by Brian Smith
“Any sign of their torch plume in the telescopes?”
“We’re looking,” Ashburn replied. He glanced around the bridge; there was nobody else here but Jackson and the duty quartermaster, but it was still a little too public. Ashburn asked Sommers to take a walk with him, and after Sommers disbursed drinks to the others, Ashburn led him off the bridge and back to his quarters, where he spilled his guts about everything Sommers didn’t already know: the favor Campbell had asked, his conversation with Boss Forester, and everything subsequent. Last, he confided that he’d hand delivered copies of his data to Captain Xiang aboard Dejah Thoris—the reason for that expensive round trip between Titan and Hyperion in Banth One.
After Ashburn laid it all out, he voiced his real concern to his friend: that something bad might be awaiting Thuvia as she decelerated into the Trojans. “Am I being paranoid?” he asked.
Sommers grinned wildly. “Hey, captain. Just because you’re being paranoid doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t out to get you!”
Ashburn had to laugh at that one, but he was also serious. “Okay. So should I be worried, or not?”
“Well, you’re the captain—being worried is your job, although you don’t need me to tell you that. I know it bothers the navy types and makes them laugh at us, but, hell, why not make the call and ask for an escort in? It’s not like they’re doing much else out there except drifting around and burning good deuterium. It’ll give ’em something useful to do, anyway.”
Ashburn thought about it, but former prejudices and a desire to not be labeled a ninny by his former colleagues made him decide against it—for now. “Hell, I’ve probably just got new-captain jitters,” he said, forcing a laugh. “I’m going back up to the bridge. See you later for chow?”
“Sure thing, bossman.”
Ashburn returned to his station on the bridge, where Jackson was still plugging away at keplers. The quartermaster shook his head grimly when Ashburn asked for an update on locating a torch plume. Given the amount of time they’d already spent looking, it boded poorly.
She’s definitely gone dark for some reason or other, Ashburn told himself. Okay, Dakota, put on your old navy hat and start thinking tactics.
He sat down and worked out an alteration to their trajectory. He started by putting himself in the shoes of a pirate or corporate raider. Worst case: one armed with a couple of torpedoes, which could be seeded like mines and then switched on as a surprise when the ship was too close to evade or escape them. The slower the ship was moving when something like that happened, the easier the firing solution for the bad guys. Ashburn thought about the best place for that in terms of location and velocity and came up with an area of probability.
Then he strained his brain to remember the longest effective range for a ship-launched torpedo and added that to his area of probability, expanding it accordingly. Last, he parabolized the ship’s trajectory around that bubble of space and factored in a slight decrease in her deceleration, which would get them around that bubble a little faster but force him to burn harder at the far end to shed the excess velocity. Anyone lying out there in wait, darkened and drifting along the ship’s approach lane, would be able to spot this course variation within hours of his implementing it. Figure another hour or so for ill-trained criminals to plot their own course correction, and then decide how late to wait before throttling up and giving themselves away for the inevitable chase.
The longer a potential raider waited to throttle up, the harder and faster the burn to intercept Thuvia. His calculation was based on a pirate’s easiest solution: killing them outright. If someone wanted to board and take Thuvia relatively intact, the problem was a lot harder and he had more options and advantages. In the meantime, as the ship precessed slightly on the course change, he’d be able to point a telescope or two down her original track and watch for the sudden appearance of a torch-plume between Thuvia and Achilles Habitat. He figured it would happen in about seventy-two hours, if it was going to happen at all. If it did, he’d know—and act accordingly. All in all, he thought the solution was an elegant compromise, bought at the expense of a little extra deuterium.
“Gina, stand by for updated keplers. I’m ordering a course change.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Ready.”
Ashburn sent Jackson the updated data. He watched as she looked it over, wondering if she’d correctly interpret what he was doing. She wasn’t a former naval officer; in fact, she had no military background at all, but she wasn’t stupid. He finally saw her nod, grasping what he was about.
“I think that’s an interesting idea, skipper,” she said slowly. “I just don’t understand why you think it’s the slightest bit necessary. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Deety, does it?”
“Just humor me.”
“Yes, sir. Implementing,” Jackson added, sending the numbers to the astrogation computer. She slapped the acceleration alarm, and the klaxon rang briefly throughout the ship. “Attention, passengers and crew. Stand by for precession and reduced acceleration in two minutes. We’ll be reducing thrust to 0.28-g until further advised. That is all.”
Halsey Naval Station, Mars
CW3 Cheryl Ayers sat at her station in the large open office where she worked at 4th Fleet headquarters. She’d settled in rapidly; two and a half decades in the navy had taught her to take new assignments in stride. She had reported aboard as something of a mild celebrity, given her recent award of the Meritorious Service Medal and the knowledge that she came to Halsey from Reuben James. Her easy manner and low-key personality enabled her to fade rapidly into the background again, which was generally how she liked it. Admiral Wright’s staff was large enough that cyber warfare and intelligence were two separate divisions. She’d taken over the cyber shop, but after multiple assignments in smaller commands where she’d led the combined-cyber/intel division, it was hard for her to concentrate solely on one and not the other. The hardest thing for her to get used to this time around was a return to wearing traditional textile uniforms rather than shipboard spacing jumpsuits. It was a long time since she’d worn simple working khakis or service dress to work, and it felt like she didn’t have enough pockets by half.
Halsey Station wasn’t bad at all, though. Ayers was able to work, eat, and exercise in steady full-g, just like being home on Earth. Her quarters were located higher up, toward the center of spin, so she was able to sleep and relax in a lighter-g field during her off hours, which was nice as well. Halsey Station had lots of clubs; great recreational facilities; tons of “green walls,” gardens, and arboretums for mood enhancement and air quality; and regular shuttle service Mars-side. Not only that, there were several open-air parks in which the station architecture was opened to provide high, dome-shaped overheads with visuals designed to mimic Earth as closely as one could expect. Except for missing her old shipmates aboard Reuben James, Ayers was well pleased with the assignment. Of course, it was not like she had stepped into a vacuum—after a long navy career, there was nowhere she could be assigned and not habitually run into several former shipmates, friends, or familiar faces.
Although she had no shortage of tasks in her virtual in-box, it was made plain to her that her primary task was to aid in the search for Gabriel Rogan, or with anything else having to do with the Mars Independence Movement. Given her cyber-warfare specialty, her interest was primarily in trying to sort out how the MIM had gone about the task of hiding their members’ identities and strongholds, and how they attempted to manipulate networks and information. There was also the counterwarfare aspect of the job, which involved preventing cyberattacks and information hacks against navy systems by outside intruders. What she came to realize fast was that her opponents in the MIM were not amateurs. In fact, she had to admit that she was at least on a level playing field, if not perhaps at a slight disadvantage. For someone with her experience, education, and years of service, it was eye opening and invigorating at the same time—it had been a long time since she’d see
n a worthy opponent at her own game.
Ayers was in the habit of keeping the newsfeeds running in the background; her AI assistant was coded to flag her if something came up that was relevant to what she was working on, or even just something interesting. She wasn’t alone in this; several of her people did the same thing. This time CT3 Rockland, one of her cryptologic technician ratings, beat her AI to the punch.
“Hey, Ms. Ayers, take a look at the Marsnet newsfeed on Stream Three.”
“Thanks, Rocky, I’ll take a look,” Ayers replied.
She called up the newsfeed in her snoopers and saw that a Mars-based trading company, Barsoom Traders, was reporting that one of its big commercial torchships had gone missing somewhere between Saturn and the asteroid belt while en route to Mars. Ayers frowned slightly; she firmly disavowed any interest in driving torchships around the solar system, but she was fresh enough off Reuben James to know the current planetary alignments, and that Vesta was sitting right between Saturn and Mars right now. For a merchant, a straight burn bypassing Vesta was like leaving money on the table. That prompted Ayers to call up what data she could find on Barsoom Traders, which in turn led her straight to Ty Forester and the Crandall Foundation. The information was interesting, but it didn’t raise any flags. At least, not yet. Still . . .
“Rocky,” Ayers called.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do me a favor, will you? Are you familiar with the protocol in the instructions for creating a database snapshot?”
“I can look it up in two seconds.”
“Do that, please, and take a snapshot of the existing database for all Class I through Class III commercial torchships.”
“Whew! That’s going to be a big-ass file! May I ask what for?”
“Listen and learn, youngster: nefarious types don’t take big ships like that very often. It’s hard to do and draws a lot of unwanted attention. When they do it, however, they have to find a way to cover their tracks after the fact, and ships like that don’t just disappear unless they’re torn down for parts. So, what we do is take a snapshot right now, and in a couple weeks we go back and take another. Then we turn an AI sifter loose on the problem and let it try to sort out the new identity a stolen vessel is flying under, if any. There’s a subroutine that also filters results based on the way they could tweak the reactor to alter her drive signature—it narrows down the candidates considerably. If or when we locate a suspect vessel, we turn it over to operations and they’ll find an excuse to run her down and board her. This is how we catch criminals, flip them, and penetrate their networks, rather than just burning them to ash with particle beams and nukes. Cool stuff, innit?”
“How do you stop hackers from just altering the database records?”
“You don’t even try. That’s why we take the snapshot now and download it to isolated hard storage. The expectation is that someone is going to hack the civil database and alter it, but they can’t alter a nonnetworked hard copy, can they? Once we find the discrepancy later, we have a starting point to get after them, either up here or though one of the civil law-enforcement agencies. It’s sort of like laying a data trap. See?”
“Ma’am, this whole thing is in 5th Fleet’s area of responsibility. It happened beyond the asteroid belt.”
“That’s starting to sound suspiciously like an attempt to dodge work, Rocky.”
“It’s also an intelligence deal, not cyber warfare.”
“Is this your first duty station out of A-school?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, someday you’re going to get assigned to a small boy like a frigate or destroyer and find out you’re doing two—or three—people’s jobs instead of just one. Consider this training for that eventuality,” she replied, smiling inside but starting to feel a small burn of irritation. A request from one’s senior was nothing more than a polite way of phrasing an order—not an invitation to argue. What the hell are they teaching these kids in boot these days? she mentally growled to herself.
She needn’t have worried; her work-center chief had tuned into the conversation, and he appeared at Rocky’s workstation, making his displeasure known with a look. “I’ll see that it gets done, ma’am.”
“Thanks, chief,” Ayers replied, going back to her original work.
She pretended not to overhear as the chief proceeded to put a profanity-laced verbal boot up Rockland’s ass: a little old-school rudder correction. Although it was necessary for the sake of discipline, it made her mentally wince—Rockland’s first impulse the next time he ran across something interesting would be to keep his mouth shut. She had an idea how to fix that when the time came—if this bit of extra effort turned up anything useful.
Now, back to the hunt for Gabriel Rogan. Where are you hiding, asshole?
Barsoom Traders Torchship Thuvia
Vicinity of the JL4 Trojans
“Well, I guess I was about due,” Mike Ashburn commented to the ship’s doctor. He was lying in the infirmary, hooked up to the diagnostic equipment.
Miraz Donato was a physician’s assistant rather than a full M.D., but for Thuvia that was probably still a little bit of overkill when it came to their medical needs. Except for the fact that the torchship often carried passengers, Thuvia probably could have gotten by with just a nurse or an EMT, along with their trusty autodoc.
“I thought I was sucking too much wind in the gym, even for as long as I’ve been away from Earth,” he added. It was his body’s response to his recently ramped-up workout regimen that had prompted him to pay Donato a visit.
Donato nodded, moving over to a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of cheap scotch, along with a couple of glasses; as if on cue, Jerry Sommers strolled into the infirmary, grinning broadly. She shook her head at the purser’s apparent display of ESP and pulled down a third glass. She poured, and handed a glass to each of the two men. Donato then produced a good-size sealed container, held it over the captain’s glass, and pressed a couple of buttons. A mist of dark specks fell into his drink.
“This is how you do it—way better than just letting the autodoc inject you,” she grinned. “Captain, since you’re the beneficiary, please do us the honors.”
Ashburn hoisted his glass. “To Raymond Crandall,” he said. The others echoed him and he emptied the glass; Sommers and Donato just sipped theirs. He held it out for Donato to recharge, both with scotch and nanites. “Here’s to Melinda Crandall,” Ashburn said, and repeated the process. He screwed up his nose slightly. “Man, I swear I can feel those things going down,” he added as Donato charged him up a third and final time.
“Nonsense,” she smiled. “You could inhale them and not really notice. C’mon, captain! Bottoms up!”
“Here’s to Maria Vasquez and Chryse Planitia U,” he said, drinking down the final batch of treatment. Ashburn extricated himself from the autodoc and stood grinning at Sommers. “Go ahead, Jerry—I know you love this part.”
“I so love it,” the purser admitted. The three of them drained their glasses to the dregs and held them high. “Ready? Wait for it . . . Screw cancer!” he bellowed, and the three of them hurled their glasses against the deck, shattering them. Two small cleaning bots immediately detached themselves from their bulkhead sockets to clear and recycle the broken shards. The purser looked sidelong at Ashburn. “How many times is that for you, captain?” he asked. “You’ve been spacing almost twenty years, now.”
“I’m not quite that old,” Ashburn argued, “but that was my third dance with Mindy. It’s just a fact of life out here. You live in space, you pop positive every decade or two.”
“Give it two weeks and you’ll be completely clean again,” Donato promised. “Y’know, this isn’t even a novelty any more. In a decade or two people won’t even do the toast—it’ll be just like getting treated for a sinus infection or something.”
“Well, thank God for that,” Ashburn replied solemnly. He gestured to his arm. “Hey, Doc, hit me with an ethanol neutralizer, will you
?” he asked.
Donato raised her eyebrows. “Really? You? Get outta heah!” she laughed in her genuine-Jersey accent.
Ashburn grinned tightly. “No, really,” he said.
She shrugged. “You take all the fun out of being cured of cancer, captain,” she groused good naturedly. Sommers waved goodbye and left the infirmary. Now that the drinking was done, he obviously had work to do in preparation for the arrival at Achilles Habitat.
Ashburn waited patiently while Donato rummaged around and found what she was looking for. She gave him a pneumatic injection, and that was it: there’d be no impairment from the few belts of scotch he’d just had. She was right, he had to admit—it did sort of take the fun out of it, but he wanted a clear head right now. If anything strange was going to happen, Thuvia was already in the window of opportunity.
***
It began less than two hours later.
Ashburn was back on the bridge; he’d hardly left it in the past three days. He spent most of the time watching Thuvia’s optic feeds, sweeping the ship’s powerful astronomical telescopes along the line of their former course. The ship’s computer was assisting him with the observations, as it was beyond his ability to pick out a new star with his naked eye, or it should have been, except for the fact that he just about had that patch of the celestial sphere committed to memory by now. When the bright pinprick of light appeared practically in the middle of the constellations of Capricorn and Aquarius, he saw it nearly as fast as the computer flagged it. An hour more was enough time for the measurements to yield a substantial parallax, and spectrographs pegged the light source as a definite torch plume. The object was a torchship of some kind; it was relatively close; and it was converging on their track.
“Mr. Sandoval,” Ashburn announced formally.
“Yes, captain?”
“I relieve you. Please remain on the bridge to assist and handle communications.”
“Yes, sir, I stand relieved. Quartermaster, Captain Ashburn has assumed the watch. Please make a note of it.”