could.
Captain Ringel and the flight crew came back, looking exhausted. “We’ll be able to transfer patients into stasis in Medlab in an hour or so, when the temperature normalizes.”
Svana nodded and gave the Captain a full report, along with readypacs for him and the flyers. Captain Ringel ordered them to bed and he and Svana left for the conference room, silent.
“Are they all right?” Svana asked.
He shrugged. “No one saw any stars or constellations we recognize. We think we got flung out to deep space through a new jumpstream.”
“We are lost?” Lost in deep space. A death sentence.
“Think so. We’ll know more when the computers come back online.”
The news was not good and did not get better after the computers came back on. They were deep in uncharted space, and there was no way to know if the jumpstream that had dumped them here would return them to Confederated system space. Though they tried around the clock, they were unable to communicate with anyone. Their small damaged ship was truly alone. They had enough supplies to last for perhaps sixty days. After that, the ship’s fuel would be gone, and they would die in deep space.
Captain Ringel wouldn’t let them give up. They continued with repairs and communication but the mood was quiet, with bursts of anger.
The crew was so young. Svana mourned for their lost futures, and for her own daughter, so far away, whom she would never see again. Many nights, Svana held a weeping young one in her arms, giving what comfort she could.
Going about rote chores in her supply room, Svana heard a shout from her open com. She climbed the ladder as fast as she could. The entire bridge was in a shouting, laughing uproar.
Their distress signal had reached someone. Captain Ringel was talking to the contact in the small conference room. Svana waited with the crew for him to come out, hoping for good news, for a future.
“Urloon. It reached a planet called Urloon,” Lu, one of the junior engineers, said.
“Isn’t that a First World Planet? I remember learning something about Urloon in first school,” another crew member said.
A com tech’s finger glided over the com board. “Yes. Urloon. Settled by first wave Terran settlers but was left isolated for centuries while Terra fought the Terran Civil War. Water… Wow! Water-adapted humans live in domes in the warm seas. They adapted themselves at the DNA level to bear young already able to live in the sea.”
Captain Ringel came back onto the crowded bridge and his smile was blinding. “Urloon, a former Terran colony out on the Rim, is sending a rescue ship. They will be here within twelve days.”
There were twenty days left of life support. The crew erupted into joyous shouts, leaping and laughing so the floor shook. In the tumult Captain Ringel’s gaze caught her own. He nodded slightly, and Svana knew it was an acknowledgement of the work they had done together.
Chapter 1
Urloon Spaceport, six months after rescue.
Svana entered the combined mess hall and rec room and sat quietly in the back of the room. It was a cold night, snowing hard as it had been since they arrived on Urloon. The population of the planet, who lived in domed cities under the sea, had kindly opened their landside spaceport, making utilitarian quarters for the fifty surviving crew members. Their medical skills were surprisingly advanced, and the crew, even those who had been put in stasis, healed during the long quiet winter.
There was a buzz of excitement in the air as crew members took their seats at the mess tables. They had been waiting for months for a communication from Adrazine. Some of the young people held hope of a rescue, but Svana didn’t see that happening. Late night homesickness and frustration at the limited communication with family back home were frequent issues that brought young women to Svana’s door. She was old enough to be the mother of most of the young crew and many had come to see her as a parent figure.
Svana expected several visitors tonight. The unpredictability of war had brought the heart of the battle to them, and the timing was right for the Confederation’s killing blow, the Pulse. The powerful weapon’s backlash had tossed their small ship through a newly created jumpstream anomaly, and they’d ended up far from Confederation space. None had ever expected to be refugees, so far from home.
Captain Ringel played the vid on an Urloon machine.
“I am Commander Harl Edge communicating to you from the Central Confederated Command Center on Adrazine.” The man on the screen was straight-shouldered but looked tired and worn despite his crisp uniform and bearing. “We will soon have a communication relay in place, so messages to and from Urloon will reach us here on Adrazine in days instead of months.”
That made the crew smile. Communication currently took three months one way.
“Due to resources lost in our final but successful campaign against the Asha, and the great needs of many of the Homeworlds, we won’t be sending a rescue vessel to Urloon in the foreseeable future. The jumpstream anomaly that flung your ship the distance to Urloon will need thorough research before we can attempt a passage through it, though it is an exciting development and may open up that whole sector to trade. As soon as we can assemble a research team we will study the new jumpstream and share the data with you and King Rankree.
“Conventional spacecraft require more fuel and crew than we can presently afford, and the nearest jumpstream, is as you know, the one near Asha, which is still a dangerous sector of the Confederation.
“Though far from home, your crew is in more stable conditions than many of our Homeworlds, who are facing plagues, famine, attacks from small bands of Asha sympathizers, and political unrest. The Asha still have hidden strongholds throughout the Confederacy. Resources that are not allocated to Homeworlds are diverted to finding and returning all enemy combatants to Asha, where our military is now in control.
“You and your crew are the best of the Confederation. I am certain your resourcefulness and good character will provide direction for the coming years. Perhaps crew members’ families here can combine resources and mount their own expeditions to Urloon. I would be happy to help coordinate a private rescue attempt.
“We are thankful for King Rankree’s and the people of Urloon’s hospitality. I know you and your crew will work hard to contribute to your host world’s well being.
“Captain Liam Ringel, I give you the Confederation ship Toulous as a reward for your faithful service to the Confederation. You may rename it, refit it, use it for business or sell it as you see fit. You’ll know best what will most benefit you and your crew.
“I know you understand the regret I feel personally in not rescuing you and your crew. I trust in the coming days you’ll help your young crew understand how difficult this decision was.
“I hereby relieve you and all your crew from military service to the Confederation, with the stipulation you could be called up in the rare circumstance the Confederation needed you. I cannot imagine such circumstances, but we live in rapidly changing times.
“Perhaps we will meet again one day, old friend. Please keep in touch. Many here are interested in your well-being.
“Commander Harl Edge, signing off.”
The communication was greeted with silence and some tears. The Academy drew its students from the elite of the Confederation so the crewmembers were the children of military commanders, politicians, weapons manufacturers and planetary royalty. It was a sign of the desperate times in the Center Worlds that such high profile families couldn’t persuade the military to bring their children home.
Captain Ringel spoke. “Once the relay is in place we will up communications to once per week per crew member.” Svana was happy with that change; she could keep in touch with her daughter, Junia. “We have options. King Rankree and I’ve talked at length