Part Three

2074 INDIAN ROCK POWER PLANT, COLORADO
"Just hold it steady!" Vanessa Damphousse yelled up at the two young men balanced precariously on the catwalk over her head. "Pay attention to what you're doing." Damphousse sighed and looked around. She wondered if her late father had ever had days like these when he had been chief engineer of a power plant. Days when nothing seemed to go right. She wondered if he was sitting up there in heaven now, smiling down at his only daughter as she wiped her sweaty brow in frustration and glared up at her team.

"It don't fit!" one of the men above her shouted back down. "The female coupler is too big. We're gonna have to bring it back down again."

"Just stay where you are," Damphousse answered. "I'll bring up another coupler myself." The two young men just eyed her, but they did not argue. Their boss's Marine training sometimes showed through at the most unpredictable times, and the usually soft spoken and cheerful chief engineer would morph into the long-gone, Chig killing hard charger she once had been. It was not a pretty picture, and once faced with her infrequent but memorable flashs of ire, no one was particularly interested in antagonizing her again. Both these boys had already had that unfortunate experience.

The project to convert the Earth's nuclear power plants to sewell power had begun, in theory, almost as soon as the war ended. It had begun in fact eighteen months ago. It had taken that long for the technology to leave the laboratory, and more importantly, that long for the Trade Commission negotiators on Groomsbridge 34 to guarantee a steady supply of the sewell ore. The initial trade treaty had released to the World Federation an obscure planetary system known to contain small deposits of sewell ore, enough at least to fuel the existing power and weapons development projects. The bulk of the rare fuel deposits still lay deep in Chig territory, however, most of it deep on Kasbek, and further negotiations were under way at that time to secure a more plentiful supply. The last letter Damphousse had gotten from Paul Wang had hinted as much. Of course, he could say nothing outright, but the two old comrades-in-arms knew each other so well that it was not difficult to read between the lines.

In an odd sort of way, Damphousse found the whole thing a little worrisome. Not that she did not agree that sewell fuel was the cleanest, most powerful, most efficient method of providing electricity to the world as had ever been discovered. With an energy force thousands of times that of nuclear power, and so far as the engineers had been able to determine, with none of the waste disposal and pollution problems, sewell fuel was as much in advance of nuclear power as nuclear power had been advanced of coal. It was not the decision to convert that bothered her; taken in and of itself it was eminently sensible. But she had her doubts about putting Earth in the position of becoming dependent upon "foreign" fuel. Perhaps it was just the fact that she had spent her youth fighting them hand to hand, but Damphousse did not trust the Chigs not to turn such a dependency to their own advantage, somewhere along the line.

However, she was just an engineer, she was not a politician, and those decisions were in someone else's hands. In her hands was the very choice honor of supervising the first full power plant conversion from atomic to sewell power. It was an opportunity she did not intend to screw up. She sighed and picked up the parts list.

When the war had first ended, Vanessa Damphousse had actually intended to stay in the Marine Corps. She had told Colonel McQueen as much, but her old squadron leader had merely nodded, not commenting one way or the other as to whether or not he had thought it was a good idea. And then he had gone off as part of the military detachment to the ongoing peace negotiations, taking Paul Wang with him, and Damphousse, reassigned with Nathan West to another squadron, had served out the rest of her term without the rest of the Fifty Eighth. Vansen and Hawkes had gone on to other assignments - Hawkes, to no one's great surprise, electing not to leave the Corps when his sentence was up after all. It had been nice to continue to serve with at least one of her old squad mates, but without the great camaraderie of the Wild Cards to sustain her, the rest of her hitch had just not been the same. When her time was finally finished, she elected not to re-up. McQueen, when she was finally able to tell him, had only smiled. Damphousse did not, as McQueen had once predicted, go back to raising money for charity, however. She went back to school. And from school to engineer, and then chief engineer of the Indian Rock power plant. And from there, into this current mess. She sighed and scanned the parts list in her hand.

"Are you reading that or praying to it?"

Damphousse looked up and smiled at her assistant chief engineer. Everyone had thought her crazy when she had hired Ashby as her second in command. The man had a criminal record, after all, and anyway, he was an In Vitro. But Damphousse had been around for Ashby's participation in the mutiny on board the cargo ship MacArthur, early in the war, and although she did not condone his actions, she understood them. And he had paid his debt. Ashby was a damn good engineer, and besides, she really liked him. When she had found him, by accident, pulling night shift as a security guard, she had offered him a job. She had promoted him to her assistant engineer six months later, when the spot came open at Indian Rock.

"Both, I think," she sighed. "Neither seems to be helping." She explained the problem. Ashby took the parts list out of her hand.

"If those dim bulbs would just read, they wouldn't have these problems," he sighed, frowning at the clipboard. He looked back up at Damphousse. "I'll take care of it."

Damphousse smiled, again, and thanked him. Then her expression got a little sad as she watched Ashby retreating back. Thinking about the MacArthur got her thinking about her old colonel, about the Wild Cards and all that they had shared. Which, in turn, got Damphousse remembering what day it was. Could it have really been ten years? Ten years since she and Shane Vansen had bobbed in a foreign sea becoming more and more convinced they were forgotten. Unaware of the fates of the rest of their comrades? 'Phousse felt a sudden lump in her throat, missing them all.

2064 DAMPHOUSSE
She did not know what was worse, the horrible heat of day time, or the terrible cold of night. Vanessa Damphousse mopped her brow with her fingers, and tried to drip the droplets into the half empty water bottle beside her. She looked up at the cockpit wind screen. She had pulled as much of it away as she was able, but the twisted blast shield still blocked any significant air circulation. Which was a blessing at night, but hell during the day.

She begrudged even that small dampness of sweat still clinging to her fingers. They had begun recycling their body fluids the first day, mixing the reclaimed stuff with the water in the survival gear, but the supply was still running dangerously low, and even with conservation it would not last much longer. And they were losing too much to sweat and evaporation; losing more fluid than they could reclaim. The cockpit tossed fitfully, reminding her of the primary bitter irony in all of this - they were floating away on some body of liquid, and they did not have a hose long enough to reach down the side of the cockpit from the rents in the wind screen and make it all the way down to their watery bed. If it was water, or any other liquid that could be rendered into a drinkable substance for them, they would never know. They would die of thirst, of dehydration, surrounded by something that might have saved their lives. What was that old saw - water, water everywhere?

They were doing a little better in the food department. Careful conservation had stretched it so that they still had several days, maybe a week or more's supply left, and absolute lack of exertion of any kind put few demands on them for fuel. Lack of exertion. That was putting it mildly. The most strenuous activity Damphousse indulged in was an occasional bout of vomiting, brought on, she suspected, by the constant tossing of their little craft.

Damphousse looked over at Vansen, sleeping on the deck in one corner of the cockpit. At first, the other woman had stayed in her cockpit chair, but the fact that she had to keep getting up to relieve herself, or to shift so that Damphousse could get at supplies they had left in the hold because there was no place to stow them above, proved too much of a strain, finally. Her side was too painful for much movement, and her breathing had become very labored, making her weak. Damphousse had finally stripped the seat cushions off the chair and settled Vansen in a corner, where she would not have to move so often. Shane had told her she actually found it easier to breath in that half reclining position against the bulkhead.

Vansen did not say much, but Damphousse was frankly worried. Her friend's breathing had become more and more labored, and her skin was turning blue. Damphousse did not like to think about it, but she was beginning to suspect that one of Vansen's ribs may have punctured a lung. And she had received enough emergency medical training as part of her basic to know that, without proper medical attention, the slowly collapsing lung could eventually create such a lack of oxygen as to cause Vansen's heart to fail.

Secretly, Damphousse thought there was something wrong with the planet's atmosphere, too. While not wholly hostile, it did not seem entirely friendly, either. She, herself, was feeling kind of disoriented and woozy, and was having a hard time getting a satisfactory breath. Sleepy. She was sleeping almost as much as Shane was. Maybe it was a lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. Or maybe just a lack of anything else to keep her attention. She would have enjoyed talking to Shane. There was so much that she wanted to tell her, now that it looked like the end was finally near. It would have been wonderful even to fight, to squabble as they had so often back on the 'Toga when tension and tedium got the better of them. She closed her eyes, fighting tears. Don't you *dare* cry, girl. Waste of water.

She missed them so much. Nathan, Cooper. Paul. Especially Paul. What she would not have given in that moment to spend one more hour with him, to tell him how much his friendship, his support, yes, his love, had meant to her. How he had kept her going when all else seemed lost. Where were they all now? Had they gotten back to the Saratoga? Had they survived that onslaught of Chigs? Probably not, or the SARs would have been there already. She would not believe that her friends would just shrug shoulders and drive on. And the Colonel. How *was* he, she wondered. Would he survive such a terrible injury? And what would he do, now, without a leg? McQueen was a man of action. How could he cope? But even these vague, sad musings had a difficult time staying in Vanessa's consciousness, even grief and fear drifted away, after a moment, on a disoriented fog.

She had no idea how long they had been out there. Maybe a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks. Reality had become too fuzzy; she just did not know. She could not see the sun, though she could feel it, had no idea if the sky was blue or gray or what. She could feel the "sea" beneath her, and guessed it to be vast or they would have made land fall. Or maybe not. Maybe they were just floating around in circles, within sight of land, maybe they had only been out there for hours, rather than days. There was no frame of reference. The rotation of this celestial body could have been longer, or shorter than an earth-standard, she had no way to tell.

She had tried to pray, after the first rush of activity to get them settled had ended. And at first, she had found some comfort in it. Vanessa Damphousse possessed that simple faith that one sometimes found in scientists; the world was so *very* strange and wonderful that is simply stood to reason that a higher being must have created it, must still remain in charge. Prayer was something that had always come easily to her. As a child she had never doubted that God was watching over her, guiding her footsteps. Even as a teenager, when so many of her friends where rebelling, experimenting, rejecting the beliefs in which they had been raised, Vanessa had never lost her faith. Her further studies into physics and engineering had only served to solidify her belief.

Her faith, though, had never been so sorely tested as it was now. Despite all she had seen, all she had done, even despite that frightening, inexplicable power that had briefly manifested itself *within* her, nothing had ever pushed her to such an absolute brink of helplessness. Of hopelessness. It was so hard to say "thy will be done," and accept it. It was all just so *pointless*, to sit there and watch her dear friend slowly suffocate, to know that she would die herself, eventually, from lack of water, there was just no reason for it. This was not battle. It was pathetic!

She tried to shake off the wave of anger that suddenly washed over her. She wanted to smash something, scream out loud. There was no one to hear, though, and she did not have the energy. If the Saratoga knew they were down here, they would have come looking all ready. By now they would be long gone. No one to hear. No one. Vanessa Damphousse was beginning to doubt that even God, if he was there, bothered to listen. He certainly did not appear inclined to do anything about it.

But even anger dissipated almost immediately, nothing much seemed to stay in her mind for long. It was just too much effort. She stared at Vansen's sleeping form, and wondered vaguely, if her friend had already died. She seemed so still, and her skin looked so blue. A dislocated sense of panic gripped her, but not hard enough to make her want to act on it. If Shane was dead, then at least she was out of this. She almost jumped out of her skin when Vansen moved and opened her eyes.

"How ya doing?" Damphousse asked, struggling to pull herself together. She leveraged herself out of her seat and brought a water bottle over to Vansen's side.

Vansen nodded weakly. Damphousse sat down on the deck and lifted the water bottle to Vansen's lips, careful not to let the other woman see how little was really in there, careful not to let her know it was the last one. That they were down to the daily recycle, and who knew how much longer they would last on that. Vansen sipped, swallowed a mouthful.

"Are you hungry?" Damphousse asked. Vansen shook her head. For a a while they just sat there, side by side, holding hands. Vansen's hand felt icy cold in hers, despite the blistering heat inside the cockpit. Damphousse felt herself drifting, unaccountably, again. Vansen squeezed her hand.

"What?"

Vansen nodded her head toward the windscreen and Damphousse followed her gaze.

"I tried, Shane," she said wearily, nodding in turn at the jagged opening in the forward port. "I can't pull any more of it down, and I can't shift the broken blast shield a bit. I know it's hot and airless..."

Vansen shook her head. She was not worried about the internal conditions of the cockpit. She stuck her chin out again, trying to bring Damphousse's attention toward something.

"What? I don't know what you want. I can't understand you," Damphousse sighed. She would have snapped, had she had the energy, but the complaint came out more like a whine.

Vansen squirmed a little in frustration. "Be.." she husked, then sagged, gasping. Damphousse just stared at her as if she was some strange, foreign object. "Be..."

Damphousse shook her head. Vansen pursed her lips. "Beak..."

"Beak?" Damphousse queried. "Beak what? Beaker? You want the water again?"

Vansen shook her head, and gestured again with her chin. She tried to lift her hand, pointed in the direction of the command flight seat. Her hand fell back in her lap, and she shuddered with the effort of exertion. Vansen closed her eyes.

Damphousse stared at the chair. The seat was filled with the discarded detritus of their tenancy, empty food containers, the collapsed shelter they had been using to block the windshield hole at night when it got so cold. The thermal sheets. And on top of the pile, the distress beacon, still unused.

"The beacon? The distress beacon?" Vansen nodded. Damphousse looked at her in surprise. "But you're the one who said it was too dangerous. You said it might attract the Chigs. Or some alien monster if anything lives in this place..."

Vansen just gave her a mournful look. Yeah, thought Damphousse, sure. What the hell difference did it make, now. They were dying, they'd be dead in a few days, anyway, from exposure and thirst. There was no hope without help, and no help had come on its own. The distress beacon was the last chance they had that someone from the Saratoga might find them. Or *any* Earth Forces vessel in the area, for that matter. And if it was the Chigs, or they wound up being hot lunch for some sea monster, well, what the hell. They could not just keep on the way they were going. Sure...

"Sure..." she agreed, she but did not get up right away. After a moment, Vansen squeezed her hand again. Damphousse looked at her, questioningly. Oh. Right. She climbed slowly to her feet, and stumbled, her left leg buckling underneath her. Grabbing the back of the seat, she righted herself. That was weird, her side felt, well, funny. Not tingly, like it had fallen asleep or anything, just, well, not quite right, somehow. She shook her head. Hardly a surprise if she was starting to feel weak, on quarter rations, hardly any water, this cramped space. Shrugging it off, she reached down and picked up the beacon.

It was cylindrical, looked like a flashlight, more than anything else, with a long cord attached to one end. It was usually fired out of a hand held cannon, which was probably still in the bottom of the seat well. Damphousse somehow could not muster the energy to retrieve it. She would just have to toss it out the window and let it hang on the side of the cockpit. She gave it a twist. The mechanism activate by turning the top once, and it emitted a super-sonic pulse, undetectable to human ears. She could tell it was on only by the red light flashing on the top. Holding the string in her left hand, she tossed it up and out the shattered wind screen. It took her three tries. Then, lashing the safety cord to the control stick, she went back and sat beside Shane, putting her arm around the other woman, holding her gently so not to pain her any more.

"Well," she sighed, as lethargy washed over her, and her vision blurred. "It's done now. There's nothing else we can do but wait." Vansen just nodded.

"Phousse?" she said weakly, after a moment.

"What?"

"Pray?"

Damphousse looked away. Vansen grabbed her wrist with what strength she had and grunted angrily.

"Pray..."

Damphousse finally nodded. Yes, she would pray. She had always prayed, and always felt she had been answered, eventually. She would not abandon her faith now, just when the going got toughest. Whatever God had in mind for her, for them, it was his business, and she could only wait and see.

"I'm praying, Shane. I'm praying for both of us."

Vansen nodded again, and loosened her grip on Damphousse's arm. Damphousse put her cheek down against the top of Vansen's head.

"I love you girl," she sighed as a fine fog of light settled over her. "Whatever happens, it will be okay..."

Next : Part Four

Previous : Part Two