Roberts nodded, too tired to argue one way or the other.
Suki and Firebrandt went to their quarters. The room had been ransacked, but very little was missing. One key item that had vanished was Firebrandt's privateer's license. It had hung in a frame on the wall. He sat on the bunk and put his head in his hands. Suki sat next to him and put her arm around him. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Firebrandt nodded, his head still in his hands. They sat in silence for some time. Finally, he looked into Suki's eyes. "A boy is supposed to love his mother, isn't he?"
"You never knew your mother," said Suki.
Firebrandt sighed. "Growing up, I never had any love for her, because, as you say, I never knew her. Now that I've met her, I find that I actually hate her." His eyes glazed over. "My own mother represents everything I hate. She represents the formalized military. She represents regulation of the space ways. My life is about freedom. It's about adventure." He shook his head.
"You grew up with your father's values." Suki and the captain had had this conversation before. Only now, there was an added dimension. "But, she let us live."
Firebrandt stamped his foot on the deck plate. The pain made him wince. "That's the point. She let me live; she let me be born. My very existence has depended on her mercy."
She gently stroked his long, red hair. "You depend on me, lover," she said carefully.
"The difference is that I choose to depend on you," he said. "You give me comfort, companionship. She never did that. You depend on me as well." His voice trembled slightly.
Suki nodded. She noted that his rational mind was functioning again. She loved him for his emotional side, but knew that if his emotions took over at this time, they would not get to a planet safely.
They held each other, each drawing emotional energy from the other. She looked into his gray eyes. They kissed, gently, at first. Her lips parted and their tongues intertwined. She helped him pull off his tunic and pants. His hands caressed her body, slowly. She let him control, allowing his mind and heart to work together. As he caressed, he slowly removed her clothes. They became one and rocked slowly back and forth. "We have freedom, together," he said gently.
"I love you," she whispered. Though he said nothing, she felt him tremble as she held him. Eventually, they fell into a deep sleep.
* * * *
The next day, Suki and Firebrandt found Roberts in the mess. He looked better. There were subtle burns on his face where the sonic razor had burned him. Roberts was still adjusting to left-handed coordination. His face was set into a determined scowl. He made coffee and was attempting to break eggs into a skillet using his one hand. Suki offered to help.
"No," Roberts said, nudging her away with his elbow. He saw the hurt look on her face. "Sorry," he said. The egg he held crushed into little fragments; egg yolk oozed over his fingers. Roberts growled, his skull-like head giving him an especially fierce expression.
"Won't you please let me help?" asked Suki.
Roberts sighed. "It's just that if we're going to settle a new planet, I need to be able to do things for myself. I can't rely on your help."
She nodded, understanding. "Then let me help you to help yourself." She reached over, grabbed an egg and broke it one-handed. Roberts watched carefully, then nodded. He grabbed his own egg and broke it into the skillet. It wasn't perfect, but he was able to pick out the shell fragments and use the egg this time. He scrambled some eggs and fried some ham.
"This isn't exactly a regulation breakfast," said the captain, grinning. "Too much cholesterol in this stuff."
Roberts sneered. "The man is marooned in space. He may not live to see his next meal and he's worried about cholesterol." He started to serve up the plates. "This is a man who has a taste for real tobacco, no less. What does he care about heart disease?"
The three laughed lightly—a necessary release—as they sat down to eat. "So," said Roberts. "You two slept in late enough."
"As you say," said Suki. "We may not live past today. Why not have a leisurely morning in bed?"
The three finished breakfast in silence. After eating, they stacked dirty dishes into the auto cleaner. Roberts tried to turn it on. "Is nothing sacred?" he asked when nothing happened.
"What's the matter?" asked Firebrandt.
"They took the auto cleaner motor." Roberts sneered. "The ships in the Alpha Coma fleet must be in pretty sad shape."
"Leave the dishes," said Firebrandt. "I'll get them later."
The three walked forward to the battle deck. Firebrandt thought it felt strangely empty. He expected Computer to give an instant report of the ship's status. He looked at Neal's gunner's rig. It was still scorched, the fiber optic links pulled out. Firebrandt asked Roberts about the gun mounts. Roberts shook his head. They had removed those too.
"Efficient and thorough," sighed Firebrandt.
The three gathered around Roberts' jury-rigged computer console. He turned it on. The screen flickered to life. Roberts typed in the command: "Captain on deck." The terminal printed out a ship's status report. Firebrandt nodded approvingly. Unfortunately, the ship's status was not terribly good. It confirmed the low fuel and minimal operating systems.
"The important question is, can we make it anywhere?" Suki brushed black hair from her face.
Roberts typed a command. A list of stars appeared on the screen. "We have fuel to take us to the jump points for any one of twenty-seven G-type stars," he reported. He scanned the list nodding his head approvingly. "We could even go home, to Earth."
The captain shook his head. "No, not to Earth." He sighed, thinking he should ask what they wanted, however he had been captain for a long time. Command was a virtually impossible habit to break. He would have to learn to ask for opinions.
"I agree," said Roberts. "Could you imagine what they would say if we turned up in this stripped out ship?" The three of them grinned, the tension somewhat broken.
More to the point, thought Firebrandt looking at his feet, what would people on Earth say if they found out that his mother had captured and stripped the ship in the first place. Not the least of their problems would be the fact that they would never get another ship again. Another problem was that even with what they had in the ship, they would still be poor. No, it was best if they found a nice uninhabited world. The captain looked up. "We can make it to the jump points for twenty-seven stars, but what do we do after we've jumped?"
"Good point," said Roberts. He entered the new constraint. They had to be able to travel from the receiving jump point to a habitable planet. Only six star names were left. Firebrandt reasoned that the list was cut largely due to stars without any humanly habitable planets.
"Now," said Firebrandt, "which ones are uninhabited?"
Roberts entered the constraint. The list was cut in half. He shook his head. "Look at those names. All of them have been charted by Rd'dyggian ships."
"So?" asked Suki. "Who cares who charted them as long as they are uninhabited? After all, the Gaean Alliance and Rd'dyggia are both members of the Confederation of Homeworlds."
"Unfortunately," explained Firebrandt, "it is only a confederation and Rd'dyggians are extremely possessive. At least Rd'dyggians can live in the same planetary environment we can."
Roberts looked at the list again. He pursed his lips and sat back. "Only two of the worlds have actually been claimed for Rd'dyggia," he said.
"What's wrong with the other one?" Firebrandt's bushy, red eyebrows knitted.
"Don't know," said Roberts rubbing his hand over his head. He requested more details. "The only thing it tells us is that the Rd'dyggians left that one open to general colonization."
"Meaning?" asked Suki hopefully.
"Meaning the Rd'dyggians didn't find anything they wanted there," said Firebrandt, cynically. He looked at the description and the galactic coordinates of the system. "It's way out on the edge of everything, out on the galactic farside, isn't it?"
"No doubt about it," said Roberts. "It's a front
ier world."
"In other words, the Rd'dyggians found nothing and it has no strategic value." The captain stroked his moustache, nodding.
"Sounds perfect," said Suki.
Roberts shook his head. "Let's not be hasty. If we went there, there's no guarantee we'll find anything edible. The Rd'dyggians called this world habitable. That only means we can breathe there. It doesn't mean we can live there."
Firebrandt's shoulders dropped. "The only other choice is to make our way to an inhabited world."
Suki led Firebrandt aside and grabbed his shoulders, looking into his eyes. "What does going to an inhabited world mean for you?" she asked sternly.
"It means loss of everything. I'd have to sell the ship, such as it is, to get money for us to survive," he said.
"For you, that's death." Her fingers dug deeply into his shoulders.
"But you and Roberts..." he protested quietly.
"Would die as surely," she said. "We chose this kind of life as much as you did. If I am to die, let me die with dignity." Suki's brown eyes started to glaze over. "The frontier world may be death, but at least it's an attempt at life. An inhabited world is just suicide."
The captain moved to the front of the battle deck, gazing at the blank wall in the bow. He sat down at the gunner's rig and ran his finger through the dried fire-fighting foam and carbon scoring. He remembered the battles he had fought and savored the victories he had known. Roberts and Suki stepped up to him. Firebrandt looked up at his old friend. "I know what Suki wants," he said, quietly.
"We've known glory, old friend." Roberts' eyes had a faraway look. "We've known victory. We would have known neither if we played it safe."
The captain nodded. "Does the navigation computer work well enough to make a course for a jump point?"
Roberts nodded enthusiastically. "I think so, sir."
"Then get us underway," said Firebrandt.
"Course sir?" asked Roberts.
"We're heading for the frontier, Mr. Roberts," barked the captain. His face broke into a broad smile. The prospect of a new type of freedom started becoming clear to Firebrandt. His thoughts darkened as he wondered whether or not his mother had planned there to be exactly one uninhabited planet within reach. He shook his head, doubting it. The EQ drive put enough of the galaxy within reach that the odds of finding at least one unoccupied planet were pretty good. The deck plates rumbled quietly as Roberts activated the thrusters. The ship didn't feel quite right. The captain reasoned that was because there was only one thruster left. Suki stepped forward to the pilot's wheel. Roberts showed her what needed monitoring and how to keep the ship on the programmed course. She piloted the ship to its new destiny.
The ship continued on for another two hours sailing nearly as rapidly as light-speed. A green light started flashing. Suki mentioned it to Roberts who took control and continued until the light changed to yellow. He reversed thrusters. "Full stop," reported Roberts. "We're at the jump point for our frontier world."
Firebrandt, Roberts and Suki each looked at one another. Firebrandt nodded solemnly. "Let's do it," he said at last.
"Strap in," said Roberts. He sounded the jump warning.
The captain grinned. No one else was aboard to hear the alert. Still, the captain felt a wave of nostalgia. Firebrandt and Suki strapped themselves into the port and starboard gunner's rigs. Roberts strapped himself next to the computer terminal. Roberts typed in the sequence for the jump. The network controlled all shipboard functions during and immediately after the jump. If all went well, the rocket would fire after the jump and they would regain alertness to discover themselves en route to the planet. Roberts checked and double-checked the sequence. Computer would have done it in a single thought. Roberts had been trained as backup, but he didn't have the experience. If he made a mistake typing a critical part of the jump sequence, the ship would never reappear within three-dimensional reality. It would continue riding a wave moving perpendicular to all three spatial directions until the wave damped out somewhere between galaxies. Their atoms would break up and be scattered into oblivion. Roberts typed "go" on his keyboard. He closed his eyes and hit the return key.
The Legacy sidestepped into the fourth dimension, moving faster than light from one node of a great wave group to another. Reality ceased for the people aboard ship. Senses continued but time was no longer a referent. The colors of the rainbow could be felt slamming into their bodies. Sound was too bright. The ship grew and shrank, burst apart and reassembled. Reality resumed.
Roberts passed out. The stresses of the jump and pain of the joint where his hand had been amputated were too much for him. Suki sat motionless, her eyes glazed and her mouth open. She stared into the dead holographic wall at the front of the bridge. Only a bare, gray wall stared back. Her brain was having trouble orienting on the colors she still saw playing through it. Firebrandt's head was between his legs. He fought both fainting and nausea. He felt the slight nudge of acceleration as the ship's thrusters kicked in.
Firebrandt forced himself to stand. He balanced himself against a chair. While there were few limitations to interstellar travel with the EQ jump, they had just made a long bound to the far side of the galaxy and the effects were taking a while to wear off. He stumbled around to Suki and shook her a bit. She screamed, then she realized who he was. When reality came slamming into her, she ran back to the head. Firebrandt could hear the horrible retching sounds of breakfast coming back up. The sounds made him vaguely ill himself. He took several deep breaths and walked toward Roberts.
Firebrandt tapped Roberts on the shoulder. Roberts stirred, then jumped, blinking a few times. "How are you doing?"
Roberts looked around, dazed and listening. "Better than Suki, I think." He looked at the holographic viewer his eyes narrowing. "It's dead. I thought I programmed it to come on as we came out of jump."
The captain looked at the monitor in front of Roberts. He pointed to a line of code. "You did." He walked over to a panel on the wall next to the holo viewer and opened it. "They took the network interface." He walked back to the pilot's console and tapped the manual override button. The front wall came to life.
They were approaching a yellow star. Firebrandt located the planet on tracking sensors. He set the ship's course for it.
"Point of no return," said Roberts, checking the status of the Quinnium reserves on his console. "Good-bye civilization."
Suki returned to the battle deck. She had cleaned up, but still looked worn and tired. Stepping up to Firebrandt, she put her arms around him and together, they watched the screen. Roberts went back to the mess and retrieved some water. He came back and passed it around. They all drank greedily, not realizing how badly they had been dehydrated.
After an hour, the planet started to become visible. As they came near, Roberts read statistics from the computer screen. "Diameter, 655 million centimeters. Surface gravity is 1.05 times Earth normal. Intensity of light from the star on the surface is so close to Earth's it hardly matters. Rotational period is 25.89 hours. Revolutionary period is 414 local rotations."
The surface of the planet showed mostly a bluish green ocean and broken white clouds. Underneath, dark landmasses could be made out. A single oblong moon orbited. It looked as though it were a captured asteroid. As they approached, they saw two polar continents.
Firebrandt maneuvered the ship carefully into orbit. As they gracefully swung around the planet, two large continents could be seen, one in each hemisphere. There appeared to be four smaller continents, about the size of Australia.
"It's beautiful," said Suki, dreamily. She still clung to Firebrandt. "What will we call it?"
"Officially, the planet's name is G.S.C. 47689329 III," said Roberts.
"That's no name for a planet," complained Suki. She twirled the end of her hair, lazily. "It's got to have a real name."
"Why don't we name it after the three of us," suggested Firebrandt with a lopsided grin.
"You mean Suki-Firebrandt-Roberts?" Su
ki shook her head, perplexed.
"Awkward." The captain's brow knitted. "How 'bout we shorten it to Su-Fi-Ro?"
Roberts shook his head. "I hate to intrude on your romantic thoughts, but we are low on fuel for the thrusters. We won't be able to maintain orbit for much more than another hour or two."
Firebrandt turned sharply. "That's not enough time. The Admiral only left us one launch. We don't have room nor time to load it with the supplies we need."
Roberts nodded gravely. "There are two alternatives. If we begin immediately, we can perform a controlled atmospheric entry with the ship. We'll need shields to full. The computers can control most of the piloting until we are near the ground."
Firebrandt shook his head. "If we take the ship down, it'll never lift off again."
"With no Quinnium, where are we going?" asked Suki.
"What's our second option?" asked the captain.
"We do have enough fuel to put us into a stable orbit." Roberts shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Whatever we do, we need to decide now."
"I haven't even had time to check if there is fuel for the launch's reactor. If we stay in orbit, we may die here." The captain exhaled slowly. "Make your calculations and bring us in. Where will you land us?"
"I'm aiming for the first large continent we saw. I've been checking the Rd'dyggian survey reports. Records show there is a large north-south river running through it, slightly east of the continental center. If nothing else, the water should keep us alive for a while." Roberts had started typing before he finished talking.
The captain and Suki returned to their seats at the gunner's rig. The ship's electromagnetic shields popped on. The long black ship spiraled in toward the planet. As it slid into the diffuse upper atmosphere, the outer skin began to heat. The Erdonium hull designed for super light travel would absorb much of the heat. The internal graviton field compensated for the worst of the bumpy ride to the surface.
As they approached the surface, there were several power failures on the ship. The lights flickered and went out. The graviton generator died. Suddenly, the hapless crew was jostled about, their restraints digging deeply into their skin. The ship's hull could withstand the motion and the heat, but many of the internal systems were not designed to take long periods of violent, tumultuous motion. The holographic wall went dead again. They were blind as the ship moved up and down spastically, jolted by air turbulence. There was a resounding crash followed by a loud screech. The crew flew forward into the restraints, then were slammed back into the seats. The ship had hit the ground and slid. The thrusters continued to burn. Roberts struggled out of his seat and fell more than walked to the wheel. The console vibrated madly. It was difficult to focus on it. He hit it where he thought the thruster control should be. Fortunately, the thrusters stopped. Forward momentum carried the ship some distance. Finally, it slowed and stopped. Roberts slumped to the floor panting, holding the pillar for support. He felt like he was falling and attributed it to the rough ride.
The Pirates of Sufiro (Book 1) (Old Star New Earth) Page 3
