Packmule
Page 14
Now, it meant that he just had to touch all the gauges and confirm that everything was still on the beam.
“Galin, what is your status?” Heather suddenly called over the radio, bringing Granville back into the present tense.
She had walked to the middle of the quad again and was facing Caravan across about forty meters of open field.
“Last bolt turning now,” Galin called. “Ten seconds to clear.”
“Ground crew, confirm your cables,” Heather said next.
“All cables free and ready, Ground Control,” someone replied.
Granville knew everyone on this mission, but not by voice alone on the radio. That would change quickly enough, though.
“Kam, you will have terminal guidance,” Heather said. “What is your status?”
“Crane is in place,” the Chief Engineer replied. “We are ready for the bow section to be put into alignment so we can guide it home.”
“Caravan, what is your status?”
Granville triple-checked, because what was coming was that important.
“Caravan is green, Ground Control,” he replied.
“Galin?”
“Last bolt free,” the engineer replied. “I am departing the derelict now.”
“Caravan,” Heather said. “Come to a clean hover and line up on me.”
Granville couldn’t suppress the immense smile on his face as he powered the shuttle up and brought her into the air, an extension of his fingers and his will.
Like before, Heather guided him closer, standing in the middle of everything like a war goddess on a battlefield, as she moved all her pieces around slowly with her hands in an industrial ballet.
Cables attached. Elevation until they turned into violin strings. Markus in the Towtruck joining his symphony.
Hands off the joysticks, he directed the autopilot with single clicks, a pianist only slowly working his way up to Rachmaninoff from a cold, hungry, jazz intro.
This bow separated with only a little effort, perhaps jarred loose in the same way that the other bow had been nearly welded in place.
In the background, Queen Anne’s Revenge lifted off and slid across the plateau low and fast, a hawk seeking chickens rather than a shuttle going for orbit. Granville barely registered the ship’s departure, except to note the dust she kicked up as a measure of the idle breezes outside.
So far, so good.
“Caravan, hold in place,” Heather ordered.
He had the new bow pulled across the sand now, but they had done it so lightly that it trenched a line barely wider than his palm as they did. The repulsors hummed angrily, but their temperature held steady and the engines delivered smooth power.
On the underside camera, he saw Galin clambering over the vessel with new cables, running up to a pulley on the top hull of Persephone.
She had a name now. And a mission.
Shortly, a heartbeat.
The engineer did his esoteric magic with cables and geometry before running clear of the vessel. Nobody was safe, with this many tons of steel possibly rolling around, but unless a cable parted, he could protect his friends.
His friends.
Yes, he had truly come home.
Centurion Granville Veitengruber, RAN. Not even a flight centurion. But still an officer and a gentleman. And a commander of a cutter, if he wanted it bad enough.
And he did.
“Caravan,” Heather said over the open line. “Bring it up about fifteen centimeters and hold. Ground crews, keep all lines firm so that it does not swing.”
Assents everywhere.
Granville took hold of the joysticks again. The computer wouldn’t react as fast as his sense of touch, and harmonics would be worse than bad right now. If he let the bow section swing too hard, he could ruin both pieces and they would have to start over, possibly with a badly damaged vessel that they might only partially repair.
No, he wanted this warrior, this Persephone.
Fingertip pressure on the joysticks. Just a faintest lean into a breeze that was so light he thought he might have imagined it, except that the ship stayed aligned as he lifted.
“Kam?” Heather called.
“Stand by,” the woman answered. “We’re close but not aligned cleanly. Maybe as little as one centimeter low, clockwise side.”
“Kam, this is Caravan,” Granville said. “Everybody hold firm and stand by. I’ll lift it.”
“You’ll need to rotate the piece in place, Caravan,” Kam answered sharply. “We’re on true with the beam.”
“Roger that,” he called. “Stand by for rotation counter-clockwise.”
Deep breath. One centimeter of rotation in place, with cables that could stretch more than that under the load and part with too much stress from the shuttle overhead.
Granville heard the symphony play in his head. Found the note on the violin that the conductor wanted.
He closed his eyes and let his fingers play the note, moving the insertion shuttle in six axes of motion at once: X, Y, Z, Pitch, Roll, Yaw.
The song changed. Granville felt it in his soul before the sound even made it as far as his fingers. He froze exactly in place, a single chip of diamond falling perfectly from the larger stone to render the last cut perfect.
“Caravan, hold there,” Kam said an eternity later.
It had been less than a second, but Granville’s soul was already running faster than his heart, almost JumpSpace speeds across the vastness of his imagination.
“Ground teams, board the derelict and start setting your sockets now,” Heather called.
They had to be careful, not to knock the ship off the twenty pegs it was hanging on, but Granville smiled. He let the ship drift again, just enough to put weight on those twenty-centimeter bolts, and then hold them in place, pulling ever so slightly backwards to hold the two pieces in union.
On the camera, bodies ran towards the ship, impact hammers and prybars held out like swords and polearms for battle.
“Caravan, what is your status?” Heather asked.
“We are resting clean on the cables, Ground Control,” he answered proudly.
“Can you lower yourself in place without torqueing?” she pressed.
“Affirmative.”
“Good,” Heather said. “Down one and forward one. I want to see it lean on the pegs, but I want you there to hold it if it slides.”
It wouldn’t slide, but he didn’t tell Heather that. In that last movement of the symphony, Granville was sure he heard Persephone herself awaken. She would hold everything now, while Galin and the others did their job.
The ship, this goddess Persephone, was ready to rejoin them on the surface, after a winter in hell. She could return to the land of the living.
As could Granville.
Homeward Bound (October 18, 402)
Granville grinned as Persephone lifted high enough that the star cleared the horizon above them, a dawn in reverse.
“Engineering, everything looks good on my boards,” he said into the internal comm.
She was running with a skeleton crew today, just in case something went wrong. Just him on the bridge, trying to handle everything, and Galin Tuason aft, watching the power systems. Between them, one of the engineers Granville had only met on this mission was monitoring life support.
“Engines appear to be holding,” Galin replied. “Generators are badly out of tune, but we knew that and won’t fix it here. JumpSails claim to be working normally, but we won’t know until we try.”
“Roger that, Galin,” Granville smiled even broader as the ship pushed them higher and higher. “Life Support, what’s your status?”
“All boards clean,” Isiah replied. “Mix is a little rich, but I’m doing that on purpose, in case something breaks. With only three of us, that buys us an extra hour before we have to go into suits.”
First-Rate-Spacer Isiah Olshefski. A farm boy from the suburbs of Ladaux, the beating heart of Aquitaine. Helping a former slave wage war for
the Empire. His first crew, since Galin would go back to Packmule after this mission.
And the joke about suits wasn’t idle. They had lived in them for more than a week on the surface, removing them only to have an occasional shower and reset the suits themselves. Even now, his helmet was attached to a hook on the console nearby, where it wouldn’t float off if they lost power or grav-plates.
C-4268 had been down on Three for almost twenty years before it provided the stern two thirds of this vessel. C-4711’s bow had been there for eleven. Nobody was entirely sure how long everything would run before breaking, but they had taken time to strip parts off the other vessels and stuff them into Caravan’s containers.
Now they just had to make the run to Lighthouse Station.
“Persephone, this is Heather,” her voice came over the comm.
Granville had never programmed a laser-link communication network, but he had experts who could, and it worked. That was good enough.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Everything looks good externally,” she continued. “Prepare for orbital insertion.”
“Roger that.”
Granville checked his boards and sighed. Straight up, hold in place, and then jump clear when Queen Anne’s Revenge joined them. On one screen, he could see Caravan climbing into orbit with them. Chief Engineer Rushforth had apparently been trained to fly vessels like that at one point, and volunteered when they had more vessels than pilots. She and Heather were trailing them to orbit, where Saddlebags had already docked with Packmule.
“All vessels, this is Phil,” the admiral joined them now. “Double broach complete and Evan confirms that the solar system is clear. Queen Anne, start your ascent.”
CS-405 had just done something so amazing Granville still got chills thinking about the orbital geometry necessary.
While the corvette stayed in the shadow of Three, relative to Mansi-B, Captain Kosnett had drifted far enough sideways that they could see the backside of Mansi-D,. There had been a very slim chance that the Hammerhead had been bluffing about its departure, and had instead slipped into the one blind spot CS-405 had, from which the Hammerhead could hop around the gas giant and ambush the squadron.
Granville had seen the cone of various sensor shadows projected and overlapping, and he would have thought it was too small for his old fighter craft to fit into and remain hidden, let alone a corvette. But the Science Officer and the Admiral knew their stuff.
And he was one of them now.
Just as Persephone was.
“Galin, make sure we’re charged, and prepare for transition to JumpSpace,” Granville said. “Next stop, Lighthouse Station.”
Read More!
Be sure to read all three of the CS-405 books!
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
Available at your favorite retailers!
About the Author
Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer, The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Collective, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places.
Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors (Kobo, Amazon, and others). His newsletter comes out quarterly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!
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Also by Blaze Ward
The Jessica Keller Chronicles
Auberon
Queen of the Pirates
Last of the Immortals
Goddess of War
Flight of the Blackbird
The Red Admiral
St. Legier
* * *
CS-405
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
* * *
Additional Alexandria Station Stories
The Story Road
Siren
Two Bottles of Wine with a War God
* * *
The Science Officer Series
The Science Officer
The Mind Field
The Gilded Cage
The Pleasure Dome
The Doomsday Vault
The Last Flagship
The Hammerfield Gambit
The Hammerfield Payoff
* * *
Doyle Iwakuma Stories
The Librarian
Demigod
Greater Than The Gods Intended
* * *
Other Science Fiction Stories
Myrmidons
Moonshot
Menelaus
* * *
Earthquake Gun
Moscow Gold
* * *
Fairchild
* * *
White Crane
* * *
The Collective Universe
The Shipwrecked Mermaid
Imposters
About Knotted Road Press
Knotted Road Press fiction specializes in dynamic writing set in mysterious, exotic locations.
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Knotted Road Press creates DRM-free ebooks as well as high-quality print books for readers around the world.
With authors in a variety of genres including literary, poetry, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, Knotted Road Press has something for everyone.
Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
Packmule
CS-405: Book Two
Blaze Ward
Copyright © 2019 Blaze Ward
All rights reserved
Published by Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
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ISBN: 978-1-64470-026-6
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Cover art:
ID 20990394 © Nmarques74 | Dreamstime.com
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Cover and interior design © 2019 Knotted Road Press
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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