Torchship Captain

by Karl K Gallagher

  He worked calculations on pilot station’s plotting board. Accelerate toward the Combined Fleet, then turn over and thrust the other way to match velocities with them. Once they rendezvoused with the fleet they’d turn over and join them in their deceleration. And once all the human ships were in one place they’d undoubtedly head for someplace else . . .

  “We’re going to turn over four times on this course,” said Hiroshi.

  Mthembu laughed. “That usually means there’s an easier way to do it.”

  The two pilots went over Hiroshi’s calculations.

  “Okay, two days is the fastest we can get to Admiral Galen,” said Mthembu. “But can’t we just wait here for them to arrive?”

  “In missile range of the Harmony? The agreement for giving Guo back was that we’d take him to the Combined Fleet.”

  “Do you really think they’d . . . yeah, let’s get into the fleet missile defenses as quick as we can.”

  One advantage of being all alone in space was only needing one watchstander at a time. Or so Mitchie decreed. Possibly influenced by the desire to have time off with her husband. Acceleration was reduced to ten gravs for shift change. She retreated to their cabin with him.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” said Guo.

  They lay side by side, pressed deep into the mattress by the double acceleration.

  “You look like you’ve been through hell,” said Mitchie. “Your face shows a lot of stress.”

  “There was a horrible stretch toward the end. Before that it was mostly vacation. And, um, well . . .”

  “If it’s that hard for you to talk about it I don’t know how well I can handle listening to it. And I need to be focused on the ship with the battle coming up. Being distracted would be bad.”

  “Oh, this has all kinds of distraction in it.”

  “Then let’s let it wait. You’re safe. That’s enough for me.”

  “Not enough for me.” Guo turned and pulled her close.

  Sex in twenty gravs was too much work to be fun. They went far enough to prove they could do it, then collapsed. This time they lay with their sides pressed against each other.

  “Doubling our weight shouldn’t be that bad. Four people in bed happens all the time,” quipped Mitchie.

  “Yeah.” Guo was still breathing hard from holding himself up so he didn’t crush his wife. “But the couple we’re swapping with won’t do any of the work.” Pant. “And they want to be on top.”

  “Right. Let’s break up with them. Lazy bastards.”

  That got a laugh out of him.

  After a night filled with dreams of dense fogs and narrow caves Mitchie relieved Mthembu on the bridge. “I have the con. Anything to report?”

  “Ship is nominal, ma’am. I’m worried about the negotiations. They’ve gone bad.”

  He responded to her raised eyebrows by turning up the volume on the communications box.

  Guen was in mid-rant. “—was discarded for good reason on Old Earth! The obsolete philosophy enervated society to where anything looked like an improvement, even the most harmful meme there’s ever been! Trying to resurrect that ideological corpse is—”

  “Harmful?” interrupted Ping. “The Dynamist platform is more harmful than any society I’ve seen. You dissolve all bonds of family, location, affection, intimacy to turn people into purely economic agents.”

  The argument—it couldn’t be called a debate—continued in a random walk from topic to topic.

  “It’s been like that the whole eight hours I’ve been on shift, ma’am,” said Mthembu. “I’m scared they’re going to open fire any minute.”

  “Don’t be. This is bullshit.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I know those two. I’ve listened to them argue, in person and over video. They’re putting on a show. Probably locked down an agreement by tightbeam.”

  “A show for who?”

  “The Betrayers. They’re expecting the Combined Fleet to face them alone while the other two fleets fight each other. If they knew the humans were cooperating they’d stop and consolidate their forces instead of being so strung out. It’s a good plan. I wonder if it was Galen’s idea.”

  Mthembu contemplated the idea. “So it’s a trap. Like the Third Battle of Bonaventure.”

  “Yep. Galen’s a sneaky bastard. Get some rest.”

  “Aye-aye, ma’am.” He hurried down the ladder to reach his cabin before she increased acceleration again.

  ***

  Mitchie thought about writing a formal report on her activities. It was what she’d normally done after each mission as a deep cover intelligence officer. But no amount of careful phrasing would save her if the powers that be didn’t approve of what she’d done. Pointing out that they’d passed up the chance to give her formal direction while she was on Pintoy would just be whining. She went with the lazy option and dumped her entire log on them, from when she’d arrived on Pintoy to now.

  She transmitted it while still a light-hour out from the Combined Fleet. Terse text messages from staff officers acknowledged receipt and directed Joshua Chamberlain to a place in the logistics formation.

  Admiral Galen waited until they were only three light-seconds apart to contact her. An aide verified the connection worked, warned her the encryption was not proof against Betrayers, and told her to wait for the Admiral.

  She was alone on the bridge. This would probably be a conversation to be kept private.

  The comm box lit up with Galen’s face. “Long. I’m glad you survived the mission.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Three seconds wasn’t a long delay.

  “The intel staff summarized your report for me. They were impressed by the detail. I’ve decided your actions were in accordance with what you perceived as the intent of my orders.”

  “Most of the report was my log of events as they happened, sir.”

  ‘In accordance’ was not praise, but it meant she wouldn’t be court-martialed. No more worrying about charges of insubordination or mutiny.

  “They have questions for you but I told them to wait until after the battle. You’re being assigned to Admiral Tan for logistics support. The usual odd jobs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pause.

  “Given your seniority and the command responsibilities performed, you’ve been selected for promotion to captain. Congratulations. Galen out.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said to the blank screen.

  ***

  Joining the logistics formation made Mitchie feel like a minnow swimming among whales. The other ships were a hundred times Joshua Chamberlain’s size or more.

  Mthembu handled the comm box as they merged with the formation. “Just established a tightbeam with the flagship, ma’am.”

  “Good.” Mitchie’s attention was focused on staying clear of the plumes of the behemoths. The largest ships could vaporize the small freighter if it reached the center of their plumes.

  “New orders. Rendezvous with BDS Currie, take on cargo. Do not reply.”

  “It didn’t say what kind of cargo?” Hiroshi sounded puzzled.

  “That’s the whole text,” answered Mthembu.

  Mitchie said, “Somebody’s playing super-security. Can’t let the Betrayers know our ships are low on toilet paper.”

  ***

  Currie’s captain contacted them by tightbeam as they approached his ship. “Please rendezvous for cargo transfer.”

  “Acknowledged,” answered Mitchie. “Cut thrust and we’ll approach from astern.”

  “Negative. My orders prohibit any change to our acceleration.”

  “Currie, if we do the transfer in free-fall we can get back in formation by boosting at twenty gravs.”

  “That was explicitly forbidden in my orders.”

  “Very well. Coming in hot,” said Mitchie.

  Normally a modern ship would use its computer controlled thrusters to rendezvous with an analog ship. The five hundred meter long Curri
e was too clumsy for that. Joshua Chamberlain would have to approach to twenty meters from the bigger ship under manual control.

  Mitchie came in from astern, but to the side. She kept her ship just ahead of Currie’s plume, riding the curve so the two ships’ plumes overlapped. Hiroshi monitored the side camera, singing out when the plasma became too bright.

  Joshua Chamberlain was tilted toward the Currie as they closed. The side of the massive containership shut out the stars. The ship grew to where individual containers were recognizable and still Mitchie kept them closing.

  She held up her thumb, arm outstretched, and measured its width against a container. A container was almost as wide as the digit. She fired the pitch thrusters to tilt her ship away, bleeding off their closing speed. When the Currie stopped growing she pitched the Chamberlain back, putting them in parallel.

  Hiroshi checked his readouts. “The nav box says we’re forty-three meters apart. Smoothly done, ma’am.”

  “Thanks.” She fired the plus-X thrusters to close the remaining gap.

  Mthembu said, “Currie says they’re ready to lower the cargo, just give them word.”

  “Right.”

  Mitchie waited until they’d closed to the specified twenty meters and had it confirmed by the nav box before giving permission for the transfer.

  ***

  Setta thoroughly inspected Wang and Dubois’s suits before opening the cargo hold doors. For all the suit time they’d racked up with the Combined Fleet the Pintoy vacation had let them become rusty. Neither one had an error. She made them both inspect her as well.

  Opening the cargo hold doors was a strange experience. Normally when the torch was on the doors would open onto a starfield. When it was off the doors revealed a hanger or spaceport. Now they were staring at stacks of containers.

  Setta edged up to the opening, testing her safety line with firm tugs. Looking down she saw the intersection of the two plumes. Sheets of light glittered as shock waves pushed back and forth within them.

  She looked up. Staring up the side of the Currie was almost as vertigo-inducing as looking down. Looking back down from the top she saw a square approaching. Their cargo, being lowered on a platform by a crane that could pick up Joshua Chamberlain.

  As the platform descended past the cargo hold she could see stacks of standard containers with a dozen spacesuited men clinging to them. The crane stopped before the platform descended into the plasma hell below.

  One suit was yellow. It leapt off the highest stack, landing on Joshua Chamberlain’s deck on hands and knees.

  Setta grabbed a spare safety line and snapped it onto Yellowsuit’s belt before he could stand.

  He transmitted on the local suit frequency. “Thanks. I’m Dave Jones, the supercargo. You in charge?” He thrust out a hand.

  She shook it. “Bosun Setta. I’m in charge of the hold. Captain Long is in command.”

  “Damn. This is really Michigan Long’s ship. How about that?”

  “What’s the cargo?” The container doors were marked, “KEEP OUT—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” “DO NOT BREAK SEALS UNDER PENALTY OF SECURITY ACT,” and “EXPLOSIVE.” They lacked the traditional codes to warn hazmat crews what they were dealing with.

  “Sorry, I can only tell the captain. She’ll have to brief you. Let’s get the cargo moving.”

  Joshua Chamberlain’s crane extended out over the platform. It had room to work. The platform was suspended by the corners from a square frame thirty meters above. Setta chose the highest stack in the center to take the first container from.

  She extended the crane until the hook block was over the center of the container. Four lines dangled from the block. Currie’s deckhands attached them to the corners of the container then scurried clear.

  “Ready,” said Jones.

  “Lifting.” Setta pressed the ‘cable retract’ button on the crane remote.

  The container lifted clear of the one below.

  Setta flinched as it fell back down, pulling the crane with it. Joshua Chamberlain tilted toward the Currie, sliding closer to the big ship. The lip of the cargo hold hatch struck the stacked containers on the platform.

  She hastily pressed ‘cable extend.’ The faint plume of attitude thrusters flared over the hatch. The Currie and its platform moved back again as Joshua Chamberlain tilted away. She kept the cable extending. It hung slack between the ship and platform.

  The ship steadied twenty meters clear of the platform.

  “What the fuck was that?” crackled Captain Long’s voice over the general frequency.

  “How much do those things weigh?” snarled Setta.

  “Um, twenty, thirty tons, something like that,” said Jones. “I can look it up.”

  “On a twenty meter lever arm. You idiot.”

  “Your specs say the crane can handle twice that.”

  “It can. When we’re on the ground. We’re not braced against anything here.”

  “Sorry. Sorry!”

  “Frigging lazy megaship bastard.” That was insubordination if Jones was commissioned, but Setta didn’t care. Captain Long was her role model.

  A conversation with the captain produced a new plan for moving cargo. Joshua Chamberlain moved back into position. The crane cable was drawn up taut. Then the analog ship fired thrusters just enough to lift the container clear. As the crane carried the container inside Captain Long stepped down the thrusters to match the smaller torque. The cargo hold deck shivered as the ship shook with the conflicting forces.

  With practice the transfers went smoother. Containers stacked up against the back of the cargo hold, causing more balance issues. As the platform emptied the bottom of the pile became visible. One was a cylindrical tank held in a frame.

  “What’s that?” demanded Setta.

  “Liquid hydrogen.”

  “Why the hell are we getting that?”

  Jones had a high-end spacesuit, flexible enough to let him shrug.

  “Fine,” she said. “Make sure you explain it to the captain.” She wished the ship had an internal airlock so she could send him to the bridge now.

  “The hydrogen tank has to be by the hatch,” he said.

  There was obviously no point to asking why.

  “Anything else I need to arrange around?”

  “Yes. The last item is a double-wide container, needs to have nothing on top of it. And make sure the red end is facing the doors.”

  She clamped her jaw shut on her response.

  ***

  Once the cargo hold was sealed and pressurized Jones went up the ladder to have his private chat with the captain. He left through the upper deck airlock, ship and platform maneuvering to give him an easy jump.

  Captain Long came down the ladder. Setta followed her as the captain inspected every container’s tie down. The hydrogen tank received extra attention.

  “Good work, Bosun,” was the verdict. “Tell your deckhands I’m proud of them for handling these odd conditions.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. So . . . what is all this stuff?”

  “Can’t say. But we may be very glad we have it.”

  ***

  Guen and Ping kept the rhetoric hot as the Combined Fleet closed in. The lead Betrayer ships turned over and began decelerating to not overshoot the fleet rendezvous. The enemy wanted to stop and fight the humans to a finish, not just take some shots as they zipped through.

  Three hours before the Combined Fleet joined them the politicians announced, “Simon says deception is over. All units change to joint formation.”

  The Combined Fleet cut thrust and coasted, waiting for the other human ships to accelerate to merge formations as they flew by. The lead Betrayers kept decelerating. Intelligence assessed it as waiting for the next wave to join up with them before engaging.

  Mitchie used her telescope to watch the maneuvers. The Harmony executed crisply, one squadron at a time shifting on each side to make a stair-step shape before finishing as a perfect disk facing the Betray
ers.

  Bachak’s forces . . . were not so crisp. The formation reverted to ‘flocking,’ spreading out to twice the width it had been. Scattered like that they’d never be able to stop incoming missile fire. At least they’d managed to not plume each other while rotating the formation.

  Well, they hadn’t while Mitchie was watching.

  When the Fusion and Harmony fleets were both facing the Betrayers they turned over to accelerate away from them. The Combined Fleet had passed between them. Each had to add a half-light second of side travel to their acceleration.

  The lead Betrayers cut their deceleration. Once the next wave joined them the group accelerated toward the humans.

  Mitchie arranged for Joshua Chamberlain to be as far from the Harmony ships as possible without being on the edge of the formation. She didn’t think it was likely for Ping to arrange for a missile to be sent their way . . . but she didn’t want to make it easy for him.

  As an analog ship they didn’t have a full view of the battle. The communications box was not sophisticated enough to integrate networked warship sensors. It received warnings and orders the freighter had no way to act on.

  She could tell the fleet was under fire when she saw glowing debris flash by. The bridge dome faced away from the enemy. The ship’s cameras were too low resolution to pick up more than flickers of the missile exchange. So Mitchie was reduced to assessing the battle by the urgency of commands for counter-missile fire. If a squadron was ordered to pivot to unscreen its lasers and rapid-fire cannon, some Betrayer missiles had penetrated the counter-missiles and decoys.

  The bridge dome gave a lovely view as four missiles streaked past the logistics flotilla and exploded a mere five hundred klicks ahead of the formation. Mitchie thought that was a decoy’s work.

  ***