Iday said, “Certainly. Prudence is dictated.”
As they approached Sigma 3, Elsbeth reported, “Ximon, I finished testing those. It’s just coil 4. It’s not something I can fix here. When we get to a station I can test more thoroughly, but there’s a good chance it will have to be replaced.”
Ximon groaned, “Well, crap, that sounds expensive. Can we jump again and, if so, when do you think?”
“Well, I know it’s at least 14 hours or so until we get out to Sigma 4, so probably around then. Like I said, I can’t fix the coil, but I can adjust the field so that it should compensate fairly well. I may send y’all some tweaked parameters for when you’re planning your jump. I’ll let you know on that.”
“Roger, Elsbeth. Keep up the good work. Would an extra set of hands help?”
“Not any of yours, at least not now. But I might in a few hours.”
They got to Sigma 3 and entered the atmosphere. Ximon said, “OK, Iday, I’m going to make a total of 5 orbital passes. Conduct a full range of planetary scans and let me know if you see anything interesting and need another pass to verify.”
“Yes, Ximon.”
About that time arrived with some sandwiches, snacks, drinks. Ximon had asked her to bring some up and take some to Elsbeth.
Ximon said, “Thank you Raiza. This helps.”
“My pleasure, Captain. Let me know if you need anything else.”
The scans of the planet were uneventful and neither Iday nor Mantis noted anything substantially different, so they broke orbit and headed for Cruna Sigma 4. Ximon and Iday then took turns flying, swapping every 3 hours.
Cruna Sigma 4:
Diameter: 39,000 km
Distance from sun: 5.0 AU
Atmosphere: Gas Giant, Moderate Density. Hydrogen, Helium, and numerous trace elements
Gravity: 1.5 G
Temperature Range: -250 - -150 C
Magnetic Field: Moderate
Lifeforms: None detected
When they were about 4 hours out, Ximon again ventured to Engineering. Elsbeth was buttoning up the mag field coil access panel.
She said, “Well, your timing is good this time. I’ve adjusted the coils to compensate for #4. It should produce a solid, stable field. My eyes are bleary so I’m going to take a break for an hour or so and then double check a few things.”
“OK, sounds good.”
In a couple hours, Elsbeth sent them some revised parameters to use in their jump calculations and Ximon and Iday redid the jump solution to compensate. Ximon made sure that he, Iday, and Mantis all used them in calculations.
Ximon was flying as they approached Sigma 4. As Ximon was doing a deceleration burn, an alert light came on and Iday said, “I just detected a vessel near that nearest moon – it just came from behind the moon.”
Ximon said, “Scan it – we need data.” Then to the ship, “Strap in now, we have to burn.”
Then he hailed it, “UI Vessel this is the KSS Mantis on a survey mission. Please identify yourself and state your business.”
The ship replied, “Mantis you are intruding in our space. Prepare to be boarded.”
Ximon said, “That doesn’t sound good. What do we have?”
Iday said, “It’s about 500 tons, Medium freighter class. It’s burning toward us.”
Mantis added, “It’s on a direct intercept course, is burning at almost 2G, and is actively scanning us. It is showing no transponder, in direction violation of the law.”
The other ship hailed again, “Continue deceleration and prepare to be boarded or we WILL fire. You’re not on a mission here.”
Ximon radioed back, “You are interfering with an official Republic mission” and cut off.
In the bridge he said, “We’re flying. We can continue this discussion at a distance.”
Ximon then fired maneuvering jets to flip the ship 150 degrees to port as the other ship was coming from about 30-degree starboard. The maneuver imposed almost 3Gs and had them all grunting, but it got them facing away from the other vessel. The Mantis hadn’t fully decelerated, so it still had substantial momentum. Ximon then fired thrusters, burning at 2.5G. This pushed them into their seats and caused major stomach lurches because of the repeated changes of forces.
As they were turning, the other ship started firing. It launched 2 missiles at them and then fired a light laser cannon. The laser missed badly because they definitely weren’t planning on the maneuver Mantis pulled, but the missiles kept coming.
Ximon yelled, “Iday, get firing that chaff thrower” and then he dove for the outer atmosphere of the giant. He announced, “This is going to get rough – we’re under fire!”
Elsbeth chimed up, “Going to GET rough – that jackassery about killed me down here.”
Iday started firing the chaff thrower. The whole intent of the chaff thrower was to put clouds of ‘chaff’ in the sky between you and whoever’s shooting at you. If there was a significant enough cloud between you and the shooter, it would diffract, deflect, or absorb a portion of the power of any lasers passing through it, either making them miss or reducing how much damage they did. However, since everyone was moving so fast, to be effective, you had to be pretty good at guessing relative positions.
Mantis was pulling away from the UI ship, but not the missiles, and the ship’s laser kept firing. The chaff thrower worked well on one shot that could really have damaged them. It diffracted or absorbed so much energy that what hit them did no real damage.
Ximon said, “Mantis, can you tell me about those missiles?”
“They appear to be homing, likely standard configuration. The could cripple us if they hit.”
“Mantis, hit them with all sensors at full power. See if you can blind or confuse them.”
Mantis was just entering the atmosphere with the missiles gaining. Ximon kept diving deeper into the atmosphere, dodging and diving in the process. Then said, “Everyone, prepare for severe turbulence, Gs, and possible impact.”
Ximon said, “Let’s see if they like the atmosphere as much as we do.”
Mantis said, “Captain, our angle of attack relative to the atmosphere is out of recommend limits, we’re encountering serious turbulence and hull temperature is rising precipitously.”
“Roger, Mantis, but we have other problems right now. Keep shooting that chaff thrower.”
The combat display showed the missiles getting ever nearer, but the other ship seemed to have stopped shooting their laser – what the sand wasn’t impacting, the atmosphere was.
As the missiles were 100 km or less out, one of them veered off course toward a hot bubble of gas in the atmosphere, but the other kept coming.
The missile ticked closer as the Mantis bucked wildly in the atmosphere, but as it got within 10 km the missile was bucked by harsh turbulence repeatedly and started tumbling. It soon started falling behind and then exploded. The combat display showed them all clear except the freighter falling back. It appeared to have dropped its thrust. Soon it disappeared, though this was likely due to atmospheric interference rather than distance.
Ximon breathed for the first time in several minutes, reduced their thrust considerably, and stopped descending into the atmosphere. “Ok, crew, we literally dodged a bullet, but we’ve still got baddies out there.”
Iday, “We can outrun them, but we’ll need to pull out of the atmosphere to do so safely.”
“Roger, just trying to put a bit more distance before we do.” Then he turned about 20 degrees more starboard.
They continued on in grave silence for a few more minutes, then Ximon slowly nudged up out of the atmosphere just as Mantis said, “Captain, I must urge you to slow down or leave the atmosphere. We will soon sustain damage if you maintain this course of action.”
As they pulled out of the thicker bands of atmosphere, the UI vessel re-appeared on the combat display, but it was a lot farther back. It apparently saw them too.
Iday announced, “They just put 2 more birds in the air,
inbound.”
Ximon said, “This time we run.” He was confident that they had enough range and velocity that they could outrun them. Still, he fired a 3G burn, slamming them all back in their seats, and pulled farther up out of the atmosphere to avoid drag. The missiles started gaining, but only very slowly, and the UI vessel kept falling farther back.
They continued like this for about 15 minutes when the missiles apparently ran out of fuel and started fading behind them.
Ximon said, “OK, we got lucky again. Now, I’m going to try to put a planet between us and this guy.” So, they continued accelerating around the planet.
“Mantis, how long will it take us to skim for sufficient fuel to make the calculated jump?”
“Captain, it will take about 50 minutes at the safest recommended skimming speed of …”
Ximon cut her off, “Roger. We’re going to burn like this for about 90 minutes and then we’re going to do a burn to slow and sink down in the atmosphere to start skimming.”
Elsbeth spoke up, “Don’t you dare deploy that scoop above max skimming speed! It won’t take the strain and if we lose that, it’s ‘game over.’”
“Got ya. I’m not THAT crazy.”
Then Ximon quietly radioed Raiza, “How are you doing girl?”
She said, “Ximon, I am relieved the ship was not damaged. I am safely strapped in in the galley but was slightly damaged by some items that were not secured when you executed high G maneuvers. However, it is minor and does not affect my operations. Is there anything I can do to assist you?”
“No, nothing at this time. I’m sorry you’re hurt. I’ll help you fix that as soon as we’re safe. Are you sure you won’t sustain more damage from the wound?”
“Ximon, thank you, but no. I am not leaking any system fluids and believe I have secured most potential debris. I apologize – I failed to detect the unsecured items and secure them promptly.”
Ximon whispered, “I’ll spank you later. Be careful” and broke the connection.
She messaged his comm a few seconds later, “I will happily bare the appropriate portions of my anatomy at an appropriate time.” This was followed by a wink emoji.
Ximon smiled at that and got refocused.
They were putting a lot of sky between them and the UI vessel and it soon dropped behind the horizon.
Ximon said, “Iday, what would you do if you were in his position?”
Iday said, “We are faster but can’t shoot back and have to skim to truly escape. I think his most logical course is to continue to build up speed in hopes of catching us when we try to skim. He can stay high and keep thrust on while we must stop thrust AND deal with heavy atmospheric drag. We can get enough planet between us that it would take him a while to get close enough, but a lot will depend on how well he can predict where we are. By the time we’re done skimming, he’ll have a lot more momentum”
“Understood, I’m hoping to confuse him a bit.”
“I hope it works.”
After about an hour more of burn, Ximon said, “Ok, kids, now we decelerate, dive, and skim. Prepare for Gs.”
There were, in fact, a lot Gs. Ximon flipped the ship 180, burned at about 3G to decelerate quickly. As Mantis bled velocity badly, Ximon stared turning more to port until their vector about 90 degrees off their past course. He also started descending, using the atmosphere to slow them more, though the turbulence was substantial. As soon as it was safe to do so, Ximon pushed Mantis into the thicker atmosphere, slowing her further.
Mantis protested, “Again, captain, this velocity in atmosphere risks damage to the hull and external components.”
“Noted Mantis, but you’ll thank me if we survive this.”
Mantis, “I will thank you if that is the case and if you so direct. However, I would definitely appreciate being intact at that point.”
As they continued to slow, the turbulence reduced and Ximon went deeper and kept turning. Then Ximon said, “Deploying scoop and commencing skimming. We’re below threshold velocity.”
Mantis said, “But captain, we’re skimming considerably deeper in the atmosphere than is recommended.”
“Roger Mantis. Elsbeth, keep an eye on the skimming system.”
“Sure, Ximon, I’ll let you know if our hull falls off.”
“Mantis/Iday, passive scanners only, but watch for that guy to reappear.”
As they skimmed, Ximon kept diving, turning, and slowing. Eventually, their course was almost 90 degrees off the vector they’d had when running from the UI ship.
After about 20 minutes Mantis noted, “I’m detecting the other ship’s active scans, but they’re behind us and off our course. That, coupled with the density of the atmosphere makes it unlikely they can detect us.”
Ximon almost whispered, “Mantis turn off anything that would emanate significantly.” Then he jokingly added, “Crew, rig for silent running.”
They continued skimming slowly and deeply, and were all quiet, afraid that the other ship could somehow hear them.
“Mantis, what’s our jump fuel percentage?”
“We’re at approximately 50% of the minimum necessary for the calculated jump.”
They continued for 20, then 30 minutes, hearing and seeing nothing of the other ship. Mantis read off the fuel percentage every few minutes. Ximon waited until they had substantially more than jump minimum.
Finally, Ximon retracted the scoop. Then he told Iday, “Pray for us and watch those displays.”
Ximon then started a low thrust and started pulling VERY slowly up out of the atmosphere.
Ximon, “Mantis, project his position if he maintains his current course and velocity.”
“Roger, Captain, it’s plotted on the main screen and will be continually updated, but it’s only a projection based on assumption of his behavior. As you know, human behavior is difficult to project with a strong baseline of historical decision making by that individual. Even then, individual actions can vary widely from that baseline of behavior.”
The projection showed the other ship proceeding swiftly around the planet, ever farther from them.
Ximon added, “… and now add our plot at this velocity.”
It showed the Mantis relatively creeping in the other direction.
Mantis continued slowly gaining speed and altitude with still no sign of the other ship. Finally, by the time they were fully out of the heavy bands of the atmosphere, they had picked up some speed.
Ximon said, “Anything on long range sensors?”
Iday said, “Nothing. But I’m seeing echoes of his pings – looks like they’re past the horizon.”
Now Ximon applied a full 3G thrust, again sinking the entire crew into their seats.
Ximon said, “Mantis, show me a projection of the paths and velocities of the moons in our arc.”
Mantis quickly threw up a display with the moons that are in this arc of the planet in view.
Ximon breathed a sigh of relief, “OK, now we’re going to try to increase our odds by going past moon #1 up there.”
Ximon flew so they’d be crossing just behind the moon’s orbital path. Since the moon was currently orbiting faster than the Mantis was running and had its own substantial gravity, Mantis could get a ‘gravity boost’ to its acceleration and a slight course change to one flatter relative to the orbits of the moons.
Ximon ordered, “Iday, get some imagery and short-range scans of these moons as we go by, but stay ready on the Chaff Thrower. Mantis, watch long-range scan for ships or enemy sensor activity.”
Moon 1 loomed large as they approached. It was large, a sickly mottled yellow-green color, and a very rough surface.
As they neared the moon and got farther from the planet Mantis noted, “Moon 1’s gravity can now be detected as its own substantive source.”
As they got ever nearer Iday said, “The moon has a faint atmosphere, a very mountainous surface, and appears to be volcanically active. Once we go past her, that’ll give a little more ‘
haze’ to make us harder to find.”
Ximon said, “OK, this is our nearest approach, now we continue burning as she pulls along past her.”
They continued burning with the moon as a large presence on the screen, with the much larger planet behind. Soon they whipped past, gaining velocity from the moon’s pull, and started pulling away from the moon (getting farther from the planet as the moon stayed at its constant orbital distance).
“Mantis, give me a calculation.” Then he tapped two of the farther out moons in arc and said, “Could we get a gravity boost from either of these two?”
“Captain, moon 4 is too far out of synch with our path and relative speeds. Moon 7 will work. I’ve displayed the optimal path.”
“OK, matching that path. Iday, watch for sensor echoes.”
They sped on in that direction, continuing to burn hard. This moon was more of a typical mottled grey rock.
As it loomed close, Iday fairly shouted, “The ship has crossed the horizon. It’s turned about and is coming our way and it’s got 2 shuttles deployed. The ship has greater velocity than us and continues to burn hard. They’ve got every sensor blazing.”
“Ok, let me know if they hit us with active sensors. Mantis, do imagery and scans as we go past the moon.”
Just before they passed behind the moon, Iday said, “We were just hit in an active sensor sweep.”
Ximon said, “We’ll see if that lasts.”
Then they were crossing on the far side of the moon and being pulled by its gravity. They got another good velocity boost as they pulled away.
“Mantis, plot our velocities again. Can they catch us?”
A new plot of the velocities appeared, it showed them speeding ever farther from the planet with the ship and 2 shuttles pounding after. They didn’t intersect within the field shown.
Mantis said, “Captain, assuming we continue burning at this rate and that the thrust we’ve seen from the ship so far is its maximum, it cannot catch us. However, the shuttles are an unknown variable. One or both might have higher thrust than they’ve demonstrated. If so, they might catch us.”
Jaunts of the Mantis Page 11
