“Warning, oxygen/nitrogen-mix depletion detected.”
“Have you sealed my damn suit yet?” Velth shouted. “Because we both know where my oxygen is going.”
A new thought occurred as he drifted ever closer to the airlock. He couldn’t hear Nancy or Kim either. But they would never have closed their channels, even if Selah had been taken out of the communication loop.
It didn’t matter. He was less than ten meters from the airlock.
He was going to make it.
A sharp burst of static punched through his suit’s comm system. “Velth… on’t… repeat… elth…” The transmission quickly dissolved into white noise. It was Kim, like Selah, shouting about something. Had their comm line failed, or was it perhaps being jammed?
Five meters to go.
He lifted his arms in preparation to grab the sides of the airlock. His heart rate was off the charts. Sweat was pouring into his eyes. A gentle buzzing sensation in his head made it difficult to concentrate, but something still grounded firmly in reality was trying to advise him that on the other side of that airlock everyone working their asses off to bring him safely home was in the middle of some sort of meltdown.
That was probably a bad thing.
The nice thing about oxygen deprivation was that it cushioned all the blows, at least at first.
He was two meters from the airlock when his sense of forward motion suddenly stopped.
He looked down and realized that the tether was no longer in his hands.
It shouldn’t have mattered. He had sufficient velocity and was on the right trajectory to enter the airlock. In zero-g, unless something came along to change your course, you kept moving along that course. That’s how space worked.
Why isn’t space working? How do you break space?
It was an idle thought. He was suddenly conscious of how very tired he was. Sleep sounded fantastic right about now.
I’m passing out, he realized. That thought should have bothered him a great deal more than it did.
A burst of adrenaline suddenly shot through him.
Don’t die, not like this, it insisted.
He lifted his arms again, reaching desperately for the edge of the airlock. It was like swimming against the strongest current imaginable and did not alter his position in the slightest.
More pressure from somewhere behind him.
Damn it all.
Suddenly he was turning. His entire body moved against his will and the airlock drifted out of view.
It was replaced by the sight of a rectangular-shaped monster, maybe four meters high and two meters wide. Bursts of blinding colored lights flashed over it from top to bottom. Velth wasn’t sure why, but those bursts seemed both intelligent and angry.
Suddenly he was five years old again and bliss had been replaced by terror.
He barely had enough breath left to scream, but he did his best.
6
VESTA
Although it had taken most of her professional life, Admiral Kathryn Janeway had become a firm believer in both the chain of command and the art of delegating authority. She had only realized this after frequently failing to honor the first and to even attempt the second throughout most of her time as a Starfleet captain. She didn’t judge herself too harshly. Her longest command had been aboard Voyager and the circumstances had been unique. Those seven years lost in the Delta Quadrant hadn’t lent themselves to lessons in mentorship. They had been a daily struggle for survival, and she had taken the possibility of failure so personally, she had often been blind to her crew’s need to develop their own leadership skills.
It had taken death (hers), resurrection (also hers), and assuming command of the Full Circle Fleet for her to confront the reality that there was much to be gained in allowing those beneath her to face their own struggles and learn from their own mistakes, rather than taking both upon herself.
As the fleet’s commanding officer, ultimate responsibility was always hers. Her people’s successes and failures would be credited to her account by those to whom she reported. But each of her fleet captains had demonstrated repeatedly in the past year that they neither required nor had any patience for micromanagement. She had consciously chosen not to make a habit of second-guessing their command decisions and had come to truly enjoy working with them as a group. Their individual points of view were each quite different, and between them all, she always found refreshing new perspectives on whatever problem they were facing as a fleet.
The Galen’s possible destruction, however, was beginning to test her newfound sense of reserve.
“What do you mean, Captain Farkas relieved you of duty?” she demanded of Doctor Sal.
El’nor Sal tossed a glance bordering on contemptuous toward Counselor Cambridge, who had brought Sal to Janeway’s quarters to share their findings regarding Ensign Gwyn’s remarkable belief that the crew of the Galen might still be alive.
“You’re her chief medical officer,” Janeway added.
“Not anymore,” Sal said with a shrug.
“Are you certain she did not intend this to be a temporary state of affairs?” Janeway asked.
“You’d have to ask her, Admiral,” Sal replied. “For my part, I am content to stand relieved and would appreciate it if you would add my name to the list of those scheduled to return to the Alpha Quadrant the next time one of our ships makes a run in that direction.”
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that our fleet has just lost its dedicated medical vessel,” Janeway countered. “While each ship that remains has its own medical staff, we are going to be a bit shorthanded for the foreseeable future. I am not content to lose one of our most experienced doctors over what appears to be a simple disciplinary matter. Especially as you were the lead physician treating Ensign Gwyn.”
“Regina didn’t file a report with you about this?” Sal asked.
Janeway didn’t have to look at her queue of reports to know that Farkas’s latest was likely
