Page 16 of Life-Debt

They’d forgive me eventually.

Drawing a deep breath, I held it and began phase one of initiating a jump. I activated my communication system, matched the frequency to the shiftgem gate, and sent a ping to warn other ships someone was about to make the journey across space in the blink of an eye. I initiated a two-minute countdown warning, issued in a series of pings, which would give other ships plenty of time to move out of the landing zone.

My system detected no attempts to communicate or warning pings, which either meant the space on the other end of the gate was empty, my signals were being ignored, or everyone had gotten out of the way.

At the one minute mark, I initiated the shiftgem engines. My ship vibrated as the crystals thrummed to life. I doubted I’d ever understand how science worked with a splash of the unexplainable, and for the most part, I’d given up trying. The sense of wonder remained. The gate began shifting colors to match the tri-colored cores in both engines, an excellent sign we might make it through in one piece.

At the ten second mark, I exhaled, engaged both engines, and committed to the jump.

Some captains preferred to hit the gate zone at top speed, but I opted for an increasing momentum, allowing the ships to accelerate as they exited the gate on the other side. Once over, I’d kill the engines and allow the vessels to drift while I began system checks to make sure nothing had been damaged during the jump.

The ships hit fifty percent throttle when the nose of the freighter hit the boundary. The stomach-churning lurch of entering the shiftgem gate struck hard, and in the time it took me to yelp and spew a few curses, we were through.

While everyone had cleared the exit point, I had a rather large audience of escort and weapon ships on the other side, and some of the bastards had blocked the deceleration zone. Spitting more curses, I ditched my initial plan of checking the engines, slammed my hand on the warning comm to not-so-politely tell the fuckers to get the hell out of the jump gate exit zone, and reverse throttled both engines, careful to account for the freighter’s larger mass.

In good news, the idiot in the deceleration lane understood one of the three curse-ladened languages and got the hell out of the way, although I’d managed to bring my ship and the freighter to a halt before any potential collisions. I deactivated the emergency comm and kept grumbling curses, reset the engines to neutral, and began the checklists for both ships.

I had several warnings from the freighter, but I determined they were from shifted cargo and would be an easy fix for somebody else.

A communication request pinged, and reining in my cussing, I flipped the switch and read off my ship’s identification code. The identification response informed me I’d been surrounded by a ridiculous number of Cremoran ships on behalf of Cremora Delta 005-26.

As I wasn’t about to let the idiot who’d almost triggered a collision off the hook, once introductions were complete, I said, “Please refresh your assembly regarding the deceleration lane, especially if you’re expecting a damaged freighter. Shiftgem gate jumps have a variable speed transition of up to twenty-five percent over ship-base maximum speeds. Collisions at such speeds are not easy to avoid.”

“Roger,” the man on the other end replied. “What is your current casualty count?”

I accepted the confirmation at face value, reached over, and checked the security cameras to discover a rather annoyed Delta trying to get dressed while Pandora squeaked and did her best to convince him to play with her. Muting the comm system, I activated the intercom and said, “Take your time, Delta. We have successfully navigated the shiftgem gate, and we have been met by a Cremoran fleet for escort. Raise your hand if you can handle playing with Pandora on your own for a while.”

His expression changed to amused, and he raised his hand and waved. Then, abandoning the hassle of dealing with the jumpsuit, settled into pet and play with my fox. I flipped off the security cameras, cut off the intercom, and reactivated the ship to ship comm. “There are three bodies in stasis on the freighter and no casualties on board my vessel. Our ten day quarantine period, unfortunately, was reset to starting prior to our jump, as I had to transfer to the freighter to perform some engine repairs. If you were waiting longer than expected, my apologies. The engine was not capable of jumping prior to the fixes I needed to make. The reverse thrust has shifted cargo on board the freighter, but everything was packed fine and shouldn’t have been damaged. We just cannot do any tricky flying until the cargo is secured.”

“Excellent. And your patient’s state following revival?”

“He emerged from stasis with minimal side-effects, although he has been in recovery. His digestive system is fully functional, although he was fatigued prior to entry into stasis. These issues should be resolved by the time we reach the spaceport. Both ships will require quarantining for the minimal ten day period.”

“We have prepared a quarantine bay for you, so you will be able to be off ship during the quarantine process. We also have an evaluation clinic in the spaceport in case of illness. Was there any evidence of illness when you boarded the vessel?”

“I simply don’t know. The evidence shows asphyxiation due to a failed life support system, but there is no way to know if there were any diseases prior. Cleanup will be minimal. The crew, may they rest in peace, opted to face their deaths in their suits. They were aware they had run out of time and options. According to my patient, they had drawn lots to determine who would be put into stasis.”

“Can your ship receive visual data?”

I reached over and activated the display. “Affirmative.”

“Can you identify your patient from one of these images?”

Sure enough, Delta’s picture appeared along with the images of three other men. None were named, but Delta had been assigned number three. “Number three is the gentleman I revived from stasis. I’ve dubbed him Delta, as I don’t name my cargo, which he doesn’t mind. He’ll have to remain in quarantine for the whole period, as I will not violate my licensing for captaining my ship. His health is stable, and he did not suffer any impairments as a result of going into stasis. There was one minor complication, likely due to inexperience on the crew’s part. He was dosed with a rather high amount of the stasis sedative, but I was able to reverse his sedation without issue. It was a borderline high dosage.”

“Thank you for identifying the survivor,” my Cremoran contact replied. “What is your xenodiversity rating?”

I rolled my eyes at the question. “If you put me in the same room with a Veloc, sir, I will be inclined to ask if I can touch. I am rated as diverse and minimally xenophobic. If a Veloc opens its mouth in front of me and hisses, I may end up halfway across the galaxy before my flight instinct turns off. I have a high tolerance to non homo sapiens species. I have not spent much time with Cremorans, but I have no issues with various tentacles as long as those tentacles do not touch me in inappropriate fashions.”

Some women appreciated Cremorans, the lack of pregnancy risk, and their tentacles, which they had in addition to fingers, arms, and their legs.

The Cremoran chuckled. “Excellent. Delta, as you call him, is descended from a line including Veloc, and one of his kin is on board. A cousin. The families branched fairly far back, but their associated generations still consider each other cousins. Bluntly spoken, the Veloc in question is happy to join you for quarantine, but he is very concerned regarding his cousin.”

My eyes widened. “I have a vulpes vulpes on board.”

“A red fox. We were shown pictures of the fox with her rather charming suit. Mystoran, the Veloc, will be careful to befriend your vulpes vulpes, so please do not worry. He brings a gift of live prey for your companion, and he will go on a hunt to teach her if she is unaccustomed to live prey.”

I pricked my ears forward at that. “She’s hunted mice and rabbit before, but it’s not something we can do often.”