As clearly as if he'd been standing next to Bo, Dan's voice came through their link.

*urgency*

bo

Bo paused, wrench in hand.

what

get over to shuttle three

they need you

Bo grunted in annoyance, not at his partner but that his attention was being pulled in so many directions at once.

*impatient*

Can you take care of it

*distracted*

I am busy

And I'm not?  Bo asked himself, careful to keep his mental shields up.  They were all busy and Dan wasn't the sort of man to shirk responsibility, so he'd probably be better off just shutting up and trusting his husband.

be right there

Fortunately, the shuttle that Bo was helping to fit with seat belts was only a few meters away from shuttle three. He pulled off his gloves, walked around the shuttle's nose and immediately wondered how in the seven hells he hadn't already heard what was going on.  One of the forklift drivers had lowered a skid of material into the shuttle's bay with the forks still tilted backward, leaving a large gap in the lifting mechanism into which the door's frame had jammed.  When the pilot tilted the forks forward to release the load, that gap had clamped onto the door frame like a giant metal shear, locking the two machines together in a death grip and doing untold damage to the door's ability to seal.  

“Oh, holy fuck," Bo grumbled, coming close to losing his patience with the forklift's driver.  He reminded himself yet again that most of the people he was working with weren't experienced and he couldn't expect them to maneuver this sort of heavy machinery with the same skill as men and women who did it every day. “What happened? No, that's stupid," he corrected himself, “I can see what happened."  He shook his head.  “Let's just fix it and move on."

Bo clambered onto the cargo floor and motioned to the man in the driver's seat.  “Tilt the forks up."  When he saw the man's hand touch the lifting controls he threw up his hands. “Wait!" he barked. “Do not raise the forks!  Tilt them. That's the middle lever!  Tilt only!"

Sheepishly, the driver slowly, ever so gently levered back the forks, and Bo watched the heavy steel rails pull away from the mangled door frame.  “Hold it," he called, raising a hand to the driver. He tried looking under them but the sight lines were all wrong.  He jumped down to the landing bay floor and tried looking at a different angle.

“Whaddya see?"  one of Tolliver's men asked.

“The forks bent the metal around the door frame," Bo said, distractedly, as he activated his comm's illuminator and pointed it at the damage. “The two pieces of metal are wrapped around each other.  No matter how he moves, it's going to do damage."

“And you can't just pull the forks up or it might rip clean off," the man observed.  Bo thought Tolliver had called the man Dickinson, or maybe Dickerson.

Bo nodded agreement. “No way to fix it out here," he said, “and no time, even if there was a way.  I think this shuttle's fucked for passengers, but we might still be able to get the cargo down."

In his mind, Bo heard Dan rounding the corner before his ears could hear him.

no

no

no

“No, no, no!"  Dan said, sounding impatient in that way that made Bo want to give himself a face-palm, but occasionally indicated a genuinely brilliant solution on the horizon. “Lift it up."

“We can't lift it up or the hatch could tear," Bo argued.

“No, just...lift it up," Dan persisted.  “Lift it.  With your hands.   If he uses the hydraulics it changes the angle too fast and tangles everything up from a different direction."  He pushed in front of Bo, grabbed his comm and pointed it where the forks had hit the door. “Right...right here," he said, pushing his finger into the gap.  “This part has to pull up and slide backward.  He can't do that with the hydraulics, but you can do it with your muscles."

Dan sounded utterly sure of himself, so Bo shrugged.  “I guess it can't hurt anything if you're wrong.  It's buggered anyway."

“Go get Dante," Dan directed a bystander. “He's the big varius on the sewing machine over there."   Dan patted the forklift driver on the shoulder.  “Hop out."

Two minutes later, Dante had wedged himself under the forks and Dan was working the controls.  “Bo's going to lift the forks straight up," he told Dante, “When the forks clear the door frame, you push the lift away from the ship.  Got it?"

Dante nodded. “Just don't put it in gear and crush me."

“I'll do my best," Dan said. “You ready?"

Dante put his back against the lift and pressed first one foot and then the other against the body of the shuttle.  

“Hold on for a second," Dickerson said, motioning to Dante's feet with a board he was holding. Dante understood, and lifted his feet one at a time for the man to slide the rigid board between his feet and the shuttle's metal skin, spreading out the area against which he was pushing.  “Let's try not to cause any more damage," he suggested.

Dante nodded. “Ready."

The whole setup looked like one big safety violation to Dan, but he couldn't see any alternative."Be careful," he warned.

“About what?" Bo said, crabbily.

“I don't know," Dan admitted. “Just... I don't know.  Take it easy."

“Got it."

Dan found that by craning his head he could see the damaged area past Dante's bulk. Concentrating, he fed what his eyes saw into their neural link, showing Bo what was happening outside his line of sight, and telling him exactly how far he needed to lift the massive machine.

you are pretty smart

Bo thought at him,

for a pinkie

Dan ignored the jibe.

you ready

yes

let's do this

“I sure as hell wish Jackson were here,"  Bo grumbled.  He maximized his leverage by grabbing the forks far away from the wheels as possible and, with a deep growl from low in his throat, he deadlifted the fork truck's front wheels off the ground.  Even in the reduced gravity the lift was heavy, making Bo strain to lift the weight. The machine resisted after rising a centimeter or so, but with a little more effort, accompanied by a cacophony of metallic scraping noises, it began to rise again.  As soon Bo's knees locked, Dante pushed away from the shuttle and the fork truck rolled free.  Bo let loose of the forks and the lift hit the deck with a jarring thud.

Dan set the emergency brake and returned the forklift to its driver. He didn't think the door's frame looked badly damaged, but the flexible seal surrounding it was a different story.  It had been chewed up pretty badly before they'd started pulling on it, and by the time they finished it had ripped completely through.

“Anyone got experience fixing sheet metal?" Dan asked, scanning the crowd of people surrounding them.  “Anybody?"  His inquiry was met with silence. “Let me worry about it," he assured Bo. “I think I can fix it well enough to work."

Bo didn't look convinced. “Do what you can," he said. “We'll put seats in it last, in case something goes wrong."

Dan nodded and looked around them.  “You see a tool kit around here?"

“In the office," Bo said, turning back to his own work. “Good luck."

“Thanks."  Dan had never had the opportunity to fix a spaceship's door, but he assumed that it couldn't be all that much different than fixing the weatherstripping on an aircar, and he'd done that before.  He found the large red maintenance kit and rifled the drawers for anything that might help him straighten the damaged metal.

Nothing stuck out at him as being a tool that had obviously been made for straightening bent metal, but he did see a pair of hammers that looked as if they might do the trick.  One hammer was wide-faced, with a flat head on it about three centimeters in diameter.  The other had a smaller, more pointed head for striking things in tight spaces.  Using the larger hammer as a tiny anvil, Dan spent the next nerve-wracking hour of his life tapping the metal back into shape and praying that he wasn't causing more harm than good.  

Once the door was capable of closing and latching, he turned his attention to the rubber seal. He had no idea what it was made out of, but it was certainly not the same stuff that surrounded the door of his car.  It seemed a bit more slippery, as if it had recently been oiled, but its sheen did not rub away on his fingers.  With a sharp knife he sliced away the seal on either side of the break, then trimmed back the springy metallic core with a wire cutter.  He re-positioned the seal against the doorframe and pushed it back into place.

It took a little doing, but eventually the seal was back where it belonged, and except for the fact that it had a six inch gap in it, it looked pretty good.  He tried pulling the seal loose and stretching it, but that didn't work.  With its metal core, he'd have needed to be Hercules to stretch it more than a millimeter or two.  Dan considered asking Bo or Dante to give it a healthy pull. They could probably do it,  but they might also end up ripping it in two, and then where would they be?

After a few moment's thought, he picked up one of the ragged ends he'd trimmed off the damaged seal and headed out the door.

***

Lucas's job was to make sure that each shuttle was stocked with everything needed to make the journey.  The food stocks weren't all that important for such a short journey, but the pilots would need something to snack on to keep their blood sugar levels up, and he didn't think it was a bad idea to make sure their kits were stocked with a few organic stimulants.  The soft cargo also needed a supply of water, which he made sure was topped off and available.  He removed the cups, though, to necessitate their drinking from the single supply nipple.  He hoped that would keep them from drinking more than they absolutely had to.

Supplies for the shuttle were specified more rigorously.  The carbon scrubbers required a reagent to function properly, and each shuttle got all its reservoirs could hold.  He filled fuel tanks, checked lubrication points and inspected every port, electrical connection and mechanical bit he could reach in the limited time available to them.  Most of the shuttles had been purchased as military surplus and refurbished to serve as short-range haulers.  The youngest of them had been refurbed after only eight years of service, but two were over two decades old.  The fuel catalyst module on the older shuttles was nearly due to be replaced, but that wasn't going to happen in the next few hours so he let it go.

He was putting the switchgear in the cockpit of shuttle six through a basic diagnostic routine when the man Victus had helped climbed in. The pilot was probably predisposed not to like him because of his religious background, but that made Lucas want to spend time with him even more. The man would either be okay with varii and Lucas could help him with his preflight, or he wouldn't be okay, and Lucas could enjoy fucking with him. Either way, it was bound to be entertaining!  “Heya, Steve!" Lucas said, cheerily. “You feeling better?"

The man grunted distractedly and flopped into the pilot's seat. “Yeah."

Lucas gave the man in the pilot seat a friendly smile. “I ran a hardware check a few minutes ago and it was all good, but I'm sure you'll want to run one for yourself."

Steve nodded. “Thanks." He didn't add that, of course he would run his own safety check. No pilot worth a hill of beans would let someone else run his safety check, but no man worth a hill of beans would be rude about it, either. “I appreciate it," he added. “It never hurts to have a second set of eyes."

Lucas's ears perked up and he felt his rump swaying back in forth in unconscious rhythm with his tail. He was going to like this man after all! “You want me to read the list?" he asked. Steve wordlessly handed him the laminated checklist, and Lucas began reading his way down the long list of items that had to be checked each and every time the craft was started.. “Torque sensor Port...Torque sensor Starboard…Speed input sensor A…" As Lucas read down the list, the pilot tapped the indicators one by one, and made sure they illuminated as they were meant to. There was an irregular quality to the speed of his responses, one which Lucas might have attributed to an unfamiliarity with the cockpit, but with Steve it was especially worrisome given that the man had suffered a head injury only a few hours before.

Lucas watched carefully over the next ten minutes, noticing that more than a few times, although the man's hand immediately went to the correct indicator, his finger didn't always immediately hit the intended switch. This suggested that although he knew where he wanted his hand to be, it wasn't precisely following his commands. Sometimes his finger struck the bezel of the switch, or even alongside it before pressing the correct one. Lucas was trying to decide whether the man's condition was bad enough to disqualify him when Steve moaned softly and slumped over his console.

***

“This entire section's closed," the purser objected, as Dan approached the door leading to the ship's excursion platform. “You can't go in!  We're not running any tours anyway."

Dan held up the ragged piece of rubber.  “We damaged a door seal on one of the shuttles, and the seals from one of those tenders just might be able to patch the hole."  He peered around the man's bulk.  “They look fine to me," he said.  “Why can't I go in?"

“The outer shielding was knocked out when we hit the gate," the man explained.  “They only got it running again a few minutes ago.  The tenders aren't fully pressurized yet"

“Is there enough air for me to survive for just a minute?" Dan asked

“No!" the exasperated purser explained. “That's what I'm telling you. We're closed."

Dan looked around them in frustration.  He was so close to his goal that it would kill him to stop so short.   His eyes fell on the bright yellow emergency cabinet.  “Do those have air in them?"

“Well, yeah, sure.  But that's not all you need to live, you know?" Seeing Dan's dubious look, he added," It's a pressure thing. You step in there now and your eyes will pop out of your head."

The tender bay's room number was engraved into the middle of the door frame, the same as any other door on the ship. No matter what room it was, from the fanciest cabin to the lowliest mop closet, it had to have a unique number so it could be located in an emergency. Dan walked to the nearest information display and hoped it wasn't completely dead.  “Will you please tell me what the air pressure is on each side of door N-38-B?"

The monitor sputtered for a moment and then gave up trying to form an image.  Nothing was wrong with the audio, though. “The pressure inside the main body of the ship is ninety one kilopascals.  The pressure inside the landing tender is eighty two point five kilopascals and rising."

“Thank you," Dan said, automatically.

“Think nothing of it, Mister Taylor," the wall screen replied, cheerfully.  “Enjoy your excursion!"  The pretty Asian lady displayed on the screen didn't disappear when her script ran out, a change in the computer's behavior that struck Dan as odd, and left him with the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched.

Dan and the purser were still upright and although their breathing was a bit faster than normal they weren't struggling, so Dan assumed that ninety one kilopascals of pressure was sufficient to maintain life.  The air didn't strike him as being all that much different from when he'd breathed in Denver, Colorado on a date a few years back. Eighty two wasn't all that much less than ninety one, so he had to assume that exposure to that pressure wouldn't instantly kill him.

The emergency air supply was kept behind a locked glass window, prominently displayed but protected from curious fingers.  A red sign with bold, white letters posted conspicuously between the window and the alarm handle warned of sirens and severe penalties for unauthorized use. Dan ignored the sign and pulled the handle.

Nothing happened.

Dan pulled the handle again, but this time it felt distinctly different under his fingers, loose and flappy, as if it had already done its job and would no longer put up any resistance. “Shit."

The purser had always been curious what would happen if someone pulled the forbidden handle, and looked disappointed that the alarms had not gone off. “That's going to be a problem."

Dan looked up and down the hallway, hoping for something to inspire him. A large, white metal box with a bright chrome handle caught his eye.  Set proud of the wall, the boxy cabinet held one of the emergency fire extinguisher nozzles that Dan had seen hanging every hundred meters or so along each hallway in the ship.   Affixed to the end of a long, coiled plastic hose was a heavy brass nozzle that, Dan assumed, dispensed some sort of electronics-friendly foam instead of the more traditional water that poured from standard fire hoses.  

Dan yanked open the cabinet door. The promised alarm did not sound, but a red light mounted high above the cabinet did start flashing, making the hallway feel like a sad dance party after all the guests had departed in search of better venues.  He pulled out the hose, stretched it to the other cabinet and used the brass nozzle to bash out the glass door of the oxygen supply.

Mask in hand, he turned to the purser and called forth his inner varius.  “Are you going to be a problem?"

***

"Vic!"

The alarm Victus heard in his mate's voice was more than a little disturbing. “Go now," he hurriedly told his last group of passengers. “Remember, you only have ten minutes!" Victus turned back to the loading bay, and shouted into the distance. "Where are you?"

"Here!" came the nearly instantaneous response, directing him to the open hatch door of shuttle number six. "Get in here fast!"

Vic sprinted for the door, looked inside, and waited only the barest of seconds before climbing into the cramped space of the pilot's cabin. "Move."

Lucas backed out of the flight pod, and Victus edged in to take his place. "What happened?"

"We were going through his pre-flight, and he blacked out."  Lucas leaned in, his folded arms resting on the door sill as they talked. “Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know," Victus said, gently lifting first one of the pilot's eyelids and then the other to see whether his pupils were responsive. “I'm no doctor, but I know a concussion when I see one." He sat back on his haunches, and blew a frustrated breath through tight lips. What worried him even more than the concussion was the corner of bright red slowly creeping across the white of the man's left eye.

“Can you help him?" Lucas asked. “If he can't get in the air, we're royally fucked."

“I can't," Victus reminded him. “He's a Warrior."

Lucas let out a grunt of disgust. Personal preferences meant little to him at a time of emergency. “Well, that's too fucking bad, isn't it?"

“Yes, it is," Victus agreed, “For us. I can't just push my way into his mind."

“Why not?" Lucas asked, indignantly.

Victus's ears went back in annoyance.“Because it's rape?" He really didn't want to argue the point. What seemed obvious to a Kenzine wasn't always so obvious to everyone else, and they didn't have five minutes to spare on an argument that could take hours.

Victus supposed that perhaps he could monitor the man's condition without affecting it. Technically he was not forbidden from observing, so long as he did not interfere. He put his handpaws on the sides of the unconscious man's face and searched for the eight major nerve points lying just beneath the skin.  He only needed a few moments to know that the man was suffering a massive stroke. As he probed Steve's condition, the expression on his face told Lucas just how bad things really were. "Is there any chance you can slave this ship to another one and fly it remotely?" Victus asked, finally.

"No way," Lucas said, shaking his head definitively. "They're not anywhere near that advanced."

Steve twitched as if shaking himself awake. "What happened?" he said, his voice slurred. "Did I fall asleep?" He looked around him, then sighed. "Oh, god, I'm tired." When his eyes started to slide closed again, Victus knew he had no option. He was more than happy to argue religious dogma with his partner deep into the wee hours of the night, but when push came to shove he was not about to let one man's beliefs condemn sixty others to death. Some in his order would demand his excommunication if they ever learned what he was about to do, but if Victus was right about the pilot's condition, he thought he'd find a way to live with himself. Extending out his consciousness, he pushed past the pilot's weakened defenses and into his sensorium.

Pain and shock, injured dignity and fear immediately stabbed back at Victus. “What are you doing?" Steve's confused mind shouted at Victus. “Why are you doing this to me?"

“I'm so, so sorry," Victus begged forgiveness in the dark abyss of the other man's mind. “It's not me. You're sick," he explained, as gently as he could. "You hit your head earlier and ruptured a blood vessel, and...we've talked about what's going to happen to all those people if you can't make this trip. I was kind of kidding before, but now it really is that bad" He tried his best to imbue his mental voice with a soothing calm that he didn't feel. “I know this is outside what your religion will allow, but since you didn't agree to this, I'm hoping that your God will forgive you, and blame me instead."

Steve felt violated. Completely and utterly violated. In a flash, all the warnings his parents and pastors ever told him came rushing back to him, warnings of dastardly corruption by the inhuman monsters who walked the earth in shocking defiance of God's natural laws. He wanted to strike out at this unnatural creature, to knock him away, and face his death like a man, as his God had intended.

That sense of righteous indignation lasted precisely as long as it took his conscious mind to make contact with the “thing" that had jammed itself inside his head. The moment Steve made contact with the varius and could feel his emotions, Victus felt a wave of shame and regret in return..

“Oh, fuck," Steve silently muttered, pulling himself back slightly. “You really don't want to be here, do you?"

“Anywhere but," Victus answered miserably, and Steve knew that it was true. 'There are no lies in here," he said. “I'm breaking about a hundred different rules by keeping you alive, but I just can't bring myself to claim the moral high ground, and let those people die."

Steve scrubbed his face with his hands in attempt to drive away the cloudiness hazing his thoughts, then realized that he hadn't moved a muscle. “This is weird," he thought.

“Yes, it is," Victus agreed. “But you're actually handling this very well, all things considered."

A few heartbeats later, Steve realized that despite the varius' stated intention to save his life, he hadn't yet made any move to do so. Despite their dire situation, he was waiting, Steve knew, for permission. Steve's spirit sighed in resignation. This wasn't what he would have done, but since it had been chosen for him, he might as well capitulate with some sense of grace. “Fine," he said, eventually, “but wherever we land, I want you to build a big statue in the name of The One True God."

“You're not serious," Victus chuckled.

“No, I'm not," Steve admitted. “Just save all those people, and I'm pretty sure God will forgive us both.

Victus breathed a sigh of relief. He'd braced himself for this to be so much worse.

“We're not all that bad," Steve said, inside his head, “just some of us. Now, fix me and let's get this bucket in the air."

Victus centered his concentration, and emptied his mind of everything but the task at hand. “Just stay still while I find the damage." His eyes narrowed to slits as he called to mind the human brain and all of its magnificent and terrifying intricacy. "Try to stay very still..." Every person was different, and every mind perceived the universe in a different way.  Victus's mind usually supplied a framework through which he could interpret what it was receiving, but in this case it was a bit easier. Victus was deliberately steering clear of any personal information, and today he concentrated on the physical damage and nothing more.

Deeper and deeper he tunnelled into the pilot's mind, swimming through the haze of pain, seeking the brilliant kernel of intellect and ability that allowed him to function. The spark of energy that was the man's consciousness had dimmed somewhat and had dislodged itself from its moorings, but it still had energy in it. Growing tendrils of blackness threatened to surround the spark in an attempt to separate it from its bonds and set it free.

WIth immense care Victus pinched off what black tendrils he could reach, shutting them off from the main body of destruction. There was a delicate balance to be struck between stopping the growing pressure on this man's brain by easing the flow of blood, and giving the man a stroke by shutting it off entirely.

Sparing a thought for the world around him, Victus realized that Lucas had not moved from the door of the cockpit. Without turning his head, Victus spoke to his mate. "Go tell the others what's happened. Dan will need to take over for me as passenger liaison. Hurry."

***

Dan returned to the shuttle bay faster than Bo expected.  “What happened?" he asked.  “Did you get it?"

Dah triumphantly held up a twelve inch piece of slippery, grey rubber seal. “This stuff feels weird," he said.  “Makes me want to wash my hands."

“They're all like that," Bo said. “It makes it harder for the seal to get pinched. Will it fit?"

“It's got the same cross section as the old one." Dan shrugged. “Almost, anyway. It's as good as we're going to get."

“I think they're finished putting in the seats," Bo said. “I told them not to, but they did it anyway.  So get that seal fixed and load it up first, then seal the door and smear that aero-snot all around it."

“Aero-snot?" Dan asked.  “That emergency foam sealant stuff in a can?  The green stuff?"   

Bo nodded.  “Yeah.  Smear it all around the inside of the door once it's locked.  That should make sure it's sealed."

“Won't that permanently seal them in?" Dan asked, doubtfully.

“Nah," Bo scoffed.  “Once we're back on the ground they can hack their way out with a knife.  It's not structural."

“Won't it seal me in, too?" Dan asked, pointedly.

“Oh, right…" Bo said, sounding a bit disappointed, as if his nefarious plan to escape from his husband hadn't worked.  “Well, delegate the job, then."

“Oh, and by the way, get finished with that as fast as you can" he said, handing Dan a clipboard filled with notes. “Victus is stuck in shuttle six from now on, so you're going to be responsible for getting the shuttles loaded.  With a gentle push, he sent Dan off to work on shuttle three. “What's our shuttle number?" he called after him in a singsong voice.

“Five!" Dan yelled back, not turning around. The notes on the clipboard had his full attention. “But…"

“I'll meet you there!"   Alone now, Bo turned his attention to a less pleasant conversation; the one he had to have with Tolliver.

He found the construction crew's leader sorting through piles of rejected material.  Encouragingly, the number of items in the pile he deemed essential to their survival was small.  Hopefully this meant that what was left on the shuttles was the right stuff, and perhaps it would make Tolliver a little easier to handle.

“Tolliver,"  Bo stated flatly, from a few meters away.  

“What," the man said, equally flatly and without turning around.

Bo's ears flattened.  He was beginning to hate dealing with this man. “Were you planning on going down to the surface with us?"

After a few moments silence, “Yes."

“Victus doesn't have you on the schedule."

Silence.

“Which means you're not assigned to a ship."

Silence.

Bo let out an exasperated breath. “Would you please stop what you're doing, turn around and talk to me like an adult?"

Tolliver signed deeply and tossed the object he was holding back onto the pile before turning around and facing Bo, hands on hips.  “I've never been a good loser," he said, sardonically. “You'll have to take me as I am."

“This is not a win-lose situation and you're not losing anything," Bo said, feeling too tired to explain this yet again to the man.  “You just can't bring as much stuff down with you as you'd like.  So stop acting like a three year old and tell me what ship you're going to be on!"

Tolliver's pause was so long that Bo almost thought he wasn't going to answer.  Finally he said, “I'm going to be on the last ship, whichever ship this is.  That way, I can be positive that we do not leave without the most things we need to live best with."

It was awkwardly phrased, but Bo understood what he was saying.  “That makes sense," he said, “but would you please consider that as far as I can tell, the colony doesn't come with an instruction manual?  You're it, and if something happens to your shuttle, we're all going to be gloriously fucked."

Tolliver shot the varius a shit eating grin.  “Well then, I suppose you should do everything you can to make sure that nothing happens to which of the shuttles I am on."

Bo's patience was evaporating, and with it, the veneer of civility.  “Personally, I don't give two shits if your shuttle gets vaporized, because whether or not you make it, I'll be getting along quite nicely."  He swept his arm around to encompass all the people working around them. “These people, however, do care, because they need what's in that underdeveloped, psychotic little brain of yours.  So get your ass on shuttle two when it takes off."

Tolliver chuffed a bitter laugh.  “Second in line ahead of all these people," he said, “with the farm equipment? Like a coward? “

“What difference does that make?" Bo asked, incredulously. “It's the most practical place for you to be!  The first shuttle will radio back any difficulties with the atmospheric insertion, so shuttle two is the safest one for you to be on."

“And I think you'll be the hero who leaves last? Flames licking at your feet as you save the day?" Tolliver mocked.  “I doubt it.

Bo was baffled.  “This is about heroics?"  He shook his head. “Fuck heroics. I'm on shuttle five, where I was assigned."

“Well, get on your little shuttle you were assigned, like a good boy." Tolliver said, turning back to the pile.  “I'll be busy keeping you alive."

“Jesus Christ," Bo muttered, out of patience with this tired, little man.  “You're on shuttle two in the co-pilot seat.  If you shove your way onto another ship, it'll just shove one person out of their rightful seat and leave them up here to die."

Tolliver, apparently fixated on examining his pile of trash, did not respond.

“Shuttle two!" Bo repeated, and then he gave up.

***

The notes on the clipboard had all been written in Victus's precise script, and Dan had little trouble interpreting them. They were scrupulous, they were precise, and they were, as far as Dan could tell, complete.  The man had even made little square boxes next to his action items and was checking them off, one by one, as he accomplished the tasks.  Victus is nothing if not meticulous, Dan thought, wryly.   He saw Judy Kleghorn's name at the top of the list, reminding him that she'd been Victus's first recruit, and from the beginning he'd involved her in this exercise.

“Hey, Judy," he called, hoping that perhaps he could foist this job off on her. “We've got a little problem…"

Judy turned him down. Politely, to be sure, but in a manner that left little doubt in his mind that had Victus wished her to do the job, he would have assigned it to her.  In her mind, there was no mistaking that he'd assigned the task to Dan, so now it was his job and nobody elses.

Dan didn't think that that much forethought had gone into Victus's choice, but he didn't waste time arguing about it.  He looked again at the notes, and decided that he'd do the best he could until someone better came along and took over.   Until that happened, the first thing Dan had to do was move himself and Bo to a later shuttle.

***

As soon as the cargo bay of Victus' shuttle was clear and the seats were fitted, they loaded in fifty three terrified people who were desperate to live. They strapped themselves into the makeshift seats, padded as best they were able with foam pillows and bundled clothes.

"Hey," Lucas said quietly, as he stuck his head into the navigation pod one last time. "The secondary fuel pump in eleven's gone wonky again, so I'm taking that one down instead. You going to be okay?"

"Yes," said both men at once. "He's -" The pilot stopped speaking, leaving Victus' voice the only one. "He's driving the bus, but I've got to stay in here to keep him awake." He spoke confidently. "Bo says we're the second shuttle out the door, so all we have to do is follow shuttle one all the way down." He turned his head, and smiled reassuringly to his mate. “Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. We'll see you on the surface."

"Right." Lucas stood where he was for a moment, uncertain what to do. He wanted desperately to hold his mate for one last time before they parted ways, or even just give him a farewell kiss, but he knew the concentration it took for Victus to do what he was doing. Without another word he withdrew from the navigation pod and ran back to his own shuttle.

***

According to the notes he'd given to Dan, Victus had already assigned everyone in the bay to a shuttle, and they had all been sent to gather their possessions.  According to Judy, those people, along with everyone on the work details had returned to the landing bay. The only people who had yet to arrive were the ones the captain had pulled from the passenger list.  “Victus told me that some of those people might not come back," she said, shaking her head. “Who knows, with people like that?"

To Dan, it had seemed like the hard part had already been done.  All that had been left for him to do was to work his way down Victus's list.  How hard could that be?  

An hour later, Dan was pulling his hair out at how difficult it was proving to be to convince sixty people to sit where they were told.  Even now, after the shuttles had all been safety-checked by their pilots, after three minutes of blaring emergency klaxons and after watching the first shuttle rise up on its anti-gravs and float its way out the door, people with wristbands were still running around the cargo bay!  

As Dan watched, a young man jumped out of his assigned shuttle and ran to the open door of another one.  Completely out of patience, Dan grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pushed him bodily back where he belonged.  “Get back in your gods-be-damned shuttle!" Dan shouted over the almost deafening whine of a half dozen ship's thrusters powering up.

“They put me next to a fat woman!" the young man protested, angrily.  “She's spilling out all over me!"

Dan didn't let his astonishment slow him. “You don't like it, you can walk!" he shouted, pushing the man along. “Get back on your ship or we're leaving you behind!"

The man-child obeyed Dan, but shouted over his shoulder. “You're an asshole!"

Inside, Dan chuckled at the lame insult. “You bet I'm an asshole!" he shouted back, channeling his inner drill sergeant. “Now get in your fucking seat and strap in before I throw your ass off this ship!"  

Keeping one eye on the passenger to make sure he didn't bolt again, he slapped a hand on the control pod window. “Close the cargo door," he told the pilot.  He didn't wait for a response, but when he  heard the doors swinging shut behind him he assumed the woman had accepted his authority.

As he walked past the other ships that had not yet taken off, he checked in with the occupants.  “You okay?" he asked, at each ship.  The passengers he could see from his vantage point on the deck were often bleary-eyed or even asleep from the tranquilizers, but the group's speaker, the man or woman assigned to report for the group and to take charge in an emergency, was medicated to a lesser degree, and Dan directed his questions at them.  “Everyone strapped in?  You've got your medication?  No empty seats?"  Once he received four thumbs-ups from the group's speaker, he checked off a box on his notes, gave the occupants a few words of encouragement, and gave the pilot clearance to take off.  Then he walked to the next shuttle in line and did it all over again.

On a few shuttles, empty seats had mysteriously appeared.  For whatever reason, not everyone who'd been assigned a seat had showed up to claim it.  Whether kept on board due to altruism or fear, it mattered little to Dan.  Each time he discovered an empty seat, he ran back into the main body of the ship and grabbed a random passenger to fill it.  

The words Dan used were simple and compelling. “We've got one more seat on an emergency pod if you can leave right now.  Do you want it?"  He rarely had to ask more than two people before one of them accepted.

There wasn't anyone at the door to bar his entry and exit, and Dan could only assume that Judy had done as she was told and boarded her assigned ship.

 Dan had watched four ships go out the door when a man ran up to him, panicked despite the tranquilizers he'd been given.  “Someone took my seat!" he said, holding up his wristband and a poker chip with the number “9" written on it in Victus's handwriting. “I worked all day, I swear!"

“I remember you," Dan lied, to calm the man down.  “I saw you working." He patted the man on the chest. “Don't worry - we'll just put you on a different shuttle, is all."   He consulted his notes and quickly found the entry he'd been looking for.  Scribbled into the margin was a note assigning Dante to ship number five.  The tailor was so oversized that they'd needed to rip the armrests out of two adjacent seats to give his bulk room to strap in. Even so, the seat next to his had to be left empty to make space for his shoulders.  Although an adult couldn't fit in that space, a child might…

It took him another few seconds, but he found the entry he was looking for on the passenger lists. This wasn't the only child on the shuttles, but it was the only one whose name Dan knew.  Lucas's young friend, Clay, was on shuttle eleven with his family.  Like shuffling tiles in a puzzle, Dan could put the man in there, move Clay into five, and their problem would be solved. “Lucas!" Dan shouted into his comm. “I need to move Clay to shuttle five and move someone else into his spot.  Can you explain it to the family?"

“Sure," Lucas's voice crackled over the comm. “I'll go talk to them."

Better than his word, Lucas had not only spoken to Clay's family, but was waiting for Dan when he arrived at the ship with his spare passenger.  Before releasing Clay to Dan's care, he turned the boy to face him.  “I'll take care of your parents, okay? I'll make sure they're safe."

Clay nodded, but his expression struck Dan as curiously expressionless.  He thought that, faced with such turmoil, a child Clay's age could be forgiven for throwing a red-faced tantrum, but he seemed to accept the change with the stoicism of a much older person.

Lucas looked straight into Dan's eyes, in a way that conveyed unmistakable meaning. “Take care of him," he said, quietly.  

Dan nodded.  “I've got him." His expression told Lucas that the varius's message had been received and understood.  “He'll be sitting next to Dante."

Hearing this, Lucas relaxed; not entirely, but substantially, and by the time Clay could once again see his face, he was all smiles and good cheer. “See you guys on the surface!"  He gave a final two-fingered wave that was almost a salute, turned and went back to the cockpit, and Dan led Clay back to shuttle five, where he was about to start the adventure of his young life..

***

From his self-assigned post behind the pilot's chair, Victus watched as the first shuttle in their convoy lifted free of its moorings, made a graceful pirouette in the landing bay, and headed out into space. Three minutes later their shuttle rose in much the same way, somewhat more slowly but with reassuring stability, and their journey began.

He would later wonder at the degree of his ignorance, but Victus had had no idea that piloting a spacecraft was so mentally grueling. Even though the systems were largely automated, there were still a huge number of decisions for the pilot to make. Now that he was able to see the job from a pilot's point of view, Victus could appreciate how complex the process truly was. As they flew through the dead-calm region between the crippled starship and the first wisps of atmosphere, not a second went by that his new friend wasn't mentally active. Pilots, it seemed, earned every bit of their lavish salaries.

From his perspective deep inside Steve's mind, Victus was far more aware of his surroundings than he would have been in his own skin. Blinking lights that would have been meaningless to him as a Kenzine Protector carried new and sometimes significant meaning when Steve saw them. Victus would have been concerned by the blinking, red light marked, "Port Transfer Pump," but Steve merely noted it then let it fade away into the background. The yellow light above "Oxygen Matrix #2" was another story, however, and that concern rotted down to active worry when the light above "Oxygen Matrix #3" blinked from green to yellow a few minutes later.

“You're worried," Steve said, with unexpected calmness.

Victus didn't bother denying it. “My father and my mentor will be upset at what I'm doing, and I'm not looking forward to those conversations."

“Because you're helping a Warrior?"

“No, because I initiated this process without your consent."

“You have my consent now," Steve said. “I agreed to this."

“You do now," Victus agreed, “but it wasn't always that way.  Many in my order would argue that the ends do not justify the means."

“You could just not tell them, you know."

Victus smiled quietly.  “It's a shame I can't introduce you to Master Dagen. That strategy rarely works, where he is concerned. The man has the maddening habit of asking the most inconvenient questions at the most inopportune of times."

“My mother was like that," Steve remembered. “I couldn't do anything without her knowing about it."

Victus nodded. “Master Dagen is that way, and Abbot Wesley even moreso."

Steve swept his eyes over the panel arrayed in front of them, then entered a few minor corrections. “You're not going to get in trouble because I was ignorant," he said.  “That's just not fair.  You only did what you had to to save all those people."  He tried to turn around and look at Victus, but the varius held his head in position.

“Nope," Victus said.  “Eyes in front."

“I was gonna say, you should get a medal for this."

Victus chuckled softly.  “Haven't you ever heard the saying that no good deed goes unpunished?"

“Sure, but that don't mean it's fair."

“No," Victus said, after a moment, “Life isn't fair at all, is it?  But we all do what we have to do to keep the wheels turning."

Vic could feel the pilot's moment-by-moment anxieties waning as they approached the planet. The decisions had been made, the calculations had been locked in, and now all that remained was to wait through the long, synchronized glide down to the planet's surface, each shuttle following the next to the surface like an impossibly long string of incandescently glowing pearls thousands of kilometers apart. "How am I doing?" Steve croaked, his voice unexpectedly harsh..

"You're doing well," Victus told him. "I wish I could say your body was cooperating as well as you are."

"Sorry about that," he said, regretfully. "I don't mean to be such a problem."

"No problem," Victus reassured him, "I know you're doing the best you can." He sighed. "It's just getting a bit tiring, standing in this position."

"You want to sit in the co-pilot's seat?"

"No, I have to maintain physical contact to hold the bond."

Steve chuckled painfully. “You could always sit in my lap." He looked over at the other seat. "Maybe you can use the seat straps to sort of...you know, strap yourself to the back of my chair, or something? It's going to get really bumpy when we hit atmosphere, and if you don't find a way to strap in, you're going to be bouncing all over the cabin."

Vick knew that Steve was right - he'd have to do something. If he didn't find some way to strap himself down he'd be tossed around like a rock in a tumbler. He'd lose physical contact, and they'd inevitably die. With his free handpaw Victus managed to work the top strap free of the empty co-pilot's chair.

Pulling a single strap free from the empty chair using only one hand proved to be a challenge, and Victus had no idea how he was going to wind that strap through the pilot's chair with Steve sitting in it, then around himself, and then buckle it. He was trying to think of some way to accomplish the task when Steve surprised him by reaching up, and touching the side of his face.

“Here," Steve said, “so you can use both hands." he chuckled at Victus' reaction to his touch. “Don't be so shocked," he chided. “I want to get these people down as much as you do, and it's not like you're filthy, or anything."

With Steve's assistance, the Kenzine worked the straps through ventilation holes in the pilot's seat, then wound them around himself to form an improvised sling. He still couldn't exactly sit down but he could at least relax his legs a little bit. "Thanks," he said, testing the strength of the restraint, "I think this is going to work."

The ship's comm crackled to life, and through the filter of the pilot's mind Victus could tell that the last of the shuttles had flown free of the landing bay. "Last ship's off now," Steve confirmed. Can you see them?" He pointed to a screen to their right, directly in front of the co-pilot's seat.

"No," Victus said, uncertainly. The circular screen in front of him was full of moving dots, but his untrained eye couldn't tell much more than that. "I can't... wait - there they are. Just a few moving specks of light."

"Here," the pilot offered, "Let me do this, instead." The screen Victus was looking at disappeared, replaced by a magnified view that made each ship visible down to the individual numbers on the noses. The space between the ships was no longer proportionate, but Victus didn't think that would matter very much. "Which one is number eleven?"

"Should be the next-to-the-last one out," the pilot said, after consulting the flight plans loaded into the computer. "They started out in order, but they got shuffled around at the last minute.  Tolliver wanted to be in the the last one, so he's in number twelve." In the recesses of his failing mind, the pilot felt Victus' doubt. “Or am I not remembering correctly?"

Victus gave a mental shrug. “I may be wrong. Bo wanted him out on an early ship so he'd be safe," he verbalized.

Steve continued looking for Lucas's ship. “Number eleven is…hmm. Where did it go?" Victus felt phantom sensations of fingers playing over an auxiliary keyboard, then a small yellow circle appeared on the screen he was watching. "She's..." the circle moved across the screen to center on one of the ships. “There." The perspective made it difficult to tell what order they were in. The push of a button turned the circle green. "Okay. It'll track her, now." Sure enough, the circle maintained position on the dot of light, even when the pilot zoomed back out to see the entire cruise ship.

Victus felt anticipation through his healing bond, and looked more closely at the cruise ship. A glowing light was growing in the engine nacelle closest to them, and from the feelings coming from Steve, Victus allowed himself to be encouraged. Perhaps this would end up being nothing more than an inconvenient side-trip. Maybe they could turn the shuttles around, and just go home again with only a slight delay in their plans. He and Lucas could start a new life on Earth. He could teach in the Abbey, and Lucas could do...whatever.

Any positive feeling Victus had been getting from Steve winked out as the light in the ship's engines disappeared, to be replaced by a ragged illumination that was punctuated by angry flashes of bright light, flashes that were rapidly becoming both more intense and more frequent. A moment later, a brilliant flash of light signaled the final, terminal failure of the ship's engines.

"Holy mother of God," the pilot whispered. "That's it."

"There's nothing else they could do?"

Steve sighed sadly, and shook his head. "They might be able to fire off the lifeboats, but there's nobody to pick them up, and they don't have enough air to make it to the planet."

The radio exploded with sound, throwing out fragments of conversation the way the ship's exploding engines had thrown shrapnel. "Oh, Jesus, no..." The pilot's fingers flew to the control pad, and the view on Victus' screen again zoomed in to the ships behind them. One of them, one targeted with a red bullseye, began to drift off-center. "Oh, hell. There goes shuttle twelve."

"It doesn't look too bad," Victus said, hopefully.

The pilot blew out a tired-sounding breath. "Watch."

With growing speed, ship number seven diverged from the flight path until it was flying at a nearly ninety-degree angle to the others. At that point something, the pilot didn't know what, changed, and the ship began to tumble.

Victus watched in horrified fascination as the ship at the center of the green bullseye, ship eleven, the one piloted by Lucas, moved off course next. At first he thought that his mate was trying to rescue the out-of-control shuttle. The thought was dispelled when his shuttle made several obvious course corrections to get back on the planned route, but failed. The motions were so subtle that he might not have paid them any mind, had it not been for the fact that the other ships in their convoy were so rock-steady in their positions. The only logical conclusion was that Lucas was in trouble. “No," Victus whispered. “Please, no..."

“Ship eleven...," Victus was able to pick out Lucas' voice over the static and jumble of other voices. “...hit by debris ...explosion." Victus watched the targeted shuttlecraft on the screen as if he could guide it back on course by the force of his will alone. “I'm trying to-" The glowing dot Victus was watching shuddered ever so slightly, and the voice did not return. Lucas hadn't sounded panicked at all, he'd been very businesslike and professional, and then...he was gone.

The glowing dot of Lucas' ship did not immediately disappear. It flashed periodically as it wandered further off course, and after a few minutes of increasingly speedy travel it had moved so far away from the other ships that the camera could no longer track it. The dot eventually traveled past the edge of the screen, and Victus' hopes disappeared with it.

“I'm sorry, Vic," the pilot said, both aloud and through their link. Victus' own lips mirrored the words as they were spoken. Steve keyed his microphone to check in with the lead ship. "This is shuttle number six. We hit atmosphere in five."

He clicked off the microphone. "It's about to get really bumpy," he warned Victus. "And for a few minutes it's going to get pretty damned hot in here, too. I'm diverting the shields to the cargo hold so our passengers don't overheat and suffocate. We'll still have enough to keep us safe, but it won't be comfortable."

"I understand." Victus was a master at keeping his attention centered on the task at hand, but staying on-task while his mate was dying was proving to be a substantial challenge for even his practiced mind. He was thankful for the distraction the pilot's condition provided. Their trip through the ionosphere, as spectacularly beautiful and uncomfortable as it was, went largely unnoticed as the Kenzine did what was required to hold the pilot's fragile brain together long enough for them to touch ground.

Finally they were on a glide path to their destination, and the pilot could take enough of his attention off his job to ask the question to which he didn't want to hear the answer. "Am I going to die?"

Victus paused delicately. "Yes."  They both might, he thought,  for very different reasons..

The next silence was longer. Steve might be at death's door, but he retained enough of his wits to know that the man standing behind him must be devastated. But the opportunity before him would never come again.... When he did speak, the slight quaver in his voice might have been attributed to turbulence. “I have no right to ask you this, Vic, especially not now."

“Ask," Victus said, his voice too calm. “There is no judgment."

After a self-conscious pause, Steve asked,  "Can I tell you about my family?"

"I would be honored," Victus whispered, trying hard not to think about his own family of two. "Tell me your story." As their new world spun beneath them, growing larger with each passing minute, Steve shared the story of his life and his love, with a man he barely knew, in the hopes that one day this Kenzine might be able to go back to his wife and his children, to tell them how much of a difference they'd made. This man could tell his family things that, coming from his own mouth, they might never believe.

Victus made every possible effort to store the flood of emotion and memory coming from the pilot, taking it as his solemn duty to relate this man's love to the family who would miss him very much. He took special care with the memory of how the pilot had retreated into his private sanctuary, and cried for hours after spanking his little girl for the first time; and the recollection of the thrilling panic that rushed through him when the woman who was to become his wife had returned his first vid call. His pride in his children and the choices they'd made, the forgiveness of slights and the regret that he'd never see them again were all packed lovingly away in secure boxes, then tightly made safe in Victus' mind with vermillion ribbons and Kenzine wax.

By the time their attention was again required at the yoke, Steve was in control of both his emotions and his ship, and Victus was in firm control of the embolism that would kill him. So much so, in fact, that Victus believed he might actually be able to heal the man. It would take fast, decisive action, but it could be done. Probably. There was also the chance that the effort would kill them both; but Victus was more than willing to make that bet. The nascent colony needed a pilot far more than a priest, especially one who had no mate and no real reason to live.

His decision made, Victus planned his move. As soon as the pilot had shut down the ship safely, he'd force a healing bond on the man, investing what life remained in himself to keep this sweet, caring man alive If all went well, Steve would live to carry his own messages of love back to his family. This, Victus decided, would be his final gift to the man who had saved them all.

Healing Steve without his permission would be a blatant violation of Steve's basic human rights, but given the man's intense love for his family, Victus thought he'd find a way to accept the gift.  But he must act quickly! The ship was slowing on its thrusters, aiming for a large clearing where the first ship awaited their arrival. There was much to prepare, but Victus knew what had to be done.

Less than five minutes after setting down, the engines or their shuttle had been purged and the hatches unlatched and readied for inspection. Steve settled back in his chair, relaxing for one last time before sinking into the inevitable darkness. "Thanks, Vic. I'm glad I got to meet you." Victus wasn't paying much attention to what the world was doing around them, but he did feel the man's calloused hands resting comfortably on top of his own.

"You're welcome," he said, quietly. Then, "Are we settled in?"

Steve closed his eyes. Although it wasn't something he would have chosen for himself, he was grateful to Victus for giving him this extra few hours. "Yes."  

Victus leaned down, resting his forehead on the top of Steve's hair and giving them both the comfort of one last human touch.

Instead of letting his hands fall from either side of Steve's head and allowing the deadly stroke to finish what it had started, Victus marshalled his energies, preparing to invest everything he had left in inside him to heal him. He took a deep, calming breath...and was unceremoniously pushed out of Steve's mind. He was ejected as forcefully as he'd been from Bo's, but far more gently.

Victus' eyes flew open. "No!"  He scrabbled to get a toehold in Steve's mind, but was met with stony silence. "No!" The pilot's grip had gone from strong and sure to random twitching as his body finally admitted to itself that its animating force had departed, and now the biological shell must follow. He must have sensed what I was planning, Victus thought, dully. Somewhere along the line Steve had realized that Victus intended to sacrifice himself, and in a final selfless act, hadn't permitted him to carry out his plan. He had died first, condemning Victus to remain alive to mourn the loss of the best man he'd ever known.

For a long time, Victus stared at the lifeless body sitting in the chair beneath him. "Why did you do that to me?" he whispered, his voice filled with the bitter sorrow he'd prayed he would never feel again. "Damn you."