Novum: Rubicon: (Book 3) by Rhea Joseph

Author:Rhea, Joseph [Rhea, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

When Jake opened his eyes, he found himself in a small, dimly-lit room. He had a quick flashback to some sort of interrogation chamber from his nightmares, but this wasn’t it; this was his own Medical Bay. He tried to sit up but found his chest and arms held down. He started to panic, but then Dr. Wood stepped into view. “How are you feeling, Captain?”

He relaxed a bit but then remembered how he got there. “How is AJ?”

Wood nodded to the other diagnostics bed in the room. Jake looked over and saw AJ sleeping peacefully. “Fortunately, her only injury was a dislocated shoulder, which I was able to reset manually.” He used the word manually as though it was somehow foreign to him. When Jake tugged on his restraints, Wood added, “You strained your back during the crash. The restraints are to keep you immobilized for twenty-four hours or so. I’ve given you an anti-inflammatory and a mild tranquilizer which should help.”

“The rest of the crew?” he asked, realizing that his Medical Bay wasn’t designed to deal with more than two patients at a time. If someone else needed a bed, he would insist on moving out, even with the pain in his back.

“They’re fine, for the most part. A few bumps and bruises.”

“What’s wrong with the power?” Jake asked as he finally realized that the only illumination in the room was coming from the emergency panels along the walls.

“I’ll let your crew fill you in on that,” he said, nodding to someone over his head.

“You’re part of the crew now, as well,” Jake said then added, “Thanks for taking care of her.”

Wood raised an eyebrow then nodded. If a smile appeared, it was brief and hard to make out in the darkness of the room. Had he given too much away?

Norman Raines’ face appeared upside down, then he came around to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling, Captain?”

“More importantly,” he replied, “what’s wrong with my ship?”

“Your ship?” he said with mock indignation. “As chief engineer, I feel—”

“No joking. How is she?”

Raines knitted his eyebrows in the way he always did when things were serious. Judging by his look, they were all about to die. “Everything except life support is offline, and I mean everything.”

“Is the hull intact?”

“Hard to tell without diagnostics, but if there were a breach, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Then give me an estimate. How long to get her operational? You can use anyone you want as help. I’ll even pitch in. I’m pretty good with—”

“You don’t understand, Captain. We have no power.”

“I do understand that. I still need an estimate. Even a rough guess will do for now.”

Raines leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. “When I say that we have no power, what I mean is that our batteries have been drained. Both sleds. Completely.”

It took a moment for those words to sink in. “Drained? Completely? That’s impossible.”

Raines nodded. “Obviously not impossible but very difficult to do. The device was well concealed.

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