USS Hamilton: Miasma Burn by Mark Wayne McGinnis

Author:Mark Wayne McGinnis [McGinnis, Mark Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avenstar Productions
Published: 2020-09-12T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

I’d left Ensign Plorinne in charge of coordinating any necessary Bridge repairs – of which there seemed to be far fewer than expected. Hardy, good to his word, had done an amazing job diverting the blasting of critical ship technologies. Prior to my leaving the Bridge, maintenance techs were already milling about, fixing or replacing any damaged components.

My first stop (or should I say our first stop, since my protector in chief, Hardy, was now back at my side), was HealthBay. Stepping out of the GravLift on Deck 10, I said, “And the whole crack thing at the back of your head. The radiation?”

“LuMan prefers to call it a fissure. Not so much a crack as a manufacturing defect. No radiation had ever penetrated this big beautiful head of ours. What I, we, had encountered within that reactor chamber was a near-total AI processes shutdown. Perhaps the alien’s biggest mistake was not considering me. Sure, the LuMan core was down for the count, but I was still there, watching. The other mistake he made was allowing for a multiplexed bidirectional communications link. Yeah, he was controlling LuMan, but in time, I was, in turn, dinking around with all the controls inside his fighter. I didn’t know what controlled what, but eventually, I figured things out. Once I’d gotten his cabin air mixture unbalanced, and he was unconscious . . . I brought LuMan back to life – enough to eradicate the Varapin coding changes.”

“And you’re sure you got it all? That it can’t happen again?”

“Positive. I apologize for letting it happen in the first place. Sorry I became such a liability.”

For once, Hardy wasn’t putting on a wisecrack face – he meant what he was saying.

“All’s well that ends well,” I said, as we entered HealthBay.

I was surprised to see that several beds were occupied. These patients looked to have non-life-threatening injuries – bandaged heads, arms in slings, a nose splint. Several doctors, and twice as many nurses, were busy attending to other patients with injuries not severe enough to be issued a bed.

“By this evening, we’ll kick all of them out of here,” came the familiar voice to my left. “All the injuries were incurred by trying to escape him. Falls mostly.” Doc Viv tore off her bloody scrubs followed by her just-as-bloody gloves. She looked about her department with a measured glare. “This could have been a whole lot worse.” She put her attention onto Hardy. “Captain, I’ll have to ask you to send your ChronoBot out into the passageway. These patients . . . just the sight of him – ”

“Sorry, Doc, but no. Hardy’s not going anywhere and what damage was done was not his fault. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Hardy’s intervention, these people . . . hell, all of us would be dead.” Raising my chin, I gestured to Hardy to get started.

“What’s he doing?” She asked.

I didn’t answer her, deciding that actions spoke louder than words. Hardy moved over to the closest bed, where the woman crewmember looked up at the robot, practically cowering.

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