“Same.” Lani’s hair was a close-shaven white stubble, her features refined and petite, her skin dusky and lined with age, but her eyes sparkled with sharp intelligence and mischief. Chui’s hair was also close-shaven, but dark, and he had a big frame and smelled shy. A lot of LightBearer seemed to favor their hair shaven very close, but the constant damp chill and the lukewarm shower water provided a ready explanation. She was personally dreading when she’d have to wash her hair.
Lani touched the small gold pin Lachesis was obliged to wear while on LightBearer. Tsu hadn’t wanted any confusion about her command upgrade. “Ark didn’t tell me why you weren’t available. I’d thought you’d died.”
“Oh, hell, that’s cold,” Lachesis said, horrified. “No, no, I guess—I guess it didn’t get around before it happened? The short version of a long, strange story is NightPiercer traded for me from Ark to marry their Lead Engineer, Commander Rainer, who is also on LightBearer right now. NightPiercer re-assigned me from Crèche to the bridge.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lani said.
“No, it doesn’t.” Lachesis tucked herself back as far as she could go. It was a bit difficult to breathe this stale, humid air. The ventilation system didn’t intend to support three bodies. “How’d the ship end up in this position?”
Chui hugged himself tightly, but Lani calmly explained it was a standard maneuver that had gone awry.
“Was there was a glitch, sensor malfunction, engine thrust issue, something else?” Lachesis asked.
Lani seemed perplexed. “I have no idea. I’ve been told it’s because of engine thrust, but haven’t gotten anymore details.”
Fair enough. Lani and Chui weren’t pilots. “So when was the last time that particular maneuver got updated?”
“Ten years ago,” Lani said. “We’ve used it before without problems.”
“How recently?”
“Within the last two years, I think.” Lani frowned.
So a system update wasn’t the most likely culprit. Lachesis asked the next most pressing question. “Does the ship population know?”
LightBearer’s change in position had probably been noticed, but ships changed positions and orientations all the time. Only someone trained in Telemetry and navigation would notice how much danger the ship was in. It’d be another year before it became more obvious.
“Know what?” Lani asked.
“How we have to get this ship moved to a different position right away.” Lachesis couldn’t bring herself to say before it turns into an irradiated husk.
Lani sighed like the patient old school marm she was. “It doesn’t have to be that quickly. The officers spoke to us about it, but the regular crew doesn’t know. They know you NightPiercers are here to help with some repairs.”
Chui burst out, “Lani, we’re two years from dying and not even you will admit it?!”
“That’s not what the data says,” Lani said.
No, the data actually said twenty-two months, and in ninety-one days shuttles weren’t going to be able to make the trip from Ark or NightPiercer.
Chui threw up his hands. “You’ve seen the data!”
“We’ve all seen the data.” Lani sounded as nonplussed as Lachesis felt. “It’s an asymmetrical engine thrust issue. It’ll get fixed. It will be fine.”
“Do you really think NightPiercer sent over a crew to help if it wasn’t bad?” Chui demanded, his voice rising and the scent of frustrated anger becoming very real. “We’re going to die out here!”
“We’re all going to die out here,” Lani said calmly.
“I meant all of us at once,” Chui said. “Come on, Lani. Stop being dense.”
Lani sighed at him. “This ship has had problems before. Every ship has problems.”
Chui gave Lachesis a haunted look. “You’ve seen the data. You know what’s really going on, don’t you?”
And a horrible death was very much a possibility. If LightBearer needed to make another position adjustment while they were here—which was possible considering the Sun didn’t give a shit about any of them—then they might tumble even further, and she’d be riding this freezing sky-boat straight to Gaia’s front door.
Lachesis tried to breathe around the air, but it was saturated with waste gasses and the scent of Chui’s fear. “Chui, if you see the eight of us running for our shuttle and deciding we’ll take our chances with an Io transit, I suggest you drink whatever booze you’ve hidden in your bunk. Until then, don’t worry about it.”
She gestured to the panel that would open the door. Lani touched it. Fresh air flowed in.
Commander Sirtis waited on the other side.
Let Them Sleep
Well, this is awkward.
“Commander,” Lachesis said.
“Warrant Officer,” Sirtis said, tone dry. “You were supposed to report to the bridge at the start of first shift.”
“I wasn’t able to access the bridge.” She pressed her palm to the scanner. It made a bzzt bzzt noise at her. “Biometrics aren’t wired in.”
“You think your biometrics are going to grant you access to our bridge?”
“Then I’m not clear on how I was supposed to report to the bridge without access or an escort.”
Sirtis glared at her. “An escort arrived at your bunk but you were already gone.”
“I was ordered by Commander Rainer to report to Medical,” Lachesis said.
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t include your grossly diminished AG in the performance data sent to NightPiercer, and I have AGRS, and he was concerned that the reduced gravity would compromise me further.” Facts were facts. Sirtis could choke on them.
“You two. Get,” Sirtis told Chui and Lani, then gave Lachesis a look of complete disgust.
Sirtis didn’t say one word to her. Not so much as a grunt. She noted the XO’s gloves had three bars embroidered across the back of her hand.
LightBearer’s bridge was much larger than NightPiercer’s, almost by double, with everything spread out in a flat-sided half circle, with a massive front panel more like a shuttle bay door than a window, and it peered out into the abyss. Or it should have. The entire view was Jupiter, with just a small rim of blackness at the top.
She braced herself against the sensation of falling into the planet.
Unlike the other ships, which had the bridge on the upper forward decks, LightBearer’s bridge was square in the middle of the port side of the ship. An odd design choice that even Rainer didn’t understand and apparently hadn’t been documented. His best guess was the forward decks hadn’t been far enough along in construction for the sophisticated bridge, so they’d just shoved it onto the side of the ship instead.
The bridge was cold, like the rest of the ship, but not nearly as damp. Many of the stations had glass panels, but others had analog switches that were smooth and worn from use. The panels had been scratched and smoothed in places from years of use, but others were more recent repairs. The leather of the chairs had developed gorgeous patinas even if they had faded from their original vibrant green.
Everyone wore gloves, but unlike the ratty fingerless gloves she’d seen elsewhere, the bridge staff all wore full gloves embossed with bars of rank.
Captain Ersu stood up from the big chair. “Where did you find her, Commander?”
“Holed up in Astrometrics with Lani and Chui.”
Ersu’s annoyance radiated from him. “I’ve got some questions for you, Warrant Officer.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, tucking her hands behind her back, and turning away from the planet.
“I knew I had heard your name before,” Ersu said, tapping his tablets. “You used to be on Ark. You were one of their navigators there.”
She nodded.
“You can’t expect me to believe NightPiercer is so hard up for skills they requested the transfer of a bridge officer, although I barely believe you’re a bridge officer. You’re too young.”
Ersu’s
scent made her wary. As did the hostile looks coming from the rest of the bridge crew.
She was young-ish to have her current rank, but hardly a prodigy. “I was Crèche on Ark, sir.”
“And you’ve passed Command Aptitude.” Ersu pointed at his own collar. He wasn’t wearing his pin, but she got his point. “Was that on Ark or NightPiercer?”
“NightPiercer, sir.” She wasn’t an expert at wearing her rank, but Rainer had said if all else failed, just wield it until someone took it away.
“Crèche scenario?”
“Bridge, sir.”
“Please tell me what the hell a Crèche specialist was doing in a bridge scenario.”
“It was the scenario they were scheduled to run, and I was put in at Telemetry.”
Ersu looked at Sirtis. “Does this make sense to you?”
“No, sir.”
Ersu sat back in the big chair and contemplated her. “I’m confused as to why you think you should be on my bridge, Warrant Officer.”
Because his navigators weren’t pilots, and they had farmed out the problem-solving to Ark years earlier. “My team needed a pilot, navigator and someone to handle Operations. The shuttle could only bring eight of us. I was the only person available with the necessary overlapping skills.”
Ersu glared at her. “And you compromised your pup, Warrant Officer?”
“My pup, sir?”
“You left a pup back on NightPiercer. Wouldn’t you still be nursing? Isn’t that why you have AGRS? Childbirth complications?” Ersu’s questions pelleted her.
She almost laughed in relief, except nothing about this was funny. “No, sir, we don’t have a pup.”
“I’m sorry, am I asking after a loss?”
“I apologize for the misunderstanding. I just realized how Commander Rainer and I must look. I’ve never been pregnant. NightPiercer’s Crèche had cause to do things the old-fashioned way with Rainer, and I was sourced from Ark to marry him for the task.”
Unfortunately, her laughing off the misunderstanding didn’t improve anything. Ersu’s brief flicker of sympathy spun around and zoomed back towards pissed off. “Why would anyone do anything the old-fashioned way?”
That didn’t seem like a question he wanted answered, so she didn’t offer details.
Ersu weighed her for some very long, uncomfortable minutes.
She ventured, “I’d like to sit at the helm and review historical course data and parameters with the eyes of a pilot. It’s my understanding Lani never got her pilot certification, and Chui is still working on his.”
“We don’t let females become pilots,” Sirtis said.
“Normally Ark doesn’t either, but an exception was made because of my Dying Art.” And because she had already been ear-marked as a cull and not going to be selected from the Pool, despite her biopsy scores.
Ersu’s reluctance couldn’t have been more plain. “Sirtis, have her biometrics added to bridge access. Helm only, and view only.”
“Sir,” Sirtis whispered in protest.
“Do it,” Ersu grated. “She’s here, she may as well be useful.”
That was one way to look at it. She started to ask about when their comms and biometrics would be patched into the main LightBearer network, then decided against it. She’d managed to gain access to the bridge and helm, and she hadn’t even had to growl about it. That was enough of a win.
The mood was decidedly dour in the bunks that evening. Dinner had been more algae cakes and crickets, along with some soggy rye toast, vegetable gruel, and a cup of a sour fruit juice blend. The crickets had been delicious: roasted and dusted with some spicy powder. She’d fed her soggy rye toast and half her gruel to Rainer. The calories and macros were adequate for humans of average height, average mass, and low-average metabolic rate. Anyone else was going to go hungry.
Now they sat around munching from the stores of spare rations.
Rainer, his tablet across his crossed legs, was making notes. He smelled pissed and impatient. He started with Cheshire. “Did you have luck with Tech?”
“Sad that we have to invoke luck,” Simone said.
Cheshire gnawed a hunk off the sticky algae and cricket bar in his hand before answering. “Once I got there, was pretty straight forward. Old and battered like everything, almost twenty percent chiplet loss, fabrication is years behind.”
“Twenty percent.” Rainer paused in his sketching.
“They said thirteen,” Juan said.
“They also didn’t mention the AG,” Lachesis commented.
Rainer breathed out, exasperated, and gestured for Cheshire to keep talking. “How serious is twenty percent? From an integrity standpoint.”
“This core is tolerant to eighty-one percent loss. Right now it’s just fewer CPU cycles. We can rule out the computer core as a potential source of problems.”
“How long until it becomes a problem?” Simone asked.
“Five years at the current rate of chiplet loss if they don’t get their fabrication schedule back on track.”
Rainer was sketching a scene from Engineering. He’d already sketched the room, and the outlines of three people, but now was paying particular attention to detailing the people. “So you’re not needed in Tech?”
“Not much I can do. We have a lot of the same low-level operations, but they forked the codebase back on Earth. It’s radically different at this point. Sorry, Commander, I won’t be any use after all.”
“Then you’ll turn wrenches and crawl in holes. You’re here, we can’t send you back, so you get to be another pair of hands and eyes. Tag along with Xav.”
Cheshire smiled uneasily. “Yes, sir.”
“Any early thoughts on what happened?” Lachesis asked. Since a demented computer wasn’t the culprit, it was back on Engineering.
Rainer’s sketching didn’t pause. “Two of the three engines are almost useless, and the Core is seriously degraded. I lack practical experience with this engine type and Core, so I don’t want to speculate.”
Juan snorted and told Lachesis, “Nobody down there has answers for anything. It’s obvious why it’s so cold and the AG is what it is, but even getting them to admit the AG is .88 is a chore.”
“They didn’t admit it?” Lachesis asked.
“Only once we told them Sirtis had already told us it was .88.” Rainer’s stylus moved faster as he colored in a uniform with broad, sweeping strokes of muted color. The sketch, even rough as it was, captured how wet and damp the Engineering section was. A vague sense of unease and despair, similar to the mildew and biting cold that gnawed through everything.
“Ursus can’t figure out how to solve a twenty-piece puzzle,” Juan muttered.
Rainer stopped sketching. “Engineering doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, but we might not be asking the right people the right questions. The AG is easily explained by a tri-engine design where two of the power plants are effectively useless.”
Lachesis shifted on her haunch. “I’m thinking it’s been cold here so long they don’t even know why you’d be asking about it. You saw everyone has fingerless gloves, and the bridge officers have full gloves with bars of rank on the back. They’re clearly a fancy bit of kit.”
“Think you can figure out how to score us some?” Simone asked, blowing on her hands.
Lachesis chuckled humorlessly. “Let’s not stress my non-existent diplomacy to the limit. I already had to navigate that once today and escaped with helm access and my hide. I did figure out why Ersu suddenly got hostile with us.”
Rainer said, “He did seem to take particular offense to a married team.”
“Everyone thought we surely have a nursing pup we left behind on NightPiercer, and my AGRS is related to recovering from that, and you and I are the solar system’s shittiest parents,” Lachesis said.
“Ohhhhh.” Simone clutched her ankles and rocked backwards on her tailbone.
“Derp,” Jimenez said.
Rainer frowned. “I suppose that is how it wou
ld look to people unfamiliar with the situation.”
“He recognized my name from Ark. Don’t be surprised if you get cornered with questions.”
“Now he’ll want to know why NightPiercer and Ark are so friendly. We refused to help them with calculations, but they were willing to send over a she-wolf.”
“Ouch.” Juan grimaced. “Do you think he’ll blame us for not helping years ago?”
“Possibly, but the truth is we weren’t in a position to help him, and he can accept that reality or not.” Rainer’s tone made it clear he didn’t care. He turned his attention to her. “Did you go to Medical as directed?”
“I was going to talk to you privately about that.”
“Which means bad news, so share it with the team.” He put his stylus down and gave her his undivided attention.
Damn this wolf, he was a pain in the ass. Grudgingly, she said, “I’ve got about twenty-five days before I’m ‘compromised’ by their AG.”
He stared at her, unblinking for a second, and then said, “That’s not a dramatic change of plans. We came here with only twenty-eight days, and anything after that is borrowed time. If we haven’t made significant progress by day twenty-five, there’s no reason to risk staying.”
Except there were plenty of reasons, and they all had names.
Us vs Them
She tried not to shiver. Rainer loomed close as they waited in the chow line, smelling rankled. Actually, his scent said protective.
“I’m fine,” she muttered.
“They should have warned us about conditions on this ship,” he muttered back, scent intensifying.
“You’re assuming they know better. It may have been like this for generations,” she retorted in a hiss. “The only thing they should have mentioned was the AG, but maybe even that didn’t occur to them.”
“How could the AG dropping .02 not occur to them to mention as indicative of a serious problem?”
“Would you really even care if you hadn’t brought someone with AGRS? Why the hell would the assume anyone except the most physically fit would get on a shuttle?” She was not in the mood for him being snarly or fussy. Nobody could do a thing to make the cold, damp, smell, or AG instantly fixed. If that was a possibility, they didn’t need to be there at all and could all go home.
Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2) Page 24