The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker

by Steven Lyle Jordan

  “Yes, you do!”

  Even as angry as she was, Kestral paused in surprise. It was the first time she had heard Moamet Jones raise his voice, and there was a respectable power and timbre to it. But she recovered quickly. “You and I will have no further… contact… other than that demanded by this mission, for the duration of this trip. Is that clear?”

  “As crystal,” Jones replied sadly. And with that, he turned and strode out of Kestral’s quarters.

  Kestral waited for the door to close behind him. She wanted to rant, to scream at the top of her lungs, to wail for all she was worth. But she marshaled all of her energy to keep control, and for an agonizing minute, she seemed to hold herself in check, until her body lost its tension. Finally, she took a deep breath, and glowered at the hatch through which Moamet Jones had left.

  “Men!”

  ~

  The next morning, after breakfast, Kestral had everyone hang around in the common. Breakfast itself had been tense, as Kestral had been uncommonly quiet throughout, and never looked up from her food. Moamet Jones was there as well, but he remained at the opposite end of the room from her, and likewise hadn’t spoken. Everyone else took note of the palpable tension between the two, but no one had asked about it. Not until breakfast was over, did Kestral look at her crew.

  “Believe it or not,” Kestral began, “Dr. Jones has managed to conceal an antivirus culture from the Raians.”

  Everyone started at the announcement, a few of them looking at Jones in surprise. Tirri looked the most surprised of all, although this was more likely due to her larger avian eyes. “Where did you hide it? How did they not find it?”

  Jones did not reply to her question. “That’s not important, now,” Kestral stated. “What’s important is, the mission is still on. We’ll be making our course change tomorrow, as scheduled.” Everyone nodded their assent, and Kestral took note of their reactions. “However, there’s a concern.”

  The others gave Kestral their complete attention at once. The room itself seemed to tense as they waited for her next words. “There is a chance that the Raians will realize they have been fooled. They may come after us again.”

  “Oh, shit,” Sarander muttered.

  “All right, now,” Kestral lightly admonished him. “We all know how hard it is to track or intercept a ship flying at C. So even if they do want us, they’ll have a hell of a time finding us. All the same, I think we should make some contingency plans, in case they do come after us. Does anyone have any suggestions?”

  No one spoke at first. Kestral looked to each of them in turn. When her eyes fell to Angel, he quickly replied, “I’m a cook, not a strategist.”

  “If they do come after us,” Mark finally spoke up, “they’re likely to try to stop us by throwing something in our path. Make us drop out of C. Then they can take their potshots at us until we roll over. This ship has only basic defensive equipment and navigational-use pecans, and nothing that’ll help us much against a heavily armed Raian ship. Even that scout ship that stopped us has us outgunned pretty well.”

  “Would they expect us to change course?” Sarander asked. “Do they know about the Deep Abignon research facility?”

  “They probably do,” Kestral said. “Their intelligence is pretty good.”

  “So they’ve got a good shot at intercepting us,” Sarander said.

  “Then we should go somewhere else,” Angel said. “Somewhere they don’t expect us to go, so they won’t know where to look. How about on to New Paropolis?”

  “They have our present course,” Mark reminded. “If we don’t change course, they’ll be able to track us easily.”

  “Then somewhere else,” Angel said.

  “No. We have to get Dr. Jones to Deep Abignon,” Kestral said plainly. “We don’t want to go somewhere else … we want the Raians to look somewhere else.”

  “Decoys,” Mark said.

  “Yes,” Kestral agreed. “Decoy them away from the Mary long enough for us to get to Deep Abignon.”

  “How do you make a decoy for a whole ship?” Angel asked.

  “When you’re traveling at C,” Mark explained, “those on the outside can’t actually see you. The only way to detect you is to find your wake… in other words, anything displaced by your passing. So you don’t have to make a duplicate ship. You only have to make a wake.”

  Angel regarded him dubiously. “Make a wake.”

  “Exactly,” Kestral said. “We have four emergency escape pods aboard. Each has a limited one-time-use tesser battery installed on it.”

  “Well, yeah,” Sarander added, “but they’re only there to provide a controlled deceleration from trans-C speeds, if the ship has to be abandoned at C. They’re not designed to generate their own field, nor for prolonged trips.”

  “Well, we’re going to see what we can do about that,” Kestral said. “Let’s see if we can’t extend one to operate for a few hours. If we can jury-rig a signal output generator that will simulate the energy signature of the Mary—”

  “We have a decoy,” Mark finished.

  “Right,” Kestral nodded, then turned to him. “We’ll also need a new course to Deep Abignon. Something that will buy us some time when we need it.”

  “How about a sundance course?” Mark suggested.

  “Oh, come on,” Kestral frowned. “Everyone and their idiot cousin knows that maneuver. Even the Raians know it.”

  “Sure,” Mark smiled. “But who does it with a decoy?”

  Kestral thought about it a moment. Then she said, “All right. What’s your plan?”

  “Do the sundance, but release the pod and allow it to continue on our original course with the faked energy signature. It’ll give the impression that we faked the sundance. By the time the Raians figure out that it’s not us, we’ll have completed the real maneuver and will be almost on top of Deep Abignon, too late for them to catch us.”

  Kestral considered. “Double-fake. Okay, that sounds reasonable. Sarander, I guess it’s your job to rig an escape pod.”

  “I can help,” Moamet Jones spoke up, for the first time since they had gathered. “I do have a fair amount of experience in atronics programming—”

  “Okay, you help Sarander,” Kestral cut him off. “Mark, work out your course. We don’t have much time, so we’d better get busy.”

  ~

  Aboard the L’t’meriad, a Raian officer approached K’silk with his spidery fingers wrapped around a data tablet. “First Officer, I have a report.”

  K’silk turned to him from the monitor wall. The wall included, among other things, a track of the Mary as it approached New Paropolis. “Report.”

  “The atronics expert on the Mary did indeed carry the psychoactive virus,” the officer began. “However, his physiology seems to be noticeably different from the other Oans on board, including their first officer.”

  “We all felt it, yes,” K’silk agreed. “What was it, then?”

  “According to our data, the expert’s body has a heightened immune system, making it unsusceptible to the virus. Further, his body was involved in a biological process common to Oans, but much heightened within him. The process involves the body’s self-examination of a foreign body, then creating within itself a biological agent designed to counteract the virus.”

  “Are you saying—?”

  “I am afraid so, First Officer,” the officer said. “The expert was the biological agent we were after.”

  K’silk bucked and shuddered suddenly, violently. As this was the human equivalent of cursing aloud, the other officers around K’silk immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to him. K’silk took the tablet from the other officer and examined it. Then he turned to his other officers. “Do we still have a good track of the Oan freighter?”

  “We do, sir.”

  “Interception course at maximum speed. Execute instantly.”

  “Yes, First Officer!”

  The officers scrambled to carry out K’silk’s order
. K’silk handed the tablet to the other officer, who took his leave of the bridge. After a few moments, K’silk shuddered again.

  ~

  Kestral had to admit, it was lucky that they happened to have a native of Coel, and crates full of atronics equipment with which he seemed to be very familiar. They needed those two elements dearly, to construct their decoy. However, what they were attempting was the work of experts, and none of them, not even Moamet Jones, qualified.

  So, when Sarander called her to the cargo bay, a sour note to his voice, Kestral was not surprised.

  Sarander and Moamet Jones were sequestered in a corner of the bay, where the “decoy”—a standard emergency escape pod—was berthed. Tirri was also there, since they were working in her cargo bay, and she had opened a few of the atronics crates for them depending on what they had needed. They had the hatch open, and had run tangles of wires from within the pod, to a bench on the deck filled with atronics components. Kestral knew some of the components were from within the pod, the rest being rigged up by Sarander and Jones. It looked like a disaster, but Kestral knew how unimportant that was, if it worked.

  However, the looks on the faces of Sarander and Jones told her that it was obviously not working as planned. They all looked up when Kestral approached, though Jones dropped his gaze again after a brief moment.

  “We can’t get it to work fully,” Sarander confessed.

  “Define ‘fully’,” Kestral requested.

  “Well,” Sarander explained, “we’ve programmed the false energy signature into the pod. We’ve tested it, and it should fool their long range sensors. Problem is, it doesn’t hold up for long.”

  “It dies off?”

  “No,” Moamet Jones told her. “It functions strongly for a few minutes, but then the signal begins to fluctuate. It becomes intermittent. If they are doing a comprehensive scan, or if they get too close, they will see the pod’s normal signature underneath the false signature. They’ll be able to reason that the signal is false.”

  “We’ve done everything we can think of,” Sarander told her. “Best we can do.”

  Kestral considered their report, and sighed lightly. “I know you’re doing your best. Keep at it. We’re making our course correction today, but we’ve still got time.”

  “All right,” Sarander agreed, but he did not sound convinced that it would do any good. Jones merely nodded, and turned back to the workbench.

  Kestral turned and started off. She tried to look relaxed, but Tirri could see the stiffness in her walk. After a moment, Tirri followed her, catching up to her before the bay entrance. “They’ve managed to accomplish quite a lot, the both of them,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Looks like it,” Kestral agreed.

  “Dr. Jones seems to be a big help to Sarander,” Tirri added. “I’m not sure Sarander would have been able to do this alone, given twice the time.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we have Dr. Jones’ help,” Kestral commented flatly.

  Tirri followed her silently for a few more paces, before she said, “What happened?”

  “None of your—”

  Kestral abruptly cut herself off, and stopped walking. Tirri almost ran into her, and jumped sideways to avoid a collision. Kestral took a deep breath and composed herself. “Sorry, Tirri. Look, let’s just get through this, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tirri agreed quickly. Before Kestral turned away again, she said, “If you want to talk later…”

  Their eyes locked, and neither spoke. Behind them, Sarander and Jones could be heard discussing a swap of components in their decoy. Finally, Kestral smiled weakly. “Thanks.” Then she turned and exited the cargo bay. Tirri watched her go, before turning about and returning to Sarander and Jones.

  Tirri noted that Jones was also watching Kestral go. His usually-pleasant expression now reflected a deep sadness.

  Tirri returned to the table where Sarander and Jones worked, at about the same moment that Jones excused himself to look for a part in another crate. Tirri waited until he was out of sight, before she leaned closer to Sarander. “Maybe we should have tried to use your stun thingy on the Raian ship.”

  “Stun thingy?”

  “Yeah… you know, the thing you made for… for Carolyn.” Tirri looked at Sarander, and his pocket, meaningfully. “Maybe if we could have used it to damage something, they wouldn’t be able to follow us.”

  Sarander made a sour face, but continued facing his work, and away from Tirri. “I don’t think it would have helped.”

  ~

  Kestral had been heading for the bridge, but at the intersection in the corridor that led forward, she suddenly veered off and headed for her quarters. She reached her room, stepped lightly inside, and closed and locked the door behind her.

  She paced her quarters in frustration. She could barely remember just a few days ago, when she actually felt jazzed by the mission, excited about being close to the service, “doing her bit,” again. Now, thanks to Jones’ revelation, she felt betrayed and manipulated. And worse, she had allowed her crew to be dragged into her betrayal. They were now at risk, as much as she was, and she had to keep reminding herself that they weren’t supposed to be there.

  They were not Rangers.

  She wished desperately that there was a way she could cancel the mission, give it all up, and get her crew to safety. But the damage was done, the Raians were already on to them… and probably already after them. And at C speeds, there was no way to get help.

  They were not Rangers.

  But they were her crew. They deserved better than to die because of her mistakes.

  No, she thought, mentally shaking herself. No one was going to die. They didn’t even know if they were being followed, and the Mary still stood a good chance of making Deep Abignon even if they were. There was no reason to condemn them.

  Not yet.

  They were not Rangers.

  But I am, Kestral told herself. I’ll get them through this, if I have to kill a horde of Spiders to do it. They’re my crew. I’ll get them through this.

  After a few more minutes, Kestral managed to regain her composure. Then she squared back her shoulders, unlocked the hatch, and headed for the bridge.

  12: Race to Deep Abignon

  “Carolyn, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to do this.” Mark was busy over his console, making the navigational adjustments for their course correction, and was speaking to Kestral without looking up. “We can simply make our turn, and we’ll be a lot less likely to be seen by the Raians.”

  “If they’re not looking.” Kestral watched him work over his shoulder, and kept her other eye on the external sensors. “But if they are looking, they already have the advantage… they can track us, and we won’t know what they’re up to from behind us. Whether they’re looking or not, we need to know where they are, and what they’re doing. It’s a risk we have to take.” She took the seat at ops, where the sensory monitors were more comprehensive than those at the Captain’s station. “Let’s do it. External sensors at full. Ready for nav check. Flash us, then alter course to Deep Abignon.”

  “I just know we’re going to regret this…” Mark worked over the helm controls. Kestral, who was becoming more familiar with her ship every day, could now easily hear the change in ambient sound that indicated the deactivation of the tesser field and return to space-normal speed. Mark immediately brought the tesser drive back up—to an outside observer, it would have appeared that the Mary had “flashed” into existence, then winked back out of sight—then set the Mary in a wide turn, manually controlling the attitude as he brought them about. His sable features were fairly lost in the low light of the bridge, but the alertness of his eyes and the set of his jaw clearly indicated his concentration on his job.

  Kestral watched the sensor readings as they came about. Data came in bit-by-bit, assembling itself from what data they had from ahead, and the fresh data from behind, into a complete picture of their surroundings. There was nothing
she could do to speed up the process, and little she would be able to discern by the naked eye before Mary would be able to report. Nonetheless, she continued to switch from setting to setting, impatiently and expectantly.

  “We’ve locked onto Deep Abignon,” Mark announced. “Speed, 3.5C.” He visibly relaxed for a moment. Then he turned to watch Kestral, and the sensor readings at the ops station.

  They waited silently, for a minute that seemed like an hour, while the sensors pieced the data together. When the minute had passed, Mark glanced up at Kestral and said, “Could we possibly be that lucky?”

  As if in response, a single beep sounded from the sensor panel. On one navigational screen, a blip appeared, accompanied by a series of numbers displayed next to it.

  “Nope,” Kestral whispered, as Mark’s shoulders sagged. “This wasn’t our lucky day.” She triggered the ship’s intercom. “Attention all: We’re on course for Deep Abignon. However, the Raians were already on course to intercept us. It’s a race, now.”

  And it was going to be a close race, she knew. Between Sarander’s tweaking and babying Mary’s relatively new engines, and Mark’s maintaining as direct a course as possible, there was a likelihood that they could shave off most of a day from their expected transit time. However, two-and-less-than-one-half days still gave the Raians a lot of time to catch up… their craft, and for that matter any of their military craft, could travel at more than twice their C speed.

  In other words, they would be very close by the time Mary reached Deep Abignon’s sun.

  ~

  The Raian officer approached K’silk. “First Officer, the Oan freighter’s disturbance track indicates it has altered course. It is now on a heading for system FY-48269.”

  K’silk examined the data tablet the officer had brought with him. “That is a known location of an Oan biological research lab.”

  “I confirm that, First Officer.”

  K’silk signaled the helm officer. “Alter course to system FY-48269. Maximum speed. Intercept the freighter.”

  ~

  Mark had already made the infinitesimal alteration to their course that would take them to the Abignon star, the idea being to put the star between them and Deep Abignon. This was the first stage of what Mark had referred to as the “sundance maneuver.”