The buzz on the control deck was subdued and professional, with all positions manned by senior crew members; the commanders of both ships were prepared for the worst. Nobody knew what to expect when coming into real-space at G-145, so they made use of their most experienced crew members.
“Teller’s Colony cleared us for departure, sir.” Captain Janda was the senior pilot and making the N-space drop to G-145. On Fury-class ships, the pilot seat was dual-capable, requiring both N-space and real-space training. Captain Janda did both but had navigational and sensor support from Captain Stavros, sitting to the right of the pilot seat.
“Let’s go, Captain Janda. Use maximum-allowed departure boost. Captain Stavros, shortest course to buoy channel, if you please,” Lieutenant Colonel Aquino said.
“Yes, sir.” Captain Stavros had a quiet voice that nonetheless carried clearly. Her fingers flashed on her console as she sent parameters to the pilot seat; she would already have calculated and stored that course.
Behind Lieutenant Colonel Aquino, Colonel Edones was webbed into the mission commander’s seat and reviewing something on the slate plugged into his chair. He wore the only black and blue uniform on the control deck; everyone else was normal AFCAW Ops, wearing green combat suits. Edones’s frigid blue eyes, his bland expression, even the manner in which he tapped his slate, radiated cold, hard competence. Oleander was surprised to feel comforted by his demeanor but, as she reminded herself, Edones was the sole officer on deck who had experience from the war.
Surveying the control deck, she figured the two senior noncoms had seen battle with the League. Senior Master Sergeant Albert was loadmaster, when the ship wasn’t at battle readiness. Now he was responsible for damage control and sat at the damage assessment console. Chief Master Sergeant Serafin sat at tactical, her thin sharp face focused on her displays.
“Percival matching us, sir. Twelve kilometers astern and twenty degrees to port.” Chief Serafin’s gaze slid sideways to glance at the Terran officer.
Oleander imagined what Serafin’s gut was going through, flying formation with an enemy ship. She and Albert put their doubts on record by vocally protesting, during the mission briefing, the presence of a Terran officer on the control deck. Colonel Edones had calmly acknowledged their suspicions as valid, but countered that Terran presence was necessary to coordinate the dual-flag mission.
Major Phillips of the Terran Space Forces, the focus of all this heartburn, sat quietly at the comm monitor station. An AFCAW staff Intell officer might operate this station, but rarely. The station was a holdover from the war because the upgraded comm stations could do everything it could, and more. Now this console was configured to prevent Major Phillips from doing anything but speaking with the Percival. His counterpart—or exchanged hostage—was Major Bernard, who currently sat on the bridge of the Percival.
“Comm, please remind the Percival that twenty kilometers was the separation distance for buoy approach.” Edones’s voice was pleasant.
“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Kozel, the comm officer, eagerly informed the Percival of their error. Kozel was the most junior officer on the deck, his date of rank three years younger than Oleander’s.
“Major Phillips? I’ll remind you of your duties as coordinator on this rescue mission. You’re responsible for your crew observing the legal limits. Don’t make me bypass you again.” Edones’s voice became colder and almost everyone on the control deck turned to view the Terran officer. They all knew the Percival had probably just breached their communications and EM security.
“Yes, sir.” The words seemed to jerk out of Major Phillips mouth without his consent. He appeared uncomfortable as he nodded at Lieutenant Colonel Aquino. “Sirs,” he added. The Terrans had some confusion regarding the mission commander versus ship commander roles.
“Damage Assessment, log the CommSec violation,” Aquino said. He turned to exchange a glance with Edones. “And we’re not even out of the system yet.”
“Yessir,” Sergeant Albert drawled.
“Percival dropping back to twenty kilometers,” reported Serafin.
Oleander suppressed a smile as she turned back to her console. At least Phillips wasn’t adept at somaural projection, which was good to know.
Three and a half hours to N-space drop. Military ships didn’t verify that crew members had dosed themselves with D-tranny before dropping, so she checked her implant and its load of drugs. She verified that her implant would release the bright as close to real-space transition as possible. She had a feeling she’d need it.
CHAPTER 20
When requested, the Consortium of Autonomist Worlds
has agreed to provide between one and five ships, with
maximum tonnage and personnel specified in appen dix 5. The hosting Pilgrimage ship will decide number,
deployment period, entry, and departure of ships within
Pilgrimage sovereign space. All weapon systems and
munitions must be inventoried and approved. . . .
—Section III, Status of Forces Agreement Between the
Consortium of Autonomist Worlds and the Pilgrimage Ship
Line, 2085.210.12.00 US, indexed by Heraclitus 4
under Flux Imperative
“Command Post put that nut on hold. Serves him right.” Julian triumphantly shut off the channel that previously carried Hal’s arguments with CP to all listeners.
Hearing Hal’s voice had given Ariane hope, although resistance on Beta Priamos didn’t help her stop the TD warhead attached to this ship. She turned her attention back to Julian. He didn’t have military experience. The ship was capable of monitoring two comm channels plus S-DATS. Granted, most pilots wouldn’t monitor S-DATS unless they were on dock approach, but no one with military training would shut off one of their comm channels.
Julian, like most real-space jockeys, acted as if he were driving a planetary vehicle. Heavily reliant upon that metaphor, he stayed with the in-the-round display, showing a fake window that wrapped one hundred sixty degrees around the forward consoles. Real-space jockeys were most comfortable with cam-eye views and linear distance displays, which let them feel as if they were looking out of an airplane cockpit.
Julian set one view port on the left to the planetary orbit plane through the solar system. Over to the right side, near Ariane’s position, two small view ports were open. One showed cam-eye video of Beta Priamos, now barely visible, while the other displayed the default FTL display identifying all bodies within ten thousand kilometers of their position. She glanced at it, noting their progress away from Laomedon and saw a familiar blinking ID.
Aether’s Touch! She looked away. Joyce must have received her message and followed, although he’d wisely dropped out of the direct line between Beta Priamos and Candor Chasma. However, he hadn’t had time to sabotage the civilian transponder. She couldn’t let the isolationists see the Aether’s Touch.
“Set your displays correctly,” Ariane said as she leaned forward. She quickly moved her tied hands up onto the console in front of Julian’s right arm and tapped.
“Hey! Stay away from my console.” Julian backhanded her across the face. Considering Sabina and Abram had already worked her face over, this hurt like hell. She flew backward into her seat.
Emery and Tahir had been diddling with something at the weapons console; both looked up, frowning. What now displayed in front of Julian was the ship’s route using two dimensions of time. This plot was used by N-space pilots, but could be mind-bending for the mathematically challenged. A complementary view port represented their current vector in numerical text, not graphics. She knew these would be the last displays Julian would pick.
Julian set about bringing up the representations that he understood, while Emery and Tahir went back to their discussion. Tahir had readily entered his test codes, which surprised and panicked her. If he had some sort of plan to stop the detonation, he hadn’t given her any clue regarding his tactics.
None of the men paid any
attention to her suggestion regarding the displays, but that wasn’t the point. Muttering about a nosy bitch who didn’t know her place, Julian brought back the in-the-round display. He also chose to again open the cam-eye view behind him, probably to give him the confidence that he was moving in the right direction. Its poor resolution could no longer distinguish any artificial objects against the huge backdrop of Laomedon. Since he had FTL data through the buoy and he knew safety procedures recommended an open FTL display, his hand hovered in indecision. She held her breath, but as she hoped, he chose the diagram that charted their forward course.
Aether’s Touch no longer showed on any displays. She relaxed.
“We’ve identified fourteen possible crazies on-station.” Joyce glanced at the stunned and bound figures propped in the corner of CP. “Two have been taken out. Six are waiting for you at the airlock for B-4. That leaves six others roaming around.”
“The station doesn’t have complete node coverage yet. There may be more—crazies—hiding about,” Hal said.
Even Hal had picked up his nomenclature, Joyce noted rather proudly. After all, it’s a perfectly appropriate name. Joyce stood behind Maria as she tried to convince the freighter crew that her plan would work.
“We think we’ve got an accurate count, considering what we saw down on Priamos,” Maria said. “Abram took moles with him down to the surface. Particularly ones with tech skills.”
“Still, you don’t know if some of them are waiting on the Hesperus.” Hal was uneasy, frowning. “We could lose the Golden Bull, which has a referential engine.”
“You haven’t got the resources to get within lock distance of the buoy,” Maria said bluntly. “You tell them you’re coming in, and Joyce spoofs the lights at B-4 to make it look like you’re docking. That’ll hold them for a while, but how long will it take you to go through the cargo-to-cargo connection with Hesperus, then get to the B-1 airlock?”
“We’ve got to pressurize the bay, since the Hesperus is pressurized for emergency evacuation.” Somebody behind Hal said something, and he turned to speak off-line for a moment. He turned back to face the cam-eye. “And we’re almost finished with that.”
“So you’re in?” Maria asked.
Hal grinned and winked. “We’re in. After all, it was our idea to begin with.”
Joyce raised his eyebrows. Maria had worked out the details, but strictly speaking, Hal was right. The freighter crew first brought up the possibility of connecting the two freighters. The cargo-to-cargo connection wasn’t designed to be used under pressure, since the crew usually wore EVA suits under that type of cargo transfer. However, the bays could be separately pressurized for sensitive cargo and the Hesperus was already sitting there, pressurized, because it was the temporary emergency evacuation vehicle for Beta Priamos. Now they had a coherent, but risky, plan to get the crew of the Golden Bull to safety, quickly and quietly.
“How long until you’re at B-1?” Joyce asked Hal again.
“Give us at least twenty minutes. That’s if we don’t run into any crazies sitting on the Hesperus.”
“Can you do it any faster?” Joyce frowned. He didn’t think the fake docking signals would fool the crowd waiting at B-4 for long.
“I want my entire crew safely across the cargo connection before we move through the Hesperus.”
“Then get going. I’ll start the docking lights to keep the people at B-4 entertained.”
After Hal signed off, Maria sighed and looked over at the display of the men waiting at airlock B-4. They didn’t hide from the cam-eye, apparently thinking that CP had cut all video feed to fool the docking ship. When she broadcasted Hal’s “surrender” over the CP channel, they jittered about like bugs as they tried to figure out their weapons coverage. Luckily, they had no way of looking outside since Beta Priamos was built to protect its residents from radiation. There were no windows in the docking ring.
“You don’t think they’ll buy your light show for that long, do you?” she said.
“No. If they’re not already suspicious that CP isn’t up on voice, they’ll soon be. They might send runners to find out what’s happening.”
She nodded, running her tongue over her teeth in a contemplative manner. “Too bad we don’t have any other distractions.”
“But we do. If you give me that awesome weapon you collected”—he held out his hand—“I can run around the station and create havoc.”
“If you think this will work against flechettes, then be my guest.” Maria dropped the ministunner into his hand.
“I can free the station’s original staff. That’ll be a good distraction.” Joyce motioned at the diagram where they’d mapped the probable locations of the imprisoned personnel. These were locked storage areas that either didn’t have a lock override or didn’t respond to CP’s override unlock, perhaps because they were manually disabled.
“You think that’s the best thing to do right now? If you release civilians, you may incur collateral damage.”
Joyce paused and looked at her carefully. Her expression was impassive and detached, her voice soft, but was she genuinely concerned for the safety of civilians?
A beeping alarm caused them both to look at the comm console.
“Shit.” Maria showed an uncharacteristic lack of grace as she tapped a few commands. “It’s Abram. He’s coming up with others on the elevator. He wants to speak with CP.”
“What the hell? I thought the elevator was up here—doesn’t it take at least two hours to go down, even at maximum speed?”
“We’ve been here for at least a couple hours.”
“Can you stop the elevator?”
She tapped a few more commands. “No. All I can do is simulate comm problems for a little while.”
“Then I have to cause mayhem, diversions, et cetera, or the crew of the Golden Bull is toast,” he said. “Stay quiet and keep CP locked up tight. It’ll take a plasma torch several hours to break into here, so take advantage of the time.”
“Be careful. You’re not wearing any armor.” She looked worried, but he didn’t believe it for a minute.
“Maybe my charm will protect me.” He checked the charge on the ministunner and ignored her snort.
“Take this for comm.” She tossed him a small slate. “Remember, there’re hardly any nodes out there.”
After they agreed on channel and call signs, he checked the view of the outside corridor and let himself out quietly. Behind him, he heard the locks slide and engage. Yes, ma’am, I’m off to wreak havoc and mayhem. This might even be fun. He saluted the cam-eye before he slipped quietly down the deserted corridor.
Oleander dreamed Matt was in trouble; vividly, she saw his small prospector ship decompressing and separating into floating chunks as isolationists fired missiles. Where’d they get missiles?
The proximity klaxon wailed. Her eyes flew open; the bright pumped into her bloodstream and made the transition from dream state to reality seamless. No disorientation—although for a moment, reality seemed sharply surreal. She was webbed snugly into her seat. Her fingers flew over her console to check the rail guns. A different alarm shrilled from the damage assessment console.
Sergeant Albert calmly shut off the second alarm. “Explosive force registered on port ventral section epsilon, sir. No decompression, but passive armor was blown away. Assessment team on its way.”
Oleander realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out as she saw the backs of other crew members relax. The passive armor was made of protective layers of aerogel, light as air and stronger than the same thickness of titanium. The ventral epsilon section, whether port or starboard, was immediately behind the bulge of the Penrose Fold referential engine, which was almost indestructible. The PFR engine ended up being passive armor in its own way.
“We’re stationary with respect to objects within one kilometer, which are all probably mines.” Janda was sweating and he looked as if he’d lost at least five kilos during the drop. There was no
way to tell if he’d lost hair. Decided this was the best way to handle N-space, he had joked earlier, stroking his shaved head.
“Active armor is initialized and operational,” Serafin called from tactical. She looked over at Stavros, who was tapping frantically at her console.
The proximity klaxon still wailed. Everyone waited on Stavros.
“Navigation and sensors?” Aquino asked.
“No FTL data, sir.” She slapped the console in frustration and shut off the proximity klaxon. “This is what we’ve got through light speed.”
Everyone trained without the FTL feed from the buoy, but everyone also hoped they’d never be the ones in that situation. Oleander felt her stomach lurch as she looked at the display, which centered on their position and was slowly resolving other bodies in the system. The Bright Crescent was oriented inside the channel with the buoy to her stern. She was the largest object identified on the display, embedded within a minefield.
“Is that movement out there, Chief?” Aquino asked.
Now they all saw it. Stavros changed the orientation of the display to show a two-dimensional slice that contained the buoy arrival channel. The mine coverage down the center of the arrival channel could still cause problems, if the Bright Crescent tried to move. Toward the edge of the minefield, an unseen semicircular shield appeared to be pushing mines, much like a waiter brushing crumbs from the tablecloth in a fancy restaurant.
Oleander watched Chief Serafin, who frowned and chewed her lip as she furiously tapped and examined diagrams. The chief wasn’t one for making unjustified decisions.
“That’s not a self-healing field, sir,” Serafin said at last. “The individual mines aren’t sophisticated enough, by my readings.”
“And that movement?” Aquino asked.
“Independent of the field, sir. Whatever’s doing that—”
“Whoa! Something happened out there. All my EM instruments were blinded.” Muttering something about gain and saturation, Stavros adjusted her sensors. Heads lifted to watch the diagram, computationally constructed through multiple sensor inputs and readings. It warped, shuddered, and adjusted.
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