by Adam Gaffen
Cass started to speak, thought better of it, then rethought. “I can’t see it being a problem, Captain, as long as she’s keeping up on her duties and rest.”
“No, but what if we run into an all-hands emergency and she’s on-planet?”
Cass saw the potential issue and considered it before shaking her head. “I still don’t see the problem, Captain. We’re well within portal range of the surface, so we can recover her and any other personnel in minutes.”
“Fair enough.”
Alley waited for Cass to see the issue she hadn’t raised. She wasn’t disappointed.
“I’ll have a chat with her, though. She ought to go through channels, if only to provide an example for her crew.” Cass checked her ‘plant and nodded. “It’s been a while since she was a subordinate; it’s probably habit for her to do what she wants, when she wants. Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good. Anything else?”
Cass actually hesitated. “One more thing, Captain. It’s personal.”
“Go on. You are allowed to have personal needs, XO.”
Cass was still reluctant but she continued in a rush. “The girls want to go to the surface. I’ve stalled them so far, but I’m running out of excuses, and the only way I can figure to keep them out of trouble is to go down with them and supervise. Closely.”
“So you need a day off?”
“Ideally, Captain.”
“Make the necessary arrangements. Who you want to pull into your watch?”
“I had been thinking of Van Leeuwen until you mentioned her issues. Her shift would be short, but Ensign Cornell could cover the conn, and I know Chastain would be available for consult.”
Alley juggled personnel in her mind. She knew everyone aboard, but she had to admit Cass, in her role as XO, knew them better. One of the challenges of command.
“Sounds workable. Makes even more sense now; I can have Van Leeuwen under observation for a shift and maybe have a quiet word with her too, Captain to Captain-to-be.”
“Really?” Cass couldn’t hide her relief.
“Really. I’m not an ogre, Cass. Not even that much of a hardass, not when my XO has everything running like clockwork.” She beamed a wicked smile at Cass. “Have fun on the surface with the girls.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am!” Cass snapped off a salute before returning a grin to Alley.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TFS Defiant
Stardate 12008.22
“’Captain’s Log, Stardate 12008.22. According to Nerio we have reached the halfway point to Alpha Phoenicis. No deviation from course from the Union ship. If they would just drop out of warp we could end this damn chase and go home! But that would be too considerate.’ Stop recording.”
Chloe sat and considered what she’d just said.
“Rio, erase everything after ‘Union ship.’”
“Erased.”
“Resume recording. ‘Crew morale remains surprisingly high, considering the disruption to their regular routine, and preparedness marks remain at or above standard. Should they drop out of warp, we’ll be able to make quick work of them.’ End recording. What do you think, Rio?”
“A much more balanced statement of the conditions, Captain.”
“I still wish they’d drop out of warp.”
“As do most of the crew, Captain.”
“Engineering to Captain Resler.”
“Go ahead, KC.” This couldn’t be good; the Chief Engineer was as taciturn an officer as Chloe had ever served with. She’d prefer to communicate strictly by message, if possible, and routinely sent her assistant to the daily status meetings.
“Captain, can you come down to Engineering?”
She didn’t have to think about her reply. “On my way. Lieutenant Wilder, you have the conn.”
Moments later she was in Engineering; Defiant wasn’t a big ship, and the request added urgency to her steps.
“KC.”
The Chief Engineer turned from the discussion she was having with one of her assistants.
“Captain.” She walked across the compartment and gestured for Chloe to follow. Chloe noted they were as nearly ‘private’ as they were liable to get and her unease grew.
“What’s wrong, KC?”
“The warp field is developing instability.”
“Is it going to fail?” Might was well jump right to the worst-case scenario and hope the Eng could put those fears to rest.
“Eventually, yes.”
So much for resting.
“How long?”
“It’s complicated, Captain. Short version, if we maintain this speed we can manage them. If we have to push to a higher warp factor, though, the instability will grow.”
“What sort of instability are you talking about?”
“How up on warp field theory are you, Captain?”
“Fairly comfortable.”
“There’s a piece of langasite, lanthanum gallium silicate, at the heart of the drive. We pass an electrical charge through it which directly correlates to the strength of the field we want to generate, and the oscillations produced are precisely measured. Passing the charge and converting it to oscillations cleans up the occasional messiness associated with electricity which we can’t allow to pass into the warp field.”
“So it’s a filter.”
“Exactly.”
“So?”
“As the crystal ages, it degrades, and the oscillation profile changes. SOP is to replace the crystal after eighty hours of use, though the crystals don’t usually display any degradation for up to double that, or more.”
“And we’ve been underway at warp for thirteen days,” Chloe said, understanding this part of the problem. “Do we have replacements?”
“Of course, part of the standard load-out. But I can’t replace it without dropping out of warp for roughly an hour, and it’s a fiddly process. Rushing it won’t wreck the drive if we get it wrong, but it will ruin the sample and we’ll have to change it out again.”
“We can’t drop out for an hour; we’ll never catch up to them!”
“Not entirely accurate, Captain; we can catch them, but we wouldn’t be certain of their course once they got far enough away.” Wardell shook her head and repeated her point. “No, we can catch them, but we will put a strain on the engines. That will cut the lifetime of the langasite, which will mean we have to replace the replacement sooner, and eventually they’ll do something we don’t expect and it’s game over.”
Chloe closed her eyes and took a deep breath before replying.
“You said ‘eventually’. What did you mean?”
Wardell looked unhappy.
“The langasite degrades along a steady curve based on the charge, age of crystal, and other factors. We can compensate for it, to a point, on the output end. We’ve been compensating for it for a week now. Unfortunately, it’s a geometric curve, and we’re reaching the knee pretty soon.”
“And when we hit the knee, you won’t be able to keep up.”
“Exactly.”
“How soon?”
“Rio. Time to failure?”
“Seventeen hours, eight minutes, forty-two seconds. Mark.”
“Do I want to know what happens when it fails?”
“Best case, we end up like the Defender.”
“No power and no engine room. Not good.”
“Worst case, we’re an expanding ball of plasma, and in about 46 years the light from our boom will reach Njord.”
“Worse. Right. If we don’t drop out of warp to do the replacement, either we get old in deep space or turn into an expanding ball of gas. If we do drop out, the target puts over twenty light-minutes between us every second. If we’re down for an hour, they add thirteen hundred light-hours gap!”
“Pretty much what I figured, Captain. I’ve been working the problem for ten days now, one reason Petty Officer Sirois has been at the meetings instead of me.”
“Recommendation?”
>
“We can’t catch them if we’re plasma, Captain. We’ve got to do the replacement. It’s not an option. We can push the drive easily to warp five; that will give us a nearly 2:1 speed advantage. I wouldn’t be happy pushing harder than 5.5 for anything more than a burst, but the way I figure it it’s still the same binary choice. Either we catch them or we don’t, and if we don’t I’d rather not be a light show.”
Chloe mused. “You have a point. And if we lose them, we can always return home. Wherever they are, we’ll arrive before them and can nail them when they drop out of warp in-System.”
She nodded to herself.
“Fine, KC. Do it.”
“Aye, Captain. I’ll set it up and be ready to drop from warp within the hour.”
“Thank you. Good luck.”
“Luck is for amateurs, Captain.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tycho Under
Stardate 12008.22
Two weeks had passed, and no action from Artemis City.
Two weeks of preparation for either an assault on Artemis, if Nicole and Stone had their way, or a desperate defense, if Mike’s most dire predictions came to pass.
Two weeks of waiting had the leadership of Free Luna on edge. Calling their condition ‘nervous’ was in contention for ‘Understatement of the Millennium.’ Worse, the fragile unity of their popular support was fraying as well.
Their core supporters, the ones Stone called the ‘True Believers’, hadn’t wavered. They were committed to the revolution, to reforming and replacing the current government for moral and ethical reasons. They were also more likely to have been closely connected to the original cabal and owed a personal fealty to them.
The most recent converts, the bulk of the general population, were also fairly steadfast in their support of the revolution. While they recognized, intellectually, the danger they were in from the current government, as long as they themselves were in no immediate danger they were more than happy to go along. This condition might change should Tycho and the other warrens face a credible threat. Until then? If there was work and money and food, they’d be happy.
It was the middle group which was most dangerous. These were the visible leadership of Tycho Under and the rebel warrens, the ones persuaded to come over to the revolution’s side. Politicians, business leaders, influencers, the common denominator was their public exposure. If, no, when Artemis attacked, and if Artemis prevailed, they were the ones most likely to face the consequences if they survived. Their support wavered as their perception of risks shifted. While none spoke openly against the revolution, their silence was message enough.
They hadn’t wasted their two weeks, though. All of the members of Autumn’s ‘inner circle’ had made the trip to Njord and gotten their implants and a crash course in how to use them. They’d also, with the urging of Nicole, signed off on the plan Kendra and Autumn had cooked up for the integration of Free Luna into the Terran Federation. They hadn’t yet announced it to the population, which was one of the subjects of today’s meeting.
“We gain nothing by keeping it under wraps,” Nicole was arguing. “Kendra made sure the Union knew as soon as you made the agreement! I don’t know why they haven’t turned it into propaganda yet but I’m not going to argue with their incompetence! Unfortunately, I know most of the people who are still on the Empress’s Council, and they’re not going to stay incompetent forever. We need to get ahead of this, not react.”
“And I say we hold it in reserve until things get bad,” Caitlin shot back. “Politics 101. You don’t play all your cards right off.”
“And things aren’t bad? The Right Honorable Randal Revay has been privately circulating a petition among the Tycho leadership to withdraw their support from us, and if Tycho folds where does that leave us? I’ll tell you,” she continued before anyone else could speak. “The only way we have a chance in this war is if we hold Tycho, right, Nicole?”
Nicole was surprised to be brought in to support the opposite position, but she hadn’t spent a year as Minister of War without learning a few tricks. “You’re absolutely right, Mistress Novak. We have to hold onto Tycho; it’s the central hub on Luna for all transshipments, far more so than Artemis City. But you overlook one important point, Mistress Novak.”
“What point, Mistress Crozier?” Caitlin returned the polite term of address, dripping with venom.
“We need the people to be vocal about supporting us, not merely passively supportive. When they’re passive, scum like Revay can work the edges, and you can see exactly how that’s going!”
“I agree with Nicole. Sorry, I mean Mistress Crozier,” amended Stone. “I’m just a retired SEAL; I don’t play in political circles.”
Jordan managed not to snort.
Bullshit, Chief.
Shut up.
“What she’s saying is correct, though. You use a weapon when it will be most effective, yes, you’re right, Mistress Novak. But sometimes you can’t wait for the most effective time; sometimes, you simply have to use it when it’s necessary. Now, your people are doing well with their training to be ground forces, but they’ve only had a few weeks. They’re not ready to do much more than die valiantly. As I understand it, if this Revay gets his way he might destabilize the situation here?”
“That’s putting it mildly, Chief.” Nicole was used to Stone by now, having worked with her for several months, and she thought she saw where she was going.
“Then we have to stop him. Now, I’m sure we could put together a plan to remove him from the equation, permanently, but, ah, let me finish,” she said as Novak and Newling both started to object. “But we’re not going to do so. That’s what the Empress does, and we if we start doing what she does why are we bothering in the first place? No, we have to stop him another way, and the only way I can see is to get the people fired up like they were on July 4th. You do that, and no politician will put their lily-white ass on the line, at least until the tumult dies down again.”
“Makes sense,” Jordan added in support. “I know when the folks in Houston got riled up about a law the mayor was trying to pass, they didn’t give him no peace until he backed down. The power of the people, you know? I figure it’s the same here as on Earth.”
“I’d like to tell them.”
“Then do it!” urged Stone. “I heard your broadcast on your Independence Day. You give a great speech! You want to bring them all back under you? Then announce joining the Federation and put your spin on it. Hell’s bells, I’ll bet Kendra would come down and deliver the speech with you if you asked her.”
Are you nuts, Chief?
Shut up, Alyssa! I’ve known Kendra lots longer than you!
Exactly! She’s crazy enough to do it!
One problem at a time.
“What do you think, Nour?”
“It’s a security nightmare right now, Autumn. Everyone’s scared, worried about what’s gonna happen next, which makes them unpredictable.”
“And unpredictable sucks,” Stone said.
“So, yeah, I agree with her. Make the announcement, do the speech. Let’s recapture the magic if we can.”
“Caitlin?”
The former and current diplomat was unhappy. “I wish we could use it later, but if we lose the people we lose the revolution. I agree.”
“Good. Chief, will you make the arrangements?”
“Naah, I’m not a secretary. Besides, you can just send Kendra a message now. Your ‘plant. Remember?”
Autumn had the decency to flush. “Nope. I didn’t. It’s a brave new world, isn’t it?”
“That it is, Autumn. That it is.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TFS Enterprise; Freyr
Stardate 12008.24
“You’re it!”
The taller sibling dodged the quick swipe from her older but shorter sister and dashed giggling towards the treeline.
“Don’t go too far!” shouted Audrey. Theoretically she should have been keeping up with th
em, but in the three weeks on Freyr not a single person had gotten so much as an insect bite, much less run across anything actively hostile. Most of the native animals actively avoided the noisy, growing compound the humans were building, and even the woods in the area weren’t thick.
“I won’t!” yelled back the tagged sister. The other one shouted something, which may have been agreement, but it was lost to her running. Their youthful energy, and their nanobots, enabled them to endure far longer in the higher gravity, but running and shouting were still two things which didn’t go together well. Vanek kept watch, listening.
Lisa avoided the lunge from her sister and dove for cover under a bush, briefly forgetting about the gravity and falling hard.
“Ouch! Time out!” she cried, remembering just before the outstretched hand could brush her leg.
“Aw, man! I had you!”
“I called time out, you heard me.”
Mikki pouted, but didn’t argue. Arguments brought adults, and they were having too much fun to want to drag some boring old person into it, even if it was Audrey. This thought led her to...
“I wish Aunt Mikki were here.”
“Oh, she’d love it!” agreed Lisa, sitting up and scrapes forgotten.
“Wanna look a little further?”
Lisa glanced back to the buildings. Mikki caught the glance and said, “We’re not far. We can still see them, right?”
“Right!” Fears allayed, Lisa stood and looked past the bush. “That way?”
“How about over there?” Mikki pointed in a different direction; not so much because she had any particular desire to go there, but simply to disagree with her sister.
“Okay!”
Hand-in-hand, they went further into the trees.
SIX PAIRS OF EYES LOOKED down from the cover of the foliage.
They’d been watching these big creatures and their strange doings, but staying well back.
They were agile.
Vicious.
