by Britt Ringel
He recalled their destination’s information onto his console but before he could review it, the nausea from the dive rippled through the ship. Seconds later, Heskan’s vision cleared and he heard Selvaggio’s announcement.
“We are in the Lysithea star system, Captain. Beacon is green and we have clearance to proceed down the traffic pattern.” Her fingers lightly tapped Hussy’s thrusters as the ship began to orient away from the tunnel point.
“Distance and time to the Bree tunnel point, Diane?” Heskan asked.
“Thirty-one light-minutes at point one-five-C will have us at the tunnel point in three hours and twenty-six minutes plus whatever the queue is, sir.” Selvaggio slid a pair of controls forward, energizing Hussy’s drives. “Jack, file our dive request, please.”
“Very well,” Heskan acknowledged as he looked at the system plot. While not as cluttered as Titan, Lysithea was decorated with hundreds of beacons and the normal fixtures of a busy star system. The ship repair yard orbiting the fourth planet was filled to capacity, including BRS Curator.
“Should we swing by and say hello to Lieutenant Arnold, Captain?” Vernay joked with a smile.
Heskan snorted but his eyes remained glued to the plot. There was traffic between the Titan and Bree tunnel points, including two corvettes, but he estimated they would not pose a problem. We’re probably going to transit this system before any kind of standata warning passes through but we won’t stay ahead of the alerts for long. His console beeped at him.
“Captain, this is Ensign Gables. Doctor Timoleon requests you come to sickbay.”
Heskan looked up again at the system plot. All appeared to be quiet. “Be right there,” Heskan replied and broke the connection. He looked to his left at Vernay, sitting at the auxiliary control station. “Stacy, I think we’re going to get through Lysithea all right but notify me immediately if you pick up a warning about us or if those corvettes change course.”
* * *
Heskan entered the sickbay to find not only Ensign Gables and Doctor Timoleon inside the small chamber but Komandor Lombardi as well. Ensign May appeared to be resting comfortably on a bed attached to the far side of the room.
“How’s she doing?” Heskan asked Lombardi.
Timoleon answered. “Your people keep insisting on challenging my abilities, Commander Heskan, but skillfully applied medicine has, once again, prevailed.” His eyes narrowed as he cautioned irritably, “Your crew’s mystifying decision to delay this woman’s treatment almost cost her life.”
“Doctor,” Lombardi growled.
“There was nothing Vernay could do. She couldn’t stop, Doctor,” Heskan replied defensively. “That would have meant all of our lives.”
Timoleon remained indignant. “Commander, I may not care to understand the grand plots and machinations between our peoples but I do understand the principle of triage.” The doctor made a slight adjustment to a tube in May’s arm before continuing, “But I would caution you not to be so willing to spend one life to save others.” He turned to face Heskan with a troubled expression. “For each time you do, it will become easier and easier.”
“What the doctor is saying,” Lombardi clarified, “is he is pleased to inform you that your ensign will survive. Perhaps something was lost in the translation.”
“Will most likely survive,” Timoleon corrected. “She is out of immediate danger and should recover assuming no post-procedure complications.” He glanced at Lombardi. “I warned you that I cannot guarantee complete recovery in such a primitive environment.”
“At any rate, Doctor,” Heskan said, “you have my gratitude. Twice over, actually. I was never able to thank you for saving Diane Selvaggio.”
Timoleon’s expression brightened considerably at the mention of the name. Even Lombardi’s eyes lit up as Timoleon asked, “She has resumed serving her Republic, I assume?”
Heskan shook his head. “Actually, she’s serving on this freighter. I’m afraid her time aboard Phoenix cast doubt on her loyalties to our political masters.”
The doctor snorted derisively. “Naturally, a truly loyal Brevic citizen would have let herself die. What was she supposed to do, crawl out of her bed to the nearest airlock?”
Heskan had begun to reply when Vernay’s voice filled the freighter over the ship’s main channel. “Captain Heskan to the bridge, please.”
“Excuse me, Doctor, and thank you again.” Heskan spun in place and left the room.
He was walking down the corridor to the stairs when Lombardi asked behind him, “Garrett, may I join you on the bridge?”
“Certainly,” he replied.
The page sounded again and Heskan found himself taking the stairs two at a time.
* * *
“What is it, Stacy?” Heskan asked with concern.
“Trouble,” Vernay answered. “Maybe.” She pointed at the system plot.
“What a quaint, little bridge,” Lombardi mumbled as she entered behind Heskan.
The corvette ahead of them had come about. The sleek ship was now cruising at .2c toward Hussy. “Is it on a direct intercept course, Stacy?”
Vernay rose from the captain’s chair and, after an annoyed glance at Lombardi, moved back to the auxiliary control station. “Close, but not exactly. It is either going to pass to starboard less than a light-minute from us and continue to the Titan tunnel point or it is intercepting us.”
Lombardi walked the three steps to the captain’s console. She reached over the panel and extrapolated the corvette’s course from its present location past Hussy and to the tunnel point. The corvette would indeed pass nearby, but it would also pass close to nearly all the traffic between it and the Titan tunnel point. She grumbled in frustration. “So, it is either going to stop us or it is going to pass by harmlessly. Any other astute observations, Lieutenant?”
Vernay flinched at the verbal jab but tried to ignore it. “Captain,” she said with emphasis, “you requested to be notified in the event a system defense ship changed its course.”
The tension between Vernay and Lombardi was apparent to all on the bridge, especially Heskan. Once again, I’m caught in the middle, he thought. How does this keep happening? “Good work, Stacy,” Heskan commended. He quickly asked, “Jack, have you heard any kind of warning about us?”
Truesworth shook his head. “No, sir, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t receive one. There could be a warning in any of the standata updates we’ve received but if Brewer placed it in the militarized section, we won’t have access to read it.” He shrugged helplessly. “We could have actually transmitted a warning to that corvette about ourselves and not even known it.”
Heskan kicked himself. I should have tried to get software from Kite that would have allowed us to read the military parts of the standata. It never even occurred to me. He stared at the system plot. “Options?”
“We could always change course,” Vernay suggested. “Head in-system and see if the corvette corrects to intercept.”
“We cannot reverse course, though,” Lombardi advised. “It would invite suspicion.”
“Even heading in-system is going to look odd,” Vernay admitted.
Either we act and potentially make ourselves stand out, Heskan thought, or we sit tight for an agonizing hour while that ‘vette sails toward us. There’s still enough time to reverse course and escape the system. He thought back to the freighter, Vagabond, and how her captain had panicked and fled Skathi even though Heskan did not intend to stop it. His thoughts then turned to Anelace waiting inside the Beta Field patiently for Paragon to rendezvous with her pirate brethren. The urge to do something after they lost contact with the freighter had been nearly overwhelming even when waiting patiently won the game of cat and mouse.
Heskan sat back. “We’ll stay the course,” he decided. “There could be a thousand reasons why that corvette came about. Only one of them involves us.”
Lombardi leaned close to Heskan and whispered tentatively, “And if their reason is
the one that involves us?”
Heskan cringed slightly as he looked at her. “We have no means to fight them, Izzy,” Heskan confided quietly. “And even if we did, I honestly don’t think I could.” He tilted his head to the side in a mute apology.
Lombardi placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I understand, Garrett.” She smiled brightly and said in a loud, optimistic urging, “Then let us hope that fortune favors the bold and we sail under the noses of our would-be captors.”
* * *
The die had been cast yet time still crawled for Heskan. He hoped, foolishly, that since he decided not to second-guess himself, his perception of the sequence of events would play out more rapidly. Instead, the minutes became hours and the distance between the two ships decreased at a glacial pace.
Space is so damned big, Heskan reminded himself as he looked at the system plot for the hundredth time. It’s easy to forget that. Tearing his eyes away from the wall screen, he reread the draft of a message he feared he would transmit sooner rather than later. Blowing a cleansing breath out his nose, he examined the anxious mood on his bridge. If the strain caused by the approaching corvette was not sufficient, the tension between Vernay and Lombardi threatened to rip the fabric of space apart. Just please let us make it into tunnel space, Heskan beseeched. Once we get there, I’ll have time to attempt to defuse that powder keg. He was reluctant to broach the subject with Vernay before then. Heskan had more than enough to occupy his time without trying to sort through an additional distraction.
Jolting him from his gloomy thoughts, an ominous electrical buzz sounded loudly inside Truesworth’s console, causing the sensorman to squirm quickly from inside the open panel. He sat up and immediately pounded on the IFF unit’s keyboard sitting inside Heskan’s briefcase. The buzzing stopped but a pungent electrical tang filled the bridge. The fresh scorch mark near the opening of the panel matched the older one on its opposite side.
“Jack,” Heskan asked interestedly, “everything okay?”
A grimy Truesworth nodded and grinned. “I think it’s ready, sir.”
Heskan’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. “Really?” He sniffed the air. “I don’t seem to remember this aroma on Kite or Anelace.”
“Yeah,” Truesworth said sheepishly, “well, the IFF is going to burn out pretty quickly when we use it. It’s just not meant to run on civilian ships. As it is, I’ve had to rig the connections so it will accept power from two different sources. That’s the smell, sir.” Truesworth began collecting the extraneous equipment littering the deck around him. “But the IFF will work, Captain, at least for a little while.”
Heskan smiled at the lieutenant. “Better than nothing, Jack. Good work.” He looked at the approaching corvette symbol on the plot. “We might need it sooner than I’d hoped.”
“We’ll know in about three minutes, Captain,” Vernay confirmed as she wiped at her brow. “That’s when she’ll be at her closest.”
Lombardi, who had paced behind Heskan for the last hour, muttered, “I am going to need a chair if these types of occurrences become more common.”
“Sorry, Komandor,” Heskan said. “I don’t think the designers of Hussy’s bridge anticipated scenarios like this.” He pointed at his captain’s chair. “You care to sit?”
Lombardi shook her head and teased with a whisper, “As tempting as it is, Garrett, I hardly think it appropriate for me to sit on your lap. Besides, I am not sure those bolts could withstand the strain.”
The minutes continued to pass and Vernay’s voice approached hopeful. “You’d think we’d have received a heave to command from them by now.”
“Good point,” Heskan said as he watched the plot. It was maddening to be mesmerized by such a tiny symbol on a wall screen.
“Lieutenant Truesworth,” Lombardi asked, “does this bucket of rust have an optical suite?”
“Sort of, ma’am.”
“Sort of?” she questioned.
“Well,” Truesworth explained, “it does have an old Encountrix Fifty-five but, and this may shock you, Komandor; it doesn’t work.”
“That’s a Republic commerce violation,” Vernay noted. “But they, uh, I mean we, can get away with it because we fly a corporate flag.”
“We still have a fixed optical array that covers about ten percent of the field directly in front of us,” Truesworth noted.
Lombardi waved a hand. “It is too late now, Lieutenant,” she said. “That ship is outside the angle.”
The discussion had taken them to the brink. The svelte corvette was just 58ls (light-seconds) from Hussy. “Still no orders from her,” Truesworth noted. “This is as close as she’ll get.”
“She’s actually fifty-eight seconds farther away from us by now. She’s not going to stop us,” Heskan predicted with a relief that was shortly echoed by the entire bridge.
Vernay grinned at her captain. “Glad we stayed true. I guess this was much ado over nothing.” After a moment, she shrugged slightly and apologized, “Sorry to have bothered you, sir.”
“No, no, Stacy. You did the right thing.” Heskan could not help but notice Vernay’s eyes shift victoriously toward Lombardi as he commended her. “Okay, Stacy, you have the bridge again. The komandor and I are going below to see if there are any navigators capable of piloting this crate in tunnel space while Diane is asleep.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll call you when we’re close to diving.”
Chapter 13
The remainder of the trip through Lysithea passed uneventfully. During their transit, Heskan searched for candidates among the Hollaran crew to help pilot Hussy while in t-space. Although well-stocked with engineers, only two personnel with navigation expertise had escaped from Phoenix. Both would sit next to Selvaggio during their first four hours of t-space as she reviewed the fundamentals of propulsion via light sail. Upon conclusion of her instruction, Selvaggio would select the best student to pilot Hussy during the twelve hours that she would be off duty. Heskan suspected that Selvaggio would spend every waking moment attached to the freighter’s navigation console but someone had to pilot the ship while she slept.
The sensors and communications talent was in much better shape with fourteen qualified individuals on board the freighter. For Operations, Chief Brown was sorting through dozens of candidates and assured Heskan that the freighter would be in good hands. Those not selected to perform duties were asked to restrict themselves to the cargo holds until Operations could assign Hussy’s living quarters and the wardroom, which had been converted into extra sleeping quarters. Between the three cargo holds and the other compartments, Hussy’s passengers would have a bearable, if overcrowded, journey.
The food stock situation was far more critical. Even though Hussy would be able to create enough water to see them through their trip, the galley held barely enough stores to last until reaching the Federation. Heskan agreed with Brown to limit meals to one thousand two hundred calories, once a day. Brown suggested the meal come right before each individual stood his or her watch. Heskan agreed, knowing that the subsequent rise in blood sugar would aid concentration, at least for a while.
All of these issues paled when compared to Hussy’s most pressing concern. Heskan knew that life support would be the biggest, long-term problem. However, discussion with Hussy’s chief engineer would have to wait as Hussy had closed on the tunnel point to Bree and was cleared to dive.
Heskan bit down hard as disorientation swept over him. Three jumps in eleven hours, he thought bitterly. And we still have more to go. Swallowing bile, he heard Selvaggio confirm their destination and, when finally able, he looked up toward the wall screen.
Bree’s yellow-orange star was a K0V main sequence star. The system contained thirteen planets although only one could sustain life. That planet, rich in volcanic activity, was a true “super-earth,” nearly four times the diameter of Terra. Spewing forth from deep inside the planet’s abundant magma chambers, jet-black obsidian belts dominated the surface’s equator to giv
e Bree her threatening nickname. Past the Obsidian Planet, an enormous gas giant provided enough heat for one of its many, large moons to harbor an atmosphere that could also support life. Orbiting far from the system’s star, a nearly constant twilight shrouded the living moon as if hiding it from the ominous, capital planet. Dozens of defense fortresses, space stations and orbitals garnished the home system of the Brevic Republic.
As individual ship beacons began to paint themselves onto the system plot, Heskan said, “It’s too bad, Isabella, that our front optical can’t rotate enough to see her. Bree is quite a sight.”
What might have been a shiver passed through Lombardi while she said, “I have seen enough holo-vids of it. Enough to be thankful that Hollara is a beautiful, green water world.”
“Looks can certainly be deceiving, Komandor,” Vernay muttered just loud enough to be heard.
“Indeed, Lieutenant,” Lombardi answered boldly, “sometimes the smallest, most innocent-looking thing can be the most treacherous.”
Heskan cut off Vernay’s reply. “Time to transit the system, Diane?”
“At point one-five-C, five hours, thirteen minutes, Captain.” She looked back at him while moving her hand toward Hussy’s propulsion controls. “Shall I increase speed?”
“I’d really like to but I’m worried about fuel consumption,” Heskan answered. “We still have four more systems to transit before we can replenish.”
Selvaggio nodded in agreement.
“How’s the crash sailing course going, Diane?”
“We’ll find out when we dive,” she answered cryptically.
Heskan returned his attention to the system plot. Five hours until a Type A tunnel, he groused. Has it really been only eleven hours since we fled the Anthe orbital? When we dive into tunnel space, I am going to bed for an entire day. The stress of the phantom pursuit was taking its toll. The relative security of the tunnel space between Bree and New London seemed like an oasis to the ragged captain. It was an illusion, he knew, for when Hussy dove into New London six days later, their situation would be unchanged.
