Starfarer's Dream (Kinsella Universe Book 4)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “New Texas is eight light years from Gandalf. Fleet Aloft here has issued a war warning. All ships are to make their way at best possible velocity outside the fan limit, then they shall take all necessary steps to defend themselves, New Texas and the Federation.”

  A moment later Terry’s personal phone rang. “Lieutenant, this is Captain Gong.”

  “Captain,” Terry answered with as much confidence as he could muster, while staring at the master board, waiting for the next waypoint in the startup.

  “During the breakout from Gandalf, the CE of one ship, Agrabat, did a cold start of their power plant and fans and the ship lifted in eleven minutes.”

  Terry shivered. That was impossible!

  The captain continued without pause. “Agrabat was a wreck, but she flew. I am not quite in such a hurry -- without breaking anything more than is already broken, how long until we get primary power on line?”

  Fusion reactors were straightforward technology and had been for hundreds of years and the limits of their engineering were well known. “Captain, we can parallel some things, as we have umbilical power from New Texas Base. I can use that to help get things going; Chief Douglas would, I assume, be spooling up the fans as well.”

  “Yes,” the captain answered briskly, “how long, Lieutenant?”

  “Captain, in honesty, I could not guarantee this power plant in a normal start, normal usage. One hour until we can cut umbilical. Another five or six minutes past that, unless it fails, before we can handle the fans. Maybe a sixty percent chance of failure, Captain.”

  “Make it happen, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Terry replied. He continued to study the boards for a few more minutes, before turning to the master chief.

  “No one is on duty in the reactor room itself?”

  “No, Lieutenant, although perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have someone actually there.”

  “Negative. Pump it down to a half kilogram per centimeter. If anything breaks, I want the leaks going in, not out.” The chief nodded in understanding, and started working on his own control board.

  “Junior Chief.”

  Another young man, not much older than Terry, looked up when Terry addressed him.

  “I want every pump we own, up and running now; all in neutral. Just start them turning, you understand?” The other nodded.

  In minutes every person in the compartment had things to do; around them Guam began to wake. Instead of doing anything directly himself, Terry contented himself with watching, his eyes flicking between readouts every few seconds. It was, he thought, a careful balancing act.

  Time flowed swiftly, each second filled with waypoints and milestones. Sooner than he would have believed, he called Chief Douglas. “Power plant at twenty percent; we can cut umbilical now, sir.”

  “Roger that.”

  As Terry watched, he saw that the connections to the Fleet Base were being severed.

  The chief engineer came back on the main command circuit. “Captain, we are ready to move. It won’t be fast, but we can move under our own power. We’ll be able to reach max in about another seven minutes.”

  “Nav has the course laid. All hands! All hands! Acceleration warning! Ten seconds to lift!”

  The Master Chief came up and stood next to Terry. “Five fans, not six. Not bad, not bad at all, Lieutenant,” the ship’s senior enlisted engineer told Terry.

  Terry glanced at him; the reason Master Chief John Harrison was there was to have someone available to supersede Terry if the Master Chief didn’t think Terry could handle it. Well, Terry had been able to handle it just fine. Still, he did have a question. “I never looked, Master Chief; it’s not my area,” Terry asked equally quietly. “Are we armed?”

  The Master Chief’s eyes never left the readouts. “We have two navigation lidars and two comm lasers that double as short range missile defense. There are two dozen ‘multi-missiles,’ that can be configured as interceptors or ship killers. We have enough tritium to load four missiles counter-ship. We have six of the very old nuclear-pumped x-ray lasers. One of them could probably take out a ship or a missile if we get very, very lucky.”

  He waved a hand at the sensor repeater. “So far, nothing to worry about.” Even as he spoke the intercoms popped again.

  “Battle stations! Battle stations! No Drill! Man your battle stations! Unknown vessel detected!” the bridge commanded stridently. A minute passed; another.

  “One ship,” Terry murmured, watching the battle map display someone had up on a wall screen.

  The talker spoke confidently, “The computer says that’s the City of Manhattan, a fast passenger liner from Earth, and that they are expected. We’re waiting for confirmation of their IFF.”

  One of the other petty officers gave a short, nasty laugh. “I wonder if the dirty-feet over there have any idea how many nuclear missiles are aimed at them?”

  There were smiles around the compartment. Oh yeah, Terry thought. You wouldn’t want to think about it!

  A second dot appeared, close to the first. Four more ships appeared, elsewhere in system, close to vessels outside the fan limit.

  “Crap!” the Master Chief swore fulsomely. Alarm gongs began to clamor.

  The phone chimed. “Morrison, this is the Captain.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I intend to take us out of here at 110% of max rated. Make it so.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “Engineering Alternate, this is Chief Douglas. I have given the order to evacuate all of the engineering spaces except yours. The engines are yours!”

  Fans were simple machines, Terry thought. But they weren’t linear; if they were linear, they wouldn’t work. At a certain point, what was labeled “100% of max rated power” you could expect to run a fan for 100 hours with a 1% chance of failure. At 110% you would be lucky for a fan to run ten hours; there were five fans. You were lucky to run two hours without one failure. And the power plant wasn’t really up to 110% either; the only saving grace was that there were only five fans.

  “I’ll be damned!” the master chief exclaimed. “That damn passenger ship jumped before the missile got there! Someone is bodaciously capable on that pax liner!” Cursing was something that came and went. Currently it was just about never done, except in the most extreme situations, and, compared to times past, relatively mild even in extreme situations. Terry expected to be hearing a lot of it from here on out.

  Three of the ships targeted didn’t jump, and then the fourth also managed a quick jump. Only one ship remained outside the fan limit and one of the unknowns jumped against it. After that there were just a dozen ships inside the fan limit; it didn’t take a big brain to figure out what the enemy would do next.

  “Seven ships just broke orbit from New Texas,” the talker spoke.

  “Weapons, this is the Captain. Weapons release code Zulu Fox Fox Romeo India. You are to fire a standard nuke and one of the x-ray weapons, straight ahead of us. Burner cans only.”

  “I don’t have a solution!” came the reply over the comm link.

  “Shoot, damn you!” the captain barked, “or you’re relieved!”

  A second later the weapons officer reported, his voice sullen, “Missiles away. Still no solution. Burner cans only.”

  “Ship detected, coming off fans, 114,000 clicks ahead, bearing 3.2 degrees north, 1.7 degrees west of our vector.” A pause, “They’ve fired on us, one missile.”

  “Lasers to weapons standby, do not fire except on my mark!” The captain paused, “Fire the X-ray laser! Wait two seconds and put the counter-ship missile in acquisition mode.”

  “The x-ray laser fired, Captain! Our second weapon has acquired and is tracking the target. Time to intercept seventeen seconds.”

  “All hands, prepare for weapons detonation. Kosovo says they use gigaton weapons; we are going to take a hit.” A second passed, another, “Lasers engage!” Two seconds went by, two more.

  “Captain, this is sen
sors! The weapon is tumbling! I say again, the weapon is tumbling!”

  “Slag it!” the captain insisted.

  “Missile detonation! Ours! Dead bang on! Captain! We got one of them!”

  “Silence!” the captain’s voice cracked with anger. “What are our friends up to?”

  “They’ve engaged two other unknowns; the unknowns have been destroyed. The two remaining unknowns are making for the fan limit at slightly more than three gravities.” A pause. “We lost three cruisers, Dardanelles, Osterreich, and Hanover.”

  Everyone in Engineering Alternate looked at each other; at the battle maps showing on the comp screens. One alien was an hour from leaving the fan well, another was half that. The question was, what would the enemy ships do when they could jump again? Engage other ships? Or bug out? The conversation was low and muted.

  “Fleet Aloft has ordered the warships to stay close to New Texas,” a comm talker said over the circuit. “We have been ordered to continue to attempt to escape.” And Guam was more than two hours from leaving the fan well.

  Terry was wondering about what they might face. No one had ever fought a real space battle before. Not like this. Three cruisers, gone in an eye blink, as well as three of the aliens. Yet, once again he was alive. Terry resisted the urge to pinch himself to be sure.

  “Vessel coming off fans, six light hours to galactic north; the computer says that’s the City of Manhattan again,” the sensor officer reported. “They are now under two g’s acceleration towards New Texas.”

  Chief Douglas appeared at Terry’s elbow and grimaced. “That’s gonna cause a few hernias among the dirty-feet.” The chief engineer laughed. “But that Captain either has solid brass balls or he’s crazy.”

  Time dragged slowly past; Terry spent almost every second watching the reactor. All the indications were that everything was running nominal, but at 110% of max rated power, anything could go out of nominal almost at once.

  The first alien reached the edge of the fan well and jumped. Everyone was on maximum alert, as soon as it had jumped, the captain had fired another nuclear tipped missile straight ahead. A minute passed; another. “Bug out!” the second engineer hissed, the relief evident in his voice.

  “Looks like it,” Chief Douglas replied, his eyes, like Terry’s fixed on the reactor control board. Another minute passed, “Captain, this is Douglas. Recommend dropping to 90%.”

  “Roger, Chief. Make it so.”

  They gently pulled the power back; nothing broke, everything was still ticking over fine.

  “A ship has just departed New Texas orbit,” a sensor officer said, “heading out to intercept City of Manhattan. A jitney, I think.”

  “A little paranoid,” the master chief opined. “They have a good IFF.”

  “Safe, though,” Chief Douglas said. “And considering what we’ve just seen, safe is the name of the game for a long, long time to come.”

  “Chief Douglas, this is the Captain. We’ve heard from Fleet Aloft. We are ordered to turn off our fans when we are sure we can reach the fan limit. We will then fire some of our burner cans on a vector of our own choosing and go to total emcon, except for comm lasers. Please make it so. Navigation is working it; they’ll get the vector to you shortly. The vector is classified.”

  “Roger, Captain. Doggo it is. Classified vector.”

  The second alien ship jumped. Again everyone was tense, but this time no missile was fired. After another five minutes the captain spoke to the crew of the Guam.

  “There are a number of you who have families or friends on Gandalf, on the Fleet ships that were stationed there or here. Six ships have died here today, three of them our brothers and sisters in the Fleet. Undoubtedly some of those lost were friends and perhaps family. I offer you my most profound sympathy; if there is anything, anything I can do for you, or for that matter, any member of this crew can do for you, we will.

  “I’m not sure Admiral Wu is thrilled, but the City of Manhattan lists on her pax manifest a reserve vice admiral, and a slew of Fleet other ranks and a regular lieutenant. Additionally, there are two retired commanders and a captain, and a half dozen retired senior NCOs. A treasure trove, given the circumstances.

  “The reserve vice admiral has a staff -- I’m not sure how that works when you’re reserve. But, they report that an alien ship was tracking them before they left High Fan here. They had been off of High Fan for just seconds before the unknown emerged from High Fan and fired on them. When they jumped they only went for a short distance. They had already discussed what they were going to do next, and that was return to New Texas to see if they could get more sensor scans, scans that would confirm their earlier observations. In short, the admiral’s staff has said that the unknowns appear to be able to track vessels on High Fan, something we have heard is theoretically possible, but have never been able to do.

  “These critters evidently can.”

  “City is now, like us, stooging around in the outer system, off fans, lying doggo.

  “Admiral Wu has informed me of his intention to utilize both Guam and City of Manhattan as pax haulers, even though we are damaged. We will wander randomly in the outer system and other ships will come to us; including ten additional passenger modules.

  “When we’ve finished loading, we’ll return to Earth. All assignment orders except those for New Texas are cancelled; everyone with another destination will stay with Guam. This has a top priority; we should start integrating the pax modules about sixteen hours from now and then eight or so hours later we’ll be underway for Earth.

  “I wish each and all of you the best, God grant us a safe passage in this perilous hour.” There was a pop, and after that, there was silence.

  “Chief Douglas,” Terry spoke up, not really wanting to break the silence. “We’re running nominally, but -- I mean -- this is going to be really dangerous. The reactor could fail at any time. No one would be surprised. To try to return to Earth...” Terry spread his hands helplessly.

  “Not to mention fans that need to be overhauled,” the chief engineer agreed. “I’ll talk to the captain; maybe we can get them to send us a lot of reactor parts, plus a couple of spare fans. Then, worst case, we would just have to spend some cold dark time fixing things.”

  Cold dark time was the spaceman’s worst nightmare: stopping well away from any star to make repairs. You did not want to do it if it could be avoided -- space travel at the best of times was dangerous. The cold dark was beyond dangerous. If something went wrong, if something couldn’t be fixed -- you were dead. Forever lost, soon to die -- or worse: with supplies for months and no hope of rescue.

  Eventually Terry returned to his compartment, Rosa was sitting at the desk, typing into her comp; Larry was asleep on his bunk but woke up when Rosa spoke. “Well done, Terry.”

  “I didn’t do anything at all, this time,” Terry replied, sinking down onto his bunk.

  “Which is why the reactor was quick-started in 54 minutes; according to the book I read, a quick start takes two hours.”

  “It was slow and careful, no matter what you think,” Terry told her wearily.

  “Yeah, sure. You did good. As for myself, I made myself useful on the bridge. They let me make coffee. The captain herself patted me on the shoulder and reminded me that Kinsella’s first job on a starship, aside from building it, was making coffee.” She grimaced. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

  Terry smiled faintly. “Stephanie Kinsella had a different job after they landed the second time. You also have something different to look forward to.”

  Larry sat up on his bunk and shrugged. “Well, in sensors, they made me sit in a chair and told me to keep my mouth shut. When I wanted something to do, they had me read schematics.” He sniffed. “As if I don’t know every single sensor circuit on this ship!”

  Terry slept for a few hours, and then went back to the auxiliary control room, watching his nuclear genie continue to function normally. He watched every reading, every indicator. Six hours la
ter Chief Douglas relieved him, telling Terry to get at least six hours of sleep before returning. Terry got another three hours of sleep, and then was back at the power board.

  The chief engineer looked at him, shrugged. “Maybe I should get you a cot.”

  “Pump B-42. I have a bad feeling about it.”

  Instantly Chief Douglas was looking at the board. “Nothing out of nominal.”

  “Yeah, but it had to have taken the brunt of the cold start. I know it got steam cleaned in the first malf.” That is, a broken line had spewed live steam on it for three minutes, before Terry had cut the steam lines feeding the leak. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Reroute the feed, then,” the Chief said firmly.

  Terry started doing as bid and Chief Douglas added, “I’ll send a crew down and have them replace it. Something like that will look good on their records.” He saw the look on Terry’s face; “Hey, Lieutenant, this is experience. This kind of malf needs to be practiced and rehearsed; otherwise the real thing is likely to end up differently than when you had the controls.”

  Terry nodded, turning back to his board.

  The chief engineer put his hand on Terry’s arm.

  “This is for you, Lieutenant, the only other person aboard who knows is the Captain. I have a twin brother; we’re identical twins -- you can’t tell us apart. And like many identical twins, we had similar passions and both of ours were found in the engine rooms of starships.”

  There was a faint bit of pressure on Terry's arm. “I’m the chief engineer of Guam and Michael was the chief engineer aboard Agrabat.” Chief Douglas turned and walked away.

  They’d all heard about the travail of Agrabat at Gandalf. Most of the crew had been on leave and off ship. Those that lifted in the emergency, most of them, suffered from severe radiation sickness from the way their chief engineer had powered up their reactor. Rosa might be impressed with a smidge less than an hour, but that engineer had the power up and the fans running in eleven blessed minutes. Except by then he was dead and never knew how it turned out.