Work progressed, and Wen began to wonder at the wisdom of the path he’d taken. His arms and back ached before they finished. Once finished, however, he felt the warmth of accomplishment as the others all gave him a pat on the back on their way out. Eventually only he and the cargo master remained.
“Good job, Wen. I’ll enter it into your record. Go get something to eat.” He waited. When the pilot didn’t leave, he queried him. “Anything else?”
“Yes, sir,” Wen replied. “Two things. One,” he showed Patterson the frayed cord.
The cargo master swore as he viewed it. “They know better.” He tossed it onto his console. “The other?”
“Sean tells me we each have a small pallet for speculation cargo. That true – or is it only for Family?”
“True enough,” Patterson replied. “Have anything in mind?”
“Not yet.” But it had given him the germ of an idea.
CHAPTER 14
Haida Gwaii
Monday 05 July
Easy enough to say, “it will work”, another thing to actually make it work. Jaswinder frowned at her latest test results. The stress on the girders, the so-called latticework, moved them a fraction more than what safety called for. A jump into hyperspace if everything else didn’t perform exactly according to theory – and nothing ever did – would see the station destroyed, and all within dead.
And all that would lie upon the head of one Jaswinder Yrden. Murderer. And she would have to live with that for the rest of her life, no matter how long or short that turned out to be, for her brother-in-law swore that he would not allow her to accompany Haida Gwaii on her maiden jump.
They could not risk the great Jaswinder Yrden, jewel in the Yrden crown. She felt anything but great. Rather, she felt small and insignificant against the greater backdrop of the universe. And, in one hundred thousand years, no one would care whether this experiment worked or failed. Perhaps no humans would exist in the galaxy.
Small comfort, that. Especially, if they did not exist because she failed. She lowered her head to the desk. She needed sleep. The dark thoughts plagued her only when she grew too tired to call up her usual optimism. She needed sleep, but the equations would not let her sleep. They sneered at her, as their predicted values didn’t match the measured values.
One more time. Just one more time. She entered the equations into the simulator, correcting for the measured errors. To her horror, upon attempting jump, the nodes, with the added strain, began to fail. The whole structure twisted, bent, and she heard the screams of thousands of her victims as Haida Gwaii exploded into a million pieces.
“Jaswinder!”
A hand shook her shoulder.
“Jaswinder, you must go to bed. Enough is enough.”
She woke from the dream, shaking. A glance at the chrono suggested that she had slept for only fifteen minutes.
“I’m okay, Kevin. I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. Not if you’ve continued working since I left. That makes a sixteen-hour shift. The human body can’t take that forever. Go to your room. Now.”
“In fifteen minutes. I need to run one more simulation.” Surely it couldn’t turn out as badly as the dream. She needed to know it wouldn’t turn out as badly as the dream, else how could she go back to sleep.
“Look at your hands, Jaswinder. They’re trembling.” The concern in Kevin’s voice started to get through to her. She looked at her hands. Surely, a reaction to the dream. “If you don’t leave willingly, I’ll carry you out.”
She stared at Kevin. How could she get him to understand her need without telling him of her nightmares? Were she to do that, word would get back to Matt, and he would enforce a rest, despite what it might cost. And cost it would. She could already see the effect of the strain of responsibility on him. With her on an enforced break, that would only grow.
“I need to run one more simulation,” she told Kevin, spacing her words. “Then I’ll go.”
He bit his lower lip, then suddenly relaxed. “Give me the equations; I’ll run it. You sit back and watch.”
“Agreed.” The tension of having to fight Kevin drained out of her, while the tension of waiting for results, of praying to any and all gods for favourable results, increased. The data ticked in, the fields vibrated, flexed and shimmied – but held. She breathed out a sigh. “Good.”
But good didn’t really cover it. The safety margin hit the razor thin category. One field node not operating within specs might cause disaster. But, for now, she could relax. Tomorrow she would try altering the spacing between the nodes.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she said, seeing Kevin’s determined look.
She began the long walk back to her quarters, took off her clothes, dumped them on a chair, and stumbled into bed. Time enough for a shower when she awoke.
However, sleep didn’t come easily. She still heard the cries from her nightmare, accusing her of murder. If only Johannes lay next to her, his comforting warmth surrounding her like a cocoon, arm around her, then she could sleep. But he had his own job – important, both Matt and Harold Preston insisted – and that job kept him on FTL-1.
With Owen also on FTL-1 – and not having contacted her in any way since he had begun his Detector Level I course – and Rebecca on Venture, she felt all alone. She was going to lose everything, just like Owen had warned. How could she sleep?
The comm chimed. Groggy, and feeling nothing like refreshed, she turned the lights up to “dim” and looked at the chrono. Two hours. She had managed only two hours sleep.
The image of Johannes formed on the screen. Why now? She couldn’t deal with this now.
“Jazz,” he said, using her pet name.
“Yes, Johannes, what is it?” She could barely keep the face of her husband in focus.
“Just need to hear your voice, see your face.”
Why now?
“Can this wait for another time? I’ve only had two hours of sleep, and I have to get up in another two.”
“No problem. Go back to bed.”
She barely managed to say, “Thank you,” before disconnecting. Oh, please, please, let the universe allow her to get back to sleep.
Just as her head hit the pillow, she realized what she had done. He had called her up, and she had dismissed the step towards reconciliation seemingly out of hand, as if he didn’t matter at all to her. What must he think?
* * *
He would have to think of something new.
Wen glared at the screen in the teaching centre. Once again he had failed to get away from the pirates. Yet there must exist some way to delay his ship’s destruction until the jump engines could recharge.
Dumping all cargo hadn’t worked. Dumping cargo, lifeboats, and workboats hadn’t worked. The pirates still overtook him, got within missile range, and killed him. Using the lifeboats and workboats as decoys hadn’t distracted all the missiles, and just one missile impacting against his shields usually killed enough field nodes to permanently prevent him from jumping, and enough shield nodes to leave him vulnerable to a second missile or a beam.
“You look frustrated,” William told him.
William had set him up with sole access to the scenario, and Wen hadn’t let anyone else try it, or even know what he had created within it – not even William. No sense in worrying anyone with his conclusion: a cargo ship like Amalgamated 684 – or even Venture – had no hope of escaping a pirate unless they sighted him at long range. At least not if a USNA Patrol Ship acted the part of the pirate.
And that, even with no one else having access, he did not put into the program. He had merely given another freighter the acceleration that the patrol ship had shown in the data that Red had sent him before that damned ship had killed Amalgamated 684, Lil, and every one of his friends.
“I am frustrated. I’m trying to figure out how to get maximum acceleration. I’ve dumped cargo, lifeboats, workboats. It’s not enough.”
“Oh,” William peered at the scr
een, but saw only the pilot’s controls on a cargo ship. “What’s the purpose?”
“No purpose. Just playing. Right now, I’m having a race, and betting that I can win, but the other ship’s engines just outclass mine.”
William laughed. “Try throwing the kitchen sink at them.”
Wen nodded. “That might work. How much does the kitchen sink mass?”
“I’ll ask Aunt Sophie. But,” William hesitated, “I don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Know if you’ll survive Sophie’s wrath should you try to remove her kitchen sink.”
William went away chuckling, but Wen frowned. That just might work. He went back to the scenario screen, changed some parameters, and then set it up again.
The warning came as he dropped into the system. Ship at medium range, engaging main engines, turning to close with him. Radio pinged. “Heave to or be destroyed.”
Wen hit full thrusters, Revenge, his ship’s name, leapt forward. Three g’s, and everyone would gasp at the massive thrust. He felt nothing, of course, as he sat at a simulation only. The pirate, startled by his sudden acceleration fell back for a minute, a precious minute, before his more powerful engines began to take effect.
Wen began ejecting cargo, changing direction by a few degrees with every ejection. That would scatter his load far and wide, causing the pirate to either expend considerable fuel and time to collect it, or to give up altogether.
“Now!” he muttered. And he began loosing his workboats, which began to accelerate towards the pursuing ship. Then he loosed the lifeboats, which he programmed to intercept the pirate ship, as if she were rescue. But he had disabled the safety devices, and they would not brake to dock with it, but would ram the bastard at full throttle.
If the pirate ran to avoid the oncoming vessels, any one of which would breach his shields at this relative speed, Revenge would have time to recharge its engines.
The pirate loosed missiles, but they targeted the oncoming decoys instead of Revenge. Wen watched as each exploded in turn, scattering debris wide and far. And the bastard would have to fly through that debris. He would either have to slow or change course.
The pirate, slowed. Win began to gain, just another few minutes. He felt the triumph welling up inside – until the pirate targeted him with his beam. It flared the rear shields, but didn’t break through. However, he could not drop the shields in order to jump without endangering his ship. The pirate emerged from the wreckage field, and began to accelerate once more.
Jump engines recharged, out of missile range, but still targeted by the beam, and with the pirate closing, Wen gambled.
“Shields down,” he whispered. Shields fell. “Jump!”
In the two seconds between the shields falling and the ship jumping, the beam hit, knocking out several of the field nodes and damaging the engines. Revenge came apart during the jump.
“Damn it all to hell!”
“You shouldn’t swear,” came a small, high voice.
Wen pulled up a smile. “Hello, Cargo Master Sean. You’re right; I shouldn’t swear.”
“What happened your ship?” the young boy wanted to know.
“I hit something.”
“You should have put up your shields.”
Wen considered that a moment. “Yes, that may very well be it. I should have put up my shields. Thank you, Cargo Master.”
The child grinned. “You’re welcome.” He looked again at Wen’s sim. “Have you quit the Cargo Master game?”
“No, just taking a break. I’m up into Level 3 now.”
“I’m in Level 10. It sure gets harder with each level.” Sean went over to his own station, and logged in. He glanced over to the chrono. “I have an hour.”
“An hour?”
“Then my toys arrive.”
“Ah, and you’ll want to play with them. Yes.”
The child looked at him as if he were an idiot. “If I play with them, they’ll lose value.”
“You’re a collector?”
“No, Wen, it’s part of my cargo.”
Wen blanked for a moment. “Ah, yes. You want to sell them. Of course. What did you get?”
“Non-electronics. Mechanicals. They don’t need power – and the colonies have little power to spare, and few batteries. If I got electronics, their batteries would go bad. These will last for many years.” He laughed. “Maybe the kids who buy them will give them to their kids.”
“You think long-term. That’s good.”
As Sean’s attention went to his game, Wen walked away. Long-term. He should do likewise. He had a year’s worth of wages sitting in the ship’s account. What could he buy to sell on the colony worlds? What would they want as a long-term investment, or as a replacement for something needed that didn’t last long-term?
An hour. He had an hour to think about it, and then he would likewise head for the cargo holds to put in some more time doing that disgusting physical labour. At least it tired him out so he could sleep.
CHAPTER 15
Venture
Sunday 11 July
“Pilot Pearson, report to Shuttle One.”
“Well,” Wen told Dave Patterson, “that won’t take long.”
Patterson, overseeing the unloading of Shuttle One from its last trip to FTL-1 to bring back an order of goods, laughed. “I guess you’re finished here. I never did see a pilot so interested in Cargo that he’d work at it on his off-time. I’ll mark up your two hours for you.”
“Thanks, Dave. Just trying to prove my worth to the ship,” he lied.
He hated cargo handling with a passion. But the pirate program he had installed in the school’s piloting program had become an obsession. A way to beat a pirate had to exist, and cargo would have to play its part – dumping it, using it for cover, or, at the very least, spreading it out far and wide to make any recovery a time-consuming chore – one that would cost more in fuel than it might be worth for the pirate.
That last consisted of ejecting cargo while varying course. A simple straight line attempt to escape, accelerating while ejecting cargo, would simply cause the pirate to sprint to the front of the line – after destroying the ship, of course – and then waiting for each piece to arrive.
“Bridge, Shuttle One. Pearson here.”
“What?” came the Captain’s astonished voice.
“You ordered me to Shuttle One, yes?”
“Yes, Pilot. Proceed to FTL-1, and pick up cargo. I assume you were helping Dave?”
“That’s a roger, Captain.” He could hear the satisfaction in her voice. “He just has to clear two pallets from the landing bay, and I’ll be ready to kick off into space. Going through the checklist now.”
“Excellent, Pearson. Bridge Out.”
Pearson. Not his name. But fair enough. Carson had pretty much died, anyway. Might as well do away with his name, too.
Hands busy with controls as he went through the checklist, he idly wondered why they wanted to use the shuttle instead of a workboat. The message had made no mention of passengers, and a workboat made more sense, used less fuel.
A light flashed in the bay. Atmosphere pumped away. The bay doors slid open, and the ship kicked him out into space. He let the momentum carry him away from Venture until he felt it safe to fire attitudinal thrusters to turn him perpendicular to the ship. A small thrust, and he cleared Venture, turned himself towards the station, and then used the main engines to send him on his way.
A short burn sufficed. No rush on the order, so burn as little fuel as possible. He would arrive at the station in just over an hour.
An hour gave him time to think. Thinking just made it worse, and he applied a little more thrust. Lil. He should have sat next to her as the pirate’s missiles tore 684 apart. On the other hand, were it not for his being on the lifeboat doing PMIs, Angela would have died, too. Saving her made his own suffering almost worthwhile.
However, had he to do it again, he didn’t know if he would have gone to the
lifeboat, or waited in his cabin for the end. Life didn’t make sense.
“Venture Shuttle One, proceed to Dock Three, Bay One, as per instructions,” came the voice of FTL-1’s Traffic Control.
Wen looked down, and checked the course and velocity that they had sent him. He changed course. “FTL-1, Venture Shuttle One. Instructions received and am complying.”
Fifteen minutes later, the shuttle had docked. Not, like on Venture, lying within a bay, but simply docked to the outside of the station, with cargo hold and exit hatch aligned with similar airlocks. Cargo and passengers out – he carried no passengers or cargo this trip – new cargo and passengers in, and kick off. No need to air a bay for arrival, nor to pump out the air for departure.
Venture, of course, had her own docking bays, but Shuttle One had required re-fueling and a PMI on her engines. Of late, they had been putting more hours on the shuttles than would normally occur without the weeks-long trips in hyperspace to do maintenance.
Now, Venture acted somewhat as a large shuttle, loading from FTL-1 – or directly from shuttles coming up from Earth – temporarily storing the goods in her holds, and then carrying them over to Haida Gwaii – where she passed them on to the new station. Then back again for the next load.
With Haida Gwaii slowly edging away from Earth into an ever-higher orbit, the time shuttles would spend travelling to and from her would cause delays on their earth runs.
“Venture Shuttle One, we have you docked and secure.”
“Roger that. Putting her to sleep.”
Wen put the boards to sleep, stood and stretched. He unsealed the hatch, and stepped out onto FLT-1, something rare for a TPC – even ex-TPC – pilot to experience.
“What have I got coming?” he asked the dock foreman, who had the name Freddie Johnson stencilled on his work uni. Not a Family member, Wen thought. Or perhaps one of those few who did not take the Family name when they married into it.
The foreman passed over his reader. Wen scanned it. Usual stuff. No hazardous material, nothing that needed an atmosphere – not that that last mattered, as he wouldn’t have the cargo bay open to vacuum in any event.
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 15
