Starfarer's Dream (Kinsella Universe Book 4)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “We’re going to dock with the habitat,” Bill informed the others. He turned to Commander Hoyt. “The habitat will help us offload your cargo; they have a considerable base of manpower and equipment.

  “Habitat Director Wolf has asked for permission to install as much of the equipment as he can -- the missiles, the Fleet standard lasers and the other weapons. There will be thirty-two thousand people left here after we evacuate four thousand young people. I submit that saving that many lives has a higher priority than our cargo. Certainly the cargo will be useful in the future, but that’s the future. Peach can use it right now -- there are thirty-two thousand people here who will benefit right away. Some of that benefit may well accrue to Tannenbaum. I’ve told Director Wolf that they may proceed, on my authority.”

  Commander Hoyt rolled his eyes skyward. “Oh God! I keep telling myself that we can only be court-martialed once!”

  Naomi laughed. “Yes, but Commander, they can file as many charges as they want. One, ten or ten thousand! Who cares?” She waved at a screen. “We’ve seen Agincourt and Gandalf. They can court-martial me, they can stand me up against a wall and shoot me and I’d do it all over again, the same way. The aliens withdrew here at Tannenbaum, Commander! What would they have done if we hadn’t shot them up? Do you think they would have withdrawn otherwise? No one else got any, it was us. You, me, Bill, and Willow. Above all, Willow Wolf, the Laser Lady. And all the others who slaved getting the work done. The aliens didn’t leave because of concern for the Fleet Base -- they left because they went oh for two against us.

  “Thirty-two thousand people here at the habitat, four thousand kids, another half billion on Tannenbaum, perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand more in various other habitats in the system. Those lives aren’t on my conscience and they aren’t going to be. I agree with Bill.” She barked a half laugh. “Not that he gives a good God damn.”

  “I do, I do,” her husband said. “But still -- thanks.”

  Commander Hoyt sighed. “Naomi, I’m a horse’s ass, not a blithering idiot. It’s just that I’m watching my career go down the tubes, here.”

  Captain Travers shook his head. “Wake up, Commander! Two alien ships just hauled their buns out of Tannenbaum having blown out seven freighters and a habitat under construction -- and damn all nothing else. The Fleet couldn’t save Agincourt or Gandalf; now we’ve heard that they saved Fleet World and here a Fleet ship, no matter how irregular, has saved Tannenbaum and a habitat. Odds are, in two months, you’ll be a captain, with your own command and a big gong from a grateful Federation.”

  Commander Hoyt’s eyes broadened in shocked surprise. He’d been fixated on the problem, not the practical effect of the solution.

  A screen lit. “Captain, we’ve heard from Tannenbaum,” Heinrich Wolf told Bill, “I thought you’d appreciate a copy for your scrapbook.”

  The habitat manager’s picture was replaced by Admiral Larimov. “The aliens appear to have withdrawn. We are still cycling the Fleet ships on station; they should be combat ready in the next six to eight hours. For the time being, though, we are going to keep them close to Tannenbaum. We are broadcasting warning notices to the surviving shipping. We want you to evacuate your station, as soon as we can make shipping available.

  “I realize that there is insufficient tonnage to completely evacuate you in a timely fashion, but there should be enough to take women and children to safety here at Tannenbaum.

  “The aliens have severely crippled our sensor network; we have a number of spares that we will be putting out shortly, but it will be some time before we can fully repair what we lost in the attack. We would appreciate your linking your sensor suite to Tannenbaum; any coverage we can get would be appreciated.

  “This is Admiral Larimov, Commanding Fleet Aloft, Tannenbaum Base.”

  Heinrich Wolf reappeared. “Amusing, eh?”

  “Yes. Director Wolf, if you could give me a few minutes, I need to compose a suitable reply.”

  “Certainly, Captain. But the work proceeds apace, does it not?”

  “It does, I make it two hours and a bit before we’re clear.”

  “Yes, and then you will continue your mission?”

  “Yes.”

  To his surprise, Heinrich Wolf saluted him. “My regards, Captain. Give them the very depths of hell!”

  There was a moment of silence on the bridge of Starfarer’s Dream, and then Willow spoke up.

  “Captain, two minutes ago a fan source lit off in orbit around the inner gas giant. He’s cranking five gravities, and the course prediction is that he’ll come in hot at our location.”

  “Keep an eye out on it. Keep the laser charged -- if we have to...”

  Willow nodded soberly.

  * * *

  Captain Travers communed with his bridge crew in an after action report.

  “There is something that didn’t seem important at the time,” Joachim Wolf reported. “The active emitters were heavily targeted by the attacking forces. Perhaps two thirds were destroyed.”

  “How many missiles were employed?”

  “One each -- forty-seven in total.”

  Bill repeated that to the others. “Evidently they weren’t expecting resistance. A Fleet heavy, more or less like the bad guys, has a few more than two hundred missiles. Even if these guys have double that; they would have shot off a sizeable percentage of their ordinance at emitters. What do you want to bet that they pulled out not because we were hitting back, but because they weren’t sure that they could carry out their mission if they failed to take us out?”

  “Their mission?” Naomi asked, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer.

  “Trash Tannenbaum, like Agincourt and Gandalf. A fifth of their warheads went after Java; another forty percent were lost when they went against us. Perhaps another quarter used against the emitters and other targets. We’re talking seventy-five percent of their weapons had been expended, sidetracked or destroyed; they didn’t have enough to succeed, so they left without trying.”

  “Captain,” the Joachim Wolf said, disagreeing, “preliminary analysis of the data we took from Java, says that their heavies carry 500 plus missiles; mostly mounted, it is thought, in external racks. My analysis says that the remaining ships had 400 plus missiles apiece. This is a considerably larger number than you have assumed and is almost certainly sufficient to have eliminated Tannenbaum. They left, Captain, because of active opposition. They knew there were Fleet ships on Tannenbaum; they knew there was an active combatant in the belt. Checked, and when the raise got around to them, they folded.”

  “There’s a better explanation, sir,” Willow said mildly.

  “Yes, Willow?” the captain asked.

  “I don’t pretend to think like an alien, but they have to have some traits that are consistent with things we understand. They have to have planning, they have to be able to measure things, both time and distance, they have to have some basic understanding of the physics of the universe.

  “Look at it from their point of view. All we detected being emitted from them is radar. They appear to have a means of detecting a ship in both fan modes.

  “If they do not have lasers, as the information that Java sent suggests, then they would be mystified how their ships were destroyed. The time, sir, between when their ships emerged from fans and when they were destroyed was never more than a second longer than it took light to go from them to us and back again. That’s much too short of a time for a missile to do the trick.

  “They may not have any idea what’s happening, beyond the fact that their ships blew up. Logically, it would be foolish to mount only one such weapon aboard a ship unless it was impossible not to do so because of size or energy requirements. Those ships came in one at a time, and were destroyed. What if we had a broadside of eight lasers? We’d have capacity to spare and would have been able to destroy them all instantly. As my father said, sir, they looked at their hole cards and decided that it was time to go.”

&nb
sp; “I was thinking that one of these days, Captain Wolf, we need to get you in a poker game,” Bill opined. “What with one thing and another, I’m wondering if that’s the good idea I thought it was.”

  “Captain Travers, as a married man, I have to tell you that wives take a dim view of their husbands playing poker with people like Jake. But I did teach Willow everything I know about the game. She can take my place.”

  Bill Travers laughed, and then, a few seconds later, sighed. “I’m procrastinating on the message to Larimov. I wish I could say what I really feel, but if I did that, I really would get court-martialed.”

  Everyone laughed, even Commander Hoyt.

  Finally he spoke in measured tones down to the planet. “Admiral Larimov, this is Captain Travers. I wish to report that we engaged two of the unknowns and destroyed them with our self-defense weapons.

  “I have taken the liberty of copying Habitat Director Wolf at the Peach habitat with our logs. You will find a copy of our logs included with this message.

  “I have determined that the best course of action is to leave Commander Hoyt and his people here at Peach. They and Director Wolf’s people are going to install the cargo here. Tannenbaum isn’t a suitable site -- you have no adequate base in vacuum. These people do and Peach is, I believe, the best solution available to guarantee optimum employment of the weapons in the time likely to be available.

  “We will be departing momentarily to carry out our next scheduled Paul Revere stop. Captain Travers, out.”

  “Send it,” he told his wife, still at the communication console, “at lift minus two minutes. If he hustles, we might get a reply before we crank the fans.”

  There was, though no reply, before they were running away from Tannenbaum, much faster than the light from there could catch up with them.

  127

  Starfarer’s Dream

  Chapter 7 -- Welcome to New Helgoland

  I

  Bob Shannon got something to eat, and was pleased again when his fun and sun class came in together again, five minutes before the hour.

  “This afternoon you will be on a shuttle. I am a certified pilot and have been since I was six.” There were stirs in the room.

  D. C. raised her hand this time and he recognized her. “That’s pretty young,” she stated.

  He nodded. “On Earth, in most places, you have to be 21 to learn to drive. In some places it’s 18, some 15 and a fraction, and then you can take a test for a dirty-foot license some time later.

  “Here on the Rim, not everyone learns to fly. Most do, partly because it’s not very hard, and it’s a handy skill to have. But for some of us -- we spend a lot of time in ships. Accidents happen, people. All kinds of accidents happen. The idea behind a lot of things on the Rim is to make the effects of those accidents less serious.

  “Back on Earth, at four or five years of age, you’re taught to dial 911. Wonderful, really. Cool. We have something similar on the rim. Star 91 on all the comm systems. Yes, we teach it as soon as a kid can learn it.

  “My father is a Benko-Chang fan engineer and my mother is a survey geologist. One or the other has almost always been gone since the time I was born. Growing up, when I was together with one or the other, we spent a lot of time on ships, and a lot of that time on our own shuttle. My father has his own interstellar capable pinnace; I have a shuttle on loan from Beowolf.

  “Things happen. It is easy to have an accident -- all too easy. So, as soon as possible you’re taught Star 91. Then, when you are a little older, if you’re in ships frequently, you learn to fly them. Because it can make a lot of difference if you can meet someone halfway. Or if you can do something, anything, to get back to safety. To be frequently on a ship like mine, or my father’s, you have to be flight-certified at least once a year. Over age forty, you have to be certified twice a year. Over age sixty -- sorry, you can’t be alone on a ship, without a younger, flight-certified pilot.

  “So, I learned to fly young. Most people on the Rim who pilot learn young. I’ve kept in practice.” Bob grinned. “I am now three-fourths of the way through my Skip Pilot Certificate -- that is, learning to pilot gas giant fuel ships that skip into a gas giant’s atmosphere, scoop up a balloon of hydrogen, and then bounce back out. That is, by the way, real piloting, because you have to get deep enough into the atmosphere that you actually have to fly.

  “So, you will all follow me now to my shuttle. There, you will take a cabin seat. Except Sarah Grant -- she will sit up front with me.”

  Bob led the way through the docking tube and into his shuttle. He checked that everyone was buckled in, and then made contact with the flight dispatcher’s office and left dock.

  They pulled away from the habitat about ten kilometers, and he let half of them look out at Peach. After a minute, he rolled again and let the other half look. Actually, by then it was about a quarter of them, because half of the people in the cabin had gotten sick from the mixture of the roll and free fall.

  D.C. was the one, he thought, who’d organized things. She organized clean up now; she had good instincts because she understood that Bob wasn’t going to help. Been there, done that, and he had used his own t-shirt in times past.

  Sarah Grant looked at him, at the control deck in front of her. “Why me?”

  Her voice was soft, but curious. Her face was still an unobtrusive and bland cipher.

  “Because of all of them, it will do you the most good.” Bob replied. She looked at him and shrugged.

  “Do you know what people bet on, on the Rim?” Bob asked her.

  Sarah shrugged again. “As near as I can tell, they bet on almost everything.”

  “Actually, we bet on just one thing. Our ability to do a job -- or someone else’s inability. Even your ombudsman, who is, by the way, on his way down to Tannenbaum, even as we speak, knew that. Moving in zero g is an essential skill; you do what you have to do.”

  He’d been working the controls and now spoke to the others. “I hope you have all noticed by now that we’ve undocked with Peach habitat. Sorry about the zero G for the moment, but I have a remedy for that.”

  Bob chuckled. “This should make you feel better.” He cranked the fans, slowly increasing acceleration. After five minutes he reported to his passengers, “We are now accelerating at two standard gravities. A dollar to the first person who tells me how fast we are going at the end of two hours, relative to Peach.”

  “One hundred and forty-two kilometers per second.” Sarah said almost instantly, but her voice was soft, inaudible beyond the flight deck.

  Back in the cabin, D.C. also got the answer, and he awarded her a dollar, having Sarah take it to her. When she got back, there was another dollar sitting on the flight desk in front of her seat. “And tell me, Miss Grant, how far will we have gone in two hours?”

  She blinked, and then said, “More than a half million kilometers.”

  “And how long will it take us to return?” he said with a grin, “Given the same acceleration?”

  “Two hours to stop, two hours to get going the other way, two more hours to stop. I’m going to have a late supper.”

  “That’s if we keep the same radius from Tannenbaum’s star,” he told her, “What would it be if we were moving away? Closer?”

  She frowned in concentration before she replied. “It shouldn’t make any difference unless you approached something massive. Then it would depend if you were overtaking or coming up from in front of it.”

  A light on the console blinked and Bob withheld any smile. “We cheat on the Rim, we do, Miss Grant.”

  There was a moment of sharp moment of nausea that faded but didn’t vanish. The view outside was now blank gray; nothing showing.

  Her eyes widened, and then she looked at Bob. “High Fan?”

  “Aye,” he said with laughter. “Not for long. I imagine D. C. will have a little more trade in the back there in stomach buckets.” Forty-one seconds passed, and they were down.

  “Miss Grant, how d
o you feel?”

  “Heavy,” she told him.

  “Aye. It turns out Jupiter is a wee tyke, when it comes to gas giants. We got lucky there, back in the solar system. This is Tannenbaum VI and it’s a little over twice Jupiter’s mass. We are at 2.9 g’s out here.” Bob shrugged. “It would be even more, closer in. Fortunately, we’re not closer.”

  The drag was considerable, and he let it stand for a few seconds, and then turned the fans to counteracting it, except of course, in order to do that, first you have to make it worse. Forty minutes later they snuggled up to a two kilometer chunk nickel-iron in the outermost debris ring around the planet.

  There was a profound silence in the back as they contemplated the shard not that far outside the windows of the shuttle. Bob spoke up. “You will note a lot of cratering on the body we are adjacent to. That is the common fate for any body close to a gas giant. A gas giant has a very large gravity well; they are always hooking something or other in.”

  For an hour he explained this and that, while his passengers stared at the rock out the window on one side, and Tannenbaum VI out the windows on the other. Finally he gave his final speech.

  “This is the Rim, people. The Rim of Space. In truth, the Rim starts just past the atmosphere of any planet or outside the confines of a comfortable habitat. It’s been almost 250 years since the last accident that risked the lives of everyone on a major habitat, but it could happen again tomorrow. Ten years ago the colony Tenebra had to be hastily evacuated when a routine scan detected a hundred kilometer rock on a collision course with the planet -- they had a little more than a year. Fleet got almost everyone off, but it was a close run thing.”

  And had, in fact, caused a severe economic recession in the Federation, because shipping schedules over nearly half of entire Federation had been thrown into the toilet for almost two years. But they’d saved ten million people, and that was what counted.