Part 7 (1/2)
”Give or take,” Hernandez replied.
”So why not just make a run for home?”
Hernandez raised her eyebrows in a gentle expression of mock surprise. ”Because 'home' is over eighty light-years away. I'd rather not waste the better part of a century getting there. If I'm right, we can find what we need to fix the warp drive in that star system and get home while at least a few people we know are still alive.”
The prospect of twelve years being transformed by the laws of relativity into a short-lived purgatory disturbed Fletcher, but the notions of starving to death in deep s.p.a.ce or returning home as a centenarian troubled her even more. ”I'll get Graylock to work on the impulse drive,” Fletcher said. ”It'll take a few hours to remove the safeties before we can overdrive the coils past one-quarter c.”
The captain nodded. ”Tell him to beef up the main deflector, too. At the speeds we're talking about, the ma.s.s and kinetic energy of oncoming particles'll be pretty intense.”
”And once we hit relativistic speeds, our sensors'll be blind to just about everything,” Fletcher said. ”We'll also become a serious X-ray source.”
Hernandez smirked. ”I prefer to think of it as becoming our own interstellar emergency flare.”
Fletcher chortled. ”We'd just better hope we don't get noticed by the Romulans or the Klingons.”
”They'd probably mistake us for some kind of primitive colony s.h.i.+p,” Hernandez said. ”Maybe we'll get lucky and be taken prisoner aboard a s.h.i.+p that actually has a working warp drive. Now, if you want something to worry about, try the hard radiation from blues.h.i.+fting.”
Fletcher nodded. ”We'd better have Dr. Metzger start us all on radiation-treatment protocols. And I'll have Thayer restrict access to the outer compartments.”
”Good thinking,” said Hernandez.
With a tired grin, Fletcher added, ”Then the only things we still need are a deck of cards and some good books. If you like, I can loan you the first six Captain Proton novels.”
”Thank you, Number One,” said Hernandez, who no longer seemed to be paying attention. She sounded unusually somber.
”Are you sure you're all right, Captain?”
A rueful grimace twisted the captain's mouth. ”I'm fine,” she said. ”It just bugs me that the time when Earth needs us most is the one time we can't be there.” She turned her gaze out the viewport. ”All we can do is hope that when we finally bring our s.h.i.+p home, there's still a home worth bringing it to.”
Stephen Foyle pivoted from one foot to the other while he dribbled the basketball from hand to hand, turning his body to keep his opponent at bay. Sweat dripped from above his hairline, tracing winding paths out of his gray brush cut and down his face. A thick sheen of perspiration on his arms and legs caught the glare of the overhead lights in the s.h.i.+p's gymnasium.
Gage Pembleton taunted him in a tone of crisp superiority. ”What are you waiting for, Major? An invitation?”
”Patience, First Sergeant,” Foyle said. He lurched forward, and Pembleton matched his stride. Then Foyle pa.s.sed the ball backward between his own legs, spun, and slipped behind Pembleton's back for a drive at the basket. By the time the younger, brown-skinned man had caught up to Foyle, the major had made a graceful layup, banking the ball off the backboard.
The orange ball hushed through the net, and Pembleton caught it off the bounce. ”Not bad,” he said. He tossed the ball with a single bounce at Foyle. ”But it's still eleven-eight.”
Foyle checked the ball and pa.s.sed it back. ”For now.”
A musky scent of deodorant overpowered by exertion trailed Pembleton as he dribbled the ball back to the top of the key to start his possession. ”What time is it?”
The major smirked. ”Getting tired?”
”No, I want you to sing me 'Happy Birthday' at 1340 hours.”
”That's not funny,” Foyle said, irked to be reminded of Captain Hernandez's decision to send them all on a slow-time cruise into oblivion. He imagined that he could feel an hour slipping away with every minute, days vanis.h.i.+ng into every hour.
At the center-court circle, Pembleton turned and waited for Foyle to strike a defensive pose. The lanky Canadian started dribbling and pivoted to show Foyle his back. ”I'll spot you three points if you can take the ball before I score,” he said in his drawl of a baritone. ”Give you a chance to tie it up.”
Foyle grinned. ”Don't go getting-”
Pembleton was off the deck, spinning in midair, hefting the ball high over his head with his long, wiry arms and ma.s.sive hands. Foyle sprang to block the shot, hands flailing, but the ball was gone, sailing on a long and poetic arc into the basket. It slapped through the net, bounced twice off the deck, and rolled behind the end line as Foyle watched with a tired frown.
”Thirteen-eight,” Pembleton said. As the major opened his mouth to protest, the sergeant pointed at their feet and added, ”Behind the line, two points.”
”Now you're just showing off,” Foyle said. They walked downcourt together to retrieve the ball. The major's nostrils filled with the funky stench of his sweat-soaked tank top and sodden socks, and his thighs and calves felt as if they were tying themselves in knots and turning to wood. He palmed the excess perspiration from his face and dried his hands on his cotton athletic trunks. Then he squatted to pick up the ball and was unable to stop himself from exhaling a pained grunt. ”I think I need a time-out,” he said.
”No time-outs in one-on-one,” Pembleton taunted. Unfazed by Foyle's bitter glare, he added, ”Your rules.”
Foyle tucked the ball under his left arm and walked toward the benches at the sideline. ”Don't make me pull rank.”
”It's your game, Major. I just play in it.”
Pembleton followed him to the bench and sat down on the other side of a stack of soft, white towels. He kept his back straight and his head up, and his breaths were long and slow.
Foyle slumped as soon as he was seated, and he reached under the bench for his squeeze bottle of water. The major lifted the nozzle to his lips and clamped his hand tight, filling his mouth with a stream of cool liquid. He downed a third of the bottle in half a minute. ”I can't believe she's doing this,” he said after catching his breath.
The sergeant maintained an attentive silence. He picked up a towel and dried his shaved head as Foyle continued.
”There has to be some way to get a signal back to Earth. We could've cannibalized something to fix the transceiver array and sent a Mayday to Starfleet-or even to Vulcan, if we had to.” He took another swig of water. ”Instead, she's got us sitting out the war. Didn't even ask me before she put us all on the slow boat to nowhere.”
Pembleton chided him, ”She didn't ask you? Tell me, Major, when did the s.h.i.+p become a democracy? Do I get a vote, too?”
”You know what I mean, Pembleton,” Foyle said, weary and frustrated. ”It's the same old story. She thinks just because we're MACOs, we don't need to know. h.e.l.l, even the illusion of being consulted would be nice once in a while.”
”So, if she had let you speak your mind, and then did the same thing anyway, you'd be fine with that?”
The question forced Foyle to stop and think for a moment. ”No,” he admitted, ”I wouldn't. I mean, what if this planet we're going to can't help us? What then? Should we just keep making these near-light trips while the galaxy changes around us at warp speed? It's just so d.a.m.ned stupid. There has to be a better answer than wasting twelve years of our lives.”
”It's not our lives she's wasting,” Pembleton said. ”It's everyone else's. I was supposed to be home in time to see my oldest start school. He'll be in college by the time we drop back to normal s.p.a.ceflight. I feel like I've missed his whole life.” He dried his arms and then tossed away the towel. ”For us,” he continued, ”this'll just be a couple of boring months. But for my wife and my boys...I might as well be dead.”
That same thought haunted Foyle, as well. They were five days into their journey, and he knew that home on Earth, his wife Valerie was likely marking the anniversary of the last time she had seen him or heard his voice. The Columbia and its crew had been missing in action for more than a year in Earth time.
She won't have given up on me yet, he a.s.sured himself. But she won't wait forever. Sooner or later, she'll go on with her life, without me. I might get home while she's still alive, but it won't matter, because my life will be gone. Our life.
”There's still time for a change of plan,” Foyle said. He watched Pembleton to measure his reaction. ”If we drop the s.h.i.+p back to quarter impulse, we can focus on repairing the transceiver, maybe get a message home before everybody we know gives up on us.”
Pembleton smirked. ”Nice idea,” he said. ”But if that was a possibility, I have to think we'd be doing it already.”
”Maybe,” Foyle said. ”But what if it's just that Graylock needs to take orders from someone who knows how to motivate him?” He glanced at Pembleton.
The sergeant kept his expression a cipher. For as long as Foyle had served with him, Pembleton had been a master at encrypting his feelings. ”It might take a pretty big shakeup in the command structure to cause a change like that,” the sergeant said. His eyes betrayed nothing as he returned Foyle's stare. ”Permission to speak freely, sir?”
”Granted.”
”Considering the amount of damage to the s.h.i.+p, and the skill we've seen Graylock use to keep it running, I'm inclined to believe him when he says the transceiver can't be fixed. And if the captain thinks this is our best shot, I'd say trust her.”