Bain and Gorgi jumped up immediately, saluted and nearly ran through the door at the same moment. Major Gilmore's chuckle followed them out into the hall.
Administration offices, the computer core, medical facilities, supply depot and shuttle hangars were all underground. Dormitories, kitchens and common rooms were all in domed facilities. Bain and Gorgi took a lift to the surface and walked down a transparent tunnel, shrouded with bushes and trees and the ubiquitous clinging vines of that hemisphere.
“Of course, you know I only let you win because it's your birthday,” Gorgi said, breaking the silence just a few steps away from the door into the mess hall.
“Let me? Since when do you ever give up on anything?” Bain retorted.
“Well...” His friend pretended to think hard, screwing up his face into a mask of effort. He finally shook his head and laughed as the doors slid open before them and they stepped through. “Never!"
“Darned right.” Bain waved a greeting to a table full of Scout trainees—all with noticeably wet, clean hair. He shook his head when they invited him to join them, and followed Gorgi to the door leading into the serving kitchen.
The mouth-watering odors of hot, juicy roast, freshly baked honey bread, and the tang of steamed pebble gourd assaulted his nose. Bain groaned and swallowed hard and snatched at the first serving tray.
“Starving?” Gorgi asked.
“How many times did you manage to get hot food while you were out there?"
“I don't know. Four or five times. Either we couldn't find any combustible fuel, or it was too wet, or it wasn't safe to make a fire. And then we didn't have anything worth cooking.” He grinned and stabbed the serving fork into the tray of roast slices, swimming in dark brown juices with a light layer of spice granules floating on top.
“Exactly."
Bain made as if to snatch the fork out of his friend's hand as Gorgi went back for his third serving of meat. They grinned and didn't say anything else until they had left the serving line and settled down at a round table meant for four in a corner of the mess hall.
Most of the other occupants had left the hall by then. Only a few Scout trainees remained. Bain knew the rest had all headed for their quarters to sleep. Out of nearly twenty people in the room, most were Rangers. Bain noticed a few fond, tolerant expressions on the faces of the trained officers when the conversations of the trainees grew a little loud and exuberant. He wondered when he would reach the stage that he looked at trainees as students, rather than friends and fellow-sufferers.
“So,” Gorgi said through a mouthful of bread. “When will your ship be ready?"
“Our ship,” Bain corrected absently. He slid two slices of meat onto a slab of bread and folded it over, then dabbed up some of the pooling juices with the bread before he took a bite.
“Hey, I'm happy to be the tactician. I'll leave the piloting to you born Spacers.” He pretended to shudder. “I don't look forward to going through that first Knaught Point on your maiden voyage, I can tell you that."
“Then don't come."
“It's worse if I don't come than if I get sick in front of the other trainees."
“Probably.” Bain grinned and chewed happily, already halfway through his sandwich.
Memories flooded through his mind, making him stop and swallow hard, fighting a lump in his throat that had nothing to do with the tender meat and fresh, soft bread.
“What's wrong?” Gorgi asked after a moment, when Bain just sat there and stared unseeing at his sandwich.
“Remembering."
“What about?"
“The day Lin took me on. She knew who I was. She wanted me on Sunsinger just because I was kin, but she wasn't allowed to tell me right away ... Some crazy idea about making sure we were compatible and whether training me to be a Spacer was better for me than letting me rot in an orphanage.” He chuckled, but the lump in his throat still hadn't faded yet. “Lin put me to work on the bridge, and when we finished I had my first shipboard meal. A sandwich pack. It was the best thing I ever tasted, up until today."
“Uh huh."
For a moment, Bain thought Gorgi didn't really understand. Then he saw the misty light in his friend's eyes.
“Kind of like my first night on the Ranger ship, when they took me on for cadet,” Gorgi said after a moment. “That bunk was the hardest thing I ever slept on, even counting those wretched bunks underground, where we met. It felt like heaven."
“We're a bunch of sentimental idiots."
“Exactly.” He picked up his glass of vitamin-enhanced juice and tapped it against Bain's in a toast.
“Scout Trainee Commander Kern, report to the Dock,” a flat, computer-enhanced voice announced through the public address system.
“I hate when they use titles like that,” Bain grumbled. Then he nearly dropped the last piece of his sandwich when the reality of the words hit him. “The Dock!"
“Your ship!"
Gorgi gave Bain a shove toward the door. He held back just long enough to pick up their trays and shove them into the cleanser slot in the wall next to the kitchen door. Then he raced after Bain, legs trembling and grinning wide enough to split his face.
* * * *
The Star Arrow, the first Scout ship to be built and commissioned, didn't follow the classic Spacer line. That was Bain's only regret when he looked at his ship.
His ship.
The need for crew quarters, equipment bays, landing and loading docks for land and air vehicles demanded a large ship. Star Arrow was the size of a Fleet hospital ship. Sunsinger would nearly vanish in comparison to Star Arrow. Bain had acknowledged those exigencies and braced himself for something awkward and bulky.
He hadn't expected a sleek creature with all the visible power of a raptor. The silver ceramic-metal alloy of the skin made it gleam in the starlight of the Dock, sixty kilometers up from the planet's surface in stationery orbit. Someone had taken the extra time to paint detailing on the ship's nose and stubby vanes in black paint, giving it a semblance of feathers and beak. Any other ship, it would have looked ridiculous. Bain felt that lump return to his throat and felt hot wetness touch his eyes.
The Star Arrow was as beautiful as Sunsinger, in its own dangerous, powerful way. His ship. His responsibility. His dream become reality. Bain felt a twinge of regret and guilt. In pursuing the dream of the Scouts, he had left behind the life of a Spacer and a Free Trader. Lin was proud of him. She made sure he knew it, every time they talked or traded letters or tapes. But Bain knew he had hurt her, and betrayed his childhood dream of becoming Sunsinger's captain someday.
Lin would tell him this was part of becoming an adult: doing what he knew was right, for the greater good, and accepting that sometimes, people got hurt. Including himself, and the dreams he had to leave behind.
“This thing scares me half to death,” he whispered. He pressed his hands against the cold clear-steel wall of the observation dome and looked harder at his ship, as if a closer look could make it more real.
“I feel it every time I get a new command, ship or squadron,” Gil admitted. He pushed off the wall and floated across to the door. “Come on—I get agoraphobia if I spend too much time floating around up here.” He gestured at the seeming nothingness beyond the dome. “I keep expecting this to vanish and throw me out into space."
Bain didn't protest, though he could have floated there in free-fall for hours, staring at his ship. The Star Arrow didn't have a personality yet, like Sunsinger did, but he sensed it would, soon. All the ship needed was her captain to take her out on her maiden voyage and see what she could do. Then they would know what kind of a lady this first Scout ship really was.
He followed behind Gil and Gorgi, trailing reluctantly down through the airlocks into the enclosed, warmer passageways of the station. The Star Arrow gleamed in his imagination, never quite out of his thoughts no matter what he did.
Being a larger ship, the Star Arrow needed a command crew. There were too many instrumen
ts to watch, too many complicated sections of the ship to attend during Knaught Point transitions. What Lin and other Spacers could handle solo with smaller ships, battle vessels like Star Arrow needed a minimum crew of three. Bain had a command computer, keyed to his voice, retina print, genetic code and palm print. No matter how sophisticated the computer, it wasn't a ship-brain like Ganfer.
His chosen command crew, approved by the Rangers in charge of the Scout trainees, was Bain's first Scout command team—Arin and Trinia Cain, Lissy Bolan, and Dan and Don Piller. And Gorgi Cole, the first non-Spacer to join the core group of Scouts. Bain called his team together and had them brought up to the Dock. They had one day to familiarize themselves with the Star Arrow, then it was time for their maiden voyage.
* * *
Chapter Four
“Knaught Point ETA—” Lissy glanced down at the screen in her control panel, double-checking the figures. “Twenty minutes."
Bain nodded confirmation, not quite trusting his voice. Six days out from Drasti now and the Star Arrow had performed beyond all his expectations. Despite the lack of a ship-brain, the shipboard computer functioned better than he had hoped. It couldn't talk back to him and challenge him with questions, anticipate his needs or tease him out of his self-doubts, but Bain saw no problems in the future with this computer. Maybe if he tinkered with it long enough, it could at least resemble a personality—far in the future, when there was enough experience for its learning program to develop patterns.
For now, though, everything depended on him and his crew. He had picked a good crew. They were having the time of their lives flying this new ship, spending some time totally free from their Ranger instructors. Being back in free-fall was pure delight. Even Gorgi had gotten over his dislike for the sensation and joined in playing Spacer games in the now-empty equipment bay, that were part wrestling, part tag, and part calisthenics.
Their first Knaught Point lay ahead. The thrill of exploring the new, advanced, supremely sophisticated ship had faded enough to let them at least pretend they were all grown up and serious.
“Going with me?” Bain turned in his chair to lock eyes with Gorgi. His friend sat at the tactician's station in the oval bridge, going over one of his endless battle tactics simulations.
“I'm not up to that yet, thanks.” Gorgi shook his head and managed a smile. In the dim lighting of the bridge, the momentary loss of color in his face was barely noticeable. Bain was the only one looking at him right then and he wasn't about to tell anyone else. The other Scouts didn't tease Gorgi, but Bain suspected they couldn't quite understand how anyone, even a non-Spacer, wouldn't or didn't enjoy the spectacular display of energies and forces seen during a Knaught Point approach and transition.
“Anybody else?” Bain asked as he unbuckled his safety strap and launched from his place at the control panel.
“This first time is all yours, Captain,” Arin called from the galley. He lifted his cup of chocolate in a toast and grinned.
Bain grinned back. He had insisted that hot chocolate be a staple item on board his ship. It still amused him that some Spacers had never tasted it. Lin had always led him to believe chocolate was Spacer food, a luxury, but still something they all knew and appreciated. His Scouts appreciated chocolate, certainly.
“It's not that we don't trust you,” Lissy added. She reached forward and slid aside the cover over a dark blue switch, then looked to Bain and waited.
“The first Knaught Point is always special,” Bain said. He nodded, and she pressed the button. He imagined he felt the faint rumble of the protective plates sliding back from the tiny piloting dome over their heads. “Still, it'd be nice to have some company."
“There's not really that much room for all of us,” Trinia said, her voice joining the conversation through the shipboard address system.
“True.” Bain decided to give up.
He pushed out of his command chair and darted straight up to the ceiling. The sensors opened the hatch just a few seconds before he reached it. Bain slid through, grinning at the sudden mental image of slamming headfirst into the ceiling if the hatch hadn't opened. True, everything was functioning perfectly on board the Star Arrow. That didn't mean the brand-new ship wouldn't have some problems. He almost preferred something silly and small, like a door sensor refusing to work, as opposed to something large and dangerous, like the engines ‘burping’ during a crucial moment.
The piloting dome had room for two acceleration couches and the control panels that swung down over them—period. Bain bounced off the low curve of the ceiling and down into the first couch. He snagged the safety strap and pulled himself down and strapped in, then dragged the control panel over into place.
Now he let himself look around. The approaching Knaught Point consisted of two blinking silvery dots of light, surrounded by a blue nimbus of energies and burning stellar dust. A jagged, fizzling fringe of silver-green indicated a change in the energy output. Bain touched the voice-activated microphone controls and verbally recorded what he saw, then trained the ship's sensors on it.
“Everybody set?” he said, after he ran a check of the control panel and made sure all switches were in proper position.
“As set as we'll ever be,” Arin responded. He chuckled. “Gorgi just turned green."
“Did not,” the tactician responded. “It's the colored lights on my control panel, that's all."
“Everybody hold on. Silence zone coming up in twenty seconds,” Bain said.
Because the Star Arrow didn't have a ship-brain, like Ganfer, Bain had to rely on his Scouts to make the necessary adjustments to the engines, attitude thrusters and sensor output beams, and gave his directions verbally. There was no time for him to punch commands into the computer and wait for the ship to run a systems check to be sure he knew what he was doing. Despite the sophistication of the Commonwealth's computers, there were still some activities where Humans were still superior. Performing in crisis was one of them.
The blinking dots of the Knaught Points grew larger, closer, and flickers of color appeared in the silver sheen. Bain wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and pushed himself back into his acceleration couch.
Now was not the time to think about messing up this first Knaught Point transition and sending his ship and crew into an unknown section of space—or even destroying them all.
Then something seemed to click into place inside his head and his gut. Bain felt the preliminary jitters in his hands and legs and stomach begin to fade. He relaxed his death-grip on the controls and took a few deep breaths.
Just like all the others, he told himself. Pretend Lin is here, watching over your shoulder, ready to make a joke the first time you flub.
A tight grin caught at the corners of his mouth, but couldn't get any further. Bain took one more deep breath.
“Engines up two points."
At the back of his mind, he imagined Ganfer responded with Arin's voice. Bain grinned and focused all his attention on the Knaught Point only a few seconds away now. The Star Arrow suddenly ‘fit', as if he had been born here on this ship.
The blue nimbus of energies shifted spectrum, into purple and then into red, then back all the way down to green and then yellow. The square silver of the Knaught Point—an illusion only Spacers could see—suddenly opened its mouth and the Star Arrow slid through.
Color fled the world, like water through a drain. Bain closed his eyes, hands still flying over the controls. When he opened them a moment later, the ordinary starscape had returned. He laughed as he recognized the particular pattern of the stars off through the right lower hemisphere of the piloting dome.
“We made it!” he shouted. The shipboard speaker system crackled with feedback from the unanticipated volume. Cheers filtered up to him from the crew on the bridge.
Bain waited a moment, checking the sweat-damp in his clothes, the shaking of his hands, and let the post-jump jitters fade. He laughed softly and pressed his back into the cushions to sop away
the sweat.
This was his ship. He was her captain, more important, more fulfilling than even being commander of the entire Scout Corps.
“Wish you were here, Lin,” Bain whispered into the quiet. He pressed the control button and the protective plates began to slide back up into place, shutting out the light from the stars. “Bet you'd be proud of me."
* * * *
They were still celebrating when the ship-hail came through.
Ironically, they were talking about Lin. Bain had mentioned when they raised their drink bulbs in toast to the ship that Lin should have been there to celebrate with them. Her encouragement and using the embryonic Scouts to help in the crisis on Gemar had played a big part in establishing their legitimacy even before they applied to the Commonwealth Council for support and facilities.
“She's too busy with her own projects,” Gorgi said. “Thanks to Dr. Frurin, she's just as crazy about genealogies and lost relatives as he is.” He chuckled.
“Anybody with the least hint of Spacer blood, even if it's ten generations removed, is going to be important in the next ten years,” Trinia said. “How are we going to get enough Spacer pilots for the Scouts if we don't find and train them ourselves?"
“That's fine, but Lin wants to set up a school!” her cousin protested. “What's wrong with the good old-fashioned method of raising your own children to be Spacers, or taking on apprentices, like Lin did with Bain?"
“There aren't enough Spacers with the patience to be teachers, for one thing,” Bain said. He contemplated his empty drink bulb a moment, then crushed it and shoved it into the recycling bin slot and reached for another one. Whatever the red juice was, it tasted good; tangy and pulpy with a hint of Gemaran tangberry. “Plus, if Lin finds more people with Spacers for ancestors who want to take training, we could end up with four or five apprentices for every teacher if we go with the old-fashioned way. New times and new needs call for new methods."
“That sounds like Dr. Homber,” Lissy moaned, which brought laughter from her crewmates.
Scouts [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 10] Page 3
