by Ward Wagher
"Sick Bay, Lieutenant Riggs."
"I did not realize you were the SBA, Father."
"I'm not. Lieutenant Strange is functioning as the SBA. I am wearing my chaplain’s hat.”
"What's the status of our guests, Father?"
"Not good, Franklin. Marc Strange is really not an SBA. He is checking the medical databases, and throwing pharmaceuticals at them; but, we really need to get them into a hospital somewhere."
"Are they going to die on us?" Franklin asked softly.
"I don't know. We are doing the best we can here."
"I can't ask any more than that, Father. Keep me posted."
"Of course, Skipper."
The communicator trilled almost as soon as he had disconnected from Sick Bay.
"Simmons, Skipper. We have a course change. He's coming back towards us."
"On my way."
Franklin strode back out onto the bridge. "Talk to me, Mr. Simmons."
"He's headed directly for us. We're catching the strobing from his radar."
"Has he seen us?"
"No, Sir. We are not at anywhere near detection values. Yet."
"Well, watch it, TACO."
Franklin punched the communicator button almost violently.
"Engineering, Ensign Chaplin."
"This is the Captain. Let me speak to either the Exec or the Chief Engineer."
"Aye, aye, Sir. One moment, please."
Daphne came on a moment later. "We have damage to both conduits, Skipper. We can repair both, but it's going to take a couple of hours."
"We don't have a couple of hours, Daphne. Our friend is headed this way. How quickly can you get one conduit up and running?"
"Let me go talk to Louie and I'll get back with you, Sir."
Franklin disconnected and looked down at his tactical screen. "How are we looking, TACO?"
"We're approaching detection values on the radar paint... whoops, we have a course change. He's gone to port ninety degrees. He's heading over to the next leg of his search pattern. He should not get this close again."
Franklin shook his head and smiled. "I should hope not. This is like watching a ground car accident in slow motion.”
"Okay, he should be turning to the next leg in about five minutes. Wait a minute: it looks like he's reversing course."
Franklin chewed on a knuckle. "Did he get a whiff of us, Gabe?"
"I don't know, Skipper, but, I don't like this."
"Get ready to fire all four tubes. We can't afford to screw around with him if he sees us."
"Programming four tubes, Skipper," he acknowledged. "And... he's turning this way."
Franklin bit off an oath. He punched the button on his chair.
"Engineering, Ensign Chaplin."
"This is the Captain. Tell Louie and the Exec I need power right now."
He disconnected then started typing into his terminal. "Chief Sabbath, I'm sending a course to you and the navigator. We are going to fire just as soon as the target is in range. Then we will move down this heading, assuming Louie comes through for us."
Franklin looked at the tactical display. The flashing beacon of the pirate ship was headed directly towards the Canopus.
"Tactical, do you think he has us?"
"Skipper, he has to see us. But, the way he is acting I don't think he has us localized. His equipment must be junk."
"How long until we are in range?"
"Seven minutes, thirty-three seconds, Sir."
"Mr. Bartlett, are we still outside of the Tetrarch gravity well?"
"Yes, Sir. We are five light minutes outside of the FTL limit."
"Good. Doublecheck the course to Vance. Once we get power to the drives, things may start happening in a tearing great hurry."
"Aye, aye., Sir," Ensign Bartlett said.
"Come on, Mr. Pirate," Franklin muttered. "You really don't want to find out what sharp teeth I have."
"Course change!" Simmons sang out. "He took a port ninety."
"Sheesh!" Franklin said. "I wish the clown would make up his mind." He then leaned back in his chair and laughed. "I guess beggars can't be choosers."
"With all due respect, Sir," Simmons said, "I'm just as happy he decided to change course."
"Oh, I don't disagree with you, Lieutenant. It's just that this guy is going to give us heart failure before he gives up and goes home.”
"That is the truth, Skipper. It's just that...." Simmons hesitated. "Status change, Sir. He has stopped radiating."
Franklin stared down at his tactical display. The computer displayed a dotted line where it projected the other ship to be. It widened the trace indicating the possible positions for the now invisible ship.
"Has he dropped his drives too?"
"Probably not, Sir. I would guess he is running them at a low level. We are certainly not detecting them from here."
Franklin bit his lower lip. "So now he decided to get smart. Gabe, run another sweep of the ship and make sure we aren't radiating.”
Simmons leaned forward and began typing again. He then sat back and watched his displays. "Okay, we are getting some neutron leakage from the engineering section."
"Will he be able to detect that?"
"Certainly not at the distance he's at right now. If he sneaks in close he might."
"That's just wonderful," Franklin said. "If he gets close enough, he could nail us when we try to spool up the drives again." He stretched and then stood up. "I guess, though, if it was easy, anybody could play at this table."
Franklin paced back and forth across the bridge for several minutes. He turned towards Simmons again. "Make sure to tell CIC to keep an eye peeled. If you or they see anything that looks funny, sing out."
More minutes turned into ten minutes. Then ten minutes turned into an hour. Franklin stopped pacing and stepped to his chair. He pushed the communications button.
"Engineering, Ensign Chaplin."
"It's the Captain, Ensign. Please ask Lieutenant Locke to call me at her earliest convenience."
He pushed the button to disconnect and then paced the bridge some more. The communications set trilled and he walked quickly back over to his chair.
"Bridge, Captain."
"It's the Exec, Skipper."
"What news, Daphne?"
"It was the control runs, not the conduits. We should be able to give you gravs in fifteen minutes."
"We are going to need the singularity drive," he said.
"When it comes up, you should have everything, Skipper."
"Very well. Let's stay in touch." And he disconnected.
Franklin paced some more and then stopped behind Simmons’ station. "Thoughts, Mr. Simmons?"
"Skipper, he has got to know where we are at within the general area. I think he is getting close. I can almost smell him."
"Are we doing optical scans?"
"Yes, Sir. But, this far out from the primary the computers will have trouble resolving something the size of a destroyer. There’s not a lot of ambient light."
Franklin tapped his teeth with a fingernail as he paced some more. "Why not let's put somebody up in the dome with a pair of binocs. Sometimes you can't beat a Mark One eyeball."
Simmons called CIC. Soon one of the ratings was clambering up a ladder into the ship's observation dome. The transparent blister was used on those vanishingly rare occasions when the navigator could not get a fix with the ship's electronics. This was the first time Franklin had ever had call to use it.
Again the wait stretched out. 20 minutes later Daphne stepped out of the elevator onto the bridge. "Louie should have power for you presently."
"And the question is, what should we do with it?" Franklin said.
"Where is he?" she said.
Franklin waved his arm taking a large star spangled bridge display. "He's out there. Somewhere. Simmons thinks he's very close."
Daphne slipped into her chair and looked at the tactical display. She rubbed an index finger across her upper l
ip as she thought. "If he's that close, we might be able to get an optical fix."
Franklin gave her a one-sided grin. "We've got someone in the observation blister now."
"I wonder if we could ease just a trickle of power to the drives and creep away," she said.
"If he’s that close, he'll see it," Franklin replied. "I'm counting on him to get impatient and give the game away."
"I am getting pretty impatient myself," she said.
Franklin chuckled.
"What?"
"All I can say is it's a good thing you were crawling around in the control runs for the past couple of hours while we were sitting up here looking at blank screens. I've been about go crazy...."
"I think we are getting something, Skipper," Simmons said. "I'm getting drive core leakage to the starboard."
"Can you localize?" Franklin walked quickly back to his chair and sat down. A fuzzy cloud appeared on his tactical display. Based upon the data, CIC believed the other ship was somewhere in the area highlighted by the cloud.
"I cannot localize, Sir. But he is very, very close."
"Close as in we can't use our missiles?"
"Yes, sir. He can't be more than a thousand miles out."
Franklin swore under his breath. "Alert the crew for close in weapons action."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Daphne said. She began tapping at her terminal.
"Sir," Sabbath said. "We have power to the helm."
"Very good, Chief. Standby."
"Contact!" Simmons said. "We have a visual. He's at thirty-seven degrees mark plus fifteen."
Franklin had a moment's disorientation as the camera slaved to the main screen quickly swung around and zoomed in on the other ship. A region of darkness that was somehow blacker than the surrounding space occluded a star.
"What's the range?"
"Fifty miles, Sir."
Franklin looked over at Daphne. "Okay, we need fifteen seconds to spool up the singularity drive. If we open fire just as we start, I think we can drop into FTL before his return fire can get to us."
"And if the drives hiccup again?" She asked.
"Then Chief Sabbath is just going to have to be quick on the thrusters."
"Skipper!" Simmons yelled. "He's brought up his radar."
"Open fire! Sabbath, get us moving!"
A dull thudding sound reverberated through the ship as the projectile weapons fired. Sabbath’s fingers danced over the keys of the helm console as he worked to spool up the drives.
Franklin tapped his fingers on the chair arm. "Come on, come on, come on."
Three quick bangs shook the Canopus and then the screens blinked as she stepped into faster than light.
Daphne pushed her communications key. "Damage control, report!"
"One moment, please." The voice came back. "Okay, one compartment open to vacuum at frame forty. It appears we have two casualties. No other damage has indicated so far."
Franklin looked at Daphne. "What's at frame forty?"
"That's one of the weapons hard points, Sir."
Franklin grimaced and shook his head. “We just cannot get ahead in this game," he said.
“At least we didn’t take one in the magazines,” Daphne said.
“There is that. Let me know as soon as you find out the status of those casualties.”
chapter twenty-five
"Has our friend shifted over to FTL?" Franklin asked.
"Not so far, sir," Simmons said. "Oops. We just got the burst of Berthold waves, Skipper. I wonder if we missed him completely."
Franklin shrugged. "Who knows? I had hoped we got a piece of him, though."
"I don't see how he can follow us," Simmons said.
The ability of any one ship to track another while both are in FTL is more of an art than a science. Because the Berthold singularity drive shoves the starship between successive singularities via a quantum tunneling technique, the ship spends, at most, femtoseconds in real space at any one time. The really good tactical officers could theoretically build up a data picture over the course of millions of tunneling transitions, but very few were that good. On the other hand, Simmons was definitely competitive.
"Considering that he appears to have a Helen Keller sensor suite, I'm not really worried about him finding us," Franklin said.
The ancient joke about the sensor suite dated back to wet navy days, and referred to ships which could neither see nor hear.
Simmons snorted. "You got that one right, Skipper. On the other hand, we were pointed directly at Vance when we lit off our drives. If he is determined enough to follow us, Harcourt's World would be the first place he would check."
Franklin shook his head. "I thought about that just as Sabbath hit the button. Too late smart, I guess. If we didn't have several people aboard who really need to be in the hospital, I would have been tempted to stick around and shoot pennies with this guy."
He turned to Daphne. "How are the drives holding up, Exec?"
"We are nominal, Skipper. There were no problems with the hardware itself, just control runs. I think Louie is going to camp out in engineering for a while. He was pretty frosted when his drives cut out like that."
"I don't know if I would use the word frosted. But, sitting out there in front of God and everybody without being able to pour a single erg into the drives was not the least bit gratifying." Franklin chuckled mirthlessly. "Though, in a perverse sort of way it was entertaining."
"I've had all the entertainment I need for one day, thank you very much, Sir," Daphne said as she studied her displays.
"Unfortunately, I don't believe we’re through with this guy. Simmons, drop a hook in the water and see if you can develop a feel for what he's doing."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
“Uh, Skipper? The two casualties in the gun room are definitely dead. It just popped up on the status display.”
“Do you suppose I'm being paid back for the people I've killed?”
“When have you killed people, Skipper?” Daphne asked.
“Never mind. Simmons, keep me posted on your progress.”
Simmons began working his sensor suite at the difficult task of tracking another ship while both were running FTL. While it was possible and had been done before, it seemed only to have been done successfully when the TAC officer was seemingly supernatural.
"Exec, let's secure from general quarters and get the people rested. I think we are safe at the moment. But, we do need to stay alert."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Daphne said.
She pushed the button to open the general announcement circuit. "This is the Exec. Secure from general quarters. I repeat; secure from general quarters."
She sat back and watched the evolution to the standard maneuvering watch on the bridge. PO Gosling slipped onto the bridge to relieve CPO Sabbath. A few moments later Ensign Kane stepped in to take over for Simmons. Simmons stayed for fifteen minutes to instruct Kane on the attempts to track the pirate ship before going to CIC.
Finally Daphne turned to Franklin. “Skipper, I’ll go get out of this suit and then take over for you.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep right now. Why don’t you try to get some rest. I can slip off during the second watch and catch a quick nap if I need it. I’ll change in the Ready Room.”
“I probably need to look in on the damage control parties, anyway,” She said.
Franklin grinned. “You really don’t need to get in one of those contests with me, Exec.”
“What contest would that be, Sir?”
“The old ‘who can stay up longer than the Skipper’ contest. It’s my job to work you into the ground.”
“And it’s my job to protect the Captain and the ship,” she retorted quietly. “I’ve seen studies about new CO’s. A Skipper on his first cruise averages four hours of sleep in twenty-four. I’ll wager you have not gotten much more than that.”
“Correct as usual, Daphne. I’ve seen that study too. They wave it around in OCS. I thought it was silly an
d no smart commanding officer would do that to himself. Let me tell you I was wrong. It’s impossible to sleep for more than four hours. I worry about everything you worry about, plus the entire ship, plus the mission, plus the Foxworths. On top of that I now have to think about the letters I’m going to write to the families of the two crewmembers who died a half hour ago; plus the others who are likely to die before this is over and done with.”
“You don’t act like you’re worried.”
Franklin just stared at Daphne.
Finally she spoke again. “I apologize, Skipper. I was out of line.”
“Apology accepted. Go tend to the ship.”
# # #
The Captain’s Chair is the most uncomfortable seat on any ship. Not physically, but rather because of the responsibility it carries. Physically, the Captain’s Chair on the bridge of Canopus was almost sinfully comfortable. Franklin had carefully refrained from telling Daphne he had had somewhat less than four hours of sleep per twenty-four hours on average since the beginning of the voyage.
Franklin gradually became aware of someone snoring. It wasn’t the stentorian rattle of the overweight and middle-aged. Rather, it was a light buzzing which accompanied the long, slow, deep breathing of the acolyte communing with Morpheus. Franklin felt he should open his eyes to see who was sleeping on duty, but he was just too comfortable. He finally opened his eyes and glanced around the bridge, but the snoring had stopped.
Franklin glanced down at the clock on his tactical display and noted that forty-five minutes had passed since he had last looked at it. He pondered that state of affairs for a few moments.
“Status, PO Gosling?”
“On course at eighty percent power settings. Drive systems nominal, Sir.”
“Thank-you, PO. Mr. Kane, any tracking information?”
Ensign Kane grimaced and shook his head. “Not directly, Captain. I keep catching anomalies in the sensor data that suggest something is out there and it feels fairly close.”
“Feels, Mr. Kane?”
“Sorry, Sir. That’s the best I have.”
“No need to apologize, Mr. Kane. If you can feel something out there, you’re doing better than ninety percent of your peers.”
