‘And where the Tangleweb is concerned, at least, that really is a mystery.’ Alex said. ‘Even the most bizarre accidents can happen unexpectedly, of course – witness the Jolly Roger – but the loss of the Tangleweb is definitely out there. And that feeds into our Novamas operations, too, because spacers do regard such disappearances as the Tangleweb and the other genuinely unexplained ship disappearances in that area, historically, as ‘proof’ that Novamas is a jinxed, haunted, unlucky port of call.
‘For those of you who may not be familiar with it...’ that was for the benefit of passengers, since officers and crew were all familiar with the story of the Tangleweb already, ‘the Tangleweb was a charter yacht, a galaxa class with a crew of sixteen and capacity for up to thirty passengers in ten cabins. It was only eight years old and in excellent condition, its skipper was a former Fleet Lt of good reputation, every member of the crew but the steward was professionally qualified and many of them were ex-Fleet, too.
‘At the time of its disappearance, two years ago, it was en-route from Novamas to Karadon, with twenty eight passengers aboard. They weren’t a party – the Tangleweb ran between Novamas and Karadon routinely, offering a range from business class staterooms to four-berth economy cabins. There were no problems aboard that we know of. They encountered eighteen ships en route, exchanging perfectly normal comms and conversation with them. They ran, always, directly on the autopilot line, like liners, maximising their contact with other shipping. They passed a freighter at 1036 and had a perfectly normal passing encounter. If they had stayed on course they should have encountered the next freighter at 1242. They didn’t. They vanished without a trace.
‘Suspicions have focussed, obviously, on the last freighter that logged having met them and the first one that claimed that they hadn’t, but both freighters are perfectly respectable and there’s never been any evidence of wrongdoing. No evidence of any kind, in fact. It may well be that there never will be any evidence and that what you’ll end up doing, there, is compiling speculative theories and trying to come to some sensible evaluation of probabilities. Do your best, though – again, relatives have a right to the best answers we can find for them, and it may reassure spacers if we can at least determine the most plausible cause of the disappearance. I’ll leave it to you to agree amongst yourselves, how you organise that – Ms McKenna, though, will coordinate and keep me informed on your progress.’
Arie McKenna straightened up slightly and said, ‘yes sir,’ in a tone that meant ‘thank you, sir.’ There was little difference in seniority amongst the Subs, but they all knew that Arie was the high-flyer amongst them, destined to rise far, and fast. Alex knew he would not be able to keep her much longer – there had already been comments made by more senior skippers and captains about his extending Arie’s tour of duty on the Heron. The minute they got back to Therik, he knew, she’d be headhunted away. In the meantime, she was at least as good as having an extra Lt on the ship.
‘So,’ Alex said, looking around at them all, ‘Any more points to discuss, at this stage?’
There would, they all knew, be many more such briefings, at which they’d share ideas and refine plans. They would very soon start training for the mission, too, practising every aspect of it that was feasible to rehearse. They had spent more than a thousand hours planning and training for the Karadon operation, and the same for Sixships, too. This, in fact, was how they made it look easy, at the point where they swung into operations, all so very clear on what they were doing and how they were going to achieve it.
And they were going to be practising a new drill, now, which Alex introduced and walked them through later that day.
‘Unless contact has already been made by the time we get there, or a decision has been made to pull back, we will be attempting to get the Gideans’ attention by bumping the Firewall. That will put us into turnaround. Turnaround incidents generally involve a brief loss of consciousness, between fourteen and thirty two seconds, and waking to find that your ship’s course has been precisely reversed. That is the case even when such a 180 turn would normally take a ship minutes to accomplish. No ship that we know of has ever been damaged by this procedure and the only injuries caused have been by awkward falls and contact with machinery. So we, during bumps, will rig the ship as if for action stations - ship in freefall, all non-essential systems deactivated, everyone in survival suits. Specific for this drill, however, we will all activate tethers, either at your duty station or to a suitable area of deck. Basically, get yourself somewhere safe, tether to the deck, and stay calm. Also specific for this drill is that no weapons systems are to be activated, there will be no gunnery stations, all missiles to be pulled from tubes. Post-bump, we will carry out full ship diagnostics using the post-launch checklists. Dr Tekawa will also report, monitoring life signs from survival suits, and if you feel any adverse effects whatsoever you are to report it to him immediately.
‘We will, of course, be practising this drill till it’s automatic, regardless of what duty you might be on at the time. For the first ten times, though, as always with mission drills, we will walk through it with no time challenge. So, everyone access your watch and quarter stations now, and let’s see how we go. First, the new alert for ‘Rig for Bumps’ will be this.’
He played a distinctive pip alert, clearly based on the order ‘rig for bumps’ as it sounded bip-bip bleep, bip bip bleep, quite unlike any of the other alerts already in use. The crew knew that he expected them to respond to that, and having looked to see what their stations would be in a Bumps alert, went straight there.
It did take considerably longer than a normal action stations, particularly with the requirement to deactivate all weapons and pull missiles that were always kept ready in launch tubes. Alex knew that they would get quicker at that, though, with practice, and was pleased by the orderly way they got themselves suited and tethered.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘now there’s the turnaround. We will not be making any course changes during these drills, but we will be simulating the turnaround duration. I would like you all to get used to this by simulating sleep during the period where you hear the ‘turnaround in progress.’
He put that on and gales of laughter burst out round the ship – it was a sound effect of snoring, which many of the crew then added to with enthusiastic role-play. Alex just grinned. The joke would soon become a mildly amusing part of the drill, and then just normal.
‘Post-bump,’ he told them, and played the sound effect of an alarm clock pinging, which got more laughter. But they untethered, then, going through post-launch checks, all departments reporting in ‘Green, all green, sir,’ and Rangi Tekawa confirming ‘No casualties’. Then Alex sounded the routine stand down, giving them a pleasant, ‘Not bad for a first try.’
For some time after that, the ship was busy with crew checking out their bump stations. These, like any action stations, would depend on what they were doing at the time the alert sounded, whether they were on duty, and where. Most members of the crew had eight different contingencies to learn, mostly the same as normal action stations but with some significant differences. They were learning those and even walking themselves through it, for the next hour or so, in an atmosphere of cheerful enthusiasm.
‘The idea of being rendered unconscious by alien technology does not seem to be worrying them in the slightest,’ Terese Machet observed. Alex had invited her to join him on the command deck, anticipating that she would have questions.
‘Well, no,’ Alex agreed, and told her, ‘They cover that in basic training. The basic training drill is actually a lot more realistic than this one, because the Fleet uses a training suite where they release an anaesthetic gas that actually does knock people out. You only have to do it once, as part of hazard response training, but every serving member of the Fleet has already experienced that. And turnaround incidents are just normal, for us – I mean, spacers have known about them for a good couple of thousand years, they’re not something new to
us, or strange. Freighters even go and bump the Firewall for fun, sometimes, or in the hope of an exo-encounter. There is, in fact, a Fleet drill in the books, already, for bumping the Firewall. But the existing drills assume either an unexpected turnaround event or a single incident, both requiring at least three hours of post-event procedures. We need something far more streamlined, something we can, with practice, get down to under ten minutes. We’re not just going to be bumping the Firewall once, after all – I want to send a message with it.’
Terese chuckled. ‘So I saw, in the briefing,’ she said. ‘It’s an extraordinary plan, Alex – your own idea?’
‘Based on a very very old exodiplomacy idea,’ he affirmed. ‘Back in the day, you know, the Golden Age of Exploration, they had this first contact handbook. It’s an amazing thing to read, hard to believe that they were serious, terrifying to see how naive. But one of the sections in that was about how to establish that you are an intelligent being seeking to communicate by using what were considered to be universal mathematical patterns. And that’s a good idea, I think, if you’re trying to attract attention.’
‘And if you do get their attention? Will you do the ‘We come in peace, take us to your leader?’’ Terese asked, and was clearly joking. Alex laughed, demonstrating just what good terms they had come to be on over the last few days. Terese was the perfect passenger, already so much like a member of the crew that it was hard to remember she was a VIP. She’d asked for a bunk on mess deck two, where most of the ship’s sports fans were based, and had turned out to be a keen sports fan herself. Part of the entertainment update they’d picked up at Karadon was a major flickball tournament, the entire series of games. The series, with all the results, had been locked into a secure file, only one game being released every day and watched, live, after dinner. Alex had seen Terese in there with the other flickball fans, joining the cries of protest at a controversial referee call, and the yells of delight when her team scored. She was working a full cycle of watches as a rigger, too, and doing courses to upgrade her qualifications.
Alex knew, of course, that this was not something she was doing for fun. She really was here to get a full and detailed understanding of life in the Fourth and the way they went about their missions. She was, after all, vice-chair of the Senate sub-committee that supervised them. But she was evidently of the view that the best way to get that understanding was through full immersion experience, rather than going about with a clipboard full of questions. Alex could not have agreed more, and had come to have a high respect for her, too.
‘No,’ Alex grinned, though with some slight regret. ‘It’s been many centuries since that was considered a serious first contact greeting. If we are lucky enough to have an encounter – and the odds are that we won’t – there’s a set greeting provided by the Diplomatic Corps, broadcast in Solaran and all human languages.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she chuckled, telling him, ‘We have exodiplomacy training, too – even city councillors are supposed to be familiar with their city’s contingency plans for both planned and unexpected alien visitors, and all system senators have to do preparedness training just in case an alien ship suddenly comes into port doing their equivalent of ‘take me to your leader’. It is quite terrifying, when you look at pre-training attitudes, to see how many senators feel that ‘fire missiles’ is an acceptable response. I am on the Exodiplomacy Committee too, you see, though that does not feature on my published list of commitments, obviously. And yes,’ she added, as Alex gave her an alert, enquiring look at that, ‘I did have a say in whether you were tasked to exodiplomacy missions. It was, of course, a sub-committee decision, passed on strong majority vote, but I brought the Exodiplomacy Committee view on that to the Fourth’s Sub-committee meeting, and that, obviously, carried quite a lot of weight with them.’
Alex gazed at her. He had done the usual high school citizenship classes so knew at least the basics of how government was run, but the day to day operation of it was a mystery to him. He had been obliged to admit, in an earlier conversation with Terese, that he had no idea who ‘his’ Senator was, the Senator representing the region of Novaterre for which Alex was registered to vote, let alone what committees and sub-committees they were on. He had gathered, vaguely, that this was considered to be of overwhelming importance in the Senate itself. Alex had a feeling that being the nominated spokesperson for the Exodiplomacy Committee at the Fourth’s Special Operations Sub-Committee was a significant role, but he was not nearly clued up enough about Senate affairs to recognise it as the powerful position it actually was.
‘Obviously,’ he echoed, with a dry note that conveyed he had no idea at all what she was talking about. Terese laughed, shaking her head at him.
‘You really should know about these things, Alex,’ she told him. ‘I am firmly of the view, myself, that every responsible citizen in the League should know exactly what their representative in the Senate is doing, anyway, but for you, it’s vital. The twelve people on the Special Operations Sub make all the decisions about you and your ship, what missions you’ll be tasked to, what special policies will be approved for you, everything of any importance gets decided in that meeting room, in a two hourly meeting, once a week. Dix represents and acts for you at that level, of course, but you are the Fourth’s commanding officer, you should know what’s going on with that, who all those people are, what political agendas they have, what information and other committee views feed into the Sub and how that works. And you should understand the human dynamic, too. People often have this weird idea about Senate affairs, that they’re conducted on a very elevated plane. The truth is that in a typical session, at least two members will turn out not to have read essential pre-meeting paperwork, at least two will either not turn up, be late or leave early, one will sit there working on files for other meetings and one will keep taking calls from his wife.’ She grinned at him. ‘I hope this fills you full of confidence that all the important decisions about the Fourth are in thoroughly safe hands.’
‘Er...’ said Alex, not knowing whether to laugh or be appalled by that.
‘You should understand this stuff,’ Terese insisted, ‘both the procedural and actual practice.’ She laughed at his frankly less than enthusiastic response. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she teased. ‘You know I’m right, but on a list of a hundred ‘to do’ items, that would be a hundred and one.’
‘Sorry,’ he admitted. ‘It’s just that I do always seem to have more immediate concerns.’
‘Well, yes,’ she grinned. ‘I understand that – Dix’s perennial plea that you are not actually superhuman and there is only one of you has become a standing item in the Sub’s minutes. Senate joke,’ she explained. ‘But this is, in all seriousness, something I do feel is important for you to get some understanding of, Alex. So will you, please, give me some small amount of time to work with you on it? Half an hour a day, tops? And no homework, I promise.’
He could not, of course, refuse, and if his agreement was rather more courteous than enthusiastic, Terese did not take offence.
And in fact, as the days went on, Alex discovered that getting to grips with politics was nowhere near as painful or as boring as he had expected. The actual mechanical processes were quite easy to master, at least for someone used to working with the complexity of starship systems and organisation. Most of the rest of it, as Terese confirmed, was about people.
‘It always comes down to people, in the end,’ she said. ‘Personality, values, goals, and just human nature.’
She taught him about all the people on the Fourth’s sub-committee and all the major political players, too. Alex was learning a lot, getting a much bigger picture now, beyond his own ship.
That, though – his ship, the tasks in hand – were always going to be of infinitely more importance to him than politics. Terese saw that, too, on the day they left charted space. There was a buzz of anticipation in the air, and though Alex himself seemed calm about it, as if was entirely routine, there was
a gleam in his eyes, too, as he addressed the crew on the PA system, drawing their attention to one of the astrogation screens. It was a busy, complex screen, portraying the current wave space topography around them. As they watched, though, it faded into grey, with the words No data for these coordinates appearing.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Alex, quoting the great Van Damek himself, as was traditional at such moments, ‘we are in the Beyond.’
Cheers and applause thundered round the ship, but after a couple of minutes, things settled down again and the crew just went back to work. The ship had not even slowed down.
‘But we still have charts, look!’ Tass Curlow protested, apparently feeling that this was yet another of the crew’s wind-ups. She stabbed a finger at the watch screens routinely displayed on comms throughout the ship. ‘Those are charts, see? So don’t tell me we can’t see where we’re going.’
It took a while, even, to get her to understand the distinction between wave space charts and being able to see where they were going. Being able to see where they were going, after all, was down to scanners, entirely unaffected by whether they had charts or not. They could continue at this speed, in this kind of space, because it was very low hazard and open so they would have time to jink around any obstacle that might come up ahead of them.
Wave space charts, however, enabled the ship’s computer to compensate for physical and temporal drift caused by the topography affecting their engines. Without charts, they would gradually get further away from where they thought they were, both physically and in time, and would have to reset their position and chronometers once they met up with other ships. The crew had tried to convince Tass that this would be a matter of hours, days, even, but in fact it would not be any more than microseconds, even across a journey of some weeks. Even a variation of so much as a hundredth of a second, though, meant that your ship’s dead reckoner position might be out by hundreds of thousands of kilometres. And it was, as the crew told Tass again, then, generally considered to be a good idea, in principle, to have accurate knowledge of where your ship was.
XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 44
