By Darkness Forged

by Nathan Lowell

  “For one thing, it doesn’t look like it was cobbled together from cargo containers, baling wire, and good intentions.”

  “Don’t say that too loudly at Mel’s Place,” she said.

  I laughed. “I think it’s high praise that an edifice build of common and mundane materials can be as majestic as Mel’s.” I swung the chair back around, facing forward. “Telluride feels a little sterile. Like a house that’s not lived in. Or a hotel room. Nicely appointed, but not really a home.”

  She looked back at the receding station. “I get your point, Captain. Functional but lacking character.”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  She smiled at me. “It’s more like an orbital than a station.” She glanced back at it. “It’s not a bad design. Just not a good one.”

  I sipped my coffee. I tried not to obsess too much on what we might find at that first jump but the farther we went, the more anxious I got. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Mr. Reed? How long will it take us to come to the next course?”

  “Minimum of a stan, Captain. Maybe as much as three depending on where we find ourselves in that pocket.”

  “Can you extend our current vector along our course line? Find a clean hole we could jump to almost immediately?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me but nodded. “One tick, Skipper.”

  It took him less than that. “I’ve got a hole just over one BU beyond our target, Captain. Deep Dark location on a line to Blanchard in the northern part of Venitz.”

  “Do me a favor and get that course loaded as soon as you can after we jump if you please, Mr. Reed?”

  He looked at me. “That will delay our course adjustment, Captain. I can’t plot the burn for Dark Knight.”

  “Understood, Mr. Reed.”

  He nodded and turned to his console.

  Al stepped over to me, standing by my chair. “Something on your mind, Skipper?” Her voice barely carried over the sound of the blowers.

  “Paranoia, I hope. I don’t know what we’re going to find in that hole. If we find something nasty, I want us out of there as soon as possible. Trying to come about in tight quarters with somebody who’s not happy to see us isn’t on my list of things I want to do today.”

  She nodded and moved back to her station. “Ten ticks to jump, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Ross.”

  Pip topped the ladder and took a seat at the auxiliary terminal. “Couldn’t stand the suspense,” he said.

  The chief snorted.

  “Well, the gang’s all here,” Al said. “Let’s hope we don’t lose hull integrity on the bridge.” She grinned in the darkness.

  “Morbid thought,” the chief said.

  “It’s a gift,” Al said, still grinning. “One tick to jump, Captain.”

  “Carry on, Ms. Ross.”

  “Mr. Reed, are we ready to jump?”

  “Course locked and ready, Ms. Ross.”

  “Ms. Fortuner?”

  “Systems ready.”

  “Chief?”

  “Sails secure. Burlesons charged and ready.”

  “Ship reports ready to jump, Captain.”

  “Ready about, Mr. Reed. Hard a-lee.”

  Reed punched the button but nothing happened for a few heartbeats. I was just about to speak when the stars shifted around us.

  “Sorry, Skipper. Should have warned you. We were about three seconds early. Timer needed to run down.” He tapped keys on his console. “Verifying position.”

  “Anything on short range, Ms. Ross?”

  “Nothing yet, Captain. We’ll need a few seconds to get a ping out and back.”

  “Capacitors, Chief?”

  “Barely put a dent in them, Captain. We can jump again immediately.”

  “Where are we, Mr. Reed?”

  “Right on the button, Skipper. Short jump. Small error.”

  “Al?”

  “Bingo. One large damn blip about a half-million kilometers.” She stood and looked to port. “That way somewhere.”

  “Anybody else here?” the chief asked.

  Al bent over the short range again. “I’m getting sporadic returns near the ship. I can’t tell if it’s just noise or some small craft.”

  The chief caught my eye and nudged her head to the side.

  “Mr. Reed. Reload our jump to Dark Knight. How long until we can get lined up?”

  “Checking, Skipper.” He tapped keys for a few heartbeats. “Less than a stan.”

  I glanced at the chief who gave me the slightest of nods.

  “Execute, Mr. Reed.”

  “Aye, aye, sar. Executing course correction.” He hit a couple of keys. The stars outside the armorglass appeared to shift in position as we rolled and yawed to point the bow in the direction we needed to go, while the heavier thrusters along the keel worked to change our vector. I could feel them rumbling under my feet.

  “Anything changed, Ms. Ross?”

  “Negative, Captain. Still have the intermittent returns but the big ping hasn’t budged.”

  “Record a track for it, best you can. We’re not going to be here long enough to get a good read, but I think we’ve proven the hypothesis about what happened to the mega.” I looked at Pip. “Happy now?”

  He grinned at me. “Almost, Skipper. Almost.”

  “Captain, those are small craft working around the larger ship,” Ms. Fortuner said.

  “Explain, Ms. Fortuner.”

  “I’ve run some post-processing on the data. I believe their movement causes the flicker effect as they maneuver.” She paused, peering at the screen. “There’s also a possibility that there’s at least one object between us and them.”

  “Wouldn’t we see it on short range?” I asked.

  Ms. Fortuner looked at Al.

  Al shrugged. “It’s a long way off. If it’s close enough to the mega, we may be seeing the effect of its shadow but not actually resolving it as a separate entity.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Fortuner,” I said. “Any way to get a better resolution on the short range, Ms. Ross?”

  Al shook her head. “Only by getting closer. I think we’re maxed at this range.”

  “Ms. Fortuner? Any number magic on the data?” I asked.

  “Nothing else I can see, Captain.”

  I settled back in the captain’s chair and pondered the short-range repeater screen on the overhead. “Anything on long range?”

  Al flipped some windows around on her console. “We’re clear out to five light minutes,” she said. “I’m getting a grainy return beyond that. How big is this hole we’re in, Mr. Reed?”

  “Nothing in the data, Ms. Ross. Big enough to jump into.”

  I raised an eyebrow in Al’s direction.

  “Yeah, we’re going to want to leave here before we find out how small it is, Skipper.”

  “How long until we can bend space, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

  “Five ticks and a bit, Skipper.”

  “Lemme know when it’s down to just a bit, Mr. Reed. We’ve got all we’re going to get here and there are people waiting for this can at Dark Knight.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Chapter 18

  Deep Dark: 2376, February 25

  The second long jump all but drained the capacitors. “How many jumps to Dark Knight, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

  “Two and a short one, Captain.”

  “Capacitor time, Chief?”

  “We can jump again in about three stans, Captain. We’ll have full cap in six.”

  “How short is short, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

  “Just under one BU, skipper.” He looked over his shoulder at the chief. “Those first two are at our jump limit at six BUs, Chief.”

  “Recommendations, Chief?”

  “We won’t have enough to make the last jump without at least a stan of recharge time, Captain.”

  I checked the chrono. We’d been at navigation stations most of the afternoon. “Here’s my plan, people.
Secure from navigation stations now. Give Ms. Sharps time to get the evening mess put together and taken down. Come back at 2000 for one of the jumps and secure for the night. At 0800 we come back and finish our run into Dark Knight. Any problems there?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Chief?” I asked. “Will that give us more than enough time for a full charge?”

  “It will, Captain.”

  “Mr. Reed? Any problems in astrogation?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Ms. Ross, secure from navigation stations. Set normal watch throughout the ship.”

  “Secure from navigation stations. Set normal watch. Aye, aye, Captain.”

  I stood and stretched my back out a little while Al made the announcement. “Chief, if you’d join me in the cabin when you’ve secured here?”

  “I’ll be right along, Skipper.”

  “Thank you, Chief.” I dropped down the ladder to clear the way for Cheuvront to go up.

  She smiled on the way by as I ducked into the cabin, leaving the door open. I had time to hit the head and get settled before the chief showed up at the door.

  “Come on in. We’ve got things to discuss, I believe,” I said.

  She closed the door behind her and settled into a guest chair.

  “What do we need to do now?” I asked.

  “Continue as planned,” she said. “I’ve got a report to make when we jump into Dark Knight. There’s not much I can do until then.”

  “What happens now that we’ve found the mega?”

  “Now we focus on hauling cargo and making stockholders like me happy.”

  “What about Pip?” I asked.

  “What about Pip?”

  “He’s been driving this since before we had the ship. It was all about finding the mega.”

  She shook her head. “He’ll file a report. He might collect a reward.”

  “We’re not going to have to do anything rash like board it, take it over? Put in a salvage claim?”

  “I’m going out on a limb here.” She settled back in her seat and folded her hands across her chest. “No. The last thing you want to do is take this ship back into that area of space.”

  “Can you say why?”

  “That would be the last thing you would do.”

  It took me a couple of heartbeats to parse her words. “I see.”

  She raised both eyebrows.

  “No, I don’t actually see the connection between those two ideas,” I said. “I trust that what you’re telling me is literally true and accurate. Since I have other things I might like to do in the future, I’ll pass on making another run through that particular place.”

  “Even if Pip insists on it?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to agree with her but closed it with a snap.

  “Good. You thought that through,” she said. “You need to know so I’m telling you. Emphasis on ‘need to know’ and ‘you.’ Not Pip. Not Al. You.”

  I nodded. “Message received.”

  “The people on that ship had at least one nuclear device they used to extort funds from stations around the Toe-Holds. We know that because they made a mistake with one and wiped out a station along with one of their ships. We recovered the ship—or what was left of it—and the crews they left behind. We know they acquired at least one more because they’ve been up to their old tricks. We don’t know how many they have, how many crews they have working, or much about the scope of their operation. All we know is that it’s operating—and I quote—‘out of the biggest damned ship I ever saw.’”

  “The mega,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Given the source? Almost certainly.”

  “So you’ve been looking for the ship to shut down this gang?”

  “Your words, but I won’t contradict them.”

  “How long have they been operating?” I asked.

  She shrugged again. “Hard to say. We know some stations disappeared. Well-established, well-run stations. We’ve nosed around and found some places that admitted they’d been the victims. Our data analysis suggests there are at least four others that are still paying them but won’t admit it.”

  “So they have some way to keep the pressure up,” I said.

  “Hence my insistence that this ship never go back there. They have no reason to make trouble for us. We didn’t linger. We didn’t get close enough to see much. We scrammed almost immediately.”

  “You don’t believe in ‘twice is coincidence?’” I asked.

  “I don’t believe in sticking my head in the oven when I know the gas is on,” she said. “If I’m right, these people have blown at least eight Toe-Holds out of existence and extorted Maude knows how many credits from even more. They’re not going to think twice about causing an unarmed freighter to not make it to its next port.”

  I nodded. “So, you’re leaving soon?”

  She shook her head. “Not immediately. I still need to verify that that was the mega, that its home base to a pack of rabid weasels, and that we’ve shut them down permanently. I’ll be here until that’s all settled.”

  “You’re going to do all that from your stateroom?”

  “Me? I’m just a chief engineer who happens to be an expert on starship propulsion. Where would I be if not working on a clipper?” Her grin would have looked right at home on any white-haired, storybook grandmother.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m trying to push that engineman into the academy. I’ve got his application filled out, but I need one more officer to sign it.”

  “Which engineman?” I asked.

  “Chong Go?”

  “The guy who’d read everything you’d ever written?”

  “That’s the one. He’s wasted as crew. His application is in your inbox,” she said.

  I pulled up the inbox and found the app. A couple of quick keystrokes added my digital signature to it and sent it back to the chief. “Done.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I recommended him?”

  “I know why.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes. You’ve observed him in his duties. You found him to be unusually competent, curious, and willing to learn. He works well with others and exhibits higher-than-normal levels of initiative and leadership, even when he’s not in positions of actual authority.”

  She blinked at me. “You didn’t read that on the application.”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t read that on the application.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  “Am I right?”

  “Yes, actually. Damn near spot on.”

  “I just thought of all the reasons you would have made such a recommendation. They’re the same ones I’d use. If he hadn’t had most—if not all—of those characteristics, you wouldn’t be asking me to endorse him.”

  She grinned. “You realize you just explained why Alys Giggone recommended you to the academy?”

  “Of course. It’s also the list of characteristics I need to be looking for in the current crew for my own recommendations.” I sighed. “And the reason I haven’t found them yet is because I haven’t actually looked.”

  “How’s it feel?” she asked.

  “Terrible,” I said.

  “If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be healing,” she said.

  “Intellectual understanding doesn’t obviate emotional pain,” I said.

  “Big words.” The chief grinned.

  “Mother was an ancient lit professor. She liked to challenge me.”

  “She did a good job,” the chief said.

  “She didn’t have much time with me,” I said. “I haven’t thought of her in stanyers.”

  “She’d be proud,” the chief said.

  I sighed. “Maybe. I still have a long way to go, I think.”

  “We all do, until that last day,” the chief said. “And then we don’t have any farther. I think you’re doing better than you think. Just keep going.”

  A knock sounded on the cabin door.

 
“Enter.”

  An SA opened the door and peeked around the edge. “Is this a bad time, sar?”

  The chief stood and nodded to me. “I’ve got an engine room to run. Thanks for the signature, Skipper.”

  “Come in,” I said.

  The SA stepped smartly to the side as the chief edged her out of the way. “Step forward. Stand at attention. Announce your name and rank,” the chief said in a stage whisper as she left.

  The young woman looked startled for a moment and then came to her senses. She took three steps forward, coming to a halt two steps from my desk. “Spacer Apprentice Kris Cross, sar.”

  “Relax, Ms. Cross. Have a seat.”

  She stared at me for a moment and then slipped onto the edge of one of the guest chairs. “Yes, sar. Thank you, sar.”

  “How can I help you, Ms. Cross?”

  “Well, Captain, it’s about the other day. In the mess deck?” She paused so I nodded for her to continue. “You said if we had any ideas about the ship?”

  “I remember, Ms. Cross. Do you have one?”

  “Yes, Captain. I do.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “It’s the spine, sar.”

  “What about the spine?”

  “It’s boring.”

  “Boring?”

  She nodded. “It’s long. It’s bland. You get partway down and you can’t tell which way is which. From the middle, both ends look the same. Captain.”

  “Really? I never noticed.” I stood, perhaps too suddenly because she flinched. “Show me, please, Ms. Cross.”

  She stood and I waved her ahead. She marched out of the cabin and I swung the door closed behind me. She marched down the spine. Literally, marched. I changed my footing and she matched it. I did it again and she matched it but glanced up at me.

  “Sorry, Ms. Cross. That wasn’t very nice of me.”

  She bit down on a smile and shrugged. “You’re the captain, Captain.”

  “People keep saying that.”

  She laughed and stopped about halfway down the spine. “Look at both ends from here, sar. Don’t they look the same?”

  I peered forward toward the bow and aft toward the stern. “I have to admit you’re right. They look very similar.”

  “Now what if this were an emergency, sar? Seconds matter.”