by Rob Buckman
“Err.” She answered, turning a deep shade of pink.
“That might be very informative to the Guillemots who inhabit Ceti-Cressi-4, I’m sure. However, could you translate that into a language that we poor humans could all understand? Preferably Anglic or a variation thereof?”
“I… I…”
“Hummm.” The professor rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, hands holding onto the lapels of his virtual gown as he looked up at the virtual ceiling. “The use of the first person singular is very illuminating in an English class, but in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a history class.”
“Professor, I haven’t got a clue what the similarity is, except to say that whatever the connection, a lot of people ended up dead.” That brought a laugh from the rest of the class.
“Very good, Ms. Williams. You get a ‘B+’ for that answer.”
“Huh!” Cathy looked stunned.
“Therein, the rest of you will find the answer you all are so obviously groping for.” The professor went round the class, picking off one student after the other like shooting fish in a barrel. Then the inevitable happened.
“Mr. Gray. I see you sitting there in a deep brown mood with a puzzled look on your face. Could it be that we have a winner, and that you know the answer?” The Professor looked over the top of his old fashion half glasses with great interest.
Mike’s brain came to a screeching halt. Not with an answer, but a question. If Cathy was right, why had a lot of people died? Not just in the battles the professor mentioned, but others that sprung to mind. His brain went loping off down one chain of thought after another until it hit him.
“I’ve got it!” He yelled, turning red from embarrassment at his outburst.
“Do you indeed. Please enlighten the rest of the class with your wondrous insight.”
“Rate of fire!” Mike blurted out. That brought the sound of a raspberry not from the professor, but one of the other students.
“Mr. Trent seems to have a dissenting opinion on the matter, Mr. Gray. Can you enlighten us, Mr. Trent?”
It irritated Mike that Trent was the one to make the sound. Ever since he and his brother had joined the class, they’d gone out of their way to make life miserable for everyone. New to Avalon, they were on an immigrant status at the moment, but from the way they acted, you’d think they were doing Avalon a favor by coming here in the first place. Mike did wonder why his family had left old Earth and applied for immigration status to Avalon of all places if they disliked being here so much. It might be worth looking into. There was no telling if they would finally be accepted and be permitted to reside on Avalon, or move back here to Christchurch on a temporary visa before departing for greener pastures. Many families couldn’t, or wouldn’t, agree to abide by the colony rules or failed the security test in some way. If that happened, they went on to find a warmer welcome somewhere else on another colony planet. Mike hoped this was the case with the Trent family.
“I’m sure there has to be a very simplistic answer to your question, Professor,” Christen Trent answered, “but having only joined this class recently, I’m not familiar with Avalon’s archaic education system. Therefore, I am unable to answer your question at this moment.” He sniggered at the end, spoiling his delivery, and looked round at his brother who joined him, thinking it great fun to poke fun at the “colonials” as they put it.
“Far be it for me to speak on the subject of the education system used on Earth at this time,” he paused, and looked at Trent a moment, “but here we do things a little differently. As far flung as we are, virtual communication is the only sensible way to bring all the students to one place and continue their individual education.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about that, Professor…”
“I know you weren’t. HOWEVER! As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me. This method of teaching has served us well for many years, and coupled with cyber downloads, we feel that a student here can learn more in a year, than elsewhere with a more modern or enlightened education system." Meaning old style classroom with live students and professors.
“Of course, Professor.” Trent sniggered again.
“Therefore, I see no reason not to award you the grand high mark of ‘D-’ for this class so far.”
“What!” Trent yelled.
“The information is there in the library data banks, and your pathetic excuse of just having arrived here, three months ago I might add, is unworthy of this class. That excuse pales into insignificance compared with the sheer genius applied by some of my other students in coming up with an excuse for not being prepared.” Without warning, Trent’s avatar vanished from the class, echoed a moment later by his brother’s. A sigh of relief drifted though the classroom like a spring breeze.
“Continue, Mr. Gray.” The Professor didn’t bat an eyelid at the disappearance.
“As I said, sir.” Mike took a deep breath. “Rate of fire. The French didn’t anticipate the rate of fire from the English bowmen, and even armored and on horseback, thirty thousand of them died that day. In part due to arrogance and the muddy field from an overnight rain as well as the arrows.”
“Correct. Excellent. Continue please.”
“In all of the cases you mentioned, the enemy was out-gunned, so to speak, not just in rate of fire but accuracy.”
“Bravo, Mr. Gray.” The Professor clapped. “You have hit the proverbial nail on the head.”
“Told you a lot of people died.” Kathy chimed in.
“You have an ‘A+’ for that answer.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Now then, applying the formula of rate of fire and accuracy to all wars, your next assignment will be to find examples where that was not true.” The class broke out into the expected and almost obligatory groans to which the professor beamed with a predator's smile. Two hours later, Mike slipped the headset off and stood up, rubbing his numb butt. Gramps entered and handed him a cup of coffee.
“How did it go today?”
“Got an ‘A+’.”
“Wow!”
“But not because I deserved it, I don’t think I did.”
“Why not?” Gramps asked as he sat down in the vacated seat.
“I answered out of desperation. I had to say something, and try not to look stupid.”
“But was it the right answer?”
“Yes, as it turned out.”
“So? Why do you say you don’t deserve the ‘A+’?”
“Because I didn’t study for the class like I should have done.”
“That doesn’t negate your answer.”
“Huh?”
“Mike, whether you know it or not, you learn a lot by all the reading you do. In particular all the military history books and information you download from the data-net.” Gramps smiled at him.
“I suppose so.”
“I know so. All the information is rattling around in your so-called brain, and given half a chance, it will come up with the right answer. So take the ‘A+’ and say thank you.”
“Thank you.” He grinned.
* * * * * *
“Harbor Center, this is Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893 requesting clearance.”
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, copy that, wait one.” There was no banter tonight. Harbor Center was all business.
“Copy, Center, wait one.” Mike continued his pre-flight checklist while he waited, knowing what was coming.
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, be advised that you are not cleared, repeat, not cleared for take-off.”
“Clarify please, Harbor Center.”
“Captain Tregallion’s ticket is under suspension at this time, pending a hearing by the Civil Space Board.”
“That is correct, Harbor Center. This is Captain Michael Gray commanding.” For a while, all he got back was static.
“Wait one, Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893.”
“Copy Center.”
“Power plant at 92% of max power, Mike.”
“I copy that, Gramps. Waiting for clearance from Harbor Center.”
“And taking their own bloody sweet time about it too, I’ll wager.”
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, this is the Supervisor for Harbor Center, please confirm the name of Master of record for the Prometheus.”
“That would be, Captain Andrew Tregallion, but at the moment, I am in command, Captain Michael Gray.”
“Mike?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I have your captain’s ticket on file, but no record of you being the skipper of the Prometheus.”
“Please check with the Certification Board for an updated Change-of-Command notice.” The seconds ticked by as someone obviously went to check. It was there; Gramps had made sure of that. It was a question of whether the computer updated the Prometheus’ registration log in time.
“I have it, Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893. Is Captain Tregallion on board?”
“He is, and acting as chief engineer.”
“That could be a problem, Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893.”
“How so!” Mike snapped back, getting irritated. “Gramps is a licensed nuclear power plant engineer, and if you check, you will see his engineering ticket isn’t under suspension.” Again, the interminable delay, but expected. It didn’t make the waiting easier. Harbor Center could still deny them clearance out of spite after their last stunt.
“I have the record, Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, handing you back to the traffic controller. Good luck, Prometheus.”
“Thanks.” Mike couldn’t blame them, they had to go by the regulations in this case after the stink of their fly-by stunt. On other things, like his age, they turned a blind eye.
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, you are cleared to maneuver out of the harbor. Hold at point Tango for outbound traffic.”
Mike cut his undocking time in half, and as it was late at night, there was little or no traffic in the harbor to worry about, not that he didn’t take care. He skimmed the Old Lady across the still water a point or two above the legal limit. If the Harbor Patrol saw him, they didn’t squawk him or light up the night with flashing blue lights. Mike suspected they wouldn’t, not with the urgency at hand.
“Shit!” He muttered to himself.
“What?” Gramps asked, looking up from the control board at his screen in the engine room.
“I can see the Titan, Samson, and the Lady Penelope taking off ahead of us.”
“Yeah, I expected that once the news got out.” Across the dark waters of Christchurch harbor, Mile could see the white water, and navigation lights of the three tugs all heading into orbit ahead of him.
“Maybe we should break off, Gramps. There's no way we can get ahead of them.”
“Luck favors the bold, my son. Never say die.”
“I know, ‘it’s not over till the fat lady sings’,” hearing Gramps chuckle.
They reached point Tango and waited for their clearance, and the moment they got it, Mike piled on the power. They were airborne in a matter of seconds, climbing as hard as he could push her, and leaving the AG footprint rooster tail far behind. Even Gramps looked up from his board, but said nothing.
“Orbital Center, this is Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893 requesting clearance for an orbital insertion.”
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, be advised, I have heavy traffic in the pattern at the moment. Remain at present altitude and heading.”
“Copy that, Orbital Center.” Mike tapped his board, opening up the search volume around the Prometheus to the max. In all he counted eight tugs heading into orbit as a high rate of knots.
“Looks like a bloody tug convention up here.” Gramps said, nodding at his repeater screen in the engine room.
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, I have an orbital insertion vector for you, stand by for download.”
“Copy, Orbital Center, standing by for download now.”
In moments their course for insertion and flight path heading out to the gas giant appeared on his board. Mike’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead realizing this was an even bigger emergency than they were letting on. From the look of the data from Orbital Center, they wanted every deep space tug on the scene as soon as possible. Boosting up and out into the black, Mike took the Old Lady out of the atmosphere and into orbit in less than half a rotation.
“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, be advised, all inbound traffic is now diverted from your and the other tugs’ flight paths. You have a clear run, and no speed restrictions to your destination.”
“Thank you, Orbital Center. I copy that.”
Mike spooled up the inertial compensators up to max, hearing them climb up to a deep rumble. He could feel the massive generator through the soles of his space boots, making him feel at home. Setting the rad and micrometer shield to 90%, he pushed the power bar to its stops and watched the gravities climb upward. They reached fifty G’s, but it did nothing to close the gap between them and the other tugs racing outward.
“Want to bet some of those buggers will turn back before we are half way there?”
“No bet, Gramps, I know they will, the Titan is just too fast.” He sighed. “The question is, why did we bother coming?”
“You can never tell, son, we might just be needed to haul in some life pods, or something.”
“Damn all credits in that, just a lot of good will.” He muttered to himself.
“One day you might just be thankful that an old tug like this was around to haul your sorry ass in if you found yourself adrift in a life pod!” The old man snorted.
“Didn’t mean it like that, Gramps.” He said in his defense.
“I know you didn’t, son, and I didn’t miss the situation that prompted it either.”
Mike kept his silence after that. He hadn’t meant Gramps to overhear what he’d muttered, but even in the engine-room environment Gramps still had good hearing with his headset on. They trailed after the others, still hearing the distress call on the high-band receiver. By this time, everyone in-system had heard it; those in the know, shivering in horror. One of those impossible strings of misfortunes had overtaken the luxury liner Queen Ann on her inbound course. Unlike many regular passenger liners, she had the clearance to go just about anywhere she wanted on the whim of the captain or one of his very rich passengers. They’d even received permission to pass through the Rift and visit Christchurch. In this case all their misfortunes met at the same juncture. The captain thought it would a good idea to let his human, and non-human, passengers see the spectacular Christchurch system, especially the Jovian gas giant, up close. At the same time many of the previously mentioned passengers wanted a close look, a very close look. It could be said in the captain of the Queen Ann’s defense, that he let the pride in his vessel, and the prompting of his rich clientele to override his natural caution. This led him to descend further into the Jovian atmosphere than he would have otherwise. Multiple storm eyes dotted the surface, and it was toward one of the smaller ones that the Queen Ann was headed when her main electrical buss blew.
That caused a cascading power failure throughout the ship and the fusion reactor to SCRAM. That in turn brought down her main drive. When the electrical buss blew, it killed a number of her main engineering crew, and with the AG generator off-line, even for a short while before the emergency generator kicked in, the 530,000-ton luxury liner sank deeper into the gas giant’s embrace. By the time they restored partial power to the bridge, the captain realized to his horror that they were below the maximum safe limit he could launch the life pods. These were designed to safely put the pods out into space and down on the surface of an M Class planet not pull the life pod out of the gravity well of even a one G planet, let alone that of a 2.5 G gas giant.
Two hours ago, his first “Mayday” lit up the screen of Orbital Approach and was immediately passed to Orbital Center, but there was little they could do. A quick check verified there were no vessels within immediate range to aid the stricken liner. The call went out to all deep space tugs as the authorities tried to mount some kind of
rescue mission. Many suspected it was already too late, but they had to try. The captain and crew of the Queen Ann worked desperately to get the main engines back on line, but other than stabilizing their sink rate by diverting power to the Ag system, nothing worked.
For ten long hours, Mike flew the Prometheus outward, using two of them for breaking. It was a rough twelve hours, even with the compensators working at max against the fifty G inertia. Even so, their rate of approach was still high for a zero/zero intercept with the gas giant.
“You tuned into the commercial frequency, Mike?”
“Sure am.”
“Anything?”
“Oh yes, the Titan and Samson are sitting back while the Lady Penelope haggles with the shipping agent.”
“Trying to get round the standard Lloyds’ salvage contract, I bet.”
“Right, but the agent is sticking to her guns. Standard, or nothing.”
“Sheesh! You’d think that something else besides money would come into play at a time like this, like rescuing the bloody passengers!” Gramps was definitely irritated. “You have the Queen Ann on screen?”
“Just about. It’s a little murky down there, but I’ve got an active ping back from her.”
“Good. So what’s your plan? We come to a standstill and dicker like the rest?”
“Hell no! We go straight in, Gramps.”
“You’d better think about that, Mike. I’m not sure the Old Lady can take that kind of pressure.”
“She’ll take it, Gramps. We don’t have to go all the way down, just far enough to get a tractor beam on her.” Mike expected his grandfather’s support, hearing silence instead. He looked at the screen, seeing the worried look on Gramps’ face. “You think we shouldn’t?”
“I’m not saying that, but it’s a hell of a risk.”
“We can do it, Gramps, honest. We drop down, get a line on her, and haul her butt back up.”
“Hmm, that’s going to strain the old girl to the limit.”
“Come on, Gramps, you know we can do it.” Excitement got the better of him, and he steamrolled over every objection Gramps came up with. In the end, the old man reluctantly agreed, but he didn’t sound happy about it.
