Test of Mettle (A Captain's Crucible Book 2)

by Isaac Hooke

  But none of that mattered anymore. She and Wolf were apart, serving on different ships in the same fleet. He was probably fucking that young ensign already.

  Her attention was drawn to the tactical display overlaying her vision. Lin saw that the two dots representing the Callaway and Salvador were decelerating, moving to a lower orbit, while the remaining ships of the fleet stayed high.

  “What’s up?” came a voice over the general comm.

  According to her aReal, the voice belonged to a Lieutenant Commander Roland, from Emerald Squadron, attached to the Dagger. The digital warping affecting his words wasn’t too bad at the moment, thanks to the signal boost provided by their proximity to the massive comm nodes in the starships, but it would worsen as the vessels grew farther apart.

  Wolf came over the line from the Callaway. “Albright says we’re moving to a lower orbit to rescue a civilian in a Dragonfly.”

  “A civilian?” someone in Wolf’s Squadron returned. Ensign Tim Brown. “How the hell did a civilian get out there? It’s not Commander Cray’s wife, is it?”

  “Apparently it is,” Wolf replied.

  She had mixed feelings hearing Wolf’s voice. On the one hand, she missed him terribly. Those bushy brows framing eyes that always seemed so sad. That crooked grin of his, and the dimple in his cheeks that accompanied it. But then she thought of the ensign moaning his name and all of that gave way to anger and resentment.

  Many times over the past several hours she had stared at his indicator on the display, yearning to contact him, or for him to reach out to her. But she hadn’t done it. All communications would be reviewed afterward by the space wing commanders, and she didn’t want to further besmirch her record. Wolf wouldn’t wish to do that either, she supposed, though that didn’t make her any happier at his silence. In fact, it only made her suspect his infidelity all the more.

  After several minutes, the Callaway and Salvador assumed positions alongside the Dragonfly, one kilometer away from the starboard and ventral flanks respectively. They matched its speed.

  Lin watched on the display as both vessels slowly nudged toward the Dragonfly. The Salvador ceased its approach about thirty meters underneath the shuttle, using her giant shadow to shield the object from the rays of the subgiant. The Callaway meanwhile came to a relative halt when the shuttle was twenty meters from the closest superstructure on its starboard side.

  The minutes ticked by uneventfully.

  “Why isn’t the Dragonfly firing grappling hooks?” Grisham said over the comm.

  “Dunno,” Wolf answered.

  “Did anyone else notice it’s on a rapidly decaying orbit?” someone in Wolf’s squadron asked. Lieutenant Jeremy Walker. “At this rate, that shuttle is going to fall past the solar event horizon in ten minutes. I’m surprised we haven’t started pulling back already. The Delta V costs of achieving escape velocity from this orbit are hella steep.”

  Wolf spoke again after thirty seconds.

  “Okay, about the grappling hooks,” Wolf said. “Apparently she tried, but the bay doors melted shut because of the heat. She can’t launch the hooks. Albright thinks someone’s going to have to get her.”

  As Lin watched, the Salvador vectored to the left, slowly moving out from underneath the shuttle.

  “What’s going on?” Brown asked.

  “I think the starships are getting ready to stabilize their orbits,” Wolf answered. “They’re probably extremely low on propellant as it is. Like Walker said, the Delta V costs of breaking this orbit are steep enough.”

  “What’s...” Roland’s voice came over the line from the Dagger, which was several thousand kilometers above them by then. “Down there?”

  “Can’t hear you,” Wolf said. “You’re breaking up.”

  “What—” Roland tried again. But then there was nothing.

  Lin shook her head. “I don’t like this,” she told her copilot. “Not at all.”

  The Salvador must have issued countering thrust because its motion stopped relative to the Dragonfly, locating the object fifty meters off the port bow, ten degrees inclination. The Callaway meanwhile maintained its twenty meter distance on the other side.

  “Okay, I just heard from Albright,” Wolf announced. “Looks like they’re finally putting us to use after all. One of us is going to have to break away from the safety of the ships to retrieve that shuttle. My copilot and I have volunteered.”

  Wolf, no.

  “Why not send a drone?” Lin sent hurriedly over the line.

  “Albright is worried the radiation will affect the local AIs,” Wolf returned. “Their cores aren’t as shielded as those aboard the starships.”

  “Then have someone pilot the drone remotely,” Lin pleaded.

  “Again, they’re worried about interference from the radiation,” Wolf said. “When you’re trying to latch on with a grappling hook, and you keep missing because the radiation interferes with your signals, well, it kind of rules out remote piloting as an option.”

  “Then let the AI take over at that point,” Lin insisted.

  “As I said,” Wolf replied over the comm. “Me and my copilot have already volunteered. A manned rescue operation has the best chance of success.” He sent her a direct message. “Lin. I’ll be all right.”

  She raised her noise canceler so her copilot wouldn’t hear the conversation.

  “Please, you don’t have to do this,” she returned.

  “But I do,” Wolf responded. “Missions like this are why I signed up. Trust me, I know how to take care of myself.”

  “I know you do, it’s just—” But she couldn’t finish, not when she knew her commander would review the logs later. She could delete them, she supposed, but then the commander would wonder what she was hiding.

  “Look, I have to go,” Wolf transmitted. “Hang tight. I’ll be back in no time. Wolf out.”

  A moment later, Wolf said over the general line: “Orange Leader is leaving the cove.”

  Since Lin couldn’t see his fighter from where she was mounted to the hull of the Salvador, she focused her attention on the tactical display instead, and watched the dot representing his Avenger move away from the flagship.

  Don’t you die on me, Wolf.

  “We’re coming up with the edge of the Callaway,” Wolf said over the general comm line. “Rotating heat shields toward the star in preparation for crossing into the Heat Zone.” He paused. “Rotated. Moving into the Heat Zone.”

  On her display, his blue dot moved away from the flagship.

  “It’s a little hot out here,” Wolf continued. “But the thermal shielding is holding up. Internal temperature reads forty-eight degrees Celsius. Our bodysuits are filtering that down to thirty-five, locally.” He paused. “Radiation levels aren’t so good, however. My copilot and I are going to need a dunk in an anti-rad soup when this is done. Tell me again why the Salvador moved out of its shielding position?”

  Though he was speaking on the general comm, Lin felt like he was talking for her benefit alone. Probably was.

  I should be his copilot. It’s Cray’s fault I’m not. And the irony is, Wolf is trying to save the man’s wife.

  “Lieutenant Turow has been trying to contact the pilot of the shuttle,” Wolf transmitted over the comm. “We’re not getting a response on any of the frequency bands. I think she’s fallen unconscious.”

  Lin felt a sudden sense of anguish. She couldn’t help thinking, what if it was all for nothing?

  Cray’s wife is probably already dead. If she was out there without any anti-rads...

  Wolf was going to die trying to save a dead woman.

  Via the tactical display, Lin watched his Avenger close with the shuttle.

  “We’ve used up seventy-five percent of our propellant already,” Wolf said. A moment later: “Issuing stabilizing thrust.”

  His dot became stationary relative to the Callaway and the Dragonfly.

  “Firing grappling hooks,” Wolf said. “Magnetic tips have
taken hold. We’ve got her. Reeling her in.”

  The small dot representing the Dragonfly slowly moved toward the Avenger. Lin wasn’t worried about the grappling hooks failing. The lines were made of carbon fiber, and capable of withstanding immense temperatures.

  When the two dots overlapped, Wolf said: “We’ve attached to the shuttle. Plotting return vector.”

  Just then the Salvador began to slowly move upward. That meant the warship was initiating its deorbital pre-burn sequence. The captain had apparently decided the destroyer could no longer afford the Delta V costs of that decaying orbit. The Callaway remained in place, for the moment.

  “Issuing return thrust,” Wolf said.

  His dot didn’t move.

  A moment later: “Something’s wrong,” Wolf said. “The last fifteen percent of the propellant we’d saved... it’s gone. We must have sprung a leak.”

  “Grisham and I are coming for you,” Lin announced. She reached for the switch that would power down the magnetic mounts holding her to the Salvador.

  “Don’t you move,” Lieutenant Commander Tara Casals said from the safety of the Salvador’s combat direction center. She was Lin’s space wing commander. “Someone from the Callaway will help them. We’ve already begun deorbital pre-burn.”

  Lin stared hesitantly at the diverging orbits on the tactical display. She knew she had to depart immediately, before the Delta V cost between their orbits became too great. As it was, her Avenger would have just enough to get to Wolf, and then the Callaway.

  “I’m going out there,” Lin told her copilot. “Are you with me?”

  Grisham’s disembodied voice came from beside her immediately: “Can I tell the commander I was simply following your orders?”

  “Yes,” Lin said.

  “Well hell yeah, then, I’m with you. First chance of action I’ve seen all day.”

  Lin powered down the magnets and retracted the grappling hooks. She applied thrust as she broke away from the hull.

  “Lieutenant Akido, what are you doing?” Lieutenant Commander Casals sent from the Salvador. “Remount immediately. You’re going to crash into our hull.”

  Lin tapped out the communication. But she took the Lieutenant Commander’s words as a hint that the pre-burn was about to become an actual burn, and she released more propellant, jetting past the edge of the Salvador and into the blinding radiation of the subgiant.

  The aReal in front of her eyes automatically adjusted the light levels so that she could see again. Even so, the interference on the external cameras jumped up a few levels, crowding her vision with white noise. And not all of that interference was caused by the aReal: she was certain several of the streaks she saw were energetic proton-optic nerve interactions.

  She rotated the Avenger so that the heat shield faced the sun. That didn’t reduce the interference.

  At the top of her vision, a virtual rear-view mirror provided the output of the rear-facing camera, and with it she watched the Salvador move upward fairly rapidly: it looked like her hunch was correct, regarding the start of the actual burn. The nearest edge almost clipped them.

  “How rude,” Grisham muttered.

  She felt somehow stranded without the lifeline of the Salvador; she focused her attention on the Avenger mounted to the Dragonfly up ahead, and the Callaway beyond it. She knew that the latter vessel would remain for as long as feasibly possible. Commander Cray would ensure that.

  “We’re moving in to retrieve Wolf and the Dragonfly,” Lin transmitted over the general comm.

  She activated the aft jets. The craft responded sluggishly, and the propellant levels dropped at an alarming rate.

  “Wolf was right about the radiation,” Grisham’s disembodied voice said. “More than right. Damn... the models never predicted intensities this high.”

  “Actually they did,” Lin said. “Over the solar prominence, anyway. And can you guess what region of the star we’re traveling over right now?”

  “I think my anti-rads are already saturated,” Grisham said. “I’m feeling a bit woozy already.”

  “Hang in there,” Lin told him, fighting back a sudden headache. That was the first sign of radiation sickness. Nose bleeds would follow—radiation reduced the number of platelets in the blood, making clotting difficult. Her consciousness was probably being slightly altered, too, as the random rays caused an accumulation of misfiring neurons. And she would have to watch her onboard electronics very carefully. Nothing could be relied upon. Wolf had said he thought his Avenger sprung a leak, but it was also possible the AI had underreported the propellant levels, causing him to expend more than he should have.

  “How are you doing, Lin?” Wolf asked over the general comm.

  “We’re good,” she responded. “You?”

  “Better than ever,” he replied. “By the way, not to put any pressure on you or anything, but Albright says you better hurry up. The Callaway can’t remain in this decaying orbit for much longer.”

  “We’re almost in position,” Lin said. Locally: “Grisham, prepare to fire grappling hooks while under way.”

  “You’re not going to issue stabilizing thrust?” her copilot asked.

  “Negative. We don’t have the time, or the propellant.”

  “Welcome to the spacewalk from hell, ladies and gentlemen,” Grisham retorted.

  It certainly felt like a spacewalk, given that the hull of the craft was a mere outline around them, displayed only as a courtesy by the aReal.

  When she was about five meters from the joined Dragonfly and Avenger, she gave the order. “Fire grappling hooks.”

  “Firing,” Grisham said. Then: “Damn it. The magnets didn’t take. They just bounced off. I have to retract.”

  “Aim for a shaded spot.” She adjusted her trajectory slightly so that she wouldn’t collide directly with the joined vessels.

  “We gotta go, Lin,” Wolf sent.

  She noticed that the Callaway was drifting upward very slowly. The flagship had begun deorbital pre-burn.

  No.

  She willed the hooks to retract faster.

  “Come on, Grisham,” Lin said.

  “Firing,” her copilot said. “Got them! Retracting.”

  Lin fired a small burst of propellant toward the crafts, abetting the retraction process. The cockpit shuddered when they made contact.

  “Activating mounting magnets,” Grisham said. “Secured.”

  “We got you, Wolf,” Lin transmitted. “Heading for cove.”

  She activated full aft thrust and the joined trio slowly moved toward the Callaway. She aimed for the upper edge of a wing, located just inside a hull area that was shaded from the subgiant.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Grisham said. “If they hadn’t initiated the pre-burn, maybe we might have. But not now.”

  “We’re going to make it.” Lin watched the distance indicator slowly tick down. Fifteen meters. Ten. Eight.

  They passed into the shade of the Callaway, and the aReal automatically brightened the sudden darkness so that she could make out the hull.

  Five meters.

  Three.

  The propellant abruptly ran out. The bound trio continued to drift toward the hull, but much more slowly.

  “Come on,” Lin said. “Come on.”

  They floated to the two meter mark.

  “Activate hull-facing magnetic mounts people,” Lin said.

  “Activating,” Wolf returned. A moment later: “Doesn’t seem to be helping. Not yet.”

  The closest edge of her craft drifted to a distance of one meter away, and the powerful magnetic forces from the mounts finally took hold, quickly drawing the fighter in.

  She felt the harsh reverberations of impact as her craft plowed into the hull. An instant later another shudder passed through the cockpit as Wolf’s Avenger attached. The magnetic forces held them securely.

  “That was close,” Grisham said.

  “Wait, what about the Dragonfly?” Lin sent over the gen
eral comm. “If it doesn’t magnetically attach to the Callaway before the full burn sequence begins, we’ll all be torn away from the hull.”

  “Pilot of Dragonfly 3A, do you read?” Grisham tried.

  No answer.

  “Pilot of Dragonfly 3A...”

  “Sorry,” a female voice interrupted over the line. “I blacked out,”

  “We need you to activate your magnetic mounts,” Grisham said. “Do you know how to do that?”

  “Yes, I think so,” the woman returned. Her name was Bridgette, Lin believed.

  A moment later Lin felt a tremor pass through the cockpit. The port side of her Avenger tilted upward slightly as a mounting magnet partially lifted from the surface there.

  “I’ve attached to the hull,” Bridgette transmitted.

  Lin exhaled in relief.

  She felt the uncomfortable press of G-forces as the inertial compensators struggled to counterbalance a sudden directional change. On her tactical display, she saw that the Callaway had initiated full deorbital burn.

  “We survived,” Grisham said.

  Lin felt a sudden rush of tears in her eyes, and she started laughing uncontrollably. Grisham joined her, as did Wolf and his copilot over the comm. Bridgette, too.

  “I guess,” Lin said through her guffaws and the tears of joy. “I guess I have... a disciplinary proceeding to look forward to!”

  “You do!” Grisham said, chuckling raucously. “And me too... because I’m not going to let you... take full responsibility for this!”

  She erupted in yet another boisterous round of laughter. “Really? That’s... hilarious.”

  Wolf’s voice came over the comm, and he struggled to speak between his own unrestrained chortles. “You two are getting the brig! And I, meanwhile... I’m getting... a medal!”

  Lin exploded into more loud guffaws, sniffling. “I’d actually love... to be in the brig... right about now.”

  When she finally got herself under control, she rubbed the tears from her eyes and smiled.

  “What a day,” she said.

  What an amazing day.

  thirty-nine

  Jonathan studied the tactical display from his office. The damaged pyramid ship and its escort had rejoined the remnants of ETU-F1 and ETU-F2, and the six vessels fled toward the opposite side of the system. They wanted to rest and recoup, lick their wounds. Jonathan didn’t blame them. They had lost thirty-one ships, including the four from the initial engagement and the two defectors. The human fleet had lost one.