Read Alder's World Part One: Mass 17 for Free Online Page B

Executive
Officer, it was not surprising that Alder was the ranking officer
in the dome when the shock wave hit. Nor was it surprising that the
survivors in the dome had immediately and amicably set up shop
under him in the three hours since the blast.
They ’ d been through a lot
together over the years and worked well together under any
stress.
    He
didn ’ t mind being in command,
but after being so close to Gabba Rehans as her life ended and
having found a fair number of her fingers on his side of the
bulkhead when the lights came on, Alder found himself trying to
hide in the quiet of one of the remaining rooms.
    “Dr. Alder just called in.
She ’ s in Med bay two.” She reports seventeen injuries, none of them life
threatening.” Amazingly, none of the
survivors in the dome seemed to be badly hurt. Elana herself had
about the worst injury with a fractured forearm.
She ’ d struck something during
the impact. Alder suspected it was Wen
Ye ’ s face. He dove into the
compartment with her a few seconds ahead of the blast and had an
inexplicably broken cheek bone and bloody lip.
    “That ’ s fine. Thank
you. Do we have a full count yet?” Until
the computers came back on there was no way to know how many people
had been sucked into the void or were lying frozen in depressurized
cabins but they should at least know how many survivors they had
when command finally got through to them.
    “Yes Sir. Crews have been
through all the pressurized areas between levels two and fourteen.
There are eighty-six survivors. ”
    Alder rubbed his chin with
the back of his hand. His crew needed him to be on his game. “ All right. Eighty-six survivors and
only seventeen injuries. Not bad. Do we have any idea of what sort
of talents we ’ ve got? Who was
here when the blast hit? ”
    “It ’ s a pretty mixed
lot. My full third shift second cycle crew was on duty so
you ’ ve got a full complement
for the gardens and equipment,
that ’ s twenty-six counting
me. The rest were off duty from all over the ship; mostly first
shift and some second. ”
    “Okay. Talk to me about
resources. ”
    At twenty-three when
they ’ d launched, Allayah was
one of the youngest on board. Elana had commented several times on
how well she had developed in the rigors of space. She was tall and
athletic, with skin darker than chocolate. She looked more like an
Olympic Athlete than the officer in charge of half of the high tech
ranch that kept the ship fed. While the social engineering behind
the ship allowed crews to cross train and move task to task,
Allayah had stayed steadfastly beside her crew and
livestock. “ We ’ re in pretty good
shape. Preliminary reports show that air, thermal and water are all
running on main or backup power.
We ’ ve got local systems
running with a few small exceptions. We
haven ’ t been able to link
back to the main computer. It looks like the blast took out most of
the linkages running parallel to the tubes. We know the emergency
system is transmitting. We don ’ t know if anyone is listening. ”
    “Oh
they ’ re listening.” Alder reassured her. “ The little flickers of light out
there, ” He gestured at the
window, “ are dust particles
hitting the mobius shields and frying themselves.”
They ’ ve got power over there.
We ’ re probably just waiting
for a reboot.” Optical computers were
frighteningly fast but a little twitchy. If you got them out of
sync somehow, it was virtually impossible to get them back into
line. The only real solution was to turn systems off and let the
main system turn them back on one at a time.
    With a gesture, Alder
steered them away from the cloud of dust and into the
hallway. “ We need to run on
the assumption that the rest of the ship is intact and will need
food and water to be running at full steam when contact gets made.
I don ’ t have to tell you how
fast seven hundred people can get hungry. ”
    “Yes,
sir. ”
    “We ’ ll also want to
keep everyone busy.