by Jake Elwood
"We have a simple assignment," Nishida went on. "A freighter called the Spring Sunshine left Garnet six hours ago, bound for Argo with supplies for the outpost. She left unescorted." Nishida steepled her fingers. "The Admiralty believes that her departure, and her unprotected status, may have been observed. She may be targeted by pirates.
"Our mission is not to overtake her. We will catch up to her, and we will shadow her. If pirates attack, we'll intervene."
Boudreau said, "We're using a civilian ship as bait?"
Nishida spread her hands in a shrug. "The Admiralty offered her an escort, but she didn't want to wait for us. Deadlines, profit margins, that sort of thing. They made their choice. In spite of that, we'll still put ourselves in a position to intervene if they're attacked." She looked around the table. "Any further questions?"
There were none.
"This will be an excellent training opportunity. We'll be tracking a ship by dead reckoning, then attempting a discreet surveillance. If we're lucky enough that pirates strike, it'll be an even better opportunity. So make sure your junior people are on hand to see how it's done." She looked at each officer in turn. "That's all. Dismissed."
"Do you think we'll see pirates?" Tom asked as he followed Brady out of the meeting room.
"The odds are against it," she said. "If there was any real risk, the freighter would still be here waiting for us." She glanced at him and laughed. "Don't look so disappointed! Pirate attacks do happen, and the Spring Sunshine is out there unprotected. We might get some excitement."
"I'm getting pretty good with the helm controls."
"Forget it." She thought for a moment. "Actually, I'll get you to go to Operations and observe the Tactical station." She held up a finger. "Don't actually do anything."
"God forbid," Tom muttered.
"But watch how it's done. An extra set of eyes won't hurt, either." She rubbed her temples. "In the meantime, I want you to inspect the missile bay and all the laser turrets, just in case. Half the crew is hung over." She winced. "Probably more than half. If we see combat, we'd better be ready."
"Aye aye," said Tom.
"Good man. If you need anything, don't call me. I'm going to take a nap."
It took five long hours to catch up to the Spring Sunshine. When they calculated they were roughly even with the freighter, the ship reduced speed and began serious scanning. A spacer named Chavi peered into a screen at the Tactical console in Operations while Tom stood beside his chair and watched the other screen. Realistically, the Kestrel's AI would tell them if another ship was in range of their scans. Human beings were remarkably good at spotting inconsistencies in visual data, though, particularly in the chaos of an energy storm. There was always the chance they would spot something the computer missed, so they kept their eyes glued to the screens.
"I'm going bug-eyed," Tom said after a while. "How long do you think this will take?"
"Oh, we won't see anything for a while," Chavi replied. "Not here." He toggled a button on the side of his screen, changing the view from a digital rendering of the space around them to a live camera view. There was nothing to see but swirling ochre clouds. "It's a toss-up whether a freighter would go through a storm like this. It's nothing to the Kestrel, but it's a bit risky for a freighter. They would probably go around, unless it was a really long detour."
"So you don't think they went straight through?"
Chavi shook his head. "The captain's taking a quick look, just so she can eliminate it. We've already turned back toward open space."
Tom checked a readout in a corner of his screen. Sure enough, the Kestrel had turned around without him noticing it. "If they took another route, we'll never find them."
"Oh, we'll know which way they went," Chavi reassured him. "It'll be obvious."
Tom waited, skeptical, until the display on Chavi's screen changed from yellow to black. They were in open space, a mass of ochre cloud behind them and nothing ahead but a few far-distant storms.
"Here's the big storm," Chavi said, gesturing on his screen. He zoomed out the display until Tom could see the mass of the storm as a distended blob blocking the path to Argo. "They won't go this way." He gestured to the left. "The storm just gets thicker, and it starts to blend into this other mess." His fingers indicated a seething mass of dark blue far off to one side. "They won't go down. The bulk of the bad weather is that way. That just leaves this area." He waved at the top right corner of the screen.
"That's got to be thousands of kilometers, though," Tom said, looking at the storm front. "And it's all pretty close to the same distance away."
"Tens of thousands," Chavi said. "But you're not looking at it like a penny-pinching freighter captain."
Tom looked at him, baffled.
Chavi grinned. "Look closer, Sir." He worked the controls on the display, zooming in. "There it is. That's where he went."
Tom peered at the screen. There was a fissure in the storm, a dark line, impossibly narrow, where two cloud fronts came together.
"It's bigger than it looks," Chavi said, anticipating his next objection. "The two fronts have got to be twenty, thirty kilometers apart. Lots of room for one ship."
"Is that safe? It looks like that gap could close at any moment."
"They're more stable than they look," Chavi said. "It's like the energy in each part of the storm repels the other part, or something. I don't really get the physics." He shrugged. "And even if it closes, a freighter can survive. They won't like it much, but they'll get through." He grinned. "They might not try it with a really bad storm, but with this? Why not?"
It seemed he was right, because the Kestrel turned and headed for the deepest part of the fissure. "This is going to look amazing," Chavi said, "but I guess we better go back to proper scanning." He toggled the display and the dramatic walls of cloud disappeared, replaced by a grainy outline of the storm and flashing icons showing energy spikes.
Tom kept watching his own display, but now he kept an eye on the navigational data at the bottom of the screen. He saw when the ship turned, knew they were flying between those massive walls of cloud. What would it look like from the bridge?
Goosebumps rose on his arms as he imagined it.
"We're a bit behind," Chavi said. "We'll catch up quick, though. The freighter will slow down when he's this close to two different storm fronts."
Tom nodded without lifting his gaze from his screen. He wanted to know what a ship looked like on a display like this. And he wanted to be the first to spot it.
Fifteen minutes passed in a tense silence before Chavi said, "That's odd."
Tom, swallowing a stab of annoyance that Chavi had spotted something he hadn't, leaned closer to Chavi's side of the console. He still couldn't see a thing but electronically-filtered storm clouds. "What? Where?"
"It's opening up," Chavi said. "We can see further now. And the ship's not here."
"Opening up?" Tom closed his eyes for a moment, then took a fresh look at his screen. Now that he was no longer focused on the tiny details of blips in the clouds he could see that Chavi was right. The Kestrel was leaving the fissure behind and moving into open space on the far side of the storm.
Chavi looked at him. "I don't get it, Sir. Where's the freighter?"
Tom shrugged. "Did the captain guess wrong?"
"If she did," said Chavi, "we'll never find the freighter." He gestured at the screen. "This was the one place they had to come." He looked at Tom. "Oh."
Some of the endless tactical exercises Tom had done during Small Ship Training came back to him now. "If a pirate ship wanted to ambush the freighter, this is exactly where they'd do it." He thought for a moment. "We haven't seen any wreckage …"
"If I was the freighter captain," Chavi said, "I'd run into the storm the moment I saw a pirate." He gestured at the ceiling. "And the storm is only a few kilometers away."
"You think the pirate is chasing the freighter in the thick of the storm?" He thought for a moment. "Unless they alrea
dy boarded the ship and took it over."
"Maybe," said Chavi. "But they didn't have much time. We're not very far behind."
"Or the captain guessed wrong and the freighter went a different way."
Chavi grinned. "Or that," he admitted. He glanced at his screen. "Looks like the captain is going with the pirate ambush theory," he said, his voice quickening. "She's taking us into the storm."
Tom watched on his own screen as icons representing distant stars blurred, faded, then disappeared. Effective scanning range inside the storm was much, much less than in open space. They would have to be practically on top of the freighter – or the pirate – to detect them.
He felt his pulse increase. Actual pirates. They could be anywhere in this murk – and I could be the one who spots them.
"You're going to mess up your back, Sir."
"Hmmm?" Tom glanced at Chavi and felt a muscle twinge in his neck. He realized he was hunched over the console, his nose barely a handspan from the screen. He straightened up, feeling his muscles protest. Chavi grinned, but didn't comment.
I hope we don't miss them. What if the freighter makes a run for it, and comes back out into open space? We should stay close to the edge, just in case. He glanced at the navigation display and smiled. Once again he'd been so focused on the tiny details that he'd missed the bigger picture. The Kestrel was stationary, perched just inside the storm where she'd be tough to detect but she could see a fairly long way. He checked the ship's orientation. She was facing back toward Garnet, the closest safe haven, the most likely direction the freighter would run.
For a long time nothing happened. Tom gritted his teeth, determined to maintain his concentration, but his mind wandered in spite of him. We should dive back into the storm. The freighter crew could be fighting for their lives a kilometer away, while we sit here waiting for them to come out.
What if the battle's already over? What if the freighter is destroyed, and the pirate has already slipped away? How long will we sit here waiting?
He glanced at his bracer, checking the time. In that brief moment when his gaze was away from the screen, Chavi said, "Ship!"
"Dammit!" Tom's screen held a fresh blip, a ship heading in the direction of Garnet, her tail pointed almost directly at the frigate. Tom turned, excited. "Commander!"
"I know, Thrush." Boudreau, sitting in the Operations command chair, gave him an impatient look.
"We should inform the captain!"
"Even I can see that ship." Boudreau gestured at his own console. "I've got less than half the resolution you've got. There's no way they missed it on the bridge."
"Oh. Right." Tom turned back to the Tactical console, his cheeks hot. Watching Chavi smirk in the corner of his eye didn't help, either.
For ten endless seconds nothing happened. Then a second ship burst from the storm cloud and raced after the freighter.
"There it is!" cried Chavi. "We've got a pirate."
After that there was maddeningly little to do. The Kestrel was controlled from the bridge, not Operations – but Tom had a front-row seat. The Kestrel raced out of the storm front in pursuit of the pirate, and Chavi toggled the view. One screen showed a live camera view of the pirate, zoomed in. The other screen showed the pirate, the Kestrel, and the freighter as icons, with the storm front as an ochre line along the bottom of the screen.
The pirate ship was unlike anything Tom had seen in the military. Smaller than a corvette, bigger than a large shuttle, it was about the size of the forward section of the Kestrel. It was sleek and tapered, with a single engine glowing at the back and a gun turret on the underside. It was painted a vivid green with black trim, but the paint in some sections didn't quite match. It gave the ship a cobbled-together look at odds with the strict uniformity of military vessels.
As the Kestrel cleared the storm the pirate changed course. Abandoning the pursuit of the freighter, the little ship cut hard to port and down, running for the cover of the storm while angling away from the frigate.
Tom had been hoping for a dramatic battle, but he was disappointed. If the pirate fired a single shot, he didn't see it. He knew the Kestrel was firing when the black line of a laser burn appeared amidships on the port side of the smaller ship. A couple of hull plates peeled away, and he saw a burst of vapor as the ship lost air.
The glow of the main engine faded. Tom expected the ship to drift toward the storm, but the distance didn't seem to be closing. He used his console to run a quick calculation. The pirate, after turning, hadn't eliminated the momentum she'd built up in her pursuit of the freighter. She was drifting away from the storm front.
"Mr. Boudreau." The voice coming over the speakers in the ceiling belonged to Captain Nishida. "The pirates have surrendered. Send across a boarding party."
"Aye aye, Ma'am." Boudreau looked around the room, then paused, his gaze on Tom. "Mr. Thrush. You don't seem to be doing anything useful. Report to the scramble room. You'll accompany the boarding party."
Tom straightened up, excited and terrified all at once. "Aye aye, Sir."
"You'll be in nominal command," Boudreau said sternly. "It doesn't mean you know what you're doing. I expect you to stay out of the way of the marines and follow their suggestions without hesitation. Is that clear?"
"Clear, Sir," Tom said, somewhat deflated. Boudreau turned away, and Tom left Operations.
Chapter 16
The Scramble Room was at the nose of the ship, just to port of the forward docking ring. It wasn't a small room, but it felt crowded with a dozen marines pulling on equipment and slinging weapons. Tom pressed his back to a bulkhead near the door and kept out of the way, wondering if he should be doing something.
"Mr. Thrush." There were no rank markings on the man's gear, but Tom recognized Lieutenant Harper. "Put this on, please." He held out a garment like a breastplate. "Fits over your suit. Protects the key parts."
Tom took the breastplate, then looked around at the marines, hoping for a hint as to how to put the thing on. The marine vac suits were sturdier than his, lined with strips of plating that would give protection without impeding movement. Over those vac suits the marines were helping each other into extra armor, solid-looking gear that came in several sections. He watched as Harper stuck out an arm and a marine fitted a bulky guard over his shoulder.
No one had a breastplate quite like the one Tom held, so he shrugged to himself and turned it over in his hands. He finally figured out that the flexible draping part was meant for his back, loose-fitting to allow for different configurations of oxygen tanks. He got a couple of curving straps over his shoulders, pulled a thick plate snug against his chest, and looked helplessly at a long, flexible flap of thick polymer that hung from just below his diaphragm almost to his knees.
"Let me help you with that, Sir." He didn't know the marine who dropped to one knee in front of him. The young man was encased in so much armor he should have been barely able to move, but he seemed to have no trouble bending and stretching as he said, "This bit goes between your legs. It's just about impossible to do without help. You needs to moves your feet apart …"
Tom stood straddle-legged as the marine fed the armored flap between his legs. He didn't see what the man did next, but the flap tightened and the draping on his back pulled tight. The marine popped up as nimbly as if he wasn't wearing dozens of kilos of titanium and reinforced plastic. "You'll need one of us to get you back out of that."
After that Tom stood, not moving, while the marines finished equipping one another. They passed around a dizzying array of weapons, including meter-long plasma rifles that made the pistol on Tom's hip seem like a toy.
"All right. Platoon, ready."
The marines formed a double row against the port bulkhead, bulky armored figures, each with a helmet under one arm. Harper, a slug rifle under one shoulder and a helmet dangling from his hand, paced back and forth in front of them. Tom stood against the starboard bulkhead, ignored by Harper.
"Okay, kids, this is it." He
gestured at the forward bulkhead. "They's surrendered, so we's going in peaceful-like. Hoping for the best. But we'll be ready for the worst. We lets 'em surrender if they're sincere. But we doesn't give 'em the chance to hurt us. Right?"
A few people murmured, "Right."
Harper nodded. "Now, we has a boat driver with us." He jerked a thumb at Tom. "He goes in last, and we watches out for him, right?" He scanned the row of marines, then turned to give Tom a hard look. "You won't go making a dangerous job more difficult for us, now, will you, Sir?" His teeth flashed in a smile. "There's some Navy types that always wanted to be marines, and they go pushing their way to the front in situations like this. Sometimes they gets themselves killed, which is a lot of paperwork for poor overworked marines." He wagged his head. "But other times they gets honest marines killed with their foolishness." Suddenly his eyes were as hard as the titanium strips on his armor. "I know you're not one of those damned fools, Lieutenant."
He turned away before Tom could reply. "You all know the drill. We'll be going across in the soup can, so we should be fine until the hatch pops open on the other side. After that, we does it by the book. Got it?"
A few people nodded. No one spoke.
"Right. Helmets on."
Tom put his helmet on, wiggled it back and forth, then lowered his arms as the helmet sealed itself against his suit. A green indicator light appeared just above his eyebrows telling him the suit was airtight.
"Sound off." Harper's voice, tinny and muted, sounded in Tom's ear. Then he heard a chorus of clicks, each with a slightly different tone. It was, he realized, the marines checking in. He wasn't sure how they were doing it.
"Can you hear me, Mr. Thrush?"
"Yes, Lieutenant."
"Excellent. If you could keep this channel clear except for urgent communications, I'd be most grateful."
Harper backed up until he stood beside Tom against the starboard bulkhead. That left the deck clear for a long strip down the center of the room. No sooner was the floor empty than several deck plates began to retract. Tom found himself looking down into an assault craft.
