Space Relations Pt. 30

Several hidden compartments lined the back wall of the bridge, where emergency items such as spacesuits were kept out of the way until they were needed. The Space Relations has fourteen such suits, one for every person on board if they were at their crew's maximum capacity. Just before the back wall was opened up, Barbie sealed off the bridge from the rest of the ship, and slowly depressurized it by removing the nitrogen content in the air and increasing oxygen. This would prevent the crew from experiencing decompression sickness by moving from one atmospheric setting to another too quickly while they were wearing the suits.

The specialized garments were called Intra / Extra Vehicular suits, or IEVs for short. They were soft suits, skintight, and looked more like extra thick scuba diver outfits than the big, clunky astronaut equipment of the past. Colored in a primary shade of blue, the suits would be clearly visible against the dark backdrop of space, should an emergency force any of them to go outside the ship.

Original versions of the IEVs were notoriously laborious to get into, as the designs were similar to tight elastic body stockings. They looked like the one-piece sleeping attire a child might wear. Even with the advanced Ortho-Fabrics they were made of, these new and more advanced suits were still a chore to put on. Previous models had issues with distributing an even pressure all over the suit, but this was later largely solved by smart nanotechnology. Internal layers would gather perspiration and use it to keep the wearer cool. The Maximum Absorbency Garment, a.k.a. the Space Diaper, was streamlined and added only a slight thickness to the contour of the body. Outer layers of the suit provided shielding against ultraviolet radiation, particle radiation and impacts from incoming micrometeorites.

Once the elastic suit was in place and sealed, the helmet and life support pack were added. These items were ultra-efficient in taking carbon dioxide out and injecting oxygen in, as well as removing moisture and preventing de-subliming, that is perspiration or sweat leaving a film on the visor, optics or communication equipment within the helmet. After everything was set in place, the suit's life support system was activated and tested. Gloves with lighted tips and efficient grip were available, and also boots with lighted ends and magnetic soles, but these wouldn't be used unless it was necessary.

Only two people didn't don spacesuits: Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Freya. They still had to manage the ship, as the suits' stocky fingers made it impossible to use the computers. If for some unexpected reason the hub were breached, these last two would have to quickly jump into large, flexible balls that had been inflated with oxygen. The ball was made of the same general material as the spacesuits and used when a person became incapacitated and needed to be moved elsewhere. The problem was that nobody would have full control of the ship's many systems. Someone could still run things by enabling a holographic keyboard and typing in commands that way, but only one person could do this at a time. This would be critical if several systems needed attention all at once, and Cammie was the best qualified to sort that mess out.

Uhura waited until her navigation expert finished testing out the holo-keyboard before she addressed the rest of the crew. "Systems check. If you can hear me, raise your hands." Once acknowledged, she turned to her combat technician. "What is the word on our electrical stowaway?"

"The energy spikes have moved down to the first level of our ship." Freya replied. "The anomaly is presently in the dining area."

The commander took a deep breath. "Let's, uh, let's move closer to the cloud."

"Affirmative."

For the next couple of minutes, Uhura sat there second-guessing herself. It was very possible that she was sending her crew to their doom. "Shut down all systems outside the hub except for propulsion. Minimize all systems inside the hub."

"Affirmative, LT." Freya nodded, feeling as tense as her commander. As the Viking followed the instructions, she noted another energy spike. "The anomaly has moved from the dining area to the lounge. Based on its fluctuations, I believe it is becoming agitated."

"Or excited." Mario chimed in over the spacesuit's radio. "It could be happy if it is about to be reunited by something like itself."

"I stand corrected." Freya admitted. "LT, if this anomaly is indeed nervous, we might have to go inside the cloud before it leaves our ship. It may have to be engulfed or sucked out somehow."

"Slow approach toward the cloud." Uhura replied. "The last thing I want is to be caught up in there. Who knows what might happen if we get stuck in it? Cammie, if you have anything you want to add, let me hear it."

"You're doing the right thing, Captain." The older woman said.

Apparently she'd forgotten that it was politically incorrect to refer to her superior by the previous title. Or maybe Cammie was being stubborn, Uhura considered, as she was Old School in many ways.

No, you dummy. Mario's voice went into Uhura's head. She called you Captain because she sees you as a pillar of strength for the rest of us.

"Thank you, Mario." Uhura spoke out.

"Excuse me, Captain?" Cammie asked.

"Oh, sorry." Uhura replied. "Mario just made a comment through telepathy. Is there anything else you'd like to say, Cammie?"

"Oh, I'm good and ready to blast some plasma up that cloud's ass if it starts to get thorny with us." The older woman menaced.

Freya chuckled.

"I hope that's a good idea." Barbie remarked. "We know those lightning strikes and the energy spikes are very similar to plasma discharges."

"That's what we're counting on." Cammie reminded her. "If the cloud tries to accost us in any way, firing off a plasma beam might distract it long enough for us to maneuver our way out."

"If the cloud shoots lightning back at us, we should be fully shielded to deflect it." Freya sounded confident. "The lightning might fry up parts of the ship, but it will largely go around the bridge. LT, we have the anomaly in the hallway now. It is moving toward the bridge. I don't believe it can enter, as we've got an opposing electrical polarity between us and it."

All of the suited personnel cringed away from the sliding doors.

"Bring us closer to the cloud." Uhura said. "Cammie, you'll have to take over monitoring our unwanted friend. Keep our weapons systems on stand-by. Freya, I want you to scan further into the cloud as much as you're able to."

The fluctuating electrical activity within the cloud was blinding the ship's sensors, the Lieutenant knew. They could be heading into a brick wall and not know it until they crashed into it. With the energy fiend still on board the ship, it was becoming unlikely that a lateral move would get rid of it, and so they had to know what was lying directly ahead of them.

"I've got the anomaly on sensors." Cammie said. "It is right outside the doors."

"But it can't get inside, can it?" Cruz asked, anxiously.

"How can it even get that close?" Mark sounded frightened. "I thought the reverse charge would repel it!"

"All I can tell you is where the thing is right now." Cammie answered.

"Maybe it doesn't want to leave." Mario suggested. "Maybe it wants to stay close to us. Maybe it doesn't want to get sucked into the cloud out there."

"We know the thing is like a chameleon." Barbie said. "It changes form so that our sensors can pick it up sometimes, but most of the time we can't. Let's go in the opposite direction than what Mario just said. This anomaly knows there is something similar to it close by. Maybe by spiking up, it is communicating with the cloud. What does it want to do next? Based on what's happened in the past, it might want to force our ship into the cloud. That happened twice, right, to the Beagle and to our ship?"

"What is it doing by the door then?" Mario wondered.

"It knows there is a contrary electrical energy in the hub." Barbie reasoned. "Maybe it is trying to surround us and change this part of the ship into a duplicate energy, so that it can push us into the cloud. I think it is too small to do that, but I could be wrong."

"But it is trying." Cammie noted. "The spikes are going off the charts, right past our sliding doors."

"What if it is terrified of going back into the cloud?" Mario persisted. "What if it is crying out for help?"

"We want that thing off the ship!" Mark reminded her.

So much was running through the Lieutenant's head that she didn't know what to do next. She started tapping her fingers on her armrest.

"LT, sensors are picking up several objects within the cloud." Freya stated.

"What kind of objects?" Uhura asked. "Can you show them onscreen?"

"Negative. They're too faint. The disturbances from the cloud are making them difficult to focus on. All I can say right now is that they are sizable. You know, they might be starships. They're artificial, and they're roughly the same dimensions as the Space Relations, give or take a few dozen meters."

"That is a scary thing to contemplate." Uhura grew queasy. "To think that those might be ships that got caught by the cloud and couldn't get out. Perhaps their crews are in a state of perpetual suspended animation. Mario, can you reach out to those objects telepathically, so see if there are any sentient beings on board?"

"I'll try, LT." The blonde man said. "But all I see right now is a huge wall of static."

When Cammie's voice was heard next, it had grown in alarm. "Captain, the energy spikes are growing in mass and intensity. I think Barbie's right. I think it is pulling mass from the cloud in trying to surround us. It wants to push us into the cloud!"

"Cammie, pull up Freya's screen and keep an eye on it." Uhura directed. "Freya, I want you to get an idea of where those unknown objects are, and I want you to prepare to fire into an empty area within the cloud. Tell me when you're ready."

A few seconds later, the Viking announced. "Plasma cannon enabled, Captain."

"Give me a short one second burst and fire."

"Firing plasma cannon."

The entire main screen lit up, as their electrical discharge collided with the large cloud. The spectacle only lasted an instant, however.

"The cloud has recoiled by a good distance." Freya observed. "Similar to what was happening with its internal lightning discharges."

Uhura opened her mouth to ask Cammie what had happened with the stowaway, but the older woman was already talking.

"It is gone now, Captain!" Cammie exclaimed. "I saw the thing get sucked away on the sensors. I think it was trying to capture more mass from the cloud. When the plasma cannon struck and the cloud recoiled, the anomaly inside our ship was still connected to it. The anomaly was repelled right along with the cloud!"

"LT, the cloud withdrew so violently it let go of some of those artificial objects." Freya stated. "We have three vessels of unidentified origin out there. Two are similar to one another."

"Woo-hoo!" Mario started jumping around behind them. "We got rid of that energy thingy! It's totally gone now!"

Uhura half turned to hold her hand up. "Let's not celebrate just yet. Freya, can you put these liberated vessels on the main screen."

"No problem." The Norse goddess replied. "Now that the cloud isn't giving us so much interference, I can hone in on all of them."

Within a few moments, the large screen showed two separate images. The three suddenly released vessels were spinning out of control, with two near each other and a third boomeranging away at a fast rate of speed.

"Mario, can you see any occupants in those ships?" Uhura asked.

"Let me take a look." Mario walked closer to the captain's chair. "I'm not getting any life readings from those first two. Oh, yuck! I get the feeling that whoever was on there died a long time ago. They looked like giant spiders. Let me see about that last thingy... LT! LT!" He started jumping down again. "Everything is spinning! Everything is spinning! There is somebody on that ship, but the ship has gone crazy on them! They can't even think because everything is moving so fast! It's a conscious person, LT, but they're crashing around all over the place! That person can't make the ship stop spinning!"

"Freya, pull us in closer to that third vessel." Uhura commanded. "Is the cloud still keeping its distance from us?"

"Yes, LT." The Viking went to her controls.

"Use our magnetic field to stabilize that spinning. Then pull us and that ship further away from the cloud."

While this was being done, a frantic Mario was seen walking around the hub. "It's a woman! I can see her hands waving around. She's very scared and she's having trouble breathing. Her ship isn't doing what she wants it to. She thinks she's going to die because she can't breathe! Everybody else in her ship is dead!"

Uhura studied the shape of the vessel as Mario kept talking. It looked a short, stubby cigar, with a tapered front end and some sort of unknown propulsion rockets at the other. The strange ship was colored in a rustic brown, which she'd never seen before on a space vessel.

Freya magnified a section of the vessel on the large monitor. "We have severe damage here, possibly from a meteor impact while the ship was inside the cloud. The hull has been breached badly enough that we have space hydrogen leaking inside. If we are to attempt a rescue, we might not have a lot of time left."

Uhura spun around in her chair. "Cammie, you're already wearing a suit."

"I'll go, Captain!" She replied, hurrying across the bridge to grab one of the large oxygen-filled rescue balls.

"Barbie, I'd like for you to accompany her."

"Let me do it!" Mario insisted. "Whoever this woman is, she's terrified! I can calm her down better if I'm standing right next to her. I think she'll go bonkers if I try talking to her through her mind. She's in a very disoriented state right now!"

"That ship doesn't look like any human design we know of." Freya commented.

Uhura took another look at the screen. The breached area didn't show the jagged corners of damaged metal. Instead, it looked like brown moss or algae with twists around a single misshapen hole. "Mario, are you sure the occupant is even human?"

"Yeah, I can see her hands and everything!" The blonde man replied. "They're blue! The other people in her crew are blue humans too, except they're all gone now. The one woman doesn't want to get any closer to them because she thinks she'll die too. She's very dazed right now!"

"I want both of you to go armed." Uhura directed.

"I don't want to shoot her, LT." Mario whined. "I want to save her!"

"No, no, I want you to be safe." The Lieutenant insisted. "You don't have to set your blaster on lethal, okay? You can just stun this woman if she gets out of control."

"Take the rescue ball into the lounge." Cammie rolled the large object over to Mario. The woman had set gloves and boots near her workstation. Now she took the time to put them on. "If you can spare Barbie for a few minutes, I'd like to go into the armory so she can open that up for us. I won't be able to punch in the code with these clumsy gloves on. Barbie can shut the hatch behind us when we leave."

A few things still needed to be done, Uhura realized, as the two women left. "Freya, let's decrease pressure in the rest of the ship, especially in the lounge. Seal off the kitchen and second floor."

Cruz helped Mario put on his gloves and boots. When she finished, she bumped her helmet against the blonde's. "I love you, baby. You come back to me in one piece."

"I will." Mario nodded. "I love you, too."

"LT, would you mind if I walked Mario to the hatch?" Cruz asked. "I can help her roll this clunky ball down the hallway."

Uhura gave her permission, before watching as they too left the bridge. The only people still there were the suited up Mark, and the unsuited Lieutenant and Freya.

"My balls itch." Mark complained, as the rescue operation went into full motion.

As the action unfolded, there were so many bizarre findings that Lieutenant Uhura could hardly keep her head on straight. While the Space Relations did find enough of a magnetic presence to keep their ships together, there was nothing metallic to be seen on that alien cruiser. The mossy exterior looked more like coral upon closer examination. At one time it may have been moist and malleable, but it was now dried and cracked. The area around the hull breach showed brittleness and easily broke away with pressure.

Using tethers, Cammie and Mario floated out to the vessel, accidentally breaking apart more of the hull as they entered it. The two were extremely careful when they maneuvered the oxygen ball and pack of other equipment in after them. Inside, more strangeness was discovered. The interior of the alien ship was colored brown, but the vacuum of space had dried up the immediate surfaces into lifeless husks. There was hardly any room for a person to move, as the walls were very tight and flaps of loose material gave the explorers pause every handful of feet.

While watching the video feed from the helmets of the rescuers, Freya conjectured that perhaps the occupants flowed through the ship, instead of walking upright like humans would. Uhura could only wonder at the strange controls and apparatus she was seeing. None of it looked as if it had been designed for humans.

They got an even bigger surprise when they found the distraught woman. Uhura could just imagine that woman's shock when the two suited figures went through the flexible flaps and entered the tight space she was in. Before their eyes, this female from some unknown planet lunged at Cammie. The older woman felled her with a stun blast, and then everyone in the Space Relations was able to get a good look at her. Her skin was colored in bright oceanic blue; Mario had guessed at this earlier. Because of the unusual nature of the ship, however, what the blonde empath had not been able to estimate was how big the alien woman really was.

What they found was a true giantess, a good eight feet tall and so big she would not fit into the oxygen ball they'd brought in to save her with. Besides that, the blue woman weighed an estimated two to three hundred pounds. After some intense and quick thinking, the Lieutenant decided to create a new hole close to where the woman was located. Cruz and Mark volunteered to travel into the alien vessel with a second oxygen ball, while Barbie stood by in the depressurized lounge. Uhura moved her ship to a spot that would facilitate the rescue. When the team was in place, Cammie expertly used the plasma weapon to tear the alien vessel's wall open.

With the larger part of the alien giantess enclosed in one oxygen ball, and her huge legs within the second, her unconscious form was tethered and drifted from one ship to the other. The tightly sealed oxygen balls kept the woman's body protected from external radiation and internal gas expansion, except for a few inches where her very long legs were exposed. Luckily, human flesh is gas tight on its own, so the vacuum of space did not damage her during the brief transit.

Thanks to the confined space and unfamiliarity of the alien vessel, even the excited Cammie did not remain behind to further explore it. All of the rescuers came back on board the Space Relations, where the laborious process of returning the lounge to normal pressure began. During the wait, Freya pulled both ships further away from the energy cloud, and sent magnetic beacons to attach themselves to the other alien ships that were still floating out there. If anybody from Space Corps came out there looking, their instruments would be able to pinpoint the vessels thanks to the signaling beacons.