by Ryk Brown
“It is highly unlikely that we will encounter any traffic,” Tug insisted. “This particular asteroid was chosen due in part to its location. Most of the asteroids in the area have already been mined to their limits, so there should be no interest in that particular region.”
“What are you planning on doing once you get inside this rock?” Marcus asked.
“Once inside and securely docked, we should be able to power down many systems and more easily conduct repairs. While we’re there, we’ll be sending Tug and Jalea to Corinair, along with a load of ore to sell. They should be there for at least a day, during which they will procure more supplies and attempt to make contact with members of the Karuzari that may be hiding on Corinair.” Nathan looked around the room again. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Marcus grunted. “How long we gonna hideout here?”
“As long as it takes, but no longer than necessary,” Nathan said, intending to be vague. “We make that determination on a day-by-day basis. All right, we’ve got about thirty minutes until we’re ready to jump. So you might as well get suited up and ready. Good luck.”
Nathan stepped down from the podium and quickly exited the room with Cameron on his heels. “How did I do?”
“Okay,” she answered. “Confident, relaxed. Not bad, considering you got lost on your way to the briefing.”
“Don’t be insubordinate,” he told her with a wry smile.
Nathan stood at the tactical console, reviewing the deep system scan reports that Kaylah had performed over the previous few hours. They had collected more than enough data to confirm the accuracy of the star charts translated from Tug’s fighter, and Abby felt confident that her plot into the system was a safe one.
Deliza again stood by Abby’s side. Since she had begun working with her on using one of the dead shuttle’s computer cores to make jump calculations, the two had become inseparable. Nathan suspected that, whether she was aware of it or not, the physicist had taken on the role of surrogate mother in the wake of the death of Deliza’s real mother.
“Bridge, Nash,” Jessica’s voice came across the comm-set.
“Go ahead,” Nathan said over his comm-set.
“We’re all suited up and ready to go down here.”
“Very well. Have your pilot taxi out onto the flight deck. I want you guys ready to launch the moment we arrive.”
“Copy.”
Nathan looked down at the console, noting that the shuttle was already moving out of the hangar and into the main transfer airlock. Within minutes, it would be positioned outside the ship, sitting on the flight deck exposed to space. They’re going to have quite a show, he thought.
“Helm, put us on an intercept course for the jump in. Match velocity to the orbital velocity of gas-giant.”
“Yes, sir,” Cameron responded. She had been sitting at the helm since they had returned from the pre-jump mission briefing nearly thirty minutes ago. She had received the navigational data from Abby at least ten minutes ago, and she had already verified and entered it into the Aurora’s nav-com long before Nathan gave her the order to do so. But she knew that he was just going through the motions, making sure he didn’t forget anything.
“Attention all hands,” Nathan called throughout the ship. “Stand by for jump in one minute. Repeat, we jump in one minute.”
As the shuttle rolled out of the transfer airlock and onto the open flight deck, Jessica-who was sitting in a jump seat directly behind the flight crew-couldn’t help but notice that neither of the pilots seemed to know exactly where every control was located in their cockpit. “Uh, you guys have flown one of these before, right?”
“Define flown.” Loki asked, a bit of uncharacteristic sarcasm in his voice.
“You know, launch, fly around, and then land again… safely, I might add.”
“No worries, love,” Josh chimed in with his usual arrogance. “They all fly the same way.”
“Yeah, it’s just figuring out where all the little buttons and switches are that’s the tricky part.”
Jessica looked at Loki, then Josh, then back to Loki again. “You guys are messing with me, aren’t you?” She leaned back into her seat, either confident in her revelation or just not wanting to know the truth.
Loki glanced back over his shoulder, “Of course we are,” he assured her. He shot a guilty look over to Josh, who returned the expression in kind. Loki repositioned his helmet mic and contacted the Aurora. “Aurora, this is Shuttle One. We are in position and ready for departure.”
“Copy that, Shuttle One, Stand by. Oh, and guys, don’t forget about the flash,” Nathan reminded them over the comms. “We don’t need two blind pilots.”
“Copy, Aurora,” Loki answered as he dropped his darkened visor from the compartment along the top of his helmet down to cover his eyes.
“What’s with the Shuttle One?” Josh asked as he dropped his own visor into place.
“What was I supposed to call us? Shuttle Two?”
“Well what do we need a number for? We’re the only bleedin’ shuttle around.”
“In case we get another shuttle later, I guess. What do you care?”
“At least you could’ve come up with something cool, like Recon Shuttle or something.”
“Listen, you just fly this thing, let me talk on the radio, okay?” Loki insisted.
“Standby to jump in five,” Abby’s voice counted down over the comm.
“Don’t get all testy,” Josh teased. There was nothing he liked more than pushing Loki’s buttons.
“Four.”
“I’m not getting testy.”
“Three.”
“Yes, you are. Like a little girl you are,” Josh prodded.
“Two.”
“Everyone close your eyes,” Jessica instructed the passengers.
“One.”
“Little girl, am I?” Loki said, beginning to take offense.
“Jump.”
Outside the shuttle, the bluish-white light again shot out from the emitters on the hull, quickly connecting them and covering the ship in a light that almost instantly intensified into a brilliant white. Through their polarized visors, Josh and Loki could see the hull of the Aurora outside, a momentary white halo covering and contouring to her hull lines. When the light subsided, the black star field was instantly replaced by the image of the massive, turquoise gas-giant that filled the sky in front of them, except for the blackness off to their starboard side.
The sudden arrival of the massive gas-giant gave them both a start, causing them to jump slightly in their flight couches.
“Whoa!” Loki screamed.
“Jesus! That’s the coolest thing ever!” Josh exclaimed.
“Cool? I just about pissed myself!” Loki admitted.
“Shuttle One, Aurora. You’re cleared for launch.”
“Copy, Shuttle One, taking off,” Loki replied as he lifted his visor.
Josh immediately fired the thrusters, pushing the ship up and away from the flight deck of the Aurora.
“Visor, dumbass,” Loki said to Josh, who still hadn’t raised his polarized visor.
“What’s that smell?” Josh asked, pretending to sniff the air as he raised his visor.
“I said almost,” Loki defended.
Josh looked at his displays, and then glanced out the windows of the shuttle, checking his position relative to the Aurora. “Hang on!” he called out to his passengers as he fired his thrusters again, slid the shuttle sideways, and then rolled off over the Aurora’s starboard side. He fired his mains at full burn, throwing everyone back into the seats as he drove the shuttle away from the Aurora at a steep angle.
“It’s going to take a lot of velocity to break orbit from that big bitch out there,” Loki warned.
“Stable orbit achieved,” Cameron reported.
“The shuttle’s away,” Nathan reported, after checking his console displays. “Kaylah, any contacts?”
“Negative, sir. The area is clear. But
there is a lot of traffic around Corinair, as well as the asteroid belt itself. But it all seems to be avoiding this area.”
“I guess Tug was right,” Nathan said.
“Let’s hope he’s right about the hideout as well,” Cameron added. As much as she disliked the idea of piloting the ship into a giant cave in space, she preferred it to sitting out in the open in a system that was regularly visited by Ta’Akar warships.
“Abby, are you plotting an escape jump?” Nathan asked.
“Yes, sir. But we’ll have to get some distance from this planet before we can safely jump. Its gravity well is enormous.”
“Cam, plot an intercept course to meet with the shuttle halfway, in case we all have to clear out in a hurry. Abby, you can plot your escape jump from anywhere along her intercept course.”
“Yes, sir,” Abby answered.
“It looks like it will take them at least a couple of hours to get there,” Cameron informed him, “even at a full burn.”
“I guess all we can do is wait.”
The climb out of the gas-giant’s gravity well had been long and difficult. The noise of the shuttle’s main engines fighting to break free of the planet’s hold on them had been deafening. Even closing and sealing their helmets had done little to reduce the ear-splitting whine.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the shuttle finally broke free of the planet’s gravity and reached its cruising speed. The whine of the engines suddenly ceased as Josh ended the long, torturous burn. But instead of a much welcomed silence, there was the steady, grating sound of Marcus, the former harvesting crew foreman now turned shuttle crew chief, snoring away.
“For all that’s holy,” Josh chuckled. “The man is like a plasma drill,” he declared as he climbed out of his seat and moved back into the main compartment. When he reached Marcus, he carefully plugged in the life support umbilical from the ship to his suit, and gently closed and sealed his helmet. Finally, the snoring was reduced to a tolerable level.
“That’s better,” Josh decided, taking a seat next to Marcus and across the compartment from Jessica. “The man can sleep through just about anything,” he joked.
“You’ve known him for a while?” Jessica asked. Part of her was curious, and part of her was just making small talk.
“Since I was little. My mom was a worker on his team. She died. Marcus took me in, took care of me as best he could. He’s been sort of like a father to me.” Josh looked at Marcus as he continued to snore away. “A loud, obnoxious, drunken, bastard of a father,” he laughed. “Took good care of me though.”
“How did you end up flying?”
“Used to steal his credits when he wasn’t looking. Spent them down at the VR game arcades. Nothing but flight games. Didn’t care much for the other ones. Got damn good at them too. Finally, Marcus here decided it was cheaper to pay for flight school than to keep losing his money to my thieving hands. Been flying ever since.”
“But you’re only what, sixteen?”
Josh appeared shocked. “I’ll be twenty next month, I will.”
“How old were you when you went to flight school?”
“Graduated right after me sixteenth, I did.”
“Four years? That’s it? Hell, it takes us that long just to get through the Fleet Academy back on Earth.”
“I’ve racked up nearly fifteen thousand hours since then, love.”
“Whattaya live in the cockpit?”
“Ten, twelve hours a day, nearly every day.”
“You ever get bored?”
“Nope, flying is the best thing around, far as I can tell.”
“What about your pal there?” Jessica asked, pointing toward Loki who was manning the controls while Josh took a break. “How did you two end up flying together?”
Josh removed his helmet, setting it on the bench next to him. “Well, to be honest, I had a hard time keeping copilots. Seems most folk don’t care much for my stick style, if you get my meaning,” he said, scratching his scraggly mound of dirty blond hair.
“They think you’re too reckless, or something?”
“No, nothing like that. They just kept getting sick, tossin’ up all over the place. The inertial dampeners in the harvester ain’t worth a damn. Jeez, I was spending an hour after every flight just cleaning up the cockpit.”
Jessica shook her head. “You’re just a bit off, aren’t you?”
“That’s what Loki keeps telling me.”
“How long have you been flying with him?”
“Don’t rightly know, maybe six months, maybe more. What about you, then?” Josh asked, trying to change the subject. “Did they train you to be so tough in that Academy of yours?”
“Sort of. I was hoping to be a covert operative.”
“What’s a covert operative do?”
“They drop you on some alien world, where you try to blend in, gather intelligence on the enemy, maybe even conduct raids and such.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Apparently, no more dangerous than flying with you. At least according to Vlad.”
Josh nodded. “Ah, the chief. He seems a good bloke.”
“Yeah, he’s all right. Pretty dependable in a firefight. That’s for sure.”
“Told us a lot about Earth and all the other night. Interesting stuff.” Josh looked over at Tug and Jalea, who were sitting at the far aft end of the compartment, talking amongst themselves in their own language. “What about those two?” Josh asked, his voice a bit more subdued. “He’s not exactly what I expected, for a terrorist that is. She is, but he’s not.”
“What makes you think they’re terrorists? Aren’t the Ta’Akar worse?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of the Ta’Akar, not by a long shot. That Caius fella, he’s got a few loose ones upstairs, you know. But some of the stuff you hear about, the things the Karuzari have done. Well, it don’t seem much different, really. Just on a smaller scale is all.”
“So you don’t think they’re in the right?”
“Oh, they’re in the right. Gettin’ rid of the Ta’Akar would be the best thing to ever happen to this part of the galaxy. Just don’t know that they’re goin’ about it in the best way. That’s all.”
“How so?”
“It’s like they’re on the outside, trying to get in by beating at the wall with hammers and chisels and the like. They need to find an easy way in, and then clean house all at once. Get it over and done with. Everyone knows you can’t fight a guerrilla war forever. Sooner or later, you’re gonna run out of guerrillas.”
“Ten minutes out, Josh,” Loki called over his shoulder from the cockpit.
“Enough philosophizing,” Josh said with a grin. He reached for his helmet, donning it on his way forward.
“Hell, this ain’t nothing,” Josh proclaimed as he took his seat in the cockpit. “You could fly a planet between these rocks.”
“It’s an asteroid belt, Josh, not a ring system,” Loki teased.
“You find our rock yet?” Josh asked, ignoring his remark.
“If we come starboard about thirty and down a bit, she should be dead ahead. Gonna have to brake pretty hard to keep from smacking into her, though.”
“I believe that’s how we always do it,” Josh bragged.
“What, the braking hard or the smacking into her?”
“Always with the negativity, Loki.” Josh fired the maneuvering thrusters as he applied power to the main propulsion system, changing their vector as he brought the ship onto its new heading.
“Standard braking maneuver, I assume?”
“Yup,” Josh said as he prepared his ship for the next maneuver. He looked up and saw that the asteroid was fast filling the windows. “Pitching up.” He pulled the nose of the ship up and fired the main landing thrusters. Second only to the main drive in raw thrust, it was the fastest way he knew to slow a ship down in a hurry. He could’ve approached at a lower velocity, but then that would just leave him visible to any ships ne
arby even longer.
“You know, you didn’t have to come in this fast,” Jessica commented.
“Just trying to be covert,” he responded.
A few minutes later, the shuttle matched the asteroids velocity on its orbital path around its parent star, leaving the shuttle holding a position only a few hundred meters away. Josh pitched the nose back down to take a look.
“Aw,” he exclaimed with disappointment, “we’ve gotta be at least a hundred meters away.” He turned to look at Loki. “Did you pad the reading again?”
“Shut up. I’m trying to find the entrance.”
“It will be on the underside,” Tug explained, stepping up behind them. “You’ll see a deep crack. Go down into the crack, and you’ll see the entrance on the port side. There is an overhang that conceals it from above. You can only see it from within the crack.”
“Cool. Now we’re flying into a crack?” Josh stated as he pitched the nose down slightly and applied forward thrust.
The asteroid slid up and over them as they slowly approached.
“Aurora, Shuttle One,” Loki called. “We’re at the asteroid and moving in. We’ll be losing comms any moment now.”
“Copy that. Good luck,” the Aurora’s comm-officer called back. His voice was already sounding tinny and broken, as their signal degraded.
“Activating terrain scanners,” Loki reported. “Recording all scan data.”
“Throw some extra light on it, will ya,” Josh asked.
Loki reached up above his left shoulder to the overhead side panel. Running his finger along a row of rocker switches, he found the right one and clicked it on.
Outside the shuttle, several banks of exterior lights burst to life, washing the surface of the asteroid above them in bright, white daylight.
“Dang. Scary looking rock, ain’t it?” Josh commented.
“You’re going to have to flip over,” Tug said, “so you can hover using your thrusters. The asteroid may not be that big, but it is big enough to have some gravity.”
“Really?” Josh said using a mock-idiot voice. “It’s got gravity?” As quickly as he had turned it on, he turned his mock voice back off again. “Thanks Pops. I think we’ve got this one.”