Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  As they got into the suits, leaving the hoods off to conserve the air recyclers as long as possible, Freya gave him a questioning look. “Why didn’t they also drug you?”

  “I guess they weren’t worried about me,” Lochan said with a shrug.

  “They were wrong.”

  It felt good to hear that.

  Freya found an alarm attached to the outer hatch and disabled it. “They might not even realize we’ve left,” she told Lochan. “Like I said, this is crazy. No one who really understands space would think we could do this.”

  “Eight minutes to go,” Lochan said, checking his pad. “I’ve got a bearing we’re supposed to jump out on, and this pad should show where we need to go to meet the Bruce Monroe if that ship keeps going where it has been going.”

  “Good.” Freya eyed the maneuvering unit. “Do you mind if I take that? I don’t have much experience with that sort of thing, but—”

  “Be my guest. You’ve got more experience than I do. We tie ourselves together?”

  “Yeah. Use two . . . no use three lines. We’ve got plenty. Leave about three meters slack between us. No! We need to tie ourselves together to form a single mass for the maneuvering thrust to direct! If you’re on the end of a tether, your mass will swing all over the place and we’ll veer all over space.”

  “Tie ourselves together?” Lochan asked, feeling awkward again.

  “Tie ourselves tightly together,” Freya said, frowning down at the line in her hands. “The maneuvering unit fits on my back. I’ll strap that on, then you’ll have to go in front. Put your back to me. Come on! Press in. I know it’s a little weird, but just think of it as that sort of kinky date you never really went on.”

  Lochan backed up until he was pressed against her front, the thinness of the survival suits separating them more apparent than ever, her head just behind his. Passing the line back and forth, they tied themselves together securely.

  They shuffled to the outer door, pausing again to pull their hoods on and activate the seals. Lochan watched the simple display inside the helmet light up with a series of reassuringly green telltales. He shifted the comm circuit to the one he and Freya had agreed on. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” she called back. “You’re loud and clear. How am I?”

  “It sounds like you’re right behind me,” Lochan said.

  “Good. Do you have your pad fastened to something so you won’t lose it?”

  Angry with himself for not thinking of that, Lochan pulled a tether from the survival suit’s belt and clipped it to the pad. “Now I do.”

  “All right. I’ve got both of our bags strapped to my belt, so we shouldn’t lose those. How’s the time?”

  “Two minutes.”

  “Let’s open that hatch.”

  Lochan reached, touching the control to cycle the air lock. The external mics on his suit picked up the sound of atmosphere being pumped from the air lock, a sound that faded into nothing as the air grew thin, then turned to vacuum.

  The outer hatch opened, endless empty space beyond, and Lochan felt a sudden surge of fear. Could he take that next step? Or would he be paralyzed with fright?

  Freya’s arms tightened about him from behind. “We can do this.”

  “Are you scared?” Lochan asked, his breath feeling short.

  “Hell, yeah. You?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll jump if you do.”

  He couldn’t help laughing, thinking of them tied together. Somehow knowing that she was also scared made it easier for him to admit to and deal with his own fears. “Deal.”

  The seconds were counting down. Keeping his eyes locked on his feet, Lochan shuffled forward until he was balanced on the edge of the air lock, standing over an infinity of emptiness, his hands gripping either side. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  Closing his eyes tightly, Lochan jumped. His stomach lurched as they abruptly left the freighter’s artificial gravity and suddenly became weightless.

  Aside from the lack of weight, it didn’t feel exactly like falling. There was nothing pulling at him, nothing rushing past to give a sense of motion. Lochan opened his eyes, seeing nothing ahead but endless nothing spangled with stars.

  The stars were slowly rolling past, which was Lochan’s only clue that he had pushed off unevenly and was rotating.

  “Let me see the pad,” Freya’s voice urged.

  He held it up, using one gloved hand to brush off some moisture on the screen that had almost immediately stiffened into ice crystals.

  “All right,” Freya said. “I can see the maneuvering system controls slaved to my suit. We need to . . . let’s finish turning around, then I’ll light off the unit along the right vector.”

  Lochan waited, trying to calm the panic that occasionally threatened, as the stars slid past until the dark bulk of the Oarai Miho appeared to block out part of space. He and Freya were sailing away from the ship under the force of Lochan’s initial push off from the air lock, but otherwise, they were still moving along the same vector as the ship they’d left. Conservation of motion. He wondered what Isaac Newton would think if he could see that law of physics displayed so clearly out here far from the world that Newton had never left.

  There wasn’t any sign of trouble on the darkened exterior of the freighter. No indication that anyone had noticed the departure of two passengers who were supposedly locked safely and separately in their own cabins.

  “Hang on,” Freya cautioned him.

  The only thing he could hang on to with one hand was the line across his body holding them together, his other hand extended holding the pad so that Freya could see the vector they needed to aim for.

  He felt a jolt of acceleration, the illusion of some gravity suddenly returning as the maneuvering unit fired, hurling them away from the freighter and, hopefully, toward the Bruce Monroe.

  The stars stopped sliding past, steadying before him and on all sides. Lochan stared about him, startled by the feeling of being accelerated, yet without any other clue that his senses could detect of actually moving. The only thing close enough to have provided that kind of reference was the Oarai Miho behind them, and he suspected the freighter was already becoming just one more spot in the darkness of space as Lochan and Freya accelerated away.

  The acceleration, and the false feeling of some gravity, stopped as Freya shut off the maneuvering unit. Lochan’s ears and stomach flip-flopped again before settling into a lower-key state of discontent.

  “We should be on track, Lochan,” she said.

  “Now all we have to do is hang here?” he asked.

  “We’re moving pretty damned fast. But, yeah, it’ll feel like that. I’m going to call the Bruce Monroe in about half an hour. By then the Oarai Miho will be far past any meaningful turnaround point to catch us again, and the Bruce Monroe will have time to prepare for changing their own vector to pick us up. We’re actually going to travel a lot more than two hundred kilometers because we’re on a vector to intercept the Bruce Monroe as it approaches, crossing the two hundred kilometers separation between the ships and leading the Bruce Monroe by enough to meet up with it.”

  “What if the Bruce Monroe doesn’t maneuver to match vectors?” Lochan asked.

  “We’ll have two choices. Bug on the windshield or wave as we go by.”

  “I’m still scared,” he admitted.

  “Me, too. There’s someone back on Catalan I’d like to see again. Have you got anyone besides Brigit?”

  “I don’t have Brigit. But . . . Carmen. She’s a friend. Just got married.”

  “On Kosatka? I hope she’s all right,” Freya said.

  “I hope you get back to Catalan. Is your whole family there?”

  “Such as it is out here,” Freya said. “My parents stayed back on Lagrange Three, orbiting Earth. I’ve got a brother who went far out so
who knows if I’ll ever hear from him again.”

  “Far out? You mean one of those corporate colonies that went out as far as they could?”

  “That’s right.” Old upset and irritation entered her voice. “To get away from interference and unleash their full potential, they said. I told him that he was crazy, that out that far there’d be no one to make the corporation owning the colony follow through on their promises to people like my brother and his family. But I was told I didn’t understand and effective corporate governance would ensure all agreements were honored. Why is it people who are so cynical about some things are so willing to idealize other things?”

  “Beats me,” Lochan said, grateful for the distraction posed by the conversation. “As a rule, I believe in people, but I only trust the ones who’ve shown me they’re worth trusting.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He felt her head moving behind him as Freya looked around. “It’s big. So big. We’re so small. But I think what we do matters. Do you?”

  “Yeah, I think so, too,” Lochan agreed.

  “I thought you were like that. Do you want to work together once we get to Eire? Maybe two of us, representing two star systems, can get a lot more attention than each of us individually.”

  “Yes,” Lochan said. “If we can, sure. If we both make it.”

  Her laugh surprised him. “Either we both survive this, or neither of us will, Lochan.”

  They didn’t talk for a while after that. To his surprise, Lochan found himself drifting off to sleep. Weightless, suspended in nothing, no changes outside the suit, he felt cradled by infinity. Would this be how it would feel when the air recycler on the suit finally gave out? That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

  But he did want to see Carmen again. And Brigit. And get the help that Kosatka needed.

  The sound of Freya’s broadcasting startled him to full wakefulness again.

  “Freighter Bruce Monroe, freighter Bruce Monroe, please respond. This is a humanitarian emergency. Please respond.”

  “Will the Oarai Miho hear that?” Lochan asked when Freya paused.

  “They will if they’re listening,” she said. “I had to use the emergency circuit that everyone is supposed to monitor full-time so I’d be sure the Bruce Monroe would hear us.”

  Freya had repeated her call twice more, while Lochan waited with a sinking sense of failure, when a response startled him.

  “This is the Bruce Monroe replying to unknown caller on all-ships emergency frequency. Are you on the Oarai Miho? Your signal doesn’t seem to be coming from there.”

  “We are two individuals in open space,” Freya replied. “Survival suits and a maneuvering unit. We’re on a converging vector with your ship’s trajectory and need rescue.”

  The reply took awhile.

  “Two individuals in suits in open space,” the voice from the Bruce Monroe repeated. “I need to know the circumstances that led to that.”

  “We were being forcibly taken to Hesta. Confined against our will,” Freya said. “I am Freya Morgan, trade negotiator for Catalan. With me is Lochan Nakamura, special representative of Kosatka.”

  They were waiting for a new reply from the Bruce Monroe when another, all-too-familiar voice sounded on the circuit.

  “Those two are criminals! This is the captain of the Oarai Miho. Those two are saboteurs and thieves, responsible for the destruction of valuable property and the theft of items from this ship! They are . . . in league with the pirates! Do not pick them up!”

  Freya responded the moment the captain stopped. “Bruce Monroe, this is Freya Morgan. The captain of the Oarai Miho is lying. She is in league with the pirates and is under the control of Scatha. I promise you that the government of Catalan will compensate you for any expense involved in matching vectors and rescuing me and Lochan Nakamura.”

  Lochan’s pad had no sensors, and the survival suits could only handle close-in situations, nothing far away. They couldn’t tell what either ship was doing as the Bruce Monroe and the Oarai Miho began arguing directly with each other.

  Was the Bruce Monroe’s signal getting stronger? It should be, since they should be getting closer, and the energy of the signal wouldn’t be spreading out through space as much.

  How much warning would they have if the Bruce Monroe didn’t pick them up on its visual sensors, track them, and maneuver to match vectors closely enough to recover them? Would they have a moment of awareness of the freighter suddenly there close, then an impact that wouldn’t do the ship any good and end their adventure forever? Or would there be a brief glimpse of a far-off object blocking a few stars as it raced past them, followed by a long wait for the end?

  “Hey, Lochan,” Freya said, her voice low.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. We got this far. You know how to show a girl a fun time.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ve had a great time, too. We should do this sort of thing again.”

  Her laugh sounded reassuringly normal, without any stress underlying it. “No, thank you.”

  The sound of the incoming transmission felt so loud that Lochan winced. “Citizen Morgan, Citizen Nakamura, this is the Bruce Monroe. We are matching vectors and rigging the emergency recovery net. Stand by. If you have any remaining power in your maneuvering unit, try to shift your vector up three degrees and eighty degrees to starward. Be advised there’s a risk of physical injury during recovery under these circumstances.”

  “A risk of physical injury,” Freya murmured, then laughed again.

  Lochan felt the maneuvering unit’s thrust push at them once more as Freya tried to match the vector shift that the Bruce Monroe had asked for. “We could get hurt?” he asked her, before he started laughing as well.

  For just a moment, he understood how Mele Darcy probably felt at times like this. What the hell. Let’s do this.

  CHAPTER 16

  The recovery net had been braided from special artificial fibers with an immense amount of flexibility, able to absorb and distribute force with an efficiency no natural substance could match. But when they slammed into it Lochan still felt as if he’d suddenly fallen face-first onto a street from the roof of a building.

  The fact that, by chance, he was on the bottom when they hit, with Freya on top, meant that he also felt as if someone else had fallen on him from the roof of a building.

  Lochan’s breathing was still ragged when the net was pulled in, compressing around him and Freya to form a comforting cocoon that didn’t tighten enough to hurt. They were pulled inside one of the Bruce Monroe’s big cargo air locks, the large hatch sliding closed behind them.

  He wasn’t sure if the air inside his suit was really starting to get bad or if it was his overactive imagination feeding his fears. When the net was pulled away, and a figure without a helmet appeared before him to signal he could remove his hood, Lochan gasped with relief.

  The line holding him and Freya tightly together was cut, allowing them to move, but Lochan lay there, hurting, as the crew member knelt by him. “Anything broken, space cowboy?”

  “I don’t know,” Lochan said. “I don’t think so.”

  “What about you, valkyrie?”

  “I’ll live,” Freya said with a groan. She slapped Lochan on the arm. “Come on. We made it.”

  Lochan got to his feet with the help of the crew member, seeing two others waiting for him and Freya. One was a solemn-looking man who somehow looked like the captain of the Bruce Monroe without having to announce the fact. The other was a short woman with a disconcertingly intense gaze.

  The captain spoke into a nearby comm panel. “We’ve got them. Get us back on vector for the Eire jump point. Don’t worry about sparing the fuel cells.”

  Lochan could hear the reply. “Aye. Getting back on vector at best acceleration.”

  “What’s that other doing?”

  “The Miho? Loo
ks like he’s trying to come about. He won’t come within a hundred thousand kilometers before we jump out of Tantalus, though, even if he pushes as hard as he can chasing us.”

  “They’re short one fuel cell,” Freya said, grimacing as she stretched her back. “That might limit their ability to accelerate again.”

  “A fuel cell? Is that what accounted for the pirate ship?” the short woman asked.

  “Maybe. The answer depends on who you are?”

  The woman smiled. “Let’s go talk somewhere private. Is that all right with you, Captain?”

  The captain of the Bruce Monroe shrugged. “You’ve already guaranteed costs for this diversion from our course. Do what you like. Those two will have to double up, though. We’re full up on passengers already.”

  “We’re not that kind of partner,” Lochan said hastily.

  “Work something out with the other passengers, or I’ll work it out for you,” the captain said as he left the cargo air lock.

  The short woman led the way to a stateroom that while small still felt large and luxurious after the cabins on the freighter. “The captain is letting us use his stateroom for privacy so we can speak candidly with each other,” she announced.

  Freya dropped into one of the two chairs the stateroom boasted. “And just who are you that the captain is willing to lend you his stateroom?”

  “Officially on this ship’s passenger manifest I’m Alice Norton, librarian. But to you two, I’m Leigh Camagan, a member of the governing council of Glenlyon.”

  Lochan, who’d been sagging with weariness against one wall, jerked to alertness. “You’ve been sent out to get help for Glenlyon?”

  “Get help, hire help, buy help.” Leigh Camagan looked from one of them to the other. “And you two are from Catalan and Kosatka. I assume your missions are the same?”

  Freya examined Leigh Camagan closely before finally nodding. “Officially, I’m a trade negotiator. But what I’m looking for is the sort of help Catalan realized it needs. We’re already blockaded. Not officially, but that’s just a formality at this point.”