Dutchman

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Now conscious despite everything, screaming because of the pain, Grant calmed down, hoping that SAR (search and rescue) would find him. He’d got the rest of his crew off his cruiser, the Davenport, before the ship made its last gallant run at the Dominion dreadnought.

Grant watched from the cold of space as the Davenport struck their enemy its death blow, breaking the dreadnought in half, vaporizing the center of the great ship for at least a kilometer in each direction from the impact point. The AI (artificial intelligence) aboard had done his job to the very last, guiding the ship and timing the explosions of the antimatter reactors and the fusion cores to blow on emergence from the last jump point in the center of the behemoth. It looked like a small sun from 20 km away when the dreadnought’s reactors and weaponry cooked off joining his ill-fated ship’s reactors.

It was too bad that he hadn’t made the escape pod before the last volley from the enemy had punched a hole through to the bridge just before he could reach the escape pod. The pod would have given him a much better chance of survival. It had supplies and oxygen to last for two weeks for four people. At least his suit was relatively intact, and the beacon was working, though the cold could already be felt as he sped away from the battle. The suit had only enough air left for two hours. The radio antenna must have been damaged when he was ejected from the ship because of explosive decompression. All he could hear was static after several attempts to transmit.

Grant had suffered some damage from the ejection. The HUD (heads up display) from his health monitor said that he had multiple contusions and breaks. He had not been cleanly ejected from the bridge when the bomb-pumped laser had cut through the ship after the forward shields failed. His jaw was broken, as was his right arm, several ribs and his right leg below the knee. The suit’s inflatable tourniquet and the cold had combined to stop the blood loss from his left leg amputation below the knee. The automatic morphine injection had dimmed the pain before he woke up, but it was still there, throbbing away. That’s good, he thought. So long as he could still feel the pain, there was hope. He was still alive.

There was no way to stop the twisting tumble he was in, but it could be worse. Most of the blood inside his helmet had pooled at the top and the bleeding had stopped from the head trauma he had suffered from the collision with the ship’s structure. Good thing I had a light lunch, he thought as he fought to stay conscious.

Grant finally succumbed to the pain after an hour of fighting it.

***

Chief Bascombe, the pilot of the SAR shuttle, was tired and at the end of the search pattern. A hunch made him push a little farther.

“Chief, you can’t possibly believe that anyone else made it off the Davenport. If a dutchman was out here, they would be on the last of their reserves by now,” said Reilly, the marine sargent in charge of the EVA team.

“Call it what you will, sarge; a hunch, a premonition, whatever, but I can feel that we’re close to someone. We’ll give it ten more minutes, then if we don’t have a hit, we’ll head back.“

Reilly knew better than to argue. He’d been working with the chief since his unit had transferred in from the base at New Britain. Bascombe and his hunches had saved several dutchmen after most would have turned back.

“There! It’s a beacon! Reilly, get to the lock! This spacer has to be on fumes. I’ll get as close as I can. Life signs are weak.”

“Roger chief. Entering the airlock now.” replied Reilly.

“McCartney, you’re with me. Doc, you’re our safety man.”

“Got it, sarge,” replied ‘Doc’ Evans, the shuttle’s assigned corpsman.

“Sarge, the dutchman is tumbling. You’re going to have to use a net. Fifty meters out. Gods, it looks like he lost part of a leg. We’ll be next to him in a minute. Standby.”

“Inner door shut and dogged. Depressurizing,” Reilly announced.

“Zero delta in 5… 4… Now! Zero delta. The recovery bay has zero g.”

“Opening outer door, chief. Deploying net. We have the dutchman! Returning to the lock. Doc, this guy is unconscious, and barely alive. Looks like the suit has some damage.”

“Roger that, sarge. I’m ready,” replied Evans.

“We’re in the lock, chief. Pressurizing.” That was McCartney.

“We have a green light and are equalized. Opening inner door.”

“Set him on the gurney, fellas. I’ll strap him in,” said Doc.

“He’s on the gurney, chief. Taking off his helmet.”

“Brace. Going to 0.6 g, fellas.”

“Thanks chief.” Doc removed the helmet. “Oh my god! It’s Grant Rice, the Davenport’s captain, chief!”