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response time at over thirty one minutes, Oz.”
    “That’s why I’m
giving you the official go-ahead. Rescue if you can, but if you
can’t, keep the situation stable if at all possible.”
    “What does that mean,
‘keep the situation stable?’” Joyboy asked.
    “It means that if we
can’t make the rescue ourselves, we shouldn’t screw it up by
making the attempt anyway,” Ronin replied. “Welcome to a real
rescue operation.”
    As the scant minutes it
took to make it all the way to the front of the main passenger deck,
past over a hundred corpses that were frozen in poses of dismay,
anger and everything in between, it became plain to Ronin that
quieting Joyboy was a mistake. He could see the man’s stress
readings climbing through the Crewcast display in his helmet. “Looks
like it happened quickly,” Ronin said. “But you have to stop
looking every passenger in the eye, Joyboy. Stay aware of the
situation, there’s nothing we can do for these people.”
    “Yeah,” Joyboy
replied, “Okay, yeah.”
    Ronin was relieved to
finally come upon the closet where the faint life readings were
emanating from. He examined the doors and took a detailed close range
scan. “You seeing this, Triton?” Ronin said. “Two people,
crammed together in a support bag made for one. The air recycler in
there has almost had it.”
    “All right,”
Captain McPatrick replied. “We see the scan, that bag is still
sealed, and one of them is conscious, but barely. If you get your
emergency bag around them, it will take over for what’s keeping
them alive right now.”
    “Oh my God, that bag
only kept their heads and torsos warm,” Joyboy said. “And one of
them has no legs, looks they were cut off before they were put in
there. Who would do this?”
    Ronin didn’t comment,
but got his emergency survival bag ready. It was a black self-forming
bag that could wrap itself around up to four people and seal in
seconds. It would provide heat, air, and medication to the people
inside. It was one of the devices everyone adopted once they were
found aboard the Triton in abundance, especially since they were so
easy to fabricate. “You open the doors, I’ll catch them.”
    “What?” Joyboy
said.
    “You open the doors,
step out of the way, and I’ll get them in here,” Ronin said as he
pointed to the bag spread out on the deck.
    “Aye, aye,” Joyboy
said, all hesitation gone. He stepped in, spread the doors apart, and
then stepped out of the way.
    Ronin caught the
intertwined passengers. The survival bag they were stuffed into was
transparent, and he saw things he wished he didn’t before he got
them onto the deck and atop the Earth technology style bag. He
watched as it enveloped them, sealed, inflated and shuffled as it
infiltrated the rudimentary life support bag the passengers were
found in. The readings on Ronin’s helmet indicated that the pair
were immediately put into deep stasis and would survive with serious
medical attention. Their major organs were intact.
    He squeezed his eyes
shut and clamped his jaw, trying to shake the sunken feeling and
nausea as he mentally reviewed what he saw before his emergency
medical bag closed around the rescued couple. The woman had red hair,
fair skin, and was being cradled by the male passenger, who had broad
shoulders, was tall, and powerful looking. When the closet first
opened he thought he was seeing Ayan and Jake, the likeness was just
close enough.
    “You okay, Ronin?”
Joyboy asked.
    “No,” was all he
could say.

Chapter 3
The Message
    Since he’d arrived in
the Rega Gain system, Terry Ozark McPatrick had seen many things.
They ranged from the marvellous to the horrific, but he made sure he
observed everything he could, regardless of how much he might want to
turn away. The injustices visited upon the average Tamber citizen
outside of Haven Shore’s embrace were truly difficult to hear
about. The number of times he wanted to lower the Triton over a city
and wipe out