by Dan Thompson
“Actually, no. You’ve been requested.”
He sat up and set his empty glass on her desk.
“By whom?”
“Chessman.”
“And why am I so popular?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but he asked for you personally. He made a point of it.”
Bishop raised an eyebrow. “You met him?”
“Sort of,” she replied and slammed her own drink back in one swallow. “Let’s say I got as close as I’d ever like to. Chessman’s attention is not necessarily rewarding, so whatever he has in mind, I urge you to be careful.”
“As always, my Lady.”
By the time Michael returned to the Sophie’s berth, the cargo was already loaded, including several trunks from one of their passengers. He gathered the crew together in the galley for dinner where Winner had slapped together a meal of tacos and black beans.
“We’re scheduled for an eleven o’clock liftoff tomorrow morning,” he told the crew. “If you’ve got any last-minute business, tonight is it. Otherwise, go have a good time, but report back, ready for duty no later than seven. We’re expecting passengers by eight or nine, and I want the full complement on board when they arrive.”
“Any word on who they are?” Vivian asked.
Richard pulled up his pad. “The single is a salesman, some kind of medical equipment. It’s his stuff that’s filling the passenger-cargo down in engineering. The bunks are a couple of simple travelers. One is on his way home from his sister’s wedding and ... oh, this last guy is a little odd. Bill Caruthers—he’s a waiter working his way across space. Apparently he’s spent the last six years making his way out from one of the Solarian core systems, wants to get in as far as Callista Prime, and then start making his way over to the Catai.”
Vivian raised her hand. “Do the passengers have priority on the common areas?”
Michael thought about it. He did not want to keep the passengers locked up in their staterooms, but with most of the crew working twelve-hour shifts, he did not want them to be deprived of what little recreational time they had. “No,” he said at last. “We’re not a cruise line, and we’re not charging enough to pretend to be one. If we run into conflict, I might consider some kind of schedule, but we live here. They can put up with us for a week.” There were nods of assent around the table. “Very well. Enjoy your last night in port.”
The crew started to head for their separate ways, but Dieter was the only one to suggest a group activity. “Rajin Tarrek is playing down at the Far Meridian. Anyone else want to go?”
Most everyone shrugged ignorance, but Winner spoke up. “You should think about it. Best Hindu folk group in the sector.”
The others gave grunts of dismissal. “So, shall I save you a seat?” Dieter asked her.
She shook her head. “I’ve got stuff … I have an appointment. Maybe after.”
Michael volunteered to clean up the galley after dinner, and they filed out of the ship, one by one. It was strange how quiet Sophie seemed again. For two months, she had been even quieter, her reactor powered down and life support running at a groundside minimum. Now, after two weeks of a growing crew bringing her back to life, she was eerily silent.
He paced the ship, down both halls of staterooms and the common areas in between them. He went down the steps to the environmental systems and back to his old station in engineering. The interior cargo airlock was there at the back as well as the bottom belly airlock. He opened the seal and climbed down the ladder. It was an inverted copy of the dorsal airlock up near the medical bay. They were not used very often. In fact, the last time he had been in either was when he had pulled Malcolm back into the ship. He had died before the lock finished cycling.
Michael shook his head and climbed back out. The last thing he wanted now was to relive that incident. He headed back up to the crew deck, took one more tour of the bridge, and went back to his own little office. He reviewed the budget for the trip one last time, and then started thinking of any final tasks he needed to do.
Goodbyes seemed to be the most pressing, but he had already said his goodbyes to Annie. It would seem that he had already said his farewell to Josie a week earlier, though that still felt wrong to him. The one silver lining, perhaps, was that it made him that much more eager to return to Taschin. There were other captains in port that he knew, but those goodbyes were never really said. You would run into them again later, or you would not. That was simply the way of it.
But he did have one captain he wanted to send a message to: Captain Jack Wallace. He pulled up the port’s messaging interface and started typing.
Ship-to-ship: Sophie’s Grace to Johnny Rose, port unknown, Caspian sector
To: Captain Jack Wallace
Jack,
I wanted to thank you again for helping me with the Guild, especially for whatever you said to them at Cenita. They found some special rule, and now I’m a “provisional” member. Thanks to that, we’re pulling out of Taschin with a full load, both cargo and passengers. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to manage the bond, but a string of profitable runs can’t hurt in that department.
Here’s another bit of lucky news. I’ve got one of your old crew, Carlos Rodriguez. He’s going to be my prime navigator. In fact, he was my first hire, and he really got the ball rolling. We’re winding our way in toward Arvin and then back out to Taschin. If we run into you along the way, the three of us should go out for dinner and swap stories.
Thanks again, and keep the winds steady.
-Michael
He sent it off, knowing it would take a while to reach him. Couriers were fast, but a message without a fixed destination would be pinging around the sector for weeks before the Johnny Rose happened across it at some port. If Wallace had headed back out across the border into the frontier, it would take even longer, but it was enough that he had sent it.
Tomorrow would be a long day, so Michael decided to settle in to bed.
He saw the crate from his uncle sitting in the corner. He stepped over and pushed at the keypad randomly, but all he got was a buzzing error every six keystrokes. He gave the crate a final poke with his boot. That was as much interaction as he wanted with his birth father tonight.
He undressed, climbed into bed, and fell asleep almost immediately.
Stefan Carrillo huddled into a small comm booth in an out-of-the-way corner of the port’s entertainment district. He typed in his own message, but he was more certain of the destination than his new captain had been.
Port-to-Port: Taschin to Tsaigo, Hannover Shipping, 4487-2136
To: Forwarding Agent #843
My Lady of the Wings,
Our mutual friend hired me onto his crew. We leave tomorrow for Rapoen. Then Cenita, Ballison, and probably Arvin. We’re even taking on passengers, so it should be even easier to meet up with your friends. The rest of the crew are a mixed lot, but no military. I expect a smooth ride and look forward to hearing from your friends. I will check the message boxes at each port for more information.
-Your White Knight
He sent it on, paying the fee by cash and wiping down the keypad afterwards. He would have preferred to send it by private encryption, but there were limits as to what one could do at a public booth.
Stefan headed back out into the night. There was little else to do but return to the Sophie’s Grace, but he did not want to be the first. He could find something fun, a club perhaps. One thing was certain, though: he did not want to end up listening to Hindu folk music with that nerd of an engineer.
Chapter 7
“Remember: while a captain can cook, a cook cannot captain.” – Malcolm Fletcher
LIFTOFF PROVED TO BE ANTICLIMACTIC. Michael had always envisioned it with him sitting in the captain’s chair, listening to a junior officer relaying updates from traffic control, and then issuing the orders to his pilot. “Proceed” was the command he had imagined. He would say it casually with a nonchalant wave of his left ha
nd. In truth, he had practiced it in private moments since his 12th birthday.
As it turned out, however, he was the most qualified pilot of any of the crew. In fact, he had already piloted the Sophie a number of times under Malcolm’s command. So on this particular day, the captain’s chair sat empty while he manned the pilot’s console. During most of the trip, it was simply an alternate navigation console, but it did have the only flight stick on the bridge.
As for the junior officer relaying the updates from traffic control, it was his first officer Richard over at the systems console, but Michael had also put on a headset to hear it directly. It had all begun twenty-five minutes before their launch window with a long series of start and stop taxi maneuvers as they worked their way from the long-term parking berths back into the heart of the port and the launch lanes.
They were two minutes behind when the Sophie was finally given the go-ahead. “Sophie’s Grace, you are cleared for liftoff in lane four. Lifters are calibrated and ready. Your window expires in twelve minutes.”
He looked over to Richard and nodded. “Confirmed, Taschin control. Sophie’s Grace is on lane four. We’ll be on our way momentarily.”
“Safe flight, Sophie, and happy returns. Taschin control out.”
Michael scanned his board one last time. Everything was coded green. “Pass the word,” he said. “Take hold.”
Richard switched over to the ship’s PA. “All hands take hold for liftoff. Repeat, all hands take hold.”
Michael glanced over to Carlos at the navigation station, who shot him a quick grin and a thumbs-up. “All yours, Skipper.”
He pushed the throttle forward, and felt a slight rumble of the grav-pulse kicking in. They rolled down the launch lane building speed. About halfway down, the white stripes on the pavement turned to yellow, and he began to feel lighter. They were entering the port’s lifting zone where buried gravity plates started working against Taschin’s own gravity. Sophie’s own internal gravity shifted to compensate within the vessel, but it was a tricky thing for the computer to balance.
He kept his hands steady on the throttle and the stick as the stripes transitioned to orange and Sophie began to float up off the ground. Then, just as they entered the red circles of the launch zone, he pulled back hard on the stick and pushed the throttle all the way forward. There was a brief moment of disorientation as the internal gravity adjusted again, and then it all settled into a steady shake that lessened down to a mild vibration.
The Sophie was on her way, shooting up above the port faster than she could have fallen.
Carlos leaned toward him, looking at his console. “Is that reading right?”
“It’s right.”
“But that’s three fucking g’s!”
Michael nodded. Sophie had a full cargo load, but six of the containers were textile products, and that meant she was running with less mass than usual. “We’ll pull close to four once we’re past the atmosphere.”
Carlos gave a low whistle. “So our Sophie’s a real bearcat, is she?”
“A what?”
But Michael’s earpiece cut off Carlos’s attempt at a reply. “Sophie, Sophie, this is Taschin control. Watch your speed. You are moving out of your launch window margins.”
He nosed down a bit and eased off on the throttle, lowering them down to a hair under two g’s of acceleration.
“How should I acknowledge?” Richard asked.
Michael sighed. “Probably shouldn’t say eager pilot.”
Richard snorted and hit the transmit button. “Copy that, Taschin control. Sophie was just stretching her legs. Returning to prescribed launch profile.”
“Understood, Sophie. Next time, let us know, and we’ll give you more room to stretch. Taschin control out.”
They rode on that way in relative silence for several more minutes as they passed through the upper atmosphere. There was a brief exchange with Taschin station control as they passed the orbital lanes, but it was little more than a pair of acknowledgements. Once past the station’s orbit, Michael pushed the throttle back up to its maximum. Thirty minutes past that, he backed off the throttle, eventually taking it all the way down to nothing.
“Pass the word, secure from maneuvers. Sixty minutes to up-tach. Let’s try to get some lunch first.”
The word went out, and twenty minutes later the word came back from the galley. “You two go first,” Richard said. “I’m going to be on the night shift, so I’d rather wait until I can eat and then hit the sack.”
That made sense, so they went down to eat. Winner had made a hot little shrimp stir-fry that reminded Michael of some of Malcolm’s spicier dishes. Hector and Dieter joined them, but apparently Vivian had slept through the whole liftoff in preparation for the night shift. At first, their passengers clustered together at the aft table, but when Bill Caruthers, the wayward waiter, went back to the counter for seconds, he asked if he could join the crew.
Michael motioned to the seat across from him. “I don’t think we’ll be much on ceremony, but welcome to the captain’s table.”
They all laughed, but before the conversation really got started, Richard called down from the bridge. “Twenty minutes to up-tach.”
Carlos nodded to Michael. “I’ll go watch the bridge. You finish up here.”
He chatted with Caruthers for a few minutes and then stopped by for a few quick words with the other passengers when Richard came down and grabbed the last of the stir-fry. “Five minutes, Captain, and then I’ll see you again at nineteen-thirty.”
Michael nodded and went up to the bridge. Carlos was already at the navigation console. “Engineering reports ready. Dieter says he’s already got the sail on pre-deployment, and I’m reading smooth winds in the tachyon field.”
Michael took his seat in the captain’s chair. He had been in it before, standing bridge watches for Malcolm, but he had not sat in it since Malcolm’s death. It felt smaller than he remembered. He toggled the PA. “All hands, this is your captain.” He paused for a moment, somewhat astounded to hear the words coming from his mouth. “We will up-tach in two minutes. We expect a smooth transition, but stand ready.”
The clock counted down, and at one minute, Dieter called to report. “Sail generator stands ready and is slaved to navigator’s control.”
“Navigation confirms,” Carlos replied.
It was all routine. These people knew their jobs. It was a new ship for them, but they had each had other ships before, just as they would have other ships in the future. For Michael it was different. It was Malcolm’s ship and Malcolm’s chair, and he was about to make them his own. They could not know how far from routine this was for him.
At twenty seconds, Carlos looked back at him. “So, you sweating yet?”
Michael blinked twice and burst out laughing. He laughed so hard, he almost missed the countdown, but he recovered just in time to give his left hand a nonchalant wave and say, “Proceed, Mr. Rodriguez, proceed.”
“Aye, sir,” Carlos replied with a little snort of his own. He engaged the generator, and all around them Sophie’s invisible sail unfurled to take hold of the ever-present tachyons, leftovers from the inflationary burst after the Big Bang.
And that was it. They were underway. Carlos took them through two more transitions as the Sophie unfurled her sail to its fullest, and after twelve minutes, they were up to full speed of almost two and a quarter light-years a day.
Michael toggled the PA once again. “All hands, we are under tach and en route to Rapoen. First watch is on until twenty-hundred.”
Dieter reported that the sail generator was running smoothly and that capture rates were within operating specifications. Carlos confirmed and leaned back to watch the readings.
Michael stood and watched over his shoulder. In addition to the tachyon capture rates that Michael was used to in engineering, it also showed second and third derivatives of the passing tachyons in all three dimensions, plus spin-rate. There was no looking ahead at the winds,
because there was nothing to see them with. All they had was the equivalent of a very mathematical finger to hold up into the air.
He saw the third derivative of yaw flicker and go negative. “Hey, you’ve got an inflection point,” he said.
Carlos shook his head. “It’s a transient … there,” he said pointing as it went back to positive.
“But …” He let it trail off in a sigh.
“How did I know?”
“Yeah.”
“It was too sharp. Plus, I see these things in pairs all the time near ports. Yep, there’s the other one.”
Michael watched the graph as it turned negative. It was a pretty sharp turn, sharper than what he was used to seeing on the exams, and sure enough, it reverted back to positive within seconds.
Carlos adjusted the display to make the derivative windows larger. “Sometimes I think we’re passing through somebody’s wake or something like that, but the engineers tell me I’m crazy.”
Michael remembered his short time aboard the Blue Jaguar, which turned out to be a true-to-life pirate ship. Her navigation console had included wake detection alerts, something they had tried to hide from Michael’s innocent eyes. “Not as crazy as you might think,” he replied and peered closer at the derivates. The pitch derivatives flickered briefly but held steady.
“Can I help you, sir?” Carlos asked.
Michael realized he was crowding him and stepped back. “Sorry. I’ve been studying navigation a lot recently, you know, to qualify for my license. I passed, but my navigation still needs work.”
Carlos sighed. “Oh, good.”
“Good?”
He shook his head. “No disrespect, sir, but for a minute there I was starting to think you were going to be one of those captains who’s always watching your work and telling you how you’re doing it wrong.”
Michael laughed. “Dieter and Vivian might have to worry about that, but you won’t. If anything, you’ll be telling me how I’m doing it wrong.”
