Harper cast him another look, but he wasn’t in the mood to have to outline his thoughts twice. She could wait to find out with the rest of them.
8
The crew all knew something was up, and looked as eager to hear what he said as Samson was to gauge their reactions to it. There was one matter he had to deal with first, and that was best done in front of the crew so they could see his decision process.
‘There is one populated planet in this system,’ Samson said. ‘It’s about as isolated as there is, and it’s two weeks away with a potentially hostile ship in the system. This ship won’t be able to keep us alive that long. Even if we could make it, that leaves us with the prospect of being stranded there until a supply ship passes by, whenever that might be.’
‘Every fourteen weeks,’ Harper said. ‘I think the next one will pass through here in six or seven weeks.’
Samson nodded. Time for the hard part. ‘Okay. Considering the mission that falls to us—reporting the Sidewinder’s destruction, the potential presence of a hostile warship in this sector, and the… unusual items we discovered—being stranded on a remote planet for a couple of months, and then however long it takes us to get to somewhere we can send a message from, isn’t a realistic option. Given that we have an alternative—one that I think is in itself a better option—heading for the planet in hope of rescue would be dereliction of duty, plain and simple.’
He took a deep breath. Now for the complicating part. ‘That judder you felt a little while ago was a power surge resulting from the reaction matter fracturing.’ He gave them a moment to consider it. The colour drained from Kushnir’s face, but it looked as though the rest of them had been expecting it—perhaps Vachon had already let it slip.
‘What are we going to do?’ Harper said.
‘The matter’s fragmented, but it’s still only a small piece separated from the main body. A cascade hasn’t started—’
‘When reaction matter fragments, a cascade always follows,’ Harper said.
Samson gave her a thin smile. ‘I’m aware of the details of this type of problem, Lieutenant. I’m also aware that there’s no way of predicting when the cascade will start, nor how quickly it will develop.’
‘But it is inevitable. The when and where is irrelevant. It could be in five minutes or five days. We can’t know, which is why standard operating procedure is to eject the reaction matter as soon as you become aware of a fragmentation.’
‘Again, I don’t need to be lectured on naval procedure or basic reactor safety,’ Samson said. ‘The simple fact is that we don’t have any more reaction matter on board. We eject it, and we’re adrift.’
‘So we eject it and wait for help,’ Harper said.
‘From where? You’ve just said the supply ship won’t come this way for six or seven weeks. We’ll be long dead by then.’ Samson looked around at the others, who appeared increasingly uncomfortable, but were keeping silent. Whose side would they be on? She had served with all of them far longer than he had. Her reputation was far less tarnished, and in terms of experience and date of commission, she was the senior lieutenant. His command of the boarding mission and his years at the Naval Academy were the only things giving him precedence. Technically his assigned mission was not yet over, so even if he were to disregard the traditional precedence given to Academy officers, the chain of command still placed him in charge. He was as comfortable as he could be that he was in the right to assert his continuing authority.
‘We’ve just established that there’s virtually no traffic in this system,’ Samson said, ‘and any ship on Dobson would need to be pretty damn fast to get here in time to save us.’
‘What about the Sidewinder’s automatic distress beacon?’ Harper said.
‘We didn’t detect any signal when we powered up and scanned,’ Samson said. ‘Either it was destroyed, or there wasn’t time for it to launch.’
‘It still might have been able to get the distress signal out,’ Harper said. ‘That broadcasts a Nexus frequency. The nearest naval rescue ship could be here in less than a week.’
‘You’re willing to risk your life on that chance?’ Samson said.
She nodded. ‘There was a trace of energy consistent with a Nexus signal having been sent in the noise left behind after the Sidewinder’s destruction,’ Harper said.
‘Consistent with, or caused by?’ Samson said. ‘Are you really willing to make a call that could cost us all our lives? I can think of a dozen things that can cause energy traces consistent with Nexus signals. Not to mention it could have been a signal sent by the ship that destroyed the Sidewinder.’
Harper frowned. ‘There are ways to deal with this situation, but dumping the reaction matter is central to them all. We shut down all non-essentials, start producing food, natural carbon absorbers, produce and bottle as much oxygen as we can. I’m confident help will come.’
‘And what if the cascade happens while we’re doing all that? It’s as likely to happen then as when we’re running the engines,’ Samson said. He was growing concerned in equal measure that he had already allowed her to erode his authority, and that her plan might actually be better than his own. Might the Sidewinder’s beacon have gotten a Nexus transmission away? It seemed like a very slim hope.
‘We’re in an emergency situation,’ Harper said. ‘There’s no guarantee of success, but the best thing we can do is follow procedure for reaction matter fractures.’
Samson grimaced at her phrasing. Following procedure blindly gave rise to as many disasters as it
