Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  “I know something about that ship’s design, and her failsafes. Its crew may know one override procedure, but with your cooperation, sir, and the Gallis’ forgiveness, we can escalate the situation into a no-go condition. That ship will not ram another vessel.”

  Abrezio stared at him. Understanding—yes. Appalled. Yes.

  “One of the parking bots maintaining position for the ships you moved off to bring us in—can have a little malfunction. It is a risk—and if this goes wrong I’ll owe far more than an apology to the Gallis, but this will create a no-go condition the instant they bring Rights sensors live and prepare to push out. I’m thinking Rights is probably configured for tests, with all her safeties set tight as possible. She’ll be a stickler for the rules. It’s possible Hewitt or his Helm know what to do and what buttons to push, but if they don’t override the collision alert, they won’t move. Period. What you have to do, sir, is get your bot to start moving Firenze in right now. Sooner we start, the closer we can get before they get through their Pre and try to move, lines or no lines.”

  Abrezio’s face was pale. Sweating. His eyes were unsteady—rapid thinking. “Rights did get out of dock on her test run. But she took over an hour doing it. And she needed a pusher to get back in.”

  “If we’re all lucky,” JR said, “it’ll be a simple no-go to lock Rights down. They can’t spin up till they back out; so they’ve got that to go through; and once they get that far, and enter instructions to back out, computer will read the surrounds and spot Firenze’s movement and refuse to move. Ultimately, we park Firenze inside the critical proximity limit. And that will be another no-go condition. If we’re really lucky, nobody on Rights will know the major overrides, even better, if the overrides are bio-locked to Cruz. If we’re not lucky—”

  “They could collide.”

  “They could. We could easily end up with two damaged ships. In which case there’s going to be more exceptions flooding that ship’s systems. A storm of exceptions it’ll take a senior engineer to sort out.”

  Owe Giovanna Galli? At very least he’d owe an apology for the risk. At most—a total refit. But take out Rights’ jump vanes, and Alpha would be years on the repair.

  “If we do clear Rights for pushback and let go the lines,” Asha said, “no damage to the mast or the Director’s EC record. He’ll have cooperated. And they’re stuck on Rights with no station access, once we freeze them in place.”

  “If we can get Firenze close enough fast enough,” JR said, “yes. I’d take the chance.”

  Do him credit, Abrezio didn’t hesitate. He pushed a button on his intercom. “Ames. I need you. Right now.”

  Chapter 16 Section ii

  The beer was probably a mistake. But the thought of leaving, even to a safe, clean bed, was just not what Ross wanted right now. He sat next to Jen, in one of Rosie’s highly sought booths, with the noise swirling about him, coming and going, and friends well-wishing the Monahans . . .

  But all the same, they waited for Galway to jump out and be gone, and that, he thought, though it could take minutes or days—that was why he didn’t want to leave, even with Jen to keep him company.

  “Ross, you got to get to your room.”

  He decided not to shake his head. It hurt. A lot of things hurt. “No,” he said. “Not. Can’t.”

  Jen slipped her hand past his elbow. “Then lean on me,” she said. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m balanced as is.”

  “The hell. Lean.”

  He gave way slowly, and did find it more comfortable. Let his eyes shut from time to time.

  He could hear cousins talking. Owen had left their number three in charge, and gone off to talk to Abrezio, along with Jen’s senior, and several others, and he didn’t know what about, but rumor was, on the Strip, that Abrezio had fired Cruz’s lieutenant, Hewitt, and Hewitt’s whereabouts was not entirely clear, but that Bellamy Jameson was back in charge on the Strip, and people thought that was good news. Blue-coats had come into Rosie’s to talk quietly to Rosie himself, and after that they had just left, past all the crowd outside. Rosie had passed word about Jameson, and said that they wanted the captains to keep the lid on, and apply their own judgement.

  Then Rosie started passing out free food, a lot of it, which went the rounds. Ross looked at it, a tray on the table filled with options, and thought it might be a good idea, or then, again, maybe it wouldn’t. His stomach just wasn’t interested.

  Rumors circulated. Runners were going back and forth from the captains in the meeting in admin, and talk was that they were putting pressure on Abrezio, but on what, wasn’t clear.

  Then a runner came back who delivered messages to several of the captains, and created a little stir close to the bar.

  A final bit of adrenaline surged, and Ross sat up straight, thinking that Galway might have gone. He was prepared for that.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Jen said, and wriggled out of the booth.

  Moments later, Giovanna Galli, with a hissed expletive, left in a hurry, with her first-shift crew, shoving roughly past the gathering at the door.

  Jen came back and said, her head close to his, “I’m not sure. It’s the meeting. They’re calling her and her helm and nav. —Got to go talk to my senior.”

  He didn’t figure it. Of all ships potentially involved—Firenze?

  But then he saw Aki Rahman headed out the door with two of the Qarib crew.

  Owen was already in the meeting. So were the four outsiders. Of senior captains in Rosie’s, only Santiago was left; and Diego and Julio Rodriguez likewise got up, two of his senior crew tailing them, and headed after Rahman.

  Hell, he thought, and looked to the side as Jen came back.

  “Station’s requesting Finity security to the doors outside the number one mast access,” Jen said, “and putting civil enforcement on alert. Rights crew has put A-mast doors under lock, and Station wants Finity and Little Bear to go on ahead to the mast doors, to apply tasers if they have to, but the thinking is to scare any Rights crew that’s in A-mast out onto Rights. They want them to undock.”

  “To do what, for God’s sake?”

  “To strand them out there,” Jen said, with a wicked grin he hadn’t seen before.

  His brain wasn’t parsing information well. Things passed in a haze, and facts wouldn’t connect. Giovanna Galli, the Rahmans. Rights and Finity’s End headed for a confrontation, while Galway was out there with no knowing what was going on aboard. She was running hard, according to reports from Finity, wasting no time getting vector established, climbing further up Barnard’s well, all those things—but so much else could be going on. People he loved could be getting killed.

  At the very least were under threat.

  And nothing, not a damn thing he could do. “How far are they?” he asked, and wasn’t meaning the situation in the mast.

  “They’re at two g and pushing it,” Jen said, perfectly well understanding him. “They’re showing no sign of aborting.”

  No sign. He wasn’t sure what Niall would do.

  Or Fallan.

  “Wish I was there,” he said. “God. Wish I was there.”

  Jen squeezed his arm. “I know. But figure Fallan’s hoping like everything that you’re here.”

  “Doesn’t make that damn much difference what I did. The coordinates are here, on Alpha. Word’s going to get to Pell, with or without me.”

  “Hell if. Not just about the numbers. It’s about what Cruz did. Because of you,” Jen said quietly, under the general noise in Rosie’s. “We know. All of us know and will know. It’s the worst nightmare, the EC trying to steal one of ours. The alliance means to make sure that can’t happen. And what you did makes a big difference. We know. And station knows. And station can’t hold back, now. They’ve got Pell to deal with because those numbers got to us. Abrezio knows he hasn’t g
ot a choice about it, and Cruz won’t be his friend. Abrezio’s shutting down Cruz’s organization—that’s what’s happening out there. He’s shutting down Cruz’s whole operation. And I’m betting he’ll sign with us. That’s a big step. We get all the Family ships lined up, and even if Sol comes in here with their hired crews, no station’s going to trade with them. Which is where we start negotiating. The Beyond is bigger than Sol. They’re going to have to figure that out. So you and Fallan did something, between you, that’s changed things for good and all.”

  “I’m not sure I like to think that.”

  “Changed, because they have to, love. We know it. They’ll figure it out, when they come up against the Beyond. If they have sense, they’ll listen to us.”

  “Would Cruz listen?”

  A deep breath. “No,” Jen said. “But with luck—he’s not getting to Sol.”

  Chapter 16 Section iii

  “Captain Galli’s here,” Abrezio’s secretary reported, and JR got up from his seat in Abrezio’s office, not the only one to rise: Abrezio himself stood up. JR had intended to intercept Giovanna Galli outside, to break the news in private, but there was no such chance. Her co-captains were behind her, along with, presumably, her number one helm and nav; and Julio and Diego Rodriguez were, along with Qarib’s senior captain, Ahmad Aki Rahman, whose standard-speak wasn’t the best. Worried. And with reason.

  “The one affected,” JR began quietly, “is Firenze. Captain, operations are underway—time is of the essence—but you can abort them, which is why I called you. Your ship is positioned above the station body, at a remove where a diagonal course will intersect Rights of Man on pull-back. It should trigger an absolute no-go on Rights. We don’t believe they have the ability to override. We need to render that ship helpless, and your ship has the mass to damage Rights beyond any doubt if Rights is managed by fools. I offer whatever it takes—the repair, beyond a doubt. A refit. You write the ticket. Or tell us abort. And we’ll find another way.”

  Giovanna stood there staring at him, and didn’t ask the obvious—why aren’t you risking your ship, Neihart? He said, quietly, “Mass and position, Captain. Best pick. Best chance. And I will—personally—owe you. Big.”

  “You pay your debts, Neihart?”

  “I do. And I will. Even if there’s not a scratch on her.”

  “I’m already betting everything I’ve got. All that all of us have got. You want more, all right.” Lips clamped tight. JR felt it—hardest thing he’d had to ask of any outsider, and this woman had had every bad break there was. “Damn it, Neihart. Damn it.”

  “Damned sure there’ll be a Firenze, damned sure the Gallis will be top priority, come what may,” JR said. “The alliance will see to it.”

  “Yeah,” Giovanna said shakily. “Yeah.” She looked around at all of them. “I believe you. I understand the reasons. But I’m in on this, I’m in, I stay. I sit.”

  “Captain, yes, you do. Take my chair. We need the door open. We’ve got more people out there. And this is going to take time.”

  Abrezio called his secretary in, and gave orders without elaboration. The secretary brought chairs, kept the door open, provided a feed to handhelds, linked to the ones in Abrezio’s office.

  Giovanna steadied down, sat with arms folded, watching lines on a schematic. Firenze was moving under a parking-bot’s nudge, and she was on course to enter Rights’ exclusion zone.

  More feed switched in, audio from ops, mostly a quiet mutter about the bot’s fuel supply and the station shadow, and the bot’s ability to stop Firenze at a given point. Acceleration was complete. She was moving as fast as she needed to. And the bot would suffice to brake within the exclusion zone if Rights left dock.

  JR stood between Min and Sanjay, Asha on Sanjay’s side, all of them having chosen to stand and give place to the Galway and Firenze officers in this office with the larger screens. He was figuring, all the way down those lines, he was internalizing the diagrams, knowing the controls. He’d been helm, once, and it didn’t leave your awareness. He could only hope, among a number of things he suspected weren’t set the way they should be, that the exclusion zone was set particularly wide, as it should be during shakedown and testing,

  “Rights is going for undock,” ops said. “Didn’t ask permission, sir, just started the procedure.”

  “Bastard probably expects to use my exclusion of his boss from the infostream to justify it.” Said in a tone JR had never heard from Abrezio. “He’s welcome to try.”

  He liked it.

  Other than that, no one spoke, just watched those numbers, the graph of Firenze’s projected path, the little dot moving along it. Watched ops’ readout of Rights’ undock procedures, the shifting estimate of her estimated push-out and potential intersection with Firenze. Disconnect of the bundle was the first. That was a little slow, not having gotten station’s cooperation. Disconnect of the passageway was the second, and still proceeding. Disconnect of the grapples would follow. There would be more to follow. Small things that could cause major problems, if not done in order and thoroughly.

  Breaths drew in, faces grew tense. Under ordinary circumstances, one of the final procedures should be a handshake with ops, whose sensors should guarantee a clear space and whose officers would be up to the moment to assist, should there be any complication.

  In this case, they were going through disconnect on their own, defying Abrezio’s authority, and station ops should have told them they had a bot pushing a parked and crewless, fairly large merchant ship on a path that was going to cross Rights’ only path away from its bow-dock with the mast. Firenze was not even showing any lights in the move. No transmission. An uninformed bystander might just say the parking bot had had a directional jet stick in “on,” one of its small corrections to keep Firenze in place just continuing to fire. It was subtle, it was quiet, so far. Rights’ automatic communication with ops was minimal, proper, unalarmed.

  And slow. Rights wasn’t a confident ship. From the timing, every switch was requiring two and three considerations before engaging.

  The passageway uncoupled: all Rights crew that intended to board, had apparently boarded. The grapples would be next. Helm was ready . . . probably. He could imagine everyone trying to remember their procedures and get it right—novices, all. Com would be making records: that was automatic. Rights’ computer talked to ops, confirming the grapple disconnect, and Abrezio told ops: “Let them go.”

  Scan was surely live by now. You didn’t handle a mega-ship like a dockside trolley and suddenly throw it into reverse.

  The crew ring began to rotate, finally—finally. Good thing it had taken them so long: Firenze was not quite into the zone, but about to be. And on Rights, there were now feet on the deck, some protection against inertia.

  Procedures. A lot of procedures. A number of personnel were supposed to move out now, run physical checks and report readiness. Maybe they did, maybe not. There was nothing Family-like about the crew.

  Maybe they’d just sit there, JR was beginning to say to himself. They might be satisfied that they’d saved Rights just by undocking, confident no intruders were going to get onto their deck.

  Ops continued saying, periodically, “Rights is undergoing checks.”

  Not the check they wanted to see, preparatory to movement. The scan wasn’t rotating. Scan hadn’t turned on. That was worrying.

  Procedures, JR said to himself. Shut his eyes a second, seeing the requisite button. He opened them, staring at the screen, willing scan to find the problem before helm moved. A mistake could damage the station.

  Scan began to rotate. Rights’ running lights came on, sparks of light in absolute shadow, light elsewhere drowned in the sunglare.

  “Come on,” Owen Monahan said. “Undock thrusters, you stupid bastard. Don’t shove the mast.”

  “She’s moving,” Firenze’s Helm said. On the screens, b
arely perceptible, the assemblage of glare and shadow that was Rights of Man began edging ever so slightly away from the mast.

  Then opened up way hard.

  And stopped. But continuing to move. Fast.

  “Shit!” That was Giovanna herself. She lapsed into shipspeak.

  “Brake,” JR said, to his connection to ops. “Brake, all-out, ops 1.”

  The exclusion zone traveled with Rights. JR darted a glance to the numbers in the corner of the image. Accel had spiked and gone null. Stern thrusters were working, not under Helm’s control, which—JR didn’t have to be on the bridge to see it—was bringing relative motion to a sudden zero. Shutdown. And not just shutdown. Collision avoidance.

  “She’s aborted,” JR said. “Galli, Rights just aborted. She’s knows your ship’s there. She’s not under Helm now. Auto avoidance is active. Bot’s braking Firenze now. Ops, have you got a projection?”

  His contact with ops stayed silent, ops working on it, no question—calculating the propellant the bot had and hoping to hell the reading was accurate. It rarely mattered. Now it did. Extremely. Rights had gone to a non-regulation V and changed all their figures. Then she’d gone into no-go, and begun to cancel the motion toward the hazard’s path. Rights under auto had a far better hope of doing that than ops did of stopping Firenze’s mass that short with a lowly parking-bot.

  The lines predicting the meeting point did not look good. “Hundred percent on the braking push,” ops said. They were keeping no reserve in the bot’s tanks. When they ran out, the bot would stop braking. It would have to be overtaken in its fuelless course and refueled or pushed, along with Firenze.

  “Burnout,” ops said, deadly calm.

  The bot was on its own. Rights was still on autopilot, correcting, correcting.

  Rights’ Helm had no override. The evident solution was to fire the laterals and complicate the motion, away from the predicted intersect, or just speed up. But control didn’t rest with Helm. It was all the computers talking to each other. And voting.