Fearless

by Allen Stroud

  “A slim chance is better than no chance, Captain.” Johansson manipulates the image again, returning it to the flat screen to show our position and course. She keys in a sequence, and a second line appears that intersects ours. “This is the projection of our intercept. We’ve been told the Gallowglass wants us alive. If we can get them in close without starting a fight, the percentages change.”

  “Agreed, but we need more control over this encounter.” I examine the intersection. “What’s out there?” I ask.

  “Sorry?”

  I tap the cross on the screen. “That location. Is it the optimal interception point or has it been chosen for some other reason?”

  Johansson’s forehead pinches in concentration. “I’m not sure, Captain. I’d guess a judgement was made to exhaust our fuel reserve as much as possible, making it more difficult for us to fight back.”

  “What about if we don’t slow down?” I ask.

  “Then we drift out into deep space.” Johansson widens the view on the screen. “We’ve been turned away from Phobos to make the interception easier. We won’t pass a trade lane or anything. The farther we go, the less chance we’ll have after we fight the Gallowglass. Besides, if we don’t stop, they’ll know something is up. They’ll get in range and fire more guided rockets at us.”

  “Sort of like the situation we were in before, but without a place to run to.”

  “Yes. The Gallowglass could just stalk us for weeks in the darkness, waiting until we run out of air and water. Then close in and wipe us out.”

  “Okay, but can we alter this a bit?” I ask. “Decelerate faster so they have to maneuver to find us or slower for the same?”

  “Slower might be possible. However, if they scan our position, they’ll adjust accordingly.” She traces a new line across the screen.

  I nod. “If they do that, we lose the advantage. We need them approaching in a straight line, along a path that’s almost the same as ours.”

  “We can counter that if we drop some explosives along that trajectory,” Johansson says. “Just a case of plotting the course of their approach.”

  “You mean like the mines plan Duggins suggested?”

  “Yes, we could use it to discourage their course change. My recordings indicate we damaged their manoeuvering anyway. Drop a rocket with a guidance system on board to get to the run position and then go dark. They’ll either detect it and adjust their heading, or run over it and take the damage.”

  “Either way we gain something.” I’m thinking out loud now, using Johansson as a muse. “What about our destination? Are there any known objects or markers nearby? Anything bigger than a spec of dust that we can use?”

  Johansson touches the console. “Strategy, to bridge?”

  “Bridge receiving,” Keiyho replies.

  “Commander, the captain is asking if we have any scan data on our rendezvous point.”

  “We can initiate a sweep. Is that authorised?”

  Johansson looks at me and I nod. “Yes, it’s authorised,” she confirms. “Can you stream the results to us here as you get them?”

  “Will do.”

  “Of course, we can make our own debris if we want to,” Johansson says.

  I tap on the cross. “Yes, and that’s made easier if we adjust our course to overshoot in a straight line so they’ll follow our path.”

  “Giving us more control,” Johansson says.

  “Exactly.” I’m staring at the graphical representation of the Gallowglass on the map. “Duggins said they’ll get into communications range and expect a reply. Bogdanovic has offered to talk to them, provided we surrender to him and Sellis first. We can make the course adjustment before we agree to anything.”

  “You’re going to surrender?” Johansson asks. “Like we did with Rocher?”

  “No, I’m trying to work out the constants and variables,” I reply. I’m thinking over what happened when we responded to the Hercules. I had to make choices based on the information available. I need to put the Gallowglass in the same position. “Could you synthesise a voice based on the ship’s recordings of Bogdanovic?”

  “Possibly,” Johansson says. “But wouldn’t they think of that?”

  “They’ll have to play the percentages like we are and take some educated guesses,” I reason. “A quick scan of the Khidr will tell them we’ve had to replace our transmitter. No visuals and intermittent communication might be a result of that.”

  “What if they have a secondary protocol, or a code?” Johansson asks. “No synthesiser is going to get around that.”

  I nod. “If they are insurgent cells, they may not even know who they’re expecting to meet, other than Rocher. Bogdanovic seems confident, though. I think you’re right; there’ll be a code.” I pull up the archive again, putting the file list in the centre of the screen. “We still don’t know why they want us alive. If we did, we’d know how much of a risk we can take. There has to be something here or on our ship that they want.”

  “Another problem is, we don’t know how badly they want it,” Johansson says.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Shann

  An hour later, the deceleration begins.

  It took a combination of Le Garre, Chiu and Johansson to hack Jacobson’s programming. The kid was supremely talented, and he’s a big loss to us any way you look at it. The only way they could convince the braking thrusters to ease off was to persuade the ship we weren’t travelling as fast as we are. That’s meant ship-wide calibration inaccuracies.

  But it’ll be worth it.

  The Art of War is a famous military textbook that had survived and stayed relevant to us for more than two millennia. It was supposedly written by Sun Tzu – a Chinese general who lived in the fifth and sixth centuries BC, so more than 2,600 years ago.

  In the late twentieth century, the principles of Sun Tzu became motivational words for business talks and the mantra of commerce go-getters. The cheap comparison of war to trade implies the stakes in both arenas are the same and that we’re fighting to survive every day of our lives. A revered military text becomes the ultimate capitalist dogma, creating a competitive culture that trivialises the taking of a life by comparing it to making a living.

  Out here, Sun Tzu’s writing is useful in its original context. Warfare is based on deception, he says. That means holding things back. I don’t know if I can trust the remains of my crew. It’s surprising how much you have to adjust your thinking, particularly when you live with the people you’re holding back from for months and years at a time.

  That’s why I’m in here alone, separated from the rest. I need to establish distance and detach myself if we’re going to get through this. Later, I’ll go back, but for the moment, here is where I feel comfortable.

  The Art of War also has a section about ‘shaping the enemy’. This is all about choosing your battlefield and trying to control the condition of your opponent as they come to the fight.

  The final part of the laser-scanning data comes into the strategy room as I’m strapping myself in. I’m disappointed. Keiyho’s found nothing we can use, just a whole lot of big empty.

  But that doesn’t mean it needs to be empty when the Gallowglass arrives.

  “We’re ready to launch the powered mine, Captain,” Le Garre tells me.

  “Launch when ready, Major,” I reply.

  “Aye, aye.”

  The push of braking is light but constant, around half a g or so, I guess. I close my eyes and try to relax. The crew have their instructions. By the time the preparations are finished, we’ll be at a dead stop at the end of a debris field.

  “Captain to bridge.”

  “Bridge here, go ahead.”

  “Keiyho, what’s the last recorded position of the Gallowglass?”

  “She’s about two hours from our scheduled stop, Captain.”r />
  “Okay, thank you.” I’m working out the distances. The slow deceleration means we can still work. We need the time for running repairs and improvised upgrades. In a few minutes, the Gallowglass will scan us and know we’ve overshot the rendezvous point. They’ll start looking to change course, turning inside our vector, but their scan will pick up the mine we’ve deployed. That’ll leave their captain with a choice – stay on course and assess the gap when they’re on the same course plot, or turn and engage the mine with their own weapons.

  If it were me, I’d do the latter, unless…

  “Shann to bridge.”

  “Bridge here.”

  “Begin transmission and increase deceleration.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  Warfare is based on deception. A patchy broadcast of voices, stitched together by Johansson from whatever she could find in the ship’s data archive. I gave her permission to check every recording for samples of Rocher, Bogdanovic and the rest. There are recordings of the fighting too, screams of people wounded and dying, all put together to create the narrative we want them to believe: the Khidr is decelerating, someone on board the ship is transmitting, trying to get the attention of the Gallowglass, while the crew and rebels fight for control of the ship.

  Dead traitors like Jacobson, Ashe and the others will perform one last loyal service to help us.

  “Bridge, wait ninety seconds, then execute phase three.”

  “Confirmed.”

  The last part of the plan. Every piece of cargo, debris and rubbish we can find has to be flung out of the airlock and jettison tubes. Sections of the ship that were damaged in the last altercation have already been sealed off and cut away, with small explosive charges detonated to remove them and push them away in our wake. When we’re done, the Khidr will come to a stop at the end of a trail of destruction.

  This is the hard part. We’ve thrown away everything we could find. That includes the dead. Technician Drake, joins his comrades, Ensign Thakur, Sergeant Tomlins, Lendowski, Andelman and Orritt, who were all blown into space during the last altercation. The crew don’t like it; they understand but don’t approve. There’s an emotional debt we’ll all pay in the end when we have to second-guess some of the choices we’re making, if we survive.

  When we survive.

  I remember conversations with veterans during my basic training. They said war never leaves you. Once you’ve been there, forced to choose your life over someone else’s, your life changes. There’s a clarity that comes with making that kind of choice, a framing in your mind that makes everything binary – good and evil, right or wrong.

  One of the old men I spoke to told me how embracing that frame made everything bearable when he had to make the shitty decisions, but he warned me too. Afterward, you have to be able to come back, he said. You have to be able to let go.

  I guess it’s like being colour blind in a way, only about perception and judgement, not sight. I can feel the trauma waiting for me, lurking in the back of my consciousness. I know it’s there, but staying at war, defining the world as them and us keeps it away and justifies my actions. Jacobson’s face in those last moments is there. He’s staring at me, accusing me. I have to ignore him, but sooner or later I’ll have to stare back.

  Right now, I need this clarity. But it can’t define the rest of my life.

  My portable screen is synced with the displays around the table. I pull up the tactical plotting. A line-drawn, three-dimensional image of the Khidr appears in front of me. The velocity numbers are descending; they aren’t accurate, but the rate of change is.

  “Bridge, can you detect any alteration in the Gallowglass’s course?”

  “Nothing yet, Captain.”

  If I die out here, it’ll be right. Space is where I’ve lived – where I came to life. I’d have been happy being left in the void, like Drake or one of the others. If my dead flesh could give my crew one more second, one more minute to survive, I’d call that a worthy end.

  There. That’s said. That’s how much they mean to me. My people, forged in vacuum and betrayal. There’s no point in doubting them now, waiting for another traitorous act. We have to play the hand we’re dealt and see how it all turns out.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to die. But I have to accept it’s an outcome.

  My body is pushing against the chair straps. The deceleration has increased. I can see the fuel reserve readout flashing. We should be left with about three and a half per cent. More than we’d first thought. Whatever fuel we have if we survive will be used to push the ship toward Phobos. If we’re not found, we’ll reach there in about eight months.

  Of course, we’ll all be long dead by then. Killed by traitors, asphyxiation or starvation, or a mixture of all three.

  “Shann to Duggins.”

  “Duggins here.”

  “What’s our weapon status?”

  “Three launchers are now configured to fire.”

  “You managed to fix one?”

  “Yes, Captain. We cannibalised some parts before we began ejecting debris. The launch tube is now powered, so we can use it just like the other two.”

  “Good work.”

  “Thank you. We’re working on the improvised weapons as agreed. I’ll give you an update on those when we have them.”

  “Great.”

  Three working rocket launchers. That’s the same number that the Gallowglass had when we fought them. The difference was they also had two laser turrets. We had one, and lost it in the fight.

  Both types of weapons are dangerous. If a rocket breaches the hull of either ship, the flash-fire explosion could end things pretty fast. On top of that, the Khidr isn’t built to withstand laser cutting. There’s a nanotube ceramic coating over most of the hull, which helps, and some sections are plated with aluminium oxide, but ship-mounted lasers are powerful enough to break through these enhanced materials. If those weapons hit us for an extended period of time, they’ll cut right through corridors, rooms and the rest, just like they did before. Once they are within two hundred kilometres or so, the only real defence against a laser is to get out of its way or shut it down.

  Again, the straps bite a little harder into my shoulders, and I notice the fuel reserve tick down, past four per cent. We’re nearly there.

  “Bridge to Captain Shann.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Captain.” It’s Travers over the comms. “We’ve received a priority message from the relay point. It’s addressed to you.”

  I blink. “Lieutenant, we have been radio silent other than the broadcast to the Gallowglass, correct?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Then what could this possibly— “Okay, patch it through to the screen here.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  The main display fades into black, and an encryption box pops up. I tap in my authorisation code, and the United Fleet flag appears. The words ‘authorised admiralty transmission’ are in white underneath the logo.

  I’m paying attention.

  A man appears on the screen, staring straight into the camera. I recognise him by reputation. It’s Admiral Langsley, a member of the Defence Committee, back on Earth. He’s balding, with liver spots across his pale forehead. His eyes are red and watery. He looks every day of his seventy-plus years. He’s wearing a military uniform, but the collar is undone, making him look even more dishevelled. This isn’t the way he usually appears in the media broadcasts.

  “Captain Ellisa Shann. I hope this message finds you in time. My office has received word that you and your crew are intending to investigate a distress call from the freighter Hercules? I’m recording and sending this message to you immediately telling you to stand aside and ignore the transmission. We have reason to believe this signal is false. The Khidr is to continue with its regular patrol, while Fleet determines an appropriate response
to the signal. I…”

  There is a pause. Langsley’s eyes flick nervously to someone behind the camera. I lean forward in my chair, staring at his face, trying to read what’s going on.

  Langsley’s head dips, in a barely perceptible nod, as if he’s receiving instructions. He licks his dry lips, blinks rapidly and then resumes. “You are ordered to maintain your current heading and provide an update transmission in twenty-four hours confirming your position.”

  Abruptly the screen goes black. A moment later, the data displays I had available return.

  I’m left to contemplate what I’ve just been told and assess what remains of my resolve.

  “Shann to Travers.”

  “Receiving.”

  “What was the date stamp on that transmission, please?”

  There’s a moment’s pause. “According to the log, just under twelve hours from when we sent our request for the Hercules inventory.” There’s another pause. “Actually, Captain, it’s exactly the same date stamp as the data archive you received.”

  “So, we were definitely in range of the communications buoys to receive it back then?”

  “Yes, Captain. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t waste time on it, Lieutenant. You have plenty to be getting on with.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  At face value this is an impossible situation. If I’d have received these orders when they were sent, the Khidr would have been en route to the freighter and I would have had a decision to make over continuing on, or obeying the order, correcting course and returning to our patrol. As it is, we know Admiral Langsley’s information was incorrect; the Hercules was indeed under attack from a hostile ship – the Gallowglass.

  I think the only person on board who has seen this message is me. My security clearance opened the file. The only other way to get into it would be to break the encryption or use some sort of authorised back door. If there’s another traitor on board, they could be in either category.