Pathfinder

by Laura E. Reeve

  “Your bot and my algorithm have thwarted her, Matt.”

  He could barely hear Muse 3, so he stood on the head again. “What’s that, Muse?”

  “It appears that she must physically retrieve the bot. She’s told the Percival that you—” Muse 3 stopped and Matt heard footsteps. Lowry was walking down the central corridor. Was she coming to let him out? Going into space with only a vacuum suit to protect you was always risky, but doing it without someone to watch you, or run your ship, was highly perilous. Using autopilot algorithms to keep the ship nearby was dangerous, particularly in this case, because the buoy had gravity generation through its N-space connection. They all had to hope that its “gravity” would remain stable.

  Matt pushed his ear nearer the ceiling, to try to pick up sounds. The footsteps faded. Finally, Muse 3’s voice came down the vent. “She has entered the equipment bay and put on a suit. However, she told the Percival that you will be going EVA and to perpetuate this deception, she is broadcasting to the Percival from the ship’s transmitter, but through her suit. She put the ship on automated station-keeping.”

  Matt suddenly realized what had just happened. By using the autopilot to keep the ship on its position close to the buoy, she’d given Muse 3 its “back door” into the ship systems. Click. He heard Muse 3 unlock his door—thank Gaia that Lowry hadn’t decided to manually disable his door.

  “Has she left the airlock, Muse Three?” Matt was out of the hygiene closet and sprinting toward the control center. Lowry wasn’t a professional ship hijacker or she would have taken the gravity generator down to make it more difficult to retake the ship. Of course, having been raised on a generational ship, Matt didn’t have as many problems as a grav-hugger under zero gee.

  “Yes. She left the airlock before I hacked into the control routines.”

  Matt paused. Even though this had worked in his favor, he was somewhat uncomfortable with Muse 3 “hacking” into his own ship’s security. He’d have to revisit this issue with the AI—later.

  “We’ve got to stop her from damaging the buoy interface, or stealing the bot.” He climbed the vertical tube to the control deck, and slid into his seat. Checking the comm channels, he turned on monitoring as he looked at the FTL diagram.

  “Holy Great Bull-shit,” he muttered as he considered the situation.

  The TLS Ming Adams, perhaps after seeing the TLS Percival leave Beta Priamos Station, had apparently decided that getting to the buoy was more important than staying within jamming range of the Bright Crescent. His call log now showed unacknowledged calls from Edones’s ship, but he pushed them to the bottom of the priority list. The Bright Crescent was too far away to be of help; the Ming Adams had outrun her and was now less than five thousand kilometers away and closing fast. Dr. Lowry’s collusion with the Ming Adams was obvious on Matt’s comm panel, where he saw she’d made good use of the starboard beam antenna, the one with the signal strength needed for second-wave prospecting. She was on a directional, non-standard channel with the approaching Ming Adams, while the Percival sat nearby, having no reason to suspect she was engaged in any duplicity.

  “He suspected they’d be bringing back an artifact, but I can’t wait any longer,” she transmitted. “I’ll have the interface package soon. Lowry out.”

  “Good. We’ll—”

  Matt cut in on the Ming Adams response. “I’m not so sure of that, considering the package is a real scamp. Isn’t it, Dr. Lowry?” He watched the bot slice the leg of Lowry’s suit, this time in what he considered justified self-defense.

  “Matt? No, you’re making a mis—” He cut off her horrified voice, hoping the bot could defend itself until he figured out how to help. He called the TLS Percival on the Beta Priamos channel, which the other ships could easily monitor. “TLS Percival, this is the Aether’s Touch. Disregard everything Lowry’s been telling you. We lost contact with the Pytheas hours ago—”

  There was a brilliant flash of light that usually occurred when a referential engine wasn’t tuned correctly. Or, in this case, when a human-made referential engine was trying to sync with an alien Builders’ buoy. The Pytheas was back, its ID transmitting in emergency mode.

  Ariane needed to make an immediate nous-transit back to G-145, because when she returned to the Pytheas, she found dire circumstances.

  “We’re not equipped for this type of surgery, nor am I trained for more than initial triage and trauma,” explained the second-shift medic, who was now their only medic. He eyed her askance as she tore into another rations pack, munching on the bars as if they were ambrosia. She felt strong, but she was voraciously hungry.

  “Ms. Guillotte is the one I’m most worried about,” he continued, as she also opened a juice pack. “When we get her to G-145, the only facilities that can handle her are on the Pilgrimage. Ms. Joy is stable but she needs more surgery. Dr. Novak just needs recovery time.”

  Eva Joy had been the comm engineer on duty when Kim, or Hanson, went on his upper-level rampage. She’d been found, barely alive, stuffed in a locker. The only person who had escaped injury on the top two levels had been Ariane, only because Maria had told her to disable her hatch after locking. That, and the fact she’d slept through everything; she might not have survived waking up to do hand-to-hand with the deranged Kim.

  For everyone trapped in the lower levels, it was the psychological stress of dealing with no environmental support for thirty or forty minutes. There were several panic attacks and Dr. Novak’s was the worst. He’d hyperventilated, fainted, and hit his head in the process. Now he was in sick bay, under observation.

  “We have to get back to G-145,” Ariane said.

  “If you’re up to doing the drop so soon,” the medic said. “Remember, better to lose two patients than the entire ship and crew.”

  “I’m fine. Just need one more ration pack.” She winked. After all these years, she knew nous-transits always got better. Plenty of people who trained to be N-space pilots quit after their first few drops, convinced they couldn’t face the nightmarish transits, over and over. Experienced N-space pilots tried to tell them the transits could get better, particularly when you made the same nous-transit again, between the same buoys.

  In getting the Pytheas back to G-145, they ran into a few more glitches. The operational crew that ran the ship was distinctly different from the mission crew, responsible for collecting and analyzing data. The operational crew still had its N-space pilot, but had lost its primary members for the captain, comm, engineer, and copilot seats. Kim had also damaged equipment, including the interface to their transmitters. They had lost their primary antenna during the weapons platform battle, but they still had secondary antennas, just no way to control or use them for the comm.

  “I’m replacing damaged parts with spares, and trying to bring basic comm online,” the second- shift comm engineer said. “We don’t have data or voice working yet.”

  “I assume our ID transponder is working,” Ariane said. Civilian transponders were extremely difficult to disable, meant to operate independently, and located in out- of-the-way, secure places. It was illegal to purposely damage the black box that squawked your ship ID.

  The comm engineer nodded and said, “We can put it in emergency mode.” That would cause the ID to flash red on other consoles, the universal indicator of a comm-out situation.

  “What about the buoy lock signal?” This, of course, was crucial to getting back and doubly important now, since they hadn’t been able to call for help.

  “That runs through a different transceiver, with different routing—looks like it should still work.” The secondary comm engineer looked tired. “For once, I think I’ll appreciate being knocked out by D-tranny.”

  The nous-transit, this time, took less out of Ariane. She suspected her parasite was finally hitting its stride, so to speak, and adjusting her clash doses more effectively. Her resistance to the damaged N-space was stronger; she’d already trod this nous-transit path before, and she knew how
to steer for the strange- looking rift into G- 145. After she hit the switch to push wake-up bright into the crew members and restored ship gravity, however, she pulled a juice pack out of her coveralls and contemplated the scene in front of her. Hurry, hurry. Return the seed, urged her parasite, but she had to ignore it. Something serious was happening in G-145.

  “What’s going on?” asked Elias, the secondary copilot seat, who was also responsible for sensors. He had opened his eyes, brought up sensors, and stared at the same display. As a civilian, he didn’t jump to bringing up the newly attached weapon systems, like Maria would have.

  “My first guess is that we’ve interrupted a standoff. We have two Terran League frigates and an AFCAW cruiser, all squaring off, if you’ll excuse the geometric oddity of that statement.” She focused on the three large military ships separately with cam-eyes, then on Aether’s Touch, which was hovering close to the buoy. Was someone working on the buoy? She zoomed to try to see the white-suited figure, who was waving frantically. Was that Matt? Probably not, because he’d be smart enough to move into the full sunlight.

  “Which means . . . ?” Elias, an Autonomist, wasn’t used to thinking about self-protection.

  “It means you should get the weapon systems on line, Elias, while Brooke takes over sensors,” Ariane said severely, as she opened the intercom to engineering. “I need comm as soon as possible.”

  There was grumbling from the comm engineer, something like “I’m working as fast as . . .” which she overrode with an announcement to the entire ship.

  “Pytheas, we apparently have a situation. There are three military ships at the buoy and some of them may no longer be our friends. Someone may shoot off weapons at us—and without comm, I’m making a run toward the Pilgrimage and hoping I get an escort.”

  The intercom lit up after her announcement, but she shut off the audio. Elias muttered about training as he tried to assess the weapons systems. Brooke appeared capable of handling sensors and Ariane had moved targeting over to Elias.

  “I wish we had FTL data.” Ariane ran her fingers over her head, shedding more hair. Unfortunately, the damage to their comm systems also prevented them from getting buoy data, so all she had was what Brooke could get from their light-speed sensors. For the benefit of the others, she quickly listed the players. “The Bright Crescent is an AFCAW cruiser, with the most firepower. It’ll probably escort us, but it’s still too far away to really help protect us. The TLS Percival is a fast frigate, crewed by TLS regulars, and it helped us get rid of Abram. The TLS Ming Adams is older, and an unknown; I’m not sure if it’s crewed by regulars or not.”

  “We’ve still got chaff and one volley of swarm missiles,” Elias announced. “And why does it matter whether there are ‘regulars’ on the League ships?”

  “Brooke, you’re Terran, so you tell him,” she said grimly, before calling engineering. “Do we have comm yet? Emergency—broadband—anything?”

  “No comm,” came from engineering, followed by choice and colorful expletives.

  Brooke gave her a cautious look, then said to Elias, “I think Ms. Kedros is referring to the possibility that the ship may be more rogue than TLS, meaning they might not be operating fully within Overlord law or following treaties—”

  “Like the Phaistos Protocols?” Elias blanched.

  “Let’s get going. I hate doing this with only light-speed data, but we’ve got wounded.” Ariane set a course and started moving the Pytheas away from the buoy. “We can go the speed of the frigates, but I want to give the Bright Crescent a chance to catch us. Stay ready on weapons, Elias, and give me continuous updates, Brooke.”

  Brooke complied by shouting, “The Bright Crescent is changing direction, moving toward escort position, but the Ming Adams is moving to block us!”

  Ariane winced. “Dial down the volume, please.”

  “The Percival is holding her position.” Brooke’s pronunciation became staccato, but softer. “Ming Adams still moving in front of our bow.”

  Moving to block? Ariane couldn’t believe a League military ship would try such an inept maneuver. Space was three-dimensional and required at least that many dimensions in its tactics. Maybe whoever was commanding the Ming Adams thought they were dealing with a civilian real-space driver. Fine. . . . Wait for it. . . .

  “Ming Adams still moving to block.” Brooke couldn’t help herself—her voice was tighter, higher, and louder.

  At the last possible moment, the Ming Adams started veering starboard to avoid collision, like a driver stuck in two dimensions. Ariane dove the Pytheas under their ventral area, flipped, and yanked hard to port, knowing the Bright Crescent would track them easily from far escort position. They ended up above the planetary plane, or below it, depending upon viewpoint. Actually, the point was that a pilot shouldn’t consider above or below. The Ming Adams scrambled to follow.

  Elias made a gurgling sound as he unnecessarily gripped the arms of his seat.

  “Don’t look at the cam-eye views,” Ariane advised him.

  “Bright Crescent is following, but Percival is obviously hanging back. Ming Adams is catching up.” Brooke reiterated what Ariane’s screens showed her, but that was fine. It helped her concentrate. She wished she knew who wanted what—and why was the TLS Percival staying out of the scrap?

  “What the hell? The Ming Adams is firing rail guns—”

  “Thanks.” Ariane turned the Pytheas’s ventral side toward the firing frigate, and tried to angle the bow area out, since the referential engine was nearly indestructible. “Next time, tell me sooner.”

  “We’ve been hit!” Elias panicked for a moment. “Thank Gaia, we’ve got smart armor and there’s hardly any damage. Good move—”

  “Elias, be ready to fire swarm missiles. Brooke, I expect the Ming Adams will move closer.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Fire swarm missiles,” Ariane said grimly.

  “At a TLS frigate? Are you kidding?”

  “Now, Elias!” Ariane shouted. “Otherwise, they’ll think we agree to being grappled and boarded.”

  While Elias hesitantly moved the target- tracking missile array, the Ming Adams pulled back and let loose a cloud of expanding chaff on their dorsal side. The swarm missiles detonated in the chaff. Of course, Elias wouldn’t know that unless he was very lucky the missiles couldn’t penetrate the ship’s smart armor. This salvo was mostly a statement of “Stay away!” Unfortunately for the Ming Adams, staying away from the Pytheas might open it up to fire from the Bright Crescent.

  “Tell me if the Bright Crescent fires,” Ariane told Brooke.

  “You mean they might not help us?” Elias sounded plaintive.

  Ariane was busy trying to stay away from the Ming Adams , whose pilot had finally woken up and shown some focus. If someone on the Ming Adams wanted whatever she brought back from the Builders’ station, their only option was to grapple and board the Pytheas. Under Pax Minoica, that would be an act of piracy upon a civilian ship, or it could be considered an act of war if the Pytheas qualified as a combatant—all of which was questionable because it did have weapons.

  “If the Bright Crescent fires on the Ming Adams before it grapples us, then they’d be blamed for initiating warfare. If they fire after grappling, they take the chance of hitting us.” In explaining this, Ariane had an idea. “I’m speeding up and leaving the Bright Crescent behind. Now, it’s just between us and the Terran frigates, which simplifies the rules of engagement.”

  “We don’t have any more missiles.” Elias’s face wrinkled with fear. “And why are you worried about rules?”

  “Wake up, would you? There’s a Minoan warship sitting near the Pilgrimage.” Brooke’s scoffing words came out just as the intercom light lit up.

  “Control Deck, you’ve got comm on the standard emergency channel,” the engineer said.

  “Thank Gaia,” Ariane breathed. She changed her course to a straight vector toward the Pilgrimage, glancing at the others. “And
thank you, Brooke, for reminding me of another option.”

  With a puzzled line between her eyes, Brooke continued to provide status. “The Bright Crescent is falling behind, and the Ming Adams is moving into grappling position. The Percival is moving up. They’re firing their rail guns, but only as warning, I think.”

  “Elias, will you swear that you’re not trained to operate weapons?” Ariane asked. “Particularly if you’re questioned by Minoans?”

  “But that’s the truth,” Elias said. “Isn’t it?”

  She had stopped accelerating the ship and their velocity was steady. Their diagrams showed the Ming Adams setting up for grappling. This was always a dangerous proposition, but Ariane was going to make it riskier, and not in the way they expected.

  “Exactly.” She turned and began to broadcast on the emergency channel. “This is Pytheas, calling Knossos-ship. This is Pytheas, calling Warrior Commander and reporting an act of piracy. The Ming Adams is attempting to board Pytheas, which is a civilian exploration ship.”

  She paused and they waited.

  “Nice try, Pytheas, but you fired on us.” This male voice came from the Ming Adams. She winced, knowing this was the hole in her plan, but she could hope.

  “Acknowledged, Pytheas-ship. This is Knossos-ship, Warrior Commander speaking.” The Minoan voice she was waiting for came over the emergency channel.

  Meanwhile, she realized engineering had comm working with the buoy relays, meaning her FTL diagram was working. They were still several hours from the Pilgrimage. The Pilgrimage was stationary, but a tag that read “(Minoan)” was beginning to move away from its position near the generational ship.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” demanded the voice from the Ming Adams. “Besides, we’re entitled to defend ourselves in time of war.”

  In time of war? She broadcasted again. “I repeat, to Knossos-ship and all ships in the area. The Pytheas is a civilian research vessel.”