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

by Nathan Lowell

  I headed down to the cabin after the last exam and found Chief Gerheart waiting for me outside my door. “Gotta tick, Skipper?” The little girl had disappeared altogether after the performance on the bridge. The mask was, apparently, gone for good. Having been exposed to a large number of the crew, there was little point in continuing. Nobody made any comment that I’d heard, which was interesting in itself.

  “Sure, Chief, come on in.” I led the way into the cabin and indicated the chair.

  We sat and she looked at me with an oddly appraising look across the desk. “This is going to sound odd coming from me, Skipper, but are you mad?”

  “I don’t think so. Mad about what, Chief?”

  “Not angry. Crazy.”

  “Quite likely. Do you have anything in particular in mind?”

  “Why did you agree to this hair brained plan? Captain Health-n-Safety is gonna fly his ship into a rock in pursuit of a few credits?”

  “Well, it was your idea, Chief.”

  “I know, Skipper, that’s why I said it’s going to sound odd coming from me. Have you thought about this? Really thought about it?”

  I snorted a small laugh. “I’ve had a hard time thinking of anything else.”

  “So why are you risking the ship? New captain’s stars choking the blood supply to the brain?” She said it kindly, but there was a look of concern.

  “Do you think it’s too risky? Can the ship take it?”

  “It’s a tractor, Skipper, not a battleship. We just don’t have hard data on that kind of stress on the hull. The manufacturer’s tests are almost twenty-five stanyers old. There’s been a lot of Deep Dark sucking on this hull for a long time and who knows how she’s aged.”

  “Do we have any safety margins at all, Chief? We’re in the yellow all the way in terms of the inertial dampeners. The physics check out as far as we know them.”

  “It’s the ‘as far as we know them’ part that gives me pause, Skipper.”

  “Me, too, Chief.”

  “Then why?”

  I sat back in my chair and thought about it. I’d been worrying ever since we decided to take the chance. Ever since I decided to take the chance. I swiveled my chair so I could look out through the armor glass. The planetoid was still too far away to see, but I knew it rushed towards us on a near collision course, closing the gap at ten kilometers per second.

  Without turning back to her, I asked a question in reply. “Why did you suggest it?”

  I heard her sigh. “I got caught up in the moment, Skipper. I could see it in my mind’s eye, the solution, and in the excitement of seeing what this old girl can actually do at the hands of good crew, I just let it all go.”

  I did turn back to her then. “What’s changed your mind?”

  “Call it second thoughts. Even cold feet, if you like. I’m just trying to get a grip on the balance between risk and reward. If we do this and fail, we could all die. The cargo could be lost and the ship with it. That’s a whole lot worse than losing money on a tight priority gone bad. The company has insurance to cover both those eventualities, but the immediate implications for us are considerably different.”

  That sobering thought gave me serious pause. I let out a long breath and turned to look out the port again. “They pay me to make a profit.”

  “They pay you to bring the ship back in one piece.” Her voice sounded quiet in the hush.

  “This is crazy, isn’t it.” I said it without looking back at her.

  “Weathering a storm that’s caught you is one thing, Skipper. Flying into a storm on purpose is another.”

  I stood and crossed to stand next to the port. That rock was coming at us very, very fast. Our margins for error were slim and the downside risks were catastrophic. The upside gain was money, a lot of money, but just money. After a couple of ticks, I realized she was still sitting in the chair. “Thank you, Chief. I needed to hear that.”

  “Thanks for listening, Skipper.” She stood and I heard her walk across the cabin to the door. “I need to get back to the girls and make sure they’re okay.”

  “Give them a pat for me, Chief.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” There was a note of amusement in her voice.

  I stood looking out at the darkness but I’m not sure what I saw. After a couple of ticks, I crossed to the terminal on my desk and started running numbers. Time was short, and I needed answers fast. Half a stan later, I climbed up to the bridge. Mr. Pall and I had some work to do.

  Somewhere in there, I realized that what they really paid me for was to make the hard decisions. This one wasn’t very hard to make, but it was going to be hell to follow through with.

  Chapter Forty

  Jett System:

  2372-March-24

  I sat on the bridge for what was left of the afternoon. Mr. Pall was very helpful in fine tuning my rough calculations, and even Mr. Ricks offered some suggestions that made the outcome slightly better. Not good enough, but better.

  At 1745 Mr. Hill came up to the bridge to relieve the watch but I forestalled him. “Mr. Pall, if you and Mr. Schubert would hold the bridge for a few more ticks. I need to go let everybody else know what’s going on.”

  Mr. Pall was subdued but smiled. “Certainly, Skipper.”

  Mr. Hill looked around confused and then he saw the new plot on the drop down.

  “Let’s go spread the glad tidings, Mr. Hill.” He followed me down to the mess deck and we found everybody but Chief Gerheart already there and waiting for dinner mess to begin. Every head turned as we entered and the look on my face was apparently enough to halt conversation. Mr. Wyatt who was setting out dishes on the serving counter noticed and stopped his bustling. I reached for my tablet to bip the chief when she came skidding around the corner and into the mess deck.

  I took a deep breath and then began. “Folks. It’s crazy. I was reminded of just how crazy it was this afternoon and I apologize for getting everybody’s hopes up. We aren’t going to make it to port on time.”

  There was a moment of stunned disbelief as everybody but the chief responded to the news. I picked up the portable keyboard and routed the course plot from the bridge onto the repeater screen and all eyes turned to look at it. A green snake ran around the oncoming planet but skirted it at a safe distance. Regulations called for a minimum of three diameters when passing near a large-body astronomical artifact. We would skirt it at four, well within the safety margins. The snake was green all the way. I triggered the play back and when the ship’s icon finally met the orbital at the end of the animation, the date at the top said April 12th, 0300.

  Nobody offered any comment so I filled it in. “We’re too close to miss it altogether at this point so the best course is use what we can of it but stay a good distance out. Mr. Pall has given us a good balance between sling shot and getting below the plane of the ecliptic and into a nice clear wind stream. It’s going to cost us the two days we need. That means we’ll miss the priority and sacrifice the cargo. They’re basically getting a free ride and our shares will be, effectively zero. The alternative carried a level of risk that we—I—just could not accept.”

  A couple of ticks went by before Ms. Thomas spoke up. “Do you think they did it on purpose, Skipper?”

  I shook my head. “No, I think it was just luck of the draw on a razor thin deck. If we’d jumped short instead of long, we’d be in the money. We didn’t. It happens. Every jump as a chance of being off and there’s nothing you can really do about it. It’s why we add margin errors to the jump on both ends. This one went the wrong way and we’re left holding the bag.”

  Nobody had anything else to say.

  I looked around at them. They all stared at the plot with various looks of disbelief and disappointment. “I’m sorry, people. Really.”

  I nodded to Mr. Hill who followed me up to the bridge where we did the needful just before 1800.

  It was a long watch. The drop down tracked a shorter range view of our course showing the rapidly approa
ching planetoid. We were still going to be flying very close to it, but the margins of error were much bigger and the probability that we’d actually hit the rock, or damage the ship in transit were negligible.

  At 2345, Ms. Thomas and Mr. Schubert joined us on the bridge to relieve the watch. “Chief Gerheart is standing by in Engineering, Skipper.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Thomas. I trust that we won’t need her for this but good to know she’s there if we do.”

  I sat at the engineering console on the bridge and fired up the engineering displays. The status showed green on all systems. There wasn’t a lot of draw on the system as a whole. Sails were at near maximum but this far out from the primary there was little strain on them. The keel was likewise extended but we weren’t very far into the gravity well so there was only moderate bite. As we got deeper, we’d be able to sail closer to the wind. We were still moving at a pretty good clip. The planetoid coming at us was moving faster and the closing vector was a surprisingly large number.

  The chrono ticked over and the mass of the planetoid ahead of us began to show in the occlusion of the brighter objects behind it. The albedo of the surface wasn’t high and the light cast this far out from the primary was pretty low. Looking forward, the suddenly looming object was, for all the world like a huge cloud blowing up ahead of us.

  Ms. Thomas sat at her console and looked out the armor glass ahead. “Helm? You ready?”

  “Ready, sar. Course plot locked and ready for execution.”

  She looked at me.

  “You’re the OD, Ms. Thomas. At your discretion,” I said.

  “Thank you, Skipper.” She turned to Mr. Schubert. “Chooch? Try not to hit the planet?”

  “No hitting the planet, aye, sar.” He grinned.

  “Helm, execute transit plan.”

  “Execute transit plan, aye, sar.”

  His hands were already on the handles and the only real indicator was a slight twist of his wrists. Ahead of us the darkened mass that had been about to slide by to our starboard side rotated around the foreward view until it looked like we were going to fly directly under it. The sensation was uncanny. Intellectually, I knew that Mr. Schubert had just rolled the ship onto its back relative to the surface of the planetoid that was now growing visibly ahead. It was obvious that we were going to miss it although four diameters seems like it might still be close enough to scratch the paint. I shuddered to think of what it might have looked like if we’d been shooting for half the distance or less. As it was, I found my jaw clenched as we bore down and the cloud grew from a circle of darkness to a grayish mass in the distance to a solid curved ceiling over our heads.

  At the helm, Mr. Schubert was grinning, his hands firm on the maneuvering handles, as he guided us around. At ten diameters there was a slight juddering in the ship and I saw the load on the inertial dampers jump up a bit. Mr. Schubert murmured softly. “Easy, baby. Daddy’s got you.” The juddering didn’t stop but it did smooth out.

  At five diameters, Ms. Thomas slapped a key and the sails dropped to standby. We were on a ballistic trajectory, but not any where near as extreme as the one we’d planned originally. We were flying a sixty metric kiloton rock through space and Mr. Schubert looked elated.

  We coasted into the planetoid’s gravity well and the attraction between ship and planet started having an effect. It wasn’t enough to be felt by humans inside the vessel but the gravitational force was enough to begin tugging the ship. At a prescribed time, the bow thrusters fired to slow us a bit, to give gravity a chance to pull us down toward it even faster, and shortly afterward the heavy thrusters long the bottom of the ship kicked in to aid in that curving arch around. I watched the load on the inertial dampeners rise. It kept rising as our arc around the night time sky became more extreme until suddenly we were out from under. The planetoid continued on its long, dark journey imparting a small bit of its momentum to us as the changes in delta-velocity changed vector and tossed us free again. By then the forward port was open sky and when I turned to look out the after windows, I could make out the curve of the planetoid falling away. At five diameters out, the sails came back on line and our plot showed us slightly below the plane of the ecliptic and dropping. The course called for us to follow this line until we came to almost ten degrees below the plane and then we’d start the long climb down the well.

  “Well done, Mr. Schubert.”

  “Thank you, Skipper.”

  I stood up and stretched. It had been a long, long day.

  “Thank you, Ms. Thomas. Carry on.”

  She smiled sympathetically. “Thank you, Captain. Sleep well. I think you earned it today.”

  I chuckled, although there may have been more bitterness than humor in it. “Thank you, Ms. Thomas.”

  Mr. Hill followed me off the bridge and I headed for the cabin. I’d planned to just crawl into bed and let the universe unfold without me for a bit. It was the start of my twenty-four and I didn’t have to be on until the next mid watch. It was approaching 0300 already and I felt completely wrung out. When I stepped into the cabin, though, I only made is far as the desk chair. I sat there with my hands flat on the surface and just felt numb. The port behind me drew me around and down in the darkness ahead the bright pin head that was Jett gleamed in the soft black.

  I watched it for a time and pictured the system’s movements in my head as I imagined us flying under the surface of the system, sails wide and beating against the gale to bleed off our velocity, moving ever closer to the point where the orbital would be when we got there. At 0430 I dragged myself to bed and slept soundly.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Jett System:

  2372-March-30

  The long climb down into the well seemed particularly onerous after that. I think Mr. Pall may have felt almost a bad as I did, and probably blamed himself for the long jump. It was not his fault. You just can’t predict it to a sufficient degree of accuracy. Sometimes jumps run a few points long, sometimes a few points short. We rolled the dice, took a chance and lost. It wouldn’t have been critical if we’d not tried to get greedy and cut the run times too close. I won’t say the life went out of the ship, but the spark of excitement certainly sputtered.

  Mr. Hill and I had the morning watch and I was trying for the hundredth time to convince myself that I’d made the right decision. I was almost through with the overnight logs when Mr. Hill made a noise.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Hill?”

  “We just took a gust on the portside, Skipper. A good one.”

  I pulled up the system navigational reporting and saw no issued warnings. “Nothing on SNR, Mr. Hill.”

  “It was just the one, apparently, but flux rates are up about five percent over the last half stan, Skipper.”

  Flux rates are a measure of the solar wind. We always talked about it as if the star was actually putting out a breeze, but wind is the movement of gas on a planet. The solar wind is plasma of atomic components that’s ejected from the upper regions of any star. Flux rate measures the density of the particles and provides a kind of strength metric analogous to a wind gauge.

  “Can we use that to bleed off a little more speed, Mr. Hill?”

  “I’m working on it, Skipper. Can we have a little more sail?”

  I pulled up the sail configurations and we were running close to maximum. In the outer reaches of the system we carried as much sail as we had most of the time because the wind density was so much weaker out that far. As we got closer to the primary, the wind would become much stronger and we’d have to pull in area to maintain strength. So far the field sensors were saying we had plenty of strength for the current flux density but there really wasn’t more sail to put up.

  I bipped the chief to the bridge and she arrived almost immediately. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this skipper. Mr. Wyatt’s getting suspicious.”

  Mr. Hill snorted a laugh and I admit it hit me funny, too. Funny felt good after the few days we’d been through.

  �
��I’ll take that under advisement, Chief.” I beckoned her to look at the displays. “We’re getting increased flux rates out here. Mr. Hill reports they’ve gone up five points in the last half stan.”

  “Seven now, Skipper, and I think it’s still climbing.”

  The Chief’s eyebrows shot up. “I suspected we’d pick up some better quality wind off the ecliptic but that seems a lot.”

  “Seemed it to me, too, Chief. The girls are all but maxed out here in terms of area, and we’re still in the green on strength. Do we have another wee rag or two to hang off the mizzen mast? I’d like to take advantage of this if we can.” I looked up at her. She leaned over my shoulder, looking at the display. “I thought I remembered you said something about a bit of reserve.”

  “I did, indeed, Skipper. I did, indeed.” She crossed to the engineering station and took a seat. She brought up the system configurations for power, sail, and keel. I saw her give a little extra kick to the fusactors and siphon the extra power into keel and sail generators. She opened a maintenance display and unchecked a few settings there. “Try it now, Skipper. Ease it up.”

  I used my sail control to boost the area and the needle indicating sail size slipped right past the mark that indicated maximum sails on the display. Mr. Hill braced a bit. I knew there wasn’t really any feedback from the controls but his course plot reacted to the increased sail. The strain gauge climbed climbing but stayed short of the yellow.

  “How’s she handling, Mr. Hill?”

  His focus was on his helm but his face was alight. “She’s doing great, Skipper. That was a nice little kick in the pants there.”

  “Flux rates, Mr. Hill?”

  “Flux holding steady, sar. About seven or eight points higher than we’ve been seeing. Smooth sailing. I’m not getting any flutter.”

  The chief made a few small adjustments to the keel generator. “You’ve got a bit more bite on the keel, Mr. Hill. You might be able to use that as well.”