A cloud of dissipating flame and gas engulfed him, and something smashed into the back of his helmet as he accelerated away from the exploding ship at near blackout speed. The impact on his helmet rattled his brain against his skull and sent his body into a fast spin.
He caught a fleeting glimpse of the alien ship as he tumbled, but was unable to see how much damage he’d caused. Nausea gripped him, and he vomited in his helmet. He could hear a hissing noise as a bright flash lit up his visor and momentarily blinded him. A secondary explosion. The alien warship? The Bounty? Samson felt distant from it all—the hissing sound he had noticed seemed so far away. His visor was obscured by the contents of his stomach, and the stench was threatening to make him sick again.
All his survival instincts told him he had a suit leak. He fought through the cloudiness in his head and reached to the pouch on his chest for a patch, but he was growing increasingly drowsy and his hands felt numb, distant from his mind. He didn’t even know where the leak was. He wondered how many gs were being generated by the spin he was in.
There hardly seemed to be any point in trying. It was getting cold, too. So cold. He’d have liked to know what effect his efforts had on the alien ship, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen now. His eyes grew heavy, and closed.
43
Samson woke up in a bright room. It was too bright for him to see anything, so he squeezed his eyes shut again. He tried to put together all the disjointed memories bouncing around in his head, but came up short. It was like he’d been pulled directly from several dreams at once and all the different narratives were confusing each other. He did his best to focus on one thing at a time. The smell of vomit was gone. So was the hissing noise. He remembered the alien ship and the feeling of uncertainty that he’d managed to destroy it.
It took a moment longer for the fear that he had been captured by the aliens to set in. He opened his eyes again and looked around as surreptitiously as he could, but his eyes were struggling to adjust to the bright lights and he was only able to make out vague shapes.
‘Nice to see you awake, Lieutenant.’
So much for not being noticed, he thought. It was a woman’s voice—a human voice. Could he be sure it was human?
It took him a moment longer to realise she’d called him ‘Lieutenant’. A demotion. Elation and disappointment went hand in hand, but his environmental suit’s rank markers had said lieutenant, so perhaps she had taken that as being his rank. He still couldn’t be sure where he was. He was alive, though. That was something.
‘Where am I?’ Samson said. His voice was croaky from lack of use. He wondered how long he’d been out, but that question could wait. He opened his eyes again, the figure standing over him slowly coming into focus.
‘TUS Bridgetown,’ she said. ‘I’m Lieutenant Commander Ishigaru, general physician, Naval Medical Corps.’
‘What fleet?’ Samson said
‘Admiral Khaimov’s Third Fleet.’
Would the aliens have known that? Possibly, but it was getting less and less likely that he was being deceived.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘We’ve been in system for two weeks now, and you’ve been here nearly all that time. Ever since you were fished out of space.’
‘How long was I out there?’
‘Four days. You were just about out of air and power, so you’re lucky we arrived when we did.’
‘I thought I was a goner,’ Samson said. ‘I had a suit leak. Did I manage to patch it?’
Ishigaru shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t on duty when they brought you in. One way or the other, you’re a pretty lucky man. Even luckier to have come out of it all with nothing more than a ruptured eardrum, a bad concussion, and severe dehydration. We kept you sedated until the swelling in your brain settled down.’
‘A ruptured eardrum?’ Samson said.
She nodded.
‘Would that cause a hissing noise?’
‘It would. That might have been your “suit leak”. I doubt you’d have lasted as long as you did if you were losing enough air to hear it.’
‘The Bounty,’ Samson said. ‘What happened to her? And her crew?’
‘She was disabled, took quite a battering from what I understand, but her crew were all rescued a few hours before you were. The ship was scuttled in deep space.’
Samson felt a pang of regret for the loss of the ship that had served them so faithfully. It also explained the reversion of his rank. An acting commander only acts for as long as he has a command.
‘The alien warship? Did we get it?’
She smiled. ‘Oh, you got it all right. Blew it to bits. The Navy loves you, the Science and Engineering Corps hates you. There were only fragments left of it. They’re scrambling all over the system to gather them up as we speak.’
Samson smiled. So long as his crew were alive, that was all that mattered.
‘You’ll have an hour or two more to relax, then Rear Admiral Khaimov wants to see you.’
They held Samson on the medical ship until he managed to eat some solid food. Considering his last solid meal had been before he’d set off in the alien scout ship, it was difficult to manage, and every bite felt like he was forcing down a rough chunk of rock.
When Samson finally got to his feet, dressed in a fresh uniform, and ventured out of his room, an adjutant was waiting to bring him to the admiral’s barge, which was sitting in Bridgetown’s hangar. From there it was a short flight across to the TUS Warspite, the fleet flagship. Time seemed to be moving more slowly as the
