The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker

by Steven Lyle Jordan

  The intention of the sundance maneuver was twofold: First, it was designed to give the pursued ship a chance to alter its course and hide that maneuver while behind the star’s corona, thereby making it difficult for a pursuing ship to detect the course change and track them; and second, it would allow the pursued ship to “slingshot” about the star’s gravity well and pick up speed, hopefully enough to escape interception.

  The course alteration was a tricky thing in the star’s gravity well, essentially forcing the craft to enter the well, then climb directly out of it. As the ship reached a perihelion, it would reverse course and dive at the sun. This is when the ship would make its course alteration, choosing a new approach angle at random that would take them around the star at a different angle than they had approached it. Then it would pull out of its dive as close as possible to the star, allowing its gravity to slingshot them around and catapult them outward.

  More than a few ships attempting this maneuver had not lived to see the other side. Between the intense gravity of a star, the difficulty of pulling out of a star-dive, the unpredictable vagaries of some stars, and the similarly unpredictable condition of some ships, there was a very slim margin for error.

  Sarander, knowing this, did the only thing he could under the circumstances: He made sure Mary’s engines would do their job. He spent the majority of his time sweating over them, running systems checks and manually checking every coupling and wiring harness he could get his hands on. He left Moamet Jones to work over the wiring for the escape pod, on the slim chance that he would come up with something that would improve the performance of their decoy signal.

  Mark kept busy at the helm, and he and Sarander spent quite a bit of time on the intercom in cross-discussion over this system or that, making sure everything was functioning nominally. When she could, Kestral assisted at the ops station, or checked other ship’s systems from the Captain’s station or the various monitor panels throughout the bridge. Despite Mark’s calm assurances that he could handle the sundance, Kestral had caught him on occasion when he didn’t realize she was nearby. There was no mistaking his nervousness. She knew he was well aware of the result of a single mistake he might make during the maneuver, and there would be countless chances to make mistakes.

  Angel and Tirri were the only two with little to do, and by the second day, the tension exhibited by their crewmates began to concern the two. Tirri elected herself morale officer, floating about the ship and trying to keep everyone in good spirits, when she wasn’t easing someone’s burden by running an errand or fetching something for them. Angel responded in the best way he knew how, namely, food. He prepared some banana bread, which he spread liberally throughout the ship, and he was glad to see the bread was a big hit with everyone. And by dinner, he had prepared a delicious meal highlighted by a huge pizza, and finished off with red hitchberry pie. Although they were not as talkative as during previous meals, it seemed to lift their spirits noticeably.

  Even so, by the end of the second day, the crew of the Mary was mentally spent. When Kestral came up to the bridge, she noticed how slowly Mark reacted to the opening of the bridge hatch.

  “That’s it, bucko,” she said, and the sudden sound of her voice caused Mark to push himself upright in his seat. “You’re walking dead. Time to rest.”

  “I’m fine,” Mark said immediately. “I was just waiting for the aft thruster level readings to come in…”

  “You mean this?” Kestral pointed at his board, and Mark stared at it stupidly. Kestral smiled. “I already told Tirri to drag Sarander to bed. Now it’s your turn. Come on, up. Off to your quarters. And I don’t want to see you back here before seven.”

  “Really, Captain, I’ll only need a few hours—”

  “Did you just call me Captain? Now I know you’re exhausted!” She grabbed him by the armpits and lifted him bodily out of the pilot’s chair. “As—umph!—Captain, I’m ordering my First Officer to get eight hours’ sleep, starting in ten minutes. Is that clear?”

  “Did you just call me your First Officer?” Mark turned and looked at her with bleary eyes. “You tell me who needs a rest.”

  “Come on, Mark,” Kestral huffed. “I need you wide awake tomorrow. You can barely stand now. Go sleep.”

  Mark stood there thoughtfully, as if planning to put up a fight. Finally, and to Kestral’s relief, he shrugged and nodded. “Okay. I guess I can use a bit of sleep.”

  “Eight hours of sleep,” Kestral repeated. “Starting in nine minutes.”

  Mark grinned and headed for the corridor, almost tripping over the edge of the hatchway on his way out. Kestral watched him go, reflecting not for the first time how glad she was to have found him. Then she sat down at the pilot’s station. “Hello, helm. Remember me?” She hadn’t spent much time at helm since their first flight, so she began her night by systematically re-familiarizing herself with the controls and systems.

  An hour later, she had satisfied herself that she could handle anything (short of a Raian attack) that might come along, and she settled in for the long night. She was surprised a half hour later, when the bridge hatch opened. She caught a strong scent before she turned around. “Angel, you angel, you brought coffee—”

  When she turned around, however, she saw Moamet Jones standing there. He had two cups in his hand, and he held one out to her. “Angel made it. I took the opportunity to bring it up.”

  Kestral’s expression fell perceptively, but she took the cup. “Thank you,” she said simply. She took a sip from the cup, watching Jones over the steam that rose around her face. Her eyes did not seem so angry as before… although fatigue may have had something to do with that… but neither did she seem willing to forgive him. “Maybe you should get some sleep, Dr. Jones. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.”

  Jones sighed heavily. “Not yet. I have to inform you that I cannot fix the decoy programming problem. It is still intermittent.”

  “I understand,” Kestral replied evenly. “We’ll just have to take our chances.”

  “That’s why I came up,” Jones said. “I may have an idea that might improve our chances.”

  Kestral stared at him dubiously, not saying anything. After a few moments of silence, Jones said, “Carolyn. Please. I’m trying to help. I didn’t want you to be in this position, any more than you did. And I am sorry. But as you’ve been reminding everyone else for the past two days, it’s time to put all that aside, and get through this.”

  He repeated, with emphasis, “I have an idea.”

  Kestral had watched him intently while he spoke, and continued to sit silently when he finished. After a long pause, she put down her coffee cup. “I’m listening.”

  ~

  When the Raians had discovered the Mary’s course change, they’d altered course to intercept them before they reached Deep Abignon. And as the Mary had waited until they were closest to Deep Abignon before veering off their original course, they had performed a perpendicular course change. The Raians were now heading directly for Deep Abignon, their course intended to intersect the Mary’s at the apex of a triangle.

  It would be close. The Raians could easily over- or under-shoot their deceleration into sub-C speeds, necessary to approach the inner system and the planet… and so could the Oan freighter. The difference could put them minutes or hours apart. But the Raian ship was far faster than the freighter, and even a gross miscalculation or just plain bad luck would more likely work to the Raians’ advantage.

  As K’silk watched his monitors, the navigation officer approached him. “First Officer, new data on the freighter’s course. They are not heading directly for the planet of system FY-48269. They are heading for system FY-48269’s star, instead.”

  K’silk made a satisfied hum. “They know we are pursuing them. They are attempting an Oan maneuver designed to mask their course behind the star. This maneuver is familiar to me.” He waved his thin fingers at his helm officer. “Alter course to terminate before the star of system FY
-48269. We can wait for them to emerge on the other side, and we will have more than enough time to intercept them before they reach the planet.”

  The officer moved off, and K’silk turned back to his monitors. “More than enough time.”

  ~

  It was silent on Mary’s bridge, as Kestral considered the plan Moamet Jones had just described to her. Jones waited patiently, but after almost a full minute, he finally ventured, “Well?”

  Kestral’s head had been down, her eyes darting about as she considered the variables. Finally she brought her head up and looked at Jones. “It sounds workable. Will it be ready by tomorrow morning?”

  “If you ask Angel to make more coffee…”

  Despite herself, Kestral smiled, and slapped at the intercom. “Angel! Go-juice to the bridge, immediately!”

  ~

  When Mark opened the hatch to the bridge that morning, after his eight hours’ sleep, he took one look at the helm, and froze.

  There was no one at the pilot’s station, nor anywhere else in sight on the bridge.

  “Shit!” he snapped. “Where is… anybody?” He ran forward, lamenting loudly, “How could you leave the helm empt—”

  He didn’t finish his last word, because his foot caught on something on the floor. He pitched forward, and landed violently on the deck.

  “Oww!”

  That hadn’t come from Mark. Mark, lying face-down on the deck, propped himself up on his elbows and looked around him… or, more accurately, under him. His legs were sprawled across another set of legs that were perpendicular to him, toes pointing upward. He craned around, following the legs across the deck, until he saw the face of Carolyn Kestral. She was on her back, her hands pushed into the innards of the pilot’s console above her head, but she was staring at Mark, a pained expression on her face.

  “Carolyn… what are you doing down here?” Mark asked irritably.

  “Getting pretty bruised up, thank you very much!” She reached back up into the console, and with a final yank at something, seemed to be finished with her work. “We had final adjustments to make before we reached the star.”

  “‘We’?”

  “We.”

  Mark swung about, to see Moamet Jones’ head, inches away from his own, underneath the ops console, and smiling broadly at him. “Gah!” Mark jumped, almost hitting his head on the bottom of the console, scrambled backwards off of his Captain, and out from underneath the rest of the machinery. Watching his distress caused Jones to grin, and forced a laugh out of Kestral.

  “Yeah, yuk it up,” Mark grumbled as he gained his feet. “Now, I don’t suppose you want to tell your pilot about the ‘adjustments’ you just made to his pilot’s station?”

  “We were transferring slave control over the pod to the ops panel,” Kestral explained, trying to will the smile from her face, and having limited success. “We wanted someone to be able to apply some evasive maneuvers to it, to make it look more real to the Raian sensors, while you’re flying the Mary.”

  “Hm,” Mark nodded, looking from Kestral to Jones, both still sitting on the deck and looking up at him. “Okay. Good plan. You haven’t altered my controls, though, right?”

  “Not a bit,” Jones shook his head.

  “You don’t mind if I check, do you?”

  “Not a bit,” Kestral replied, pulling herself to her feet. “In fact, it’s about time to see how we’re doing anyway.” She worked around the bridge, bringing the external sensors online. “Let’s cut C and take a look around.”

  Mark took his station and began setting his manual controls, experimenting with his systems to make sure everything was functioning normally. After a few moments, he looked over at Kestral, and she gave him a nod. “Okay,” he said. “Cutting C… now.” He tapped at his control panel, waited less than one second, then tapped it again. “And back to C.”

  “I’ve got readings,” Kestral confirmed from the main sensor station on the port wall of the bridge. She used the controls to switch from reading to reading, and to process the data that had come in. Moments later, she said, “I have a wake…”

  She paused, examining the readings. After a few seconds’ silence, Mark said, “What?”

  Kestral turned to him. “They’re a lot closer than I thought they would be. Only thirty mil away.”

  “Dammit,” Mark winced, and started rapidly working his controls. “Boss,” he called into the com, “are you up there?”

  “Right here,” Sarander’s voice came back from the com.

  “Get me everything you’ve got, and light up the tesser,” Mark called out. “We need to go!”

  13: Sundance

  Although thirty million kilometers did not sound like much of a distance when one could travel faster than light, the fact that the Mary and the L’t’meriad were both traveling faster than light meant that the two ships were burning through space, but not closing the distance between each other quite as rapidly.

  However, the Raian ship was clearly overtaking the Mary.

  This was clear from the sensor readings Kestral obtained when they dropped out of C. She had fed the updated course data into Mary’s navigational systems for Mark to reference, as he swung the ship at the Abignon star.

  “I sure hope you managed to get that decoy pod ready,” Mark was saying as he altered his board’s settings to prepare for the sundance maneuver. “We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “The pod’s as ready as it will ever be,” Jones said, exchanging glances with Kestral.

  “That doesn’t sound too positive,” Mark commented. “Is it going to work, or not?”

  “Well, no,” Kestral replied, “and yes.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Mark snapped.

  “It means,” Kestral explained, “that the pod isn’t working as well as we’d hoped. But that will be just perfect.”

  “It will?”

  “Yes,” Kestral replied. “And I’ll tell you why.”

  ~

  “First Officer.” The sensor officer turned to report to K’silk. “Oan freighter increasing speed for the star.”

  “They momentarily dropped out of trans-light speed to get a fix on us,” K’silk said aloud. “They know we are in pursuit. But it matters little. We will have more than enough time to catch them once they round the star, and before they reach the planet. Prepare to alter course. We will move between the planet and the star, and await their appearance on the other side.”

  The Raian helm officer complied, and the L’t’meriad changed course slightly. As the Mary approached the far side of the Abignon star, its speed increasing rapidly under the influence of the star’s gravity, the Raians angled for the near side.

  “Sensors to full,” K’silk ordered. “Report as soon as the freighter appears on the far side of the star.”

  ~

  Kestral, sitting at the ops station, watched as Mark’s hands fairly danced over the helm controls. They were rapidly approaching the Abignon star, and the ship was beginning to develop minor creaks and vibrations… signs that the star’s gravity was beginning to take its toll.

  “It’s gettin’ awful loud back here!” Sarander’s voice crackled out of the intercom. “How are we doin’ up there?”

  “Walk in the park,” Mark muttered aloud, without looking up from his work. He had donned his goggles, and his hands were ebony blurs over the pilot’s console.

  “We’re good,” Kestral responded to the intercom. “Stand by at the pod. We’re five minutes to launch.”

  “Understood.”

  Kestral turned to Mark, who shrugged. “A lot of bucking. Nothing serious so far. Mary’s flying like a dream. Considering the circumstances.”

  Kestral nodded and turned back to ops. On her board, the Mary’s position was marked as it approached the star. The projection of the Raian ship was also there, and it terminated at about the point at which the Mary would disappear behind the star. She knew the Raians were familiar with the Oan sunda
nce maneuver, and their standard operating procedure would be to swing about the near side of the star and await their appearance on the other side.

  She had no way to confirm that, however. Their plan hinged on the Raians being predictable. And if the Raians followed them around the star, they would be busted.

  “Three minutes to orbital insertion,” Kestral announced calmly.

  ~

  “The Oan freighter is now behind the star,” the Raian officer announced.

  “Reduce speed to 90% of light,” K’silk ordered. “Stand by on all external sensors.”

  ~

  “Orbital insertion… now,” Mark announced.

  He had to raise his voice a bit. Mary was now bucking hard and vibrating noisily, and Mark was clearly struggling. The ship could only survive if it walked a tightrope course at precisely the right velocity, and the solar wind and gravitational torque made it difficult to maintain that course and speed. Kestral roved her eyes about the bridge, at the deck and bulkheads, as if she could see through them and visually gauge the amount of punishment being put on her ship.

  “Sarander! Heat up the pod!” Kestral called into the intercom. “Stand by for release!”

  “Eighty seconds to sundance climb!” Mark called out.

  “We’re ready!” came Sarander’s voice.

  Kestral watched the seconds tick by, as she watched the indicators on the ops panel climb. Torque, temperature, gravity and inertial balance, power consumption, all were approaching redline values. And they hadn’t even begun their maneuver yet. It would be close.

  “Sarander,” she called out. “I have pod release control… get clear!” She followed their progress on her board, her fingers poised over the controls. “Releasing in five… four… three… two… one… now!”

  On the starboard side of the cargo bay, Sarander stood by the blast hatch for the emergency escape pod, Tirri nearby at a cargo console, watching. As Kestral’s voice came over the intercom, they heard the telltale sounds of releases snapping open and outer shields popping loose. Then came a loud gong, like a monstrous bell being struck against the hull, and a flash from the single tiny port of the blast hatch. Mary barely felt the nudge in her side, but Sarander could feel the recoil caused by the pod being blown out of the side of the ship.