In the end, Dan's off-the-cuff guess was correct. Whatever had crippled their ship had hit it with enough force to rotate it almost 180 degrees by the time it arrived at the jump gate, and by sheer dumb luck the engines speared through the field instead of crashing into the gate. The instant the metal of the ship touched the rippling, almost invisible field, the science of man bent the laws of nature and the ship - most of it, anyway - disappeared.  The warp field grabbed the hull like the event horizon of a black hole, pulling it through with such violent force that the inertial compensators inside were hard-pressed to keep the occupants from being smashed into a red paste against the interior walls.  

As it was, everyone onboard felt the sickening drops and lurches of the universe's largest roller coaster as the prow of the still-turning ship snapped around in a vain attempt to follow the rear. Stress cracks opened up on the hull in a hundred places, but by some miracle the majority of the ship held together. The last few meters of the cruise ship's nose hit the ring hard as they went through, destroying the gate and sending a hailstorm of wreckage out into surrounding space.

Most of the passengers and crew had no idea what had happened.  The restraining fields that sprang to life the instant they hit the gate had pinned the majority of passengers and crew securely against the soft interior walls for most of their wild ride, but even such sophisticated technology could not prevent such monumental forces from shattering bones and damaging the internal organs of people who had been awkwardly positioned or trapped against immovable objects when the crisis struck.

In the chapel, Bo and Dan had only the general inertial field to protect them.  It kept them alive, but through their bond Dan could feel the metal support pole gripped in Bo's handpaw buckling under their combined weight, and he sensed Bo's momentary worry that he might not be able to keep them upright. Pushing his feet to the end of his sandals, he extended his toe claws as far as he could into the chapel's thin carpet to help stabilize them.

On the emergent side of the field, the collision of the ship's prow on the Earthside gate pushed the stern around in a wild spin.  The tail of the ship narrowly missed slamming into the side of the jump gate, but impact from trailing debris took its toll on the structure nonetheless.  Large chunks slammed into the body of the ring, leaving divots behind as marks of their passage. In the stunning silence of hard vacuum, the lights on the great ring flickered for a few moments and then winked out.

In space, emergencies tend to resolve themselves quickly, and only a second or two after that first mysterious impact the ship floated free, a delicate bubble of air spinning ponderously through the serene silence between planets.  The restraining fields extinguished themselves as quickly as they'd been erected, and hundreds of dazed and unconscious people floated in microgravity, some bumping into one another like a grisly amusement park ride as they fell.  In the chapel, Bo maintained his death grip on the pylon while the other arm held Dan fast against him.  

As he felt Bo relax beneath him, Dan reluctantly retreated from the warmth and comfort of their shared space and into the fear and isolation of his own mind.  The chapel's emergency lights had gone out, but by the slightly blue-tinged light of the colony's sun shining through the dome he could see enough to tell that the room was in shambles.  Dim red lights suddenly blinked on and the pair felt the gravity plating gradually increase its pull until everything that had come loose in the room wafted gently to the ground.  By Bo's estimation the gravity had only powered up to about half its normal strength, due to a desire to conserve power, he hoped, rather than as a result of some unknown mechanical failure.

Dan scrubbed his face with his hands to clear out the cobwebs.  

this cruise ship is nice

he thought, not trusting his voice to be stable,

but I don't think it's heaven

i guess we made it through

"Mostly," Bo answered, looking around them at the wreckage in the forward lounge.  The resilient dome hadn't shattered, but its opening had warped and air escaped around the incomplete seal with an ugly hiss. "When the field spun us around, I think we may have taken out the exit gate, too."

Dan disentangled himself from Bo's arms, and watched the starfield slowly spin by.  

The ship must be pretty badly damaged

if we can't even maintain basic attitude control

When the ship's rotation brought the gate into view once more, Dan felt a little better.  Except for the large field of debris sparkling in the sun, and the fact that none of the gate's navigation lights were on, it seemed mostly intact.  

“It's not dead," Bo said cautiously, as he peered over Dan's shoulder.  “The subspace field is still holding it in place, so it's still getting power."

Dan looked relieved, but Bo held up both hands.  “Don't be getting your hopes up," he warned.  “All the power in the world won't run a broken gate."  Bo blinked his eyes hard and tried to regain his mental focus.  The varius rebuked himself silently for feeling so dazed in a time of crisis.  In his military days, he could rouse himself from a cold sleep and be fully functional within seconds.  Now was not the time to be so damned soft, he thought to himself.

Suddenly, his canine ears shot up in alarm. “Oh, fuck." Wasting no time, he grabbed Dan's arm and pulled him towards the door.  “We've got to get out of here now.  If the pressure drop from that loose window gets too bad, this cabin will seal itself off from the rest of the ship."  Stupid, stupid, stupid… Bo berated himself from behind his mental shields.  He hoped he'd been hit on the head from a piece of flying debris.  At least that way he could have some excuse for not immediately reacting to the sound of escaping air.

Next to the door was a small metal plate held on with magnetic latches.  Bo pulled it loose, threw it aside and reached inside for the big, yellow emergency release handle.  Although it was sized generously for sapiens use, it fell woefully short of accommodating the hand of a battle varius.  Bo managed to wedge two oversized fingers through the handle's loop and rotate it ninety degrees, taking great care not to break it off in his haste.  They held their breath for a beat as the computer sampled the air in their room and calculated how much oxygen the ship would lose by opening the door.  

To Bo's immense relief, the decision came down in their favor and the door slid open, the breeze of fresh air from the corridor outside the room  reminding them that after only a few more minutes, the pressure loss in the chapel would have been deadly. The computer apparently came to the same conclusion, for no sooner had the door slid shut behind them than deadman latches clicked audibly into place, sealing the room until emergency crews could repair the damage.

"We'd better get back to the others," Dan said, moving in the direction of their room.

"Woah, woah, woah," Bo said, halting Dan with a hand on his arm.  "I'm not gonna get locked in a cabin until some fancy-pants yeoman decides to let us out. There's gotta be something we can do to help."

Dan wasn't sure how much use he'd be in fixing a damaged starship, but he certainly agreed with the sentiment. He'd much rather be 'out here' than 'in there.'  As they made their way down the hallway Dan could make out faint sounds of people complaining from behind locked cabin doors, and a part of him wanted to help them all by telling them how to use the emergency releases the way Bo had.

do not even think about it

Bo gave him a stern look to emphasize his point. “They're safer in there, where they can't get in the way," he grumbled aloud. “Anyone who's going to be helpful won't still be locked in their cabin."

“Good point," Dan said, mentally shrugging his shoulders. Sorry, folks.

The vidscreen guides they ran past were all dark, but Bo didn't need them.  He remembered the way to the bridge from their impromptu trudge around the ship on their first day; what seemed like a million years ago.  The bridge door was secured, so Bo timed their entry behind a frantic-looking junior officer who wasn't paying the slightest attention to security.

The Captain was far more observant than his junior crew. "What are you doing in here?" he demanded, in his peculiar accent  He glared at Dan accusingly, daring him with furiously bushy eyebrows to make any common complaint in this time of crisis.

Having no better answer to give, Dan pointed to Bo.  "I'm with him."

The Captain turned his steely gaze to Bo without missing a beat. "Fine. So why are you here?"

"I am varius." Bo rumbled, in his deepest voice.  “We will help."

The captain's face bore an exasperated look that neither Bo nor Dan had trouble interpreting. The man was well aware of the traits which made varii invaluable in a crisis, but the fact that the battle-varius standing in front of him was eager to help did not necessarily make him useful.  The captain also could see that the man had no place to be, and that lack of purpose was eating him alive.

"Stand over there," the captain finally said, pointing to a corner of the cramped bridge.  "There is nothing for you to do at this moment, but if you stay out of the way, we will give you the next thing."  His accent was thick, but they understood him and obediently moved away.

Bo reached up and gave his ears that peculiar twist that allowed them to stand upright, and stood silently with Dan under one arm.  Dan tried to relax, but after only a few minutes of standing still and watching everyone else on the bridge scurry about, he was growing annoyed.

*impatience*

Dan reached out to his partner with his mind, but abandoned that idea as soon as he cracked open the passage between them.  Bo's mind was a whirlwind of sights and sounds coming from a dozen different sources all around them in a maelstrom of information that was gibberish to Dan but meant plenty to Bo.  Dan chose to speak to him instead of breaking his concentration.  "Why are we just standing here doing nothing?" he whispered.

"We're not doing nothing," Bo said, distractedly.  "We're gathering information."  His sensitive canine hearing had picked up conversations from every corner of the bridge, and none of them so far had been encouraging.

*worried*

“Go find Lucas."

"Yeah," Dan whispered, "I think I'd better."  He wasn't a step away when Bo pulled him back.

"He's not in the cabin," Bo whispered near his mate's ear.

"Where, then?"  Dan whispered back.  He was sure Bo was right, there was no way any varius would be sitting still in the middle of a crisis.  

"I dunno. Serving somewhere," Bo said, "probably with Victus."

"Okay, so where's Victus?" Dan exclaimed.  It was a big ship.

"Shh," Bo reminded him to be quiet. "You just had a bond with Vic," he reasoned. "If you can settle down, maybe you can feel where he is."

"It's not the same as ours," Dan grumbled.

“You're good at this," Bo encouraged, backing away. “You can do it!"  He gave Dan a quick thumbs-up, then went back to listening.

Dan wanted to help, but he wasn't sure he could do it. Connecting with Bo was stupidly easy.  Like finding the polarity of two magnets, when the two were in close proximity they were automatically drawn together. Falling into each other's minds was easier than staying out. Detecting another person's thought patterns, however, was something Dan had only toyed with before, and never with any real success.

Doing his best to avoid the few hollow-eyed passengers who were free and stumbling through the hallways, he tried without success to expand his mental boundaries. Where the hell are you?  Dan shouted into the ether, sensing nothing in return other than Bo's slamming of a mental door between them.  Hoping that familiar surroundings might help him locate his friend, Dan headed for the ship's small library.

The ugly red velvet in the room did little to sooth his nerves; it was too close to the color of blood.  Dan was discouraged and cultivating a headache when he remembered what Sam had told him about sending soothing feelings to Bo. "You're trying too hard, Kid. Just relax."   Consciously loosening the tension in his shoulders, he leaned back in the comfortable chair and allowed his mind to drift.

Within a handspan of minutes Dan thought he might be feeling the familiar tickle of Victus in the back of his mind.  It was like hearing the voice of someone he knew in a nearby room; the sense of recognition came not from understanding individual words, but from cadence and tone.  After a few moments, he felt certain that he had located their friends.

That glowing ember in his mind was like a very dim light in an otherwise totally dark room - he could almost tell where it was coming from, but if he dared look straight at it, it disappeared.  He stood, fearful at first of losing the tenuous connection, but now that he recognized the feeling for what it was, it seemed somehow anchored in his awareness.  He still could not have said precisely where the Kenzine was, but at least he now had a bearing to follow.

His feet took him toward the rear of the ship, and Dan supposed that made the most sense.  If Vic and Luc were going to help, it seemed logical that they'd be in the part of the ship that had sustained the most damage.  The front part of the ship hadn't seemed all that bad from what Dan had seen, tempting him to wonder what all the fuss was about.  

The aft of the ship was a different story.  Random doors on either side of the hallway had been sealed over with the gooey gray foam they'd all been introduced to at the safety lecture, and Dan wondered if the occupants of those rooms had made it out in time. Resolutely, he decided to believe that they had.  Negative thinking would do none of them any good, and given a choice, he would rather believe that they lived.   

The ship's stewards were herding the other passengers into their berths the way a mother hen might tend her chicks, and Dan counted on his stern, business-like demeanor to keep any of them from attempting the same thing with him. I know what I'm doing, he told himself, I belong here.  He was glad he'd taken the few minutes to go back to their cabin and change.  The “I belong here" act would not be going so smoothly had he been wearing a bathing suit.

Dan realized that he'd made three consecutive left turns and must be walking in a circle.  Knowing nothing else to do, he chanced putting a firm hand on the shoulder of a uniformed steward.  “There is a varius Kenzine working down here," he asked, confidently. “He's needed on the bridge."

Without hesitation, the steward put a hand to his ear and activated his comm. “Who's got the priest?" he asked, then turned his attention back to Dan. “Cabin twenty-two eleven," he said, pointing the way.  “Open that door to the other side, go down the hallway and make a right."  Before Dan could walk away the man called to him. “Is somebody dead?" the steward asked, worriedly. “Is it a Thai woman?"

Confused by the question, Dan stopped to consider.  He thought he did remember a small, Asian-ish woman on the bridge. “Would she be the one wearing a red and gold cap?" he asked.

The man's face threatened to crumple, but he nodded.  Dan's hand shot out as if of its own accord to rest comfortingly on the other man's arm. Where did the impulse to do that come from? he wondered.  He normally wasn't so touchy-feely. “She's fine," he said, smiling gently at the steward, “She didn't seem to be injured when I saw her."  He gave the man's back a sympathetic pat and walked off in the direction he'd been pointed, thinking that the man's reaction had been rather peculiar.

The man's reasoning became much more clear to Dan when he walked through the doorway of 2211 and found Victus giving last rites to someone less fortunate than they.  Dan stood respectfully as he finished, then spoke quietly.  “Bo needs us on the bridge," he said, trusting that no further explanation would be necessary.

“Mmm…." Victus hummed and looked at the sheet-draped body before them.  “I think I'm just about finished here anyway."  He ushered Dan out the door and closed it behind them, then marked a large “X" on the cabin with a marking pen.  “Lucas told me that whatever happened, Bo would probably be at the forefront."

“What do you think he meant by that?" Dan asked, curious about Lucas's comment.

Victus looked at him closely then raised an eyebrow. “Nothing bad, I think."  He peered into the doorways as they passed, looking for their missing canine.  “In times of crisis, some men instinctively run straight for the enemy, and others search for a weapon.  Some run for the wounded, others instinctively grab a hammer and start building things.“

Realizing that Lucas was nowhere to be seen, Victus stopped at an intersection and pulled a small, black box from his robes.  He tapped out a quick code on its single button and waited patiently. “Loathe as he may be to admit it,' he said, “your husband was born to command."  

“Some sort of radio?" Dan guessed, his interest shanghaied by the box.

“Ultrasonic." Victus's ears went up for a moment when he heard something too quiet for Dan's ears to detect, then he put the box back in its inner pocket.  “Sound waves aren't subject to interference the way radio waves are," he explained, “and even if someone intercepted them they wouldn't know what they mean."  A moment later Lucas rounded the corner a block away, and as soon as the two spotted him, they turned and started for the bridge.

“I seriously doubt the woman in that cabin was a Kenzine," Dan observed, as they walked.  “You could still give them last rites?"

Victus smiled, sadly. “Most religions are remarkably permissive where death rites are concerned," he observed. “I believe that ultimately, they just want someone to be there and hold their hand in those last minutes."

Less than three minutes later they were standing on the bridge, and Lucas wasted no time in getting brought up to speed.  He and Bo spoke to each other in the rapid-fire milspeak language that allowed for quick, reliable communication between members of various subspecies over a static-filled subspace connection.  It wasn't the prettiest language on Earth and it fell on its face where conveying emotions was concerned, but it got the job done.

"We're safe for right now, but the ship was damaged more than they're telling us," Bo whispered, speaking in full English for Victus' benefit. "The engines are down and the lifeboats have been damaged.  "Tulle," he said, pointing discreetly toward a tall, thickly-boned, blonde-haired Scandinavian man who Dan recognized from their dinner at the Captain's Table, "is trying to get the captain to release the colony shuttles and construction crews so they can go down to the planet."  His eyes narrowed in annoyance.  "He's arguing that they were supposed to get off at this gate anyway, so why stick around to help anyone else off this boat. And the captain's too polite to interrupt him."

"Charming," Dan drawled. “Are we going to be stuck here?"

"He's actually making a pretty compelling argument," Bo added.  "We'd better shut him down before he convinces the captain."  He beckoned to the other three. "Follow my lead."

The men surrounding the captain looked up at the four men's approach. “Yes?" The captain sounded weary, but Dan thought he might also be hearing relief at the interruption.

He had directed his question to Dan but it was Bo who answered, his voice carrying military authority.  “Respectfully, you waste time discussing situations which have no options. The lifeboats are too damaged to repair in time and the debarkation shuttles won't make the trip, so there are no other options. We must clear room in those shuttles for as many people as possible."

Tulle was livid. “Everything in those shuttles is a carefully planned package!  You can't just throw things out randomly and hope for the best, you need everything in there!  And even if you didn't, we own the shuttles and everything in them. They belong to us, and to remove any of it is out of the question!"  By the time he finished, he was sweeping himself along on a furious rant.

Bo remained calm, and when he talked to the colony's foreman his tone was far more respectful than Dan had anticipated.  “Sir," he began, “I'm willing to bet you've fought long and hard to get this colony this far.  Am I right?" At the man's heated nod, Bo continued. “As one fighter to another, I'm certain you're intelligent enough to invest your energy fighting the battles you can win."

Reaching down, Bo pressed the tips of two fingerpads onto one of the table's display screens. Spreading them, he enlarged the planet's image. “Unless something amazing happens, in about five hours, this ship is going to make a very large hole in this planet, and there's no way in hell that this man," he put a hand on the captain's shoulder, “is going to let the people under his care die so that your building materials will survive."  He looked pointedly at the captain. “Am I right?"

The captain crossed his arms and looked dissatisfied, but had to agree. “Yes.  You are rude, but you are correct."

Bo turned back to Tulle.  “You will not win this battle. I'm assuming that you plan on being on one of those ships when they go down?"

“You bet your ass I will," Tulle said, brusquely.

“Well, in about twenty minutes, my people are going to start pulling shit out of those shuttles. Every minute you fight us, you waste time on a battle you can't win - time that would be better spent overseeing the unloading process and making sure we don't pull anything out of those shuttles that's going to kill you if we leave it behind."  

My people? Dan wondered. Who the hell is he talking about?

Again Bo tapped the table, this time bringing the damaged gate into focus.  “Even if they could fix this ship, the jumpgate is dead. Without it you're going to be stuck here for quite a while.  Wouldn't you rather have some control over what gets thrown away, before you have to survive on the random crap we think looks useful?"

Tulle opened his mouth as if to retort, but having nothing to say, he shut it.

“We can't do this by hand," Bo turned to the captain. “We need a couple of loaders."

“Use all the machinery you need, but don't use my crew" the captain insisted.  “They're busy keeping this pile of scrap together.  My engineers think they can restart the engines, so that's something to hope for."

“And go where?"  Lucas was barely able to see around Bo in the cramped quarters, but his voice was loud and clear. “With a broken gate, it's not like you've got a bunch of options."

“Into a stable orbit," the captain shot back. “Given time, we can fix the lifeboats and get everyone else down." He glanced at the status display, which was showing an ever-increasing number of red telltales. “But I'm not going to bet everything on that happening, so get as many people down as you can."  He opened a drawer under the command console and pulled out a worn silver key card. “This will get you into the shuttle bay," he said, handing the card to Bo.  “You might have to try it a couple of times, but it should work.  Good luck."

Bo slipped the card into his lanyard holder. “It's as good a plan as any, I guess. Come on," he said, patting Tulle on the shoulder. “Let's get to work."

Tulle sighed disgustedly.  “I have to tell my people what's happening."

“Well, then, who's your second?"  Bo asked, unwilling to delay. “I'll talk to him."

“My second's back on Earth with appendicitis," Tulle scowled back at him. “You just elected yourself to the position."

Bo turned to the door, wasting no more time. “Fuck me," he muttered, sotto voce.

***

“I think we can get maybe a couple of hundred people on each shuttle, if we cram them in," Bo said, his long legs taking strides that made the others jog to keep up.

“Wait."

Bo turned around to see Lucas planted where he was, arms across his chest.  If it were anyone else Bo might have walked just off without him.  Maybe it was their shared military experience, but something made him willing to cut his fellow varius some slack.

“I know you want to get this done ASAP," the other canine said, uncrossing his arms and moving slowly to where Bo stood, “but I think you're missing some big things, here."

At Bo's puzzled look, Lucas looked around him pointedly.  “Air.  How much can each of those shuttles scrub?"

“Fuck me," Bo grunted, under his breath, realizing he'd almost turned the cargo shuttles into flying coffins.  “I have no idea," he admitted.

“Tell the captain not to announce word of this to anyone until we know," Lucas advised.  “If a thousand people show up and we've only got two hundred seats, it's going to get real messy, real quick."

“Grok." Bo nodded. “Next?"

“Talk and walk," Lucas suggested, starting them moving again. “You're our point man, so go tell the captain to keep a lid on it until we call him with a number.  And get his codes so we can call him direct," he shouted at Bo's retreating back, as an afterthought

Thirty seconds later Bo was back and they were walking to the shuttle bays. “What's on those shuttles might have to last us a very long time," Lucas guessed.  “If we know we can only take fifty people on each one, we should only take out enough stuff to fit those fifty in there.  Anything beyond that reduces our odds"

“Agreed," Bo nodded, his face not changing. “Next?"

“The more air people use, the fewer we can carry. If we knock everyone out for the trip we can fit more in."

“Good point."  Bo put a hand on his mate's back and leaned down to speak. “Go find the ship's doctor, bring him up to speed and ask him if we have any way of sedating a large number of people."

“How many?"

“Don't know," Bo replied, “but he might.  I'll call you when we know more.  A couple of hundred, maybe?"

Dan nodded and peeled off from the group.  When he peered into their link, he felt complimented beyond all measure when he felt Bo's opinion of him.  

*pride*