The Tau Ceti Agenda

error didn't cost her friend's life.

She pushed the gurney through the sea of wounded until she reached the sealed-off triage room at the forward section of the hangar bay. Seri buzzed the door several times until a nurse covered in blood from head to toe opened the hatch.

'This one is marked as first priority critical,' Seri said haggardly.

'Right. Most of them are.' The nurse looked down at the mangled body of the pilot and then at the DTM wireless data transmitted to her about the patient. 'I've got three more just like her, but you got here first. I'll take her from here.'

'Thanks.'

'Are there many more out there?' The nurse meant still to be recovered and brought in.

'This is hopefully the last run of criticals. But there are still wounded spread across the battlescape.'

'Captain Jefferson, sublight and hyperspace systems are back online,' the CHENG said. 'Though, if we can wait a while about firing them up, I'd like to get some of our structural damage repaired and reinforced. We're still a good twelve hours from having all the SIFs back online.'

'So I have propulsion, but you don't want me to use it, Benny?'

'Uh, yes sir. But you can in a pinch.'

'Don't really need it right now anyway,' Captain Jefferson said. 'How about that big gaping hole in my ship?' He had been down to see it once, and the three-dimensional views of it just didn't do it justice. The hole was huge. It was so big that he was certain you could navigate a Starhawk through it and have room for a fighter escort. It had been plenty big enough for that mass driver sabot to go through to take out the Seppy battle cruiser hiding beneath them.

'Well, sir. There just isn't a lot we can do in the short term. We can seal it off and repair some of the damage with onboard resources, and maybe we can scavenge some materials from the facility below, but I'd rather wait and let the teams on the Lunar Far Side shipyards do it right. For now, I recommend that we find enough plating to cover the holes on the above and below hulls and leave it be. A wounded AEM told me that he saw mountains of girders just lying around in scrap heaps down there. Maybe we could get a couple Starhawks and a team to go down and load some of them up?'

'Make a list of what you could use and do it. I'll notify the air boss to get you a couple lifters and pilots.'

'Good, sir.'

'We may have to set up temporary shelters in the hangar decks for any displaced troops.' Jefferson rubbed at the day-old growth on his face. He was tired and needed to shave. Five decks that housed soldiers had been obliterated by that damned Seppy railgun, and the Madira was a three-month ride from Earth at top hyperspace jaunt speed. It would be a long, uncomfortable ride home. 'Get somebody working on that.'

'Aye, sir.'

'And CHENG, how's Buckley?' Benny's mention of the wounded AEMs suggested to the CO that he had been down to see his MPA in sickbay.

'Not good, sir. The swelling in his limbs was so bad that it was easier to amputate them. All of them. Same for EM1 Shah. The doc says that they have a good chance of surviving if they can manage the swelling in their brains without causing too much gray matter damage. It would mean a lot to them if you saw them, sir.' Benny cursed abruptly at somebody in the background. 'Uh, sir, if that's all?'

'Yes, CHENG, get back to work.'

'Aye, sir.'

Captain Jefferson stretched his neck by rolling his head a full clockwise circle. He stood and then stretched the kinks from his back as well. A quick survey of the bridge crew assured him that things were in good hands and that jobs were getting done. His crew needed some morale boosting from the senior staff.

Uncle Timmy, I need a break from the mindview. Shut it down for a bit. For more than thirty hours, he had been in DTM mindview active mode, and the massive sensory input was overloading his ability to think rationally. He needed to shut it off and just see things normally for a while—at least for a few minutes.

Aye, sir. It probably would help for you to get some rest too, sir.

Later, Timmy. Later. He inhaled a long, deep breath and let it out with a slow sigh through pursed lips.

Aye, sir.

'Larry.' Jefferson turned to his trusted XO, who looked just as tired and frazzled as him, though the marine colonel wouldn't dare admit it. 'Why don't we take a stroll down to the triage hangar and then by sickbay? Charlie, you want to join us?'

'Absolutely, sir,' the COB replied. He, on the other hand, had finished off several pots of hot and very strong coffee and was wired wide awake. 'I was thinking that there was probably some bored sailors down there that wouldn't mind hearing a story or two.'

'Air Boss.'

'Sir?'

'Stay on top of the casualty retrieval. Let me know when we get them all in.'

'Aye, sir.'

'And spin up two SH-102s for the CHENG to recover materials from the planetoid.'

'Aye.'

Captain Walker's ship had come out of the scuffle a little less battered than the Madira. The U.S.S. Anthony Blair had only taken a couple of direct hits from the mass driver before the marines had taken it from the Seppies. The jaunt drive systems had been