The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Iron Mace two, separating this time …”

  On the representational screen the amber point that was the Willis began to move away from the red square that represented the outer orbit station.

  “You have the con, Lieutenant.”

  “I have it, ser.” Trystin smoothed out the power flows, trying to rest the accumulators and slowly boosting the flow from the fusactor.

  “Steady on zero two zero, green—until we’re clear of the dust.”

  Trystin kept boosting power to the thrusters, noting that the rev’s image on the representational screen was as much blue as white. On the full-system and representational screens, the Willis seemed to creep away from Parvati outer orbit control, but quickly on the visual screen as orbit control vanished into the darkness. Parvati herself was no more than an extraordinarily bright star.

  The revvie ship was inbound toward outer orbit control, angled from the innermost point of the Oort cloud, as if the pilot had been trying to use debris and cometary masses of the cloud as a screen.

  “To oppose something is to maintain it,” James intoned.

  “Is that traditional, ser?”

  “No. LeGuin, anglo preimmortal writer who understood culture.”

  Trystin tried not to frown. Was the captain being deliberately obscure? Finally, he asked, “What’s being maintained by what opposition?”

  “Outer orbit control. We created it as a staging point to hit the troid ships before they get too far in-system. They build up forces to take it out, and that means we have to add more forces to keep it.”

  That made sense—in an odd way. Trystin refocused his scan on the orange sector of the representational screen, increasing the scale exaggeration. As he kept watching, the rev’s previously constant bearing began to shift.

  “Badboy’s edging toward the red. Looks like he’s going to line into Krishna.”

  “Could he use a slingshot mag-warp to get head-to-head?”

  Trystin hadn’t even thought of that, and he recomputed. After a moment, he answered. “Probability is above point eight.”

  Trystin should have thought of it. On a high-speed head-to-head, the rev had an improved chance because his cross section was smaller and open for a shorter period of time. The added speed of the maneuver might cancel the shieldstrength advantage possessed by the Willis.

  The two dots on the screen crept closer and closer to each other and Kubera—the outer gas giant—and its scattered moons and dust envelope. The rev dropped lower.

  “Recommend going into the plus, ser.”

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant. You have the con.”

  Trystin began to ease the Willis above the absolute plane of the ecliptic, trading away closure for position, but still maintaining the cruiser between orbit control and the rev. If the rev did slingshot, his low position was going to haunt him afterward.

  Trystin hesitated, then triggered the restraints warning.

  “All personnel take restraints. All personnel take restraints.”

  The time-dilation envelope had a nasty side effect—partly countered by reflex step-up—which affected two ships with high, but differing absolute speeds. Although nontranslation speeds were limited to around point nine lights for any ship, experienced elapsed time shrank more quickly on the ship farther into the time-dilation envelope, effectively giving the pilot less time to react.

  James looked at Trystin and nodded, but said nothing.

  The lieutenant continued to track the incoming rev as the Willis steadily narrowed the distance, approaching both Krishna and Sithra, the gas giant’s big fourth moon, nearly a third the size of Mara.

  “Lot of power for a rev,” observed James.

  “We’re seeing what they did twenty years ago, and I’m not sure I want to know what’s twenty years ahead.”

  James arched an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Once the rev grazed Krishna, all Trystin could get were confused signals from all the screens. Then two quickdotted lines—torps—appeared on the representational screen, streaking toward the Willis.

  CLING! CLING!

  Trystin bled off all power from the gravs and nonessential systems, feeding it into the thrusters as he twisted the cruiser into an impossibly tight turn to angle in front of the fourth moon of Krishna.

  The turn ran to nearly three gees, a lot for a deep-space ship, with James and Trystin pressed into their couches.

  “Shields going up!” snapped Trystin, the words following his actions.

  All the input from the sensors blanked, and, of the screens relaying exterior information, only the representational screen continued to function, but its “data” was based only on estimated updates.

  The smallest of shivers rocked the cruiser.

  Trystin waited for another two minutes before lowering the shields.

  The rev had used the slingshot effect—to accelerate translation torps even faster than normal and to change his course back toward sector green without killing his speed.

  Somehow Trystin had slipped the Willis through a tighter turn, while not losing too much speed, and the cruiser was actually nearer the rev than before.

  “Good reactions,” said James.

  “He’s running for Kali.”

  Trystin and the captain watched as two blips on the screen seemed to converge on the small ice planet.

  “We’ve got him.” Trystin watched the lock-in click, even as the rev slid toward Kali, his path as close as he could make it without generating a blister field. Even outer planets had some atmosphere.

  Another series of torps, two and then another two, flared from the rev, but not toward the Willis. The four torps ran toward Yama—the small ice-and-rock moon of the outer planet.

  Trystin frowned. The revvie corvette would barely be shielded by the planet before the torps impacted.

  James froze, but Trystin could feel the captain’s presence on the nav side of the net, demanding a series of calculations.

  “Lieutenant!” snapped James. “Full three-gee turn red, two seven zero.”

  Crazy! The captain had lost it, but Trystin triggered the alarms and restraints again, and slammed the ship into the turn without a protest. As he did, he continued to track the rev, watching as the corvette swung low and angled in-system. Pressed back into his seat, he calculated another vector, and nodded.

  Rather than speak, he threw the request through the net at the captain.

  “Again?” came the response.

  Trystin broke down the request, showing how the Willis could use the free-dust area above the ecliptic to gain the angle on the rev, especially once the corvette hit the Trojan points off Shiva, since the rev’s maneuver had forced him above the ecliptic as well.

  “You’re cleared.”

  Absently, Trystin scanned Yama. Most of the small ice-and-rock moon wasn’t there. Even under the gee load, his stomach lurched. The rev had basically used his torps to throw a screen of ice and rock across the Willis’s approach. At the acceleration Trystin had piled on, either the screens would have shredded or the accumulators blown, or both.

  No … the captain hadn’t lost it, and the rev had been clever, but not clever enough.

  The Willis continued to gain on the rev, and Trystin grinned. He had the angle, and no matter which way the rev went, any course change worked to the advantage of the Willis. If the rev stayed above the ecliptic with the Willis, it would be only a matter of minutes before the Willis got EDI lock-on. If the rev dropped toward the center of the system plane, the dust would slow him faster than the Willis.

  The EDI track faded into a point.

  “He shut down all his systems.”

  Trystin increased his sensitivity and strained the ship’s systems, mumbling. He could barely sense the rev, but he doubted that the torps’ energy sensors could. That meant firing the torps literally to a point and hoping the absolute heat sensors could find the revvie corvette.

  “Fire one.” He pulsed out the first torp.

&nbs
p; After adjusting the signal again, he initiated the second. “Fire two.”

  All in all, it took Trystin five torps to neutralize the rev. By the fifth he was sweating, and his shipsuit was soaked, and a rapidly cooling mist of metal, vapor, and synthetics was dissipating and leaving the screen clear.

  “Captain?” came Keiko’s voice. “Are we clear to lift restraints?”

  Trystin blushed. “Clear to lift restraints. Rev neutralized.”

  “Did you need five torps, ser?” That came over the net from Akibono.

  James looked at Trystin.

  “This rev was rather good,” Trystin said.

  “Very good,” added James, “but not good enough.”

  Trystin wiped his forehead. He tried not to imagine being in a silent, shut-down ship hoping someone would miss.

  “I’ll take the con, Lieutenant.”

  “You have the con, ser.”

  “Could we have some tea up here?”

  “It will be a few minutes, ser. The samovar wasn’t as restrained as we were.”

  The boyish grin crossed James’s face. “That’s fine. Water or anything will be fine.”

  “I think we’ll be able to do tea, once we mop up.”

  “Casualties of war,” observed the captain.

  Trystin wiped his forehead again, before leaning back.

  In less than ten minutes, Albertini arrived with two cups of tea.

  “Wild ride, ser.” He looked at Trystin.

  “I’ll try to make it smoother in the future.”

  “That was fun, ser.”

  Trystin took his tea after the captain did, sipping it quickly, and burning his tongue. How had they gotten it that hot that quickly? Fun?

  He took a deep breath and sat back, trying to relax.

  “It’s different, isn’t it?” asked James, after perhaps a half hour had passed silently as the Willis headed back to Parvati outer orbit control.

  “Yes.”

  The captain pointed to the EDI screen. “There. It looks so quiet, and unless something like that last bit happens, it is. Most of the time, it’s a matter of angles, a matter of power, and a few torps, and one ship or the other’s neutralized. That’s it.”

  Trystin looked at the visual EDI, not the mental screen. The EDI still showed the blue-tinged blips of the incoming asteroid ship, well beyond the patrol fringe, well beyond accurate detector position. Every time the Willis crossed the orange sector, the EDI showed the incoming ship, and reported the data to SysCon. Nothing changed.

  “Why don’t we refuel and go get it?” asked Trystin.

  “Get what?”

  “The troid.”

  James raised his bushy black eyebrows. “How? We don’t even have a decent vector. It’s still a tenth of a light out there, and the potential translation error is enough that we could end up chasing it all over the sky.”

  Trystin frowned. There had to be a way.

  James laughed. “You youngsters are all the same. If you can see it, you can hunt it down.” The boyish grin faded. “Look … I know I’m not the greatest shiphandler, but shiphandling isn’t all there is to being a pilot—or a marshal. How big is that troid—if it’s the standard revvie operation?”

  “Probably … what? … no more than two kays across?”

  “Why can we detect it?”

  “Because it’s using a ramscoop-powered fusactor with thrusters. They register on the EDI.”

  “At between a tenth and a fifth of a light, what’s the probable margin for error—not translation error, but jump error?”

  “It could be a couple of light-days, maybe more.” Trystin was beginning to see where James was heading.

  “How far would we have to go into the distortion envelope after we translated?”

  “Pretty far … and that takes a lot of fuel, plus system strain … and the translation error could be a week, maybe two, each way.”

  “Exactly—and while we’re blundering around out there, what’s likely to be happening back here?”

  Trystin sighed.

  “And,” continued James inexorably, “what are the chances of one cruiser against a troid ship?”

  “About one in four.”

  “That’s why we wait until they come to us.”

  James wasn’t stupid—just clumsy with shiphandling.

  “Outer Control, this is Iron Mace two, confirming badboy neutralization. Badboy neutralization.”

  “Mace two, Control. We confirm neutralization … . Gave you a run there. Yama won’t ever be the same.”

  “What’s a little ice here or there?” quipped James.

  “Better you than us, two. Cleared to epsilon three.”

  “Mace two, commencing approach to epsilon three.” James nodded and turned to Trystin. “They’ll probably pull up the Sebastopol. You take the con for a while.”

  Trystin rechecked the accumulators. The power hiccuping on the outbound side was still faint, but stronger.

  “Ser … the hiccuping off the accumulators is stronger, not a lot, but stronger.”

  “Record it. Have Keiko run it by the station logistics engineer, through the maintenance system, and you put a note in the ops report.”

  “The log engineer will just say it’s normal, but it’s not.”

  “I know that.” James smiled. “It takes time.”

  Trystin nodded.

  “Patience is like tradition. They’re important,” announced James.

  “Yes.” Trystin struggled to listen, while still computing the course line to bring the Willis to rest in berth epsilon three of the outer belt defense station. Parvati was so far away that the screen bore the legend “SCALE DISTORTED.”

  “Have you ever heard Moritaki?”

  “No. I can’t say I have.” Trystin had never even heard of Moritaki, except when the captain had brought up the name before they had scrambled.

  “Very old. He wrote in old Shinto—eight centuries before the Die-off. Very beautiful.”

  “What did he write?” Trystin pulsed the thrusters again, dropping the closure rate to meters per minute.

  “I had to memorize some of his verse as a boy.”

  Trystin waited. Sooner or later, James would get there, but never in direct fashion.

  The captain spoke the words softly.

  “A falling petal

  drops upward, back to the branch.

  It’s a butterfly.”

  “I’ve seen some butterflies like that.” Trystin adjusted the approach again.

  “How about this?”

  “The morning glory—

  another thing

  that will never be my friend.”

  James paused before adding, “That was Basho.”

  “You know him?” Trystin asked.

  James laughed. “He died fifteen hundred years ago. Tradition. It’s important.”

  “What’s a morning glory?” Trystin wanted to keep James talking. Things seemed to go better when the major was the center of attention.

  “A flower. A blue flower. It opened at dawn, and it folded up in the full light of day. None of them survived the Die-off.” James looked bleakly at the screens.

  Trystin swallowed, wondering at the captain’s sudden change of mood.

  “Iron Mace two, closure is green.”

  Trystin nodded and pulsed back, “Stet, Control. Holding green.”

  “Do you want the con, ser?” Trystin asked.

  “You’re doing fine. Take her in.”

  “Yes, ser.” Trystin shifted his weight in his couch.

  “Mace two, cleared to dock. Maintain low thrust.”

  “Control, this is two, beginning final approach.” Trystin moistened his lips and pulsed the thrusters again.

  The Willis crept in toward the wall of metal and composite—slowly, slowly, until, with a faint clunk, she slipped into place.

  Trystin magnetized the holdtights. “We have lock-on. Apply mechanical holdtights and prepare for power changeover.” He began
the shutdown list, and the items and replies went back and forth over the net, silently, between him and the captain.

  “Accumulators …”

  “ … discharged.”

  “Fusactor …”

  “ … stand by.”

  “Compensators …”

  “ … open.”

  Trystin nodded.

  “Senior Tech … power changeover.”

  “Changeover, ser.”

  As the full grav of orbit control pressed Trystin into his couch, he realized just how tired he was. “Whew …”

  “You’re not done yet, Lieutenant. We have to go up to ops and debrief.”

  “Yes, ser.” Trystin dragged himself out of the couch.

  “After that, you get to go and talk to the maintenance people about the accumulators, not logistics—K.eiko will handle that—but Commander Frenkel’s assistant, Lieutenant what’s-his-name.”

  “Isuki. But he won’t do anything.”

  “I know. But make sure you talk to him, and talk to his tech assistants. That’s so everyone knows that you’ve been there, and give him a hard copy of the note from the ops report.”

  “I don’t have—”

  “Make one. I’ll wait.”

  Trystin sent the command over the net and wiped his face, then pulled his beret from his belt and walked back to the tech room where the printer waited for him.

  Behind him, James smiled.

  37

  The Sebastopol, the Willis, and the Mishima formed a rough arc—as shown by the representational screen. At the center of the arc was the blue pulsing sphere that was the revvie troid.

  In front of the Coalition cruisers were nearly a dozen fast corvettes, matched by nearly as many Revenant scouts that led and protected the troid.

  “I told you we’d get a chance at that troid,” pointed out James. “Are you still interested in taking it on alone?”

  Trystin studied the EDI tracks on the screen, noting the bearing from the Willis and the closure rate—nearly half a light. He’d never seen anything that big move so fast—not as close as the troid was. The revvie scouts and the corvettes moved closer—only centimeters apart on the physical screen in front of Trystin—but those centimeters still represented nearly ten light-minutes.