Chapter 10 – My Squad Atricious (page 8 of 10)
“We’ll get him out of here alive, I promise you that, as sure as my eunonym is Tek Jansen,” I offered, adding, “limited time offer, some restrictions apply, participation may vary.”
“Tek!” bawled Burggl like a little girl with her fingernails torn out, “the mediship is here but they can’t dock with us!”
The cabin crew all looked to me for leadership in times like these and I wasn’t about to let them down by failing to provide a solution. “We can do this Slackman, you’re going to be just fine,” I said, yelling back at him the way I expected he’d want me to in a time like this. “We’re going to open the airlock and squirt you out into theirs.”
“You can’t do that,” said Cappy, “there’s no air in space, he’ll be killed instantly!”
I settled back in to my plush chair. “Relax, Cappy, you can survive for up to ten seconds in the vacuum of space. As long as the mediship does their job, he’ll be fine.”
Little N had gone from nervous to frantic, shouting some number of things about physics, empty space and who knows what else. Everyone seemed pretty uncomfortable except for Melo, who had found a loose thread on his jacket and had taken to pulling on it. Melo’s my man in times like this, he always trusted me and he was still alive.
“Trust me, you dumb bastards,” I whispered with an air of uncommon anticipation, “tell them to open their bay. This will work.”
As the mediportator skiff opened their transfer bay the cabin filled with a barrage of protests from the adjacent ship, screams of terror from Slackman and a wave of top-volume dissent from everyone in our cabin.
“Come on, Little N, I’ve never let your brother die before and I’m not about to let it happen today, you have got to trust me,” I barked.
The objections swelled like a symphony of pessimism, but I was sure of my actions and the control was in my hands. I hit the communicator and gave Slackman his final instructions. “Burggl, the airlock is going to break and you’re going to fly in to the receiver bay of the mediship,” I paused. “You’ll have to take a deep breath and hold it until you’re safely in the other ship and the airlock is closed, do you understand?”
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