“Seventeen,” Ilika reported, fulfilling his duties as acting steward, but leaving Kibi in command. “About three-quarters male, half old, half middle-aged, except for that one infant.”
As he spoke, the seventeen fluffy white mammals with long pink ears, sitting on the floor in the passenger area, all changed back into fuzzy blue balls of light, then disappeared.
Mati finished with her console and spun around. “That’s a little better. At least they wouldn’t go completely extinct. You were right, Rini. The minute of rescue time we lost, by moving away from their main plaza, was worth it.
We only crushed one.”
“I’m lowering the table,” Ilika announced, then stepped into the galley.
The others came up from the bridge.
Sata slid into a chair. “We really have to find ways to avoid hurting any.
The moment one screams, most of them run away scared.”
Ilika remained silent as he placed snacks on the table. Boro grabbed a chair beside Sata.
Kibi chuckled dryly. “It feels funny for me to be saying this, but the name of the game, to rescue these beautiful little creatures, is to avoid any emotional reactions.”
Ilika flashed her a smile.
Rini’s face suddenly twisted with thought. Everyone noticed and looked at him.
“Manessa,” he began, looking at the ceiling, “can you stretch your hull in a
couple of places to look like bunny ears?”
“Yes.”
“Can you make the ears pink, and the rest of your hull white?”
“Yes.”
Ilika raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s been done before. It’s worth a try!”
As Manessa knew she should, she waited for an awkward moment to begin the next simulation. Rini had three items on the stove in the galley, Kibi was taking a bath, and Boro and Sata were sharing a deep kiss in the engineering ring on the lower deck.
“Emergency mission, supernova detected, one sapient race vulnerable, transit time fourteen minutes, complete planetary incineration in twenty-four minutes. Prepare for star transit.”
The crew had that much memorized. They all got comfortable where they were and cleared their minds. Rini had the biggest challenge, first touching the stove’s shut-down symbol, next tossing his knife into the sink, and finally plopping onto the floor to enter the meditative state that would protect him from insanity during the timeless and spaceless experience of star transit.
What seemed like a second, but might have been a year later, they popped back into space and time as close to the doomed planet as possible. Mati was quickly at her station, yelling for engines with voice commands to the ship.
Boro arrived a moment later and took over the process, adjusting power levels he knew his pilot would want, and preparing alternate fuels just in case.
The star had already exploded, the daytime side of the planet was nothing but molten rock, and the nighttime side was rapidly changing to ash and cinders as the planet continued to turn on its axis.
Even though she had already done the simulation twice before, Sata’s entire body was covered with sweat as she focused her mind on finding the right planetary chart and marking their destination, a cave and tunnel system where about four hundred sapient mammals lived, the last such cave, out of thousands, that would rotate onto the daytime side of the planet and be instantly burned to a crisp.
The pilot breathed a little easier when the chart flashed onto her screen.
“This time I’m gonna try to avoid crushing anyone by stopping eight meters above the plaza, then moving to the landing field.”
“Good idea,” Kibi said from the command chair, her hair still dripping wet.
“You ready with that shape and color, Rini?”
“Manessa’s gonna be the biggest bunny rabbit they’ve ever seen! It’s all programmed and on Mati’s console.”
“I see it,” Mati said. “Prepare for emergency de-orbit at ion three.”
“Ion three, anti-mass seven, full inertia canceling, maneuvering thrusters,”
Boro confirmed, knowing exactly what his pilot needed, and what else she would call for soon enough.
“Next stop, one thousand meters above ground level,” the pilot said as she glanced at her status screen and touched the ion drive symbol.
The planet, surrounded by the intense glare of a sun now half the size of the planet’s orbit, swooped toward them. Kibi, looking straight ahead at the main bridge screen, had to close her eyes for a moment to avoid dizziness.
Most of the nighttime side of the planet was cinder-black and glowing red in places, especially near the left edge where the land had recently rotated around from the daytime side. But along the right edge, a crescent of land still showed hints of brown, green, and blue, lit up by the intense light streaming through space all around the planet. Even as they approached, the habitable crescent was shrinking.
Suddenly their display ceased rushing toward them, the dimly-lit land only a thousand meters below.
“Ion one to eight meters,” the pilot announced.
“Freeze simulation,” the captain said from the steward’s station. “Sorry, that’s only possible because you’ve verified the land elevations during a previous run. That wouldn’t be the case in a real situation.”
Mati snapped her fingers. “Ion one to one hundred meters . . .” the pilot proposed, then turned to look at her captain.
He smiled. “Continue simulation.”
“Ion one,” the engineer verified.
The ground rushed toward them again, allowing the crew to clearly see the plaza and cave entrance in the eerie twilight. Mati quickly covered the remaining distance with maneuvering thrusters, and while doing so, touched
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 9
the special shape and color symbol Rini had programmed.
White furry creatures, about a meter tall when they stood up, began pouring out of the cave, gazing at the strangely-glowing sky and the white and pink ship that just appeared above their plaza. Some eyes swirled with fear, but most were simply in awe. A few knelt down and raised their arms to the sky. More quickly joined in.
“I think . . . they’re worshipping us,” Kibi said. “Is this what you had in mind, Rini?”
“No. But if it gets them into the ship . . .”
“I’d crush a hundred if I landed here,” Mati said as she moved her flight control. “Okay, little bunnies, follow the big bunny in the sky to the field.”
Even though the little creatures were quick on their feet, the ship was quicker, and Mati had struts on the ground before the first furry mammal arrived.
“Sunrise, and the end of the world, is in seven minutes,” Sata announced,
“from right . . . NOW.”
A count-down timer appeared on every display.
“Passenger area is ready,” Ilika announced, “ramp out, hatch open.”
Kibi jumped to her feet. “Manessa, close the hatch at eight seconds on the timer no matter who is in or out.”
The deep-space response ship confirmed the order.
