A Bad Way to Wake Up WET Part 1 - 1. Chapter 1

Bill woke up as he slammed onto the floor alongside his bedmate. The sudden motion of the ship, flickering lights and the intense vibrations from the hull registered in his sleep-addled brain.

The lights switching over to red and the near-deafening klaxon siren going off kicked his brain and body into gear.

“Aegis, what the bloody hell is going on?”

Bill scrambled back into his uniform while the young man he’d been sleeping with, Greg something, looked around dazed.

“Get your clothes on, Cadet, and follow me to the bridge. It sounds like we’re going to need your engineering skills.”

The whole ship bucked both sideways and down, knocking them into the bulkhead door.

“If the ship holds together long enough for us to do anything, that is.”

“What’s going on, Bill?”

“We’ve been forcefully ejected from drydock and are adrift. I have no idea why.”

“William, I have established control of the ship’s A.I. We have severe damage near the primary computer core, and she is offline. I’m interfacing through the secondary core.”

“I’m on my way to the bridge now, Aegis, see if you can get some details together of what’s going on.”

“Working on it.”

Bill was not far from the bridge since he was staying in officer guest quarters during the jump engine calibration phase. The ship itself was mostly empty for this part of it in case there were issues with the jump. Better to lose a jumper and a skeleton crew than a ship of one thousand. Bill had found Greg, the engineering cadet in the station mess hall, looking forlorn and radiating loneliness. Bill struck up a conversation and found they were compatible, and Greg was interested in not being alone. So, Bill invited him to bed so that he could have a cuddle partner, and they both got what they needed.

The wall panels started to emit a flashing amber light while the alarm switched to a fast-paced whooping tone indicating automated escape protocols were initiated.

“Motherfucking luck.”

“What now?”

“The automated escape protocols have activated. We need to get to the bridge, right the fuck now!”

The ship lurched again, and both young men crashed into the doors to the bridge.

“What do they do?” Greg asked as he started prying the left door.

“In the event of loss of active human control, the ship will automatically jump from the area. The A.I. is offline, and the jump engines aren’t calibrated. Do the math, Cadet.”

Bill was grimly prying on the opposite door when Greg’s mind clicked on the right answer. “Oh shit!”

Blind jumping with uncalibrated engines under computer control was suicide.

Greg’s effort combined with Bill’s got the bridge doors open. Bill ran to the pilot’s seat while Greg moved to the engineering station.

“We have damage all over the ship, and half the sections aren’t reading anything at all.”

“Strap in! I have to kill gravity to divert power to the jump engines because if they trigger right now the best case is the ship will be torn in half.”

“William, I have partial control, but I am unable to override emergency protocols. You must get enough power to the jump engines and then jump the ship,” Aegis interrupted.

“I’m working on it, Aegis. Sound gravity alarm.”

“30 seconds to jump attempt. Alarm active, all stations.”

“Killing gravity now!”

“Bill, power to jump engines is registering as minimum acceptable levels,” Greg said from his station. “And tactical indicates three Llewerren Heavies are bombarding the station.”

“We need to focus on saving this ship. There is nothing we can do for the station right now.”

The ship’s sideways tumble from the explosions was finally corrected by the thrusters acting on their own under the emergency jump protocols. The attacking ships noticed the ship’s stabilization a moment too late to stop them from jumping. The barrage of laser fire missed as the ship appeared to stretch and disappear into jump space.

“Aegis, divert as much power as you can to stabilizers!”

Bill's fingers flew on the controls at almost inhuman speed as he manually adjusted the ship's controls, responding to his instincts and jumper skill that allowed him to sense dimensions of space that other humans could not. The ship jigged and jagged like a marble rolling through a twisted garden hose. It was the roughest jump he had ever experienced. He nearly lost complete control as he struggled to go somewhere, anywhere remotely familiar. It was all for naught.

The ship slammed out of jump space back into normal space with a bone-rattling bang. Everything that wasn’t securely strapped down jammed forward and Bill banged his head on the console hard enough to daze him. The emergency lights on the bridge flickered out, and the ship slowly tumbled through space.

“Greg. Can you hear me?”

“Aegis?”

“Yes. You need to help me restore power.”

“I can…. I can do that.”

Greg unstrapped and then located the only console still running on battery and switched to the engineering station interface to reroute power from the engines to the environment and gravity controls. It took a few minutes for the systems to respond, but the emergency lights and partial gravity returned.

“Aegis, are there any other survivors?” Bill asked almost too low to be heard, his eyes only opened enough to track Greg’s movement.

“There appear to be, but most of the internal sensors are offline.”

“The damage control board is a mess. I’m not sure what is broken or a sensor issue. Aegis, can you send a message to all stations to check in with you on their status?” Greg asked.

“I can. Standby.” It took a few minutes for the replies to come back. “Engineering is reporting multiple injuries, but no fatalities. They are working to get the main reactors online.”

“Acknowledge that please.”

“Done. Cadet, can you please check on William?”

Greg went over to Bill, who was working the buckles on his strap with his eyes closed. Greg helped him unstrap and then gave him an emergency medical evaluation. His one year at the academy had covered that as one of the first things he learned.

Bill finally opened his eyes and focused on Greg. “I’ll be fine. You’d be amazed at just how often my days end up totally whacked.”

“This is… normal?”

“Nothing is normal around me, kiddo. You doing okay?”

“No. Not really.”

Bill got himself upright and pulled the young man into him. “I know this is really messed up, but Aegis and I are going to need your help getting the ship going again so we can get home. Focus on Aegis and me, and we’ll do all we can to get us all through this. Okay?”

Greg stared and gave a long blink. “You said you weren’t very good with people when we met.”

“Brass seems to think I need a lot of sensitivity training. Maybe something stuck.”

“That is highly unlikely,” Aegis spoke. “We have a lot of problems, William.”

“Hit me, Aegis.”

“I have stabilized our orbit around a red giant star. Location is unknown. We are getting enough power from the solar arrays that we can power life support as we do any repairs. We have twenty-seven living souls aboard, and three fatalities. Chief Engineer Iain McGowan is working on damage control. You are the ranking command officer on board and have command. Most of the staff on board are engineering, as they were working on outfitting the ship. Luckily for you, we also have a medical specialist on board along with life-support specialists. They were working on hydroponics and atmospherics for the ship.”

“How are supplies and fuel?”

“We have enough emergency rations stored for several decades given the low number of people on board. The fuel we can pick up or make in this system. Furthermore, hydroponics can cover food needs indefinitely with supplies on board once they get that running.”

“So, we’ve got survival covered. Let’s get systems fixed as I’d hate to have any more surprises.”

“Good luck with that. The view screen is now operational.”

“Please tell me that is zoomed in.”

The red light flooded the bridge and was all they could see in the viewscreen.

“Negative. We are in relatively close orbit of a massive red giant star. It is approximately eighty times larger than Sol.”

“Radiation?”

“We’re good. No spacewalking though.”

“I just as soon avoid that anyway.”

“How about we move a bit farther out?”

“Adjusting course. It’ll take a while on emergency systems.”

“That’s fine. Let’s get tactical up and running along with sensors so we can see what’s going on. And see if you can get the Chief Engineer on coms.”

“Connected.”

“Chief, this is William Thomas, per our A.I. Aegis, I have assumed command of the ship. Can you give me a status update?”

“Aye, laddie, it’s a fucking mess.”

“Yeah. It’s that way up here too. And we’re close enough to a red giant currently that if it hiccups, our arses are cooked. Power and engines would be great as soon as you can get them.”

“Aye, laddie. Working on it now. About an hour I think.”

“Acknowledged. Let me know if you need anything. We’re going to work on sensors and tactical up here.”

“Aye.”

“Connection closed.”

“Thanks, Aegis. Greg, please see what you can do with the tactical station.”

“Okay.”

“Aegis, any idea what happened with the ship’s A.I.?”

“We had an initial explosion close to the core near the same time we broke free from the station. Data is still unclear as to what happened, and the records are offline. I’m using redundant data to tell you that much.”

“Let’s get sensors working and accurate damage control. I don’t want any more surprises like someone sneaking up on our crippled hulk.”

“William, there is a conduit out of alignment that needs to be fixed. It should bring a good portion of our sensors back.”

“Greg, keep working on the damage control from here and do what Aegis tells you to do. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay.”

Bill left through the bridge doors while he pulled up his ocular overlay. The Heads Up Display was mostly offline, but there was a clear indicator from Aegis on where he needed to go.

Bill, although a pilot, was nearly always around ships that were under construction or otherwise not complete, so he picked up some valuable skills over the years. Of course, having a powerful shipboard artificial intelligence like Aegis in his head all the time certainly helped. It took a bit of work to get the panel opened as he had to jimmy the release since the automatic mechanism was offline.

“Well, Aegis, at least this repair is straightforward. The main conduit has been disconnected. Can you verify that the procedure is to reconnect it and then trigger reactivation via the circuit breaker relays?”

“You’ve remembered something. I’ll mark the time in the log for posterity.”

“Mighty obliged Aegis, you arse.”

“I’m quite digital, thank you. I don’t have an arse. I was delighted to note that your cadet friend has a 98% match on your preferred arses.”

“My what?!”

“I have conducted a regression analysis of your preferred shape, size, and shading of arses on the various men that attracted your interest and compared them to Cadet Wolcott. He falls into a match of 98%. I calculated there was a 90% chance that this was why you invited him on board to share your bed.”

“Walcott? I think he said that was his name. I invited Greg to my bed because I wanted someone to cuddle with and the kid looked like a kicked puppy. Not to mention he was practically broadcasting his loneliness. His perfectly shaped arse wasn’t actually noticed until I was snuggled into it.”

“I will rerun my analysis to after this crisis to include puppy eye potential. I will alert you if I discover a correlation between puppy eyes and nice arses.”

“Thank you for trying to cheer me up, Aegis, but I should probably focus on this shit so that we can get out of this alive.”

“Noted, William.”

Bill shook his head for a moment to clear his thoughts and get his mind refocused on the panel in front of him. With the conduit physically back in place, it took only a few moments to repower the relay, which fired the heavy breakers back into the position powering the system back up.

“Confirmed, we are getting sensor data now. Please return to the bridge.”

“Bossy computers.”

Bill quickly closed the panel and latched it before returning to the bridge.

“Incoming message from Chief Engineer McGowan.”

“What do you have, Chief?”

“The main reactor is in an emergency startup mode now. We should have the main power online in twenty minutes. Thrusters are online now, and the gravimetric drive will power up when we have the main reactor running. There are three hull breaches, but they are all minor comparatively. We’ll work on getting full power to all systems as soon as we can. We also have partial defense and weapons available, if we divert power. I’d like to avoid that if possible until we get everything online.”

“Will do, Chief. I have sensors back online here, and Aegis is doing a scan so we can try to figure out where the hell we are.”

“After we get these immediate problems addressed, I’ll come to the bridge so we can talk.”

“Sounds good, Chief. Bridge out.”

“Connection closed. The system we are in has seven planets. One of which would have qualified as a garden world at one point. It’s somewhat scorched by the growth of the star in its red giant phase.”

“Is there anything showing on sensors that is a danger to us?”

“Just the star. We have increased our orbit. With the thrusters we have online now, I can break orbit and point us toward a planet if you want?”

“Do that. I’d like to be farther away from the star to lessen our danger.”

“Executing.”

“Cadet, how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay.”

Bill broke standard protocol again by going over to Greg and pulling the younger man into a hug, which caused him to sob and bury his face into Bill’s shoulder.

“They usually provide pretty extensive training on how to deal with this stuff before sending cadets spaceside on anything serious. Nobody expected the shipyards to get hit or they wouldn’t have allowed you out there. This crap is hard to deal with for all of us. The training just allows us to stay focused and keep moving forward. My focus is on making sure this ship gets into the best working order we can make it and then get us home. You can lean on me and helping you will help me stay focused. Okay?”

Greg nodded into his shoulder but did not reply.

“The rules on fraternization are suspended. They don’t technically apply here since we were fraternizing before the current situation put me in charge of the ship with you as my responsibility. Unless, of course, you wish to be just a cadet.”

Greg shook his head but didn’t answer.

If Bill were less of a maverick, he’d ask for a verbal response, but he knew this was what Greg wanted.

“Are you good for now?”

“Yes.”

“In case it slipped your mind, I am an empath. I know what you are feeling, so I’ll do what I can to help.”

Another nod into his shoulder.

“I have this strange urge to just cuddle with you, but I really need to focus right now. Can you go back to the damage control board and give me an update?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Greg straightened and visibly pulled himself together before returning to the damage control station.

“Engineering is reporting that we have restored propulsion and main power. Hull breaches have been contained.”

“Good. Aegis, any idea where we are?”

“My best estimates based on star charts is that we are in orbit of Gamma Crucis, also known as Gacrux. It is the red giant star visible in the Southern Cross constellation as seen from Earth. It is approximately eighty-eight light years from Earth.”

“Do a diagnostic, Aegis. You seem to have a bug.”

“Yes, William, I’ve had you for years, but there hasn’t been anything I’ve been able to do about it.”

“Ha. Ha. No way the star is Gacrux—for the simple fact, there is no way we jumped 88 light years.”

“I can’t explain how, William. I can only say we are here. I will have to update the odds calculation of traveling that distance when we return.”

“I would have said there was a 0% chance.”

“Terran Confederation Science division had the odds at 1 in 1024 or 0.97%.”

“What have I told you about humans, Aegis? We’re imprecise creatures, and only a bloviating academic type would make a big deal over 0.97%. The rest of us just think of it as 0%.”

“But clearly it wasn’t zero, or we wouldn’t be here, would we, William?”

“Is it just me or are you getting sassier? This is going to be an interesting discussion with the rest of our crew. Is the captain’s conference room ready for use?”

“Affirmative. The ship was only short crew for launch.”

“There’s that, at least. Assume priority is to survive and see if you can find anything on jumps this far out. We’ll also work to see if we can get the ship’s A.I. back online, or failing that, get all of her functions available to you.”

“I’ll begin immediately on the research.”

“I’m going to be in the conference room. Please continue with the damage control work, Greg, and direct the chief in when he gets here.”

“Yes, Captain.”

William rolled his eyes before walking into the small conference room and sinking into the surprisingly comfortable chair. He put his head into his hands and meditated. He didn’t move until he heard someone call his name an hour later.

“William, the Chief is here.”

“Thanks, Aegis.”

The chief was shown to the room by Greg. Bill greeted the man with a firm handshake.

“I’m William Thomas, Chief. Though only my annoying sidekick A.I. ever calls me that. Everyone else calls me Bill. I was on board to do the jump engine calibrations. This is Cadet Greg Walcott, and he was my guest on board. He was on a training rotation at the Drydock. Cadet, you can return to damage control.”

After Greg left the room, Bill asked, “Do you have any idea what happened?”

“Not really, lad. There was an explosion that took out the main computer, and I can’t tell if it was internal or external in nature as the hull breach in that area is complete. We should be able to cobble together a fully working computer between the secondary and tertiary systems. I suspect, though, that the ship’s A.I. is gone, and we’ll have to rely on Aegis. We should be able to give him some pretty big upgrades though.”

“Do what you need to do there.”

“Aye. We’ll need to top off our fuel, so if there is a ready source of hydrogen locally, we’ll need it.”

“Aegis has already remarked that we’ll find everything we need in this system as far as fuel goes. You’ll be happy to know that between stored food and hydroponics, the entire crew has enough food. I’ll talk to our biology people and get them going on growing food and oxygenating plants to make sure we stay good for the long haul if it’s a long haul we’re in for.”

“Where are we?”

“According to Aegis, we jumped eighty-eight lightyears to the red giant Gacrux in the Southern Cross constellation as seen from Earth. And, no, I have no idea at all how we could have possibly jumped that far in one go, totally unintentionally on minimum jump engine power.”

“That puts us in a bit of a pickle, laddie. How do we get home?”

“We might be able to find the path back the same way we came, but that is not very likely. In theory, we should be able to make a series of jumps to return, but that could be several hundred blind jumps. There would be a lot of risks in that approach.”

“We have material on board to do the full required maintenance for that number of jumps, but we’d be precariously low on spare parts if something else catastrophic occurs. We’d have to refuel after each jump in case we end up in an area of low fuel.”

“We have a viable path. We’ll convene all ship’s personnel in the mess hall at 19:00 hours. Aegis, send an alert to everyone that we’ll have the meeting.”

“Note sent.”

“Chief, I’m not one for protocol, and you clearly have the same thoughts. How do we stand with the rest of the crew?”

“My lads don’t stand for the formal shit either. The doc’s a right prissy one though. It might be the stress.”

“Some people don’t react well to surprises. Being assigned to an out-of-the-way drydock facility is about as laid-back as we get. Unfortunately, something went extremely wrong. I’m sorry to tell you, but the station was under heavy bombardment from three Lewerren Heavies when we jumped.”

“That’s definitely bad.”

“I’m guessing that whatever happened, the last act of the ship’s A.I. was to trigger the emergency jump. The jump sequence is hardcoded on the base computer system, so there was no way for Aegis to override it before it triggered. The only choice I had was to put enough power into the engines to engage the jump drive and hope to steer us through. Something was very different though, as that was the roughest jump I’ve ever felt.”

“Any guesses as to what caused it?”

“I was meditating on that while I was waiting for you, and the only thing I can think of is that we somehow fell into a natural wormhole. It’s possible that the minimum power levels for this ship were miscalculated, and we didn’t have enough power to form our own conduit, and we got sucked into an existing one. But that is really outside my wheelhouse. I just tune things up so people without this cursed gift can fly around in space.”

“Aye, laddie. Jumpers do have a rough go of it. I’m guessing you’ve some other gifts?”

“Gifts.” Bill sighed heavily before continuing, “I have the joy of being an empath. Being alone out in space helps with that.”

“Based on the looks your cadet guest was giving you, he has some sort of attachment.”

“I bumped into him in the mess hall. He arrived only a few hours before I did and had not started any duty assignments yet. He was not in an emotionally good space, and I felt obligated to help. He meshes very well with my gift. There have only been a handful of guys I’ve met that weren’t emotionally noisy.”

“Emotionally noisy?”

“It’s the best way I can describe the feeling to a non-empath. Some people are just self-contained while others are like a volcano. The cadet was stressed out and lonely in the extreme. I sat with him, and we clicked. He ended up staying with me on the ship, and, no I don’t do hookups, my outrageous flirting notwithstanding. Getting a rise out of people is fun. But actual intimacy? That’s a tough row to hoe for an empath. You really have to mean it.”

“So you invited him onboard with good intentions?”

“I intended to have a good cuddle with someone who desperately wanted a good cuddle. That plan was going very well indeed until the ship lurched and we were thrown onto the floor.”

“Well, you probably saved him by getting him off the station. He’s certainly attached to you. I can see that just having him walk me in here.”

“He is, yes. But I’ll do my duty by him and get him confident enough to stand on his own. He’s had a big shock to his system without the benefit of the training on how to deal with that. It’s something I’m going to have a very loud conversation about when we make it home.”

“Are you sure we’ll make it back?”

“Damn right we’ll make it back. I have a bone to pick with an administrator, and I want this crew to get home safe.”

“Works for me, laddie. I’ll see you in the mess hall for the crew meeting.”

Continued in part 2.