Wreck of the Nebula Dream (2 page)

“We should be at the
Nebula Dream
in another twenty minutes standard, sir,” she said as she took his empty tumbler, deftly replacing it with another refill.

Nick swirled the ice cubes in the heavy glass. “We’ll leave orbit on time then? Even with the delay?”

 
“Oh yes, although SMT Lines certainly apologizes for the unusual ground time, sir.” She leaned close to him, her perfume drifting around Nick like a spring day on a green planet. It was actually a bit cloying. He stifled a sneeze.
Too floral.
 

Maybe he would ask her to dinner on the ship
. It would pass some time on what Nick dreaded as a mind-numbingly boring cruise.

Lingering by his seat, she brushed his arm with her hip. “The last passenger to board is a major SMT stockholder and sits on the Board of Directors. They were all supposed to make this trip to Sector Hub with us, for the
Dream
’s maiden voyage, but I heard most of the others were stricken with the flu.”

“His wife sure isn’t much for space travel,” Nick said, making himself wait to start on the fresh drink.
 

“Perhaps she’s never been offplanet before.” The woman shrugged, attention already subtly shifting to her next customer. Hastily, Nick thumbprinted the drink chit. Taking it from him, she said, “We see this kind of apprehension in new travelers occasionally, although I must say hers was a bit extreme.”
 

Not at all offended at being left alone, Nick leaned back. A burst of loud laughter from the set of seats all the way forward, on the starboard side of the shuttle, drew his attention briefly. There was a big party of fifteen or twenty of the Inner Sector Socialites – the kind who were to be found at any high-visibility, publicity-laden event.
They travel in flocks, with no purpose other than to be of the moment.
Their world was so far removed from the grit and danger of his reality, he could hardly comprehend it.
But I risk my neck to save you pretty, useless people.
 

Whoa, thinking too deeply here.
Raising his eyebrows at the rowdy party, he studied the depths of his drink, swirling the amber liquid and oddly shaped ice cubes in the heavy, embossed glass. The ice cubes were in the shape of the SMT crest, he realized with a chuckle. The SMT crest was ubiquitous on this shuttle. One of the Socialites had even appropriated an attendant’s badge and was now wearing it in her pink and yellow hair.

Nick’s musings were abruptly interrupted by a harsh scream from the curtained-off area where the noble’s party had taken up their place in secluded splendor, a class even more exclusive than the other First Level passengers already aboard.
 

Wailing, the pregnant young wife came down the aisle, moving awkwardly at a pace between a waddle and a run. Threatening to trip her headlong, one of the pets was skittering around her ankles. She and the pet scattered the ‘Lites who had been lounging in the aisles as she pushed and shoved ruthlessly through them.

She threw herself at the emergency hatch, banging on it, fumbling with the controls. No one but Nick was in any kind of position to thwart her apparent suicidal impulse.
 

Incredulous, reacting automatically to the threat, Nick dropped his drink and vaulted over the side of his chair, reaching her in four quick steps. Gently but firmly, he captured her wrists, the sharply faceted gems on her bracelets digging into his palms. He eased the distraught woman a few feet away from the hatch, into the main cabin.

As they struggled, he tried not to hurt her. When she calmed down marginally Nick released her, stepping aside a bit. She was sobbing so hard her breathing was affected.

The lead attendant came up beside him, tapping him on the shoulder. “We’ll handle this, sir, if you could please return to your seat.”
 

Stepping away, Nick found himself standing next to the father of the children he’d noticed earlier. The man smiled indulgently. “Pregnant women have the strangest fears and forebodings. And cravings! She’ll be fine, once we’re on the
Nebula Dream
, I’m sure. Maybe the ship’s doctor can give her something for nerves. Although, they don’t usually want to sedate a pregnant woman.”

Out of his depth in any discussion about gravid females, Nick considered going to his seat as requested. He wasn’t quite convinced things had played themselves out. Keeping a wary eye on events by the airlock, he was ready to move in again, should another attempt be made by anyone to open the door while they were in transit.
At least the incident broke the boredom.

The noble pushed rudely past Nick, going to face his weeping wife, who began begging him not to force her to make the journey. “Kill me now,” she pleaded, in Basic so rapid it was hard to follow. Dramatically, she pulled a small dagger from beneath her robes, and tried to hand it to him, bejeweled hilt first. Alarmed by the weapon, the crew members retreated. The other wives were aghast, berating the woman in some unknown language from a safe distance, like a trio of fishwives. The pet yapped and bounced under their feet until someone pushed it roughly away. Whining, the animal took refuge under the nearest seat.

“Kill me yourself,” demanded the pregnant wife, ignoring the other witnesses, focusing completely on her husband. “Kill your unborn son with your own hand rather than have us suffer what Fate sends to that ship. Don’t let us die on a cursed vessel. Be merciful!”

The noble was plainly embarrassed, mildly worried about his wife, but far more distressed to be the center of such an ill-bred scene. The Socialites were tittering and pointing, making jokes. As a wave of their high-pitched, jarring laughter filled the shuttle after some particularly rude sally by one of the group, the man reached a decision.
 

Beckoning to the SMT attendants, he said, “I wish to return to the surface.” He drew himself up to his full height, hands on hips.

“But, sir, we’re more than halfway to the
Nebula Dream
. We can’t go back now. The pilot can’t reverse course once we’re in an assigned departure trajectory.” The lead attendant was so startled by the demand her customer service mask slipped again for a moment. Taking a breath, she lowered her voice. “It’s just not possible, sir. I’m sorry. Perhaps if we can get your wife to her seat and bring her some calming herbal tea –”

“My mind is made up.” Making a slashing motion, the noble cut harshly across her soothing offer. “I don’t care what problems your pilot has. They aren’t my concern. My wife is so irrational at the moment she’s jeopardizing her own health and that of our unborn son. We’ll journey to Sector Hub another time.”

He would not be budged. The shuttle’s pilot came from the cockpit to argue, requesting they at least finish the trip and drop off the other passengers. The mere suggestion sent the wife into renewed hysteria. She apparently suspected some trick would be played on her, an attempt made to get her onto the
Nebula Dream
once they docked in orbit.

“I’ll kill myself, then, if you aren’t man enough to do it,” she screamed, raising the dagger her husband refused to take. Far gone in hysteria and panic, she slashed at her right wrist twice, before pointing the blade at her swollen abdomen.

Moving in the blink of an eye, brushing rapidly past the ineffectual noble and the cabin attendants, Nick inserted himself into the domestic drama yet again.

 
Usually my job to kill people,
not keep them from committing messy suicide.
Nick’s reflexes kicked into high gear.
 

With a savage, throat-tearing scream, the woman he was attempting to save went on the offensive, slashing at his face with her knife. Nick staved off the first blow, losing his grip on her as a result. Her wild second thrust with the glittering blade tore through the sleeve of his civilian shirt, leaving him with a stinging slash in the upper right arm. Cursing wildly at him in her native language, she took aim at his face. Having been given no choice, he roughly disarmed her.

 
The jeweled dagger went spinning away across the shuttle’s deck, drops of their commingled blood splattering the bulkhead until it disappeared under a seat. His unlikely adversary cried out with pain, trying to get loose, presumably to retrieve her weapon. Wrapping one arm around her, Nick eased her to the deck as she swayed and crumpled. Somehow he managed to keep them both from further injuries as they fell.
 

He’d no idea what language her people spoke – he hadn’t heard enough of it to trigger any of his implanted linguistic reflexes. Cradling her, Nick tried a reassuring murmur in Basic. “It’s all right, madame, we’re in no danger. The shuttle flies normally. There’s no need for you to –”

“Fool!” She literally spat at him, twisting her upper body so she could see his face. “If we set foot on that cursed ship, we’ll all die!” Her beautiful face contorted further, and she fell against Nick’s chest, weeping, body shaking. “I’ve dreamed it truly. My baby will die unborn with me – we must not go there.”

Shaking his head slightly, Nick tightened his arms around her in a wary attempt to instill comfort and calm.
This is beyond me. Where’s the damn husband? And the flight crew? Why aren’t any of them offering assistance? It certainly isn’t my job to subdue hysterical passengers.
He did draw a line, however, at standing aside while someone made a serious suicide attempt right in front of him, endangering everyone else on the shuttle as well. If Nick hadn’t prevented her from triggering the emergency air lock override, they’d all be dead by now, swept into the thin upper atmosphere of Glideon. The pilots might have survived, locked in the flight deck, but for sure no one else would have. By the Seven Hells, they all owed him – pilots, flight crew and passengers alike.
Damn it, somebody had better step forward soon, help me resolve this.

“If you were a man, you’d kill me yourself,” the woman taunted suddenly, startling Nick, although he didn’t release his hold on her. Then he realized she was speaking over his shoulder, addressing her husband as he nervously shuffled closer to them.

Masking his own thoughts, Nick stared hard at the diffident spouse.
The guy certainly looks big enough to handle his own wife.
 

But then again, if this couple had been able to resolve their own marital spat, he wouldn’t be sitting here on the cold shuttle deck, bleeding, still clutching a hysterical woman in his arms while all the other passengers stared
. I’d be halfway through my next drink by now, relaxing
. He didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry old habits had led him to take the rearmost seat in the shuttle’s luxurious cabin, closest to the exit, back to the wall for automatic self-defense. Even in a totally civilian situation, Nick stayed vigilant.

And now here we sit, on the deck
,
bleeding.
Nick ignored the sluggish flow of his blood from the superficial wound the woman had inflicted on him. He was working to stem the much more rapid loss of blood she was suffering, having apparently managed to slash a vein with her small, wickedly sharp knife. Fury spent, the injured woman sat leaning against him, weeping and crooning to herself in her native language.

“Get the medkit.” Nick snapped his fingers at the gaping attendants, hovering uncertainly by the first row of seats. “This wrist wound of hers needs to be sealed. You’re trained in first aid, aren’t you? I’ll do it myself if you can’t handle it, but we’re losing time. Not life threatening, but we should deal with the blood loss.”

“Absolutely, sir. I’m sorry – I’ll be right back with our first aid supplies.” The attendant shoved her way through the gaping spectators, going to the shuttle’s bow.

Muttering soothing remarks to the distraught woman in her own tongue, which had finally, blessedly snapped into the fore in his mind, Nick tried to keep her calm.

The lead attendant brought the medkit and gingerly applied skin sealant and antibiotics to the slashed wrist, which Nick immobilized for her. The young wife wept, occasionally responding to Nick with broken sentences about her dreams and her unborn child being at risk, to which he told her in halfway-fluent dialect she must do what was best for the baby. Creeping out from under the seat, the pet came to them, crooning as if it sensed the woman’s distress, long green tongue flickering in and out. Curling up next to them, the creature made no other move, to Nick’s relief.
Don’t want to be dealing with
a hysterical woman and an unknown animal.
 

The shuttle had grown quiet, passengers twisted in their seats, staring and listening to the unexpected drama. The Socialites had stopped laughing and joking when the woman made her abortive suicide attempt. Several were complaining in dramatic tones about being nauseated at the sight of the blood, but at least they weren’t demanding service. Nick observed peripherally even the businesswoman had paused in her work to watch the events unfold.

Abruptly, his attention was drawn to the woman he was holding, as she drew in a hissing breath and clutched dramatically at her abdomen, closing her eyes and biting her lip. Eyeing her, he realized she wasn’t displaying the physical symptoms of a woman in labor.
But if that’s how she wants to play it, who am I to get in her way? I’m no medic.
He raised his voice, and put an edge on it, to cut through the squabble. “Gentlemen, you’d better decide something.”

The husband and the pilot glared at him, both equally annoyed at the interruption.