Captain's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper)

by Nathan Lowell

  I was startled to hear the chief speak. It wasn’t the little girl. “Deceleration is multiplicative. If we can get even five percent more now, it’ll pay big dividends at the end.”

  Mr. Pall jerked in his chair and stared at her for a heartbeat and a half before diving into his screen again.

  Ms. Thomas seemed not to have noticed. “Can you give us more sail, Chief?”

  I saw the back of the chief’s head move as she nodded. “Yes, Ms. Thomas, I can and that’ll help a bit. The girls have some governors on them that I can override if I need to. We can’t run them for long like that, but maybe as much as a couple of days here where every meter per second matters. It’ll help, but I don’t think it’ll be enough.”

  I grabbed at the straw. “Parameters, Chief?”

  “Maybe ten percent more sail for forty-eight stans. It’ll depend on sailing conditions of course, but all other things being equal it should be something on that order of magnitude, Skipper.”

  “Factor that in, if you would, Mr. Pall.”

  “Plotting now, Captain.” He punched a few more keys and the plot on the overhead shifted.

  “Run it, please, Mr. Pall.”

  He punched it and the clock ran up again. The course took slightly different curves but the same objects offered similar obstacle to our path. The icon reached the orbital and the clock read April 11th, near the end of the day.

  “Better but not enough.”

  Ms. Thomas turned to look at me. “That’s least distance. Can we do a least time?”

  Mr. Pall looked over at her. “They should be almost the same thing.”

  She shrugged. “Should be and would be in an empty system, Billy, but this one isn’t empty. If we can find a longer path that gives us better wind or take advantage of a gravity well to slow us, we might go farther but arrive sooner.”

  The Chief cocked her head slightly. “We’re coming in awfully close to the ecliptic. If we could get above it even a few hundred thousand klicks, we’d get a more stable flow.”

  “Changing the vector is will be tough sledding until the sails get a little more wind to work with,” Ms. Thomas said.

  The chief turned to look at me. The little girl was gone and Chief Gerheart stood revealed in the middle of the bridge. Excitement danced in sapphire flames and a lean, eagerness in her stance banished all thoughts of little girls. “Or below it, Captain,” she said.

  She stretched up an arm and pointed at an object that was coming toward us in one of the outer orbital bands. It was close, but the plot took us clear before it would cross our path. A small label identified it as a planetoid named “Last Chance.”

  “Can we alter course enough to intercept this rock? We might be able to slingshot on the gravity well and drop under the ecliptic.”

  Mr. Pall had turned his head to look at what she was pointing to. From my angle I couldn’t see his face but he stiffened in his seat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  She turned to look at him. “No, Mr. Pall, if we can graze it right, it should slow us a bit but it’ll change our vector and have us heading down. When we reach better wind, we should be able to shed even more velocity because the sails will have better bite.”

  “But that’s going to add a huge amount of distance to the track, Chief.”

  I interrupted. “Plot it, Mr. Pall. Let’s see what she’s got.”

  He shrugged and turned to hammer his keys a bit. A bit turned into rather a long time. “Sorry, Captain, this isn’t the normal course. It’s taking me a bit.”

  “Take your time, Mr. Pall.”

  We were so used to having things done immediately, that even a few ticks delay seemed long. Eventually the plot refreshed and the corkscrew pattern was revealed. Ms. Thomas whistled in appreciation. “That’s a long way to the barn, isn’t it.”

  The projected distance on the plot was almost half again longer. “Run it, Mr. Pall.”

  He mashed a key and the icon representing the ship skewed around until it was running almost at the planetoid. It passed very close and looped down sharply. A wide curve back toward the primary and a very smooth curve deposited the ship and orbital together at April 11th at mid day.

  Ms. Thomas shook her head. “So close.”

  I saw the chief’s head tilt just a couple of degrees to one side. “Mr. Pall, if you’d rerun it and zoom in on this flyby, please?”

  He did it without my having to tell him and I watched closely to see what the chief was looking at.

  The view focused on the curve and, as the icon passed the planetoid, the chief barked, “Freeze it!’

  Mr. Pall’s hand twitched and the frame stopped. “What’s our closest approach, Mr. Pall?”

  “Four diameters, Chief.”

  She stepped back from the screen and folded her arms across her chest, still staring at the screen. She stood that way for a full tick.

  She finally turned, just her head to look at him. “Can we get any closer, Billy?”

  He grimaced. “Sails that close to the planet? If there’s enough iron in it and we drag a sail across it ...”

  She winced and turned her face back to the plot.

  “What if we didn’t have sails, Skipper?” It was Mr. Schubert. His voice startled me. I had overlooked the fact that he’d stayed on the bridge after the watch at been relieved. All heads snapped to face him where he leaned against the ladder railing.

  “No sails, Mr. Schubert?”

  “Yes, Captain. If we want to get closer, the turbulence around that rock is going to be pretty ugly anyway. I’m not sure I’d like to try to sail it, even at four diameters. If we go ballistic four diameters out, then graze the shell...” he shrugged. “Thrusters give us a little steerage but even the sails won’t actually be dragging us around in that sharp a turn. We’d be relying on the gravity to turn us, and it’ll turn us a lot faster if we can get closer.”

  Behind me I heard the chief speak the word that had surfaced in my brain. “Brilliant.”

  I turned to look at Mr. Pall. “Can you thread that needle, Billy?”

  His hands were moving before I got the sentence out. “Yo ho ho, Skipper. And a bottle of rum.”

  The wait was shorter this time. He only had some minor adjustments to make to the plot. In three ticks it was on the screen. This time the green line was interrupted by a two yellow segments with an angry red bit in between where the bend in the course was the sharpest.

  “Run it, Mr. Pall.”

  We watched and even though it was only a simulation plot, I held my breath as the ship made the loop and shot out the other side. I think we all breathed a sigh when the corkscrew flattened out and the ship made the turn to run inward. The plot was longer again. The sling shot threw us downward a long way that had to be made up. When icon and orbital met this time, the date was April 10th around 2200.

  There was a general intake of breath before anybody spoke. I broke the silence. “Closer.”

  They all turned to look at me. Mr. Pall spoke. “It’s the 10th, Skipper.”

  “Just barely, Mr. Pall, and I’d bet those parameters you’re trusting are just estimates. Good estimates but still guesses.”

  I could see Ms. Thomas nodding. She suddenly frowned and turned to Mr. Pall. “Where are we meeting the planetoid, Mr. Pall? Are you plotting us over the pole?”

  It wasn’t precise language but we all knew what she meant. “Yes, the chord is angled to give us the most push down.”

  “Can you shave it? We don’t want the same plane as the ecliptic because that’ll just throw us inward through the junk, but can you carve it maybe halfway between? Say forty-five degrees?”

  He frowned and stared at the plot on the overhead, but I knew he was thinking about the course. “Lemme see.”

  A few ticks later and a slightly different corkscrew pattern flashed up on the screen. It still had red and yellow bands, but the downward leg wasn’t as pronounced. The running plot gave us April 9, at 2100.

  Several grins b
roke out around the bridge. The Chief’s wasn’t one of them.

  “What’s the problem, Chief?”

  “That red band, Skipper. That’s red for a reason and I’m not sure we’re going to like finding out what it is.”

  “Mr. Pall? Parameter’s on the warnings?”

  He turned back to his screen. “Inertial dampeners, Skipper. Yellow is within ten percent of safety margin. Red exceeds it. Maximum value shows eight percent over maximum rating.”

  I turned to the chief. “Recommendations?”

  She ran a hand across her mouth and I could see the wheels spinning. “That’s cutting it very, very fine, Skipper. If we get away with it, the ship gets a good work out.”

  “If we don’t, Chief?”

  “Then best case is that dampeners fail and we all become spacer paste on the nearest hard surface.”

  Mr. Schubert barked a laugh. “That’s best case, Chief?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It’d be fast and over.”

  I hated to ask but morbid curiosity won out. “Worst case, Chief?”

  “The ship breaks up without killing us outright and we get to experience dying in a vacuum.”

  Mr. Pall broke the silence. “That seems a bit extreme, Captain.”

  “Your gift for understatement hasn’t failed you, Mr. Pall.” I looked at the plot. “Pull back from the planet a bit. See if you can find a trajectory that doesn’t have any red in it.”

  The chief nodded in approval.

  Mr. Pall turned back to his screen. “This could take awhile, ladies and gents, and I don’t really work that well with an audience.”

  “Okay, Mr. Pall, we really don’t want to joggle your elbow on this one. I think we can clear the bridge except for the watch. I’ll call you all when I know something.” I looked at Ms. Thomas. “You’re going to be back here soon enough to take the watch anyway. With luck he’ll have something we can–pardon the expression–live with.”

  They took the hint. Which was good because, as a rule, Captain generated hints carried the force of orders. The bridge cleared out and I took my seat at the console. Mr. Pall continued to hammer keys and I forced myself not to watch.

  I’ll give him credit. It took him almost until the watch change, but he never wavered. Tappity-tappity-tappity-tap. Wait. Curse. Repeat. The first few took him a while to plot up, but he soon had the process down and the periods between curses grew quicker if less vehement as the watch wore on. In the end, there was a wait, but no curse. I heard a few more keys, and another pause. A few more.

  “Okay, Captain, you can look now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pall. You were doing those last few just to torture me, weren’t you.”

  He looked startled when I stood up from behind the console. “No, Skipper. I would have if I’d thought of it, though, if that’s any consolation.”

  I laughed. “Run it, Mr. Pall. Let’s see what you got.”

  The path was twisty but free of red. When icon and orbital met, the date read April 10th, 0200.

  “Best I got, Skipper.”

  “Lay it in but hold it until I can get the chief up here.”

  “On it, Skipper.”

  I called the chief and Ms. Thomas. My finger had barely cleared the keypad when they both bounded onto the bridge.

  The plot was on the overhead. It took three runs before the chief nodded. Ms. Thomas gave a shrug. “If the chief says ’good’ that’s good enough for me, Skipper.”

  The chief turned to Mr. Pall. “If you’d run it once more, Mr. Pall.”

  He did and she stood up close. When it was over, she didn’t look at him when she spoke. “And if you’d zoom in on the flyby, Mr. Pall, and freeze it at closest approach?”

  He did so.

  She stepped back from the screen and uttered a single word. “Good.”

  “Lock it in, Mr. Pall. When’s our flyby?”

  “It’s on the screen, Skipper.”

  The date and time readout read March 25th at 0200.

  “That’s gonna be a long night, I’m afraid.”

  The chief looked up at me and snorted. “Long is good, Captain. On that course, short is not an option we want to explore.”

  There was no sign of the little girl on her face at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jett System:

  2372-March-24

  I wasn’t sure if the crew really understood the reality of what we were about to do. I wasn’t sure I did, for that matter. Every time I tried to visualize it I got the image of our relatively small ship playing chicken with a planet. We were going to actually fly at a rock that was two thousand kilometers in radius, try to miss it by a distance that threatened to scrape paint off the hull, and at a precise angle to the limb while closing at way over ten kilometers per second. The trick was going to be to fly at the correct velocity and to catch the correct angle. Too slow and instead of shooting us out the far side, we’d be grabbed by the planetoid. Too close and we’d just be ripped apart by the stresses on the ship. Too far and we’d be off course, out of position, and late to deliver.

  Assuming, of course, that we didn’t just smack headlong into the surface. I didn’t know which was worse. The idea of crashing my first command into a rock that I shouldn’t be flying near or that the last thing that would flash through my brain would be fifteen metric kilotons of kitty litter.

  In spite of the potential pending doom, the crew seemed in high spirits at the prospect of a thrill ride. On the twenty-fourth I had all three of the ratings wanting to take the exams. Ratings exams happen at the same time across the Western Annex. Every ninety days, training officers on ships underway, and union halls on orbitals offered promotional ratings exams to anybody who wanted to take one. I’d had more than my share of them back on the Lois McKendrick and I’d administered many more in the stanyers since.

  Mr. Hill and I had the morning watch, so I used the spare console on the bridge to administer the exams. Mr. Ricks reported first. He took, and passed, the exam for Able Spacer. As I made the appropriate notations on his record, I noted that it was the fourth time he’d taken and passed the exam.

  “Try to hold on to it, Mr. Ricks?”

  He grinned a lopsided grin. “I’m thinking of moving up instead of down next time, Skipper.”

  “While I’ve got you here, Mr. Ricks, I realize we’ve been on a dead run ever since I came aboard, but what do you think we should do to improve morale aboard?”

  “Making lots of money has certainly improved my morale, Captain. And things have certainly been interesting since you came aboard. My problem is I haven’t a clue as to what might be possible.”

  I pondered for a couple of heartbeats. “Well, on other ships, I’ve seen morale officers work to improve the recreation facilities of the ship, and intercede when some individual member of the crew was having a particularly hard time.”

  He took his time replying to that one. “You’re doing a good job looking out for us, Captain. Everybody in crew quarters seems pretty upbeat.” He thought some more. “As for recreational facilities aboard, the work out room is about the only thing and other than the hot tub idea, I can’t think of what else to add to it. The weight machine, treadmill, and rower are all first rate. The only thing it’s really missing is a stationary bicycle and I’m not sure if anybody noticed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ricks. If you think of anything, please let me know. Put your heads together in crew berthing there and check with Mr. Wyatt. See if he has any ideas.”

  He seemed a bit startled by the notion, but nodded in agreement. “Aye, aye, Captain. I can do that.”

  Mr. Schubert came up and took his exam next. It was no surprise to me that he was going for his specialization in ship handling, but it did surprise me that he was going for first class. In the earlier and admittedly hurried review of crew records, I’d overlooked the fact that he held second class shiphandler already.

  I asked him about it when he came up to the bridge. “So, why are you still
on the Agamemnon, Mr. Schubert? With a second class ticket, you could have found another berth.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds, Skipper. When you’re from the Agamemnon, well, let’s just say our reputation precedes us.” He looked chagrined.

  Thinking back to my own reaction when offered command of the ship, I had to nod in agreement if not in total sympathy. There’s a certain justice in having to sleep in the bed you made, and the three of them had certainly had a big hand in rumpling the coverlet. Still, it wasn’t solely their fault. Bad management and a cascade of errors certainly added a lot of extenuating circumstances.

  “We’ll have to try to reverse that, eh, Mr. Schubert?”

  “I don’t know, Skipper. The way things are going here lately, seems like I might already be in a sweet berth.” He gave me a cheeky grin.

  I had to laugh at that. “Well, we’ll see if you feel that way after tonight.”

  We got down to it and he worked very methodically through the exam. It took him the better part of two stans and in the end, he missed it. Not by much, but enough.

  I sat with him at the console and we went through the sections. “The math skunked you, Mr. Schubert.” I pointed out the questions where he’d missed the most points.

  He sucked air through his teeth and shook his head slowly. “Always been my problem, Captain. I thought I’d done enough studying to beat it.”

  “Well, no harm, no foul on this one. When we get to Jett, remind me. I’ll see if I can find some supplemental math work to help you.” Some of the questions didn’t really seem that tough to me, but I was looking at it from the perspective of four years of Academy math, and stanyers of practice since.

  “Thanks, Skipper.”

  We had to wait until Mr. Pall and Mr. Ricks relieved us and lunch was over before Mr. Hill could take his cargo exam. He took the third class test and passed it with flying colors. By 1400 we’d finished the testing, and I had a few stans before we went back on watch. Mr. Hill and I had the evening watch, and we’d be going to navigation stations with the watch change at midnight. The fly-by was expected around 0145 and I wanted everybody in place well in advance. Things were going to happen pretty quickly when they started, and I wanted my people up and awake when they did.