Judgment of the Bold

by Jamie McFarlane

  "Ada, get out of here! Move it!" Tabby said, pushing her friend back toward the hall. "Get that ship ready to fly. This is about to suck."

  Tabby turned back just in time to see a spider leap across the open floor and stab a long, thin leg through Clingman's body, pinning him to the floor as if he wore no armor at all. Sendrei and Tabby opened fire with their heavy blaster rifles, cutting the man’s body off the spider.

  In her peripheral vision, Tabby caught the advance of another creature and turned to meet it with her rifle. Moving more quickly than she expected, the man-spider got under the gun, forcing her to swing around and deflect a steel leg. If not for her preternatural speed, Tabby would have ended up just as Clingman had. With eight legs, however, the spider-man was already attacking with the others. Tabby found herself in a fight for her life as she spun, twisted, and jabbed her nano-crystalized, steel-reinforced hand into the armored skin, deflecting as quickly as she was attacked.

  The sound of steel on steel alerted Tabby to Sendrei’s battle, but she couldn't allow herself to be distracted. Pulling the Iskstar-crystal blade from her waist, she twisted up between thrashing claws and drove the blade into the bare chest cavity of the hybrid humanoid. The Iskstar blade, while no more effective than a sharp knife, penetrated the skin and brought the beast to the ground.

  Something steel clattered to the ground and Tabby surged forward, lifting away from the hybrid to take stock of the situation. Sendrei remained intact, but the fight would end soon. He was barely holding his own, even with twin swords, trying desperately to keep the relentless spider from skewering him. With a flick, she threw the Iskstar blade, imbedding it between the creature's shoulders.

  Not needing to be told, Sendrei bolted for the hallway. Tabby retrieved her blade and flew out of the room at high speed in her grav-suit. The sound of hundreds of metallic legs clicking on the floor was all she needed to hear. She swooped down and lifted Sendrei off his feet.

  "Grav boots," she urged as they sank. Their weight was too much for the grav-suit to have superior speed. "More thrust, I'll control us."

  Sendrei lit his arc-jets and Tabby struggled to keep them from careening into the walls as he straightened his legs.

  "Ada, we're coming in hot. Go!" Sendrei warned as they were twenty meters from the craft.

  "What about Clingman?" she called.

  "He’s gone, Ada," Tabby answered. "And we will be too if you don't get out of here."

  Intrepid lurched forward as Tabby and Sendrei exited, ricocheted off the front door, and squirted toward the open loading bay. With a final push, Tabby guided Sendrei inside. Unfortunately, her angle was high and they skidded across the ceiling before falling to the deck a moment later. Even as they fell, they were tossed into the aft bulkhead as Ada entered an in-atmosphere combat burn.

  "Jupiter piss, but that's going to leave a mark," Tabby said, slumping to the deck atop Sendrei as gravity dampers and inertial systems took over. "And why did it have to be spiders?"

  Chapter 14

  Overload

  Mhina System, Hornblower

  "Can you contact Munay?" I asked, reviewing the data-stream showing Fleet Afoot's rapid approach. With concern, I focused on the fact that the ship had already crossed the mid-point between where we believed he entered the Mhina star system and Kito. "Frak, he's moving way too fast."

  I projected his current navigation path, attempting to discern where he might otherwise be headed. Fleet Afoot would just miss the massive gas planet Elea and its moon Kito by eighty-thousand kilometers. From where he'd started his burn, that distance was barely a rounding error. If he missed Kito, his current path would take him out into the deep dark.

  "Fleet Afoot entered the system well after Hornblower," Nick said. "Hornblower isn't exactly stealthy. Munay should have been able to detect our presence."

  "Something's wrong," I said. "Sandoval, you copy?" I waited for Hornblower's transmission to make a round trip from our position to Kito. At one hundred thousand kilometers from the moon, there was only a slight delay.

  "Go ahead, Hornblower," Sandoval answered.

  "What's your fuel and consumable situation?" I asked.

  "Running thirty percent on fuel, fifty days of consumables for current crew," he answered.

  "Wait one," I answered, then spoke to my AI. "Calculate intercept of Fleet Afoot by Shimmering Leaves. Assume Fleet Afoot has zero fuel and is badly damaged. What materials do we need to bring both ships back with a significant safety margin?"

  I pushed my HUD's view aside and stepped onto the elevator. My AI would calculate the trip in micro-seconds, but I was having trouble walking and interpreting all the data being presented. Fortunately, my AI recognized my limitations and switched to audible.

  "Shimmering Leaves will need an additional eight hundred kilograms of fuel. Further recommendations include replenishing atmospheric crystals, water and the following medical …"

  "Stop, please," I ordered, causing the AI to cease its litany. Entering Hornblower's bridge, I slid into my chair, flicked my HUD display onto the holo projection and organized my AI's recommended loadout.

  "What's the plan for Fleet Afoot, Cap?" Marny asked, entering the bridge a few moments behind Nick and me.

  "Munay doesn't appear to be in control of the ship," I answered. "I'm sending Sandoval and Shimmering Leaves on a recovery mission. How soon will we be done offloading the freighter?"

  "Forty minutes," she answered.

  "Sandoval, please rendezvous with Hornblower at your earliest convenience," I said. "We're going to have you take on supplies and intercept Fleet Afoot. We're still working out the details and will give you a full mission brief on arrival."

  "Copy that, Captain," he answered. "We're on our way. Shimmering Leaves out."

  "Fleet Afoot could be having mechanical or system problems. I'd like to send Jester Ripples along," Marny said. "We could sweeten the pot by sending Semper to keep him out of trouble. Mind if I take this one over?"

  The little blue-green alien, Jester Ripples, was more of a friend than crew and Marny and I were both sensitive to treating him like family. He was a soft-hearted alien who enjoyed being part of a group and I knew he'd do whatever we asked. By sending Semper along, he'd have both a protector and companion. While I loved the little bugger, he could be a bit cloying, especially now that Tabby was gone. He'd decided my bed was available to be shared. I'll admit to feeling relief at the notion of a break from him.

  "Figured you'd be busy with the freighter," I said. "It's not like we don't have an enemy ship sitting next to us."

  "I believe that's well under control," Marny said, pinching at her HUD and flicking an exterior view from just behind the number one 400mm cannon. The cannon was pointed directly at the Strix freighter's bridge. Poignantly, someone had programmed a series of lights that ran the length of the barrel so they turned on and off in a sequence, indicating the imminent launch toward the freighter.

  "Subtle," I said.

  "Wasn't what I was going for," Marny answered, raising an eyebrow. "Change of subject?"

  "Sure."

  "I'd have thought Ada and Tabby would have passed Fleet Afoot," Marny said. "They didn't report seeing anything?"

  "According to Tabby, they've been sailing through the deep dark," I answered. "They haven't seen as much as a rock, much less Fleet Afoot."

  "I saw that the wormhole transitions weren't showing up on their scans, but I didn't realize that area was so empty," Marny said. "Hard to imagine they missed Munay."

  "They wouldn't have," Nick said. "No way would Intrepid miss that ship. Her sensor package is top-of-the-line."

  "I guess we'll know more when we recover Fleet Afoot," I said. "Mission is all yours, Marny."

  "Aye, aye, Cap," she answered, sweeping her hand through my holo projection, taking my current plans with her.

  I sat back in my chair, disappointed by the loss of a concrete task. As a leader, I rarely got to see tasks through to completion. Mar
ny had explained that delegation was important, not only in building new leaders, but in freeing my mind to focus on bigger, more important things. When described like that, the concept was reasonable. However, it generally meant I never got to finish anything.

  It turns out, there's a well-known problem for pilots called cognitive overload. Simply put, there are thousands of critical data-points that a pilot can focus on. Each of these data-points by themselves are important and a pilot has to get good at prioritizing them. For example, knowing that you're venting atmo is almost always critical information. That issue should receive immediate attention unless you're being fired on, are about to crash into something else, or dodging missiles, etc. In calm moments, it's always easy to identify top priorities. In the thick of things, not so much.

  The problem I was running into, however, was that there were too many open problems, none of which were being resolved. I had a ship full of people who relied on me to deliver them to a city that hadn't been functioning for almost two hundred stans. Strix ships were attacking my people and Intrepid was off on a mission that had taken them to either another galaxy or possibly the empty space between galaxies. Abasi were under attack from within by Taji and no doubt would soon be under attack from Pogona. The problems seemed endless and I was at a loss as to what to do next.

  "You doing okay over there, Cap?" Marny asked, breaking me from my reverie. She was at her station a few meters from where I sat on the bridge. She was busy dispatching orders about the supplies being loaded and was relaying commands to Shimmering Leaves.

  I looked over to her but found that I couldn't form much of a response. "I think so."

  She stood and walked back over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. I felt the warmth of her body and the connection of her hand seemed to ground me. "I need you to get in the moment, Cap," she said. "If it isn't a priority in the next twenty-four hours, you need to let it go."

  "There's so much," I responded, looking into her eyes.

  "Not today, there's not," she said. "In fifteen minutes, you're going to land this old girl on Kito and we're going to focus on getting York settled. Kroerak will wait. Munay will wait. Strix will wait and, frankly, so will Abasi. You have twelve-hundred people who are depending on you to stay on target. Anything that distracts you from that plan is out of bounds. You copy?"

  I nodded my head in agreement as the issues fogging my brain dissipated and I focused on settling the new town of York.

  "Mom, Bish, Merrie, Hog, Nick, please report to the main conference room," I called. "Steward Bear, we're going to need a fresh pot of coffee."

  "Aye, aye, Captain," Bear answered immediately.

  "There you go, Cap. I'll get Sandoval and Jester Ripples on their way and join you," she said.

  "Helm is yours, Captain," pilot Ken Stolzman said, transferring control as I jumped into the empty pilot’s chair. Hornblower had just touched the outer atmosphere and while I would have preferred to give the controls to Ada, she wasn't here.

  "Sorry, son," Mom said, tapping Stolzman on the shoulder. "I'm going to need that chair."

  I smiled, looking over to Mom as she relieved Stolzman from the starboard chair. Having served in the North American Marine Corps as a drop-ship pilot, Mom had hundreds of combat flight hours. She might be rusty, but I trusted her instincts and welcomed her presence.

  "Aye, aye, ma'am," Stolzman answered, recognizing he really had no other choice.

  "Our mass to lift is tight," Mom said, dialing through the various displays. "Are you sure we don't want to drop some weight in orbit before we go planet-side?"

  "We'll be okay," I said. "Landing has to be easier than lifting off from Zuri. We're looking at .65g not .89g."

  "Frak, right," she said. "Surprised my AI didn't catch that. We're still going to blow a lot of go-go juice."

  I switched my calculations to use the .89g and saw what she'd seen. Hornblower would have landed, but we'd have likely made quite an impression when we did.

  "That what you jarheads called it?"

  "Damn straight," she said.

  "Not a lot to be done about the 'go juice'," I said, drawing air quotes. I knew that would annoy her. "Livestock is stressed. We need to get this done."

  A vibration rolled through Hornblower as we hit the upper atmosphere. I pulled back on the sticks, slowly orienting the battle cruiser so its massive engines pointed against the pull of the moon’s gravity. From this point forward, I'd be limiting our fall much more than I'd be sailing. For atmospheric entry, I much preferred smaller ships like Hotspur and Intrepid, both of which had gravity repulsors powerful enough for controlled flight. The thought of our lost ship, Hotspur, gave me a pang of wistfulness. The small sloop would be vastly outclassed given the problems we currently faced, but the joy of sailing the nimble little gal brought back good memories.

  "Silver finger for your thoughts," Mom said.

  I couldn't afford to look over to her as I carefully watched the myriad gauges, adjusting control surfaces in turn to keep us in perfect line.

  "Kind of hoping to keep us from going splat at this point," I said.

  "No, that's not it," she said. "You were smiling."

  "Thinking about simpler times," I said as we started jiggling even harder. "Nick, can you do something about that?"

  "Got it, Liam," Nick answered and the jiggling dropped off considerably.

  "Whoever says old ships aren't like old lovers has never sailed," she answered.

  "Mom! No! Eww," I said.

  "Focus," she said, chuckling and pointing out a potential problem I'd already seen but hadn't reacted to yet. "And don't be naïve. Pete was the love of my life, but he was hardly the only man I knew. And I seem to remember a few girls back on Colony-40 that took quite a shine to you."

  I rolled my eyes. I knew her well enough to know that if I kept responding, she'd keep pushing. I had pretend-dated when I was younger, but had only really ever had eyes for Tabby. And I certainly hadn't felt about those girls anything like I had Hotspur or even Sterra's Gift.

  "Nick, spool up those gravity systems. I'm going to cut over in twenty seconds," I said.

  The process of landing the ship was straightforward, although I'd never personally executed the maneuver. Engineering, or in this case Nick, would bring up our gravity repulsors when we were at roughly three thousand meters. It would be my job to feather out our engines while at the same time, powering up and then down the other systems. According to Ada, the most likely error was overcompensation on the repulsors, which would cause us to bounce upward.

  "Looking good, Liam. Nice and steady," Mom encouraged.

  I suspected the twelve hundred people aboard were focused on the details of their new home, which they'd decided to call York. I could imagine them trying to locate homes they'd eventually have to draw lots for. For Mom, Nick and me, however, there was a three-hundred-meter-diameter landing pad that had our full and undivided attention.

  "Drifting aft," Nick said.

  I glanced at our inertia and discovered he was right. I'd been fighting a weird port slide and had momentarily been distracted.

  "Got it," I said. "What's with the clouds? I've lost visibility."

  From twenty thousand meters, we'd been given a great view of the region below. Clear Lake was a brilliant, sparkling, cerulean blue. The image fought with my recollection. I suspected the confusion was caused by the white blanket of snow coating the entire land mass.

  "Hornblower is kicking up snow," Nick said. "You'll have to rely on instruments."

  The visual data, while reassuring, was mostly unnecessary. The only issue would be if the snow was covering a significant change from the survey Sandoval and Lathrop had done when they'd first arrived a few days previous.

  I took a deep breath. "All hands, prepare for touch-down in ten … nine …"

  Someone opened the ship's public address so all twelve hundred ninety-two people could hear and join in as the AI finished the countdown.

  I'd
like to report that I landed perfectly without a bounce or a bump. The fact was I did both. In my defense, landing Hornblower as weighed down as she was, was like landing on a water balloon. I almost had a perfect touchdown at the point where the downward force became completely arrested and the repulsors only held the mass of the ship. This was exactly what Ada had warned about, but I thought I had it handled. We only bounced up about three meters. Of course, I did what any self-respecting pilot would do in that case, I over-corrected in the opposite direction.

  Joyful cheers at a safe and soft landing were abruptly cut off as we swung up again and people realized things weren't exactly going as planned. When we landed hard, there were complaints, but the cheering soon returned and I took that to mean there was no harm done. Turned out I did disable a few. Really, my maneuver only dislocated one shoulder, tore a few tendons, and broke three fingers. I never did get a good accounting about how the particular injuries occurred.

  I sighed and pushed back from the controls. "Any landing you can walk away from?" I asked, looking to Mom for reassurance.

  "Battle cruisers aren't exactly designed for atmospheric operation," she said. "That was a first-rate piece of sailing, Liam. Same to you, Nicholas. Very impressed with the both of you."

  "Pretty sure Ada didn't bounce," I said.

  "She wasn't carrying twelve hundred ninety-two souls and twice that in livestock," Mom argued back. "Someday you'll look back on this and understand just how important that landing really was. The people of York owe you everything and you're worried about a little bump."

  "I bet they're chomping at the bit to get out," Marny said, rescuing me from the conversation.

  I'd always been uncomfortable with praise, but it felt good. I knew Mom wasn't the type to pull her punches. I also wished Tabby had been there to enjoy the moment, so I thumbed my ring to let her know I was thinking of her. Almost immediately my own ring pulsed in response.